NASA budget: 1997: 14.358 Billion
NASA budget: 2007: 16.250 Billion
This is not an "inflation-adjusted" figure. Over the last 10 years, NASA's budget has grown by a total of 13.177%. Over those same 10 years, inflation totalled 27.23%. (and that's only using the "core inflation" figures that don't take into account housing, food, or energy).
Adding a billion still leaves it short by $2.017 Billion.
Core inflation? NASA staples include aerogel, composite steels, rocket fuel, the occasional radioisotope thermoelectric generator, and rocket scientists. Measuring those via "core inflation" indicies that include things like "milk, bread, eggs, automobiles and gas, shampoo, health care" is of... marginal utility, at best. (It only affects one of their inputs, and I suspect things like the technology boom in Silicon Valley, and the talent it has attracted, has probably done more to increase the price of decent rocket scientists than the price of a new home near the NASA offices.)
It also presupposes some sort of fixed level of funding to
be the metric for comparing desirability against.
My two cents: Who needs space, in this day and age, anyway?
Get some decent fusion power, and crank up the biotech stuff,
and solve problems which actually affect millions of people every day,
and after you've done that (and stamped out some new materials science and
robotics and such for a bit, to boot, while you were waiting) it might
conceivably profit mankind to burn our tax dollars on space exploration.
Sure, I appreciate astronomical sciences. Yes, I know scientists aren't
particularly fungible, and you can't turn all the rocket scientists into
cancer researchers at the drop of a hat. And hey, I realize NASA has some
decent spinoffs now and then, but somehow I think you can get more for your money
than the few million you throw around here and there to develop Tang, better
swimsuits, and a moonbase in Second Life.
The shiek can lie and twist the meanings of the words to give whatever explanation they want. So it's kinda like every other religion then?:P/me ducks Yes. Also, this may happen with political parties, collegiate courses in literature, court cases, the environmental movement, comments on Slashdot stories, or psychotic [ex]-girlfriends.
Science? Yea, right. By that logic astrology would be science too. I dunno, I'd say the math behind it all - calculating the orbits of the planets, Sun, and objects like that - is certainly Science, no? And that's all that this is really about, is it not?
But I suppose you'll get modded +1, Christianity-bashing anyway.
Personally, I think the threat from mercury is a bunch of liberal hype.
Does everything on/. always need to be a political debate?
Yes. One way or another, someone's going to drag the zomg-Republican-EvilScheming-Plutocrat-Facists* or the
zomg-Democrat-Paranoid-livinginafantasyworld-Godless-Communists* into almost anything. Doubly so if that Everything involves "electricity".
* (feel free to substitute your own choice of labels here)
given the rising global temperature... it seems logical that we will still need some sort of cooling to keep rooms at 'room temperature'
at least anywhere south of the artic circle
Oh gasp, yes. Because the average temperature at the Arctic is going to rise not by one, or two, or even five degrees in the next century, but by eighty.
Billion.
THINK OF THE BABY SEALS!!!
Now, someone please mod both me and the parent offtopic? kthxbye.
Hello. "Unskilled wage". Do read the section on the different measures of worth and how much each measure is worth, when. And your "average salary" for the average unskilled worker is what the average "unskilled wage" series is supposed to represent! See, if we can all use the right measure for the job we can all just get along.:)
Six Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a U.S. Dollar Amount, 1790 to Present
In 2006, $2,375.00 from 1917 is worth: $37,347.89 using the Consumer Price Index $25,943.55 using the GDP deflator $76,732.48 using the value of consumer bundle
and here it is:
$136,013.44 using the unskilled wage $181,424.03 using the nominal GDP per capita $524,899.79 using the relative share of GDP
If you need help determining which result is most appropriate for you, see Measures of Worth.
For construction of the Indicators, go to CPI | GDP | Consumer Bundle | Unskilled Wage series.
Citation Samuel H. Williamson, "Five Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a U.S. Dollar Amount, 1790 to Present," MeasuringWorth.Com, 2008. Please read our Note on Data Revisions.\</p>
If it's the "proletariat" working man you're worried about, you want an unskilled wage inflation. According to MeasuringWorth.com $2375 is about $136,013.44 in 2006 dollars (the latest data available).
It's of little use to compare the consumer prices using the average consumer's bundle of goods, since we just consume so much more.
I'm not trying to bait or anything but I am curious. Why does the internet community give so much energy to the liberation of Tibet but they don't do the same to the USA, South Africa, Australia etc that are overrun and controlled by accupying colonial powers. Well, I dunno about South Africa, or even Australia, but... free the US? And hand it over to whom? Some 99%* of the population is descended from those 'occupying' colonists. Was the settling of America a travesty? Maybe, maybe not - if you'd like, we can say that it is, sure, and as big a tragedy as you want - but would evicting everyone now living there make things better? You just can't up and move 300 million people, all the infrastructure they put down, all the homes they've built over the years, not if you're sane. Kicking people out of their homes and destroying their lives and livelihoods is half of the injustice that came up in the first place.
It won't make the world better. And you can only give so much restitution to the dead.
(* totally made up and almost assuredly incorrect figure and this post in general probably doesn't do enough to include and address matters related to the sizable Hispanic populations down in the southern states, but close enough to reality that the same point applies.)
I will select a few points here.
>The Cult Information Centre describes it as such:
>It uses psychological coercion to recruit, indoctrinate and retain its members
Religions don't need to do that: they teach to children: it's much more easy to influence children than adults, but I don't think that it is better..
>It forms an elitist totalitarian society.
Well the vatican looks to me as fitting this description.
>Its founder leader is self-appointed, dogmatic, messianic, not accountable and has charisma.
A good definition of the pope job, he's not the founder but he has the same role.
The people who thinks that modern religions aren't very dangerous should try to think as if they were gay, what would you think about religions? Children learn from their parents (/teachers/peers/day care). It's fairly common. One of those things parents+etc teach children are cultural, moral and ethical considerations, whether overtly religious in nature or otherwise. And I don't think that you can express that it's somehow 'better' to teach them not-religion or not-teach-them-anything without falling back on some system of values which is itself para-religious in nature.
Totalatarian. The Vatican does not come down on my head if I use the Internet. It does not attempt to tell me what jobs I can take and where I can buy a house, and who I may and may not associate with. If I violated some proscription - something like, oh, cheat on my wife with the secretary from work (not that I have a wife) and the Vatican or a local priest found out, I'd be told "that is wrong; stop, repent, go to confession, don't do things like that," sure, but by and large I would not face any significant consequences at all. In a cult, violating a proscription is another matter altogether.
The Pope. Is elected internally by a college of Cardinals, and not self-appointed. This is not so much a big deal for Scientology anymore; their founder is dead. Messianic? Not old Ratzinger, I don't think so, nuh-uh. Accountability is suspect to outsiders, sure.
In conclusion, while the questions of whether Religion in general or specific cases is justified or justifiable or safe or dangerous... and all that.... cannot be addressed at this juncture, there are still real, qualitative differences between the Catholic Church (or other churches) and a cult. If you can't see them, I would also request that you please take a few moments to consider whether your view has been affected by prejudice in these matters.
Also, as this article is about cults, not generally about "religion is bad", the comparison of the Catholic church to a cult, and expression of concerns regarding its danger, are not in and of itself relevant to the article. As such, I would contend that you have a personal agenda and that you are opportunistically dragging into this conversation to push it. (Zis ees eensy bit offputting. juzt a beet.) Finally, also take a moment to consider whether your particular selection of exemplary church (the Catholic one) is more or less "dangerous" than various other churches, religions, or denominations of Christianity. (Phrases like 'Westboro Baptist Church' and 'fundamentalist Islamic law' come to mind).
First -- if the player is traveling near the speed of light _with_ the cargo, then he won't notice that the people who are not moving have aged. If the cargo is something useful and rare (fusion fuel, perhaps) Fusion fuel? 'Scalled hydrogen. Ya find it in water. Not. Exactly. Hard. To. Find.
It's a cult if its founder is still alive, or is recently dead.
It's a religion if the founder has been dead so long that his adherents have had time to rewrite his character.
(In no case is any of it rational, practical, or efficient. Religion is for those who are insufficiently honest to build their own philosophy.)
A cult, in other words, has elements of personality-worship in it. Religions are old enough to claim that the founder's personality could not have unduly influenced their membership.
It uses psychological coercion to recruit, indoctrinate and retain its members
It forms an elitist totalitarian society.
Its founder leader is self-appointed, dogmatic, messianic, not accountable and has charisma.
It believes 'the end justifies the means' in order to solicit funds recruit people.
Its wealth does not benefit its members or society.
(Project Clambake, likewise, quotes this list.)
In my opinion, a lot of it is a matter of a qualitative differences in what they do. There's a number of things. Some people in certain religions will try to bring you back if you leave. Cults, on the other hand, may blackmail, harass or threaten people who try to depart. Many religions ask for money; Scientology asks for money, and spends it on lawsuits against its critics. Many religions have people who approach you on the street and tell you that you need to convert or $badstuff (with varying degrees of pushiness). Scientology sets up a table with a "Free Stress Test" (presumably designed to be rather Scientific-looking) first to attract passerbys, then when you test positive for stress they try to sell you various courses, then ease into the dogma later.
So this guy is a power-hungry freak. Wow... did anyone not see this like a year ago, when Jimmy Wales was basically telling the world that he was here to save us all?
Hopefully he'll be selling timeshares again soon. Feeding the troll, I guess, but just FYI: Wales never sold timeshares. He founded Wikipedia with part of the small fortune from his online pornography business. (well, "search portal" business with advertising.... especially for pornography... and some regular pornography serving as well, sure)
America does a poor job of coupling teacher pay to teacher performance (they attach it instead almost exclusively to Seniority). This is not conducive to getting good teaching at schools. As government-related entities, moreover, there are (in various jurisdictions) a lot of regulations which (whatever else good they do or don't do) make it very difficult to get rid of bad teachers. My understanding is that New York City public schools are a particularly egregious example of this, and totally incompetent teachers can stick around for years and years.
Every now and again people attempt to throw money at the problem without actually fixing the problem.
This is wasteful and stupid, and leads to some justified complaints.
Then there are occasional budgetary cuts. These seldom correlate very well with the merits of the programs or teachers being funded.
On a related note, exceptional students can find it difficult to thrive in the rather homogeneous academic environments you can find at many schools, particularly in smaller systems with fewer resources overall.
Many reasonable-sounding way to encourage better education have involved attempts to measure the education. This, however, tends to lead to more "test prep" learning and less learning learning.
I don't think anyone seriously advocates "no public education" per se. Much of it is just undirected complaint. However, advocating massive restructuring involving a system of school vouchers (or even minor restructuring and the introduction of similar vouchers) such that private educational institutions can receive some portion of public funds (since they're no longer attending public schools) is not uncommon, particularly by those with Libertarian sympathies.
I got a Mighty Mouse shortly after they came out (I was in the market for a mouse anyway, and the short cord was handy for use with my laptop). I've used it exclusively on Windows. The buttons always worked just fine (sure, the squeezing doesn't activate Expose, but it does do 'back' or something like that I don't bother with most of the time).
Standard USB human interface device stuff. Is there something ultrafancier about next-generation Mighty Mice I didn't know about?
Just wanted to make a point about one of my pet hates; that is, americans always putting a country's name after the place name. E.G. Paris, France, or Rome, Italy, as if there was another more famous populous Rome or Paris somewhere. The United States has stolen a lot of city names from elsewhere. As other posters have pointed out, there is a Florence in Florida. (Also, Alabama, Oregon, Kentucky, Mississippi, Colorado, Wisconsin, Montana, and Massechutses. We have Rome in Georgia, New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, Oregon, and Mississippi. There are also at least 9 Parises. This disambiguation is a matter of convention, and in general it helps prevent confusion. Is it such a travesty that someone then uses this more-specific naming convention for a major world city? Did the seven bytes of information in ", Italy" really tax your internet connection that much?
It seems to me like you're just looking for an excuse to get annoyed at Americans...
Running 20% BD, 80% ULSD will actually get you the lower emissions of the ULSD and the lubricity of LSD. Forget it then; we'll never see these in the US, what with the senseless of our WAR ON DRUGS!!!!
Humans live better, longer and with less health issues when breathing a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere - unpolluted with CO emissions and such other byproducts (regardless of which are possible causes of global warming)
Did you mean "unpolluted by CO2 emissions"? Because I don't want to breathe much carbon monoxide either. (And, fortunately, I don't.)
If you did, though, please consider! The Earth's atmosphere already has billions of tons of carbon dioxide. Human emissions have increased this some, and this increase may or may not be Bad and Cause Global Warming, but calling CO2 "pollution" is like calling the ocean "polluted with salt".
CO2 is there. Naturally. In far, far greater quantities than Man ever put there.
I have a Sprint broadband account. Used it on the train a bunch until I got a car and started driving a lot (when it's rainy, basically) It's pretty fast and zippy. Low latency. Tolerable speed.
Beware the terms of service. I have an 'unlimited' account. By Unlimited, they mean Unlimited Web Browsing and Email. Anything else is theoretically Not Allowed. Streaming music, fancy downloads, things like that: no. How do they detect not-web-browsing activity? Well, they figure that if you use more than 5GB of data in a month that's Downloading and Streaming Stuff.
So, Unlimited = 5GB, and you can forget about BitTorrenting any Linux.isos (or anything remotely big like that) or tuning in to Pandora or using iTunes. If you're okay with that.... well then, fun fun fun fun.
The proposals and attempts at quantum computing are based on predictions made using quantum theory. But how well does quantum theory reflect reality? There is good reason to seriously question that, and by implication, question the fundamental feasibility of quantum computing.
Quantum mechanics encompasses a variety of related theories, and some of those are very solid indeed. Wave-particle duality, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, quantum state, interference, entanglement... These standbys of quantum computing are going nowhere. The underlying causes and specifics of energy states of hydrogen atoms that they predict may not yet be completely understood, but there's more than enough right now to build a few quantum number-crunchers off of.
Please oh please, can we start working on an open source(wimax) router with two bands(backbone and local) Hooold up there, buddy. Where exactly are you going to get the money to buy the spectrum you need for your precious WiMAX to work?
One of the biggest fears regarding nanotech is the creation of a disease that simply can't be destroyed because it would be a machine, not an organism. Are they going to contain THAT? Simply can't be destroyed because it's a machine? Man, I wish my machines worked like that. I'd still have my old laptop.
Fortunately for the world, given the state of the art (and certain fundamental limitation of Physics) the "grey goo" ultra-fear is utter baloney. Furthermore, if a more biological-like threat arose, it will need to compete with the already-pervasive goo we call Life (fraught with bacteria as it is) and even then, if you'll ask anyone with allergies, you will find that there are plenty of things that are not alive that the immune system is willing to attack.
What you reallyneed to worry about is a bunch of environmental accumulation of icky tiny nanotubes and such that get in your food supply, like mercury in fish, because nothing metabolizes them.
Slashdot Mirror
Doing business with Wal*Mart is inviting death.
NASA budget: 1997: 14.358 Billion
NASA budget: 2007: 16.250 Billion
This is not an "inflation-adjusted" figure. Over the last 10 years, NASA's budget has grown by a total of 13.177%. Over those same 10 years, inflation totalled 27.23%. (and that's only using the "core inflation" figures that don't take into account housing, food, or energy).
Adding a billion still leaves it short by $2.017 Billion.
Core inflation? NASA staples include aerogel, composite steels, rocket fuel, the occasional radioisotope thermoelectric generator, and rocket scientists. Measuring those via "core inflation" indicies that include things like "milk, bread, eggs, automobiles and gas, shampoo, health care" is of... marginal utility, at best. (It only affects one of their inputs, and I suspect things like the technology boom in Silicon Valley, and the talent it has attracted, has probably done more to increase the price of decent rocket scientists than the price of a new home near the NASA offices.)It also presupposes some sort of fixed level of funding to be the metric for comparing desirability against. My two cents: Who needs space, in this day and age, anyway? Get some decent fusion power, and crank up the biotech stuff, and solve problems which actually affect millions of people every day, and after you've done that (and stamped out some new materials science and robotics and such for a bit, to boot, while you were waiting) it might conceivably profit mankind to burn our tax dollars on space exploration. Sure, I appreciate astronomical sciences. Yes, I know scientists aren't particularly fungible, and you can't turn all the rocket scientists into cancer researchers at the drop of a hat. And hey, I realize NASA has some decent spinoffs now and then, but somehow I think you can get more for your money than the few million you throw around here and there to develop Tang, better swimsuits, and a moonbase in Second Life.
Or it might not happen at all...
But I suppose you'll get modded +1, Christianity-bashing anyway.
Does everything on /. always need to be a political debate?
Yes. One way or another, someone's going to drag the zomg-Republican-EvilScheming-Plutocrat-Facists* or the zomg-Democrat-Paranoid-livinginafantasyworld-Godless-Communists* into almost anything. Doubly so if that Everything involves "electricity".* (feel free to substitute your own choice of labels here)
at least anywhere south of the artic circle
Oh gasp, yes. Because the average temperature at the Arctic is going to rise not by one, or two, or even five degrees in the next century, but by eighty.
Billion.
THINK OF THE BABY SEALS!!!
Now, someone please mod both me and the parent offtopic? kthxbye.
I like to type stuff. The iPhone, well, it's not exactly the sort of thing you'd want to write a novel on, you know?
If it's the "proletariat" working man you're worried about, you want an unskilled wage inflation. According to MeasuringWorth.com $2375 is about $136,013.44 in 2006 dollars (the latest data available). It's of little use to compare the consumer prices using the average consumer's bundle of goods, since we just consume so much more.
(* totally made up and almost assuredly incorrect figure and this post in general probably doesn't do enough to include and address matters related to the sizable Hispanic populations down in the southern states, but close enough to reality that the same point applies.)
Could be worse. Instead of zebrafish, you could have a bananafish problem.
>It uses psychological coercion to recruit, indoctrinate and retain its members
Religions don't need to do that: they teach to children: it's much more easy to influence children than adults, but I don't think that it is better..
>It forms an elitist totalitarian society.
Well the vatican looks to me as fitting this description.
>Its founder leader is self-appointed, dogmatic, messianic, not accountable and has charisma.
A good definition of the pope job, he's not the founder but he has the same role.
The people who thinks that modern religions aren't very dangerous should try to think as if they were gay, what would you think about religions?
Children learn from their parents (/teachers/peers/day care). It's fairly common. One of those things parents+etc teach children are cultural, moral and ethical considerations, whether overtly religious in nature or otherwise. And I don't think that you can express that it's somehow 'better' to teach them not-religion or not-teach-them-anything without falling back on some system of values which is itself para-religious in nature.
Totalatarian. The Vatican does not come down on my head if I use the Internet. It does not attempt to tell me what jobs I can take and where I can buy a house, and who I may and may not associate with. If I violated some proscription - something like, oh, cheat on my wife with the secretary from work (not that I have a wife) and the Vatican or a local priest found out, I'd be told "that is wrong; stop, repent, go to confession, don't do things like that," sure, but by and large I would not face any significant consequences at all. In a cult, violating a proscription is another matter altogether.
The Pope. Is elected internally by a college of Cardinals, and not self-appointed. This is not so much a big deal for Scientology anymore; their founder is dead. Messianic? Not old Ratzinger, I don't think so, nuh-uh. Accountability is suspect to outsiders, sure.
In conclusion, while the questions of whether Religion in general or specific cases is justified or justifiable or safe or dangerous ... and all that.... cannot be addressed at this juncture, there are still real, qualitative differences between the Catholic Church (or other churches) and a cult. If you can't see them, I would also request that you please take a few moments to consider whether your view has been affected by prejudice in these matters.
Also, as this article is about cults, not generally about "religion is bad", the comparison of the Catholic church to a cult, and expression of concerns regarding its danger, are not in and of itself relevant to the article. As such, I would contend that you have a personal agenda and that you are opportunistically dragging into this conversation to push it. (Zis ees eensy bit offputting. juzt a beet.) Finally, also take a moment to consider whether your particular selection of exemplary church (the Catholic one) is more or less "dangerous" than various other churches, religions, or denominations of Christianity. (Phrases like 'Westboro Baptist Church' and 'fundamentalist Islamic law' come to mind).
A cult, in other words, has elements of personality-worship in it. Religions are old enough to claim that the founder's personality could not have unduly influenced their membership.
The Cult Information Centre describes it as such: (Project Clambake, likewise, quotes this list.)In my opinion, a lot of it is a matter of a qualitative differences in what they do. There's a number of things. Some people in certain religions will try to bring you back if you leave. Cults, on the other hand, may blackmail, harass or threaten people who try to depart. Many religions ask for money; Scientology asks for money, and spends it on lawsuits against its critics. Many religions have people who approach you on the street and tell you that you need to convert or $badstuff (with varying degrees of pushiness). Scientology sets up a table with a "Free Stress Test" (presumably designed to be rather Scientific-looking) first to attract passerbys, then when you test positive for stress they try to sell you various courses, then ease into the dogma later.
Hopefully he'll be selling timeshares again soon. Feeding the troll, I guess, but just FYI: Wales never sold timeshares. He founded Wikipedia with part of the small fortune from his online pornography business. (well, "search portal" business with advertising.... especially for pornography... and some regular pornography serving as well, sure)
Every now and again people attempt to throw money at the problem without actually fixing the problem. This is wasteful and stupid, and leads to some justified complaints. Then there are occasional budgetary cuts. These seldom correlate very well with the merits of the programs or teachers being funded. On a related note, exceptional students can find it difficult to thrive in the rather homogeneous academic environments you can find at many schools, particularly in smaller systems with fewer resources overall.
Many reasonable-sounding way to encourage better education have involved attempts to measure the education. This, however, tends to lead to more "test prep" learning and less learning learning.
I don't think anyone seriously advocates "no public education" per se. Much of it is just undirected complaint. However, advocating massive restructuring involving a system of school vouchers (or even minor restructuring and the introduction of similar vouchers) such that private educational institutions can receive some portion of public funds (since they're no longer attending public schools) is not uncommon, particularly by those with Libertarian sympathies.
Standard USB human interface device stuff. Is there something ultrafancier about next-generation Mighty Mice I didn't know about?
It seems to me like you're just looking for an excuse to get annoyed at Americans...
Forget it then; we'll never see these in the US, what with the senseless of our WAR ON DRUGS!!!!
Humans live better, longer and with less health issues when breathing a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere - unpolluted with CO emissions and such other byproducts (regardless of which are possible causes of global warming)
Did you mean "unpolluted by CO2 emissions"? Because I don't want to breathe much carbon monoxide either. (And, fortunately, I don't.)If you did, though, please consider! The Earth's atmosphere already has billions of tons of carbon dioxide. Human emissions have increased this some, and this increase may or may not be Bad and Cause Global Warming, but calling CO2 "pollution" is like calling the ocean "polluted with salt".
CO2 is there. Naturally. In far, far greater quantities than Man ever put there.
Beware the terms of service. I have an 'unlimited' account. By Unlimited, they mean Unlimited Web Browsing and Email. Anything else is theoretically Not Allowed. Streaming music, fancy downloads, things like that: no. How do they detect not-web-browsing activity? Well, they figure that if you use more than 5GB of data in a month that's Downloading and Streaming Stuff.
So, Unlimited = 5GB, and you can forget about BitTorrenting any Linux .isos (or anything remotely big like that) or tuning in to Pandora or using iTunes. If you're okay with that.... well then, fun fun fun fun.
The proposals and attempts at quantum computing are based on predictions made using quantum theory. But how well does quantum theory reflect reality? There is good reason to seriously question that, and by implication, question the fundamental feasibility of quantum computing.
Quantum mechanics encompasses a variety of related theories, and some of those are very solid indeed. Wave-particle duality, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, quantum state, interference, entanglement... These standbys of quantum computing are going nowhere. The underlying causes and specifics of energy states of hydrogen atoms that they predict may not yet be completely understood, but there's more than enough right now to build a few quantum number-crunchers off of.Simply can't be destroyed because it's a machine? Man, I wish my machines worked like that. I'd still have my old laptop.
Fortunately for the world, given the state of the art (and certain fundamental limitation of Physics) the "grey goo" ultra-fear is utter baloney. Furthermore, if a more biological-like threat arose, it will need to compete with the already-pervasive goo we call Life (fraught with bacteria as it is) and even then, if you'll ask anyone with allergies, you will find that there are plenty of things that are not alive that the immune system is willing to attack.
What you reallyneed to worry about is a bunch of environmental accumulation of icky tiny nanotubes and such that get in your food supply, like mercury in fish, because nothing metabolizes them.