Well, more good news for IE and Safari users. Not sure this makes too much sense though. Basically Google is removing a feature from their own browser, and then adding a new feature to their competitors. I guess that settles it, Google really believes that WebM is the superior codec, and is willing to destroy themselves to prove it. Most people are probably going to be happy using browsers that have both codecs, but hey, maybe there's some crazy Xanatos Gambit here that I'm just not seeing.
You had to look pretty hard to find data that supports your point. Sure, things are looking up for Firefox and Chrome in Europe. Worldwide, IE is a solid 46.94%. Firefox and Chrome add up to only 40%, combined. IE and Safari combined are a majority of browser share. Add in mobile browsers, and H.264 is looking even better.
So, content providers lose out on more share, encoding in WebM instead of H.264, unless they are targeting only Europe. Much more realistically, people will encode in both, and just waste more resources. Then people will do all sorts of comparisons, and show off screencaps of both formats side by side. I'm not sure WebM will benefit from that...
Those content providers who do make a choice, will go with the most accessible. Not a lot of sites are going to force people to install a third-party browser, but lots of sites will, as they have in the past, go with browsers that come pre-installed with the computer, namely IE and Safari.
If they were to drop H.264 and Flash from YouTube, Safari and IE could simply implement WebM. It's not going to suddenly make everyone use Chrome, and it's probably not going to suddenly make every content provider switch to WebM. Google may have a rather large bullet, but it doesn't have much gunpowder in in the cartridge, and it's the only bullet they have. Once they fire that gun, their enemies only get stronger.
Removing a perfectly good feature from your browser is never a good idea, when other more popular browsers have that feature. This is a stunt, and one Google will either come to regret, or one that will simply force content providers to release everything in two formats. Considering how content providers hate serving up the same content in multiple forms (think HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray), chances are the larger install base will win out and Google will cave in and support H.264 again.
I'm all for having as many competing standards as possible. I don't particularly care either way whether or not WebM or H.264 is "better" as long as I can play videos. That said, every technical analysis I've read seems to indicate H.264 either has a slight edge, or a significant edge over WebM. That's fine though. Choice, even a choice between unequal options, is a good thing.
When you take a feature out of your browser, one that was previously implemented and important, that's not the market deciding anything. That's Google trying to push its will on the rest of the internet. I think, for them, they're going to lose out. Maybe the OS companies are pushing H.264 pretty hard, because they are involved in the patent pool, but despite their lack of WebM support, I have yet to come across any video on the internet that wouldn't play. Which content providers, exactly, are using WebM to the exclusion of H.264?
Google's going to lose out, because nobody's using WebM exclusively, but lots of people are using H.264 exclusively. As much as I hate IE, the install base is through the roof. People are still implementing multiple versions of their websites to account for standard-noncompliance and various bugs in old versions of IE, because they have no choice but to do it if they want their content viewed by a wide audience. Safari, similarly, comes on every Mac sold by default, and I imagine the majority of Mac users never bother to install any other browsers either.
Google can only win with WebM through side-by-side comparisons on websites that host content in both formats. If WebM is the superior format, it'll win based on that, and that alone, not by political arguments, or by boycotting H.264 content. If people can't get access to videos with a third party browser like Firefox or Chrome, they'll simply uninstall it.
Huckabee and Palin both left politics to get into the infotainment business. They're making loads of money, and the likelihood of either of them running again is pretty slim. Neither of them have a shot at winning anything outside of the evangelical south, at any rate. The electoral math doesn't work unless there's a serious third party candidate and the election goes to the House, and Bloomberg will only run if he knows he can actually win. Romney is the more credible candidate, since he appeals to a much wider base.
This is irrelevant, anyway. You can't make legal arguments against being extradited to Sweden, based on hypothetical election outcomes in a third country years in the future. And even if a Huckabee or Palin presidency were guaranteed, Assange would be wiser to not fight extradition, get whatever punishments are coming to him now, and be out of the spotlight 2 years from now when potential danger was lurking.
That's not Assange's goal, though. He's not fighting against being executed, he's fighting for being in the news as much as possible. The more he's in the spotlight, the more wikileaks is in the spotlight, and the more his political agenda is satisfied. He wants big splashy headlines, nothing more, nothing less.
It is a stupid legal argument, because it makes no legal sense, and no rational judge will listen to it. Its only purpose is to make the media salivate.
Exactly. But it's not a serious defense against extradition to Sweden. It's sole purpose is to get headlines, and the lawyers are okay with wasting their time on silly arguments like this because Assange is picking up the bill.
IANAL, but I wouldn't think many judges would rule based on paranoid hypotheticals about non-existant charges by an unrelated party.
That the lawyers are arguing execution threat at all is because Assange is paying them to cause as much media attention as possible, and the lawyers are all too happy to ignore the law and charge him extra money for all the added man-hours.
If they charge him with anything, it'd be for leverage to get him to give up his sources. The guy isn't fighting extradition because he thinks he'll be executed, he's fighting extradition because he wants as much attention as possible, for as long as possible. Once the US finally gets him, uses him to find who leaked stuff to him, and then lets him leave with a stern warning, he'll lose his sources and all the media attention he's so desperate for.
It's pretty hilarious, because the prominent figure they're talking about is Huckabee. This is a man who is not a lawyer, not even a government official, and certainly has no bearing on who gets charged with what, or who gets executed. Plus, uh, yeah... Huckabee wasn't talking about Assange either, he was talking about the people who leaked stuff to Assange, at least as far as I can tell from the quote.
Presumably any judges looking at the arguments would do a modicum of research and find out just how stupid this argument is. But again, the lawyers are just throwing everything out there, and hoping something sticks. I don't know a lot about their legal system over there, but perhaps it will also give them some added grounds for appeal if they lose. IANAL.
Fears about mind control. If you can make a product that causes somebody to be intensely sexually attracted to you, that has societal and possibly even legal implications. If you can make a product that reduces aggression, and governments get their hands on it...
This study didn't bother with male tears, or female test subjects, which is a cryin' shame. It would be very interesting to see the differences, if any.
Well, it's a controversial word when it relates to humans. Nobody wants to admit that specific chemicals can produce specific behaviors in human beings. Too much like mind control, and the potential abuses are huge. In TFA the guy says that basically, yeah, it's a pheromone, but he doesn't want to get into the semantic argument with people who are interested in humans not having any pheromones.
RTFA. They did the same thing with vials of saline that had been washed over the same women's faces. No effect on arousal. There was no way for the subjects to know what was bodily fluids, and what wasn't.
I think you have a valid point, but the test was specifically having men look at pictures of women and rate their attractiveness. Yes, they tested testosterone too, and if you RTFA you'd see that the researchers did consider a change in sexual arousal may merely be a side effect, as you say. The "media" did cover mainly the sexual side of things, because well, the researchers were covering mainly the sexual side of things in this study.
We need to think of Mars as we would any other colony. Yes, the technical hurdles may be more extreme than getting a wooden boat from Europe to the New World, but at the time, the risk of colonists to the Americas was still pretty high.
There are no guarantees in life, and as long as the colonists are volunteers who know the risks, including the risk that we don't know what all the risks even are, then absolutely anybody should be allowed to go to Mars, assuming they can pay for their seat or get some kind of sponsorship from companies, governments, or academia. Just as there is no shortage of volunteers for such a mission, there are likely just as many venture capitalists out there who want a share of the action. Mineral rights, even if they're unlikely to be exploited for decades, are probably worth quite a bit right now. Patents on inventions by colonists on Mars, to better help future martians, are also probably worth something.
The point is, the manpower and money is there, waiting to be tapped, even on a possibly suicidal mission. Considering all our eggs are in one basket right now, I think it's immoral to try to stop people from going to Mars, no matter their reasons for doing so or their present circumstances.
Now, even ignoring the fact that it's cheaper to make new colonists on Mars than send new colonists all the way from Earth, there's a more important reason why we shouldn't worry about sending people to Mars who might get it on. If a colony isn't self-sustaining, it's useless. We need to have a colony that can create enough food and water for itself (combined with recycling of course), and enough air. And medicine. And tools. And more habitats to live in. And machines. Why wouldn't babies also be on that list? Is a parent on Mars not as productive as other colonists? Yes, potentially. But new babies are also a big morale boost to the colonists, and a source for additional labor a few years down the line.
Sex is going to happen in space, and on Mars, and any other world humans ever visit. Humans have sex on land, in the air, and even underwater. Being a major biological function, with significant genetic drive, we're going to keep coming up with new ways of doing it, and new places to do it. Trying to stop it is simply foolish, and if you think sending a bunch of old people to Mars is going to stop it, I have some disturbing mental images for you about your grandparents.
Now, maybe this will lead to problems. Maybe this will lead to unwanted babies or genetic defects. We're going to find out about these consequences anyway, might as well get it over with on a Mars mission. Send some pediatricians, some obstetricians, and deal with it. If our goal is to send humans out into the cosmos, we should send humans. People of every race, creed, and nationality. People who are old, young, and in between. People who can reproduce, adapt, and live ordinary lives. Going out into the cosmos is pointless if we use genetics to determine viable candidates, sterilize colonists, or restrict people because of their backgrounds and parental status. Whole families would get in colony ships hundreds of years ago, and they knew the risks. Society was fine with it, and yes, new babies were born on those new colonies. If we are to colonize Mars, we need to accept the risks, and realize that people will get cancer and that children will die. We'll learn, we'll adapt, and we'll get better at it.
Eventually, whatever equivalent of the airplane will come along, and traveling between planets will seem safe and ordinary. But we cannot get there if we don't take those first sea voyages to explore and colonize the planets. Don't let the risks stop us from trying. Babies are a part of that risk.
There's three ways of making a profit off of Mars, that are rather obvious to me.
One, there's an endless supply of people who want to go to Mars, for a number of reasons. Some may have an exploration bent, some may want to be famous, some may want to do science there instead of analyzing probe results back on Earth, some may have no hope for a good life on Earth and want to start fresh somewhere else. It really doesn't matter why they want to go. Charge them for a ticket, have them sign contracts so anything they invent or discover there legally belongs to a corporation, or whatever. Make colonists pay for the whole thing. Presumably there's enough out there who want to go into space who are rich or can get corporate sponsorship, to fund the expedition. Account for probability of colony failure (bring in the insurance agents), and make the trip itself profitable. Any extra costs left over, slap advertisements on the side of the rocket and side of the colony. Bring on the Merch too, and sell martian colony toys to kids back on Earth. Put out the occasional documentary film for earthicans to watch on TV, and sell ad time.
Two, sell mineral rights and futures. Companies who don't currently have the means to extract and return valuable materials from Mars right now may still be interested in buying up martian land. Have some of your colonists do exploratory digs and find out what's out there, so when we do have the capability of extracting and bringing martian rocks home, we can do so more efficiently.
Three, fuel stop. The moon is big on the special kind of Helium that's great for future rocket engines, and we definitely need to set up a permanent colony there to mine it, but perhaps there's good fuel on Mars too. Have the martians go and find out, and then build a gasoline station in orbit. Charge governments and other companies for its use.
We have to look at the colonization of Mars no differently than that of any colonization in human history. Yes, the scientific and technical hurdles involved in getting us there and sustaining life there are more complex, from a technological standpoint, but that's it.
You cannot stop people from having sex, and the desire to have children is innate to all living beings. Sooner or later, we're going to have babies born on other worlds, and in space, and it should be just as high a priority as getting our footprints on such distant places. There's no point whatsoever in going to Mars, and living there, if we cannot make such places self-sufficient in all things.
So, with Mars being a colony, in the true sense, volunteers should be people with skills of a wide variety, and include anyone who is physically capable of surviving the journey, and can pay their own way or get sponsorship from companies.
This means people will go there and get cancer from cosmic radiation. This means people will go there and die in accidents. This means people will go there and have babies with birth defects, and whole families may die trying to get there. Do you know how many people left to go to the New World and didn't survive the trip or died shortly after arrival? We need to be okay with that, because it is fully expected. Nobody guarenteed, when you got on a boat in Europe, that you'd make it to America and be rich and have a full belly for the rest of a long, prosperous life.
The people who volunteer for such colonization efforts should be made to know the risks, one of those risks being that there are other risks we don't even know about. But if people are okay with that, that's their own personal decisions, and if they can pay or get corporate, academic, or even governmental sponsorship, we as a society shouldn't try to stop them. If a post-menopausal 90 year old woman can pay her own way, so be it. If a father of three young kids wants to go there, and even bring his kids with him, so be it.
Back in the "good old days" death was rather common in communities, happening in people's homes instead of hospitals, and diseases that killed many of us in our 20s and 30s was no big deal. We've become very death-averse, risk-averse, and whether or not you think that's a good thing, it is an unnatural thing. The point is, Mars is worth it, and if we get some good old fashioned colony failures, and spaceships that are DOA, that's just the price of human progress.
Sooner or later, the species will die off if we don't get some of our eggs out of this one basket. Some sacrifices and hardships along the way are to be expected. As is often the case, governments will sponsor the early trips. Mars rovers are like Columbus' expeditions. But eventually the companies will get involved, and just as they want to make a profit sending people over there, and maybe getting some resources or patents in return from what the colonists do on Mars, there will be no shortage of people willing to take the risks, and pay for their tickets. We shouldn't try to stop anyone who wants to give it a try. And when they get there, well, it's cheaper to make new babies on Mars than it is to send new people to Mars.
The benefit, besides "Science!" is that we can start filling in values for the Drake Equation, even if we have to do a bit of mathematical calculation first to figure out how many planets we're probably missing.
The A-135 can only really defend Moscow against a single warhead, or just a handful at the most. The radar system itself is susceptible to suppression, seeing as how there's only one pillbox providing support for the interceptors. Only the first wave defense is likely to be effective, and there's only 32 of those missiles, which would hardly put much of a dent into a serious ballistic missile attack, considering the number of decoys and warheads implemented in modern missile systems. The second wave defenses, while more numerous, are non-nuclear now and probably wouldn't intercept much of anything. They were designed for nuclear warheads originally, something which of course would irradiate much of Moscow anyway. There may still be some nuclear warheads in the second wave, but stopping the enemy missiles from striking your city isn't all that great if your own missiles kill you anyway.
This is all, of course, predicated on the idea that the A-135 is still operational. There's some evidence that it's not, really, and only used for "tests" whenever the US starts thinking about upgrading their own ABM systems.
I'm really unsurprised infidelity is a genetic thing. Is anyone? Guys who sleep around, have more kids. More kids means the same genes get spread around. I find it hard to believe anybody bothered to do a study on something so clear and logical, but I suppose even the most blatantly obvious of hypotheses need to be tested under the scientific method by somebody.
If Wikileaks had integrity, they wouldn't be diving head-first into the muck. This is tabloid stuff, not journalism. If these guys were so concerned with integrity, they would exercise some editorial control and release only the stuff that actually matters: corruption, abuses, and so on. As I've understood it, these guys have the stated goal of hurting the United States because they're against the war. They're already biased, and they're already exercising that bias by the way they release things nice and slow to have the maximum impact, including meaningless tabloid nonsense. If there are major corruption and abuses to be revealed, they should reveal those first, should they not? That would be the responsible journalistic thing to do, no? Instead, we get things released simply to embarrass individuals.
Most countries/governments don't care, but individuals mentioned in the memos and individuals who wrote those memos sure as heck care. If you don't think personal relationships are important to international diplomacy, you're seriously naive. I posted above about one very simple fact, and that's if diplomats and analysts get worried their confidential memos will be in the papers the next day, they'll start self-censoring. Either there will be no more paper trails, or people who make decisions based on their memos won't have all the facts. At any rate, the public isn't well-served in the long term. By all means, reveal the corruption, the abuses, etc. But the personal stuff, the embarrassing stuff released solely to embarrass individual diplomats and state officials, that's definitely TMI. It's tabloid BS done for reasons of personal profit and political gain.
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Well, more good news for IE and Safari users. Not sure this makes too much sense though. Basically Google is removing a feature from their own browser, and then adding a new feature to their competitors. I guess that settles it, Google really believes that WebM is the superior codec, and is willing to destroy themselves to prove it. Most people are probably going to be happy using browsers that have both codecs, but hey, maybe there's some crazy Xanatos Gambit here that I'm just not seeing.
You had to look pretty hard to find data that supports your point. Sure, things are looking up for Firefox and Chrome in Europe. Worldwide, IE is a solid 46.94%. Firefox and Chrome add up to only 40%, combined. IE and Safari combined are a majority of browser share. Add in mobile browsers, and H.264 is looking even better.
So, content providers lose out on more share, encoding in WebM instead of H.264, unless they are targeting only Europe. Much more realistically, people will encode in both, and just waste more resources. Then people will do all sorts of comparisons, and show off screencaps of both formats side by side. I'm not sure WebM will benefit from that...
Those content providers who do make a choice, will go with the most accessible. Not a lot of sites are going to force people to install a third-party browser, but lots of sites will, as they have in the past, go with browsers that come pre-installed with the computer, namely IE and Safari.
If they were to drop H.264 and Flash from YouTube, Safari and IE could simply implement WebM. It's not going to suddenly make everyone use Chrome, and it's probably not going to suddenly make every content provider switch to WebM. Google may have a rather large bullet, but it doesn't have much gunpowder in in the cartridge, and it's the only bullet they have. Once they fire that gun, their enemies only get stronger.
Removing a perfectly good feature from your browser is never a good idea, when other more popular browsers have that feature. This is a stunt, and one Google will either come to regret, or one that will simply force content providers to release everything in two formats. Considering how content providers hate serving up the same content in multiple forms (think HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray), chances are the larger install base will win out and Google will cave in and support H.264 again.
I'm all for having as many competing standards as possible. I don't particularly care either way whether or not WebM or H.264 is "better" as long as I can play videos. That said, every technical analysis I've read seems to indicate H.264 either has a slight edge, or a significant edge over WebM. That's fine though. Choice, even a choice between unequal options, is a good thing.
When you take a feature out of your browser, one that was previously implemented and important, that's not the market deciding anything. That's Google trying to push its will on the rest of the internet. I think, for them, they're going to lose out. Maybe the OS companies are pushing H.264 pretty hard, because they are involved in the patent pool, but despite their lack of WebM support, I have yet to come across any video on the internet that wouldn't play. Which content providers, exactly, are using WebM to the exclusion of H.264?
Google's going to lose out, because nobody's using WebM exclusively, but lots of people are using H.264 exclusively. As much as I hate IE, the install base is through the roof. People are still implementing multiple versions of their websites to account for standard-noncompliance and various bugs in old versions of IE, because they have no choice but to do it if they want their content viewed by a wide audience. Safari, similarly, comes on every Mac sold by default, and I imagine the majority of Mac users never bother to install any other browsers either.
Google can only win with WebM through side-by-side comparisons on websites that host content in both formats. If WebM is the superior format, it'll win based on that, and that alone, not by political arguments, or by boycotting H.264 content. If people can't get access to videos with a third party browser like Firefox or Chrome, they'll simply uninstall it.
Huckabee and Palin both left politics to get into the infotainment business. They're making loads of money, and the likelihood of either of them running again is pretty slim. Neither of them have a shot at winning anything outside of the evangelical south, at any rate. The electoral math doesn't work unless there's a serious third party candidate and the election goes to the House, and Bloomberg will only run if he knows he can actually win. Romney is the more credible candidate, since he appeals to a much wider base.
This is irrelevant, anyway. You can't make legal arguments against being extradited to Sweden, based on hypothetical election outcomes in a third country years in the future. And even if a Huckabee or Palin presidency were guaranteed, Assange would be wiser to not fight extradition, get whatever punishments are coming to him now, and be out of the spotlight 2 years from now when potential danger was lurking.
That's not Assange's goal, though. He's not fighting against being executed, he's fighting for being in the news as much as possible. The more he's in the spotlight, the more wikileaks is in the spotlight, and the more his political agenda is satisfied. He wants big splashy headlines, nothing more, nothing less.
It is a stupid legal argument, because it makes no legal sense, and no rational judge will listen to it. Its only purpose is to make the media salivate.
Exactly. But it's not a serious defense against extradition to Sweden. It's sole purpose is to get headlines, and the lawyers are okay with wasting their time on silly arguments like this because Assange is picking up the bill.
IANAL, but I wouldn't think many judges would rule based on paranoid hypotheticals about non-existant charges by an unrelated party.
That the lawyers are arguing execution threat at all is because Assange is paying them to cause as much media attention as possible, and the lawyers are all too happy to ignore the law and charge him extra money for all the added man-hours.
If they charge him with anything, it'd be for leverage to get him to give up his sources. The guy isn't fighting extradition because he thinks he'll be executed, he's fighting extradition because he wants as much attention as possible, for as long as possible. Once the US finally gets him, uses him to find who leaked stuff to him, and then lets him leave with a stern warning, he'll lose his sources and all the media attention he's so desperate for.
It's pretty hilarious, because the prominent figure they're talking about is Huckabee. This is a man who is not a lawyer, not even a government official, and certainly has no bearing on who gets charged with what, or who gets executed. Plus, uh, yeah... Huckabee wasn't talking about Assange either, he was talking about the people who leaked stuff to Assange, at least as far as I can tell from the quote.
Presumably any judges looking at the arguments would do a modicum of research and find out just how stupid this argument is. But again, the lawyers are just throwing everything out there, and hoping something sticks. I don't know a lot about their legal system over there, but perhaps it will also give them some added grounds for appeal if they lose. IANAL.
The grounds are "hey, we're lawyers, we can charge our client by the word in our legal arguments before the judge!"
The more ridiculous grounds they can come up with, the more money they make, and the more attention Assange gets. It's win-win.
Fears about mind control. If you can make a product that causes somebody to be intensely sexually attracted to you, that has societal and possibly even legal implications. If you can make a product that reduces aggression, and governments get their hands on it...
This study didn't bother with male tears, or female test subjects, which is a cryin' shame. It would be very interesting to see the differences, if any.
Well, it's a controversial word when it relates to humans. Nobody wants to admit that specific chemicals can produce specific behaviors in human beings. Too much like mind control, and the potential abuses are huge. In TFA the guy says that basically, yeah, it's a pheromone, but he doesn't want to get into the semantic argument with people who are interested in humans not having any pheromones.
RTFA. They did the same thing with vials of saline that had been washed over the same women's faces. No effect on arousal. There was no way for the subjects to know what was bodily fluids, and what wasn't.
I think you have a valid point, but the test was specifically having men look at pictures of women and rate their attractiveness. Yes, they tested testosterone too, and if you RTFA you'd see that the researchers did consider a change in sexual arousal may merely be a side effect, as you say. The "media" did cover mainly the sexual side of things, because well, the researchers were covering mainly the sexual side of things in this study.
Er, oops. My reply above, I thought I lost, so I tried again. I guess they both went through.
We need to think of Mars as we would any other colony. Yes, the technical hurdles may be more extreme than getting a wooden boat from Europe to the New World, but at the time, the risk of colonists to the Americas was still pretty high.
There are no guarantees in life, and as long as the colonists are volunteers who know the risks, including the risk that we don't know what all the risks even are, then absolutely anybody should be allowed to go to Mars, assuming they can pay for their seat or get some kind of sponsorship from companies, governments, or academia. Just as there is no shortage of volunteers for such a mission, there are likely just as many venture capitalists out there who want a share of the action. Mineral rights, even if they're unlikely to be exploited for decades, are probably worth quite a bit right now. Patents on inventions by colonists on Mars, to better help future martians, are also probably worth something.
The point is, the manpower and money is there, waiting to be tapped, even on a possibly suicidal mission. Considering all our eggs are in one basket right now, I think it's immoral to try to stop people from going to Mars, no matter their reasons for doing so or their present circumstances.
Now, even ignoring the fact that it's cheaper to make new colonists on Mars than send new colonists all the way from Earth, there's a more important reason why we shouldn't worry about sending people to Mars who might get it on. If a colony isn't self-sustaining, it's useless. We need to have a colony that can create enough food and water for itself (combined with recycling of course), and enough air. And medicine. And tools. And more habitats to live in. And machines. Why wouldn't babies also be on that list? Is a parent on Mars not as productive as other colonists? Yes, potentially. But new babies are also a big morale boost to the colonists, and a source for additional labor a few years down the line.
Sex is going to happen in space, and on Mars, and any other world humans ever visit. Humans have sex on land, in the air, and even underwater. Being a major biological function, with significant genetic drive, we're going to keep coming up with new ways of doing it, and new places to do it. Trying to stop it is simply foolish, and if you think sending a bunch of old people to Mars is going to stop it, I have some disturbing mental images for you about your grandparents.
Now, maybe this will lead to problems. Maybe this will lead to unwanted babies or genetic defects. We're going to find out about these consequences anyway, might as well get it over with on a Mars mission. Send some pediatricians, some obstetricians, and deal with it. If our goal is to send humans out into the cosmos, we should send humans. People of every race, creed, and nationality. People who are old, young, and in between. People who can reproduce, adapt, and live ordinary lives. Going out into the cosmos is pointless if we use genetics to determine viable candidates, sterilize colonists, or restrict people because of their backgrounds and parental status. Whole families would get in colony ships hundreds of years ago, and they knew the risks. Society was fine with it, and yes, new babies were born on those new colonies. If we are to colonize Mars, we need to accept the risks, and realize that people will get cancer and that children will die. We'll learn, we'll adapt, and we'll get better at it.
Eventually, whatever equivalent of the airplane will come along, and traveling between planets will seem safe and ordinary. But we cannot get there if we don't take those first sea voyages to explore and colonize the planets. Don't let the risks stop us from trying. Babies are a part of that risk.
There's three ways of making a profit off of Mars, that are rather obvious to me.
One, there's an endless supply of people who want to go to Mars, for a number of reasons. Some may have an exploration bent, some may want to be famous, some may want to do science there instead of analyzing probe results back on Earth, some may have no hope for a good life on Earth and want to start fresh somewhere else. It really doesn't matter why they want to go. Charge them for a ticket, have them sign contracts so anything they invent or discover there legally belongs to a corporation, or whatever. Make colonists pay for the whole thing. Presumably there's enough out there who want to go into space who are rich or can get corporate sponsorship, to fund the expedition. Account for probability of colony failure (bring in the insurance agents), and make the trip itself profitable. Any extra costs left over, slap advertisements on the side of the rocket and side of the colony. Bring on the Merch too, and sell martian colony toys to kids back on Earth. Put out the occasional documentary film for earthicans to watch on TV, and sell ad time.
Two, sell mineral rights and futures. Companies who don't currently have the means to extract and return valuable materials from Mars right now may still be interested in buying up martian land. Have some of your colonists do exploratory digs and find out what's out there, so when we do have the capability of extracting and bringing martian rocks home, we can do so more efficiently.
Three, fuel stop. The moon is big on the special kind of Helium that's great for future rocket engines, and we definitely need to set up a permanent colony there to mine it, but perhaps there's good fuel on Mars too. Have the martians go and find out, and then build a gasoline station in orbit. Charge governments and other companies for its use.
We have to look at the colonization of Mars no differently than that of any colonization in human history. Yes, the scientific and technical hurdles involved in getting us there and sustaining life there are more complex, from a technological standpoint, but that's it.
You cannot stop people from having sex, and the desire to have children is innate to all living beings. Sooner or later, we're going to have babies born on other worlds, and in space, and it should be just as high a priority as getting our footprints on such distant places. There's no point whatsoever in going to Mars, and living there, if we cannot make such places self-sufficient in all things.
So, with Mars being a colony, in the true sense, volunteers should be people with skills of a wide variety, and include anyone who is physically capable of surviving the journey, and can pay their own way or get sponsorship from companies.
This means people will go there and get cancer from cosmic radiation. This means people will go there and die in accidents. This means people will go there and have babies with birth defects, and whole families may die trying to get there. Do you know how many people left to go to the New World and didn't survive the trip or died shortly after arrival? We need to be okay with that, because it is fully expected. Nobody guarenteed, when you got on a boat in Europe, that you'd make it to America and be rich and have a full belly for the rest of a long, prosperous life.
The people who volunteer for such colonization efforts should be made to know the risks, one of those risks being that there are other risks we don't even know about. But if people are okay with that, that's their own personal decisions, and if they can pay or get corporate, academic, or even governmental sponsorship, we as a society shouldn't try to stop them. If a post-menopausal 90 year old woman can pay her own way, so be it. If a father of three young kids wants to go there, and even bring his kids with him, so be it.
Back in the "good old days" death was rather common in communities, happening in people's homes instead of hospitals, and diseases that killed many of us in our 20s and 30s was no big deal. We've become very death-averse, risk-averse, and whether or not you think that's a good thing, it is an unnatural thing. The point is, Mars is worth it, and if we get some good old fashioned colony failures, and spaceships that are DOA, that's just the price of human progress.
Sooner or later, the species will die off if we don't get some of our eggs out of this one basket. Some sacrifices and hardships along the way are to be expected. As is often the case, governments will sponsor the early trips. Mars rovers are like Columbus' expeditions. But eventually the companies will get involved, and just as they want to make a profit sending people over there, and maybe getting some resources or patents in return from what the colonists do on Mars, there will be no shortage of people willing to take the risks, and pay for their tickets. We shouldn't try to stop anyone who wants to give it a try. And when they get there, well, it's cheaper to make new babies on Mars than it is to send new people to Mars.
The benefit, besides "Science!" is that we can start filling in values for the Drake Equation, even if we have to do a bit of mathematical calculation first to figure out how many planets we're probably missing.
The A-135 can only really defend Moscow against a single warhead, or just a handful at the most. The radar system itself is susceptible to suppression, seeing as how there's only one pillbox providing support for the interceptors. Only the first wave defense is likely to be effective, and there's only 32 of those missiles, which would hardly put much of a dent into a serious ballistic missile attack, considering the number of decoys and warheads implemented in modern missile systems. The second wave defenses, while more numerous, are non-nuclear now and probably wouldn't intercept much of anything. They were designed for nuclear warheads originally, something which of course would irradiate much of Moscow anyway. There may still be some nuclear warheads in the second wave, but stopping the enemy missiles from striking your city isn't all that great if your own missiles kill you anyway.
This is all, of course, predicated on the idea that the A-135 is still operational. There's some evidence that it's not, really, and only used for "tests" whenever the US starts thinking about upgrading their own ABM systems.
I'm really unsurprised infidelity is a genetic thing. Is anyone? Guys who sleep around, have more kids. More kids means the same genes get spread around. I find it hard to believe anybody bothered to do a study on something so clear and logical, but I suppose even the most blatantly obvious of hypotheses need to be tested under the scientific method by somebody.
If Wikileaks had integrity, they wouldn't be diving head-first into the muck. This is tabloid stuff, not journalism. If these guys were so concerned with integrity, they would exercise some editorial control and release only the stuff that actually matters: corruption, abuses, and so on. As I've understood it, these guys have the stated goal of hurting the United States because they're against the war. They're already biased, and they're already exercising that bias by the way they release things nice and slow to have the maximum impact, including meaningless tabloid nonsense. If there are major corruption and abuses to be revealed, they should reveal those first, should they not? That would be the responsible journalistic thing to do, no? Instead, we get things released simply to embarrass individuals.
Most countries/governments don't care, but individuals mentioned in the memos and individuals who wrote those memos sure as heck care. If you don't think personal relationships are important to international diplomacy, you're seriously naive. I posted above about one very simple fact, and that's if diplomats and analysts get worried their confidential memos will be in the papers the next day, they'll start self-censoring. Either there will be no more paper trails, or people who make decisions based on their memos won't have all the facts. At any rate, the public isn't well-served in the long term. By all means, reveal the corruption, the abuses, etc. But the personal stuff, the embarrassing stuff released solely to embarrass individual diplomats and state officials, that's definitely TMI. It's tabloid BS done for reasons of personal profit and political gain.