"Me personally think that a hit that would posse good odds of destroying the world would be a great thing for world unity and get the whole planet to work as one to solve the problem, and maybe from that we can learn something."
Ronald Reagan had similar ideas, from what I recall, about the potential unifying power of an invasion of space aliens.
It might make a good script for a B-movie actor like Reagan, but in real life you'd just have destruction and chaos. And maybe not just from the asteroid - people who think they're doomed often behave in a nihilistic manner.
A neighbor of mine held a "smash party" in his garage last year. Basically, people bring a bunch of stuff they want to break and some tools (sledgehammers, wrecking bars, etc.) to do the job. It's wantonly destructive but a hell of a lot of fun. Computers are a favorite item, and smashing a monitor is particuilarly satisfying.
This might be a good proactive way to vent those frustrations at computers and avoid destroying equipment that's still current and functional.
"The Jupiter Icy Moons Oribter will have a nuclear reactor."
Personally, I'd much rather see these things with chemical propulsion until something else non-radioactive (solar, fusion, ?) becomes feasible. There's always a chance that something could fail, and if it burns up in the Earth's atmosphere there could be some nasty fallout.
Maybe China is at odds with the "faith" aspect of Christianity and other Western religions. But their culture does have certain similarities with conservative, evangelical Christianity; namely, the emphasis on "family values." They're really big on the "respect your elders" thing, to the point where ancestor worship is a tradition.
I don't think the pornography ban has a bit to do with Communism or anti-Christianity or what have you. It has everything to do with the sort of traditionalist, patriarchal value system shared by Christians and Chinese.
That's disengenuous. Democracy in China doesn't imply Chinese world domination just because China has so many people. It would be merely a political change within China itself. The Chinese electorate (if such a thing existed) could only make laws for China, not the rest of the world.
Mars isn't as massive as Earth. Hence a weaker gravitational field. More of what the volcanoes spew out would escape into space under Martian as opposed to Terran gravity. You still might have a thick enough atmosphere to support something though.
"Speakers for the deaf" is perhaps not so ridiculous as it first seems. Hearing is just the ear picking up acoustical waves in the air. Those same waves in another medium might be detected by the hands, feet, face etc. (think of the way an entire car will vibrate when the subwoofer is cranked up).
I can't see any good reason why music couldn't be experienced as a tactical sensation rather than an audial one. Don't know how aesthetically pleasing it would be though - rhythm would be easy but melody and pitch might not be so meaningful unless you have unusually sensitive skin. A device similar to the braille gizmo could amplify the vibrations of the instruments themselves and transmit them to the recipient's fingers. With practice, you might be able to compress an entire "multimedia" experience to a touchpad.
Well, I think this goes a bit too far. The gold standard for large, national currencies is implausible, if not impossible at this stage in the game.
But notice how eager governments are to regulate this e-gold stuff? It represents a truly international medium of exchange. Whether or not it has intrinsic value is beside the point - people around the world recognize it as having value, and that value isn't tied to the stability of a government. National governemnts recognize that because of its nature, it's not something that they can keep entirely under their control. It's a threat to them.
To have a global fiat currency, you'd have to have a global government. The very idea of it scares the hell out of me, and probably you as well. Keep this e-gold stuff out of the governments' greedy and intrusive fingers. Stephenson's original idea (as least as far as I interpreted it in Cryptonomicon)wasn't for the establishment of a global gold standard, but a viable, secure alternative to placing your economic fortunes in the hands of corrupt governments. And I think that's an excellent goal to work toward.
Slashdot Mirror
"Me personally think that a hit that would posse good odds of destroying the world would be a great thing for world unity and get the whole planet to work as one to solve the problem, and maybe from that we can learn something."
Ronald Reagan had similar ideas, from what I recall, about the potential unifying power of an invasion of space aliens.
It might make a good script for a B-movie actor like Reagan, but in real life you'd just have destruction and chaos. And maybe not just from the asteroid - people who think they're doomed often behave in a nihilistic manner.
A neighbor of mine held a "smash party" in his garage last year. Basically, people bring a bunch of stuff they want to break and some tools (sledgehammers, wrecking bars, etc.) to do the job. It's wantonly destructive but a hell of a lot of fun. Computers are a favorite item, and smashing a monitor is particuilarly satisfying.
This might be a good proactive way to vent those frustrations at computers and avoid destroying equipment that's still current and functional.
"The Jupiter Icy Moons Oribter will have a nuclear reactor."
Personally, I'd much rather see these things with chemical propulsion until something else non-radioactive (solar, fusion, ?) becomes feasible. There's always a chance that something could fail, and if it burns up in the Earth's atmosphere there could be some nasty fallout.
Better safe than sorry, IMO.
Maybe China is at odds with the "faith" aspect of Christianity and other Western religions. But their culture does have certain similarities with conservative, evangelical Christianity; namely, the emphasis on "family values." They're really big on the "respect your elders" thing, to the point where ancestor worship is a tradition.
I don't think the pornography ban has a bit to do with Communism or anti-Christianity or what have you. It has everything to do with the sort of traditionalist, patriarchal value system shared by Christians and Chinese.
That's disengenuous. Democracy in China doesn't imply Chinese world domination just because China has so many people. It would be merely a political change within China itself. The Chinese electorate (if such a thing existed) could only make laws for China, not the rest of the world.
Mars isn't as massive as Earth. Hence a weaker gravitational field. More of what the volcanoes spew out would escape into space under Martian as opposed to Terran gravity. You still might have a thick enough atmosphere to support something though.
"Speakers for the deaf" is perhaps not so ridiculous as it first seems. Hearing is just the ear picking up acoustical waves in the air. Those same waves in another medium might be detected by the hands, feet, face etc. (think of the way an entire car will vibrate when the subwoofer is cranked up).
I can't see any good reason why music couldn't be experienced as a tactical sensation rather than an audial one. Don't know how aesthetically pleasing it would be though - rhythm would be easy but melody and pitch might not be so meaningful unless you have unusually sensitive skin. A device similar to the braille gizmo could amplify the vibrations of the instruments themselves and transmit them to the recipient's fingers. With practice, you might be able to compress an entire "multimedia" experience to a touchpad.
But notice how eager governments are to regulate this e-gold stuff? It represents a truly international medium of exchange. Whether or not it has intrinsic value is beside the point - people around the world recognize it as having value, and that value isn't tied to the stability of a government. National governemnts recognize that because of its nature, it's not something that they can keep entirely under their control. It's a threat to them.
To have a global fiat currency, you'd have to have a global government. The very idea of it scares the hell out of me, and probably you as well. Keep this e-gold stuff out of the governments' greedy and intrusive fingers. Stephenson's original idea (as least as far as I interpreted it in Cryptonomicon)wasn't for the establishment of a global gold standard, but a viable, secure alternative to placing your economic fortunes in the hands of corrupt governments. And I think that's an excellent goal to work toward.