Posts
A look back at Columbine and a journalistic story of the events that transpired before, during and after.
Columbine is a subject that illicits a huge response. Its a confused mess of a subject to be honest. Few members of the public know the true story, fewer still know the whole story and only 4 or 5 will ever know everything. And 2 of those are dead. I've had a huge interest in Columbine for a very long time. I realize that makes me sound like a nut but its just, to me, a very interesting topic that has captured me.
I've watched the documentaries and played the RPG thing and all of that. They never answered vital questions on the subject. Micheal Moore's money grabbing attention spree of a documentary just made it harder for me to understand. I even looked over the notebooks and journals released by the authorities but to no avail.
This book explained everything. It opened my eyes to alot of the issues that have since spawned from that day and answered alot of my questions. It has got some confusing, conflicting reviews but from what I know of the tragedy, this is the best book to learn everything there is to know about it. From the killers, to the town, to the people, it explains it all.
Quit Being Dicks
For the past couple million years, there's been some animosity toward "outsiders". I think its always been there as long as animals has congregated in groups. Being suspicious of newcomers is just something creatures do. It keeps predators away and you never know when that new guy is going to turn out to be a no good double crossing Lion.
So my usual response of "WHhhhhhhhyyyy" doesn't really work too well when applied to the topics of immigration and xenophobia. I understand why people are scared of horrible invaders from outside coming and stealing all the jobs, women, government benefits and whatever else the tabloids accuse them of. But that doesn't make the argument any less bananas.
Standing against immigration is probably the dumbest thing you can do as a human being. This is really one of the topics that shakes my core as a humanist. To imagine enough of my fellow human beings are ignorant or evil enough to stand in the way of their own countries progress for some pathetic tribalism? It tests me. I'm getting ahead of myself here, Let me compose myself and we can begin.
Immigration is a touchy subject. There are many factors at play. Some of these factors are imagined and feed to you by mass media, some are real and need to be addressed. On top of all that, there's racial aspects to consider, jobs, the list goes on. I'm not an expert, but I like to pretend to be one on the internet, which is good enough.
Just for a start, lets begin with Jobs. This is a huge concern I hear a lot when I'm in America. That waves of Mexicans are flooding the country and stealing all the jobs for themselves, then sending the money they earn into Mexico, thus DESTROYING THE ENTIRE FOUNDATION OF HUMANITY. This to me poses some interesting questions. First of all being, who's jobs are being lost to this vile plague, exactly? Its not the middle or upper classes that's for damn sure. I can't see many illegal aliens entering the country with collage degrees and a full work resume. I honestly can not envision a situation where skilled jobs go to an untrained guy who just crossed the border.
Logically this leaves lower class jobs. Drivers, basic unskilled work, that sort of thing. Ok I can see this being an issue because our hypothetical Mexican might work for much less than our hypothetical American. However the blame here is misplaced, rather than blaming the penniless Mexican who needs a job to support his family, why not blame the richass guys hiring him? Presuming our Hypothetical American lost his job directly because a Mexican would do it for cheaper, that seems like the bosses fault, rather than the Mexicans. He'd do the same if an American would do it cheaper I'm sure.
Maybe the concern is that there are limited jobs and by having too many outsiders, you strain the job market by introducing too much completion and so on. This isn't a good thing? I mean competition encourages growth, why not just be the better candidate? I mean hell the Hypothetical Mexican is already starting on a handicap, given his hypothetical ethnicity.
I get that life isn't always so black and white. Maybe the American has a family to feed and needs his shitty factory workers job to live. Maybe he loses it cause some Mexican guy will do it for dirt. That's shit, its horrible and can destroy lives but as I've said. Its not the fault of the Mexican. Hes just some guy looking to earn some cash same as the Hypothetical American. Its the guys that run the factory, their bosses that are to blame.
The world is currently in a very weird place when it comes to immigration. Its almost at the point where you're just screaming at people you think MIGHT not be from around here. Oh wait. With media fueled anger against so called "terrorists" and invaders and interlopers, every single country on earth is on edge, keeping an eye out for vaguely "not from round 'ere" types, ever vigilant lest they deflower our fair lands and crumble our infrastructure.
Lets compare the two main powerhouses of the world right now. The US and Europe. The fear in the US (and everywhere else really) is that if you allow other people into your country, all the jobs go, culture becomes dissipated and all kinds of other utterly mental arguments. As if by simply allowing people to work and live where they want to, you undermine the very tenements of the economy (These people obviously don't understand economics very well). This is all well and good if it wasn't for the fact that Europe has had open borders in regards to work for the past 10 years and is currently the most culturally diverse continent on earth with some of the highest standards of living in the world. To clear that up, The EU allows anyone from any EU country to work in any other EU country, provided they have a valid passport. Reports that Paris is consumed in the fires of anarchy are, as yet, unfounded.
Speaking of which, there is one final argument that makes no fucking sense that I feel obliged to type endlessly about. The so called Culture Clash that "proves" people should just stay where they are. This may seem like a pretty solid argument. Just last month we had literally tens of insane Americans storming a clothing warehouse to try and stop a community center being built because Glenn Beck told them to. Before that we had literally ten fundamentalist Muslims going apeshit over some danish political cartoons. You may notice something funny here, In the first case, a bunch of fat old white dudes are going nuts over a harmless thing that has a religion attached to it. In the second, a bunch of old fat brown dudes are going nuts over a harmless thing that has a religion attached to it. No one really took the mosque people seriously, no one acted as if that was the entire of America's stance on the subject. Hell even the president came out to say "Quit being dicks guys." Its exactly the same with the Islamic protests.
The message here is that there is no "clash of culture". It doesn't prove that humans should stay with their own tribes. The only proof on show here is that there are idiots, fundamentalists and nutjobs from everywhere. There are Middle eastern nutjobs, there's American nutjobs, there's European nutjobs, Asian nutjobs and when we find them, probably a whole lot of alien nutjobs too. Given any number of people, you're gonna find a couple nutters. That's just how life goes.
The only difference between this;
And This;
is the color of their skin. I guess only one of them are capitalizing on the victims of a tragedy to further a political campaign but lets not get into that.
Lastly I want to talk about integration. Its a large part of whatpeople idiotic self-centered morons without a single intelligent thought think about when they worry about immigrants. Will they integrate into our society? The short answer is yes, given education and encouragement. The evidence is, yet again, all over the place. You only need to look at Universities all over the world to see different cultures and peoples working together and forming their own cultures. The real issue is education. People complain that phone lines and menus and signs are in Urdu as well as English in England (mostly the aforementioned nutjobs) and then in the same breath complain that "they" don't try to learn English. It sounds like madness but how in gods name are you supposed to integrate into a culture and society if the society and culture is impenetrable? Efforts such as phone lines being in English, free English classes and further education programs for immigrants allows them to integrate properly, to share their culture and become more than residents, it allows them to become citizens. You want all the menus and phone lines in English only? All you do is segregate and create isolated groups. This is basic social dynamics. I'm literally getting angry just writing that cause it's hardly fucking rocket science that if you put 50 people in a room, tell 48 of them to only speak french and 2 to speak Russian, The 2 speaking Russian will, 9/10, segregate and isolate themselves.
Really, honestly, all this is moot. The kind of people this is aimed at don't care about rational problems, they don't care about real issues that arise from immigration (of which there are a few). They just want "Them" away from their precious tribe. I know the message of this article is Hate Breeds Hate. But Fuck them. They stand in the way of progress, actively dragging humanity down by their shear hatred and bigotry. Its our duty, not as Americans, or as Europeans or whatever, but as human beings, to kick them in their stupid faces and drag them into the future.
I really hope I've been clear in this article. Its really a simple message and numbers agree with me. Countries work better when they open their borders. the evidence is everywhere, in history with the development of the united states, in Europe now, everywhere. You just have to ignore the nutjobs and put some thought into it. Of course, if all I did was ignore the nutjobs, I'd never write anything.
So my usual response of "WHhhhhhhhyyyy" doesn't really work too well when applied to the topics of immigration and xenophobia. I understand why people are scared of horrible invaders from outside coming and stealing all the jobs, women, government benefits and whatever else the tabloids accuse them of. But that doesn't make the argument any less bananas.
Standing against immigration is probably the dumbest thing you can do as a human being. This is really one of the topics that shakes my core as a humanist. To imagine enough of my fellow human beings are ignorant or evil enough to stand in the way of their own countries progress for some pathetic tribalism? It tests me. I'm getting ahead of myself here, Let me compose myself and we can begin.
Immigration is a touchy subject. There are many factors at play. Some of these factors are imagined and feed to you by mass media, some are real and need to be addressed. On top of all that, there's racial aspects to consider, jobs, the list goes on. I'm not an expert, but I like to pretend to be one on the internet, which is good enough.
Just for a start, lets begin with Jobs. This is a huge concern I hear a lot when I'm in America. That waves of Mexicans are flooding the country and stealing all the jobs for themselves, then sending the money they earn into Mexico, thus DESTROYING THE ENTIRE FOUNDATION OF HUMANITY. This to me poses some interesting questions. First of all being, who's jobs are being lost to this vile plague, exactly? Its not the middle or upper classes that's for damn sure. I can't see many illegal aliens entering the country with collage degrees and a full work resume. I honestly can not envision a situation where skilled jobs go to an untrained guy who just crossed the border.
Logically this leaves lower class jobs. Drivers, basic unskilled work, that sort of thing. Ok I can see this being an issue because our hypothetical Mexican might work for much less than our hypothetical American. However the blame here is misplaced, rather than blaming the penniless Mexican who needs a job to support his family, why not blame the richass guys hiring him? Presuming our Hypothetical American lost his job directly because a Mexican would do it for cheaper, that seems like the bosses fault, rather than the Mexicans. He'd do the same if an American would do it cheaper I'm sure.
Maybe the concern is that there are limited jobs and by having too many outsiders, you strain the job market by introducing too much completion and so on. This isn't a good thing? I mean competition encourages growth, why not just be the better candidate? I mean hell the Hypothetical Mexican is already starting on a handicap, given his hypothetical ethnicity.
I get that life isn't always so black and white. Maybe the American has a family to feed and needs his shitty factory workers job to live. Maybe he loses it cause some Mexican guy will do it for dirt. That's shit, its horrible and can destroy lives but as I've said. Its not the fault of the Mexican. Hes just some guy looking to earn some cash same as the Hypothetical American. Its the guys that run the factory, their bosses that are to blame.
The world is currently in a very weird place when it comes to immigration. Its almost at the point where you're just screaming at people you think MIGHT not be from around here. Oh wait. With media fueled anger against so called "terrorists" and invaders and interlopers, every single country on earth is on edge, keeping an eye out for vaguely "not from round 'ere" types, ever vigilant lest they deflower our fair lands and crumble our infrastructure.
Lets compare the two main powerhouses of the world right now. The US and Europe. The fear in the US (and everywhere else really) is that if you allow other people into your country, all the jobs go, culture becomes dissipated and all kinds of other utterly mental arguments. As if by simply allowing people to work and live where they want to, you undermine the very tenements of the economy (These people obviously don't understand economics very well). This is all well and good if it wasn't for the fact that Europe has had open borders in regards to work for the past 10 years and is currently the most culturally diverse continent on earth with some of the highest standards of living in the world. To clear that up, The EU allows anyone from any EU country to work in any other EU country, provided they have a valid passport. Reports that Paris is consumed in the fires of anarchy are, as yet, unfounded.
Speaking of which, there is one final argument that makes no fucking sense that I feel obliged to type endlessly about. The so called Culture Clash that "proves" people should just stay where they are. This may seem like a pretty solid argument. Just last month we had literally tens of insane Americans storming a clothing warehouse to try and stop a community center being built because Glenn Beck told them to. Before that we had literally ten fundamentalist Muslims going apeshit over some danish political cartoons. You may notice something funny here, In the first case, a bunch of fat old white dudes are going nuts over a harmless thing that has a religion attached to it. In the second, a bunch of old fat brown dudes are going nuts over a harmless thing that has a religion attached to it. No one really took the mosque people seriously, no one acted as if that was the entire of America's stance on the subject. Hell even the president came out to say "Quit being dicks guys." Its exactly the same with the Islamic protests.
The message here is that there is no "clash of culture". It doesn't prove that humans should stay with their own tribes. The only proof on show here is that there are idiots, fundamentalists and nutjobs from everywhere. There are Middle eastern nutjobs, there's American nutjobs, there's European nutjobs, Asian nutjobs and when we find them, probably a whole lot of alien nutjobs too. Given any number of people, you're gonna find a couple nutters. That's just how life goes.
The only difference between this;
And This;
is the color of their skin. I guess only one of them are capitalizing on the victims of a tragedy to further a political campaign but lets not get into that.
Lastly I want to talk about integration. Its a large part of what
Really, honestly, all this is moot. The kind of people this is aimed at don't care about rational problems, they don't care about real issues that arise from immigration (of which there are a few). They just want "Them" away from their precious tribe. I know the message of this article is Hate Breeds Hate. But Fuck them. They stand in the way of progress, actively dragging humanity down by their shear hatred and bigotry. Its our duty, not as Americans, or as Europeans or whatever, but as human beings, to kick them in their stupid faces and drag them into the future.
I really hope I've been clear in this article. Its really a simple message and numbers agree with me. Countries work better when they open their borders. the evidence is everywhere, in history with the development of the united states, in Europe now, everywhere. You just have to ignore the nutjobs and put some thought into it. Of course, if all I did was ignore the nutjobs, I'd never write anything.
Some thoughts on Ereaders
I hate these kinds of posts. Really, they're horrible places where people just show off their new toys and it kinda pisses me off to imagine someone just going "oh laddidah i got a new expensive thing look at me". However, I'm not gonna do that here. I wont quote figures and facts copied from Amazon.com, I'm just going to say how reading a book compares to reading an ebook. This might be really hypocritical but hey, what am I but hypocritical.
In sort its fantastic. This is how reading will be done in the future. It really is not better than this. Oh I could go on about the features and the fonts and the screen and the clarity and whatever for hours, but that isnt important. If you have never used this device before, you won't be sold by the idea of being able to listen to music while you read or that you can increase the font size. Its just not important.
What is important is that it has It. That indescribable goodness that makes something great. It takes it from being a gimmick, a silly toy, and makes it a necessary component in your life.Everything about Ereaders just comes together to produce the single best way to read a book. It is the perfect tool for the job basically.
When these things first came out I wasn't too sold on them. Its just a book, I figured.Then after a while I warmed up to the idea. In all honesty I'm a young student with some disposable income and an affliction for electronics and gadgets so it spoke to a part of me. But it transcends that. Its no longer just a gadget to me, it's my book.
Its frustrating to write about an indescribable thing. All I can really say is go out and try it. Some stores have preview models but don't write it off if that one sucks. The one I tried out was utterly horrendous with its load times and that made me feel like they were all like that (in actually fact turning the page on my Ereader is quicker than I can physically turn the page). You might still think its naff, but then you're probably an idiot. Everyone with half a braincell will probably go "oh, this is neat" and maybe consider it. The experience is fantastic and makes reading better.
The downsides of it are..well the publishers don't like them very much but thats going to change the same way it did with MP3s. Old men don't like change but technology forces that change. Within the next few years you're going to see Ereaders becoming much more popular. Other than that? I guess PDFs don't work too well sometimes and the internet loads somewhat slowly. Thats it. Any moron ranting about how it doesn't "Feel" like a book is mentally incontinent and needs to have their brain examined.
This is kinda low content I know but there's really little I can say without boasting about how awesome MY ereader is. I think I'll write a bigger article on the subject of Ereaders and their impacts and the publishers reactions and so on at a later date. Consider this a preview to that.
In sort its fantastic. This is how reading will be done in the future. It really is not better than this. Oh I could go on about the features and the fonts and the screen and the clarity and whatever for hours, but that isnt important. If you have never used this device before, you won't be sold by the idea of being able to listen to music while you read or that you can increase the font size. Its just not important.
What is important is that it has It. That indescribable goodness that makes something great. It takes it from being a gimmick, a silly toy, and makes it a necessary component in your life.Everything about Ereaders just comes together to produce the single best way to read a book. It is the perfect tool for the job basically.
When these things first came out I wasn't too sold on them. Its just a book, I figured.Then after a while I warmed up to the idea. In all honesty I'm a young student with some disposable income and an affliction for electronics and gadgets so it spoke to a part of me. But it transcends that. Its no longer just a gadget to me, it's my book.
Its frustrating to write about an indescribable thing. All I can really say is go out and try it. Some stores have preview models but don't write it off if that one sucks. The one I tried out was utterly horrendous with its load times and that made me feel like they were all like that (in actually fact turning the page on my Ereader is quicker than I can physically turn the page). You might still think its naff, but then you're probably an idiot. Everyone with half a braincell will probably go "oh, this is neat" and maybe consider it. The experience is fantastic and makes reading better.
The downsides of it are..well the publishers don't like them very much but thats going to change the same way it did with MP3s. Old men don't like change but technology forces that change. Within the next few years you're going to see Ereaders becoming much more popular. Other than that? I guess PDFs don't work too well sometimes and the internet loads somewhat slowly. Thats it. Any moron ranting about how it doesn't "Feel" like a book is mentally incontinent and needs to have their brain examined.
This is kinda low content I know but there's really little I can say without boasting about how awesome MY ereader is. I think I'll write a bigger article on the subject of Ereaders and their impacts and the publishers reactions and so on at a later date. Consider this a preview to that.
Book 11 - H.P Lovecraft collection
A collection of the Famous writer of eldrich horrors H.P. Lovecraft's best stories.
I used to really like Lovecraft. Some of his stuff is very interesting, unique, scary and strange. When I was younger I really enjoyed the ideas behind the stories and I don't think I paid much attention to the writing or the construction of the tales themselves.
Now I'm older I can't help but realise almost every single story is exactly the same, starts the same and ends the same with the "freaky stuff" happening roughly the same time in all of them. There's always an unreliable author, a madman, some strange myths and in the end, there's always a reveal of something you already guessed.
I don't really like Lovecraft any more I suppose. His stuff still have the weird and wonderful ideas behind them, some of it boggles the mind to imagine. But as anyone who has read the most famous entry into this blog knows, its all a bit silly in the end.
Aside:
I'm debating what to read next, Either the recently released Columbine or Romance of Three Kingdoms. I'll probably do the first one but this means that after that, no book review for a good while. Considering I'll be on vacation I'll probably be reading alot but the book is 150 chapters long. Should be fun times.
I used to really like Lovecraft. Some of his stuff is very interesting, unique, scary and strange. When I was younger I really enjoyed the ideas behind the stories and I don't think I paid much attention to the writing or the construction of the tales themselves.
Now I'm older I can't help but realise almost every single story is exactly the same, starts the same and ends the same with the "freaky stuff" happening roughly the same time in all of them. There's always an unreliable author, a madman, some strange myths and in the end, there's always a reveal of something you already guessed.
I don't really like Lovecraft any more I suppose. His stuff still have the weird and wonderful ideas behind them, some of it boggles the mind to imagine. But as anyone who has read the most famous entry into this blog knows, its all a bit silly in the end.
Aside:
I'm debating what to read next, Either the recently released Columbine or Romance of Three Kingdoms. I'll probably do the first one but this means that after that, no book review for a good while. Considering I'll be on vacation I'll probably be reading alot but the book is 150 chapters long. Should be fun times.
FAQ about Space
So apparently many of you still harbour issues with my insane space idea. Thats ok, you aren't stupid, just horribly misinformed. Thats like being stupid, only I get less punches in the face for saying it. So today I'm going to run down a couple of the biggest issues people had with space mining, colonisation and other similar subjects. Thanks to Joe, Keef and Hannah (I.E all but 1 of my readers) for helping me out with the questions. Your contribution to the betterment of mankind will not go unseen.
1. How do you land on a friggin asteroid?
Its easier than you think! in fact the Japanese have already done such a task. That part is actually pretty easy. In space you can go alot faster than you can on earth with alot less power. Most NEOs that we'll be mining only go about 2KM/s. That sounds like a lot but the Shuttle (an outdated model by 1980s standards) goes at about 28,000km/h just chillin in orbit.
2. How do you mine an asteroid without air or gravity?
Again, this sounds really difficult and brings images of rocks floating around, foundries burning down cause the superheated metal is just floating around. But in reality its not that much different from here on earth. Its actually easier in some ways. See the asteroid isn't like minerals on earth now. They are literally massive blocks of metals. much richer ores than the ones we have here on earth. This makes extraction much much easier.
As for the actual mining process. Well, there's a handful of ways we can do this. ranging from Magnets to strip mining to just plain scraping that shit up. The best way to go about the whole process would be to take up materials for a automated processing facility (an engineering problem, easily overcome), deploy automated gathering robots or have them guided by hand from earth. This probably sounds like it'd be very expensive, but automated systems would actually be much cheaper than sending people up there in rotating shifts.
3. How do you get that stuff back to earth?
Either by producing the necessary fuels in situ and just fly it home, or drop it into the ocean with a specially developed air brake or parachute system. This is probably one of the more difficult issues with the mining process, but the tech is there for this already.
Aside from that, minerals in space would optimally be used to build things in space. The aim of space mining is to set up an infrastructure to allow building things in space. Hotels, ships, habitats and so on. This doesn't mean that minerals won't be sent back to earth, only that the majority will be used to make it cheaper to transport materials around between Space and Earth.
4. What about manpower?
The first round of mining will definitely be automated with minimal human input, guided robots most likely, so thats not much of an issue. however as space begins to develop I can envision massive amounts of jobs, both for scientific work, and labour jobs. Training I envision will be expensive at first, you are teaching people to do things no one has ever done, but as time goes on, the process improves with every iteration and it becomes easier and easier to do.
5. How long till all this is possible?
It's all, every single bit of it, from basic robots moving rocks on an asteroid to massive Island 3 habitats, possible right now, today in Space Year 2010. Why aren't we there yet would be your next question.
6. Well why aren't we there yet?
A number of reasons, prime would be that its not seen as profitable yet. In most peoples eyes Space seems like such an insanely expensive place to go. There's a million and one political reasons and also the fact that very few people really care about space development as a whole these days. The 70s where a big publicity stunt and thats pretty much how we view Space as a whole. Hopefully this will change as asteroid mining becomes more and more desirably with earth's resources slowly running out.
A huge issue is rising launch costs. This issue disappears once you have the infrastructure in Space. But for now its the biggest stumbling block for space development. A lot of people seem to think launch costs will decrease once interest in space development picks up. We can only hope so.
7. What minerals could you get?
Quite a huge number of things actually, ranging from Oxygen, Water, and Hydrogen to Gold, Silver, Iron and Nickel. So long as it doesn't rely on dead animals (like oil) you could probably find it somewhere in space.
The next lot of questions deal with space stations and colonisation. They tie into mining but are primarily about Humans living in Space.
8. Would station be small? Claustrophobic?
Probably not. It depends on what station we're in. Almost all stations we have designs/ideas for are built for human comfort while in space. The psychological aspects of space travel are well known and its important to make sure miners, builders or whoever are comfortable and happy while suspended 300 miles above the earth in the inky blackness of cold space. Stations could range anywhere from a small, house sized Asteroid base to Massive twin 10kM long cylinders.
9. How would you power it? No nuclear stuff in space remember?
Thorium reactors, maybe even Fusion if it exists at the time. I like to only think about things we can build now though, so we'd likely power anything small with solar arrays (Solar power is alot better up there than it is here). Anything bigger and we have to use Thorium reactors paired with Solar. Waste isn't much of an issue in space as firing at the sun is an actual genuine way of dealing with waste up there. Heres an excellent video showing how great Thorium reactors can be. Eventually though, space development should push development of Hydrogen fuel sources, seeing how its very abundant up there.
As an aside, Thorium isn't really a nuclear material in the same way Uranium or Plutonium is. I can see media twisting it to look like such though. One of the future space races greatest allies will be a very well funded PR department.
10. How connected will we be with earth?
Point a dish in the right direction and you can have internet. Yes, you will be able to play xbox live in space. Which leads nicely to the next question
11. What would you do for fun?
Whatever you want! Space stations will all have areas of zero-gee, which I'm sure alot of people will have fun with. Other than that you'll be able to get satellite TV and internet if you like. Being that you live in a space station with a massive abundance of minerals? I'm guessing entertainment will be aplenty to be honest. I once read a paper that said people would build space hot rods and have races around the cylinders and such. Sounds pretty dumb but there's nothing really stopping you.
12. Can it be self sustaining? How?
To begin with, any space endeavour is going to be very reliant on earth. For minerals, fuels, food, all kinds of supplies. But by the time we have O'Neil cylinders any space colony will be completely and utterly self sustaining. Massive solar arrays and endless supplies of hydrogen providing unlimited power to the station, hydroponics and solar reflectors used to grow all the food needed, water from recycled waste and processed asteroids, oxygen from the same place.. Not that import and export wont happen, but it certainly wouldn't be necessary at that point.
13. Would it be safe?
Yes. in short. The station would be built to withstand the micro asteroid impacts that occur frequently in space, with modular systems allowing the station to be sealed instantly if a breakage did occur. massive impacts that could utterly wipe out the station would only occur once every 3000 years, and remember. This is a space station completely designed to mine asteroids. I have faith that future station dwellers will be able to deal with such a problem.
14. Isn't living in space really unhealthy? Lost bone mass an stuff?
Normally yes. If you go live in space without any kind of gravity then you're boned. However. All space stations are built around centripetal force. Thats the force that keeps stuff in a bag when you spin it around. In short it simulates gravity by pushing you to the outside of the station. This defeats any bone mass from living in zero gee.
This actually means you'd be healthier in space. Slightly lower than usual gravity, a regulated atmosphere and genetically optimised foods mean that you'd be able to lift more, run further and live longer that those pathetic Earthers.
15. Governments, Gangs, drugs, economics and social issues
I honestly don't know anything about these issues yet. I'm not a psychologist or an economist so I can only speculate on what would happen on the station in regards to these subjects, and I don't want to pretend to know stuff I don't. Sorry, I've failed you. Hari-kari here I come.
Thats just about all the questions I could find or come up with. Thanks again for everyone who helped out here and if you still have any concerns over this subject or aren't completely sold on the idea yet, usually I'd tell you to throw yourself off a space-train bridge but in case you didn't notice. I'm super passionate about this subject and actually love talking about it, unlike most of the subjects on this blog. I'm really just trying to get it across that space isnt this unattainable, useless goal that so many see it as today, so leave a comment or send me an email with your question and I'll answer it, and I won't even call you a moron in the process.
Some links if you're interested in the subject
Mining the sky. A fantastic book on Asteroid Mining
An economical study of asteroid mining
A nice article about space stations
1. How do you land on a friggin asteroid?
Its easier than you think! in fact the Japanese have already done such a task. That part is actually pretty easy. In space you can go alot faster than you can on earth with alot less power. Most NEOs that we'll be mining only go about 2KM/s. That sounds like a lot but the Shuttle (an outdated model by 1980s standards) goes at about 28,000km/h just chillin in orbit.
2. How do you mine an asteroid without air or gravity?
Again, this sounds really difficult and brings images of rocks floating around, foundries burning down cause the superheated metal is just floating around. But in reality its not that much different from here on earth. Its actually easier in some ways. See the asteroid isn't like minerals on earth now. They are literally massive blocks of metals. much richer ores than the ones we have here on earth. This makes extraction much much easier.
As for the actual mining process. Well, there's a handful of ways we can do this. ranging from Magnets to strip mining to just plain scraping that shit up. The best way to go about the whole process would be to take up materials for a automated processing facility (an engineering problem, easily overcome), deploy automated gathering robots or have them guided by hand from earth. This probably sounds like it'd be very expensive, but automated systems would actually be much cheaper than sending people up there in rotating shifts.
3. How do you get that stuff back to earth?
Either by producing the necessary fuels in situ and just fly it home, or drop it into the ocean with a specially developed air brake or parachute system. This is probably one of the more difficult issues with the mining process, but the tech is there for this already.
Aside from that, minerals in space would optimally be used to build things in space. The aim of space mining is to set up an infrastructure to allow building things in space. Hotels, ships, habitats and so on. This doesn't mean that minerals won't be sent back to earth, only that the majority will be used to make it cheaper to transport materials around between Space and Earth.
4. What about manpower?
The first round of mining will definitely be automated with minimal human input, guided robots most likely, so thats not much of an issue. however as space begins to develop I can envision massive amounts of jobs, both for scientific work, and labour jobs. Training I envision will be expensive at first, you are teaching people to do things no one has ever done, but as time goes on, the process improves with every iteration and it becomes easier and easier to do.
5. How long till all this is possible?
It's all, every single bit of it, from basic robots moving rocks on an asteroid to massive Island 3 habitats, possible right now, today in Space Year 2010. Why aren't we there yet would be your next question.
6. Well why aren't we there yet?
A number of reasons, prime would be that its not seen as profitable yet. In most peoples eyes Space seems like such an insanely expensive place to go. There's a million and one political reasons and also the fact that very few people really care about space development as a whole these days. The 70s where a big publicity stunt and thats pretty much how we view Space as a whole. Hopefully this will change as asteroid mining becomes more and more desirably with earth's resources slowly running out.
A huge issue is rising launch costs. This issue disappears once you have the infrastructure in Space. But for now its the biggest stumbling block for space development. A lot of people seem to think launch costs will decrease once interest in space development picks up. We can only hope so.
7. What minerals could you get?
Quite a huge number of things actually, ranging from Oxygen, Water, and Hydrogen to Gold, Silver, Iron and Nickel. So long as it doesn't rely on dead animals (like oil) you could probably find it somewhere in space.
The next lot of questions deal with space stations and colonisation. They tie into mining but are primarily about Humans living in Space.
8. Would station be small? Claustrophobic?
Probably not. It depends on what station we're in. Almost all stations we have designs/ideas for are built for human comfort while in space. The psychological aspects of space travel are well known and its important to make sure miners, builders or whoever are comfortable and happy while suspended 300 miles above the earth in the inky blackness of cold space. Stations could range anywhere from a small, house sized Asteroid base to Massive twin 10kM long cylinders.
9. How would you power it? No nuclear stuff in space remember?
Thorium reactors, maybe even Fusion if it exists at the time. I like to only think about things we can build now though, so we'd likely power anything small with solar arrays (Solar power is alot better up there than it is here). Anything bigger and we have to use Thorium reactors paired with Solar. Waste isn't much of an issue in space as firing at the sun is an actual genuine way of dealing with waste up there. Heres an excellent video showing how great Thorium reactors can be. Eventually though, space development should push development of Hydrogen fuel sources, seeing how its very abundant up there.
As an aside, Thorium isn't really a nuclear material in the same way Uranium or Plutonium is. I can see media twisting it to look like such though. One of the future space races greatest allies will be a very well funded PR department.
10. How connected will we be with earth?
Point a dish in the right direction and you can have internet. Yes, you will be able to play xbox live in space. Which leads nicely to the next question
11. What would you do for fun?
Whatever you want! Space stations will all have areas of zero-gee, which I'm sure alot of people will have fun with. Other than that you'll be able to get satellite TV and internet if you like. Being that you live in a space station with a massive abundance of minerals? I'm guessing entertainment will be aplenty to be honest. I once read a paper that said people would build space hot rods and have races around the cylinders and such. Sounds pretty dumb but there's nothing really stopping you.
12. Can it be self sustaining? How?
To begin with, any space endeavour is going to be very reliant on earth. For minerals, fuels, food, all kinds of supplies. But by the time we have O'Neil cylinders any space colony will be completely and utterly self sustaining. Massive solar arrays and endless supplies of hydrogen providing unlimited power to the station, hydroponics and solar reflectors used to grow all the food needed, water from recycled waste and processed asteroids, oxygen from the same place.. Not that import and export wont happen, but it certainly wouldn't be necessary at that point.
13. Would it be safe?
Yes. in short. The station would be built to withstand the micro asteroid impacts that occur frequently in space, with modular systems allowing the station to be sealed instantly if a breakage did occur. massive impacts that could utterly wipe out the station would only occur once every 3000 years, and remember. This is a space station completely designed to mine asteroids. I have faith that future station dwellers will be able to deal with such a problem.
14. Isn't living in space really unhealthy? Lost bone mass an stuff?
Normally yes. If you go live in space without any kind of gravity then you're boned. However. All space stations are built around centripetal force. Thats the force that keeps stuff in a bag when you spin it around. In short it simulates gravity by pushing you to the outside of the station. This defeats any bone mass from living in zero gee.
This actually means you'd be healthier in space. Slightly lower than usual gravity, a regulated atmosphere and genetically optimised foods mean that you'd be able to lift more, run further and live longer that those pathetic Earthers.
15. Governments, Gangs, drugs, economics and social issues
I honestly don't know anything about these issues yet. I'm not a psychologist or an economist so I can only speculate on what would happen on the station in regards to these subjects, and I don't want to pretend to know stuff I don't. Sorry, I've failed you. Hari-kari here I come.
Thats just about all the questions I could find or come up with. Thanks again for everyone who helped out here and if you still have any concerns over this subject or aren't completely sold on the idea yet, usually I'd tell you to throw yourself off a space-train bridge but in case you didn't notice. I'm super passionate about this subject and actually love talking about it, unlike most of the subjects on this blog. I'm really just trying to get it across that space isnt this unattainable, useless goal that so many see it as today, so leave a comment or send me an email with your question and I'll answer it, and I won't even call you a moron in the process.
Some links if you're interested in the subject
Mining the sky. A fantastic book on Asteroid Mining
An economical study of asteroid mining
A nice article about space stations
Book 10 - Flim Flam By James Randi
A short book detailing many examples of psychics, dowsers, mediums and countless others who claim to hold amazing abilities. And their intense failures.
Randi is known world wide as The Skeptic. Once a magician, he has turned his knowledge of misdirection and trickery to uncovering those who use such talents not for entertainment, but to claim mystical abilities. The book details some of Randi's bigger encounters, exposes some of the more prolific technquies used by these people and demonstrates Randis famous cash prize. Its a very interesting read at times.
The issues I had with it were twofold, the first isnt Randi's fault and I dont hold it against the book. The book was written a while ago. This comes through alot in the writing obviously and obviously all the targets he examines in the book are dated. This didnt detract from the book really, and was more just me being a dong.
Second though, Randi is not a writer. Some parts of the book were difficult to grasp at first scan and more than once it was hard to make out the meanings of his awkward sentences. This is still a minor issue, it doesn't come up much.
The exploration of the media's attitude toward mystics was pretty interesting, and all the more relivent these days with the New Age focus on things, and the media is still going on about mystics and Ghosts and so on.
A good read if you're interested in the subject, though I'd suggest seeking out a more recent book.
Randi is known world wide as The Skeptic. Once a magician, he has turned his knowledge of misdirection and trickery to uncovering those who use such talents not for entertainment, but to claim mystical abilities. The book details some of Randi's bigger encounters, exposes some of the more prolific technquies used by these people and demonstrates Randis famous cash prize. Its a very interesting read at times.
The issues I had with it were twofold, the first isnt Randi's fault and I dont hold it against the book. The book was written a while ago. This comes through alot in the writing obviously and obviously all the targets he examines in the book are dated. This didnt detract from the book really, and was more just me being a dong.
Second though, Randi is not a writer. Some parts of the book were difficult to grasp at first scan and more than once it was hard to make out the meanings of his awkward sentences. This is still a minor issue, it doesn't come up much.
The exploration of the media's attitude toward mystics was pretty interesting, and all the more relivent these days with the New Age focus on things, and the media is still going on about mystics and Ghosts and so on.
A good read if you're interested in the subject, though I'd suggest seeking out a more recent book.
Facebook is bad for you
A good few years ago some guy invented a website called The Facebook. Originally only used by Harvard students as an alternative, online version of the old "face books" handed out by universities to help students get to know one another, it wasn't long before it was expanded to all universities. Pretty soon that expanded to just Everyone Ever. About 500 Million people are now on Facebook. What originally started as Facemash, a Hot or Not clone using hacked and stolen dorm ID pictures of Harvard students has become one of the most used websites on the planet. Predictably, this pisses me off.
You've all heard the privacy problems, heard about workers getting fired for having the wrong groups or saying some stupid things or posting dumb pictures, heard the stories about people losing jobs or even being straight out actually killed cause of Facebook. I'll save you the age old arguments there. I trust all of you are smart enough to not end up dead cause you left your address and working hours on Facebook along with a detailed description of the best and worst ways to break in.
The reason I really dislike Facebook is manifold, its censorship of critical subjects, lack of customer support and H-h-hilarious views on your right to not be sold like a Thai bride being just some of the many many issues that the site has. They seem like a decent place to start;
Censorship. That can't be right? Surely Facebook allows people to spread messages quicker and get news and ideas out into the open, why, just look at how many people join those petition and all the good they do (none). Well you're wrong, again, damn why do you even bother. you big stupid ape. In February 2010 Facebook deleted every group that had anything to do with the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong. No reason was given The groups were later restored and Facebook said it was "due to opposing members flagging the groups". In May they deleted the group for a radio station that posted some critical comments about Facebook and linked to an article about why Leo Laporte deleted his account. Small fries maybe, but there were no repercussions for this censorship, just as they wont be for any future ones. I realise Facebook is technically a private service and are allowed to do whatever they please, but deleting accounts cause they said mean things sounds almost so childish I can hardly believe it.
These articles highlight one fact that you should always remember. Facebook owns your ass, they own everything you post and everything you say. they own your address, email, real name and phone number. The can, do and will sell all of this to whoever has enough cash, they are in many ways a bigass mailing list. Course, what other mailing list lets you send your friends pokes and show everyone the pics of you getting mad wasted? As if that wasn't bad enough, Facebook boasts Paypal as a major shareholder. You may know of Paypal as the big online NotBank famous for screwing everyone and selling everyone's details all the god damn time. If you have no idea why an online NotBank having access to every bit of info about your life is a bad idea well I guess you're probably a happier person than me.
Facebook's customer service is non-existent. I can't really describe it in any other terms while maintaining my impeccable journalistic integrity. Much of its reporting facilities are automated and scripted. For example, imagine you stumble upon a profile that has nudity in the profile picture. You hit the report button on the page and file a complaint for nudity. What we'd like to imagine is that one of the administrators of the website has a look and decided what the best course of action is. Unfortunately that isn't always the case. There have been many many cases of people ebing banned for posting reports. This ban is automatic. This is just one of the nigh infinite ways you can be banned from Facebook.
Facebook's legal history is more that a bit murky too. There have been a handful of times when the website has been sued by others for intellectual copyright theft. I have yet to find strong evidence either way on this subject, but Facebook has never been cleared by law, only by out of court settlements, of which I am always weary of. I'm not saying here that all or any of those cases are true, but they warrant notice.
As one final note. Facebook has a very long history of being dishonest with its terms of service agreement. This is basically a contract you sign by using the service. A while ago there was a brouhaha about the terms when it was found that Facebook has the right to hold all of your stuff, forever, and do whatever they like with them. This started a large domino effect leading to the new "democratic" system they are implementing. There is, unsurprisingly, problems with that as well.
I'm not saying "Do Not Use Facebook". Though it may look that way cause I've just been a cock this whole article. All I'm asking is to think about what services you use. Facebook has many benefits, millions of people connect each day in ways that would be impossible otherwise. Just two weeks ago I helped my Granddad find some old guy he knew 60 years ago. Turned out the guy was dead but thats hardly the point. On the other hand (the massive, overused hand that we've been on this whole article) you only need look for a second before finding pages of complaints and disgruntled users. The question, I suppose, is "Is it worth it?" And the answer is No stop using that shitty site.
-Nems
You've all heard the privacy problems, heard about workers getting fired for having the wrong groups or saying some stupid things or posting dumb pictures, heard the stories about people losing jobs or even being straight out actually killed cause of Facebook. I'll save you the age old arguments there. I trust all of you are smart enough to not end up dead cause you left your address and working hours on Facebook along with a detailed description of the best and worst ways to break in.
The reason I really dislike Facebook is manifold, its censorship of critical subjects, lack of customer support and H-h-hilarious views on your right to not be sold like a Thai bride being just some of the many many issues that the site has. They seem like a decent place to start;
Censorship. That can't be right? Surely Facebook allows people to spread messages quicker and get news and ideas out into the open, why, just look at how many people join those petition and all the good they do (none). Well you're wrong, again, damn why do you even bother. you big stupid ape. In February 2010 Facebook deleted every group that had anything to do with the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong. No reason was given The groups were later restored and Facebook said it was "due to opposing members flagging the groups". In May they deleted the group for a radio station that posted some critical comments about Facebook and linked to an article about why Leo Laporte deleted his account. Small fries maybe, but there were no repercussions for this censorship, just as they wont be for any future ones. I realise Facebook is technically a private service and are allowed to do whatever they please, but deleting accounts cause they said mean things sounds almost so childish I can hardly believe it.
These articles highlight one fact that you should always remember. Facebook owns your ass, they own everything you post and everything you say. they own your address, email, real name and phone number. The can, do and will sell all of this to whoever has enough cash, they are in many ways a bigass mailing list. Course, what other mailing list lets you send your friends pokes and show everyone the pics of you getting mad wasted? As if that wasn't bad enough, Facebook boasts Paypal as a major shareholder. You may know of Paypal as the big online NotBank famous for screwing everyone and selling everyone's details all the god damn time. If you have no idea why an online NotBank having access to every bit of info about your life is a bad idea well I guess you're probably a happier person than me.
Facebook's customer service is non-existent. I can't really describe it in any other terms while maintaining my impeccable journalistic integrity. Much of its reporting facilities are automated and scripted. For example, imagine you stumble upon a profile that has nudity in the profile picture. You hit the report button on the page and file a complaint for nudity. What we'd like to imagine is that one of the administrators of the website has a look and decided what the best course of action is. Unfortunately that isn't always the case. There have been many many cases of people ebing banned for posting reports. This ban is automatic. This is just one of the nigh infinite ways you can be banned from Facebook.
Facebook's legal history is more that a bit murky too. There have been a handful of times when the website has been sued by others for intellectual copyright theft. I have yet to find strong evidence either way on this subject, but Facebook has never been cleared by law, only by out of court settlements, of which I am always weary of. I'm not saying here that all or any of those cases are true, but they warrant notice.
As one final note. Facebook has a very long history of being dishonest with its terms of service agreement. This is basically a contract you sign by using the service. A while ago there was a brouhaha about the terms when it was found that Facebook has the right to hold all of your stuff, forever, and do whatever they like with them. This started a large domino effect leading to the new "democratic" system they are implementing. There is, unsurprisingly, problems with that as well.
I'm not saying "Do Not Use Facebook". Though it may look that way cause I've just been a cock this whole article. All I'm asking is to think about what services you use. Facebook has many benefits, millions of people connect each day in ways that would be impossible otherwise. Just two weeks ago I helped my Granddad find some old guy he knew 60 years ago. Turned out the guy was dead but thats hardly the point. On the other hand (the massive, overused hand that we've been on this whole article) you only need look for a second before finding pages of complaints and disgruntled users. The question, I suppose, is "Is it worth it?" And the answer is No stop using that shitty site.
-Nems
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