Just as an aside, analogies that try to compare "distractions" with life and death situations usually don't work, at all.
Life and death situations, such as driving 60 MPH through a parking lot can easily kill or maim many people. Playing video games and/or surfing in class is a distraction at best. One set of rules aims to save lives while the other aims to nanny a student.
Most lecture halls I've ever been in were setup stadium style, this makes it very easy to see the board and the professor. Even if the person sitting "directly" in front of me (usually off to the side a tad) was playing WoW, it's still very easy to see the professor.
If this was a classroom where the open laptop partially obscures my view, I'd probably fully agree with you as it's always in your direct view. However, being off in a peripheral makes it quite easy to ignore.
I've been in classrooms in the past 10 years with other students playing games and I was able to see their screen quite easily. As long as I wasn't already distracted mentally, I never had an issue paying attention.
Just an FYI, lecture halls usually have 100+ students (easily) and don't go beyond some human up front talking for the _whole_ period only stopping to take a breath from time to time.
Whose education are those kids who are playing games during class, hurting?
Yours?
Another students?
Who is paying for those kids to sit in the classroom?
You?
The professor?
It's his money and his time. If he isn't being a distraction and hindering the education of the other students, then you really have no say, at all.
Would he get a better education if he wasn't playing games in class? Debatable. He could just as easily waste time doodling, texting on his cell, sleeping, or just plain bunking the class to do what he wants.
While you _think_ he should be doing something else. It's his (or his parents) dime. Not yours.
Seeing how this is college, I'm dumbfounded by the "nannying" going on here.
The way I see it, unless laptops as a whole are distracting to _other_ students then they are nothing more than another medium to take notes on. On the other hand, if I happen to have a laptop that makes a lot of noise (intended or not) and it is distracting the professor or other students, then I see a problem.
We all shit into buckets every day. Ours just happens to have a drain in it so the shit flows to a facility and they "compost" it. Well, at least they try to make it not harmful. Then they dump it into a body of water, usually.
This guy just takes out the middle man _and_ uses it to fertilize his garden/yard instead of flushing it down the drain, literally.
By the way, use your imagination for two seconds. Make a wooden box with a hole cut in the top, put a bucket in it and then put a normal toilet seat+lid on it. Furthermore, put it in your bathroom next to the normal toilet or replace the normal, flushing, toilet with the box.
The fact that you distill an idea of actually using, to your benefit, the "waste" you don't fully understand, down to a bucket in a yard is the exact reason the idea of doing this is "taboo" and/or third world.
What if you had enough of these in an "engine" where you have enough nanotubes to spread fuel onto to create energy. Instead of powering pistons you could push the energy to an electric motor and perhaps a battery.
I know, I know, we want to get away from fossil fuels and we may potentially be able to with this but even if we can't, if this is more energy efficient it may still be worth it.
I pay for my connection to the internet, I also pay for the hardware all sites plus their ads are displayed on. It is also my time that is taken by going to said sites, generally, it's time I wish to devote to those sites.
The problem is a lot of sites I frequent have malicious ads from time to time. There was a point where I played World of Warcraft and even the _reputable_ sites (worldofraids, mmo-champion, etc) had malicious ads served.
Then on sites that aren't gaming related, I started to see a _lot_ of fake virus scans, malware scans, etc. Fake system messages. It's just too much.
The problem now is, it's going to take more time to go through and verify if a site (currently) is non malicious in nature and whitelist them than it is to just block ads wholesale. If I never saw a legitimate, annoying, potentially damaging reason to start blocking ads, I never would have. The problem is, I can't trust those who don't know what ads are going to be served.
You can be a perfectly legitimate site and one day your ad "provider" decides to put up a malicious ad. Your site is now infected and so am I, potentially.
I simply won't and don't put up with the chance. The bonus is I don't see any other ads anymore either.
P.S. I don't think you give the market enough credit. If ads were banned from the internet all together, I'm sure the good sites will find a way to make a living. Ads are just the easiest way to get revenue. Take them away and the "next easiest way will prevail.
If you want to take my post out of context, I guess.
But my point, in this case, is what happens if the firmware was causing the problem? Ok, that's software too, should that "never" damage hardware as well? I mean, it's code written and compiled, right?
When it comes to video cards, there are at least two sets of software released by the manufacturer that run the card. One is the firmware and two is the driver. If either one bugs, it's software causing the hardware to fail.
I took the OP to mean "application" level software and I stand by my post. If he meant any software at all then he'd have to explain all the firmware screw ups over the years.
Software (read: applications) isn't destroying hardware in this case. The hardware itself is now "faulty" as the drivers have a pretty bad bug.
In my mind, this is no different than taking the the heatsink/fan off a CPU. That's a hardware issue. Doesn't matter what games, etc, you run, you risk killing that CPU because the CPU is under an abnormal operating condition.
While drivers are in control in the case we have here with nVidia, I see the drivers as part of the hardware since they were released by the manufacturer.
1) Going to the moon has what tangible short _or_ long term benefit to human kind that you can articulate now?
I'd argue you can't really. The science learned will be invaluable to certain fields, but right now it's a gamble at best. Yes, something good will come of it, granted, but what and when? Noone knows. I'm not saying it's not worth it, I'm suggesting there are more tangible things that can be done with money, now.
2) "Spreading the wealth around" is exactly what we need to do.
Bill Gates is doing a good thing for humanity and helping out in fields such as medicine (malaria), he even donates money to PBS, etc for education among other things. Can you say the same for the other billionaires on the planet? Probably not.
Look, the truth of the matter is, we have enough problems here at home (both in the US and in the world) that need to be addressed and fixed before we spend billions upon billions of dollars on building things on other planets.
Healthcare in the US is an absolute mess. I have friends that are downright uninsureable. One, due to cancer while he wasn't covered, he's absolutely boned. Noone will touch him with a stick let alone their money.
If that means my taxes go up 5%, so be it. If something happens to me, my wife, kids, parents, etc, I want to know they will be taken care of and not just looked at in terms of profitability.
Capitalism works to a certain extent. Human health is _not_ one of them.
The short of it is, I'm a science guy and I can see the benefit in taking money from pure science and potentially moving it to the health of our citizens.
I'm pretty well off as I live quite comfortably but I know many who aren't and they should have the same health care as I do. End of story.
* Yes, I took the healthcare "socialist" stance with this post. It is something I believe in and can articulate with personal experience.
It starts innocently. Say you come up with a new drink, it gets you a certain euphoria when you ingest it. It ends up becoming a huge hit and everyone wants it. In ten years, no deaths are attributed to it. Government doesn't do anything against it.
Now say I come up with another drink that also gives you a euphoria much like yours only a little stronger so people come to me. It catches on big time and a week later, people are dropping dead or at least extremely ill. Worse, it's habit forming and it's near epidemic levels. Do you really expect the government to sit back and wait it out?
No, they step in to "save" its citizens.
There _is_ a line between letting people enjoy themselves and letting people kill themselves in mass numbers.
You can do many things, right now, that are both harmful and still legal. Lets see, you could chew mouthful after mouthful of tobacco. You can suck down as many cigarettes as you possibly can. You could take as many OTC medications as you wish. You could drink yourself into a coma, etc.
All of those, will give you a high of different levels and all can cause you trouble of different levels especially depending on dosage.
What makes my listed "drugs" worse than the ones on the government black list? You could argue potency. But frankly I've seen people high on pot as well as drunk and I'd much rather hang out with those that are high. They are just a lot more lucid and aware.
My point being, that a drug is a drug. Whether it is on a government black list or not, anyone can _choose_ to abuse them, use them in moderation, or stay clear.
If you're a person who needs a vice, you'll find one, I assure you. I don't care what the government says, you'll find a cure for your "need".
Drugs are all around us in different forms and _always_ have. They aren't bad and some are even good for you at different times. Labeling "drugs" as bad is just short sighted and, dare I say, ignorant.
When it comes down to it... Stupid people are stupid and if they are bent on finding something terrible to do until it kills them, well, that's what they are going to do. Drugs don't do _anything_ but grow and/or sit there. It takes a willing person to pick it up and abuse it to become "bad".
Second, if the update bricks your car, that would be Toyota's fault, not yours and I'm pretty sure they would resolve the issue for you free of charge.
Or, you can keep driving a potentially unsafe vehicle on "firmware update" principles.
Actually, if one piece of space junk hits another piece of space junk, the net result will probably be more than two pieces of space junk. No, nothing of value was lost, however, now there is even more junk to worry about. The volume of junk may not have changed, but the odds of the new count of junk encountering something of value changes. However, I must note that it could _drop_ the chances if the orbits degrade because of the collision. But I have a feeling that's a futile point to get stuck on. The point is, junk encountering junk makes more junk to worry about.
True, however, there aren't many orbits that are useful (which you mention). Geosynchronous orbit, for example, is at a very specific altitude and speed. Put to much junk in that orbit or into an orbit that ends up passing through it and you have the potential to shut down all traffic in that orbit.
That's just one example.
You also have to understand the immense speeds things travel up there. Most of these items are traveling at faster than bullet speeds (6867+ mph for Geo Sync if my source is correct).
Point here is, very expensive things are sitting up there in a proverbial shooting gallery. A lot of open space works great when it's two people alone adrift on the ocean. It's entirely another when we're talking thousands of bullets zinging around.
Since you seem to want to keep using data you're making up. All I can say at this point is "citation needed". Just to stay on topic and add to our "discussion", I'd submit that Toyota has x amount of programmers and so far they have failed to fix the issue. One, ten, a million more coders might actually help solve the issue. Seems Toyota's engineers have patently failed in this instance.
Your counter-argument appears to be based on a false assumption. I didn't say, nor mean, that any old software engineer should be directly interfacing with any car companies. I'm suggesting that you need software people who can understand what is going on under the hood.
If they are investigating an issue and they have the knowledge and access to the software, they can try to find obvious flaws or at least sets of code that relate to the problem at hand. If they have _suspicions_ the code may be at fault they can let the car company sort it out on their own and allow open communication between the NHSTA engineers and the car companies engineers.
Now, if the report comes back from the car company that totally mismatches what the NHTSA software engineers know to be true, then you know something is amiss and needs to be investigate further and/or again.
But apparently you're the expert since you've coded before. Just to point out, so have I. And anecdotally, having someone else see my code and point out a flaw is very refreshing. Another set of eyes has helped on _countless_ occasions. Of course, YMMV and apparently it does, completely.
Well, if you don't know what you're asking for, how would you ever know if the answer they give you is even close to reality?
"Hey, I need you to investigate x, I have no idea how to even analyze x, but I trust you will investigate it exhaustively!"
"Sure, we fully investigated x and it's fine."
"Oh, ok, we'll take your word for it, thanks!"
You have to at least be able to understand what's going on to a certain degree before you can tell someone to fully investigate it _and_ then trust their results.
So yes, they should have a set of engineers who can read code well enough to know what is doing what and ask a company to exhaustively test it.
Finally, 100 million lines of code sounds like an awful lot of code for a throttle and/or braking system. I have a feeling that number is bloated to include things like when to pop on the low fuel light or seatbelt warning sounds. Pretty sure you can whittle that 100 million down at least 50 if not 95% and figure out what code actually controls the systems being reported as an issue.
In short, yes, if you're going to be educated in the field of vehicle safety, you can't claim ignorance to the _whole_ command and control system that lies in the computers that have existed in cars for more than a decade.
While off topic, your quote makes me weep for that school system. Take a Assistant Principle who can't follow the rules of the school, let alone the law, and put her in a position to _teach_ the kids.
Not only was that disgusting, the "punishment" is frikkin' SCARY.
Wait, I thought the school made a statement saying they never ever used the laptop "security feature" for anything besides recovering lost and/or stolen equipment.
How is snapping a picture of a student, with _no_ stolen laptop, following in line with their stated security policy?
Ya, we didn't use it for its intended purpose. Ya, we did snoop around to satisfy our curiosity, but.. but.. BUT.. LOOK AT THE DRUGS!
*Facts presented so far in this case are less than facts until a court rules. I don't claim to know what happened, I'm just a sheep parroting the hearsay I come across.
With all due respect, your anti-Obama rhetoric is making your political stance quite obvious and I wonder if part of your hatred of the move to private industry is clouded.
The fact of the matter is we do have backups in place right now. Commercial businesses are already launching satellites, let alone other nations. So if we need a satellite launched, we have options.
On the idea of "And let's not worry about the big frickin' rocks that occasionally could pummel us, and the space tech needed to even consider an option to stop that.", I'm quite certain that all we would need to do is get the top competitors into a room (read: people that have skill launching things) and tell them that whoever saves the earth gets 3 Billion dollars, we'll see some results.
Personally, what I find most odd about your posts is that you seem to hold NASA up on a pedestal. Really, they've killed a bunch of astronauts and they do so at a huge, HUGE, cost to the public. Yes, they have been moderately successful over the years, but beyond building a station that they seem content to decommission asap and landing men on the moon decades ago, they really haven't done anything private enterprise isn't doing already. Well, besides sending humans up to turn screws on ailing satellites.
Just a guess here, I'm no expert on the subject, but with federal funding, I'm sure the for _profit_ outfits might find reason to invest more into R&D.
Hang a big suitcase full of money in front of a business with the capability of making what you want and I can guarantee you if there is enough in that case, they will give you what you want.
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Just as an aside, analogies that try to compare "distractions" with life and death situations usually don't work, at all.
Life and death situations, such as driving 60 MPH through a parking lot can easily kill or maim many people. Playing video games and/or surfing in class is a distraction at best. One set of rules aims to save lives while the other aims to nanny a student.
I see what you're saying, but I have to disagree.
Most lecture halls I've ever been in were setup stadium style, this makes it very easy to see the board and the professor. Even if the person sitting "directly" in front of me (usually off to the side a tad) was playing WoW, it's still very easy to see the professor.
If this was a classroom where the open laptop partially obscures my view, I'd probably fully agree with you as it's always in your direct view. However, being off in a peripheral makes it quite easy to ignore.
I've been in classrooms in the past 10 years with other students playing games and I was able to see their screen quite easily. As long as I wasn't already distracted mentally, I never had an issue paying attention.
Just an FYI, lecture halls usually have 100+ students (easily) and don't go beyond some human up front talking for the _whole_ period only stopping to take a breath from time to time.
It's not a classroom setting, it's a lecture.
Whose education are those kids who are playing games during class, hurting?
Yours?
Another students?
Who is paying for those kids to sit in the classroom?
You?
The professor?
It's his money and his time. If he isn't being a distraction and hindering the education of the other students, then you really have no say, at all.
Would he get a better education if he wasn't playing games in class? Debatable. He could just as easily waste time doodling, texting on his cell, sleeping, or just plain bunking the class to do what he wants.
While you _think_ he should be doing something else. It's his (or his parents) dime. Not yours.
Seeing how this is college, I'm dumbfounded by the "nannying" going on here.
The way I see it, unless laptops as a whole are distracting to _other_ students then they are nothing more than another medium to take notes on. On the other hand, if I happen to have a laptop that makes a lot of noise (intended or not) and it is distracting the professor or other students, then I see a problem.
We all shit into buckets every day. Ours just happens to have a drain in it so the shit flows to a facility and they "compost" it. Well, at least they try to make it not harmful. Then they dump it into a body of water, usually.
This guy just takes out the middle man _and_ uses it to fertilize his garden/yard instead of flushing it down the drain, literally.
By the way, use your imagination for two seconds. Make a wooden box with a hole cut in the top, put a bucket in it and then put a normal toilet seat+lid on it. Furthermore, put it in your bathroom next to the normal toilet or replace the normal, flushing, toilet with the box.
The fact that you distill an idea of actually using, to your benefit, the "waste" you don't fully understand, down to a bucket in a yard is the exact reason the idea of doing this is "taboo" and/or third world.
I was actually thinking about vehicles.
What if you had enough of these in an "engine" where you have enough nanotubes to spread fuel onto to create energy. Instead of powering pistons you could push the energy to an electric motor and perhaps a battery.
I know, I know, we want to get away from fossil fuels and we may potentially be able to with this but even if we can't, if this is more energy efficient it may still be worth it.
I pay for my connection to the internet, I also pay for the hardware all sites plus their ads are displayed on. It is also my time that is taken by going to said sites, generally, it's time I wish to devote to those sites.
The problem is a lot of sites I frequent have malicious ads from time to time. There was a point where I played World of Warcraft and even the _reputable_ sites (worldofraids, mmo-champion, etc) had malicious ads served.
Then on sites that aren't gaming related, I started to see a _lot_ of fake virus scans, malware scans, etc. Fake system messages. It's just too much.
The problem now is, it's going to take more time to go through and verify if a site (currently) is non malicious in nature and whitelist them than it is to just block ads wholesale. If I never saw a legitimate, annoying, potentially damaging reason to start blocking ads, I never would have. The problem is, I can't trust those who don't know what ads are going to be served.
You can be a perfectly legitimate site and one day your ad "provider" decides to put up a malicious ad. Your site is now infected and so am I, potentially.
I simply won't and don't put up with the chance. The bonus is I don't see any other ads anymore either.
P.S. I don't think you give the market enough credit. If ads were banned from the internet all together, I'm sure the good sites will find a way to make a living. Ads are just the easiest way to get revenue. Take them away and the "next easiest way will prevail.
If you want to take my post out of context, I guess.
But my point, in this case, is what happens if the firmware was causing the problem? Ok, that's software too, should that "never" damage hardware as well? I mean, it's code written and compiled, right?
When it comes to video cards, there are at least two sets of software released by the manufacturer that run the card. One is the firmware and two is the driver. If either one bugs, it's software causing the hardware to fail.
I took the OP to mean "application" level software and I stand by my post. If he meant any software at all then he'd have to explain all the firmware screw ups over the years.
Do you care to discuss something? Or does it simply make you feel better to make fun of people that disagree with you and/or have a different opinion?
Software (read: applications) isn't destroying hardware in this case. The hardware itself is now "faulty" as the drivers have a pretty bad bug.
In my mind, this is no different than taking the the heatsink/fan off a CPU. That's a hardware issue. Doesn't matter what games, etc, you run, you risk killing that CPU because the CPU is under an abnormal operating condition.
While drivers are in control in the case we have here with nVidia, I see the drivers as part of the hardware since they were released by the manufacturer.
While it might be a slashvertisement, I still see the release of the first SSD by WD to be news worthy.
Can you step back and look at the big picture?
1) Going to the moon has what tangible short _or_ long term benefit to human kind that you can articulate now?
I'd argue you can't really. The science learned will be invaluable to certain fields, but right now it's a gamble at best. Yes, something good will come of it, granted, but what and when? Noone knows. I'm not saying it's not worth it, I'm suggesting there are more tangible things that can be done with money, now.
2) "Spreading the wealth around" is exactly what we need to do.
Bill Gates is doing a good thing for humanity and helping out in fields such as medicine (malaria), he even donates money to PBS, etc for education among other things. Can you say the same for the other billionaires on the planet? Probably not.
Look, the truth of the matter is, we have enough problems here at home (both in the US and in the world) that need to be addressed and fixed before we spend billions upon billions of dollars on building things on other planets.
Healthcare in the US is an absolute mess. I have friends that are downright uninsureable. One, due to cancer while he wasn't covered, he's absolutely boned. Noone will touch him with a stick let alone their money.
If that means my taxes go up 5%, so be it. If something happens to me, my wife, kids, parents, etc, I want to know they will be taken care of and not just looked at in terms of profitability.
Capitalism works to a certain extent. Human health is _not_ one of them.
The short of it is, I'm a science guy and I can see the benefit in taking money from pure science and potentially moving it to the health of our citizens.
I'm pretty well off as I live quite comfortably but I know many who aren't and they should have the same health care as I do. End of story.
* Yes, I took the healthcare "socialist" stance with this post. It is something I believe in and can articulate with personal experience.
It starts innocently. Say you come up with a new drink, it gets you a certain euphoria when you ingest it. It ends up becoming a huge hit and everyone wants it. In ten years, no deaths are attributed to it. Government doesn't do anything against it.
Now say I come up with another drink that also gives you a euphoria much like yours only a little stronger so people come to me. It catches on big time and a week later, people are dropping dead or at least extremely ill. Worse, it's habit forming and it's near epidemic levels. Do you really expect the government to sit back and wait it out?
No, they step in to "save" its citizens.
There _is_ a line between letting people enjoy themselves and letting people kill themselves in mass numbers.
You can do many things, right now, that are both harmful and still legal. Lets see, you could chew mouthful after mouthful of tobacco. You can suck down as many cigarettes as you possibly can. You could take as many OTC medications as you wish. You could drink yourself into a coma, etc.
All of those, will give you a high of different levels and all can cause you trouble of different levels especially depending on dosage.
What makes my listed "drugs" worse than the ones on the government black list? You could argue potency. But frankly I've seen people high on pot as well as drunk and I'd much rather hang out with those that are high. They are just a lot more lucid and aware.
My point being, that a drug is a drug. Whether it is on a government black list or not, anyone can _choose_ to abuse them, use them in moderation, or stay clear.
If you're a person who needs a vice, you'll find one, I assure you. I don't care what the government says, you'll find a cure for your "need".
Drugs are all around us in different forms and _always_ have. They aren't bad and some are even good for you at different times. Labeling "drugs" as bad is just short sighted and, dare I say, ignorant.
When it comes down to it... Stupid people are stupid and if they are bent on finding something terrible to do until it kills them, well, that's what they are going to do. Drugs don't do _anything_ but grow and/or sit there. It takes a willing person to pick it up and abuse it to become "bad".
First, this is about your safety.
Second, if the update bricks your car, that would be Toyota's fault, not yours and I'm pretty sure they would resolve the issue for you free of charge.
Or, you can keep driving a potentially unsafe vehicle on "firmware update" principles.
Actually, if one piece of space junk hits another piece of space junk, the net result will probably be more than two pieces of space junk. No, nothing of value was lost, however, now there is even more junk to worry about. The volume of junk may not have changed, but the odds of the new count of junk encountering something of value changes. However, I must note that it could _drop_ the chances if the orbits degrade because of the collision. But I have a feeling that's a futile point to get stuck on. The point is, junk encountering junk makes more junk to worry about.
True, however, there aren't many orbits that are useful (which you mention). Geosynchronous orbit, for example, is at a very specific altitude and speed. Put to much junk in that orbit or into an orbit that ends up passing through it and you have the potential to shut down all traffic in that orbit.
That's just one example.
You also have to understand the immense speeds things travel up there. Most of these items are traveling at faster than bullet speeds (6867+ mph for Geo Sync if my source is correct).
Point here is, very expensive things are sitting up there in a proverbial shooting gallery. A lot of open space works great when it's two people alone adrift on the ocean. It's entirely another when we're talking thousands of bullets zinging around.
Since you seem to want to keep using data you're making up. All I can say at this point is "citation needed". Just to stay on topic and add to our "discussion", I'd submit that Toyota has x amount of programmers and so far they have failed to fix the issue. One, ten, a million more coders might actually help solve the issue. Seems Toyota's engineers have patently failed in this instance.
Your counter-argument appears to be based on a false assumption. I didn't say, nor mean, that any old software engineer should be directly interfacing with any car companies. I'm suggesting that you need software people who can understand what is going on under the hood.
If they are investigating an issue and they have the knowledge and access to the software, they can try to find obvious flaws or at least sets of code that relate to the problem at hand. If they have _suspicions_ the code may be at fault they can let the car company sort it out on their own and allow open communication between the NHSTA engineers and the car companies engineers.
Now, if the report comes back from the car company that totally mismatches what the NHTSA software engineers know to be true, then you know something is amiss and needs to be investigate further and/or again.
But apparently you're the expert since you've coded before. Just to point out, so have I. And anecdotally, having someone else see my code and point out a flaw is very refreshing. Another set of eyes has helped on _countless_ occasions. Of course, YMMV and apparently it does, completely.
Well, if you don't know what you're asking for, how would you ever know if the answer they give you is even close to reality?
"Hey, I need you to investigate x, I have no idea how to even analyze x, but I trust you will investigate it exhaustively!"
"Sure, we fully investigated x and it's fine."
"Oh, ok, we'll take your word for it, thanks!"
You have to at least be able to understand what's going on to a certain degree before you can tell someone to fully investigate it _and_ then trust their results.
So yes, they should have a set of engineers who can read code well enough to know what is doing what and ask a company to exhaustively test it.
Finally, 100 million lines of code sounds like an awful lot of code for a throttle and/or braking system. I have a feeling that number is bloated to include things like when to pop on the low fuel light or seatbelt warning sounds. Pretty sure you can whittle that 100 million down at least 50 if not 95% and figure out what code actually controls the systems being reported as an issue.
In short, yes, if you're going to be educated in the field of vehicle safety, you can't claim ignorance to the _whole_ command and control system that lies in the computers that have existed in cars for more than a decade.
While off topic, your quote makes me weep for that school system. Take a Assistant Principle who can't follow the rules of the school, let alone the law, and put her in a position to _teach_ the kids.
Not only was that disgusting, the "punishment" is frikkin' SCARY.
Wait, I thought the school made a statement saying they never ever used the laptop "security feature" for anything besides recovering lost and/or stolen equipment.
How is snapping a picture of a student, with _no_ stolen laptop, following in line with their stated security policy?
Ya, we didn't use it for its intended purpose. Ya, we did snoop around to satisfy our curiosity, but.. but.. BUT.. LOOK AT THE DRUGS!
*Facts presented so far in this case are less than facts until a court rules. I don't claim to know what happened, I'm just a sheep parroting the hearsay I come across.
With all due respect, your anti-Obama rhetoric is making your political stance quite obvious and I wonder if part of your hatred of the move to private industry is clouded.
The fact of the matter is we do have backups in place right now. Commercial businesses are already launching satellites, let alone other nations. So if we need a satellite launched, we have options.
On the idea of "And let's not worry about the big frickin' rocks that occasionally could pummel us, and the space tech needed to even consider an option to stop that.", I'm quite certain that all we would need to do is get the top competitors into a room (read: people that have skill launching things) and tell them that whoever saves the earth gets 3 Billion dollars, we'll see some results.
Personally, what I find most odd about your posts is that you seem to hold NASA up on a pedestal. Really, they've killed a bunch of astronauts and they do so at a huge, HUGE, cost to the public. Yes, they have been moderately successful over the years, but beyond building a station that they seem content to decommission asap and landing men on the moon decades ago, they really haven't done anything private enterprise isn't doing already. Well, besides sending humans up to turn screws on ailing satellites.
Just a guess here, I'm no expert on the subject, but with federal funding, I'm sure the for _profit_ outfits might find reason to invest more into R&D.
Hang a big suitcase full of money in front of a business with the capability of making what you want and I can guarantee you if there is enough in that case, they will give you what you want.