Blahblahmassblahblahweightblah. For the purpose of comparison of relative mass vs. thrust, the distinction is irrelevant.
A kgf is "kilogram force (kgf) - a unit of force equal to the gravitational force on a mass of one kilogram. One kilogram of force equals 9.806 65 newtons, or 2.204 622 6 pounds of force in the traditional English system. Using this unit revives the old confusion between mass and weight, one of the worst features of traditional measurement systems, so it is really a very bad idea. However, kilograms of force have been used rather frequently in engineering and physics. This unit is also called the kilopond."
It isn't quoted in Newtons because I am damn lazy, and didn't bother converting. However, my facts are correct (mass for SS1 is estimated as Scaled wasn't releasing that kind of data, last I knew).
Note that Scaled is an *American* company, Eurotrash. Also, isn't Ariane one of the case studies in what to do wrong in programming?
I haven't taken Greyhound in a couple years, but it sucks that they've given in.
These days I'm a somewhat scruffy-looking short haired white boy, but I used to have hair longer than anyone I dated and I used to shave less than I do now. I have a facial piercing. An 89 Civic probably doesn't fit your clean non-sporty-looking definition, though its since moved on (hey, I got a real job, I wanted a decent car) and I've been driving since 16. Well, 15, but driver's permit doesn't really count, right?
I have never been stopped when I hadn't done something wrong. NEVER. I lived in a college town. I live in Chicago now. NEVER stopped. I've gone halfway across the country without being asked for anything remotely resembling papers. I've put 21,000 miles on my new car in under a year. Stopped once, because I was doing 95 mph.
You were in the wrong with the stop, by the way. They can ticket for burned out taillights, but you don't have to pay if you provide proof it's been fixed within 30 days. You should have mouthed off; he can't arrest you for a burned out taillight, just ticket.
If I have a nice cradle easily accessible, how big a deal is it to yank the thing and throw it in my pocket? Not a big one at all. Know how I know? Because I have a cradle in my vehicle, and I grab the iPod every time I leave the car.
You know what the ultimate theft-proofing is? *Taking it with you*.
You know, unless I've actually done one of two things, giving the cop my name doesn't make him any more or less likely to be able to fuck with me.
Circumstance A: I've committed a crime. Boohoo.
Circumstance B: I've done something that pissed off the cops, so they're going to fuck with me extralegally. In which case, I will follow the example set by a man from my hometown. The cops were following him around and ticketing/towing his car *immediately* upon meter expiration. He sued the city and won.
If it ever gets so bad that you can't sue City Hall and win, I'll move.
I would rather that this not be written into case law, but since it applies only to states with laws requiring this, and since it really (when you think about it) isn't a huge deal, I'll live with it.
I've traveled by train without being asked to show ID. Now, sometimes I've been asked for ID, but sometimes they didn't.
AFAIK, Greyhound doesn't require ID to travel.
Getting around in a car does NOT require you to show papers. The exception here is if you break the rules of the road and get pulled over, at which point the cop will ask you for ID, insurance, etc. Barring that, you do not require papers to use a car; it may require papers to legally acquire a car, but the act of driving it somewhere else does not.
You can travel without papers if you really want to. Your convenience is the tradeoff.
In my experience with my/friends' vehicles, I see problems within 90 days, and problems in the roughly 7-10 year window. If you have a car make it 10 years, routine maintenance will probably keep it running for a very long time. American cars do great in the initial 90 these days, and I have my suspicions that they will do better in the 7-10 than they used to; specifically, I'm thinking of "fun" things like the old Dodge transmission problem, where there was something like a 85% failure rate in the transmission when it hit around 75-90,000 miles.
I've never worked with Ford on their harness, but I have worked with them on their powertrain, and they seem to do a decent job on engineering that.
I'm talking to you about being snotty before you give me a chance to respond; I told you where my numbers were from and what they referred to when you asked me to do so. They were numbers I had at hand (from this month's "Automotive Engineering" which showed up in my mailbox last Friday) and that's why I used them. I took 5 minutes just now, found the 3 year benchmark that JD Powers runs.
1. Lexus 2. Infiniti 3. Buick 4. Porsche 5. Acura 6. Toyota 7. Cadillac 8. Lincoln 9. Honda 10. Mercury
The spray ablative and drop tanks were only used on X-15-A2, which was the only one configured to accept the drop tanks. In addition to which, I believe they only used the full ablative coating twice; it charred so badly they gave up on it, and on that airframe as well. For altitude runs, they didn't use A2, they used the initial airframe, and since X-Prize is altitude oriented, not speed, I chose to pick on airframe #3, the winner in the altitude games.
The problem with the earlier flights is I couldn't find any verification as to which airframe was used on which flight in the quick search I did; if I had, I would have cited flights 8, 9, 10, and 11, which were all during March of 1960, or flights 14, 15, 16, and 17 in May 1960. However, I have no idea if it was frame #1 or #2 used on each of those, and didn't feel like getting fact checked on it.
Ahh, yes, but could it be flown twice in 2 weeks?? Without replacing more than 10% of the crafts zero fuel weight??? I dont think so.
I do.
Flights 167 and 170 of the X-15-A2 craft occurred 18 days apart, in August of 1966. These weren't altitude runs, though, they were speed runs as the A2 was modified to have longer engine burn times in order to support higher speed flights.
87, 90 and 91 were each spaced around a month apart, and the latter two were over 100km in the X-15A (3rd vehicle). The first was 86km. June 27, July 19, August 22 were the dates. In 1963.
Refurb % between flights for X15 is not an easily available number, but it's likely it was less than 10%; there was no ablative structure and the engines were reusable. This wasn't a bloat-era NASA program; it was originally a joint USAF/NACA project, which means that the ground crew wasn't huge and major overhauls between short flights were pretty much impossible.
The stability problem was mostly overcome with adaptive control systems; these days it wouldn't even be an issue, controls have gone so far along with easy access to DSP and computation. As to landing, the high speed was a result of a relatively low subsonic L/D ratio; X-15 was optimized for hypersonic flight, while a jet is optimized for subsonic flight. As a result, X-15 had a much harder time staying in the air at low speeds, and stalled at a higher speed, meaning it had to land at a higher speed. SS1, not being designed for maneuverability at hypersonic speeds, could be more optimized for subsonic landing, which is why it lands at a relatively paltry
X15 weighed around 30000 kg, not pounds. It produced 26762 kgf of thrust. By comparison, SS1 is 3600kg and produces 7500 kgf. X15 did nearly as much as this initial flight, despite a significantly worse thrust-to-weight ratio.
And let's not forget, the X-15 flew in the mid 60s. 40 years ago.
I give Rutan a lot of credit, but the X-15 remains one of the most amazing accomplishments in aerospace history, and was capable of most things the X-Prize asks for (obviously, the 3 man requirement not so much).
See? People like you are jingoistic - unthinking adherence to a political creed, and in this case a specifically anti-nationalist creed.
Because he is the President of the United States, and the office deserves respect.
You want examples of why he should get some respect? He's managed to go sober, which is a lot harder than it sounds for an alcoholic. He graduated from Yale and Harvard; yeah, family ties probably helped there, but you have to do some of the work no matter what. He proposed and budgeted $15 billion in AIDS-related foreign aid. He's not perfect, and I dislike his polciies intensely for the most part. But he has earned better than "Chimpy".
And finally, simply because I refuse to have political debate with someone who can't restrain themselves from ad hominem attacks on politicians. I don't feel the need to call Chirac "Frog", I don't call Schroeder "Nazi", and although I have lots of private bad names for Arafat, I don't feel any need to use them when I'm discussing the Israel-Palestine situation.
So please, continue to disrespect the office if you like, but don't be surprised when people call you jingoistic or idiotic as a result.
SAE report. Trade association for automotive designers, roughly equivalent to an ACM or SEI. The survey of owners was conducted by JD Powers. So, what I would call very trustworthy sources, with a long history of respectable work.
The time span is the first 90 days of ownership on MY04 vehicles; since they're MY04, obviously the time span is limited. Although I'd be interested in seeing what the numbers are like 4-5 years down the road, I doubt they'll have significantly changed.
Actually, we do provide electronics, but most electrical problems that I've heard about are harness issues, which we wouldn't be at fault for. Those are usually designed either by the carmaker or subbed out to a specialist. Other than harness issues, I have to ask - what problems are you seeing? Because up until this latest car (a Mazda) I've only driven American cars (GM cars, even) and had one major quality issues with any of them, beyond expected maintainence. It was a build issue on my 00 S-10, where some idiot had forgotten to properly assemble the linkage connecting the gas pedal to the throttle, resulting in the linkage snapping mid-drive and me rolling my car 1/4 mile to a gas station.
I try to provide truths; before you get snotty, ask the questions so I can try to give you them. If I fail to answer them then, you can get snide.
Er... no. Manned is way overpriced, but space science is so ridiculously underfunded that they do work on budgets cut to the bone. Odds are low that private industry self-funding those projects would have had them come in any cheaper at all, much less significantly cheaper.
As to launches; most all of those things I mentioned were launched on private industry's launchers, not NASA. Oversight on Atlas and Delta launches is a lot less than oversight on Shuttle.
Basically, you're talking out of your ass. Again, manned is more expensive than it needs to be, unmanned isn't (barring some hypothetical large advance in launch tech which does not at this time exist).
Hey, they may have fucked up human spaceflight for the last 20 years or so, but give them credit for Spitzer, Hubble, Chandra, Spirit and Opportunity, Cassini, and all the other wonderful science they've done that I can't remember right now.
The disastrous foreign policy sure as hell isn't most of our faults. Even the ones who voted for Bush didn't anticipate him unilaterally going to war against countries we had no business attacking (Afghanistan was justifiable, Iraq wasn't, that simple). Those of us who voted against Bush are kinda sick of listening to the rest of the world blame us for something that's totally out of our control.
US sentiment? The fuck do you, or anyone really, know about US sentiment? I live here, and I wouldn't presume to assign a single viewpoint to the 100 or so people who live on my block, much less the 275 million who live in my country.
Disliking America isn't jingoist, except when its so knee jerk reactionary that *any* action taken by the US is met by criticism without thought; its anti-patriotism. The US went through a period like that; we call it McCarthyism these days, and most of us view it with regret and disgust.
Most of us are willing to listen to honest criticism, but we're a little sick of the "US sucks" bullshit that passes for intelligent political discourse these days. You want to debate foreign policy with me? Fine. Talk about the disadvantages of setting a precedent for unilateral attacks. Talk about the wisdom of allowing education to remain in the hands of religious fanatics who will educate their children to die as martyrs. Talk about the economic impacts of destabilizing the world political situation.
But use the word "chimpy" in regard to the President of my country, and I will absolutely jump down your throat. I didn't vote for him, I don't even like him, but he is still my President, and he deserves a little bit more respect than that. Criticize the man's decisions, his policies; god knows I do. But fuck you if you can't do better than comparing him to a hominid.
The Americans have gotten a lot better. I work in the industry (and not for one of the Big 3, for a supplier who works with American, Euro, and Japanese makers, so it's not a customer thing) - was actually reading an article on problems per 100 vehicles today. American cars are pretty much the average here.
Notice something interesting there? The perception that American cars are crap is pretty much wrong; Toyota's got both a top spot and a bottom spot (Scion being their 'youth' imprint), Germans do top and bottom as well.
The truth is you've bought into a lie that's NOT TRUE anymore. 4 of the top 10 companies in quality are American (Jaguar is Ford-owned and shares significant parts with Ford lines). 4 are Japanese.
I drive a Japanese car (well, sorta - it's a Mazda, which I selected because the build quality on it was excellent). But don't knock the American cars because you've had issues; American cars were crap through the 80s and late 90s, but the last few years, they've really worked on quality issues. I know this much - the parts we sell to GM are often specced to a higher run lifetime than the ones we sell to overseas makers.
The American car makers have minimal interest in making their products longer lasting.
Their goals are to make their cars drive better, drive safer, run better, and cost less; over the same lifecycle. They have no compelling interest in you buying less cars; they have a compelling interest in giving you a reason to buy their car over other manufacturers. Since very few people keep their car for the entire lifetime (/.ers with a 25 year old Nova, STFU - you aren't normal), there really isn't much demand for a car that will last longer.
Instead, all that R&D money is aimed at a couple things - less problems over the same lifespan, and more capabilities over the same lifespan.
Or does your definition of jingoism not include knee-jerk anti-Americanism, despite the fact that 90% of the time the anti-Americanism is totally unjustified?
Where does "All men are created equal" contradict "Citizens will receive these rights from the American government, non-citizens will not"?
The US laws don't say "A Frenchman is an inferior man to an American", they say "Our government's laws apply to our government's citizens".
You're anti-American. We have problems, but the mere fact that the EU can consider censoring unpopular speech is enough reason for me to never even consider becoming a citizen there. I find it ridiculous that they deign to regard "The Holocaust didn't happen" as a more serious crime than, say, "The American Revolution never happened". I'm Jewish. I lost family in the camps. I believe in "Never forget". But nowhere do I see a reason that *government* is supposed to be involved in this process.
It is our right, our *obligation*, as citizens of a free society to make certain that we do remember. It is our obligation to allow any speech, and our moral duty to make certain that our citizens understand why some of that speech may be wrong.
Our government isn't perfect, but our ideals are still our ideals. And for all that we may run on self-interest (oh, like the EU doesn't, you pompous jackass), AT LEAST WE GIVE LIP SERVICE TO THOSE IDEALS.
At least we *try* to live up to free speech, and freedom of religion. At least we try to prevent cruel and unusual punishment. At least we PRETEND to care.
Fuck you. You're the reason a lot of Americans dislike those from outside our country; not because you don't live here, but because you pretend we're worse than a 3rd world dictatorship. We're human, like anyone else. We don't deny that. But we try to rise above it. I don't always see a lot of that from anyone else.
After all. Which country originated the phrase "All men are created equal?"
It wasn't Germany. Wasn't France. Wasn't England. Wasn't anyone east of the Atlantic.
Hah. Well, you can't expect me to look up the date of a symphony for a slashdot discussion, can you? The example was just as good with the wrong date.:)
Again, I think that your second example is possibly only true because it existed prior to the era of recording (I don't know, if Verdi had composed it in 1999, whether or not he'd have been able to popularize it - in addition, classical/compositional music is less susceptible to this issue by its general nature). Some counterexamples:
"Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam" is as, if not more, associated with Nirvana than with the Vaselines.
"Me and Bobby McGee" is more associated with Joplin than Kristofferson, and certainly no one remembers the guy who first popularized it (Roger Miller).
"All Along The Watchtower" isn't quite as strong an example, but it took me a minute to remember if it was originally Hendrix's or Dylan's.
Oh, one more. Every song Britney Spears has ever performed. Anybody really remember who wrote them? For the most part, no.
You've got to remember; anything which had to popularize itself prior to the existence of recording isn't really useful as a counter-example, as my point requires a recording industry to exist at the time of composition. In addition, music with minimal opportunity for interpretation ("classical", or more correctly compositional music) is less likely to be affected by the things that cause performers to become more popular than the composer, and to supersede the composer, in the modern era.
If anything, it's therapeutic for them to vent their anger and hate with words, rather than beating people and blowing shit up. Which, incidently, happens to be the method by which the US and Israel make their anger and hate known.
As opposed to the Palestinians, who make their anger and hate known by eminently peaceful means.
Actually, its only partially about protecting their technology.
Its also about how their enemies are going to consider Israel launching something that's a quarter step away from a ICBM over their territory. Probably not well, I would guess.
I always wondered why Israel didn't partner with, say, South Africa or India or one of the other countries they've historically done weapons development with in order to achieve a significantly more favorable launch position.
Probably because they just buy launch space on US and EU and Russian commercial launchers like everyone else.
You can dislike unsolicited remixes, but to be pissed at someone for doing one and then presenting it to you as "Hey, I did this. If you don't approve, no one else will ever hear it." is a bit much, don't you think? If you did sue someone on that basis, I hope you lose.
If they distribute it outside of themselves and you, I would hope you win, but by making your music publicly available, as far as I'm concerned you've given permission to do *anything anyone wants* with it, so long as they either do not distribute it, or seek your permission prior to distribution. Implicit in seeking permission is obtaining your approval, which generally means that they would have to run it by you, which means that you've given them an implicit permission to distribute it back to you.
I'm glad your album failed, to tell you the truth. You have every right to not accept and to restrain distribution of remixes of your work. But your statement of "anyone including me" is what makes you a twit.
It is legal to recreate someone else's composition via your own musicianship. This is the equivalent of the player piano replaying the piano roll. This is compulsory licensing, and its a fixed fee requiring no permission from the owner of the composition rights. It applies to *covers*; versions where you recreate someone else's music yourself.
It is not legal to use a portion of someone else's sound recording (sampling and/or remixing) without permission from the owner of the rights to the sound recording. This is also the right that prevents people from simply making copies of someone else's song. It applies to any copy of any portion of someone else's actual sound.
There are of course little exceptions and extensions and loopholes and crap, but that's the basic deal. You're confused as to which one sampling/remixing is covered by.
But I would argue that if Beethoven had simply composed it, and handed it off to an orchestra conducted by someone we've never heard of, his music would still have achieved longevity due to the virtue of its composition.
You're right - we generally remember composers in the long term, but that's becoming less and less true, especially as the composers more and more become the performer as well. As an example - "Me and Bobby McGee". Not written by Janis Joplin, but most people, when you quote a line from the song, will immediately think of her. A performer can make a composition their own, and thereby cause all memory of that composition to adhere to the performer.
A further thought - if there had been the technology to record not just the notes, but the actual sound, back when Beethoven and Mozart were composing - would we really remember the composers? Or would we remember the Brandenburg Orchestra's masterful 1781 performance of the Pastoral Symphony?
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Blahblahmassblahblahweightblah. For the purpose of comparison of relative mass vs. thrust, the distinction is irrelevant.
A kgf is "kilogram force (kgf) - a unit of force equal to the gravitational force on a mass of one kilogram. One kilogram of force equals 9.806 65 newtons, or 2.204 622 6 pounds of force in the traditional English system. Using this unit revives the old confusion between mass and weight, one of the worst features of traditional measurement systems, so it is really a very bad idea. However, kilograms of force have been used rather frequently in engineering and physics. This unit is also called the kilopond."
It isn't quoted in Newtons because I am damn lazy, and didn't bother converting. However, my facts are correct (mass for SS1 is estimated as Scaled wasn't releasing that kind of data, last I knew).
Note that Scaled is an *American* company, Eurotrash. Also, isn't Ariane one of the case studies in what to do wrong in programming?
I haven't taken Greyhound in a couple years, but it sucks that they've given in.
These days I'm a somewhat scruffy-looking short haired white boy, but I used to have hair longer than anyone I dated and I used to shave less than I do now. I have a facial piercing. An 89 Civic probably doesn't fit your clean non-sporty-looking definition, though its since moved on (hey, I got a real job, I wanted a decent car) and I've been driving since 16. Well, 15, but driver's permit doesn't really count, right?
I have never been stopped when I hadn't done something wrong. NEVER. I lived in a college town. I live in Chicago now. NEVER stopped. I've gone halfway across the country without being asked for anything remotely resembling papers. I've put 21,000 miles on my new car in under a year. Stopped once, because I was doing 95 mph.
You were in the wrong with the stop, by the way. They can ticket for burned out taillights, but you don't have to pay if you provide proof it's been fixed within 30 days. You should have mouthed off; he can't arrest you for a burned out taillight, just ticket.
Jesus.
iPod = pocket sized.
I have pockets.
If I have a nice cradle easily accessible, how big a deal is it to yank the thing and throw it in my pocket? Not a big one at all. Know how I know? Because I have a cradle in my vehicle, and I grab the iPod every time I leave the car.
You know what the ultimate theft-proofing is? *Taking it with you*.
You know, unless I've actually done one of two things, giving the cop my name doesn't make him any more or less likely to be able to fuck with me.
Circumstance A: I've committed a crime. Boohoo.
Circumstance B: I've done something that pissed off the cops, so they're going to fuck with me extralegally. In which case, I will follow the example set by a man from my hometown. The cops were following him around and ticketing/towing his car *immediately* upon meter expiration. He sued the city and won.
If it ever gets so bad that you can't sue City Hall and win, I'll move.
I would rather that this not be written into case law, but since it applies only to states with laws requiring this, and since it really (when you think about it) isn't a huge deal, I'll live with it.
I've traveled by train without being asked to show ID. Now, sometimes I've been asked for ID, but sometimes they didn't.
AFAIK, Greyhound doesn't require ID to travel.
Getting around in a car does NOT require you to show papers. The exception here is if you break the rules of the road and get pulled over, at which point the cop will ask you for ID, insurance, etc. Barring that, you do not require papers to use a car; it may require papers to legally acquire a car, but the act of driving it somewhere else does not.
You can travel without papers if you really want to. Your convenience is the tradeoff.
In my experience with my/friends' vehicles, I see problems within 90 days, and problems in the roughly 7-10 year window. If you have a car make it 10 years, routine maintenance will probably keep it running for a very long time. American cars do great in the initial 90 these days, and I have my suspicions that they will do better in the 7-10 than they used to; specifically, I'm thinking of "fun" things like the old Dodge transmission problem, where there was something like a 85% failure rate in the transmission when it hit around 75-90,000 miles.
I've never worked with Ford on their harness, but I have worked with them on their powertrain, and they seem to do a decent job on engineering that.
I'm talking to you about being snotty before you give me a chance to respond; I told you where my numbers were from and what they referred to when you asked me to do so. They were numbers I had at hand (from this month's "Automotive Engineering" which showed up in my mailbox last Friday) and that's why I used them. I took 5 minutes just now, found the 3 year benchmark that JD Powers runs.
1. Lexus
2. Infiniti
3. Buick
4. Porsche
5. Acura
6. Toyota
7. Cadillac
8. Lincoln
9. Honda
10. Mercury
and of course:
28. Jeep
29. Volvo
30. Mitsubishi
31. Hyundai
32. Isuzu
33. VW
34. Suzuki
35. Daewoo
36. Land Rover
37. Kia
Funny. American cars seem to be reasonably well represented at the top, and almost totally absent from the bottom in the 2-3 year record, don't they?
The spray ablative and drop tanks were only used on X-15-A2, which was the only one configured to accept the drop tanks. In addition to which, I believe they only used the full ablative coating twice; it charred so badly they gave up on it, and on that airframe as well. For altitude runs, they didn't use A2, they used the initial airframe, and since X-Prize is altitude oriented, not speed, I chose to pick on airframe #3, the winner in the altitude games.
The problem with the earlier flights is I couldn't find any verification as to which airframe was used on which flight in the quick search I did; if I had, I would have cited flights 8, 9, 10, and 11, which were all during March of 1960, or flights 14, 15, 16, and 17 in May 1960. However, I have no idea if it was frame #1 or #2 used on each of those, and didn't feel like getting fact checked on it.
Ahh, yes, but could it be flown twice in 2 weeks??
Without replacing more than 10% of the crafts zero fuel weight???
I dont think so.
I do.
Flights 167 and 170 of the X-15-A2 craft occurred 18 days apart, in August of 1966. These weren't altitude runs, though, they were speed runs as the A2 was modified to have longer engine burn times in order to support higher speed flights.
87, 90 and 91 were each spaced around a month apart, and the latter two were over 100km in the X-15A (3rd vehicle). The first was 86km. June 27, July 19, August 22 were the dates. In 1963.
Refurb % between flights for X15 is not an easily available number, but it's likely it was less than 10%; there was no ablative structure and the engines were reusable. This wasn't a bloat-era NASA program; it was originally a joint USAF/NACA project, which means that the ground crew wasn't huge and major overhauls between short flights were pretty much impossible.
The stability problem was mostly overcome with adaptive control systems; these days it wouldn't even be an issue, controls have gone so far along with easy access to DSP and computation. As to landing, the high speed was a result of a relatively low subsonic L/D ratio; X-15 was optimized for hypersonic flight, while a jet is optimized for subsonic flight. As a result, X-15 had a much harder time staying in the air at low speeds, and stalled at a higher speed, meaning it had to land at a higher speed. SS1, not being designed for maneuverability at hypersonic speeds, could be more optimized for subsonic landing, which is why it lands at a relatively paltry
X15 weighed around 30000 kg, not pounds. It produced 26762 kgf of thrust. By comparison, SS1 is 3600kg and produces 7500 kgf. X15 did nearly as much as this initial flight, despite a significantly worse thrust-to-weight ratio.
And let's not forget, the X-15 flew in the mid 60s. 40 years ago.
I give Rutan a lot of credit, but the X-15 remains one of the most amazing accomplishments in aerospace history, and was capable of most things the X-Prize asks for (obviously, the 3 man requirement not so much).
See? People like you are jingoistic - unthinking adherence to a political creed, and in this case a specifically anti-nationalist creed.
Because he is the President of the United States, and the office deserves respect.
You want examples of why he should get some respect? He's managed to go sober, which is a lot harder than it sounds for an alcoholic. He graduated from Yale and Harvard; yeah, family ties probably helped there, but you have to do some of the work no matter what. He proposed and budgeted $15 billion in AIDS-related foreign aid. He's not perfect, and I dislike his polciies intensely for the most part. But he has earned better than "Chimpy".
And finally, simply because I refuse to have political debate with someone who can't restrain themselves from ad hominem attacks on politicians. I don't feel the need to call Chirac "Frog", I don't call Schroeder "Nazi", and although I have lots of private bad names for Arafat, I don't feel any need to use them when I'm discussing the Israel-Palestine situation.
So please, continue to disrespect the office if you like, but don't be surprised when people call you jingoistic or idiotic as a result.
SAE report. Trade association for automotive designers, roughly equivalent to an ACM or SEI. The survey of owners was conducted by JD Powers. So, what I would call very trustworthy sources, with a long history of respectable work.
The time span is the first 90 days of ownership on MY04 vehicles; since they're MY04, obviously the time span is limited. Although I'd be interested in seeing what the numbers are like 4-5 years down the road, I doubt they'll have significantly changed.
Actually, we do provide electronics, but most electrical problems that I've heard about are harness issues, which we wouldn't be at fault for. Those are usually designed either by the carmaker or subbed out to a specialist. Other than harness issues, I have to ask - what problems are you seeing? Because up until this latest car (a Mazda) I've only driven American cars (GM cars, even) and had one major quality issues with any of them, beyond expected maintainence. It was a build issue on my 00 S-10, where some idiot had forgotten to properly assemble the linkage connecting the gas pedal to the throttle, resulting in the linkage snapping mid-drive and me rolling my car 1/4 mile to a gas station.
I try to provide truths; before you get snotty, ask the questions so I can try to give you them. If I fail to answer them then, you can get snide.
Er... no. Manned is way overpriced, but space science is so ridiculously underfunded that they do work on budgets cut to the bone. Odds are low that private industry self-funding those projects would have had them come in any cheaper at all, much less significantly cheaper.
As to launches; most all of those things I mentioned were launched on private industry's launchers, not NASA. Oversight on Atlas and Delta launches is a lot less than oversight on Shuttle.
Basically, you're talking out of your ass. Again, manned is more expensive than it needs to be, unmanned isn't (barring some hypothetical large advance in launch tech which does not at this time exist).
Oh, one more thing.
Hondas now don't last any longer than Hondas from 20 years ago. American cars from now do.
Hey, they may have fucked up human spaceflight for the last 20 years or so, but give them credit for Spitzer, Hubble, Chandra, Spirit and Opportunity, Cassini, and all the other wonderful science they've done that I can't remember right now.
The disastrous foreign policy sure as hell isn't most of our faults. Even the ones who voted for Bush didn't anticipate him unilaterally going to war against countries we had no business attacking (Afghanistan was justifiable, Iraq wasn't, that simple). Those of us who voted against Bush are kinda sick of listening to the rest of the world blame us for something that's totally out of our control.
US sentiment? The fuck do you, or anyone really, know about US sentiment? I live here, and I wouldn't presume to assign a single viewpoint to the 100 or so people who live on my block, much less the 275 million who live in my country.
Disliking America isn't jingoist, except when its so knee jerk reactionary that *any* action taken by the US is met by criticism without thought; its anti-patriotism. The US went through a period like that; we call it McCarthyism these days, and most of us view it with regret and disgust.
Most of us are willing to listen to honest criticism, but we're a little sick of the "US sucks" bullshit that passes for intelligent political discourse these days. You want to debate foreign policy with me? Fine. Talk about the disadvantages of setting a precedent for unilateral attacks. Talk about the wisdom of allowing education to remain in the hands of religious fanatics who will educate their children to die as martyrs. Talk about the economic impacts of destabilizing the world political situation.
But use the word "chimpy" in regard to the President of my country, and I will absolutely jump down your throat. I didn't vote for him, I don't even like him, but he is still my President, and he deserves a little bit more respect than that. Criticize the man's decisions, his policies; god knows I do. But fuck you if you can't do better than comparing him to a hominid.
The Americans have gotten a lot better. I work in the industry (and not for one of the Big 3, for a supplier who works with American, Euro, and Japanese makers, so it's not a customer thing) - was actually reading an article on problems per 100 vehicles today. American cars are pretty much the average here.
But the top 10 are, in order:
#1 Lexus
#2 Cadillac
#3 Jaguar
#4 Honda
#5 Buick
#5 Mercury
#7 Hyundai
#8 Infiniti
#9 Toyota
#10 Mercedes-Benz
The bottom 10 are:
#28 Land Rover
#29 Saturn
#29 Suzuki
#31 Kia
#32 Nissan
#33 Mazda
#34 Scion
#35 Porsche
#36 Volkswagen
#37 Hummer
Notice something interesting there? The perception that American cars are crap is pretty much wrong; Toyota's got both a top spot and a bottom spot (Scion being their 'youth' imprint), Germans do top and bottom as well.
The truth is you've bought into a lie that's NOT TRUE anymore. 4 of the top 10 companies in quality are American (Jaguar is Ford-owned and shares significant parts with Ford lines). 4 are Japanese.
I drive a Japanese car (well, sorta - it's a Mazda, which I selected because the build quality on it was excellent). But don't knock the American cars because you've had issues; American cars were crap through the 80s and late 90s, but the last few years, they've really worked on quality issues. I know this much - the parts we sell to GM are often specced to a higher run lifetime than the ones we sell to overseas makers.
Know your facts.
The American car makers have minimal interest in making their products longer lasting.
Their goals are to make their cars drive better, drive safer, run better, and cost less; over the same lifecycle. They have no compelling interest in you buying less cars; they have a compelling interest in giving you a reason to buy their car over other manufacturers. Since very few people keep their car for the entire lifetime (/.ers with a 25 year old Nova, STFU - you aren't normal), there really isn't much demand for a car that will last longer.
Instead, all that R&D money is aimed at a couple things - less problems over the same lifespan, and more capabilities over the same lifespan.
Obviously, you don't read /.
Or does your definition of jingoism not include knee-jerk anti-Americanism, despite the fact that 90% of the time the anti-Americanism is totally unjustified?
Where does "All men are created equal" contradict "Citizens will receive these rights from the American government, non-citizens will not"?
The US laws don't say "A Frenchman is an inferior man to an American", they say "Our government's laws apply to our government's citizens".
You're anti-American. We have problems, but the mere fact that the EU can consider censoring unpopular speech is enough reason for me to never even consider becoming a citizen there. I find it ridiculous that they deign to regard "The Holocaust didn't happen" as a more serious crime than, say, "The American Revolution never happened". I'm Jewish. I lost family in the camps. I believe in "Never forget". But nowhere do I see a reason that *government* is supposed to be involved in this process.
It is our right, our *obligation*, as citizens of a free society to make certain that we do remember. It is our obligation to allow any speech, and our moral duty to make certain that our citizens understand why some of that speech may be wrong.
Our government isn't perfect, but our ideals are still our ideals. And for all that we may run on self-interest (oh, like the EU doesn't, you pompous jackass), AT LEAST WE GIVE LIP SERVICE TO THOSE IDEALS.
At least we *try* to live up to free speech, and freedom of religion. At least we try to prevent cruel and unusual punishment. At least we PRETEND to care.
Fuck you. You're the reason a lot of Americans dislike those from outside our country; not because you don't live here, but because you pretend we're worse than a 3rd world dictatorship. We're human, like anyone else. We don't deny that. But we try to rise above it. I don't always see a lot of that from anyone else.
After all. Which country originated the phrase "All men are created equal?"
It wasn't Germany. Wasn't France. Wasn't England. Wasn't anyone east of the Atlantic.
Hah. Well, you can't expect me to look up the date of a symphony for a slashdot discussion, can you? The example was just as good with the wrong date. :)
Again, I think that your second example is possibly only true because it existed prior to the era of recording (I don't know, if Verdi had composed it in 1999, whether or not he'd have been able to popularize it - in addition, classical/compositional music is less susceptible to this issue by its general nature). Some counterexamples:
"Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam" is as, if not more, associated with Nirvana than with the Vaselines.
"Me and Bobby McGee" is more associated with Joplin than Kristofferson, and certainly no one remembers the guy who first popularized it (Roger Miller).
"All Along The Watchtower" isn't quite as strong an example, but it took me a minute to remember if it was originally Hendrix's or Dylan's.
Oh, one more. Every song Britney Spears has ever performed. Anybody really remember who wrote them? For the most part, no.
You've got to remember; anything which had to popularize itself prior to the existence of recording isn't really useful as a counter-example, as my point requires a recording industry to exist at the time of composition. In addition, music with minimal opportunity for interpretation ("classical", or more correctly compositional music) is less likely to be affected by the things that cause performers to become more popular than the composer, and to supersede the composer, in the modern era.
If anything, it's therapeutic for them to vent their anger and hate with words, rather than beating people and blowing shit up. Which, incidently, happens to be the method by which the US and Israel make their anger and hate known.
As opposed to the Palestinians, who make their anger and hate known by eminently peaceful means.
Ahem.... maybe nobody explained it to you but to be covered by the constitution you must be a citizen.
Therein is one of the (many) things that renders it so worthless.
Not to citizens. And why exactly should I care about non-citizens?
Actually, its only partially about protecting their technology.
Its also about how their enemies are going to consider Israel launching something that's a quarter step away from a ICBM over their territory. Probably not well, I would guess.
I always wondered why Israel didn't partner with, say, South Africa or India or one of the other countries they've historically done weapons development with in order to achieve a significantly more favorable launch position.
Probably because they just buy launch space on US and EU and Russian commercial launchers like everyone else.
Your views are a bit strong.
You can dislike unsolicited remixes, but to be pissed at someone for doing one and then presenting it to you as "Hey, I did this. If you don't approve, no one else will ever hear it." is a bit much, don't you think? If you did sue someone on that basis, I hope you lose.
If they distribute it outside of themselves and you, I would hope you win, but by making your music publicly available, as far as I'm concerned you've given permission to do *anything anyone wants* with it, so long as they either do not distribute it, or seek your permission prior to distribution. Implicit in seeking permission is obtaining your approval, which generally means that they would have to run it by you, which means that you've given them an implicit permission to distribute it back to you.
I'm glad your album failed, to tell you the truth. You have every right to not accept and to restrain distribution of remixes of your work. But your statement of "anyone including me" is what makes you a twit.
You're confused.
It is legal to recreate someone else's composition via your own musicianship. This is the equivalent of the player piano replaying the piano roll. This is compulsory licensing, and its a fixed fee requiring no permission from the owner of the composition rights. It applies to *covers*; versions where you recreate someone else's music yourself.
It is not legal to use a portion of someone else's sound recording (sampling and/or remixing) without permission from the owner of the rights to the sound recording. This is also the right that prevents people from simply making copies of someone else's song. It applies to any copy of any portion of someone else's actual sound.
There are of course little exceptions and extensions and loopholes and crap, but that's the basic deal. You're confused as to which one sampling/remixing is covered by.
But I would argue that if Beethoven had simply composed it, and handed it off to an orchestra conducted by someone we've never heard of, his music would still have achieved longevity due to the virtue of its composition.
You're right - we generally remember composers in the long term, but that's becoming less and less true, especially as the composers more and more become the performer as well. As an example - "Me and Bobby McGee". Not written by Janis Joplin, but most people, when you quote a line from the song, will immediately think of her. A performer can make a composition their own, and thereby cause all memory of that composition to adhere to the performer.
A further thought - if there had been the technology to record not just the notes, but the actual sound, back when Beethoven and Mozart were composing - would we really remember the composers? Or would we remember the Brandenburg Orchestra's masterful 1781 performance of the Pastoral Symphony?