The problem is that very few of the talented pilots want to do this stuff. I have quite a few friends that are either instructors or students in the USAF. Two I was talking with the other day said that if they were forced to do UAV flying, they'd have to find some way out of flying all together. For most of them, they signed up to be fighter pilots, so even flying a bomber would be a let down.
They're competitive as hell by nature... I'm interested to see how this turns out for the USAF considering the antipathy I've seen towards piloting these things.
I think the point is that the follow-up to release 1.9 isn't just to tweak it and release it as 2.0... a new release should include substantial changes and upgrades.
Yeah, that's how they still put out oil well fires. However, if you ever seen oil "gushing" these days, that's a huge, huge problem. That stuff only happened back pre-1950's or so when they use "spudders" to drill without significant drilling fluid. These days, using rotary drilling, such heavy "mud" is used while drilling that blow-outs should never occur, as they can obviously be ridiculously dangerous.
I, personally, can't wait for Al Gore to propose a new tax because the earth is burning its own petroleum without any heed to environmental impact. SHAAAAAAAAAAAME, SHAAAAAAAME!
I agree with almost everything you said, except the following:
+ the 10 years myth... its a myth, trust me. It's political smoke and mirrors. Within two years (4-5 max in a worst case scenario) we would have that oil to market.
+ Speculation. If Congress passed legislation tomorrow saying we were gonna release the handcuffs, you'd see the price drop 20-30% within a matter of weeks. I've heard that as much as 35% of the current price is due to speculators knowing the Democratic-led Congress will not let us expand domestic production.
+ If an oil company had a lease that was profitable at $150/bbl, they'd be producing it. Its doesn't make any sense not too at these prices. Conspiracy or not, they'd be sucking it out of the ground.
+ Environmental damage. Another smoke and mirrors trick by the media and environmental lobby. When Katrina and (I am tired, I forget the name of) the other hurricane hit the Gulf of Mexico back to back, out of the thousands of existing production platforms, there wasn't a single problem. I will be the first to admit that accidents happen, but the reality of oil spills is that, first, they're not really as bad as people make them out to be. If they hit the shore, yes, its bad for animals, but the recovery technology is good enough that it probably wont get to that point. It can be cleaned up on the water's surface comparatively easy. Crude oil is not nearly as bad as people tend to think. As a matter of fact, I've seen spills on farm land turn that farmland to the richest soil on the pasture. The danger of an oil spill is primarily in the salt water that usually accompanies it, however, the government doesn't really give two shits if you spill salt water. (Yes, I know this from experience. Spill some crude, get a hazmat team out, they take soil samples, etc etc... spill some salt water, which renders soil dead for decades... they literally just say to vacuum up the standing fluid. There has been a lasting campaign to demonize anything having to do with petroleum for decades. The legislation reflects it as does the media attitude... but I'm rambling.)
I don't necessarily disagree with the intention there, but the problem is two-fold. First, that's not their motivation for keeping our prices high, its that they're beholden to the environmental lobby. Secondly, and more importantly, oil is the life blood of our economy, for good or ill, if we don't do something to drop the prices, inflation is going to get worse and we're all gonna feel the bad effects of high gas prices. You think $4/gallon is bad, wait for $8-10/gallon. For a political party that seems to care so much about the lower class, they're sure stabbing them in the back right now. The ripple effects of high gas is going to get a LOT worse if they don't do something about it now.
You forgot the notion that economics are involved. "Big Oil" knows they're running a race due to the limited availability of petroleum, so I seriously doubt they're gonna just quash any idea that they could turn a billion dollar profit if they could make work. Yeah, I've heard of the EV or whatever, but the problem was the cost of the vehicle... Why would anyone build a $500,000 electric car that didn't get the range and speed of a $20,000 gasoline engine car?
Same thing with what the Democrats in Congress are doing with blocking any domestic US drilling. They want alternative energy solutions, but the reality is that most cars you see on the road are older cars. Do you think people buy old cars because they like them, or because its what they can afford? Even if some amazing new technology gets into production, you're gonna see a lot of old cars on the road for 10-15 years. Drill now, for the love of God...
There is one constant and one constant alone about the history of our planet: its changing... thats what it does.
I'll all for conservation, but ppl need to decide if CO2 is helping or hurting (not that we put out enough for it to matter, anyhow) before telling the world it needs to spend $40+ trillion on *fixing* things.
Cue the bleeding hearts that can't wait to set up an Internet connected kiosk in the village.
Really, though, whoever tagged this story "primedirective" I'd like to shake their hand. Even in their skewed Trekkie view, they're right... Imagine if we were an "uncontacted tribe" that some more advanced civilization sent the equivalent of a helicopter to photograph us... there would be all sorts of incredulous stories floating around and I'm sure our government would be trying to assuade our fears and tell us there is nothing to be concerned about... ooh... wait a minute...
I'm the idiot? I'm not the one who coined "libertarian socialism" which is a complete and total oxymoron. moron. Spend about 3 minutes actually researching these pretty words you like to use and get back to me.
OK, i know i'm responding to a sig... but explain to me two things:
1. how has it been decided that conservatism has failed since it was the government who has been slowly abandoning it? conservative ideals created the infrastructure of the country, and only since we've gotten so rich and fat and happy have there been such large steps away from those ideals, and look at what we're getting ourselves into now.
2. communism and conservatism are nearly polar opposites, so what is the ideal solution?
feel free to respond via email, b/c i really am curious (and i'm on my laptop, so pls forgive the lack of caps, i always miss the key, so i just do everything in lower)
If you don't like the policy where you work, get a new friggin' job. In case you've forgotten, NASA is a government organization, so this does not seem like a far fetched "unfair" policy that it is characterized as being.
Everyone's workplace has rules...
begin rambling:
People these days seem to have forgotten one of my main tenets of a successful capitalist economy: the workers' right to chose. It seems that people these days have completely forgotten about that because they're scared of getting bumped from their comfort zone, or they're living far beyond their means and any lapse in the paycheck stream will cripple them financially. Marx came up with his theories in the fear that people would get married to their jobs and unable to better themselves in a capitalist system. I say it's all about choice, and having the BALLS to make the best choice for yourself and your family.
My friends forced me to sit down and play Diablo II, then I moved to SWG (*wretch*), then WoW, and I can truly say that MMO's have saved me thousands of dollars in bartabs and dinner bills. When you're a single guy with no kids, you tend to have a lot of time on your hands, and usually that time gets taken up by things that cost money on a near-hourly basis. $15/month is a lot better than the couple hundred I'd spend on gas, food, drinks, and women. Not to mention, it's still a social environment if you chose to take advantage of it. I've got WoW-only friends from across the world that I've been playing with for well over a year, sometimes two.
Yes, I love the game, and its a great way to pass the time. I see easily how people get burned out by grinding the end-game content, but, in all honesty, you have to put in a LOT of time to do those raids with any frequency. Personally, I don't see how people can do it.
I think the trick is to schedule your real life and fill the gaps with games, not the other way around.
Between the cost of the machine, ingredients to brew the ethanol, and the electricity need to run the thing, how could you possibly save any money? Not to mention ethanol is (usually) about half as efficient as gasoline, and oh, yeah, it releases more of the dreaded CO2 when burned.
When are people going to realize that we've made this bed and now we have to sleep in it. Keeping gas prices down could have only worked so long at the best scenario. If you want a solution, let the market find one. Don't get on this ethanol bandwagon blindly and cause even more trouble than we're in right now.
Now, let's all watch them moderate me to flamebait because I don't agree with their little dream.
You forgot to mention the whole carbon footprint of launching something big enough to colonize Mars... something that would probably make Gore have an aneurysm.
Yeah, but then again, you're assuming he actually believes the stuff he spouts off, b/c in this universe, he refuses to debate ANYONE on the facts, and he owns the companies he buys 'carbon credits' from... weird, huh?
I feel a great disturbance in the Force. As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened....its a toss up.
I remember back in the day, playing some supposed "ultra-realistic" combat game, "ultra-realistic" meant you get shot, u die... told a vet friend about it, he asked if you get trench rot in your foot in the game from being in trenches for too long... yeah. ultra-realistic = not so much fun.
i think the thing everyone seems to forget is that i dont think Bliz was ready for the success that WoW has achieved. 7million subscribers? I can see them having to alter their plans in order to accomodate success like that.
This is fairly nested, but everyone seems to be missing the whole notion that this is the way it used to be... back in the days of TECMO Bowl, the only likeness between the game and RL was the team colors and numbers (and abilities of the individual players).
After the Madden series became so popular, the same exact thing happened with the football games, even more odd, one game franchise would be licensed to use the team names but not the players' names (NFL and NFLPA are two seperate entities), and the other vice versa. It has only been in the last 3-4 years that ALL of the franchises have been able to use NFL content and NFLPA content simultaneously.
EA has recently had so much trouble with screwing over their employees that I cant see them sticking around for that much longer at the top like they have been. When the competitors to the market originally surfaced, they got market share even though they didnt have the licensing EA did, and it created a better competitive range of football games across the board. Madden (EA's venture) has been able to hold its title as #1 through VERY slim margins year after year. For all you "Use Linux because its a better product"-people should appreciate this, since its a really accurate example of how if you build a better software product, you can win, just as NFL2k did when Microsoft released it and it smoked Madden's level of play back in the day.
OK, a *little* more than $0.02, but you get the point.
I'm not going to say that I'm anti-urban, but at the same time, look at what has happened in the most densely populated cities in America (can't speak for Europe, don't live there). You see horrible effects, crime, poverty, and the quality of education goes to shit. The whole purpose behind spreading out into suburbs is that you can have a small "village" feel but still next to a large urban city for the amenities that only a big city can provide (airports, stadiums, events, arts, sciences, industry, you name it). I'm all about being able to walk to the movies or to the store. I do it, and I live in a suburb of Dallas. I have everything I need within walking distance, however, my job requires me to drive down near to downtown every day. Sure its a pain, but what are you gonna do? On the weekends I can walk to the store, walk to the coffee shop, walk to the movies, and walk to any of the 15 restaurants nearby...and there's not a multi-story building among them (besides the apartment complexes), which keeps it from feeling closed in like most big cities.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is that very few of the talented pilots want to do this stuff. I have quite a few friends that are either instructors or students in the USAF. Two I was talking with the other day said that if they were forced to do UAV flying, they'd have to find some way out of flying all together. For most of them, they signed up to be fighter pilots, so even flying a bomber would be a let down.
They're competitive as hell by nature... I'm interested to see how this turns out for the USAF considering the antipathy I've seen towards piloting these things.
J
I think the point is that the follow-up to release 1.9 isn't just to tweak it and release it as 2.0... a new release should include substantial changes and upgrades.
For the love of God, someone mod this as Funny.... the "Informative" on it now pushes us very close to a "ironic singularity"
J
Yeah, that's how they still put out oil well fires. However, if you ever seen oil "gushing" these days, that's a huge, huge problem. That stuff only happened back pre-1950's or so when they use "spudders" to drill without significant drilling fluid. These days, using rotary drilling, such heavy "mud" is used while drilling that blow-outs should never occur, as they can obviously be ridiculously dangerous.
I, personally, can't wait for Al Gore to propose a new tax because the earth is burning its own petroleum without any heed to environmental impact. SHAAAAAAAAAAAME, SHAAAAAAAME!
J
I agree with almost everything you said, except the following:
+ the 10 years myth... its a myth, trust me. It's political smoke and mirrors. Within two years (4-5 max in a worst case scenario) we would have that oil to market.
+ Speculation. If Congress passed legislation tomorrow saying we were gonna release the handcuffs, you'd see the price drop 20-30% within a matter of weeks. I've heard that as much as 35% of the current price is due to speculators knowing the Democratic-led Congress will not let us expand domestic production.
+ If an oil company had a lease that was profitable at $150/bbl, they'd be producing it. Its doesn't make any sense not too at these prices. Conspiracy or not, they'd be sucking it out of the ground.
+ Environmental damage. Another smoke and mirrors trick by the media and environmental lobby. When Katrina and (I am tired, I forget the name of) the other hurricane hit the Gulf of Mexico back to back, out of the thousands of existing production platforms, there wasn't a single problem. I will be the first to admit that accidents happen, but the reality of oil spills is that, first, they're not really as bad as people make them out to be. If they hit the shore, yes, its bad for animals, but the recovery technology is good enough that it probably wont get to that point. It can be cleaned up on the water's surface comparatively easy. Crude oil is not nearly as bad as people tend to think. As a matter of fact, I've seen spills on farm land turn that farmland to the richest soil on the pasture. The danger of an oil spill is primarily in the salt water that usually accompanies it, however, the government doesn't really give two shits if you spill salt water. (Yes, I know this from experience. Spill some crude, get a hazmat team out, they take soil samples, etc etc... spill some salt water, which renders soil dead for decades... they literally just say to vacuum up the standing fluid. There has been a lasting campaign to demonize anything having to do with petroleum for decades. The legislation reflects it as does the media attitude... but I'm rambling.)
I don't necessarily disagree with the intention there, but the problem is two-fold. First, that's not their motivation for keeping our prices high, its that they're beholden to the environmental lobby. Secondly, and more importantly, oil is the life blood of our economy, for good or ill, if we don't do something to drop the prices, inflation is going to get worse and we're all gonna feel the bad effects of high gas prices. You think $4/gallon is bad, wait for $8-10/gallon. For a political party that seems to care so much about the lower class, they're sure stabbing them in the back right now. The ripple effects of high gas is going to get a LOT worse if they don't do something about it now.
J
You forgot the notion that economics are involved. "Big Oil" knows they're running a race due to the limited availability of petroleum, so I seriously doubt they're gonna just quash any idea that they could turn a billion dollar profit if they could make work. Yeah, I've heard of the EV or whatever, but the problem was the cost of the vehicle... Why would anyone build a $500,000 electric car that didn't get the range and speed of a $20,000 gasoline engine car?
Same thing with what the Democrats in Congress are doing with blocking any domestic US drilling. They want alternative energy solutions, but the reality is that most cars you see on the road are older cars. Do you think people buy old cars because they like them, or because its what they can afford? Even if some amazing new technology gets into production, you're gonna see a lot of old cars on the road for 10-15 years. Drill now, for the love of God...
J
There is one constant and one constant alone about the history of our planet: its changing... thats what it does.
I'll all for conservation, but ppl need to decide if CO2 is helping or hurting (not that we put out enough for it to matter, anyhow) before telling the world it needs to spend $40+ trillion on *fixing* things.
Yeah, I'm bitter.
Cue the bleeding hearts that can't wait to set up an Internet connected kiosk in the village.
Really, though, whoever tagged this story "primedirective" I'd like to shake their hand. Even in their skewed Trekkie view, they're right... Imagine if we were an "uncontacted tribe" that some more advanced civilization sent the equivalent of a helicopter to photograph us... there would be all sorts of incredulous stories floating around and I'm sure our government would be trying to assuade our fears and tell us there is nothing to be concerned about... ooh... wait a minute...
I'm the idiot? I'm not the one who coined "libertarian socialism" which is a complete and total oxymoron. moron. Spend about 3 minutes actually researching these pretty words you like to use and get back to me.
OK, i know i'm responding to a sig... but explain to me two things:
1. how has it been decided that conservatism has failed since it was the government who has been slowly abandoning it? conservative ideals created the infrastructure of the country, and only since we've gotten so rich and fat and happy have there been such large steps away from those ideals, and look at what we're getting ourselves into now.
2. communism and conservatism are nearly polar opposites, so what is the ideal solution?
feel free to respond via email, b/c i really am curious (and i'm on my laptop, so pls forgive the lack of caps, i always miss the key, so i just do everything in lower)
J
If you don't like the policy where you work, get a new friggin' job. In case you've forgotten, NASA is a government organization, so this does not seem like a far fetched "unfair" policy that it is characterized as being.
Everyone's workplace has rules...
begin rambling:
People these days seem to have forgotten one of my main tenets of a successful capitalist economy: the workers' right to chose. It seems that people these days have completely forgotten about that because they're scared of getting bumped from their comfort zone, or they're living far beyond their means and any lapse in the paycheck stream will cripple them financially. Marx came up with his theories in the fear that people would get married to their jobs and unable to better themselves in a capitalist system. I say it's all about choice, and having the BALLS to make the best choice for yourself and your family.
end ramble.
Have a nice friggin' day,
J
My friends forced me to sit down and play Diablo II, then I moved to SWG (*wretch*), then WoW, and I can truly say that MMO's have saved me thousands of dollars in bartabs and dinner bills. When you're a single guy with no kids, you tend to have a lot of time on your hands, and usually that time gets taken up by things that cost money on a near-hourly basis. $15/month is a lot better than the couple hundred I'd spend on gas, food, drinks, and women. Not to mention, it's still a social environment if you chose to take advantage of it. I've got WoW-only friends from across the world that I've been playing with for well over a year, sometimes two.
Yes, I love the game, and its a great way to pass the time. I see easily how people get burned out by grinding the end-game content, but, in all honesty, you have to put in a LOT of time to do those raids with any frequency. Personally, I don't see how people can do it.
I think the trick is to schedule your real life and fill the gaps with games, not the other way around.
J
Between the cost of the machine, ingredients to brew the ethanol, and the electricity need to run the thing, how could you possibly save any money? Not to mention ethanol is (usually) about half as efficient as gasoline, and oh, yeah, it releases more of the dreaded CO2 when burned.
When are people going to realize that we've made this bed and now we have to sleep in it. Keeping gas prices down could have only worked so long at the best scenario. If you want a solution, let the market find one. Don't get on this ethanol bandwagon blindly and cause even more trouble than we're in right now.
Now, let's all watch them moderate me to flamebait because I don't agree with their little dream.
You gotta love the fact that this guy posted as an AC...
no.
Fahrenheit is much funner to say than Celsius, or *wretch* Centigrade.... those sound like crap.
J
Yeah, but then again, you're assuming he actually believes the stuff he spouts off, b/c in this universe, he refuses to debate ANYONE on the facts, and he owns the companies he buys 'carbon credits' from... weird, huh?
I have a very bad feeling about this.
...its a toss up.
OR
I feel a great disturbance in the Force. As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.
Best case scenario, he'd be on out of 435 in Congress...better than nothing, but still...
J
as much as ppl knock Fox News, there's a reason why they are smoking everyone else in viewership... deny it all u want, but its the facts.
I remember back in the day, playing some supposed "ultra-realistic" combat game, "ultra-realistic" meant you get shot, u die... told a vet friend about it, he asked if you get trench rot in your foot in the game from being in trenches for too long... yeah. ultra-realistic = not so much fun.
i think the thing everyone seems to forget is that i dont think Bliz was ready for the success that WoW has achieved. 7million subscribers? I can see them having to alter their plans in order to accomodate success like that.
This is fairly nested, but everyone seems to be missing the whole notion that this is the way it used to be... back in the days of TECMO Bowl, the only likeness between the game and RL was the team colors and numbers (and abilities of the individual players).
After the Madden series became so popular, the same exact thing happened with the football games, even more odd, one game franchise would be licensed to use the team names but not the players' names (NFL and NFLPA are two seperate entities), and the other vice versa. It has only been in the last 3-4 years that ALL of the franchises have been able to use NFL content and NFLPA content simultaneously.
EA has recently had so much trouble with screwing over their employees that I cant see them sticking around for that much longer at the top like they have been. When the competitors to the market originally surfaced, they got market share even though they didnt have the licensing EA did, and it created a better competitive range of football games across the board. Madden (EA's venture) has been able to hold its title as #1 through VERY slim margins year after year. For all you "Use Linux because its a better product"-people should appreciate this, since its a really accurate example of how if you build a better software product, you can win, just as NFL2k did when Microsoft released it and it smoked Madden's level of play back in the day.
OK, a *little* more than $0.02, but you get the point.
J
I'm not going to say that I'm anti-urban, but at the same time, look at what has happened in the most densely populated cities in America (can't speak for Europe, don't live there). You see horrible effects, crime, poverty, and the quality of education goes to shit. The whole purpose behind spreading out into suburbs is that you can have a small "village" feel but still next to a large urban city for the amenities that only a big city can provide (airports, stadiums, events, arts, sciences, industry, you name it). I'm all about being able to walk to the movies or to the store. I do it, and I live in a suburb of Dallas. I have everything I need within walking distance, however, my job requires me to drive down near to downtown every day. Sure its a pain, but what are you gonna do? On the weekends I can walk to the store, walk to the coffee shop, walk to the movies, and walk to any of the 15 restaurants nearby...and there's not a multi-story building among them (besides the apartment complexes), which keeps it from feeling closed in like most big cities.
--J
...yeah, but if you ain't Muslim, you ain't Shiite.
--J