Looks like all the money IBM has historically put into general R&D is paying off once again. That's one thing Big Blue has usually gotten right....and something other large tech firms can learn from. Fund your scientists, and don't necessarily expect products immediately from them. Let them do basic research, and the products will follow.
There is only one method that demonstrably cuts back a society's birthrate: the addition of wealth and technology. When you move to a more technologically advanced society, you remove the impetus to have many children; your progeny's future no longer hinges on how much food they can scrape from the land (where the more cheap labor you have -- and kids're the cheapest labor you can get -- the more land you can work), but hinges more on the knowledge they carry (making it pay off to have one or two children and spending your time and resources educating them). Don't believe it? The birth rates for western world average lower than needed to maintain the population. If it weren't for a constant influx of immigrants, the population of much of the West (especially the US) would be in decline.
Going to Mars (like any Big Science) will lead to technological advances, and thus could aide in world population control as that technology spreads into less developed areas.
Benefits from going to the Moon:
There's one benefit of the Apollo program that noone seems to have mentioned -- the realization of how small, how fragile, and how uniquely beautiful the Earth is, coupled with the knowledge that we all have to share it. The entire environmental movement owes its real beginning to a single picture of the Earth rising over a rugged moonscape, a tiny blue pearl awash in a vast sea of black. We were suddenly reminded of how small and isolated we are, that we as a species have more in common than we have differences, and over the next two decades, the Cold War faltered and died partially as a result.
We shouldn't underestimate the cultural benefits -- the shift in global thinking -- that often accompany grand adventures. Columbus is remembered as the discoverer of America not because he was the first European to set foot there (he wasn't), but because he made all of Europe aware of this new land, and so transformed Western society (indirectly triggering the Industrial Revolution).
Going to Mars would be just such a grand adventure, with potential for changing our perception of the world (and universe) around us.
If 90% of the people called the sky "puce," then "puce" would mean blue.
That, dear DullBlade, was my point exactly. Popular proclamation doesn't change fact; blue is blue no matter what we call it...and as long as we adhere to the Gregorian calendar, the millenium turns January 1, 2001. Whyever is that such a hard concept for some people to grasp?
You're forgetting that anyone who colonizes space will have a distinct advantage in any kind of war with Earth: the high ground. I figure all they'd have to do is drop a few rocks and Earth would soon have not the slightest inclination to interfere in affairs off planet (make the rocks big enough, and Earth soon wouldn't have the ability to interfere even if they wanted to).
-- JackCat, who thinks it very unwise to annoy anyone who can look down at you from the top of your planet's gravity well.....
Actually, compiling a list of/. addys could be quite profitable, as it would result in a list with a fairly narrow demographic which would be worth considerably more to advertisers than a general "emailer's" list. Knowing a little about the interests of the people behind the addresses is the entire reason why compiling and selling lists of snail-mail addresses is profitable* -- if that knowledge wasn't important, you could just compile a list from a stack of phone books.
-- JackCat
*Primary compilers of these lists are the credit card companies, who track your buying habits and develop their lists accordingly.
Depending on the projectile and the means of firing it, 300 to 450 fps seems to be the norm.
The object is to deliver somewhere in the range of 30-90 ft/lbs of force to the target; less than 30 is ineffective, more than 90 tends to cause serious (read "lethal") damage. Even at the lower energy levels, "non-lethal" and "less than lethal" rounds can still maim or kill. It is recommended police procedure to call for medical help immediately after incapacitating someone with "non-lethal" force, just in case of serious internal injuries, etc.
In looking over some of the news photos on the web, I've noticed that the police were not using firearms on the scene, but paintball guns firing rubber balls instead (Tippmann Pro-Carbines, to be exact. You can get 'em at many sporting goods stores throughout the US).
I'm guessing that they're far safer than the firearms and rubber bullets they replaced, though I'm sure there's many a protestor out there covered in welts that might think otherwise...;)
Then I hereby proclaim that henceforth the sky is "puce". Afterall, colors are arbitrarily defined just like our calendar is, right?
We go by the Gregorian calendar -- it's our agreed upon standard for timekeeping. According to the Gregorian calendar, the millenium starts with 2001. Claiming otherwise is a violation of the accepted standard....rather like Microsoft "extending" common network standards. Just because 90% of the people use it doesn't mean it's right!;)
What we have is a representative republic, not a democracy. The difference lays in the fact that we vote people into office to handle affairs of state for us (in the case of the Presidency, it's a couple of steps removed -- we vote for the people who actually vote the President into office and who will hopefully vote the way we told them to) instead of handling affairs of state directly.
And beyond election-time rhetoric, I sincerely doubt that any of our representatives think of the money they spend as belonging to the taxpayers -- if it _did_ belong to us, we'd get a direct choice in how it was spent.
Slashdot Mirror
Looks like all the money IBM has historically put into general R&D is paying off once again. That's one thing Big Blue has usually gotten right....and something other large tech firms can learn from. Fund your scientists, and don't necessarily expect products immediately from them. Let them do basic research, and the products will follow.
-- JackCat
On cutting back the birthrate:
There is only one method that demonstrably cuts back a society's birthrate: the addition of wealth and technology. When you move to a more technologically advanced society, you remove the impetus to have many children; your progeny's future no longer hinges on how much food they can scrape from the land (where the more cheap labor you have -- and kids're the cheapest labor you can get -- the more land you can work), but hinges more on the knowledge they carry (making it pay off to have one or two children and spending your time and resources educating them). Don't believe it? The birth rates for western world average lower than needed to maintain the population. If it weren't for a constant influx of immigrants, the population of much of the West (especially the US) would be in decline.
Going to Mars (like any Big Science) will lead to technological advances, and thus could aide in world population control as that technology spreads into less developed areas.
Benefits from going to the Moon:
There's one benefit of the Apollo program that noone seems to have mentioned -- the realization of how small, how fragile, and how uniquely beautiful the Earth is, coupled with the knowledge that we all have to share it. The entire environmental movement owes its real beginning to a single picture of the Earth rising over a rugged moonscape, a tiny blue pearl awash in a vast sea of black. We were suddenly reminded of how small and isolated we are, that we as a species have more in common than we have differences, and over the next two decades, the Cold War faltered and died partially as a result.
We shouldn't underestimate the cultural benefits -- the shift in global thinking -- that often accompany grand adventures. Columbus is remembered as the discoverer of America not because he was the first European to set foot there (he wasn't), but because he made all of Europe aware of this new land, and so transformed Western society (indirectly triggering the Industrial Revolution).
Going to Mars would be just such a grand adventure, with potential for changing our perception of the world (and universe) around us.
-- JackCat, who really thinks we should go.
That, dear DullBlade, was my point exactly. Popular proclamation doesn't change fact; blue is blue no matter what we call it...and as long as we adhere to the Gregorian calendar, the millenium turns January 1, 2001. Whyever is that such a hard concept for some people to grasp?
-- JackCat
You're forgetting that anyone who colonizes space will have a distinct advantage in any kind of war with Earth: the high ground. I figure all they'd have to do is drop a few rocks and Earth would soon have not the slightest inclination to interfere in affairs off planet (make the rocks big enough, and Earth soon wouldn't have the ability to interfere even if they wanted to).
-- JackCat, who thinks it very unwise to annoy anyone who can look down at you from the top of your planet's gravity well.....
Actually, compiling a list of /. addys could be quite profitable, as it would result in a list with a fairly narrow demographic which would be worth considerably more to advertisers than a general "emailer's" list. Knowing a little about the interests of the people behind the addresses is the entire reason why compiling and selling lists of snail-mail addresses is profitable* -- if that knowledge wasn't important, you could just compile a list from a stack of phone books.
-- JackCat
*Primary compilers of these lists are the credit card companies, who track your buying habits and develop their lists accordingly.
Depending on the projectile and the means of firing it, 300 to 450 fps seems to be the norm.
The object is to deliver somewhere in the range of 30-90 ft/lbs of force to the target; less than 30 is ineffective, more than 90 tends to cause serious (read "lethal") damage. Even at the lower energy levels, "non-lethal" and "less than lethal" rounds can still maim or kill. It is recommended police procedure to call for medical help immediately after incapacitating someone with "non-lethal" force, just in case of serious internal injuries, etc.
-- JackCat
In looking over some of the news photos on the web, I've noticed that the police were not using firearms on the scene, but paintball guns firing rubber balls instead (Tippmann Pro-Carbines, to be exact. You can get 'em at many sporting goods stores throughout the US).
I'm guessing that they're far safer than the firearms and rubber bullets they replaced, though I'm sure there's many a protestor out there covered in welts that might think otherwise... ;)
-- JackCat
.... "Microsoft Works"
-- JackCat
If everyone says it, that makes it so.
Then I hereby proclaim that henceforth the sky is "puce". Afterall, colors are arbitrarily defined just like our calendar is, right?
We go by the Gregorian calendar -- it's our agreed upon standard for timekeeping. According to the Gregorian calendar, the millenium starts with 2001. Claiming otherwise is a violation of the accepted standard....rather like Microsoft "extending" common network standards. Just because 90% of the people use it doesn't mean it's right! ;)
-- JackCat
What we have is a representative republic, not a democracy. The difference lays in the fact that we vote people into office to handle affairs of state for us (in the case of the Presidency, it's a couple of steps removed -- we vote for the people who actually vote the President into office and who will hopefully vote the way we told them to) instead of handling affairs of state directly.
And beyond election-time rhetoric, I sincerely doubt that any of our representatives think of the money they spend as belonging to the taxpayers -- if it _did_ belong to us, we'd get a direct choice in how it was spent.
--JackCat