Who says they wouldn't have? They were eligible for normal military / government death benefits and would have been fools not to enroll in these programs. The story just sounds better if you start with the false assumption that NASA was prepared to leave them out in the cold so they had to be clever fend for themselves.
Another thing that would deflate the story is if the astronauts were going to cash in on the autographs regardless of whether they lived or died, which is exactly what did happen.
Nor do I blame them. But the angle on this story is all hype.
The blurb first says it's their website, but then says it's their office computers, which is more serious. Then it says they're notifying their suppliers of this by fax, which sounds bad. Not "wells are exploding" bad, but if email is down, things like payroll or maintenance records might also be down, and indirectly affect production.
Actually I'd say Apple's censorship is causing the app to have a bigger impact than it ever would have otherwise, even if people never see it. (The app itself would be relatively static and not that exciting to use.)
Even before this study, it was already well established (from twin studies) that happiness is largely genetic: "studies of twins estimate genetic factors account for 35 to 50 percent of the variance in human happiness." (from the article).
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The contribution of this study is NOT that happiness is largely genetic, only building evidence that this particular gene plays a role.
And while you question whether they corrected for enough variables, I question if they corrected for too many. If you factor out variables (such as level of education or income) that reflect happiness that reflects genetics, then you may be factoring out some of the effect that is ultimately attributable to genetics. Whereas there is no chance that your level of education or income determines your genetics (although they reflect and therefore may well "predict" the genetics of a randomly chosen person). The real answer to study bias is having a sound argument that the sampling of subjects was random with respect to the outcome variable.
Also, 99% of the hits you will get googling this issue are for a particular case in which most of the reports fail to mention, the woman confessed and was convicted of murdering her husband. Although I won't even try to weigh in on the reliability of that conviction.
The Gulf Stream current (for example) is 3 or 4 knots typically. I wonder if that means WaveRider is not fast enough to keep station or move upstream in major ocean currents.
This form of propulsion is so clever, it is just dying for a racing league - who knows what speeds might be possible? But I wonder what the patent situation is.
PS, I forgot to say why this is such a problem: it's because science is fundamentally about following the facts wherever they lead, whereas religion is fundamentally about rationalizing observations to fit a foregone conclusion. We are not born with the ability to tell when we are doing one or the other; it must be learned. (And nobody would claim scientists are perfect at it).
The problem with "yes, but it was guided by God" is that it reverses the core insight of the science. In the traditional view (re-invented countless times by traditional cultures), mankind is at the center of the universe, everything leading up to and revolving around Him. Even God, the instigator of it all, is basically a guy - a unitary intellect who makes decisions and all that. By this view evolution is, at most, a means of obtaining the end goal: us. It is the ego-centric viewpoint. Science view flips that on its head: the universe has particular laws that operate on each other in complex ways, it is vast, and we are one of its many by-products. "We" could have been something else, or nothing at all. A refusal to abandon the ego-centric viewpoint is, I think, exactly what makes evolution so objectionable to people.
I think you're being unrealistically negative. By 13 years from now we won't completely equate traveling with gasoline. Electric cars do exist, and they work fine for city driving. In another 5-10 years their sticker prices won't be so bad. This will keep gasoline prices more reasonable for longer trips.
In thrall to the environmentalist lobby and its dogmas, the President and the regulatory bodies under his control have taken measures to limit energy exploration and restrict development in ways that sap economic performance, curtail growth, and kill jobs....
As the Obama administration wages war against oil and coal, it has been spending billions of dollars on alternative energy forms and touting its creation of "green" jobs. But it seems to be operating more on faith than on fact-based economic calculation. The "green" technologies are typically far too expensive to compete in the marketplace
So there you have it: we will do whatever is cheapest as of today, environment be damned. But that's probably just some guy's blog, right? Google it and find out.
We're so far from actually changing course to the degree that would be necessary that if anything I think we're just as likely to "double down" and show the environment who is boss instead of trying to appease it. And by "we" I don't just mean the US, either.
You almost suggested what I always wonder, which is if we couldn't just bury our high-carbon waste (such as agricultural and food waste, such as cowpies) or for that matter just bury trees, maybe in coal mines. Perhaps not trees but whatever grows fastest.
Don't look at an historically unprecedented high-point and expect it to be like that all the time and forever. That's not reality. Lately I'm noticing all the statistics about how lousy things are always relative to the late 60's. Well, what about it? it was a unique moment, and America had everything in its favor - youth-skewed demographics, plenty of untapped natural resources, and weak economic competition globally. Was it great, sure, but it's not realistic to think things all the planets will stay aligned.
And the current mars mission is 1000x more advanced than the manned missions to the moon.
Put another way how many cherished commercial books and albums have you personally inherited? Maybe it's a bad question since people who have, will be more likely to answer. But for me the answer is 0. I can't even get my dad to take an interest in getting his old slides scanned so we can see our childhood photos.
If you're going to posit that we'll explore distant planets by uploading a human consciousness to a computer, why not save yourself the trouble and posit faster than light travel? They're both equally science fiction at this point in time.
I disagree. It is certain that if a bunch of molecules were arranged the same as yours are, including the electrical charges, there would be a person who is you. (Naturally the original you would still feel that your consciousness had not departed him, but it would also exist equally in the new body.) So, unlike speed-of-light travel, there is no theoretical barrier to teleportation.
I see the trial was in San Jose. I am curious whether Koreans will be suspicious of the verdict. Maybe such trials should be on neutral ground. For what it's worth, halfway from San Jose to Korea from West to East appears to be, roughly, France.
You know what bugs me more than the Apple fanboyism is the nationalism. It's (supposedly) not just Apple drawing imitators, but "The Chinese" copying 'Merka (yes, I know Samsung is actually S Korean). Meanwhile the companies themselves are aggressively playing all sides, outsourcing, and lobbying for ever-lower taxes, which they already mostly avoid by setting up shell companies in Bermuda.
OK, fine, that's all rational for them to do. But can we quit rooting for certain companies as the "home team" now? They're not.
Yes, last I heard, DirecTV has a lower bitrate than broadcast TV - and even there bitrate can be a problem. It really chugs at moments, like when they dropped confetti after the superbowl.
That said, a higher-resolution image should at worst look as good as a lower-resolution at the same bitrate, unless the compression algorithm is really dumb. And in low motion scenes the higher resolution one will look sharper.
Slashdot Mirror
Another thing that would deflate the story is if the astronauts were going to cash in on the autographs regardless of whether they lived or died, which is exactly what did happen.
Nor do I blame them. But the angle on this story is all hype.
The blurb first says it's their website, but then says it's their office computers, which is more serious. Then it says they're notifying their suppliers of this by fax, which sounds bad. Not "wells are exploding" bad, but if email is down, things like payroll or maintenance records might also be down, and indirectly affect production.
Actually I'd say Apple's censorship is causing the app to have a bigger impact than it ever would have otherwise, even if people never see it. (The app itself would be relatively static and not that exciting to use.)
So your explanation of the success of Silicon Valley is the lax regulatory environment, low taxes, and cheap living?
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Wow.
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The contribution of this study is NOT that happiness is largely genetic, only building evidence that this particular gene plays a role.
And while you question whether they corrected for enough variables, I question if they corrected for too many. If you factor out variables (such as level of education or income) that reflect happiness that reflects genetics, then you may be factoring out some of the effect that is ultimately attributable to genetics. Whereas there is no chance that your level of education or income determines your genetics (although they reflect and therefore may well "predict" the genetics of a randomly chosen person). The real answer to study bias is having a sound argument that the sampling of subjects was random with respect to the outcome variable.
Also, 99% of the hits you will get googling this issue are for a particular case in which most of the reports fail to mention, the woman confessed and was convicted of murdering her husband. Although I won't even try to weigh in on the reliability of that conviction.
This form of propulsion is so clever, it is just dying for a racing league - who knows what speeds might be possible? But I wonder what the patent situation is.
PS, I forgot to say why this is such a problem: it's because science is fundamentally about following the facts wherever they lead, whereas religion is fundamentally about rationalizing observations to fit a foregone conclusion. We are not born with the ability to tell when we are doing one or the other; it must be learned. (And nobody would claim scientists are perfect at it).
The problem with "yes, but it was guided by God" is that it reverses the core insight of the science. In the traditional view (re-invented countless times by traditional cultures), mankind is at the center of the universe, everything leading up to and revolving around Him. Even God, the instigator of it all, is basically a guy - a unitary intellect who makes decisions and all that. By this view evolution is, at most, a means of obtaining the end goal: us. It is the ego-centric viewpoint. Science view flips that on its head: the universe has particular laws that operate on each other in complex ways, it is vast, and we are one of its many by-products. "We" could have been something else, or nothing at all. A refusal to abandon the ego-centric viewpoint is, I think, exactly what makes evolution so objectionable to people.
I think you're being unrealistically negative. By 13 years from now we won't completely equate traveling with gasoline. Electric cars do exist, and they work fine for city driving. In another 5-10 years their sticker prices won't be so bad. This will keep gasoline prices more reasonable for longer trips.
It's not a matter of physics. Such cars can be made right now, and 2025 is still 13 years away.
So there you have it: we will do whatever is cheapest as of today, environment be damned. But that's probably just some guy's blog, right? Google it and find out.
We're so far from actually changing course to the degree that would be necessary that if anything I think we're just as likely to "double down" and show the environment who is boss instead of trying to appease it. And by "we" I don't just mean the US, either.
You almost suggested what I always wonder, which is if we couldn't just bury our high-carbon waste (such as agricultural and food waste, such as cowpies) or for that matter just bury trees, maybe in coal mines. Perhaps not trees but whatever grows fastest.
And the current mars mission is 1000x more advanced than the manned missions to the moon.
Extrapolation is an uncertain business :)
Put another way how many cherished commercial books and albums have you personally inherited? Maybe it's a bad question since people who have, will be more likely to answer. But for me the answer is 0. I can't even get my dad to take an interest in getting his old slides scanned so we can see our childhood photos.
That's no reason to keep compact discs; a hard drive is tangible, too. The real question is, do you control it yourself.
Even then, the trial wasn't just in the USA, it was in San Jose, which is a 10 minute drive from Apple headquarters.
I did check that also, but the closest land is Midway atoll (appropriately named, huh!), which due to its strategic location is a US territory.
I disagree. It is certain that if a bunch of molecules were arranged the same as yours are, including the electrical charges, there would be a person who is you. (Naturally the original you would still feel that your consciousness had not departed him, but it would also exist equally in the new body.) So, unlike speed-of-light travel, there is no theoretical barrier to teleportation.
But we never drove a wagon to the moon. Our own bodies may be the "wagon" of interstellar travel, which I think is the point being made.
I see the trial was in San Jose. I am curious whether Koreans will be suspicious of the verdict. Maybe such trials should be on neutral ground. For what it's worth, halfway from San Jose to Korea from West to East appears to be, roughly, France.
OK, fine, that's all rational for them to do. But can we quit rooting for certain companies as the "home team" now? They're not.
Hard to disagree with that logic. Thanks for settling the issue.
That said, a higher-resolution image should at worst look as good as a lower-resolution at the same bitrate, unless the compression algorithm is really dumb. And in low motion scenes the higher resolution one will look sharper.