The DoD is probably a special case - most fhe 'employees' it manages are probably there for under 10 years, and the number of "lifers" is relatively few.
Perhaps my little corner of the DoD is an exception, but from what I can tell, nearly all DoD employees are very much lifers. Very, very few of my former coworkers have went off into private industry, and very, very few of the new hires come from private industry. I'm assuming that since you single-quote the word employees, you're not actually talking about their employees?
I used to live in Maine. I was once chased into my house. I'm guessing it was by a coyote, but it was very dark outside, so I wasn't able to see much more than a pair of eyes. It wasn't long before I bought myself a.243 rifle. Where I lived, there was no animal control office to call. There wasn't even a police department. This wasn't the 1920s, it was 2007.
Perhaps your only experience with wildlife was through a set of steel bars at the zoo. Then, I could understand your concern for these helpless teddy bears. However, an urbanite mindset doesn't really help you understand the legitimate concerns of people living in places barely touched by civilization.
Your biases are getting the best of you, and you come across as an ignorant cheerleader for PETA. Refrain from making general statements about overly broad segments of the population, lest you be mistaken for a bigot.
Bear hunting is not as popular as deer hunting. Deer meat is commonly eaten, and farmed deer meat can be purchased at many supermarkets nationwide. Perhaps you're only familiar with the big three meats that you can get at fast food restaurants, but you may be surprised to learn that the human race has a long history of enjoying a wide variety of meats. I won't get into bears and furs so as to avoid having your head explode.
There are those among us that would argue that eating farmed meat is less ethical than eating hunted meat. Think about that the next time you're talking trash about hunting while munching on your Big Mac.
Are you advocating replacing free-range wild game with McDonalds cheeseburgers? Or do you think a government program that will provide high quality [read: expensive] meat to rural people wouldn't be political suicide for anyone who suggests it?
Google sells advertising services. Google does not sell information, because then anyone that bought the information would be able to offer the same advertising services that Google does.
Two sides of the same coin.
Stop throwing your votes away.
If you voted (D) or (R), you voted for more assrape.
Stop pretending that either of the major parties would have decreased spending, ceded executive authority, or done anything remotely in your best interest.
If you voted (D) or (R), you as an individual are a huge part of the problem.
It would be refreshing to see this argument made in open court.
Your honor, of course all cars are under investigation. Haven't you read Harvey Silverglate's "Three Felonies a Day"? We can, with reasonable accuracy, suspect that any individual is a criminal!
I self-identify as a left-leaning individual (I'm a proponent of socialism), but the person described most definitely does exist.
To deny this is to further hurt our cause. There are idiots on both sides of this debate. Let's not pretend progressives are inherently science-loving folks steeped in empiricism. For example, I support the Green Party, but their stance on energy is undeniably stupid, as they openly oppose any/all nuclear power projects. The anti-vaccine movement is largely associate with the left.
The rest of the stuff is pretty far off (Obamacare [aka Romneycare] isn't the single-payer system the left was demanding, austerity measures have been demonstrable failures, sexual mores aren't a political thing), but to pretend that the left is composed entirely of rational individuals isn't helpful.
You haven't lived until you've seen Joel Osteen on TV.
Something about him makes me want to give him all my money. It's uncanny.
Also, the content of his sermons can be seriously hilarious. It's amazing how he can tie any story to "and now send me your money!"
It doesn't hurt that Joel Osteen's program (last I saw it, at least) was followed immediately by a preacher named Creflo Dollar, a man who owns two Rolls-Royces, who is just as awesome as you'd expect.
Was there a newer covenant that came after the one established through Jesus? Or are you dismissing valid criticism of Christian apologists by deliberately ignoring the countless parts of the New Testament that are commonly glossed over for lack of relevance to today's modern age? It's not just Leviticus that we're talking about here.
While such an approach would indeed limit the power wielded by [the federal] government, wouldn't it increase costs overall? Or do you disagree that an economy of scale reduces costs?
If the former, is this something we can afford, given the current state of the economy and the already-high levels of government spending we have today? Or, if the latter, how do you explain modern economies?
You're looking at incidental costs like maintenance. There's no law of physics that states that maintenance on the moon must be expensive. There's no law of physics that prohibits the existence of maintenance-free mining equipment on the moon.
There's only one real cost of getting water into Earth orbit: energy. There is a law of physics that puts a lower bound on the amount of energy required to get water there from inside a gravity well. If the water comes from earth, that lower bound is one order of magnitude greater than if the water comes from the moon.
Perhaps you're reading too much into what I'm saying?
Indeed, that's true. I was considering running the numbers, but realized I don't have sufficient data.
There's an oft-repeated adage that sunlight reaching Earth provides about 1kW/m^2. I'm not sure if this is just in the visible spectrum or total. I'm not sure what proportion of this radiation has longer wavelengths. I'm not sure what percentage of this longer wavelength radiation is filtered by the atmosphere, magnetosphere, etc.
Also, I have no idea how much radiation we blast out of our radio towers. They're high power, as far as manmade stuff goes, but they're no sun. However, there's a lot of them, and they're a lot closer to the moon than the sun is.
Let's just say that the far side of the moon is the only nearby place where it [occasionally] is very dark in that part of the spectrum. Also, simply not aiming the scope at sun (when the sun is up) should still be pretty nice for radio astronomy, as there's no atmosphere or magnetosphere on the moon to scatter/bend the sunlight across the whole sky.
Of course, I'm no astronomer, so that last part could just be bullshit.
Many of the costs you mention are fixed costs and are by definition ignored in asymptotic analysis.
To offer you a computer science analogy, you're arguing in favor of bubble sort because it's easier to implement.
When you look at total cost as a function of the amount of water put into orbit, as the amount of water approaches infinity, the cost of lunar water is asymptotically less than the cost of terrestrial water. Of course, this is even more apparent if we invest in some more fixed-cost infrastructure like a lunar space elevator.
Since I have no vested interest in promoting either side of this argument, I'll even play devil's advocate, since nobody has yet offered any viable objections to what I've said. Asymptotic analysis may be misleading in this scenario, since the moon does not have infinite water. While asymptotic analysis suggests that lunar water is indeed cheaper, it is possible that there might not be enough cheap water on the moon to offset the fixed costs of establishing a robust lunar infrastructure.
However, that still has no bearing on my original claim that in Earth orbit, lunar water is cheaper (in an asymptotic sense) than terrestrial water.
The far side of the moon is indeed the dark side. Just not in the visible spectrum.
Earth gives off a fantastic glow in a certain (large) band of frequencies due to our love for omnidirectional RF transmissions. If your eyes could see 3m wavelength, you'd be arguing that it really is the dark side of the moon.
Perhaps you misunderstood me. I was talking about your kids starving, not about the funding of space programs.
Yes, I agree that if you and your family engaged in tax evasion, it wouldn't have a meaningful impact on NASA's funding. However, that has no bearing on the fact that if your children are fifty cents away from starvation, you're not fit to be a parent.
Fifty cents per person is no big deal, because most people have significantly more than fifty cents to their name. However, $150M per NASA is a big deal, because that's a relatively large proportion of their funding. It seems that the idea of numbers is new to you, so I'll just stop here.
It takes roughly an order of magnitude more energy to get water into space from the Earth than it does from the moon.
I said "in an asymptotic sense". If you're not familiar with asymptotic analysis, then the response you were looking for was "*whoosh*". Nobody's talking about a single rocket trip to the moon.
Slashdot Mirror
The DoD is probably a special case - most fhe 'employees' it manages are probably there for under 10 years, and the number of "lifers" is relatively few.
Perhaps my little corner of the DoD is an exception, but from what I can tell, nearly all DoD employees are very much lifers. Very, very few of my former coworkers have went off into private industry, and very, very few of the new hires come from private industry. I'm assuming that since you single-quote the word employees, you're not actually talking about their employees?
I agree. Similarly, javelin throw will only be a sport when javelins gain an equal ability to hurl humans for long distances.
For wolves. Different animal, different rules.
I used to live in Maine. I was once chased into my house. I'm guessing it was by a coyote, but it was very dark outside, so I wasn't able to see much more than a pair of eyes. It wasn't long before I bought myself a .243 rifle. Where I lived, there was no animal control office to call. There wasn't even a police department. This wasn't the 1920s, it was 2007.
Perhaps your only experience with wildlife was through a set of steel bars at the zoo. Then, I could understand your concern for these helpless teddy bears. However, an urbanite mindset doesn't really help you understand the legitimate concerns of people living in places barely touched by civilization.
Any claims that hunting is somehow more humane than how livestock is killed when butchered is simply not supported by the facts.
How about the claim that hunting is somehow more humane that how livestock is raised? Where do the facts stand on that?
You're either a vegan or a hypocrit.
Boiled? Do you usually boil your meat?
Your biases are getting the best of you, and you come across as an ignorant cheerleader for PETA. Refrain from making general statements about overly broad segments of the population, lest you be mistaken for a bigot.
Bear hunting is not as popular as deer hunting. Deer meat is commonly eaten, and farmed deer meat can be purchased at many supermarkets nationwide. Perhaps you're only familiar with the big three meats that you can get at fast food restaurants, but you may be surprised to learn that the human race has a long history of enjoying a wide variety of meats. I won't get into bears and furs so as to avoid having your head explode.
There are those among us that would argue that eating farmed meat is less ethical than eating hunted meat. Think about that the next time you're talking trash about hunting while munching on your Big Mac.
Are you advocating replacing free-range wild game with McDonalds cheeseburgers? Or do you think a government program that will provide high quality [read: expensive] meat to rural people wouldn't be political suicide for anyone who suggests it?
And people involved in "US Dollars" are frequently a little questionable themselves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_market
Google sells advertising services. Google does not sell information, because then anyone that bought the information would be able to offer the same advertising services that Google does.
How's that followup investigation into Christopher Dorner's allegedly inappropriate dismissal coming?
Remember? Before they killed him, they told him that they'd launch a transparent investigation into his firing, just as he had demanded.
I'm still waiting for the results of that investigation. For some reason, I haven't heard anything yet.
I'm guessing that the investigation stopped at the same time as Dorner's pulse. Fuck the LAPD.
WHO
GIVES
A
SHIT?
Two sides of the same coin.
Stop throwing your votes away.
If you voted (D) or (R), you voted for more assrape.
Stop pretending that either of the major parties would have decreased spending, ceded executive authority, or done anything remotely in your best interest.
If you voted (D) or (R), you as an individual are a huge part of the problem.
It would be refreshing to see this argument made in open court.
Your honor, of course all cars are under investigation. Haven't you read Harvey Silverglate's "Three Felonies a Day"? We can, with reasonable accuracy, suspect that any individual is a criminal!
I self-identify as a left-leaning individual (I'm a proponent of socialism), but the person described most definitely does exist.
To deny this is to further hurt our cause. There are idiots on both sides of this debate. Let's not pretend progressives are inherently science-loving folks steeped in empiricism. For example, I support the Green Party, but their stance on energy is undeniably stupid, as they openly oppose any/all nuclear power projects. The anti-vaccine movement is largely associate with the left.
The rest of the stuff is pretty far off (Obamacare [aka Romneycare] isn't the single-payer system the left was demanding, austerity measures have been demonstrable failures, sexual mores aren't a political thing), but to pretend that the left is composed entirely of rational individuals isn't helpful.
You haven't lived until you've seen Joel Osteen on TV.
Something about him makes me want to give him all my money. It's uncanny.
Also, the content of his sermons can be seriously hilarious. It's amazing how he can tie any story to "and now send me your money!"
It doesn't hurt that Joel Osteen's program (last I saw it, at least) was followed immediately by a preacher named Creflo Dollar, a man who owns two Rolls-Royces, who is just as awesome as you'd expect.
And people mock Scientology?
Was there a newer covenant that came after the one established through Jesus? Or are you dismissing valid criticism of Christian apologists by deliberately ignoring the countless parts of the New Testament that are commonly glossed over for lack of relevance to today's modern age? It's not just Leviticus that we're talking about here.
While such an approach would indeed limit the power wielded by [the federal] government, wouldn't it increase costs overall? Or do you disagree that an economy of scale reduces costs?
If the former, is this something we can afford, given the current state of the economy and the already-high levels of government spending we have today? Or, if the latter, how do you explain modern economies?
Perhaps today, sure.
You're looking at incidental costs like maintenance. There's no law of physics that states that maintenance on the moon must be expensive. There's no law of physics that prohibits the existence of maintenance-free mining equipment on the moon.
There's only one real cost of getting water into Earth orbit: energy. There is a law of physics that puts a lower bound on the amount of energy required to get water there from inside a gravity well. If the water comes from earth, that lower bound is one order of magnitude greater than if the water comes from the moon.
Perhaps you're reading too much into what I'm saying?
Indeed, that's true. I was considering running the numbers, but realized I don't have sufficient data.
There's an oft-repeated adage that sunlight reaching Earth provides about 1kW/m^2. I'm not sure if this is just in the visible spectrum or total. I'm not sure what proportion of this radiation has longer wavelengths. I'm not sure what percentage of this longer wavelength radiation is filtered by the atmosphere, magnetosphere, etc.
Also, I have no idea how much radiation we blast out of our radio towers. They're high power, as far as manmade stuff goes, but they're no sun. However, there's a lot of them, and they're a lot closer to the moon than the sun is.
Let's just say that the far side of the moon is the only nearby place where it [occasionally] is very dark in that part of the spectrum. Also, simply not aiming the scope at sun (when the sun is up) should still be pretty nice for radio astronomy, as there's no atmosphere or magnetosphere on the moon to scatter/bend the sunlight across the whole sky.
Of course, I'm no astronomer, so that last part could just be bullshit.
Many of the costs you mention are fixed costs and are by definition ignored in asymptotic analysis.
To offer you a computer science analogy, you're arguing in favor of bubble sort because it's easier to implement.
When you look at total cost as a function of the amount of water put into orbit, as the amount of water approaches infinity, the cost of lunar water is asymptotically less than the cost of terrestrial water. Of course, this is even more apparent if we invest in some more fixed-cost infrastructure like a lunar space elevator.
Since I have no vested interest in promoting either side of this argument, I'll even play devil's advocate, since nobody has yet offered any viable objections to what I've said. Asymptotic analysis may be misleading in this scenario, since the moon does not have infinite water. While asymptotic analysis suggests that lunar water is indeed cheaper, it is possible that there might not be enough cheap water on the moon to offset the fixed costs of establishing a robust lunar infrastructure.
However, that still has no bearing on my original claim that in Earth orbit, lunar water is cheaper (in an asymptotic sense) than terrestrial water.
Coop
n., a cage or pen for confining poultry.
"A chicken coop"
synonyms: pen, run, cage, hutch, enclosure
*whoosh*
The far side of the moon is indeed the dark side. Just not in the visible spectrum.
Earth gives off a fantastic glow in a certain (large) band of frequencies due to our love for omnidirectional RF transmissions. If your eyes could see 3m wavelength, you'd be arguing that it really is the dark side of the moon.
Perhaps you misunderstood me. I was talking about your kids starving, not about the funding of space programs.
Yes, I agree that if you and your family engaged in tax evasion, it wouldn't have a meaningful impact on NASA's funding. However, that has no bearing on the fact that if your children are fifty cents away from starvation, you're not fit to be a parent.
Fifty cents per person is no big deal, because most people have significantly more than fifty cents to their name. However, $150M per NASA is a big deal, because that's a relatively large proportion of their funding. It seems that the idea of numbers is new to you, so I'll just stop here.
Coop is boring.
Get a fox to guard it.
If your kids are fifty cents away from starvation, I'd argue that the "unnecessary moonshot" isn't the reason why you can't afford them.
It takes roughly an order of magnitude more energy to get water into space from the Earth than it does from the moon.
I said "in an asymptotic sense". If you're not familiar with asymptotic analysis, then the response you were looking for was "*whoosh*". Nobody's talking about a single rocket trip to the moon.