Wow. So let me get this straight - the purpose of computers in schools isn't to teach kids the greatest and broadest amount of skills (which would translate to having a wide and broad assortment of OS's and applications), it is instead to re-inforce your particular subjective opinion as to which OS is better and not allow them to learn anything else, even at the expense of their education or ability to make a decent living for themselves after graduation.
OK, got it. You realize this makes you just as evil as MS. More so, in fact, because students locked into Windows and Office environments have a distinct advantage in the hireability department for non-high-level-tech jobs, which is to say, for most of them.
School is for learning. Like I said before, Unix is great for kids who want to be developers or sysadmins. For average, everyday students, students who are going to wind up working as insurance actuaries, journalists, or restaurant managers, an intimate knowledge of the minutae kernel development is simply not required. Knowing how to prepare a report in Word, a chart in Excel, or a presentation in PowerPoint is.
Excellent point. Of course, this would only be possible if the schools hadn't signed a contract with either MS or Apple stating that they'd run their systems exclusively.
*Sigh*... you must not have read the part of my post where I said that Unix, Mac and Windows machines should all be available to students. Thanks for posting without reading the whole thing. I appreciate it.
Allow me to clarify. For every three Winboxen or Apples now operating in exclusivity, there should be one of each. Obviously I wasn't advocating schools buying 3X the computers they would need. It doesn't have to be split into exact thirds, either. I think it's fair to say that at the pre-college level, at most 20% of kids would be interested in *x, at most 30% in Apple. I just think we shouldn't force them to conentrate on only learning one system.
" 1. the article is dealing with the united kingdom"
That's an awful lot of characters used just to say RTFM. Guilty as charged. The points I was trying to make remain valid no matter what country it's in. Competition is good. Students learning more than one OS is good. And when it somes to monopolizing entire school districts, Microsoft is very late to Apple's game.
"2. students aren't paying for the computers, e.g., no market"
"regardless of whether you're using a windows, mac, or linux machine today, there's an enormous amount of free software available for all those platforms. today's students certainly aren't stuck developing in basic like they were 15 years ago."
Wow. What's up, fanboy. You make it sound like there's the same, or even a comparable, amount of free software for all three. There most certainly is not. Enormous is a very subjective term. Care to quantify it?
And, speaking strictly for myself, the only reason we were stuck having nothing but BASIC to program in is because our district saw fit to sign a contract with Apple that we wouldn't use any competing systems. And before the ink was dry, Apple decided to stick us with the crappiest of the crap.
Dude, pass some of whatever you've been smoking this way. Like I said elsewhere, I'm far from the president of the MS fan club, but anybody who gets any low- to mid-level job anywhere is going to be sitting in front of a Winbox and needs to know how to use it. Sure, Linux would be great to teach to kids who know at age 10 they want to be developers or sysadmins, but the average person working the average job is *gonna* be on Windows. It's unfortunate, but it's the truth. I was a production support analyst and mainframe operator for a Fortune 500 company, and guess how we interfaced with the AS/400's and mainframe? Using a terminal program running on a windows XP box.
The fact of the matter is that people who are very familiar with Windows and Office - not love it, mind you, but know how to use it with some degree of expertise - have an advantage in the job market over people who don't. Sad but true.
"Now if only the government wasn't insistent on locking schools into using Microsoft in arguably illegal ways."
So it was OK for my city's entire public school system and library system to lock me into using Apples all the way up until my senior year, but it's not OK to lock people into using Windows? Apple has long been known for educational discounts in exchange for school systems agreeing to use Apple exclusively and pressure their students into buying them. It happened to many friends of mine and almost happened to me.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not the president of the MS fan club or anything, but I gotta say it was really really annoying having to be programming in nothing but BASIC on IIgs's in 1991. I was overjoyed when our school was the chosen pilot for the PC program - I learned a lot more about computers a lot more quickly.
That said, locking students into any one system is bad. I say, have a Mac, a Winbox, and linux box all running side by side and let the students decide which one they want to use. Let them, to coin a phrase, compete in the marketplace of ideas. Isn't competition the American way?
When the original item, physical in this case, is gone and the owner is deprived of its posession, that is theft.
When the original is exactly where it was and an inexact, highly filtered and compressed copy is created remotely, that might be copyright infringement. Then again, it might not.
What you hyper-moralistic buffoons never remember is that Congress passed a law which specifically authorized people who buy media to make imperfect copies of it and distribute them to their friends. It was called the "mixtape law". Where do you think all those mp3's floating around the P2P universe came from? They were ripped from CD's that were bought at stores. In other words, somebody who bought the media made imperfect copies of it and distributed them to their friends.
"He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation."
Scares YOU? I'm the one the black helicopters will be swooping down on when free expression is finally equated to terrorism (don't worry, it won't be long).
"You're most likely going to have to break a window to get in."
Nope. Glass cutters. You didn't hear a thing.
"My safe takes a key(with me)."
Rad! So while you're sleeping, I use my handy-dandy wire snippers or bolt cutters to remove the key from your body, open your safe, and add your super maximum awesome-o handgun to the list of things I'm going to successfully carry out of your house tonight.
Of course, it might be light a bullet or two. Those I'll leave with you.
"Nope, as you're rushing into my room"
Actually, as I was entering your room quietly, you were sleeping. You wake up and there's a gun pointed at your head. At this point a gun hidden under your pillow wouldn't help, much less one in a safe on the other side of the room.
This is called "me getting the drop on you."
"'I will not be an easy victim'"
Keep telling yourself that. I can guarantee you that, at some point in your life, you will be exactly that. I've seen drug dealers, pimps, and murderers with arsenals I'm sure even you would envy all be caught unawares and instantly overwhelmed. The only way you're going to be prepared to defend yourself with a handgun at all times, contrary to your protestations otherwise, is to live every second of your life - eating, sleeping, shitting and fucking - with a gun in your hand.
"IE I do things like glance at the back seat of my car before getting in."
a) how many times has there been anybody there?
b) say there's somebody there. And the second you look into your back seat and see him, you see he's also got a gun pointed right at your head. Now what? Now you hand over your wallet.
"Not true under all circumstances in some areas of the states."
Well, I tell ya what. Why don't you shoot somebody in the defense of your property, and then, assuming they let you have access to a computer in prison, write me back and let me know how it turned out for you.
"so mom shoots him. Or my father does."
With what? The guns they had in their hands at the moment this guy accosted you? No, I'm afraid the minute they reached for anything that wasn't wallet-shaped and in their back pockets Mr. Assailant unloaded on them, and now they're dead. And now comes the fun part: you have to live the rest of your life with the knowledge that they died defending not only you, but a seriously flawed and irrational ideology.
"Dogs are the security system"
Poisoned steaks, co-ordinated tasers, or trank darts (if I'm humane) or sniper rifles (if I'm not) at a distance. Somebody who really really wants to rob you is going to rob you, and there's nothing you can do about it if they're determined enough. Same thing for somebody who wants you dead. You best defense is not to delude yourself into thinking you can fight fire with fire. Once you're in the crosshairs, you can't. Your best defense is a) don't make enemies you can't deal with and b) hand over your wallet and beg them not to hurt you.
"I can protect myself from the last one"
OK, let's walk through this scenario. You're at a festival, there's a crowd of people all around you. Suddenly, a gun is pressed into your back at the same time as "make a sound and you're dead" are whispered in your ear. Your arm is twisted behind your back and in less than ten seconds you are maneuvered into a more secluded spot. What do you do?
Here's another one. You're out by yourself, walking down the street, minding your own business. You don't hear the guy sneak up behind you because he's wearing Air Jordans and there's a fair degree of ambient noise. Suddenly, a gun is in your back. What do you do?
[In Keanu Reeves voice] What do you do?
"I believe in holding to the high road."
Then I encourage you to do so. Killing people is wrong. It doesn't matter if it's in self-defense, it doesn't matter how much of an asshole they are or how much they deserve it. You are not the Dungeon Maste
Thank you thank you thank you for saying this. I've been repeating the same story over and over and it's good to see I'm not the only person here old enough to remember when it was illegal to copy a record you bought onto a cassette. Hell, consumer-grade tape recorders didn't exist! I remember the first tape recorder I ever saw, saying "gee, a record button... that's neat..." at the tender age of 7.
Hey all you pro-RIAA people - ever see an 8-track cartridge recorder? Ever wonder why not?
BWAAHAHAHAHAHA. Yeah. OK. I'm only there to rob your house, but fuck, why not. I'll be sportsmanlike and let you open your gun safe. Go ahead. Just make one move towards it while I've got my gun trained on you. Go ahead. Why, your hands are shaking so hard you could barely spin the dial even if I let you get that far. What's the matter?
Don't trust me?
Oh, that's rich. Thank you for this evening's entertainment. I hope you realize that in trying to refute his argument, you just totally proved it.
It's called "the drop", and when somebody gets it on you, it doesn't matter how many guns you have or what kind of bullets they use. You, like anybody else, are going to give them your wallet, ask them to please not hurt you, and wait for it all to be over so you can file your insurance claim.
I suppose you could always shoot him in the back, but then you'd be going to jail for a long time. Use of deadly force to protect property is strictly prohibited in the US. Once his back was turned you'd have a very hard time saying your life was in danger, and forensic experts are very very good at putting together the location of a gunshot wound with the location in the room of all the blood. Believe it or not, you're actually not smarter than the cops.
It doesn't matter that you think he's gonna avoid your house. It doesn't matter that you practice shooting or how well trained you are. It doesn't matter that you think the criminal is more afraid of you than a cop. It doesn't matter that England has more burglary. Those are just pretty little thoughts that you can think in your head - as you're handing over your wallet and asking him not to hurt you or your family.
In life, you have two choices - you can choose to be good and do right, lock your doors and windows, get a security system and a safe room, not live the ghetto, and take sensible precautions. But also accept that, occasionally, you will be victimized and be helpless to stop it, whether by unfair taxes, or illness and death, or a stock market crash, or a gun stuck in your back as you walk down the street on a saturday night. And find yourself on the upside of life more often than not.
Or, you could choose to be the bad guy, get caught up in the glamour of violence, keep telling yourself that the world is out to get you and it's only a matter of time until they do - and get the drop on others before they get the drop on you. And find yourself on the downside, again and again and again.
Choose your path. Because I've been on the business end of a handgun, I've run with Kings, I've driven getaway cars and I've seen people with their faces surgically fucking removed by shotgun blasts die in the street for nothing more than shit-talking about the wrong person. Because with all your hypothesizing, NRA statistic-quoting, and rationalization, I can tell you for a fact, sir, that you have shot exactly JACK SHIT in terms of human beings, and I can tell you exactly what you would do in a robbery situation where somebody got the drop on you, "firethorn."
You're asking me to prove a negative. Thanks but no thanks. You're going to have to pay me for that kind of entertainment.
If you don't think that human reflexes exist today because, at some point in the past, they were survival mechanisms, then I really don't feel the need to discuss the issue. Believe what you want, but understand that that's all it is - BELIEF.
"The astronauts have many backgrounds, and these days very few of them ever worked as test pilots"
I was getting the shuttle confused with Apollo, I think.
That doesnt't change the fact that they were aware of the risk going in and chose to accept it.
"and flying on the space shuttle is the most dangerous thing they have ever done in their lives."
Actually that would probably be driving while talking on a cell phone, which is statistically indistinguishable from driving drunk. I have a hard time accepting that somebody who's qualified to decide for themselves that they'd like to, say, go to McMurdo for a year or two, a situation which involves a considerable amount of risk everytime they go outside, isn't qualified to decide to be a shuttle astronaut.
"and I think it's basically impossible to set any concrete criteria of "mission viability"
"It doesn't matter what goes wrong--we can just try again."
And pay for the robot again, which is exactly what the anti-science neocons will bitch about.
"fundamentally flawed because of the support overhead."
Funny you should mention support overhead. 7.4 million dollars per hour. That's some support overhead. Not a one-time expenditure of one billion to fix something that would otherwise continue functioning for another 15 years. Not to mention that in the mission of preserving humanity's existence against the threat of asteroid or comet collision, superatmospheric astronomy is a mission-critical tool.
I support the use of unmanned spaceflight whenever it would meet the exact same set of goals as manned. But if the mission requires flexibility, quick response time, or creative problem solving, then that mission is a bad one to be completely automated. I think machines could be very very useful in space, just not in all place or for all purposes. Man is still the best machine there is.
"In terms of acquiring scientific data, you simply don't need tons of food and oxygen."
Right, which is why Hubble doesn't have any, nor did Voyager, nor any other strictly information gathering tool. But there are some things you need humans for, and there are humans ready, able, and willing to fill these roles, and to balk at a task because it is difficult is not only counter-productive to the point of obstructionism, it's simply un-American.
We choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
"they have a reward function that they try to maximize, but certainly it's not anything like that capricious human thing we call "motivation" (which is actually a very good thing)."
The reward function in human beings is called the limbic system. Ever heard of dopamine?
It's not imagination. It's natural selection. It's been the general consensus for some time in the scientific community that most things that humans have reflexes for are things that enabled them to survive better than those that didn't have them. IE, humans with high limbic responses for sex tended to have more offspring, humans who reflexively jerked their hands out of fire (because the impulse to jerk said hand came from the spine and not the brain, cutting down on response time to stimulus) tended to live longer, and therefore have more offspring, than those who didn't, etc etc.
"what needs do the robots have? Why should they try to improve upon themselves?"
Because they've been programmed to, presumably. Our emotions, limbic system, and nervous system are nothing more than very low-level instruction sets to force us to behave in a certain manner in response to certain stimuli. I imagine that for a robot, not following a programmed instruction would be about as possible as a human's knee not flexing when hit with a hammer. It's just a reflex.
This is all assuming that these robots have the ability to alter their own code, I'm not sure that's the case.
"There is nothing inherently better about a space-based scope for spotting asteroids."
Sure there is, it doesn't have to squint up through a bunch of atmosphere.
There was just a thing on the Science channel last night about this. They're systematically cataloging threat-sized objects in order of biggest to smallest. And the better (and higher) the telescope, the easier it is to see smaller and smaller asteroids at a distance. They specifically mentioned the Hubble and it's proposed replacement as being invaluble for this task.
It must be true, it was on TV!:)
"something which many governments still haven't taken seriously."
I've had it before. It's boring and the two sides really should just agree to disagree. That said here's my $.02:
a) manned space missions have a higher risk. they also have a higher reward.
b) every shuttle pilot/astronaut ever (except for Krista McAuliffe) were trained test pilots. They had taken risks much greater than this in the course of being test pilots.
c) Every person ever lost in a space accident was well aware of the risks and chose to accept them. To say that they are not capable of making that decision, and that we should just terminate any and all manned spaceflight based on what YOU consider an unacceptable level of risk, not only disgracefully dishonors their service and sacrifice, but also their decision making ability. And for anybody to question the decision making ability of test pilots and astronauts from their slashdot armchair makes me physically nauseous.
d) when we've made anywhere near the quantity of manned spaceflights as we have commercial airline flights, you'll have a right to bitch about shuttles not being as safe as airplanes. Practice makes perfect, and we haven't had anywhere near as much practice at manned spaceflight as we have commercial air travel.
e) unmanned spaceflight, whenever it would serve the needs of the mission and the needs of science just as well as a manned mission, is an alternative that should be pursued. This alternative should be immediately abandoned if it ever impacts mission viability.
f) should we likewise abolish all fire departments and tell firemen they don't have the right to take a dangerous job that they believe needs to be done just because that job is risky? Fighting fires is a job that needs doing. So is scientific research and superatmospheric astronomy.
g) We're very overdue for a major impact disaster from an asteroid or comet. When, not if, this occurs, the only warning we'll have to all move to Kansas won't come from ground-based telescopes - it will come from space-based ones, which need to be serviced by manned spaceflight.
h) america, from the cotton gin to the internal combustion engine to the atomic bomb to the polio vaccine to the microchip, has been ever based on scientific evidence and rational thought. Our superiority in the marketplace of world governments has not been maintained by our security staff alone, but mainly by our incredibly effective R&D department. This is one of many things that make me fiercely proud to be American. And for self-proclaimed "conservatives" to toe this knee-jerk anti-science line is about as clear a declaration of intent to sacrifice everything that's ever made America great as one could ever hope to see (or dread seeing, in my case). Next you'll be trying to dismantle checks and balances... oh wait...
Slashdot Mirror
Wow. So let me get this straight - the purpose of computers in schools isn't to teach kids the greatest and broadest amount of skills (which would translate to having a wide and broad assortment of OS's and applications), it is instead to re-inforce your particular subjective opinion as to which OS is better and not allow them to learn anything else, even at the expense of their education or ability to make a decent living for themselves after graduation.
OK, got it. You realize this makes you just as evil as MS. More so, in fact, because students locked into Windows and Office environments have a distinct advantage in the hireability department for non-high-level-tech jobs, which is to say, for most of them.
School is for learning. Like I said before, Unix is great for kids who want to be developers or sysadmins. For average, everyday students, students who are going to wind up working as insurance actuaries, journalists, or restaurant managers, an intimate knowledge of the minutae kernel development is simply not required. Knowing how to prepare a report in Word, a chart in Excel, or a presentation in PowerPoint is.
Excellent point. Of course, this would only be possible if the schools hadn't signed a contract with either MS or Apple stating that they'd run their systems exclusively.
*Sigh*... you must not have read the part of my post where I said that Unix, Mac and Windows machines should all be available to students. Thanks for posting without reading the whole thing. I appreciate it.
Allow me to clarify. For every three Winboxen or Apples now operating in exclusivity, there should be one of each. Obviously I wasn't advocating schools buying 3X the computers they would need. It doesn't have to be split into exact thirds, either. I think it's fair to say that at the pre-college level, at most 20% of kids would be interested in *x, at most 30% in Apple. I just think we shouldn't force them to conentrate on only learning one system.
" 1. the article is dealing with the united kingdom"
That's an awful lot of characters used just to say RTFM. Guilty as charged. The points I was trying to make remain valid no matter what country it's in. Competition is good. Students learning more than one OS is good. And when it somes to monopolizing entire school districts, Microsoft is very late to Apple's game.
"2. students aren't paying for the computers, e.g., no market"
Marketplace of ideas.
"regardless of whether you're using a windows, mac, or linux machine today, there's an enormous amount of free software available for all those platforms. today's students certainly aren't stuck developing in basic like they were 15 years ago."
Wow. What's up, fanboy. You make it sound like there's the same, or even a comparable, amount of free software for all three. There most certainly is not. Enormous is a very subjective term. Care to quantify it?
And, speaking strictly for myself, the only reason we were stuck having nothing but BASIC to program in is because our district saw fit to sign a contract with Apple that we wouldn't use any competing systems. And before the ink was dry, Apple decided to stick us with the crappiest of the crap.
"Windows and Office are anachronisms"
Dude, pass some of whatever you've been smoking this way. Like I said elsewhere, I'm far from the president of the MS fan club, but anybody who gets any low- to mid-level job anywhere is going to be sitting in front of a Winbox and needs to know how to use it. Sure, Linux would be great to teach to kids who know at age 10 they want to be developers or sysadmins, but the average person working the average job is *gonna* be on Windows. It's unfortunate, but it's the truth. I was a production support analyst and mainframe operator for a Fortune 500 company, and guess how we interfaced with the AS/400's and mainframe? Using a terminal program running on a windows XP box.
The fact of the matter is that people who are very familiar with Windows and Office - not love it, mind you, but know how to use it with some degree of expertise - have an advantage in the job market over people who don't. Sad but true.
"Now if only the government wasn't insistent on locking schools into using Microsoft in arguably illegal ways."
So it was OK for my city's entire public school system and library system to lock me into using Apples all the way up until my senior year, but it's not OK to lock people into using Windows? Apple has long been known for educational discounts in exchange for school systems agreeing to use Apple exclusively and pressure their students into buying them. It happened to many friends of mine and almost happened to me.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not the president of the MS fan club or anything, but I gotta say it was really really annoying having to be programming in nothing but BASIC on IIgs's in 1991. I was overjoyed when our school was the chosen pilot for the PC program - I learned a lot more about computers a lot more quickly.
That said, locking students into any one system is bad. I say, have a Mac, a Winbox, and linux box all running side by side and let the students decide which one they want to use. Let them, to coin a phrase, compete in the marketplace of ideas. Isn't competition the American way?
sometimes I hate ASCII. BTW, you forgot your /sarcasm tags.
"You mean Physical Property Infringement, bucko!"
When the original item, physical in this case, is gone and the owner is deprived of its posession, that is theft.
When the original is exactly where it was and an inexact, highly filtered and compressed copy is created remotely, that might be copyright infringement. Then again, it might not.
What you hyper-moralistic buffoons never remember is that Congress passed a law which specifically authorized people who buy media to make imperfect copies of it and distribute them to their friends. It was called the "mixtape law". Where do you think all those mp3's floating around the P2P universe came from? They were ripped from CD's that were bought at stores. In other words, somebody who bought the media made imperfect copies of it and distributed them to their friends.
"He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation."
- Thomas Jefferson
Why, you don't hate America, do you?
"I want the old US back."
Speaking as an American citizen, me too.
"This new one scares me"
Scares YOU? I'm the one the black helicopters will be swooping down on when free expression is finally equated to terrorism (don't worry, it won't be long).
"You're most likely going to have to break a window to get in."
Nope. Glass cutters. You didn't hear a thing.
"My safe takes a key(with me)."
Rad! So while you're sleeping, I use my handy-dandy wire snippers or bolt cutters to remove the key from your body, open your safe, and add your super maximum awesome-o handgun to the list of things I'm going to successfully carry out of your house tonight.
Of course, it might be light a bullet or two. Those I'll leave with you.
"Nope, as you're rushing into my room"
Actually, as I was entering your room quietly, you were sleeping. You wake up and there's a gun pointed at your head. At this point a gun hidden under your pillow wouldn't help, much less one in a safe on the other side of the room.
This is called "me getting the drop on you."
"'I will not be an easy victim'"
Keep telling yourself that. I can guarantee you that, at some point in your life, you will be exactly that. I've seen drug dealers, pimps, and murderers with arsenals I'm sure even you would envy all be caught unawares and instantly overwhelmed. The only way you're going to be prepared to defend yourself with a handgun at all times, contrary to your protestations otherwise, is to live every second of your life - eating, sleeping, shitting and fucking - with a gun in your hand.
"IE I do things like glance at the back seat of my car before getting in."
a) how many times has there been anybody there?
b) say there's somebody there. And the second you look into your back seat and see him, you see he's also got a gun pointed right at your head. Now what? Now you hand over your wallet.
"Not true under all circumstances in some areas of the states."
Well, I tell ya what. Why don't you shoot somebody in the defense of your property, and then, assuming they let you have access to a computer in prison, write me back and let me know how it turned out for you.
"so mom shoots him. Or my father does."
With what? The guns they had in their hands at the moment this guy accosted you? No, I'm afraid the minute they reached for anything that wasn't wallet-shaped and in their back pockets Mr. Assailant unloaded on them, and now they're dead. And now comes the fun part: you have to live the rest of your life with the knowledge that they died defending not only you, but a seriously flawed and irrational ideology.
"Dogs are the security system"
Poisoned steaks, co-ordinated tasers, or trank darts (if I'm humane) or sniper rifles (if I'm not) at a distance. Somebody who really really wants to rob you is going to rob you, and there's nothing you can do about it if they're determined enough. Same thing for somebody who wants you dead. You best defense is not to delude yourself into thinking you can fight fire with fire. Once you're in the crosshairs, you can't. Your best defense is a) don't make enemies you can't deal with and b) hand over your wallet and beg them not to hurt you.
"I can protect myself from the last one"
OK, let's walk through this scenario. You're at a festival, there's a crowd of people all around you. Suddenly, a gun is pressed into your back at the same time as "make a sound and you're dead" are whispered in your ear. Your arm is twisted behind your back and in less than ten seconds you are maneuvered into a more secluded spot. What do you do?
Here's another one. You're out by yourself, walking down the street, minding your own business. You don't hear the guy sneak up behind you because he's wearing Air Jordans and there's a fair degree of ambient noise. Suddenly, a gun is in your back. What do you do?
[In Keanu Reeves voice] What do you do?
"I believe in holding to the high road."
Then I encourage you to do so. Killing people is wrong. It doesn't matter if it's in self-defense, it doesn't matter how much of an asshole they are or how much they deserve it. You are not the Dungeon Maste
Once again, I'm not going to try to prove a universal negative to you. Quit asking me to.
Thank you thank you thank you for saying this. I've been repeating the same story over and over and it's good to see I'm not the only person here old enough to remember when it was illegal to copy a record you bought onto a cassette. Hell, consumer-grade tape recorders didn't exist! I remember the first tape recorder I ever saw, saying "gee, a record button... that's neat..." at the tender age of 7.
Hey all you pro-RIAA people - ever see an 8-track cartridge recorder? Ever wonder why not?
"Give me a minute"
BWAAHAHAHAHAHA. Yeah. OK. I'm only there to rob your house, but fuck, why not. I'll be sportsmanlike and let you open your gun safe. Go ahead. Just make one move towards it while I've got my gun trained on you. Go ahead. Why, your hands are shaking so hard you could barely spin the dial even if I let you get that far. What's the matter?
Don't trust me?
Oh, that's rich. Thank you for this evening's entertainment. I hope you realize that in trying to refute his argument, you just totally proved it.
It's called "the drop", and when somebody gets it on you, it doesn't matter how many guns you have or what kind of bullets they use. You, like anybody else, are going to give them your wallet, ask them to please not hurt you, and wait for it all to be over so you can file your insurance claim.
I suppose you could always shoot him in the back, but then you'd be going to jail for a long time. Use of deadly force to protect property is strictly prohibited in the US. Once his back was turned you'd have a very hard time saying your life was in danger, and forensic experts are very very good at putting together the location of a gunshot wound with the location in the room of all the blood. Believe it or not, you're actually not smarter than the cops.
It doesn't matter that you think he's gonna avoid your house. It doesn't matter that you practice shooting or how well trained you are. It doesn't matter that you think the criminal is more afraid of you than a cop. It doesn't matter that England has more burglary. Those are just pretty little thoughts that you can think in your head - as you're handing over your wallet and asking him not to hurt you or your family.
In life, you have two choices - you can choose to be good and do right, lock your doors and windows, get a security system and a safe room, not live the ghetto, and take sensible precautions. But also accept that, occasionally, you will be victimized and be helpless to stop it, whether by unfair taxes, or illness and death, or a stock market crash, or a gun stuck in your back as you walk down the street on a saturday night. And find yourself on the upside of life more often than not.
Or, you could choose to be the bad guy, get caught up in the glamour of violence, keep telling yourself that the world is out to get you and it's only a matter of time until they do - and get the drop on others before they get the drop on you. And find yourself on the downside, again and again and again.
Choose your path. Because I've been on the business end of a handgun, I've run with Kings, I've driven getaway cars and I've seen people with their faces surgically fucking removed by shotgun blasts die in the street for nothing more than shit-talking about the wrong person. Because with all your hypothesizing, NRA statistic-quoting, and rationalization, I can tell you for a fact, sir, that you have shot exactly JACK SHIT in terms of human beings, and I can tell you exactly what you would do in a robbery situation where somebody got the drop on you, "firethorn."
You would hand over. Your fucking. Wallet.
You're asking me to prove a negative. Thanks but no thanks. You're going to have to pay me for that kind of entertainment.
If you don't think that human reflexes exist today because, at some point in the past, they were survival mechanisms, then I really don't feel the need to discuss the issue. Believe what you want, but understand that that's all it is - BELIEF.
"The astronauts have many backgrounds, and these days very few of them ever worked as test pilots"
I was getting the shuttle confused with Apollo, I think.
That doesnt't change the fact that they were aware of the risk going in and chose to accept it.
"and flying on the space shuttle is the most dangerous thing they have ever done in their lives."
Actually that would probably be driving while talking on a cell phone, which is statistically indistinguishable from driving drunk. I have a hard time accepting that somebody who's qualified to decide for themselves that they'd like to, say, go to McMurdo for a year or two, a situation which involves a considerable amount of risk everytime they go outside, isn't qualified to decide to be a shuttle astronaut.
"and I think it's basically impossible to set any concrete criteria of "mission viability"
Well, NASA seems to disagree with you. I suggest you take it up with them.
"It doesn't matter what goes wrong--we can just try again."
And pay for the robot again, which is exactly what the anti-science neocons will bitch about.
"fundamentally flawed because of the support overhead."
Funny you should mention support overhead. 7.4 million dollars per hour. That's some support overhead. Not a one-time expenditure of one billion to fix something that would otherwise continue functioning for another 15 years. Not to mention that in the mission of preserving humanity's existence against the threat of asteroid or comet collision, superatmospheric astronomy is a mission-critical tool.
I support the use of unmanned spaceflight whenever it would meet the exact same set of goals as manned. But if the mission requires flexibility, quick response time, or creative problem solving, then that mission is a bad one to be completely automated. I think machines could be very very useful in space, just not in all place or for all purposes. Man is still the best machine there is.
"In terms of acquiring scientific data, you simply don't need tons of food and oxygen."
Right, which is why Hubble doesn't have any, nor did Voyager, nor any other strictly information gathering tool. But there are some things you need humans for, and there are humans ready, able, and willing to fill these roles, and to balk at a task because it is difficult is not only counter-productive to the point of obstructionism, it's simply un-American.
We choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
I hope the companies all stay the same. If it was legal to put in a book with a disclaimer, hopefully a movie will be no different.
"they have a reward function that they try to maximize, but certainly it's not anything like that capricious human thing we call "motivation" (which is actually a very good thing)."
The reward function in human beings is called the limbic system. Ever heard of dopamine?
It's not imagination. It's natural selection. It's been the general consensus for some time in the scientific community that most things that humans have reflexes for are things that enabled them to survive better than those that didn't have them. IE, humans with high limbic responses for sex tended to have more offspring, humans who reflexively jerked their hands out of fire (because the impulse to jerk said hand came from the spine and not the brain, cutting down on response time to stimulus) tended to live longer, and therefore have more offspring, than those who didn't, etc etc.
But it's built into it's positronic pathways... wait, what? Electronic? Never mind...
"what needs do the robots have? Why should they try to improve upon themselves?"
Because they've been programmed to, presumably. Our emotions, limbic system, and nervous system are nothing more than very low-level instruction sets to force us to behave in a certain manner in response to certain stimuli. I imagine that for a robot, not following a programmed instruction would be about as possible as a human's knee not flexing when hit with a hammer. It's just a reflex.
This is all assuming that these robots have the ability to alter their own code, I'm not sure that's the case.
The First Law would never allow that.
"There is nothing inherently better about a space-based scope for spotting asteroids."
:)
Sure there is, it doesn't have to squint up through a bunch of atmosphere.
There was just a thing on the Science channel last night about this. They're systematically cataloging threat-sized objects in order of biggest to smallest. And the better (and higher) the telescope, the easier it is to see smaller and smaller asteroids at a distance. They specifically mentioned the Hubble and it's proposed replacement as being invaluble for this task.
It must be true, it was on TV!
"something which many governments still haven't taken seriously."
And never will until it's too late, I'm afraid.
Except he posted anonymously.
I've had it before. It's boring and the two sides really should just agree to disagree. That said here's my $.02:
a) manned space missions have a higher risk. they also have a higher reward.
b) every shuttle pilot/astronaut ever (except for Krista McAuliffe) were trained test pilots. They had taken risks much greater than this in the course of being test pilots.
c) Every person ever lost in a space accident was well aware of the risks and chose to accept them. To say that they are not capable of making that decision, and that we should just terminate any and all manned spaceflight based on what YOU consider an unacceptable level of risk, not only disgracefully dishonors their service and sacrifice, but also their decision making ability. And for anybody to question the decision making ability of test pilots and astronauts from their slashdot armchair makes me physically nauseous.
d) when we've made anywhere near the quantity of manned spaceflights as we have commercial airline flights, you'll have a right to bitch about shuttles not being as safe as airplanes. Practice makes perfect, and we haven't had anywhere near as much practice at manned spaceflight as we have commercial air travel.
e) unmanned spaceflight, whenever it would serve the needs of the mission and the needs of science just as well as a manned mission, is an alternative that should be pursued. This alternative should be immediately abandoned if it ever impacts mission viability.
f) should we likewise abolish all fire departments and tell firemen they don't have the right to take a dangerous job that they believe needs to be done just because that job is risky? Fighting fires is a job that needs doing. So is scientific research and superatmospheric astronomy.
g) We're very overdue for a major impact disaster from an asteroid or comet. When, not if, this occurs, the only warning we'll have to all move to Kansas won't come from ground-based telescopes - it will come from space-based ones, which need to be serviced by manned spaceflight.
h) america, from the cotton gin to the internal combustion engine to the atomic bomb to the polio vaccine to the microchip, has been ever based on scientific evidence and rational thought. Our superiority in the marketplace of world governments has not been maintained by our security staff alone, but mainly by our incredibly effective R&D department. This is one of many things that make me fiercely proud to be American. And for self-proclaimed "conservatives" to toe this knee-jerk anti-science line is about as clear a declaration of intent to sacrifice everything that's ever made America great as one could ever hope to see (or dread seeing, in my case). Next you'll be trying to dismantle checks and balances... oh wait...