Python makes modularity and object-orientation make sense. In Perl, OOP is kind of a bag on the side, an extra feature tossed in to make modules easier to use. In Java, OOP is a Soviet political officer constantly intruding in your work and making sure you comply with the Party's way of doing things. In Python, OOP is just the way things work: everything's an object and it just makes sense.
C++ is a scrawny, bald, naked saint in a loincloth who lives in a crumbling adobe hut where the desert and the jungle meet. He speaks in terse riddles, that expand out into pages of text if you bother to solve them. He can do the work of ten engineers and a hundred strong laborers merely by tapping his staff on the ground and shouting cryptic epithets.
Oh what a party pooper! Surely you don't expect Lockheed Martin to just shrivel up and die? Surely you are not suggesting that we promote a peaceful world regulated by a mutually agreed upon legal framework that is collectively evolved and enforced? Have you no imagination? Have you no testosterone?
Peace, security, and prosperity for all? Who could ever want something so banal.
Also, and correct me if I am wrong, the tensile strength of the material would move from that of the nanotubes themselves towards the strength of the bonding between the epoxy and the nanotubes. This might be significantly lower.
For the mega-rich, the income potential and (maybe more importantly) the "my name in human history" potential of this SHOULD be irresistible.
Plus, I'm a firm believer in free-enterprise. Let companies do it for a profit and it will be safer, quicker, and more efficiently run than any government project.
The good reason to reach for this which can't be emphasized enough in the current environment is that for a relatively modest investment, the impact on the economy would be enormous (and good). Compared to other proposals to jumpstart the economy, this one has incredible bang for the buck.
I am sure the terrorist strikes will stop themselves if the US gains a reputation for a R&D and science nation instead of a warring and military nation.
I seem to recall that the base of these things would be on large platforms anchored in the middle of the ocean, so if they did collapse, they would just fall harmlessly over water.
Space elevators around Mars create an efficient Earth-Mars transportation network. Elevators on the moons of Jupiter throw spacecraft down into Jupiter's turbulent upper atmosphere to scoop up 3HE and ship it back to Earth in decade-long space convoys where it will power the latest and greatest IEF fusion power-plants.
Meme 1: Cheap access to orbit will translate into a vast economic bounty.
Meme 2: Big infrastructure projects are done better, faster, and more cheaply by private enterprise than by government commission.
Meme 3: Terrorism will stop if we only [insert good-intentioned but simplistic solution here]
Meme 4: If a space elevator falls, nothing bad will happen. It's way out in the middle of the ocean.
Meme 5: [insert currently fashionable incarnation here] nuclear fusion is the way to go.
Meme 6: Your "place in human history" is really really important.
Meme 7: Mining the solar system is not only economically feasible, it's commercially attractive.
I have a hard time with all of these, although I'm sure circumstances can be described where they have a kernel of truth in them.
As I have mentioned in the past, I am in favor of a major unmanned space program, but mainly as a vehicle to stimulate technological development with non-military aerospace and robotics projects. The Space Elevator might help, if it fulfills its promise of cheap access to LEO. Hard to believe, though. 10 years and 6 billion dollars seems very optimistic.
As we learned with the Hubble Space Telescope, it is essential to have astronaut access for unexpected but critical repair missions. But much of the space elevator deployment will take place above LEO, out of access of human shuttle missions. What do we do if there is a glitch during deployment that requires an astronaut repair? We will need to seriously address such contingencies, lest we get saddled with a stuck elevator that could become the mother of all space junk.
Since we waste most of our space exploration money on making it possible for people to eat, sleep, drink, defecate/urinate, bathe, and breath in space, we don't have good enough robotics. There is, of course, the european walking robot that is supposed to quickly move to deal with external damage to the ISS, among other things.
By spending so much on manned space flight, we are barking up the wrong tree and drastically retarding space exploration.
I really hate to second something even vaguely pro-MS, but there are definitely issues with gnome. Recently, I tried to compile all the stuff you need to develop with gtkmm and HOLY JESUS what a monumental pain in the ass that was, let alone the paucity of documentation. I know it's free and all, and presumably I should contribute instead of whine (if I were to continue down that track), but we are talking about existing barriers to entry.
Windows is a stable, unified platform that can be leveraged without fear of one's products becoming obsolete or broken with the next release
It sounds really cool in a wacky Jetsons kind of way
Certain companies will get a lot of money to do it
There will be a few expensive commercial products with Moon mineral products in them. The few people who will actually own them will feel really good about themselves on those rare occasions they remember or think about owning them
Certain companies will get a lot of money to do it
Certain companies will get a lot of money to do it
there is not much on the moon that is worth the effort but asteroids are easier to mine and provide more valuable goods.
Everybody keeps saying stuff like that. Yeah, lets get dry ice from a comet with a 5 billion dollar program that takes 10 years. Gotta be cheaper than buying it from Union Carbide.
In the preceding paragraph, substitute any mineral resource you like for "dry ice," any celestial body for "comet," and any major mining and manufacturing company for "Union Carbide." You can probably leave the "5 billion dollars" and "program that takes 10 years" alone.
So, for the next 10 to 20 years space will be relegated to a military arms race with some posturing on both sides. Projects with genuine merit that expand our knowledge and capabilities in an open forum will get pushed back a generation.
How does this differ from NASA's past?
and there can be an application of all that military tech in the same capitalistic orgy that happened with the end of the cold war and all the technology that was developed finally saw the light of day
Remind me of what technologies you are referring to. A lot of the money spent on military technology during the Cold War was simply wasted. I wonder what civilian-useful technologies really came out of there. The microprocessor? Don't tell me the 4004 was some hush-hush military thing. Integrated circuits? They have been mass-produced for civilian use since the '60s. That probably benefited the military. Aircraft? Last time I flew in a plane, it lacked a ramjet and it didn't go much faster than 500 mph. No rocket-assisted take-off, no ECM, no VTOL, none of that. We didn't hunt for submarines on the way over, either.
Manned space flight is a waste of money. It will vastly slow down our exploration and exploitation of space. It adds virtually nothing to the result, except for those actually physically present up there. It adds a huge amount to the cost, and many, many small interesting projects invariably get axed so that a few weeks or months of human-safe environment can be paid for.
Billions of dollars for a handful of tickets to the most elitist amusement park in human history? Count me out. Send hordes of cheap robots far and wide across the solar system? Now that's interesting.
Hardly a problem. The "Defense Industry" will cry tears of pure joy. Can you imagine what it would cost to put a B2 base up there, as well as modify a squadron B2s to be able to actually do something in space?
I will set up one or more brothels with the sort of American Beauty blondes those guys just can't get enough of. As a secondary benefit, that will undoubtedly stimulate a lunar tourist industry, so get your shit together folks, this is the ground floor.
Future project: design a brothel and whores for robotic mining equipment.
The difference is that Linux is not a generic word...
Not quite. In the Ch'ol dialect of the Mayan language, the word "linux" refers to a cooking utensil used for scraping the contents from the interior of hollow edible plants and the internal organs of animals. It was also applied to a smaller but very similar tool that was often inserted into the rectum of small children to extract impacted feces due to several endemic parasitic diseases.
BTW, most of you are undoubtedly also ignorant of the fact that the english word "gullible" is a colloquialism that is typically omitted from dictionaries.
Oh come now, those links to the UN can be found in about 10 seconds. I gather from your remarks that you have read them? I doubt very much that is the case, but you can claim whatever you wish. The rest of us would be better off with links to actual documents, instead of to a library catalog. Unless you live in or near Manhattan, your links are relatively useless. You included them in your post merely for cosmetic effect, that much is obvious.
The rest of us "type 3 morons" (as you call us in another post) would find links to actual documents much more useful, such as the UN charter and the security council's resolutions (including
1441.
What is really objectionable about this and others of your posts, more so than your harsh tone, shallow arguments, and your laughable attempts at appearing documented, is your claim that I am anti-American because I don't blindly support military action as the centerpiece mechanism for getting things done in the world. I can only assume you are still in middle- or high-school, not only from the tone and content of your posts, but because if you were much older, it would be clearer to you that war does not accomplish what it promises. If you can glean a single insight from 20th century history, that would be it. Also, I strongly urge you to do one or two years of volunteer work in some third world country, it doesn't really matter which one. Choose any organization you like, a religious organization, the peace corps, whatever. Pay less attention to the guidance that organization gives you while in-country, and more to what you see and learn from the locals. You will start to see first-hand some of the results of our nation's foreign policy.
In spite of your obvious beliefs to the contrary, I do not belive we are an evil people, or an evil nation. Those who have for several decades monopolized control of our nation's political affairs, however, are another matter altogether.
Now it's my turn to recommend some literature for you, and I will not merely point you to a library card catalog in a far away city. You can either purchase these or find them at your local library for free:
War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, by Chris Hedges
Since yours appears to be a popular view, I will respond.
Your using, "among other things," as if to impose a feeling of more to come even though you begin with something unfounded.
Well, there's a limit to how much I am willing to rant on slashdot. You won't see lengthy essays from me, and I apologize if my brevity becomes terseness or opacity. I challenge you on the "unfounded." though. You just threw that one in there for fun.
there exists no such law governing the use of our military as an enforcer of UN resolutions against Iraq
You've got it backwards. UN laws allow for war only in self defense when attacked. A unilateral pre-emptive attack of Iraq would indeed be illegal.
Our President is our Commander and Chief. He has complete control of our military.
Evidently, you didn't catch on that by unlawful I meant in the international arena. Sorry if I was ambiguous. In that context, your remark is true, but irrelevant.
So while it is now obvious your a poser who has no clue what is going on, I would like to add the following.
Surely you don't believe you have demonstrated this. If you can demonstrate I am mistaken, by God please be my guest. A few shallow remarks and misunderstandings hardly qualify.
the seditious freaks who are the anti-American Americans
You certainly have a right to align your views with those prevalent in the federal government. However, those of us who do not are neither lacking in scruples or acting immorally nor are we breaking the letter or spirit of our laws. We are hardly anti-American, as you claim.
Never mind they all say they are in the first one anyway.
I have made my views clear in other posts on this page. You'll find you are mistaken here as well.
The fact is, if we all got together as nations and set up, ratified, enforced, and evolved a system of international law, we might be able to
Reduce the frequency and severity of wars needed for enforcement
Be able to wield more authority if many nations were always on-board
Better deal with the many other authoritarian dictatorships developing WMD
...among other things.
You are mistaken if you think those of us who are against unilateral military invasions support the likes of S. Hussein. That claim is the single most important straw man argument coming out of the White House. Quite the opposite is true. I don't give a flying fuck who it is, unlawful military threats are not acceptable.
You fell for it, the If you're against unilateral invasion of Iraq you support Saddam Hussein straw man argument. Well, cheer up, most people have. G. Bush has gotten some stunning mileage with it.
The fact is, if we all got together as nations and set up, ratified, enforced, and evolved a system of international law, we might be able to
Reduce the frequency and severity of wars needed for enforcement
Be able to wield more authority if many nations were always on-board
Better deal with the many other authoritarian dictatorships developing WMD
...among other things.
In case I need to spell it out more, you are mistaken if you think those of us who are against unilateral military invasions have a soft spot for criminals such as S. Hussein. Quite the opposite is true. I don't give a flying fuck who it is, unlawful military threats are not acceptable.
Slashdot Mirror
C++ is a scrawny, bald, naked saint in a loincloth who lives in a crumbling adobe hut where the desert and the jungle meet. He speaks in terse riddles, that expand out into pages of text if you bother to solve them. He can do the work of ten engineers and a hundred strong laborers merely by tapping his staff on the ground and shouting cryptic epithets.
Peace, security, and prosperity for all? Who could ever want something so banal.
Bartender! Mod parent down -50!
I'm putting it between the soy milk and the mango lassi.
If it accidentally turns out to be a gigantic acoustic weapon, we're in for some of the best news spin and finger pointing in history..
Also, and correct me if I am wrong, the tensile strength of the material would move from that of the nanotubes themselves towards the strength of the bonding between the epoxy and the nanotubes. This might be significantly lower.
-
For the mega-rich, the income potential and (maybe more importantly) the "my name in human history" potential of this SHOULD be irresistible.
- Plus, I'm a firm believer in free-enterprise. Let companies do it for a profit and it will be safer, quicker, and more efficiently run than any government project.
- The good reason to reach for this which can't be emphasized enough in the current environment is that for a relatively modest investment, the impact on the economy would be enormous (and good). Compared to other proposals to jumpstart the economy, this one has incredible bang for the buck.
-
I am sure the terrorist strikes will stop themselves if the US gains a reputation for a R&D and science nation instead of a warring and military nation.
- I seem to recall that the base of these things would be on large platforms anchored in the middle of the ocean, so if they did collapse, they would just fall harmlessly over water.
- Space elevators around Mars create an efficient Earth-Mars transportation network. Elevators on the moons of Jupiter throw spacecraft down into Jupiter's turbulent upper atmosphere to scoop up 3HE and ship it back to Earth in decade-long space convoys where it will power the latest and greatest IEF fusion power-plants.
Meme 1: Cheap access to orbit will translate into a vast economic bounty.Meme 2: Big infrastructure projects are done better, faster, and more cheaply by private enterprise than by government commission.
Meme 3: Terrorism will stop if we only [insert good-intentioned but simplistic solution here]
Meme 4: If a space elevator falls, nothing bad will happen. It's way out in the middle of the ocean.
Meme 5: [insert currently fashionable incarnation here] nuclear fusion is the way to go.
Meme 6: Your "place in human history" is really really important.
Meme 7: Mining the solar system is not only economically feasible, it's commercially attractive.
I have a hard time with all of these, although I'm sure circumstances can be described where they have a kernel of truth in them.
As I have mentioned in the past, I am in favor of a major unmanned space program, but mainly as a vehicle to stimulate technological development with non-military aerospace and robotics projects. The Space Elevator might help, if it fulfills its promise of cheap access to LEO. Hard to believe, though. 10 years and 6 billion dollars seems very optimistic.
Since we waste most of our space exploration money on making it possible for people to eat, sleep, drink, defecate/urinate, bathe, and breath in space, we don't have good enough robotics. There is, of course, the european walking robot that is supposed to quickly move to deal with external damage to the ISS, among other things.
By spending so much on manned space flight, we are barking up the wrong tree and drastically retarding space exploration.
Windows is a stable, unified platform that can be leveraged without fear of one's products becoming obsolete or broken with the next release
This is only partially true.
dum dum dum de dum...
"Want to see my dead fly? It has a web server in it."
Everybody keeps saying stuff like that. Yeah, lets get dry ice from a comet with a 5 billion dollar program that takes 10 years. Gotta be cheaper than buying it from Union Carbide.
In the preceding paragraph, substitute any mineral resource you like for "dry ice," any celestial body for "comet," and any major mining and manufacturing company for "Union Carbide." You can probably leave the "5 billion dollars" and "program that takes 10 years" alone.
OK, OK. You can increase them.
How does this differ from NASA's past?
and there can be an application of all that military tech in the same capitalistic orgy that happened with the end of the cold war and all the technology that was developed finally saw the light of day
Remind me of what technologies you are referring to. A lot of the money spent on military technology during the Cold War was simply wasted. I wonder what civilian-useful technologies really came out of there. The microprocessor? Don't tell me the 4004 was some hush-hush military thing. Integrated circuits? They have been mass-produced for civilian use since the '60s. That probably benefited the military. Aircraft? Last time I flew in a plane, it lacked a ramjet and it didn't go much faster than 500 mph. No rocket-assisted take-off, no ECM, no VTOL, none of that. We didn't hunt for submarines on the way over, either.
Manned space flight is a waste of money. It will vastly slow down our exploration and exploitation of space. It adds virtually nothing to the result, except for those actually physically present up there. It adds a huge amount to the cost, and many, many small interesting projects invariably get axed so that a few weeks or months of human-safe environment can be paid for.
Billions of dollars for a handful of tickets to the most elitist amusement park in human history? Count me out. Send hordes of cheap robots far and wide across the solar system? Now that's interesting.
New York Times "extreme liberal?" Damn, Dude. No lo contendere. Anything I would be willing to say is almost certainly orthogonal to your opinions.
Are you kidding? I was at the edge of my fucking seat!
Coming soon to a chic supermarket near you: thousands of really expensive types of cheese, "made in China."
Hardly a problem. The "Defense Industry" will cry tears of pure joy. Can you imagine what it would cost to put a B2 base up there, as well as modify a squadron B2s to be able to actually do something in space?
Future project: design a brothel and whores for robotic mining equipment.
Not quite. In the Ch'ol dialect of the Mayan language, the word "linux" refers to a cooking utensil used for scraping the contents from the interior of hollow edible plants and the internal organs of animals. It was also applied to a smaller but very similar tool that was often inserted into the rectum of small children to extract impacted feces due to several endemic parasitic diseases.
BTW, most of you are undoubtedly also ignorant of the fact that the english word "gullible" is a colloquialism that is typically omitted from dictionaries.
BTW, any of you folks use Lindows? Any reason for me to abandon Mandrake in favor of Lindows?
Sorry, but the link to resolution 1441 is bad. However you can get there from here, or here (unless I goofed it up yet again...).
The rest of us "type 3 morons" (as you call us in another post) would find links to actual documents much more useful, such as the UN charter and the security council's resolutions (including 1441.
What is really objectionable about this and others of your posts, more so than your harsh tone, shallow arguments, and your laughable attempts at appearing documented, is your claim that I am anti-American because I don't blindly support military action as the centerpiece mechanism for getting things done in the world. I can only assume you are still in middle- or high-school, not only from the tone and content of your posts, but because if you were much older, it would be clearer to you that war does not accomplish what it promises. If you can glean a single insight from 20th century history, that would be it. Also, I strongly urge you to do one or two years of volunteer work in some third world country, it doesn't really matter which one. Choose any organization you like, a religious organization, the peace corps, whatever. Pay less attention to the guidance that organization gives you while in-country, and more to what you see and learn from the locals. You will start to see first-hand some of the results of our nation's foreign policy.
In spite of your obvious beliefs to the contrary, I do not belive we are an evil people, or an evil nation. Those who have for several decades monopolized control of our nation's political affairs, however, are another matter altogether.
Now it's my turn to recommend some literature for you, and I will not merely point you to a library card catalog in a far away city. You can either purchase these or find them at your local library for free:
Your using, "among other things," as if to impose a feeling of more to come even though you begin with something unfounded.
Well, there's a limit to how much I am willing to rant on slashdot. You won't see lengthy essays from me, and I apologize if my brevity becomes terseness or opacity. I challenge you on the "unfounded." though. You just threw that one in there for fun.
there exists no such law governing the use of our military as an enforcer of UN resolutions against Iraq
You've got it backwards. UN laws allow for war only in self defense when attacked. A unilateral pre-emptive attack of Iraq would indeed be illegal.
Our President is our Commander and Chief. He has complete control of our military.
Evidently, you didn't catch on that by unlawful I meant in the international arena. Sorry if I was ambiguous. In that context, your remark is true, but irrelevant.
So while it is now obvious your a poser who has no clue what is going on, I would like to add the following.
Surely you don't believe you have demonstrated this. If you can demonstrate I am mistaken, by God please be my guest. A few shallow remarks and misunderstandings hardly qualify.
the seditious freaks who are the anti-American Americans
You certainly have a right to align your views with those prevalent in the federal government. However, those of us who do not are neither lacking in scruples or acting immorally nor are we breaking the letter or spirit of our laws. We are hardly anti-American, as you claim.
Never mind they all say they are in the first one anyway.
I have made my views clear in other posts on this page. You'll find you are mistaken here as well.
You fell for it, the If you're against unilateral invasion of Iraq you support Saddam Hussein straw man argument. Well, cheer up, most people have. G. Bush has gotten some stunning mileage with it.
The fact is, if we all got together as nations and set up, ratified, enforced, and evolved a system of international law, we might be able to