When the experiments will get to space has not been set. Neither company has yet announced when commercial flights will begin, but eventually SpaceShipTwo could fly once or twice a day, and the Lynx is designed for up to four flights a day.
Until they get some solid dates attached to those flights, this kind of thing remains in the realm of wishful thinking. But I wish them all the best.
Yeah, first the Distro of the Hour was SLS, then Slackware, then Caldera, then RedHat, then Mandrake, then Ubuntu... I finally decided that if I needed a desktop unix, it was just simpler to get a Mac. Whatever else, at least I don't have to go through the contortions of having to recreate my user environment every year or two. The first few times that might have been a learning experience. After that, it was just a nuisance.
Beyond that, if we go there and find intelligent life, then it'll be much easier to establish a relationship with a species that breathes our air, has an overlapping thermal range of comfort, and lives under gravity and pressure conditions comparable to our own.
I don't know about that. We don't seem to be able to establish much of a relationship even with dolphins or whales, reasonably intelligent species on our own planet. Indeed, they apparently have no interest at all in establishing a relationship with us. In fact, besides humans, I can think of very few species which fraternize outside with other species, unless they've been bred for it by humans. We may be the exceptional case rather than the typical one.
Establishing relationships might turn out to be a tricky affair, even with life which has evolved under similar conditions.
A lovely speech. But it's sobering to remember that when it was given, putting a man on the moon was 7 years in the future. Now it's nearly 40 years in the past. At least as far as human space travel is concerned, that breathtaking pace has come to a grinding halt.
Typical dishonest right wing BS; he doesn't mention the huge huge huge cost subsidys to cars - have you ever heard of something called the mideast ? and how much we spend on the military to defend oil there ? you did any sort of honest analysis - includuding loss of public land for cars, cost to the environment to get fuel for\ cars, etc etc etc, I bet the current subsidys for cars are higher then rail
Since the purpose of this high-speed rail is connect cities together, exactly how is it going to relieve local commuter traffic congestion within cities?
Well, that's a false comparison. Government services are not market commodities, even in a capitalist society. You don't get to decide whether or not you want to buy defense, Social Security, public schools, etc.
Nasty as it may sound, getting into this situation probably had more to do with democracy than capitalism. In a democracy, a politician has to whore for votes from his constituency. And you don't get votes by promising to take away people's bennies. So, of course, people vote for whoever promises the most goodies. Those goodies have to be paid for somehow.
In a dictatorship, such as China, the politicians don't have to face voters. When they need to cut the budget, they do.
Actually, the private economies of both countries are capitalist. China is communist in name only. You don't think your iPhone is made by the Chinese Communist Party, do you?
Well, don't start celebrating yet. This was lost only due to being submitted under a special procedure that require 2/3 majority approval. If it gets resubmitted under the standard procedure requiring only a majority approval, it has more than enough votes to pass.
Unfortunately, I expect this to be a short lived victory.
I can't see the connection though between the "New Hampshire Liberty Alliance" (the group that seems to promoted the change according to the article), and the Free Staters.
Easy. NHLA and FSP have a substantial overlap of membership. Something not made obvious by the article, I know, but true nonetheless. It's one of those "local activist organizations with which many Free Staters are involved".
No, it's not currently a realistic option in the United States of America. OTOH, nothing last forever, including large powerful nations. See "Soviet Union" for example. Six months earlier, not much of anyone expected their breakup, either.
Well, there's always the option of secession. Remember, New Hampshire shares a border with Canada, and has coastal access to the Atlantic ocean. It could do very nicely for itself as a small nation in it's own right. I believe those were some of the reasons the Free State Project chose it.
Considering that the DoD's budget makes NASA's look like a rounding error, getting the military involved in the space program must be warming the hearts of space buffs everywhere. One thing's for sure, the DoD never lacks for funding.
Well, there is that, but the other side of it is that quite a few of the materials for decent science projects are no longer available or even legal. Anyone attempting to assemble the kind of chemistry set I had in grade-school (bought off the shelf of a department store's toy department) would likely be getting themselves a visit from the FBI. Come to think of it, I haven't seen a kid build a model rocket and launch it in decades.
If that's true, then what would be the point of it? I can remember when the original Fairness Doctrine was in effect. I don't remember many rebuttals ever being given by representatives of the Communist, Nazi or Libertarian parties.
Obviously, a "fair" representation of opposing viewpoints would demand *all* opposing viewpoints be given recognition. The day that happens, I'll be on the lookout for low flying pigs.
Well, I don't think they dug themselves a hole in the enterprise world, they weren't really players in the enterprise market in the first place.
That said, I agree that licensing OS X Server to specific 3rd party vendors would have been a win-win for Apple. OS X Server isn't really a big revenue generator for them, nor do they seem interested in selling server systems into that market. Licensing to companies like IBM or HP would have allowed them to let companies in that market do the heavy lifting for selling into the server market, without saddling Apple with having to develop an enterprise support infrastructure. The only cost they'd have to bear is the development of OS X Server.
The right? If you really want to see some fancy tap dancing, try bringing this up to the left.
See how many grants you get persuing that line of inquiry.
Interesting that the same crowd that regards anyone who questions evolution as a troglodyte views people who accept it's logical conclusions as equally backwards.
P.Z. Myers might be more convincing if more scientists actually acknowledged their results are only ever provisional. Instead, too many of them demand the presumption of infallibility with the arrogance of a medieval pope. "Provisional" is certainly not a word given any emphasis in any IPCC report. IIRC, what we heard for the longest time was that "the science is settled!".
Now, when it turns out that the emperor is wearing no clothes, suddenly we're expected to overlook exorbitant claims because "science is never about absolute certainty".
If people have a lot less faith in science than they used to, it might be in part because too many scientists want to have their cake and eat it too.
True enough. I remember when Computerworld used to publish information actually useful for writing code, like algorithms and such. Not that you'd know that they ever did such a thing if you'd read it at any time in the last 20 years.
Hell, I remember when Slashdot was pretty much an All Linux, All The Time forum frequented only by hard-core techies.
The trend in computer publications seems to be to cater to either consumers or IT managers. For techies, the proceedings are pretty thin gruel. Unfortunately the smart money says the reanimated Byte will probably meet the same fate.
Slashdot Mirror
Good for them. We could use more groups like that.
So how's the Free State Project working out there?
When the experiments will get to space has not been set. Neither company has yet announced when commercial flights will begin, but eventually SpaceShipTwo could fly once or twice a day, and the Lynx is designed for up to four flights a day.
Until they get some solid dates attached to those flights, this kind of thing remains in the realm of wishful thinking. But I wish them all the best.
Yeah, first the Distro of the Hour was SLS, then Slackware, then Caldera, then RedHat, then Mandrake, then Ubuntu... I finally decided that if I needed a desktop unix, it was just simpler to get a Mac. Whatever else, at least I don't have to go through the contortions of having to recreate my user environment every year or two. The first few times that might have been a learning experience. After that, it was just a nuisance.
Beyond that, if we go there and find intelligent life, then it'll be much easier to establish a relationship with a species that breathes our air, has an overlapping thermal range of comfort, and lives under gravity and pressure conditions comparable to our own.
I don't know about that. We don't seem to be able to establish much of a relationship even with dolphins or whales, reasonably intelligent species on our own planet. Indeed, they apparently have no interest at all in establishing a relationship with us. In fact, besides humans, I can think of very few species which fraternize outside with other species, unless they've been bred for it by humans. We may be the exceptional case rather than the typical one.
Establishing relationships might turn out to be a tricky affair, even with life which has evolved under similar conditions.
A lovely speech. But it's sobering to remember that when it was given, putting a man on the moon was 7 years in the future. Now it's nearly 40 years in the past. At least as far as human space travel is concerned, that breathtaking pace has come to a grinding halt.
3) Costs
Typical dishonest right wing BS; he doesn't mention the huge huge huge cost subsidys to cars - have you ever heard of something called the mideast ? and how much we spend on the military to defend oil there ? you did any sort of honest analysis - includuding loss of public land for cars, cost to the environment to get fuel for\ cars, etc etc etc, I bet the current subsidys for cars are higher then rail
Er, actually most of our oil comes from Canada and Mexico.
Quite the comedian, aren't you?
Since the purpose of this high-speed rail is connect cities together, exactly how is it going to relieve local commuter traffic congestion within cities?
Well, that's a false comparison. Government services are not market commodities, even in a capitalist society. You don't get to decide whether or not you want to buy defense, Social Security, public schools, etc.
Nasty as it may sound, getting into this situation probably had more to do with democracy than capitalism. In a democracy, a politician has to whore for votes from his constituency. And you don't get votes by promising to take away people's bennies. So, of course, people vote for whoever promises the most goodies. Those goodies have to be paid for somehow.
In a dictatorship, such as China, the politicians don't have to face voters. When they need to cut the budget, they do.
Actually, the private economies of both countries are capitalist. China is communist in name only. You don't think your iPhone is made by the Chinese Communist Party, do you?
3 Reasons Why Obama's High-Speed Rail Will Go Nowhere Fast
Well, don't start celebrating yet. This was lost only due to being submitted under a special procedure that require 2/3 majority approval. If it gets resubmitted under the standard procedure requiring only a majority approval, it has more than enough votes to pass.
Unfortunately, I expect this to be a short lived victory.
Indeed. Whenever there's bipartisan agreement - grab your ankles!
I can't see the connection though between the "New Hampshire Liberty Alliance" (the group that seems to promoted the change according to the article), and the Free Staters.
Easy. NHLA and FSP have a substantial overlap of membership. Something not made obvious by the article, I know, but true nonetheless. It's one of those "local activist organizations with which many Free Staters are involved".
No, it's not currently a realistic option in the United States of America. OTOH, nothing last forever, including large powerful nations. See "Soviet Union" for example. Six months earlier, not much of anyone expected their breakup, either.
He also said
If they really want small government they should really think about emigrating altogether.
Which was the point I was responding to.
Whoosh, yourself.
Well, there's always the option of secession. Remember, New Hampshire shares a border with Canada, and has coastal access to the Atlantic ocean. It could do very nicely for itself as a small nation in it's own right. I believe those were some of the reasons the Free State Project chose it.
Considering that the DoD's budget makes NASA's look like a rounding error, getting the military involved in the space program must be warming the hearts of space buffs everywhere. One thing's for sure, the DoD never lacks for funding.
Well, there is that, but the other side of it is that quite a few of the materials for decent science projects are no longer available or even legal. Anyone attempting to assemble the kind of chemistry set I had in grade-school (bought off the shelf of a department store's toy department) would likely be getting themselves a visit from the FBI. Come to think of it, I haven't seen a kid build a model rocket and launch it in decades.
If that's true, then what would be the point of it? I can remember when the original Fairness Doctrine was in effect. I don't remember many rebuttals ever being given by representatives of the Communist, Nazi or Libertarian parties.
Obviously, a "fair" representation of opposing viewpoints would demand *all* opposing viewpoints be given recognition. The day that happens, I'll be on the lookout for low flying pigs.
Population growth in western nations is also declining faster than at any other point in history.
Apparently that atheism gene isn't quite prolific enough.
Considering 2/3 of internet users in the US don't do anything with it besides read their email and their horoscope, why is this a problem?
Well, I don't think they dug themselves a hole in the enterprise world, they weren't really players in the enterprise market in the first place.
That said, I agree that licensing OS X Server to specific 3rd party vendors would have been a win-win for Apple. OS X Server isn't really a big revenue generator for them, nor do they seem interested in selling server systems into that market. Licensing to companies like IBM or HP would have allowed them to let companies in that market do the heavy lifting for selling into the server market, without saddling Apple with having to develop an enterprise support infrastructure. The only cost they'd have to bear is the development of OS X Server.
The right? If you really want to see some fancy tap dancing, try bringing this up to the left.
See how many grants you get persuing that line of inquiry.
Interesting that the same crowd that regards anyone who questions evolution as a troglodyte views people who accept it's logical conclusions as equally backwards.
P.Z. Myers might be more convincing if more scientists actually acknowledged their results are only ever provisional. Instead, too many of them demand the presumption of infallibility with the arrogance of a medieval pope. "Provisional" is certainly not a word given any emphasis in any IPCC report. IIRC, what we heard for the longest time was that "the science is settled!".
Now, when it turns out that the emperor is wearing no clothes, suddenly we're expected to overlook exorbitant claims because "science is never about absolute certainty".
If people have a lot less faith in science than they used to, it might be in part because too many scientists want to have their cake and eat it too.
True enough. I remember when Computerworld used to publish information actually useful for writing code, like algorithms and such. Not that you'd know that they ever did such a thing if you'd read it at any time in the last 20 years.
Hell, I remember when Slashdot was pretty much an All Linux, All The Time forum frequented only by hard-core techies.
The trend in computer publications seems to be to cater to either consumers or IT managers. For techies, the proceedings are pretty thin gruel. Unfortunately the smart money says the reanimated Byte will probably meet the same fate.