If you're seriously interested about Mars and the fake reasons we don't go there, check out marssociety.org and/or Dr. Robert Zubrin's book "The Case for Mars". It lays out, in detail, how to go to Mars for a small fraction of NASA's current budget, how to create a sustainable presence on Mars, and debunks all of the "dragons" of long-term space travel you reference.
A space exploration program absolutely does require the public's support. However, that public support comes from a plan with vision, not from messing around doing the same ol' science in low earth orbit.
I don't care if it's not any worse than any other government organization. That's hardly a good barometer! I don't think the government should be involved at all, except as a research and development technology incubator.
NASA used to be an organization with a vision and a mission. Now, they run ferries to a can floating in space. I think it's a poor testament to the people who risked, and lost, their lives to explore space.
My point re: the studies about long-duration space travel is this. We know enough to send explorers to other planets. This is one of the fake dragons that short-sighted people use to justify a far-too-conservative approach to space operation.
Do we know everything? Of course not. Columbus didn't know about Cuba either. Let's quit putzing around in low earth orbit and GO SOMEWHERE.
You might need to get FAA's permission, but just try to launch a spacecraft without jumping through NASA's hoops too. You won't be allowed to.
As far as destruction of competitors, look no further than Beale Aerospace. They had a superb rocket engine design with a lot of successful development behind it. NASA wrote a couple briefs alleging that the motor wouldn't work (although it did), and eventually the company went bankrupt.
Same thing has happened with several other non-establishment space businesses.
Look, this is my/livelihood/. I know what NASA is doing, and the environment they're operating in. Yes, Congress has them totally hamstrung as far as what missions they can do. However, that doesn't excuse their failure to nurture and develop new technologies, which is in the final analysis what NASA has done best.
They've lost focus, they've lost drive, they've lost direction. Now they're just a misguided bureaucracy, which exists only to propagate itself.
It needs to either be reformed, or destroyed. Don't much care which.
I don't want to support NASA. I want to support space exploration, and right now NASA's only objective is to make certain that the only way to space is through them. They have a monopoly on space travel in the US, and they are destroying any competitor that looks like they could seriously threaten their manned and heavy-launch capabilities.
NASA has plenty of money. If the Shuttle and Space Station were mothballed, we could have a Mars mission in 10 years for 1/10 the budget.
Of course, the political realities are such that NASA would never survive a serious budget cut.
I have no interest in NASA as an organization. They haven't done anything useful or visionary since they decided to stop exploring space in the late 70's.
This is the only way that those vaunted taxpayers would ever be able to experience the fruits of their dollars first-hand.
NASA has for many years made space travel the purview of the technological elite. Now it's within the realm of the financial elite, which is a step in the right direction. (Specifically, the directon of allowing more people to experience space travel)
Isn't it possible to get IP data over a shortwave link?
I'm sure you all have tried all permutations, and settled on cellular as the best. I'm just curious for the rationale.
"Heavy Weather" is one of my favourite Bruce Sterling books. I'm sure you've read it, but if you haven't, drop whatever you're doing and go get a copy.
Yeah, that article was pretty long and intimidating. I see why you'd be afraid to try to read it.
At the end of last year the USB Implementation Forum met _ Microsoft is on the board of directors while the chairman/president is Jason Ziller of Intel _ and decided that the matter was perhaps too clear, too transparent to the customer. Rotten customers were asking what version USB was installed on a machine and if it was USB 1.1 they thought it inferior to USB 2.
The Forum came up with a clever way of dealing with this.
In December it announced that henceforth USB 1.1 would be called USB 2 and USB 2 would continue to be called USB 2.
So, in other words, MS was party to this decision. See? All better now?
I hear you on the "I don't want to carry more contraptions!" I've never understood people who carry a mobile phone and a pager. Department of redundancy department...
I see how analog compatibility would be very important for you. Are you maintaining communications between several vehicles, or between yourself and a distant base station on your storm chasing expeditions? If so, I wonder if CB or FRS radio might be good alternatives.
You're maxing out 16 mb devices with personal data? Wow. You are hardcore.
I'm with you...Palm compatibility is absolutely required. Sony's "smartphone" isn't smart enough for me.
However, if you don't get the capabilities you need in the current-gen smartphones, why not go the Bluetooth route? Seems like a really good compromise to me...
Of course, Hotmail blows ass too. I'm glad I don't have to use either.
Re:"Actively searching for new suppliers"?
on
iBox Episode 2
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· Score: 1
You are crazy.
You are free to buy any computer you want to. Apple is free to make any product they want to. They are not obligated to do ANYTHING you want them to do.
I'd rebut your silly contentions point by point, but it's a waste of my time. You, my friend, are the true zealot.
That's not a compliment.
Re:Clones would kill the PPC platform!
on
iBox Episode 2
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· Score: 1
yeah. If you don't know enough about the history of personal computers to know how these situations are different, you have no intelligent opinion to base a post on.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm the furthest thing in the world from a biologist, but even small migration rates can produce really big changes given time.
What is the gross migration rate over, say, 100 years?
And the best part is, Monsanto will also sue you for having their intellectual property without having purchased it. Whee!
All the soybeans being roundup-resistant isn't a bad thing.
Getting sued by Monsanto because the next farmer over's plants decided to have sex with your plants is bad.
Having a pathogen that attacks one specific strain of soybeans, destroying crops wholesale (think potato blight, only worse) would be bad.
Monocultures are not healthy. Monocultures controlled by rapacious corporations are lethal.
Yeah, I can see how you'd be confused by all those detailed specifications in the list below that big bold type.
If you're seriously interested about Mars and the fake reasons we don't go there, check out marssociety.org and/or Dr. Robert Zubrin's book "The Case for Mars". It lays out, in detail, how to go to Mars for a small fraction of NASA's current budget, how to create a sustainable presence on Mars, and debunks all of the "dragons" of long-term space travel you reference.
A space exploration program absolutely does require the public's support. However, that public support comes from a plan with vision, not from messing around doing the same ol' science in low earth orbit.
I don't care if it's not any worse than any other government organization. That's hardly a good barometer! I don't think the government should be involved at all, except as a research and development technology incubator.
NASA used to be an organization with a vision and a mission. Now, they run ferries to a can floating in space. I think it's a poor testament to the people who risked, and lost, their lives to explore space.
My point re: the studies about long-duration space travel is this. We know enough to send explorers to other planets. This is one of the fake dragons that short-sighted people use to justify a far-too-conservative approach to space operation.
/livelihood/. I know what NASA is doing, and the environment they're operating in. Yes, Congress has them totally hamstrung as far as what missions they can do. However, that doesn't excuse their failure to nurture and develop new technologies, which is in the final analysis what NASA has done best.
Do we know everything? Of course not. Columbus didn't know about Cuba either. Let's quit putzing around in low earth orbit and GO SOMEWHERE.
You might need to get FAA's permission, but just try to launch a spacecraft without jumping through NASA's hoops too. You won't be allowed to.
As far as destruction of competitors, look no further than Beale Aerospace. They had a superb rocket engine design with a lot of successful development behind it. NASA wrote a couple briefs alleging that the motor wouldn't work (although it did), and eventually the company went bankrupt.
Same thing has happened with several other non-establishment space businesses.
Look, this is my
They've lost focus, they've lost drive, they've lost direction. Now they're just a misguided bureaucracy, which exists only to propagate itself.
It needs to either be reformed, or destroyed. Don't much care which.
Study's been done. We know what we need to know.
/does not/ count.
I don't want to support NASA. I want to support space exploration, and right now NASA's only objective is to make certain that the only way to space is through them. They have a monopoly on space travel in the US, and they are destroying any competitor that looks like they could seriously threaten their manned and heavy-launch capabilities.
NASA has plenty of money. If the Shuttle and Space Station were mothballed, we could have a Mars mission in 10 years for 1/10 the budget.
Of course, the political realities are such that NASA would never survive a serious budget cut.
I have no interest in NASA as an organization. They haven't done anything useful or visionary since they decided to stop exploring space in the late 70's.
No. Shuttle
The astronauts on the space station are a PR stunt.
I am the world's biggest proponent of space exploration. I wish NASA would actually start to do it again.
This is the only way that those vaunted taxpayers would ever be able to experience the fruits of their dollars first-hand.
NASA has for many years made space travel the purview of the technological elite. Now it's within the realm of the financial elite, which is a step in the right direction. (Specifically, the directon of allowing more people to experience space travel)
Thanks for the links. I'll check them out.
Stay safe out there...
They had the power to stop it, yet did nothing. That makes them culpable (along with Philips and HP and the other leaders of the group) for the fraud.
Isn't it possible to get IP data over a shortwave link?
I'm sure you all have tried all permutations, and settled on cellular as the best. I'm just curious for the rationale.
"Heavy Weather" is one of my favourite Bruce Sterling books. I'm sure you've read it, but if you haven't, drop whatever you're doing and go get a copy.
Intel chairs the committee. Wonder who runs the show?
So, in other words, MS was party to this decision. See? All better now?
The article ends with "Trust. It is a lovely thing when you get it on both sides."
More like "It is a lovely thing when you get it from both ends."
I can't believe that the computer industry actually pulled this off.
Oh, wait...who's on the council? MS and Intel? I stand corrected. I totally believe it.
Maybe we can be done with the whining about FireWire licensing. At least with that, you actually get what you pay for...
I hear you on the "I don't want to carry more contraptions!" I've never understood people who carry a mobile phone and a pager. Department of redundancy department...
I see how analog compatibility would be very important for you. Are you maintaining communications between several vehicles, or between yourself and a distant base station on your storm chasing expeditions? If so, I wonder if CB or FRS radio might be good alternatives.
You're maxing out 16 mb devices with personal data? Wow. You are hardcore.
I'm with you...Palm compatibility is absolutely required. Sony's "smartphone" isn't smart enough for me.
However, if you don't get the capabilities you need in the current-gen smartphones, why not go the Bluetooth route? Seems like a really good compromise to me...
I guess I don't understand your objection.
Yay! 200 spams a day! w00t!
Yahoo's spam filter is a joke.
Of course, Hotmail blows ass too. I'm glad I don't have to use either.
You are crazy.
You are free to buy any computer you want to. Apple is free to make any product they want to. They are not obligated to do ANYTHING you want them to do.
I'd rebut your silly contentions point by point, but it's a waste of my time. You, my friend, are the true zealot.
That's not a compliment.
yeah. If you don't know enough about the history of personal computers to know how these situations are different, you have no intelligent opinion to base a post on.
Back under your bridge.
Newsflash.
They don't need marketshare.
Move along now.
Whatever floats your boat, mate. I'd rather do Moab on a mountain bike.
Among other things, it's a lot easier on the terrain.
Quality? Yes. Industry-leading polish and ease-of-use? No.
Apple lives and dies by its aesthetics. Since they seem to not be dead, there seems to be something to their business model.
As far as overcharging by 300%, that number is an utter fabrication.
/. being, of course, a monolithic hive-mind that can have only one opinion on any given topic.
Are you insane?
When a Jeep can lap at Laguna Seca as fast as a Corvette, we'll talk.
Nothing wrong with Jeeps, but they are not exactly the same thing, are they?