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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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rshow55 - 08:39am Jan 4, 2003 EST (# 7309 of 7314)
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.

I'm very hopeful - but I'm also concerned that people are moving a little to fast, and are more scared than they need to be, or less, in different spots. From the isolated position I'm in, I can't even guess the spots.

If people take their time - this could be beautiful. Or it could be an abortion - ugliest damn thing anybody ever saw. I'm doing some things where it takes a team, and my wife is helping. It seems to me that we're doing beautifully. But we're both scared - we've had our problems and disagreements - and the job I'm having to do is complicated, and so is hers. We've blown up before on these things.

Yesterday, my father called, and we had a good talk. Mom didn't want to be on the phone, or felt bad, or both (I can't tell) - but it was a good talk. I care a lot about sending Christmas presents, but didn't get to it this year - and though it is late - I'd like to make a gesture - get some copies of some disks out, and short notes to each of the family.

rshow55 - 08:39am Jan 4, 2003 EST (# 7310 of 7314)
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.

I've got some technical problems, that I have to worry about. Some of them are touchy.

I'm being careful, and other people around me are, too, and even if some of the things my wife and I do today abort, we'll learn from them, and it may work out well. I've also got three running computers in the room, and I'm having to set up the new one, which is beautiful, but scares me. The most beautiful thing about it, from my point of view, scares me especially. It has no flicker. The flicker on the on I've got is useful to me. I've grown used to it. Most of the time, I don't want to see the flicker - not even a little - if I do, I'm too sensitive, and things may be unstable at some level where I have to care. When I see the flicker - usually - it is time to knock off. Take a nap. Knock off for the night. If I have to continue, have a beer. If I've got to generate an oscillatory instability at a level where I absolutely have to work, and have to get the frequency into the right range, I drink the beer slowly - though usually I can be digital about it. For fine calibrations, I sip bourbon.

Usually, the right answer is to get away, when I see the flicker. But sometimes, to work in a trustworthy way, I have to be damn sure that I'm seeing the flicker clearly.

On days where I have to mix it up, I have to be careful - and Geri has to help me, for me to feel safe. Today will be like that.

rshow55 - 08:40am Jan 4, 2003 EST (# 7311 of 7314)
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.

Right now a lot of things are going very well - so well that I'm really happy. There's music going on in my head, and I'm trying to be careful about the choice of music. One piece is Stevie Wonder's Someday at Christmas , another is Emmylou Harris' edition of Two More Bottles of Wine and the third is Bach's Sonata for Flute Alone.

I'm getting so I hear them well, and can switch them - and use them as templates, or for timing - but things could fall apart.

I think a lot of things are going hopefully - but everybody has plenty of time - more time than they think they have, very often, and ought to take plenty of it. And abort sequences whenever they get the least bit scared.

They probably have a good reason.

Sometbing I'm hoping to do is explain, in ways that the Koreans, Japanese, Americans, and Chinese can all understand, about what happened around the time when Truman sacked MacArthur. It was clinically beautiful in some ways, but an abortion in others - and there are some no fault things that need to be sorted out. And some things where there is plenty of fault. Focused and specific. Sometimes so much of it that you have to think statistically.

Pardon me for moving slowly. I feel I have to take my time. Some things I'm working on, it seems to me, could work out.

I think Bush, and the N. Koreans, are both working hard, and doing very well in spots - beautifully - but should be careful, and take their time.

Pardon me for moving slowly.

Again, there are some suggestions I made before - and repeated yesterday, that might be worth another look. Not that I know what right answers may be, in the detailed context. But another look - thinking in terms of order, symmetry, and harmony.

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