I don't think QoS fixes the problem I'm point out here... if some other usage (kids) places a HUGE demand on bandwidth (to/from), then Comcast bumps down the priority of ALL the packets coming to/from your house, no?
QoS won't fix that... you could even miss calls because Vonage packets don't hit your VOIP adapter until its too late...
only way for QoS to fix this is for QoS to be happening at Comcast and modulating the throttling process, not locally...
mmm so what's this mean about VOIP? and phone service that Comcast might sell you vs Vonage or MagicJack?
so the kids view tons of videos, etc and all of a sudden you can't make usage phone calls? and will Comcast-supplied VOIP phone service work but Vonage or MJ fail?
As early as 1874 Roberts Barlow demonstrated that electrical stimulation of neurons triggered muscular contractions.
You're confusing the activation of neurons local to a stimulating electrode vs the propagation of a signal (e.g. action potential) via the axons (nerves) from such neurons to their targets (which may be other neurons or muscles, near or far away).
It has been well understood through experimentation that electrical stimulation of one area of the brain triggers the firing of other neurons elsewhere in the brain.
Again you're missing the point. The article deals with the INITIAL patterns of activation at the stimulating site and not the subsequent patterns of activation that are the projection targets of the neurons and fibers first activated.
1) Harvard has nothing to do with this... 2) It is a "discovery", well at least a new result and new finding because the method used shows EXACTLY what happens with electrical stimulation, not just guesses. 3) Previously in the field, the "guesses" (assumption) was that there would ROUGHLY be a sphere of activated neurons surrounding the electrode tip. The results show that this assumption is very wrong and the actual neurons activated are highly idiosyncratic and difficult to predict. MANY previous studies that have been VERY influential in the field have been based on this loose assumption, now shown to be incorrect. 4) Yeah, in hindsight, one could always say "no surprise", given the wide variety of neurons, their properties, excitation states, channel complement, etc, that it is no surprise that the neurons activated would be "all over the place", but at least there now is a way to know EXACTLY what is being stimulated (or not be stimulated)... 5) These kinds of experiments are quite difficult to perform, requiring at least half a million $$$ of equipment or more, and years of training and expertise. Indeed have NEVER been done before. So they should be view with some appreciation and respect...
also play young Spock, in the newest Star Trek flix... and the character of Spock (Nimoy) as originally imagined by Rodenberry, had those pointy ears to make him look slightly Satanic on purpose... Rodenberry's notion that pure logic can lead to evils... (indeed there were several "evil Spock" episodes...
Nearly all "extramural" science/medicine/health grants funded by NIH, NSF, (even parts of DOD), are "peer reviewed" by a similar mechanism, basically VOLUNTEER experts in the field. One gets a tiny "honorarium" and it is ALOT of work. The peer review system in science/medicine is full of problems, but it is also better than any other system yet tried or conceived...
not much detail given as to what kind of memory (access abilities, etc) is specified... 1cc of brain probably has more than a PB of DNA and other memory...
how about a PB of WOM (write-only memory)... can make that *real* small and light...
We've done the same thing, ported our house landline number to a cell phone that is a $10/mo add-on to our cell family plan.
In addition, the cell phone that now ring on the house line is Bluetooth interfaced to an Xlink box, which in turn drives the existing house wiring so that every original standard POTS house phone rings as before and interfaces with that cell phone. (You must disconnect the in-coming landline connection at the de-marc point, just as you would for Vonage/NOIP, etc). So the cell phone is a total replacement for the landline and we still use all the same house phones around the house.
Further, and not mutually exclusively, the house phone wiring also carries our home intranet via the HomePNA interface -- its basically Ethernet over phone wires. It does not interfere with the standard voice/phone usage of those wires. It forms the wired backbone of our home intranet. Why not Wifi? We have that too, but the house is a little too big for a single WiFi access point to cover it. So a major function of the HomePNA is to be the wired backbone for several WiFi access points.
Its true that nearly all the carriers, with varying amounts of enforceability, require "smartphones" be on data plans that costs twice as much as even "featurephones", phones that also have touch screens, do email, web, calendar, etc. Typical (e.g. Verizon, Sprint) charge $30/mo for "smartphone" data versus $15/mo for featurephone data. It is of course a totally ridiculous "artificial market barrier", since a featurephone streaming music or video can easily use more data than a smartphone user that is disinterested in streaming media. Presumably the underlying notion then is that "people who buy expensive phones can afford to pay more for data"...
Anyways, the question here is: How can you construct an Android phone such that it would meet whatever flimsy rationale carriers use to declare a phone eligible for non-smartphone data plans, yet retain most of Android's functionality?
Maybe you'll have to give up the name Android, since another rule-of-thumb is that "if you're able to advertise/identify the phone's OS by name, then its a smartphone". Maybe it can be done "virally": out of the box, the phone is pretty dumb, but a download or two transforms it into fully blown Android.
Someday, I think, the carriers will have to dissolve this stupid market barrier, but for now, it makes a different of $200/YEAR, which matters to many...
Aside from stereo equipment (I have some old Dynaco speakers and a Dual turntable, for example), the oldest piece of electronic equipment that I regularly use is probably my TI SR50 scientific calculator, which I bought new in college in 1974 for $125.
I also regularly use several DEC MicroVAX systems, circa 1988. I have some working DEC PDP-11 cards, but I don't really use them.
I also have some C programs that I wrote around 1976 that I still use...
I'm okay with the 35mile range... its only 4 miles to work, or to most shopping areas (unlike another poster's claim that most people need more than that on a daily basis... most people drive less than 12000miles/year, which is 33miles/day...
But the max speed of 35mph is definitely a deal-killer... it totally eliminates ANY highway driving. Plus I would *definitely* not want these things to catch on, clogging up the streets with vehicles that can't go above 35mph... its frustrating enough with these slowpoke drivers that putt around at 25mph... if there was a whole new wave of such drivers... well... I think they would end up being mowed down by folks driving Hummers and Escalades...
Someone mentioned GlobalStar, but their satellites are failing... Iridium is the only "decent" sat-phone right now for this hemisphere, although there are other options in the Eastern hemisphere.
Slow, about 9600baud, and expensive (spend $2000 or so for phone and a year's of service), but works everywhere...
I know you probably don't have $2K to blow, so if you can really send emails of 1MB (no attachments), learn how to make "embedded attachments" the ol' fashion way... (uuencode)...
and learn to appreciate WAP/text HTML... if you get close to the shore, you should be able to roam onto GSM networks with GPRS data. Try www.riiing.com or www.prepaidgsm.net for GSM data worldwide (you'll need a quadband GSM phone unlocked).
Aside from the obvious technical hurtles (underpowered CPUs, insufficient memory, insufficient flash ROM to store multiple OSs, few user-installable mobile OSs with device-specific "plug'n'play" support, etc), there would seem to be one glaring obstacle... the carriers.
Lest anyone forget, the true customers for mobile devices are not individual consumers, but the carriers. And it is going to be a long time, if ever, before that will change. Indeed recent trends continue, if not increase, the extent of device-carrier lock-in, although often in more subtle ways that simply a software lock. The biggest trend is non-interoperable data services, either via authentication protocols that are carrier-specific, or simply spectrum differences (e.g. Tmobile's 3G bands are different than AT&T's or European 3G bands, even though all are considered "GSM").
So given this, why exactly would a carrier be interested in provide its customers with the ability to run multiple OSs on their mobile devices. And it is far more complicated from a technical and licensing standpoint than on a generic PC. Mobile OSs are not licensed by individual customers, and they are totally not set up to be installed on arbitrary mobile hardware. For example, a Palm 700p and a 700w are almost the same hardware, but it is not possible and no one has even tried to put PalmOS from the 700p on a 700w, or vice versa, WinMo from the 700w to a 700p. The only notable efforts in this vein are attempts to port Android to HTC WinMo devices (with marginal but possible future success). However that is only possible because Android is open source. And there is not obvious benefit to the carrier for doing this...
Indeed carriers, particularly Verizon (but all of them) generally try to restrict and remove features intrinsic to OEM devices (e.g. phone as modem features, WiFi, MMS, app suites like Pocket Office), in order to limit the individual customer's capabilities and force the carriers customers into specific "business models" for services (e.g. pay extra for phone as model, pay for data instead of free Wifi, etc). The freedom to run multiple OSs would necessarily give individual customers to circumvent these artificial, deliberate carrier-imposed restrictions -- something the carriers obviously would not want.
All in all sounds like a huge amount of work required with little upside for the real customers, i.e. the carriers. Until the wireless networks are truly "open access", with the power of device choice in the hands of consumers, not the carriers, the effort of multiple OSs seems doomed to failure...
Extremely shallow "technology" analysis...
just superficial mention of "broadband" and "Internet", hardly a vision about TECHNOLOGY, and its underlying basis, SCIENCE.
It is well-known that Palin's position on science is appalling... and she has NO appreciation for the need for the US to INCREASE federal investment in Technology and Science RESEARCH. She would continue the US's backsliding in science and technology relative to the rest of the world. The US used to be the undisputed leader in science/tech... now it is rapidly becoming an also-ran, due to poor investments in science/tech education and R&D.
Palin has demonstrated NO interest in reversing this trend, not even any evidence that she appreciates the issues...
$20+$20/yr for VOIP phone service with a USB dongle.
The laptop is a perfect 24/7 platform to support Magicjack. I know cuz I'm using an old PII laptop for exactly that... the same laptop is also serving as a DHCP server, router, WiFi access point, file server and printer server.
They should require that a site must have a certain % of content (beside ads) that is related to de domain name for at least x amount of time or they can deny it. Like a "probation" period. Is it feasible ?
It seems that some people are forgetting that a domain name has nothing to do with a website. That is, hosting a "legit" and "useful" website using a domain name is NOT the only reasonable activity that demonstrated "non-squatting".
A domain name is simple a human language token for an system of IP addresses. Those IP addresses could be used for ANYTHING and on any port. For example, I may wish to test and develop a unique TCP/IP protocol/service and simply want a name to help me and my colleagues across the country who are helping.
And neither www.DOMAINNAME.X nor DOMAINNAME.X needs to resolve to anything useful.
Nevermind that it is perfectly reasonable to register a domain name and then take one's time to develop a website or some other usage of that domain name (e.g. a new foundation that registers a domain and it could easily take a few years to get a real website going (I've been there). Yet there is no ill intent or squatting in these cases.
So its going to be real hard to define what is squatting and what isn't. I suppose one could develop some rules to get the worse offenders, but it won't be easy...
Yeah its good that there *are* some market forces, like Walmart, that are powerful enough to take on the music industry and put downward pressure on prices, but calling Walmart a hero is like calling Bush a hero for starting wars to ensure cheap oil for us Americans... there *are* and will be huge consequences -- negative consequences. And Walmart is not apply pricing pressure on the record companies on principle, but for its own business model and self-benefit.
In this case, I REALLY REALLY dislike the Walmart-as-20% of the retail outlet, with their 5000 out of 60,000 selection behavior. I am/was a great fan (and customer) of Tower Records, and their deep-stocking policy -- i.e. stock as great a selection from as many artists as possible. Walmart's position in the market, and stocking only 5000 titles is GUARANTEED to kill off a lot of new, independent and innovative artists. It only accentuates the dominance of the mainstream, which I REALLY, REALLY have a problem with...
So while I want to see CD pricing become more fair and reasonable, I care more that the market allow the new, innovative, NON-MAINSTREAM artists have as good a chance as possible of "making it" (even if it means at somewhat higher prices).
Hopefully at least Amazon will continue to deep-stock...
SSDs are really old hat... the earliest ones that I remember were made by DEC for the PDP-11 and VAX. They had at least one that sat on the Unibus. I believe it was 2MB in capacity and intented mostly as a swap device. That would be the late 1970's.
Lessee, the proposed Mars one-way will cost $50-70B and will kill one person. But we're spending $3 TRILLION on Iraq/Afghanistan which has resulted in 600-800,000 kills.
Clearly this Mars one-way is an inefficient way to kill people. Still I'd much rather spend the $$$ on the Mars one-way than Iraq. I mean in absolute terms, it will only cost 2% of what we spent on Iraq... so why do people think that its too expensive ?
Indeed we *could* have spent the $3T on Mars instead and maybe could make it a full return trip, no ?
"Hey. When you write "Li Zhaoping" as your name, by the definition of first and last, Li is her first (family) name and Zhaoping is her last (given) name."
"by definition" ? Whose definition ?
If you are Chinese, BY DEFINITION, one's FAMILY name comes first... And she didn't necessarily write her own name, at least in this article, the AUTHOR wrote it... so it is the author's responsibility to check out what is her true name and how it should be translated into English, if needed. Actually any decent journalist should know that naming conventions in Asian cultures are different than Western cultures...
Well, let hope there really will be a change at the polls this Nov, 2008...
We've just got to start reversing the damage done at the polls from the last 8 years...
Slashdot Mirror
Nimoy semi-regularly appears on Fringe as the alternative universe icon William Bell... Is he going to disappear from that role also?
perfectly well, for DAYS, under a reading lamp that you would normally use to read a magazine or book, which is the paradigm the Kindle fits into...
I don't think QoS fixes the problem I'm point out here...
if some other usage (kids) places a HUGE demand on bandwidth (to/from), then Comcast bumps down the priority of ALL the packets coming to/from your house, no?
QoS won't fix that... you could even miss calls because Vonage packets don't hit your VOIP adapter until its too late...
only way for QoS to fix this is for QoS to be happening at Comcast and modulating the throttling process, not locally...
mmm so what's this mean about VOIP? and phone service that Comcast might sell you vs Vonage or MagicJack?
so the kids view tons of videos, etc and all of a sudden you can't make usage phone calls? and will Comcast-supplied VOIP phone service work but Vonage or MJ fail?
You're confusing the activation of neurons local to a stimulating electrode vs the propagation of a signal (e.g. action potential) via the axons (nerves) from such neurons to their targets (which may be other neurons or muscles, near or far away).
Again you're missing the point. The article deals with the INITIAL patterns of activation at the stimulating site and not the subsequent patterns of activation that are the projection targets of the neurons and fibers first activated.
1) Harvard has nothing to do with this...
2) It is a "discovery", well at least a new result and new finding because the method used shows EXACTLY what happens with electrical stimulation, not just guesses.
3) Previously in the field, the "guesses" (assumption) was that there would ROUGHLY be a sphere of activated neurons surrounding the electrode tip. The results show that this assumption is very wrong and the actual neurons activated are highly idiosyncratic and difficult to predict. MANY previous studies that have been VERY influential in the field have been based on this loose assumption, now shown to be incorrect.
4) Yeah, in hindsight, one could always say "no surprise", given the wide variety of neurons, their properties, excitation states, channel complement, etc, that it is no surprise that the neurons activated would be "all over the place", but at least there now is a way to know EXACTLY what is being stimulated (or not be stimulated)...
5) These kinds of experiments are quite difficult to perform, requiring at least half a million $$$ of equipment or more, and years of training and expertise. Indeed have NEVER been done before. So they should be view with some appreciation and respect...
That pix looks a lot like Sylar (of Heroes), a pretty evil dude himself... and the actor who plays Sylar, Zachary Quinto:
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm744327936/nm0704270
also play young Spock, in the newest Star Trek flix... and the character of Spock (Nimoy) as originally imagined by Rodenberry, had those pointy ears to make him look slightly Satanic on purpose... Rodenberry's notion that pure logic can lead to evils... (indeed there were several "evil Spock" episodes...
So I suppose EVIL now has a face... One Face...
stabilizer...
Nearly all "extramural" science/medicine/health grants funded by NIH, NSF, (even parts of DOD), are "peer reviewed" by a similar mechanism, basically VOLUNTEER experts in the field. One gets a tiny "honorarium" and it is ALOT of work. The peer review system in science/medicine is full of problems, but it is also better than any other system yet tried or conceived...
not much detail given as to what kind of memory (access abilities, etc) is specified...
1cc of brain probably has more than a PB of DNA and other memory...
how about a PB of WOM (write-only memory)... can make that *real* small and light...
We've done the same thing, ported our house landline number to a cell phone that is a $10/mo add-on to our cell family plan.
In addition, the cell phone that now ring on the house line is Bluetooth interfaced to an Xlink box, which in turn drives the existing house wiring so that every original standard POTS house phone rings as before and interfaces with that cell phone. (You must disconnect the in-coming landline connection at the de-marc point, just as you would for Vonage/NOIP, etc). So the cell phone is a total replacement for the landline and we still use all the same house phones around the house.
Further, and not mutually exclusively, the house phone wiring also carries our home intranet via the HomePNA interface -- its basically Ethernet over phone wires. It does not interfere with the standard voice/phone usage of those wires. It forms the wired backbone of our home intranet. Why not Wifi? We have that too, but the house is a little too big for a single WiFi access point to cover it. So a major function of the HomePNA is to be the wired backbone for several WiFi access points.
Its true that nearly all the carriers, with varying amounts of enforceability, require "smartphones" be on data plans that costs twice as much as even "featurephones", phones that also have touch screens, do email, web, calendar, etc. Typical (e.g. Verizon, Sprint) charge $30/mo for "smartphone" data versus $15/mo for featurephone data. It is of course a totally ridiculous "artificial market barrier", since a featurephone streaming music or video can easily use more data than a smartphone user that is disinterested in streaming media. Presumably the underlying notion then is that "people who buy expensive phones can afford to pay more for data"...
Anyways, the question here is: How can you construct an Android phone such that it would meet whatever flimsy rationale carriers use to declare a phone eligible for non-smartphone data plans, yet retain most of Android's functionality?
Maybe you'll have to give up the name Android, since another rule-of-thumb is that "if you're able to advertise/identify the phone's OS by name, then its a smartphone".
Maybe it can be done "virally": out of the box, the phone is pretty dumb, but a download or two transforms it into fully blown Android.
Someday, I think, the carriers will have to dissolve this stupid market barrier, but for now, it makes a different of $200/YEAR, which matters to many...
Aside from stereo equipment (I have some old Dynaco speakers and a Dual turntable, for example), the oldest piece of electronic equipment that I regularly use is probably my TI SR50 scientific calculator, which I bought new in college in 1974 for $125.
I also regularly use several DEC MicroVAX systems, circa 1988. I have some working DEC PDP-11 cards, but I don't really use them.
I also have some C programs that I wrote around 1976 that I still use...
Isn't this like "Bus error, core dumped", or all those sh.core files?
Or "memory banks"? or "engrams"?
Language changes more slowly than the underlying technology (although language changes surprisingly quickly compared with other cultural aspects)...
I'm okay with the 35mile range... its only 4 miles to work, or to most shopping areas (unlike another poster's claim that most people need more than that on a daily basis... most people drive less than 12000miles/year, which is 33miles/day...
But the max speed of 35mph is definitely a deal-killer... it totally eliminates ANY highway driving. Plus I would *definitely* not want these things to catch on, clogging up the streets with vehicles that can't go above 35mph... its frustrating enough with these slowpoke drivers that putt around at 25mph... if there was a whole new wave of such drivers... well... I think they would end up being mowed down by folks driving Hummers and Escalades...
Someone mentioned GlobalStar, but their satellites are failing... Iridium is the only "decent" sat-phone right now for this hemisphere, although there are other options in the Eastern hemisphere.
Slow, about 9600baud, and expensive (spend $2000 or so for phone and a year's of service), but works everywhere...
I know you probably don't have $2K to blow, so if you can really send emails of 1MB (no attachments), learn how to make "embedded attachments" the ol' fashion way... (uuencode)...
and learn to appreciate WAP/text HTML... if you get close to the shore, you should be able to roam onto GSM networks with GPRS data. Try www.riiing.com or www.prepaidgsm.net for GSM data worldwide (you'll need a quadband GSM phone unlocked).
Aside from the obvious technical hurtles (underpowered CPUs, insufficient memory, insufficient flash ROM to store multiple OSs, few user-installable mobile OSs with device-specific "plug'n'play" support, etc), there would seem to be one glaring obstacle... the carriers.
Lest anyone forget, the true customers for mobile devices are not individual consumers, but the carriers. And it is going to be a long time, if ever, before that will change. Indeed recent trends continue, if not increase, the extent of device-carrier lock-in, although often in more subtle ways that simply a software lock. The biggest trend is non-interoperable data services, either via authentication protocols that are carrier-specific, or simply spectrum differences (e.g. Tmobile's 3G bands are different than AT&T's or European 3G bands, even though all are considered "GSM").
So given this, why exactly would a carrier be interested in provide its customers with the ability to run multiple OSs on their mobile devices. And it is far more complicated from a technical and licensing standpoint than on a generic PC. Mobile OSs are not licensed by individual customers, and they are totally not set up to be installed on arbitrary mobile hardware. For example, a Palm 700p and a 700w are almost the same hardware, but it is not possible and no one has even tried to put PalmOS from the 700p on a 700w, or vice versa, WinMo from the 700w to a 700p. The only notable efforts in this vein are attempts to port Android to HTC WinMo devices (with marginal but possible future success). However that is only possible because Android is open source. And there is not obvious benefit to the carrier for doing this...
Indeed carriers, particularly Verizon (but all of them) generally try to restrict and remove features intrinsic to OEM devices (e.g. phone as modem features, WiFi, MMS, app suites like Pocket Office), in order to limit the individual customer's capabilities and force the carriers customers into specific "business models" for services (e.g. pay extra for phone as model, pay for data instead of free Wifi, etc). The freedom to run multiple OSs would necessarily give individual customers to circumvent these artificial, deliberate carrier-imposed restrictions -- something the carriers obviously would not want.
All in all sounds like a huge amount of work required with little upside for the real customers, i.e. the carriers. Until the wireless networks are truly "open access", with the power of device choice in the hands of consumers, not the carriers, the effort of multiple OSs seems doomed to failure...
Extremely shallow "technology" analysis... just superficial mention of "broadband" and "Internet", hardly a vision about TECHNOLOGY, and its underlying basis, SCIENCE. It is well-known that Palin's position on science is appalling... and she has NO appreciation for the need for the US to INCREASE federal investment in Technology and Science RESEARCH. She would continue the US's backsliding in science and technology relative to the rest of the world. The US used to be the undisputed leader in science/tech... now it is rapidly becoming an also-ran, due to poor investments in science/tech education and R&D. Palin has demonstrated NO interest in reversing this trend, not even any evidence that she appreciates the issues...
www.magicjack.com
$20+$20/yr for VOIP phone service with a USB dongle.
The laptop is a perfect 24/7 platform to support Magicjack. I know cuz I'm using an old PII laptop for exactly that... the same laptop is also serving as a DHCP server, router, WiFi access point, file server and printer server.
It seems that some people are forgetting that a domain name has nothing to do with a website. That is, hosting a "legit" and "useful" website using a domain name is NOT the only reasonable activity that demonstrated "non-squatting".
A domain name is simple a human language token for an system of IP addresses. Those IP addresses could be used for ANYTHING and on any port. For example, I may wish to test and develop a unique TCP/IP protocol/service and simply want a name to help me and my colleagues across the country who are helping.
And neither www.DOMAINNAME.X nor DOMAINNAME.X needs to resolve to anything useful.
Nevermind that it is perfectly reasonable to register a domain name and then take one's time to develop a website or some other usage of that domain name (e.g. a new foundation that registers a domain and it could easily take a few years to get a real website going (I've been there). Yet there is no ill intent or squatting in these cases.
So its going to be real hard to define what is squatting and what isn't. I suppose one could develop some rules to get the worse offenders, but it won't be easy...
Yeah its good that there *are* some market forces, like Walmart, that are powerful enough to take on the music industry and put downward pressure on prices, but calling Walmart a hero is like calling Bush a hero for starting wars to ensure cheap oil for us Americans... there *are* and will be huge consequences -- negative consequences. And Walmart is not apply pricing pressure on the record companies on principle, but for its own business model and self-benefit.
In this case, I REALLY REALLY dislike the Walmart-as-20% of the retail outlet, with their 5000 out of 60,000 selection behavior. I am/was a great fan (and customer) of Tower Records, and their deep-stocking policy -- i.e. stock as great a selection from as many artists as possible. Walmart's position in the market, and stocking only 5000 titles is GUARANTEED to kill off a lot of new, independent and innovative artists. It only accentuates the dominance of the mainstream, which I REALLY, REALLY have a problem with...
So while I want to see CD pricing become more fair and reasonable, I care more that the market allow the new, innovative, NON-MAINSTREAM artists have as good a chance as possible of "making it" (even if it means at somewhat higher prices).
Hopefully at least Amazon will continue to deep-stock...
SSDs are really old hat... the earliest ones that I remember were made by DEC for the PDP-11 and VAX. They had at least one that sat on the Unibus. I believe it was 2MB in capacity and intented mostly as a swap device. That would be the late 1970's.
They also made some for VAXes, such as the ESE20 and ESE50 (120MB):
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-7294324.html
late 1980's...
Lessee, the proposed Mars one-way will cost $50-70B and will kill one person. But we're spending $3 TRILLION on Iraq/Afghanistan which has resulted in 600-800,000 kills.
... so why do people think that its too expensive ?
Clearly this Mars one-way is an inefficient way to kill people. Still I'd much rather spend the $$$ on the Mars one-way than Iraq. I mean in absolute terms, it will only cost 2% of what we spent on Iraq
Indeed we *could* have spent the $3T on Mars instead and maybe could make it a full return trip, no ?
"Hey. When you write "Li Zhaoping" as your name, by the definition of first and last, Li is her first (family) name and Zhaoping is her last (given) name."
"by definition" ? Whose definition ?
If you are Chinese, BY DEFINITION, one's FAMILY name comes first... And she didn't necessarily write her own name, at least in this article, the AUTHOR wrote it... so it is the author's responsibility to check out what is her true name and how it should be translated into English, if needed. Actually any decent journalist should know that naming conventions in Asian cultures are different than Western cultures...
Well, let hope there really will be a change at the polls this Nov, 2008... We've just got to start reversing the damage done at the polls from the last 8 years...