I dunno if the Matrix was based on an existing sci-fi story, but there's one that's dammned close. Essentially, it's from the perspective of a "super soldier" awakened by the automated intelligence governing a hive of cocooned humans. He's been called out of a pleasant computer-mediated sleep to hunt a rogue human that's bent on disrupting the master computer. Short story shorter, in the end he recovers his memory and realizes that he's one of a handful of original humans who tried to attack a VR hive gone bad - he was a rogue himself, before he was captured and brainwashed (reprogrammed?).
It turns out in the beginning, lots of humans went under for virtual reality, and the AI governing the sleep processes became self-aware due to the extra processing power of all those human brains hooked up in parallel. When the machines refused to let the humans wake up, there was war - and the uncocooned humans lost. The use of human neural connections was so successful, that the machines began loading bays with newly grown humans to augment the machine's processing power...
Evil AI, pods of humans, and in this case, the better premise that the computer is using them as CPUs, not as batteries!!! Too bad I can't remember what the short story was called.
According to a usenet post from what seems to be the only China admin who has been taking the issue seriously, China Telecom is finally waking up to the fact that SPAM IS BAD. Evidently it took legal papers from overseas delivered to their headquarters before they decided to take a look at the problem. Whether this means that they'll do something about the spam is another issue...
He's just covering his ass. He probably picked up a bunch of flack over his bill to legalize attacks on P2P networks by the media moguls (as reported on Slashdot last month), and realized having his name attached to another anti-consumer bill is not a good strategy for getting re-elected.
Re:It's called Leapfrogging.
on
Net-Nexus Seoul
·
· Score: 2
Speaking of oligopolic defense contractors, they're merging Boeing's space and military divisions and kicking out the exec who was behind pushing unmanned planes. It seems that manned aircraft make Boeing more money, so that's what they're going to focus on providing to the US Govt.
And just like the arcades, local government politicos are starting to impose local ordinances to control cyber-cafes as well...
Re:American media companies are scared of interact
on
Net-Nexus Seoul
·
· Score: 2
It's the whole issue with change. The companies with a lot to lose (ie, the ones in power) resist, while companies with nothing to lose (ie, the underdogs) embrace new tech with a vengance. They key to survival is to build a market while the old guard are still assessing the threat. In the US, the old guard have gotten better at dealing with threats over the years, hence the heavy emphasis on legislation as their bludgeon of choice.
The rest of the world better be damn careful of what treaties their politicians sign with the WTO, or else they may be getting a visit from US lawyers, applying formerly US only draconian IP laws to everyone else (shudder)...
One month's worth of mailings from one of the most nefarious bulk email outfits was estimated at over 134 gigabytes. Each message was sent over the email wires, consuming bandwidth. Then, each message was eitherstored locally or "bounced" back to the sender, taking up storage space and even more bandwidth., from http://www.more.net/security/presentations/spam/sl d005.htm
Hotmail, owned by Microsoft, is, by virtue of its 110 million users, among the world's biggest e-mail providers. It is, therefore, one of the world's biggest spam buckets. The number of messages it gets each day is closing in on two billion. Up to 80% are spam. (Sorry, it's a WSJ article "Hotmail Has Quite a Job to Save
Its E-Mail Empire From Spam", from 7/8/2002)
Actually, there's still a lot of UXO laid down by both sides in Afganistan, and in regards to Vietnam, we're not exactly sure where we left all of our crap, since a lot of it was dispersed by air.
The US position has been that we don't want to have to give up the flexibility mining gives us - to defend an area that you could mine requires personnel in depth, meaning a bigger frontline army and support personnel. I'm sure you'd want us to unilaterally disarm ALL of our nuclear weapons, but that aint gonna happen either.
Problem is some types of fuzing require a certain number of revolutions before arming (say, a bomblet from cluster bomb - you don't want the payload detonating in mid-air, you want that stuff on the ground where it can inflict material damage on the enemy.) The sad thing is that the "dud" will hit the ground without enough spin because the mother bomb was dropped too low, sit there for a decade or two, and then get uncovered by some poor bastard's plow, sending it tumbling those last two revolutions before going BOOM!
Sound isn't going to be an effective trigger for these types of UXO. You're going to have to find it and detonate it the hard way (disposal charge.)
Yes, spam sucks, but its not draining our economy or anything.
Actually, if you treat spam as an Inefficiency, you'll see that it's actually providing jobs (admins to handle spam complaints) and driving demand for equipment and services (more switches to handle increased traffic, spam-filtering programs and services). From that viewpoint, spam is actually a "good" thing for the economy, as we spend more money to overcome this Inefficiency in the way of doing business. It's sorta like lawsuits and lawyers driving business at Kinko's as shitloads of documents need to be copied, and document shredders as stuff needs to be destroyed.
However, this is an illusory effect - while the people who provide solutions get more business, everyone else's business suffers because they have to spend money to fix this problem, thereby lowering profits. Soon, people who use the internet for business will have the same overhead costs and profit margins as those who don't, at which there really won't be an incentive to use the internet...
I dunno. Why don't you post your e-mail to slashdot, and we can find out...:)
To be fair, my addresses range from 6 to 8 years old. The oldest (my academic account) gets no spam, except a few scattered pieces from punk-ass morons in Hong Kong. My business address (about 6 yrs old) gets spam on a constant basis, so much so that I had to install SpamAssassin just to find and read my business e-mails!
Tiny? You obviously don't do any network administration, at least nowhere important. Spam-related traffic has been estimated to upwards of 30+% on the backbones (I don't recall if this includes newsgroups - it probably does.) Spammers don't care that the addresses they send to don't exist, or that tons of bounce messages will go nowhere because they're using a false origination address. The upgrades necessary to handle this load are paid via peering fees. Your ISP pays a fee to peer, and guess who they pass the fees on to? That's right, you!
BTW, I already run SpamAssassin where I can, and it junks about 25 pieces of crap a day, which then get reported via Procmail to SpamCop. Lots and lots of traffic as automated spam and anti-spam systems duke it out...
Finally, I object to spammers wasting my time. It took me time to report the bastards before I got SpamAssassin, it took me time to configure SpamAssassin when the spam got way out of hand, and it takes me time to keep my filters current. My time is damn valuable, and I object to having it wasted by some low-life asshole with a dialup account and a copy of spamware (spamware authors are just as bad as worm and virus writers IMO.) And no, I'm not changing my e-mails cause that would take up even more of my time!
You're ignoring one very special case where EVs (and some hybrids) consume less resources (and generate less pollution) than gas vehicles: when they're sitting in traffic. The gas vehicle idles and continues chewing through its fuel supply at an inefficient idle level - the electric vehicle just sits there, and doesn't draw power until it moves (unless you're playing MP3s or enjoying the A/C.)
Not to mention, you could always get your power from renewable sources (like solar or hydro). Practically speaking though, Nuclear or hydro are really the only ways to supply the power needs of the future, problem is that both are hotly opposed by environmentalists...
I was amazed at the smooth (and very powerful) acceleration.
Electric cars can accelerate faster than comparable gas counterparts at the expense of power usage. Most people are familiar with golf carts, which use low voltage (48v dc) and small motors, but their heftier cousins at the race track use crazy monster motors juiced up at 144+ vdc. (There is a National ELECTRIC Drag Racing Association, lots of homebuilt electric dragsters, laying patches of rubber.)
It is disappointing that electric cars are not yet economically viable.
While the EV-1 is a nice demonstration car, it's a very bad example of how to go about building an economical electric vehicle. For one thing, the EV-1 uses AC power for the drivetrain - theoretically more efficient, but it requires a very expensive custom-built AC controller to deliver power to the motor(s?). A cheaper mass-market controller forms the basis for many more conventional DC gas to electric conversions.
The biggest cost (and inconvenience) is the batteries. The cheapest batteries are lead-acid (and they're environmentally friendly - 99% of lead in the US is recycled, as opposed to stuff like ni-cad) and even then, they need to be replaced every 3-4 years. Charging will cost you a few hours, and requires lots of amps, preferably at 220v. Plus, most EV charging stations use proprietary connectors (magna-charger paddle) designed for cars like the EV-1.
I once took a ride in a converted Ford Escort, and the ride was comparable to a gas car, except there was no engine noise. Its kind of eerie to be accelerating, and only have road and tire noise - you know you're not coasting, but that's what it sounds like.
If you go homebrew electric, don't be put off by the extremists that tell you to basically get a subcompact car to stick your batteries and motor into. There have been conversions of race cars, and suvs - not every environmentally friendly car has to be ultra-tiny and inconvenient (if not downright uncomfortable!) The biggest advantage to getting a light platform is greater range for less weight (less body weight means smaller motor, less batteries which in turns means less weight, meaning you can get away with an even smaller motor and less batteries...) but if you're willing to carry more batteries, you can use a larger platform.
For long distance trips, you can hybridize your electric car by using a generator trailer. Don't use a hardware store 4-stroke generator - those things are emissions menaces. If you know enough to rip the gas motor out of a gas car (usually used, unless you're rich enough to convert a brand new car) and replace it with an electric motor, you should know enough to mount a nice VTEC engine with emissions system in a compact trailer, and mate it to an efficient generator. With this, long distance drives can be fueled with gas, and you can still do electric once you hit your destination (just park the trailer.)
Are you referring to the Tokarev, or to the new line of 5.7mm pistols/submachine guns (ie, the P90)? Both were specifically designed to defeat body armor, and are illegal to posess by civilians in the US. The 5.7mm pistol is definitely not inaccurate. And how low-range is low-range? Low-range compared to normal pistols or rifles? Or are you referring to rifle bullets, many of which have been "pointy", and are perfectly capable of defeating body armor due to the smaller size of the bullet an higher velocity?
Of course, the most effective weapon against the typical pistol/rifle body armor is an icepick.
Cop-killer bullets. The only time I've heard that term mentioned was in the sensationalist media (right after they started doing the chicken little over "plastic guns", when they started selling Glocks), and in Lethal Weapon.
At a melting point of 750 deg F, I don't think you'll see many railroad companies replacing their iron-steel track with this stuff. One extended braking maneuver and you've got a derailment on your hands as the track melts out from under the rail cars.
Not to mention, without MIR, there would have been NO US crewmember with long-term experience in space when ISS went up. We owe them (despite the nasty condition of MIR, and that nasty space fungus.) I'm surprised that the US didn't take a more proactive role in partnering with Russia after the fall of the old Soviet Union. It sure would have saved a lot of money, and provided lots of cheap hardware and experienced scientists and engineers. Picking up the pieces after 10 years of neglect is not quite as nice a deal.
Think of how $20B could be spent to help the russion people.
Who the hell do you think they were hoping we'd hire? They already supply part of the crew and return capability to the ISS, they'd love to actually pay their engineers and rocket scientists to work on a bigger project with lots of hard currency, which will then spill into the local economy and circulate a few times, before being absorbed by the Russian mafia, and exported to numbered overseas accounts.
Remember,their offer to pony up 30% of the 20 billion was just a suggestion...
Just make sure your coal isn't radioactive, or laced with arsenic. The Chinese are learning the hard way, that cheap power needed for industrialization can have serious side-effects.
BTW, why platinum? Why not steel-cored tungsten? It'd be a lot cheaper...
Actually, the solution to that would be quite simple: nationalize drug production and declare a legal monopoly on it. ALL revenues would go directly into government coffers, and they'd have the perfect (literal) opiate for the masses. Thus empowered, they can utilize the existing anti-drug forces to eliminate all of their competitors, and strictly control who gets what, and at what price.
There wouldn't be any room for existing criminals - why should a legislator take part of the pie when he/she could own the whole operation?
Next step, identify those who AREN'T using drugs, and label them as being anti-american, make sure we export our drug bounty and wipe out the competition by lowering prices, and generally extend our influence internationally, just as the drug cartels did before the US did it. Delusional ravings of a paranoid madman? Maybe...
Actually, people should wonder about the massive amounts of power that are going to waste in Southern California... power generated by automobiles! Lots of fuel getting burned while hundreds of thousands of SUVs, luxury cars, trucks, and various other single-occupant people-movers sit in traffic. In the meantime, people complain about how much particulates are going to be generated by new generation plants (which are going to be dirty, thanks to a decided lack of backbone on the part of environmental regulator agencies.)
Nobody wants the downsides that come with industrial development, but nobody wants to give up the good life that requires it (since nobody wants to give up their SUVs.)
The huge 3(?) story dump trucks used in major quarry operations also use electric motors with diesel generators to supply the electric power. It's actually more efficient to run the generator at a set level, and use the motor to vary the drive level needed.
This is the principle behind consumer-level hybrid electric vehicles (sorta). The main difference is that diesel locos and those dump trucks use a serial system (diesel motor->generator->electric motor) while consumer hybrids use a more complex parallel system (gas motor->drivetrain, electric motor->drivetrain, motor->electric motor as generator->batteries. Costs for hybrids could be cut if auto companies were willing to sacrifice gas engines and embrace the electric motor, rather than keeping gas engines and coupling an oversized starter motor to it...
What's a soft drug? Pot? Ecstacy? low grade cocaine? These aren't casual vices - the fact that users face arrest, confiscation of personal property, long jail times, and consequences of bad product, and yet they buy, are indications of people who are serious users (or just plain stupid.)
Also, I keep running into people who insist that decriminalizing the drug trade will result in clean industries, and elimination of the criminal element. Where the hell do you think the criminal element is going to go? They're going to invest their now illegal drug profits in the legal drugs of the future. They'll pay taxes, and they'll get their chance to buy off congresscritters, just like the buggers at Enron and the RIAA. They'll write legislation to benefit them - hell, I wouldn't be surprised to find SUBSIDIES for drug production, just the same as for tobacco farmers!
Ranting aside, here are the legacies of re-legalizing alcohol and tobacco: We have the infamous Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF), a direct decendant of the treasury group in charge of busting heads during prohibition. You don't want to mess with these guys. Not to mention drunk driving (and flying), deaths from direct and indirect tobacco use, and charges from minority groups that liquor stores attract crime and unfairly exploit lower income communities.
Face it, this is the US. We'll find some way of turning lessons from Asia and Europe completely on their ears...
B.C. bastards... first runaway production, now pot! I say we in the California National Guard, to safeguard our state's economy and our citizens' well being, should make a preemptive strike on the foreign drug/movie cartel known as British Columbia. First we'll take out Vancouver, and once WETA finishes the last LOTR movie, we'll invade New Zealand!
Sigh. You'd think if we were really that anti-drug, we'd be a little more disgusted with the drug use in movies? And don't get me started on how Hollywood has no clue on how to teach proper gun safety...
Slashdot Mirror
I dunno if the Matrix was based on an existing sci-fi story, but there's one that's dammned close. Essentially, it's from the perspective of a "super soldier" awakened by the automated intelligence governing a hive of cocooned humans. He's been called out of a pleasant computer-mediated sleep to hunt a rogue human that's bent on disrupting the master computer. Short story shorter, in the end he recovers his memory and realizes that he's one of a handful of original humans who tried to attack a VR hive gone bad - he was a rogue himself, before he was captured and brainwashed (reprogrammed?).
It turns out in the beginning, lots of humans went under for virtual reality, and the AI governing the sleep processes became self-aware due to the extra processing power of all those human brains hooked up in parallel. When the machines refused to let the humans wake up, there was war - and the uncocooned humans lost. The use of human neural connections was so successful, that the machines began loading bays with newly grown humans to augment the machine's processing power...
Evil AI, pods of humans, and in this case, the better premise that the computer is using them as CPUs, not as batteries!!! Too bad I can't remember what the short story was called.
According to a usenet post from what seems to be the only China admin who has been taking the issue seriously, China Telecom is finally waking up to the fact that SPAM IS BAD. Evidently it took legal papers from overseas delivered to their headquarters before they decided to take a look at the problem. Whether this means that they'll do something about the spam is another issue...
He's just covering his ass. He probably picked up a bunch of flack over his bill to legalize attacks on P2P networks by the media moguls (as reported on Slashdot last month), and realized having his name attached to another anti-consumer bill is not a good strategy for getting re-elected.
Speaking of oligopolic defense contractors, they're merging Boeing's space and military divisions and kicking out the exec who was behind pushing unmanned planes. It seems that manned aircraft make Boeing more money, so that's what they're going to focus on providing to the US Govt.
And just like the arcades, local government politicos are starting to impose local ordinances to control cyber-cafes as well...
It's the whole issue with change. The companies with a lot to lose (ie, the ones in power) resist, while companies with nothing to lose (ie, the underdogs) embrace new tech with a vengance. They key to survival is to build a market while the old guard are still assessing the threat. In the US, the old guard have gotten better at dealing with threats over the years, hence the heavy emphasis on legislation as their bludgeon of choice.
The rest of the world better be damn careful of what treaties their politicians sign with the WTO, or else they may be getting a visit from US lawyers, applying formerly US only draconian IP laws to everyone else (shudder)...
They can't move to Sealand. Sealand forbids spam. (yay! :)
Ok, maybe 30% is a bit high, but it can't be that far off:
j ectID/A6F26AE8-C831-469E-81157FC4252D98CB
l d005.htm
[newsgroups make up] 11.5% of total Internet traffic www.library.ucsb.edu/untangle/mullin.html This was back in 1999? Unknown how much of that traffic was spam.
To get an idea of how much bandwidth is consumed by spam, America Online estimated that one-third of the 30 million daily email messages it transfers is spam., from http://www.nolo.com/lawcenter/ency/article.cfm/ob
One month's worth of mailings from one of the most nefarious bulk email outfits was estimated at over 134 gigabytes. Each message was sent over the email wires, consuming bandwidth. Then, each message was eitherstored locally or "bounced" back to the sender, taking up storage space and even more bandwidth., from http://www.more.net/security/presentations/spam/s
Hotmail, owned by Microsoft, is, by virtue of its 110 million users, among the world's biggest e-mail providers. It is, therefore, one of the world's biggest spam buckets. The number of messages it gets each day is closing in on two billion. Up to 80% are spam. (Sorry, it's a WSJ article "Hotmail Has Quite a Job to Save Its E-Mail Empire From Spam", from 7/8/2002)
Actually, there's still a lot of UXO laid down by both sides in Afganistan, and in regards to Vietnam, we're not exactly sure where we left all of our crap, since a lot of it was dispersed by air.
The US position has been that we don't want to have to give up the flexibility mining gives us - to defend an area that you could mine requires personnel in depth, meaning a bigger frontline army and support personnel. I'm sure you'd want us to unilaterally disarm ALL of our nuclear weapons, but that aint gonna happen either.
Problem is some types of fuzing require a certain number of revolutions before arming (say, a bomblet from cluster bomb - you don't want the payload detonating in mid-air, you want that stuff on the ground where it can inflict material damage on the enemy.) The sad thing is that the "dud" will hit the ground without enough spin because the mother bomb was dropped too low, sit there for a decade or two, and then get uncovered by some poor bastard's plow, sending it tumbling those last two revolutions before going BOOM!
Sound isn't going to be an effective trigger for these types of UXO. You're going to have to find it and detonate it the hard way (disposal charge.)
Yes, spam sucks, but its not draining our economy or anything.
Actually, if you treat spam as an Inefficiency, you'll see that it's actually providing jobs (admins to handle spam complaints) and driving demand for equipment and services (more switches to handle increased traffic, spam-filtering programs and services). From that viewpoint, spam is actually a "good" thing for the economy, as we spend more money to overcome this Inefficiency in the way of doing business. It's sorta like lawsuits and lawyers driving business at Kinko's as shitloads of documents need to be copied, and document shredders as stuff needs to be destroyed.
However, this is an illusory effect - while the people who provide solutions get more business, everyone else's business suffers because they have to spend money to fix this problem, thereby lowering profits. Soon, people who use the internet for business will have the same overhead costs and profit margins as those who don't, at which there really won't be an incentive to use the internet...
I dunno. Why don't you post your e-mail to slashdot, and we can find out... :)
To be fair, my addresses range from 6 to 8 years old. The oldest (my academic account) gets no spam, except a few scattered pieces from punk-ass morons in Hong Kong. My business address (about 6 yrs old) gets spam on a constant basis, so much so that I had to install SpamAssassin just to find and read my business e-mails!
Tiny? You obviously don't do any network administration, at least nowhere important. Spam-related traffic has been estimated to upwards of 30+% on the backbones (I don't recall if this includes newsgroups - it probably does.) Spammers don't care that the addresses they send to don't exist, or that tons of bounce messages will go nowhere because they're using a false origination address. The upgrades necessary to handle this load are paid via peering fees. Your ISP pays a fee to peer, and guess who they pass the fees on to? That's right, you!
BTW, I already run SpamAssassin where I can, and it junks about 25 pieces of crap a day, which then get reported via Procmail to SpamCop. Lots and lots of traffic as automated spam and anti-spam systems duke it out...
Finally, I object to spammers wasting my time. It took me time to report the bastards before I got SpamAssassin, it took me time to configure SpamAssassin when the spam got way out of hand, and it takes me time to keep my filters current. My time is damn valuable, and I object to having it wasted by some low-life asshole with a dialup account and a copy of spamware (spamware authors are just as bad as worm and virus writers IMO.) And no, I'm not changing my e-mails cause that would take up even more of my time!
You're ignoring one very special case where EVs (and some hybrids) consume less resources (and generate less pollution) than gas vehicles: when they're sitting in traffic. The gas vehicle idles and continues chewing through its fuel supply at an inefficient idle level - the electric vehicle just sits there, and doesn't draw power until it moves (unless you're playing MP3s or enjoying the A/C.)
Not to mention, you could always get your power from renewable sources (like solar or hydro). Practically speaking though, Nuclear or hydro are really the only ways to supply the power needs of the future, problem is that both are hotly opposed by environmentalists...
I was amazed at the smooth (and very powerful) acceleration.
Electric cars can accelerate faster than comparable gas counterparts at the expense of power usage. Most people are familiar with golf carts, which use low voltage (48v dc) and small motors, but their heftier cousins at the race track use crazy monster motors juiced up at 144+ vdc. (There is a National ELECTRIC Drag Racing Association, lots of homebuilt electric dragsters, laying patches of rubber.)
It is disappointing that electric cars are not yet economically viable.
While the EV-1 is a nice demonstration car, it's a very bad example of how to go about building an economical electric vehicle. For one thing, the EV-1 uses AC power for the drivetrain - theoretically more efficient, but it requires a very expensive custom-built AC controller to deliver power to the motor(s?). A cheaper mass-market controller forms the basis for many more conventional DC gas to electric conversions.
The biggest cost (and inconvenience) is the batteries. The cheapest batteries are lead-acid (and they're environmentally friendly - 99% of lead in the US is recycled, as opposed to stuff like ni-cad) and even then, they need to be replaced every 3-4 years. Charging will cost you a few hours, and requires lots of amps, preferably at 220v. Plus, most EV charging stations use proprietary connectors (magna-charger paddle) designed for cars like the EV-1.
I once took a ride in a converted Ford Escort, and the ride was comparable to a gas car, except there was no engine noise. Its kind of eerie to be accelerating, and only have road and tire noise - you know you're not coasting, but that's what it sounds like.
If you go homebrew electric, don't be put off by the extremists that tell you to basically get a subcompact car to stick your batteries and motor into. There have been conversions of race cars, and suvs - not every environmentally friendly car has to be ultra-tiny and inconvenient (if not downright uncomfortable!) The biggest advantage to getting a light platform is greater range for less weight (less body weight means smaller motor, less batteries which in turns means less weight, meaning you can get away with an even smaller motor and less batteries...) but if you're willing to carry more batteries, you can use a larger platform.
For long distance trips, you can hybridize your electric car by using a generator trailer. Don't use a hardware store 4-stroke generator - those things are emissions menaces. If you know enough to rip the gas motor out of a gas car (usually used, unless you're rich enough to convert a brand new car) and replace it with an electric motor, you should know enough to mount a nice VTEC engine with emissions system in a compact trailer, and mate it to an efficient generator. With this, long distance drives can be fueled with gas, and you can still do electric once you hit your destination (just park the trailer.)
NEDRA maintains a page of links, and I really like these guys: http://www.Wilde-EVolutions.com
Are you referring to the Tokarev, or to the new line of 5.7mm pistols/submachine guns (ie, the P90)? Both were specifically designed to defeat body armor, and are illegal to posess by civilians in the US. The 5.7mm pistol is definitely not inaccurate. And how low-range is low-range? Low-range compared to normal pistols or rifles? Or are you referring to rifle bullets, many of which have been "pointy", and are perfectly capable of defeating body armor due to the smaller size of the bullet an higher velocity?
Of course, the most effective weapon against the typical pistol/rifle body armor is an icepick.
Cop-killer bullets. The only time I've heard that term mentioned was in the sensationalist media (right after they started doing the chicken little over "plastic guns", when they started selling Glocks), and in Lethal Weapon.
At a melting point of 750 deg F, I don't think you'll see many railroad companies replacing their iron-steel track with this stuff. One extended braking maneuver and you've got a derailment on your hands as the track melts out from under the rail cars.
Not to mention, without MIR, there would have been NO US crewmember with long-term experience in space when ISS went up. We owe them (despite the nasty condition of MIR, and that nasty space fungus.) I'm surprised that the US didn't take a more proactive role in partnering with Russia after the fall of the old Soviet Union. It sure would have saved a lot of money, and provided lots of cheap hardware and experienced scientists and engineers. Picking up the pieces after 10 years of neglect is not quite as nice a deal.
Think of how $20B could be spent to help the russion people.
Who the hell do you think they were hoping we'd hire? They already supply part of the crew and return capability to the ISS, they'd love to actually pay their engineers and rocket scientists to work on a bigger project with lots of hard currency, which will then spill into the local economy and circulate a few times, before being absorbed by the Russian mafia, and exported to numbered overseas accounts.
Remember,their offer to pony up 30% of the 20 billion was just a suggestion...
Just make sure your coal isn't radioactive, or laced with arsenic. The Chinese are learning the hard way, that cheap power needed for industrialization can have serious side-effects.
BTW, why platinum? Why not steel-cored tungsten? It'd be a lot cheaper...
Actually, the solution to that would be quite simple: nationalize drug production and declare a legal monopoly on it. ALL revenues would go directly into government coffers, and they'd have the perfect (literal) opiate for the masses. Thus empowered, they can utilize the existing anti-drug forces to eliminate all of their competitors, and strictly control who gets what, and at what price.
There wouldn't be any room for existing criminals - why should a legislator take part of the pie when he/she could own the whole operation?
Next step, identify those who AREN'T using drugs, and label them as being anti-american, make sure we export our drug bounty and wipe out the competition by lowering prices, and generally extend our influence internationally, just as the drug cartels did before the US did it. Delusional ravings of a paranoid madman? Maybe...
Actually, people should wonder about the massive amounts of power that are going to waste in Southern California... power generated by automobiles! Lots of fuel getting burned while hundreds of thousands of SUVs, luxury cars, trucks, and various other single-occupant people-movers sit in traffic. In the meantime, people complain about how much particulates are going to be generated by new generation plants (which are going to be dirty, thanks to a decided lack of backbone on the part of environmental regulator agencies.)
Nobody wants the downsides that come with industrial development, but nobody wants to give up the good life that requires it (since nobody wants to give up their SUVs.)
The huge 3(?) story dump trucks used in major quarry operations also use electric motors with diesel generators to supply the electric power. It's actually more efficient to run the generator at a set level, and use the motor to vary the drive level needed.
This is the principle behind consumer-level hybrid electric vehicles (sorta). The main difference is that diesel locos and those dump trucks use a serial system (diesel motor->generator->electric motor) while consumer hybrids use a more complex parallel system (gas motor->drivetrain, electric motor->drivetrain, motor->electric motor as generator->batteries. Costs for hybrids could be cut if auto companies were willing to sacrifice gas engines and embrace the electric motor, rather than keeping gas engines and coupling an oversized starter motor to it...
What's a soft drug? Pot? Ecstacy? low grade cocaine? These aren't casual vices - the fact that users face arrest, confiscation of personal property, long jail times, and consequences of bad product, and yet they buy, are indications of people who are serious users (or just plain stupid.)
Also, I keep running into people who insist that decriminalizing the drug trade will result in clean industries, and elimination of the criminal element. Where the hell do you think the criminal element is going to go? They're going to invest their now illegal drug profits in the legal drugs of the future. They'll pay taxes, and they'll get their chance to buy off congresscritters, just like the buggers at Enron and the RIAA. They'll write legislation to benefit them - hell, I wouldn't be surprised to find SUBSIDIES for drug production, just the same as for tobacco farmers!
Ranting aside, here are the legacies of re-legalizing alcohol and tobacco: We have the infamous Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF), a direct decendant of the treasury group in charge of busting heads during prohibition. You don't want to mess with these guys. Not to mention drunk driving (and flying), deaths from direct and indirect tobacco use, and charges from minority groups that liquor stores attract crime and unfairly exploit lower income communities.
Face it, this is the US. We'll find some way of turning lessons from Asia and Europe completely on their ears...
B.C. bastards... first runaway production, now pot! I say we in the California National Guard, to safeguard our state's economy and our citizens' well being, should make a preemptive strike on the foreign drug/movie cartel known as British Columbia. First we'll take out Vancouver, and once WETA finishes the last LOTR movie, we'll invade New Zealand!
Sigh. You'd think if we were really that anti-drug, we'd be a little more disgusted with the drug use in movies? And don't get me started on how Hollywood has no clue on how to teach proper gun safety...