In this case, there is something different--the judge could quite easily rule that if you make the code available under any conditions that it is then public domain. Neither IBM nor SCO wants to see that judgement. In fact, no one who is sane wants to see that judgement.
Neither will Microsoft, as their code is available to be looked at, under certain conditions.
Unfortunately, decreeing that source code that is made available for public viewing Public Domain does a serious injury to Copyright in general. After all, all Copyrighted books are available for public viewing. As are movies. Copyrighted music can be heard over public airwaves. So any such ruling would essentially invalidate Copyright in general.
If the military or CIA likes these they could have a variety of subversive uses. With a little bit of plastic explosive an undercover agent could deliver all sorts of subversive destruction (blow out a structural support in a mosque without having to get too close, an assassination tool that could be launched such that it appears to frame someone else, etc)
Unlikely. It weighs 8.6g, and could carry maybe 3g more payload. Some of that would be the detnoator for the explosive, so guess 2g of explosive. 2g of explosive is hardly enough to blow your nose, much less a mosque.
You might be able to frighten someone badly if one landed on his face and exploded, but it is unlikely you'd kill him. Unless you sent a swarm of killer-bots after him, which would defeat the purpose of using such a tiny machine.
It could be used for very short-term battlefield recon - say, checking through the door over there across the street for bad guys, just before you send men across the street. Assuming it could fly, say, 5 feet per second (that's 1.5m/s for the metric among us), it could be quite useful that way.
Police might find a use for them for simple recon as well. Fly one through an AC duct (with a Judge's permission, of course) to look in on the lads you are interested in this week. Might save you the trouble of breaking down the wrong door....
I'm still in favor of civil disobedience, but I have to admit that forcibly silencing the opposition isn't the right way to go about things.
Civil disobedience is something I favour as well. But civil disobedience doesn't mean taking Rights away from anyone. When you find that you are contemplating taking away someone else's Rights in the name of your own Rights, you're wandering down the wrong path.
I guess I should've known that I wasn't really right; after all, I was supporting the black-hats, and if westerns have taught me anything, it's that the black-hats are the bad guys.
/grins. I prefer to divide them into the "Randolph-Scotts" and the "not-Randolph-Scotts".
Is there a right way to go about civil disobedience at this point in time?
My, you do ask some tough ones. I am sure that there is a right way. I'm just not sure what it is.
It seems that lawful assembly for protest is difficult, as a group must apply for a permit to lawfully assemble, and often these permits are denied.
Yah, and this has been going on since the War Between the States, so don't make the mistake of believing it is new. An UNlawful assembly for protest is a perfectly reasonable form of civil disobedience. You just have to be prepared for some jail-time before the ACLU and your own lawyers can spring you.
Note that using Unlawful assembly to protest really requires a whole bunch of people. Doesn't do much with 30 close friends, or even 300. 30,000, on the other hand, gets some attention. AS LONG AS IT STAYS PEACEFUL! Throw one rock, and you've screwed yourself way worse than whatever you were protesting against.
With the electoral system all but broken (as demonstrated in the last election)
I don't agree that the electoral system was broken last election. Note that there will still be a "this election". Broken is when you don't do elections anymore. This is not the first President elected without a majority. It isn't even the first elected without a plurality. As long as people still prefer voting to shooting, the electoral system works.
and possibly about to be broken more (Diebold voting machines... don't get me started)
Actually, this is the kind of thing that can break the electoral process. Pretty much everyone has to trust that the system, even though imperfect, works. By and large, it has to produce results other than "HE STOLE THE ELECTION!!". The current fiasco with relation to voting machines (frankly, there was nothing wrong with the system in 2000, so changing it was silly) may convince some people that the process has failed. Enough people think so, and we start shooting each other.
I'm afraid that the chances of voting unfavorable candidates out of office are slim.
No slimmer than in the past. It has always been hard to get rid of people you don't like. Mostly because the people you don't like are frequently liked by other people. Or disliked less - "Vote for the Crook, it's important!" was a bumper sticker at our last gubernatorial election but three. It must have helped, because we elected the crook, rather than the nazi.
What is the right way to voice dissent and be heard?
Let's see. McCain-Feingold means you can't talk to your candidate if you wish to support him in the media. So, avoid Kerry (or whomever you favour), and everyone connected to his campaign. If you have a lot of money to blow, a single 30s TV spot isn't impossible to make. Less money, and you can do a radio spot. In either case, pick the station carefully - you don't really want to advertise for your guy in a place where everyone already favours your guy. Contrariwise, you don't want to bother to advertise for your guy in a place where everyone despises your guy. So pick a nice middle-of-the-road station, and go to town.
For the more financially challenged (me, for one), a newspaper ad works. Same rules as above.
These experiments were essentially silenced by the fact that they lost funding due to their controversial nature. I didn't even hear about this open letter anywhere else; to many major news sources, it was as if the letter didn't exist. Not granting exposure to different viewpoints is akin to silencing them.
No. You are allowed to voice your views. I am allowed to voice mine. I am not required to provide you a platform to voice your views. You are not required to provide me a platform to voice my views. These scientists could have gotten funding from other sources if they wished, and continued as they had.
I haven't heard of this either, but most likely it was stem-cell related. Everyone seems to like to scream about that particular decision, which is why I think it was right. If both the Left and the Right hate it, it can't be all bad. And rest assured, both the Left and Right hate that decision - the Left for all the reasons they claim (some truthful, some not), the Right because they don't want ANY embryonic stem-cell research. Make no mistake, embryonic stem-cell research is going on just fine, as allowed by Bush's compromise on the subject.
Granted, the government and the media are two different entities, but to believe that there is no governmental control over the media is naive.
Consider how much the media bashes Bush regularly, and how much it bashed Clinton, and Bush the Elder, and Reagan, and Carter, and Ford, and Nixon, and Johnson, and Kennedy (well, maybe not so much Saint Jack;-)), and Eisenhower, and Truman, and Roosevelt, and I could go on down the list to just this side of Washington (not sure anyone bashed George). Sure, the government has some influence on the Media. But damn little! Not like we have an OSA or anything. Mostly, when the government starts trying to control the Media, you get a Media firestorm about the government suppressing Freedom of the Press. And rightly so.
Misleading the Media is, of course, practiced by both sides, regularly. Remember back in '95 when the Media went on and on about School Lunch money being CUT! Oh, the evil of the Republicans! Much breast-beating! Looking at the numbers then, it became clear that they were using the White House's definition of cut (A funding cut is any reduction in the rate of growth of the funding). But if the Media is lazy enough to use one side's Press Releases as headlines, that's not the Government's problem - it's the Editor's for having lazy-ass reporters.
on an unrelated note, thank you! I try to avoid the usual idiocy when I argue/defend/attack a position. The position is not the man, and vice versa.
Gandhi didn't try to shut down opposition newspapers, either, as I recall.
And you do NOT take the First Amendment seriously, if you advocate depriving the other side of their First Amendment rights.
I've read the Patriot Act. Who voted for that one? Hmm, was it BOTH Republicans and Democrats? How odd!
Simply put, many points of view contrary to the current overlords is censord, mocked, or silenced.
Mocked is okay. First Amendment, remember? Censored or silenced is bad. Please provide examples.
It surely seems that/. hasn't had any of its anti-Bush views censored or silenced. Nor the evening news, or the local newspaper in any of the places I read newspapers.
Howsoever that may be (I don't believe it is, but perhaps that's just me), you do not support the First Amendment by denying it to some subset that you disagree with, EVEN IF THAT SUBSET WANTS TO DENY IT TO YOU!
So, you're proposing armed insurrection? Wow, that'll sway a lot of swing voters your way! Short of armed insurrection, advocating criminal acts to sway voters will just make your side look idiotic.
Useful clue - the only people who will vote for you as a result of this bit of vandalism are the people who were going to vote for you before. And you may lose some of those.
There ARE people who take the First Amendment seriously - "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
Visited the UK a couple times. Never had reason to get a DL there. So no, I guess not.
In the USA (at least in the nine states I've lived in), the cost for a Driving Test is zero. There's a charge for the license, but it's nominal, at best - wouldn't cover the cost of the plastic and the wages of the guy supervising your driver's test, much less the other people who work at the DMV.
Clinton (love him or hate him) did nothing to make any group better or worse then the other. he simply tried to run this country and let others live their lives
Hmm, trying to nationalize the healthcare systems comes under "let others live their lives"?
I don't want either Republican or Democratic hackers screwing around this way! It won't help whomever they're trying to help.
What it will do is make more people nod in agreement when a law is proposed imposing more draconian penalties on hacking.
You don't let people loose with a car on the roads without a driving test that they pay for themself.
Where are you from? I ask, because every place I live the only part of the driver's test that had to be paid by the driver was the gasoline in his car.
But surely there were information terminals for people to access computers?
My, you haven't read much old scifi, have you? As an example, in Rolling Stones (yes, I'm on a Heinlein kick this week. Next week it will be classical Jerry Pournelle), there was reference to a computer - the one at the Luna City Spaceport. After the Stones roughed out their orbit calculations, they sent the data over to the Spaceport Tower for checking on the "computer".
It may not be widely remembered, but once upon a time, "computer" was a profession, frequently performed by women. It involved making, by hand with pencil and paper, the sort of calculations we now make with computers.
or do you think you could fit THE ENTIRE INTERNET into your home?
No, but then, let's look at what we can support on my computer. It's not very powerful by modern standards. Only 40G mass storage. The home network has 240G or close to that.
A hypothetical page of text is 5K or so. So my 240G is ~50 million pages of text. At 1000 pages per book, that's 50,000 volumes. Large volumes.
50,000 books is quite a large library. And my computers are nothing special in terms of capacity.
Don't get hung up on implementation details.
Don't get so hung up on the idea that modern computing was obvious before it happened. It wasn't. Any more than the next big change will be obvious before it happened.
The PC revolution was one of the few really unexpected developments in the last several centuries. Off the top of my head, I can't think of anything even close.
I was going to make a moderately rude comment about the grandfather post, but decided this one deserved it more.
Can you explain me, what happens if the pilot turns away from his cockpit to shoot a terrorist with his 9mm rounds 3 @ a time?
Yes, he'll kill the terrorist. Unless the terrorist is wearing a Second Chance Vest, or some equivalent. In which case it will knock him on his ass.
I'll tell you, the pilot will make one direct and deadly hit, his second round will go straigt through the terrorists leg hitting either a stewardess or passenger deadly and his third round will entirely miss everyone, but hit straight through the planes hull. Oh, maybe the second or first bullet will go through the hull, doen't really matter.
No. assuming that the MP5 behaves like any other automatic weapon, the second shot won't hit lower than the first.
You may or may not penetrate the hull. There are frangible bullets with negligible ability to penetrate even something as fragile as an airplane's hull, though. Perhaps the pilot would be issued some of that?
Now can you moron explain me at least, what happens @ 10k feet height if you shoot through the hull?... yes of course, our superman hero pilot will have no troubles he'll just blow the smoke from his gun, puts it back into his holster and turns back to his cockpit, sees that the plain has lost pressure and the plain is stalling... no problem, he'll regain control of his machine withing a few seconds...
Hmm, don't know about either autopilots or copilots, eh? No, the plane won't stall. It probably wouldn't stall even if there weren't a copilot or autopilot. It takes a while for a passenger jet to enter a stall condition from straight and level flight, and doesn't take nearly that long to shoot someone.
The plane will lose pressure, if the pilot were using typical, non-frangible bullets. Wouldn't be an explosive decompression, since it takes time for air to leave through a half-inch hole.
HARHARHAR... I'll suppose that suicide terrorism will never be more easy then ever before
You might very well suppose that. You'd be wrong, but if it makes you feel better, suppose away.
All that aside, having an SMG as a defensive weapon is idiotic on a plane. Even a shotgun would be better. Ideally, a.45 pistol of one kind or another - loaded with frangible bullets, of course. Lot of stopping power, not much chance for injuring innocent bystanders, or of damaging your plane. You still have potential problems with the Second Chance Vest, but those won't go away unless you use a rifle as a defensive weapon, and a rifle is too hazardous with paying customers backstopping your bullets. Better to just aim at his head (which will be conveniently above the line of fire of the passengers).
Quite so. 1.2+KW is not 3 HP either. More like half that. Note that I'm only quibbling about the numbers. We can do a lot with solar, once the price is reasonable, and the efficiency is acceptable.
It seems to me that fusion research in the US is never going to get decent levels of funding all the time that the Whitehouse is full of people with millions of dollars invested in oil companies.
White House types (and Congressional types as well) have the dubious privilege of putting their assets into a blind trust, which must basically sell it all off and put it elsewhere, without telling the principal just where it is invested (hence "blind"). This is to prevent that particular form of corruption.
Far more dangerous is Oil Companies (or Software companies, Disney, Media companies, etc) making direct political contributions to elected officials. Which they all do, to all candidates.
Except Nader, maybe. Not sure who is making contributions to him, but I expect they all have political axes to grind...
no. 3 HP is ~2.25KW. Incident sunlight is less than 140W per square foot. With current solar cell efficiencies, you're talking closer to 20W per square foot than 2000W per square foot.
I really have trouble believing that any sort of fusion project, especially one funded by the states, has a measly budget of 2 million a year.
It's a design study. Noone is building anything, or even doing serious design work. Yet. Article mentioned that if they got around to bending metal, price tag would be ~$1B.
Neuromancer by William Gibson (written in 1983/4) is supposed to be set sometime in 2020 (I think), but there are no cell phones, despite the fact that cells are ubiquous devices and will certainly be around in the *real* 2020.
Interestingly, Space Cadet by RA Heinlein had cell-phones, or a reasonable facsimile (it was written in the 50's), as did several other of Heinlein's juvenile stories.
Perhaps the biggest missed perception of scifi writers, of course, was the PC. Look through stories written before the late 70's, and you'll find not the slightest inkling that computers might get small enough for everyone to own/use).
Slashdot Mirror
Neither will Microsoft, as their code is available to be looked at, under certain conditions.
Unfortunately, decreeing that source code that is made available for public viewing Public Domain does a serious injury to Copyright in general. After all, all Copyrighted books are available for public viewing. As are movies. Copyrighted music can be heard over public airwaves. So any such ruling would essentially invalidate Copyright in general.
Unlikely. It weighs 8.6g, and could carry maybe 3g more payload. Some of that would be the detnoator for the explosive, so guess 2g of explosive. 2g of explosive is hardly enough to blow your nose, much less a mosque.
You might be able to frighten someone badly if one landed on his face and exploded, but it is unlikely you'd kill him. Unless you sent a swarm of killer-bots after him, which would defeat the purpose of using such a tiny machine.
It could be used for very short-term battlefield recon - say, checking through the door over there across the street for bad guys, just before you send men across the street. Assuming it could fly, say, 5 feet per second (that's 1.5m/s for the metric among us), it could be quite useful that way.
Police might find a use for them for simple recon as well. Fly one through an AC duct (with a Judge's permission, of course) to look in on the lads you are interested in this week. Might save you the trouble of breaking down the wrong door....
Civil disobedience is something I favour as well. But civil disobedience doesn't mean taking Rights away from anyone. When you find that you are contemplating taking away someone else's Rights in the name of your own Rights, you're wandering down the wrong path.
I guess I should've known that I wasn't really right; after all, I was supporting the black-hats, and if westerns have taught me anything, it's that the black-hats are the bad guys.
Is there a right way to go about civil disobedience at this point in time?
My, you do ask some tough ones. I am sure that there is a right way. I'm just not sure what it is.
It seems that lawful assembly for protest is difficult, as a group must apply for a permit to lawfully assemble, and often these permits are denied.
Yah, and this has been going on since the War Between the States, so don't make the mistake of believing it is new. An UNlawful assembly for protest is a perfectly reasonable form of civil disobedience. You just have to be prepared for some jail-time before the ACLU and your own lawyers can spring you.
Note that using Unlawful assembly to protest really requires a whole bunch of people. Doesn't do much with 30 close friends, or even 300. 30,000, on the other hand, gets some attention. AS LONG AS IT STAYS PEACEFUL! Throw one rock, and you've screwed yourself way worse than whatever you were protesting against.
With the electoral system all but broken (as demonstrated in the last election)
I don't agree that the electoral system was broken last election. Note that there will still be a "this election". Broken is when you don't do elections anymore. This is not the first President elected without a majority. It isn't even the first elected without a plurality. As long as people still prefer voting to shooting, the electoral system works.
and possibly about to be broken more (Diebold voting machines... don't get me started)
Actually, this is the kind of thing that can break the electoral process. Pretty much everyone has to trust that the system, even though imperfect, works. By and large, it has to produce results other than "HE STOLE THE ELECTION!!". The current fiasco with relation to voting machines (frankly, there was nothing wrong with the system in 2000, so changing it was silly) may convince some people that the process has failed. Enough people think so, and we start shooting each other.
I'm afraid that the chances of voting unfavorable candidates out of office are slim.
No slimmer than in the past. It has always been hard to get rid of people you don't like. Mostly because the people you don't like are frequently liked by other people. Or disliked less - "Vote for the Crook, it's important!" was a bumper sticker at our last gubernatorial election but three. It must have helped, because we elected the crook, rather than the nazi.
What is the right way to voice dissent and be heard?
Let's see. McCain-Feingold means you can't talk to your candidate if you wish to support him in the media. So, avoid Kerry (or whomever you favour), and everyone connected to his campaign. If you have a lot of money to blow, a single 30s TV spot isn't impossible to make. Less money, and you can do a radio spot. In either case, pick the station carefully - you don't really want to advertise for your guy in a place where everyone already favours your guy. Contrariwise, you don't want to bother to advertise for your guy in a place where everyone despises your guy. So pick a nice middle-of-the-road station, and go to town.
For the more financially challenged (me, for one), a newspaper ad works. Same rules as above.
If you want to b
No. You are allowed to voice your views. I am allowed to voice mine. I am not required to provide you a platform to voice your views. You are not required to provide me a platform to voice my views. These scientists could have gotten funding from other sources if they wished, and continued as they had.
I haven't heard of this either, but most likely it was stem-cell related. Everyone seems to like to scream about that particular decision, which is why I think it was right. If both the Left and the Right hate it, it can't be all bad. And rest assured, both the Left and Right hate that decision - the Left for all the reasons they claim (some truthful, some not), the Right because they don't want ANY embryonic stem-cell research. Make no mistake, embryonic stem-cell research is going on just fine, as allowed by Bush's compromise on the subject.
Granted, the government and the media are two different entities, but to believe that there is no governmental control over the media is naive.
Consider how much the media bashes Bush regularly, and how much it bashed Clinton, and Bush the Elder, and Reagan, and Carter, and Ford, and Nixon, and Johnson, and Kennedy (well, maybe not so much Saint Jack ;-)), and Eisenhower, and Truman, and Roosevelt, and I could go on down the list to just this side of Washington (not sure anyone bashed George). Sure, the government has some influence on the Media. But damn little! Not like we have an OSA or anything. Mostly, when the government starts trying to control the Media, you get a Media firestorm about the government suppressing Freedom of the Press. And rightly so.
Misleading the Media is, of course, practiced by both sides, regularly. Remember back in '95 when the Media went on and on about School Lunch money being CUT! Oh, the evil of the Republicans! Much breast-beating! Looking at the numbers then, it became clear that they were using the White House's definition of cut (A funding cut is any reduction in the rate of growth of the funding). But if the Media is lazy enough to use one side's Press Releases as headlines, that's not the Government's problem - it's the Editor's for having lazy-ass reporters.
on an unrelated note, thank you! I try to avoid the usual idiocy when I argue/defend/attack a position. The position is not the man, and vice versa.
Yes, and yes.
If a shell isn't a weapon, then neither is an atom bomb.
And you do NOT take the First Amendment seriously, if you advocate depriving the other side of their First Amendment rights.
I've read the Patriot Act. Who voted for that one? Hmm, was it BOTH Republicans and Democrats? How odd!
Simply put, many points of view contrary to the current overlords is censord, mocked, or silenced.
Mocked is okay. First Amendment, remember? Censored or silenced is bad. Please provide examples.
It surely seems that /. hasn't had any of its anti-Bush views censored or silenced. Nor the evening news, or the local newspaper in any of the places I read newspapers.
Howsoever that may be (I don't believe it is, but perhaps that's just me), you do not support the First Amendment by denying it to some subset that you disagree with, EVEN IF THAT SUBSET WANTS TO DENY IT TO YOU!
Useful clue - the only people who will vote for you as a result of this bit of vandalism are the people who were going to vote for you before. And you may lose some of those.
There ARE people who take the First Amendment seriously - "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
In the USA (at least in the nine states I've lived in), the cost for a Driving Test is zero. There's a charge for the license, but it's nominal, at best - wouldn't cover the cost of the plastic and the wages of the guy supervising your driver's test, much less the other people who work at the DMV.
Hmm, trying to nationalize the healthcare systems comes under "let others live their lives"?
I don't want either Republican or Democratic hackers screwing around this way! It won't help whomever they're trying to help.
What it will do is make more people nod in agreement when a law is proposed imposing more draconian penalties on hacking.
I'll bite. Which rights are being asserted here?
Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but this seems so much like sending Party thugs around to break up meetings by a reform candidate....
So, DDOS is not illegal? I think it is, actually. And this amounts to one.
Frankly, this will make the left look worse, not better, and will likely push a few voters towards Bush, rather than away.
You don't let people loose with a car on the roads without a driving test that they pay for themself.
Where are you from? I ask, because every place I live the only part of the driver's test that had to be paid by the driver was the gasoline in his car.
My, you haven't read much old scifi, have you? As an example, in Rolling Stones (yes, I'm on a Heinlein kick this week. Next week it will be classical Jerry Pournelle), there was reference to a computer - the one at the Luna City Spaceport. After the Stones roughed out their orbit calculations, they sent the data over to the Spaceport Tower for checking on the "computer".
It may not be widely remembered, but once upon a time, "computer" was a profession, frequently performed by women. It involved making, by hand with pencil and paper, the sort of calculations we now make with computers.
or do you think you could fit THE ENTIRE INTERNET into your home?
No, but then, let's look at what we can support on my computer. It's not very powerful by modern standards. Only 40G mass storage. The home network has 240G or close to that.
A hypothetical page of text is 5K or so. So my 240G is ~50 million pages of text. At 1000 pages per book, that's 50,000 volumes. Large volumes.
50,000 books is quite a large library. And my computers are nothing special in terms of capacity.
Don't get hung up on implementation details.
Don't get so hung up on the idea that modern computing was obvious before it happened. It wasn't. Any more than the next big change will be obvious before it happened.
The PC revolution was one of the few really unexpected developments in the last several centuries. Off the top of my head, I can't think of anything even close.
Thank you! Great story!
Can you explain me, what happens if the pilot turns away from his cockpit to shoot a terrorist with his 9mm rounds 3 @ a time?
Yes, he'll kill the terrorist. Unless the terrorist is wearing a Second Chance Vest, or some equivalent. In which case it will knock him on his ass.
I'll tell you, the pilot will make one direct and deadly hit, his second round will go straigt through the terrorists leg hitting either a stewardess or passenger deadly and his third round will entirely miss everyone, but hit straight through the planes hull. Oh, maybe the second or first bullet will go through the hull, doen't really matter.
No. assuming that the MP5 behaves like any other automatic weapon, the second shot won't hit lower than the first.
You may or may not penetrate the hull. There are frangible bullets with negligible ability to penetrate even something as fragile as an airplane's hull, though. Perhaps the pilot would be issued some of that?
Now can you moron explain me at least, what happens @ 10k feet height if you shoot through the hull? ... yes of course, our superman hero pilot will have no troubles he'll just blow the smoke from his gun, puts it back into his holster and turns back to his cockpit, sees that the plain has lost pressure and the plain is stalling ... no problem, he'll regain control of his machine withing a few seconds ...
Hmm, don't know about either autopilots or copilots, eh? No, the plane won't stall. It probably wouldn't stall even if there weren't a copilot or autopilot. It takes a while for a passenger jet to enter a stall condition from straight and level flight, and doesn't take nearly that long to shoot someone.
The plane will lose pressure, if the pilot were using typical, non-frangible bullets. Wouldn't be an explosive decompression, since it takes time for air to leave through a half-inch hole.
HARHARHAR ... I'll suppose that suicide terrorism will never be more easy then ever before
You might very well suppose that. You'd be wrong, but if it makes you feel better, suppose away.
All that aside, having an SMG as a defensive weapon is idiotic on a plane. Even a shotgun would be better. Ideally, a .45 pistol of one kind or another - loaded with frangible bullets, of course. Lot of stopping power, not much chance for injuring innocent bystanders, or of damaging your plane. You still have potential problems with the Second Chance Vest, but those won't go away unless you use a rifle as a defensive weapon, and a rifle is too hazardous with paying customers backstopping your bullets. Better to just aim at his head (which will be conveniently above the line of fire of the passengers).
Quite so. 1.2+KW is not 3 HP either. More like half that. Note that I'm only quibbling about the numbers. We can do a lot with solar, once the price is reasonable, and the efficiency is acceptable.
Missed that one. Do you have a story name, or any other hint (other than Asimov)?
White House types (and Congressional types as well) have the dubious privilege of putting their assets into a blind trust, which must basically sell it all off and put it elsewhere, without telling the principal just where it is invested (hence "blind"). This is to prevent that particular form of corruption.
Far more dangerous is Oil Companies (or Software companies, Disney, Media companies, etc) making direct political contributions to elected officials. Which they all do, to all candidates.
Except Nader, maybe. Not sure who is making contributions to him, but I expect they all have political axes to grind...
no. 3 HP is ~2.25KW. Incident sunlight is less than 140W per square foot. With current solar cell efficiencies, you're talking closer to 20W per square foot than 2000W per square foot.
It's a design study. Noone is building anything, or even doing serious design work. Yet. Article mentioned that if they got around to bending metal, price tag would be ~$1B.
"He's not a Frenchie, he's a Belgie!" -- from Murder by Death, I forget which caricature.
Interestingly, Space Cadet by RA Heinlein had cell-phones, or a reasonable facsimile (it was written in the 50's), as did several other of Heinlein's juvenile stories.
Perhaps the biggest missed perception of scifi writers, of course, was the PC. Look through stories written before the late 70's, and you'll find not the slightest inkling that computers might get small enough for everyone to own/use).