Apollo was, frankly, a pile of crap that killed 3 astronauts on the pad
Apollo I was a piece of crap. It is, in fact, entirely because of the fire that Apollo was completely redesigned internally.
and would've killed another 3 in space if the LEM didn't have something to say about it.
As designed, the Apollo system was not the reason the O2 tank exploded. The thermostat supplied by Beechcraft was only rated at 28v, despite the spec having been changed to 65v. Normally this wouldn't have been a problem, but a confluence of unlikely events resulted in the the tank heater being run more than usual, burning off the insulation in the faulty thermostat, creating a short when the tanks were stirred which caused the explosion.
PS: You're an idiot. The internet is full of information, and yet you fire off ignorant proclamations without even making a simple google search. Amazing. Maybe you should go back to just watching TV.
I'd ask YOU the same question. How many manned space launches did the US have where the plans, configuration, and timetable weren't trumpeted loudly before hand? See, that's the difference between the old Soviet way and the NASA way that is being referenced. The Soviets would launch and then announce after it had succeeded that it was manned... just in case. Your smug search/replace command is completely fucking stupid and irrelevant.... but you knew that, clearly, because you posted AC.
That's because marriage is a relgious institution at it's heart.
No it's not. Pair bonding predates organized religion. Certain species are quite simply programmed to do it. The fact that religion decided to recognize it and codify it is unrelated.
"Medieval theocracy"
I'm sorry if your country is a little backward. I live in the U.S. and live in a secular representative democracy (or democratic republic).
It ought to be secular, but really isn't. When 70%+ of the electorate thinks that being an avowed atheist disqualifies a person from being president... you might live in a theocracy.
When a bunch of theocratic assholes like the Mormons get to have their definition of marriage enshrined in law... you might live in a theocracy.
"all they want is the same right"
I'm sorry, but that's incorrect. They already have the right to marry. What gays are fighting for is to change the meaning of marriage to include a relationship between same-sex individuals. That is a major change in the definition of marriage. Gays don't want the same right, they want a new right. Same-sex marriage has never been a right. This isn't just a semantic issue, this has to do with the foundation of civilized society
Bullshit. It's an imposition of someone else's bullshit religious definition of marriage. My religion says gays can marry, and I daresay my religion is far more civilized than any of the hypocrite asshole religions that think that simply having been around scaring people into certain behaviors for a long time somehow makes them the "foundation of civilized society".
(read the U.N.'s Declaration on Human Rights, for example).
Article 16 of the UNDHR says fuck-all about gender. It speaks of family, but likewise makes no stipulation that "family" must arise from copulation, rather than (say) adoption.
Besides, the UNDHR is utter bullshit anyway. Half the crap in there fails the very definition of "rights" and is instead a thinly veiled parade of socialist impositions. Article 25 is a real winner:
"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."
Those are not so much "rights" as they are obligations imposed upon the farmer, tailor, carpenter, doctor, and the tax payer in general. There is no freedom if you cannot choose to not feed your starving neighbor, even though you have enough food to do so. Society isn't about being a bunch of good little fucking robots because some asshole in a funny hat said you have to. Society is about helping one another by choice.
So, should be give them special rights above others?
It's not a "special" right to be able to marry one's partner, unless you think that the Mormon take on marriage is the One True Way that ought to be enshrined in law. My religion says gays can marry. Why is my religion "special" and all those bullshit bronze age craphole religions are "regular"? Fuck that.
My guess is that you probably don't hang out with a lot of poorly educated individuals across all walks of American life. If you did, I suspect that you'd find that gays or no better educated than any other group.
Actually, it might be hard to really find that. Uneducated ignorant gays are harder to find because they tend to pretend to be straight. They believe their minister, who tells them that "faggotry" is a sin.
I am gay and what amazed me most when I was younger was how many "straight" guys out there that are gay.
There are so many "straight" guys out there (not sure about women) who are married or have girlfriends and have a lot of anonymous gay sex behind their partners back.
Is it not possible that Gay-to-Straight is a continuum and not a binary condition? A married man who like homosexual sex is not automatically 100% gay. I know it's common for gays to regard self-proclaimed bisexuals as "unable to accept their homosexuality", but really, that's about as ignorant and bigoted as a religious fundie who thinks homosexuality is simply a bad habit that can be unlearned.
That's what I keep thinking on this. If the state court nullifies an amendment to the state constitution, which was passed according to that constitution,
So what you're saying is that if 50% of the population decides that (say) "Negroes cannot own real estate", then the court has no standing to toss the amendment?
This is simply untrue. A constitutional amendment that's passed by simple majority through the proposition process can only change the constitution in a limited way. It's the court's job to strike down amendments that reach beyond their allowable limits. Simple majority cannot strike or substantially alter the effect of other language in the constitution. Prop 8 is at odds with the equal protection clause, taking an all-encompassing rule and limiting its application by essentially adding "except fags when they want to get married".
they will have effectively given themselves unlimited lawmaking powers by fiat.
Engage in hyperbole much? Saying "no that's not allowed, follow the rules" is hardly unlimited lawmaking powers.
If Google, or anyone else, wants to stop this they have to go to federal court, because to ask the state court to throw out the law is to as them to throw out the state constitution.
No, it's asking them to enforce the state constitution by not allowing a bunch of fucktard religious assholes turn a subset of the population into second class citizens with a simple majority vote. Such a change requires not just a media blitz of lies and pandering to the ignorant, but involvement of the legislature and/or a constitutional convention--- and even then ought to explode on contact with the 14th Amd at the federal level.
If I were a CA resident and the state supreme court threw out a legally passed constitutional amendment, the next amendment I'd propose would be one that throws out the current members of that court.
Then you'd be no better than the jerks who think that because their religious principles have a place in the constitution. The constitution (state or local) is not a pizza party where toppings are decided by a show of hands and, if you don't like pepperoni, you're SOL. The constitution is designed to prevent the tyranny of the idiotic majority, and even includes safeguards against such idiots skullfucking the constitution itself. The courts invalidating improper amendments is one such safeguard. Seriously, you ought to understand how the system works before you attempt to criticize it.
The only valid path I see for people against prop 8 is to get the Federal courts to declare it unconstitutional within the framework of the US Constitution, thus superceeding it being able to be in the California constitution.
So you're saying that 14th amendment of the federal constitution is at odds with prop 8, but that prop 8 isn't at odds with a similar clause in the state constitution?
Not to mention (as noted in TFA) Leonard Nimoy himself confirming the same. If you can't believe Spock, then there is no truth ANYWHERE in the universe.
No, at most it loses marketing potential. That is a fictive amount, so it is impossible to quantify how much is really lost.
As long as it is above zero — and you don't dispute that — the actual figure is irrelevant to our determination.
"Impossible to quantify" does not rule out the quantity "zero", so your claim is false. Alternate universes where certain things may or may not have happened cannot be used as evidence of loss. Copyright infringement is no more "stealing" based on loss of potential sales than is using deceptive advertising to pull in more sales at a store. Deceptive advertising is illegal, but a competing store has no claim on the profit made via that deception.
Seriously, it's no more difficult than looking at the relevant sections of law. "Theft" or "stealing" is defined by law as the unlawful taking of real property. Songs and other such fruits of our common culture are not real property. That's why copyright law is covered by its own section in the US Code--- because it isn't covered by the sections on "stealing".
My prediction: Flash 9 will become so pervasive that everyone will use that as a container instead of asking their users to download & install a DivX codec.
Polygraphs only determine if you lie or feel discomfort
Yes to the latter, no to the former. Polygraphy is security theater bullshit. It's designed to scare the ignorant and gullible into telling the truth. Anyone can beat a polygraph test. (see http://antipolygraph.org/ for more)
No we don't. If it's anything bigger than a truck, we license the design and produce the majority of it using domestic subcontractors. The most you'll see of "foreign procured" weapons systems is something like the USMC IFAV, which is a militarized Mercedes Benz 290 built by Magna-Steyr.
I'm not the biggest U2 (much less Bono) fan, but he has a voice that is so distinctive that even my grandmother started buying U2 albums
Exactly. He's not successful because he can sing, but because he's marketable. The Joshua Tree was an interesting album, but nothing since then has shown any particular degree of variety. It's like they took the three hits off that album and recreated the same theme over and over ever since: Bono's tuneless rasping and wailing, and The Edge (a fantastically talented musician) playing the same damn "dingly-ding-ding dingly-ding-ding" sound on every track. It's genius, but in a salesmanship sense rather than an artistic one.
after he showed up on a Frank Sinatra "Duets" album.
Yeah... don't get me started on Frank either. There's a truly talented singer who went from sounding great in the beginning, to developing a "style" that consisted of intentionally flatting some of his notes. This style only got worse as the years went on. At least Bono has the excuse of not having a good singing voice. Frank sang badly on purpose. Again, it was probably a classic case of marketing. His "style" set him apart from the crowd. It certainly wasn't his looks that made him famous.
...besides, about half of the A380 is built in the US anyway...
Well.... sort of.... Half the parts and subsystems are from US suppliers, but none of the major assemblies are done here. None of the actual aircraft is built in the US.
Lockheed-Martin and Bell Helicopter aren't European companies. AgustaWestland builds the empty airframe and main rotor, but the remaining 64% of the helicopter is built by Bell and Lockheed-Martin.
You're wrong. The helicopter replacing Marine One is European. Why wouldn't they do the same for Air Force One?
Incorrect. The VH-71 Kestrel is based on the US101 airframe, which is a derivative of the European EH101, but it's a joint venture between Lockheed-Martin and AgustaWestland and it's being built here in the US by Bell Helicopter.
If Airbus was chosen, I can see some concessions being made that parts of it will be made here in the US, maybe even finally assembly.
Doubtful. The EU isn't going to allow a heavily subsidized project like the A380 to be summarily outsourced to the US to any degree simply to sell two of them to the US Air Force.
Ah yes, the lead man for the worlds most successful mediocre band. I saw him try to sing backup vocals for Leonard Cohen. It was embarrassing. No range, his voice was cracking like crazy and he was flatting and sharping all over the place. He sells well, though, so he must have good marketers...
(oh and there is obviously a difference between Christians and hippies, for starters the fact that Christians actually have a purpose and generally act very sensibly)
So far the only common purpose I've seen among Christians is that they get their lessons in morality and ethics from a 2000+ year old book, which is about as ridiculous as treating medical conditions based on the theory of balancing the four humours.
I'm a hippy too. they are not morons. How is what they are doing any different than ingesting the flesh and blood of christ in church.
Sorry, those people are idiots too. People who believe in transubstantiation (cracker/wine=flesh/blood) are just as foolish as a chemist who believes in alchemy or the original four elements of the Greeks.
Slashdot Mirror
Apollo was, frankly, a pile of crap that killed 3 astronauts on the pad
Apollo I was a piece of crap. It is, in fact, entirely because of the fire that Apollo was completely redesigned internally.
and would've killed another 3 in space if the LEM didn't have something to say about it.
As designed, the Apollo system was not the reason the O2 tank exploded. The thermostat supplied by Beechcraft was only rated at 28v, despite the spec having been changed to 65v. Normally this wouldn't have been a problem, but a confluence of unlikely events resulted in the the tank heater being run more than usual, burning off the insulation in the faulty thermostat, creating a short when the tanks were stirred which caused the explosion.
PS: You're an idiot. The internet is full of information, and yet you fire off ignorant proclamations without even making a simple google search. Amazing. Maybe you should go back to just watching TV.
s/Russian/American
your point ?
I'd ask YOU the same question. How many manned space launches did the US have where the plans, configuration, and timetable weren't trumpeted loudly before hand? See, that's the difference between the old Soviet way and the NASA way that is being referenced. The Soviets would launch and then announce after it had succeeded that it was manned... just in case. Your smug search/replace command is completely fucking stupid and irrelevant.... but you knew that, clearly, because you posted AC.
That's because marriage is a relgious institution at it's heart.
No it's not. Pair bonding predates organized religion. Certain species are quite simply programmed to do it. The fact that religion decided to recognize it and codify it is unrelated.
"Medieval theocracy" I'm sorry if your country is a little backward. I live in the U.S. and live in a secular representative democracy (or democratic republic).
It ought to be secular, but really isn't. When 70%+ of the electorate thinks that being an avowed atheist disqualifies a person from being president... you might live in a theocracy.
When a bunch of theocratic assholes like the Mormons get to have their definition of marriage enshrined in law... you might live in a theocracy.
"all they want is the same right" I'm sorry, but that's incorrect. They already have the right to marry. What gays are fighting for is to change the meaning of marriage to include a relationship between same-sex individuals. That is a major change in the definition of marriage. Gays don't want the same right, they want a new right. Same-sex marriage has never been a right. This isn't just a semantic issue, this has to do with the foundation of civilized society
Bullshit. It's an imposition of someone else's bullshit religious definition of marriage. My religion says gays can marry, and I daresay my religion is far more civilized than any of the hypocrite asshole religions that think that simply having been around scaring people into certain behaviors for a long time somehow makes them the "foundation of civilized society".
(read the U.N.'s Declaration on Human Rights, for example).
Article 16 of the UNDHR says fuck-all about gender. It speaks of family, but likewise makes no stipulation that "family" must arise from copulation, rather than (say) adoption.
Besides, the UNDHR is utter bullshit anyway. Half the crap in there fails the very definition of "rights" and is instead a thinly veiled parade of socialist impositions. Article 25 is a real winner:
"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."
Those are not so much "rights" as they are obligations imposed upon the farmer, tailor, carpenter, doctor, and the tax payer in general. There is no freedom if you cannot choose to not feed your starving neighbor, even though you have enough food to do so. Society isn't about being a bunch of good little fucking robots because some asshole in a funny hat said you have to. Society is about helping one another by choice.
So, should be give them special rights above others?
It's not a "special" right to be able to marry one's partner, unless you think that the Mormon take on marriage is the One True Way that ought to be enshrined in law. My religion says gays can marry. Why is my religion "special" and all those bullshit bronze age craphole religions are "regular"? Fuck that.
...and negroes had their own drinking fountains, cafeterias, and schools. The real fight is against the "separate but equal" thing.
My guess is that you probably don't hang out with a lot of poorly educated individuals across all walks of American life. If you did, I suspect that you'd find that gays or no better educated than any other group.
Actually, it might be hard to really find that. Uneducated ignorant gays are harder to find because they tend to pretend to be straight. They believe their minister, who tells them that "faggotry" is a sin.
I am gay and what amazed me most when I was younger was how many "straight" guys out there that are gay.
There are so many "straight" guys out there (not sure about women) who are married or have girlfriends and have a lot of anonymous gay sex behind their partners back.
Is it not possible that Gay-to-Straight is a continuum and not a binary condition? A married man who like homosexual sex is not automatically 100% gay. I know it's common for gays to regard self-proclaimed bisexuals as "unable to accept their homosexuality", but really, that's about as ignorant and bigoted as a religious fundie who thinks homosexuality is simply a bad habit that can be unlearned.
That's what I keep thinking on this. If the state court nullifies an amendment to the state constitution, which was passed according to that constitution,
So what you're saying is that if 50% of the population decides that (say) "Negroes cannot own real estate", then the court has no standing to toss the amendment? This is simply untrue. A constitutional amendment that's passed by simple majority through the proposition process can only change the constitution in a limited way. It's the court's job to strike down amendments that reach beyond their allowable limits. Simple majority cannot strike or substantially alter the effect of other language in the constitution. Prop 8 is at odds with the equal protection clause, taking an all-encompassing rule and limiting its application by essentially adding "except fags when they want to get married".
they will have effectively given themselves unlimited lawmaking powers by fiat.
Engage in hyperbole much? Saying "no that's not allowed, follow the rules" is hardly unlimited lawmaking powers.
If Google, or anyone else, wants to stop this they have to go to federal court, because to ask the state court to throw out the law is to as them to throw out the state constitution.
No, it's asking them to enforce the state constitution by not allowing a bunch of fucktard religious assholes turn a subset of the population into second class citizens with a simple majority vote. Such a change requires not just a media blitz of lies and pandering to the ignorant, but involvement of the legislature and/or a constitutional convention--- and even then ought to explode on contact with the 14th Amd at the federal level.
If I were a CA resident and the state supreme court threw out a legally passed constitutional amendment, the next amendment I'd propose would be one that throws out the current members of that court.
Then you'd be no better than the jerks who think that because their religious principles have a place in the constitution. The constitution (state or local) is not a pizza party where toppings are decided by a show of hands and, if you don't like pepperoni, you're SOL. The constitution is designed to prevent the tyranny of the idiotic majority, and even includes safeguards against such idiots skullfucking the constitution itself. The courts invalidating improper amendments is one such safeguard. Seriously, you ought to understand how the system works before you attempt to criticize it.
The only valid path I see for people against prop 8 is to get the Federal courts to declare it unconstitutional within the framework of the US Constitution, thus superceeding it being able to be in the California constitution.
So you're saying that 14th amendment of the federal constitution is at odds with prop 8, but that prop 8 isn't at odds with a similar clause in the state constitution?
Not to mention (as noted in TFA) Leonard Nimoy himself confirming the same. If you can't believe Spock, then there is no truth ANYWHERE in the universe.
As long as it is above zero — and you don't dispute that — the actual figure is irrelevant to our determination.
"Impossible to quantify" does not rule out the quantity "zero", so your claim is false. Alternate universes where certain things may or may not have happened cannot be used as evidence of loss. Copyright infringement is no more "stealing" based on loss of potential sales than is using deceptive advertising to pull in more sales at a store. Deceptive advertising is illegal, but a competing store has no claim on the profit made via that deception.
Seriously, it's no more difficult than looking at the relevant sections of law. "Theft" or "stealing" is defined by law as the unlawful taking of real property. Songs and other such fruits of our common culture are not real property. That's why copyright law is covered by its own section in the US Code--- because it isn't covered by the sections on "stealing".
My prediction: Flash 9 will become so pervasive that everyone will use that as a container instead of asking their users to download & install a DivX codec.
A hose is not a container.
Polygraphs only determine if you lie or feel discomfort
Yes to the latter, no to the former. Polygraphy is security theater bullshit. It's designed to scare the ignorant and gullible into telling the truth. Anyone can beat a polygraph test. (see http://antipolygraph.org/ for more)
You're completely wrong. We do it all the time.
No we don't. If it's anything bigger than a truck, we license the design and produce the majority of it using domestic subcontractors. The most you'll see of "foreign procured" weapons systems is something like the USMC IFAV, which is a militarized Mercedes Benz 290 built by Magna-Steyr.
He's a rock singer, not an opera singer.
Thing is, he's not even good for a rock singer.
I'm not the biggest U2 (much less Bono) fan, but he has a voice that is so distinctive that even my grandmother started buying U2 albums
Exactly. He's not successful because he can sing, but because he's marketable. The Joshua Tree was an interesting album, but nothing since then has shown any particular degree of variety. It's like they took the three hits off that album and recreated the same theme over and over ever since: Bono's tuneless rasping and wailing, and The Edge (a fantastically talented musician) playing the same damn "dingly-ding-ding dingly-ding-ding" sound on every track. It's genius, but in a salesmanship sense rather than an artistic one.
after he showed up on a Frank Sinatra "Duets" album.
Yeah... don't get me started on Frank either. There's a truly talented singer who went from sounding great in the beginning, to developing a "style" that consisted of intentionally flatting some of his notes. This style only got worse as the years went on. At least Bono has the excuse of not having a good singing voice. Frank sang badly on purpose. Again, it was probably a classic case of marketing. His "style" set him apart from the crowd. It certainly wasn't his looks that made him famous.
...besides, about half of the A380 is built in the US anyway...
Well.... sort of.... Half the parts and subsystems are from US suppliers, but none of the major assemblies are done here. None of the actual aircraft is built in the US.
Lockheed-Martin and Bell Helicopter aren't European companies. AgustaWestland builds the empty airframe and main rotor, but the remaining 64% of the helicopter is built by Bell and Lockheed-Martin.
You're wrong. The helicopter replacing Marine One is European. Why wouldn't they do the same for Air Force One?
Incorrect. The VH-71 Kestrel is based on the US101 airframe, which is a derivative of the European EH101, but it's a joint venture between Lockheed-Martin and AgustaWestland and it's being built here in the US by Bell Helicopter.
If Airbus was chosen, I can see some concessions being made that parts of it will be made here in the US, maybe even finally assembly.
Doubtful. The EU isn't going to allow a heavily subsidized project like the A380 to be summarily outsourced to the US to any degree simply to sell two of them to the US Air Force.
Didn't they just go in to service barely seven years ago for Shrub?
No, they went into service under Bush41 in 1990. Didn't you bother to read the summary at least? "19-year-old VC-25s". 2009 - 19 = 1990.
Ah yes, the lead man for the worlds most successful mediocre band. I saw him try to sing backup vocals for Leonard Cohen. It was embarrassing. No range, his voice was cracking like crazy and he was flatting and sharping all over the place. He sells well, though, so he must have good marketers...
Even so, his stories were far better than anything submitted by Twitter The Troll. Twitter The Troll repeated stories such as "Teh M$ sux0rs"
Granted, but simply being better than Twitter is no claim to fame. That's like saying "more nutritious than sand".
(oh and there is obviously a difference between Christians and hippies, for starters the fact that Christians actually have a purpose and generally act very sensibly)
So far the only common purpose I've seen among Christians is that they get their lessons in morality and ethics from a 2000+ year old book, which is about as ridiculous as treating medical conditions based on the theory of balancing the four humours.
I'm a hippy too. they are not morons. How is what they are doing any different than ingesting the flesh and blood of christ in church.
Sorry, those people are idiots too. People who believe in transubstantiation (cracker/wine=flesh/blood) are just as foolish as a chemist who believes in alchemy or the original four elements of the Greeks.