The sad thing about exporting the "Way of Life" is that we'll be exporting drug abuse, rape, prostitution, racism, and all the other fundamentally bad things that taint our society right now. I hope we learn something about all this before we even try space colonization.
Unfortunately, those fundamentally bad things are a product of our own flawed human nature. The only way to get rid of the problems that plague human society is for us to become something other than human.
IMHO, the best reasons to go into space are these very problems. Right now, all of our eggs are one basket, labelled "Earth". If we can establish ourselves in space and on other planets, we stand a much better chance of survival if the Earth tears itself to pieces.
If the Earth governments piss off the colonists to the point where they're willing to declare war on the Earth (or at least on parts of it), then what happens, happens. I'd like to think that we'd remember what happened at the American Revolution and be a bit smarter than that, but history has shown us that governments can do some remarkably stupid things (no, I'm not excepting the U.S. from that evaluation).
Humans are by nature aggressive, territorial, and power hungry. Most of us manage to suppress these impulses, or channel them into something positive. But there will always be people who seek power, and having attained it, abuse it. There will always be those who fear the different, or the unknown, and fearing it, will try to destroy it. There will always be those who wish to kill everyone who is not like themselves. 9/11 and the recent bombings in England prove that.
As long as people are people, we will have conflict, violence, and war. We can deny it all we want, but wishes and beliefs don't change reality.
I'm sorry. I don't like it, but that's the way that it is.
Part of AMD's claims is outrageous. Why would AMD expect its competitor, Intel, to write software that supports AMD's own products?
The allegation is that Intel writes software that specifically detects AMD chips and then deliberately generates pessimal code that would run poorly on any processor.
OK, I may have been a bit over-the-top, but drug dealers do get regularly released early, due in part to the overcrowding in our jails and prisons. And it's also a fact that the illegal drug trade can be very violent.
Here's a factoid for you. In California, the minimum penalty for killing a heron is (IIRC) 20 years in prison, while you can get off in 7 years after killing a random stranger on the street. Yep, in California, a bird's life is more valuable than yours.
Stable versions of Windows have been available for over a decade but BSOD's are just too much fun to stop talking about.
I made the switch back in (I think) '98 or '99. I was running Windows 98, with the latest patches and nothing really weird installed. As soon as I switch to Linux, my computer stopped crashing. You do the math.
Perhaps they'll add a "don't piss off Charles W. Griswold" feature to the next version of Windows.
Gee, then Windows would be just like Linux, and I wouldn't have anything to complain about. Where's the fun in that?
Of course it's blown completely out of porportion. The thing is that people demand harsh penalties for crimes that affect them. The sort of rich, influential people who get things done in the legislature are far more likely to be affected by viruses, computer hackers, or pimply teen-agers downloading off Kazaa than by a mugger, drug pusher, or serial killer. Hence, John Q. Hacker gets 25 to life, while a murderous, drug-pushing thug walks the day after he's arrested.
To me it seemed you voiced a fear that Europe would respond to the thread of a conventional attack with nuclear weapons.
Not at all. I was referring to the nuclear weapons situation in Vietnam, India, and Pakistan.
I also assumed (possibly wrongly) that this fear is comming from how the USA dealt with such a thread in a recent past.
The Cold War was bad, and I'd hate to see another nuclear arms race happen. The Cold War was a time of extreme paranoia in the U.S., somewhat similar (now that I think of it) to the fear of terrorists that is now gripping us. But that's getting even further off the subject of ICANN.:-)
Look, I'm not going to debate any of your points. I just wonder what you found objectionable about my original post. What I said was that while killing people with conventional weapons is never good, it is sometimes the least worst of the alternatives (killing if it's necessary to defend a loved one, for instance). I also said that WMDs are a lot worse because they either kill in a much more horrible way, or they are much too indiscriminate (admittedly, the glass-lined-crater bit may have been hyperbole). At no point did I defend the past policies of the USA re: the stockpiling and/or use of nuclear weapons.
The use of nuclear weapons on Japan may have (according to some people) have actually saved lives in the long run by abruptly ending the war. Personally, I'm no expert in that sort of thing, so I leave that debate to those who profess to know about that sort of thing. I've seen long, passionate debate supporting both sides of that issue, and I don't want to get involved.
Regarding the U.S. stockpiling of nuclear weapons: I never thought that having that many nukes around was a good idea, but those in power didn't ask me for my opinion. I was very young at the height of the Cold War, and as far as I'm concerned, it's over and good riddance. I just pray that a new nuclear-proliferation nightmare doesn't start in Asia.
Yes, I'm aware of who Jack Chick is. It's just that when I saw the "chick.com" URL I was expecting a site by and for women, possibly with a somewhat geeky slant. My other expectation would have been a site featuring images of (possibly scantily-clad) women, but I couldn't see how that would have been relavent to the discussion at hand. It wasn't until I actually started to read the featured comic that I realized what it was.
Speaking for myself, I have personally gamed (GURPS) with an actual practicing neo-pagan witch. At no time was I in the least bit tempted to try to casting real spells, although I was temped to try her home-made wine. Never got a chance to do it, though.:-)
And in case any of you dirty-minded pervs are wondering, no I didn't. 1) She was happily married, and 2) . . . see #1.:-)
First of all, the one and only country to have used nuclear weapons in war is the USA, this despite the fact they had a superior conventional army at that time.
Yes, indeedy. We should have just pulled our entire army out of Europe and marched it right across the Pacific Ocean.
Looking at the two cities targetted back then, we can see the aftermatch of nuclear warfare tho on a small scale. Its bad, but by far not as bad as you describe. 60 years later, people are living there, and without ill effects.
Yes, and it has been 60 years. Immediately after the explosions, ground zero of the blast sites were quite uninhabitable. There's also the fact that those bombs were mere firecrackers compared to some of the stuff we (meaning the entire world) have now.
The concept of nuclear weapons to counter a superior conventional force was used throughout the cold war by the USA..
. . . And by the USSR. And they're still being used that way today by a few nations I could name. I'm confident that the U.S. has moved beyond the need for that sort of thing.
Did it ever occur to you that not everyone will think and respond in the same way as you do?
I don't recall ever insinuating that I do expect everyone to think my way. Someone asked what was wrong with nuclear weapons and I responded. If you have a problem with that, then I'd say that it's your problem and you need to deal with it. I'm not going to keep my mouth shut just because I think that someone out there might not agree with me.
Indeed and the entry for Detention Centre reads - "a type of prison" which only confirms my suspicions.
What, that "detention center" is synonymous with "prison"? If so, then you may have indeed read the definitions, but you certainly didn't understand them.
I would probably buy it if it had some sort of meta-system for designing balanced core classes. One of my beefs with the D20 system is that it's too tied in with the established gaming worlds, and it's too hard to build your own campaign from the ground up if it's way different that the established worlds. Inclusion of the aforementioned meta-system would go far to alleviate that problem.
It's been said that your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. I firmly believe that people should have the right to engage in dangerous or self-destructive behaviour. However, when your behaviour starts to endanger other people, that's when it needs to be curtailed. You want to drive your SUV like a maniac down a deserted logging road, fine, but don't do it on the freeway. You want to fire off your arsenal at the local shooting range, no problem, but don't do it in the middle of the residential district. Use some freakin' common sense, people.
No problem, just use this. That way, the would-be spammer has to actually touch you. On the other hand, things could get nasty on a crowded subway train . . .
So you're worried that someone on the committee that controls domain names might own a gun? Why? Are you afraid that he (or she) might shoot you through your internet connection?
Pointing out that the EU (which has pretensions to being a superpower) has no clothes because it fails to take care of a basic item that governments (especially super-governments) are supposed to provide -- is 'trollish'?
What is it about EU-fans (as distinct from Europeans) that they have their head so splendidly stuck in the sand?
<devil's advocate>
The same thing could be (and indeed has been) said of rabid fans of the U.S.
</devil's advocate>
TNT, napalm, and bullets don't turn several square miles of real-estate into a radioactive glass desert the way nukes do. Killing people is never a good thing (although sometimes it's the least worst of the alternatives), but some ways of killing are worse than others. Shooting someone isn't good, but gassing him, or infecting him with biological agents, or nuking his entire city are much worse than just shooting him.
We should never ignore facts just because they make us feel uncomfortable. On the other hand, some things really are just in poor taste. The key difference (IMHO) is finding entertainment in other people's misfortune and suffering.
You can't kill a solid-fuel booster. You need to just let it burn out. You could cut the boosters loose, kill the main orbiter engines, and then attempt to belly-flop the orbiter, but then you'd have to deal with the fact that you have several tons worth of rocket fuel bolted to the belly of the orbiter. Not exactly a good scenerio. You could drop the external fuel tank, but then you'd have several tons of rocket fuel dropping onto whatever happens to be below. That's not good either.
Nope, if something goes seriously wrong during launch, there's a good chance that the astronauts are well and truely screwed, contingency plans aside.
Slashdot Mirror
IMHO, the best reasons to go into space are these very problems. Right now, all of our eggs are one basket, labelled "Earth". If we can establish ourselves in space and on other planets, we stand a much better chance of survival if the Earth tears itself to pieces.
If the Earth governments piss off the colonists to the point where they're willing to declare war on the Earth (or at least on parts of it), then what happens, happens. I'd like to think that we'd remember what happened at the American Revolution and be a bit smarter than that, but history has shown us that governments can do some remarkably stupid things (no, I'm not excepting the U.S. from that evaluation).
Humans are by nature aggressive, territorial, and power hungry. Most of us manage to suppress these impulses, or channel them into something positive. But there will always be people who seek power, and having attained it, abuse it. There will always be those who fear the different, or the unknown, and fearing it, will try to destroy it. There will always be those who wish to kill everyone who is not like themselves. 9/11 and the recent bombings in England prove that.
As long as people are people, we will have conflict, violence, and war. We can deny it all we want, but wishes and beliefs don't change reality.
I'm sorry. I don't like it, but that's the way that it is.
OK, I may have been a bit over-the-top, but drug dealers do get regularly released early, due in part to the overcrowding in our jails and prisons. And it's also a fact that the illegal drug trade can be very violent.
Here's a factoid for you. In California, the minimum penalty for killing a heron is (IIRC) 20 years in prison, while you can get off in 7 years after killing a random stranger on the street. Yep, in California, a bird's life is more valuable than yours.
Of course it's blown completely out of porportion. The thing is that people demand harsh penalties for crimes that affect them. The sort of rich, influential people who get things done in the legislature are far more likely to be affected by viruses, computer hackers, or pimply teen-agers downloading off Kazaa than by a mugger, drug pusher, or serial killer. Hence, John Q. Hacker gets 25 to life, while a murderous, drug-pushing thug walks the day after he's arrested.
I'll check it out. Thanks.
Look, I'm not going to debate any of your points. I just wonder what you found objectionable about my original post. What I said was that while killing people with conventional weapons is never good, it is sometimes the least worst of the alternatives (killing if it's necessary to defend a loved one, for instance). I also said that WMDs are a lot worse because they either kill in a much more horrible way, or they are much too indiscriminate (admittedly, the glass-lined-crater bit may have been hyperbole). At no point did I defend the past policies of the USA re: the stockpiling and/or use of nuclear weapons.
The use of nuclear weapons on Japan may have (according to some people) have actually saved lives in the long run by abruptly ending the war. Personally, I'm no expert in that sort of thing, so I leave that debate to those who profess to know about that sort of thing. I've seen long, passionate debate supporting both sides of that issue, and I don't want to get involved.
Regarding the U.S. stockpiling of nuclear weapons: I never thought that having that many nukes around was a good idea, but those in power didn't ask me for my opinion. I was very young at the height of the Cold War, and as far as I'm concerned, it's over and good riddance. I just pray that a new nuclear-proliferation nightmare doesn't start in Asia.
Yes, they're iBooks. Here's a somewhat more complete article on the subject (use "bobsmith@mailinator.com" to log in).
Yes, I'm aware of who Jack Chick is. It's just that when I saw the "chick.com" URL I was expecting a site by and for women, possibly with a somewhat geeky slant. My other expectation would have been a site featuring images of (possibly scantily-clad) women, but I couldn't see how that would have been relavent to the discussion at hand. It wasn't until I actually started to read the featured comic that I realized what it was.
:-)
:-)
Speaking for myself, I have personally gamed (GURPS) with an actual practicing neo-pagan witch. At no time was I in the least bit tempted to try to casting real spells, although I was temped to try her home-made wine. Never got a chance to do it, though.
And in case any of you dirty-minded pervs are wondering, no I didn't. 1) She was happily married, and 2) . . . see #1.
I would probably buy it if it had some sort of meta-system for designing balanced core classes. One of my beefs with the D20 system is that it's too tied in with the established gaming worlds, and it's too hard to build your own campaign from the ground up if it's way different that the established worlds. Inclusion of the aforementioned meta-system would go far to alleviate that problem.
That's not exactly what I expected from a site called "chick.com". :-)
It's been said that your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. I firmly believe that people should have the right to engage in dangerous or self-destructive behaviour. However, when your behaviour starts to endanger other people, that's when it needs to be curtailed. You want to drive your SUV like a maniac down a deserted logging road, fine, but don't do it on the freeway. You want to fire off your arsenal at the local shooting range, no problem, but don't do it in the middle of the residential district. Use some freakin' common sense, people.
No problem, just use this. That way, the would-be spammer has to actually touch you. On the other hand, things could get nasty on a crowded subway train . . .
So you're worried that someone on the committee that controls domain names might own a gun? Why? Are you afraid that he (or she) might shoot you through your internet connection?
I'm sure that the Medieval Americans were too concerned with things like the next bison hunt to be interested in the fate of the Internet.
The same thing could be (and indeed has been) said of rabid fans of the U.S.
</devil's advocate>
TNT, napalm, and bullets don't turn several square miles of real-estate into a radioactive glass desert the way nukes do. Killing people is never a good thing (although sometimes it's the least worst of the alternatives), but some ways of killing are worse than others. Shooting someone isn't good, but gassing him, or infecting him with biological agents, or nuking his entire city are much worse than just shooting him.
We should never ignore facts just because they make us feel uncomfortable. On the other hand, some things really are just in poor taste. The key difference (IMHO) is finding entertainment in other people's misfortune and suffering.
You can't kill a solid-fuel booster. You need to just let it burn out. You could cut the boosters loose, kill the main orbiter engines, and then attempt to belly-flop the orbiter, but then you'd have to deal with the fact that you have several tons worth of rocket fuel bolted to the belly of the orbiter. Not exactly a good scenerio. You could drop the external fuel tank, but then you'd have several tons of rocket fuel dropping onto whatever happens to be below. That's not good either.
Nope, if something goes seriously wrong during launch, there's a good chance that the astronauts are well and truely screwed, contingency plans aside.
Disclaimer: IANARS (I Am Not A Rocket Scientist).