Space is where resources are, there is everything from metals to free energy in space.
That's great except for one major issue. When it costs 10x as much to return those resources to Earth than it does to produce them on earth then the fact that they exist is irrelevant. By the way, there is not such thing as "free energy" as it costs money to collect and transport it. By you definition coal is free energy because we didn't have to make the coal.
There is a difference between saving money and not spending more. When money flows through channels that already exist, military spending, it is easy to make it flow faster. When opening a new channel, like establishing a Mars base, the expenditure will be looked at very closely. $500M is 1/3 of NASA's yearly planetary science budget. NASA is having enough trouble getting money for useful things. Getting money to sustain human life on Mars is much more difficult to justify.
Did YOU pick up the electrons and move them? No. Therefore YOU didn't DO it. Therefore YOU AUTHORIZED a program to DO it for you. What happens when your smartphone periodically syncs with Gmail? Did YOU sync with Gmail? No, the app did. There is a huge difference between DOING and action and AUTHORIZING an action.
Nothing you have stated could not be developed without a Mars station. We are willing to pay large costs to recycle materials on mars because getting the material there is so expensive. On earth, getting new material is much less than recycling most material. That is not going to change for a long time.
Unless you picked up the electrons from the Google server and inserted it in the new system then the new system is actually doing the work and you are just authorizing it. That is where legalities come in. Did you move the information? No, you just pushed a button authorizing the system to move the information.
I am not trying to absolve anyone of anything. All I am trying to do is clarify an unintended consequences of having to trace information transfers. There are many apps out there that synchronize with Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook etc to provide the convenience of having all contacts in one place. Every time the synchronization adds a contact to the app instance there is a data transfer. If the law requires those transferred contacts to be removed then there must be a log of the transfer occurring. Since the log exists it can be read to find all devices that have been synchronized. An no, you did not do the sync, the app did.
If I logged onto a new social network site and used their system to transfer in my Facebook contacts would that be seen as Facebook sharing my data with the new site (even if I authorized it)?
What if You used an import feature on a new social site to import your data? It could be seen as Facebook giving your information to the new site. Would Facebook have to inform the new site that the original contact was deleted? This is a yes or no answer.
That is my point. Are you now not copying data from Google to your site? Is that not "copying data to other sites"? Is that not what the OP has an issue with? Would that act of copying now have to be logged to comply with the data removal law? Could someone now look at that log and find where the data went?
So your argument boils down to "We waste money on other things so lets waste money on this too". Sorry but "two wrongs do not make a right".
Recycling technology designed for a Mars colony would be very different that that on Earth if only in scale. A system designed to handle a couple of tons a month is very different from a system designed to handle a couple thousand tons a day. Give real example of technology developed on Mars that is actually transferable and viable on Earth. Sorry by the categories of "recycling, conservation, and environmentalism" are too broad, I am looking for specific examples of technology that must be developed on Mars.
And completely lock users into Google sites so they can never transport their information to Facebook, etc. There has been a huge outcry about social sites not allowing data to be copied and now you are proposing that exact thing. Under your rules one could not copy one's own data from Gmail to Facebook even if one wanted to.
One of the biggest gripes about social media sites is the difficulty in moving from provider to provider. Say someone wanted to move from Gmail to Facebook. This would require copying contacts from Gmail to Facebook.
So you copy your Gmail contacts to your Facebook account. You then want to remove those contacts you put into your Gmail account. Does Gmail now have to pass on that removal request to Facebook because they passed on the contact? if they don't then the contact is not completely deleted from the internet as it still exixts on another provider's system. If they do, then they have to keep a record of where all those contacts were exported to. Now it is possible to link a user's Gmail account to their Facebook account through the logging feature. This is what Google is talking about.
To delete records that have been copied one must retain a log to all those places where the data has been copied. This log can then be used to trace a person's activity and therefore a privacy concern.
I suspect one unmanned mission to Mars a year - a big can full of what they can't make themselves could sail under the radar
So you think $500 million a year to keep a few people alive on Mars would "sail under the radar". Frankly, I sure hope not. That $500 million could be much better used here on earth and effect many more people. I think it is interesting that so many people who propose "simple solutions" rarely look into costs and long term effects of those solutions. It will probably cost $10B to set up, $0.5B/year for the next 60 years. Are you really willing to commit $40B to put men on Mars? I am not.
The "strong maker-culture" just does not cut it. Maker-culture works great on earth where failure means just try again. On Mars failure could mean death or the loss of the colony. Take for example a door seal. It much be precision made from high quality materials under controlled conditions or it is prone to failure. A bad seal could mean the loss of precious O2 and water. Recycled seal material will not cut it as it is not high enough quality. Seals need replacing all the time in gritty harsh environments. The point is that when materials are recycled there will always be some material that is too contaminated to recycle. When dealing with plastics especially they recycle into lower grade material. Would you risk your life on a door seal that has been recycled 10 times? I sure would not.
You also forget that the recycling process takes machinery. To recycle all the different materials needed for a colony would require hundreds of tons of machinery and the space to house it. Then there is all the manufacturing space and machinery to make all the parts. Just think about the machinery it would require to make a window for one of the modules from a cracked one and ensure it is up to the same specs as one made on earth. You will find that it is impossible.
If one does not solve the long term, and I am talking 2+years, issues then one is dooming the project to failure. "Nearly" self-sustaining is not close enough as tax payers will gripe about pouring money down a hole so a few people can live on Mars. Ever seen the movie "Silent Running"?
Another issue with the use of the term colonization is that they will never become self sufficient. They will always be dependent on resupply from earth. There are too many different items that are not creatable in the near future on Mars. Here is a short list of some of them; The foundry to build the foundry to make metal. The chemicals to build all the plastic necessary to build the greenhouses to create the rubber for all the seals needed. The high precision milling equipment needed to create all the high precision living environments. Leaky homes don't last long.
Colonies were supported for a time until they could begin to return resources to the mother country. This is never going to happen with Mars. There are no resources on Mars that are less expensive or more desirable than what is found on Earth. Sorry but "because we can and it is cool " are not reasons to waste large quantities of money and resources for the small return in research.
The people sent to Mars will last slightly longer than the time it takes for the public to lose interest and the funding for resupply to dry up. At some point the question "Do we spend millions to keep a few people alive on Mars who are just doing research or spend that same money to keep tens of thousands alive on earth who are contributing to daily life?" I think the former would be difficult to justify.
Our mission will be one of extreme exploration. It will truly be the next giant leap for mankind.
They seem to be banking on the fact that investors will believe that people will watch the Mars launch and landings like they watch the Olympics. I doubt very much that a great part of the earth's population is interested in watching people wander around in space suits, play with rocks, consume food and resources and sleep. It is just a game of "Big Brother" on Mars. I know I will get bored in a couple of episodes.
By the way it is not "exploration". We are not discouvering new lands as they have been well documented from orbit. Almost everything a "colonist" can do can be done by a much less expensive rover.
It is not a "colony". A colony is a self sustaining entity and until they can manufacture everything they need on mars the settlement is not self sustaining; which leads to the next issue.
There is also a huge item missing from the list; resupply. Things break and can not be repaired so must be manufactured and replaced. This work must be done on earth and sent to Mars. That cost has not been factored into the equation. With a critical failure it is quite possible that everyone will die before the replacement parts arrive. If the failure is catastrophic enough, say a major explosion which destroys a few pods and leaves the rest exposed to the atmosphere, the whole settlement could be lost.
Lets wait till we have dealt with the issue on earth before we throw much needed cash into space. A Mars colony is not the solution to overcrowding on earth; we do not have the resources to get a significant number of people there and sustain them. At least wait till there is a viable means of profiting monetarily from the resources on Mars. Right now there is no way to get the resources back so they have no value.
I somewhat doubt that her father was told that they had to publicly endorse the program. Here is the quote from the article;
Steve Hernandez stated, “[A]s part of the accommodation my daughter and I would have to agree to stop criticizing the program and publicly support it. I told [the Deputy Superintendent] that was unacceptable because it would imply an endorsement of the district’s policy and my daughter and I should not have to give up our constitutional rights to speak out against a program that we feel is wrong.”
I think it was most likely that he was told to stop protesting the program and that he interpreted it as publicly endorsing the program. Without the actual text of the conversation it is impossible to know what was actually said. People have flawed memories and they tend to conform to what people want to hear.
While telling someone to stop protesting could be considered an infringement of freedom of speech, I think it is justified in this case. The program has advantages that far outweigh the concerns of one person. The system can handle a few disabled badges. If too many people demanded a disable badges then more money and manpower would have to be allocated to keep it running. That would cause the system to fail. For all we know the father was told that his daughter could have a disabled badge but do not tell anyone about it. I would not put it past the father to embellish the story to get more attention.
Backup systems are slower, cost more and cause issues if they are used for a long period of time. These are acceptable issues if the backup system is only going to be used for a short period of time. Backup systems are not used in everyday operations because the screw with the main system. It is similar to backup diesel generators at server farms. If there is a power outage they come on line to provide power. Why don't they use them all the time? Because they are much more costly to run then drawing power from the grid. A religious nutbar coming to school every day is part of normal operations. What if 10% of the students decide not to use the ID systems. Then instead if a little cost due to manual entry the cost become quite large. Now significant resources have to be allocated to data entry and the system breaks down.
What you are talking about is not a backup system used in case of technical issue but an alternate system used by people who do not agree with the regular system. A backup system is used when the regular system does not work. An alternate system is used when the person chooses not to use the regular system. I do not believe that a person's fringe religious beliefs need to be catered to that much. Sorry but very few people believe that a visible ID has anything to to with the Mark of the Beast. If you do not want to comply with reasonable school policy then home school.
The scenarios suggested are dealt with as a backup system for when things go wrong not as a part of normal operating system. Supermarkets do not run a special checkout line for people who have religious issue with laser bar code scanners.
Did they make a counter offer? Did they say that the student would wear the badge but they would still protest? I doubt it very much. If there are students around without visible ID then it is impossible to know which ones should be there and which ones should not.
Earrings and hair have nothing to do with identifying students; ID cards do.
I would like to see the document that required the family to support the program. Even if it did exist, which I doubt, it would be unenforceable as the family would then have a valid First Amendment issue.
How the presenter offers the work is important. Whether or not the presenter is gay, lesbian, female, black, etc is not. When talking about technical issue the sexual preferences of the speaker are irrelevant.
Maybe the person sitting next to you will appreciate it and its no skin off your ass.
Perhaps the conference may not be held next year because the organizers are frustrated about having to "go the extra mile" to satisfy something that has nothing to do with the information being presented. It sure would be "skin off my ass" it the conference did not happen.
The fact that you don't personally care doesn't mean its not worth doing.
When it means adding a significant load to an already overloaded conference committee for very little gain it is not worth doing. If you feel diversity in technical conferences is so important then put your own on and see just how much trouble it really is.
Slashdot Mirror
Space is where resources are, there is everything from metals to free energy in space.
That's great except for one major issue. When it costs 10x as much to return those resources to Earth than it does to produce them on earth then the fact that they exist is irrelevant. By the way, there is not such thing as "free energy" as it costs money to collect and transport it. By you definition coal is free energy because we didn't have to make the coal.
There is a difference between saving money and not spending more. When money flows through channels that already exist, military spending, it is easy to make it flow faster. When opening a new channel, like establishing a Mars base, the expenditure will be looked at very closely. $500M is 1/3 of NASA's yearly planetary science budget. NASA is having enough trouble getting money for useful things. Getting money to sustain human life on Mars is much more difficult to justify.
Did YOU pick up the electrons and move them? No. Therefore YOU didn't DO it. Therefore YOU AUTHORIZED a program to DO it for you. What happens when your smartphone periodically syncs with Gmail? Did YOU sync with Gmail? No, the app did. There is a huge difference between DOING and action and AUTHORIZING an action.
Does the law say that? If it does, please quote it.
Nothing you have stated could not be developed without a Mars station. We are willing to pay large costs to recycle materials on mars because getting the material there is so expensive. On earth, getting new material is much less than recycling most material. That is not going to change for a long time.
Unless you picked up the electrons from the Google server and inserted it in the new system then the new system is actually doing the work and you are just authorizing it. That is where legalities come in. Did you move the information? No, you just pushed a button authorizing the system to move the information.
I am not trying to absolve anyone of anything. All I am trying to do is clarify an unintended consequences of having to trace information transfers. There are many apps out there that synchronize with Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook etc to provide the convenience of having all contacts in one place. Every time the synchronization adds a contact to the app instance there is a data transfer. If the law requires those transferred contacts to be removed then there must be a log of the transfer occurring. Since the log exists it can be read to find all devices that have been synchronized. An no, you did not do the sync, the app did.
What if the copying is done by a program on the new site? The new site is doing the action and you are authorizing it.
If I logged onto a new social network site and used their system to transfer in my Facebook contacts would that be seen as Facebook sharing my data with the new site (even if I authorized it)?
What if You used an import feature on a new social site to import your data? It could be seen as Facebook giving your information to the new site. Would Facebook have to inform the new site that the original contact was deleted? This is a yes or no answer.
I should have posted as a response to the parent and not your post
That is my point. Are you now not copying data from Google to your site? Is that not "copying data to other sites"? Is that not what the OP has an issue with? Would that act of copying now have to be logged to comply with the data removal law? Could someone now look at that log and find where the data went?
So your argument boils down to "We waste money on other things so lets waste money on this too". Sorry but "two wrongs do not make a right".
Recycling technology designed for a Mars colony would be very different that that on Earth if only in scale. A system designed to handle a couple of tons a month is very different from a system designed to handle a couple thousand tons a day. Give real example of technology developed on Mars that is actually transferable and viable on Earth. Sorry by the categories of "recycling, conservation, and environmentalism" are too broad, I am looking for specific examples of technology that must be developed on Mars.
And completely lock users into Google sites so they can never transport their information to Facebook, etc. There has been a huge outcry about social sites not allowing data to be copied and now you are proposing that exact thing. Under your rules one could not copy one's own data from Gmail to Facebook even if one wanted to.
One of the biggest gripes about social media sites is the difficulty in moving from provider to provider. Say someone wanted to move from Gmail to Facebook. This would require copying contacts from Gmail to Facebook.
So you copy your Gmail contacts to your Facebook account. You then want to remove those contacts you put into your Gmail account. Does Gmail now have to pass on that removal request to Facebook because they passed on the contact? if they don't then the contact is not completely deleted from the internet as it still exixts on another provider's system. If they do, then they have to keep a record of where all those contacts were exported to. Now it is possible to link a user's Gmail account to their Facebook account through the logging feature. This is what Google is talking about.
To delete records that have been copied one must retain a log to all those places where the data has been copied. This log can then be used to trace a person's activity and therefore a privacy concern.
It is not a colony as it will have to be continually re-supplied with parts and materials from Earth. At best it is an outpost.
I suspect one unmanned mission to Mars a year - a big can full of what they can't make themselves could sail under the radar
So you think $500 million a year to keep a few people alive on Mars would "sail under the radar". Frankly, I sure hope not. That $500 million could be much better used here on earth and effect many more people. I think it is interesting that so many people who propose "simple solutions" rarely look into costs and long term effects of those solutions. It will probably cost $10B to set up, $0.5B/year for the next 60 years. Are you really willing to commit $40B to put men on Mars? I am not.
The "strong maker-culture" just does not cut it. Maker-culture works great on earth where failure means just try again. On Mars failure could mean death or the loss of the colony. Take for example a door seal. It much be precision made from high quality materials under controlled conditions or it is prone to failure. A bad seal could mean the loss of precious O2 and water. Recycled seal material will not cut it as it is not high enough quality. Seals need replacing all the time in gritty harsh environments. The point is that when materials are recycled there will always be some material that is too contaminated to recycle. When dealing with plastics especially they recycle into lower grade material. Would you risk your life on a door seal that has been recycled 10 times? I sure would not.
You also forget that the recycling process takes machinery. To recycle all the different materials needed for a colony would require hundreds of tons of machinery and the space to house it. Then there is all the manufacturing space and machinery to make all the parts. Just think about the machinery it would require to make a window for one of the modules from a cracked one and ensure it is up to the same specs as one made on earth. You will find that it is impossible.
If one does not solve the long term, and I am talking 2+years, issues then one is dooming the project to failure. "Nearly" self-sustaining is not close enough as tax payers will gripe about pouring money down a hole so a few people can live on Mars. Ever seen the movie "Silent Running"?
Another issue with the use of the term colonization is that they will never become self sufficient. They will always be dependent on resupply from earth. There are too many different items that are not creatable in the near future on Mars. Here is a short list of some of them;
The foundry to build the foundry to make metal.
The chemicals to build all the plastic necessary to build the greenhouses to create the rubber for all the seals needed.
The high precision milling equipment needed to create all the high precision living environments. Leaky homes don't last long.
Colonies were supported for a time until they could begin to return resources to the mother country. This is never going to happen with Mars. There are no resources on Mars that are less expensive or more desirable than what is found on Earth. Sorry but "because we can and it is cool " are not reasons to waste large quantities of money and resources for the small return in research.
The people sent to Mars will last slightly longer than the time it takes for the public to lose interest and the funding for resupply to dry up. At some point the question "Do we spend millions to keep a few people alive on Mars who are just doing research or spend that same money to keep tens of thousands alive on earth who are contributing to daily life?" I think the former would be difficult to justify.
Our mission will be one of extreme exploration. It will truly be the next giant leap for mankind.
They seem to be banking on the fact that investors will believe that people will watch the Mars launch and landings like they watch the Olympics. I doubt very much that a great part of the earth's population is interested in watching people wander around in space suits, play with rocks, consume food and resources and sleep. It is just a game of "Big Brother" on Mars. I know I will get bored in a couple of episodes.
By the way it is not "exploration". We are not discouvering new lands as they have been well documented from orbit. Almost everything a "colonist" can do can be done by a much less expensive rover.
It is not a "colony". A colony is a self sustaining entity and until they can manufacture everything they need on mars the settlement is not self sustaining; which leads to the next issue.
There is also a huge item missing from the list; resupply. Things break and can not be repaired so must be manufactured and replaced. This work must be done on earth and sent to Mars. That cost has not been factored into the equation. With a critical failure it is quite possible that everyone will die before the replacement parts arrive. If the failure is catastrophic enough, say a major explosion which destroys a few pods and leaves the rest exposed to the atmosphere, the whole settlement could be lost.
Lets wait till we have dealt with the issue on earth before we throw much needed cash into space. A Mars colony is not the solution to overcrowding on earth; we do not have the resources to get a significant number of people there and sustain them. At least wait till there is a viable means of profiting monetarily from the resources on Mars. Right now there is no way to get the resources back so they have no value.
I somewhat doubt that her father was told that they had to publicly endorse the program. Here is the quote from the article;
Steve Hernandez stated, “[A]s part of the accommodation my daughter and I would have to agree to stop criticizing the program and publicly support it. I told [the Deputy Superintendent] that was unacceptable because it would imply an endorsement of the district’s policy and my daughter and I should not have to give up our constitutional rights to speak out against a program that we feel is wrong.”
I think it was most likely that he was told to stop protesting the program and that he interpreted it as publicly endorsing the program. Without the actual text of the conversation it is impossible to know what was actually said. People have flawed memories and they tend to conform to what people want to hear.
While telling someone to stop protesting could be considered an infringement of freedom of speech, I think it is justified in this case. The program has advantages that far outweigh the concerns of one person. The system can handle a few disabled badges. If too many people demanded a disable badges then more money and manpower would have to be allocated to keep it running. That would cause the system to fail. For all we know the father was told that his daughter could have a disabled badge but do not tell anyone about it. I would not put it past the father to embellish the story to get more attention.
Backup systems are slower, cost more and cause issues if they are used for a long period of time. These are acceptable issues if the backup system is only going to be used for a short period of time. Backup systems are not used in everyday operations because the screw with the main system. It is similar to backup diesel generators at server farms. If there is a power outage they come on line to provide power. Why don't they use them all the time? Because they are much more costly to run then drawing power from the grid. A religious nutbar coming to school every day is part of normal operations. What if 10% of the students decide not to use the ID systems. Then instead if a little cost due to manual entry the cost become quite large. Now significant resources have to be allocated to data entry and the system breaks down.
What you are talking about is not a backup system used in case of technical issue but an alternate system used by people who do not agree with the regular system. A backup system is used when the regular system does not work. An alternate system is used when the person chooses not to use the regular system. I do not believe that a person's fringe religious beliefs need to be catered to that much. Sorry but very few people believe that a visible ID has anything to to with the Mark of the Beast. If you do not want to comply with reasonable school policy then home school.
The scenarios suggested are dealt with as a backup system for when things go wrong not as a part of normal operating system. Supermarkets do not run a special checkout line for people who have religious issue with laser bar code scanners.
Did they make a counter offer? Did they say that the student would wear the badge but they would still protest? I doubt it very much. If there are students around without visible ID then it is impossible to know which ones should be there and which ones should not.
Earrings and hair have nothing to do with identifying students; ID cards do.
I would like to see the document that required the family to support the program. Even if it did exist, which I doubt, it would be unenforceable as the family would then have a valid First Amendment issue.
The presenter is as important as the product
How the presenter offers the work is important. Whether or not the presenter is gay, lesbian, female, black, etc is not. When talking about technical issue the sexual preferences of the speaker are irrelevant.
Maybe the person sitting next to you will appreciate it and its no skin off your ass.
Perhaps the conference may not be held next year because the organizers are frustrated about having to "go the extra mile" to satisfy something that has nothing to do with the information being presented. It sure would be "skin off my ass" it the conference did not happen.
The fact that you don't personally care doesn't mean its not worth doing.
When it means adding a significant load to an already overloaded conference committee for very little gain it is not worth doing. If you feel diversity in technical conferences is so important then put your own on and see just how much trouble it really is.