That's not true. L1, L2, and L3 are all gravitationally unstable points. A space station at L1, if nudged out of position even slightly, will tend to spiral inward toward Earth or outward toward the moon. The L4 and L5 points are the only stable Lagrangian points in a two-body system.
Even then the actual L4 and L5 points are not entirely stable in the real solar system, because the solar system has a lot more that two bodies and nothing is a point mass. This also means thet the "points" are actually regions. Which is why Jupiter can capture many asteroids in it's L4 and L5 points with Sol.
But since L4 and L5 are farther from Earth than L1 is, it takes more time and energy to get there from LEO.
It takes more time, but not more energy. Since most of your energy is used in accelerating and decelerating the craft. L4 & L5 are the same distance as the moon from Earth. L1 is 5/6 the distance. So hardly that much more distance.
How exactly does the water become contaminated with radiation, though? It isn't from radioactive material like uranium or plutonium, that's for sure. And you can't make an isotope of hydrogen from knocking out neutrons, cos it doesn't have any. I guess that leaves oxygen atoms, which I suppose could be changed into isotopes.
All elements can capture neutrons. Add 2 neutrons to a hydrogen and you have tritium, which is radioactive.
It's become fairly obvious that certain nations (*ahem Russia*) are intent on using the ISS as SpaceDisney, letting any jackass with $20M up there.
Sounds like Russia has more idea of commercial exploitation of space travel than the supposedly more capitalist US:)
So NASA might be trying to get their own space station back. ISS was really a political animal anyway
How much would one cost though? Can the US afford to bomb Iraq, estimated cost $9 billion per month, whilst building such a space station and a new launch system without international support?
(Congress loved the idea of unity or some similar crap).
The fictional Unity station was privatly owned though.
If you turn the power off on a Windows machine (or a Linux box for that matter), you have a paper weight until you turn it back on. On the other hand, I can completely uninstall Wine from my Linux box and still have a fully functional computer.
Also you can set up WINE so that any alterations to the virtual Windows environment are automatically undone. Whilst you can do this with Windows too it's more complex and not virus proof.
You kinda missed the main point, I don't think the cameras are a huge problem as they stand but what they could turn into. Maybe we should have cameras in our house because of all these domestic disputes? Sounds far fetched I know. But see if it still seems far fetched after you've lived 10 years with cameras all around you, or your kids grow up with cameras in school, they'd think very little of that law being passed then.
Alternativly you go for David Brin's idea of camera's everywhere, but accessable to anyone. Thus you have no "watcher" group. Anyone could be watcher or watchee. Human nature being what it is the most watched people would be celebrities and politicans, might even keep the latter honest. Less chance of the married politican preaching "family values" whilst enguaging in adultary.
Ah, but the problem with Echelon (and other spying tools) is that you can't just blurt out results from it to prove a point.
This has already happened, but few people appear to have noticed. There was mention of telephone calls between Richard Reed (aka "the shoebomber) and Zararias Mossawi (the "20th hijacker").
Did you read Mr Blair's famous file on the Iraqi weapons programme?
Most common phrase being "this page intentionally left blank":)
This coming from the PM of a country with some very serious espionage and eavesdropping capability, and enough friends in high places at CIA to call on extra material resources if necessary... Not a word of it wasn't already in the public domain. It was all stuff we already knew, from old news and from the inspectors' reports from the nineties, before they were thrown out.
They were more pulled out, so that the USAF and RAF wouldn't get bad publicity for bombing them.
It looks like Big Brother doesn't know half as much as he'd like us to think.
Big brother dosn't want us to know what he knows, hence the lack of new information.
I'd rather see people lock up their guns separate from the ammunition so their children don't shoot themselves.
Hardly much help if an armed intruder breaks in. Are they really going to let the householder go to both their secure ammunition and gun cabinets then load a gun. Just to give a sporting chance... Most parents manage to keep all sorts of dangerous things in their houses and not wind up with dead children.
The argument that "arming everyone makes the world a safer place" is an argument I just don't buy.
It appeared to work in the cold war. Though aptly known as "MAD". The problem is that if you attempt to disarm people the "crooks" will pay no notice at all.
I would like to see more training to own, and much more to carry. However, the system would soon set the training requirements so high that it would effectively deny many qualified citizens the right to have a firearm.
Whilst this might keep guns out of the hands of the stupid it wouldn't do much to keep them out of the hands of the criminal. A criminal might be able to pass the course, failing that they can probably get a black market gun or forged credentials. Let alone that there is nothing to stop a cop or solider being a crook.
I don't think tose figures say what you think they say. All deaths are either suicides, homocides, or accidents. (Or, of course, crossing the boundaries.) Presumably, the other 4% were accidents. That means that only 38% of the time a gun is fired at someone and kills them, it was an attack on someone else.
And I fail to see how that's an argument for gun control.
That means even if all guns magically disappeared tomorrow, 58% of the gun deaths would still happen , they'd just happen some other way. I mean, a suicide isn't going to go 'Hey, no gun, might as well keep living'. Yes, they might say something like that, but it's just as likely they'll stick a gun in their mouth and say, '...erm, maybe not today.' instead of taking fifty sleeping pills, which isn't scary at all, at least not as scary as pulling a trigger on yourself. If they can get the willpower do that, they can get the willpower to jump off a building, shooting yourself is really the most scary method of suicide I can think of, because you 'know' the second you pull that trigger it's going to hurt like hell. (It won't really, but whatever.)
Actually it's likely to be 96% of those gun deaths would still happen. Since just as lack of easy access to a gun is unlikely to stop someone committing suicide it's unlikely to prevent someone committing a homicide. Indeed they can probably still use a gun, since if they are caught they will be charged with "murder" or "attempted murder" rather than "illegal posession of a firearm".
Hmm, considering the US involvement in Afghanistan during the cold war I'd think it is not that uncommon that many of the current terrorists have weapons that originated from the US.
Probably with training as well as being supplied the arms. The US was happy to support people like OBL when they were fighting the Soviet Union and Saddam Hussain when Iraq was at war with Iran (especially after Iran had just booted out a US/UK installed tyrant.) Many nations are quite willing to support "terrorists" when it matchs their current political aims. Which is what makes the whole "war on terror" idea a nonsense.
I'm not sure, but I think the guy going round shooting people at the moment has a gun.
So making gun ownership illegal would ensure that no criminal could get their hands on a gun? Even if you made it difficult to get hold of guns they couldn't simply use a crossbow?
More than likely the would be lessons to be learned will again be ignored and whoever in the possession of power at that time will keep banging their head to the same old brick wall.
All too often they are interested in banging someone else's head against the wall.If they were just banging their own that would be an improvement. e.g. if modern political leaders lead battles personally there would be fewer wars.
Were fighting to perserve the status quo of government they feel threatened (remember here in america revolutionaries were TERRORISTS they dont want that repeated)
The definition of "terrorist", "freedom fighter" or "revolutionary" tends to subjectivly depend on if the writer/speaker supports or opposes the position represented. From a historical perspective if they succed or fail.
The only way threy could have slowed down something like 9/11 would have been a nice heavy steel door to the cockpit that stays locked perferably with armed personel inside a lot of them are old air force jocks.
Having fighters scrambled immediatly the jets went off course would have helped too, which is the usual procedure in most parts of the world, including the US. Whilst suicide terrorists might be perfectly prepared to die (if they complete their mission) they could easily change their minds if it were given a choice between being dead & having failed and alive & in custody.
Monitoring ISPs sortof assumes that everyone who is up to no good has forgotten how to read, write, speak, dial a phone, ride a bus, etc. Maybe when a locator and thought monitor chip becomes mandatory, they'll actually catch a terrorist in advance of the event
Such technology would come with the ability to hide and fake such signals. Otherwise every criminal would simply use their black market "cop detector", to be sure that no police were around and their gang had not been infiltrated.
Or maybe they'll just catch a lot of grade schoolers shouting "I wish you were dead!" at each other.
That's the problem with mass surveillance, so much noise that the real "baddies" probably don't have to try hiding too much.
Increased surveillance on citizens does *not* prevent terrorism by people determined enough to do it kamikaze-style.
Indeed it may make things easier for actual terrorists and criminals. Since mass surveillance has an utterly awful signal to noise ratio. Assuming that it will actually be used for law enforcement, rather than blackmail or espionage. There is also a big risk of the information gathered getting in to the hands of criminals, either because they have spys within the data gathering organisation or even be the people running it.
The problem is that the rapid proliferation of new technologies, i.e., Internet, wireless, PCS, etc, is leaving law enforcement and national security agencies in the dust. Without new laws they simply cannot address new threats or criminal activity that use those new communication methods.
Actually quite a bit of the problem appears to be that law enforcement has itself been so interested in using new technologies for intercepting communications that "old-fashioned" detective work has taken something of a back seat. Simply trawling through emails and phone calls stands very little chance of catching terrorists or mobsters. Especially if there is no one in the agency concerned who understands the language or dialect the people involved use.
Is this a threat to civil liberties? Hell yes, but a little thing happened last year in September that pushed civil liberties to the background for the "Free World".
How would having new laws ensured that the FBI had people who understood Arabic languages? How would such laws have made sure that the FAA and NORAD jad followed their published procedures? How would they have ensured that the US had an air defence system which actually worked? How about stopping someone in WTC announcing "things are pefectly safe, go back to your offices"? Would these laws have persuaded someone that having a fire drill in The Pentagon would be a good idea?
The new technologies make it very difficult to allow agencies to develop the suspicion further surveilance requires as an antecedant. Traditional communications did not include the same reasonable expectations of privacy that we have today. A phone call always required you to be tied to a handset on the wall, with the possibility of being overheard.
The idea of being able to communicate without third parties knowing what is being communicated or even if any communication is taking place at all date back to prehistory. Covert communication is quite probably started soon after humans invented the concept of language.
There is a fundamental problem that arises when you start to collect data without a directed suspicion: people will start to fear that merely their patterns of behaviour (which he knows to be be monitored) will raise some suspicion and cause subsequent trouble. This is has chilling effects on society, on peoples very perception of freedom. Look at the horrors of the USSR, the DDR with its Stasi.
But such systems don't work that well against the likes of organised crime and terrorism. Since these kind of groups, at least the ones who are actually any kind of threat, can play "information warfare" just as well as a nation state. Assuming they don't simply vanish into a sea of noise. The latter was the problem the Stasi had, their ability to gather data far outstripped their ability to make any sense of it.
I think the issue needs to be centered around this, and leave the exact criteria, which are completely irrelevant. Governments should not be allowed to spy on people without a clear suspicion, period. Collecting data may only start *after the suspicion is backed by a public court of law*, not when some police officer decides that it might be handy, and even less *by default*, for crying out loud!
You also have the problem of "who watchs the watchers". Such a situation is a "honeypot" to the dishonest and criminal. The data collected would be very valuable to criminals and terrorists themselves. Important questions are "do you trust your government?", "do you trust everyone your government trusts, including foreign governments?" and "does your government trust anyone they shouldn't be trusting?"
I can say that the industry seems to work primarily with embedded boxes for telecom. When you want a switch you buy a switch, and it does what it does. Whether that switch runs linux or SunOS or VxWorks or some proprietary OS is pretty much irrelevant to you if it functions for you in its capacity as a switch. If linux is being used as the basis for phone switching equipment, people probably wouldn't know, unless they had some contact at the company who developed the switch.
If you had Linux running telephone system it would look more like the Linux Router Project than Red Hat anyway. Anything not needed wouldn't be there and the code would be optimised to work with the hardware.
This is a traditionally very embedded market, where name recognition of an OS like "Windows" or "linux" or whatever is irrelevant to the function of the device.
The name recognition is more with the manufactures of the complete box...
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The SOHO satellite is at the Earth-Sun L1 location and it only needs to make course adjustments about once a month.
The SOHO satellite just sits there. Nothing docks with it, it dosn't go changing it's mass or shape (including having solar arrays deploy and track).
That's not true. L1, L2, and L3 are all gravitationally unstable points. A space station at L1, if nudged out of position even slightly, will tend to spiral inward toward Earth or outward toward the moon. The L4 and L5 points are the only stable Lagrangian points in a two-body system.
Even then the actual L4 and L5 points are not entirely stable in the real solar system, because the solar system has a lot more that two bodies and nothing is a point mass. This also means thet the "points" are actually regions. Which is why Jupiter can capture many asteroids in it's L4 and L5 points with Sol.
But since L4 and L5 are farther from Earth than L1 is, it takes more time and energy to get there from LEO.
It takes more time, but not more energy. Since most of your energy is used in accelerating and decelerating the craft. L4 & L5 are the same distance as the moon from Earth. L1 is 5/6 the distance. So hardly that much more distance.
How exactly does the water become contaminated with radiation, though? It isn't from radioactive material like uranium or plutonium, that's for sure. And you can't make an isotope of hydrogen from knocking out neutrons, cos it doesn't have any. I guess that leaves oxygen atoms, which I suppose could be changed into isotopes.
All elements can capture neutrons. Add 2 neutrons to a hydrogen and you have tritium, which is radioactive.
It's become fairly obvious that certain nations (*ahem Russia*) are intent on using the ISS as SpaceDisney, letting any jackass with $20M up there.
:)
Sounds like Russia has more idea of commercial exploitation of space travel than the supposedly more capitalist US
So NASA might be trying to get their own space station back. ISS was really a political animal anyway
How much would one cost though? Can the US afford to bomb Iraq, estimated cost $9 billion per month, whilst building such a space station and a new launch system without international support?
(Congress loved the idea of unity or some similar crap).
The fictional Unity station was privatly owned though.
If you turn the power off on a Windows machine (or a Linux box for that matter), you have a paper weight until you turn it back on. On the other hand, I can completely uninstall Wine from my Linux box and still have a fully functional computer.
Also you can set up WINE so that any alterations to the virtual Windows environment are automatically undone. Whilst you can do this with Windows too it's more complex and not virus proof.
most importantly, they need to get the cost of a launch down.
They'd need to do something like the Russians, build a launch system which works and stick with it.
You kinda missed the main point, I don't think the cameras are a huge problem as they stand but what they could turn into. Maybe we should have cameras in our house because of all these domestic disputes? Sounds far fetched I know. But see if it still seems far fetched after you've lived 10 years with cameras all around you, or your kids grow up with cameras in school, they'd think very little of that law being passed then.
Alternativly you go for David Brin's idea of camera's everywhere, but accessable to anyone. Thus you have no "watcher" group. Anyone could be watcher or watchee.
Human nature being what it is the most watched people would be celebrities and politicans, might even keep the latter honest. Less chance of the married politican preaching "family values" whilst enguaging in adultary.
Ah, but the problem with Echelon (and other spying tools) is that you can't just blurt out results from it to prove a point.
This has already happened, but few people appear to have noticed. There was mention of telephone calls between Richard Reed (aka "the shoebomber) and Zararias Mossawi (the "20th hijacker").
Did you read Mr Blair's famous file on the Iraqi weapons programme?
:)
Most common phrase being "this page intentionally left blank"
This coming from the PM of a country with some very serious espionage and eavesdropping capability, and enough friends in high places at CIA to call on extra material resources if necessary... Not a word of it wasn't already in the public domain. It was all stuff we already knew, from old news and from the inspectors' reports from the nineties, before they were thrown out.
They were more pulled out, so that the USAF and RAF wouldn't get bad publicity for bombing them.
It looks like Big Brother doesn't know half as much as he'd like us to think.
Big brother dosn't want us to know what he knows, hence the lack of new information.
I'd rather see people lock up their guns separate from the ammunition so their children don't shoot themselves.
Hardly much help if an armed intruder breaks in. Are they really going to let the householder go to both their secure ammunition and gun cabinets then load a gun. Just to give a sporting chance...
Most parents manage to keep all sorts of dangerous things in their houses and not wind up with dead children.
Well, this is just a guess, but I'm thinking that if guns were made illegal, he'd have a hell of a harder job getting one to use it.
Not really, since a criminal is more likely to use a blackmarket supply than legitimate gun shop.
The argument that "arming everyone makes the world a safer place" is an argument I just don't buy.
It appeared to work in the cold war. Though aptly known as "MAD". The problem is that if you attempt to disarm people the "crooks" will pay no notice at all.
I would like to see more training to own, and much more to carry. However, the system would soon set the training requirements so high that it would effectively deny many qualified citizens the right to have a firearm.
Whilst this might keep guns out of the hands of the stupid it wouldn't do much to keep them out of the hands of the criminal. A criminal might be able to pass the course, failing that they can probably get a black market gun or forged credentials. Let alone that there is nothing to stop a cop or solider being a crook.
I don't think tose figures say what you think they say. All deaths are either suicides, homocides, or accidents. (Or, of course, crossing the boundaries.) Presumably, the other 4% were accidents. That means that only 38% of the time a gun is fired at someone and kills them, it was an attack on someone else.
And I fail to see how that's an argument for gun control.
That means even if all guns magically disappeared tomorrow, 58% of the gun deaths would still happen , they'd just happen some other way. I mean, a suicide isn't going to go 'Hey, no gun, might as well keep living'. Yes, they might say something like that, but it's just as likely they'll stick a gun in their mouth and say, '...erm, maybe not today.' instead of taking fifty sleeping pills, which isn't scary at all, at least not as scary as pulling a trigger on yourself. If they can get the willpower do that, they can get the willpower to jump off a building, shooting yourself is really the most scary method of suicide I can think of, because you 'know' the second you pull that trigger it's going to hurt like hell. (It won't really, but whatever.)
Actually it's likely to be 96% of those gun deaths would still happen. Since just as lack of easy access to a gun is unlikely to stop someone committing suicide it's unlikely to prevent someone committing a homicide. Indeed they can probably still use a gun, since if they are caught they will be charged with "murder" or "attempted murder" rather than "illegal posession of a firearm".
Hmm, considering the US involvement in Afghanistan during the cold war I'd think it is not that uncommon that many of the current terrorists have weapons that originated from the US.
Probably with training as well as being supplied the arms. The US was happy to support people like OBL when they were fighting the Soviet Union and Saddam Hussain when Iraq was at war with Iran (especially after Iran had just booted out a US/UK installed tyrant.)
Many nations are quite willing to support "terrorists" when it matchs their current political aims. Which is what makes the whole "war on terror" idea a nonsense.
I'm not sure, but I think the guy going round shooting people at the moment has a gun.
So making gun ownership illegal would ensure that no criminal could get their hands on a gun? Even if you made it difficult to get hold of guns they couldn't simply use a crossbow?
More than likely the would be lessons to be learned will again be ignored and whoever in the possession of power at that time will keep banging their head to the same old brick wall.
All too often they are interested in banging someone else's head against the wall.If they were just banging their own that would be an improvement. e.g. if modern political leaders lead battles personally there would be fewer wars.
Were fighting to perserve the status quo of government they feel threatened (remember here in america revolutionaries were TERRORISTS they dont want that repeated)
The definition of "terrorist", "freedom fighter" or "revolutionary" tends to subjectivly depend on if the writer/speaker supports or opposes the position represented. From a historical perspective if they succed or fail.
The only way threy could have slowed down something like 9/11 would have been a nice heavy steel door to the cockpit that stays locked perferably with armed personel inside a lot of them are old air force jocks.
Having fighters scrambled immediatly the jets went off course would have helped too, which is the usual procedure in most parts of the world, including the US. Whilst suicide terrorists might be perfectly prepared to die (if they complete their mission) they could easily change their minds if it were given a choice between being dead & having failed and alive & in custody.
We must ensure that civil liberties and human rights are maintained while allowing law enforcement to protect the rights of the people.
In a truely free society people can protect their own rights.
Retaining logs at the ISP level does not equate with disclosing logs to law enforcement agencies.
Who does it benefit and do these benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
Monitoring ISPs sortof assumes that everyone who is up to no good has forgotten how to read, write, speak, dial a phone, ride a bus, etc. Maybe when a locator and thought monitor chip becomes mandatory, they'll actually catch a terrorist in advance of the event
Such technology would come with the ability to hide and fake such signals. Otherwise every criminal would simply use their black market "cop detector", to be sure that no police were around and their gang had not been infiltrated.
Or maybe they'll just catch a lot of grade schoolers shouting "I wish you were dead!" at each other.
That's the problem with mass surveillance, so much noise that the real "baddies" probably don't have to try hiding too much.
Increased surveillance on citizens does *not* prevent terrorism by people determined enough to do it kamikaze-style.
Indeed it may make things easier for actual terrorists and criminals. Since mass surveillance has an utterly awful signal to noise ratio. Assuming that it will actually be used for law enforcement, rather than blackmail or espionage. There is also a big risk of the information gathered getting in to the hands of criminals, either because they have spys within the data gathering organisation or even be the people running it.
The problem is that the rapid proliferation of new technologies, i.e., Internet, wireless, PCS, etc, is leaving law enforcement and national security agencies in the dust. Without new laws they simply cannot address new threats or criminal activity that use those new communication methods.
Actually quite a bit of the problem appears to be that law enforcement has itself been so interested in using new technologies for intercepting communications that "old-fashioned" detective work has taken something of a back seat. Simply trawling through emails and phone calls stands very little chance of catching terrorists or mobsters. Especially if there is no one in the agency concerned who understands the language or dialect the people involved use.
Is this a threat to civil liberties? Hell yes, but a little thing happened last year in September that pushed civil liberties to the background for the "Free World".
How would having new laws ensured that the FBI had people who understood Arabic languages? How would such laws have made sure that the FAA and NORAD jad followed their published procedures? How would they have ensured that the US had an air defence system which actually worked? How about stopping someone in WTC announcing "things are pefectly safe, go back to your offices"? Would these laws have persuaded someone that having a fire drill in The Pentagon would be a good idea?
The new technologies make it very difficult to allow agencies to develop the suspicion further surveilance requires as an antecedant. Traditional communications did not include the same reasonable expectations of privacy that we have today. A phone call always required you to be tied to a handset on the wall, with the possibility of being overheard.
The idea of being able to communicate without third parties knowing what is being communicated or even if any communication is taking place at all date back to prehistory. Covert communication is quite probably started soon after humans invented the concept of language.
There is a fundamental problem that arises when you start to collect data without a directed suspicion: people will start to fear that merely their patterns of behaviour (which he knows to be be monitored) will raise some suspicion and cause subsequent trouble. This is has chilling effects on society, on peoples very perception of freedom. Look at the horrors of the USSR, the DDR with its Stasi.
But such systems don't work that well against the likes of organised crime and terrorism. Since these kind of groups, at least the ones who are actually any kind of threat, can play "information warfare" just as well as a nation state. Assuming they don't simply vanish into a sea of noise. The latter was the problem the Stasi had, their ability to gather data far outstripped their ability to make any sense of it.
I think the issue needs to be centered around this, and leave the exact criteria, which are completely irrelevant. Governments should not be allowed to spy on people without a clear suspicion, period. Collecting data may only start *after the suspicion is backed by a public court of law*, not when some police officer decides that it might be handy, and even less *by default*, for crying out loud!
You also have the problem of "who watchs the watchers". Such a situation is a "honeypot" to the dishonest and criminal. The data collected would be very valuable to criminals and terrorists themselves.
Important questions are "do you trust your government?", "do you trust everyone your government trusts, including foreign governments?" and "does your government trust anyone they shouldn't be trusting?"
I can say that the industry seems to work primarily with embedded boxes for telecom. When you want a switch you buy a switch, and it does what it does. Whether that switch runs linux or SunOS or VxWorks or some proprietary OS is pretty much irrelevant to you if it functions for you in its capacity as a switch. If linux is being used as the basis for phone switching equipment, people probably wouldn't know, unless they had some contact at the company who developed the switch.
If you had Linux running telephone system it would look more like the Linux Router Project than Red Hat anyway. Anything not needed wouldn't be there and the code would be optimised to work with the hardware.
This is a traditionally very embedded market, where name recognition of an OS like "Windows" or "linux" or whatever is irrelevant to the function of the device.
The name recognition is more with the manufactures of the complete box...