As much as I liked "The Case for Mars", I disagree that the Moon is not a good school for human colonization of non-Earth bodies. For starters, it has a gravity smaller than Mars but larger than asteroids - a nice compromise, and a place that would force us to develop exercise regimens, drugs and machines to keep healthy. It would likewise force us to develop the kind of habitat that would protect us from cosmic radiation. Most importantly, we would learn how to bootstrap ourselves using the resources available on the planet/satellite we are on: collection, processing and machining with the least available tools and towards creating bigger, more advanced and new tools, machinery and structures. LEO has nothing, absolutely nothing that would teach us those things.
The reason nobody's done those things again is that with advances in robotic technology, the only reason to send people to either the moon or the Challenger Deep is for a photo op. Both have already been done, and "me too" snapshots just aren't nearly as compelling.
And how are we going to colonize other planets, such as Mars, if we don't colonize the Moon, first? How are we going to build a permanent base on Mars if we don't do it on the Moon, first?
The Moon itself may or may not be scientifically interesting, but it's a great staging and study ground for subsequent missions. If we don't know how to get our asses to the Moon, sure as hell we won't be able to get them to other planets or asteroids.
And robotic missions? Really? How is that 40 minutes signal roundtrip to Mars working out? A robotic probe on Mars will do in 10 years about as much work as one man or woman would do in one day. In the long run, robotic probes are way too expensive vs. the job they manage to do.
To clarify: I find it a bit sad that humanity just isn't capable of building on pre-existing accomplishments, solutions and ideas. The Trieste has already achieved this goal 50 years ago, as the summary states, so why would this be such a difficult challenge? We had the technology half a century ago, and it worked perfectly well.
Sort of like the Apollo program - almost half a century after, we are not capable to go to the moon - we simply and stupidly "forgot" how to do it. The great designers and engineers left and/or died off, and we, as humankind, went on with out collective dicks in our collective hands.
Imagine you're on the board of directors of company x. Suppose the CEO of company y, known to be ruthless and to dramatically increase profits, -
but also known to have caused the "execution" of company y, i.e., caused the immediate liquidation of company y, meaning that all of company y's "going concern" value is lost and only the value of its liquid assets are recovered by shareholders,
- wants to be the CEO of your company, company x. Would you want him to be your CEO?
The imposition of an actual "death penalty" for criminal corporations would have an enormous impact on the way business is run in this country... because people would lose money as a result of criminal behavior by a company they have invested in.
If all the consequence would be difficulty in finding a new executive position, then it's still a ridiculously mild punishment. But moreover, corporate psychopaths find job after job manipulating their social environment, at golf clubs and by being members in various boards of directors.
By the way, there's a huge difference between private companies and publicly traded ones, when it comes to oversight: publicly traded companies will have their CxOs hired in the various turgid ways, which usually don't benefit the shareholders, but they have little to no leverage, and just as much information about the person being hired to lead that company. Privately held companies, on the other hand, have a well-defined owner, who will make damn sure the people in charge of his/her business are actually competent and not just manipulative weasels.
If you ask me it's time we brought back the death penalty for unruly corporations.
No, because the psychopaths responsible for the decisions, will find a way out, leaving their customary trail of destruction and misery after them: they will manipulate their way out of the to-be-killed corporation that they corrupted and abused, and into a leading position in another company. Which is, btw. what they do today already, even without your proposed "death penalty for unruly corporations".
Instead, we should introduce death penalties for unruly executives, and start recognizing corporate psychopathy for the that it is.
Isn't it obvious? It is not me who has to pay that money, but Simon Singh, so I don't have to "think" one way or the other, it's Singh's business to decide. But I think he's wealthy enough that the cost was not too great, considering that now the UK chiropractors have to cover their asses like there's no tomorrow. It's been the mother of all Straisand effects.
The publicity produced by the libel action has led to a "furious backlash",[2] with formal complaints of false advertising being made against more than 500 individual chiropractors within one 24 hour period,[3][30] with the number later climbing to one quarter of all British chiropractors.[2] It also prompted the McTimoney Chiropractic Association to write in a leaked message to its members advising them to remove leaflets that make claims about whiplash and colic from their practice, to be wary of new patients and telephone inquiries, and telling their members: "If you have a website, take it down NOW." and "Finally, we strongly suggest you do NOT discuss this with others, especially patients."[2][3] One chiropractor is quoted as saying that "Suing Simon was worse than any Streisand effect and chiropractors know it and can do nothing about it."[2]
I don't really care about being remembered. I want to, in a way, be "successful", but "success" for me is not what you might expect: if I can make my son's childhood a happier one than mine was, and if I can make our family a happy, warm, welcoming place for that little kid, make him self-confident, feel good about himself... that stuff would mean, to me, that I was "successful". My son may or may not remember me, after I'm gone (though he very likely would remember me), but that's beside the point: I would be satisfied to have been instrumental in him having a good life and being a good person.
Pyrric victory? I don't think so. If money was his only concern, only then it would be Pyrric. But by winning this court battle, Singh made a huge statement, a huge "Fuck you" to the ignorance of Chiropractice, and the chiropractors that leech on that ignorance.
Maybe it's because I'm over 40, but for me, money seems less important now, compared to some greater things in life. I feel my end is coming, and I want my life to have meant something. Money is important, but less important than one's life have a meaning.
In other words, only musicians who play the kind of music that you like to listen to should make a living at their music. Those of us who like to listen to music that cannot be easily or cheaply played at live performances should be out of luck.
You're twisting the OP's words. He/she didn't say musicians (of this or that kind) shouldn't make a living, or that fans of this or that music shouldn't be able to access it: in fact, the gist of what the OP is saying is that one should be able to listen to any music, for free, as long as it's a recording. Hence nobody is "out of luck".
Men Who Stare At Goats was more accurate portrayal of military life than Hurt Locker.
I can't comment on accuracy, but I can say that Men who stare at goats was a good movie, whereas The Hurt Locker was really sycky, and I will never understand how it got all those Oscars!? When I heard about those wins for Hurt Locker, I didn't know whether to be pissed or laugh MFAO. Same reaction when I heard of Obama getting a Nobel prize.
Thank you Sir, for a thoughtful answer! I had quantum-mechanical phenomena in mind, as well. They probably destroy absolute determinism. But even so, there is no "soul" directing our actions and thoughts.
I'm, however, curious what you think about the existence of soul, now that you mentioned quantum mechanics in the context of my original post.
Both you and that Ungrounded Lightning dude missed the megagalactic cooling I mentioned, as a necessary prerequisite. And you both missed the meaning of "in theory".
Sure it does. Atheists stake their eternal future on the presumption that God does not exist. They live their whole lives doing what they want, and rejecting the concept that there could be anyone or anything greater than themselves. If they are wrong, and there turns out to be a judgement day they will spend eternity burning in hell. That takes a great deal of faith (or ignorance take your pick).
Sorry for butting in on your conversation: why is it that you think believing in God must presuppose believing in afterlife (let alone such ridiculous one such as hell+heaven)? I am interested in your personal opinion, as well as why do you think other people make this seemingly un-breakable link.
Theists would say that God is the unmovable mover - some kind of fulcrum point that transcends past and future, and everything else flows from that fulcrum. Something like that. I could think of it as the ultimate frame of reference.
Don't conclude from the above that I am a theist. Just what I've heard some theologists talking about, plus the way I interpreted them.
Hawking says the Big Bang is simply a logical consequence of the laws of physics. But a theist could argue that these very laws were created by God.
I personally am not religious. But I do hope I'm a logical thinker. It seems, to me, that hawking's argument could still be disputed, because the creation of everything (includes the laws of physics, both the ones we know and the ones of possible parallel universes) is inherently philosophical.
I remember discussing with my ex GF about the existence of heaven and hell (or afterlife in general): I am pretty sure that such place doesn't exist, because it's simply ludicrous from a symmetry point of view. I am also pretty sure that a soul doesn't exist, because I am aware of the fact that everybody is a physical being and his/her actions are a result of deterministic processes. But being pretty sure wasn't enough to convince her, and I didn't try (too hard). I don't think Hawking's argument is going to change the mind of religious folks, either, and in fact, even I don't find it quite convincing.
That said, Hawking has been and always will be one of my heroes and role models. One of the most brilliant examples of what humankind can achieve.
theoretically, ECL would trounce any CMOS tech fabricated with current accuracy. It's just that it's so horribly power-hungry, that nobody will do this. For one thing, it would need megagalactic cooling.
It must be an efficient, stable and non-volatile mechanism; one that at least outlasts photo paper and costs at most as much,
Incidentally, I don't think we have such media - one that would be both affordable and outlast photo paper.
- Magnetic tapes: 10-20 years. Very sensitive to heat and humidity. - Hard drives: 10-25 years. Some seem to lose parts of the magnetic coating if not spun in a few years. - CD-R: 2.5-15 years. There are some manufacturers that claim a retention time of about 100 years, but those CD-Rs are not really affordable. - DVD+/-R: see above. - Flash: 10 years.
Pictures on photo paper have survived many decades, with some photographs from the first half of the 19th century still surviving to this day. It's proven, durable and cheap technology, and as such, has no match as of now.
I've seen the drop-test instrumentation used for reliability testing in one of our uni's labs. They sell services to companies such as Nokia, to test the reliability of their gadgets. Anyhow, to make an almost indestructible case is not difficult, but what increases reliability and survivability of electronic equipment is correct fitting and damping of the motherboard to the case (you don't want it to feel the same deceleration as the case hitting the floor) and the components soldered on the motherboard must not break the electric contacts. This latter is very, very challenging, and hundreds if not thousands of engineers and scientists work around the world on improving the reliability of electronic IC packaging and solder.
I want a device almost exactly like that. And you know what? A few of the new Kindles are almost there - but they do such an atrocious job of displaying technical PDF files, that they're out, as far as I'm concerned. I don't have too much disposable dough lately, but I'd gladly plonk 200 bucks for a WiFi tablet that decently displays PDFs (and can browse the 'net).
Slashdot Mirror
As much as I liked "The Case for Mars", I disagree that the Moon is not a good school for human colonization of non-Earth bodies. For starters, it has a gravity smaller than Mars but larger than asteroids - a nice compromise, and a place that would force us to develop exercise regimens, drugs and machines to keep healthy. It would likewise force us to develop the kind of habitat that would protect us from cosmic radiation. Most importantly, we would learn how to bootstrap ourselves using the resources available on the planet/satellite we are on: collection, processing and machining with the least available tools and towards creating bigger, more advanced and new tools, machinery and structures. LEO has nothing, absolutely nothing that would teach us those things.
The reason nobody's done those things again is that with advances in robotic technology, the only reason to send people to either the moon or the Challenger Deep is for a photo op. Both have already been done, and "me too" snapshots just aren't nearly as compelling.
And how are we going to colonize other planets, such as Mars, if we don't colonize the Moon, first? How are we going to build a permanent base on Mars if we don't do it on the Moon, first?
The Moon itself may or may not be scientifically interesting, but it's a great staging and study ground for subsequent missions. If we don't know how to get our asses to the Moon, sure as hell we won't be able to get them to other planets or asteroids.
And robotic missions? Really? How is that 40 minutes signal roundtrip to Mars working out? A robotic probe on Mars will do in 10 years about as much work as one man or woman would do in one day. In the long run, robotic probes are way too expensive vs. the job they manage to do.
To clarify: I find it a bit sad that humanity just isn't capable of building on pre-existing accomplishments, solutions and ideas. The Trieste has already achieved this goal 50 years ago, as the summary states, so why would this be such a difficult challenge? We had the technology half a century ago, and it worked perfectly well.
Sort of like the Apollo program - almost half a century after, we are not capable to go to the moon - we simply and stupidly "forgot" how to do it. The great designers and engineers left and/or died off, and we, as humankind, went on with out collective dicks in our collective hands.
Imagine you're on the board of directors of company x. Suppose the CEO of company y, known to be ruthless and to dramatically increase profits, -
but also known to have caused the "execution" of company y, i.e., caused the immediate liquidation of company y, meaning that all of company y's "going concern" value is lost and only the value of its liquid assets are recovered by shareholders,
- wants to be the CEO of your company, company x. Would you want him to be your CEO?
The imposition of an actual "death penalty" for criminal corporations would have an enormous impact on the way business is run in this country... because people would lose money as a result of criminal behavior by a company they have invested in.
If all the consequence would be difficulty in finding a new executive position, then it's still a ridiculously mild punishment. But moreover, corporate psychopaths find job after job manipulating their social environment, at golf clubs and by being members in various boards of directors.
By the way, there's a huge difference between private companies and publicly traded ones, when it comes to oversight: publicly traded companies will have their CxOs hired in the various turgid ways, which usually don't benefit the shareholders, but they have little to no leverage, and just as much information about the person being hired to lead that company. Privately held companies, on the other hand, have a well-defined owner, who will make damn sure the people in charge of his/her business are actually competent and not just manipulative weasels.
If you ask me it's time we brought back the death penalty for unruly corporations.
No, because the psychopaths responsible for the decisions, will find a way out, leaving their customary trail of destruction and misery after them: they will manipulate their way out of the to-be-killed corporation that they corrupted and abused, and into a leading position in another company. Which is, btw. what they do today already, even without your proposed "death penalty for unruly corporations".
Instead, we should introduce death penalties for unruly executives, and start recognizing corporate psychopathy for the that it is.
Isn't it obvious? It is not me who has to pay that money, but Simon Singh, so I don't have to "think" one way or the other, it's Singh's business to decide. But I think he's wealthy enough that the cost was not too great, considering that now the UK chiropractors have to cover their asses like there's no tomorrow. It's been the mother of all Straisand effects.
Quote from Wikipedia:
The publicity produced by the libel action has led to a "furious backlash",[2] with formal complaints of false advertising being made against more than 500 individual chiropractors within one 24 hour period,[3][30] with the number later climbing to one quarter of all British chiropractors.[2] It also prompted the McTimoney Chiropractic Association to write in a leaked message to its members advising them to remove leaflets that make claims about whiplash and colic from their practice, to be wary of new patients and telephone inquiries, and telling their members: "If you have a website, take it down NOW." and "Finally, we strongly suggest you do NOT discuss this with others, especially patients."[2][3] One chiropractor is quoted as saying that "Suing Simon was worse than any Streisand effect and chiropractors know it and can do nothing about it."[2]
Linky.
I don't really care about being remembered. I want to, in a way, be "successful", but "success" for me is not what you might expect: if I can make my son's childhood a happier one than mine was, and if I can make our family a happy, warm, welcoming place for that little kid, make him self-confident, feel good about himself... that stuff would mean, to me, that I was "successful". My son may or may not remember me, after I'm gone (though he very likely would remember me), but that's beside the point: I would be satisfied to have been instrumental in him having a good life and being a good person.
Pyrric victory? I don't think so. If money was his only concern, only then it would be Pyrric. But by winning this court battle, Singh made a huge statement, a huge "Fuck you" to the ignorance of Chiropractice, and the chiropractors that leech on that ignorance.
Maybe it's because I'm over 40, but for me, money seems less important now, compared to some greater things in life. I feel my end is coming, and I want my life to have meant something. Money is important, but less important than one's life have a meaning.
In other words, only musicians who play the kind of music that you like to listen to should make a living at their music. Those of us who like to listen to music that cannot be easily or cheaply played at live performances should be out of luck.
You're twisting the OP's words. He/she didn't say musicians (of this or that kind) shouldn't make a living, or that fans of this or that music shouldn't be able to access it: in fact, the gist of what the OP is saying is that one should be able to listen to any music, for free, as long as it's a recording. Hence nobody is "out of luck".
Men Who Stare At Goats was more accurate portrayal of military life than Hurt Locker.
I can't comment on accuracy, but I can say that Men who stare at goats was a good movie, whereas The Hurt Locker was really sycky, and I will never understand how it got all those Oscars!? When I heard about those wins for Hurt Locker, I didn't know whether to be pissed or laugh MFAO. Same reaction when I heard of Obama getting a Nobel prize.
Thank you Sir, for a thoughtful answer! I had quantum-mechanical phenomena in mind, as well. They probably destroy absolute determinism. But even so, there is no "soul" directing our actions and thoughts.
I'm, however, curious what you think about the existence of soul, now that you mentioned quantum mechanics in the context of my original post.
Linky.
Both you and that Ungrounded Lightning dude missed the megagalactic cooling I mentioned, as a necessary prerequisite. And you both missed the meaning of "in theory".
Sure it does. Atheists stake their eternal future on the presumption that God does not exist. They live their whole lives doing what they want, and rejecting the concept that there could be anyone or anything greater than themselves. If they are wrong, and there turns out to be a judgement day they will spend eternity burning in hell. That takes a great deal of faith (or ignorance take your pick).
Sorry for butting in on your conversation: why is it that you think believing in God must presuppose believing in afterlife (let alone such ridiculous one such as hell+heaven)? I am interested in your personal opinion, as well as why do you think other people make this seemingly un-breakable link.
Theists would say that God is the unmovable mover - some kind of fulcrum point that transcends past and future, and everything else flows from that fulcrum. Something like that. I could think of it as the ultimate frame of reference.
Don't conclude from the above that I am a theist. Just what I've heard some theologists talking about, plus the way I interpreted them.
Hawking says the Big Bang is simply a logical consequence of the laws of physics. But a theist could argue that these very laws were created by God.
I personally am not religious. But I do hope I'm a logical thinker. It seems, to me, that hawking's argument could still be disputed, because the creation of everything (includes the laws of physics, both the ones we know and the ones of possible parallel universes) is inherently philosophical.
I remember discussing with my ex GF about the existence of heaven and hell (or afterlife in general): I am pretty sure that such place doesn't exist, because it's simply ludicrous from a symmetry point of view. I am also pretty sure that a soul doesn't exist, because I am aware of the fact that everybody is a physical being and his/her actions are a result of deterministic processes. But being pretty sure wasn't enough to convince her, and I didn't try (too hard). I don't think Hawking's argument is going to change the mind of religious folks, either, and in fact, even I don't find it quite convincing.
That said, Hawking has been and always will be one of my heroes and role models. One of the most brilliant examples of what humankind can achieve.
Nowhere to convect the heat to for a start.
Correct.
theoretically, ECL would trounce any CMOS tech fabricated with current accuracy. It's just that it's so horribly power-hungry, that nobody will do this. For one thing, it would need megagalactic cooling.
It must be an efficient, stable and non-volatile mechanism; one that at least outlasts photo paper and costs at most as much,
Incidentally, I don't think we have such media - one that would be both affordable and outlast photo paper.
- Magnetic tapes: 10-20 years. Very sensitive to heat and humidity.
- Hard drives: 10-25 years. Some seem to lose parts of the magnetic coating if not spun in a few years.
- CD-R: 2.5-15 years. There are some manufacturers that claim a retention time of about 100 years, but those CD-Rs are not really affordable.
- DVD+/-R: see above.
- Flash: 10 years.
Pictures on photo paper have survived many decades, with some photographs from the first half of the 19th century still surviving to this day. It's proven, durable and cheap technology, and as such, has no match as of now.
I've seen the drop-test instrumentation used for reliability testing in one of our uni's labs. They sell services to companies such as Nokia, to test the reliability of their gadgets. Anyhow, to make an almost indestructible case is not difficult, but what increases reliability and survivability of electronic equipment is correct fitting and damping of the motherboard to the case (you don't want it to feel the same deceleration as the case hitting the floor) and the components soldered on the motherboard must not break the electric contacts. This latter is very, very challenging, and hundreds if not thousands of engineers and scientists work around the world on improving the reliability of electronic IC packaging and solder.
OK, yes, that's brilliant.
If the USPTO continues to grant idiotic patents like these, very soon every company will start patenting everything all the time.
If they thought they have a backlog now, they have exciting times ahead.
I want a device almost exactly like that. And you know what? A few of the new Kindles are almost there - but they do such an atrocious job of displaying technical PDF files, that they're out, as far as I'm concerned. I don't have too much disposable dough lately, but I'd gladly plonk 200 bucks for a WiFi tablet that decently displays PDFs (and can browse the 'net).
Yet you never hear two peeps about the “destabilizing influence in the Mideast” of that nuclear bandit state in the press, do you?
Actually, every single time the Iranian nuclear program is mentioned.