Since microwaves are electromagnetic waves, I presume you're disagreeing with the pulse part? The video, posted to Youtube by Eureka Aerospace, refers to it as an "electromagnetic pulse" and the demo seems to show a very short duration of operation is needed to shut down the car.
My main worry about this that the GPS system has a particular set of vulnerabilities that either don't exist or are less significant for a terrestrial system. Solar flares and other space environment risks come to mine, as does capture via hacking and attack via interceptor satellites.
It's pretty easy to see the parallels between copyright infringent (the sharing of proprietary apps against the wishes of the original IP holder) and violating the GNU (the sharing of source code against the original wishes of the IP holder).
Well, yes. Violating the GPL is copyright infringement. It's not just similar, it's legally identical.
You're right, the term "theft" shouldn't be used here.
This is why I can't take these discussions seriously. It's because it has nothing to do with freedom, because everyone's rights aren't supported, and everything to do with the GNU political movement.
Could you give a concise definition of what you mean by "rights"? From a freedom standpoint, the GPL does clearly involve a tradeoff between guaranteeing user freedom and weakening developer freedom. But it seems reasonable, given that the current legal situation allows (and defaults) to the opposite, where user/consumer rights are very limited. It's an attempt to maximize the overall freedom within the current legal system.
Yeah, that's definitely a risk. My hope is that might be lighter than two dedicated engines. Also, you might be able to run the ALICE fuel as a suspension and treat it as liquid fuel. Three pumps and one nozzle could be a big win on the lightness front. I admit the complexity risk is offputting, though.
Also, you might want to use the quote tags when quoting. (You might not, it's up to you.)
It looks like the exhaust products should include a fair amount of hydrogen gas. If so, you could add a liquid oxygen tank, inject LOX upstream of the nozzle and burn the hydrogen that's freed up to produce even more thrust, and more importantly, a higher specific impulse.
You might even be able to use it to create bimodal rockets that use the ALICE fuel for high thrust early in a launch and switch to pure H2/O2 later for the higher efficiency.
Alright, I'm going to have to call BS on your claims to be rich and drive a Tesla roadster, as you've failed to respond to my offer to verify your statements. I'd gladly vouch for you (and provide some photographic support), but it looks to me like you were lying, or minimally not serious about your offer. I'm disappointed -- I'd felt third party verification of your claims of success would be the ultimate counter argument and that making such an offer was pretty cool. As it stands, it's hard to believe you weren't lying. Not that that invalidates your point about GEDs being a good thing. They are.
On the other hand, you may have just lost track of the conversation for whatever reason. My offer to verify your claims still stands either way. I'll be in Chicago starting this Friday evening through most of next week.
I think a baseball MMO would be pretty cool, if only to people who like baseball games. Basic game play would center around pickup games (and may be drills), with computer and player controlled teams/players. If you focus at the team level, you can trade/level your players, acquire resources, equipment, etc and participate in season. You can use mini games and/or skill checks for difficult plays and actions -- possibly even mixing the two. Players could maybe pick between having the option of playing the mini game or just resorting to a skill check if that's not their thing. The Bigs 2 (which I've been playing develops several of these ideas pretty well.
Player centric would probably have a fairly slow pacing, which would work for me -- I like socialize in games. Also, if a lot of the people are sports fans, they could talk about that. Perhaps you could have a mini game that dictates how well a player keeps his head in the game.
Character levelling could be really flexible. Different play styles could be complimentary (Rickey Henderson like player batting in front of Albert Pujols like player), and you could have special team bonuses (much like the Bigs 2 [+ to outfielder speed, + to previous batter in line ups hitting, etc] ). An action point system -- like the Bigs big play and turbo meters would be nice, too.
Aging of characters would be something to consider as well. After about 20 seasons, your stats should start declining. If you're player has cemented his rep as a legend, that's awesome and you could have a seperate legends league/server for those people who can't accept their avatar has retired. Aging also pretty much gives you an unlimited leveling treadmill, though I'm not sure traditional MMO players would appreciate it.
The more I think about it, the more baseball (and sports in general) fit well into MMOs... they're one place where there are real world equivalents of guilds/parties/co-opt play (teams), leveling (increasing skills as experience accrues), PvP (matches/games against other players), grinding (drills/minigame practice), equipment bonuses, etc apply. Really, it's almost as if MMOs are a replacement for sports, they're so similar.
I really like the Bigs series (it combines RPGs and baseball, both of which I love) and from my experience with co-opt play in the Bigs 2, I would absolutely play an MMO based on similar mechanics, even as only one (or several) players on a team. I'd prefer that the MLB branding be set aside, though, for an MMO.
The biggest problems I forsee with a baseball MMO are pitching and bench players, as they don't play all the time and pitchers carry the bulk of the defense in baseball. Some special rules would have to be in play there.
Vehicle height: less than or equal to 13 feet
Vehicle length: less than or equal to 23 feet from main landing gear to tip of tail
Landing gear footprint must fit onto CAFE Scales (See CFTC floor plan, below)
Gross weight: less than or equal to 6500 pounds on main landing gear and less than or equal to 2000 lb on nose or tail wheel
Wingspan (as projected onto a level surface), if less than or equal to 44 feet, must be capable of being
shortened to less than or equal to 44 feet by wing-folding or tip removal that can be easily accomplished in
20 minutes or less by no more than 4 adult persons of average size and strength. This
is necessary to fit typical tie-downs, hangar rows and the width of the CAFE Flight Test
Center's hangar. Any small additional projected span of winglets, tip tanks or other wing
tip device, as vertically projected onto a level surface, will be included as wingspan.
That definitely makes sense. That would be a hard decision to make, though.
Noting your user name, are you in or from Canada? Apparently, Orwell's works are public domain there. For instance, this appears to be the link to 1984.
I misunderstood about the size of the box. Thanks for the correction.
I think your points about the fuel use, thermal signature and -- most importantly -- volume, probably push the system requirements out of the small car range. 11 L an hour is still enough for maybe 3 to 5 hours for a car sized fuel tank, so you'd have to have a good support system, but I think we're definitely pushed out of the motorcycle range and the volume puts at a vehicle not any smaller than a minivan, but I think a minivan is big enough -- apparently the interior volume of a Dodge Caravan is about 160 cubic feet. So we're talking more like an APC sized Terminator at the smallest, but it's definitely doable in the attack helicopter, main battle tank, fighter jet range. I'd say a 150 cubic foot volume and 100 kW power requirement/thermal signature increase is easy for them to work in.
I'm talking about something beyond a Hornet's flight control system. This would be recomputing the plant matrix for any arbitrary aircraft shape rather than just adjusting the gains of an adaptive feedback controller. Also, you'd be able to search the entire control space on the fly (pun not really intended) for the maximum amount of performance given any arbitrary damage. If the Hornet can do that, please send me a link to how it does it. Because that is awesome.
Anyway, thanks for well done and interesting post.
But where, exactly, would the batteries that can push 60 kilowatts go? I don't think they would fit in the trunk of a Mazda Miata with this magical imaginary computer.
Or more importantly, batteries that can push 60 kW for any period of time. I think that with enough cells, which you can make about as small as you want, you might get the power, but you definitely won't have the energy to run it for anytime whatsoever. The energy density is nowhere near good enough. But, Sticking with the Miata example, there's easily enough power under the hood to drive both the car and the computer, particularly with a high output option like the BPT. You just need a generator, like the 53 kW version in the Volt. For an automotive sized and powered vehicle, using year 2000 level power and materials technology, you could easily add such a computer and all it's benefits. That means effective, mobile, car sized autonomous fighting vehicles (since this is a DARPA project, I'm considering the military applications first) are extremely easy if you have this kind of computer, and motorcycle/Terminator sized units are probably possible, just using gas burning engines -- no advanced technology except the computer.
I apologize that wasn't clear from the original post.
This combination of power required and volume would allow essentially for current day supercomputer in every single military vehicle, assuming the weight and heat exhaust constraints aren't too onerous. 60 kW is about 80 horsepower and even a 19 in x 19 in x 19 in cube is only about 4 cubic feet*, which is less than than the trunk space on a Mazda Miata (5.1 cubic ft for a 2006 model), so it's within the space-power envelope of a small sports car, albeit the engine would need to be uprated some to account for the power drain.
Having such great computational power available to every single vehicle would open up a huge realm of possibilities: Combine it with sensors you could detect damage and minimize its effects by comparing the vehicle's response to a detailed finite element model. You could do on the fly aerodynamic analysis, allowing a fighter to keep performing to it's best even after damage has significantly altered it's shape. You could manage the control of thousands of actuators, allowing you to create a shapeshifting walker out of programmable matter, and you could definitely do learning/optimization algorithms that would allow for an AI capable of a significant amount of learning. Combine this with the amount of image processing it could do, and you're very near a completely autonomous, smart enough combat vehicle.
While it's a too big for a man portable system, with work, you could fit such a device (and a power source) into something as small as a motorcycle or a somewhat scaled up iRobot Warrior. That's not much more than man sized. It may not be a T-800, that much computation in that small size and power envelope is enough build a near-man sized autonomous fighting vehicle that can see, learn and adapt with an endurance on gas of several hours. It's a bit frightening to consider.
Let's not assume that being against surveillance cameras (or asking ridiculously invasive questions about one's web surfing habits) is a red state/blue state situation. For instance, Mississippi (which I think is generally considered a red state) recently banned red light cameras.
Interesting that you should choose the UK as an example of a country. You can equally argue that it's four countries: England, N. Ireland, Wales and Scotland. I think this supports your point, of course -- "country" simply doesn't have a clear meaning.
1) Everyone in the US breaks the law -- we're all criminals -- and yet it's still a civil society. Clearly, the foundation of country don't rest on the respect of any given law. The American Revolution would be pretty hard to explain then. The country was founded on respect only for just laws and contempt, disobedience and open revolt against unjust laws. You need to show that the law is just. Personally, I'm not sure it is. I'd take your stance that we should admit more immigrants as evidence that you don't believe the law is entirely just, either.
2)
illegal immigrants are breaking the law for their own benefit while legal immigrants
You're assuming it's only "for their own benefit." It's also for the benefit of their children and families. For example, if I'm a poor, pregnant Mexican, what better thing could I do for my child than giving birth to them on US soil? Because we as a country do better at respecting only just laws than most countries, US citizenship is a wonderful gift and may be the best way to protect whatever God given, universal rights one might actually have.
Yeah, that would totally fix the problem of our congresscritters immediately repealing the law, because it's not like you can repeal an amendment.
It would fix the problem of Congress repealing a law, because Congress doesn't ratify amendments, the states do. So the amusing self-reference in the grandparent's rule wouldn't occur.
You're mostly right about the election of crap politicians, though. That would be the best solution.
1) According to the site, 1190437 people submitted votes or named selections. "Colbert" got 230539 and "Serenity" got about 190k. Even combined, the top two choices only got about 35 percent of the vote. Alone, "Colbert" got about 19% of the vote. Even if the poll results were not biased by ballot stuffing, all they make clear is that no matter what choice NASA made, 80 percent of the voters disagreed with it. In no reasonable sense did "Colbert" win an election -- if a candidate was voted into office with a plurality of only 19% of the vote, there would be calls for his head and the system would probably be reformed.
2)Can we please stop conflating whoever put this survey on with the entirety of NASA? Some small group of people within the organization are responsible for the survey and the name selection. Complain about Bill Gerstenmaier, as it appears that he bears some responsibility for the survey and the naming, or maybe the ISS Project Office.
3)The rules did make it clear that the contest "winner" wouldn't necessarily be picked for the module name. It even gives reasons why: "NASA reserves the right to ultimately select a name in accordance with the best interests of the agency, its needs, and other considerations. Such name may not necessarily be one which is on the list of voted-on candidate names." The ISS is a big international project, and it's possible that the naming of a module might have a diplomatic effect. Relations with the Russians, our major partners on the station, seem somewhat stressed, maybe even on station. So not selecting what may be viewed as the flippant choice for a module name seems the more diplomatically sound choice.
My initial response is that Google should just ignore the blockage -- stick by the free speech principles that they purport to support.
But it is my hope that Youtube, blogs and similar sites have a positive effect on subverting the PRC government's policies of censorship and thought control, even when censored. Wikipedia suggests that this is true, with sexual content becoming less censored
around 2004. It's also clear that the Chinese populace is willing and at least somewhat to subvert such censorship, as indicated by the "Ten Mythical Creatures" meme.
So, though it galls me, perhaps Google should aim for some sort of middle of the road response to maximize the subversion of China's anti-free speech policies.
And number 1 in networking, apparently. Seeing that you're from Mississippi, I checked out your homepage. Seeing the album title "Katie's wedding," I was suddenly willing to put money on it being the Anderson/Howell wedding....
Wow, John Eric looks different than I remember.
Maybe the state is just that small.
Cheers,
--sabre86
Slashdot Mirror
Since microwaves are electromagnetic waves, I presume you're disagreeing with the pulse part? The video, posted to Youtube by Eureka Aerospace, refers to it as an "electromagnetic pulse" and the demo seems to show a very short duration of operation is needed to shut down the car.
My main worry about this that the GPS system has a particular set of vulnerabilities that either don't exist or are less significant for a terrestrial system. Solar flares and other space environment risks come to mine, as does capture via hacking and attack via interceptor satellites.
Looks like it's Slashdotted already. Here's the cached page: http://74.125.47.132/search?hl=en&q=cache%3Awww.significant-bits.com%2Fframerates-do-matter&aq=f&oq=&aqi=
And doesn't any SGML or XML type language bear a strong semblance to Lisp S-expressions?
It's pretty easy to see the parallels between copyright infringent (the sharing of proprietary apps against the wishes of the original IP holder) and violating the GNU (the sharing of source code against the original wishes of the IP holder).
Well, yes. Violating the GPL is copyright infringement. It's not just similar, it's legally identical.
You're right, the term "theft" shouldn't be used here.
This is why I can't take these discussions seriously. It's because it has nothing to do with freedom, because everyone's rights aren't supported, and everything to do with the GNU political movement.
Could you give a concise definition of what you mean by "rights"?
From a freedom standpoint, the GPL does clearly involve a tradeoff between guaranteeing user freedom and weakening developer freedom. But it seems reasonable, given that the current legal situation allows (and defaults) to the opposite, where user/consumer rights are very limited. It's an attempt to maximize the overall freedom within the current legal system.
Yeah, that's definitely a risk. My hope is that might be lighter than two dedicated engines. Also, you might be able to run the ALICE fuel as a suspension and treat it as liquid fuel. Three pumps and one nozzle could be a big win on the lightness front. I admit the complexity risk is offputting, though. Also, you might want to use the quote tags when quoting. (You might not, it's up to you.)
It looks like the exhaust products should include a fair amount of hydrogen gas. If so, you could add a liquid oxygen tank, inject LOX upstream of the nozzle and burn the hydrogen that's freed up to produce even more thrust, and more importantly, a higher specific impulse. You might even be able to use it to create bimodal rockets that use the ALICE fuel for high thrust early in a launch and switch to pure H2/O2 later for the higher efficiency.
Alright, I'm going to have to call BS on your claims to be rich and drive a Tesla roadster, as you've failed to respond to my offer to verify your statements. I'd gladly vouch for you (and provide some photographic support), but it looks to me like you were lying, or minimally not serious about your offer. I'm disappointed -- I'd felt third party verification of your claims of success would be the ultimate counter argument and that making such an offer was pretty cool. As it stands, it's hard to believe you weren't lying. Not that that invalidates your point about GEDs being a good thing. They are.
On the other hand, you may have just lost track of the conversation for whatever reason. My offer to verify your claims still stands either way. I'll be in Chicago starting this Friday evening through most of next week.
Sincerely
--sabre86
I think a baseball MMO would be pretty cool, if only to people who like baseball games. Basic game play would center around pickup games (and may be drills), with computer and player controlled teams/players. If you focus at the team level, you can trade/level your players, acquire resources, equipment, etc and participate in season. You can use mini games and/or skill checks for difficult plays and actions -- possibly even mixing the two. Players could maybe pick between having the option of playing the mini game or just resorting to a skill check if that's not their thing. The Bigs 2 (which I've been playing develops several of these ideas pretty well.
Player centric would probably have a fairly slow pacing, which would work for me -- I like socialize in games. Also, if a lot of the people are sports fans, they could talk about that. Perhaps you could have a mini game that dictates how well a player keeps his head in the game.
Character levelling could be really flexible. Different play styles could be complimentary (Rickey Henderson like player batting in front of Albert Pujols like player), and you could have special team bonuses (much like the Bigs 2 [+ to outfielder speed, + to previous batter in line ups hitting, etc] ). An action point system -- like the Bigs big play and turbo meters would be nice, too.
Aging of characters would be something to consider as well. After about 20 seasons, your stats should start declining. If you're player has cemented his rep as a legend, that's awesome and you could have a seperate legends league/server for those people who can't accept their avatar has retired. Aging also pretty much gives you an unlimited leveling treadmill, though I'm not sure traditional MMO players would appreciate it.
The more I think about it, the more baseball (and sports in general) fit well into MMOs... they're one place where there are real world equivalents of guilds/parties/co-opt play (teams), leveling (increasing skills as experience accrues), PvP (matches/games against other players), grinding (drills/minigame practice), equipment bonuses, etc apply. Really, it's almost as if MMOs are a replacement for sports, they're so similar.
I really like the Bigs series (it combines RPGs and baseball, both of which I love) and from my experience with co-opt play in the Bigs 2, I would absolutely play an MMO based on similar mechanics, even as only one (or several) players on a team. I'd prefer that the MLB branding be set aside, though, for an MMO.
The biggest problems I forsee with a baseball MMO are pitching and bench players, as they don't play all the time and pitchers carry the bulk of the defense in baseball. Some special rules would have to be in play there.
Multiplayer calvin ball would rock!
--sabre86
The requirements in the rules, Appendix B, are:
Vehicle height: less than or equal to 13 feet
Vehicle length: less than or equal to 23 feet from main landing gear to tip of tail
Landing gear footprint must fit onto CAFE Scales (See CFTC floor plan, below)
Gross weight: less than or equal to 6500 pounds on main landing gear and less than or equal to 2000 lb on nose or tail wheel
Wingspan (as projected onto a level surface), if less than or equal to 44 feet, must be capable of being shortened to less than or equal to 44 feet by wing-folding or tip removal that can be easily accomplished in 20 minutes or less by no more than 4 adult persons of average size and strength. This is necessary to fit typical tie-downs, hangar rows and the width of the CAFE Flight Test Center's hangar. Any small additional projected span of winglets, tip tanks or other wing tip device, as vertically projected onto a level surface, will be included as wingspan.
--sabre86
Or would you prefer to come meet me in Chicago for coffee? Would be glad to give you a ride in my Tesla Roadster over to the office for a tour.
Sounds good. Would next week work? I'll be up for an AIAA conference. I would love to just see a Tesla Roadster.
--sabre86
That definitely makes sense. That would be a hard decision to make, though.
Noting your user name, are you in or from Canada? Apparently, Orwell's works are public domain there. For instance, this appears to be the link to 1984.
--sabre86
1984 was on Gutenberg? Like Project Gutenberg? It doesn't seem to be there now. Or anything by Orwell. (Or Eric Blair.)
Maybe you're in Canada? His works seem to be public domain there.--sabre86
Good post.
I misunderstood about the size of the box. Thanks for the correction.
I think your points about the fuel use, thermal signature and -- most importantly -- volume, probably push the system requirements out of the small car range. 11 L an hour is still enough for maybe 3 to 5 hours for a car sized fuel tank, so you'd have to have a good support system, but I think we're definitely pushed out of the motorcycle range and the volume puts at a vehicle not any smaller than a minivan, but I think a minivan is big enough -- apparently the interior volume of a Dodge Caravan is about 160 cubic feet. So we're talking more like an APC sized Terminator at the smallest, but it's definitely doable in the attack helicopter, main battle tank, fighter jet range. I'd say a 150 cubic foot volume and 100 kW power requirement/thermal signature increase is easy for them to work in.
I'm talking about something beyond a Hornet's flight control system. This would be recomputing the plant matrix for any arbitrary aircraft shape rather than just adjusting the gains of an adaptive feedback controller. Also, you'd be able to search the entire control space on the fly (pun not really intended) for the maximum amount of performance given any arbitrary damage. If the Hornet can do that, please send me a link to how it does it. Because that is awesome.
Anyway, thanks for well done and interesting post.
--sabre86
But where, exactly, would the batteries that can push 60 kilowatts go? I don't think they would fit in the trunk of a Mazda Miata with this magical imaginary computer.
Or more importantly, batteries that can push 60 kW for any period of time. I think that with enough cells, which you can make about as small as you want, you might get the power, but you definitely won't have the energy to run it for anytime whatsoever. The energy density is nowhere near good enough. But, Sticking with the Miata example, there's easily enough power under the hood to drive both the car and the computer, particularly with a high output option like the BPT. You just need a generator, like the 53 kW version in the Volt. For an automotive sized and powered vehicle, using year 2000 level power and materials technology, you could easily add such a computer and all it's benefits. That means effective, mobile, car sized autonomous fighting vehicles (since this is a DARPA project, I'm considering the military applications first) are extremely easy if you have this kind of computer, and motorcycle/Terminator sized units are probably possible, just using gas burning engines -- no advanced technology except the computer.
I apologize that wasn't clear from the original post.
--sabre86
This combination of power required and volume would allow essentially for current day supercomputer in every single military vehicle, assuming the weight and heat exhaust constraints aren't too onerous. 60 kW is about 80 horsepower and even a 19 in x 19 in x 19 in cube is only about 4 cubic feet*, which is less than than the trunk space on a Mazda Miata (5.1 cubic ft for a 2006 model), so it's within the space-power envelope of a small sports car, albeit the engine would need to be uprated some to account for the power drain.
Having such great computational power available to every single vehicle would open up a huge realm of possibilities: Combine it with sensors you could detect damage and minimize its effects by comparing the vehicle's response to a detailed finite element model. You could do on the fly aerodynamic analysis, allowing a fighter to keep performing to it's best even after damage has significantly altered it's shape. You could manage the control of thousands of actuators, allowing you to create a shapeshifting walker out of programmable matter, and you could definitely do learning/optimization algorithms that would allow for an AI capable of a significant amount of learning. Combine this with the amount of image processing it could do, and you're very near a completely autonomous, smart enough combat vehicle.
While it's a too big for a man portable system, with work, you could fit such a device (and a power source) into something as small as a motorcycle or a somewhat scaled up iRobot Warrior. That's not much more than man sized. It may not be a T-800, that much computation in that small size and power envelope is enough build a near-man sized autonomous fighting vehicle that can see, learn and adapt with an endurance on gas of several hours. It's a bit frightening to consider.
--sabre86
Let's not assume that being against surveillance cameras (or asking ridiculously invasive questions about one's web surfing habits) is a red state/blue state situation. For instance, Mississippi (which I think is generally considered a red state) recently banned red light cameras.
--sabre86
Interesting that you should choose the UK as an example of a country. You can equally argue that it's four countries: England, N. Ireland, Wales and Scotland. I think this supports your point, of course -- "country" simply doesn't have a clear meaning.
--sabre86
1) Everyone in the US breaks the law -- we're all criminals -- and yet it's still a civil society. Clearly, the foundation of country don't rest on the respect of any given law. The American Revolution would be pretty hard to explain then. The country was founded on respect only for just laws and contempt, disobedience and open revolt against unjust laws. You need to show that the law is just. Personally, I'm not sure it is. I'd take your stance that we should admit more immigrants as evidence that you don't believe the law is entirely just, either.
2)
illegal immigrants are breaking the law for their own benefit while legal immigrants
You're assuming it's only "for their own benefit." It's also for the benefit of their children and families. For example, if I'm a poor, pregnant Mexican, what better thing could I do for my child than giving birth to them on US soil? Because we as a country do better at respecting only just laws than most countries, US citizenship is a wonderful gift and may be the best way to protect whatever God given, universal rights one might actually have.
--sabre86
Given Austria's religious makeup, can we be surprised that they're pulling out?
Yeah, that would totally fix the problem of our congresscritters immediately repealing the law, because it's not like you can repeal an amendment.
It would fix the problem of Congress repealing a law, because Congress doesn't ratify amendments, the states do. So the amusing self-reference in the grandparent's rule wouldn't occur.
You're mostly right about the election of crap politicians, though. That would be the best solution.
--sabre86
1) According to the site, 1190437 people submitted votes or named selections. "Colbert" got 230539 and "Serenity" got about 190k. Even combined, the top two choices only got about 35 percent of the vote. Alone, "Colbert" got about 19% of the vote. Even if the poll results were not biased by ballot stuffing, all they make clear is that no matter what choice NASA made, 80 percent of the voters disagreed with it. In no reasonable sense did "Colbert" win an election -- if a candidate was voted into office with a plurality of only 19% of the vote, there would be calls for his head and the system would probably be reformed.
2)Can we please stop conflating whoever put this survey on with the entirety of NASA? Some small group of people within the organization are responsible for the survey and the name selection. Complain about Bill Gerstenmaier, as it appears that he bears some responsibility for the survey and the naming, or maybe the ISS Project Office.
3)The rules did make it clear that the contest "winner" wouldn't necessarily be picked for the module name. It even gives reasons why: "NASA reserves the right to ultimately select a name in accordance with the best interests of the agency, its needs, and other considerations. Such name may not necessarily be one which is on the list of voted-on candidate names." The ISS is a big international project, and it's possible that the naming of a module might have a diplomatic effect. Relations with the Russians, our major partners on the station, seem somewhat stressed, maybe even on station. So not selecting what may be viewed as the flippant choice for a module name seems the more diplomatically sound choice.
--sabre86
New law: In order to create a new law, you must repeal 2. Maybe we'd get some sensible laws then.
I wonder what the first one they'll repeal is? Hmmm.... Maybe we should make it a Constitutional amendment instead.
--sabre86
My initial response is that Google should just ignore the blockage -- stick by the free speech principles that they purport to support.
But it is my hope that Youtube, blogs and similar sites have a positive effect on subverting the PRC government's policies of censorship and thought control, even when censored. Wikipedia suggests that this is true, with sexual content becoming less censored around 2004. It's also clear that the Chinese populace is willing and at least somewhat to subvert such censorship, as indicated by the "Ten Mythical Creatures" meme.
So, though it galls me, perhaps Google should aim for some sort of middle of the road response to maximize the subversion of China's anti-free speech policies.
--sabre86
And number 1 in networking, apparently. Seeing that you're from Mississippi, I checked out your homepage. Seeing the album title "Katie's wedding," I was suddenly willing to put money on it being the Anderson/Howell wedding.... Wow, John Eric looks different than I remember. Maybe the state is just that small. Cheers, --sabre86