I think you have your automotive accident statistics way off... as are your airplane statistics in terms of the number of accidents.
Three whole major air crashes involving commercial passenger travel? That is it? Seriously? In other words, it is "news" when a major crash occurs precisely because it is such a rare occurrence. Automotive crashes might make local press coverage if some famous celebrity or politician died, or perhaps on the morning traffic report when it shuts down a major arterial road... but they happen so often that it isn't even really considered a newsworthy topic to cover. This is true even when there are fatalities in the crash.
In terms of overall expectation in terms of living to see the next day, travel by airplane is much safer than travel by any surface vehicle transportation. In fact, you are more likely to die in the airport terminal parking lot than on the airplane itself... at least that is my assertion. Certainly you are much more likely to die in transit going to and from the terminal.
As far as "most people these days walk away from a car crash"... I have buried far too many close friends that have died from an automotive crash to believe this to be true. And yes, it is more than one person or even one incident. From both personal experience and from raw statistics I find this to be utter BS to even suggest such a thought.
Re:More Annoying Money Wasters for Rich People
on
Zeppelins Over California
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· Score: 2, Informative
There are a great many engineering problems that are associated with airships that have made it a technology that is difficult to work with compared to a wide-bodied fixed wing airplane like a 747 or A380.
Problems that need to be considered is having to fly in less than ideal weather, engines powerful enough to push through a strong headwind, and being able to handle the airship both at departure and at arrival. Airships simply can't even compete against large airplanes in terms of these basic handling requirements.
Consider that at least using 1930's technology, a typical airship required a terminal crew of hundreds of handlers just to get the vehicle into a hanger. A great many of these handlers often were injured when a sudden gust of wind lifted the airship up and caused it to go up 30 or more feet... picking up somebody holding onto the ropes that was trying to guide the ship into or out of the terminal.
Basically, the economic savings that came from slightly more efficient shipping costs were more than out weighed by the personnel costs including berthing suites (even for cargo haulers... you need multiple crews for longer flights), support personnel, and a much more elaborate terminal crew. Added on top of that the strong lack of reliability in terms of being able to use the vehicles in only nearly ideal weather conditions (meaning you can't trust when an airship is going to arrive with a cargo shipment) add up to the reason why they aren't used much at all.
This is a nice dream, and I'd love the chance to fly one of these gracious vehicles myself. But the challenges and obstacles necessary to make this something commercially viable are huge, and unless heavily subsidized by government I don't see that it would be viable as a business model. The government money IMHO would be a giant black hole of a concept too, and wouldn't maintain popular support for what would be openly a welfare program for elite rich folks.
As much as I get the joke, hydrogen as a lifting gas for airships is something whose danger is by far and away overblown. Germany used airships extensively using hydrogen... and it was the fact that they used what was effectively rocket fuel for the ship hull that did in airships like the Hindenburg, not the hydrogen gas.
Assuming that these airships are going to use some petrochemical substance like gasoline or JP-5 (military-grade jet fuel) to power its engines, I would be by far and away more concerned about some problem with the fuel system blowing up than the hydrogen.
As for why a 1930's technology isn't being used in the 21st century more extensively, there are a bunch of factors in that equation... including some irrational fear of hydrogen that makes it the target of lame jokes like this one.
The question here is by what impact the solar input had upon the development of the Venusian oceans, not to mention a lack of a stabilizing lunar influence and an odd planetary rotation rate.
Could the Earth have become just like Venus if it weren't for the development of life? What has been the impact of living systems upon this environment as well? Certainly epochs of high CO2 levels in the Earths past resulted in periods like the Carboniferous era when most of the coal deposits were laid down. Could living things in the distant past have made a similar impact upon Venus under the same conditions that now exist on Venus?
I would have to agree that the additional input of energy into the system, particularly on the impact of water vapor reaching dis-association energies in the upper atmosphere (causing the oxygen and hydrogen to be chemically independent) could have a substantial impact on the ability to have Venus keep its liquid oceans.
It is important to remember that when you start out on a scientific study, that you should be open to changing your mind and even world view based upon the results of that scientific experiment and study.
I have had that happen a number of times with several different things I've studied and the results didn't quite go with what I though was originally going to happen. Or when I've read papers and studies about topics that have brought new understanding... often deeper understanding... to a scientific discipline that shows additional variables in the equation that need to be worked with and understood.
My problem with most global warming advocates is that they take a single parameter, CO2 production by anthroprogenic sources and turn that into the dominating variable where there are a great many other things to describe that causes the effects. I'm afraid that this study of Venus is only going to be giving ammunition to those who advocate for this extreme viewpoint, and will oversimplify the interpretation of this study about Venus to the detriment of those who want to make positive contributions to helping fight environmental damage caused by modern industrial civilization.
I'm all for simplification, but in this case you need to understand the whole problem and not just a couple of factors that can be used for political purposes.
However idiots who watched some oil funded programme on TV will now declare themselves experts on the subject and say it's bunkum. Right. Really. Your limited hours of funded popular science really make your opinion worth more than thousands of people who have spent years and decades working on this stuff?
So watching a two hour documentary produced by Al Gore is any better than somebody watching propaganda from some other source?
There are a number of problems with global warming/disastrous climate change in the arguments that are presented. Among them is deliberate manipulation of scientific data to promote more extreme recent climate data to promote their political agenda. Yes, falsification of scientific studies, and it doesn't take much. I've also seen a near religious tone from those who advocate the "awareness of global warming" with nearly all of the trappings of a religious society.
I'm not saying that there isn't bona fide concern about changes to our global and local environments that should be addressed, and from a conservative viewpoint the word is "stewardship". We need to be proper stewards of our environment and take reasonable steps to clean up our own messes. Certainly nobody like to breath polluted air; swim, fish, or go boating in polluted rivers or lakes; or walk across polluted ground that causes you to vomit even to see what is there.
There are some reasonable and legitimate steps that can be done, but the voices of moderation and those trying to make reasonable changes are being drowned out by lunatics on both sides of the argument: Those that want to bury their head in the sand and ignore the problem and those who want to eradicate human civilization taking us back to a hunter/gatherer lifestyle. Neither is a viable solution, so we need to find some way to work with what we have and allow our lifestyles to continue in a more environmentally friendly manner. That isn't easy to accomplish and will take decades if not centuries to achieve.
Problems to earlier pollution problems were found in previous eras, as street sewage and horse manure are no longer major problem in most industrialized communities. I have no doubt that solutions will be found for CO2, ground-level ozone, and other problems that current afflict modern societies. A regular theme in late 19th Century newspapers was concern about massive levels of pollution in cities... referring to all of the horse manure that wasn't being cleaned up and causing major health concerns. Indeed, all things considered, I think automobiles and trucks do far less harm to the environment than what they replaced.
The problem with the global cooling argument is that there was not organized and deliberate government policy (at least anything that had teeth) that was established to deal with global cooling. It was people on the periphery of science that were complaining about that issue at the time, and generally not taken seriously in terms of anything people had to do. It was more a general worry that since ice ages (periods of massive glaciation in the northern hemisphere) were very common in the past, that they may be common in the future and perhaps in the near future.
That concern still should be there, and frankly we are at a near peak in terms of how warm the Earth's environment is at the moment for a variety of reasons. A 10 degree rise in temperatures might even be healthier economically speaking than a 10 degree drop in temperatures across the globe. Certainly a return of mile deep glaciers in the middle of North America would not only damage productive farmland but also force mass migration of millions of people... and that would only be the beginning.
The climate does change, and changes have been noted in even historical times. Northern Africa was considered the breadbasket of the Roman Empire, yet today its productivity in terms of crop production barely feeds itself. Greenland was a major Viking colony with enough people to support a full Catholic dioceses (not just an ordinary parish), but everybody moved out due to crops dying and the local climate being too cold to support a European model of agriculture and community building. Some people of European decent have return to Greenland, but even today it doesn't support nearly so large of a population as it did in the 1200's. I could use other historical examples, but the point is that change happens, so deal with it. Survival of species depends on their ability to cope with changes to their environment, and some succeed and others fail. That is called evolution.
The largest problem that those who are trying to promote awareness of global warming need to start combating is to use the concept as the boogy man of every possible problem that is afflicting mankind.
Insect eating bat dying in mass number? Global Warming. Hurricanes increasing in power and frequence? Global Warming. Hot summers? Global Warming. Powerful winter blizzards? Global Warming. Missing girl? Global Warming. Price of gasoline rising? Global Warming. Earthquakes in strange places? Global Warming. Republicans take control of congress? Global Warming. Commander Taco didn't win a bet last night? Global Warming.
I could go on and on, but this is getting to the point that every "disaster" and nearly every minor problem is coached on the premise that global warming or climate change (take your choice here if you want to be politically correct) is the source of all of these ills.
Please, give it a break. If you can legitimately claim that climate change is responsible for certain changes, such as receding glaciers or measurable rises in ocean levels (I haven't seen that yet at all), I might put a little more authority on the study. But it is used far too often that it makes a mockery out of legitimate climatological studies that are trying to identify potential causes of concern.
For myself, I am convinced that there is a general global warming of the environment. I'm still undecided in terms of anthroprogenic causes, with a strong leaning to natural causes instead even though I will admit some impact by modern industrialize society on a local basis. It is a big world we live in after all.
One interesting term that I've heard that is neither climate change or global warming is "Venusforming" as a counter-point to "Terraforming". In other words, the process of making our world more Venus-like instead of trying to figure out how to make Venus more Earth-like. Frankly, I think turning the Earth into a geological/environmental twin of Venus would be just as difficult as turning Venus into something like the Earth, but then again either is a complicated process.
It seems to me that Blizzard is following the wrong set of laws in order to go after this guy. Instead of dealing with copyright law (which seems to be a rather weak in this situation), they should be invoking some sort of criminal law or at the very least suing for damages in terms of interfering with the trade relationship with their non-'bot customers.
At the very least they can claim that he has gained unauthorized access to their physical equipment, and attempt to place liability upon Mr. Donnelly for loss of service to other customers.
This is not a copyright violation, but rather a criminal situation similar in nature to somebody who writes an internet worm or spammer trojan that would target a specific computer system in an unauthorized fashion. It is through anti-spam laws that could be claimed legitimately as a violation of the law.
On the flip side, it is going to be very hard for Blizzard to prove that they have in fact lost any money at all via the sale and use of this software. As a matter of fact, Mr. Donnelly may even be able to document customers who have increased their patronage with Blizzard via paid accounts and document a slight or even significant profit on behalf of Blizzard that comes from the use of his software. That is going to make it very difficult to prove "damages" if Blizzard in fact made money off of the whole thing.
This is presuming that the defendant has actually used Blizzard source code in the creation of his software.
Blizzard doesn't own or even have any legal right to any software that has been independently created and developed outside of its own software code base. If this developer had any brains at all, he would have been using a compiler and development tool set for a "non-standard" software development language like Object Pascal, Smalltalk, or Lisp. By doing that, it would be incredibly hard to suggest that the defendant has "copied" software when the structures look so much different.... certainly you could create some considerable doubt to a jury of even professional software developers much less twelve random "citizens" who know nothing about computer software development.
Demanding source code during discovery might backfire just as awfully as the "glove test" that happened during the O.J. Simpson murder trial, and if I were a consultant to the plaintiff I would strongly discourage even trying this approach unless there was some strong evidence that the defendant had in fact broken into the Blizard HQ (electronically of physically) and stolen actual source code which was later incorporated into his software. Based on what Michael Donnelly is trying to say, this seems like a rather dubious possibility when there are so many other possible approaches that could be done.
Also, Blizzard may not want to obtain the source code at all due to future copyright conflicts that could arise. If any, and I mean any, Blizzard software engineer took a look at Mr. Donnelly's software and later incorporated the concepts (even but one algorithm) into Blizzard's software.... the tables could turn very easily and have Mr. Donnelly sue Blizzard for copyright infringement. I can't believe that a software attorney would even want to touch such an explosive legal bomb like that.
As demonstrated with the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit, fighting copyright infringement via source code is not always a good strategy... and SCO had a much stronger case than Blizzard.
This is one of those cases where the "end user license" is able to (supposedly) enforce a contract that can't be proven that the user has in fact agreed to.
I, for one, consider anything in a license agreement that goes beyond the strict authority to copy the software and attempts to ascribe "rights" to the publisher that are not granted in copyright law to be illegal.
For instance, I can purchase a "license" that would allow me to re-publish major excepts from a book, or in the case of computer software I can buy a license that would allow me to incorporate a major subroutine library into a computer software product that I am in turn re-selling. These kind of licenses are quite common, and are entirely within the purview of the concept of who has "the right to copy" the copyrighted product. They can have some restrictions, and there are even "regional" licenses that you can offer a "right" to distribute a product in a certain region of the world, like separate licenses for distribution to North America vs. Europe.
If I violate the license terms, my "rights" to republish and sell that software then also terminate. But customers I've sold the software to previously under the license terms still have legal software.
The problem here is that the publisher, in this case Blizzard, is attempting to retroactively revoke the previously granted authority to copy the contents of the game from the CD-ROM (or via network download) to the hard drive of the computer after the copy has been made. Furthermore, it is presuming that the first sale doctrine doesn't apply to electronic media. Yes, I know that is currently disputed, but it hasn't been proven to be invalid either.
Even if a "formal contract" was entered into the mix between the customer and the software publisher that goes well above and beyond conventional copyright licensing terms, you still have to prove who signed the contract in the first place. Were the terms to the contract understood and legible? Was the contract even valid? Can anti-reverse engineering clauses even be added to such a contract of any kind, much less introduced as a mere copyright license arrangement?
This isn't unique even to the software industry, as I got involved with a technical specification contract that had some similar kinds of clauses that involved a physical dead-tree book. But in that case I had to physically sign my name as the recipient of the book and there was a documentation trail in terms of even legal custody of the material. I'm certain that Blizzard can't prove that sort of documentation at all.
Another issue to be raised by the defense is the issue of being able to understand what some other individual has done which is impacting the operation of the computer which you own. Blizzard doesn't own the PC that the defendant is using, and a legitimate use of reverse engineering is to understand how a piece of software may cause harm to the operations of other software or the general performance of their equipment.
This is a weak case for Blizzard, even though I sympathize deeply with their wanting to keep 'bot makers off of their servers. I personally think that invoking copyright law is entirely the wrong way to do it, particularly license agreements that are shaky to begin with. Real harm can be claimed by Blizzard in terms of the impact of the software upon their servers, but that is something similar to a denial of service attack and something more along the lines of vandalism, not necessarily anything that has to do with contract or copyright law. I'm sure criminal law statues could be read to apply here, but that is something else entirely different.
I personally think the world carrying capacity for human population is much higher than you are suggesting here. It may take some advances in technology, and require some creative thinking regarding food production far and above what is done right now.
The complete opposite of what you have said here is that the current world population.... assuming it is about 8 billion give or take a few billion in either direction... can fit into the state of Texas, including food production.
Here is another "factoid": New York City is one of the most efficient cities in America, in terms of energy usage per person and per capita resources consumed for each person there. That isn't to say that the people of NYC are poor.... which is hardly the case. But if you want to allow an increase in human population, there are methods that could be employed to support a much larger population in the world than we have at the moment... and give everybody a 1st world level of income/resources.
We may have to change the way we do some things if this sort of population growth does occur, but I think it can be accommodated if it does occur. Certainly until the world population does stabilize, which it seems to be doing anyway. And that is assuming that we, as a species, stays on this rock now that we've discovered how to get off of it. Or that the resources that we, as a species, must necessarily come from this planet exclusively.
Don't worry.... the next issue is going to be Solar System environmentalism. In other words, now that we've screwed up the Earth, let's not spread the "disease" called humanity anywhere else. They are already building the case.
I personally think this is as absurd of an issue as the other extremists causes, but it is something to be aware of. I don't understand Lunar environmentalism, or the desire to preserve Mars as some sort of international version of Yellowstone (actually more drastic... they don't want any human structures on Mars), but there is a group that doesn't want human development off of the Earth. Watch for it, and how new human settlements will have to start with environmental regulations from h***.
It will be real interesting just how far those who get up there decide to take all that legal BS and tell the people of the Earth to shove it.
When you have next to nothing, it is hard not to go anywhere but up.
You are also missing the point that, at least of those countries that are granting basic freedoms to their citizens to be able to join the world economy, that they are joining in with the prosperity that already exists.
This means that they are enjoying the same kinds of technology, and in some cases even skipping whole technologies to much more advanced forms. For example, few Chinese have land-line telephones, but cell phone coverage is nearly universal and in some ways better than even America or Europe.
GDP is also a difficult thing to compare between one country vs. another anyway, but you certainly can see how some countries that 50 years ago were clearly 3rd world nations both in terms of infrastructure and poverty levels are now at nearly 1st world levels of affluence. What about South Korea, to give an example.
There are other factors that impact the traditional 1st world nations as well for growth rates, including overbearing tax rates and business regulation that slows down economic growth.
So the "solution" to this is to get some SIG (Special Interest Group) of like-minded (and hopefully already tenured) professors to start the journal for some of their own research, and start to earn that prestige in the first place.
No, I don't think a "do it yourself" approach will work, but certainly an organized group of researchers with a couple of mavericks that want to challenge the current system could pull this off. Heavily cite one another and "ignore" the traditional journals when reasonably possible, and make sure that the alternative journal has high enough quality to make a mockery of those who don't at least cite some of the content of that journal.
Self-publishing is a bad idea, and that isn't just for scientists. Authors of nearly any stripe should be discouraged from doing that, unless you have a near death wish or can use the written word in an outstanding fashion. But starting a publishing group with peer review isn't the same as being self-published.
American copyright tradition is that you have to perform an action to explicitly seek copyright. That current U.S. copyright law follows European traditions of automatic copyright (due to some Euro-philes in the U.S. State Department) is really a recent anomaly and something that surprisingly hasn't ever really been tested in the courts in terms of its constitutionality.
This isn't to say that you or I should ignore somebody's copyright if they haven't explicitly claimed copyright, but it isn't quite so easy. And there are a number of groups that really don't care about copyright... including commercial publishers who will assert their own copyright upon the works of others without permission.
Yes, there is a legal way to release a copyrighted work into the public domain, but you must explicitly make the disclaimer of doing exactly that when you publish that content. Unlike with licenses like the GNU or Creative Commons suites, there is also no legal protection to keep that public domain work in the public domain "downstream" for somebody who receives that public domain work. Or worse yet still, if you are a 3rd party who is asserting that the copyrighted work is in the public domain, it is up to you when you publish the content that the work is in fact in the public domain, and be able to legally prove that point. This is true even if the work is in the public domain simply due to expired copyrights.
There is a convincing argument that the particular USE of our military strength for the last 15-20 years has indeed created MORE enemies. Especially so since 9-11. It's all fine to be the biggest toughest kid on the playground, but if you spend your time pushing and shoving and starting fights, throwing rocks at hornets nests, meddling in other kids games, telling them they're "either with you or against you", and generally displaying anti-social aggressiveness, then your strength is diminished and your enemies are made more numerous and more eager to unify against you.
While I've heard this argument made several times, a counter argument is that those enemies were there all along. Especially in terms of relationships to America, there are a great many countries who would love to see America fall apart and be knocked down in relationship with the rest of the world. This isn't really anything new, and has been a problem for America since the original colonial governments decided to chart an independent course from Great Britain. Heck, there are several political movements within America that would like to see an end to the "Pax Americana" that has existed for the past several decades.
I would also counter that incidents like what happened with the USS Cole and the fiasco at Mogadishu in 1993 are directly linked to politicians who failed to back up the military with decisive action, or prematurely pulling back when "victory" was nearly reached. As a direct result of this inaction, events that occurred on 9/11 were nearly inevitable.
Also, if America were to be the "biggest thug", you wouldn't be seeing suggestions to remove soldiers from Iraq, or discussions of how the Iraqi government was trying to balance the differences between the Sunnis, Shi'ites, and Kurds; but rather you would be seeing wholesale annexation of the Middle East as a part of America's Manifest Destiny to conquer the world. And no, I don't consider the current Iraqi government to be a "puppet government" of the USA... even though I will admit that the invasion of Iraq was to put a much more friendly government to American interests in the region.
It is a tough world that we live in, and some big players who don't really have limits in terms of how far they are willing to go in order to hurt their opponents. This applies both to those who would wish to do harm physically, as well as engaging in economic, political, and "cyber attacks" such as is the topic of this discussion. What you read about in the newspapers is more of the open manifestation of these conflicts, but they happen at multiple levels and multiple areas simultaneously.
Getting back to your original thesis that your biggest threat for removal of your freedoms come from internal politics... you may be correct. But that happens only because external threats have been neutralized and are effectively non-existent. Again, looking at what is happening within America... the last major military campaign that had a "direct" threat to the heartland of America occurred during the Indian Wars... or perhaps more legitimately during the U.S. Civil War. 9/11 was a hint to Americans that the "global war on terrorism" could indeed start to happen on our home turf, and that no significant terrorist action has taken place on American soil since 9/11 is an incredible accomplishment. And it hasn't been for a lack of trying on the part of the enemies of America either.
The reason why the largest threat to your liberties lies with politicians instead of thugs has more to do with a strong military than you are willing to admit.
In a world without a strong military to back up the civilian government, and one that is loyal to the rule of law, you would find yourself in a world where the rule of law no longer exists, and where personal liberties no longer have relevance. I also argue that it is precisely because of the strength of the U.S. military that other people, including people who aren't even Americans, can go about their business in the world without fear that somebody is going to bust down their door and take their property, relatives, or their life.
That occasionally the U.S. military is called upon by often corrupt politicians to perform less than honorable tasks may also be true, but the blame for their actions shouldn't be upon the generals and officers (most especially the soldiers, marines, airmen, sailors, and coastguardsmen who follow those orders), but rather those politicians who gave those orders in the first place.
I also hold far from blameless those congressmen who decade after decade have permitted the President of the United States, from both major parties and multiple administrations, to not hold those Presidents to a high level of accountability and use their constitutional powers to declare war when necessary. And furthermore fail to go after those Presidents who make war without congressional approval. The President of the United States gets away with this because Congress lets him.
NPOV is a tool to help decide between edits when there is an edit war in progress. I have seen some incredible POV fights that have broken out on some articles where there is wholesale revisions going on between several camps of editors, and the article switching between the various POVs. NPOV, if used properly, can help to bring together the various warring parties into common ground that they can all agree upon, and bring some stability to the article.
Yes, as an ultimate goal, I would have to agree that NPOV is a nearly impossible goal to reach. But projects like Everything2 don't allow you to edit a remarkably well written article that has a few minor factual errors in it either...without looking like a weasel who has mostly copied somebody else's node.
Here's the thing, if Jimmy Wales wanted to sell out with Wikipedia he could sell out BIG. He controls Wikipedia for crying out loud.
This may have been true once upon a time, but it really isn't the case any more. While Mr. Wales does still have a big voice in what is happening in terms of a whole bunch of fans in high places, and he still has nearly unlimited editorial authority on all of the Wikimedia projects (he still maintains "steward" access, can and has created "administrator" authority on individual projects without "community" approval), he is increasingly becoming irrelevant in terms of actual day to day operations of Wikipedia and the rest of the Wikimedia sister projects.
Much of this is self-imposed, so far as he has become more "distant" from the community and hasn't been nearly so active in community forii. I have strongly disagreed with some of his actions in the past, and sometimes it hasn't been very beneficial to the community when he acted either. But I still admire what he has done in terms of promoting the projects and getting into doors to discuss Wikipedia that others likely wouldn't have been able to accomplish without his background.
Wikipedia started out more or less as Jimmy's private little playtoy, and there has been a transition from him "owning" Wikipedia to "giving it to the community" in terms of overall governance. Actual governance and legal control over the servers now rests with the Wikimedia Foundation, which is elected by editors of the various Wikimedia projects. In fact, an election for this board is coming up... the only franchise requirement is a certain number of "edits" on one project (I think a couple hundred edits... to keep somebody from voting who doesn't know the issues involved). I've even voted in the past couple of elections.
There are a couple "appointed" board members, but community elected representatives now comprise the majority of the board. This is different than what the board first started off as being Jimmy Wales as chair and the majority being his employees/partners. Jimmy Wales is still a member of this board, but is no longer chair... arguments about Florance being his "puppet" notwithstanding. BTW, I do like the job that Florance has been doing, and is trying to stay apolitical on most of the issues... as a chair should. She also doesn't get into the individual project minutae nearly so often as Jimmy Wales did during his tenure as chair, which IMHO is a good thing as well.
**IF** Mr. Wales would "sell out" now, I am certain that a majority of the Wikipedia community would move over to a whole new server and cut their ties to Mr. Wales completely. There really isn't much that he can do right now other than turn over what little he still controls over to the "community" completely.
As far as Jeff Merkey is concerned... I guess he is getting his 15 minutes of fame right now. He used to be a fairly regular poster to the "Foundation-l" mailing list, and was noted as a bit of a gadfly in terms of his posts on that list. The some of the conversations he clams to have had with Mr. Wales rings true so far as my own involvement with Mr. Wales is concerned, but it does seem to be a little bit odd. Clearly Jimbo did protect the Merkey article, and his individual involvement in this article seems quite unusual. Merkey was also a Wikipedia editor, but I can't seem to find his user account name at the moment.
I do know that some discussions of paying people to edit Wikipedia have happened in the past on Foundation-l, but to the best of my knowledge it was more in the form of a prize or scholarship type program, that would hire a group of students to work over the summer and pay them on a per-word basis to help improve some articles with bonafide research. The money to pay for these "paid volunteers" was to come from outside contributors and be in
Sort of. Yes, it does need occasional boosts of energy to push it to a higher orbit due to atmospheric drag, but extra mass (particularly compact mass) would mean that it could plow through that atmosphere longer, so it wouldn't require the boosts so often.
The ISS is hardly aerodynamic in terms of its profile.
The real question in term of the ISS is what to do with the thing once it starts to outlive its useful life, due to general aging of the systems. It is designed to be refurbished in orbit, but at what cost? Even shutting down the ISS is going to be expensive, and there are multiple options for shutting it down such as moving it to a much higher orbit (like a Lunar Lagrangian point), or "deorbiting" the whole thing in pieces. Any option that deals with the ISS on a permanent basis is likely to cause some huge logistical problems. You certainly don't want the whole thing crashing on your house in once piece.
I don't think you understand the state of the industry. Widespread employment of software developers goes back to the 1960's, with some of first programmers (like Grace Hooper) got their start in the 1940's. That is nearly 70 years ago. Ada Lovelace wrote her software back in the 1880's. Yes, the 19th Century, not even the 20th.
For crying out loud, there were large groups of programmers getting retired in the year 2000.
I think you don't take credit for the vast amount of software that was written well before you were born. And no, there weren't "very few programmers until the 1980's". Most of them, however, were writing stuffy business application software or code for missile guidance systems, and not the hot sexy new areas like web site design. Who do you think wrote payroll accounting software or the stuff that did your school class schedule registration? Or were you one of the generation that had to stand in lines while class schedules were compiled by hand by your guidance counselor, with that registration being a several day process?
It wasn't until the advent of the personal computer that small businesses started to use computers in large quantities. However, there wasn't a huge spike in terms of the growth of the number of programming jobs in the 1980s... it was a continuation of a trend for computers becoming more common in society for quite some time, nor was even the process of miniaturization of computer components started by people like Steve Jobs or Nolan Bushnell.
Please get a grip on reality here. I'm not suggesting here that the Unibomber is the ideal candidate, but I am suggesting that the personality profile of somebody like that is something that is similar to other individuals who have lived on the frontier of human society in the past. Most of those who were the genuine frontiersman, such as Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, or Jedediah Smith. These weren't exactly people you would want to hang out with unless you had something of a death wish, or their respect.
I still say that somebody spending a significant period of time away from the rest of humanity for several years, and remaining sane, is going to be a rather tough challenge. I for one think it is borderline lunacy anyway to suggest that somebody make this trip solo. A small group, perhaps. We are social creatures and do require human to human interaction, even if it is with people we absolutely despise.
Yes, I do understand that there will be the rough equivalent of e-mail and voice mail. But having a couple hour delay in communication is still going to make you feel isolated from friends and relatives, and with nearly instantaneous communication we are used to here on the Earth, it will be a different kind of experience. Not that many people do have delayed communications from time to time, but that instant communications simply isn't possible at all. Depending on how communications procedures are dealt with, during Martian conjunction communications may even be impossible on a practical perspective, or during intense solar storms.
I'm not saying that going on a trip like this wouldn't be exciting as well, but it certainly would push people to their limits in terms of endurance and challenging on a very fundamental level to define what it even means to be human. I don't buy that staying sane for this whole experience is going to be the typical result, particularly if you went on a completely solo mission that also included no real hope of meeting other human beings for years and possibly the rest of your lifetime. It would take an incredibly stable person to remain sane for this length of time in such isolation.
And what happens if communications systems break down?
I've worked with more than a few individuals who were pretty dang good programmers who are now in the 60+ year old category. Admittedly they didn't get Computer Science degrees at the time, as such a degree was still quite rare. But it isn't completely unheard of for the term "retired computer programmer" to exist for something more than a dot com millionaire.
Who do you think wrote the software that sent the astronauts to the Moon?
But I admit, the number of CompSci nerds that cut their teeth on personal computers is going to be hitting retirement age here in the next decade or so... and that is going to be something quite interesting.
In minor defense of Dr. Kaczynski, he was able to demonstrate "living off the land" consuming a minimal amount of resources. I think he lived on just a couple thousand dollars per year, most of which was used to pay taxes and for things he simply couldn't make or do without. If it wasn't for his occasional mailing of a bomb that got him to prison, he would be hailed as the ultimate environmentalists and certainly learned how to live "off the grid".
I'm not saying we should turn this guy out of the prison, but it does sound like somebody who certainly lived a lifestyle that would be necessary on Mars if you went there on your own.
A further question... assuming that somebody goes solo to Mars for several years and then another much larger crew shows up with a return vehicle. Do we really want to have this Martian back on the Earth, from a psychological viewpoint? It could get rather ugly, and a sociopath might actually survive better when a "sane" person might not. IMHO this is a fair question to ask.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you have your automotive accident statistics way off... as are your airplane statistics in terms of the number of accidents.
Three whole major air crashes involving commercial passenger travel? That is it? Seriously? In other words, it is "news" when a major crash occurs precisely because it is such a rare occurrence. Automotive crashes might make local press coverage if some famous celebrity or politician died, or perhaps on the morning traffic report when it shuts down a major arterial road... but they happen so often that it isn't even really considered a newsworthy topic to cover. This is true even when there are fatalities in the crash.
In terms of overall expectation in terms of living to see the next day, travel by airplane is much safer than travel by any surface vehicle transportation. In fact, you are more likely to die in the airport terminal parking lot than on the airplane itself... at least that is my assertion. Certainly you are much more likely to die in transit going to and from the terminal.
As far as "most people these days walk away from a car crash"... I have buried far too many close friends that have died from an automotive crash to believe this to be true. And yes, it is more than one person or even one incident. From both personal experience and from raw statistics I find this to be utter BS to even suggest such a thought.
There are a great many engineering problems that are associated with airships that have made it a technology that is difficult to work with compared to a wide-bodied fixed wing airplane like a 747 or A380.
Problems that need to be considered is having to fly in less than ideal weather, engines powerful enough to push through a strong headwind, and being able to handle the airship both at departure and at arrival. Airships simply can't even compete against large airplanes in terms of these basic handling requirements.
Consider that at least using 1930's technology, a typical airship required a terminal crew of hundreds of handlers just to get the vehicle into a hanger. A great many of these handlers often were injured when a sudden gust of wind lifted the airship up and caused it to go up 30 or more feet... picking up somebody holding onto the ropes that was trying to guide the ship into or out of the terminal.
Basically, the economic savings that came from slightly more efficient shipping costs were more than out weighed by the personnel costs including berthing suites (even for cargo haulers... you need multiple crews for longer flights), support personnel, and a much more elaborate terminal crew. Added on top of that the strong lack of reliability in terms of being able to use the vehicles in only nearly ideal weather conditions (meaning you can't trust when an airship is going to arrive with a cargo shipment) add up to the reason why they aren't used much at all.
This is a nice dream, and I'd love the chance to fly one of these gracious vehicles myself. But the challenges and obstacles necessary to make this something commercially viable are huge, and unless heavily subsidized by government I don't see that it would be viable as a business model. The government money IMHO would be a giant black hole of a concept too, and wouldn't maintain popular support for what would be openly a welfare program for elite rich folks.
As much as I get the joke, hydrogen as a lifting gas for airships is something whose danger is by far and away overblown. Germany used airships extensively using hydrogen... and it was the fact that they used what was effectively rocket fuel for the ship hull that did in airships like the Hindenburg, not the hydrogen gas.
Assuming that these airships are going to use some petrochemical substance like gasoline or JP-5 (military-grade jet fuel) to power its engines, I would be by far and away more concerned about some problem with the fuel system blowing up than the hydrogen.
As for why a 1930's technology isn't being used in the 21st century more extensively, there are a bunch of factors in that equation... including some irrational fear of hydrogen that makes it the target of lame jokes like this one.
The question here is by what impact the solar input had upon the development of the Venusian oceans, not to mention a lack of a stabilizing lunar influence and an odd planetary rotation rate.
Could the Earth have become just like Venus if it weren't for the development of life? What has been the impact of living systems upon this environment as well? Certainly epochs of high CO2 levels in the Earths past resulted in periods like the Carboniferous era when most of the coal deposits were laid down. Could living things in the distant past have made a similar impact upon Venus under the same conditions that now exist on Venus?
I would have to agree that the additional input of energy into the system, particularly on the impact of water vapor reaching dis-association energies in the upper atmosphere (causing the oxygen and hydrogen to be chemically independent) could have a substantial impact on the ability to have Venus keep its liquid oceans.
It is important to remember that when you start out on a scientific study, that you should be open to changing your mind and even world view based upon the results of that scientific experiment and study.
I have had that happen a number of times with several different things I've studied and the results didn't quite go with what I though was originally going to happen. Or when I've read papers and studies about topics that have brought new understanding... often deeper understanding... to a scientific discipline that shows additional variables in the equation that need to be worked with and understood.
My problem with most global warming advocates is that they take a single parameter, CO2 production by anthroprogenic sources and turn that into the dominating variable where there are a great many other things to describe that causes the effects. I'm afraid that this study of Venus is only going to be giving ammunition to those who advocate for this extreme viewpoint, and will oversimplify the interpretation of this study about Venus to the detriment of those who want to make positive contributions to helping fight environmental damage caused by modern industrial civilization.
I'm all for simplification, but in this case you need to understand the whole problem and not just a couple of factors that can be used for political purposes.
So watching a two hour documentary produced by Al Gore is any better than somebody watching propaganda from some other source?
There are a number of problems with global warming/disastrous climate change in the arguments that are presented. Among them is deliberate manipulation of scientific data to promote more extreme recent climate data to promote their political agenda. Yes, falsification of scientific studies, and it doesn't take much. I've also seen a near religious tone from those who advocate the "awareness of global warming" with nearly all of the trappings of a religious society.
I'm not saying that there isn't bona fide concern about changes to our global and local environments that should be addressed, and from a conservative viewpoint the word is "stewardship". We need to be proper stewards of our environment and take reasonable steps to clean up our own messes. Certainly nobody like to breath polluted air; swim, fish, or go boating in polluted rivers or lakes; or walk across polluted ground that causes you to vomit even to see what is there.
There are some reasonable and legitimate steps that can be done, but the voices of moderation and those trying to make reasonable changes are being drowned out by lunatics on both sides of the argument: Those that want to bury their head in the sand and ignore the problem and those who want to eradicate human civilization taking us back to a hunter/gatherer lifestyle. Neither is a viable solution, so we need to find some way to work with what we have and allow our lifestyles to continue in a more environmentally friendly manner. That isn't easy to accomplish and will take decades if not centuries to achieve.
Problems to earlier pollution problems were found in previous eras, as street sewage and horse manure are no longer major problem in most industrialized communities. I have no doubt that solutions will be found for CO2, ground-level ozone, and other problems that current afflict modern societies. A regular theme in late 19th Century newspapers was concern about massive levels of pollution in cities... referring to all of the horse manure that wasn't being cleaned up and causing major health concerns. Indeed, all things considered, I think automobiles and trucks do far less harm to the environment than what they replaced.
The problem with the global cooling argument is that there was not organized and deliberate government policy (at least anything that had teeth) that was established to deal with global cooling. It was people on the periphery of science that were complaining about that issue at the time, and generally not taken seriously in terms of anything people had to do. It was more a general worry that since ice ages (periods of massive glaciation in the northern hemisphere) were very common in the past, that they may be common in the future and perhaps in the near future.
That concern still should be there, and frankly we are at a near peak in terms of how warm the Earth's environment is at the moment for a variety of reasons. A 10 degree rise in temperatures might even be healthier economically speaking than a 10 degree drop in temperatures across the globe. Certainly a return of mile deep glaciers in the middle of North America would not only damage productive farmland but also force mass migration of millions of people... and that would only be the beginning.
The climate does change, and changes have been noted in even historical times. Northern Africa was considered the breadbasket of the Roman Empire, yet today its productivity in terms of crop production barely feeds itself. Greenland was a major Viking colony with enough people to support a full Catholic dioceses (not just an ordinary parish), but everybody moved out due to crops dying and the local climate being too cold to support a European model of agriculture and community building. Some people of European decent have return to Greenland, but even today it doesn't support nearly so large of a population as it did in the 1200's. I could use other historical examples, but the point is that change happens, so deal with it. Survival of species depends on their ability to cope with changes to their environment, and some succeed and others fail. That is called evolution.
The largest problem that those who are trying to promote awareness of global warming need to start combating is to use the concept as the boogy man of every possible problem that is afflicting mankind.
Insect eating bat dying in mass number? Global Warming.
Hurricanes increasing in power and frequence? Global Warming.
Hot summers? Global Warming.
Powerful winter blizzards? Global Warming.
Missing girl? Global Warming.
Price of gasoline rising? Global Warming.
Earthquakes in strange places? Global Warming.
Republicans take control of congress? Global Warming.
Commander Taco didn't win a bet last night? Global Warming.
I could go on and on, but this is getting to the point that every "disaster" and nearly every minor problem is coached on the premise that global warming or climate change (take your choice here if you want to be politically correct) is the source of all of these ills.
Please, give it a break. If you can legitimately claim that climate change is responsible for certain changes, such as receding glaciers or measurable rises in ocean levels (I haven't seen that yet at all), I might put a little more authority on the study. But it is used far too often that it makes a mockery out of legitimate climatological studies that are trying to identify potential causes of concern.
For myself, I am convinced that there is a general global warming of the environment. I'm still undecided in terms of anthroprogenic causes, with a strong leaning to natural causes instead even though I will admit some impact by modern industrialize society on a local basis. It is a big world we live in after all.
One interesting term that I've heard that is neither climate change or global warming is "Venusforming" as a counter-point to "Terraforming". In other words, the process of making our world more Venus-like instead of trying to figure out how to make Venus more Earth-like. Frankly, I think turning the Earth into a geological/environmental twin of Venus would be just as difficult as turning Venus into something like the Earth, but then again either is a complicated process.
It seems to me that Blizzard is following the wrong set of laws in order to go after this guy. Instead of dealing with copyright law (which seems to be a rather weak in this situation), they should be invoking some sort of criminal law or at the very least suing for damages in terms of interfering with the trade relationship with their non-'bot customers.
At the very least they can claim that he has gained unauthorized access to their physical equipment, and attempt to place liability upon Mr. Donnelly for loss of service to other customers.
This is not a copyright violation, but rather a criminal situation similar in nature to somebody who writes an internet worm or spammer trojan that would target a specific computer system in an unauthorized fashion. It is through anti-spam laws that could be claimed legitimately as a violation of the law.
On the flip side, it is going to be very hard for Blizzard to prove that they have in fact lost any money at all via the sale and use of this software. As a matter of fact, Mr. Donnelly may even be able to document customers who have increased their patronage with Blizzard via paid accounts and document a slight or even significant profit on behalf of Blizzard that comes from the use of his software. That is going to make it very difficult to prove "damages" if Blizzard in fact made money off of the whole thing.
This is presuming that the defendant has actually used Blizzard source code in the creation of his software.
Blizzard doesn't own or even have any legal right to any software that has been independently created and developed outside of its own software code base. If this developer had any brains at all, he would have been using a compiler and development tool set for a "non-standard" software development language like Object Pascal, Smalltalk, or Lisp. By doing that, it would be incredibly hard to suggest that the defendant has "copied" software when the structures look so much different.... certainly you could create some considerable doubt to a jury of even professional software developers much less twelve random "citizens" who know nothing about computer software development.
Demanding source code during discovery might backfire just as awfully as the "glove test" that happened during the O.J. Simpson murder trial, and if I were a consultant to the plaintiff I would strongly discourage even trying this approach unless there was some strong evidence that the defendant had in fact broken into the Blizard HQ (electronically of physically) and stolen actual source code which was later incorporated into his software. Based on what Michael Donnelly is trying to say, this seems like a rather dubious possibility when there are so many other possible approaches that could be done.
Also, Blizzard may not want to obtain the source code at all due to future copyright conflicts that could arise. If any, and I mean any, Blizzard software engineer took a look at Mr. Donnelly's software and later incorporated the concepts (even but one algorithm) into Blizzard's software.... the tables could turn very easily and have Mr. Donnelly sue Blizzard for copyright infringement. I can't believe that a software attorney would even want to touch such an explosive legal bomb like that.
As demonstrated with the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit, fighting copyright infringement via source code is not always a good strategy... and SCO had a much stronger case than Blizzard.
This is one of those cases where the "end user license" is able to (supposedly) enforce a contract that can't be proven that the user has in fact agreed to.
I, for one, consider anything in a license agreement that goes beyond the strict authority to copy the software and attempts to ascribe "rights" to the publisher that are not granted in copyright law to be illegal.
For instance, I can purchase a "license" that would allow me to re-publish major excepts from a book, or in the case of computer software I can buy a license that would allow me to incorporate a major subroutine library into a computer software product that I am in turn re-selling. These kind of licenses are quite common, and are entirely within the purview of the concept of who has "the right to copy" the copyrighted product. They can have some restrictions, and there are even "regional" licenses that you can offer a "right" to distribute a product in a certain region of the world, like separate licenses for distribution to North America vs. Europe.
If I violate the license terms, my "rights" to republish and sell that software then also terminate. But customers I've sold the software to previously under the license terms still have legal software.
The problem here is that the publisher, in this case Blizzard, is attempting to retroactively revoke the previously granted authority to copy the contents of the game from the CD-ROM (or via network download) to the hard drive of the computer after the copy has been made. Furthermore, it is presuming that the first sale doctrine doesn't apply to electronic media. Yes, I know that is currently disputed, but it hasn't been proven to be invalid either.
Even if a "formal contract" was entered into the mix between the customer and the software publisher that goes well above and beyond conventional copyright licensing terms, you still have to prove who signed the contract in the first place. Were the terms to the contract understood and legible? Was the contract even valid? Can anti-reverse engineering clauses even be added to such a contract of any kind, much less introduced as a mere copyright license arrangement?
This isn't unique even to the software industry, as I got involved with a technical specification contract that had some similar kinds of clauses that involved a physical dead-tree book. But in that case I had to physically sign my name as the recipient of the book and there was a documentation trail in terms of even legal custody of the material. I'm certain that Blizzard can't prove that sort of documentation at all.
Another issue to be raised by the defense is the issue of being able to understand what some other individual has done which is impacting the operation of the computer which you own. Blizzard doesn't own the PC that the defendant is using, and a legitimate use of reverse engineering is to understand how a piece of software may cause harm to the operations of other software or the general performance of their equipment.
This is a weak case for Blizzard, even though I sympathize deeply with their wanting to keep 'bot makers off of their servers. I personally think that invoking copyright law is entirely the wrong way to do it, particularly license agreements that are shaky to begin with. Real harm can be claimed by Blizzard in terms of the impact of the software upon their servers, but that is something similar to a denial of service attack and something more along the lines of vandalism, not necessarily anything that has to do with contract or copyright law. I'm sure criminal law statues could be read to apply here, but that is something else entirely different.
I personally think the world carrying capacity for human population is much higher than you are suggesting here. It may take some advances in technology, and require some creative thinking regarding food production far and above what is done right now.
The complete opposite of what you have said here is that the current world population.... assuming it is about 8 billion give or take a few billion in either direction... can fit into the state of Texas, including food production.
Here is another "factoid": New York City is one of the most efficient cities in America, in terms of energy usage per person and per capita resources consumed for each person there. That isn't to say that the people of NYC are poor.... which is hardly the case. But if you want to allow an increase in human population, there are methods that could be employed to support a much larger population in the world than we have at the moment... and give everybody a 1st world level of income/resources.
We may have to change the way we do some things if this sort of population growth does occur, but I think it can be accommodated if it does occur. Certainly until the world population does stabilize, which it seems to be doing anyway. And that is assuming that we, as a species, stays on this rock now that we've discovered how to get off of it. Or that the resources that we, as a species, must necessarily come from this planet exclusively.
Don't worry.... the next issue is going to be Solar System environmentalism. In other words, now that we've screwed up the Earth, let's not spread the "disease" called humanity anywhere else. They are already building the case.
I personally think this is as absurd of an issue as the other extremists causes, but it is something to be aware of. I don't understand Lunar environmentalism, or the desire to preserve Mars as some sort of international version of Yellowstone (actually more drastic... they don't want any human structures on Mars), but there is a group that doesn't want human development off of the Earth. Watch for it, and how new human settlements will have to start with environmental regulations from h***.
It will be real interesting just how far those who get up there decide to take all that legal BS and tell the people of the Earth to shove it.
So if it isn't one thing, it will be another.
When you have next to nothing, it is hard not to go anywhere but up.
You are also missing the point that, at least of those countries that are granting basic freedoms to their citizens to be able to join the world economy, that they are joining in with the prosperity that already exists.
This means that they are enjoying the same kinds of technology, and in some cases even skipping whole technologies to much more advanced forms. For example, few Chinese have land-line telephones, but cell phone coverage is nearly universal and in some ways better than even America or Europe.
GDP is also a difficult thing to compare between one country vs. another anyway, but you certainly can see how some countries that 50 years ago were clearly 3rd world nations both in terms of infrastructure and poverty levels are now at nearly 1st world levels of affluence. What about South Korea, to give an example.
There are other factors that impact the traditional 1st world nations as well for growth rates, including overbearing tax rates and business regulation that slows down economic growth.
So the "solution" to this is to get some SIG (Special Interest Group) of like-minded (and hopefully already tenured) professors to start the journal for some of their own research, and start to earn that prestige in the first place.
No, I don't think a "do it yourself" approach will work, but certainly an organized group of researchers with a couple of mavericks that want to challenge the current system could pull this off. Heavily cite one another and "ignore" the traditional journals when reasonably possible, and make sure that the alternative journal has high enough quality to make a mockery of those who don't at least cite some of the content of that journal.
Self-publishing is a bad idea, and that isn't just for scientists. Authors of nearly any stripe should be discouraged from doing that, unless you have a near death wish or can use the written word in an outstanding fashion. But starting a publishing group with peer review isn't the same as being self-published.
American copyright tradition is that you have to perform an action to explicitly seek copyright. That current U.S. copyright law follows European traditions of automatic copyright (due to some Euro-philes in the U.S. State Department) is really a recent anomaly and something that surprisingly hasn't ever really been tested in the courts in terms of its constitutionality.
This isn't to say that you or I should ignore somebody's copyright if they haven't explicitly claimed copyright, but it isn't quite so easy. And there are a number of groups that really don't care about copyright... including commercial publishers who will assert their own copyright upon the works of others without permission.
Yes, there is a legal way to release a copyrighted work into the public domain, but you must explicitly make the disclaimer of doing exactly that when you publish that content. Unlike with licenses like the GNU or Creative Commons suites, there is also no legal protection to keep that public domain work in the public domain "downstream" for somebody who receives that public domain work. Or worse yet still, if you are a 3rd party who is asserting that the copyrighted work is in the public domain, it is up to you when you publish the content that the work is in fact in the public domain, and be able to legally prove that point. This is true even if the work is in the public domain simply due to expired copyrights.
While I've heard this argument made several times, a counter argument is that those enemies were there all along. Especially in terms of relationships to America, there are a great many countries who would love to see America fall apart and be knocked down in relationship with the rest of the world. This isn't really anything new, and has been a problem for America since the original colonial governments decided to chart an independent course from Great Britain. Heck, there are several political movements within America that would like to see an end to the "Pax Americana" that has existed for the past several decades.
I would also counter that incidents like what happened with the USS Cole and the fiasco at Mogadishu in 1993 are directly linked to politicians who failed to back up the military with decisive action, or prematurely pulling back when "victory" was nearly reached. As a direct result of this inaction, events that occurred on 9/11 were nearly inevitable.
Also, if America were to be the "biggest thug", you wouldn't be seeing suggestions to remove soldiers from Iraq, or discussions of how the Iraqi government was trying to balance the differences between the Sunnis, Shi'ites, and Kurds; but rather you would be seeing wholesale annexation of the Middle East as a part of America's Manifest Destiny to conquer the world. And no, I don't consider the current Iraqi government to be a "puppet government" of the USA... even though I will admit that the invasion of Iraq was to put a much more friendly government to American interests in the region.
It is a tough world that we live in, and some big players who don't really have limits in terms of how far they are willing to go in order to hurt their opponents. This applies both to those who would wish to do harm physically, as well as engaging in economic, political, and "cyber attacks" such as is the topic of this discussion. What you read about in the newspapers is more of the open manifestation of these conflicts, but they happen at multiple levels and multiple areas simultaneously.
Getting back to your original thesis that your biggest threat for removal of your freedoms come from internal politics... you may be correct. But that happens only because external threats have been neutralized and are effectively non-existent. Again, looking at what is happening within America... the last major military campaign that had a "direct" threat to the heartland of America occurred during the Indian Wars... or perhaps more legitimately during the U.S. Civil War. 9/11 was a hint to Americans that the "global war on terrorism" could indeed start to happen on our home turf, and that no significant terrorist action has taken place on American soil since 9/11 is an incredible accomplishment. And it hasn't been for a lack of trying on the part of the enemies of America either.
The reason why the largest threat to your liberties lies with politicians instead of thugs has more to do with a strong military than you are willing to admit.
In a world without a strong military to back up the civilian government, and one that is loyal to the rule of law, you would find yourself in a world where the rule of law no longer exists, and where personal liberties no longer have relevance. I also argue that it is precisely because of the strength of the U.S. military that other people, including people who aren't even Americans, can go about their business in the world without fear that somebody is going to bust down their door and take their property, relatives, or their life.
That occasionally the U.S. military is called upon by often corrupt politicians to perform less than honorable tasks may also be true, but the blame for their actions shouldn't be upon the generals and officers (most especially the soldiers, marines, airmen, sailors, and coastguardsmen who follow those orders), but rather those politicians who gave those orders in the first place.
I also hold far from blameless those congressmen who decade after decade have permitted the President of the United States, from both major parties and multiple administrations, to not hold those Presidents to a high level of accountability and use their constitutional powers to declare war when necessary. And furthermore fail to go after those Presidents who make war without congressional approval. The President of the United States gets away with this because Congress lets him.
NPOV is a tool to help decide between edits when there is an edit war in progress. I have seen some incredible POV fights that have broken out on some articles where there is wholesale revisions going on between several camps of editors, and the article switching between the various POVs. NPOV, if used properly, can help to bring together the various warring parties into common ground that they can all agree upon, and bring some stability to the article.
Yes, as an ultimate goal, I would have to agree that NPOV is a nearly impossible goal to reach. But projects like Everything2 don't allow you to edit a remarkably well written article that has a few minor factual errors in it either...without looking like a weasel who has mostly copied somebody else's node.
This may have been true once upon a time, but it really isn't the case any more. While Mr. Wales does still have a big voice in what is happening in terms of a whole bunch of fans in high places, and he still has nearly unlimited editorial authority on all of the Wikimedia projects (he still maintains "steward" access, can and has created "administrator" authority on individual projects without "community" approval), he is increasingly becoming irrelevant in terms of actual day to day operations of Wikipedia and the rest of the Wikimedia sister projects.
Much of this is self-imposed, so far as he has become more "distant" from the community and hasn't been nearly so active in community forii. I have strongly disagreed with some of his actions in the past, and sometimes it hasn't been very beneficial to the community when he acted either. But I still admire what he has done in terms of promoting the projects and getting into doors to discuss Wikipedia that others likely wouldn't have been able to accomplish without his background.
Wikipedia started out more or less as Jimmy's private little playtoy, and there has been a transition from him "owning" Wikipedia to "giving it to the community" in terms of overall governance. Actual governance and legal control over the servers now rests with the Wikimedia Foundation, which is elected by editors of the various Wikimedia projects. In fact, an election for this board is coming up... the only franchise requirement is a certain number of "edits" on one project (I think a couple hundred edits... to keep somebody from voting who doesn't know the issues involved). I've even voted in the past couple of elections.
There are a couple "appointed" board members, but community elected representatives now comprise the majority of the board. This is different than what the board first started off as being Jimmy Wales as chair and the majority being his employees/partners. Jimmy Wales is still a member of this board, but is no longer chair... arguments about Florance being his "puppet" notwithstanding. BTW, I do like the job that Florance has been doing, and is trying to stay apolitical on most of the issues... as a chair should. She also doesn't get into the individual project minutae nearly so often as Jimmy Wales did during his tenure as chair, which IMHO is a good thing as well.
**IF** Mr. Wales would "sell out" now, I am certain that a majority of the Wikipedia community would move over to a whole new server and cut their ties to Mr. Wales completely. There really isn't much that he can do right now other than turn over what little he still controls over to the "community" completely.
As far as Jeff Merkey is concerned... I guess he is getting his 15 minutes of fame right now. He used to be a fairly regular poster to the "Foundation-l" mailing list, and was noted as a bit of a gadfly in terms of his posts on that list. The some of the conversations he clams to have had with Mr. Wales rings true so far as my own involvement with Mr. Wales is concerned, but it does seem to be a little bit odd. Clearly Jimbo did protect the Merkey article, and his individual involvement in this article seems quite unusual. Merkey was also a Wikipedia editor, but I can't seem to find his user account name at the moment.
I do know that some discussions of paying people to edit Wikipedia have happened in the past on Foundation-l, but to the best of my knowledge it was more in the form of a prize or scholarship type program, that would hire a group of students to work over the summer and pay them on a per-word basis to help improve some articles with bonafide research. The money to pay for these "paid volunteers" was to come from outside contributors and be in
Sort of. Yes, it does need occasional boosts of energy to push it to a higher orbit due to atmospheric drag, but extra mass (particularly compact mass) would mean that it could plow through that atmosphere longer, so it wouldn't require the boosts so often.
The ISS is hardly aerodynamic in terms of its profile.
The real question in term of the ISS is what to do with the thing once it starts to outlive its useful life, due to general aging of the systems. It is designed to be refurbished in orbit, but at what cost? Even shutting down the ISS is going to be expensive, and there are multiple options for shutting it down such as moving it to a much higher orbit (like a Lunar Lagrangian point), or "deorbiting" the whole thing in pieces. Any option that deals with the ISS on a permanent basis is likely to cause some huge logistical problems. You certainly don't want the whole thing crashing on your house in once piece.
I don't think you understand the state of the industry. Widespread employment of software developers goes back to the 1960's, with some of first programmers (like Grace Hooper) got their start in the 1940's. That is nearly 70 years ago. Ada Lovelace wrote her software back in the 1880's. Yes, the 19th Century, not even the 20th.
For crying out loud, there were large groups of programmers getting retired in the year 2000.
I think you don't take credit for the vast amount of software that was written well before you were born. And no, there weren't "very few programmers until the 1980's". Most of them, however, were writing stuffy business application software or code for missile guidance systems, and not the hot sexy new areas like web site design. Who do you think wrote payroll accounting software or the stuff that did your school class schedule registration? Or were you one of the generation that had to stand in lines while class schedules were compiled by hand by your guidance counselor, with that registration being a several day process?
It wasn't until the advent of the personal computer that small businesses started to use computers in large quantities. However, there wasn't a huge spike in terms of the growth of the number of programming jobs in the 1980s... it was a continuation of a trend for computers becoming more common in society for quite some time, nor was even the process of miniaturization of computer components started by people like Steve Jobs or Nolan Bushnell.
Please get a grip on reality here. I'm not suggesting here that the Unibomber is the ideal candidate, but I am suggesting that the personality profile of somebody like that is something that is similar to other individuals who have lived on the frontier of human society in the past. Most of those who were the genuine frontiersman, such as Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, or Jedediah Smith. These weren't exactly people you would want to hang out with unless you had something of a death wish, or their respect.
I still say that somebody spending a significant period of time away from the rest of humanity for several years, and remaining sane, is going to be a rather tough challenge. I for one think it is borderline lunacy anyway to suggest that somebody make this trip solo. A small group, perhaps. We are social creatures and do require human to human interaction, even if it is with people we absolutely despise.
Yes, I do understand that there will be the rough equivalent of e-mail and voice mail. But having a couple hour delay in communication is still going to make you feel isolated from friends and relatives, and with nearly instantaneous communication we are used to here on the Earth, it will be a different kind of experience. Not that many people do have delayed communications from time to time, but that instant communications simply isn't possible at all. Depending on how communications procedures are dealt with, during Martian conjunction communications may even be impossible on a practical perspective, or during intense solar storms.
I'm not saying that going on a trip like this wouldn't be exciting as well, but it certainly would push people to their limits in terms of endurance and challenging on a very fundamental level to define what it even means to be human. I don't buy that staying sane for this whole experience is going to be the typical result, particularly if you went on a completely solo mission that also included no real hope of meeting other human beings for years and possibly the rest of your lifetime. It would take an incredibly stable person to remain sane for this length of time in such isolation.
And what happens if communications systems break down?
I've worked with more than a few individuals who were pretty dang good programmers who are now in the 60+ year old category. Admittedly they didn't get Computer Science degrees at the time, as such a degree was still quite rare. But it isn't completely unheard of for the term "retired computer programmer" to exist for something more than a dot com millionaire.
Who do you think wrote the software that sent the astronauts to the Moon?
But I admit, the number of CompSci nerds that cut their teeth on personal computers is going to be hitting retirement age here in the next decade or so... and that is going to be something quite interesting.
In minor defense of Dr. Kaczynski, he was able to demonstrate "living off the land" consuming a minimal amount of resources. I think he lived on just a couple thousand dollars per year, most of which was used to pay taxes and for things he simply couldn't make or do without. If it wasn't for his occasional mailing of a bomb that got him to prison, he would be hailed as the ultimate environmentalists and certainly learned how to live "off the grid".
I'm not saying we should turn this guy out of the prison, but it does sound like somebody who certainly lived a lifestyle that would be necessary on Mars if you went there on your own.
A further question... assuming that somebody goes solo to Mars for several years and then another much larger crew shows up with a return vehicle. Do we really want to have this Martian back on the Earth, from a psychological viewpoint? It could get rather ugly, and a sociopath might actually survive better when a "sane" person might not. IMHO this is a fair question to ask.