I agree completely. We've done the moon thing, and have tons of cool rocks. Why do it again? What will that $100 billion do for us that hasn't been done before? It would be much better spent researching and developing something like a 36,000-km nanotube ribbon than going up and getting more rocks. Even if the ribbon proves unproduceable, we would be investing in basic research, and not simply lining the pockets of the US space industry, ie Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, etc. to do something that has been done before.
I'm throwing out a hypothetical situation here; perhaps I should have qualified my remarks since they are IN TEH FUTUAR and not something that anyone truly knows. As I am not an economic think-tank that can attempt to predict economic catastrophe, I used 20% to illustrate an economic situation twice as bad as anything experienced by the US in the past 50 years. I'm not talking about gas taxes and Kyoto-style incremental changes, I'm talking about the complete or near-complete abandonment of hydrocarbons from our lives. This doesn't mean $5 gas taxes, it means that gas is simply not available. THAT is the kind of change that would bring about massive unemployment (20% would probably seem like prosperity in comparison) and a longing for whatever consequences global warming would bring.
I am not ignoring the fact; but given two options, a choice to conserve or a choice to accept whatever happens (hurricanes, ice caps melting), people will favor the latter. People will never willingly reduce their own standards of living; a disaster is the only way any sort of "conservation" will happen. I am not denying that some of these things SHOULD be done, I'm just saying that while we can still pump liquid money from the ground, the world will continue to do so. There are those that favor the government-must-make-them approach, but when unemployment tops 20%, whatever government was in power will no longer be so.
So we would need a government Office of Assessing Vehicle Need.
OAVN: Sir, I see here that you have 2 children and a wife. A Chevrolet Aveo will do fine for you, here is your vehicle voucher.
Sir: But I take my kids and their friends to soc...
OAVN: The regulations are quite clear on the matter. You do not *need* to have anything larger than an Aveo. Thank you, come again. SECURITY!
If you hadn't noticed, they do already. First off, 8500lb SUV's are much, much more expensive than something like a Chevy Aveo or Toyota Prius, and secondly, just go fill the thing up...the 50-60 cents per gallon gas tax means that every ding of the gas pump (you do remember when they dinged, right?) is a premium going to the public purse.
No, it's not a prelude to "let's pretend it's not real at all"...it's a prelude to "let's accept that there's nothing we can do to change it."
That you drive a 46+ mpg car and generate all of your own power is laudable; however, I maintain that you cannot maintain the current 5%-per-year global economy on 46+ mpg cars and self-power generation. I accept that global warming may be happening, but I say that there ISN'T anything we can do about it in the current world economy. Anyone that tries will quickly get an economy that, compared to the petroleum-consuming nations, grows more slowly, has higher unemployment, and much lower stability. When all of our oil is exhausted, the other nations, which have enjoyed 5%-per-year economies, will invade and destroy the weaker nation. You can think globally/act locally all you want, but that will not change the fact that petroleum is the shortest distance between here and the future.
If it runs out, it will run out of its own accord and not because of some government mandate. I still think that thinks like oil shale and tar sands will keep us going for a long, long time. Certainly not long enough for practical fusion, but certainly not long enough that I have to worry about it. In any case, though, I will wholeheartedly agree that the energy future will bring nothing but chaos. The economies of the world are built on an intoxicating brew of cheap labor and cheap commodities, all ultimately brought about by cheap energy.
I'm talking about the general concensus among the Hollywood eco-types that we should "all" be driving 40-mpg vehicles. More than once, CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) has narrowly escaped being raised to 40 mpg. It just can't happen. Perhaps if we all ride econo-boxes to work, and nobody ever delivers things, or nobody ever wants to drive a family anywhere. Within a narrow range of possibilities, 40mpg is easy to achieve; however, you can't expect anything but small cars to get that. I agree fully that nobody driving themselves to work needs an 8500-pound SUV, but I also think that 8500-pound SUV's should be available to the public in case they DO need one.
Assuming that Global Warming is undisputed fact, what do you propose doing about it? The entire world is built on a foundation of burning things to power other things, you can't change that overnight. 40-mpg cars and wind turbines? It will never power the world of 20-30 years from now. The global GDP has been advancing at a 3-5 percent rate for quite some time. That means that in 20 years we will have probably more than doubled our energy consumption. It's nice to think that ocean waves and hydrogen fuel cells will change the world; but remove burning things, and releasing CO2, and you throw the world into economic chaos. Economic depressions and hyperinflation are the types of things that start global wars; not the sorts of things that help the environment. Although I suppose a world conflict brought on by an energy shortage will solve the energy usage problem anyway...
Tube-type first-gen NV was invented by the Germans in WW2. Americans fielded a rudimentary type for a sniper rifle, but it was cumbersome and not useful.
This is NOT a joke. I have dealt with some state police "computer forensics" people that were little more than a rookie cop with a "Computer Forensics for Dummies" book under their arm. It was THAT bad. They used undelete utilities and such to get a file off of a ZIP disk. Wowee. They are given virtually unlimited budgets and permission to buy practically any computer item, all in the name of security...but you can't change the fact that they are LEJA majors, not CS majors.
It's not rediculous...I would criticize Taco Bell if they offered free napkins to everybody who came to a New Orleans restaurant, or I would equally criticize Microsoft for donating 100,000 copies of Windows 3.11 to the rescue efforts. They are not helping things, it's just a marketing ploy. They are marketing the suffering of Louisiana and Mississippi.
Actually he said pirouetting in front of a shotgun, but I think the 50 caliber rifle would be a better analogy...but yes, that's where I got the analogy. That book was a pretty interesting (if sometimes fanciful) read on the whole SDI subject...
All this has been thought through in the 80's, when SDI was being developed. The amount of energy directed onto one spot is so intense it will burn through anything less than a polished mirror. Some people used to think that making ICBM's reflective, or twirl in flight, would solve things...but it's kind of like pirouetting in front of a 50 caliber rifle. These lasers are nothing to mess around with, they're thousands of watts projected onto a very small spot. The thermal shock alone is mind-numbing.
You're exactly right. If you know where to get it, you can get fully charged 30-pound cylinders of R-12, which are all stamped MADE IN CHINA. They're expensive, and the people who distribute it do it under the guise of "old inventory" even though we all know it's black-market stuff.
Well, if R-12 is any indication, don't look for "safer", "more envinonmentally friendly" alternative. Coming up on 10 years since the end of CFC production, there still isn't a refrigerant that will, pound for pound, match its effeciency. You can have your 134a's and other HFC's...
I think you mean methamphetamines, the cold-pill derivative, not methadone, the heroin-addiction-treatment drug. In any case, you are right. I'm smack dab in the middle of methland, and it is making a terrible contribution to the destruction of many children's lives...
"incentives to ecourage Dell to keep the FreeDOS price up"
I believe that's exactly what Microsoft was supposed to be prohibited from doing under the terms of its anti-trust settlement...Then again, you might also say "a huge stick to beat Dell with unless it keeps the FreeDOS price up"
I can remember back in the 80's, the AIM-54 Phoenix missile was derided for being $1 million a shot. The MIM-104 Patriot PAC-3's we're now deploying everywhere are about $2 million each. I think 2 or 3 missiles would be worth it, if we can spawn a generation of autonomous airplanes, cars, tanks, whatever. This is the Internet's ARPANET. These are the first steps, and it will demonstrate clearly what works and what doesn't. Then someday, rather than sending in a C-141 full of paratroops, we can send in a planeload of small tracked vehicles to do the "dirty work" of urban warfare.
I have filed for E-Rate for 4 years in a row. I have done it for 3 different school districts. I have seen that for every 1 time there is some good done, there are 100 times where you work for days on pointless paperwork and get nothing. There are 100 more times where districts fill rooms with equipment they will never use. I have nothing against the program but the fact that it is a bloated, governmental nightmare, a giant monetary circle-jerk for the telecom companies. Just try "buying" your telecom lines between buildings...it goes from Priority 1 to "Internal Connections", which if you're not in the middle of a housing development, means "Internal Connections Rejected due to Lack of Funds." Try to get money to pay your system administrators or maintenace people. Unless they work for a consulting company, you can't get anything. The system is set up to keep a continual flow of money to telecom companies and consulting firms. If it was really about the schools and libraries, they would be giving out block grants, not discounts on packaged services provided by big political contributors. I stand by my original sentiments. The system is irrepairably broken, and should be euthanized. Replace it with something MUCH simpler and not tied to funneling money to SBC. Example 2: I wanted to connect two schools via a network. I can get a $2000-per-month T1 line, which I could get a 68% discount on...or I could buy a simple wireless unit...Where there is no discount! So it's a choice between $680 per month forever, or a one-time cost of $5000. But E-Rate does not allow anything but leased lines under Priority 1! This is corporate welfare at its worst, maintaining an ineffcient system for the purposes of filling somebody's pocket. Ya, we need something like this, but NOT THIS.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree completely. We've done the moon thing, and have tons of cool rocks. Why do it again? What will that $100 billion do for us that hasn't been done before? It would be much better spent researching and developing something like a 36,000-km nanotube ribbon than going up and getting more rocks. Even if the ribbon proves unproduceable, we would be investing in basic research, and not simply lining the pockets of the US space industry, ie Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, etc. to do something that has been done before.
I'm throwing out a hypothetical situation here; perhaps I should have qualified my remarks since they are IN TEH FUTUAR and not something that anyone truly knows. As I am not an economic think-tank that can attempt to predict economic catastrophe, I used 20% to illustrate an economic situation twice as bad as anything experienced by the US in the past 50 years. I'm not talking about gas taxes and Kyoto-style incremental changes, I'm talking about the complete or near-complete abandonment of hydrocarbons from our lives. This doesn't mean $5 gas taxes, it means that gas is simply not available. THAT is the kind of change that would bring about massive unemployment (20% would probably seem like prosperity in comparison) and a longing for whatever consequences global warming would bring.
I am not ignoring the fact; but given two options, a choice to conserve or a choice to accept whatever happens (hurricanes, ice caps melting), people will favor the latter. People will never willingly reduce their own standards of living; a disaster is the only way any sort of "conservation" will happen. I am not denying that some of these things SHOULD be done, I'm just saying that while we can still pump liquid money from the ground, the world will continue to do so. There are those that favor the government-must-make-them approach, but when unemployment tops 20%, whatever government was in power will no longer be so.
So we would need a government Office of Assessing Vehicle Need. OAVN: Sir, I see here that you have 2 children and a wife. A Chevrolet Aveo will do fine for you, here is your vehicle voucher. Sir: But I take my kids and their friends to soc... OAVN: The regulations are quite clear on the matter. You do not *need* to have anything larger than an Aveo. Thank you, come again. SECURITY!
So what if you run a business, and need a large vehicle to make deliveries or haul your construction equipment to a site?
If you hadn't noticed, they do already. First off, 8500lb SUV's are much, much more expensive than something like a Chevy Aveo or Toyota Prius, and secondly, just go fill the thing up...the 50-60 cents per gallon gas tax means that every ding of the gas pump (you do remember when they dinged, right?) is a premium going to the public purse.
No, it's not a prelude to "let's pretend it's not real at all"...it's a prelude to "let's accept that there's nothing we can do to change it." That you drive a 46+ mpg car and generate all of your own power is laudable; however, I maintain that you cannot maintain the current 5%-per-year global economy on 46+ mpg cars and self-power generation. I accept that global warming may be happening, but I say that there ISN'T anything we can do about it in the current world economy. Anyone that tries will quickly get an economy that, compared to the petroleum-consuming nations, grows more slowly, has higher unemployment, and much lower stability. When all of our oil is exhausted, the other nations, which have enjoyed 5%-per-year economies, will invade and destroy the weaker nation. You can think globally/act locally all you want, but that will not change the fact that petroleum is the shortest distance between here and the future.
If it runs out, it will run out of its own accord and not because of some government mandate. I still think that thinks like oil shale and tar sands will keep us going for a long, long time. Certainly not long enough for practical fusion, but certainly not long enough that I have to worry about it. In any case, though, I will wholeheartedly agree that the energy future will bring nothing but chaos. The economies of the world are built on an intoxicating brew of cheap labor and cheap commodities, all ultimately brought about by cheap energy.
I'm talking about the general concensus among the Hollywood eco-types that we should "all" be driving 40-mpg vehicles. More than once, CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) has narrowly escaped being raised to 40 mpg. It just can't happen. Perhaps if we all ride econo-boxes to work, and nobody ever delivers things, or nobody ever wants to drive a family anywhere. Within a narrow range of possibilities, 40mpg is easy to achieve; however, you can't expect anything but small cars to get that. I agree fully that nobody driving themselves to work needs an 8500-pound SUV, but I also think that 8500-pound SUV's should be available to the public in case they DO need one.
Assuming that Global Warming is undisputed fact, what do you propose doing about it? The entire world is built on a foundation of burning things to power other things, you can't change that overnight. 40-mpg cars and wind turbines? It will never power the world of 20-30 years from now. The global GDP has been advancing at a 3-5 percent rate for quite some time. That means that in 20 years we will have probably more than doubled our energy consumption. It's nice to think that ocean waves and hydrogen fuel cells will change the world; but remove burning things, and releasing CO2, and you throw the world into economic chaos. Economic depressions and hyperinflation are the types of things that start global wars; not the sorts of things that help the environment. Although I suppose a world conflict brought on by an energy shortage will solve the energy usage problem anyway...
I think the private company Wal-Mart was doing its part by opening the doors to its stores for everyone to get necessary items for free.
Tube-type first-gen NV was invented by the Germans in WW2. Americans fielded a rudimentary type for a sniper rifle, but it was cumbersome and not useful.
They are the police...who's going to arrest THEM?
This is NOT a joke. I have dealt with some state police "computer forensics" people that were little more than a rookie cop with a "Computer Forensics for Dummies" book under their arm. It was THAT bad. They used undelete utilities and such to get a file off of a ZIP disk. Wowee. They are given virtually unlimited budgets and permission to buy practically any computer item, all in the name of security...but you can't change the fact that they are LEJA majors, not CS majors.
It's not rediculous...I would criticize Taco Bell if they offered free napkins to everybody who came to a New Orleans restaurant, or I would equally criticize Microsoft for donating 100,000 copies of Windows 3.11 to the rescue efforts. They are not helping things, it's just a marketing ploy. They are marketing the suffering of Louisiana and Mississippi.
Actually he said pirouetting in front of a shotgun, but I think the 50 caliber rifle would be a better analogy...but yes, that's where I got the analogy. That book was a pretty interesting (if sometimes fanciful) read on the whole SDI subject...
All this has been thought through in the 80's, when SDI was being developed. The amount of energy directed onto one spot is so intense it will burn through anything less than a polished mirror. Some people used to think that making ICBM's reflective, or twirl in flight, would solve things...but it's kind of like pirouetting in front of a 50 caliber rifle. These lasers are nothing to mess around with, they're thousands of watts projected onto a very small spot. The thermal shock alone is mind-numbing.
Do you work for Microsoft? I'll bet they have a job at their Linux Lab for you. They have some comparison metrics they want you to help with...
You're exactly right. If you know where to get it, you can get fully charged 30-pound cylinders of R-12, which are all stamped MADE IN CHINA. They're expensive, and the people who distribute it do it under the guise of "old inventory" even though we all know it's black-market stuff.
Well, if R-12 is any indication, don't look for "safer", "more envinonmentally friendly" alternative. Coming up on 10 years since the end of CFC production, there still isn't a refrigerant that will, pound for pound, match its effeciency. You can have your 134a's and other HFC's...
The slippery slope gets slicker every day...
I think you mean methamphetamines, the cold-pill derivative, not methadone, the heroin-addiction-treatment drug. In any case, you are right. I'm smack dab in the middle of methland, and it is making a terrible contribution to the destruction of many children's lives...
"incentives to ecourage Dell to keep the FreeDOS price up" I believe that's exactly what Microsoft was supposed to be prohibited from doing under the terms of its anti-trust settlement...Then again, you might also say "a huge stick to beat Dell with unless it keeps the FreeDOS price up"
I can remember back in the 80's, the AIM-54 Phoenix missile was derided for being $1 million a shot. The MIM-104 Patriot PAC-3's we're now deploying everywhere are about $2 million each. I think 2 or 3 missiles would be worth it, if we can spawn a generation of autonomous airplanes, cars, tanks, whatever. This is the Internet's ARPANET. These are the first steps, and it will demonstrate clearly what works and what doesn't. Then someday, rather than sending in a C-141 full of paratroops, we can send in a planeload of small tracked vehicles to do the "dirty work" of urban warfare.
I have filed for E-Rate for 4 years in a row. I have done it for 3 different school districts. I have seen that for every 1 time there is some good done, there are 100 times where you work for days on pointless paperwork and get nothing. There are 100 more times where districts fill rooms with equipment they will never use. I have nothing against the program but the fact that it is a bloated, governmental nightmare, a giant monetary circle-jerk for the telecom companies. Just try "buying" your telecom lines between buildings...it goes from Priority 1 to "Internal Connections", which if you're not in the middle of a housing development, means "Internal Connections Rejected due to Lack of Funds." Try to get money to pay your system administrators or maintenace people. Unless they work for a consulting company, you can't get anything. The system is set up to keep a continual flow of money to telecom companies and consulting firms. If it was really about the schools and libraries, they would be giving out block grants, not discounts on packaged services provided by big political contributors. I stand by my original sentiments. The system is irrepairably broken, and should be euthanized. Replace it with something MUCH simpler and not tied to funneling money to SBC. Example 2: I wanted to connect two schools via a network. I can get a $2000-per-month T1 line, which I could get a 68% discount on...or I could buy a simple wireless unit...Where there is no discount! So it's a choice between $680 per month forever, or a one-time cost of $5000. But E-Rate does not allow anything but leased lines under Priority 1! This is corporate welfare at its worst, maintaining an ineffcient system for the purposes of filling somebody's pocket. Ya, we need something like this, but NOT THIS.