*shrug* there doesn't have to be any evidence. but, that does mean it shouldn't be taught alongside evolution as an "alternate theory"
In order for something to be taught in science it has to be a scientific theory. As most/. readers knows, most of what scientists deal with are theories. Some of them are only approximations, like some of what Newton did - later Einstein found some better approximations which probably aren't 100% accurate either.
ID isn't a scientific theory, and therefore should not be taught next to evolution as an alternative theory. ID is superstitious goobledigook dressed in scientific language to make it palatable to more people. That doesn't make it a scientific theory though.
The real theory of Intelligent Design doesn't eliminate evolution.
There is no (scientific) theory of intelligent design any more than there is a (scientific) theory of Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. ID is superstitious goobledigook wrapped in the language of science. That doesn't make it any less goobledigook.
If you expect to be able to bypass the admin of a Linux system to install some crapware, you can keep your infested Windows box
Attititudes like that, and the complete lack of understanding of the world that is the reason for those attitutes, will, if the Linux community was driven by it, forever relegate Linux to niche-player status. Thankfully a large part of the Linux community doesn't belive that computers belong in strictly controlled environments only. Most Linux users understand that home-users and small companies also could benefit from using Linux.
If you want to use bleeding edge OSS software, you'd better be prepared to contribute, or at least support your own damn self
Here the ignorance shows through to such a degree it is pathetically funny. There are two statements in the rubbish above that are ludicrus. The first is that Linux is bleeding edge. Bleeding edge implies leading edge. If you think Linux is leading edge, you haven't a clue what Linux is. Linux is a copy, a bad such if you look at design and implementation, of a 30 year old operating system. It has tons of improvements, sure, but leading or bleeding edge it is not, and has never been. The second statement in the rubbish is that users of Linux should contribute or shut up. Again, attitudes like that will make Linux a niche player forever, which is silly again.
Anyone can su to root and install programs on their own machine
Again, it shouldn't be nesessary to be root to install software on the computer. If my family shares a desktop, and it runs Linux, I am the only one with the root password. That doesn't mean that my wife should have to bug me every time she needs an upgrade to sofware only she uses. That's just dumb. She should be able to install any user software she wants, why not?
without limiting the ability of users to screw up their own machines with random malware
You don't have to put people into a Gulag of state-controlled dictatorship just to avoid having them mess up the entire computer. If Linux was, as you apparently think it is, a leading edge system, it would have mechanisms in place for preventing such problems. Sadly Linux is a (good) redesign of a 1970's operating system, very, very far from leading or bleeding edge.
Please realize that I am not dizzing Linux here, as I mentioned, I use Linux for almost all of my work, but it needs a serious amount of improvement before it can be used by the general population for anything but specialty applications.
you can't expect any users outside of a tiny fraction of one percent of all computer users to know what compiling is, let alone actually perform it
Then shut up and ask your admin to do it
Is it really that effing hard to get this? If you expect the average user of a computer system to have access to a sysadmin, know a sysadmin or be able to afford one for their system, you live in the world of IBM ala 1968.
Slowly: The majority of computer systems are not managed by a system administrator. They are in homes and in quite small businesses. They don't need a sysadmin, they shouldn't need a sysadmin.
Any computer system that requires expert help to install the latest video editing software from Sony or image editing software from Adobe will be relegated to marginal status forever, as is the case with Linux right now. Don't get me wrong, I run Linux on all of my home systems, but I am also an expert. My wife, my brother, my father, none of them are experts, and all of them would benefit from Linux-like security on their systems, but none of them would be able to run it without hours and hours of my help, so they don't. My dad will be switched to Apple next time he needs a new computer, so should the others.
The Open Source development model is vastly superior because it cuts idiots out of doing things they shouldn't be doing
You just said that the vast majority of computer owners should chuck their computers. That is absurd.
Unfortunately, for most users, installing software is one of the things they can't handle.
Weird, they seem to have been doing reasonably OK for years on their PCs and Macs. Are you starting a new company that will go around to every Dick, Joe and Harriet and install software on their computers when they want a new version of their virus software?
That's because idiot users won't take the time to debug a program when it crashes and submit a useful bug report, or a patch. They mostly just knee-jerk and upgrade to the "latest version" hoping it's been fixed. This gets software development nowhere
Elitist idiocy. People want to use their tools, not effing debug them. My wife works in graphics design, why the eff should she know anything about how to debug Frame Maker?
Quite frankly, unless Linux develops a model where ordinary users can install their own applications Linux will forever be relegated to specialty applications in large corporations. If Linux wants to make inroads into small business where computers are used as tools only or the home market, it will have to have something like Apple. It doesn't have to have all the downsides of the Apple solution, but there must be a solution.
This gets software development nowhere (witness the world of Windows)
Are you dillusional? Windows have many orders of magnitude more well-functioning end-user applications than Linux. Most people use their computers for image editing, video editing, browsing, email, word-processing and a few other tasks. There is nothing on Linux that comes close to Windows or Apple for most of these tasks (browsing and e-mail being exceptions). Not the same ball-park, not even the same sport. To think that Open Office, the Gimp or the video editing software available for end-users on Linux matches anything available on Windows or Apple is dillusional, and belive me, I have tried almost all of it.
A computer is a tool. If it has the applications that I need and they work well, it is a good tool. That makes Windows and OSX good tool for a very, very large market, and Linux useless for the same. On the other hand, considering the fact that I am a software developer, it makes Linux the perfect tool for me, but I'm not a typical computer user.
Show me how... Answer: You can't.
Show me how... Answer: You can't.
Show me how... Answer: You can't.
Assuming the role of of a regular computer user:
Why would I want to... I won't.
Why would I want to... I won't.
Users want to be able to run their favorite app on an OS that looks reasonably familiar to them. If I want to edit my digital video I don't really care where the menu is, as long as I know where it is.
Other than that I agree that the "only on the top of my 21 inch screen" menu of Apple is a travesty too clearly rooted in the days of 11 inch monitors.
The fact is that the Linux GUI is constatnly approaching "Apple Quality"
That isn't even close to true. Sadly, from the first day I installed version 0.91 (I think it was), I have been hoping it would, but have seen very, very slow progress. We are not that much closer today than we were then. Sadly.
If Red Hat and all the other Linux companies were to drop Linux and switch to something else, if Dell, IBM and all the other box suppliers stopped supporting Linux, if all the hardware manufacturers who currently provide Linux drivers for their products all stopped supporting Linux, it still wouldn't be dead.
Wrong, or at least quite wrong. If Linux loses significant market share and IBM and others stop supporting it, it is about as dead as Terri Schiavo was last year. Sure, enthusiasts will keep it going as a hobby project, but as a player in ther market it will be dead. This means that relatively shortly after the latest and greates graphics cards won't have drivers any more etc. Slowly it will go the way of Minix.
I bet a Mac On Linux x86 Edition is available 6 month after 10.5 for Intel Macs
I'll take that bet, in fact, I'll give you more time, I'll give you two years. And I'll bet you $20,000, you can put in $2000 only, whoever is right takes the pot. Unless Apple gives their blessings, it won't happen. OSX on x86 will rely on Apple specific hardware, and I don't see the Linux crowd going into the hardware business yet.
If there is OSX running on x86 there will be a patch to run it on a PC 10 days after release.
Nope, there won't be. The x86-based Mac will require hardware that is not present in your PC, and that you can't purchase from anywhere. Until Apple desides to do so (which is probably never) you will not be able to run OSX on a standard PC.
This is one of the advantages Apple has always had over Microsoft. They design and know the hardware, and can therefore take advantage of it. On a PC, almost all of your menu and window drawing is done primarily by the CPU. The Intel thingy. Apple, knowing what (limited) harware is there, can delegate much more to other "CPUs" in your box, such as the GPU. Longhorn is supposed to do more of this.
If you want a cutting edge version of gimp, download and compile it in your home directory
Have all Linux users gone insane? Apparently. OK, slowly - the first part of your advice is good, if a user wants the latest version of an image editor, he should download it. The second part of the advice is absurd, you can't expect any users outside of a tiny fraction of one percent of all computer users to know what compiling is, let alone actually perform it.
So maybe you should shut your mouth unless you know what you are talking about.
He has some very valid points, and until those points are addressed, Linux will be a marginal or non-existant player in the desktop market. Hell, even now, Linux growth in the server market is slowing considerably. Unless usability issues with Linux are fixed, there is no reason Linux will survive as anything but an enthusiasts toy in the long run.
First of you can't install a application as a user, now how stupid is that?
A very sensible one. In the vast majority of cases users are there to use a computer, not play at being sysadmins.
That's an absurd statement and true for only company-owned computers. A huge number of people actually have PCs at home, and they just want to run their favorite software on that computer. The image editor, the video editor, the browser etc. Not allowing a user to install applications is absurd. Luckily the Debian package system has no such limitation.
because apps on the Mac OSX will run under Linux too (or even with minor modification).
Mac apps will "never" run on Linux. Not unless someone ports the entire Mac framework to Linux, Cocoa all the other stuff. Since that is Apple proprietary, never to be opensourced, stuff, it is highly unlikely that it will ever happen.
I'd love to see it though, threads on Linux are so much more efficient than on OSX.
This is one of those things that shows that socialists have taken over the republican party. I can't belive republicans are now the champions of protectionism, big government spending and federal control trumping states rights.
Voting republican today is more and more like voting for Stalin and Lenin. Sad, but true. What is a capitalist to do? Vote for Hilary?
I bet there is a far better chance of being killed in a car or struck by lightning than being wiped out by a gamma radiation burst
One would have to do some calculations, but I would not be surprised if chances of an individual being killed by a gamma ray burst is significantly higher than an individual being killed by a car. The reason is quite simple. When a gamma burst like this occurs in our neighborhood, and it will happen, we just don't know when, everybody on earth will die. If it happened tomorrow, that would be about 6 billion people. The number of people dying from one incident significantly increases the odds of one person dying caused by this.
Or, as was pointed out quite some time ago by another dude. "That round thing, whaddayacall it, wheel, that has no real value today, so why do you want to make it?"
You are absolutely correct, none of the disasters that will strike us can be adressed by anything we can do today. We can of course wait until they happen and try to figure out something then, or we can spend money on general research and exploration in that general area today, and perhaps, when things go pear-shaped, we have a solution. Sitting on our collective asses doing nothing is rather pathetic.
I also totally disagree with you on the survival part. I can not see any particular value to space exploration outside of the survival of the species. What makes space exploration a worthy goal?
You go first.
You can watch satellite TV in your claustrophobic orbiting tin-can as the radiation sleets through and your bones atrophy.
I find it rather unlikely that NASA would hire me. If I was allowed to go, I would not hesitate. I have also talked to a NASA astronaut about things like this and the message I got from him was that many were ready to go. One of the questions discussed was the topic proposed by an (English I think) astronomer that suggested going to Mars was too expensive because of the return ticket, so issue one-way tickets. The astronaut I talked to claimed that he knew several people in NASA who would jump at the chance.
Why is it so much easier for us to justify an enormously difficult, expensive, and failure prone attempt at survivalism in space when we do it so much better, faster, and cheaper here on Earth?
Simply because we can't do it here on earth, at any price. It isn't cheaper, faster or better, it is impossible. The most talked about possible disaster the past decades have been a meteor impact of the dinosaur wipeout type. This is a disaster we can probably deal with within the next 10-20 years or so, and this is therefore not much of an issue. Are there other problematic events? Let's take just some of them:
The sun will run out of fuel, cool down and expand to a size that makes life in this solar system close to impossible. We have plenty of time to prepare for this, but evacuating everybody will take, litterally, thousands of years, so early preparation is good:-). This may never become a problem for life on the planet though since it may be wiped out long before the sun cools down like that. See next point.
A gamma-ray burst in our neighborhood will probably occur before the earth is swallowed by a cooling sun. Anywhere within a few hundred lights will wipe out all carbon-based life perhaps with the exception of life at the very bottom of the oceans. We will not be able to save the ones affected by this, but having human colonies in other parts of the galaxy will help humanity survive. The colonies will probably have developed separately over thousands of years by then, and so may only be very remotely related to the ones wiped out:-)
Another galaxy may fly by close to our own, happens all the time. In such cases the two galxies are torn apart, black holes and stars collide and carbon-based life in both galaxies become an impossibility. By then one would hope that what once was human kind has mastered inter galactic travel:-)
Our expanding universe will cool down. More and more matter will move beyond our practical or even theoretical reach. At that time we probably will have to resign to enjoying a drink at Milliways and watch it all end.
First of all, humans in space is a complete joke: there is very little of interest in space...the practicality of doing so with today's technology is absurd...no scientist could possibly prove that life is safier anywhere else than on the Earth
All humans in space may be impractical, obviously. The fact that there is little interest in space shouldn't matter though. There is significant interest in devine entities like "God" and "Jesus" and irrelevant gits like the Pope, prince Charles and JLo. Why should that have any impact on what science does? Moving into space with todays technology is impractical, that is precisely why we have to do it. If we don't, the technology will not improve.
Your last point about safety of life is absurd. The fact that life will be extinguished from earth isn't a theory, it is 100% verifyable fact. It will happen, we just don't know for sure when. When it happens though, it will be a good thing if there are humans in places that are not touched by whatever it is that wipes out life on planet earth.
currently we need only planet-breaking disaster for 100% guaranteed extinction. The odds of such a disaster are low
We do not need a planet-breaking disaster, one that will wipe out carbon-based life forms will do. The most significant such threat is probably a near-by (within a few hundred lights) gamma-ray burst. The odds of that happening in your life time is very close to zero. The odds of it happening while the earth still supports human life is significant, close to 100%. If we do not exterminate each other before that, there is consequently close to a 100% chance that a wipe-out of all human life on the planet will occur. Prior to that we should have established human colonies at least half a kilolight away. Better start as soon as possible.
You are absolutely right, if there is a species threatening event in the next century, we are not prepared to deal with it. That is precicely why we have to go into space now. In that way we can deal with species threatening events when they arrive.
The problem with the species threatening events is that we do not know when they may happen, but we know that some of them will happen. Major impacts being a minor such threat. Some of them we will have warnings about a long time in advance, such as the inevitable fact that the Sun is going to run out of energy and inflate past the orbit of the earth. Others we will not have much of a warning about at all, such as a significant gamma ray burst in our neighborhood (within a few hundred lights).
With events where we have a warning, there will be (when they approach) a strong demand for evacuation, so we need to be prepared for that. Developing such technology will take millennia (or centuries at least). With the events where we will have no real warning, life on earth will be wiped out. Our safety net in that case is the fact that we have already colonized areas where the burst does not wipe out life.
Both scenarios requires we go into space big time as soon as possible.
I think your knowledge and intelligence is overrated. I think it is arrogant of you to think that 1) man is not capable of making the world incapable of supporting life as we like it, and 2) man is the only entity that can make the world incapable of supporting life as we like it.
There are several mass-extinction events that will occur in the near, mid and long term future. Impacts of large bodies of mass is the least problematic. Significant gamma ray bursts in our neighborhood probably the most problematic.
Science deals with theories and their (in)validation. Consensus is an irrelevant, and quite idiotic, term typically used by people who like the current state of affairs and prefer not to deal with things such as methodology. Typically (even) scientists (the consensus) have ridiculed new ideas when they have diverged from the "well known" state of affairs.
The theory that human activities are contributing to the global warming is generally accepted as validated by all scientists (who deal with the matter). How much of the increase is caused by humans and how much i natural variation there is no consensus whatsoever on. Not even close.
The consern among scientists who are skeptical to the Kyoto agreement is not as the most vocal environmentalists claim, that kyoto is trying to solve a non-existing problem, but that the solutions proposed by Kyoto, are not going to slow down global warming by any measurable factor since the part of the warming we see that is caused by GHG is lower than "consensus" claims, and that the Kyoto agreement provisions will have no real effect. With the kost of Kyoto being very high, perhaps (these scientists say) we should look at other, and more cost-efficient alternatives.
Sadly religious fever have gripped the community on this issue, and sane debate is impossible, as can be seen by the insane attacks on, for example, Bjorn Lomborg.
Ignorant idiots are typically afraid of reading lucid commentary that proves beyond any doubt, reasonable or not, that said ignorant idiot is in fact an ignorant idiot.
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*shrug* there doesn't have to be any evidence. but, that does mean it shouldn't be taught alongside evolution as an "alternate theory"
In order for something to be taught in science it has to be a scientific theory. As most /. readers knows, most of what scientists deal with are theories. Some of them are only approximations, like some of what Newton did - later Einstein found some better approximations which probably aren't 100% accurate either.
ID isn't a scientific theory, and therefore should not be taught next to evolution as an alternative theory. ID is superstitious goobledigook dressed in scientific language to make it palatable to more people. That doesn't make it a scientific theory though.
Lots have been writen about this, check out, for example, http://www.csicop.org/ or http://www.skeptic.com/
The real theory of Intelligent Design doesn't eliminate evolution.
There is no (scientific) theory of intelligent design any more than there is a (scientific) theory of Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. ID is superstitious goobledigook wrapped in the language of science. That doesn't make it any less goobledigook.
If you expect to be able to bypass the admin of a Linux system to install some crapware, you can keep your infested Windows box
Attititudes like that, and the complete lack of understanding of the world that is the reason for those attitutes, will, if the Linux community was driven by it, forever relegate Linux to niche-player status. Thankfully a large part of the Linux community doesn't belive that computers belong in strictly controlled environments only. Most Linux users understand that home-users and small companies also could benefit from using Linux.
If you want to use bleeding edge OSS software, you'd better be prepared to contribute, or at least support your own damn self
Here the ignorance shows through to such a degree it is pathetically funny. There are two statements in the rubbish above that are ludicrus. The first is that Linux is bleeding edge. Bleeding edge implies leading edge. If you think Linux is leading edge, you haven't a clue what Linux is. Linux is a copy, a bad such if you look at design and implementation, of a 30 year old operating system. It has tons of improvements, sure, but leading or bleeding edge it is not, and has never been. The second statement in the rubbish is that users of Linux should contribute or shut up. Again, attitudes like that will make Linux a niche player forever, which is silly again.
Anyone can su to root and install programs on their own machine
Again, it shouldn't be nesessary to be root to install software on the computer. If my family shares a desktop, and it runs Linux, I am the only one with the root password. That doesn't mean that my wife should have to bug me every time she needs an upgrade to sofware only she uses. That's just dumb. She should be able to install any user software she wants, why not?
without limiting the ability of users to screw up their own machines with random malware
You don't have to put people into a Gulag of state-controlled dictatorship just to avoid having them mess up the entire computer. If Linux was, as you apparently think it is, a leading edge system, it would have mechanisms in place for preventing such problems. Sadly Linux is a (good) redesign of a 1970's operating system, very, very far from leading or bleeding edge.
Please realize that I am not dizzing Linux here, as I mentioned, I use Linux for almost all of my work, but it needs a serious amount of improvement before it can be used by the general population for anything but specialty applications.
Is it really that effing hard to get this? If you expect the average user of a computer system to have access to a sysadmin, know a sysadmin or be able to afford one for their system, you live in the world of IBM ala 1968.
Slowly: The majority of computer systems are not managed by a system administrator. They are in homes and in quite small businesses. They don't need a sysadmin, they shouldn't need a sysadmin.
Any computer system that requires expert help to install the latest video editing software from Sony or image editing software from Adobe will be relegated to marginal status forever, as is the case with Linux right now. Don't get me wrong, I run Linux on all of my home systems, but I am also an expert. My wife, my brother, my father, none of them are experts, and all of them would benefit from Linux-like security on their systems, but none of them would be able to run it without hours and hours of my help, so they don't. My dad will be switched to Apple next time he needs a new computer, so should the others.
You just said that the vast majority of computer owners should chuck their computers. That is absurd.
Weird, they seem to have been doing reasonably OK for years on their PCs and Macs. Are you starting a new company that will go around to every Dick, Joe and Harriet and install software on their computers when they want a new version of their virus software?
Elitist idiocy. People want to use their tools, not effing debug them. My wife works in graphics design, why the eff should she know anything about how to debug Frame Maker?
Quite frankly, unless Linux develops a model where ordinary users can install their own applications Linux will forever be relegated to specialty applications in large corporations. If Linux wants to make inroads into small business where computers are used as tools only or the home market, it will have to have something like Apple. It doesn't have to have all the downsides of the Apple solution, but there must be a solution.
Are you dillusional? Windows have many orders of magnitude more well-functioning end-user applications than Linux. Most people use their computers for image editing, video editing, browsing, email, word-processing and a few other tasks. There is nothing on Linux that comes close to Windows or Apple for most of these tasks (browsing and e-mail being exceptions). Not the same ball-park, not even the same sport. To think that Open Office, the Gimp or the video editing software available for end-users on Linux matches anything available on Windows or Apple is dillusional, and belive me, I have tried almost all of it.
A computer is a tool. If it has the applications that I need and they work well, it is a good tool. That makes Windows and OSX good tool for a very, very large market, and Linux useless for the same. On the other hand, considering the fact that I am a software developer, it makes Linux the perfect tool for me, but I'm not a typical computer user.
Show me how ... Answer: You can't.
Show me how ... Answer: You can't.
Show me how ... Answer: You can't.
Assuming the role of of a regular computer user: Why would I want to ... I won't.
Why would I want to ... I won't.
Users want to be able to run their favorite app on an OS that looks reasonably familiar to them. If I want to edit my digital video I don't really care where the menu is, as long as I know where it is.
Other than that I agree that the "only on the top of my 21 inch screen" menu of Apple is a travesty too clearly rooted in the days of 11 inch monitors.
The fact is that the Linux GUI is constatnly approaching "Apple Quality"
That isn't even close to true. Sadly, from the first day I installed version 0.91 (I think it was), I have been hoping it would, but have seen very, very slow progress. We are not that much closer today than we were then. Sadly.
If Red Hat and all the other Linux companies were to drop Linux and switch to something else, if Dell, IBM and all the other box suppliers stopped supporting Linux, if all the hardware manufacturers who currently provide Linux drivers for their products all stopped supporting Linux, it still wouldn't be dead.
Wrong, or at least quite wrong. If Linux loses significant market share and IBM and others stop supporting it, it is about as dead as Terri Schiavo was last year. Sure, enthusiasts will keep it going as a hobby project, but as a player in ther market it will be dead. This means that relatively shortly after the latest and greates graphics cards won't have drivers any more etc. Slowly it will go the way of Minix.
I bet a Mac On Linux x86 Edition is available 6 month after 10.5 for Intel Macs
I'll take that bet, in fact, I'll give you more time, I'll give you two years. And I'll bet you $20,000, you can put in $2000 only, whoever is right takes the pot. Unless Apple gives their blessings, it won't happen. OSX on x86 will rely on Apple specific hardware, and I don't see the Linux crowd going into the hardware business yet.
If there is OSX running on x86 there will be a patch to run it on a PC 10 days after release.
Nope, there won't be. The x86-based Mac will require hardware that is not present in your PC, and that you can't purchase from anywhere. Until Apple desides to do so (which is probably never) you will not be able to run OSX on a standard PC.
This is one of the advantages Apple has always had over Microsoft. They design and know the hardware, and can therefore take advantage of it. On a PC, almost all of your menu and window drawing is done primarily by the CPU. The Intel thingy. Apple, knowing what (limited) harware is there, can delegate much more to other "CPUs" in your box, such as the GPU. Longhorn is supposed to do more of this.
If you want a cutting edge version of gimp, download and compile it in your home directory
Have all Linux users gone insane? Apparently. OK, slowly - the first part of your advice is good, if a user wants the latest version of an image editor, he should download it. The second part of the advice is absurd, you can't expect any users outside of a tiny fraction of one percent of all computer users to know what compiling is, let alone actually perform it.
So maybe you should shut your mouth unless you know what you are talking about.
He has some very valid points, and until those points are addressed, Linux will be a marginal or non-existant player in the desktop market. Hell, even now, Linux growth in the server market is slowing considerably. Unless usability issues with Linux are fixed, there is no reason Linux will survive as anything but an enthusiasts toy in the long run.
That's an absurd statement and true for only company-owned computers. A huge number of people actually have PCs at home, and they just want to run their favorite software on that computer. The image editor, the video editor, the browser etc. Not allowing a user to install applications is absurd. Luckily the Debian package system has no such limitation.
because apps on the Mac OSX will run under Linux too (or even with minor modification).
Mac apps will "never" run on Linux. Not unless someone ports the entire Mac framework to Linux, Cocoa all the other stuff. Since that is Apple proprietary, never to be opensourced, stuff, it is highly unlikely that it will ever happen.
I'd love to see it though, threads on Linux are so much more efficient than on OSX.
This is one of those things that shows that socialists have taken over the republican party. I can't belive republicans are now the champions of protectionism, big government spending and federal control trumping states rights.
Voting republican today is more and more like voting for Stalin and Lenin. Sad, but true. What is a capitalist to do? Vote for Hilary?
And where is the "adding" part. The G5s have been dual chip for a while, haven't they?
One would have to do some calculations, but I would not be surprised if chances of an individual being killed by a gamma ray burst is significantly higher than an individual being killed by a car. The reason is quite simple. When a gamma burst like this occurs in our neighborhood, and it will happen, we just don't know when, everybody on earth will die. If it happened tomorrow, that would be about 6 billion people. The number of people dying from one incident significantly increases the odds of one person dying caused by this.
Or, as was pointed out quite some time ago by another dude. "That round thing, whaddayacall it, wheel, that has no real value today, so why do you want to make it?"
You are absolutely correct, none of the disasters that will strike us can be adressed by anything we can do today. We can of course wait until they happen and try to figure out something then, or we can spend money on general research and exploration in that general area today, and perhaps, when things go pear-shaped, we have a solution. Sitting on our collective asses doing nothing is rather pathetic.
I also totally disagree with you on the survival part. I can not see any particular value to space exploration outside of the survival of the species. What makes space exploration a worthy goal?
I find it rather unlikely that NASA would hire me. If I was allowed to go, I would not hesitate. I have also talked to a NASA astronaut about things like this and the message I got from him was that many were ready to go. One of the questions discussed was the topic proposed by an (English I think) astronomer that suggested going to Mars was too expensive because of the return ticket, so issue one-way tickets. The astronaut I talked to claimed that he knew several people in NASA who would jump at the chance.
Simply because we can't do it here on earth, at any price. It isn't cheaper, faster or better, it is impossible. The most talked about possible disaster the past decades have been a meteor impact of the dinosaur wipeout type. This is a disaster we can probably deal with within the next 10-20 years or so, and this is therefore not much of an issue. Are there other problematic events? Let's take just some of them:
All humans in space may be impractical, obviously. The fact that there is little interest in space shouldn't matter though. There is significant interest in devine entities like "God" and "Jesus" and irrelevant gits like the Pope, prince Charles and JLo. Why should that have any impact on what science does? Moving into space with todays technology is impractical, that is precisely why we have to do it. If we don't, the technology will not improve.
Your last point about safety of life is absurd. The fact that life will be extinguished from earth isn't a theory, it is 100% verifyable fact. It will happen, we just don't know for sure when. When it happens though, it will be a good thing if there are humans in places that are not touched by whatever it is that wipes out life on planet earth.
We do not need a planet-breaking disaster, one that will wipe out carbon-based life forms will do. The most significant such threat is probably a near-by (within a few hundred lights) gamma-ray burst. The odds of that happening in your life time is very close to zero. The odds of it happening while the earth still supports human life is significant, close to 100%. If we do not exterminate each other before that, there is consequently close to a 100% chance that a wipe-out of all human life on the planet will occur. Prior to that we should have established human colonies at least half a kilolight away. Better start as soon as possible.
You are absolutely right, if there is a species threatening event in the next century, we are not prepared to deal with it. That is precicely why we have to go into space now. In that way we can deal with species threatening events when they arrive.
The problem with the species threatening events is that we do not know when they may happen, but we know that some of them will happen. Major impacts being a minor such threat. Some of them we will have warnings about a long time in advance, such as the inevitable fact that the Sun is going to run out of energy and inflate past the orbit of the earth. Others we will not have much of a warning about at all, such as a significant gamma ray burst in our neighborhood (within a few hundred lights).
With events where we have a warning, there will be (when they approach) a strong demand for evacuation, so we need to be prepared for that. Developing such technology will take millennia (or centuries at least). With the events where we will have no real warning, life on earth will be wiped out. Our safety net in that case is the fact that we have already colonized areas where the burst does not wipe out life.
Both scenarios requires we go into space big time as soon as possible.
I think your knowledge and intelligence is overrated. I think it is arrogant of you to think that 1) man is not capable of making the world incapable of supporting life as we like it, and 2) man is the only entity that can make the world incapable of supporting life as we like it.
There are several mass-extinction events that will occur in the near, mid and long term future. Impacts of large bodies of mass is the least problematic. Significant gamma ray bursts in our neighborhood probably the most problematic.
Science deals with theories and their (in)validation. Consensus is an irrelevant, and quite idiotic, term typically used by people who like the current state of affairs and prefer not to deal with things such as methodology. Typically (even) scientists (the consensus) have ridiculed new ideas when they have diverged from the "well known" state of affairs.
The theory that human activities are contributing to the global warming is generally accepted as validated by all scientists (who deal with the matter). How much of the increase is caused by humans and how much i natural variation there is no consensus whatsoever on. Not even close.
The consern among scientists who are skeptical to the Kyoto agreement is not as the most vocal environmentalists claim, that kyoto is trying to solve a non-existing problem, but that the solutions proposed by Kyoto, are not going to slow down global warming by any measurable factor since the part of the warming we see that is caused by GHG is lower than "consensus" claims, and that the Kyoto agreement provisions will have no real effect. With the kost of Kyoto being very high, perhaps (these scientists say) we should look at other, and more cost-efficient alternatives.
Sadly religious fever have gripped the community on this issue, and sane debate is impossible, as can be seen by the insane attacks on, for example, Bjorn Lomborg.
You are hopefully right. I just lose patience with arrogant ignorants. I was probably the same at his age :-)
Ignorant idiots are typically afraid of reading lucid commentary that proves beyond any doubt, reasonable or not, that said ignorant idiot is in fact an ignorant idiot.