How can you gain the knowledge of producing systems to help humans survive in space with robots? I could accept the fact that you could do most of that research on earth in remote environments or underwater apart from perhaps zero gravity however my question still stands.
Most people interested in space are interested in it because of the possibility of man one day making it possible to live out there for long periods. For that to be possible we have to gain knowledge in actually doing it and going there. A good example being, what happens to the human body over long periods of zero gravity. What about when taking medicine, etc.
I don't know what you think on the issue, however if you personally think humans should never go to space then a vast majority disagree with you. NASA is public funded so even if you think that robots would be spending the money better you're totally ignoring the fact that most people probably wouldn't care about NASA any more if all human flight stopped. When people stop caring funding usually dries up too. It's a marketing thing.
Also you overlook the fact that the reason we have up until now genuinely sent humans into space instead of robots was because we didn't have the technology available at the time, or that developing that technology was more expensive then just sending a human up instead.
Also on your point about the wind farm. You're comparing money spent on research that was being pioneered to a complex that was simply being built.
In your example they didn't have to draw up plans on how to build a wind generator or build special machines to build prototypes of a wind turbine. All the complicated problems with your wind farm were already solved to the point where it was simply a matter of getting the materials an man power to put it together.
Also a wind farm is much less complicated then a vehicle that has to withstand extreme temperatures in a vacuum.
It's also a poor argument, why would we need another Apollo program at 170 billion dollars? We already have the knowledge gained from that and wouldn't be starting from scratch.
I think the Gmail invites was completely different. When Gmail was released it was instantly obvious to everyone that it was better than what was currently available at the time. Having a gmail account didn't restrict you to a subset of other gmail users.
Wave on the other hand did. Either everyone is on wave or you can use it. Using invites in that kind of situation is just stupid. They should have made it available to as many people as possible and they should have open sourced the client front end too.
I disagree with point 2 however points 1 and 3 are dead on. All they really needed to do was:
1 - kept it secret until it was almost ready for release, not talk about it then give out beta invites a year later after the hype is gone. 2 - made the UI much better and easy to use. 3 - better basic features just as the ability to print waves with extensions in etc. 4 - made it open to all including other users that wanted to federate servers
They couldn't find a use for it because Google stupidly did the beta invite only thing they do with all their products. That worked on Gmail when you could easily email everyone else, Google wave where the whole concept is collaboration with other people? Doesn't work when you need people to colaborate with.
Google's problem is that they're using Gmail as a model baseline for how successful their other products are without looking at what made GMail successful in the first place. None of that translates to Social things such as Wave.
They released Wave as invite only. Everyone was interested and no one could get it. Months later when people could get it, everyone stopped caring or they tried it out on their beta invite which couldn't interact with the rest of the world and found no use for it. They could have made it more successful if they had open sourced the front end to wave as well and not just the backend. They point out all the time that it's open source however if you try setting it up you quickly find out that what is missing is the whole web interface which makes it pointless unless you're willing to spend as much time as google invested in their javascript frontend.
The point of the game was to inspire kids about space. If it fails the test of being fun then no ones going to play it. The point was that kids would play this game and realise that space is worthwhile funding rather then the fucktards we have today who think we should cut every scientific endeavour to feed people in Africa.
The point wasn't to educate. It was to change people's perceptions of space funding.
- You have no way of knowing it's going to work on either your PC OR Console, due to DRM and network issues. - Refunds aren't possible because you're "not buying a product" (haha) - If the game doesn't work then you've wasted your money because you can't get a refund - Game companies get magazine reviewers fired for giving their games a bad score so you have no other way of knowing if the review is an advert or not.
No normal person would deal with that which is why - People pirate the game to see if it works or is fun to play - When it works they don't bother buying the full game afterwards
It's as simple as that. The only way to solve the piracy problem is for a government to step in, force companies to offer refunds on games, have harsh penalties for companies found messing with reviews, etc. It's basically game publishers and poor coded games which are the problem. Piracy is just the side effect. I'm not saying it will disappear but it would be a minority if these things were done.
Expensive? I bought it for less then $10 two weeks ago on sale in their store.
Also the customer service is only good when it comes to Valves games. Buy a third party game that doesn't even load? Too bad because you're using a "service" not 'buying a product". This kind of behaviour rewards companies for not even making their games work. There's no reason they couldn't offer refunds. They know how long people play the games, offering a refund to a person that has bought the game for less then a week and hasn't even played 10 minutes should be a no brainer.
Impulse is no better by the way. Want a refund on an game bought through impulse? You have to ASK the third party developer for the refund who will obviously send back the auto response 'works for me, no refund'.
I seriously hope the government steps in and regulates this industry better. Too many cowboy coders and greedy publishers.
Once Canonical realizes that the average user _NEVER_ wants to enter commands to do run of the mill, average stuff, then they'll truly be a long way towards having an easy-to-use OS. I found myself trying to get things to happen with Ubuntu, being forced to resort to Google
You can say the same thing about OSX. You need to some times enter commands on the Mac to do things, I also had to google them up. I don't see you or anyone else complaining about that however or pretending it's some kind of barrier to entry on using an Apple computer.
Not sure what you're whining about but there are these things called 'deb' files. You can download them from websites and click on them to install software.
- Then suddenly no companies make open source drivers because they can release a closed source one and forget about it. - Suddenly the kernel can't be updated because it breaks half the closed source drivers. - Is it a bug in the driver or the kernal, no way to find out! - Suddenly we have 200 mediocre closed source drivers all doing the same thing slightly differently rather then one source driver driver doing things well. - Suddenly the linux kernel only works on the hardware supported by the closed source drivers
Here's how my comparison stacks up, personally. (I consider anything that requires the console to fix in Linux but not Windows permanently broken for the average user):
You have to use the console on OSX to do stuff too and nobody complains. Showing hidden ".dot" files, get the javascript debugging console in safari, etc you need to drop to the terminal.
I doubt it's an average user problem and just your personal problem.
Well here's a list of stuff I can think in lucid that was either broken on launch or still hasn't been fixed in the default CD.
- Gwibber using 100% CPU - Samba either not working or using 100% CPU - Brasero can't copy any CD's to an image file - Ubuntu software center not displaying the correct button when installing software
So, yeah, as a long term Ubuntu user I'm calling you out on your bullshit. Ubuntu has a ton of problems and Canonical deserve what they're getting with their attitude of 'release first, fix next release'. Hopefully dell dropping their OS will make them rethink putting out stuff without testing software that's on the default CD.
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How can you gain the knowledge of producing systems to help humans survive in space with robots? I could accept the fact that you could do most of that research on earth in remote environments or underwater apart from perhaps zero gravity however my question still stands.
Most people interested in space are interested in it because of the possibility of man one day making it possible to live out there for long periods. For that to be possible we have to gain knowledge in actually doing it and going there. A good example being, what happens to the human body over long periods of zero gravity. What about when taking medicine, etc.
I don't know what you think on the issue, however if you personally think humans should never go to space then a vast majority disagree with you. NASA is public funded so even if you think that robots would be spending the money better you're totally ignoring the fact that most people probably wouldn't care about NASA any more if all human flight stopped. When people stop caring funding usually dries up too. It's a marketing thing.
Also you overlook the fact that the reason we have up until now genuinely sent humans into space instead of robots was because we didn't have the technology available at the time, or that developing that technology was more expensive then just sending a human up instead.
Also on your point about the wind farm. You're comparing money spent on research that was being pioneered to a complex that was simply being built.
In your example they didn't have to draw up plans on how to build a wind generator or build special machines to build prototypes of a wind turbine. All the complicated problems with your wind farm were already solved to the point where it was simply a matter of getting the materials an man power to put it together.
Also a wind farm is much less complicated then a vehicle that has to withstand extreme temperatures in a vacuum.
It's also a poor argument, why would we need another Apollo program at 170 billion dollars? We already have the knowledge gained from that and wouldn't be starting from scratch.
Makes more sense having a wave link in there then buzz..
Except what people want is this...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8b/Google_Wave.png
and the open source thing they released gives you this..
http://wave-protocol.googlecode.com/hg/doc/client/05-with-bar2.png
So yeah, if only you could just set up your own wave server, because right now all the community has is junk.
I think the Gmail invites was completely different. When Gmail was released it was instantly obvious to everyone that it was better than what was currently available at the time. Having a gmail account didn't restrict you to a subset of other gmail users.
Wave on the other hand did. Either everyone is on wave or you can use it. Using invites in that kind of situation is just stupid. They should have made it available to as many people as possible and they should have open sourced the client front end too.
I disagree with point 2 however points 1 and 3 are dead on. All they really needed to do was:
1 - kept it secret until it was almost ready for release, not talk about it then give out beta invites a year later after the hype is gone.
2 - made the UI much better and easy to use.
3 - better basic features just as the ability to print waves with extensions in etc.
4 - made it open to all including other users that wanted to federate servers
They couldn't find a use for it because Google stupidly did the beta invite only thing they do with all their products. That worked on Gmail when you could easily email everyone else, Google wave where the whole concept is collaboration with other people? Doesn't work when you need people to colaborate with.
Google's problem is that they're using Gmail as a model baseline for how successful their other products are without looking at what made GMail successful in the first place. None of that translates to Social things such as Wave.
They released Wave as invite only. Everyone was interested and no one could get it. Months later when people could get it, everyone stopped caring or they tried it out on their beta invite which couldn't interact with the rest of the world and found no use for it. They could have made it more successful if they had open sourced the front end to wave as well and not just the backend. They point out all the time that it's open source however if you try setting it up you quickly find out that what is missing is the whole web interface which makes it pointless unless you're willing to spend as much time as google invested in their javascript frontend.
If there is a shortage why are we wasting it in party balloons?
Obviously not that much seeming as Microsoft shitcanned their project.
The point of the game was to inspire kids about space. If it fails the test of being fun then no ones going to play it. The point was that kids would play this game and realise that space is worthwhile funding rather then the fucktards we have today who think we should cut every scientific endeavour to feed people in Africa.
The point wasn't to educate. It was to change people's perceptions of space funding.
So you think humans on Mars isn't progress? The knowledge gained, the space vehicles needed for such a feat, etc. None of that is progress?
No the real problem is that:
- You have no way of knowing it's going to work on either your PC OR Console, due to DRM and network issues.
- Refunds aren't possible because you're "not buying a product" (haha)
- If the game doesn't work then you've wasted your money because you can't get a refund
- Game companies get magazine reviewers fired for giving their games a bad score so you have no other way of knowing if the review is an advert or not.
No normal person would deal with that which is why
- People pirate the game to see if it works or is fun to play
- When it works they don't bother buying the full game afterwards
It's as simple as that. The only way to solve the piracy problem is for a government to step in, force companies to offer refunds on games, have harsh penalties for companies found messing with reviews, etc. It's basically game publishers and poor coded games which are the problem. Piracy is just the side effect. I'm not saying it will disappear but it would be a minority if these things were done.
That's because they're hypocrites and doesn't really disprove what the parent was discussing in the first place.
Interesting I didn't realise that Christians had modified their own most holy laws. Do you have more reading material on this?
http://www.google.com/images?q=free+linux+games
You know it doesn't take much to inform yourself on the subject. A quick Google search proves both you and mr douchbag wrong.
Except it's not donations on steroids because you first have to pay to receive.
Expensive? I bought it for less then $10 two weeks ago on sale in their store.
Also the customer service is only good when it comes to Valves games. Buy a third party game that doesn't even load? Too bad because you're using a "service" not 'buying a product". This kind of behaviour rewards companies for not even making their games work. There's no reason they couldn't offer refunds. They know how long people play the games, offering a refund to a person that has bought the game for less then a week and hasn't even played 10 minutes should be a no brainer.
Impulse is no better by the way. Want a refund on an game bought through impulse? You have to ASK the third party developer for the refund who will obviously send back the auto response 'works for me, no refund'.
I seriously hope the government steps in and regulates this industry better. Too many cowboy coders and greedy publishers.
Yes obviously if ex-Microsoft Gabe Newell says it, it must be true...
Off the top of my head.. Chrome, Dropbox, lots of open source projects, nvidia's software, flock player, etc..
http://www.google.com/search?&q=filetype:deb
Google shows plenty of debs, in fact more then OSX's dmg format.
You can say the same thing about OSX. You need to some times enter commands on the Mac to do things, I also had to google them up. I don't see you or anyone else complaining about that however or pretending it's some kind of barrier to entry on using an Apple computer.
Not sure what you're whining about but there are these things called 'deb' files. You can download them from websites and click on them to install software.
HTML 5 has the device tag for accessing cameras and microphones. It's just not been implemented by any browser yet.
I've seen timeline-based editors and things that'll convert and run flash into SVG/javascript. Hell, even CS5 has got a export to html5 option..
- Then suddenly no companies make open source drivers because they can release a closed source one and forget about it.
- Suddenly the kernel can't be updated because it breaks half the closed source drivers.
- Is it a bug in the driver or the kernal, no way to find out!
- Suddenly we have 200 mediocre closed source drivers all doing the same thing slightly differently rather then one source driver driver doing things well.
- Suddenly the linux kernel only works on the hardware supported by the closed source drivers
Hence why they do what they do.
You have to use the console on OSX to do stuff too and nobody complains. Showing hidden ".dot" files, get the javascript debugging console in safari, etc you need to drop to the terminal.
I doubt it's an average user problem and just your personal problem.
Well here's a list of stuff I can think in lucid that was either broken on launch or still hasn't been fixed in the default CD.
- Gwibber using 100% CPU
- Samba either not working or using 100% CPU
- Brasero can't copy any CD's to an image file
- Ubuntu software center not displaying the correct button when installing software
So, yeah, as a long term Ubuntu user I'm calling you out on your bullshit. Ubuntu has a ton of problems and Canonical deserve what they're getting with their attitude of 'release first, fix next release'. Hopefully dell dropping their OS will make them rethink putting out stuff without testing software that's on the default CD.
It's called slow news day.