The difference between the millitary then and the millitary now is important. MacArthur was a idiot (no doubt about that, allthough I will admit that I admire Nimitz and Halsey which biases me somewhat). However there is a huge difference between the WWI "European Army" and the modern American army. For one, these guys in the millitary consider themselves to be the last bastion of democracy in America (much of the time) and have no problems putting a president in his place if he orders something illegal (which Clinton ran afoul of early and often).
Actually, IIRC, the big problem is that the judge vastly overrated the effectiveness of small boats charging big fleets at war. This was the war game for Iraq, and it turns out that most of the equivelent options (runners and pieaces of paper) do not work well when a enemy moves faster then your lines of communication (which was also not allowed by the storyboard). Moral of this lesson: Wargames are usefull for some stuff, but is absolutly not a predictor for success or failure.
Really? I have a degree in World History (focusing on German History and WWII history in particular). The biggest reasons why this trend will continue are the following:
Europe's rabid anti-immigration policies.
America's diversity.
Europe's declining population.
Radicilization of minorities in Europe.
We didn't do everything single handidly, no, but on the other hand, we took the abstract ideas of Locke et all and made them concrete.
Second, American isolationism is a myth. It has always been a myth. Go see "Savage Wars for Peace" and "Special Providence: American Foreign Policy" to see why.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but _every_ jeep that went thru to Berlin, every piece of artillary, and every plane was from the UK and the USA. The tanks were the only thing that was locally produced. In addition, had it not been for normandy, Hitler would have overrun either Moscow or the oil fields. Either one would have let him solidify that front.
The only nation that has anything approximating the forces of the United States is the UK. Here is a dirty little secret, the US Navy and the UK navy are completly in bed already. American commanders can tap into british ships and vice versus (I believe that Canada and Japan can as well). While America does not spend a much larger percentage of GDP on the military (about 2.8-3.1 percent last I looked) the size of the US economy alone, and the fact that the spending has been pretty static for a while results in us having a huge lead in tatics and equipment.
The other large factor (again) is NATO. Countries that have military units "lend" them to NATO (for example, I believe that the US lends NATO three American divisions). Over time, the European units have focused on front line units, giving them punch in NATO (while the US does all of the logistical concerns). Outside of NATO, they simply do not have the logistical or C2 (command and control) structures neccesary to fight a war.
The UK and France both have "independent" systems. France however has huge issues with their navy. The UK OTOH under UKUSA and other "anglosphere" agreements focueses much more on integration with the US then anythign else.
Yes, but let's say that you are a persecuted minority (pick one that does not offend you: Taiwaneese, Kurdish or Jewesh) and some opponent starts throwing GPS bombs your way (which China, Syria and Turkey are building). Now if this occurs with GPS, there is a large chance the US will cut off GPS signals in that part of the world to keep people from masaceering other people (remember that smart bombs are "nice" because the US only uses them against military targets. Imagine Syria deliberatly targeting sky scrapers in Tel Aviv). Then imagine the EU's galilao system is in place. When was the last time that Europe stuck up for any minority anywhere around the world?
Does the US feel somehow threatened when it doesn't have a monopoly on many kinds of stuff anymore? Does it have a reason to be afraid in that case?
Sometimes yes. For example, the latest Chinese missles that are threating Taiwan use American GPS systems. We can shutdown GPS over Taiwan if we need to to make sure that the Chinese do not use our technology to kill innocents, but when was the last time that Europe actually had the guts to do the right thing, even when it would cause a change in the status quo. I weep for the moment Galileo goes public, because it condemn the Taiwaneese.
But while the US is a nation and wants to act autonomously, other nations increasingly act as groups: Europe, the Arab nations, OPEC, sub-Saharan Africa, China, Japan, and Latin America. Among those half-dozen or so entities, the US is a fairly mid-size entity.
Yep. Guess what. Contrary to European opinion we have no interest in following 2000 years of disasterous european policy and form a empire. Anyone is welcome to trade with us. Just don't abuse your population.
At issue to me is the mismatch between the apparent American sense of indefinite entitlement to world leadership on the one hand, and the shaky foundations of its economy and moderate size on the other hand.
As opposed to say the British/Spain/Roman empires. Yes. America is a empire, but when was the last time anyone payed tributary to us? For the most part, we just want the world to be peaceful and prosperous. Beyond that we don't much care.
Well, you reiterate common attitudes among Americans; the question is: are there any rational reasons to believe this?
How about the fact that for 200 years America's "Great Experement" has forced every nation (to one degree or another) to start to emulate the system of government and rights.
How about the fact that the American navy has never been defeated in open battle, and as early as 1812 was forcing the British navy (then the most powerful) to stay away from American frigates.
How about the fact that the entire root of the industrial age was invented in America (interchangable parts), and were it not for the civil war, America, not Britian, would have been calling the shots during the Industrial revolution. How about the fact that for the last 100 years, American power has been decisive in every major confrontation across the world (and no, vietnam was not a major confrontation). In World War I, the entry of America stabilized a French army that was in a state of mutiny and American goods overwelmed and keep the Germany U-Boats at bay. In WWII we proped up two different nations that were facing complete defeat (UK and USSR) and proceeded with the largest invasion and land battle in History.
How about the fact that we landed a man on the moon, put in place the first space telescope and invented almost every major piece of technology (transitors, video, rockets, packetized digital communications) that enables our current standard of living over the last 100 years?
At the time of Avro's cancelation the US millitary was actually looking at buying and using the Avro Arrow instead of then (proposed then cancled) F-108. General D.C. Putt who I believe ran the AF at the time wanted it, but got shot down by Sec of Defense.
Canada canceled Avro because it was moving to a all balistic defense/offense. (The US tried to do the same thing). The United States agreed to give Canada the same technology we were using and used NATO to co-ordinate defenese between the two nations.
The US Military stepped in after NASA gave away the heavy lift and cheap lift capacity to chase the space station/shuttle. Delta and Atlas (EELV) at least gets us back into the game.
And of course, it was fears about American dominance that made the Chinese take over tibet, threaten Taiwan and forcibly move a huge portion of their population in rural areas to concrete buildings that make Gheto's look humane?
Never mind crackdowns on student protests, arrest and torture of Chinese Christians and dissidents?
These are bad dudes. Not everything is America's fault.
I agree with most of your points, except the argument that neither side has a sufficently powerful militay to overtake the other. Europe has around 1 division that is "independent" of NATO (all of the logistics in NATO are US-owned. We are the only ones who would pay for it), and even that unit is not independent until it gets some heavy lift capacity.
The US on the other had can deploy 3 divisions a month (we have 12 total, I believe), 3 additional Marine divisions (MEU) and 12 super carrier groups. If it came down to a war anywhere in the world, unless there is a act of supreme incompetence or a act of God, you don't want to root against the US.
The Iraq tiff will blow over, but there are people in Europe who make no bones about wanting to challange American power. Frankly, with how poor Europe is doing with minority populations (see Monyiham's(sp) book) I suspect that Europe will have to challange radical islamists (ala Russia and the middle east) before they challange the US.
As for the UK, poll after poll states that the English trust America to come to Englands need in case of emergency far more then the commonwealth (Canada, Australia) and orders of magnitude above the EU. I suspect the anglosphere will continue to gain momentum.
Everything I have heard from people in the know at Lockheed Martin indicate that while yes, the F-22 program is troubled the F-35 is beating everyones expectation by a wide margin. Of course, one of the big problems is that defense contractors always assume that they will actually get the production rate that congress passes initially. When Congress goes back later and starts to reign certain programs in, it cuts the production rate and makes each unit more expensive. Case in point is the whole Seawolf vs. Virgina SSN problem. Seawolf was too expensive, so they stripped it down to make the Virginia class. Now they have reduced the rate on the Virigina's so much that they are almost as expensive as Seawolf was in the first place.
I do have to admit, the F/A-22e/f/g program has been amazingly successful.
Actually, little know fact, just in case the carriers were not enough, we have the rough equivelent of the smaller carriers out there as well. They are the LHA/LHD class ships (I believe that there are roughly 14 of them). While they carry smaller numbers of planes, they make up for it by being able to deploy LCAC's (hovercrafts).
When the JSF's are done, these ships will have a pretty impressive amount of firepower, cheap.
What was going on was _illegal_ and the article stated as much. Routing money around congressional restrictions (such as hiring foreign workers on internal security project) is not what DARPA should have done. If there was a issue with DARPA, I garuntee, it was that some congressman or staff noticed it and came down like a ton of bricks over DARPA's trying to flit the rules.
And theo was stupid enough to actually quote it. Gotta love it.
Is that they ignore a large part and parcel of being a administrator. The Ethics and Legal portion of being a admin is oft ignored, and no book outside of USAH focuses almost at all on this issue.
Simplicity for users. Xfree86 has been perhaps the single biggest factor limiting Linux's wide spread adoption (I can not count the number of times I have almost put my fist thru the moniter simply because some setting out of hundreds is wrong in some random text file)...
New technology is cool. Better configuration is manditory. I am looking forward to see how this plays out.
1. There has been no indication of this project anywhere I've seen. It would stick out! The NERVA/Zeus project was thirty years ago. The engineers are long gone, and there are no new ones.
2. The U.S. has no nuclear (nook-you-ler, if you're a C-grade fratboy from Texas) rocket program.
There have been ongoign projects at NASA (started last year). The fact that the USGov is willing to commit to Promth this quickly indicates that this project has probably been fairly succesful. 3. Nook-you-ler rockets are illegal under current treaties -- I think. Not that that would stop Bush -- treaties are for the evil, not the good.
Ahh I love you guys. Never miss a chance to bash the administration. In atmosphere rockets are, solar system ones are not (AFAIK). 4. 8 years is not enough time. The U.S. doesn't have the infrastructure to mount a mission.
Really. We made the jump from sub-orbital to the moon in just as little time. In fact and imagine that, exactly the same amount of time. Further we have a few more advantages then in 68. Most of the Energia people now work for Boeing, and there is free market forces out there capable of doing heavy lifting (pun intended) now. 5. The U.S. is going into debt at the rate of 1.3 billion dollars a day. We're spending ourselves utterly broke while cutting taxes. I don't think even the current regime is stupid enough to go to Mars when schools are setting up two daily shifts to save money. Or are they?
Fear mongering. The DoE(ducation) has had it's budget increased by 60% over the last four years. No one is about to go hungy or educationless in schools. Besides, the absolute best thing for deficits is _growth_. I would have loved it if the boom had not been acompinied by 40% govt growth (we would have paid off a huge portion of the deficit), but this proves that things can work. 6. Politically impossible -- tho I qualify this in saying that this is the first marketing-driven administration in U.S. history. They've sold us on the idea that Saddam mounted the 9-11 attacks. I may be underestimating their maniuplative abilities.
Really, where have you been for the Jefferson, Lincoln, Johnston, Jackson, Cooledge, FDR, Eisenhower, Johnson, Regan and Clinton presidencies? Give me a break. NASA did the moon landings on the cheap -- I don't think the prvate equity managers will be as motivated to keep costs down. Please please tell me that this is a sick sick joke, and you are just being partisan. Apollo alone ate up several percent of the US GDP. Throw Gemeni, Skylab, and Mercury in there... and well you have a bery large number.
Ahh... but what makes Promethius possible is that Republicans control both the house and the senate. That makes it much easier to push bold (and dangerous) projects thru.
I was trying to refer to the amount of time necessary to convince the public that these are the right choices to make. The rest of the world is not under the same pressures as he is (getting ready to run for his next term). His approval rating has gone from 90% to 50%.
Incorrect. His rating are still at 61%, the same area that they have been for the last year.
In general, I think this is a bold and cluefull move by the administration. It gives them a way to challange the oil interests by simply providing the technology. Once technology is there, the free market will do the rest.
I for one, am very interested in just what the state of the Union speach will cover. This sounds like a great start, but I worry for the budget. A 10% across the board tax cut (the budget has gone up 40% since 1995) might be a very good idea.
Thank goodness something does not support windows 95.
re: and one further note - about 'pure'.net applications (ones that don't call the win32 api and are thus potentially more portable) - the inability to do any multimedia stuff (even a simple beep) without resorting to win32 calls, makes it pretty much impossible for any reasonably large application:).
Not true, Mirosoft has released Interop Assemblies that are quite nice for DirectX.
Let me also take a whack at this. Being a Linux/C++ and sometimes Java before starting to work on.NET last year, I have a few opinions..NET is a radical step beyond the old windows platform (COM/DCOM/MFC) because of two things: The CLI and the WS/Remoting arch. The CLI is a managed space (similar to Java's JVM) but where Java was originally designed for embedded systems, CLI/CLR was designed for integrated components..NET is a component based paradigm. Distributed communication between assemblies does not require any DCOM or Remoting magic, and versioning is now robust. Where COM intercepted every ecall to a object, the interfaces and proxies are now built directly into the runtime model so the amount of magic neccessary to make things talk together is minimal..NET can be aspect oriented. Attributes allow code that used to be 25 someodd lines of nothing but enum and struct definitions to be expressed much mor ecohesivly in 5 lines.
COM+ services (which do not use com or DCOM unless you use distributed transactions) allow cheap and easy transactions, object pooling etc.
COM required some really ugly things to deal with the lack of managed space in C++. In addition, COM on top of C++ just left things messy for large projects.
Web services are far more interoperable then CORBA. Far simpler as well. It frankly usually takes only one line of code to reveal a API endpoint to a web service. Click on a few buttons in VS.net to consume it, and end up with a object in your local namespace. Point perl etc at it, and everything was well. There is now a WMI interface in.NET (which is pretty cool) and outside of kernel space C# is much easier then C++ or java for effective engineering.
It comes down to power=work/time. It's possible to do a lot of work in a little amount of time.
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The difference between the millitary then and the millitary now is important. MacArthur was a idiot (no doubt about that, allthough I will admit that I admire Nimitz and Halsey which biases me somewhat). However there is a huge difference between the WWI "European Army" and the modern American army. For one, these guys in the millitary consider themselves to be the last bastion of democracy in America (much of the time) and have no problems putting a president in his place if he orders something illegal (which Clinton ran afoul of early and often).
Actually, IIRC, the big problem is that the judge vastly overrated the effectiveness of small boats charging big fleets at war. This was the war game for Iraq, and it turns out that most of the equivelent options (runners and pieaces of paper) do not work well when a enemy moves faster then your lines of communication (which was also not allowed by the storyboard). Moral of this lesson: Wargames are usefull for some stuff, but is absolutly not a predictor for success or failure.
Europe's rabid anti-immigration policies.
America's diversity.
Europe's declining population.
Radicilization of minorities in Europe.
We didn't do everything single handidly, no, but on the other hand, we took the abstract ideas of Locke et all and made them concrete.
Second, American isolationism is a myth. It has always been a myth. Go see "Savage Wars for Peace" and "Special Providence: American Foreign Policy" to see why.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but _every_ jeep that went thru to Berlin, every piece of artillary, and every plane was from the UK and the USA. The tanks were the only thing that was locally produced. In addition, had it not been for normandy, Hitler would have overrun either Moscow or the oil fields. Either one would have let him solidify that front.
The only nation that has anything approximating the forces of the United States is the UK. Here is a dirty little secret, the US Navy and the UK navy are completly in bed already. American commanders can tap into british ships and vice versus (I believe that Canada and Japan can as well). While America does not spend a much larger percentage of GDP on the military (about 2.8-3.1 percent last I looked) the size of the US economy alone, and the fact that the spending has been pretty static for a while results in us having a huge lead in tatics and equipment.
The other large factor (again) is NATO. Countries that have military units "lend" them to NATO (for example, I believe that the US lends NATO three American divisions). Over time, the European units have focused on front line units, giving them punch in NATO (while the US does all of the logistical concerns). Outside of NATO, they simply do not have the logistical or C2 (command and control) structures neccesary to fight a war.
The UK and France both have "independent" systems. France however has huge issues with their navy. The UK OTOH under UKUSA and other "anglosphere" agreements focueses much more on integration with the US then anythign else.
Yes, but let's say that you are a persecuted minority (pick one that does not offend you: Taiwaneese, Kurdish or Jewesh) and some opponent starts throwing GPS bombs your way (which China, Syria and Turkey are building). Now if this occurs with GPS, there is a large chance the US will cut off GPS signals in that part of the world to keep people from masaceering other people (remember that smart bombs are "nice" because the US only uses them against military targets. Imagine Syria deliberatly targeting sky scrapers in Tel Aviv). Then imagine the EU's galilao system is in place. When was the last time that Europe stuck up for any minority anywhere around the world?
Does the US feel somehow threatened when it doesn't have a monopoly on many kinds of stuff anymore? Does it have a reason to be afraid in that case?
Sometimes yes. For example, the latest Chinese missles that are threating Taiwan use American GPS systems. We can shutdown GPS over Taiwan if we need to to make sure that the Chinese do not use our technology to kill innocents, but when was the last time that Europe actually had the guts to do the right thing, even when it would cause a change in the status quo. I weep for the moment Galileo goes public, because it condemn the Taiwaneese.
But while the US is a nation and wants to act autonomously, other nations increasingly act as groups: Europe, the Arab nations, OPEC, sub-Saharan Africa, China, Japan, and Latin America. Among those half-dozen or so entities, the US is a fairly mid-size entity.
Yep. Guess what. Contrary to European opinion we have no interest in following 2000 years of disasterous european policy and form a empire. Anyone is welcome to trade with us. Just don't abuse your population.
At issue to me is the mismatch between the apparent American sense of indefinite entitlement to world leadership on the one hand, and the shaky foundations of its economy and moderate size on the other hand.
As opposed to say the British/Spain/Roman empires. Yes. America is a empire, but when was the last time anyone payed tributary to us? For the most part, we just want the world to be peaceful and prosperous. Beyond that we don't much care.
Well, you reiterate common attitudes among Americans; the question is: are there any rational reasons to believe this?
How about the fact that for 200 years America's "Great Experement" has forced every nation (to one degree or another) to start to emulate the system of government and rights.
How about the fact that the American navy has never been defeated in open battle, and as early as 1812 was forcing the British navy (then the most powerful) to stay away from American frigates.
How about the fact that the entire root of the industrial age was invented in America (interchangable parts), and were it not for the civil war, America, not Britian, would have been calling the shots during the Industrial revolution. How about the fact that for the last 100 years, American power has been decisive in every major confrontation across the world (and no, vietnam was not a major confrontation). In World War I, the entry of America stabilized a French army that was in a state of mutiny and American goods overwelmed and keep the Germany U-Boats at bay. In WWII we proped up two different nations that were facing complete defeat (UK and USSR) and proceeded with the largest invasion and land battle in History.
How about the fact that we landed a man on the moon, put in place the first space telescope and invented almost every major piece of technology (transitors, video, rockets, packetized digital communications) that enables our current standard of living over the last 100 years?
At the time of Avro's cancelation the US millitary was actually looking at buying and using the Avro Arrow instead of then (proposed then cancled) F-108. General D.C. Putt who I believe ran the AF at the time wanted it, but got shot down by Sec of Defense.
Canada canceled Avro because it was moving to a all balistic defense/offense. (The US tried to do the same thing). The United States agreed to give Canada the same technology we were using and used NATO to co-ordinate defenese between the two nations.
The US Military stepped in after NASA gave away the heavy lift and cheap lift capacity to chase the space station/shuttle. Delta and Atlas (EELV) at least gets us back into the game.
And of course, it was fears about American dominance that made the Chinese take over tibet, threaten Taiwan and forcibly move a huge portion of their population in rural areas to concrete buildings that make Gheto's look humane?
Never mind crackdowns on student protests, arrest and torture of Chinese Christians and dissidents?
These are bad dudes. Not everything is America's fault.
I agree with most of your points, except the argument that neither side has a sufficently powerful militay to overtake the other. Europe has around 1 division that is "independent" of NATO (all of the logistics in NATO are US-owned. We are the only ones who would pay for it), and even that unit is not independent until it gets some heavy lift capacity.
The US on the other had can deploy 3 divisions a month (we have 12 total, I believe), 3 additional Marine divisions (MEU) and 12 super carrier groups. If it came down to a war anywhere in the world, unless there is a act of supreme incompetence or a act of God, you don't want to root against the US.
The Iraq tiff will blow over, but there are people in Europe who make no bones about wanting to challange American power. Frankly, with how poor Europe is doing with minority populations (see Monyiham's(sp) book) I suspect that Europe will have to challange radical islamists (ala Russia and the middle east) before they challange the US.
As for the UK, poll after poll states that the English trust America to come to Englands need in case of emergency far more then the commonwealth (Canada, Australia) and orders of magnitude above the EU. I suspect the anglosphere will continue to gain momentum.
Everything I have heard from people in the know at Lockheed Martin indicate that while yes, the F-22 program is troubled the F-35 is beating everyones expectation by a wide margin. Of course, one of the big problems is that defense contractors always assume that they will actually get the production rate that congress passes initially. When Congress goes back later and starts to reign certain programs in, it cuts the production rate and makes each unit more expensive. Case in point is the whole Seawolf vs. Virgina SSN problem. Seawolf was too expensive, so they stripped it down to make the Virginia class. Now they have reduced the rate on the Virigina's so much that they are almost as expensive as Seawolf was in the first place.
I do have to admit, the F/A-22e/f/g program has been amazingly successful.
Actually, little know fact, just in case the carriers were not enough, we have the rough equivelent of the smaller carriers out there as well. They are the LHA/LHD class ships (I believe that there are roughly 14 of them). While they carry smaller numbers of planes, they make up for it by being able to deploy LCAC's (hovercrafts).
When the JSF's are done, these ships will have a pretty impressive amount of firepower, cheap.
What was going on was _illegal_ and the article stated as much. Routing money around congressional restrictions (such as hiring foreign workers on internal security project) is not what DARPA should have done. If there was a issue with DARPA, I garuntee, it was that some congressman or staff noticed it and came down like a ton of bricks over DARPA's trying to flit the rules.
And theo was stupid enough to actually quote it. Gotta love it.
Is that they ignore a large part and parcel of being a administrator. The Ethics and Legal portion of being a admin is oft ignored, and no book outside of USAH focuses almost at all on this issue.
Simplicity for users. Xfree86 has been perhaps the single biggest factor limiting Linux's wide spread adoption (I can not count the number of times I have almost put my fist thru the moniter simply because some setting out of hundreds is wrong in some random text file)...
New technology is cool. Better configuration is manditory. I am looking forward to see how this plays out.
There is a liberal bastion that opposes the way not because of the people, but because there investments will get screwed.
Power is sexy
Swiss is a hick way of saying "expensive"
Al Qaeda's threat is mostly done with...
Nope... No major news here... Move along... nothing to see.
You know, I really hope he liberals keep approaching bush like that. He has humiliated them twice, and I would love for him to do it again.
Project Prometheus will be a great vehicle to move towords energy diversification, without pissing off established power companies.
1. There has been no indication of this project anywhere I've seen. It would stick out! The NERVA/Zeus project was thirty years ago. The engineers are long gone, and there are no new ones.
2. The U.S. has no nuclear (nook-you-ler, if you're a C-grade fratboy from Texas) rocket program.
There have been ongoign projects at NASA (started last year). The fact that the USGov is willing to commit to Promth this quickly indicates that this project has probably been fairly succesful.
3. Nook-you-ler rockets are illegal under current treaties -- I think. Not that that would stop Bush -- treaties are for the evil, not the good.
Ahh I love you guys. Never miss a chance to bash the administration. In atmosphere rockets are, solar system ones are not (AFAIK).
4. 8 years is not enough time. The U.S. doesn't have the infrastructure to mount a mission.
Really. We made the jump from sub-orbital to the moon in just as little time. In fact and imagine that, exactly the same amount of time. Further we have a few more advantages then in 68. Most of the Energia people now work for Boeing, and there is free market forces out there capable of doing heavy lifting (pun intended) now.
5. The U.S. is going into debt at the rate of 1.3 billion dollars a day. We're spending ourselves utterly broke while cutting taxes. I don't think even the current regime is stupid enough to go to Mars when schools are setting up two daily shifts to save money. Or are they?
Fear mongering. The DoE(ducation) has had it's budget increased by 60% over the last four years. No one is about to go hungy or educationless in schools. Besides, the absolute best thing for deficits is _growth_. I would have loved it if the boom had not been acompinied by 40% govt growth (we would have paid off a huge portion of the deficit), but this proves that things can work.
6. Politically impossible -- tho I qualify this in saying that this is the first marketing-driven administration in U.S. history. They've sold us on the idea that Saddam mounted the 9-11 attacks. I may be underestimating their maniuplative abilities.
Really, where have you been for the Jefferson, Lincoln, Johnston, Jackson, Cooledge, FDR, Eisenhower, Johnson, Regan and Clinton presidencies? Give me a break.
NASA did the moon landings on the cheap -- I don't think the prvate equity managers will be as motivated to keep costs down.
Please please tell me that this is a sick sick joke, and you are just being partisan. Apollo alone ate up several percent of the US GDP. Throw Gemeni, Skylab, and Mercury in there... and well you have a bery large number.
Ahh... but what makes Promethius possible is that Republicans control both the house and the senate. That makes it much easier to push bold (and dangerous) projects thru.
I was trying to refer to the amount of time necessary to convince the public that these are the right choices to make. The rest of the world is not under the same pressures as he is (getting ready to run for his next term). His approval rating has gone from 90% to 50%.
Incorrect. His rating are still at 61%, the same area that they have been for the last year.
In general, I think this is a bold and cluefull move by the administration. It gives them a way to challange the oil interests by simply providing the technology. Once technology is there, the free market will do the rest.
I for one, am very interested in just what the state of the Union speach will cover. This sounds like a great start, but I worry for the budget. A 10% across the board tax cut (the budget has gone up 40% since 1995) might be a very good idea.
Thank goodness something does not support windows 95.
.net applications (ones that don't call the win32 api and are thus potentially more portable) - the inability to do any multimedia stuff (even a simple beep) without resorting to win32 calls, makes it pretty much impossible for any reasonably large application :).
re:
and one further note - about 'pure'
Not true, Mirosoft has released Interop Assemblies that are quite nice for DirectX.
Let me also take a whack at this. Being a Linux/C++ and sometimes Java before starting to work on .NET last year, I have a few opinions. .NET is a radical step beyond the old windows platform (COM/DCOM/MFC) because of two things: The CLI and the WS/Remoting arch. The CLI is a managed space (similar to Java's JVM) but where Java was originally designed for embedded systems, CLI/CLR was designed for integrated components. .NET is a component based paradigm. Distributed communication between assemblies does not require any DCOM or Remoting magic, and versioning is now robust. Where COM intercepted every ecall to a object, the interfaces and proxies are now built directly into the runtime model so the amount of magic neccessary to make things talk together is minimal. .NET can be aspect oriented. Attributes allow code that used to be 25 someodd lines of nothing but enum and struct definitions to be expressed much mor ecohesivly in 5 lines.
.NET (which is pretty cool) and outside of kernel space C# is much easier then C++ or java for effective engineering.
COM+ services (which do not use com or DCOM unless you use distributed transactions) allow cheap and easy transactions, object pooling etc.
COM required some really ugly things to deal with the lack of managed space in C++. In addition, COM on top of C++ just left things messy for large projects.
Web services are far more interoperable then CORBA. Far simpler as well. It frankly usually takes only one line of code to reveal a API endpoint to a web service. Click on a few buttons in VS.net to consume it, and end up with a object in your local namespace. Point perl etc at it, and everything was well.
There is now a WMI interface in
It comes down to power=work/time. It's possible to do a lot of work in a little amount of time.