Why fund DARPA? For the same reason you fund NASA: There are benefits to this kind of research that lead to profitable things, but there's no profit in just pure research, especially at the esoteric levels that NASA and DARPA are operating on.
Ideally, we'd just be relying on NASA for advanced research and safety regulations akin to the FAA. I mean, it's not like we get all of our food and medicine from the FDA, right?
Water and O2 can be made on Mars, along with propellant. Without recycling. Columbus didn't take along every piece of food and ounce of water they'd ever need, because he knew there was going to be stuff he could use when he got there.
And I have this really neat thing on my desk. It's called a "plant." It has the astonishing ability to take CO2 and converting it to oxygen. Other models can also make food and process water! With this kind of astonishing technology, I don't know why we can't go to Mars *right now*!
1) Last time I checked plants like Carbon dioxide. Mars' atmosphere is almost 98% CO2. Plants just need to be kept warm.
2) It takes 6 months to get to Mars using current technology. We've had people on the space station longer. The only real issue is radiation, and that's only if we launch at solar maximum. The 3 year figure is getting there, staying for 1.5 years, and getting back. This is taken from NASA's reference mission.
3) It's not like they're going to be incommunicado the whole time. A 40 minute delay is fine for anyone who can write a nice letter.
why can't our government fund this kind of stuff more?
The short answer is "Because the rich folks don't want to pay a lot of taxes."
The top tax bracket (for >$400,000) was 91% in the 50s and 60s, and right now it's only 39.6%. Also, the number of brackets has been decreased, so they can't raise taxes without affecting more and more people.
If NASA's running low on cash, here are two ideas that might be good ways to get money.
1) A national lottery. Opportunity and Spirit cost (individually) $400 million. A nationwide lottery would be able to raise this much money, and would excite people. They would know that their money is going to put something on another planet.
2) A reality TV show about astronaut candidates. This long-running series, run by one of the major networks, would give a human face and personality to space flight. I'm not talking about people being voted off or anything stupid like that, but an unvarnished look at how astronauts are trained and selected. NASA could get the license from a network and make a few million bucks and improve its image.
One more thought: I think the gain for the antenna in a phone should be clearly marked at the points of sale. If they're going to be an important part of our infrastructure and they don't work without reception, they should have it marked like mileage on automobiles, so that you can compare them based on an actual, tested criteria, instead of mindless feature creep.
It's not just a few knuckleheads. Most people I've talked to want phones to have a good battery life, get good reception, and be sturdy enough for daily use rather than having a camera and 3D games and downloadable ring tones, particularly baby boomers.
But since few people research their purchases (because they trust the person behind the counter and because they don't have the time) and it doesn't provide enough profit for the carriers that picture messaging and downloads do, these phones aren't sold. People selling them have no idea about how good the reception is, and marketing BS doesn't include this information for comparison. They do have lists of all the features, and people usually buy the one with the most features, figuring it *must* be better. More often than not, they're wrong.
I'm just saying that it's not in the minds of the marketers precisely because Joe Public doesn't research that stuff. With those features degrading (and little profit to be gained in raising them), they resort to gimickry to sell inferior products.
Were it not for the high cost of entry into the market I would form a company to make simple, reliable, efficient, sturdy phones.
Considering the number of people complaining about their service or phone, there *must* be a market for them, just not one with sufficient profit potential.
Just remember that the more advanced features these phones get, the cheaper your plain jane phone will be.
This would be true, if they were developing the features that we want in plain-jane phones. If the cutting edge phone was able to get reception inside a faraday cage in the bottom of a missile silo 400 miles from the nearest cell tower, then better reception for plane-jane phones wouldn't be far off.
But since they're developing 3D graphics, 3D graphics (and their battery-sapping performance) won't be far off. Soon every plain-jane phone will have 3D animated menus, so that they sap power from the transceiver, leading to poorer reception and lower battery life.
What kind of reception do they get? How long does the battery last? How long will the phone last before it breaks or is made obsolete? There's nothing on the site about those things, which are the main criteria for most cell phone users. But every phone talks about all the stuff you could do while waiting to get reception.
Foundation would be an excellent movie. If done correctly.
Re:Low technology against high technology
on
Japanese Balloon Battle
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Tell someone slogging through a jungle or desert that they have a choice: Clean their gun daily (or more) to prevent it from jamming during a firefight, or steal an enemy gun and never have to worry about cleaning it and see which one they choose.
The AK-47 is superior for the role it was designed for: combat.
Man, those litigious bastards really shot themselves in the foot this time. Of course the actions of those litigious bastards is going to put off their customers, especially when their customers use the litigious bastards' competitors.
You have a right to send out political email, yes. But you don't have a right to coopt my system and degrade my experience with UNWANTED messages.
You can put political signs wherever you want. Except not in my yard without my permission. You want to put signs up in my yard and cry "FIRST AMENDMENT!!!" when I get the cops to stop you.
People aren't modding you down because they dislike political speech. They're modding you down because they think you're wrong. I do, too.
Not to mention that qubit computers will be low-power and low-heat devices. One of those puppies could fit in a cell phone. Talk about ubiquitous computing, everyone could have two or three of these systems.
Yes. Get a toaster oven. Much more versatile, not much more counter space. Frozen pizzas turn out much better in a toaster oven, and if you have a hankering for cookies you don't have to heat up the whole kitchen with the big oven.
Unless your toaster is in your geek lair. Then you might be missing something.
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Ideally, we'd just be relying on NASA for advanced research and safety regulations akin to the FAA. I mean, it's not like we get all of our food and medicine from the FDA, right?
And I have this really neat thing on my desk. It's called a "plant." It has the astonishing ability to take CO2 and converting it to oxygen. Other models can also make food and process water! With this kind of astonishing technology, I don't know why we can't go to Mars *right now*!
I'll go.
2) It takes 6 months to get to Mars using current technology. We've had people on the space station longer. The only real issue is radiation, and that's only if we launch at solar maximum. The 3 year figure is getting there, staying for 1.5 years, and getting back. This is taken from NASA's reference mission.
3) It's not like they're going to be incommunicado the whole time. A 40 minute delay is fine for anyone who can write a nice letter.
4) It's "replenishment."
I stand corrected. (The original page I found was citing old data. The one I linked to has the correct information.)
The short answer is "Because the rich folks don't want to pay a lot of taxes."
The top tax bracket (for >$400,000) was 91% in the 50s and 60s, and right now it's only 39.6%. Also, the number of brackets has been decreased, so they can't raise taxes without affecting more and more people.
Link
1) A national lottery. Opportunity and Spirit cost (individually) $400 million. A nationwide lottery would be able to raise this much money, and would excite people. They would know that their money is going to put something on another planet.
2) A reality TV show about astronaut candidates. This long-running series, run by one of the major networks, would give a human face and personality to space flight. I'm not talking about people being voted off or anything stupid like that, but an unvarnished look at how astronauts are trained and selected. NASA could get the license from a network and make a few million bucks and improve its image.
One more thought: I think the gain for the antenna in a phone should be clearly marked at the points of sale. If they're going to be an important part of our infrastructure and they don't work without reception, they should have it marked like mileage on automobiles, so that you can compare them based on an actual, tested criteria, instead of mindless feature creep.
But since few people research their purchases (because they trust the person behind the counter and because they don't have the time) and it doesn't provide enough profit for the carriers that picture messaging and downloads do, these phones aren't sold. People selling them have no idea about how good the reception is, and marketing BS doesn't include this information for comparison. They do have lists of all the features, and people usually buy the one with the most features, figuring it *must* be better. More often than not, they're wrong.
Were it not for the high cost of entry into the market I would form a company to make simple, reliable, efficient, sturdy phones.
Considering the number of people complaining about their service or phone, there *must* be a market for them, just not one with sufficient profit potential.
This would be true, if they were developing the features that we want in plain-jane phones. If the cutting edge phone was able to get reception inside a faraday cage in the bottom of a missile silo 400 miles from the nearest cell tower, then better reception for plane-jane phones wouldn't be far off.
But since they're developing 3D graphics, 3D graphics (and their battery-sapping performance) won't be far off. Soon every plain-jane phone will have 3D animated menus, so that they sap power from the transceiver, leading to poorer reception and lower battery life.
What kind of reception do they get? How long does the battery last? How long will the phone last before it breaks or is made obsolete? There's nothing on the site about those things, which are the main criteria for most cell phone users. But every phone talks about all the stuff you could do while waiting to get reception.
Foundation would be an excellent movie. If done correctly.
The AK-47 is superior for the role it was designed for: combat.
Yes. Because my civic pride is linked to whether or not five guys can put a ball through a hoop more than five other guys.
Just kidding. I love these guys!
Google's got to make metamoderating of links. This is not a good way to rank search pages.
You see ads?
Heh heh heh.
Just trying to do my part. :D
litigious bastards
Wake me when we get to Mars. I'd rather save the money and let it acrue interest until we can actually, um, GO SOMEWHERE.
You can put political signs wherever you want. Except not in my yard without my permission. You want to put signs up in my yard and cry "FIRST AMENDMENT!!!" when I get the cops to stop you.
People aren't modding you down because they dislike political speech. They're modding you down because they think you're wrong. I do, too.
Only on /. is that funny.
Not to mention that qubit computers will be low-power and low-heat devices. One of those puppies could fit in a cell phone. Talk about ubiquitous computing, everyone could have two or three of these systems.
Unless your toaster is in your geek lair. Then you might be missing something.