Yeah, let's let the firearms only be possessed by sentient robots, like in Terminator!
Oh...ummm...nevermind.
It's a hell of a reach from "People own firearms" to "It's OK to shoot my classmates". Before I accept your logic, you'll have to explain to me why Switzerland doesn't erupt in bloody havoc every week. You see, each household is equipped with a very nice Heckler & Koch 7.62mm NATO assault rifle, and somehow the poor peasants manage to not turn them on each other, well, ever.
Meaning isn't something that happens to you at work, and it doesn't only occur when you accomplish Some Great Thing. It happens when somebody you love smiles at you, or cries, or is born, or passes away.
Don't worry, I'm sure some boring American or Swedish company will keep you in dull, brick-shaped electronic equipment for many years to come. Me, I'm moving to Japan. They get all the cool toys over there!
That's crap. Judging PEOPLE based ONLY on their looks is a bad idea. Judging PRODUCTS based PARTLY on their looks is totally valid. I'd rather buy something that pleases my eye than something that does not, assuming functionality is similar.
That's to say, I'd take an Audi TT over a VW Golf, even though the mechanicals are almost the same.
I bet it works like...a laptop computer. Look, the specs on laptops are getting to the point where they're like the specs on toasters. Two slot, or four slot? SVGA or XGA? Oven or slice? DVD or CD?
There's just not enough difference between lines of laptops to have the specs be tremendously interesting. It'll have a pretty fast processor, and a pretty big disk, and a fair chunk of RAM, and it'll probably run whatever OS you want it to.
Aesthetics are important. I'm glad I'm not the only person who thinks so. Why SHOULDN'T its looks soothe my soul? I smile every time I look at my Miata. Why shouldn't the same be true of my computer? If YOU want appliances, not art, that's fine. Just don't expect everybody to share your sensibilities or priorities.
Glad I'm not you. I think real life is a BLAST. But then again, I like figuring out how to disengage the rotor brake on the AH-64. Different strokes, I guess...
"elegance", however, is not the goal. By this argument, I should be trying to design airliners with jackstraws and duct tape, because constraints on my toolset makes for interesting solutions. I don't want interesting solutions to problems, I want the BEST solution to a problem. In my example, the best solution to the problem is stressed aluminum skin and spar construction.
Getting back to video games, the silly notion that stuck out at me from this article was the idea that "game=world+characters" formula was a bad one. If you want to cast it that way, "life=world+characters", and I don't think there are many of us who want to pitch life just 'cuz it's a world where we meet and interact with people.
The bottom line is that there are different strokes for different folks. I was never enamored with arcade games, because I never felt the payoff for having superfast reflexes, or thinking the way the game designer wanted me to think. I'm much more interested in games that are somewhat like real life, but allow me to have experiences I could never otherwise have, like flying an AH-64D in combat, or running through a house full of terrorists followed by my commando team.
I _LIKE_ life. It's FASCINATING. Games that imitate aspects of life that are difficult to access make for interesting games.
'Course, every game designer I've talked to wants to figure out mathematical formulas for how to make their game fit into some game theory construct, but that's never made any sense to me. I think you could do a hell of a lot worse than telling a compelling story with the player as a main character. It's called drama, and it's been a fairly successful form of entertainment for several millenia.
I think we're talking around each other. The Kenwood drives DO spin the disc, but at a lower speed than other drives. However, instead of reading just one row of pits per rotation, it reads several. (five, I think) This multiplies the effective data rate by five.
I thought you were wanting to spin the laser under the disc, which would make for some icky engineering and packaging challenges.
Multihead IS a good idea, and I think that's what the Kenwood drives do.
You mean somebody makes a CDROM that doesn't sound like a flippin' gas turbine engine spooling up? Woo hoo! I have been reluctant to replace my 4x because, believe it or not, I object to the noise.
Ummmm...because you don't have to spin the laser? I'll leave it to somebody else to remember the formula for kinetic energy for a rotating body, but I know it's a hell of a lot more than moving a laser back and forth on a 3" track...
And a good way of bankrupting aggrieved citizens who try to fight the good fight against corporate oppression and fail, due to the overwhelming legal power and influence arrayed against them.
It's been said, and I'm sure I'm mangling this quote, that dictators like unarmed peasants. By the same token, corporate oligarchies like poor workers.
I wish we could separate the notion of a market economy from this corporatist crap we keep seeing nowadays.
I am an aerospace engineering undergrad, and we talked about this in my structures class this semester.
Ti has SUPERB crack resistance and fracture toughness...FAR superior to aluminum. The maintenance costs of a titanium wing box would be radically lower than aluminum. However, fabricating such a large, mission-critical structure from titanium would be (with current technology) obscenely expensive.
Note that the wings of most commercial jets are designed to flex a WHOLE LOT during flight. A 747 with a ~270 foot wingspan will allow its wingtips to displace +- 20 to 25 feet with negligible structural damage. However, this WILL acclerate the crack growth that ultimately leads to failure in aluminum parts. Fortunately, this crack growth phenomenon is well understood, and replacing the part well before it is compromised is part of the normal servicing regime for modern airliners.
I'd settle for a YF-19 from Macross Plus, but I can't even find Shinsei Industries' home page. Next thing you're going to tell me is that nothing as heavy as a humanoid robot could fly on wings that small...but I saw it on the Tee Vee!
And, due to a contract dispute with those bastards at Harmony Gold, I can't even buy the toy at a reasonable price. Grr. http://www.valkyrie-exchange.com/toycom.html
While we're at it, let's streamline the auto industry.
Chevrolet, Chrysler, and Ford get to make minivans.
Porsche, Ferrari, and Aston Martin make sports cars.
Jaguar, Mercedes and BMW get to make luxury coupes and sedans.
All the French and Swedish car makers get together with the smaller Italian guys to make quirky cars that people buy to be different.
Each company can just make one model of car. Hell, why not just have them all be the same color? That'd streamline production headaches for sure!
Ugh. I sure wouldn't want to live in that world. The differences between Linux distros are much much smaller than their similarities. I'd be shocked if somebody who was good with (say) SuSE couldn't know everything they needed to about Slackware in a couple hours.
Yes, I know that OSes for better or worse are more complicated to operate and maintain than cars, but the only people who want fewer choices in the marketplace are the ones whose business models require that they be one of few choices in the market place. Hate to be crass, but fuck 'em. It's not their decision to make, is it?
That's the way 70% of the aerospace engineering classes I've taken at two University of Texas campuses were taught. The professor answered questions, of course, and they all knew the material, but they were basically transcribing and discussing notes they'd prepared ahead of time onto the board.
Demand more from the professors? Like what? They have knowledge, I want knowledge, I go to their classes. Sometimes, I develop a rapport with one of them. Sometimes, I don't. Mostly, I just barely have time to get all my homework done, get enough hours at work to keep up my car payment and rent, and sleep enough to be coherent in the class room. I'd LOVE it if somebody else wanted to pay my way to an expensive private college, where they theoretically "care" about their students, but I don't really want to mortgage my soul to the loan company...
Huh? Kinda like linux? Are you insane? If an F1 car were kinda like Linux, you'd have to run make with a bunch of command line switches specifying input and final gear ratios, clutch slip angles, and all that crap just to shift.
Never mind trying to type man brake_balance when ripping into The Corkscrew at Laguna Seca.
Repeat after me: Linux has bad UI. (Qualifiers: for most people for many tasks, and everybody except me disagrees, and I don't care...)
Back on topic, note that the F1 transmissions are essentially robotically actuated standard transmissions...clutch and everything...it's just run by a cool fly-by-wire system that coordinates throttle input with clutch actuation and gear shifting.
Alright, so everybody must stop development immediately on projects that don't fit into YOUR view of the Way Things Should Be. Yes Sir, Mr. Slashdot Poster sir, I'll get right on it!
Thus saith the Bill of Rights: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
1) By definition, it is not possible for any private entity to curtail your first amendment rights. The First Amendment restricts Congress from making laws infringing upon freedom of speech...it says nothing about what private individuals or corporations may do. I can forbid people from using the word "lubricate" in my home, and that's totally OK. DC can say "Don't do that!" to any person, in just about any manner, that they see fit. They look dumb, but it's not illegal.
2) DC has taken no legal action as of yet. IFF they break a law that results in harm to the public, they could be subject to a class action suit. So far, they've just sent a letter. No different than if they'd sent you an unsolicited advertisement...and it has exactly the same legal weight.
3) Hey, they've a right to talk about their (foolish and doomed for failure, I hope) business plan. It's ironic that you start your post talking about infringing upon first amendment rights, and then you want to make a business "shut up" by "driving them out of business". They've got as much a right to talk as you do, even if you don't care for what they say.
Note that I totally agree that DC taking legal action against these web sites would be unconscionably bad, but they DO have a right to do business, within the bounds of the law, just like anybody else. Even if they ARE stupid.
I'll agree with you if you can explain to me how THIS government is different from every other government in the history of the planet. (Specifically, how they WON'T use powers they take to oppress and terrorize their political opponents...)
I'm MUCH more worried about the government than some silly terrorists. The gov't is MUCH better equipped than the terries.
That's just it...space travel is most explicitly NOT like air travel. You're right, you can't service a missile...but you also also don't have to pay to service a missile.
Let's make the grotesque assumption that developing a new, low cost per pound to orbit spacecraft is the same whether you choose SSTO or "conventional" rocket. (I would argue that the sunk cost of SSTO development is going to be radically higher, since there are SO many technologies that need to be refined in order to make it work) In this case, SSTO is more economical than rocketry IFF the cost to service the vehicle is less than the marginal cost of building one more rocket. Although I agree that the costs to refurbish the Shuttle are more than those of a newer design would be, if you assume similar fabrication technologies for both platforms, I bet that disposable rockets wouldn't cost very much at all. You also would be `ble to use the fuel tanks from the upper stages as modules for your space station, which is an idea I'm terribly disappointed that NASA didn't evaluate further.
With current technology, SSTO vs. rocketry is, at best, a dead heat. I believe (and the industry professionals without a vested interest in SSTO I've talked to agree) that staged rockets will be the cheapest in terms of dollars per pound in orbit.
If you have other mission parameters, like quick turnaround, it may well be that SSTO vehicles have other advantages that can't be enumerated in these simple thought experiments. I don't have the expertise to argue that point one way or the other.
One further note: The other URL referenced in the header hasn't got a lot of attention (probably because the page design is awful...) http://www.atlantic.net/~elifritz/space.htm shows a heavy-lift SSTO rocket, whose engine section is returned to earth, and whose fuel tanks remain in orbit as infrastructure for future development. This seems to me to be the best of all possible worlds. Once we've got a little more expertise doing heavy labor in space (refurbishing the fuel tanks into habitable spaces), this will be a very very attractive proposition. Pretty brilliant idea, that takes the major advantages from both camps. (IE, you recover the expensive part of the rocket, but you don't have to service the whole mess...)
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Yeah, let's let the firearms only be possessed by sentient robots, like in Terminator!
Oh...ummm...nevermind.
It's a hell of a reach from "People own firearms" to "It's OK to shoot my classmates". Before I accept your logic, you'll have to explain to me why Switzerland doesn't erupt in bloody havoc every week. You see, each household is equipped with a very nice Heckler & Koch 7.62mm NATO assault rifle, and somehow the poor peasants manage to not turn them on each other, well, ever.
Meaning isn't something that happens to you at work, and it doesn't only occur when you accomplish Some Great Thing. It happens when somebody you love smiles at you, or cries, or is born, or passes away.
Work is irrelevant. Life is what it's all about.
Don't worry, I'm sure some boring American or Swedish company will keep you in dull, brick-shaped electronic equipment for many years to come. Me, I'm moving to Japan. They get all the cool toys over there!
So it's APPLE'S fault that nobody else has any imagination in design? Please.
That's crap. Judging PEOPLE based ONLY on their looks is a bad idea. Judging PRODUCTS based PARTLY on their looks is totally valid. I'd rather buy something that pleases my eye than something that does not, assuming functionality is similar.
That's to say, I'd take an Audi TT over a VW Golf, even though the mechanicals are almost the same.
I bet it works like...a laptop computer. Look, the specs on laptops are getting to the point where they're like the specs on toasters. Two slot, or four slot? SVGA or XGA? Oven or slice? DVD or CD?
There's just not enough difference between lines of laptops to have the specs be tremendously interesting. It'll have a pretty fast processor, and a pretty big disk, and a fair chunk of RAM, and it'll probably run whatever OS you want it to.
Aesthetics are important. I'm glad I'm not the only person who thinks so. Why SHOULDN'T its looks soothe my soul? I smile every time I look at my Miata. Why shouldn't the same be true of my computer? If YOU want appliances, not art, that's fine. Just don't expect everybody to share your sensibilities or priorities.
Glad I'm not you. I think real life is a BLAST. But then again, I like figuring out how to disengage the rotor brake on the AH-64. Different strokes, I guess...
Yeah, and there's so much CRAP put out by those amateurish authors and filmmakers...
Dude, the way you get good is to make lots of crap, and figure out why it's crap. Would it be better if people DIDN'T get to make levels?
"elegance", however, is not the goal. By this argument, I should be trying to design airliners with jackstraws and duct tape, because constraints on my toolset makes for interesting solutions. I don't want interesting solutions to problems, I want the BEST solution to a problem. In my example, the best solution to the problem is stressed aluminum skin and spar construction.
Getting back to video games, the silly notion that stuck out at me from this article was the idea that "game=world+characters" formula was a bad one. If you want to cast it that way, "life=world+characters", and I don't think there are many of us who want to pitch life just 'cuz it's a world where we meet and interact with people.
The bottom line is that there are different strokes for different folks. I was never enamored with arcade games, because I never felt the payoff for having superfast reflexes, or thinking the way the game designer wanted me to think. I'm much more interested in games that are somewhat like real life, but allow me to have experiences I could never otherwise have, like flying an AH-64D in combat, or running through a house full of terrorists followed by my commando team.
I _LIKE_ life. It's FASCINATING. Games that imitate aspects of life that are difficult to access make for interesting games.
'Course, every game designer I've talked to wants to figure out mathematical formulas for how to make their game fit into some game theory construct, but that's never made any sense to me. I think you could do a hell of a lot worse than telling a compelling story with the player as a main character. It's called drama, and it's been a fairly successful form of entertainment for several millenia.
I think we're talking around each other. The Kenwood drives DO spin the disc, but at a lower speed than other drives. However, instead of reading just one row of pits per rotation, it reads several. (five, I think) This multiplies the effective data rate by five.
I thought you were wanting to spin the laser under the disc, which would make for some icky engineering and packaging challenges.
Multihead IS a good idea, and I think that's what the Kenwood drives do.
You mean somebody makes a CDROM that doesn't sound like a flippin' gas turbine engine spooling up? Woo hoo! I have been reluctant to replace my 4x because, believe it or not, I object to the noise.
Ummmm...because you don't have to spin the laser? I'll leave it to somebody else to remember the formula for kinetic energy for a rotating body, but I know it's a hell of a lot more than moving a laser back and forth on a 3" track...
Good thing we've got you to watch out for us. I don't know what I'd do if I had to figure out what was and was not interesting all by myself.
Not interested? Don't read it. Your brain is the best net filter yet invented.
And a good way of bankrupting aggrieved citizens who try to fight the good fight against corporate oppression and fail, due to the overwhelming legal power and influence arrayed against them.
It's been said, and I'm sure I'm mangling this quote, that dictators like unarmed peasants. By the same token, corporate oligarchies like poor workers.
I wish we could separate the notion of a market economy from this corporatist crap we keep seeing nowadays.
Dude, just go play with a truck inner tube. Same thing.
I am an aerospace engineering undergrad, and we talked about this in my structures class this semester.
Ti has SUPERB crack resistance and fracture toughness...FAR superior to aluminum. The maintenance costs of a titanium wing box would be radically lower than aluminum. However, fabricating such a large, mission-critical structure from titanium would be (with current technology) obscenely expensive.
Note that the wings of most commercial jets are designed to flex a WHOLE LOT during flight. A 747 with a ~270 foot wingspan will allow its wingtips to displace +- 20 to 25 feet with negligible structural damage. However, this WILL acclerate the crack growth that ultimately leads to failure in aluminum parts. Fortunately, this crack growth phenomenon is well understood, and replacing the part well before it is compromised is part of the normal servicing regime for modern airliners.
I'd settle for a YF-19 from Macross Plus, but I can't even find Shinsei Industries' home page. Next thing you're going to tell me is that nothing as heavy as a humanoid robot could fly on wings that small...but I saw it on the Tee Vee!
And, due to a contract dispute with those bastards at Harmony Gold, I can't even buy the toy at a reasonable price. Grr. http://www.valkyrie-exchange.com/toycom.html
While we're at it, let's streamline the auto industry.
Chevrolet, Chrysler, and Ford get to make minivans.
Porsche, Ferrari, and Aston Martin make sports cars.
Jaguar, Mercedes and BMW get to make luxury coupes and sedans.
All the French and Swedish car makers get together with the smaller Italian guys to make quirky cars that people buy to be different.
Each company can just make one model of car. Hell, why not just have them all be the same color? That'd streamline production headaches for sure!
Ugh. I sure wouldn't want to live in that world. The differences between Linux distros are much much smaller than their similarities. I'd be shocked if somebody who was good with (say) SuSE couldn't know everything they needed to about Slackware in a couple hours.
Yes, I know that OSes for better or worse are more complicated to operate and maintain than cars, but the only people who want fewer choices in the marketplace are the ones whose business models require that they be one of few choices in the market place. Hate to be crass, but fuck 'em. It's not their decision to make, is it?
That's the way 70% of the aerospace engineering classes I've taken at two University of Texas campuses were taught. The professor answered questions, of course, and they all knew the material, but they were basically transcribing and discussing notes they'd prepared ahead of time onto the board.
Demand more from the professors? Like what? They have knowledge, I want knowledge, I go to their classes. Sometimes, I develop a rapport with one of them. Sometimes, I don't. Mostly, I just barely have time to get all my homework done, get enough hours at work to keep up my car payment and rent, and sleep enough to be coherent in the class room. I'd LOVE it if somebody else wanted to pay my way to an expensive private college, where they theoretically "care" about their students, but I don't really want to mortgage my soul to the loan company...
Wishing for a UI as good as Windows seems to me like wishing for a good swift kick in the nuts.
Huh? Kinda like linux? Are you insane? If an F1 car were kinda like Linux, you'd have to run make with a bunch of command line switches specifying input and final gear ratios, clutch slip angles, and all that crap just to shift.
Never mind trying to type man brake_balance when ripping into The Corkscrew at Laguna Seca.
Repeat after me: Linux has bad UI. (Qualifiers: for most people for many tasks, and everybody except me disagrees, and I don't care...)
Back on topic, note that the F1 transmissions are essentially robotically actuated standard transmissions...clutch and everything...it's just run by a cool fly-by-wire system that coordinates throttle input with clutch actuation and gear shifting.
Alright, so everybody must stop development immediately on projects that don't fit into YOUR view of the Way Things Should Be. Yes Sir, Mr. Slashdot Poster sir, I'll get right on it!
Please.
Thus saith the Bill of Rights: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
1) By definition, it is not possible for any private entity to curtail your first amendment rights. The First Amendment restricts Congress from making laws infringing upon freedom of speech...it says nothing about what private individuals or corporations may do. I can forbid people from using the word "lubricate" in my home, and that's totally OK. DC can say "Don't do that!" to any person, in just about any manner, that they see fit. They look dumb, but it's not illegal.
2) DC has taken no legal action as of yet. IFF they break a law that results in harm to the public, they could be subject to a class action suit. So far, they've just sent a letter. No different than if they'd sent you an unsolicited advertisement...and it has exactly the same legal weight.
3) Hey, they've a right to talk about their (foolish and doomed for failure, I hope) business plan. It's ironic that you start your post talking about infringing upon first amendment rights, and then you want to make a business "shut up" by "driving them out of business". They've got as much a right to talk as you do, even if you don't care for what they say.
Note that I totally agree that DC taking legal action against these web sites would be unconscionably bad, but they DO have a right to do business, within the bounds of the law, just like anybody else. Even if they ARE stupid.
I'll agree with you if you can explain to me how THIS government is different from every other government in the history of the planet. (Specifically, how they WON'T use powers they take to oppress and terrorize their political opponents...)
I'm MUCH more worried about the government than some silly terrorists. The gov't is MUCH better equipped than the terries.
That's just it...space travel is most explicitly NOT like air travel. You're right, you can't service a missile...but you also also don't have to pay to service a missile.
Let's make the grotesque assumption that developing a new, low cost per pound to orbit spacecraft is the same whether you choose SSTO or "conventional" rocket. (I would argue that the sunk cost of SSTO development is going to be radically higher, since there are SO many technologies that need to be refined in order to make it work) In this case, SSTO is more economical than rocketry IFF the cost to service the vehicle is less than the marginal cost of building one more rocket. Although I agree that the costs to refurbish the Shuttle are more than those of a newer design would be, if you assume similar fabrication technologies for both platforms, I bet that disposable rockets wouldn't cost very much at all. You also would be `ble to use the fuel tanks from the upper stages as modules for your space station, which is an idea I'm terribly disappointed that NASA didn't evaluate further.
With current technology, SSTO vs. rocketry is, at best, a dead heat. I believe (and the industry professionals without a vested interest in SSTO I've talked to agree) that staged rockets will be the cheapest in terms of dollars per pound in orbit.
If you have other mission parameters, like quick turnaround, it may well be that SSTO vehicles have other advantages that can't be enumerated in these simple thought experiments. I don't have the expertise to argue that point one way or the other.
One further note: The other URL referenced in the header hasn't got a lot of attention (probably because the page design is awful...) http://www.atlantic.net/~elifritz/space.htm shows a heavy-lift SSTO rocket, whose engine section is returned to earth, and whose fuel tanks remain in orbit as infrastructure for future development. This seems to me to be the best of all possible worlds. Once we've got a little more expertise doing heavy labor in space (refurbishing the fuel tanks into habitable spaces), this will be a very very attractive proposition. Pretty brilliant idea, that takes the major advantages from both camps. (IE, you recover the expensive part of the rocket, but you don't have to service the whole mess...)