Nobody has ever been forced to use Facebook. It is the people unwilling to take responsibility for their own choices and actions who are causing the problems. Zuckenberg and Gates both made a choice and took the risks that ultimately made them successful beyond measure. When you first start a business in hopes of achieving success you should totally invest yourself in that enterprise to achieve that success. As with MS, Facebook, Apple, or Google when do you decide to stop trying to achieve success just because you start making money? Do you reach a cut off point and then just start working for free? When society starts punishing success than you will see some real problems.
Because the oil and gas companies already have distribution and logistic systems in place. Plus solar panels can be described as risky when used to power critical systems. Home solar power use would require homeowners to spend quite a bit of money to convert. Just like alternative fuels for automobiles would require car owners to either purchase new cars capable of using bio-filters and natural gas as a power source. I honestly beleive there will come a time when oil use will decline but it will most likely take years to create a viable delivery infrastructure.
Users are just that, "Users". They are not pedantic wannabe security gurus who think they actually know what they are doing. They just want to run their applications. Most users have better things to do with their time than sitting around nitpicking obscure security issues, most of which can only be duplicated in a controlled lab environment using specifically defined steps. Those who talk about nothing but OS security vulnerabilities never seem to realize the purpose of an OS is for running applications. Some of the best software engineers and developers in the world working for MS, Apple, Google, IBM, or independent OS vendors have still been unable to provide perfect security. The sheer number of permutations of hardware, applications, and multi-OS versions and functionality is mind staggering. Add in your average web developer, poor system administrators, and other types of application developers guarantee perfect security will never exist. Sloppy system admins are also responsible for opening security holes through their half ass configuration and server management procedures. If you really want a secure system unplug your Internet connection, and disable your external media. On the corporate side invest your time on hardened firewalls and persistent system monitoring . Security and productivity require responsible trade offs. If you want 100% exploit free OS and applications you would most likely be looking at a 10+ year development cycle before any new features and applications get released. Even antivirus solutions or source code analytic tools only look for specific signatures to identify problems but they can only provide that type of protection after the exploit has already been discovered after the OS and applications has been released for use. Engineering malware using well know applications instead of creating one-off components makes it harder to ID rouge applications and exploits because they are basically hiding in plain site. And you are also very wrong about the documentation MS provides about creating secure applications. Both developers and users can access this information freely anytime they want.
The vast majority of any OS security exploits are caused by clueless users who click on any link in an email and of course application developers who don't know what the hell they are doing. Then there are the folks who consider themselves IT experts who modify security settings incorrectly, firewall configurations incorrectly. and user and program permission. Just running a 3rd party security scan on your code does not mean it is 100% secure. This is especially prevalent in the business world were the developers are pushed to produce reliable functionality on schedule while staying within the allotted project budget. Computers are for running applications and malware counts as an application when you get down to the 0's and 1's. The most recent Flame malware actually used well known components such as MySQL to convince the security scanners that malware is also a legitimate application. The Stuxnet malware had to rely on a couple of 0 day exploits and stealing security certificates from the companies that produced them. The average script kiddie or even an above average developer usually do not physically break into the actual offices to steal these types of certificates. If you really want to be exploit free unplug your Internet cable and never load programs using any external media devices that contain stuff that you know nothing about. If the Iranians had disabled the USB ports data and other external storage devices they might have never encountered the problem. Stuxnet required someone to physically implant the malware using external media such as an USB drive. Even drive by web infections could be prevented if the application developers did a better job when they built their applications I have used Windows since 3.0 (and hated it) Linux, and the Apple OS since the Apple 2 was introduced and have never been infected. Designing a 100% secure OS or application would result in application updates cycles taking years and cost a hell of a lot more than now.. It is always a trade off between providing reliable functionality in a timely manner and the amount of time spent to make something 100% bullet proof. Your average user is just not vigilante or capable enough when it comes to detecting problems.
Prove it. Backup your speculation without using more speculation from yourself or others. And while you do that I will give you something else to roll around in your head. The US knew where the drone went down and could have destroyed it using an armed drone strike, manned jet strike, spec op mission, or even a cruise missile if something important was built into it. Why didn't they? It's not like Iran could have stopped them or the US would give a damn about any Iranian sensibilities. It didn't go down in midtown Tehran. It went down less than a 50 miles from the border in the middle of nowhere. It doesn't make the news often but there have been at least 7+ unarmed military drones crash from either mechanical or operator error so the one that went down inside Iran is not a new thing. And plus the drone that did crash was unarmed (i.e no weapon guidance systems or intact ordinance) and are now being sold for civilian purposes both domestically and internationally. Iran could have probably purchased one using cutouts. And as far as the article goes they needed an unencrypted GPS signal and the Reaper or Predator series of drones encrypt the GPS signal. The drone that went down in Iran was little more than a flying camera used for surveillance.
Sure they investigated the incident in detail but besides Bradley who have they arrested? The CIA and military would have been derelict in their duty if they had not performed a thorough investigation. The analysts had to review the released data to determine exactly what was released and decide if any of it compromised anything important. This analysis also needed to be completed quickly and giving the volume of data using 120 people is pretty low number. And they also need to determine what security or procedural changes need to be made to prevent future incidents such as this. However, their research has produced no more charges or arrests and Bradley was already in custody before the investigation even got going. Instead of uploading the data to Wiki leaks or any other similar site immediately he decided to confide in someone he exchanged e-mails and text messages with a few times. He really should have just sent the information to WIki Leaks or every news outlet in the world before telling anyone. Hiding his identity pretty easily using publicly accessible PCs from multiple locations or other anonymity techniques. His initial solitary confinement was justified because he had been privy to classified information which the government had no idea of what was actually in the data dump. He could have disclosed the information verbally. Additionally, If he had been put into the general population awaiting trial at a military prison he would most likely faced the very real risk of suffering some bodily damage delivered by the other military prisoners who took exception to his alleged acts.
I don't know what Britain's motivations are but do you have any evidence the US is pressuring the British or Swedish in this case? I think the whole thing is ludicrous in the extreme so why is Sweden or Britain even bothering with the time and expense. The released data is water over the bridge and the actual release produce a spectacle but other than that the fallout has been almost zero. The only thing the US has done is review their data security protocols and the Ambassadors are being more careful on what they include in -mails and documents. Neither Sweden or the British are in a position to confront the US if Assange was snatched from them. Both Britain or Sweden couldn't prevent it. And before you say it, the often mentioned "International law" is a farce because it would require someone to actually enforce it and the last time I checked the most powerful countries in the world such as China and Russia have never pretended to acknowledge it's validity and I don't think this piddling issue will change their minds. The best thing would be for Britain and Sweden to drop the whole thing and let Assange go on his merry way. He would probably hate that to happen because he would lose the spotlight he seems to thrive upon.
If the US really wanted him they would already have him. The US government has already shown they really don't give a shit about him. He is not worth the bother. The guy is publicity hound so why oblige his narcissism and give him a bigger pulpit to preach his gospel? They got the person who allegedly stole the data off military computers which is clearly a civilian and military crime. The most Assange could have every really been charged with is receipt of stolen property. If it had been data stolen from the Russians and most likely China Assange would have already suffered some kind of fatal accident.
No, The cash flush oil industries have been sinking money into alternative fuel sources for quite some time. I am currently working for a company that provides engineering services to the biggest oil and gas pipelines in the US and they are already starting to design non-oil based fuels into their delivery systems. Systems which all the major oil companies currently rely on. Why should the oil companies want to impede alternative fuel delivery systems when they can just include the new sources with the existing? Oil based products will eventually start going down and these companies are the only ones who already have delivery systems in place. If electric or natural gas powered vehicles will never fully take off until they come up with a reliable distribution system. And these systems are expensive to build from scratch but oil companies already have delivery networks for both natural gas and various types of petroleum products in place.
And a program to detect asteroids is just one more space program that everyone is constantly saying we need but when this proposed project is announced all of a sudden it is labeled as some kind of conspiracy to spend money. You can't have it both ways. Who cares if they ever detect an asteroid the main thing is they are still willing to fund new space initiatives.
C++ is the one of the basic OO foundation languages and if you are going to claim that you are a well rounded developer you should at least be familiar with it. You don't need to be a guru but you should at least be familiar with some of it's concepts. It's been around forever and has shown no sign of being discarded. Almost all of the standard.NET reference assemblies were not developed in VB.NET or C# but in C++. And while you can certainly create your own assemblies using.NET it is those built in C++ assemblies that perform the best across the platform. When you need to build OS level components and software that interfaces with hardware based (HMI) applications.NET and even Java will often not do the job..NET's interop and un-managed code techniques can provide you with the functionality you need but a lot of those techniques are nothing but workarounds to help bypass the.NET run time layer. The same thing holds true for Java as well. Both basically add a translation layer between your code and the actual binary output. This architecture requires more over head and the developer can often lose some control over what the code is actually doing. Stack handling is just one area where.NET takes over your source code and does not end up managing the stack like you need it to. MS knows of theses basic weaknesses and have tried to alleviate some of the problems but they can't undo the basic methodology used in.NET. At one time.NET was touted as a type safe language but MS had to introduce delegates, support the unsafe struct support, enhanced reflection capabilities, and some other tricks to allow the developer to use untyped variables or methods in their code..NET inheritance is limited to single inheritance because it does not use the vtable architecture so they enhanced the interface functionality to compensate for the problem.
Oh it's perfectly legal in the state I live in and while I have not researched every state law regarding shooting someone breaking into your home I doubt you would even be charged. Someone breaking into my house at night would really regret it, for a few seconds at least. I do have your standard security system installed throughout the house but it really does nothing but notify the security company monitoring the system and they just call the police in case you are not able to. I only turn on the interior motion detectors when I go on a trip. One thing the alarm system doesn't do is make a lot of noise and start flashing red lights while shouting "Intruder Alert!" to scare the intruder. By the time the police got to the house the only thing they would be doing is calling the medical examiner to collect the corpse.
The unfortunate aspect of using native code is that a large percentage of developers today don't have a fucking clue about C++..NET was only feasible because of the advancement of the hardware needed to handle the.NET run time layer. However,.NET might use the terminology but it does not use the same native layer code implementations.. The GC, stack,heap management., and inheritance are just 4 examples of.NET using terminology found in C++ but it's actual OS implementation is very different from C++. Both VB and.NET were engineered to make application development easier and faster. VB created an explosion of developers which allowed novice developers a way to create programs. This resulted in the number of applications rising and increasing the reliance on the rest of the MS platform.
Just read a news paper, both domestic or international , watch TV, or search the Internet for your proof. All security related situations basically boil down to "damned if you do and damned if you don't". Its striking a balance between those two options that is hard.
Nobody has produced any verifiable proof that the US built Stuxnet. People use opinions instead of actual facts to make grandiose claims. As more people accept an opinion it magically turns into a fact. The US could be responsible but so could a lot of other countries. After all It was Russian contractors who plugged in the infected USB at the Iranian facility.
It is silly but whenever an incident does occur the same people complaining about airplane security overkill start screaming about the government not doing enough to protect them. And maybe incidents are rare today compared to the 70's but maybe that has something to do with the current security precautions. The main problem today is that the people who implement the security measures need to use a little more common sense when doing their jobs.
The US, English, and Russians all acquired German technology and the scientists to go along with it after WW2. Nobody started from scratch developing the rocket technology used to put people in orbit. You mentioned a lot of "firsts" but what have any of them did with their great inventions since then? A great deal of Russian space technology was rushed out because they didn't give a single solitary shit about the safety of those involved and even then the US could not afford to get away with throwing peoples lives away for the "state". The Russians put a man in orbit first and the US put people on the Moon (several times) so which achievement comes out on top?
The guy from Switzerland must have been working with Al Gore when he invented the Internet. The guy developed HTML not the Internet. It was DARPA who first built the infrastructure and the network communication protocols that eventually ended up morphing into today's Internet. I really am not a rah-rah go USA type of person but I have had a bad day and have reached the limit of BS I can stand from people denigrating and writing off US accomplishments. My greatest wish is for the US to close every single foreign military base, leave NATO, leave the UN, quit handing out foreign aid, and tear up any existing defense agreements with other countries. This is not isolationism it is just giving people what they are asking for. The US will have to deal with some problems from these actions but adjustments can be made. International commerce should be the only area that the government should engage in with other countries and most off that should be handled by the corporations or private individuals looking for foreign based trade opportunities. If a country finds themselves in a military pickle they can publicly and explicitly request US assistance and be prepared to receive an invoice with at least 50% due up front for any services rendered. Thankfully the US has already started letting the rest of the world deal with their own problems. People are claiming the US is losing power when in actuality they are just starting to not give a shit unless it directly involves US interests. People are fond of claiming China owns the US without ever mentioning that China relies on the US market for over a 1/3rd of their economy and they produce nothing the US cannot get somewhere else or produce domestically. They only own approximately 6% of all outstanding US bonds and treasury certificates and it is not a loan for them it is considered a safe investment. Syria, let them kill each other as long as they want. Egypt, the last thing they accomplished was building the pyramids so why worry about thier ongoing problems. That indifference goes for the entire Mideast and South Asian regions as well. Isreal, let them finish the job of eliminating their enemies without any interference. The UN Relief and Works Agency has been the biggest waste of money for the past 40 years so why continue spending money on it. Every country in the middle east and south Asian region thrives on killing one another so it's time we let them and if the US has to deal with any particular country for anything let it be with whoever happens to be in charge of the country at the time regardless of their pedigree. If anyone has a problem with that they are certainly free to spend their own time and money. People say the US lost the Iraq and Afghanistan wars but the US military accomplished their missions. Missions designed to give the Iraqis and Afghan's some breathing room to reorganize their governments and societies without Saddam Hussein or the Taliban killing anyone who disagreed with them. It was the citizens of those countries who squandered their opportunity to start building a better life. For a comparison just look at how Japan swallowed their considerable pride and used US assistance to rebuild their country after WW2 instead of running around setting up IED's and burning US flags. The Iraqi's started killing each other less than 2 days after the US left and no doubt the Afghans will do the sa
Linus was born in Finland but did the vast majority of his Linux work in the US. His family even moved to Portland, Oregon to be closer to the OSDL's Beaverton, Oregon location to do his work. As of 2006 he was only responsible for developing approximately 2% of the entire Linux OS. The kernel was developed using UNIX as the model to produce a version capable of using the different CPUs for things like the PC or phone CPUs and chip sets. He did great work but building a kernel does not make a OS, it provides the most important component but he is not 100% responsible for the Linux OS. His biggest contribution was increasing awareness of the Open Source model. He has did a lot of good work but Windows, Unix, and the Apple OS are the predominate OS systems in use today all over the world. People come to the US mainly because it offers the individual the opportunity to succeed using the resources available in the country. Most of the other countries in the world rely on stealing the technology developed in the US and re-branding it.
Nice stereotyping. Especially the scientific illiterate and fundamentalist nut job labels. The US, under any government, has been a world leader in technology advancements. For example, every major computer OS was developed in the US. The religious fundamentalists have been trying for 40+ years to over turn Roe vs Wade and failed. In actuality your far right and left stereotypes apply to a very small minority of people. Both the fringe hard Left and hard Right are experts all over the world when it comes to making headlines but when it comes down to actually doing something meaningful they have shown little success.
Well they have not blown anything up yet! But I think the capability should be available if needed. Better safe than sorry.
As far as funding goes the easiest way to get it is to pitch a project or line of research as having possible military related applications. Even if the claim stretches the truth you would find getting government funding a lot easier than just trying to obtain funding for pure science projects. The bumbling morons in Congress would only try and make sure if any project was funded the project would benefit their home jurisdictions in some way. Asking them to evaluate potential scientific benefits would be a waste of time. Even their "scientific advisers" are to political and often just as uninformed as those they are advising.
The space probes have displayed remarkable ingenuity. Sending software patches to one of the Mars probe is impressive to say the least. Hell, most people can't keep their own servers patched on their local networks let alone something 227 million km away. The Mars project and the Deep Space One probe are just two of the probe related missions. I don't remember hearing of any specific space project being canceled because lack of funding. A really cool project would be constructing a manned base on the moon. We could learn so much from just making that effort. It would take a long time to do but I think it is worth doing. Government R&D funding may shrink but there are other non-government related organizations who pay for R&D in hopes of creating something they can make money on. Plus there has been quite a few very wealthy individuals donating very large sums of money to R&D efforts in a number of fields. The funds are out there so you shouldn't just rely on the government for funding. Plus anytime the government gets involved it turns into a giant cluster fuck so if I was looking for funding they would not be my top choice.
The X-37 line of vehicles debunk the assertion that the US has giving up space technologies since they retired the old shuttles. The X-37 is also vastly cheaper with a 75% reduction in the turn around time when compared to the old shuttle. In essence they took all they learned from the old space shuttle program and applied the knowledge to build a new generation of re-usable space craft. The entire project is an US Air Force sponsored project to build a vehicle that is faster and much more maneuverable than the old shuttle. Imagine a vehicle capable of interdicting another countries satellite and either making changes to it's orbit or destroying it if needed. Ground based anti-satellite missiles or lasers can only destroy satellites in low orbits and any attempt would leave a trail back to whoever made the attack. The next step should be the construction of a totally new space station with docking abilities that can eliminate the costs associated with ground based launches. Reaching a desired orbit has always been the most expensive and dangerous part of the process.
What makes you think Fusion research is not being funded or actively being researched around the world? Until the science (ie. math) is deemed feasible off the blackboard why should the government throw 150B at them? And as far the space program goes why does nobody ever mention the US X3-B vehicles and derivative projects built using information collected from the old space shuttle program. There has has been a stealth capable unmanned reusable space shuttle in use for 2+ years with a manned version already being prototyped. Why should the US waste any more time and money playing delivery man to the ISS? Chances are good the US has already used the ISS project to gather, refine, and test certain technologies and processes so they can build an orbital satellite of their own capable of providing everything from human living quarters, labs, docking services, to serve as the starting point for orbital industry construction?
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Nobody has ever been forced to use Facebook. It is the people unwilling to take responsibility for their own choices and actions who are causing the problems. Zuckenberg and Gates both made a choice and took the risks that ultimately made them successful beyond measure. When you first start a business in hopes of achieving success you should totally invest yourself in that enterprise to achieve that success. As with MS, Facebook, Apple, or Google when do you decide to stop trying to achieve success just because you start making money? Do you reach a cut off point and then just start working for free? When society starts punishing success than you will see some real problems.
Because the oil and gas companies already have distribution and logistic systems in place. Plus solar panels can be described as risky when used to power critical systems. Home solar power use would require homeowners to spend quite a bit of money to convert. Just like alternative fuels for automobiles would require car owners to either purchase new cars capable of using bio-filters and natural gas as a power source. I honestly beleive there will come a time when oil use will decline but it will most likely take years to create a viable delivery infrastructure.
Users are just that, "Users". They are not pedantic wannabe security gurus who think they actually know what they are doing. They just want to run their applications. Most users have better things to do with their time than sitting around nitpicking obscure security issues, most of which can only be duplicated in a controlled lab environment using specifically defined steps. Those who talk about nothing but OS security vulnerabilities never seem to realize the purpose of an OS is for running applications. Some of the best software engineers and developers in the world working for MS, Apple, Google, IBM, or independent OS vendors have still been unable to provide perfect security. The sheer number of permutations of hardware, applications, and multi-OS versions and functionality is mind staggering. Add in your average web developer, poor system administrators, and other types of application developers guarantee perfect security will never exist. Sloppy system admins are also responsible for opening security holes through their half ass configuration and server management procedures. If you really want a secure system unplug your Internet connection, and disable your external media. On the corporate side invest your time on hardened firewalls and persistent system monitoring . Security and productivity require responsible trade offs. If you want 100% exploit free OS and applications you would most likely be looking at a 10+ year development cycle before any new features and applications get released. Even antivirus solutions or source code analytic tools only look for specific signatures to identify problems but they can only provide that type of protection after the exploit has already been discovered after the OS and applications has been released for use. Engineering malware using well know applications instead of creating one-off components makes it harder to ID rouge applications and exploits because they are basically hiding in plain site. And you are also very wrong about the documentation MS provides about creating secure applications. Both developers and users can access this information freely anytime they want.
The vast majority of any OS security exploits are caused by clueless users who click on any link in an email and of course application developers who don't know what the hell they are doing. Then there are the folks who consider themselves IT experts who modify security settings incorrectly, firewall configurations incorrectly. and user and program permission. Just running a 3rd party security scan on your code does not mean it is 100% secure. This is especially prevalent in the business world were the developers are pushed to produce reliable functionality on schedule while staying within the allotted project budget. Computers are for running applications and malware counts as an application when you get down to the 0's and 1's. The most recent Flame malware actually used well known components such as MySQL to convince the security scanners that malware is also a legitimate application. The Stuxnet malware had to rely on a couple of 0 day exploits and stealing security certificates from the companies that produced them. The average script kiddie or even an above average developer usually do not physically break into the actual offices to steal these types of certificates. If you really want to be exploit free unplug your Internet cable and never load programs using any external media devices that contain stuff that you know nothing about. If the Iranians had disabled the USB ports data and other external storage devices they might have never encountered the problem. Stuxnet required someone to physically implant the malware using external media such as an USB drive. Even drive by web infections could be prevented if the application developers did a better job when they built their applications I have used Windows since 3.0 (and hated it) Linux, and the Apple OS since the Apple 2 was introduced and have never been infected. Designing a 100% secure OS or application would result in application updates cycles taking years and cost a hell of a lot more than now.. It is always a trade off between providing reliable functionality in a timely manner and the amount of time spent to make something 100% bullet proof. Your average user is just not vigilante or capable enough when it comes to detecting problems.
Prove it. Backup your speculation without using more speculation from yourself or others. And while you do that I will give you something else to roll around in your head. The US knew where the drone went down and could have destroyed it using an armed drone strike, manned jet strike, spec op mission, or even a cruise missile if something important was built into it. Why didn't they? It's not like Iran could have stopped them or the US would give a damn about any Iranian sensibilities. It didn't go down in midtown Tehran. It went down less than a 50 miles from the border in the middle of nowhere. It doesn't make the news often but there have been at least 7+ unarmed military drones crash from either mechanical or operator error so the one that went down inside Iran is not a new thing. And plus the drone that did crash was unarmed (i.e no weapon guidance systems or intact ordinance) and are now being sold for civilian purposes both domestically and internationally. Iran could have probably purchased one using cutouts. And as far as the article goes they needed an unencrypted GPS signal and the Reaper or Predator series of drones encrypt the GPS signal. The drone that went down in Iran was little more than a flying camera used for surveillance.
Sure they investigated the incident in detail but besides Bradley who have they arrested? The CIA and military would have been derelict in their duty if they had not performed a thorough investigation. The analysts had to review the released data to determine exactly what was released and decide if any of it compromised anything important. This analysis also needed to be completed quickly and giving the volume of data using 120 people is pretty low number. And they also need to determine what security or procedural changes need to be made to prevent future incidents such as this. However, their research has produced no more charges or arrests and Bradley was already in custody before the investigation even got going.
Instead of uploading the data to Wiki leaks or any other similar site immediately he decided to confide in someone he exchanged e-mails and text messages with a few times. He really should have just sent the information to WIki Leaks or every news outlet in the world before telling anyone. Hiding his identity pretty easily using publicly accessible PCs from multiple locations or other anonymity techniques. His initial solitary confinement was justified because he had been privy to classified information which the government had no idea of what was actually in the data dump. He could have disclosed the information verbally. Additionally, If he had been put into the general population awaiting trial at a military prison he would most likely faced the very real risk of suffering some bodily damage delivered by the other military prisoners who took exception to his alleged acts.
I don't know what Britain's motivations are but do you have any evidence the US is pressuring the British or Swedish in this case? I think the whole thing is ludicrous in the extreme so why is Sweden or Britain even bothering with the time and expense. The released data is water over the bridge and the actual release produce a spectacle but other than that the fallout has been almost zero. The only thing the US has done is review their data security protocols and the Ambassadors are being more careful on what they include in -mails and documents. Neither Sweden or the British are in a position to confront the US if Assange was snatched from them. Both Britain or Sweden couldn't prevent it. And before you say it, the often mentioned "International law" is a farce because it would require someone to actually enforce it and the last time I checked the most powerful countries in the world such as China and Russia have never pretended to acknowledge it's validity and I don't think this piddling issue will change their minds. The best thing would be for Britain and Sweden to drop the whole thing and let Assange go on his merry way. He would probably hate that to happen because he would lose the spotlight he seems to thrive upon.
If the US really wanted him they would already have him. The US government has already shown they really don't give a shit about him. He is not worth the bother. The guy is publicity hound so why oblige his narcissism and give him a bigger pulpit to preach his gospel? They got the person who allegedly stole the data off military computers which is clearly a civilian and military crime. The most Assange could have every really been charged with is receipt of stolen property. If it had been data stolen from the Russians and most likely China Assange would have already suffered some kind of fatal accident.
No,
The cash flush oil industries have been sinking money into alternative fuel sources for quite some time. I am currently working for a company that provides engineering services to the biggest oil and gas pipelines in the US and they are already starting to design non-oil based fuels into their delivery systems. Systems which all the major oil companies currently rely on. Why should the oil companies want to impede alternative fuel delivery systems when they can just include the new sources with the existing? Oil based products will eventually start going down and these companies are the only ones who already have delivery systems in place. If electric or natural gas powered vehicles will never fully take off until they come up with a reliable distribution system. And these systems are expensive to build from scratch but oil companies already have delivery networks for both natural gas and various types of petroleum products in place.
And a program to detect asteroids is just one more space program that everyone is constantly saying we need but when this proposed project is announced all of a sudden it is labeled as some kind of conspiracy to spend money. You can't have it both ways. Who cares if they ever detect an asteroid the main thing is they are still willing to fund new space initiatives.
C++ is the one of the basic OO foundation languages and if you are going to claim that you are a well rounded developer you should at least be familiar with it. You don't need to be a guru but you should at least be familiar with some of it's concepts. It's been around forever and has shown no sign of being discarded. Almost all of the standard .NET reference assemblies were not developed in VB.NET or C# but in C++. And while you can certainly create your own assemblies using .NET it is those built in C++ assemblies that perform the best across the platform. When you need to build OS level components and software that interfaces with hardware based (HMI) applications .NET and even Java will often not do the job. .NET's interop and un-managed code techniques can provide you with the functionality you need but a lot of those techniques are nothing but workarounds to help bypass the .NET run time layer. The same thing holds true for Java as well. Both basically add a translation layer between your code and the actual binary output. This architecture requires more over head and the developer can often lose some control over what the code is actually doing. Stack handling is just one area where .NET takes over your source code and does not end up managing the stack like you need it to. MS knows of theses basic weaknesses and have tried to alleviate some of the problems but they can't undo the basic methodology used in .NET. At one time .NET was touted as a type safe language but MS had to introduce delegates, support the unsafe struct support, enhanced reflection capabilities, and some other tricks to allow the developer to use untyped variables or methods in their code. .NET inheritance is limited to single inheritance because it does not use the vtable architecture so they enhanced the interface functionality to compensate for the problem.
Oh it's perfectly legal in the state I live in and while I have not researched every state law regarding shooting someone breaking into your home I doubt you would even be charged. Someone breaking into my house at night would really regret it, for a few seconds at least. I do have your standard security system installed throughout the house but it really does nothing but notify the security company monitoring the system and they just call the police in case you are not able to. I only turn on the interior motion detectors when I go on a trip. One thing the alarm system doesn't do is make a lot of noise and start flashing red lights while shouting "Intruder Alert!" to scare the intruder. By the time the police got to the house the only thing they would be doing is calling the medical examiner to collect the corpse.
The unfortunate aspect of using native code is that a large percentage of developers today don't have a fucking clue about C++. .NET was only feasible because of the advancement of the hardware needed to handle the .NET run time layer. However, .NET might use the terminology but it does not use the same native layer code implementations.. The GC, stack ,heap management., and inheritance are just 4 examples of .NET using terminology found in C++ but it's actual OS implementation is very different from C++. Both VB and .NET were engineered to make application development easier and faster. VB created an explosion of developers which allowed novice developers a way to create programs. This resulted in the number of applications rising and increasing the reliance on the rest of the MS platform.
"If someone breaks into your home, you should be able to break into their home."
But you can just shoot someone breaking into your home.
Just read a news paper, both domestic or international , watch TV, or search the Internet for your proof. All security related situations basically boil down to "damned if you do and damned if you don't". Its striking a balance between those two options that is hard.
Nobody has produced any verifiable proof that the US built Stuxnet. People use opinions instead of actual facts to make grandiose claims. As more people accept an opinion it magically turns into a fact. The US could be responsible but so could a lot of other countries. After all It was Russian contractors who plugged in the infected USB at the Iranian facility.
It is silly but whenever an incident does occur the same people complaining about airplane security overkill start screaming about the government not doing enough to protect them. And maybe incidents are rare today compared to the 70's but maybe that has something to do with the current security precautions. The main problem today is that the people who implement the security measures need to use a little more common sense when doing their jobs.
All undercover TSA agents and any armed pilots use ammunition specifically designed to not rupture the hull.
The US, English, and Russians all acquired German technology and the scientists to go along with it after WW2. Nobody started from scratch developing the rocket technology used to put people in orbit. You mentioned a lot of "firsts" but what have any of them did with their great inventions since then? A great deal of Russian space technology was rushed out because they didn't give a single solitary shit about the safety of those involved and even then the US could not afford to get away with throwing peoples lives away for the "state". The Russians put a man in orbit first and the US put people on the Moon (several times) so which achievement comes out on top?
The guy from Switzerland must have been working with Al Gore when he invented the Internet. The guy developed HTML not the Internet. It was DARPA who first built the infrastructure and the network communication protocols that eventually ended up morphing into today's Internet. I really am not a rah-rah go USA type of person but I have had a bad day and have reached the limit of BS I can stand from people denigrating and writing off US accomplishments. My greatest wish is for the US to close every single foreign military base, leave NATO, leave the UN, quit handing out foreign aid, and tear up any existing defense agreements with other countries. This is not isolationism it is just giving people what they are asking for. The US will have to deal with some problems from these actions but adjustments can be made. International commerce should be the only area that the government should engage in with other countries and most off that should be handled by the corporations or private individuals looking for foreign based trade opportunities. If a country finds themselves in a military pickle they can publicly and explicitly request US assistance and be prepared to receive an invoice with at least 50% due up front for any services rendered. Thankfully the US has already started letting the rest of the world deal with their own problems. People are claiming the US is losing power when in actuality they are just starting to not give a shit unless it directly involves US interests. People are fond of claiming China owns the US without ever mentioning that China relies on the US market for over a 1/3rd of their economy and they produce nothing the US cannot get somewhere else or produce domestically. They only own approximately 6% of all outstanding US bonds and treasury certificates and it is not a loan for them it is considered a safe investment. Syria, let them kill each other as long as they want. Egypt, the last thing they accomplished was building the pyramids so why worry about thier ongoing problems. That indifference goes for the entire Mideast and South Asian regions as well. Isreal, let them finish the job of eliminating their enemies without any interference. The UN Relief and Works Agency has been the biggest waste of money for the past 40 years so why continue spending money on it. Every country in the middle east and south Asian region thrives on killing one another so it's time we let them and if the US has to deal with any particular country for anything let it be with whoever happens to be in charge of the country at the time regardless of their pedigree. If anyone has a problem with that they are certainly free to spend their own time and money. People say the US lost the Iraq and Afghanistan wars but the US military accomplished their missions. Missions designed to give the Iraqis and Afghan's some breathing room to reorganize their governments and societies without Saddam Hussein or the Taliban killing anyone who disagreed with them. It was the citizens of those countries who squandered their opportunity to start building a better life. For a comparison just look at how Japan swallowed their considerable pride and used US assistance to rebuild their country after WW2 instead of running around setting up IED's and burning US flags. The Iraqi's started killing each other less than 2 days after the US left and no doubt the Afghans will do the sa
Linus was born in Finland but did the vast majority of his Linux work in the US. His family even moved to Portland, Oregon to be closer to the OSDL's Beaverton, Oregon location to do his work. As of 2006 he was only responsible for developing approximately 2% of the entire Linux OS. The kernel was developed using UNIX as the model to produce a version capable of using the different CPUs for things like the PC or phone CPUs and chip sets. He did great work but building a kernel does not make a OS, it provides the most important component but he is not 100% responsible for the Linux OS. His biggest contribution was increasing awareness of the Open Source model. He has did a lot of good work but Windows, Unix, and the Apple OS are the predominate OS systems in use today all over the world. People come to the US mainly because it offers the individual the opportunity to succeed using the resources available in the country. Most of the other countries in the world rely on stealing the technology developed in the US and re-branding it.
Nice stereotyping. Especially the scientific illiterate and fundamentalist nut job labels. The US, under any government, has been a world leader in technology advancements. For example, every major computer OS was developed in the US. The religious fundamentalists have been trying for 40+ years to over turn Roe vs Wade and failed. In actuality your far right and left stereotypes apply to a very small minority of people. Both the fringe hard Left and hard Right are experts all over the world when it comes to making headlines but when it comes down to actually doing something meaningful they have shown little success.
Well they have not blown anything up yet! But I think the capability should be available if needed. Better safe than sorry.
As far as funding goes the easiest way to get it is to pitch a project or line of research as having possible military related applications. Even if the claim stretches the truth you would find getting government funding a lot easier than just trying to obtain funding for pure science projects. The bumbling morons in Congress would only try and make sure if any project was funded the project would benefit their home jurisdictions in some way. Asking them to evaluate potential scientific benefits would be a waste of time. Even their "scientific advisers" are to political and often just as uninformed as those they are advising.
The space probes have displayed remarkable ingenuity. Sending software patches to one of the Mars probe is impressive to say the least. Hell, most people can't keep their own servers patched on their local networks let alone something 227 million km away. The Mars project and the Deep Space One probe are just two of the probe related missions. I don't remember hearing of any specific space project being canceled because lack of funding. A really cool project would be constructing a manned base on the moon. We could learn so much from just making that effort. It would take a long time to do but I think it is worth doing. Government R&D funding may shrink but there are other non-government related organizations who pay for R&D in hopes of creating something they can make money on. Plus there has been quite a few very wealthy individuals donating very large sums of money to R&D efforts in a number of fields. The funds are out there so you shouldn't just rely on the government for funding. Plus anytime the government gets involved it turns into a giant cluster fuck so if I was looking for funding they would not be my top choice.
The X-37 line of vehicles debunk the assertion that the US has giving up space technologies since they retired the old shuttles. The X-37 is also vastly cheaper with a 75% reduction in the turn around time when compared to the old shuttle. In essence they took all they learned from the old space shuttle program and applied the knowledge to build a new generation of re-usable space craft. The entire project is an US Air Force sponsored project to build a vehicle that is faster and much more maneuverable than the old shuttle. Imagine a vehicle capable of interdicting another countries satellite and either making changes to it's orbit or destroying it if needed. Ground based anti-satellite missiles or lasers can only destroy satellites in low orbits and any attempt would leave a trail back to whoever made the attack. The next step should be the construction of a totally new space station with docking abilities that can eliminate the costs associated with ground based launches. Reaching a desired orbit has always been the most expensive and dangerous part of the process.
What makes you think Fusion research is not being funded or actively being researched around the world? Until the science (ie. math) is deemed feasible off the blackboard why should the government throw 150B at them? And as far the space program goes why does nobody ever mention the US X3-B vehicles and derivative projects built using information collected from the old space shuttle program. There has has been a stealth capable unmanned reusable space shuttle in use for 2+ years with a manned version already being prototyped. Why should the US waste any more time and money playing delivery man to the ISS? Chances are good the US has already used the ISS project to gather, refine, and test certain technologies and processes so they can build an orbital satellite of their own capable of providing everything from human living quarters, labs, docking services, to serve as the starting point for orbital industry construction?
You really need some serious anger management therapy and some reality injected into your life.
That's because you must be an idiot.