I know these posts where someone shows up, tosses out a URL to a news article, and then expects good discussion often don't go anywhere. But, uh, read this and I think you'll see that its becoming more and more clear that ballistic missile defence is the greatest single waste of money in the history of human civilization. Now it looks like MIT brass have substantial reason to believe that the good ol' military industrial complex is getting aeronautical engineers to falsify results. Joy.
Anyway, even if BMD worked as proposed, it would completely destabilize international security and likely increase the odds of a warhead going off inside the US. Now it looks like that the science is being fudged, Patriot-missile-style, and the American taxpayer is being taken for the biggest ride of their lives. (I mean, if you're really ready to drop that kind of money, why not literally buy everyt bloody thing in North Korea outright.)
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
I notice the lack of evidence...
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
quote:After months of demanding an inquiry into the affair, Ed Crawley, the chairman of MIT?s aeronautics and astronautics department, has reversed previous refusals and recommended an investigation.
The nation's most prestigious technical university decides to audit itself and wades into a minefield ready to air out official military secrets they could get in deep shit over. At stake is its reputation for academic integrity and the possibility of betraying its most lucrative sponsor. Yeah. Clearly just a wild goose chase.
Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :
MIT seriously sux0rs. (this is unrelated to the article, I just wanted to mention it)
Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :
An afternoon I spent there was absolutely terrifying.
Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :
There was a visiting professor from MIT teaching a class here at WPI:
Professor: Y'know, at MIT, they have these chalkboards that slide up and down... Student: Sorry we're not "MIT".
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
quote:Originally posted by Aethelwer: Y'know, at MIT, they have these chalkboards that slide up and down...
Truly the leading edge of technology. What's next, the butter churn?
Posted by Daryus Aden (Member # 12) on :
The wheel, I think.
All that aside, it makes sense to invest billions into some new technology. Will give the economy a kick. Who cares if it works or not. (And the south will rise again, for those of you who were wondering).
Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :
I'd bet the money already invested has produced some nifty spinof technology.
[Edit:] I'd win. from pdma.org:
quote:What does the Star Wars missile-defense system have to do with the mail that gets delivered to your home and office? The answer lies in an electron beam technology that can zap bacteria like anthrax. The Sure Beam subsidiary of San Diego-based Titan Corp recently announced a $40 million contract with the U.S. Postal Service to deliver machines capable of irradiating the mail. The technology was originally developed for the national defense mission but is now most notable for killing food-borne bugs and sterilizing medical equipment
and it's also being used by the Canadians in their "Bullwinkle Defense System"
quote:Dublin-based PolyStor Corp., started in 1993 by a former lab employee, licensed lab technology originally intended for the Reagan-era Strategic Defense Initiative, the missile defense program better known as Star Wars. PolyStor spinoff company PowerStor put the technology into its carbon aerogel supercapacitors, which are used in wireless phones and other devices to extend battery life and allow for use of smaller batteries.
quote:The original ChromaVision software algorithms were a spinoff of Star Wars technology, that were used to find warheads in radar images using color space transformations. The current generation of software is a rare-event technology that uses color transformation to identify immunostained cells, such as metastatic cancer cells or HIV-infected cells in patient specimens or to quantitate immunostained cellular targets such as HER2/neu and the estrogen receptor.
Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
quote: it's also being used by the Canadians in their "Bullwinkle Defense System"
1) What is a Bullwinkle?
2) Why is it necessary to defend them?
Posted by E. Cartman (Member # 256) on :
"I'd bet the money already invested has produced some nifty spinof technology."
Technology which is boosting that staggeringly vibrant economy of yours as we speak. And I'm sure the thirty million or so homeless and those living below the poverty threshold are equally happy tax money is being so well spent.
"Who cares if it works or not."
Rednecks. A certain librarian who's lost it and suffers from delusions of grandeur. Politicians with agendas to keep and elections to win. At least one christian who has a nasty habit of screaming NO PROOF!!! while plugging his fingers so far into his ears he's completely impervious to evidence to the contrary that's shouted right back at him. Scientists hoping they won't be discredited for falsifying data. Industries tasked with producing BMD components.
Oh, and possibly tax payers too.
Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :
What is a Bullwinkle?
A particularly large moose from Minnesota.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
You were right, Tom.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
quote: A certain librarian who's lost it and suffers from delusions of grandeur.
*spits Earl Grey tea all over keyboard*
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
I'm not surprised. It tastes horrible.
Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :
quote:Technology which is boosting that staggeringly vibrant economy of yours as we speak. And I'm sure the thirty million or so homeless and those living below the poverty threshold are equally happy tax money is being so well spent.
See the parrot. The parrot squawks. Squawk, parrot, squawk.
30 million my Aunt Ruth -- the only other person I know stupid enough to believe that, or that the situation is any different than it was 4 years ago, when former pres. Lovebubba and former pres. Smiley gave Kim free nuke help and a hummer.
This parrot is no more! It has ceased to be! This is an ex-parrot!!
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
So, out of the 50 people I have contact with on a daily basis 5 of them are homeless??? 10% of the US.... Under the poverty line, mayhap, but not homeless....
Of course the extremist do-gooders will place the numbers in their proper perspective for you....
Did this guy get fired from, or not accept to, the project, enough to throw dirt at it???
I would hate to see the non-disclosure contract that the people involved with the project may have signed....
What is the poverty level anyway??? I think that I may be under it, having made far less than $12,000.00 this past year, but I am still comfortable and reasonably happy with my present condition....
Posted by Kosh (Member # 167) on :