I have little problem with P2P. As the editorial points out the likely hood of P2P killing the movie industry is pretty unlikely. This really is little different from recording a movie on TV.
As for swapping copyrighted material p2p with music ? Music is going to happen. People will make it regardless of what happens to recording studios. Musicians will go on making a living. Personally I think music in general would be better off without commercial recording studios. After all we no longer need them to distribute music, a few hundred dollars in equipment and an internet connection can reach more people cheaper and faster than a large studio can dream of.
I predict before long you will see a music sight along the lines of/. with aspiring and major musicians contributing their latest efforts. After all concerts aren't going anywhere and its kinda tough to fit one on your hard drive.
As for literary material.... I'm sorry but you can go to your local library and get almost anything in print off the shelf or through a library loan system and I have yet to hear that such a system is going to bankrupt anyone. The internet is just the next logical step in terms of public access to knowledge and it really dosn't matter if that knowldedge is stored in a central location or on your hard drive.
To me p2p is really the harbinger of the death of publication costs. No longer do you need $$$$ to write and publish a book, story, article or anything else. There are no printers fees. I write my comments here and they are out to the public at large with the click of a button. Granted this insures a great deal more crap and less quality control but it also means a more free flow environment for ideas whcih in the end is always a good thing. Chaotic as all get out, but good.
Remeber this is the same state that brought us the 'Big Dig' which is not only a black hole money wise.. it is also literally a big hole in the ground.
Though I have to say if I were given a choice between wasting money on construction guys playing with grown up tonka toys for a transportation project that was overmatched for the traffic levels before they moved the first pound of dirt or on legal fees used in an attempt to lay the smaketh down on MS... I have to take the chance to smack down MS.
After all, traffic jams are a fact of life... MS dosn't have to be.
A round tin body with a faceted blue dome head that rotates so that I can call it the R2-ER1.
Anyone know if there is a wireless USB connection kit you could use to house the brains of this bad boy on your desktop ? ie the USB connectors from the controller connected to a wireless transmitter that sends the signals to a reciever which connects to your desktop usb ports ?
Howlong till the first sim_survivor show that becomes a top story for discussion on slashdot ?
On the other hand I am a pretty big fan of online gaming ideas. I look forward to the day when someone takes the reality and community building aspects that are so much a part of this game and tie it into an adventure game.
I'll see your Sim_Middle_Earth and raise you a Sim_Starwars_Galaxy complete with a a Jar Jar Binks to kill whenever you like.
While I agree Nukes are the most likely avenue we know about now I would not go so far as to say they are the 'only' solution. Also Nuclear testing has been going on for quite some time. The change now has been to go back to NERVA style devices that were tested in the 60's as opposed to the more blue sky fusion proposals. I am not much of a conspiracy theorist but perosnally I have long belived at least theoretical work on improoving NERVA style systems has been going on and quite possibly some limited testing.
Couldn't agree more with the public relations nightmare nuclear rockets present but I imagine a nuclear ION drive is not that far in the future due to the success of the DS1 probe. Not sure if we will ever see a Nuclear 'rocket' stage unless they find some other way to harness the power of a nuclear core than to expose the gas to the core and thus impart a radioactive exhaust.
While I agree with the spirit of this farce I have to question the assumption that cheaper ways have been squashed. Granted NAFA... erra NASA budgeting is inflated well over what minimal launch costs. However even an expendable system along the lines of the old Sat V would still be pretty expensive, even if we had kept the assembly sequence rolling.But it would be doubly so now that the tooling for that beast is no more and would have to be recreated.
space needs a kick in the pants from one of the two following and I don't care if it comes via the private entrepanuer or NAFA.
1) We find some incredible new technology or resource that can only be found/created in microgravity and the capital investment returns far exceed the cost... ie a good space buisness venture. Space tourisim is a non starter at its current costs.. even at a 10th the current costs. Do the math.Shuttle launch 400 million/10 makes 40 million. call it two pilots and 8 passengers. 8 passengers to defray 40 million ? a novelty enterprise at best. even if you convert the payload to acomodate max passengers up to say 40 you still have a million per ticket just to meet expenses. Again its a novelty enterprise with no long term future. Get it down to 10k a ticket and a system that can be operated for less than the total ticket cost for a full load and can handle enough flights to pay for itself and make a profit and you start cookin with gas. However Chemical bi-propellant systems just are not that capable.
2) We build a better mouse trap and find a better way than chemicle bi-propellant launch vehicles. Perhaps a more efficient chemcial system or perhaps a new means of generating thrust.
I am just hoping the X-prize contestants are succesfull, but I think the break through there will be when they manage orbital flights, or perhaps sub orbital ballistic hops to distant locations. I think the market for 0 G joyriding is somewhat limited long term, but the ability to get from say california to australia, or similar hops, in less than an hour has a serious commercial market. After all if we could launch multiple nukes to distant lands in 30 minutes... why not people ? Its a small step indeed from something that can do that to something that can make LEO, not much more for TLI to LLO, and not much more for a TMI to a LMO. After all 99% of the problem is getting out of the atmosphere. Once your up there, going elsewhere or comming back takes only a fraction of the Delta V.
I have to disagree. First, Granted the space station is over budget but it is at best an unwise investment, not a black hole. I would call the F-22 development program a balck hole. It has taken that program more than 10 years and has yet to deploy an operational squadron and has cost more money than the total cost of station to date. Then take the fact we are still looking at buying 200 of the things at 200 million a piece and the station problems look pretty small money wise and thats just one of the airforces white elephants, shall we discuss that overpriced flying wing of theirs ? ( by the way don't get me wrong, we need to keep an edge in planes but deffense department procurment procedures are getting insane )
Second the 85% science time is a decent number for the early increments but with Peggy up there right now and a number of automated experiments running in the racks that is simply no longer the case. Granted its still probalbly less than 50% devoted to science but figure out the number of man hours available from a 3 man crew at 25% time for 8 hour days 365 days a year versus around 65% time of a 7 man crew for 14 days time the number of shuttle flights. Plus there is no comparison once you consider long duration experiements are not possible with shuttle, namely the life sciences regarding long term human exposure to a microgravity environment. Somethign we need to know an awful lot about if we ever want to head for Mars.... at least till we develop impluse engines:-)
Lastly as to the value of the research ? Well how much money has gone into AIDS reasearch since 1980 ? How many true break throughs have there been ? How much money has been spent on reasearch globably in the last 10 years and how many breakthroughs have their been ? Funding research for profit is a gamble at best and if it where the only measuring stick for granting money no one would ever get money to do it. If we gain nothing but the knowledge of how to survive in the environment of space from station and shuttle then it will be well worth it, the possibility of making other discoveries is just icing on the cake.
Slashdot Mirror
I have little problem with P2P. As the editorial points out the likely hood of P2P killing the movie industry is pretty unlikely. This really is little different from recording a movie on TV.
/. with aspiring and major musicians contributing their latest efforts. After all concerts aren't going anywhere and its kinda tough to fit one on your hard drive.
As for swapping copyrighted material p2p with music ? Music is going to happen. People will make it regardless of what happens to recording studios. Musicians will go on making a living. Personally I think music in general would be better off without commercial recording studios. After all we no longer need them to distribute music, a few hundred dollars in equipment and an internet connection can reach more people cheaper and faster than a large studio can dream of.
I predict before long you will see a music sight along the lines of
As for literary material.... I'm sorry but you can go to your local library and get almost anything in print off the shelf or through a library loan system and I have yet to hear that such a system is going to bankrupt anyone. The internet is just the next logical step in terms of public access to knowledge and it really dosn't matter if that knowldedge is stored in a central location or on your hard drive.
To me p2p is really the harbinger of the death of publication costs. No longer do you need $$$$ to write and publish a book, story, article or anything else. There are no printers fees. I write my comments here and they are out to the public at large with the click of a button. Granted this insures a great deal more crap and less quality control but it also means a more free flow environment for ideas whcih in the end is always a good thing. Chaotic as all get out, but good.
Remeber this is the same state that brought us the 'Big Dig' which is not only a black hole money wise.. it is also literally a big hole in the ground.
Though I have to say if I were given a choice between wasting money on construction guys playing with grown up tonka toys for a transportation project that was overmatched for the traffic levels before they moved the first pound of dirt or on legal fees used in an attempt to lay the smaketh down on MS... I have to take the chance to smack down MS.
After all, traffic jams are a fact of life... MS dosn't have to be.
A round tin body with a faceted blue dome head that rotates so that I can call it the R2-ER1.
Anyone know if there is a wireless USB connection kit you could use to house the brains of this bad boy on your desktop ? ie the USB connectors from the controller connected to a wireless transmitter that sends the signals to a reciever which connects to your desktop usb ports ?
and I thought the real thing was bad.
Howlong till the first sim_survivor show that becomes a top story for discussion on slashdot ?
On the other hand I am a pretty big fan of online gaming ideas. I look forward to the day when someone takes the reality and community building aspects that are so much a part of this game and tie it into an adventure game.
I'll see your Sim_Middle_Earth and raise you a Sim_Starwars_Galaxy complete with a a Jar Jar Binks to kill whenever you like.
While I agree Nukes are the most likely avenue we know about now I would not go so far as to say they are the 'only' solution. Also Nuclear testing has been going on for quite some time. The change now has been to go back to NERVA style devices that were tested in the 60's as opposed to the more blue sky fusion proposals. I am not much of a conspiracy theorist but perosnally I have long belived at least theoretical work on improoving NERVA style systems has been going on and quite possibly some limited testing. Couldn't agree more with the public relations nightmare nuclear rockets present but I imagine a nuclear ION drive is not that far in the future due to the success of the DS1 probe. Not sure if we will ever see a Nuclear 'rocket' stage unless they find some other way to harness the power of a nuclear core than to expose the gas to the core and thus impart a radioactive exhaust.
While I agree with the spirit of this farce I have to question the assumption that cheaper ways have been squashed. Granted NAFA... erra NASA budgeting is inflated well over what minimal launch costs. However even an expendable system along the lines of the old Sat V would still be pretty expensive, even if we had kept the assembly sequence rolling.But it would be doubly so now that the tooling for that beast is no more and would have to be recreated.
space needs a kick in the pants from one of the two following and I don't care if it comes via the private entrepanuer or NAFA.
1) We find some incredible new technology or resource that can only be found/created in microgravity and the capital investment returns far exceed the cost... ie a good space buisness venture. Space tourisim is a non starter at its current costs.. even at a 10th the current costs. Do the math.Shuttle launch 400 million/10 makes 40 million. call it two pilots and 8 passengers. 8 passengers to defray 40 million ? a novelty enterprise at best. even if you convert the payload to acomodate max passengers up to say 40 you still have a million per ticket just to meet expenses. Again its a novelty enterprise with no long term future. Get it down to 10k a ticket and a system that can be operated for less than the total ticket cost for a full load and can handle enough flights to pay for itself and make a profit and you start cookin with gas. However Chemical bi-propellant systems just are not that capable.
2) We build a better mouse trap and find a better way than chemicle bi-propellant launch vehicles. Perhaps a more efficient chemcial system or perhaps a new means of generating thrust.
I am just hoping the X-prize contestants are succesfull, but I think the break through there will be when they manage orbital flights, or perhaps sub orbital ballistic hops to distant locations. I think the market for 0 G joyriding is somewhat limited long term, but the ability to get from say california to australia, or similar hops, in less than an hour has a serious commercial market. After all if we could launch multiple nukes to distant lands in 30 minutes... why not people ? Its a small step indeed from something that can do that to something that can make LEO, not much more for TLI to LLO, and not much more for a TMI to a LMO. After all 99% of the problem is getting out of the atmosphere. Once your up there, going elsewhere or comming back takes only a fraction of the Delta V.
sorry about that
I formatted paragraphs but it lost them when
posting. think I figured it out now
I have to disagree. First, Granted the space station is over budget but it is at best an unwise investment, not a black hole. I would call the F-22 development program a balck hole. It has taken that program more than 10 years and has yet to deploy an operational squadron and has cost more money than the total cost of station to date. Then take the fact we are still looking at buying 200 of the things at 200 million a piece and the station problems look pretty small money wise and thats just one of the airforces white elephants, shall we discuss that overpriced flying wing of theirs ? ( by the way don't get me wrong, we need to keep an edge in planes but deffense department procurment procedures are getting insane ) Second the 85% science time is a decent number for the early increments but with Peggy up there right now and a number of automated experiments running in the racks that is simply no longer the case. Granted its still probalbly less than 50% devoted to science but figure out the number of man hours available from a 3 man crew at 25% time for 8 hour days 365 days a year versus around 65% time of a 7 man crew for 14 days time the number of shuttle flights. Plus there is no comparison once you consider long duration experiements are not possible with shuttle, namely the life sciences regarding long term human exposure to a microgravity environment. Somethign we need to know an awful lot about if we ever want to head for Mars.... at least till we develop impluse engines :-)
Lastly as to the value of the research ? Well how much money has gone into AIDS reasearch since 1980 ? How many true break throughs have there been ? How much money has been spent on reasearch globably in the last 10 years and how many breakthroughs have their been ? Funding research for profit is a gamble at best and if it where the only measuring stick for granting money no one would ever get money to do it. If we gain nothing but the knowledge of how to survive in the environment of space from station and shuttle then it will be well worth it, the possibility of making other discoveries is just icing on the cake.