Having trouble installing Apache with Mod_ssl and mod_perl on solaris into a non-default directory.

I think I need to create an install script to better my reliability in doing it. I've been trying this at work and at home with varied results.

I'm also working on an openMosix cluster at home. Just getting a Linux kernel compile is difficult due to compiling in a directory other than /usr/local/src/linux. Ug.

Golly. I read Scientific American and The Economist regularly, as well as slashdot and a couple of other news sources. Whenever there's a story about space, it's a story in one of several veins:

1. "Why don't they..." wishing for the government (or some large corporation) to spend more on space development.

2. "If Only We Had..." wishing for some technology to magically appear that would dramatically change the cost/benefit ratio of a space launch.

3. "Golly it's cool that..." hero worship of the braniacs that have done this or that new technological or scientific feat.

What I don't see is:

4. "A good revenue-neutral incentive would be..." Changing gov policy or funding allocation from one specific thing to another to encourage developent in that area.

We don't have enough of number four. Off-planet resources are obviously vast but uncharted, financially and personally risky, and costly to access. What kind of policies should we enact to change the equations here?

How do we encourage people to move anywhere? Given them an incentive. Make it economically beneficial to everyone and you've created a net increase in the GDP. That's a primary role of government, to make the bigger, longer term investments, to set up the economic laws and system to benefit everyone.

What if we treated space like a pacific Island? Hmmm. What do we want from space? What are our goals, long and short term? How much do we want to spend (monetary and political costs) to achieve those goals? What kind of risks are we willing to take?

What are the larger political winds blowing in our country? How would space development further those goals?

Hmmm. I ought to write a paper on this. But, I'm not in school any more. Alas.

I've come up with a list of things that I would like congress to consider in their funding priorities. This is not complete, but will do for now. I tend to be centrist - a free market democrat. My dad used to call himself a social liberal and a fiscal conservative, and I like the notation. Here's my list:

• Fund a set of X-prizes for astronautical feats. Include (a) first to 50 miles (300K feet) and return twice, the standard X prize, (b) first to orbit a human privately, (c) pictures over a certain resolution of any astronomical body except Earth, payable per picture up to a max dollar, (d) contract for delivery of bulk aluminum trusses & girders, liquid oxygen & hydrogen, etc. to a 200 km orbit, payable only on delivery to that location.
• Biological weapons labs fully funded for defensive work (there's too many twisted people with access with bio weapons makings);
• Energy tax that funds basic energy research. The tax would benefit green energy generation R & D.
• Pollution taxes - permit but tax them a lot. Dedicate money gathered to pollution cleanup, national parks land acquisition / maintenance, research on pollution reduction R & D.
• Remove agriculture subsidies and really implement the freedom to farm act of 1996 - passed but repealed gradually piece by piece.
• Require federal government offices to prove that open source software will not work for what they are doing before allowing MS software to be purchased / installed.