Thank goodness we've found our first vulnerability in Firefox. Now we can move from
the myth that free software is impervious to exploits, and into the reality that vulnerabilities are acknowleged and patched faster in most free software projects. Gentlemen, synchronize your watches. Will the Firefox team have a fix out before Microsoft even admits it's a bug?
> So, it saddens me to see more jobs leaving the US not because the product can't compete or is unprofitable, but because it not profitable enough.
I agree. In fact, I think we should bring back the pineapple industry, and coffee industry, and we should get back into sugarcane. And bring them Nike factories back!
Sorry I know I'm bagging on you for one statement, but this kind of migration of industry is a sign of health. It shows that Americans make enough money that it doesn't make sense for them to be in commodity manufacturing. We can't afford to keep these industries in the US because the US standard of living is too high. Furthermore, when these low-profit industries move offshore, they enrich the local economy where the standard of living is so much lower. (Note: I am referring to manufacturing here, not offshoring IT!) In the end -- at least in the aggregate -- everyone wins. Of course this isn't to say a few decent folks won't lose their jobs, but in the big picture the net effect is positive.
It's easy to complain when industry moves offshore, but if we brought back the pineapple industry and then jacked the price to $20 a pineapple, we'd soon be arguing about the evils of onshoring. Also, keep in mind that IBM's manufacturing is already offshore and outsourced. IBM's only role in PCs is design, engineering, and sales. And nobody ever shed a tear over an unemployed salesman.;-)
You're not in a boom, or in a bust. You're in a plutocracy. So Americans lose jobs and companies hire foreigners for less money to help pay for those multi-million-dollar executive bonuses. You realize your annual salary is probably a fraction of what your CEO's office furniture is worth, don't you? In the grand scheme of things, your worth (my worth) is slightly below that of a desk and chair. Welcome to the new economy.
I thought what I meant was clear. What I meant was "If the Yucca plan is flawed, then we should be working constructively to fix it, not criticizing it and offering no solutions." How you can turn that into a blank statement that I'm claiming no one can ever criticize anything, EVER -- unless they already have the solution -- is utterly beyond me. Don't try to counter someone's argument by restating it as a vague, ridiculous statement that bears no resemblance to what the person actually said, or meant.
If I meant "anything" I would have said "anything". What I said was "the Yucca plan".
"Are you SERIOUSLY arguing that all criticisms of anything must stop unless the person doing the criticism can think of a solution or alternative?"
All criticisms of anything? That's a pretty broad brush you're painting with. I dunno, lemme check... Errrr, nope, that phrase doesn't appear in my post, nor anything even remotely resembling it. So I suppose no, I'm not seriously arguing that. In fact, I'm not even remotely arguing that. To the contrary, I wonder if you even read the post you're replying to.
>"But here's the twist: with nuclear waste, procrastination may actually pay...... technological advances over the next century might yield better long-term storage methods.
Sorry, but this kind of stupidity really irks me. If the Yucca plan is flawed, then we should be working constructively to fix it, not criticizing it and offering no solutions. Certainly not assuming that in a hundred years we'll have genetically engineered winged monkeys who will fly all our nuclear waste into outer space.
The problem is here now, so we've got to face it now, with today's technology. It's the height of irresponsibility to assume that our children will be smart enough to solve a problem a hundred years from now whose solution has completely eluded us.
Haha, I love it. When I read the first paragraph of your post I couldn't help but picture Calvin on one of his voyages of discovery while daydreaming in class. Tumbling through space as words zoom in on him and resolve into letters, then pixels, then photons...
I've been running Linux on my main desktop for years, and recently I've really been considering switching to Windows. After all, it's got some cool apps, and while I wouldn't call it "feature complete", I say they've done a good job of implementing many of the best features of Linux and OSX. However it's articles like this that convince me it's still a bit early to switch to Windows.
All told they've made some real inroads in servers, and the desktop experience is improving with each release (the current unstable branch -- AKA "XP" -- has implemented the theme concept long popular in KDE and Gnome!) however I think it's still premature to declare Windows ready for prime time on the desktop.
I've seen many articles like this in the past that suggested there was some "boiling point" at which Linux / OSS / Free Software would be unstoppable and would take off like wildfire. They are fun to read and dream about, but they don't reflect a realistic view of the software scene. Linus has often said that Linux on the desktop would be a long, tiring battle. I agree. We will never hit a point where Windows will suddenly be rejected and open solutions will become the de facto standard. I think we need to fight for every % of market share we get. It won't be easy but -- to be honest -- I find the challenge pretty damn fun.:)
Yes, but you also need to think of these people as the vanguard. Sure that audience is the more technically-savvy people on the web. But they represent developers and IT professionals and geeks. People who write web pages, and recommend browsers, and make IT spending decisions, and install PCs for their families.
I installed Mozilla for my granny and she doesn't even know that she's now "l33t".:P A month ago a co-worker was complaining about adware and pr0n on her home PC. I cleaned it all off and installed Firefox and assured her if she stopped using IE it would never come back. Just last week I was at her home and her babysitter was complaining about adware. My co-worker turned to her and said smugly "oh, I installed Firefox and I don't get that anymore." I just sat there grinning from ear to ear!
Every install counts. The geeks may be at the crest of the wave, but that wave is building. That 10% of ZDNet users are the ones who are in the greatest position to make recommendations to others. Netscape, eBay, and Napster didn't become internet juggernauts because they were promoted by Best Buy. Those rode a swell of popularity and word of mouth -- all started by those save tech-savvy users.
Well, first of all Microsoft doesn't make a browser. They make an OS named "Windows" one of its features is an icon called "Internet Explorer." That feature isn't free, you have to fork over cold, hard cash for a Windows license.
Secondly, Microsoft didn't throw all that money into winning the browser wars for bragging rights. They had two main goals:
1. Kill the browser as platform. This was a scary topic that Netscape was talking about in the 90's, and Microsoft had to kill it, as a threat to their OS monopoly. 2. Control the platform. For anyone who remembers MSN "Blackbird", Microsoft has always wanted to own the web. Originally they actually thought MSN could compete with -- and win out over -- the WWW. No, really! Then when they realized they couldn't own it, they decided to try to control all the interfaces, APIs, and methods to access it. Even this hasn't been well executed, since Windows has 95% of the browser market share, but Microsoft's proprietary technologies haven't really caught on that widely -- except as a vehicle for adware and spyware.
I agree that the browser wars mean very little in the sense that Firefox or Safari must "win". The real importance is in that the battle is being fought. As long as there is a battle, the web is safe from being controlled by any one entity, be it M$ or even the Mozilla foundation. It's when there's no one there to serve as a check or balance that our standard-based web is at risk.
Good gravy, that reads like a democratic manifesto.:-)
Since when was/. an online PC troubleshooting forum? Any doofus knows LCD screen don't suffer from "lag" -- why doesn't he call Dell or ask on a newsgroup, not take out an article on the front page of Slashdot???
Furthermore, here's a thought. Dozens of companies have pledged support for Linux, dozens of companies ship it, but how many companies (at least genuinely large, powerful ones) actually contribute to it? Sun? HP? Dell? Intel? AMD?
Only IBM. They don't do it out of kindness, they do it to make money. But truth be told, they are the only company not simply paying lip service.
This is definitely true, I'm not sure why this would surprise anyone. The first I saw of it was on News.com.com.com on the 20th, two days before the ZDNet UK article. It was based on a telephone conversation with Jonathan Schwartz. Sun wants to find a way to avoid commoditization of software, and to make their HW/SW bundle inseparable. That HW/SW bundle doesn't include Linux, at least any moreso than they have to pay lip service to Linux support.
I'm sorry, did you actually think Sun was an ally? I guess it was their $2 billion deal with Microsoft to try to face IBM head-on (the only company whose Linux support has actually lived up to their promises) that convinced you Sun was completely benign.
Congrats to all the people of Wikipedia! Nowadays I spend a lot of time "surfing" Wikipedia -- I start on one subject and keep clicking interesting links until somehow I end up somewhere totally different and have a cursory grasp of at least a half dozen new subjects. This used to be a favourite passtime on the web many years back, but has since lost a lot of its appeal.
Despite a few criticisms from those who have to criticise everything, the fact is that Wikipedia is one of the best sources of information on the web. It's a great place to start the learning process, it's got a little something on virtually every topic, and it's FREE.
(That's free as in information, not free as in beer.)
I knew this was a dupe, just not from/. This was first posted on June 24, 2003 on Blue's News. The original eBay posting has now expired, but I remember that it was the same auction. Either it didn't sell last time, or the owner has tried this phishing expedition before.;-) I'll reserve judgement.
I share your sense of excited pragmatism. All we have at this point are hints, and a tonne more exploring to do, but it's tremendously exciting to think that we also haven't been able to disprove present life on Mars.
I don't know about you, but my heart literally starts to race when I think that maybe... MAYBE... we could find evidence of life on another planet in my lifetime. It would boggle the mind.
If you thought SP2 would be a speed upgrade then you also buy the previous lines that Win98, ME, NT4, W2K, XP would make Windows faster than previous versions. Of course these fallacies are based on the assumption that you would install the upgrade on a *newer* PC than their sample set. No Windows update has ever been faster than its predecessors.
Two comments:
1. Chinese is not a language. Did you mean Mandarin?
2. While a lot of languages score higher than English as a *first* language, it is still by far the greatest "common denominator" language in the the world.
When you go to Hong Kong you see tonnes of Asians speaking English to each other because it's the only language they have in common.
I agree that people should feel free to speak the language they want, I just disagree with your insinuation that English plays such a minor role. In China road signs are all in Chinese (yes, Chinese is a written language, there is simply no spoken language named "Chinese") and English, and a huge number of those Hindi speakers you make reference to also speak English.
While I agree with your comment and the sentiment, below is a facetious summary of recent single-sign-in comments:
- Google sucks because they require multiple signons for every service they offer, and it's incovenient.
- Passport rocks because you sign in only once for everything.
- Passport sucks because they are Big Brother and they track you from site to site.
- Google rocks because they don't maintain a massive customer-tracking database.
Basically this boils down to a privacy vs. simplicity debate. Simplicity affects privacy and vice-versa. It's impossible to please everyone, although -- if I may -- Google has not been found guilty of abusing a monopoly.:P
I enjoy reading these corporate PR releases bundled as news. For example, this is not that the software industry was $29 billion in the hole last year, it's that if you totalled all the pirated copies of software that the BSA feels exist, and you sold them all at full price, it would total $29 billion.
But heck, if the software industry were bleeding money (it isn't) then what could be the cause? Could it be P2P networks? Why yes, it could. Could it be an unfair monopoly? Pshaw! No one ever heard of a monopoly stifling innovation or competition, don't be silly. (Rubbing chin and looking thoughtful...) Although... I could name some companies that didn't lose money last year. Like, Netscape! Or... Quarterdeck! Try Ashton-Tate, Fox Software, Central Point, Stac, Digital Research, Banyan, and Borland. None of these companies lost money because they either went bankrupt, had to merge, or faded into obscurity. What happened to Wordperfect, the pre-eminent word processor? Harvard Graphics, the ultimate presentation graphics package? Lotus 1-2-3, the world's most popular spreadsheet? dBase, the most popular database? DESQview, the best multitasking environment? Visio was bought. FoxPro was bought and run into the ground. Netscape was crushed. Central Point, Stac, Spyglass, and 3COM (OpenServer NOS AKA LAN Manager) all did a deal with the devil and were forced out of the market. How much of that alleged $29 billion do the boys from Seattle claim is their slice of the pie? Yeah, maybe P2P is to blame. Maybe not...
What's that old anecdote? An American tycoon visited China to act as an advisor on a dam they were building. Seeing thousands of people toiling with shovels, he told the Chinese politicians that they should buy back-hoes and they could complete the dam in a fraction of the time and cost. "But," they said, "think of all the people we're employing." 'If it's employment you're looking for,' he said, 'take away their shovels and give them spoons.'
The moral of the story is, you don't undertake a fantastically expensive and ambitious project just for the incidental employment and inventions that will come out of it. Unless the activity itself has some sort of tangible benefit and goal, and unless you try to achieve that goal in the most economic way possible, it makes no sense. Despite how it sounds, I'm all for a manned mission to Mars, as long as it's done economically and with clear scientific goals. But a manned moon base? Puh-lease....
character_assassin, you may be right, but personally I think the Bush administration is scared poopless of the Chinese. It's the most populous nation on earth. It can do basic, medium and even some high-tech manufacturing for a fraction of the price to do so in the US. And here's the kicker -- last year foreign investment in China exceeded foreign investment in the US. THAT IS HUGE.
If that doesn't hit you like a slap in the face, think about it this way... When people or companies make it rich around the world, what do they do? They invest their money. And for decades they have put that investment into US companies, knowing their investment was safe. Last year, more people chose to safely tuck their money away in China than in America. I think China/US relations will continue to become a major issue on the world scene, and I think China has only begun its 21st-century ascendency.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I believe the US is in an overt economic and political struggle with the People's Republic.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank goodness we've found our first vulnerability in Firefox. Now we can move from the myth that free software is impervious to exploits, and into the reality that vulnerabilities are acknowleged and patched faster in most free software projects. Gentlemen, synchronize your watches. Will the Firefox team have a fix out before Microsoft even admits it's a bug?
> So, it saddens me to see more jobs leaving the US not because the product can't compete or is unprofitable, but because it not profitable enough.
I agree. In fact, I think we should bring back the pineapple industry, and coffee industry, and we should get back into sugarcane. And bring them Nike factories back!Sorry I know I'm bagging on you for one statement, but this kind of migration of industry is a sign of health. It shows that Americans make enough money that it doesn't make sense for them to be in commodity manufacturing. We can't afford to keep these industries in the US because the US standard of living is too high. Furthermore, when these low-profit industries move offshore, they enrich the local economy where the standard of living is so much lower. (Note: I am referring to manufacturing here, not offshoring IT!) In the end -- at least in the aggregate -- everyone wins. Of course this isn't to say a few decent folks won't lose their jobs, but in the big picture the net effect is positive.
It's easy to complain when industry moves offshore, but if we brought back the pineapple industry and then jacked the price to $20 a pineapple, we'd soon be arguing about the evils of onshoring. Also, keep in mind that IBM's manufacturing is already offshore and outsourced. IBM's only role in PCs is design, engineering, and sales. And nobody ever shed a tear over an unemployed salesman. ;-)
> "So, what is it? Are we in another boom"
You're not in a boom, or in a bust. You're in a plutocracy. So Americans lose jobs and companies hire foreigners for less money to help pay for those multi-million-dollar executive bonuses. You realize your annual salary is probably a fraction of what your CEO's office furniture is worth, don't you? In the grand scheme of things, your worth (my worth) is slightly below that of a desk and chair. Welcome to the new economy.
I thought what I meant was clear. What I meant was "If the Yucca plan is flawed, then we should be working constructively to fix it, not criticizing it and offering no solutions." How you can turn that into a blank statement that I'm claiming no one can ever criticize anything, EVER -- unless they already have the solution -- is utterly beyond me. Don't try to counter someone's argument by restating it as a vague, ridiculous statement that bears no resemblance to what the person actually said, or meant.
If I meant "anything" I would have said "anything". What I said was "the Yucca plan".
"Are you SERIOUSLY arguing that all criticisms of anything must stop unless the person doing the criticism can think of a solution or alternative?"
All criticisms of anything? That's a pretty broad brush you're painting with. I dunno, lemme check... Errrr, nope, that phrase doesn't appear in my post, nor anything even remotely resembling it. So I suppose no, I'm not seriously arguing that. In fact, I'm not even remotely arguing that. To the contrary, I wonder if you even read the post you're replying to.
>"But here's the twist: with nuclear waste, procrastination may actually pay ... ... technological advances over the next century might yield better long-term storage methods.
Sorry, but this kind of stupidity really irks me. If the Yucca plan is flawed, then we should be working constructively to fix it, not criticizing it and offering no solutions. Certainly not assuming that in a hundred years we'll have genetically engineered winged monkeys who will fly all our nuclear waste into outer space. The problem is here now, so we've got to face it now, with today's technology. It's the height of irresponsibility to assume that our children will be smart enough to solve a problem a hundred years from now whose solution has completely eluded us.
Haha, I love it. When I read the first paragraph of your post I couldn't help but picture Calvin on one of his voyages of discovery while daydreaming in class. Tumbling through space as words zoom in on him and resolve into letters, then pixels, then photons...
I've been running Linux on my main desktop for years, and recently I've really been considering switching to Windows. After all, it's got some cool apps, and while I wouldn't call it "feature complete", I say they've done a good job of implementing many of the best features of Linux and OSX. However it's articles like this that convince me it's still a bit early to switch to Windows.
All told they've made some real inroads in servers, and the desktop experience is improving with each release (the current unstable branch -- AKA "XP" -- has implemented the theme concept long popular in KDE and Gnome!) however I think it's still premature to declare Windows ready for prime time on the desktop.
I've seen many articles like this in the past that suggested there was some "boiling point" at which Linux / OSS / Free Software would be unstoppable and would take off like wildfire. They are fun to read and dream about, but they don't reflect a realistic view of the software scene. Linus has often said that Linux on the desktop would be a long, tiring battle. I agree. We will never hit a point where Windows will suddenly be rejected and open solutions will become the de facto standard. I think we need to fight for every % of market share we get. It won't be easy but -- to be honest -- I find the challenge pretty damn fun. :)
Yes, but you also need to think of these people as the vanguard. Sure that audience is the more technically-savvy people on the web. But they represent developers and IT professionals and geeks. People who write web pages, and recommend browsers, and make IT spending decisions, and install PCs for their families.
I installed Mozilla for my granny and she doesn't even know that she's now "l33t". :P A month ago a co-worker was complaining about adware and pr0n on her home PC. I cleaned it all off and installed Firefox and assured her if she stopped using IE it would never come back. Just last week I was at her home and her babysitter was complaining about adware. My co-worker turned to her and said smugly "oh, I installed Firefox and I don't get that anymore." I just sat there grinning from ear to ear!
Every install counts. The geeks may be at the crest of the wave, but that wave is building. That 10% of ZDNet users are the ones who are in the greatest position to make recommendations to others. Netscape, eBay, and Napster didn't become internet juggernauts because they were promoted by Best Buy. Those rode a swell of popularity and word of mouth -- all started by those save tech-savvy users.
Well, first of all Microsoft doesn't make a browser. They make an OS named "Windows" one of its features is an icon called "Internet Explorer." That feature isn't free, you have to fork over cold, hard cash for a Windows license.
Secondly, Microsoft didn't throw all that money into winning the browser wars for bragging rights. They had two main goals:
1. Kill the browser as platform. This was a scary topic that Netscape was talking about in the 90's, and Microsoft had to kill it, as a threat to their OS monopoly.
2. Control the platform. For anyone who remembers MSN "Blackbird", Microsoft has always wanted to own the web. Originally they actually thought MSN could compete with -- and win out over -- the WWW. No, really! Then when they realized they couldn't own it, they decided to try to control all the interfaces, APIs, and methods to access it. Even this hasn't been well executed, since Windows has 95% of the browser market share, but Microsoft's proprietary technologies haven't really caught on that widely -- except as a vehicle for adware and spyware.
I agree that the browser wars mean very little in the sense that Firefox or Safari must "win". The real importance is in that the battle is being fought. As long as there is a battle, the web is safe from being controlled by any one entity, be it M$ or even the Mozilla foundation. It's when there's no one there to serve as a check or balance that our standard-based web is at risk.
Good gravy, that reads like a democratic manifesto. :-)
People need to be vewy, vewy quiet, we awe hunting microsoft...
>the first disks could be on the shelves between 2010 and 2015.
Which means EB Games should start taking pre-orders right about now...
I keed, I keed....
Since when was /. an online PC troubleshooting forum? Any doofus knows LCD screen don't suffer from "lag" -- why doesn't he call Dell or ask on a newsgroup, not take out an article on the front page of Slashdot???
Furthermore, here's a thought. Dozens of companies have pledged support for Linux, dozens of companies ship it, but how many companies (at least genuinely large, powerful ones) actually contribute to it? Sun? HP? Dell? Intel? AMD?
Only IBM. They don't do it out of kindness, they do it to make money. But truth be told, they are the only company not simply paying lip service.
This is definitely true, I'm not sure why this would surprise anyone. The first I saw of it was on News.com.com.com on the 20th, two days before the ZDNet UK article. It was based on a telephone conversation with Jonathan Schwartz. Sun wants to find a way to avoid commoditization of software, and to make their HW/SW bundle inseparable. That HW/SW bundle doesn't include Linux, at least any moreso than they have to pay lip service to Linux support.
I'm sorry, did you actually think Sun was an ally? I guess it was their $2 billion deal with Microsoft to try to face IBM head-on (the only company whose Linux support has actually lived up to their promises) that convinced you Sun was completely benign.
Congrats to all the people of Wikipedia! Nowadays I spend a lot of time "surfing" Wikipedia -- I start on one subject and keep clicking interesting links until somehow I end up somewhere totally different and have a cursory grasp of at least a half dozen new subjects. This used to be a favourite passtime on the web many years back, but has since lost a lot of its appeal.
Despite a few criticisms from those who have to criticise everything, the fact is that Wikipedia is one of the best sources of information on the web. It's a great place to start the learning process, it's got a little something on virtually every topic, and it's FREE.
(That's free as in information, not free as in beer.)
I knew this was a dupe, just not from /. This was first posted on June 24, 2003 on Blue's News. The original eBay posting has now expired, but I remember that it was the same auction. Either it didn't sell last time, or the owner has tried this phishing expedition before. ;-) I'll reserve judgement.
I share your sense of excited pragmatism. All we have at this point are hints, and a tonne more exploring to do, but it's tremendously exciting to think that we also haven't been able to disprove present life on Mars.
I don't know about you, but my heart literally starts to race when I think that maybe... MAYBE... we could find evidence of life on another planet in my lifetime. It would boggle the mind.
If you thought SP2 would be a speed upgrade then you also buy the previous lines that Win98, ME, NT4, W2K, XP would make Windows faster than previous versions. Of course these fallacies are based on the assumption that you would install the upgrade on a *newer* PC than their sample set. No Windows update has ever been faster than its predecessors.
Period.
Two comments: 1. Chinese is not a language. Did you mean Mandarin? 2. While a lot of languages score higher than English as a *first* language, it is still by far the greatest "common denominator" language in the the world. When you go to Hong Kong you see tonnes of Asians speaking English to each other because it's the only language they have in common. I agree that people should feel free to speak the language they want, I just disagree with your insinuation that English plays such a minor role. In China road signs are all in Chinese (yes, Chinese is a written language, there is simply no spoken language named "Chinese") and English, and a huge number of those Hindi speakers you make reference to also speak English.
While I agree with your comment and the sentiment, below is a facetious summary of recent single-sign-in comments:
- Google sucks because they require multiple signons for every service they offer, and it's incovenient.
- Passport rocks because you sign in only once for everything.
- Passport sucks because they are Big Brother and they track you from site to site.
- Google rocks because they don't maintain a massive customer-tracking database.
Basically this boils down to a privacy vs. simplicity debate. Simplicity affects privacy and vice-versa. It's impossible to please everyone, although -- if I may -- Google has not been found guilty of abusing a monopoly. :P
I enjoy reading these corporate PR releases bundled as news. For example, this is not that the software industry was $29 billion in the hole last year, it's that if you totalled all the pirated copies of software that the BSA feels exist, and you sold them all at full price, it would total $29 billion.
But heck, if the software industry were bleeding money (it isn't) then what could be the cause? Could it be P2P networks? Why yes, it could. Could it be an unfair monopoly? Pshaw! No one ever heard of a monopoly stifling innovation or competition, don't be silly. (Rubbing chin and looking thoughtful...) Although... I could name some companies that didn't lose money last year. Like, Netscape! Or... Quarterdeck! Try Ashton-Tate, Fox Software, Central Point, Stac, Digital Research, Banyan, and Borland. None of these companies lost money because they either went bankrupt, had to merge, or faded into obscurity. What happened to Wordperfect, the pre-eminent word processor? Harvard Graphics, the ultimate presentation graphics package? Lotus 1-2-3, the world's most popular spreadsheet? dBase, the most popular database? DESQview, the best multitasking environment? Visio was bought. FoxPro was bought and run into the ground. Netscape was crushed. Central Point, Stac, Spyglass, and 3COM (OpenServer NOS AKA LAN Manager) all did a deal with the devil and were forced out of the market. How much of that alleged $29 billion do the boys from Seattle claim is their slice of the pie? Yeah, maybe P2P is to blame. Maybe not...
What's that old anecdote? An American tycoon visited China to act as an advisor on a dam they were building. Seeing thousands of people toiling with shovels, he told the Chinese politicians that they should buy back-hoes and they could complete the dam in a fraction of the time and cost. "But," they said, "think of all the people we're employing." 'If it's employment you're looking for,' he said, 'take away their shovels and give them spoons.'
The moral of the story is, you don't undertake a fantastically expensive and ambitious project just for the incidental employment and inventions that will come out of it. Unless the activity itself has some sort of tangible benefit and goal, and unless you try to achieve that goal in the most economic way possible, it makes no sense. Despite how it sounds, I'm all for a manned mission to Mars, as long as it's done economically and with clear scientific goals. But a manned moon base? Puh-lease....
character_assassin, you may be right, but personally I think the Bush administration is scared poopless of the Chinese. It's the most populous nation on earth. It can do basic, medium and even some high-tech manufacturing for a fraction of the price to do so in the US. And here's the kicker -- last year foreign investment in China exceeded foreign investment in the US. THAT IS HUGE.
If that doesn't hit you like a slap in the face, think about it this way... When people or companies make it rich around the world, what do they do? They invest their money. And for decades they have put that investment into US companies, knowing their investment was safe. Last year, more people chose to safely tuck their money away in China than in America. I think China/US relations will continue to become a major issue on the world scene, and I think China has only begun its 21st-century ascendency.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I believe the US is in an overt economic and political struggle with the People's Republic.