That's because the cost of conversion away from legacy CO2 emitting technologies and industries will have to borne either way - we can't mitigate the effects of global warming and continue to use CO2 emitters, because global warming will continue to get worse, requiring magnitudes more mitigation. The longer we leave it, the worse it will be.
You can just tack the AU Government on the end of that comment. I've worked in government IT for 10+ years, I have seen next to no FOSS in actual operation. How much difference will releasing the Guidelines make? Next to none - primarily because in most Government departments IT infrastructure has been outsourced, with only core applications remaining in-house. The only notable exception being Defence. Since most prominent and successful FOSS projects (eg Linux, Apache, Samba) are infrastructure rather than AD, the guidelines are moot. That's the way government works - the guidelines are meant to give the appearance of promoting alternatives to proprietary software, but in implementation they will just give IT Execs a formal and documented path for rejecting changes to their current closed source infrastructure. Changing from W2K based back ends to linux, as an example, means re-negotiating a contract with EDS or IBM (mostly the former), and contract re-negotiations and renumerations to outsourcers is far, far more expensive than the cost of installing software/training.
Of course, one must remember that if we'd sent men there, they'd have gone as far as Opportunity has gone by lunchtime of the second day on the ground. Or the first day, if they were in a hurry. It's not like Opportunity is as far from its landing site as work is from home for me.
Except that of course, moving quickly from place to place was not a mission requirement - if it were, we could have kitted out a probe to move much faster and with more agility than a bipedal human. Rather, we were there to look, and to look closely - which needs a stable platform on which to mount cameras, the ability to look in all directions, as well as efficiently and reliably perform chemical and spectographical analysis of the environs. Primates aren't a stable platform - their particular skills (such as looking for food, sensing dangerous predators, and staying awake during meetings) generally aren't useful in exploration of a planet that's the wrong temperature and has no breathable air. Which means homo sapiens would need to take the machines that have the appropriate skills to do the work for them, as well as other machines to mollycoddle them and protect their fragile flesh in that hostile place - making their presence a liability to getting the job done.
A manned mission will be expensive as sin. And possibly risky. And we'll learn more in the year they're sitting on the ground on Mars than we'll learn in the next two centuries of sending " inexpensive probes with a narrow purpose"
Mostly, what we would learn, if that ever came to pass, is the stupidity of using 19th century means of exploration in the 21st century.
When you launch a dude to Mars, you need to do the R&D to solve problems like, negative health effects of long-term exposure to zero gravity, and solar radiation, generating (or bringing with you) enough propellant on the martian surface for a return trip. That kind of R&D is pretty crucial to human space exploration, and doesn't happen when you're not doing manned spaceflight research.
Provided of course, we accept that human space exploration is a viable enterprise at all. My understanding is that there are no stars that can be reached within a 30 earth year period: ie. it will take 15 years for a small group of humans to travel to the environs of the nearest star at light speed and then another 15 years for a signal, or the humans themselves, to travel back. Will a human presence there tell us something that our earth/orbit based exploratory platforms will not be able to tell us in 30 years hence? Given that a fusion engine will not be sufficiently efficient and powerful to accelerate itself, it's fuel, the humans and their life support systems to anything like the velocity previously described (or even 0.5 c) what energetic reaction will we use?
On the other hand, I'm not sure we're at the stage, technology-wise, WRT launch vehicles, space propulsion, and extraterrestrial environments, where it's even a good idea to pursue manned flight. I think that some of the science of the last decade, gathered during unmanned flights, has helped a lot with these kinds of foundational technology.
What these useful enterprises have really taught taught us is the capability of our machinery to take us to other places without requiring our physical presence. I remember a flush faced operator when the Huygens probe landed successfully on Titan: she exclaimed: "humanity has landed on Titan!"
And so we have.
Our physical presence is immaterial - probes are our agents in every sense of the word, just like the sound waves we use for greeting, or phones, or clothing. Probes and non-lifeform based machinery can go much further and faster and more efficiently than primates can, and can do much more useful things upon arrival. Let's keep pushing the agent tech, and see how far out we can go.
It's a high probability that any given planet would have nothing, but the sheer number of planets makes up for it, to the point that the expected number of planets that do have life is quite high.
Actually no. In order for that to be true the "sheer number of planets" would have to be a number of the same inverse magnitude as the low probability of life occurring on a single planet: Suppose a reasonable probability of life in the universe (excluding earth) say P(n) = 0.55. Then if P(n) = n * P(1)
and P(1) = 10^-100
Then n = 5.5 ^ 100
Which is an absolutely ENORMOUS number, many magnitudes greater than the number of stars in the universe ( http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20010810.html says about 3*10^15 stars).
So, if here is life on mars, we would need to weigh the possibility of independent evolution against the possibility of sharing of life passed via shared material between the planets: the latter is much more likely.
Haven't you noticed that it's a little dry?
Every major city in Australia is facing water stress. Meanwhile, there's massive floods happening in South America. It's called 'the longest drought on record' - in reality, it's not drought, it's just going to be MUCH drier from now on.
As the globe warms, the temperature differential between Australia and Antarctica increases - this means stronger polar winds, which means that the rain band is drawn off our continent into the southern ocean. Simple enough. Here in Canberra, we haven't been using our pools either - because there isn't enough water to fill them.
Well, the first set of data I submit is the ISS. So far its still up there.
I'm a bit suprised to note that in fact, you don't have numbers at all. Rather, you have a series of observations that don't stand up to scrutiny:
As for for getting materials into space, Mr. Burt R. has shown a method that works, is doable, and is a lot cheaper than the budget model used by NASA.
Rutans 'space' ship was cheaper because it didn't achieve orbit: The point of a rocket for space travel to other bodies is to firstly to leave the gravity well of earth, which Rutans rocket didn't do.
Shuttle fuel tanks for mars-cargo-containers. Its common knowledge that one of the last procedures of the shuttle is to 'point' the external fuel tank back 'down'.
When leaving the launch pad, the tank is full of fuel. When it reaches the top of it's trajectory, it's empty. You are proposing that it leave full, and reach the top full: How would the boosters lift such a bulk? Where would you put the required fuel, particularly since the fuel tank is full of cargo?
A human could do in a couple days what's taken each Mars rover over a year.
For a fraction of the cost of sending a human, you can build a robot that will last longer (sustain the equivalent energy for a longer period, sustain vastly more energy per bulk for use experimentation). So or a fraciton of the cost, you get more data.
A human would be able to negotiate more difficult terrain and find better samples than a rover.
For a fraction of the cost of sending a human, you can build a robot to negotiate any terrain a human can, and faster. After all, what can a human on mars realistically achieve? even supposing they could carry a shelter and thus go out for longer than a day, humans move slow, maybe 20kms a day carrying a pack. Of that 20kms, they can see with their instrumentation probably only 500m from side to side. Not efficient, not a form of observation that lends itself to the most valuable use of the time available.
The human brain-eye function is designed for looking for prey/predators in a feature rich environment. When looking, almost all brain function is consumed by processing the incoming data, from that one source.
In contrast, a robot can 'look' and process data from maybe 5-6 input sources simultaneously, infra-red, gas spectometer, radar, visual range of light etc.
And a human would be able to change commands in the middle of the day.
For a fraction of the cost of sending a human, we could deploy geo-synchronous satellites around mars to re-transmit data back to earth for analysis, and send instructions to a semi-autonomous robot. If changing commands often and quickly were really an issue.
Until we have robots that are capable of the mobility and reasoning of humans, we'll have to send humans to do more than scratch the surface.
Mobility is easily achieved for a fraction of the cost of sending a human, the level and style of reasoning humans have is not needed for the task. For Mars observation, semi-autonomy has advantages over full autonomy, since collective decisions about a course of action are required, and would be the norm, even with humans there.
We seem to have lots of foul-weather friends in that respect. [cough] the french [cough]
Ironically, you're right - the French government did the right thing by the US in the foul weather by (a) acting according to democratic principles because the french people didn't believe there were any weapons that threatened them or the US and the French government is bound to do what their people want and (b) friends tell friends when they are wrong and the US was wrong.
If the god fearing (and opium dealing) Taliban (and friends) want to declare war, declare it.
A minor point, but the big Opium dealers in Afghanistan are the warlords of the Northern Alliance. They celebrated their recent victory by flooding their former markets with heroine - causing a wave of deaths in Russia and the FSSR states.
And why does the US have to be the only country people turn to when things go really bad? Do you think it's a good idea of the US to stick itself in the middle of a civil war?
No-one is saying they should do so, at least not alone. There are are plenty of other countries that contribute militarily to humanitarian interventions, just not to illegal ones. Think of East Timor for instance. Or Sierra Leone.
And finally, there is no US government, not the way you picture it. The military and the
government is run by the people.
You couldn't be more wrong. Open your eyes for Pitys sake, PLEASE.
Certainly hope we CAN convince him to go to Austria instead - although if he does come through, I'm looking forward to trying to issue him with a subpoena.
And you too Mugabe!
1. Sheep are more efficient consumers of resources than wolves - in a resource hungry situation like ours we should therefore promote sheep, not wolves. 2. Who are THEY and why should "we" prefer that "you" win rather than THEM?
I notice that when a story relating to the US (eg a new policy or achievement ) is posted here, it is accompanied by the US flag. Why no Aussie flag? Couldn't find the graphic?
Not sure where you heard this rubbish. Australia feels and is a lot safer now than before this ban - the kind of fear that Americans live under is unheard of in Australia.
So, when evaluating a new cart model, do you base you opinion on a car built 5 years previously? How about we make judgements on Linux by using Linus's orignal code? FYI: FreeBSD is now up to 5.0, where have you been??
Slashdot Mirror
That's because the cost of conversion away from legacy CO2 emitting technologies and industries will have to borne either way - we can't mitigate the effects of global warming and continue to use CO2 emitters, because global warming will continue to get worse, requiring magnitudes more mitigation. The longer we leave it, the worse it will be.
You can just tack the AU Government on the end of that comment. I've worked in government IT for 10+ years, I have seen next to no FOSS in actual operation. How much difference will releasing the Guidelines make? Next to none - primarily because in most Government departments IT infrastructure has been outsourced, with only core applications remaining in-house. The only notable exception being Defence. Since most prominent and successful FOSS projects (eg Linux, Apache, Samba) are infrastructure rather than AD, the guidelines are moot. That's the way government works - the guidelines are meant to give the appearance of promoting alternatives to proprietary software, but in implementation they will just give IT Execs a formal and documented path for rejecting changes to their current closed source infrastructure. Changing from W2K based back ends to linux, as an example, means re-negotiating a contract with EDS or IBM (mostly the former), and contract re-negotiations and renumerations to outsourcers is far, far more expensive than the cost of installing software/training.
Of course, one must remember that if we'd sent men there, they'd have gone as far as Opportunity has gone by lunchtime of the second day on the ground. Or the first day, if they were in a hurry. It's not like Opportunity is as far from its landing site as work is from home for me.
Except that of course, moving quickly from place to place was not a mission requirement - if it were, we could have kitted out a probe to move much faster and with more agility than a bipedal human. Rather, we were there to look, and to look closely - which needs a stable platform on which to mount cameras, the ability to look in all directions, as well as efficiently and reliably perform chemical and spectographical analysis of the environs. Primates aren't a stable platform - their particular skills (such as looking for food, sensing dangerous predators, and staying awake during meetings) generally aren't useful in exploration of a planet that's the wrong temperature and has no breathable air. Which means homo sapiens would need to take the machines that have the appropriate skills to do the work for them, as well as other machines to mollycoddle them and protect their fragile flesh in that hostile place - making their presence a liability to getting the job done.
A manned mission will be expensive as sin. And possibly risky. And we'll learn more in the year they're sitting on the ground on Mars than we'll learn in the next two centuries of sending " inexpensive probes with a narrow purpose"
Mostly, what we would learn, if that ever came to pass, is the stupidity of using 19th century means of exploration in the 21st century.
When you launch a dude to Mars, you need to do the R&D to solve problems like, negative health effects of long-term exposure to zero gravity, and solar radiation, generating (or bringing with you) enough propellant on the martian surface for a return trip. That kind of R&D is pretty crucial to human space exploration, and doesn't happen when you're not doing manned spaceflight research.
Provided of course, we accept that human space exploration is a viable enterprise at all. My understanding is that there are no stars that can be reached within a 30 earth year period: ie. it will take 15 years for a small group of humans to travel to the environs of the nearest star at light speed and then another 15 years for a signal, or the humans themselves, to travel back. Will a human presence there tell us something that our earth/orbit based exploratory platforms will not be able to tell us in 30 years hence? Given that a fusion engine will not be sufficiently efficient and powerful to accelerate itself, it's fuel, the humans and their life support systems to anything like the velocity previously described (or even 0.5 c) what energetic reaction will we use?
On the other hand, I'm not sure we're at the stage, technology-wise, WRT launch vehicles, space propulsion, and extraterrestrial environments, where it's even a good idea to pursue manned flight. I think that some of the science of the last decade, gathered during unmanned flights, has helped a lot with these kinds of foundational technology.
What these useful enterprises have really taught taught us is the capability of our machinery to take us to other places without requiring our physical presence. I remember a flush faced operator when the Huygens probe landed successfully on Titan: she exclaimed: "humanity has landed on Titan!"
And so we have.
Our physical presence is immaterial - probes are our agents in every sense of the word, just like the sound waves we use for greeting, or phones, or clothing. Probes and non-lifeform based machinery can go much further and faster and more efficiently than primates can, and can do much more useful things upon arrival. Let's keep pushing the agent tech, and see how far out we can go.
Voted in by who again? Oh, that's right, by you! Way to denigrate a whole city of 300000 people because of a problem you created!
It's a high probability that any given planet would have nothing, but the sheer number of planets makes up for it, to the point that the expected number of planets that do have life is quite high.
Actually no. In order for that to be true the "sheer number of planets" would have to be a number of the same inverse magnitude as the low probability of life occurring on a single planet:
Suppose a reasonable probability of life in the universe (excluding earth) say P(n) = 0.55. Then
if P(n) = n * P(1)
and P(1) = 10^-100
Then n = 5.5 ^ 100
Which is an absolutely ENORMOUS number, many magnitudes greater than the number of stars in the universe ( http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20010810.html says about 3*10^15 stars).
So, if here is life on mars, we would need to weigh the possibility of independent evolution against the possibility of sharing of life passed via shared material between the planets: the latter is much more likely.
Haven't you noticed that it's a little dry? Every major city in Australia is facing water stress. Meanwhile, there's massive floods happening in South America. It's called 'the longest drought on record' - in reality, it's not drought, it's just going to be MUCH drier from now on. As the globe warms, the temperature differential between Australia and Antarctica increases - this means stronger polar winds, which means that the rain band is drawn off our continent into the southern ocean. Simple enough. Here in Canberra, we haven't been using our pools either - because there isn't enough water to fill them.
Well, the first set of data I submit is the ISS. So far its still up there.
I'm a bit suprised to note that in fact, you don't have numbers at all. Rather, you have a series of observations that don't stand up to scrutiny:
As for for getting materials into space, Mr. Burt R. has shown a method that works, is doable, and is a lot cheaper than the budget model used by NASA.
Rutans 'space' ship was cheaper because it didn't achieve orbit: The point of a rocket for space travel to other bodies is to firstly to leave the gravity well of earth, which Rutans rocket didn't do.
Shuttle fuel tanks for mars-cargo-containers. Its common knowledge that one of the last procedures of the shuttle is to 'point' the external fuel tank back 'down'.
When leaving the launch pad, the tank is full of fuel. When it reaches the top of it's trajectory, it's empty. You are proposing that it leave full, and reach the top full: How would the boosters lift such a bulk? Where would you put the required fuel, particularly since the fuel tank is full of cargo?
A human could do in a couple days what's taken each Mars rover over a year. For a fraction of the cost of sending a human, you can build a robot that will last longer (sustain the equivalent energy for a longer period, sustain vastly more energy per bulk for use experimentation). So or a fraciton of the cost, you get more data. A human would be able to negotiate more difficult terrain and find better samples than a rover. For a fraction of the cost of sending a human, you can build a robot to negotiate any terrain a human can, and faster. After all, what can a human on mars realistically achieve? even supposing they could carry a shelter and thus go out for longer than a day, humans move slow, maybe 20kms a day carrying a pack. Of that 20kms, they can see with their instrumentation probably only 500m from side to side. Not efficient, not a form of observation that lends itself to the most valuable use of the time available. The human brain-eye function is designed for looking for prey/predators in a feature rich environment. When looking, almost all brain function is consumed by processing the incoming data, from that one source. In contrast, a robot can 'look' and process data from maybe 5-6 input sources simultaneously, infra-red, gas spectometer, radar, visual range of light etc. And a human would be able to change commands in the middle of the day. For a fraction of the cost of sending a human, we could deploy geo-synchronous satellites around mars to re-transmit data back to earth for analysis, and send instructions to a semi-autonomous robot. If changing commands often and quickly were really an issue. Until we have robots that are capable of the mobility and reasoning of humans, we'll have to send humans to do more than scratch the surface. Mobility is easily achieved for a fraction of the cost of sending a human, the level and style of reasoning humans have is not needed for the task. For Mars observation, semi-autonomy has advantages over full autonomy, since collective decisions about a course of action are required, and would be the norm, even with humans there.
Certainly hope we CAN convince him to go to Austria instead - although if he does come through, I'm looking forward to trying to issue him with a subpoena. And you too Mugabe!
1. Sheep are more efficient consumers of resources than wolves - in a resource hungry situation like ours we should therefore promote sheep, not wolves.
2. Who are THEY and why should "we" prefer that "you" win rather than THEM?
I notice that when a story relating to the US (eg a new policy or achievement ) is posted here, it is accompanied by the US flag. Why no Aussie flag? Couldn't find the graphic?
Not sure where you heard this rubbish. Australia feels and is a lot safer now than before this ban - the kind of fear that Americans live under is unheard of in Australia.
So, when evaluating a new cart model, do you base you opinion on a car built 5 years previously? How about we make judgements on Linux by using Linus's orignal code?
FYI: FreeBSD is now up to 5.0, where have you been??
That might be the case, but W2K is more expensive than Linux, and not every server requires that level of stability, security or performance...