Wait. I just figured it out. The reason kids use text messaging instead of phone calls is because you can do a text message under your desk, in the back seat of the car, at the restaurant, and 90% of the time no one is going to call you on it, other than to say "what are you doing?". But if you were sitting on the phone talking for the same amount of time, well that would most definitely get you in serious trouble (1000 text messages / month, huh?), especially in school where you really can't just sit in class jabbering away on the phone. I notice it's also a nice handy way for kids to semi-diss their parents, with help from the Youth-Are-Gods media culture ("gawd, dad, you just don't GET it, do you?").
If I were a parent I think I would eliminate texting from my kid's toolset, at least until they are out of school. Then, feel free.
The problem as I see it is that the Internet was designed with conflicting design goals. The two conflicting goals were 1) Allow Anonymity and 2) Allow Business Critical Transactions. Those two requirements create an insurmountable conflict for the design of the Internet. You can not possibly (it is impossible) to achieve both simultaneously. The result is exactly what we see today - various efforts to "ID" people on the net, and the counter outcry from all of us who have gotten used to the idea that we should be allowed to be anonymous on the Internet. Originally, the designers could have added a strong authentication protocol to the Internet. They refused (it was discussed at the time, iirc) on the grounds that they did not want to create "the big brother machine". Originally, they wanted business to Stay Out, and for the net to be used exclusively for academic purposes and knowledge sharing. Laudable, but completely unrealistic given the overwhelming advantages to business for a Business Critical Transactional system. So... here we are.
My suggestion is to create a new Internet just for business, medical and legal, called BCTNet, and leave the old one alone (I would call it JunkNet) for those who don't mind getting hacked and viruses etc on their machines (but would no longer ever dream of doing any sort of business transaction). The fact is that with strong authentication hacking and virus uploading and scriptkiddidom would be severely curtailed. That said, JunkNet would still have the problem that terrorists can use it as their primary means of communications, which is actually exactly what they are doing today. SSL is their friend. Anonymity is not necessarily the friend of Civilization. I have yet to hear a convincing argument why Civilization requires it. Seems to me that most of what Anonymity is used for is illegal or immoral activity. Oh, and anonymous political discourse, I guess. Hmmm... maybe.
It is a serious problem. I don't see much in the way of serious solutions. Microsoft's proposed solution is, predictably, totally backwards. Instead of approaching the topic from the direction of "how do we secure a BCT system?", they instead are asking themselves "How do we most greedily and sickly exploit the fundamental weakness of the Internet and our users to make more money and build the Big Brother system that the Internet guy deprived us of?" I suspect this is a strong subconscious impulse on the part of those who are at MS (and now at Google too). Or so it would seem. Maybe they can bother to make clear exactly what their intentions really are? Oh Gaffaw gaffaw! LOL.
The bee disappearance suddenly began in America this year. It spread to Europe. But America and Eupope have both had cell phones for many years. If it was cell phones then wouldn't we have seen this effect progressively over time, instead of all of a sudden?
I read somewhere that the magnetic fields of the earth and the sun are linked via the electromagnetic fields of the solar system. I am wondering if there is any chance that the use of intense magnetic field generators such as super colliders on the earth could arc to the sun, and potentially cause solar effects (such as an increase in solar flares), or significant disturbances in the solar system's electromagnetic fields? I know that when you hold an iron nail too close to an electrical source there can form an arc of electricity. Is it possible for an arc of any kind to be created due to these kinds of magnetic field generators? How vulnerable is the earth's electromagnetic field to fluctuations that might be caused by intense magnetic field generators? I'm just wondering if there is any possibility that these devices could cause untoward large scale effects? Thanks.
There is an old kindergarten lesson that goes like this "Don't build anything taller than your head - it could come crashing down on you." That's what this reminds me of. You can build it. But is it wise to do so?
This actually seems like a weak spot for FOSS from a Corporate perspective. Programming is not easy, requires a lot of training, focus and skill, and should be rewarded. If it is not payed then the developer has every right to say "I'm doing this for free, so..." and I really don't blame you at all for taking that attitude. I would. But from my point of view as a Corporate IT Guy, free is very nice (of course), but only if it comes with High Quality - which includes comprehensive documentation, reliability, and accountability. So to my mind it seems the FOSS system is good for some things, but not necessarily so good for the Corporate world. Of course that would probably mostly apply to FOSS, and not OSS where we could demand (for a fee) comprehensive documentation, but since you bring up FOSS I thought I would respond to that.
"On the other hand quality of OSS software can be low, documentation often sucks and user friendliness is also an issue although with some proprietary stuff such as certain Oracle products for example user friendliness is nothing to cheer about either and I have seen proprietary software that made me wonder where people get the nerve to demand money for such crap."
Another problem I foresee for OSS software is that it may tend to mutate over time without strict controls or much in the way of accountability. What works today may not work tomorrow and when things in your corporation start breaking whose throat are you going to choke? No ones. You just shrug and with a sheepish grin say "Well, ha ha, that's OSS. Ha ha. Its funny boss, common. We'll its free, anyway so what are you complaining about?". After the pink slip comes you can have a last laugh over beer. Ha ha. To my mind this is the actual problem with OSS. Accountability is nill. With MS products the same defects are there (though less so as it turns out (predictably)), but in their case at least we know who to blame and can expect the product to be fixed. With OSS I see no way to assure that.
The solution to the competitive model of OSS for the Big Vendors is very simple. Change the EULA so that if you buy a copy you own it. Get rid of the entire license key infrastructure. The EULA and the license key infrastructure were created to "protect" software vendors from Piracy. That failed because it's a bad concept. The effect has been to irritate legitimate users, while completely failing to stop piracy. The institution of the EULA (you can thank Congress I believe for that moronic move) also has given rise to another unintended consequence: The software even from the major vendors often comes bug infested, leaving it to the users to discover and report the bugs. Why? Because the EULA covers their asses so no one is allowed to sue them for defective products. They ALSO try to use the EULA to take legal control of the software on your machine. That's insane, but read Microsoft's EULA for Media Player 10. They demand the right to turn off "unauthorized" software components on your machine or some such. This intrusion is what makes the EULA a frightening mess. Congress should repeal it and let the software companies fix their junk or be sued by irate users.
The EULA is the problem. OSS is not the solution. It simply dumps one set of problems for another. As a Corporate developer, btw, I'd stick with Microsoft anyway. I need high quality software that has good documentation and support. Period.
Thanks for the thoughts.
What about just taking a motion picture of the objects as they move. Perhaps by doing a kind of strobe effect, say one pulse per second for one minute? This should provide something like a dash-dot effect so that speed and trajectory could be calculated. As for the visible light, I see what you mean. Perhaps radio waves at various frequencies?
As for the economic factor - Earth-based telescopes are more economic unless they do not do the job sufficiently and as a result we get hit with a major asteroid - that would dampen the economy considerably. Thus, the cost of setting up a good system would be outweighed by the cost of failing to do so - if we were to get hit. Anyway, my thinking is that it would probably be worth the investment to get a reliable space object tracking system up.
On the other hand, if ground past telescopes are sufficient then we should probably stick with it. I would just hate to miss something though, so it seems like a comprehensive tracking system would be the safest bet, even if expensive.
A - I suppose the position of the satellite would not have to be stationary so long as it's position could be determined with accuracy so that as the position changes the data could be correlated to the actual positions of the objects being tracked. It could be set in orbit around the sun. The objective of getting off the planetary orbit plane is to get an overview shot so that the sun, earth and moon would not obscure the view of asteroids. The photographic equipment, of course, would have to incorporate something to block out the sun's light at the center of the image. My assumption here being that most asteroids (the vast percentage) are in the planetary orbital plane, so getting a comprehensive view would require being above the plane looking "down". Also, the satellite would have to be sufficiently far away to get a good view, and the recording equipment would need to be sufficiently sensitive to detect relatively small objects.
B - Yes, the ping reflections would take some hours for more distant objects so the recording equipment would need to take that into account. However, since the ping occurs once per day it should not be a problem to collect the data, and then transmit the results once per day.
I've always wondered if we could create a device that does the following: 1. Go into a position above the plane on which the planets rotate around the sun so it looks "down" on the solar system. 2. flash a bright light of a specified color every day at a certain time. 3. read back the ping signature of the solar system's objects with a light sensitive camera. 4. plug the changes into a computer. 5. calculate trajectories of all objects. 6. determine exactly which ones are on a bee-line for earth. 7. continue to monitor for any surprises. 8. focus on those objects that show they will come close to earth for deflection.
Is this possible to do? Or am I missing a fundamental something-or-other? Thanks.
I am to understand that our Galaxy rotates on its axis once ever 250 million years or so. If that is right, and the universe is 13 or 14 billion years old, then it would seem that we get this:
age of Universe = 13,000,000,000
Years for one rotation of galaxy = 250,000,000
Total Rotations = age / rotation
52 Total Rotations since Universe began?
First, is that about right? Second, if that is right then my question is how do galaxies obtain their distinctive shapes after such few rotations? I ask because the ratio of turns to shapes (especially in the case of bar galaxies, and other sharply defined shapes) seems counter intuitive to me.
Right. With that I agree. I'm actually in favor doing the right thing, and not messing with other people, or stealing from them, or whatever it is that malicious people do. I'm in favor of America being a force for Good in this world. You bet.
But I also have thought about what that means. I'll give you an example I was thinking about in the 1980's when I learned about the activities going on in Central America. I was very disturbed by the method used because it was sneaky, and I didn't like it for that reason. Instead of coming out in front and saying, "Listen up, Communists infiltrators, we're America and we're not going to mess around with you. If you come over here to stir up trouble and bring weapons and create chaos then we're going to engage you in no uncertain terms until you stop. That means war. And we're not kidding about it. We will come down there and stuff you down your throat, and you know we can do it. And we will. If you don't stop."
I would have preferred that honest approach. But you have to realise the price we would have had to pay for that honesty. We would have had to risk war. Real war. Unlimited real war - until they capitulate. That war would have cost lives - or could have. The point is not that we would have fought a war - its that we would have to have really been willing to do so. If not then the threat would be empty - and they would have instead of backing down, invested more in infiltration, seeking to overthrow our way of life. We were responding to those who were sneaking up on us - as we must respond now.
Had we not done anything then the threat would have grown. And as the Communists saw that we could be overcome, they would have tried to do so, if for no other reason than to eliminate us as a threat to them. However, they could not do so, and eventually we proved the stronger, for now. Communism, by the way, is not exactly dead, since there are many people who still believe that it is something other than the rule of the few over the many using economics as well as force, nor to they link successfully the deed of starving dozens of millions of people, nor take note that we in our country never contemplated doing anything even remotely like that. That we are, in fact, the Good Guys, AND that there are a whole bunch of people out there who are actually really pretty damn evil.
Its a tough nut to crack. How DO you deal with that? Like our involvement in the middle east. It's been tortured to say the least. But why? Well, my take on it is that we did a lot of things to try to save Israel, our ally, from the menace that ever threatens her. From before the creation of Israel, during the 1930's, Arafat's father was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. He instructed the Germans on his already developed techniques of Judeocide, which he was perfecting in Israel on Jews who lived there as part of the community since time immemorial. Well that menace has not vanished. The only thing that has happenned is that the Jews founded their state right in the heart of the enemy who was trying to destroy them. It was a divine justice and the Jews decided to stop being kicked in the face any more and decided to found their own state after WWII was over. The UN was for it. Everyone was for it. Except the Arabs who hated the Jews. And so on the first day of the state of Israel the Arabs tried to smash the tiny newborn state. But they failed. And the Jews, like the warriors of the ancient days, drove back their Arab brothers. Yet again and again the Arabs tried to push Israel into the sea. But she would not budge. Now the Arabs, having been truly humiliated by their own arrogance, pride, and insatiable anger, and the might of their own sibling people, are again, working toward the destruction of Israel.
So what does the United States do, with its revolving door leadership? Play it's hand as best it can each Administration, with changing goals and priorities, and not as some sort of giant one minded Nation, but as a plurality and constantly shifting dialectic.
So your counter-analogy, which is really bullshit, is that its ok that they killed someone's kid because "they had it coming". Right. You realise of course that what you said makes no sense. But no. You don't. Whatever. Talk with a fool...
There once was a person who had a nice house and a nice family. One day thugs showed up and bashed in through a back window and killed a child shouting that they did it because the nice people in the house left their garbage on the edge of sidewalk. Then a neighbor from across the street, terrified that the thugs might strike his house, insisted that "the only reason we have anything to fear from murderous thugs is because we put our garbage out. You can't fight an idea, but you can arrange things so that people don't have any motive to murder us." Other equally wise neighbors agreed, and so they started to keep their garbage in their living rooms instead. Not long after that the all of the nice people in the house were found beheaded in their basement, along with the people who lent aid and comfort to the enemy. When reporting this the liberal news media suggested that the cause of the violence was garbage and that the people of the neighborhood were dirty, and deserved what they got.
Then the world blew up and that ended the story.
Solo inventors have a major problem because of the defects of the patent system as it has evolved. It used to be helpful, I guess, but now it is instead a major inhibitor. A) Patents are expensive. B) the provide almost no protection against big companies who just run roughshod over the court system until the grind the little guy into the dust and steal their ideas anyway. Therefore there is a HUGE disincentive for solo inventors to field their inventions no matter how good the invention is, or how much it might benefit society as a whole. When facing a fundamentally broken and totally unfair patent system I would think that many inventors wind up feeling that they would rather not produce the invention rather than produce it and then see it stolen from them by some big corporation.
How to fix it? The abuses of the patent system must be punishable by massive fines. Also the patent system should return to its original guidelines. What appears to have happened is that the Patent Office has decided that awarding as many patents as possible is a good idea and lost the concept of due diligence. They need to throw out a huge number of patents (sorry no money back) that defy the original patent mandate.
Roughly that's how I think you fix it. But I'm no lawyer. It is simply common sense.
Superior attitude! I commend you. You are among those who provide value by working around problems with the goal of doing the right thing for your employer in mind. And why should you not have that attitude? It is normal. After all, whenever we work for an employer we make a contract with them that we will provide services in exchange for money. It is our duty to honor that contract by providing the best work we can while we are there. And if we don't like it because we feel that the management or conditions render the situation unworkable, we have, thank God, the right, in this country anyway (America), to find another job, or better yet, start our own businesses. I feel the same way, and also provide value to my employer, despite the Dilbertization of the enterprise over the years. I'm a fan of 'The Tao of Programming'.
Thank you for raising this perspective to our attention. Carry on.
"Globular clusters, which are found in the halo of a galaxy, contain considerably more stars and are much older than the less dense galactic, or open clusters, which are found in the disk."
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globular_cluster
What this makes me wonder is how the Globular Cluster, being much older than other galactic structures neither spins, nor contracts into itself. I would think that a Black Hole at the center would gobble the stars closest to it, increasing its gravitational attraction so that all of the surrounding stars would free fall straight "down" into it. The spin of other galaxies makes it so that stars do not just fall straight down into their own central black holes, but instead fall in a spiral toward it so that it takes a very long time for them to fall into it. But the Globular Cluster, with stars just hanging there in a spherical shape around it... I must ask - how come the stars have not fallen into the center long, long ago? Anyone have a theory on that?
Slashdot Mirror
Wait. I just figured it out. The reason kids use text messaging instead of phone calls is because you can do a text message under your desk, in the back seat of the car, at the restaurant, and 90% of the time no one is going to call you on it, other than to say "what are you doing?". But if you were sitting on the phone talking for the same amount of time, well that would most definitely get you in serious trouble (1000 text messages / month, huh?), especially in school where you really can't just sit in class jabbering away on the phone. I notice it's also a nice handy way for kids to semi-diss their parents, with help from the Youth-Are-Gods media culture ("gawd, dad, you just don't GET it, do you?"). If I were a parent I think I would eliminate texting from my kid's toolset, at least until they are out of school. Then, feel free.
The problem as I see it is that the Internet was designed with conflicting design goals. The two conflicting goals were 1) Allow Anonymity and 2) Allow Business Critical Transactions. Those two requirements create an insurmountable conflict for the design of the Internet. You can not possibly (it is impossible) to achieve both simultaneously. The result is exactly what we see today - various efforts to "ID" people on the net, and the counter outcry from all of us who have gotten used to the idea that we should be allowed to be anonymous on the Internet. Originally, the designers could have added a strong authentication protocol to the Internet. They refused (it was discussed at the time, iirc) on the grounds that they did not want to create "the big brother machine". Originally, they wanted business to Stay Out, and for the net to be used exclusively for academic purposes and knowledge sharing. Laudable, but completely unrealistic given the overwhelming advantages to business for a Business Critical Transactional system. So... here we are. My suggestion is to create a new Internet just for business, medical and legal, called BCTNet, and leave the old one alone (I would call it JunkNet) for those who don't mind getting hacked and viruses etc on their machines (but would no longer ever dream of doing any sort of business transaction). The fact is that with strong authentication hacking and virus uploading and scriptkiddidom would be severely curtailed. That said, JunkNet would still have the problem that terrorists can use it as their primary means of communications, which is actually exactly what they are doing today. SSL is their friend. Anonymity is not necessarily the friend of Civilization. I have yet to hear a convincing argument why Civilization requires it. Seems to me that most of what Anonymity is used for is illegal or immoral activity. Oh, and anonymous political discourse, I guess. Hmmm... maybe. It is a serious problem. I don't see much in the way of serious solutions. Microsoft's proposed solution is, predictably, totally backwards. Instead of approaching the topic from the direction of "how do we secure a BCT system?", they instead are asking themselves "How do we most greedily and sickly exploit the fundamental weakness of the Internet and our users to make more money and build the Big Brother system that the Internet guy deprived us of?" I suspect this is a strong subconscious impulse on the part of those who are at MS (and now at Google too). Or so it would seem. Maybe they can bother to make clear exactly what their intentions really are? Oh Gaffaw gaffaw! LOL.
The bee disappearance suddenly began in America this year. It spread to Europe. But America and Eupope have both had cell phones for many years. If it was cell phones then wouldn't we have seen this effect progressively over time, instead of all of a sudden?
I read somewhere that the magnetic fields of the earth and the sun are linked via the electromagnetic fields of the solar system. I am wondering if there is any chance that the use of intense magnetic field generators such as super colliders on the earth could arc to the sun, and potentially cause solar effects (such as an increase in solar flares), or significant disturbances in the solar system's electromagnetic fields? I know that when you hold an iron nail too close to an electrical source there can form an arc of electricity. Is it possible for an arc of any kind to be created due to these kinds of magnetic field generators? How vulnerable is the earth's electromagnetic field to fluctuations that might be caused by intense magnetic field generators? I'm just wondering if there is any possibility that these devices could cause untoward large scale effects? Thanks.
There is an old kindergarten lesson that goes like this "Don't build anything taller than your head - it could come crashing down on you." That's what this reminds me of. You can build it. But is it wise to do so?
This actually seems like a weak spot for FOSS from a Corporate perspective. Programming is not easy, requires a lot of training, focus and skill, and should be rewarded. If it is not payed then the developer has every right to say "I'm doing this for free, so..." and I really don't blame you at all for taking that attitude. I would. But from my point of view as a Corporate IT Guy, free is very nice (of course), but only if it comes with High Quality - which includes comprehensive documentation, reliability, and accountability. So to my mind it seems the FOSS system is good for some things, but not necessarily so good for the Corporate world. Of course that would probably mostly apply to FOSS, and not OSS where we could demand (for a fee) comprehensive documentation, but since you bring up FOSS I thought I would respond to that.
"On the other hand quality of OSS software can be low, documentation often sucks and user friendliness is also an issue although with some proprietary stuff such as certain Oracle products for example user friendliness is nothing to cheer about either and I have seen proprietary software that made me wonder where people get the nerve to demand money for such crap." Another problem I foresee for OSS software is that it may tend to mutate over time without strict controls or much in the way of accountability. What works today may not work tomorrow and when things in your corporation start breaking whose throat are you going to choke? No ones. You just shrug and with a sheepish grin say "Well, ha ha, that's OSS. Ha ha. Its funny boss, common. We'll its free, anyway so what are you complaining about?". After the pink slip comes you can have a last laugh over beer. Ha ha. To my mind this is the actual problem with OSS. Accountability is nill. With MS products the same defects are there (though less so as it turns out (predictably)), but in their case at least we know who to blame and can expect the product to be fixed. With OSS I see no way to assure that. The solution to the competitive model of OSS for the Big Vendors is very simple. Change the EULA so that if you buy a copy you own it. Get rid of the entire license key infrastructure. The EULA and the license key infrastructure were created to "protect" software vendors from Piracy. That failed because it's a bad concept. The effect has been to irritate legitimate users, while completely failing to stop piracy. The institution of the EULA (you can thank Congress I believe for that moronic move) also has given rise to another unintended consequence: The software even from the major vendors often comes bug infested, leaving it to the users to discover and report the bugs. Why? Because the EULA covers their asses so no one is allowed to sue them for defective products. They ALSO try to use the EULA to take legal control of the software on your machine. That's insane, but read Microsoft's EULA for Media Player 10. They demand the right to turn off "unauthorized" software components on your machine or some such. This intrusion is what makes the EULA a frightening mess. Congress should repeal it and let the software companies fix their junk or be sued by irate users. The EULA is the problem. OSS is not the solution. It simply dumps one set of problems for another. As a Corporate developer, btw, I'd stick with Microsoft anyway. I need high quality software that has good documentation and support. Period.
Thanks for the thoughts. What about just taking a motion picture of the objects as they move. Perhaps by doing a kind of strobe effect, say one pulse per second for one minute? This should provide something like a dash-dot effect so that speed and trajectory could be calculated. As for the visible light, I see what you mean. Perhaps radio waves at various frequencies? As for the economic factor - Earth-based telescopes are more economic unless they do not do the job sufficiently and as a result we get hit with a major asteroid - that would dampen the economy considerably. Thus, the cost of setting up a good system would be outweighed by the cost of failing to do so - if we were to get hit. Anyway, my thinking is that it would probably be worth the investment to get a reliable space object tracking system up. On the other hand, if ground past telescopes are sufficient then we should probably stick with it. I would just hate to miss something though, so it seems like a comprehensive tracking system would be the safest bet, even if expensive.
A - I suppose the position of the satellite would not have to be stationary so long as it's position could be determined with accuracy so that as the position changes the data could be correlated to the actual positions of the objects being tracked. It could be set in orbit around the sun. The objective of getting off the planetary orbit plane is to get an overview shot so that the sun, earth and moon would not obscure the view of asteroids. The photographic equipment, of course, would have to incorporate something to block out the sun's light at the center of the image. My assumption here being that most asteroids (the vast percentage) are in the planetary orbital plane, so getting a comprehensive view would require being above the plane looking "down". Also, the satellite would have to be sufficiently far away to get a good view, and the recording equipment would need to be sufficiently sensitive to detect relatively small objects. B - Yes, the ping reflections would take some hours for more distant objects so the recording equipment would need to take that into account. However, since the ping occurs once per day it should not be a problem to collect the data, and then transmit the results once per day.
I've always wondered if we could create a device that does the following:
1. Go into a position above the plane on which the planets rotate around the sun so it looks "down" on the solar system.
2. flash a bright light of a specified color every day at a certain time.
3. read back the ping signature of the solar system's objects with a light sensitive camera.
4. plug the changes into a computer.
5. calculate trajectories of all objects.
6. determine exactly which ones are on a bee-line for earth.
7. continue to monitor for any surprises.
8. focus on those objects that show they will come close to earth for deflection.
Is this possible to do? Or am I missing a fundamental something-or-other? Thanks.
I am to understand that our Galaxy rotates on its axis once ever 250 million years or so. If that is right, and the universe is 13 or 14 billion years old, then it would seem that we get this: age of Universe = 13,000,000,000 Years for one rotation of galaxy = 250,000,000 Total Rotations = age / rotation 52 Total Rotations since Universe began? First, is that about right? Second, if that is right then my question is how do galaxies obtain their distinctive shapes after such few rotations? I ask because the ratio of turns to shapes (especially in the case of bar galaxies, and other sharply defined shapes) seems counter intuitive to me.
Right. With that I agree. I'm actually in favor doing the right thing, and not messing with other people, or stealing from them, or whatever it is that malicious people do. I'm in favor of America being a force for Good in this world. You bet. But I also have thought about what that means. I'll give you an example I was thinking about in the 1980's when I learned about the activities going on in Central America. I was very disturbed by the method used because it was sneaky, and I didn't like it for that reason. Instead of coming out in front and saying, "Listen up, Communists infiltrators, we're America and we're not going to mess around with you. If you come over here to stir up trouble and bring weapons and create chaos then we're going to engage you in no uncertain terms until you stop. That means war. And we're not kidding about it. We will come down there and stuff you down your throat, and you know we can do it. And we will. If you don't stop." I would have preferred that honest approach. But you have to realise the price we would have had to pay for that honesty. We would have had to risk war. Real war. Unlimited real war - until they capitulate. That war would have cost lives - or could have. The point is not that we would have fought a war - its that we would have to have really been willing to do so. If not then the threat would be empty - and they would have instead of backing down, invested more in infiltration, seeking to overthrow our way of life. We were responding to those who were sneaking up on us - as we must respond now. Had we not done anything then the threat would have grown. And as the Communists saw that we could be overcome, they would have tried to do so, if for no other reason than to eliminate us as a threat to them. However, they could not do so, and eventually we proved the stronger, for now. Communism, by the way, is not exactly dead, since there are many people who still believe that it is something other than the rule of the few over the many using economics as well as force, nor to they link successfully the deed of starving dozens of millions of people, nor take note that we in our country never contemplated doing anything even remotely like that. That we are, in fact, the Good Guys, AND that there are a whole bunch of people out there who are actually really pretty damn evil. Its a tough nut to crack. How DO you deal with that? Like our involvement in the middle east. It's been tortured to say the least. But why? Well, my take on it is that we did a lot of things to try to save Israel, our ally, from the menace that ever threatens her. From before the creation of Israel, during the 1930's, Arafat's father was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. He instructed the Germans on his already developed techniques of Judeocide, which he was perfecting in Israel on Jews who lived there as part of the community since time immemorial. Well that menace has not vanished. The only thing that has happenned is that the Jews founded their state right in the heart of the enemy who was trying to destroy them. It was a divine justice and the Jews decided to stop being kicked in the face any more and decided to found their own state after WWII was over. The UN was for it. Everyone was for it. Except the Arabs who hated the Jews. And so on the first day of the state of Israel the Arabs tried to smash the tiny newborn state. But they failed. And the Jews, like the warriors of the ancient days, drove back their Arab brothers. Yet again and again the Arabs tried to push Israel into the sea. But she would not budge. Now the Arabs, having been truly humiliated by their own arrogance, pride, and insatiable anger, and the might of their own sibling people, are again, working toward the destruction of Israel. So what does the United States do, with its revolving door leadership? Play it's hand as best it can each Administration, with changing goals and priorities, and not as some sort of giant one minded Nation, but as a plurality and constantly shifting dialectic.
So your counter-analogy, which is really bullshit, is that its ok that they killed someone's kid because "they had it coming". Right. You realise of course that what you said makes no sense. But no. You don't. Whatever. Talk with a fool...
There once was a person who had a nice house and a nice family. One day thugs showed up and bashed in through a back window and killed a child shouting that they did it because the nice people in the house left their garbage on the edge of sidewalk. Then a neighbor from across the street, terrified that the thugs might strike his house, insisted that "the only reason we have anything to fear from murderous thugs is because we put our garbage out. You can't fight an idea, but you can arrange things so that people don't have any motive to murder us." Other equally wise neighbors agreed, and so they started to keep their garbage in their living rooms instead. Not long after that the all of the nice people in the house were found beheaded in their basement, along with the people who lent aid and comfort to the enemy. When reporting this the liberal news media suggested that the cause of the violence was garbage and that the people of the neighborhood were dirty, and deserved what they got. Then the world blew up and that ended the story.
Solo inventors have a major problem because of the defects of the patent system as it has evolved. It used to be helpful, I guess, but now it is instead a major inhibitor. A) Patents are expensive. B) the provide almost no protection against big companies who just run roughshod over the court system until the grind the little guy into the dust and steal their ideas anyway. Therefore there is a HUGE disincentive for solo inventors to field their inventions no matter how good the invention is, or how much it might benefit society as a whole. When facing a fundamentally broken and totally unfair patent system I would think that many inventors wind up feeling that they would rather not produce the invention rather than produce it and then see it stolen from them by some big corporation. How to fix it? The abuses of the patent system must be punishable by massive fines. Also the patent system should return to its original guidelines. What appears to have happened is that the Patent Office has decided that awarding as many patents as possible is a good idea and lost the concept of due diligence. They need to throw out a huge number of patents (sorry no money back) that defy the original patent mandate. Roughly that's how I think you fix it. But I'm no lawyer. It is simply common sense.
Superior attitude! I commend you. You are among those who provide value by working around problems with the goal of doing the right thing for your employer in mind. And why should you not have that attitude? It is normal. After all, whenever we work for an employer we make a contract with them that we will provide services in exchange for money. It is our duty to honor that contract by providing the best work we can while we are there. And if we don't like it because we feel that the management or conditions render the situation unworkable, we have, thank God, the right, in this country anyway (America), to find another job, or better yet, start our own businesses. I feel the same way, and also provide value to my employer, despite the Dilbertization of the enterprise over the years. I'm a fan of 'The Tao of Programming'. Thank you for raising this perspective to our attention. Carry on.
"Globular clusters, which are found in the halo of a galaxy, contain considerably more stars and are much older than the less dense galactic, or open clusters, which are found in the disk." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globular_cluster What this makes me wonder is how the Globular Cluster, being much older than other galactic structures neither spins, nor contracts into itself. I would think that a Black Hole at the center would gobble the stars closest to it, increasing its gravitational attraction so that all of the surrounding stars would free fall straight "down" into it. The spin of other galaxies makes it so that stars do not just fall straight down into their own central black holes, but instead fall in a spiral toward it so that it takes a very long time for them to fall into it. But the Globular Cluster, with stars just hanging there in a spherical shape around it... I must ask - how come the stars have not fallen into the center long, long ago? Anyone have a theory on that?