Actually there are two GPS systems, the civilian one that you and I and the bad guys can use by plunking down a couple of bux for a receiver, and the military version, which gives more precise measurements and is encrypted.
The two systems are seperate,
There aren't 2 different systems. The satellites merely transmit 2 signals, one being the encrypted signal civilians can't decode.
and the civilian GPS can be (not sure if it's actually been done yet) shut down when the gubbermint feels it necessary.
They wouldn't shut it down. There are too many mission critical uses of GPS now, from police/fire/ambulance to air navigation and commercial shipping.
Also they are able to introduce errors in the civilian GPS data stream to knock the precision even further when Uncle Sam feels it prudent.
This used to be standard policy, but as of May 1, 2000 Selective Availability (SA) was turned off.
They can also turn it off just in a certain area, for example, the middle east...
This is more like what would happen today if they deemed it necessary.
I agree about the Shuttle. But the question remains what will we do once we get to the moon/mars... if we ever get there at all?
-- Build space weapons to make Bush's buddies rich?
-- Or do real science that enriches mankind?
I have a sinking feeling science is going to lose out.
I have no idea how this flamebait was modded insightful. Why automatically assume that anything Bush does is to make somebody rich?
Besides, not like there's any useful science being done on the ISS.
Re:Culture of Empire vs. Culture of Exploration.
on
The Future of NASA
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· Score: 1
Turning NASA from an Exploring agency to an empire-building agency is evil, pure and simple.
Who said this was happening?
This was supposed to be a nation dedicated to freedom and increasingly we're becoming the most frightening and dangerous regime on earth. Our civil liberties have been strip mined, and we're saddled with a government we can't trust and may not be able to get rid of.
What's so frightening and dangerous? What civil liberties are you missing? We've never had and never will have a government we can fully trust, that's something our founders understood. So they built checks and balances into the Constitution. It seems Americans have always had an innate distrust of government, something that sets us apart from Europeans, then and now.
We started as Athens, and now we're rapidly heading towards Rome. What a lousy, bloody, stupid waste of the potential of a great nation this Bush has wrought.
Athens: ruled by the few, property-owning, free, male citizens who were willing to fight in times of war. Among those disenfranchised were women, slaves, non-citizens, and those not willing to fight. I'm not trying to disparage the accomplishments of Athens: the foundation of representative government, philosophy, medicine, science, and mathematics that had such an influence on Western and Near Eastern civilizations. Just don't be fooled into thinking Athens was some golden age where everyone was equal and free. Also, Rome wasn't all bad. Every civilization has good and bad.
Besides, whatever your opinion of Bush, one man can do little to waste or ruin our nation's potential. The US will still be around for a long time, with just as much controversy and division.
I'm tired of the Democrats, and I'm tired of the Republicans. The libertarians show promise, but the Libertarians suck. The greens are a good idea, bu the Greens are fascists, and Nader is a basket case.
So you're pretty much hopeless? Thankfully, I'm much more optimistic.
As recent world history has shown us, despite all the scare-mongering over 'Weapons of Mass Destruction', the real agressors come from the country that makes and sells more weapons of mass destruction than all the rest of the countries combined. And for those interested in the competitors, Israel and the UK come a distant 2nd and 3rd.
Which country would that be?
I'm not implying by this that Americans are inherintly evil or backward ( as they imply of their enemies ). The US is simply the pinnacle of the world's capitalist empire, and as such, is the most glarying obvious example of what capitalism is really about: profit at any cost.
There is no world capitalist empire, and capitalism isn't only about profit, it's about allowing individuals to make their own decisions about economics, instead of the state making their decisions for them.
It will shock you into becoming a socialist!
About the only thing capable of that would be a really botched up lobotomy.
Actually, that book was irrelevant when it was written, and even more irrelevant today. Marxism is based on the false assumptions that all history is about class struggle and production is solely the most important aspect of economics.
Re:NASA is dying... Bushcraft Confirms
on
The Future of NASA
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
The explanation is that bush jr. trying to find a way to prove to his daddy that he's a real man. Since he couldn't accomplish that during nam, and had to get spirited into the safety of the national guard instead, he sends hundreds to die in Iraq. Thus proving by proxy that he has what it takes.
The whole "Bush avoided Vietnam by joining the National Guard" conspiracy has been thoroughly debunked. People from his unit were actually deployed to Vietnam at the time he volunteered to join the National Guard.
Unlike some countries, the US doesn't break treaties. When they no longer suit our interests, we withdraw from treaties.
And, yes, there is a difference. A very large difference. Breaking a treaty implies that you pretend to still abide by the treaty. Withdrawing from a treaty means you tell the interested parties your intention, without trying to deceive them.
Re:We can own buildings on the moon...
on
The Future of NASA
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· Score: 1
The issue of ownership is as some have pointed out a bit funny. Regards Antarctica, the USA and Australia have long standing territorial claims on the area that they have placed in abayance until some future date only to avoid a fight over the area that was not needed at this time.
There are 7 countries with territorial claims on Antarctica, but the US has never been one of them. Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, and the UK all have claims.
The Scientific Treaties and open access to Antarctica resembles the GPL in many ways but does not negate the original claims. The pushing of such claims was just "Delayed" There is considerable interest in no longer delaying those claims.
The Antarctic Treaty neither recognizes or denies any territorial claims. But no other countries have ever recognized the current claims, which overlap in some places.
For those reading from over seas, the US Armed Forces are not some Unified Structure as has been portrayed. The US Armed Forces are a massively counterbalanced widely divided structure. This is why they are neither defeated easily nor likely to be the source of a coup.
Actually it is one unified structure, with the President as Commander-in-Chief.
The division even to Army, Navy, Air Force and some others is hardly the beginning of the understanding of this structure. The existence of NASA is actually such a division though officially it is not military.
NASA is not part of the Department of Defense, it's an independent civilian federal agency.
There are divisions within each branch and divisions by Active Duty, Reserve and National Guard. These are also greatly divided. The basic design is a natural one where the action of one is opposed against another to counter it. This is actually taken from the design of your body. This is even divided 50 ways by each of the States! (This is pretty complex stuff!) The division makes any officer who might think to use his power to extort or coup understand that he faces an endless array of forces who he has neither influence on nor systematic contact with who might oppose him. Understanding this structure is most important for those wishing for freedom in the world. Without this type of governmental control which extends to all operations of the US Government your efforts no matter how well intended are doomed to failure and destruction.
This is absolute BS! You have no idea what you're talking about! I've heard some idiotic things on Slashdot, but this about takes the cake.
The reason the military is divided is not to counter against other elements, but simply the limits of organization. One commander and his staff can only keep track and maintain control of so many subordinates. The organizational hierarchy is simply the refinement of millenia of military theory and human experience.
since when does international law mean anything? just look at antarctica, according to "international law" it is divided up nicely into slices with many different countries each having a piece. yet everyone knows that the USA and Australia have grabbed the whole thing..and if anyone doesn't like it, what are they gonna do about it?
Not true. Several nations signed the Antarctic Treaty in 1959, which went into effect in 1961. It neither recognizes or denies territorial claims in Antarctica. So far, 7 countries have made claims: Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, and the UK. However, no other countries recognize their claims, and in some places they overlap.
No, that is a free market. Capitalism is about a person with resources being allowed to exploit those resources and gain the benefits. The two are often in conflict (eg free markets are damaged by monopolies, but a capitalist would often be best served by trying to create one, similarly for trade barriers and protectionism).
Traditional liberal economics basicly consists of trying to create the environment for capitalism to work, but forcing it to work within a free market.
(at which point I suppose I have to point out that liberal economics is not related to what US politicians and media have redefined the word to mean. I suspect the average/.er grew up with `liberal' meaning `illiberal')
Words have different meanings to different people, and in different regions. Definitions also change over time.
To many people (myself included) capitalism=free markets. To others, capitalism is a pejorative term (it was originally popularized by Marx).
Liberalism in the US would traditionally be called statism, and classical liberalism is now often called libertarianism in the US.
emerge is a step forward but still not the answer. Bandwidth is expensive and it does not scale.
How does emerge not scale? Besides, Gentoo isn't really aimed at general desktop users or corporate users, it's geared towards hobbyists, power users, and developers.
Backwards compatibility for libraries, often times there are packages I cannot install without installing a newer version of a library that breaks other packages. This is a useful feature if you are using more than one package that uses the same library.
That's why Linux (& Unix) allows you to have multiple versions of most libraries installed. You can have libfoo.so.2 and libfoo.so.1 both installed, and binaries linked against either one will still work fine.
The idea of placing desktop applications on a handful of/bin,/sbin,/usr/bin/usr/sbin directories is in bad taste. ping, traceroute, fdisk fine. But there is no directory set aside for GUI applications. It would be like taking every file on a windows machine and moving it to either/windows or/system32. This is not a requirement for POSIX compliance, but hey, the current method sucks and of you are saying is NEEDS to stay that way than you are just reinforcing my point.
No desktop apps are ever installed in/bin, only a few, specified binaries that are essential for all users. There are also no desktop apps ever installed in/sbin, or/usr/sbin, only system binaries for root's use. Most distros don't install any desktop apps in/usr/bin either, they mostly use/usr/local/bin, or there is the/opt tree also.
But most windows apps do install files under/Windows (or/WINNT depending on your windows version),/Windows/System,/Windows/System32, "/Windows/Application Data", or "/Program files/Common Files", and don't even get me started about that quagmire known as the Windows Registry.
It would take all of 2 minutes for someone to add one line to FHS 2.3 that says "3.4/apps : Optional directory for graphical applications" but that will never happen. There are 59 sections in FHS that state where to put everything but GUI applications are not even mentioned. That might have something to do with the reason people seem to throw them all over the disk.
The FHS is very easy to learn and understand, they even provide a rationale for why things are done a certain way (try finding that from Microsoft). It doesn't have a specific place for GUI apps because it doesn't distinguish between GUI and non-GUI apps. But it does have a specific location for Add-on application software packages, the/opt directory. And I've never seen a Linux app that was more all over the disk than most standard windows apps.
Figuring out where shit is requires checking the package manager DB or running locate, which, whereis, or something like 'find / -name application 2/dev/null' THAT is intuitive. On my windows box I can tell you Trillian is in/program files/trillian without having to look.
Maybe the executable is in that folder, but if it's like most windows apps, it also installs libraries and configuration files all over the disk, and then makes several obscure registry entries with classid names like the incredibly intuitive {9dff8a8-5df4-87cf-b8c7-4df789a6d78}.
Linux package management and the filesystem hierarchy are far from perfect, but Windows is much more of a mess. Windows installers may be user-friendly, but try guessing what it's really doing, or try uninstalling something cleanly. That's why Windows gradually gathers kruft and slows down over time, requiring complete reinstalls to keep a smooth running system.
By the way, the technical term for that so-called warmth is "distortion". You may like the effect of how the distortion modifies the sound, and that's OK, but it's still distortion.
If you want pure reproduction, then digital and solid state electronics is the way to go.
Not necessarily. Analog recording is simply better at reproducing the entire audible spectrum. A single identical note sounds different when produced by different instruments or the human voice (as well as two of the same kinds of instruments). This is called timbre, and results not from the fundamental tone of the note, but from the different combinations of harmonic overtones produced. Digital recording equipment in use today just doesn't have a high enough sample rate or wide enough bandwidth analog-digital conversion to compete with high-end analog recording gear.
There are compromises inherent in the design of any digital recording gear. They need to balance the need to make a reasonable facsimile of what's being recorded with the feasibility of transmitting and storing the large amount of data required. If they try to match the fidelity of high-end analog gear by increasing the sample rate and bandwidth of the analog-digital conversion, they soon reach the limits of modern technology.
On the other hand, for most uses today, digital is good enough. Anyone with the requisite knowledge and skill could assemble a home recording studio better than professional recording studios of 25 years ago for less than $5000.
your thinking that lack of gui == primitive, it doesn't.
No, I mean primitive in the sense that a Gentoo install is mostly instructions to manually setup your system. The only installer more primitive is Linux From Scratch. Before I discovered Gentoo, I installed an LFS system once. Imagine Gentoo without portage, what a pain.
Changing it to International saved NASAs ass, as they could use Russia to send people and stuff to it when their ancient wobbly shuttles were grounded.
This is a very recent development though. The shuttle's have only been grounded since the Columbia disaster. Personally, I think we should've replaced the space shuttle a long time ago.
Othewise, it would be a small tin can in space, with a stars and stripes on the side, empty.
Even today, it's a small tin can in space, albeit with several flags on it. Not empty, but also not doing any worthwhile scientific research. The occupants of the ISS spend upwards of 80% of their time running and maintaining it.
Bagging on the UN for wasting money is pretty silly, considering that the US wastes more money than the UN ever has (500bn a year from the rest of the world, and the debt is slipping).
Possibly, but only because the US federal budget is much larger than the UN's. The UN wastes a much higher percentage of their total budget than probably any developed country on the planet.
I'm a very happy Gentoo user myself, but I can't imagine an installer much more primitive than Gentoo's. And from the original questions, it sounds like creating the custom livecd would be much more complicated than they're asking for.
The author of the above post has shown zero scientific credentials. The author of the above post has referred to zero peer reviewed studies. The author of the above post has not once considered the posibility of the other side's views, let alone the ramifications.
I am not a climatologist. You are not a climatologist. The vast majority of the people engaging in this debate are not climatologists. Who am I supposed to trust? This is a big, big deal. Global warming or no global warming, we're in the middle of one of the biggest mass extinctions in Earth's history and people are still bickering about politics. Why isn't this front page news? Why aren't we fighting tooth and nail to try and save our planet, our resources and ultimately our way of life?
You're criticizing the parent poster for no scientific credentials? The article you linked to is about a poll! Not research, scientific study, or experimentation. Besides, the author of the page you linked is a Professor of Philosophy and Religion, not any type of scientist.
Paul Ehrlich's first predictions were in his book The Population Bomb, originally published in 1968. In it, he warned of massive famines in the 70s and 80s, when hundreds of millions would die of starvation. (Here is a good critique of Ehrlich, and a good book review of The Population Bomb.)
He has more than 30 years of dire doomsday predictions, none of which happened. Truly the epitome of the boy who cried wolf. But what's really baffling is how so many people still hang on his every word. Somehow he's still a huge celebrity among environmentalists.
What this really means is that NASA might see a 1% budget increase instead of a budget cut next year, and after that (after Bush is re-elected or someone else is elected), it'll go back down.
You should do a little fact-checking before you post. Bush has increased NASA's budget each year of his presidency. This year's budget already had over a 3% increase, proposed in Feb 2003.
For comparison, over the 8 years of Clinton's presidency, there was a net decrease (over $300 million) in NASA's budget, and over George HW Bush's presidency, a net increase (over $3 billion).
Here are a couplearticles with information. They're secondary sources, but can be verified easily enough. Unfortunately, NASA doesn't have a table with consecutive years' budgets on one single page. However, their current year budget information is here, and previous years' budgets are here.
How cool would it be if the United Nations stepped up and proposed something like this. Imagine what could be done if the EU, USA, Japan, China, India et all[sic] got their shit together and worked on a combined project like this. The costs would be much more managable too.
Not cool. It would get lost in the red tape and bureaucracy, which is even worse at the UN than the US government. Seriously, if the space station had been funded by Congress when Reagan initially proposed it, it wouldn't have been so expensive. Changing it to an International Space Station resulted in costly delays and budget overruns. The primary reason Russia is a major partner is to keep their scientists and engineers gainfully employed, so they aren't tempted to build ballistic missiles for the highest bidder.
Also, a large cause of the amazing progress in space research in the 60s was because we were in a space race with the Soviets. Competition can be a very good thing.
Selective Availability (SA) was turned off 1 May 2000. But there are still two separate GPS signals. Anyone can receive and decode the C/A signal, which was intentionally limited to 30m accuracy when SA was on. On the other hand, the P signal can only be decoded if you have a capable receiver and the current decryption key.
You're thinking of Selective Availability (SA), which was turned off 1 May 2000. The Department of Defense (DOD) said they have no intention of ever turning it back on either.
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They wouldn't shut it down. There are too many mission critical uses of GPS now, from police/fire/ambulance to air navigation and commercial shipping.
This used to be standard policy, but as of May 1, 2000 Selective Availability (SA) was turned off.
This is more like what would happen today if they deemed it necessary.
Besides, not like there's any useful science being done on the ISS.
What's so frightening and dangerous? What civil liberties are you missing? We've never had and never will have a government we can fully trust, that's something our founders understood. So they built checks and balances into the Constitution. It seems Americans have always had an innate distrust of government, something that sets us apart from Europeans, then and now.
Athens: ruled by the few, property-owning, free, male citizens who were willing to fight in times of war. Among those disenfranchised were women, slaves, non-citizens, and those not willing to fight. I'm not trying to disparage the accomplishments of Athens: the foundation of representative government, philosophy, medicine, science, and mathematics that had such an influence on Western and Near Eastern civilizations. Just don't be fooled into thinking Athens was some golden age where everyone was equal and free. Also, Rome wasn't all bad. Every civilization has good and bad.
Besides, whatever your opinion of Bush, one man can do little to waste or ruin our nation's potential. The US will still be around for a long time, with just as much controversy and division.
So you're pretty much hopeless? Thankfully, I'm much more optimistic.
There is no world capitalist empire, and capitalism isn't only about profit, it's about allowing individuals to make their own decisions about economics, instead of the state making their decisions for them.
About the only thing capable of that would be a really botched up lobotomy.
Actually, that book was irrelevant when it was written, and even more irrelevant today. Marxism is based on the false assumptions that all history is about class struggle and production is solely the most important aspect of economics.
Unlike some countries, the US doesn't break treaties. When they no longer suit our interests, we withdraw from treaties.
And, yes, there is a difference. A very large difference. Breaking a treaty implies that you pretend to still abide by the treaty. Withdrawing from a treaty means you tell the interested parties your intention, without trying to deceive them.
The Antarctic Treaty neither recognizes or denies any territorial claims. But no other countries have ever recognized the current claims, which overlap in some places.
Actually it is one unified structure, with the President as Commander-in-Chief.
NASA is not part of the Department of Defense, it's an independent civilian federal agency.
This is absolute BS! You have no idea what you're talking about! I've heard some idiotic things on Slashdot, but this about takes the cake.
The reason the military is divided is not to counter against other elements, but simply the limits of organization. One commander and his staff can only keep track and maintain control of so many subordinates. The organizational hierarchy is simply the refinement of millenia of military theory and human experience.
To many people (myself included) capitalism=free markets. To others, capitalism is a pejorative term (it was originally popularized by Marx).
Liberalism in the US would traditionally be called statism, and classical liberalism is now often called libertarianism in the US.
That's why Linux (& Unix) allows you to have multiple versions of most libraries installed. You can have libfoo.so.2 and libfoo.so.1 both installed, and binaries linked against either one will still work fine.
No desktop apps are ever installed in
But most windows apps do install files under
The FHS is very easy to learn and understand, they even provide a rationale for why things are done a certain way (try finding that from Microsoft). It doesn't have a specific place for GUI apps because it doesn't distinguish between GUI and non-GUI apps. But it does have a specific location for Add-on application software packages, the
Maybe the executable is in that folder, but if it's like most windows apps, it also installs libraries and configuration files all over the disk, and then makes several obscure registry entries with classid names like the incredibly intuitive {9dff8a8-5df4-87cf-b8c7-4df789a6d78}.
Linux package management and the filesystem hierarchy are far from perfect, but Windows is much more of a mess. Windows installers may be user-friendly, but try guessing what it's really doing, or try uninstalling something cleanly. That's why Windows gradually gathers kruft and slows down over time, requiring complete reinstalls to keep a smooth running system.
There are compromises inherent in the design of any digital recording gear. They need to balance the need to make a reasonable facsimile of what's being recorded with the feasibility of transmitting and storing the large amount of data required. If they try to match the fidelity of high-end analog gear by increasing the sample rate and bandwidth of the analog-digital conversion, they soon reach the limits of modern technology.
On the other hand, for most uses today, digital is good enough. Anyone with the requisite knowledge and skill could assemble a home recording studio better than professional recording studios of 25 years ago for less than $5000.
Even today, it's a small tin can in space, albeit with several flags on it. Not empty, but also not doing any worthwhile scientific research. The occupants of the ISS spend upwards of 80% of their time running and maintaining it.
Possibly, but only because the US federal budget is much larger than the UN's. The UN wastes a much higher percentage of their total budget than probably any developed country on the planet.
I'm a very happy Gentoo user myself, but I can't imagine an installer much more primitive than Gentoo's. And from the original questions, it sounds like creating the custom livecd would be much more complicated than they're asking for.
Paul Ehrlich's first predictions were in his book The Population Bomb, originally published in 1968. In it, he warned of massive famines in the 70s and 80s, when hundreds of millions would die of starvation. (Here is a good critique of Ehrlich, and a good book review of The Population Bomb.)
He has more than 30 years of dire doomsday predictions, none of which happened. Truly the epitome of the boy who cried wolf. But what's really baffling is how so many people still hang on his every word. Somehow he's still a huge celebrity among environmentalists.
For comparison, over the 8 years of Clinton's presidency, there was a net decrease (over $300 million) in NASA's budget, and over George HW Bush's presidency, a net increase (over $3 billion).
Here are a couple articles with information. They're secondary sources, but can be verified easily enough. Unfortunately, NASA doesn't have a table with consecutive years' budgets on one single page. However, their current year budget information is here, and previous years' budgets are here.
Also, a large cause of the amazing progress in space research in the 60s was because we were in a space race with the Soviets. Competition can be a very good thing.
No, he's the president who's increased the NASA budget consistently.
(See AC post below for figures.)
- The managers are worried about disgruntled, laid-off ex-employees going postal, or...
- The investors are treating the situation as failed startups who are holding their money hostage.
Which is more likely? You decide.Selective Availability (SA) was turned off 1 May 2000. But there are still two separate GPS signals. Anyone can receive and decode the C/A signal, which was intentionally limited to 30m accuracy when SA was on. On the other hand, the P signal can only be decoded if you have a capable receiver and the current decryption key.
You're thinking of Selective Availability (SA), which was turned off 1 May 2000. The Department of Defense (DOD) said they have no intention of ever turning it back on either.