Science does not operate in a vacuum. It needs both public and political support and for that, you definitely need those photo ops... and while a Mars flyby might provide that, a trip to the L1 point won't look especially different from the average space station trip aside from the vehicle used. Just lots of space. Without the pretty pictures, congresspeople who usually don't know any better start asking what the point of NASA is and fight to de-fund it even more.
Reminds me of a story my father, who grew up in Britain in the 1930s and 1940s, told me about a government proposal to put baths in every home. One of the ministers objected to it because the poor would 'just use it to store coal.' Thankfully, that man wasn't listened to.
AT&T should be more like Wal-Mart? Does that mean I should get calls at 3 a.m. from housewives yelling at the top of their lungs with 18 screaming kids? Because that's pretty much my late-night Wal-Mart experience.
I'm guessing this is based on locality. From my admittedly limited experience, there are a lot of Japanese games which feature people who are pretty clearly Asian. Many of them don't even get exported out of Japan.
Yeah, but I'm guessing the South Park episode didn't feature a time-traveling Elvis who has picked up an English accent with the aid of an intelligent time travel sprout that lives in his brain.
I have doubts whether SETI will ever find evidence of life on other worlds. If nothing else, the inverse square law pretty much rules out our picking up any transmission which wasn't intentionally broadcast to us and we have a very small frequency band to search since we pollute much of the EM spectrum with various electronics. On top of this, for all we know, none of the other intelligent, technologically-advanced civilizations rely on modulating EM radiation for communications. On the other hand, Carl Sagan once said that even if we have evidence that there are no other intelligent civilizations out there, we should keep looking anyway just in case we're wrong.
That's one of the major plot threads in Robert Rankin's novel, Armageddon: The Musical. The entire purpose of the Earth is to provide TV entertainment for an alien civilization who has been manipulating humans into doing things to please their viewers and have decided to end the series with a huge apocalypse.
People cite braille on drive-up ATMs as political correctness gone crazy or the ludicrousness of government regulation, but the real reason that there is braille on drive-up ATMs is that it's not cost-effective to make two sets of ATM machines, one with braille and one without, especially since the braille has absolutely no effect on the way the machine functions. A second, braille-free model would just be for cosmetic reasons.
It has nothing to do with laziness and everything to do with the way this country is structured. With a few exceptions (New York City, San Francisco and a couple of other cities), the U.S. is very spread out, even in urban areas. It can be several miles to the nearest bank and that can be in the opposite direction of the supermarket. There are also places like certain shopping malls which are nearly impossible to access on foot. Our public transportation systems are woefully inadequate as well, making a car pretty essential for most people in the United States. On top of all of this, some bank branches don't have any ATMs other than the drive-up window.
Isn't there a fourth option? Namely- use Soyuz to transport people from now on until NASA develops something else that can dock with the station. I'm still pissed off that they canceled the habitation and gravity research modules- both after the modules had already been assembled!
If the subject came up, as it did in this case, yes I would. Whether or not something is popular has nothing to do with my like or dislike of it or my willingness to say so.
We really are not ready for this kind of power as mankind.
That's irrelevant. The genie is already out of the bottle. Nuclear power is not going away. Even if you ban it in one place, another place will be more than happy to invest in it. Some countries, like France, would be in a lot of trouble if there were a unilateral ban on nuclear power plants and even the U.S., which doesn't have that many plants, would be in dire straits considering nuclear power is an essential part of the grid in several major U.S. cities.
It's become a source of unending comedy as spammers who aren't very good at English in the first place use a dictionary and thesaurus to get past the filtering software resulting in extremely entertaining subject lines. For example-
YOU REMEMBER WHEN SEX WAS THE LAST TIME? REFRESH THE MEMORY OF VIA GRA!
No more hair Rogaining medicine.
GIRLS DO ANYTHING FOR A BIG HOSE
It boosts your rod!
Make two days nailing marathon
for your delicate advantage
And all that is just from the most recent page in my spam folder.
The food will be half the price and half the quality. If all you care about is not spending money on groceries, you can live on ramen like many a college student. When I was in college, you could get 20-packs of it for $5. I imagine it's not that much more expensive these days. I don't care whether or not people shop at Wal-Mart. A lot of times, it's pretty much their only option. What I do care about is that the foods I buy for myself are of decent enough quality for me to enjoy them and reap the nutritional benefits as well. That's why I buy my produce from farmer's markets. It costs about the same as the supermarket and it tastes a lot better because it isn't grown for durability in transport. I think the biggest crime that the big box stores like Wal-Mart are guilty of is getting us to stop caring about quality food or durable, well-made goods because the prices are low in the short-term.
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Science does not operate in a vacuum. It needs both public and political support and for that, you definitely need those photo ops... and while a Mars flyby might provide that, a trip to the L1 point won't look especially different from the average space station trip aside from the vehicle used. Just lots of space. Without the pretty pictures, congresspeople who usually don't know any better start asking what the point of NASA is and fight to de-fund it even more.
Reminds me of a story my father, who grew up in Britain in the 1930s and 1940s, told me about a government proposal to put baths in every home. One of the ministers objected to it because the poor would 'just use it to store coal.' Thankfully, that man wasn't listened to.
Remind me to never eat meat at your house.
Did the person who sold your friend the rare Sony iPod also offer genuine Rolex watches?
AT&T should be more like Wal-Mart? Does that mean I should get calls at 3 a.m. from housewives yelling at the top of their lungs with 18 screaming kids? Because that's pretty much my late-night Wal-Mart experience.
Civil wars have no winners. That's why the United States is a British colony.
I'm guessing this is based on locality. From my admittedly limited experience, there are a lot of Japanese games which feature people who are pretty clearly Asian. Many of them don't even get exported out of Japan.
Yeah, but I'm guessing the South Park episode didn't feature a time-traveling Elvis who has picked up an English accent with the aid of an intelligent time travel sprout that lives in his brain.
I have doubts whether SETI will ever find evidence of life on other worlds. If nothing else, the inverse square law pretty much rules out our picking up any transmission which wasn't intentionally broadcast to us and we have a very small frequency band to search since we pollute much of the EM spectrum with various electronics. On top of this, for all we know, none of the other intelligent, technologically-advanced civilizations rely on modulating EM radiation for communications. On the other hand, Carl Sagan once said that even if we have evidence that there are no other intelligent civilizations out there, we should keep looking anyway just in case we're wrong.
That's one of the major plot threads in Robert Rankin's novel, Armageddon: The Musical. The entire purpose of the Earth is to provide TV entertainment for an alien civilization who has been manipulating humans into doing things to please their viewers and have decided to end the series with a huge apocalypse.
Will you please cite said law?
People cite braille on drive-up ATMs as political correctness gone crazy or the ludicrousness of government regulation, but the real reason that there is braille on drive-up ATMs is that it's not cost-effective to make two sets of ATM machines, one with braille and one without, especially since the braille has absolutely no effect on the way the machine functions. A second, braille-free model would just be for cosmetic reasons.
It has nothing to do with laziness and everything to do with the way this country is structured. With a few exceptions (New York City, San Francisco and a couple of other cities), the U.S. is very spread out, even in urban areas. It can be several miles to the nearest bank and that can be in the opposite direction of the supermarket. There are also places like certain shopping malls which are nearly impossible to access on foot. Our public transportation systems are woefully inadequate as well, making a car pretty essential for most people in the United States. On top of all of this, some bank branches don't have any ATMs other than the drive-up window.
No one ever sends me SMS messages, so I'd be flattered they noticed me if I was hacked. So lonely...
Isn't there a fourth option? Namely- use Soyuz to transport people from now on until NASA develops something else that can dock with the station. I'm still pissed off that they canceled the habitation and gravity research modules- both after the modules had already been assembled!
I, for one, refuse to download that App until it has a voice like Douglas Rain and calls me Dave.
If the subject came up, as it did in this case, yes I would. Whether or not something is popular has nothing to do with my like or dislike of it or my willingness to say so.
I don't suddenly hate Dan Brown. I've hated Dan Brown since I tried to read Angels & Demons when it came out nine years ago.
That's irrelevant. The genie is already out of the bottle. Nuclear power is not going away. Even if you ban it in one place, another place will be more than happy to invest in it. Some countries, like France, would be in a lot of trouble if there were a unilateral ban on nuclear power plants and even the U.S., which doesn't have that many plants, would be in dire straits considering nuclear power is an essential part of the grid in several major U.S. cities.
They aren't. I'm not talking about processed food, I'm talking about fresh food- seafood, meat, produce.
Ever since I saw The Mousetrap, I've been very suspicious of Miss Marple's true reasons for always being there when someone has been murdered...
That's like asking me to imagine what an Agatha Christie novel would read like if no one committed a crime.
YOU REMEMBER WHEN SEX WAS THE LAST TIME? REFRESH THE MEMORY OF VIA GRA!
No more hair Rogaining medicine.
GIRLS DO ANYTHING FOR A BIG HOSE
It boosts your rod!
Make two days nailing marathon
for your delicate advantage
And all that is just from the most recent page in my spam folder.
This is the corporate/litigation equivalent of running to the teacher after being called a mean name by another kid.
The food will be half the price and half the quality. If all you care about is not spending money on groceries, you can live on ramen like many a college student. When I was in college, you could get 20-packs of it for $5. I imagine it's not that much more expensive these days. I don't care whether or not people shop at Wal-Mart. A lot of times, it's pretty much their only option. What I do care about is that the foods I buy for myself are of decent enough quality for me to enjoy them and reap the nutritional benefits as well. That's why I buy my produce from farmer's markets. It costs about the same as the supermarket and it tastes a lot better because it isn't grown for durability in transport. I think the biggest crime that the big box stores like Wal-Mart are guilty of is getting us to stop caring about quality food or durable, well-made goods because the prices are low in the short-term.