[themify_quote]战争即和平、自由即奴役、无知即力量 –1984 (2014)[/themify_quote]

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Stars

Everyone feels something when they’re in a really good starry place on a really good starry night and they look up and see this:

 

Some people stick with the traditional, feeling struck by the epic beauty or blown away by the insane scale of the universe. Personally, I go for the old “existential meltdown followed by acting weird for the next half hour.” But everyone feels something.

Physicist Enrico Fermi felt something too—”Where is everybody?”

________________

 

A really starry sky seems vast—but all we’re looking at is our very local neighborhood. On the very best nights, we can see up to about 2,500 stars (roughly one hundred-millionth of the stars in our galaxy), and almost all of them are less than 1,000 light years away from us (or 1% of the diameter of the Milky Way). So what we’re really looking at is this:

 

Milky Way

 

When confronted with the topic of stars and galaxies, a question that tantalizes most humans is, “Is there other intelligent life out there?” Let’s put some numbers to it (if you don’t like numbers, just read the bold)—

As many stars as there are in our galaxy (100 – 400 billion), there are roughly an equal number of galaxies in the observable universe—so for every star in the colossal Milky Way, there’s a whole galaxy out there. All together, that comes out to the typically quoted range of between 1022 and 1024 total stars, which means that for every grain of sand on Earth, there are 10,000 stars out there.

The science world isn’t in total agreement about what percentage of those stars are “sun-like” (similar in size, temperature, and luminosity)—opinions typically range from 5% to 20%. Going with the most conservative side of that (5%), and the lower end for the number of total stars (1022), gives us 500 quintillion, or 500 billion billion sun-like stars.

There’s also a debate over what percentage of those sun-like stars might be orbited by an Earth-like planet (one with similar temperature conditions that could have liquid water and potentially support life similar to that on Earth). Some say it’s as high as 50%, but let’s go with the more conservative 22% that came out of a recent PNAS study. That suggests that there’s a potentially-habitable Earth-like planet orbiting at least 1% of the total stars in the universe—a total of 100 billion billion Earth-like planets.

So there are 100 Earth-like planets for every grain of sand in the world. Think about that next time you’re on the beach.

Moving forward, we have no choice but to get completely speculative. Let’s imagine that after billions of years in existence, 1% of Earth-like planets develop life (if that’s true, every grain of sand would represent one planet with life on it). And imagine that on 1% of those planets, the life advances to an intelligent level like it did here on Earth. That would mean there were 10 quadrillion, or 10 million billion intelligent civilizations in the observable universe.

Moving back to just our galaxy, and doing the same math on the lowest estimate for stars in the Milky Way (100 billion), we’d estimate that there are 1 billion Earth-like planets and 100,000 intelligent civilizations in our galaxy.[1]

SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is an organization dedicated to listening for signals from other intelligent life. If we’re right that there are 100,000 or more intelligent civilizations in our galaxy, and even a fraction of them are sending out radio waves or laser beams or other modes of attempting to contact others, shouldn’t SETI’s satellite array pick up all kinds of signals?

But it hasn’t. Not one. Ever.

Where is everybody?

It gets stranger. Our sun is relatively young in the lifespan of the universe. There are far older stars with far older Earth-like planets, which should in theory mean civilizations far more advanced than our own. As an example, let’s compare our 4.54 billion-year-old Earth to a hypothetical 8 billion-year-old Planet X.

 

Planet X

 

If Planet X has a similar story to Earth, let’s look at where their civilization would be today (using the orange timespan as a reference to show how huge the green timespan is):

 

Planet X vs Earth

 

The technology and knowledge of a civilization only 1,000 years ahead of us could be as shocking to us as our world would be to a medieval person. A civilization 1 million years ahead of us might be as incomprehensible to us as human culture is to chimpanzees. And Planet X is 3.4 billion years ahead of us…

There’s something called The Kardashev Scale, which helps us group intelligent civilizations into three broad categories by the amount of energy they use:

A Type I Civilization has the ability to use all of the energy on their planet. We’re not quite a Type I Civilization, but we’re close (Carl Sagan created a formula for this scale which puts us at a Type 0.7 Civilization).

A Type II Civilization can harness all of the energy of their host star. Our feeble Type I brains can hardly imagine how someone would do this, but we’ve tried our best, imagining things like a Dyson Sphere.

Dyson Sphere

A Type III Civilization blows the other two away, accessing power comparable to that of the entire Milky Way galaxy.

If this level of advancement sounds hard to believe, remember Planet X above and their 3.4 billion years of further development. If a civilization on Planet X were similar to ours and were able to survive all the way to Type III level, the natural thought is that they’d probably have mastered inter-stellar travel by now, possibly even colonizing the entire galaxy.

One hypothesis as to how galactic colonization could happen is by creating machinery that can travel to other planets, spend 500 years or so self-replicating using the raw materials on their new planet, and then send two replicas off to do the same thing. Even without traveling anywhere near the speed of light, this process would colonize the whole galaxy in 3.75 million years, a relative blink of an eye when talking in the scale of billions of years:

 

Colonize Galaxy

Source: Scientific American: “Where Are They”

 

 

Continuing to speculate, if 1% of intelligent life survives long enough to become a potentially galaxy-colonizing Type III Civilization, our calculations above suggest that there should be at least 1,000 Type III Civilizations in our galaxy alone—and given the power of such a civilization, their presence would likely be pretty noticeable. And yet, we see nothing, hear nothing, and we’re visited by no one.

So where is everybody?

_____________________

 

Welcome to the Fermi Paradox.

We have no answer to the Fermi Paradox—the best we can do is “possible explanations.” And if you ask ten different scientists what their hunch is about the correct one, you’ll get ten different answers. You know when you hear about humans of the past debating whether the Earth was round or if the sun revolved around the Earth or thinking that lightning happened because of Zeus, and they seem so primitive and in the dark? That’s about where we are with this topic.

In taking a look at some of the most-discussed possible explanations for the Fermi Paradox, let’s divide them into two broad categories—those explanations which assume that there’s no sign of Type II and Type III Civilizations because there are none of them out there, and those which assume they’re out there and we’re not seeing or hearing anything for other reasons:

Explanation Group 1: There are no signs of higher (Type II and III) civilizations because there are no higher civilizations in existence.

Those who subscribe to Group 1 explanations point to something called the non-exclusivity problem, which rebuffs any theory that says, “There are higher civilizations, but none of them have made any kind of contact with us because they all _____.” Group 1 people look at the math, which says there should be so many thousands (or millions) of higher civilizations, that at least one of them would be an exception to the rule. Even if a theory held for 99.99% of higher civilizations, the other .01% would behave differently and we’d become aware of their existence.

Therefore, say Group 1 explanations, it must be that there are no super-advanced civilizations. And since the math suggests that there are thousands of them just in our own galaxy, something else must be going on.

This something else is called The Great Filter.

The Great Filter theory says that at some point from pre-life to Type III intelligence, there’s a wall that all or nearly all attempts at life hit. There’s some stage in that long evolutionary process that is extremely unlikely or impossible for life to get beyond. That stage is The Great Filter.

 

Great Filter

 

If this theory is true, the big question is, Where in the timeline does the Great Filter occur?

It turns out that when it comes to the fate of humankind, this question is very important. Depending on where The Great Filter occurs, we’re left with three possible realities: We’re rare, we’re first, or we’re fucked.

 

1. We’re Rare (The Great Filter is Behind Us)

One hope we have is that The Great Filter is behind us—we managed to surpass it, which would mean it’s extremely rare for life to make it to our level of intelligence. The diagram below shows only two species making it past, and we’re one of them.

Great Filter - Behind Us

This scenario would explain why there are no Type III Civilizations…but it would also mean that we could be one of the few exceptions now that we’ve made it this far. It would mean we have hope. On the surface, this sounds a bit like people 500 years ago suggesting that the Earth is the center of the universe—it implies that we’re special. However, something scientists call “observation selection effect” suggests that anyone who is pondering their own rarity is inherently part of an intelligent life “success story”—and whether they’re actually rare or quite common, the thoughts they ponder and conclusions they draw will be identical. This forces us to admit that being special is at least a possibility.

And if we are special, when exactly did we become special—i.e. which step did we surpass that almost everyone else gets stuck on?

One possibility: The Great Filter could be at the very beginning—it might be incredibly unusual for life to begin at all. This is a candidate because it took about a billion years of Earth’s existence to finally happen, and because we have tried extensively to replicate that event in labs and have never been able to do it. If this is indeed The Great Filter, it would mean that not only is there no intelligent life out there, there may be no other life at all.

Another possibility: The Great Filter could be the jump from the simple prokaryote cell to the complex eukaryote cell. After prokaryotes came into being, they remained that way for almost two billion years before making the evolutionary jump to being complex and having a nucleus. If this is The Great Filter, it would mean the universe is teeming with simple prokaryote cells and almost nothing beyond that.

There are a number of other possibilities—some even think the most recent leap we’ve made to our current intelligence is a Great Filter candidate. While the leap from semi-intelligent life (chimps) to intelligent life (humans) doesn’t at first seem like a miraculous step, Steven Pinker rejects the idea of an inevitable “climb upward” of evolution: “Since evolution does not strive for a goal but just happens, it uses the adaptation most useful for a given ecological niche, and the fact that, on Earth, this led to technological intelligence only once so far may suggest that this outcome of natural selection is rare and hence by no means a certain development of the evolution of a tree of life.”

Most leaps do not qualify as Great Filter candidates. Any possible Great Filter must be one-in-a-billion type thing where one or more total freak occurrences need to happen to provide a crazy exception—for that reason, something like the jump from single-cell to multi-cellular life is ruled out, because it has occurred as many as 46 times, in isolated incidents, just on this planet alone. For the same reason, if we were to find a fossilized eukaryote cell on Mars, it would rule the above “simple-to-complex cell” leap out as a possible Great Filter (as well as anything before that point on the evolutionary chain)—because if it happened on both Earth and Mars, it’s almost definitely not a one-in-a-billion freak occurrence.

If we are indeed rare, it could be because of a fluky biological event, but it also could be attributed to what is called the Rare Earth Hypothesis, which suggests that though there may be many Earth-like planets, the particular conditions on Earth—whether related to the specifics of this solar system, its relationship with the moon (a moon that large is unusual for such a small planet and contributes to our particular weather and ocean conditions), or something about the planet itself—are exceptionally friendly to life.

 

2. We’re the First

We're the First

For Group 1 Thinkers, if the Great Filter is not behind us, the one hope we have is that conditions in the universe are just recently, for the first time since the Big Bang, reaching a place that would allow intelligent life to develop. In that case, we and many other species may be on our way to super-intelligence, and it simply hasn’t happened yet. We happen to be here at the right time to become one of the first super-intelligent civilizations.

One example of a phenomenon that could make this realistic is the prevalence of gamma-ray bursts, insanely huge explosions that we’ve observed in distant galaxies. In the same way that it took the early Earth a few hundred million years before the asteroids and volcanoes died down and life became possible, it could be that the first chunk of the universe’s existence was full of cataclysmic events like gamma-ray bursts that would incinerate everything nearby from time to time and prevent any life from developing past a certain stage. Now, perhaps, we’re in the midst of an astrobiological phase transition and this is the first time any life has been able to evolve for this long, uninterrupted.

 

3. We’re Fucked (The Great Filter is Ahead of Us)

We're fucked

If we’re neither rare nor early, Group 1 thinkers conclude that The Great Filter must be in our future. This would suggest that life regularly evolves to where we are, but that something prevents life from going much further and reaching high intelligence in almost all cases—and we’re unlikely to be an exception.

One possible future Great Filter is a regularly-occurring cataclysmic natural event, like the above-mentioned gamma-ray bursts, except they’re unfortunately not done yet and it’s just a matter of time before all life on Earth is suddenly wiped out by one. Another candidate is the possible inevitability that nearly all intelligent civilizations end up destroying themselves once a certain level of technology is reached.

This is why Oxford University philosopher Nick Bostrom says that “no news is good news.” The discovery of even simple life on Mars would be devastating, because it would cut out a number of potential Great Filters behind us. And if we were to find fossilized complex life on Mars, Bostrom says “it would be by far the worst news ever printed on a newspaper cover,” because it would mean The Great Filter is almost definitely ahead of us—ultimately dooming the species. Bostrom believes that when it comes to The Fermi Paradox, “the silence of the night sky is golden.”

 

Explanation Group 2: Type II and III intelligent civilizations are out there—and there are logical reasons why we might not have heard from them.

Group 2 explanations get rid of any notion that we’re rare or special or the first at anything—on the contrary, they believe in the Mediocrity Principle, whose starting point is that there is nothing unusual or rare about our galaxy, solar system, planet, or level of intelligence, until evidence proves otherwise. They’re also much less quick to assume that the lack of evidence of higher intelligence beings is evidence of their nonexistence—emphasizing the fact that our search for signals stretches only about 100 light years away from us (0.1% across the galaxy) and suggesting a number of possible explanations. Here are 10:

Possibility 1) Super-intelligent life could very well have already visited Earth, but before we were here. In the scheme of things, sentient humans have only been around for about 50,000 years, a little blip of time. If contact happened before then, it might have made some ducks flip out and run into the water and that’s it. Further, recorded history only goes back 5,500 years—a group of ancient hunter-gatherer tribes may have experienced some crazy alien shit, but they had no good way to tell anyone in the future about it.

Possibility 2) The galaxy has been colonized, but we just live in some desolate rural area of the galaxy. The Americas may have been colonized by Europeans long before anyone in a small Inuit tribe in far northern Canada realized it had happened. There could be an urbanization component to the interstellar dwellings of higher species, in which all the neighboring solar systems in a certain area are colonized and in communication, and it would be impractical and purposeless for anyone to deal with coming all the way out to the random part of the spiral where we live.

Possibility 3) The entire concept of physical colonization is a hilariously backward concept to a more advanced species. Remember the picture of the Type II Civilization above with the sphere around their star? With all that energy, they might have created a perfect environment for themselves that satisfies their every need. They might have crazy-advanced ways of reducing their need for resources and zero interest in leaving their happy utopia to explore the cold, empty, undeveloped universe.

An even more advanced civilization might view the entire physical world as a horribly primitive place, having long ago conquered their own biology and uploaded their brains to a virtual reality, eternal-life paradise. Living in the physical world of biology, mortality, wants, and needs might seem to them the way we view primitive ocean species living in the frigid, dark sea. FYI, thinking about another life form having bested mortality makes me incredibly jealous and upset.

Possibility 4) There are scary predator civilizations out there, and most intelligent life knows better than to broadcast any outgoing signals and advertise their location. This is an unpleasant concept and would help explain the lack of any signals being received by the SETI satellites. It also means that we might be the super naive newbies who are being unbelievably stupid and risky by ever broadcasting outward signals. There’s a debate going on currently about whether we should engage in METI (Messaging to Extraterrestrial Intelligence—the reverse of SETI) or not, and most people say we should not. Stephen Hawking warns, “If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans.” Even Carl Sagan (a general believer that any civilization advanced enough for interstellar travel would be altruistic, not hostile) called the practice of METI “deeply unwise and immature,” and recommended that “the newest children in a strange and uncertain cosmos should listen quietly for a long time, patiently learning about the universe and comparing notes, before shouting into an unknown jungle that we do not understand.” Scary.[2]

Possibility 5) There’s only one instance of higher-intelligent life—a “superpredator” civilization (like humans are here on Earth)—who is far more advanced than everyone else and keeps it that way by exterminating any intelligent civilization once they get past a certain level. This would suck. The way it might work is that it’s an inefficient use of resources to exterminate all emerging intelligences, maybe because most die out on their own. But past a certain point, the super beings make their move—because to them, an emerging intelligent species becomes like a virus as it starts to grow and spread. This theory suggests that whoever was the first in the galaxy to reach intelligence won, and now no one else has a chance. This would explain the lack of activity out there because it would keep the number of super-intelligent civilizations to just one.

Possibility 6) There’s plenty of activity and noise out there, but our technology is too primitive and we’re listening for the wrong things. Like walking into a modern-day office building, turning on a walkie-talkie, and when you hear no activity (which of course you wouldn’t hear because everyone’s texting, not using walkie-talkies), determining that the building must be empty. Or maybe, as Carl Sagan has pointed out, it could be that our minds work exponentially faster or slower than another form of intelligence out there—e.g. it takes them 12 years to say “Hello,” and when we hear that communication, it just sounds like white noise to us.

Possibility 7) We are receiving contact from other intelligent life, but the government is hiding it. This is an idiotic theory, but I had to mention it because it’s talked about so much.

Possibility 8) Higher civilizations are aware of us and observing us (AKA the “Zoo Hypothesis”). As far as we know, super-intelligent civilizations exist in a tightly-regulated galaxy, and our Earth is treated like part of a vast and protected national park, with a strict “Look but don’t touch” rule for planets like ours. We wouldn’t notice them, because if a far smarter species wanted to observe us, it would know how to easily do so without us realizing it. Maybe there’s a rule similar to the Star Trek’s “Prime Directive” which prohibits super-intelligent beings from making any open contact with lesser species like us or revealing themselves in any way, until the lesser species has reached a certain level of intelligence.

Possibility 9) Higher civilizations are here, all around us. But we’re too primitive to perceive them. Michio Kaku sums it up like this:

Lets say we have an ant hill in the middle of the forest. And right next to the ant hill, they’re building a ten-lane super-highway. And the question is “Would the ants be able to understand what a ten-lane super-highway is? Would the ants be able to understand the technology and the intentions of the beings building the highway next to them?

So it’s not that we can’t pick up the signals from Planet X using our technology, it’s that we can’t even comprehend what the beings from Planet X are or what they’re trying to do. It’s so beyond us that even if they really wanted to enlighten us, it would be like trying to teach ants about the internet.

Along those lines, this may also be an answer to “Well if there are so many fancy Type III Civilizations, why haven’t they contacted us yet?” To answer that, let’s ask ourselves—when Pizarro made his way into Peru, did he stop for a while at an anthill to try to communicate? Was he magnanimous, trying to help the ants in the anthill? Did he become hostile and slow his original mission down in order to smash the anthill apart? Or was the anthill of complete and utter and eternal irrelevance to Pizarro? That might be our situation here.

Possibility 10) We’re completely wrong about our reality. There are a lot of ways we could just be totally off with everything we think. The universe might appear one way and be something else entirely, like a hologram. Or maybe we’re the aliens and we were planted here as an experiment or as a form of fertilizer. There’s even a chance that we’re all part of a computer simulation by some researcher from another world, and other forms of life simply weren’t programmed into the simulation.

________________

 

As we continue along with our possibly-futile search for extraterrestrial intelligence, I’m not really sure what I’m rooting for. Frankly, learning either that we’re officially alone in the universe or that we’re officially joined by others would be creepy, which is a theme with all of the surreal storylines listed above—whatever the truth actually is, it’s mindblowing.

Beyond its shocking science fiction component, The Fermi Paradox also leaves me with a deep humbling. Not just the normal “Oh yeah, I’m microscopic and my existence lasts for three seconds” humbling that the universe always triggers. The Fermi Paradox brings out a sharper, more personal humbling, one that can only happen after spending hours of research hearing your species’ most renowned scientists present insane theories, change their minds again and again, and wildly contradict each other—reminding us that future generations will look at us the same way we see the ancient people who were sure that the stars were the underside of the dome of heaven, and they’ll think “Wow they really had no idea what was going on.”

Compounding all of this is the blow to our species’ self-esteem that comes with all of this talk about Type II and III Civilizations. Here on Earth, we’re the king of our little castle, proud ruler of the huge group of imbeciles who share the planet with us. And in this bubble with no competition and no one to judge us, it’s rare that we’re ever confronted with the concept of being a dramatically inferior species to anyone. But after spending a lot of time with Type II and III Civilizations over the past week, our power and pride are seeming a bit David Brent-esque.

That said, given that my normal outlook is that humanity is a lonely orphan on a tiny rock in the middle of a desolate universe, the humbling fact that we’re probably not as smart as we think we are, and the possibility that a lot of what we’re sure about might be wrong, sounds wonderful. It opens the door just a crack that maybe, just maybe, there might be more to the story than we realize.

Sources:
PNAS: Prevalence of Earth-size planets orbiting Sun-like stars
SETI: The Drake Equation
NASA: Workshop Report on the Future of Intelligence In The Cosmos
Cornell University Library: The Fermi Paradox, Self-Replicating Probes, and the Interstellar Transportation Bandwidth
NCBI: Astrobiological phase transition: towards resolution of Fermi’s paradox
André Kukla: Extraterrestrials: A Philosophical Perspective
Nick Bostrom: Where Are They?
Science Direct: Galactic gradients, postbiological evolution and the apparent failure of SETI
Nature: Simulations back up theory that Universe is a hologram
Robin Hanson: The Great Filter – Are We Almost Past It?
John Dyson: Search for Artificial Stellar Sources of Infrared Radiation

Reference: http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

Web 技术突飞猛进,Web 设计与开发者们可以选择的工具越来越多,Web 开发者的技巧不再只限于 HTML 和 服务器端编程,还需要精通各种第三方资源,这些第三方资源有时候比你的项目更复杂,更专业,你无法自己实现一切,借助一些 Web API,你可以很方便地将大量优秀的第三方资源集成到自己的站点。本文全面搜集 Web 开发中可能用到的各种第三方资源。

1. 函数与类库 A. CAPTCHA
CAPTCHA 用来防止恶意表单发布,以下 CAPTCHA 系统可以轻松集成到你的程序中:

reCAPTCHA

这是目前最流行的 CAPTCHA 机制,该机制同时是一个古籍数字化工程的一部分,用户在验证的同时,也帮助辨认一些不够清晰的估计扫描。reCAPTCHA 还有一个 Perl 模块 实现该功能。

Securimage

这个一个免费的,开源 PHP CAPTCHA 脚本。

freeCap

基于 GPL 协议的 CAPTCHA 脚本

HN CAPTCHA

PHP CAPTCHA 脚本,基于 LGPL 协议
B. 日期处理
日期操作并不轻松,尽管 PHP 和 Perl 内置了大量此类函数,但未必满足你的需要,以下是几个很好用的日期函数:

  • PEAR Date
    通用 PHP 日期类库
  • Date Class
    PHP 类库,计算及其增减与日期差异
  • C. 图形处理
    图片缩放,添加水印等:

  • Image Manipulation Class
    在 PHP 中缩放,反转,旋转图片
  • PHP Thumbnailer
    一个轻量级图 片缩略图工具
  • D. 表单验证
    表单验证不仅保证用户填写的准确,还可以防止攻击:

  • validaForms
    一 个 PHP 表单验证类库
  • User Input Validation Class
    一个 PHP 表单验证基础库
  • E. 密码验证
    验证密码的复杂度

  • Strength Test
    一 个 PHP 密码强度验证函数

  • 2. Ajax 与 JavaScript A. 自动输入建议
    最早最成熟的自 动输入建议应该是 Google 搜索条。

  • Facebook-Style Autosuggest
    Facebook 风格的自动输入建议
  • Autosuggest / Autocomplete with Ajax
    基于 XML 和 JSON 数据源的自动输入建议工具
  • Ajax.Autocompleter
    基 于 script.aculo.us 的输入自动完成工具
  • B. 日历
    在输入日期的地方,使用非常直观的日历面板

  • Vista-Like Ajax Calendar
    基于 Mootools,Vista 风格
  • JS Calendar in DHTML Suite
    基于 JavaScript ,支持多日历连接

  • C. 滑动条
    滑动条可以更直观地进行数值的输入和选择

  • Accessible Slider
    一个设计出众的滑动条控件
  • Phatfusion Slider
    一 个基于 AJAX 的滑动条
  • AJAXEngine Sliders
    AJAXEngine 项目中的滑动条
  • D. 表格
    Ajax 表格,支持排序等功能

  • Grid3
    作 为 Ext JS 库一部分的表格控件
  • dhtmlxGrid
    支 持列排序和搜索
  • Unobtrusive Table Sort Script
    支持多列排序
  • AJAX Data Listings Engine
    基于 PHP 和 MySQL
  • TableKit
    基 于 Prototype JavaScript 框架
  • E. 可拖动内容

  • Draggable Content Scripts
    dhtmlgoodies.com 推出多种可拖放内容脚本,以及图片裁剪工具
  • DragResize
    支 持尺寸修改功能

  • F. 图片放大
    类似 JavaScript 灯箱的图片放大显示控件

  • Highslide JS
    在 Modal 窗口显示放大尺寸的图片
  • FancyZoom
    图 片缩放显示
  • TJPzoom 3
    图片放大工具

  • G. 相册和幻灯
    用相册或幻灯方式显示系列图片

  • minishowcase
    基于 AJAX 和 JSON 的相册控件
  • Animated JavaScript Slideshow
    轻量级 JavaScript 图片幻灯效果,支持运动字幕
  • Hoverbox Image Gallery
    简单的相册,鼠标在缩略图上移动时显示原图
  • H. 打分工具
    非常直观的打分控件

  • Starbox
    基 于 Prototype JavaScript 框架
  • Unobtrusive AJAX Star Rating Bar
    基于 PHP 和 AJAX
  • CSS: Star Rater Ajax Version
    基于 AJAX
  • I. 取色板
    用于取色

  • jscolor
    简单的弹出式取色板
  • JavaScript Color Picker
    支持 RGB,HSL,以及16进制图片色值
  • Tigra Color Picker
    非常简单的取色板
  • J. 进度条

  • jsProgressBarHandler
    非 常灵活
  • YUI Loading Panel Widget
    非常漂亮.
  • Simple Javascript Progress Bar with CSS
    简单实用.
  • Uploadify
    基于 jQuery.3. APIs
    以下 API 可以将很多现成的功能集成到你的站点:

    4. IP 定位
    用户来自什么地方。

    • IP Details
      一个 PHP 类库,根据 IP 地址获取用户地理位置
    • GEO-IP
      IP 到国家对应数据库

    5. 图表

    • amCharts
      基于 Flash,支持 3D 图表

    6. 地图

    • amMap
      交互式地图工具,支持下钻式挖掘

    • Flashmaps
      多个基于 Flash 的地图工具

    7. 音频播放器

    8. 视频播放器

    • OS FLV
      开源 Flash 视频播放器

    9. 视频转换

    10. 所见即所得编辑器

    • TinyMCE
      一个轻量的,基于 JavaScript 的所见即所得编辑器

    • XINHA
      功能完整的开源 WYSIWYG 编辑器

    • NicEdit
      一个简单的轻量级 WYSIWYG 编辑器
    • openWYSIWYG
      开源,跨浏览器 WYSIWYG 编辑器
    • CKEditor
      设计出众,功能丰富的 WYSIWYG 编辑器
  • 转载自http://www.cnbeta.com/articles/106525.htm http://www.cnbeta.com/articles/106527.htm
    来源 http://www.noupe.com/tools/100-essential-web-development-tools.html

    以TED2008的主题为出发点,史蒂芬·霍金教授提出了一些关于我们宇宙的重要问题──宇宙如何开始?生命何起源?宇宙中只有我们吗?。与此同时,霍金教授也讨论了我们探究破解这些问题的途径。

    :点击”View subtitles”,选择简体中文”Chinese (Simplified)”字幕

    自从克里斯 匹斯特尔提出“智能微尘”概念:一种能够自主传感,计算,通讯和发电的分布式传感器网络已经十年了。在这个领域,虽然已经有了一大把公司存在,比如Crossbow,Dust Networks,GainSpan,ArchRock等。但是分布式传感依然没有走上主流。2010年2月16日,皮特 哈特威尔博士在IEEE纳米技术会议上展示了惠普在这方面做出的努力。

    哈特威尔预测传感器将会对人类产生深远的影响,就像最近十年的互联网络革命一样。这个影响才刚刚开始:笔记本硬盘中的自由落体和碰撞传感器,Wii的手柄,相机上的防抖传感器… … 惠普地球神经系统依托惠普众多部门实现分布式传感网络。这将传感带入新的层次,系统将能够集合周围环境的信息并做出自己的判断。哈特威尔博士将其描述为“感知计算”。这项技术创造的机会是无限的:食物安全,灾难预防,资源管理… …

    举例来说,家庭防盗系统可以感知,并分辨出小偷还是家里养的宠物,并据此信息拉警报。做演讲的时候,系统可以根据说话的声音而取消经常打断演讲的屏幕保护程序。有了“感知计算”控制办公室和会议室的灯光系统,床干起可以检测呼吸,声音和微笑的震动来判断人是否还在,并保证灯是打开的。哈特威尔将其比作增加能源使用效率的最简单,最易实现的机会。

    惠普的CeNSE节点将使用新的革命性的6轴动作传感器,探测震动,倾斜,导航,旋转和声音。新的加速度传感器设计获得了巨大的成功,但是惠普的解决方案超过了这种创新的设计。除了侦测震动,惠普还在使用表面增强拉曼散射 (SERS)和纳米结构创造缩小的化学分析传感器和生物传感器。使用纳米硅结构包裹的银,惠普可以增强用于识别样本的特征光子反射。放大的参数让系统能够迷你化并使用更少的样本实现大多数化学分析。

    影响分布式感知网络发展的一个重要因素就是成本。市面上,现在一个节点就要400美元,根据应用的不同,有些应用可能需要一百万个节点,因为成本,所以不能真的实现全分布式网络。惠普的技术会在他的喷墨打印机生产基地开始批量生产低成本节点。哈特威尔说,高性能,小体积,低成本是传感网络的关键。

    惠普的计划不仅局限于传感器节点。 随着包含数百万节点的大型系统出现。惠普必须考虑如何处理这些数据。哈特威尔设想在网络内处理这些数据,惠普计划使用他们的忆阻器memristor技术。这可能会改变整个计算机基础架构,忆阻器展示了一种非线性转换特性,使数据处理的自学习平台成为可能。

    惠普集合多个业务部门共同开发CeNSE项目。惠普的CeNSE目标是提供分布式网络的一整套解决方案:节点,数据处理还有通讯基础设施。哈特威尔断言,在下一次技术浪潮中,提供一站式服务的惠普将领导技术革命。

    对惠普来讲,这个浪潮已经不再是未来。他已经与壳牌合作,获取超高分辨率的地震数据来发现石油,并减小对当地环境的破坏。

    尽管如此,对于传感器网络的争论还在继续。随着这种网络技术的深入,他确实能保证为大众的福祉服务嘛?现在还没有答案,不管怎么样,惠普已经准备好了分布式传感网络市场的井喷。

    :前段时间,Twitter上对物联网和传感器网络技术的恐惧主要体现在,是否会被某党用来全方位控制国民。

    翻译自http://www.electroiq.com/index/display/nanotech-article-display/5433470077/articles/small-times/nanotechmems/mems/sensors/2010/march/hp_-making_distributed.html

    最近,RF4CE联盟选择加入了ZigBee联盟,毫无疑问这是一个双赢的局面。对于RF4CE联盟来说,这意味着瞬间获得了广大消费类电子产业的支持,同时避免了重新开发市场的烦恼。

    而对于ZigBee联盟来说,这次聪明的行动将是促进ZigBee的蓬勃发展。对于消费电子市场,特别是最终用户来说,这次结合也为新的,更广阔有趣的应用创造了机会。

    1999年,ZigBee联盟从IEEE 802.11分离出来,最初目标是将ZigBee作为WiFi在嵌入式设备之间的简化版而设计推广的。

    让WiFi如此成功的原因之一是WiFi用途很直接,通俗易懂,就是让笔记本能上网,同时技术环境也很清晰,包括TCP/IP,PCMIA总线这些成熟技术。与之相反,ZigBee在进过一段高速发展期后,处于一种“万金油”的状态,每样都想做到,但是都不能做到最好。

    出现这种问题的原因就是ZigBee想要占领太多的应用领域,从住宅,大厦,到工厂和能源管理等等。太多不同的需求导致协议对大多数应用来说过于臃肿,同时还要照顾不同硬件平台,不同微处理器的特性。

    ZigBee想解决所有问题,但是有些问题总是不太好调和的,举个例子:可靠性和能源消耗的关系。很多工业应用需要高级别的可靠性,而有的应用可能只需要一般的可靠性但需要电池长寿命使用。结果就是,ISA觉得ZigBee的可靠性达不到他们的要求,而开始开发自己的协议。同时,ZigBee又太耗能,不适合现有的环境发电技术。所以,像Zensys和EnOcean也在开发他们自己的低耗能家庭自动化协议。

    好了,现在ZigBee终于看到出路了,那就是消费电子产品和遥控协议的RF4CE。

    电视机正在无线化,分离屏幕和机顶盒,多个屏幕在不同房间,并连接到家里的一个接入点,而机顶盒将被放进橱柜里。

    但是今天的大多数电视仍然需要使用上世纪70年代出现的红外遥控器,同时遥控器的使用还必须在电视视线之内。很自然的,遥控器将会使用无线射频信号取代红外线,就像数字无数电话取代模拟无绳电话一样。有趣的是,电视大厂终于开始不喜欢没有一直缺乏标准的红外遥控协议,并决定开始建立基于无线射频的遥控器标准RF4CE。

    对于消费电子产品公司来说,标准化的遥控器将带来另一个至关重要的优势,那就是同时可以控制家里的其他电器,比如开关灯,调整灯光亮度,打开窗帘,锁门,调整空调温度等等。但是,要打开这个市场,创建产业生态体系,需要其他很多公司也参与进来,支持这个协议才行。因此,让RF4CE加入已经拥有大量会员的ZigBee联盟无疑是最有效,最快捷的方案。

    对于ZigBee来说,这也是千载难逢的机会。因为住宅,大厦自动化的市场实在是太破碎了,每个地方都有当地的公司负责建设维护。对于已个标准来说,最重要的就是占领广大的市场,而这往往需要很长时间。而消费电子产品厂商正好能够直通大众市场。

    RF4CE解决了消费电子产品厂家的燃眉之急,但是RF4CE和目前的ZigBee架构相比,仍然是相对独立,并可扩展的,非常适合于无需电池的简单控制应用。

    那么,那些认为ZigBee只能拿来度电表的同学们可能要再仔细想一想了

    在众多大厂的推动下,ZigBee有机会成为住宅和建筑自动化的标准,并进而通过RF4CE开辟占领新的市场。

    转载自http://headsets.tmcnet.com/topics/headsets/articles/77452-will-rf4ce-be-killer-app-zigbee.htm