There is more non-ferrous metal found in a single metallic asteroid of modest size (1km or slightly less in size) than all of the metal for all similar ores extracted from the Earth for the entire history of mankind. Getting that ore from somewhere in solar orbit to the Earth's surface may be a bit tricky, and there certainly are technical issues invovled in extracting that kind of ore, but the going rate for several tons of Au, Ag, and Cu is certainly something that can be traded on Wall Street or the Chicago Merch just fine.
It would be fun just for kicks and giggles to invest in a gold futures contract for ore extracted from an asteroid and delivered to the Earth. That is something you might even be able to invest in today.
The problem with this launch isn't that it met expectations, it is just that the expectations were rather minor, and that the actual engineering benefit that will come from this launch is minimal at best. All that it really proved is that the SRB will launch if NASA wants it to launch.
I suppose that a minor piece of knowledge gained here is that the Shuttle SRBs will light up and pretty much do their stuff... even if they aren't attached to a larger integrated Shuttle system.
Did the U.S. government have to spend a half billion dollars to figure that out? Are you sure that such an amount wouldn't have been better spent in another way? Why?
Almost nothing of what you saw yesterday with this launch is going to be used in the final Ares I design as well, with the possible exception of the launch tower. I suppose some handling procedures by the ground crew can be reviewed, as much of how the vehicle was handled is going to be how the final Ares I rocket will dealt with as well.... but I wasn't aware that the primary obstacle for getting into space revolved around the efficiency of the ground crew handling the rocket. Since only 3-5 launches per year are planned at the peak of its operation, I don't see how saving an extra half hour of prep time is going to be a significant aspect to the launch planning.
Still, it was a neat looking launch. Too bad I felt so angry to see it go up, and never have I ever wished a failure to happen to NASA more than yesterday. I was literally praying that it would fail. Considering the design and the fact that it really was just a minor tweak of the existing Shuttle SRB design that is already flight-proven hardware, it didn't seem likely that a failure would happen.
In other words, this was purely a publicity P.R. stunt. That is the main reason for the animosity by myself and a few others.
No one knows what it would cost to launch a Saturn V in todays dollars. The last one launched over 30 years ago. There was some talk about bringing it back to life with modern materials to make it lighter and STS engines instead of the JP-1's but that idea was quickly killed even though NASA still has the blueprints.
Correction:
No one knows that it would cost to launch a Saturn V today presuming that NASA/Congress/President Nixon didn't trash the whole infrastructure and do incremental improvements over the past 50 years with newer more modern materials and equipment upgrades. Certainly the Apollo Guidance Computer alone could fit on a single radiation-hardened programmable logic chip and do much, much more than what went to the Moon with Neil Armstrong.
Von Braun's dream was to have hundreds of Saturn Vs be put into a production line and to have continuous improvements in the overall design... and to reduce cost at the same time. Minor changes would be introduced in a gradual program of rapid prototyping and testing. In other words, if the manned spaceflight program had stuck with the Apollo hardware architecture, the Saturn V rocket of today would be only a passing resemblance to the Saturn V of 50 years ago.
It stands for logic that the fixed infrastructure costs had already been sunk with the development of the Apollo rockets to the Moon, so the incremental costs of additional hardware is all that would have been necessary for continuing the program. In the switch-over to the shuttle program, all of that knowledge, skill, and even knowledge base by workers who didn't bother to write down all of the "fixes" they did to get folks to the Moon has been lost. Much of that would have been preserved at the Saturn V been continued.
Restarting the Saturn V program after a 50 year hiatus? Yeah, that is about as stupid as it gets.
I argue that we would have been better off in terms of costs had the USA not gone with the Shuttle program in the first place. Yes, this is in hindsight, but unfortunately I see the same thing happening all over again with the termination of the Shuttle program and the proposal to de-orbit the ISS. If anything, I wish more serious study had been done on making a Shuttle Mark-2 program that would have built off of the existing knowledge base that comprises those involved in launching the current generation of shuttles.
Most of that expertise is also going to be lost in a fashion just as the knowledge lost from the cancellation of the Saturn V program has now been lost. Of course, a Shuttle Mark-2 should have been launched a decade or more ago, but that is a separate issue.
On this issue, I'd have to strongly disagree. While I will admit that the NASA manned spaceflight program is incredibly expensive (arguably too expensive) for what science is generated, and I'll also admit that science is much more often than not simply a "value added" bonus to most projects done by NASA astronauts, there has been some very remarkable value to having astronauts physically make scientific studies by being some place in person and experiencing the environment on a first hand basis. Not all environments are completely conducive to this approach, but a number of those environments in space can be.
Those that advocate a complete elimination of manned spaceflight also kill something in the human soul as well. Ignoring the religious connection at the moment, I am talking about the emotional connection to being involved with space on a more intimate level... something that does strike a chord with taxpayers.
For myself, I thing the following is also true: No Buck Rodgers, no bucks. If you want to see more robotic space science missions, they will be financed and paid for with the marginal budgets that get lumped into the manned spaceflight programs as well. That folks with multiple PhDs are also in the astronaut corps only means that when an opportunity to do real science presents itself, that it can be followed and done.
I would dare say that sending Harrison Schmitt to the Moon was one of the best spent money by NASA on science in nearly the entire history of that agency. I argue that more real science was accomplished on that one flight to the Moon than the entirety of all robotic missions that preceeded or followed after that mission... combined. Much of the work that followed from that mission has served as a baseline of information that has been used on almost all other subsequent planetary science missions since, and is still paying off results in terms of scientific understanding of what has happened on the Moon in the past. Admittedly not all scientific inquiries by astronauts are this productive, but they can be, and it certainly could cost a whole lot less to send astronauts into space.
Making it cheap to send folks into space is not a primary mission for NASA, and some would argue is a perpendicular objective.
How about private space flight? They'll take risks so long as there's profit involved. Only problem is we gotta figure out how to convince them that space, the moon, and mars are profitable.
I don't think this is a problem. It isn't an issue of getting private individuals or even folks willing to organize themselves into joint-stock corporations to fund vehicle construction for going into space.....
It is an issue of getting our government to even permit private individuals to be able to get into space on their own dime, and not throw up so many regulations that any effective progress for getting into space is essentially blocked. Armadillo Aerospace had to halt all launch operations because one branch of the FAA didn't communicate with another branch and asserted that a "teathered flight" (literally a rocket flight with the engines/vehicle tied to the ground via ropes and other restraints) is a flight that needs to have a formal permit before launch and a flight path filed with the local airport. As if going up 10 feet in the air is something that is going to interfere with local airport traffic.
Oh, that isn't all. The paperwork alone for even doing a "real" flight is far, far more complicated, and that doesn't even deal with what happens if the vehicle actually gets into space. And if you get into space, make sure your camera doesn't take any pictures of the Earth from up there unless you have a license from NOAA.
It isn't assuming responsibility for risks, it is simply convincing a bureaucrat to let you go in the first place. The process is certainly better than it was a decade ago, but it can be done better.
What is worse with the insulation foam that was used around the cyrogenic fuels (the shuttle uses liquid oxygen and hydrogen chilled at sub-zero temperatures) was replaced with something "less damaging to the environment" to satisfy some silly EPA bureaucrat's notion of how to protect the general public. The original shuttle design used a foam that had freon in it... something that is now considered unhealthy.
For the conspiracy theory fearmongers, it is also interesting that the environmental concerns over freon came up when the patent for freon manufacturing expried. That is mostly irrelevant to this discussion, however.
More significantly, the insulation foam that replaced the original design was heavier, harder to apply, and didn't have the same temperature range usage requirements that the original foam had. In a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", NASA fixed an unbroken launch procedure that worked quite well with a much more inferior procedure and product that ended up killing directly the 7 astronauts and the Columbia.
That I call unnecessary risk, and certainly the limited use on every shuttle launch since this change combined couldn't have possibly "saved" seven other people due to improved environmental procedures or a slightly less damaged ozone layer from the reduction of the use of this game. I'd love to have somebody show me otherwise. That NASA has changed procedures from the post-Columbia accident to keep watching this foam shows that it was and still is a bad move to replace that foam in the first place.
Of course isn't is strange that the DHS doesn't even want this authority.... presuming that it was even possible to distinguish "legitimate" network traffic from video games without checking the "evil" bit.
For myself, I'd rather that the FICA deductions were completely removed, added as a revenue neutral addition to the general income tax, and considered Social Security payments to be simply a form of social welfare instead of an entitlement.
That pretty much is how the U.S. Congress has been treating the Social Security trust funds anyway since Tip O'Neil was speaker and Ronald Reagan was in the White House. Why not just make it official?
Of course that would make it too easy to cut benefits.... how dare I suggest such an evil and horrible thing.
If the upcoming generation is ultra-nationalistic, it follows that a future generation will rebel by questioning authority.
I don't necessarily see this as a given in China. Their culture is one that strongly respects authority (it has for the past 3000 years) and doesn't take too kindly to revolutionaries under any government that has ever existed in that country.
If you are comparing that to the USA.... America was founded by a revolution, by pig-headed individuals who didn't respect authority and almost always thought that its leaders were a bunch of morons and idiots that were barely tolerated because somebody had to do the job. It still is the case today. That folks in the 1960's and 1970's in America questioned authority has more to do with a younger generation who actually studied their own history and realized what America was really about. Bowing down to authority has rarely been considered an American trait.... even when Americans are found in other countries.
The USA in the 1940's and 1950's rallied to a strongly nationalist tendency because most intelligent people realized that the very existence of the American Republic was at stake and if something wasn't done to stop the scourge of the enemies of America, that they could end up being dead and everything that they held dear to themselves ruined. That happened after 9/11.... but ultimately it was proven that Al-Queida was a joke of a threat and that the larger threat was the U.S. government itself. That opinions differed in terms of how the citizens of America should deal with the threat of the government against its own citizens has not been focused or even of the same mind also says a whole lot about the diversity of opinions about the topic... and much about the current political climate in America as well.
China is a much more different place, and even "revolutions" tend to take on a much more ordered and structured form... such as the events of Tiananmen Square of a couple decades ago. Given the same circumstances and motivations in America.... the tanks that came to disperse the crowds for a similar kind of event happening on the Washington D.C. central mall (the area between the White House and the Capitol Building with all of the monuments) would have been demolished from improvised explosives and other heavy calibur weapons. It certainly would have been a bloodbath of a far larger kind.
The "People's Liberation Army" has an entire battalion that is dedicated to hacking "the West" and conducting electronic intelligence gathering via the internet. That most of these folks do their stuff in China is besides the point.... which by definition is "legal" as it is officially sanctioned by that government.
Of course the U.S. Air Force also has a similar team (I don't know how large of a unit) that does essentially the same thing on behalf of the U.S. Government.
Perhaps the original commentary is paranoia based upon actions of the U.S. government.... realizing that if they can screw somebody else, we must be getting screwed too. I'd call that fairly good proof.
Naw.... America is too busy spying on its own citizens to care even in the little bit that comes from abroad.
Of course, the same could be said about China. This inter-governmental spying is just the small stuff in the grand scheme of things. Both countries are far more paranoid about their own citizens than by anything another country could do.
Heck, I'd go so far as to say that coal power kills far more per kilowatt-hour generated by an order of magnitude than nuclear power ever has... even if you throw in Chernobyl and add in Nagasaki and Hiroshima for extra body counts.
Off of just mining accidents alone, coal mining has killed far more than all of the worst disasters and even deliberate uses of nuclear weaponry combined.
All of this even pales in comparison to those who receive contamination from radioactive materials released from the processing and use of coal.
Free neutrons can be considered an isotope of "Neutronium", an element with an atomic number of zero.
In listings of nuclides that attempt to be a complete table such as this one on Wikipedia usually list neutrons and even some interesting combinations of neutrons that even seem to indicate multiple isotopes of Neutronium.
Still, I would have to agree with your main point that the breakdown of Uranium is typically considered a form of fission rather than fusion.
A better example may have been cats since a Lion and Tiger can't breed (as far as I know). But still, the now extinct Liger hasn't been found.
Lions and Tigers can breed just fine. They are geographically isolated from one another, which is why you see distinctive traits between the two species, but they are able to interbreed... and even produce offspring of both sexes. There are both Ligers and Tigons (where the Tiger is the father and the Lion is the mother), and even examples of further in-breeding where Tigons and Ligers produce offspring. Not just fossils, but actual living examples can be produced. I've seen a stuffed Liger myself.
Current Zoological standards strongly discourage the practice of interbreeding these two species, which is one reason why more "respectable" zoos likely don't have these kinds of creatures any more. Still, it is something that can happen even if it is discouraged... and has certainly added fuel to the debate over what qualifies as a species.
Actually, that isn't quite true. All of the Landsat data is available in the public domain as it was produced with resources and funding from the U.S. government. This can be found here:
Unfortunately, the data isn't packaged and set up to be convenient to folks who want to use it. The copyright information about this satellite data can be found here that does confirm it is in the public domain. Some folks have obtained this data and then charged fees and "copyright" for their modifications to make it accessable, but the raw information is still in the public domain. It just takes a determined set of volunteers to be able to extract the mountains of data and turn it into something usable. Also, some of the higher resolution images found on places like Google Maps are made from commercial imaging satellites, which is protected by copyright.
There are also photographic surveys that have been done by the U.S. Geological Survey that are technically in the public domain, but because some of those photographs were done by contractors working on behalf of the U.S. government and not necessarily government employees, the copyright status is at best dubious. In a few cases, some early aerial photography has entered the public domain due to the copyright expiring, but that is some incredibly old photography. Many of the geological survey maps of the USA were made from these aerial maps... and there have even been map made by the Defense Maping Agency (the branch of the U.S. military that maps maps for military planning purposes) that have aerial photography which was used in their creation. Some of that photography has been collected with coverage of decidedly non-USA areas... with of course emphasis on places like Russia, Poland, and Eastern Germany. Some of those photos are still classified, but I'm sure that a strong effort to get some FOIA requests to have some of the older photos released might get some results. If it is released at all, it would be in the public domain in terms of copyright.
The problem is that this doesn't remove 90% of the thrust problem. It only removes about 3%. Actually it is even less than that.
Yes, I've seen the JP Aerospace efforts, and that is certainly is an interesting concept. The #1 benefit that comes from launching at high altitude is that you don't have to worry about the troposphere and weather: You pretty much can launch whenever the equipment is ready and when the launch windows is open without having to worry about something like a lightning storm, tornado, or hurricane coming along to delay the launch for a month or so. That is a common problem in Florida and KSC in particular.
Also, with a balloon you don't have to worry about building a concrete launch pad and blockhouse that will have to deflect the flames of the launch vehicle when a rocket fires for the first time. That is also a considerable part of the expense in launching rockets that is often ignored when calculating launch costs. From a pure economics standpoint, there are some decided advantages to an air launch.
This said, launching from the ground does allow technicians to do some last minute tweaks that can't be done from the air, and it offers some other advantages including larger launch vehicles that aren't possible with air launch methods. Saving fuel costs... if that was even a major consideration for orbital launch vehicles (which it isn't), really isn't a major issue or a reason to prefer air launches. A rocket going into orbit has to be about the same size regardless of the location it is launched... within some margin of error. The Lattitude of the launch site has a much stronger influence, where launching from the equator is much better than launching from mid-lattitudes like the Russians have their launch complex. Even that is located in what was one of the most southern locations in the old USSR (with a good buffer to keep "spies" and random tourists away).
I can name two "traditional" inventions in the 19th Century (just off the top of my head) that had nearly identical patent applications that arrived within a day or two to the USPTO:
Aluminum Refining - This is the current electro-synthesis process that cheaply extracts this metal from raw ores. This one was literally the difference of a single hour in terms of getting to the patent office.
Telephone - Alexander Graham Bell dodged a bullet on this one. He is even a classical "textbook" inventor often described in glowing light about how patents are so useful to society and why they are necessary.
Yeah, I'd say that simultaneous patent applications are a serious problem, and patent law doesn't really deal with research efforts where obvious areas of research are looked at by multiple individuals.
At least in terms of copyright, if two authors come up with similar topics and submit the books to the library of congress at nearly the same time, all that happens is that the books get classified with the same catalog number (mostly) putting them on the shelf next to each other. The copyright is completely in force for both books (presuming one author didn't plagiarize the other in a blatant manner).
BTW, if MP3s and MPEG-4 are so wonderful, why is Ogg Theora and Vorbis being created and gaining "market share" of the video and audio markets... respectively?
Particularly for open source development, but also for purely commercial applications, I have strongly discouraged any clients from ever using MPEG-4 for any application unless there are specific contract requirements that demand the use of that data standard. The licensing terms from those few patent holders who are allowing a license for that standard are not really worth the effort and there are indeed better alternatives that don't require those kind of patent royalty payments. The "MPEG Licensing Authority" who mostly handles the royalty arrangements for most of the MPEG formats won't, however, promise that all of the patents have been dealt with through them. Indeed, they even publish a list of those patents which are not covered under their agreements. Yeah, that is real comforting and something to build a business plan upon.
As for AAC.... I have dealt directly with Dolby Laboratories. You should be very concerned when the attorney to engineer ratio has more folks with a legal degree than an engineering degree. Indeed, Dolby has a ratio of about 3 lawyers for every developer (it may be higher, but that was about ten years ago). On the whole their engineers are not assholes, and I've been able to at least deal with them on a professional level. The licensing terms aren't really all that awful, but you need to be incredibly careful about payment of royalties and have an IP lawyer review everything you do with them like a hawk.
Don't even get me started on dealing with Unisys. Those guys are absolute creeps and can be trusted as far as you can throw them.... with a thousand nuclear warheads on a updated version of the 1960's Orion spacecraft. I will never, ever, in my lifetime, ever sign an agreement with that company or even engage in any sort of negotiations ever again with that company. They had their chance and they blew it for me. If it is to negotiate with them or be terminated, I'll look for a new job. Seriously. It was that bad of an experience for me.
I've dealt with many of the "players" in the multimedia format "industry" and the digital media formats you are describing here have many of the same problems that the LZW algorithm had. Some will actually negotiate with you, but they all have a way to rip the rug out from under you if you become successful and they don't think you are giving them a large enough cut of the pie.
I still fail to see what actual benefits come from patent protection anyway, and I certainly doubt that any of the companies involved with the data format standards you have mentioned would have come up with something new and innovative from the royalties received. That it supports and maintains a level of employment for the legal industry is true, but I see that as a bunch of leeches who are not employed in advancing and improving society so far as their individual contributions are concerned with regards to the legal paperwork and royalty terms involved here. I'm sure IP attorneys would beg to differ, as they have in the past when I've mentioned this here on/.
One of the problems facing both software and electrical engineers is the fact that ultimately all software and nearly all logic circuits can be expressed as either software or hardware. You can take nearly any logic circuit and express that as a computer algorithm, and you can take any program (yes, even something so bloated like Microsoft Windows) and express that as a whole bunch of discrete logic gates and even give pre-1980's part numbers for the whole thing. No, I'm not suggesting anybody would want to implement Windows via 7400 series gates, but it is in theory possible even if wildly unlikely.
I agree with you on the physical device patents that need to be the basis of patents, and I would love to see patent law restricted to strictly physical and tangible things. Stuff you can touch and put on your desk... or at least see in a warehouse. That would at least exclude business method patents, but as I'm pointing out that software patents are another beast that does have its own rather interesting set of issues that could be subverted via the physical device test.
Of course, I'd love to see a standard and test applied to software patents that it would have to have an actual implementation be made in physical gates in order to be granted a patent. That would at least set a bar high enough to keep most of the patent trolls away even if it would still allow some software patents to be granted. It might even keep a few electrical engineers employed as well.
A patent was originally defined as legal protection granted to an individual for creating a device that does something unique and useful. A temporary monopoly was granted by the government to allow that inventor who created that unique and original device to recoup the R&D costs associated with creating that device in the first place, noting that R&D for something genuinely original often has dead end roads when trying to get something to work and is generally quite expensive to perform. Once somebody has established a good template for how something can work, many others are willing to copy that device since the hard work has already been accomplished.
The slippery slope from this definition and the one given above (that a patent is about solutions instead of physical devices) is precisely what has led us to software and business method patents. R&D costs, while not completely missing, are orders of magnitude lower and really not a significant problem. Furthermore, previous tests measuring the validity of patents have included an explicit exclusion for mathematical theorems and formulas.
To put it another way, all computer software can be reduced down to a single number. Perhaps a rather large number with thousands, millions, or even billions of digits, but a number none the less. What a patent essentially does is to give people exclusive copying authority over certain classes of numbers and makes it illegal to publish that number without their permission.
Other arguments can be offered here, but the point is that patents don't cover a mere solution or abstract idea. The original intent of the framers of the U.S. Constitution and based upon the previous English Common Law precedent over previous patents... including abuses of patent law in England that the founders of the American Republic were trying to avoid... was intended to be narrowly defined to cover strictly physical devices precisely so patent law wouldn't become perverted to censor speech and political philosophies. A broadly construed patent philosophy can be a tool to pervert other aspects of the constitution including the 1st amendment and other areas of the constitution as well.
Horrible software patents include such things as the LZW algorithm patent that somehow landed in the hands of Unisys... where they asserted the patent to extract royalties for those companies wishing to use the GIF image standard in their products... including web browsers. The argument that payment of royalties to Unisys for the use of this algorithm is somehow going to encourage Unisys to invest into its R&D program seems absurd. Besides, in spite of the millions in royalties that were paid to Unisys for those who did pay the extortion tax here, very little can be said to have come from it other than the employment of a few lawyers who were involved in setting up the royalty schedule and sending out the cease and desist letters. In other words, even in this clear-cut example of a software patent that was granted, the use of the patent was to stifle innovation and progress rather than to encourage further development of software ideas.
Actually, the enforcement of the LZW patent did encourage the development of other methods of graphical image display formats: It created the PNG format that was explicitly established as a way to legally work around the LZW patent so it would never have to be used in the first place. Those involved explicitly were involved in establishing a graphical image standard that would not be encumbered by patents or require royalty payments for its use and application. It also was a general improvement upon the original GIF standard as well, allowing for greater color depths and even improved data compression compared to the GIF images that were originally being protected. That was useful, but it wasn't the patent itself that was proving to be useful in this case... it was merely a roadblock that needed to be overcome and ignored. It has become ignored for the most part as well.
A constitutional challenge might limit what congress could do in this case however. You can argue that perhaps the courts don't care about the constitution, but a constitutional argument against a provision effectively even kills the options even for congress. The only legitimate alternative is to amend the constitution, or to repeal constitutional review by the U.S. Supreme Court (something give to SCOTUS by law, not by the constitution).
The one precedent that had SCOTUS establish a constitutional precedent where congress did eventually overturn that rules was with the internal revenue code (aka income taxes). It was overturned due to the fact that a new amendment was passed that explicitly permitted such a law to be enacted. That is a rather drastic step, and one that also requires the confirmation of a majority of the states as well. Certainly a back-door insertion from a minor bill won't get such a constitutional challenge overturned easily.
Of course that is also one reason why SCOTUS is very hesitant to give out constitutional challenges to laws, such as in Eldred_v._Ashcroft when a constitutional challenge was presented to copyright law passed by congress over the interpretation of the copyright clause. A similar argument could be made in this particular patent case under review as it also presents a constitutional challenge, and IMHO the constitutional arguments are actually weaker than in Eldred.
I guess I happen to live in one of those shitholes you are complaining about.
Please, get a life. Get out and smell some fresh (and not so fresh due to cattle and other farm animals) air!
More importantly, get out to where the only other human within 20 miles are any companions you brought with you.
I've been to 3rd world countries and even lived in them, and you don't have a stinking clue as to what exists within this country if you think your twisted vision of the USA outside of the metro areas is anything like what you are talking about.
For a very brief period of time, ICANN had an amazing group of folks on the board of directors/board of trustees called "at-large" representatives. If they had continued this practice and eliminated the other special interest groups running this incredibly insular board... I might support and even encourage direct U.S. government oversight of this organization.
As it is, it is a sham of an organization that really doesn't deserve to exist... and got handed the reins of a critical global resource with which they irresponsibly act. Yes, there are alternatives to DNS support and some of the other network issues that ICANN deals with, but they would have to be completely irresponsible for somebody else to give legitimate competition to what it is that they do. As it is, they are merely a corrupt quasi-governmental organization answerable to nobody and only interested in their own self aggrandizement and cash on one of the most amazing legal scams ever devised by the mind of mankind.
Flaming? Yeah. I can't stand what they do, so I'm expressing my opinion. It is unfortunate that fewer people don't really see ICANN for the organization that it really is, and their defenders are generally clueless about what it is that they do.
I am still completely amazed at what Karl Auerbach accomplished during his brief tenure as the North American representative to this organization... and I wish he were back in there too! Karl had to sue ICANN in court just to get basic critical records to even make proper decisions on network organization... and got handed his coat for challenging the powers-that-be and shown the door because he challenged the status quo. I voted for the guy, and I'm glad that vote wasn't wasted, but I'm disappointed I can't put in a replacement for him as there isn't a position left at ICANN from which to have a replacement.
Slashdot Mirror
There is more non-ferrous metal found in a single metallic asteroid of modest size (1km or slightly less in size) than all of the metal for all similar ores extracted from the Earth for the entire history of mankind. Getting that ore from somewhere in solar orbit to the Earth's surface may be a bit tricky, and there certainly are technical issues invovled in extracting that kind of ore, but the going rate for several tons of Au, Ag, and Cu is certainly something that can be traded on Wall Street or the Chicago Merch just fine.
It would be fun just for kicks and giggles to invest in a gold futures contract for ore extracted from an asteroid and delivered to the Earth. That is something you might even be able to invest in today.
The 5th SRB section wasn't even operational. It was just some steel bolted on top of the existing 4-section SRB as an enlarged nosecone.
Yeah, that sounds like something real impressive.
The problem with this launch isn't that it met expectations, it is just that the expectations were rather minor, and that the actual engineering benefit that will come from this launch is minimal at best. All that it really proved is that the SRB will launch if NASA wants it to launch.
I suppose that a minor piece of knowledge gained here is that the Shuttle SRBs will light up and pretty much do their stuff... even if they aren't attached to a larger integrated Shuttle system.
Did the U.S. government have to spend a half billion dollars to figure that out? Are you sure that such an amount wouldn't have been better spent in another way? Why?
Almost nothing of what you saw yesterday with this launch is going to be used in the final Ares I design as well, with the possible exception of the launch tower. I suppose some handling procedures by the ground crew can be reviewed, as much of how the vehicle was handled is going to be how the final Ares I rocket will dealt with as well.... but I wasn't aware that the primary obstacle for getting into space revolved around the efficiency of the ground crew handling the rocket. Since only 3-5 launches per year are planned at the peak of its operation, I don't see how saving an extra half hour of prep time is going to be a significant aspect to the launch planning.
Still, it was a neat looking launch. Too bad I felt so angry to see it go up, and never have I ever wished a failure to happen to NASA more than yesterday. I was literally praying that it would fail. Considering the design and the fact that it really was just a minor tweak of the existing Shuttle SRB design that is already flight-proven hardware, it didn't seem likely that a failure would happen.
In other words, this was purely a publicity P.R. stunt. That is the main reason for the animosity by myself and a few others.
Why bother bombing the Atlantic when the Mormons in Layton, Utah provide a fairly decent target.
OK, that wasn't NASA, but it was the U.S. government.
No one knows what it would cost to launch a Saturn V in todays dollars. The last one launched over 30 years ago. There was some talk about bringing it back to life with modern materials to make it lighter and STS engines instead of the JP-1's but that idea was quickly killed even though NASA still has the blueprints.
Correction:
No one knows that it would cost to launch a Saturn V today presuming that NASA/Congress/President Nixon didn't trash the whole infrastructure and do incremental improvements over the past 50 years with newer more modern materials and equipment upgrades. Certainly the Apollo Guidance Computer alone could fit on a single radiation-hardened programmable logic chip and do much, much more than what went to the Moon with Neil Armstrong.
Von Braun's dream was to have hundreds of Saturn Vs be put into a production line and to have continuous improvements in the overall design... and to reduce cost at the same time. Minor changes would be introduced in a gradual program of rapid prototyping and testing. In other words, if the manned spaceflight program had stuck with the Apollo hardware architecture, the Saturn V rocket of today would be only a passing resemblance to the Saturn V of 50 years ago.
It stands for logic that the fixed infrastructure costs had already been sunk with the development of the Apollo rockets to the Moon, so the incremental costs of additional hardware is all that would have been necessary for continuing the program. In the switch-over to the shuttle program, all of that knowledge, skill, and even knowledge base by workers who didn't bother to write down all of the "fixes" they did to get folks to the Moon has been lost. Much of that would have been preserved at the Saturn V been continued.
Restarting the Saturn V program after a 50 year hiatus? Yeah, that is about as stupid as it gets.
I argue that we would have been better off in terms of costs had the USA not gone with the Shuttle program in the first place. Yes, this is in hindsight, but unfortunately I see the same thing happening all over again with the termination of the Shuttle program and the proposal to de-orbit the ISS. If anything, I wish more serious study had been done on making a Shuttle Mark-2 program that would have built off of the existing knowledge base that comprises those involved in launching the current generation of shuttles.
Most of that expertise is also going to be lost in a fashion just as the knowledge lost from the cancellation of the Saturn V program has now been lost. Of course, a Shuttle Mark-2 should have been launched a decade or more ago, but that is a separate issue.
On this issue, I'd have to strongly disagree. While I will admit that the NASA manned spaceflight program is incredibly expensive (arguably too expensive) for what science is generated, and I'll also admit that science is much more often than not simply a "value added" bonus to most projects done by NASA astronauts, there has been some very remarkable value to having astronauts physically make scientific studies by being some place in person and experiencing the environment on a first hand basis. Not all environments are completely conducive to this approach, but a number of those environments in space can be.
Those that advocate a complete elimination of manned spaceflight also kill something in the human soul as well. Ignoring the religious connection at the moment, I am talking about the emotional connection to being involved with space on a more intimate level... something that does strike a chord with taxpayers.
For myself, I thing the following is also true: No Buck Rodgers, no bucks. If you want to see more robotic space science missions, they will be financed and paid for with the marginal budgets that get lumped into the manned spaceflight programs as well. That folks with multiple PhDs are also in the astronaut corps only means that when an opportunity to do real science presents itself, that it can be followed and done.
I would dare say that sending Harrison Schmitt to the Moon was one of the best spent money by NASA on science in nearly the entire history of that agency. I argue that more real science was accomplished on that one flight to the Moon than the entirety of all robotic missions that preceeded or followed after that mission... combined. Much of the work that followed from that mission has served as a baseline of information that has been used on almost all other subsequent planetary science missions since, and is still paying off results in terms of scientific understanding of what has happened on the Moon in the past. Admittedly not all scientific inquiries by astronauts are this productive, but they can be, and it certainly could cost a whole lot less to send astronauts into space.
Making it cheap to send folks into space is not a primary mission for NASA, and some would argue is a perpendicular objective.
How about private space flight? They'll take risks so long as there's profit involved. Only problem is we gotta figure out how to convince them that space, the moon, and mars are profitable.
I don't think this is a problem. It isn't an issue of getting private individuals or even folks willing to organize themselves into joint-stock corporations to fund vehicle construction for going into space.....
It is an issue of getting our government to even permit private individuals to be able to get into space on their own dime, and not throw up so many regulations that any effective progress for getting into space is essentially blocked. Armadillo Aerospace had to halt all launch operations because one branch of the FAA didn't communicate with another branch and asserted that a "teathered flight" (literally a rocket flight with the engines/vehicle tied to the ground via ropes and other restraints) is a flight that needs to have a formal permit before launch and a flight path filed with the local airport. As if going up 10 feet in the air is something that is going to interfere with local airport traffic.
Oh, that isn't all. The paperwork alone for even doing a "real" flight is far, far more complicated, and that doesn't even deal with what happens if the vehicle actually gets into space. And if you get into space, make sure your camera doesn't take any pictures of the Earth from up there unless you have a license from NOAA.
It isn't assuming responsibility for risks, it is simply convincing a bureaucrat to let you go in the first place. The process is certainly better than it was a decade ago, but it can be done better.
What is worse with the insulation foam that was used around the cyrogenic fuels (the shuttle uses liquid oxygen and hydrogen chilled at sub-zero temperatures) was replaced with something "less damaging to the environment" to satisfy some silly EPA bureaucrat's notion of how to protect the general public. The original shuttle design used a foam that had freon in it... something that is now considered unhealthy.
For the conspiracy theory fearmongers, it is also interesting that the environmental concerns over freon came up when the patent for freon manufacturing expried. That is mostly irrelevant to this discussion, however.
More significantly, the insulation foam that replaced the original design was heavier, harder to apply, and didn't have the same temperature range usage requirements that the original foam had. In a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", NASA fixed an unbroken launch procedure that worked quite well with a much more inferior procedure and product that ended up killing directly the 7 astronauts and the Columbia.
That I call unnecessary risk, and certainly the limited use on every shuttle launch since this change combined couldn't have possibly "saved" seven other people due to improved environmental procedures or a slightly less damaged ozone layer from the reduction of the use of this game. I'd love to have somebody show me otherwise. That NASA has changed procedures from the post-Columbia accident to keep watching this foam shows that it was and still is a bad move to replace that foam in the first place.
Of course isn't is strange that the DHS doesn't even want this authority.... presuming that it was even possible to distinguish "legitimate" network traffic from video games without checking the "evil" bit.
For myself, I'd rather that the FICA deductions were completely removed, added as a revenue neutral addition to the general income tax, and considered Social Security payments to be simply a form of social welfare instead of an entitlement.
That pretty much is how the U.S. Congress has been treating the Social Security trust funds anyway since Tip O'Neil was speaker and Ronald Reagan was in the White House. Why not just make it official?
Of course that would make it too easy to cut benefits.... how dare I suggest such an evil and horrible thing.
I don't necessarily see this as a given in China. Their culture is one that strongly respects authority (it has for the past 3000 years) and doesn't take too kindly to revolutionaries under any government that has ever existed in that country.
If you are comparing that to the USA.... America was founded by a revolution, by pig-headed individuals who didn't respect authority and almost always thought that its leaders were a bunch of morons and idiots that were barely tolerated because somebody had to do the job. It still is the case today. That folks in the 1960's and 1970's in America questioned authority has more to do with a younger generation who actually studied their own history and realized what America was really about. Bowing down to authority has rarely been considered an American trait.... even when Americans are found in other countries.
The USA in the 1940's and 1950's rallied to a strongly nationalist tendency because most intelligent people realized that the very existence of the American Republic was at stake and if something wasn't done to stop the scourge of the enemies of America, that they could end up being dead and everything that they held dear to themselves ruined. That happened after 9/11.... but ultimately it was proven that Al-Queida was a joke of a threat and that the larger threat was the U.S. government itself. That opinions differed in terms of how the citizens of America should deal with the threat of the government against its own citizens has not been focused or even of the same mind also says a whole lot about the diversity of opinions about the topic... and much about the current political climate in America as well.
China is a much more different place, and even "revolutions" tend to take on a much more ordered and structured form... such as the events of Tiananmen Square of a couple decades ago. Given the same circumstances and motivations in America.... the tanks that came to disperse the crowds for a similar kind of event happening on the Washington D.C. central mall (the area between the White House and the Capitol Building with all of the monuments) would have been demolished from improvised explosives and other heavy calibur weapons. It certainly would have been a bloodbath of a far larger kind.
The "People's Liberation Army" has an entire battalion that is dedicated to hacking "the West" and conducting electronic intelligence gathering via the internet. That most of these folks do their stuff in China is besides the point.... which by definition is "legal" as it is officially sanctioned by that government.
Of course the U.S. Air Force also has a similar team (I don't know how large of a unit) that does essentially the same thing on behalf of the U.S. Government.
Perhaps the original commentary is paranoia based upon actions of the U.S. government.... realizing that if they can screw somebody else, we must be getting screwed too. I'd call that fairly good proof.
Naw.... America is too busy spying on its own citizens to care even in the little bit that comes from abroad.
Of course, the same could be said about China. This inter-governmental spying is just the small stuff in the grand scheme of things. Both countries are far more paranoid about their own citizens than by anything another country could do.
Heck, I'd go so far as to say that coal power kills far more per kilowatt-hour generated by an order of magnitude than nuclear power ever has... even if you throw in Chernobyl and add in Nagasaki and Hiroshima for extra body counts.
Off of just mining accidents alone, coal mining has killed far more than all of the worst disasters and even deliberate uses of nuclear weaponry combined.
All of this even pales in comparison to those who receive contamination from radioactive materials released from the processing and use of coal.
Free neutrons can be considered an isotope of "Neutronium", an element with an atomic number of zero.
In listings of nuclides that attempt to be a complete table such as this one on Wikipedia usually list neutrons and even some interesting combinations of neutrons that even seem to indicate multiple isotopes of Neutronium.
Still, I would have to agree with your main point that the breakdown of Uranium is typically considered a form of fission rather than fusion.
A better example may have been cats since a Lion and Tiger can't breed (as far as I know). But still, the now extinct Liger hasn't been found.
Lions and Tigers can breed just fine. They are geographically isolated from one another, which is why you see distinctive traits between the two species, but they are able to interbreed... and even produce offspring of both sexes. There are both Ligers and Tigons (where the Tiger is the father and the Lion is the mother), and even examples of further in-breeding where Tigons and Ligers produce offspring. Not just fossils, but actual living examples can be produced. I've seen a stuffed Liger myself.
Current Zoological standards strongly discourage the practice of interbreeding these two species, which is one reason why more "respectable" zoos likely don't have these kinds of creatures any more. Still, it is something that can happen even if it is discouraged... and has certainly added fuel to the debate over what qualifies as a species.
Actually, that isn't quite true. All of the Landsat data is available in the public domain as it was produced with resources and funding from the U.S. government. This can be found here:
http://eros.usgs.gov/
Unfortunately, the data isn't packaged and set up to be convenient to folks who want to use it. The copyright information about this satellite data can be found here that does confirm it is in the public domain. Some folks have obtained this data and then charged fees and "copyright" for their modifications to make it accessable, but the raw information is still in the public domain. It just takes a determined set of volunteers to be able to extract the mountains of data and turn it into something usable. Also, some of the higher resolution images found on places like Google Maps are made from commercial imaging satellites, which is protected by copyright.
There are also photographic surveys that have been done by the U.S. Geological Survey that are technically in the public domain, but because some of those photographs were done by contractors working on behalf of the U.S. government and not necessarily government employees, the copyright status is at best dubious. In a few cases, some early aerial photography has entered the public domain due to the copyright expiring, but that is some incredibly old photography. Many of the geological survey maps of the USA were made from these aerial maps... and there have even been map made by the Defense Maping Agency (the branch of the U.S. military that maps maps for military planning purposes) that have aerial photography which was used in their creation. Some of that photography has been collected with coverage of decidedly non-USA areas... with of course emphasis on places like Russia, Poland, and Eastern Germany. Some of those photos are still classified, but I'm sure that a strong effort to get some FOIA requests to have some of the older photos released might get some results. If it is released at all, it would be in the public domain in terms of copyright.
The problem is that this doesn't remove 90% of the thrust problem. It only removes about 3%. Actually it is even less than that.
Yes, I've seen the JP Aerospace efforts, and that is certainly is an interesting concept. The #1 benefit that comes from launching at high altitude is that you don't have to worry about the troposphere and weather: You pretty much can launch whenever the equipment is ready and when the launch windows is open without having to worry about something like a lightning storm, tornado, or hurricane coming along to delay the launch for a month or so. That is a common problem in Florida and KSC in particular.
Also, with a balloon you don't have to worry about building a concrete launch pad and blockhouse that will have to deflect the flames of the launch vehicle when a rocket fires for the first time. That is also a considerable part of the expense in launching rockets that is often ignored when calculating launch costs. From a pure economics standpoint, there are some decided advantages to an air launch.
This said, launching from the ground does allow technicians to do some last minute tweaks that can't be done from the air, and it offers some other advantages including larger launch vehicles that aren't possible with air launch methods. Saving fuel costs... if that was even a major consideration for orbital launch vehicles (which it isn't), really isn't a major issue or a reason to prefer air launches. A rocket going into orbit has to be about the same size regardless of the location it is launched... within some margin of error. The Lattitude of the launch site has a much stronger influence, where launching from the equator is much better than launching from mid-lattitudes like the Russians have their launch complex. Even that is located in what was one of the most southern locations in the old USSR (with a good buffer to keep "spies" and random tourists away).
I can name two "traditional" inventions in the 19th Century (just off the top of my head) that had nearly identical patent applications that arrived within a day or two to the USPTO:
Yeah, I'd say that simultaneous patent applications are a serious problem, and patent law doesn't really deal with research efforts where obvious areas of research are looked at by multiple individuals.
At least in terms of copyright, if two authors come up with similar topics and submit the books to the library of congress at nearly the same time, all that happens is that the books get classified with the same catalog number (mostly) putting them on the shelf next to each other. The copyright is completely in force for both books (presuming one author didn't plagiarize the other in a blatant manner).
BTW, if MP3s and MPEG-4 are so wonderful, why is Ogg Theora and Vorbis being created and gaining "market share" of the video and audio markets... respectively?
Particularly for open source development, but also for purely commercial applications, I have strongly discouraged any clients from ever using MPEG-4 for any application unless there are specific contract requirements that demand the use of that data standard. The licensing terms from those few patent holders who are allowing a license for that standard are not really worth the effort and there are indeed better alternatives that don't require those kind of patent royalty payments. The "MPEG Licensing Authority" who mostly handles the royalty arrangements for most of the MPEG formats won't, however, promise that all of the patents have been dealt with through them. Indeed, they even publish a list of those patents which are not covered under their agreements. Yeah, that is real comforting and something to build a business plan upon.
As for AAC.... I have dealt directly with Dolby Laboratories. You should be very concerned when the attorney to engineer ratio has more folks with a legal degree than an engineering degree. Indeed, Dolby has a ratio of about 3 lawyers for every developer (it may be higher, but that was about ten years ago). On the whole their engineers are not assholes, and I've been able to at least deal with them on a professional level. The licensing terms aren't really all that awful, but you need to be incredibly careful about payment of royalties and have an IP lawyer review everything you do with them like a hawk.
Don't even get me started on dealing with Unisys. Those guys are absolute creeps and can be trusted as far as you can throw them.... with a thousand nuclear warheads on a updated version of the 1960's Orion spacecraft. I will never, ever, in my lifetime, ever sign an agreement with that company or even engage in any sort of negotiations ever again with that company. They had their chance and they blew it for me. If it is to negotiate with them or be terminated, I'll look for a new job. Seriously. It was that bad of an experience for me.
I've dealt with many of the "players" in the multimedia format "industry" and the digital media formats you are describing here have many of the same problems that the LZW algorithm had. Some will actually negotiate with you, but they all have a way to rip the rug out from under you if you become successful and they don't think you are giving them a large enough cut of the pie.
I still fail to see what actual benefits come from patent protection anyway, and I certainly doubt that any of the companies involved with the data format standards you have mentioned would have come up with something new and innovative from the royalties received. That it supports and maintains a level of employment for the legal industry is true, but I see that as a bunch of leeches who are not employed in advancing and improving society so far as their individual contributions are concerned with regards to the legal paperwork and royalty terms involved here. I'm sure IP attorneys would beg to differ, as they have in the past when I've mentioned this here on /.
One of the problems facing both software and electrical engineers is the fact that ultimately all software and nearly all logic circuits can be expressed as either software or hardware. You can take nearly any logic circuit and express that as a computer algorithm, and you can take any program (yes, even something so bloated like Microsoft Windows) and express that as a whole bunch of discrete logic gates and even give pre-1980's part numbers for the whole thing. No, I'm not suggesting anybody would want to implement Windows via 7400 series gates, but it is in theory possible even if wildly unlikely.
I agree with you on the physical device patents that need to be the basis of patents, and I would love to see patent law restricted to strictly physical and tangible things. Stuff you can touch and put on your desk... or at least see in a warehouse. That would at least exclude business method patents, but as I'm pointing out that software patents are another beast that does have its own rather interesting set of issues that could be subverted via the physical device test.
Of course, I'd love to see a standard and test applied to software patents that it would have to have an actual implementation be made in physical gates in order to be granted a patent. That would at least set a bar high enough to keep most of the patent trolls away even if it would still allow some software patents to be granted. It might even keep a few electrical engineers employed as well.
A patent was originally defined as legal protection granted to an individual for creating a device that does something unique and useful. A temporary monopoly was granted by the government to allow that inventor who created that unique and original device to recoup the R&D costs associated with creating that device in the first place, noting that R&D for something genuinely original often has dead end roads when trying to get something to work and is generally quite expensive to perform. Once somebody has established a good template for how something can work, many others are willing to copy that device since the hard work has already been accomplished.
The slippery slope from this definition and the one given above (that a patent is about solutions instead of physical devices) is precisely what has led us to software and business method patents. R&D costs, while not completely missing, are orders of magnitude lower and really not a significant problem. Furthermore, previous tests measuring the validity of patents have included an explicit exclusion for mathematical theorems and formulas.
To put it another way, all computer software can be reduced down to a single number. Perhaps a rather large number with thousands, millions, or even billions of digits, but a number none the less. What a patent essentially does is to give people exclusive copying authority over certain classes of numbers and makes it illegal to publish that number without their permission.
Other arguments can be offered here, but the point is that patents don't cover a mere solution or abstract idea. The original intent of the framers of the U.S. Constitution and based upon the previous English Common Law precedent over previous patents... including abuses of patent law in England that the founders of the American Republic were trying to avoid... was intended to be narrowly defined to cover strictly physical devices precisely so patent law wouldn't become perverted to censor speech and political philosophies. A broadly construed patent philosophy can be a tool to pervert other aspects of the constitution including the 1st amendment and other areas of the constitution as well.
Horrible software patents include such things as the LZW algorithm patent that somehow landed in the hands of Unisys... where they asserted the patent to extract royalties for those companies wishing to use the GIF image standard in their products... including web browsers. The argument that payment of royalties to Unisys for the use of this algorithm is somehow going to encourage Unisys to invest into its R&D program seems absurd. Besides, in spite of the millions in royalties that were paid to Unisys for those who did pay the extortion tax here, very little can be said to have come from it other than the employment of a few lawyers who were involved in setting up the royalty schedule and sending out the cease and desist letters. In other words, even in this clear-cut example of a software patent that was granted, the use of the patent was to stifle innovation and progress rather than to encourage further development of software ideas.
Actually, the enforcement of the LZW patent did encourage the development of other methods of graphical image display formats: It created the PNG format that was explicitly established as a way to legally work around the LZW patent so it would never have to be used in the first place. Those involved explicitly were involved in establishing a graphical image standard that would not be encumbered by patents or require royalty payments for its use and application. It also was a general improvement upon the original GIF standard as well, allowing for greater color depths and even improved data compression compared to the GIF images that were originally being protected. That was useful, but it wasn't the patent itself that was proving to be useful in this case... it was merely a roadblock that needed to be overcome and ignored. It has become ignored for the most part as well.
A constitutional challenge might limit what congress could do in this case however. You can argue that perhaps the courts don't care about the constitution, but a constitutional argument against a provision effectively even kills the options even for congress. The only legitimate alternative is to amend the constitution, or to repeal constitutional review by the U.S. Supreme Court (something give to SCOTUS by law, not by the constitution).
The one precedent that had SCOTUS establish a constitutional precedent where congress did eventually overturn that rules was with the internal revenue code (aka income taxes). It was overturned due to the fact that a new amendment was passed that explicitly permitted such a law to be enacted. That is a rather drastic step, and one that also requires the confirmation of a majority of the states as well. Certainly a back-door insertion from a minor bill won't get such a constitutional challenge overturned easily.
Of course that is also one reason why SCOTUS is very hesitant to give out constitutional challenges to laws, such as in Eldred_v._Ashcroft when a constitutional challenge was presented to copyright law passed by congress over the interpretation of the copyright clause. A similar argument could be made in this particular patent case under review as it also presents a constitutional challenge, and IMHO the constitutional arguments are actually weaker than in Eldred.
I guess I happen to live in one of those shitholes you are complaining about.
Please, get a life. Get out and smell some fresh (and not so fresh due to cattle and other farm animals) air!
More importantly, get out to where the only other human within 20 miles are any companions you brought with you.
I've been to 3rd world countries and even lived in them, and you don't have a stinking clue as to what exists within this country if you think your twisted vision of the USA outside of the metro areas is anything like what you are talking about.
For a very brief period of time, ICANN had an amazing group of folks on the board of directors/board of trustees called "at-large" representatives. If they had continued this practice and eliminated the other special interest groups running this incredibly insular board... I might support and even encourage direct U.S. government oversight of this organization.
As it is, it is a sham of an organization that really doesn't deserve to exist... and got handed the reins of a critical global resource with which they irresponsibly act. Yes, there are alternatives to DNS support and some of the other network issues that ICANN deals with, but they would have to be completely irresponsible for somebody else to give legitimate competition to what it is that they do. As it is, they are merely a corrupt quasi-governmental organization answerable to nobody and only interested in their own self aggrandizement and cash on one of the most amazing legal scams ever devised by the mind of mankind.
Flaming? Yeah. I can't stand what they do, so I'm expressing my opinion. It is unfortunate that fewer people don't really see ICANN for the organization that it really is, and their defenders are generally clueless about what it is that they do.
I am still completely amazed at what Karl Auerbach accomplished during his brief tenure as the North American representative to this organization... and I wish he were back in there too! Karl had to sue ICANN in court just to get basic critical records to even make proper decisions on network organization... and got handed his coat for challenging the powers-that-be and shown the door because he challenged the status quo. I voted for the guy, and I'm glad that vote wasn't wasted, but I'm disappointed I can't put in a replacement for him as there isn't a position left at ICANN from which to have a replacement.