I wonder where all the people are who were complaining about us littering the moon's "ecosystem" when NASA crashed that rocket into it? Surely this is a hundred times worse because it's now garbage in an actual ecosystem.
This is such a blatant misrepresentation of both party's views that I have a hard time believing you even believe what you're saying. I have always heard the this-is-a-Christian-nation argument when conservatives are trying to force religion on the rest of us (e.g., "under God" in the Pledge, ten commandments in a courtroom, etc). You make it sound as if they're just trying to acknowledge a mere historical fact instead of justifying the imposition of Christian values on the entire nation...and shame on the liberals for trying to rewrite history. This country was founded by people who suffered religious persecution under the old European governments and came here to get away from them. Clearly it was the founding fathers intent to prevent this kind of imposition again.
On a computer the hands are kept busy, typing mashing buttons whatever, watching TV hands are idle, perhaps flipping channels on a remote. Seems there may be a direct link between keeping ones hands occupied by typing/button mashing vs. idle where it's easier to stuff ones face due to having nothing to do.
Which means there's a market for a hands free computer interface so that one may stuff ones face while operating a computer!
Clifford Stoll? Seriously? That guy has never been much of an authority on computers. He was just a guy who capitalized on the little bit of street credit he got from bringing down the hacker Markus Hess. Stoll's opinions were never worth much.
It was AWESOME. Take money from the guy parked at the window while entering the next order. Didn't have to worry about putting food together, dealing with customers wanting extra stuff, dealing with a slippy floor or a hot kitchen...it really was a lot of fun.
Actually, that sounds really boring. Unless you could sit there and play video games or goof off with friends I think I'd go mad doing that for a year.
Where was the Spanish Inquisition errr... Congress when Ford had to recall 4.5 million cars a few months ago due to their cruise control causing fires?
Agreed. This has the feel of a smear campaign to put GM back on top.
I mostly agree. I was just addressing the statement that a robot can do more.
Question is, with all that technological development needed to send a human, couldn't we just send a better robot instead with the same resources? And wouldn't that better robot technology help us in 1000's of other ways?
I agree, the additional supplies and equipment needed to maintain life makes the trip impractical. If anything, I think NASA should be redirecting human space flight funds towards making the trip to orbit cheaper. That's truly the heart of the problem. Space travel costs so much for this reason alone. As it stands right now, the American manned space program is run more like a welfare program for the aerospace industry and accomplishes very little.
What's the point of putting people on Mars? Spirit did more than any manned mission could
Totally false. I single person with a rover could have done in a day what spirit has done during it's whole mission. A human can make quicker and easier judgment calls about the terrain so they can travel further and faster without input from earth. A human could have driven Spirits entire path in a day on something no fast than a golf cart. A human can make fast judgment calls about what's interesting and want needs further investigation. A human can clean the dust off the solar cells and not have to rely on dust devils. A human can walk places the rover can't physically go. A human can conduct research at the site and doesn't have to rely on a few very specialized instruments that were put on board. Humans can fix broken or flaky equipment.
But ultimately, I think the real point of putting people on Mars is that it's our nature to expand into new territories and discover new things. There is no more unclaimed space on our planet. At some point we need to figure out how to live beyond the earth. These are just first baby steps. We have the desire to walk on two feet (at least some of us do), it's instinctual, but we can't quite do it yet. We keep falling down, but we keep trying because something deep inside us is driving us. You're like the baby who looks at the one trying to walk and tells him he's wasting his time because it's easier to crawl.
Or smart phones. Certainly nobody ever predicted that this gigantic computer on my desk could ever be shrunk down to cell phone size...cough...tricorder...cough.
Don't be fooled. They say they're doing it to protect the children. Once the mechanism is in place to do this they'll keep a low profile and only censor blatant violations. Then...they tighten the noose little bits at a time until eventually it is used to limit politically undesirable speech.
It probably never ocurred to them that what they were doing was illegal in Florida, but it's quite simple to set up the website so that it doesn't accept orders with a shipping address in that state.
If it took a jury to figure out that the material in question was "obscene", then how would they know it was illegal ahead of time without that jury?
The worst is giving estimates for a bug fix - how can you estimate how to fix a bug when you don't even know what the cause is and the bug isn't reproducible and the description is vague?
I hate this. And when you say you can't estimate something like that, they say: "oh just give us your best guess, we won't hold you to it." Then six months down the line you get called into someone's office and interrogated for an hour because you can't deliver "on time"...and by this time you forgot that they said they wouldn't hold you to the estimate so you end up trying to defend it...trying desperately to think of all the little things that went wrong and blow them up into bigger issues.
Now, space tourism will likely make them the most money, and therefore they'll probably focus on that part.
You're kidding right? You think a company can make more money on a handful of very rich vacationers than it can on government contracts? Manned commercial space (orbital) transport will likely have one kind of customer....rich governments. They are the only ones who can afford it.
I was taught "it's" is always a contraction for "it is" and otherwise you should use its, so ITS fairly easy to know which to use once you know the rule.
Is space the future? Is that where we need to direct or economy? I think it is.
Ultimately, yes. In the short term, probably not. But all of the opponents to manned space flight seem to think that if we're not spending the money on our manned program, we'll be pouring that money into feeding the hungry, or cleaning up pollution, or something noble like that. That's probably not going to happen. And, frankly, it ain't enough money to put a dent in hunger or cleaning up pollution. It'll probably just disappear into the military budget.
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon..
and do the other things.. (?)
"and do the other things" is a reference to the foregoing statement that is never quoted:
"Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard,"
Adolescent fantasies? So fiction that takes place in a modern day or historical setting is mature fantasy while science fiction settings are all adolescent fantasies? Can you say pretentious snob?
Yes, those are very nice pictures for an 8 inch scope. But stunning??? Did he do anything else besides getting a scope with good optics, a steady mount, and a high resolution CCD? Any special processing? What software? Did he have to stack a whole lot of images and toss out bad ones where the atmosphere messed the image up too much? Details! We need the gritty details!
Slashdot Mirror
It's unfortunate that the republicans had to piss away the equivalent of moon trip in Iraq
Um, no. You're overestimating the cost of a moon trip by a bit. With one year's defense budget we could build a football stadium on Pluto.
I wonder where all the people are who were complaining about us littering the moon's "ecosystem" when NASA crashed that rocket into it? Surely this is a hundred times worse because it's now garbage in an actual ecosystem.
This is such a blatant misrepresentation of both party's views that I have a hard time believing you even believe what you're saying. I have always heard the this-is-a-Christian-nation argument when conservatives are trying to force religion on the rest of us (e.g., "under God" in the Pledge, ten commandments in a courtroom, etc). You make it sound as if they're just trying to acknowledge a mere historical fact instead of justifying the imposition of Christian values on the entire nation...and shame on the liberals for trying to rewrite history. This country was founded by people who suffered religious persecution under the old European governments and came here to get away from them. Clearly it was the founding fathers intent to prevent this kind of imposition again.
why bother? Was somebody actually dumb enough to believe they could sell enough lead "processors" to make the whole thing worthwhile?
What makes you think they haven't already? I'm sure whoever did this sold the whole batch to someone, or swapped out real chips for the fakes.
On a computer the hands are kept busy, typing mashing buttons whatever, watching TV hands are idle, perhaps flipping channels on a remote. Seems there may be a direct link between keeping ones hands occupied by typing/button mashing vs. idle where it's easier to stuff ones face due to having nothing to do.
Which means there's a market for a hands free computer interface so that one may stuff ones face while operating a computer!
Clifford Stoll? Seriously? That guy has never been much of an authority on computers. He was just a guy who capitalized on the little bit of street credit he got from bringing down the hacker Markus Hess. Stoll's opinions were never worth much.
No one lives in the Rockies
Um...I do. I'm pretty sure every single one of my neighbors does too.
It was AWESOME. Take money from the guy parked at the window while entering the next order. Didn't have to worry about putting food together, dealing with customers wanting extra stuff, dealing with a slippy floor or a hot kitchen...it really was a lot of fun.
Actually, that sounds really boring. Unless you could sit there and play video games or goof off with friends I think I'd go mad doing that for a year.
Where was the Spanish Inquisition errr... Congress when Ford had to recall 4.5 million cars a few months ago due to their cruise control causing fires?
Agreed. This has the feel of a smear campaign to put GM back on top.
Question is, with all that technological development needed to send a human, couldn't we just send a better robot instead with the same resources? And wouldn't that better robot technology help us in 1000's of other ways?
I agree, the additional supplies and equipment needed to maintain life makes the trip impractical. If anything, I think NASA should be redirecting human space flight funds towards making the trip to orbit cheaper. That's truly the heart of the problem. Space travel costs so much for this reason alone. As it stands right now, the American manned space program is run more like a welfare program for the aerospace industry and accomplishes very little.
What's the point of putting people on Mars? Spirit did more than any manned mission could
Totally false. I single person with a rover could have done in a day what spirit has done during it's whole mission. A human can make quicker and easier judgment calls about the terrain so they can travel further and faster without input from earth. A human could have driven Spirits entire path in a day on something no fast than a golf cart. A human can make fast judgment calls about what's interesting and want needs further investigation. A human can clean the dust off the solar cells and not have to rely on dust devils. A human can walk places the rover can't physically go. A human can conduct research at the site and doesn't have to rely on a few very specialized instruments that were put on board. Humans can fix broken or flaky equipment. But ultimately, I think the real point of putting people on Mars is that it's our nature to expand into new territories and discover new things. There is no more unclaimed space on our planet. At some point we need to figure out how to live beyond the earth. These are just first baby steps. We have the desire to walk on two feet (at least some of us do), it's instinctual, but we can't quite do it yet. We keep falling down, but we keep trying because something deep inside us is driving us. You're like the baby who looks at the one trying to walk and tells him he's wasting his time because it's easier to crawl.
#6: Who is #1? #2: you are #6
In light of the show's finale...this statement seems to make more sense if you put a comma in there:
#6: Who is #1?
#2: You are, #6.
Or smart phones. Certainly nobody ever predicted that this gigantic computer on my desk could ever be shrunk down to cell phone size...cough...tricorder...cough.
Don't be fooled. They say they're doing it to protect the children. Once the mechanism is in place to do this they'll keep a low profile and only censor blatant violations. Then...they tighten the noose little bits at a time until eventually it is used to limit politically undesirable speech.
It probably never ocurred to them that what they were doing was illegal in Florida, but it's quite simple to set up the website so that it doesn't accept orders with a shipping address in that state.
If it took a jury to figure out that the material in question was "obscene", then how would they know it was illegal ahead of time without that jury?
The worst is giving estimates for a bug fix - how can you estimate how to fix a bug when you don't even know what the cause is and the bug isn't reproducible and the description is vague?
I hate this. And when you say you can't estimate something like that, they say: "oh just give us your best guess, we won't hold you to it." Then six months down the line you get called into someone's office and interrogated for an hour because you can't deliver "on time"...and by this time you forgot that they said they wouldn't hold you to the estimate so you end up trying to defend it...trying desperately to think of all the little things that went wrong and blow them up into bigger issues.
That post has the stink of Brian Herbert about it.
Now, space tourism will likely make them the most money, and therefore they'll probably focus on that part.
You're kidding right? You think a company can make more money on a handful of very rich vacationers than it can on government contracts? Manned commercial space (orbital) transport will likely have one kind of customer....rich governments. They are the only ones who can afford it.
I was taught "it's" is always a contraction for "it is" and otherwise you should use its, so ITS fairly easy to know which to use once you know the rule.
Or is it?
Each of us is right.
Yes, but some of us are more right than others.
Is space the future? Is that where we need to direct or economy? I think it is.
Ultimately, yes. In the short term, probably not. But all of the opponents to manned space flight seem to think that if we're not spending the money on our manned program, we'll be pouring that money into feeding the hungry, or cleaning up pollution, or something noble like that. That's probably not going to happen. And, frankly, it ain't enough money to put a dent in hunger or cleaning up pollution. It'll probably just disappear into the military budget.
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon.. and do the other things.. (?)
"and do the other things" is a reference to the foregoing statement that is never quoted: "Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard,"
I think I remember reading somewhere that all the video screens in Star Trek TNG were written with Visual Basic.
Adolescent fantasies? So fiction that takes place in a modern day or historical setting is mature fantasy while science fiction settings are all adolescent fantasies? Can you say pretentious snob?
Yes, those are very nice pictures for an 8 inch scope. But stunning??? Did he do anything else besides getting a scope with good optics, a steady mount, and a high resolution CCD? Any special processing? What software? Did he have to stack a whole lot of images and toss out bad ones where the atmosphere messed the image up too much? Details! We need the gritty details!