What if we had a reuseable spacecraft with a large enough...snip...Wouldn't something like that be dead handy?
Assuming that this is a disguised lament over the retirement of the shuttles: With both a calculated and displayed failure rate of over 2%, I'd have to agree. Keeping a shuttle around for neato stuff like this would end up with some astrofolks being "handily dead".
Magellan & co. went around the world in 1519. Around 60 years later, Drake made the 2nd trip.
Magellan did it to be "first" to find the western route to the Spice Islands (and profits). Drake did it more for nationalism (and profits).
Note that even though the first trip made enough money to pay for the project, there was still a 2-3 generation time lag before it was done again.
Similarities come to mind when considering that the US landed on the moon 60 years ago. We went to the moon to be "first", and for nationalism (and profits? not so much, directly).
It seems that if history is an example, the second set of folks to the moon will be because of nationalism (and profits), and it won't be the same folks who went the first time.
This can be looked at a couple of ways:
1) We're a dead, decaying society, spiraling to oblivion, and won't ever get anyone anywhere, anyhow, anyways.
I'd like to see this work, but I think this has been tried before. Google something like "industrial revolution poorhouses debtor prisons".
Actually, some of these things were good ideas at the time to solve some of the same problems. Once institutionalized, though, you had all kinds of abuses from people, companies, and governments taking advantage of the situation.
Our current system of incarceration is our current attempt at a solution. Now it's being privatized. Now companies & communities depend on this for their livelihood.
Dreamed I was an eskimo Frozen wind began to blow Under my boots and around my toes The frost that bit the ground below It was a hundred degrees below zero...
And my mama cried And my mama cried Nanook, a-no-no Nanook, a-no-no Don't be a naughty eskimo Save your money, don't go to the show
Well I turned around and I said oh, oh oh Well I turned around and I said oh, oh oh Well I turned around and I said ho, ho And the northern lights commenced to glow And she said, with a tear in her eye Watch out where the huskies go, and don't you eat that yellow snow Watch out where the huskies go, and don't you eat that yellow snow
...Creativity has nothing to do with it. Neither does jazz improvisation, which is not creative but the result of grueling hours of muscle memory and transposing keys and rhythms of the basic melody...
...Creativity is the spark, the idea of something, mixed with grueling hours of revisions, refinements, editing, and so on. It is mostly hard, laborious work.
First you say something is not creative, but the result of "grueling hours". Then you go on to say that once you take a "spark" and mix it with "grueling hours", now you got creativity. Somehow you don't believe that creative musicians have any sparks?
Excellent comment, thanks. I too have wondered about the conventional wisdom today of FPTP voting. And my thoughts were along the lines that you have detailed. I haven't come to any conclusions.
One thing I've noticed: People like races. They'll race anything and anybody. Even watching cars or critters go around in a circle can be exciting, and vast fortunes attend to these events. All to see who's going to win.
So perhaps FPTP voting, winner takes all, applies to some human or cultural characteristic.
I expect that at some point we might learn that the government distortions of markets is not something to be done so willy-nilly, regardless of the 'good intentions' its sold to us with.
Yep, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
On the other hand, sulphur emissions and acid rain is not so much of a problem today, due to cap n trade. Apparently that kind of thing works sometimes.
Yeah, I went through Houston in '75, and I stopped by the JSC museum. The museum was ok, some cool capsules, etc. I don't remember it too much, but I still remember the big Saturn V laying there, rusting. What should have been a centerpiece of the museum was more like a jalopy on blocks.
Well, as big projects tend, things are a bit behind schedule. Supposed to be done by 2030PDT, it's 0200 now and they're just getting around to tacking up MLK blvd. I hadn't really planned to go watch, but, I'm up, it's Saturday night, and there's a full moon.
I believe watching them tack up the blvd to avoid cutting down the pines will be slick. I watched "The Rock" as it made its way a few blocks from where I live earlier this year. Incredible engineering and teamwork, but I've seen big stuff move along the blvd before, and I'm ready for something unique.
Huh. I'd have to disagree. For 190 billion USD, I bet we could have gotten a lot better extinction insurance than that.
Yeah, I see what you mean, but now we know. We didn't, before. And whatever we do in the future, we'll try to avoid those problems (as new ones are created).
I am impressed about the wide range of people that watched Endeavour and its carrier come in, and are watching the spacecraft move to the museum.
It was a beautiful sight as they swung around the downtown skyscrapers. The roar from pedestrians in the street reached me up the the 23rd floor, and I looked out and saw the majestic aircraft gleaming in the sun as they banked around us.
About half of us rushed to the windows and got out our cellphone cams. Yeah, we all knew we'd be getting shit video out of it, but it was more of a "You Are There" moment that was being captured.
Later that night my son had some twenty-something friends over, and we all spent some time telling our particular stories about how it was. We had something in common.
Today I was in the elevator & the monitor was showing the status of the spacecraft's progress. I rode it up & down a few times to catch the whole story. On my last ride down, a delivery guy got on and saw the video. He looked a little hassled, and said his company was on the route and it delayed him, so now he was humping to catch up. And then his face lit up and he said "but I did get to stand 20-30 feet away", and he proceeded to show me his pics.
I'll probably never see him again, but, for a moment, we had something in common.
Yeah, my folks forced me to take one class throughout 8-12, and that was typing. I bitched about it, but since they were pretty relaxed about what else I wanted to take, I went with it. Samo here, 1-10 m-f ratio, but it wasn't bad.
My folks got it right. I touch-type every day for work & pleasure. Even in the AF, where I was not in computers, I typed daily, and even learned to use a Cyrillic typewriter.
12th grade, 1973. WTF did I want to do w/ my life? I seemed to have a bent towards theoretical chemistry, but...
The last semester our school got a couple of computer courses. One was a fortran course and, of course, taught by the Math teacher. They supplied us w/ pre-punched 1000-card decks for us to construct our programs. Turn-around at the local City College w/ a Univac was about a day...not too bad. Still a big waste of time on aborts because of mis-shuffling the job card.
The Business courses had a computer class too. And, somehow, managed to get a mini-computer installed. A Burroughs, I think. Basic command interpreter on a teletypewriter. Heaven. To paper-tape, even.
I quit messing with the Fortran decks and started programming an artillery game using basic. What control! What fun! What a noodle load of spaghetti go-to's!
But I was hooked. The math teach had no idea what I was doing, I was way beyond what he had any idea of.
I walk in to the Fortran class on finals day to take my test (I had been keeping up with that stuff, too). He looks at me and says "get outta here".
So I got out of HS, joined the Air Force, aced all the computer tests, and was immediately trained to be a Russian translator. .
As for myself, I always figured it was likely a situation much like Iceland / Greenland. Give the more likable of the afterlives an ugly name, and most of the the assholes will do whatever they can to be sent to that other place. So, um...yeah, see ya in hell! *Wink wink.*
Slashdot Mirror
What if we had a reuseable spacecraft with a large enough...snip...Wouldn't something like that be dead handy?
Assuming that this is a disguised lament over the retirement of the shuttles: With both a calculated and displayed failure rate of over 2%, I'd have to agree. Keeping a shuttle around for neato stuff like this would end up with some astrofolks being "handily dead".
Thanks, I was going to bring up that old episode, but then I thought "certainly someone else has...let's read a bit further", and here you are.
Magellan & co. went around the world in 1519. Around 60 years later, Drake made the 2nd trip.
Magellan did it to be "first" to find the western route to the Spice Islands (and profits). Drake did it more for nationalism (and profits).
Note that even though the first trip made enough money to pay for the project, there was still a 2-3 generation time lag before it was done again.
Similarities come to mind when considering that the US landed on the moon 60 years ago. We went to the moon to be "first", and for nationalism (and profits? not so much, directly).
It seems that if history is an example, the second set of folks to the moon will be because of nationalism (and profits), and it won't be the same folks who went the first time.
This can be looked at a couple of ways:
1) We're a dead, decaying society, spiraling to oblivion, and won't ever get anyone anywhere, anyhow, anyways.
2) Been there, done that. See you on Mars!
I'd like to see this work, but I think this has been tried before. Google something like "industrial revolution poorhouses debtor prisons".
Actually, some of these things were good ideas at the time to solve some of the same problems. Once institutionalized, though, you had all kinds of abuses from people, companies, and governments taking advantage of the situation.
Our current system of incarceration is our current attempt at a solution. Now it's being privatized. Now companies & communities depend on this for their livelihood.
History is re-entrant.
Whitey wrap from a Beowolf cluster of Zappas...
Dreamed I was an eskimo
Frozen wind began to blow
Under my boots and around my toes
The frost that bit the ground below
It was a hundred degrees below zero...
And my mama cried
And my mama cried
Nanook, a-no-no
Nanook, a-no-no
Don't be a naughty eskimo
Save your money, don't go to the show
Well I turned around and I said oh, oh oh
Well I turned around and I said oh, oh oh
Well I turned around and I said ho, ho
And the northern lights commenced to glow
And she said, with a tear in her eye
Watch out where the huskies go, and don't you eat that yellow snow
Watch out where the huskies go, and don't you eat that yellow snow
...Creativity has nothing to do with it. Neither does jazz improvisation, which is not creative but the result of grueling hours of muscle memory and transposing keys and rhythms of the basic melody...
...Creativity is the spark, the idea of something, mixed with grueling hours of revisions, refinements, editing, and so on. It is mostly hard, laborious work.
First you say something is not creative, but the result of "grueling hours". Then you go on to say that once you take a "spark" and mix it with "grueling hours", now you got creativity. Somehow you don't believe that creative musicians have any sparks?
Wow. Just wow. Very interesting. Thanks for posting this.
Excellent comment, thanks. I too have wondered about the conventional wisdom today of FPTP voting. And my thoughts were along the lines that you have detailed. I haven't come to any conclusions.
One thing I've noticed: People like races. They'll race anything and anybody. Even watching cars or critters go around in a circle can be exciting, and vast fortunes attend to these events. All to see who's going to win.
So perhaps FPTP voting, winner takes all, applies to some human or cultural characteristic.
Yeah, when I read through my old Heinlein, I get a chuckle nowadays. He tended to use gay fairly often...the old definition, of course.
I expect that at some point we might learn that the government distortions of markets is not something to be done so willy-nilly, regardless of the 'good intentions' its sold to us with.
Yep, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
On the other hand, sulphur emissions and acid rain is not so much of a problem today, due to cap n trade. Apparently that kind of thing works sometimes.
Yeah, I went through Houston in '75, and I stopped by the JSC museum. The museum was ok, some cool capsules, etc. I don't remember it too much, but I still remember the big Saturn V laying there, rusting. What should have been a centerpiece of the museum was more like a jalopy on blocks.
Yeah, I remember thinking something similar in the 90's when they retired the SR-71's. I used to watch them take off. Like an earthquake. Fun times.
Well, as big projects tend, things are a bit behind schedule. Supposed to be done by 2030PDT, it's 0200 now and they're just getting around to tacking up MLK blvd. I hadn't really planned to go watch, but, I'm up, it's Saturday night, and there's a full moon.
I believe watching them tack up the blvd to avoid cutting down the pines will be slick. I watched "The Rock" as it made its way a few blocks from where I live earlier this year. Incredible engineering and teamwork, but I've seen big stuff move along the blvd before, and I'm ready for something unique.
And in other news, Generalissimo Franco remains dead!
Yep. It's Re-Distribution.
Space Shuttle is taking to the streets of Los Angele
Good chance it will be stolen and later found on some side street on blocks with the wheels and the stereo missing.
...and tagged.
Huh. I'd have to disagree. For 190 billion USD, I bet we could have gotten a lot better extinction insurance than that.
Yeah, I see what you mean, but now we know. We didn't, before. And whatever we do in the future, we'll try to avoid those problems (as new ones are created).
I am impressed about the wide range of people that watched Endeavour and its carrier come in, and are watching the spacecraft move to the museum.
It was a beautiful sight as they swung around the downtown skyscrapers. The roar from pedestrians in the street reached me up the the 23rd floor, and I looked out and saw the majestic aircraft gleaming in the sun as they banked around us.
About half of us rushed to the windows and got out our cellphone cams. Yeah, we all knew we'd be getting shit video out of it, but it was more of a "You Are There" moment that was being captured.
Later that night my son had some twenty-something friends over, and we all spent some time telling our particular stories about how it was. We had something in common.
Today I was in the elevator & the monitor was showing the status of the spacecraft's progress. I rode it up & down a few times to catch the whole story. On my last ride down, a delivery guy got on and saw the video. He looked a little hassled, and said his company was on the route and it delayed him, so now he was humping to catch up. And then his face lit up and he said "but I did get to stand 20-30 feet away", and he proceeded to show me his pics.
I'll probably never see him again, but, for a moment, we had something in common.
Good post, mod parent up.
...bother some guys hanging around the computer center, get to be friends with the operator so he'll run your job sometime before next Tuesday.
Yeah, I remember those days. It wasn't until JC that I ever saw greenscreens, and I was immediately sold that a CRT was *the* way to talk to a comp.
I hung around long enough to get "time-in-grade" and eventually did all my coursework at the terminal.
Well, if this topic don't get all the low-digit neck-beards, I don't know what will.
Yeah, my folks forced me to take one class throughout 8-12, and that was typing. I bitched about it, but since they were pretty relaxed about what else I wanted to take, I went with it. Samo here, 1-10 m-f ratio, but it wasn't bad.
My folks got it right. I touch-type every day for work & pleasure. Even in the AF, where I was not in computers, I typed daily, and even learned to use a Cyrillic typewriter.
Sgt Stugatz
...We each got a few hundred blank cards each and used the points of our compasses to "write" our first programs (I did a Fibonacci sequencer)...
I'm impressed. Manually punched your own cards.
That's right up there with walked to school, uphill, both ways.
Hey '73, I got lucky.
12th grade, 1973. WTF did I want to do w/ my life? I seemed to have a bent towards theoretical chemistry, but...
The last semester our school got a couple of computer courses. One was a fortran course and, of course, taught by the Math teacher. They supplied us w/ pre-punched 1000-card decks for us to construct our programs. Turn-around at the local City College w/ a Univac was about a day...not too bad. Still a big waste of time on aborts because of mis-shuffling the job card.
The Business courses had a computer class too. And, somehow, managed to get a mini-computer installed. A Burroughs, I think. Basic command interpreter on a teletypewriter. Heaven. To paper-tape, even.
I quit messing with the Fortran decks and started programming an artillery game using basic. What control! What fun! What a noodle load of spaghetti go-to's!
But I was hooked. The math teach had no idea what I was doing, I was way beyond what he had any idea of.
I walk in to the Fortran class on finals day to take my test (I had been keeping up with that stuff, too). He looks at me and says "get outta here".
So I got out of HS, joined the Air Force, aced all the computer tests, and was immediately trained to be a Russian translator.
.
As for myself, I always figured it was likely a situation much like Iceland / Greenland. Give the more likable of the afterlives an ugly name, and most of the the assholes will do whatever they can to be sent to that other place. So, um...yeah, see ya in hell! *Wink wink.*
I like this theory.