Furthermore, using the Nobel prize committee as an appeal to authority is blatantly fallacious when you consider they gave the peace prize to a hypocrite. The selection of the Nobel Peace Prize is made by a different body in a different country, completely unrelated to the body that selects for the scientific Nobel Prizes. I get the impression that their selection criteria are radically different. Those who select for the peace prize seem to use the prize to try to give increased influence to people who they hope will use this increased influence for peace work. Something like that. To me that policy seems terribly self-defeating in the long run. The scientific prizes are slected on academic merit alone, as far as I can tell.
Not that this gives any clue for comparing the importance of COBE and Hubble. The scientific prizes are awarded on academic merit, not on importance of instrument...
Thanks for the info! But that's a lot of TLAs and FLAs you have there. At least for me (and I bet I'm not alone) it would be far easier to remember the STIS if I had some inkling as to what it is. Or maybe I do know already, but need a reminder.
And what's a PI? Is it because English isn't my first language that I don't know what a PI is?
I don't understand COS or WFC3 either, but since you said they are in the summary, I'll trust that reading the summary gives me the same information.
Checking both your post and the summary I do understand that the ACS is the Advanced Camera for Surveys. Ha, I did understand one! I bet you didn't expect that!
I meant that it addresses the pressure and temperature that you mentioned. I didn't mean that it disproves anything you said, only that it gives some answers. I should have said more clearly what it answered, I realize now that the way I said it was misleading.
We do have technology for balloons and blimps. Note that people would live inside the buoyant gas and breathe it. But certainly lots of challenges related to this remain unanswered -- as I already said in my post.
You sound angry or something. Don't be. I just felt that it was an interesting read. I like it when people think outside the boxes of convention. When I read stuff like that I don't demand that every issue be ironed out and solved. It can be an interesting read before they have found solutions to all the problems.
Click the link he provided, it answers the concerns that you raised. There are other concerns that are not answered, but those you raised are really answered, strange as this may seem.
Sadly, everything you say is true.
These guys are diversifying their interests internationally as much as possible, so that when the big crash comes they won't be affected much by it. This won't do them any good. Everything is connected. The US collapse will pull the rest of the world with it. It may take some time to spread, but it's just a matter of time. It will spread.
Of course, it seems that the fact they're creating a self-fulfilling prophecy is entirely lost on them. I don't think this makes any difference. The runaway debt of the US will have consequences no matter what they do. The situation of the US is totally crazy, regardless of their international diversification.
I'm Swedish, and I look at this from an international perspective. I wonder if there's anything us grassroots can do to mitigate the approaching disaster. Suppose we could somehow unite and agree. Could we then do something to weaken the approaching tsunami?
After all the economy consists of us. We create the economy by our actions. If we acted in concert we'd have a huge influence. The question is whether there's anything we could do that could improve the situation.
but when it happens it won't be us becoming engaged, but enraged. Not enough of us really grasp the magnitude of the treason it took for us to reach this point. But we will. I hope you'll also be enraged with your media. They have persistently favored propaganda over truth, and fear and anger over reason. They have failed miserably in one of the main tasks of the media, which is to guard the guardians, i.e., to watch the powerful and report on them to the people.
The media have a crucial role in every democracy. At least from my perspective it looks like the US media have failed completely in this, betraying the people and the democracy, in ways far worse than the media in most democratic countries. Your media need to seriously reconsider their role and their duties.
Of course that's only a different way of saying that the media readers and viewers have failed in their duty to carefully choose and buy media that defend democracy.
Of course I could be wrong here, I could be the victim of media propaganda that gives a false impression of the US situation. But I doubt it. The picture is too consistent.
I hope my negative view of the situation in the US and of the US media doesn't offend you. No offense intended. I love the US in many ways. I am deeply concerned and deeply worried.
As I understand it from the discussions here and here, it would be impossible with conventional rocketry, and possible but impractical with a solar-powered ion engine. The latter would take three years, during which the telescope would be unusable. That becomes prohibitive when you consider that the ISS orbit is unsuitable for observation, so after the repairs you'd need time to get the telescope back to a useful orbit. By that time the telescope would be too old.
Several alternatives are considered in those discussions, and none seem to convince those who apparently understand these matters.
Personally I'm not convinced that the telescope would be entirely unusable during an ion-engine transfer. It should be very limited in where it can point, but usable in those limited directions. And after repair you'd only need to boost it to a higher orbit. That orbit could be energetically quite close to the orbit of the ISS, and thus quickly reached. And such a plan could perhaps dramatically lengthen the lifetime of the telescope.
But I'm no expert. I may well have overlooked or misunderstood something.
Sure, but the result are pictures, and those pictures are beautiful and give people a feel for the science. If only other sciences and technologies could do the same!
Apparently the incompetence reaches staggering proportions. FTA:
According to a source close to the situation, the chief information security officer of the US Department of Commerce learned this summer that his home computer was being used to send data to computers in China. He found his family had been the victim of a spear-phishing attack, in which his child had been encouraged by an email to unwittingly download malware onto the family's home computer. Once it was compromised, the attackers used the security officer's personal computer as a tunnel into the Department of Commerce's systems. The family of the chief information security officer of the Department of Commerce can't afford to have one computer for the family and another for high-security work? And the nation can't afford a separate computer for this apparently impoverished officer?
No way. It can't be lack of funds. It can only be staggering, incredible incompetence. And it's not the local burger flipper. It's the chief information security officer. The top boss in charge of keeping information safe.
Point the first: You apparently can't count. Of course I can count. You forget the obligatory two final points that somebody is bound to add any moment now:
5....
6. Profit!
Point the second: You know that's not really the solution anyone is looking for. Sadly, that's true, people will indeed keep sponsoring that site with their presence no matter how badly it tramples them. But precisely because of this, my solution is the only solution that makes any sense.
Why bother with a real bomb when a bomb threat is just as (if not more) effective... A threat will only empty an airport for a few hours. A real attack, if spectacular enough, will get nations to sacrifice principles and liberty.
That's a very interesting perspective. I'll keep a link to your post, and try to remember to link to it when Americans turn aggressive about "anti-Americanism". Maybe it can help them understand better how we really feel this side of the pond.
Apparently those pages become visible only if you sign up for a Facebook account and log in. How about giving us a summary or quoting the interesting texts?
The scenario that you paint is chillingly realistic.
However, if the US truly loses its dream of Liberty and its belief in the Constitution, I'm not convinced that it can stay together. It seems to me that those beliefs and principles are what holds the nation together. Without that, there's nothing left to hold it together and it falls to pieces.
A chilling perspective indeed.
However, the US has pulled itself together before. Hopefully it will do so again.
Unfortunately this is possible only if a large number of citizens become engaged and struggle for change. Will they?
Be warned that security officers tend to have no sense of humor, none at all.
Once many years ago, long before the current terror terror, a traveller at the Stockholm airport got fed up with an overly pedantic search and held up his small bunch of keys saying bitterly "Aren't you going to analyze this? It's a bomb." As a result they emptied the entire airport, with its several thousand employees, and its tens of thousands of passengers. They stopped all flights for several hours. The cost was astronomical.
In other words...
If I wasn't afraid it would be held against me for 40 years, ...that would be the least of your worries.
I'm glad to see that you're so optimistic and see reasons for such a positive outlook. I sincerely hope that you're right and I'm wrong. I'll be overjoyed if Russia step by step becomes truly free and open and democratic.
I'm far less optimistic than you, and deeply worried, but if you're right, this would certainly be wonderful.
I did not mean all Americans as an individuals, I meant the collective which together made Bush's second term possible, despite his catastrophic effect on the influence and safety of the US and on the overall situation in the world.
One reason we Europeans sometimes react strongly toward the policies of the US (which all too often gets misinterpreted as anti-Americanism) is that there are many things we love and admire about the US, and that makes the disappointment painful. You'll castigate your brother much more than a total stranger. Europe and the US are in many ways brothers. We react to a brother.
As to what to do, I don't know anything one can do to effect quick significant change in situations like this. When my country does things I disagree with strongly, I usually don't know what it's best to do. I do write to politicians occasionally, but the influence one gets that way is limited, even though they often do send an answer.
One thing that is much more important and valuable than many people realize is to discuss and debate with friends and acquaintances. That's because good thoughts and ideas will take root and spread. Ideas that are compelling enough will get a very big audience by spreading from your friends to their friends, and so on. With only a few such leaps you can get a huge audience.
But of course discussing persuasively is a difficult art, and takes much practice. Not everyone can do this easily.
Writing letters to newspapers and magazines can also be very valuable, as it may spread to a large audience.
One very important thing is to buy and read good newspapers that defend democracy by questioning authority and checking politicians almost suspiciously. This is crucial, because the newspapers are the answer to the classical question about who guards the guardians.
I don't think the balance of power that is ensured by your Constitution is sufficient by itself, because the people at the top of all three branches are entrenched at the top. You also need the people of the nation to carefully watch all three branches through the media. And for this to work you need better media. And so you need to buy and sponsor good media that take this duty seriously.
And this notion of the role of the media needs to spread, from friend to friend, and on to their friends...
It wouldn't hurt if people persuaded the media to take their guardian role seriously and use it a selling argument. In a country that is so proud of its democracy, and at the same time so worried about it, this should be a very good selling argument for a newspaper.
I don't think there are any solutions that will give one person the power to make a revolutionary change, at least not any healthy solutions. But I do think that if many people make serious efforts, there will be significant change for the better.
That's because good ideas really do take root and spread. It takes lots of patience and persistence, but in the long run it does work.
It'll still be more free than it would be here. Not at all. Not by a long shot.
The US may have sunk into becoming a harsh Big-Brother nation that is effectively ruled by two wings of a single party, but Russia is run by their local mafia.
In the US you still have lots of TV channels and papers and forums loudly critical of the reigning system, in Russia such voices are systematically silenced. In the US your government may be shamelessly lying to you about important matters like reasons for war and reasons for what they call anti-terror measures, but dissenting voices do get heard, even if they drown in the general noise. In Russia dissent is silenced for real.
In Russia it is too late. In the US it is not too late. Not yet. There's still time for you people to do something, should you wish to do something about it.
Have you paused to consider that maybe it was done under anonymity to preserve whatever karma they may have here on/., and not because of fear of governmental persecution? That makes it all the more pitiful! There are people out there risking their life and livelihood to get their message out. Meanwhile, some people won't take the risk that their anonymous nick on a website might get its precious score nudged down a little. Oh the humanity.
They already ask this, and several other similar questions. All you US citizens can sleep safe with the comforting knowledge that evil people have to declare their evilness on the official visa application form:
Have you ever been arrested or convicted for any offense or crime, even though subject of a pardon, amnesty or other similar legal action? Have you ever unlawfully distributed or sold a controlled substance(drug), or been a prostitute or procurer for prostitutes? [ ] Yes [ ] No
Have you ever been refused admission to the U.S., or been the subject of a deportation hearing or sought to obtain or assist others to obtain a visa, entry into the U.S., or any other U.S. immigration benefit by fraud or willful misrepresentation or other unlawful means? Have you attended a U.S. public elementary school on student (F) status or a public secondary school after November 30, 1996 without reimbursing the school? [ ] Yes [ ] No
Do you seek to enter the United States to engage in export control violations, subversive or terrorist activities, or any other unlawful purpose? Are you a member or representative of a terrorist organization as currently designated by the U.S. Secretary of State? Have you ever participated in persecutions directed by the Nazi government of Germany; or have you ever participated in genocide? [ ] Yes [ ] No
Have you ever violated the terms of a U.S. visa, or been unlawfully present in, or deported from, the United States? [ ] Yes [ ] No
Have you ever withheld custody of a U.S. citizen child outside the United States from a person granted legal custody by a U.S. court, voted in the United States in violation of any law or regulation, or renounced U.S. citizenship for the purpose of avoiding taxation? [ ] Yes [ ] No
Have you ever been afflicted with a communicable disease of public health significance or a dangerous physical or mental disorder, or ever been a drug abuser or addict? [ ] Yes [ ] No
Slashdot Mirror
Not that this gives any clue for comparing the importance of COBE and Hubble. The scientific prizes are awarded on academic merit, not on importance of instrument...
Thanks for the info! But that's a lot of TLAs and FLAs you have there. At least for me (and I bet I'm not alone) it would be far easier to remember the STIS if I had some inkling as to what it is. Or maybe I do know already, but need a reminder.
And what's a PI? Is it because English isn't my first language that I don't know what a PI is?
I don't understand COS or WFC3 either, but since you said they are in the summary, I'll trust that reading the summary gives me the same information.
Checking both your post and the summary I do understand that the ACS is the Advanced Camera for Surveys. Ha, I did understand one! I bet you didn't expect that!
I meant that it addresses the pressure and temperature that you mentioned. I didn't mean that it disproves anything you said, only that it gives some answers. I should have said more clearly what it answered, I realize now that the way I said it was misleading.
We do have technology for balloons and blimps. Note that people would live inside the buoyant gas and breathe it. But certainly lots of challenges related to this remain unanswered -- as I already said in my post.
You sound angry or something. Don't be. I just felt that it was an interesting read. I like it when people think outside the boxes of convention. When I read stuff like that I don't demand that every issue be ironed out and solved. It can be an interesting read before they have found solutions to all the problems.
Click the link he provided, it answers the concerns that you raised. There are other concerns that are not answered, but those you raised are really answered, strange as this may seem.
I'm Swedish, and I look at this from an international perspective. I wonder if there's anything us grassroots can do to mitigate the approaching disaster. Suppose we could somehow unite and agree. Could we then do something to weaken the approaching tsunami?
After all the economy consists of us. We create the economy by our actions. If we acted in concert we'd have a huge influence. The question is whether there's anything we could do that could improve the situation. but when it happens it won't be us becoming engaged, but enraged. Not enough of us really grasp the magnitude of the treason it took for us to reach this point. But we will. I hope you'll also be enraged with your media. They have persistently favored propaganda over truth, and fear and anger over reason. They have failed miserably in one of the main tasks of the media, which is to guard the guardians, i.e., to watch the powerful and report on them to the people.
The media have a crucial role in every democracy. At least from my perspective it looks like the US media have failed completely in this, betraying the people and the democracy, in ways far worse than the media in most democratic countries. Your media need to seriously reconsider their role and their duties.
Of course that's only a different way of saying that the media readers and viewers have failed in their duty to carefully choose and buy media that defend democracy.
Of course I could be wrong here, I could be the victim of media propaganda that gives a false impression of the US situation. But I doubt it. The picture is too consistent.
I hope my negative view of the situation in the US and of the US media doesn't offend you. No offense intended. I love the US in many ways. I am deeply concerned and deeply worried.
As I understand it from the discussions here and here, it would be impossible with conventional rocketry, and possible but impractical with a solar-powered ion engine. The latter would take three years, during which the telescope would be unusable. That becomes prohibitive when you consider that the ISS orbit is unsuitable for observation, so after the repairs you'd need time to get the telescope back to a useful orbit. By that time the telescope would be too old.
Several alternatives are considered in those discussions, and none seem to convince those who apparently understand these matters.
Personally I'm not convinced that the telescope would be entirely unusable during an ion-engine transfer. It should be very limited in where it can point, but usable in those limited directions. And after repair you'd only need to boost it to a higher orbit. That orbit could be energetically quite close to the orbit of the ISS, and thus quickly reached. And such a plan could perhaps dramatically lengthen the lifetime of the telescope.
But I'm no expert. I may well have overlooked or misunderstood something.
Head explodes? My god! GP, look what you've done! You've gotten him blood and little pieces of brain all over his keyboard and monitor!
I bet like all repairmen they'll charge ridiculously large travel expenses.
Sure, but the result are pictures, and those pictures are beautiful and give people a feel for the science. If only other sciences and technologies could do the same!
No way. It can't be lack of funds. It can only be staggering, incredible incompetence. And it's not the local burger flipper. It's the chief information security officer. The top boss in charge of keeping information safe.
Amazing.
Thanks!
But when you enter a comment, if you select "Plain old text" below the text field, your text will come out much more readable, with paragraphs.
You can also make "Plain old text" permanent by choosing it in your settings.
If you feel like posting this anew, with "Plain old text" selected, please do.
In any case, thanks.
5.
6. Profit! Point the second: You know that's not really the solution anyone is looking for. Sadly, that's true, people will indeed keep sponsoring that site with their presence no matter how badly it tramples them. But precisely because of this, my solution is the only solution that makes any sense.
That's a very interesting perspective. I'll keep a link to your post, and try to remember to link to it when Americans turn aggressive about "anti-Americanism". Maybe it can help them understand better how we really feel this side of the pond.
Apparently those pages become visible only if you sign up for a Facebook account and log in. How about giving us a summary or quoting the interesting texts?
You're sending cold shivers down my spine. Sheesh!
The scenario that you paint is chillingly realistic.
However, if the US truly loses its dream of Liberty and its belief in the Constitution, I'm not convinced that it can stay together. It seems to me that those beliefs and principles are what holds the nation together. Without that, there's nothing left to hold it together and it falls to pieces.
A chilling perspective indeed.
However, the US has pulled itself together before. Hopefully it will do so again.
Unfortunately this is possible only if a large number of citizens become engaged and struggle for change. Will they?
Once many years ago, long before the current terror terror, a traveller at the Stockholm airport got fed up with an overly pedantic search and held up his small bunch of keys saying bitterly "Aren't you going to analyze this? It's a bomb." As a result they emptied the entire airport, with its several thousand employees, and its tens of thousands of passengers. They stopped all flights for several hours. The cost was astronomical.
In other words... If I wasn't afraid it would be held against me for 40 years, ...that would be the least of your worries.
I'm glad to see that you're so optimistic and see reasons for such a positive outlook. I sincerely hope that you're right and I'm wrong. I'll be overjoyed if Russia step by step becomes truly free and open and democratic.
I'm far less optimistic than you, and deeply worried, but if you're right, this would certainly be wonderful.
I did not mean all Americans as an individuals, I meant the collective which together made Bush's second term possible, despite his catastrophic effect on the influence and safety of the US and on the overall situation in the world.
One reason we Europeans sometimes react strongly toward the policies of the US (which all too often gets misinterpreted as anti-Americanism) is that there are many things we love and admire about the US, and that makes the disappointment painful. You'll castigate your brother much more than a total stranger. Europe and the US are in many ways brothers. We react to a brother.
As to what to do, I don't know anything one can do to effect quick significant change in situations like this. When my country does things I disagree with strongly, I usually don't know what it's best to do. I do write to politicians occasionally, but the influence one gets that way is limited, even though they often do send an answer.
One thing that is much more important and valuable than many people realize is to discuss and debate with friends and acquaintances. That's because good thoughts and ideas will take root and spread. Ideas that are compelling enough will get a very big audience by spreading from your friends to their friends, and so on. With only a few such leaps you can get a huge audience.
But of course discussing persuasively is a difficult art, and takes much practice. Not everyone can do this easily.
Writing letters to newspapers and magazines can also be very valuable, as it may spread to a large audience.
One very important thing is to buy and read good newspapers that defend democracy by questioning authority and checking politicians almost suspiciously. This is crucial, because the newspapers are the answer to the classical question about who guards the guardians.
I don't think the balance of power that is ensured by your Constitution is sufficient by itself, because the people at the top of all three branches are entrenched at the top. You also need the people of the nation to carefully watch all three branches through the media. And for this to work you need better media. And so you need to buy and sponsor good media that take this duty seriously.
And this notion of the role of the media needs to spread, from friend to friend, and on to their friends...
It wouldn't hurt if people persuaded the media to take their guardian role seriously and use it a selling argument. In a country that is so proud of its democracy, and at the same time so worried about it, this should be a very good selling argument for a newspaper.
I don't think there are any solutions that will give one person the power to make a revolutionary change, at least not any healthy solutions. But I do think that if many people make serious efforts, there will be significant change for the better.
That's because good ideas really do take root and spread. It takes lots of patience and persistence, but in the long run it does work.
The US may have sunk into becoming a harsh Big-Brother nation that is effectively ruled by two wings of a single party, but Russia is run by their local mafia.
In the US you still have lots of TV channels and papers and forums loudly critical of the reigning system, in Russia such voices are systematically silenced. In the US your government may be shamelessly lying to you about important matters like reasons for war and reasons for what they call anti-terror measures, but dissenting voices do get heard, even if they drown in the general noise. In Russia dissent is silenced for real.
In Russia it is too late. In the US it is not too late. Not yet. There's still time for you people to do something, should you wish to do something about it.