Actually, from what I've seen it looks like your current Stephen Harper government is doing a pretty good job of making Canada like the USA without any outside help...
"Cloud" computing was always rooted in meaningless sales jargon created by the same kind of non-tech people in the tech industry who gave us all the other pundit phrases you read at VentureBeat et al. It's a snappy one-syllable name, so all the marketing monkeys at other tech companies soon caught on, then Apple introduced iCloud, and now we're stuck with this bullshit for a good five years. Until "Coconut" or something else catches on.
Expecting an average person to know that "Cloud" doesn't actually mean that data isn't beamed from satellites or something, but instead is just an esoteric, ham-fisted metaphor for centralized data storage is a tall order. Tower of Babel in the clouds tall.
No they didn't. They beamed an audio file down to the rover, which then sent it back, in the same way they sent NASA Administrator Bolden's message. There are no speakers, and sadly no microphone on Curiosity. This was purely a PR stunt and dick-waving move for Bolden.
Things you have experienced are not by definition evidence unless those experiences can be presented with others.
Whatever you have experienced is obviously powerful to you, and no one can take that away from you, but claiming that it is evidence of a God and an affirmation of all the trappings of an organized religion, et cetera, is like seeing an unidentified object in the sky and leaping to the conclusion that aliens from Alpha Centauri are visiting our planet. For instance, I have had several quite physical encounters with...phenomena that don't conform to our understanding of Newtonian physics, but I can't present that to anyone as evidence of ghosts -- nor do I even know to what theory I would present it as evidence of.
Now, speaking personally, I find dogmatic atheists just as silly. Claiming that no god-like being can exist in the universe is pretty arrogant when there is no evidence to suggest this is not possible. A curious mind should be open to any possibility, but remain rigorously skeptical until a body of evidence can turn possibility into reality.
I haven't read the 106 pages of juror instructions and don't care to, nor do I know all the testimony and evidence presented, but it sounds like -- based on the jury falling back to the foreman's experience with patents -- that the judge and attorneys never really prepared a Patent Law for Dummies for the jurors. If so, this was a big oversight on the part of the judge and attorneys.
I don't disagree with you, and the jurors should have at least requested more information because it was obviously relevant to making decisions in the case. I was a foreman in a wrongful death trial in which I felt like the jury's hands were tied due to the vagueness of the evidence presented to us. But that's what we had to decide the case on. However, there was also another factor in that case which seems to have played a part here also -- a certain percentage of the jury just didn't really care to be there and was ready to call it quits pretty quickly.
Juries can talk about whatever they want in private deliberations, and there's no way you can remove prior knowledge and bias from the jury unless you weed out those people during voir dire. Obviously it was in Apple's interest to have a guy who held patents on the jury, so they kept him in. The other jurors could have well told the foreman they wanted more explicit information or explanations from the judge, but they chose to heed the foreman's advice. Some others had engineering experience. This wasn't your average tech-stupid jury. Was it perhaps a bad decision to not get more explicit instructions, yes.
Is that cause for mistrial? I doubt it. From what we've heard, there was no suggestion that they discussed or researched the case outside of the deliberation room. Could they have screwed up in other ways and cause a mistrial? Well, I guess we'll find out. But I was under the impression that juror comments post-trial cannot be used to change the outcome of the trial.
Just maybe this thing can make them better (quicker) at parking at the Ikea or Metro.
I kind of doubt that. Controlling a vehicle by remote control requires the brain to continuously transpose one three-dimensional perspective onto another one. If anything, they'll misjudge their turns and distances more often. And that keyfob looks too small to house a video camera, so I'm not sure how they'll avoid smashing into stuff behind or in front of them...whether that be a pole or a little kid.
No, there were a couple Koopas in there also, and you can shell them. There's also a fireball mode. The 1 enemy at a time limitation is disappointing, but the CPU is very limited on that machine so...better than nothing. Considering how shitty most 2600 ports were (Pac-Man I'm looking straight at you), this is actually quite amazing.
Wipeout and Wipeout 2097/XL was a groundbreaking title on the first PlayStation. Its stunning graphics and stellar soundtrack were way beyond what others were doing at that time. And the gameplay was dialed-in perfection. None of the followup Wipeout games I've played really matched up to it.
I worked with Sony back then, and I heard a lot of rumors through the grapevine about Psygnosis being arrogant and difficult to work with. This culminated in Sony completely swallowing them up so they could control the studio better. Well, many talented chaps left as they are wont to do, and it's been a slow-motion death for them ever since.
A sufficiently advanced and long-lived civilization who subscribes to the theory of heat death comes to realize that its universe is a liability, not an asset.
Such a civilization has two obvious choices: find a mirror universe to colonize which is not fading to black due to differing physical characteristics, or find a way to travel back in time.
Nintendo Power is one of the few magazines that could have thrived in a digital format, due mainly to their enthusiastic fanbase. I think quite a number of people would have subscribed to a digital version of Nintendo Power that had exclusive sneakpeak videos, developer interviews, NES game emulations, et al. I think it shows that Nintendo still doesn't 'get' how the internet can benefit them.
I haven't read Nintendo Power since I had a NES back in the '80s, but I have fond memories of it. It was a classy mag with good features; at least the kid version of me thought so. Good quality paper stock, nice art direction. I remember the multi-page dungeon maps of Legend of Zelda. I remember the Legend of Zelda 2 preview and thinking it looked like the best game ever, and then I got the game and it totally was. Metal Gear, Ninja Gaiden. I remember looking at those previews and wondering how a videogame could look so cool. Heady times for videogamers. Constant innovation (well, at least from the top studios) because the industry was still so young.
I too am very disappointed in NASA's decision to send yet another mission to Mars with our tax dollars. And not even a rover, but a stationary lander that has no applicable benefit to a future manned mission. I'm sure planetary geologists are excited and detecting Mars-quakes is kinda cool, but ultimately InSight checks very few boxes.
By contrast, TiME (Titan Mare Explorer), the Titan mission to land on a methane sea, checks many boxes: * Only the second mission to this highly-fascinating moon we know very little about * Would be the first human craft to land on the ocean of another world * Taking pictures of said ocean... enough said * Determine the chemistry and other properties of Titan's oceans. Study the meteorology of the local atmosphere. We know very little about this. * TiME was set to test a new, more efficient type of RTG (radioisotope thermoelectric generator), as solar panels are not feasible on Titan. Testing new tech is IMO a high priority for the low-budget Discovery missions. * Due to its use of a RTG, TiME should have enough power to continue operating for at least 14 years. A very cost-effective investment of public funds. * All of the above add up to huge emotional interest by the public, which is vital for any NASA mission given the funding situation.
Comparing these two missions, I find it baffling that NASA administrators chose the Mars mission. I find it hard to believe there was political or internal bias towards InSight. It's almost like NASA has forgotten there are other worlds (and IMO more interesting ones) to explore in the solar system. With the dry-up of NASA funds, I feel it is very inappropriate of them to put all their planetary chips on Mars. They've missed an important chance for exploration here. And I can't imagine any Joe or Jane Taxpayer being excited about InSight.
P.S. -- TiME could not actually be considered a boat. It has no propulsion device; instead, it is designed to float around a Titan sea. Any motion through the sea would be due to ocean waves or Titan winds.
It's like Mitt Romney and his refusal to release his tax records. He has no legal obligation to, but it sure creates a perception of suspicious behavior when he is so adamant about not releasing them. In the same way, Nintendo looks fairly suspect because they were the only major company who refused to participate.
To me, there is also an extra psychological multiplier at play because Nintendo is primarily selling products to kids. Products for children whose materials are sourced from "blood minerals" make people extra-uneasy.
It'd be nice if we had some Russians here instead of western europeans and americans giving their Very Important opinions about a culture they really know little about. I feel like in the Olden Days of slashdot the userbase was more international in flavor; for whatever reason it's become much more homogenous.
So, basically, what you're saying is: Blame the FemeNazis? I don't buy that.
FemeNazis? What? I'm talking about your typical adult woman who hasn't played a game since she was a kid. It's just sociology. Look at that recent study about females being the main driver of speech patterns in language. Males in general alter their behaviors in order to win the affection of females. And most of the women I've known haven't had a real high view of console/portable gaming. And well, the media hasn't really helped them form a proper opinion, either -- between the news reports trying to associate anti-social behavior with gaming and movies portraying slacker characters as gamers. Think about your married guy friends who self-identify as gamers (or at least the ones who aren't married to gamers), and think about whether they play more or less games after they got married. I can pretty much say everyone I know in that category plays a small fraction of the amount they used to. And when they do, it's something they can play for 15-30 minutes, aside from the times a friend is over to play on xbox/ps3. The PS3 gets into households because it plays Blue-Ray. I think this has changed a bit with younger generations of women coming up; a wider swath of women play games these days. But I've talked to a fair number of sub-25 females who won't date guys who play a lot of games.
I agree with most of what you said, though I don't know how it relates to what I was talking about. You're speaking as a developer, I was just speaking to the sociological reason we're seeing a switch to portable-casual from portable-hardcore. You're talking about supply, I was talking about demand.
And yeah, I remember when arcades hit the scene also. The other day I was remembering that it would take a quarter just to figure out how not to die! And there was always that one guy who could sweep every stage of Donkey Kong, and trying to memorize his patterns. There was a great friendly, social aspect about early videogaming in those arcades that is no longer present; strangers giving tips, cheering each other on. Glad I got to experience that period in videogame history.
I think what is happening is not so simple as you make it out to be. The average gamer age continues to increase, and Vita certainly is more on the side of this demographic than the kid market. Sony is obviously concerned about Apple biting off this already slim piece on the portable market, but it might be a losing battle.
As people age, they tend to move towards the casual end of the spectrum. Less free time in their life, less games that appeal to them as an adult. And I think many adults start to see portable gaming devices as a 'kid thing'. A lot of this is women influencing men. Most adult women see men who do any gaming more than the occasional game with their friends as immature. So guys who want to get dates start leaving that hobby behind. So they naturally gravitate towards the casual games on smartphones. It's already a device they carry and it's more socially acceptable [to women].
So with this in mind, I think it will be hard for Sony to expand. One on side they have the unbeatable kid company, Nintendo. On the other, they have iPhones/Android devices taking away the hardcore-turned-casual adult gamers. So their main market seems to be the 13-22 segment. It's a profitable segment, but Sony is a bit stuck.
For the same reason most software-related patents are without merit -- they are just rearrangements of previous work. For instance, Apple somehow thinks their iPhone icons are all special snowflakes, but they mostly all build on common icon motifs from the past 30 years. They already lost what was basically the same argument in their Apple v. Microsoft lawsuit when they felt that Windows was a copy of the Macintosh GUI. I'm not sure why they expect a different result in this case.
In a more general sense, I think the patent system should really only protect inventions of an entirely unique component. That pretty much invalidates all artistic work in my opinion (and most software patents). I think designs for logos and branding can certainly be covered under trademark, but patents? No way.
You're asking the government to arrest themselves... which can't be done. You would have to make a new federal government to arrest the old one. That would mean the courts have the power to overthrow the Federal government, which they don't.
Well, the courts can certainly convict persons who make up the government, including the President. However, every attempt by the people to have justice served in this manner has also been thrown out. The only Separation of Power left is the separation between the government and the people.
I don't think any Presidential candidate has ever used cutting NASA as a campaign slogan. It's one of things they just don't talk about, and then slash on page 1,345 of the budget. You're wrong about the Bubba thing. Most Americans in their 30s and beyond have a certain reverence for NASA. The Apollo missions and all that. But it's a reverence in abstract because people don't think about the budget. Most Americans have no idea how much is spent on this and that in the Federal government.
Obama certainly doesn't seem to care about space exploration and doesn't seem to care about science in general (for instance, his 2013 budget shuts down our $3M underwater ocean exploration agency, which funds America's only underwater sea station). Sadly, I guess most Democrats don't care either, as they haven't really shaken their fists en masse. Oh sure, everyone is "America fuck yea!" about Curiosity right now, but within a couple days they will go about their normal routine of posting on Facebook.
I guarantee you though, if China lands some people on the moon, Americans of all political stripes (and *especially* the gun-totin' ones) will perk up and start asking why America is being beaten by the Commies. The only way NASA is getting more funding is if there's another space race.
I know most people on slashdot feel that unmanned missions are the best use of funds for planetary destinations, but putting Americans on another planet is the only way to re-associate NASA with patriotism, and patriotism seems to be the best way of securing funding. Not just patriotism, but the emotional connection. People see Curiosity and it's cool like the way they look at a new gadget. But if they saw Americans walking around on another planet, that's drama. Americans crave that.
I also think not putting an instrument on Curiosity that can detect living organisms was a huge, huge mistake. How long until we get another rover on Mars that has this capability? At this rate, perhaps never.
I don't know whether any part of the earth at the time of the dinosaurs contained glacial or ice-rich areas, but if it did I would assume flying dinos like the pterosaur would be the only likely candidates for ice preservation. Current knowledge suggests pterosaurs could fly thousands of kilometers at a time, so it's theoretically possible one might occasionally fly off-course and meet its end in an icy grave.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, from what I've seen it looks like your current Stephen Harper government is doing a pretty good job of making Canada like the USA without any outside help...
"Cloud" computing was always rooted in meaningless sales jargon created by the same kind of non-tech people in the tech industry who gave us all the other pundit phrases you read at VentureBeat et al. It's a snappy one-syllable name, so all the marketing monkeys at other tech companies soon caught on, then Apple introduced iCloud, and now we're stuck with this bullshit for a good five years. Until "Coconut" or something else catches on.
Expecting an average person to know that "Cloud" doesn't actually mean that data isn't beamed from satellites or something, but instead is just an esoteric, ham-fisted metaphor for centralized data storage is a tall order. Tower of Babel in the clouds tall.
Agreed. The 1.44MB floppies that the '80s-'90s Macintoshes used were pretty sturdy. I threw them around as a kid and never had any read/write issues.
Those goddamn Zip disks on the other hand....
No they didn't. They beamed an audio file down to the rover, which then sent it back, in the same way they sent NASA Administrator Bolden's message. There are no speakers, and sadly no microphone on Curiosity. This was purely a PR stunt and dick-waving move for Bolden.
Things you have experienced are not by definition evidence unless those experiences can be presented with others.
Whatever you have experienced is obviously powerful to you, and no one can take that away from you, but claiming that it is evidence of a God and an affirmation of all the trappings of an organized religion, et cetera, is like seeing an unidentified object in the sky and leaping to the conclusion that aliens from Alpha Centauri are visiting our planet. For instance, I have had several quite physical encounters with...phenomena that don't conform to our understanding of Newtonian physics, but I can't present that to anyone as evidence of ghosts -- nor do I even know to what theory I would present it as evidence of.
Now, speaking personally, I find dogmatic atheists just as silly. Claiming that no god-like being can exist in the universe is pretty arrogant when there is no evidence to suggest this is not possible. A curious mind should be open to any possibility, but remain rigorously skeptical until a body of evidence can turn possibility into reality.
I haven't read the 106 pages of juror instructions and don't care to, nor do I know all the testimony and evidence presented, but it sounds like -- based on the jury falling back to the foreman's experience with patents -- that the judge and attorneys never really prepared a Patent Law for Dummies for the jurors. If so, this was a big oversight on the part of the judge and attorneys.
I don't disagree with you, and the jurors should have at least requested more information because it was obviously relevant to making decisions in the case. I was a foreman in a wrongful death trial in which I felt like the jury's hands were tied due to the vagueness of the evidence presented to us. But that's what we had to decide the case on. However, there was also another factor in that case which seems to have played a part here also -- a certain percentage of the jury just didn't really care to be there and was ready to call it quits pretty quickly.
Juries can talk about whatever they want in private deliberations, and there's no way you can remove prior knowledge and bias from the jury unless you weed out those people during voir dire. Obviously it was in Apple's interest to have a guy who held patents on the jury, so they kept him in. The other jurors could have well told the foreman they wanted more explicit information or explanations from the judge, but they chose to heed the foreman's advice. Some others had engineering experience. This wasn't your average tech-stupid jury. Was it perhaps a bad decision to not get more explicit instructions, yes.
Is that cause for mistrial? I doubt it. From what we've heard, there was no suggestion that they discussed or researched the case outside of the deliberation room. Could they have screwed up in other ways and cause a mistrial? Well, I guess we'll find out. But I was under the impression that juror comments post-trial cannot be used to change the outcome of the trial.
I kind of doubt that. Controlling a vehicle by remote control requires the brain to continuously transpose one three-dimensional perspective onto another one. If anything, they'll misjudge their turns and distances more often. And that keyfob looks too small to house a video camera, so I'm not sure how they'll avoid smashing into stuff behind or in front of them...whether that be a pole or a little kid.
No, there were a couple Koopas in there also, and you can shell them. There's also a fireball mode. The 1 enemy at a time limitation is disappointing, but the CPU is very limited on that machine so...better than nothing. Considering how shitty most 2600 ports were (Pac-Man I'm looking straight at you), this is actually quite amazing.
Agreed, Wipeout brought a certain sophisticated, adult sensibility to the visuals and sound that we hadn't seen much in games.
RIP Psygnosis.
Wipeout and Wipeout 2097/XL was a groundbreaking title on the first PlayStation. Its stunning graphics and stellar soundtrack were way beyond what others were doing at that time. And the gameplay was dialed-in perfection. None of the followup Wipeout games I've played really matched up to it.
I worked with Sony back then, and I heard a lot of rumors through the grapevine about Psygnosis being arrogant and difficult to work with. This culminated in Sony completely swallowing them up so they could control the studio better. Well, many talented chaps left as they are wont to do, and it's been a slow-motion death for them ever since.
A sufficiently advanced and long-lived civilization who subscribes to the theory of heat death comes to realize that its universe is a liability, not an asset.
Such a civilization has two obvious choices: find a mirror universe to colonize which is not fading to black due to differing physical characteristics, or find a way to travel back in time.
Nintendo Power is one of the few magazines that could have thrived in a digital format, due mainly to their enthusiastic fanbase. I think quite a number of people would have subscribed to a digital version of Nintendo Power that had exclusive sneakpeak videos, developer interviews, NES game emulations, et al. I think it shows that Nintendo still doesn't 'get' how the internet can benefit them.
I haven't read Nintendo Power since I had a NES back in the '80s, but I have fond memories of it. It was a classy mag with good features; at least the kid version of me thought so. Good quality paper stock, nice art direction. I remember the multi-page dungeon maps of Legend of Zelda. I remember the Legend of Zelda 2 preview and thinking it looked like the best game ever, and then I got the game and it totally was. Metal Gear, Ninja Gaiden. I remember looking at those previews and wondering how a videogame could look so cool. Heady times for videogamers. Constant innovation (well, at least from the top studios) because the industry was still so young.
I too am very disappointed in NASA's decision to send yet another mission to Mars with our tax dollars. And not even a rover, but a stationary lander that has no applicable benefit to a future manned mission. I'm sure planetary geologists are excited and detecting Mars-quakes is kinda cool, but ultimately InSight checks very few boxes.
By contrast, TiME (Titan Mare Explorer), the Titan mission to land on a methane sea, checks many boxes:
* Only the second mission to this highly-fascinating moon we know very little about
* Would be the first human craft to land on the ocean of another world
* Taking pictures of said ocean... enough said
* Determine the chemistry and other properties of Titan's oceans. Study the meteorology of the local atmosphere. We know very little about this.
* TiME was set to test a new, more efficient type of RTG (radioisotope thermoelectric generator), as solar panels are not feasible on Titan. Testing new tech is IMO a high priority for the low-budget Discovery missions.
* Due to its use of a RTG, TiME should have enough power to continue operating for at least 14 years. A very cost-effective investment of public funds.
* All of the above add up to huge emotional interest by the public, which is vital for any NASA mission given the funding situation.
Comparing these two missions, I find it baffling that NASA administrators chose the Mars mission. I find it hard to believe there was political or internal bias towards InSight. It's almost like NASA has forgotten there are other worlds (and IMO more interesting ones) to explore in the solar system. With the dry-up of NASA funds, I feel it is very inappropriate of them to put all their planetary chips on Mars. They've missed an important chance for exploration here. And I can't imagine any Joe or Jane Taxpayer being excited about InSight.
P.S. -- TiME could not actually be considered a boat. It has no propulsion device; instead, it is designed to float around a Titan sea. Any motion through the sea would be due to ocean waves or Titan winds.
I find your lack of faith disturbing.
If life can exist here on Earth near underwater lava vents spewing toxic brews, then life is certainly a possibility in the water-soaked soil of Mars.
It's like Mitt Romney and his refusal to release his tax records. He has no legal obligation to, but it sure creates a perception of suspicious behavior when he is so adamant about not releasing them. In the same way, Nintendo looks fairly suspect because they were the only major company who refused to participate.
To me, there is also an extra psychological multiplier at play because Nintendo is primarily selling products to kids. Products for children whose materials are sourced from "blood minerals" make people extra-uneasy.
It'd be nice if we had some Russians here instead of western europeans and americans giving their Very Important opinions about a culture they really know little about. I feel like in the Olden Days of slashdot the userbase was more international in flavor; for whatever reason it's become much more homogenous.
FemeNazis? What? I'm talking about your typical adult woman who hasn't played a game since she was a kid. It's just sociology. Look at that recent study about females being the main driver of speech patterns in language. Males in general alter their behaviors in order to win the affection of females. And most of the women I've known haven't had a real high view of console/portable gaming. And well, the media hasn't really helped them form a proper opinion, either -- between the news reports trying to associate anti-social behavior with gaming and movies portraying slacker characters as gamers. Think about your married guy friends who self-identify as gamers (or at least the ones who aren't married to gamers), and think about whether they play more or less games after they got married. I can pretty much say everyone I know in that category plays a small fraction of the amount they used to. And when they do, it's something they can play for 15-30 minutes, aside from the times a friend is over to play on xbox/ps3. The PS3 gets into households because it plays Blue-Ray. I think this has changed a bit with younger generations of women coming up; a wider swath of women play games these days. But I've talked to a fair number of sub-25 females who won't date guys who play a lot of games.
I agree with most of what you said, though I don't know how it relates to what I was talking about. You're speaking as a developer, I was just speaking to the sociological reason we're seeing a switch to portable-casual from portable-hardcore. You're talking about supply, I was talking about demand.
And yeah, I remember when arcades hit the scene also. The other day I was remembering that it would take a quarter just to figure out how not to die! And there was always that one guy who could sweep every stage of Donkey Kong, and trying to memorize his patterns. There was a great friendly, social aspect about early videogaming in those arcades that is no longer present; strangers giving tips, cheering each other on. Glad I got to experience that period in videogame history.
That might be a bit hard at this point.
I think what is happening is not so simple as you make it out to be. The average gamer age continues to increase, and Vita certainly is more on the side of this demographic than the kid market. Sony is obviously concerned about Apple biting off this already slim piece on the portable market, but it might be a losing battle.
As people age, they tend to move towards the casual end of the spectrum. Less free time in their life, less games that appeal to them as an adult. And I think many adults start to see portable gaming devices as a 'kid thing'. A lot of this is women influencing men. Most adult women see men who do any gaming more than the occasional game with their friends as immature. So guys who want to get dates start leaving that hobby behind. So they naturally gravitate towards the casual games on smartphones. It's already a device they carry and it's more socially acceptable [to women].
So with this in mind, I think it will be hard for Sony to expand. One on side they have the unbeatable kid company, Nintendo. On the other, they have iPhones/Android devices taking away the hardcore-turned-casual adult gamers. So their main market seems to be the 13-22 segment. It's a profitable segment, but Sony is a bit stuck.
For the same reason most software-related patents are without merit -- they are just rearrangements of previous work. For instance, Apple somehow thinks their iPhone icons are all special snowflakes, but they mostly all build on common icon motifs from the past 30 years. They already lost what was basically the same argument in their Apple v. Microsoft lawsuit when they felt that Windows was a copy of the Macintosh GUI. I'm not sure why they expect a different result in this case.
In a more general sense, I think the patent system should really only protect inventions of an entirely unique component. That pretty much invalidates all artistic work in my opinion (and most software patents). I think designs for logos and branding can certainly be covered under trademark, but patents? No way.
Well, the courts can certainly convict persons who make up the government, including the President. However, every attempt by the people to have justice served in this manner has also been thrown out. The only Separation of Power left is the separation between the government and the people.
I don't think any Presidential candidate has ever used cutting NASA as a campaign slogan. It's one of things they just don't talk about, and then slash on page 1,345 of the budget. You're wrong about the Bubba thing. Most Americans in their 30s and beyond have a certain reverence for NASA. The Apollo missions and all that. But it's a reverence in abstract because people don't think about the budget. Most Americans have no idea how much is spent on this and that in the Federal government.
Obama certainly doesn't seem to care about space exploration and doesn't seem to care about science in general (for instance, his 2013 budget shuts down our $3M underwater ocean exploration agency, which funds America's only underwater sea station). Sadly, I guess most Democrats don't care either, as they haven't really shaken their fists en masse. Oh sure, everyone is "America fuck yea!" about Curiosity right now, but within a couple days they will go about their normal routine of posting on Facebook.
I guarantee you though, if China lands some people on the moon, Americans of all political stripes (and *especially* the gun-totin' ones) will perk up and start asking why America is being beaten by the Commies. The only way NASA is getting more funding is if there's another space race.
I know most people on slashdot feel that unmanned missions are the best use of funds for planetary destinations, but putting Americans on another planet is the only way to re-associate NASA with patriotism, and patriotism seems to be the best way of securing funding. Not just patriotism, but the emotional connection. People see Curiosity and it's cool like the way they look at a new gadget. But if they saw Americans walking around on another planet, that's drama. Americans crave that.
I also think not putting an instrument on Curiosity that can detect living organisms was a huge, huge mistake. How long until we get another rover on Mars that has this capability? At this rate, perhaps never.
sharks with frickin' lasers...after a quad-shot of espresso
I don't know whether any part of the earth at the time of the dinosaurs contained glacial or ice-rich areas, but if it did I would assume flying dinos like the pterosaur would be the only likely candidates for ice preservation. Current knowledge suggests pterosaurs could fly thousands of kilometers at a time, so it's theoretically possible one might occasionally fly off-course and meet its end in an icy grave.
Or being chased by a T. Rex *on* the Titanic.