To provide an SLA for voice grade of service, a service provider needs to control the traffic accross the network to a certain extent. This will occur through segmentation of parts of the network. (this is 'Networking 101' - take to any network admin worth his salt)
So, the VOIP part that interfaces with VOIP phones, and PSTN gateways will be segregated from the other parts of the network that deal with email, and internet access (for example). As a result they will be tappable. (again - that is not to say a private VPN network, or private encrypted VOIP sessions between two or more users on the Internet will be instantly decipherable either - I am just saying that service providers will be able to monitor unencrypted traffic as required by law)
You have to be very careful to control bandwidth utilization over a VOIP network, or you will degrade your voice quality. A degraded network is not acceptable for many applications (voice and video conferencing, voicemail, etc. etc.) where packets must arrive in order and in a timely fashion. Remember: the VOIP protocol is at the Transport layer and above - routing takes place several layers below that - so treating your VOIP network - particularly for high demand/capacity systems - as a traditional IP network will only lead to problems as your capacity increases beyond trivial use.
Additionally, the PSTN is not going to go away any time soon - we will be dealing with PSTN gateways for along time to come.
So, the answer to the question 'is VOIP just another bunch of IP packets' is both true and false at the same time: true in the sense that - yes, the underlying transport mechanism looks and tastes just like TCP/IP, and false in the sense that you will be able to accept degradation of service below voice and video standards on a network intended to hold such traffic.
The FCC ruling effects service providers - not private networks.
Since most, if not all, service provider VOIP networks have controlled access - then this is very doable from a voice tapping perspective.
The problem comes into play when you are talking about the wider internet and non-controlled access. End users could encrypt their data communications - even using IP tunneling in the form of VPN (virtual private network) in addition to multiple layers of encryption.
The authorities could sniff the packets - but wouldn't get much useful information. Further decryption would be required - which negates the 'instant access' that Federal Agents are seeking, and used to with the PSTN (public switched telephone network).
With the ubiquity of VPN - I think it would be problematic to bring a 'no encryption' rule into effect; businesses would squawk at the loss of flexibility and attendant profitability.
If the old lead developer goes insane, you can always fork it, right?
Yep. However, getting the politician's buy-in on certifying the fork will be problematic:
On the one hand, we have academia and open source developers pushing their idea. (Politicians aren't real comfortable around smart people or people with multiple piercings)
On the other hand, we have a group of respectible business men pushing their idea. (Politicians can relate to business men because they wear the same suits and ties, and many of them were business men themselves at one point or another)
50 states since the 1950s, and numerous territories (Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam, etc...) who probably want to remain that way (no federal taxes - of course, no voting representation, though they do elect representatives and senators who observe in Congress). I don't see us adding any new states any time soon.
America is in a bad position, and have been since the end of WWII. On the one hand we are perceived as the 'go to guy' for the world - at the same time, the countries we attempt to help look at us without trust - and bungled actions during the cold war, up to the present have not helped matters.
The world wants our money - but they do not like our oversight of how that money is spent.
Would the world descend into chaos if the U.S. stepped back into an isolationist role? Can we - given the globalization of business, etc?
What would you, as an Australian recommend we do? And is it the current administration, the U.S. government in general, or the American people you have your beef with?
That answers my misunderstanding of the new technology's functionality. This also explains the need to align the devices very accurately - much as the magnets and windings in an electric generator/motor are aligned.
Here is my wife's list of files that she regularly uses on her machine:.doc.xls.pdf (read only).html.org (organizer file for a proprietary todo/addressbook/calendar app) email (not particularly a file type)
She doesn't use an MP3 player, she doesn't read or generate presentations, and then only reason she was using IE was to support the brain dead activeX controls some of my daughter's favorite websites use.
So, I got her Open Office, FireFox, Thunderbird, kept Acrobat Reader and her proprietary organizer application.
She is starting to get the hang of Open Office...bought the Open Office for Dummies book herself.
I could easily move her over to Linux now (and that is the eventual plan) with little if any impact on what she does.
This is probably the profile of most niave users of Windows. So, weening them off of the Microsoft Windows is probably a no-brainer.
One of the things that I think I take for granted is the ease of moving back and forth between OSs. I know both paradigms, and so can be productive in either OS - although I prefer Linux. My wife did not know both - and I tried feeding it to her cold turkey - first loading Linux on her old machine...but that approach didn't take. She fought it tooth and nail because she was not used to the idea of a flexible interface - she only knew one way of doing things - the M$ way.
Insight gained; when I bought her new computer, I was not about to shell out for MS Office professional - so I showed her the additional costs associated with the software she wanted, then showed her the free alternatives - and she bit. I showed her some basic things (yes it can read all your old files; yes you can create new files and save them in the old format...etc) then let her use it with the option of loading the proprietary stuff if she really couldn't make do. She has not mentioned wanting to go back - however, she did mention to me one day that she didn't know, intuitively, how to do some arcane function under Open Office that she knew how to do under MS Office. I nochelantley(sic) said, "why don't you do what you did to learn MS Office - buy a book", which is exactly what she did.
This is the key point: to break them of their dependency you must do it slowly in stages. Once they see how similar the tools are, then they can be made to understand a different desktop manager - perhaps through booting Knoppix from CD or setting up a 'dual boot' system...then slowly convince them to make the final leap into Linux for good. Once that is done, and everyone is on the same sheet of music, then your job becomes much easier as a system admin (by default I manage every machine in my house - even when pointing out their own culpability in creating the problem in the first place falls on deaf ears.
I was just thinking that the wires are passing electrical current - and any induction/radio frequencies are secondary - unless outside radio waves induce a destructive amount of electrical current (not likely, unless you have a handy nuclear bomb lying around - or a very powerful jammer).
On the other hand, since these chips use inductance to generate radio waves for the purpose of communication, couldn't a lesser amount of electromagnetic radiation possibly induce spurious signals?
However, they had problems scaling past that in either size or complexity...
Did Korolev die as a result of the same disaster that claimed a good chunk of the engineers and administrators in a massive explosion on the launch pad of the early version of thier large rocket?
(As I recall, they were using some volatile mixture for the fuel that was extremely unstable and had an accident. The really sad thing about this was the rank and file engineers knew it was a bad design, and the political leaders were pushing for a solution 'NOW' to beat the Americans - so they went with the bad design of the chief engineer. To show support for the technology to his superiors - and to bolster the morale of the engineers and others working on the rocket, the General in charge decided to sit near the rocket while it was being fueled - and his team did the same, so as not to lose face. Sadly, they lost more than their faces when it exploded on the pad...)
If this is the case, then I think the American effort 'beat' them on several levels.
I am more of a middle of the road kind of person, and find both the ultra liberal and ultra conservative aspects of both parties insufferable. I used to think that an independent approach was warranted.
However, after many years of reflection and observation I came to the conclusion that Libertarians/Independents will never make an impact on the political landscape - and are in fact, causing many of the problems we see in our government today.
In order to make the most impact, those of us in the middle need to work through the Democrat and Republican parties to change the face of these parties. Without us in the middle to pull back the extreme left/right - these parties have a tendency to lean more precariously both ways - causing more dissention and seperation between them - and thus causing more apathy in the voting public.
I think of it in terms of the Balkans. Much like that troubled part of the world, our political landscape is factionalized to such an extent that real compromise is almost impossible. Both parties realize this, to a certain extent, and make their candidates 'look' moderate, as much as possible to garner the most votes - while persuing their ultra left/right wing agendas when the elections are over. With more real moderates active in both parties, the behind the scenes decisions will have a voice of reason.
I don't know about you, but I like the idea that my machines will keep chugging away barring a massive EMP.
I would hate to turn on my blender, and have my server go insane...
Re:I think I've read this before
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I remember picking mostly dystopian scifi novels in my teens. I also see what my teenage daughter reads - mostly dark fiction.
I think, by and large, teens are drawn to this fiction as a form of escape from the drab pleasantries of a normal life. Most of us weren't blessed with perfect teeth, being a star on the football team, and dating the head cheerleader. Basically, life is generally 'boring' for most people. We needed something that showed us another view of the world - and reached for something outside of the normal experience. This is the same reason we ride rollercoasters, go bungie jumping, or view horror movies etc...
On a deeper level, I must ask the question: does this reflect our own mediocrity as human beings? Do we have a responsibility to live a 'zestful' life, rather than a 'safe' one? I don't know, but I think I need to go buy another dystopian novel right about now...:(
I had my lunch stolen at work several times...either that or the bacteria that was growing on it decided 'enough is enough', and left after 2 months of waiting for me to eat it...
Actually you forgot the large middle class in between the few rich and few poor people.
They benefit from capitalism - but are also, by and large, at the mercy of it too. If someone running a company like Enron decides to screw around with the business and you lose your job - so sorry. If a company, like HP decides to oursource their jobs to India - too bad.
Pure socialism (and don't forget, the USA, while an ostensibly 'capitalist' nation, is really a mixture of private endustry and 'socialist' style subsidies for various groups - usually leaning more toward big business when the Republicans are in power, and more toward minority groups when the Democrats are in power) would elimenate the Rich and the Middle class. Everyone would be 'equal' with no options or motivation for rising above their mediocrity. Of course, some would be 'more equal' than others - all at the whim of the Government. Everything would be managed centrally, and there would be little chance for people to make their fortunes without government support.
Look at NAZI Germany for an example of a Socialist nation. I don't think we want to go there, again.
...ruin the stupid thing and get a little enjoyment out of that?
"Me Ogg. Me beat the crapouta mi computer because me too stoopid to boot from floppy, and recover data, then reformat and reload harddrive...ooo-oo-oo-oooh..." [!KLANG!]
It seems some folks have not progressed beyond the levels of self control achieved in grade school. There is a time to maintain control, and a time for violence - but that was not one of them.
Actually, if you listened to the JibJab song, you will see that it does not follow the complete words of 'This Land' - it adds newly created verses. In essence, they are doing the same thing as Weird Al - taking an existing song and creating a parody of it to poke fun (ridicule) some thing or someone (in this case the prospective candidates for President in the next election).
Lets start a petition to have Wierd Al testify as an expert witness in the case (he must bring along his accordian, of course).
Do we really want programs jumping onto our systems and 'fixing' them without permission?
Isn't this exactly what Microsoft (and others) are proposing with integrated DRM? They already offer automated download and installation of patches without user intervention; it is a logical next step to integrate this with DRM.
DRM seems like a big ugly hairball waiting to be compromised.
It would probably help if developers would throw exceptions with plain english messages that stated:
1. What line in the source code the problem resides on. 2. What data elements the program was trying to munch on and any file handles used/open during the fault. 3. Depending on the language used, operating system handles and registers related to the problem. 4. The name of the file/module and function/class involved.
Finally, the application should always eat the error and continue on if possible (non segmentation fault situation, obviously), and close gracefully otherwise.
Emulation risk error 10500 TopDownSide fault: core dumped is not an acceptable message.
However, I understand that obfuscating error messages generates revenue from the resultant maintenance contracts...we wouldn't want to impinge on anyone's (dubious) livelyhood, now would we?
You miss the main point - which I put in the first paragraph (or perhaps the second - I can't recall) - that we must develop a means of sustaining the human race through cataclysm. The archeological record is clear, there have been mass extinctions as a recurrent theme in the past, which indicates that there probably will be in the future, as well.
Secondly, I also mention the benefits this can provide humanity outside of space exploration.
Both of these reasons are more than adequate to justify human exploration, imho, regardless of the cost or danger to the explorers (they are going into the unknown for the same reasons pioneers did the same over the history of mankind - and with the same knowledge of the dangers involved)...collecting specimens and taking pictures aren't the only thing robots are good for. They are also good at seismic studies, spectral analysis, chemical sampling, and myriad other measurement missions...
Correct me if I am not wrong, but isn't the things you mention simply gathering data - using different senses? (ground waves, light, sniffing for chemicals) The point I was trying to make is that human beings bring another layer of experience above and beyond what is possible of current robotic technology, and make the mission much more resilient than a pure robot mission (a robot is very limited in the self-repair arena, whereas a human can improvise, adapt and overcome - see Apollo 13 mission as an example of this). The human provides the opportunity to comment on what is there in the environment on an immediate personal level, not possible with machines (your AI comment not withstanding - when that will occur, is anybody's guess).
I am not advocating that we abandon robotic exploration by any means, which makes me wonder why the vociferous attack on the idea of human exploration. There is room for the development of long term human transportation and survival technologies (and as a side benefit scientific exploration and benefits to people on Earth) in addition to robotic exploration.
The detractors sound to me more like professors selfishly trying to preserve their grant money, more than people who are interested in what is best for the human race as a whole. The idea that human exploration has no other use than 'beating the Russians' is oversimplistic at best - and disingenuous at worst.
It would be incredibly naive to believe that other countries and terrorist organizations would not exploit an easy opportunity to sabotage our military or critical infrastructure systems when we have been doing the same to them for more than 20 years!
Hmmm - he admits, right here, that proprietary US software can not be trustedbecause our companies are already knowingly delivering CIA/NSA trojans!
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To provide an SLA for voice grade of service, a service provider needs to control the traffic accross the network to a certain extent. This will occur through segmentation of parts of the network. (this is 'Networking 101' - take to any network admin worth his salt)
So, the VOIP part that interfaces with VOIP phones, and PSTN gateways will be segregated from the other parts of the network that deal with email, and internet access (for example). As a result they will be tappable. (again - that is not to say a private VPN network, or private encrypted VOIP sessions between two or more users on the Internet will be instantly decipherable either - I am just saying that service providers will be able to monitor unencrypted traffic as required by law)
You have to be very careful to control bandwidth utilization over a VOIP network, or you will degrade your voice quality. A degraded network is not acceptable for many applications (voice and video conferencing, voicemail, etc. etc.) where packets must arrive in order and in a timely fashion. Remember: the VOIP protocol is at the Transport layer and above - routing takes place several layers below that - so treating your VOIP network - particularly for high demand/capacity systems - as a traditional IP network will only lead to problems as your capacity increases beyond trivial use.
Additionally, the PSTN is not going to go away any time soon - we will be dealing with PSTN gateways for along time to come.
So, the answer to the question 'is VOIP just another bunch of IP packets' is both true and false at the same time: true in the sense that - yes, the underlying transport mechanism looks and tastes just like TCP/IP, and false in the sense that you will be able to accept degradation of service below voice and video standards on a network intended to hold such traffic.
The FCC ruling effects service providers - not private networks.
Since most, if not all, service provider VOIP networks have controlled access - then this is very doable from a voice tapping perspective.
The problem comes into play when you are talking about the wider internet and non-controlled access. End users could encrypt their data communications - even using IP tunneling in the form of VPN (virtual private network) in addition to multiple layers of encryption.
The authorities could sniff the packets - but wouldn't get much useful information. Further decryption would be required - which negates the 'instant access' that Federal Agents are seeking, and used to with the PSTN (public switched telephone network).
With the ubiquity of VPN - I think it would be problematic to bring a 'no encryption' rule into effect; businesses would squawk at the loss of flexibility and attendant profitability.
I thought the Green Party was liberal? WTF are they doing?
...and the vendors should know better...
Hahahahahahaha!!!! You gotta be kidding me.
If the old lead developer goes insane, you can always fork it, right?
Yep. However, getting the politician's buy-in on certifying the fork will be problematic:
On the one hand, we have academia and open source developers pushing their idea. (Politicians aren't real comfortable around smart people or people with multiple piercings)
On the other hand, we have a group of respectible business men pushing their idea. (Politicians can relate to business men because they wear the same suits and ties, and many of them were business men themselves at one point or another)
Who is going to win? Hmmmm....
50 states since the 1950s, and numerous territories (Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam, etc...) who probably want to remain that way (no federal taxes - of course, no voting representation, though they do elect representatives and senators who observe in Congress). I don't see us adding any new states any time soon.
America is in a bad position, and have been since the end of WWII. On the one hand we are perceived as the 'go to guy' for the world - at the same time, the countries we attempt to help look at us without trust - and bungled actions during the cold war, up to the present have not helped matters.
The world wants our money - but they do not like our oversight of how that money is spent.
Would the world descend into chaos if the U.S. stepped back into an isolationist role? Can we - given the globalization of business, etc?
What would you, as an Australian recommend we do? And is it the current administration, the U.S. government in general, or the American people you have your beef with?
That answers my misunderstanding of the new technology's functionality. This also explains the need to align the devices very accurately - much as the magnets and windings in an electric generator/motor are aligned.
Thanks,
Here is my wife's list of files that she regularly uses on her machine: .doc .xls .pdf (read only) .html .org (organizer file for a proprietary todo/addressbook/calendar app)
email (not particularly a file type)
She doesn't use an MP3 player, she doesn't read or generate presentations, and then only reason she was using IE was to support the brain dead activeX controls some of my daughter's favorite websites use.
So, I got her Open Office, FireFox, Thunderbird, kept Acrobat Reader and her proprietary organizer application.
She is starting to get the hang of Open Office...bought the Open Office for Dummies book herself.
I could easily move her over to Linux now (and that is the eventual plan) with little if any impact on what she does.
This is probably the profile of most niave users of Windows. So, weening them off of the Microsoft Windows is probably a no-brainer.
One of the things that I think I take for granted is the ease of moving back and forth between OSs. I know both paradigms, and so can be productive in either OS - although I prefer Linux. My wife did not know both - and I tried feeding it to her cold turkey - first loading Linux on her old machine...but that approach didn't take. She fought it tooth and nail because she was not used to the idea of a flexible interface - she only knew one way of doing things - the M$ way.
Insight gained; when I bought her new computer, I was not about to shell out for MS Office professional - so I showed her the additional costs associated with the software she wanted, then showed her the free alternatives - and she bit. I showed her some basic things (yes it can read all your old files; yes you can create new files and save them in the old format...etc) then let her use it with the option of loading the proprietary stuff if she really couldn't make do. She has not mentioned wanting to go back - however, she did mention to me one day that she didn't know, intuitively, how to do some arcane function under Open Office that she knew how to do under MS Office. I nochelantley(sic) said, "why don't you do what you did to learn MS Office - buy a book", which is exactly what she did.
This is the key point: to break them of their dependency you must do it slowly in stages. Once they see how similar the tools are, then they can be made to understand a different desktop manager - perhaps through booting Knoppix from CD or setting up a 'dual boot' system...then slowly convince them to make the final leap into Linux for good. Once that is done, and everyone is on the same sheet of music, then your job becomes much easier as a system admin (by default I manage every machine in my house - even when pointing out their own culpability in creating the problem in the first place falls on deaf ears.
I was just thinking that the wires are passing electrical current - and any induction/radio frequencies are secondary - unless outside radio waves induce a destructive amount of electrical current (not likely, unless you have a handy nuclear bomb lying around - or a very powerful jammer).
On the other hand, since these chips use inductance to generate radio waves for the purpose of communication, couldn't a lesser amount of electromagnetic radiation possibly induce spurious signals?
That is the tack I was taking with this...
However, they had problems scaling past that in either size or complexity...
Did Korolev die as a result of the same disaster that claimed a good chunk of the engineers and administrators in a massive explosion on the launch pad of the early version of thier large rocket?
(As I recall, they were using some volatile mixture for the fuel that was extremely unstable and had an accident. The really sad thing about this was the rank and file engineers knew it was a bad design, and the political leaders were pushing for a solution 'NOW' to beat the Americans - so they went with the bad design of the chief engineer. To show support for the technology to his superiors - and to bolster the morale of the engineers and others working on the rocket, the General in charge decided to sit near the rocket while it was being fueled - and his team did the same, so as not to lose face. Sadly, they lost more than their faces when it exploded on the pad...)
If this is the case, then I think the American effort 'beat' them on several levels.
I am more of a middle of the road kind of person, and find both the ultra liberal and ultra conservative aspects of both parties insufferable. I used to think that an independent approach was warranted.
However, after many years of reflection and observation I came to the conclusion that Libertarians/Independents will never make an impact on the political landscape - and are in fact, causing many of the problems we see in our government today.
In order to make the most impact, those of us in the middle need to work through the Democrat and Republican parties to change the face of these parties. Without us in the middle to pull back the extreme left/right - these parties have a tendency to lean more precariously both ways - causing more dissention and seperation between them - and thus causing more apathy in the voting public.
I think of it in terms of the Balkans. Much like that troubled part of the world, our political landscape is factionalized to such an extent that real compromise is almost impossible. Both parties realize this, to a certain extent, and make their candidates 'look' moderate, as much as possible to garner the most votes - while persuing their ultra left/right wing agendas when the elections are over. With more real moderates active in both parties, the behind the scenes decisions will have a voice of reason.
Wouldn't such a design be jammable?
I don't know about you, but I like the idea that my machines will keep chugging away barring a massive EMP.
I would hate to turn on my blender, and have my server go insane...
I remember picking mostly dystopian scifi novels in my teens. I also see what my teenage daughter reads - mostly dark fiction.
:(
I think, by and large, teens are drawn to this fiction as a form of escape from the drab pleasantries of a normal life. Most of us weren't blessed with perfect teeth, being a star on the football team, and dating the head cheerleader. Basically, life is generally 'boring' for most people. We needed something that showed us another view of the world - and reached for something outside of the normal experience. This is the same reason we ride rollercoasters, go bungie jumping, or view horror movies etc...
On a deeper level, I must ask the question: does this reflect our own mediocrity as human beings? Do we have a responsibility to live a 'zestful' life, rather than a 'safe' one? I don't know, but I think I need to go buy another dystopian novel right about now...
a girl much smarter than he...
Ummm - along those lines, when is this not the case?
Both require different forms of therapy before being reintroduced into society
Who said anything about reintroducing them into society? A lethal injection makes that point moot.
I had my lunch stolen at work several times...either that or the bacteria that was growing on it decided 'enough is enough', and left after 2 months of waiting for me to eat it...
Actually you forgot the large middle class in between the few rich and few poor people.
They benefit from capitalism - but are also, by and large, at the mercy of it too. If someone running a company like Enron decides to screw around with the business and you lose your job - so sorry. If a company, like HP decides to oursource their jobs to India - too bad.
Pure socialism (and don't forget, the USA, while an ostensibly 'capitalist' nation, is really a mixture of private endustry and 'socialist' style subsidies for various groups - usually leaning more toward big business when the Republicans are in power, and more toward minority groups when the Democrats are in power) would elimenate the Rich and the Middle class. Everyone would be 'equal' with no options or motivation for rising above their mediocrity. Of course, some would be 'more equal' than others - all at the whim of the Government. Everything would be managed centrally, and there would be little chance for people to make their fortunes without government support.
Look at NAZI Germany for an example of a Socialist nation. I don't think we want to go there, again.
When hacking is outlawed, only outlaws will be hacking.
...ruin the stupid thing and get a little enjoyment out of that?
"Me Ogg. Me beat the crapouta mi computer because me too stoopid to boot from floppy, and recover data, then reformat and reload harddrive...ooo-oo-oo-oooh..." [!KLANG!]
It seems some folks have not progressed beyond the levels of self control achieved in grade school. There is a time to maintain control, and a time for violence - but that was not one of them.
I was recently in Washington DC on vacation, and noticed segways running around the capital on several occaisions.
After three days of walking to all the museums and monuments, I would have given my first born for a Segway...
Actually, if you listened to the JibJab song, you will see that it does not follow the complete words of 'This Land' - it adds newly created verses. In essence, they are doing the same thing as Weird Al - taking an existing song and creating a parody of it to poke fun (ridicule) some thing or someone (in this case the prospective candidates for President in the next election).
Lets start a petition to have Wierd Al testify as an expert witness in the case (he must bring along his accordian, of course).
Do we really want programs jumping onto our systems and 'fixing' them without permission?
Isn't this exactly what Microsoft (and others) are proposing with integrated DRM? They already offer automated download and installation of patches without user intervention; it is a logical next step to integrate this with DRM.
DRM seems like a big ugly hairball waiting to be compromised.
It would probably help if developers would throw exceptions with plain english messages that stated:
1. What line in the source code the problem resides on.
2. What data elements the program was trying to munch on and any file handles used/open during the fault.
3. Depending on the language used, operating system handles and registers related to the problem.
4. The name of the file/module and function/class involved.
Finally, the application should always eat the error and continue on if possible (non segmentation fault situation, obviously), and close gracefully otherwise.
Emulation risk error 10500 TopDownSide fault: core dumped is not an acceptable message.
However, I understand that obfuscating error messages generates revenue from the resultant maintenance contracts...we wouldn't want to impinge on anyone's (dubious) livelyhood, now would we?
You miss the main point - which I put in the first paragraph (or perhaps the second - I can't recall) - that we must develop a means of sustaining the human race through cataclysm. The archeological record is clear, there have been mass extinctions as a recurrent theme in the past, which indicates that there probably will be in the future, as well.
..collecting specimens and taking pictures aren't the only thing robots are good for. They are also good at seismic studies, spectral analysis, chemical sampling, and myriad other measurement missions...
Secondly, I also mention the benefits this can provide humanity outside of space exploration.
Both of these reasons are more than adequate to justify human exploration, imho, regardless of the cost or danger to the explorers (they are going into the unknown for the same reasons pioneers did the same over the history of mankind - and with the same knowledge of the dangers involved).
Correct me if I am not wrong, but isn't the things you mention simply gathering data - using different senses? (ground waves, light, sniffing for chemicals) The point I was trying to make is that human beings bring another layer of experience above and beyond what is possible of current robotic technology, and make the mission much more resilient than a pure robot mission (a robot is very limited in the self-repair arena, whereas a human can improvise, adapt and overcome - see Apollo 13 mission as an example of this). The human provides the opportunity to comment on what is there in the environment on an immediate personal level, not possible with machines (your AI comment not withstanding - when that will occur, is anybody's guess).
I am not advocating that we abandon robotic exploration by any means, which makes me wonder why the vociferous attack on the idea of human exploration. There is room for the development of long term human transportation and survival technologies (and as a side benefit scientific exploration and benefits to people on Earth) in addition to robotic exploration.
The detractors sound to me more like professors selfishly trying to preserve their grant money, more than people who are interested in what is best for the human race as a whole. The idea that human exploration has no other use than 'beating the Russians' is oversimplistic at best - and disingenuous at worst.
It would be incredibly naive to believe that other countries and terrorist organizations would not exploit an easy opportunity to sabotage our military or critical infrastructure systems when we have been doing the same to them for more than 20 years!
Hmmm - he admits, right here, that proprietary US software can not be trusted because our companies are already knowingly delivering CIA/NSA trojans!
Pot meet Kettle....