Yeah, they could just pretend that every country in the world has a good enough economy to support a space program I s'pose I suspect it's not really intended to become a simulation of national economies, but instead a simulation of the engineering involved to achieve space flight. At least that's what I'm hoping.
Economic simulations can be fun too, but I don't think it's really NASA. I think they want to educate people in engineering and space flight, not economics and administration.
'Debris' eh? Oops, I accidentally decompressed my garbage out at 900mph into the side of your space station, sorry! The return of the BFG! (Big Fuckin Garbage launcher) 900mph is nothing. There's tons of decommissioned satelites, last stages of rockets, loose screws and bolts, and other man-made hazards floating around in orbit. And the speed differences between them when they meet can be a lot bigger than 900mph. I've heard that a simple fleck of paint can be a serious threat to the space sation.
Sure, but he has a problem with some people choosing to not charge for them?
Ofcourse! Altruism is evil. Greed is the basis of our entire civilisation. We can't have people going around helping each other! (Unless it's for PR, obviously.)
it wouldn't be MMO, but what you're describing doesn't leave much scope for massively multiplayer if it's all government funded, since not many countries in the world can afford that level of funding, which means only like up to 10 players per game!:P No, I think MMO could be great in this game. You can see other players' astronauts burn up on re-entry, see space debris or even operational satelites smash into other players' space stations, etc. It could be excellent!
Could actually work out well for both sides, and we may get a cool game from it.
I agree. Despite the doubts many slashdotters have about the fun of an educational NASA game, I can definitely see some great opportunities.
Firstly, don't make it an RPG. That market has been cornered, and it makes no sense whatsoever in a NASA context. Get away from the real-time first/third-person view. You want to be able to get to orbit or Mars before dinner.
I'd make it a design/build/resource management game. Maybe you've got a budget. There are a couple of easy standard missions, like get a rocket off the ground. Then a bit harder: get a rocket to orbit. Then get a human to orbit and back. Then get a human to the moon. Build a space station. Go to Mars. Etc.
Each time you succesfully finish a mission (and you can make up your own missions to build something completely unexpected if you like), your budget goes up depending on how well you did. Did you get there fast? Did you stay far under budget? Did you bring more astronauts for a longer period? The better you did, the more your budget goes up for your next mission. If you fail, you get the same budget you had before.
Ofcourse you want to avoid grind; people launching the same rocket over and over again to increase their budget, so only your best attempt counts. If you redo the same mission, make sure you have better results than last time. Do it cheaper, faster and better, and your budget goes up. Launch the same old design, and you've wasted your time.
Ofcourse it's important that the game uses a reasonably realistic physics, but it shouldn't be so hard that you have to be a rocket scientist in order to play. On the other hand, I expect a lot of astronauts to die in this game.
I think this sort of game could be really cool. Build stuff, launch it, and see if it works. I wish I had the resources to develop something like that.
"Learning" games suck. No one will "play it". What they fail to realize is that MMO's are all about spawn camping, ganging up on the weaker noobs and stealing their stuff or at least destroying it, for the epic lulz. Plenty of educational games are fun. Someone mentioned SimCity, for example. Games set in a historical setting tend to be at least somewhat educational, yet can be a lot of fun.
Personally, I think a good physics simulator where you can design your own rocket and try to reach orbit with it, can be lots of fun.
First design a rocket that gets off the ground at all, then one that reaches orbit, then one that carries a human to orbit and back (I predict lots of deaths here), then one that goes to the moon, and eventually you get to build a base on Mars.
I'm not quite sure about the MMO part yet. It could be fun to cooperate and design your rocket together, while watching other people's re-entry vehicles burn up, and space debris rip through the flotilla of space stations.
You interpret a passage one way, someone else interprets it in another possibly contradictory way.
If the book does not mean what it says and people cannot agree on what it means Do you have any idea how many books have been written about meanings and interpretations of other ancient texts? This really nothing special, especially considering and size and scope of the bible.
then it is not a useful guide and certainly cannot be considered 'correct' or 'True' in any meaningful way. Do you have any idea how many people misinterpret hard scientific theories? Does that make them useless?
You are projecting your own ideas/ideals onto the book with your creative interpretations. No, I'm applying common sense and an open mind, whereas you apply stubbornness and cling you your own interpretation, ignoring historical context or any kind of other understanding about the history of the book.
Thing is, the bible doesn't actually say anything about evolution or vice versa. They're not at odds with each other. The bible says that god created all the creatures of the world all at once in their current form. (including Man in his own image) The bible says God created all the creatures of the world, but doesn't go into a lot of detail. The "all at once in their current form" is an interpretation not everybody agrees with. And what exactly "in his own image" means means is even more subject to interpretation. I think it refers to Reason, something we share with God, and not with the animals we're related to.
Evolution says that the diversity of species came about gradually over billions of years. That Man came to his/her current form by way of natural selection. There's nothing wrong with the idea of evolution God's tool to create stuff. I've used evolution to create stuff myself, so why can't God?
These are contradictory assertions. Only in your interpretation. Not everybody agrees with your interpretation.
I'd be very interested in which book, chapter and verse says that the world is 10,000 years old. My understanding is that you can calculate it using the information provided. http://www.albatrus.org/english/theology/creation/biblical_age_earth.htm But that's really pulling stuff way out of context. Remember that Genesis is not an eye witness account, but a thousand years of oral history written down many centuries after it happened. If you're using it as a detailed history book instead of a book with a message about God, you're completely missing the point.
who gives a hoot what a book like that says? how many glaring, even shockingly incorrect statements can a book contain before people will stop referencing it? The shocking incorrectness is in your interpretation of that book. Why cling desperately to an obviously incorrect interpretation, just to use it as an excuse to throw the actual message away?
I'm not saying the bible is right, I'm just saying your interpretation is so obviously wrong that it's a really lame excuse to hide behind.
just like idiot Christians say nothing about the validity of the Christian faith. Not strictly true: it proves a) that having Faith is no obstacle to being an unpleasant bigot Would be nice if it was. In fact, I think it should be, considering the words of Jesus I read in my bible, but apparently some people have a completely different interpretation.
b) puts people like me off the whole idea of Xtianity Christians are Christianity's biggest enemy.
Nevertheless, the fact that Christians can be just as stupid as other people doesn't prove that Christianity is wrong. It just proves that some Christians are wrong, and that Christianity doesn't automagically make them right (although some seem to think it does).
Darwin's theory of evolution is unequivocally heresy. If you dare to question the word of God in any way then you are an athiest, a servant of the Devil sent to test the faith of Gods children and a communist. It requires a time-frame significantly different from that which your Lord and Saviour conveyed to the world with His word: the Holy Bible. Thing is, the bible doesn't actually say anything about evolution or vice versa. They're not at odds with each other.
When God spoke through his disciples he indicated that the world was 10,000 years old and was created in stages over 7 days. I'd be very interested in which book, chapter and verse says that the world is 10,000 years old.
I admit it does describe a 7 day creation period, but then again, if you take it that literally, it also describes a pretty contradictory creation sequence in the next chapter.
Centuries, yes. It's all of the time that makes up US history, but in terms of religious history or European history, it's not very long at all. I don't think religion tends to reinvent itself very quickly. Christianity reinvented itself quite a lot over the last five centuries.
I've listened to some conservatives speak about what the Pope is up to, and many are angry at what they perceive as the "dumbing down" of religion. It's a lot like what has happened to our education system and our government. All these things the church expects of patrons are too difficult, Latin mass, confession, and so on, so let's skip over them and just call everyone a good catholic. Being protestant, I don't care much about internal affairs of Catholicism (although I'd appreciate it if they'd excommunicate child abusing priests), but I was under the impression that Latin mass (or Latin sermons at least) had been done away with during the counter reformation. But I admit I know little about Catholic liturgy.
This whole bit about accepting evolution really irks a lot of people. I wonder if the Pope really believes what he's saying or if he's saying that to welcome in the flock. I don't see why he wouldn't believe it. He's an educated man, and the Vatican's position on science has come a long way since the Galileo fiasco.
Atheists tend to understand a lot about evolution Don't kid yourself. There as many idiot atheists as there are idiot Christians. It's just that in the US, idiot Christians tend to be more vocal about it.
Not intent to live and let live, they insist on tearing you and your beliefs down. Plenty of Christians have no problems leaving you to your beliefs, just like there are a lot of atheists that seem to have a problem with my beliefs. Insecure people in general simply feel threatened by people who believe something else. That fear is not confined to any particular world view.
String theory actually makes testable predictions. It's just that most of them cannot be tested at this time. I've been waiting but ID doesn't provide even one testable prediction. I recently read that String Theory does not make testable predictions, and as such has been stripped of its status as "viable scientific theory".
That's what happens when a promising theory doesn't live up to expectations.
That seems a little odd to me, as an American. One of the reasons the colonists came here was to escape religious persecution. It can't have changed all that much over the years, can it? It's been centuries, not mere years, and a lot has changed. Today, the US is starting to look like the land of religious persecution, whereas most of Europe (except Poland and perhaps Italy, it sometimes seems) tends to take a more enlightened approach.
It's not uncommon for European christians, even very conservative christians, to favour progressive social and environmental politics. Although they do tend to discourage abortion, euthanasia and homosexuality (unlike progressive christians who think that's your own business), and a few even refuse to have their kids vaccinated.
Even now, the new Pope is visiting us and basically calling everyone a bunch of heathens, and telling us we need to return to Catholicism. Not terribly progressive, if you ask me. But even he (or the Catholic Chruch in general, at least) has accepted the theory of evolution and quite a lot of other well-established scientific theories as our most accurate knowledge of nature so far.
I learned about a dozen different creation stories in my religious studies class. Mostly native American, Hindu, and that sort of stuff. It informed students, and didn't interfere with science. Great idea. We also learned all sorts of stuff about Buddhism and Islam.
And this was at a protestant christian school. It's important to realise that school doesn't exist to brainwash you with whatever crazy ideas others want you to believe, it exists to inform you and make you think.
In other words, philosophy or religious studies would be an excellent place to cover Intelligent Design, if only because students are bound to hear about it somewhere anyway. Better to inform them properly at school than to let them blindly believe crazy ideas from fundamentalists.
Umm... Stein is not discussing the Science. But, the Atheistic philosophy of Darwinism that says its all an accident and random. What exactly is "the atheistic philosophy of Darwinism"? I thought Darwinism was generally used as a (very old fashioned) term for Darwin's theory of evolution, which has absolutely nothing to say about the existence or non-existence of God.
Now I admit there are a lot of atheists out there who understand science just as badly as some Christian fundamentalists and have turned it into some kind of religion, but that says nothing about the validity of the science itself, just like idiot Christians say nothing about the validity of the Christian faith.
Why do people automatically assume Evolution is false just because they don't understand what the theory actually means? I think people have a tendency to deny what they don't understand. Or they fear it.
Another theory is that modern humans evolved separately all over the world. In that case caucasians would be evolved neanderthals. That's not a seriously supported theory. The common ancestor between Europeans and Africans lived long after the rise of Neanderthals. The common ancestor of Europeans and Asians lived long after that.
(I'm aware that this issue is a bit more complicated than this; Africans are not nearly as homogenous a group as Europeans and Asians, and some Africans are more closely related to Europeans than to some other Africans, but let's not get into that detail here, okay? My point is that all modern humans are much more closely related to each other than to Neanderthals.)
Still another theory is that early modern humans interbred with neanderthals. In that case caucasians would still have neanderthal genes to this day. This is a serious theory. I believe the consensus at the moment is that Neanderthals died out without passing genes on to modern Europeans, but some scientists disagree. It's certainly not impossible that it happened, but there's no evidence that I know of (which doesn't mean much, since I'm not a geneticist or paleontologist or something like that).
None of the last two theories have been proven and the first theory is more accepted. If the first theory is correct then it is possible that since neanderthals and modern Europeans both had to live in the same climate it makes sense that their outward appearances might become similar after a while. Keep in mind that Neanderthals lived in that environment far longer than modern Europeans have. We only showed up here some 70,000 years ago at best, whereas Neanderthals lived here for a couple of hundred thousand years. Homo sapiens clearly lived here for long enough to develop pale skin, but not long enough to develop very significant anatomical differences compared to African branches of homo sapiens.
Personally I think that it is likely that neanderthals have been given a bad rap and were probably more advanced than we give them credit for. Maybe if they were still around they would be able to fit in quiet nicely in our modern world? Of course we have enough trouble with racism in a world where were all human and have surprisingly little genetic differences. Imagine how history would be different if there were more than one species of advanced hominids living to this day. Seen the TV series Cavemen?
Speech patterns--they're funny! Bostonians are idiots because they drop the 'r'! Most English-speaking countries drop the 'r'. Only Americans insist on pronouncing a mangled 'r' everywhere.
Sounds like a great way to get blacklisted. I'd recommend leaving without comment. Get media attention. If you get a reputation for being the only honest security guy, companies will be lining up to hire you, even if it's just for the PR.
it will be you shown as having 'concerns' about the security practices But doing nothing? (your text can be read that way, sorry if you did not imply it) Doing nothing wasn't his choice or his recommendation. His recommendation is always to do something, higher-ups decide to do nothing. It's useful to get that decision documented.
others who are guilty of the massive security problems being allowed to propagate. Or "unaware" of the fact (according to the the laws of the court). Not if you document that you warned them, and recommended several ways to do something about it.
I would certainly recommend to document everything but still first and foremost stay legal. "Criminally negligent" is not fun, I'd imagine. Certainly, but if you want to do something about it and higher-ups forbid it, then it's them who are criminally negligent. Perhaps it's a good idea to formally protest after each such decision, warning about criminal negligence. But I don't think the law requires you to invest your own private time to fix the fuckups of your superiors.
The problem with this plan is that it doesn't scale out. If you're worried about scaling, you should be a fan of solar power. It scales better than just about anything else, except possibly hydrogen fusion and zero-point energy, neither of which seem to be very viable in the near (or even distant) future.
It's subject to the Windmill effect, where it's contesting with other uses for land, and eventually, it will be a source of clutter on the landscape. Windmills don't actually use all that much land. A single windmill produces quite a decent amount of power for its footprint, and is small enough to place on dikes, next to roads, or on off-shore platforms.
As for these big mirrors, deserts have plenty of empty space, and could probably use a bit if shade. In inhabited areas this is going to be a bigger problem. There, solar cells are probably easier: simply cover every roof with them, and you've got plenty of energy without sacrifing any space.
Turns out wikipedia even has a page about solar shingles.
In the case of the counterfeit boxed processors mentioned in the summary, it's not the processors that are counterfeit, just the boxes and coolers. The processors are real Intel processors, but they don't come with the 3 year warranty that boxed processors have, and the cooler is bound to be worse.
Slashdot Mirror
Sounds like he donates users.
Economic simulations can be fun too, but I don't think it's really NASA. I think they want to educate people in engineering and space flight, not economics and administration. 'Debris' eh? Oops, I accidentally decompressed my garbage out at 900mph into the side of your space station, sorry! The return of the BFG! (Big Fuckin Garbage launcher) 900mph is nothing. There's tons of decommissioned satelites, last stages of rockets, loose screws and bolts, and other man-made hazards floating around in orbit. And the speed differences between them when they meet can be a lot bigger than 900mph. I've heard that a simple fleck of paint can be a serious threat to the space sation.
Sure, but he has a problem with some people choosing to not charge for them?
Ofcourse! Altruism is evil. Greed is the basis of our entire civilisation. We can't have people going around helping each other! (Unless it's for PR, obviously.)
I agree. Despite the doubts many slashdotters have about the fun of an educational NASA game, I can definitely see some great opportunities.Could actually work out well for both sides, and we may get a cool game from it.
Firstly, don't make it an RPG. That market has been cornered, and it makes no sense whatsoever in a NASA context. Get away from the real-time first/third-person view. You want to be able to get to orbit or Mars before dinner.
I'd make it a design/build/resource management game. Maybe you've got a budget. There are a couple of easy standard missions, like get a rocket off the ground. Then a bit harder: get a rocket to orbit. Then get a human to orbit and back. Then get a human to the moon. Build a space station. Go to Mars. Etc.
Each time you succesfully finish a mission (and you can make up your own missions to build something completely unexpected if you like), your budget goes up depending on how well you did. Did you get there fast? Did you stay far under budget? Did you bring more astronauts for a longer period? The better you did, the more your budget goes up for your next mission. If you fail, you get the same budget you had before.
Ofcourse you want to avoid grind; people launching the same rocket over and over again to increase their budget, so only your best attempt counts. If you redo the same mission, make sure you have better results than last time. Do it cheaper, faster and better, and your budget goes up. Launch the same old design, and you've wasted your time.
Ofcourse it's important that the game uses a reasonably realistic physics, but it shouldn't be so hard that you have to be a rocket scientist in order to play. On the other hand, I expect a lot of astronauts to die in this game.
I think this sort of game could be really cool. Build stuff, launch it, and see if it works. I wish I had the resources to develop something like that.
Personally, I think a good physics simulator where you can design your own rocket and try to reach orbit with it, can be lots of fun.
First design a rocket that gets off the ground at all, then one that reaches orbit, then one that carries a human to orbit and back (I predict lots of deaths here), then one that goes to the moon, and eventually you get to build a base on Mars.
I'm not quite sure about the MMO part yet. It could be fun to cooperate and design your rocket together, while watching other people's re-entry vehicles burn up, and space debris rip through the flotilla of space stations.
If the book does not mean what it says and people cannot agree on what it means Do you have any idea how many books have been written about meanings and interpretations of other ancient texts? This really nothing special, especially considering and size and scope of the bible. then it is not a useful guide and certainly cannot be considered 'correct' or 'True' in any meaningful way. Do you have any idea how many people misinterpret hard scientific theories? Does that make them useless? You are projecting your own ideas/ideals onto the book with your creative interpretations. No, I'm applying common sense and an open mind, whereas you apply stubbornness and cling you your own interpretation, ignoring historical context or any kind of other understanding about the history of the book.
PS: Don't forget the preview button.
That Man came to his/her current form by way of natural selection. There's nothing wrong with the idea of evolution God's tool to create stuff. I've used evolution to create stuff myself, so why can't God? These are contradictory assertions. Only in your interpretation. Not everybody agrees with your interpretation. I'd be very interested in which book, chapter and verse says that the world is 10,000 years old. My understanding is that you can calculate it using the information provided.
http://www.albatrus.org/english/theology/creation/biblical_age_earth.htm But that's really pulling stuff way out of context. Remember that Genesis is not an eye witness account, but a thousand years of oral history written down many centuries after it happened. If you're using it as a detailed history book instead of a book with a message about God, you're completely missing the point. who gives a hoot what a book like that says?
how many glaring, even shockingly incorrect statements can a book contain before people will stop referencing it? The shocking incorrectness is in your interpretation of that book. Why cling desperately to an obviously incorrect interpretation, just to use it as an excuse to throw the actual message away?
I'm not saying the bible is right, I'm just saying your interpretation is so obviously wrong that it's a really lame excuse to hide behind.
a) that having Faith is no obstacle to being an unpleasant bigot Would be nice if it was. In fact, I think it should be, considering the words of Jesus I read in my bible, but apparently some people have a completely different interpretation. b) puts people like me off the whole idea of Xtianity Christians are Christianity's biggest enemy.
Nevertheless, the fact that Christians can be just as stupid as other people doesn't prove that Christianity is wrong. It just proves that some Christians are wrong, and that Christianity doesn't automagically make them right (although some seem to think it does).
It requires a time-frame significantly different from that which your Lord and Saviour conveyed to the world with His word: the Holy Bible. Thing is, the bible doesn't actually say anything about evolution or vice versa. They're not at odds with each other. When God spoke through his disciples he indicated that the world was 10,000 years old and was created in stages over 7 days. I'd be very interested in which book, chapter and verse says that the world is 10,000 years old.
I admit it does describe a 7 day creation period, but then again, if you take it that literally, it also describes a pretty contradictory creation sequence in the next chapter.
Then how do you explain the Red States? I blame the Americans. None of the European Christians ever voted for Bush.
Besides, isn't Obama Christian too? Wasn't Clinton a baptist or something like that? You can't blame everything on Christians. Not even in the US.
That's what happens when a promising theory doesn't live up to expectations.
It's not uncommon for European christians, even very conservative christians, to favour progressive social and environmental politics. Although they do tend to discourage abortion, euthanasia and homosexuality (unlike progressive christians who think that's your own business), and a few even refuse to have their kids vaccinated. Even now, the new Pope is visiting us and basically calling everyone a bunch of heathens, and telling us we need to return to Catholicism. Not terribly progressive, if you ask me. But even he (or the Catholic Chruch in general, at least) has accepted the theory of evolution and quite a lot of other well-established scientific theories as our most accurate knowledge of nature so far.
I learned about a dozen different creation stories in my religious studies class. Mostly native American, Hindu, and that sort of stuff. It informed students, and didn't interfere with science. Great idea. We also learned all sorts of stuff about Buddhism and Islam.
And this was at a protestant christian school. It's important to realise that school doesn't exist to brainwash you with whatever crazy ideas others want you to believe, it exists to inform you and make you think.
In other words, philosophy or religious studies would be an excellent place to cover Intelligent Design, if only because students are bound to hear about it somewhere anyway. Better to inform them properly at school than to let them blindly believe crazy ideas from fundamentalists.
Now I admit there are a lot of atheists out there who understand science just as badly as some Christian fundamentalists and have turned it into some kind of religion, but that says nothing about the validity of the science itself, just like idiot Christians say nothing about the validity of the Christian faith.
(I'm aware that this issue is a bit more complicated than this; Africans are not nearly as homogenous a group as Europeans and Asians, and some Africans are more closely related to Europeans than to some other Africans, but let's not get into that detail here, okay? My point is that all modern humans are much more closely related to each other than to Neanderthals.) Still another theory is that early modern humans interbred with neanderthals. In that case caucasians would still have neanderthal genes to this day. This is a serious theory. I believe the consensus at the moment is that Neanderthals died out without passing genes on to modern Europeans, but some scientists disagree. It's certainly not impossible that it happened, but there's no evidence that I know of (which doesn't mean much, since I'm not a geneticist or paleontologist or something like that). None of the last two theories have been proven and the first theory is more accepted. If the first theory is correct then it is possible that since neanderthals and modern Europeans both had to live in the same climate it makes sense that their outward appearances might become similar after a while. Keep in mind that Neanderthals lived in that environment far longer than modern Europeans have. We only showed up here some 70,000 years ago at best, whereas Neanderthals lived here for a couple of hundred thousand years. Homo sapiens clearly lived here for long enough to develop pale skin, but not long enough to develop very significant anatomical differences compared to African branches of homo sapiens. Personally I think that it is likely that neanderthals have been given a bad rap and were probably more advanced than we give them credit for. Maybe if they were still around they would be able to fit in quiet nicely in our modern world? Of course we have enough trouble with racism in a world where were all human and have surprisingly little genetic differences. Imagine how history would be different if there were more than one species of advanced hominids living to this day. Seen the TV series Cavemen?
As for these big mirrors, deserts have plenty of empty space, and could probably use a bit if shade. In inhabited areas this is going to be a bigger problem. There, solar cells are probably easier: simply cover every roof with them, and you've got plenty of energy without sacrifing any space.
Turns out wikipedia even has a page about solar shingles.
In the case of the counterfeit boxed processors mentioned in the summary, it's not the processors that are counterfeit, just the boxes and coolers. The processors are real Intel processors, but they don't come with the 3 year warranty that boxed processors have, and the cooler is bound to be worse.