Adventures of Alacrity Fitzhugh and Hobart Floyt: Fun space opera trilogy with lots of heart, amazing back story and plenty of action. Sadly, out of print but easy enough to obtain 99cent copies online.
yes, Yes, YES!!!
Even if you read nothing else he wrote, these three books (especially the first two) rank among my all-time favorite sci-fi-just-for-fun stories. Great stuff!:)
Meh. I've read several of his novels, including "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" (of course), but honestly, I found him...utterly forgettable. Sure, Hollywood has had a lot of success with his stories (and some of the things I didn't get in "Blade Runner" made a lot more sense after reading "Androids") but frankly, his books just didn't do it for me. I didn't like his writing style, I didn't like his characters, I didn't like his stories...I just really didn't care for his work much at all. I'd much rather curl up with a book by Roger Zelazny, Gordon R. Dickson, Henlein or Asimov...pretty much *anyone* else but PKD.
I agree with you on the first point (while the story has very little in common with any of Asimov's stories, it wasn't a bad film), but while you are technically correct on the second point, "Starship Troopers" has got to be one of the worst film adaptations ever (at least in my typically not-so-humble opinion, lol).
I read an essay by Asimov once where he laid the groundwork for sci-fi mystery. I was still in elementary school at the time, so I don't remember much of it, but you certainly nailed his point of view when you said, "such a story would pose no challenge nor offer rewards to an intellect like his." I do remember one thing in particular that he said (although I don't claim to do anything more than a rough paraphrase). The gist of it was that a sci-fi mystery writer could not pull a "deus ex machina" to solve the mystery. In sci-fi, there are very few limits on the author. Since you are writing about *possibilities* that have not yet occurred, the author could easily inject some tidbit of information that anyone living in the imagined world would know, but that no reader could possibly no about unless the author told them about it. For example, the hero could claim he knew one of the characters was lying when he claimed to have participated in some war because the character would only have been two years old when the war took place. To Asimov, that was cheating -- the author had to give the readers all of the information needed to solve the mystery, otherwise it wasn't fair to the reader.
So yes, I think you are correct. At heart, Asimov was a mystery writer, and a darned good one at that;)
Roger Zelazny (not knowing any other authors with that sirname, I assume that is who you meant) was definitely one of my favorite authors when I was in my late teens and twenties. I don't know that I would call him "underappreciated" though, since it was always easy to find his writing at Borders or Barnes and Noble.
Incidentally, I'd have to mention Joel Rosenberg as well. I can't think of Zelazny without reminiscing about Rosenberg's books, since I was reading both of their works around the same time in my life.
That is to say, he's an extreme right wing loony...[and] standard issue frothing-at-the-mouth reactionary fuckbag.
Unlike, perhaps, you who responds to a statement of OPINION with ad hominem attacks, rather than a calm, reasoned and intelligent rebuttal about why you disagree? Are you really so insecure in your beliefs that you cannot tolerate someone having a different view than you?
/. -- home of enlightened, intelligent debate (not).
any security infrastructure can be made weak by users who...continue to use telnet or ftp when ssh and sftp are available...
Where I work, we still use telnet in a few applications because, even though the hardware vendor includes an SSH implementation on some of our gear, it is so horribly broken that it is essentially unusable (for example, dropped characters up to 50% while typing commands because the processor can't keep up). The equipment works well otherwise so we keep using it, but I would certainly like to see them beef up the hardware so that we could use SSH instead. As far as FTP, I prefer to use SCP on any device that supports it. I've never really used SFTP, though, since pretty much every device I've used that supports SFTP also supports SCP.
If some sects of Judaism believe that you are not considered a person until you are born...
I'm not exactly sure what that has to do with the question, other than as one particular example of what certain groups of people believe, but I am very curious why Jewish belief has popped up a couple of times in this thread (you aren't the only person to mention this in reply to what I posted above; I'm not sure why). <shrug> Did I say something to imply that I believed Jewish thought should be the basis for U.S. laws (like you, I'm honestly curious, not trolling or trying to be obnoxious)?
...and the definition of human "life" essentially boils down to what each individual believes
That, in a nutshell, is the crux of the abortion debate. Until we can come to a consensus on when a fetus becomes a person, it will be impossible to come to a consensus on whether or not abortion should or should not be legal.
...then what do you as a self-identified Libertarian think the governments' role in abortion should be? Is it more important to override some peoples' First Amendment rights to force everybody to conform to what you (and people like you believe)?
I don't believe that abortion is necessarily a First Amendment issue. There are certainly cases where it *can* be (for example, the religious groups that recently were up in arms because of the mandate to provide abortions under health care plans), but I have known people of religious persuasions who were pro-choice, and I have known atheists who were pro-life.
And how do you justify that against your Libertarian ideology?
That is a great question. Allow me to explain by way of an analogy. The Constitution says that "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" (2nd Amendment), right? However, we do accept some limitations on our freedoms in order to create a workable society. Where I live (Anchorage, Alaska), I cannot legally discharge a firearm within city limits, other than in an emergency. For example, I can shoot a bear in my yard if I have reason to believe that it is necessary in the interest of safety, or I can legally shoot an intruder in my home, under certain circumstances. However, I am not legally allowed to set up a firing range in my back yard, even though I have a Constitutional right to "keep and bear arms." My right to shoot my (Constitutionally allowed) firearms ends at the point in which it begins to endanger someone else's life (excepting, of course, hypothetical cases where I am defending myself from an attacker and I have reasonable grounds to believe that deadly force is my only option). Even as a self-proclaimed Libertarian, I believe that some restrictions upon liberty is a good thing. People cannot coexist in close proximity to others *AND* do whatever they want, whenever they want. Therefore, we agree upon certain restrictions upon our liberty in order to coexist peacefully (in other words, Libertarian != Anarchist).
Now, back to the abortion question. Remember that I started out by saying that, in my opinion, a fetus is a person rather than tissue. If that is so, then that unborn person's right to live trumps the mother's right to choose, to convenience, or to whatever other reason she might have for getting an abortion. In my viewpoint, just as my right to keep and bear arms ends the moment I start using a firearm in a way that creates an undue hazard to other people, the mother's freedom of choice ends at the point where it involves taking a baby's life. If you do not believe that a fetus is a person, then you will most likely come to a different conclusion, which is why I stated earlier that we cannot come to a consensus on abortion until we come to a consensus on when a fetus becomes a person.
You may disagree with Paul's choices in the two controversies you mentioned, but from what I've seen, Paul votes consistently and in accordance with his ideals on how things should be. To be fair, I was not aware of any way his stance on freedom of speech deviates from Libertarian thought (please feel free to educate me if you are so inclined), but quite frankly, I share his views on abortion*. In a nutshell, Libertarians tend to prefer no more restrictions on others than is absolutely necessary to create a workable social fabric. Paul, like me, doesn't believe a fetus is just "tissue;" he believes it is a person. As such, a fetus is entitled to protection from murder under law, just as you and I are. If you prefer to believe that a fetus is only tissue, then your views on abortion are going to be different. Fine. But his view on abortion in no way implies that he is "just a corporate tool like the others," only wrapped up in a slightly different package.
* And while I am willing to take the time to explain my understanding of why his view on abortion is what it is and how it is still consistent with Libertarian ideology, I'm not interested in debating whether that view is right or wrong. If you go there, I'll just ignore you.
...and the passengers wary (and often pissed off) the only real chance a terrorist has...
Dang...I never thought of that. TSA *IS* effective counter-terrorism, just not in the way I ever thought. They get the passengers pissed off before boarding the airplane, the more pissed off the better. Then, if someone *does* try to hijack or blow up an airliner in flight, the rest of the passengers, eager to vent their frustration on someone, ANYONE, rip the terrorist to shreds. Voila! Terrorism problem solved!
FWIW, your post is slightly ambiguous -- you ask a question in the subject, as if you think the answer should be, "No, of course not!" However, the body of your post suggests that you might really be commenting that the question in the subject isn't really what *you* think; it's what your "not-so-smart alumni on facebook" think.
I recognize your nick; you and I have often argued the same points (from the same side, just to be clear), so I suspect you are trying to state the latter rather than the former. However, since I've often heard people arguing from the point of view as your not-so-smart alumni, I think it bears mentioning that the question in your subject is based upon a false premise: EITHER get nudie-scanned and/or groped prior to boarding an airplane OR get blown up by terrorists. The fact, however, is that any given person has roughly a one in 30 million chance of dying in a terrorist attack in the United States. Therefore, the choice is actually 1) get nudie-scanned and/or molested by a TSA thug prior to boarding an airplane or 2) take the one in thirty million chance of being killed in a terrorist attack. Quite frankly, I'll take the extremely minimal risk over the certainty of being felt up by a (barely) trained, borderline psychotic monkey every single time, thanks.
Use a globe and a string, if you want an accurate representation. Google "great circle route" if you don't understand why a map and ruler won't cut it.
Don't get me wrong -- I wasn't supporting the argument of the guy with the confusing grammar; I was merely interpreting it. I tend to be middle-of-the-road on most issues, and I am on this one too, because reality is often quite a bit more complex than such black-and-white arguments make them out to be.
Quite honestly, the idea of "buy local" in a global economy doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. What's more "American" -- a car built by a Japanese company (Honda, Toyota, Nissan) but built in an American plant, or an "American" car that's built in Mexico? I won't even discuss how Chrysler is actually Daimler (German) - Chrysler (American). Or consider Eric Buell Racing's Buell 1100RS motorcycle? That's an American company, but it uses a Rotax engine (Austrian). How many American cars have Bosch components (German) or ECU's and sensors made in Taiwan? The boundaries get pretty grey, and it becomes difficult, if not downright impossible, to determine what is "American" and what is "imported" even if you want to.
In the early '90s, Chrysler ran a huge "Buy American!" campaign. The radio and TV (at least where I live) was blasted with ads about buying "Made in America" rather than buying imports, and the local Dodge/Chrysler dealer took out a huge full page ad dredging up memories of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor FIFTY FREAKING YEARS AGO. Shortly afterwards, my dad bought a brand new Dodge Ram Charger (guess the ads worked, sigh...). I looked inside the door, and guess what was stamped in the door frame?
Wait for it...
"Made in MEXICO."
Well...I guess Mexico IS on the North American continent, so *technically* it wasn't false advertising. But IMHO, it certainly was deceptive.
His argument isn't that confusing; it's just that his grammar sucks. I try not to be a Grammar Nazi, but sometimes clear communication is impossible when people don't even *try* to get it right.
Translation in a nutshell: "When you buy cheap, outsourced Chinese products by buying at Amazon and Walmart, you hurt the American economy by not supporting local producers and manufacturers. If local producers and manufacturers can't compete with those in places like China, the money going to China to purchase those products -- instead of staying in the local economy -- will eventually be reflected in *your* personal wealth as well."
Didn't we already have this discussion, say, 50 years ago? That Toyota I used to own sure was a throw-away product, as are the Nissan, Suzuki and (1977!) Honda products I currently own.
I see no difference between stating "I'll believe it's possible, we'll be able to build it!" and flatly stating "That can never be done." In most things I say, I qualify my statements: "I don't see how that will ever be possible, but..." That's a tacit acknowledgement that, at our current level of understanding, there is an obstacle that certainly appears to be insurmountable...but that could change eventually.
For example, you seem to have a pet peeve about ever colonizing space. I agree that with our current state-of-the-art, it won't happen. Chemical rockets can't achieve the kinds of velocities that are necessary to cross the vast distances between earth and even the nearest of stars (excluding the sun, of course). Einstein predicted that even an infinitely powerful engine wouldn't even be able to do so, due to the limiting factor of c. Consequently, yep, the outlook for colonizing space looks pretty bleak from here at the beginning of the 21st century. But neither you nor I know what kind of breakthroughs in physics are going to happen in the next hundred, thousand or even ten thousand years, any more than a Roman Centurion could have imagined the Internet or nuclear fission. It's probably safe to say that there won't be a physics breakthrough that allows us to actually accelerate a mass faster than the speed of light...but is there a way to avoid that limitation altogether? Will we figure something out that lets us sidestep the speed of light as a limiting factor? We don't know. Therefore, I take exception when people like yourself say something like space travel will "never" be possible. Never, as I am fond of telling my daughter, is a really long time. It's certainly a lot longer into the future than you or I will ever be able to see.
If there were no one daydreaming about the possibilities, no one would attempt the impossible. Thus it seems to me that the starship Enterprise is a necessary step towards achieving the space shuttle Enterprise, even as the space shuttle Enterprise is merely a rung on the evolutionary ladder to the starship Enterprise (there's a recursive conundrum for you, lol!).
Furthermore, compared to a lot of the other attempts at powered, manned, heavier-than-air flight, the Wrights followed a much more rigorous, evolutionary process towards their goals, which is one of the biggest differences between them and their predecessors (as well as many of their contemporaries). However, if you think that they threw out all of the thinking about flight that came before them, you are very much mistaken. Man had flown before Wilbur and Orville, even in heavier-than-air aircraft. Google Otto Lilienthal for an example (hint: what's the biggest, most obvious difference between a Cessna and a Blanik?). The Wrights took the collected knowledge of their day, tested numerous theories, and, as you said, "threw out all the junk" -- but they KEPT a lot of things, too. They had two big breakthroughs that had eluded others: first, they understood that for powered, sustained flight, you don't want the aircraft to be too stable because stable and controllable are diametrically opposed; second, they understood that turning an aircraft required redirecting part of the lift vector in a horizontal direction (i.e., turning requires banking rather than yawing). Basically, they were *excellent* examples of putting the scientific method into practice: observe, hypothesize, test, wash, rinse, repeat, and then take the one additional step that separates a scientist from an inventor, namely, build a practical device that makes use of the results of experimentation.
No, "Eureka!" doesn't happen from simply staring at your navel, but then again, I don't remember claiming otherwise. I merely pointed out that oftentimes, "Eureka!" is the result of approaching a problem from a different perspective. The "insurmountable" obstacles often aren't. They just require technology or knowledge that didn't exist earlier (wing warping, unstable airframes, and strong-enough-but-light-enough powerplants, in the Wright Brothers example or understanding that it is the equal and opposite reaction rather than exhaust gases pushing against the atmosphere in the rocket-in-a-vacuum example I mentioned earlier).
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Adventures of Alacrity Fitzhugh and Hobart Floyt: Fun space opera trilogy with lots of heart, amazing back story and plenty of action. Sadly, out of print but easy enough to obtain 99cent copies online.
yes, Yes, YES!!!
:)
Even if you read nothing else he wrote, these three books (especially the first two) rank among my all-time favorite sci-fi-just-for-fun stories. Great stuff!
I personally think she's as good as Lois McMaster Bujold...
That says a lot. Miles Vorkosigan was always one of my favorite characters!
Meh. I've read several of his novels, including "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" (of course), but honestly, I found him...utterly forgettable. Sure, Hollywood has had a lot of success with his stories (and some of the things I didn't get in "Blade Runner" made a lot more sense after reading "Androids") but frankly, his books just didn't do it for me. I didn't like his writing style, I didn't like his characters, I didn't like his stories...I just really didn't care for his work much at all. I'd much rather curl up with a book by Roger Zelazny, Gordon R. Dickson, Henlein or Asimov...pretty much *anyone* else but PKD.
I agree with you on the first point (while the story has very little in common with any of Asimov's stories, it wasn't a bad film), but while you are technically correct on the second point, "Starship Troopers" has got to be one of the worst film adaptations ever (at least in my typically not-so-humble opinion, lol).
I read an essay by Asimov once where he laid the groundwork for sci-fi mystery. I was still in elementary school at the time, so I don't remember much of it, but you certainly nailed his point of view when you said, "such a story would pose no challenge nor offer rewards to an intellect like his." I do remember one thing in particular that he said (although I don't claim to do anything more than a rough paraphrase). The gist of it was that a sci-fi mystery writer could not pull a "deus ex machina" to solve the mystery. In sci-fi, there are very few limits on the author. Since you are writing about *possibilities* that have not yet occurred, the author could easily inject some tidbit of information that anyone living in the imagined world would know, but that no reader could possibly no about unless the author told them about it. For example, the hero could claim he knew one of the characters was lying when he claimed to have participated in some war because the character would only have been two years old when the war took place. To Asimov, that was cheating -- the author had to give the readers all of the information needed to solve the mystery, otherwise it wasn't fair to the reader.
;)
So yes, I think you are correct. At heart, Asimov was a mystery writer, and a darned good one at that
Roger Zelazny (not knowing any other authors with that sirname, I assume that is who you meant) was definitely one of my favorite authors when I was in my late teens and twenties. I don't know that I would call him "underappreciated" though, since it was always easy to find his writing at Borders or Barnes and Noble.
Incidentally, I'd have to mention Joel Rosenberg as well. I can't think of Zelazny without reminiscing about Rosenberg's books, since I was reading both of their works around the same time in my life.
I thought he was retired and living like a king in Patagonia?
That is to say, he's an extreme right wing loony...[and] standard issue frothing-at-the-mouth reactionary fuckbag.
Unlike, perhaps, you who responds to a statement of OPINION with ad hominem attacks, rather than a calm, reasoned and intelligent rebuttal about why you disagree? Are you really so insecure in your beliefs that you cannot tolerate someone having a different view than you?
/. -- home of enlightened, intelligent debate (not).
Yes!!! Something like this:
...would be great. I've always appreciated the "last" output with SSH; it never occurred to me to include it in web sites as well <embarrassed>
:~$ ssh localhost
${UsernameMunged}@localhost's password:
Last login: Tue Jul 24 08:43:58 2012 from ${HostnameMunged}
:~$
any security infrastructure can be made weak by users who...continue to use telnet or ftp when ssh and sftp are available...
Where I work, we still use telnet in a few applications because, even though the hardware vendor includes an SSH implementation on some of our gear, it is so horribly broken that it is essentially unusable (for example, dropped characters up to 50% while typing commands because the processor can't keep up). The equipment works well otherwise so we keep using it, but I would certainly like to see them beef up the hardware so that we could use SSH instead. As far as FTP, I prefer to use SCP on any device that supports it. I've never really used SFTP, though, since pretty much every device I've used that supports SFTP also supports SCP.
If some sects of Judaism believe that you are not considered a person until you are born...
I'm not exactly sure what that has to do with the question, other than as one particular example of what certain groups of people believe, but I am very curious why Jewish belief has popped up a couple of times in this thread (you aren't the only person to mention this in reply to what I posted above; I'm not sure why). <shrug> Did I say something to imply that I believed Jewish thought should be the basis for U.S. laws (like you, I'm honestly curious, not trolling or trying to be obnoxious)?
...and the definition of human "life" essentially boils down to what each individual believes
That, in a nutshell, is the crux of the abortion debate. Until we can come to a consensus on when a fetus becomes a person, it will be impossible to come to a consensus on whether or not abortion should or should not be legal.
...then what do you as a self-identified Libertarian think the governments' role in abortion should be? Is it more important to override some peoples' First Amendment rights to force everybody to conform to what you (and people like you believe)?
I don't believe that abortion is necessarily a First Amendment issue. There are certainly cases where it *can* be (for example, the religious groups that recently were up in arms because of the mandate to provide abortions under health care plans), but I have known people of religious persuasions who were pro-choice, and I have known atheists who were pro-life.
And how do you justify that against your Libertarian ideology?
That is a great question. Allow me to explain by way of an analogy. The Constitution says that "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" (2nd Amendment), right? However, we do accept some limitations on our freedoms in order to create a workable society. Where I live (Anchorage, Alaska), I cannot legally discharge a firearm within city limits, other than in an emergency. For example, I can shoot a bear in my yard if I have reason to believe that it is necessary in the interest of safety, or I can legally shoot an intruder in my home, under certain circumstances. However, I am not legally allowed to set up a firing range in my back yard, even though I have a Constitutional right to "keep and bear arms." My right to shoot my (Constitutionally allowed) firearms ends at the point in which it begins to endanger someone else's life (excepting, of course, hypothetical cases where I am defending myself from an attacker and I have reasonable grounds to believe that deadly force is my only option). Even as a self-proclaimed Libertarian, I believe that some restrictions upon liberty is a good thing. People cannot coexist in close proximity to others *AND* do whatever they want, whenever they want. Therefore, we agree upon certain restrictions upon our liberty in order to coexist peacefully (in other words, Libertarian != Anarchist).
Now, back to the abortion question. Remember that I started out by saying that, in my opinion, a fetus is a person rather than tissue. If that is so, then that unborn person's right to live trumps the mother's right to choose, to convenience, or to whatever other reason she might have for getting an abortion. In my viewpoint, just as my right to keep and bear arms ends the moment I start using a firearm in a way that creates an undue hazard to other people, the mother's freedom of choice ends at the point where it involves taking a baby's life. If you do not believe that a fetus is a person, then you will most likely come to a different conclusion, which is why I stated earlier that we cannot come to a consensus on abortion until we come to a consensus on when a fetus becomes a person.
^^^THIS!!!^^^
If we keep looking for a (D) or an (R) to save us, we are well and truly screwed.
...wake up and smell the bullshit.
I did, and it came from...YOU!
You may disagree with Paul's choices in the two controversies you mentioned, but from what I've seen, Paul votes consistently and in accordance with his ideals on how things should be. To be fair, I was not aware of any way his stance on freedom of speech deviates from Libertarian thought (please feel free to educate me if you are so inclined), but quite frankly, I share his views on abortion*. In a nutshell, Libertarians tend to prefer no more restrictions on others than is absolutely necessary to create a workable social fabric. Paul, like me, doesn't believe a fetus is just "tissue;" he believes it is a person. As such, a fetus is entitled to protection from murder under law, just as you and I are. If you prefer to believe that a fetus is only tissue, then your views on abortion are going to be different. Fine. But his view on abortion in no way implies that he is "just a corporate tool like the others," only wrapped up in a slightly different package.
* And while I am willing to take the time to explain my understanding of why his view on abortion is what it is and how it is still consistent with Libertarian ideology, I'm not interested in debating whether that view is right or wrong. If you go there, I'll just ignore you.
Thanks -- I wasn't aware of that.
You know what they say about assumptions... ;)
...and the passengers wary (and often pissed off) the only real chance a terrorist has...
Dang...I never thought of that. TSA *IS* effective counter-terrorism, just not in the way I ever thought. They get the passengers pissed off before boarding the airplane, the more pissed off the better. Then, if someone *does* try to hijack or blow up an airliner in flight, the rest of the passengers, eager to vent their frustration on someone, ANYONE, rip the terrorist to shreds. Voila! Terrorism problem solved!
FWIW, your post is slightly ambiguous -- you ask a question in the subject, as if you think the answer should be, "No, of course not!" However, the body of your post suggests that you might really be commenting that the question in the subject isn't really what *you* think; it's what your "not-so-smart alumni on facebook" think.
I recognize your nick; you and I have often argued the same points (from the same side, just to be clear), so I suspect you are trying to state the latter rather than the former. However, since I've often heard people arguing from the point of view as your not-so-smart alumni, I think it bears mentioning that the question in your subject is based upon a false premise: EITHER get nudie-scanned and/or groped prior to boarding an airplane OR get blown up by terrorists. The fact, however, is that any given person has roughly a one in 30 million chance of dying in a terrorist attack in the United States. Therefore, the choice is actually 1) get nudie-scanned and/or molested by a TSA thug prior to boarding an airplane or 2) take the one in thirty million chance of being killed in a terrorist attack. Quite frankly, I'll take the extremely minimal risk over the certainty of being felt up by a (barely) trained, borderline psychotic monkey every single time, thanks.
Use a globe and a string, if you want an accurate representation. Google "great circle route" if you don't understand why a map and ruler won't cut it.
Don't get me wrong -- I wasn't supporting the argument of the guy with the confusing grammar; I was merely interpreting it. I tend to be middle-of-the-road on most issues, and I am on this one too, because reality is often quite a bit more complex than such black-and-white arguments make them out to be.
Quite honestly, the idea of "buy local" in a global economy doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. What's more "American" -- a car built by a Japanese company (Honda, Toyota, Nissan) but built in an American plant, or an "American" car that's built in Mexico? I won't even discuss how Chrysler is actually Daimler (German) - Chrysler (American). Or consider Eric Buell Racing's Buell 1100RS motorcycle? That's an American company, but it uses a Rotax engine (Austrian). How many American cars have Bosch components (German) or ECU's and sensors made in Taiwan? The boundaries get pretty grey, and it becomes difficult, if not downright impossible, to determine what is "American" and what is "imported" even if you want to.
Pretty much.
."
In the early '90s, Chrysler ran a huge "Buy American!" campaign. The radio and TV (at least where I live) was blasted with ads about buying "Made in America" rather than buying imports, and the local Dodge/Chrysler dealer took out a huge full page ad dredging up memories of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor FIFTY FREAKING YEARS AGO. Shortly afterwards, my dad bought a brand new Dodge Ram Charger (guess the ads worked, sigh...). I looked inside the door, and guess what was stamped in the door frame?
Wait for it...
"Made in MEXICO
Well...I guess Mexico IS on the North American continent, so *technically* it wasn't false advertising. But IMHO, it certainly was deceptive.
Friggen' hypocrites
His argument isn't that confusing; it's just that his grammar sucks. I try not to be a Grammar Nazi, but sometimes clear communication is impossible when people don't even *try* to get it right.
Translation in a nutshell: "When you buy cheap, outsourced Chinese products by buying at Amazon and Walmart, you hurt the American economy by not supporting local producers and manufacturers. If local producers and manufacturers can't compete with those in places like China, the money going to China to purchase those products -- instead of staying in the local economy -- will eventually be reflected in *your* personal wealth as well."
history | tail -2 | sed "s/China/Japan/"
Didn't we already have this discussion, say, 50 years ago? That Toyota I used to own sure was a throw-away product, as are the Nissan, Suzuki and (1977!) Honda products I currently own.
o_O
I see no difference between stating "I'll believe it's possible, we'll be able to build it!" and flatly stating "That can never be done." In most things I say, I qualify my statements: "I don't see how that will ever be possible, but..." That's a tacit acknowledgement that, at our current level of understanding, there is an obstacle that certainly appears to be insurmountable...but that could change eventually.
For example, you seem to have a pet peeve about ever colonizing space. I agree that with our current state-of-the-art, it won't happen. Chemical rockets can't achieve the kinds of velocities that are necessary to cross the vast distances between earth and even the nearest of stars (excluding the sun, of course). Einstein predicted that even an infinitely powerful engine wouldn't even be able to do so, due to the limiting factor of c. Consequently, yep, the outlook for colonizing space looks pretty bleak from here at the beginning of the 21st century. But neither you nor I know what kind of breakthroughs in physics are going to happen in the next hundred, thousand or even ten thousand years, any more than a Roman Centurion could have imagined the Internet or nuclear fission. It's probably safe to say that there won't be a physics breakthrough that allows us to actually accelerate a mass faster than the speed of light...but is there a way to avoid that limitation altogether? Will we figure something out that lets us sidestep the speed of light as a limiting factor? We don't know. Therefore, I take exception when people like yourself say something like space travel will "never" be possible. Never, as I am fond of telling my daughter, is a really long time. It's certainly a lot longer into the future than you or I will ever be able to see.
I respectfully disagree, at least to some extent.
If there were no one daydreaming about the possibilities, no one would attempt the impossible. Thus it seems to me that the starship Enterprise is a necessary step towards achieving the space shuttle Enterprise, even as the space shuttle Enterprise is merely a rung on the evolutionary ladder to the starship Enterprise (there's a recursive conundrum for you, lol!).
Furthermore, compared to a lot of the other attempts at powered, manned, heavier-than-air flight, the Wrights followed a much more rigorous, evolutionary process towards their goals, which is one of the biggest differences between them and their predecessors (as well as many of their contemporaries). However, if you think that they threw out all of the thinking about flight that came before them, you are very much mistaken. Man had flown before Wilbur and Orville, even in heavier-than-air aircraft. Google Otto Lilienthal for an example (hint: what's the biggest, most obvious difference between a Cessna and a Blanik?). The Wrights took the collected knowledge of their day, tested numerous theories, and, as you said, "threw out all the junk" -- but they KEPT a lot of things, too. They had two big breakthroughs that had eluded others: first, they understood that for powered, sustained flight, you don't want the aircraft to be too stable because stable and controllable are diametrically opposed; second, they understood that turning an aircraft required redirecting part of the lift vector in a horizontal direction (i.e., turning requires banking rather than yawing). Basically, they were *excellent* examples of putting the scientific method into practice: observe, hypothesize, test, wash, rinse, repeat, and then take the one additional step that separates a scientist from an inventor, namely, build a practical device that makes use of the results of experimentation.
No, "Eureka!" doesn't happen from simply staring at your navel, but then again, I don't remember claiming otherwise. I merely pointed out that oftentimes, "Eureka!" is the result of approaching a problem from a different perspective. The "insurmountable" obstacles often aren't. They just require technology or knowledge that didn't exist earlier (wing warping, unstable airframes, and strong-enough-but-light-enough powerplants, in the Wright Brothers example or understanding that it is the equal and opposite reaction rather than exhaust gases pushing against the atmosphere in the rocket-in-a-vacuum example I mentioned earlier).