Here I was thinking how much fun it was wading through diffs to try to find the subtile bug I introduced last night by coding 15 minutes past the take-your-hands-away-from-the-keyboard-and-no-one- gets-hurt point, and thinking to my self "this code may be brilliant but I won't know for sure until I remember (and document) why I wrote it this way".
And all this time I could have been comparing licences! Doh!
fish shouldn't be patentable, but a fish casserole should
Well, you're out of luck then, since (at least so far) neither or them are patentable. And I (and the rest of societhy) are in luck, since we can enjoy either without having to ask permission from people like you who think they ought to be able to patent them.
Ok. I'm an idiot and you're a troll. I'm willing to consider those points settled if you are.
Of the other points you responded to, the first two have become off topic digressions and the second two are very close to following.
The existence or non-existence of people calling themselves expermental mathematicians has no bearing on the difference between math and physics, which itself has no bearing on the topic at hand apart from your attempt to bait me into arguing against all patents. Since you yourself admited that the premise on which you were doing so was couterfactual, we can drop the point.
The topic under discussion is software patents, not the need for copyrights to enable free software, which I do not stipulate but see no point in arguing here.
The facts that algorithms are studied by people with little formal math background and that most mathematicians do not study algorithms are not relevant.
Most triangle are drawn by people with little formal mathematics training and not many mathematicians concern themselves with triangles.
This does not somehow mean that geometry is no longer a branch of mathematics.
If you restrict the scope of the discussion to the sort of software patents BP rails against, your concern over industrial espionage evaporates. Why would anyone go to the trouble of spying on competitors to learn the secret of one-click purchasing? Or the arcane art of assigning an e-mail address to someone by using their name, and at-sign, and a domain name? Or using XML to store a document with markup?
I've already admitted to being an idiot, but I could come up with that sort of "inventions" even on a bad day.
You are obviously not a programmer. Software is built on math, but it is not math itself.
Actually, I am a programmer; I'm just not a newly minted one. When I started programing computer science was (correctly, as I still maintain) part of the math department at any university that taught it. This was roughly the same era that folks like RMS developed their sensibilities (which I tend to share).
As for your second point, software isn't "built on" math any more than numbers or geometric forms are. But it shares the property of yielding to the same form of analysis as any other mathematical entity and thus is as reasonably considered a part of matematics.
To put a finer point on it:
It is possible to draw a triangle without knowing any matematics, or at least without realizing that you are using mathematics.
It is possible to write a computer program without knowing any matematics, or at least without realizing that you are using mathematics.
In neither case would it be to society's benefit to let the practitioner's ignorace decide the issue. You should not be able to patent software for exactly the same reason you should not be able to patent a triangle.
What do you expect me to say to that? "Is so, is so!"?
Nor is CS entirely limited to algorithms,
No one said it was.
nor are algorithms a strict subset of mathematics.
Yes, they are, or at least the study of them is, in the same way that numbers, groups, platonic solids, etc. are all part of mathematics.
(Mathematicians (i.e. people with PhD's in math) are notoriously bad at writing efficient software algorithms).
So what?
In any case as someone else replying to this comment points out are in fact not patentable.
What? That "sentence" makes no sense.
If all technology could be reduced to physics (which it can't), and by extention to maths then by your logic everything is math / not patentable.
Assuming (incorrectly) that physics was reducable to math, sure. But it isn't. That's why we have expermental physicists, but no expermental mathematicians.
So if two things that fundementally aren't true somehow became true I'd have to rethink some of my oppinions.
I can live with that.
Furthermore, "IP" generally includes the very foundation that happens to make 'free' software possible in the current context.
Imagine that. Something that is part of the current context makes something else that is part of the current context possible in the current context?
If there were no patents at all, 'free' software (as you call it) would be just as possible.
So what preceeded this context? Trade Secret, which in some instances is still the better strategy and is favored by some organizations. If it weren't for the patent system then most inventions would be instead held as trade secrets, which according to the 'mantra' of free/oss would be worse still.
Why so? I've never heard any 'mantra' that claimed that people should be required to publish trade secrets, or any other type of secret for that matter. The objection is only to people who try to force other to eat something but won't tell them what's in it.
Personally I prefer the exchange of requiring disclosure in exchange for a limited time monopoly is a better system than one which would strongly incentivize industrial espionage.
Because, like, there's no incentive to industrial espionage now, right?
Perens seems to be a perennial supplier of ill informed *opinion* (as opposed to knowlege) on patents.
That's called an "Ad hominim attack." Try to avoid it.
Slashdot is, of course on average even less well informed about the mechanism and rules of the patent systems.
I'm glad to see you doing your part to bring up the average--unless maybe *gasp*--
You're a troll, aren't you?
I feel so used.
But then "it's only/.".
That's not a very good excuse. You could at least try to argue coherently.
One? (provide me a link)
Sure. Without even leaving
Slashdot
Let's see what that gets us. Hmm. Microsoft patenting XML for storing text, sombody sueing the DNS registrars for their (patented) use of URLs, Eolas sueing MS for using pluggins (which they claim to have patented), Intertrusts DRM patents,...gosh I'm sorry, I forgot. You only asked for one. I won't bother citing the rest of the page.
The idea of a patent is to benefit those that invent things, on the notion that inventing things in general is a good idea.
Wrong. The idea of a patent is to reward people who do something novel for telling the rest of us how they did it. That is why you are (or at least should be) required to provide a working model and detailed explanation of the invention you want to patent.
But under what circumstances should we the people agree to pay such a reward? Obviously, it is only in the public interest to give a patent when the likelyhood of us independently figuring out how to do the trick in question is low compared to the cost of granting the patent. Thus the requirement that the invention be "non-obvious."
You can't patent an algorithm, unless that algorithm is part of a demonstrable machine that produces an identifiable result.
But that isn't what is happening. Patents are being issued on algorithms without tying them to a paticular piece of hardware. People aren't getting patents on programs they are being granted patents on algorithms and formats and other abstract ideas that are clearly and explicitly excluded from the Patent Act.
We don't need to go all the way to phylosophy. The Patent Act (which (IIRC) provides the basis for all patents in the US) says, for example "excluded from such patent protection are laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas." This does not depend on the dichotomy between invention and discovery. Up until the mid-1970s by the CCPA (Court of Customs & Patent Appeals) no one thought you could or should be able to patent mathematics.
It isn't a matter of discovery vs. invention; it's the fact that patents are a restriction on the freedom of the people given in exchange for certain disclosure. The exchange is offered by the people when it is to their advantage to do so, or at least that is the constitutional intent. The present system has been usrped by the patentors and is being run to their advantage, contrary to the public good and unsuported by the legal basis on which it stands.
Patents were never intended to cover mathematics, be it discovered, invented, e-mailed by the gods or handed down by little green men on 3x5 cards. Math is not patentable.
I think the biggest problem with some of the patents we're seeing these days is that the issue of prior art isn't being taken into account.
No, the biggest problem is that software (or any mathematics for that matter) should not be patentable. Society's first big loss was when the fast talking SOBs slipped the false notion that if you could describe a mathematical algorithm in words that made it sound like an invention then it magically was an invention into the cultural norms and started patenting software in the first place.
(Our second big loss has been the "IP" fudge, which is blurring the distinctions between patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, competative advantages, wishful thinking, bullshit, and marketing babble into one vague pile of lawyer poo).
Affording patent protection to discoveries in mathematics, biology, etc. or copyright protection to numbers, animals, etc. is against the interest of a free society as surely as allowing thought control, albeit the death of freedom comes somewhat more slowly.
People who say they "don't dream" are really just dreaming in deep sleeps and not waking up throughout the night.
I once worked with a very scary woman. Her scaryness wasn't obvious at first. What I learned/noticed, in the order I noticed it:
She was always a little out-of-step with the rest of the office.
She claimed to never have had a dream.
She claimed to have much better memory than anyone she had ever met.
She recalled lots of things in great detail that no one else in the office recalled at all.
She would act on these memories, and discount anyone who argued against her.
The things she remembered were...odd.
Very odd.
Very, very, very odd. Involving things like rituals with rubber masks, co-workers dieing and being brought back to life, clients coming to the office on horse back, and people really being strange creatures "wearing" human bodies as costumes.
She "remembered" things about me that, while flattering in an odd sort of way, were not, shall we say, plausible.
At that point a little voice in my head started saying "Danger Will Robbinson!" and I listened to it. When in Rome and all that...
You are either the most dead-pan straight man or the most humour impared individual I have encountered in a long time.
Either way, I will play along.
I was joking.
See, He is a noble gas, so a "molecule" of He is only one atom. That makes it about 10% the density of air (3/30, with liberal rounding and assuming He, N2 & O2 all act roughly like ideal gases).
That means that a given volume helium gas will be quite a bit lighter than an equal volume of air. If you put some in a balloon it would rise up because it weighs less than the air it displaces.
Note that I said "weighs less," not "masses less". This is a key part of the joke. See, mass is a nice clean concept, because if you ignore relativistic effects it doesn't depend on the circumstances under which it is measured. Weight, on the other hand, isn't an intrinsic property of matter, but rather a measure of the force pulling the object towards the surface of (generally) the earth. All sorts of things can confound a measurement of "weight". But the article specifically used a measure of weight (pounds) instead of mass (newtons, grams, whatever).
See where this is going?
If you were to try to measure the weight of some helium using the normal put-it-on-a-scale technique, you would have to add weight to get to zero. So, the weight would apear to be negative if you discounted the boyancy from the displaced air. But (here comes the punch line)...
Bullshit. If that's really the case, then come up with a version of Napster that is *only* used for unsigned artists and *then* see how much they try to sue you.
No need. Just look at the actions they take against the unsigned artists themselves, including trying to shut down (with DMCA letters to the ISP, and other stormtrooper tactics) the fan web sites and the unsigned artists's own web sites "to protect them." The artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince had a big rant about this a while back, and there have been news stories (NPR) about it as well.
The RIAA has a decent point... their product IS being illegally bootlegged. No matter how "illegal" you feel this action is, you cannot deny that it is.
You've missed the whole point of the RIAA's panic. They have no objection to people hearing music from bands they control for free--heck, they even pay to get them played on radio stations, in movies, etc. That whole line is sham/FUD--even they know that file sharing actually promotes CD sales.
The reason file sharing scares them so is that it lets people hear music from bands that they don't control. It's exactly the same problem MS/SCO has: their market share is being threatened by outsiders who can survive on much less than they can (see "The Innovator's Dilema" for a detailed explanation of the problem) by cutting them out of the equation.
And they have hit upon the same solution: Take advantage of the market's ignorance to claim that they are only trying to protect "their" property when in fact they are trying to destroy someone else's.
-- MarkusQ
P.S. I have a toddler and it is amazing how much the corporate world's view of "Market Rights" resembles a toddler's view of "Toy Rights"--e.g., I want it, I was playting with it, it's mine, and I will hurt anyone who tries to say otherwise.
Here at work, once you get exposed to open source code, you can never go back to dealing with internal code merely due to the risks that algorithms you develop internally may accidentally be recreated in open source work.
Sorry, that just seems basakwards. There is no problem with "recreating algorithms" from open source software, since it is protected by copyrights, not by patents. Some licences (e.g. BSD) will even let you copy source code as long as you give credit where credit is due.
I'd say you or your company have either fallen for FUD or are trying to spread some.
Slashdot Mirror
I stand corrected. I fear I've gotten so cynical (realistic?) that I missed what should have been an obvious point.
Thanks.
-- MarkusQ
Here I was thinking how much fun it was wading through diffs to try to find the subtile bug I introduced last night by coding 15 minutes past the take-your-hands-away-from-the-keyboard-and-no-one
And all this time I could have been comparing licences! Doh!
-- MarkusQ
fish shouldn't be patentable, but a fish casserole should
Well, you're out of luck then, since (at least so far) neither or them are patentable. And I (and the rest of societhy) are in luck, since we can enjoy either without having to ask permission from people like you who think they ought to be able to patent them.
-- MarkusQ
Ok. I'm an idiot and you're a troll. I'm willing to consider those points settled if you are.
Of the other points you responded to, the first two have become off topic digressions and the second two are very close to following.
-
The existence or non-existence of people calling themselves expermental mathematicians has no bearing on the difference between math and physics, which itself has no bearing on the topic at hand apart from your attempt to bait me into arguing against all patents. Since you yourself admited that the premise on which you were doing so was couterfactual, we can drop the point.
- The topic under discussion is software patents, not the need for copyrights to enable free software, which I do not stipulate but see no point in arguing here.
- The facts that algorithms are studied by people with little formal math background and that most mathematicians do not study algorithms are not relevant.
- If you restrict the scope of the discussion to the sort of software patents BP rails against, your concern over industrial espionage evaporates. Why would anyone go to the trouble of spying on competitors to learn the secret of one-click purchasing? Or the arcane art of assigning an e-mail address to someone by using their name, and at-sign, and a domain name? Or using XML to store a document with markup?
-- MarkusQMost triangle are drawn by people with little formal mathematics training and not many mathematicians concern themselves with triangles.
This does not somehow mean that geometry is no longer a branch of mathematics.
I've already admitted to being an idiot, but I could come up with that sort of "inventions" even on a bad day.
You are obviously not a programmer. Software is built on math, but it is not math itself.
Actually, I am a programmer; I'm just not a newly minted one. When I started programing computer science was (correctly, as I still maintain) part of the math department at any university that taught it. This was roughly the same era that folks like RMS developed their sensibilities (which I tend to share).
As for your second point, software isn't "built on" math any more than numbers or geometric forms are. But it shares the property of yielding to the same form of analysis as any other mathematical entity and thus is as reasonably considered a part of matematics.
To put a finer point on it:
- It is possible to draw a triangle without knowing any matematics, or at least without realizing that you are using mathematics.
- It is possible to write a computer program without knowing any matematics, or at least without realizing that you are using mathematics.
- In neither case would it be to society's benefit to let the practitioner's ignorace decide the issue. You should not be able to patent software for exactly the same reason you should not be able to patent a triangle.
-- MarkusQWhat do Slashdot readers use to keep their cable clean and their wives happy?
First off, I avoid straight lines like that at all costs.
-- MaruksQ
We've come a long way from Jonas Salk, and frankly, we need to go back.
I wholeheartedly agree.
-- MarkusQ
Point by point:
- CS is *not* math.
- Nor is CS entirely limited to algorithms,
- nor are algorithms a strict subset of mathematics.
- (Mathematicians (i.e. people with PhD's in math) are notoriously bad at writing efficient software algorithms).
- In any case as someone else replying to this comment points out are in fact not patentable.
-
If all technology could be reduced to physics (which it can't), and by extention to maths then by your logic everything is math / not patentable.
-
Furthermore, "IP" generally includes the very foundation that happens to make 'free' software possible in the current context.
-
So what preceeded this context? Trade Secret, which in some instances is still the better strategy and is favored by some organizations. If it weren't for the patent system then most inventions would be instead held as trade secrets, which according to the 'mantra' of free/oss would be worse still.
-
Personally I prefer the exchange of requiring disclosure in exchange for a limited time monopoly is a better system than one which would strongly incentivize industrial espionage.
-
Perens seems to be a perennial supplier of ill informed *opinion* (as opposed to knowlege) on patents.
- Slashdot is, of course on average even less well informed about the mechanism and rules of the patent systems.
-
But then "it's only
/.".
-- MarkusQWhat do you expect me to say to that? "Is so, is so!"?
No one said it was.
Yes, they are, or at least the study of them is, in the same way that numbers, groups, platonic solids, etc. are all part of mathematics.
So what?
What? That "sentence" makes no sense.
Assuming (incorrectly) that physics was reducable to math, sure. But it isn't. That's why we have expermental physicists, but no expermental mathematicians.
So if two things that fundementally aren't true somehow became true I'd have to rethink some of my oppinions.
I can live with that.
Imagine that. Something that is part of the current context makes something else that is part of the current context possible in the current context?
If there were no patents at all, 'free' software (as you call it) would be just as possible.
Why so? I've never heard any 'mantra' that claimed that people should be required to publish trade secrets, or any other type of secret for that matter. The objection is only to people who try to force other to eat something but won't tell them what's in it.
Because, like, there's no incentive to industrial espionage now, right?
That's called an "Ad hominim attack." Try to avoid it.
I'm glad to see you doing your part to bring up the average--unless maybe *gasp*--
You're a troll, aren't you?
I feel so used.
That's not a very good excuse. You could at least try to argue coherently.
Can you give a single example?
One? (provide me a link) Sure. Without even leaving Slashdot
Let's see what that gets us. Hmm. Microsoft patenting XML for storing text, sombody sueing the DNS registrars for their (patented) use of URLs, Eolas sueing MS for using pluggins (which they claim to have patented), Intertrusts DRM patents, ...gosh I'm sorry, I forgot. You only asked for one. I won't bother citing the rest of the page.
-- MarkusQ
The idea of a patent is to benefit those that invent things, on the notion that inventing things in general is a good idea.
Wrong. The idea of a patent is to reward people who do something novel for telling the rest of us how they did it. That is why you are (or at least should be) required to provide a working model and detailed explanation of the invention you want to patent.
But under what circumstances should we the people agree to pay such a reward? Obviously, it is only in the public interest to give a patent when the likelyhood of us independently figuring out how to do the trick in question is low compared to the cost of granting the patent. Thus the requirement that the invention be "non-obvious."
You can't patent an algorithm, unless that algorithm is part of a demonstrable machine that produces an identifiable result.
But that isn't what is happening. Patents are being issued on algorithms without tying them to a paticular piece of hardware. People aren't getting patents on programs they are being granted patents on algorithms and formats and other abstract ideas that are clearly and explicitly excluded from the Patent Act.
This is not in the public interest.
-- MarkusQ
It isn't a matter of discovery vs. invention; it's the fact that patents are a restriction on the freedom of the people given in exchange for certain disclosure. The exchange is offered by the people when it is to their advantage to do so, or at least that is the constitutional intent. The present system has been usrped by the patentors and is being run to their advantage, contrary to the public good and unsuported by the legal basis on which it stands.
Patents were never intended to cover mathematics, be it discovered, invented, e-mailed by the gods or handed down by little green men on 3x5 cards. Math is not patentable.
-- MarkusQ
Excellent. I think I need to come up with a shorter version of that to turn into my new sig!
*smile* Fine, so long as you realize that it's my intellectual property.
-- MarkusQ
P.S. For a while (1999?) my sig was "Intellectual Property is neither."
I think the biggest problem with some of the patents we're seeing these days is that the issue of prior art isn't being taken into account.
No, the biggest problem is that software (or any mathematics for that matter) should not be patentable. Society's first big loss was when the fast talking SOBs slipped the false notion that if you could describe a mathematical algorithm in words that made it sound like an invention then it magically was an invention into the cultural norms and started patenting software in the first place.
(Our second big loss has been the "IP" fudge, which is blurring the distinctions between patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, competative advantages, wishful thinking, bullshit, and marketing babble into one vague pile of lawyer poo).
Affording patent protection to discoveries in mathematics, biology, etc. or copyright protection to numbers, animals, etc. is against the interest of a free society as surely as allowing thought control, albeit the death of freedom comes somewhat more slowly.
-- MarkusQ
My question: -- MarkusQ
sounds like someone didn't live up to someone else's expectations and wishes to retaliate.
??? That sounds just like the sort of thing she used to say. With a raised eyebrow and/or wink.
-- MarkusQ
P.S. Thinking back on it, it's rather suprising she didn't end with a hissed "my preciousss"
People who say they "don't dream" are really just dreaming in deep sleeps and not waking up throughout the night.
I once worked with a very scary woman. Her scaryness wasn't obvious at first. What I learned/noticed, in the order I noticed it:
- She was always a little out-of-step with the rest of the office.
- She claimed to never have had a dream.
- She claimed to have much better memory than anyone she had ever met.
- She recalled lots of things in great detail that no one else in the office recalled at all.
- She would act on these memories, and discount anyone who argued against her.
- The things she remembered were...odd.
- Very odd.
- Very, very, very odd. Involving things like rituals with rubber masks, co-workers dieing and being brought back to life, clients coming to the office on horse back, and people really being strange creatures "wearing" human bodies as costumes.
- She "remembered" things about me that, while flattering in an odd sort of way, were not, shall we say, plausible.
At that point a little voice in my head started saying "Danger Will Robbinson!" and I listened to it. When in Rome and all that...-- MarkusQ
Congradulations.
You are either the most dead-pan straight man or the most humour impared individual I have encountered in a long time.
Either way, I will play along.
I was joking.
See, He is a noble gas, so a "molecule" of He is only one atom. That makes it about 10% the density of air (3/30, with liberal rounding and assuming He, N2 & O2 all act roughly like ideal gases).
That means that a given volume helium gas will be quite a bit lighter than an equal volume of air. If you put some in a balloon it would rise up because it weighs less than the air it displaces.
Note that I said "weighs less," not "masses less". This is a key part of the joke. See, mass is a nice clean concept, because if you ignore relativistic effects it doesn't depend on the circumstances under which it is measured. Weight, on the other hand, isn't an intrinsic property of matter, but rather a measure of the force pulling the object towards the surface of (generally) the earth. All sorts of things can confound a measurement of "weight". But the article specifically used a measure of weight (pounds) instead of mass (newtons, grams, whatever).
See where this is going?
If you were to try to measure the weight of some helium using the normal put-it-on-a-scale technique, you would have to add weight to get to zero. So, the weight would apear to be negative if you discounted the boyancy from the displaced air. But (here comes the punch line)...
There's no air on the moon.
-- MarkusQ
P.S. If you still don't get it, don't ever look at the proof that girls are evil/
Bullshit. If that's really the case, then come up with a version of Napster that is *only* used for unsigned artists and *then* see how much they try to sue you.
No need. Just look at the actions they take against the unsigned artists themselves, including trying to shut down (with DMCA letters to the ISP, and other stormtrooper tactics) the fan web sites and the unsigned artists's own web sites "to protect them." The artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince had a big rant about this a while back, and there have been news stories (NPR) about it as well.
-- MarkusQ
You have to look at both sides of the equation:
- "The researchers still are working on building a helium-3 reactor that would produce more energy than it takes in."
- "helium-3...would yield about 1000 times more energy per pound than coal"
We can also assume that the weight of some quantity of coal (in pounds) and the energy it yields are both positive.In other words, the net energy yield (call it E(He3)) is negative.
So E(He3)/W(He3) = 1000*E(C)/W(C)
And thus E(He3)*W(C) = 1000*E(C)*W(He3)
From this we can conclude (since have that
by simple division) that the weight of a coresponding quantity of helium3 would be negative.I just hope their math holds on the moon, where there's no air to displace!
-- MarkusQ
The RIAA has a decent point... their product IS being illegally bootlegged. No matter how "illegal" you feel this action is, you cannot deny that it is.
You've missed the whole point of the RIAA's panic. They have no objection to people hearing music from bands they control for free--heck, they even pay to get them played on radio stations, in movies, etc. That whole line is sham/FUD--even they know that file sharing actually promotes CD sales.
The reason file sharing scares them so is that it lets people hear music from bands that they don't control. It's exactly the same problem MS/SCO has: their market share is being threatened by outsiders who can survive on much less than they can (see "The Innovator's Dilema" for a detailed explanation of the problem) by cutting them out of the equation.
And they have hit upon the same solution: Take advantage of the market's ignorance to claim that they are only trying to protect "their" property when in fact they are trying to destroy someone else's.
-- MarkusQ
P.S. I have a toddler and it is amazing how much the corporate world's view of "Market Rights" resembles a toddler's view of "Toy Rights"--e.g., I want it, I was playting with it, it's mine, and I will hurt anyone who tries to say otherwise.
You need to either remove the parenthetical there or qualify it. The BSD license has not had such a restriction for years now.
My bad. How about "(e.g., BSD from my fuzzy recollection of what it said the last time I actually read it)"?
-- MarkusQ
Here at work, once you get exposed to open source code, you can never go back to dealing with internal code merely due to the risks that algorithms you develop internally may accidentally be recreated in open source work.
Sorry, that just seems basakwards. There is no problem with "recreating algorithms" from open source software, since it is protected by copyrights, not by patents. Some licences (e.g. BSD) will even let you copy source code as long as you give credit where credit is due.
I'd say you or your company have either fallen for FUD or are trying to spread some.
-- MarkusQ
One of big advantages of the new space telescope is that it will orbit much further from the earth, and so the earth will rarely block it's view.
The proposal on the table is to boost Hubble to a higher orbit.
-- MarkusQ
The correct answer is:
Spend that money on ground based observatories with advanced systems that allow better than hubble imaging from earth.
Why is that the "correct" answer? It's a crime to deorbit large objects when they are potentially so much more valuable where they are.
Just off the top of my head:
- It could potentially be used for 24/7 monitoring of targets (which you can't do from earth)
- We could use it to watch for dinosaur killers
- Automate it for long term survey duty (Oort cloud, etc.)
- Even if the Hubble is never used as an observatory again, it does consist of a lot of parts / raw materials that could someday prove useful.
- It may be a future tourist attraction
If somebody actually spent some time on it, I'll bet they could come up with a dozen more good uses.Further, having a proven tug capability (tested in a situation that wasn't life threatening) would be very valuable in and of itself.
To me, this looks like the right answer.
-- MarkusQ
I for one will not be looking it up unless I really need to email you.
But...that's exactly the point, isn't it?
-- MarkusQ