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User: Moofie

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  1. Re:Guess what's in space? Nothing! on Buzz Advocates Lagrange Point Spaceport · · Score: 1

    Why would we schlep metal out of the Moon's gravity well and send it to Mars? Why not mine it on Mars?

    Needing to send a huge rocket to the Moon each year to sustain that base gives Congress an excellent opportunity, every year, to kill that base. If there is no plan for self-sufficiency, it's only a matter of time before Congress turns the budget into pork belly price supports.

    Moving out of gravity wells costs A LOT. You'll not be able to do it cost-effectively (for construction materials anyhow) until we get a space elevator, which is a long way off.

    The Moon is a distraction.

  2. Re:I pay my taxes knowingly and willingly on Buzz Advocates Lagrange Point Spaceport · · Score: 1

    Nonsense.

    The Republicans and the Democrats control every election in the country. They will never, ever permit a third party to become powerful. As much as they might "disagree", the two parties will block any other parties from being equal partners at the table.

    A Libertarian candidate has to spend far, far more money than a Rep or Dem, simply because they have to campaign like hell JUST TO GET ON THE BALLOT. The same is true for any other 3rd party candidate.

    The fact that we talk about a "third party", like three is some kind of magical number, is indicative. I want TWENTY parties. At least.

  3. Re:Guess what's in space? Nothing! on Buzz Advocates Lagrange Point Spaceport · · Score: 1

    What are you going to use on the Moon for construction materials? More to the point, what are you going to breathe? Or drink?

    The Moon is a waste of resources (for now). Mars is where the action is.

  4. Re:I pay my taxes knowingly and willingly on Buzz Advocates Lagrange Point Spaceport · · Score: 1

    Nonsense. I said I had issues with paying my taxes, not that I didn't pay them.

    And, for the record, I would love a multi-party system here in America. I believe that the fake battles between Republicans and Democrats are nothing more than bread and circuses, and do nothing whatsoever to further the State's service of The People.

  5. Re:The Moon or Lagrange? I still choose Mars. on Buzz Advocates Lagrange Point Spaceport · · Score: 2, Informative

    The Mars Direct plan contradicts you. Read more.

    I met Zubrin once. He's a hyper-smart guy, and he's got the right plan. Why are we jacking around in LEO?

  6. Re:The Moon or Lagrange? I still choose Mars. on Buzz Advocates Lagrange Point Spaceport · · Score: 1

    Why?

    There are resources on Mars. There are no resources in orbits (Well, until you get to the asteroid belt). The Moon hasn't proven to have a lot of useful resources (with the possible exception of exotic isotopes of light elements, which are difficult to breathe and drink).

    A Mars base could be self-sufficient. A Moon (or an orbital) base will never be self-sufficient. That's why we need to go to Mars, and everything else is a distraction.

  7. Re:The Moon or Lagrange? I still choose Mars. on Buzz Advocates Lagrange Point Spaceport · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We also haven't built anything on orbit. We HAVE built stuff in gravity wells.

    You missed a fundamental point in Zubrin's plan. There IS no Earth parking orbit. You do a direct launch for Mars, aerobrake into the atmosphere, and do a lot of your deceleration using a parachute (rather than rockets). Zubrin's plan includes a HUGE support infrastructure (including several rovers, two to three habitable volumes, a HUGE power budget, SCADS of fuel, the capacity to make MORE fuel, and massive redundancy of consumables).

    My copy of The Case for Mars doesn't do a detailed breakdown of the fuel budget, but my (cursory) examination of his numbers indicates that he's in the right ballpark. Unless you have some substantiation for your claim that he's misled me, I don't buy it.

    We walked in 1969. Now it's time to run.

  8. Re:I pay my taxes knowingly and willingly on Buzz Advocates Lagrange Point Spaceport · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'd have much less issue with performing my civic duty of paying taxes, if my elected representatives did THEIR civic duty and spent those revenues wisely.

    And BOTH parties have a hideous record on that front.

  9. Re:No wonder AMD won on "Budget" Chips go Head-to-Head · · Score: 1

    Yeah, and I'm sure they manipulated all the benchmark tests, too.

    Come on. Paranoid is one thing, but you're being dense. Advertising pays for the bandwidth. Don't like it? Don't read the site.

  10. Re:Opteron should help on "Budget" Chips go Head-to-Head · · Score: 1

    Out of curiosity, which of the major brands do you favor? In my experience, white-box is much more reliable (assuming one knows how to pick a good mobo and power supply).

    Please don't say Dell. : )

  11. Re:Is this an essay test? on FCC Forum Divided on Future VoIP Regulation · · Score: 1

    "B. I already have an OS PBX box connected to my POTS line through a POS P2."

    Wow. And I thought the military liked acronyms. That's impressive!

  12. Re:Yay government. on Spammers Pleased with 'Anti'-Spam Act · · Score: 1

    Why wait 18 months? That's stupid, unless you're a direct marketing executive with a bunch of lawmakers in your pocket.

    Oh wait.

  13. Re:dupe? on Bombardier's Embrio: Sexier Segway? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why would the Embrio be superior to a motorcycle? It's less stable and less safe. Where's the win?

  14. Re:*sigh* on MPAA, RIAA Seek Permanent Antitrust Exemption · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Uh huh. And soundtrack CD's cost almost as much as the DVD that contains the soundtrack AND the film...why?

    DVDs are a great deal. You get a lot of entertainment for not a whole lot of money. CDs are an awful deal. Why do the record companies pretend this is not the case?

  15. Re:Coming back? No. on Dell Moves Call Center Back to US · · Score: 1

    By reading the response to Ion Storm's Deus Ex: Invisible War demo, I'd say "Hell yes."

  16. Re:Yay government. on Spammers Pleased with 'Anti'-Spam Act · · Score: 1

    How do you figure? That's the point: Since there's no specified method for labeling, there is no way to write one rule that will catch spam.

    So it's no different than today.

  17. Re:Truth is stranger than fiction on L.A. County Bans Use Of "Master/Slave" Term · · Score: 1

    Well, what about the people who, under the new system, will be uncomfortable in a unisex bathroom? Are they supposed to just shut up and deal?

    Why do we tell one set of people to shut up and deal so another set of people don't have to shut up and deal?

  18. Re:I must be a bad person on Wardriver Charged with Theft of Communications · · Score: 1

    Interesting idea. Do you know if DHCP can automagically set a proxy server? I've never seen an implementation that does that. Perhaps you could do it by using a computer as a router, instead of a pizza box like the Linksys router/access point.

    Hmmm...

  19. Re:I must be a bad person on Wardriver Charged with Theft of Communications · · Score: 1

    That's a good idea, but I don't know how you'd do it (other than having something cryptic in the SSID). I wonder if it would be possible to Belkin the first HTTP request, and forward you to a "Hey! Welcome to my network! Wipe your feet!" page. That would be a nice feature.

    The next nice feature would be MAC-based quotas and/or throttling. "Any MAC not on this whitelist gets 200K/sec and a 20mb/day limit". Or something.

  20. Re:Mouse vs. control pad on Deus Ex - Invisible War Demo Released · · Score: 1

    *brain explodes*

    A POV shooter, better on a console than with a mouse and keyboard? Wow. I knew there were people out there with dextrous thumbs, but to actually PREFER that!? I'm stunned.

    I mean, go on with your bad self, but if I have to use my thumbs, I'm food for any bad guy that looks crosswise at me.

  21. Re:QuickTime hacked, not Apple DRM cracked on Apple's iTunes DRM Cracked? · · Score: 1

    Is it your contention that it's a "win" for these countries to still be communist? If so, I'd point out that the majority of the people in the world, and the overwhelming majority of the world's prosperity, belong to nations that are, basically, capitalist.

    China's economy is getting started in direct proportion to the degree that they are eliminating centrally managed economic policies.

    Capitalism has a whole heck of a lot of flaws. But, by virtue of the fact that it works better, it obviously has fewer flaws than communism.

  22. Re:I must be a bad person on Wardriver Charged with Theft of Communications · · Score: 1

    I don't know if I made myself totally clear, and when I do, I don't know if you're still going to agree with me. : )

    Most broadband ISPs advertise a fixed bandwidth ceiling...128/640 up/down for instance. From my perspective, as a customer paying that bill, I'm entitled to use ALL that bandwidth all the time. If the ISP didn't want me to do that, they shouldn't have advertised it that way. Now, I know that some ISPs have "soft limits", where if you're at the high end of the bandwidth consumption curve, they cap you or penalize you in some way. I don't believe this is at all acceptable.

    So in that sense, if I open my AP to anybody who happens to be near me, I don't care if ppl use it. I'm not profiting from reselling the service, but I'm operating a convenience for my neighborhood. As long as this is not prohibited under my terms of service, I don't see any problem at all doing that.

    Similarly, since I'm not doing any sort of content monitoring, I should not be liable for something Joe Public does on my connection. Again, I'm not reaping any benefit from opening my AP, I'm doing it as a good samaritan, so there's no reason I should be penalized for somebody else abusing the service.

    Of course, if this is prohibited under my TOS, I shouldn't be surprised if my ISP gets pissy. : )

  23. Re:I must be a bad person on Wardriver Charged with Theft of Communications · · Score: 1

    There is a bright line between somebody taking an object out of your house, and using bandwidth that is billed at a flat rate.

    If you were paying by the kilobyte, sure.

    In any case, the owner of the connection should not be liable for anything another user does with it, secured or not. But I don't think that's what's going on in the article...just in the fevered imagination of some /.ers. : )

  24. Re:What? on RIAA Threatens 15-Year-Old · · Score: 1

    We were having a civil discussion until you started calling names. We're done here.

  25. Re:What? on RIAA Threatens 15-Year-Old · · Score: 1



    They might WANT there to be different rules for different media, but I do not care. Incidentally, I think if the RIAA wanted to make this piracy "problem" go away, they'd take a hard look at the value you get when you buy a DVD. Hell, it's not terribly uncommon for a movie sountrack CD to cost almost what the DVD does. That's profiteering, and it's ridiculous to expect that the public is going to put up with it.

    SCEA makes video games. RIAA makes...nothing.

    I already said that we were going to have to agree to disagree. Why the ad hominem attacks?

    I'm not a libertarian, so I don't know why I'd give it a bad name.