Perhaps I'm the one who's reality impaired? [grin]
I dunno, man. Full POST, 8GB RAM, four HDs (about 4.2 TB), PCI NIC; seven-second timeout on GRUB menu; I've only turned off a few obvious services/daemons, running Ubuntu 11.04 Unity with mid-road effects, BOINC, and a weather widget. I s'pose I could check a few logs and find out what's what, but frankly my desire to spend much time under the hood is generally eclipsed by my wont to press or click and do what I want. Works for me; never claimed to be a wonk. If my looooong boots become a saddle burr I reckon I'll deal with it. [yeah, full POST and verbose boot - I like to see what's going on. A few times something's caught my eye to look into; I'm one the those nuts who often as not watches movie credits.]
Congrats on your zippy boot times. I looked briefly at Bodhi a while back along the way to doing something else and keep forgetting to go back and spend more time with it 'cuz it seemed interesting - it's on my list, somewhere.
Btw, your last sentence, while I got the drift, was just plain mean. I mean that in the nicest way, of course. And no, I run no virtual machines at boot just now. I run virts for testing, program compatibility, and assorted sundries.
Yup. I guess that's my point, tho: there are possibles we can surmise, those we can imagine, and those we haven't concepts for to be put into words - in some fashion it's wide open.
Question remains, of course: will we (whoever we may be) be free? Of what? From whom? To do or be what?
I can easily dig a fair degree of cynicism and mordancy - at 64, some of the current crap, just like even the little historic crap I've lived through, is wearing. OTOH, there are many interesting and good people doing interesting and good things. [cf. Shaw's def of a cynic, perhaps by way of Ambrose Bierce]
I've been involved here and there with similar discussions; they bring to mind a graffito I first saw in a stall in a second-floor men's room at MSU library circa '68:
Um, guys, interesting 'discussion.' I like ping pong and all. Can't help but see a tad much either-or stuff going on, tho. Are there other possibles? For that matter, what of scope? The Singularity, or whathaveyou? Where and what and who will our species be or become, should we prosper, in 10k years? 100k?
I suppose if there's one constant in the thread it's that people will try to be free of irksome constraints.
Buckminster Fuller once mused that if indeed there was some purpose for intelligence in Universe that it might be to counteract entropy. He didn't claim it to be so, but thought it interesting enough to be going on with.
While I try to be mindful of energy consumption, I've been using spare CPU time for World Community Grid since Christmas '04, on a Celeron-A 533MHz half-Gig of RAM running '98 and later XP Home; boot time with fast POST circa three minutes to working desktop. Re-boots needed for driver, AV, software firewall, and OS updates, or to 'fix' something I'd screwed up trying to 'improve' things.
Longest average boots were on an early quad-core sys ~1.8 GHz 8GB RAM Vista Premium 64-bit - average 3:30.
Current sys hexa-core 3.2GHz, same memory, Ubuntu 64-bit, same HD, average around 1:45. With power saving mode the CPU lets me use three cores for the grid at full speed, the other three idle at 800 MHz. With a TDP of 125 Watts, I dunno what it's pulling, but I rarely load it fully. Reboots for kernel update, physical changes, vacuuming, and fixing stuff I upscrew. Also, reboots to auto-magically fix whatever it is that goes wonky whenever X, Wine, video driver, or Steam updates. Otherwise the beast stays up except for local power failures; I've shut down a few times for an hour or so to let strong thunderstorms pass by.
I guesstimate my sys uses about as much juice as most TV sets, a tad more when loaded up.
I'm very glad to never having had to endure work-inflicted cruft - my own tinkering with services, settings, and "lets try this nifty program" has made things interesting enough.
Oh, yeah, my fastest boots were on an Atari 800, my Atari STs or on the old Celeron using Puppy Linux. In fairness, even with all the fancy fast new machinery, modern desktop installs have a lot more work to do, methinks.
Boots now take around the same time as it takes to nuke a cup of coffee, so it works out about right for me.
Mid-Seventies, some friends and I had a few companies for cleaning sewers and pumping septics, also did repairs and installs. Often enough had to use an "industry-grade" metal detector (about the size of a HAF 932 and weighing ~seventy pounds - sure glad it was the 'portable' model) to find water and gas pipes; for clay had to run our snakes into the line.... A fun time for all.
In '67 whilst working for GenTel Wisconsin plowing feeders [average plow depth ~4'] and trenching drops we cut a main [around 120-pair] line from Milwaukee to Madison. No one was happy. Dug out the break, carved out a seat for the splicer, put up a sunshade. Not the most fun we had, but close. Not our fault, as it turned out: the charts were wrong, and the info on them was wrong as well.
It's nice to know that those in charge of building the United States' very own Gestapo are also security experts. Too bad they're so good at the first task and so lousy at the second.
And you're right. You were there, your education is complete.
"....no basis in reality."
Yup, as in fuel from biomass and farm excreta (methane, if you're interested,) windpower, fuel cells, a hydrogen economy, using waste fryer oil to power farm equipment (well, that's minor, but at least it wasn't getting dumped in the sewer or 'out back,' and it was fun doing the conversion,) intercropping and crop rotation, contour plowing, and on to observance of the Bill of Rights and other amendments, agitating in favor of clean air, water, and land, open government, and a bunch of other "un-American" activities and pursuits.
You are right about one thing: many of those of my cohort now in power had little to do with, or actively resisted or opposed, unimportant, unreal things such as voter registration, minority rights, desegregation, migrant labor reform, equal pay, and a slew of other things with no basis in reality.
I recognize a few here and there, the pundits, those in government, in think tanks - they're still the same assholes they were forty and more years ago. Well, they have some power, and most of them, more money, so I guess that makes them right.
I understand that reading the OP tripped a trigger. In your place, I'd might could feel, and react, the same. The AC is also maybe understandable, given all the Grundies extant.
Before anything else, I gotta say that textbooks have always been over-priced, even allowing for the real costs associated with them. It's a racket, no matter how much the publishers claim that small-market book costs must be borne onto more widespread basic texts. That discussion predates my student days in the mid-Sixties. If the profs do make a buck or two, more power to them. (I'd like to take the course, but I won't be able to save enough for the books by the time class starts.)
(Hmm. Basic econ. Thing is, most of what passes for econ is seriously flawed, IMHO. Classic econ is part of the mechanism whereby we arrived at the recent debt ceiling theatre whilst all kinds nefarious anti-American laws were being passed - warrantless wire taps being but one.)
Real and societal costs, let's see. I attended a megaversity circa mid-Sixties on a Merit funded via the U.S. Army, so all my fellow taxpayers paid for me to go to school. It was a gamble. In my case, they lost. In many others (around 350, at my school,) they gained - a net gain to society. I submit that publicly-funded scholars tend to contribute in larger measure than those never afforded the opportunity. Upon examination, and historically, societies tend to recognize that investment in infrastructure is a good thing over time - and education is the bedrock for all else, not excepting direct personal effort in communal activities, of which education is already a part - known as child rearing. Education - that is, the drawing out, the exposure of minds to things larger, and, in the company of fellows, the potential for synergistic effects, is indispensible to a given society's survival, and is as basic a need and function as agriculture or manufacturing.
For your consideration, if even ten minds of the ten thousand are sparked to eventual accomplishment, then what price the putative loss of one or two students at ~50K/year against the gain? I dunno - you've a valid complaint, if it's borne out, but I'm gonna withhold judgement for now.
Meanwhile, cheers, and keep on truckin.' If you can find but one student a year whose steel rewards your flint, you've earned your wage and done your soul proud as well.
From circa '95 'til 2000 I polled an adhoc universe on the simple question of when the Millenium would arrive. Out of perhaps 500, eight or nine got it right. [sigh] When otherwise supposed grownups can't even count to ten, just what hope is there?
Unintentional or no, the American people have been derelict in their duty, since the days we turned the factories from tanks and machine guns towards cars and refrigerators. Every generation has gotten worse. Part of what I saw since grade school in the Fifties was the denigration of the slightest attempt by anyone to learn anything. One might show a guy how to lace up a glove or throw a curveball, but don't ever make the mistake of raising your hand in class. It just ain't right.
This one article by itself is excellent; there have been sufficient others in recent years. Or, of course, one could read law, an exercise I cannot recommend even thought one might have the time and the stomach for it. Things have gotten seriously that bad. (I know. I had to become expert viz. copyright regarding software lending libraries circa '90)
I apologize for not reading all of the comments, some of them sure to cogent and on point, and certainly more insightful and learned than this, but I'm tired of obvious patents, of ignored prior-art patents, of too few examiners with far too little knowledge, smarts, or experience to do a fair job; I'm tired of the notion that a logical or extensible notion is somehow patentable, or even that even individual genes are patentable. I'm tired of the political, economic, and intellectual corruption.
If one invents a better mousetrap one might possibly earn a patent - none of this "....but, if we strap on another couple of solid rocket boosters we can patent the fooker and make money whether we ever launch it or not." For this kind of crap and all else, fuck off. I've been watching this shit for fifty years and it's been going steadily downhill to the detriment of us all, excepting the oligarchs and allied assholes and their smarmy confederates in Congress.
Please forgive my language. I've either had too much Guinness or not nearly enough.
"By controlling the showers you can stop people from F-ing around during lockdown...[sic]"
Sorry, that's just plain wrong.
By definition, during lockdown there is no one in the showers. A lockdown is precisely that: all prisoners are in their assigned, locked cells, no exceptions.
Pod COs as a rule do not break up fights. They call the ready force (usually fellow pod officers who lock down their own spaces and come running; the only times I've seen the "tac squad" appear was to remove a prisoner from his cell - sometimes via multiple Taser hits and a restraint board. Generally, there are no fights, per se.
The only two I saw were scuffles where the CO came around his desk, went into the showers (no cameras there, btw), once with taser in hand, and either told the guys to quit or asked if they wanted some juice. The participants were later sent to isolation aka detention cells.
This was all in max. at a county lockup. Second best pod in the place, excepting maybe the trusty pod.
To the original point, where I was all functions were or could be controlled from central command; any control station could issue emergency stuff; pod stations generally did the daily stuff. All access to and from any space was done by request to central.
As for hacking the sys, sure, why not? What I saw would need human factor to get the requisite thumb drives to one or more relevant control stations. Have no idea what Internet entry might be possible, but inasmuch as I've known several COs to check their email from the pod station, that might could offer a vector.
Paul Fisher, using over a million from his company and his own pocket, had the pen developed for space flight. A side benefit of the pen was that on Earth it writes upside-down and on damp or greasy surfaces. Pens were sold to NASA, and the Soviets bought a hundred or so.
While Fisher Pen Company's initial ad copy was dis-approved by NASA, the versions you see today were later approved when the pens were used on flights as part of standard kit and are used off-planet today.
I've spent too many years reading about crap like this; too many years knowing the USPTO is staffed with over-worked cretins without a clue, and a Congress that does its very bestest as money can buy to keep its collective head up where the Sun doesn't shine. I'm starting tp be more and more glad that I'm nearing the end of my life.
Yeah, and in the meanwhile Lulzsec, et alia, get the (FUD, hype) press whilst our solons enact yet more Draconian edicts. Sheesh. The real sufferers will be we citizens stuck with all the various consequences.
Yeah, that. Same here. I watched all the unsuccessful Vanguard launches, the Jupiter/Juno Explorer-1 launch, with a sense of awe, frustration, and impatience. (CBS was the only network that consistently gave full, live coverage.) For years I'd read whatever I could lay my hands on about the science, engineering, the dreams - fact and fiction - that related to us exploring and moving a portion of humanity off-planet.
With the passing of STS the U.S. has no man-rated systems. We have no heavy-lift designed, rated, and certified to deliver anything to the ISS. We can't even help take out the garbage or provide lifeboats. We're reduced to hiring a taxi to orbit.
The U.S. Army had a plan in 1959 for a manned moon colony to be partially staffed by 1965 and fully operational by 1969. (Von Braun and most of the others worked for the Army; what became the Saturn series was initially designed at Redstone Arsenal.)
Moon colonies, initially for mining and research and taking the high ground, asteroid mining, L-5 colonies, solar power satellites, expeditions (with follow-on colonies) to Mars and other interesting, useful places, Terra-forming: all unrealized, all, essentially, dead. (For an interesting take on SPS, see "Lime's Crisis." It'll never happen; the Saudis simply aren't smart enough, and their politics would forbid it.)
One hates to see the last of one's dreams die before them.
Hope, I suppose, still persists. There _are_ visionary, competent people working on things - SpaceX, Bigelow, Branson (you just know, by the twinkle in his eyes, that he wants to walk on the moon) and many others. The ESA is looking to man-rate their ATV; China, Japan, and others are proceeding apace, with some interesting projects in the works.
Yet I fret. Earth's population has almost trebled in my lifetime. If I last to the rosy end of the actuary table, it will double again. I fear that if we do not now make a concerted, consistent effort to deploy self-sustaining colonies that it will never happen. Not, at least, until a resurgence of will and understanding and capability 500 or 1000 years hence, presuming the race survives. The sheer combined weight of resource demands and rulers' and the public's self-enforced willful ignorance, stupidity and apathy doom not just our dreams but our long-term survival.
Last I looked, smoking anything is not good for one.
Back in the '70s, last I partook, we were running the weed through a blender and adding the powder to lots of foods; great with Jello, salad dressing, baked goods, gravies, whatever your taste buds will enjoy or withstand.:)
Takes considerably more boo to cop a high but lasts longer and can be more.... profound.
Slashdot Mirror
How many people they fuck over per year?
That might liven up the morning biz reports....
Perhaps I'm the one who's reality impaired? [grin]
I dunno, man. Full POST, 8GB RAM, four HDs (about 4.2 TB), PCI NIC; seven-second timeout on GRUB menu; I've only turned off a few obvious services/daemons, running Ubuntu 11.04 Unity with mid-road effects, BOINC, and a weather widget. I s'pose I could check a few logs and find out what's what, but frankly my desire to spend much time under the hood is generally eclipsed by my wont to press or click and do what I want. Works for me; never claimed to be a wonk. If my looooong boots become a saddle burr I reckon I'll deal with it. [yeah, full POST and verbose boot - I like to see what's going on. A few times something's caught my eye to look into; I'm one the those nuts who often as not watches movie credits.]
Congrats on your zippy boot times. I looked briefly at Bodhi a while back along the way to doing something else and keep forgetting to go back and spend more time with it 'cuz it seemed interesting - it's on my list, somewhere.
Btw, your last sentence, while I got the drift, was just plain mean. I mean that in the nicest way, of course. And no, I run no virtual machines at boot just now. I run virts for testing, program compatibility, and assorted sundries.
Yup. I guess that's my point, tho: there are possibles we can surmise, those we can imagine, and those we haven't concepts for to be put into words - in some fashion it's wide open.
Question remains, of course: will we (whoever we may be) be free? Of what? From whom? To do or be what?
I can easily dig a fair degree of cynicism and mordancy - at 64, some of the current crap, just like even the little historic crap I've lived through, is wearing. OTOH, there are many interesting and good people doing interesting and good things. [cf. Shaw's def of a cynic, perhaps by way of Ambrose Bierce]
I've been involved here and there with similar discussions; they bring to mind a graffito I first saw in a stall in a second-floor men's room at MSU library circa '68:
To be is to do.
- Socrates
To do is to be.
- Descartes
Do be do be do.
- Sinatra
Um, guys, interesting 'discussion.' I like ping pong and all. Can't help but see a tad much either-or stuff going on, tho. Are there other possibles? For that matter, what of scope? The Singularity, or whathaveyou? Where and what and who will our species be or become, should we prosper, in 10k years? 100k?
I suppose if there's one constant in the thread it's that people will try to be free of irksome constraints.
Buckminster Fuller once mused that if indeed there was some purpose for intelligence in Universe that it might be to counteract entropy. He didn't claim it to be so, but thought it interesting enough to be going on with.
Cheers.
Cute. Thanks for the laugh.
Simple decision: wipe the drive. Donate. The donee will do as they wish.
While I try to be mindful of energy consumption, I've been using spare CPU time for World Community Grid since Christmas '04, on a Celeron-A 533MHz half-Gig of RAM running '98 and later XP Home; boot time with fast POST circa three minutes to working desktop. Re-boots needed for driver, AV, software firewall, and OS updates, or to 'fix' something I'd screwed up trying to 'improve' things.
Longest average boots were on an early quad-core sys ~1.8 GHz 8GB RAM Vista Premium 64-bit - average 3:30.
Current sys hexa-core 3.2GHz, same memory, Ubuntu 64-bit, same HD, average around 1:45. With power saving mode the CPU lets me use three cores for the grid at full speed, the other three idle at 800 MHz. With a TDP of 125 Watts, I dunno what it's pulling, but I rarely load it fully. Reboots for kernel update, physical changes, vacuuming, and fixing stuff I upscrew. Also, reboots to auto-magically fix whatever it is that goes wonky whenever X, Wine, video driver, or Steam updates. Otherwise the beast stays up except for local power failures; I've shut down a few times for an hour or so to let strong thunderstorms pass by.
I guesstimate my sys uses about as much juice as most TV sets, a tad more when loaded up.
I'm very glad to never having had to endure work-inflicted cruft - my own tinkering with services, settings, and "lets try this nifty program" has made things interesting enough.
Oh, yeah, my fastest boots were on an Atari 800, my Atari STs or on the old Celeron using Puppy Linux. In fairness, even with all the fancy fast new machinery, modern desktop installs have a lot more work to do, methinks.
Boots now take around the same time as it takes to nuke a cup of coffee, so it works out about right for me.
Bummer, man.
Mid-Seventies, some friends and I had a few companies for cleaning sewers and pumping septics, also did repairs and installs. Often enough had to use an "industry-grade" metal detector (about the size of a HAF 932 and weighing ~seventy pounds - sure glad it was the 'portable' model) to find water and gas pipes; for clay had to run our snakes into the line.... A fun time for all.
Glad you got things straightened out.
In '67 whilst working for GenTel Wisconsin plowing feeders [average plow depth ~4'] and trenching drops we cut a main [around 120-pair] line from Milwaukee to Madison. No one was happy. Dug out the break, carved out a seat for the splicer, put up a sunshade. Not the most fun we had, but close. Not our fault, as it turned out: the charts were wrong, and the info on them was wrong as well.
It's nice to know that those in charge of building the United States' very own Gestapo are also security experts. Too bad they're so good at the first task and so lousy at the second.
And you're right. You were there, your education is complete.
"....no basis in reality."
Yup, as in fuel from biomass and farm excreta (methane, if you're interested,) windpower, fuel cells, a hydrogen economy, using waste fryer oil to power farm equipment (well, that's minor, but at least it wasn't getting dumped in the sewer or 'out back,' and it was fun doing the conversion,) intercropping and crop rotation, contour plowing, and on to observance of the Bill of Rights and other amendments, agitating in favor of clean air, water, and land, open government, and a bunch of other "un-American" activities and pursuits.
You are right about one thing: many of those of my cohort now in power had little to do with, or actively resisted or opposed, unimportant, unreal things such as voter registration, minority rights, desegregation, migrant labor reform, equal pay, and a slew of other things with no basis in reality.
I recognize a few here and there, the pundits, those in government, in think tanks - they're still the same assholes they were forty and more years ago. Well, they have some power, and most of them, more money, so I guess that makes them right.
"All the elegance of C++...."
Thank you, first good laugh all day. And my keyboard thanks me, that I'd already swallowed my coffee before reading that far.
I understand that reading the OP tripped a trigger. In your place, I'd might could feel, and react, the same. The AC is also maybe understandable, given all the Grundies extant.
Before anything else, I gotta say that textbooks have always been over-priced, even allowing for the real costs associated with them. It's a racket, no matter how much the publishers claim that small-market book costs must be borne onto more widespread basic texts. That discussion predates my student days in the mid-Sixties. If the profs do make a buck or two, more power to them. (I'd like to take the course, but I won't be able to save enough for the books by the time class starts.)
(Hmm. Basic econ. Thing is, most of what passes for econ is seriously flawed, IMHO. Classic econ is part of the mechanism whereby we arrived at the recent debt ceiling theatre whilst all kinds nefarious anti-American laws were being passed - warrantless wire taps being but one.)
Real and societal costs, let's see. I attended a megaversity circa mid-Sixties on a Merit funded via the U.S. Army, so all my fellow taxpayers paid for me to go to school. It was a gamble. In my case, they lost. In many others (around 350, at my school,) they gained - a net gain to society. I submit that publicly-funded scholars tend to contribute in larger measure than those never afforded the opportunity. Upon examination, and historically, societies tend to recognize that investment in infrastructure is a good thing over time - and education is the bedrock for all else, not excepting direct personal effort in communal activities, of which education is already a part - known as child rearing. Education - that is, the drawing out, the exposure of minds to things larger, and, in the company of fellows, the potential for synergistic effects, is indispensible to a given society's survival, and is as basic a need and function as agriculture or manufacturing.
For your consideration, if even ten minds of the ten thousand are sparked to eventual accomplishment, then what price the putative loss of one or two students at ~50K/year against the gain? I dunno - you've a valid complaint, if it's borne out, but I'm gonna withhold judgement for now.
Meanwhile, cheers, and keep on truckin.' If you can find but one student a year whose steel rewards your flint, you've earned your wage and done your soul proud as well.
I'm glad you can still maintain hope.
From circa '95 'til 2000 I polled an adhoc universe on the simple question of when the Millenium would arrive. Out of perhaps 500, eight or nine got it right. [sigh] When otherwise supposed grownups can't even count to ten, just what hope is there?
"By reveling in their own ignorance...."
Yarderhey.
Unintentional or no, the American people have been derelict in their duty, since the days we turned the factories from tanks and machine guns towards cars and refrigerators. Every generation has gotten worse. Part of what I saw since grade school in the Fifties was the denigration of the slightest attempt by anyone to learn anything. One might show a guy how to lace up a glove or throw a curveball, but don't ever make the mistake of raising your hand in class. It just ain't right.
Exactly.
This one article by itself is excellent; there have been sufficient others in recent years. Or, of course, one could read law, an exercise I cannot recommend even thought one might have the time and the stomach for it. Things have gotten seriously that bad. (I know. I had to become expert viz. copyright regarding software lending libraries circa '90)
I apologize for not reading all of the comments, some of them sure to cogent and on point, and certainly more insightful and learned than this, but I'm tired of obvious patents, of ignored prior-art patents, of too few examiners with far too little knowledge, smarts, or experience to do a fair job; I'm tired of the notion that a logical or extensible notion is somehow patentable, or even that even individual genes are patentable. I'm tired of the political, economic, and intellectual corruption.
If one invents a better mousetrap one might possibly earn a patent - none of this "....but, if we strap on another couple of solid rocket boosters we can patent the fooker and make money whether we ever launch it or not." For this kind of crap and all else, fuck off. I've been watching this shit for fifty years and it's been going steadily downhill to the detriment of us all, excepting the oligarchs and allied assholes and their smarmy confederates in Congress.
Please forgive my language. I've either had too much Guinness or not nearly enough.
"By controlling the showers you can stop people from F-ing around during lockdown...[sic]"
Sorry, that's just plain wrong.
By definition, during lockdown there is no one in the showers. A lockdown is precisely that: all prisoners are in their assigned, locked cells, no exceptions.
Pod COs as a rule do not break up fights. They call the ready force (usually fellow pod officers who lock down their own spaces and come running; the only times I've seen the "tac squad" appear was to remove a prisoner from his cell - sometimes via multiple Taser hits and a restraint board. Generally, there are no fights, per se.
The only two I saw were scuffles where the CO came around his desk, went into the showers (no cameras there, btw), once with taser in hand, and either told the guys to quit or asked if they wanted some juice. The participants were later sent to isolation aka detention cells.
This was all in max. at a county lockup. Second best pod in the place, excepting maybe the trusty pod.
To the original point, where I was all functions were or could be controlled from central command; any control station could issue emergency stuff; pod stations generally did the daily stuff. All access to and from any space was done by request to central.
As for hacking the sys, sure, why not? What I saw would need human factor to get the requisite thumb drives to one or more relevant control stations. Have no idea what Internet entry might be possible, but inasmuch as I've known several COs to check their email from the pod station, that might could offer a vector.
And it really, really, works.
Paul Fisher, using over a million from his company and his own pocket, had the pen developed for space flight. A side benefit of the pen was that on Earth it writes upside-down and on damp or greasy surfaces. Pens were sold to NASA, and the Soviets bought a hundred or so.
While Fisher Pen Company's initial ad copy was dis-approved by NASA, the versions you see today were later approved when the pens were used on flights as part of standard kit and are used off-planet today.
What you said.
I've spent too many years reading about crap like this; too many years knowing the USPTO is staffed with over-worked cretins without a clue, and a Congress that does its very bestest as money can buy to keep its collective head up where the Sun doesn't shine. I'm starting tp be more and more glad that I'm nearing the end of my life.
Yeah, and in the meanwhile Lulzsec, et alia, get the (FUD, hype) press whilst our solons enact yet more Draconian edicts. Sheesh. The real sufferers will be we citizens stuck with all the various consequences.
Thanks for the good information.
Sounds like way too much fun.
Has some interesting, useful stuff, from basic to about as free-wheelingly complicated as you'd like. Nice bit about customizing The Gimp.
"I don't know why I'm posting, except...."
Yeah, that. Same here. I watched all the unsuccessful Vanguard launches, the Jupiter/Juno Explorer-1 launch, with a sense of awe, frustration, and impatience. (CBS was the only network that consistently gave full, live coverage.) For years I'd read whatever I could lay my hands on about the science, engineering, the dreams - fact and fiction - that related to us exploring and moving a portion of humanity off-planet.
With the passing of STS the U.S. has no man-rated systems. We have no heavy-lift designed, rated, and certified to deliver anything to the ISS. We can't even help take out the garbage or provide lifeboats. We're reduced to hiring a taxi to orbit.
The U.S. Army had a plan in 1959 for a manned moon colony to be partially staffed by 1965 and fully operational by 1969. (Von Braun and most of the others worked for the Army; what became the Saturn series was initially designed at Redstone Arsenal.)
Moon colonies, initially for mining and research and taking the high ground, asteroid mining, L-5 colonies, solar power satellites, expeditions (with follow-on colonies) to Mars and other interesting, useful places, Terra-forming: all unrealized, all, essentially, dead. (For an interesting take on SPS, see "Lime's Crisis." It'll never happen; the Saudis simply aren't smart enough, and their politics would forbid it.)
One hates to see the last of one's dreams die before them.
Hope, I suppose, still persists. There _are_ visionary, competent people working on things - SpaceX, Bigelow, Branson (you just know, by the twinkle in his eyes, that he wants to walk on the moon) and many others. The ESA is looking to man-rate their ATV; China, Japan, and others are proceeding apace, with some interesting projects in the works.
Yet I fret. Earth's population has almost trebled in my lifetime. If I last to the rosy end of the actuary table, it will double again. I fear that if we do not now make a concerted, consistent effort to deploy self-sustaining colonies that it will never happen. Not, at least, until a resurgence of will and understanding and capability 500 or 1000 years hence, presuming the race survives. The sheer combined weight of resource demands and rulers' and the public's self-enforced willful ignorance, stupidity and apathy doom not just our dreams but our long-term survival.
Hail, Atlantis.
So, gazorts bad, gore good?
The Justices' opinions seem a tad schizophrenic.
Last I looked, smoking anything is not good for one.
Back in the '70s, last I partook, we were running the weed through a blender and adding the powder to lots of foods; great with Jello, salad dressing, baked goods, gravies, whatever your taste buds will enjoy or withstand. :)
Takes considerably more boo to cop a high but lasts longer and can be more.... profound.
And yes, it counts towards fibre intake.