Uh huh. And I never said anything about humans being a potential cause in the future.
Uh uh. Learn to read moron, I said "cause *OR* survive".
And the lessons of survival would be most useful in the generic sense, to understand how life evolved on a planet that--in geological terms--quickly lost its atmosphere and water and how life adapted to those conditions until the environment became, presumably, uninhabitable.
Since we won't be evolving to meet such massive changes, once again you're off in cloud cuckoo land.
Off hand, though, I could imagine learning more about life adapting to adverse water shortages on a larger scale or to a radical change in atmospheric component concentrations or quantity would be rather useful for considerations of long-term space travel.
Since we'll be using technological solutions and won't be "adapting" for long term space travel... Well, you get the picture.
Science and pure knowledge is good, but ignorant handwaving bullshit and buzzwords are not. Learn the difference between the two.
Slashdot was a revolutionary website, a landmark in Internet history.
Katz hits it on the head here... was. Then, the commercial web really took off and Slashdot slowly dwindled into an irrelevant niche site that few have ever heard of. This blizzard of self indulgent tripe over the anniversary is a reflection of how far things have fallen under the reign of Slashdot's corporate masters... And of the blinkered worldview that allows them to believe the Slashdot is still relevant.
We're pretty close to that goal (in the US) and have been for a long time... Most of out oil comes (contrary to urban legend) not from the Middle East - but from Canada and Central/Southern America.
The researchers collected roughly 70-meter core samples from the lake and painstakingly counted the layers to come up with a direct record stretching back 52,000 years.
Holy crap. "Painstakingly" doesn't even begin to cover counting 52,000 stripes in a core sample.
Yep. And it's also one of the reasons the US's current fad for STEM in education will fail miserably. Real science is hard, boring, time consuming, and painstaking - it's not edutainment and it's not something that can be wrapped up in time for a commercial break. The real problem in the US isn't educational fads, it's lack of attention span.
The very fact that Mars once had an atmosphere, once had [possibly flowing] water, was once possibly habitable, etc and yet now lacks those things means its precisely a very good potential model of what Earth may become in the distant future
That's the handwaving feelgood version... In reality, it's bullshit. The pre-conditions that made Mars what it is (low insolation, no magnetic field due to a massive impactor, low gravity, etc...) aren't anything humans can either cause or survive if (by magic in a couple of cases) they happened here.
Given that most people live paycheck to paycheck... it's a reasonable assumption that Google engineers do too. *Especially* given the high cost of living in the Bay area. I don't find it likely that your "small percentage" amounts to more than a grand or two a year.
My thoughts exactly - they may be well educated, and they may be well paid and have an excellent compensation package... but what in the H-E-doublehockysticks are they actually *doing*? Most of Google products languish under a regime that can be charitably be described as "benign neglect" and the balance are updated only sporadically.
Indeed... $120 odd K is pretty good money for Seattle (especially if you don't insist on living in the metro core). In the SF/Bay area/Silicon Valley? Not so much unless you're willing to endure a hellish commute.
The greed would be charging over a hundred grand for "medallions" that are required to operate a taxi.
NYC doesn't charge anything for a taxi medallion - they're bought and sold on the open market.
If they're so worried about the poor having adequate access to taxi services, perhaps Ye Old Taxicab OPEC ought to think about increasing production.
Ah - if only it were that simple. But in reality, increasing the number of cabs decreases the amount of income available to all and increases the number of vehicles on already crowded streets.
Simpler maybe - but also much less flexible and much more dangerous for the aircraft in the type of mission that TFA describes. Simpler is not always better.
How exactly does spending (high) three digit billions (at the very least) to build this system rather than (low) double digit billions to replace/upgrade the existing system make any sense whatsoever?
Not to mention that even with steerable antennas on the farside, this system won't replace the 24/7 communications capability currently available.
One (older) type of flipping involves actually knowing what you're doing basically being your own GC and also putting up your own financing money, the other is TV infomercial fodder like "You painted your living room beige, house value just went up $75000"
That, again, is a creation of your own mind.
Using my own narrow minded and idiosyncratic definition of flipping, any flipping is a bubble activity.
That's because nobody mentioned a bubble - it's straw man (with regards to this topic) of your own creation.
Not to mention, while uneducated may associate flipping with the recent bubble - it's been going on for a long time. Flippers make their money wherever prices are rising and that can be very localized. A friend of the family basically retired in his 40's after spending a decade flipping in and around Orlando FL as it grew after the construction of Disney World. My uncle made a nice sum flipping as portions of Jacksonville FL gentrified. A good chunk of my father-in-law's pile came from flipping here on the Kitsap Peninsula in the 80's as NSB Bangor grew and carriers started being home ported at PSNS.
While is certainly isn't as great as at lower latitudes, it's more than adequate to provide location information -- it's not like the poles have huge buildings and whatnot that would obstruct the view. I wouldn't really consider that to be "poor" coverage, but your mileage may vary.
Because of the geometry of the system, accuracy in the polar regions flirts with the lower bounds of the specification and violates it at times. But for the originally intended uses/users of GPS, it's not really a problem and was an acceptable trade-off for improved coverage at lower latitudes. (People often seem to forget that GPS was intended for ships and planes - pretty much everything else is something of an afterthought.)
You might read the US Constitution, and read up on the principle of separation of powers. Not only do you not understand how the current system works, you don't seem to understand that what you propose requires significant amendments to the Constitution.
Really/ You had better jump in your tardis back to 1776 and tell those 13 American colonies that they will fail because the only have a handful of militia men and are challenging the strongest military on the planet at the time.
And if that biggest military hadn't been distracted and occupied elsewhere, and if handful hadn't gained the assistance of the second biggest military... things would have gone considerably different. They were brave as hell, but even more so - they were lucky as hell.
Slashdot Mirror
Uh uh. Learn to read moron, I said "cause *OR* survive".
Since we won't be evolving to meet such massive changes, once again you're off in cloud cuckoo land.
Since we'll be using technological solutions and won't be "adapting" for long term space travel... Well, you get the picture.
Science and pure knowledge is good, but ignorant handwaving bullshit and buzzwords are not. Learn the difference between the two.
Katz hits it on the head here... was. Then, the commercial web really took off and Slashdot slowly dwindled into an irrelevant niche site that few have ever heard of. This blizzard of self indulgent tripe over the anniversary is a reflection of how far things have fallen under the reign of Slashdot's corporate masters... And of the blinkered worldview that allows them to believe the Slashdot is still relevant.
No, then someone else will buy that barrel from the Middle East. Oil may be fungible, but the demand is not fixed.
We're pretty close to that goal (in the US) and have been for a long time... Most of out oil comes (contrary to urban legend) not from the Middle East - but from Canada and Central/Southern America.
Yep. And it's also one of the reasons the US's current fad for STEM in education will fail miserably. Real science is hard, boring, time consuming, and painstaking - it's not edutainment and it's not something that can be wrapped up in time for a commercial break. The real problem in the US isn't educational fads, it's lack of attention span.
That's the handwaving feelgood version... In reality, it's bullshit. The pre-conditions that made Mars what it is (low insolation, no magnetic field due to a massive impactor, low gravity, etc...) aren't anything humans can either cause or survive if (by magic in a couple of cases) they happened here.
Given that most people live paycheck to paycheck... it's a reasonable assumption that Google engineers do too. *Especially* given the high cost of living in the Bay area. I don't find it likely that your "small percentage" amounts to more than a grand or two a year.
There's not a metal on Earth that, even if transport prices to/from Mars dropped by a factor of 100, would be worth fetching from Mars.
My thoughts exactly - they may be well educated, and they may be well paid and have an excellent compensation package... but what in the H-E-doublehockysticks are they actually *doing*? Most of Google products languish under a regime that can be charitably be described as "benign neglect" and the balance are updated only sporadically.
Indeed... $120 odd K is pretty good money for Seattle (especially if you don't insist on living in the metro core). In the SF/Bay area/Silicon Valley? Not so much unless you're willing to endure a hellish commute.
Given how long it took to develop and deploy those drones... maybe it's not "child's play" as you seem to think.
NYC doesn't charge anything for a taxi medallion - they're bought and sold on the open market.
Ah - if only it were that simple. But in reality, increasing the number of cabs decreases the amount of income available to all and increases the number of vehicles on already crowded streets.
Simpler maybe - but also much less flexible and much more dangerous for the aircraft in the type of mission that TFA describes. Simpler is not always better.
How exactly does spending (high) three digit billions (at the very least) to build this system rather than (low) double digit billions to replace/upgrade the existing system make any sense whatsoever?
Not to mention that even with steerable antennas on the farside, this system won't replace the 24/7 communications capability currently available.
That, again, is a creation of your own mind.
There, fixed that for you.
No, because DGPS sends localized corrections to GPS, not signals that can be directly used for navigation.
That's because nobody mentioned a bubble - it's straw man (with regards to this topic) of your own creation.
Not to mention, while uneducated may associate flipping with the recent bubble - it's been going on for a long time. Flippers make their money wherever prices are rising and that can be very localized. A friend of the family basically retired in his 40's after spending a decade flipping in and around Orlando FL as it grew after the construction of Disney World. My uncle made a nice sum flipping as portions of Jacksonville FL gentrified. A good chunk of my father-in-law's pile came from flipping here on the Kitsap Peninsula in the 80's as NSB Bangor grew and carriers started being home ported at PSNS.
Either that, or they have some form of local augmentation (DGPS) system. (I've heard of farmers installing them, but they aren't cheap.)
Because of the geometry of the system, accuracy in the polar regions flirts with the lower bounds of the specification and violates it at times. But for the originally intended uses/users of GPS, it's not really a problem and was an acceptable trade-off for improved coverage at lower latitudes. (People often seem to forget that GPS was intended for ships and planes - pretty much everything else is something of an afterthought.)
You recall incorrectly - the GPS constellation has never had any birds in polar orbit, and has always provided poor coverage at very high latitudes.
Correct - he's not a scientist, he has played one on TV.
(And I miss "Almost Live!'.)
You might read the US Constitution, and read up on the principle of separation of powers. Not only do you not understand how the current system works, you don't seem to understand that what you propose requires significant amendments to the Constitution.
You don't really have a clue as to what dystopia means do you?
Which authority amounts to pretty much zero unless those nations decide otherwise. The British Monarchy is something of an enormous LARP.
And if that biggest military hadn't been distracted and occupied elsewhere, and if handful hadn't gained the assistance of the second biggest military... things would have gone considerably different. They were brave as hell, but even more so - they were lucky as hell.