This device complies with part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions:
This device may not cause harmful interference, and
This device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation.
Meaning that the FCC won't do anything if your microwave is making your router go wonky. But since there is something causing outside interference to multiple people, they WILL track it down, as that means there is a device somewhere in your neighborhood that is violating the first part of the above condition.
Journalism is hard though. If it was easy everybody would do it.
Judging by the number of self-important blogs out there, everyone TRIES to do it anyway. Proof that both the best and worst aspects of the Internet are that everyone has access.
With all due respect, "colonizing the New World" is a fantasy. Consider this: How much money, time, and resources would it cost to move 10,000 people (a miniscule fraction of England's population) "to the New World" in a manner that they could survive for 10 years (a miniscule fraction of human life). Put them 1) on a ship, 2) on an island, or 3) on the mainland. Have them 1) be totally dependent on England for equipment, resources and tools, 2) dependent on England for only half, and 3) completely self-sustained. At the end of the 10 year period, they should be completely self-sustained in any scenario you choose.
Please don't make extensive use of the old "we don't know what advances there will be" trick to pretend that at some point it will all be really cheap and easy. Historically, that has never happened. Larger, more advanced sailing ships have always been expensive, and this particular case will be no exception. Creating large-scale colonies is also always expensive in direct proportion to the inhospitability of the environment and its distance from the resource support of the crown.
Nobody is saying that it will be cheap or even easy in the remotely near future. But is that really a valid reason to not even make the attempt? You have to start somewhere, and it will NEVER be cheap/routine if we as a society don't start working toward that goal. Along the way, we can use the technological advances derived from such exploration to (hopefully) better life for those here on Earth. Even something unrelated to ship construction or propulsion systems (such as a self-sustaining food/oxygen supply) could be scaled up to benefit people in the more remote regions of the world.
Administration officials have said that, in hindsight, the central failure in the attempted bombing of an Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight on Christmas Day, involved inadequate sharing of information.
You mean IGNORING of information. How much more intel do you need to screen someone when their own father calls in and says "hey, my son is on a flight to your country, and he's been hanging out with known terrorists. you might want to question him"?? That was simply a case of there was a legitimate threat, and PLENTY of warning, but they chose to flat out ignore it. As a result, you end up with some dickhead trying to set off an underwear-bomb instead of getting detained by authorities.
I do the same thing. I only use them for paying rent, and for paying utilities (since the ass-backwards utility company wants to charge a $5 "transaction fee" to pay with a card online). For everything else, there's my debit card or (rarely) cash. Of course I don't sit and wait for my balance to update, either. Once the card is swiped or the cheque leaves my hand, that money is mentally gone. Whenever I get home at the end of the day, all receipts are entered into gnucash, and that's the balance I go by. That way there is no looking at my online balance and having to adjust the numbers in my head for things that have not yet processed.
Now is the time to send a message to Ubisoft that this sort of intrusive DRM will NOT be tolerated. If the servers had stayed up and people just refused to buy the game, they would have written the poor sales off as being caused by "pirates." Now, you have a chance to prove otherwise. Every single person who bought this game on PC should return it to the store. Yes, most will attempt to deny the returns due to policy, or to exchange with a new copy since that one is perceived as damaged/defective. Do not stand for this. Tell them that yes, it is defective, but ALL copies are defective. Let them know that the software itself works just fine on your computer, and in fact ran EXACTLY the way it was supposed to. However, you are forced to return it because it does not work properly on yours or ANY system, because Ubisoft's servers weren't online to allow you to play a game that you legally purchased and met all the requirements for being able to play.
Ubisoft won't be able to shrug it off as "piracy" when their sales numbers for this game begin to shrink due to returns and angry retailers. THIS will hit them in the pocketbook more than a simple, dubiously effective boycott. When they are forced to start handing money back because of their failures, that will speak much louder than never having been paid that money to begin with.
Yes, that is a problem, but I also feel it's part of what makes Portal so great. Sure, there's interesting puzzles, dark humor, and top notch design. But it's all the additional stuff you can find OUTSIDE of the main game if you take the time to look that makes it so appealing. I love how you can play the game and enjoy it on its own, but if you wish, there's also a whole other dimension to it that makes the story straddle the line betwen FPS and ARG.
Think of it as a login/pass combination. drattmann/h0nee for what appears to be "Dr. Ratt Mann". The character name given to whoever drew all the markings on the walls ("the cake is a lie", the ode to the companion cube, directions for escape, etc) was "Rat Man", who was thought to be either another test subject, or an Aperture Science employee who went mad.
I've long felt that lawyers should be subject to the same outcome as their client. Don't want to get electrocuted, don't represent a murder. Don't want to end up a million dollars in the hole? Don't represent a doctor who's clearly guilty of malpractice.
Meaning you want to essentially get rid of due process, is that correct? Stand accused of a crime, but nobody is willing to defend you because they don't want to share the same fate you get handed. That would be the wet dream of the MPAA/RIAA and any criminal/organization with an axe to grind: Commit a crime and make sure there's enough evidence to pin it on someone else. Nobody will argue against it because they don't want to share a cell with the accused.
As others have said, defense lawyers are there to protect their clients RIGHTS, not their crimes. Without them, there would be nobody to refute biased evidence or testimony, no one to object to the prosecution leading/badgering the witness, and no one to ensure their client gets a fair trial no matter what they're guilty of. That's the spirit of why we conduct legal proceedings the way we do. If you say a person is guilty of a crime, you have to PROVE they did it. Otherwise we go back to the days of those in power screwing over the little guy on their say-so alone (more than they already do). Why bother with evidence if the accusing party is seen as infallible?
It doesn't matter what you're accused of, or even if you're guilty beyond the shadow of a doubt before ever going to trial. If you wish to fight the charges, you have the RIGHT to have your side of the story heard in court. There was a great quote on NCIS the other night, where a defense attorney was asked why she keeps representing criminals. Her reply was something along the lines of, "You make your case, I make mine, and as long as either side wins, I've done my job."
I don't pirate as well, but at this point it's just easier to do all my gaming on a console.
I think this is EXACTLY the opinion Ubisoft wants people to have. They seem to not want to make PC games, so they try to piss off as many people as possible. When the sales drop (which WILL be blamed on "piracy"), then they will use that as an excuse to not make another PC game.
"Superserious" is one step below "superserial" which is, of course, a description reserved solely for the dreaded Manbearpig. That alone should tell you how much of a threat online cheating really is. It might not threaten us all as severely as Manbearpig, but that doesn't mean it won't kill you in your sleep. The sooner we stop online cheating, the sooner we become one step closer to defeating Manbearpig....
What is the big deal? I hate DRM as much as the next guy, but nobody is complaining to Blizzard that they can't play their game offline.
Except that Assassin's Creed 2 is SINGLE-PLAYER-ONLY. With WoW, it's universally known to be an online-only, MULTIPLAYER game. There is no complaining about not being able to play offline, because the entire point of the game is to play with large groups of people.
AC2, on the other hand, has NO multiplayer. It's a strictly single-player adventure. Maybe you missed the part where you get dumped back to the menu if your connection drops for any reason whatsoever? All progress/checkpoints since your last save are lost. Get dumped offline in WoW and you can usually pick back up where you left off (or get your corpse if you were in a 40-man boss fight, since you most likely died before the connection did).
tl;dr Always-on connections are expected for multiplayer games, as it's just common sense. Requiring a constant connection to be allowed to play a single-player game is treating your customers as if they were criminals, which should be a criminal act in and of itself.
What an unfortunate name. One could conceiveably think that Apple is delving into the untapped market of network-enabled feminine hygiene products... What was wrong with the oft-rumored "iSlate" moniker? Also, what's the PRICE on this thing?
Sometimes I think the entire "Buy this ringtone and customize your phone to represent YOU" scam is one of the telecom industry's biggest worthless marketing success.
It is. But then again, you don't have to support it to still "personalize" your phone. Most phones have bluetooth. Bluetooth adapters are cheap for computers that don't already have it. Combine with a copy of Adobe Audition or (for the FOSS crowd) Audacity and a bit of time learning, it's ridiculously easy to make your own ringtones. Why pay USD $2 or more for a 30 second clip from a song when you can make the same clip from your personal collection for free? 40+ ringtones on my phone (although I rarely change it) and I've cut and transferred them all myself. And a lot of them are things you simply won't find on your provider's website. Alice Nine, Indica, Oomph, and my personal favorite, The Protomen.
Oh, and since I agree with you about people's ringtones blaring, I keep my volume set to a reasonable level. Loud enough that I can hear it, but not so loud you can hear it across the lobby in a movie theater.
And a detached, disinterested voice crackles over the school's PA system:
"Anti-social behavior detected in indoctrination room A-127. Report. React. Contain. Civil Protection teams dispatched."
All the while, a kindly looking older man in a brown suit appears on the classroom television reminding all students of how primitive humanity remains, how the system is only there to help us out of the primordial abyss, and to "be safe...be....aware..."
Yes, there is a setup fee for the additional line. It's less than the primary, but it's still pretty ridiculous.
Anyway, what you do when the wife/girlfriend decides to leave you is this:
Remove them as an account manager. This will prevent them from making ANY changes to the account (including cancellation). Change the online password, as well as the one that they have you choose when calling customer service. If you never had them as an AM, you're one step ahead of the game.
Call customer service. Report the phone as lost/stolen and have them do a "suspend WITH billing". What does this accomplish? Well, first of all it puts that particular phone on the negative list, meaning it cannot be used again until you (now the sole authorized person on the account if you followed step 1) allow it to be. Even if she gets her own account, that particular ESN/MEID is blacklisted and CANNOT be used. The other thing this does is keeps your contract end date the same. If she leaves you in month 23 out of 24, you can pay the $10 for the last month, then cancel with no peanalty whatsoever. Much better than paying a $120 ETF with one month to go. If she has any additonal features on the account (text/data/international calling/whatever), you can go ahead and remove those with no penalty, and only owe the prorated amount for the time used in the current month.
While you're on the line with the rep, you can also choose to block her number from your phone.
If the split is more amicable, you can actually split her line off to it's own account under her name, and it would become her financial responsibility. Just tell the customer service rep you would like to do an "Assumption of Liability", and they can give you all the details. This lets her take over her line, keep her number, no ETF, and no activation fee.
The single most important thing to remember when adding a spouse/partner/whatever to your account is that if you add them as an Account Manager, this gives them FULL control over the account to do whatever they want. This includes change your plan, add lines, drop lines, renew contracts, order phones, add/change/remove features, etc. The ONLY things they can't do are add/change AM's, change the customer service password, or perform the above mentioned Assumption of Liability. Something to think about before you add him/her on as anything other than an additional line.
I can only see this approach working if Google gives buyers a choice. Pay full retail for the phone, or pay the reduced price in exchange for having ads sent to it. However, even that will only work if the ads are unobtrusive, and in no way interfere with normal operation of the device. That means NO having to click through a banner ad to make a call or send a text, NO interstitial ads between pages while browsing, NO watermarking of pictures sent via MMS, etc. A banner along the top I could deal with and ignore easily enough.
That being said, I would still choose to pay full retail for the phone so I don't have to see the ads at all.
This page seems to spell things out pretty clearly. Email them with your contact info, the links in question, and what the problem is (in this case, copyrighted content), and they will work with you to resolve the matter. Took all of 2 seconds to find.
But no, rather than have their content removed, they would rather make a huge stink about it to try and get attention and press coverage. As a previous poster pointed out, a nice civil email about the matter could have had this whole thing resolved in a day or two. Sure, the lawyers don't get to rack up billable hours, but the unethical prick who would recommend this course of action needs to walk off of a cliff anyway...
I realize this view is mighty unpopular, yet I am going to express it. While science is very important, so are social issues. I would like to see the NASA budget considerably shrunk but for only a short period of time, say 12 - 18 months. We have to get our country healthy again and space flight really only effects a small sector of the economy. It will create jobs but only at the most educated levels. A healthy country is a more efficient and productive one. Now, you may feel free to mod me but are you willing to join the censors?
Cutting NASA's budget in half will do nothing to solve the numerous social issues faced by this country. Government spending needs to be adjusted, but there are many places spending much, MUCH more than NASA does on an annual basis.
Let's do some quick Googling to compare some annual budget figures here:
NASA FY09: $17.6 billion
US Military Operations FY09: $179.8 billion
US Military Personnel FY09: $125.2 billion
US Military Procurement FY09: $104.2 Billion
US Military Research, Development, Testing, & Evaluation FY09: $79.6 billion
US Welfare Spending FY09: $395.43 billion
Of special note are the Procurement and RDT&E budgets for FY09 totalling around $183.8 billion dollars. This is how much money the military spends buying and testing new equipment. Within those figures, you see a FY09 budget of $6.9 billion for the F-35 program, and $4.1 billion for the F-22. $11 billion dollars for two aircraft programs. The military spends 62% of what NASA uses to run its entire operation on TWO AIRCRAFT PROGRAMS.
To put it another way, for less than twice what the military spends on the next generation of combat aircraft, NASA has to fund; the remainder of the Space Shuttle Program, the Orion/Ares program, the ISS, Ames Research Center, JPL, The Goddard Institute, Dryden Flight Research Center, KSC, Johnson Space Center, White Sands Test Facility, Deep Space Network, and the United States Space & Rocket Center. This includes research on ozone depletion, energy management, and medicine, along with several Earth-science projects dedicated to improving severe weather prediction and environmental conservation. They do this on less than 1/4 of what the military spends on buying new equipment. As another poster said, cutting their budget would cost them manpower that they may never get back. You don't want to do that when you're operating on what is essentially a shoestring budget.
Finally, we come to the reason I included the welfare spending figures above. If you slash the budget for NASA (say by the 50% I threw around earlier), you're saving a grand total of $8.8 to $13.2 billion for the 12-18 months you suggested. That adds 2.2 to 3.3% to the bottom line for welfare spending, which is almost nothing in the grand scheme of things. And what happens at the end of that period? Do you take the money away from welfare? That puts us right back where we started. So no, cutting NASA's budget is NOT the answer. Honestly, I believe that NASA's mission is one of the places where we should INCREASE spending, along with better oversight into ALL areas of government. The more NASA is able to do (and remember, they do more than just send people into space), the better off we will ALL be in the long run.
And no, I'm not going to mod you down (I can't since I'm replying, obviously). But I also won't discourage anyone else from doing so. Modding you down for having a misguided and frankly wrong idea is NOT the same as censorship. If your argument carried any weight whatsoever, it would stand on its own merits. Suggesting that those who disagree with you are censoring your views is a myopic attempt to give them credibility where they would otherwise have none.
Slashdot Mirror
Meaning that the FCC won't do anything if your microwave is making your router go wonky. But since there is something causing outside interference to multiple people, they WILL track it down, as that means there is a device somewhere in your neighborhood that is violating the first part of the above condition.
Looks like a younger Hugh Laurie in a poorly made Assassin's Creed costume.
Judging by the number of self-important blogs out there, everyone TRIES to do it anyway. Proof that both the best and worst aspects of the Internet are that everyone has access.
Nobody is saying that it will be cheap or even easy in the remotely near future. But is that really a valid reason to not even make the attempt? You have to start somewhere, and it will NEVER be cheap/routine if we as a society don't start working toward that goal. Along the way, we can use the technological advances derived from such exploration to (hopefully) better life for those here on Earth. Even something unrelated to ship construction or propulsion systems (such as a self-sustaining food/oxygen supply) could be scaled up to benefit people in the more remote regions of the world.
You mean IGNORING of information. How much more intel do you need to screen someone when their own father calls in and says "hey, my son is on a flight to your country, and he's been hanging out with known terrorists. you might want to question him"?? That was simply a case of there was a legitimate threat, and PLENTY of warning, but they chose to flat out ignore it. As a result, you end up with some dickhead trying to set off an underwear-bomb instead of getting detained by authorities.
I do the same thing. I only use them for paying rent, and for paying utilities (since the ass-backwards utility company wants to charge a $5 "transaction fee" to pay with a card online). For everything else, there's my debit card or (rarely) cash. Of course I don't sit and wait for my balance to update, either. Once the card is swiped or the cheque leaves my hand, that money is mentally gone. Whenever I get home at the end of the day, all receipts are entered into gnucash, and that's the balance I go by. That way there is no looking at my online balance and having to adjust the numbers in my head for things that have not yet processed.
Now is the time to send a message to Ubisoft that this sort of intrusive DRM will NOT be tolerated. If the servers had stayed up and people just refused to buy the game, they would have written the poor sales off as being caused by "pirates." Now, you have a chance to prove otherwise. Every single person who bought this game on PC should return it to the store. Yes, most will attempt to deny the returns due to policy, or to exchange with a new copy since that one is perceived as damaged/defective. Do not stand for this. Tell them that yes, it is defective, but ALL copies are defective. Let them know that the software itself works just fine on your computer, and in fact ran EXACTLY the way it was supposed to. However, you are forced to return it because it does not work properly on yours or ANY system, because Ubisoft's servers weren't online to allow you to play a game that you legally purchased and met all the requirements for being able to play.
Ubisoft won't be able to shrug it off as "piracy" when their sales numbers for this game begin to shrink due to returns and angry retailers. THIS will hit them in the pocketbook more than a simple, dubiously effective boycott. When they are forced to start handing money back because of their failures, that will speak much louder than never having been paid that money to begin with.
Yes, that is a problem, but I also feel it's part of what makes Portal so great. Sure, there's interesting puzzles, dark humor, and top notch design. But it's all the additional stuff you can find OUTSIDE of the main game if you take the time to look that makes it so appealing. I love how you can play the game and enjoy it on its own, but if you wish, there's also a whole other dimension to it that makes the story straddle the line betwen FPS and ARG.
Think of it as a login/pass combination. drattmann/h0nee for what appears to be "Dr. Ratt Mann". The character name given to whoever drew all the markings on the walls ("the cake is a lie", the ode to the companion cube, directions for escape, etc) was "Rat Man", who was thought to be either another test subject, or an Aperture Science employee who went mad.
Meaning you want to essentially get rid of due process, is that correct? Stand accused of a crime, but nobody is willing to defend you because they don't want to share the same fate you get handed. That would be the wet dream of the MPAA/RIAA and any criminal/organization with an axe to grind: Commit a crime and make sure there's enough evidence to pin it on someone else. Nobody will argue against it because they don't want to share a cell with the accused.
As others have said, defense lawyers are there to protect their clients RIGHTS, not their crimes. Without them, there would be nobody to refute biased evidence or testimony, no one to object to the prosecution leading/badgering the witness, and no one to ensure their client gets a fair trial no matter what they're guilty of. That's the spirit of why we conduct legal proceedings the way we do. If you say a person is guilty of a crime, you have to PROVE they did it. Otherwise we go back to the days of those in power screwing over the little guy on their say-so alone (more than they already do). Why bother with evidence if the accusing party is seen as infallible?
It doesn't matter what you're accused of, or even if you're guilty beyond the shadow of a doubt before ever going to trial. If you wish to fight the charges, you have the RIGHT to have your side of the story heard in court. There was a great quote on NCIS the other night, where a defense attorney was asked why she keeps representing criminals. Her reply was something along the lines of, "You make your case, I make mine, and as long as either side wins, I've done my job."
I think this is EXACTLY the opinion Ubisoft wants people to have. They seem to not want to make PC games, so they try to piss off as many people as possible. When the sales drop (which WILL be blamed on "piracy"), then they will use that as an excuse to not make another PC game.
"Superserious" is one step below "superserial" which is, of course, a description reserved solely for the dreaded Manbearpig. That alone should tell you how much of a threat online cheating really is. It might not threaten us all as severely as Manbearpig, but that doesn't mean it won't kill you in your sleep. The sooner we stop online cheating, the sooner we become one step closer to defeating Manbearpig....
EXCELSIOR!
Except that Assassin's Creed 2 is SINGLE-PLAYER-ONLY. With WoW, it's universally known to be an online-only, MULTIPLAYER game. There is no complaining about not being able to play offline, because the entire point of the game is to play with large groups of people.
AC2, on the other hand, has NO multiplayer. It's a strictly single-player adventure. Maybe you missed the part where you get dumped back to the menu if your connection drops for any reason whatsoever? All progress/checkpoints since your last save are lost. Get dumped offline in WoW and you can usually pick back up where you left off (or get your corpse if you were in a 40-man boss fight, since you most likely died before the connection did).
tl;dr
Always-on connections are expected for multiplayer games, as it's just common sense. Requiring a constant connection to be allowed to play a single-player game is treating your customers as if they were criminals, which should be a criminal act in and of itself.
Yes. Yes we are...
And that's the way you do it...
"Rule Number One: In my van, it's Rush. All Rush. All the time. NO exceptions!"
What an unfortunate name. One could conceiveably think that Apple is delving into the untapped market of network-enabled feminine hygiene products... What was wrong with the oft-rumored "iSlate" moniker? Also, what's the PRICE on this thing?
It is. But then again, you don't have to support it to still "personalize" your phone. Most phones have bluetooth. Bluetooth adapters are cheap for computers that don't already have it. Combine with a copy of Adobe Audition or (for the FOSS crowd) Audacity and a bit of time learning, it's ridiculously easy to make your own ringtones. Why pay USD $2 or more for a 30 second clip from a song when you can make the same clip from your personal collection for free? 40+ ringtones on my phone (although I rarely change it) and I've cut and transferred them all myself. And a lot of them are things you simply won't find on your provider's website. Alice Nine, Indica, Oomph, and my personal favorite, The Protomen.
Oh, and since I agree with you about people's ringtones blaring, I keep my volume set to a reasonable level. Loud enough that I can hear it, but not so loud you can hear it across the lobby in a movie theater.
And a detached, disinterested voice crackles over the school's PA system:
"Anti-social behavior detected in indoctrination room A-127. Report. React. Contain. Civil Protection teams dispatched."
All the while, a kindly looking older man in a brown suit appears on the classroom television reminding all students of how primitive humanity remains, how the system is only there to help us out of the primordial abyss, and to "be safe...be....aware..."
How does a 2-direction arrow silkscreened onto the connector improve anything?
Anyway, what you do when the wife/girlfriend decides to leave you is this:
The single most important thing to remember when adding a spouse/partner/whatever to your account is that if you add them as an Account Manager, this gives them FULL control over the account to do whatever they want. This includes change your plan, add lines, drop lines, renew contracts, order phones, add/change/remove features, etc. The ONLY things they can't do are add/change AM's, change the customer service password, or perform the above mentioned Assumption of Liability. Something to think about before you add him/her on as anything other than an additional line.
"BrawndoBlock: The Ad Mutilator! Fortified with electrolytes! It's got what phones crave!"
I can only see this approach working if Google gives buyers a choice. Pay full retail for the phone, or pay the reduced price in exchange for having ads sent to it. However, even that will only work if the ads are unobtrusive, and in no way interfere with normal operation of the device. That means NO having to click through a banner ad to make a call or send a text, NO interstitial ads between pages while browsing, NO watermarking of pictures sent via MMS, etc. A banner along the top I could deal with and ignore easily enough.
That being said, I would still choose to pay full retail for the phone so I don't have to see the ads at all.
This page seems to spell things out pretty clearly. Email them with your contact info, the links in question, and what the problem is (in this case, copyrighted content), and they will work with you to resolve the matter. Took all of 2 seconds to find.
But no, rather than have their content removed, they would rather make a huge stink about it to try and get attention and press coverage. As a previous poster pointed out, a nice civil email about the matter could have had this whole thing resolved in a day or two. Sure, the lawyers don't get to rack up billable hours, but the unethical prick who would recommend this course of action needs to walk off of a cliff anyway...
Cutting NASA's budget in half will do nothing to solve the numerous social issues faced by this country. Government spending needs to be adjusted, but there are many places spending much, MUCH more than NASA does on an annual basis.
Let's do some quick Googling to compare some annual budget figures here:
Of special note are the Procurement and RDT&E budgets for FY09 totalling around $183.8 billion dollars. This is how much money the military spends buying and testing new equipment. Within those figures, you see a FY09 budget of $6.9 billion for the F-35 program, and $4.1 billion for the F-22. $11 billion dollars for two aircraft programs. The military spends 62% of what NASA uses to run its entire operation on TWO AIRCRAFT PROGRAMS.
To put it another way, for less than twice what the military spends on the next generation of combat aircraft, NASA has to fund; the remainder of the Space Shuttle Program, the Orion/Ares program, the ISS, Ames Research Center, JPL, The Goddard Institute, Dryden Flight Research Center, KSC, Johnson Space Center, White Sands Test Facility, Deep Space Network, and the United States Space & Rocket Center. This includes research on ozone depletion, energy management, and medicine, along with several Earth-science projects dedicated to improving severe weather prediction and environmental conservation. They do this on less than 1/4 of what the military spends on buying new equipment. As another poster said, cutting their budget would cost them manpower that they may never get back. You don't want to do that when you're operating on what is essentially a shoestring budget.
Finally, we come to the reason I included the welfare spending figures above. If you slash the budget for NASA (say by the 50% I threw around earlier), you're saving a grand total of $8.8 to $13.2 billion for the 12-18 months you suggested. That adds 2.2 to 3.3% to the bottom line for welfare spending, which is almost nothing in the grand scheme of things. And what happens at the end of that period? Do you take the money away from welfare? That puts us right back where we started. So no, cutting NASA's budget is NOT the answer. Honestly, I believe that NASA's mission is one of the places where we should INCREASE spending, along with better oversight into ALL areas of government. The more NASA is able to do (and remember, they do more than just send people into space), the better off we will ALL be in the long run.
And no, I'm not going to mod you down (I can't since I'm replying, obviously). But I also won't discourage anyone else from doing so. Modding you down for having a misguided and frankly wrong idea is NOT the same as censorship. If your argument carried any weight whatsoever, it would stand on its own merits. Suggesting that those who disagree with you are censoring your views is a myopic attempt to give them credibility where they would otherwise have none.