Well, the most valid assumption probably goes like this:
- Most Slashdotters are pro-freedom.
- The ACLU is pro-1st Amendment. (Freedom of speech, assembly, etc.)
- Therefore, many Slashdotters are pro-ACLU.
BTW, I would expect many Slashdotters to also be pro-NRA (myself included). In general, Slashdotters seem to be comfortable with unpopular opinions AND dangerous toys.
It should be pointed out that the FBI can still demand confidential financial records without this provision of the "Patriot" Act. Basically, without this provision the FBI just needs to provide a reason WHY to a judge to get similar access to the same records. (Previously, it was all hush-hush.)
"...a dime and accomplishing the same task with a plumb bob..."
We still have a disagreement regarding scale. Our plumb bob in the tether case is not to be built with string, nor will it have a "hand" which is allowed to move much, nor do we have an overweight "bob" at the end of the tether.
I would suggest a different example to suggest the relative difficulty: hitting a certain tile on the bottom of a swimming pool with a length of sewing thread.
"Why risk the lives of your agents and spend a lot of effort to attack something that will cause no loss of life and no real damage?"
Headline: Terrorists Snap Space Elevator Subhead: Dozens Killed at Tether Platform, Hundreds Stranded on Space Platform
Pullquote: "Our shuttle fleet stands by to effect a rescue if needed." - J. Rogers, NASA Bigwig
I still don't buy the business of a broken tether being easy to repair. A space tether is a long, long thing. If a little thruster can nudge a shuttle around in space...just think what several hours of high atmosphere winds could do to a dangling tether.
Argue facts, not emotion.
Again, you forget we live in a political world. Politics is almost all emotion. You need a political solution to get a space elevator built...so emotion is important.
"A ballistic missile can hit a very tiny area, and that is essentially dropped from orbit at high speed, not lowered slowly."
The different between a ballistic missle and a space elevator is huge. It's OK for ballistic missles to reach their target travelling over the speed of sound. That will probably not be OK for the poor fellows (or robots) trying to tie down the Earth-bound part of the tether. Also, a ballistic missle is a relatively discrete package; it is only in one place at a time. A tether needs to exist in many places (i.e. space, upper atmosphere, lower atmosphere) and remain stable in all those environments: much harder to do.
"Build it on a privately-owned island or some such. No regulations, no permits required, etc."
LOL. I think we are talking about something more than a zoning variance. Hanging a space station a couple hundred miles offshore is still bound to make a couple of countries nervous. You're going to need some international diplomacy, not just a call to the local alderman.
"Maybe a floating platform, or in an equatorial country that would provide uber-security in exchange for the obvious economic benefits."
Do you know any third-world banana republics that are reknowned for great security?
Even if it is lowered down from a stationary platform from space...I wanna have my U.S. Air Force standing by to blow the thing to smithereens if it wanders off course!
You also say "relatively easy to anchor it to a floating platform in the middle of the ocean" There are a lot of assumptions here, one of which is that they would not want to build on a continental shelf (which will probably be controlled by a nearby country). Another is that lowering down is a nice, stable process. If it really were so...the Earth-bound tether point would be trivial. In any case, "easy" is not assured.
Of course it needs government support; you can't just put up an X-mile high tower without worrying about security, shared land use, population relocation, etc. These are all things that government does. Without some government muscle, a private space elevator company would be sunk.
As if Konqueror's messed-up browser isn't giving those of us trying to be Linux friendly enough to worry about. How many free browsers do we really need?
BTW, HP is probably doomed too, unless they can win back all the people pissed about Dell's crash-happy NAS devices. Overpriced hardware are belong to us. At least Sun has Java...
Isn't Sun already irrelevant? I mean, unless you are working for the goverment (and are also stuck with Unisys, TI, etc.), who the hell installs a NEW Sun system these days?
The site you linked to is "Madison Gas and Electric", not the state of Wisconsin.
Given that Madison Gas and Electric has been fighting for a very large new natural gas plant for several years now in a heavily enviro-friendly city (and just got a new coal-fired plant near Milwaukee), it is not surprising that they spin wind power as a clean technology, but one that is just not practical at the moment.
For more information about MGE's plants: http://www.madison.com/wisconsinstatejour nal/biz/6 0059.php http://www.dailycardinal.com/news/2003/0 2/07/News/ Planned.Power.Plant.Generates.Buzz.On.Uw.Campus-36 3425.shtml
For more information about Wisconsin wind power: http://www.eere.energy.gov/state_energy/te ch_wind. cfm?state=WI
What about those pheromones emitted by those pesky primordal amphibians a few hundred thousand years ago? That would seem to qualify as unwanted advertising...
Long ago (circa 1990), plenty of Amiga games used to try to roach any disk (including other floppies) if they thought they were running from non-legit disks.
The response from the Amiga gamer community was basically to drop Amiga as a ligit platform.
Software developers who resort to deletion or destruction of anything other than their own software are morons. When their part-time software projects tank, please remember not to hire these knuckleheads.
"Paul A. Samuelson, Nobel Laureate in Economics, a professor at MIT challenges the outsourcing of jobs (retinal scan login required) to India and China."
You can already pretty much ban gmail connections with a proxy server. You can also put caps on individual transmission size from particular IP addresses. (Or, at least monitor these transmisions.) Finally, gmail, especially if initiated from within a private network, is a hell of a lot more traceable than a pocket USB if it comes time to play in the court system.
You can already block IE using an outbound HTTP proxy server which can screen out requests based on the Agent tag. You can also block execution of IE using NTFS permissions. You can also set other browsers to be the default browser on a particular desktop. So...what's the problem?
For many people, it's currently easier to walk out with a USB device full of files than it is to connect to yahoo mail and send them as attachments. (Proxies, transfer size limitations, etc.)
This is a logical step, like removing floppy drives in the 1990s and then limiting their use with software with Microsoft security policies.
Slashdot Mirror
Russ Feingold. Wisconsin. The only one with enough balls in the whole Senate to vote against that hurtling turd.
Well, the most valid assumption probably goes like this: - Most Slashdotters are pro-freedom. - The ACLU is pro-1st Amendment. (Freedom of speech, assembly, etc.) - Therefore, many Slashdotters are pro-ACLU. BTW, I would expect many Slashdotters to also be pro-NRA (myself included). In general, Slashdotters seem to be comfortable with unpopular opinions AND dangerous toys.
It should be pointed out that the FBI can still demand confidential financial records without this provision of the "Patriot" Act. Basically, without this provision the FBI just needs to provide a reason WHY to a judge to get similar access to the same records. (Previously, it was all hush-hush.)
OK. However, neither "space escalator" nor "space conveyor belt" have the same "straight up" connotation.
We still have a disagreement regarding scale. Our plumb bob in the tether case is not to be built with string, nor will it have a "hand" which is allowed to move much, nor do we have an overweight "bob" at the end of the tether.
I would suggest a different example to suggest the relative difficulty: hitting a certain tile on the bottom of a swimming pool with a length of sewing thread.
"Why risk the lives of your agents and spend a lot of effort to attack something that will cause no loss of life and no real damage?"
Headline: Terrorists Snap Space Elevator
Subhead: Dozens Killed at Tether Platform, Hundreds Stranded on Space Platform
Pullquote: "Our shuttle fleet stands by to effect a rescue if needed." - J. Rogers, NASA Bigwig
I still don't buy the business of a broken tether being easy to repair. A space tether is a long, long thing. If a little thruster can nudge a shuttle around in space...just think what several hours of high atmosphere winds could do to a dangling tether.
Argue facts, not emotion.
Again, you forget we live in a political world. Politics is almost all emotion. You need a political solution to get a space elevator built...so emotion is important.
"A ballistic missile can hit a very tiny area, and that is essentially dropped from orbit at high speed, not lowered slowly."
The different between a ballistic missle and a space elevator is huge. It's OK for ballistic missles to reach their target travelling over the speed of sound. That will probably not be OK for the poor fellows (or robots) trying to tie down the Earth-bound part of the tether. Also, a ballistic missle is a relatively discrete package; it is only in one place at a time. A tether needs to exist in many places (i.e. space, upper atmosphere, lower atmosphere) and remain stable in all those environments: much harder to do.
LOL. Still LOL.
A space elevator would be a literal Tower of Babel. It would be the world's biggest target. Remember the twin towers?
LOL. I think we are talking about something more than a zoning variance. Hanging a space station a couple hundred miles offshore is still bound to make a couple of countries nervous. You're going to need some international diplomacy, not just a call to the local alderman.
"Maybe a floating platform, or in an equatorial country that would provide uber-security in exchange for the obvious economic benefits."
Do you know any third-world banana republics that are reknowned for great security?
Even if it is lowered down from a stationary platform from space...I wanna have my U.S. Air Force standing by to blow the thing to smithereens if it wanders off course! You also say "relatively easy to anchor it to a floating platform in the middle of the ocean" There are a lot of assumptions here, one of which is that they would not want to build on a continental shelf (which will probably be controlled by a nearby country). Another is that lowering down is a nice, stable process. If it really were so...the Earth-bound tether point would be trivial. In any case, "easy" is not assured.
Of course it needs government support; you can't just put up an X-mile high tower without worrying about security, shared land use, population relocation, etc. These are all things that government does. Without some government muscle, a private space elevator company would be sunk.
Lt. Cmd. Data could tell you this isn't foolproof.
The real game involves sizing up the bets and the players...
Um...where were you last week? http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/known-vul nerabilities.html#mozilla1.7.3 It's time to patch that Mozilla browser - now!
Great. More Cross-Browser Shit to Worry About.
As if Konqueror's messed-up browser isn't giving those of us trying to be Linux friendly enough to worry about. How many free browsers do we really need?
BTW, HP is probably doomed too, unless they can win back all the people pissed about Dell's crash-happy NAS devices. Overpriced hardware are belong to us. At least Sun has Java...
Isn't Sun already irrelevant? I mean, unless you are working for the goverment (and are also stuck with Unisys, TI, etc.), who the hell installs a NEW Sun system these days?
SlashDot wouldn't exist if it wasn't for...
STUPID OBSCURE SHIT
The site you linked to is "Madison Gas and Electric", not the state of Wisconsin.
r nal/biz/6 0059.php0 2/07/News/ Planned.Power.Plant.Generates.Buzz.On.Uw.Campus-36 3425.shtml
e ch_wind. cfm?state=WI
Given that Madison Gas and Electric has been fighting for a very large new natural gas plant for several years now in a heavily enviro-friendly city (and just got a new coal-fired plant near Milwaukee), it is not surprising that they spin wind power as a clean technology, but one that is just not practical at the moment.
For more information about MGE's plants:
http://www.madison.com/wisconsinstatejou
http://www.dailycardinal.com/news/2003/
For more information about Wisconsin wind power:
http://www.eere.energy.gov/state_energy/t
What about those pheromones emitted by those pesky primordal amphibians a few hundred thousand years ago? That would seem to qualify as unwanted advertising...
Long ago (circa 1990), plenty of Amiga games used to try to roach any disk (including other floppies) if they thought they were running from non-legit disks.
The response from the Amiga gamer community was basically to drop Amiga as a ligit platform.
Software developers who resort to deletion or destruction of anything other than their own software are morons. When their part-time software projects tank, please remember not to hire these knuckleheads.
There's a way to fix this too. Set your firewall to ONLY allow outbound HTTP traffic from your web proxy.
What does he have against brown people?
You can already pretty much ban gmail connections with a proxy server. You can also put caps on individual transmission size from particular IP addresses. (Or, at least monitor these transmisions.) Finally, gmail, especially if initiated from within a private network, is a hell of a lot more traceable than a pocket USB if it comes time to play in the court system.
You can already block IE using an outbound HTTP proxy server which can screen out requests based on the Agent tag. You can also block execution of IE using NTFS permissions. You can also set other browsers to be the default browser on a particular desktop. So...what's the problem?
For many people, it's currently easier to walk out with a USB device full of files than it is to connect to yahoo mail and send them as attachments. (Proxies, transfer size limitations, etc.) This is a logical step, like removing floppy drives in the 1990s and then limiting their use with software with Microsoft security policies.