I agree completely with Viereo that this movie doesn't need cloning as the "evil idea".
In this movie, cloning is made to look evil, but the "cloning" in the movie is not anything like what we know of as modern-day cloning.
Today, we are nowhere NEAR what they had in the movie. We have, so far, cloned a sheep. Dolly was NOT grown in two hours, she gestated naturally for the term that sheep normally gestate for, and Molly did not have the "memories" of the "original" Molly.
In this movie, we are made to believe that: 1) clones can be grown in two hours, and 2) they can have all of the same memories, et al.
The evil doesn't come from the fact that there are two people walking around with the same genetic code (if that were evil, I wouldn't want to be an identical twin). The evil (or moral ambiguity, if you prefer) came from the fact that there could be two of the exact same person. Same genetic code, same age, and same memories.
If you take away the Same genetic code issue, but are left with the Same Age and Same Memories issue, this movie would still be about identity-theft and the idea of trying to find yours. Think about it. If this movie was about Arnold's character being some guy abducted off the street, having his memory wiped and a new one installed, then having plastic surgery to make him look like someone else, then the issues of the movie still hold true. It is the theft of the identity that we have a problem with, not the idea of cloning.
Truthfully, I found this movie to be frightful, it is SO hypocritical. In the beginning of the movie, all we hear from Arnold is the wrongness of clones. Then he gets cloned and finds out he is a clone. Well, then clones become ok, and the movie becomes about the evil that the corporation is doing by cloning people, and in the end, the Clone Arnold goes off to be a happy person in some other country. I also do not like the religious undertones that the filmmakers are FORCING down my throat. First off, the movies is called "The Sixth Day", in reference to the idea that man was created by God on the sixth day of creation, and during the whole movie, people are whinning about cloning as "Playing God". Cloning is not playing God, creating the idea of genetics and implementing it in the Universe is Playing God. Cloning is just playing around in the World that God created. If you think that is playing God, then using fire is also playing God (because, Prometheus stole fire from the Gods and gave it to humans.)
Anyways, Katz should have chosen a MUCH better movie/book to use as a jumping off point for a discussion on cloning.
Circuit City's DIVX system was about the same thing... (for the most part), and it didn't succed. There is a very real possiblity that this won't either.
It might be better for larger businesses, but for the small business owners, this won't work at all. Think about it, the small business owners are the ones that, right now, are still using Office 4.0 on a Windows 95a machine. They don't upgrade... they don't have the money to, and they definitely won't want software that will disable itself after the first year.
When Circuit City tried to push this same revenue model on consumers, it didn't work.
Small Business Owners, just like consumers, want to OWN their software/content.
Chances are, he didn't write it. A staffer was probably assigned to write it. President Clinton reviewed it and suggested changes. The staffer then made the changes, and the President signed it. That is how speeches are made nowadays.
Please don't take the above as criticism of President Clinton or modern day politics. I personally believe that if you are going to do something right, hire a professional (in this case a speechwriter) to do it.
I understand what the judge is envisioning, and I have to say that I agree with it and I disagree with it. (I love duality...)
I don't like it because it is possible that a crime could be commited where the only evidence is in a digitally signed email sitting on some guys harddrive. If a statue of limitations is passed on the admission of emails (or other digital documents) into a court of law, that effectively changes the statue of limitations for crimes to 6 months if the only evidence is an electronic message. For instance, murder has no statue of limitation, but if the only evidence is an email... well then the statue of limitations suddenly becomes 6 months. I don't know if I like that idea.
There are also aspects of this idea I like. I like the idea that correspondence not meant for public consumption will not be legally admissable after six months. We all have said things in private that were stupid and that we regret later on.
Either way, I think that this should only apply to personal correspondence. If someone posts to some type of public forum (such as/.), those records should be available for as long as the administrator of the site sees fit.
We have to be responsible for the things we say in public.
Actually, under the Clinton adminstration, the NASA budget went from 15.8 billion in 1999 to 16.8 billion in 2000. That seems like more than an inflationary increase to me.
Look, secure digital music will never be an alternative as long as people can buy CDs. If people can buy CDs, they can make MP3s. That's all there is to it. And MP3s (with all of their inherit problems) have been and will be continue to be extremely popular.
If the RIAA wants to stop online digital music piracy, they have to get rid of CDs. And since that is where all of their money comes from right now, I have a feeling that they aren't about to do that.
GypC, you are right. Power does come from many things, but I still maintain that violence is not as powerful as money.
If you hand the fat wallet over to the mugger the chances of you getting away unharmed are actually very high. In effect you are "buying" your life. Granted that it is not an expense that you were planning on, but if you were mugged, and you had NO money in your wallet, the chance that you will be shot becomes higher, because the PAYOFF for the mugger is much lower.
And the fact that the mugger is trying to use violence to gain money just illustrates my point. Money is more powerful than violence.
Violence does not feed people. Nor does it supply a roof over your head. Some people would argue that dictators use violence as the ultimate power, but even dictators can be bought off.
Hitler rallied post-WWI Germany against the Jews, because he convinced the Germany people that the Jews were using their wealth to keep Germans in poverty. Hitler attempted to gain power over the Jews with violence. In the end, Hitler's evil violence was not able to overcome the combined economies of Britian, the US, the USSR, and the other allies (in the form of oil).
I am not saying that I agree that money should be as powerful as it is, but I think it should be recognized that it is VERY powerful. I wish that the free flow of information and knowledge was the most powerful thing around. I think that it would benefit most all of humanity if that was the way the world worked, but unfortunately, the world does not work that way. Also, recognize that it must be the FREE flow of information. If information becomes a commodity (as it would if databases could be copyrighted), all it does is to replace money in the arena of power.
I disagree with you about power coming from violence. In today's society (and this is really applicable for probably most of civilzation's history), power comes from money. Enough money buys comfort, the necessities of life, information, and even violence. The Cold War was won, not by violence (The US and USSR never actually fought each other), but because one nation had more MONEY than the other.
For better or for worse, people in today's society strive to make money, not to gain information or to increase their capacity for violence.
Think about the Internet, which is the freest flowing source of information. It did not come into widespread public use until it came out of the domain of the US military and Universities and into the realm of the ISPs and AOL.
Information represents the purest and most idealistic aspects of our society and civilization. Money represents the muddiest and most realistic aspects of our society. We aren't a purely intellectual society (if were are, somebody please explain Brittney Spears) and we aren't a purely greedy society (if we are, somebody please explain Open Source). Somewhere in the middle is where we live.
I hope that this report is wrong and I have reason to believe that it is.
My Reasoning:
The website that this story is attributed to is the Internet Movie Database (IMDB). The story is located on IMDB's news page.
IMDB gets their news from the Worldwide Entertainment News Network (WENN).
I don't think that I would call WENN exactly a hardhitting investigative reporting organization. Most of their news is trashy tabloid gossip, and dare I say that most of it is not real.
I always try to believe in the easiest and most realistic explanations when confronted with improbablities. In this case I think that having a tabloid website report trash is a more realistic explanation than George Lucas firing one of the only actors that he has brought from the original trilogy to the new trilogy (along with Anthony Daniels, Frank Oz, and Ian McDirmid.) Why would George Lucas (who has, admittedly done some stupid things in the past) get rid of the actor behind one of the most beloved characters in movie history in favor of CGI. He didn't use CGI for C-3P0 (he used a full-body sized puppet controlled from behind by a puppetter dressed in chromakey green) in Episode 1, so why would he use it for R2D2 now?
Men of Zeal: Wrong analysis
on
Men of Zeal
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· Score: 2
I think that some people have misinterpreted the meaning of the quotation at the end of the article. The quotation at the end backs up the point of the author which is to say, We must be careful of people who SAY they are for Free Software, but do not ACT like they are for Free Software.
Men of Zeal does not refer to Free Software advocates, it refers to the people that would manipulate Free Software for their own uses while trying to cloak their activities by acting as if they were advocates.
As the author says, we must be cautious (but not paranoid) before embracing a new adherent to the ideology of Free Software.
If you read the actual legal document on Apogee's website, you will see that the "license" only applies to Apogee's "Materials" and "Marks".
The materials (as defined in the document) are all of the typical copyrightable things such as images, sounds, and code.
The marks (as defined in the document) are all trademarkable things like the Apogee Logo (not name) and software titles.
You cannot legally use their sights, sounds, or logos in a derogatory way against them. Whoopty f**king doo. That doesn't mean that you cannot write anything bad about Apogee or their products. It only means that you cannot use the Duke Nukem logo in an article that trashes the crap out of it.
I think that people are making way too much of this. This is traditional copyright/trademark law that has been around for decades. Believe me, if it was 1970, and you wanted to use McDonald's logo in a newspaper article trashing the way they make burgers, believe me, you would get the pants sued off you. But if you trashed McDonald's without using the logo in your article you would be fine. America does have laws protecting criticism. What we don't have are laws that allow you to criticize somebody else using their copyrights or trademarks.
To CmdrTaco: Would you want some other website writing a trash article with/. your logo at the top of it? No you wouldn't, and you would well be within your rights to sue them for Trademark infringement. But if somebody wrote a critical article about/. without using any of your trademarked stuff, there would be nothing that you could do about it, which is just as it should be.
Please people, do not think that everything written in law is evil and bad and designed to take away all rights of everybody everywhere. Yes, the DMCA is bad. Yes, parts of the UCITA are bad (but the parts standardizing transactions between states is good for online commerce). Let's not take stuff out of hand.
I believe that you unjustly blame the current President for the failure of NASA. If anybody is to be blamed, it should be the American people. As a whole (not just the scientific/computer community), NASA does not have as much support as say education or National Defense. Because of this NASA has had a shrinking budget since President Johnson's term in office. This decrease in budget lasted all the way through till two years ago. Fiscal Year 1999 (which started in October 1998) is the first year in 30 years (since FY 1968) where NASA's budget has not decreased.
Also, the current administrator of NASA, Dan Goldin, has been the administrator since Spring of 1992, which was during President Bush's term in office.
I don't mean to sound like a like I am defending President Clinton, but I don't think the problem lies there. Must people in the Space Industry tend to lay blame for NASA's failures on the feet of Mr. Goldin, who invented the "Faster, Cheaper, Better" plan. All the projects in the last few months that have failed (specifically, Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander) were built under the Faster,Cheaper, Better. The first project, Mars Pathfinder, was also FBC, but it was a very successful mission. But to be fair to Mr. Goldin, FCB was invented because of the loss of the Mars Observer (which cost $900 M) which was a typical science mission (and lost in 1993).
We must use facts in defending (and sometimes blaming) NASA, not demagoguery.
Typically in America, prosecutors will "over-charge" (my word) an individual with crimes, that way when it comes down to the time to plea bargain (and about 90% of cases DO plea bargin) then they have plenty of fat to cut away to get down to the real crime.
Over-charging is just a tool to get more punishment heaped on the accused criminal.
I missed Mr. Katz last article, but I would like to add my opinion.
If anything I would say that being on the internet has allowed me to broaden my social circle. And to broaden it to a size that just would not be possible without the internet.
I remember back to July, 1997 when control of Hong Kong shifted from Britian to China. This, I believe, is a historical event in that it was a peaceful change of government. Well, about six months after the handover, I got an ICQ request to a random chat. I went ahead and opened it up. It was a gentleman living in Hong Kong that just wanted to chat. I had a nice chat for about 30 minutes with him, and we talked a bit about Nebraska (where I lived at the time) and Hong Kong. It was one of the cooler things that I can look back on.
If somebody had told me 5 years ago, that I would be talking to a Chinese national about the handover of Hong Kong, I would have thought you were crazy.
Anyway, I am sure that we all have stories like that, and I think that it is the perfect example of how technology brings us to together, not forces us apart.
But modern medicine helps to eliminate some aspects of evolution, at least in species that benefit from medicine.
People who would not be able to live naturally in the wild ARE able to live if they have the assistance of modern medicine. These people can then have offspring, when normally they wouldn't. It kinda throws evolution a curve....
Your argument is a good one. But, it would only be useful if we had accurate maps of Mars. GPS will only give your position relative to the satellites. With the current system, it then translates that to longitude and latitude. You still have to have a map of Earth with lat/long on it to tell you where you are.
The only maps of Mars that we have right now are made at something like 10 meter resolutions. Meaning that one pixel represents 10 meters. That is not very accurate. If you look at the satellite photography at www.terraserver.com you can see these maps along with 1 meter resolution maps.
Mars Global Surveyor is currently getting better pictures of Mars, but those pictures will not be processed for some time.
Think of it this way, we were trying to fly a probe MILLIONS of miles (with a radio delay of 6 minutes) and then land on a planet for which the only map we have represents houses as a single pixel. Not impossible but extremely hard.
Ok, starting with the computer thing, back in the late 50s and early 60s NASA was BY FAR the largest user of mainframe computers. Without the money that NASA invested in computer systems, do you really think that computer technology would be as far along as it is now?
Also, here are SEVERAL inventions beside TANG (which is an example of modern freeze-drying):
1. Velcro - invented by NASA to keep things from floating around in the space capsules
2. Gore-Tex - Put into Spacesuits to protect astronauts from extreme changes in temperature and moisture
3. Sudafed - invented for NASA as a decongestant for use in the Apollo program.
4. UPC bar codes - Invented by NASA to quickly and easily keep track of millions of parts necessary for the Saturn 5 rocket and Apollo space capsule.
5. Modern Communications satellites - It started with COMSAT. Modern communications is impossible without it.
6. EKG - Electocardiograph - invented to keep track of astronauts health statistics while in space..
Ok, I just went double what you wanted. The space program is beneficial for not just the United States, but for the entire human race. Do not make such broad statements anymore.
I would believe physical defects rather then some type of "hidden in the noise of the picture" type of watermarking for purposes of identification. What type of process would it use to hide an "invisible" watermark into a printed image. Also, how would the watermark on the printed page be effected by age, weather, water, dust, and sunlight?
I would even believe that the copier companies might be putting scratches on the glass purposely for that. But the idea of a secret hidden function is just too over-the-top. The damn machines are complex enough without sometype of super-chip that adds an invisible watermark. Also, what about analog color copiers?
The possiblity of abuse or of the "gruesome" nature of this device isn't what scares me. What scares me is the attitude of the doctor that invented and then PATENTED the procedure.
"I have invented this procedure that is so great that I have patented it..... but I don't want anybody healthy to get any benefit from it because that would be 'gruesome'."
It is BACKWARD thinking like this that keeps humanity down. Look at the Internet. If all of the scientists, engineers, and inventors of the Internet had the same attitude as this doctor, we wouldn't be reading Slashdot right now.
I would have to say that I disagree with the assessment that technology is tragic. Technology just is. What is tragic is that in the midst of the research (either basic or applied) that will end with an advance in technology, the human condition does not advance with it. Tragedy is that humans spend most of our time trying to tame our environment and make survival easier, but we spend almost no time trying to help our own species (and others) come to terms with the advancements we have made.
If we could advance our society and personal "psyche" at the same rate that we advance our technology, many problems that we experience today would not be a problem. For instance, if we had advanced our species as quickly as we have advanced medical technology, perhaps war would no longer be an issue, or even aggression. Why are ideas such as greed and intolerance still effecting us today in the same ways that they effected us 500 years ago? Perhaps the answer is to spend more effort in the advancement of philosphy and religion. My opinion on why we don't do this now, is because an advance in science or technology is much sexier than an advancement in philosophy. (When was the last time that the evening news reported on the newest theory of a great philosopher?)
Anyway, that is my opinion Mr. Katz, please take it how you will.
Slashdot Mirror
In this movie, cloning is made to look evil, but the "cloning" in the movie is not anything like what we know of as modern-day cloning.
Today, we are nowhere NEAR what they had in the movie. We have, so far, cloned a sheep. Dolly was NOT grown in two hours, she gestated naturally for the term that sheep normally gestate for, and Molly did not have the "memories" of the "original" Molly.
In this movie, we are made to believe that: 1) clones can be grown in two hours, and 2) they can have all of the same memories, et al.
The evil doesn't come from the fact that there are two people walking around with the same genetic code (if that were evil, I wouldn't want to be an identical twin). The evil (or moral ambiguity, if you prefer) came from the fact that there could be two of the exact same person. Same genetic code, same age, and same memories.
If you take away the Same genetic code issue, but are left with the Same Age and Same Memories issue, this movie would still be about identity-theft and the idea of trying to find yours. Think about it. If this movie was about Arnold's character being some guy abducted off the street, having his memory wiped and a new one installed, then having plastic surgery to make him look like someone else, then the issues of the movie still hold true. It is the theft of the identity that we have a problem with, not the idea of cloning.
Truthfully, I found this movie to be frightful, it is SO hypocritical. In the beginning of the movie, all we hear from Arnold is the wrongness of clones. Then he gets cloned and finds out he is a clone. Well, then clones become ok, and the movie becomes about the evil that the corporation is doing by cloning people, and in the end, the Clone Arnold goes off to be a happy person in some other country. I also do not like the religious undertones that the filmmakers are FORCING down my throat. First off, the movies is called "The Sixth Day", in reference to the idea that man was created by God on the sixth day of creation, and during the whole movie, people are whinning about cloning as "Playing God". Cloning is not playing God, creating the idea of genetics and implementing it in the Universe is Playing God. Cloning is just playing around in the World that God created. If you think that is playing God, then using fire is also playing God (because, Prometheus stole fire from the Gods and gave it to humans.)
Anyways, Katz should have chosen a MUCH better movie/book to use as a jumping off point for a discussion on cloning.
Circuit City's DIVX system was about the same thing... (for the most part), and it didn't succed. There is a very real possiblity that this won't either.
It might be better for larger businesses, but for the small business owners, this won't work at all. Think about it, the small business owners are the ones that, right now, are still using Office 4.0 on a Windows 95a machine. They don't upgrade... they don't have the money to, and they definitely won't want software that will disable itself after the first year.
When Circuit City tried to push this same revenue model on consumers, it didn't work.
Small Business Owners, just like consumers, want to OWN their software/content.
If there were 16K ballots cast in 1996 that were disqualified, that to me is a strong signal of a poorly designed ballot.
If there is a history of disqualified votes being cast in Palm Beach, then the system needs to be changed.
My county does not have problems with so many votes being disqualified. Want me to send you a copy of our ballot?
Chances are, he didn't write it. A staffer was probably assigned to write it. President Clinton reviewed it and suggested changes. The staffer then made the changes, and the President signed it. That is how speeches are made nowadays.
Please don't take the above as criticism of President Clinton or modern day politics. I personally believe that if you are going to do something right, hire a professional (in this case a speechwriter) to do it.
In the end though, it doesn't matter what his intent was, he vetoed the bill.
If you don't vote, then you shouldn't bitch.
Democracy is an active process, if you sit around passively nothing will change.
You can't get anymore passive then not voting,
I understand what the judge is envisioning, and I have to say that I agree with it and I disagree with it. (I love duality...)
/.), those records should be available for as long as the administrator of the site sees fit.
I don't like it because it is possible that a crime could be commited where the only evidence is in a digitally signed email sitting on some guys harddrive. If a statue of limitations is passed on the admission of emails (or other digital documents) into a court of law, that effectively changes the statue of limitations for crimes to 6 months if the only evidence is an electronic message. For instance, murder has no statue of limitation, but if the only evidence is an email... well then the statue of limitations suddenly becomes 6 months. I don't know if I like that idea.
There are also aspects of this idea I like. I like the idea that correspondence not meant for public consumption will not be legally admissable after six months. We all have said things in private that were stupid and that we regret later on.
Either way, I think that this should only apply to personal correspondence. If someone posts to some type of public forum (such as
We have to be responsible for the things we say in public.
Actually, under the Clinton adminstration, the NASA budget went from 15.8 billion in 1999 to 16.8 billion in 2000. That seems like more than an inflationary increase to me.
Look, secure digital music will never be an alternative as long as people can buy CDs. If people can buy CDs, they can make MP3s. That's all there is to it. And MP3s (with all of their inherit problems) have been and will be continue to be extremely popular.
If the RIAA wants to stop online digital music piracy, they have to get rid of CDs. And since that is where all of their money comes from right now, I have a feeling that they aren't about to do that.
Offtopic from Mr. Katz's article:
GypC, you are right. Power does come from many things, but I still maintain that violence is not as powerful as money.
If you hand the fat wallet over to the mugger the chances of you getting away unharmed are actually very high. In effect you are "buying" your life. Granted that it is not an expense that you were planning on, but if you were mugged, and you had NO money in your wallet, the chance that you will be shot becomes higher, because the PAYOFF for the mugger is much lower.
And the fact that the mugger is trying to use violence to gain money just illustrates my point. Money is more powerful than violence.
Violence does not feed people. Nor does it supply a roof over your head. Some people would argue that dictators use violence as the ultimate power, but even dictators can be bought off.
Hitler rallied post-WWI Germany against the Jews, because he convinced the Germany people that the Jews were using their wealth to keep Germans in poverty. Hitler attempted to gain power over the Jews with violence. In the end, Hitler's evil violence was not able to overcome the combined economies of Britian, the US, the USSR, and the other allies (in the form of oil).
I am not saying that I agree that money should be as powerful as it is, but I think it should be recognized that it is VERY powerful. I wish that the free flow of information and knowledge was the most powerful thing around. I think that it would benefit most all of humanity if that was the way the world worked, but unfortunately, the world does not work that way. Also, recognize that it must be the FREE flow of information. If information becomes a commodity (as it would if databases could be copyrighted), all it does is to replace money in the arena of power.
I disagree with you about power coming from violence. In today's society (and this is really applicable for probably most of civilzation's history), power comes from money. Enough money buys comfort, the necessities of life, information, and even violence. The Cold War was won, not by violence (The US and USSR never actually fought each other), but because one nation had more MONEY than the other.
For better or for worse, people in today's society strive to make money, not to gain information or to increase their capacity for violence.
Think about the Internet, which is the freest flowing source of information. It did not come into widespread public use until it came out of the domain of the US military and Universities and into the realm of the ISPs and AOL.
Information represents the purest and most idealistic aspects of our society and civilization. Money represents the muddiest and most realistic aspects of our society. We aren't a purely intellectual society (if were are, somebody please explain Brittney Spears) and we aren't a purely greedy society (if we are, somebody please explain Open Source). Somewhere in the middle is where we live.
My Reasoning:
Men of Zeal does not refer to Free Software advocates, it refers to the people that would manipulate Free Software for their own uses while trying to cloak their activities by acting as if they were advocates.
As the author says, we must be cautious (but not paranoid) before embracing a new adherent to the ideology of Free Software.
If you read the actual legal document on Apogee's website, you will see that the "license" only applies to Apogee's "Materials" and "Marks".
/. your logo at the top of it? No you wouldn't, and you would well be within your rights to sue them for Trademark infringement. But if somebody wrote a critical article about /. without using any of your trademarked stuff, there would be nothing that you could do about it, which is just as it should be.
The materials (as defined in the document) are all of the typical copyrightable things such as images, sounds, and code.
The marks (as defined in the document) are all trademarkable things like the Apogee Logo (not name) and software titles.
You cannot legally use their sights, sounds, or logos in a derogatory way against them. Whoopty f**king doo. That doesn't mean that you cannot write anything bad about Apogee or their products. It only means that you cannot use the Duke Nukem logo in an article that trashes the crap out of it.
I think that people are making way too much of this. This is traditional copyright/trademark law that has been around for decades. Believe me, if it was 1970, and you wanted to use McDonald's logo in a newspaper article trashing the way they make burgers, believe me, you would get the pants sued off you. But if you trashed McDonald's without using the logo in your article you would be fine. America does have laws protecting criticism. What we don't have are laws that allow you to criticize somebody else using their copyrights or trademarks.
To CmdrTaco: Would you want some other website writing a trash article with
Please people, do not think that everything written in law is evil and bad and designed to take away all rights of everybody everywhere. Yes, the DMCA is bad. Yes, parts of the UCITA are bad (but the parts standardizing transactions between states is good for online commerce).
Let's not take stuff out of hand.
Just to be fair, I think I need to speak up.
I believe that you unjustly blame the current President for the failure of NASA. If anybody is to be blamed, it should be the American people. As a whole (not just the scientific/computer community), NASA does not have as much support as say education or National Defense. Because of this NASA has had a shrinking budget since President Johnson's term in office. This decrease in budget lasted all the way through till two years ago. Fiscal Year 1999 (which started in October 1998) is the first year in 30 years (since FY 1968) where NASA's budget has not decreased.
Also, the current administrator of NASA, Dan Goldin, has been the administrator since Spring of 1992, which was during President Bush's term in office.
I don't mean to sound like a like I am defending President Clinton, but I don't think the problem lies there. Must people in the Space Industry tend to lay blame for NASA's failures on the feet of Mr. Goldin, who invented the "Faster, Cheaper, Better" plan. All the projects in the last few months that have failed (specifically, Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander) were built under the Faster,Cheaper, Better. The first project, Mars Pathfinder, was also FBC, but it was a very successful mission. But to be fair to Mr. Goldin, FCB was invented because of the loss of the Mars Observer (which cost $900 M) which was a typical science mission (and lost in 1993).
We must use facts in defending (and sometimes blaming) NASA, not demagoguery.
Over-charging is just a tool to get more punishment heaped on the accused criminal.
I missed Mr. Katz last article, but I would like to add my opinion.
If anything I would say that being on the internet has allowed me to broaden my social circle. And to broaden it to a size that just would not be possible without the internet.
I remember back to July, 1997 when control of Hong Kong shifted from Britian to China. This, I believe, is a historical event in that it was a peaceful change of government. Well, about six months after the handover, I got an ICQ request to a random chat. I went ahead and opened it up. It was a gentleman living in Hong Kong that just wanted to chat. I had a nice chat for about 30 minutes with him, and we talked a bit about Nebraska (where I lived at the time) and Hong Kong. It was one of the cooler things that I can look back on.
If somebody had told me 5 years ago, that I would be talking to a Chinese national about the handover of Hong Kong, I would have thought you were crazy.
Anyway, I am sure that we all have stories like that, and I think that it is the perfect example of how technology brings us to together, not forces us apart.
But, like I said, it is just my opinion.
But modern medicine helps to eliminate some aspects of evolution, at least in species that benefit from medicine.
People who would not be able to live naturally in the wild ARE able to live if they have the assistance of modern medicine. These people can then have offspring, when normally they wouldn't.
It kinda throws evolution a curve....
Anyways, just my thoughts....
Your argument is a good one. But, it would only be useful if we had accurate maps of Mars. GPS will only give your position relative to the satellites. With the current system, it then translates that to longitude and latitude. You still have to have a map of Earth with lat/long on it to tell you where you are.
The only maps of Mars that we have right now are made at something like 10 meter resolutions. Meaning that one pixel represents 10 meters. That is not very accurate. If you look at the satellite photography at www.terraserver.com you can see these maps along with 1 meter resolution maps.
Mars Global Surveyor is currently getting better pictures of Mars, but those pictures will not be processed for some time.
Think of it this way, we were trying to fly a probe MILLIONS of miles (with a radio delay of 6 minutes) and then land on a planet for which the only map we have represents houses as a single pixel. Not impossible but extremely hard.
Ummm, Jep is supposed to be Jet.... Jet Propulsion Labs.... sorry
You don't know anyone on this project because it is controled from the Jep Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California.
Marshall Space Flight Center (in Huntsville, Alabama) does space propulsion and transportation systems.
Ok, starting with the computer thing, back in the late 50s and early 60s NASA was BY FAR the largest user of mainframe computers. Without the money that NASA invested in computer systems, do you really think that computer technology would be as far along as it is now?
Also, here are SEVERAL inventions beside TANG (which is an example of modern freeze-drying):
1. Velcro - invented by NASA to keep things from floating around in the space capsules
2. Gore-Tex - Put into Spacesuits to protect astronauts from extreme changes in temperature and moisture
3. Sudafed - invented for NASA as a decongestant for use in the Apollo program.
4. UPC bar codes - Invented by NASA to quickly and easily keep track of millions of parts necessary for the Saturn 5 rocket and Apollo space capsule.
5. Modern Communications satellites - It started with COMSAT. Modern communications is impossible without it.
6. EKG - Electocardiograph - invented to keep track of astronauts health statistics while in space..
Ok, I just went double what you wanted. The space program is beneficial for not just the United States, but for the entire human race. Do not make such broad statements anymore.
I would believe physical defects rather then some type of "hidden in the noise of the picture" type of watermarking for purposes of identification. What type of process would it use to hide an "invisible" watermark into a printed image. Also, how would the watermark on the printed page be effected by age, weather, water, dust, and sunlight?
I would even believe that the copier companies might be putting scratches on the glass purposely for that. But the idea of a secret hidden function is just too over-the-top. The damn machines are complex enough without sometype of super-chip that adds an invisible watermark. Also, what about analog color copiers?
Just my two cents.
The possiblity of abuse or of the "gruesome" nature of this device isn't what scares me. What scares me is the attitude of the doctor that invented and then PATENTED the procedure.
"I have invented this procedure that is so great that I have patented it..... but I don't want anybody healthy to get any benefit from it because that would be 'gruesome'."
It is BACKWARD thinking like this that keeps humanity down. Look at the Internet. If all of the scientists, engineers, and inventors of the Internet had the same attitude as this doctor, we wouldn't be reading Slashdot right now.
Let's move forward people, not the other way.
I would have to say that I disagree with the assessment that technology is tragic. Technology just is. What is tragic is that in the midst of the research (either basic or applied) that will end with an advance in technology, the human condition does not advance with it. Tragedy is that humans spend most of our time trying to tame our environment and make survival easier, but we spend almost no time trying to help our own species (and others) come to terms with the advancements we have made.
If we could advance our society and personal "psyche" at the same rate that we advance our technology, many problems that we experience today would not be a problem. For instance, if we had advanced our species as quickly as we have advanced medical technology, perhaps war would no longer be an issue, or even aggression. Why are ideas such as greed and intolerance still effecting us today in the same ways that they effected us 500 years ago? Perhaps the answer is to spend more effort in the advancement of philosphy and religion. My opinion on why we don't do this now, is because an advance in science or technology is much sexier than an advancement in philosophy. (When was the last time that the evening news reported on the newest theory of a great philosopher?)
Anyway, that is my opinion Mr. Katz, please take it how you will.