No, radio, the other end of the spectrum. That's why they are called Fast Radio Bursts (FRB). Gamma Ray Bursts (GRB) are (probably) something completely different.
If I were trying to let intelligent life elsewhere know that I exist and that I am intelligent I would have to create a patterned noise that distinguishes itself from natural noises that could be formed spontaneously. Talk about a challenge!
I believe the standard solution is to send a sequence of signals with durations being consecutive prime numbers (multiplied by some unit of time, but that's irrelevant).
The canonical answer ("Yes, I am very smart too") is to reply with a continuation of the sequence where the transmission stopped.
> Please don't complain about website formatting, back-button breakage, and similar annoyances. They're too common to be interesting
I partially disagree with this rule. Complaining about crappy websites might be annoying for old timers and experienced techies, but let's say a 22 years old fresh web programmer joins HN to read some news and discovers that the framework/library/tool his PM suggested produces a pile of crappy code that renders every site slow as molasses, and the same product is used on a site getting hard criticism about that; he could actually learn something and ultimately find a better solution for his job, ultimately contributing to make a better web. I know I'm taking it to the extreme, but you get my point.
I would rather change that line to something like "keep concise and to the minimum all comments about site formatting, slowness etc. and don't reply to those comments unless you can recomment a better solution".
But it is a rule and as such should be respected whether we agree with it or not, for the same reasons we don't ignore the other rules in that list. You can email dang and try to convince him to change it, he's an extremely reasonable person.
Fair enough, I didn't know. I can't find a "delete" button for my comment though. Where is it?
On the other hand though, I feel like we should always complain about that kind of behavior, if at least to shame the practice and encourage developers to actively refuse implementing those.
IIRC, that's a new rule, added around a month ago. Since your account is older than that, it's very probable that the rule wasn't there the last time you looked at that page. Which means you shouldn't feel bad about not knowing.
This comment would be better if it actually prevented me from viewing the article. But it starts with "the article was nice", which accomplishes the opposite.
For me it looks like a source with two rotations, one for the millisecond cycle and the other for the 157-day cycle. Perhaps something is obstructing the source and is rotating around it.
Could be a tidal lock of a pulsar around a black hole. We only get the milisecond because the black hole is obscuring the burst pointing to us. Otherwise the beam is not pointed at us.
They're all neutron stars. Magnetars are young and make some of the strongest magnetic fields in the universe. Pulsars are old and weak, and make regular beeps if you're watching them from the right place. They're probably on a spectrum, as opposed to rigidly separated categories.
There's a hypothesis that the fast radio bursts like the ones detected here might be produced by magnetars.
yup. what a lovely and hugely thought provoking book. specifically on the nature of cognition, and our need to impose order / structure on unknown. which ultimately, is a reflection on ourselves...
Me too, I now either wait for it to time out or hit the stop button before opening the door. It's completely irrational and I feel a bit silly for it since I don't live anywhere near a radio observatory, but I still do it.
My superpower used to be getting impatient and opening the microwave just as it showed zero seconds, but before the alarm went off. It made me wonder how it happened that they were programmed to make that possible.
