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|-= Alex's LifE Status v.0.9 =- |
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[M]o.o.d: 100% Happy
[L]i.s.t.e.n.i.n.g. [T].o: Di.FM Trance Stream
[S]t.u.p.i.d [T].h.i.n.g: Nothing
[S]m.a.r.t [T].h.i.n.g: SFOE 9x Fix
[L]i.k.e.d: Short day of classes..
[D]i.s.l.i.k.e.d: Nothing
[G]o.o.d [C].l.a.s.s: Gym/English.
[B]a.d [C].l.a.s.s: None.
[M]: Yes. [T]: 1
[T]o.d.a.y's [M].e.s.s.a.g.e: "God did not play dice with the universe" - Albert Einstein
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Well, after much work, I've managed to fix the bug that was messing up SPAMfighter OE under Windows 98/Me. I stubmbled into another one, but I should be able to fix it as well tonight. This is great news, as it gets me closer to completition of the project. I've also implemented around 30 new Kernel functions insode ReactOS, and noticed a lot of problems that will have to be tackled. Sometimes, ROS bores me, so I work on SFOE, and vice-versa...it really helps me mentally.
Apart from that, today was a really short day, with English Oral Presentations and 1 hour discussion, and then 1 hour of gym. There was no Physics Lab, so I went to my office where I do volunteering and installed Windows Server 2003 and set up my office, plus prepared for next week's work.
Oh yes, I've decided that instead of just telling people what happened to me today, I will also post some of my random thoughts.
PS. Kerry kicked Bush's ass tonight for a third time in a row.
Today's Food for Thought: Life outside our planet.
It seems to me that a vast majority of people and scientits have a fixation on whether there is life outside our planet, or more accurately, solar system. Similary, the question also arises on the fact if life existed even here, in our own solar system, eons ago.
For a variety of reasons, I don't think that "Is there life outside Earth" is the right question to ask. The right question to ask is "Are we alone?", and the earth-shattering result should be the "Yes", not the "No".
To me, it really doesn't matter if there's life outside Earth. Why not? Beause we probably
1) Can't communicate with them because they are too far
2) They might already be extinct since any radio signal or visual signal we could get from them would be up to millions of years in the past.
Also, statistically, it doesn't seem that inplausible that in a quasi-infinite space, the possibiity of molecules appearing giving rise to DNA has happened in other places. According to the most recent experiments on what is called "spontaneous apparition", the chances of H, C, O and N forming DNA/life are 10^173. So if there are more then 10^173 systems containing some of those chemicals (even 3 out of 4 is OK at the beginning), then life is a statiscal possibility. Now certainly, many would argue that there aren't more then 10^173 systems in the universe. There are barely that many atoms. However, I think the calculations done on this aren't entirely valid, because they limit everything to the strictness of how life developper, _here_, on Earth. Life is defined as anything that is "Self-replicating" and capable of "Self-support". It doesn't even need Carbon (Silicon can replace it), or DNA, or RNA. So it seems like common sense, that somewhere out there, life exists (note, I'm not saying intelligent life at, or above our level).
However, if it turns out that the answer is NO, that we are unique, I believe that raises many more philosophical questions... it makes the whole randomness theory become improbable, and makes life on Earth unique...and it's always hard to justify uniqueness using rational, scientific thoughts. But as Einstein said, "God did not play dice with the universe"
