There is a delay effect in terms of spending, and if you ask the Baby Boomers (now approaching retirement) about NASA and who they might have known that was either an ex-NASA employee or somebody connected to a NASA contractor, I think you might be very much surprised.
Back during the Apollo era, it seemed as though nearly all surplus engineering talent was being soaked up by the nearly "limitless" funds being spent on NASA, and it was an amazingly huge part of not only the U.S. economy, but also on nearly every other headline you would find in the newspapers... and routinely on the evening news on television. If you didn't live in the 1960's (I was just a kid at the time.... so my perspective is somewhat warped through the lens of childhood) it is very difficult to comprehend what exactly I'm talking about here. It was hard to think which got more P.R. attention in the 1960's.... going to the Moon or the Vietnam War.
In addition, in terms of how many people worked for the military vs. how many worked for NASA.... again, there was surprisingly parity there in the 1960's as well. NASA had of course fewer actual employees, but I would dare say there were perhaps more actual civilian contractors (at least employees of civilian contractors) than would be involved with the military at the time. And in terms of vehicles that NASA maintains.... it is quite a bit more than just the couple dozen spacecraft that they are famous for. NASA maintains a couple of blue-water ocean ships, has several armored personnel carriers (mainly for employee protection at launch sites), a rather significant investment in aviation including a couple 747's, and quite a bit of other infrastructure. I'm not saying that it is approaching the level of the U.S. Department of Defense in terms of sheer numbers, but it isn't something to completely ignore either. A not insignificant number of NASA assets are "borrowed" from the DOD as well as needed, such as when entire air carrier battle groups (during "wartime" even) were tasked explicitly to NASA projects, such as capsule recovery in the Pacific. Training aircraft and other military hardware is still used by NASA even today.
What I'm trying to say is that there are many people who have not been aware of the politics surrounding NASA over the past 20 years, and think that the same level of funding for NASA has been followed since the Kennedy Administration. And keep in mind that this group of individuals (the Baby Boomer generation) is also the largest block of voters in the USA, especially as they are approaching retirement age. That they think NASA is being funded at much higher levels than they really are, but are expecting the same results that happened in the 1960s. No wonder that many of that generation think going to space is soooo hard that the catch phrase of "if we can go to the moon, we can _____" is so popular.
Also, NASA is a PR friendly way to fund ballistics research.
You might have made a very well reasoned argument along that line back in the 1950's when NASA was first created, and certainly there have been some refinements of launch technology that have been transfered from NASA to the U.S. Air Force (who runs the actual ballistic missile program in the USA).
But who needs a ballistic nuclear missile to make the journey to Saturn? Or Pluto?
I just don't buy this common argument, and it has very little to do with reality or what NASA actually gets involved with.
The bulk of NASA spending is currently on maintaining the current "army" of workers who service the Space Shuttle, and that is one of the many reasons for the current debacle that surrounds the Ares I & Ares V programs. NASA is more a pork barrel program (starting with Lyndon Johnson back in the 1960's) to "earmark" technical research centers throughout the USA, and a jobs program for PhDs in America.
Because these individuals with PhDs are pretty bright, and they do come up with some cool stuff from time to time, it can be argued in some ways that there is a huge benefit, both economically and politically to have people employed this way. It is also nice to know that somebody in the federal government is doing the way far out "what if?" thinking about what the future of the USA might be like 100 or 300 years from now.
I just don't see how Ares I development is going to help create a new generation of ballistic missiles for the Air Force.
The amount of resources the US spends on the military is obscene, IMHO.
If that is the case, what about the money that the USA spends on social programs?
Or worse yet, servicing federal debt?
Military spending in the USA isn't even the #2 item in the federal budget today, and if the Pentagon were to be demolished, every member of the armed forces discharged, all of the bases closed... or in effect the Department of Defense eliminated from the federal budget, there would be virtually no impact on overall federal spending.
I'm not saying that in many cases some huge mismanagement of funds spent toward the military is inappropriate, but comparisons in the way that you have made them are hugely inappropriate.
Furthermore, I would strongly question the figure of the USA spending 60% of all global military expenditures. While I have no doubt that you can find some source like some UN agency to proffer those numbers, there are so many things to account for actual defense spending that it is difficult at best to compare one country to another, much less every country in the world. Particularly when it comes to military spending, there are so many things that affect exchange rates, the amount of money spent on military pay, conscription rates, and more that have a huge influence on the actual "cost" of maintaining a military. The U.S. Department of Defense is pretty open (particularly in a democracy that requires public accountability for these expenditures), is staffed by an all-volunteer force, and has an exchange rate with other countries that is at best unfavorable. Compare that to China where there are conscripts, do not necessarily publish accurate figures about how much they spend on their military (and no real need to do so), and a deliberate manipulation of the exchange rates to encourage more trade imbalances going their way. Very few countries in the world even have a political climate to derive accurate figures for military spending that even attempting to generate those numbers is difficult at best, and for most a hopeless cause that is more of a pure guess.
America can easily afford military spending at its current levels, and by itself I don't think this is a reason to post such a "hate America" diatribe here. You can be critical of specific policies and perhaps of perceived political injustices due to being a political heavyweight in world politics. But otherwise you are being clueless about the topic you are writing about here. Far more countries have a much greater proportion of their economic capability getting dumped into military spending, and use their militaries not for fighting external aggressors but for oppression of their civilian populations.
You made an argument about many people deceiving or not participating in polls, and I really doubt that in the U.S. that would be a problem at this time, since not enough of us feel oppressed in a way that prevents us from speaking freely to pollsters (and they have ways to measure a margin of error).
It is a factual piece of data that most Americans don't want to participate in the "official" polls. During a U.S. Presidential election, less than 1/3rd of the registered voters (meaning those who even bother to go to the courthouse and even file for the ability to vote) even show up. For off-year elections, I've seen some places as low as 5% or even 1% for some precincts. Think about that carefully, and consider that if a majority of those who didn't even bother voting decided to show up, it could have a huge influence on the outcome of nearly any American election.
As far as the exit polling is concerned, I know for a fact that many of those who have participated in those kind of for-profit activities often do give the opposite answer, or even completely make up what they tell these pollsters, or even fib about even having voted at all. There is virtually no way for these pollsters to know that. And by "not enough of us feel oppressed in a way that prevents us from speaking freely to pollsters", I can imagine all sorts of privacy reasons to either refuse to talk to a pollster or through other reasons that we don't want our name or personal information (such as gender, age, race, religion, and other details also collected by pollsters in exit polls) used in any way that might get somebody fired from their job or have other consequences that might be prejudicial to those being questioned. Certainly good reasons to respond different from the way you cast your ballot.
What I'm trying to point out is that these sort of after-election poll taking measures are fraught with all sorts of potential problems, not the least of which can also be a corrupt pollster who wants to follow their own agenda and stir up some sort of controversy when there isn't any. That often they do "get it right" is more of good research, but there can be other problems.
Keep in mind that the "margin of error" that is often cited is a mathematical figure that is derived strictly due to the sampling size. No exit poll agency in their right mind would try to poll every voter that came from every booth. It would simply be far too expensive, unless your stated purpose is to help uncover blatant voting fraud and you have an unlimited bank account to pay for all of those extra pollsters. These exit pollsters don't even get every voter from a given precinct, although good ones will perform some very careful statistical analysis to try and get a representative sample of the general population. Take a good statistics class if you don't understand this theory of sampling size. The margin of error has nothing to do with sampling errors due to bad methodology or deliberate bias on the part of the participants.
Perhaps the most embarrassing example of how exit pollsters got it wrong was in the 1948 U.S. Presidential election, when the Chicago Tribune placed as a banner headline across the front page "Dewey defeats Truman", based upon exit polls and a telephone survey. BTW, this prediction occurred explicitly because of sampling bias that was not accounted for by the polling researchers, and is something that any sort of random sample poll is likely to encounter if not addressed.
Democracy is a fragile proposition, and it takes the cooperation of those being governed to allow it to happen. As can be seen in Germany during the 1930's, it is possible for a majority of the people being governed to even reject the notion of a democracy. Had those who were hardcore Al Gore supporters prevailed in the 2000 Presidential election to push forward and challenge that election, including rejecting the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court (which I personally think was an unconstitut
Keep in mind that when you are talking about the various official in the USA, it is in reference to the multiple levels of government that exist within the USA, and include electing people at each level to both the executive and legislative branches of each level... and often even the judiciary. On top of that, many legislative bodies (only Nebraska as a unicambral legislature) have multiple parts running simultaneously for the same legislative district.
I would be interested in how Switzerland does things like this, as they also have a federal system somewhat similar to that in the USA... although on a much smaller scale. I'm not heavily into Swiss politics, but it seems as though each Canton (the size of a county in the USA, but is the next level down from the national level in Switzerland) is pretty independent, and even establishes their own customs such as the local "official" language. Switzerland is a multi-lingual country for its politics... and that is something that the USA could learn in terms of how to deal with a multi-lingual legislative body.
I'd also be interested if somebody who understands both systems to see a comparison between Switzerland and California. I'm noting California as they are especially notorious for using referenda for nearly anything, often with even the explicit request by the legislature.
One of the few things that the Utah legislature got from Diebold was the insistance upon a paper audit trail that is voter-verified when you cast your ballot.
These are still the same Diebold machines that have caused problems in California and elsewhere, but when you cast your ballot, a paper version of the ballot is produced that you can review as a voter. A "grocery store" printer (essentially the same thing that prints out your receipt at an ATM.... I wonder where they got that one?) prints out your ballot showing each race and the candidate that you voted for... including a "write in" candidate if you choose to go that route. As a voter, you have to explicitly press spots on the voting booth (it is a touch screen user interface) that says formally that you have reviewed the paper audit trail and that the votes recorded on that paper version match your preference. If you indicate that there is an error, the printer marked the ballot as "spoiled" and lets you go back and change your votes, reprinting a new ballot for you again. Or you can then involve a precinct voting judge to get involved in the process if you want to try another machine.
Utah also allows you to "vote provisionally" with a hand-written paper ballot if you think computers are full of fraud, and have them counted by hand the old-fashion way if you want. Mind you, while the votes are put in the same box as those from challenged voters (if somebody questions the citizenship of the voter, and the ballot is "put aside" while the citizenship is reviewed), but at the time the votes are counted, those who refuse to have their votes counted by computer are counted on the night of the election. Generally this amounts to about 1% of the total votes, so it isn't a huge problem.
My only complaint about the Utah voter system is that the paper audit trail is not actually used to determine the vote totals unless a formal recount is requested. The state Lt. Governor's office (who in Utah is in charge of the election process) only does a 1% random sampling inspection to verify the paper audit trail if there isn't a recount. There is still room for voting fraud on the local level, but that is nothing new. And there are checks and verification steps that would require the cooperation of every single election judge involved (of multiple political parties) to perform that sort of voting fraud. The use of computers is immaterial to the outcome of that sort of fraud.
From what I see this idiot who is filing the lawsuit here is talking about, he is going to have a very hard time making it stick in Utah, and will likely face barratry charges as well for even filing this lawsuit in Utah. Especially if he does it in "all 50 states". I hope he rethinks this approach and instead goes after a specific instance of where he thinks potential voting fraud may actually be occurring, due to the lack of a paper trail.
This may also be just a PR stunt as a threat of a lawsuit.... which may also have legal consequences as well if he doesn't follow through and actually file. My money is on the pure PR stunt, and no actual action is going to happen.
I hope that not only are you wrong, but dead wrong. If the "news media" predicts a certain winner based on exit polls, and the official results end up being the exact opposite (even something like a 90%-10% landslide), there may be something else going on when the official results don't match up with those the pollsters are getting.
Now the difference may be fraud and miscounted votes on the part of the official ballots, but it may also be a bunch of people deliberately telling the exit pollsters the opposite of how they voted, just because they don't like the news media or some other reason. There is absolutely no way to verify if the exit poll results are accurate, other than comparing the rough percentages from the exit polls to the final official vote total.
That most often people tend to be honest (both the voters as well as the poll workers) is generally true, but you simply don't know. Creating a political firestorm insisting that the cast votes must be precisely the same or nearly the same as the exit poll or you will start a mass riot is going to cause far more problems for everybody, and prove that democracy is a failure. I hope that never happens for many reasons, not the least of which would simply mean a total breakdown of civil government.
I am strongly convinced that the "hanging chad" issue of the 2000 election was a result of deliberate ballot tampering on the part of the precinct voting judges, who on top of everything else were lazy and wanted to push through multiple ballots at the same time.
The idea was to punch out the chad for the candidate that you preferred. If the ballot was blank, you got a new vote. If there was already a vote for another candidate, you just invalidated the ballot.
There were many problems involved with the 2000 election, and the push for electronic voting is just a knee jerk reaction that also got some sophisticated con artists involved to push through a whole new voting system, at the cost of millions of dollars. Basically nothing more than a scam at taxpayer's expense.
Many municipal elections are operated as "non-partisan" elections. In other words, the only real "party" is the "incumbant party", meaning those who served in the previous term. I've seen the letter "I" used on some ballots to indicate the incumbant, but even that is often not used.
Even so, if you are familiar with most municipal elections and are even remotely involved with you local politics, you have a pretty good idea in America who the Republicans or Democrats are that are running for office.
Of course, I think it is insane to vote "straight ticket" anyway, and something that shows pure ignorance. At least where I live, if you punch the "straight ticket" option in general elections, it treats non-partisan races as a blank ballot, meaning you didn't cast a vote for anybody.
While even the paper ballot method isn't 100% tamper-proof and "fool proof", on the whole I tend to support the general idea.
I support the concept of "electronically assisted" voting, where the device is used for ballot preparation, just as you have indicated. You can also design a ballot that is generated by a laser printer to be simultaneously readable by both mere humans as well as by machines.... in essence getting the best of both worlds.
Think of it this way: If you can prepare a ballot with a computer that makes sure there are "register" marks and the "X" is in a consistent place, running these specially prepared ballots through an automated process is trivial. In addition, since the information is also "human readable", you can also go back and "hand count" all of the ballot as a double check, or better yet you can allow a 3rd party (such as a political party... or both parties) access to the ballots and have them count the information using their own equipment and software for independent verification. Differences in vote counts could then be legitimately contested.
It would also make the job of the company who creates the ballot preparation software much easier, since they are not responsible for the security of the data. The voter can verify that the information on the ballot is correct, and if it is a "spoiled" ballot, they can follow existing procedures for destruction of that ballot and start again. This isn't even creating new laws of any kind. If a computer crashes, oh well, you can still keep voting on a back-up supply of ballots that have to be counted the old fashioned way.
But the idea of using an ATM machine is still subject to nearly the same sorts of problems that older systems of voting have...and add many new forms of voting fraud to boot. If you stick with paper ballots that are generated from the voting machines, you merely fall back to the original set of voting fraud that is rampant in any election, from dishonest judges, stuffed ballot boxes, and voters who died over a year before the election.
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Vote early, vote often! -- Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago
That would be the fault of the manager/owner of the hotel who agreed to letting that service company set up the hotel internet connections.
The criticism is still valid... just that apparently the management of that hotel is clueless about how to set up a computer network (wireless or otherwise) within their hotel and decided to go after a con-artist who is ripping off their customers.
On this, you got it wrong. Nina was a doctor with full credentials that she could practice medicine in the USA...at least from an educational point of view. And she did have the equivalent of an M.D. in gynecology and obstetrics.
The reason she didn't practice in the USA was mainly an issue of her trying to pass the medical board tests that are required when any foreign-educated physician tries to practice medicine in the USA. From what I understand, Nina passed all of the knowledge-based sections of the board examination (similar to a medical-type GRE exam or bar exam), but essentially flunked the ethics sections. In short, she was not licensed to practice medicine in the USA, not that she didn't have the knowledge about how to do medical procedures.
Now doesn't that give you something to chew about.... when her largest short coming was trying to understand why you needed to be ethical when practicing medicine? And that isn't relevant to this murder trial?
Don't let these AC rants get to you... they are by uninformed and ignorant individuals who have not really looked at the situation, and would rail against anybody just for the sake of an argument.
BTW, you are spot on with what you have said here, and disclosure laws would have required the police to at least release any of this "secret evidence" that supposedly exists.
Hans was arrested because he was a "hacker" (therefore criminal) and a bit too "smart" for the police. They are scared of people like Hans because he is more intelligent than they are, and does things that are just a little different than the "typical" individual. Hans is clearly somebody who doesn't necessarily conform to societal norms, and (has been pointed out in reference to his net postings) quick to engage in an argument. Police certainly don't like individuals who fight back in this way. And I'm speaking (unfortunately...but not for murder) from experience. I've had my own run-ins with police for some of the most incredible and stupid reasons.
Where I have heard of ultra caps being something workable is when coupled with a regenerative braking system, where the "temporary" power gained from braking is stored in the ultra caps instead of being stored in the more conventional chemical batteries. The idea here is that ultra caps are better for short-term energy storage, and that once they have drained, you could draw from the main chemical batteries.
The reason why this would be done is that the ultra caps are much more efficient in terms of energy storage, but don't hold the overall energy necessary that eventually must come from batteries.
Unfortunately, this also seriously complicated any power circuity where you would have two separate kinds of power systems, with presumably the ultra caps being a minor system at best, and as you point out, it would be a secondary system and not the primary storage device.
Of everything that the Oakland Police did, sending the kids to Russia is by far and away the most bizzare and perhaps even illegal (on the part of the Oakland Police) action in this case. In spite of the fact that the children were born to two (at the time) American citizens... Hans and Nina... and that they were also born in the USA, Russia is claiming that they are Russian citizens and refusing to grant a "passport" for either child or an "exit visa".
On this particular issue, I think Hans has a reasonable chance of a successful lawsuit against the Alameda County prosecutor's office, particularly if he is acquitted. By California State law and U.S. Federal guidelines on the subject, those children should not have been allowed to leave the state of California, much less been granted a U.S. Passport to leave.
It is also quite reasonable that after the children testified in the pre-trial hearing, that their testimony was not considered "good enough" for the prosecution, and could have even been used as a part of a successful defense in support of their father. If that isn't potential tampering with witnesses, I don't know what that means. This may also be something that could be a subject for an appeal even with a conviction, and shows a level of incompetence on the part of the prosecutor.
The human body is much harder to "dispose of" than you are implying here. In order to incinerate a body, it takes hours of intense heat in order to completely destroy all possible traces of that person. And that is if you are in a crematorium that is explicitly built for that purpose. I knew somebody who owned one and demonstrated just how long it took....where even in the crematorium they had to crush the bones several hours after the process started.... just to get it completely destroyed.
In terms of critters in the ocean eating a physical body.... that is largely true, but it takes quite some time to accomplish that task. And most of the time it is the bones that are also among the last items to get eaten.
Or more to the point on what I'm trying to point out, in both cases of "body disposal", unless you are very through and completely understand the process, there will be at least some substantial traces of DNA (in the bone marrow) of the victim left. And they both require a substantial amount of time to accomplish.... something you aren't going to do in a hurry.
The prevailing theory against Hans (and likely to be introduced by the prosecutor) is that Hans dumped off the body of Nina somewhere in San Francisco Bay. For somebody who is so clever to have read murder investigation books, is a computer "hacker" with a slightly criminal bent, and a part of the "alternative culture" in the Bay Area (aka participates with Open Source Software), leaving the potential that Nina could still be found some time in the future. And that makes sense how?
I'm not saying here that this isn't at least possible, but there are so many ways to screw this up that somebody as organized as Hans wouldn't have done it in so possible of a cliche method. And it would still be possible to find Nina, particularly given the haste Hans would have been required to dispose of Nina... if you count the time between when she was last seen and when Hans was arrested....also taking into consideration other things that establish a reasonable alibi for Hans that he wasn't just disposing of her body.
The way water is usually treated and dealt with by most urban societies is to not treat it like a mineral (aka gold or even steel), but to treat it as a flushing mechanism. In other words, the aquatic structures of most urban environments are designed to flush toxic wastes and other pollutants (primarily organic compounds of various varieties) into a place where it will eventually be dealt with.... that usually being the oceans of the world.
The technology exists today to take the most polluted form of raw sewage and improve its overall quality to the point that it is virtually indistinguishable from distilled water. In fact, the EPA even requires this level of purity from most sewage treatment facilities from urban areas of more than a few thousand people.
The technology also exists to have a magnitude order of improvement or better with the efficiency of water usage for agricultural purposes. Living in a desert area, I've seen some amazing low water consumption methods that can be applied to gardens and even commercial food production facilities.
More to the point, if the demand was there (and having 6 billion people in Texas would certainly create the demand!) getting the water resources wouldn't be that big of a deal. And otherwise the climate of Texas is pretty reasonable for human habitation, even though I would have to agree that western Texas in the summer is something you want to avoid unless you have some serious air conditioning available. But that isn't necessarily something unique to just Texas either.
Certainly Texas is much more inhabitable than Mars or Antarctica. Even in the El Paso area...where that might be a bit more debatable. The point I'm making here is that complaining about how crowded the Earth appears in terms of human habitation is substantially exaggerated, and forgetting just how big our planet really is. Some parts of the world are crowded, but you can still find wilderness in India and China...where you have to be careful about being attacked by wild animals who will hunt humans who are being ignorant or stupid. I certainly can walk about 15 miles from my house where I'm typing this message, and enter not only what is designated as an official federal wilderness area, but also risk getting attacked by rattle snakes and cougars. This in spite of the fact that within a 1 mile radius of my house live about 10,000 people....I don't live in exactly the most rural area of the country.
If you can get me clear title (and international recognition to that property) for a hunk of real estate in Antarctica, I might be a little more sympathetic to anybody who brings up this sort of reply.
As for the Sahara... living there is more than just being able to get the raw resources necessary for life. It is also a (comparatively) unstable part of the world politically. I mean, what about Darfur? You think the genocide that is happening in that part of the Sahara is something caused by a lack of water or other life sustaining resources? It is purely a political issue there as well as in Antarctica....where environmentalists like the one who is opposed to development on the Moon have already written off Antactica as a place for human habitation.s
The political side of owning real estate one the Moon or elsewhere in the rest of the non-terrestrial solar system is also something that desperately needs to be addressed in legal circles, with a strong hint to legislators coming up with these laws to realize that it is eventually going to happen, with or without them drawing up the rules for development of these hunks of rock. Without the laws being passed, however, there will be no rule of law in space.
Also, there is still the issue of how a bunch of Marines are going to get to Mars to kick a bunch of "settlers" off of that real estate. Sending U.S. Marines to a beach in Antarctica is a little more realistic, particularly if it is a bunch of Americans who are establishing a permanent settlement in Antarctica contrary to published American foreign policy on the topic. An oil drilling group in Antarctica would never be able to sell their oil on the world market, for example.
There are plenty of reasons why the American Revolutionary War was successful, not the least of which was a successful ploy by the early founders of the American Republic taking advantage of a unique political situation between France and Britain where those two countries were nearly evenly matched economically and militarily, and both were seeking territory in North America for expansion of their empires. That is something which Australia and Canada didn't have to face when they had their own independence movements....and the British Government has the previous experience of dealing with America to know that if they didn't try to deal peacefully with those colonies, that similar revolutionary movements could easily happen with significant negative consequences to the British Isles in the long run.
I do hope that if colonies are established on other worlds in the solar system, that the model of sustainable independence that Canada and Australia currently enjoy can be duplicated, rather than going through a much more painful duplication of American independence or what happened in South America and their struggle for independence from Spain.
First of all, I don't know where you get the idea that geometric growth of the human population is occurring when in fact most reasonable evidence shows the exact opposite: We are facing a huge population collapse, and this is most obvious in countries like Russia and other European countries. It is certainly not a Mathusian population collapse, as most of the periods of time when warfare happened in Europe also were marked by significant population growth spurts. This is a cultural phenomena, where most people in industrialized societies look upon the raising and bearing of children to be a huge burden and something to generally avoid if possible. This is not to say that large familes don't exist in industrial societies, but it is something of an oddity and comparatively rare. Certainly family sizes have been dropping to the point that many countries are not able to sustain even their current population levels.
India and China are another issue, but both countries are quickly becoming industrialized as well, and going through many of the transition issues that affected North America and Europe in the 19th Century.... and surprisingly dealing with the issues in a much shorter period of time as well. Assuming that the prevailing attitude toward children hits these two countries, I would expect at least those two countries, who represent over 2 billion people, will also be eventually experiencing a population decline or even collapse of their own making. So where is this huge growth of population going to be coming from? Polynesia?
This said, the parent post you are referring to here missed a critical key point to comparing Texas to sustaining the current world population of over 6 billion people: Not only could we find room in Texas for literally every human on the Earth, but you would be able to put them into a surburban style home and with intensive gardening and other sustained environmental food production techniques you could feed all 6 billion people on that very same acreage. Some people would be in more concentrated housing, but on average it would be little different from how most people live in industrialized societies. This would essentially leave the rest of the Earth as a genuine wilderness, presuming this was something that was somehow accomplished. Current food production techniques are designed explicitly because the land is available, not because it is necessarily the most efficient use of those resources in terms of maximizing food production. For crying out loud, in America the government still pays people *NOT* to grow food on their land, through soil bank programs and other such nonsense.
The reason why Texas is also used is that, unlike the examples you gave, most of Texas *IS* inhabitable, with generally plenty of fresh water (lately even too much of that) and plenty of empty space for cities to grow and expand. This is not Antarctica we are talking about here, but something in the heartland of America.
The problems of food distribution in places like Africa is hardly financial, as *TRILLIONS* of dollars have been dumped into developing Africa over the years in one form or another. This is not something I'm throwing around lightly either, but that huge amounts of money have been confiscated from the ordinary people in Africa and taken by despotic governments...usually sent to Switzerland or some other financial haven. The problems facing these impoverished countries is completely something political, as there is literally food rotting in warehouses *in the countries where it is needed*, but for some reason or other the food isn't getting to where it is needed most. This has been the situation in the world for well over a half century or more...certainly since WWII.
Someday Africa may be a major world power...they certainly have the raw resources necessary to rival Europe, America, or even eastern Asia. And they do have things that can be valuable enough to trade with farmers in America and Europe...if food is what they really want. But pol
There has always been a battle between the inclusionists and the deltionists. The largest problem is when a couple of self-annointed "cleanup police" come to an article and try to get it removed on the grounds that they have never heard of the topic, therefore it is non-notable. This is a nearly a constant point on nearly every AfD that I've participated with, where those making the accusation of non-notability really are completely ignorant about the scope of the general topic that the article explains.
This is not to suggest that articles of a very obscure nature (and genuinely non-notable) don't get written but far too often, from at least my perspective, articles are nominated invoking this rule for reasons that have more to do with internal Wikipedia politics than any real justification of non-notability.
I think you have me confused with somebody else.... please note who is posting a reply here and that more than one person is arguing contrary to what you are trying to say.
And yes, the NAACP does have a right to say that the KKK in white robes and a burning cross is not permitted inside a convention center, or that "fundimentalist Christians" aren't allowed inside of a Mormon temple throwing chicken blood everywhere (they tried).
The U.S. Supreme Court has explicitly noted that a time, manner, and place restriction on public speech is reasonable, which is why the free speech zones were established in the first place. Ultimately, when it comes to free speech, the model I like the best is found in London's Hyde Park district, where there is a tradition of public debate on nearly every topic from sports, religion, politics, or even scientific theories. All you need is a small crate or box (if you want to be seen when you are speaking) and start yelling at the crowd in the area. Just don't expect to be doing the same thing in St. Paul's Cathedral or Buckingham Palace. Or inside the Oval Office in Washington D.C. for that matter.
There also seems to be some confusion here about what I was saying about free speech. There have been many times a protest group comes together when violence breaks out. The '68 National Democratic Party Convention is one of those where people were arrested for felonious behavior (they did kill a few people), but a cry of "free speech" and perceived violations of the 1st Amendment were discussed because of the actions of the Chicago Police. I can name dozens or even hundreds of other similar events... some that ended up peaceful but others that did result in violence that did require intervention by large groups of uniformed police officers to keep everything under control. In most cases the violence was done only by mischief makers taking advantage of the tension between competing political viewpoints, but in other situations there seems to be an implied encouragement of the violence by the protest organizers.
I consider this comment to be the most well rounded and informed "criticism" of Armadillo Aerospace that I have ever seen posted on either/., or on any other forum for that matter.
I've noticed that SpaceX (and Elon Musk) has decided to push toward the vertical integration concepts that you are talking about here, and it seems to have saved them quite a bit in terms of both cost of operations as well as improving their quality assurance. The Falcon I still isn't a resounding success, but at least they have been able to put something into orbital altitudes and velocities... not bad for only two attempts. And when all is said and done, SpaceX will have spent close to a billion dollars to get everything going, so the suggestion that money is needed is a valid remark to make as well... at least if you want to get a rocket going sometime in a comparatively short period of time.
Another huge example of how American industry is failing companies like Armadillo Aerospace is the huge PITA efforts that John went through to try and get hydrogen peroxide for his initial mono-propellant engines. He certainly got a very effective peroxide engine built, but ran out of suppliers for the quality and purity that he needed for rocket fuel. Well, that and the Dept. of Homeland Security who treats 95% pure peroxide as a bomb making component with huge regulations over who can purchase the stuff, and companies who make the stuff worried about lawsuits, so they refuse to sell it unless it is a proven customer. This is but another example of where he had a neat idea (the peroxide engines) but was forced to change directions when he couldn't get the stuff that he wanted/needed to make his project work.
I take it that you follow Armadillo Aerospace closely. Enough to criticize the credentials of those involved.
Or more to the point, you don't think a company whose product requires skilled M.E.s for their primary product, like lets say General Motors or Ford, could be operated by somebody other than a mechanical engineer?
Now I'm not suggesting here that if Carmack went and did as you said, and went "back to school" to get some additional insight in the fields you are talking about, that it wouldn't be helpful. However, you perhaps don't know what Carmack's contribution to the company has really been.
His primary contributions have been in developing the guidance systems and the control software. And that is something where his considerable experience trying to tweak computer hardware for video games has been a tremendous advantage. It also shows in terms of the performance of the spacecraft, as the flight software certainly was not the fault of any of the problems at the X-Prize Cup.
I'm not saying that any of this is easy to accomplish either, but it is also not a one-man effort put together either. Also, there have been some "rookie" mistakes made by the Armadillo team over the years, but in this sense Carmack has been gaining the knowledge "on the job" by actually building the equipment. And if you read his blogs, it shows just how much of that knowledge that he has learned from others working with him, and how the designs have gradually changed over the years. He didn't just create Armadillo Aerospace last year.
Keep in mind that Mr. Carmack still has his "day job" with ID Software, and has a reasonable amount of money coming into his own pocket, and a fairly healthy savings.
More to the point, unless he has recently been laid off from ID Software and that hasn't appeared on/. or in other "alt.space" news, he has a good source of money to at least sustain the current cash flow that he has been putting into Armadillo Aerospace. Worries about him "selling" the company or bringing in other investors is very premature.
In fact, if you go to his website about the rockets, the "investor" page allows you to buy "Armadillo droppings" (pieces from previous rockets...presumably will now include pieces from Mod) and some T-shirts with the Armadillo logo. He isn't really looking for outside investors, but will take a "donation" even though he is also looking at eventually making the company profitable.
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There is a delay effect in terms of spending, and if you ask the Baby Boomers (now approaching retirement) about NASA and who they might have known that was either an ex-NASA employee or somebody connected to a NASA contractor, I think you might be very much surprised.
Back during the Apollo era, it seemed as though nearly all surplus engineering talent was being soaked up by the nearly "limitless" funds being spent on NASA, and it was an amazingly huge part of not only the U.S. economy, but also on nearly every other headline you would find in the newspapers... and routinely on the evening news on television. If you didn't live in the 1960's (I was just a kid at the time.... so my perspective is somewhat warped through the lens of childhood) it is very difficult to comprehend what exactly I'm talking about here. It was hard to think which got more P.R. attention in the 1960's.... going to the Moon or the Vietnam War.
In addition, in terms of how many people worked for the military vs. how many worked for NASA.... again, there was surprisingly parity there in the 1960's as well. NASA had of course fewer actual employees, but I would dare say there were perhaps more actual civilian contractors (at least employees of civilian contractors) than would be involved with the military at the time. And in terms of vehicles that NASA maintains.... it is quite a bit more than just the couple dozen spacecraft that they are famous for. NASA maintains a couple of blue-water ocean ships, has several armored personnel carriers (mainly for employee protection at launch sites), a rather significant investment in aviation including a couple 747's, and quite a bit of other infrastructure. I'm not saying that it is approaching the level of the U.S. Department of Defense in terms of sheer numbers, but it isn't something to completely ignore either. A not insignificant number of NASA assets are "borrowed" from the DOD as well as needed, such as when entire air carrier battle groups (during "wartime" even) were tasked explicitly to NASA projects, such as capsule recovery in the Pacific. Training aircraft and other military hardware is still used by NASA even today.
What I'm trying to say is that there are many people who have not been aware of the politics surrounding NASA over the past 20 years, and think that the same level of funding for NASA has been followed since the Kennedy Administration. And keep in mind that this group of individuals (the Baby Boomer generation) is also the largest block of voters in the USA, especially as they are approaching retirement age. That they think NASA is being funded at much higher levels than they really are, but are expecting the same results that happened in the 1960s. No wonder that many of that generation think going to space is soooo hard that the catch phrase of "if we can go to the moon, we can _____" is so popular.
You might have made a very well reasoned argument along that line back in the 1950's when NASA was first created, and certainly there have been some refinements of launch technology that have been transfered from NASA to the U.S. Air Force (who runs the actual ballistic missile program in the USA).
But who needs a ballistic nuclear missile to make the journey to Saturn? Or Pluto?
I just don't buy this common argument, and it has very little to do with reality or what NASA actually gets involved with.
The bulk of NASA spending is currently on maintaining the current "army" of workers who service the Space Shuttle, and that is one of the many reasons for the current debacle that surrounds the Ares I & Ares V programs. NASA is more a pork barrel program (starting with Lyndon Johnson back in the 1960's) to "earmark" technical research centers throughout the USA, and a jobs program for PhDs in America.
Because these individuals with PhDs are pretty bright, and they do come up with some cool stuff from time to time, it can be argued in some ways that there is a huge benefit, both economically and politically to have people employed this way. It is also nice to know that somebody in the federal government is doing the way far out "what if?" thinking about what the future of the USA might be like 100 or 300 years from now.
I just don't see how Ares I development is going to help create a new generation of ballistic missiles for the Air Force.
If that is the case, what about the money that the USA spends on social programs?
Or worse yet, servicing federal debt?
Military spending in the USA isn't even the #2 item in the federal budget today, and if the Pentagon were to be demolished, every member of the armed forces discharged, all of the bases closed... or in effect the Department of Defense eliminated from the federal budget, there would be virtually no impact on overall federal spending.
I'm not saying that in many cases some huge mismanagement of funds spent toward the military is inappropriate, but comparisons in the way that you have made them are hugely inappropriate.
Furthermore, I would strongly question the figure of the USA spending 60% of all global military expenditures. While I have no doubt that you can find some source like some UN agency to proffer those numbers, there are so many things to account for actual defense spending that it is difficult at best to compare one country to another, much less every country in the world. Particularly when it comes to military spending, there are so many things that affect exchange rates, the amount of money spent on military pay, conscription rates, and more that have a huge influence on the actual "cost" of maintaining a military. The U.S. Department of Defense is pretty open (particularly in a democracy that requires public accountability for these expenditures), is staffed by an all-volunteer force, and has an exchange rate with other countries that is at best unfavorable. Compare that to China where there are conscripts, do not necessarily publish accurate figures about how much they spend on their military (and no real need to do so), and a deliberate manipulation of the exchange rates to encourage more trade imbalances going their way. Very few countries in the world even have a political climate to derive accurate figures for military spending that even attempting to generate those numbers is difficult at best, and for most a hopeless cause that is more of a pure guess.
America can easily afford military spending at its current levels, and by itself I don't think this is a reason to post such a "hate America" diatribe here. You can be critical of specific policies and perhaps of perceived political injustices due to being a political heavyweight in world politics. But otherwise you are being clueless about the topic you are writing about here. Far more countries have a much greater proportion of their economic capability getting dumped into military spending, and use their militaries not for fighting external aggressors but for oppression of their civilian populations.
It is a factual piece of data that most Americans don't want to participate in the "official" polls. During a U.S. Presidential election, less than 1/3rd of the registered voters (meaning those who even bother to go to the courthouse and even file for the ability to vote) even show up. For off-year elections, I've seen some places as low as 5% or even 1% for some precincts. Think about that carefully, and consider that if a majority of those who didn't even bother voting decided to show up, it could have a huge influence on the outcome of nearly any American election.
As far as the exit polling is concerned, I know for a fact that many of those who have participated in those kind of for-profit activities often do give the opposite answer, or even completely make up what they tell these pollsters, or even fib about even having voted at all. There is virtually no way for these pollsters to know that. And by "not enough of us feel oppressed in a way that prevents us from speaking freely to pollsters", I can imagine all sorts of privacy reasons to either refuse to talk to a pollster or through other reasons that we don't want our name or personal information (such as gender, age, race, religion, and other details also collected by pollsters in exit polls) used in any way that might get somebody fired from their job or have other consequences that might be prejudicial to those being questioned. Certainly good reasons to respond different from the way you cast your ballot.
What I'm trying to point out is that these sort of after-election poll taking measures are fraught with all sorts of potential problems, not the least of which can also be a corrupt pollster who wants to follow their own agenda and stir up some sort of controversy when there isn't any. That often they do "get it right" is more of good research, but there can be other problems.
Keep in mind that the "margin of error" that is often cited is a mathematical figure that is derived strictly due to the sampling size. No exit poll agency in their right mind would try to poll every voter that came from every booth. It would simply be far too expensive, unless your stated purpose is to help uncover blatant voting fraud and you have an unlimited bank account to pay for all of those extra pollsters. These exit pollsters don't even get every voter from a given precinct, although good ones will perform some very careful statistical analysis to try and get a representative sample of the general population. Take a good statistics class if you don't understand this theory of sampling size. The margin of error has nothing to do with sampling errors due to bad methodology or deliberate bias on the part of the participants.
Perhaps the most embarrassing example of how exit pollsters got it wrong was in the 1948 U.S. Presidential election, when the Chicago Tribune placed as a banner headline across the front page "Dewey defeats Truman", based upon exit polls and a telephone survey. BTW, this prediction occurred explicitly because of sampling bias that was not accounted for by the polling researchers, and is something that any sort of random sample poll is likely to encounter if not addressed.
Democracy is a fragile proposition, and it takes the cooperation of those being governed to allow it to happen. As can be seen in Germany during the 1930's, it is possible for a majority of the people being governed to even reject the notion of a democracy. Had those who were hardcore Al Gore supporters prevailed in the 2000 Presidential election to push forward and challenge that election, including rejecting the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court (which I personally think was an unconstitut
Keep in mind that when you are talking about the various official in the USA, it is in reference to the multiple levels of government that exist within the USA, and include electing people at each level to both the executive and legislative branches of each level... and often even the judiciary. On top of that, many legislative bodies (only Nebraska as a unicambral legislature) have multiple parts running simultaneously for the same legislative district.
I would be interested in how Switzerland does things like this, as they also have a federal system somewhat similar to that in the USA... although on a much smaller scale. I'm not heavily into Swiss politics, but it seems as though each Canton (the size of a county in the USA, but is the next level down from the national level in Switzerland) is pretty independent, and even establishes their own customs such as the local "official" language. Switzerland is a multi-lingual country for its politics... and that is something that the USA could learn in terms of how to deal with a multi-lingual legislative body.
I'd also be interested if somebody who understands both systems to see a comparison between Switzerland and California. I'm noting California as they are especially notorious for using referenda for nearly anything, often with even the explicit request by the legislature.
One of the few things that the Utah legislature got from Diebold was the insistance upon a paper audit trail that is voter-verified when you cast your ballot.
These are still the same Diebold machines that have caused problems in California and elsewhere, but when you cast your ballot, a paper version of the ballot is produced that you can review as a voter. A "grocery store" printer (essentially the same thing that prints out your receipt at an ATM.... I wonder where they got that one?) prints out your ballot showing each race and the candidate that you voted for... including a "write in" candidate if you choose to go that route. As a voter, you have to explicitly press spots on the voting booth (it is a touch screen user interface) that says formally that you have reviewed the paper audit trail and that the votes recorded on that paper version match your preference. If you indicate that there is an error, the printer marked the ballot as "spoiled" and lets you go back and change your votes, reprinting a new ballot for you again. Or you can then involve a precinct voting judge to get involved in the process if you want to try another machine.
Utah also allows you to "vote provisionally" with a hand-written paper ballot if you think computers are full of fraud, and have them counted by hand the old-fashion way if you want. Mind you, while the votes are put in the same box as those from challenged voters (if somebody questions the citizenship of the voter, and the ballot is "put aside" while the citizenship is reviewed), but at the time the votes are counted, those who refuse to have their votes counted by computer are counted on the night of the election. Generally this amounts to about 1% of the total votes, so it isn't a huge problem.
My only complaint about the Utah voter system is that the paper audit trail is not actually used to determine the vote totals unless a formal recount is requested. The state Lt. Governor's office (who in Utah is in charge of the election process) only does a 1% random sampling inspection to verify the paper audit trail if there isn't a recount. There is still room for voting fraud on the local level, but that is nothing new. And there are checks and verification steps that would require the cooperation of every single election judge involved (of multiple political parties) to perform that sort of voting fraud. The use of computers is immaterial to the outcome of that sort of fraud.
From what I see this idiot who is filing the lawsuit here is talking about, he is going to have a very hard time making it stick in Utah, and will likely face barratry charges as well for even filing this lawsuit in Utah. Especially if he does it in "all 50 states". I hope he rethinks this approach and instead goes after a specific instance of where he thinks potential voting fraud may actually be occurring, due to the lack of a paper trail.
This may also be just a PR stunt as a threat of a lawsuit.... which may also have legal consequences as well if he doesn't follow through and actually file. My money is on the pure PR stunt, and no actual action is going to happen.
I hope that not only are you wrong, but dead wrong. If the "news media" predicts a certain winner based on exit polls, and the official results end up being the exact opposite (even something like a 90%-10% landslide), there may be something else going on when the official results don't match up with those the pollsters are getting.
Now the difference may be fraud and miscounted votes on the part of the official ballots, but it may also be a bunch of people deliberately telling the exit pollsters the opposite of how they voted, just because they don't like the news media or some other reason. There is absolutely no way to verify if the exit poll results are accurate, other than comparing the rough percentages from the exit polls to the final official vote total.
That most often people tend to be honest (both the voters as well as the poll workers) is generally true, but you simply don't know. Creating a political firestorm insisting that the cast votes must be precisely the same or nearly the same as the exit poll or you will start a mass riot is going to cause far more problems for everybody, and prove that democracy is a failure. I hope that never happens for many reasons, not the least of which would simply mean a total breakdown of civil government.
I am strongly convinced that the "hanging chad" issue of the 2000 election was a result of deliberate ballot tampering on the part of the precinct voting judges, who on top of everything else were lazy and wanted to push through multiple ballots at the same time.
The idea was to punch out the chad for the candidate that you preferred. If the ballot was blank, you got a new vote. If there was already a vote for another candidate, you just invalidated the ballot.
There were many problems involved with the 2000 election, and the push for electronic voting is just a knee jerk reaction that also got some sophisticated con artists involved to push through a whole new voting system, at the cost of millions of dollars. Basically nothing more than a scam at taxpayer's expense.
Many municipal elections are operated as "non-partisan" elections. In other words, the only real "party" is the "incumbant party", meaning those who served in the previous term. I've seen the letter "I" used on some ballots to indicate the incumbant, but even that is often not used.
Even so, if you are familiar with most municipal elections and are even remotely involved with you local politics, you have a pretty good idea in America who the Republicans or Democrats are that are running for office.
Of course, I think it is insane to vote "straight ticket" anyway, and something that shows pure ignorance. At least where I live, if you punch the "straight ticket" option in general elections, it treats non-partisan races as a blank ballot, meaning you didn't cast a vote for anybody.
While even the paper ballot method isn't 100% tamper-proof and "fool proof", on the whole I tend to support the general idea.
I support the concept of "electronically assisted" voting, where the device is used for ballot preparation, just as you have indicated. You can also design a ballot that is generated by a laser printer to be simultaneously readable by both mere humans as well as by machines.... in essence getting the best of both worlds.
Think of it this way: If you can prepare a ballot with a computer that makes sure there are "register" marks and the "X" is in a consistent place, running these specially prepared ballots through an automated process is trivial. In addition, since the information is also "human readable", you can also go back and "hand count" all of the ballot as a double check, or better yet you can allow a 3rd party (such as a political party... or both parties) access to the ballots and have them count the information using their own equipment and software for independent verification. Differences in vote counts could then be legitimately contested.
It would also make the job of the company who creates the ballot preparation software much easier, since they are not responsible for the security of the data. The voter can verify that the information on the ballot is correct, and if it is a "spoiled" ballot, they can follow existing procedures for destruction of that ballot and start again. This isn't even creating new laws of any kind. If a computer crashes, oh well, you can still keep voting on a back-up supply of ballots that have to be counted the old fashioned way.
But the idea of using an ATM machine is still subject to nearly the same sorts of problems that older systems of voting have...and add many new forms of voting fraud to boot. If you stick with paper ballots that are generated from the voting machines, you merely fall back to the original set of voting fraud that is rampant in any election, from dishonest judges, stuffed ballot boxes, and voters who died over a year before the election.
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Vote early, vote often! -- Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago
That would be the fault of the manager/owner of the hotel who agreed to letting that service company set up the hotel internet connections.
The criticism is still valid... just that apparently the management of that hotel is clueless about how to set up a computer network (wireless or otherwise) within their hotel and decided to go after a con-artist who is ripping off their customers.
On this, you got it wrong. Nina was a doctor with full credentials that she could practice medicine in the USA...at least from an educational point of view. And she did have the equivalent of an M.D. in gynecology and obstetrics.
The reason she didn't practice in the USA was mainly an issue of her trying to pass the medical board tests that are required when any foreign-educated physician tries to practice medicine in the USA. From what I understand, Nina passed all of the knowledge-based sections of the board examination (similar to a medical-type GRE exam or bar exam), but essentially flunked the ethics sections. In short, she was not licensed to practice medicine in the USA, not that she didn't have the knowledge about how to do medical procedures.
Now doesn't that give you something to chew about.... when her largest short coming was trying to understand why you needed to be ethical when practicing medicine? And that isn't relevant to this murder trial?
Don't let these AC rants get to you... they are by uninformed and ignorant individuals who have not really looked at the situation, and would rail against anybody just for the sake of an argument.
BTW, you are spot on with what you have said here, and disclosure laws would have required the police to at least release any of this "secret evidence" that supposedly exists.
Hans was arrested because he was a "hacker" (therefore criminal) and a bit too "smart" for the police. They are scared of people like Hans because he is more intelligent than they are, and does things that are just a little different than the "typical" individual. Hans is clearly somebody who doesn't necessarily conform to societal norms, and (has been pointed out in reference to his net postings) quick to engage in an argument. Police certainly don't like individuals who fight back in this way. And I'm speaking (unfortunately...but not for murder) from experience. I've had my own run-ins with police for some of the most incredible and stupid reasons.
Where I have heard of ultra caps being something workable is when coupled with a regenerative braking system, where the "temporary" power gained from braking is stored in the ultra caps instead of being stored in the more conventional chemical batteries. The idea here is that ultra caps are better for short-term energy storage, and that once they have drained, you could draw from the main chemical batteries.
The reason why this would be done is that the ultra caps are much more efficient in terms of energy storage, but don't hold the overall energy necessary that eventually must come from batteries.
Unfortunately, this also seriously complicated any power circuity where you would have two separate kinds of power systems, with presumably the ultra caps being a minor system at best, and as you point out, it would be a secondary system and not the primary storage device.
Of everything that the Oakland Police did, sending the kids to Russia is by far and away the most bizzare and perhaps even illegal (on the part of the Oakland Police) action in this case. In spite of the fact that the children were born to two (at the time) American citizens... Hans and Nina... and that they were also born in the USA, Russia is claiming that they are Russian citizens and refusing to grant a "passport" for either child or an "exit visa".
On this particular issue, I think Hans has a reasonable chance of a successful lawsuit against the Alameda County prosecutor's office, particularly if he is acquitted. By California State law and U.S. Federal guidelines on the subject, those children should not have been allowed to leave the state of California, much less been granted a U.S. Passport to leave.
It is also quite reasonable that after the children testified in the pre-trial hearing, that their testimony was not considered "good enough" for the prosecution, and could have even been used as a part of a successful defense in support of their father. If that isn't potential tampering with witnesses, I don't know what that means. This may also be something that could be a subject for an appeal even with a conviction, and shows a level of incompetence on the part of the prosecutor.
The human body is much harder to "dispose of" than you are implying here. In order to incinerate a body, it takes hours of intense heat in order to completely destroy all possible traces of that person. And that is if you are in a crematorium that is explicitly built for that purpose. I knew somebody who owned one and demonstrated just how long it took....where even in the crematorium they had to crush the bones several hours after the process started.... just to get it completely destroyed.
In terms of critters in the ocean eating a physical body.... that is largely true, but it takes quite some time to accomplish that task. And most of the time it is the bones that are also among the last items to get eaten.
Or more to the point on what I'm trying to point out, in both cases of "body disposal", unless you are very through and completely understand the process, there will be at least some substantial traces of DNA (in the bone marrow) of the victim left. And they both require a substantial amount of time to accomplish.... something you aren't going to do in a hurry.
The prevailing theory against Hans (and likely to be introduced by the prosecutor) is that Hans dumped off the body of Nina somewhere in San Francisco Bay. For somebody who is so clever to have read murder investigation books, is a computer "hacker" with a slightly criminal bent, and a part of the "alternative culture" in the Bay Area (aka participates with Open Source Software), leaving the potential that Nina could still be found some time in the future. And that makes sense how?
I'm not saying here that this isn't at least possible, but there are so many ways to screw this up that somebody as organized as Hans wouldn't have done it in so possible of a cliche method. And it would still be possible to find Nina, particularly given the haste Hans would have been required to dispose of Nina... if you count the time between when she was last seen and when Hans was arrested....also taking into consideration other things that establish a reasonable alibi for Hans that he wasn't just disposing of her body.
The way water is usually treated and dealt with by most urban societies is to not treat it like a mineral (aka gold or even steel), but to treat it as a flushing mechanism. In other words, the aquatic structures of most urban environments are designed to flush toxic wastes and other pollutants (primarily organic compounds of various varieties) into a place where it will eventually be dealt with.... that usually being the oceans of the world.
The technology exists today to take the most polluted form of raw sewage and improve its overall quality to the point that it is virtually indistinguishable from distilled water. In fact, the EPA even requires this level of purity from most sewage treatment facilities from urban areas of more than a few thousand people.
The technology also exists to have a magnitude order of improvement or better with the efficiency of water usage for agricultural purposes. Living in a desert area, I've seen some amazing low water consumption methods that can be applied to gardens and even commercial food production facilities.
More to the point, if the demand was there (and having 6 billion people in Texas would certainly create the demand!) getting the water resources wouldn't be that big of a deal. And otherwise the climate of Texas is pretty reasonable for human habitation, even though I would have to agree that western Texas in the summer is something you want to avoid unless you have some serious air conditioning available. But that isn't necessarily something unique to just Texas either.
Certainly Texas is much more inhabitable than Mars or Antarctica. Even in the El Paso area...where that might be a bit more debatable. The point I'm making here is that complaining about how crowded the Earth appears in terms of human habitation is substantially exaggerated, and forgetting just how big our planet really is. Some parts of the world are crowded, but you can still find wilderness in India and China...where you have to be careful about being attacked by wild animals who will hunt humans who are being ignorant or stupid. I certainly can walk about 15 miles from my house where I'm typing this message, and enter not only what is designated as an official federal wilderness area, but also risk getting attacked by rattle snakes and cougars. This in spite of the fact that within a 1 mile radius of my house live about 10,000 people....I don't live in exactly the most rural area of the country.
If you can get me clear title (and international recognition to that property) for a hunk of real estate in Antarctica, I might be a little more sympathetic to anybody who brings up this sort of reply.
As for the Sahara... living there is more than just being able to get the raw resources necessary for life. It is also a (comparatively) unstable part of the world politically. I mean, what about Darfur? You think the genocide that is happening in that part of the Sahara is something caused by a lack of water or other life sustaining resources? It is purely a political issue there as well as in Antarctica....where environmentalists like the one who is opposed to development on the Moon have already written off Antactica as a place for human habitation.s
The political side of owning real estate one the Moon or elsewhere in the rest of the non-terrestrial solar system is also something that desperately needs to be addressed in legal circles, with a strong hint to legislators coming up with these laws to realize that it is eventually going to happen, with or without them drawing up the rules for development of these hunks of rock. Without the laws being passed, however, there will be no rule of law in space.
Also, there is still the issue of how a bunch of Marines are going to get to Mars to kick a bunch of "settlers" off of that real estate. Sending U.S. Marines to a beach in Antarctica is a little more realistic, particularly if it is a bunch of Americans who are establishing a permanent settlement in Antarctica contrary to published American foreign policy on the topic. An oil drilling group in Antarctica would never be able to sell their oil on the world market, for example.
There are plenty of reasons why the American Revolutionary War was successful, not the least of which was a successful ploy by the early founders of the American Republic taking advantage of a unique political situation between France and Britain where those two countries were nearly evenly matched economically and militarily, and both were seeking territory in North America for expansion of their empires. That is something which Australia and Canada didn't have to face when they had their own independence movements....and the British Government has the previous experience of dealing with America to know that if they didn't try to deal peacefully with those colonies, that similar revolutionary movements could easily happen with significant negative consequences to the British Isles in the long run.
I do hope that if colonies are established on other worlds in the solar system, that the model of sustainable independence that Canada and Australia currently enjoy can be duplicated, rather than going through a much more painful duplication of American independence or what happened in South America and their struggle for independence from Spain.
First of all, I don't know where you get the idea that geometric growth of the human population is occurring when in fact most reasonable evidence shows the exact opposite: We are facing a huge population collapse, and this is most obvious in countries like Russia and other European countries. It is certainly not a Mathusian population collapse, as most of the periods of time when warfare happened in Europe also were marked by significant population growth spurts. This is a cultural phenomena, where most people in industrialized societies look upon the raising and bearing of children to be a huge burden and something to generally avoid if possible. This is not to say that large familes don't exist in industrial societies, but it is something of an oddity and comparatively rare. Certainly family sizes have been dropping to the point that many countries are not able to sustain even their current population levels.
India and China are another issue, but both countries are quickly becoming industrialized as well, and going through many of the transition issues that affected North America and Europe in the 19th Century.... and surprisingly dealing with the issues in a much shorter period of time as well. Assuming that the prevailing attitude toward children hits these two countries, I would expect at least those two countries, who represent over 2 billion people, will also be eventually experiencing a population decline or even collapse of their own making. So where is this huge growth of population going to be coming from? Polynesia?
This said, the parent post you are referring to here missed a critical key point to comparing Texas to sustaining the current world population of over 6 billion people: Not only could we find room in Texas for literally every human on the Earth, but you would be able to put them into a surburban style home and with intensive gardening and other sustained environmental food production techniques you could feed all 6 billion people on that very same acreage. Some people would be in more concentrated housing, but on average it would be little different from how most people live in industrialized societies. This would essentially leave the rest of the Earth as a genuine wilderness, presuming this was something that was somehow accomplished. Current food production techniques are designed explicitly because the land is available, not because it is necessarily the most efficient use of those resources in terms of maximizing food production. For crying out loud, in America the government still pays people *NOT* to grow food on their land, through soil bank programs and other such nonsense.
The reason why Texas is also used is that, unlike the examples you gave, most of Texas *IS* inhabitable, with generally plenty of fresh water (lately even too much of that) and plenty of empty space for cities to grow and expand. This is not Antarctica we are talking about here, but something in the heartland of America.
The problems of food distribution in places like Africa is hardly financial, as *TRILLIONS* of dollars have been dumped into developing Africa over the years in one form or another. This is not something I'm throwing around lightly either, but that huge amounts of money have been confiscated from the ordinary people in Africa and taken by despotic governments...usually sent to Switzerland or some other financial haven. The problems facing these impoverished countries is completely something political, as there is literally food rotting in warehouses *in the countries where it is needed*, but for some reason or other the food isn't getting to where it is needed most. This has been the situation in the world for well over a half century or more...certainly since WWII.
Someday Africa may be a major world power...they certainly have the raw resources necessary to rival Europe, America, or even eastern Asia. And they do have things that can be valuable enough to trade with farmers in America and Europe...if food is what they really want. But pol
There has always been a battle between the inclusionists and the deltionists. The largest problem is when a couple of self-annointed "cleanup police" come to an article and try to get it removed on the grounds that they have never heard of the topic, therefore it is non-notable. This is a nearly a constant point on nearly every AfD that I've participated with, where those making the accusation of non-notability really are completely ignorant about the scope of the general topic that the article explains.
This is not to suggest that articles of a very obscure nature (and genuinely non-notable) don't get written but far too often, from at least my perspective, articles are nominated invoking this rule for reasons that have more to do with internal Wikipedia politics than any real justification of non-notability.
I think you have me confused with somebody else.... please note who is posting a reply here and that more than one person is arguing contrary to what you are trying to say.
And yes, the NAACP does have a right to say that the KKK in white robes and a burning cross is not permitted inside a convention center, or that "fundimentalist Christians" aren't allowed inside of a Mormon temple throwing chicken blood everywhere (they tried).
The U.S. Supreme Court has explicitly noted that a time, manner, and place restriction on public speech is reasonable, which is why the free speech zones were established in the first place. Ultimately, when it comes to free speech, the model I like the best is found in London's Hyde Park district, where there is a tradition of public debate on nearly every topic from sports, religion, politics, or even scientific theories. All you need is a small crate or box (if you want to be seen when you are speaking) and start yelling at the crowd in the area. Just don't expect to be doing the same thing in St. Paul's Cathedral or Buckingham Palace. Or inside the Oval Office in Washington D.C. for that matter.
There also seems to be some confusion here about what I was saying about free speech. There have been many times a protest group comes together when violence breaks out. The '68 National Democratic Party Convention is one of those where people were arrested for felonious behavior (they did kill a few people), but a cry of "free speech" and perceived violations of the 1st Amendment were discussed because of the actions of the Chicago Police. I can name dozens or even hundreds of other similar events... some that ended up peaceful but others that did result in violence that did require intervention by large groups of uniformed police officers to keep everything under control. In most cases the violence was done only by mischief makers taking advantage of the tension between competing political viewpoints, but in other situations there seems to be an implied encouragement of the violence by the protest organizers.
I consider this comment to be the most well rounded and informed "criticism" of Armadillo Aerospace that I have ever seen posted on either /., or on any other forum for that matter.
I've noticed that SpaceX (and Elon Musk) has decided to push toward the vertical integration concepts that you are talking about here, and it seems to have saved them quite a bit in terms of both cost of operations as well as improving their quality assurance. The Falcon I still isn't a resounding success, but at least they have been able to put something into orbital altitudes and velocities... not bad for only two attempts. And when all is said and done, SpaceX will have spent close to a billion dollars to get everything going, so the suggestion that money is needed is a valid remark to make as well... at least if you want to get a rocket going sometime in a comparatively short period of time.
Another huge example of how American industry is failing companies like Armadillo Aerospace is the huge PITA efforts that John went through to try and get hydrogen peroxide for his initial mono-propellant engines. He certainly got a very effective peroxide engine built, but ran out of suppliers for the quality and purity that he needed for rocket fuel. Well, that and the Dept. of Homeland Security who treats 95% pure peroxide as a bomb making component with huge regulations over who can purchase the stuff, and companies who make the stuff worried about lawsuits, so they refuse to sell it unless it is a proven customer. This is but another example of where he had a neat idea (the peroxide engines) but was forced to change directions when he couldn't get the stuff that he wanted/needed to make his project work.
I take it that you follow Armadillo Aerospace closely. Enough to criticize the credentials of those involved.
Or more to the point, you don't think a company whose product requires skilled M.E.s for their primary product, like lets say General Motors or Ford, could be operated by somebody other than a mechanical engineer?
Now I'm not suggesting here that if Carmack went and did as you said, and went "back to school" to get some additional insight in the fields you are talking about, that it wouldn't be helpful. However, you perhaps don't know what Carmack's contribution to the company has really been.
His primary contributions have been in developing the guidance systems and the control software. And that is something where his considerable experience trying to tweak computer hardware for video games has been a tremendous advantage. It also shows in terms of the performance of the spacecraft, as the flight software certainly was not the fault of any of the problems at the X-Prize Cup.
I'm not saying that any of this is easy to accomplish either, but it is also not a one-man effort put together either. Also, there have been some "rookie" mistakes made by the Armadillo team over the years, but in this sense Carmack has been gaining the knowledge "on the job" by actually building the equipment. And if you read his blogs, it shows just how much of that knowledge that he has learned from others working with him, and how the designs have gradually changed over the years. He didn't just create Armadillo Aerospace last year.
Keep in mind that Mr. Carmack still has his "day job" with ID Software, and has a reasonable amount of money coming into his own pocket, and a fairly healthy savings.
/. or in other "alt.space" news, he has a good source of money to at least sustain the current cash flow that he has been putting into Armadillo Aerospace. Worries about him "selling" the company or bringing in other investors is very premature.
More to the point, unless he has recently been laid off from ID Software and that hasn't appeared on
In fact, if you go to his website about the rockets, the "investor" page allows you to buy "Armadillo droppings" (pieces from previous rockets...presumably will now include pieces from Mod) and some T-shirts with the Armadillo logo. He isn't really looking for outside investors, but will take a "donation" even though he is also looking at eventually making the company profitable.