While there might be some truth to what you're saying, at least in the case of the american car industry, unions don't necessarily cripple companies. You should realize that the survival of a company is in the unions interest as well; their money doesn't grow on trees either and a strike is a very expensive undertaking. Even European (union-heaven) unions are starting to realize that rediculous demands just won't cut it when competing with low-wage countries like China. For example, IG Metal, a huge German union, accepted a deal where BMW employs permatemps in a new factory in eastern Germany. The alternative would probably have been to build the factory in another country.
Whether it remains so in the long run, I am not certain - it requires an open and free country (something we're losing)
This I hear and read often but I wonder if it is really true. Why couldn't a society that has little political freedom but good (universal) schooling be good at science? If good science requires freedom should we conclude that Stalin wasn't that bad after all, or that his scientists were just lucky? The issue is important as ever, for example China is making steady progress both in science and freedom, but would a slowdown of China's freedoms also impede their scientific progress? If so, we don't have to worry as much sharing 'our' knowledge and technology.
Don't get me wrong, I really would like to believe freedom gave the west its current technological and scientific edge, but it doesn't seem to be supported by facts. Looking at the last two or three centuries one might conclude that because both our scientific progress and advancements in freedom have gone hand in hand. Any causal relation seems impossible to prove, one could easily credit improved schooling, relative stable environment or other factors. It might be hard to disprove it too, but it is clear to me we shouldn't accept it as a fact.
I would also like to believe the converse is true: a society familiar with 'the scientific method' will move towards freedom. However history showed us reality is different. For example Germany was one of the scientifically most accomplished nations of the world when Hitler came to power. His first attacks on freedom where actually appreciated by the educated elite of the western world as it showed him to be a man of action and authority.
A similar more gruesome example: before WWII the dutch cencus documented citizens' religions. These documents helped the Nazis to find almost every Jew in a fairly short amount of time.
While it might sound unlikely Britain you will be invaded anytime soon. You should realize that knowledge is power and be carefull who you entrust it with. This goverment might be trustworthy, but what about the next one and the one after?
What about getting rid of traffic lights alltogether? If everybody has AI controlled vehicles, they could solve the crossroads problems in far superior ways. Both faster and more fuel efficient. The cars wouldn't have to stop, they can just adjust there velocities a little to prevent collisions. Imagine how completely insane (and cool) crossroads would look when cars never stop and miss eachother by mere inches! For a preview visit for example india.
Hmm, I don't think I can see much room for pedestrians or bikes in the future. Well, unless we all carry some kind of gps locator that informs the cars etc of your position. Since people aren't that fast, it might be enough to adjust the cars' heading and velocities. People could be crossing roads without looking at all with cars racing past them at top speeds. I feel old even thinking about it.
Roughly counting the number of researchers not based in the states I count something like 5 people. Of course the same goes for the judges, but still I always hoped that science had a somewhat more international community. So much for globalisation. Or could it be that for example europe is not producing many innovators at the moment (except for Greece perhaps).
I guess I shouldn't start wondering about the gender distribution...
Personally I've never understood why people with this kind of connections bother to download movies. I've been playing movies streaming over a network with mplayer since I've had a 400 KB capable connection (no dvd quality though). Mplayer is great for this, you can feed it http addresses directly or, since that's often not possible, start playing a movie that's being downloaded at the same time. It's just that some codecs do not allow seeking when streaming.
Like you say, speed is more and more a question of the sender rather than the sender. I sincerely hope there will be fast synchronous connections over here in the near future too. Currently I've got a 20/4 Mbps connection, which barely allows me to run a remote desktop service, but nothing more. I would've preferred 10/10 Mbps.
Well, enjoy your connection as long as you can:D
Well, IANAP (I am not a parent) but, isn't that the whole point of having kids? They do the dishes scrub the floor and unlock all cars in your favourite racing game. The best thing is, they usually not even mind to do the latter! You can see why I'm actually looking forward to having kids, but my girlfriend wants me to real Machiavelli's Il Principe first...
With that in mind, you are probably more prepared to understand that Microsoft is seen as "The Devil" by lots of the EU citizens...
Just where do you live?! I don't know many people that see MS as 'the devil' even though I'm amongst geeks/nerds all the time. Most people have probably never even thought about microsoft being evil or not...
My first real programming lessons (at the university) were all about haskell. Actually the course wasn't about programming in itself, it was an introduction to computer sciences. It might be odd to teach a language that isn't used much in 'the industry', since why not teach something 'useful'.
However the big advantage was that haskell put everyone at the same level; no-one had any experience with the language. About half of the students had taught themselves some programming language like C or BASIC. The other half had no real programming experience whatsoever, especially since we had students from the AI department as well.
If we were using some imperative language like C, possible combined with some OO (java), half of the class would've been bored and the other half would have been struggling with syntax.
Haskell's syntax can easily be limited to only very few constructs at the time, which allows the teacher to introduce only the things that are needed. No prior knowledge would be needed of, for example, the object oriented paradigm.
I was actually looking for haskell in this discussion to see if anyone suggested it. My personal opinion is that it would make a very nice kandidate for the first programming lessons for the above reason(s). Especially for a more theoretic approach of computer science (say, university). If you're teaching future engineers, maybe it's not a very good choice.
Obviously you are American or Brittish, otherwise you wouldn't have made the assumption that the UK == Europe. I even doubt a Brit would do that, as they tend to call the continent 'Europe' now and then, distinctivaly marking it as 'the others'.
We should be comparing American states with European countries. I think we would see that there doesn't seem to be any correllation at all. Any serious comparison would have to compensate for population density and other factors, and even then it would be difficult.
What about debian that has a seperate non-us mirror for software that's not allowed to distribute in the usa becaues of crypto and patent laws? I'm pretty sure that debian has no shareholders...
It's nice to see so much optimism in this matter, but I don't see on which you base it. Although corporations have been slow to adapt until now, why couldn't that change in the future. Just see how much they push for software patents in Europe.
And even if these corporations are slow, they might still do a lot of damage. Actually I think they've already done a lot of damage in some respects. Even the uncertainty about the legal status of oss, which they created, is damaging the open source community.
Your example seems flawed to me. In both cases it's not actually about free speech. Both the homosexuals and the fundis are allowed to say what they think about homosexualism, which they obviously do. Correct me if i'm wrong but I don't think anyone has been put away for any such thing (yet).
Since I'm not from the USA I have no idea what the ACLU is, but from what i've read until now, it seems an organization that should defend civil rights. Well, I think the case here actually is pretty simple: the gay activists say they are entitled to 'full rights' (well, let's say, gay marriage). So they're saying their civil liberties are in danger, in which case the ACLU helps.
The fundis however, are trying to prevent the homosexuals to get the rights. So they want to restrict civil liberties and thus are opposing the ACLU in this matter. Of course you could turn around the fundis' argument as their civil right not to live in a country where gays have the right to marry. I think that way of reasoning is useless since it's an endless path (what about the rights of gays not to live in a country where christians have the right.. etc).
I do realise that this might not really be the point of your post altogether, I just had to say:P
Wow, the guys at microsoft are really scared so much that they're becoming irrational:
"...Microsoft claimed that such software aims to 'make it impossible to make any income on software as a commercial product'"
Just a question, how many of you have ever written free software explicitly to put a company (say, MS) out of business?
Maybe you wrote a program after seeing a commercial implementation, but probably only because you wanted to improve on it or make it available for your favourite os. OS software is written because there is a need for it, not to push others out of business.
Yes there are other companies using open source as a business strategy. A strategy that works well against competitors like microsoft, but clearly has its own pitfalls as well...
so please Bill, keep your paranoia at home and stop messing with politics
I don't get what you're trying to say. Nokia can patent anything in the US even if it's not allowed in Europe. They have exactly the same possibilities as any American company.
And to the grandparent: I think it's not very realistic to think of companies as homegenous entities. In any big company there are a lot of people with a lot of opinions. It is very likely that this open source website came from some other mind than the pro software patent lobbyists.
Re:Japan has lowest teen pregnancy ...
on
Homer Becomes Omar
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I think your remark about openness of society about, for example sex, of 'the western world' applies more to the united states than to western Europe. In the Netherlands there's even sex on 'public' cable television (not state sponsored though),there are no problems with nudity in any media (not even for children) and being a prostitute is officially 'just a job'. As for the rest of Europe, it might not be exactly the same, but it's not that different at all. I think the USA is one of the most prudish countries of the western world.
Please don't link low pregnancy rate with abortion this way. You'd only fuel (as if they need any) the already crazy anti-abortionists. If you compare the low birth and abortion rates for teenagers in Western Europe to the American figures you'll see that there's no correlation.
(see this and use google). I suspect the same is true for Japan, but I couldn't find any figures.
As a side node, I'm not a big supporter of abortion, I too am troubled by the notion that an unborn child is not considered human until it has reached a certain age. However I very much dislike the self-righteousness of some of the (mostly christian) 'pro-life' groups.
ok folks, you can manage without management just fine, so let's manage the management out of the building...
'no management' would still be management, in a way...
I'm wondering what sources BBC used though, according to the CIA factbook the USA has a literacy of 97% and a gdp of 40k.
This kind of measurements are debatable at best anyway. I mean look at the criteria they used:literacy... How the hell does that make you happy? A high life expectancy... Those japanese fellas sure don't drink enough to be happy. I'd be able to create any outcome I whish just by selecting the right parameters. Let's use the number of murders per capita, Japan would probably first and the USA not even in the top 10.
If you let people judge for themselves you get very interesting outcomes (couldn't find any good sites to link). Americans would probably have a pretty high place, being as stubbornly optimistic as they are.
What I personally dislike most about this is the way this number is determined. In stead of a carefull evaluation of the employed personnel and required personnel, companies look at their cash balance and determine the amount of people they need to fire.
Although I can understand sometimes this is the only way to save a company, I suspect that in 9 out of 10 cases this is a message to the shareholders at the expence of employees. Which, in the end, probably hurts the company more than it helps, because simply fireing people alone isn't going to do much good.
On the other hand I also think many of these messages of mass-layoffs are never completely realised. Maybe it's mostly a way for the upper management to send a message to the shareholders: "look we're really taking care of the problems", while in reality only part of the proclaimed number of people is fired in a big reorganisation. I'm only speculating here though, can someone enlighten me?
I do pity the middle managment that need to actually fire so many people though. It sure can't be much fun for them. Even worse, with a bit of bad luck they are fired as well when their work is done.
Where did you get this statistics? According to the CIA factbook the united states has a population of 295,734,134 and a workforce of 147.4 million, which includes the unemployed. With these figures, my calculator tells me that 49.8 % of the americans is working or looking for work. Nowhere near your 66% that is.
Probably it's just an issue of definitions, but that's one of the reasons why a source would be interesting.
Oh come on, isn't it clear that you're fighting about stupid definitions. I'm sure none of those who call themselves socialist use the definition of socialism the way you do. Even the socialists themselves can't agree on what it should mean.
Socialism, like communism, puts the decisions of the populace under the government's mantle of control regardless of whether or not the individuals want such 'protection'.
Your definition of socialism doesn't seem to be compatible with democracy. I bet many of the european socialist parties or the canadian ones disagree with this. You probably believe that these socialists' ideas will lead to an undemocratic state. Which is an entirely different discussion.
Please don't pretend to be blind for the different meanings of the word socialist. Maybe if you start to see this, you will be able to understand these 'socialists' better and convince them of possible problems with their ideology.
I can't see the argument in your last statement about 'party lines' Don't parties that need the support of the masses always employ obvious slogans like 'We want employement for everyone!' (well who doesn't?) or 'We want to fight crime (or terrorism)!'? Also your argument about communist rhetoric leading up to WW2 is quite debatable, unless you're referring to Hitler.
I think the main asset of Hubble is its being out in space. Since there is no atmosphere, Hubble can observe in UV and it can do so up to very high resolutions. High resolutions can be achieved in infrared and optical as well. This means that tiny structures can be seen, and this can be applied to a lot of different areas of astronomy: from interstellar nebulae to very far away galaxies. Hubble is a very allround telescope, and continues to be useful in a *lot* of astronomical research.
Am I wrong in thinking that radio and infrared telescopes are gaining serious momentum, leaving the Hubble to show its age?
Yes, radio and infrared are gaining momentum, but I think this is mostly because technology is finally allowing it to. Radio at very low frequencies (lofar) and IR have always been difficult bands to build telescopes and detectors for, and this is starting to get a lot better.
However, I do not think that these new telescopes will render Hubble (and the James Webb telescope) obsolete, since astronomy as a whole will need information from all the frequencies it can get, including optical and UV.
I could go on for a while, but does this answer your question?
Phasing is post-processing-- it does nothing to filter out noise that saturates, de-sensitizes, or cross-modulates in the receiver.
What I was trying to say is that the sources of noise, usually on the horizon, can be picked out later and ignored. No, it does nothing about saturation etc. like you said, but wouldn't directional antennae have the same problem? There will always be a few noisy frequency bands where no observations can be done, but there are enough frequencies left to give science something to chew on for quite some time.
Re: the location: As I said in another post the data-logistics would be a bit difficult if the telescope is built in the boonies.. And of course, politics and money are a factor here as well, and as we all know politics don't always choose the smartest way;)
We have this thing called the "Internet". Astronomers have not found it necessary to be near their telescopes for many years.
One 'snapshot' image made with the Lofar test site is about 4 Gb. When Lofar is fully operational this will be many, many times bigger.. you do not want to send those files back and forth over the Internet;)
A glass fiber network is being built in the area to be able to get the data to the supercomputer.
There is also the difference between radio and optical telescopes: radio telescopes can more or less be placed anywhere, while opticals need the best atmospherical conditions they can get. You will see that most telescopes 'in the middle of nowhere' are optical ones.
Now you are probably wondering why Lofar's data files are so huge, when this is not the case for other telescopes.. This is because, unlike others, Lofar takes a picture of the entire sky at once, letting the supercomputer do te aiming. Other telescopes aim with their dish, throwing away part of the skys information beforehand.
And yes, I agree with you that the location of the astronomers is not the only factor, money is a big one as well. I'm just trying to illustrate that it might not be such a stupid location after all.:)
Slashdot Mirror
While there might be some truth to what you're saying, at least in the case of the american car industry, unions don't necessarily cripple companies. You should realize that the survival of a company is in the unions interest as well; their money doesn't grow on trees either and a strike is a very expensive undertaking. Even European (union-heaven) unions are starting to realize that rediculous demands just won't cut it when competing with low-wage countries like China. For example, IG Metal, a huge German union, accepted a deal where BMW employs permatemps in a new factory in eastern Germany. The alternative would probably have been to build the factory in another country.
This I hear and read often but I wonder if it is really true. Why couldn't a society that has little political freedom but good (universal) schooling be good at science? If good science requires freedom should we conclude that Stalin wasn't that bad after all, or that his scientists were just lucky? The issue is important as ever, for example China is making steady progress both in science and freedom, but would a slowdown of China's freedoms also impede their scientific progress? If so, we don't have to worry as much sharing 'our' knowledge and technology.
Don't get me wrong, I really would like to believe freedom gave the west its current technological and scientific edge, but it doesn't seem to be supported by facts. Looking at the last two or three centuries one might conclude that because both our scientific progress and advancements in freedom have gone hand in hand. Any causal relation seems impossible to prove, one could easily credit improved schooling, relative stable environment or other factors. It might be hard to disprove it too, but it is clear to me we shouldn't accept it as a fact.
I would also like to believe the converse is true: a society familiar with 'the scientific method' will move towards freedom. However history showed us reality is different. For example Germany was one of the scientifically most accomplished nations of the world when Hitler came to power. His first attacks on freedom where actually appreciated by the educated elite of the western world as it showed him to be a man of action and authority.
A similar more gruesome example: before WWII the dutch cencus documented citizens' religions. These documents helped the Nazis to find almost every Jew in a fairly short amount of time.
While it might sound unlikely Britain you will be invaded anytime soon. You should realize that knowledge is power and be carefull who you entrust it with. This goverment might be trustworthy, but what about the next one and the one after?
What about getting rid of traffic lights alltogether? If everybody has AI controlled vehicles, they could solve the crossroads problems in far superior ways. Both faster and more fuel efficient. The cars wouldn't have to stop, they can just adjust there velocities a little to prevent collisions. Imagine how completely insane (and cool) crossroads would look when cars never stop and miss eachother by mere inches! For a preview visit for example india.
Hmm, I don't think I can see much room for pedestrians or bikes in the future. Well, unless we all carry some kind of gps locator that informs the cars etc of your position. Since people aren't that fast, it might be enough to adjust the cars' heading and velocities. People could be crossing roads without looking at all with cars racing past them at top speeds. I feel old even thinking about it.
Roughly counting the number of researchers not based in the states I count something like 5 people. Of course the same goes for the judges, but still I always hoped that science had a somewhat more international community. So much for globalisation. Or could it be that for example europe is not producing many innovators at the moment (except for Greece perhaps).
I guess I shouldn't start wondering about the gender distribution...
Personally I've never understood why people with this kind of connections bother to download movies. I've been playing movies streaming over a network with mplayer since I've had a 400 KB capable connection (no dvd quality though). Mplayer is great for this, you can feed it http addresses directly or, since that's often not possible, start playing a movie that's being downloaded at the same time. It's just that some codecs do not allow seeking when streaming. Like you say, speed is more and more a question of the sender rather than the sender. I sincerely hope there will be fast synchronous connections over here in the near future too. Currently I've got a 20/4 Mbps connection, which barely allows me to run a remote desktop service, but nothing more. I would've preferred 10/10 Mbps. Well, enjoy your connection as long as you can :D
Well, IANAP (I am not a parent) but, isn't that the whole point of having kids? They do the dishes scrub the floor and unlock all cars in your favourite racing game. The best thing is, they usually not even mind to do the latter! You can see why I'm actually looking forward to having kids, but my girlfriend wants me to real Machiavelli's Il Principe first...
Just where do you live?! I don't know many people that see MS as 'the devil' even though I'm amongst geeks/nerds all the time. Most people have probably never even thought about microsoft being evil or not...
My first real programming lessons (at the university) were all about haskell. Actually the course wasn't about programming in itself, it was an introduction to computer sciences. It might be odd to teach a language that isn't used much in 'the industry', since why not teach something 'useful'.
However the big advantage was that haskell put everyone at the same level; no-one had any experience with the language. About half of the students had taught themselves some programming language like C or BASIC. The other half had no real programming experience whatsoever, especially since we had students from the AI department as well.
If we were using some imperative language like C, possible combined with some OO (java), half of the class would've been bored and the other half would have been struggling with syntax.
Haskell's syntax can easily be limited to only very few constructs at the time, which allows the teacher to introduce only the things that are needed. No prior knowledge would be needed of, for example, the object oriented paradigm.
I was actually looking for haskell in this discussion to see if anyone suggested it. My personal opinion is that it would make a very nice kandidate for the first programming lessons for the above reason(s). Especially for a more theoretic approach of computer science (say, university). If you're teaching future engineers, maybe it's not a very good choice.
Obviously you are American or Brittish, otherwise you wouldn't have made the assumption that the UK == Europe. I even doubt a Brit would do that, as they tend to call the continent 'Europe' now and then, distinctivaly marking it as 'the others'.
We should be comparing American states with European countries. I think we would see that there doesn't seem to be any correllation at all. Any serious comparison would have to compensate for population density and other factors, and even then it would be difficult.
I'm getting the feeling you don't fully understand how password hashes work. Checkout wikipedia for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptographic_hash_fu nction
What about debian that has a seperate non-us mirror for software that's not allowed to distribute in the usa becaues of crypto and patent laws? I'm pretty sure that debian has no shareholders...
It's nice to see so much optimism in this matter, but I don't see on which you base it. Although corporations have been slow to adapt until now, why couldn't that change in the future. Just see how much they push for software patents in Europe.
And even if these corporations are slow, they might still do a lot of damage. Actually I think they've already done a lot of damage in some respects. Even the uncertainty about the legal status of oss, which they created, is damaging the open source community.
Your example seems flawed to me. In both cases it's not actually about free speech. Both the homosexuals and the fundis are allowed to say what they think about homosexualism, which they obviously do. Correct me if i'm wrong but I don't think anyone has been put away for any such thing (yet).
.. etc).
:P
Since I'm not from the USA I have no idea what the ACLU is, but from what i've read until now, it seems an organization that should defend civil rights. Well, I think the case here actually is pretty simple: the gay activists say they are entitled to 'full rights' (well, let's say, gay marriage). So they're saying their civil liberties are in danger, in which case the ACLU helps.
The fundis however, are trying to prevent the homosexuals to get the rights. So they want to restrict civil liberties and thus are opposing the ACLU in this matter. Of course you could turn around the fundis' argument as their civil right not to live in a country where gays have the right to marry.
I think that way of reasoning is useless since it's an endless path (what about the rights of gays not to live in a country where christians have the right
I do realise that this might not really be the point of your post altogether, I just had to say
Wow, the guys at microsoft are really scared so much that they're becoming irrational:
Just a question, how many of you have ever written free software explicitly to put a company (say, MS) out of business?
Maybe you wrote a program after seeing a commercial implementation, but probably only because you wanted to improve on it or make it available for your favourite os. OS software is written because there is a need for it, not to push others out of business.
Yes there are other companies using open source as a business strategy. A strategy that works well against competitors like microsoft, but clearly has its own pitfalls as well...
so please Bill, keep your paranoia at home and stop messing with politics
I don't get what you're trying to say. Nokia can patent anything in the US even if it's not allowed in Europe. They have exactly the same possibilities as any American company. And to the grandparent: I think it's not very realistic to think of companies as homegenous entities. In any big company there are a lot of people with a lot of opinions. It is very likely that this open source website came from some other mind than the pro software patent lobbyists.
I think your remark about openness of society about, for example sex, of 'the western world' applies more to the united states than to western Europe. In the Netherlands there's even sex on 'public' cable television (not state sponsored though),there are no problems with nudity in any media (not even for children) and being a prostitute is officially 'just a job'. As for the rest of Europe, it might not be exactly the same, but it's not that different at all. I think the USA is one of the most prudish countries of the western world.
Please don't link low pregnancy rate with abortion this way. You'd only fuel (as if they need any) the already crazy anti-abortionists. If you compare the low birth and abortion rates for teenagers in Western Europe to the American figures you'll see that there's no correlation. (see this and use google). I suspect the same is true for Japan, but I couldn't find any figures.
As a side node, I'm not a big supporter of abortion, I too am troubled by the notion that an unborn child is not considered human until it has reached a certain age. However I very much dislike the self-righteousness of some of the (mostly christian) 'pro-life' groups.
ok folks, you can manage without management just fine, so let's manage the management out of the building... 'no management' would still be management, in a way...
I'm wondering what sources BBC used though, according to the CIA factbook the USA has a literacy of 97% and a gdp of 40k. This kind of measurements are debatable at best anyway. I mean look at the criteria they used:literacy... How the hell does that make you happy? A high life expectancy... Those japanese fellas sure don't drink enough to be happy. I'd be able to create any outcome I whish just by selecting the right parameters. Let's use the number of murders per capita, Japan would probably first and the USA not even in the top 10. If you let people judge for themselves you get very interesting outcomes (couldn't find any good sites to link). Americans would probably have a pretty high place, being as stubbornly optimistic as they are.
What I personally dislike most about this is the way this number is determined. In stead of a carefull evaluation of the employed personnel and required personnel, companies look at their cash balance and determine the amount of people they need to fire.
Although I can understand sometimes this is the only way to save a company, I suspect that in 9 out of 10 cases this is a message to the shareholders at the expence of employees. Which, in the end, probably hurts the company more than it helps, because simply fireing people alone isn't going to do much good.
On the other hand I also think many of these messages of mass-layoffs are never completely realised. Maybe it's mostly a way for the upper management to send a message to the shareholders: "look we're really taking care of the problems", while in reality only part of the proclaimed number of people is fired in a big reorganisation.
I'm only speculating here though, can someone enlighten me?
I do pity the middle managment that need to actually fire so many people though. It sure can't be much fun for them. Even worse, with a bit of bad luck they are fired as well when their work is done.
Where did you get this statistics? According to the CIA factbook the united states has a population of 295,734,134 and a workforce of 147.4 million, which includes the unemployed. With these figures, my calculator tells me that 49.8 % of the americans is working or looking for work. Nowhere near your 66% that is.
Probably it's just an issue of definitions, but that's one of the reasons why a source would be interesting.
Your definition of socialism doesn't seem to be compatible with democracy. I bet many of the european socialist parties or the canadian ones disagree with this. You probably believe that these socialists' ideas will lead to an undemocratic state. Which is an entirely different discussion.
Please don't pretend to be blind for the different meanings of the word socialist. Maybe if you start to see this, you will be able to understand these 'socialists' better and convince them of possible problems with their ideology.
I can't see the argument in your last statement about 'party lines' Don't parties that need the support of the masses always employ obvious slogans like 'We want employement for everyone!' (well who doesn't?) or 'We want to fight crime (or terrorism)!'? Also your argument about communist rhetoric leading up to WW2 is quite debatable, unless you're referring to Hitler.
Am I wrong in thinking that radio and infrared telescopes are gaining serious momentum, leaving the Hubble to show its age?
Yes, radio and infrared are gaining momentum, but I think this is mostly because technology is finally allowing it to. Radio at very low frequencies (lofar) and IR have always been difficult bands to build telescopes and detectors for, and this is starting to get a lot better.
However, I do not think that these new telescopes will render Hubble (and the James Webb telescope) obsolete, since astronomy as a whole will need information from all the frequencies it can get, including optical and UV.
I could go on for a while, but does this answer your question?
Because the length is parallel to the wavefront? Would that make it less annoying?
I know that sheep aren't a problem though..
What I was trying to say is that the sources of noise, usually on the horizon, can be picked out later and ignored. No, it does nothing about saturation etc. like you said, but wouldn't directional antennae have the same problem? There will always be a few noisy frequency bands where no observations can be done, but there are enough frequencies left to give science something to chew on for quite some time.
Re: the location: As I said in another post the data-logistics would be a bit difficult if the telescope is built in the boonies.. And of course, politics and money are a factor here as well, and as we all know politics don't always choose the smartest way
One 'snapshot' image made with the Lofar test site is about 4 Gb. When Lofar is fully operational this will be many, many times bigger.. you do not want to send those files back and forth over the Internet ;)
A glass fiber network is being built in the area to be able to get the data to the supercomputer.
There is also the difference between radio and optical telescopes: radio telescopes can more or less be placed anywhere, while opticals need the best atmospherical conditions they can get. You will see that most telescopes 'in the middle of nowhere' are optical ones.
Now you are probably wondering why Lofar's data files are so huge, when this is not the case for other telescopes.. This is because, unlike others, Lofar takes a picture of the entire sky at once, letting the supercomputer do te aiming. Other telescopes aim with their dish, throwing away part of the skys information beforehand.
And yes, I agree with you that the location of the astronomers is not the only factor, money is a big one as well. I'm just trying to illustrate that it might not be such a stupid location after all. :)