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Why isn't this a main page topic? This is most certainly an important topic for anyone involved in the business side of software.

But the real point of my comment is to introduce a name for this side-effect of piracy, and it is monopoly-sharing. I chose this name since piracy usually occurs on file-sharing networks, but the sharers are actually perpetuating monpolies. The link is to my blog post about the topic.

Sure, here's the reference. Looks like I was off by a bit. Human brain has an average 100 billion neurons, not 1 billion. :) Lots of great stuff there.

It depends--I was recently in the dorms at the University of Washington, and there was a huge amount of P2P activity. I still got
Their rules for residence hall use even state that bandwidth off campus is limited to 100 megabits/sec, while P2P is limited to 20 megabits/sec in and 1 megabit/sec out.

Those are the limitations placed on student computing; the strain was always at the other end of the line.

It depends--I was recently in the dorms at the University of Washington, and there was a huge amount of P2P activity. I still got
Their rules for residence hall use even state that bandwidth off campus is limited to 100 megabits/sec, while P2P is limited to 20 megabits/sec in and 1 megabit/sec out.

Those are the limitations placed on student computing; the strain was always at the other end of the line.

The rates are not extraordinarily high. On the order of a thousand cases in New York a year, similar in other large cities. Surprisingly low in Denver. People generally recover from Hep A... but it's much, much worse than the flu.

Don't lick a toilet.

Hepatitis B is spread through contact with bodily fluids. You can get it by sharing toothbrushes. Hep B carriers (1-12% of total cases) are contagious for life.

Women menstruate. Some people have hemmrhoids. People with herpes have open sores around the crotch... you won't catch herpes from a toilet seat, but open sores leave body fluids on the seat, which can transmit Hep B. Don't lick a toilet.

Don't kid yourself about hepatitis transmission... it's surprisingly contagious in certain situations.

"Cholera? Dear ghod - when did you last work in a doctor's office?"

During the mandatory Canadian Doctor's Office work program that all Canucks enter when they reach the age of majority.

I'm kidding. I've never worked in a doctor's office. I wasn't aware the majority of the population had.

More seriously...

"It's been wiped out in America to the point that there is no vaccine made anymore."

The vaccine is still made for travel purposes and of course, they still need it in Africa. It's true that cases are rare in the United States.

"It's not far off from influenza in fatality."

I expect that's true. According to this study, the current rate of influenza is in an environment of bad sanitary practices in offices. Our relatively good bathroom habits have reduced the level of cholera to almost nil. We don't lick toilets, after all.

If being careless about the flu and careful about cholera lead to the same rate of fatality, I'd suppose that cholera is more dangerous, and we should continue being careful about cholera. That's just me. So cholera is one of the many reasons I wouldn't lick a toilet.

All that said, clearly you shouldn't lick a desk either!

"Everyone also knows that the average human only ever uses 10% of her potential brain power"

Proof-by-everyone-knowing eh?

It's wrong and

wrong.

1) quite possibly. Jury is still out.

2) No. Big bang is still the best bet and universe definitely appears to be finite (which doesn't mean there is a boundary or edge, just that it doesn't go on forever).

3) Yes, space curves back on itself. That is the only way to have a boundless finite universe.

References:

Physics 110 cosmology FAQ

No Edge, No Centre

Will better images ever show the edge of the universe?

How old is the universe? Finite or infinite? Have an edge?

The brain would make a very poor recording device for several reasons. Firstly, the quality of the information stored isn't very good, and deteriorates with time. Watching a movie that you downloaded from some guy who saw it earlier instead of actually going to the theatres would be like listening to a 24kbps mp3 that someone "shared" with you instead of buying the orginal CD. Secondly, and more importantly, you can sometimes generate false memories. See this article and this article . This is why it's such a bad idea to base a justice system on eye-witnesses. Through the power of suggestion, and your subconscious biases, your memories can be altered. I don't know where you read that "your brain can recall almost everything." Maybe you were thinking of recognition, not recall. That wouldn't really help someone running a "brain cam" website.

That's simply not done here at the UW. A number of the larger computer labs here on campus do have automatic re-distribution on a weekly or bi-weekly schedule, particularly in the CS department. The vast majority of faculty and staff computers sit relatively untouched (and in many cases probably unpatched!) year after year. If they spectacularly fail, then they get the full reinstall treatment. Almost certainly they don't get this preventatively.

The reason for this? Look at the actual paper - 31,000 hosts monitored over 1 week in August. That means a token number of those were actually student computers in the Res. Halls, since they are mostly closed for the summer. It's primarily staff machines. Ghosting them weekly would be a ridiculous amount of work, given the small size of most IT groups here.

Consider, for the moment, the department of Psychology. They have two full-time staff that manage on the order of ~500 machines spread across six or more buildings. Most of the other departments are in a similar boat - competent IT staff are too expensive and funding for infrastructure is too low. The large computer labs, the CSE/EE department, and the hospital have IT pretty well under control. The general feel is that the rest of the folks, particularly in Arts & Sciences really ought to work together better to centralize administration. Of course no one is willing to give up local control over their systems. So it's a big mess. The actual important systems are in general locked away running on big servers, and everything else is treated as a fully untrusted system.

I'd wager that we're not too far off the mark for most other large public Universities. On the ground, the beauracracy starts mattering alot more than the tech. (Unfortunately)

New Scientist is just carrying their little summary; one of the authors has the paper available on his site in HTML, PDF, and PostScript forms. It's to be presented at NSDI '04.

For what it is worth, I actually use PINE (which is an even better IMAP client than mulberry). It is a shame not to see some very good text-based clients such as pine and mutt in this comparison as well.

I second this. I've never been so productive with e-mail as I was with Pine, thanks to simple keyboard shortcuts and an uncluttered text-based interface. It even stored your sent mail into named folders automatically at the end of each month, something that I've yet to see a 'second-generation' mail client do.

As Pine was basically a Unix client, work has been underway to bring it to the PC platform in the form of PC-Pine. However, this never really worked well, integrated horribly with Windows, never supported POP3 without extra add-ons and workarounds, and development seems to have stalled on it.

I think the moral of this story is 'less is more' - apart from good spam filtering, the basically requirements of e-mail haven't changed since 1998. Who needs all gimmicky functionalities these nextgen clients offer? Do Virtual folders, graphical emoticons and a built-in RSS reader really make anybody more productive?

For what it is worth, I actually use PINE (which is an even better IMAP client than mulberry). It is a shame not to see some very good text-based clients such as pine and mutt in this comparison as well.

I second this. I've never been so productive with e-mail as I was with Pine, thanks to simple keyboard shortcuts and an uncluttered text-based interface. It even stored your sent mail into named folders automatically at the end of each month, something that I've yet to see a 'second-generation' mail client do.

As Pine was basically a Unix client, work has been underway to bring it to the PC platform in the form of PC-Pine. However, this never really worked well, integrated horribly with Windows, never supported POP3 without extra add-ons and workarounds, and development seems to have stalled on it.

I think the moral of this story is 'less is more' - apart from good spam filtering, the basically requirements of e-mail haven't changed since 1998. Who needs all gimmicky functionalities these nextgen clients offer? Do Virtual folders, graphical emoticons and a built-in RSS reader really make anybody more productive?

What about pine? Though it doesn't a impressive GUI like evolution, but it is the fastest mail reader in terms of usability. It is very easy to use, can be controlled using a keyboard (no mouse required). It support content filtering, LDAP lookups, and is extremely customizable.

Collections of works are already protected under current law. E.g. what university of washington copyright connection has to say about it and the plain old copyright code

temperatures of up to 27 degrees Celcius have been seen on Mars, source here

We have an Internet-content delivery system that works in a high-latency environment, to deliver mail and web content to South African schools.

http://wizzy.org.za/

The problem it is designed to overcome is the high cost of local telephone calls in a monopoly wireline provider regulatory environment.

We use cheap-rate overnight phone calls and a UUCP delivery system in conjunction with a local mailserver and wwwoffle web cache.

UUCP can also be used via a USB memory stick, similar to the DataMule (pdf) paper referenced on the website. Carrying the memory stick (the Courier) is identical to one UUCP hop.

The website gives more information.

Cheers, Andy!

Not that anyone ever actually follows a link and reads what is there, but I recommend that all the "non-believers" here take a look at Seaglider.
Or follow this google search for even more.

Seaglider applies much the same principles as this vehicle but to an underwater environment. It has a small onboard power supply, but it alternately uses gravity and bouyancy to propel itself.

I may not be an Aerospace Engineer but I am an Ocean Engineer and Fluid Dynamics in air is the same as Fluid Dynamics in water. Just change your value for rho.

While I'm not a CS major, it sounds to me like the course is having the exact effect on you that the CS department designed it for.

The impression that I get from my friends that are in the CS department is that yes, they do force you to slog through a bunch of coding classes, but you really need to develop those tools to do the cool and interesting things you probably want to do with computers. (Plus, if you stick with it, a CS degree from UW is one of the better ones.)

Now, since you're at a pretty big school, if you really don't feel like sticking with it, there are other options that might be closer to what you want to do.

In particular, check out the Applied Computational Mathematical Sciences Department and the ridiculously competative Information School.

While I'm not a CS major, it sounds to me like the course is having the exact effect on you that the CS department designed it for.

The impression that I get from my friends that are in the CS department is that yes, they do force you to slog through a bunch of coding classes, but you really need to develop those tools to do the cool and interesting things you probably want to do with computers. (Plus, if you stick with it, a CS degree from UW is one of the better ones.)

Now, since you're at a pretty big school, if you really don't feel like sticking with it, there are other options that might be closer to what you want to do.

In particular, check out the Applied Computational Mathematical Sciences Department and the ridiculously competative Information School.

Look what turned up as #8 on yahoo and #6 on google's search for slashdot.

Most Big-Ten schools have renamed their EE dept. to be called "Electrical and Computer Engineering"

Actually, Washington is one of the schools where it's CSE (Computer Science and Engineering) and EE is another department.

As for advice, find out what you're good at and what you like doing... and don't choose your major based solely on how much money you'll make when you graduate (there are many miserable lawyers because of this). Industrial Technology Education (ITED) is like a hands-on approach to using computers and networks. Chemical engineers are instrumental in semiconductor manufacturing. If you're good at (and like) math, you should consider analog/power electronics, or signal processing (all EE). I have a friend who's a very smart computer engineer... he doesn't like coding in C/C++ that much, but he told me that he found his calling in digital signal processing.

The point is, if you're paying tons of money for school, it's worth it to take the time to find out what your skills are and what you like to do.

Most Big-Ten schools have renamed their EE dept. to be called "Electrical and Computer Engineering"

Actually, Washington is one of the schools where it's CSE (Computer Science and Engineering) and EE is another department.

As for advice, find out what you're good at and what you like doing... and don't choose your major based solely on how much money you'll make when you graduate (there are many miserable lawyers because of this). Industrial Technology Education (ITED) is like a hands-on approach to using computers and networks. Chemical engineers are instrumental in semiconductor manufacturing. If you're good at (and like) math, you should consider analog/power electronics, or signal processing (all EE). I have a friend who's a very smart computer engineer... he doesn't like coding in C/C++ that much, but he told me that he found his calling in digital signal processing.

The point is, if you're paying tons of money for school, it's worth it to take the time to find out what your skills are and what you like to do.

The U.S. spends more total dollars [in total] and more dollars per capita on health care than any other nation and New Zealand is in approximately the top 10% in spending. [...] The WHO data on health care quality rankings of 191 member nations gave very low scores to the U.S. and the three countries that have adopted the U.S. system: Australia, Canada and New Zealand (hereafter called U.S. et al.). Their rankings were 37, 30, 32 and 41, respectively, for overall health care quality. In a ranking of level of actual health, the US and NZ were much worse, ranking 72 and 80, respectively. [...]

Actually that could be a really bad idea, the majority of asteroids threatening Earth are probably not solid bodies - more like aggregations of rubble. A blast could smash such bodies to rubble (all of which would still be heading our way). Many bodies have a composition similar to foam - very fragile with lots of pores and spaces filled with volatiles. When hit by a blast, a small amount is vaporised, the remainder just soaks up the explosion - and keeps on coming.

There are several proposals for deflecting asteroids - either attaching a mass driver to produce a small, almost constant thrust. Alternatively a huge solar mirror could be put on to a trjectory close to the asteroid. It would focus the light of the Sun on to one point on the asteroid - vaporising material into space and creating a thrust.

Sadly both approaches need us to have plenty of warning. The accelerations produced are so small (in the orders of cms^2) that you need plenty of time to get a sizeable deflection.

Such an observation system could be put in place for a tiny fraction of the cost of Star Wars or NMD and wouldn't cause any international uproar. Sadly it doesn't produce nice fat Pentagon contracts.

There's quite a nice summary of the various technologies here.

Beat wishes,
Mike.

I think there's already been enough competent research based on human and primate studies to confirm beyond reasonable doubt that neurogenesis does occur in at least one region of the adult human brain, namely in the hippocampus , a region that is essential for learning .

..why did it not evaporate?

The atmospheric pressure on mars is pretty low, which means that any liquid water (which this apparently is) will be vacuum dried to gas and move into outer space.

screw you all :o)

I just did a search in the new Yahoo search engine for keyword 'slashdot' and found this at number 8.


Quit Slashdot.org Today!

What a dumb site, who would ever think Slashdot is a plot by Microsoft to destroy the productivity of Linux users

I was wondering the same thing. The only explanation I could come up with was alphabetical ordering.

IIRC there was once a study of graduates from a police academy where rooms were allocated alphabetically. Years after they graduated, there was a strong correlation between two graduates' alphabetical proximity and the likelihood that they had remained friends. Conclusion: you can learn to like almost anyone if you're forced to spend time together. Getting back to the point, if groups were selected alphabetically for some activities, or if classes were seated alphabetically, you'd expect to see a long chain in the social network. I don't know why the ends of the chain should be joined, though. :-)

I subsequently skimmed the paper corresponding to the diagram. (Unfortunately all figures and tables are missing from the PDF - I can't find a complete version on the web.) They note the unusual structure of the graph - it's almost a perfect spanning tree, and is not a "small world" by any means - and explain it by a prohibition on "seconds relationships" - that is, a prohibition on dating the former partner of your former partner's new partner. They say this rule produces a graph with no 4-edge cycles. Cycles with an odd number of edges are rare because the reported relationships are overwhelmingly heterosexual, so this amounts to a prohibition on cycles with less than 6 edges. Applying this prohibition and controlling for degree distribution, randomly generated graphs are similar in structure to the one in the diagram.

However, it's possible to create a 4-edge cycle in a heterosexual graph without a "seconds relationship" - A dates B and then C, each of whom subsequently dates D. It's been a while since I had to deal with high school dating etiquette, but IIRC this situation is only taboo if B and C are friends - something which isn't recorded in the data. Nevertheless, while the social taboos might be more complex than those desribed in the paper, I'm convinced by the basic argument that they produce the unusual structure of the graph.

Actually, that graph is from a study of STD transmission among high school students, so no, I don't feel so bad for them after all, presuming that, to be on that graph, you had to be getting some to begin with.

Can the mutant master of magnetism Magneto levitate people using the iron in their blood?

The iron in our blood is mostly in the hemoglobin, specifically the heme half. Heme is an iron-based complex, in which the iron is IIRC diamagnetic.

Therefore, I do not see how---oh, wait. I guess I'm wrong. Oops. Looks like I need to review my sigma/pi bondage.

Gary Kimura you said?
http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/garyki/

Second point: The odds of getting one's hands on the full source to NT4/2K are slim to none--even most Microsoft folks couldn't do that. The code is probably scattered across multiple servers in Redmond, for starters, and you'd only be given access to the parts you needed to work with.

Of course, we signed fairly immense documents for Our Friends at Microsoft that gave them things like full and unhindered ownership of anything we created while having access to the source code. We also had to have the room with our workstations disconnected from the internet, and had to go outside to check our email.

Unfortunately, with all that access and opportunity, my group's project was to implement sparse clusters for FAT after completing the introductory assignment of logging file handles - which was harder than the same project I'd already done in Linux. It was hard to be excited about FAT hacking, but at least better than the folks who had to make modifications to the memory manager that had apparently already been made since garyk had come to the University from Microsoft.

Interesting anecdote from our adventures: when grepping the Linux source for swear words you'll find quite a plethora, and WinNT was once the same. When they submitted the source for government certification, however, they had to go through and clean it up! (We of course had assumed that the developers were all prudes.)

Care to provide any sources to back up your statements?

According to an interview Germany has practically no waiting-lines. I assume the Scandinavian countries are known to have an even better health-care system.

In the WHO World Health Report 2000 France is ranked first, the US 37th.

> You want cheaper healthcare? Get the government OUT of it.

I did not see the parent saying anything of cheaper healthcare. Not everyone is an egoist.

Oh, BTW:
> The U.S. spends more total dollars and more dollars per capita on health care than any other nation and New Zealand is in approximately the top 10% in spending.
Source

I don't think a single university publically displays the stats of student reviews after a semester with a prof.

How much would you bet on that?

Don't spread the myth. The only ones who were harassed or arrested were the ones who engaged in violence, criminal trespass, or other actions which went beyond speaking their minds.

You're the one spreading a myth, bud. A few minutes with Google puts the lie to your claim:

• mass arrests in San Francisco
• Brett Bursey was arrested for "trespassing" while on public property with an antiwar sign - and is now facing federal charges
• Thomas C. Frazier arrested for trying to carry an anti-war sign
• Anti-war veterns not allowed to march
• Protestors arrested after violating unconstitutional restraint of demonstrations in Lafayette Park
• Protestor beaten in Santa Cruz

Here is a good step by step showing how to make your own. Very cool.

Might I suggest the University of Washington in Seattle? It has one of the finest Computer Science departments in the nation. If you don't want to go into something as scientific as Computer Science, there's always the Informatics program (one of the only programs of its type in the world) which looks at computers and information in the context of humanity, something that works well within the setting of network engineering.

Might I suggest the University of Washington in Seattle? It has one of the finest Computer Science departments in the nation. If you don't want to go into something as scientific as Computer Science, there's always the Informatics program (one of the only programs of its type in the world) which looks at computers and information in the context of humanity, something that works well within the setting of network engineering.

Might I suggest the University of Washington in Seattle? It has one of the finest Computer Science departments in the nation. If you don't want to go into something as scientific as Computer Science, there's always the Informatics program (one of the only programs of its type in the world) which looks at computers and information in the context of humanity, something that works well within the setting of network engineering.

>Contrary to a minority of Quebecer's wishes

(cough), a difference of only 50,000 Quebecers is a really, really, really, big minority. As in, what it takes to get Bush elected type of minority. Had I hindsight, myself and 49,999 Canadians would have found it worth their time to move there for a short while to get them the hell outta Canada.

If Canada were the US we'd be rid of that annoying wart. Doctor, bust out the Compound U already!

Mix those facts in with a liberal splash of our once second-in-command party being a group intent on breaking Quebec from Canada along with Bill 101 outlawing English Free Speech in Quebec public schools (a RIGHT guaranteed to ALL CANADIANS by the charter) and I, for one, after that, refer to Quebec as a separate country also. I mean, WTF do they keep that "I will remember the time you damn British beat us" license plate motto for? Because they prefer to use "tough love"?

Fuck 'em, eh? Most Quebecers are assholes, and I fairly judge that by the fact they keep electing a separatist majority government for themselves, over, and over, and over again.

Oh, and for those who aren't convinced, how about this? Only *TOTAL* assholes try to turn a known burial ground into a golf course. At least the original inhabitants of Canada have better manners.

We don't need them, and they DEFINATELY don't want us.

[It was worth the karma]

I would tend to agree with you that concerns about the security of ECC are overblown, and tend to come from the common wisdom that old-and-proven is better than new-and-unproven.

Let's see, RSA was put forth in 1977. ECC was first discussed in the mid-1980s, by Victor Miller (IBM) and Neal Koblitz.

So which is suppose to be "old-and-proven" and "new-and-unproven"?

In fact there is no assurance that RSA or DSA is any more secure than ECC. RSA is not proven (in the math sense) to be secure. We do not know for sure that if there is no easy way to factor large integers into their prime factors.

Parenthetically, the MTA you may be using when running Pine just might be a Microsoft mail server... so beware.

Links: Pine, Elm, Postfix, qmail. Might as well throw Lynx (web) and BitchX (irc) out there for you oldschool turbo C shell users. Home this gets me some karma :)

Glad there are some people out there not using GUIs for simple purposes like these. I hate the mouse.

>BTW: two fixes are already avilable for this virus:

Also, another fix is available for windows users.

After starting to use batches and filters, I just can't think of a single reason anyone would want to use Outlook. It just sucks, less functionality, and WAY more difficult to use (Pine was written from a usability standpoint, so don't tell me you're too stupid to make it work. That makes you less apt than people taking basket weaving courses at university.)

Keep in mind that it's not just a bunch of pictures. Look at the Meta-Data in these things. Making copies of the whole archive would be difficult and probably not worthwhile unless you were wanting to provide, for example, an Austrailian mirror. The digital images would be stored in a database, not just in a filesystem somewhere. You really need to be using the same software they are.

Citations are by some identifier, usually a negative number or reference ID.

We are in the process of publishing a research report for TxDOT, and one of the issues studied was the pros and cons for High Speed Rail and MagLev. Some highlights:

O&M costs of Maglev vehicles is hypothesized to be less than those costs for HSR. Amtrak is currently witnessing high O&M costs due to problems with derailment and cracks in vehicle hardware. Tracks for HSR are susceptible to heat damage, a problem which may have caused the derailment of an Amtrak train in July 2002. In contrast, Maglev's frictionless guideways are resistant to wear and tear caused by weather and operation. Maglev guideways will last longer than tracks for HSR. A recent study by Southern California Council of Governments reported that O&M costs for Maglev systems would be 65% less than the O&M costs for high speed rail. The study also suggested that the implementation of Maglev systems and guideways would be comparable to HSR. The cost issue is highly debatable because MagLev is typically designed on 100% elevated systems, HSR is not.

Noise pollution will also be significantly reduced with the implementation of Maglev. Since the Maglev vehicles do not come into contact with the guideway, the friction that causes noise in other rail systems is eliminated. The only noise that the Maglev produces is the sound that is generated by the aerodynamics of the vehicle. Passby at 300 kmph at 25 m: ICE= 92 dB(A) TGV = 90 dB(A) MagLev = 80 dB(A)

A couple of other design coniderations:
Max recommended grade for the two types of systems: HSR ~ 1%, MagLev ~10%
Derailment): MagLev = impossible (wrap around design), HSR=likely (low tolerance)

One factor that plays a strong role: there is a well entrenched rail lobby - the same cannot be said for MagLevs.
Here is an anti-Maglev article from the entrainched establishment, and here is a reasoned response to the FUD.

cheers- raga

We are in the process of publishing a research report for TxDOT, and one of the issues studied was the pros and cons for High Speed Rail and MagLev. Some highlights:

O&M costs of Maglev vehicles is hypothesized to be less than those costs for HSR. Amtrak is currently witnessing high O&M costs due to problems with derailment and cracks in vehicle hardware. Tracks for HSR are susceptible to heat damage, a problem which may have caused the derailment of an Amtrak train in July 2002. In contrast, Maglev's frictionless guideways are resistant to wear and tear caused by weather and operation. Maglev guideways will last longer than tracks for HSR. A recent study by Southern California Council of Governments reported that O&M costs for Maglev systems would be 65% less than the O&M costs for high speed rail. The study also suggested that the implementation of Maglev systems and guideways would be comparable to HSR. The cost issue is highly debatable because MagLev is typically designed on 100% elevated systems, HSR is not.

Noise pollution will also be significantly reduced with the implementation of Maglev. Since the Maglev vehicles do not come into contact with the guideway, the friction that causes noise in other rail systems is eliminated. The only noise that the Maglev produces is the sound that is generated by the aerodynamics of the vehicle. Passby at 300 kmph at 25 m: ICE= 92 dB(A) TGV = 90 dB(A) MagLev = 80 dB(A)

A couple of other design coniderations:
Max recommended grade for the two types of systems: HSR ~ 1%, MagLev ~10%
Derailment): MagLev = impossible (wrap around design), HSR=likely (low tolerance)

One factor that plays a strong role: there is a well entrenched rail lobby - the same cannot be said for MagLevs.
Here is an anti-Maglev article from the entrainched establishment, and here is a reasoned response to the FUD.

cheers- raga

We don't have cold fusion or antimatter yet, so the only alternative is fission.

We don't need Cold Fusion. We actually have quite a few ideas for plain old "hot" fusion drives. I can't find a link right now, but the most promising one I've seen is an engine that fires a small pellet of fusion fuel in front of a pusher plate. The pellet will then intersect with high powered lasers that will force fusion. However, the engine has a high ISP (very efficient) but very low overall thrust.

Antimatter thrust is only limited by our inability to produce antimatter.

Now, Nuclear Thermal fission rockets have the potential to have high thrust and high ISP (although not the highest). NERVA was a completed design with about 1000 ISP and 75,000 pounds of thrust. I comparison, the Saturn V had an ISP of ~450 and the Space Shuttle boosters have an ISP of ~250. GCNR rockets, a design that has been under careful development for over 10 years, promises an ISP of between 3000-5000 with a similar mass throw as a chemical rocket. That means that you can power significantly more launch weight with less fuel. (Remember, force = mass * velocity2. If mass remains consistent, the power will increase at an exponential rate.)

Once in space, there are options for even more efficient thrust and ISP combinations like Orion and Nuclear Salt Water rockets.

Yes, we *are* talking about giving children speed, and it is by no means an unjustified decision. It has long been suspected that ADHD symptoms are the result of defects in dopaminergic pathways, most likely reduced levels of dopamine production. Dopamine is a very important neurotransmitter, you can Google for yourself if you want more details. Ritalin (methylphenidate) acts by blocking dopamine reuptake, effectively increasing its concentration in the brain tissues.

Considering that deficiencies in dopamine levels are also strongly associated with Parkinson's Disease, would you want your child, if positively diagnosed with a rather severe case of ADHD to grow up not having had at least the opportunity to feel the difference the medication could make (I know they're unrelated, but the mention of Parkinson's makes for good drama)?

Click here. I found that page to be both informative and amusing, because I wasn't able to finish reading that first paragraph. Really. I was diagnosed in my late twenties after a lifetime of debilitating "memory problems" that effectively killed a career in molecular biology labwork that I started when I was fourteen, and now...

...now I look back and really wish my parents had at least considered treatments, because I am on ritalin now and am suddenly finding myself able to do the things I had always wanted to do. I can keep tabs on multiple sets of data, I can perform multiple tasks independently, I can remember to turn the burners off when I'm done, only now I'm fucking fifteen years behind and extremely saddened by the fact that I had not had this opportunity earlier.

Please understand. It's not haphazard prescription of amphetamines for the purposes of taming children, it's giving children a chance to function in ways that benefit them.

New home for humanity.

This was the original poster's assertion, and as you implied, it's been a widely-varying argument. Planetary surfaces themselves may not be the best choices in many instances for new Human homes (ref. Gerard K. O'Neill). But relative airlessness (1% of Earth's) is hardly insurmountable. Comets can be redirected to either crash into the planet, or skim-crash the atmosphere, or can be mined en route to Mars in such a way that they fragment while transiting the atmosphere. At any rate, these are terraforming issues, and like any Human engineering enterprise, they just have to be thought out AND tried out. Note my wording ... sitting around and planning is an extraordinarily good way to avoid doing anything at all; if we are going to try our hand at terraformation, we have to actually go out and do it.

Your skepticism about a new Human home is warranted. Your conclusion isn't.

[Robots ar]e fun, they're cheap, they work pretty well, and even if they occasionally blow up... nobody dies.

None of these are justifications for avoiding direct Human involvement in space missions. Not only do robots malfunction and require repair, but space is not just an object of study ... it's a place to go, work and play ... a place to live. By your assertions, Europe should have studied North America with robots instead of sending ships filled with people.

If you want to emphasize the exploration angle in your pro-robot argument, allow me to point out that we now know more than enough about the solar system to determine manned targets. Luna, Mars, the Asteroids ... we know enough to conclude that we can send people and they will have a good chance of surviving in those places indefinitely (provided Luna gets volatiles, etc. ... trade with Earth's manufacturing base will be necessary for some time).

Exploration with robots is now an academic act with little justification. How many more decimal points do we need before we make our manned moves? For academics themselves, the answer is "just one more decimal place than last time", which obviously will never end. The time of manned steps forward is in the past. We are well behind schedule.

Hence, please do not tout robots over Humans. Either you are incorrect, or your agenda of endless bellybutton-contemplation is showing.

tell us which asteroidal element could be mined profitably

Nearly all of them, if they are used as they must be used ... in support of Human civilization in space. If your only goal is to bring elements back to Earth's surface, then very few would qualify.

There are 3 basic types of Asteriods; nickel-iron (metallic), silicate (rocky) and carbonaceous chondrite (nonmetallic). These mimic planetary composition at different points, correspondingly core, mantle and crust, hence indicate that the Asteroid Belt probably was on the way to forming a planet, but just didn't quite get there.

The Belt represents colossal wealth ... in the "Old Economy" sense of the term that we are currently pretending is dead. An entire planet could be constructed from the Belt. However, if your profit expectations are Earth-bound as well as being fundamentally shifted into things like currency speculation, then you're not going to understand the wealth that the Belt offers. That's OK; you can stay on Earth while people like me exploit the Belt. I'm sure you won't mind; by the time people like you come to understand what you'd given up, you won't be in any position to grab any of it. You'd have to climb Sol's gravity well to get to the Belt, and then you'd have to fight the then-indigenous people there for "your share".

In case you didn't know, the Belt is necessary for permanent Lunar civ