that's probably what happened, cuz this lady said she took a stab at the setup asst herself before I got there...
"You can use QuickTime Player to get bare bones CD playing"
I did not know that... I'm not a big mac guy, in case you couldn't tell, a friend of my mom's needed help and had nobody else to call, so I took a stab at it. And for my first time ever sitting down with osx in my life, I did OK. Just couldn't get macwrite installed on the new one cuz it had no floppy drive... the cocky bastards...
"The defaults are simple to change."
Not if you're, like my mom's friend, an average (read: computer-illiterate and rich) mac consumer. Then you just click OK-OK-I Agree-OK cuz you just want the damn thing to work. Or ir you're, like me (read mac-illiterate and poor) not intimately familiar with the ins and outs of osx, much less that quicktime plays CDs...
"If you don't mind my asking, what part of the agreement did you find so odious?"
Just the annoyance, really. I thought MS EULA's were annoying, at least they don't have one to play a stupid CD. There's no good reason for that.
I'm going out on a limb here to suggest that you read the posts from me and like 75 other people in this thread who all have the exact same experience regarding XP vs 98.
" Yes, and lots of older worms won't work on WinXP or 2k."
But the number of those older worms is VASTLY exceeded by the number of new, 2k/xp specific ones. VASTLY.
"Win2k and XP got rid of a lot of problems for people by leaving the 9x series kernel in hell."
They got rid of a few problems but managed to introduce hundreds more.
Have you ever used a patched, upgraded 98se/lite box? I got six months of uptime before the power went out.
I'll make you a deal. You take two boxes, put 98se/lite UNPATCHED on one, and XP UNPATCHED on the other, put 'em both on a broadband internet connection and you tell me which one gets infected inside 15 minutes. Hint: it won't be 98se/lite.
No disrespect, man, but if you had to reboot a 98se box every day it's cuz you're doing something wrong. This thread has been filled with people relating similar experienced to mine - having a 98se/lite box with SIX MONTHS of uptime. USB, wi-fi (hell, wi-fi is just a NIC like any other, you can have wi-fi in 95 if you want) and all other "modern niceties" you mentioned are readily available on my 98 box thanks to upgrade patches, maybe you've heard of those. They're the same things the XP users have to get three times a day to plug all their security holes.
"clean and stable"
XP is clean and stable?! Are you trying to be funny? Having worked intimately with every MS OS ever released since DOS 3, I can honestly say XP is the worst piece of shit I've ever seen in my life, from a user perspective. If it's low level internals are so much more clean and stable how come a) it CRAWLS (this would seem to belie "stable"), b) it's HUGE (this would seem to belie "clean"), c) it's more full of holes than target practice swiss cheese?
I'm not trying to be a dick, but seriously, what on Earth can you point to to back up this "clean and stable" nonsense? The thing is a massive kludge! Name any other OS ever whose average length of time until it's infected is FIFTEEN MINUTES!
And I wasn't karma whoring, in case you didn't notice my defense of 98se/lite got modded into oblivion by the *nix knee-jerkers around here... I'm no MS fan, they've done very very few things right ever, but 98se was one.
"and maybe even provide some fascimile of security"
HAHAHahahah, OK I get it, you ARE trying to be funny.
Terrible moderation seems to be the order of the day in this thread. I posted four observations on why 98se/lite works for lots of people and instantly it was at -1, overrated. I'd like to know how something that's on topic and already at 0 can possibly be overrated.
Funny thing is I'd wager none of those mods have any experience tweaking 98se/lite and have no idea how stable it can be.
My box hangs only when it overheats (which, when I'm running 13 different VSTi plugins, is more than I'd like, but I'm a cheap bastard and won't buy better fans, so that's my fault). But it never bluescreens. I once had a 98 box running apache with six months of uptime. Rebooted once when the power went out. If you don't have 98lite, I HIGHLY recommend it.
Well, yes and no. The way I always looked at it was that 98se/lite worked TOO WELL - so they released ME to break it. And as such, it performed admirably, hence no need for service packs...
Was it a NTFS partition? I've seen 2000 and XP just completely lose NTFS partitions literally over 30 times at my ex-job, and once on my machine. None of the MicroServices guys could get a decent answer from MS about why it happened. Never seemed to happen to FAT32 partitions, though...
But you know what's really cool about 98SE? It can still see my "missing" NTFS partition, allowing me to back everything up. While both 2000 and partitionmagic (under 98 even) are like, "drive F? There's no drive F, what are you talking about?" Open up windows explorer and it's all right there.
1) 98se, especially with 98lite installed and IE removed, *smokes* any other MS-windows based OS I've ever seen (and I've seen 'em all) in terms of performance. My machine crawls when I boot to the 2000 side, the 98 side is like *butter*, and I hardly ever have to reboot. Sure, the buttons aren't all round and bubbly, and there's no transparency support, but I have yet to find a single thing that I want to do that 98 won't support.
2) DOS-based (which is to say, 95, 98 and ME) OS's are not nearly as widely targeted by virus writers. The vast majority of new viruses target the 2k/XP/2k3 systems, for the simple reason that they're SOOOOO full of holes.
3) 95 and 98 (ME, eh, not so much) have been out long enough that 99% of the problems with them have been fixed. Of course, I wouldn't go to 98 until ME came out. My rule of thumb is go with whichever MS OS is the second most current one. That said, I still don't feel the burning need to upgrade to XP, and I doubt I ever will.
4) Like somebody already said, if it's not broke, and it's paid for, why change? Why waste money on the new version and then waste more money on the man-hours for MicroServices to install it, migrate everything, deal with all the users whining about where all their desktop wallpaper went, etc... just to wind up with a system that's ultimately slower and more vulnerable to attack?
Well, I don't remember if it was a TOS agreement, but the name of the window that popped up was "iTunes Music Store", not "iTunes player" or anything. I mean, for all the bitching I do about windows, at least cdplayer.exe doesn't make you click through a EULA just to play a damn CD - that's ridiculous. Just another example of Apple taking advantage of users who don't know any better than to click "OK - OK - I Agree - OK" without reading the fine print.
"BTW, welcome to the platform.:-)"
Yeah, no. I worked exclusively on a Mac from age 10 to age 17 just cuz it was the only platform MOTU professional composer ran on. At age 17 my folks got our first PC and within 6 months I was an total convert. And with God as my witness the only time I ever touch a Mac is when I'm being paid to do so. I could tell you so many horror stories about state-of-the-art Mac and ProTools rigs completely flaking out for no reason, with no error messages, at random times during very expensive studio sessions (and mind you these were brand new systems donated to the school by Apple and Digidesign) it would make your head spin.
They've come a long way, but they've got a long way to go. The main thing they need to do is stop being so cocky as to make massive assumptions about their users - like that they'll never need to copy old files from an old mac via floppy.
Yeah, the thing is, I was trying to migrate stuff on an old mac to this new one. Old one didn't have a CD burner or 1394. New one didn't have a floppy drive. All her software was on floppies. She didn't have a network and I didn't really want to drive 2 hours back to my house to grab a hub and drive 2 hours back, plus I don't know if the new one would even have worked with the "appletalk" that was the only network protocol I could find on the old one. So she wound up having to go out and buy a thumbdrive when she shouldn't have had to so we could copy the software floppies to the thumbdrive to install software on the new Mac. Then it turned out the floppy on the old mac didn't even work, so she was left with all these macwrite documents she couldn't fucking open, ever. She's a university professor and really needs some of those documents. I mean, how much would it have set Apple back to just put a floppy drive in the damn machine? Like five bucks? Don't they realize that a large proportion of their customers buy new macs cuz they want to maintain system continuity from their old ones?
When Apple ASSUMES, they make an ASS of U and ME. And Apple assumes a LOT.
Well, I'm not a mac-hater (anymore) or anything, but I couldn't help but notice that in order to PLAY A CD on a new iMac you had to agree to the ITMS license agreement. I really don't understand why I had to agree to a license agreement with an online store when a) I wasn't online and b) all I was trying to do was PLAY A CD! A storebought one, even!
So don't get too smug just yet... (don't even get me started on it not having a floppy drive)
"DRM breaks current copyright legeslation if it doesn't use a key escrow to release it into the public domain. (yes things are currently released into the public domain when they fall out of copyright)"
Somebody PLEASE mod this up... The most insightful DRM-related post I've seen in weeks...
You have chosen not to cite any links or references to support your position, leading me to the inescapable conclusion that you can find none to support it. "Evidence: It did not." is not a statement of evidence, it is an unsupported assertion until you actually provide evidence. Neither would it be evidence were I to assert the sky is ornage, then back it up with the statement "evidence: the sky is orange." You saying something, no matter how many times you repeat it, doesn't qualify as evidence unless you've been sworn in as a witness in a court of law, making you subject to perjury should your statements turn out to be false. If you do manage to come up with some actual evidence, in any form, be it books, online data or documents, or interviews with relevant people from the time, or any other form of information, please do get back to me - I'm actually interested in expanding my knowledge, including when I turn out to be wrong. But until then, your self-referential (or is that self-reverential?) and circular view of evidence and unwillingness to do even the most basic research into your positions, your poor understanding of English definitions and sentences, your inability to read even the entirity of my posts let alone the data or documents I cite, and your inability to keep coherent track of who made what statements in response to whom in the course of our dialogue leave me no choice but to conclude that you are incapable of debate or discussion at any level that could be called adult or informed.
Too bad, really, I was hoping that I'd come out of this discourse with some bit of knowledge that I didn't have before. But the only thing I've learned is that you appear to be extremely capable of making assumptions and assertions, and extremely incapable of backing them up with anything at all other than sheer repitition. In our dozens of posts I've cited several links to relevant documents that directly contradict your assertions, you've cited exactly none to support them. This speaks volumes to your aversion to honest, elucidatory discussion of actual issues; you appear to want only to repeat your (faulty) assumptions over and over again and attempt to distract me from their lack of support with semantic games.
Absent any presentation of evidence beyond repeated assertions and assumptions by you, this discussion is over. Reply if you want, if it'll make you feel that you're "getting the last word", as if that means anything. Unless you provide one tiny little smidgeon, one teensy-tiny iota of actual evidence, I'm done replying to anything you have to say, since it's more than likely just more repitition of something which has almost certainly already been dispensed with by me.
More semantic games, whoopie. What a surprise. At least this one's shorter. A few things first, though.
a) I can't help but notice you have chosen not to cite any instances of my referring to altitude as the sole factor needed to obtain orbit. Too bad, photos of my eating my hat would have been really entertaining.
b) I also can't help but notice that for somebody doing some complaining about how unfair the English language is to NASA and the military, there's still no entry in the wiki for the word "operational", by you or anyone else. If you're so convinced the word means what you (or NASA) think it means, why don't you start a wiki entry instead of telling me how wrong I am for not psychically intuiting the context in which you were using it?
c) your assumption that manned spaceflight was not an intended purpose of the X-15 is simply incorrect. Here are links to two NASA pages, one entitled "Hypersonic research at the edge of space" and the other entitled "transiting from air to space" (which states, among many other interesting things which you apparently haven't read, that "To simulate accurately the reentry profile of a returning winged spacecraft, the X-15 had to fly at angles of attack of at least 17"). The fact that NASA says this in the titles of it's documents as well as in the contents indicate clearly that it was the intended purpose of the X-15 to fly as fast and as high as possible, up to and including spaceflight, and to gather as much information about those flights as possible. The following line is a direct quote from the official NASA X-15 research results: "Not only has it doubled the speed of piloted flight; it has prepared the way for non-orbiting flight into space." Still don't think this speaks to purpose? Here's another direct quote: "In the third, and current, phase the X-15 airplanes are being used more as research tools than research craft. This new role includes carrying scientific experiments above the atmosphere-shrouded Earth into regions no satellite or rocket can usefully explore." You're wrong about America's approach to manned spaceflight prior to Sputnik (my favorite line: "Indeed, winged spaceflight has a long theoretical tradition that dates back well before Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite, was ever launched in 1957") and you're wrong about the X-15. Period. And I dare you to cite one single link that will prove me wrong.
The rest of this post will deal exclusively with your semantic games.
"I said "lead to manned spaceflight". You said "acheived spaceflight". Not the same thing."
At the moment at which space flight was achieved, and there were previous steps that had been taken, as a part of the program, before that moment without which spaceflight wouldn't have taken place, those previous steps in the program led to spaceflight, whether you admit it or not. You appear to be saying that the fact that the X-15 achieved spaceflight was accidental, since you are saying it wasn't the purpose for the program or any of it's flights (when in reality it was a significant part of both).
"What do so-called communities have to do this?"
Well, seeing as how you were the one who said, and once again I quote verbatim from a post you made, "The terms experimental, developmental and operational have specific meanings within NASA and the defense community", why don't you tell me, since you were the one who thought that the use of the word "operational" in a beaurocratic context as applied to systems design was somehow germane to a semantic diversion that you started, and I used the word "community" only in response to your post?
"A representative answers not only to the people, but to special interest groups. Groups which, as entities, can not vote, and would normally have no vote were it not for the representative. However, these entities do have a voice in congress because of the representative, and this dilutes the will of the people."
This is unfortunate, but as long as SCOTUS thinks money is the same thing as speech, then this will continue to be the case. It does suck, though.
"If we're going to pretend that representatives are actually trying to give constituents what they want, I'd much rather have a direct democracy than a representative democracy."
I'm down, let's do it. The problem then becomes how to implement it. The most likely solution would be one heavily involving technology, and we saw how well that went with the voting machines. I'd be all in favor of a direct democracy if I wasn't 99% sure that the end result would somehow be perverted into something worse than what we have now.
"No, they aren't. But, on the whole, people are mostly selfish. I think the Bill Gateses are more prevalent than the Mother Theresas. Greed is more common than altruism."
Well, you do know even Bill Gates gives away billions a year in charity through the Gates foundation. Not to say that his bad doesn't outweigh his good, but just to point out that there's some good in there somewhere, even if it is just to get a tax break.
"Together, we are stronger than we are alone."
Right, but part of that banding together means that in exchange for me protecting you from wolves one day, you get to protect me from them tomorrow. So it's not a purely selfish motive that we have, it's a cooperative one, which is only party selfish. A purely selfish motive would make somebody say "I'm gonna get the biggest gun just so *I* don't get eaten by wolves and everybody else can fend for themselves." And as soon as the ammunition ran out, that person would be dead. Most things in life are a blend of yin and yang.
"And I think it is evident that we are fending for ourselves and screwing everybody else. SCO? Microsoft? Heck, the most selfish political party we have is currently running America. We invaded Iraq for no good reason, getting over fifteen hundred of our own people killed and killing at least sixteen thousand Iraqis, and then re-elected the guy who did it."
But the game's not over yet, there's still plenty of time for us to get our just comeuppance and trot back to the global community with our tail between our legs.
"Just because they were totalitarian does not mean that they weren't communist."
Hmm. Well, I gotta admit I do see Communism and totalitarianism as mutually exclusive. It's hard to say it's all about the workers and the people when you're enforcing totalitarian rule, which by nature exaggerates the importance of a dictator. For what it's worth, I also see Democracy (REAL democracy) and totalitarianism as mutually exclusive also.
"My real point is that, because people are selfish, communism fails."
Not all communist societies have completely failed. Cuba's not showing any signs of abandoning Communism, even after having their economic balls handed to them. Neither is North Korea. Although I would hasten to point out that I don't consider either of those states to be shining examples of what real Communism is supposed to be. NK is definately totalitarian and Cuba is pretty close.
"but the dream of communism doesn't provide enough instant gratification to keep the system running.
"Capitalisms of any sort have a much higher chance of survival than communisms. It isn't the "totalitarian" that brings them down, it is the "communism"."
As pertains to the 20th century, would completely agree. But I feel very uncomfortable projecting those trends onto the future with any certainty.
"There are a number of totalitarian capitalist states in the world, but very few communisms of any type."
"Your comments about using winged space vehicels implied that gaining altitude was the only requirement for achieving orbit."
That you read this into it in no way changes the fact that that's not what I said. Try dealing with what people actually say instead of what you think they're implying. If you can cite anything that I said along the lines of "altitude is all you need to achive orbit" I'll cheerfully eat my hat - though by rights I should be requiring you to cite three examples, since I cited three example of me saying exactly the opposite which you apparently ignored.
"I'm agnostic about how we reach LEO."
Then we agree.
"The X-15 program was not intended to lead to manned spaceflight."
So you *are* saying it acheived spaceflight accidentally.
"If you strap a rocket underneath an aircraft and launch it at 50,000 feet, that, obviously, is not a dead start nor is it from Earth's surface."
Yeah, that's what I said.
"The terms experimental, developmental and operational have specific meanings within NASA and the defense community."
Sure, and were everybody on Slashdot and participating in this *public forum* a member of said two communities, you could be forgiven for adhering strictly to those definitions, even absent your abject refusal to acknowledge those terms as the beaurocratic designation you just admitted they are, oh, about fifteen posts back. But since we're not, that means you are expecting the overwhelming majority of english-speaking people to confirm to a little-known definition used by specific (and very small) subcommunities, an expectation which is inherently impractical and unrealistic. Whether or not you are a member of one of those two communities (and I suspect that you are, and somehow I have a hunch which one) in no was excuses you from the responsibility of communicating according to the rules of the language you choose to converse in. One of those rules is that words have definitions, and they're set down in a dictionary. If you choose not to acknowledge the english dictionary as a definitive resource for english discussions, you have two options - a) hop on over to the wiki and start the definition there for "operational", as yet none exists there, this is your chance to make sure the dictionary includes NASA/Military's definition of this word there; b) stop trying to communicate with anybody in English since you appear to have no intention of playing by the rules.
"regardless of what some dictionary might say."
Congratulations, you have now reduced your semantic games to the level of Bill Clinton asking what "is" is. Good job.
So, let me get this straight - you not only don't have to qualify your definition of a word, you can explicity reject my qualification of it (which you later come back to and endorse in your own words). You can completely unhinge the rationality of your position from the accepted and defined meaning of a word by the vast majority of society (unless, of course, you believe in rule by the elite instead of by the majority). But I'm the one being pedantic.
"Some dictionary definition does not establish NASA's criteria."
But you already admitted that NASA's criteria for "operational" was a beaurocratic designation, something you explicitly denied when I brought it up before. Many, many moons ago I said that what I was talking about (and still am) was FUNCTIONAL operability. The shuttle OPERATES, regardless of whether or not the shuttle program has been declared an OPERATIONAL PROGRAM.
Look at it this way - if I break into your house and move all your posessions into my house, I'm not stealing, or robbing, or taking, or burgling, because after all, some dictionary definition doesn't change what *I* think the definition of stealing is. Right? I mean, that's basically your argument, that tiny tiny minorities not only have the right to redefine established and accepted words, but also the right to expect others to abide by these definitions even t
"Or not. The Hubble is twenty years old, and has been in space for 19 of them."
??? I could have sworn that it was launched in 1990. Which would make it 15... which is still older than I remembered it being. Damn, I'm old...
That said, is there any other telescope that can replace its functionality, or is it still the most advanced thing we have, even if it is 15? (And how sad is that if it is?)
"I'd be asking whether or not be better off spending the money sending up a new telescope rather than fixing the old one."
With which I already agreed - given the caveat that the new one has to be able to do everything the old one could.
"Your whole position throughout this has been to assume that she's doing what her constituents want. I'm saying that we don't know what her constituents want, and that, since neither of us know (and, probably, neither does she), perhaps she isn't doing whats in the best interests of her constituents."
Well, she's certainly in a better position to know, having phone banks, email addresses, PO boxes and staffs dedicated to keeping her in touch with what they want. I think it unlikely that she's completely out of touch with the desires of her constituents. I guess we'll see if she is or not come re-election time.
"She has no mandate from her constituents on this."
Well, she has the mandate of having won the election, and by your own admission neither you nor I know what her constituents want.
"to elect people who can make informed decisions for the good of their constituents."
Hmm. I can see that you have a point about rep's having to make *some* judgment calls at some point in time. Now, can you see my point that the judgment calls they make should be to give their constituents what they want, be it for good or ill?
"What we have is called "representative democracy"... maybe you've heard of it."
Touche.:)
"didn't trust the average American to know what was good for themselves; they wanted a buffer between government and the unwashed masses. Or, if you're an optimist, it was because it took so long to send messages across the country, it was impractical"
Or, to my mind the most likely, some of both.
"The job of a Senator is to try to get the best deal for her constituents. This doesn't always mean doing what is most popular"
I disagree. A rep. who doesn't do what the people who voted her in want her to do gets voted out. She is there to be the voice of her constituents, even if they are all batshit insane. The President and Supreme Court are there to make judgment calls and keep her from succeeding in trying to carry out the will of her possibly-batshit-insane constituents if it's to the detriment of the rest of the country.
"No, it assumes that people are basically selfish."
Which I also disagree with. Even the most selfish person on Earth isn't that way 100% of the time. And even Mother Theresa probably had a moment or two of selfishness in her life. But accepting the maxim that all people are selfish seems to me like a great excuse for one's own behavior being selfish. Humans can have a propensity to selfishness, and they can also overcome it. If everybody were always selfish then society wouldn't exist, we'd all be nomads fending for ourselves and screwing everybody else.
"Suffient proof of this is the fact that capitalism, which is based on a philosophy of selfishness, is significantly more successful than communism, which requires that people be basically altruistic."
As many people have pointed out here recently, the 20th century never saw real Communism. We saw a few totalitarians running under the banner of Communist parties come to power.
Also, by this logic, I could say that since Monarchy has historically been the most succesful form of government on the planet (There was that long span in between Ancient Greece and the Am
I think I'm just gonna reply with quotes from my previous post, since it doesn't appear you read all of it...
"Using aircraft as launch platforms can make sense, but altitude doesn't gain you orbit. Speed, and speed alone, does."
That's why I said: "you are correct that a rocket propulsion system will have to be used to enter into LEO." and "A rocket propulsion system designed to reach LEO from, say 70,000 feet" and "*use* the atmosphere to reach super-stratospheric altitude (ie with a high-altitude plane) and launch from there"
"The U.S. did not have a pre-Sputnik program to put people in orbit using winged spacecraft."
I never said anything about X-15 or other X-planes as pertains to orbit, and neither did you. You said "The purpose of the X-planes was not to move gradually to spaceflight."
So here I'm just gonna cut and paste from the Wiki: "During the X-15 programme, 13 flights met the US criterion for a spaceflight by passing an altitude of 50 miles (80 km) and the pilots were accordingly awarded astronaut status by the USAF. Out of these, 2 also qualified for the international FAI definition of a spaceflight by passing the 62.5 miles (100 km) mark." So the X-15 was a program, it was begun in 1954 (pre-Sputnik, though it didn't fly until after Sputnik), and it achieved manned, winged spaceflight according to both the USAF and FAI. Seems pretty clear to me.
"Burt Rutan is a long way from reaching orbit."
Which is why I said "he only went suborbital"
"The O-rings (Challenger)and the graphite leading wing edges (Columbia) are specific to the Shuttle design. Neither are present in traditional liquid fuel boosters."
So? That doesn't change the fact that, had the shuttle been designed to not launch vertically from the ground, these problems wouldn't have happened, as they both resulted directly either from vertical ground launches or from the shuttle being designed for vertical ground launches. If the shuttle were flown to altitude and then rocketed into orbit (like, for instance, the X-15) these problems would have been rendered moot because there would have been no vertically falling foam chunks and no side boosters.
"Name an X-series program that was designed to intentionally lead to winged manned space flight. You can't because up to and incuding the X-15, none existed."
OK, I will paste again... "During the X-15 programme, 13 flights met the US criterion for a spaceflight by passing an altitude of 50 miles (80 km) and the pilots were accordingly awarded astronaut status by the USAF. Out of these, 2 also qualified for the international FAI definition of a spaceflight by passing the 62.5 miles (100 km) mark." (emphasis mine) So are you saying that the X-15 resulted in winged, manned spaceflight accidentally?
"I've not assumed that launching from a dead start on Earth's surface is a prerequisite."
Funny, cuz what you said was: "The only propulsion system available today, and for the forseeable future, that can reach orbital velocity from a dead start on Earth's surface is a rocket engine. So, even if you put wings on the thing, it is still a rocket."
"You, however, seem to assume that simply gaining altitude is sufficient for achieving orbit, when it clearly is not."
Funny, cuz what I said was: "But you can cut the size and cost of the rocket in half if you *use* the atmosphere to reach super-stratospheric altitude (ie with a high-altitude plane) and launch from there"
"End of that discussion." (re: operational)...since all it was was you playing semantics again anyway, and basically arguing with the dictionary, to which I provided a link that you apparently didn't read...
So if you're gonna reply to this again, please do us both a favor and read what I wrote before you do. You'll look better, and I'll be spared some major tedium.
And my offer of the $5 bet stands, if you'd care to put your money where your mouth is.:)
"Aaah, the old "everybody else is doing it" argument."
I never said that. What I said was that if her consituents want something done it's her job to represent them in accomplishing that. It doesn't matter how detrimental you or I think it might be in the long term - the only thing that should matter to an elected legislative representative is what her constituents want. If they want a chunk of kryptonite dropped into the San Andreas fault, it's her JOB to do her best to make sure that happens. Just like it's a lawyer's JOB to believe her client regardless of whether or not she really believes him. Legislators are not elected to impose their own will - they are elected to impose the people's.
Remember, we have a President who must sign their laws and a Supreme Court which can overturn them. The Executive and Judicial are the branches of government whose purpose is to impose their own judgement. The Legislative's SOLE purpose is to represent those who elected them. This is called "checks and balances", maybe you're heard of it.
"Yes, and one should make that argument about every government expenditure. If the only argument for an expenditure is to funnel money to a state, then there exists a serious need to re-evaluating the expenditure in the first place. If the only reason for maintaining the Hubble is to keep some people in Virginia employed, then maybe we might consider a more direct form of welfare for them and cut out the middle-man. Hell, just give them the money; they'd get more of it."
Again, this isn't ditch-digging and hole filling. This is the bleeding edge of astronomy. This is advanced science with quantifiable and real results (unlike the countless good billions we're throwing after bad in Iraq). Certainly tax dollars should be spent as wisely and efficiently as possible. But OTOH you can't sit around worrying about if you're spending them perfectly or not. Humankind is imperfect and so will be our works. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do the best we can.
"Are you suggesting that a Senator's job description includes the mandate to suck as much of the federal budget as she can into her own state?"
I'm saying that a Senator's job includes one thing and one thing only - to do whatever his or her constituents want, no matter how bad of an idea they think it is. If it's that bad of an idea, either the President will veto it, the Supreme Court will overturn it, or enough other representatives of other states and districts will outvote it. This is called majority rule, maybe you've heard of it.
"by doing something that may damage the overall health of the country for short-term gains in her state, she's not, actually, being a very good representative."
But she's not a judge, so her job isn't to use her judgment. She's not the President, so her job isn't to veto something she couldn't enforce. She's a REPRESENTATIVE, and her job is to REPRESENT. Period.
"On top of this, you are assuming that the majority in her state want the budget spent this way. What if they don't?"
Then they can write her and express their displeasure with her failure to represent them, and if she continues to misrepresent them then they can vote her out of office.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury."
This philosophy assumes that all people are inherently evil, and that given the ability to vote themselves largess from the treasury they will automatically do so. It further assumes that any amount of public welfare is automatically anathema to democracy. I consider both these assumptions to be inherently faulty.
"The larger question I'm asking is whether the Hubble is largess, or is it the most efficient way of spending the money to get the science done?"
The world is not binary. Maybe there's some largess in the Hubble program (and in my earlier posts I made quite clear that we sh
"The only propulsion system available today, and for the foreseeable future, that can reach orbital velocity from a dead start on Earth's surface is a rocket engine"
First let me say that I worded my original premise poorly - you are correct that a rocket propulsion system will have to be used to enter into LEO.
But the assumption of "from a dead start on the Earth's surface" is yours and yours alone. We have had planes for decades that could fly so high they ran out of air at a not inconsiderable speed (not mach 22, but far from standing still either), and blimps that can go even higher. A rocket propulsion system designed to reach LEO from, say 70,000 feet would have much less atmospheric resistance, need much less rocket fuel, and need much less infrastructure and investment, than one designed to explode it's way through the troposphere. The Saturn V's ENTIRE FIRST STAGE was just to get it through the troposphere and stratosphere. We have aircraft today capable of achieving these altitudes routinely. This is not a new idea. This was the method in which America was planning to get into space up until Sputnik, at which point we opted for the easy out of sitting astronauts on top of solid explosive in order to quickly become competitive with the Russians. And to that end it was successful. But then we just got so used to it, and already had the infrastructure to support it, that it remained the way we did things just because that's how they'd always been done. I mean, you want to talk about a waste of taxpayer dollars, let's talk about solid-explosive rockets to achieve super-stratospheric altitude (and yes, this includes the shuttle during takeoff as well).
"But, reusability does not come automatically with a winged design, while it is quite possible to design unwinged spacecraft that are full reusable."
As I'm sure you are aware, all three engine stages of the Saturn V were disposable, and wound up either at the bottom of the ocean or as floating space junk. Sure, you say, but so do the boosters on the shuttle. Sure, I say, but the shuttle is much larger than crew modules on top of rockets. The shuttle is only slightly smaller than the large main booster/tank, and very much larger than the side boosters. The parts of the Saturn V that were essentially discarded as disposable made up roughly 82% of it's mass. The only parts that were even nominally reusable were the crew and instrument modules, if they even reused those. While it may be *possible* to *design* a fully reusable non-winged spacecraft, we have yet to do so, let alone implement it. The only part of rockets to be useful in extra-orbital space, much less come back to Earth, was the pointy little cone at the very very tippy-top. Solid explosive propulsion is *incredibly* inefficient for atmospheric flight. It is good for one thing only - going very very fast very quickly, which is why, as you say, rockets will be used to enter orbit. Your mistake comes in assuming this launch must be from the Earth's surface, and must be at a standstill - neither of these need be the case.
No, when efficiency became all-important - which is to say when the private sector entered the space flight arena - it became clear to all involved that the best way to get into space is by using a high-altitude plane as a launch platform. But don't take my word for it, ask Burt Rutan. Sure, he only went suborbital, but private space flight is in its infancy. I'll bet you five bucks right now that when a private craft does make it into orbit it will be with much smaller rockets than the Saturn V and it will be launched from a high-altitude plane, if not incorporating one into it's design.
"The losses of both Challenger and Columbia"
The Columbia was lost because of a mishap which occurred during its ROCKET POWERED LIFTOFF and wasn't detected and repaired prior to re-entry. The Challenger was lost because of a design flaw in it's ROCKET POWERED LIFTOFF propulsion systems. See a trend here?
" There aren't enough Shuttles left to test, in practice, your notion that each disaster will result in less risk."
Firstly, my notion wasn't that each disaster would result in less risk (though that's probably tru) but rather than each FLIGHT will result in less risk. The current dearth of available shuttles is why we need to build, if not more shuttles, more advanced craft capable of entering into low Earth orbit like an airplane, instead of like a rocket. This idea is a very old one, and had it not been for Sputnik it would likely have become the dominant American paradigm for space travel. IIRC this was the purpose (or one of them) for the X-planes. As it so happens, we're still sending up crewed and uncrewed space vehicles on top of thousands of tons of liquid and solid explosive. Funny thing about explosive is sometimes it blows up. That doesn't mean we throw up our hands and say, "oh this is just too risky" - that means we do the American thing, which is grab our balls, suck it up and do it better already, instead of sitting around bitching about the risk like a bunch of insurance company pussies. Everything new is risky. Everything practiced frequently becomes less so.
Re: "operational", we're just quibbling over semantics at this point. You're talking about official classification by beaurocracy, I'm talking about function, and we're both right.
"As for the 110 safe flights out of 112, do the math. That extrapolates into 20 total losses of crew and shuttle in every 1120 flights, etc."
That's if you assume that the increasing frequency of flights (not of accidents, of flights) would yield no information or expertise which could be used to make future ones safer. That's an assumption I feel very uncomfortable making at this point. Early airplanes were subject to many of the same problems, but instead of walking away from the costs and risks, the airplane enthusiasts (and later, the industry) accepted the risks, kept at it, and got much much better at what they did. The safety record of modern airplane travel is due in no small part to the fact that they did this. Remember, there was a day when a simple trans-Atlantic flight was regarded as impossible and doomed. You can't extrapolate what we will become based simply on what we are - the human learning curve is exponential, and the American one even more so.
Slashdot Mirror
"setup assistant"
that's probably what happened, cuz this lady said she took a stab at the setup asst herself before I got there...
"You can use QuickTime Player to get bare bones CD playing"
I did not know that... I'm not a big mac guy, in case you couldn't tell, a friend of my mom's needed help and had nobody else to call, so I took a stab at it. And for my first time ever sitting down with osx in my life, I did OK. Just couldn't get macwrite installed on the new one cuz it had no floppy drive... the cocky bastards...
"The defaults are simple to change."
Not if you're, like my mom's friend, an average (read: computer-illiterate and rich) mac consumer. Then you just click OK-OK-I Agree-OK cuz you just want the damn thing to work. Or ir you're, like me (read mac-illiterate and poor) not intimately familiar with the ins and outs of osx, much less that quicktime plays CDs...
"If you don't mind my asking, what part of the agreement did you find so odious?"
Just the annoyance, really. I thought MS EULA's were annoying, at least they don't have one to play a stupid CD. There's no good reason for that.
But buy, it sure is pretty.
tits! I and all the other 98se/lite users thank you!
I'm going out on a limb here to suggest that you read the posts from me and like 75 other people in this thread who all have the exact same experience regarding XP vs 98.
" Yes, and lots of older worms won't work on WinXP or 2k."
But the number of those older worms is VASTLY exceeded by the number of new, 2k/xp specific ones. VASTLY.
"Win2k and XP got rid of a lot of problems for people by leaving the 9x series kernel in hell."
They got rid of a few problems but managed to introduce hundreds more.
Have you ever used a patched, upgraded 98se/lite box? I got six months of uptime before the power went out.
I'll make you a deal. You take two boxes, put 98se/lite UNPATCHED on one, and XP UNPATCHED on the other, put 'em both on a broadband internet connection and you tell me which one gets infected inside 15 minutes. Hint: it won't be 98se/lite.
No disrespect, man, but if you had to reboot a 98se box every day it's cuz you're doing something wrong. This thread has been filled with people relating similar experienced to mine - having a 98se/lite box with SIX MONTHS of uptime. USB, wi-fi (hell, wi-fi is just a NIC like any other, you can have wi-fi in 95 if you want) and all other "modern niceties" you mentioned are readily available on my 98 box thanks to upgrade patches, maybe you've heard of those. They're the same things the XP users have to get three times a day to plug all their security holes.
"clean and stable"
XP is clean and stable?! Are you trying to be funny? Having worked intimately with every MS OS ever released since DOS 3, I can honestly say XP is the worst piece of shit I've ever seen in my life, from a user perspective. If it's low level internals are so much more clean and stable how come a) it CRAWLS (this would seem to belie "stable"), b) it's HUGE (this would seem to belie "clean"), c) it's more full of holes than target practice swiss cheese?
I'm not trying to be a dick, but seriously, what on Earth can you point to to back up this "clean and stable" nonsense? The thing is a massive kludge! Name any other OS ever whose average length of time until it's infected is FIFTEEN MINUTES!
And I wasn't karma whoring, in case you didn't notice my defense of 98se/lite got modded into oblivion by the *nix knee-jerkers around here... I'm no MS fan, they've done very very few things right ever, but 98se was one.
"and maybe even provide some fascimile of security"
HAHAHahahah, OK I get it, you ARE trying to be funny.
"they're about making changes that break things."
*cough* Windows ME *cough*...
Terrible moderation seems to be the order of the day in this thread. I posted four observations on why 98se/lite works for lots of people and instantly it was at -1, overrated. I'd like to know how something that's on topic and already at 0 can possibly be overrated.
Funny thing is I'd wager none of those mods have any experience tweaking 98se/lite and have no idea how stable it can be.
"If you dig around enough, you'll see that Cobol and JCL use in corporate America is here now, and I think here to stay."
Amen brother. You said everything I was gonna. But you forgot RPG.
Sorry to hear that.
My box hangs only when it overheats (which, when I'm running 13 different VSTi plugins, is more than I'd like, but I'm a cheap bastard and won't buy better fans, so that's my fault). But it never bluescreens. I once had a 98 box running apache with six months of uptime. Rebooted once when the power went out. If you don't have 98lite, I HIGHLY recommend it.
Well, yes and no. The way I always looked at it was that 98se/lite worked TOO WELL - so they released ME to break it. And as such, it performed admirably, hence no need for service packs...
Was it a NTFS partition? I've seen 2000 and XP just completely lose NTFS partitions literally over 30 times at my ex-job, and once on my machine. None of the MicroServices guys could get a decent answer from MS about why it happened. Never seemed to happen to FAT32 partitions, though...
But you know what's really cool about 98SE? It can still see my "missing" NTFS partition, allowing me to back everything up. While both 2000 and partitionmagic (under 98 even) are like, "drive F? There's no drive F, what are you talking about?" Open up windows explorer and it's all right there.
1) 98se, especially with 98lite installed and IE removed, *smokes* any other MS-windows based OS I've ever seen (and I've seen 'em all) in terms of performance. My machine crawls when I boot to the 2000 side, the 98 side is like *butter*, and I hardly ever have to reboot. Sure, the buttons aren't all round and bubbly, and there's no transparency support, but I have yet to find a single thing that I want to do that 98 won't support.
2) DOS-based (which is to say, 95, 98 and ME) OS's are not nearly as widely targeted by virus writers. The vast majority of new viruses target the 2k/XP/2k3 systems, for the simple reason that they're SOOOOO full of holes.
3) 95 and 98 (ME, eh, not so much) have been out long enough that 99% of the problems with them have been fixed. Of course, I wouldn't go to 98 until ME came out. My rule of thumb is go with whichever MS OS is the second most current one. That said, I still don't feel the burning need to upgrade to XP, and I doubt I ever will.
4) Like somebody already said, if it's not broke, and it's paid for, why change? Why waste money on the new version and then waste more money on the man-hours for MicroServices to install it, migrate everything, deal with all the users whining about where all their desktop wallpaper went, etc... just to wind up with a system that's ultimately slower and more vulnerable to attack?
Well, I don't remember if it was a TOS agreement, but the name of the window that popped up was "iTunes Music Store", not "iTunes player" or anything. I mean, for all the bitching I do about windows, at least cdplayer.exe doesn't make you click through a EULA just to play a damn CD - that's ridiculous. Just another example of Apple taking advantage of users who don't know any better than to click "OK - OK - I Agree - OK" without reading the fine print.
:-)"
"BTW, welcome to the platform.
Yeah, no. I worked exclusively on a Mac from age 10 to age 17 just cuz it was the only platform MOTU professional composer ran on. At age 17 my folks got our first PC and within 6 months I was an total convert. And with God as my witness the only time I ever touch a Mac is when I'm being paid to do so. I could tell you so many horror stories about state-of-the-art Mac and ProTools rigs completely flaking out for no reason, with no error messages, at random times during very expensive studio sessions (and mind you these were brand new systems donated to the school by Apple and Digidesign) it would make your head spin.
They've come a long way, but they've got a long way to go. The main thing they need to do is stop being so cocky as to make massive assumptions about their users - like that they'll never need to copy old files from an old mac via floppy.
But boy, they sure are pretty.
"What year is it again?"
Yeah, the thing is, I was trying to migrate stuff on an old mac to this new one. Old one didn't have a CD burner or 1394. New one didn't have a floppy drive. All her software was on floppies. She didn't have a network and I didn't really want to drive 2 hours back to my house to grab a hub and drive 2 hours back, plus I don't know if the new one would even have worked with the "appletalk" that was the only network protocol I could find on the old one. So she wound up having to go out and buy a thumbdrive when she shouldn't have had to so we could copy the software floppies to the thumbdrive to install software on the new Mac. Then it turned out the floppy on the old mac didn't even work, so she was left with all these macwrite documents she couldn't fucking open, ever. She's a university professor and really needs some of those documents. I mean, how much would it have set Apple back to just put a floppy drive in the damn machine? Like five bucks? Don't they realize that a large proportion of their customers buy new macs cuz they want to maintain system continuity from their old ones?
When Apple ASSUMES, they make an ASS of U and ME. And Apple assumes a LOT.
But boy, it sure looks cool. Doing nothing.
Well, I'm not a mac-hater (anymore) or anything, but I couldn't help but notice that in order to PLAY A CD on a new iMac you had to agree to the ITMS license agreement. I really don't understand why I had to agree to a license agreement with an online store when a) I wasn't online and b) all I was trying to do was PLAY A CD! A storebought one, even!
So don't get too smug just yet... (don't even get me started on it not having a floppy drive)
"DRM breaks current copyright legeslation if it doesn't use a key escrow to release it into the public domain.
(yes things are currently released into the public domain when they fall out of copyright)"
Somebody PLEASE mod this up... The most insightful DRM-related post I've seen in weeks...
You have chosen not to cite any links or references to support your position, leading me to the inescapable conclusion that you can find none to support it. "Evidence: It did not." is not a statement of evidence, it is an unsupported assertion until you actually provide evidence. Neither would it be evidence were I to assert the sky is ornage, then back it up with the statement "evidence: the sky is orange." You saying something, no matter how many times you repeat it, doesn't qualify as evidence unless you've been sworn in as a witness in a court of law, making you subject to perjury should your statements turn out to be false. If you do manage to come up with some actual evidence, in any form, be it books, online data or documents, or interviews with relevant people from the time, or any other form of information, please do get back to me - I'm actually interested in expanding my knowledge, including when I turn out to be wrong. But until then, your self-referential (or is that self-reverential?) and circular view of evidence and unwillingness to do even the most basic research into your positions, your poor understanding of English definitions and sentences, your inability to read even the entirity of my posts let alone the data or documents I cite, and your inability to keep coherent track of who made what statements in response to whom in the course of our dialogue leave me no choice but to conclude that you are incapable of debate or discussion at any level that could be called adult or informed.
Too bad, really, I was hoping that I'd come out of this discourse with some bit of knowledge that I didn't have before. But the only thing I've learned is that you appear to be extremely capable of making assumptions and assertions, and extremely incapable of backing them up with anything at all other than sheer repitition. In our dozens of posts I've cited several links to relevant documents that directly contradict your assertions, you've cited exactly none to support them. This speaks volumes to your aversion to honest, elucidatory discussion of actual issues; you appear to want only to repeat your (faulty) assumptions over and over again and attempt to distract me from their lack of support with semantic games.
Absent any presentation of evidence beyond repeated assertions and assumptions by you, this discussion is over. Reply if you want, if it'll make you feel that you're "getting the last word", as if that means anything. Unless you provide one tiny little smidgeon, one teensy-tiny iota of actual evidence , I'm done replying to anything you have to say, since it's more than likely just more repitition of something which has almost certainly already been dispensed with by me.
HAND.
More semantic games, whoopie. What a surprise. At least this one's shorter. A few things first, though.
a) I can't help but notice you have chosen not to cite any instances of my referring to altitude as the sole factor needed to obtain orbit. Too bad, photos of my eating my hat would have been really entertaining.
b) I also can't help but notice that for somebody doing some complaining about how unfair the English language is to NASA and the military, there's still no entry in the wiki for the word "operational", by you or anyone else. If you're so convinced the word means what you (or NASA) think it means, why don't you start a wiki entry instead of telling me how wrong I am for not psychically intuiting the context in which you were using it?
c) your assumption that manned spaceflight was not an intended purpose of the X-15 is simply incorrect. Here are links to two NASA pages, one entitled "Hypersonic research at the edge of space" and the other entitled "transiting from air to space" (which states, among many other interesting things which you apparently haven't read, that "To simulate accurately the reentry profile of a returning winged spacecraft, the X-15 had to fly at angles of attack of at least 17"). The fact that NASA says this in the titles of it's documents as well as in the contents indicate clearly that it was the intended purpose of the X-15 to fly as fast and as high as possible, up to and including spaceflight, and to gather as much information about those flights as possible. The following line is a direct quote from the official NASA X-15 research results: "Not only has it doubled the speed of piloted flight; it has prepared the way for non-orbiting flight into space." Still don't think this speaks to purpose? Here's another direct quote: "In the third, and current, phase the X-15 airplanes are being used more as research tools than research craft. This new role includes carrying scientific experiments above the atmosphere-shrouded Earth into regions no satellite or rocket can usefully explore." You're wrong about America's approach to manned spaceflight prior to Sputnik (my favorite line: "Indeed, winged spaceflight has a long theoretical tradition that dates back well before Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite, was ever launched in 1957") and you're wrong about the X-15. Period. And I dare you to cite one single link that will prove me wrong.
The rest of this post will deal exclusively with your semantic games.
"I said "lead to manned spaceflight". You said "acheived spaceflight". Not the same thing."
At the moment at which space flight was achieved, and there were previous steps that had been taken, as a part of the program, before that moment without which spaceflight wouldn't have taken place, those previous steps in the program led to spaceflight, whether you admit it or not. You appear to be saying that the fact that the X-15 achieved spaceflight was accidental, since you are saying it wasn't the purpose for the program or any of it's flights (when in reality it was a significant part of both).
"What do so-called communities have to do this?"
Well, seeing as how you were the one who said, and once again I quote verbatim from a post you made, "The terms experimental, developmental and operational have specific meanings within NASA and the defense community", why don't you tell me, since you were the one who thought that the use of the word "operational" in a beaurocratic context as applied to systems design was somehow germane to a semantic diversion that you started, and I used the word "community" only in response to your post?
"What you think or anyone else in
"A representative answers not only to the people, but to special interest groups. Groups which, as entities, can not vote, and would normally have no vote were it not for the representative. However, these entities do have a voice in congress because of the representative, and this dilutes the will of the people."
This is unfortunate, but as long as SCOTUS thinks money is the same thing as speech, then this will continue to be the case. It does suck, though.
"If we're going to pretend that representatives are actually trying to give constituents what they want, I'd much rather have a direct democracy than a representative democracy."
I'm down, let's do it. The problem then becomes how to implement it. The most likely solution would be one heavily involving technology, and we saw how well that went with the voting machines. I'd be all in favor of a direct democracy if I wasn't 99% sure that the end result would somehow be perverted into something worse than what we have now.
"No, they aren't. But, on the whole, people are mostly selfish. I think the Bill Gateses are more prevalent than the Mother Theresas. Greed is more common than altruism."
Well, you do know even Bill Gates gives away billions a year in charity through the Gates foundation. Not to say that his bad doesn't outweigh his good, but just to point out that there's some good in there somewhere, even if it is just to get a tax break.
"Together, we are stronger than we are alone."
Right, but part of that banding together means that in exchange for me protecting you from wolves one day, you get to protect me from them tomorrow. So it's not a purely selfish motive that we have, it's a cooperative one, which is only party selfish. A purely selfish motive would make somebody say "I'm gonna get the biggest gun just so *I* don't get eaten by wolves and everybody else can fend for themselves." And as soon as the ammunition ran out, that person would be dead. Most things in life are a blend of yin and yang.
"And I think it is evident that we are fending for ourselves and screwing everybody else. SCO? Microsoft? Heck, the most selfish political party we have is currently running America. We invaded Iraq for no good reason, getting over fifteen hundred of our own people killed and killing at least sixteen thousand Iraqis, and then re-elected the guy who did it."
But the game's not over yet, there's still plenty of time for us to get our just comeuppance and trot back to the global community with our tail between our legs.
"Just because they were totalitarian does not mean that they weren't communist."
Hmm. Well, I gotta admit I do see Communism and totalitarianism as mutually exclusive. It's hard to say it's all about the workers and the people when you're enforcing totalitarian rule, which by nature exaggerates the importance of a dictator. For what it's worth, I also see Democracy (REAL democracy) and totalitarianism as mutually exclusive also.
"My real point is that, because people are selfish, communism fails."
Not all communist societies have completely failed. Cuba's not showing any signs of abandoning Communism, even after having their economic balls handed to them. Neither is North Korea. Although I would hasten to point out that I don't consider either of those states to be shining examples of what real Communism is supposed to be. NK is definately totalitarian and Cuba is pretty close.
"but the dream of communism doesn't provide enough instant gratification to keep the system running.
"Capitalisms of any sort have a much higher chance of survival than communisms. It isn't the "totalitarian" that brings them down, it is the "communism"."
As pertains to the 20th century, would completely agree. But I feel very uncomfortable projecting those trends onto the future with any certainty.
"There are a number of totalitarian capitalist states in the world, but very few communisms of any type."
I feel like there a
"Your comments about using winged space vehicels implied that gaining altitude was the only requirement for achieving orbit."
That you read this into it in no way changes the fact that that's not what I said. Try dealing with what people actually say instead of what you think they're implying. If you can cite anything that I said along the lines of "altitude is all you need to achive orbit" I'll cheerfully eat my hat - though by rights I should be requiring you to cite three examples, since I cited three example of me saying exactly the opposite which you apparently ignored.
"I'm agnostic about how we reach LEO."
Then we agree.
"The X-15 program was not intended to lead to manned spaceflight."
So you *are* saying it acheived spaceflight accidentally.
"If you strap a rocket underneath an aircraft and launch it at 50,000 feet, that, obviously, is not a dead start nor is it from Earth's surface."
Yeah, that's what I said.
"The terms experimental, developmental and operational have specific meanings within NASA and the defense community."
Sure, and were everybody on Slashdot and participating in this *public forum* a member of said two communities, you could be forgiven for adhering strictly to those definitions, even absent your abject refusal to acknowledge those terms as the beaurocratic designation you just admitted they are, oh, about fifteen posts back. But since we're not, that means you are expecting the overwhelming majority of english-speaking people to confirm to a little-known definition used by specific (and very small) subcommunities, an expectation which is inherently impractical and unrealistic. Whether or not you are a member of one of those two communities (and I suspect that you are, and somehow I have a hunch which one) in no was excuses you from the responsibility of communicating according to the rules of the language you choose to converse in. One of those rules is that words have definitions, and they're set down in a dictionary. If you choose not to acknowledge the english dictionary as a definitive resource for english discussions, you have two options - a) hop on over to the wiki and start the definition there for "operational", as yet none exists there, this is your chance to make sure the dictionary includes NASA/Military's definition of this word there; b) stop trying to communicate with anybody in English since you appear to have no intention of playing by the rules.
"regardless of what some dictionary might say."
Congratulations, you have now reduced your semantic games to the level of Bill Clinton asking what "is" is. Good job.
So, let me get this straight - you not only don't have to qualify your definition of a word, you can explicity reject my qualification of it (which you later come back to and endorse in your own words). You can completely unhinge the rationality of your position from the accepted and defined meaning of a word by the vast majority of society (unless, of course, you believe in rule by the elite instead of by the majority). But I'm the one being pedantic.
"Some dictionary definition does not establish NASA's criteria."
But you already admitted that NASA's criteria for "operational" was a beaurocratic designation, something you explicitly denied when I brought it up before. Many, many moons ago I said that what I was talking about (and still am) was FUNCTIONAL operability. The shuttle OPERATES, regardless of whether or not the shuttle program has been declared an OPERATIONAL PROGRAM.
Look at it this way - if I break into your house and move all your posessions into my house, I'm not stealing, or robbing, or taking, or burgling, because after all, some dictionary definition doesn't change what *I* think the definition of stealing is. Right? I mean, that's basically your argument, that tiny tiny minorities not only have the right to redefine established and accepted words, but also the right to expect others to abide by these definitions even t
"Or not. The Hubble is twenty years old, and has been in space for 19 of them."
:)
??? I could have sworn that it was launched in 1990. Which would make it 15... which is still older than I remembered it being. Damn, I'm old...
That said, is there any other telescope that can replace its functionality, or is it still the most advanced thing we have, even if it is 15? (And how sad is that if it is?)
"I'd be asking whether or not be better off spending the money sending up a new telescope rather than fixing the old one."
With which I already agreed - given the caveat that the new one has to be able to do everything the old one could.
"Your whole position throughout this has been to assume that she's doing what her constituents want. I'm saying that we don't know what her constituents want, and that, since neither of us know (and, probably, neither does she), perhaps she isn't doing whats in the best interests of her constituents."
Well, she's certainly in a better position to know, having phone banks, email addresses, PO boxes and staffs dedicated to keeping her in touch with what they want. I think it unlikely that she's completely out of touch with the desires of her constituents. I guess we'll see if she is or not come re-election time.
"She has no mandate from her constituents on this."
Well, she has the mandate of having won the election, and by your own admission neither you nor I know what her constituents want.
"to elect people who can make informed decisions for the good of their constituents."
Hmm. I can see that you have a point about rep's having to make *some* judgment calls at some point in time. Now, can you see my point that the judgment calls they make should be to give their constituents what they want, be it for good or ill?
"What we have is called "representative democracy"... maybe you've heard of it."
Touche.
"didn't trust the average American to know what was good for themselves; they wanted a buffer between government and the unwashed masses. Or, if you're an optimist, it was because it took so long to send messages across the country, it was impractical"
Or, to my mind the most likely, some of both.
"The job of a Senator is to try to get the best deal for her constituents. This doesn't always mean doing what is most popular"
I disagree. A rep. who doesn't do what the people who voted her in want her to do gets voted out. She is there to be the voice of her constituents, even if they are all batshit insane. The President and Supreme Court are there to make judgment calls and keep her from succeeding in trying to carry out the will of her possibly-batshit-insane constituents if it's to the detriment of the rest of the country.
"No, it assumes that people are basically selfish."
Which I also disagree with. Even the most selfish person on Earth isn't that way 100% of the time. And even Mother Theresa probably had a moment or two of selfishness in her life. But accepting the maxim that all people are selfish seems to me like a great excuse for one's own behavior being selfish. Humans can have a propensity to selfishness, and they can also overcome it. If everybody were always selfish then society wouldn't exist, we'd all be nomads fending for ourselves and screwing everybody else.
"Suffient proof of this is the fact that capitalism, which is based on a philosophy of selfishness, is significantly more successful than communism, which requires that people be basically altruistic."
As many people have pointed out here recently, the 20th century never saw real Communism. We saw a few totalitarians running under the banner of Communist parties come to power.
Also, by this logic, I could say that since Monarchy has historically been the most succesful form of government on the planet (There was that long span in between Ancient Greece and the Am
I think I'm just gonna reply with quotes from my previous post, since it doesn't appear you read all of it...
...since all it was was you playing semantics again anyway, and basically arguing with the dictionary, to which I provided a link that you apparently didn't read...
:)
"Using aircraft as launch platforms can make sense, but altitude doesn't gain you orbit. Speed, and speed alone, does."
That's why I said: "you are correct that a rocket propulsion system will have to be used to enter into LEO." and "A rocket propulsion system designed to reach LEO from, say 70,000 feet" and "*use* the atmosphere to reach super-stratospheric altitude (ie with a high-altitude plane) and launch from there"
"The U.S. did not have a pre-Sputnik program to put people in orbit using winged spacecraft."
I never said anything about X-15 or other X-planes as pertains to orbit, and neither did you. You said "The purpose of the X-planes was not to move gradually to spaceflight."
So here I'm just gonna cut and paste from the Wiki: "During the X-15 programme, 13 flights met the US criterion for a spaceflight by passing an altitude of 50 miles (80 km) and the pilots were accordingly awarded astronaut status by the USAF. Out of these, 2 also qualified for the international FAI definition of a spaceflight by passing the 62.5 miles (100 km) mark." So the X-15 was a program, it was begun in 1954 (pre-Sputnik, though it didn't fly until after Sputnik), and it achieved manned, winged spaceflight according to both the USAF and FAI. Seems pretty clear to me.
"Burt Rutan is a long way from reaching orbit."
Which is why I said "he only went suborbital"
"The O-rings (Challenger)and the graphite leading wing edges (Columbia) are specific to the Shuttle design. Neither are present in traditional liquid fuel boosters."
So? That doesn't change the fact that, had the shuttle been designed to not launch vertically from the ground, these problems wouldn't have happened, as they both resulted directly either from vertical ground launches or from the shuttle being designed for vertical ground launches. If the shuttle were flown to altitude and then rocketed into orbit (like, for instance, the X-15) these problems would have been rendered moot because there would have been no vertically falling foam chunks and no side boosters.
"Name an X-series program that was designed to intentionally lead to winged manned space flight. You can't because up to and incuding the X-15, none existed."
OK, I will paste again... "During the X-15 programme, 13 flights met the US criterion for a spaceflight by passing an altitude of 50 miles (80 km) and the pilots were accordingly awarded astronaut status by the USAF. Out of these, 2 also qualified for the international FAI definition of a spaceflight by passing the 62.5 miles (100 km) mark." (emphasis mine) So are you saying that the X-15 resulted in winged, manned spaceflight accidentally?
"I've not assumed that launching from a dead start on Earth's surface is a prerequisite."
Funny, cuz what you said was: "The only propulsion system available today, and for the forseeable future, that can reach orbital velocity from a dead start on Earth's surface is a rocket engine. So, even if you put wings on the thing, it is still a rocket."
"You, however, seem to assume that simply gaining altitude is sufficient for achieving orbit, when it clearly is not."
Funny, cuz what I said was: "But you can cut the size and cost of the rocket in half if you *use* the atmosphere to reach super-stratospheric altitude (ie with a high-altitude plane) and launch from there"
"End of that discussion." (re: operational)
So if you're gonna reply to this again, please do us both a favor and read what I wrote before you do. You'll look better, and I'll be spared some major tedium.
And my offer of the $5 bet stands, if you'd care to put your money where your mouth is.
"Aaah, the old "everybody else is doing it" argument."
I never said that. What I said was that if her consituents want something done it's her job to represent them in accomplishing that. It doesn't matter how detrimental you or I think it might be in the long term - the only thing that should matter to an elected legislative representative is what her constituents want. If they want a chunk of kryptonite dropped into the San Andreas fault, it's her JOB to do her best to make sure that happens. Just like it's a lawyer's JOB to believe her client regardless of whether or not she really believes him. Legislators are not elected to impose their own will - they are elected to impose the people's.
Remember, we have a President who must sign their laws and a Supreme Court which can overturn them. The Executive and Judicial are the branches of government whose purpose is to impose their own judgement. The Legislative's SOLE purpose is to represent those who elected them. This is called "checks and balances", maybe you're heard of it.
"Yes, and one should make that argument about every government expenditure. If the only argument for an expenditure is to funnel money to a state, then there exists a serious need to re-evaluating the expenditure in the first place. If the only reason for maintaining the Hubble is to keep some people in Virginia employed, then maybe we might consider a more direct form of welfare for them and cut out the middle-man. Hell, just give them the money; they'd get more of it."
Again, this isn't ditch-digging and hole filling. This is the bleeding edge of astronomy. This is advanced science with quantifiable and real results (unlike the countless good billions we're throwing after bad in Iraq). Certainly tax dollars should be spent as wisely and efficiently as possible. But OTOH you can't sit around worrying about if you're spending them perfectly or not. Humankind is imperfect and so will be our works. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do the best we can.
"Are you suggesting that a Senator's job description includes the mandate to suck as much of the federal budget as she can into her own state?"
I'm saying that a Senator's job includes one thing and one thing only - to do whatever his or her constituents want, no matter how bad of an idea they think it is. If it's that bad of an idea, either the President will veto it, the Supreme Court will overturn it, or enough other representatives of other states and districts will outvote it. This is called majority rule, maybe you've heard of it.
"by doing something that may damage the overall health of the country for short-term gains in her state, she's not, actually, being a very good representative."
But she's not a judge, so her job isn't to use her judgment. She's not the President, so her job isn't to veto something she couldn't enforce. She's a REPRESENTATIVE, and her job is to REPRESENT. Period.
"On top of this, you are assuming that the majority in her state want the budget spent this way. What if they don't?"
Then they can write her and express their displeasure with her failure to represent them, and if she continues to misrepresent them then they can vote her out of office.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury."
This philosophy assumes that all people are inherently evil, and that given the ability to vote themselves largess from the treasury they will automatically do so. It further assumes that any amount of public welfare is automatically anathema to democracy. I consider both these assumptions to be inherently faulty.
"The larger question I'm asking is whether the Hubble is largess, or is it the most efficient way of spending the money to get the science done?"
The world is not binary. Maybe there's some largess in the Hubble program (and in my earlier posts I made quite clear that we sh
"The only propulsion system available today, and for the foreseeable future, that can reach orbital velocity from a dead start on Earth's surface is a rocket engine"
First let me say that I worded my original premise poorly - you are correct that a rocket propulsion system will have to be used to enter into LEO.
But the assumption of "from a dead start on the Earth's surface" is yours and yours alone. We have had planes for decades that could fly so high they ran out of air at a not inconsiderable speed (not mach 22, but far from standing still either), and blimps that can go even higher. A rocket propulsion system designed to reach LEO from, say 70,000 feet would have much less atmospheric resistance, need much less rocket fuel, and need much less infrastructure and investment, than one designed to explode it's way through the troposphere. The Saturn V's ENTIRE FIRST STAGE was just to get it through the troposphere and stratosphere. We have aircraft today capable of achieving these altitudes routinely. This is not a new idea. This was the method in which America was planning to get into space up until Sputnik, at which point we opted for the easy out of sitting astronauts on top of solid explosive in order to quickly become competitive with the Russians. And to that end it was successful. But then we just got so used to it, and already had the infrastructure to support it, that it remained the way we did things just because that's how they'd always been done. I mean, you want to talk about a waste of taxpayer dollars, let's talk about solid-explosive rockets to achieve super-stratospheric altitude (and yes, this includes the shuttle during takeoff as well).
"But, reusability does not come automatically with a winged design, while it is quite possible to design unwinged spacecraft that are full reusable."
As I'm sure you are aware, all three engine stages of the Saturn V were disposable, and wound up either at the bottom of the ocean or as floating space junk. Sure, you say, but so do the boosters on the shuttle. Sure, I say, but the shuttle is much larger than crew modules on top of rockets. The shuttle is only slightly smaller than the large main booster/tank, and very much larger than the side boosters. The parts of the Saturn V that were essentially discarded as disposable made up roughly 82% of it's mass. The only parts that were even nominally reusable were the crew and instrument modules, if they even reused those. While it may be *possible* to *design* a fully reusable non-winged spacecraft, we have yet to do so, let alone implement it. The only part of rockets to be useful in extra-orbital space, much less come back to Earth, was the pointy little cone at the very very tippy-top. Solid explosive propulsion is *incredibly* inefficient for atmospheric flight. It is good for one thing only - going very very fast very quickly, which is why, as you say, rockets will be used to enter orbit. Your mistake comes in assuming this launch must be from the Earth's surface, and must be at a standstill - neither of these need be the case.
No, when efficiency became all-important - which is to say when the private sector entered the space flight arena - it became clear to all involved that the best way to get into space is by using a high-altitude plane as a launch platform. But don't take my word for it, ask Burt Rutan. Sure, he only went suborbital, but private space flight is in its infancy. I'll bet you five bucks right now that when a private craft does make it into orbit it will be with much smaller rockets than the Saturn V and it will be launched from a high-altitude plane, if not incorporating one into it's design.
"The losses of both Challenger and Columbia"
The Columbia was lost because of a mishap which occurred during its ROCKET POWERED LIFTOFF and wasn't detected and repaired prior to re-entry. The Challenger was lost because of a design flaw in it's ROCKET POWERED LIFTOFF propulsion systems. See a trend here?
"The purpose of
" There aren't enough Shuttles left to test, in practice, your notion that each disaster will result in less risk."
Firstly, my notion wasn't that each disaster would result in less risk (though that's probably tru) but rather than each FLIGHT will result in less risk. The current dearth of available shuttles is why we need to build, if not more shuttles, more advanced craft capable of entering into low Earth orbit like an airplane, instead of like a rocket. This idea is a very old one, and had it not been for Sputnik it would likely have become the dominant American paradigm for space travel. IIRC this was the purpose (or one of them) for the X-planes. As it so happens, we're still sending up crewed and uncrewed space vehicles on top of thousands of tons of liquid and solid explosive. Funny thing about explosive is sometimes it blows up. That doesn't mean we throw up our hands and say, "oh this is just too risky" - that means we do the American thing, which is grab our balls, suck it up and do it better already, instead of sitting around bitching about the risk like a bunch of insurance company pussies. Everything new is risky. Everything practiced frequently becomes less so.
Re: "operational", we're just quibbling over semantics at this point. You're talking about official classification by beaurocracy, I'm talking about function, and we're both right.
"As for the 110 safe flights out of 112, do the math. That extrapolates into 20 total losses of crew and shuttle in every 1120 flights, etc."
That's if you assume that the increasing frequency of flights (not of accidents, of flights) would yield no information or expertise which could be used to make future ones safer. That's an assumption I feel very uncomfortable making at this point. Early airplanes were subject to many of the same problems, but instead of walking away from the costs and risks, the airplane enthusiasts (and later, the industry) accepted the risks, kept at it, and got much much better at what they did. The safety record of modern airplane travel is due in no small part to the fact that they did this. Remember, there was a day when a simple trans-Atlantic flight was regarded as impossible and doomed. You can't extrapolate what we will become based simply on what we are - the human learning curve is exponential, and the American one even more so.