Another way to look at it is that it is only $3B dollars per year. For the USA this is pretty meagre spending really and entirely necessary. Many other spending initiatives such as seriously failed wars in the middle east that destabilize the whole region cost way more and don't endear the USA to the rest of the world. The ISS and similar things are necessary, because without them that country would be hated around the world for what it does in other areas and might come to bite it in times of local crisis (i.e. possibility of threats of economic sanctions such as when the Soviet Union collapsed in reverse). Plus you get science promoted in the media and access to space-based research.

Yes, I know. What we could do with is a space based telesope array better than the James Webb, which is yet to be launched. This would remove some of the problems with single lens size limits and light interference if we put it in a good observation spot.

It's funny, but the NSA actually has the best telescopes and has donated some of their old ones to NASA.

These pictures are 6px by 6px. With 30 or so pixels squared you can start to really make out stuff. Compare to our recent Juno probe's view of the Earth Moon system as it passed us on it's way to Jupiter (it will go past us twice).

Thinking about things -- why they happen, how they may happen -- in great detail without actually experiencing them is one aspect that makes us human beings. Thinking about the eventual fate of the universe and our current home is something that we should all do at some point.

It also is several notches above the other rampant speculation without experimental verification here and lifts the profile of /. a bit from where you have to shovel down to the level sometimes.

Of course when I mentioned 'parent' and 'GP' in the above post I meant from the perspective of the post I was replying to, so 'GP' and 'GGP'

The parent started off generally addressing the question at the end of the GP and moved on to a more specific personal example in the same general manner. This is not the typical /. "I'll post something that completely derails the thread, but appeals to mods." This kind of thing is emotive, so it's easy to see things through your own lens.

In typical /. fashion the parent gets a +5 insightful comment when he goes off on a tangent (GP was talking about network transparency in X and not 'problems with the ideologies of Unix') and talks absolute crap. These projects are all separate. The best thing people can do is to find one of them and contribute positively to them (although I do acknowledge Gnome3 may be beyond help, but it is a bit off from talking about X and Wayland).

PS: I have mod points, but if IMO I modded the parent troll it would just get another +1 insightful for following a now "standard pattern" for good scores on /.

I can't believe I get modded troll and GP gets +5 insightful for successfully attacking a strawman and calling me an idiot. Maybe it's time to join the ranks of those that say /. is on a downward trajectory.

So that's what happened to Richard Stallman. Just kidding, just kidding.

I do know this and am not a supporter of oil or gas. It's just that the major players in solar power are not that benign either, and it could be that the solar companies are much the same as the gas and oil companies you dislike -- just that they are not in control yet. The idea of replacing one broken system with another doesn't appeal to me and I don't see anywhere here any real progress or money for research and development to get there. Instead there is a 'feel good' factor that seems to apply and a bunch of people with little or no scientific backgrounds running amok, shouting their opinions everywhere, thinking they are doing good for the world. I just feel sad that there is not much focus on real physics research into energy and serious policy discussions.

I used to be a university student too. There are life lessons that everyone learns for themselves that I think you have yet to learn and won't do from me. There's a reason why people shift from being radical and in support of something as a group (like 'environmentalism' or 'anti-corporatism') over time to a more moderate way of thinking. Sometimes young people (or young mentally) are taken for a ride when they think they are doing the right thing.

Personally I would love to see storage technology being really worked on. Things like nano batteries that physicists like Michio Kaku sometimes talks about would be really nice and blow out of the water all of our current technology. This or many other types of real improvements would make solar power useful, but solar would still really limit our use of electricity if deployed as a replacement for coal/nuclear. This is because solar is just a waste product of fusion in the sun, and fusion or matter/anti-matter power is IMO what we really should be aiming for. Maybe in the meantime we could look to see how much uranium/thorium is on asteroids that are in elliptic orbits around the sun for mining (as they would have left our solar system anyway). Solar just seems backwards to me </rant>.

I also wanted to point out that those groups that cry the loudest about large companies profiteering and attempt to change public opinion should be scrutinized as well -- because they may well be very similar. These groups generally have many resources at their disposal and look after their own interests to other people's detriment. I think it is important to note that few people in leadership positions in greenie groups have any scientific background and many might in fact be hostile towards scientific progress.

Good old greenies are at it again. If you force taxpayers to subsidise solar power installations for people well off to afford them (e.g. most greenies) you are contributing to wealth inequality. At least if you want to do this it would make sense to use a more efficient means of power production. You have to wonder how we might be better off if instead research and development was not cut off from nuclear power technologies by these various rich greenie groups that often bring in 100 million a year in revenue or are endowed with large trust funds.

I think the parent is right on the money. Women's groups and ethnic rights groups are just the 'useful idiots of the West' on this. Only people that will get ahead from all this are people already ahead.

I've seen the job ads:

WANTED: COMPUTER PROGRAMMER

Job spec:

• Knows how to press buttons.
• Able to take any and all directions from line manager.
• Can work in team of all attractive women.
• Wears high-heel stilettos.
• Skirt length of no more than 15cm.

(Goodbye karma)