"Virtual Boy" is a metaphor for what some people think is going to happen to this system, in their opinion.
They are not saying it is going to fail because it is like the Virtual Boy, they are saying it is going to fail the same way the Virtual Boy failed, although for different reasons.
No, it is not fated to fail like the Virtual Boy, either because of its similarities or its differences, but people are entitled to their opinions. And give what little we know about this sytem the opinion that it has a hard road ahead of it certainly isn't completly unreasonable.
Anyone know what the editor's email address or anyone else in authority at Forbes.com? I haven't found an obvious "contact us" link, but i'd like to make sure that both the guy who wrote the article _and_ his superiors know what i think.
Then you have to deal with removing the gasses that come off in addition to H3. Water and O2 woudl be useful, but F, Cl and the other volatiles typically found in rocks and regolith would be a problem.
Okay, stupid question, but why are waste gasses a problem?
Sure, you don't want them on earth, and you wouldn't want them on mars either. However i doubt we're ever going to terraform the moon, because it has no practical atmosphere! Any waste gasses released would pretty soon end up escaping from the moon and heading to space (geologically speaking at the very least, if we vent them upwards, probably a lot quicker) And if they stick around, what are they going to harm?
Pretty much the only time fans can have any input over the process at all is during the concept phase.
If there's enough of an outcry now maybe they _will_ change it by production. However if the fans wait until after production starts and complain _then_ it will most likely be too late for any changes to be feasible.
All in all the studio probably doesn't give a shit what the hardcore fans want and it will make no difference anyways, but if it ever was going to make a difference, now would be the time.
"a few years down the road when the remaining billions come for our throats"
With what? Brandishing sharp sticks and throwing stones at us?
If there were actually a billion people dedicated to destroying the US, we'd be pretty fucked, even if they all started out with just spears and arrows. (Of course after the first time a large group of them caught a small group of us by suprise, they wouldn't be armed with just "sharp sticks" anymore)
It certainly wouldn't be the first time a group with less advanced weapons defeated a better armed group by using superior numbers and a dedication to their cause. Perhaps you've heard of Vietnam?
Of course they most likely wouldn't be using just sharp sticks. A lot of those billions have access to firearms of some sort, and the chemicals needed to make explosives. Look how much trouble a few hundred or thousand people are causing in Iraq. Look how much trouble a dozen people with boxcutters caused in the US.
The more you have, the less you want to lose. The less you have the more likely you are to be willing to give your life to a cause. The more prosperous the US has become the less willing we have been to deal with casualties in war situations, again, look at Iraq.
We may have the best weapons, but we're not very pshchologically prepared for the losses that would come with millions or billions of people dedicated to destroying us.
And if only 49% think it should be, it magically stays legal and we have tens of millions of people like you arguing that its therefore justified. Its amazing how easy it is for you to take consent totally out of the equation and just replace it with "what the majority wants" (even if the majority happens to be only the majority of those that the remaining majority feel should be allowed to vote)
Don't want to be raped? Move.
But then that brings us to yet another interesting caveat. What about if 51% of the people decide I shouldn't be able to leave? Its happened before, often in fact.
"Justified" is a tricky term. I wouldn't necessarily say it was justified or moral, but if rhe constituion of the country were set up in a way that such a law would be legal, then i would agree that it was legal. I'd also get the hell out of Dodge.
I would consider not allowing people to leave the country if they didn't wish to abide by it's laws to be immoral. Ideally such a law would be forbidden, but the world isn't a perfect place, and just by ourselves we've already proven that no set of laws is going to work for everyone. However if you're not allowed to leave i would certainly consider civil disobediance and/or armed revolution a justifiable response.
Before i get into you other points, what type of governmental system are you proposing that we should have? Those who don't want to pay taxes just don't, and aren't allowed to drive on puclic roads or use public utilities, and if anyone wants to rob them or shoot them the police don't get involved? Not sure what the proper response in the event of a war should be. It would be hard to let the enemy selectively invade the property of those who don't pay taxes.
Statistically likely and "a certainty" are two entirely different things. Maybe you should grab a book on probabilities?
Once again, would you please read what i actually said?
"If we live long enough, a giant asteroid will hit the earth, or something else of that nature that will kill everyone on the planet."
If all else fails, the sun will expand and destroy the earth in a few billion years. It is not "statistically likely" it is a certainity as much as anything in life can possibly be certain.
Suppose I say continuing to stay on my lawn is implicit consent to being anally raped by wolves. Does that mean I'm morally justified in attacking you with the wolves?
Given that that would be illegal under our system of laws, no. If we lived in an anarchy or some other system that allowed such, i still don't think you would be morally justified, but you would be legally (such as it is in an anarchy) justified.
You seem to be confusing legality and morality. Theft is a legal term. It's possible to do a lot of legal things that are immoral, and a lot of moral things that are illegal. Taxes are legal under our system of government, so they are not theft. What the government does with the money may or may not be morral, but the way they got it was legal, and since everyone has the right to leave and not pay them, i would say moral as well.
This also doesn't justify them. Slavery was around for a long time too before it was eliminated.
And murder of Jews was completely legal in Nazi Germany... thus it was not murder... right?
Hence why i said not illegal or immoral originally. Learn to read.
It's generally accepted that paying money for services is not immoral. (The basic concept. Yes, paying money for the Nazis to go kill Jews would be immoral, give it a rest)
The US government is paid money to give services. Everyone in the country benefits from the services, so consenting to pay the taxes is required to live here. You don't like it? Stop immorally and illegally ripping off the government and leave.
Again, nothing you're saying justifies it in any logical way. That's the way some dead guys wanted it... that's the way 51% of the people wanted it... that's the way 99% of the people want it. Let the 99% of the people pay for it then.
Sorry, that's not the way democracy works, sorry. Putting aside for the moment the legal complications in the system (constitutional rights, 2/3rd majortiy issues, representative democracy, etc) if 51% of the people want things a certain way, that's the way it goes. Again, pretending for the moment we don't have the constitutional rights intended to prevent abuse of the system, if 51% of the people think it should be illegal to analy rape people with wolves, then it's illegal. If 99% if the people think it should be illegal, that doesn't mean that the 1% still get to analy rape people with wolves because they didn't vote for it.
This was being considered before Bush's new proposal. It is not the fault of his proposal.
To quote "John Grunsfeld, NASA's chief scientist" in the CNN article i linked a few posts after yours,
"He said the decision was influenced by President Bush's new space initiative and "Grunsfeld said Bush "directed us to use this precious resource" (the shuttle) toward completing the International Space Station and fulfilling U.S. obligations to the 15 partner nations."
Who are we supposed to believe? NASA, or you?
This guy even seems to think it's a good idea, so it's not like he's trying to pass the buck, ""This is a sad day," said Grunsfeld, but he said the decision "is the best thing for the space community.""
They may have been considering it before, but Bush's plan certainly helped decide the issue.
"John Grunsfeld, NASA's chief scientist, said NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe made the decision to cancel the fifth space shuttle service mission to the Hubble when it became clear there was not enough time to conduct it before the shuttle is retired."
"He said the decision was influenced by President Bush's new space initiative, which calls for NASA to start developing the spacecraft and equipment for voyages to the moon and later to Mars. The president's plan also called for the space shuttle to be retired by 2010. Virtually all of the shuttle's remaining flights would be used to complete construction of the International Space Station."
I sure hope Bush follows through on his promise of funding, because NASA is going to be fucked if they start shifting priorities to his ideas and then don't get the money to follow through.
Don't know who the AC was, but i can't resist a challenge:
Sony PS2: $180
Copy of Gran Turismo 4: $50
Kilowatt gaming system: $695
Having an excuse for your overdeveloped forearm muscles other than pr0n: pricless
I think somebody needs to look up the term "certainty". Unless you can point to an asteroid presently on a collision course, its just a question of probability. Since the universe is finite, there's no logical reason to suggest another asteroid "must" hit the earth.
I think somebody needs to read what i wrote. "If we live long enough, a giant asteroid will hit the earth, or something else of that nature that will kill everyone on the planet."
Asteroids have hit the earth on a fairly regular basis in the past. It's possible that the last one was indeed the very last one, but it's not very likely. However even if that very unlikely possibility turns out to be true, and even if no supervolcanos go off, and no super greenhouse effect happens, and no novas go off near our sun, even if we avoid every other possible way in which life on this planet or in this solar system could be seriously threatened or extinguished, in the end, the sun _will_ expand past the earth's orbit in a few billion years and then go out a while after that.
Yes, it's a certainty.
So when Nazi Germany spent its tax dollars exterminating Jews, that was legitimate? After all, if the Jews didn't want to be extermined they shouldn't have let Hitler win the election.
Nice straw-man. Given the troll-like character you've already shown i was actually kind of expecting that response.
However instead of detailing all the ways in which the government can exceed it's authority, i thought i'd let you make a fool of yourself. Do you realize how stupid comparing the space program to the Holocaust sounds?
Yes, the government shouldn't do anything illegal or immoral. The space program is neither of those. (You seem to think the method by which the funds is raised was immoral, but that's a question about how the government gets it's money, not how it chooses to spend it)
Money was taken from people without their consent.
I know its a radical suggestion, but how about each person spends their own money on what they want to spend it on, rather than what you think they should, or even what a voting majority thinks they should?
I really hate to tell you this, but it's been that way for a _long_ time. Since well before you were born. To the best of my knowledge taxes were present from day one of this country's existance, and if it wasn't it was only because they hadn't gotten the system worked out yet. The battle cry was "No taxes without representation!" not "No taxes!"
We have taxes now, and we have representation. That's the way the found fathers wanted it, and as best as i can tell that's the way the majority of people have wanted it. Everyone wants to pay less taxes, but very few people (statistically speaking) have claimed that we should pay no taxes.
So until such a majority assembles itself and demands change, there will be taxes. Those taxes are completly legal under our form of government, so they are not theft. If you don't like that, you can either help attempt to get the neccessary majority to agree with your opinions, or you can leave the country. No one is making you stay here and pay taxes.
Choosing to continue living in this country is you implicent concent to be governed by it's rules, included getting taxed.
So if it will take us 11 years to do it again now, can we cut it down to less than a decade if we leave off the "and returning him safely to the earth" bit?:)
The earth is ideally suited for human life because we have evolved within it over the last 200,000+ years.
Any outpost created will inevitably fall to murphy's law. I say within 50 years on the outside. Especially without base station support from mother earth.
You're kind of missing the point. The idea is to start _now_ so that we can get as much practice in as possible before we really need to do it _without_ the support of earth.
Maybe we won't really need the outposts and colonies for 200,000+ years, by which point we'd be pretty damn good at it if we start now by your claims. However if we wait 199,999 years and then say oh shit, maybe we ought to set up a space colony because the earth is about to get smacked, _then_ we'll be fucked.
I am amazed that congress would vote to spend BILLIONS revisiting a SINGLE stupid rock orbiting our earth while they scoff at and cut off funding in the MILLIONS for a project that is scanning BILLIONS of solar systems for signs of intelligent life (SETI).
I'll agree with you on that, at least the cutting of fundings for other space research. However instead of blaming one science program for the hard times of another science program, how about we cut back on something like that $1.5 billion of marriage propaganda?
Can we really justify the theft of billions of dollars in the name of maybe defending against some improbable cosmological what-if?
First of all, explain how it's theft exactly. The government has the right to do whatever it wants with the taxes it collects. If you don't like what they do you elect someone else, but that doesn't make unwise expeditures theft.
Second of all, it's not a "what-if", it's an eventual certainty. If we live long enough, a giant asteroid will hit the earth, or something else of that nature that will kill everyone on the planet. Of course it's possible that we'll kill ourselves off before that happens, but if so, then what does it really matter what we spend a few extra billions on right now?
Of course one must note that he only decided that it wasn't his dream job after he's probaby become independantly wealthy and made his name so that he can go on to do whatever he wants now.
I think a lot of the rest of us (ne certainly, at the very least) would jump at the chance to deal with whatever problems we had if we were getting the same salary, stock options, and name recognition as he was.
So for anyone else what he had was dream job, but now that he's got money and power he's going to head off and write his own ticket somewhere else.
It would not boil or freeze. The word you are looking for is sublimate.
Actually it would probably boil while freezing and then sublimate.
By the definition you just pointed out, it can't sublimate unless it freezes first. If it goes from liquid to gas instead of freezing it's not sublimating.
"Earthquakes are after all about relieving pent up pressure between the plates."
This is actually an outdated theory, and has been proven incorrect. Earthquakes are a result of moving tectonic plates catching on each other and then breaking loose. There is no long-term pressure build-up along fault lines.
So you're arguing that it's because of short term pent up pressure rather than long term pent up pressure. How does that change the original poster's idea? If you can predict it about 9 months in advance, maybe you could do something to cause it to slip a little bit three times, producing three smaller earthquakes, rather than all at once producing one large earthquake.
I was visiting some friends in San Diego recently and we went to Legoland, and i thought it was very interesting. If you're an adult who's only interested in exciting rides it probably won't be your cup of tea, but there's lots of cool stuff to look at there and we managed to spend most of a day wandering around and looking at stuff and didn't feel disapointed.
I've noticed a lot of new lego lookalike commerials on tv while watching saturday morning cartoons lately. The main one i've seen is by some company with a three letter initial name (i keep wanting to say "BFG," but i know that isn't right *g*) At the end of the commercial they say that you should look for them in the "construction isle" of your local toy store.
The blocks look identical except they have their initials printed on them instead of "Lego." They seem to be focusing on the specialty market. *does five minutes of searching on amazon* Ahh, they're called "Built to Rule," and they've apparently got licenses with Transformers and G.I. Joe.
I guess they figure they can't compete with Lego in the "square things you stick together" arena, so they're trying to compete in the specialty area, which ironically seems to be the area that Lego is abandoning. Perhaps BTR will pick up Harry Potter and Star Wars now as well?
You are claiming that we shouldn't focus on Mars or on _any_ place where we think we're most likely to encounter life, yet your previous post seemed to indicate you think we should focus on Europa because you say that's the most likely place to encounter life that we've found.
If we just picked some place at random on the theory that we shouldn't focus on the place where we might expect life, we'd probably end up sending probes to someplace like Charon, which is an extremely unlikely place to find life.
We're doing what's inteligent, we're spending the most effort where we expect the greatest return for the smallest investment, while doing a survey of the rest. Mars is close and relatively easy to get to, and it's a relatively familiar enviroment that we have some idea of how to deal with, which makes missions there comparitively cheap. Meanwhile they're making plans for further missions to Europa and other places that seemed interesting after the first few passes, what more do you want? We don't have enough resources to thoroughly explore _everywhere_ at once, and picking sites randomly would most likely be a waste.
And as to the types of lifeform they're looking for, they tried to make the tests as general as possible. Yes, they were looking for stuff metabolizing certain chemicals, but what else would you suggest? That's the simplest characteristic of life that we can think of. There might be some kind of life that we aren't expecting that doesn't metabolize or doesn't metabolize chemicals that we would expect, but how do you think we should test for that? There's certainly not room on any mission we're going to send in the near future to include tests for all the millions of combinations of chemicals or whatever that could possibly indicate life. We could start to do that if we actually had a colony at the location, but if we found life that wasn't based on any system like earth's, then we might not recognize it even if it was right under our nose.
And inconclusive results just mean that we should study those results and try to figure out what they mean and figure out better tests. Perhaps those inconvlusive results indicate the presence of one of those non-hydrocarbons based lifeforms you're proposing.
Ahhh, sorry, i misunderstood your second point, i thought you were objecting to the games they selected for that category. I still expect unreleased games to be nominated for that category, but you're right, it is pretty stupid of them to have "check prices" links for them. I think by that point i had kind of tuned the links out and didn't noticed that category had them too.
I'll still stand by my first claim unless there was something else you said that i'm missing. Independent media have to be capitalistic if they're going to survive, what's important is the ways in which they choose to make that money. Selling the media is really the best, but no one likes that on the net. Selling ad-space is a few rungs down the ladder. Pushing products that you're supposed to be giving un-biased reviews of is a bit further down. And at the very bottom is where you push the products you're reviewing, and let that influence your reviews and comments about them.
Actually, you can't rape a priest with a gun in postal. In Mortal Kombat you can set fire to humans...isn't that worse or at least equal to setting fire to cats?
I believe he meant the raping cats with guns which was mentioned earlier.
And setting fire to people can be better or worse than setting fire to cats, depending on the situation. Certainly in Mortal Kombat, where all parties involved are voluntary participants who know that they may die in the event (the name kinda gives it away) the people have forfeited their right to object to being killed. Certainly being set on fire is a gruesome way to go, but they were certainly told it was a "no holds barred" contest, and if they'd paid any attention at all beforehand they must have known such an outcome was a possibility.
So you are saying that animals are more important than some people. Sound like a PETA person to me. You need to lighten up a bit.
No, PETA thinks that there is no circumstance under wich it is justifiable to hurt or kill an animal. I think there are pleanty of situations, but if you're going to kill them it should be for a good purpose and done humanely, and if you're going to hurt them it ought to be for a really damn good purpose (such as research into cancer or some such.)
I like to think however that humans have free will, and as such, they can choose to be far better or far worse than an animal. I don't really believe in the religious aspect, but i do think that animals are too stupid to understand the difference between good and evil, which keeps them kind of in the middle, not as good as a human who tries to be good, but better than a human who tries to be evil.
You sound as bad as Joe Liberman and the other fools in congress who whine about video game violence, and I don't think you mean to come across that way.
Again, no. Liberman is in favor of censorship, while i am not. I believe the freedoms of those involved trump my feelings about the issue, as long as no one elses rights are being violated, which is why i said i would defend your right to play such games.
I'm glad to see that Master of Orion 3 was up for Most Disapointing. I'm kind of sorry i wasted the money on it. I tried to get into it for a week before getting fed up with the crappy interface and the complete lack of action by the AI. Despite the difficulty of getting anything done the way i wanted, i kicked the computer's ass from one end of the galaxy to the other, and didn't really enjoy any of it. The combat was especially crappy and iritating.
I was equally happy to see Galactic Civilizations make Finalist for "Best Strategy Game." It's a wonderful space strategy game, made even more sweet after dealing with Master of Orion 3 (despite GalCiv being more Civ like than MoO like.) I kind of wonder why it's free expansion pack didn't get nominated for an award though. How can a free expansion to one of the best games of the year not make the "Best Expansion Pack" list?
Slashdot Mirror
"Virtual Boy" is a metaphor for what some people think is going to happen to this system, in their opinion.
They are not saying it is going to fail because it is like the Virtual Boy, they are saying it is going to fail the same way the Virtual Boy failed, although for different reasons.
No, it is not fated to fail like the Virtual Boy, either because of its similarities or its differences, but people are entitled to their opinions. And give what little we know about this sytem the opinion that it has a hard road ahead of it certainly isn't completly unreasonable.
Anyone know what the editor's email address or anyone else in authority at Forbes.com? I haven't found an obvious "contact us" link, but i'd like to make sure that both the guy who wrote the article _and_ his superiors know what i think.
Okay, stupid question, but why are waste gasses a problem?
Sure, you don't want them on earth, and you wouldn't want them on mars either. However i doubt we're ever going to terraform the moon, because it has no practical atmosphere! Any waste gasses released would pretty soon end up escaping from the moon and heading to space (geologically speaking at the very least, if we vent them upwards, probably a lot quicker) And if they stick around, what are they going to harm?
If there's enough of an outcry now maybe they _will_ change it by production. However if the fans wait until after production starts and complain _then_ it will most likely be too late for any changes to be feasible.
All in all the studio probably doesn't give a shit what the hardcore fans want and it will make no difference anyways, but if it ever was going to make a difference, now would be the time.
With what? Brandishing sharp sticks and throwing stones at us?
If there were actually a billion people dedicated to destroying the US, we'd be pretty fucked, even if they all started out with just spears and arrows. (Of course after the first time a large group of them caught a small group of us by suprise, they wouldn't be armed with just "sharp sticks" anymore)
It certainly wouldn't be the first time a group with less advanced weapons defeated a better armed group by using superior numbers and a dedication to their cause. Perhaps you've heard of Vietnam?
Of course they most likely wouldn't be using just sharp sticks. A lot of those billions have access to firearms of some sort, and the chemicals needed to make explosives. Look how much trouble a few hundred or thousand people are causing in Iraq. Look how much trouble a dozen people with boxcutters caused in the US.
The more you have, the less you want to lose. The less you have the more likely you are to be willing to give your life to a cause. The more prosperous the US has become the less willing we have been to deal with casualties in war situations, again, look at Iraq.
We may have the best weapons, but we're not very pshchologically prepared for the losses that would come with millions or billions of people dedicated to destroying us.
Don't want to be raped? Move.
But then that brings us to yet another interesting caveat. What about if 51% of the people decide I shouldn't be able to leave? Its happened before, often in fact.
"Justified" is a tricky term. I wouldn't necessarily say it was justified or moral, but if rhe constituion of the country were set up in a way that such a law would be legal, then i would agree that it was legal. I'd also get the hell out of Dodge.
I would consider not allowing people to leave the country if they didn't wish to abide by it's laws to be immoral. Ideally such a law would be forbidden, but the world isn't a perfect place, and just by ourselves we've already proven that no set of laws is going to work for everyone. However if you're not allowed to leave i would certainly consider civil disobediance and/or armed revolution a justifiable response.
Before i get into you other points, what type of governmental system are you proposing that we should have? Those who don't want to pay taxes just don't, and aren't allowed to drive on puclic roads or use public utilities, and if anyone wants to rob them or shoot them the police don't get involved? Not sure what the proper response in the event of a war should be. It would be hard to let the enemy selectively invade the property of those who don't pay taxes.
Once again, would you please read what i actually said?
"If we live long enough, a giant asteroid will hit the earth, or something else of that nature that will kill everyone on the planet."
If all else fails, the sun will expand and destroy the earth in a few billion years. It is not "statistically likely" it is a certainity as much as anything in life can possibly be certain.
Suppose I say continuing to stay on my lawn is implicit consent to being anally raped by wolves. Does that mean I'm morally justified in attacking you with the wolves?
Given that that would be illegal under our system of laws, no. If we lived in an anarchy or some other system that allowed such, i still don't think you would be morally justified, but you would be legally (such as it is in an anarchy) justified.
You seem to be confusing legality and morality. Theft is a legal term. It's possible to do a lot of legal things that are immoral, and a lot of moral things that are illegal. Taxes are legal under our system of government, so they are not theft. What the government does with the money may or may not be morral, but the way they got it was legal, and since everyone has the right to leave and not pay them, i would say moral as well.
This also doesn't justify them. Slavery was around for a long time too before it was eliminated.
And murder of Jews was completely legal in Nazi Germany... thus it was not murder... right?
Hence why i said not illegal or immoral originally. Learn to read.
It's generally accepted that paying money for services is not immoral. (The basic concept. Yes, paying money for the Nazis to go kill Jews would be immoral, give it a rest)
The US government is paid money to give services. Everyone in the country benefits from the services, so consenting to pay the taxes is required to live here. You don't like it? Stop immorally and illegally ripping off the government and leave.
Again, nothing you're saying justifies it in any logical way. That's the way some dead guys wanted it... that's the way 51% of the people wanted it... that's the way 99% of the people want it. Let the 99% of the people pay for it then.
Sorry, that's not the way democracy works, sorry. Putting aside for the moment the legal complications in the system (constitutional rights, 2/3rd majortiy issues, representative democracy, etc) if 51% of the people want things a certain way, that's the way it goes. Again, pretending for the moment we don't have the constitutional rights intended to prevent abuse of the system, if 51% of the people think it should be illegal to analy rape people with wolves, then it's illegal. If 99% if the people think it should be illegal, that doesn't mean that the 1% still get to analy rape people with wolves because they didn't vote for it.
To quote "John Grunsfeld, NASA's chief scientist" in the CNN article i linked a few posts after yours,
"He said the decision was influenced by President Bush's new space initiative and "Grunsfeld said Bush "directed us to use this precious resource" (the shuttle) toward completing the International Space Station and fulfilling U.S. obligations to the 15 partner nations."
Who are we supposed to believe? NASA, or you?
This guy even seems to think it's a good idea, so it's not like he's trying to pass the buck, ""This is a sad day," said Grunsfeld, but he said the decision "is the best thing for the space community.""
They may have been considering it before, but Bush's plan certainly helped decide the issue.
"John Grunsfeld, NASA's chief scientist, said NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe made the decision to cancel the fifth space shuttle service mission to the Hubble when it became clear there was not enough time to conduct it before the shuttle is retired."
"He said the decision was influenced by President Bush's new space initiative, which calls for NASA to start developing the spacecraft and equipment for voyages to the moon and later to Mars. The president's plan also called for the space shuttle to be retired by 2010. Virtually all of the shuttle's remaining flights would be used to complete construction of the International Space Station."
I sure hope Bush follows through on his promise of funding, because NASA is going to be fucked if they start shifting priorities to his ideas and then don't get the money to follow through.
Don't know who the AC was, but i can't resist a challenge: Sony PS2: $180 Copy of Gran Turismo 4: $50 Kilowatt gaming system: $695 Having an excuse for your overdeveloped forearm muscles other than pr0n: pricless
I think somebody needs to read what i wrote. "If we live long enough, a giant asteroid will hit the earth, or something else of that nature that will kill everyone on the planet."
Asteroids have hit the earth on a fairly regular basis in the past. It's possible that the last one was indeed the very last one, but it's not very likely. However even if that very unlikely possibility turns out to be true, and even if no supervolcanos go off, and no super greenhouse effect happens, and no novas go off near our sun, even if we avoid every other possible way in which life on this planet or in this solar system could be seriously threatened or extinguished, in the end, the sun _will_ expand past the earth's orbit in a few billion years and then go out a while after that.
Yes, it's a certainty.
So when Nazi Germany spent its tax dollars exterminating Jews, that was legitimate? After all, if the Jews didn't want to be extermined they shouldn't have let Hitler win the election.
Nice straw-man. Given the troll-like character you've already shown i was actually kind of expecting that response.
However instead of detailing all the ways in which the government can exceed it's authority, i thought i'd let you make a fool of yourself. Do you realize how stupid comparing the space program to the Holocaust sounds?
Yes, the government shouldn't do anything illegal or immoral. The space program is neither of those. (You seem to think the method by which the funds is raised was immoral, but that's a question about how the government gets it's money, not how it chooses to spend it)
Money was taken from people without their consent.
I know its a radical suggestion, but how about each person spends their own money on what they want to spend it on, rather than what you think they should, or even what a voting majority thinks they should?
I really hate to tell you this, but it's been that way for a _long_ time. Since well before you were born. To the best of my knowledge taxes were present from day one of this country's existance, and if it wasn't it was only because they hadn't gotten the system worked out yet. The battle cry was "No taxes without representation!" not "No taxes!"
We have taxes now, and we have representation. That's the way the found fathers wanted it, and as best as i can tell that's the way the majority of people have wanted it. Everyone wants to pay less taxes, but very few people (statistically speaking) have claimed that we should pay no taxes.
So until such a majority assembles itself and demands change, there will be taxes. Those taxes are completly legal under our form of government, so they are not theft. If you don't like that, you can either help attempt to get the neccessary majority to agree with your opinions, or you can leave the country. No one is making you stay here and pay taxes.
Choosing to continue living in this country is you implicent concent to be governed by it's rules, included getting taxed.
So if it will take us 11 years to do it again now, can we cut it down to less than a decade if we leave off the "and returning him safely to the earth" bit? :)
Yeah! Wasn't it great how quickly they folded when supporters made the same argument about the supercolider?!
Oh, wait...
Any outpost created will inevitably fall to murphy's law. I say within 50 years on the outside. Especially without base station support from mother earth.
You're kind of missing the point. The idea is to start _now_ so that we can get as much practice in as possible before we really need to do it _without_ the support of earth.
Maybe we won't really need the outposts and colonies for 200,000+ years, by which point we'd be pretty damn good at it if we start now by your claims. However if we wait 199,999 years and then say oh shit, maybe we ought to set up a space colony because the earth is about to get smacked, _then_ we'll be fucked.
I am amazed that congress would vote to spend BILLIONS revisiting a SINGLE stupid rock orbiting our earth while they scoff at and cut off funding in the MILLIONS for a project that is scanning BILLIONS of solar systems for signs of intelligent life (SETI).
I'll agree with you on that, at least the cutting of fundings for other space research. However instead of blaming one science program for the hard times of another science program, how about we cut back on something like that $1.5 billion of marriage propaganda?
First of all, explain how it's theft exactly. The government has the right to do whatever it wants with the taxes it collects. If you don't like what they do you elect someone else, but that doesn't make unwise expeditures theft.
Second of all, it's not a "what-if", it's an eventual certainty. If we live long enough, a giant asteroid will hit the earth, or something else of that nature that will kill everyone on the planet. Of course it's possible that we'll kill ourselves off before that happens, but if so, then what does it really matter what we spend a few extra billions on right now?
I think a lot of the rest of us (ne certainly, at the very least) would jump at the chance to deal with whatever problems we had if we were getting the same salary, stock options, and name recognition as he was.
So for anyone else what he had was dream job, but now that he's got money and power he's going to head off and write his own ticket somewhere else.
Actually it would probably boil while freezing and then sublimate.
By the definition you just pointed out, it can't sublimate unless it freezes first. If it goes from liquid to gas instead of freezing it's not sublimating.
This is actually an outdated theory, and has been proven incorrect. Earthquakes are a result of moving tectonic plates catching on each other and then breaking loose. There is no long-term pressure build-up along fault lines.
So you're arguing that it's because of short term pent up pressure rather than long term pent up pressure. How does that change the original poster's idea? If you can predict it about 9 months in advance, maybe you could do something to cause it to slip a little bit three times, producing three smaller earthquakes, rather than all at once producing one large earthquake.
I was visiting some friends in San Diego recently and we went to Legoland, and i thought it was very interesting. If you're an adult who's only interested in exciting rides it probably won't be your cup of tea, but there's lots of cool stuff to look at there and we managed to spend most of a day wandering around and looking at stuff and didn't feel disapointed.
The blocks look identical except they have their initials printed on them instead of "Lego." They seem to be focusing on the specialty market. *does five minutes of searching on amazon* Ahh, they're called "Built to Rule," and they've apparently got licenses with Transformers and G.I. Joe.
I guess they figure they can't compete with Lego in the "square things you stick together" arena, so they're trying to compete in the specialty area, which ironically seems to be the area that Lego is abandoning. Perhaps BTR will pick up Harry Potter and Star Wars now as well?
If we just picked some place at random on the theory that we shouldn't focus on the place where we might expect life, we'd probably end up sending probes to someplace like Charon, which is an extremely unlikely place to find life.
We're doing what's inteligent, we're spending the most effort where we expect the greatest return for the smallest investment, while doing a survey of the rest. Mars is close and relatively easy to get to, and it's a relatively familiar enviroment that we have some idea of how to deal with, which makes missions there comparitively cheap. Meanwhile they're making plans for further missions to Europa and other places that seemed interesting after the first few passes, what more do you want? We don't have enough resources to thoroughly explore _everywhere_ at once, and picking sites randomly would most likely be a waste.
And as to the types of lifeform they're looking for, they tried to make the tests as general as possible. Yes, they were looking for stuff metabolizing certain chemicals, but what else would you suggest? That's the simplest characteristic of life that we can think of. There might be some kind of life that we aren't expecting that doesn't metabolize or doesn't metabolize chemicals that we would expect, but how do you think we should test for that? There's certainly not room on any mission we're going to send in the near future to include tests for all the millions of combinations of chemicals or whatever that could possibly indicate life. We could start to do that if we actually had a colony at the location, but if we found life that wasn't based on any system like earth's, then we might not recognize it even if it was right under our nose.
And inconclusive results just mean that we should study those results and try to figure out what they mean and figure out better tests. Perhaps those inconvlusive results indicate the presence of one of those non-hydrocarbons based lifeforms you're proposing.
I'll still stand by my first claim unless there was something else you said that i'm missing. Independent media have to be capitalistic if they're going to survive, what's important is the ways in which they choose to make that money. Selling the media is really the best, but no one likes that on the net. Selling ad-space is a few rungs down the ladder. Pushing products that you're supposed to be giving un-biased reviews of is a bit further down. And at the very bottom is where you push the products you're reviewing, and let that influence your reviews and comments about them.
I believe he meant the raping cats with guns which was mentioned earlier.
And setting fire to people can be better or worse than setting fire to cats, depending on the situation. Certainly in Mortal Kombat, where all parties involved are voluntary participants who know that they may die in the event (the name kinda gives it away) the people have forfeited their right to object to being killed. Certainly being set on fire is a gruesome way to go, but they were certainly told it was a "no holds barred" contest, and if they'd paid any attention at all beforehand they must have known such an outcome was a possibility.
No, PETA thinks that there is no circumstance under wich it is justifiable to hurt or kill an animal. I think there are pleanty of situations, but if you're going to kill them it should be for a good purpose and done humanely, and if you're going to hurt them it ought to be for a really damn good purpose (such as research into cancer or some such.)
I like to think however that humans have free will, and as such, they can choose to be far better or far worse than an animal. I don't really believe in the religious aspect, but i do think that animals are too stupid to understand the difference between good and evil, which keeps them kind of in the middle, not as good as a human who tries to be good, but better than a human who tries to be evil.
You sound as bad as Joe Liberman and the other fools in congress who whine about video game violence, and I don't think you mean to come across that way.
Again, no. Liberman is in favor of censorship, while i am not. I believe the freedoms of those involved trump my feelings about the issue, as long as no one elses rights are being violated, which is why i said i would defend your right to play such games.
I was equally happy to see Galactic Civilizations make Finalist for "Best Strategy Game." It's a wonderful space strategy game, made even more sweet after dealing with Master of Orion 3 (despite GalCiv being more Civ like than MoO like.) I kind of wonder why it's free expansion pack didn't get nominated for an award though. How can a free expansion to one of the best games of the year not make the "Best Expansion Pack" list?