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Top 10 Unsolved Space Mysteries
Joe Jordan writes "Space.com is advertising the Top 10 Space Mysteries for 2003, and perhaps for all time, given the current rate of discovery." Some of them are obvious, like the origin of life, and the possibility of alien life forms, but the list is still a good compilation of space's greatest questions.
Where are my car keys??!
The universe hides them.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
Whaddya mean my disk is full? Again? /*
But it hasn't been a week since I last did
sudo rm -r
the AC
"The steady state of disks is full." -- Ken Thompson Ahhh, that 'splains it!
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
Without treading too deaply into political areas, perhaps we should looking at why people our are sleeping in cardboard boxes on street corners while the exec's in the building next door make $200k a year! That seems slightly more important to me than worrying about stuff out there, just for the time being anyway.
"I kill you! You no good 56'ing!"
They sleep in cardboard boxes by choice. They used to sleep in beds in warm places, until that option was removed.
A significant percentage of the "homeless population" is there because of a decision made years ago by those who "know better". It was decided that keeping people locked away in "mental institutions" was unkind, and unjustified in non-violent cases. So thousands of people with diminished mental capacity were sent packing to half-way houses, community outreach centers, or on to the street with no help.
Many were in those institutions because they could not or would not care for themselves. Their disease impaired their ability to hold jobs to support themselves, or even live with relatives who would take them in, so they live where they can.
And it is getting worse, not better. Recently, a family friend suffered a major mental collapse, aided by drugs (including alcohol). His mother tried to get him declared incompetent, so that he could be institutionalized, to get help.
The judge's ruling amounted to a declaration that, so long as he doesn't hurt anyone, no one can force him to get help, and he's free to wander the streets. He gets no counseling, no medication for his dillusional and paranoid state, nothing... even though his mother is willing to pay for it.
Instead, because we don't have a single full-time shelter in our county, the county provides him with bus and train passes each day to move between operating shelters. And he spends his nights on the street when there aren't any open, because he won't stay with friends or relatives.
Certainly, there are homeless people out there who are not there by choice - the so-called "one paycheck away" homeless. They aren't the majority, or even a large percentage, because just about anyone who is in those circumstances can find something in the way of shelter and other assistance. Heck, we've got thousands of bureaucrats in this country just chomping at the bit to find people like that, because they can only justify THEIR jobs by how many people they've got in their active case files!