Forget the United Way. I give through the federal and state government, about a 50% tithe. I dunno if the groups that get the money are worthy, though...
Uhhh, would everyone who thinks this is a good idea just send $100 to The Planetary Society? Their "business model" is about interested people funding space exploration, they've launched a few things, and probably have lower overhead than the federal government. Anyway it sets a bad precedent to say only people who like something should have to pay taxes for it - the country's too diverse to run that way. And NASA doesn't need more money, they need to stop spending it on expensive manned 'showcase' missions and invest it developing better propulsion and LEO access technologies instead, while continuing to explore space using inexpensive robots.
Everyone has it all wrong. There's no reason to put photovoltaic cells on the moon and beam the energy back to earth - this is far more complicated than simply cutting off large chunks of the moon and lowering them to earth using gravity, then using the material as fuel in existing power plants. Cheese is mostly fat, so it should burn quite well.
It will be free, including the support. Oracle
will run the system for the Government. They
stand to make far more by selling information
about your movements and purchases to marketers
than they ever could from government contracts,
which usually have fixed and fairly low
profit margins anyway. Get ready for more and
better targeted junk mail, email, and telephone
calls.
Slashdot Mirror
Forget the United Way. I give through the federal and state government, about a 50% tithe. I dunno if the groups that get the money are worthy, though...
Uhhh, would everyone who thinks this is a good idea
just send $100 to The Planetary Society? Their
"business model" is about interested people
funding space exploration, they've launched
a few things, and probably have lower overhead
than the federal government. Anyway it sets a
bad precedent to say only people who like
something should have to pay taxes for it - the
country's too diverse to run that way. And NASA doesn't need more money, they need to stop spending it on expensive manned 'showcase' missions and invest it developing better propulsion and LEO
access technologies instead, while continuing to
explore space using inexpensive robots.
Everyone has it all wrong. There's no reason
to put photovoltaic cells on the moon and beam
the energy back to earth - this is far more
complicated than simply cutting off large chunks
of the moon and lowering them to earth using
gravity, then using the material as fuel
in existing power plants. Cheese is mostly fat,
so it should burn quite well.
It will be free, including the support. Oracle
will run the system for the Government. They
stand to make far more by selling information
about your movements and purchases to marketers
than they ever could from government contracts,
which usually have fixed and fairly low
profit margins anyway. Get ready for more and
better targeted junk mail, email, and telephone
calls.