I don't know, man...those 50's desks were...like...solid wood, man...
Seriously, though, the Duck and Cover campaign served its purpose...making you think you actually had a shot at surviving the attack...and giving you a concrete thing to do, instead of the usual milling aboout in panic. A lot like the duct-tape and plastic sheeting recommendation from the Dept. of Homeland Security. Only one problem: people today are a lot more informed and a lot less trusting then they were in the 50s...
The really scary thing is that it worked. Bush got reelected, and some 60% of all average joes still think that Saddam had WMDs, despite the conclusive proof that they never existed.
There are too many scary parallels between the Iraq war, Vietnam, pornography and this solution to fix our lagging space program.
Too many? I'd say just enough. After all, the strategy is proven effective.
Irrational flames aside, I stand by my earlier statement.
A billion deaths is certainly a terrible tragedy, but EVERYONE dying is inestimatibly worse. Do you understand that I'm talking about the survival of the species here?
By the way, if I happen to be one of those billion, I still stand by my earlier statement...if it teaches the rest of the species to look after its survival, I'd be fine with it.
If the sole reason you want a space program is paranoid fear that we might be hit by a rock, that's a pretty sad reason.
I never charaterized the fear of our species being obliterated by a global catastrophe (what you so quaintly refer to as being 'hit by a rock') as my sole reason to colonize space...it is merely the most important.
Let's keep the fearmongering to a dull roar here. How sick does our society have to be when someone start's talking like a bad sci-fi thriller about the end of the world?
No, let's not. Let's let the fearmongering rise to a fever pitch. You might not want to admit it, but fear is much more motivating than any of the high and mighty ideals you're going on about. I would much rather humanity takes to the stars because we want to...because we're curious...because we can...but our window of opportunity is closing. Between the next world-extinction event (which most scientists agree is overdue) and our rapid squandering of this world's limited resourses, if we don't get into space soon, it's likely we won't be able to when we have to. If we hve to be whipped into leaving Earth, so be it.
The sole purpose of any space program should be like any other science program, to make the unknown known and to expand the horizons of human understanding.
Wrong. The primary purpose of a space-colonization program is enhanced survival of the species. Expanding the horizons of human understanding is a fine and noble goal, but it comes in a distant second to insuring that humans are still around to understand stuff.
I have no idea....I'm no physicist, but it seems that if they know the object's mass and the object's size, they can figure the object's density, and infer its composition from that. What more do they really have to know?
(Mabye he's afraid it's composed of antimatter or admantium or neutronium or naquada, or has a quantum black hole at its center, or some other bullshit concern...)
An impact would cause an energy release equivalent to about 1 Gigaton of TNT (~4e+18 Joule), and while that won't cause a massive extinction event, it causes widespread devastation.
I hope this rock hits our planet. I really do.
This may be the spur humanity needs to get us up off our collective keisters and establish a viable off-planet colony before it's too late. It would be an unprecedented catastrophe, but still survivable, and it seems like this is the only way we're going to learn.
Then again, it could be a bad thing...instilling a sense of false security. (Hey...this asteroid hit us, and we're still here. Guess all those asteriod doomsday scenarios are bunk.)
I rather suspect the former will be the prevailing attitude...trouble is, mankind has a notoriously short attention span...would this command enough attention for us to start a space colony project...and actually finish it?
The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program.
- Larry Niven
Will our eulogy be: "The humans became extinct because they couldn't concentrate hard enough on their space program."?
The only things I can think of are 1) wade through a bunch of books at the library, *praying* that one contained the tiny piece of knowledge that you needed, or 2) to find an expert in that subject. Jeez that must have sucked.
Before the internet, we largely relied upon option #3
3.) Make shit up.
Seriously. The unavailability of ready data on all subjects was a two-edged sword, just as the ready availability is today. Sure, you might not know the answer, but the odds were really good no one else did either (including your professors). Just bullshit loudly enough, and include a few bogus sources, and you're done.
And yes, I did graduate from college, using these exact same tactics.
...it may not take more than a week for me (one person using the private key of someone else) to find the Osama bin Laden's of the world.
Then what the hell are you doing posting on Slashdot! Get busy and find Bin Laden!!!
Seriously, there's a $25 mil bounty on Bin laden's head (heard it was going to be doubled to $50 mil, but don't know if that happened yet). I'm guessing that if it was this easy to find Bin Laden, you (or someone else) would have done it by now. Since this hasn't happened, it would seem as if there is something wrong with your assumptions.
Military leaders from U.S. Strategic Command, or Stratcom, disclosed the existence of a unit called the Joint Functional Component Command for Network Warfare, or JFCCNW.
"JFCCNW"??? That's a terrible acronym! That's the worst thing I've heard since PCMCIA!
How about something a bit more catchy, like the League of Enduring Electronic Technicians? Or perhaps the Paramilitary Worldwide Network of Electronic Defenders?
Let's help out our country...please post your suggestions for acronyms below.
...document icons are no longer a hint of the type of file, but rather a small picture of the file itself. The icon for a Word document, for example, is a tiny iteration of the first page of the file.
I'm not trying to be an anti-Microsoft troll here...honest, I'm not (look how I even refrained from referring to them as "M$"), but in all seriousness, hasn't Linux been doing this sort of thing for a while now?
And yet, Microsoft peddles this as some sort of brand-new,major cutting-edge innovation.
Slashdot Mirror
Professor Farnsworth: Well...that's bound to be a suicide mission. Fry, Bender, Leela...
Bender: DAMN YOU OLD MAN!
I don't know, man...those 50's desks were...like...solid wood, man...
Seriously, though, the Duck and Cover campaign served its purpose...making you think you actually had a shot at surviving the attack...and giving you a concrete thing to do, instead of the usual milling aboout in panic. A lot like the duct-tape and plastic sheeting recommendation from the Dept. of Homeland Security. Only one problem: people today are a lot more informed and a lot less trusting then they were in the 50s...
The really scary thing is that it worked. Bush got reelected, and some 60% of all average joes still think that Saddam had WMDs, despite the conclusive proof that they never existed.
There are too many scary parallels between the Iraq war, Vietnam, pornography and this solution to fix our lagging space program.
Too many? I'd say just enough. After all, the strategy is proven effective.
Irrational flames aside, I stand by my earlier statement.
A billion deaths is certainly a terrible tragedy, but EVERYONE dying is inestimatibly worse. Do you understand that I'm talking about the survival of the species here?
By the way, if I happen to be one of those billion, I still stand by my earlier statement...if it teaches the rest of the species to look after its survival, I'd be fine with it.
If the sole reason you want a space program is paranoid fear that we might be hit by a rock, that's a pretty sad reason.
I never charaterized the fear of our species being obliterated by a global catastrophe (what you so quaintly refer to as being 'hit by a rock') as my sole reason to colonize space...it is merely the most important.
Let's keep the fearmongering to a dull roar here. How sick does our society have to be when someone start's talking like a bad sci-fi thriller about the end of the world?
No, let's not. Let's let the fearmongering rise to a fever pitch. You might not want to admit it, but fear is much more motivating than any of the high and mighty ideals you're going on about. I would much rather humanity takes to the stars because we want to...because we're curious...because we can...but our window of opportunity is closing. Between the next world-extinction event (which most scientists agree is overdue) and our rapid squandering of this world's limited resourses, if we don't get into space soon, it's likely we won't be able to when we have to. If we hve to be whipped into leaving Earth, so be it.
The sole purpose of any space program should be like any other science program, to make the unknown known and to expand the horizons of human understanding.
Wrong. The primary purpose of a space-colonization program is enhanced survival of the species. Expanding the horizons of human understanding is a fine and noble goal, but it comes in a distant second to insuring that humans are still around to understand stuff.
And none of those solutions describe a way to transport humans reliably to and from say Mars in a reasonable safe, repeatable manner.
When did we start talking about Mars? What does Mars have to do with this discussion?
When humanity is staring down the barrel of an asteroid strike, then these treaties will probably not be such a big deal...
Besides, whenever has our beloved President ever let a treaty stand in his way?
I'd like to go with Ender's Game....I'm still trying to repress The Last Starfighter.
They have the data on the object's orbit around the Sun...with this information, it's high school physics to calculate the mass of the object.
I have no idea....I'm no physicist, but it seems that if they know the object's mass and the object's size, they can figure the object's density, and infer its composition from that. What more do they really have to know?
(Mabye he's afraid it's composed of antimatter or admantium or neutronium or naquada, or has a quantum black hole at its center, or some other bullshit concern...)
That game was actually written by NASA, in order to train the nation's children for just such an eventuality.
From the summary:
I hope this rock hits our planet. I really do.
This may be the spur humanity needs to get us up off our collective keisters and establish a viable off-planet colony before it's too late. It would be an unprecedented catastrophe, but still survivable, and it seems like this is the only way we're going to learn.
Then again, it could be a bad thing...instilling a sense of false security. (Hey...this asteroid hit us, and we're still here. Guess all those asteriod doomsday scenarios are bunk.)
I rather suspect the former will be the prevailing attitude...trouble is, mankind has a notoriously short attention span...would this command enough attention for us to start a space colony project...and actually finish it?
Will our eulogy be: "The humans became extinct because they couldn't concentrate hard enough on their space program."?
I would have been...before this Internet thing came along and called my bluff...
"...and I would have been successful, too, if it wasn't for that meddling Wikipedia..."
I can help answer this question.
The only things I can think of are 1) wade through a bunch of books at the library, *praying* that one contained the tiny piece of knowledge that you needed, or 2) to find an expert in that subject. Jeez that must have sucked.
Before the internet, we largely relied upon option #3
3.) Make shit up.
Seriously. The unavailability of ready data on all subjects was a two-edged sword, just as the ready availability is today. Sure, you might not know the answer, but the odds were really good no one else did either (including your professors). Just bullshit loudly enough, and include a few bogus sources, and you're done.
And yes, I did graduate from college, using these exact same tactics.
...it may not take more than a week for me (one person using the private key of someone else) to find the Osama bin Laden's of the world.
Then what the hell are you doing posting on Slashdot! Get busy and find Bin Laden!!!
Seriously, there's a $25 mil bounty on Bin laden's head (heard it was going to be doubled to $50 mil, but don't know if that happened yet). I'm guessing that if it was this easy to find Bin Laden, you (or someone else) would have done it by now. Since this hasn't happened, it would seem as if there is something wrong with your assumptions.
From the article:
"JFCCNW"??? That's a terrible acronym! That's the worst thing I've heard since PCMCIA!
How about something a bit more catchy, like the League of Enduring Electronic Technicians? Or perhaps the Paramilitary Worldwide Network of Electronic Defenders?
Let's help out our country...please post your suggestions for acronyms below.
From the article:
I'm not trying to be an anti-Microsoft troll here...honest, I'm not (look how I even refrained from referring to them as "M$"), but in all seriousness, hasn't Linux been doing this sort of thing for a while now?
And yet, Microsoft peddles this as some sort of brand-new,major cutting-edge innovation.
From the article:
But I thought that Al Gore invented the Internet...
This just in...the movie will be delayed until Spring 2009.
Jesus God! Your posts make my eyeballs bleed!
Use a spellchecker, idiot!
You beat me to it...another advert posing as a story.
Oh sweet baby Jesus...
If this is actually what Longhorn looks like, I'm going to shoot myself in the head. I have to support this crap.
Gee, you think the submitter might be a tad pro-Mac?
The stage is set....let the carnage begin!
The earth is not a closed system at all....about 1000 tons of meteors fall to earth every day.
I was hoping to get through this entire discussion without hearing a Pluto Nash reference.
Damn you, sir.