B-17 then. Personally, I'll take a B-52 over 10 of the Billion $ Stealth Bombers any day. But it isn't the plane we are really discussing, it's about bombs and targets. We could drop a GPS bomb from a blimp and it would have the same accuracy as from a bomber.
So accurate compared to what? Even in Gulf War I we dropped a lot of ordinance. We spent Millions of $ to destroy one $100k SCUD. Any one strike can decimate a target -- but don't tell me we always know the target. If we always hit the target, and always have the right target, it would only take 10 sorties of the B52 to finish a war.
In Gulf War I we saw a lot of video from missile cameras of perfect hits. Wow. But how many mega tons of weapons did we drop. Simple math tells us that we bomb a lot more than there could possibly be targets of opportunity in all of Iraq.
The only point I'm making is that as we make our weapons smaller and more accurate, we are going to just hit MORE TARGETS. It will still be plane load after plane load pounding the "enemy" with as much as we can. I've heard rumors of a lot of new mass graves in Iraq, that more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died, but the lady who was supposed to report these statistics was "accidentally" killed by friendly fire as she was leaving Iraq. All we are accomplishing is more convenient death and destruction. In the end, is anyone better for these advances? Are we safer?
I'm just fed up with "better weapons" and "cleaner wars" right now. I want better leaders and fewer wars. There is no sacrifice and no "pain" that I feel sitting here all safe and sound in the USA. I don't really know what is being done "for" me. I think all we've accomplished is making warfare "easier" and more palatable. In Iraq, I don't think there has been a net benefit to civilians. Not bombing water supplies and electrical plants would have done a hell of a lot more than a precision bomb to ease some pain.
Reality Master 101. What happens when less oil comes out of the ground than the year before? It gets more expensive. Once the price gets higher than something else, then we use the something else, which brings down the price of that thing. No, we invade Venezuela. Next question.
The economy adjusts based on supply and demand. "Supply and Demand" -- what a microeconomic 101 clueless statement. Someone comes out of college and chirps "Supply and Demand" and they are a smug economic conservative forever. There is a desperate need for people to re-examine that "Fact"... 1/3 or our economy is service based. Only 20% is manufacturing. Intellectual Property is going to be the number one source of revenue in this country in the coming decade. Where is the supply limit on that? To most economists, there isn't a difference to a country making a potato chip factory to one building airplanes. I'm talking about resource wars and you talk about an equilibrium curve. That baby shit you learned in college is stone age platitudes. Some things like diamonds have an artificially created supply shortage and the demand is created with marketing. How much of the money you spend is on stuff you need? You don't NEED Microsoft Office until everyone else has Microsoft Office. That's a Network Effect. The utility is based upon the ubiquity... totally turning the traditional idea of demand on its head. Also, there is no supply curve with software... again, where is supply and demand? If you didn't here that you needed to know this program, you would never have bought it. It is a need based on information... so demand curves are created with information. Other than the roof over your head, central air, and food in your tummy, there is no supply and demand without media.
Most of the money made in America is based on no Product at all. I work for a Financial Services company. I know that most of the "money" made in America is on a Financial Service. Insurance, Credit Cards, Banking, Mortgages... the list goes on. You spend more to invest and service debt (whether embedded in the product you buy or not) than you do to eat or stay in a home. The financial cost of the home is 5 to 10 times the value of the home. A $100k home will cost you $600k before you "own" it. Did you pay cash on your car?
When you go to a school or hospital, you are using a service. This gets tricky with the old "supply and demand" curve. This and roads and prisons has just represented most of the rest of your economy.
So you are left with about 20% (totally rough estimate) of anything that is actually dependent on "Ye Olde Supply Curve". Has it escaped you that Reagan's and Bush II's use of Supply-side economics have been totally failures and achieved all success based on piling up huge debts? If I use my credit card with abandon, I can be rich for a little while too. The problem is, that wealth does not stay inside any borders. Did you know that most of our trade deficit is paid by anonymous "offshore accounts" now? Who exactly owns this country?
Resource wars are for influence, power and things you need. I don't want to wait for smug snots coming out of Business school to get a clue. Ever since the gas company was privatized, the price has quadrupled. I'm waiting for water to get privatized... in fact, I think water will get privatized everywhere and there will be severe restrictions on drilling your own water well.
What happens when the gulf stream shuts down and Europe has to find new crop land or warmer/wetter weather? We do what our ancestors did when the environment changes: adapt. Move our farmland, or irrigate. Yes we adapt. But at what rate? What happens if the Gulf Stream shuts down in One Year. Click... it's off. What does Europe do when all their farming stops and they must suddenly import a lot of oil to heat homes? I think that is going to destabilize things a bit.
You mean those exploited people who are desperately happy to have any sort of job? I don't have time
My previous comment was assigned a -1; Troll. Trolling is an attempt to make a device comment to get people angry. My intent was to point out that putting anything of military value in space creates an issue for any other country wanting to defend against it or achieve the same capability. I think that is a valid argument... so I'll just re-post my comment.
If we put up a device in space that has the sole purpose of being used to disrupt communications, then we open the door for space warfare. Why? Because how is an enemy going to defeat the jamming? Launch a missile into space to take out a satellite or aim a laser at it -- that's how.
But our GPS guided bombs are a bit of the same thing... however, local GPS jamming is an alternative. If we did go to war with a more advanced country... taking out GPS satellites might be considered.
I have a feeling that this system will be used on a US broadcast before it will be used on an "enemy".
For the price of one of his "toys" the people in New Orleans may very well have been made safe--if that was the desire of this government.
For $100 Million, you could send a 1,000 kids through college.
We have money to smash things up, but not to fix anything. This country is on the brink of economic collapse and these morons are trying to win the Buck Rogers war. Absolute children.
Information spying is useful on the business infrastructure of governments and of large operations. But there are limits. I could embed any information inside an image, for instance, and nothing known could figure out my message. If I give you the original image without the message, you can remove the image data and obtain the message.
Movie theaters will be using this "low tech" technique to figure out which movie theater a film was pirated from (they'll embed hidden identifiers for each screen with the time and date in every theater in the country).
There are a lot of "low tech" skills that would allow terrorists to communicate in plain site. The best anti-terrorism entails infiltration or "turning" an enemy agent. That will probably always be the best technique. Hi-tech spying is just a good addition but not anything I would rely on. And even if we get the best information in the world, you still have to contend with the political agenda and intelligence of your leaders.
So I suggest, we quit on all the cloak-and-dagger stuff that has achieved nothing, and just start being a better country. Who's with me?
OK, I had another thought. This is very "tin foil hat" conspiracy theory. Some have talked about SCALAR weapons, and then there is the conspiracy theory of simulating the "rapture". You know, a projection system to shoot a hologram into the sky, coupled with spraying the populace with hallucinogens. After that, you get your theocracy and quit worrying about what the people think. I know this is total crap to think about, but this government has been keeping America in the dark and acting in bad ways for a while. I don't trust it.
No matter what the BushBots may think about Liberals -- meaning, what they call anyone who doesn't drink their brand of Kool Aide -- you can't run a Democracy if a good percentage of the people have no faith in it... and I don't have a Liberal friend who has any faith in this government. This is not a situation I can remember hearing of in my parents time.
Good point. We don't know what this "device" actually is. It could be "GoldenEye".... basically, a focused EMP that can kill all electromagnetic equipment in an area. It could be used to destroy a banking system for an economic war.
Weapons systems need to be part of our Democracy... they are getting too powerful and subtle for us to trust to governments. We need to have a more transparent government again. I have no clue what they want to do and what they plan to do with this. Obviously, they disdain the opinion of the US citizen in all things... the media will give us our opinion.
Look, we will have fore warning on this... When all the super models start disappearing into the underground bunkers (reference to Dr. Strangelove)... then we start to worry.
I think the idea that we got more civilized has been ruined for me... Europe and America just moved the battle ground. The desperation and poverty in the third world is used to make us cheap tennis shoes. For now, we are all sipping tea and pleasantly competing on who owns more of the exploited.
What happens when less oil comes out of the ground than the year before? What happens when clean water gets more scarce? What happens when the gulf stream shuts down and Europe has to find new crop land or warmer/wetter weather?
Are we too civilized to have resource wars? How civilized were we to turn back food and water going to the victims of Katrina just last week in the US of A?
I have become much more cynical and worried about the future than ever. I have kids of my own now and I worry if they will be spared being drafted into a resource war. I'm sure they'll leave feeling like they are great heroes off to defeat some evil -- they will return with hollow looks in their eyes when they have killed too many of the hungry and desperate.
No, perhaps this is a "Bad News Weapon". It may be tough to stop a specific frequency... more to kill all radio in an area.
What if its purpose is to just "buy time"? Meaning, it could be used as a fail safe to stop bad news from getting out.
Heres a scenario: actual treason charges that could bring down the house of cards that is BushCo are brought forth. The satellite is fired and stops all broadcasts getting out of Washington. The private mercenaries are used as a Pretorian Guard to secure Fitzpatrick and any witnesses. After the "cleanup", a suitable explanation along with a defrosted "insta-terrorist" is put in place, and then the media can fill the airwaves with a "human tragedy" or terrorist act. Something that makes enough sense that half the country can argue with the other half... like we have been dealing with for 5 years now.
This satellite may be no big deal and actually help our country. Normally, I wouldn't worry about it. But I am so paranoid about these fascists in office I wouldn't trust them with a butter knife--much less our country.
If we think BushCo can lie us into a war that doesn't benefit US interests--or anybody but a bunch of crooks. If we think BushCo would steal an election. What don't you think BushCo would do?
Not enough? Ok if torture were somehow legalized. If people could be imprisoned without their will? Oh, those are bad guys...
The proposal was later dropped when the public got wind of it... but now it is back again (like the media consolidation bill). In fact, they pushed it through while people were drowning after Katrina. Our government, too busy to rescue citizens but not too busy to sneak in legislation. I've just heard the rumor but I can't find a link yet. I just hope that when we find a way to test roach killer on kids, it will be legal.
Precision munitions save money. You can get a bunker or a tank. The B52 dropping tons of bombs in WW II didn't hit a lot of targets. The selling point is lower collateral damage. Future warfare will entail enemies who don't wear uniforms and who you may never see until they attack.
The smaller, more effective bombs, means more targets per sortie -- which means more attacks. As soon as you make it identifying military targets a quick and accurate job-- the military targets will quit looking like military. They will look like school playgrounds and churches (I know we accused Iraq of as much -- though I'm not so sure about our accusations on anything anymore).
A huge problem is making the administration conducting the war value the lives of innocent people. Before the start of the "official" Iraq war, the US was bombing the hell out of that country to try and provoke Saddam. But the worst was our use of cluster bombs over neighborhoods during "shock and awe."
If we are the "good guys" in a war... we will probably be fighting "bad guys". Bad guys are people without ethics who endanger their own people to meet narrow political ends. So the bad guys will hide their military as civilian targets and we will end up precision bombing picnics. Perhaps we need a non-lethal bomb to incapacitate an area so that we can search it?
I am all for the precision weapons and I would like to believe that most of our soldiers are honorable and would risk their own lives to protect innocents... but I also see emotionally immature leaders who don't share any empathy with friend or foe. No matter how good our weapons become, we can't build ethics into them. But personally, I think until we can guarantee that we are an ethical country again, we as citizens need to be against ANY war. We don't spend a tenth of this money doing good.
If we put up a device in space that has the sole purpose of being used to disrupt communications, then we open the door for space warfare. Why? Because how is an enemy going to defeat the jamming? Launch a missile into space to take out a satellite or aim a laser at it -- that's how.
But our GPS guided bombs are a bit of the same thing... however, local GPS jamming is an alternative. If we did go to war with a more advanced country... taking out GPS satellites might be considered.
I have a feeling that this system will be used on a US broadcast before it will be used on an "enemy".
Not too familiar with the details but... (insert $.02); When I see art contests I get the same annoying feeling. You set up a contest and the reward is less than what it would cost you to hire someone to do the work. So they get free work here, and do a good job of searching for a worthy employee.
Your idea of the cutout makes sense. I'm just also adding that they'd have to pay 10 grand for a decent programmer with enough time to do this.
Space elevators as envisioned, are mostly cables that go from the earth, to an object orbiting earth to anchor them. The tensile strength required is enormous, and the design is "all or nothing". You have to get most of the object in space and lower it down. The cumulative weight would also be enormous.
What what about an elevator to an elevated launching platform? I've always thought that a heavy-lift blimp or plane could reduce much of the cost and size of engines. But if we had an eifel Tower structure that was perhaps 2 or 3 miles high, and the elevator lifted a space plane or rocket to be launched from that altitude... wouldn't we remove about 60% of the required lift energy? Perhaps we better engineering minds could calculate the cost/benefit ratio to achieve the optimal height.
What is the tallest, stable tower we could build? Assume just the weight of the lifting cable and a rocket (blastoff flame is directed at air and not the structure)? We can use mass damper technology to avoid acoustic and wind resonance that might tear down such a delicate and high tower. I would think 3 to 4 miles would be feasible. I just imagine that after the first mile or two, you get diminishing returns for how high the launch tower is. Saving 50% of the energy for launch would make a huge difference on the types of engines that could achieve orbit.
Yeah. That experiment only lasted for one model. Apple is really good at fabrication technology. They have a few patents of extensive research just to get paint to stick. Titanium does interrupt radio signals so they needed to have a wire (I think under the screen) that wasn't under titanium to get a signal through.
With Ti, you can get really strong and light. But I seemed to keep a bit more heat in than aluminum. The paint scratched easily, so you need to have anodized aluminum with the color infused in the metal. Anyway, it seemed to be a lot of trouble for little benefit.
I'm using PowerPoint from Office 2004. They now have alpha-channeled images on the Mac. Yeah! They have an eye-dropper to get colors. Yeah!
But the animation is organized into "dramatic, subtle, and really tacky" -- I have to figure out if "stretch" is subtle or not, and then find the right transition. Note they have new -- extra tacky transitions.
Other things have been re-arranged. I don't get the theory of usability Microsoft operates under. They have their own words to describe common Desktop Publishing terms and they use 12 icon button widgets where one pop-up panel would do (i.e., "Alignment"). Are they trying to sell more books or are they really trying to improve the app, or are they just looking "new" -- I really haven't been able to figure that out. Other than, it is hard for me to see anything but obvious improvements that should have been in this application for 10 years (eyedropper and alpha channel and soft shadows). The rest is a re-jumble of all the controls. The side panel organizes things better, but I'm always going down two levels where it used to be quicker.
In other office products, I've attempted to do advanced scripting to automate. Beyond simple "dog and pony" demonstrations, a lot of the advanced automation just plain breaks if you go much beyond the mail merge. I called Microsoft about some memory leaks (this was on Windows to create a complex Help document) in 1997 and at that time they told me there wasn't much interest in fixing them. Features over performance.
For 90% of what people do, the alternatives are catching up. Microsoft needs to spend some money on usability and real performance of features that they have already -- rather than adding more "gee wiz" garbage. Have a decent web export that can actually work with an HTML editor. MS is so busy creating lock-in and trying to continually make revenue with the same old product they are not going to "fix" the incompatibility and performance issues until the alternatives surpass them.
No, I think you're wrong. The AT&T was treated like a utility; meaning they operated on a "Cost Plus" basis. The infrastructure was all Tax dollars. Local phone service was used to subsidize the Yellow Pages to keep out competition.
The prices were regulated, but having to pay about $50 per month per household to just connect to this network for eternity is not much regulation.
What will we see when WiMax is able to create huge networks? Could it be possible to create an independent switching network?
Who tossed aside the idea that it could be the sun? Is that what Limbaugh is saying now? Do you have an actual quote from some REAL liberal? If you give Lieberman a cookie, he'll say anything you want, but a real, credible Liberal saying that the sun couldn't possibly contribute to Global Warming?
It seems to me, the same crowd that is looking for "inevitable global warming" is the same crowd who laughed at anyone who said global warming.
Don't put words in my mouth or try to change history. The Liberals have been saying that carbon emissions are adding to global warming. Nobody has tried to push the "absolute fact". This has been mostly science driven and its just traditional for the Educated Elitist Liberals to listen to scientists.
The Martian data is inconclusive but very interesting. We still need to drastically reduce our consumption levels and to find ways that the developing world does not have to follow in our footsteps. China is buying up oil and steel companies... what is going to happen, no matter what the Oil Company theory du jour is, when a Billion + people try to have the American life style? When you look at the earth from space, you can see the deforestation, the lights of cities, and the huge impact people have had. There is even a brownish tint to the air that didn't used to be there.
The articles you point to are just good science. You have to look at everything. It does not mean there is nothing we can do. How does NASA predicting global cooling by reduced Sun output help your theory? It would mean that we should be cooling, but we have so carbonized the air that we are instead heating up. So if this "theory" (of many) is true, we were lucky not to be even hotter. I think when they see Eskimos in beach wear and beach front property moving two miles inland, people will say; "oh look, global warming". And the Kool Aide drinking BushBots will have been saying it was going to happen all along -- after they lie about it for a few months and everybody starts believing thats how they remember it too. Tell me you didn't vote for Bush... the thought patterns are too unmistakable. Tell me you didn't insult everyone who said "global warming" two years ago. I am assuming things here, and I apologize if I'm wrong, but I've seen this too much. There are too many on this website of the Bush persuasion who have been constantly wrong, yet still think they have the credibility to still give advice.
DO NOT listen to the scientists who have been saying; "climate change" -- even though they were right.
DO NOT stop polluting and wasting fossil fuels, because the reason is the sun.
DO NOT stop listening to the government voices of calm and reason.
DO NOT pay attention to the billions of $ in profits that go to companies that profit from the status quo.
Now that the cat is out of the bag, you find some way to keep Big Oil out of the picture. Maybe it wasn't fossil fuel burning that changed the weather -- or maybe it was. But I do remember that they had been paying the same people to say "no global warming" as they are now paying people to say "if there is global warming, it's natural". See? Why should we believe these sources of propaganda that have lied to us repeatedly?
Maybe there are things we can do--but when we make those decisions, let's listen to the people who have been making good choices and who have been honest in the past. If the sun is warming the planet, and we don't want to live with constant class 4 hurricanes and droughts and the shutdown of the gulf stream turning Europe into a frozen tundra -- maybe we can do some terra-forming or act to reduce the impact of humans. At least it might reduce the epidemic numbers of children getting asthma these days -- of course, that isn't due to pollution -- it's due to the sun. Whatever. Your recommendation is to listen to companies that have a vested interest in the status quo.
I don't think Kyoto would have necessarily solved the problem -- but it would have improved the situation. The standard of living in the US is going to be reduced. It can either happen with energy efficient cars that don't have 3 tons and 200 horse power and changes in behavior, or it will happen as an emergency rationing. I only know that the bastards who have always lied to us, will not be feeling the pain. They will be living in mile-long cruise ships and traveling where there is temperate weather and a good party.
Al Gore has been saying honest things for years. He seems to have a better grasp of the science than you. If you are determined to be an cannon fodder, please, get out of my country.
tgd, Interesting argument. I have to say, I hadn't thought of it like that, that Rural livers have an advantage and we subsidize communications for them, but not housing for city dwellers.
But part of that subsidy was to create a communications infrastructure that has benefitted society more than it has cost. You can phone almost everyone and mail almost everyone almost anywhere. So I think at the time it was the right choice to take copper wires out to farms and use the government to deliver mail to those in the woods.
However, now I don't think it is a subsidy. We paid for those copper wires and may have paid for much of the internet back-bone. Also, some of these companies have been handed a local monopoly. So in these instances, you need to regulate price in some regard.
Now we have local governments who want to put up WiFi and give nearly free internet access to citizens. And the providers and telcos and broadband groups cry foul! What if we wanted to give the supposedly subsidized farmer WiFi or satellite? We can argue all day about what is fair and reasonable.
But to me, its what does the greatest good and allows enough money and competition for innovation. Telecommunications, at least in regards to broadband and local telcos, hasn't had too much price competition so far.
The Developers may be upset because this guy forked GIMP -- but it might have been that he realized he was going to have to "convince" them to make the changes. Usability can be something intuitive, or it can be familiar. It seems to me, that GIMPShop might convince the GIMP developers of the merit of the interface changes.
Or they could get all petulant and indignant. Fork me? For Me will you!!! Well, Fork YOU then! Don't expect any help with us while you go FORK YOURSELF!
I haven't read the complaints -- but I'm sure I could think of a few. But really, it can only hurt GIMP if it is somehow better. If they wanted to prevent this fork from taking off, they could implement the changes correctly in their code and thank GIMPShop for the advice. If GIMPShop isn't somehow more useful, then it will wither and die.
But how many people are using GIMP?
Well, I use PhotoShop a lot. Until I see that GIMP is better, or close to as functional, I won't be using it.
Why would any Democracy want its electronic voting systems on a closed-sourced, unaccountable, private companies software?
I think the answer is that companies can get politicians to NOT act in the best interest of their people. I can understand using Microsoft to some extent because it is in the workplace -- but when you get a highly developed technology infrastructure, shouldn't you have tech grads creating software for the country? I mean, how much resources would it take to adapt an open source word processor that was "good enough" in respects to Word and that would be used by a few million government employees. The costs with these numbers are huge--this is without mentioning the security of the OS.
On the other hand, certain things are better with "off the shelf products." GPS and 3D cards in computers are off-shoots of Al Gore's push to make the military push more of its technology to the economy. Recently the US Military tapped NASCAR Engineers to design a new combat vehicle http://www.livescience.com/technology/050913_milit ary_vehicle.html. There is a lot of savings to using consumer products. Ford makes a lot more vehicles than the military, so they get more economies of scale. It seems the Military always spends 90% of the money to make something 10% better.
So, I'd be hard-pressed to give an absolute answer that would say it makes sense for governments to do all "roll your own" or all "off the shelf" products. The places where it seems the government should be sponsoring creating the technology themselves, is when business has no incentive to make something secure or in making it cheap and efficient. I don't think it is much of a stretch to say that Election credibility and accurate voting are an issue of national security. There is a built in incentive, given the lobbyist and fundraising aspect of our current government model, for corruption. I suppose a government could pay a University $200 Billion to produce a voting kiosk and somehow the machines would constantly re-elect the thoughtful politician who approved funding increases...
So, perhaps what I'm saying is that it isn't whether open or closed is always better -- it's that decisions made by un-corrupted people will usually be better. In this case, nobody was paying this government to make bad decisions, so they went with open source.
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OK B-17. Watching the history channel covering all the weapons of WWII doesn't really wet my willy.
B-17 then. Personally, I'll take a B-52 over 10 of the Billion $ Stealth Bombers any day. But it isn't the plane we are really discussing, it's about bombs and targets. We could drop a GPS bomb from a blimp and it would have the same accuracy as from a bomber.
So accurate compared to what? Even in Gulf War I we dropped a lot of ordinance. We spent Millions of $ to destroy one $100k SCUD. Any one strike can decimate a target -- but don't tell me we always know the target. If we always hit the target, and always have the right target, it would only take 10 sorties of the B52 to finish a war.
In Gulf War I we saw a lot of video from missile cameras of perfect hits. Wow. But how many mega tons of weapons did we drop. Simple math tells us that we bomb a lot more than there could possibly be targets of opportunity in all of Iraq.
The only point I'm making is that as we make our weapons smaller and more accurate, we are going to just hit MORE TARGETS. It will still be plane load after plane load pounding the "enemy" with as much as we can. I've heard rumors of a lot of new mass graves in Iraq, that more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died, but the lady who was supposed to report these statistics was "accidentally" killed by friendly fire as she was leaving Iraq. All we are accomplishing is more convenient death and destruction. In the end, is anyone better for these advances? Are we safer?
I'm just fed up with "better weapons" and "cleaner wars" right now. I want better leaders and fewer wars. There is no sacrifice and no "pain" that I feel sitting here all safe and sound in the USA. I don't really know what is being done "for" me. I think all we've accomplished is making warfare "easier" and more palatable. In Iraq, I don't think there has been a net benefit to civilians. Not bombing water supplies and electrical plants would have done a hell of a lot more than a precision bomb to ease some pain.
Reality Master 101.
What happens when less oil comes out of the ground than the year before?
It gets more expensive. Once the price gets higher than something else, then we use the something else, which brings down the price of that thing.
No, we invade Venezuela. Next question.
The economy adjusts based on supply and demand.
"Supply and Demand" -- what a microeconomic 101 clueless statement. Someone comes out of college and chirps "Supply and Demand" and they are a smug economic conservative forever. There is a desperate need for people to re-examine that "Fact"... 1/3 or our economy is service based. Only 20% is manufacturing. Intellectual Property is going to be the number one source of revenue in this country in the coming decade. Where is the supply limit on that? To most economists, there isn't a difference to a country making a potato chip factory to one building airplanes. I'm talking about resource wars and you talk about an equilibrium curve. That baby shit you learned in college is stone age platitudes. Some things like diamonds have an artificially created supply shortage and the demand is created with marketing. How much of the money you spend is on stuff you need? You don't NEED Microsoft Office until everyone else has Microsoft Office. That's a Network Effect. The utility is based upon the ubiquity... totally turning the traditional idea of demand on its head. Also, there is no supply curve with software... again, where is supply and demand? If you didn't here that you needed to know this program, you would never have bought it. It is a need based on information... so demand curves are created with information. Other than the roof over your head, central air, and food in your tummy, there is no supply and demand without media.
Most of the money made in America is based on no Product at all. I work for a Financial Services company. I know that most of the "money" made in America is on a Financial Service. Insurance, Credit Cards, Banking, Mortgages... the list goes on. You spend more to invest and service debt (whether embedded in the product you buy or not) than you do to eat or stay in a home. The financial cost of the home is 5 to 10 times the value of the home. A $100k home will cost you $600k before you "own" it. Did you pay cash on your car?
When you go to a school or hospital, you are using a service. This gets tricky with the old "supply and demand" curve. This and roads and prisons has just represented most of the rest of your economy.
So you are left with about 20% (totally rough estimate) of anything that is actually dependent on "Ye Olde Supply Curve". Has it escaped you that Reagan's and Bush II's use of Supply-side economics have been totally failures and achieved all success based on piling up huge debts? If I use my credit card with abandon, I can be rich for a little while too. The problem is, that wealth does not stay inside any borders. Did you know that most of our trade deficit is paid by anonymous "offshore accounts" now? Who exactly owns this country?
Resource wars are for influence, power and things you need. I don't want to wait for smug snots coming out of Business school to get a clue. Ever since the gas company was privatized, the price has quadrupled. I'm waiting for water to get privatized... in fact, I think water will get privatized everywhere and there will be severe restrictions on drilling your own water well.
What happens when the gulf stream shuts down and Europe has to find new crop land or warmer/wetter weather?
We do what our ancestors did when the environment changes: adapt. Move our farmland, or irrigate.
Yes we adapt. But at what rate? What happens if the Gulf Stream shuts down in One Year. Click... it's off. What does Europe do when all their farming stops and they must suddenly import a lot of oil to heat homes? I think that is going to destabilize things a bit.
You mean those exploited people who are desperately happy to have any sort of job?
I don't have time
My previous comment was assigned a -1; Troll. Trolling is an attempt to make a device comment to get people angry. My intent was to point out that putting anything of military value in space creates an issue for any other country wanting to defend against it or achieve the same capability. I think that is a valid argument... so I'll just re-post my comment.
... however, local GPS jamming is an alternative. If we did go to war with a more advanced country... taking out GPS satellites might be considered.
If we put up a device in space that has the sole purpose of being used to disrupt communications, then we open the door for space warfare. Why? Because how is an enemy going to defeat the jamming? Launch a missile into space to take out a satellite or aim a laser at it -- that's how.
But our GPS guided bombs are a bit of the same thing
I have a feeling that this system will be used on a US broadcast before it will be used on an "enemy".
For the price of one of his "toys" the people in New Orleans may very well have been made safe--if that was the desire of this government.
For $100 Million, you could send a 1,000 kids through college.
We have money to smash things up, but not to fix anything. This country is on the brink of economic collapse and these morons are trying to win the Buck Rogers war. Absolute children.
Information spying is useful on the business infrastructure of governments and of large operations. But there are limits. I could embed any information inside an image, for instance, and nothing known could figure out my message. If I give you the original image without the message, you can remove the image data and obtain the message.
Movie theaters will be using this "low tech" technique to figure out which movie theater a film was pirated from (they'll embed hidden identifiers for each screen with the time and date in every theater in the country).
There are a lot of "low tech" skills that would allow terrorists to communicate in plain site. The best anti-terrorism entails infiltration or "turning" an enemy agent. That will probably always be the best technique. Hi-tech spying is just a good addition but not anything I would rely on. And even if we get the best information in the world, you still have to contend with the political agenda and intelligence of your leaders.
So I suggest, we quit on all the cloak-and-dagger stuff that has achieved nothing, and just start being a better country. Who's with me?
Poverty. Prescription drugs. Smoking. the Flu. All these things kill more people than terrorists.
Oh, and bath tubs.
OK, I had another thought. This is very "tin foil hat" conspiracy theory. Some have talked about SCALAR weapons, and then there is the conspiracy theory of simulating the "rapture". You know, a projection system to shoot a hologram into the sky, coupled with spraying the populace with hallucinogens. After that, you get your theocracy and quit worrying about what the people think. I know this is total crap to think about, but this government has been keeping America in the dark and acting in bad ways for a while. I don't trust it.
No matter what the BushBots may think about Liberals -- meaning, what they call anyone who doesn't drink their brand of Kool Aide -- you can't run a Democracy if a good percentage of the people have no faith in it... and I don't have a Liberal friend who has any faith in this government. This is not a situation I can remember hearing of in my parents time.
Good point. We don't know what this "device" actually is. It could be "GoldenEye" .... basically, a focused EMP that can kill all electromagnetic equipment in an area. It could be used to destroy a banking system for an economic war.
Weapons systems need to be part of our Democracy... they are getting too powerful and subtle for us to trust to governments. We need to have a more transparent government again. I have no clue what they want to do and what they plan to do with this. Obviously, they disdain the opinion of the US citizen in all things... the media will give us our opinion.
Look, we will have fore warning on this... When all the super models start disappearing into the underground bunkers (reference to Dr. Strangelove)... then we start to worry.
We didn't elect Bush.
Here is one article that sums it up, surprisingly on cable news from Keith Obermann http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6368819/#041119a
America is only 49% idiots.
I think the idea that we got more civilized has been ruined for me... Europe and America just moved the battle ground. The desperation and poverty in the third world is used to make us cheap tennis shoes. For now, we are all sipping tea and pleasantly competing on who owns more of the exploited.
What happens when less oil comes out of the ground than the year before? What happens when clean water gets more scarce? What happens when the gulf stream shuts down and Europe has to find new crop land or warmer/wetter weather?
Are we too civilized to have resource wars? How civilized were we to turn back food and water going to the victims of Katrina just last week in the US of A?
I have become much more cynical and worried about the future than ever. I have kids of my own now and I worry if they will be spared being drafted into a resource war. I'm sure they'll leave feeling like they are great heroes off to defeat some evil -- they will return with hollow looks in their eyes when they have killed too many of the hungry and desperate.
No, perhaps this is a "Bad News Weapon". It may be tough to stop a specific frequency ... more to kill all radio in an area.
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What if its purpose is to just "buy time"? Meaning, it could be used as a fail safe to stop bad news from getting out.
Heres a scenario: actual treason charges that could bring down the house of cards that is BushCo are brought forth. The satellite is fired and stops all broadcasts getting out of Washington. The private mercenaries are used as a Pretorian Guard to secure Fitzpatrick and any witnesses. After the "cleanup", a suitable explanation along with a defrosted "insta-terrorist" is put in place, and then the media can fill the airwaves with a "human tragedy" or terrorist act. Something that makes enough sense that half the country can argue with the other half... like we have been dealing with for 5 years now.
This satellite may be no big deal and actually help our country. Normally, I wouldn't worry about it. But I am so paranoid about these fascists in office I wouldn't trust them with a butter knife--much less our country.
If we think BushCo can lie us into a war that doesn't benefit US interests--or anybody but a bunch of crooks. If we think BushCo would steal an election. What don't you think BushCo would do?
Not enough? Ok if torture were somehow legalized. If people could be imprisoned without their will? Oh, those are bad guys...
Not enough? OK, an administration that would use its own people as guinea pigs (especially abused children), how about that?
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The proposal was later dropped when the public got wind of it... but now it is back again (like the media consolidation bill). In fact, they pushed it through while people were drowning after Katrina. Our government, too busy to rescue citizens but not too busy to sneak in legislation. I've just heard the rumor but I can't find a link yet. I just hope that when we find a way to test roach killer on kids, it will be legal.
Precision munitions save money. You can get a bunker or a tank. The B52 dropping tons of bombs in WW II didn't hit a lot of targets. The selling point is lower collateral damage. Future warfare will entail enemies who don't wear uniforms and who you may never see until they attack.
The smaller, more effective bombs, means more targets per sortie -- which means more attacks. As soon as you make it identifying military targets a quick and accurate job-- the military targets will quit looking like military. They will look like school playgrounds and churches (I know we accused Iraq of as much -- though I'm not so sure about our accusations on anything anymore).
A huge problem is making the administration conducting the war value the lives of innocent people. Before the start of the "official" Iraq war, the US was bombing the hell out of that country to try and provoke Saddam. But the worst was our use of cluster bombs over neighborhoods during "shock and awe."
If we are the "good guys" in a war... we will probably be fighting "bad guys". Bad guys are people without ethics who endanger their own people to meet narrow political ends. So the bad guys will hide their military as civilian targets and we will end up precision bombing picnics. Perhaps we need a non-lethal bomb to incapacitate an area so that we can search it?
I am all for the precision weapons and I would like to believe that most of our soldiers are honorable and would risk their own lives to protect innocents... but I also see emotionally immature leaders who don't share any empathy with friend or foe. No matter how good our weapons become, we can't build ethics into them. But personally, I think until we can guarantee that we are an ethical country again, we as citizens need to be against ANY war. We don't spend a tenth of this money doing good.
If we put up a device in space that has the sole purpose of being used to disrupt communications, then we open the door for space warfare. Why? Because how is an enemy going to defeat the jamming? Launch a missile into space to take out a satellite or aim a laser at it -- that's how.
... however, local GPS jamming is an alternative. If we did go to war with a more advanced country... taking out GPS satellites might be considered.
But our GPS guided bombs are a bit of the same thing
I have a feeling that this system will be used on a US broadcast before it will be used on an "enemy".
Not too familiar with the details but... (insert $.02);
When I see art contests I get the same annoying feeling. You set up a contest and the reward is less than what it would cost you to hire someone to do the work. So they get free work here, and do a good job of searching for a worthy employee.
Your idea of the cutout makes sense. I'm just also adding that they'd have to pay 10 grand for a decent programmer with enough time to do this.
Space elevators as envisioned, are mostly cables that go from the earth, to an object orbiting earth to anchor them. The tensile strength required is enormous, and the design is "all or nothing". You have to get most of the object in space and lower it down. The cumulative weight would also be enormous.
What what about an elevator to an elevated launching platform? I've always thought that a heavy-lift blimp or plane could reduce much of the cost and size of engines. But if we had an eifel Tower structure that was perhaps 2 or 3 miles high, and the elevator lifted a space plane or rocket to be launched from that altitude... wouldn't we remove about 60% of the required lift energy? Perhaps we better engineering minds could calculate the cost/benefit ratio to achieve the optimal height.
What is the tallest, stable tower we could build? Assume just the weight of the lifting cable and a rocket (blastoff flame is directed at air and not the structure)? We can use mass damper technology to avoid acoustic and wind resonance that might tear down such a delicate and high tower. I would think 3 to 4 miles would be feasible. I just imagine that after the first mile or two, you get diminishing returns for how high the launch tower is. Saving 50% of the energy for launch would make a huge difference on the types of engines that could achieve orbit.
What do you think?
Yeah. That experiment only lasted for one model. Apple is really good at fabrication technology. They have a few patents of extensive research just to get paint to stick. Titanium does interrupt radio signals so they needed to have a wire (I think under the screen) that wasn't under titanium to get a signal through.
With Ti, you can get really strong and light. But I seemed to keep a bit more heat in than aluminum. The paint scratched easily, so you need to have anodized aluminum with the color infused in the metal. Anyway, it seemed to be a lot of trouble for little benefit.
I'm using PowerPoint from Office 2004. They now have alpha-channeled images on the Mac. Yeah! They have an eye-dropper to get colors. Yeah!
But the animation is organized into "dramatic, subtle, and really tacky" -- I have to figure out if "stretch" is subtle or not, and then find the right transition. Note they have new -- extra tacky transitions.
Other things have been re-arranged. I don't get the theory of usability Microsoft operates under. They have their own words to describe common Desktop Publishing terms and they use 12 icon button widgets where one pop-up panel would do (i.e., "Alignment"). Are they trying to sell more books or are they really trying to improve the app, or are they just looking "new" -- I really haven't been able to figure that out. Other than, it is hard for me to see anything but obvious improvements that should have been in this application for 10 years (eyedropper and alpha channel and soft shadows). The rest is a re-jumble of all the controls. The side panel organizes things better, but I'm always going down two levels where it used to be quicker.
In other office products, I've attempted to do advanced scripting to automate. Beyond simple "dog and pony" demonstrations, a lot of the advanced automation just plain breaks if you go much beyond the mail merge. I called Microsoft about some memory leaks (this was on Windows to create a complex Help document) in 1997 and at that time they told me there wasn't much interest in fixing them. Features over performance.
For 90% of what people do, the alternatives are catching up. Microsoft needs to spend some money on usability and real performance of features that they have already -- rather than adding more "gee wiz" garbage. Have a decent web export that can actually work with an HTML editor. MS is so busy creating lock-in and trying to continually make revenue with the same old product they are not going to "fix" the incompatibility and performance issues until the alternatives surpass them.
No, I think you're wrong. The AT&T was treated like a utility; meaning they operated on a "Cost Plus" basis. The infrastructure was all Tax dollars. Local phone service was used to subsidize the Yellow Pages to keep out competition.
The prices were regulated, but having to pay about $50 per month per household to just connect to this network for eternity is not much regulation.
What will we see when WiMax is able to create huge networks? Could it be possible to create an independent switching network?
Who tossed aside the idea that it could be the sun? Is that what Limbaugh is saying now? Do you have an actual quote from some REAL liberal? If you give Lieberman a cookie, he'll say anything you want, but a real, credible Liberal saying that the sun couldn't possibly contribute to Global Warming?
It seems to me, the same crowd that is looking for "inevitable global warming" is the same crowd who laughed at anyone who said global warming.
Don't put words in my mouth or try to change history. The Liberals have been saying that carbon emissions are adding to global warming. Nobody has tried to push the "absolute fact". This has been mostly science driven and its just traditional for the Educated Elitist Liberals to listen to scientists.
The Martian data is inconclusive but very interesting. We still need to drastically reduce our consumption levels and to find ways that the developing world does not have to follow in our footsteps. China is buying up oil and steel companies... what is going to happen, no matter what the Oil Company theory du jour is, when a Billion + people try to have the American life style? When you look at the earth from space, you can see the deforestation, the lights of cities, and the huge impact people have had. There is even a brownish tint to the air that didn't used to be there.
The articles you point to are just good science. You have to look at everything. It does not mean there is nothing we can do. How does NASA predicting global cooling by reduced Sun output help your theory? It would mean that we should be cooling, but we have so carbonized the air that we are instead heating up. So if this "theory" (of many) is true, we were lucky not to be even hotter. I think when they see Eskimos in beach wear and beach front property moving two miles inland, people will say; "oh look, global warming". And the Kool Aide drinking BushBots will have been saying it was going to happen all along -- after they lie about it for a few months and everybody starts believing thats how they remember it too. Tell me you didn't vote for Bush ... the thought patterns are too unmistakable. Tell me you didn't insult everyone who said "global warming" two years ago. I am assuming things here, and I apologize if I'm wrong, but I've seen this too much. There are too many on this website of the Bush persuasion who have been constantly wrong, yet still think they have the credibility to still give advice.
DO NOT listen to the scientists who have been saying; "climate change" -- even though they were right.
DO NOT stop polluting and wasting fossil fuels, because the reason is the sun.
DO NOT stop listening to the government voices of calm and reason.
DO NOT pay attention to the billions of $ in profits that go to companies that profit from the status quo.
Now that the cat is out of the bag, you find some way to keep Big Oil out of the picture. Maybe it wasn't fossil fuel burning that changed the weather -- or maybe it was. But I do remember that they had been paying the same people to say "no global warming" as they are now paying people to say "if there is global warming, it's natural". See? Why should we believe these sources of propaganda that have lied to us repeatedly?
Maybe there are things we can do--but when we make those decisions, let's listen to the people who have been making good choices and who have been honest in the past. If the sun is warming the planet, and we don't want to live with constant class 4 hurricanes and droughts and the shutdown of the gulf stream turning Europe into a frozen tundra -- maybe we can do some terra-forming or act to reduce the impact of humans. At least it might reduce the epidemic numbers of children getting asthma these days -- of course, that isn't due to pollution -- it's due to the sun. Whatever. Your recommendation is to listen to companies that have a vested interest in the status quo.
I don't think Kyoto would have necessarily solved the problem -- but it would have improved the situation. The standard of living in the US is going to be reduced. It can either happen with energy efficient cars that don't have 3 tons and 200 horse power and changes in behavior, or it will happen as an emergency rationing. I only know that the bastards who have always lied to us, will not be feeling the pain. They will be living in mile-long cruise ships and traveling where there is temperate weather and a good party.
Al Gore has been saying honest things for years. He seems to have a better grasp of the science than you. If you are determined to be an cannon fodder, please, get out of my country.
tgd,
Interesting argument. I have to say, I hadn't thought of it like that, that Rural livers have an advantage and we subsidize communications for them, but not housing for city dwellers.
But part of that subsidy was to create a communications infrastructure that has benefitted society more than it has cost. You can phone almost everyone and mail almost everyone almost anywhere. So I think at the time it was the right choice to take copper wires out to farms and use the government to deliver mail to those in the woods.
However, now I don't think it is a subsidy. We paid for those copper wires and may have paid for much of the internet back-bone. Also, some of these companies have been handed a local monopoly. So in these instances, you need to regulate price in some regard.
Now we have local governments who want to put up WiFi and give nearly free internet access to citizens. And the providers and telcos and broadband groups cry foul! What if we wanted to give the supposedly subsidized farmer WiFi or satellite? We can argue all day about what is fair and reasonable.
But to me, its what does the greatest good and allows enough money and competition for innovation. Telecommunications, at least in regards to broadband and local telcos, hasn't had too much price competition so far.
The Developers may be upset because this guy forked GIMP -- but it might have been that he realized he was going to have to "convince" them to make the changes. Usability can be something intuitive, or it can be familiar. It seems to me, that GIMPShop might convince the GIMP developers of the merit of the interface changes.
Or they could get all petulant and indignant. Fork me? For Me will you!!! Well, Fork YOU then! Don't expect any help with us while you go FORK YOURSELF!
I haven't read the complaints -- but I'm sure I could think of a few. But really, it can only hurt GIMP if it is somehow better. If they wanted to prevent this fork from taking off, they could implement the changes correctly in their code and thank GIMPShop for the advice. If GIMPShop isn't somehow more useful, then it will wither and die.
But how many people are using GIMP?
Well, I use PhotoShop a lot. Until I see that GIMP is better, or close to as functional, I won't be using it.
For that matter;
t ary_vehicle.html. There is a lot of savings to using consumer products. Ford makes a lot more vehicles than the military, so they get more economies of scale. It seems the Military always spends 90% of the money to make something 10% better.
Why would any Democracy want its electronic voting systems on a closed-sourced, unaccountable, private companies software?
I think the answer is that companies can get politicians to NOT act in the best interest of their people. I can understand using Microsoft to some extent because it is in the workplace -- but when you get a highly developed technology infrastructure, shouldn't you have tech grads creating software for the country? I mean, how much resources would it take to adapt an open source word processor that was "good enough" in respects to Word and that would be used by a few million government employees. The costs with these numbers are huge--this is without mentioning the security of the OS.
On the other hand, certain things are better with "off the shelf products." GPS and 3D cards in computers are off-shoots of Al Gore's push to make the military push more of its technology to the economy. Recently the US Military tapped NASCAR Engineers to design a new combat vehicle http://www.livescience.com/technology/050913_mili
So, I'd be hard-pressed to give an absolute answer that would say it makes sense for governments to do all "roll your own" or all "off the shelf" products. The places where it seems the government should be sponsoring creating the technology themselves, is when business has no incentive to make something secure or in making it cheap and efficient. I don't think it is much of a stretch to say that Election credibility and accurate voting are an issue of national security. There is a built in incentive, given the lobbyist and fundraising aspect of our current government model, for corruption. I suppose a government could pay a University $200 Billion to produce a voting kiosk and somehow the machines would constantly re-elect the thoughtful politician who approved funding increases...
So, perhaps what I'm saying is that it isn't whether open or closed is always better -- it's that decisions made by un-corrupted people will usually be better. In this case, nobody was paying this government to make bad decisions, so they went with open source.