Here's the problem:
NASA's projects *need* to run for decades. Often if you abandon the too quickly, you've spent most of the money without getting ANY of the reward. But their financial support is driven by election cycles. WHOOPS!

If this paper convinced ONE legislator to vote for NASA, then it as worth the minimal expense it entailed. (As others have said, there's nothing particularly original, surprising, about it, so it didn't take any research worth mentioning to produce.) If it satisfied one legialative or administratrive supporter, then it may have been worth the effort.

I will agree that it sounds obvious, but to a lot of people it may not be obvious.

For how much longer? Oil is a finite resource, and WILL run out. Then you've either got to synthesize it using some other source of energy or stop using it.

Unfortunately, we have already proven the existence of enough extractable hydorcarbons to raise the world's temperature by about 10 degrees Celsius. It's not clear that humanity would survive this. But most of this is coal, not oil. And extracting much of it would be inefficient (as in burning the coal in place at a controlled temperature and oxigenation level and extracting the methane produced). Because of the inefficiency we are likely to go through it much more rapidly than we did through the oil, because such a large percentage will be wasted.

It's not that simple. In the Americas civilizations failed without being cut off from trade with other countries (that they had ever traded with). This is believed to have been due to problems with climate change causing massive crop failures over a period of a decade or so. And it happened more than once.

This, of course, only proves that there is more than one mode of failure. But, AFAIK, there's no proof that there's any way that's proof against failure. (OTOH, given what we know I'm not sure there's any possibility of such a proof.)

All we really know is that every previous civilization has collapsed.

From time to time, a gas station here or there realizes that by checking under the hood, they sell enough oil alone to pay for the wages of the gas-pumper, and cheerfully offers full-serve at the same price as the self-serve across the street.

hawk

And then there's your retirement income when you move out of state.

Nevada has dealt with this by making all property within the state exempt when the judgment is for state income tax on retirement income.

sure, your *judgment* gets full faith and credit . . .

hawk, esq.

I propose a fibre optic verion of Lightning: I am going to call it "Frightening"!

He didn't say it was doing a good job, he said he couldn't see a better alternative. And you didn't propose one either.

Worse, C is the speed of light in a vacuum. In any other medium it's slower. I'd need to check what current light fiber speeds are, but it's guaranteed to be less than C, unless there's a vacuum in the center of the fiber. (I think there needs to be a relatively smooth gradient of speeds, with the center being the fastest and the edges being the slowest for an optical fiber to work, but I'm less than certain.)

OTOH, a tetrahertz switch doesn't mean a tetrahertz CPU cycle. So I'm not at all sure that you can presume that we're talking about a speedup of 250. I don't know what the speed of a switch inside a fast CPU is currently.

If Bill Gates is involved, I suspect some devious plot, though not necessarily Microsoft based. Actually, history would suggest that it's also Microsoft based, but he hasn't been in charge for awhile now, so perhaps he's got something else to push.

Every time I've checked one of his "benevolent" actions, it's turned out to be control motivated (or wealth motivated) so I'm now suspicious whenever his name appears.

FWIW, axioms cannot be understood. They can only be postulated. If they are said to apply to reality, then they can also be observed to be invariably true. (Well, actually they can be observed to be true when you are noticing them, except in minor edge cases that can be explained away.)

What *can* be understood is how the axioms interact to describe an instance. (I'm being general here, so that I'm not *just* talking about math, but math is included.)

One useful way of talking about axioms is to use metaphors, some times historic. E.g., the equals sign is a symbol representing a balenced set of scales (as used in Babylon). In this system numbers are mapped to weights. So the scales remain balanced if you add or remove the same number from both pans of the scale. But this is an analogy, and there are places where it breaks down. (E.g., a square root has two valid answers...which doesn't fit the analogy, but does fit the axioms.)

Yet.

But automation is continuing at a rapid pace. Currently the designs are such that complex machines are often replaced rather than being repaired. (When is the last time you heard of a disk drive or a keyboard being repaired? Refridgerator?) And that's NOW, not when those currently in grade schoold have graduated from college/vocational school.

FWIW, I would have no idea what to recommend people learn...beyond certain basics: logic, critical thinking, how to evaluate reliability, etc.

A few decades ago I recommended that one should "be a garbage man", on the grounds that this would probably not be quickly automated. Well, automation hasn't advanced quite as quickly as I expected, but garbageman has remained a viable career path, if not a particularly attractive one. Part of the reason for this recommendation was that there aren't many openings in top management, and they are the ones who decide what jobs won't be automated, so that's the last job that will go. Today, though, I'm not so sure. Automated trucks are on the horizon, and that will eliminate huge swaths of jobs. And garbage collection has already been redesigned to increase the automation. (I'm not real inspired by the efficiency of the automation, but it has reduced the number of workers/truck and, perhaps, increased the speed of collection.) Further redesign is clearly needed, however...and by the time that happens, it's quite likely that the truct will drive itself.

Supermarket checkout clerk? RFID tags are already changing that. Currently there's no requirement that the cashier be more than very minimally literate. Self-checkout is spreading. How far will it spread?

Have you heard about the automated paralegal? It does searches through legal cases for useful references. This is work that used to be delegated to the entry lawyers of a firm. I don't know how widespread it is, but it's clearly something that is amenable to improvement.

Etc. I can't predict where automation will strike next, or how rapid will be its proliferation. But predicting what will be needed 20 years from now seems more than a bit risky. I might venture 5 years. At 10 years I'd be likely to overestimate the changes. At 20, however, I'd be likely to grossly underestimate the changes. That's enough time for something to be expected to come out of left field that will totally change things in unexpected ways. And education is supposed to prepare one for the long term.

One of the main problems with the current system is micro-management by distant administrators. This isn't going to improve that. The tax system restructuring that was supposed to fund schools equally has, surprisingly, resulted in schools in poor areas subsidizing those in wealthier areas.

I don't have a good answer, as high mobility has basically destroyed most local communities (and by local I'm including neighborhoods, as well as small towns). But it's also had lots of good effects. The basic problem is the increased spread of inequality of income, and the abuses of power that it leads to. (If it didn't lead to abuse of power, I'd be more willing to listen to the "free market" people despite the fact that there has never, in all of history, been a free market larger than an extended family, and even that size is uncommon.)

Well, FWIW, I was against the reform that replaced basic arithmetic via memorization with set theory. I'm still opposed. Mind you, I hated that memorization, and I'm not really convinced that it's a good idea as calculators become more ubiqutous, but "Set Theory"? Logic I could see, though I doubt that the students would like it much more than they do memorization, but it's a basic tool. Set theory was dreamed up by people who wanted to reduce the observed world to a minimal number of beliefs. Useful, but hardly appropriate for elementary math. Particularly as it leads immediately to things like the secretary of the non-secretaries club, and the Spanish barber. Wait at least until high school. (Even there I think classical Geometry, algebra, and trig, with possible analytic geometry is a better sequence. Set theory should be mentioned occasionally for those who want to investigate it, but not be central.)

I haven't investigated was the Core Curriculum is about, but if Bill Gates is in favor of it, I'm skeptical without checking further. If he proposed it, I suspect malicious entrapment. He may sometimes have done more good than harm, but I don't know. His PR agents tend to whitewash his deeds, and ignore any commercial ties. Whenever I've actually looked carefully, it has seemed to me that he has done more harm than good. (Admittedly, I usually rely on presuming that current actions are similar to prior actions, and don't investigate.)

That's what it says on the cover. It also says on the cover that Ada has optional garbage collection...but somehow nobody implements it, and no program dares to rely on it.

When I was in school we often did not get even half way through to mandated text...I don't think optional extras will get much coverage..

You might want to find out why. You probably are not doing it right. Tape may not be perfect, but its better than anything else long term for high capacity (Paper is better for ruggedness and lifetime, but wont work for 20TB).