Most (all?) photos you are likely to see of nebula are enhanced, and thus the colors generally vary depending on what the 'artist' (astronomer) was studying; colors that highlight differences in density will be used by the astronomer studying gas density, colors that accentuate gas temperature by the astronmer studying gas dynamics, etc.
That isn't to say your argument is wrong in anyway. I would agree with your hypothesis; however am not an expert in nebula dynamics in any way shape or form. I will state with great certainty that IF there are significate magnetic forces within a nebula, you WILL see higher gas densities along the magnetic lines of force -- the same idea as when you have iron filings on a sheet of paper and put a magnet under it: those filings will align with the field lines of the magnet.
This could be an interesting topic (the whole tread). I hope some good answers come out of it!
The warping is symmetrical, in 3 (4?) dimensions -- unless there is significant spin. 'Significant' depends on the masses in question.
Which, now that I think of it that way, begs the same question as yourself, rephrased; does frame dragging affect the shape of galaxies? Perhaps helping align galaxies with the spin plane of a massive central black hole? Hm. I am guessing that a bunch of things are helping towards the same end.
Frame dragging is also symmetric, but only in the plane of rotation; and since we are talking about the curious fact that most galaxies are not symmetric in 3 dimensions....
When I was about 12 I got sick. My mother took me to the doctor, and he prescribed some meds for me. We went to the pharmacy and picked them up. I was out of it, and waited in the car.
Doctor said to start right away -- Not out of urgency, it was just some nasty fever that I probably shouldn't have been medicated for, but at anyrate... So I popped a pill upon getting them.
About an hour after we got home, phone rings. Turns out is the senior pharmacist in a state of controlled panic --- Tells my mom to NOT give me any more of the drug, asks how much I've had, and gets our address. He then IMMEDIATLY drives out 20 miles to deliver the CORRECT medication. I'd been given some heart medication or another. This was a MAJOR pharmacy, doing more business then than the typical Walgreens does now.
Moral of the story? Well, my whole family now checks every drug we buy at the store with the drug interaction guides -- I use the 'net, the parents use some HUGE book. And I know that this would be much less likely to happen today; BECAUSE OF computers. However! If it DID happen -- e.g. hadn't been a drug that was so obviously NOT aimed at a 12 year old, having a human on staff that is TRAINED could very well save the day.
To me, it is like adding yet another layer of protection. Just because you bought a car alarm doesn't mean you stop locking the doors of your car. Or just because you have installed that happy parachute system on your small airplane doesn't mean you are going to stop checking to see if your buddy put in enough gas. Layers. We are adding layers.
That should so be taught in college. Freshman year. I wonder how many people here can say they learned it the hard way. Probably the story usually goes something like 'I/we was/were just trying to impress the customer! Now, two weeks later, they want to know why its not done!!'.
After my lesson was beaten into me, I switched to making everything run off of test cases in code when I could, command line flags, and the occasional empty frame with the menu system in place. You tend to design better code that way anyway; keeps you from writing code inside the Listeners etc that shouldn't be there. I had a biiig problem with that:~) If your project is properly spec'd you will find this isn't a problem; for on-the-fly coding (e.g. for personal, fun projects) it can be a bit harder. I'm sure it depends on your personality.
oooOOOOooo You've never done that, have you!? I made that mistake. Once. I earned (and am still earning, once in a while) an incredible amount of money building reports for them in Crystal.....:~)
Works out, sometimes. You're honest, they don't recognize the truth, truth bites them in the pocket book.
Although I have to admit I have happier ways to earn money than designing reports in Crystal. Ugh.
No. There is almost zero chance. You don't know jack about either explosions or containment methods. Read up a bit and get back to us son.
And before you say some dumbass thing about 'almost isn't good enough', no good engineer will ever say anything important has zero chance of happening, except to get the idiots off of their backs. The odds of radioactive debris being released from an unrestricted hydrogen explosion are as close to zero as you can get. Read. Learn. Then speak.
NASA would need to develop a launch facility for Delta IV of the type and in the location that they can maximize their dollars income and minimize dollars per Kilogram cost.
NASA needs to do nothing of the sort; Boeing et. al. already have.
Can they launch a IV heavy? Not yet, I don't think, but I'm sure they've got a few people on top of that;~)
And NASA's job is not to earn money. However it does not follow that they should be throwing it away. In that sense, your point stands well enough; at the costs we are seeing from our program we could easily buy payload space on the Ariane and launch a small, 'people only' shuttle (had we one). However, no matter what we have to say, some of the components for the ISS were designed to fit in the shuttle. To stop using the shuttle would be to throw those peices away (or send them back for re-design, which would be just as expensive as making new ones). Not stating my opinion on that, just say'n...
You want to launch from the Latitude which is equal to the orbit you want to be in. Well, it is cheapest in terms of delta V anyway. Hence, our Alaska launch site is better for polar orbits. Plus its just miles and miles of miles and miles.
Going into an orbit BELOW your launch latitude (inclination latitude) isn't so bad.
How well could a ground-based camera take a picture of the shuttle?
What ground based cameras? Why not the ones in space?
How about if the ground station could illuminate the shuttle with lasers, possibly with a series of colors to check specific aspects of the TPS condition? (Stay away from the windows, please!)
Inventive, to be sure. I fail to see that it would be effective, and the cost of designing such a facility would be inline with designing a new shuttle anyway. Cool thought though. Would be more effective from short range; basically just an advanced range-finder. The variable atmosphere would be a bastard to contend with though, if you were to try to ground-base it.
NASA has had an 'orbiting camera' forever; Not a satellite, but something that can be carried on the shuttle and taken out to 'orbit' the ship and take high-res pictures -- uses some compressed gas to bop around. I would think if the shuttle were to lie 'belly up' to the sun for a while, then you start taking IR shots when in the dark (cold) you would see any thermal gradients indicitive of a crack in the heat shield.
Your point is valid; in the case where the box says 'you have no right to even expect a chance of getting a perfect monitor.' However every time I've seen such a warning the company ascribes the 'problem' to manufacturing and claims exactly what I said in my original post. E.g. they imply that you *may* get dead pixels, but you *may* not. I contend that with no change to advert policy, they would be misleading the consumer. And as I also said, it most certainly wouldn't be an easy case to win. But just taking it to court would be horrible for the company's image.
And thank you for responding with a good argument. Honestly, this slashdot thread is the first I've ever heard of the ISO standards. As cynical as I am I often am too optimistic about such things being weighted in favor of being fair (and easy to interpret)to the 'average' consumer.
That argument is crap Ad Hominem. No process is perfect. Non Sequitur. For instance a lot of CPUs are scrapped to be able to deliver only perfectly working ones. Non Sequitur.
On the other hand, if they get caught intentionally sending the monitors with dead pixels to the states, and keeping all the good ones for use with this policy, they would probably lose in court for fraud. That is to say, if anyone with the balls and money to do so sued them.
The reason I say this is because the current accepted policy on dead pixels generally states something like 'the process is not perfect and there is a chance that of (xxx million) pixels, a few won't work.' This is generally accepted; there is a chance that you will have a bad pixel or three. However, more than likely, if LCD manufacture X just ships with random distribution then YOU will probably have no dead pixels. Crap shoot. You can get unlucky.
Contrast that with the company basically saying 'there is a chance one or more of your pixels won't work' and then only sending monitors with one or more bad pixels to a region.
I contend it would be a tough case, but win or no, the press would be horrible for any company dumb enough to try it.
My guess is the LCDs with bad pixels would be used in smaller applications such as those happy little monitors on airplanes, car information displays etc etc. But then, companies do stupid shit to screw themselves and their customers all the time. Who knows?
I disagree; unless there is an OBVIOUS stated policy on the matter. When I purchased my Toshiba laptop I read *everything*. Nowhere, but NOWHERE did I find a policy on dead pixels. Hence I was happy; I knew that in an argument over returns based on a dead pixel I would win. I even called sales and said 'if I get a dead pixel I am returning this laptop', and offered 50 bucks to have the monitor verified 'good'. They didn't accept the fee, and said 'um... ok?' basically.
As a programmer who uses a pc more than 8 hours a day, I simply WILL NOT put up with a dead pixel. ANYWHERE on the screen.
I purchased a desktop LCD for my parents on a site that listed in no uncertain terms that they will not accept LCD returns for dead pixels unless there are more than 'X' dead pixels. I was fine with that; my parents use the computer maybe 10 hours in a given week. As it turns out there is a dead 'live' pixel; annoying to me, but my parents didn't notice it for weeks.
Which brings up a valid question; anyone know why there aren't tools to disable stuck pixels? Obviously it would have to be done at the manufacturing level, but I can't imagine that the process couldn't be automated. Just SHUT THE DAMNED THING OFF! Seriously, a dead 'off' pixel is hardly noticable, except to power users. Dead 'on' pixels are damned near impossible to miss. You would think the major panel providers would want to limit the damage?
Not buffer/array overflow. When you try to add just ONE MORE to a variable that is at its max value. Thus causing the value to wrap around to either some exceedingly large, negative value, or 0, depending on if it is signed or not.
While I admit to not being deeply educated on QM, I am almost certain that it goes far deeper than that. Not a hunch, from what I have actually read on the matter. Collapsing the wave and all that.
Oh nonono. I don't mean he planned anything! Hmm. On the other hand, maybe he is planning, and we are a computer simulation;~)
I mean that, as is the typical nature of a quantum computer, *every* possibility exists and occurs; only the 'right' answer will come out of a quantum computer; every other possible universe created within that qomputer will be 'destroyed' by the act of observing the 'correct' answer which it produces.
Hence, we can only look forward to.....;~)
Were I to try to explain the concept in my head without using quantum physics, I would simplify it down to 'What if everything 'God' thought, happened?' What if we are but a consideration along the way to creating the True Vision of 'God'. Such, were it true, would allow me to believe in a virtually omniscient being; it would allow an explanation for things like the tidal wave on Sunday without having to resort to the trite 'everything has its purpose'.
Really, though: Quantum mechanics screws with your mind. To my pathetic understanding, QM says 'there MUST be an observer'. And we haven't been here all that long. I don't really believe in any god or gods that have ever had a church built for them, but it is hard to believe that we as humanity are the cause and effect of our own observations on the universe we now think we know. I don't require omniscience (actually the thought turns my stomach), but some advanced aliens trying to escape their own dying universe would be cool. On the scary side, I've wondered if we stuck in someones quantum computer. If so... What question are they trying to answer?
And that is my ultra-brief summary of but one of All [My] Thoughts On God. Cheers!
I used to agree 100%, however times change. Now it is more like 90%. For reference, I don't agree with the religious aspect either. Moving on to the point:
When we 'use' quantum computers (yes yes, don't have working ones yet... the THEORY however..>), what are we doing? We are playing at a bogo sort for an answer, kind of. We create EVERY instance that could possibly exist... and destroy all those that don't answer our question. Very simplified, but this is me, on/., on a PC. Want more read a book. The POINT, however, in this context is highlighted by the above: what if 'God' created (or is?) the quantum computer? Then every possible path for eternity is perhaps being played out? Thus free will in an individual frame is preserved, however 'God' is still omniscient.
I don't really believe in a created universe. I like playing devils advocate though. And the subject of religion mixed with quantum physics is just *begging* for good discussions:~)
heh. Come now. Some of us were still using BBSs to get our [info] back in the days they were handing out/. IDs below a thousand:~)
In agreement with your comment: I find no difference in the quality of the ads in newspapers. What scares me is that most ads in newspapers, back when I read them, actually had to go through a LIVE PERSON -- and you would still get the most insane 'offers' imaginable.
A personal favorite of mine, which no newspaper ed. would ever have caught, was back in about '98? '99? Somewhere near there. It was in the employment section, and it was for a Java Swing programmer... One with 5 years of experience in the Swing libraries.
For those of you who don't get the joke, Swing wasn't released until early '97 -- really not until a while later, but IIRC there was no such thing as Swing until the JFC libraries were released.
The earthquake of magnitude 8.9 as measured by the U.S. Geological Survey struck at 7:59 a.m. (00.59 a.m. British time) off Sumatra and swung north with tremors into the Andaman islands.
A warning centre such as those used along the Pacific Rim could have saved most of the thousands of people who died, A USGS official said. "And I think this will be a lesson to them," he said, referring to the devastated countries.
Harsh? Yes. But realistic. A number of someones in a number of countries saved a few bucks by not having a warning system. Perhaps there were some areas where it would have done more harm than good... but I doubt it.
A sad day for hundreds of thousands of people. Let us consider what we can do to help them, and to help mitigate future disasters such as this one.
While there are a couple of good replies, the ones I see miss the big point:
Our spacecraft have thrusters.
A tiny tiny tiny bit of delta V can make a HUGE difference over the course of a spacecrafts trip. And all gravity assist spacecraft to date have had thrusters on board. It is downright amazing how often they weren't *needed*, but the fact is they were available.
Slashdot Mirror
Most (all?) photos you are likely to see of nebula are enhanced, and thus the colors generally vary depending on what the 'artist' (astronomer) was studying; colors that highlight differences in density will be used by the astronomer studying gas density, colors that accentuate gas temperature by the astronmer studying gas dynamics, etc.
That isn't to say your argument is wrong in anyway. I would agree with your hypothesis; however am not an expert in nebula dynamics in any way shape or form. I will state with great certainty that IF there are significate magnetic forces within a nebula, you WILL see higher gas densities along the magnetic lines of force -- the same idea as when you have iron filings on a sheet of paper and put a magnet under it: those filings will align with the field lines of the magnet.
This could be an interesting topic (the whole tread). I hope some good answers come out of it!
The warping is symmetrical, in 3 (4?) dimensions -- unless there is significant spin. 'Significant' depends on the masses in question.
Which, now that I think of it that way, begs the same question as yourself, rephrased; does frame dragging affect the shape of galaxies? Perhaps helping align galaxies with the spin plane of a massive central black hole? Hm. I am guessing that a bunch of things are helping towards the same end.
Frame dragging is also symmetric, but only in the plane of rotation; and since we are talking about the curious fact that most galaxies are not symmetric in 3 dimensions....
And how is that for a non-answer!?
Hear hear.
When I was about 12 I got sick. My mother took me to the doctor, and he prescribed some meds for me. We went to the pharmacy and picked them up. I was out of it, and waited in the car.
Doctor said to start right away -- Not out of urgency, it was just some nasty fever that I probably shouldn't have been medicated for, but at anyrate... So I popped a pill upon getting them.
About an hour after we got home, phone rings. Turns out is the senior pharmacist in a state of controlled panic --- Tells my mom to NOT give me any more of the drug, asks how much I've had, and gets our address. He then IMMEDIATLY drives out 20 miles to deliver the CORRECT medication. I'd been given some heart medication or another. This was a MAJOR pharmacy, doing more business then than the typical Walgreens does now.
Moral of the story? Well, my whole family now checks every drug we buy at the store with the drug interaction guides -- I use the 'net, the parents use some HUGE book. And I know that this would be much less likely to happen today; BECAUSE OF computers. However! If it DID happen -- e.g. hadn't been a drug that was so obviously NOT aimed at a 12 year old, having a human on staff that is TRAINED could very well save the day.
To me, it is like adding yet another layer of protection. Just because you bought a car alarm doesn't mean you stop locking the doors of your car. Or just because you have installed that happy parachute system on your small airplane doesn't mean you are going to stop checking to see if your buddy put in enough gas. Layers. We are adding layers.
That should so be taught in college. Freshman year. I wonder how many people here can say they learned it the hard way. Probably the story usually goes something like 'I/we was/were just trying to impress the customer! Now, two weeks later, they want to know why its not done!!'.
:~) If your project is properly spec'd you will find this isn't a problem; for on-the-fly coding (e.g. for personal, fun projects) it can be a bit harder. I'm sure it depends on your personality.
After my lesson was beaten into me, I switched to making everything run off of test cases in code when I could, command line flags, and the occasional empty frame with the menu system in place. You tend to design better code that way anyway; keeps you from writing code inside the Listeners etc that shouldn't be there. I had a biiig problem with that
oooOOOOooo You've never done that, have you!? I made that mistake. Once. I earned (and am still earning, once in a while) an incredible amount of money building reports for them in Crystal..... :~)
Works out, sometimes. You're honest, they don't recognize the truth, truth bites them in the pocket book.
Although I have to admit I have happier ways to earn money than designing reports in Crystal. Ugh.
http://www.nuclearspace.com/A_PWrussview_FINX.htm
:~)
Gas core. Fun stuff.
No. There is almost zero chance. You don't know jack about either explosions or containment methods. Read up a bit and get back to us son.
And before you say some dumbass thing about 'almost isn't good enough', no good engineer will ever say anything important has zero chance of happening, except to get the idiots off of their backs. The odds of radioactive debris being released from an unrestricted hydrogen explosion are as close to zero as you can get. Read. Learn. Then speak.
NASA would need to develop a launch facility for Delta IV of the type and in the location that they can maximize their dollars income and minimize dollars per Kilogram cost.
;~)
NASA needs to do nothing of the sort; Boeing et. al. already have.
Can they launch a IV heavy? Not yet, I don't think, but I'm sure they've got a few people on top of that
And NASA's job is not to earn money. However it does not follow that they should be throwing it away. In that sense, your point stands well enough; at the costs we are seeing from our program we could easily buy payload space on the Ariane and launch a small, 'people only' shuttle (had we one).
However, no matter what we have to say, some of the components for the ISS were designed to fit in the shuttle. To stop using the shuttle would be to throw those peices away (or send them back for re-design, which would be just as expensive as making new ones). Not stating my opinion on that, just say'n...
You want to launch from the Latitude which is equal to the orbit you want to be in. Well, it is cheapest in terms of delta V anyway. Hence, our Alaska launch site is better for polar orbits. Plus its just miles and miles of miles and miles.
Going into an orbit BELOW your launch latitude (inclination latitude) isn't so bad.
How well could a ground-based camera take a picture of the shuttle?
What ground based cameras? Why not the ones in space?
How about if the ground station could illuminate the shuttle with lasers, possibly with a series of colors to check specific aspects of the TPS condition? (Stay away from the windows, please!)
Inventive, to be sure. I fail to see that it would be effective, and the cost of designing such a facility would be inline with designing a new shuttle anyway. Cool thought though. Would be more effective from short range; basically just an advanced range-finder. The variable atmosphere would be a bastard to contend with though, if you were to try to ground-base it.
NASA has had an 'orbiting camera' forever; Not a satellite, but something that can be carried on the shuttle and taken out to 'orbit' the ship and take high-res pictures -- uses some compressed gas to bop around. I would think if the shuttle were to lie 'belly up' to the sun for a while, then you start taking IR shots when in the dark (cold) you would see any thermal gradients indicitive of a crack in the heat shield.
Ahhh, FORTRAN. You know you're dealing with real aerospace engineers when....
Or two kites land across a highway, stretching a cable between them.
:~)
;~)....)
Still... it sells better than nuclear does right now. And we tend to like our power stations in BFE anyway.
(please note, that is not a comment on my opinion of nuclear
Your point is valid; in the case where the box says 'you have no right to even expect a chance of getting a perfect monitor.' However every time I've seen such a warning the company ascribes the 'problem' to manufacturing and claims exactly what I said in my original post. E.g. they imply that you *may* get dead pixels, but you *may* not. I contend that with no change to advert policy, they would be misleading the consumer. And as I also said, it most certainly wouldn't be an easy case to win. But just taking it to court would be horrible for the company's image.
And thank you for responding with a good argument. Honestly, this slashdot thread is the first I've ever heard of the ISO standards. As cynical as I am I often am too optimistic about such things being weighted in favor of being fair (and easy to interpret)to the 'average' consumer.
That argument is crap
Ad Hominem.
No process is perfect.
Non Sequitur.
For instance a lot of CPUs are scrapped to be able to deliver only perfectly working ones.
Non Sequitur.
On the other hand, if they get caught intentionally sending the monitors with dead pixels to the states, and keeping all the good ones for use with this policy, they would probably lose in court for fraud. That is to say, if anyone with the balls and money to do so sued them.
The reason I say this is because the current accepted policy on dead pixels generally states something like 'the process is not perfect and there is a chance that of (xxx million) pixels, a few won't work.' This is generally accepted; there is a chance that you will have a bad pixel or three. However, more than likely, if LCD manufacture X just ships with random distribution then YOU will probably have no dead pixels. Crap shoot. You can get unlucky.
Contrast that with the company basically saying 'there is a chance one or more of your pixels won't work' and then only sending monitors with one or more bad pixels to a region.
I contend it would be a tough case, but win or no, the press would be horrible for any company dumb enough to try it.
My guess is the LCDs with bad pixels would be used in smaller applications such as those happy little monitors on airplanes, car information displays etc etc. But then, companies do stupid shit to screw themselves and their customers all the time. Who knows?
I disagree; unless there is an OBVIOUS stated policy on the matter. When I purchased my Toshiba laptop I read *everything*. Nowhere, but NOWHERE did I find a policy on dead pixels. Hence I was happy; I knew that in an argument over returns based on a dead pixel I would win. I even called sales and said 'if I get a dead pixel I am returning this laptop', and offered 50 bucks to have the monitor verified 'good'. They didn't accept the fee, and said 'um... ok?' basically.
As a programmer who uses a pc more than 8 hours a day, I simply WILL NOT put up with a dead pixel. ANYWHERE on the screen.
I purchased a desktop LCD for my parents on a site that listed in no uncertain terms that they will not accept LCD returns for dead pixels unless there are more than 'X' dead pixels. I was fine with that; my parents use the computer maybe 10 hours in a given week. As it turns out there is a dead 'live' pixel; annoying to me, but my parents didn't notice it for weeks.
Which brings up a valid question; anyone know why there aren't tools to disable stuck pixels? Obviously it would have to be done at the manufacturing level, but I can't imagine that the process couldn't be automated. Just SHUT THE DAMNED THING OFF! Seriously, a dead 'off' pixel is hardly noticable, except to power users. Dead 'on' pixels are damned near impossible to miss. You would think the major panel providers would want to limit the damage?
Purdue had one. I believe a girl did sue, actually. Although, I have to give her some credit; the brakes were faulty and she got hit by a bus. link
Okay, okay. So SHE hit the bus. Semantics I tell ya. The program was killed due to widespread vandalism.
Portland, Oregon had (and could perhaps still has) one; the Yellow Bike program. Google says they still have it: link
Not buffer/array overflow. When you try to add just ONE MORE to a variable that is at its max value. Thus causing the value to wrap around to either some exceedingly large, negative value, or 0, depending on if it is signed or not.
While I admit to not being deeply educated on QM, I am almost certain that it goes far deeper than that. Not a hunch, from what I have actually read on the matter. Collapsing the wave and all that.
cheers,
Oh nonono. I don't mean he planned anything! Hmm. On the other hand, maybe he is planning, and we are a computer simulation ;~)
;~)
I mean that, as is the typical nature of a quantum computer, *every* possibility exists and occurs; only the 'right' answer will come out of a quantum computer; every other possible universe created within that qomputer will be 'destroyed' by the act of observing the 'correct' answer which it produces.
Hence, we can only look forward to.....
Were I to try to explain the concept in my head without using quantum physics, I would simplify it down to 'What if everything 'God' thought, happened?' What if we are but a consideration along the way to creating the True Vision of 'God'. Such, were it true, would allow me to believe in a virtually omniscient being; it would allow an explanation for things like the tidal wave on Sunday without having to resort to the trite 'everything has its purpose'.
Really, though: Quantum mechanics screws with your mind. To my pathetic understanding, QM says 'there MUST be an observer'. And we haven't been here all that long. I don't really believe in any god or gods that have ever had a church built for them, but it is hard to believe that we as humanity are the cause and effect of our own observations on the universe we now think we know. I don't require omniscience (actually the thought turns my stomach), but some advanced aliens trying to escape their own dying universe would be cool. On the scary side, I've wondered if we stuck in someones quantum computer. If so... What question are they trying to answer?
And that is my ultra-brief summary of but one of All [My] Thoughts On God.
Cheers!
I used to agree 100%, however times change. Now it is more like 90%. For reference, I don't agree with the religious aspect either. Moving on to the point:
/., on a PC. Want more read a book. The POINT, however, in this context is highlighted by the above: what if 'God' created (or is?) the quantum computer? Then every possible path for eternity is perhaps being played out? Thus free will in an individual frame is preserved, however 'God' is still omniscient.
:~)
When we 'use' quantum computers (yes yes, don't have working ones yet... the THEORY however..>), what are we doing? We are playing at a bogo sort for an answer, kind of. We create EVERY instance that could possibly exist... and destroy all those that don't answer our question. Very simplified, but this is me, on
I don't really believe in a created universe. I like playing devils advocate though. And the subject of religion mixed with quantum physics is just *begging* for good discussions
heh. Come now. Some of us were still using BBSs to get our [info] back in the days they were handing out /. IDs below a thousand :~)
In agreement with your comment: I find no difference in the quality of the ads in newspapers. What scares me is that most ads in newspapers, back when I read them, actually had to go through a LIVE PERSON -- and you would still get the most insane 'offers' imaginable.
A personal favorite of mine, which no newspaper ed. would ever have caught, was back in about '98? '99? Somewhere near there. It was in the employment section, and it was for a Java Swing programmer... One with 5 years of experience in the Swing libraries.
For those of you who don't get the joke, Swing wasn't released until early '97 -- really not until a while later, but IIRC there was no such thing as Swing until the JFC libraries were released.
So, yeah. Caveat Emptor.
Harsh? Yes. But realistic. A number of someones in a number of countries saved a few bucks by not having a warning system. Perhaps there were some areas where it would have done more harm than good... but I doubt it. A sad day for hundreds of thousands of people. Let us consider what we can do to help them, and to help mitigate future disasters such as this one.
Just a thought.
You, sir, have a career as a budget analyst for congress in your future....
While there are a couple of good replies, the ones I see miss the big point:
Our spacecraft have thrusters.
A tiny tiny tiny bit of delta V can make a HUGE difference over the course of a spacecrafts trip. And all gravity assist spacecraft to date have had thrusters on board. It is downright amazing how often they weren't *needed*, but the fact is they were available.
Everything else I saw covered in other posts.
cheers.