Yes, there are mountains of food surpluses in every first world country, doing nothing but rotting slowly. That is the nature of a food surplus - if you don't have one and you have a bad year, you are screwed. If you have a good year, it rots. Think of it as an insurance policy - you can think of it as a "waste" until you need it, but when you do it had better be there (and no, I don't think of it as a 'waste'). Nations without a food surplus are NOT producing enough food. Period.
The file size does indeed remain constant, but the attacker is constrained as to what he can substitute out of the original file while maintaining both the file size and the MD5 hash. Without the file size remaining constant too, the attacker can theoretically make the original file into a trojan. With the file size remaining constant, most likely the only thing an attacker can do is break the file - he doesn't have enough leeway to put something malicious in there. I think.
It seems to me that at least the malicious nature of this vulnerability can be limited by using the size of the file as an additional check besides the MD5 hash. In other words, if you know how large the file is supposed to be in bytes, then there is less likelihood that something malicious can be passed off as the original - even if it has the same MD5.
Is that right? I'm no expert by any means, but could this reduce the potential for a real attack to pretty much nill?
For you to find out if you are right we need more information. If we can get hold of the images before and after this frame, then you could see if the lamp was lit before and dark after. Unless that is true, it can't be a light bulb blowing out.
I think that's the right way to approach / attack Gator's EULA. IANAL, but for a contract to be valid there has to be consideration (something of value, could be intangible or tangible) given to each side.
Currently, software companies are skating on the thin ice that the EULA actually gives you permission to load the software into memory (i.e. making a copy of it) and use it - purchasing the box and media the software is stored on does not. So that is the consideration you get for agreeing to the EULA (which contains the clauses which are the consideration they get) This is pretty much BS as far as I'm concerned - some judges do not agree.
In any case, you could certainly argue that since you didn't want the software, know the software installed itself, or know that it is running, you haven't gotten any consideration from Gator at all. If a judge agrees with that, the EULA is so much hot air - it would not bind you at all.
I call bullshit. If a bus system like that can charge $.25 and show a profit they are NOT including the costs of building and maintaining a separate road system just for busses. The costs would be astronomical here (since we have snow or at least frost in most every part of the country, and no room in the cities or towns to create an entire new road system without bulldozing a lot of buildings) and take decades to implement. Sorry, won't work here.
Actually, you can do that today, with readily available technology - well, more or less. Just set up a proximity card reader to the computer, and have everyone carry a prox card. When you sit down in front of a computer it knows it's you and grants your your unique access. No passwords, nothing to remember (except to take the prox card with you).
Now you just have the problem of someone stealing the prox card (or counterfeiting it). Shifts the security from something you know to something you have.
Maybe implants? With cryptographic exchanges to defeat counterfeiting? That might be a solution. Good for Big Brother uses too.
There isn't any way to keep up with it all - the best philosophy I've found that helps was one reportedly attributed to Albert Einstein. "I don't know everything, but I know where to find it when I need it" Or something along those lines.
So skim - just remember enough to Google for it, or figure out which book it was in. What else can you do?
Aircraft take time to arrive, unless they are already in the area. They can get shot at, shot down, interfered with, break down, require jamming support, tanker support, etc., etc., etc. It just isn't that easy.
Remember the first Gulf War? Scud busting was the big thing then, and the Air Force - even though based next door - couldn't get anywhere. Orbital artillery would.
Oh, I don't know - guided 2 meter crowbars would make a handy anti-tank weopon. Clusters of them could be used as "artillery support" - I imagine it would be a very useful capability to be able to support a small airborne combat team ANYWHERE in the world with what amounts to heavy artillery. Make a nice force multiplier.
It would be kind of expensive to set up "orbital artillery", but then you'll be able to reload them from the winning vehicle of the American Space Prize competition, so it might not be so expensive after all.
Miyasaka says that the next goal is to increase the charging voltage and the charge-discharge capacity to a practically and industrially useful level for applications.
Basically, this is going to be in research for a long time before anything practical comes out of it. Best thing I could see this used for is low-drain devices in remote locations - but only if this is significantly better and cheaper than a separate solar cell and battery system. Also, right now batteries wear out much faster than solar cells - will this new panel's charging capacity last 20+ years?
Could be that our eye's evolution was halted by our acquiring intelligence - remove evolutionary preasure and features stagnate. IIRC, the skunk has really bad eyesight - since everything leaves it alone and it only eats plants it had no reason to evolve better eyesight.
If we ever do get into genetic manipulation, I hope that is one area given serious work. We depend much more on our eyes than ever before (though not for survival per se) in our society. I for one would love to see in seven channels of vision - and have eyes that can repair their own damage.
I'm sorry - you still don't get it. Plain text will be good FOREVER. They can, in the future, go back to books that were scanned 50 years ago, and everyone can still read them. They want to scan them ONCE, record them ONCE, and never touch them again. Any idea what numerous businesses and government agencies have gone through because of outdated file formats and media? PG can't aford that, and never will be able to. Thats why they use plain text.
Plain text is done in PG for ONE reason - practicality. They can convert a book into plain text and leave it - any kind of markup language will eventually expire, standards will change, etc. But pure plain text with no formatting will be readable forever. Plus, page numbers are simply now included in the plain text - no meta data, no markups, nothing extra - so that scholars and students can refer to page numbers in footnotes.
The audience for PG is EVERYONE - every single person on the whole planet, regardless of the hardware they have (even old 8080s). Language translation aside, the least common denominator must be used. In this case that is plain text.
To everyone living on the planet, all the atmospheric tests ever done are just background radiation, and about as dangerous (actually, sunshine is probably more dangerous, on average). To the people living near Chernobyl... well, that's a different story. But they got a front row seat.
Just to nitpick though - you can't measure gas in square meters. Or maybe that was fudged deliberately ('lets see, if I use square meters instead of cubic I can inflate that number an order of magnitude or two. That will get my point across') to get a bigger number so it would be scarier?
We breathe in so many pollutants and carcinogens from all the other power plants running in the world that traces of radioactive gas should be our least concern. I for one do not get rabid about the dangers of nuclear power.
First off, shouting me down is not the way to convey an opinion.
Law has to have some basis in ethics - how else is 'ignorance of the law is no excuse' supposed to work? If this is torn down by a philosophy 101 course, then so be it (though I might be arguing back and forth with the professor into the night). Laws should be based on the ethics of society, so they should be obvious - commonsense - and natural to uphold. Not all laws fall under this, though - more's the pity.
Your law on negros and the city limit after dark was based on the assumption that negros were dangerous. Keeping that law on the books is a pretty poor statement about the state legislature by the way.
Zoning laws? That's easy - people want to live in a place where other people live. Kids can play with each other, people can have each other over for dinner, etc. Zoning laws existed to codify the ethical stance that you shouldn't build a tannery in the middle of a housing development.
Voting is supposed to be an intellectual activity. Drinking is not - think intelligence vs. wisdom. They develop at different rates, and that's where the cutoff was decided for each to be. Are you going to argue about drivers licenses next? Giving control of a 1/2 ton of steel and glass to an 8 year old? These impact the people around you and so need extra consideration.
Neurotic misfit? Dropping out of school? Free will - these impact essentially yourself, so less rigorous standards (lesser ethics if you will). Hate is personal, what you do with it is your ethics (I'm remembering the quote "Ethics is what you do when you know no one is watching") Lying is personal - and something we do constantly. I am not arguing that it is ethical to lie - but only when it impacts others substantially is it codified into law. By the way, that one is also rooted in the 10 Commandments (ie religeon, ie. culture - they cannot be separated).
Fascists codify ethics? Uh, I'd like to see some basis for that - sounds like another all night debate to me. I don't agree with the assumption that law needs to be separate from ethics to be able to be discussed and debated either.
Finally, seat belt laws are some of the 'bad' ones in my book, ones that do not follow ethics and should not be. Remember, my state of NH does not have them (well, actually, for anyone over 16 - past that you can choose your own funeral, but before that, you need to be protected). But, indeed one could argue ethics for seatbelt laws (to play devil's advocate here) - it places an undue burden on everyone (healtcare) when people not wearing seatbelts get in accidents (life flight helicopers needed say, and $500,000 in reconstruction) vs. those wearing seatbelts (who only need ambulances, and $50,000 in reconstruction). And so it is unethical to not wear a seatbelt </devils advocate>.
Once again, all laws should have a basis in ethics, todays laws don't all have that basis (which is unfortunate) but they should have.
I haven't taken any Philosophy courses, but your arguments don't ring true here. I also contend that ALL law is ethics codified. However, not all ethics are codified into law. So, yes, you can lie to your mother, it is unethical, and yes it is not unlawful.
And, yes, some laws are made in error, or to serve special interests at the expense of the general public. Those laws are not based on ethics - and certainly are not required to 'keep society from falling apart'. But I digress.
Seatbelts are not mandated by law in my state of NH either. We feel (and rightly so) that it is a useless waste of effort and legislation to do so - kind of like making lying to your mother illegal.
More's the pity: I voted for Bush. Actually I voted for the "group of far right fanatics" who I thought at the time were the right people to run the country. I knew GW was a figurehead, and didn't care.
But I didn't see 9/11 coming. That's what pushed everyone off the deep end and started it all. Unfortunately, Mr Bush didn't repond well to the preasure - but I never expected him to have to face that kind of preasure either. His cabinet is another matter though - they know better, and instead of helping to keep things on an even keel went nuts with every rabid thought they never dreamed they'd actually get the chance to indulge.
I got buzzing from my headphones on a brand new HP Xeon workstation, but that just turned out to be a non shielded cable from the sound chipset to the front headphone jack. I now use an extension cable so I can plug into the jack in the back. It's a lot better, but not completely gone. I'd say that if it bothers you a lot, get a separate sound card and plug it into the last slot as far away from everything else as possible - even a cheap one will probably be better shielded and will eliminate the buzzing.
But, you go on to say that most people just want to surf the web, use email, etc. "Regular users". Fine. I agree.
You fail to realize WHY there is so much linux development - it's not hordes of geeks wanting to be uber-1337 as you call it.
There is so much linux development because Windows is NOT good enough for the "regular users". It crashes, it subjects people to endless pop-up ad boxes, patches sometimes break things, the user interface is not consistant across the Windows product line, it is an open door to every worm and virus that comes along, it is exploited by every malware developer in the world, it can be turned into a spam relay / zombie / DDOS box.
In short Windows sucks - not for what it is, it is a pretty decent OS after all - but for what it could be. All the hackers trying to work with something on a shoe-string look at Microsoft - a company with 40 Billion+ in the bank, and getting richer every day - and think that after 10 years Windows isn't any better than it is because they just don't care.
Mozilla, starting from scratch, with only a handful of fulltime developers, and overtook IE in 2 years (in terms of functionality, robustness, features, and resistance to malicious attacks). Has anything Microsoft, the most powerful software development company in existance, done recently come close to that accomplishment? Have they shown they really CARE about the people who buy their products?
The average user would probably LOVE a linux PC that does all they want - whether in Gnome or KDE or whatever - and just works. No blue screens of death, no virus attacks, no popups. Surf, email, write letters, etc. No hassles.
I learned touch typing in High School - one of the better classes actually (though not the most interesting). I eventually evolved my own touch typing method - one finger reserved for backspace, and switch to a hunt and peck with one hand while doing capitals (one shift just always felt natural, one didn't). I can type fairly fast when I'm on a roll, but the backspace key is an integral part of it - half the time I don't even know I've hit it until after I've moved on.
Composing at the keyboard is the other skill to learn, and it can take longer than just learning to type. Once you have them both down, you can really fly.
Well, we have to educate the Humans anyway, so we may as well get some use out of 'em - you think it's easier to educate everyone needed to research, manufacture, test, program, and operate robots than to educate astronauts? I'm not sure that's true.
The point I was trying to make is that no one else on the planet but our western society has ever valued lives - 'when a human dies, things shut down..'. That shouldn't happen - that's Van Allen and other 'PC's talking. When we lose someone in the military, we don't whine about it - we honor their sacrafice (and who, unlike the astronauts, are not all volunteers) and KEEP GOING. We don't take a couple of years off of military misions - "Jeesh, we lost a Green Baret - we'd better rethink this whole 'fighting behind enemy lines' idea" - do we?
Why should we with astronauts? While it's true they are only contending with a hostile environment and equipment failures instead of an active enemy, it's also true that more soldiers have been lost to the elements and disease than have ever died in battle. We should honor our fallen astronauts, and MOVE ON.
Robots aren't the answer to everything - people are. The martian rovers have done great things, make no mistake, but people wouldn't take a week to crawl 10 meters and look at 2 rocks the size of paperweights. Humans can and would do SO much more.
NASA won't service the Hubble because it would "risk" astronauts. Isn't the Space Station risky too? How about the flights to and from it - I'm sure the Soyuz is about due for an accident - that will be a catastrophy for the Space program with this political climate. All this overly cautious mother-hen crap makes me sick.
I'm not saying we shouldn't use robots, or perform robot missions where it makes sense. But to cower under our beds at the thought of stepping outside our atmosphere because it's 'risky' is nausiating.
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Yes, there are mountains of food surpluses in every first world country, doing nothing but rotting slowly. That is the nature of a food surplus - if you don't have one and you have a bad year, you are screwed. If you have a good year, it rots. Think of it as an insurance policy - you can think of it as a "waste" until you need it, but when you do it had better be there (and no, I don't think of it as a 'waste'). Nations without a food surplus are NOT producing enough food. Period.
The file size does indeed remain constant, but the attacker is constrained as to what he can substitute out of the original file while maintaining both the file size and the MD5 hash. Without the file size remaining constant too, the attacker can theoretically make the original file into a trojan. With the file size remaining constant, most likely the only thing an attacker can do is break the file - he doesn't have enough leeway to put something malicious in there. I think.
It seems to me that at least the malicious nature of this vulnerability can be limited by using the size of the file as an additional check besides the MD5 hash. In other words, if you know how large the file is supposed to be in bytes, then there is less likelihood that something malicious can be passed off as the original - even if it has the same MD5.
Is that right? I'm no expert by any means, but could this reduce the potential for a real attack to pretty much nill?
And a high suicide rate, IIRC
For you to find out if you are right we need more information. If we can get hold of the images before and after this frame, then you could see if the lamp was lit before and dark after. Unless that is true, it can't be a light bulb blowing out.
I think that's the right way to approach / attack Gator's EULA. IANAL, but for a contract to be valid there has to be consideration (something of value, could be intangible or tangible) given to each side.
Currently, software companies are skating on the thin ice that the EULA actually gives you permission to load the software into memory (i.e. making a copy of it) and use it - purchasing the box and media the software is stored on does not. So that is the consideration you get for agreeing to the EULA (which contains the clauses which are the consideration they get) This is pretty much BS as far as I'm concerned - some judges do not agree.
In any case, you could certainly argue that since you didn't want the software, know the software installed itself, or know that it is running, you haven't gotten any consideration from Gator at all. If a judge agrees with that, the EULA is so much hot air - it would not bind you at all.
IIRC, it's just outside of Nassau. I've been there, and that's the port the ship stopped at.
I call bullshit. If a bus system like that can charge $.25 and show a profit they are NOT including the costs of building and maintaining a separate road system just for busses. The costs would be astronomical here (since we have snow or at least frost in most every part of the country, and no room in the cities or towns to create an entire new road system without bulldozing a lot of buildings) and take decades to implement. Sorry, won't work here.
And you might need US permission to re-enter the country.
Actually, you can do that today, with readily available technology - well, more or less. Just set up a proximity card reader to the computer, and have everyone carry a prox card. When you sit down in front of a computer it knows it's you and grants your your unique access. No passwords, nothing to remember (except to take the prox card with you).
Now you just have the problem of someone stealing the prox card (or counterfeiting it). Shifts the security from something you know to something you have.
Maybe implants? With cryptographic exchanges to defeat counterfeiting? That might be a solution. Good for Big Brother uses too.
There isn't any way to keep up with it all - the best philosophy I've found that helps was one reportedly attributed to Albert Einstein. "I don't know everything, but I know where to find it when I need it" Or something along those lines.
So skim - just remember enough to Google for it, or figure out which book it was in. What else can you do?
Aircraft take time to arrive, unless they are already in the area. They can get shot at, shot down, interfered with, break down, require jamming support, tanker support, etc., etc., etc. It just isn't that easy.
Remember the first Gulf War? Scud busting was the big thing then, and the Air Force - even though based next door - couldn't get anywhere. Orbital artillery would.
Oh, I don't know - guided 2 meter crowbars would make a handy anti-tank weopon. Clusters of them could be used as "artillery support" - I imagine it would be a very useful capability to be able to support a small airborne combat team ANYWHERE in the world with what amounts to heavy artillery. Make a nice force multiplier.
It would be kind of expensive to set up "orbital artillery", but then you'll be able to reload them from the winning vehicle of the American Space Prize competition, so it might not be so expensive after all.
Basically, this is going to be in research for a long time before anything practical comes out of it. Best thing I could see this used for is low-drain devices in remote locations - but only if this is significantly better and cheaper than a separate solar cell and battery system. Also, right now batteries wear out much faster than solar cells - will this new panel's charging capacity last 20+ years?
Very cool, but overall, I'd say, not practical.
Could be that our eye's evolution was halted by our acquiring intelligence - remove evolutionary preasure and features stagnate. IIRC, the skunk has really bad eyesight - since everything leaves it alone and it only eats plants it had no reason to evolve better eyesight.
If we ever do get into genetic manipulation, I hope that is one area given serious work. We depend much more on our eyes than ever before (though not for survival per se) in our society. I for one would love to see in seven channels of vision - and have eyes that can repair their own damage.
I'm sorry - you still don't get it. Plain text will be good FOREVER. They can, in the future, go back to books that were scanned 50 years ago, and everyone can still read them. They want to scan them ONCE, record them ONCE, and never touch them again. Any idea what numerous businesses and government agencies have gone through because of outdated file formats and media? PG can't aford that, and never will be able to. Thats why they use plain text.
Plain text is done in PG for ONE reason - practicality. They can convert a book into plain text and leave it - any kind of markup language will eventually expire, standards will change, etc. But pure plain text with no formatting will be readable forever. Plus, page numbers are simply now included in the plain text - no meta data, no markups, nothing extra - so that scholars and students can refer to page numbers in footnotes.
The audience for PG is EVERYONE - every single person on the whole planet, regardless of the hardware they have (even old 8080s). Language translation aside, the least common denominator must be used. In this case that is plain text.
To everyone living on the planet, all the atmospheric tests ever done are just background radiation, and about as dangerous (actually, sunshine is probably more dangerous, on average). To the people living near Chernobyl... well, that's a different story. But they got a front row seat.
Just to nitpick though - you can't measure gas in square meters. Or maybe that was fudged deliberately ('lets see, if I use square meters instead of cubic I can inflate that number an order of magnitude or two. That will get my point across') to get a bigger number so it would be scarier?
We breathe in so many pollutants and carcinogens from all the other power plants running in the world that traces of radioactive gas should be our least concern. I for one do not get rabid about the dangers of nuclear power.
First off, shouting me down is not the way to convey an opinion.
Law has to have some basis in ethics - how else is 'ignorance of the law is no excuse' supposed to work? If this is torn down by a philosophy 101 course, then so be it (though I might be arguing back and forth with the professor into the night). Laws should be based on the ethics of society, so they should be obvious - commonsense - and natural to uphold. Not all laws fall under this, though - more's the pity.
Your law on negros and the city limit after dark was based on the assumption that negros were dangerous. Keeping that law on the books is a pretty poor statement about the state legislature by the way.
Zoning laws? That's easy - people want to live in a place where other people live. Kids can play with each other, people can have each other over for dinner, etc. Zoning laws existed to codify the ethical stance that you shouldn't build a tannery in the middle of a housing development.
Voting is supposed to be an intellectual activity. Drinking is not - think intelligence vs. wisdom. They develop at different rates, and that's where the cutoff was decided for each to be. Are you going to argue about drivers licenses next? Giving control of a 1/2 ton of steel and glass to an 8 year old? These impact the people around you and so need extra consideration.
Neurotic misfit? Dropping out of school? Free will - these impact essentially yourself, so less rigorous standards (lesser ethics if you will). Hate is personal, what you do with it is your ethics (I'm remembering the quote "Ethics is what you do when you know no one is watching") Lying is personal - and something we do constantly. I am not arguing that it is ethical to lie - but only when it impacts others substantially is it codified into law. By the way, that one is also rooted in the 10 Commandments (ie religeon, ie. culture - they cannot be separated).
Fascists codify ethics? Uh, I'd like to see some basis for that - sounds like another all night debate to me. I don't agree with the assumption that law needs to be separate from ethics to be able to be discussed and debated either.
Finally, seat belt laws are some of the 'bad' ones in my book, ones that do not follow ethics and should not be. Remember, my state of NH does not have them (well, actually, for anyone over 16 - past that you can choose your own funeral, but before that, you need to be protected). But, indeed one could argue ethics for seatbelt laws (to play devil's advocate here) - it places an undue burden on everyone (healtcare) when people not wearing seatbelts get in accidents (life flight helicopers needed say, and $500,000 in reconstruction) vs. those wearing seatbelts (who only need ambulances, and $50,000 in reconstruction). And so it is unethical to not wear a seatbelt </devils advocate>.
Once again, all laws should have a basis in ethics, todays laws don't all have that basis (which is unfortunate) but they should have.
I haven't taken any Philosophy courses, but your arguments don't ring true here. I also contend that ALL law is ethics codified. However, not all ethics are codified into law. So, yes, you can lie to your mother, it is unethical, and yes it is not unlawful.
And, yes, some laws are made in error, or to serve special interests at the expense of the general public. Those laws are not based on ethics - and certainly are not required to 'keep society from falling apart'. But I digress.
Seatbelts are not mandated by law in my state of NH either. We feel (and rightly so) that it is a useless waste of effort and legislation to do so - kind of like making lying to your mother illegal.
More's the pity: I voted for Bush. Actually I voted for the "group of far right fanatics" who I thought at the time were the right people to run the country. I knew GW was a figurehead, and didn't care.
But I didn't see 9/11 coming. That's what pushed everyone off the deep end and started it all. Unfortunately, Mr Bush didn't repond well to the preasure - but I never expected him to have to face that kind of preasure either. His cabinet is another matter though - they know better, and instead of helping to keep things on an even keel went nuts with every rabid thought they never dreamed they'd actually get the chance to indulge.
I got buzzing from my headphones on a brand new HP Xeon workstation, but that just turned out to be a non shielded cable from the sound chipset to the front headphone jack. I now use an extension cable so I can plug into the jack in the back. It's a lot better, but not completely gone.
I'd say that if it bothers you a lot, get a separate sound card and plug it into the last slot as far away from everything else as possible - even a cheap one will probably be better shielded and will eliminate the buzzing.
I agree that these are not myths.
But, you go on to say that most people just want to surf the web, use email, etc. "Regular users". Fine. I agree.
You fail to realize WHY there is so much linux development - it's not hordes of geeks wanting to be uber-1337 as you call it.
There is so much linux development because Windows is NOT good enough for the "regular users". It crashes, it subjects people to endless pop-up ad boxes, patches sometimes break things, the user interface is not consistant across the Windows product line, it is an open door to every worm and virus that comes along, it is exploited by every malware developer in the world, it can be turned into a spam relay / zombie / DDOS box.
In short Windows sucks - not for what it is, it is a pretty decent OS after all - but for what it could be. All the hackers trying to work with something on a shoe-string look at Microsoft - a company with 40 Billion+ in the bank, and getting richer every day - and think that after 10 years Windows isn't any better than it is because they just don't care.
Mozilla, starting from scratch, with only a handful of fulltime developers, and overtook IE in 2 years (in terms of functionality, robustness, features, and resistance to malicious attacks). Has anything Microsoft, the most powerful software development company in existance, done recently come close to that accomplishment? Have they shown they really CARE about the people who buy their products?
The average user would probably LOVE a linux PC that does all they want - whether in Gnome or KDE or whatever - and just works. No blue screens of death, no virus attacks, no popups. Surf, email, write letters, etc. No hassles.
And that's a good thing
I learned touch typing in High School - one of the better classes actually (though not the most interesting). I eventually evolved my own touch typing method - one finger reserved for backspace, and switch to a hunt and peck with one hand while doing capitals (one shift just always felt natural, one didn't). I can type fairly fast when I'm on a roll, but the backspace key is an integral part of it - half the time I don't even know I've hit it until after I've moved on.
Composing at the keyboard is the other skill to learn, and it can take longer than just learning to type. Once you have them both down, you can really fly.
Well, we have to educate the Humans anyway, so we may as well get some use out of 'em - you think it's easier to educate everyone needed to research, manufacture, test, program, and operate robots than to educate astronauts? I'm not sure that's true.
The point I was trying to make is that no one else on the planet but our western society has ever valued lives - 'when a human dies, things shut down..'. That shouldn't happen - that's Van Allen and other 'PC's talking. When we lose someone in the military, we don't whine about it - we honor their sacrafice (and who, unlike the astronauts, are not all volunteers) and KEEP GOING. We don't take a couple of years off of military misions - "Jeesh, we lost a Green Baret - we'd better rethink this whole 'fighting behind enemy lines' idea" - do we?
Why should we with astronauts? While it's true they are only contending with a hostile environment and equipment failures instead of an active enemy, it's also true that more soldiers have been lost to the elements and disease than have ever died in battle. We should honor our fallen astronauts, and MOVE ON.
Robots aren't the answer to everything - people are. The martian rovers have done great things, make no mistake, but people wouldn't take a week to crawl 10 meters and look at 2 rocks the size of paperweights. Humans can and would do SO much more.
NASA won't service the Hubble because it would "risk" astronauts. Isn't the Space Station risky too? How about the flights to and from it - I'm sure the Soyuz is about due for an accident - that will be a catastrophy for the Space program with this political climate. All this overly cautious mother-hen crap makes me sick.
I'm not saying we shouldn't use robots, or perform robot missions where it makes sense. But to cower under our beds at the thought of stepping outside our atmosphere because it's 'risky' is nausiating.