You are correct that by 'anarchy' I actually meant 'chaos' - I apologize for being sloppy with my terms. The links you posted were interesting too. Anarcho-capitalism is something I was not familiar with, and there is actually a fascinating entry for it in wikipedia.
Nevertheless, I am not swayed in my position about regulation for several reasons. The first reason is that I do not agree that regulation only applies to how people peacefully interact. The problem is not that the term 'peacefully' is difficult to define or agree upon - indeed, the Golden Rule makes it clear that being nice is something that is easy to agree upon - the problem is that individuals are not inherently peaceful. On the contrary, humans are inherently hostile, aggressive, competitive, selfish, and destructive.
The anarchists I have known (oddly, all English, German, and Austrian) have all held the view that humans are fundamentally peaceful and egalitarian, and that only oppression by authority gives rise to conflict. This echoes your sentiment that civilization exists in spite of government, rather than because of it. This is not just naive, it is also wrong. I am an anthropologist, and our field continues to be frustrated by romanticized 19th Century views of 'primitive' peaceful egalitarian societies being a representation of man's 'natural' state. So-called 'primitive' human societies are not, in any single documented instance, either peaceful or egalitarian. Establishment of an authority structure is a human universal, beginning in the family and extending outward through all kinship relations to modern institutionalized structures. From that standpoint alone, strict anarchy - "no one in a position of rule" - is fundamentally incompatible with human behavior. God knows I wish it were otherwise.
The second reason I am not swayed is from my personal experience. I'm not sure how many developing countries you have lived in, but having been to (and in many instances lived in) such countries as The Gambia, Kenya, Yemen, Oman, UAE, Jordan, Bangladesh, and India, I can guarantee you that chaos is not a preferable alternative to order. I my experience, people are willing to accept a staggering amount of poverty and discomfort as long as there is regulation, accountability, and justice. But chaos can reign even in relatively wealthy places (urban America, for example) if those things are absent. So the simple argument that chaos exists as a result of poverty - while partially true perhaps - is incomplete at best.
Nigeria and Pakistan are even better examples, though I have not been to those places personally. In those countries, the reason why chaos exists is because the enforcement of order (including peaceful conduct, and therefore still 'regulation') is undertaken without the majority of citizens' agreement or approval - those governments are not serving the majority of the people's interests.
And so we come to anarcho-capitalism, which as I undersand it is the idea of the privatization and decentralization of agency which you categorize as the 'initiative of force', or enforcement of law, including police, armed forces, taxation, and so on. My primary objection to this is that from free market dynamics, devoid of all regulation, will emerge multiple private entities with legitimate title to agency of force: nodes of localized authority each possessing the means to enforce their authority (increasingly devastating means, raising the entire issue of proliferation of increasingly destructive weaponry). That immediately begs the question, what will happen when the interests of those entities are in conflict with one another and/or in conflict with the citizenry? The answer is available to us quite clearly: feudalism. Basically, you would be arming corporations. Giving corporations teeth would simply turn them into the principalities and kingdoms of medeival Europe. You are probably well aware of how the general populous fared during that era.
Unquestionably a fascinating and insightful response. Certainly, when reduced to its most basic terms, government is the application - or as you put it, the initiation - of social contracts that are enforced. Put another way, government regulates behavior within relationships on a variety of levels ranging from economic to personal. I confess to being a little puzzled, therefore, but the statement, "that is why regulation doesn't work, because opinions differ." On the contrary, it is precisely because opinions are in accord that the form of government known as democracy exists. A democracy enforces those regulations upon which its citizens agree, and seems to be a remarkably good alternative the dog-eat-dog environment of natural selection and evolution whose parallel in human society we know as anarchy. A number of alternate systems of regulating social interaction exist which are not based on agreement of opinion, from communism to despotism, but they have not enjoyed such widespread success in providing showers and flushing toilets to their citizens. Rather ironically, in those societies in which anarchy more widely prevails (both now - think Nigeria and Pakistan - and in the past), there is a distinct lack of thriving growth-based laisez faire market economies, a distinct lack of 'blue ones' to choose from, and a distinct lack of showers and flushing toilets.
Finally, to answer your question about what is sacred to me - or in other words, what I believe should be regulated - my answer is fairly simple: the Golden Rule. History, the behavioral sciences, and even some nifty computer modeling has shown that the Golden Rule is consistently the most sound basis for codifying behavior in human interaction. Treat others as you'd like them to treat you. From that root flowers the only functional morality and ethics not based on historical authority (because God says so) or force (because I say so), but based on reason.
Most of the time the Golden Rule translates as 'be nice to others' (probably because that seems to be the only thing people can universally agree upon) and for the most part regulation is an attempt to enforce that behavior. Hence, we are not allowed to steal from, assault, murder, or otherwise harm others. Our behavior is regulated. Much of that regulation is codified as law, though much of it is also instinctual as a result of the evolution of our species as social animals.
The regulatiion of human behavior, on individual or collective levels, and either stictly or loosely based upon the Golden Rule, has the effect of precluding conflict that would otherwise emerge out of individual self-interest. And upon that regulation has all of human civilization been built. Regulation is perhaps the single most dinstinctive feature of our species. It has made all other things possible. On that basis, you will most likely have an extremely difficult time convincing me that regulation is not productive.
I appreciate you defining your terms - that is definitely commendable, and far too uncommon in posts. However, I have to disagree at least in part with your definition itself. Government monopolies don't necessarily throw competitors into jail or drive them out of business by force! That can certainly happen, especially in developing countries, but competing with products or services provided by the government is not necessarily illegal. Take an extreme example: the use of force. In our country the government certainly has a monopoly on the use of force - armed forces, national guard and coast guard, and police at various levels of government. Yet, militias are allowed, as are private security forces. So that is my first objection.
My second objection is to your inherent assumption about consumer awareness and freedom of choice: that people will be aware of 'blue ones' and that they will buy them if they are available. Although Microsoft isn't necessarily the best example, it can serve well enough for the purposes of illustration. Microsoft has such a monopoly that most people are not even aware of the alternatives. By 'most people', I do mean exactly that: most people, not ubergeeks, slashdotters, and coders. The vast majority of people think Linux is a character in the Peanuts cartoon and have absolutely no awareness that it is an alternative OS to Windows - they don't even have any concept of what an OS is. Many people are only vaguely aware of Apple and Mac, such that they might know about iPods but have no concept that Macs offer a funamentally alternate (and superior) OS architecture. And even those who are aware, like me, are not necessarily able to choose the superior alternative that is available because of the entire issue of standards and compatibility. And last but not least there is the issue of necessity. Can you simply refuse to use MS software? It is damn hard, especially in business. But let's switch here to a better example:
If you are unhappy with your power or water service, what options do you have? If you are extremely lucky and live in a major metropolitan area you might have 2 service providers, one as bad as the next - like our presidential candidates. But in most instances you have no options because there is only one service provider in your area. What do you do then? Have no water or electricty? Will you be the one to make a stand, the individual who refuses to provide the economic demand to fuel the engine of the monopoly? Highly unlikely. Most people like to be able to shower and flush their toilets.
So the assumption that people will simply buy superior products - 'blue ones' - if they become available is unsound and, quite honestly, rather naive. It just isn't that simple.
We all know monopolies suck. So the only question is, which is the lesser evil: a private sector monopoly or a government monopoly?
The knee-jerk reaction is usually that the government is always worse. But think about it - a government monopoly is still accountable to customers because customers are voters, whereas a private sector monopoly is accountable to no one.
Obviously the smart thing to do is to keep companies private and legislate against monopolies forming in the first place. But once the horse is out of the barn, it's hard to argue that the private sector monopoly isn't the greater evil.
Since the $250k limit is imposed by congress, maybe matching funds could be sought from private sponsors. Surely some of the big contractors like Boeing and those sorts of guys would be willing to put up some prize money if they might end up getting the big contracts to develop and build the real things?
$250k is a not a whole lot of money. I'm not sure how many outfits would be able to get something out of the design stages without more money than that, so this prize would most likely not even cover costs.
That may not be the point, but it would sure be nice to at least have the development costs for projects like this covered by prize money.
Why not turn normal users' PCs into honeypots?
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Internet Immunization
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I'm not a programmer, so I apologize for my ignorance and stupidity in advance, but couldn't antivirus software effectively turn normal users' PCs into the honeypots they're talking about in pretty much the same way? From my admittedly naive point of view, it seems like the only thing missing is the ability for AV software on uers' machines to send outbound alerts.
If my machine is running Norton AV, and I get something, couldn't my machine just automatically alert a central Symantec server or something like that, and then everyone else connected to NAV would get an alert? I know NAV checks for updates on regular intervals - maybe if that interval was every few minutes instead of every few hours or day or whatever, you could just put the honeypot role right onto end users? Plus, there are a lot more than 800,000 end users of AV software.
To clarify: the twist is that the rates are fixed according to destination, not origin of the call. So calling New York with Skype will cost 1.7 cents per minute, whether you skype from New Jersey or from Tierra Del Fuego. Normal long distance rates are dependent on where you are calling from, as well as where you are calling to. So a normal call from New Jersey to New York maybe be a few pennies a minute, but a normal call from Tierra Del Fuego to New York would more expensive.
"And in other news, the burn-in period of testing and tentative speculation over the value and impact of internet based advertising has ended, as both corporate marketing departments and advertising agencies are set to commit billions into promoting products and services online. This message brought to you by our sponsor, 3NL4RgE y0R P3N1S 2Day, ++ 3 1nchES MINimum GUARANTYD111!!!!1"
Skype is a godsend for those of us living in developing countries, since Skype Out enables users to call regular telephones. The rates are dependent on the destination of the call, not the origin - an interesting (and logical) twist on normal telecom rates thanks to internet telephony. Now the rates aren't bad if you're calling a western country - less than 2 cents a minute to call the states, for example - but the rates are still brutal when calling non-western countries. For example, I am living in the Middle East and calling Dubai (which is right next door) costs 22 cents a minute, about 15 times more than calling the states. And the UAE is essentially a fully developed country. I shudder to think what it would cost to call Nigeria or Bangladesh.
This is a shame, in my opinion, because it quashes the internet's promise to break the stranglehold that the regular/government telecoms have over citizens. The ISPs in some countries in this region, for example, have skype's website blocked specifically to prevent people from paying the normal $2.50+/minute rates to call Europe or the states.
If technology is going to fulfill its promise to lift the burden off of those struggling in developing countries, companies like Skype would do well to do a better job of leveling the playing field - price differentials of a factor of 15 just seem downright unfair.
Just when you thought the air guitar world championships http://www.airguitarusa.com/home.html couldn't get any worse, now we're actually going to have to listen to these guys?
I think saying that the concept of Superman is flawed is a bit harsh. The problem is that Superman makes a lousy superhero. I know it sounds crazy, but hear me out:
Superheroes from the comics are usually just human beings who have one or two superhuman powers. They are not really godlike. Superman, on the other hand, is not human. As a being from an ultra-advanced civilization, he is perhaps more plausibly superior to human beings in every respect - stronger, faster, smarter, immortal, and so on - he really IS godlike. Beings from a civilization that advanced could conceivably take any form, so even his looking perfectly human isn't too far of a stretch. Kryptonite is the really implausible thing about Superman, in my mind, thrown in as a cheap plot device. But kryptonite is not really Superman's greatest weakness. His greatest weakness is his humanity: he is principled.
Superman essentially embodies a projection of human ideals. All of our human faculties - strength, speed, our senses, our mobility, our thought and memory, our ability to manipulate objects, our ability to manipulate fire - all of these things are taken to their greatest extreme in Superman. But what is also taken to the extreme, and what really makes Superman interesting as a character, is his principles. Superman's unswerving morality, his individual-centered ethics - (meaning he will not sacrifice individual needs for the greater good) - are an extreme extension of American cultural values. Superman's principles do not allow him to let one person die in order to save a million others. He HAS to save everybody.
What we don't see often enough is Superman in situations where he faces just those sorts of dilemmas. Stories that present characters with impossible choices are much more interesting than stories where every character is black and white good or evil. That's clearly the reason why Smallville is so hugely popular. We see Lex Luthor not as a purely evil madman, but as a real person struggling in a way we can genuinely sympathize with, and we see Superman facing such dilemmas and realizing that despite all his powers he really can't save everyone and fix everything every time. The most engaging storytelling with the Superman character is not when he is tossing cars around and beating up other not-quite-as-super-strong bad guys, but when he is struggling against adversaries who do not share the burden of his principles. Lex Luthor is ruthless, and that gives him a power over Superman.
As a comic book superhero, Superman is pretty boring because he either has to fight other trumped up supervillains all the time or he has to be weakened by kryptonite. But as the personification of human strengths, he has the potential to lay bare the complex nature of social and interpersonal relationships - he allows stories to explore the nature of strength and weakness, power and helplessness, in a purely symbolic way.
I think that is why Superman appeals so much not only to children, but to the child in all of us.
Yeah, but if the alternative is paying 5 or 10 times more for contract work, you could afford to have half of your in-house staff be useless! I mean, your budget essentially has to pay the contractor's people, plus their expenses (rent, utilities, buildings, on and on), plus their profit (which doubles everything in one swoop). Still doesn't seem very economical to me.
Besides, this is NASA. Come on, how bad can a NASA employee be? In my experience very few employees are truly useless. With great management, just about anybody can make a positive contribution.
Well, if you're right then the numbers make a bit more sense. But I find it very hard to believe your figures are correct. 2,000 people are working full time on this mission? Seriously? And $200k/year for a senior engineer or civil servant? The president of the university I attended didn't make that much, let alone tenured scientists. As for civil servants, $200k/year sounds like a senator's salary to me, possibly the head of this entire project.
Ahh, you bring up an excellent point. So 1,000 highly trained staff cost only $100 million per year, but Boeing and Lockheed Martin and whatever other defense contractors get these jobs charge $1 billion for it. That explains a lot. But then if so much money is being wasted, why doesn't NASA just do stuff in-house? Why contract it out at all? Or why not set up NPO/NGO companies?
i don't mean to put on the tinfoil hat, but could these huge contracts going to defense companies be why the Bush administration has supported NASA so much?
Where is the meta-moderation? What's up with modding my post down as flamebait? I wasn't trolling at all - I'm completely serious. How do you spend $2.5 billion on materials and contstruction for a telescope? I would really like to know. Obviously the materials are exceptional, but how can an 8-foot piece of ground glass possibly cost $1,500+ million unless it's made out of diamond?
I also don't understand the problem with my salary logic. $100,000/year is a damn good salary by any standard, and I am positive that most people working in the space industry are not making that much. Can there possibly be 1,000 people working on this telescope, even including all the janitors and secretaries? Again, the math shows quite simply that 1,000 people at $100k/year is $100 million per year. Even on a 5-year project that is still just over 10% of $4.5 billion budget. Instead of being an ass with your mod points, why don't you tell me where that money is being spent?
I live in Dubai. I'm watching the Burj Dubai http://www.burjdubai.com/ being built - the world's tallest building - and it will cost about half as much as the new space telescope and be finished in half the time. I'm also watching the Palm and World Islands being built. These projects are monumental. I am not trolling when I say I could build a seriously awesome space telescope for less than $2.5 billion. So could any number of other construction outfits.
the largest portion of the expense always goes to the labor fee
I hear this a lot about the space program, but if you quickly crunch the numbers:
1,000 staff x $100,000/year (generous) = $100 million/year.
So where is this $4.5 billion really being spent? I think it raises a lot of questions. Setting aside, say, $500 million for the launch itself (again, generous), and $1 billion for 10 years of operating costs (still pretty generous), can the materials and construction of a telescope really cost more than $2.5 billion?
I hate to be cheeky, but if I could pay 1,000 people $100k/year, I could build you a seriously awesome space telescope for a lot less than $2.5 billion.
the largest portion of the expense always goes to the labor fee
I hear this a lot about the space program, but if you quickly crunch the numbers:
1,000 staff x $100,000/year (generous) = $100 million/year.
So where is this $4.5 billion really being spent? I think it raises a lot of questions. Setting aside, say, $500 million for the launch itself (again, generous), and $1 billion for 10 years of operating costs (still pretty generous), can the materials and construction of a telescope really cost more than $2.5 billion?
I hate to be cheeky, but if I could pay 1,000 people $100k/year, I could build you a seriously awesome space telescope for a lot less than $2.5 billion.
Outside the corporate environment (my company is cheap enough to use ad-driven windows to save $4.99 per year...) I can only see this working in the role of driving customers to a newer, cheaper, less functional version of Windows. So, for example, a 'free' ad-driven version would drive customers towards a new "WindowsLite" that costs $15. This might help capture the market segments that are currently pirating, using Linux, or not bothering to upgrade.
I mean, will ad-driven Windows start to be bundled as OEM software on new machines from Dell? After all, which individuals pay for their OS right now anyway? People who can afford to. The rest of people upgrade their OS when they upgrade their entire machine.
It also makes me wonder what things will be advertised. If you're so skint you can't afford to buy a machine with OS bundled, what products are you going to be a fruitful target for? Beer maybe? Most of the advertising dollars for the low-end target markets get spent on TV ads.
Besides, if you're that broke you might end up buying something along the lines of the WalMart Lindows machines anyway - something powered by freeware - and you won't notice the difference anyway because all you use your machine for is email, internet, and word processing.
The pennyless geeks who are going to really use their machines but who can't afford to buy their OS are either going to be running a Linux distro or a pirated version of Windows.
I usually make an effort to be polite and respectful on slashdot, as I find that sarcasm and sniping with ad hominem is counterproductive. Usually.
That seems about twice actual food (grain) production
Well, at least you included the 'grain' caveat. According to the FOA's statistical database, forestry, livestock, and fisheries comprise over 35% of gross food production. But I'll let that go...
That is a very strange comment indeed. Are you seriously claiming that the majority of food you eat is not digested?
Perhaps it was too difficult for you to understand the first time, so I will repeat using smaller words and examples for illustration: When mammals such as human beings digest food, the extraction of available chemical energy from that food is not 100% efficient. For example, bullshit is flammable (a fact which, for future reference, might be useful in your case). In the instance of the human metabolism, I am not aware of the exact efficiency, but I am guessing it is significantly lower than 100%. Having seen the people I worked with in east Africa burn cow-pat cakes as fuel - it burns about as well and as as wood of a similar weight - I would be surprised if the efficiency was greater than 50%.
Sewage is not a useful input to thie TDP process. Garbage is not a useful input to the TDP process. Fats and some polymers are useful inputs. As I said before, TDP CANNOT convert carbohydrates into oil, and hence cannot do much with the vast majority of waste.
I am not a chemist, nor am I an expert on TDP/TCP. I have stated such, and have referred you to the sources where I've gotten my information - the company holding the patents on this technology, and the scientific press. I can find no mention of the process being limited to biological fats and plastics as you say. I am not a biochemist, but a quick spin on wikipedia shows that cartilage and feathers (both approved feedstocks according to the company) are comprised largely of proteins such as collagen and keratin. Perhaps proteins are the special biological fats of which you speak, in which case I apologize for my ignorance. Then again, perhaps they are not.
In contrast to my approach, however, you have made only unsubstantiated assertions. I'm not sure what kind of scientist you are, but "because I say so" is generally considered to be evidence of little weight. Seeing as you have not cited a single reference, your accusations about 'vague statements' merely amount to the pot calling the kettle black: the burden is squarely on you to provide proof of your claims.
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Nevertheless, I am not swayed in my position about regulation for several reasons. The first reason is that I do not agree that regulation only applies to how people peacefully interact. The problem is not that the term 'peacefully' is difficult to define or agree upon - indeed, the Golden Rule makes it clear that being nice is something that is easy to agree upon - the problem is that individuals are not inherently peaceful. On the contrary, humans are inherently hostile, aggressive, competitive, selfish, and destructive.
The anarchists I have known (oddly, all English, German, and Austrian) have all held the view that humans are fundamentally peaceful and egalitarian, and that only oppression by authority gives rise to conflict. This echoes your sentiment that civilization exists in spite of government, rather than because of it. This is not just naive, it is also wrong. I am an anthropologist, and our field continues to be frustrated by romanticized 19th Century views of 'primitive' peaceful egalitarian societies being a representation of man's 'natural' state. So-called 'primitive' human societies are not, in any single documented instance, either peaceful or egalitarian. Establishment of an authority structure is a human universal, beginning in the family and extending outward through all kinship relations to modern institutionalized structures. From that standpoint alone, strict anarchy - "no one in a position of rule" - is fundamentally incompatible with human behavior. God knows I wish it were otherwise.
The second reason I am not swayed is from my personal experience. I'm not sure how many developing countries you have lived in, but having been to (and in many instances lived in) such countries as The Gambia, Kenya, Yemen, Oman, UAE, Jordan, Bangladesh, and India, I can guarantee you that chaos is not a preferable alternative to order. I my experience, people are willing to accept a staggering amount of poverty and discomfort as long as there is regulation, accountability, and justice. But chaos can reign even in relatively wealthy places (urban America, for example) if those things are absent. So the simple argument that chaos exists as a result of poverty - while partially true perhaps - is incomplete at best.
Nigeria and Pakistan are even better examples, though I have not been to those places personally. In those countries, the reason why chaos exists is because the enforcement of order (including peaceful conduct, and therefore still 'regulation') is undertaken without the majority of citizens' agreement or approval - those governments are not serving the majority of the people's interests.
And so we come to anarcho-capitalism, which as I undersand it is the idea of the privatization and decentralization of agency which you categorize as the 'initiative of force', or enforcement of law, including police, armed forces, taxation, and so on. My primary objection to this is that from free market dynamics, devoid of all regulation, will emerge multiple private entities with legitimate title to agency of force: nodes of localized authority each possessing the means to enforce their authority (increasingly devastating means, raising the entire issue of proliferation of increasingly destructive weaponry). That immediately begs the question, what will happen when the interests of those entities are in conflict with one another and/or in conflict with the citizenry? The answer is available to us quite clearly: feudalism. Basically, you would be arming corporations. Giving corporations teeth would simply turn them into the principalities and kingdoms of medeival Europe. You are probably well aware of how the general populous fared during that era.
Now, is any of this a viable alternative
Finally, to answer your question about what is sacred to me - or in other words, what I believe should be regulated - my answer is fairly simple: the Golden Rule. History, the behavioral sciences, and even some nifty computer modeling has shown that the Golden Rule is consistently the most sound basis for codifying behavior in human interaction. Treat others as you'd like them to treat you. From that root flowers the only functional morality and ethics not based on historical authority (because God says so) or force (because I say so), but based on reason.
Most of the time the Golden Rule translates as 'be nice to others' (probably because that seems to be the only thing people can universally agree upon) and for the most part regulation is an attempt to enforce that behavior. Hence, we are not allowed to steal from, assault, murder, or otherwise harm others. Our behavior is regulated. Much of that regulation is codified as law, though much of it is also instinctual as a result of the evolution of our species as social animals.
The regulatiion of human behavior, on individual or collective levels, and either stictly or loosely based upon the Golden Rule, has the effect of precluding conflict that would otherwise emerge out of individual self-interest. And upon that regulation has all of human civilization been built. Regulation is perhaps the single most dinstinctive feature of our species. It has made all other things possible. On that basis, you will most likely have an extremely difficult time convincing me that regulation is not productive.
My second objection is to your inherent assumption about consumer awareness and freedom of choice: that people will be aware of 'blue ones' and that they will buy them if they are available. Although Microsoft isn't necessarily the best example, it can serve well enough for the purposes of illustration. Microsoft has such a monopoly that most people are not even aware of the alternatives. By 'most people', I do mean exactly that: most people, not ubergeeks, slashdotters, and coders. The vast majority of people think Linux is a character in the Peanuts cartoon and have absolutely no awareness that it is an alternative OS to Windows - they don't even have any concept of what an OS is. Many people are only vaguely aware of Apple and Mac, such that they might know about iPods but have no concept that Macs offer a funamentally alternate (and superior) OS architecture. And even those who are aware, like me, are not necessarily able to choose the superior alternative that is available because of the entire issue of standards and compatibility. And last but not least there is the issue of necessity. Can you simply refuse to use MS software? It is damn hard, especially in business. But let's switch here to a better example:
If you are unhappy with your power or water service, what options do you have? If you are extremely lucky and live in a major metropolitan area you might have 2 service providers, one as bad as the next - like our presidential candidates. But in most instances you have no options because there is only one service provider in your area. What do you do then? Have no water or electricty? Will you be the one to make a stand, the individual who refuses to provide the economic demand to fuel the engine of the monopoly? Highly unlikely. Most people like to be able to shower and flush their toilets.
So the assumption that people will simply buy superior products - 'blue ones' - if they become available is unsound and, quite honestly, rather naive. It just isn't that simple.
The knee-jerk reaction is usually that the government is always worse. But think about it - a government monopoly is still accountable to customers because customers are voters, whereas a private sector monopoly is accountable to no one.
Obviously the smart thing to do is to keep companies private and legislate against monopolies forming in the first place. But once the horse is out of the barn, it's hard to argue that the private sector monopoly isn't the greater evil.
So THAT'S what people mean when they say, "I researched it online."
The only thing that deserves to be called 'genius' here is the fact that you actually bothered to type your post and submit it.
Since the $250k limit is imposed by congress, maybe matching funds could be sought from private sponsors. Surely some of the big contractors like Boeing and those sorts of guys would be willing to put up some prize money if they might end up getting the big contracts to develop and build the real things?
That may not be the point, but it would sure be nice to at least have the development costs for projects like this covered by prize money.
If my machine is running Norton AV, and I get something, couldn't my machine just automatically alert a central Symantec server or something like that, and then everyone else connected to NAV would get an alert? I know NAV checks for updates on regular intervals - maybe if that interval was every few minutes instead of every few hours or day or whatever, you could just put the honeypot role right onto end users? Plus, there are a lot more than 800,000 end users of AV software.
Sorry if this is really dumb.
will it find Sarah Connor?
To clarify: the twist is that the rates are fixed according to destination, not origin of the call. So calling New York with Skype will cost 1.7 cents per minute, whether you skype from New Jersey or from Tierra Del Fuego. Normal long distance rates are dependent on where you are calling from, as well as where you are calling to. So a normal call from New Jersey to New York maybe be a few pennies a minute, but a normal call from Tierra Del Fuego to New York would more expensive.
"And in other news, the burn-in period of testing and tentative speculation over the value and impact of internet based advertising has ended, as both corporate marketing departments and advertising agencies are set to commit billions into promoting products and services online. This message brought to you by our sponsor, 3NL4RgE y0R P3N1S 2Day, ++ 3 1nchES MINimum GUARANTYD111!!!!1"
"What's the status of our new software?"
"Ready for launch Mr Carver, and - as requested - it's full of bugs, so people will be forced to upgrade for years."
"Delicious."
/not serious... no, seriously.
This is a shame, in my opinion, because it quashes the internet's promise to break the stranglehold that the regular/government telecoms have over citizens. The ISPs in some countries in this region, for example, have skype's website blocked specifically to prevent people from paying the normal $2.50+/minute rates to call Europe or the states.
If technology is going to fulfill its promise to lift the burden off of those struggling in developing countries, companies like Skype would do well to do a better job of leveling the playing field - price differentials of a factor of 15 just seem downright unfair.
/sorry
Just when you thought the air guitar world championships http://www.airguitarusa.com/home.html couldn't get any worse, now we're actually going to have to listen to these guys?
Superheroes from the comics are usually just human beings who have one or two superhuman powers. They are not really godlike. Superman, on the other hand, is not human. As a being from an ultra-advanced civilization, he is perhaps more plausibly superior to human beings in every respect - stronger, faster, smarter, immortal, and so on - he really IS godlike. Beings from a civilization that advanced could conceivably take any form, so even his looking perfectly human isn't too far of a stretch. Kryptonite is the really implausible thing about Superman, in my mind, thrown in as a cheap plot device. But kryptonite is not really Superman's greatest weakness. His greatest weakness is his humanity: he is principled.
Superman essentially embodies a projection of human ideals. All of our human faculties - strength, speed, our senses, our mobility, our thought and memory, our ability to manipulate objects, our ability to manipulate fire - all of these things are taken to their greatest extreme in Superman. But what is also taken to the extreme, and what really makes Superman interesting as a character, is his principles. Superman's unswerving morality, his individual-centered ethics - (meaning he will not sacrifice individual needs for the greater good) - are an extreme extension of American cultural values. Superman's principles do not allow him to let one person die in order to save a million others. He HAS to save everybody.
What we don't see often enough is Superman in situations where he faces just those sorts of dilemmas. Stories that present characters with impossible choices are much more interesting than stories where every character is black and white good or evil. That's clearly the reason why Smallville is so hugely popular. We see Lex Luthor not as a purely evil madman, but as a real person struggling in a way we can genuinely sympathize with, and we see Superman facing such dilemmas and realizing that despite all his powers he really can't save everyone and fix everything every time. The most engaging storytelling with the Superman character is not when he is tossing cars around and beating up other not-quite-as-super-strong bad guys, but when he is struggling against adversaries who do not share the burden of his principles. Lex Luthor is ruthless, and that gives him a power over Superman.
As a comic book superhero, Superman is pretty boring because he either has to fight other trumped up supervillains all the time or he has to be weakened by kryptonite. But as the personification of human strengths, he has the potential to lay bare the complex nature of social and interpersonal relationships - he allows stories to explore the nature of strength and weakness, power and helplessness, in a purely symbolic way.
I think that is why Superman appeals so much not only to children, but to the child in all of us.
Besides, this is NASA. Come on, how bad can a NASA employee be? In my experience very few employees are truly useless. With great management, just about anybody can make a positive contribution.
Well, if you're right then the numbers make a bit more sense. But I find it very hard to believe your figures are correct. 2,000 people are working full time on this mission? Seriously? And $200k/year for a senior engineer or civil servant? The president of the university I attended didn't make that much, let alone tenured scientists. As for civil servants, $200k/year sounds like a senator's salary to me, possibly the head of this entire project.
i don't mean to put on the tinfoil hat, but could these huge contracts going to defense companies be why the Bush administration has supported NASA so much?
I also don't understand the problem with my salary logic. $100,000/year is a damn good salary by any standard, and I am positive that most people working in the space industry are not making that much. Can there possibly be 1,000 people working on this telescope, even including all the janitors and secretaries? Again, the math shows quite simply that 1,000 people at $100k/year is $100 million per year. Even on a 5-year project that is still just over 10% of $4.5 billion budget. Instead of being an ass with your mod points, why don't you tell me where that money is being spent?
I live in Dubai. I'm watching the Burj Dubai http://www.burjdubai.com/ being built - the world's tallest building - and it will cost about half as much as the new space telescope and be finished in half the time. I'm also watching the Palm and World Islands being built. These projects are monumental. I am not trolling when I say I could build a seriously awesome space telescope for less than $2.5 billion. So could any number of other construction outfits.
I hear this a lot about the space program, but if you quickly crunch the numbers:
1,000 staff x $100,000/year (generous) = $100 million/year.
So where is this $4.5 billion really being spent? I think it raises a lot of questions. Setting aside, say, $500 million for the launch itself (again, generous), and $1 billion for 10 years of operating costs (still pretty generous), can the materials and construction of a telescope really cost more than $2.5 billion?
I hate to be cheeky, but if I could pay 1,000 people $100k/year, I could build you a seriously awesome space telescope for a lot less than $2.5 billion.
I hear this a lot about the space program, but if you quickly crunch the numbers:
1,000 staff x $100,000/year (generous) = $100 million/year.
So where is this $4.5 billion really being spent? I think it raises a lot of questions. Setting aside, say, $500 million for the launch itself (again, generous), and $1 billion for 10 years of operating costs (still pretty generous), can the materials and construction of a telescope really cost more than $2.5 billion?
I hate to be cheeky, but if I could pay 1,000 people $100k/year, I could build you a seriously awesome space telescope for a lot less than $2.5 billion.
I mean, will ad-driven Windows start to be bundled as OEM software on new machines from Dell? After all, which individuals pay for their OS right now anyway? People who can afford to. The rest of people upgrade their OS when they upgrade their entire machine.
It also makes me wonder what things will be advertised. If you're so skint you can't afford to buy a machine with OS bundled, what products are you going to be a fruitful target for? Beer maybe? Most of the advertising dollars for the low-end target markets get spent on TV ads.
Besides, if you're that broke you might end up buying something along the lines of the WalMart Lindows machines anyway - something powered by freeware - and you won't notice the difference anyway because all you use your machine for is email, internet, and word processing.
The pennyless geeks who are going to really use their machines but who can't afford to buy their OS are either going to be running a Linux distro or a pirated version of Windows.
That seems about twice actual food (grain) production
Well, at least you included the 'grain' caveat. According to the FOA's statistical database, forestry, livestock, and fisheries comprise over 35% of gross food production. But I'll let that go...
That is a very strange comment indeed. Are you seriously claiming that the majority of food you eat is not digested?
Perhaps it was too difficult for you to understand the first time, so I will repeat using smaller words and examples for illustration: When mammals such as human beings digest food, the extraction of available chemical energy from that food is not 100% efficient. For example, bullshit is flammable (a fact which, for future reference, might be useful in your case). In the instance of the human metabolism, I am not aware of the exact efficiency, but I am guessing it is significantly lower than 100%. Having seen the people I worked with in east Africa burn cow-pat cakes as fuel - it burns about as well and as as wood of a similar weight - I would be surprised if the efficiency was greater than 50%.
Sewage is not a useful input to thie TDP process. Garbage is not a useful input to the TDP process. Fats and some polymers are useful inputs. As I said before, TDP CANNOT convert carbohydrates into oil, and hence cannot do much with the vast majority of waste.
I am not a chemist, nor am I an expert on TDP/TCP. I have stated such, and have referred you to the sources where I've gotten my information - the company holding the patents on this technology, and the scientific press. I can find no mention of the process being limited to biological fats and plastics as you say. I am not a biochemist, but a quick spin on wikipedia shows that cartilage and feathers (both approved feedstocks according to the company) are comprised largely of proteins such as collagen and keratin. Perhaps proteins are the special biological fats of which you speak, in which case I apologize for my ignorance. Then again, perhaps they are not.
In contrast to my approach, however, you have made only unsubstantiated assertions. I'm not sure what kind of scientist you are, but "because I say so" is generally considered to be evidence of little weight. Seeing as you have not cited a single reference, your accusations about 'vague statements' merely amount to the pot calling the kettle black: the burden is squarely on you to provide proof of your claims.