Ignore my smart-ass-supposed-to-be-funny comment. I just realized this could be a lot easier than I first thought.
I was imagining a bunch of cars all roving the parking lot, trying to work out an equitable distribution of the available spaces. As long as each car had an assigned spot from the moment they entered the parking lot, it wouldn't be particularly hard at all.
Even the most optimistic planning doesn't have a manned Mars mission even slated for launch over next 4 years. It's a little harsh to judge the man a tacit traitor to his department just because one of the front-page headlines in the last few years wasn't "Man On Mars".
Does anyone who was paying more attention to NASA have a summary of what they've been doing towards a manned mission to Mars? The most significant things I can think of are the Mars Rovers and the Scramjet research. But again, that's just the headlines...
Also, it's absurd to say that NASA should give up just because Burt Rutan has done some good work. That implies there is only a short list of things that can be done in space.
After playing Go for a bit, I found this book at a local game store The Second Book of Go. I remember being pretty excited about it at the time--it seemed to be exactly the sort of "just past beginner" book that I needed.
Shortly after studying it, most of the people I played Go with ended up leaving town for various reasons, so I haven't played much since and I bet I'm a pretty awful player at this point. Hopefully your mileage will vary.
None of the games mentioned are from the eponymous Cheap Ass Games company. I just found out about this company a few weeks ago, when I was looking for cheap ass Christmas presents. I can't vouch for their products but they seem like a good deal for 2 reasons.
a) The games sound like fun. Sure, who's going to advertise their games as totally boring and stupid? No one. But, Kill Doctor Lucky and Deadwood to name two I remember, have funny concepts and sound interesting to play.
b) They are CHEAP. And, seeing as to how most board games I've owned have been played about 3 times, max, the money spent seems much closer to the value derived than the $50 it costs for a lavishly wood-crafted board game.
Again, I don't know much about the product so don't come crying to me if they suck, but I'm probably going to risk a few bucks on them this year.
You have two sets of theories, neither of which is proven, that are combined into a superficially insightful takedown of American culture. One one side you have:
Americans are greedy and shortsighted.
Americans have less free time than Galileo had.
Americans don't believe that Art and Science lead society.*
And on the other side, you have:
The overall amount of science and pure research have shrunk since Galileo's time.
The lack of pure research is posited as proof of the the other ills, or conversely, the other listed evils of American culture are an explanation for why science and pure research are in decline. You are unlear in your original comment about which side predicates the other. I'll grant you the luxury of choosing which side you want to prove. The decline in science and pure research seems easier to prove than the other three theories combined, but if you want to prove those instead, go for it. You gotta prove one side or the other, though. You can't be allowed to go off on a general wide-ranging polemic against the US without at least a tiny bit of proof.
A minor point is that your springboard into a general screed against American culture was rather hastily, and poorly, constructed.
(*style points: there's absolutely nothing dishonorable about Industry, and I think it's really Art, Science and Industry that lead society. Regardless, Americans don't scorn the first two.)
I think the problem is that the over all amount of science and pure research has shrunk in recent years...
Your entire "insightful" comment is predicated on this assumption.
Prove it.
4) Having a missile program is good for defense (sorry but its true given the way the world is, with all the whacko rogue states running around)
Remember how, before 9/11, one of the biggest international worries was that the newly nuclear Pakistan and India would start nuclear war with each other?
I don't know who gets the credit for it, because I wasn't paying attention, but isn't it nice that the worry about India using ICBMs on Pakistan (or anyone else) has become much less pronounced in the last few years? I agree that your point is valid, but I'm glad that when I hear this type of news I don't automatically think that India's interest in manned spaceflight is a thinly veiled threat to Pakistan.
(I know that India doesn't need ICBMs to attack Pakistan, but I associate the US's space program with the cold war and research on ICBMs. I don't immediately associate India's program with the Kashmir dispute.)
His argument is that there was no politically beneficial reason to order a non-combat-capable SKIF destroyed, and therefore it was more likely an accidental error.
Two thoughts in disagreement:
1) It's more cost effective to shut down the program earlier rather than later.
2) It's entirely possible that the launch of the combat SKIF could have ended up as a Cuban-Missile-Crisis type of event, in which the US would have threatened military response on launch. So, better that it not even reach the launch pad.
I don't know the truth of the original story, and would bet against it, but it seems plausible.
It'd be great if, rather than rebuild Space Ship One from the ground up to be orbital, Scaled Composites did something crazy like invent sky-hooks to accellerate/decellerate SS1.
The travelling salesman problem is simpler than the problem of navigating a supermarket. With the TSP, you only have to find the shortest total trip. In a supermarket, you have to include vectors for every near-sighted old grandmother who could be blocking the aisles, and where the younger set have recently tossed their cookies. Computationally intense; hardware requirements wouldn't leave much room in the cart for groceries. Still, the future is bright...
a) I apologize for the dozen or so Buds I've had in my day, supporting this American hegemony. While I'm at it, sorry about going to Disneyland once.
b) If your ever in the states, and can find Dogfish Head (sp? maybe Dog Fish Head), you should try it. That brewer makes a worthwhile alternative to the Great Beers of Europe.
c) I was going to say "They wouldn't advertise if it wasn't profitable.", but that's not really the point is it? Just because some louts don't care what they drink, doesn't mean you should suffer for it. Boycott the stadiums until they diversify their choices. There must be a local pub which has the right combination of like-minded fans and palatable potables.
d) A-B's marketting clout will (hopefully) weaken as Americans continue to turn to better beer. I know that's kind of like waiting for Microsoft to go bankrupt, but, from what I've seen, there's a marked shift in America from slightly dirty water to real, enjoyable beer.
Man, I feel like an ass. I don't know why I didn't notice that (Twice!). I was looking at things like this: "...by first winnowing those down to 20 through the Slashdot moderation system" (how is the Slashdot moderation system useful if you're just posting questions to the New Voters Project? Are we supposed to read questions From the New Voters Project and suggest the ones we like the best?)
and this: "other question-selecting moderators are groups like Youth Vote Coalition, Earth Day Network, Rock The Vote, Declare Yourself, and 18to35.org, plus lead moderator Farai Chideya." (a decentralized semi-finals, followed by a Final selection at the NVP).
Still, although I still don't understand the blurb and the directions, your quote shows that I must be blind, or something.
I got the impression from the blurb that the top 20 questions in this interview would be submitted to the New Voters Project, and would have to weather a second selection process at that site before being given to the candidates. So, posting and moderating questions is the right thing to do. The difference from a normal interview is that the questions aren't necessarily going to be asked (and the response will be at the New Voter Project).
This is the sort of thing that makes me wonder about/. The parent comment isn't Stupid, but it's hardly insightful. Give him a 2 for effort, but don't elevate it to the top of the conversation. "Just wanted let you know that there is always a way technology can be used by the military that is related to killing people." That is the sum total of d474's insight.
Also, his insinuation that the grandparent poster is a Panglossian innocent is unfounded.
1. Set up oil rigs with windmills in the path of the hurricanes coming from Africa to the Carribean.
2. Move the rigs in order to get as much wind benefit as possible, without too much!
3. Draw water from the ocean and convert the wind power into hydrogen.
4. Ship hydrogen to anyone who wants it.
5. ?? (keep costs down by coming up with good ways to not lose oil rigs in the storm?)
6. Profit!!
I'm just suggesting it so that someone with more sense can tell me why I'm wrong...
All are blogs and/or openly opinionated. They are generally right wing. This is in no way a complete list, and should not even be considered the "best of", since I haven't spent a lot of time exploring. YMMV.
I'd actually be interested in hearing from people who knew of right-leaning blogs not on this list that they recommended. I am not trying to start a flame war about who's better or why Instapundit/Daily Kos is a snooty liar.
Maybe you're right. I would expect that the average viewer would be more concerned about someone rigging the Nov. election then about what happened in Venezuela recently. To me, the most important aspect of the Venezuela vote is that it's an example of a major national election being questioned because of (among other things) the electronic voting machines. So, the worst case senario may have already happened in another corner of the globe; a national vote may have been stolen due to fraudulent voting software.
Call/write to your local news station. Upon checking Google News, only/. is covering this press release so far. The more informed people are about this, the more likely they are to complain. You might want to call your local congresscritter, too.
This isn't the type of esoteric security vulnerability that only nerds are going to understand. Your average voter will grasp the issue pretty quickly.
When trying to alert people to the problem, you may want to mention that there are serious concerns that Venezuela may have suffered electronic election rigging in the recent Chavez recall election.
If you find the bit about women having trouble with men who are less qualified interesting, you might want to read The Red Queen by Matt Ridley. One of the best science-for-laymen books I've read. It's all about how sexual selection and genetics work together. (He mentions the technique women use to cope with "lesser" men, but I won't spoil it).
By the way, not all females try to find the best male mate. When the species' social structure is a pack, females tend to be promiscuous so that the males don't know which babies aren't theirs and kill them.
My dumb summary: People who are more empathetic and/or fearful tend to be more liberal. Also, people who are more empathetic and/or fearful have a more developed empathy-fear gland in their brain. It doesn't seem really ground-breaking to me, although it may be the kind of thing that sounds obvious when it's proven, but the theory wasn't supported until now.
I think the most interesting thing about this article is the second-to-last paragraph, which mentions that there is a crucial link between rational decision-making and emotional devlopement. I didn't know that, but I think it's cool and it explains a few of things. It's (another) reason why hard AI is going to take forever to build. It sheds some light on why political conversations tend to end in "look that's just the way I feel about it. Republicans (Democrats) are just evil (overly idealistic) and you can't convince me otherwise."
By the way, I think the article will become dated as the Republican and Democratic parties change. There's no inherent reason why one is conservative and the other liberal, and because they both try to cover the center (those of us with, presumably, average-sized amygdalas), they tend to shift around a lot.
Slashdot Mirror
Ignore my smart-ass-supposed-to-be-funny comment. I just realized this could be a lot easier than I first thought.
I was imagining a bunch of cars all roving the parking lot, trying to work out an equitable distribution of the available spaces. As long as each car had an assigned spot from the moment they entered the parking lot, it wouldn't be particularly hard at all.
You'd be parked all right. That problem has "NP hard" written all over it ;-)
Even the most optimistic planning doesn't have a manned Mars mission even slated for launch over next 4 years. It's a little harsh to judge the man a tacit traitor to his department just because one of the front-page headlines in the last few years wasn't "Man On Mars".
Does anyone who was paying more attention to NASA have a summary of what they've been doing towards a manned mission to Mars? The most significant things I can think of are the Mars Rovers and the Scramjet research. But again, that's just the headlines...
Also, it's absurd to say that NASA should give up just because Burt Rutan has done some good work. That implies there is only a short list of things that can be done in space.
Thanks for the suggestions...I'm thinking, Deadwood and the Great Brain Robbery, maybe Kill Dr Lucky as well.
After playing Go for a bit, I found this book at a local game store The Second Book of Go. I remember being pretty excited about it at the time--it seemed to be exactly the sort of "just past beginner" book that I needed.
Shortly after studying it, most of the people I played Go with ended up leaving town for various reasons, so I haven't played much since and I bet I'm a pretty awful player at this point. Hopefully your mileage will vary.
None of the games mentioned are from the eponymous Cheap Ass Games company. I just found out about this company a few weeks ago, when I was looking for cheap ass Christmas presents. I can't vouch for their products but they seem like a good deal for 2 reasons.
a) The games sound like fun. Sure, who's going to advertise their games as totally boring and stupid? No one. But, Kill Doctor Lucky and Deadwood to name two I remember, have funny concepts and sound interesting to play.
b) They are CHEAP. And, seeing as to how most board games I've owned have been played about 3 times, max, the money spent seems much closer to the value derived than the $50 it costs for a lavishly wood-crafted board game.
Again, I don't know much about the product so don't come crying to me if they suck, but I'm probably going to risk a few bucks on them this year.
And it's sort of a stretch to call ant farms in space the "future of our civilization."
Is it ok if we just call it the "future of civilization" rather than the "future of OUR civilization"?
Our prospective space-ant overlords are very appreciative of the funding and support.
You have two sets of theories, neither of which is proven, that are combined into a superficially insightful takedown of American culture. One one side you have:
Americans are greedy and shortsighted.
Americans have less free time than Galileo had.
Americans don't believe that Art and Science lead society.*
And on the other side, you have:
The overall amount of science and pure research have shrunk since Galileo's time.
The lack of pure research is posited as proof of the the other ills, or conversely, the other listed evils of American culture are an explanation for why science and pure research are in decline. You are unlear in your original comment about which side predicates the other. I'll grant you the luxury of choosing which side you want to prove. The decline in science and pure research seems easier to prove than the other three theories combined, but if you want to prove those instead, go for it. You gotta prove one side or the other, though. You can't be allowed to go off on a general wide-ranging polemic against the US without at least a tiny bit of proof.
A minor point is that your springboard into a general screed against American culture was rather hastily, and poorly, constructed.
(*style points: there's absolutely nothing dishonorable about Industry, and I think it's really Art, Science and Industry that lead society. Regardless, Americans don't scorn the first two.)
I think the problem is that the over all amount of science and pure research has shrunk in recent years...
Your entire "insightful" comment is predicated on this assumption.
Prove it.
4) Having a missile program is good for defense (sorry but its true given the way the world is, with all the whacko rogue states running around)
Remember how, before 9/11, one of the biggest international worries was that the newly nuclear Pakistan and India would start nuclear war with each other?
I don't know who gets the credit for it, because I wasn't paying attention, but isn't it nice that the worry about India using ICBMs on Pakistan (or anyone else) has become much less pronounced in the last few years? I agree that your point is valid, but I'm glad that when I hear this type of news I don't automatically think that India's interest in manned spaceflight is a thinly veiled threat to Pakistan.
(I know that India doesn't need ICBMs to attack Pakistan, but I associate the US's space program with the cold war and research on ICBMs. I don't immediately associate India's program with the Kashmir dispute.)
His argument is that there was no politically beneficial reason to order a non-combat-capable SKIF destroyed, and therefore it was more likely an accidental error.
Two thoughts in disagreement:
1) It's more cost effective to shut down the program earlier rather than later.
2) It's entirely possible that the launch of the combat SKIF could have ended up as a Cuban-Missile-Crisis type of event, in which the US would have threatened military response on launch. So, better that it not even reach the launch pad.
I don't know the truth of the original story, and would bet against it, but it seems plausible.
It'd be great if, rather than rebuild Space Ship One from the ground up to be orbital, Scaled Composites did something crazy like invent sky-hooks to accellerate/decellerate SS1.
The travelling salesman problem is simpler than the problem of navigating a supermarket. With the TSP, you only have to find the shortest total trip. In a supermarket, you have to include vectors for every near-sighted old grandmother who could be blocking the aisles, and where the younger set have recently tossed their cookies. Computationally intense; hardware requirements wouldn't leave much room in the cart for groceries. Still, the future is bright...
a) I apologize for the dozen or so Buds I've had in my day, supporting this American hegemony. While I'm at it, sorry about going to Disneyland once.
b) If your ever in the states, and can find Dogfish Head (sp? maybe Dog Fish Head), you should try it. That brewer makes a worthwhile alternative to the Great Beers of Europe.
c) I was going to say "They wouldn't advertise if it wasn't profitable.", but that's not really the point is it? Just because some louts don't care what they drink, doesn't mean you should suffer for it. Boycott the stadiums until they diversify their choices. There must be a local pub which has the right combination of like-minded fans and palatable potables.
d) A-B's marketting clout will (hopefully) weaken as Americans continue to turn to better beer. I know that's kind of like waiting for Microsoft to go bankrupt, but, from what I've seen, there's a marked shift in America from slightly dirty water to real, enjoyable beer.
Man, I feel like an ass. I don't know why I didn't notice that (Twice!). I was looking at things like
this: "...by first winnowing those down to 20 through the Slashdot moderation system" (how is the Slashdot moderation system useful if you're just posting questions to the New Voters Project? Are we supposed to read questions From the New Voters Project and suggest the ones we like the best?)
and this: "other question-selecting moderators are groups like Youth Vote Coalition, Earth Day Network, Rock The Vote, Declare Yourself, and 18to35.org, plus lead moderator Farai Chideya." (a decentralized semi-finals, followed by a Final selection at the NVP).
Still, although I still don't understand the blurb and the directions, your quote shows that I must be blind, or something.
I got the impression from the blurb that the top 20 questions in this interview would be submitted to the New Voters Project, and would have to weather a second selection process at that site before being given to the candidates. So, posting and moderating questions is the right thing to do. The difference from a normal interview is that the questions aren't necessarily going to be asked (and the response will be at the New Voter Project).
Judges? Do you have a ruling on this?
This is the sort of thing that makes me wonder about /. The parent comment isn't Stupid, but it's hardly insightful. Give him a 2 for effort, but don't elevate it to the top of the conversation.
"Just wanted let you know that there is always a way technology can be used by the military that is related to killing people." That is the sum total of d474's insight.
Also, his insinuation that the grandparent poster is a Panglossian innocent is unfounded.
1. Set up oil rigs with windmills in the path of the hurricanes coming from Africa to the Carribean.
2. Move the rigs in order to get as much wind benefit as possible, without too much!
3. Draw water from the ocean and convert the wind power into hydrogen.
4. Ship hydrogen to anyone who wants it.
5. ?? (keep costs down by coming up with good ways to not lose oil rigs in the storm?)
6. Profit!!
I'm just suggesting it so that someone with more sense can tell me why I'm wrong...
The phrase "spreadfirefox" made me immediately think of "spreadingsantorum". Maybe I'm too puerile to promote Mozilla.
Not to criticize js7a--he gave you fair warning--but his list leans to the left. I don't know if I have the definitive right-leaning counterexample, but here's a list of guys who are biased right but seem to be fair in their analysis...
mainstream media:
Best of the Web Today
Andrew Sullivan
The Corner
blogs:
Instapundit
oxblog
JustOneMinute
Daniel Drezner
Captains Quarters
cartoons:
Cox and Forkum
Day by Day
All are blogs and/or openly opinionated. They are generally right wing. This is in no way a complete list, and should not even be considered the "best of", since I haven't spent a lot of time exploring. YMMV.
I'd actually be interested in hearing from people who knew of right-leaning blogs not on this list that they recommended. I am not trying to start a flame war about who's better or why Instapundit/Daily Kos is a snooty liar.
Maybe you're right. I would expect that the average viewer would be more concerned about someone rigging the Nov. election then about what happened in Venezuela recently. To me, the most important aspect of the Venezuela vote is that it's an example of a major national election being questioned because of (among other things) the electronic voting machines. So, the worst case senario may have already happened in another corner of the globe; a national vote may have been stolen due to fraudulent voting software.
Call/write to your local news station. Upon checking Google News, only /. is covering this press release so far. The more informed people are about this, the more likely they are to complain. You might want to call your local congresscritter, too.
This isn't the type of esoteric security vulnerability that only nerds are going to understand. Your average voter will grasp the issue pretty quickly.
When trying to alert people to the problem, you may want to mention that there are serious concerns that Venezuela may have suffered electronic election rigging in the recent Chavez recall election.
If you find the bit about women having trouble with men who are less qualified interesting, you might want to read The Red Queen by Matt Ridley. One of the best science-for-laymen books I've read. It's all about how sexual selection and genetics work together. (He mentions the technique women use to cope with "lesser" men, but I won't spoil it).
By the way, not all females try to find the best male mate. When the species' social structure is a pack, females tend to be promiscuous so that the males don't know which babies aren't theirs and kill them.
If each flying car was powered by it's own nuclear reactor, then it wouldn't matter how inefficient flying is ;-)
My dumb summary: People who are more empathetic and/or fearful tend to be more liberal. Also, people who are more empathetic and/or fearful have a more developed empathy-fear gland in their brain. It doesn't seem really ground-breaking to me, although it may be the kind of thing that sounds obvious when it's proven, but the theory wasn't supported until now.
I think the most interesting thing about this article is the second-to-last paragraph, which mentions that there is a crucial link between rational decision-making and emotional devlopement. I didn't know that, but I think it's cool and it explains a few of things. It's (another) reason why hard AI is going to take forever to build. It sheds some light on why political conversations tend to end in "look that's just the way I feel about it. Republicans (Democrats) are just evil (overly idealistic) and you can't convince me otherwise."
By the way, I think the article will become dated as the Republican and Democratic parties change. There's no inherent reason why one is conservative and the other liberal, and because they both try to cover the center (those of us with, presumably, average-sized amygdalas), they tend to shift around a lot.