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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

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cantabb - 06:06pm Nov 4, 2003 EST (# 16532 of 16548)

jorian319 - 05:40pm Nov 4, 2003 EST (# 16530 of 16531)

That's a great point, cantabb - written eloquence begins and ends with the writer's precise idea of the effect he's trying to have upon the reader.

Thanks.

I think Rshow's been 'fishing' without a net or a hook. The ideas in a "ton of half-baked ideas" are still half-baked -- same applies to 'ten' tons of them (even if unloaded on the forum a few dozen times)!

bluestar23 - 06:13pm Nov 4, 2003 EST (# 16533 of 16548)

Well, Showalter's typing on "borrowed time" from now on....his "audience " will disappear....

cantabb - 06:16pm Nov 4, 2003 EST (# 16534 of 16548)

'twisting slowly in the wind.....' ?

[We've not heard a bleat or anything from the barnyard -- yet. I know it's coming ]

cantabb - 06:17pm Nov 4, 2003 EST (# 16535 of 16548)

You know he was "hoping for" it...

rshow55 - 07:42pm Nov 4, 2003 EST (# 16536 of 16548)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

re: http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@13.4dyabSOMVfD.0@.f28e622/18245 - Jorian comments that I'm fishing - and it is a fact that I'm a little taken aback - I was expecting this board to be archived this morning - had my mind adjusted to that. Found that a pleasant prospect. A clean way for me to move on .

But I did hope that the basic point of http://www.mrshowalter.net/FrequencyOfVeryCommonWords.htm would interst some people - maybe Jorian most of all.

The standard of "new, surprising and different" is a vital standard - a news standard. For some other purposes - and some of the most important purposes - the question "what happens most frequently?" is an important question.

Jorian uses words superbly - but all the same - the 200 most common words - probably less than .2% of the words he knows and uses and judges well - are still more than half his word count.

( I'm guessing - but with a good basis - they are more than half of practically every good writer's word count. )

Some common things are very important - and when problems go wrong with monotonous regularity - even for "obvious" reasons - getting improved understandings can be worth the trouble.

http://www.mrshowalter.net/FrequencyOfVeryCommonWords.htm

By the way, the facts of http://www.mrshowalter.net/FrequencyOfVeryCommonWords.htm were the second thing I was taught in crypto training. Here was the first - and a hard lesson, forcefully emphasized.

Unvaried stimulus, regardless of amplitude, is equivalent to NO stimulus.

The most "obvious" things are hard to see. That's a good reason to point them out.

I'm not sure I'm posting again tonight. When I cited the data in http://www.mrshowalter.net/FrequencyOfVeryCommonWords.htm - and the basic lesson about complexity and fallibility in Nemo's story http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_md8000s/md8115.htm - I was hoping to refer to points that Jorian could reasonably learn.

Jorian has a low opinion of platitudes - but when there are basic facts and relations that should be platitudes - because they are of very wide application - yet those fact and relations are not widely known - it can be useful to work those things out.

How many people know how high the frequency of "the most common things" is - not just in language - but in most things people do?

http://www.mrshowalter.net/FrequencyOfVeryCommonWords.htm

More should. Maybe from the first grade on.

bluestar23 - 07:57pm Nov 4, 2003 EST (# 16537 of 16548)

Well, you're still babbling Showalter, but NO ONE is listening.....the Forum is over....you're all ALONE again....

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