(Missions like fixing the Hubble telescope don't count, either. It would have been cheaper to build several Hubbles on an assembly line and launch them as they break than to send shuttle missions to service them.)
This is an interesting statement. References?
The estimated cost of the Hubble was $400 million. From what I've read it costs $60 million to launch the Shuttle. Now these two numbers are rubbish, of course, because the $400 million I'm quoting is to design and build one space telescope whereas the $60 million I'm quoting is to put one already designed and built Shuttle into orbit. Of course, you can also say that one Shuttle launch costs $1.3 billion, but you can also say that the Hubble cost $2.5 billion to construct--what with the delays.
(These numbers are from the wikipedia articles on the Space Shuttle and Hubble telescope)
When you say you spent $40 on groceries, do you include the portion of your car payment for the car that you drove to the store in? Do you include the cost of the gas that you burned to get to the store? How about the cost of the gas that you burned to get to the gas station to get the gas that you later burned to get to the store? Do you include the percent of taxes that you paid for the road(s) that you used to get to the store? Do you "save money" by only including the cost of the road that you used to get to the store? You can make a trip to the grocery store very expensive if you include those numbers.
In other words, most numbers you see on the costs are adjusted by one agenda or another. That's why I'd be curious to see where you're getting this from.
By the way, just as aside, one issue with the Hubble was that after the Challenger accident, it had to be stored for several years in a clean room, powered up, and purged with nitrogen at a cost of about $6,000,000 per month. So assuming that we built two Hubbles and launched one in January 1990 and the other to replace the first one in December of 1993, that would mean 2 years and 11 months at $6,000,000 per month to keep the second Hubble ready to go. Total cost: $1,584,000,000. That's more than the $1.3 Billion for a Shuttle launch.
I'd agree, except for the fact that these patents are part of a standard which Nokia has agreed to license in a "Reasonable and Nondiscriminatory" fashion. They can't suddenly decide to charge Apple more because Apple competes with them. That is discriminatory.
Apple is not saying that they shouldn't have to pay to use those patents. They are saying that they shouldn't have to pay more or give up valuable IP to use those patents since other companies don't have to pay as much or give up IP. Making Apple do that is discriminatory.
There is no double standard. If Nokia had not agreed to license the patents in a "Reasonable and Nondiscriminatory" fashion, I'd agree with you. Of course, their patents probably would not have been used.
I would agree. But, again, the idea that Nokia can hold up the patents that Apple needs in order for Nokia to get the patents that they want is certainly not "Non-discriminatory."
To go with my previous example, if Nokia says, "it's $0.25 per cellphone, but we'll cut it if you cross-license these patents," that's one thing. But to say "You must cross-license these patents" is something else.
This gives Nokia an incredible advantage over Google, RIM, Microsoft, and anyone else who makes a cellphone operating system. Nokia makes a cellphone operating system but they also have patents which Google, RIM, and Microsoft—Nokia's competitors—must license in order to work with GSM networks. So you have to license technology from your competition if you want to work on GSM networks.
Nokia is definitely taking advantage of the situation by trying to use these must have patents in cellular telephony in order to improve their own cellphone operating system which is used on the phones that they sell.
Well, the issue is "Reasonable and Nondiscriminatory."
Let's say I make boring cellphones and I pay Nokia $0.25 for every cellphone that I sell. I really have nothing of value for Nokia except for money, so that's what they take. And that's fine.
Now let's say I have a patent on a method of turning lead into gold and I use this to make golden cellphones. Now that patent is worth potentially more than $0.25 for every cellphone that I sell. So should Nokia be able to say, "Hey, cross-license that patent and we'll let you slide by with $0.01 for every phone you sell. If you don't agree to cross-license that patent, we're going to demand $10,000,000 for every phone you sell."
I would tend to agree. On the other hand, what if it just affects "bandwidth hogs"?
So you stay at $30/month. But how about the guy who plugs his iPhone into the car radio and listens to Pandora every weekday for 3 hours on his commute and watches Star Trek episodes streamed from CBS.com and YouTube videos over lunch? Would you cancel your contract because he has to pay $100/month?
Honestly, I went and looked at my settings on my iPhone, which I haven't reset. I bought the phone in July of this year. I've received 151MB via AT&T's network in four months. So I'm not too worried about a 5GB cap.
That said, I paid for "Unlimited" and that means unlimited. If AT&T changed it so I had a 5GB cap, I would probably stay. But if I wanted to leave, I'd expect to be able to leave without paying any kind of early termination fee.
If designated by the FSD, inspect the credentials of LEOs, LEOs escorting prisoners, Federal Flight Deck Officers (FFDOs), Federal Air Marshals (FAMs), credentialed TSA employees flying with a working canine, and U.S. Government employees required to fly armed in order to clear them through the screening checkpoint.
The bolding is from the original, which is why the whole "credentialed TSA employees flying with a working canine" caught my eye.
A working canine?
This is a good thing. After all, unemployed canines could disrupt a flight. But does the canine also have to have some idea to show it's gainfully employed? Does it have to be employed by the TSA? Can an employee show up with Jilli?
California, Alaska, and the other gold rushes you mention were already in areas which had been "explored." Yes, once you find gold, they'll be plenty of folks running over to jump your claim. But they won't be the ones doing the exploring.
There has been very little "exploration" which did not have some kind of government financing. Heck, Columbus was financed by the Spanish crown. Lewis and Clark were financed by the US Government. While looking at the Lewis and Clark expedition, I did come across a Spanish expedition to Florida which was privately financed, but it doesn't look like it made much money for anybody...
You need to have a better chance of making money before businesses will consider investing.
Obviously, it's more expensive to put a space station in orbit in order to test a transmitter. The idea behind ISS, though, is that we pay for it to be up there so that we can put experiments into orbit without building all of the necessary hardware for a satellite. It makes it cheaper for groups wishing to do experiments in orbit because the rest of us subsidize the orbital hardware (ie, the ISS). Because we must supply the ISS, we also subsidize getting the experiments up to the ISS (eg, We need to ship 1000 pounds of food, our rocket will carry 1500 pounds, so we've got 500 pounds that we can fill up with experiments). Because we have to bring things back from ISS (people mostly), we'll carry experiments back to Earth.
So when you include all those in your calculations, the ISS is much more expensive than launching a satellite. However, if you were doing the experiment, it's much cheaper to have the ISS (because governments have already spent the money on the platform and getting stuff up there and back). This, in theory, encourages researchers to consider these experiments because it's cheaper for them.
I submit a request to be your Facebook friend as "CuteBlonde362436" and you accept, thinking that I might be a cute blonde with measurements 36-24-36. At this point, I have access to your information including the fact that you like to molest small woodland creatures. Of course, I'm neither cute, blonde, nor do I have those measurements. However, I am part of an FBI task force charged with protecting small woodland creatures from molestation and the reason I approached you on Facebook is due to an anonymous tip that said you were into that sort of thing.
I now have all the evidence I need to have you locked up for a very long time.
Number of people carried on space shuttle flights: 7. Number of people carried on Soyuz flight: 2. Number of people most recent version of Soyuz can carry: 3.
And if they want to do all this at minimum cost, they could just buy Soyuz vehicles, the world's safest, most reliable manned space transportation system.
And they'd have to do 3x the number of launches in order to send the same number of people that the shuttle can carry with one launch. And they'd have to send up a few other launches to carry all the gear that the shuttle carries to the ISS.
Do You Have Skills That Might Be Useful On Mars or on the Shuttle?
Frankly, I don't want to waste my tax dollars on your joyride. I'd rather send someone who has a really good reason to be there. However, some of those people have wives and children and don't really want to risk their lives in the name of science.
Don't get me wrong--I agree with you wholeheartedly. I'd ride the Shuttle--no questions asked. But I also recognize that I wouldn't do much once I got up there but stare out the window and say, "Ooh...pretty planet..."
Phil Jones, beleagured head of the CRU: "Our global temperature series tallies with those of other, completely independent, groups of scientists working for NASA and the National Climate Data Centre in the United States, among others. Even if you were to ignore our findings, theirs show the same results."
Sounds fair. Let's ignore your findings and recompute using the other's data sets and see if everything comes out equal.
This is science. If you can't show your work so that other's can reproduce your results, you're out.
No. I think Apple should allow developers to distribute Apps without going through Apple's store.
There are two advantages:
Developers can work on applications without the fear that Apple will decide they can't publish them. They might need to have a "Plan B" if Apple chooses not to do so, but they aren't completely SOL.
Apple can choose to not accept applications that are yet another fart app or tip calculator or some other stupid thing without having to worry about people's complaints. This also allows Apple to prune it's App Store and get rid of all the crap and make discoverability easier.
Apple's customers can choose to only visit Apple's Store or they can download from elsewhere when Apple chooses not to publish something (and accept some risk).
Price. The original Newton was priced at $700. They never really came down that much, making them fairly expensive. You got the general argument, "Why should I spend $700 for a Newton when I can spend $5 for a datebook?"
Size. The MessagePad was a fairly large device. It was a little too big to fit in your pocket.
Handwriting Recognition. The impressive part of the Newton was that you would write and it would "read" your handwriting. One problem was that the Newton had to be "trained" to learn your handwriting, which Apple didn't really emphasize. So people ended up with the expectation that they would pull it out of the box and start writing and be off and running. When it didn't work well, people returned it. Doonesbury's famous cartoon let the world know that the product didn't work and it carried the stigma for years--even after the handwriting recognition improved.
My favorite story is a friend of mine in Vermont who loudly proclaimed she was quitting smoking. And she did.
Well, not really. She'd sneak a few every day.
Then one day she was taking out the trash and sneaking a cigarette. It was about -20 degrees Fahrenheit outside. She's standing there smoking her cigarette and freezing her ass off. And she thinks, "Why am I doing this? I'm not fooling myself--I know I haven't quit smoking. I'm not fooling my son--he knows it doesn't take 20 minutes to throw out the trash, especially when it's this cold out! I should either throw out the cigarettes or go inside and smoke where it's warm."
She threw out the cigarettes and never touched another one. One she came to that realization, she said that quitting smoking was pretty easy.
Slashdot Mirror
(Missions like fixing the Hubble telescope don't count, either. It would have been cheaper to build several Hubbles on an assembly line and launch them as they break than to send shuttle missions to service them.)
This is an interesting statement. References?
The estimated cost of the Hubble was $400 million. From what I've read it costs $60 million to launch the Shuttle. Now these two numbers are rubbish, of course, because the $400 million I'm quoting is to design and build one space telescope whereas the $60 million I'm quoting is to put one already designed and built Shuttle into orbit. Of course, you can also say that one Shuttle launch costs $1.3 billion, but you can also say that the Hubble cost $2.5 billion to construct--what with the delays.
(These numbers are from the wikipedia articles on the Space Shuttle and Hubble telescope)
When you say you spent $40 on groceries, do you include the portion of your car payment for the car that you drove to the store in? Do you include the cost of the gas that you burned to get to the store? How about the cost of the gas that you burned to get to the gas station to get the gas that you later burned to get to the store? Do you include the percent of taxes that you paid for the road(s) that you used to get to the store? Do you "save money" by only including the cost of the road that you used to get to the store? You can make a trip to the grocery store very expensive if you include those numbers.
In other words, most numbers you see on the costs are adjusted by one agenda or another. That's why I'd be curious to see where you're getting this from.
By the way, just as aside, one issue with the Hubble was that after the Challenger accident, it had to be stored for several years in a clean room, powered up, and purged with nitrogen at a cost of about $6,000,000 per month. So assuming that we built two Hubbles and launched one in January 1990 and the other to replace the first one in December of 1993, that would mean 2 years and 11 months at $6,000,000 per month to keep the second Hubble ready to go. Total cost: $1,584,000,000. That's more than the $1.3 Billion for a Shuttle launch.
I'd agree, except for the fact that these patents are part of a standard which Nokia has agreed to license in a "Reasonable and Nondiscriminatory" fashion. They can't suddenly decide to charge Apple more because Apple competes with them. That is discriminatory.
Apple is not saying that they shouldn't have to pay to use those patents. They are saying that they shouldn't have to pay more or give up valuable IP to use those patents since other companies don't have to pay as much or give up IP. Making Apple do that is discriminatory.
There is no double standard. If Nokia had not agreed to license the patents in a "Reasonable and Nondiscriminatory" fashion, I'd agree with you. Of course, their patents probably would not have been used.
I would agree. But, again, the idea that Nokia can hold up the patents that Apple needs in order for Nokia to get the patents that they want is certainly not "Non-discriminatory."
To go with my previous example, if Nokia says, "it's $0.25 per cellphone, but we'll cut it if you cross-license these patents," that's one thing. But to say "You must cross-license these patents" is something else.
This gives Nokia an incredible advantage over Google, RIM, Microsoft, and anyone else who makes a cellphone operating system. Nokia makes a cellphone operating system but they also have patents which Google, RIM, and Microsoft—Nokia's competitors—must license in order to work with GSM networks. So you have to license technology from your competition if you want to work on GSM networks.
Nokia is definitely taking advantage of the situation by trying to use these must have patents in cellular telephony in order to improve their own cellphone operating system which is used on the phones that they sell.
That's definitely non-discriminatory.
Well, the issue is "Reasonable and Nondiscriminatory."
Let's say I make boring cellphones and I pay Nokia $0.25 for every cellphone that I sell. I really have nothing of value for Nokia except for money, so that's what they take. And that's fine.
Now let's say I have a patent on a method of turning lead into gold and I use this to make golden cellphones. Now that patent is worth potentially more than $0.25 for every cellphone that I sell. So should Nokia be able to say, "Hey, cross-license that patent and we'll let you slide by with $0.01 for every phone you sell. If you don't agree to cross-license that patent, we're going to demand $10,000,000 for every phone you sell."
That's neither reasonable nor non-discriminatory.
I would tend to agree. On the other hand, what if it just affects "bandwidth hogs"?
So you stay at $30/month. But how about the guy who plugs his iPhone into the car radio and listens to Pandora every weekday for 3 hours on his commute and watches Star Trek episodes streamed from CBS.com and YouTube videos over lunch? Would you cancel your contract because he has to pay $100/month?
Honestly, I went and looked at my settings on my iPhone, which I haven't reset. I bought the phone in July of this year. I've received 151MB via AT&T's network in four months. So I'm not too worried about a 5GB cap.
That said, I paid for "Unlimited" and that means unlimited. If AT&T changed it so I had a 5GB cap, I would probably stay. But if I wanted to leave, I'd expect to be able to leave without paying any kind of early termination fee.
Wait! Are you telling me "Intelligent Design" isn't a theory?
(I figure everyone was going off on the whole global warming thing, I'd try new a tack.)
Or my personal favorite:
If designated by the FSD, inspect the credentials of LEOs, LEOs escorting prisoners, Federal Flight Deck Officers (FFDOs), Federal Air Marshals (FAMs), credentialed TSA employees flying with a working canine, and U.S. Government employees required to fly armed in order to clear them through the screening checkpoint.
The bolding is from the original, which is why the whole "credentialed TSA employees flying with a working canine" caught my eye.
A working canine?
The mind reels...
A couple of points:
You need to have a better chance of making money before businesses will consider investing.
I hate corporations. I hate them with every fiber of my being.
I'm a corporation, you insensitive clod!
Well, it depends on how you do your accounting...
Obviously, it's more expensive to put a space station in orbit in order to test a transmitter. The idea behind ISS, though, is that we pay for it to be up there so that we can put experiments into orbit without building all of the necessary hardware for a satellite. It makes it cheaper for groups wishing to do experiments in orbit because the rest of us subsidize the orbital hardware (ie, the ISS). Because we must supply the ISS, we also subsidize getting the experiments up to the ISS (eg, We need to ship 1000 pounds of food, our rocket will carry 1500 pounds, so we've got 500 pounds that we can fill up with experiments). Because we have to bring things back from ISS (people mostly), we'll carry experiments back to Earth.
So when you include all those in your calculations, the ISS is much more expensive than launching a satellite. However, if you were doing the experiment, it's much cheaper to have the ISS (because governments have already spent the money on the platform and getting stuff up there and back). This, in theory, encourages researchers to consider these experiments because it's cheaper for them.
Well, once I have my evidence, they can certainly kick my account.
True. Now we have the question about "friends."
I submit a request to be your Facebook friend as "CuteBlonde362436" and you accept, thinking that I might be a cute blonde with measurements 36-24-36. At this point, I have access to your information including the fact that you like to molest small woodland creatures. Of course, I'm neither cute, blonde, nor do I have those measurements. However, I am part of an FBI task force charged with protecting small woodland creatures from molestation and the reason I approached you on Facebook is due to an anonymous tip that said you were into that sort of thing.
I now have all the evidence I need to have you locked up for a very long time.
Entrapment?
Eat Genuine RoboFood! It's Good For The Environment and OK For You!"
Number of people carried on space shuttle flights: 7. Number of people carried on Soyuz flight: 2. Number of people most recent version of Soyuz can carry: 3.
And if they want to do all this at minimum cost, they could just buy Soyuz vehicles, the world's safest, most reliable manned space transportation system.
And they'd have to do 3x the number of launches in order to send the same number of people that the shuttle can carry with one launch. And they'd have to send up a few other launches to carry all the gear that the shuttle carries to the ISS.
Okay. Now a couple of other questions:
Frankly, I don't want to waste my tax dollars on your joyride. I'd rather send someone who has a really good reason to be there. However, some of those people have wives and children and don't really want to risk their lives in the name of science.
Don't get me wrong--I agree with you wholeheartedly. I'd ride the Shuttle--no questions asked. But I also recognize that I wouldn't do much once I got up there but stare out the window and say, "Ooh...pretty planet..."
Phil Jones, beleagured head of the CRU: "Our global temperature series tallies with those of other, completely independent, groups of scientists working for NASA and the National Climate Data Centre in the United States, among others. Even if you were to ignore our findings, theirs show the same results."
Sounds fair. Let's ignore your findings and recompute using the other's data sets and see if everything comes out equal.
This is science. If you can't show your work so that other's can reproduce your results, you're out.
Apple will get blamed by the press and blogosphere for any malware.
Perhaps this would inspire Apple to come up with a more secure phone.
No. I think Apple should allow developers to distribute Apps without going through Apple's store.
There are two advantages:
Apple's customers can choose to only visit Apple's Store or they can download from elsewhere when Apple chooses not to publish something (and accept some risk).
I wonder what happens when I wake up. I hope the rest of you don't pop out of existence.
Yeah, like that would hap—
Well there were a few reasons:
Nokia may have a larger marketshare, but not many of those phones are in use.
This is absolutely true. I know plenty of people who go out and spend their hard earned money on Nokia phones and then just throw them away.
One advantage to my wristwatch is that it's conveniently located on my wrist, unlike a cellphone which lives in a pocket or holster.
You might want to call your lawyers. Looks like they took your idea and ran with it.
My favorite story is a friend of mine in Vermont who loudly proclaimed she was quitting smoking. And she did.
Well, not really. She'd sneak a few every day.
Then one day she was taking out the trash and sneaking a cigarette. It was about -20 degrees Fahrenheit outside. She's standing there smoking her cigarette and freezing her ass off. And she thinks, "Why am I doing this? I'm not fooling myself--I know I haven't quit smoking. I'm not fooling my son--he knows it doesn't take 20 minutes to throw out the trash, especially when it's this cold out! I should either throw out the cigarettes or go inside and smoke where it's warm."
She threw out the cigarettes and never touched another one. One she came to that realization, she said that quitting smoking was pretty easy.