Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/mac/TEXT_ZIP/spacedig/V16_5/V16NO580.ZIP/V16NO580

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Date: Mon, 17 May 93 05:13:42
From: Space Digest maintainer <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Digest V16 #580
To: Space Digest Readers
Precedence: bulk


Space Digest                Mon, 17 May 93       Volume 16 : Issue 580

Today's Topics:
                        Is this book any good?
                   Life on Earth (or elsewhere :-)
                            Life on Mars.
                        Space based marketing
                 Space Marketing -- Boycott (3 msgs)
             Space Marketing PLEASE EDIT NEWSGROUPS LINES
            Space Marketing would be wonderfull. (9 msgs)
                     Who is Henry Spencer anyway?

    Welcome to the Space Digest!!  Please send your messages to
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    (THENET), or [e-mail] (Internet).
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 17 May 1993 00:19:34 GMT
From: Patrick Brewer <[e-mail]>
Subject: Is this book any good?
Newsgroups: sci.space

    I recently saw a book by the title "The Big Bang" by Silk (?).
I was wondering if I could get a quick review of "Is it worth my $14.95?"
The reason I found it interesting out of the others in the store, was it
had a pretty good list of equations in the back.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Patrick W. Brewer           CATT Alumni
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 17 May 93 9:10:46 EET
From: [e-mail] (F.Baube[tm])
Subject: Life on Earth (or elsewhere :-)

From: Chris Colby <[e-mail]>
> Subject: Life on Earth (or elsewhere :-)
> Newsgroups: sci.space,talk.origins
>
> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (James Davis Nicoll) writes:
> >In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Tom) writes:
>
> > What evidence is there that there is a trend towards greater
> > species diversity over time? What I see going on right now is a major
> > extinction event, and  it isn't clear to me that the diversity 10K years
> > ago was necessarily greater than 600 million years ago.
>
> Well, there are several bursts in species diversity I can think of.
[..]
> See Cowen's book "History of Life" for a not-too-technical
> run-down on, well, like the title sez, the history of life.
> Or see, Wilson's "Diversity of Life" for a view centered more
> on current ecology -- this is (IMHO) the best popular biology
> book of (what the hell, I'll say it) all time.

I wonder if these books take into account the Burgess shale.
Check out "Wonderful Life".  Cutting to the chase: life began
with mind-boggling diversity (at least on *this* planet :-) ;
since the early days, the variety of body plans has *drastic-
ally* decreased, while the number of species has proliferated,
but differing in relatively trivial ways.

There was also a discussion here of bilateral symmetry --
the Burgess shale shows there this was NOT the only body plan
to have been tried on Earth.  Some real science-fiction-type
critters were found in the shale.  It's pretty amazing stuff.

--
* Fred Baube (tm)         * "Government had broken down. I found the
* [e-mail]       * experience invigorating." -- Maurice Grimaud,
* #include <disclaimer.h> * Paris prefect of police in May 1968

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 17 May 1993 00:41:56 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Life on Mars.
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.bio

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
(Doug Mohney)

calls the "foreign source" theory of the origins of life:

>One of the bigger cop-outs I've seen.

I agree that the "foreign source" is not a satisfactory explanation of
the origin of life because of its circularity.  Stanley Friesen pointed out
Fred Hoyle's infinitely old universe model as one way to circumvent the
entire problem!

   However, from a biochemist's point of view the foreign source idea is
in a subtle way not a cop-out when you treat it as a statement about the
*diversity* of lifeforms in our astronomical vicinity.  One of the reasons
for the sterilization of Mars probes is because if there is life on Mars
we want very badly to know if it is *similar* to earth life.  If we *were*
to find Martian life (ruling out contamination) and we found it to be, say,
titanium-based instead of carbon-based, it would automatically extend our
ideas about what kind of biochemistry is possible, of course.  The tricky
result would be if for example we found Martian life to be carbon-based,
but with all D-amino acids.  In that case we are down to weighing
probabilities; either:
 1)  amino acids, other biomolecules arose independently by chance on both
planets and the L/D reversal was a random decision, or
 2)  the life on the neighbouring planets arose from a single ancestral
source and diverged in "prebiotic evolution"


Case 1) suggests strongly that (since Mars and Earth have different geology,
atmosphere, etc.) there is something inherently special about the carbon-
based amino acid/DNA/etc biochemical setup that we've got --- is it the
*only* possible setup giving rise to stable life?

Case 2) implies interplanetary migration is a feasible phenomenon, but leaves
unanswered the question about feasibility of other chemical bases of life
(since we still only have one sample system).

Ed Young
([e-mail])

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 17 May 1993 05:55:11 GMT
From: Josh Hopkins <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space based marketing
Newsgroups: sci.space

I have a number of thoughts on space based advertising, which since they are
not particularly connected to any of the current threads are going to be listed
here together, without refering to previous articles. If you'd like to
follow up, please do, but stick to sci.space - don't annoy the folks in other
groups.


    I have serious doubts about "orbital billboards" being effective
    advertising.  There are two factors involved.  The first is cost, the second
    is the target audience.  Lets start with some real numbers.  Advertising
    slots for the last episode of "Cheers" are going for $650,000 per 30 seconds
    if I recall correctly.  The expected audience is 100 million people.  The
    first Consetoga rocket will bear an ad for Arnold Icantspellhislastname's
    latest action movie.  For a comparable cost, we need to assume either very
    low weight of a satellite or very low launch costs.  Now we can also assume
    a larger cost.  Big movie promotions can cost tens of millions easily.  I
    believe the largest advertising budget on the planet is $2 billion from a
    large conglomerate which shall remain nameless.  But keep in mind that that
    is spend over the period of a year for many different products in many
    different ways aimed at many different markets.

    Now the appeal of a TV ad is obvious.  You know the audience is watching    (or was a second ago).  You can clearly and consisely describe your product
    and its cost, and you can show high-res, high quality pictures either of it
    or of barely dressed young women.  The appeal of the side of a rocket seems
    to be based largely on the novelty.  While few people actually watch a
    launch in person, the first COMET launch could be carried live on TV in
    some markets.  Paramount can also place video of the vehicle in their other
    ads.  But most importantly, since this is new, it has caught the attention
    of the media, from Space News to the Hollywood "news" shows.  However, none
    of this free publicity or novelty value will exist the tenth time someone
    does this.   Therefore, I suspect that the value of such advertising will
    drop.

    What's the audience size for a large orbiting billboard?  I haven't a
    clue.  The first time, as we have seen, there will be lots of free
    publicity and lots of people will go out of their way to see it. The
    audience size could easily surpass "Cheers" - but not by much more than an
    order of magnitude.  The tenth time someone launches an orbital
    billboard it will only be reported in the trade press and virtually nobody
    will make an effort to look for it.  The permanent audience will be small,
    at least by the standards of expensive advertising.  The quality of an
    orbiting billboard will be low as well.  The maximum apparent size of a 1
    mile square in orbit is about .6 degrees.  That's a little over one hundred
    pixels on a side.  Unless the hugely expensive step of adding lighting is
    assumed, our billboard will have a single image and be visible only for a
    short period of time at any given location on any given day.  In short,
    it's not a great way to advertise.  Toss in the fact that the public seems
    openly hostile and I think we can agree that there will not be widespread
    use of these things in the near term.

    We also need to take into account that the light pollution is a result of
    the object's existence, not its advertising nature per se.  I think the
    future we all hope for includes mile long space habitats or power satellites    or things we can't imagine.  The issue of light pollution is not going to
    go away by banning or boycotting advertsing.

    I'm not trying to promote or discourage the idea.  But I do think we need
    to have a rational assessment of both the costs and the benefits (everything
    has some of each).  So far we haven't been doing that.


--
Josh Hopkins                                          [e-mail]
            "Find a way or make one."
                 -attributed to Hannibal

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 17 May 93 01:46:11 GMT
From: "gozdz,antoni s" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Marketing -- Boycott
Newsgroups: sci.environment,misc.consumers,misc.invest,sci.astro,talk.environment,talk.politics.space,sci.space,rec.backcountry,misc.rural,misc.headlines,k12.chat.teacher

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Dan Herrin) writes:
>
>[Space ad proposed]
>
>This is undoubtedly the sickest thing to come down the marketing pipe
>in years, and the best reason for resurrecting the "Star Wars" killer
>satellite system.
>
>Dan
>

Why don't you activist guys cut misc.invest out of this thread?
They didn't offer any shares for sale yet...

Tony
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 17 May 1993 03:27:43 GMT
From: Dan Gaubatz <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Marketing -- Boycott
Newsgroups: sci.environment,misc.consumers,misc.invest,sci.astro,talk.environment,talk.politics.space,sci.space,rec.backcountry,misc.rural,misc.headlines,k12.chat.teacher

For some reasons we humans think that it is our place to control
everything.  I doubt that space advertising is any worse than any other
kind advertising, but it will be a lot harder to escape, and is probably
the most blatant example yet of our disregard for the fact that we are
not in fact creaters of the universe.  Annoying little species, aren't we?


**********
Dan Gaubatz ([e-mail])
Itty Bitty Programmer Guy
The Geometry Forum
Swarthmore College

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 17 May 1993 05:12:03 GMT
From: Frank Crary <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Marketing -- Boycott
Newsgroups: sci.environment,misc.consumers,misc.invest,sci.astro,talk.environment,talk.politics.space,sci.space,rec.backcountry,misc.rural,misc.headlines,k12.chat.teacher

In article <[e-mail]> Dan Gaubatz <[e-mail]> writes:
>For some reasons we humans think that it is our place to control
>everything.  I doubt that space advertising is any worse than any other
>kind advertising, but it will be a lot harder to escape, and is probably
>the most blatant example yet of our disregard for the fact that we are
>not in fact creaters of the universe.  Annoying little species, aren't we?

I wounder if you feel the same way about beavers, trap-door spiders,
or any other species that habitually modifies its environment to
suit its needs. The only real distinction is how good the particular
species happens to be...

                                                   Frank Crary
                                                   CU Boulder

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 16 May 93 22:26:25 EDT(-0400)
From: Edward Reid <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Marketing PLEASE EDIT NEWSGROUPS LINES
Newsgroups: sci.environment,misc.consumers,misc.invest,sci.astro,talk.environment,talk.politics.space,sci.space,rec.backcountry,misc.rural,misc.headlines,k12.chat.teacher

This discussion does not need to be carried on ELEVEN newsgroups.  Please
edit the newsgroups list when you follow up.

--
Edward Reid  Greensboro FL   [e-mail]  or  nosc!blkhole!ed
  (looking for programming contracts, especially Unisys A-Series)

------------------------------

Date: 16 MAY 93 16:37:42 CST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Marketing would be wonderfull.
Newsgroups: sci.environment,misc.consumers,misc.invest,sci.astro,talk.environment,talk.politics.space,sci.space,rec.backcountry,misc.rural,misc.headlines,k12.chat.teacher

I've got to ask... what does this have to do with education?
 __      __   _
|__||   |__||/ | an apple][e         [e-mail]
|  ||__ |  ||  | (}{)interface...    [e-mail]
---------------------------------------------------------------
        And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.
---------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: 16 MAY 93 16:43:26 CST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Marketing would be wonderfull.
Newsgroups: sci.environment,misc.consumers,misc.invest,sci.astro,talk.environment,talk.politics.space,sci.space,rec.backcountry,misc.rural,misc.headlines,k12.chat.teacher

Phil, your point is well taken.  It is still a sad idea.
 __      __   _
|__||   |__||/ | an apple][e         [e-mail]
|  ||__ |  ||  | (}{)interface...    [e-mail]
---------------------------------------------------------------
        And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.
---------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 17 May 1993 02:02:02 GMT
From: "Phil G. Fraering" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Marketing would be wonderfull.
Newsgroups: sci.environment,misc.consumers,misc.invest,sci.astro,talk.environment,talk.politics.space,sci.space,rec.backcountry,misc.rural,misc.headlines,k12.chat.teacher

[e-mail] writes:

>Phil, your point is well taken.  It is still a sad idea.

I'm worried by the concern about it though, for a number of reasons
that have nothing to do with Space Advertising (which for a number of
reasons is probably doomed to fail on financial grounds).

(And I've been reading and (and writing) this thread since way
back when it was only on sci.space).

For starters, I don't think the piece of light-pollution apparatus
would be as bright as the full moon. _That_ seems to me to be a bit
of propaganda on the part of opponents, or wishful thinking on the
part of proponents.

Second, this charge of ruining the night sky permanently has been
levelled against other projects, that either 1) don't increace light
pollution significantly, or 2) increace light pollution only over the
target area.

You may or may not recognize #1 as being Solar Power Sattelites.
I think it was Josh Hopkins who actually did the math, showing that
SPS's weren't that bright after all, ending some two months of frenzied
opposition on the part of dark-sky activists and various other types.

#2 is mainly projects like the orbiting mirror the CIS tested
recently.  While slightly more worrisome, I'd like to point out that
any significant scattering of light outside the target area for one of
these mirrors would be wasted as far as the project would be
concerned, and something any project like that would work against
anyway. And given some of the likely targets, I don't think there's
going to be much of an outcry from the inhabitants. There is too much
dark sky in the northern CIS during the winter, and I doubt you'll find
many activists in Murmansk demanding the "natural" sky back. If anything,
he'll probably be inside, stripped buck naked in front of the UV lamp,
making sure he'll get enough vitamin D for the "day."

The mirror experiments aren't something they're doing for crass
advertising. They think that if they can build one, it'll be one of
those things people in the affected areas will think they couldn't
have lived without before. And I doubt anyone's going to really be
able to convince them to stop.


--
Phil Fraering         |"Number one good faith! You convert,
[e-mail]|you not tortured by demons!" - anon. Mahen missionary

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 17 May 1993 02:16:27 GMT
From: "Phil G. Fraering" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Marketing would be wonderfull.
Newsgroups: sci.environment,misc.consumers,misc.invest,sci.astro,talk.environment,talk.politics.space,sci.space,rec.backcountry,misc.rural,misc.headlines,k12.chat.teacher

[e-mail] (David Nash) writes:

>We're talking about an orbiting ad here, not some little point
>of light that puts a streak or two on a photograph.  It should have been
>clear that anything used for advertisement is going to be a bit larger than
>a point source.  Even if this was not clear there's a previous post on this
>topic that makes it clear:

>----
>Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
>Sender: [e-mail] (Notes Person)
>Nntp-Posting-Host: graphics.cs.nyu.edu
>Organization: Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences
>Date: Sun, 16 May 1993 03:30:05 GMT
>Lines: 132

>In the New York Times on Sunday May 9th in the week in review
>section there was a report of a group called "Space Marketing"
>in Atlanta, Georgia who is planning to put up a one mile wide
>reflective Earth orbiting satelite which will appear as large
>                             ^^ ^^^^^
>and as bright as the Moon and carry some sort of advertising.
>^^^ ^^ ^^^^^^

From the description I've read, it's prob. only going to be
as bright as Jupiter. Anything else is probably hype from the
opponents or wishful thinking from the sponsors.

If we could do something as bright as the full moon that soon,
that cheap, the CIS would have done it already.


--
Phil Fraering         |"Number one good faith! You convert,
[e-mail]|you not tortured by demons!" - anon. Mahen missionary

------------------------------

Date: 17 May 93 00:46:18 GMT
From: "Theodore F. Vaida ][" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Marketing would be wonderfull.
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Dan
Herrin) writes:
[deleted]
>Is it not also an abomination that somebody would spend money on "space
>advertising" when those children are starving? Perhaps some redistribution
>of wealth would help them ...
>
>Dan
>

Not to flame (REALLY), but thats an abominable viewpoint (while were
on the subject of abominations).  If we followed the "redistiribution
of wealth" (and by the way, ist that what Clinto and the Democrats are
trying to do...), EVERYONE would starve in short order.  Not only is
it impossoble to organize a fair distribution that depends on every
(wo)man's altruism (can you say black market under communisim
anyone?), but the current methods of resource production are entirely
energy dependant.  There are not enough sources of cheap capital
(aside from human capital) to allow us to stop looking at space a an
excellent source of materials and realestate.  More directly, perhaps
you mioght consider the fact that BILLIONS are spent by TV companies,
and their sponsors, (ABC, NBC, CBS...) on the SUPERBOWL, the OLYMPICS,
and even on monday night baseball games.  Perhaps we should boycott
those games?  If DC-X and company get finished, and there is a market
for it, those "abominable" space will probably be much more cost
effective for the companies, and those starving children.  More people
buy products, the company hires more workers, end result fewer
children die of starvation.

--

---------=======================================================---------
                  ->POLAR CAPS<- or [e-mail]
Student Konsultant Making the world safe for computing!
"Never before have we owed so little to so many..."- R.T.Folk
"One must not confuse John Dunne's famous quote `No man is an Island' with
 New York Telephone's `We're all connected'" - Dad

------------------------------

Date: 17 May 93 00:51:47 GMT
From: "Theodore F. Vaida ][" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Marketing would be wonderfull.
Newsgroups: sci.space

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (George F. Krumins) writes:
[deleted]
>To say that "visible light astronomy is already a dying field" is
>pure hokum.  To use the "logic" that things are already bad, so it doesn't
>matter if it gets worse is absurd.  Maybe common sense and logic
>are the dying fields.
>
>George Krumins
>--
[deleted]
Ok, so those scientists can get around the atmosphere with fancy
computer algorythims, but have you looked ad the Hubble results, the
defects of the mirror are partially correctable with software (see
those jupiter pictures for results), but is the effects are completely
reversable, why is there going to be a shuttle mission to fix it?

The way I see it (and please, astromomers give me a swift net-kick in
the butt if i'm out of the ball park), the astromers are making the
best of limited possiblities, there's only one hubble, and the shuttle
makes another in the near future a non-thought.  Perhaps those self
same billboards could have small optical receptors of a limited kind
mounted on the reverse sides of the mirror's (if that is what is used)
and then the whole thing becomes a giant array telescope...

--

---------=======================================================---------
                  ->POLAR CAPS<- or [e-mail]
Student Konsultant Making the world safe for computing!
"Never before have we owed so little to so many..."- R.T.Folk
"One must not confuse John Dunne's famous quote `No man is an Island' with
 New York Telephone's `We're all connected'" - Dad

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 17 May 1993 02:17:17 GMT
From: "R. Lee Hawkins" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Marketing would be wonderfull.
Newsgroups: sci.environment,misc.consumers,misc.invest,sci.astro,talk.environment,talk.politics.space,sci.space,rec.backcountry,misc.rural,misc.headlines,k12.chat.teacher

>because of his doubtfull credibility as an astronomer. Modern,
>ground-based, visible light astronomy (what these proposed
>orbiting billboards would upset) is already a dying field: The

Ahh, perhaps that's why we've (astronomers) have just built *2* 10-meter
ground-based scopes and are studying designs for larger ones.
Seriously, though, you're never going to get a 10-meter scope into orbit
as cheaply as you can build one on the ground, and with adaptive optics
and a good site, the difference in quality is narrowed quite a bit
anyway.  Also, scopes in low orbit (like Hubble) can only observe things
continuously for ~45 minutes at a time, which can be a serious
limitation.

>opacity and distortions caused by the atmosphere itself have
>driven most of the field to use radio, far infrared or space-based
>telescopes. In any case, a bright point of light passing through
>the field doesn't ruin observations. If that were the case, the

I sure as hell does if the 'point of light' is half a degree in extent
and as bright as the moon.  Have you ever noticed how much brighter the
night sky is on a moonlit night?


>thousands of existing satellites would have already done so (satelliets
>might not seem so bright to the eyes, but as far as astronomy is concerned,
>they are extremely bright.)

Existing satellites *are* points of light, but an advertising sign that
appeared as a point would be useless, so I rather think these will
appear larger than a 'typical' satellite.  Also, satellite tracks *are*
ruining lots of plates in the current Palomar Sky Survey.
>
>                                             Frank Crary
>                                             CU Boulder

What deparment are you in anyway, Philosophy?  You obviously are not
qualified to speak about astronomy...

--Lee
________________________________________________________________________________
R. Lee Hawkins                         [e-mail]
Department of Astronomy                     [e-mail]
Whitin Observatory
Wellesley College                Ph. 617-283-2708
Wellesley, MA 02181                FAX [phone]
________________________________________________________________________________

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 17 May 1993 03:32:51 GMT
From: "George F. Krumins" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Marketing would be wonderfull.
Newsgroups: sci.space

[e-mail] (Theodore F. Vaida ][) writes:

>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (George F. Krumins) writes:
>[deleted]
>>To say that "visible light astronomy is already a dying field" is
>>pure hokum.  To use the "logic" that things are already bad, so it doesn't
>>matter if it gets worse is absurd.  Maybe common sense and logic
>>are the dying fields.
>>--
>[deleted]
>Ok, so those scientists can get around the atmosphere with fancy
>computer algorythims, but have you looked ad the Hubble results, the
>defects of the mirror are partially correctable with software (see
>those jupiter pictures for results), but is the effects are completely
>reversable, why is there going to be a shuttle mission to fix it?
>[deleted]

The main effect of the spherical aberration problems with the
primary mirror was to drive the computer engineers to develop the image
processing software that much faster. When they use the _same_ deconvolution
software on the images from the fixed Hubble, be ready for some
incredible results!  There is every reason to believe that the results will
_exceed_ the original specs by a fair margin.

Adaptive optics is a combination of hardware and software.  It works
realtime, not after the fact, as is the case with Hubble.  You might be
interested to know this technology has made it to the amateur market, in
the form of the AO-2 Adaptive Optics System.  Starting on page 52 of the
April, 1993 Sky & Telescope is a three page review of this new product.
It lists for $1,290.  The article states: "The AO-2 Adaptive Optics System
comes in a handy soft-plastic case that a three-year-old could carry
around."  Even though this device is really only good for the brightest
objects, "it could cope with image movements of up to 0.8 millimeter
in the telescope's focal plane."  Now just imagine how well this infant
technology will do in a few years, especially in a dedicated system that
has hundreds of thousands of dollars, and many man-hours invested in its
development.

George Krumins
--
Pufferfish Observatory         |^^^^^\^^^^|     The Universe had its origin
[e-mail]       ^^^/\ \^^^      in two hockeysticks colliding
                                  / /\ \
       "Home of the Hockeystick  /_/  \_\  Memorial Telescope"

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 17 May 1993 05:38:48 GMT
From: OPIRG <[e-mail]>
Subject: Space Marketing would be wonderfull.
Newsgroups: sci.environment,misc.consumers,sci.astro,talk.environment,talk.politics.space,sci.space,rec.backcountry,misc.rural,misc.headlines,k12.chat.teacher

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Phil G. Fraering) writes:
>[e-mail] (OPIRG) writes:
>>Having everyone
>>on Earth subject to some ad agency's "poor taste" *is* an abomination.
>>(abomination : n. loathing; odious or degrading habit or act; an
>>object of disgust. (Oxford Concise Dictionary)) Maybe *you* don't mind
>>having every part of your life saturated with commercials, but many of
>>us loathe it. I'd rather not have the beauty of the night sky always marred
>>by a giant billboard, and I'll bet the idea is virtually sacrilegious
>>to an astronomer like Sagan.
>
>>Reid Cooper
>
>Look, people, it's just a picture. It's not an abomination like the one
>everyone and their brother is helping perpetrate in the former Yugoslavia
>where the holocaust is being ressurected.

Has anyone seriously compared the two? No. That there are greater
problems does not lessen this issue. To call advertising "just a
picture" glosses over matters; advertisers don't pay big bucks just to
beautify the world.

>
>We have a "boycott" there, on weapons trade. As a result the side with
>a weapons stockpile is committing genocide on the side without one.

How is this relevant? Are you saying all boycotts are somehow
miraculously responsible for the genocide?

But there is a connection here after all. Both issues turn on the
wisdom of assuming that it's okay to put everything up for sale. Maybe
if people hadn't assumed that it would be sane to treat the arms trade
as an industry like any other, various genocides wouldn't have been
possible in the first place.


>So lay off on the "visual sacrelige" stuff, at least until you've
>tried living on a planet like Earth for a while,

Try living on a different *place* on Earth for a while. Somewhere
where not everyone places the freedom to advertise at the pinnacle of
their values.


>fantasyland you've imagined where the worst thing people have to
>think about (and not everyone hates it!) is an orbiting billboard,
>visible only shortly before or after twilight...

Did anyone suggest "orbiting billboards" were "the worst thing"?

Reid Cooper

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 17 May 1993 06:02:29 GMT
From: James Kibo Parry <[e-mail]>
Subject: Who is Henry Spencer anyway?
Newsgroups: sci.space,alt.religion.kibology

[sci.space]
In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Barbara Trumpinski) writes:
>
> well, IMHO (and i am just a nobody net.user) henry spencer is to
> sci.* as kibo is to alt.* and rec.*....

No, Henry Spencer is to alt.* as Kibo is to sci.*.

                            -- K.

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End of Space Digest Volume 16 : Issue 580
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