The faster, easier way is to make me absolute ruler of all Earth.
- how many lives are you willing to sacrifice to achieve the perfection of a society on this planet? I mean you believe that as an absolute ruler you'll achieve something valuable, some form of 'paradise' on [snip] Everybody except the few who are totally devoted to your goal?
Is it really such a great goal when it becomes obvious that you need to sacrifice a SINGLE life to achieve it?
I and members of my family *see* families who have been on welfare since the 1980s, and who's large front yard barbecues indicate a distinct lack of physical and mental disability.
They seem to have very little fire in their belly to do ANYTHING interesting, innovative or risky.
Because they're sensitive to the wailing, moaning and histrionic caterwauling that blasts forth whenever anything bad happens. Reference the "wussification" comments.
Someone must stand up and say, "Shit happens, people die."
Many different, diametrically-opposed segments of people want to enforce their way of life on everyone else, and knowing that their beliefs are unpopular with voters, seek government power to forcefully do it.
keep rocket engineers busy in key congressional districts
I've often wondered why Space-X doesn't open an office in Huntsville. There's got to be more than a few different-thinking unemployed "rocket scientists" there.
Physics (gravity, heat dissipation, fluid dynamics, structural integrity, physical properties of aluminum and rubber) and chemistry (unless there are some easily transportable fuels and oxidizers in some lab somewhere that have more energy and less toxicity and cost than kerosene and LOX ) aren't going to change any time soon. Fiction writers hand wave over a STUPENDOUS amount of complexity.
there is a universe of materials floating around us
Except that 1) it's REALLY FSCKING FAR AWAY, 2) bathed in high-energy radiation, 3) we're at the bottom of a deep gravity well, 4) surrounded by a friction-inducing atmosphere, and 5) require on a consistent basis food and a pretty narrow range of temperature and oxygen and nitrogen partial pressures.
The amount of processing power most people need has been well surpassed by what x86 offers
When was the last time that you had multiple Web 2.0 pages open? Heck, even a single page chock full of Java Script and Flash put a serious burden even on modern processors.
Fast forward to the 2000, and desktop speeds start outpacing most user's needs. The last 5-6 years of desktop speed improvements have basically been a CPU bubble. CPU speeds have increased faster than most people have any use for. We are currently seeing a state where people are realizing that they are vastly over paying in energy for their CPU processing power usage. The bubble is bursting. ARM is way behind in ramping up the processing power of their CPUs as well as way behind in ramping up their CPU power usage. Like many other bubbles, suddenly people realize that what they were chasing isn't worth it, and they would rather have what was available 10 years ago.
Nothing in there about tablets and smart phones; it's all desktop.
Then there are the Firefox UI changes they've made with recent releases that only make it so much harder to use Firefox. Please show the protocol in the URL bar again!
There's a work-around (either built into FF or through an addon) to get it back to working like it should.
Slashdot Mirror
The faster, easier way is to make me absolute ruler of all Earth.
- how many lives are you willing to sacrifice to achieve the perfection of a society on this planet? I mean you believe that as an absolute ruler you'll achieve something valuable, some form of 'paradise' on [snip] Everybody except the few who are totally devoted to your goal?
Is it really such a great goal when it becomes obvious that you need to sacrifice a SINGLE life to achieve it?
I think you forgot to take your medications.
controlling things like space probes and rover-type landers viable.
Better AI would be much cheaper and than keeping humans alive, functional and not wracked with cancer.
Anyway, what about when Saturn is on the opposite side of the solar system from what you want to control.
As long as they can't build mass drivers...
The faster, easier way is to make me absolute ruler of all Earth.
Anyway, rigorously clipping the government's wings would lead to an even worse corporate oligarchy than now exists.
I and members of my family *see* families who have been on welfare since the 1980s, and who's large front yard barbecues indicate a distinct lack of physical and mental disability.
From the article:
It will be a small office with a few employees as the company explores new business opportunities, Brost said..
SpaceX already does business with the Army's Space and Missile Defense Command here.
Business development isn't what I had in mind.
we're out of school, with degrees, with no jobs for us
What kind of degrees?
there is such a huge pool of underutilised labour in the developing world that would jump at the chance to do such work.
Except that there's already a huge pool of underutilized labor in the US. They'd, though, rather demand a government check for doing nothing.
1. the soviets knew they could never compete with US on conventional force levels
ROTFLMAO. The Red Army was *huge* all during the Cold War.
They seem to have very little fire in their belly to do ANYTHING interesting, innovative or risky.
Because they're sensitive to the wailing, moaning and histrionic caterwauling that blasts forth whenever anything bad happens. Reference the "wussification" comments.
Someone must stand up and say, "Shit happens, people die."
Many different, diametrically-opposed segments of people want to enforce their way of life on everyone else, and knowing that their beliefs are unpopular with voters, seek government power to forcefully do it.
There, fixed that for you...
keep rocket engineers busy in key congressional districts
I've often wondered why Space-X doesn't open an office in Huntsville. There's got to be more than a few different-thinking unemployed "rocket scientists" there.
the tech to get there cheaply
Physics (gravity, heat dissipation, fluid dynamics, structural integrity, physical properties of aluminum and rubber) and chemistry (unless there are some easily transportable fuels and oxidizers in some lab somewhere that have more energy and less toxicity and cost than kerosene and LOX ) aren't going to change any time soon. Fiction writers hand wave over a STUPENDOUS amount of complexity.
there is a universe of materials floating around us
Except that
1) it's REALLY FSCKING FAR AWAY,
2) bathed in high-energy radiation,
3) we're at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
4) surrounded by a friction-inducing atmosphere, and
5) require on a consistent basis food and a pretty narrow range of temperature and oxygen and nitrogen partial pressures.
we'd have colonies on Saturn's moons by now
Doing what and for what purpose and at what cost?
(Don't say "mining" unless you're an actual mining engineer who knows how much heavy industry is required by mining.)
Your erectile dysfunction is showing??
The amount of processing power most people need has been well surpassed by what x86 offers
When was the last time that you had multiple Web 2.0 pages open? Heck, even a single page chock full of Java Script and Flash put a serious burden even on modern processors.
Hmmm.
The 3rd paragraph of http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2518952&cid=38016338 says:
Fast forward to the 2000, and desktop speeds start outpacing most user's needs. The last 5-6 years of desktop speed improvements have basically been a CPU bubble. CPU speeds have increased faster than most people have any use for. We are currently seeing a state where people are realizing that they are vastly over paying in energy for their CPU processing power usage. The bubble is bursting. ARM is way behind in ramping up the processing power of their CPUs as well as way behind in ramping up their CPU power usage. Like many other bubbles, suddenly people realize that what they were chasing isn't worth it, and they would rather have what was available 10 years ago.
Nothing in there about tablets and smart phones; it's all desktop.
Anyone who hasn't tried to run a modern browser with modern dynamic web pages on one.
That's sarcasm, right?
1GHz P3 laptop. With a UXGA screen, it makes for a great X terminal
An MC68020 w/ 16MB RAM also powered a great X terminal, the VXT-2000. With a 22 in monitor, I loved it.
suddenly people realize that what they were chasing isn't worth it, and they would rather have what was available 10 years ago.
What an absolute steaming crock of shit. Who here really wants a 32 bit 1.3GHz Athlon XP back on their desktop?
the non-existent "Joe Sixpack" class user
Eh? Joe Sixpack and his family have been using the Windows "Start menu" paradigm at home and work for 15+ years.
+1, Insightful.
Then there are the Firefox UI changes they've made with recent releases that only make it so much harder to use Firefox. Please show the protocol in the URL bar again!
There's a work-around (either built into FF or through an addon) to get it back to working like it should.
and Bill O'Reilly probably thinks you can't explain that.
He'd be correct.
Well I hope Luna doesn't or it's going to make quite a splash.
The moon's orbit is actually increasing it's distance from Earth.
Snicker...