Personally, I'd rather see more money spent on human spaceflight, such as the necessary refitting/redesigning of the shuttles. Probes are great, but Pluto just isn't that exciting to me.
You need to distinguish between your objectives. Human spaceflight serves no immediate purpose. It is a long-term investment for the day where we have the resources and technology to travel to other stars and colonize the galaxy. But in the here and now, it's entertainment: money spent with no productive use. (And better spent, if I may add this, than on automobile races, or presidential campaigns, or certain wars, or any other form of TV entertainment).
The Pluto probe, on the other hand, is science, pure and simple. It's not meant to be exciting, except for scientifically minded people. I won't go on about the reasons for science...
What do politicians care about exploring Pluto? This is just another superiority assertion by the US government.
Maybe. But it makes sense scientifically (look at the story for the why of it), and what is life but a series of contests? If not for the ideological dick-waving contest in the 60s, there would have been no Apollo.
How about that moon that may have a liquid ocean beneath it's surface?
You are correct that landing a probe on Europa (insert ominous Kubrick film warning) would be desirable. However, that's several more levels of technical complexity. You need to deploy a lander on the surface (no atmosphere = reaction engines = fuel = heavy = cost), then penetrating a kilometer-thick ice crust (power = radiothermic generator = heavy, also evil), then deploy an autonomous (the comm delay is measured in hours) microsubmarine equipped with all the instruments usually found in an entire university laboratory. Which in turn require bandwidth. And more power. And very good control software.
In short, it's probably doable (what isn't?), but it would cost orders of magnitude more than the Pluto/Kuiper probe.
This mission should be shut down through peaceful protests before we all end up glowing green.
This concern is understandable, but uninformed. Refer to this page for a technical explanation of the problem and its solution. There is also a wealth of information here.
I, personally, am more concerned about nuclear-powered Cold War-era spy satellites still orbiting Earth than I am about a 21th-century-technology vehicle to be launched far, far away.
Unfortunately, the problems haven't even started yet for this mission.
Pretty much anything going to the outer system must have a radiothermoisotopic battery aboard, which powers the craft by using the warmth of decaying radioactive isotopes. It's too dark for solar cells out there. And to get out there, probes must use slingshot trajectories around inner system planets, usually including Earth. It is conceivable, if highly improbable, that a navigation error (insert unit conversion joke) would cause the probe to impact Earth instead of passing it by.
In sum, be prepared for a repeat of the Cassini craze.
More people should look at wood burning these days.
No. Not on a global scale, because then it becomes non-sustainable.
Excessive wood burning is one of the major reasons for desertification in developing countries. They experience a population explosion while many people retain their agricultural/nomadic lifestyle. Too many eaten, trampled and burnt plants means rapid erosion.
If you plant one tree for every one you burn, it's OK, but this makes little economic sense, as the energy density of wood is too low and the costs (time, space) too high to warrant the effort in a developed society.
There's not a whole bunch of places to put the waste... Europe's a small place.
But money is global, no? There are many nations that have basically nothing useful to offer to the world economy except empty space and geological stability. Of course, making sure that the local Saddam equivalent doesn't simply dump the stuff on whatever ethnic group he considers unwanted, or that he doesn't pack it in dirty bombs for a return-to-sender is another matter...
I'm not sure why peolpe haven't looked to alcohol for fuel.
Isn't that the stuff that stinks like french fries? But of course this is a moot point as long as fossil fuels are cheaper. The key word here is incentives.
and would put an end to OPEC and all their [... ASCII code?]
Well, no. Crude oil contains many many different hydrocarbons. After refinement, you have petrol and a lot of other chemicals that are presently irreplaceable in industry. Again, alternatives are conceivable for most applications, but... fossil is cheaper.
Maybe we really do need a Bush dynasty in the White House? They keep stirring up the Middle East with unfinished wars, thus keeping oil prices up, and protecting the environment against their own intentions. The "invisible hand" of global ecologics?:-)
Some background info from a world trade law student:
One: European governments are subsidizing Airbus development costs, which according to the U.S. violates WTO rules on subsidies. Of course, neither the EU nor the Bush administration can really be considered champions of unrestricted free trade. [rant] Although economists and common sense agree that free trade results in a net wealth benefit (note that this doesn't imply a "fair" distribution of that wealth), special interest groups that have much to lose from free trade (unproductive industries, unions) find it easier to exert political influence in favor of protectionism than the average person-on-the-street, who stands to lose a few cents a day on account of a specific protectionist measure, of which he is generally not even aware. [/rant]
Two: There is of course no economical or technical reason at all to distribute this kind of megaconstruction project all over Europe. It is estimated that all the silly moving around of pieces increases construction cost by a two-figures percentage. The reason, of course, is a political one: every nation wants a piece of the cake...
These links have been thrown around a lot on Slashdot already, but I think they deserve to be posted at least once in every story about books...
If you would like to read more free scifi e-books, the Baen Free Library is the place to start looking. I especially recommend David Weber's Harrington novels (the first two are available, and they weren't boring back then).
Another book with more intelligent chimps is The Uplift War by David Brin. Very entertaining.
The geneering of mammals to sapience has indeed been best addressed so far by David Brin's Uplift books. Good space opera, intelligent chimps, dolphins and generally very interesting aliens.
Yes, it's because we like being rich too much. Plus, all 700 years of Swiss foreign policy basically has been variations on the theme "get your foreign fingers the f--k out of our most respectable business".
I am in favor of adhesion to the EU, but the bigwigs, Germany and France, aren't really providing inspired leadership right now.
Chances are, the software would include features advantageous to the irs only.
Well, the Bernese version is in Java, you can check the source out. Plus, the Swiss tax system is a lot less complicated than (apparently) the U.S. system. I have only 8 pages to fill out, although we have parallel state/federal systems, too. Even on paper, it's difficult to mess it up. 'Course, this program is intended for the average household user, not for billionaires... those are much better off with the clever Zurich lawyers.
Java being an interpreted language, of course the sorce code is de facto open. Although the state of Berne retains the copyright, I can't imagine them preempting any improvement attempts. It's not as though they make money off the program.
While would be great, i dont see it happening, as we have 50 state tax rules and sets of forms to deal with.
It is doable. As I mentioned in another post, if the comparatively poor Swiss canton of Berne (pop. 900'000) can afford to develop an entire tax software app and give it away, most US states (pop. some ten million) should too. (Unless you really do prefer tax cuts for the well-off)
If they just would goto a "flat tax" the entire problem would go away..
Yes, and I guess most people would go away too. Or maybe you can come up with a way for Joe Burgerflipper to pay $7'688'000'000/year? (U.S. '04 budget receipts, $1922 bio.; divided by U.S. population, 250 mio.)
The Swiss canton of Berne has been distributing the TaxMe Software for two years now. It's a Java app, so it runs on any OS. You fill in the tax data, it creates PDF tax forms for you to print out and sign. Or you can even do it all online through a web interface, using the ID/password printed on the physical forms everyone gets by mail. Very slick.
These men and women assumed great risk in this service to all humanity. In an age when space flight has come to seem almost routine, it is easy to overlook the dangers of travel by rocket and the difficulties of navigating the fierce outer atmosphere of the earth.
These astronauts knew the dangers, and they faced them willingly, knowing they had a high and noble purpose in life. Because of their courage and daring and idealism, we will miss them all the more.
All Americans today are thinking, as well, of the families of these men and women who have been given this sudden shock and grief. You're not alone. Our entire nation grieves with you. And those you loved will always have the respect and gratitude of this country.
The cause in which they died will continue. Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on.
Consumers don't exist. Producers don't exist. We're both just equal partners accepting one person's services or products for the bartered exchange for another.
There is a rational reason for "consumer protection": the partners do not operate on an equal basis. Many, if not most legal relationships in an industrialized society involve a natural person on one side and a corporation on the other. Leaving aside the discrepancy in factual power that others have pointed out, an issue of law remains.
The terms of the contract between the two partners are generally set by the corporate entity and the natural person can only accept or decline. Were we simply to say, as you do, "pacta sunt servanda" (pacts must be kept), the corporation has a powerful incentive to produce an umpty-page convoluted mess (think MS EULAs) that totally distorts the distribution of rights and duties normally associated with that type of contract. People simply do not read or understand such documents, implicitly (and legitimately, as in any business relationship) assuming that the other side isn't out to screw them. Because of this, contract law (although I can only really speak about European Romanic civil law from here on) has a number of rules dealing with this kind of relationship, including the "in dubio contra stipulatorem" rule of interpretation.
(Yes, the individual could simply decline to sign, but a: he often has little factual choice (think rent contracts) and b: he shouldn't have to, because he has the right to expect the other to behave in a honest manner)
Besides, strict contractual formalism (which is characteristical of archaic societies, by the way) just makes everyday life more complicated. The corporation has to pay only one lawyer to write up their EULA or whatever, but millions of people have to spend valuable hours of their life trying to figure out whether they just sold their soul to the Devil by clicking "OK".
Although this is (-1, offtopic), because of this discussion I have stumbled over what appears to be the arguably worst piece of SF (or fantasy, really) ever published, Argon's Eye. Read it and die a flaming death laughing.
Are you referring to that fictional world where branding irons and whips are generally considered an indispensable part of the dating process? Nasty Hemos.
The Characters of David Weber and C. S. Forrester
on
War of Honor
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Disclaimer: I've read all Harrington books and liked them very much. But bear with me for a moment while I try to illustrate why Weber falls short of Forrester on hero characterization. (However, Forrester's secondary characters often exhibit the exciting personality of a belaying pin. Let's hear it for Bush, Brown...)
Horatio Hornblower, even as an Admiral, is constantly faced with his deficiencies (he has little physical courage, he is unsociable and he can't hear music). Consider this excerpt from "Lord Hornblower", where he has to kill or capture a brig's crew, who have mutinied because their (literally) sadistic captain had them whipped daily:
Faced with the certainty of a flogging in the immediate future, they had risen in mutiny, and he [H.H.] could not blame them. He had seen enough backs cut to ribbons; he knew that he himself would do anything, literally anything, to avoid such torture for himself if he were faced with the prospect of it. His flesh crept as he made himself seriously consider how he would feel if he knew he were to be flogged next week.
Our other H. H., in contrast, is a likeable enough character. But she is perfect, she's a mix of Joan of Arc, Queen Elizabeth (of Armada fame) and the girl that the guy who did the Nike of Samothrake probably had wet dreams about. Let's see her in action:
Something happened inside Honor Harrington in the moment that her ship rolled. The panic vanished. The fear remained, but it was suddenly a distant, unimportant thing--something which could no longer touch her, would no longer be permitted to affect her. She looked full into the face of Death, not just for her but for her entire ship and everyone aboard it, and there was no doubt in her mind that he had come for them all. Yet her fear had transmuted into something else entirely. A cold, focused purpose that sang in her blood and bone. Her almond eyes stared into Death's empty sockets, and her soul bared its teeth and snarled defiance.
"Port broadside stand by for Fire Plan Delta Seven," that soprano rapier commanded, and confirmations raced back from War Maiden's undamaged broadside even as Annika's fire continued to hammer harmlessly at the impenetrable belly of her wedge.
And that's her as a midshipwoman, age 18. But hey, buy the books anyway, they're damn good military SF, and I really, really apreciate the good physics.
Exactly this concept of transportation has been under consideration in Switzerland for a long time under the name Swissmetro.
The idea is to link the major population centers together, creating in effect a single country-wide city. The technology is ready to build the demonstration track from Geneva to Lausanne (~30 km), but so far, the government and the Federal Assembly have been unwilling to shell out the CHF 1.5 bio (about/$ 1 bio) required to do it.
Go hither for a cool simulation video or thither for technical details, or even yonder for the math.
The Colombian mountaineer slowly begins freezing to death, surviving for 24 hours with his only warmth coming from carefully measured doses of brandy.
Do not do this. Alcohol dilates the capillaries, thus actually lowering the body temperature. You feel warmer because of the desensitizing effect, but booze will just make you freeze faster. Details can be found e. g. here.
Slashdot Mirror
Personally, I'd rather see more money spent on human spaceflight, such as the necessary refitting/redesigning of the shuttles. Probes are great, but Pluto just isn't that exciting to me.
You need to distinguish between your objectives. Human spaceflight serves no immediate purpose. It is a long-term investment for the day where we have the resources and technology to travel to other stars and colonize the galaxy. But in the here and now, it's entertainment: money spent with no productive use. (And better spent, if I may add this, than on automobile races, or presidential campaigns, or certain wars, or any other form of TV entertainment).
The Pluto probe, on the other hand, is science, pure and simple. It's not meant to be exciting, except for scientifically minded people. I won't go on about the reasons for science...
What do politicians care about exploring Pluto? This is just another superiority assertion by the US government.
Maybe. But it makes sense scientifically (look at the story for the why of it), and what is life but a series of contests? If not for the ideological dick-waving contest in the 60s, there would have been no Apollo.
How about that moon that may have a liquid ocean beneath it's surface?
You are correct that landing a probe on Europa (insert ominous Kubrick film warning) would be desirable. However, that's several more levels of technical complexity. You need to deploy a lander on the surface (no atmosphere = reaction engines = fuel = heavy = cost), then penetrating a kilometer-thick ice crust (power = radiothermic generator = heavy, also evil), then deploy an autonomous (the comm delay is measured in hours) microsubmarine equipped with all the instruments usually found in an entire university laboratory. Which in turn require bandwidth. And more power. And very good control software.
In short, it's probably doable (what isn't?), but it would cost orders of magnitude more than the Pluto/Kuiper probe.
This mission should be shut down through peaceful protests before we all end up glowing green.
This concern is understandable, but uninformed. Refer to this page for a technical explanation of the problem and its solution. There is also a wealth of information here.
I, personally, am more concerned about nuclear-powered Cold War-era spy satellites still orbiting Earth than I am about a 21th-century-technology vehicle to be launched far, far away.
Unfortunately, the problems haven't even started yet for this mission.
Pretty much anything going to the outer system must have a radiothermoisotopic battery aboard, which powers the craft by using the warmth of decaying radioactive isotopes. It's too dark for solar cells out there.
And to get out there, probes must use slingshot trajectories around inner system planets, usually including Earth. It is conceivable, if highly improbable, that a navigation error (insert unit conversion joke) would cause the probe to impact Earth instead of passing it by.
In sum, be prepared for a repeat of the Cassini craze.
More people should look at wood burning these days.
No. Not on a global scale, because then it becomes non-sustainable.
Excessive wood burning is one of the major reasons for desertification in developing countries. They experience a population explosion while many people retain their agricultural/nomadic lifestyle. Too many eaten, trampled and burnt plants means rapid erosion.
If you plant one tree for every one you burn, it's OK, but this makes little economic sense, as the energy density of wood is too low and the costs (time, space) too high to warrant the effort in a developed society.
There's not a whole bunch of places to put the waste ... Europe's a small place.
But money is global, no? There are many nations that have basically nothing useful to offer to the world economy except empty space and geological stability. Of course, making sure that the local Saddam equivalent doesn't simply dump the stuff on whatever ethnic group he considers unwanted, or that he doesn't pack it in dirty bombs for a return-to-sender is another matter...
I'm not sure why peolpe haven't looked to alcohol for fuel.
:-)
Isn't that the stuff that stinks like french fries? But of course this is a moot point as long as fossil fuels are cheaper. The key word here is incentives.
and would put an end to OPEC and all their [... ASCII code?]
Well, no. Crude oil contains many many different hydrocarbons. After refinement, you have petrol and a lot of other chemicals that are presently irreplaceable in industry. Again, alternatives are conceivable for most applications, but... fossil is cheaper.
Maybe we really do need a Bush dynasty in the White House? They keep stirring up the Middle East with unfinished wars, thus keeping oil prices up, and protecting the environment against their own intentions. The "invisible hand" of global ecologics?
And then there is the thermonuclear fusion gadget.
Of course I know that:
It's always 10 years away.
There still is some radioactive waste. (he3?)
It won't be as cheap as fossil.
However:
The science works, it's mainly a technical issue (containment, superconducting magnets)
The waste elements are much lighter, so the halflife is measured in years, not aeons
There is much more deuterium and tritium around than U235. The oceans first, then the gas giant atmospheres...
Some background info from a world trade law student:
One: European governments are subsidizing Airbus development costs, which according to the U.S. violates WTO rules on subsidies. Of course, neither the EU nor the Bush administration can really be considered champions of unrestricted free trade.
[rant] Although economists and common sense agree that free trade results in a net wealth benefit (note that this doesn't imply a "fair" distribution of that wealth), special interest groups that have much to lose from free trade (unproductive industries, unions) find it easier to exert political influence in favor of protectionism than the average person-on-the-street, who stands to lose a few cents a day on account of a specific protectionist measure, of which he is generally not even aware. [/rant]
Two: There is of course no economical or technical reason at all to distribute this kind of megaconstruction project all over Europe. It is estimated that all the silly moving around of pieces increases construction cost by a two-figures percentage. The reason, of course, is a political one: every nation wants a piece of the cake...
These links have been thrown around a lot on Slashdot already, but I think they deserve to be posted at least once in every story about books...
If you would like to read more free scifi e-books, the Baen Free Library is the place to start looking. I especially recommend David Weber's Harrington novels (the first two are available, and they weren't boring back then).
Then of course there is Project Gutenberg, which has most stuff worth reading up to circa 1920. Even more books are available on their distributed proofreading site, featured on Slashdot a while back.
Are there other, similar places where one can - legally! - find quality reading material?
Another book with more intelligent chimps is The Uplift War by David Brin. Very entertaining.
The geneering of mammals to sapience has indeed been best addressed so far by David Brin's Uplift books. Good space opera, intelligent chimps, dolphins and generally very interesting aliens.
swizerland isn't in the eu.
Yes, it's because we like being rich too much. Plus, all 700 years of Swiss foreign policy basically has been variations on the theme "get your foreign fingers the f--k out of our most respectable business".
I am in favor of adhesion to the EU, but the bigwigs, Germany and France, aren't really providing inspired leadership right now.
Chances are, the software would include features advantageous to the irs only.
Well, the Bernese version is in Java, you can check the source out. Plus, the Swiss tax system is a lot less complicated than (apparently) the U.S. system. I have only 8 pages to fill out, although we have parallel state/federal systems, too. Even on paper, it's difficult to mess it up. 'Course, this program is intended for the average household user, not for billionaires... those are much better off with the clever Zurich lawyers.
Is it open source? (Just curious.)
Java being an interpreted language, of course the sorce code is de facto open. Although the state of Berne retains the copyright, I can't imagine them preempting any improvement attempts. It's not as though they make money off the program.
While would be great, i dont see it happening, as we have 50 state tax rules and sets of forms to deal with.
It is doable. As I mentioned in another post, if the comparatively poor Swiss canton of Berne (pop. 900'000) can afford to develop an entire tax software app and give it away, most US states (pop. some ten million) should too. (Unless you really do prefer tax cuts for the well-off)
If they just would goto a "flat tax" the entire problem would go away..
Yes, and I guess most people would go away too. Or maybe you can come up with a way for Joe Burgerflipper to pay $7'688'000'000/year? (U.S. '04 budget receipts, $1922 bio.; divided by U.S. population, 250 mio.)
The Swiss canton of Berne has been distributing the TaxMe Software for two years now. It's a Java app, so it runs on any OS. You fill in the tax data, it creates PDF tax forms for you to print out and sign. Or you can even do it all online through a web interface, using the ID/password printed on the physical forms everyone gets by mail. Very slick.
Consumers don't exist. Producers don't exist. We're both just equal partners accepting one person's services or products for the bartered exchange for another.
There is a rational reason for "consumer protection": the partners do not operate on an equal basis. Many, if not most legal relationships in an industrialized society involve a natural person on one side and a corporation on the other. Leaving aside the discrepancy in factual power that others have pointed out, an issue of law remains.
The terms of the contract between the two partners are generally set by the corporate entity and the natural person can only accept or decline. Were we simply to say, as you do, "pacta sunt servanda" (pacts must be kept), the corporation has a powerful incentive to produce an umpty-page convoluted mess (think MS EULAs) that totally distorts the distribution of rights and duties normally associated with that type of contract. People simply do not read or understand such documents, implicitly (and legitimately, as in any business relationship) assuming that the other side isn't out to screw them. Because of this, contract law (although I can only really speak about European Romanic civil law from here on) has a number of rules dealing with this kind of relationship, including the "in dubio contra stipulatorem" rule of interpretation.
(Yes, the individual could simply decline to sign, but a: he often has little factual choice (think rent contracts) and b: he shouldn't have to, because he has the right to expect the other to behave in a honest manner)
Besides, strict contractual formalism (which is characteristical of archaic societies, by the way) just makes everyday life more complicated. The corporation has to pay only one lawyer to write up their EULA or whatever, but millions of people have to spend valuable hours of their life trying to figure out whether they just sold their soul to the Devil by clicking "OK".
Although this is (-1, offtopic), because of this discussion I have stumbled over what appears to be the arguably worst piece of SF (or fantasy, really) ever published, Argon's Eye. Read it and die a flaming death laughing.
from the maybe-counter-earth-exists dept.
Are you referring to that fictional world where branding irons and whips are generally considered an indispensable part of the dating process? Nasty Hemos.
Horatio Hornblower, even as an Admiral, is constantly faced with his deficiencies (he has little physical courage, he is unsociable and he can't hear music). Consider this excerpt from "Lord Hornblower", where he has to kill or capture a brig's crew, who have mutinied because their (literally) sadistic captain had them whipped daily:
Our other H. H., in contrast, is a likeable enough character. But she is perfect, she's a mix of Joan of Arc, Queen Elizabeth (of Armada fame) and the girl that the guy who did the Nike of Samothrake probably had wet dreams about. Let's see her in action:
And that's her as a midshipwoman, age 18. But hey, buy the books anyway, they're damn good military SF, and I really, really apreciate the good physics.
What are your favorites?
Exactly this concept of transportation has been under consideration in Switzerland for a long time under the name Swissmetro. The idea is to link the major population centers together, creating in effect a single country-wide city. The technology is ready to build the demonstration track from Geneva to Lausanne (~30 km), but so far, the government and the Federal Assembly have been unwilling to shell out the CHF 1.5 bio (about /$ 1 bio) required to do it.
Go hither for a cool simulation video or thither for technical details, or even yonder for the math.
Do not do this. Alcohol dilates the capillaries, thus actually lowering the body temperature. You feel warmer because of the desensitizing effect, but booze will just make you freeze faster. Details can be found e. g. here.
Does anyone have data concerning its vibration resilience? (namely, does it skip while the person holding the player it is integrated in is running?)