We still have the technology to go to the moon, and I would even hazard to guess the technology is there to go to Mars as well, but the money is not there.
NASA has an ENORMOUS amount of money. $16 BILLION dollars a year. Think about how much money that is -- 16,000 million dollars every year. EVERY YEAR.
The trouble is that NASA pisses it all away. If they're not the most inefficient agency, it has to be pretty damn close.
NASA can have more money when they prove to be financially responsible by killing the shuttle.
Just because you want to read "An awful lot" as "the bedrock of" doesn't mean that's what I said. An awful lot of money is spent on crappy exercise gadgets. Are they the "bedrock" of the modern economy? Of course not.
You didn't say, "an awful lot of money", you said, "An awful lot of the financial build-up of the US". That implies that you believe that a statistically significant portion of the "financial build-up" was due to intellectual property theft.
Apparently, rather than taking 2 minutes to make a post, I was supposed to do full research and cite numbers, including percentages of GDP.
No, that was not necessary, but you chose the context to put your point in (i.e., the growth of the US). If you had just said, "A lot of money was made" or "there is a precedent that was set in the early years of the US", then I wouldn't have commented. If it was just a poor choice of words, then fine, we'll move on.
Sorry, I forgot I was on Slashdot. I'll explain more slowly. Sheet music is 1, as in a singular, example of early American disregard of international standards of intellectual property laws.
And I was illustrating how ridiculous your whole point was. Jeez, people like to rewrite the history of the US, but this is totally ridiculous.
You seem to be implying that the US was built by stealing all the innovation that was going on in other countries during the 19th century, and that is completely absurd. People came to the US BECAUSE Europe and other countries were so stagnant. Does the cotton gin ring any bells? (killed the linen industry in Europe). Steamships? Mass production?
Oh, right I've heard this one before. I've been using macs for ~10 years, and I've never sun into these fabled incompatibility problems.
What, you think I'm making it up? Dude, you're probably not having these problems because you've been USING THEM FOR TEN YEARS. You know how to avoid the land mines. I haven't the faintest idea how to tell her how to fix it. She's using some standard writer program. Open quote is encoded as 0x13; close quote is encoded as 0x14. Single quote is encoded as 0x12. This is horribly, HORRIBLY non-standard.
Ah, jeez. You've totally bought into the Mac cult.
How many times must it be said? The operating system is irrelevent. Applications are everything. Why do you think the Mac only has a 3% (think about that) Marketshare? It's not just because it's half the speed for twice the price (although the Mac mini reduces that 4x proposition a bit). People don't want to deal with the hassle of an incompatible machine. An operating system is a natural monopoly.
Hell, I have a friend who has been trying to e-mail me a story she wrote for a college application, written on a Mac (bought because she believed that the industry she wants to go into uses them). All the formatting is screwed up. The quotes are totally unreadable. She has absolutely no clue how to fix it, and is stressing about whether the college will get it correctly. That's the world you live in when you buy a Mac -- incompatibility with the most basic things.
If no one uses anything beyond a browser, etc, who buys all the apps from these third parties? Does no one buy any of the enormous quantity of shrink-wrapped software at your local store?
Hmm, status on Desktop Linux is conspicuously missing.
So when are commercial app developers going to release Linux versions of their apps along with Windows versions?
Until that question can be answered, Desktop Linux will continue to be a theoretical possibility with almost zero marketshare. No one cares about operating systems; the applications are everything.
Yes. Words mean things. American means, "A citizen of the United States of America". Note the last word of the name of the country. There also (happens) to be a continent named "America". American NEVER means a citizen of that continent, so there is no ambiguity.
Whether I agree with you or not, you do not speak for me.
I was using the royal "We" as in "me and all correct-thinking people".:)
USians
*cringe* Please don't use that non-word. It's so ludicrously stupid.
I think that the original post was either flamebait (to which everyone has risen) or somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
Whatever the poster's motives, it represents a lot of very dangerous thinking where people are willing trade their freedom for a little free service from the government.
Here in the land of the free (the US), we don't like the government putting people out of business by setting up inefficient systems paid by tax dollars that will cost the taxpayer two or three times what they would pay from private infrastructure.
Here in the land of the free, we like competition, which means infrastructure will be upgraded. Why will a government monopology bother to upgrade it?
Here in the land of the free, we recognize why we have the strongest economy in the world. It's called Capitalism.
When I did it, it was youthful exuberance. When anyone else does it, they are pathetic fanboys. Quite simple, really.:D
Anyway, camping out for a night is one thing; lots of people do that for special events (rose parade, concerts, etc). That's socially acceptable. And this was the sequel to Star Wars, which actually lived up to the hype. Camping out for months beforehand is way out of hand. Not to mention that there isn't exactly high expectations for the last movie.
Sorry, just laughing at the Star Wars fanboys camping out so they can be the first ones in the "universe" to see the movie. And now Lucas gives them the big BWAHAHAHAH.
I just can't help but imagine Lucas with a big grin holding up his middle finger and giving one final F-YOU to the Star Wars geeks, followed by a "get a freaking life."
Ahem. Sorry. In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that I slept overnight -- ONE NIGHT -- for Empire Strikes Back. But my friend camped out for two weeks, and I was only 30 or so people back.:)
Talk about arrogant, you're telling the professionals that you know they don't know their own field of study.
Damn right I'm telling them they don't know their own field of study. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It doesn't take an "expert" to know that the ecosystem of Earth is unbelievably complex. Just like I don't need a degree in psychoanalysis to know that a psychiatrist has no clue how a brain works. I don't need a degree in biology to know that computer simulations are inadequate to simulate a complete, functioning human body. I don't need a degree in genetics to know that a geneticist doesn't know enough to take a gene map and predict exactly what would grow from it.
The difference here is that the above scientists don't claim that they can do those things, but climatologists do claim they can predict the future, when they CAN'T. What they do isn't a science, it's totally faith-based. Call me when they make real predictions that are verified by experiments. Until then, they are no better than dancing savages casting stones and reading the results.
Before stating how you believe that Global Warming is a myth perpertrated by scientists after funding money, demonstrate your knowledge of the area by describing, briefly, the three of the following five things:
-sigh- the question isn't what we know about climate, the question is what we DON'T know about climate, which exceeds by a wide margin what we do know.
The problem isn't what I know or don't know, it's the fact that climate scientists are arrogant and, frankly, foolish enough to try and claim that they understand climate enough to make predictions 100 years in the future.
Computer models are not reliable evidence. They are manufactured evidence, loaded with human biases, such as:
1) They only take into account things we know about (obviously). What we know about the most is human activity, and thus, they will tend to be biased toward human explanations of climate change. But it is very doubtful that we understand all the factors that go into climate enough to make long-term predictions.
2) Financial bias. You get more funding by predicting "something is happening, but I need to study it further" than you get by predicting, "nothing is happening". Don't even argue that this isn't a factor -- it is.
Computer models can give you any answer you want, depending on how you set the model assumptions. Until they give me clear evidence that is not based on incredibly crude computer models, I will continue to be a skeptic.
While Apple is notorious for its secrecy before MacWorlds, Apple probably figured out that dragging people into court usually does little for one's popularity.
Since when has Apple worried about their popularity? Overcharging their customers by giving half the performance at twice the price isn't very popular, but they do it anyway, because they know they can. They know they have a built-in base that will take it.
Apple has a horrible history of arrogantly dumping on their customers and fans. Until the Apple fan base holds them accountable, they'll continue to do it.
Fine, then give me your alternative that doesn't require any of that. Or is this just mental masturbation that there "has" to be alternative, we just don't know what it is yet?
Sure, you could have an economy without corporations. That problem is that it would be as efficient and forward progressing as a 15th century economy. An economy without corporations is like physics without calculus. Sure, you can have primitive physics without calculus, but you can only go so far.
I suppose it's possible you might be thinking of communism or something, but that is unworkable on any large (or even medium) scale.
Well, to start with Zero-G Corporation has been booked up so solid that they are raising their prices. And enough people have been up that even some regular/. posters have photos to show their experience.
Also note that Zero-G is 1/50th (if not 1/100th) the price, and doesn't claim to be space travel.
There will be considerable interest in suborbital flight, and if they get the bugs worked out so that it includes intercontintal flight as well (Los Angeles to Sydney or Auckland to London), there will be solid economic reasons to get booked on these flights besides being a raw thrill ride.
AFAIK, none of the suborbital companies are looking at intercontinental travel. There would be considerable problems in doing that. Regulation, cost, capacity, landing areas, air space... there's not much overlap in what they're doing if their goal is taking people into space.
OK, just out of curiosity, exactly how can an economy be "built" without corporations? Be sure and explain:
1) How new companies are financed
2) How risk can be encouraged without liability protection
3) How it's possible to have companies large enough to make multi-billion dollar investments in new technology (i.e., Boeing, IBM, etc) without corporations
I actually kind of doubt you know what corporations are, but I figured, what the hell. Let's hear your economic theory.
Slashdot Mirror
NASA has an ENORMOUS amount of money. $16 BILLION dollars a year. Think about how much money that is -- 16,000 million dollars every year. EVERY YEAR.
The trouble is that NASA pisses it all away. If they're not the most inefficient agency, it has to be pretty damn close.
NASA can have more money when they prove to be financially responsible by killing the shuttle.
You didn't say, "an awful lot of money", you said, "An awful lot of the financial build-up of the US". That implies that you believe that a statistically significant portion of the "financial build-up" was due to intellectual property theft.
Apparently, rather than taking 2 minutes to make a post, I was supposed to do full research and cite numbers, including percentages of GDP.
No, that was not necessary, but you chose the context to put your point in (i.e., the growth of the US). If you had just said, "A lot of money was made" or "there is a precedent that was set in the early years of the US", then I wouldn't have commented. If it was just a poor choice of words, then fine, we'll move on.
And I was illustrating how ridiculous your whole point was. Jeez, people like to rewrite the history of the US, but this is totally ridiculous.
You seem to be implying that the US was built by stealing all the innovation that was going on in other countries during the 19th century, and that is completely absurd. People came to the US BECAUSE Europe and other countries were so stagnant. Does the cotton gin ring any bells? (killed the linen industry in Europe). Steamships? Mass production?
Yep, the mighty economic machnine that is now the US was built on a bedrock of... sheet music.
(rolls eyes)
What, you think I'm making it up? Dude, you're probably not having these problems because you've been USING THEM FOR TEN YEARS. You know how to avoid the land mines. I haven't the faintest idea how to tell her how to fix it. She's using some standard writer program. Open quote is encoded as 0x13; close quote is encoded as 0x14. Single quote is encoded as 0x12. This is horribly, HORRIBLY non-standard.
Ah, jeez. You've totally bought into the Mac cult.
How many times must it be said? The operating system is irrelevent. Applications are everything. Why do you think the Mac only has a 3% (think about that) Marketshare? It's not just because it's half the speed for twice the price (although the Mac mini reduces that 4x proposition a bit). People don't want to deal with the hassle of an incompatible machine. An operating system is a natural monopoly.
Hell, I have a friend who has been trying to e-mail me a story she wrote for a college application, written on a Mac (bought because she believed that the industry she wants to go into uses them). All the formatting is screwed up. The quotes are totally unreadable. She has absolutely no clue how to fix it, and is stressing about whether the college will get it correctly. That's the world you live in when you buy a Mac -- incompatibility with the most basic things.
If no one uses anything beyond a browser, etc, who buys all the apps from these third parties? Does no one buy any of the enormous quantity of shrink-wrapped software at your local store?
Hmm, status on Desktop Linux is conspicuously missing.
So when are commercial app developers going to release Linux versions of their apps along with Windows versions?
Until that question can be answered, Desktop Linux will continue to be a theoretical possibility with almost zero marketshare. No one cares about operating systems; the applications are everything.
Yes. Words mean things. American means, "A citizen of the United States of America". Note the last word of the name of the country. There also (happens) to be a continent named "America". American NEVER means a citizen of that continent, so there is no ambiguity.
I was using the royal "We" as in "me and all correct-thinking people". :)
USians *cringe* Please don't use that non-word. It's so ludicrously stupid.
I think that the original post was either flamebait (to which everyone has risen) or somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
Whatever the poster's motives, it represents a lot of very dangerous thinking where people are willing trade their freedom for a little free service from the government.
Here in the land of the free, we like competition, which means infrastructure will be upgraded. Why will a government monopology bother to upgrade it?
Here in the land of the free, we recognize why we have the strongest economy in the world. It's called Capitalism.
Your sense of balance in your inner ear is your sixth sense (it's a sense of gravity). It just doesn't get any credit.
Anyway, camping out for a night is one thing; lots of people do that for special events (rose parade, concerts, etc). That's socially acceptable. And this was the sequel to Star Wars, which actually lived up to the hype. Camping out for months beforehand is way out of hand. Not to mention that there isn't exactly high expectations for the last movie.
I just can't help but imagine Lucas with a big grin holding up his middle finger and giving one final F-YOU to the Star Wars geeks, followed by a "get a freaking life."
Ahem. Sorry. In the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that I slept overnight -- ONE NIGHT -- for Empire Strikes Back. But my friend camped out for two weeks, and I was only 30 or so people back. :)
Damn right I'm telling them they don't know their own field of study. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It doesn't take an "expert" to know that the ecosystem of Earth is unbelievably complex. Just like I don't need a degree in psychoanalysis to know that a psychiatrist has no clue how a brain works. I don't need a degree in biology to know that computer simulations are inadequate to simulate a complete, functioning human body. I don't need a degree in genetics to know that a geneticist doesn't know enough to take a gene map and predict exactly what would grow from it.
The difference here is that the above scientists don't claim that they can do those things, but climatologists do claim they can predict the future, when they CAN'T. What they do isn't a science, it's totally faith-based. Call me when they make real predictions that are verified by experiments. Until then, they are no better than dancing savages casting stones and reading the results.
-sigh- the question isn't what we know about climate, the question is what we DON'T know about climate, which exceeds by a wide margin what we do know.
The problem isn't what I know or don't know, it's the fact that climate scientists are arrogant and, frankly, foolish enough to try and claim that they understand climate enough to make predictions 100 years in the future.
1) They only take into account things we know about (obviously). What we know about the most is human activity, and thus, they will tend to be biased toward human explanations of climate change. But it is very doubtful that we understand all the factors that go into climate enough to make long-term predictions.
2) Financial bias. You get more funding by predicting "something is happening, but I need to study it further" than you get by predicting, "nothing is happening". Don't even argue that this isn't a factor -- it is.
Computer models can give you any answer you want, depending on how you set the model assumptions. Until they give me clear evidence that is not based on incredibly crude computer models, I will continue to be a skeptic.
Since when has Apple worried about their popularity? Overcharging their customers by giving half the performance at twice the price isn't very popular, but they do it anyway, because they know they can. They know they have a built-in base that will take it.
Apple has a horrible history of arrogantly dumping on their customers and fans. Until the Apple fan base holds them accountable, they'll continue to do it.
"Because know any sort of possibility of life on other planets is a hot button, we'll pull this theory out so that we can beg for funding."
It's all about getting more funding, and justifying what they have.
Sure, you could have an economy without corporations. That problem is that it would be as efficient and forward progressing as a 15th century economy. An economy without corporations is like physics without calculus. Sure, you can have primitive physics without calculus, but you can only go so far.
I suppose it's possible you might be thinking of communism or something, but that is unworkable on any large (or even medium) scale.
Also note that Zero-G is 1/50th (if not 1/100th) the price, and doesn't claim to be space travel.
There will be considerable interest in suborbital flight, and if they get the bugs worked out so that it includes intercontintal flight as well (Los Angeles to Sydney or Auckland to London), there will be solid economic reasons to get booked on these flights besides being a raw thrill ride.
AFAIK, none of the suborbital companies are looking at intercontinental travel. There would be considerable problems in doing that. Regulation, cost, capacity, landing areas, air space... there's not much overlap in what they're doing if their goal is taking people into space.
OK, just out of curiosity, exactly how can an economy be "built" without corporations? Be sure and explain:
1) How new companies are financed
2) How risk can be encouraged without liability protection
3) How it's possible to have companies large enough to make multi-billion dollar investments in new technology (i.e., Boeing, IBM, etc) without corporations
I actually kind of doubt you know what corporations are, but I figured, what the hell. Let's hear your economic theory.
Try the crucial underpinning of the entire economy.
Just out of curiosity, what the hell does that even mean? Do you even know what a corporation is?
I want REAL, controlled, space travel, not shoot a tin can in an arc for four minutes. That means having orbital space hotels.
I recognize that we need suborbital as a first step, but I think people are WAY overestimating the market for fake space travel.