"Because the Republicans would never stifle free-speech."
It is interesting that you point that out in light of today's news (9/15/5). President Bush has made a public statement declaring 'strong' support for Prime Minister Blairs new anti-terrorist bill that is tantamount to a sedition bill. It should be clear to all that President Bush wants the same thing here in this country, as he states that all American's 'strongly' support this. Perhaps he forgot to take a poll first. Thankfully, these types of acts/bills here in the US have been drafted and passed and long since deemed unconstitutional, (i.e. Sedition Act of 1798). Leave it to Bush to forget our own history, or perhaps he remembers it and is simply trying to sell our own failed attempts to quell the opposition to other countries now.
"Hmm... condescending attitude ("I am not going to spell out all of the theories of Gravity to you")...check."
It takes a lot of words and I thought it was inappropriate to write 10,000 words of text to fill in the facts when the link I provided did it in a very clear and concise manner. Sorry if you thought that was condescending. It wasn't my intent.
"Gratuitous use of Capitals...check."
I only capitalised those things that I mentioned that I thought were proper nouns and names. I thought that was proper English. If I made a mistake somewhere I stand corrected, but it doesn't invalidate the information in any way that I can see.
"Irrelevent invocation of Einstein...check."
I never even mentioned Einstiens name.
"Cititation of of "widely thought" theory that no one has ever given significant credence to...check."
Apparently you didn't read the link I provided. It would have explained it and you would have understood what I meant.
"Complete absence of calculation to back up any vague claims about what can or cannot be explained by known physics...check."
Again, apparently you did not read the links I provided, or you wouldn't say that.
"There's something called "vacuum cementing" that is due to significant adhesion in the absence of any gases to muck up surfaces in contact."
That might be an appropriate arguement if we were not discussing an object that exists in the vacuum of space already. That negates the effect.
"t's early days yet, but in the fullness of time I'm sure we'll get a pretty complete picture of cometary structure from missions like this"
" The comet doesn't have much gravity, but it has enough."
It would make for an easy explaination, but unfortunately it has issues with a couple of principles. I am not going to spell out all of the theories of Gravity to you, but here is a link that is a good summary of where we have been, are and are going with the theory of gravity. It is still a theory and we haven't got one yet the unifies itself with the rest of the physical world. That is truely the Holy Grail of Physics right now. Anyway, there is a problem with the size (volume and mass) of the comet, it's velocity and the inherent difference between the gravitational interaction of protons and the electromagnetic repulsion of the same. The 'size' of the body isn't thought to be large enough to overcome the electromagnetic repulsive force of the matter that makes up the body.
The other problem is that comets were widely thought to be 'ejected' matter from a collision or a plantery body. The loose natural of the surface matter would condemn that theory. So how did it come to be? We have as many questions now as when we started, if not more. The more we learn, the more we realize we really don't know.
That was my reaction too. How can I put a single ounce of belief or credit in anything he says now if he doesn't understand that the volume in his car is a function of his car stereo, not his iPod. I'll bet you that he believes ATM's actually make the money they dispense too.
"Exactly what was in that impactor that could create a city-sized crater?"
It is exactly the inordinate size of the crater that has caused them to beleive that the surface is like a 'pile of powder'. It wasn't that the impactor was so large or going so fast relative to the target, it was that the surface material reacted so violently in relation to the physical impact. That denotes that the surface material has little to no cohesive nature. What really makes that curious is why would it possibly stay together to begin with then? It is a relatively small body and should exhibit a very very small gravitation influence. Why would such material form a body that at least gives the illusion of cohesion in the abcense of the physics that we believe it takes create such a body?
I am sure there are plently of people who will take issue with this, but online FEMA filing is simply not a very high priority. I have to agree with that stance too. FEMA is concentrating on face to face information gathering. This has to be the priority as many of the people currently in need of their serves no longer have a home, besides a computer, to file their claim. In that vein, FEMA makes (is making) it a point to send a person to each and every home site, to each evacuee location, hospital, etc to be sure that they are getting everyone. They also have snail mail and telephones. Maximum compatability of the online filing forms, simply isn't viewed as a priority for disaster victims for whom the majority of have lost their ability to access online services to begin with.
"Remember how much sharing pissed you off when you had to share your toys with some little snot"
No, I don't. I never got that feeling, impression or thought. It is not that I didn't ever have to share with someone who was ungrateful, but I had a different sense of it all. I felt that not only did I have a toy to share, but I had a chance to demonstrate that it didn't take authority or violence to get me to do it. I did it because I wanted to feel good about something and I wanted to share that feeling too. I took joy out of knowing that this other person got a chance to see that not all people needed to be 'forced' to share with others. Even as a child I had that sense of the necessity of showing that to others. Sure there were a lot of times that it was egregiously abused by the receiver. It doesn't make the gift of sharing wrong because it was abused. It makes the abuser wrong. If we all learn from the 'takers' as you call them, then you are as much at fault as they are. I choose to be a 'giver'. Sure there is pain at times because things get taken, even though they are freely given anyways, but I have to believe that to stop doing so, makes me as wrong as the things I hate and the takers out there. Capitalism and corporate philosophy have no room for sharing or giving. It is all about taking. Can't there possibly be room for giving and sharing to? It has taken me decades to understand that that sense of sharing doesn't exist in a great number of people. They are the people who seize power and push for it to become entrenched in everyone's lives. You are too quick to believe that it is the way it has to be. It does not unless you allow it.
Interesting, but wrong. Perhaps someone forgot to tell the Federal Courts and the ACLU it is all constitutional. Several parts of the Patriot Act have been struck down now. The first challenge to make it through the court system that was successful and can be found here.
There are several more challenges in the works and there have been at least two (counting the one I linked to) that have been successful. It takes a long time for these things to be fettered out. Just because the law was passed, doesn't make it right or constitutional, such as was the case in the Sedition Act of 1798. That made it illegal to even 'utter' a word that could be construed as dissident against the United states or it's representatives. Thankfully that too was later found as unconstitutional and repealed.
"This does not compute. You either lay claim to something and assume control or you make no claim and do not assume control. In other words, you must define "we" and establish who you're speaking for."
We - as in Humanity
Whatever happened to sharing? We are taught that from pre-school on and yet we can't find a way to apply it in the real world?
"News Flash: "New technology has recently uncovered long thought lost texts from Pompeii. Records of the days preceeding catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius indicate that it was a failure on the part of the Bush (ancient ancestor of the current US president) Administration and FEMA (Feudal Emergency Management Authority) to act in the weeks prior to the fatal occurance, even though the indications were clear that a catastrophe was imminent.""
Wow, modded as flamebait. I thought that was funny myself. Must have been reviewed by a White House staff member.
"Parent is clearly a spy from the Red Mars faction set to embroil your Green Mars party's terraforming plans in political turmoil."
Ah Ha! You are wrong! I am from the Multi-eyed and Multi-limbed Martian Society! That's M&M/Mars for short. How dare you publically try to tie our organization to that evil and maniacle Red Mars Faction! They are beasts! They eat us for meals simply because they claim we do not melt in their hands like the Green Mars Party members.
"I think you've gotten so caught up in the "save the planet" idea that you've completely lost track of *why* we want to save the planet. We want to make sure Earth continues to be a nice place for us to live, that's why. That argument doesn't apply to Mars."
Perhaps there is a bigger picture that you need to account for here. So far, Mars is the closests and only planet within our range that we could possibly survive on. If we ever have an event on Earth that would cause it to become uninhabitable, God help us, we would have to turn to the likes of Mars as a safe harbor. If we allow it to be pillaged and raped by corporate greed in the mean time, we may very well have sealed our own fate before that time, should something like that ever happen. Until we have multiple options available to us, we should not waste, or even come close to harming what could possibly be our only future refuge. Let technology advance first to the point that there are multiple options are opened up to us, then start utilizing those bodies for resources in whatever fashion you like.
"BTW, its the height of arrogance to think that we are "destroying the Earth""
Wow, that is quite one of the most 'head in the sand' statements I have heard in a long time. Have you you read any science articles in the past several years at all? Perhaps I wouldn't go so far as to say we are as of yet 'destroying' the earth, but we are obviously doing some significant damage.
Perhaps you missed my point though. It isn't so much that 'we' are going to 'destroy' Mars. I am all for the 'mining' of Mars or other planets. I think if it was left in the hands of individuals, resource extraction would be handled well on other planetary bodies. My beef is with allowing an entity with the singular focus of becoming wealthy by mining and selling those resources is a recipe for destruction. Corporate greed should not be our first off-world export or import.
"So what you're saying is its wrong to take minerals from what amounts to a giant rock floating in space"
Finally, someone wants to know what the point is. Thank you. I don't disagree with extracting resources from another planet. I do hate to see capitalist fundamentals applied to the process. As it currently stands, no one person country or entity owns any piece of that planet, and yet we are going to allow a corporation to start taking resources from it as though they belong to them to extract and sell to us. Isn't it time that we restrict that practice to earth? The universe is not for sale to the highest bidding corporate entity, is it? Furthermore, corporations have time and again demonstrated that little to nothing else matters except the return on the dollar. I don't want to see a huge natural resource such as Mars managed in that fashion. If it is going to be mined, it should be done in a fashion that serves the interest of humanity alone, not an individual, nor a corporation or even a country. Let's not start a new ground for fighting amongst humanity on another planet. Let's do it right this time.
" this has nothing to do with capitalism. National property boundries are purely political."
...And your point is? It's still capitalism and I don't see where national property rights or boundries have anything to do with this one.
"Who is being robbed?"
The planet, as I stated. Are you fimiliar with the term 'personification'? Nobody lives in the ocean on this planet, does that mean it is ok to pillage it of it's natural resources?
"I'm tyring to remember the last time we mined something from another planet... must have missed that in my history books."
Perhaps you have missed a lot more than you think. The history you should take an example from is our own, on this planet. Any plan to export our methods of extracting resources on another planet had ought to be measured against our past history of devistation that we have already caused with such activities. The plan as proposed by this company is no more than an exportation of our past and current mining operations on earth with a lesser regard to it's effects on the environment there than we have taken here. I would suggest a quick search on google for 'mining catastrophies' as a start for a refresher on the things you admittedly have missed.
News Flash: "New technology has recently uncovered long thought lost texts from Pompeii. Records of the days preceeding catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius indicate that it was a failure on the part of the Bush (ancient ancestor of the current US president) Administration and FEMA (Feudal Emergency Management Authority) to act in the weeks prior to the fatal occurance, even though the indications were clear that a catastrophe was imminent."
I am so glad to see capitalism working the way it was intended. To him who gets there first is rewarded with the spoils. Yea! Lets rob another planet of it's resources and destroy it in our wake! I am sure it looks great to the corporate pillagers who take glee in the fact there are no current residents to sue them for the environmental damage they intend (sorry, inadvertently intend) to cause. Won't we ever learn from our past mistakes?
"And now, where all that hydrogen is going to come from? From dwindling natural gas supplies"
Natural Gas is where it (hydrogen fuel) is currently being manufactured from. In 2004 a (Department of Energy) study was done to calculate the expense/efficiency of the whole process. At the Natural Gas prices at the time, 50% less than today, it was calculated that the price per gallon of the resultant fuel would be $4.00 per gallon. Today that would be roughly $6.00/gallon. As long as the manufacturing of Hydrogen fuel remains tied directly to the price of Fossil fuels, such as it is now, it will never be cheaper and will never become a viable alternative. Another, efficient, process needs to be found and resource for Hydrogen needs to be found. Despite all of the chatter, there is no efficient method to harvest Hydrogen (yet) except from fossil fuels.
Based on the current pricing of Hydrogen fuel an the miles per gallon noted (23 miles per gallon), a Hydrogen powered vehicle today, will cost you significantly more to operate than a fossil fuel car. Despite the great advance of being able to store it safely now, the cost of the fuel is prohibitive if not chokingly restrictive. Although there is no way to argue that harvesting Hydrogen from water can ever be efficient (as it essentially requires the process of 'unburning' water), with a push for more Nuclear power facilites (as found in the recently passed US Energy bill), we could use that as a price stable resource for Hydrogen. Electricity produced from a non-fossil resource in large quanties, as needed to harvest large quantities of Hydrogen from (perhaps even polluted, non-potable) water. In-efficient, but no longer coupled to the rising cost of fossil fuels.
"You are guaranteed the freedom to speak freely, no one ever mentioned that there would not be consequences to what you have to say"
This country is not free of repressive legislation either. The Sedition Act of 1798 made it illegal to write or even utter a word about anything that could be construed as defamitory against the United States Government. Imprisonment and deportation were the favored consequence of violating the law at the time. Thankfully that law was stricken from the books by Thomas Jefferson, when he became president. The fight to keep such laws from our books is never over however. Such laws seem to make their way into our law books with some twisted language from time to time, the latest of which is the Patriot Act.
Blizzard makes a product that people like and are willing to invest their time in to play it. If the perspective of the article writer is correct, and for arguments sake, I will, then they made a better product than anyone else out there and they deserve the attention. The argument in the article seems to try to apply a monopolistic slant to WoW (World of Warcraft). How can that be? They simply put out a product, that people want. Perhaps there should be some law against companies making to good a product? If the other companies can't keep up and attract the consumer's attention with their crap, then perhaps they deserve to lose market share. Isn't the article leaning in the direction of calling Blizzard a Microsoft of the Gaming industry? It seems unfair to apply such harsh standards to a company who is simply delivering software that people want to play with. The implication here is that they should be punished or stopped from making something that attracts too much attention away from the rest of the market. Perhaps we should have laws against things that are too good? Secondly, if the cost of the game was too high, then people wouldn't invest the money into buying it or paying the subscription. Apparently that is not the case though, people are spending money on it and investing their time into it. Are they all wrong? I think not. They are having fun, I am sure. People are willing to pay a premium to have good fun and a great distraction to their everyday life. Blizzard happens to consistently deliver that.
BTW-I do not play WoW, and have never purchased the game. I can however understand the attraction. I also believe this will drive other companies to work much harder at making their products more than simply mediocre. We have seen far to much of that in the past years.
"yep.. everyone but linux users, everyone who uses microsoft's "product".. and only for an artificially and needlessly limited time. How "intelligent" of them to subvert the purpose of a library."
Perhaps you have not ever utilized a library before. It seems pretty clear from your comments. When you borrow a physical book from any library today, you are required to reutrn it in a limited time frame. Why should you expect to be able to keep it, whether it is in physical or electronic format? How can it be considered subverting the existing system when the existing system already works that way? Secondly the system used to deliver material for ebooks equates to the same arguement that went of for decades about what type of filing system librarys should use, the Dewy system or others. Everyone can't win. But we had ought to all a system to be placed, and it had ought to be one the is going to serve the majority of the existing population. If that majority was Linux, I would whole heartedly argue for it. If the only system that could be placed were Linux, I would whole heartedly argue for that too.
" Seriously when did people get this idea that you should be able to say whatever you want and never have any consequences"
You are guaranteed the freedom to speak freely, no one ever mentioned that there would not be consequences to what you have to say. If I don't like what you have to say, even though you have the right to say it, I can take (and also have the freedom to take) all sorts of action against you, personally and legally. People have wrongly tied two issues together, Freedom and the consequences of using it.
I don't disagree with your stance and words, it's just not reality out there right now. If you buy a DRM'd ebook today, MS, Mobi, Adobe, I don't care who. It can only be used on your viewer that was verified to match the DRM'd book. So with that being said, I can not share a book or pass it on to anyone else, ever, if I bought it in electronic format. That's stiffling the format in my eyes. I prefer to read my books in an ebook format. It's just so much easier to do, to read, to carry, etc. Why should I be punished for buying in a different format? I still buy hardcover and paperback books simply because I want to share them with the rest of my family if they are worthwhile. I don't have that option with an ebook. It sucks and seems to me a quiet way for publishers to severely tighten their restrictions while trying to migrate people away from physical media. The library option would put a big crimp on that plan. I would be happy to buy my books and donate them to the library afterwards, if they could be used again. I would be happy to borrow ebooks from my library, but they are forced to purchase them today, and cannot rely on donates, such as my local rural library relys on almost completely. Therefore they don't have any ebooks. We need someone to push this in the right direction and get it going, once it is established, we can worry about who's ladder we used to escape the fire. If we argue about the ladder while we all stand in the burning building, then we all die and lose and the publishers win, because everyone who cares about the issue is tied up arguing about the provider and not watching the fire.
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds very Stargate-ish to me. Perhaps a Prior is coming to earth? Is Bill Gates a member of the Ori?
"Hallowed are the children of the Ori"
I wonder if it would work with bats instead of cats. I always wanted my own Batmobile. ;)
"Because the Republicans would never stifle free-speech."
It is interesting that you point that out in light of today's news (9/15/5). President Bush has made a public statement declaring 'strong' support for Prime Minister Blairs new anti-terrorist bill that is tantamount to a sedition bill. It should be clear to all that President Bush wants the same thing here in this country, as he states that all American's 'strongly' support this. Perhaps he forgot to take a poll first. Thankfully, these types of acts/bills here in the US have been drafted and passed and long since deemed unconstitutional, (i.e. Sedition Act of 1798). Leave it to Bush to forget our own history, or perhaps he remembers it and is simply trying to sell our own failed attempts to quell the opposition to other countries now.
"Hmm... condescending attitude ("I am not going to spell out all of the theories of Gravity to you")...check."
It takes a lot of words and I thought it was inappropriate to write 10,000 words of text to fill in the facts when the link I provided did it in a very clear and concise manner. Sorry if you thought that was condescending. It wasn't my intent.
"Gratuitous use of Capitals...check."
I only capitalised those things that I mentioned that I thought were proper nouns and names. I thought that was proper English. If I made a mistake somewhere I stand corrected, but it doesn't invalidate the information in any way that I can see.
"Irrelevent invocation of Einstein...check."
I never even mentioned Einstiens name.
"Cititation of of "widely thought" theory that no one has ever given significant credence to...check."
Apparently you didn't read the link I provided. It would have explained it and you would have understood what I meant.
"Complete absence of calculation to back up any vague claims about what can or cannot be explained by known physics...check."
Again, apparently you did not read the links I provided, or you wouldn't say that.
"There's something called "vacuum cementing" that is due to significant adhesion in the absence of any gases to muck up surfaces in contact."
That might be an appropriate arguement if we were not discussing an object that exists in the vacuum of space already. That negates the effect.
"t's early days yet, but in the fullness of time I'm sure we'll get a pretty complete picture of cometary structure from missions like this"
At least we agree on something. ""
""
" The comet doesn't have much gravity, but it has enough."
It would make for an easy explaination, but unfortunately it has issues with a couple of principles. I am not going to spell out all of the theories of Gravity to you, but here is a link that is a good summary of where we have been, are and are going with the theory of gravity. It is still a theory and we haven't got one yet the unifies itself with the rest of the physical world. That is truely the Holy Grail of Physics right now. Anyway, there is a problem with the size (volume and mass) of the comet, it's velocity and the inherent difference between the gravitational interaction of protons and the electromagnetic repulsion of the same. The 'size' of the body isn't thought to be large enough to overcome the electromagnetic repulsive force of the matter that makes up the body.
The other problem is that comets were widely thought to be 'ejected' matter from a collision or a plantery body. The loose natural of the surface matter would condemn that theory. So how did it come to be? We have as many questions now as when we started, if not more. The more we learn, the more we realize we really don't know.
That was my reaction too. How can I put a single ounce of belief or credit in anything he says now if he doesn't understand that the volume in his car is a function of his car stereo, not his iPod. I'll bet you that he believes ATM's actually make the money they dispense too.
"Exactly what was in that impactor that could create a city-sized crater?"
It is exactly the inordinate size of the crater that has caused them to beleive that the surface is like a 'pile of powder'. It wasn't that the impactor was so large or going so fast relative to the target, it was that the surface material reacted so violently in relation to the physical impact. That denotes that the surface material has little to no cohesive nature. What really makes that curious is why would it possibly stay together to begin with then? It is a relatively small body and should exhibit a very very small gravitation influence. Why would such material form a body that at least gives the illusion of cohesion in the abcense of the physics that we believe it takes create such a body?
I am sure there are plently of people who will take issue with this, but online FEMA filing is simply not a very high priority. I have to agree with that stance too. FEMA is concentrating on face to face information gathering. This has to be the priority as many of the people currently in need of their serves no longer have a home, besides a computer, to file their claim. In that vein, FEMA makes (is making) it a point to send a person to each and every home site, to each evacuee location, hospital, etc to be sure that they are getting everyone. They also have snail mail and telephones. Maximum compatability of the online filing forms, simply isn't viewed as a priority for disaster victims for whom the majority of have lost their ability to access online services to begin with.
"Remember how much sharing pissed you off when you had to share your toys with some little snot"
No, I don't. I never got that feeling, impression or thought. It is not that I didn't ever have to share with someone who was ungrateful, but I had a different sense of it all. I felt that not only did I have a toy to share, but I had a chance to demonstrate that it didn't take authority or violence to get me to do it. I did it because I wanted to feel good about something and I wanted to share that feeling too. I took joy out of knowing that this other person got a chance to see that not all people needed to be 'forced' to share with others. Even as a child I had that sense of the necessity of showing that to others. Sure there were a lot of times that it was egregiously abused by the receiver. It doesn't make the gift of sharing wrong because it was abused. It makes the abuser wrong. If we all learn from the 'takers' as you call them, then you are as much at fault as they are. I choose to be a 'giver'. Sure there is pain at times because things get taken, even though they are freely given anyways, but I have to believe that to stop doing so, makes me as wrong as the things I hate and the takers out there. Capitalism and corporate philosophy have no room for sharing or giving. It is all about taking. Can't there possibly be room for giving and sharing to? It has taken me decades to understand that that sense of sharing doesn't exist in a great number of people. They are the people who seize power and push for it to become entrenched in everyone's lives. You are too quick to believe that it is the way it has to be. It does not unless you allow it.
Interesting, but wrong. Perhaps someone forgot to tell the Federal Courts and the ACLU it is all constitutional. Several parts of the Patriot Act have been struck down now. The first challenge to make it through the court system that was successful and can be found here. There are several more challenges in the works and there have been at least two (counting the one I linked to) that have been successful. It takes a long time for these things to be fettered out. Just because the law was passed, doesn't make it right or constitutional, such as was the case in the Sedition Act of 1798. That made it illegal to even 'utter' a word that could be construed as dissident against the United states or it's representatives. Thankfully that too was later found as unconstitutional and repealed.
"This does not compute. You either lay claim to something and assume control or you make no claim and do not assume control. In other words, you must define "we" and establish who you're speaking for."
We - as in Humanity
Whatever happened to sharing? We are taught that from pre-school on and yet we can't find a way to apply it in the real world?
"News Flash: "New technology has recently uncovered long thought lost texts from Pompeii. Records of the days preceeding catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius indicate that it was a failure on the part of the Bush (ancient ancestor of the current US president) Administration and FEMA (Feudal Emergency Management Authority) to act in the weeks prior to the fatal occurance, even though the indications were clear that a catastrophe was imminent.""
Wow, modded as flamebait. I thought that was funny myself.
Must have been reviewed by a White House staff member.
"Parent is clearly a spy from the Red Mars faction set to embroil your Green Mars party's terraforming plans in political turmoil."
Ah Ha! You are wrong! I am from the Multi-eyed and Multi-limbed Martian Society! That's M&M/Mars for short. How dare you publically try to tie our organization to that evil and maniacle Red Mars Faction! They are beasts! They eat us for meals simply because they claim we do not melt in their hands like the Green Mars Party members.
"I think you've gotten so caught up in the "save the planet" idea that you've completely lost track of *why* we want to save the planet. We want to make sure Earth continues to be a nice place for us to live, that's why. That argument doesn't apply to Mars."
Perhaps there is a bigger picture that you need to account for here. So far, Mars is the closests and only planet within our range that we could possibly survive on. If we ever have an event on Earth that would cause it to become uninhabitable, God help us, we would have to turn to the likes of Mars as a safe harbor. If we allow it to be pillaged and raped by corporate greed in the mean time, we may very well have sealed our own fate before that time, should something like that ever happen. Until we have multiple options available to us, we should not waste, or even come close to harming what could possibly be our only future refuge. Let technology advance first to the point that there are multiple options are opened up to us, then start utilizing those bodies for resources in whatever fashion you like.
"BTW, its the height of arrogance to think that we are "destroying the Earth""
Wow, that is quite one of the most 'head in the sand' statements I have heard in a long time. Have you you read any science articles in the past several years at all? Perhaps I wouldn't go so far as to say we are as of yet 'destroying' the earth, but we are obviously doing some significant damage.
Perhaps you missed my point though. It isn't so much that 'we' are going to 'destroy' Mars. I am all for the 'mining' of Mars or other planets. I think if it was left in the hands of individuals, resource extraction would be handled well on other planetary bodies. My beef is with allowing an entity with the singular focus of becoming wealthy by mining and selling those resources is a recipe for destruction. Corporate greed should not be our first off-world export or import.
"So what you're saying is its wrong to take minerals from what amounts to a giant rock floating in space"
Finally, someone wants to know what the point is. Thank you. I don't disagree with extracting resources from another planet. I do hate to see capitalist fundamentals applied to the process. As it currently stands, no one person country or entity owns any piece of that planet, and yet we are going to allow a corporation to start taking resources from it as though they belong to them to extract and sell to us. Isn't it time that we restrict that practice to earth? The universe is not for sale to the highest bidding corporate entity, is it? Furthermore, corporations have time and again demonstrated that little to nothing else matters except the return on the dollar. I don't want to see a huge natural resource such as Mars managed in that fashion. If it is going to be mined, it should be done in a fashion that serves the interest of humanity alone, not an individual, nor a corporation or even a country. Let's not start a new ground for fighting amongst humanity on another planet. Let's do it right this time.
" this has nothing to do with capitalism. National property boundries are purely political."
...And your point is? It's still capitalism and I don't see where national property rights or boundries have anything to do with this one.
"Who is being robbed?"
The planet, as I stated. Are you fimiliar with the term 'personification'? Nobody lives in the ocean on this planet, does that mean it is ok to pillage it of it's natural resources?
"I'm tyring to remember the last time we mined something from another planet... must have missed that in my history books."
Perhaps you have missed a lot more than you think. The history you should take an example from is our own, on this planet. Any plan to export our methods of extracting resources on another planet had ought to be measured against our past history of devistation that we have already caused with such activities. The plan as proposed by this company is no more than an exportation of our past and current mining operations on earth with a lesser regard to it's effects on the environment there than we have taken here. I would suggest a quick search on google for 'mining catastrophies' as a start for a refresher on the things you admittedly have missed.
News Flash: "New technology has recently uncovered long thought lost texts from Pompeii. Records of the days preceeding catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius indicate that it was a failure on the part of the Bush (ancient ancestor of the current US president) Administration and FEMA (Feudal Emergency Management Authority) to act in the weeks prior to the fatal occurance, even though the indications were clear that a catastrophe was imminent."
I am so glad to see capitalism working the way it was intended. To him who gets there first is rewarded with the spoils. Yea! Lets rob another planet of it's resources and destroy it in our wake! I am sure it looks great to the corporate pillagers who take glee in the fact there are no current residents to sue them for the environmental damage they intend (sorry, inadvertently intend) to cause. Won't we ever learn from our past mistakes?
"And now, where all that hydrogen is going to come from? From dwindling natural gas supplies"
Natural Gas is where it (hydrogen fuel) is currently being manufactured from. In 2004 a (Department of Energy) study was done to calculate the expense/efficiency of the whole process. At the Natural Gas prices at the time, 50% less than today, it was calculated that the price per gallon of the resultant fuel would be $4.00 per gallon. Today that would be roughly $6.00/gallon. As long as the manufacturing of Hydrogen fuel remains tied directly to the price of Fossil fuels, such as it is now, it will never be cheaper and will never become a viable alternative. Another, efficient, process needs to be found and resource for Hydrogen needs to be found. Despite all of the chatter, there is no efficient method to harvest Hydrogen (yet) except from fossil fuels.
Based on the current pricing of Hydrogen fuel an the miles per gallon noted (23 miles per gallon), a Hydrogen powered vehicle today, will cost you significantly more to operate than a fossil fuel car. Despite the great advance of being able to store it safely now, the cost of the fuel is prohibitive if not chokingly restrictive. Although there is no way to argue that harvesting Hydrogen from water can ever be efficient (as it essentially requires the process of 'unburning' water), with a push for more Nuclear power facilites (as found in the recently passed US Energy bill), we could use that as a price stable resource for Hydrogen. Electricity produced from a non-fossil resource in large quanties, as needed to harvest large quantities of Hydrogen from (perhaps even polluted, non-potable) water. In-efficient, but no longer coupled to the rising cost of fossil fuels.
"You are guaranteed the freedom to speak freely, no one ever mentioned that there would not be consequences to what you have to say"
This country is not free of repressive legislation either. The Sedition Act of 1798 made it illegal to write or even utter a word about anything that could be construed as defamitory against the United States Government. Imprisonment and deportation were the favored consequence of violating the law at the time. Thankfully that law was stricken from the books by Thomas Jefferson, when he became president. The fight to keep such laws from our books is never over however. Such laws seem to make their way into our law books with some twisted language from time to time, the latest of which is the Patriot Act.
Blizzard makes a product that people like and are willing to invest their time in to play it. If the perspective of the article writer is correct, and for arguments sake, I will, then they made a better product than anyone else out there and they deserve the attention. The argument in the article seems to try to apply a monopolistic slant to WoW (World of Warcraft). How can that be? They simply put out a product, that people want. Perhaps there should be some law against companies making to good a product? If the other companies can't keep up and attract the consumer's attention with their crap, then perhaps they deserve to lose market share. Isn't the article leaning in the direction of calling Blizzard a Microsoft of the Gaming industry? It seems unfair to apply such harsh standards to a company who is simply delivering software that people want to play with. The implication here is that they should be punished or stopped from making something that attracts too much attention away from the rest of the market. Perhaps we should have laws against things that are too good? Secondly, if the cost of the game was too high, then people wouldn't invest the money into buying it or paying the subscription. Apparently that is not the case though, people are spending money on it and investing their time into it. Are they all wrong? I think not. They are having fun, I am sure. People are willing to pay a premium to have good fun and a great distraction to their everyday life. Blizzard happens to consistently deliver that.
BTW-I do not play WoW, and have never purchased the game. I can however understand the attraction. I also believe this will drive other companies to work much harder at making their products more than simply mediocre. We have seen far to much of that in the past years.
"yep.. everyone but linux users, everyone who uses microsoft's "product".. and only for an artificially and needlessly limited time. How "intelligent" of them to subvert the purpose of a library."
Perhaps you have not ever utilized a library before. It seems pretty clear from your comments. When you borrow a physical book from any library today, you are required to reutrn it in a limited time frame. Why should you expect to be able to keep it, whether it is in physical or electronic format? How can it be considered subverting the existing system when the existing system already works that way? Secondly the system used to deliver material for ebooks equates to the same arguement that went of for decades about what type of filing system librarys should use, the Dewy system or others. Everyone can't win. But we had ought to all a system to be placed, and it had ought to be one the is going to serve the majority of the existing population. If that majority was Linux, I would whole heartedly argue for it. If the only system that could be placed were Linux, I would whole heartedly argue for that too.
" Seriously when did people get this idea that you should be able to say whatever you want and never have any consequences"
You are guaranteed the freedom to speak freely, no one ever mentioned that there would not be consequences to what you have to say. If I don't like what you have to say, even though you have the right to say it, I can take (and also have the freedom to take) all sorts of action against you, personally and legally. People have wrongly tied two issues together, Freedom and the consequences of using it.
I don't disagree with your stance and words, it's just not reality out there right now. If you buy a DRM'd ebook today, MS, Mobi, Adobe, I don't care who. It can only be used on your viewer that was verified to match the DRM'd book. So with that being said, I can not share a book or pass it on to anyone else, ever, if I bought it in electronic format. That's stiffling the format in my eyes. I prefer to read my books in an ebook format. It's just so much easier to do, to read, to carry, etc. Why should I be punished for buying in a different format? I still buy hardcover and paperback books simply because I want to share them with the rest of my family if they are worthwhile. I don't have that option with an ebook. It sucks and seems to me a quiet way for publishers to severely tighten their restrictions while trying to migrate people away from physical media. The library option would put a big crimp on that plan. I would be happy to buy my books and donate them to the library afterwards, if they could be used again. I would be happy to borrow ebooks from my library, but they are forced to purchase them today, and cannot rely on donates, such as my local rural library relys on almost completely. Therefore they don't have any ebooks. We need someone to push this in the right direction and get it going, once it is established, we can worry about who's ladder we used to escape the fire. If we argue about the ladder while we all stand in the burning building, then we all die and lose and the publishers win, because everyone who cares about the issue is tied up arguing about the provider and not watching the fire.