Economic sense as in, can the railway exist as a viable economic entity, with enough passengers to pay for its costs. If you ever look at LA-area ethnic newspapers (notably Chinese, but also Spanish, Korean and Fillipino,) you cannot help but notice the numerous ads for Vegas tour buses. LA to SF, not so much.
LA to Vegas would make more economic sense. But this whole enterprise isn't about making sense, it's about funneling pork to state politicians and their buddies backing them -- unions and corporations.
Even the unapologetically liberal LA Times is critical of this turkey of a project.
Nobody is forcing you or anyone else to go to Mars to die, so calm down already and take your Prozac or medicinal marjuana or whatever it is you smoke.
To assume that they would willfully head off to settle a land that is impossible to live in just states your ignorance.
This is the stupidest thing I've seen all day. There are lots of people who would JUMP at the chance to go on a one-way trip to Mars. Give their right arm for it. In fact they'd have so many volunteers they couldn't handle it.
Wow, thanks for that article link. It's the best damn thing I've read on here in a long time (the original Slashdot article is PR crap btw, I'm talking about the Air & Space one)
Going to Europa is harder than going to Mars, sure, but I wouldn't say an order of magnitude harder. It's not like the probe has to keep burning fuel all the way to the destination -- just shoot it towards the right trajectory and it'll coast all the way there. It just takes longer to arrive.
BTW I was surprised to learn that the delta-v required to take a spacecraft from LEO to the surface of Mars is LESS than going from LEO to the surface of the Moon... after taking into account the fuel you save by using aerobraking.
silo doors are opening... Steve Jobs's thermonuclear war is starting.
HTC thought it could buy some patents and defend itself? Afro-American please! It's a puny gnat compared to the mighty arsenal Apple will unleash on their asses. Those S3 patents, they are like McBain's safety goggles -- they do nothing!
This is the same IPCC that said we wouldn't have any glaciers by 2010, or icesheets, or that the northwest passage would be open to traffic(never mind it's been open to traffic since it was first charted). Or that there would never be snow again on various mountains, and so on and so forth. Or that we'd all be dead what was it this year? Or is it next year? I can never keep it straight with all these doomsday predictions from all these environmental groups, and government backed organizations.
I'm just guessing here, since I don't know anybody at IPCC personally... but it seems like they put out regular statements like this to keep themselves relevant. (reminds me a bit of North Korea)
If they were to say something like, "The earth is a big place and there's all kinds of weird weather everywhere, every year, and it's been like that since the beginning of time, and the planet goes through regular cycles of long ice ages with short warm interglacial period in between, and we really don't know when the next ice age is gonna come, but there's not much we can do about it", there wouldn't be a reason for their existence and their jobs, is there?
I mean, I guess it's possible that the folks on these climate panels have awesome real-world skills and could be making big money creating internet startups or trading derivatives or something, and they're doing this purely as a pursuit enlightenment and truth. But then again, maybe not, maybe climascientology is all they know and they need their grant money like a single mom needs her welfare check.
well, they didn't say they're developing their own launch vehicle... maybe they're just waiting for Falcon Heavy to be ready, which could be as early as 2017.
If they were to start developing a lunar descent module and robotic mining equipment NOW, I don't see why they can't send their stuff to the moon on Falcon Heavies by 2020.
well AC, you understood wrong. Ever heard of MiG-15? It's only like the most famous airplane in the Eastern bloc of all time, fighting the F-86 sabre in 1950 over Korea.
There's also MiG-3 from 1941... they only built like 3 or 4 THOUSAND of them.
The labels are eager for a serious iTunes competitor to emerge and believe Google has the technological know-how
Normally, more competition = (lower price || better service)
Right now iTunes dominates and has no competition, for all intents and purposes. The record labels don't like that, since Apple is holding them by the balls and forcing them cheap 99cent pricing and other things. So they want more competition for Apple.
But if they get their way, and more competition appears, the record labels will be able to raise prices and make more money?
I don't think citing Wikipedia is very convincing as evidence of AGW, seeing as how climate change advocates have taken over that place (and even tried to erase the very concept of Medieval Warm Period)
CRU: "We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period"
The Space Launch System HLV (Heavy Lift Vehicle) as currently designed is fine. However, NASA's human spaceflight program needs a mission.
NASA's proposed SLS-HLV budget of $3 billion per year is much higher than is actually needed to fund an HLV, and appears to be an effort to spend the former Shuttle program funds for political purposes.
NASA needs a deep space mission. From the mission comes the plan; from the plan comes the things necessary for its implementation. NASA needs to fund missions, not things. The mission comes first.
This is exactly right. Apollo was successful because it started with a goal, to land a man on the moon. Kennedy didn't say "Let's build a big Saturn V booster and see what we can do with it later". If he had, it would've almost certainly led to program cancellation later by a Congress asking "What the hell are we spending all this money for?"
The SLS program as it stands now is guaranteed to be cancelled. (but not before many billions are funneled to the well-connected)
NASA today is not the young NASA of the 60's. It's become a bloated bureaucracy.
Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy:
In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.
Climate has been hotter and colder. Yes, it was colder during the ice age, and hotter 4 billion years ago. Would you have liked to live in either of those time periods?
You don't have to go back 4 billion years to find hotter climate than now -- not long ago there was the Medieval Warm Period. And yes, I'd have liked to live in that time period (at least as far as climate is concerned).
Anyone looking at the history of human civilization cannot help but reach the inescapable conclusion that human beings simply do better when it's warm than when it's cold. Just ask the Vikings.
But it seems those looking for research grant money don't like to look at history, preferring computer models instead. (history is a lot harder to manipulate than models)
Slashdot Mirror
is also a created simulation. If so, then of course viruses in both computers and nature will share common characteristics.
BUDDHA: All is illusion
NEO: There is no spoon
no one can hear you grunt
That is the sad news. They didn't gain enough visitors.
they were really Gamenoob
sounds yummy... like the astronaut food they sell at the Smithsonian.
it's pronounced like:
Yahoo + Cyborg
Economic sense as in, can the railway exist as a viable economic entity, with enough passengers to pay for its costs. If you ever look at LA-area ethnic newspapers (notably Chinese, but also Spanish, Korean and Fillipino,) you cannot help but notice the numerous ads for Vegas tour buses. LA to SF, not so much.
LA to Vegas would make more economic sense. But this whole enterprise isn't about making sense, it's about funneling pork to state politicians and their buddies backing them -- unions and corporations.
Even the unapologetically liberal LA Times is critical of this turkey of a project.
Nobody is forcing you or anyone else to go to Mars to die, so calm down already and take your Prozac or medicinal marjuana or whatever it is you smoke.
To assume that they would willfully head off to settle a land that is impossible to live in just states your ignorance.
This is the stupidest thing I've seen all day. There are lots of people who would JUMP at the chance to go on a one-way trip to Mars. Give their right arm for it. In fact they'd have so many volunteers they couldn't handle it.
Wow, thanks for that article link. It's the best damn thing I've read on here in a long time (the original Slashdot article is PR crap btw, I'm talking about the Air & Space one)
Sure worth repeating: http://www.airspacemag.com/space-exploration/Visionary-Launchers-Employees.html
P.S. Elon looks a lot like Pavel Chekov!
Going to Europa is harder than going to Mars, sure, but I wouldn't say an order of magnitude harder. It's not like the probe has to keep burning fuel all the way to the destination -- just shoot it towards the right trajectory and it'll coast all the way there. It just takes longer to arrive.
BTW I was surprised to learn that the delta-v required to take a spacecraft from LEO to the surface of Mars is LESS than going from LEO to the surface of the Moon... after taking into account the fuel you save by using aerobraking.
silo doors are opening... Steve Jobs's thermonuclear war is starting.
HTC thought it could buy some patents and defend itself? Afro-American please! It's a puny gnat compared to the mighty arsenal Apple will unleash on their asses. Those S3 patents, they are like McBain's safety goggles -- they do nothing!
could've sworn it was there a few months ago... anyone know what happened to it?
This is the same IPCC that said we wouldn't have any glaciers by 2010, or icesheets, or that the northwest passage would be open to traffic(never mind it's been open to traffic since it was first charted). Or that there would never be snow again on various mountains, and so on and so forth. Or that we'd all be dead what was it this year? Or is it next year? I can never keep it straight with all these doomsday predictions from all these environmental groups, and government backed organizations.
I'm just guessing here, since I don't know anybody at IPCC personally... but it seems like they put out regular statements like this to keep themselves relevant. (reminds me a bit of North Korea)
If they were to say something like, "The earth is a big place and there's all kinds of weird weather everywhere, every year, and it's been like that since the beginning of time, and the planet goes through regular cycles of long ice ages with short warm interglacial period in between, and we really don't know when the next ice age is gonna come, but there's not much we can do about it", there wouldn't be a reason for their existence and their jobs, is there?
I mean, I guess it's possible that the folks on these climate panels have awesome real-world skills and could be making big money creating internet startups or trading derivatives or something, and they're doing this purely as a pursuit enlightenment and truth. But then again, maybe not, maybe climascientology is all they know and they need their grant money like a single mom needs her welfare check.
don't you know the famous Mexican astronaut José Jiménez? He was the second man ever to go in space, just after Yuri Gagarin.
well, they didn't say they're developing their own launch vehicle... maybe they're just waiting for Falcon Heavy to be ready, which could be as early as 2017.
If they were to start developing a lunar descent module and robotic mining equipment NOW, I don't see why they can't send their stuff to the moon on Falcon Heavies by 2020.
since the last time we met, Duqu!
well AC, you understood wrong. Ever heard of MiG-15? It's only like the most famous airplane in the Eastern bloc of all time, fighting the F-86 sabre in 1950 over Korea.
There's also MiG-3 from 1941... they only built like 3 or 4 THOUSAND of them.
why the hell was the parent moderated 'Troll'? Seems quite informative and on-topic.
The labels are eager for a serious iTunes competitor to emerge and believe Google has the technological know-how
Normally, more competition = (lower price || better service)
Right now iTunes dominates and has no competition, for all intents and purposes. The record labels don't like that, since Apple is holding them by the balls and forcing them cheap 99cent pricing and other things. So they want more competition for Apple.
But if they get their way, and more competition appears, the record labels will be able to raise prices and make more money?
before the robot can compete with human players... 30 fps aint gonna be enough if somebody were to smash the ball hard.
I don't think citing Wikipedia is very convincing as evidence of AGW, seeing as how climate change advocates have taken over that place (and even tried to erase the very concept of Medieval Warm Period)
CRU: "We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period"
The Space Launch System HLV (Heavy Lift Vehicle) as currently designed is fine. However, NASA's human spaceflight program needs a mission.
NASA's proposed SLS-HLV budget of $3 billion per year is much higher than is actually needed to fund an HLV, and appears to be an effort to spend the former Shuttle program funds for political purposes.
NASA needs a deep space mission. From the mission comes the plan; from the plan comes the things necessary for its implementation. NASA needs to fund missions, not things. The mission comes first.
This is exactly right. Apollo was successful because it started with a goal, to land a man on the moon. Kennedy didn't say "Let's build a big Saturn V booster and see what we can do with it later". If he had, it would've almost certainly led to program cancellation later by a Congress asking "What the hell are we spending all this money for?"
The SLS program as it stands now is guaranteed to be cancelled. (but not before many billions are funneled to the well-connected)
NASA today is not the young NASA of the 60's. It's become a bloated bureaucracy.
Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy:
In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.
Burt Rutan:
NASA's become a jobs program.
and welfare/medicare payments to make
Climate has been hotter and colder. Yes, it was colder during the ice age, and hotter 4 billion years ago. Would you have liked to live in either of those time periods?
You don't have to go back 4 billion years to find hotter climate than now -- not long ago there was the Medieval Warm Period. And yes, I'd have liked to live in that time period (at least as far as climate is concerned).
Anyone looking at the history of human civilization cannot help but reach the inescapable conclusion that human beings simply do better when it's warm than when it's cold. Just ask the Vikings.
But it seems those looking for research grant money don't like to look at history, preferring computer models instead. (history is a lot harder to manipulate than models)
2 - don't allow employees to stick their usb drives in work computers
Or,
run Linux
Or,
disable Autorun in Windows
3. problem solved
Now pay me my $80,000 in consulting fee (minus the 40% that will be kicked back to the prison guard union of course)