While it's sensible for your assembly line workers to arrive at the same time every day, there is no reason why that time needs to be 9am.
Who said anything about 9am? Most non retail businesses are open well before 9am these days. Most open at 7 or 8am. There IS a reason why we chose the times we do. Two reasons actually in my company's case. 1) it ensures our deliveries get to our customers at the time in the afternoon when our customers require them and 2) it avoids rush hour which ensures our staff can be on time reliably and not have to waste their lives sitting in pointless traffic jams. It also keeps us on a similar schedule with our suppliers maximizing our ability to work closely with them because most of them keep similar hours. Plus we employ a lot of parents who appreciate being able to go pick up their kids after school.
Hospitals are typically 24/7 operations, the staff don't all show up at 9am and leave at 5pm, you have various shifts and staff who remain there over night etc.
Missing the point. The point is that those "fixed standard work times" didn't evolve by accident. There certainly are cases where they don't make sense but for the most part they exist for a variety of rather sensible reasons. People have children and lives outside of work. People need to be able to communicate with other businesses while they are open. Having schedules that don't mesh well with other people's schedules can be a huge problem.
I never advocated against schedules, i advocate against everyone arbitrarily being on the same schedule for no reason other than it's always been that way.
My least favorite words in the English language are "that's the way we've always done it" so from that perspective I very much agree with you. It's the reason why I think continuing to say 12 noon must coincide with the sun being highest in the sky is rather ridiculous given the realities of modern life.
It's hard enough to get kids to bed anytime. It's twice as hard when it's still light outside. And don't even get me started on getting up while it's still dark.
I am a parent and that is among the weakest and dumbest arguments I've ever heard. Suck it up buttercup. Make the room dark and deal with it. You chose to have a kid so I'm not sympathetic at all. I don't ask anyone else to compensate for my kid.
Let's have our daylight evenly spread both sides of noon, please.
No thank you. My day isn't schedule like that so I'd prefer my daylight match what we actually do. Having the majority of daylight when most people are stuck inside at work or school is a stupid idea. Arrange the day so that most people receive the most advantage. Since it's difficult to get everyone to change their company and school hours all at once, change the clock instead.
That's what "noon" is supposed to mean.
That argument is nothing more than "that's the way we've always done it" which is ALWAYS a stupid argument. Continuing to do something stupid because that's the way it was done in the past is the very definition of insanity.
The issue is that people who live in the north (or far south in the southern hemisphere) would have very skewed days for no benefit to them...
You are always going to find corner cases where someone has a problem. Find the system that benefits the most people or failing that the system that most people want and go with it. Personally I think most people would prefer to have maximal daylight in the evening after work because that is of greatest utility to the greatest number of people. I like that during the summer solstice sundown is around 9:30PM or so. I don't really care if it is dark when I get up and commute to work.
Anyway people who live way up towards the poles get weird daylight no matter what. If that is an issue for them they should move closer to the equator.
You're talking about this year's operating costs. I'm talking about the whole thing, starting from the 1990's, cost to build it and launch it piece by piece, R&D, everything. That's what I meant by "great expense".
That is a sunk cost. It does not and should not matter for forward looking decisions. That money is already spent and we're not getting it back. Using money already spent is not a rational argument - it's a emotional one. We have the ISS as an asset. Whether we should continue to dump money into it or de-orbit it should be based solely on future expectations of need and utility and cost.
But if I were trying to set up a Mars colony, and if there's any kind of a need for orbital rendezvous or storage depot or some place to put people up for a few days while your big transports get refueled and serviced, and there's already a big space station there that you can use for cheap (or free), I might take it.
Nothing about the ISS will be cheap. It's pretty easy to come up with a credible argument that a mission to mars/moon would be better and more economically served by purpose built infrastructure than by trying to retrofit the ISS to a mission it was never designed for. As for space, SpaceX's BFR if it ever comes to fruition will have plenty of space to work with. I'm not opposed to examining whether the ISS could serve such a role productively but I'm dubious of its utility in such a role.
And having fixed standard work times is just as idiotic as the idea of daylight saving...
You've never tried to manage a business have you? There is a lot of benefit to having most companies work predictable schedules. Real, tangible, measurable, economic benefit. If you worked in a company like mine you'd find that it's really hard to run an assembly line without people showing up at the same time each day. Good luck running a hospital with people coming and going whenever they feel like it. Have fun running a restaurant when the waitstaff or cooks can come and go whenever.
Many of us have to deal with clients or suppliers in other countries who don't work at the same time anyway.
And far more of us do work with clients who are nearby and need to be able to interact with us on a predictable schedule. It is a LOT easier to arrange this if most businesses have roughly similar or highly predicable schedules.
Earlier this week, the European Parliament voted 384 to 153 to review whether Daylight Saving Time is actually worth it. Although the resolution it voted on was non-binding, the majority reflected a growing dissatisfaction with a system that has been used by the U.S., Canada, most of Europe, and regions in Asia, Africa, and South America for decades.
I don't think anyone minds Daylight Saving Time itself. What they mind is the needless switching back and forth. Personally I want us to go to Daylight Saving Time permanently. It gives me the most daylight hours in the evening after work when I can made the most use of them. I don't need noon to be the point in the day when the sun is highest overhead. I'm perfectly fine with noon being defined in the manner with the greatest utility for the most people. If that means noon is what currently is 3pm then so be it.
All currencies are backed by faith. Pegging them to another asset does not change that. What gives gold it's value? Faith. Gold is valuable because people believe it is valuable. So even if you are on a gold standard you have a dollar backed by gold which is backed by faith. You haven't changed anything except to make a pointless abstraction layer that arguably hurts more than it helps.
So the 2-3 billion a year operational cost keeps being thrown around, why is that so high? Is it due to the number of support launches, and if so, wouldn't having cheap heavy lift capability (like the Falcon Heavy) make it much cheaper to maintain?
NASA has published a breakdown of the costs. Around 40% is maintenance and operations of the station. Around 33% is moving people and materials to and from the space station. Around 10% is the science mission and the rest is various and sundry other important things. Operating the space station requires paying for a lot of facilities, training, and very very smart people who don't come cheap.
Is it due to the number of support launches, and if so, wouldn't having cheap heavy lift capability (like the Falcon Heavy) make it much cheaper to maintain?
Short answer, no. At this point it isn't the amount of gear we can lift per launch that is the big restriction. Falcon Heavy might be able to reduce costs here or there but it's not going to make a substantial difference in the ISS budget even under the most optimistic assumptions.
It seems to me if nothing else the solar modules and frame would be useful for something, since they are already in orbit.
What exactly? With Falcon Heavy it might plausibly be cheaper to launch a new set of modules and frames than to try to retrofit the ISS to a purpose it wasn't designed for.
Why? I said privatization is better than de-orbit. I didn't say what that means or how it would work.
So you said a pointless bit of ideology completely detached from reality? That's pretty pointless. Saying privatization is better than de-orbit is meaningless unless you can back it up with a credible argument as to why and how it would happen. Privatization is not axiomatically the better option just because you like the space station. I'm willing to hear arguments about a path to making it work (I like the space station too) but I'm also not going to detach from economic (and political) reality.
The science done benefits everyone yet US is expected to pay for most of it. Got it.
And the US gets the lions share of the benefit from it unless we are idiots about it. Yes we pay for it and everyone benefits to some degree. But we benefit the most. That's how science research works. What happens is that US companies get the patents and first mover advantages and businesses that result from the research but everyone gets a drug that cures some new disease or solves some technical problem. The Apollo program is responsible in whole or in part for integrated circuits, freeze dried food, CAT scans, cordless power tools, ear thermometers, joysticks, memory foam, satellite TV, scratch resistant lenses, smoke detectors, and a lot more. If you don't invest you don't get the benefit down the road.
Since you brought it up maybe you can help define "needlessly".
Are you seriously going to argue that we need to spend more money on our military than China, Russia, UK, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, India and Japan COMBINED? Don't waste my time.
What is the cost of peace?
What peace? We've started two more or less pointless wars in the last 15 years which we have spent trillions of dollars on (and borrow the money for BTW), are still fighting, and have certainly not made the Middle East any more peaceful. What HAS made the world more peaceful is economic cooperation. The EU was the epicenter of two world wars but now that they are an economic and to some degree political union the chances of that happening are remote. Peaceful cooperation between governments on a space station is a FAR more credible path to peace than buying more tanks and bombers and bullets.
It wasn't even originally built by the US, although they have certainly added part to it since.
That is not even close to true. The first section was Russian follow a few weeks later by the first US section. The US has been involved from the start and has financed the majority of the project.
Main reason for the great expense (of putting up the ISS and maintaining it) was that the govt spent $1 billion - $2 billion (depending on who you ask) per Shuttle launch to get up there.
The Shuttle hasn't been involved since 2011 and the ISS costs somewhere around $3 Billion/year according to NASA. According to NASA launch and transport costs account for about 34% of ISS operating costs. Systems operation and maintenance accounts for about 43% of costs.
Falcon Heavy costs less than 1/10th of that now, perhaps 1/100th of that in the near future, and carries more payload per launch to boot.
They don't need Falcon Heavy to support the ISS at this point. Falcon 9 is already supply resupply missions.
When the times nears that ISS needs to be de-orbited or given costly maintenance, it might be sensible to just give it away to SpaceX in return for promising to keep it in orbit and operational for a certain number of years.
Give me a credible reason why SpaceX would be interested. Their only interest in the ISS is in providing transport services to and from. There is no obvious profit in actually owning the station to them.
And then what? Show me what economically useful thing he could/would do with it. Plus as rich as he is, he doesn't really have a spare $3 billion PER YEAR laying around to keep the thing operational.
If those other countries are concerned they can pick up the tab to keep it running.
There are plenty of people in the US who want to keep it running. They just don't happen to occupy the white house or congress at the moment.
Privatization is better than de-orbit.
You are assuming privatization is possible. I'm having trouble imagining any viable privatization scenario. Explain to me where the profit comes from for a private enterprise taking over management of the ISS. Who would be interested and why? It costs about $3 billion/year to keep it flying so which private enterprise is going to foot that bill?
Someone has to pay the bills. Why should it always be the US?
A) We have the most money by a wide margin so that's why we get to pay for the expensive fancy stuff. There aren't a lot of countries that can afford something like the ISS and that is to our advantage. B) Investments in scientific research have big long term payoffs. If we have gotten everything we can out of the ISS then fine but if it still has value then it is foolish to pull the figurative plug on it early. There is also the opportunity cost to consider. That said though I have trouble with the argument that we should pull the plug on the ISS when we spend $600+ billion per year on a needlessly large military. Heck we spend hundreds of millions each year on tanks that we don't need and that the military doesn't want.
According to a document obtained by the Post, the current administration is mulling handing the International Space Station off to private industry instead of de-orbiting
I'm having trouble imagining a scenario where private industry would be interested since there is no obvious profit motive or path to profitability in an orbiting laboratory. Even if they gave it away it would cost a huge amount of money to keep it running and how is any responsible private company going to pay for it?
However, many of your friends, family, co-workers, etc, likely use Facebook, and in doing so may reveal much about you.
I've had this exact argument with several people. Some of them couldn't wrap their head around the fact that I: A) didn't want to be on facebook, B) resented them posting information about me without my permission, and C) resented that I had to police them from doing so which is difficult since I don't want to use Facebook in the first place. Even if I liked what Facebook offers (I don't) I still don't trust the company to be responsible with information about me.
I worry about my daughter because in her generation it's kind of hard to have a social life without using some social networking systems that often don't care at all about respecting privacy.
Verizon is taking an extra step to protect its phones.
A) They are not Verizon's phones. They are phones that Verizon customers own. Verizon owns the network not the phones. B) They aren't protecting anything except their bottom line.
Of course they are, and whether you realise or not, you gave them permission when you installed the app... because that thing wants access to pretty much EVERYTHING.
Except I've never installed their app on any phone I've ever owned. Never will in the future either. So I just need to block them through the browser which is enough of a challenge as it is.
I tried it but it caused more problems than it solved. Not sure what the flaw was but it made things work VERY slowly when they worked at all. Maybe they've fixed the issues since I tried it last. I liked what it did but it just didn't work very well for me.
They don't need you to have an account with them in order to track you.
Which is why I make heavy use of various ad blockers and privacy guarding software to prevent as much of that as possible. I'm well aware they try to track me but I try to not make it easy for them. For example on my current browser I have Privacy Badger, Ublock, and Adblock Plus as well as some stuff to block flash. I'll use every tool I can find to give them the figurative (and literal) middle finger.
But one source for the Wired story highlighted just how concerned employees are about how their company goes after leakers. According to the story, the source, a current Facebook employee, asked a Wired reporter to turn off his phone so Facebook wouldn't be able to use location tracking and see that the two were close to each other for the meeting.
And people wonder why I don't want to have anything to do with Facebook. If Facebook really is tracking people's location with that amount of accessible detail then I will never ever have an account with them and I will block them by every means I have available.
"I wouldn't characterize it as annoying," Vicki Warner, who leads a team of printer engineers at Xerox, said of discovering a new kind of paper jam. "I would characterize it as almost exciting."
Well some people do get aroused by pain. Not my particular brand of vodka but to each their own.
I suppose we should be glad that people exist who find that sort of problem interesting. I certainly am not among them.
Plywood is weaker than normal wood not stronger and definitely not stronger than steel.
Any statement about the strength of plywood with respect to ordinary wood is meaningless unless you also are specific about the grain direction and specific stresses it will be subjected to as well as which type of ordinary wood and plywood we are comparing. There are advantages to each and you can find specific situations where each has a performance advantage. While your statement is correct for a wide number of circumstances it is not universally correct.
Generally solid wood is a good choice for many projects due to three key reasons: 1. Cost 2. Workability; can be worked with hand tools and power tools, glues easily and strong 3. Water safe for years with no significant prep work
Whether solid wood is cost effective depends on the application. Sometimes it's a great choice, other times there are better choices. As for workability, again it depends on what you are trying to build. As for water safe, it depends HEAVILY on what you are doing with it. I'm not about to dunk a piece of raw pine in a lake if you get what I'm saying. Most wood of any type requires some sort of coating or treatment to withstand water and remain in good condition for many years.
Steel is a lot stronger per pound, but to join it you either need to use mechanical fasteners or weld it.
??? How many wooden structures have you seen that don't use mechanical fasteners? And wooden objects like furniture that don't use fasteners use glue instead which is comparable to welding in cost and labor for many applications.
This requires expensive ($300+) specialized equipment like a welder and/or drill press.
You have a weird definition of "specialized equipment". You think $300 for a tool is expensive? You can get a drill press for less than $100 from Harbor Freight and a drill press is definitely NOT "specialized equipment". Welding is cheap and it's not something super specialized. I own a stick welding box that costs less than the price any of my nail guns. You can spend a lot on welding gear but people who do that can easily justify the cost.
Wooden boats are generally good from 15-20 years without major renovations, and are serviceable with major repairs every 10-15 years up to 60-75 years after initial construction.
Have you ever actually maintained a wooden boat? I have and they are a HUGE pain in the ass requiring a lot of upkeep every year even if you aren't doing major repairs. My family has two wooden boats and some years we don't even put them in the water because they are such a hassle. We just use the aluminum and composite hulled boats instead. Not saying that they don't have their charms and they do work well when properly maintained but I get why very few people want to bother with wooden boats these days. Composite or aluminum is FAR less hassle under most circumstances.
Steel needs to be galvanized, or painted, or sanded and resurfaced every 2-5 years, especially in a saltwater environment (most of the things in your house arrived from asia in a big steel boat).
Wooden boats need annual work and lots of it if you want them to last. Most boats do not use much steel outside of commercial and military applications.
No, wood chips and glue are called waferboard or chipboard.
That is called Oriented Strand Board (or OSB for short) here in the US. I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone use the terms waferboard or chipboard on this side of the pond.
I would hasten to add that toxic workplace is as most subjective as can be, and that this is *your* opinion.
Hardly. 20 seconds on google and you'll find literally thousands of articles documenting in great detail how rotten the company culture is. Not even remotely the "opinion" of one person.
Heck, I am sure that what you call a toxic workplace has a lot of people waiting in line to join.
There are lots of people who are attracted to others that share terrible values and behave badly. Doesn't make it something to be celebrated or forgiven.
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While it's sensible for your assembly line workers to arrive at the same time every day, there is no reason why that time needs to be 9am.
Who said anything about 9am? Most non retail businesses are open well before 9am these days. Most open at 7 or 8am. There IS a reason why we chose the times we do. Two reasons actually in my company's case. 1) it ensures our deliveries get to our customers at the time in the afternoon when our customers require them and 2) it avoids rush hour which ensures our staff can be on time reliably and not have to waste their lives sitting in pointless traffic jams. It also keeps us on a similar schedule with our suppliers maximizing our ability to work closely with them because most of them keep similar hours. Plus we employ a lot of parents who appreciate being able to go pick up their kids after school.
Hospitals are typically 24/7 operations, the staff don't all show up at 9am and leave at 5pm, you have various shifts and staff who remain there over night etc.
Missing the point. The point is that those "fixed standard work times" didn't evolve by accident. There certainly are cases where they don't make sense but for the most part they exist for a variety of rather sensible reasons. People have children and lives outside of work. People need to be able to communicate with other businesses while they are open. Having schedules that don't mesh well with other people's schedules can be a huge problem.
I never advocated against schedules, i advocate against everyone arbitrarily being on the same schedule for no reason other than it's always been that way.
My least favorite words in the English language are "that's the way we've always done it" so from that perspective I very much agree with you. It's the reason why I think continuing to say 12 noon must coincide with the sun being highest in the sky is rather ridiculous given the realities of modern life.
It's hard enough to get kids to bed anytime. It's twice as hard when it's still light outside. And don't even get me started on getting up while it's still dark.
I am a parent and that is among the weakest and dumbest arguments I've ever heard. Suck it up buttercup. Make the room dark and deal with it. You chose to have a kid so I'm not sympathetic at all. I don't ask anyone else to compensate for my kid.
Let's have our daylight evenly spread both sides of noon, please.
No thank you. My day isn't schedule like that so I'd prefer my daylight match what we actually do. Having the majority of daylight when most people are stuck inside at work or school is a stupid idea. Arrange the day so that most people receive the most advantage. Since it's difficult to get everyone to change their company and school hours all at once, change the clock instead.
That's what "noon" is supposed to mean.
That argument is nothing more than "that's the way we've always done it" which is ALWAYS a stupid argument. Continuing to do something stupid because that's the way it was done in the past is the very definition of insanity.
The issue is that people who live in the north (or far south in the southern hemisphere) would have very skewed days for no benefit to them ...
You are always going to find corner cases where someone has a problem. Find the system that benefits the most people or failing that the system that most people want and go with it. Personally I think most people would prefer to have maximal daylight in the evening after work because that is of greatest utility to the greatest number of people. I like that during the summer solstice sundown is around 9:30PM or so. I don't really care if it is dark when I get up and commute to work.
Anyway people who live way up towards the poles get weird daylight no matter what. If that is an issue for them they should move closer to the equator.
You're talking about this year's operating costs. I'm talking about the whole thing, starting from the 1990's, cost to build it and launch it piece by piece, R&D, everything. That's what I meant by "great expense".
That is a sunk cost. It does not and should not matter for forward looking decisions. That money is already spent and we're not getting it back. Using money already spent is not a rational argument - it's a emotional one. We have the ISS as an asset. Whether we should continue to dump money into it or de-orbit it should be based solely on future expectations of need and utility and cost.
But if I were trying to set up a Mars colony, and if there's any kind of a need for orbital rendezvous or storage depot or some place to put people up for a few days while your big transports get refueled and serviced, and there's already a big space station there that you can use for cheap (or free), I might take it.
Nothing about the ISS will be cheap. It's pretty easy to come up with a credible argument that a mission to mars/moon would be better and more economically served by purpose built infrastructure than by trying to retrofit the ISS to a mission it was never designed for. As for space, SpaceX's BFR if it ever comes to fruition will have plenty of space to work with. I'm not opposed to examining whether the ISS could serve such a role productively but I'm dubious of its utility in such a role.
And having fixed standard work times is just as idiotic as the idea of daylight saving...
You've never tried to manage a business have you? There is a lot of benefit to having most companies work predictable schedules. Real, tangible, measurable, economic benefit. If you worked in a company like mine you'd find that it's really hard to run an assembly line without people showing up at the same time each day. Good luck running a hospital with people coming and going whenever they feel like it. Have fun running a restaurant when the waitstaff or cooks can come and go whenever.
Many of us have to deal with clients or suppliers in other countries who don't work at the same time anyway.
And far more of us do work with clients who are nearby and need to be able to interact with us on a predictable schedule. It is a LOT easier to arrange this if most businesses have roughly similar or highly predicable schedules.
Many businesses operate 24/7.
Many more do not. What is your point?
Earlier this week, the European Parliament voted 384 to 153 to review whether Daylight Saving Time is actually worth it. Although the resolution it voted on was non-binding, the majority reflected a growing dissatisfaction with a system that has been used by the U.S., Canada, most of Europe, and regions in Asia, Africa, and South America for decades.
I don't think anyone minds Daylight Saving Time itself. What they mind is the needless switching back and forth. Personally I want us to go to Daylight Saving Time permanently. It gives me the most daylight hours in the evening after work when I can made the most use of them. I don't need noon to be the point in the day when the sun is highest overhead. I'm perfectly fine with noon being defined in the manner with the greatest utility for the most people. If that means noon is what currently is 3pm then so be it.
The US Dollar is backed by nothing but faith now.
All currencies are backed by faith. Pegging them to another asset does not change that. What gives gold it's value? Faith. Gold is valuable because people believe it is valuable. So even if you are on a gold standard you have a dollar backed by gold which is backed by faith. You haven't changed anything except to make a pointless abstraction layer that arguably hurts more than it helps.
So the 2-3 billion a year operational cost keeps being thrown around, why is that so high? Is it due to the number of support launches, and if so, wouldn't having cheap heavy lift capability (like the Falcon Heavy) make it much cheaper to maintain?
NASA has published a breakdown of the costs. Around 40% is maintenance and operations of the station. Around 33% is moving people and materials to and from the space station. Around 10% is the science mission and the rest is various and sundry other important things. Operating the space station requires paying for a lot of facilities, training, and very very smart people who don't come cheap.
Is it due to the number of support launches, and if so, wouldn't having cheap heavy lift capability (like the Falcon Heavy) make it much cheaper to maintain?
Short answer, no. At this point it isn't the amount of gear we can lift per launch that is the big restriction. Falcon Heavy might be able to reduce costs here or there but it's not going to make a substantial difference in the ISS budget even under the most optimistic assumptions.
It seems to me if nothing else the solar modules and frame would be useful for something, since they are already in orbit.
What exactly? With Falcon Heavy it might plausibly be cheaper to launch a new set of modules and frames than to try to retrofit the ISS to a purpose it wasn't designed for.
Why? I said privatization is better than de-orbit. I didn't say what that means or how it would work.
So you said a pointless bit of ideology completely detached from reality? That's pretty pointless. Saying privatization is better than de-orbit is meaningless unless you can back it up with a credible argument as to why and how it would happen. Privatization is not axiomatically the better option just because you like the space station. I'm willing to hear arguments about a path to making it work (I like the space station too) but I'm also not going to detach from economic (and political) reality.
The science done benefits everyone yet US is expected to pay for most of it. Got it.
And the US gets the lions share of the benefit from it unless we are idiots about it. Yes we pay for it and everyone benefits to some degree. But we benefit the most. That's how science research works. What happens is that US companies get the patents and first mover advantages and businesses that result from the research but everyone gets a drug that cures some new disease or solves some technical problem. The Apollo program is responsible in whole or in part for integrated circuits, freeze dried food, CAT scans, cordless power tools, ear thermometers, joysticks, memory foam, satellite TV, scratch resistant lenses, smoke detectors, and a lot more. If you don't invest you don't get the benefit down the road.
Since you brought it up maybe you can help define "needlessly".
Are you seriously going to argue that we need to spend more money on our military than China, Russia, UK, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, India and Japan COMBINED? Don't waste my time.
What is the cost of peace?
What peace? We've started two more or less pointless wars in the last 15 years which we have spent trillions of dollars on (and borrow the money for BTW), are still fighting, and have certainly not made the Middle East any more peaceful. What HAS made the world more peaceful is economic cooperation. The EU was the epicenter of two world wars but now that they are an economic and to some degree political union the chances of that happening are remote. Peaceful cooperation between governments on a space station is a FAR more credible path to peace than buying more tanks and bombers and bullets.
It's the international space station. It is neither owned nor controlled by the US.
The US paid about 2/3 of the cost to build the ISS so you better believe some of the parts of it are owned by the US government. In fact all the modules are owned by the countries that built them.
It wasn't even originally built by the US, although they have certainly added part to it since.
That is not even close to true. The first section was Russian follow a few weeks later by the first US section. The US has been involved from the start and has financed the majority of the project.
Main reason for the great expense (of putting up the ISS and maintaining it) was that the govt spent $1 billion - $2 billion (depending on who you ask) per Shuttle launch to get up there.
The Shuttle hasn't been involved since 2011 and the ISS costs somewhere around $3 Billion/year according to NASA. According to NASA launch and transport costs account for about 34% of ISS operating costs. Systems operation and maintenance accounts for about 43% of costs.
Falcon Heavy costs less than 1/10th of that now, perhaps 1/100th of that in the near future, and carries more payload per launch to boot.
They don't need Falcon Heavy to support the ISS at this point. Falcon 9 is already supply resupply missions.
When the times nears that ISS needs to be de-orbited or given costly maintenance, it might be sensible to just give it away to SpaceX in return for promising to keep it in orbit and operational for a certain number of years.
Give me a credible reason why SpaceX would be interested. Their only interest in the ISS is in providing transport services to and from. There is no obvious profit in actually owning the station to them.
Has checkbook, and the means to get there.
And then what? Show me what economically useful thing he could/would do with it. Plus as rich as he is, he doesn't really have a spare $3 billion PER YEAR laying around to keep the thing operational.
If those other countries are concerned they can pick up the tab to keep it running.
There are plenty of people in the US who want to keep it running. They just don't happen to occupy the white house or congress at the moment.
Privatization is better than de-orbit.
You are assuming privatization is possible. I'm having trouble imagining any viable privatization scenario. Explain to me where the profit comes from for a private enterprise taking over management of the ISS. Who would be interested and why? It costs about $3 billion/year to keep it flying so which private enterprise is going to foot that bill?
Someone has to pay the bills. Why should it always be the US?
A) We have the most money by a wide margin so that's why we get to pay for the expensive fancy stuff. There aren't a lot of countries that can afford something like the ISS and that is to our advantage. B) Investments in scientific research have big long term payoffs. If we have gotten everything we can out of the ISS then fine but if it still has value then it is foolish to pull the figurative plug on it early. There is also the opportunity cost to consider. That said though I have trouble with the argument that we should pull the plug on the ISS when we spend $600+ billion per year on a needlessly large military. Heck we spend hundreds of millions each year on tanks that we don't need and that the military doesn't want.
According to a document obtained by the Post, the current administration is mulling handing the International Space Station off to private industry instead of de-orbiting
I'm having trouble imagining a scenario where private industry would be interested since there is no obvious profit motive or path to profitability in an orbiting laboratory. Even if they gave it away it would cost a huge amount of money to keep it running and how is any responsible private company going to pay for it?
However, many of your friends, family, co-workers, etc, likely use Facebook, and in doing so may reveal much about you.
I've had this exact argument with several people. Some of them couldn't wrap their head around the fact that I: A) didn't want to be on facebook, B) resented them posting information about me without my permission, and C) resented that I had to police them from doing so which is difficult since I don't want to use Facebook in the first place. Even if I liked what Facebook offers (I don't) I still don't trust the company to be responsible with information about me.
I worry about my daughter because in her generation it's kind of hard to have a social life without using some social networking systems that often don't care at all about respecting privacy.
Verizon is taking an extra step to protect its phones.
A) They are not Verizon's phones. They are phones that Verizon customers own. Verizon owns the network not the phones.
B) They aren't protecting anything except their bottom line.
Of course they are, and whether you realise or not, you gave them permission when you installed the app ... because that thing wants access to pretty much EVERYTHING.
Except I've never installed their app on any phone I've ever owned. Never will in the future either. So I just need to block them through the browser which is enough of a challenge as it is.
I would recommend Ghostery as well.
I tried it but it caused more problems than it solved. Not sure what the flaw was but it made things work VERY slowly when they worked at all. Maybe they've fixed the issues since I tried it last. I liked what it did but it just didn't work very well for me.
They don't need you to have an account with them in order to track you.
Which is why I make heavy use of various ad blockers and privacy guarding software to prevent as much of that as possible. I'm well aware they try to track me but I try to not make it easy for them. For example on my current browser I have Privacy Badger, Ublock, and Adblock Plus as well as some stuff to block flash. I'll use every tool I can find to give them the figurative (and literal) middle finger.
But one source for the Wired story highlighted just how concerned employees are about how their company goes after leakers. According to the story, the source, a current Facebook employee, asked a Wired reporter to turn off his phone so Facebook wouldn't be able to use location tracking and see that the two were close to each other for the meeting.
And people wonder why I don't want to have anything to do with Facebook. If Facebook really is tracking people's location with that amount of accessible detail then I will never ever have an account with them and I will block them by every means I have available.
"I wouldn't characterize it as annoying," Vicki Warner, who leads a team of printer engineers at Xerox, said of discovering a new kind of paper jam. "I would characterize it as almost exciting."
Well some people do get aroused by pain. Not my particular brand of vodka but to each their own.
I suppose we should be glad that people exist who find that sort of problem interesting. I certainly am not among them.
Plywood is weaker than normal wood not stronger and definitely not stronger than steel.
Any statement about the strength of plywood with respect to ordinary wood is meaningless unless you also are specific about the grain direction and specific stresses it will be subjected to as well as which type of ordinary wood and plywood we are comparing. There are advantages to each and you can find specific situations where each has a performance advantage. While your statement is correct for a wide number of circumstances it is not universally correct.
Generally solid wood is a good choice for many projects due to three key reasons:
1. Cost
2. Workability; can be worked with hand tools and power tools, glues easily and strong
3. Water safe for years with no significant prep work
Whether solid wood is cost effective depends on the application. Sometimes it's a great choice, other times there are better choices. As for workability, again it depends on what you are trying to build. As for water safe, it depends HEAVILY on what you are doing with it. I'm not about to dunk a piece of raw pine in a lake if you get what I'm saying. Most wood of any type requires some sort of coating or treatment to withstand water and remain in good condition for many years.
Steel is a lot stronger per pound, but to join it you either need to use mechanical fasteners or weld it.
??? How many wooden structures have you seen that don't use mechanical fasteners? And wooden objects like furniture that don't use fasteners use glue instead which is comparable to welding in cost and labor for many applications.
This requires expensive ($300+) specialized equipment like a welder and/or drill press.
You have a weird definition of "specialized equipment". You think $300 for a tool is expensive? You can get a drill press for less than $100 from Harbor Freight and a drill press is definitely NOT "specialized equipment". Welding is cheap and it's not something super specialized. I own a stick welding box that costs less than the price any of my nail guns. You can spend a lot on welding gear but people who do that can easily justify the cost.
Wooden boats are generally good from 15-20 years without major renovations, and are serviceable with major repairs every 10-15 years up to 60-75 years after initial construction.
Have you ever actually maintained a wooden boat? I have and they are a HUGE pain in the ass requiring a lot of upkeep every year even if you aren't doing major repairs. My family has two wooden boats and some years we don't even put them in the water because they are such a hassle. We just use the aluminum and composite hulled boats instead. Not saying that they don't have their charms and they do work well when properly maintained but I get why very few people want to bother with wooden boats these days. Composite or aluminum is FAR less hassle under most circumstances.
Steel needs to be galvanized, or painted, or sanded and resurfaced every 2-5 years, especially in a saltwater environment (most of the things in your house arrived from asia in a big steel boat).
Wooden boats need annual work and lots of it if you want them to last. Most boats do not use much steel outside of commercial and military applications.
No, wood chips and glue are called waferboard or chipboard.
That is called Oriented Strand Board (or OSB for short) here in the US. I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone use the terms waferboard or chipboard on this side of the pond.
I would hasten to add that toxic workplace is as most subjective as can be, and that this is *your* opinion.
Hardly. 20 seconds on google and you'll find literally thousands of articles documenting in great detail how rotten the company culture is. Not even remotely the "opinion" of one person.
Heck, I am sure that what you call a toxic workplace has a lot of people waiting in line to join.
There are lots of people who are attracted to others that share terrible values and behave badly. Doesn't make it something to be celebrated or forgiven.