Granted the moon is just a baby step (and we're talking a baby atom here) on the cosmic scale of things, but we need to start somewhere
There's this unspoken assumption among Slashgeeks that spreading the human race throughout the observable universe is a Good Thing. What's with this?
But if we don't spread out into the stars, we might become extinct! So what? Millions of species have gone extinct... why should we be special? We're not talking about killing any real, live people... we're talking about potential people that might not be born - does this mean that I should oppose birth control? I think that human beings as individuals should be valued, but the "human race" is a pretty abstract concept that people get overly excited about.
We need to get into space so that "progress" can go forward! Why? "Progress" is a mixed blessing, and in any case, there's still plenty of progress to be made on earth. How are people going to be better off by spreading themselves among the stars?
The bottom line is that aside from the coolness factor, I just don't see a good reason to spend enormous amounts of money (and blood!) to get ourselves into space. If through some scientific advance, it becomes a lot cheaper to do space travel, I might think differently. But as long as we're dependent on chemical rockets to go anywhere, I think that space colonization is a non-starter.
My Windows XP box runs for at least a few months at a time.
The sad part is that MS users think that is something worth mentioning.
While I'm no fan of MS in general, this comment is a little silly. Once you're in the realm of only rebooting every few months, should anyone really care how much LONGER you can go without rebooting? Anyone, that is, besides uptime-obsessed *nix fanboys? For a desktop OS, "a few months" is long enough.
Now, a server is a different story... but I wouldn't recommend Windows as a server OS anyway.
I don't want to sound harsh, but we lose highly trained military personnel in helicopter accidents monthly (and usually more than 7 personnel), why not shut down all of that model of chopper?
Can you provide any references that suggest we lose military helicopters monthly? Didn't think so. You're talking out your ass here. Another news flash for you: when a fatal military helicopter crash occurs, they DO ground that model of helo until such time as they can establish that the cause was something other than pilot error.
Sean
Except that it isn't space exploration.
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Shuttle Politics
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We've been to low earth orbit lots of times, people. No mystery there. Going to Mars - now THAT would be space exploration.
Space shuttle missions are no more exploratory than Columbus' mission would have been, if he made round trips to the Azores, over and over again.
I say again - what are we GETTING for these deaths and all the money we're spending?
Sean
Who said anything about giving up?
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Shuttle Politics
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Barton never suggests that we get out of the manned space flight business. He just wants a manned space flight vehicle that doesn't kill one of every 62 passengers. Sounds reasonable to me.
1 out of 62.5 might be acceptible if we were getting something of great value out of the endeavor. But I personally don't think the shuttle program is delivering very much valuable science for its price in blood and treasure. Its main purpose in life seems to be to support the ISS, whose main purpose in life, in turn, seems to be to provide a reason for existence for the shuttle.
You need to read your TOS. Almost certainly, there's a clause in there saying they can disconnect you at any time if you violate the TOS - and they get to decide whether you've violated it.
It's not like it takes a court order to get your connection shut off.
and how the only spliced genes in plants are from other plants
At least one form of GM food was formed by splicing bacterial genes into corn (bacteria, despite what you may have been taught in high school, are NOT considered plants). The corn had genes from Bacillus thueringensis spliced into it, to make it toxic to insect larvae such as corn borers. A later study showed that pollen from such corn, when dusted on milkweed leaves, was toxic to monarch butterfly larvae (note that it is not known whether corn pollen would migrate to milkweed plants in sufficient quantities in a natural setting to harm butterfly larvae).
Does this mean that all GM food is bad? No. But it does mean that caution is warranted. And don't believe everything you see on Showtime.
You will never achive perfect income equality, and even if you could, the costs of doing so would be far greater than whatever benefits it would provide.
Who said anything about equality? I'd settle for a little fairness.
At some point, the redistribution of wealth ceases to be productive to the overall well being of the people.
Let's see... Bill Gates is worth, what, $60 billion? Warren Buffet, Jack Welsh, etc, etc, are worth more collective billions? I think we're an awfully long way from diminishing returns.
"The village yeoman, Hugh, hewed two yews to use in the upcoming archery contest". I'm not guaranteeing it will choke, but it sure won't be pleased with you, despite the grammatical perfection of the sentence. However, any human hearing that will immediately make sense of it.
Try saying that sentence to someone over the phone and asking him/her to transcribe it. Read what he/she writes and tell me if you still feel the same. My guess is that a human listener would mangle this pretty badly too.
Oh, and if you have an aol,msn,hotmail,yahoo e-mail address then you don't have a right to complain about spam.
Why is that, exactly?
I don't let my e-mail get out to stupid places on the net where a spider will get them. I don't sign up for weird things. I avoid anything slightly untrustworthy.
So in other words, while spam itself isn't a problem for you, the fear of getting spam has severely limited the ways in which you feel confident in using the internet.
I don't get spam. I just don't get any.
And I guess you're confident that a dictionary attack against your server will never succeed.
This is common practice in the UK and certain other English speaking countries. It's not that they're illiterate, it's just that they have a different rule for this situation than we have in the US.
Is this some new Intel processor I haven't heard of?
Sean
I'm throwing the BS flag on this...
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FreeBSD 4.8 Released
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
You might know that Iran has also used chemical weapons against Iraq and that US generals have thratened to use chemical weapons against Iraq before the war.
1. Iran has NEVER used chemical weapons against anyone.
2. No US official has EVER threatened to use chemical weapons against Iraq or anyone else.
If you have any proof of these outlandish allegations, better ante up some links.
Open source is about developers. It's generally not about users.
Bullshit. Developing software that's not meant to be used by someone is an exercise in mental masturbation. It's rather like building a house and then, when hearing a potential occupant's complaint about the design, claiming that no one is actually supposed to live in it. I'm not saying that OSS developers need to be kowtowing to every schmoe's whim, but I am saying that if you're determined to ignore all user input, you're wasting your time.
Slashdot Mirror
There's this unspoken assumption among Slashgeeks that spreading the human race throughout the observable universe is a Good Thing. What's with this?
The bottom line is that aside from the coolness factor, I just don't see a good reason to spend enormous amounts of money (and blood!) to get ourselves into space. If through some scientific advance, it becomes a lot cheaper to do space travel, I might think differently. But as long as we're dependent on chemical rockets to go anywhere, I think that space colonization is a non-starter.
While I'm no fan of MS in general, this comment is a little silly. Once you're in the realm of only rebooting every few months, should anyone really care how much LONGER you can go without rebooting? Anyone, that is, besides uptime-obsessed *nix fanboys? For a desktop OS, "a few months" is long enough.
Now, a server is a different story... but I wouldn't recommend Windows as a server OS anyway.
SeanCan you provide any references that suggest we lose military helicopters monthly? Didn't think so. You're talking out your ass here. Another news flash for you: when a fatal military helicopter crash occurs, they DO ground that model of helo until such time as they can establish that the cause was something other than pilot error.
SeanWe've been to low earth orbit lots of times, people. No mystery there. Going to Mars - now THAT would be space exploration.
Space shuttle missions are no more exploratory than Columbus' mission would have been, if he made round trips to the Azores, over and over again.
I say again - what are we GETTING for these deaths and all the money we're spending?
Sean
Barton never suggests that we get out of the manned space flight business. He just wants a manned space flight vehicle that doesn't kill one of every 62 passengers. Sounds reasonable to me.
Sean
1 out of 62.5 might be acceptible if we were getting something of great value out of the endeavor. But I personally don't think the shuttle program is delivering very much valuable science for its price in blood and treasure. Its main purpose in life seems to be to support the ISS, whose main purpose in life, in turn, seems to be to provide a reason for existence for the shuttle.
Sean
If 71% got no more than a little, that obviously would INCLUDE the half who got none... since half is, in fact, no more than a little.
Sean
No, it's not all water. But it's not all water & carbon either. Some of it is nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, oxygen, calcium, etc, etc...
The mineral components of plant material make up a significant part of its mass.
Sean
The NH has a lot more land area. They should be in a different conference.
Sean
You need to read your TOS. Almost certainly, there's a clause in there saying they can disconnect you at any time if you violate the TOS - and they get to decide whether you've violated it.
It's not like it takes a court order to get your connection shut off.
Sean
At least one form of GM food was formed by splicing bacterial genes into corn (bacteria, despite what you may have been taught in high school, are NOT considered plants). The corn had genes from Bacillus thueringensis spliced into it, to make it toxic to insect larvae such as corn borers. A later study showed that pollen from such corn, when dusted on milkweed leaves, was toxic to monarch butterfly larvae (note that it is not known whether corn pollen would migrate to milkweed plants in sufficient quantities in a natural setting to harm butterfly larvae).
Does this mean that all GM food is bad? No. But it does mean that caution is warranted. And don't believe everything you see on Showtime.
Sean
Sean
Sean
Try saying that sentence to someone over the phone and asking him/her to transcribe it. Read what he/she writes and tell me if you still feel the same. My guess is that a human listener would mangle this pretty badly too.
Sean
That's FREEDOM mathematician, thank you very much.
Sean
... since they don't fly the Harrier. I believe you're thinking of the USMC.
Sean
Is it just me, or does this sound like a bad thing?
Sean
Why is that, exactly?
So in other words, while spam itself isn't a problem for you, the fear of getting spam has severely limited the ways in which you feel confident in using the internet.
And I guess you're confident that a dictionary attack against your server will never succeed.
Still think spam isn't a problem?
Sean
This is common practice in the UK and certain other English speaking countries. It's not that they're illiterate, it's just that they have a different rule for this situation than we have in the US.
Sean
1. Iran has NEVER used chemical weapons against anyone.
2. No US official has EVER threatened to use chemical weapons against Iraq or anyone else.
If you have any proof of these outlandish allegations, better ante up some links.
Sean
Bullshit. Developing software that's not meant to be used by someone is an exercise in mental masturbation. It's rather like building a house and then, when hearing a potential occupant's complaint about the design, claiming that no one is actually supposed to live in it. I'm not saying that OSS developers need to be kowtowing to every schmoe's whim, but I am saying that if you're determined to ignore all user input, you're wasting your time.
Sean
... since he wasn't ever on CNN. I think he was on that bastion of liberalism - the Fox network.
Sean
Since when is "first & largest" redundant? First != only.
Sean