So what exactly makes this any worse than the endless hash-rehash froth of the "dream factory" ? It's a chance to watch something different on TV, a break from other 364 days of fake reality shows and marketing-written soaps.
Some take the contest more seriously than others of course, but if you don't love it, you love to hate it.
I actually have a couple of points to offer:
The contest is the focuspoint of Eurovision parties all over...if you are not invited to a Eurovision Party, you are a social dud. And if you don't like the music, you can always go the way of more alcohol. It's all about having fun, so lighten up.
The contest is one of few opportunities TV-viewers (young europeans) seem to take an interest in which contries actually are in Europe and which aren't. (Believe me, why Israel participates is always a popular topic)
It's cultural promotion...of course the entries do not always reflect national cultures, but sometimes they do, and combined with the host country's presentations and info-bites, this actually exposes viewers to other cultures in Europe (as far as it goes of course...this isn't the Discovery Channel)
It's a party opportunity
How ridiculous is this really compared with other entertainment (e.g. watching 72 mind-numbing loops of Formula 1)?
That technology marches on should not come as a big surprise to anyone. Of course DVDs will be replaced eventually. 10 yrs sounds as good a guess as any.
In my opinion, the DVD IS indeed doomed sooner rather than later, mostly because the content owners have become disillusioned with what they believed would be copy-proof tech. So they are looking for the next one, which they can control better. It should also hold high-definition media, meaning an increase in the amount of data, delaying the copying/sharing-problems a couple of years. Thus the war between consumers and content owners continues.
This little tech might be a candidate, and has an interesting conspiracy theory already attached: "FMD/DMD-The Next Step in Storage" (middle of page in issue 197).
Microsoft has been using this strategy for years, it's called "embrace and extend". Basically, when you have most of the market, if you leave in a few conspicuous bugs (e.g. rendering anomalies) or non-standard behaviour, but otherwise implement a powerful and popular standard, you achieve extended lock-in to your particular product. Everyone is forced to spend time adapting to you, and frequently don't bother with implementing for other users. That's why MS doesn't ever want to fully comply with standards. Because they can.
As I recall, just over a year ago, NASA was adamant not even to consider a Mars mission until 2013, possibly not even until 2017.
So what has changed? Well, China will in the coming months join the spacefaring nations in a big way. Personally, I am convinced that from the start their goal with the manned space program has been to go to Mars. After all, what better way to upstage the West, and show strength?
IMHO, this possibility is just now dawning on the Bushes, who mired in good ol' Cold War thinking, will stop at nothing to beat them to it .
While their motives may be questionable (are they ever anything else for this administration?), the upside is that one way or the other, humans will finally get to go to the Red Planet, we will do some decent science, and maybe then move on to other (dare I say greater?) things.
You are right, I conveniently ignored the initial investment in hardware (slight memory leak on my part!). However, the $50 billion you quote is not for the Mars Direct, but rather an Enhanced Mars Direct, a case of "double the size, double the cost". The initial investment should be between $20-$30 billion, with 2 billion per each mission (I am quoting Zubrin's book now, no more memory games!). This amounts to just 7% of the US military and civilian space budget.
Personally, I would like to see a truly international effort to do this. After all, it just costs USD 4 billion for the first mission and 2 for each consecutive one (the "Mars Direct" program). That shouldn't really be such a big problem on an international budget... Anyway, I think the Chinese space program must have aspirations of this kind already. It would be such a huge PR win for them.
Close examination revealed that four of the cases occurred on the Pathfinder spacecraft itself. But two regions showed a chlorophyll signature in the soil around Pathfinder.
The fact that four out of six possible matches are on the spacecraft makes me really skeptical about the whole thing. Moreover, from reading the article, one might think they took just "any old picture" from the mission and ran it through some simple filter algorithms, to see if they found something interesting. Of course, such methods can be very valuable tools, especially at large scales, but this looks like a bit of overinterpretation to me. Plus chlorophylls?!? Come on, shouldn't we be able to detect those from orbital images or even Hubble, especially if they are so abundant in the soil?
Slashdot Mirror
It's a chance to watch something different on TV, a break from other 364 days of fake reality shows and marketing-written soaps.
Some take the contest more seriously than others of course, but if you don't love it, you love to hate it.
I actually have a couple of points to offer:
In my opinion, the DVD IS indeed doomed sooner rather than later, mostly because the content owners have become disillusioned with what they believed would be copy-proof tech. So they are looking for the next one, which they can control better. It should also hold high-definition media, meaning an increase in the amount of data, delaying the copying/sharing-problems a couple of years. Thus the war between consumers and content owners continues.
This little tech might be a candidate, and has an interesting conspiracy theory already attached: "FMD/DMD-The Next Step in Storage" (middle of page in issue 197).
Microsoft has been using this strategy for years, it's called "embrace and extend". Basically, when you have most of the market, if you leave in a few conspicuous bugs (e.g. rendering anomalies) or non-standard behaviour, but otherwise implement a powerful and popular standard, you achieve extended lock-in to your particular product. Everyone is forced to spend time adapting to you, and frequently don't bother with implementing for other users. That's why MS doesn't ever want to fully comply with standards. Because they can.
So what has changed? Well, China will in the coming months join the spacefaring nations in a big way. Personally, I am convinced that from the start their goal with the manned space program has been to go to Mars. After all, what better way to upstage the West, and show strength?
IMHO, this possibility is just now dawning on the Bushes, who mired in good ol' Cold War thinking, will stop at nothing to beat them to it .
While their motives may be questionable (are they ever anything else for this administration?), the upside is that one way or the other, humans will finally get to go to the Red Planet, we will do some decent science, and maybe then move on to other (dare I say greater?) things.
You are right, I conveniently ignored the initial investment in hardware (slight memory leak on my part!). However, the $50 billion you quote is not for the Mars Direct, but rather an Enhanced Mars Direct, a case of "double the size, double the cost". The initial investment should be between $20-$30 billion, with 2 billion per each mission (I am quoting Zubrin's book now, no more memory games!). This amounts to just 7% of the US military and civilian space budget.
Personally, I would like to see a truly international effort to do this. After all, it just costs USD 4 billion for the first mission and 2 for each consecutive one (the "Mars Direct" program). That shouldn't really be such a big problem on an international budget...
Anyway, I think the Chinese space program must have aspirations of this kind already. It would be such a huge PR win for them.
The fact that four out of six possible matches are on the spacecraft makes me really skeptical about the whole thing. Moreover, from reading the article, one might think they took just "any old picture" from the mission and ran it through some simple filter algorithms, to see if they found something interesting. Of course, such methods can be very valuable tools, especially at large scales, but this looks like a bit of overinterpretation to me. Plus chlorophylls?!? Come on, shouldn't we be able to detect those from orbital images or even Hubble, especially if they are so abundant in the soil?