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For RobertDyck re Canadian export success...
This assertion is surely of interest to one or two members of the NewMars community, and perhaps to a few readers.
Please consider developing your corporate topic by adapting the Canadian experience to Mars.
I would like to point out that Canada is NOT a wimpy shadow of a nation that a bully can overwhelm with threats.
While Canada certainly ** could ** be conquered by a larger nation state, it would surely put up a good fight, and would make life painful for the conquering nation thereafter.
To pretend that predators are NOT looking intently at Canada as a nice, juicy morsel is to live in a fantasy.
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For RobertDyck re mysterious post in Corporate topic.
I have absolutely NO idea what you are talking about.
In future (this is a big change for you) please included the text you are responding to in your post.
As far as I know, I've taking a positive attitude toward your posts, and have tried to support my statements as much as possible.
In the post just above this one, I specifically asked for the history of Canada helping other nations to start. I am NOT attempting to pull a gotcha the way some people might do. I ** really ** am interested in extending that part of my knowledge of human history.
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For RobertDyck re Tucows Corporation.
LinkedIn just sent me a notice that Tucows is looking for help. I did a quick lookup and discovered the company has offices in Canada. The work involves the Internet, and it may involve working remotely.
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For RobertDyck re return to physical money for Mars...
At first I was taken aback by your recent post in the Corporate Government topic.
From my point of view, we are well rid of physical money. I am still forced to use it when digital exchange is not convenient, but right now that only happens every couple of months or so when the merchant will only accept cash for services.
Other than that, I ** never ** use physical money and would prefer to never use it again.
However, in the context of Mars, your post offers an opportunity to think about how monetary exchange might work, if there is no global network to facilitate transactions.
My guess is that absolutely NO-ONE will ** want ** to use physical money on Mars. It would be an unnecessary burden on the economy, with all the unnecessary people and equipment involved in making physical money, and all of the unnecessary burdens of handling and storing it.
There are ** very ** GOOD reasons why physical money is disappearing on Earth (except for the few holdouts of the underground economy).
Your idea may very well have merit, because there may turn out to be excellent reasons why people on Mars would have to fall back to a cave man technology.
Please continue developing your thoughts on how people on Mars can trade goods and services with each other. I don't think anyone else has given the matter any thought. Certainly those planning government expeditions are not planning for exploration personnel to deal with money. They will have a supply of goods with them, and they will provide services to and for each other. All the money for ** that ** activity will have moved through thousands of digital transactions back on Earth.
As you are developing your ideas, please keep uppermost in mind that the core of any community is trust.
If you do not have trust between people on Mars, then the overhead of living there will be greater than would be the case with trust. And if you have trust, then I don't think you need the crutch of physical money. However, you may find a strong case for physical money, since trust may turn out to be in short supply on Mars.
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For RobertDyck re analog recorder disappearing in an explosion...
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 53#p231453
Thanks for adding that observation as counterpoint to GW's nostalgia for "ancient" technology.
Another data point for that discussion is that the ability of chips to take data at greater than one Megahertz has been available for decades.
I asked Google for a quick comparison, and got back a generic answer:
Which is more accurate analog or digital?
Analog signals are much higher density, and can present more refined information. Analog signals use less bandwidth than digital signals. Analog signals provide a more accurate representation of changes in physical phenomena, such as sound, light, temperature, position, or pressure.
Analog vs. Digital Signals: Uses, Advantages and DisadvantagesMonolithic Power Systems
https://www.monolithicpower.com › learning › resources
GW's estimate of 1 megabit per second data rate is very low, and has been for many years.
I asked Google to try to find the fastest DSP chip on the market and it found this:
Search Labs | AI Overview
Learn more
The CEVA-XC16 DSP is currently considered the fastest on the market. It's based on the Gen4 CEVA-XC architecture and offers high parallelism, with the ability to perform up to 1,600 Giga Operations Per Second (GOPS). This makes it suitable for applications like 5G endpoints, Radio Access Networks, and high-speed data processing.
That chip takes data at a rate that should be able to capture most interesting variations in rocket performance.
Obviously we have no way of knowing what data rate the SpaceX engineers are using, but I'll bet they are not starved for bandwidth on Starship.
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For RobertDyck re series on money....
I am glad to see that at least two of the four admins made an effort to keep your soliloquy going!
I was surprised to see that you read my comments as advocating paper money. To the best of my recollection, I did no such thing.
Please find and post the test where I did.
To the best of my recollection, I would have said "digital" money. Paper is no more useful than coins. it is needed when there is no Internet, which certainly may be the case on Mars.
I also tried to be as clear as I possibly could that gold has NO value whatsoever on Mars, with the sole exception of an imported Earth person who has a fixation. No one else would have that fixation, but clearly there are a few folks on Earth who do. I read a report recently about a secret repository of physical gold somewhere in Europe. The repository provides employment for the guards and for the owners of the property. That's a good example of the capitalist system at work.
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For RobertDyck re trade ...
Void just posted something about trade on Earth...
This post is NOT about trade on Earth, except as it may have value as an example of things that work and things that do not work.
I'd like to offer you the opportunity to think about barter.
In ancient times, barter was all folks had. It is only recently that humans decided to try using tokens as a shortcut for barter.
You have been talking about needing something of value for use as the shortcut for barter, but I think that is no longer necessary.
With modern technology, we can simply barter.
If you have some Martian rocks to offer, and I have a supply of oxygen because I have chosen to specialize in making oxygen, we could barter for the amount of exchange instead of fussing around with tokens. I'm not going to be able to use the rocks you have, but Joe over in the next habitat can, so an automated barter system (mediated by AI's) should be able to settle an agreeable amount of oxygen for me to turn over to you for the rocks you have in your carrier.
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For RobertDyck re post in politics:
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 28#p231528
Thank you for providing your perspective.
This has been building for a while. The folks who arrested the PhD candidate who was just released from a detention center wore masks.
Masks have never been a feature of official government uniforms in the United States, until now.
My observation is that the people who wear those masks had to have been told to wear them.
What is striking is that all those individuals, without exception, decided to accept those instructions.
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For RobertDyck re post in Money topic:
https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 71#p231571
Very nice! This certainly shows the benefit of letting gold loose to rise to it's appropriate value.
Meanwhile, if you were to do the same thing for a loaf of bread, I expect the difference would be much less. Humans need bread. They don't need gold.
***
You have an opportunity to develop a useful line of posts that would actually help readers to understand the subject.
I'd like to see the idea of real time AI mediated barter as a replacement for the expedient solution of intermediate tokens.
If a person wants to buy a car, the means to barter may not be available. The introduction of the concept of tokens (which themselves have no value) allows for the concept of borrowing against future barter (income in today's parlance).
I haven't seen you acknowledge the role of the US Federal Reserve in maintaining the value of money with respect to goods. In the US, the Federal Reserve (or some related agency) keeps track of the value of a basket of goods, and adjusts COLA (Cost of LIving) each year, for the millions of citizens who participate in Social Security. The intent is to insure that a loaf of bread costs the same (as a proportion of income) from one year to the next. This activity appears to serve as a smoothing agent. Inflation appears to be better than deflation, but keeping inflation to (about) 2% is quite difficult, given the limited tools available.
Does Canada have a government function that is similar?
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For RobertDyck re heat on May 12th.
Does Canada have anything like the weather record keeping we have in the US.
I'd be interested to know if your city just set a new upside record.
Usually, when I check the records here, there is an earlier date that had a higher temperature.
The records that your weather service probably maintains should be able to confirm if this is a new trend or just an outlier.
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For RobertDyck re Canadian Company that developed drill for Mars...
Thanks for reminding us of that company, in your post: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 41#p231641
GW contacted that company and I'm pretty sure a record of the correspondence (or it might have been a phone call) was reported at the time. Clearly not everyone got a chance to see that report before it scrolled off the Active list.
GW tells me he has never used the search tool. His statement caused me to wonder how many of our members never use the search tool, or possibly any of the other features of the forum software.
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2025/06/12 For RobertDyck... just a quick note of appreciation for the Ukraine/Russia history lesson and current status.
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For RobertDyck re exchange with kbd512 re robots in warfare.
Thanks for setting up this interesting exchange, with impressive visuals to go with text.
My observation here is that you may not have fired an rpg launcher recently.
Your Russian defender needs to have one of these devices on hand, which means logistics was sufficient to put the device where it is needed.
In addition, your Russian defender needs to have received training with that specific weapon, which means expenditure of funds for ammunition for training.
Finally, if the round that is fired is not self guided, then it is roughly equivalent to firing a rifle at a clay pigeon range. As you probably know, persons who test their skill at such ranges use shotguns due to the expanding field of the projectile. I think a person skilled in trap shooting with a shotgun would probably succeed in combat with a drone. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've read that shotguns are in use in Ukraine, but I don't recall which side has them.
However, I'd like to emphasize that the skill to succeed at trap shooting is not won easily. Your Russian defender would need a good shotgun, a supply of shells, and the extensive training to know how to point the weapon.
I met a pint sized walk-around robot "greeter" at the local science museum recently. I didn't stay to chat. The venue was a busy shopping space.
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For RobertDyck re link to clickbait about COPV...
Your choice of venue for this link is interesting.
I think it would have been a better fit in chat.
It is now a permanent part of the sequence about Starship.
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Really? You label it click bait? Did you watch the video? Video of Gwynne Shotwell saying that is kind of decisive.
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For RobertDyck ... I did not read the video. the only reason I follow the link was your reputation for generally reliable information.
What I did read were the derisive comments. Those told me everything I felt I needed to know about this.
I consider sabotage to be highly unlikely but not impossible. My feeling on this is that the Starship topic would be a place where highly reliable information might be found.
You have not written anything that suggests you have done the needed research to authenticate the conspiracy theory of the week.
The fact that the result of the COPV explosion looks similar to how it would look if the container were struck by a projectile does NOT mean anything at all.
If there were any possibility of illegal activity the matter should have been (and would have been) handled as a criminal matter.
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For RobertDyck re copper ...
Thanks for the reminder that Canada has been a major supplier of copper to the US....
I asked Google for a summary of 2024 shipments:
Search Labs | AI Overview
The quantity of Canadian copper shipped to the United States in 2024 can be summarized as follows:
The U.S. imported 810,000 tonnes of copper in 2024, mostly refined copper.
Canada was the second-largest supplier of refined copper to the United States in 2024.
Canada supplied 28% of the total refined copper imported by the U.S. in 2024.
The U.S. received 52% of Canada's total copper exports.
The value of Canadian copper exports to the U.S. was $4.8 billion.
The information provided primarily concerns refined copper imports. Canada also exports copper ore, mainly to China, Japan, and South Korea, not the U.S..
If the US market were to reduce for some reason, could China and other Nations pick up the slack? Do they have anything Canada needs in trade?
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For RobertDyck ... thanks for your periodic updates on Canadian events ...
Your audience may be far larger than the small amount of feedback our current software allows.
I (for just one) would be interested in any news you might be able to glean of Canada weaning itself off the cozy friendship with the US that has existed for nearly 250 years. In this moment, Canada has a chance to find new (reliable) trading partners. The vast territory in your country invites population growth. Managing intake of new residents is something the current population needs to think about. New residents do not necessarily share the values of the older ones. It seems to me the Mars enterprise is going to be similar. If the Chinese are first to establish a culture on Mars, ** and ** they have the ability to enforce newcomers to accept whatever that means, then Mars won't have the convulsions that are evident in human history.
Establishing a dictatorship from the beginning would appear to be a winning strategy for some cultures.
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tahanson43206,
In this moment, Canada has a chance to find new (reliable) trading partners.
China will reliably steal intellectual property, reliably attempt to undermine the government and government-civilian relationship of its trading partners, and reliably claim China owns the resources of other nations. That's about all the Chinese government will reliably do.
New residents do not necessarily share the values of the older ones.
This is why they should not be "new residents" to a nation they're seeking citizenship from, until they're ready to accept and share the values of the people they're assimilating into. If part of Mexican culture views learning to speak Spanish as mandatory to assimilation, but I go to Mexico to become a Mexican citizen while refusing to learn the language and respect local customs, the Mexican people are not the problem, I am. Were I to do something like that, it would be a betrayal of public trust in immigrants and an indicator that I never had any intention of becoming a true citizen of Mexico. If there were certain elements of the Mexican government assisting me with my attempt to subvert the Mexican national identity for my own purposes, which can never be moral if that's how I have attempted to change it, then it's a betrayal at an even more fundamental level- the government of a nation at war with its own people.
Establishing a dictatorship from the beginning would appear to be a winning strategy for some cultures.
Please tell me how well China's governance strategy has worked for them. Any system of governance that manages to kill more of its own people than all civilian deaths combined during WWII is a systemic failure in every sense of the word.
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For RobertDyck re opportunities for Canada...
Your interest in active politics sets you apart from other members of the forum.
You've reported having sought office, and assisting others who have sought office. (I'm working from memory so details are faded).
I bring this up in the context of the opportunity available to Canada right now, due to the quixotic behavior of the government of the neighbor down South. It seems to me that the entire rest of the world would be interested in the products Canada has to offer.
A policy of zero tariffs ought to be appealing to stable countries.
It would be risky standing up to offer leadership.
Update: Canada could offer sanctuary to the entire population of Taiwan.
Canada could instantly become a leading manufacturer of high technology.
The transition could be negotiated to take the needed time, after which China could be granted access to the bare island. They would be able to fill it up in short order with mainland citizens. This should be a win-win-win alternative to the present course.
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For RobertDyck re Hydrogen Reserves in Canada...
The report at the link below reports on what appears to be agreement between Canada and Germany.
https://www.canada.ca/en/natural-resour … rogen.html
The link is from 2022, so this is old news being recycled on the Internet.
The next link is from 2024:
https://www.canada.ca/en/natural-resour … rogen.html
This next link appears to be from a third party.... 2025 ... there's a bit of skepticism ...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfound … -1.7489515
Canada appears to have deep hydrogen, and Germany needs it.
Good to see Canada developing new trading opportunities.
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