You stated that

. If this satellite is useful, it means that then we would no longer be alive, not to say conscious. It is like buying a bumper sticker that you can only put when your car is in the junk yard.

In the event, I won't care about the futility of existence because I will be dead. And, as I do know now that I won't care then, I don't care now. That does not mean that I would like to die now.

Also, who told you existence has(or has to have) a meaning (other than itself)?

That is not the issue being discussed. What the GGGP said (and I agreed) that the project is just an (expensive) form of a "I was here" graffitti... and has the same uses ("hey, surely people who walks by this wall in the future will be VERY interested to know that I was here and I did a graffiti here"). And at least you can meet the graffiter in person someday, but this satellite is thought to be found when nobody is here to be met.

What is that you want, the alien version of goatse?

Anyway, more seriously, the Armstrong / Aldrin photo in the moon is a good idea, but the "state of the art technology" will become obsolete and meaningless to ourselves in perhaps half a generation, that is a bad example.

But the utility of that contraption kicks in only after we are no more, so your argument will no longer be valid.

So I agree with the GP. Also, I find depressing that some people are counting on the extinction of mankind, and are more worried about the time after that and some hipotetical aliens (who may not even exist or come close to Sun, let alone find a piece of debris around a dead planet).

In essence, this gets to be both a silly and depressing idea. Great boooh.

Yes, because military leadership is demostrated in Photoshop compositions.

Do you think the photo was chosen/doctored by a navy assessor? Most likely, it is the job of some assistant who thought "Well, the thing under looks like the sea, so the big things on it must be ships. And they are grey and have guns, so they probably are from the military (they lack *so much* imagination when it comes to colour!). And since we won the Cold War, only we have ships, don't we".

If you want to worry about military leadership, a better issue would be the childlike bickering between officers of the different branches ("if you say that a Navy plane is an Air Force plane they won't hear to you, even if it is not related to the argument!")

You are confusing terms.

The GP didn't say that the government assumes the people who signed the petition is gay, he said that the government (or the minister) thinks that the people that signed the petition worrying about a gay immigrant may be interested in the rights of gay immigrants. I think this is a logic process (except for those who signed because they were relatives/friends/admirer of that particular person, and would not care for any other gay immigrant).

The logic for "anyone who promotes legalization of drugs is a drug user" is a far more twisted. It involves making assumptions (like that only "current drug users" would support such a law).

Also, the government didn't compile anything. Probably an association requested the people to sign in and it was that association who did compile the list and gave it to the government. The government just used it.

The only concern about this issue is the government used data available only to them (that is, that no other political party had access to) and public means to publicite their gestion only for electoral reasons(instead of having the government run the country and the party prepare the elections). But that seems the usual conduct everywhere, so it is less of a news.

And a few days after you put the changes in production and nothing has burned, make it a tag.

Better yet, make it a tag before putting changes in production (TAGbeta) and a few days later (TAGrelease). Tags are cheap.

As much damage as it supported, in the end it was a ship with almost 3000 people onboard that took years to build, sunk by probably less than one hundred people on planes that took a few months to build.

I see a problem with that... to fight the Iowa we would need to call in the Yamato... but to do that, we would need to recover it from the bottom of the ocean... and it was put there by a bunch of vintage aircraft...

Your words make little sense to me. Of course you talk about upgraded AA systems, but thinking that there are "perfect" systems that make something invulnerable is like thinking that I may beat a marathon runner just by deciding to not slow my pace.

I am in doubt, I treat my books like ordinary possessions but also, once in a while I have to shake out the sand and food of the rest of my ordinary possessions, too. What would you chose?

But it is "all or nothing" intimidation, and that has a lot of disvantages.

If you say "obey my order X or I fire" then either:

1: They obey you, you get your short place objetive but appear as the international mad man. Also, as it is easy, you will surely step your demands leading to option 2

2: they don't obey you, you have either to back off or kill thousands of people (at the minimum) to make your point. Even if your opponent has no nuclear deterrence itself, the very fact of appearing to the world as someone capable of launching a nuclear first strike will aim a lot of missiles at you.

So, the MAD is effective to ensure that your enemy does not attempt to destroy you, but for subtler situations it is not so useful. Think how the USA and the URSS still fought a lot of proxy wars even with their nuclear arsenals. In that sense, an aircraft carrier is way more flexible.

Remember that war is a continuation of politics, not the other way around...

I stopped reading when he suggested that current air carriers could be destroyed by "a swarm of iranians flying Cessnas" (I didn't know Iranians had that many Cessnas) or with a German V2 (yes, really). That guy is a joke, and presents any information as if he had a personal issues with aircraft carriers (maybe one of them ran over his mother?)

Don't forget the ceiling falling on the head of that guy that was dumb enough to go to work wearing a red sweater.

Have you read your own link? It says it can track an aircraft at 480 km. Now, assuming that just area is the only concern (and that radar waves are not altered when crossing the ionosphere), an space object with an area of 0.25m^2 (which can easily destroy a rocket/satellite) would be undetectable at just 100km. And that is just the lower limit of "space", and assumes that the radar is vertically under the object.

Ok, you can ride in my car.

I strongly disagree. The OP is right, since someday in the future the kid will be a computer user, he need to learn now computer architecture. Everyone knows that without knowing computer architecture you cannot use a computer!

I did the same to my son when it came to the car; until the time he was able to explain me internal combustion engine and the operation of gas vs diesel motors, I did not allow him to use the car; I would be driving it and he would run by my side.

He still has not convinced me that he knows well enough about central heating, though. Until that, he is sleeping outside. I really hope he learns it before winter settles in.