Indeed. And what is Mr. Nader's net worth? And he made his money riding on the coat tail of corporate America, playing the boy who cried wolf. The Corvair, by the way, was perfectly safe, at any speed.
This is appeal to envy. That sort of statement appeals to those who don't have money, so of course those who do have money must have cheated to get it. Hogwash. There are a lot of Mexicans here in Houston, Texas that disprove that. Third generation Mexican families shopping for Gucci at the Galleria. Despite all of Mr. Nader's class warfare nonsense, America is still one of the very few countries in the world where you can go far, if you're willing to work hard. My grandparents were dirt farmers. My father worked in a car carpet plant the past 20 years. I went to college, work for UUNET now, and make as much as my father and mother combined. Keep your envy talk for the lazy. And keep your hands off my money, Mr. Nader.
Progressive taxation, he says. How much more "progressive" can we get before this country experiences massive capital flight? According to the Congressional Budget Office, the top 40% of the population pays 90% of the taxes. Of that top 40%, the top 5% pay 60% of ALL income taxes. Thats not very damn progressive. Thats downright tyrannical. They threw British tea in Boston Harbor for far less. Its all well and good, talking about soaking the rich, until you or your children face the prospect of being rich. Then lobbying Congress to protect your hard earned property becomes "rigging the system." I'm voting for Bush.
Ok, few things. The "deficit" is just the amount the government spends over the amount it brings in. What you are saying is, the government should keep the money in the treasury.
I think you probably meant the national debt. Problem, those trillions of dollars of national debt are, gasp, owed to ourselves. The national debt is, amongst other things, money that was borrowed by the government from citizens like you and me who bought us gov securities. The US owes only a trifling amount of foreign "real" debt. Paying off the national debt is the same as issuing a tax refund/cut. The only difference is, you are cheating your citizens out of earned interest by issuing mandatory buy backs of national gov securities.
Besides, as another poster mentioned, there is no surplus. The surplus is creative accounting with SSI trust fund surplus funds. I laughed when I heard Clinton's surplus plan. Ok, we take the SSI surplus and add it to the budget, and whoosh, we have a small budget surplus. Then,::grandious gesturing::, we put a fraction of the budget surplus into the SSI trust fund and we are now saving Social Security! So you are robbing Peter to pay Paul, as the saying goes. If they would leave the money in the trust, and live with the fact that we still have a budget deficit, there would be no need to save Social Security, by robbing it blind.
Here's an idea though. In 7 years you can not only balance the budget, but achieve a real surplus. Quite simple: one agency, one mission. No more agency overlap and duplication of effort. The Dept. of Agriculture could be cut by more than half saving billions of dollars and not affect the current programs to what few farmers we have left, for example. Second, a moratorium on all new gov. real estate or furnishing construction. You laugh, but the gov. wastes billions a year on furniture. And decorations. Like Gingrich's gold leaf stenciling in his office when he became Speaker. Third: cut the gov. bureaucracy by half, by attrition (dont hire new civil servants except when necessary for vital positions), in seven years. All told you would balance the budget and come up with a real, that is via double entry acct. (imagine that), surplus.
You seem to have missed something in your own argument. Star Wars is a *kids movie!* Lucas has said so in the past, he said so for the last film. There is absolutely no redeeming mature themes whatsoever in *any* of the films. These movies should have been rated G if not for the violence.
Now, you believe that since you were a kid when these movies were released, you somehow have some manner of claim on them, and Lucas should cater to your tastes. BZZT Wrong. The original three were kids movies, the prequels are kids movies. Live with it. Lucas is not making these films for you.
I hear that. I'm sorry, but my external USR Courier V.Everything 56k smokes every PCI winmodem you can drudge out of Windowsland. Bah, I'll keep my serial ports and ISA 3com NICs and run Linux forever, keep yer lousy USB meeses. Who needs that much bandwidth on a bus for a freeking mouse anyway?;P
Too bad Aristotle never lived a couple centuries to meet Hume. Or discovered quantum physics. Teleology makes my hemmorhoids burn.
As to atheists only being amongst the young, I find it to be often the other way around as well. I was raised in a moderately religious family, tried orthodoxy, and then discovered science. I became an atheist over the course of a decade or so. Other people start off being non-religious, and as they grow older, become more religious. I believe the realization of one's own mortality has a lot to do with this. Me, Im at peace with the idea of being fertilizer when Im dead.
I would think that hackers would on the average be less mystical/religious than the norm, being educated and scientifically literate. Statistically the more education you have, the less one identifies with religion. But then again Einstein didnt find any conflict between science and God, so who knows.
Umm... no. Some people who would like to see the whois database or song lyrics servers freely available want that information to be free. Whois databases and lyrics servers dont want anything. Arent capable of wanting anything. People want, need, desire, etc. Information doesnt want anything. For that matter, without humans to want it, information as a concept is meaningless altogether.
Well, at some point it is fair to say any intelligent species would utilize electro magnetic radiation to communicate planet side. It is not necessary to detect radio transmissions sent while that species is spacefaring. Chances are, considering the time frames, it may be another 10,000+ years before we get any signals after the alien species became space faring. The detection of ANY radio transmissions of an intelligent origin is enough. The goal is the finding of intelligent life, not just space faring intelligent life.
Besides that, the odds of there being intelligent life like humans in our galaxy is, IMHO, very long odds. I believe that life may very well be ubiquitious in the universe, but simple such as single cell organisms. I have to laugh at conceptions of aliens as little bug-eyed humanoids. The evolutionary accident that produced bipedal intelligent humans was a collosal universal roll of the dice. If Africa had not started to split, causing a dry, arid East Africa, none of us would be here now. And that in itself is predicated upon there having been primates significantly evolved to continue into US. Its pretty far fetched that such accidents happen with such regularity. Hell, its pretty far fetched that such accidents as highly evolved mammal-like organisms, period, happen with such regularity.
In-situ production of fuel has been shown in initial experiments to be quite efficient. I believe one of the NASA Mars missions was slated to include a small in-situ unit to test it on the Mars surface. Basically the idea is to react the Martian atmosphere to create liquid fuel for 1. the return journey 2. to power the habitat and rovers 3. to produce water and oxygen as a byproduct. Simple chemistry.
Keeping humans in space for the roughly 8 month outbound journey is the biggest prob, as far as I can see. Mir cosmonauts returning to Earth after a year literally have to be carried away, because they dont have the leg muscle strength to walk after spending so much time in zero Gs.
Of course, if plasma propulsion comes through in ~10 years, we could be to Mars in 3 month travel time.:))
Obviously your mouth is bigger than your brain. Or at least your attention span - did you bother researching this project before opening your mouth?
The Mars Society project is following in the footsteps of the Haughton-Mars Project, a NASA collaborative effort on Devon island that has been ongoing since 1997. Here's a link to feed your enlightenment:
http://www.arctic-mars.org/
I will quote from the HMP website for those who dont wish to follow the link. Why Devon island is important to Mars research:
"The Haughton meteorite impact crater, on Devon Island, in the Canadian high arctic, is 20 km in diameter and formed 23 million years ago. It is the highest-latitude terrestrial impact crater known on land (7522'N, 8941'W). It lies in the "frost rubble zone" of the Earth, i.e., in a polar desert environment which approximates in several respects the conditions that may have prevailed at the surface of Mars earlier in it's history, when wetter and warmer conditions might have existed
The Haughton-Mars Project is a multidisciplinary investigation to study the Haughton crater and its surroundings. By it's nature, the crater is a testimony to our planet's profound ties with the cosmos. By location, it represents a geographic extreme on our planet and, as it turns out, a unique analog to a neighboring world. Therefore, by studying the Haughton crater and it's surroundings, we hope to learn more about Mars, the Earth's geologic past, a cosmic phenomenon (impact cratering) that has in the past catastrophically altered the course of the Earth's evolution, and an extreme environment in one of the most rarely visited corners of our planet. While investigating Haughton, we will also learn how to best explore Mars, by testing robotic and human exploration technologies and strategies, and by optimizing interactions between the two.
So far, our initial reconnaissance of Haughton and its surroundings showed that a wide suite of natural features and processes occur there that provide possible analogs to similar martian features. These observations provide a basis for identifying similar features on Mars or, alternatively, for understanding why such features might be different there or altogether absent. Continued studies of Haughton will allow more detailed investigations of these martian analogs, and ultimately a better understanding of the evolution of Mars itself. The Haughton-Mars Project offers, in our view, a unique potential for broad-ranging science return and an opportunity for innovative engineering in geographic and planetary exploration. It is perhaps the combination of these factors that best defines the significance of the project."
The Mars Society Project is an attempt to extend these studies to human survivability in the engineered module, psychological impacts of isolation, etc. as well as testing technology and techniques that may be implemented in any future missions. This IS an important mission. Devon Island is as close to being Mars as we are going to get without actually GOING THERE. That is why the site was chosen, by SCIENTISTS. The HMP is a scientific endeavor, and the Mars Society is predominately composed of scientists - a great many are aerospace engineers and many work for NASA. This isnt a bunch of amateur Jacques Custeaus playing with a cool igloo.
As to the Discovery Channel, the Mars Society is a totally privately funded organization. This project cost a damn lot of money. The Discovery Channel, along with a great many interested and dedicated members and individuals, were gracious enough to donate their money to help make this project a reality, and hence make a manned Mars mission that much closer to being a reality. Frankly I wish there were more companies that would be willing to donate the kind of money the Discovery Channel has - for TV rights or whatever. That is what the Mars Society is about - privately funding a private Mars Mission.
"Brian Ploskina of inter@activeWeek.com quoted Gene Hoffman, chief executive of EMusic.com, an online MP3 store and showcase as likening the free music legal battles to prohibition, doomed efforts to restrict the sale of liquor. "In the 20's," he said, people made a lot of bathtub gin, but they don't do that today because they can buy it for $20.""
THIS was an apt analogy? People in the 20s made bathtub gin because it was *illegal* to *buy* gin or any other alcoholic beverage, **period.** Nobody makes bathtub gin anymore because you can go down to the store and buy it legally, not because its $20 cheap. An apt analogy here would be people stealing said $20 bottles of gin out of the liquor store and passing it around for free.
Of course I can hear the rebuttal now, "But of course its an accurate analogy, I cant buy my mp3s online, so I have to trade them." No, you can go out and buy a cd. Everyone complains about the greed and money grubbing of the music industry, but then they refuse to spend 15 bucks on a CD and demand their music for free! I suppose its a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
"Rand might have loved like in the UK around the time of the industrial revolution, that is, if she wasn't a sustenance worker. Conditions were terrible"..As opposed to the back breaking, health nightmare of agricultural subsistence. The average "subsistence" worker in the factories of Industrial England made the equivelant of a year's cash earnings in a matter of 3 months. The housing and sanitation of the cities was heads above the huts and cottages one historian remarked as having only one good quality - they burned down easily. The "subsistence" workers of the Industrial Revolution for the first time had two things unheard of in pre Industrial England - free time and money to spend on luxury goods like, gasp, cheap disposable cotton clothing. The opportunity to buy cotton clothing was the greatest health revolution before modern medicine. By modern standards the conditions were terrible. By the conditions of agricultural subsistence farming, they were paradise. The Industrial Revolution allowed an entire class of people to escape the centuries long bondage of the commons to agricultural subsistence and doubled the life expectancy of the average person to boot. Perhaps a blurry eyed medievalist might have loved to live in the UK prior to the Industrial Revolution, that is if he/she were a member of the upper classes.
As to Rand's ideas being unsound, perhaps you would be less inclined to make such an accusation about the work of Kant, Locke, Liebniz, Aristotle, Russell, Marx, Nietzsche, Adam Smith, Feinberg, Alan Greenspan, Milton Friedman, and a host of others whose ideas her philosophy are either based upon or who share common ground. Luckily people much more intelligent than either you or I disagree with *you* quite strongly.
And no, Im not a Rand fanatic.
First, my post was explanatory, not a defense of this case of paternalism. So it was in no way contradictory to my statement that I question whether or not 17 year olds are capable of making responsible decisions.
Second, my suggestion that there is plenty of philosophy material in the local library was intended as a friendly suggestion to someone who's first post had the character of a 14 year old griping about his curfew. Perhaps if you had made a half intelligent first post there would not have been any comments you may have deemed "snide." As it stands, you come dangerously close to troll material.
And I certainly dont need an education in philosophy from the likes of you. I have a BA in Philosophy that says I know quite enough.
First, Im sure TSR/WotC do not want a Dragon Lance movie because they have sorta killed the world. Or at least dont have any plans to support again until after 2002. I as well would prefer a DL movie, even though I dont particularly care for DL. It would be heads above the tripe they are producing and labelling a DnD movie.
Speaking of tripe, I hate the cartoon. Talk about massive misrepresentation of the game. You do not realize how difficult it is to explain the game to someone who has been infected by that miserable work. "So, where's Dungeon Master?" "Ugh, how many times do I have to tell you, the DM is not a character in the game!" "So where's Tiamat then?" "You want Tiamat? Fine, here's Tiamat sucker!" Ignorant fool goes squish here.
Come on, the dragon goddess ruler of the first layer of hell, genius intelligence (with multiple brains, no less!) Tiamat, who is always accompanied by five of the most ancient, largest, max hit dice male consort evil dragons (themselves highly intelligent and fool-squishable) not to mention legions of devils, being outsmarted and outgunned by a bunch of silly kids. Please. This cartoon only contributed to monty haulism. Its a travesty that should die a painful death. IMHO.;)
Yes, children have rights as persons. However, this isnt about rights. This is about what is or is not in the best interest of the child. This is about paternalism.
Rights are based upon the assumption that the given person has the capacity for rational independent thought and the ability to take responsibility for their actions. As minors (biologically speaking) are neither intellectually or emotionally developed enough to either make rational, independent decisions or take responsibility for their actions (having little concept of consequences), parents have a strong obligation, codified in law, to decide what is in the best interest of the child based upon what that child would decide if it was capable of making a rational decision. In this case, the event which marks the State's recognition of an individual's capacity to take responsibility for himself is the 18th (or 21st, depending on what we're talking about ahem BEER) birthday.
So yes, children have rights, but parents (and for some reason the State thinks its in this category as well) have duties to decide the application of said rights because the given child does not have the capacity to make those choices itself. Now it is arguable whether a 17 year old is capable of making responsible, rational decisions. But under law, and under Dad's roof no doubt (hehe), that decision is moot because the law says that they can not. Not for another year at least.
There is a very large body of work on paternalism and related issues in philosophy. A library is nearby, no doubt. Check it out.
I hate to say it but how can anyone be surprised about AMD and capacity problems? Old news. If its not a screwed up distribution network, they simply dont make enough chips. This is hardly surprising. What IS surprising is that they havent learned anything from their mistakes. Too bad, the Athlon is a kickin processor. I hope AMD didnt intend any big OEM's to make a deal to package the Athlon with their machines.
Why bother? Why bother buying a kit car when you can buy a perfectly good classic car on the market? Easy - for the enjoyment. I found the Linux from Scratch How-to a while ago, and thought it really cool. Some people, such as myself, take enjoyment out of fiddling and tinkering and rolling your own Linux distro would be 1. a helluva lot o fun (with headaches Im sure) 2. get to learn what one *doesnt* know about Linux 3. impress friends and family with freshly burnt cd's of your own custom rolled Linux distro;)
There may or may not be any utility in rolling your own, but for me at least that consideration misses the point.
"How can this dna test be sooo sure... carbon date testing was proven false... but us as the nieve human species believe what we are told, by scientists..."
Proven false - by whom? Keep your pseudo Christian Science to yourself.
And they dont use carbon dating to determine genetic regression.
Its also the way that unreasonable expectations are created. During the Gulf war, the DOD sold the public on "smart bombs." People now think that a laser guided bomb is a.) unerring b.) only affects the selected target. Well, duh. Any refraction or reflection of the beam can make the bomb go off target, and just because the beam is targeted on that tank sitting next to the school playground doesnt mean it wont miss the tank and blow the shit out of the playground. All you had to do is read the papers during the Kosovo jobber to see how ridiculous are people's expectations of what these weapons can do. It also makes people forget how much collateral damage these weapons DO prevent.
In my opinion the American people have lost all sense of how dirty, ugly, and mean war is. But I guess everyone doesnt have memories of their father screaming in his sleep, dreaming of the jungles of SE Asia... or have the first hand knowledge itself. Americans like wars such as the Gulf War, where 90% of the enemy gives up without a shot fired. That makes for good entertaining TV.
"I don't see Caldera putting their code in the public domain, so until they do that, they have no right to complain about Open Source software being "proprietary.""
He wasnt complaining about Open Source software being proprietary. The point he was attempting to make and which was obviously lost on you was that there is a place for proprietary software. He *was* complaining about the unsensible and extreme opinion that ALL software MUST be open.
Lest we forget, unless kernel hacks are approved and included in the *official* ie Linus released kernel, then those hacks are not part of the "real" ie Linus released Linux kernel. Linus controls the kernel, so yes in a very real way Linux is proprietary in the strict sense. Proprietary does not strictly mean "no access."
Frankly, I thought Mr. Love's arguments were quite sensible. We have a bit too much knee-jerking at buzz words like "proprietary." And as to Caldera not being part of the Linux Community "mainstream," I do believe the author proves Mr. Love's point quite nicely about closing the debate to dissenting opinions. So much for the great democracy of the Community. Perhaps we should be a bit more introspective about our own beliefs and opinions, lest we wake up one day and find that we have *become* Microsoft.
When I first read the headline for the article, I assumed it would be regarding the LoC not digitizing its books as in not converting to digital format for *archiving.* Which makes me curious, what percentage of the works in the Library are in danger of loss from shear wastage? Microfiche has a bad habit of decaying as well as paper.
The idea of putting the works on the Internet is up in the air IMO, Im not sure of my stance on the issue. It would certainly cost a great deal by introducing the logistics of digitizing, cataloging, and maintaining the online library. If you maintained the Library as a big FTP archive it would make it much lighter in maintenance (vis a vis web based), and also address the archiving issue, but still... there are a LOT of works in the LoC and not all of them are books, and I would argue most have licensing issues which would restrain the distribution.
I do agree with the gentleman about it being less effort to go to the local library. I personally find it much more convenient to go to the library, and browse the books off the shelves. But I like having hard copy in front of me, so its an issue of personal taste.
"What are you talking about??? Post a quotation where there is ANY intent to support the ability of non-individuals to influence the political process."
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed. And what is Mr. Nader's net worth? And he made his money riding on the coat tail of corporate America, playing the boy who cried wolf. The Corvair, by the way, was perfectly safe, at any speed.
This is appeal to envy. That sort of statement appeals to those who don't have money, so of course those who do have money must have cheated to get it. Hogwash. There are a lot of Mexicans here in Houston, Texas that disprove that. Third generation Mexican families shopping for Gucci at the Galleria. Despite all of Mr. Nader's class warfare nonsense, America is still one of the very few countries in the world where you can go far, if you're willing to work hard. My grandparents were dirt farmers. My father worked in a car carpet plant the past 20 years. I went to college, work for UUNET now, and make as much as my father and mother combined. Keep your envy talk for the lazy. And keep your hands off my money, Mr. Nader.
Progressive taxation, he says. How much more "progressive" can we get before this country experiences massive capital flight? According to the Congressional Budget Office, the top 40% of the population pays 90% of the taxes. Of that top 40%, the top 5% pay 60% of ALL income taxes. Thats not very damn progressive. Thats downright tyrannical. They threw British tea in Boston Harbor for far less. Its all well and good, talking about soaking the rich, until you or your children face the prospect of being rich. Then lobbying Congress to protect your hard earned property becomes "rigging the system." I'm voting for Bush.
Derek Long
delong@ev1.net
Ok, few things. The "deficit" is just the amount the government spends over the amount it brings in. What you are saying is, the government should keep the money in the treasury.
::grandious gesturing::, we put a fraction of the budget surplus into the SSI trust fund and we are now saving Social Security! So you are robbing Peter to pay Paul, as the saying goes. If they would leave the money in the trust, and live with the fact that we still have a budget deficit, there would be no need to save Social Security, by robbing it blind.
I think you probably meant the national debt. Problem, those trillions of dollars of national debt are, gasp, owed to ourselves. The national debt is, amongst other things, money that was borrowed by the government from citizens like you and me who bought us gov securities. The US owes only a trifling amount of foreign "real" debt. Paying off the national debt is the same as issuing a tax refund/cut. The only difference is, you are cheating your citizens out of earned interest by issuing mandatory buy backs of national gov securities.
Besides, as another poster mentioned, there is no surplus. The surplus is creative accounting with SSI trust fund surplus funds. I laughed when I heard Clinton's surplus plan. Ok, we take the SSI surplus and add it to the budget, and whoosh, we have a small budget surplus. Then,
Here's an idea though. In 7 years you can not only balance the budget, but achieve a real surplus. Quite simple: one agency, one mission. No more agency overlap and duplication of effort. The Dept. of Agriculture could be cut by more than half saving billions of dollars and not affect the current programs to what few farmers we have left, for example. Second, a moratorium on all new gov. real estate or furnishing construction. You laugh, but the gov. wastes billions a year on furniture. And decorations. Like Gingrich's gold leaf stenciling in his office when he became Speaker. Third: cut the gov. bureaucracy by half, by attrition (dont hire new civil servants except when necessary for vital positions), in seven years. All told you would balance the budget and come up with a real, that is via double entry acct. (imagine that), surplus.
Derek
You seem to have missed something in your own argument. Star Wars is a *kids movie!* Lucas has said so in the past, he said so for the last film. There is absolutely no redeeming mature themes whatsoever in *any* of the films. These movies should have been rated G if not for the violence.
Now, you believe that since you were a kid when these movies were released, you somehow have some manner of claim on them, and Lucas should cater to your tastes. BZZT Wrong. The original three were kids movies, the prequels are kids movies. Live with it. Lucas is not making these films for you.
I hear that. I'm sorry, but my external USR Courier V.Everything 56k smokes every PCI winmodem you can drudge out of Windowsland. Bah, I'll keep my serial ports and ISA 3com NICs and run Linux forever, keep yer lousy USB meeses. Who needs that much bandwidth on a bus for a freeking mouse anyway? ;P
Derek
Too bad Aristotle never lived a couple centuries to meet Hume. Or discovered quantum physics. Teleology makes my hemmorhoids burn.
As to atheists only being amongst the young, I find it to be often the other way around as well. I was raised in a moderately religious family, tried orthodoxy, and then discovered science. I became an atheist over the course of a decade or so. Other people start off being non-religious, and as they grow older, become more religious. I believe the realization of one's own mortality has a lot to do with this. Me, Im at peace with the idea of being fertilizer when Im dead.
I would think that hackers would on the average be less mystical/religious than the norm, being educated and scientifically literate. Statistically the more education you have, the less one identifies with religion. But then again Einstein didnt find any conflict between science and God, so who knows.
Derek
Umm... no. Some people who would like to see the whois database or song lyrics servers freely available want that information to be free. Whois databases and lyrics servers dont want anything. Arent capable of wanting anything. People want, need, desire, etc. Information doesnt want anything. For that matter, without humans to want it, information as a concept is meaningless altogether.
Derek
Well, at some point it is fair to say any intelligent species would utilize electro magnetic radiation to communicate planet side. It is not necessary to detect radio transmissions sent while that species is spacefaring. Chances are, considering the time frames, it may be another 10,000+ years before we get any signals after the alien species became space faring. The detection of ANY radio transmissions of an intelligent origin is enough. The goal is the finding of intelligent life, not just space faring intelligent life.
Besides that, the odds of there being intelligent life like humans in our galaxy is, IMHO, very long odds. I believe that life may very well be ubiquitious in the universe, but simple such as single cell organisms. I have to laugh at conceptions of aliens as little bug-eyed humanoids. The evolutionary accident that produced bipedal intelligent humans was a collosal universal roll of the dice. If Africa had not started to split, causing a dry, arid East Africa, none of us would be here now. And that in itself is predicated upon there having been primates significantly evolved to continue into US. Its pretty far fetched that such accidents happen with such regularity. Hell, its pretty far fetched that such accidents as highly evolved mammal-like organisms, period, happen with such regularity.
Derek
In-situ production of fuel has been shown in initial experiments to be quite efficient. I believe one of the NASA Mars missions was slated to include a small in-situ unit to test it on the Mars surface. Basically the idea is to react the Martian atmosphere to create liquid fuel for 1. the return journey 2. to power the habitat and rovers 3. to produce water and oxygen as a byproduct. Simple chemistry.
:))
Keeping humans in space for the roughly 8 month outbound journey is the biggest prob, as far as I can see. Mir cosmonauts returning to Earth after a year literally have to be carried away, because they dont have the leg muscle strength to walk after spending so much time in zero Gs.
Of course, if plasma propulsion comes through in ~10 years, we could be to Mars in 3 month travel time.
http://spacsun.rice.edu/aspl/vasimr.htm
Obviously your mouth is bigger than your brain. Or at least your attention span - did you bother researching this project before opening your mouth?
The Mars Society project is following in the footsteps of the Haughton-Mars Project, a NASA collaborative effort on Devon island that has been ongoing since 1997. Here's a link to feed your enlightenment:
http://www.arctic-mars.org/
I will quote from the HMP website for those who dont wish to follow the link. Why Devon island is important to Mars research:
"The Haughton meteorite impact crater, on Devon Island, in the Canadian high arctic, is 20 km in diameter and formed 23 million years ago. It is the highest-latitude terrestrial impact crater known on land (7522'N, 8941'W). It lies in the "frost rubble zone" of the Earth, i.e., in a polar desert environment which approximates in several respects the conditions that may have prevailed at the surface of Mars earlier in it's history, when wetter and warmer conditions might have existed
The Haughton-Mars Project is a multidisciplinary investigation to study the Haughton crater and its surroundings. By it's nature, the crater is a testimony to our planet's profound ties with the cosmos. By location, it represents a geographic extreme on our planet and, as it turns out, a unique analog to a neighboring world. Therefore, by studying the Haughton crater and it's surroundings, we hope to learn more about Mars, the Earth's geologic past, a cosmic phenomenon (impact cratering) that has in the past catastrophically altered the course of the Earth's evolution, and an extreme environment in one of the most rarely visited corners of our planet. While investigating Haughton, we will also learn how to best explore Mars, by testing robotic and human exploration technologies and strategies, and by optimizing interactions between the two.
So far, our initial reconnaissance of Haughton and its surroundings showed that a wide suite of natural features and processes occur there that provide possible analogs to similar martian features. These observations provide a basis for identifying similar features on Mars or, alternatively, for understanding why such features might be different there or altogether absent. Continued studies of Haughton will allow more detailed investigations of these martian analogs, and ultimately a better understanding of the evolution of Mars itself. The Haughton-Mars Project offers, in our view, a unique potential for broad-ranging science return and an opportunity for innovative engineering in geographic and planetary exploration. It is perhaps the combination of these factors that best defines the significance of the project."
The Mars Society Project is an attempt to extend these studies to human survivability in the engineered module, psychological impacts of isolation, etc. as well as testing technology and techniques that may be implemented in any future missions. This IS an important mission. Devon Island is as close to being Mars as we are going to get without actually GOING THERE. That is why the site was chosen, by SCIENTISTS. The HMP is a scientific endeavor, and the Mars Society is predominately composed of scientists - a great many are aerospace engineers and many work for NASA. This isnt a bunch of amateur Jacques Custeaus playing with a cool igloo.
As to the Discovery Channel, the Mars Society is a totally privately funded organization. This project cost a damn lot of money. The Discovery Channel, along with a great many interested and dedicated members and individuals, were gracious enough to donate their money to help make this project a reality, and hence make a manned Mars mission that much closer to being a reality. Frankly I wish there were more companies that would be willing to donate the kind of money the Discovery Channel has - for TV rights or whatever. That is what the Mars Society is about - privately funding a private Mars Mission.
Umm... William of Locksley was a landed Norman noble. And there were no "British." You mean, I presume, Angles and Saxons and Britons.
"Brian Ploskina of inter@activeWeek.com quoted Gene Hoffman, chief executive of EMusic.com, an online MP3 store and showcase as likening the free music legal battles to prohibition, doomed efforts to restrict the sale of liquor. "In the 20's," he said, people made a lot of bathtub gin, but they don't do that today because they can buy it for $20.""
THIS was an apt analogy? People in the 20s made bathtub gin because it was *illegal* to *buy* gin or any other alcoholic beverage, **period.** Nobody makes bathtub gin anymore because you can go down to the store and buy it legally, not because its $20 cheap. An apt analogy here would be people stealing said $20 bottles of gin out of the liquor store and passing it around for free.
Of course I can hear the rebuttal now, "But of course its an accurate analogy, I cant buy my mp3s online, so I have to trade them." No, you can go out and buy a cd. Everyone complains about the greed and money grubbing of the music industry, but then they refuse to spend 15 bucks on a CD and demand their music for free! I suppose its a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Perhaps thats why I followed the link to this over a year ago - from Cruel Site of the Day. ;)
"Rand might have loved like in the UK around the time of the industrial revolution, that is, if she wasn't a sustenance worker. Conditions were terrible" ..As opposed to the back breaking, health nightmare of agricultural subsistence. The average "subsistence" worker in the factories of Industrial England made the equivelant of a year's cash earnings in a matter of 3 months. The housing and sanitation of the cities was heads above the huts and cottages one historian remarked as having only one good quality - they burned down easily. The "subsistence" workers of the Industrial Revolution for the first time had two things unheard of in pre Industrial England - free time and money to spend on luxury goods like, gasp, cheap disposable cotton clothing. The opportunity to buy cotton clothing was the greatest health revolution before modern medicine. By modern standards the conditions were terrible. By the conditions of agricultural subsistence farming, they were paradise. The Industrial Revolution allowed an entire class of people to escape the centuries long bondage of the commons to agricultural subsistence and doubled the life expectancy of the average person to boot. Perhaps a blurry eyed medievalist might have loved to live in the UK prior to the Industrial Revolution, that is if he/she were a member of the upper classes.
As to Rand's ideas being unsound, perhaps you would be less inclined to make such an accusation about the work of Kant, Locke, Liebniz, Aristotle, Russell, Marx, Nietzsche, Adam Smith, Feinberg, Alan Greenspan, Milton Friedman, and a host of others whose ideas her philosophy are either based upon or who share common ground. Luckily people much more intelligent than either you or I disagree with *you* quite strongly.
And no, Im not a Rand fanatic.
First, my post was explanatory, not a defense of this case of paternalism. So it was in no way contradictory to my statement that I question whether or not 17 year olds are capable of making responsible decisions.
Second, my suggestion that there is plenty of philosophy material in the local library was intended as a friendly suggestion to someone who's first post had the character of a 14 year old griping about his curfew. Perhaps if you had made a half intelligent first post there would not have been any comments you may have deemed "snide." As it stands, you come dangerously close to troll material.
And I certainly dont need an education in philosophy from the likes of you. I have a BA in Philosophy that says I know quite enough.
First, Im sure TSR/WotC do not want a Dragon Lance movie because they have sorta killed the world. Or at least dont have any plans to support again until after 2002. I as well would prefer a DL movie, even though I dont particularly care for DL. It would be heads above the tripe they are producing and labelling a DnD movie.
;)
Speaking of tripe, I hate the cartoon. Talk about massive misrepresentation of the game. You do not realize how difficult it is to explain the game to someone who has been infected by that miserable work. "So, where's Dungeon Master?" "Ugh, how many times do I have to tell you, the DM is not a character in the game!" "So where's Tiamat then?" "You want Tiamat? Fine, here's Tiamat sucker!" Ignorant fool goes squish here.
Come on, the dragon goddess ruler of the first layer of hell, genius intelligence (with multiple brains, no less!) Tiamat, who is always accompanied by five of the most ancient, largest, max hit dice male consort evil dragons (themselves highly intelligent and fool-squishable) not to mention legions of devils, being outsmarted and outgunned by a bunch of silly kids. Please. This cartoon only contributed to monty haulism. Its a travesty that should die a painful death. IMHO.
Cant wait for 3rd edition though...
Yes, children have rights as persons. However, this isnt about rights. This is about what is or is not in the best interest of the child. This is about paternalism.
Rights are based upon the assumption that the given person has the capacity for rational independent thought and the ability to take responsibility for their actions. As minors (biologically speaking) are neither intellectually or emotionally developed enough to either make rational, independent decisions or take responsibility for their actions (having little concept of consequences), parents have a strong obligation, codified in law, to decide what is in the best interest of the child based upon what that child would decide if it was capable of making a rational decision. In this case, the event which marks the State's recognition of an individual's capacity to take responsibility for himself is the 18th (or 21st, depending on what we're talking about ahem BEER) birthday.
So yes, children have rights, but parents (and for some reason the State thinks its in this category as well) have duties to decide the application of said rights because the given child does not have the capacity to make those choices itself. Now it is arguable whether a 17 year old is capable of making responsible, rational decisions. But under law, and under Dad's roof no doubt (hehe), that decision is moot because the law says that they can not. Not for another year at least.
There is a very large body of work on paternalism and related issues in philosophy. A library is nearby, no doubt. Check it out.
I hate to say it but how can anyone be surprised about AMD and capacity problems? Old news. If its not a screwed up distribution network, they simply dont make enough chips. This is hardly surprising. What IS surprising is that they havent learned anything from their mistakes. Too bad, the Athlon is a kickin processor. I hope AMD didnt intend any big OEM's to make a deal to package the Athlon with their machines.
Why bother? Why bother buying a kit car when you can buy a perfectly good classic car on the market? Easy - for the enjoyment. I found the Linux from Scratch How-to a while ago, and thought it really cool. Some people, such as myself, take enjoyment out of fiddling and tinkering and rolling your own Linux distro would be 1. a helluva lot o fun (with headaches Im sure) 2. get to learn what one *doesnt* know about Linux 3. impress friends and family with freshly burnt cd's of your own custom rolled Linux distro ;)
There may or may not be any utility in rolling your own, but for me at least that consideration misses the point.
"How can this dna test be sooo sure... carbon date testing was proven false... but us as the nieve human species believe what we are told, by scientists..."
Proven false - by whom? Keep your pseudo Christian Science to yourself.
And they dont use carbon dating to determine genetic regression.
Its also the way that unreasonable expectations are created. During the Gulf war, the DOD sold the public on "smart bombs." People now think that a laser guided bomb is a.) unerring b.) only affects the selected target. Well, duh. Any refraction or reflection of the beam can make the bomb go off target, and just because the beam is targeted on that tank sitting next to the school playground doesnt mean it wont miss the tank and blow the shit out of the playground. All you had to do is read the papers during the Kosovo jobber to see how ridiculous are people's expectations of what these weapons can do. It also makes people forget how much collateral damage these weapons DO prevent.
In my opinion the American people have lost all sense of how dirty, ugly, and mean war is. But I guess everyone doesnt have memories of their father screaming in his sleep, dreaming of the jungles of SE Asia... or have the first hand knowledge itself. Americans like wars such as the Gulf War, where 90% of the enemy gives up without a shot fired. That makes for good entertaining TV.
"I don't see Caldera putting their code in the public domain, so until they do that, they have no right to complain about Open Source software being "proprietary.""
He wasnt complaining about Open Source software being proprietary. The point he was attempting to make and which was obviously lost on you was that there is a place for proprietary software. He *was* complaining about the unsensible and extreme opinion that ALL software MUST be open.
Thank you X, saved me an explanation.
Lest we forget, unless kernel hacks are approved and included in the *official* ie Linus released kernel, then those hacks are not part of the "real" ie Linus released Linux kernel. Linus controls the kernel, so yes in a very real way Linux is proprietary in the strict sense. Proprietary does not strictly mean "no access."
Frankly, I thought Mr. Love's arguments were quite sensible. We have a bit too much knee-jerking at buzz words like "proprietary." And as to Caldera not being part of the Linux Community "mainstream," I do believe the author proves Mr. Love's point quite nicely about closing the debate to dissenting opinions. So much for the great democracy of the Community. Perhaps we should be a bit more introspective about our own beliefs and opinions, lest we wake up one day and find that we have *become* Microsoft.
When I first read the headline for the article, I assumed it would be regarding the LoC not digitizing its books as in not converting to digital format for *archiving.* Which makes me curious, what percentage of the works in the Library are in danger of loss from shear wastage? Microfiche has a bad habit of decaying as well as paper.
The idea of putting the works on the Internet is up in the air IMO, Im not sure of my stance on the issue. It would certainly cost a great deal by introducing the logistics of digitizing, cataloging, and maintaining the online library. If you maintained the Library as a big FTP archive it would make it much lighter in maintenance (vis a vis web based), and also address the archiving issue, but still... there are a LOT of works in the LoC and not all of them are books, and I would argue most have licensing issues which would restrain the distribution.
I do agree with the gentleman about it being less effort to go to the local library. I personally find it much more convenient to go to the library, and browse the books off the shelves. But I like having hard copy in front of me, so its an issue of personal taste.
"What are you talking about??? Post a quotation where there is ANY intent to support the ability of non-individuals to influence the political process."
Legally, corporations ARE individuals.
LOL! Mod this up as Insightful and Funny.