So Intel is trying to give me the same functionality I get when I plug my cell phone into my laptop, but for the price of two cellular accounts instead of just one? I'll pass, thanks.
"Putting a reactor into space changes all that and crosses a threshold that we may not want to cross."
Reactors don't carry enough material at the required densities for a chain reaction. Again, reactor != bomb.
"it's going to be much harder to object to the use of large quantities of fissionable material in space for military applications."
The only military application I can see is putting bombs into orbit, and that's so stratiegicly stupid it's not even funny. ASAT warfare is already our defense's Achille's Heel and if we rely on space yet more for our nuclear response we're more or less done for. It makes infinitely more sense to keep our nukes ground- or sea-based where they're much better protected.
"Well, that's just it: I really don't expect that Congress, currently on the kick "we must protect all Americans" is going to be excited about the potentially dangerous nuclear propulsion system."
Then have the Secretary of the Navy remind them that they've yet to have a reactor-related problem in their half-century of of using nuclear propulsion.
"and if there is an explosion on takeoff"
If we use nuclear rockets as our launch system, there is literally nothing to explode. The heat doesn't come from combustion so you're free to use any liquid you want. Helium would probably be the best choice, but there's no technical reason why these things can't use water as your fuel.
"a good chunk of Florida will a pretty unpleasant place to live."
The next time you watch a launch, listen to the numbers, especially how far "down range" the rocket is. In the example of the shuttle, it's already several hundred miles away when SRB separation comes along at (I believe) 90 seconds.
And because nuclear rockets aren't the over-grown fireworks we currently associate with space launches, it isn't so important to require them to be blown up in the event of a launch failure. Hell, in case of emergency we could put a giant parachute on the whole thing.
"This line item is purely political."
If it were purely political it wouldn't have such sound arguments for it.
"Bush knows that Democrats will be the most vocal opponents of this,"
At this point I think it's too early to tell who will be the most vocal opponent of this, if any.
"I'm afraid the space program is another thing for which our frat boy president doesn't see any motivation."
If you insist on political muckraking on this, I'll show you where Gore lost my vote:
Q: Are you willing to take a bold step and leave us with a legacy of having a man on Mars by 2010? A: First, as the recent two failures of these robotic landers show, there's still a lot we don't know. Second, the cost is a completely different order of magnitude as the cost of a moon program. There's no doubt that eventually we will land a human being on Mars. But we are right now not at a point where it makes good sense. We've got to get to universal health care. We've got to revolutionize our schools
Oh, and if we always stuck with the "fix us first, then colonize" idea, then I'd be a European instead of a American. Lord knows Europe still needs fixing centuries later...
Because it's more expensive and heavier to add yet another rocket engine (and more fuel and oxydizer) to the mix than just a small chemistry lab for the robot to use.
And the trip back is just as risky (if not more so) than the trip out.
Reagan wanted the X-30 and a much larger, 100% American space station ("Space Station Freedom") than the one we currently share with other countries. George H. W. Bush actually talked about a manned mission to Mars. In both instances they got smacked down by a Democrat Congress.
"It won't help the US's current worry about technology transfer into their enemies hands when one of these puppies drops into Sadam's backyard."
Putting nuclear reactors in orbit would be a waste. We're talking about nuclear PROPULSION here: something to either put stuff into orbit or to go beyond orbit.
"It will be built to withstand a launch failure in tact therefore it will most definitely survive re-entry."
A launch failure with a nuclear rocket and a chemical rocket are two different things. There's nothing explosive aboard a nuclear rocket. Just a reactor to heat up some liquid helium.
Yes, nuclear propulsion CAN get you into space. Do a Google search on liquid-fueld nuclear rockets. Even if the reactor and shielding weigh as much as a loaded O2 tank on the shuttle, the nuke rocket will still put out more power.
A fission reactor can put out more heat than any form of chemical combustion. More heat = more vapor expansion = more pressure = more thrust. If a reactor can push an aircraft carrier the size of a small city over the ocean at 27+ knots through steam expansion, it can use a similar process to throw a much smaller rocket into orbit.
And while both ion drives and anti-matter are interesting technologies, they're relatively new and will take a while (decades) to pan out. On the other hand, the US has been using nuclear propulsion since the 1950's.
What better way to protect earth's environment then to find ways of using the resources of other planets and satellites instead? And on top of that, once the transportation obstacle has been figured out, I think it'd be cheaper to build a dirty factory on the moon than a clean one on earth.
"The Wright Brothers (or pick your own early aviation pioneers)did not require a 15,000 man ground support crew to fly."
First off, the Wright Brothers were lucky to go a few hundred yards at a time. The moon is about 36E7 meters away.
Another hole in your analogy is that the Wright Brothers didn't have to develop their internal combusion engine from the ground up. While the Wright Brothers were the first to mount such an engine on a lifting body, engines of the required efficiency were by no means anything new. The F-1, on the other hand...
Comparing spaceflight to heavier-than-air flight doesn't hold water. Space launch systems are extremely complex and will continue to be until they're built en masse by an assembly line. They also are required to be self-sufficient in the extreme, as opposed to being able to land in any convenient field in case of problems. The closest terrestrial analogy isn't an airplane, it's a seaship.
And speaking of ships, most if not all of the big trans-oceanic expeditions of the 15th through 18th centuries were funded by national governments (Portugal, Spain, France, England, et al). And even today, centuries later, building and operating a sea-faring ship (or even a Great Lakes ship) requires a heck of a lot more than two bicycle mechanics and a garage.
"Five billion tax free for the first resuseable spacecraft to make three round trips to the vicinity of the ISS in a thirty day period carrying say three people and two tons of cargo on each trip."
Do you really think that, if they needed to develop all technologies from the ground up, $5 billion would be a profit?
And even then, generally speaking, the only people who have the resources to even begin to do something like this (beyond the "look at our pretty pictures!" phase) are the big aerospace companies. You know, the ones that would rather work for a government contract?
"Rather than controlling the development of spacecraft, the government should just promise to buy a bunch of them that meet a certain price performance criteria."
You've just narrowed the playing field even more. Building one takes a lot of effort. Building several takes a factory.
"And, if Bush with his noted tendencies towards such things can not make it happen, it will probably happen somewhere else (India, China, Japan - hell maybe even France - (those arrogant little snots still miss Napoleon))"
Of the countries you just listed, the only one that shows even an interest in manned space flight (let alone an honest-to-God manned space program) is China. Manned space flight continues to be an unprofitable venture from a business standpoint (in all the other cases it's cheaper for them to let the US do all the hard work) and the only reason the Chinese want in on the "space club" is to try to prove to everybody (including themselves) that they're just as good as the US.
As long as industry isn't interested in funding it, we have to rely on the government. Industry may eventually become interested when they start to see short-term profit potential (mining and such), but until then space exploration is a short-term money hole and best dealt with by the government.
"Nuclear propulsion in space is a hot potato because it's potentially dual-use."
The only dual-use I'm seeing with nuclear propulsion in space is the ability to put some large space warship into orbit (StarBlazers!). A nuclear reactor and a nuclear bomb are two very different things. If anything, a nuclear rocket is downright safer than a chemical rocket: No explosive and caustic fuels, not even an oxydizer. Just a small reactor and some liquid helium.
Besides, we're already quite capable at putting nuclear warheads into space. Check out the Minuteman family.
"it would be little more than a ploy for transferring NASA funds to military research."
I doubt there are any big research areas into nuclear propulsion that hasn't already been looked over ad nauseum by the USN (the pros on the subject). About the only thing NASAs work on nuclear propulsion could help with is making reactors cheaper and more plentiful (perhaps enough to mount them on cruisers or maybe even destroyers).
"Anyone want to read into the increased funding of nuclear propulsion?"
Other than making deep space probes heavier, cheaper, and faster? I'd say that the historically pro-nuke Bush administration is hoping for spin-offs to finally make US commercial reactors competitive with the French.
Actually, after reading the take by the Planetary Society, I'd have to say that (ignoring the chunks taken out of the manned space program) this is the most space-friendly proposal I've seen for a while now. And it all revolves around the nuclear propulsion bit.
More and more of our space exploration is taking place in the outer system, with only the occasional lunar mission (been there, done that) and two or three high-profile Mars missions. Everything including the asteroid belt and out are beginning to get the treatment that Venus and Mars got in the past decade (and as a result we know more about the surface of Venus than we do of the earth itself!)
However, because of the distances involved (Venus and Mars are a mere stone's throw away), all of these missions will require a lot of time and a lot of fuel. The more fuel you use to put the probe on its way to its destination, the less the probe can do. While the ion drive has a lot of promise and will probably continue to be researched, it's just not a near-term solution to this problem. On the other hand, there's nuclear propulsion.
As the Planetary Society pointed out, nuclear propulsion has been studied before (NERVA and Orionare the two most famous), has decades of research already there waiting to be used, and promises a near-term solution to deep space propulsion (if not launch vehicles). Combine this with the fact that the United States is the undisputed leader in the field of nuclear propulsion, and I can't help but see big results coming soon.
As an example: When I submitted the article, I was disappointed with the umpteenth cut of Pluto-Kuiper Express. But the Planetary Society take reminded me that, with the prospect of nuclear propulsion, there isn't anywhere near the pressing need to launch it immediately to make it to Pluto in time. Putting a nice liquid-fueld fission engine (for example) into the plan means that we aren't forced to launch "something, anything" now and can take the time to refine the probe before launching it.
So long as the anti-nuke folks don't kill the proposal in Congress, we've just taken a big step towards putting a person on Mars.
There've been a lot of posts talking about bandwidth hogs and how they should be made to pay more money for their usage, since they're robbing bandwidth from non-hogs. You've forgotten something: These bandwidth hogs are about the only market broadband has left.
Let's face it: broadband providers who do this are shooting themselves in the foot. The only real reason to get their service is for gobs of uploading and downloading for Napster or Morpheus or Kazaa or whatever the P2P rage of the day is. It's silly to protect the casual browsers from these people because, to put it simply, casual browsers don't use broadband. They have no need for it.
The killer app for broadband is supposed to be content. So why are they penalizing those who want more content?
"Next in line at the Justice Dept was the Solicitor General. At the time, this was none other than our friend Robert Bork. Nixon made him acting A.G. and ordered him to fire Cox. Bork consented and fired him."
But so far I haven't seen a discourse on his motive. "He's a Nixon crony" is only one possible explaination. Others include:
1.) Nixon's at the third AG, it's pretty obvious at that point that he'lll probably keep going until the night janator becomes the AG. Nixon has enough rope to hang himself now, so there's nothing to be gained from continuing to hold out.
2.) Nixon will keep going until he finds someone who will fire Cox, and whoever does it will have a black mark in their reputation for the rest of their life. Bork might have done it to spare those under him from the pressure.
3.) Abusing your power isn't so bad as getting away with it, at least as far as the public is concerned. Bork agreed to fire Cox to really drive home to the press and the public just what Nixon was up to.
And these are just three out of a myriad of possibilities. The only way the "he's a crony" stands out from the rest is that it's the most simplest, if not overly-simple.
It tells us that when Microsoft doesn't try to over-burden their operating systems with silly gizmos and features it's actually pretty damned good. Windows 2000 was only an evolutionary change from NT 4 (many of the changes were supposed to originally come with NT 4), had the history of the NT code base behind it, and it got the job done without too much glitz and glamor.
It wasn't until Microsoft thought up NT 5.1 (aka XP) with all sorts of inane bells and whistles to try to convince us that we need to upgrade that the bottom fell through on their security again.
While this does vindicate my continued use of Windows 2000 in the XP era, I really don't feel this vindicates Microsoft too much. When it comes to operating system releases, Windows 2000 was a bit of a fluke. A fluke because nine times out of ten Microsoft tries to overload a new OS with silly features (think 98 compared to 95), and this time they "messed up."
While Windows 2000 is secure, the underlying philosophy in Microsoft that made them decide to release XP is not.
A lower bit-rate means lower quality. If you want to halve the bit rate in order to double the recording time, you halve the quality. Just like with a slower speed setting on a VHS tape.
"Use both sides and both layers"
Again, unless some genius figures out how to bring holographic recording to the home, consumer-grade recordable DVDs won't have two layers. This is why their capacity is halved compared to commercial DVDs.
"However, the quality went down as the years progressed. Number 17, for instance, is a mess. It changed the U.S. from a Republic into a Representative Democracy. From a Federation of Soverign States into one big state. It should really be repealed."
There seems to be a slowly-but-surely growing movement for this one. In fact, Arizona's legislature has this bill floating around in it that would try to call for a real discussion on this.
"It's pretty clean compared to number 12, though. Sheesh:"
That's because it's essentially a re-write/replacement of the third paragraph of Article II, Section 1. In fact, most of the language is the same.
So long as I want to record television I'm going to have a VCR. Period. TiVo is nice for short-term storage, but that still doesn't allow me to have a collection of Enterprise or whatever the hell else the Betamax decision lets me do with what comes into my TV.
As for DVDs, even if DVD recorders eventaully trickle down to the home entertainment market, unless some true genius figures out how to make holographic recording cheap and easy recordable DVDs will always be half-capacity compared to commercially stamped ones. You can buy a two hour movie but can only record one hour of television. Sure, you could cut the quality of the recording and squeeze more in, but you could do the same thing to a 120 minute tape at twice the capacity.
I've already got time and effort devoted into a VHS collection and, no matter how big my DVD collection may get, I won't be getting rid of my tapes. So long as this new digital VHS standard is recordable like my old VHS recorder, I see no real reason not to get this (beyond the cost factor that is).
I'm already thinking about getting a new VCR anyway since I'd like to at least have one in stereo. My next big purchase will probably be a digital television (the idea of having a 36"+ computer monitor makes me moist) and maybe an HDTV receiver. Right now I don't intend on getting a new computer because come May my PS2 will be able to do everything I would have wanted a new PC to do. So, really... why not?
"It never made it however. It still required winding tape if you wanted to skip a song so Minidisk and cd-r took its place."
This is the 21st century. There's no need to have direct access between the tape and the viewer. You put in a hard drive to buffer the tape (think Tivo), have the tape read at speeds that we currently associate with "fast forward," and by the time you're finished watching the stupid FBI warning and trailers the movie is already on the hard drive. Viola: random access.
Something like this has always been an option to both the MPAA and RIAA. MP3 and DivX:-) are compression schemes, which means there's always going to be a loss in quality in those recordings that just can't compare to CD audio and DVD video.
The reason that neither group are going with this idea is that they see themselves more in control of the content than the medium and use the content to force you to buy what they want you to buy. CD quality audio would be a great thing, for instance, if I didn't have to buy albums with one song I like and 12 songs I don't like (which is what makes CDs so cost-ineffective in my book to begin with).
Until media companies start saying "we own the right to stamp this work onto X medium" instead of "we own the work," this just won't happen.
"Studios on Hawaii, the most expensive state for anything in the United States,"
IIRC, the cost of living in Japan and Hawaii are about the same. Both places have to ship everything in. And Hawaii is physically half-way between Japan and the contiguous US, so people from either country have similar travel times.
Not to mention, with the Hawaiian population being what it is, they're far more likely to find bilingual help (English and Nihongo) there locally than any place else in either Japan or the US.
"But why did they have the whole org on an island in the Pacific?"
Because it's cheaper to fly to Hawaii from either side of the Pacific than to cross it. Travel time from the contiguous US and from Japan is about the same.
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So Intel is trying to give me the same functionality I get when I plug my cell phone into my laptop, but for the price of two cellular accounts instead of just one? I'll pass, thanks.
sigh
Because he used the usual "fix the earth first" cop-out, the excuse used by those who want their own piece of the budget for their own means.
You know, I find you partisan folks downright scarey...
"Putting a reactor into space changes all that and crosses a threshold that we may not want to cross."
Reactors don't carry enough material at the required densities for a chain reaction. Again, reactor != bomb.
"it's going to be much harder to object to the use of large quantities of fissionable material in space for military applications."
The only military application I can see is putting bombs into orbit, and that's so stratiegicly stupid it's not even funny. ASAT warfare is already our defense's Achille's Heel and if we rely on space yet more for our nuclear response we're more or less done for. It makes infinitely more sense to keep our nukes ground- or sea-based where they're much better protected.
Then have the Secretary of the Navy remind them that they've yet to have a reactor-related problem in their half-century of of using nuclear propulsion.
"and if there is an explosion on takeoff"
If we use nuclear rockets as our launch system, there is literally nothing to explode. The heat doesn't come from combustion so you're free to use any liquid you want. Helium would probably be the best choice, but there's no technical reason why these things can't use water as your fuel.
"a good chunk of Florida will a pretty unpleasant place to live."
The next time you watch a launch, listen to the numbers, especially how far "down range" the rocket is. In the example of the shuttle, it's already several hundred miles away when SRB separation comes along at (I believe) 90 seconds.
And because nuclear rockets aren't the over-grown fireworks we currently associate with space launches, it isn't so important to require them to be blown up in the event of a launch failure. Hell, in case of emergency we could put a giant parachute on the whole thing.
"This line item is purely political."
If it were purely political it wouldn't have such sound arguments for it.
"Bush knows that Democrats will be the most vocal opponents of this,"
At this point I think it's too early to tell who will be the most vocal opponent of this, if any.
"I'm afraid the space program is another thing for which our frat boy president doesn't see any motivation."
If you insist on political muckraking on this, I'll show you where Gore lost my vote:
Um... because they're not a company but a branch of the government, and because space exploration isn't wildly profitable yet?
That's like asking why NOAA is the only "company" really doing deep sea or weather research... sheesh...
Oh, and if we always stuck with the "fix us first, then colonize" idea, then I'd be a European instead of a American. Lord knows Europe still needs fixing centuries later...
Because it's more expensive and heavier to add yet another rocket engine (and more fuel and oxydizer) to the mix than just a small chemistry lab for the robot to use.
And the trip back is just as risky (if not more so) than the trip out.
Reagan wanted the X-30 and a much larger, 100% American space station ("Space Station Freedom") than the one we currently share with other countries. George H. W. Bush actually talked about a manned mission to Mars. In both instances they got smacked down by a Democrat Congress.
Next question.
"It won't help the US's current worry about technology transfer into their enemies hands when one of these puppies drops into Sadam's backyard."
Putting nuclear reactors in orbit would be a waste. We're talking about nuclear PROPULSION here: something to either put stuff into orbit or to go beyond orbit.
"It will be built to withstand a launch failure in tact therefore it will most definitely survive re-entry."
A launch failure with a nuclear rocket and a chemical rocket are two different things. There's nothing explosive aboard a nuclear rocket. Just a reactor to heat up some liquid helium.
Yes, nuclear propulsion CAN get you into space. Do a Google search on liquid-fueld nuclear rockets. Even if the reactor and shielding weigh as much as a loaded O2 tank on the shuttle, the nuke rocket will still put out more power.
A fission reactor can put out more heat than any form of chemical combustion. More heat = more vapor expansion = more pressure = more thrust. If a reactor can push an aircraft carrier the size of a small city over the ocean at 27+ knots through steam expansion, it can use a similar process to throw a much smaller rocket into orbit.
And while both ion drives and anti-matter are interesting technologies, they're relatively new and will take a while (decades) to pan out. On the other hand, the US has been using nuclear propulsion since the 1950's.
What better way to protect earth's environment then to find ways of using the resources of other planets and satellites instead? And on top of that, once the transportation obstacle has been figured out, I think it'd be cheaper to build a dirty factory on the moon than a clean one on earth.
"The Wright Brothers (or pick your own early aviation pioneers)did not require a 15,000 man ground support crew to fly."
First off, the Wright Brothers were lucky to go a few hundred yards at a time. The moon is about 36E7 meters away.
Another hole in your analogy is that the Wright Brothers didn't have to develop their internal combusion engine from the ground up. While the Wright Brothers were the first to mount such an engine on a lifting body, engines of the required efficiency were by no means anything new. The F-1, on the other hand...
Comparing spaceflight to heavier-than-air flight doesn't hold water. Space launch systems are extremely complex and will continue to be until they're built en masse by an assembly line. They also are required to be self-sufficient in the extreme, as opposed to being able to land in any convenient field in case of problems. The closest terrestrial analogy isn't an airplane, it's a seaship.
And speaking of ships, most if not all of the big trans-oceanic expeditions of the 15th through 18th centuries were funded by national governments (Portugal, Spain, France, England, et al). And even today, centuries later, building and operating a sea-faring ship (or even a Great Lakes ship) requires a heck of a lot more than two bicycle mechanics and a garage.
"Five billion tax free for the first resuseable spacecraft to make three round trips to the vicinity of the ISS in a thirty day period carrying say three people and two tons of cargo on each trip."
Do you really think that, if they needed to develop all technologies from the ground up, $5 billion would be a profit?
And even then, generally speaking, the only people who have the resources to even begin to do something like this (beyond the "look at our pretty pictures!" phase) are the big aerospace companies. You know, the ones that would rather work for a government contract?
"Rather than controlling the development of spacecraft, the government should just promise to buy a bunch of them that meet a certain price performance criteria."
You've just narrowed the playing field even more. Building one takes a lot of effort. Building several takes a factory.
"And, if Bush with his noted tendencies towards such things can not make it happen, it will probably happen somewhere else (India, China, Japan - hell maybe even France - (those arrogant little snots still miss Napoleon))"
Of the countries you just listed, the only one that shows even an interest in manned space flight (let alone an honest-to-God manned space program) is China. Manned space flight continues to be an unprofitable venture from a business standpoint (in all the other cases it's cheaper for them to let the US do all the hard work) and the only reason the Chinese want in on the "space club" is to try to prove to everybody (including themselves) that they're just as good as the US.
As long as industry isn't interested in funding it, we have to rely on the government. Industry may eventually become interested when they start to see short-term profit potential (mining and such), but until then space exploration is a short-term money hole and best dealt with by the government.
"Nuclear propulsion in space is a hot potato because it's potentially dual-use."
The only dual-use I'm seeing with nuclear propulsion in space is the ability to put some large space warship into orbit (StarBlazers!). A nuclear reactor and a nuclear bomb are two very different things. If anything, a nuclear rocket is downright safer than a chemical rocket: No explosive and caustic fuels, not even an oxydizer. Just a small reactor and some liquid helium.
Besides, we're already quite capable at putting nuclear warheads into space. Check out the Minuteman family.
"it would be little more than a ploy for transferring NASA funds to military research."
I doubt there are any big research areas into nuclear propulsion that hasn't already been looked over ad nauseum by the USN (the pros on the subject). About the only thing NASAs work on nuclear propulsion could help with is making reactors cheaper and more plentiful (perhaps enough to mount them on cruisers or maybe even destroyers).
"Anyone want to read into the increased funding of nuclear propulsion?"
Other than making deep space probes heavier, cheaper, and faster? I'd say that the historically pro-nuke Bush administration is hoping for spin-offs to finally make US commercial reactors competitive with the French.
Actually, after reading the take by the Planetary Society, I'd have to say that (ignoring the chunks taken out of the manned space program) this is the most space-friendly proposal I've seen for a while now. And it all revolves around the nuclear propulsion bit.
More and more of our space exploration is taking place in the outer system, with only the occasional lunar mission (been there, done that) and two or three high-profile Mars missions. Everything including the asteroid belt and out are beginning to get the treatment that Venus and Mars got in the past decade (and as a result we know more about the surface of Venus than we do of the earth itself!)
However, because of the distances involved (Venus and Mars are a mere stone's throw away), all of these missions will require a lot of time and a lot of fuel. The more fuel you use to put the probe on its way to its destination, the less the probe can do. While the ion drive has a lot of promise and will probably continue to be researched, it's just not a near-term solution to this problem. On the other hand, there's nuclear propulsion.
As the Planetary Society pointed out, nuclear propulsion has been studied before (NERVA and Orionare the two most famous), has decades of research already there waiting to be used, and promises a near-term solution to deep space propulsion (if not launch vehicles). Combine this with the fact that the United States is the undisputed leader in the field of nuclear propulsion, and I can't help but see big results coming soon.
As an example: When I submitted the article, I was disappointed with the umpteenth cut of Pluto-Kuiper Express. But the Planetary Society take reminded me that, with the prospect of nuclear propulsion, there isn't anywhere near the pressing need to launch it immediately to make it to Pluto in time. Putting a nice liquid-fueld fission engine (for example) into the plan means that we aren't forced to launch "something, anything" now and can take the time to refine the probe before launching it.
So long as the anti-nuke folks don't kill the proposal in Congress, we've just taken a big step towards putting a person on Mars.
There've been a lot of posts talking about bandwidth hogs and how they should be made to pay more money for their usage, since they're robbing bandwidth from non-hogs. You've forgotten something: These bandwidth hogs are about the only market broadband has left.
Let's face it: broadband providers who do this are shooting themselves in the foot. The only real reason to get their service is for gobs of uploading and downloading for Napster or Morpheus or Kazaa or whatever the P2P rage of the day is. It's silly to protect the casual browsers from these people because, to put it simply, casual browsers don't use broadband. They have no need for it.
The killer app for broadband is supposed to be content. So why are they penalizing those who want more content?
"Next in line at the Justice Dept was the Solicitor General. At the time, this was none other than our friend Robert Bork. Nixon made him acting A.G. and ordered him to fire Cox. Bork consented and fired him."
But so far I haven't seen a discourse on his motive. "He's a Nixon crony" is only one possible explaination. Others include:
1.) Nixon's at the third AG, it's pretty obvious at that point that he'lll probably keep going until the night janator becomes the AG. Nixon has enough rope to hang himself now, so there's nothing to be gained from continuing to hold out.
2.) Nixon will keep going until he finds someone who will fire Cox, and whoever does it will have a black mark in their reputation for the rest of their life. Bork might have done it to spare those under him from the pressure.
3.) Abusing your power isn't so bad as getting away with it, at least as far as the public is concerned. Bork agreed to fire Cox to really drive home to the press and the public just what Nixon was up to.
And these are just three out of a myriad of possibilities. The only way the "he's a crony" stands out from the rest is that it's the most simplest, if not overly-simple.
It tells us that when Microsoft doesn't try to over-burden their operating systems with silly gizmos and features it's actually pretty damned good. Windows 2000 was only an evolutionary change from NT 4 (many of the changes were supposed to originally come with NT 4), had the history of the NT code base behind it, and it got the job done without too much glitz and glamor.
It wasn't until Microsoft thought up NT 5.1 (aka XP) with all sorts of inane bells and whistles to try to convince us that we need to upgrade that the bottom fell through on their security again.
While this does vindicate my continued use of Windows 2000 in the XP era, I really don't feel this vindicates Microsoft too much. When it comes to operating system releases, Windows 2000 was a bit of a fluke. A fluke because nine times out of ten Microsoft tries to overload a new OS with silly features (think 98 compared to 95), and this time they "messed up."
While Windows 2000 is secure, the underlying philosophy in Microsoft that made them decide to release XP is not.
"couldn't you just record at a lower bitrate?"
A lower bit-rate means lower quality. If you want to halve the bit rate in order to double the recording time, you halve the quality. Just like with a slower speed setting on a VHS tape.
"Use both sides and both layers"
Again, unless some genius figures out how to bring holographic recording to the home, consumer-grade recordable DVDs won't have two layers. This is why their capacity is halved compared to commercial DVDs.
"However, the quality went down as the years progressed. Number 17, for instance, is a mess. It changed the U.S. from a Republic into a Representative Democracy. From a Federation of Soverign States into one big state. It should really be repealed."
There seems to be a slowly-but-surely growing movement for this one. In fact, Arizona's legislature has this bill floating around in it that would try to call for a real discussion on this.
"It's pretty clean compared to number 12, though. Sheesh:"
That's because it's essentially a re-write/replacement of the third paragraph of Article II, Section 1. In fact, most of the language is the same.
So long as I want to record television I'm going to have a VCR. Period. TiVo is nice for short-term storage, but that still doesn't allow me to have a collection of Enterprise or whatever the hell else the Betamax decision lets me do with what comes into my TV.
As for DVDs, even if DVD recorders eventaully trickle down to the home entertainment market, unless some true genius figures out how to make holographic recording cheap and easy recordable DVDs will always be half-capacity compared to commercially stamped ones. You can buy a two hour movie but can only record one hour of television. Sure, you could cut the quality of the recording and squeeze more in, but you could do the same thing to a 120 minute tape at twice the capacity.
I've already got time and effort devoted into a VHS collection and, no matter how big my DVD collection may get, I won't be getting rid of my tapes. So long as this new digital VHS standard is recordable like my old VHS recorder, I see no real reason not to get this (beyond the cost factor that is).
I'm already thinking about getting a new VCR anyway since I'd like to at least have one in stereo. My next big purchase will probably be a digital television (the idea of having a 36"+ computer monitor makes me moist) and maybe an HDTV receiver. Right now I don't intend on getting a new computer because come May my PS2 will be able to do everything I would have wanted a new PC to do. So, really... why not?
"It never made it however. It still required winding tape if you wanted to skip a song so Minidisk and cd-r took its place."
This is the 21st century. There's no need to have direct access between the tape and the viewer. You put in a hard drive to buffer the tape (think Tivo), have the tape read at speeds that we currently associate with "fast forward," and by the time you're finished watching the stupid FBI warning and trailers the movie is already on the hard drive. Viola: random access.
Something like this has always been an option to both the MPAA and RIAA. MP3 and DivX:-) are compression schemes, which means there's always going to be a loss in quality in those recordings that just can't compare to CD audio and DVD video.
The reason that neither group are going with this idea is that they see themselves more in control of the content than the medium and use the content to force you to buy what they want you to buy. CD quality audio would be a great thing, for instance, if I didn't have to buy albums with one song I like and 12 songs I don't like (which is what makes CDs so cost-ineffective in my book to begin with).
Until media companies start saying "we own the right to stamp this work onto X medium" instead of "we own the work," this just won't happen.
"Studios on Hawaii, the most expensive state for anything in the United States,"
IIRC, the cost of living in Japan and Hawaii are about the same. Both places have to ship everything in. And Hawaii is physically half-way between Japan and the contiguous US, so people from either country have similar travel times.
Not to mention, with the Hawaiian population being what it is, they're far more likely to find bilingual help (English and Nihongo) there locally than any place else in either Japan or the US.
"But why did they have the whole org on an island in the Pacific?"
Because it's cheaper to fly to Hawaii from either side of the Pacific than to cross it. Travel time from the contiguous US and from Japan is about the same.