It's not like a marriage *at all*. It's more like buying a slave: the owner's name doesn't change, and nobody cares what the slave's name is; he's known mainly as his master's property.
"Current will also air segments every half hour showing TV viewers what Google searchers are tapping into at that moment -- everything from current events to tourist destinations."
Wow, that sounds almost as interesting as watching paint dry.
Well, let's see. On this hand, we have a bunch of new designs we haven't even worked out how to build yet, which will be really cool when they have actually been blueprinted, manufactured, static tested, flight tested, qualified, supplied with trained crews, and launched for the first time. On the other hand, we have something we've already built, tested, used, and paid for, which needs some relatively minor rework. Which would I choose, given that I need to be back in space by last week?
Look at your timeline again. Twenty years from lab. to launch pad. It's going to take a decade or more to have Space Truck: The Next Generation ready for flight. We have needs today. Fixing the shuttle fills that enormous gap between what we want and what we can have.
End-of-life for STS is already set, at a point where there's some chance we'll have a replacement ready. Today all the stuff we have ready to go is older, not newer.
One thing a carrier battle group is good for is to easily go to a place where nobody has any legitimate business being, cordon off a huge area, and handily destroy anybody who refuses to stay out. At sea there's *no* cover (optical or radar) above the surface, and zero collateral damage if you have to get seriously nasty.
That's not all. If your test vehicle flies off and crashes, it sinks, winding up where only governments can get at it, and you probably have a recovery vehicle attached to scoop it up before anyone else does. You can position and reposition armored obstacles as needed for testing and have plenty of complex objects to find and photograph -- you don't have to build anything.
Or just coat the whole bloody moon to lay the dust. There's no biosphere to mess up, and once we're there to stay it won't be a pristine high-vacuum-worthless-desert-wasteland anymore. If we got a wee bit of atmosphere going we could just keep it wet. We'll need lots of water anyway. Maybe water vapor could *be* the wee bit of atmosphere.
Incidentally, am I the only one who, upon seeing the title of this article, thought immediately of _A Fall of Moondust_?
It isn't a proof if nobody understands it. We can use mechanical aids to help our brains develop proofs, but we can't just take the machine's word for it...that's not what "proof" means.
This is not to assert that any recent results are "wrong" in some way. But understanding by a human should be one of the standards for proof, at least among humans. Even if a mechanically-assisted proof is too laborious for humans to carry out unassisted, they must be able to explain why the result is valid.
(A proof by AI could reasonably be accepted by other AIs even if no human can follow it, but that would have no value to humans unless we have good reason, already in place, to trust the judgment of the AIs in question. And even if we do trust them, argument from authority is weak and should not be substituted for at least making the attempt.)
Go back to stupidphones. My now-ancient StarTAC does everything I want in a telephone, and a lot of stuff I'd like to take out of the menus altogether. If I wanted to lug around lots of other functions, I'd keep them in a separate piece of equipment and only connect it to the phone when I need to connect to somewhere else.
Either that, or just carry a general-purpose computer and plug in a wireless module when I want to have it emulate a telephone or obtain some networked service.
Earth's atmosphere (and Mars') is held down by gravity. Our magnetic field just reduces ablation of the top of our atmosphere by the solar wind. If the atmosphere were held down by magnetism, wouldn't it also stick to those dark shiny things you use to hold notes to the side of your refrigerator?
Anyway, adjusting the magnetosphere is just a part of terraforming, no different than adjusting the atmosphere or the hydrosphere. Whether terraforming is feasible or not is simply a question of how much it's worth to us.
The interesting thing about the Tower of Babel thing is that apparently God had to do something to slow mankind down because it looked like we were going to succeed.
It took about sixty years to go from first powered flight to first footprint on another world.
I've seen pictures from decades ago of a robot that figured out all by itself how to get to a place that it was physically unequipped to reach, by building the tool required from materials it could see.
It might be surprising how long this particular project actually takes. Or it might be surprising how long it *doesn't* take. That's the glory and the frustration of science: you never know until you get there.
I've seen *some* of the stuff that was promised for 2000. And I've seen some stuff that's way *better* than what they promised us for 2000. Even if we don't have nanobots in 30 years, we'll be 30 years closer to them, or something even better. It's really hard to work earnestly for 30 years and produce nothing that's of value to anyone.
Ya know, that's why there's more than one of us. Some to help the starving millions; some to work out the ozone problem; some to figure out what the heck you mean by the rest of it; and some to do the science that supports it all. I think it would be irresponsible to shut down all exploration and discovery "until we solve problems X, Y, and Z."
New stuff goes onto that "must do first" list every time we take something off of it. We'll never get to move on if we don't do it regardless.
And you never know where the next solution will come from -- it might come out of the rainforests, or it might be uncovered by nanobots poring over another planet.
Not all of/. Like just about any other subset of society it has settled out into technophile and technophobe camps. And I think that both sides are a sad development. Treating engineering and technology as religion rather than, well, engineering and technology is not helpful.
How will the settlers feel about invasive nanobot swarms? I can just see the news stories with people waving "Save Our Deserts" placards. (Or will they say "C/Fe for Me"?:-)
See, that's where the dispute lies. I say that if I am in IN when I do the work then the income was earned in IN. Why should I be taxed by a state that did nothing for me because I wasn't there? IN paid for IN State Police and IN National Guard to protect me while I sat here working.
Our legislature can't even wake up long enough to negotiate reciprocal sales tax agreements with the other states. You think they're going to do this with income tax?
And if I telecommute from my home in IN to a company with offices in NY and IN, am I working in IN or NY or both? If my employer has offices in NY and OH but not IN, am I working in IN, OH, NY, or some combination?
Exactly. None of the "extras" you mention has any legitimate function on a server, but you get them anyway. They *do* significantly expand the attack surface, though, even if they don't have a *legitimate* function.
I want to be able to remove, or better yet never install, every single gadget that I am not going to use. (I wish that some Linux distro.s would catch that clue too....)
Slashdot Mirror
It's not like a marriage *at all*. It's more like buying a slave: the owner's name doesn't change, and nobody cares what the slave's name is; he's known mainly as his master's property.
Wow, Adobe Systems will now be called Adobe Systems.
Dude, they just bought someone else's business. I don't have to tell people what my name will be every time I buy a Big Mac.
Why don't the bigwigs just get real and say, "we have swallowed Macromedia. It was yummy."
Through the USPS, which *does* take a rather strong position on the subject of people spying on others' private business.
An update from 5.0.5 at last.
Now to see if it's any better than xpdf has gotten in the intervening three years.
Ahh, Google, the emacs of Web services.
"Current will also air segments every half hour showing TV viewers what Google searchers are tapping into at that moment -- everything from current events to tourist destinations."
Wow, that sounds almost as interesting as watching paint dry.
Well, let's see. On this hand, we have a bunch of new designs we haven't even worked out how to build yet, which will be really cool when they have actually been blueprinted, manufactured, static tested, flight tested, qualified, supplied with trained crews, and launched for the first time. On the other hand, we have something we've already built, tested, used, and paid for, which needs some relatively minor rework. Which would I choose, given that I need to be back in space by last week?
Look at your timeline again. Twenty years from lab. to launch pad. It's going to take a decade or more to have Space Truck: The Next Generation ready for flight. We have needs today. Fixing the shuttle fills that enormous gap between what we want and what we can have.
End-of-life for STS is already set, at a point where there's some chance we'll have a replacement ready. Today all the stuff we have ready to go is older, not newer.
One thing a carrier battle group is good for is to easily go to a place where nobody has any legitimate business being, cordon off a huge area, and handily destroy anybody who refuses to stay out. At sea there's *no* cover (optical or radar) above the surface, and zero collateral damage if you have to get seriously nasty.
That's not all. If your test vehicle flies off and crashes, it sinks, winding up where only governments can get at it, and you probably have a recovery vehicle attached to scoop it up before anyone else does. You can position and reposition armored obstacles as needed for testing and have plenty of complex objects to find and photograph -- you don't have to build anything.
So, how long before I can take that virtual vacation to Thurien that I've been dreaming of? :-)
Or just coat the whole bloody moon to lay the dust. There's no biosphere to mess up, and once we're there to stay it won't be a pristine high-vacuum-worthless-desert-wasteland anymore. If we got a wee bit of atmosphere going we could just keep it wet. We'll need lots of water anyway. Maybe water vapor could *be* the wee bit of atmosphere.
Incidentally, am I the only one who, upon seeing the title of this article, thought immediately of _A Fall of Moondust_?
It isn't a proof if nobody understands it. We can use mechanical aids to help our brains develop proofs, but we can't just take the machine's word for it...that's not what "proof" means.
This is not to assert that any recent results are "wrong" in some way. But understanding by a human should be one of the standards for proof, at least among humans. Even if a mechanically-assisted proof is too laborious for humans to carry out unassisted, they must be able to explain why the result is valid.
(A proof by AI could reasonably be accepted by other AIs even if no human can follow it, but that would have no value to humans unless we have good reason, already in place, to trust the judgment of the AIs in question. And even if we do trust them, argument from authority is weak and should not be substituted for at least making the attempt.)
Go back to stupidphones. My now-ancient StarTAC does everything I want in a telephone, and a lot of stuff I'd like to take out of the menus altogether. If I wanted to lug around lots of other functions, I'd keep them in a separate piece of equipment and only connect it to the phone when I need to connect to somewhere else.
Either that, or just carry a general-purpose computer and plug in a wireless module when I want to have it emulate a telephone or obtain some networked service.
Earth's atmosphere (and Mars') is held down by gravity. Our magnetic field just reduces ablation of the top of our atmosphere by the solar wind. If the atmosphere were held down by magnetism, wouldn't it also stick to those dark shiny things you use to hold notes to the side of your refrigerator?
Anyway, adjusting the magnetosphere is just a part of terraforming, no different than adjusting the atmosphere or the hydrosphere. Whether terraforming is feasible or not is simply a question of how much it's worth to us.
The literature references just don't stop. Have a look at _The Two Faces of Tomorrow_ if you want to think about robo-evolution.
Don't forget _Them_.
Have a look at _Blood Music_. Decide for yourself whether the ending is disaster or apotheosis.
The interesting thing about the Tower of Babel thing is that apparently God had to do something to slow mankind down because it looked like we were going to succeed.
It took about sixty years to go from first powered flight to first footprint on another world.
I've seen pictures from decades ago of a robot that figured out all by itself how to get to a place that it was physically unequipped to reach, by building the tool required from materials it could see.
It might be surprising how long this particular project actually takes. Or it might be surprising how long it *doesn't* take. That's the glory and the frustration of science: you never know until you get there.
I've seen *some* of the stuff that was promised for 2000. And I've seen some stuff that's way *better* than what they promised us for 2000. Even if we don't have nanobots in 30 years, we'll be 30 years closer to them, or something even better. It's really hard to work earnestly for 30 years and produce nothing that's of value to anyone.
Ya know, that's why there's more than one of us. Some to help the starving millions; some to work out the ozone problem; some to figure out what the heck you mean by the rest of it; and some to do the science that supports it all. I think it would be irresponsible to shut down all exploration and discovery "until we solve problems X, Y, and Z."
New stuff goes onto that "must do first" list every time we take something off of it. We'll never get to move on if we don't do it regardless.
And you never know where the next solution will come from -- it might come out of the rainforests, or it might be uncovered by nanobots poring over another planet.
Not all of /. Like just about any other subset of society it has settled out into technophile and technophobe camps. And I think that both sides are a sad development. Treating engineering and technology as religion rather than, well, engineering and technology is not helpful.
How will the settlers feel about invasive nanobot swarms? I can just see the news stories with people waving "Save Our Deserts" placards. (Or will they say "C/Fe for Me"? :-)
"Taxes are paid were the income is earned"
See, that's where the dispute lies. I say that if I am in IN when I do the work then the income was earned in IN. Why should I be taxed by a state that did nothing for me because I wasn't there? IN paid for IN State Police and IN National Guard to protect me while I sat here working.
Our legislature can't even wake up long enough to negotiate reciprocal sales tax agreements with the other states. You think they're going to do this with income tax?
And if I telecommute from my home in IN to a company with offices in NY and IN, am I working in IN or NY or both? If my employer has offices in NY and OH but not IN, am I working in IN, OH, NY, or some combination?
What a lovely mess.
Exactly. None of the "extras" you mention has any legitimate function on a server, but you get them anyway. They *do* significantly expand the attack surface, though, even if they don't have a *legitimate* function.
I want to be able to remove, or better yet never install, every single gadget that I am not going to use. (I wish that some Linux distro.s would catch that clue too....)