Too true.. but people who believe everything they read, don't actually seek out other opinions and form their own decision, preferably by reading primary sources (like the actual budget documents!!) typically are republicans.:)
I'm not even going to bash you cause I've seen so much of these kinds of snarky comments lately that I've come to expect them. But if you could be so kind, could you please tell me where you're getting your opinion from? I mean, I assume you're not actually a worker in Florida or Alabama who has a vested interest in extending the killed-14-but-plenty-left Shuttle or pretending that Canstellation was ever going anywhere, so obviously some pundit somewhere has filled your head with this baffling opinion so who was it? Was it Dr. Harrison Schmitt speaking at the Institute of Human and Machine Cognition in Florida (what the hell kind of a platform is that anyway?) with his absurd comments about China and Russia - the comments about Russia being more absurd than the ones about China but only slightly - which basically amounted to "reds up the beds and now in space!!" Or was it Andy Pasztor at the Wall Street Journal who has done nothing but demonstrate just how long journalism has sunk to, misrepresenting first Burt Rutan's comments - causing Burt to publish his communications in full and with not even an apology from the WSJ - and then misrepresenting an internal NASA memo and blatantly fabricating quotes saying Bolden was seeing a "Plan B" prompting Bolden to release a denial.. and again, without even an apology from the WSJ. Ironically, one place you couldn't be getting this nonsense from is Fox News...
First of all, let me thank you for writing a well thought out reply. It's nice to see someone who actually understands the issues.
That said, you seem to have fell into the intellectual trap of assuming that I don't know the issues. I do.
In many situations it is true that people are forced off the land and migrate to the cities because they have no choice, but in many situations people simply choose to go live in the cities. They have the option of returning to the country but they choose not to. As it is plainly obvious that the slums are not a better place to live, the question, I repeat, is: why?
Stewart Brand has gone out and spoken to the people, identified people in this exact situation and asked them why they prefer the slum to the country. His answers are the subject of this article. The commentors screaming that the slums are a terrible place to live are completely missing the point.
Yes, obviously I misread Africa for India... and as you can imagine, that led me to determine that you either must be Indian royalty or a big fat liar. Instead, you've just admitted to being a South African and have no idea what is going on in Africa.. for some reason I'm not surprised.
The difference between you and Brand is that he's actually doing something and observing the real world instead of just nattering on about how things "should be". It reminds me of when people say "just think yourself lucky you weren't born in a poor country" like it's some sort of fucking lottery. My parents worked hard to provide for me. Their parents worked hard to provide for them. All of us were once in the poverty stricken situation those in the slums are and not all of us got a handout. All of India was not too long ago as poor as the slums but they worked their way out of that poverty, generation after generation, and they recognize that if they "redistribute the wealth" they'll only be taking a step back for themselves and their families.
Please list those applications. (Simply assuming they exist because platinum is expensive is dishonest). points out how you've not actually based your argument on reality, but on fiction.
Nah. You're a skeptic, and that's great, but you're unwilling to do your own research, even so far as to reading the other comments in the thread, so this conversation is over.
Well those are noble advancements in themselves but are not related to what I was talking about.
It's useful in catalytic converters and jewelry. How would cheap platinum help anyone?
That's what it is good for now. There's plenty of applications where it is simply too expensive to use but is unquestionably the best material to use. For a similar analogy, think about the Enterprise.. the whole thing was made of titanium..
Honestly, the best way that I've seen for enabling this segment of society to grow and prosper and have success is the availability of micro loans. The amount of success driven by this type of economic activity is truly inspiring.
I don't disagree, in fact I donate on the New Space team over at Kiva, please come join us.
The discussion about slums is in comparison to rural poverty. If you actually saw the progress that the poor were making in slums and compared it to the stagnation that is poverty out on the land, you'd see why he's so impressed. The world really is a global village now. People around the world are getting micro-loans right now and doing business to improve their life. Most of those people are in slums, not out on the farm.
Wow, it's interesting to hear someone bring up the high concept of "progress". The way I remember it, the alternative to progress wasn't regression into the dark ages but the knowing recognition of limits to growth. We have to learn to live with each other and what we have now, the theory goes. The concept of progress is connected with the "frontier". You may have heard "America has always had a frontier" and statements like this are supposed to invoke some sort of vision of progress.. America, the ever expanding land of opportunity, and to most, that's exactly what it does. To some, though, the invocation of frontier concept makes them think of native Americans.. to these people the frontier is a place where wars are fought, where the natives give up their lands and their culture to the oppressors. These people would say America's frontier, right now, is Afghanistan and Iraq. You'll occasionally hear talk of bringing progressive government to these regions. Again, you're supposed to think of free elections and equal rights and economic expansion. America isn't stealing Iraq's oil and Afghanistan's gas reserves under the a flag of conquest.. they're building infrastructure so the native peoples can become a part of the world economic system.
I don't want to sound biased here, I think there's a little bit of truth in both philosophies.. I don't think its terribly fair to forcibly "elevate" people on the ladder of progress to get at their resources, but I also don't think it is terribly wrong to help lift people out of poverty when its incredibly obvious (to us) that they are materially rich and just don't have the means to utilize that wealth to increase their standard of living. I guess it's our motives they question, but I don't think selfish motives necessarily make an action immoral - they can be mutually beneficial.
And finally, as I'm a space nut, I have to say something about the "high frontier" and the promise of progress that it offers. The resources in Iraq and Afghanistan pale in comparison to the resources off-Earth and, in my opinion, there's literally no moral issues with acquiring and utilizing those resources to increase our standard of living. What, you might ask, could I possibly mean by increase our standard of living? America (and other western countries) have the highest standard of living in the world.. can't we be satisfied with what we've got? As you point out, I don't think that's human nature, nor is it desirable. And if such a limit to our growth is to be forced on us then I think *that* is a moral issue.
Imagine the price of platinum being no greater than the price of steel. Imagine the price of steel dropping so much that it is in the noise of the transportation costs (we're almost there!). Not everyone can own a private island.. but maybe one day everyone can own an island in space (Gerard O'Neil would concur). The seduction of progress from the ultimate frontier.. it's so alluring that it's not surprising there are some among us who see it as a hedonistic luxury, but most of our modern amenities seem that way to the rest of the world. Are they right?
Sigh.. what didn't I make clear? There's lots of different sorts of ulcers. Some ulcers are caused by these bacteria, and antibiotics can fix them, but some are not. The story which is continually repeated in the media and by the guy I replied to is that all ulcers are caused by these bacteria. This is simply false and its a good example of how the media reverberates a good story even if it is inaccurate.
And btw, doctors don't just prescribe antibiotics to anyone with ulcers and hope they go away.. the exact type of antibiotics that they use are quite dangerous to healthy individuals and the treatment is no picnic. Instead they take samples of the ulcer, send it to a lab to be tested, and if the tests indicate the cause of the ulcer is bacteria, then they prescribe antibiotics. That treatment is 90% effective.
Those who denied that a bacteria (imagine that) was responsible for most stomach ulcers were ridiculed by the established medical community (until they were proven wrong).
Wow, that's an interesting example you've picked there. I happen to know a bit about the "stomach ulcers are caused by bacteria" theory as there's a lot of Australian scientists involved. The controversy is over the claim that stomach ulcers may be caused by or made worse by bacteria in the stomach. This was considered controversial for a very simple scientific reason: no-one had found bacteria in the stomach. However there was a single data point which suggested they might actually exist.. and there were other explanations for how that single data point might be wrong, contamination being the most important.
So, for years, doctors took samples from patients with stomach ulcers and sent them to researchers who tried various methods to culture them. When they failed the objectors to the theory repeated the mantra that the same thing that makes culturing bacteria in stomach samples hard is what makes it so unlikely that there's any bacteria that live in the stomach. After lots of good science, Robin Warren and Barry Marshall managed to culture and isolate bacteria from some samples. They contended that most stomach ulcers were caused by the bacteria they had isolated and Marshall dramatically demonstrated this by drinking some of the cultures and getting very sick.
This was met with a lot of skepticism, but after careful study, by various independent groups, it was found the Warren and Marshall's technique did indeed result in measurable cultures in patients with gastritis and to a lesser extent stomach ulcers. To-date no clear link has been established between H. pylori and the majority of stomach ulcers. So really, although their work was good science and improved our understanding of stomach pathogens, they were wrong, it doesn't cause most stomach ulcers. Maybe time will prove them right, but for the attention span of the media it doesn't matter, the media will keep repeating that Warren and Marshall defied the conventional wisdom of the day and proved that bacteria cause all forms of stomach ulcer because that's an interesting story.
I think you're grossly misrepresenting the resources of the earth and the Moon. The lunar regolith is basically made of solar cell materials, whereas here you have to dig them up.. not to mention that there's a little matter of ownership, human labor, etc. That said, there's no mature technology for doing this kind of processing of regolith and, even when there is, it's unlikely to be something that could be tended by robots or weigh so little that it can be sent up on an existing booster.
If you're a subscriber to Slashdot you see stories like this hit the front page a half hour or so before they go live. There's a link that says "Any serious problems with this story? Drop our on duty editor a line." and there's an email link with prefilled subjected line etc. I sent basically what I wrote here as an email nearly an hour ago.. they chose to ignore me. I've done this before and they've pulled stories.. so it seems some editors are interested in stopping nonsense and some are not. So yes, I do blame Slashdot for being part of the echo chamber. There's no reason to post shit that is obviously fake.
Most of the delay on the Deep Space Network is a result of the 30 year old hardware that processes and transmit the signals.. the speed of light defines a minimum that is never practically met. Emory Stagmer talks about it in his interview on Spacevidcast.
Wow.. the Internet really is an echo chamber isn't it?
This nonsense video has been floating around for months now. There's no confirmation from NASA.. no-one even knows who made it.
If you RTFA you'll see the last paragraph reads:
Whoever did this at NASA should put together an actual budget as soon as possible. And while you are at it, make it possible for regular people to use one, maybe at the Johnson Space Center or some selected museums through the world. That will definitely inspire people.
Send an email to Jesus Diaz, the author of this post, at jesus@gizmodo.com.
Hey Jesus Diaz, were you sick the day of journalism school when they taught chasing up sources? Maybe if you called JSC and heard the exasperated public relations officer explain, again, that no there is no Project M but thanks for your call, you could save yourself some embarrassment.
Slashdot Mirror
Too true.. but people who believe everything they read, don't actually seek out other opinions and form their own decision, preferably by reading primary sources (like the actual budget documents!!) typically are republicans. :)
Thus the Fox News crack.
When did republicans take over Slashdot?
I'm not even going to bash you cause I've seen so much of these kinds of snarky comments lately that I've come to expect them. But if you could be so kind, could you please tell me where you're getting your opinion from? I mean, I assume you're not actually a worker in Florida or Alabama who has a vested interest in extending the killed-14-but-plenty-left Shuttle or pretending that Canstellation was ever going anywhere, so obviously some pundit somewhere has filled your head with this baffling opinion so who was it? Was it Dr. Harrison Schmitt speaking at the Institute of Human and Machine Cognition in Florida (what the hell kind of a platform is that anyway?) with his absurd comments about China and Russia - the comments about Russia being more absurd than the ones about China but only slightly - which basically amounted to "reds up the beds and now in space!!" Or was it Andy Pasztor at the Wall Street Journal who has done nothing but demonstrate just how long journalism has sunk to, misrepresenting first Burt Rutan's comments - causing Burt to publish his communications in full and with not even an apology from the WSJ - and then misrepresenting an internal NASA memo and blatantly fabricating quotes saying Bolden was seeing a "Plan B" prompting Bolden to release a denial.. and again, without even an apology from the WSJ. Ironically, one place you couldn't be getting this nonsense from is Fox News...
Umm.. if you actually think that'll work I've got this bridge I'd like to sell you.
Let me tell you of the totally unbreakable DRM: OnLive.. assuming it ever ships.
First of all, let me thank you for writing a well thought out reply. It's nice to see someone who actually understands the issues.
That said, you seem to have fell into the intellectual trap of assuming that I don't know the issues. I do.
In many situations it is true that people are forced off the land and migrate to the cities because they have no choice, but in many situations people simply choose to go live in the cities. They have the option of returning to the country but they choose not to. As it is plainly obvious that the slums are not a better place to live, the question, I repeat, is: why?
Stewart Brand has gone out and spoken to the people, identified people in this exact situation and asked them why they prefer the slum to the country. His answers are the subject of this article. The commentors screaming that the slums are a terrible place to live are completely missing the point.
observation: slums are hell.
observation: people are moving in droves to slums.
There's an obvious contradiction here so the question arises: why?
Why are these people moving to such terrible conditions?
Yes, obviously I misread Africa for India... and as you can imagine, that led me to determine that you either must be Indian royalty or a big fat liar. Instead, you've just admitted to being a South African and have no idea what is going on in Africa.. for some reason I'm not surprised.
The difference between you and Brand is that he's actually doing something and observing the real world instead of just nattering on about how things "should be". It reminds me of when people say "just think yourself lucky you weren't born in a poor country" like it's some sort of fucking lottery. My parents worked hard to provide for me. Their parents worked hard to provide for them. All of us were once in the poverty stricken situation those in the slums are and not all of us got a handout. All of India was not too long ago as poor as the slums but they worked their way out of that poverty, generation after generation, and they recognize that if they "redistribute the wealth" they'll only be taking a step back for themselves and their families.
And, frankly, who the hell are you to judge?
Wow, so you had internet access in India back in '95 when you got the uid lower than mine? What are you, fucking royalty or something.
I call you a big fat liar.
I was actually referring to owning them. As in, my own personal O'Neill Cylinder. I think you would agree that this appears hedonistic to us now.
Please list those applications. (Simply assuming they exist because platinum is expensive is dishonest).
points out how you've not actually based your argument on reality, but on fiction.
Nah. You're a skeptic, and that's great, but you're unwilling to do your own research, even so far as to reading the other comments in the thread, so this conversation is over.
Well those are noble advancements in themselves but are not related to what I was talking about.
It's useful in catalytic converters and jewelry. How would cheap platinum help anyone?
That's what it is good for now. There's plenty of applications where it is simply too expensive to use but is unquestionably the best material to use. For a similar analogy, think about the Enterprise.. the whole thing was made of titanium..
Honestly, the best way that I've seen for enabling this segment of society to grow and prosper and have success is the availability of micro loans. The amount of success driven by this type of economic activity is truly inspiring.
I don't disagree, in fact I donate on the New Space team over at Kiva, please come join us.
The discussion about slums is in comparison to rural poverty. If you actually saw the progress that the poor were making in slums and compared it to the stagnation that is poverty out on the land, you'd see why he's so impressed. The world really is a global village now. People around the world are getting micro-loans right now and doing business to improve their life. Most of those people are in slums, not out on the farm.
Wow, it's interesting to hear someone bring up the high concept of "progress". The way I remember it, the alternative to progress wasn't regression into the dark ages but the knowing recognition of limits to growth. We have to learn to live with each other and what we have now, the theory goes. The concept of progress is connected with the "frontier". You may have heard "America has always had a frontier" and statements like this are supposed to invoke some sort of vision of progress.. America, the ever expanding land of opportunity, and to most, that's exactly what it does. To some, though, the invocation of frontier concept makes them think of native Americans.. to these people the frontier is a place where wars are fought, where the natives give up their lands and their culture to the oppressors. These people would say America's frontier, right now, is Afghanistan and Iraq. You'll occasionally hear talk of bringing progressive government to these regions. Again, you're supposed to think of free elections and equal rights and economic expansion. America isn't stealing Iraq's oil and Afghanistan's gas reserves under the a flag of conquest.. they're building infrastructure so the native peoples can become a part of the world economic system.
I don't want to sound biased here, I think there's a little bit of truth in both philosophies.. I don't think its terribly fair to forcibly "elevate" people on the ladder of progress to get at their resources, but I also don't think it is terribly wrong to help lift people out of poverty when its incredibly obvious (to us) that they are materially rich and just don't have the means to utilize that wealth to increase their standard of living. I guess it's our motives they question, but I don't think selfish motives necessarily make an action immoral - they can be mutually beneficial.
And finally, as I'm a space nut, I have to say something about the "high frontier" and the promise of progress that it offers. The resources in Iraq and Afghanistan pale in comparison to the resources off-Earth and, in my opinion, there's literally no moral issues with acquiring and utilizing those resources to increase our standard of living. What, you might ask, could I possibly mean by increase our standard of living? America (and other western countries) have the highest standard of living in the world.. can't we be satisfied with what we've got? As you point out, I don't think that's human nature, nor is it desirable. And if such a limit to our growth is to be forced on us then I think *that* is a moral issue.
Imagine the price of platinum being no greater than the price of steel. Imagine the price of steel dropping so much that it is in the noise of the transportation costs (we're almost there!). Not everyone can own a private island.. but maybe one day everyone can own an island in space (Gerard O'Neil would concur). The seduction of progress from the ultimate frontier.. it's so alluring that it's not surprising there are some among us who see it as a hedonistic luxury, but most of our modern amenities seem that way to the rest of the world. Are they right?
Sigh.. what didn't I make clear? There's lots of different sorts of ulcers. Some ulcers are caused by these bacteria, and antibiotics can fix them, but some are not. The story which is continually repeated in the media and by the guy I replied to is that all ulcers are caused by these bacteria. This is simply false and its a good example of how the media reverberates a good story even if it is inaccurate.
And btw, doctors don't just prescribe antibiotics to anyone with ulcers and hope they go away.. the exact type of antibiotics that they use are quite dangerous to healthy individuals and the treatment is no picnic. Instead they take samples of the ulcer, send it to a lab to be tested, and if the tests indicate the cause of the ulcer is bacteria, then they prescribe antibiotics. That treatment is 90% effective.
Those who denied that a bacteria (imagine that) was responsible for most stomach ulcers were ridiculed by the established medical community (until they were proven wrong).
Wow, that's an interesting example you've picked there. I happen to know a bit about the "stomach ulcers are caused by bacteria" theory as there's a lot of Australian scientists involved. The controversy is over the claim that stomach ulcers may be caused by or made worse by bacteria in the stomach. This was considered controversial for a very simple scientific reason: no-one had found bacteria in the stomach. However there was a single data point which suggested they might actually exist.. and there were other explanations for how that single data point might be wrong, contamination being the most important.
So, for years, doctors took samples from patients with stomach ulcers and sent them to researchers who tried various methods to culture them. When they failed the objectors to the theory repeated the mantra that the same thing that makes culturing bacteria in stomach samples hard is what makes it so unlikely that there's any bacteria that live in the stomach. After lots of good science, Robin Warren and Barry Marshall managed to culture and isolate bacteria from some samples. They contended that most stomach ulcers were caused by the bacteria they had isolated and Marshall dramatically demonstrated this by drinking some of the cultures and getting very sick.
This was met with a lot of skepticism, but after careful study, by various independent groups, it was found the Warren and Marshall's technique did indeed result in measurable cultures in patients with gastritis and to a lesser extent stomach ulcers. To-date no clear link has been established between H. pylori and the majority of stomach ulcers. So really, although their work was good science and improved our understanding of stomach pathogens, they were wrong, it doesn't cause most stomach ulcers. Maybe time will prove them right, but for the attention span of the media it doesn't matter, the media will keep repeating that Warren and Marshall defied the conventional wisdom of the day and proved that bacteria cause all forms of stomach ulcer because that's an interesting story.
Dude, they bought Apple stock.. you didn't think "dumb luck" was just a saying did ya?
over-estimating people on Slashdot is a hobby of mine. It occasionally wakes up the low uids.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1476540&cid=30419250
'nuff said.
why are you misspelling "off"? can you honestly not spell a 3 letter word?
I think you're grossly misrepresenting the resources of the earth and the Moon. The lunar regolith is basically made of solar cell materials, whereas here you have to dig them up.. not to mention that there's a little matter of ownership, human labor, etc. That said, there's no mature technology for doing this kind of processing of regolith and, even when there is, it's unlikely to be something that could be tended by robots or weigh so little that it can be sent up on an existing booster.
If you're a subscriber to Slashdot you see stories like this hit the front page a half hour or so before they go live. There's a link that says "Any serious problems with this story? Drop our on duty editor a line." and there's an email link with prefilled subjected line etc. I sent basically what I wrote here as an email nearly an hour ago.. they chose to ignore me. I've done this before and they've pulled stories.. so it seems some editors are interested in stopping nonsense and some are not. So yes, I do blame Slashdot for being part of the echo chamber. There's no reason to post shit that is obviously fake.
Most of the delay on the Deep Space Network is a result of the 30 year old hardware that processes and transmit the signals.. the speed of light defines a minimum that is never practically met. Emory Stagmer talks about it in his interview on Spacevidcast.
Wow.. the Internet really is an echo chamber isn't it?
This nonsense video has been floating around for months now. There's no confirmation from NASA.. no-one even knows who made it.
If you RTFA you'll see the last paragraph reads:
Whoever did this at NASA should put together an actual budget as soon as possible. And while you are at it, make it possible for regular people to use one, maybe at the Johnson Space Center or some selected museums through the world. That will definitely inspire people.
Send an email to Jesus Diaz, the author of this post, at jesus@gizmodo.com.
Hey Jesus Diaz, were you sick the day of journalism school when they taught chasing up sources? Maybe if you called JSC and heard the exasperated public relations officer explain, again, that no there is no Project M but thanks for your call, you could save yourself some embarrassment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esCGYkVhhnY&feature=channel
Watch the Senate Hearing yourself, a lot more interesting stuff happened.