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User: CrimsonAvenger

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  1. Re:adventure on Van Allen Questions Human Spaceflight · · Score: 1
    It's the uncrewed space program that actually does all the science.

    and your point is?

    If people want to have an adventure climbing Mount Everest or circling the world in a balloon, they should pay for the adventure out of their own pockets.

    If someone wants to do some science, he should pay for it out of his own pocket. Why do we "need" governmental intervention in the name of SCIENCE, if it so obviously valuable to humanity?

    Frankly, if people aren't going into space, there isn't really much point in doing the rest of it.

  2. Re:He is right on analogies on Van Allen Questions Human Spaceflight · · Score: 1, Interesting
    We build airplanes as complicated as that.

    spacecraft have more "parts" than a sailing ship. But adding in a new sail still requires multiple "parts" - as a minimum, the sail itself, the yard, lines at the end of the yard, lines at the lower corner of the sails, various block & tackle for those lines, extra places to tie off those lines (I forget what they are called. Anyone?)

    In other words, complicated "ships" are nothing new. Look on the bright side - a spaceship to Mars is unlikely to have to worry about plague-bearing rats eating all the moldy/rotten rations. Nor will potable water be much of an issue. Yah, we'll have to worry about breathable air and power, but submarines have been dealing with similar (definitely not identical) issues for around 100 years.

    It's an engineering problem, and nowhere near an insurmountable one.

    It's also a political problem. THAT may be the insurmountable part.

  3. Re:He is right on analogies on Van Allen Questions Human Spaceflight · · Score: 2, Insightful
    This is apart from the issue of distance. In the real universe, scale matters. You cannot compare travel to another galaxy to travelling across the Pacific

    Travelling across the galaxy? Perhaps not. Travel to Mars? sure!

    It took Magellan a couple-three years to go around the globe. It will take a couple-three years to make the first round-trip to Mars. I fail to see the difference.

    200 years ago, two months to cross the Atlantic wasn't unusual. That was 300 years after Columbus' passage, and 800 years after the first Norse passage.

    I venture to guess that 200 years from now, travel to Mars (one way) will be done as quickly.

  4. Re:Is copyright infringment now a terrorist act? on Patriot Act Used to Enforce Copyright Law? · · Score: 1
    Assuming that kerry is elected president, I wonder if he will revoke many of the government gag orders (such as the presidential decree that allows past presidents to hide information).

    Whyever would he do that? If he did that, people would be able to look at what HE did as President. And it is unlikely he wants that any more than any other President.

    Also, it would set a bad precedent - you yank my protections once you're in office, so when I get into office, I'll yank your's. We REALLY don't need that sort of thing.

  5. Re:It's not about the royalty checks on Maybe Software Patents Won't Kill FOSS After All · · Score: 1
    it's as like when a bear tries to get into the beehive

    This might not be such a good analogy - when a bear opens a beehive, he eats honey until he's full, then leaves. The bees don't even annoy him much, since he can eat them too., if they land somewhere delicate (eyes closed, that leaves inside the mouth)...

  6. Re:Deep Time - how do we tell the -kids? on U.S. Nuclear Cleanup Carries Major Risks · · Score: 1

    Apply some of that crap we used to make the message on Voyager. It was, theoretically, "universal". List the radioisotopes, by atomic number and mass, and let them decide for themselves how dangerous it is.

    Frankly, if they don't have continuity with modern civilization, then there are likely bigger things to worry about than whether a few archeologists get radiation poisoning. Because it'll mean something fundamentally bad happened between now and then.

  7. Re:Cleanup by Reclassification on U.S. Nuclear Cleanup Carries Major Risks · · Score: 1

    You DO know that the distinction between "low level radioactive waste" and "high level radioactive waste" is purely arbitrary, right?

  8. Re:Deep Time - how do we tell the -kids? on U.S. Nuclear Cleanup Carries Major Risks · · Score: 1
    The Great Pyramid is around 4500 years old already. If someone in the Bronze Age can manage 4000 years-plus, I can't see much problem with us doing 10,000 years.

    Of course, I don't think we should bury and forget nuclear waste. Too valuable to throw away now, but later on, we might find some reasonable use for the stuff.

  9. Re:Necessary evil on U.S. Nuclear Cleanup Carries Major Risks · · Score: 1
    How many unaccounted for fuel rods are currently missing

    Pretty much by definition, ALL "unaccounted for fuel rods" are "missing".

    If they weren't missing, they wouldn't be "unaccounted for"

  10. Re:DO the submitters actually read the articles? on U.S. Nuclear Cleanup Carries Major Risks · · Score: 1
    crisis at the nuke plant near Rochester NY

    The one in 1982? that spilled raidoactive water on the plant floor? This is a "crisis"?

  11. DO the submitters actually read the articles? on U.S. Nuclear Cleanup Carries Major Risks · · Score: 5, Informative

    There are indeed lots of things to clean at the Hanford complex in Washington state: 67 tons of plutonium

    Actually, from the article, the 67 tons of Plutonium were the product of the Handford site, not a side-effect left littering the place.

    Note, before anyone starts whining about nuclear power not being clean, that Hanford isn't about nuclear power, but about nuclear weapons.

  12. Re:VOTE LIBERTARIAN on Hatch Pushes INDUCE Act · · Score: 1
    Your theory assumes that a CEO must perform criminal acts in order to get paid a large amount. History doesn't seem to support that. Sure, there are CEO's who do criminal things (Darl MacBride comes to mind), but they're rare enough as to make the news.

    You assume that someone who is willing to risk prison for a few bucks (when you make as much in base salary as most CEO's, even a million dollars is no big deal) will refuse to risk prison if you just tax him more. As likely as not, people so inclined will just make sure the extra revenue is untaxable....

    It also assumes that the alternative to making lots of money is to help his employees. Likely as not, any extra will go to the stockholders. Unless the stockholders vote to spend profits on improving the lot of the employees, rather than getting a dividend.

    Frankly, if the stockholders (you know, the people who OWN the company) wanted to improve the lot of their employees, they could do so by voting in a Board of Directors with that mandate.

  13. Re:VOTE LIBERTARIAN on Hatch Pushes INDUCE Act · · Score: 1
    Taxing money over large quantities is a way to encourage people to look after their employees (and is not done enough)

    I'll bite. How does "Taxing money over large quantities" encourage people to look after their employees?

  14. Re:Take THAT, SCO! on German Court Says GPL is Valid · · Score: 1

    Actually, Heinrich Himmler was my first thought. From Munich, as I recall.

  15. Re:Took long enough! on German Court Says GPL is Valid · · Score: 1
    I don't think so. You'd have to rule sections 4 and 5 invalid to allow your case. And I think even then Copyright Law would trump you.

    Note also that ruling 4 and 5 invalid would likely make all current EULAs invalid as well.

    I also suspect very much that since only section 7 is severable, that declaring 4 and 5 invalid would render the whole license invalid, thus unvoking Copyright Law.

    Any lawyers out there who can offer a better opinion?

  16. Re:you're right on German Court Says GPL is Valid · · Score: 1
    The state of Louisiana still carries some remaining vestiges of the civil law tradition, which it inherits via its history as a French territory.

    "Some remaining vestiges"? You mean the part about our law code being based on the Napoleanic Code? It's way more than "some remaining vestiges".

  17. Re:It's nice on German Court Says GPL is Valid · · Score: 1
    No, we take council with ALL out allies. Taking council is NOT synonymous with "do what they say".

    I can, and do, ask people for advice from time to time. Sometimes I follow the advice I get. Sometimes I don't. Not following advice is not the same as not not getting advice.

  18. Re:What if... on SETI Predicts We'll Find ETs by 2020 · · Score: 1

    Pretty much.

    By the way, Bread for the World believes there are ~842 million people who are "hungry", as distinguished from "starving". That's ~13% or the world's population who are "hungry", not starving.

    The UN says that ~5% (40M) of Africa's population is starving, or under threat of starvation this year. Plus North Korea. That's another 23M, assuming everyone there is starving. Which is unlikely. And there's a three year old reference to Afghanistan (~7.5M).

    Let's assume that those references are HALF the people starving in the world today. So the total number is probably less than 150M, people, or 2.3%.

  19. Re:What if... on SETI Predicts We'll Find ETs by 2020 · · Score: 1
    We have wars against each other all over the place, a third of the earth population is starving, the rest is threatened by their governments and/or major companies to stop having free speech.

    Wars, true. Threatened by our governments, possible.

    One third of the earth's population starving? Well, no. That would be 2 billion people. SInce India, China, Europe, and North America feed themselves, that leaves only ~2.75 billion people who are potentially starving.

    So, you're asserting that 80% of the people outside Europe, North America, China and India are starving???

    I don't think so, Lucy.

  20. Re:find ets' by 2020 on SETI Predicts We'll Find ETs by 2020 · · Score: 1
    60 billion years of evolution

    And here I thought the Universe was only 20 billion years old or so. Did we get a head start on the whole evolution thing while I wasn't looking? ;-)

  21. Re:Seems to me on SETI Predicts We'll Find ETs by 2020 · · Score: 1
    I find it unlikely that we wouldn't be able to understand an alien message within a few months. Such a discovery would have many people working on it. Assuming they use some sort of rational broadcasting method the format should be easy to decode within a few weeks at the most. The only issue we'll have is with the content,

    So, we'll be able to understand an alien message within a few months, except for the content. I take it you mean we'll be able to discern the format in only a few months? I'm not so confident. Without knowing that a TV set uses three electron guns, just how "obvious" are our television broadcasts?

    Or, for that matter, how "obvious" is the format of a bitstream when we have no clue as to content?

  22. Re:Redundancy also selected for by evolution on Macaque Monkey Goes Totally Bipedal · · Score: 1
    Yep, you're right. If a catalyst such as a disease (obviously polio wouldn't really work because it doesn't just paralyse arms) became part of the environment then survival of the fittest would kick in and, assuming it stayed around, the apes would develop the ability to walk upright.

    Or they'd become immune to the disease.

    This is interesting, but, unfortunately, it will take a very long time to see where it leads. Unless it ends with this individual.

  23. Re:Non-Story-We grow'em foolish here. on Copyright Bill could Stifle Innovation · · Score: 1
    "4. The Florida ballot was confusing and broke Florida law. The Democrat had to be printed right below the Republican, not third."

    That particular ballot was designed by the Democrats on whatever Committee that does that sort of thing in Florida.

    And don't blame the Clintons for declining morality. It was declining long before Bill & Hillary came along.

  24. Re:Don't Forget on UK High Court Rules Modchips Illegal · · Score: 1
    sure you could use an ak47 to hunt deer but I think we need to face up to the facts that most people who use these items aren't using them for legal purpose

    Really? How many AK-47s are to be had in the USA? How many have been used for illegal purposes?

    I live in a City with a high crime rate. I have not heard of an AK-47 analogue being used criminally there in several years.

    Oh, and they make dandy rifles for hunting wild pigs (which are occasionally irritable when shot). And even deer - ballistics are comparable to a .30-30 (a little weaker, but not significantly so).

  25. Re:as my dad always says on UK High Court Rules Modchips Illegal · · Score: 1
    Then you agree that I should be able to by enriched Plutonium-235 at my local Home Depot?

    Yes, you should.

    Of course, Pu-235 isn't fissionable and has a half life of around 25 minutes.

    I assume you really meant Uranium-235?