Now DO IT!!

[sr71plt]

I just wish they would do it quickly rather than adding the insult of the tax payers are having to support him for years to his crimes.

In this case, I agree. There was no contesting that he did it or that he hasn't regretted he'd done it (despite the nun's testimony. He can speak for himself on this). It dilutes even his position to string it out with appeals. Appeal what? He scratched on the inside of the boat that he wanted to die for it. He dilutes what he sees as his message to let appeals go forward--which is the only benefit for the rest of us. Probably not a bad thing to hold it in limbo until his martyr value is zero and then quietly off him.

 

[1sickbastard]

50 years ago the idea of a communicator was pure science fiction....just a dream.

http://trekmovie.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/treknobabble50_1.jpg

28 years ago we had a new dream....
http://www.macnotes.de/gimages/richie2010/picard-ipad.jpg

10 years ago we thought planets were a fluke....now we know there are BILLIONS of star systems, many with the potential for life.

Imagine how primitive we were 300 years ago, who knows where we will be in 300 more years....

Technically, we now have confirmation that other star systems have planets and the accretion disc model is basically sound.
Fun fact: Cell phones were developed due to geeks wanting to duplicate the tech seen on Star Trek. Further Fun Fact: the mathematical algorithms which underlie transmission to and from cell phones was developed during WW2 by actress Heddy Lamar (who also held a doctorate in mathematics) and donated to the US gov't to make military signals more difficult to intercept. Unfortunately the physical technology wasn't up to the task.

I agree that future developments are difficult to predict, and we have come a loooong way, but there does seem to be a couple of major hurdles, like power generation and the basic physical structure of the universe.
In the 1950's it was assumed that nuclear fusion as viable power source was only 10-20 years away. Sixty years later, it's now figured to be at least 20 years away, maybe more. But perhaps the largest obstacle to that, a superconductor which functions as room temperatures and can be cheaply mass produced, will suddenly be invented. Then again, a material that would make construction of a space elevator, which would bring the cost of hauling cargo into LEO down to tens of dollars per pound instead of thousand dollars per pound may also be invented. I don't discount the possibility.
But the power requirements to hit decent fractions of light speed or even potentially 'warp' space time are literally astronomical. Figuring out a Grand Unification Theory might provide a means of working around the current understood limits, but there's no guarantees.

Uh hua...if that is the case then why are we jerk dicking around in a bunch of 3rd world shit holes so we can butt fuck Americans out of as much money as possible?

We've had this discussion before:
Proximity to the Suez Canal.
Part of US strategy is based on control of the world's oceans. Any choke point with the potential to inhibit moving the fleets will automatically be an area of US involvement. That's why a potential dominant regional power in the Levant & Mesopotamia is seen as a potential threat and why the US dicks around in the middle east more than it dicks around with sub-Saharan Africa.
Remember also that this area was a major Cold War front; the US with its policy of containment vs the USSR, the Soviets attempting to extend it's sphere of influence.
You heard about the 1967 Israeli-Arab war? Egypt & Syria were major USSR client states. Syria and Iraq were under the sway of the socialist, secular Baathist party. Iran, the KSA and Israel were US client states and counter balances to the Sovs.
That was the reason US became Israel's patron, and after the Arabs got their collective assess handed to them, the US was able to successfully split Egypt from the Sovs. After the Iranian Revolution, it became expedient to exploit the ethnic and cultural differences between Iran and Iraq, which is why the US supported Iraq during their 8 year war with Iran. It's not that the Iranians were super buddy-buddy with the Russians, it's just that both superpowers where competing through regional proxies. Of course this would lead the Iranians to buddy up with the Russians.
But like any nation-state, the Iranians see their security as a matter of extending their influence as far as possible, and so it goes.
But if these countries were in central Africa or Central Asia, none of them would be more than minor blips on the radar. But they're not. Any of them has a potential to pose a threat to the Suez Canal.

Why are we not holding China's feet to the fire?? Hua? CHINA is like 1 billion times the threat Iraq and Afghanistan could ever hope to be in the next 150 fucking years.

You gotta remember that the US started engaging the PRC back in the early 1970's, again as a part of the Cold War policy of containing the USSR.

The major difference between the PRC and Iran? The PRC is already a nuclear power AND a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
As far as holding their feet to the fire;
What do you think was going on back in the early aughts when the US signed off on India having a Nuclear Weapons program, even though they weren't a signatory of the non-proliferation pact?
Why Do you think the US has been ignoring Japan moves to steadily rearm and expand it's military capabilities?
What do you think the strategic rational behind the Trans-Pacific Trade Pact is about?
China has a different set of challenges as it's a 2nd tier power trying to become a first tier power, instead of a 3rd tier power trying to become a dominant regional power. But it also has a different set of weaknesses than the countries in the middle east. If the middle eastern countries could be compared to dogs which can be kicked, China is more of a grizzly bear; it's a different critter that need to be handled differently.

I understand, you don't have to derp it down for the poor poor stoner and fuckin' insult my intelligence simply because I don't think driving Halliburtons empty trucks around in the desert so they can bill the fuel at a hyper inflated price has any strategic fuckin' value for the people of the US. Your claims to the contrary notwithstanding of course....

It's not that I think I have to derp it down, it's more that I'm trying to anticipate your counterarguments.
After all, you and I have had a few similar discussions.
Trust me, I know you to be intelligent and insightful. It's why I enjoy having these discussions with you.

Mmhmm....till (R) takes over and can have all the war contracts they can dream up. Then we will have to invade _______ for freedumb and terror!!

Maybe. We'll see.
National leaders tend to be far more constrained than I think a lot of people suspect.
There will always be those who think sending in the troops is always the first, best and only answer. To modify an Asimov quote, "Violence is the first resort of the incompetent (or stupid)"

I'm not saying don't actively engage....I'm saying quit fucking around with Iraq/Afghanistan, harassing the desert goat headers of the 3rd world because Christian America isn't worth the trillions of fuckin' dollars. They aren't a threat worthy of military anything....

Fortunately, we are winding down in Afghanistan.
Iraq is part of Mesopotamia. I think I've pretty well covered why the US will continue to dick around in the region. The best case scenario is to get the regional players so busy dicking each other over that the US won't have to do much more than shift support as needed. After all, it's how every other empire that dominated the area worked, except the Mughals, but their solution was to just slaughter entire populations wholesale if they even hinted at getting out of line.

Want to take on a threat? Send a diplomat to tell China they need to quit fucking around because with the way trade is being managed they are DESTROYING america economically. Chinese bureaucrats are the real threat...not some religious troll in the desert 14,000 fuckin' miles from who gives a shit.

I think I've covered most of this, but the rest is straight up corporate 'Murica being good citizens by selling out as soon as it increases ROI. But that ain't nothing new.
Of course the RWNJ solution is to make the USA a 3rd world nation in terms of worker wages, environmental protection and financial regulation. After all, so long as the 1% get theirs, fuck you to everyone else.

 

[Comshaw]

I'm sure it will be useful for extricating ourselves from involvement should we find ourselves in a Scooby-Doo cartoon.

Seriously though, the best lay explanation I've heard on Quantum Entanglement (what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance") is this:
You have a bag with two marbles inside, one blue, one red. Without looking, you pull one marble from the bag and put it in your pocket, then board a Saturn V rocket and endure the 250000 mile trip to Lunar orbit. Once in orbit around Earth's moon, you look at the marble in your pocket. As soon as you look at it, you'll know the color of the marble you left on the bag on Earth.
It's not a matter of instantaneous travel of FTL communication.

That being said, until someone comes up with the GUT (Grand Unification Theory), aka the Theory of Everything, then works out how to apply it to usable technology, we're stuck in an Einsteinian universe where 'c' is an absolute limit.

Sure, given some decent advances in ceramics, metalurgy and sustainable, renewable power generation, it may be possible to construct multi-generational, one-way colony ships, use gravitational slingshoting inside the solar system to build up enough velocity to make Proxima Centauri within four or five centuries of travel time (from the standpoint of those on the ship) or Tau Ceti within a millennium.
Tau Ceti is the closest candidate system that might have planets within the "Goldilocks zone", but it's just under 12 ly away (about 71 trillion miles)

Aw...yea. When we as a species start thinking we know all the answers and there just can't be any different explanation, we are right back to the the mind set of the earth is the center of the universe.

http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/30/spooky-experiment-proves-quantum-entanglement-is-real/


Comshaw

 

[BotanyBoy]

Figuring out a Grand Unification Theory might provide a means of working around the current understood limits, but there's no guarantees.

Oh I'm not saying there are guarantees, i'm saying given the current course of human history if we don't destroy ourselves before we pull our heads out of our ass's the Earth/civilization/technology/people 300 years from now will blow our tits off just as if not harder than the modern would would someone from 300 years ago. I think the dreamers will keep dreaming and interstellar travel is by far one of the biggest dreams there is.....and I stay hopeful that one day we will do it.

We've had this discussion before:
Proximity to the Suez Canal.

If it REALLY was the Suez Canal we should have OWNED the mother fucker APR2003 and been fuckin' done with it.

But it's not even NEAR Afghanistan and Iraq is a few borders and a good ways away itself, never threatened it.

But we need to blow thousands of lives, trillions of dollars and 14 years of military occupation on them....because strategic value of Suez Canal???

Seems a stretch and half to me....especially considering we spent FAR more time/resources protecting Halliburton 'fuel burn' convoys than we ever did holding any canals.....much less the Suez.

It's about the money...not strategic positioning, natural resources or the balance of power in the region, money.

I think I've covered most of this, but the rest is straight up corporate 'Murica being good citizens by selling out as soon as it increases ROI.

Yea that's the bottom line....all that other shit you were talking about is just bullshit for show. Capitalism will be the undoing of the US....

After all, so long as the 1% get theirs, fuck you to everyone else.

Boom headshot....as long as we continue to encourage companies to fire Americans so they can contract slave labor out with the Chinese government.......then the US economy will continue to shit, China will call our note and the US is done. Like I said, China is 1,000 times the threat Iraq and Afghanistan pose to us.

 

[1sickbastard]

Aw...yea. When we as a species start thinking we know all the answers and there just can't be any different explanation, we are right back to the the mind set of the earth is the center of the universe.

http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/30/spooky-experiment-proves-quantum-entanglement-is-real/


Comshaw

Interesting article. Of course transmitting information is a bit different than transmitting matter.
Still, I suppose if one were able to build a 3d digital printer than could reconstruct biological units, one could send people or at least copies of people, to distant spots, assuming said printer was already there.
Definitely presents some interesting possibilities.

However, do note I said there are possibilities, but until those possibilities bear fruit we have to deal with our current limits.

Don't get me wrong, I'm rooting for all these sorts of things to happen; FTL travel, interplanetary and interstellar colonies, contact with intelligent alien species (hopefully peaceful and based on trade/mutual cooperation/benefit), the whole nine yards. I'm just a bit more guarded in my optimism.