You've got that right. What the hell did GWB have to do with the culture of corporate fraud that prevailed in the late 1990s? What did Bush have to do with years of mis-statements by dozens, if not hundreds of major corporations? Nothing, that's what. The recession was a direct result of the irrational exuberance of the Clinton era. If anyone wants to assign government-executive blame, Clinton must share it.
Granted, the shitty economy Bush inherited, he did little useful with. Cutting taxes on small businesses is always a good idea -- they are constantly squeezed, being too small for significant tax evasion, but too large to hide from the government even so... so they bear a clear economic burden. But Bush's clear tax vision is the same as Clinton's in the macro perspective, and in fact is wholly in line with the all the bad ideas of the geo-political elite. GWB's tax breaks to the wealthy only visited small businesses by margin, not intent. GWB's real constituency is the upper-classed financial and oil sectors. Clinton was equally beholden to the financial sectors and was working for the death of the middle class; GWB only agrees with that broad offensive.
But it's not like we have much choice this November. Kerry wants to continue this assault on the middle class. It's a crime how we are locked into elections with 2 likely choices that want to destroy us. Voting for Nader in 2000 taught the faux Democrats absolutely nothing; they refuse to return to a labor-centric philosophy.
The current bankruptcy rate is around 0.5% per year.
Yeah, at current rates, 2004 will be another record year around here (Toledo OH) for bankruptcies. I've been champing at the bit to see some serious fallout from all this debt failure. In a city of 350K, you have to see SOMETHING happen when 10K people bankrupt each year for at least 4 years. I've read treatises on economics that assert that an economic downturn can't fully recover unless essentially all the bad debt is liquidated -- forgotten, written off, or otherwise dropped out of current finances. I can only imagine that people adapt to this on the short term by attempting to beat increased income from other sources... hence, prices must rise essentially across the business board.
Bitter? You should be. Let me show you bitterness.
I was employed in a bank's IT department. I got a 3.7% raise in May 2004 after I received my yearly eval. This came out to about $1040/yr gross.
Less than 2 months later, I got outsourced to some scumbag "IT Services" company as the motherfuckers had all been planning since Dec 2003. As a result, I lost a health-insurance stipend ($1120/yr). Furthermore, we lost the company vehicle and reverted to our own vehicles; my car costs me 30.5c/mi to run (I keep detailed records), but the mileage we're paid to cover all car costs is 22.0c/mi... a net loss of about $40/mo or $480/yr.
So, gee, I got a 3.7% "rise", and 2 months later they contrived to have my income "fall" $1600/yr... about 5.5%. Net loss: you figure it out.
I've been saving money like a fanatic, knowing this day must come. And it's still getting worse. I've at least $5000 loaned out to 3 friends for necessary payments (auto repair; mortgage and rent; electric bills; etc.)... and they're still in deep economic shit since there are NO FUCKING JOBS other than $8-$10/hr shitwork.
I don't buy anything anymore. I'm never buying anything again. Capitalist America hung me out to dry and they'll never see me cooperate again. I live for the day when the Capitalists go out for long walks off their short window ledges when their nigger investments go south from the lack of credited consumers. The entire economy has been transformed into strip malls, junk bonds and websites. People have been transformed into appallingly credited hyperconsumers who are incapable of saving and meeting all future obligations. A grown person cannot expect to spend money like a 14-yr-old girl for decades and expect any good to come from it. Your houses are worth at most 60% of what you foolishly call a "going market rate", and I'm going to have my blackest laugh at you when you shed big tears over how much your property taxes are costing you when you still can't find work.
Fuck you, America! You can't eat money, and paper also makes for poor radioactivity shielding too. Die the nasty death that every Empire must encounter.
A road full of manually-operated, potentially erratic drivers and automated machines is a recipe for badness.
YES!! Yes, that's exactly the sentence I was trying to come up with to explain why mixing automated and individual traffic streams is a Bad Idea {tm}. Automated streams should run on their own, segregated highway lanes. And by segregated, I mean actual, continuous concrete dividers.
Given the failure modes of automated systems, the environment should be controlled. Hence, they should run on their own highways and lanes. It'll be a bitch just to get the automated systems to interact with other automated systems (i.e. other "autocars") safely. Mixing those problems in with Human drivers can only constitute actual, legal homocidal intent (like the ways cars were designed up to the 1960s). The safety factor is such situations is actually negative.
It takes a bit getting used to letting the car do the braking, but once you get used to it, you wonder what you ever did without it before.
I know what I did before, since I do it now: I pay attention to the road and drive the freakin' car. Letting the car accel and decel by itself is a really bad idea. Hopefully this kind of thing remains a niche product for the individual auto. Transportation systems with passengers only (from the viewpoint of your travelling group) should remain in the domain of public transportation systems and kept away from the individual traffic stream; hence, "autocars" should be relegated to their own highways.
Re:I thought your life force was extinguished!
on
Vehicles of Tomorrow?
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· Score: 1
If I saw Sandra Bullock, my car would look the same, but it wouldn't be foam. {eww}
If the insurance companies push for more autocontrol of cars, then end result must be less responsibility for the user, hence less need for insurance... you can see where that is going.
Energy efficiency should be less of a problem than you think. Balloons may be more of a problem for daily operation that should be risked.
A cable linking Earth to GEO must involve moving charges of some sort. Although the cable will be sweeping through space along with the Earth's surface, it will pick up some residual charge from changes in the planet's mag field... as well as something from the solar field (weak though it is). A 23Kmi cable made of anything remotely conductive (carbon certainly is) makes for a dangerous electrical problem, and that will form one of the major operational risks.
What I'm leading up to is that a car going down can store energy for cars going up. The cars can resistively ride the ribbon (probably by coils to avoid physical contact), hence up to 23Kmi of variable potential energy (basically, a 4000-mile hill under 1g) can be stored. Once the cars land, the storage device (likely a battery or gyro pack) can be used to power a climb method.
I can't deny the logic and foresight of what you've said, but as with all complicated electrical systems, the little bastard black box still will have to connect to a variety of cars, hence it will probably have a simple interface that can be hacked. For instance, if it plugs into a standard connector with a tamper tag, the connector still has wires coming into it, and those wires can be tapped elsewhere in the engine or dashboard compartment. After all, it's not your fault {wink wink} that the black box received no power for the last 6 months. Of course this will lead to an "arms race" of sorts where the user's fraud will have to get more sophisticated, to come up with falsified data to feed to the black box to keep it "happy" and not disable the car if it has been victimized with a simple power-off hack.
Man was not meant to have his life be so heavily scrutinized, hence controlled. This is an issue of pure liberty, so I have no problem whatsoever in committing such fraud. I call it fraud since it is fraud, but it is a requirement since all revolutions are illegal. Slaves cannot be given lasting freedom... it must be taken by force.
The problem with the balloon method is that they will tend to bunch up at the 130Kft (~25mi) mark. The decay of the lift force with height in the upper atmosphere determines this. A balloon in vacuum is just a balloon sitting there in a vacuum.
How do you propose to keep lifting the cable from the 25mi mark even up to LEO (100mi)? A solar sail probably wouldn't work (the resistance of the extremely tenuous atmosphere would overwhelm the pressure afforded by light), so you'd have to use rockets. And then you have a time constraint.
Look, balloons would be good for getting above a significant atmosphere percentage. You could use them to lift the first 25 miles of ribbon, hence above 99.6% of the air. After that, it's a matter for rockets. Here's what I propose:
Use hydrogen and oxygen in paired balloons. The balloons are on clamp/climb packs. As soon as each balloon clamp position passes the 0-lift point of 25 miles, the lack unclamps and begins to climb the ribbon quickly. When it reaches the rocket pack, a robot grabs the balloons and attaches the valve to the fuel intake. The rocket pack can get a steady supply of fuel all the way to geosynchronous orbit! This will require some light engineering calculations for all the mass, thrust and timing, so I don't know if it will work. But, by the time the cable gets 1000s of miles out, there is some time slack built into the system by cable inertia where delays become more tolerable. In other words, the cable has inertia and can "hang there" (with some slippage) for 10s to 100s of seconds while a fuel-delivery delay expires. Of course, these delays can't "build up" or they'd bring the ribbon back down to Earth again.
A ribbon type of space elevator will put your pessimism to the test. After all, just to enable the lifting of test masses, all you need is about US$100 million to perform a mission to geosynchronous orbit, to place a 23K mile spool. Unwind the spool towards Earth (not an easy thing to do, but probably will be performed by a thrust/climb pack at the Earth end of the ribbon) to LEO and then use the balance of mass (base station = extended ribbon) to have the Earth-end mass climb the cable to the base station. If that seems to work, then it's just a matter of extending the LEO end into the atmosphere, segment by segment perhaps.
You may be thinking $100 million is a lot of money. But at that point, it won't be. Companies like Intel can drop a billion on a chip plant. It's all a question of development stage.
Before the GEO-LEO link test can happen, of course, all manner of much cheaper length tests must happen. For instance, the consortium developing the ribbon can rent space on what lifter is for sale at the time (Ariane is a good one), launch a small spool (10km?) in a small base station. It could cost $5 million, and demonstrate the same climb test at LEO (where the forces are stronger per meter). Past that and pending successful results, a $20 million test could be mounted on a small booster rocket to get it into a higher orbit (LEO is about 100km, so perhaps an orbit at 500km), allowing a 100km spool to be tested. Perhaps another $50 million (remember, there's a bit of an economy of scale here... Arianespace may be willing to lower launch fees for each package if they knew they'd have the business of launching all of them) would produce a 1000km test.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Remember, a space elevator that is capable of lifting a couple of kilograms (there is a market for microsatellites) is probably much, much more competitive than any rocket launcher, hence the first test ribbon from GEO to the ground is still a viable economic tool. And the ribbon can launch constantly, letting people place a stream of microsats into orbit. Just now saying this, I realize immediately that the launching organization would be very canny to take this kind of project on, and could sign exclusion agreements that will gain the monopoly on this technology. That creates a critical investor immediately... effectively lowering launch costs for the developer.
''When he left Halliburton in 2000 to become George Bush's running mate, he opted not to receive his leaving payment in a lump sum but instead have it paid to him over five years, possibly for tax reasons.''
This is still a conflict of interest. A conflict of interest exists even if it's only the appearance of a conflict. After all, we can't leave it to the criminals to decide if their behavior is criminal or not, can we?
If Cheney was an honorable man and worthy of holding high office, he would have taken the lump sum to AVOID THE APPEARANCE of connection to a major military contractor. Since (by many of his actions) he really doesn't give a rat's ass what the Proles think, he retains his Halliburton connection.
The Guardian article has more interesting tidbits:
''The aide said the payment was even insured so that it would not be affected even if Halliburton went bankrupt, to ensure there was no conflict of interest.''
This only shows how the aide is a mouthpiece used to satisfy a thoroughly ignorant public. The appearance of a conflict of interest must be treated as one, or you'll constantly be barraged by an upper class cheating the entire system while dismissing concerns about fraud with statements like "it's only an appearance". You can't leave the criminals to decide their own regulation.
'' "Also, the vice president has nothing whatsoever to do with the Pentagon bidding process," the aide added. ''
As if an aide (highly dependent upon orders from his superior) is someone we can believe in any case. The Veep is clearly in a position to influence the contracts... just as with "Kenny Boy" from Enron meeting with the Veep (the details of which Cheney has still refused to be public about).
The corruption is all out in the open. The question is: are you willing to admit you're being screwed?
Even if that is true, it shouldn't be a problem for Gates, as Ballmer et al will simply "donate" to the Gates Foundation.
After all, Cheney's getting "deferred compensation" from Halliburton while he's Veep and has influence over the military contracts that Helliburton gets awarded... but none dare name this a "conflict of interest", do they? At least, no one ever uses the term "bribe". Except me, and I'm one right barmy bastard.
Shaped like the human body? Why? If the reactor becomes unstable, dump it in the ocean?
Sure. You can imagine what city tunnel looks like that does the dumping. What worries me is after the dump, when the city decides to "flush". {shudder}
Oh, goody, one of the anointed. Try this on for size, chum:
The architecture of 2250AD? This is after the high-energy West falls to the current World War it has provoked and is waging against the low-energy Islam, right?
Leaving aside the lack of political reality, this is all of course the usual "heavy urban" view, as if people really want to live in Human hives under strict authoritarian controls, living lives of essential slavery while somehow the system acts to make them as confortable as possible (that was sarcasm; it doesn't). People collect into cities to find prosperity FROM the ever-present low-energy economy of the countryside, not TO some fundmental better life found in said cities. But they are robbed of their potential and simply made into slaves. In certain instances, they may be well-paid, but overall they are still slaves.
Look, like economists, architects aren't hired by the poor and middle class. They are hired by the upper class, corporations, institutions and government. Hence, architectural visions will reflect the supply side of the housing and property equation, not the demand side. In effect, architects may as well be honest and start converging on a Matrix type of social infrastructure -- with people confined to pods where they can be tapped for their energy -- since that's the most efficient way to convert Humanity into the mass of slaves that the capitalists find most desirable.
He would, if he wanted to force other countries to adopt the Microsoft standard in OSes. Similarly, I'm sure GWB could have made more money as a oil man, but his Oil Baron culture benefits much more by his being in the US Military's driving seat.
Does that mean we will see 50 hour work weeks and less to show for it?
America transformed from single-income households to double-income, and nobody really complained about it. (Disclaimer: It IS a big problem.) Now, forcing those double incomes to work longer hours is probably going to become acceptable to continue affording the "good life" -- homes at least 50% overpriced, cars 100% overpriced, lots of snazzy plastic shit for the kids, everybody's got a $30/mo cellphone, private schooling, lots of credit cards... you get the idea.
America is drowning in affluence. And we are working about 60 hours per week in real terms (either 2 incomes, or 1 overworked single person on heavy overtime) to afford all of it.
So... enjoy! You wanted it, America, and you've got it.
In contrast, a reserved couple in 800-sq-ft home that's dirt cheap to run will finally know the American Dream, outside of this destructive rat race. I've been working on that myself; I live modestly and consume little. My careful usage of natural gas from last year alone has saved me $150. I've rejected all that culture of "get on a service and get raped per minute/cu-ft/kwh/etc.".
Well, that only demonstrates that stealing bicycles in Sweden is a funding source for Al Qaeda, hence America will be invading after the November election. Whee! Isn't Neo-Conservative logic fun?!?!
I believe Clinton's attack dog Albright was quoted in the 1990s that the death rate from Iraq sanctions was "collateral damage" and hence as acceptable as Rice finds it today. The problem isn't Rice; it's the system she supports and serves. It's an Imperial death machine. What else did you expect for your tax dollars?
As for "saving Iraqis" or "WMDs", it really doesn't matter. The American Empire is being lead by a pro-Zionist group of oil barons, and they strongly believe in the methods of Theocratic Fascism. America is the perfect place for these people, given the size of the American military combined with the degenerate stupidity of the people who form it. To get these "Imperial legions" moving, any lie will do. They drop tons of bombs, clutching their crucifix necklaces, all while singing patriotic songs about how wonderful a people they are.
My Internet PC at home is a DEC Multia PentiumI 100MHz running Win95 (yes, the "A" version). It was built in 1995. A year ago I upgraded the memory from 24MB to 32MB, and a couple of weeks ago the hard disk from 540MB to 1080MB. W00t! Double the disk space! I'm livin' large!
My point is that adjusted for need, old computers are entirely adequate. I don't download MP3s or play movies on that computer. I have no doubt I could get some of the old 486s kicking around my home to run Slackware, and will still provide me with Internet surfability. The Third World should be inundated with 486 terminals that the First World considers unusable.
Please reference my reply to Zak3056. There's more going on behind the scenes in the Economy of the Billions than you or I can know. I used "100s of millions" as a term... but literally, we just don't know how much money the Gates family (remember, Bill's father is involved) is washing through the foundation.
And did you read Mr Johnston's book in the 11 hours between my posting and your reply? If so, you're a pretty dedicated reader. I await your real critique of my statements based upon your knowledge of that book. After all, there's a Bill Gates example in it that demonstrates what Bill is doing behind the scenes with his little foundation.
Slashdot Mirror
you'll be wanting journalists to have proof for their stories before they're published
Yes, I'd "rather" have that too.
You've got that right. What the hell did GWB have to do with the culture of corporate fraud that prevailed in the late 1990s? What did Bush have to do with years of mis-statements by dozens, if not hundreds of major corporations? Nothing, that's what. The recession was a direct result of the irrational exuberance of the Clinton era. If anyone wants to assign government-executive blame, Clinton must share it.
... so they bear a clear economic burden. But Bush's clear tax vision is the same as Clinton's in the macro perspective, and in fact is wholly in line with the all the bad ideas of the geo-political elite. GWB's tax breaks to the wealthy only visited small businesses by margin, not intent. GWB's real constituency is the upper-classed financial and oil sectors. Clinton was equally beholden to the financial sectors and was working for the death of the middle class; GWB only agrees with that broad offensive.
Granted, the shitty economy Bush inherited, he did little useful with. Cutting taxes on small businesses is always a good idea -- they are constantly squeezed, being too small for significant tax evasion, but too large to hide from the government even so
But it's not like we have much choice this November. Kerry wants to continue this assault on the middle class. It's a crime how we are locked into elections with 2 likely choices that want to destroy us. Voting for Nader in 2000 taught the faux Democrats absolutely nothing; they refuse to return to a labor-centric philosophy.
The current bankruptcy rate is around 0.5% per year.
... hence, prices must rise essentially across the business board.
Yeah, at current rates, 2004 will be another record year around here (Toledo OH) for bankruptcies. I've been champing at the bit to see some serious fallout from all this debt failure. In a city of 350K, you have to see SOMETHING happen when 10K people bankrupt each year for at least 4 years. I've read treatises on economics that assert that an economic downturn can't fully recover unless essentially all the bad debt is liquidated -- forgotten, written off, or otherwise dropped out of current finances. I can only imagine that people adapt to this on the short term by attempting to beat increased income from other sources
Bitter? You should be. Let me show you bitterness.
... a net loss of about $40/mo or $480/yr.
... about 5.5%. Net loss: you figure it out.
... and they're still in deep economic shit since there are NO FUCKING JOBS other than $8-$10/hr shitwork.
I was employed in a bank's IT department. I got a 3.7% raise in May 2004 after I received my yearly eval. This came out to about $1040/yr gross.
Less than 2 months later, I got outsourced to some scumbag "IT Services" company as the motherfuckers had all been planning since Dec 2003. As a result, I lost a health-insurance stipend ($1120/yr). Furthermore, we lost the company vehicle and reverted to our own vehicles; my car costs me 30.5c/mi to run (I keep detailed records), but the mileage we're paid to cover all car costs is 22.0c/mi
So, gee, I got a 3.7% "rise", and 2 months later they contrived to have my income "fall" $1600/yr
I've been saving money like a fanatic, knowing this day must come. And it's still getting worse. I've at least $5000 loaned out to 3 friends for necessary payments (auto repair; mortgage and rent; electric bills; etc.)
I don't buy anything anymore. I'm never buying anything again. Capitalist America hung me out to dry and they'll never see me cooperate again. I live for the day when the Capitalists go out for long walks off their short window ledges when their nigger investments go south from the lack of credited consumers. The entire economy has been transformed into strip malls, junk bonds and websites. People have been transformed into appallingly credited hyperconsumers who are incapable of saving and meeting all future obligations. A grown person cannot expect to spend money like a 14-yr-old girl for decades and expect any good to come from it. Your houses are worth at most 60% of what you foolishly call a "going market rate", and I'm going to have my blackest laugh at you when you shed big tears over how much your property taxes are costing you when you still can't find work.
Fuck you, America! You can't eat money, and paper also makes for poor radioactivity shielding too. Die the nasty death that every Empire must encounter.
Outsouring Data Center Operations (systems that used to down for seconds a year are now down for days and in some cases weeks per year)
... because it's cheaper.
... because it's cheaper.
... because it's cheaper.
Outsource development to India (which has been a mess I won't use the foul language to describe)
Squeeze remaining people to make up for items 1 and 2!
There. Now you've been trained in modern business methods. I'll send you my bill. It'll be a whopper.
A road full of manually-operated, potentially erratic drivers and automated machines is a recipe for badness.
YES!! Yes, that's exactly the sentence I was trying to come up with to explain why mixing automated and individual traffic streams is a Bad Idea {tm}. Automated streams should run on their own, segregated highway lanes. And by segregated, I mean actual, continuous concrete dividers.
Given the failure modes of automated systems, the environment should be controlled. Hence, they should run on their own highways and lanes. It'll be a bitch just to get the automated systems to interact with other automated systems (i.e. other "autocars") safely. Mixing those problems in with Human drivers can only constitute actual, legal homocidal intent (like the ways cars were designed up to the 1960s). The safety factor is such situations is actually negative.
It takes a bit getting used to letting the car do the braking, but once you get used to it, you wonder what you ever did without it before.
I know what I did before, since I do it now: I pay attention to the road and drive the freakin' car. Letting the car accel and decel by itself is a really bad idea. Hopefully this kind of thing remains a niche product for the individual auto. Transportation systems with passengers only (from the viewpoint of your travelling group) should remain in the domain of public transportation systems and kept away from the individual traffic stream; hence, "autocars" should be relegated to their own highways.
If I saw Sandra Bullock, my car would look the same, but it wouldn't be foam. {eww}
If the insurance companies push for more autocontrol of cars, then end result must be less responsibility for the user, hence less need for insurance ... you can see where that is going.
Energy efficiency should be less of a problem than you think. Balloons may be more of a problem for daily operation that should be risked.
... as well as something from the solar field (weak though it is). A 23Kmi cable made of anything remotely conductive (carbon certainly is) makes for a dangerous electrical problem, and that will form one of the major operational risks.
A cable linking Earth to GEO must involve moving charges of some sort. Although the cable will be sweeping through space along with the Earth's surface, it will pick up some residual charge from changes in the planet's mag field
What I'm leading up to is that a car going down can store energy for cars going up. The cars can resistively ride the ribbon (probably by coils to avoid physical contact), hence up to 23Kmi of variable potential energy (basically, a 4000-mile hill under 1g) can be stored. Once the cars land, the storage device (likely a battery or gyro pack) can be used to power a climb method.
I can't deny the logic and foresight of what you've said, but as with all complicated electrical systems, the little bastard black box still will have to connect to a variety of cars, hence it will probably have a simple interface that can be hacked. For instance, if it plugs into a standard connector with a tamper tag, the connector still has wires coming into it, and those wires can be tapped elsewhere in the engine or dashboard compartment. After all, it's not your fault {wink wink} that the black box received no power for the last 6 months. Of course this will lead to an "arms race" of sorts where the user's fraud will have to get more sophisticated, to come up with falsified data to feed to the black box to keep it "happy" and not disable the car if it has been victimized with a simple power-off hack.
... it must be taken by force.
Man was not meant to have his life be so heavily scrutinized, hence controlled. This is an issue of pure liberty, so I have no problem whatsoever in committing such fraud. I call it fraud since it is fraud, but it is a requirement since all revolutions are illegal. Slaves cannot be given lasting freedom
The problem with the balloon method is that they will tend to bunch up at the 130Kft (~25mi) mark. The decay of the lift force with height in the upper atmosphere determines this. A balloon in vacuum is just a balloon sitting there in a vacuum.
How do you propose to keep lifting the cable from the 25mi mark even up to LEO (100mi)? A solar sail probably wouldn't work (the resistance of the extremely tenuous atmosphere would overwhelm the pressure afforded by light), so you'd have to use rockets. And then you have a time constraint.
Look, balloons would be good for getting above a significant atmosphere percentage. You could use them to lift the first 25 miles of ribbon, hence above 99.6% of the air. After that, it's a matter for rockets. Here's what I propose:
Use hydrogen and oxygen in paired balloons. The balloons are on clamp/climb packs. As soon as each balloon clamp position passes the 0-lift point of 25 miles, the lack unclamps and begins to climb the ribbon quickly. When it reaches the rocket pack, a robot grabs the balloons and attaches the valve to the fuel intake. The rocket pack can get a steady supply of fuel all the way to geosynchronous orbit! This will require some light engineering calculations for all the mass, thrust and timing, so I don't know if it will work. But, by the time the cable gets 1000s of miles out, there is some time slack built into the system by cable inertia where delays become more tolerable. In other words, the cable has inertia and can "hang there" (with some slippage) for 10s to 100s of seconds while a fuel-delivery delay expires. Of course, these delays can't "build up" or they'd bring the ribbon back down to Earth again.
A ribbon type of space elevator will put your pessimism to the test. After all, just to enable the lifting of test masses, all you need is about US$100 million to perform a mission to geosynchronous orbit, to place a 23K mile spool. Unwind the spool towards Earth (not an easy thing to do, but probably will be performed by a thrust/climb pack at the Earth end of the ribbon) to LEO and then use the balance of mass (base station = extended ribbon) to have the Earth-end mass climb the cable to the base station. If that seems to work, then it's just a matter of extending the LEO end into the atmosphere, segment by segment perhaps.
... Arianespace may be willing to lower launch fees for each package if they knew they'd have the business of launching all of them) would produce a 1000km test.
... effectively lowering launch costs for the developer.
You may be thinking $100 million is a lot of money. But at that point, it won't be. Companies like Intel can drop a billion on a chip plant. It's all a question of development stage.
Before the GEO-LEO link test can happen, of course, all manner of much cheaper length tests must happen. For instance, the consortium developing the ribbon can rent space on what lifter is for sale at the time (Ariane is a good one), launch a small spool (10km?) in a small base station. It could cost $5 million, and demonstrate the same climb test at LEO (where the forces are stronger per meter). Past that and pending successful results, a $20 million test could be mounted on a small booster rocket to get it into a higher orbit (LEO is about 100km, so perhaps an orbit at 500km), allowing a 100km spool to be tested. Perhaps another $50 million (remember, there's a bit of an economy of scale here
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Remember, a space elevator that is capable of lifting a couple of kilograms (there is a market for microsatellites) is probably much, much more competitive than any rocket launcher, hence the first test ribbon from GEO to the ground is still a viable economic tool. And the ribbon can launch constantly, letting people place a stream of microsats into orbit. Just now saying this, I realize immediately that the launching organization would be very canny to take this kind of project on, and could sign exclusion agreements that will gain the monopoly on this technology. That creates a critical investor immediately
What a substantive reply! Good job, Ace! You deserve your own talk-radio show with deep conversation possibilities like that.
In the shady world of executives, what's "OK" is whatever they say it is ... until it all falls apart a la Enron.
... just as with "Kenny Boy" from Enron meeting with the Veep (the details of which Cheney has still refused to be public about).
According to the Guardian:
''When he left Halliburton in 2000 to become George Bush's running mate, he opted not to receive his leaving payment in a lump sum but instead have it paid to him over five years, possibly for tax reasons.''
This is still a conflict of interest. A conflict of interest exists even if it's only the appearance of a conflict. After all, we can't leave it to the criminals to decide if their behavior is criminal or not, can we?
If Cheney was an honorable man and worthy of holding high office, he would have taken the lump sum to AVOID THE APPEARANCE of connection to a major military contractor. Since (by many of his actions) he really doesn't give a rat's ass what the Proles think, he retains his Halliburton connection.
The Guardian article has more interesting tidbits:
''The aide said the payment was even insured so that it would not be affected even if Halliburton went bankrupt, to ensure there was no conflict of interest.''
This only shows how the aide is a mouthpiece used to satisfy a thoroughly ignorant public. The appearance of a conflict of interest must be treated as one, or you'll constantly be barraged by an upper class cheating the entire system while dismissing concerns about fraud with statements like "it's only an appearance". You can't leave the criminals to decide their own regulation.
'' "Also, the vice president has nothing whatsoever to do with the Pentagon bidding process," the aide added. ''
As if an aide (highly dependent upon orders from his superior) is someone we can believe in any case. The Veep is clearly in a position to influence the contracts
The corruption is all out in the open. The question is: are you willing to admit you're being screwed?
... then you've already lost your job.
Even if that is true, it shouldn't be a problem for Gates, as Ballmer et al will simply "donate" to the Gates Foundation.
... but none dare name this a "conflict of interest", do they? At least, no one ever uses the term "bribe". Except me, and I'm one right barmy bastard.
After all, Cheney's getting "deferred compensation" from Halliburton while he's Veep and has influence over the military contracts that Helliburton gets awarded
Shaped like the human body? Why? If the reactor becomes unstable, dump it in the ocean?
Sure. You can imagine what city tunnel looks like that does the dumping. What worries me is after the dump, when the city decides to "flush". {shudder}
Oh, goody, one of the anointed. Try this on for size, chum:
The architecture of 2250AD? This is after the high-energy West falls to the current World War it has provoked and is waging against the low-energy Islam, right?
Leaving aside the lack of political reality, this is all of course the usual "heavy urban" view, as if people really want to live in Human hives under strict authoritarian controls, living lives of essential slavery while somehow the system acts to make them as confortable as possible (that was sarcasm; it doesn't). People collect into cities to find prosperity FROM the ever-present low-energy economy of the countryside, not TO some fundmental better life found in said cities. But they are robbed of their potential and simply made into slaves. In certain instances, they may be well-paid, but overall they are still slaves.
Look, like economists, architects aren't hired by the poor and middle class. They are hired by the upper class, corporations, institutions and government. Hence, architectural visions will reflect the supply side of the housing and property equation, not the demand side. In effect, architects may as well be honest and start converging on a Matrix type of social infrastructure -- with people confined to pods where they can be tapped for their energy -- since that's the most efficient way to convert Humanity into the mass of slaves that the capitalists find most desirable.
He would, if he wanted to force other countries to adopt the Microsoft standard in OSes. Similarly, I'm sure GWB could have made more money as a oil man, but his Oil Baron culture benefits much more by his being in the US Military's driving seat.
Does that mean we will see 50 hour work weeks and less to show for it?
... you get the idea.
... enjoy! You wanted it, America, and you've got it.
America transformed from single-income households to double-income, and nobody really complained about it. (Disclaimer: It IS a big problem.) Now, forcing those double incomes to work longer hours is probably going to become acceptable to continue affording the "good life" -- homes at least 50% overpriced, cars 100% overpriced, lots of snazzy plastic shit for the kids, everybody's got a $30/mo cellphone, private schooling, lots of credit cards
America is drowning in affluence. And we are working about 60 hours per week in real terms (either 2 incomes, or 1 overworked single person on heavy overtime) to afford all of it.
So
In contrast, a reserved couple in 800-sq-ft home that's dirt cheap to run will finally know the American Dream, outside of this destructive rat race. I've been working on that myself; I live modestly and consume little. My careful usage of natural gas from last year alone has saved me $150. I've rejected all that culture of "get on a service and get raped per minute/cu-ft/kwh/etc.".
Well, that only demonstrates that stealing bicycles in Sweden is a funding source for Al Qaeda, hence America will be invading after the November election. Whee! Isn't Neo-Conservative logic fun?!?!
I believe Clinton's attack dog Albright was quoted in the 1990s that the death rate from Iraq sanctions was "collateral damage" and hence as acceptable as Rice finds it today. The problem isn't Rice; it's the system she supports and serves. It's an Imperial death machine. What else did you expect for your tax dollars?
As for "saving Iraqis" or "WMDs", it really doesn't matter. The American Empire is being lead by a pro-Zionist group of oil barons, and they strongly believe in the methods of Theocratic Fascism. America is the perfect place for these people, given the size of the American military combined with the degenerate stupidity of the people who form it. To get these "Imperial legions" moving, any lie will do. They drop tons of bombs, clutching their crucifix necklaces, all while singing patriotic songs about how wonderful a people they are.
My Internet PC at home is a DEC Multia PentiumI 100MHz running Win95 (yes, the "A" version). It was built in 1995. A year ago I upgraded the memory from 24MB to 32MB, and a couple of weeks ago the hard disk from 540MB to 1080MB. W00t! Double the disk space! I'm livin' large!
My point is that adjusted for need, old computers are entirely adequate. I don't download MP3s or play movies on that computer. I have no doubt I could get some of the old 486s kicking around my home to run Slackware, and will still provide me with Internet surfability. The Third World should be inundated with 486 terminals that the First World considers unusable.
Please reference my reply to Zak3056. There's more going on behind the scenes in the Economy of the Billions than you or I can know. I used "100s of millions" as a term ... but literally, we just don't know how much money the Gates family (remember, Bill's father is involved) is washing through the foundation.
And did you read Mr Johnston's book in the 11 hours between my posting and your reply? If so, you're a pretty dedicated reader. I await your real critique of my statements based upon your knowledge of that book. After all, there's a Bill Gates example in it that demonstrates what Bill is doing behind the scenes with his little foundation.