I have a class 2 (three axle) re-entry license I got at the DMV. Only cost $20 and the exam was waived since I don't have a spacecraft yet. It works like a charm at bars to pick up skanky chicks.
The mainstream media is not in the business of publishing information that subverts the US Establishment. Quite the contrary. Don't rely on them or trust them, get the file, load it into a database, and start querying it yourself. That's the whole point, the leaks are for you.
I would tend to agree, this stuff gets complicated very quickly. It's hard to see who's who and what's what. Wikileaks' role isn't to be good or bad, it is to expose hidden information to add entropy to a skewed system. Good and bad will come in random proportions.
There's also the infatuation people have with wealth and power. Microsoft infuses everything with vast hype and very expensive, flashy, and overwhelming marketing, and most people are hopelessly dazzled by it. Bill Gates is or was Forbes' richest man for years, and people fall into an emotional transference trap by concluding that this makes him some kind of a wise sage who can do no wrong, and the magic is generalized to everything he touches. It is superstition and tribalism deep within our subconscious pulled back out with the most powerful force known to man: money.
It is sad, it is pathetic, it is moronic, it is self-destructive, but it is.
Ham and Eggs? Obsolete.
Denim? Gone.
iPods? At the end of their life cycle.
Fresh ground coffee? It is so over.
Intelligent remarks in public? Bah! Who ever did that to begin with?
Dude, this is slashdot. This is "Get Off This Rock" and "Get Our Asses to Mars" country. Reason and pragmatism don't enter into it. You either shut your eyes and pretend your on BattleStar Galactica or you keep to yourself. That's just the way it is around here. Oh, BTW, can I interest you in some asteroid mining stock? It's really cheap!
or you can go to Mars, advance mankind's understanding of science, and die with (some) honor, in about 10 years, and get a chance to fly in space and play with cool technology in the meantime
Spoken like a "Get Our Asses to Mars" True Believer. Actually it would be more like "travel for many months in a fragile spacecraft prone to dangerous breakdowns, be irradiated repeatedly by high energy particles, live with ever more insane fellow travelers and possibly become insane yourself, do without even the modest health care of prison, eat far worse food than in prison, find out first hand why so many Mars probes disappear, put up with the smell of ever increasing residues of vomit on all interior spacecraft surfaces (starting with the interior of all helmets), barely survive (?) landing on Mars, figure out how to survive until the next re-supply shipment because all of the X and Y were destroyed in the last one, live for the rest of your life in a space surprisingly smaller and more stifling than prison, and finally die an unmerciful and miserable death on a faraway hunk of desolate rock, forgotten and abandoned by earth out of nothing more than practicality. And for what?"
Dude, look at some of the other posts in this sub-thread and on this page. I took it seriously because it is similar to lots of other crazy proposals people are seriously putting forward. I take your point, but we live in trying times.
It would most certainly surpass NASA's current budget by orders of magnitude. I suspect people have only a hazy idea of the costs and challenges of sending even a few deranged dipshits on a suicidal mission to at least build a camp on Mars where they could survive for months or years. It is far more expensive and difficult than anyone can fathom.
It isn't either/or. We need to stop increasing the debt AND start reducing it. By far the main obstacle will be all of those businesses and organizations who have their teeth firmly clamped onto the government teat, at our expense.
I complained FAR more loudly, participated in marches, wrote numerous letters to my elected representatives, talked to friends and co-workers, wrote posts on news forums, etc. I did the same with regard to the finance industry "bailouts" as well. Nobody pays attention to those of us who obstruct large-scale looting of public funds, only to those who profit from the looting itself. Those people are widely respected and even admired, upstanding plutocrats that they are.
You can be absolutely certain that nobody gives two shits about what we say here, too, in case such an unlikely question ever grazed the fringes of your awareness.
This project would surpass NASA's yearly budget by a very very large amount. I do not want NASA to pay for this bullshit. I want NASA to fund compelling science, not showmanship. NASA needs to stop being a pretext to transfer taxpayer dollars to the military-congressional-industrial complex, seemingly the only activity it does really well.
I stand corrected, but point out that this is not a substantive difference with regard to cost, since most of the journey probably consists of coasting and relatively minor course corrections.
can't be much more expensive than keeping them in prison for 40-50 years
Ah, yes, the slashdot we all know and love. Some bozo claiming that it costs about the same to keep a person locked up in federal prison as it does to send him 45 light-minutes away to a place with no water and practically no atmosphere where absolutely everything will have to be sent up there. And of course, not even a symbolic attempt at showing some cost estimates. Yes indeed.
I vote we send all of the "Get our asses to Mars" crowd and leave them there. BTW, they should fund it themselves.
Oh sure, taxpayers like me are just dying to spend hundreds of billions of dollars so that a handful of deranged dipshits can star in some perverse terminal reality show. Think of the ratings! Think of the money that will be earned from the ads (although not even remotely enough to pay for the thing)!
This sort of thing needs to be privately funded. I do not want to increase the national debt and therefore my tax burden on moronic bullshit like this.
Slashdot Mirror
I have a class 2 (three axle) re-entry license I got at the DMV. Only cost $20 and the exam was waived since I don't have a spacecraft yet. It works like a charm at bars to pick up skanky chicks.
The mainstream media is not in the business of publishing information that subverts the US Establishment. Quite the contrary. Don't rely on them or trust them, get the file, load it into a database, and start querying it yourself. That's the whole point, the leaks are for you.
Yes, a lot like the way "investors" is used these days.
I would tend to agree, this stuff gets complicated very quickly. It's hard to see who's who and what's what. Wikileaks' role isn't to be good or bad, it is to expose hidden information to add entropy to a skewed system. Good and bad will come in random proportions.
...Wikileaks leaks you!
The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money
Didn't that happen recently in the Capitalist/Corporatist world?
Exposing corrupt politicians and the mobsters, war criminals and traitors that support them is causing harm!
There's also the infatuation people have with wealth and power. Microsoft infuses everything with vast hype and very expensive, flashy, and overwhelming marketing, and most people are hopelessly dazzled by it. Bill Gates is or was Forbes' richest man for years, and people fall into an emotional transference trap by concluding that this makes him some kind of a wise sage who can do no wrong, and the magic is generalized to everything he touches. It is superstition and tribalism deep within our subconscious pulled back out with the most powerful force known to man: money.
It is sad, it is pathetic, it is moronic, it is self-destructive, but it is.
Ham and Eggs? Obsolete.
Denim? Gone.
iPods? At the end of their life cycle.
Fresh ground coffee? It is so over.
Intelligent remarks in public? Bah! Who ever did that to begin with?
Too bad. That would have gone instantly viral on YouTube.
...GNU/Linux opens your source!
Well I'll say one thing: Sir, you have balls.
Dude, that is an evil thought. It was enough of a curse here on earth...
Dude, this is slashdot. This is "Get Off This Rock" and "Get Our Asses to Mars" country. Reason and pragmatism don't enter into it. You either shut your eyes and pretend your on BattleStar Galactica or you keep to yourself. That's just the way it is around here. Oh, BTW, can I interest you in some asteroid mining stock? It's really cheap!
or you can go to Mars, advance mankind's understanding of science, and die with (some) honor, in about 10 years, and get a chance to fly in space and play with cool technology in the meantime
Spoken like a "Get Our Asses to Mars" True Believer. Actually it would be more like "travel for many months in a fragile spacecraft prone to dangerous breakdowns, be irradiated repeatedly by high energy particles, live with ever more insane fellow travelers and possibly become insane yourself, do without even the modest health care of prison, eat far worse food than in prison, find out first hand why so many Mars probes disappear, put up with the smell of ever increasing residues of vomit on all interior spacecraft surfaces (starting with the interior of all helmets), barely survive (?) landing on Mars, figure out how to survive until the next re-supply shipment because all of the X and Y were destroyed in the last one, live for the rest of your life in a space surprisingly smaller and more stifling than prison, and finally die an unmerciful and miserable death on a faraway hunk of desolate rock, forgotten and abandoned by earth out of nothing more than practicality. And for what?"
Dude, look at some of the other posts in this sub-thread and on this page. I took it seriously because it is similar to lots of other crazy proposals people are seriously putting forward. I take your point, but we live in trying times.
It would most certainly surpass NASA's current budget by orders of magnitude. I suspect people have only a hazy idea of the costs and challenges of sending even a few deranged dipshits on a suicidal mission to at least build a camp on Mars where they could survive for months or years. It is far more expensive and difficult than anyone can fathom.
Interesting, but it would take millions of years if it were even possible at all with so little water and atmosphere.
It isn't either/or. We need to stop increasing the debt AND start reducing it. By far the main obstacle will be all of those businesses and organizations who have their teeth firmly clamped onto the government teat, at our expense.
I complained FAR more loudly, participated in marches, wrote numerous letters to my elected representatives, talked to friends and co-workers, wrote posts on news forums, etc. I did the same with regard to the finance industry "bailouts" as well. Nobody pays attention to those of us who obstruct large-scale looting of public funds, only to those who profit from the looting itself. Those people are widely respected and even admired, upstanding plutocrats that they are.
You can be absolutely certain that nobody gives two shits about what we say here, too, in case such an unlikely question ever grazed the fringes of your awareness.
This project would surpass NASA's yearly budget by a very very large amount. I do not want NASA to pay for this bullshit. I want NASA to fund compelling science, not showmanship. NASA needs to stop being a pretext to transfer taxpayer dollars to the military-congressional-industrial complex, seemingly the only activity it does really well.
I stand corrected, but point out that this is not a substantive difference with regard to cost, since most of the journey probably consists of coasting and relatively minor course corrections.
can't be much more expensive than keeping them in prison for 40-50 years
Ah, yes, the slashdot we all know and love. Some bozo claiming that it costs about the same to keep a person locked up in federal prison as it does to send him 45 light-minutes away to a place with no water and practically no atmosphere where absolutely everything will have to be sent up there. And of course, not even a symbolic attempt at showing some cost estimates. Yes indeed.
I vote we send all of the "Get our asses to Mars" crowd and leave them there. BTW, they should fund it themselves.
Oh sure, taxpayers like me are just dying to spend hundreds of billions of dollars so that a handful of deranged dipshits can star in some perverse terminal reality show. Think of the ratings! Think of the money that will be earned from the ads (although not even remotely enough to pay for the thing)!
This sort of thing needs to be privately funded. I do not want to increase the national debt and therefore my tax burden on moronic bullshit like this.
So is the Ukrainian Mob giving out academic research grants these days? Not such a bad idea from their end.