Mark,
With Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites' recent accomplishments, when will a push be made to invest in orbital tourism? How far off is this? The problem has a much higher magnitude of difficulty, but isn't atmospheric tourism just a passing fad on the path to true orbital travel?
It seems we're possibly looking at different stages of this idea's evolution. The relationship with the originating power will initially be very strong, and that may continue for some time. However, clearly resources from Earth cannot supply the whole of space. At some point, colonies would have to become self-sufficient, and then you may see the situations I'm describing crop up.
Identify yourself. Friend or foe! Heh.
No empire lasts forever. I was looking at the first hundred years or so. Eventually, yes, Earth will no longer be required for sustenance -- and that is exactly why space exploration is so important. This solar system will be around a long time, but that still leaves billions of years prior to the Big Crunch (or the Big Cooldown) that humanity still will persist without Sol. To do that, we need to expand futher and further until the existence of our species is safe via ubiquity.
This is heading down a path that is premature to discuss, but the point remains that of course at some point the umbilical will be cut. I maintain, however, that space development will not simply follow the same timeline as that of the Americas, due to the difficulties inherent in the hostile space environment.
Do you think Earth will continue to remain the center of operations, or will it be seen as the bastion of those "afraid of technology" who don't want to test the unknown? Will humanity always be tied to Earthlike planets, or will they use technology to transform themselves to a true spacefaring race?
These are all very well thought-out, good points. But I would counter with the fact that being part of this private company will give the colonists a sense of unity, rather than take away from it.
The "Americans" wanted indepedence to get away from what they viewed as economic oppression from their parent-power overseas, but by that point many of them had never even seen mother England, since travel was so prohibitively time-consuming.
Space-based colonies will suffer from similar problems, as it won't exactly be cheap to hop on a transport and take a spin back to Mother Earth. But at the same time, these colonies will be so dependent on Earth for raw material that is NOT found on, say, the Moon, but which was found abundantly (and provided freely) at their corporate HQ on Earth.
Space colonies will be symbiotic. They will provide certain exotic raw materials, but won't be plentiful in some of the things that are common here -- those needed to make habitats, computer chips, or even... apples.
You can only claim something by being there in possesion. Just like the people who claimed land in North, Central and South America a few hundred years ago. Then you might want to defend it in order to keep it.
Claiming something without the ability to take possesion is a waste of oxygen, something lawyers are good at.
Which is why a cursory skimming of the article will show you that the lawyer who claimed the sun did so to demonstrate that a claim without possession is stupid. This guy didn't claim the sun to try and make money -- he did it to prove a point.
The Space Settlement initiative (the other link in the parent) does have some interesting ideas in this arena, attempting to generate a space race to be the first to squat and claim real estate, and then be able to resell it back on Earth.
As a hint, it sounds fairly familiar to me as a Brit.
The problem with what you're describing is you're assuming that all the space settlements will be done by terrestrial governments, causing an independence-day event, 2176.
While we had the Dutch East India Companies providing the transport, the future space model will not be the same. You won't see US Colonies, or Chinese Colonies -- the costs are too prohibitive to be justified to a terrestrial power. The paradigm is shifting to true private enterprise, and the space colonies will be a "FutureCorp" colony and a "Maximum Space Travel" colony.
You want to be a colonist? Sign up at FutureCorp's office. They'll hire a "Governor" who was a former Senator but wants to make more money (and escape sex scandals). You'll have a new allegiance, that to the company.
These ventures will still have terrestrial presences, but will paricipate on a level playing field with other nations, representing the concerns of their space-based constituency.
Space ownership is a necessity
on
Lawyers In Space...
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
"Outer space is a province of all mankind," says Sylvia Ospina, a member of the board of directors at the International Institute of Space Law. "There is not, and should not be, any privatization of outer space. It is a common thing that should belong to all."
This is completely untenable if you want development of space. Not to mention that the idea of space being a province of "mankind" is pompous; although we may be the only guys around locally, the entire universe isn't exactly our oyster.
Companies aren't going to spend the hundreds of billions needed for facility developments on the Moon, Mars, Titan, and more without having property rights and mineral rights to those location.
Keep it free, if you want -- but you'll also be keeping it bare.
Sympathy: Dogbert says that if you want to get more funding, you should have your funding publicly slashed and burned for about a year. The sympathy you get will cause your funding increases to double in the next year, and the year after that. Part of the problem with getting new funding is that the old funding can be perceived as too fat if it hasn't been cut recently. Having funding cut will help obfuscate your motives for even more padding in the years to come.
Are you actually implying that supporters wanted the funding cut, so as to increase it in the future?
Government funding doesn't work like that. On the contrary, if you don't use up all your funding, the likelihood of it going up is nil.
If NASA can meet the new budget, Congress says, "See? That's all you need. That's what you get next year."
If NASA underruns, Congress says, "See? You've made improvements. You don't even need THAT much!"
The reality of the situation is that you need to use all your funding / even run over a little bit to justify "getting more" in the next round of appropriations.
Oh no! Another $30 per year (if you read the article) in order to download all the free music you want for four years?
It actually sounds like a pretty darn good deal to be a student there. Fast download speeds, no overbearing IT department threatening you with being kicked off the network -- all for a 0.1% increase in tuition.
This is a logical step, after all the recent kidnappings / beheadings that have been going on in the Middle East.
Prey on people's fears -- that they could be snatched in broad daylight.
People won't fall for this (they might forward it to the police department, but people pay these guys in their ignorant attempts to GAIN money), but I do like the possibility of having government agencies now taking action due to actual threats being involved.
This is a good thing.
on
Game with God
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
A "serious treatment" of religion is not needed in games. Maybe in a form of edutainment, but not a game!
Do you want to play SimWorshipper, where you choose your religion (Buddhist, Hindu, Islam, Christian, and Jew, with Sikhs and Wicca forthcoming in an expansion pack) whereby you must go to synagogue/church/mosque once a week, or click to use the prayer mat, or else sit outside and meditate with nature? Then after 20 game-years have elapsed, you start trying to convince your game children to marry within the religion?
Of course, we could always do "The Passion of the Christ, the officially licensed game," and give Icon Entertainment another few hundred million dollars, allowing you to be beaten for an hour and try to still stay alive by mashing the circle button.
You could also argue there's been no real treatment of "sex" in video games either. Let's make a realistic sex game where the sheets smell and you have to do laundry, you have to rummage through your underwear drawer for condoms, and your roommate comes home in the middle and you have to suddenly get quiet! No thanks.
Games don't have to address everything. They're supposed to be FUN.
Re:What a crock of...
on
VoIP Questioned
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
All the problems he mentions would certainly be valid points, but only if you're dumb enough to completely replace your phone system with VoIP!
But that's exactly what VoIP SHOULD be -- a replacement for standard land-line telephony. Why should we settle (and adopt!) a system that requires you to keep, even at small cost, another phone system that goes through the traditional switching network in order to be able to use alarms, 911, etc.? Instead, VoIP should be improved where it can do everything the telephone system can do, and then we can do away with that antiquated network and use broadband everywhere.
Re:Series2 Tivo
on
VoIP Questioned
·
· Score: 5, Informative
It sets up fine if you use the special broadband code in the "dialing prefix" box -- something like ",#401" if I remember correctly, but initial Guided Setup "appears" to require a phone line for all but the most tech-savvy. After guided setup, it will allow you to use your network card as the preferred connection type.
This will be an uphill battle. I-tunes is the dominant e-music source due to the interoperability with the Ipods. The Ipods truly are the "Sony Walkmans" of the 21st century -- their interface is great, and I dare any detractors to try it for a week first before disparaging it. The fact that the Ipods tie in so closely with I-tunes is the reason why I-tunes is successful -- not the other way around. Simply branding a music store "E-Bay" without hardware to back it up will fail miserably, unless their DRM was far more favorable than Apple's (i.e. can burn it unlimited times).
Sadly, you make some very good points, but they get lost in the noise. Maintaining a professional demeanor is very important to being heard and understood. I assume since you are posting these thoughts here, you want others to listen to them. I respect the opinions you present, but using foul language and vicious comments only undermine the (otherwise very high) effectiveness of your message.
A computer, by definition, is "one who computes." Hive elements are exactly that -- analog transistors that each can perform simple tasks for the benefit of the hive, or user. An insect hive may be similar to a group of electronic computers, but it is a computer in its own right.
Re:Isn't all computing biologically inspired ?
on
Biomorphic Software
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
On the contrary, computing decision making and human decision making are polar opposites.
Artificial Life computing is an attempt to bring these closer, whereby a computer's thought process says, "Based on past experience, I think that solving this problem in that manner would suffice." Well, that's a pompous computer's thought process at least.
However, current computers think, "I was told that if x occurs then do y, so I'll go do y."
And do what to "BitTorrent," exactly?
The beauty of bittorrent is that there is no company _making money_ off of that software. If you are given a link to a BitTorrent file, you download the end product from a multitude of people, without having your username pop up on screen, a list of your other files, etc. Even KazaaLite K++ still has links (and options) to make you visible to the whole world. Unlike the distributors of Kazaa, there's no entity to sue if someone is BitTorrenting files.
The cat can orient itself correctly due to changes in rotation without changing its total angular momentum. Angular momentum is a quantity that must be conserved -- if it drops off a ledge with zero angular momentum, it has to land with zero angular momentum. However, by rotating a part of its body in one direction, it can twist another part to line up with the "ground," allowing it to land on all four paws. Thus the net angular momentum of the system has remained zero, but it has repositioned itself.
E-mail me in twenty years. I'll let the X-Prize competitors do some of the legwork and garner public interest, and then I'll swoop in and provide true orbital tourism, complete with a zero-G gym. Freeze-guns included free with the "Sports" package.
Continue your attempts to educate and change the world but don't be surprised when it doesn't do a fucking thing other than label you as someone on the fringe.
You're never going to get everyone to agree with you. If that was possible, democracy would be unnecessary, because we would all have the same viewpoint and elections would be pointless.
You also state: We are talking about people that just don't give a fuck about thinking for themselves. They care only what they hear on TV and read in their local paper.
I'm surprised by this vitriol. These people are the minority of voters. There's a reason voter turnout is always so low, and that's because the people that don't care, don't want to put themselves out by going to an elementary school and pulling levers. (Well, maybe if they could use those Diebold machines... nah)
Although I'm very liberal, I am far happier to talk about world events to someone who is a fan of Bill O'Reilly's TV show as opposed to someone who gets their news from the radio on the way to work in the morning. Just because I disagree with their opinions doesn't mean those opinions aren't worthwhile. It is the lack of opinions that we need fear most.
No one is implying that "Big Car Companies could provide 23k mpg cars, but just aren't." Instead, competitions like these might come up with a teeny-tiny thought that will eventually lead to the development of a revolutionary technology. Even more importantly, it encourages young engineers to start thinking about these types of problems, and it only requires One Bright Idea(tm) to cause massive changes that could better any speed-happy motorist's life.
My cell-phone and inbox both feel highly Urgent, and I often answer my messages immediately, despite the fact that in most situations their Importance is questionable. I'm working at shifting away from a crisis-oriented instant response, which is in turn generating more free time to work on the things that are really important to me but don't necessarily jump in front of my face.
I've recently stopped checking voicemails incessantly, and I feel strangely liberated as a result. I'm so used to being tied in to broadband at home and at the office, and 2.5G on the run, that it's nice to be blissfully unavailable once in a while. Whether I leave my cellphone at home, or prioritize my current activities higher than the interruption of the vibrating electronics, it's amazing how much more peaceful things can seem.
Slashdot Mirror
Mark, With Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites' recent accomplishments, when will a push be made to invest in orbital tourism? How far off is this? The problem has a much higher magnitude of difficulty, but isn't atmospheric tourism just a passing fad on the path to true orbital travel?
It seems we're possibly looking at different stages of this idea's evolution. The relationship with the originating power will initially be very strong, and that may continue for some time. However, clearly resources from Earth cannot supply the whole of space. At some point, colonies would have to become self-sufficient, and then you may see the situations I'm describing crop up.
Identify yourself. Friend or foe! Heh.
No empire lasts forever. I was looking at the first hundred years or so. Eventually, yes, Earth will no longer be required for sustenance -- and that is exactly why space exploration is so important. This solar system will be around a long time, but that still leaves billions of years prior to the Big Crunch (or the Big Cooldown) that humanity still will persist without Sol. To do that, we need to expand futher and further until the existence of our species is safe via ubiquity.
This is heading down a path that is premature to discuss, but the point remains that of course at some point the umbilical will be cut. I maintain, however, that space development will not simply follow the same timeline as that of the Americas, due to the difficulties inherent in the hostile space environment.
Do you think Earth will continue to remain the center of operations, or will it be seen as the bastion of those "afraid of technology" who don't want to test the unknown? Will humanity always be tied to Earthlike planets, or will they use technology to transform themselves to a true spacefaring race?
Ian,
... apples.
These are all very well thought-out, good points. But I would counter with the fact that being part of this private company will give the colonists a sense of unity, rather than take away from it.
The "Americans" wanted indepedence to get away from what they viewed as economic oppression from their parent-power overseas, but by that point many of them had never even seen mother England, since travel was so prohibitively time-consuming.
Space-based colonies will suffer from similar problems, as it won't exactly be cheap to hop on a transport and take a spin back to Mother Earth. But at the same time, these colonies will be so dependent on Earth for raw material that is NOT found on, say, the Moon, but which was found abundantly (and provided freely) at their corporate HQ on Earth.
Space colonies will be symbiotic. They will provide certain exotic raw materials, but won't be plentiful in some of the things that are common here -- those needed to make habitats, computer chips, or even
You can only claim something by being there in possesion. Just like the people who claimed land in North, Central and South America a few hundred years ago. Then you might want to defend it in order to keep it.
Claiming something without the ability to take possesion is a waste of oxygen, something lawyers are good at.
Which is why a cursory skimming of the article will show you that the lawyer who claimed the sun did so to demonstrate that a claim without possession is stupid. This guy didn't claim the sun to try and make money -- he did it to prove a point.
The Space Settlement initiative (the other link in the parent) does have some interesting ideas in this arena, attempting to generate a space race to be the first to squat and claim real estate, and then be able to resell it back on Earth.
As a hint, it sounds fairly familiar to me as a Brit.
The problem with what you're describing is you're assuming that all the space settlements will be done by terrestrial governments, causing an independence-day event, 2176.
While we had the Dutch East India Companies providing the transport, the future space model will not be the same. You won't see US Colonies, or Chinese Colonies -- the costs are too prohibitive to be justified to a terrestrial power. The paradigm is shifting to true private enterprise, and the space colonies will be a "FutureCorp" colony and a "Maximum Space Travel" colony.
You want to be a colonist? Sign up at FutureCorp's office. They'll hire a "Governor" who was a former Senator but wants to make more money (and escape sex scandals). You'll have a new allegiance, that to the company.
These ventures will still have terrestrial presences, but will paricipate on a level playing field with other nations, representing the concerns of their space-based constituency.
"Outer space is a province of all mankind," says Sylvia Ospina, a member of the board of directors at the International Institute of Space Law. "There is not, and should not be, any privatization of outer space. It is a common thing that should belong to all."
This is completely untenable if you want development of space. Not to mention that the idea of space being a province of "mankind" is pompous; although we may be the only guys around locally, the entire universe isn't exactly our oyster.
Companies aren't going to spend the hundreds of billions needed for facility developments on the Moon, Mars, Titan, and more without having property rights and mineral rights to those location.
Keep it free, if you want -- but you'll also be keeping it bare.
Sympathy: Dogbert says that if you want to get more funding, you should have your funding publicly slashed and burned for about a year. The sympathy you get will cause your funding increases to double in the next year, and the year after that. Part of the problem with getting new funding is that the old funding can be perceived as too fat if it hasn't been cut recently. Having funding cut will help obfuscate your motives for even more padding in the years to come.
Are you actually implying that supporters wanted the funding cut, so as to increase it in the future?
Government funding doesn't work like that. On the contrary, if you don't use up all your funding, the likelihood of it going up is nil.
If NASA can meet the new budget, Congress says, "See? That's all you need. That's what you get next year."
If NASA underruns, Congress says, "See? You've made improvements. You don't even need THAT much!"
The reality of the situation is that you need to use all your funding / even run over a little bit to justify "getting more" in the next round of appropriations.
Oh no! Another $30 per year (if you read the article) in order to download all the free music you want for four years?
It actually sounds like a pretty darn good deal to be a student there. Fast download speeds, no overbearing IT department threatening you with being kicked off the network -- all for a 0.1% increase in tuition.
This is a logical step, after all the recent kidnappings / beheadings that have been going on in the Middle East.
Prey on people's fears -- that they could be snatched in broad daylight.
People won't fall for this (they might forward it to the police department, but people pay these guys in their ignorant attempts to GAIN money), but I do like the possibility of having government agencies now taking action due to actual threats being involved.
A "serious treatment" of religion is not needed in games. Maybe in a form of edutainment, but not a game! Do you want to play SimWorshipper, where you choose your religion (Buddhist, Hindu, Islam, Christian, and Jew, with Sikhs and Wicca forthcoming in an expansion pack) whereby you must go to synagogue/church/mosque once a week, or click to use the prayer mat, or else sit outside and meditate with nature? Then after 20 game-years have elapsed, you start trying to convince your game children to marry within the religion? Of course, we could always do "The Passion of the Christ, the officially licensed game," and give Icon Entertainment another few hundred million dollars, allowing you to be beaten for an hour and try to still stay alive by mashing the circle button. You could also argue there's been no real treatment of "sex" in video games either. Let's make a realistic sex game where the sheets smell and you have to do laundry, you have to rummage through your underwear drawer for condoms, and your roommate comes home in the middle and you have to suddenly get quiet! No thanks. Games don't have to address everything. They're supposed to be FUN.
All the problems he mentions would certainly be valid points, but only if you're dumb enough to completely replace your phone system with VoIP!
But that's exactly what VoIP SHOULD be -- a replacement for standard land-line telephony. Why should we settle (and adopt!) a system that requires you to keep, even at small cost, another phone system that goes through the traditional switching network in order to be able to use alarms, 911, etc.? Instead, VoIP should be improved where it can do everything the telephone system can do, and then we can do away with that antiquated network and use broadband everywhere.
It sets up fine if you use the special broadband code in the "dialing prefix" box -- something like ",#401" if I remember correctly, but initial Guided Setup "appears" to require a phone line for all but the most tech-savvy. After guided setup, it will allow you to use your network card as the preferred connection type.
This will be an uphill battle. I-tunes is the dominant e-music source due to the interoperability with the Ipods. The Ipods truly are the "Sony Walkmans" of the 21st century -- their interface is great, and I dare any detractors to try it for a week first before disparaging it. The fact that the Ipods tie in so closely with I-tunes is the reason why I-tunes is successful -- not the other way around. Simply branding a music store "E-Bay" without hardware to back it up will fail miserably, unless their DRM was far more favorable than Apple's (i.e. can burn it unlimited times).
Sadly, you make some very good points, but they get lost in the noise. Maintaining a professional demeanor is very important to being heard and understood. I assume since you are posting these thoughts here, you want others to listen to them. I respect the opinions you present, but using foul language and vicious comments only undermine the (otherwise very high) effectiveness of your message.
A computer, by definition, is "one who computes." Hive elements are exactly that -- analog transistors that each can perform simple tasks for the benefit of the hive, or user. An insect hive may be similar to a group of electronic computers, but it is a computer in its own right.
On the contrary, computing decision making and human decision making are polar opposites.
Artificial Life computing is an attempt to bring these closer, whereby a computer's thought process says, "Based on past experience, I think that solving this problem in that manner would suffice." Well, that's a pompous computer's thought process at least.
However, current computers think, "I was told that if x occurs then do y, so I'll go do y."
And do what to "BitTorrent," exactly? The beauty of bittorrent is that there is no company _making money_ off of that software. If you are given a link to a BitTorrent file, you download the end product from a multitude of people, without having your username pop up on screen, a list of your other files, etc. Even KazaaLite K++ still has links (and options) to make you visible to the whole world. Unlike the distributors of Kazaa, there's no entity to sue if someone is BitTorrenting files.
The cat can orient itself correctly due to changes in rotation without changing its total angular momentum. Angular momentum is a quantity that must be conserved -- if it drops off a ledge with zero angular momentum, it has to land with zero angular momentum. However, by rotating a part of its body in one direction, it can twist another part to line up with the "ground," allowing it to land on all four paws. Thus the net angular momentum of the system has remained zero, but it has repositioned itself.
E-mail me in twenty years. I'll let the X-Prize competitors do some of the legwork and garner public interest, and then I'll swoop in and provide true orbital tourism, complete with a zero-G gym. Freeze-guns included free with the "Sports" package.
Continue your attempts to educate and change the world but don't be surprised when it doesn't do a fucking thing other than label you as someone on the fringe.
You're never going to get everyone to agree with you. If that was possible, democracy would be unnecessary, because we would all have the same viewpoint and elections would be pointless.
You also state:
We are talking about people that just don't give a fuck about thinking for themselves. They care only what they hear on TV and read in their local paper.
I'm surprised by this vitriol. These people are the minority of voters. There's a reason voter turnout is always so low, and that's because the people that don't care, don't want to put themselves out by going to an elementary school and pulling levers. (Well, maybe if they could use those Diebold machines... nah)
Although I'm very liberal, I am far happier to talk about world events to someone who is a fan of Bill O'Reilly's TV show as opposed to someone who gets their news from the radio on the way to work in the morning. Just because I disagree with their opinions doesn't mean those opinions aren't worthwhile. It is the lack of opinions that we need fear most.
No one is implying that "Big Car Companies could provide 23k mpg cars, but just aren't." Instead, competitions like these might come up with a teeny-tiny thought that will eventually lead to the development of a revolutionary technology. Even more importantly, it encourages young engineers to start thinking about these types of problems, and it only requires One Bright Idea(tm) to cause massive changes that could better any speed-happy motorist's life.
I've recently stopped checking voicemails incessantly, and I feel strangely liberated as a result. I'm so used to being tied in to broadband at home and at the office, and 2.5G on the run, that it's nice to be blissfully unavailable once in a while. Whether I leave my cellphone at home, or prioritize my current activities higher than the interruption of the vibrating electronics, it's amazing how much more peaceful things can seem.