I know! Let's get people to pay an even higher fine to get the education they and our economy most need! That will make more people study the most important disciplines! Let's call it "tuition" and con people into believing that it is the magic of market capitalism at work in higher education! Nobody will know it's really a disincentive! You're actually buying education, not paying a penalty for it!
1) Be a fucking idiot ass-kissing corporatist tool
2) Get a position of power and influence in politics and/or higher education
3) ???
4) Profit!
Ha ha! Yeah, that's funny! Dude, you are Joe Comedian! Comedy Central, watch out for this guy, he's hot! Not to mention him weaseling out of calculating what it would cost to move 10 million people to some off-planet location and support them for 100 years (whether on their own or dependent on earth) with his super-beyond-funny jokes! Wow, the guy's a genius! The whole thing just got explained away! With a joke, even!
This is rubbish, superstitious claptrap. Manned space exploration will have a negligible effect on the long term survivability of the human species. This tiresome insistence that we can avoid extermination due to an asteroid impact (or whatever) by maintaining some kind of manned space program is little more than sci fi space adventure magical religious cultism. The cost of moving more than a trivial number of people to some desolate, unsustainable off-planet outpost will never be overcome, at least not within the next several hundred years). I challenge you to calculate what it would cost to move 10 million people (about 0.15% of the current world population) to some off-planet location to save them from cataclysm, and support them for 100 years. It is a ridiculous concept. Forget about moving and sustaining a significant fraction of the population. Only a tiny number of people survive for a few years more than the rest of us in such a cataclysm. It is a meaningless false hope that is essentially identical to religious faith in some sort of eternal afterlife in a spiritual plane. It is for children.
Note that I am claiming that manned space exploration generates essentially nothing of value. Also, your claim that the transistor is a by-product of space exploration is inconsistent with history. I assume you are repeating something from hazy memory.
Frozen food? Insulation, GPS, scratch resistant lenses, shoe insoles, smoke detectors, and water filters? Dude, I hope you can back that up. The claims of what came out of the space program seem to be wildly exaggerated, and this list is no exception. You really need some credible documentation, otherwise it just doesn't cut it. Some of this stuff was probably invented in the early 20th century.
The Manned space program has paid for it's self many times over... This isn't wishful thinking, it's documented fact... can't think past 'it cost money' to actually look at the revenue is generates, the value to our future
"Documented fact," eh? That should make it easier for you to prove it and not just insult people with empty platitudes. Show us credible numbers and lists of technologies that have, for example, paid for the cost of the ISS "many times over." They do not exist. It is a false claim. It is simple-minded superstition, sci fi space-adventure magical-religious cultism. The starry-eyed myths and legends of childhood.
For whatever reason, the Chinese may indeed commit the colossally stupid act of setting up a manned space station. It is a moronic waste of money, which presents competitors with an opportunity: set up a network of completely robotic space stations that will do vastly more at far lower cost and generate more advances in robotics. Let the Chinese put little red stars on their shirt collars so that mommy can see what good little boys they are. Nations that have already seen that it is a financial black hole that produces practically nothing of value need not accompany them.
Actually, it is wishful thinking to believe the Chinese are that stupid. 2020 is still a ways off, and they will likely see that for many reasons robotics is the way to go. They have the potential to dominate the nascent robotics boom if they avoid idiotic distractions like this one. Let's hope those of us in the US are up to the challenge.
It baffles me that such a large proportion of Slashdot readers cannot see this. Aren't we all (or most of us) scientists and engineers? Aren't we supposed to be rational builders of testable scientific models and buildable engineering projects? How is it the talk of manned spaced travel suspends disbelief so reliably and propels people so far into fantasy, superstition, and irrationality?
This is rubbish, superstitious claptrap. Manned space exploration will have a negligible effect on the long term survivability of the human species. This tiresome insistence that we can avoid extermination due to an asteroid impact (or whatever) by maintaining some kind of manned space program is little more than sci fi space adventure magical religious cultism. The cost of moving more than a trivial number of people to some desolate, unsustainable off-planet outpost will never be overcome, at least not within the next several hundred years). I challenge you to calculate what it would cost to move 10 million people (about 0.15% of the current world population) to some off-planet location to save them from cataclysm, and support them for 100 years. It is a ridiculous concept. Forget about moving and sustaining a significant fraction of the population. Only a tiny number of people survive for a few years more than the rest of us in such a cataclysm. It is a meaningless false hope that is essentially identical to religious faith in some sort of eternal afterlife in a spiritual plane. It is for children.
True, but this is Slashdot, land of the GetOffThisRockers, corporatist fanboys, and Libertarians. Very few people will see your point.
To say nothing of the fact (and it is such), that there is nothing scientifically valuable or economically useful to be gained in the foreseeable future (e.g. the next century) from manned space exploration that cannot be done by robots far more cheaply and on a vastly greater scale. To say nothing of whether taxpayers should forever subsidize the aerospace military-industrial-congressional complex.
I object to this because I am an American. Many, many of my fellow citizens have sacrificed life and limb to establish protection from unjustified or arbitrary search and seizure and to defend us from tyrannical governments over the past two and a half centuries. Whether I have something to hide or not is immaterial. I consider myself a free man and my private life is my own business. As long as I do not break the law I have a constitutional right to hide any and all of my personal activities.
The "something to hide" argument is for morons who will not understand and appreciate their rights until they have been lost.
Battle LA was a very shallow run-of-the-mill action movie with no new ideas, no interesting effects, no gags, no satire, no black humor, no interesting commentary, ruthlessly standard commercial acting, and in general lacking any depth or artistic value whatsoever. If you like mediocre FPS games, you'll like this movie, otherwise skip it.
I'm an American and happy to be one, but bluefoxlucid has a point. Travel around in other countries and that, unfortunately, is the most common sentiment. For whatever reasons, justified or not, we are viewed as an asshole nation. I personally do my best to not embody the stereotype, but it's there.
Diving beneath the settling chip fab, the Itanium ran quivering along its keel; but turning under water, swiftly shot to the surface again, far off the other bow, but within a few yards of HP's boat, where, for a time, it lay quiescent.
"I turn my body from the sun. What ho, Tashtego! let me hear thy hammer. Oh! ye three unsurrendered spires of mine; thou uncracked keel; and only god-bullied hull; thou firm deck, and haughty helm, and Pole-pointed prow,- death- glorious chip fab! must ye then perish, and without me? Am I cut off from the last fond pride of meanest CPU Product Managers? Oh, lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel my topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief. Ho, ho! from all your furthest bounds, pour ye now in, ye bold billows of my whole foregone life, and top this one piled comber of my death! Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering Itanium; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned Itanium! Thus, I give up the spear!"
The harpoon was darted; the stricken Itanium flew forward; with igniting velocity the line ran through the surface mounts;- ran foul. HP stooped to clear it; they did clear it; but the flying turn caught them round the neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, they were shot out of Palo Alto,' ere all the Valley knew they were gone. Next instant, the heavy eye-splice in the rope's final end flew out of the stark-empty tub, knocked down an oarsman, and smiting the sea, disappeared in its depths.
For an instant, the tranced crew stood still; then turned. "The chip fab? Great God, where is the chip fab?" Soon they through dim, bewildering mediums saw its sidelong fading phantom, as in the gaseous Fata Morgana; only the uppermost floors out of water; while fixed by infatuation, or fidelity, or fate, to their once lofty perches, the pagan Marketing Staff still maintained their sinking look-outs on the CPU market. And now, concentric circles seized the lone fab itself, and all its crew, and each floating oar, and every lancepole, and spinning, animate and inanimate, all round and round in one vortex, carried the smallest chip of Hewlett-Packard out of sight.
Slashdot Mirror
I know! Let's get people to pay an even higher fine to get the education they and our economy most need! That will make more people study the most important disciplines! Let's call it "tuition" and con people into believing that it is the magic of market capitalism at work in higher education! Nobody will know it's really a disincentive! You're actually buying education, not paying a penalty for it!
1) Be a fucking idiot ass-kissing corporatist tool
2) Get a position of power and influence in politics and/or higher education
3) ???
4) Profit!
What could be simpler?
And uh...you're questioning GPS being developed by space travel? Seriously?
Why yes, now that you mention it. The development of GPS had nothing whatever to do with manned space travel. Why do you ask?
Ha ha! Yeah, that's funny! Dude, you are Joe Comedian! Comedy Central, watch out for this guy, he's hot! Not to mention him weaseling out of calculating what it would cost to move 10 million people to some off-planet location and support them for 100 years (whether on their own or dependent on earth) with his super-beyond-funny jokes! Wow, the guy's a genius! The whole thing just got explained away! With a joke, even!
Please document your claims.
This is rubbish, superstitious claptrap. Manned space exploration will have a negligible effect on the long term survivability of the human species. This tiresome insistence that we can avoid extermination due to an asteroid impact (or whatever) by maintaining some kind of manned space program is little more than sci fi space adventure magical religious cultism. The cost of moving more than a trivial number of people to some desolate, unsustainable off-planet outpost will never be overcome, at least not within the next several hundred years). I challenge you to calculate what it would cost to move 10 million people (about 0.15% of the current world population) to some off-planet location to save them from cataclysm, and support them for 100 years. It is a ridiculous concept. Forget about moving and sustaining a significant fraction of the population. Only a tiny number of people survive for a few years more than the rest of us in such a cataclysm. It is a meaningless false hope that is essentially identical to religious faith in some sort of eternal afterlife in a spiritual plane. It is for children.
Hear, hear! I suspect he meant freeze-dried food rather than frozen, but he'd still be mistaken.
Sc-fi space-adventure magical-religious cultism, pure and simple.
Note that I am claiming that manned space exploration generates essentially nothing of value. Also, your claim that the transistor is a by-product of space exploration is inconsistent with history. I assume you are repeating something from hazy memory.
Frozen food? Insulation, GPS, scratch resistant lenses, shoe insoles, smoke detectors, and water filters? Dude, I hope you can back that up. The claims of what came out of the space program seem to be wildly exaggerated, and this list is no exception. You really need some credible documentation, otherwise it just doesn't cut it. Some of this stuff was probably invented in the early 20th century.
The Manned space program has paid for it's self many times over... This isn't wishful thinking, it's documented fact... can't think past 'it cost money' to actually look at the revenue is generates, the value to our future
"Documented fact," eh? That should make it easier for you to prove it and not just insult people with empty platitudes. Show us credible numbers and lists of technologies that have, for example, paid for the cost of the ISS "many times over." They do not exist. It is a false claim. It is simple-minded superstition, sci fi space-adventure magical-religious cultism. The starry-eyed myths and legends of childhood.
For whatever reason, the Chinese may indeed commit the colossally stupid act of setting up a manned space station. It is a moronic waste of money, which presents competitors with an opportunity: set up a network of completely robotic space stations that will do vastly more at far lower cost and generate more advances in robotics. Let the Chinese put little red stars on their shirt collars so that mommy can see what good little boys they are. Nations that have already seen that it is a financial black hole that produces practically nothing of value need not accompany them.
Actually, it is wishful thinking to believe the Chinese are that stupid. 2020 is still a ways off, and they will likely see that for many reasons robotics is the way to go. They have the potential to dominate the nascent robotics boom if they avoid idiotic distractions like this one. Let's hope those of us in the US are up to the challenge.
It baffles me that such a large proportion of Slashdot readers cannot see this. Aren't we all (or most of us) scientists and engineers? Aren't we supposed to be rational builders of testable scientific models and buildable engineering projects? How is it the talk of manned spaced travel suspends disbelief so reliably and propels people so far into fantasy, superstition, and irrationality?
This is rubbish, superstitious claptrap. Manned space exploration will have a negligible effect on the long term survivability of the human species. This tiresome insistence that we can avoid extermination due to an asteroid impact (or whatever) by maintaining some kind of manned space program is little more than sci fi space adventure magical religious cultism. The cost of moving more than a trivial number of people to some desolate, unsustainable off-planet outpost will never be overcome, at least not within the next several hundred years). I challenge you to calculate what it would cost to move 10 million people (about 0.15% of the current world population) to some off-planet location to save them from cataclysm, and support them for 100 years. It is a ridiculous concept. Forget about moving and sustaining a significant fraction of the population. Only a tiny number of people survive for a few years more than the rest of us in such a cataclysm. It is a meaningless false hope that is essentially identical to religious faith in some sort of eternal afterlife in a spiritual plane. It is for children.
True, but this is Slashdot, land of the GetOffThisRockers, corporatist fanboys, and Libertarians. Very few people will see your point.
To say nothing of the fact (and it is such), that there is nothing scientifically valuable or economically useful to be gained in the foreseeable future (e.g. the next century) from manned space exploration that cannot be done by robots far more cheaply and on a vastly greater scale. To say nothing of whether taxpayers should forever subsidize the aerospace military-industrial-congressional complex.
In Soviet Russia the XBox plays with you.
I object to this because I am an American. Many, many of my fellow citizens have sacrificed life and limb to establish protection from unjustified or arbitrary search and seizure and to defend us from tyrannical governments over the past two and a half centuries. Whether I have something to hide or not is immaterial. I consider myself a free man and my private life is my own business. As long as I do not break the law I have a constitutional right to hide any and all of my personal activities.
The "something to hide" argument is for morons who will not understand and appreciate their rights until they have been lost.
Welcome, Comrades!
Welcome back to the Glorious Union of Soviet Corporatist Republics!
In Soviet Russia, the government controls the commerce.
Interesting sig. It's the other way around here in the US. It reminds me of an old one:
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's the other way around
Oh the Moronity!
Battle LA was a very shallow run-of-the-mill action movie with no new ideas, no interesting effects, no gags, no satire, no black humor, no interesting commentary, ruthlessly standard commercial acting, and in general lacking any depth or artistic value whatsoever. If you like mediocre FPS games, you'll like this movie, otherwise skip it.
I'm an American and happy to be one, but bluefoxlucid has a point. Travel around in other countries and that, unfortunately, is the most common sentiment. For whatever reasons, justified or not, we are viewed as an asshole nation. I personally do my best to not embody the stereotype, but it's there.
"...I Am Sparta!" at the top of his lungs.
Never make any important decisions or initiate any important activities when you have a full bowel or bladder. Mark my words.
At First They Were Just Vacuum Cleaners
Prophetic words. Methinks most of the posters here are looking at the ever-receding past, not the future which laps at our ankles even now.
Diving beneath the settling chip fab, the Itanium ran quivering along its keel; but turning under water, swiftly shot to the surface again, far off the other bow, but within a few yards of HP's boat, where, for a time, it lay quiescent.
"I turn my body from the sun. What ho, Tashtego! let me hear thy hammer. Oh! ye three unsurrendered spires of mine; thou uncracked keel; and only god-bullied hull; thou firm deck, and haughty helm, and Pole-pointed prow,- death- glorious chip fab! must ye then perish, and without me? Am I cut off from the last fond pride of meanest CPU Product Managers? Oh, lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel my topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief. Ho, ho! from all your furthest bounds, pour ye now in, ye bold billows of my whole foregone life, and top this one piled comber of my death! Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering Itanium; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned Itanium! Thus, I give up the spear!"
The harpoon was darted; the stricken Itanium flew forward; with igniting velocity the line ran through the surface mounts;- ran foul. HP stooped to clear it; they did clear it; but the flying turn caught them round the neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, they were shot out of Palo Alto,' ere all the Valley knew they were gone. Next instant, the heavy eye-splice in the rope's final end flew out of the stark-empty tub, knocked down an oarsman, and smiting the sea, disappeared in its depths.
For an instant, the tranced crew stood still; then turned. "The chip fab? Great God, where is the chip fab?" Soon they through dim, bewildering mediums saw its sidelong fading phantom, as in the gaseous Fata Morgana; only the uppermost floors out of water; while fixed by infatuation, or fidelity, or fate, to their once lofty perches, the pagan Marketing Staff still maintained their sinking look-outs on the CPU market. And now, concentric circles seized the lone fab itself, and all its crew, and each floating oar, and every lancepole, and spinning, animate and inanimate, all round and round in one vortex, carried the smallest chip of Hewlett-Packard out of sight.