What I'm trying to say is that I think this will lead to more really low quality videos which try and caputre a "funny" moment and then just send out thousands of links to it
That could be fixed by a simple Review board, videos could be selected to send to the Board by something akin to Slashdot's moderation system with emphasis given to meta-moderation by the board to downgrade the value of those who vote for 'fart lighting' videos.
Ok, so life can exist where it is really cold. But it will be SLOW. It will do things slowly, it will evolve slowly. And it will probably be too slow to have become intelligent yet. In short: it will be boring.
Ah yes - science is only important and interesting when its Exciting! and Dangerous! and Bold!
Thank you Mythbusters, Junkyard Wars and Bill Nye and many other hype generators who in their feckless rush to make science 'interesting' and 'inspiring'.
Since Hubble's replacement is already under construction, and since ground based scopes like Keck exceed Hubble's capabilities
There is no replacement for Hubble under construction. (I really wish this myth would go away.) The HST works in the Ultraviolet and Visible light bands with a tiny amount of functionality in the near Infrared. JWST has a tiny bit of capability in the Visible band, but is primarily designed to work in the Infrared band. JWST is a very different instrument
Ground based scopes like Keck do not exceed Hubble's capabilities in any useful manner. Hubble can see fainter objects, Hubble has no atmospheric distortion (Adaptive Optics reduce - but does not eliminate atmospheric distortion), Hubble can 'stare' at many targets longer, Hubble can see many more targets, and finally Hubble can see into bands that do not penetrate the atmosphere.
what is the benefit of dropping hundreds of millions of dollars repairing it?
The benefits become abundantly clear once you understand the issues.
I am very happy that they've decided to launch one final Hubble servicing mission. This will allow the HST to operate until the James Webb Space Telescope is launched in 2013.
Hubble could fail tommorow without causing a gap between now and the launch of the JWST - because the JWST is a different instrument, it is not a replacement for Hubble.
Simply describing how to commit a crime is not the same as encouraging another to commit that crime.
In the eyes of the law, when the crime is an unusual one or takes specific skills or preparations, description can in fact be equivalent to encouragement. This is why the various societies that promote 'mercy suicides' are very circumspect in their literature - to avoid charges of conspiracy, or the lesser charges of 'acessory' or 'aiding and abetting'. (The latter two are roughly to conspiracy as 'manslaughter' is to 'murder'.)
It might be a conspiracy if he said, "Psst, that particular car over there is unlocked and has its keys in the ignition."
Once again - you shoot you very own argument right in the foot, because that is exactly what he did. Then he went beyond that and opened the door of the car, turned it on, then walked away leaving the door open and the engine running.
It's more like a guy with a megaphone telling a crowd, "Hey, you've all left your keys in the ignitions of your unlocked cars, they're likely to be stolen," with the explicit intention of helping them better secure their vehicles. Sure, he's aiding anyone who might use that information to conclude that there are cars available to steal, but he just wasn't getting the attention of the car owners when he told them one-by-one.
It doesn't matter that he wasn't getting the attention of the individuals. It doesn't matter that his intent was to aid anyone. He went beyond using a megaphone when he published the web page with the exploit tool- that is tantamount to going through the parking lot and opening doors and firing up the ignition of cars that didn't belong to him. In the eyes of the law, that makes him liable.
Even if it doesn't quite come to the level of a conspiracy - the law is clear in that if you create the circumstances that could lead to a commission of a crime, you can share part of the blame even if the crime is not committed. There are exceptions to this - under the law you are not liable if *you* leave your own car door open and the engine running for example, (an extention of the principle "a mans home is his castle"). But they are few and far between.
My real opinion on the matter is that it's absolutely critical to be able to have open discussions about weaknesses in security systems in order to plug those weaknesses.
I agree in principle - but open discussion of the existence of a weakness is not the same thing as open publication of an exploit of that weakness.
It ends up that every time you go to the ISS you're paying to launch a vehicle with a 75 tonne capacity instead of one with a 20 tonne LEO capacity.
Concentrating on a single vehicle can reduce costs by invoking economies of scale. I.E. by producing more of that vehicle, but it's not clear that enough (of this design) will be flown/produced to move from serial to mass production. (It's the latter where savings can really be made.) Another thing to consider is that the costs of a rocket scale only weakly with gross size or gross payload, and strongly with complexity. Your costs won't go up much (and may indeed go down) by using only a fraction of the payload, *if* the vehicle is engineered from the start for produceability (and operations) *AND* if your flight rate is high enough that you can start seeing economy of scale savings. (I don't see any evidence of any of the three conditions in this proposal.)
The reason it's relevant that his action is trivial is because he's being accused of taking steps that will aid others.
The problem is that is precisely what he did! It does not matter that the exploit is trivial - he still published it. (Which is an action that will aid others.)
It's less like he stole an unlocked car and more like he told a guy on the street, "Hey, if a car is unlocked and has its key in the ignition, you can just jump in and drive off!"
Inciting another to commit a crime, is itself a crime. Its called "conspiracy".
As a result, it hardly rises to a conspiracy type charge.
The problem is - his act (in your example) is by definition a conspiracy. Under the law - conspiracy does not require an overt act or direct planning or participation in the crime, only that you materially aid in the commission of a crime.
Thats just an optional upper stage with aero shroud on top in the picture on the right.
As this system is intended to replace both Ares vehicles - the cargo variant is not optional, it's a requirement. (Their own proposal and examples show the cargo variant as part of the mission architecture.)
The Core vehicle and SRB's are actually identical on both of those launchers.
They won't end up identical - I'd bet large, large, sums of money on it. The requirements of the two vehicles demand they end up not identical. NASA man-rating requirements alone will cause a drift between the two types - which will be further emphasized by the different performance requirements for each type.
The new vehicle offers serious performance and cost savings totaling $35 billion over the next twenty years.
It offer the potential for savings - as nobody knows how much it will save until its built and flying. (And aerospace cost estimates are notoriously unreliable - we simply don't do enough of them to build an experience base.
From the website:
This architecture completely removes the costs & risks associated with developing and operating a second launcher system, saving NASA $19 Billion in development costs, and a further $16 Billion in operational costs over the next 20 years.
Which is at least partially nonsense - because even a brief examination of the imagery they present shows that they are proposing to use two different launcher systems - with less than you might think different between them. (In fact, the only unchanged component between the two are the SRB's.)
That being said - this system will still end up being more expensive than it should be, because it still relies on the standing army at the Cape and the antiquated production methods at Michoud.
Except in this case the "exploit" is pathetically trivial. Anyone who was interested in causing harm would be able to do this on their own.
It's pathetically trivial to steal a car that is unlocked and has the keys in the ignition or to steal from a house whose doors were left standing open. Or, to put simply, that it's trivial is irrelvant to the central nature of the act.
First off, the parent post never said "licensed", "bonded" or any of that.
You are correct - I said that in order to correct your misperception of what a locksmith is. A misperception you insist on holding despite being corrected.
He just said people you would be in trouble for starting a factory to create keys for criminals to break in. his is untrue, as a locksmith shop is a factory for creating keys, whether they be used by criminals or non-criminals.
The problem is, you are wrong. You are wrong because you insist on believing that there is no difference between a key factory that will sell to anyone - and a locksmith, who won't if he wishes to avoid going to prison.
Likewise, you could say the factory that actually made the key-making machine is a factory to create keys for criminals to break in.
Yes, you could say that - if you wished to stretch the analogy so far as to be comparing chalk to cheese or indulging in high school stoner exercises in logic.
Second, do you have a cite for your claim: if you sell keys to anyone but the legal owner of the lock - you have comitted a criminal act? I mean, how are they to know?
Ever dealt with a locksmith? They check your ID, they ask for verification that you own the car/house/boat/storage locker/etc... that they are opening the lock for. They keep records - and make them available to the police. Etc... etc...
Look, if my house has poor security, you're still in trouble if you start a factory to create keys for criminals to break in.
You wanna rethink that analogy there, "Reality Master"? Cause I'm pretty sure they call those places "locksmiths."
You might want to rethink your own analogy.
Sure, if you are licensed and bonded etc... you can be a locksmith. But if you aren't - and start selling keys to anyone, you have committed a criminal act. Even if you are a locksmith - if you sell keys to anyone but the legal owner of the lock - you have comitted a criminal act.
Unfortunately our society aplauds the whistleblower only well after the whistle has been blown
Well, I'm applauding.
You can also contribute to his legal defense fund, if you'd like to show your support.
He didn't blow a whistle - he published an exploit. There's a difference - a big difference. This guy is no different than someone who created a web page detailing how to crash the NYSE computers or how to crash the Bank Of America's ATM network.
You need to brush up on your law - because the Supreme Court has long held habeas corpus does not always apply to non-citizens and belligerents. The remainder of your comment (starting with: 'In the first 10 amendments'), is nothing but irrelevant noise.
Ah yes - another handwaver who thinks that claiming virtually anything not proven impossible is possible. He even thinks it makes him look smart - when the actual effect is quite the opposite.
Get a clue -- the American public is very heavily armed last time I checked...
Get a clue -- heavily armed, untrained, uncoordinated, and tactically unsophisticated people will be mowed down like grass before an armed, trained, coordinated, and tactically sophisticated force a tenth (or smaller) their size.
One day you might actually be glad there's the NRA protecting your rights to not be opressed at teh end of a rifle from your government....
When the NRA starts protecting my right to own guns, rather than the manufacturers right to sell them, and serving as haven for nutcases - then I'll indeed be glad.
Recently the administration has given itself these extra powers (amongst others...)
What frightens me is that you might actually believe all that rubbish. The truth the current adminstration has added no powers the Presidency didn't already have. Habeus Corpus never existed for non citizens and belligerents in the first place. This martial law bill is is identical to existing law - except for the parts about natural disasters being expanded a bit, etc... etc...
Um... yes, they do. You won't for example find a life form based on a Helium/Uranium reaction. Or any one of thousands of of other possible reactions. (For example it's impossible to base life around endothermic reactions - there has to be some exothermic reactions.)
Biology used to say things like that, then started to find out how wrong it was. Nobody knows which extremophiles are colonists and which ones are the originals who left to colonize other places, like the surface.
Again, you are wrong. If you find (terrestrial) life in say, boiling water, then you *know* it had to colonize there - because DNA and proteins are not stable in boiling water. (And so far, all life we've located on Earth has been based on proteins and DNA.) All biology has found itself wrong about is the location of enviromental borders.
Physics and chemistry point out some things that probably won't work, and a few possibilities for others that could. There's a lot around the outside that we simply won't know about until we find it though.
I see - you are one of those inidividuals who doesn't actually know anything about science other than watching the odd show on the Discovery channel. You *think* it makes you look smart to make comments like 'we simply won't know about until we find it', when it fact it has quite a different effect.
But disregarding that, just because there was a lot of phosphorus in the water doesn't mean that life couldn't exist there. It just means life identical to the structure of life on earth couldn't exist there. Who's to say that life has to be built just the way it is on earth?
Physics and chemistry says there is only a strictly limited series of chemical reactions that can drive life - and only a strictly limited series of enviroments where it can arise. (Yes, I know about the various extremeophiles here on Earth - but they live in enviroments they've colonized and adapted to, not where they started,)
As a Quality Assurance Engineer, I know the importance of finding, and reporting, flaws. This man should be commended, not condemned.
If all he had done was report a flaw - you'd have a point. But what he did was no different than a black hat finding finding a flaw in $PROGRAM - and releasing it to the script kiddies of the world. There's a huge difference between reporting a flaw and releasing a tool to exploit that flaw.
Passing a fake bill is illegal. Selling a printing press is not, even if that printing press can be used to print bills.... Telling people how to make a plate based on existing currency... it's the same as making any other kind of plate, so also not illegal in all likelihood.
However - your analogies stop short of the real situation, to complete the sequence; creating a tool that has no other use than to create fake bills is illegal. You can follow the same sequence with lockpicks or Molotov cocktails - regardless of the whether or not the intervening steps are legal, it's the last step that matters.
There isn't anything here that hasn't been obvious to every single person who reads Slashdot for years.
A lot of people believe in Santa Claus, and a certain number of people believe the Earth is flat. Just because something is widely held - doesn't make it true.
I'd be interested in knowing the list of drugs you had fill your bloodstream with in order to believe that. Especially from a guy who lays all the blame on management in the first place - which is about as black-and-white as it gets.
(Remainder of drug addled posting deleted as not being worth replying to.)
Whenever he's asked "why?" he always avoids one of the primary answers: management. He basically gets defensive and explains what they did do. But he never states how management changed priorities for them. Or if management told them not to add some feature. To me his answers are incomplete. Because there is no way they come up with all these features yet wait years to work on them without management's intervention.
So just say it. Things weren't delayed because you were too busy working on other things. Features and bug fixes were delayed because you were told to work on other things.
Right - managment is 100% demons, and developer are 100% angels. That makes for a great plotline for a novel with an IT background - but it bears no relationship whatsoever to the real world.
I have to agree with him. Private investment in space is the only thing that will change it from a huge, shiny waste of tons of money to a useful endeavor.
Private investors have been ponying up for space investments since the 60's - it's a myth of recent creation that such investment has only occurred with the X-prize and subsequently.
Slashdot Mirror
That could be fixed by a simple Review board, videos could be selected to send to the Board by something akin to Slashdot's moderation system with emphasis given to meta-moderation by the board to downgrade the value of those who vote for 'fart lighting' videos.
Ah yes - science is only important and interesting when its Exciting! and Dangerous! and Bold!
Thank you Mythbusters, Junkyard Wars and Bill Nye and many other hype generators who in their feckless rush to make science 'interesting' and 'inspiring'.
The benefits become abundantly clear once you understand the issues.
Hubble could fail tommorow without causing a gap between now and the launch of the JWST - because the JWST is a different instrument, it is not a replacement for Hubble.
In the eyes of the law, when the crime is an unusual one or takes specific skills or preparations, description can in fact be equivalent to encouragement. This is why the various societies that promote 'mercy suicides' are very circumspect in their literature - to avoid charges of conspiracy, or the lesser charges of 'acessory' or 'aiding and abetting'. (The latter two are roughly to conspiracy as 'manslaughter' is to 'murder'.)
Once again - you shoot you very own argument right in the foot, because that is exactly what he did. Then he went beyond that and opened the door of the car, turned it on, then walked away leaving the door open and the engine running.
It doesn't matter that he wasn't getting the attention of the individuals. It doesn't matter that his intent was to aid anyone. He went beyond using a megaphone when he published the web page with the exploit tool- that is tantamount to going through the parking lot and opening doors and firing up the ignition of cars that didn't belong to him. In the eyes of the law, that makes him liable.
Even if it doesn't quite come to the level of a conspiracy - the law is clear in that if you create the circumstances that could lead to a commission of a crime, you can share part of the blame even if the crime is not committed. There are exceptions to this - under the law you are not liable if *you* leave your own car door open and the engine running for example, (an extention of the principle "a mans home is his castle"). But they are few and far between.
I agree in principle - but open discussion of the existence of a weakness is not the same thing as open publication of an exploit of that weakness.
Concentrating on a single vehicle can reduce costs by invoking economies of scale. I.E. by producing more of that vehicle, but it's not clear that enough (of this design) will be flown/produced to move from serial to mass production. (It's the latter where savings can really be made.) Another thing to consider is that the costs of a rocket scale only weakly with gross size or gross payload, and strongly with complexity. Your costs won't go up much (and may indeed go down) by using only a fraction of the payload, *if* the vehicle is engineered from the start for produceability (and operations) *AND* if your flight rate is high enough that you can start seeing economy of scale savings. (I don't see any evidence of any of the three conditions in this proposal.)
The problem is that is precisely what he did! It does not matter that the exploit is trivial - he still published it. (Which is an action that will aid others.)
Inciting another to commit a crime, is itself a crime. Its called "conspiracy".
The problem is - his act (in your example) is by definition a conspiracy. Under the law - conspiracy does not require an overt act or direct planning or participation in the crime, only that you materially aid in the commission of a crime.
As this system is intended to replace both Ares vehicles - the cargo variant is not optional, it's a requirement. (Their own proposal and examples show the cargo variant as part of the mission architecture.)
They won't end up identical - I'd bet large, large, sums of money on it. The requirements of the two vehicles demand they end up not identical. NASA man-rating requirements alone will cause a drift between the two types - which will be further emphasized by the different performance requirements for each type.
It offer the potential for savings - as nobody knows how much it will save until its built and flying. (And aerospace cost estimates are notoriously unreliable - we simply don't do enough of them to build an experience base.
From the website:
Which is at least partially nonsense - because even a brief examination of the imagery they present shows that they are proposing to use two different launcher systems - with less than you might think different between them. (In fact, the only unchanged component between the two are the SRB's.)
That being said - this system will still end up being more expensive than it should be, because it still relies on the standing army at the Cape and the antiquated production methods at Michoud.
It's pathetically trivial to steal a car that is unlocked and has the keys in the ignition or to steal from a house whose doors were left standing open. Or, to put simply, that it's trivial is irrelvant to the central nature of the act.
You are correct - I said that in order to correct your misperception of what a locksmith is. A misperception you insist on holding despite being corrected.
The problem is, you are wrong. You are wrong because you insist on believing that there is no difference between a key factory that will sell to anyone - and a locksmith, who won't if he wishes to avoid going to prison.
Yes, you could say that - if you wished to stretch the analogy so far as to be comparing chalk to cheese or indulging in high school stoner exercises in logic.
Ever dealt with a locksmith? They check your ID, they ask for verification that you own the car/house/boat/storage locker/etc... that they are opening the lock for. They keep records - and make them available to the police. Etc... etc...
You might want to rethink your own analogy.
Sure, if you are licensed and bonded etc... you can be a locksmith. But if you aren't - and start selling keys to anyone, you have committed a criminal act. Even if you are a locksmith - if you sell keys to anyone but the legal owner of the lock - you have comitted a criminal act.
He didn't blow a whistle - he published an exploit. There's a difference - a big difference. This guy is no different than someone who created a web page detailing how to crash the NYSE computers or how to crash the Bank Of America's ATM network.
Here's a clue for you - helium is an inert gas. What science exactly is your PhD in? Fingerpainting analysis?
You need to brush up on your law - because the Supreme Court has long held habeas corpus does not always apply to non-citizens and belligerents. The remainder of your comment (starting with: 'In the first 10 amendments'), is nothing but irrelevant noise.
Ah yes - another handwaver who thinks that claiming virtually anything not proven impossible is possible. He even thinks it makes him look smart - when the actual effect is quite the opposite.
Get a clue -- heavily armed, untrained, uncoordinated, and tactically unsophisticated people will be mowed down like grass before an armed, trained, coordinated, and tactically sophisticated force a tenth (or smaller) their size.
When the NRA starts protecting my right to own guns, rather than the manufacturers right to sell them, and serving as haven for nutcases - then I'll indeed be glad.
What frightens me is that you might actually believe all that rubbish. The truth the current adminstration has added no powers the Presidency didn't already have. Habeus Corpus never existed for non citizens and belligerents in the first place. This martial law bill is is identical to existing law - except for the parts about natural disasters being expanded a bit, etc... etc...
Um... yes, they do. You won't for example find a life form based on a Helium/Uranium reaction. Or any one of thousands of of other possible reactions. (For example it's impossible to base life around endothermic reactions - there has to be some exothermic reactions.)
Again, you are wrong. If you find (terrestrial) life in say, boiling water, then you *know* it had to colonize there - because DNA and proteins are not stable in boiling water. (And so far, all life we've located on Earth has been based on proteins and DNA.) All biology has found itself wrong about is the location of enviromental borders.
I see - you are one of those inidividuals who doesn't actually know anything about science other than watching the odd show on the Discovery channel. You *think* it makes you look smart to make comments like 'we simply won't know about until we find it', when it fact it has quite a different effect.
Physics and chemistry says there is only a strictly limited series of chemical reactions that can drive life - and only a strictly limited series of enviroments where it can arise. (Yes, I know about the various extremeophiles here on Earth - but they live in enviroments they've colonized and adapted to, not where they started,)
If all he had done was report a flaw - you'd have a point. But what he did was no different than a black hat finding finding a flaw in $PROGRAM - and releasing it to the script kiddies of the world. There's a huge difference between reporting a flaw and releasing a tool to exploit that flaw.
However - your analogies stop short of the real situation, to complete the sequence; creating a tool that has no other use than to create fake bills is illegal. You can follow the same sequence with lockpicks or Molotov cocktails - regardless of the whether or not the intervening steps are legal, it's the last step that matters.
A lot of people believe in Santa Claus, and a certain number of people believe the Earth is flat. Just because something is widely held - doesn't make it true.
I'd be interested in knowing the list of drugs you had fill your bloodstream with in order to believe that. Especially from a guy who lays all the blame on management in the first place - which is about as black-and-white as it gets.
(Remainder of drug addled posting deleted as not being worth replying to.)
Right - managment is 100% demons, and developer are 100% angels. That makes for a great plotline for a novel with an IT background - but it bears no relationship whatsoever to the real world.
Private investors have been ponying up for space investments since the 60's - it's a myth of recent creation that such investment has only occurred with the X-prize and subsequently.