Very good points. If you think about it, humans are absolutely the _last_ 'component' of your colony you want to send up. Every last piece of technology sent along will have to be carefully designed for compatibility, standardization, and have a boatload of spare parts already on the ground before any humans arrive.
It will be a very long time before anyone is mining/smelting or running an electronics fab on Mars. OTOH, think business opportunity!:)
While I'll concede some truth to what you say about NASA, with SpaceX (and competitors) we will soon have bootstrapped the manned spaceflight industry enough such that no one will care anymore whether people like you make blanket statements about the value of manned spaceflight.
The only people's opinions that will matter will be the paying customers. Presumably, those willing (and waiting) to pay for a manned launch think there is a purpose and value to it.
If even a short trip off this tiny rock of a planet becomes affordable in my lifetime, I'll be buying.
If you'd ever sat in a Beijing traffic jam next to their monstrous, smoke belching diesel trucks, you'd know that factories and power plants are only a part of the problem.
I've been there and air filters or not, I could not live in Beijing with my asthma. One can only imagine the future lung disease/cancer rates we are going to see.
There isn't enough science yet to be conclusive on this, but for me personally, cutting out stevia from my diet entirely caused me to lose 13lbs in a single month.
IMHO, all zero-calorie sweeteners can screw up your metabolism, whether artificial or natural.
I'd stick to embedded systems. There is more and more of it all the time, and a lot of it runs Linux/C. I graduated in '93, and moved to embedded systems (switches) six years ago. I really only program in C and Perl, but I make well over six figures, work only 40 hours a week, and live nowhere near Silicon Valley.
About 10 years ago, I had moved all three of my kids to a local charter school after frustration with a particularly bad teacher at the local public elementary school, and the seeming unwillingness of the school administration to do anything about it. The local schools had also all switched to the 'new' matrix math method, which was particularly annoying to me.
For the first year or so, everything was fine. Then a series of administration scandals and teaching problems sent us running back to the public schools.
The problems: 1. The school administration decided it was ok to have a school staff member serve as security and carry a concealed weapon. Regardless of your stance on concealed carry, this was illegal in Colorado and against school district regulations. 2. The school principal and her husband, also a school employee, apparently embezzled over $50k from the school. They were forced to resign in disgrace and were being investigated for criminal charges. 3. The last straw was that in November of that year, my son's math teacher resigned for a 'real' teaching job. Through the remainder of that year, my son ended up having SEVEN different math teachers. He finished the year doing terrible in math, and never really recovered from that.
We later found out that staff turnover was something like 70% a year, and that the average teacher pay at the school was around $28k. (the lowest teacher pay in the district). Of course all the teachers were only there on short term contracts while they waited to get a real teaching job with a pension and benefits somewhere else.
This is no way to run an education system, and I won't be experimenting with charter schools again.
I'm likewise still using lab notebooks for taking notes at work.
As a bonus, said notebooks are resistant to all known forms of remote NSA eves dropping. For extra security, encrypt it with the 'cursive' algorithm. The kids these days will be completely baffled.:)
There is no environment to protect on the moon. It is dead, irradiated rocks and dirt, already pockmarked by billions of years of meteorite craters. Strip mine the hell out of it for whatever useful things we can find. Who the hell care what it _looks_ like?
It is lunacy like this that makes me realize that most "environmentalists" are really just anti-human.
Why the HELL would you want to AVOID a scramble for Lunar resources? This is something to actively encourage, to get some permanent human settlements off this rock.
Every man/country for themselves, and may the best and fastest effort win.
All of those same legal provisions are in place here in Colorado. The shooter used a shotgun, not a handgun or an assault rifle. Being a legal adult, he legally bought the gun after passing his mandatory background check.
Background checks can't stop a first time offender with no criminal record, or mental health history.
Although I enjoyed for what it was, it is an abomination to try to read anything of Heinlein's book in it. Only the vaguest of plot details and characters carry through and the message of Heinlein is completely, and totally lost in Verhoeven's film.
In the book, the 'bugs' were a highly technologically advanced race, who most certainly were a threat and most certainly had spaceflight. They had cities, for crying out loud.
Completely gone from the movie is the time the main character spends in officer training school. All lessons of values, honor, duty and morals are just gone from the movie.
BTW, the _Mobile_ Infantry is supposed to be mechanized with high tech, powered battle armor that puts them more on caliber with a tank division. They are not foot soldiers.
All that being said, the movie most clearly was a farce, but it was a terrible one and has very little in common with Heinlein's book of the same name.
Ok, dumb American here. Are 'currency validators' that common in Europe? The only thing that comes to mind here in the US is the 'dollar bill accepters' on vending or change machines. Other than those, I don't think I've ever seen a currency validator on a cash register anywhere. Occasionally, you get a sales clerk who will hold a $20 or $100 up to the light to look for the security strip (in American bills), but that's pretty much it over here.
I was thinking about robotic trucking the other day, and I think you might be right, but for some other reasons too.
What happens when _everyone_ learns that the robot trucks (and other vehicles) will NOT hit them? I'd bet the incidence of human drivers cutting off robotic vehicles increases dramatically. It may get so bad that it is difficult for trucks to drive through heavy traffic at all, as they will always yield to other vehicles to avoid an accident. Your average truck driver not only won't do that, he can't afford to.
Solar power on the moon is only practical at the poles, as day and night last two weeks long each. Nuclear power or some good fuel cells are really the only ways to go at this point.
We don't have a particularly close extended family, and my cousins are scattered around the US (and even some overseas). I still know who they all are.
I can see the occasional family feud causing issues, but is not knowing your cousins a really common thing in Iceland? Are we talking second and third cousins or something?
I hereby nominate this post for Slashdot's Most Obfuscated Post Title of the year.
Seriously, the title gives absolutely no clue what the article is about. Not everyone lives in your town, goes to your museum, or listens to your death metal.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't recall SpaceX's Dragon capsule having to go through round after round of drop testing. I do recall one set, but that's it. Why a simple development test is really worthy of repeated news releases is beyond me.
Perhaps this is typical NASA contractor testing overkill. 'Well, it tested fine, but we'll do just one more round of testing that can't happen for six more months. Keep writing those checks, NASA.'
Anyone who thinks we aren't doing _anything_ isn't paying attention. Personally, however, I won't think we are serious until we start building newer, safer, CO2-free nuclear power plants. If you don't support more nuclear power, you aren't serious about stopping Global Warming, and you haven't studied the problem enough. Yes, I'm looking at you, Greenpeace.
The very fact that this question is being asked just reeks of stupidity. You just DON'T go straight from stone age to 21st century, especially without electricity. Buy some manual typewriters. C'mon man....
Slashdot Mirror
Very good points. If you think about it, humans are absolutely the _last_ 'component' of your colony you want to send up. Every last piece of technology sent along will have to be carefully designed for compatibility, standardization, and have a boatload of spare parts already on the ground before any humans arrive.
It will be a very long time before anyone is mining/smelting or running an electronics fab on Mars. OTOH, think business opportunity! :)
- Necron69
While I'll concede some truth to what you say about NASA, with SpaceX (and competitors) we will soon have bootstrapped the manned spaceflight industry enough such that no one will care anymore whether people like you make blanket statements about the value of manned spaceflight.
The only people's opinions that will matter will be the paying customers. Presumably, those willing (and waiting) to pay for a manned launch think there is a purpose and value to it.
If even a short trip off this tiny rock of a planet becomes affordable in my lifetime, I'll be buying.
- Necron69
If you'd ever sat in a Beijing traffic jam next to their monstrous, smoke belching diesel trucks, you'd know that factories and power plants are only a part of the problem.
I've been there and air filters or not, I could not live in Beijing with my asthma. One can only imagine the future lung disease/cancer rates we are going to see.
- Necron69
There isn't enough science yet to be conclusive on this, but for me personally, cutting out stevia from my diet entirely caused me to lose 13lbs in a single month.
IMHO, all zero-calorie sweeteners can screw up your metabolism, whether artificial or natural.
- Necron69
I don't know. I can imagine quite a bit.
Necron69
I'd stick to embedded systems. There is more and more of it all the time, and a lot of it runs Linux/C. I graduated in '93, and moved to embedded systems (switches) six years ago. I really only program in C and Perl, but I make well over six figures, work only 40 hours a week, and live nowhere near Silicon Valley.
Let the kids chase the hot new stuff.
- Necron69
About 10 years ago, I had moved all three of my kids to a local charter school after frustration with a particularly bad teacher at the local public elementary school, and the seeming unwillingness of the school administration to do anything about it. The local schools had also all switched to the 'new' matrix math method, which was particularly annoying to me.
For the first year or so, everything was fine. Then a series of administration scandals and teaching problems sent us running back to the public schools.
The problems:
1. The school administration decided it was ok to have a school staff member serve as security and carry a concealed weapon. Regardless of your stance on concealed carry, this was illegal in Colorado and against school district regulations.
2. The school principal and her husband, also a school employee, apparently embezzled over $50k from the school. They were forced to resign in disgrace and were being investigated for criminal charges.
3. The last straw was that in November of that year, my son's math teacher resigned for a 'real' teaching job. Through the remainder of that year, my son ended up having SEVEN different math teachers. He finished the year doing terrible in math, and never really recovered from that.
We later found out that staff turnover was something like 70% a year, and that the average teacher pay at the school was around $28k. (the lowest teacher pay in the district). Of course all the teachers were only there on short term contracts while they waited to get a real teaching job with a pension and benefits somewhere else.
This is no way to run an education system, and I won't be experimenting with charter schools again.
Necron69
I'm likewise still using lab notebooks for taking notes at work.
As a bonus, said notebooks are resistant to all known forms of remote NSA eves dropping. For extra security, encrypt it with the 'cursive' algorithm. The kids these days will be completely baffled. :)
Necron69
There is no environment to protect on the moon. It is dead, irradiated rocks and dirt, already pockmarked by billions of years of meteorite craters. Strip mine the hell out of it for whatever useful things we can find. Who the hell care what it _looks_ like?
It is lunacy like this that makes me realize that most "environmentalists" are really just anti-human.
Necron69
Why the HELL would you want to AVOID a scramble for Lunar resources? This is something to actively encourage, to get some permanent human settlements off this rock.
Every man/country for themselves, and may the best and fastest effort win.
Necron69
All of those same legal provisions are in place here in Colorado. The shooter used a shotgun, not a handgun or an assault rifle. Being a legal adult, he legally bought the gun after passing his mandatory background check.
Background checks can't stop a first time offender with no criminal record, or mental health history.
Necron69
Although I enjoyed for what it was, it is an abomination to try to read anything of Heinlein's book in it. Only the vaguest of plot details and characters carry through and the message of Heinlein is completely, and totally lost in Verhoeven's film.
In the book, the 'bugs' were a highly technologically advanced race, who most certainly were a threat and most certainly had spaceflight. They had cities, for crying out loud.
Completely gone from the movie is the time the main character spends in officer training school. All lessons of values, honor, duty and morals are just gone from the movie.
BTW, the _Mobile_ Infantry is supposed to be mechanized with high tech, powered battle armor that puts them more on caliber with a tank division. They are not foot soldiers.
All that being said, the movie most clearly was a farce, but it was a terrible one and has very little in common with Heinlein's book of the same name.
Necron69
Ok, dumb American here. Are 'currency validators' that common in Europe? The only thing that comes to mind here in the US is the 'dollar bill accepters' on vending or change machines. Other than those, I don't think I've ever seen a currency validator on a cash register anywhere. Occasionally, you get a sales clerk who will hold a $20 or $100 up to the light to look for the security strip (in American bills), but that's pretty much it over here.
- Necron69
You do realize that access to reliable and cheap electricity is one of the major divides between rich and poor in the world?
Necron69
I was thinking about robotic trucking the other day, and I think you might be right, but for some other reasons too.
What happens when _everyone_ learns that the robot trucks (and other vehicles) will NOT hit them? I'd bet the incidence of human drivers cutting off robotic vehicles increases dramatically. It may get so bad that it is difficult for trucks to drive through heavy traffic at all, as they will always yield to other vehicles to avoid an accident. Your average truck driver not only won't do that, he can't afford to.
Necron69
It's like 1991 all over again. Do I have to install Trumpet WinSOCK to connect to my ISP?
Seriously, it feels like Microsoft has forgotten why they called the damn OS 'Windows' in the first place.
At work, we just finally upgraded to Windows 7 a few months ago. Microsoft still has plenty of time to fix more things before IT even considers Win8.
- Necron69
Solar power on the moon is only practical at the poles, as day and night last two weeks long each. Nuclear power or some good fuel cells are really the only ways to go at this point.
Necron69
Why don't you know who your cousins are?
We don't have a particularly close extended family, and my cousins are scattered around the US (and even some overseas). I still know who they all are.
I can see the occasional family feud causing issues, but is not knowing your cousins a really common thing in Iceland? Are we talking second and third cousins or something?
- Necron69
I hereby nominate this post for Slashdot's Most Obfuscated Post Title of the year.
Seriously, the title gives absolutely no clue what the article is about. Not everyone lives in your town, goes to your museum, or listens to your death metal.
Necron69
Heh. 'Old' was the Sparcstation IPX I had until a couple of years ago. http://www.obsolyte.com/sun_ipx/
Really old would be the 486 I first ran Linux on back in the early 90s.
These young whippersnappers don't know old. :)
Necron69
Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side, kid.
Wait a minute. What are we talking about again?
Necron69
So how do we get Elon Musk interested in fusion research?
Necron69
Maybe it's just me, but I don't recall SpaceX's Dragon capsule having to go through round after round of drop testing. I do recall one set, but that's it. Why a simple development test is really worthy of repeated news releases is beyond me.
Perhaps this is typical NASA contractor testing overkill. 'Well, it tested fine, but we'll do just one more round of testing that can't happen for six more months. Keep writing those checks, NASA.'
Necron69
Hey, maybe we could stop burning so much coal and switch to lower-CO2 emitting natural gas? Oh wait, we already did.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012/08/in-a-surprise-co2-emissions-hit-20-year-low/1#.UFx1MI2PVkY
Or maybe we could raise the gas mileage requirements on cars?
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/rick-newman/2012/08/27/tough-government-gas-mileage-rules-good-for-drivers-auto-industry
Anyone who thinks we aren't doing _anything_ isn't paying attention. Personally, however, I won't think we are serious until we start building newer, safer, CO2-free nuclear power plants. If you don't support more nuclear power, you aren't serious about stopping Global Warming, and you haven't studied the problem enough. Yes, I'm looking at you, Greenpeace.
Necron69
That is a myth that the last typewriter factory in the world shut down. They are still very much in use (and demand) in the Third World.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/26/worlds-last-typewriter-factory-closes_n_853670.html
The very fact that this question is being asked just reeks of stupidity. You just DON'T go straight from stone age to 21st century, especially without electricity. Buy some manual typewriters. C'mon man....
Necron69