So, basically they use language that sounds like it is in the consumer's interest, (we won't allow anything objectionable!) Knowing fully good and well that the language was actually chosen to permit them to restrict whatever they want, and clandestinely used such ambiguous language underhandedly to avoid bad PR, because the just can't handle a little tarnish on the glowing apple mecca's reputation?
How exactly does the ue of such a ractic reflect upon their company?
Or were they expecting me to be too stupid to know what "objectionable" means? If so, what does that say about their company?
I would respect apple more if they came out and openly stated what they really mean instead of couching it in ambiguous doubletalk.
No contest. However, nobody would be forcing people to install this app. The utility provided is the centrality it offers as a data aggregator. The data is already in the wild. The issue here is that political apps are just another item in that list. SOMEONE will find the very idea of a politically motivated app to be objectionable.
This is like porn. Some people want it, and pay money for it. Others find it objectionable. Rather than create a dedicated "restricted" section in the app store for such items (political apps, pornographic items, etc) apple has determined its own set of "decency", and "objectional" metrics which are poorly defined and purposefully ambiguous. The language used can be used to exclude any product, including fluffy kittens.
It is one thing to say "I don't want to sell porn." It is entirely another to say "I am the only store in town, I actively destroy rival stores, and I don't want you to be buying porn because it is dirty, dirty filth."
Getting such things on an idevice is a lot like buying crack; you have to use methods that are less than reputable or proper to get them. In some cases, apple may brick your device for posession.
Simply because the app is political in nature does not mean that nobody would want it, or that nobody would find it desirable or useful. The fact that it is unpopular with the mainstream popular culture should not be grounds for exclusion. It should be "restricted", so people who don't want to see the add don't have to unless they actively look for it, but it shouldn't be banned.
If the metric for rejection was "objectionable", then the only way for apple's store to remain open is if it has nothing to sell.
Rather, Apple has taken the shister path, and has conflated "unpopular" with "objectionable", since the real application of that word would exclude all products.
As such, anything sociologically or politically unpopular, regardless of factual content, is banned.
And quoting out of context, without the rationale behind the statement is specious.
Or, do you have a mental deficiency that prevents you from seeing the logic behind why I do not want to buy apple products, even when clearly written for you?
Calling hyperbole on something that could be true, then upping that hyperbole by asserting people who would vote with their wallets are mentally deficient seems a bit.. erhm.... Tacky. No?
Me? I havent liked Apple, ever. Nothing about their products strikes me as being desirable. Then again, I am a total nerd. I would go back to a clamshell too if the only touch devices on the market were made by Apple. I would do it out of spite. Since I exist, it is likely that others exist, so the OP's statement may not be such hyperbole.
What I take exception to is being called mentally deficient. I dont care if Apple's phone came with a hotline app straight to God himself. I wouldn't buy it. My choice to do so is motivated by Apple's (VERY LONG) history of spurious barratry and legal shenanigans. I believe that such litigiousness is the root cause of many of my country's problems, and will not willingly support that behavior. If that means buying an inferior phone, so be it.
You object to my using an NC license, citing a red herring about ease of duplication, and would seek to prevent my using the NC license. I object to this, because it reduces my options, for your benefit. The consequence of your campaign will be a reduction in the number of artists willing to release.
The fundemental error here is that you feel that lawyers present facts. They do not. They present information. That information can be, and often is, laced with excessive amounts of bias.
The finding of fact is jury's duty.
In essence, the jury decides what is and is not factual in the case, what is a red herring and what isn't. They do this based on the information presented.
Lawyers have long ago determind that a jury can be led one way or another simply by controlling the information provided, which is why pretty much all the information they provide is "loaded."
The Op-Ed pages you are deriding have the advantage of shining light on these shennanigans.
It essentially comes down to "If it isn't one of my %x motives, then it isn't a real motivation." It's a form of a no true scottsman. It rejects nearly the entire spectrum of reasons in favor of just 3, and does so without justification or evidence. While you may hold such an opinion, this does not in fact make said opinion true.
Being the one who is making the assets, and donating them, I should think that nobody other than myself has any claim to state what *MY* motives and reasons for those motives *are.*
As for asserting that I am an interchangable part; take a look at the sisteen chapel's fresco. Then ask yourself, could this lady?
Artists are not interchangeable.
An no, I would simply not release. The art would find the dumpster first. I enjoy the creation process itself, not the finished product. I derive additonal pleasure from seeing it used in ways I like. If I can't get this second shot of pleasure, I won't make it available.
Really, what right do YOU have to tell me how I should treat my own things? The argument here is that art is not owned, only the medium it is stored on, due to it's ability to be copied readily. This is only true if I make the art into such a format. Being the creator, I have immediate physical ownership of that medium, and can copy, hoarde, or destroy it at will. If I cannot gain pleasure from the work, I will not copy it, nor will I hoarde it. I will instead destroy it, because I only have so much space in my home.
It is innately due to the fact that artists are *NOT* interchangable that people lacking such skills will pay premium prices for the unique expressions of others. If people want my art, I would share them, but only to good homes. Giving a "oh yes, do whtever you want to it!" Type license is a lot like selling a child into prostitution. I simply cannot condone it. This is a personal opinion, but thankfully, the only one that needs to agree to it is me, and I do by default. (It is *my* opinion, afterall.)
If I were to write a book, then burn it in a fire immediately afterwards, it is my right to do so, and nobody else's. You have no authoritative standing to break into my house to copy it, despite it being copyable. I could copy your driver's license and use it to buy meth ingredients and cause you to get arrested too. The license is easly copied. No more than you would be willing to allow me to copy your ID for that purpose, am I willing to let you copy my artwork for yours.
Seriously, I burn artwork all the time. You will never have it. That is my perogative and not yours. You miss out by losing an oportunity, by hamfisting terms I would never agree to.
The point here is that I don't want money for the work. I just want to ensure that it doesn't get used in certain ways. Preventing me from having that ability will remove any incentive for me to release it in the first place. I don't make art for money. I make art for enjoyment. I get negative enjoyment from seeing something I drew or modeled sold to me, or used in advertisements I disaprove of.
It isn't that I get all uppity when somebody uses or modifies my work. If that were the case, I wouldn't even think about using any of the CC licenses. It is that my incentives for release to the commons comes with a tiny string attached. If you don't like that string, and would like to negotiate a better deal, drop an email. I don't want money, just assurances of proper use that are binding.
Insisting that I can't be afforded such minimal protection will be met with my refusal to release.
Good luck using that asset when the only copy is on paper, on my desk.
If I say, make an art asset and post it to say, OpenGameArt, I have a choice of options.
I can list it as one of the CC licenses, for instance, or even under a derivative of the GPL.
Personally, I am a fan of CC:SA. I don't mind a small time person using that asset to make a game. That's why I donated it in the first place. That does not mean I want say, Zygna to go "Oh, art assets? FOR FREE!? OM NOM NOM NOM!"
It is this latter one that I feel warrants the "no commercial" verbiage, even today. The tradgedy of the commons happens when the commons is not protected, and happens without fail. Would I care if a small "for profit" project, like is often done with humble bundle used it? Not so much, as long as they gave attribution in 10pt font in the credits or smething. But Zygna? Fuck them.
The problem is that it is a binary on/off situation with commercial use. I would happily give an indie project commercial use rights, but it would be a cold day in hell when a major studio would get it.
If there were some finer granularity, I would use it, but in place of that, "no commercial" is at least a step in the right direction.
Removing it let's abusive companies go om nom nom with community assets.
I was referring to people well in their right minds, but who have "unwavering convictions". You know, products of a bygone era, who WON'T let it go, living FOREVER.
In the case of gay marriage, in 500 years we went from pressing them with stones and shoving a pear of agny up their asses, to what we have today.
Refusing a marriage certificate is a hugely differet thing from putting them to death, like USED to happen. With people living forever, you would have people REMEMBERING doing those things, and honestly thinking they were A-OK.
That was the point. It has nothing to do with being senile.
The problem is that no generation of people stops to consider themselves as a roadblock toward the advancement of the generation that will come after.
Note all the self-directed answers in this thread, for instance.
I don't know about you, but I don't want a person who was born 5 centuries ago battling against me at the polls concerning societal issues, like gay rights, or even teaching evolution in schools. (Note, 500 years ago was in the dark ages. With immortal people, that becomes a stark reality.)
I don't want any generation doing that to aother, becase they refuse to die. Death is necessary.
Seriously. I am in the 30% that is considerate of the consequences of people living a long time.
For a poignant example, look at the current USA. We have an aging "boomer" generation. If you aren't familiar with the problems an aging boomer generation is causing, google is your friend. Now, imagine them living another 60 years. 100 years... FOREVER.
In addition to the problems with resource allocations, the political and ideological bottlenecks immortality, or even jut artificialy ling lives would introduce would be catastrophic. Instead of a progressive civilization, which becomes more tolerant and technologically advanced, we would have an ideologically stilted, recalcitrant population of aged and possibly immortal persons halting all forms of social progress.
I would actually campaign for a shorter, but less labor intensive life than a longer one.
Yup. There is an epic shitton of carbon dioxide to snow out. (pretty much the whole damned atmosphere.)
But then again, the microbes would be growing in "ideal" conditions, (for them anyway.. they are engineered for it.) without natural predators.
Also, the lower atmosphere is almost thick enough to swim in. As a human. The microbes would have very little trouble staying suspended. There could be whole clouds of the things on venus in just a few years.
1) a colony ship will have a lot of weight that is not fuel. (Namely, hallways, sleeper pods, etc.)
2) Lots of ion thrusters means lots of power generation, means lots of wasted heat during generation, means BIG ASS HEAT SINK.
3) Lots of ion thrusters means a shit ton of bottled thruster gas.
4) lots of thrust on a large overall size increases maneuvering stresses, due to increased distances from the vehicle's barycenter. (note, titanium steel has structural limits!)
Compare to:
A special purpose probe which carries a radio isotope thermoelectric generator, weighs under 2000 kilograms, and is built with far less cavity space per kilogram of material.
The size of the object is just as important as its weight when making a turn. Distance from center of rotation increases centripetal forces applied to the lengths of the vehicle's support members.
Unless you LIKE your colony ship to snap like a twig when turning that is.
Venus does have a hydrogen shortage. That's why it would have to get the hydrogen from the sulfuric acid.
The sulfuric acid itself would actually rain like water if the temperature equilibrium was punctured. Interestingly, the aramid plastic is soluble in concentrated sulfuric acid, and it doesnt get more concentrated than anhydrous. This means that if an ocean of the shit could be coaxed into existence, a considerable amount of aramid could be dissolved.
The oxidation of the sulfuric acid (removal of hydrogen, rather than addition of oxygen in this case) would create free oxygen and sulfur dioxide gas. The free oxygen would be bound to the hydrogen inside the organism, allowing it to create water from the sulfuric acid, and exrete sulfur dioxide waste. It would only do this to a limited extent, as needed. the organisms would need to be designed to be very miserly with biotically produced water.
As for the lack of convection being a supposed source for the lack of a magnetosphere, that is not MY supposition, I do have a cite:
The geochemistry of venus would be radically different from earth when cooled down enough, (sulfuric acid oceans, crustal deposits of sulfur, and atmospheric sulfur oxides, dissolved aramid plastics in the ocean, etc.) but hydrogen is one of the most abundant elements in the universe. Being closer to the sun, the solar wind near venus will be stronger. It may be possible for venus to capture hydrogen ions from the solar wind over time if a magentic dynamo could be established. Other options would be to purposefully get comets to smash into venus, as they often contain methane and water ice, both rich in hydrogen. It being uninhabited, the damage to the ancient crust would actually help poke holes in it and help it release trapped mantle heat better. Of course, it would destroy comets, which arent particularly common in a solar system that is as old as ours.
Other sources could be radiogenically produced hydrogen from alpha particle emission from man-made fusion devices on venus. (Fusing heavy elements at a loss, simply to make the missing hydrogen. The excessive sulfur would be a good candidate, being considerably lighter than iron, and as such far easier to coax into this role. Widespread deployment of farnsworth fusors working with elemental sulfur dimer plasma might work, but a reliable energy supply would be needed. It would also be nasty to the fusor..... but you win some, and lose some.)
Oh I agree. We haven't designed automation systems that can boast uptimes in the millenia category that would be required in any sense of the discipline.
That's why it would require unbelivable amounts of testing before going live. It needs to survive sustained fuzzing attacks and brush it off like nothing at all basically indefinately on *all* of its inputs and outputs before it could even be considered for mission use.
An alternative is to send a very very large crew, with a hypersleep rotation; at any given time, there *is* a skeleton crew keeping the ship up, and ensuring the sleeper bays are nice and cool, but they themselves only work for a few weeks or months, before going into the freezer, and the next set of watchmen are thawed to replace them. That way the combined lifetimes of the crew could be more efficiently exploited. People only work a few months during the voyage, and sleep the rest of the time.
Slashdot Mirror
Fancy that!
So, basically they use language that sounds like it is in the consumer's interest, (we won't allow anything objectionable!) Knowing fully good and well that the language was actually chosen to permit them to restrict whatever they want, and clandestinely used such ambiguous language underhandedly to avoid bad PR, because the just can't handle a little tarnish on the glowing apple mecca's reputation?
How exactly does the ue of such a ractic reflect upon their company?
Or were they expecting me to be too stupid to know what "objectionable" means? If so, what does that say about their company?
I would respect apple more if they came out and openly stated what they really mean instead of couching it in ambiguous doubletalk.
If it is so easy to define, why don't they?
No contest. However, nobody would be forcing people to install this app. The utility provided is the centrality it offers as a data aggregator. The data is already in the wild. The issue here is that political apps are just another item in that list. SOMEONE will find the very idea of a politically motivated app to be objectionable.
This is like porn. Some people want it, and pay money for it. Others find it objectionable. Rather than create a dedicated "restricted" section in the app store for such items (political apps, pornographic items, etc) apple has determined its own set of "decency", and "objectional" metrics which are poorly defined and purposefully ambiguous. The language used can be used to exclude any product, including fluffy kittens.
It is one thing to say "I don't want to sell porn." It is entirely another to say "I am the only store in town, I actively destroy rival stores, and I don't want you to be buying porn because it is dirty, dirty filth."
Getting such things on an idevice is a lot like buying crack; you have to use methods that are less than reputable or proper to get them. In some cases, apple may brick your device for posession.
Simply because the app is political in nature does not mean that nobody would want it, or that nobody would find it desirable or useful. The fact that it is unpopular with the mainstream popular culture should not be grounds for exclusion. It should be "restricted", so people who don't want to see the add don't have to unless they actively look for it, but it shouldn't be banned.
In other words, this guy has discovered first hand what happens when content gets censored on grounds of being "objectionable."
It doesn't matter what the subject is, SOMEONE will find it objectionable.
Evolution? Creationists.
Fluffy Kittens? PETA.
Babies? Malthists
Picking flowers? Botanical conservationists.
Vaccination? Antivac-ers.
Birth control? Catholics
Lipstick? Orthodox muslims
Etc.
If the metric for rejection was "objectionable", then the only way for apple's store to remain open is if it has nothing to sell.
Rather, Apple has taken the shister path, and has conflated "unpopular" with "objectionable", since the real application of that word would exclude all products.
As such, anything sociologically or politically unpopular, regardless of factual content, is banned.
Gotcha!
"Karamel Apple" then. :D
Are you saying I'm a woman?
Clearly, sir, you do not understand the nature of Slashdot. :D
I didnt say that.
I said I would use an inferior phone. More hyperbole?
And quoting out of context, without the rationale behind the statement is specious.
Or, do you have a mental deficiency that prevents you from seeing the logic behind why I do not want to buy apple products, even when clearly written for you?
Google should name their next Android release "Apple Pie."
Histrionics should ensue!
kettle? black much?
Calling hyperbole on something that could be true, then upping that hyperbole by asserting people who would vote with their wallets are mentally deficient seems a bit.. erhm.... Tacky. No?
Me? I havent liked Apple, ever. Nothing about their products strikes me as being desirable. Then again, I am a total nerd. I would go back to a clamshell too if the only touch devices on the market were made by Apple. I would do it out of spite. Since I exist, it is likely that others exist, so the OP's statement may not be such hyperbole.
What I take exception to is being called mentally deficient. I dont care if Apple's phone came with a hotline app straight to God himself. I wouldn't buy it. My choice to do so is motivated by Apple's (VERY LONG) history of spurious barratry and legal shenanigans. I believe that such litigiousness is the root cause of many of my country's problems, and will not willingly support that behavior. If that means buying an inferior phone, so be it.
And that is just fine. Opinions are meant to be shared. Goodness knows the apple crowd is very vocal with theirs.
Just remember that loathing apple does not spontaneously elevate the one doing the loathing to Samsung Fanboi.
With CC:NC, I will (and do) release.
Without it, I will not.
You object to my using an NC license, citing a red herring about ease of duplication, and would seek to prevent my using the NC license. I object to this, because it reduces my options, for your benefit. The consequence of your campaign will be a reduction in the number of artists willing to release.
The fundemental error here is that you feel that lawyers present facts. They do not. They present information. That information can be, and often is, laced with excessive amounts of bias.
The finding of fact is jury's duty.
In essence, the jury decides what is and is not factual in the case, what is a red herring and what isn't. They do this based on the information presented.
Lawyers have long ago determind that a jury can be led one way or another simply by controlling the information provided, which is why pretty much all the information they provide is "loaded."
The Op-Ed pages you are deriding have the advantage of shining light on these shennanigans.
You have completely missed the point, and injected your own.
Your basic premise is faulted, and circular.
It essentially comes down to "If it isn't one of my %x motives, then it isn't a real motivation." It's a form of a no true scottsman. It rejects nearly the entire spectrum of reasons in favor of just 3, and does so without justification or evidence. While you may hold such an opinion, this does not in fact make said opinion true.
Being the one who is making the assets, and donating them, I should think that nobody other than myself has any claim to state what *MY* motives and reasons for those motives *are.*
As for asserting that I am an interchangable part; take a look at the sisteen chapel's fresco. Then ask yourself, could this lady?
Artists are not interchangeable.
An no, I would simply not release. The art would find the dumpster first. I enjoy the creation process itself, not the finished product. I derive additonal pleasure from seeing it used in ways I like. If I can't get this second shot of pleasure, I won't make it available.
Really, what right do YOU have to tell me how I should treat my own things? The argument here is that art is not owned, only the medium it is stored on, due to it's ability to be copied readily. This is only true if I make the art into such a format. Being the creator, I have immediate physical ownership of that medium, and can copy, hoarde, or destroy it at will. If I cannot gain pleasure from the work, I will not copy it, nor will I hoarde it. I will instead destroy it, because I only have so much space in my home.
It is innately due to the fact that artists are *NOT* interchangable that people lacking such skills will pay premium prices for the unique expressions of others. If people want my art, I would share them, but only to good homes. Giving a "oh yes, do whtever you want to it!" Type license is a lot like selling a child into prostitution. I simply cannot condone it. This is a personal opinion, but thankfully, the only one that needs to agree to it is me, and I do by default. (It is *my* opinion, afterall.)
If I were to write a book, then burn it in a fire immediately afterwards, it is my right to do so, and nobody else's. You have no authoritative standing to break into my house to copy it, despite it being copyable. I could copy your driver's license and use it to buy meth ingredients and cause you to get arrested too. The license is easly copied. No more than you would be willing to allow me to copy your ID for that purpose, am I willing to let you copy my artwork for yours.
Seriously, I burn artwork all the time. You will never have it. That is my perogative and not yours. You miss out by losing an oportunity, by hamfisting terms I would never agree to.
That is the stick of it.
The point here is that I don't want money for the work. I just want to ensure that it doesn't get used in certain ways. Preventing me from having that ability will remove any incentive for me to release it in the first place. I don't make art for money. I make art for enjoyment. I get negative enjoyment from seeing something I drew or modeled sold to me, or used in advertisements I disaprove of.
It isn't that I get all uppity when somebody uses or modifies my work. If that were the case, I wouldn't even think about using any of the CC licenses. It is that my incentives for release to the commons comes with a tiny string attached. If you don't like that string, and would like to negotiate a better deal, drop an email. I don't want money, just assurances of proper use that are binding.
Insisting that I can't be afforded such minimal protection will be met with my refusal to release.
Good luck using that asset when the only copy is on paper, on my desk.
If I say, make an art asset and post it to say, OpenGameArt, I have a choice of options.
I can list it as one of the CC licenses, for instance, or even under a derivative of the GPL.
Personally, I am a fan of CC:SA. I don't mind a small time person using that asset to make a game. That's why I donated it in the first place. That does not mean I want say, Zygna to go "Oh, art assets? FOR FREE!? OM NOM NOM NOM!"
It is this latter one that I feel warrants the "no commercial" verbiage, even today. The tradgedy of the commons happens when the commons is not protected, and happens without fail. Would I care if a small "for profit" project, like is often done with humble bundle used it? Not so much, as long as they gave attribution in 10pt font in the credits or smething. But Zygna? Fuck them.
The problem is that it is a binary on/off situation with commercial use. I would happily give an indie project commercial use rights, but it would be a cold day in hell when a major studio would get it.
If there were some finer granularity, I would use it, but in place of that, "no commercial" is at least a step in the right direction.
Removing it let's abusive companies go om nom nom with community assets.
I was referring to people well in their right minds, but who have "unwavering convictions". You know, products of a bygone era, who WON'T let it go, living FOREVER.
In the case of gay marriage, in 500 years we went from pressing them with stones and shoving a pear of agny up their asses, to what we have today.
Refusing a marriage certificate is a hugely differet thing from putting them to death, like USED to happen. With people living forever, you would have people REMEMBERING doing those things, and honestly thinking they were A-OK.
That was the point. It has nothing to do with being senile.
Not what I meant...
Look at it this way, in 500 years, western has gone from:
A de-facto theocratically governed monarchy and subsequent feudal systems (the pope had his fingers in every pie.)
The discovery of the new world, and "right of conquest" type explanations for mass genocide of indigenous peoples.
the renaisance, and the rediscovery of high science and reason.
The transition from monarchy based rule to democratic and republic based rule.
The abolishment of slavery.
The discoveries of first complex chemistry, then atomic and nuclear mechanisms, and now quantum mechanical sciences.
The transition toward a massively technological society from a primarily agrarian one.
Etc.
Now.. imagine that person from 500 years ago dutifully voting "their conscience" at the polls.
Afterall, he grew up owning slaves. Why can't he have them now? Don't even get him started on women's sufferage.
What is progressive today, is backward and ignorant tomorrow. Immortal people would halt all progress on the social front.
The problem is that no generation of people stops to consider themselves as a roadblock toward the advancement of the generation that will come after.
Note all the self-directed answers in this thread, for instance.
I don't know about you, but I don't want a person who was born 5 centuries ago battling against me at the polls concerning societal issues, like gay rights, or even teaching evolution in schools. (Note, 500 years ago was in the dark ages. With immortal people, that becomes a stark reality.)
I don't want any generation doing that to aother, becase they refuse to die. Death is necessary.
Seriously. I am in the 30% that is considerate of the consequences of people living a long time.
For a poignant example, look at the current USA. We have an aging "boomer" generation. If you aren't familiar with the problems an aging boomer generation is causing, google is your friend. Now, imagine them living another 60 years. 100 years... FOREVER.
In addition to the problems with resource allocations, the political and ideological bottlenecks immortality, or even jut artificialy ling lives would introduce would be catastrophic. Instead of a progressive civilization, which becomes more tolerant and technologically advanced, we would have an ideologically stilted, recalcitrant population of aged and possibly immortal persons halting all forms of social progress.
I would actually campaign for a shorter, but less labor intensive life than a longer one.
Yup. There is an epic shitton of carbon dioxide to snow out. (pretty much the whole damned atmosphere.)
But then again, the microbes would be growing in "ideal" conditions, (for them anyway.. they are engineered for it.) without natural predators.
Also, the lower atmosphere is almost thick enough to swim in. As a human. The microbes would have very little trouble staying suspended. There could be whole clouds of the things on venus in just a few years.
1) a colony ship will have a lot of weight that is not fuel. (Namely, hallways, sleeper pods, etc.)
2) Lots of ion thrusters means lots of power generation, means lots of wasted heat during generation, means BIG ASS HEAT SINK.
3) Lots of ion thrusters means a shit ton of bottled thruster gas.
4) lots of thrust on a large overall size increases maneuvering stresses, due to increased distances from the vehicle's barycenter. (note, titanium steel has structural limits!)
Compare to:
A special purpose probe which carries a radio isotope thermoelectric generator, weighs under 2000 kilograms, and is built with far less cavity space per kilogram of material.
The size of the object is just as important as its weight when making a turn. Distance from center of rotation increases centripetal forces applied to the lengths of the vehicle's support members.
Unless you LIKE your colony ship to snap like a twig when turning that is.
Venus does have a hydrogen shortage. That's why it would have to get the hydrogen from the sulfuric acid.
The sulfuric acid itself would actually rain like water if the temperature equilibrium was punctured. Interestingly, the aramid plastic is soluble in concentrated sulfuric acid, and it doesnt get more concentrated than anhydrous. This means that if an ocean of the shit could be coaxed into existence, a considerable amount of aramid could be dissolved.
The oxidation of the sulfuric acid (removal of hydrogen, rather than addition of oxygen in this case) would create free oxygen and sulfur dioxide gas. The free oxygen would be bound to the hydrogen inside the organism, allowing it to create water from the sulfuric acid, and exrete sulfur dioxide waste. It would only do this to a limited extent, as needed. the organisms would need to be designed to be very miserly with biotically produced water.
As for the lack of convection being a supposed source for the lack of a magnetosphere, that is not MY supposition, I do have a cite:
http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/30/11/987
The geochemistry of venus would be radically different from earth when cooled down enough, (sulfuric acid oceans, crustal deposits of sulfur, and atmospheric sulfur oxides, dissolved aramid plastics in the ocean, etc.) but hydrogen is one of the most abundant elements in the universe. Being closer to the sun, the solar wind near venus will be stronger. It may be possible for venus to capture hydrogen ions from the solar wind over time if a magentic dynamo could be established. Other options would be to purposefully get comets to smash into venus, as they often contain methane and water ice, both rich in hydrogen. It being uninhabited, the damage to the ancient crust would actually help poke holes in it and help it release trapped mantle heat better. Of course, it would destroy comets, which arent particularly common in a solar system that is as old as ours.
Other sources could be radiogenically produced hydrogen from alpha particle emission from man-made fusion devices on venus. (Fusing heavy elements at a loss, simply to make the missing hydrogen. The excessive sulfur would be a good candidate, being considerably lighter than iron, and as such far easier to coax into this role. Widespread deployment of farnsworth fusors working with elemental sulfur dimer plasma might work, but a reliable energy supply would be needed. It would also be nasty to the fusor..... but you win some, and lose some.)
Oh I agree. We haven't designed automation systems that can boast uptimes in the millenia category that would be required in any sense of the discipline.
That's why it would require unbelivable amounts of testing before going live. It needs to survive sustained fuzzing attacks and brush it off like nothing at all basically indefinately on *all* of its inputs and outputs before it could even be considered for mission use.
An alternative is to send a very very large crew, with a hypersleep rotation; at any given time, there *is* a skeleton crew keeping the ship up, and ensuring the sleeper bays are nice and cool, but they themselves only work for a few weeks or months, before going into the freezer, and the next set of watchmen are thawed to replace them. That way the combined lifetimes of the crew could be more efficiently exploited. People only work a few months during the voyage, and sleep the rest of the time.