The private space industry has so far managed to make explosions and sub orbital hops. Those dastardly socialists at NASA managed to launch a rocket with a capacity of 130 tonnes and put men on the moon 40 years ago. It is a bit premature to start mouthing laissez-faire rhetoric about space.
Markets are generally bad at space flight, because a market (and those people in it who succeed through accepting the tenets of the market) perceives redundancy as waste and precise standards as bureaucracy. In space flight, extensive redundancy and anal retentive detail are survival techniques. There are some things the market just can't get to grips with.
Don't look to SpaceShipOne as a model for a reusable spaceplane. Those guys went for a hybrid motor because of its much greater simplicity than a liquid motor, but the price of that simplicity is a lack of scalability. The fuel tank and the combustion chamber are the same thing, so you can't test the engine independent of its tankage like you can with liquid engines. Not a problem for something small like SS1, but when you get towards the size of an F1 engine it becomes a very significant problem.
There is a reason why hybrids have never been used for orbital space flight, you know.
Since when have us Eurotrash had a manned space capability? Given the Chinese seem to have forgotten about Shenzhou, the Russians have the market cornered. We have an opportunity to work on them on CSTS (A sort of bastard child of Soyuz and ATV that would provide cheap and cheerful manned access to the moon and beyond) but we are probably too bloody tight fisted to take advantage of it.
There has been a lot of talk that all is not well in the development of Ares I. It isn't just that they are developing a new launcher (always tricky) but that they are developing a type of launcher never attempted before; a manned launcher that is aerodynamically unstable and has the biggest SRB ever flow as its first stage.
It is quite easy to imagine a scenario that could cause serious delays to the project. It is also quite easy (and unpleasant) to imagine a scenario where the new booster causes fatalities. There are real concerns about it flipping over during flight or the booster exploding. A fatal accident at that stage could finish off NASA and thus serious manned space exploration in the US. Given the pathetic amount of backing given to efforts in Europe, Russia and China that would be a bad thing for all of humanity.
Being British, my nations contribution to space is through the BNSC ('who the fuck are they?' I hear you utter, to which I respond 'exactly') and the ESA. It pains me to see that neither are likely to do much in the way of manned flight, despite being full of smart, motivated people with good ideas for it, because the grey bean counters who run our country see nothing but the immediate bottom line.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Cola
It tastes quite nice, and it isn't made with HFCS like most soft drinks are now. It is a little more expensive though, but its worth it to have my drink match my OS:)
Ditto - I dislike the thought of someone taking something I have made available freely, packaging it into a project, and selling it. My instinct is to release under the GPL rather than BSD (however, due to the nature of my work, it is rarely my choice...
That said, I am no license evangelist. If its your code, your project, license it however you feel like and good luck to you.
But you assume I don't speak to people like that in person. I do. Generally, I find that most of the big guys who could kick my arse aren't so deseperately insecure that they would make something of my comments. It tends to be punchy little guys who take exception, and get laughed at.
Gotta love a blowhard AC trying to claim some kind of professional qualification. You really are a fucking retard - and by the one of my significant impairments is that I do not suffer fools easily. You are a deeply stupid person and I feel it is necessary to point this out to you.
It isn't 'my' diagnosis by the way, which you would know if you weren't such a fucking retard. I already said, it was by a health care professional at a time when few people knew of the disorder and nobody was pushing it as 'trendy'.
Your opinion of me, random Anonymous Coward wankstain, matters not one bit. I just feel the need to put you in your place again and point out your laughable inability to read simple sentences because it gives me satisfaction to do so.
You do not have a user account, you manage to be a coward even on an internet forum - the ultimate tool for letting lippy cocksuckers who couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag say what they like to people without getting a richly deserved kicking.
OK then, random internet fuckwit, let me take you through this.
I was diagnosed, by an actual diagnostic professional, in 1994 when few people knew what the condition was. My mother did not push anybody to diagnose me, and neither her not I knew what it was when they told me.
Unlike you, random internet fuckwit, I am not actually a loser. Despite my condition I am now able to study, work and have friends. None of these has ever been a trivial task.
You, on the other hand, are just a wanker. A pathetic insecure creature projecting your ignorance and self-loathing onto others over the internet in a way you dare not to their face.
I have Aspergers. However, since I am according to you not articulate, and have poor speech skills, I can't write a witty rebuttal so I shall just say "Fuck You"
Another way for marketing wankstains to pollute our heads with their psychologically manipulate garbage. Hopefully the powers that be will see the strong public interest argument in not using this to beam 'important messages' into peoples heads.
I was a little surprised at the moderation too. I wasn't expecting a cheapshot about sheepshagging to be 'insightful' - but I guess it might be to Americans who haven't encountered the stereotype before.
Seriously unlikely you are alone; its just socially unacceptable to dissent. It doesn't fit in with the whole, happy-go-lucky Friends coffee house aesthetic that everyone seems to have accepted.
Well, its probably because the site in questions on deals with human beings, and isn't catered to the average Welshman's *cough* unique *cough* tastes.
Call me an optimist, but I hate that this is the pervasive opinion of society on slashdot.
You're an optimist.
The thought that there is some brainwashing conspiracy going on behind the scenes that is making us drones to the world is pretty much nonsense. If it is true, then the second part of your statement must be false: surely a group that can successfully brainwash hundreds of millions of people would also be able to cure (and inevitably brainwash) all the humans that are starving and sickening?
Behind the scenes? Try turning on a television. Or going to a school. Or looking out of your window. Advertising and propaganda (the same thing really) are everywhere and almost impossible to avoid. This isn't a clever or subtle brainwashing, its a brainwashing achieved through the brute force available to those who have control over nearly every means of communication, business and public institution.
Truth is the environment is not as bad as some make it out to be. It's not "dying", it's just worth looking into not killing it in the future. Human beings have a longer life expectancy and a greater quality of life than they ever have in the history of the human race. Yes, some groups suffer, but on the whole, we are better than we ever were. And what is "Carefully nurtured greed"? Capitalism? Wanting better for yourself than what you have? I guess you're right.
Woah there, bet you think I wasn't going to pick you up on that didn't you? Greed and bettering yourself are two entirely separate concepts. You tried to fudge them by changing it to 'wanting better for yourself' the second time around but you aren't fooling anyone.
Starvation is increasing, that is a fact. Quality of life is only improving for the western middle class and above, probably less than 1% of the human race.
This brainwashing pool you seem to believe in requires something that just doesn't exist, a group that has the incentive and means to brainwash us. First, the incentive is pretty sketchy, and the means are even less so. I mean, I assume you mean the public school system brainwashes us, do they also control the private schools? Colleges? International schools? Public school teachers that don't teach solely the curriculum (They do exist, despite what you may think)?
My fiancee is a teacher, so I know all about public schools. It isn't like she has a choice what to teach - it has to be based on what the children will be tested on. The same sort of people who decided that (rich people) also decide what goes on in private schools.
Its not brainwashing. Most people don't care about the shit that this site goes on about. I'll bet, if you asked a large number of adults about their views on censorship, you would get a wide array of opinions as to what should be done. I'll bet most don't fit perfectly into the 2 pigeonholes, either. The reason it's not on the news is not because the all encompassing "POWERS THAT BE" don't want it to come up, it's that most people really don't give 2 shits either way. The news networks show what's important to people, not the other way around...
People don't give 2 shits because those with a stranglehold on all the institutions of power (rich people, in case you weren't getting this yet) want them to be apathetic. That the rich control much of the environment we find ourselves in and the information we are exposed to is not a controversial opinion, let alone a conspiracy theory.
Modern voters have grown up in a society that is expert at manipulating peoples will. Through control of the education system, advertising and mild censorship in the name of 'decency', most of the people voting today have been molded into being good, compliant voters who will never oppose the status quo.
Most people aren't strong enough to question their programming. Most simply slip into one pigeon hole or another and lap up the media viewpoints assigned to that pigeon hole (all framed so as to allow the basic principles of society to remain unquestioned)
Meanwhile, the environment dies, human beings starve and sicken in ever greater numbers, and carefully nurtured greed is all that consumes western man.
Slashdot Mirror
The private space industry has so far managed to make explosions and sub orbital hops. Those dastardly socialists at NASA managed to launch a rocket with a capacity of 130 tonnes and put men on the moon 40 years ago. It is a bit premature to start mouthing laissez-faire rhetoric about space.
Markets are generally bad at space flight, because a market (and those people in it who succeed through accepting the tenets of the market) perceives redundancy as waste and precise standards as bureaucracy. In space flight, extensive redundancy and anal retentive detail are survival techniques. There are some things the market just can't get to grips with.
Don't look to SpaceShipOne as a model for a reusable spaceplane. Those guys went for a hybrid motor because of its much greater simplicity than a liquid motor, but the price of that simplicity is a lack of scalability. The fuel tank and the combustion chamber are the same thing, so you can't test the engine independent of its tankage like you can with liquid engines. Not a problem for something small like SS1, but when you get towards the size of an F1 engine it becomes a very significant problem.
There is a reason why hybrids have never been used for orbital space flight, you know.
What I love is that it has a forum full of people asking linux questions :)
Since when have us Eurotrash had a manned space capability? Given the Chinese seem to have forgotten about Shenzhou, the Russians have the market cornered. We have an opportunity to work on them on CSTS (A sort of bastard child of Soyuz and ATV that would provide cheap and cheerful manned access to the moon and beyond) but we are probably too bloody tight fisted to take advantage of it.
There has been a lot of talk that all is not well in the development of Ares I. It isn't just that they are developing a new launcher (always tricky) but that they are developing a type of launcher never attempted before; a manned launcher that is aerodynamically unstable and has the biggest SRB ever flow as its first stage.
It is quite easy to imagine a scenario that could cause serious delays to the project. It is also quite easy (and unpleasant) to imagine a scenario where the new booster causes fatalities. There are real concerns about it flipping over during flight or the booster exploding. A fatal accident at that stage could finish off NASA and thus serious manned space exploration in the US. Given the pathetic amount of backing given to efforts in Europe, Russia and China that would be a bad thing for all of humanity.
Being British, my nations contribution to space is through the BNSC ('who the fuck are they?' I hear you utter, to which I respond 'exactly') and the ESA. It pains me to see that neither are likely to do much in the way of manned flight, despite being full of smart, motivated people with good ideas for it, because the grey bean counters who run our country see nothing but the immediate bottom line.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Cola It tastes quite nice, and it isn't made with HFCS like most soft drinks are now. It is a little more expensive though, but its worth it to have my drink match my OS :)
Ditto - I dislike the thought of someone taking something I have made available freely, packaging it into a project, and selling it. My instinct is to release under the GPL rather than BSD (however, due to the nature of my work, it is rarely my choice...
That said, I am no license evangelist. If its your code, your project, license it however you feel like and good luck to you.
But you assume I don't speak to people like that in person. I do. Generally, I find that most of the big guys who could kick my arse aren't so deseperately insecure that they would make something of my comments. It tends to be punchy little guys who take exception, and get laughed at.
Gotta love a blowhard AC trying to claim some kind of professional qualification. You really are a fucking retard - and by the one of my significant impairments is that I do not suffer fools easily. You are a deeply stupid person and I feel it is necessary to point this out to you.
It isn't 'my' diagnosis by the way, which you would know if you weren't such a fucking retard. I already said, it was by a health care professional at a time when few people knew of the disorder and nobody was pushing it as 'trendy'.
Your opinion of me, random Anonymous Coward wankstain, matters not one bit. I just feel the need to put you in your place again and point out your laughable inability to read simple sentences because it gives me satisfaction to do so.
You do not have a user account, you manage to be a coward even on an internet forum - the ultimate tool for letting lippy cocksuckers who couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag say what they like to people without getting a richly deserved kicking.
OK then, random internet fuckwit, let me take you through this.
I was diagnosed, by an actual diagnostic professional, in 1994 when few people knew what the condition was. My mother did not push anybody to diagnose me, and neither her not I knew what it was when they told me.
Unlike you, random internet fuckwit, I am not actually a loser. Despite my condition I am now able to study, work and have friends. None of these has ever been a trivial task.
You, on the other hand, are just a wanker. A pathetic insecure creature projecting your ignorance and self-loathing onto others over the internet in a way you dare not to their face.
I have Aspergers. However, since I am according to you not articulate, and have poor speech skills, I can't write a witty rebuttal so I shall just say "Fuck You"
Fuck You.
Surely nothing can trash their argument so much as an abject (and amusing) failure to put it into practice?
How can we believe in their solutions for letting small-time web services handle usage spikes when their evidently can't?
Another way for marketing wankstains to pollute our heads with their psychologically manipulate garbage. Hopefully the powers that be will see the strong public interest argument in not using this to beam 'important messages' into peoples heads.
I was a little surprised at the moderation too. I wasn't expecting a cheapshot about sheepshagging to be 'insightful' - but I guess it might be to Americans who haven't encountered the stereotype before.
Seriously unlikely you are alone; its just socially unacceptable to dissent. It doesn't fit in with the whole, happy-go-lucky Friends coffee house aesthetic that everyone seems to have accepted.
We won't have a choice, that'll be part of the whole Trusted Cognition(tm) package
All of that will be irrelevant however, because the 'fair use' chip in your head will prevent you being able to perceive and/or remember most content.
Maybe she just didn't like her meat kosher...
Well, its probably because the site in questions on deals with human beings, and isn't catered to the average Welshman's *cough* unique *cough* tastes.
They will, because facebook will be one of the four web sites you can actually access through your entry level 'internet' package.
You're an optimist.
Behind the scenes? Try turning on a television. Or going to a school. Or looking out of your window. Advertising and propaganda (the same thing really) are everywhere and almost impossible to avoid. This isn't a clever or subtle brainwashing, its a brainwashing achieved through the brute force available to those who have control over nearly every means of communication, business and public institution.
Woah there, bet you think I wasn't going to pick you up on that didn't you? Greed and bettering yourself are two entirely separate concepts. You tried to fudge them by changing it to 'wanting better for yourself' the second time around but you aren't fooling anyone.
Starvation is increasing, that is a fact. Quality of life is only improving for the western middle class and above, probably less than 1% of the human race.
My fiancee is a teacher, so I know all about public schools. It isn't like she has a choice what to teach - it has to be based on what the children will be tested on. The same sort of people who decided that (rich people) also decide what goes on in private schools.
People don't give 2 shits because those with a stranglehold on all the institutions of power (rich people, in case you weren't getting this yet) want them to be apathetic. That the rich control much of the environment we find ourselves in and the information we are exposed to is not a controversial opinion, let alone a conspiracy theory.
Lets just hope car AI has been perfected by 2015 or we are all going to get mown down by someone who just has to check their facebook profile.
...is the voters.
Modern voters have grown up in a society that is expert at manipulating peoples will. Through control of the education system, advertising and mild censorship in the name of 'decency', most of the people voting today have been molded into being good, compliant voters who will never oppose the status quo.
Most people aren't strong enough to question their programming. Most simply slip into one pigeon hole or another and lap up the media viewpoints assigned to that pigeon hole (all framed so as to allow the basic principles of society to remain unquestioned)
Meanwhile, the environment dies, human beings starve and sicken in ever greater numbers, and carefully nurtured greed is all that consumes western man.
What has that got to do with anything? It isn't like the boxing and chess are simultaneous.