Logged in, logged out, gave up.
on
Google Lively Review
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Downloaded and installed the app and logged in - after over a minute of waiting for a room to load I closed the browser. I went back to site and clicked on 'help', and found (as is typical of Google) not documentation but forums where people share what learned about how the app works by luck and random clicking about.
Yet another Google product tossed up without much thought, development, testing, or follow through... Trusting that the googledroids around the world will use it anyhow even though it lacks key features and functionality.
I probably won't be back, as like most of Google's suite it seems destined to be a distant second place also-ran.
Figures that the whole system will pay for itself in about 8-10 years
Is that in direct dollars or did he account for inflation and the time value of money? Do those figures include the cost of maintenance (both preventive and corrective)? Calculating the payback rate/period isn't all that simple and most people screw it up by accounting only in current direct dollars.
Oh, there are certainly spread-out suburbs. But a lot of the older East Coast cities make a 100% public transit lifestyle possible, and in places like NYC, often dramatically preferrable.
On the other hand, outside of those relatively few cities, there are many older East Coast cities where that isn't true.
And other cities have made good investements to enable people to not need a daily car. Here in Portland OR, the mix of bike routes, buses, light rail, and FlexCar-like services keep a lot of people out of single-occupancy cars for the daily commute.
Yet, the streets and highways are still full. (Most noticeably with people commuting in from places where that transit isn't an option, or traveling to and from the large portions of Portland where that transit isn't an option.)
A similar lifestyle is possible in Seattle.
Sure, if you live in the tiny portion of the area of Metro Seattle that surrounds downtown. If you live in Renton, Des Moines, Mountlake Terrace, etc... that lifestyle isn't possible. (I.E. for 99% of the population in King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties.)
Then why is he buying up water rights in North Texas, and then pumping the water elsewhere to be sold at a higher price? (Via a pipeline corridor obtained through some rather dubious means...) These windfarms, meant to built with other people's money, are merely sugar coating. I wonder how much he'll charge 'em to lease the land he controls that they'll require to move the power from those windfarms?
The reason why the entrenched oil industry is uninterested in alternative energy is because with oil they control the supply chain. Many alternative forms of energy are difficult to control.
That's the [theory|party line]. Reality however is quite different, as any effective form of alternate energy will have have to be deployed on a large scale rather than as individual installations. (Either local or personal.) Guess who has the capital to fund those large scale deployment?
The simple fact is that until recently it simply wasn't profitable to operate those large installations.
"If you are so unfamiliar with the history of the space industry, as you continually make abundantly evident, then there is little point in continuing this conversation."
Ad hominem.
It's not Ad hominem, it's a plain and simple fact.
Still waiting on those facts or any refutation of what I've said so far.
I've refuted each and every one of your points - but you are so completely unacquainted with the real world that you consistently confuse your rhetoric (for example "As long as they are tied to a publicly-funded source they do have a blank check", which is a blatant falsehood) with facts. All you do is prove again and again that continuing this conversation is fruitless so long as you continue to confuse rhetoric and fact.
I am sure they see the need for some sort of backup plan for those people on the space station, yet don't think that it would be easy enough to send up one shuttle, and LEAVE IT THERE IN CASE OF EMERGENCY
That's because it isn't easy to leave a Shuttle at the station. To so means partially powering down the station in order to power the Shuttle. If you leave the Shuttle to it's own resources - it's dead about (IIRC) 30 odd days after launch when the reactants for the fuel cells run out even if you've had it on a 'starvation diet'. (The key limit here is the need to provide heater power to the Shuttle's aft compartment and environmental control for the electronics in the crew cabin.)
Then there's the problem that the station attitude required to provide thermal control and orbital debris protection for a docked Shuttle in incompatible with the attitude required to provide thermal control and orbital debris protection for vehicles (Soyuz, Progress, ATV) docked at the other end of the station. This isn't normally a problem because the Shuttle is just a short term visitor, it becomes a Problem when the Shuttle turns into a tenant.
and send another up to bring back the folks that drove up the first one...
That would be easy if the ISS could support two docked Shuttles... but it can't.
i think that if we could figure out the rotation, we would end up with a shuttle left up there in case any one up there needs to come back down immediately...
The problem is, even if you overcome the difficult problems discussed above, now you require that every station crew (all three of them) contain a qualified Soyuz pilot and backup, a qualified Shuttle Commander and backup, a qualified Shuttle pilot, a qualified [Shuttle] Mission Specialist and backup, a qualified Station Commander, and a qualified Station Engineer. Nine demanding roles - three people... Even though astronauts are incredible over achievers, that's a bit much. (And pretty much leaves anyone other than US out of the loop, as anyone who isn't American is unlikely to be able to qualify as Shuttle crew - we barely have enough flights to keep our own crews qualified.)
When a nation is no longer able to excel in a technology they pioneered, it's very difficult to come back. It started in the 1970s when, instead of continuing on lunar exploration, they decided to cut back on the Apollo program.
That's a nice theory, but it is at odds with the facts. The reality is that the steep cuts in the Apollo program started in 1966/67 and continued into 1969. Before we had even landed on the Moon, four landing missions had been cut from the budget, Saturn V production capped, and Apollo Applications essentially canceled. (Though of the last, Skylab survived on a shoestring budget only because an already built Saturn V for one of the canceled landings was available for conversion.)
On top of that, the basic contracts for the current STS were signed on July 19, 1969 - while Apollo was on it's way to the Moon.
If you're trying to hold up Boeing as an example of private industry, again you fail, as Boeing's primary customer is, of course, the federal government.
Except, of course, Boeing competes with other launch providers for federal government business... Unless they can compete on price and performance, they don't get the business. Not to mention that Boeing also launches many commercial payloads, where once again they have to compete on price and performance. In short, you are regurgitating the party line of the Space Fanboys rather than examining the facts.
Not to mention that before you try and force Boeing into a mythical box, you just might check out who is buying the bulk of the currently scheduled Falcon I launches.
It should come as no surprise that a company propped up by a blank check would have no interest in innovating.
If Boeing had a blank check, you'd have a point. They don't now and never have.
"If there is no incentive to invest... Then why have launch providers been rolling out new models on a fairly regular basis for decades?"
Such as?
If you are so unfamiliar with the history of the space industry, as you continually make abundantly evident, then there is little point in continuing this conversation.
"You'd have a point - if NASA had a monopoly. They don't, and haven't for decades."
As long as the public thinks that some portion of its taxes are going toward space research already, they have little or no interest in funding yet another organization. Publicly-funded endeavors such as this are unjustified and immoral.
And now we see the real you - when confronted with facts that deny the world view that springs from your self imposed and willful ignorance, you retreat to handwaving and smokescreens.
Which companies are you referring to? It seems like you're mixing up the aerospace industry with the space industry.
No, what I'm doing is refusing to make an artificial and arbitrary distinction between (for example) Boeing and SpaceX. At the end of the day, the only differences are size and number of years in business. Both of which are meaningless distinctions. Both are private companies willing to sell launch vehicles and services to anyone who steps up to the counter with a signed check.
There are those who wish to make such a distinction because it allows them to indulge in their biases rather than face facts. They delude themselves on other matters related to space access as well.
There has been little incentive to invest in private space research
If there is no incentive to invest... Then why have launch providers been rolling out new models on a fairly regular basis for decades?
partly because of the existing monopoly held by NASA
You'd have a point - if NASA had a monopoly. They don't, and haven't for decades.
Those companies have had billions invested in them, and spent further billions of their own... Not to mention that billions of those tax dollars spent by NASA have been spent purchasing services from those companies... Yet the benefits you tout have never emerged.
Not to mention there has never been a monopoly to expand in the first place.
I'm having nostalgia for when our space program was a national priority.
You're having nostalgia then for a time that only existed for a couple of brief years in the 1960's.
Few people seem to know that NASA's budget was slashed nearly in half in 1967... Before we even landed on the moon four planned landing missions had been cut and Saturn V production halted.
In the years since, various Presidents and Congresses have made Brave Patriotic Noises about the Wonders of having a Space Program. But those Patriotic Noises have never been accompanied by any actual money.
Is the country finally realizing that the private space industry, as with any private industry, will lead to more innovation, greater efficiency, and lower prices?
Given that we've had an active private space industry flying since the early 1960's... when exactly is the innovation, greater efficiency, and lower prices supposed to kick in?
How come they're retiring the fleet 4 years before the next craft is ready?
Two reasons:
The CAIB requires that the Shuttle be either retired by 2010 or go through an expensive recertification program to continue flying. Congress has not allocated any money for the latter or indicated any interest in doing so.
Congress is holding NASA's budget more-or-less steady, which means that in order to continue development Constellation (which is getting close to needing Big Money) something has to give... And that something is Shuttle.
"the case highlights the consequence of having online commons controlled by private corporations."
Fucking duh. If it's controlled by a private corporation - it isn't a fucking commons. Fucking internet jackasses who hijack terms with a long history behind them without a fucking clue what the term means.
Cassini entered orbit on July 1, 2004 and the original release date was to have been in November 2004, but Huygens was actually released in Dec 2004. The 'new plan' was to shift the release date from Nov to Dec.
To it simply, you haven't a fucking clue what you are talking about.
"...Textbooks are often obsolete before they are even printed." But that's not true: fundamental fields change slowly...
The problem is that your response displays reason, which has little place in the bureaucracy and money sink that is the modern public school system. After all, why use a crummy old textbook when you can get a new one for only $35-50 (times the number of kids, times how many books each needs).
Because those 'crummy old textbooks' really are crummy and old after a year or two of being tossed in lockers, hauled back and forth in a backpack, doodled and annotated in, etc., etc.
I suspect if schools went back to the old policy of charging for damaged textbooks kids would learn to treat 'em better and schools wouldn't have to replace them every couple of years.
If all you need is a wall frame of 2x4s, a carpenter of limited skill with a nailgun will do. But if you want fine furniture built, you need someone with more skills, who knows the properties of different sorts of wood and different types of joints and fasteners. Before nailguns, every carpenter knew these things.
Bullshit.
Used to know an old guy, a house carpenter par excellence - he could build a house from the ground up with nothing more than a simple sketch of a floor plan. But he couldn't build furniture worth a damm because that isn't what he did.
His brother the cabinet maker on the other hand...
The kind of person who would obsessively Google up someone before dating them probably isn't someone I'd want to date anyhow. (Not that I'm in the market being happily married and all.)
So long as you don't share a name with someone famous, or who is at least widely known in a small circle. Google my name and the majority of the hits are for an English actor whose roles are almost all listed in the IMDB as "uncredited"... But he had two tiny roles in Star Wars (Episode III for the young folks), and this means he gets a lot of web coverage.
Yes, I'm sure. And no, it would not have 'been better' to drop it off on the inbound trajectory because Titan wasn't in position to be aimed at and Huygens lacked any means of correcting it's trajectory. As for the second matter, do you not understand the extended mission is just gravy after the primary mission is complete?
These relatively large changes in delta-v are what Cassini needs its two main engines for (one's a backup). Unfortunately due to a mistake in design, Cassini had to unexpectedly use up about a third(?) of its propellant because it had to carry the Huygens probe into Saturn orbit with it (rather than releasing it on its inbound trajectory).
Umm... Cassini entered orbit on July 1, 2004 and the original release date was to have been in November 2004 (it was actually released in Dec 2004).
Slashdot Mirror
Downloaded and installed the app and logged in - after over a minute of waiting for a room to load I closed the browser. I went back to site and clicked on 'help', and found (as is typical of Google) not documentation but forums where people share what learned about how the app works by luck and random clicking about.
Yet another Google product tossed up without much thought, development, testing, or follow through... Trusting that the googledroids around the world will use it anyhow even though it lacks key features and functionality.
I probably won't be back, as like most of Google's suite it seems destined to be a distant second place also-ran.
Is that in direct dollars or did he account for inflation and the time value of money? Do those figures include the cost of maintenance (both preventive and corrective)? Calculating the payback rate/period isn't all that simple and most people screw it up by accounting only in current direct dollars.
Being a sharp operator and retaining many political connections... being a broke is but a temporary condition.
On the other hand, outside of those relatively few cities, there are many older East Coast cities where that isn't true.
Yet, the streets and highways are still full. (Most noticeably with people commuting in from places where that transit isn't an option, or traveling to and from the large portions of Portland where that transit isn't an option.)
Sure, if you live in the tiny portion of the area of Metro Seattle that surrounds downtown. If you live in Renton, Des Moines, Mountlake Terrace, etc... that lifestyle isn't possible. (I.E. for 99% of the population in King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties.)
Then why is he buying up water rights in North Texas, and then pumping the water elsewhere to be sold at a higher price? (Via a pipeline corridor obtained through some rather dubious means...) These windfarms, meant to built with other people's money, are merely sugar coating. I wonder how much he'll charge 'em to lease the land he controls that they'll require to move the power from those windfarms?
That's the [theory|party line]. Reality however is quite different, as any effective form of alternate energy will have have to be deployed on a large scale rather than as individual installations. (Either local or personal.) Guess who has the capital to fund those large scale deployment?
The simple fact is that until recently it simply wasn't profitable to operate those large installations.
It's not Ad hominem, it's a plain and simple fact.
I've refuted each and every one of your points - but you are so completely unacquainted with the real world that you consistently confuse your rhetoric (for example "As long as they are tied to a publicly-funded source they do have a blank check", which is a blatant falsehood) with facts. All you do is prove again and again that continuing this conversation is fruitless so long as you continue to confuse rhetoric and fact.
I'm done here.
That practice was discontinued around 1992.
That's because it isn't easy to leave a Shuttle at the station. To so means partially powering down the station in order to power the Shuttle. If you leave the Shuttle to it's own resources - it's dead about (IIRC) 30 odd days after launch when the reactants for the fuel cells run out even if you've had it on a 'starvation diet'. (The key limit here is the need to provide heater power to the Shuttle's aft compartment and environmental control for the electronics in the crew cabin.)
Then there's the problem that the station attitude required to provide thermal control and orbital debris protection for a docked Shuttle in incompatible with the attitude required to provide thermal control and orbital debris protection for vehicles (Soyuz, Progress, ATV) docked at the other end of the station. This isn't normally a problem because the Shuttle is just a short term visitor, it becomes a Problem when the Shuttle turns into a tenant.
That would be easy if the ISS could support two docked Shuttles... but it can't.
The problem is, even if you overcome the difficult problems discussed above, now you require that every station crew (all three of them) contain a qualified Soyuz pilot and backup, a qualified Shuttle Commander and backup, a qualified Shuttle pilot, a qualified [Shuttle] Mission Specialist and backup, a qualified Station Commander, and a qualified Station Engineer. Nine demanding roles - three people... Even though astronauts are incredible over achievers, that's a bit much. (And pretty much leaves anyone other than US out of the loop, as anyone who isn't American is unlikely to be able to qualify as Shuttle crew - we barely have enough flights to keep our own crews qualified.)
That's a nice theory, but it is at odds with the facts. The reality is that the steep cuts in the Apollo program started in 1966/67 and continued into 1969. Before we had even landed on the Moon, four landing missions had been cut from the budget, Saturn V production capped, and Apollo Applications essentially canceled. (Though of the last, Skylab survived on a shoestring budget only because an already built Saturn V for one of the canceled landings was available for conversion.)
On top of that, the basic contracts for the current STS were signed on July 19, 1969 - while Apollo was on it's way to the Moon.
Except, of course, Boeing competes with other launch providers for federal government business... Unless they can compete on price and performance, they don't get the business. Not to mention that Boeing also launches many commercial payloads, where once again they have to compete on price and performance. In short, you are regurgitating the party line of the Space Fanboys rather than examining the facts.
Not to mention that before you try and force Boeing into a mythical box, you just might check out who is buying the bulk of the currently scheduled Falcon I launches.
If Boeing had a blank check, you'd have a point. They don't now and never have.
If you are so unfamiliar with the history of the space industry, as you continually make abundantly evident, then there is little point in continuing this conversation.
And now we see the real you - when confronted with facts that deny the world view that springs from your self imposed and willful ignorance, you retreat to handwaving and smokescreens.
No, what I'm doing is refusing to make an artificial and arbitrary distinction between (for example) Boeing and SpaceX. At the end of the day, the only differences are size and number of years in business. Both of which are meaningless distinctions. Both are private companies willing to sell launch vehicles and services to anyone who steps up to the counter with a signed check.
There are those who wish to make such a distinction because it allows them to indulge in their biases rather than face facts. They delude themselves on other matters related to space access as well.
If there is no incentive to invest... Then why have launch providers been rolling out new models on a fairly regular basis for decades?
You'd have a point - if NASA had a monopoly. They don't, and haven't for decades.
Those companies have had billions invested in them, and spent further billions of their own... Not to mention that billions of those tax dollars spent by NASA have been spent purchasing services from those companies... Yet the benefits you tout have never emerged.
Not to mention there has never been a monopoly to expand in the first place.
You're having nostalgia then for a time that only existed for a couple of brief years in the 1960's.
Few people seem to know that NASA's budget was slashed nearly in half in 1967... Before we even landed on the moon four planned landing missions had been cut and Saturn V production halted.
In the years since, various Presidents and Congresses have made Brave Patriotic Noises about the Wonders of having a Space Program. But those Patriotic Noises have never been accompanied by any actual money.
Given that we've had an active private space industry flying since the early 1960's... when exactly is the innovation, greater efficiency, and lower prices supposed to kick in?
Two reasons:
"the case highlights the consequence of having online commons controlled by private corporations."
Fucking duh. If it's controlled by a private corporation - it isn't a fucking commons. Fucking internet jackasses who hijack terms with a long history behind them without a fucking clue what the term means.
Cassini entered orbit on July 1, 2004 and the original release date was to have been in November 2004, but Huygens was actually released in Dec 2004. The 'new plan' was to shift the release date from Nov to Dec.
To it simply, you haven't a fucking clue what you are talking about.
I stopped reading here.
Because those 'crummy old textbooks' really are crummy and old after a year or two of being tossed in lockers, hauled back and forth in a backpack, doodled and annotated in, etc., etc.
I suspect if schools went back to the old policy of charging for damaged textbooks kids would learn to treat 'em better and schools wouldn't have to replace them every couple of years.
Bullshit.
Used to know an old guy, a house carpenter par excellence - he could build a house from the ground up with nothing more than a simple sketch of a floor plan. But he couldn't build furniture worth a damm because that isn't what he did.
His brother the cabinet maker on the other hand...
The kind of person who would obsessively Google up someone before dating them probably isn't someone I'd want to date anyhow. (Not that I'm in the market being happily married and all.)
So long as you don't share a name with someone famous, or who is at least widely known in a small circle. Google my name and the majority of the hits are for an English actor whose roles are almost all listed in the IMDB as "uncredited"... But he had two tiny roles in Star Wars (Episode III for the young folks), and this means he gets a lot of web coverage.
Yes, I'm sure. And no, it would not have 'been better' to drop it off on the inbound trajectory because Titan wasn't in position to be aimed at and Huygens lacked any means of correcting it's trajectory. As for the second matter, do you not understand the extended mission is just gravy after the primary mission is complete?
Umm... Cassini entered orbit on July 1, 2004 and the original release date was to have been in November 2004 (it was actually released in Dec 2004).