So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this State of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward--and so will space.
As soon as the US got to the moon, they rested, they waited. While space will be conquered by those who are moving forward.
"The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space -- each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision." – XKCD
Depends what you mean by "no longer capable." No longer capable in the sense of lacking the technical know-how? Of course not.
In the 1990's, it was estimated that the US would take twice as long to get to the moon as it did the first time. Constellation was meant to have it's first (LEO-only) hardware flying by 2014. When cancelled, it was burning a couple of $billion/yr and falling one year further behind schedule every year. And the stripped down successor program, SLS, won't launch a human until after 2021 - if it stays on schedule. And will cost almost as much as the Apollo program. That's just to launch the rocket and capsule. And there's no program to build any mission hardware anyway. (Plus many space activists, and many at NASA, don't think SLS will ever fly.)
So yes, the US currently lacks the technical know-how to create a space program capable of getting to the moon, even when the President Bush (both of them, in fact) challenged them to do so. Not just the will, or the funding, but the know-how. I believe it would take at least a decade of solid development, probably longer, just to build up a workforce with the technical skill to begin to do a lunar program. And it seems that NASA isn't currently capable of running such a skills-development program, or even recognising the need, nor would Congress fund them even if they did.
SpaceX, otoh, seems to be copying the incremental development of the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo program. Other new.space players are also trying. So it's possible that US private space can develop the technical know-how, and has the will. But not US government space.
This is not your father's space program.
It's a little like saying Magic Johnson can't sink a basket any more,
No. It's like saying that Magic can't compete at the national level any more. Not "doesn't want to". Not "currently isn't". Can't.
On one hand, you're saying that a small chance of a bad thing is ok (gun ban leading to confiscation leading to totalitarian government), while on the other hand you're saying it's intolerable (gun ownership leading to murder).
Your mistake is believing that because I disagree with you, I must be a gun-control advocate.
Read my comments again. I've never supported gun control. I explicitly said I was surprised that Australia's gun control in the '90s actually reduced the rate of mass-shootings. And I also pointed out that it hasn't affected any crime except mass-shootings. You ignored that, and reflexively spewed an article at me that said exactly the same thing, that gun control didn't affect anything except mass-shootings.
All I've been trying to do is to point out to you that you are using precisely the same logic as the gun control nuts. That a tiny percentage chance of a bad thing justifies a massive over-reaction that probably has no effect on the chance of the bad thing happening.
But you've got your head so far up your own politics, you can't see anything except 100% ally vs 100% enemy.
(Hell, I even called this trigger/breach micro-print proposal "Nonsense", but no, whoosh.)
and we have a badness factor of 100 average deaths per year attributed to mandated firearm registration.
And, even accepting your numbers, the estimated number of deaths from accidental shootings is about 600 per year. If an actual number 600 is acceptable, why is a theoretical number 100 unacceptable?
I know this analogy is tired, but it's still valid: A small percentage of people use their cars in anger. Should all cars therefore be banned?
No. Just registered. Or did you forget that? Did you forget that car registration exists throughout the world and... I doubt think has ever led to a total ban and confiscation. (Nor, I suspect, does it have any impact on misuse.)
It's almost like there's no connection between registering something and later confiscating it. Hmmm, I wonder if there's a lesson somewhere.
From the article: "Other researchers have focused on mass shootings: there were 11 in Australia in the decade before 1996, and there have been none since."
11 to zero.
For the rest, I said it didn't affect gun crime rates, only mass shootings. What do you think you're rebutting with an article that says the same thing?
You also glossed over the fact that in Australia you can still own rifles, shotguns and handguns, 16 years after the new laws. It still isn't a "total gun ban".
Taking the safety off my pistol while aiming it at you does not cause me to pull the trigger, it merely allows me to later pull the trigger.
So registrations are bad 100% of the time, because in a tiny percentage of cases it allowed total gun bans decades later? Are you sure you want to push that logic? Seriously? Because in every gun murder, the would-be murderer first had to get a gun. Therefore if you want a gun... And you've just rationalised total gun bans. The fact that only a tiny percentage of gun owners use their weapons in anger is irrelevant by your logic, as long as they can, they should be prevented from ever owning guns.
You've apparently got more in common with the anti-gun nuts than you think.
I said registration preceded every seizure, not every registration was followed by a seizure.
However, you use that to object to registration, as if there was causation. That's the logic error. Seizure has a high correlation with prior registration, but registration has a low correlation with seizure. You're confusing one with the other.
If almost all registration laws do not result in "total ban and confiscation", than any specific registration law tells you nothing about whether it will be followed by a seizure law. (Except, you know, "almost certainly not".)
It's like saying that (almost) every thief gets to the job by car. Even if true, it tells you nothing about cars in general. Nor does defending cars require me to defend thievery.
when was the last revolution in England or Australia?
Neither have "total bans on guns". England barely regulates shotguns. Australia bans only assault rifles and high-powered semi-automatics. Bolt action, lower-powered semi's and handguns are still available (and gun owners were paid compensation during the change. O Villainy! O Treachery!) But in both cases, changes to firearms laws were not immediately preceded by the registration requirement. There was no causative connection. In Australia, the change to gun laws immediately followed a particularly bad mass-shooting. 16 years later, still no UN takeover, still no death-camps. (Also no more mass-shootings. Dropped from 1 every 18 months to 1 in 16 years. Interestingly, nothing else really changed, gun crime, suicide, etc, just mass-shootings. Surprised me, I didn't think it would make a difference.)
What percentage of countries (or US states) that have brought in gun registration have followed it up with total gun bans/confiscations?
You're implying that registration is causative. "Registration preceded every seizure. This is a registration, therefore a seizure will follow." But if 99% of registration schemes were followed by... nothing, then registration alone tells you nothing about seizures. Gun registration is pretty common throughout the western world, but there've only been a few total bans and confiscations in the history of firearms. And those examples generally followed a revolution or other seizure of power, in order to disarm the supporters of the old order.
Because believing that the US government wants registration of guns because those same politicians plan to soon enact a ban/confiscation, is a bit... well, it makes you look like a paranoid nut.
RFID tags would be too easily destroyed. There are micro-tags currently used to mark equipment to aid prevent resale by thieves. (Just sprayed on, insanely hard to find and remove them all.) They could be added to the ammo, both in the projectile, and behind it (so the tags spray out over the crime-scene like microscopic confetti.)
But I doubt you could overcome the cost issue.
How about a radio transmitted embedded in the weapon itself? Triggered (and powered) by the pressure-wave of the shot, squawking an ID-code, picked up by every compatible cell tower in the area and logged. Properly designed, it could be made difficult to remove without destroying the weapon itself.
I would think it would be the other way around. It's the Red states doing all the whining about the rest of the US, about DC, even threatening to secede when Obama was elected, so why not do it. Leave. "Rise again."
The last time, the Civil War, there was a great risk that the division would be exploited by European powers (particularly England) to destroy the US, as well as being a rival in the race to colonise the west, but that's hardly likely any more. Even military/economic rivals like China (or Russia) wouldn't be able to use the Confederation against the US. So this time there's no reason to stop you, and I suspect no one cares enough to try.
So go. There is literally nothing stopping you. Do it. Rick Perry for Confederate President!
You'll be happier. The remaining US states will be much happier. Win win.
Just go.
But... you won't. You never will. Not now, not in 50 years, not in 150 years. Gutless loud-mouth redneck idiots.
how much harder this will it be for the manufacturer? How much more expensive they'll be for consumers?
Since other commenters have been ranting about how easy it will be for ghetto gunsmiths to re-etch with someone else's markings, that would suggest either; a) not very, or; b) they were full of shit.
B) It makes it trivial to frame someone for a crime. Find some used brass at any gun range, drop them off at the shooting scene.
For the 900th time, Horatio, since you've done nothing wrong, indeed suspect nothing is wrong, you haven't thrown away or destroyed you gun. So when the police test-fire your gun and compare the rifling to the bullets from the crime-scene, it won't match.
So now the police know the evidence was planted, which gives them another lead to the suspect. Perhaps security video from the gun range. Or the range-owner remembering someone hanging around, acting weird. (Or you know who is pissed off enough with you to frame you for murder!) Plus there's a chance of finding something on those planted casings, like DNA, since murderers typically aren't forensic experts. Or a million other possibilities that this opens up. Life is not TV, elaborate schemes to frame other people usually just create more evidence pointing back to you. (And now evidence of pre-meditation. Good luck trying to argue accidental shooting, or crime-of-passion (2nd degree), or even self-defence, in the shooting. Nope. 1st degree, cold blooded murder. And the jury is massively creeped out and much more likely to convict.)
Your gun is stolen and used in a crime. The cops come looking for you.
This isn't a bad thing, there's a chance of more forensic evidence from the theft, in addition to the shooting. For example, they might get a print or DNA from the break-in, which leads to an ex-con on the system, which leads to a search, which uncovers the gun (because many lowlifes won't ditch a perfectly good gun), which leads to a conviction. You're inconvenienced, but a murderer gets caught. Still a win for the good guys.
When selling your gun to someone else, add on the cost and time of changing the micro-code registration.
No harder than selling a car. Jesus, shouldn't you take selling a gun as seriously as selling a car?
When the paperwork is lost, and the new owner has his gun stolen and used in a crime, the cops come looking for you, then you finger the buyer, so double the fun and double the inconvenience for twice as many people.
And exactly how often do you think that chain of events will occur in the next thousand years?
When your "helpful" "friend" helps you police your brass at the shooting range and then drops a few casings at his next shooting, he's effectively framed you.
He can already just pick a hair off your shoulder and do that. Without the risk of leaving his own fingerprints and DNA on the casings he picked up to frame you with. (Also without having the rifling on the slug not matching your handgun. You didn't forget about the actual shooting at the crime-scene, did you?)
When the market for old guns explodes and it becomes harder and more expensive to buy one, it both costs money and time.
Implies that the market for new guns crashes. So bargain.
You're just making up crap for the sake of being difficult. People do this all the time and it's stupid. You know why this law is bad? Because it won't work, it's too easy to file off the micro-code. That's it. Bam. You don't need to invent a pile of hysterical nonsense to object to a law. It just makes you look like a stupid old woman.
Besides... barrel rifling already makes a fingerprint-like marking on the shell/slug/bullet, and that's going to be a hell of a lot more useful in identifying the gun it was shot from than any other method thought up so far...
Yes. But remember the huge lobbying effort by gun manufacturers/NRA when it was suggested that a mandatory national registry of rifling marks be created. So the idea was dropped. This micro-printing nonsense is an individual state trying to find another way. (You know, states' rights, and all that.)
The MSL uses an RTG power source. The problem with RTGs is that you can't turn them off, they start to run down as soon as they are built. MSL already missed a launch window due to delays and so was 2.5 years behind. Another delay would use up 5 years of the expected 10 years of RTG life.
Again, they either substitute for the mouse, or parts of a keyboard (such as the number-pad or media controls). They are a great idea for sitting back and remotely controlling your PC (or media centre, or smart-TV, or presentation, or....) They do not augment regular input.
(And again, I think the limit is in the operating system of the PC, not in the phone/tablet.)
No. AirDisplay treats the phone/tablet as a second monitor. "Touch" just hijacks the mouse. Touch something and you lose focus from the main window/display, just as you would mousing onto something on a second monitor. You could have also pointed to AirMouse (iPhone+Mac only, I think), which treats the iPhone as an application specific pointing device, but again, it hijacks the mouse/focus.
Both are only part way there. People are clearly trying. They are doing what they can on the phone side, but I think it's the desktop-OS side that is not able to use a secondary display as an independent input surface. (Which is bizarre given all the research money Microsoft has thrown at novel touch interfaces. And how Jobs was, well, you know, Jobs. And how nerdy-obvious it would be for Linux devs, for their own use while coding, which is usually a way to get something developed in the Open Source world.) You need a third input focus in addition to cursor and pointer - one for touch. Current attempts are just hijacking the mouse (sometimes keyboard) input for touch, touch needs its own thing. Likewise, an independent display stream, not just a clumsy dual-monitor hack.
Smartphones may well "have multi-core processors powerful enough to deliver laptop-level performance", but only entry level laptops. Ie, those in the $200-300 range. And my guess is that 90% of the costs for those are design, assembly, shipping, marketing, & support. Costs which can't be reduced. (If it wasn't so, there'd be near-disposable $50 laptops using older generation technology.) That means you save almost nothing by leaving out the processor and memory (the only thing the phone provides). Oh, and then they need to add the cost of their custom dock for the phone itself.
Which means just to equal the price of a mass-market entry-level 13" laptop, they will be on razor margins, which means they can spare nothing for the design. So expect it to be slower, uglier, and clumsier to use (since you probably can't make calls and work at the same time).
I could see Apple making something shiny and clever in this design space, and being able to charge enough iTax to make it worthwhile, but this? No.
It would be much more useful if someone came up with a dock for Android tablets and phones that allows either or both to be used as smart-display touchscreens for your main desktop. Ie, it allows the user to move menus, toolbars, palettes, tabs, on to the phone/tablet, or an entire secondary program, or anything the user wants. Elegantly. Without taking focus away from the main window/display.
Or a wireless connection on the dock, so that if you remove the device in the middle of a sync or transfer, it seamlessly continues wirelessly.
Why? When galaxies collide, they don't actually hit anything. Their stars just orbit the new centre of gravity (variable until the merger settles). Entire civilisations could rise and fall during the collision, and not notice it happening.
It's been known for a long time that Andromeda had a velocity towards the Milky Way (easily measured by its blue-shift), but no one could tell what its lateral velocity was, therefore whether it was going to actually collide or whether it was in an eccentric orbit. Actually measuring such a tiny side-shift, against more distant galaxies, of a source which is not actually a single defined object, where every part of it is in separate motion, in just 8 years, is pretty fucking impressive.
Slashdot Mirror
As time goes on and the threat of war recedes, they are less so.
You do realise you're at war now? And have been continuously at war for over a decade.
Perhaps more appropriate, his Rice U speech:
So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this State of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward--and so will space.
As soon as the US got to the moon, they rested, they waited. While space will be conquered by those who are moving forward.
"The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space -- each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision." – XKCD
Depends what you mean by "no longer capable." No longer capable in the sense of lacking the technical know-how? Of course not.
In the 1990's, it was estimated that the US would take twice as long to get to the moon as it did the first time. Constellation was meant to have it's first (LEO-only) hardware flying by 2014. When cancelled, it was burning a couple of $billion/yr and falling one year further behind schedule every year. And the stripped down successor program, SLS, won't launch a human until after 2021 - if it stays on schedule. And will cost almost as much as the Apollo program. That's just to launch the rocket and capsule. And there's no program to build any mission hardware anyway. (Plus many space activists, and many at NASA, don't think SLS will ever fly.)
So yes, the US currently lacks the technical know-how to create a space program capable of getting to the moon, even when the President Bush (both of them, in fact) challenged them to do so. Not just the will, or the funding, but the know-how. I believe it would take at least a decade of solid development, probably longer, just to build up a workforce with the technical skill to begin to do a lunar program. And it seems that NASA isn't currently capable of running such a skills-development program, or even recognising the need, nor would Congress fund them even if they did.
SpaceX, otoh, seems to be copying the incremental development of the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo program. Other new.space players are also trying. So it's possible that US private space can develop the technical know-how, and has the will. But not US government space.
This is not your father's space program.
It's a little like saying Magic Johnson can't sink a basket any more,
No. It's like saying that Magic can't compete at the national level any more. Not "doesn't want to". Not "currently isn't". Can't.
Seriously?
Futurama.
On one hand, you're saying that a small chance of a bad thing is ok (gun ban leading to confiscation leading to totalitarian government), while on the other hand you're saying it's intolerable (gun ownership leading to murder).
Your mistake is believing that because I disagree with you, I must be a gun-control advocate.
Read my comments again. I've never supported gun control. I explicitly said I was surprised that Australia's gun control in the '90s actually reduced the rate of mass-shootings. And I also pointed out that it hasn't affected any crime except mass-shootings. You ignored that, and reflexively spewed an article at me that said exactly the same thing, that gun control didn't affect anything except mass-shootings.
All I've been trying to do is to point out to you that you are using precisely the same logic as the gun control nuts. That a tiny percentage chance of a bad thing justifies a massive over-reaction that probably has no effect on the chance of the bad thing happening.
But you've got your head so far up your own politics, you can't see anything except 100% ally vs 100% enemy.
(Hell, I even called this trigger/breach micro-print proposal "Nonsense", but no, whoosh.)
and we have a badness factor of 100 average deaths per year attributed to mandated firearm registration.
And, even accepting your numbers, the estimated number of deaths from accidental shootings is about 600 per year. If an actual number 600 is acceptable, why is a theoretical number 100 unacceptable?
I know this analogy is tired, but it's still valid: A small percentage of people use their cars in anger. Should all cars therefore be banned?
No. Just registered. Or did you forget that? Did you forget that car registration exists throughout the world and... I doubt think has ever led to a total ban and confiscation. (Nor, I suspect, does it have any impact on misuse.)
It's almost like there's no connection between registering something and later confiscating it. Hmmm, I wonder if there's a lesson somewhere.
Australia's Gun Laws: Little Effect: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1736501,00.html [time.com]
From the article:
"Other researchers have focused on mass shootings: there were 11 in Australia in the decade before 1996, and there have been none since."
11 to zero.
For the rest, I said it didn't affect gun crime rates, only mass shootings. What do you think you're rebutting with an article that says the same thing?
You also glossed over the fact that in Australia you can still own rifles, shotguns and handguns, 16 years after the new laws. It still isn't a "total gun ban".
Taking the safety off my pistol while aiming it at you does not cause me to pull the trigger, it merely allows me to later pull the trigger.
So registrations are bad 100% of the time, because in a tiny percentage of cases it allowed total gun bans decades later? Are you sure you want to push that logic? Seriously? Because in every gun murder, the would-be murderer first had to get a gun. Therefore if you want a gun... And you've just rationalised total gun bans. The fact that only a tiny percentage of gun owners use their weapons in anger is irrelevant by your logic, as long as they can, they should be prevented from ever owning guns.
You've apparently got more in common with the anti-gun nuts than you think.
I said registration preceded every seizure, not every registration was followed by a seizure.
However, you use that to object to registration, as if there was causation. That's the logic error. Seizure has a high correlation with prior registration, but registration has a low correlation with seizure. You're confusing one with the other.
If almost all registration laws do not result in "total ban and confiscation", than any specific registration law tells you nothing about whether it will be followed by a seizure law. (Except, you know, "almost certainly not".)
It's like saying that (almost) every thief gets to the job by car. Even if true, it tells you nothing about cars in general. Nor does defending cars require me to defend thievery.
when was the last revolution in England or Australia?
Neither have "total bans on guns". England barely regulates shotguns. Australia bans only assault rifles and high-powered semi-automatics. Bolt action, lower-powered semi's and handguns are still available (and gun owners were paid compensation during the change. O Villainy! O Treachery!) But in both cases, changes to firearms laws were not immediately preceded by the registration requirement. There was no causative connection. In Australia, the change to gun laws immediately followed a particularly bad mass-shooting. 16 years later, still no UN takeover, still no death-camps. (Also no more mass-shootings. Dropped from 1 every 18 months to 1 in 16 years. Interestingly, nothing else really changed, gun crime, suicide, etc, just mass-shootings. Surprised me, I didn't think it would make a difference.)
"Historically"?
What percentage of countries (or US states) that have brought in gun registration have followed it up with total gun bans/confiscations?
You're implying that registration is causative. "Registration preceded every seizure. This is a registration, therefore a seizure will follow." But if 99% of registration schemes were followed by... nothing, then registration alone tells you nothing about seizures. Gun registration is pretty common throughout the western world, but there've only been a few total bans and confiscations in the history of firearms. And those examples generally followed a revolution or other seizure of power, in order to disarm the supporters of the old order.
Because believing that the US government wants registration of guns because those same politicians plan to soon enact a ban/confiscation, is a bit... well, it makes you look like a paranoid nut.
RFID tags would be too easily destroyed. There are micro-tags currently used to mark equipment to aid prevent resale by thieves. (Just sprayed on, insanely hard to find and remove them all.) They could be added to the ammo, both in the projectile, and behind it (so the tags spray out over the crime-scene like microscopic confetti.)
But I doubt you could overcome the cost issue.
How about a radio transmitted embedded in the weapon itself? Triggered (and powered) by the pressure-wave of the shot, squawking an ID-code, picked up by every compatible cell tower in the area and logged. Properly designed, it could be made difficult to remove without destroying the weapon itself.
I would think it would be the other way around. It's the Red states doing all the whining about the rest of the US, about DC, even threatening to secede when Obama was elected, so why not do it. Leave. "Rise again."
The last time, the Civil War, there was a great risk that the division would be exploited by European powers (particularly England) to destroy the US, as well as being a rival in the race to colonise the west, but that's hardly likely any more. Even military/economic rivals like China (or Russia) wouldn't be able to use the Confederation against the US. So this time there's no reason to stop you, and I suspect no one cares enough to try.
So go. There is literally nothing stopping you. Do it. Rick Perry for Confederate President!
You'll be happier. The remaining US states will be much happier. Win win.
Just go.
But... you won't. You never will. Not now, not in 50 years, not in 150 years. Gutless loud-mouth redneck idiots.
how much harder this will it be for the manufacturer? How much more expensive they'll be for consumers?
Since other commenters have been ranting about how easy it will be for ghetto gunsmiths to re-etch with someone else's markings, that would suggest either; a) not very, or; b) they were full of shit.
B) It makes it trivial to frame someone for a crime. Find some used brass at any gun range, drop them off at the shooting scene.
For the 900th time, Horatio, since you've done nothing wrong, indeed suspect nothing is wrong, you haven't thrown away or destroyed you gun. So when the police test-fire your gun and compare the rifling to the bullets from the crime-scene, it won't match.
So now the police know the evidence was planted, which gives them another lead to the suspect. Perhaps security video from the gun range. Or the range-owner remembering someone hanging around, acting weird. (Or you know who is pissed off enough with you to frame you for murder!) Plus there's a chance of finding something on those planted casings, like DNA, since murderers typically aren't forensic experts. Or a million other possibilities that this opens up. Life is not TV, elaborate schemes to frame other people usually just create more evidence pointing back to you. (And now evidence of pre-meditation. Good luck trying to argue accidental shooting, or crime-of-passion (2nd degree), or even self-defence, in the shooting. Nope. 1st degree, cold blooded murder. And the jury is massively creeped out and much more likely to convict.)
Your gun is stolen and used in a crime. The cops come looking for you.
This isn't a bad thing, there's a chance of more forensic evidence from the theft, in addition to the shooting. For example, they might get a print or DNA from the break-in, which leads to an ex-con on the system, which leads to a search, which uncovers the gun (because many lowlifes won't ditch a perfectly good gun), which leads to a conviction. You're inconvenienced, but a murderer gets caught. Still a win for the good guys.
When selling your gun to someone else, add on the cost and time of changing the micro-code registration.
No harder than selling a car. Jesus, shouldn't you take selling a gun as seriously as selling a car?
When the paperwork is lost, and the new owner has his gun stolen and used in a crime, the cops come looking for you, then you finger the buyer, so double the fun and double the inconvenience for twice as many people.
And exactly how often do you think that chain of events will occur in the next thousand years?
When your "helpful" "friend" helps you police your brass at the shooting range and then drops a few casings at his next shooting, he's effectively framed you.
He can already just pick a hair off your shoulder and do that. Without the risk of leaving his own fingerprints and DNA on the casings he picked up to frame you with. (Also without having the rifling on the slug not matching your handgun. You didn't forget about the actual shooting at the crime-scene, did you?)
When the market for old guns explodes and it becomes harder and more expensive to buy one, it both costs money and time.
Implies that the market for new guns crashes. So bargain.
You're just making up crap for the sake of being difficult. People do this all the time and it's stupid. You know why this law is bad? Because it won't work, it's too easy to file off the micro-code. That's it. Bam. You don't need to invent a pile of hysterical nonsense to object to a law. It just makes you look like a stupid old woman.
Besides... barrel rifling already makes a fingerprint-like marking on the shell/slug/bullet, and that's going to be a hell of a lot more useful in identifying the gun it was shot from than any other method thought up so far...
Yes. But remember the huge lobbying effort by gun manufacturers/NRA when it was suggested that a mandatory national registry of rifling marks be created. So the idea was dropped. This micro-printing nonsense is an individual state trying to find another way. (You know, states' rights, and all that.)
You underestimate how difficult it is to achieve this kind of perfect balance in Civ.
Apparently, there are three main super powers left and they have been locked in constant war with each other for the past thousand years or more.
We've always been at war with Eastasia.
The MSL uses an RTG power source. The problem with RTGs is that you can't turn them off, they start to run down as soon as they are built. MSL already missed a launch window due to delays and so was 2.5 years behind. Another delay would use up 5 years of the expected 10 years of RTG life.
Sometimes external factors force your hand.
Indeed, how would you "close" a programming language?
You seem to be going out of your way to misinterpret what chrysrobyn said.
Again, they either substitute for the mouse, or parts of a keyboard (such as the number-pad or media controls). They are a great idea for sitting back and remotely controlling your PC (or media centre, or smart-TV, or presentation, or....) They do not augment regular input.
(And again, I think the limit is in the operating system of the PC, not in the phone/tablet.)
No. AirDisplay treats the phone/tablet as a second monitor. "Touch" just hijacks the mouse. Touch something and you lose focus from the main window/display, just as you would mousing onto something on a second monitor. You could have also pointed to AirMouse (iPhone+Mac only, I think), which treats the iPhone as an application specific pointing device, but again, it hijacks the mouse/focus.
Both are only part way there. People are clearly trying. They are doing what they can on the phone side, but I think it's the desktop-OS side that is not able to use a secondary display as an independent input surface. (Which is bizarre given all the research money Microsoft has thrown at novel touch interfaces. And how Jobs was, well, you know, Jobs. And how nerdy-obvious it would be for Linux devs, for their own use while coding, which is usually a way to get something developed in the Open Source world.) You need a third input focus in addition to cursor and pointer - one for touch. Current attempts are just hijacking the mouse (sometimes keyboard) input for touch, touch needs its own thing. Likewise, an independent display stream, not just a clumsy dual-monitor hack.
If it went that way, lets hope that this ClamBook thingy will have some hard-coded security features to prevent malaware and viruses.
On what would the security run? Clambook is not the computer, it is a display and keyboard for the computer.
This. Now.
Why?
Smartphones may well "have multi-core processors powerful enough to deliver laptop-level performance", but only entry level laptops. Ie, those in the $200-300 range. And my guess is that 90% of the costs for those are design, assembly, shipping, marketing, & support. Costs which can't be reduced. (If it wasn't so, there'd be near-disposable $50 laptops using older generation technology.) That means you save almost nothing by leaving out the processor and memory (the only thing the phone provides). Oh, and then they need to add the cost of their custom dock for the phone itself.
Which means just to equal the price of a mass-market entry-level 13" laptop, they will be on razor margins, which means they can spare nothing for the design. So expect it to be slower, uglier, and clumsier to use (since you probably can't make calls and work at the same time).
I could see Apple making something shiny and clever in this design space, and being able to charge enough iTax to make it worthwhile, but this? No.
It would be much more useful if someone came up with a dock for Android tablets and phones that allows either or both to be used as smart-display touchscreens for your main desktop. Ie, it allows the user to move menus, toolbars, palettes, tabs, on to the phone/tablet, or an entire secondary program, or anything the user wants. Elegantly. Without taking focus away from the main window/display.
Or a wireless connection on the dock, so that if you remove the device in the middle of a sync or transfer, it seamlessly continues wirelessly.
capable of moving very very far away.
Why? When galaxies collide, they don't actually hit anything. Their stars just orbit the new centre of gravity (variable until the merger settles). Entire civilisations could rise and fall during the collision, and not notice it happening.
It's been known for a long time that Andromeda had a velocity towards the Milky Way (easily measured by its blue-shift), but no one could tell what its lateral velocity was, therefore whether it was going to actually collide or whether it was in an eccentric orbit. Actually measuring such a tiny side-shift, against more distant galaxies, of a source which is not actually a single defined object, where every part of it is in separate motion, in just 8 years, is pretty fucking impressive.