Posts by Tom B Tek 5 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Jun 2008
<##>Cathartic rant follows – proceed to next
Every time an article discussing a scientific achievement, like this one, is published some delusional posts “I can't help wondering where humanity would be (figuratively and literally) if we redirected our entire global military spending into research,” or some such rot.
Rockets were a great lark at the park on Sunday afternoons for Wernher in the ‘20s. But it took successive military paymasters with blank cheques, specific goals, and a willingness to sacrifice as many lives as necessary to achieve his impossible dream of pushing an object into space.
Enrique had a blast playing with atoms under the bleachers in the ‘30s as well. But who developed those ideas into the practical nuclear engine (see SSN-571). What kind of effort did that take? How much did it cost? Who else would/could have done it? How long would that have taken?
And Alan had some impressive notes on napkins regarding computational possibilities. Yet the first computers weren’t built to calculate protein folds, but rather artillery trajectories.
Who else had the drive, skill, and resources to deliver the Space Shuttle, the Internet, the Super Computer (there’s a reason HAL is from Urbana)?
It’s the primitive instincts and vices (survival, security, envy, greed, lust, etc) that usually spur humans to achieve. They are what drive us to labor for what seems impossible, to struggle against the inevitable defeats along the way, to sacrifice even life itself in the name of progress. A simple reality recognized by literary observers from Homer to Roddenberry (watch “This side of Paradise” sometime). It’s also something that has motivated the intellectual giants of humanity. Da Vinci didn’t design the tank as a method to travel in comfort, and Newton didn’t obsess about alchemy in the name of altruism.
Which all means that the answer to your answer is, still on the earth throwing bottle rockets out of bi-planes! Who do you think ultimately pays for this kind of reasearch? And if the military weren't willing to force that expenditure, the money wouldn't go to research, numpty. It would have gone to providing clean water in Africa, or some such project - Which maybe where it should have gone...
So put some water on the jos stick, accept the reality of the human condition, and fill out that application for BAE. Even you may have some small part to contribute to the advancement of mankind.
<##> end rant
I've attended a public school in Gloucestershire (for US readers that ironically means an elite, expensive, usually boarding school), a comprehensive in Coventry, a high school in Ohio, and state unis in both countries, so I speak from experience.
Europeans better educated? - Bollocks. The products of comprehensive's are, by and large, condemed to a lifetime of blissful ignorance. I could go on and on as to why but it's not worth it.
The sad fact is both Euros and Yanks are getting their arses handed to them by the Asians. I currently work for a US engineering firm, run by a bunch of brits, with half its divisional HQs in asia. We all know who the powerhouses of the 21st century are going to be. So arguing "I'm smarter than you 'cus I know there's no god" is like pissing into the wind - you're going to end up just as wet as anyone.
Chris - Is calling them Americans intended as an insult? This is an American product that the whole world is queueing up for and cell phones were invented in America in the first place - don't make the Gordo claim it's one of our products.
Go back to reading the Daily Mail, you have nothing of value to offer this discussion.
El Reg, Your comment boards are being overrun by the “have your say “crowd and are devolving rapidly into a Mecca for the ill informed to vent their frustrations. For everyone hurling invectives at the US for this latest policy change, please remember the following:
-The EU announced similar rules earlier this year, and Spain is already requiring them as noted by a previous post.
-The shoe bomber was not on a flight from Gatwick to Barcelona, but rather Paris to Newark
-8 Englishmen were in a London court today for trying to destroy 7 planes headed TO America with explosives disguised as Lucazade
-The MET has cameras that watch just about everything we do, but asking us to fill in a form online when we book the flight that we used to complete on the plane is a menace of Orwellian proportions
Questioning their leaders’ motives/intelligence, or their workers attitudes does not mitigate the reality that Europeans dressed as tourists have tried repeatedly to kill them. It simply exposes your own base jingoistic inclinations and limited intelligence.
So go to the Costa del Sol instead. Smugly complete the Spanish form, comfortable in the knowledge that you didn’t give into the arrogant yanks. And then complain the Germans stole your beach chair! It just means shorter lines and more beach chairs for the rest of us in Florida, and less chance of being forced to listen to the 6 hour drunken lament on the demise of Wimbledon FC from a belligerent El Reg poster three rows back who thinks his single GCSE entitles him to pontificate on the ills of the world.
Mine's the parker with the Jack on the back
Btw, as children of the empire we have no right to lecture anyone on their arrogant treatment of others…
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