Comment Re:Is it illegal? (Score 1) 538
Capitalism is about accumulating capital. You can produce things, rent things, trade stocks, whatever.
Comment Re:Good (Score 1) 167
The Space Shuttle, for example, wasn't very safe:
- no crew escape system for most of the flight
- very complex (and expensive) heat protection system, the one that failed and led to the Columbia disaster
- orbiter mounted on the side of a rocket, making the complex heat protection system be vulnerable to debris (again, Columbia)
- gigantic solid rocket boosters that cannot be shut down once ignited
The planned crew-carrying Dragon capsule from SpaceX has an escape system that can be used at any point during the launch. So what you say about commercial vs state security concerns is incorrect.
Besides, training an astronaut is very expensive, you definitely don't want them killed.
Comment Re:Delta II blew up in 1997 (Score 1) 149
All of today's rockets are bolted to the launch floor. Even with full thrust the rocket cannot take off until the bolt are cut. These are called pyrobolts because they have explosive which is used to sever the bolts.
The Space Shuttle could still launch even if the pyrobolts were never severed.
Comment Re:1920x1200 getting hard to find anymore (Score 1) 394
Sure, there are cheaper monitors. Dell's 24" is ~$550. Check http://www.anandtech.com/tag/displays, the have great monitor articles for more high resolution IPS or S-IPS monitors.
Comment Re:1920x1200 getting hard to find anymore (Score 1) 394
You can still buy 27" monitors with good resolution. Check the Dell U2711, or the Apple LED monitor.
Comment Re:If I had say in the matter. . . (Score 5, Insightful) 147
Why do you suppose it doesn't have redundancy or failback mechanisms? For example, it has SIX wheels. The Spirit rover could still work (and did) with only four wheels. Also, the whole rover is a complex laboratory capable of doing many experiments. If one of them fails, it can still do science with the others. Adding a secondary mast, computer, etc, adds weight besides redundancy.
Comment Re:IPV6 (Score 1) 170
Dude, this was not censorship. The blocked websites had private emails from private email accounts of government officials, journalists, celebrities, detailing such things as income (public for a government official, not for a journalist or celebrity), when they pickup the kids at school, etc. This is a clear violation of a citizens privacy, the equivalent of intercepting paper correspondance and publish it in a newspaper. Luckily in Argentina, and many other countries in the world, this is forbidden.
Comment Re:Screen Space (Score 2) 329
You need a border around the mutitouch surface so you can grab the device. Otherwise your thumb would be generating touch events all the time.
Comment Re:Headline Is So Very Wrong (Score 1) 1193
Dude, government officials belong to the "rich people" group. They're the same!
Comment Re:wtf (Score 1, Troll) 574
We used two, "Fat man" and "Little Boy".
More than enough. The US should be ashamed, fuck, really ashamed, at the fact. And all you can say is that the US "just" used two.
We gained a lot of knowledge after using them and one of the things we learned is how horrific they are.
Bullshit, the US didn't didn't use any more nukes because the URSS had nukes too.
What would you rather us do, bomb them?
Well, you ALREADY bomb countries, I don't think I need to give examples, present and past. And what would those interests be?
How else are we going to convince countries not to pursue something against our interest?
And what would those interests be? Please, mention them explicitly, instead of just bombing the fuck of any country you want and excuse yourselves with WMDs and terrorism. Wait, no, even better, keep your "interests" in your own country and let Iran mind for themselves.
But you know, the minute we stop providing cash, then these governments are going to start complaining to their citizens how evil we are for not giving support.
Mention those governments, please. And also note that giving cash is not the same as a trade embargo. And also note that giving cash to buy weapons the US produces is not helping.
I'm sure it must be nice to have this view where the US is this evil entity and the rest of the world is perfect, but in reality every government sucks.
Yes, many governments suck, but the US is the one that is always at war. So yeah, the US is pretty evil.
Comment Re:This is real science. (Score 1) 159
I wish I could use the word "Fitler" frequently
Comment Re:US abuse (Score 1) 966
So what? The US is doing it RIGHT NOW, that's a good reason to at least be against it. Who cares if the romans were at war in the past?
Comment Re:I know people who work on weapons (Score 4, Informative) 409
Unless your job is designing large shapeless soft foam objects, you're always going to risk someone using your creation to hurt someone else, and at each point along the continuum from plastic bag designer to nuclear weapon designer, at least a few people are going to say they're not comfortable with doing that, and at least a few people are going to say they are.
Oh please, weapons are built with the purpose of hurting, or forcing someone do something you want (under threat of hurting him). Cars and garbage bags have many other uses besides killing.
Comment Re:Afghanistan in....what? (Score 4, Insightful) 343
It seems there is no intention to ever leave Afghanistan if they plan to deploy this airship in two years.
Comment This is what corporations do (Score 1) 812
They maximize their value for their shareholders. Since they have so much money, they have so much power. I don't understand why people oppose big governments but don't have problems with big corporations. They are the same kind of authoritarian entities, but at least you can elect officials for a government.
Change the laws regarding corporations.
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Ya'll hear about the geometer who went to the beach to catch some rays and became a tangent ?
