But SC1 was rather unbalanced with the Alliance having the almost unbeatable x-form fighter - it's faster than everything else and the missles shoot far enough to allow it to swing around most units and wear them down shot by shot. And once you move one of them around exploring a bit to put in a few add-ons you can walk over your opponent, expecially if you get extra speed and turning rate.
SC2 was more balanced, with a lot more fast units (those respawning Pkunk fighters are neat), but the full game was trivially simple once you have your mothership loaded with power generators and hellbore cannons. I thought that there is limit to the amount of ships attacking in a home world and proceeded to take down about hundred or so Ur-quan dreadnoughts before giving up guessing there is probably no limit.
Pity SC3 is such a shocking dissapointment, some of the new ships are kind of interesting though.
Yeah, BRE was great, except for the fact that any BBS can cheat by intentionally not sending response messages. If I remember correctly when you send an attack, and there is no response message it could be many days before your units return, leaving you vulnerable (okay if you use jets, bad if you use tanks). And sometimes depends of how often the BBS's talk to one another you can get 2 day's worth of nuke/chem/bio attacks stacked together... very messy.
BTW, be great if there is a version of BRE on the net that you can telnet to and play...:)
Re:RPC is OLD. XML is LAME. Why waste time ?
on
ESR On XML-RPC
·
· Score: 1
Except all the latencies of junk data going through the network is going add to a serious loss of productivity/revenue (user waiting... user waiting... user give up). Tell me that is cheaper than the programmer time.
And is there proof that XML is going to be easier to program for than any other data structure?
So you grab your data, plonk it into XML, compress it, send it, so the other side have to decompress it, then decode the int/float etc back into bytes, well, that's useful isn't it?
Re:RPC is OLD. XML is LAME. Why waste time ?
on
ESR On XML-RPC
·
· Score: 1
XML is beyond lame, it's a wonderful new way to choke up the internet... why the sudden urge to start sending data around in 7 bit?! We're talking RPC calls, and all a program need is a well defined data structure, not one that's human readable. Representing int/float etc as digits instead of 4/8 bytes, right... some people deserve to be forced to use a 300baud modem on an XT for the rest of their live, it seems nobody cares about efficiency anymore.
It might be a nice way to store documents (no more proprietory format), but it's becoming the most abused and hyped way of passing data around (and who was the really smart person that suggested representing the/proc in XML in Linux kernel?!).
Oh yes, the every popular car analogy... let's see, a car in the early 20th century ran on something like 40? octane petrol. Fuel injection, 4 wheel drive/steering, traction control, reliability, maintenance cost, fuel economy all "little" changes, but a modern car sure ain't nothing like one from the turn of last century. The same goes for the Internet. We are not on 14k modem anymore (well, most of us aren't)
There are some dynamic content where it's simply impossible to draw the line between "Presentation" and "Logic" - For example the good ol' calendar in an HTML table. At best you can code it as component and pass some formating parameter into it to alter the style. But basically you're forced to put at least some HTML markup in your code.
Also, it'd be nice if all "web designers" are fully capable of actually creating the templates where you can easily drop in the outputs of your programs, instead of handing you a 50k program generated piece of crap filled with completely unneccessary table tags everywhere.
The place where I work the general policy is that the graphics people sort out the look, hand me the graphics in Photoshop, and I'll look at them, determine what is the most efficient way of cutting things up and integrate it with the code, then hand the cut-up pieces of the graphics back to the graphics people and tell them to work on those instead and follow the EXACT same file names (somehow having images called "nav_border_left.gif" "nav_logo.gif" "nav_button.gif" etc is much more preferable to calling them "xxx_1_1.gif" "xxx_1_2.gif" etc that most graphics software generate...). By keeping all the files under the strict control of of us lowly mere developers at least we can be sure no one will never ever screw things up by using Dreamweaver or worse Frontpage on them...
Also there are things that one can do by using the server side program to manipulate width and height tags of images depending on the database query/whatever... not exactly easy to separate into presentation and logic (of course, the database query will be a separate piece of code but you still need some fairly hefty "coding" for the display)
There do many types of games that consoles absolutely suck at - basically all kinds of strategy games where you seriously don't want to stare at a 60Hz interleaved display for 8 hrs non-stop.
And comparing the XBox to the other consoles, unless they have something better than Gran Turismo and Tekken (any idea if Soul Blade II will be released on PSII? I know it's out on Dreamcast) in the respective genres, I'll stick to buying a PSII.
If the Olympics are all about contracts, then just make sure the whole damned thing don't fuckin' claim any such crap like promoting friendship and peace, etc, etc ad infinitum ad nauseam.
So long the stupid thing claims some high falutin' ideals principles, we have the right to try to hold it to them, period.
Did anyone notice that the specs show an ISO speed of 100? That'll make it way too slow most of the time. I don't think that 16Mpixel spec is all that impressive if it's only rated for ISO 100 - I'm fairly sure something like Velvia would be a lot better.
And the worst is having a project where the web "designers" are calling the shots.
"Can you please put in some helpful error messages to tell the user whether they've entered an incorrect user name or just a wrong password?"
"No problem, should I list the most likely username intended and display the password hint as well? Come think of it, why don't I just delete all the files and drop the database on the live site, and save the "user" some trouble?"
Knowing how to do fancy graphics (actually not all that fancy at all) does not a web designer make.
Why not? When the additional cost outweighs the benefits, the bottom line is what matters. Why else you think car manufacturers release cars with defects (if they CARE about your safety, would they so actively promote those big dumb SUVs?)
On to another god damn no good SUV killing off nice (and actually affordable) sports cars, utterly OT:
When you're charging down the motorway on a rainy day, would you rather be in a 2 ton truck or some 4WD sports car (call me a wimp, but I like the technology as a crutch when it comes to driving).
And when is the Subaru Legacy (what do they call that twin-turbo tweaked version again?), the Mitsubishi Galant VR-4 or the Nissan Skyline not big enough for a family?
You typical user info are stored so that you can read them later - now imagine a few GB of data, think now bad the crunch will be when you change the key used to encrypt them. (Which you should, regularly)
And if they can get to your db, they can always just grab a copy of the data and proceed to brute force crack that single key.
If you are about to say "But you can have one key per user!" May I ask where you you're going to store those few thousand keys?
True it's not moral, but when you're in a country where there are no laws against this kind of stuff, why not?
Heck, you can rationalise it as improving the economy, weed out the weak.
Even better, do a $5 charge from each of the thousands of cards to a charity of your choice. Now no decent person would actually go to the bank and demand a refund from a charity, would they (I sincerely hope that still counts as a rhetorical question, or else I might as well start working on that doomsday device that'll obliterate the evil human race from this planet)?
I was working on a project that involved building a website for a freight moving company, because of the way things are charged the credit card number do have to stored temporarily (Even though the details will be in the database for at most a day or two). Sometimes the requirement for the business mean that you have no choice but to store information better just sent to the bit (or in this case, decimal) bucket.
But yes I agree, storing credit card numbers simply for the users "convenience" is BAD - afterall, who wants to use a stolen card number more than once;)
Of putting the Olympic (tm?) games out of its misery by running it to the ground. Excuse me but throughout this (ur, actually, last) century it has been used to support the Nazis, used as a pissing contest between the Soviet - US blocs, and now as some second-rate corporate whore. Is that Samaranch (spelling?) bastard still running the committee despite the fact that he's been proven (maybe not in a court, but the evidence is overhelming) to be corrupt, along with almost every single other members of the committee?
Oh yeah, how much does it cost to get an athlete to pass a drug test? They might as well get on this "darn Internet thing" and set up an secure E-Commerce site for the purpose of taking bribes.
Welcome to the future of the Olympics, brought to you by McDonalds (food of choice for a new generation of drug taking athletes, now introducing McBuff - the fat free burger enriched with performance enhancing drugs, just don't ask us what's in the pattie), Nike (all the athletes are under our payroll, and our sweatshops are the nicest!) and Microsoft (bring the same damned highlights of the same few games the rest of you stupid audiences are staring at in front of that other idiot-box (accord to the demographics, courtesy of the FBI - consumer protection division, B2B department), in ultra low frame rate, 32x32 block pixel format, a technological breakthrough that is incorporated in Windows Media Player. Where do you want go today (if you don't tell us we'll find out anyway)?)
One area I see Digital camera as useful for is to replace polaroids for checking flash settings, pity most digital cameras don't come with adaptor for external flash
Except it's a bit hard find one for next to nothing...
A few weeks ago I was looking at the prices for the Cobalt machines (in New Zealand), and they were, well, terrifyingly expensive - $2500NZ (about $1500 US) for someting with a 250MHz CPU and 16MB RAM, and 4GB IDE HD) What irks me is the fact that all their spec sheets seems so geared at the clueless manager types that they don't even tell you what CPU it's running (MIPS R4x00 series?)
Also, a microserver might not be the best thing for development and testing when every thing you do deals with server side scripting and database queries...:)
Granted it's good to see another port of Net BSD, but what is the practical use of such a port? Don't people buy Cobalts because they're (supposed to be) easy to maintain and require less administration? Custom installing a new OS onto them seems to defeat that purpose - not to mention you might as well get something with better price/performance (PC) if you're gonna end up customising it yourself. If they get those web based administration functionalities ported as well, that'd be great (can't seem to find any info on that particular direction).
Ditto, upgrading from 6.0 to 6.1 broke my system completely...good thing I had my home directory and mp3 directory on separate partitions, so I just reformatted and reinstalled from scratch...
I'm sitting out on this upgrade and instead just wait until XFree86 4.0 and 2.4 Kernel comes out, then buy a new computer.
If you do not CONTINUOUSLY act to protect your trademark, it has the potential of becoming generic. Just ask Xerox or Kimberly Clark (makers of Kleenex).
And having your brand name so ingrained in public awareness as to become generic is bad? Isn't that the whole point advertising?
For starters, vhs and cassete tapes were/are analog and quite frankly the quality on them sucks.
Only if we're talking using no-brand tapes in a bottom of the line model that hasn't had the head cleaned ever. Recently I did the experiment of comparing the sound quality of a 128k mp3 ripped from CD to the cassette single version, which has been stored rather haphazardly for 5 years. The cassete sounds significantly better, even though I was playing it in a walkman connected to my stereo (I sold my tape deck a few years back, silly me).
The only reason I use mp3 is that it's great for parties when you can have hours of techno playing with geiss displayed on the TV, and the fact that those made in germany techno CDs are so damned expensive here in New Zealand (if you can find them in a shop at all). When you have the volume turned (almost) all the way up sound quality doesn't seem to matter as much:)
The only problem with digital TV I can see is that it may save the pirates the trouble of buying a real time video compression equipment and allow them to just copy the compressed transmission. But just exactly how much compression can you put into something that will be used in consumer electronics intended for widespread use (I doubt they'll use $50/unit DSPs...) and at the same time give an acceptable quality (analog broadcast TV quality is extremely good), considering the main aim of digital TV is not improved quality, but the ability to cram more idiotic channels into the same amount of bandwidth.
True, even on Mars getting water is no easy task, how thick is the sheet of dry ice anyway?
As for plants, a heated greenhouse using CO2 from the Mars atmosphere can grow normal high yield plants, much more efficient than growing genetically engeineered plants (I doubt it's possible to have something that can survive the kind of temperature on Mars)
I was thinking the benefits of a lunar outpost as a starting point for future space explorations, it would be far more economical than earth based launches. I didn't mean having an actual settlement there, just personnels to run and maintain the facilities.
A big nuclear/solar powered communication station on the back of the moon + relay station on the side facing the earth would help communication with space exploration vessels tremendously.
Basically I think it would be much easier to send people to mars once the infrastruture is in place on the moon.
What scenario do you envision that "we" dropping back to a much smaller population entails? Forced sterilisation program? Massive starvation? WWIII (of course, without nukes being fired off and zero out the planet completely)?
Actually, if you consider how much land mass is actually being used for agriculture to sustain the entire human population, there shouldn't be a net resource(food) shortage even if the global population does not stabilise by end of next century. The problem is with distribution, and actually providing the third world countries with the proper machinery (a combine harvester beats a hundred starving, tired farmers doing everything by hand), and hire people to maintain and teach the locals how to maintain the equipment, and efficient farming techniques - much more preferable to proverty exacerbating IMF loans so the local despot can go on letting his friends and relatives adding a few more digits to their swiss bank accounts.
Back to the topic of mars exploration, I don't think it's yet time to send people to mars. The last time any human being stepped on another planet (okay, moon) was almost thirty years ago. The priority is a self-sustaining colony on the moon (would a launch from the moon be more efficient than from a space station in low earth orbit?) The technological progress gained from building the moon colony/outpost/whatever would go a long way in helping any mars exploration.
BTW I fully support of the idea of terraforming Mars, that should get started as soon as possible, since the whole process takes something like 150 years (can't remember exactly, every science magazine had an article on it and I can never find any in the library).
Nevertheless, the petition deserves support, even if the idea behind is a bit misguided and impractile at the moment. At least it'll tell the politicians that people ARE interesting space exploration. Far better "wasting" money on sciece projects that ended up going nowhere then to not do anything. Funny how the general public would not think twice about wasting $20 going out to watch a truly crappy movie and yet would go and gripe about governments spending what is a per-person equivalent of much less on things that are much more worthwhile.
If you don't like your $10 being spent on something the government funds on account of it better spent helping the poor(be it local or overseas), write a cheque to a charity.
Slashdot Mirror
But SC1 was rather unbalanced with the Alliance having the almost unbeatable x-form fighter - it's faster than everything else and the missles shoot far enough to allow it to swing around most units and wear them down shot by shot. And once you move one of them around exploring a bit to put in a few add-ons you can walk over your opponent, expecially if you get extra speed and turning rate.
SC2 was more balanced, with a lot more fast units (those respawning Pkunk fighters are neat), but the full game was trivially simple once you have your mothership loaded with power generators and hellbore cannons. I thought that there is limit to the amount of ships attacking in a home world and proceeded to take down about hundred or so Ur-quan dreadnoughts before giving up guessing there is probably no limit.
Pity SC3 is such a shocking dissapointment, some of the new ships are kind of interesting though.
Yeah, BRE was great, except for the fact that any BBS can cheat by intentionally not sending response messages. If I remember correctly when you send an attack, and there is no response message it could be many days before your units return, leaving you vulnerable (okay if you use jets, bad if you use tanks). And sometimes depends of how often the BBS's talk to one another you can get 2 day's worth of nuke/chem/bio attacks stacked together... very messy.
:)
BTW, be great if there is a version of BRE on the net that you can telnet to and play...
Except all the latencies of junk data going through the network is going add to a serious loss of productivity/revenue (user waiting... user waiting... user give up). Tell me that is cheaper than the programmer time.
And is there proof that XML is going to be easier to program for than any other data structure?
So you grab your data, plonk it into XML, compress it, send it, so the other side have to decompress it, then decode the int/float etc back into bytes, well, that's useful isn't it?
XML is beyond lame, it's a wonderful new way to choke up the internet... why the sudden urge to start sending data around in 7 bit?! We're talking RPC calls, and all a program need is a well defined data structure, not one that's human readable. Representing int/float etc as digits instead of 4/8 bytes, right... some people deserve to be forced to use a 300baud modem on an XT for the rest of their live, it seems nobody cares about efficiency anymore.
/proc in XML in Linux kernel?!).
It might be a nice way to store documents (no more proprietory format), but it's becoming the most abused and hyped way of passing data around (and who was the really smart person that suggested representing the
Oh yes, the every popular car analogy... let's see, a car in the early 20th century ran on something like 40? octane petrol. Fuel injection, 4 wheel drive/steering, traction control, reliability, maintenance cost, fuel economy all "little" changes, but a modern car sure ain't nothing like one from the turn of last century. The same goes for the Internet. We are not on 14k modem anymore (well, most of us aren't)
There are some dynamic content where it's simply impossible to draw the line between "Presentation" and "Logic" - For example the good ol' calendar in an HTML table. At best you can code it as component and pass some formating parameter into it to alter the style. But basically you're forced to put at least some HTML markup in your code.
Also, it'd be nice if all "web designers" are fully capable of actually creating the templates where you can easily drop in the outputs of your programs, instead of handing you a 50k program generated piece of crap filled with completely unneccessary table tags everywhere.
The place where I work the general policy is that the graphics people sort out the look, hand me the graphics in Photoshop, and I'll look at them, determine what is the most efficient way of cutting things up and integrate it with the code, then hand the cut-up pieces of the graphics back to the graphics people and tell them to work on those instead and follow the EXACT same file names (somehow having images called "nav_border_left.gif" "nav_logo.gif" "nav_button.gif" etc is much more preferable to calling them "xxx_1_1.gif" "xxx_1_2.gif" etc that most graphics software generate...). By keeping all the files under the strict control of of us lowly mere developers at least we can be sure no one will never ever screw things up by using Dreamweaver or worse Frontpage on them...
Also there are things that one can do by using the server side program to manipulate width and height tags of images depending on the database query/whatever... not exactly easy to separate into presentation and logic (of course, the database query will be a separate piece of code but you still need some fairly hefty "coding" for the display)
There do many types of games that consoles absolutely suck at - basically all kinds of strategy games where you seriously don't want to stare at a 60Hz interleaved display for 8 hrs non-stop.
And comparing the XBox to the other consoles, unless they have something better than Gran Turismo and Tekken (any idea if Soul Blade II will be released on PSII? I know it's out on Dreamcast) in the respective genres, I'll stick to buying a PSII.
If the Olympics are all about contracts, then just make sure the whole damned thing don't fuckin' claim any such crap like promoting friendship and peace, etc, etc ad infinitum ad nauseam.
So long the stupid thing claims some high falutin' ideals principles, we have the right to try to hold it to them, period.
Did anyone notice that the specs show an ISO speed of 100? That'll make it way too slow most of the time. I don't think that 16Mpixel spec is all that impressive if it's only rated for ISO 100 - I'm fairly sure something like Velvia would be a lot better.
And the worst is having a project where the web "designers" are calling the shots.
"Can you please put in some helpful error messages to tell the user whether they've entered an incorrect user name or just a wrong password?"
"No problem, should I list the most likely username intended and display the password hint as well? Come think of it, why don't I just delete all the files and drop the database on the live site, and save the "user" some trouble?"
Knowing how to do fancy graphics (actually not all that fancy at all) does not a web designer make.
Why not? When the additional cost outweighs the benefits, the bottom line is what matters. Why else you think car manufacturers release cars with defects (if they CARE about your safety, would they so actively promote those big dumb SUVs?)
On to another god damn no good SUV killing off nice (and actually affordable) sports cars, utterly OT:
When you're charging down the motorway on a rainy day, would you rather be in a 2 ton truck or some 4WD sports car (call me a wimp, but I like the technology as a crutch when it comes to driving).
And when is the Subaru Legacy (what do they call that twin-turbo tweaked version again?), the Mitsubishi Galant VR-4 or the Nissan Skyline not big enough for a family?
You typical user info are stored so that you can read them later - now imagine a few GB of data, think now bad the crunch will be when you change the key used to encrypt them. (Which you should, regularly)
And if they can get to your db, they can always just grab a copy of the data and proceed to brute force crack that single key.
If you are about to say "But you can have one key per user!" May I ask where you you're going to store those few thousand keys?
True it's not moral, but when you're in a country where there are no laws against this kind of stuff, why not?
Heck, you can rationalise it as improving the economy, weed out the weak.
Even better, do a $5 charge from each of the thousands of cards to a charity of your choice. Now no decent person would actually go to the bank and demand a refund from a charity, would they (I sincerely hope that still counts as a rhetorical question, or else I might as well start working on that doomsday device that'll obliterate the evil human race from this planet)?
I was working on a project that involved building a website for a freight moving company, because of the way things are charged the credit card number do have to stored temporarily (Even though the details will be in the database for at most a day or two). Sometimes the requirement for the business mean that you have no choice but to store information better just sent to the bit (or in this case, decimal) bucket.
;)
But yes I agree, storing credit card numbers simply for the users "convenience" is BAD - afterall, who wants to use a stolen card number more than once
Of putting the Olympic (tm?) games out of its misery by running it to the ground. Excuse me but throughout this (ur, actually, last) century it has been used to support the Nazis, used as a pissing contest between the Soviet - US blocs, and now as some second-rate corporate whore. Is that Samaranch (spelling?) bastard still running the committee despite the fact that he's been proven (maybe not in a court, but the evidence is overhelming) to be corrupt, along with almost every single other members of the committee?
Oh yeah, how much does it cost to get an athlete to pass a drug test? They might as well get on this "darn Internet thing" and set up an secure E-Commerce site for the purpose of taking bribes.
Welcome to the future of the Olympics, brought to you by McDonalds (food of choice for a new generation of drug taking athletes, now introducing McBuff - the fat free burger enriched with performance enhancing drugs, just don't ask us what's in the pattie), Nike (all the athletes are under our payroll, and our sweatshops are the nicest!) and Microsoft (bring the same damned highlights of the same few games the rest of you stupid audiences are staring at in front of that other idiot-box (accord to the demographics, courtesy of the FBI - consumer protection division, B2B department), in ultra low frame rate, 32x32 block pixel format, a technological breakthrough that is incorporated in Windows Media Player. Where do you want go today (if you don't tell us we'll find out anyway)?)
// End Rant
One area I see Digital camera as useful for is to replace polaroids for checking flash settings, pity most digital cameras don't come with adaptor for external flash
Except it's a bit hard find one for next to nothing...
:)
A few weeks ago I was looking at the prices for the Cobalt machines (in New Zealand), and they were, well, terrifyingly expensive - $2500NZ (about $1500 US) for someting with a 250MHz CPU and 16MB RAM, and 4GB IDE HD) What irks me is the fact that all their spec sheets seems so geared at the clueless manager types that they don't even tell you what CPU it's running (MIPS R4x00 series?)
Also, a microserver might not be the best thing for development and testing when every thing you do deals with server side scripting and database queries...
Granted it's good to see another port of Net BSD, but what is the practical use of such a port? Don't people buy Cobalts because they're (supposed to be) easy to maintain and require less administration? Custom installing a new OS onto them seems to defeat that purpose - not to mention you might as well get something with better price/performance (PC) if you're gonna end up customising it yourself. If they get those web based administration functionalities ported as well, that'd be great (can't seem to find any info on that particular direction).
Looks that way to me as well....I'd imagine there might be more middleware stuff working with ASP than with PHP...
Ditto, upgrading from 6.0 to 6.1 broke my system completely...good thing I had my home directory and mp3 directory on separate partitions, so I just reformatted and reinstalled from scratch...
I'm sitting out on this upgrade and instead just wait until XFree86 4.0 and 2.4 Kernel comes out, then buy a new computer.
If you do not CONTINUOUSLY act to protect your trademark, it has the potential of becoming generic. Just ask Xerox or Kimberly Clark (makers of Kleenex).
And having your brand name so ingrained in public awareness as to become generic is bad? Isn't that the whole point advertising?
For starters, vhs and cassete tapes were/are analog and quite frankly the quality on them sucks.
:)
Only if we're talking using no-brand tapes in a bottom of the line model that hasn't had the head cleaned ever. Recently I did the experiment of comparing the sound quality of a 128k mp3 ripped from CD to the cassette single version, which has been stored rather haphazardly for 5 years. The cassete sounds significantly better, even though I was playing it in a walkman connected to my stereo (I sold my tape deck a few years back, silly me).
The only reason I use mp3 is that it's great for parties when you can have hours of techno playing with geiss displayed on the TV, and the fact that those made in germany techno CDs are so damned expensive here in New Zealand (if you can find them in a shop at all). When you have the volume turned (almost) all the way up sound quality doesn't seem to matter as much
The only problem with digital TV I can see is that it may save the pirates the trouble of buying a real time video compression equipment and allow them to just copy the compressed transmission. But just exactly how much compression can you put into something that will be used in consumer electronics intended for widespread use (I doubt they'll use $50/unit DSPs...) and at the same time give an acceptable quality (analog broadcast TV quality is extremely good), considering the main aim of digital TV is not improved quality, but the ability to cram more idiotic channels into the same amount of bandwidth.
True, even on Mars getting water is no easy task, how thick is the sheet of dry ice anyway?
As for plants, a heated greenhouse using CO2 from the Mars atmosphere can grow normal high yield plants, much more efficient than growing genetically engeineered plants (I doubt it's possible to have something that can survive the kind of temperature on Mars)
I was thinking the benefits of a lunar outpost as a starting point for future space explorations, it would be far more economical than earth based launches. I didn't mean having an actual settlement there, just personnels to run and maintain the facilities.
A big nuclear/solar powered communication station on the back of the moon + relay station on the side facing the earth would help communication with space exploration vessels tremendously.
Basically I think it would be much easier to send people to mars once the infrastruture is in place on the moon.
What scenario do you envision that "we" dropping back to a much smaller population entails? Forced sterilisation program? Massive starvation? WWIII (of course, without nukes being fired off and zero out the planet completely)?
Actually, if you consider how much land mass is actually being used for agriculture to sustain the entire human population, there shouldn't be a net resource(food) shortage even if the global population does not stabilise by end of next century. The problem is with distribution, and actually providing the third world countries with the proper machinery (a combine harvester beats a hundred starving, tired farmers doing everything by hand), and hire people to maintain and teach the locals how to maintain the equipment, and efficient farming techniques - much more preferable to proverty exacerbating IMF loans so the local despot can go on letting his friends and relatives adding a few more digits to their swiss bank accounts.
Back to the topic of mars exploration, I don't think it's yet time to send people to mars. The last time any human being stepped on another planet (okay, moon) was almost thirty years ago. The priority is a self-sustaining colony on the moon (would a launch from the moon be more efficient than from a space station in low earth orbit?) The technological progress gained from building the moon colony/outpost/whatever would go a long way in helping any mars exploration.
BTW I fully support of the idea of terraforming Mars, that should get started as soon as possible, since the whole process takes something like 150 years (can't remember exactly, every science magazine had an article on it and I can never find any in the library).
Nevertheless, the petition deserves support, even if the idea behind is a bit misguided and impractile at the moment. At least it'll tell the politicians that people ARE interesting space exploration. Far better "wasting" money on sciece projects that ended up going nowhere then to not do anything. Funny how the general public would not think twice about wasting $20 going out to watch a truly crappy movie and yet would go and gripe about governments spending what is a per-person equivalent of much less on things that are much more worthwhile.
If you don't like your $10 being spent on something the government funds on account of it better spent helping the poor(be it local or overseas), write a cheque to a charity.