Comment Sapce Race Followup (Score 1) 275
Something else to passively aggressively show that the US is thinking about separating from Russia and having a possible three way space race, or even giving China some aid.
Something else to passively aggressively show that the US is thinking about separating from Russia and having a possible three way space race, or even giving China some aid.
ISS is worthless. Proponents of the status quo (democrats) want a program that looks down at our warming, miserable planet. George W. Bush wanted a program to explore space, the Moon, asteroids, Mars. Today's democrats are a far cry from Kennedy. They choose to do things because they are easy.
Bush wanted a plan to explore space, the Moon, asteroids, and Mars when it was a nice speaking point on his state of the Union addresses, but he never even allocated any money to NASA to begin such programs. Year after year, he said we were going to Mars but had nothing but words to back that up. Their budget had a hard time keeping up with inflation. Additionally, if we were really going to Mars, not only would we need the ISS, we'd probably have to build another one to do all additional research needed for a Mars mission that couldn't get done there. Normally, I wouldn't reply to an AC troll who doesn't know what they're talking about, but the above was always a sore point with me.
China asked to join in on the ISS and we vetoed it. China said that they would launch their own space station. This is scheduled for 2020. We have already started a space race and are quite simply, waiting for the Chinese to catch up. They just got to a person into space in 2003 and landed something on the moon in 2007. Their proposed time table has them returning moon rock to earth in 2017, launching a space station in 2020, and a moon walk in 2024. So arguably, in a little less than ten years from now, they will have caught up with where the US was around almost two decades ago. Still, China proposes lots of things and fails to come through on them. If they actually get a space station launched and the ISS is retired with no replacement in the works, then I expect that the US will pay attention and start running again rather than walking.
Personally, I expect Musk to have his own space station up sooner.
* Not that I consider the French to be cheese eating surrender monkeys. I am just pandering to the Americans who seem to have totally forgotten why there is a 93m copper woman sitting in New Jersey**
We haven't forgotten. We're just still upset about De Gaulle dropping out of NATO, saying the Soviets would win the Cold War, and then going about being an asshole to US and Britain in an attempt to prove that France is still a super power. That is when all the surrender stuff began. In the end and after WW2, it is true that the US troops identified more with the German people and culture, but I have found no claims of the French being "surrender *anythings*" even in literature bitching about the French from that time period. It's always just been a cheap and easy shot used due to geo-political leanings. This is true with the "Freedom Fries" thing also. France was against the invasion of Iraq (along with Germany), but then again, guess which countries oil company (again, along with Germany) was dealing with Saddam to pump and ship their oil? Rather than explaining these reasons to the American people (who really probably don't care for the most part), they just rename "French Fries". "Freedom Fries".
Cool idea, but I suspect it's not practical.
Interesting idea, but perhaps relatively practical. Once I did the math for moving Haley Comet sized objects from the near Oort cloud to Mars to form an atmosphere (after taking into account atmosphere and ice already present on Mars) and the needed energy to do so on a scale of decades was measured in total daily energy output of the sun (~3 IIRC) and that was using assumptions that made it easier to do so. I'll have to sit down and do the math for moving it from closer sources some day and see how it compares.
But, honestly
I find myself thinking
Is there a market of people tripping over themselves for this? Unless it was a corporate device and I had no choice, I see zero value in this for anybody who didn't buy a Microsoft product to begin with.
I think you are looking at this wrong. they are not doing this because the consumers are demanding it. They are trying to make developing on the Windows platform more desirable to programmers. Ideally, write once, run everywhere. Then they let the programmers worry about making stuff that the consumers want.
Isn't Hot Topic the store in the mall where all the teens go to buy stuff that makes them unique, just like all the other teens?
It's the place where teens go to buy stuff in an attempt to make them not their parents, but they are doomed to failure.
That was the only stuff I ever really liked at Hot Topic, I bought a Gir plush, later gave it to my son. That show rocked.
At least there's some overlap in their motif and Thinkgeek's inventory, but I'm waiting to see if emo-nerd-goth-geek becomes the new thing
I still have a collection of bowling shirts that I wear to work that were originally bought at Hot Topic. I don't even want to think about how long ago it was that rockabilly bowling shirts were in with kids (I'm probably working with some of them now.)
Ah, yes, back in the day before Dice ruined slashdot, those were fine times, weren't they...
You think Dice ruined slashdot and yet you are still here. Curious...
Slashdot is the worst of possible web sites, except for all the other web sites I've been to.
(Appologies to Winston Churchill.)
"Do you wish to execute a suicide operation?"
So what's the state of their pension scheme and healthcare package?
For Al-queda? I'm not sure. For Hamas and the PLO attacking Isreal, it was probably more money than they would every be able to save in their lifetime donated to their families. Used to be paid for by Iraq, but now Iran has stepped in to pay the price last I read. I can only imagine that Al-queda had a similar deal if nothing else.
I always wondered where the Cobra employees came from. Now I know.
Actually, this was answered in the GI Joe comic (written by the guy that had the idea for the new GI Joe IIRC). Cobra employees typically came form the slums of the world. They would find gang members, poor, the dispossessed. Move them to Cobra facilities where they are inducted into a new gang, clothed, fed, socialized into a new family, given education and training, entertainment, healthcare, and even plans to send some of their salary back to their families and help elevate them out of poverty. The typical Cobra base is 2/3rds dorms and recreation space. The rest is doing things that are probably nicer than what they did on the street and no worse than what the governments they used to live under are doing. Then one day, GI Joe attacks them, destroyed their lives, and shatter their dreams.
That is probably a good allegory for both sides of the argument. After all, while technically true, how many people do you see carrying emergency parachutes onto their commercial airline flights, and how much good do you think it will do them if something does go pear shaped?
Put it another way... how many people do you see skydiving WITHOUT taking along an emergency parachute?
And that is apparently the point of TFA, risk assessment. Is the Earth being ridden by humanity more like a small plane, skydive jump plane, or commercial airliner? TFA says that our risk is more like that of a commercial airliner and we'd save more lives making sure there is proper medical equipment and people with training to deal with issues, than stocking it with emergency parachutes in case of imminent crash.
Having a plan to deal with an asteroid/comet strike is more like having an emergency parachute. It's FAR better to have one and not need it, than need one and not have it.
That is probably a good allegory for both sides of the argument. After all, while technically true, how many people do you see carrying emergency parachutes onto their commercial airline flights, and how much good do you think it will do them if something does go pear shaped?
It's not the country, It's the drooling morons that we have running the country.
It's entrenched powers that stand to loss a great deal of money as well as feed their opponents money, if they admit something needs to be done.
UNIX is hot. It's more than hot. It's steaming. It's quicksilver lightning with a laserbeam kicker. -- Michael Jay Tucker