I seriously doubt that a new launch technology would result in fewer mission controllers. NASA is extremely concerned about failure due to the fact that they are putting American lives on the line. While all those mission controllers are doing something, many of them are redundant so that things are checked, rechecked, and checked a third time. If NASA seriously could cut down on the number of mission controllers they would have done so with modern computers.
McDonald Douglas already demonstrated that the use of advanced control technology could drastically cut the number of control technicians required to support missions. You are mistaken in assuming that NASA would automatically use the most efficient or cost-effective methods for its operations, particularly when they are forced to use systems designed 40 years ago (namely, the space shuttle).
It should also be pointed out to you that it would be more expensive and much riskier to make fundamental modifications to the space shuttle (taking it out of its original design envelope) than simply designing a system that is intended to use the technologies from the start.
It's interesting to hear these kind of comments regarding database support. I have worked in various customer service fields, and have found that this is true no matter the industry. Forget, "The customer is always right." It is more accurate to say, "The customer is a lying idiot."
Most recently, I was providing support for a major fast food franchise. Many of the managers did not know the difference between a modem and a computer (and one claimed not to know what a keyboard is). They have $100k-worth of networked computer equipment, and they are letting people run the store who don't know what it's called! Not all of them are that hopeles; half the managers know at least some basic concepts.
I don't mind getting calls from new managers who are a little rattled that the printer isn't printing (because the power switch is OFF). What bothers me are the people whose systems are messed up due to bad maintenance, or those who expect me to give them a one-sentence answer that will have everything repaired in a few minutes (especially those who expect the answer without doing any troubleshooting), or those who expect me to be able to fix any problem by dialing into their store. Then, there are those who expect free work (a LOT of free work, as it turns out--business-model significant amounts), or expect the help desk to do their day-to-day menu items, or expect a staff of 30 people to give 8000 stores immediate priority when they call, or expect a technician to arrive onsite within minutes of calling the help desk.
Some guys at Avid (the video editing software company) produced a funny short about customer support that speaks across industry boundries. I saw it at I-film; maybe it's available at other places.
Laser light doesn't spread out the way normal broadband wavelength light does.
The article isn't about lasers; it's not even about masers, contrary to the subject line. Instead, it's about ordinary microwaves, which could be used from 750 meters away.
Incidentally, I have an Associate's Degree in Laser Technology, and I was a laser tech before I became a computer tech.
If we could apply modern technology to develop new heat shields and more efficient boosters, the cost of launch could be tremendously cut!
The X-33 project, like all the other proposed next-generation projects, were supposed to cut launch costs through the use of better booster technology.
Especially when you consider that those are the only places you can make the launch cheaper. You figure after every launch/reentry they still need a full team of engineers to check the vehicle over top to bottom. Can't save any money there.
Money could be saved there, if there were less testing and retrofitting required.
Or how about mission control? Really can't save much money there either.
It takes thousands of technicians to watch over current space flights. Notice the pictures of mission control, which shows row-upon-row of mission controllers; those aren't mere spectators! Each of those men (and women) is a paid employee. There are rooms full of those people all around the world (at least, across the US), who have to follow each mission's every move.
In contrast, the "Delta Clipper" made use of sophisticated control technology to slash the number of mission control technicians required. The first prototype vehicle, the DC-X, only required 3 people to control its launch, hover, horizontal flight, hover and soft, controlled landing. The "Delta Clipper" itself was to have required only a small group of controllers (I can't remember the number just now--I'm pretty sure it was well under 100, and may have been only a dozen). That, alone, would save millions of dollars a flight, in personnel costs and facility's costs.
Where I would really like to see Nasa spend some dough, is on engines for space. I mean, imagine equiping the shuttle with an ION drive!
Ion drives would be nearly useless on the space shuttle. No ion drive is capable of lifting itself from Earth--their most powerful thrust is only a few grams. Once in space, the shuttle is coasting most of the time, anyway. Ion drives are most impressive for interplanetary missions, not simple orbits around Earth--though ion drives have been used to keep some satellites spinning.
Or allowing it to dock with a booster tank in space! We could stash a LEM in the cargo bay, and use the newly equiped boosters to take another trip to the moon! Imagine the media stir that would cause, considering that we haven't been there in 30 years!
That is a possible stunt; but, that is all it is--a stunt. We have already proved that we can send a man to Moon. Now, we need to do something with that capability. We need to do more than jerry-rig something together to get us to Moon; we need a vehicle that is designed for the task of taking equipment to Moon, and setting up operations on Moon.
no Air Force man would ever accept a spacecraft that *needed power* to stay up in the air
And, no Navy man would accept a ship made out of metal, because every fool knows that metal can't float. If the "Titanic" had been made of wood, more people might have been saved (given that the alloy used became brittle and snapped in cold water, the ship might not have even sunk if made of wood). So, why don't we make all passenger craft out of wood today?
Someone needs to point out to you that no US spacecraft has ever had a *USEABLE* flight emergency escape system. Not Mercury. Not Gemini. Not Apollo. Not the Space Shuttle. The escape rocket on top of the Apollo capsule was only usable *before* launch; once the Saturn was a second or two into flight, the escape rocket was useless. After the "Challenger" disaster, NASA investigated ways of providing an emergency escape system for the Shuttle, *but it couldn't find one*! (The best it could do was provide a low-altitude escape jump, or the likely-fatal emergency return-to-base maneuver). As one astronaut who flew on the Shuttle pointed out in a lecture I attended, NASA assured the shuttle astronauts that the Shuttle was virtually failsafe, even though NASA kept putting explosive detonators on the shuttle so it could destroy the vehicle in the event of a bad launch! Incidentally, all rockets require power to stay up in the air; the Shuttle is the only one used that can so much as glide without power.
Don't be too sure that Air Force people won't accept flight vehicles that have to be powered to remain in flight. And, if you think pilots don't like living on the edge, have a look at this:
And yes, helicopters can survive a complete power failure
Autorotation is worthless if you are too close to the ground (to paraphrase someone who said the same thing about parachutes). I think Mr. Powers (of the U-2 spyplane fame) might have something to say about crashing fixed-wing vehicles (which he survived) as opposed to crashing rotary-wing vehicles (which he didn't survive), if he were capable of giving us a comment.
Did you graduate from high school in 1972? Was Lakeside's tuition $12K a year in 1972? Was Harvard's tuition $33k a year in 1972? FYI, Bill Gates graduated from Lakeside in 1972, and entered Harvard in 1973.
NASA is now strictly a research organization, albeit a benevolent one.
"But let's be clear, it is a form of sponsorship for scientists, whose results are of interest only to other scientists. The days of NASA providing marketable benefits to the average American citizen are long gone."
Mindsets like yours are extremely maddening! THE PURPOSE OF SCIENCE IS ***NOT*** MARKETABILITY!!!!! NASA was never intended to be a market research organization! Congress created NASA to put US space technology on a par with world-leading space technology, following the Soviet launch of Sputnik and the US launch failure in 1957. IT WAS NOT INTENDED TO PRODUCE MERCHANDISE!!! NASA EXISTS TO CONDUCT SCIENTIFIC SPACE RESEARCH!!!
It is only the grace of God that any form of science ever results in economic benefits. The fact is, whoever learns how the world around them works, gains a significant advantage in the use of that world. Quite often, that results in a financial benefit--but, that is not the goal of pure scientific research! The idea that all worthwhile science results in immediate economic gratification is a form of brutish ignorance, on a par with people who question the need for a smoke alarm or fire extinguisher simply because they haven't ever needed one.
NASA has a lot of problems, largely caused by people who don't know anything about science telling them what kind of programs they should be pursuing. For example, the United States probably should have a space station. However, the International Space Station is mostly a political and economic excuse, rather than the scientific research tool it might have been without outside interference. That's not to say that scientists always choose the most efficient way to conduct research; but at least scientists have a good idea as to the kind of research that should be conducted!
What year are you in? Are you a mechanical engineering major?
I was a Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) major several years ago (dropped out, still paying the loan). In the third year, the students write their own OS; I suppose they would look at some examples. I'm not sure what the MEs were using to control the industrial robots (someone donated some million-dollar industrial robots to the school); most of the labs that needed computers used the Intel family, though some used Motorola. The most common control OS is DOS; other computers used Windows.
I've heard about QNX for a decade, thanks to their advertisements in "Dr. Dobbs" (I have copies of "Dr. Dobbs" going back to the late '70s). I never thought I'd get a chance to play with it, though. I was pretty excited when I saw it listed on my "Maximum PC" CD.
People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
Nearly all mainstream news organizations have some business tie to low-brow entertainment. CNN and Mad Magazine are both owned by AOL-Time-Warner (you guess which of these is the lowest-brow). Disney owns both ABC Network and Hyperion Press. General Electric (GE) owns NBC Network; I couldn't find any particularly low-brow entertainment owned by them (even though they are one of the largest companies in the world).
Clinton needs to be bashed. More than that, he needs to be arrested, but that's like closing the barn doors after the horses escaped, grew old and died. It is a disgrace that Bill Clinton was even considered for President, much less that he ever was elected. The only people who more deserve punishment than Bill Clinton are those who put him in office.
do you also hold CNN responsible for the same "wacky science" genre stories that TBS shows on "Ripley's Believe It or Not?"
I just want to point out that AOL-Time-Warner also owns Mad Magazine. I only learned that fact a few hours ago, from the link that CNN has posted on their front page for the last few days (taken off in the last few hours).
I don't care if you say that patient wasn't important and that any one would have done. I hired movers, but they were really just a generic strong guy with a truck. Should I not bother paying them because any other mover could have done the same thing? The service they provided wasn't unique to them.
But, strangely enough, they expected to be paid.
Strangely enough, they don't base their bill on the amount of money I will earn at my new location, or the amount of money I save by moving, or the value of my stock options. They bill on the basis of the compensation they want for moving my stuff from one place to another. If I become rich as a result of my move, they aren't going to come back to my door asking for their cut of my profits.
As I said elsewhere, if people as a group refuse to donate tissue to medical research, it will only hurt society by driving up research costs and making some research impossible. The people who are getting rich are doing so on the basis of business dealings; they perform much the same functions as they would if they were in some other industry. Tissue samples aren't what makes them rich; it's the success they have in operating a business.
I like taking pictures. Some of my pictures look pretty good, if I do say so myself. Someday, maybe I'll enter a picture in a contest. If that picture happens to be of a person, I would be well-advised to have them sign a consent form that gives me the legal right to use their image for my own business purposes. If they sign that form, they have no legal or ethical right to demand a cut from any profit I make from that photograph, as long as it is within the ordinary terms of the agreement. The same is true of actors, or anyone else who creates something that is then used by someone else.
If you drive to the lottery office and win the jackpot, or perform honest work and earn a promotion, do you expect the automaker to knock on your door asking for his share of your bonus? "It was our car that got you there; how about 10% of what you got?"
Re:That's not what they mean by "unique."
on
Who Owns Your Body?
·
· Score: 1
"The Congress shall have power... To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries..."
I am aware of the mechanics of Usenet. I have been posting to Usenet for over (5) years, and am toying with the idea of setting up a newsgroup. I am also aware of AOI, and of the events you mention.
Newsgroups aren't shut down "just because of their name," as you suggest. They are shut down for the same reason that any meeting place would be shut down; it has become a public menace. It doesn't matter if some legal activity occurs at the meeting place. The fact that it has become a significant tool in the propagation of crime means that it must be eliminated, or the situation rectified. If you don't want your newsgroup or ISP shut down, do what you can to keep the bad guys from doing the wrong thing in your neighborhood.
Regarding the interstate and international nature of the Internet, the approach that would be used should be obvious, if you calm down for a minute and think about how other, similiar cases are handled. Believe it or not, the Internet is not the only interstate or international exchange known to man, and the principles of laws dealing with these exchanges are well-established, contrary to the hysteria some Net geeks peddle.
If an ISP is located in a state in which the content provided is illegal, don't act so shocked that the state's police require the ISP to stop providing the access. If the ISP is not located in the same state, don't be surprised if the machinary of the federal government begins moving against that ISP. If the ISP is in another country, international legislation will begin dealing with it.
The bottom line is, society is not going to be run by the low-life of this world.
So, what do you expect everyone to do? Just let anyone do anything they want, no matter who gets hurt? Society has to draw a line somewhere, beyond which certain behavior will not be tolerated; people will do whatever they can do.
The Internet was built to be a useful tool. If or when it outlives its usefulness, or becomes essentially harmful to society, it must be dismantled. Don't tell me it's futile; humans built the Internet, and humans can certainly take it apart.
As for criminals simply going somewhere else when there current location is leveled, that is partly true. Some will go other places. Some may not, but whether they do or not, I'm all for making it as difficult for them as possible. The fact that they were using one place instead of the other means the first place was the most conveniant. An essential principle of law enforcement is not to give in to criminals; don't let the inmates run the city.
As a pointy-haired boss, these agreements are not intended to screw hard working developers out of their invention but instead to protect the companies "IP" from getting out.
Yeah, that's the explanation we should expect. It probably is largely true, too. The problem is, one constant of human nature is the urge to exploit, particularly in business relationships. If the potential for abuse is present in the agreement, it only takes the right circumstances before it will be abused. I suppose that nothing I do will be important enough for a company in this age to take that initiative, but that doesn't make me like the idea any better.
Several years ago, I moved to a town called Longview. There was one part of town that had a lot of crime--drug dealers, prostitutes, people milling around and causing trouble. It was a pretty scary neighborhood. Then, the City of Longview took possession of the heart of that area, tore down some of the buildings, and rebuilt a new community center/police outpost on the spot. Of course, this didn't completely stop some people from doing illegal things, but it did clear out that area and cut down on opportunities.
You can't post to or download from a newsgroup that doesn't exist on your server. Could those people go somewhere else and do the same thing? Yes, of course; and when criminals take over a neighborhood, sometimes the neighborhood has to be leveled. The games people play on Usenet aren't worth the cost of human lives.
The best thing to do is to work to prevent urban decay on Usenet--perhaps a case of way too little way too late, but a necessary goal, anyway, if you value its existence.
If it was on the servers of the ISP's, then maybe they should be liable. If they simply had users that were getting their kicks using the service, then there is a problem.
As I understand it, the way that ISPs generally offer newsgroup access is to store the contents of the newsgroup on the ISP machines. Different ISPs have different amounts of available space; that's the reason they limit how many articles they carry at a time for each newsgroup. This is different from Web access, because the Web sites you access may not be (and probably aren't) stored on your ISP's equipment.
If I plot a murder with a hitman long distance over the phone to NY, should AT&T be held responsible for providing a means to do so?
No, but if your hit squad sets up a call center that has business arrangements with AT&T, and regularly uses AT&T to conduct essential operations in your murder-for-hire scheme, then I would expect AT&T to take a close look at how much aid it gives you--to say nothing of the guy who owns the land and building you are using.
The concept of prosecuting those who provide tools of empowerment to people known to use those tools to abuse others is basic to most Western culture. It is one thing to sell guns to Boy Scouts; it is another to sell guns to Mafia hitmen. It is one thing to rent apartments in which someone on one occasion commits a crime; it is another to rent apartments in which people regularly commit crimes. US society does not tolerate a known public menace; that would be considered a disgrace.
ISPs might not be liable for someone occasionally shuttling illegal material through their system, but ISPs certainly should be liable when someone sets up a regular meeting place using their equipment.
The only reason I would subscribe to any Imagine publication (as I just did) is for the included CD. The articles are OK, sometimes even useful, but there is no way I would pay $3 to $5 an issue for what they are printing; I would expect to be getting something the size of the old "Computer Shopper."
It's worth $5 a month to me just to get a decent collection of good-quality programs on CD.
When I was in the Navy, my Lead Petty Officer (LPO) told me that he used to donate blood at every blood drive (Navy ships have blood drives every year). He had a rare blood type that made his blood all the more valuable, but he simply donated it without charge. Then, his wife was in an accident and had to have a transfusion. He was billed quite a bit for the blood used. He pointed out that he had donated his rare blood for years, but that made no difference. So, now he only gives blood when he gets paid for it.
Re:That's not what they mean by "unique."
on
Who Owns Your Body?
·
· Score: 1
If you're going to make unreasonable profit off something(which a patent would imply)
Where do you get the idea that a patent implies that someone is going to make an unreasonable profit? For that matter, how do you decide what is an unreasonable profit?
If, as you suggest, a significantly greater number of people stopped permitting unfettered research on generic samples taken from the donor's body, the cost of research would skyrocket. The researchers wouldn't be making any more money, but their expenses would be higher, and the cumulative effect would be much higher costs for research performed. A lot of research wouldn't even be performed, because there would be no way to recover the expense of the research, much less make a profit. The only people who might benefit would be some donors, and it would be a short-term benefit, because medical progress that probably would have helped them would be hampered.
BTW, it may come as a surprise to you, but medical researchers generally don't make an exceptional amount of money. My Mom was a biomedical research lab technician at University of New Mexico. Her boss has been a friend of our family for several years, and I've known several researchers in various fields at UNM for several years. The medical researchers are not noticably wealthier than the physics or astronomy or literature researchers--or any professor at the University.
I read an article a few years ago that mentioned the public's perception that doctors are rich. The reality, the article noted, is that doctors have a much more modest income than people expect; generally around $80k a year. That isn't a bad salary; it would make a comfortable living; but, it isn't exceptional wealth, either.
Re:That's not what they mean by "unique."
on
Who Owns Your Body?
·
· Score: 1
//Begin unsubstatiated rumor//
In the early days, someone tested all the human cells that people were growing in culture and found *all* the cells came from the same person. This one freak mutants cells could be grown in a culture, and no-one elses could. The mutants cells were contaminating all the 'other' cultures.//End unsubstantiated rumor//
I read about this in some "intellectual" magazine about a decade ago, I think; I don't remember if it was "Scientific American" or "Smithsonian" or some other. I can't quite remember the name of the woman from whose body the cells originated; it was something like Carmalita Lacks. She was a black woman who had cancer (I think it was intestinal cancer). She eventually died (2 or 3 decades ago), but the sample of her cancerous cells were used for further research, and donated to several other research centers. Eventually, her cancer cells found their way into most of the cancer research labs around the world. I believe there was a lawsuit brought regarding this case; did Ms. Lacks (or her estate) actually own these cancerous cells?
There was nothing uniquely useful about the cells that could not also have been found in another person's similar cancer. It just happened that Ms. Lacks was at the time and location in which this research was being performed. The research would have progressed as well with anyone else's similarly cancerous tissue.
If the research could not have been doen without your cells then yes you ought be in on the profits... Without your cells the doctor would have wasted 10 years studying somebody elses cells to the point of failure.
The important point is that these cells ARE NOT unique to the individual. The discoveries just happened to have been made on those cells; they could have been made from samples taken from any number of other people.
Maybe it's paranoia, or extreme distrust, or extreme cynicism. History is full of examples of people taking advantage of other people; that's why we have laws, after all. Your argument would make sense for cases such as that Lacks woman (Carmalita Lacks, I think), whose cancerous cell line has been used in research for many years. But, is it not possible that some individual might have some organic deviation that is inherently useful to mankind? You argue for cases in which the biological sample is simply a generic test piece; what of those cases in which the biological sample is unique? Or, are there such cases?
I was half-dozing on a Navy bus several years ago, and had a strange dream. I saw myself dead, and two people were performing an autopsy on me. I had special organs in my chest that were unique. They took out these organs and used them for secret research. They were trying to understand something that was unique to me, and they were exploiting me.
I suppose the question is, When would this work be exploitation? The linked article indicated cases in which the biological samples supposedly produced unique products, not found in the general population. I suspect the article was deficient, playing on the public's notion of evolution a la "X-men." In this way, I suppose I could say that evolutionists have once again made their own bed (evolution-based racism being another time); now, they will lay in it.
Slashdot Mirror
McDonald Douglas already demonstrated that the use of advanced control technology could drastically cut the number of control technicians required to support missions. You are mistaken in assuming that NASA would automatically use the most efficient or cost-effective methods for its operations, particularly when they are forced to use systems designed 40 years ago (namely, the space shuttle).
It should also be pointed out to you that it would be more expensive and much riskier to make fundamental modifications to the space shuttle (taking it out of its original design envelope) than simply designing a system that is intended to use the technologies from the start.
Most recently, I was providing support for a major fast food franchise. Many of the managers did not know the difference between a modem and a computer (and one claimed not to know what a keyboard is). They have $100k-worth of networked computer equipment, and they are letting people run the store who don't know what it's called! Not all of them are that hopeles; half the managers know at least some basic concepts.
I don't mind getting calls from new managers who are a little rattled that the printer isn't printing (because the power switch is OFF). What bothers me are the people whose systems are messed up due to bad maintenance, or those who expect me to give them a one-sentence answer that will have everything repaired in a few minutes (especially those who expect the answer without doing any troubleshooting), or those who expect me to be able to fix any problem by dialing into their store. Then, there are those who expect free work (a LOT of free work, as it turns out--business-model significant amounts), or expect the help desk to do their day-to-day menu items, or expect a staff of 30 people to give 8000 stores immediate priority when they call, or expect a technician to arrive onsite within minutes of calling the help desk.
Some guys at Avid (the video editing software company) produced a funny short about customer support that speaks across industry boundries. I saw it at I-film; maybe it's available at other places.
The article isn't about lasers; it's not even about masers, contrary to the subject line. Instead, it's about ordinary microwaves, which could be used from 750 meters away.
Incidentally, I have an Associate's Degree in Laser Technology, and I was a laser tech before I became a computer tech.
The X-33 project, like all the other proposed next-generation projects, were supposed to cut launch costs through the use of better booster technology.
Especially when you consider that those are the only places you can make the launch cheaper. You figure after every launch/reentry they still need a full team of engineers to check the vehicle over top to bottom. Can't save any money there.
Money could be saved there, if there were less testing and retrofitting required.
Or how about mission control? Really can't save much money there either.
It takes thousands of technicians to watch over current space flights. Notice the pictures of mission control, which shows row-upon-row of mission controllers; those aren't mere spectators! Each of those men (and women) is a paid employee. There are rooms full of those people all around the world (at least, across the US), who have to follow each mission's every move.
In contrast, the "Delta Clipper" made use of sophisticated control technology to slash the number of mission control technicians required. The first prototype vehicle, the DC-X, only required 3 people to control its launch, hover, horizontal flight, hover and soft, controlled landing. The "Delta Clipper" itself was to have required only a small group of controllers (I can't remember the number just now--I'm pretty sure it was well under 100, and may have been only a dozen). That, alone, would save millions of dollars a flight, in personnel costs and facility's costs.
Where I would really like to see Nasa spend some dough, is on engines for space. I mean, imagine equiping the shuttle with an ION drive!
Ion drives would be nearly useless on the space shuttle. No ion drive is capable of lifting itself from Earth--their most powerful thrust is only a few grams. Once in space, the shuttle is coasting most of the time, anyway. Ion drives are most impressive for interplanetary missions, not simple orbits around Earth--though ion drives have been used to keep some satellites spinning.
Or allowing it to dock with a booster tank in space! We could stash a LEM in the cargo bay, and use the newly equiped boosters to take another trip to the moon! Imagine the media stir that would cause, considering that we haven't been there in 30 years!
That is a possible stunt; but, that is all it is--a stunt. We have already proved that we can send a man to Moon. Now, we need to do something with that capability. We need to do more than jerry-rig something together to get us to Moon; we need a vehicle that is designed for the task of taking equipment to Moon, and setting up operations on Moon.
And, no Navy man would accept a ship made out of metal, because every fool knows that metal can't float. If the "Titanic" had been made of wood, more people might have been saved (given that the alloy used became brittle and snapped in cold water, the ship might not have even sunk if made of wood). So, why don't we make all passenger craft out of wood today?
Someone needs to point out to you that no US spacecraft has ever had a *USEABLE* flight emergency escape system. Not Mercury. Not Gemini. Not Apollo. Not the Space Shuttle. The escape rocket on top of the Apollo capsule was only usable *before* launch; once the Saturn was a second or two into flight, the escape rocket was useless. After the "Challenger" disaster, NASA investigated ways of providing an emergency escape system for the Shuttle, *but it couldn't find one*! (The best it could do was provide a low-altitude escape jump, or the likely-fatal emergency return-to-base maneuver). As one astronaut who flew on the Shuttle pointed out in a lecture I attended, NASA assured the shuttle astronauts that the Shuttle was virtually failsafe, even though NASA kept putting explosive detonators on the shuttle so it could destroy the vehicle in the event of a bad launch! Incidentally, all rockets require power to stay up in the air; the Shuttle is the only one used that can so much as glide without power.
Don't be too sure that Air Force people won't accept flight vehicles that have to be powered to remain in flight. And, if you think pilots don't like living on the edge, have a look at this:
http://www.solotrek.com/
Autorotation is worthless if you are too close to the ground (to paraphrase someone who said the same thing about parachutes). I think Mr. Powers (of the U-2 spyplane fame) might have something to say about crashing fixed-wing vehicles (which he survived) as opposed to crashing rotary-wing vehicles (which he didn't survive), if he were capable of giving us a comment.
"But let's be clear, it is a form of sponsorship for scientists, whose results are of interest only to other scientists. The days of NASA providing marketable benefits to the average American citizen are long gone."
Mindsets like yours are extremely maddening! THE PURPOSE OF SCIENCE IS ***NOT*** MARKETABILITY!!!!! NASA was never intended to be a market research organization! Congress created NASA to put US space technology on a par with world-leading space technology, following the Soviet launch of Sputnik and the US launch failure in 1957. IT WAS NOT INTENDED TO PRODUCE MERCHANDISE!!! NASA EXISTS TO CONDUCT SCIENTIFIC SPACE RESEARCH!!!
It is only the grace of God that any form of science ever results in economic benefits. The fact is, whoever learns how the world around them works, gains a significant advantage in the use of that world. Quite often, that results in a financial benefit--but, that is not the goal of pure scientific research! The idea that all worthwhile science results in immediate economic gratification is a form of brutish ignorance, on a par with people who question the need for a smoke alarm or fire extinguisher simply because they haven't ever needed one.
NASA has a lot of problems, largely caused by people who don't know anything about science telling them what kind of programs they should be pursuing. For example, the United States probably should have a space station. However, the International Space Station is mostly a political and economic excuse, rather than the scientific research tool it might have been without outside interference. That's not to say that scientists always choose the most efficient way to conduct research; but at least scientists have a good idea as to the kind of research that should be conducted!
I was a Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) major several years ago (dropped out, still paying the loan). In the third year, the students write their own OS; I suppose they would look at some examples. I'm not sure what the MEs were using to control the industrial robots (someone donated some million-dollar industrial robots to the school); most of the labs that needed computers used the Intel family, though some used Motorola. The most common control OS is DOS; other computers used Windows.
I've heard about QNX for a decade, thanks to their advertisements in "Dr. Dobbs" (I have copies of "Dr. Dobbs" going back to the late '70s). I never thought I'd get a chance to play with it, though. I was pretty excited when I saw it listed on my "Maximum PC" CD.
Nearly all mainstream news organizations have some business tie to low-brow entertainment. CNN and Mad Magazine are both owned by AOL-Time-Warner (you guess which of these is the lowest-brow). Disney owns both ABC Network and Hyperion Press. General Electric (GE) owns NBC Network; I couldn't find any particularly low-brow entertainment owned by them (even though they are one of the largest companies in the world).
Clinton needs to be bashed. More than that, he needs to be arrested, but that's like closing the barn doors after the horses escaped, grew old and died. It is a disgrace that Bill Clinton was even considered for President, much less that he ever was elected. The only people who more deserve punishment than Bill Clinton are those who put him in office.
I just want to point out that AOL-Time-Warner also owns Mad Magazine. I only learned that fact a few hours ago, from the link that CNN has posted on their front page for the last few days (taken off in the last few hours).
http://www.cnn.com/2001/SHOWBIZ/books/02/16/mad.ma g.advertising/index.html
But, strangely enough, they expected to be paid.
Strangely enough, they don't base their bill on the amount of money I will earn at my new location, or the amount of money I save by moving, or the value of my stock options. They bill on the basis of the compensation they want for moving my stuff from one place to another. If I become rich as a result of my move, they aren't going to come back to my door asking for their cut of my profits.
As I said elsewhere, if people as a group refuse to donate tissue to medical research, it will only hurt society by driving up research costs and making some research impossible. The people who are getting rich are doing so on the basis of business dealings; they perform much the same functions as they would if they were in some other industry. Tissue samples aren't what makes them rich; it's the success they have in operating a business.
I like taking pictures. Some of my pictures look pretty good, if I do say so myself. Someday, maybe I'll enter a picture in a contest. If that picture happens to be of a person, I would be well-advised to have them sign a consent form that gives me the legal right to use their image for my own business purposes. If they sign that form, they have no legal or ethical right to demand a cut from any profit I make from that photograph, as long as it is within the ordinary terms of the agreement. The same is true of actors, or anyone else who creates something that is then used by someone else.
If you drive to the lottery office and win the jackpot, or perform honest work and earn a promotion, do you expect the automaker to knock on your door asking for his share of your bonus? "It was our car that got you there; how about 10% of what you got?"
U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constituti on.articlei.html#science%20and%20useful%20arts
Newsgroups aren't shut down "just because of their name," as you suggest. They are shut down for the same reason that any meeting place would be shut down; it has become a public menace. It doesn't matter if some legal activity occurs at the meeting place. The fact that it has become a significant tool in the propagation of crime means that it must be eliminated, or the situation rectified. If you don't want your newsgroup or ISP shut down, do what you can to keep the bad guys from doing the wrong thing in your neighborhood.
Regarding the interstate and international nature of the Internet, the approach that would be used should be obvious, if you calm down for a minute and think about how other, similiar cases are handled. Believe it or not, the Internet is not the only interstate or international exchange known to man, and the principles of laws dealing with these exchanges are well-established, contrary to the hysteria some Net geeks peddle.
If an ISP is located in a state in which the content provided is illegal, don't act so shocked that the state's police require the ISP to stop providing the access. If the ISP is not located in the same state, don't be surprised if the machinary of the federal government begins moving against that ISP. If the ISP is in another country, international legislation will begin dealing with it.
The bottom line is, society is not going to be run by the low-life of this world.
The Internet was built to be a useful tool. If or when it outlives its usefulness, or becomes essentially harmful to society, it must be dismantled. Don't tell me it's futile; humans built the Internet, and humans can certainly take it apart.
As for criminals simply going somewhere else when there current location is leveled, that is partly true. Some will go other places. Some may not, but whether they do or not, I'm all for making it as difficult for them as possible. The fact that they were using one place instead of the other means the first place was the most conveniant. An essential principle of law enforcement is not to give in to criminals; don't let the inmates run the city.
Yeah, that's the explanation we should expect. It probably is largely true, too. The problem is, one constant of human nature is the urge to exploit, particularly in business relationships. If the potential for abuse is present in the agreement, it only takes the right circumstances before it will be abused. I suppose that nothing I do will be important enough for a company in this age to take that initiative, but that doesn't make me like the idea any better.
You can't post to or download from a newsgroup that doesn't exist on your server. Could those people go somewhere else and do the same thing? Yes, of course; and when criminals take over a neighborhood, sometimes the neighborhood has to be leveled. The games people play on Usenet aren't worth the cost of human lives.
The best thing to do is to work to prevent urban decay on Usenet--perhaps a case of way too little way too late, but a necessary goal, anyway, if you value its existence.
As I understand it, the way that ISPs generally offer newsgroup access is to store the contents of the newsgroup on the ISP machines. Different ISPs have different amounts of available space; that's the reason they limit how many articles they carry at a time for each newsgroup. This is different from Web access, because the Web sites you access may not be (and probably aren't) stored on your ISP's equipment.
No, but if your hit squad sets up a call center that has business arrangements with AT&T, and regularly uses AT&T to conduct essential operations in your murder-for-hire scheme, then I would expect AT&T to take a close look at how much aid it gives you--to say nothing of the guy who owns the land and building you are using.
The concept of prosecuting those who provide tools of empowerment to people known to use those tools to abuse others is basic to most Western culture. It is one thing to sell guns to Boy Scouts; it is another to sell guns to Mafia hitmen. It is one thing to rent apartments in which someone on one occasion commits a crime; it is another to rent apartments in which people regularly commit crimes. US society does not tolerate a known public menace; that would be considered a disgrace.
ISPs might not be liable for someone occasionally shuttling illegal material through their system, but ISPs certainly should be liable when someone sets up a regular meeting place using their equipment.
It's worth $5 a month to me just to get a decent collection of good-quality programs on CD.
Where do you get the idea that a patent implies that someone is going to make an unreasonable profit? For that matter, how do you decide what is an unreasonable profit?
If, as you suggest, a significantly greater number of people stopped permitting unfettered research on generic samples taken from the donor's body, the cost of research would skyrocket. The researchers wouldn't be making any more money, but their expenses would be higher, and the cumulative effect would be much higher costs for research performed. A lot of research wouldn't even be performed, because there would be no way to recover the expense of the research, much less make a profit. The only people who might benefit would be some donors, and it would be a short-term benefit, because medical progress that probably would have helped them would be hampered.
BTW, it may come as a surprise to you, but medical researchers generally don't make an exceptional amount of money. My Mom was a biomedical research lab technician at University of New Mexico. Her boss has been a friend of our family for several years, and I've known several researchers in various fields at UNM for several years. The medical researchers are not noticably wealthier than the physics or astronomy or literature researchers--or any professor at the University.
I read an article a few years ago that mentioned the public's perception that doctors are rich. The reality, the article noted, is that doctors have a much more modest income than people expect; generally around $80k a year. That isn't a bad salary; it would make a comfortable living; but, it isn't exceptional wealth, either.
I read about this in some "intellectual" magazine about a decade ago, I think; I don't remember if it was "Scientific American" or "Smithsonian" or some other. I can't quite remember the name of the woman from whose body the cells originated; it was something like Carmalita Lacks. She was a black woman who had cancer (I think it was intestinal cancer). She eventually died (2 or 3 decades ago), but the sample of her cancerous cells were used for further research, and donated to several other research centers. Eventually, her cancer cells found their way into most of the cancer research labs around the world. I believe there was a lawsuit brought regarding this case; did Ms. Lacks (or her estate) actually own these cancerous cells?
There was nothing uniquely useful about the cells that could not also have been found in another person's similar cancer. It just happened that Ms. Lacks was at the time and location in which this research was being performed. The research would have progressed as well with anyone else's similarly cancerous tissue.
The important point is that these cells ARE NOT unique to the individual. The discoveries just happened to have been made on those cells; they could have been made from samples taken from any number of other people.
I was half-dozing on a Navy bus several years ago, and had a strange dream. I saw myself dead, and two people were performing an autopsy on me. I had special organs in my chest that were unique. They took out these organs and used them for secret research. They were trying to understand something that was unique to me, and they were exploiting me.
I suppose the question is, When would this work be exploitation? The linked article indicated cases in which the biological samples supposedly produced unique products, not found in the general population. I suspect the article was deficient, playing on the public's notion of evolution a la "X-men." In this way, I suppose I could say that evolutionists have once again made their own bed (evolution-based racism being another time); now, they will lay in it.