And beyond all that stability in the oil rich portion of the middle east is all the justification a non-twofaced politician should need. Oil is THE strategic supply and assuring it's continued safety and accessibility IS a national security issue despite what anyone on either side of the aisle says.
Consider this.
What would the USA do if they were not the world's only remaining super-power, in order to assure access to a strategic supply? The USA would have to rely on purchasing those strategic assets just like every other nation.
May I suggest that it is a mistake to think of India as a "developing country"? I had an Indian friend at University who could be relied on to remind us that, in absolute terms, India's industrial capacity placed it among the dozen or so most industrialized nations on earth.
Compare the economies of India and Russia.
India's GDP was about twice that of Russia's last year. While a higher proportion of Russia's GDP was in its industrialized sector, India's industrialized sector is still larger, in absolute terms.
There is an old aphorism that inside every fat man there is a thin man screaming to get out. So, remember, India's industrial sector is larger than Russia's.
When this levy was proposed a couple of years ago I read two points that I don't see repeated here.
This levy would only apply to blank media. The suggestion then was that it would not apply to an ipod if that ipod shipped with a recording on it -- even just a simple utterance of "hello world".
It was also said that the introduction of the original legislation that brought the original levy on blank tapes meant that it is legal for Canadians to make copies of commercial audio recordings. We pay this levy in return for the right to make copies. If I understood the issues properly you do not need to own the original being copied, so long as you do the copying yourself. If I visit a friend with a CD-recorder, and use his computer to make a duplicate of my favourite from his collection -- this is permitted because of the levy paid on the blank media.
Re:Does this remind anyone of "Chernobyl"?
on
ISS Fender Bender
·
· Score: 1
The Russians consider themselves less rigid and more inventive than the Americans, who tend to follow every letter in the technical manuals, said Sergei Gorbunov, a spokesman for the Russian Space Agency.
Actually, that was a quote from another space.com article. Here is the link.
Does this remind anyone of "Chernobyl"?
on
ISS Fender Bender
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The article talks about the different attitudes towards safety the two space agencies have...
The Russians consider themselves less rigid and more inventive than the Americans, who tend to follow every letter in the technical manuals, said Sergei Gorbunov, a spokesman for the Russian Space Agency.
Isn't this what caused the Chernobyl meltdown? IIRC, the technical staff were being inventive and improvising around some safety tests.
Re:In the interests of completeness
on
Son of Concorde
·
· Score: 1
And, in the interests of correctness here is an article with pictures of the actual tu 144.
In the interests of completeness
on
Son of Concorde
·
· Score: 1
It is worth remembering that the Concorde was not the only supersonic airliner. The Soviets built the Tupolev 144.
Re:Amazing coincidences!
on
Linux in 2004?
·
· Score: 1, Offtopic
The
original version of these amazing coincidences was
published in Scientific American. American educator
Martin Gardner
used to use his fictional alter ego, "Dr Joshua Irving Matrix",
the World's Greatest Living Numerologist to poke fun at the
credulous. In the quarter century that Gardner ran a Mathematical
Games column in Scientific American he devoted each April column to
a tongue in cheek report on some topic from the fringe of reason.
Seventeen of those columns involved an interview or letter from his
good friend Matrix.
Gardner's genius deserves more respect than to be misquoted anonymously.
Scientific American's article on Silbo in 1957
on
Whistle While You Work
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Scientific American had an article on Silbo in 1957. One of their full length articles. And it contradicts the CNN article, and the expert it quotes on several important points.
The Scientific American article said that Silbo was not an indigenous language that preceded the Spanish colonization of the Canary Islands. It said that Silbo was a dialect of Spanish. It said that Silbo whistlers used the same vocabulary, syntax and grammar as the local dialect of Spanish. It said that Silbo whistlers mouthed the same words that they would be using if they were speaking Spanish, except that they were doing whatever they needed to do with their lips to whistle. But the movement of their tongues, teeth etc were all as if they were speaking Spanish.
As the CNN article said, this resulted in a reduced number of phonemes, and they were different from those of Spanish. But a practiced listener could still understand what was being said by recognizing the rythym of the speech and by mapping the Silbo words onto their equivalent in Spanish.
The Island is volcanic, with one central conical caldera. The surface of the is scored by deep valleys radiating from the caldera. The Scientific American article explained that Silbo was much better than regular Spanish for communicating from one valley to the other. Whistles carried farther than regular speech. And all the phonemes carried equally well. So, either the whole message got through, or no message got through.
Isn't the $600 million a government estimate of cost as well?
Hubble is already complete. The new project isn't. It seems to me that, the closer a project is to completion, the more accurate estimates about its cost and ETA would be.
How many of the unforeseen, and perhaps unforseeable, glitches that crop up during R&D will crop up during routine maintenance? How many? I figure the answer is "some". Ontario, and tens of millions of Americans in the US Northeast, where hit by a power blackout last summer. It was costly, even to routine operations, like car assembly lines. The assembly lines didn't just lose a single day of productivity. All the cars that were on the assembly line when the power failed were suspect...
But R&D projects get hit by these things too, in addition to the risks unique to R&D.
So, IMO, it makes perfect sense to me, that cost projections for amaintenance project would be more reliable than those for an R&D project - no matter which body does that pair of projections.
I'm still calling vaporware until there is actually a way to buy one.
What I found interesting is how many slashdot readers commented on how great affordable disposable phones are -- but no one has said what they cost.
Vaporware? Well, that would explain why no one know how much they cost. Lol. Heck, if each one comes with a headset how disposable can they be? Cell phone headsets aren't cheap.
Here in Canada static IP addresses are much cheaper... I looked up the five dozen ISPs that offer DSL in my city, Toronto, using this link. And I wrote some of the sites that offer static IPs... The extra cost ranged from $0 to $12 CAD per month. Broadband is, in general, cheaper here than in the USA too.
...as a hand-to-hand combat weapon, it looks like it would suck.
Which tool do you think would do a better job at bashing open doors, desks, cabinets or kevlar helmets?
If you follow the link you will see the tomahawk is also aimed at equipping SWAT teams as part of their forced entry kit.
Do you think that kind of tool would be useful to carry when engaging in urban combat?
Would it be as good as a full-size fire-axe? I am sure it wouldn't. It is only half a metre long. But it looks small enough for every soldier, or every second soldier, to carry one.
OK, what about the mitochondrial DNA? Is it significant?
My understanding is that this won't really work anyway... Nuclear transfer techniques fail... due to destruction of spindles... associated with the nucleus in higher animals, but are more homogeneously distributed in the cytoplasm of animals like sheep and cats.
I presume you mention sheep and cats because they have already been cloned. I am sorry, but what definition of "higher animals" includes humans but doesn't include sheep and cats?
The BBC article said that the eggs had the egg donor's genetic material cleaned out before the host mother's Nucleus was implanted. So, it seems to me, that it is a mistake to talk about these fetuses (feti?) as having three genetic parents.
Also worth noting -- I believe the mitochondria are the only cell organelles that have their own DNA. So, children born using this technique may inherit a genotype that impairs their own fertility.
Unless it was mom's mitochondria that was at fault in the first place.
Robert Heinlein fans would say this would make this technique a mistake not from the ethical point of view but from the long-term survivability of humanity point of view.
Are there forms of inherited colour blindness that can be passed on to a woman if her father is not colour blind?
Years ago, coming home from college, I was sitting next to a gal who was colour blind. Her two boys were colourblind too. But when I said something about her father being colourblind she said he wasn't colourblind.
Maybe he really was colourblind, but was hiding it because he was ashamed. Or because he was a cop, and colour vision was a job requirement. Or perhaps he wasn't her real father?
I decided to drop the subject. It would be pretty embarrassing to learn your father wasn't your real father from a stranger on a bus.
I am sure that he is a brave man, and dedicated and hard working.
Anyone prepared to go man versus ursus would have to be.
I am sure he is ready to withstand pain and discomfort too.
But, no offense, the guy sounds like home-workshop tinkerer, not a
scientist -- and maybe a bit of a self-promoter too. So his suggestion
that his paste could replace all the tiles on the space shuttle?
Well, I wouldn't take his claim seriously if he didn't demonstrate he
understood the specifications for space shuttle tiles first.
We`ve been hearing this same story about future Chinese domination since 1850...
Earlier than that. Wasn't it Napoleon who called China a "sleeping giant"?
Do you honestly think Chinese IT are going to beat Intel, HP, Motorola, IBM at advanced development? No. If anything, those US and EU companies will outsource some manufacturing to China.
I heard Adam Osborne say this -- before he lost his fortune building the Oborne 2 computer -- "those who ride technologies cutting edge are frequently sacrificed upon its blade..." Letting the US industries continue to break the ground, and then build joint ventures to develop them in China is a smart move. It is a good way to acquire high technology at low cost.
This is aimed more at thumbing their nose at the Russians than the Americans
Didn't they buy Soyuz technology, and update it?
China`s military cannot project power. Hell, they cannot even take back an island right off their coast.
Launching unprovoked attacks on other nations is kind of frowned upon.
Yes, you can get away with it if the target of your attack is a little tiny place no one has ever heard of, like East Timor. But, when Iraq attacked Kuwait -- a tiny little place that did matter, there was an international reaction.
The USA, UK attack on Iraq eight months ago was a very provocative one. WMD ready to launch in 45 minutes? There weren't any. I never believed there were. So did much of the world. So, I think, did some of the more wily USA journalists. But few of them were prepared to say so loudly -- that "politically incorrect" host being one of the exceptions -- the USA was caught in a mad patriotic fervour.
Slashdot Mirror
Consider this.
What would the USA do if they were not the world's only remaining super-power, in order to assure access to a strategic supply? The USA would have to rely on purchasing those strategic assets just like every other nation.
So, why shouldn't the USA have done so this time?
Maybe it is worth comparing the design of this robot to the Indian one. It was discussed in this slashdot thread entitled Inspection Microsat Tested In Orbit.
Compare the economies of India and Russia. India's GDP was about twice that of Russia's last year. While a higher proportion of Russia's GDP was in its industrialized sector, India's industrialized sector is still larger, in absolute terms.
There is an old aphorism that inside every fat man there is a thin man screaming to get out. So, remember, India's industrial sector is larger than Russia's.
The Copyright Board of Canada has just announced the details... Less onerous than anticipated.
This levy would only apply to blank media. The suggestion then was that it would not apply to an ipod if that ipod shipped with a recording on it -- even just a simple utterance of "hello world".
It was also said that the introduction of the original legislation that brought the original levy on blank tapes meant that it is legal for Canadians to make copies of commercial audio recordings. We pay this levy in return for the right to make copies. If I understood the issues properly you do not need to own the original being copied, so long as you do the copying yourself. If I visit a friend with a CD-recorder, and use his computer to make a duplicate of my favourite from his collection -- this is permitted because of the levy paid on the blank media.
Actually, that was a quote from another space.com article. Here is the link.
Isn't this what caused the Chernobyl meltdown? IIRC, the technical staff were being inventive and improvising around some safety tests.
And, in the interests of correctness here is an article with pictures of the actual tu 144.
It is worth remembering that the Concorde was not the only supersonic airliner. The Soviets built the Tupolev 144.
Gardner's genius deserves more respect than to be misquoted anonymously.
The Scientific American article said that Silbo was not an indigenous language that preceded the Spanish colonization of the Canary Islands. It said that Silbo was a dialect of Spanish. It said that Silbo whistlers used the same vocabulary, syntax and grammar as the local dialect of Spanish. It said that Silbo whistlers mouthed the same words that they would be using if they were speaking Spanish, except that they were doing whatever they needed to do with their lips to whistle. But the movement of their tongues, teeth etc were all as if they were speaking Spanish.
As the CNN article said, this resulted in a reduced number of phonemes, and they were different from those of Spanish. But a practiced listener could still understand what was being said by recognizing the rythym of the speech and by mapping the Silbo words onto their equivalent in Spanish.
The Island is volcanic, with one central conical caldera. The surface of the is scored by deep valleys radiating from the caldera. The Scientific American article explained that Silbo was much better than regular Spanish for communicating from one valley to the other. Whistles carried farther than regular speech. And all the phonemes carried equally well. So, either the whole message got through, or no message got through.
Hubble is already complete. The new project isn't. It seems to me that, the closer a project is to completion, the more accurate estimates about its cost and ETA would be.
How many of the unforeseen, and perhaps unforseeable, glitches that crop up during R&D will crop up during routine maintenance? How many? I figure the answer is " some ". Ontario, and tens of millions of Americans in the US Northeast, where hit by a power blackout last summer. It was costly, even to routine operations, like car assembly lines. The assembly lines didn't just lose a single day of productivity. All the cars that were on the assembly line when the power failed were suspect...
But R&D projects get hit by these things too, in addition to the risks unique to R&D.
So, IMO, it makes perfect sense to me, that cost projections for amaintenance project would be more reliable than those for an R&D project - no matter which body does that pair of projections.
What I found interesting is how many slashdot readers commented on how great affordable disposable phones are -- but no one has said what they cost.
Vaporware? Well, that would explain why no one know how much they cost. Lol. Heck, if each one comes with a headset how disposable can they be? Cell phone headsets aren't cheap.
This article appears to have been slashdotted, but here is the google cache.
Not so.
Which tool do you think would do a better job at bashing open doors, desks, cabinets or kevlar helmets? If you follow the link you will see the tomahawk is also aimed at equipping SWAT teams as part of their forced entry kit.
Do you think that kind of tool would be useful to carry when engaging in urban combat?
Would it be as good as a full-size fire-axe? I am sure it wouldn't. It is only half a metre long. But it looks small enough for every soldier, or every second soldier, to carry one.
Is that why you are using parentheses?
Brackets are the square ones. Braces are the curly ones.
Moderators, please mod parent up, mod grandparent way down.
Yes, we have.
But I don't remember anyone proving that the world was warmer in the 15th century than it is now.
OK, what about the mitochondrial DNA? Is it significant?
I presume you mention sheep and cats because they have already been cloned. I am sorry, but what definition of "higher animals" includes humans but doesn't include sheep and cats?
Also worth noting -- I believe the mitochondria are the only cell organelles that have their own DNA. So, children born using this technique may inherit a genotype that impairs their own fertility. Unless it was mom's mitochondria that was at fault in the first place.
Robert Heinlein fans would say this would make this technique a mistake not from the ethical point of view but from the long-term survivability of humanity point of view.
Years ago, coming home from college, I was sitting next to a gal who was colour blind. Her two boys were colourblind too. But when I said something about her father being colourblind she said he wasn't colourblind.
Maybe he really was colourblind, but was hiding it because he was ashamed. Or because he was a cop, and colour vision was a job requirement. Or perhaps he wasn't her real father?
I decided to drop the subject. It would be pretty embarrassing to learn your father wasn't your real father from a stranger on a bus.
But I am still curious.
But, no offense, the guy sounds like home-workshop tinkerer, not a scientist -- and maybe a bit of a self-promoter too. So his suggestion that his paste could replace all the tiles on the space shuttle? Well, I wouldn't take his claim seriously if he didn't demonstrate he understood the specifications for space shuttle tiles first.
Earlier than that. Wasn't it Napoleon who called China a "sleeping giant"?
I heard Adam Osborne say this -- before he lost his fortune building the Oborne 2 computer -- "those who ride technologies cutting edge are frequently sacrificed upon its blade..." Letting the US industries continue to break the ground, and then build joint ventures to develop them in China is a smart move. It is a good way to acquire high technology at low cost.
Didn't they buy Soyuz technology, and update it?
Launching unprovoked attacks on other nations is kind of frowned upon. Yes, you can get away with it if the target of your attack is a little tiny place no one has ever heard of, like East Timor. But, when Iraq attacked Kuwait -- a tiny little place that did matter, there was an international reaction.
The USA, UK attack on Iraq eight months ago was a very provocative one. WMD ready to launch in 45 minutes? There weren't any. I never believed there were. So did much of the world. So, I think, did some of the more wily USA journalists. But few of them were prepared to say so loudly -- that "politically incorrect" host being one of the exceptions -- the USA was caught in a mad patriotic fervour.
Will the USA get away with it? Will Bush get impeached for lying?
Can the world expect to see more nations launching unprovoked attacks on other nations, if Bush gets away with it?