In recent years, the constantly growing importance of postmodernism and deconstructive attitude has largely challenged the basis of structural knowledge, constructive ideas, and consistent human condition. The latter notions have been accused of covert control and hidden agenda. The proponents of the new movement have stated that control and privileged knowledge should be uncovered by deconstructing establishments or even destroying them. Respectively, this idea has acquired power itself, by taking it from the other sources. It has now settled in many of our daily practices and has insensibly become part of human consciousness.

You can now pretty much make any unreasonable statement and get away with it. Actions are very weakly tied to responsible ends, and practices are no longer that dependent on meaningful experiences and purposes. Anything goes. Technology, for example, is no longer about creating a meaningful, universally synchronized thing. It has become a technique to develop new ways of getting away. Clouded and shared networked responsibility leads to disguise and speculation locked into omnipresent pseudo-banners, pseudo-ads, and pseudo-everything they say. We are living in a well networked speculative pseudo reality. To my mind, all this is posing risk and a huge uncertainty to our authentic condition. We are starting to feel dodgy, edgy, unfulfilled.

The opposing perspective of positivism has expressed some sort of skepticism towards postmodernism by proposing open-mind and open-end notions, but at the same time it has become a station or a tool for controllable environments. It hasn’t fully developed a good immunity for bad purpose. By drawing strict lines and bounds, in a way, it has enabled that kind of purpose be spread and systemized by templating the set of acceptable rules within the bounds of its frame area. Unfortunately, even though rules are rather clear they can also quite often imply bad purpose.

In this way, we are getting to a point when it will be difficult to determine if unconditional action still exists. We are constantly and unconsciously dependent upon controllable environment and conditional existence. The combination of postmodernist indifference and positivist rigidity is working perfectly together. They both are different sides of the same world of uncertainty. The only difference is that positivism is setting and postmodernism is voiding. For example, the consumer setting is voiding the notion of human needs. Also, modern relationship is voiding the notion of family and love. Due to this tendency almost any structure or fixation, such as tradition, has started being questioned with suspicion. Accordingly, humans have been detached from their true feelings of existence and knowledge.

In this essay I would like to argue that through creation any human being should be able to bring back the true senses of structural knowledge, constructive ideas, and consistent human condition. I will debate below that instead we have an attitude of improving, cherishing, and generally loving what we do. Deconstruction or universal postmodernist doubt has no meaningful basis and consequence, because it is dealing with the same suspicions of controllable world. If the latter cannot have it, why should the new movement posses it, or why should it be handed to other parts. By thinking of control, you’ll never get out of its territory. Whether you want to challenge it, or whether you want to intensify it, there’s no way out. Instead it is about giving yourself to good purpose. We need to transcend above the notion of control. This general purpose has been the center of my recent ideas and thoughts.

Grounds of Imagination

Let me start by analyzing imagination that stretches out our empirical knowledge. Open and free mind does rest entirely upon empirical data, but instead on your imaginative will and real live situations as a whole. In this way you can free your mind from the set of any conditions that the existing system template might have, and don’t have to wait for new empirical data that would either change things or leave status quo. Carl Sagan was always repeating to the public that everything we know is a product of cosmic evolution – a sequence of moments of free creation. And I am always repeating to myself that this evolution is beautiful. That is why we live and should express a moment of beautiful creation that is part of the matter of everything we know around us. Waiting is not embedded in this process. It is about constant, ceaseless expression that can only happen by connecting imaginative will with the empirical world around us. It is about stretching out and constantly bringing imagination to our empirical world.

This is where positivism just doesn’t help. It takes away expression, energy, intuition, and experience that come with any empirical object and should therefore be evaluated the same way we evaluate properties of that object. Empirical object is not just a thing, but it’s also an act, that can actually be recognized by systematic reflection on and analysis of the structures of consciousness behind it. I believe that positivism should take the path of empirical phenomenology and work on the ways how to either merge methods of studying these two sides of object together, or prioritize beauty and expression as the basic grounds of evolution of empirical matter and its consequence. In such way we could achieve what I call a moment of creation instead of locus of control. This would help us realize that empiricism does not fully define our knowledge and scope. There is something else that is not just observable.

There are some good practical examples around us. In one of my favorite TV series The X-Files the two famous characters, Mulder and Scully, had two opposing attitudes, though they seemed to have a very fine interlink. Mulder was positivist-empirio-phenomenologist and Scully was positivist-hard-empiricist. Mulder was able to make a connection by evaluating the expression (or energy, if you will) of empirical evidence that is not directly linked to actual object, but rather an experience caused by remote source. This is pretty much the way a mother is worried when something isn’t right with her child. Thereby I’d like to argue that we should observe the expression of empirical evidence the same way we observe hard qualities of that object. We should discern hard qualities, the meaning or intent, and the act that every object possesses.

Unfortunately, imagination is usually put in contradiction with empiricism and this is where, in my opinion, reside the dangers of contradictious posture, that does not help to understand imaginative world in detail and in relation with empirical sphere. Additionally, what I want to point out is that imaginative realm is observable the same way we observe our real world, if you will. Elements, properties, and processes are not bound to positivist philosophy. They are part of a broader pool of logic, including imaginative realm. Even if our imaginations are not empirical, they can actually be observed using the mentioned qualities and, accordingly, they can be put into practice by organized duplication of these qualities in real empirical life. Such reflection gives the creator more power and a good methodic set of actions in order to embody his ideas.

What is more, there are stages of observation that stretch in time and scope. The very first stage is primary observation or first look, which gives you a basic idea about the observable object. The second is deep relations, when you start seeing relationships amongst the hard qualities of the object – or authentic empiricism. And finally, third is when you realize the meaning and the purpose of the object as the ultimate end of its existence. This tells us that we should put a lot of attention to detail, be very attentive to the world around us, and practice our sensitivity as the main habit for at least authentic finelink empiricism or ultimately authentic existence. Thus the creator is not only manipulating the hard qualities of object, but also trying to realize the true meaning that’s behind that object, and find the expression.

Pure Fixation for Beauty and Inspiration

That is creation I’d like to think can be both empirical and spiritual. It is positive in its roots. Creative mind has a true and pure belief in its intensions. Having said that any empirical object or creation in this case, is both material and phenomenal, it is no wonder that any creation comes with beliefs and expression of that object. It is not only a temporary experiment based on methodological calculations, but rather a statement of creators’ attitudes and beliefs. That is why best creators are those who strongly believe in what they are doing. Strong passion and belief is the key to success in creativity. They fuel the creation and in this realm they are substitutes for control, hard methodology, instrumentalism, strategy, etc. Since expressions are channeled intersubjectively, people will instantly interpreter your belief as truth. That is why with creation you can practice your beliefs and attach yourself to internally driven, but at the same time externalized object.

Furthermore, if there is a truly true passion and control-less intension, the creation, as a fixed object in time and space, is reluctant to destruction, reconstruction, or questioning. It is absolutely pointless to look at it with distrust. The fixation that it forms should be approached with the qualities of positive development, cherishment, love, and comfort. We just love what we create and we want to admire it. No uncertainty. No reservation. No destruction. This should help us exercise our sense of dedication, substantive development, and trust.

The other two important expressions are beauty and inspiration – something that they no longer teach at school or university. Think that instead of another boost of consumerism and dull efficiency management you would dedicate your time to beauty assistance and building. Think how beautiful we would be. But most of people don’t do that anymore. We are different. Nowadays we always start with a question of control or organizational management. Education does not prioritize beauty as means for learning, statecraft, and practice realization. Creation suddenly is about just making causal relations. Efficiency is making us uniform, flat, making the same thing, talking the same phrases. Don’t get me wrong. Coolness factor isn’t beauty. Stuff isn’t beauty as well. It’s just a set of material elements in such pattern that satisfies your ego. Beauty and inspiration are spiritual notions.

Well, I want to be inspired. I don’t want to be induced by measured information, motivation, and quasi -rational choice. Inspiration holds transformable power, a will for robust change based on your inner-self. Excitement and joy gives you momentary episodes of positive attitude, but inspiration gives you an unlimited scope and key to your soul in order to transcend above the oppression and to know yourself. It is the ultimate moment to position yourself for good purpose and meaningful consequence.

I have a vision of human community where beauty and expression are the means and ends of everything, where motivation is replaced with inspiration, where every conversation, audience, message is started with a question our most fundamental structures of love, beauty, inspiration, and each and every thing these notions express, whether it’s peace, good will or dignity.

Creation and Sadness

Last but not least, the causality between creation and sadness hasn’t been addressed properly due to the delicacy of this matter. The same is with another correlation between sadness and truth. I recall listening to an artist who said that sadness does produce conditions needed for authenticity and truth. Good artists want at least a glimpse of truth and unconditional reality. When they are sad, they all do the same thing. They create to support the feeling for pure reason and circumstance. Sadness, as well as inspiration and love, does give the power to step over our conditional existence and at least for a moment to know the original essence of our own way.

I am in sadness tonight and that’s why I am so passionate about the true sense and meaning of my condition and existence. I am able to detach myself, but at the same time I don’t lose my true sense. I am able to reveal the true inner-self, an original being, and culture that I posses and that was given to me upon my advent in this world. At this moment of pure creation, I am free and devoted to my unique way of being.

Sadness can be hard sometimes, but it presents an opportunity for change and transformation. Having a sad expression of our being, we usually write down true stories, draw meaningful drawings, and embed drama into films and books. We reveal the true and authentic meanings of our condition. We are then stronger in terms of our ability to rethink and balance for harmony and perfection.

Final Thoughts

But somehow nowadays we want to rely on networking, thinking that it actually makes us stronger. We are afraid to step back and look into our original and unconditional soul. The pseudo security of our empty condition makes it seem that impermanence is the only possible basis. We leave the questions unresolved, thinking that there is no answer, no concrete basis. We talk the same phrases, do the same things, we clone personalities, and duplicate actions not knowing our own unconditional mind. We are afraid to devote ourselves to unavoidable condition, whether it is beauty, inspiration, sadness, or true love. These notions are now voidable, or set within someone’s agenda, or caught somewhere in between, where both of these are used to produce pseudo reality and empty evidence.

I am really hoping that this article gives a perspective and helps to reflect on some of the risks of our contemporary and future lives. I am also very hopeful about the creative attitude that can help us practise true feelings and produce conditions needed to reveal and exercise our positive and unique qualities. By creating we can bring back inspiration, we can again experience beauty, and find the sadness sometimes releasing from the pseudo reality, showing tough, but unconditional choices. With creation we can build unquestionable trust, faith and, most importantly, love – the supreme condition of human existence.

I can spontaneously discern a few meanings of space to different people. To begin with, space is an undefined standard to be precisely measured to a scientist. It is a source for an argument of essence or nothingness to a philosopher. It is also darkness to the lonely ones and a starlight cover to the lovers. Moreover, it’s a nation’s agenda to the political leaders and a domain of operations to the military. On one hand, each of these perspectives is interesting, unique, but on the other, bounded and restrained by the limits of scale of each perspective.

So I was thinking… Wouldn’t it be great, if we could be scientists and philosophers at the same time, or if we could relate science to loneliness, or philosophy to romanticism. There are only a few of us who can truly do that. I believe Carl Sagan was one of them — a scientist with passion for pure knowledge and a philosopher with a visionary, deep look into the meanings of space and their significance to the mankind.

This time there will be no purpose of control, no plan for the future. This time Carl Sagan will give us a vision, mirrored by constant, silent and untouched deep space.

The Space Mirror

I’d like to call the method I’m about to use to look into space “The Space Mirror”. It’s the one Carl Sagan was using. Basically, what this means is that cosmos is a mirror of human circumstance and condition in time. By looking into space we can actually see space objects and at the same time metaphysically envision human destiny. This is so, because we’re destined by the laws of the universe. Therefore by understanding these laws we can partly predict our future, evaluate our current practices and qualities.

For instance, by looking at our Sun and far-off stars astronomers realized that each of these stars do not burn forever. Eventually they run out of hydrogen fuel. Our Sun will die too, which tells us that humans won’t be around before that happens. Our planetary civilization will be forced to leave planet Earth and look for alternative places. This clearly tells us about the human condition. Of course, we might be gone long before it happens, but the fact remains the same. We are not here to stay forever.

In this fashion, watching at the space, Carl Sagan realized that some things on our planet Earth just didn’t make sense as we are restrained and bounded by this tiny fraction of the universe, and accordingly restrained by our sometimes narrow thinking. Unfortunately, our evolution hadn’t had a chance to accumulate the empiric knowledge of space. It seems there is nothing we can do about it. The evolution is an inescapable, inline process, revealing only piece by piece and showing us the way only step by step.

But it’s okay. Along the way we have managed to develop clever qualities that help us not to lose the feeling for true sense. The word we use to describe this quality is learning. Suddenly, learning takes on a whole new meaning. It becomes kind of an existential characteristic, if you will, a useful instrument to manage this wild ride on evolution carousel. By learning we can be less distracted and more attentive to our future lifes.

I would like to briefly go through two lessons from Carl Sagan. One is about position and the other is about creation. What do these notions mean when we’re looking at them from the broadest perspective possible? What can we now learn from the space perspective that is yet to come?..

Multitude and variety over position and single-mindedness

By thinking about space we can easily realize that there’s no single position there. Position-minded will instantly be challenged by changing perspective and endless obscurity. Space requires an open-minded and open-ended way of looking at things.

This should give us a hint that we don’t have a privilege to position ourselves, because there’s literally no position, no meaningful consequence of our greed to have one. What’s the use of position, if space is boundless and therefore unreachable for those, who try to position themselves. We need a different perspective, a new look from within.

There’s always the road, the journey and the experience, which keep our eyes and minds open. In this journey we settle down to rest, but not to end the endeavor. In space we do not take a position. Instead we cross multitudes, go through experiences and saturate with energies. In space shapes lose their meaning, they become secondary as space is a totally different dimension. We can think of it in a sense of spiritual area, yet to be recognized and yet to be settled in our minds. Although we still do not have the consciousness of space dimension, we will in the far future, hopefully.

So far, let’s answer the call for multitude and variety. This seems to be the right way to go.

Creation over control

On this planet we’re creators, innovators and control freaks at the same time. How can that actually fit together?.. The space gives us an idea that creation is fueled by experiment, the beauty of eventuality. There’s no control in space. Control is a product of social activity. Therefore I’d like to argue that natural phenomena do not have a notion of control and maybe we don’t require it all the time.

Just take a look at an exploding supernova. You can see particles of star stuff glide through space in an organized fashion without any control. What kind of understanding does that invoke? Well, it tells us that we just need to create an idea and put it into live. There’s no need to try to control it. Real creations live and expand by themselves. The only thing we have to do is synchronize our ideas with gravities and energies, but not to try to pull the latter two to ourselves.

We have this problem in energy policy. This is very obvious nowadays. Decades ago humans decided that energy would come from modified sources, but now we are almost sure we were wrong. This conclusion can be drawn from global warning, which is a consequence of lack of synchronization between our ideas, desires and natural phenomena.

Thus, we need to replace the locus of control with a moment of creation. I’ll be honest I have locus of control, most of us do, but we should be looking for another way, a new perspective that would bring us the same results, but be less frustrating and restraining. This is another good reference, a fingerpost to our meaningful future.

Final thoughts

To sum up, I believe what Carl Sagan intended to say is that it’s high time to set new boundaries for our thinking, to include the space continuum — at least in our minds, if not practices. The earlier we begin, the smoother our journey will be.

I personally and humbly hope that space will stage a much better human condition. Call me an idealist, but this is my perspective on space for this last paragraph. I’ve been trying to relate philosophy to science, but which human qualities will prevail is unfortunately out of countable area, beyond our powers and pure reasoning. We maybe know that humans will eventually leave this planet, but what choices they make, what people they become is unknown. At the end of the day, what counts is that we continue to learn, in a true sense of this word, that we continue to preserve and cherish our tiny dot in the vast cosmic space, that we also have less control and more true creation and that we keep our eyes open and keep asking fundamental question to not be trapped in our sometimes narrow perspectives.

Above all, remember — our future lies there, in space. Your children’s children will inevitably reach for the stars. So the next time you watch those speechless operations in space remember that there is a broader story, a vision of human condition behind all of this. There’s a new step in our evolution to be taken, a new perspective to be seen.

I would like to leave you with Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot”. A truly extraordinary visual representation of Carl Sagan’s audio book by Lang Kasranov. If you get chills over your spine, make sure you leave a comment.

My name is Tomas Bagdanavicius and this is my tribute to Carl Sagan.

In February, 2008 the U.S. Army introduced its new Field Manual for Operations or “FM 3-0″ for short. What makes it exceptional is that the U.S. military is becoming operational in the domain of knowledge or the so called Information Domain. The whole 7th chapter of this manual is dedicated to “Information Superiority”. The last time we saw that was obviously the conquest of the Space Domain. This is when it happens again. And we’re not just talking about opportunities or theoretical possibilities to do that. It’s actually happening now and here (wherever you are). The U.S. Military is entering the Information Domain.

The Army will tell you that it is part of Full spectrum operations. That is absolutely correct. The term “Full spectrum operations” embodies at least two concepts of military thinking. One is that for almost all the time we know the Army was driven by the rationale to control everything. It’s true now again. No changes here. What is more, the contemporary situation of diversified threats causes the Army to transform from inside, because we can no longer grasp and categorize the threats that are outside. So the Army almost blindly is creating forces that can literally defeat everything and everywhere in the form of unified, joint forces driven by objective operations and linked together with a unified command and control.

I have argued previously that evolution of military action in a brand new domain can be summarized in three steps: (1) engage/enter, (2) utilize, gain superiority over your adversary and (3) control and secure your position. For example, in the Space Domain the U.S. with Donald Rumsfeld has progressed to the third stage and now is trying to secure its position in Space. Same thinking rules apply when we consider the Information Domain. To become fully operational in this domain the U.S. Military has to engage, gain superiority, secure the position — done.

The U.S. Military has outlined five tasks so far in this domain. These are: (1) information engagement, (2) command and control warfare, (3) information protection, (4) operations security, and (5) military deception (FM 3-0, 7-6). Take a closer look at these 5 tasks. Traditionally we know that military tasks can be divided into 2 categories: offensive and defensive. Now they have at least 9 categories, but let’s stick to the traditional point of view. Information protection, operations security and military deception can be seen as defensive tasks, information engagement does not belong to any of these categories and only 1 task is offensive, that is, command and control warfare. Let’s explore this one in more detail.

Command and Control Warfare

The manual states that “Command and control warfare is the integrated use of physical attack, electronic warfare, and computer network operations, supported by intelligence, to degrade, destroy, and exploit the adversary’s command and control system or to deny information to it” (FM 3-0, 7-6). This really sounds like an offensive task: attack, degrade, disrupt, destroy, exploit, control, warfare, etc — doesn’t it?

What’s really interesting about this type of task is that it’s going to be an absolutely different way the Army will interact with the enemy. Firstly, there won’t be a clear line between lethal and non-lethal actions. Secondly, the military will have to put a lot of effort in synchronizing physical attack, electronic warfare and computer network operations. This is a wide open question or even a challenge, if you will.

The manual does not enlarge the picture of these 3 ops of the Command and control warfare, but let me try to define elements of the Information Domain here in more detail:

1. Information platforms or elements responsive to physical destruction, such as: energy sources, electronics, stations, hardware, etc.
2. Telecommunication systems: cellphone lines, radio, television signals, wireless, etc.
3. The Internet: networks, streams, web services, web sites, databases, etc.
4. The Economics: transactions, banking, purchases, etc.
5. The Knowledge: news, messaging, reports, hearings, ideas, etc.

Now let me put these elements into force (in terms of offense):

1. Attack and destroy information platforms, energy and electronic lines.
2. Disrupt and degrade telecommunication systems.
3. Disrupt, exploit and take control over adversary’s internet networks and sites.
4. Disrupt financial operations, freeze bank account.
5. Disrupt or stop the flow and expansion of adversary’s news and ideas.

In short this is what it’s like to exercise Command and control warfare in order to gain information superiority. Some of these objectives have been known from before. But I want to stress again that it’s no longer an exclusive case, rather a full-time project. Using the intelligence the U.S. military will attack, disrupt and take control or destroy Information Domain elements in order to gain information superiority.

Particularly, I find it important to know that the military will be operating in the Internet (bullet no. 3). Again, most military operations in the Internet are defensive so far. Nevertheless the manual foresees military “actions taken through the use of computer networks to disrupt, deny, degrade, or destroy information resident in computers and computer networks, or the computers and networks themselves” (FM 3-0, 7-6).

Weaponization of the Information Domain

Let’s talk ultimate. It begs the question whether and what type of “weapons” there will be in the Information Domain. There is actually very little information on this issue in the manual. The only hint I was able to find is a reference to electromagnetic weapons most probably for disruption of telecommunication systems. One can also think that in order to attack and destroy physical objects the military will be using existing weapons and lethal force — that’s probably true. These kind of weapons would be used for objectives 1 and 2 and could be called Electronic warfare. What about other objectives?

There is no official title for them. But we could call them Computer network warfare. This type of warfare would include computer network operations and actions in the Internet as described above. Interestingly enough the military is not ready yet to use word warfare here, so they use operations instead and call them Computer network operations. I guess the reason for that is simply because it’s very difficult to think of and develop weapons that could “disrupt, exploit and take control over adversary’s internet networks and sites”. By weapons I mean not a simple domain shutdown as performed by the FBI, but a forceful data attack over the internet by a software-based weapon or strategy.

As far as the the ground ops, you can not shut it down, make it disappear, you have to take control over it. Same definition should be applied to military ops in the Internet. To destroy the enemy means not to disconnect it, but to take over its data, its territory, if you will. You can not leave the enemy somewhere with its weapons. A full exercise of force requires that the adversary would be harmless even if it could access the particular domain.

CNN has recently reported that a U.S. Air Force colonel is suggesting the U.S. military build its own “botnet” as cyberspace weapon. This is exactly what the U.S. military will be looking into. In the same article Alan Paller, director of research for the SANS Institute, is cited saying that it “would be easier for the military to lean on Internet providers to shut off traffic from hostile computers than to adopt the “carpet bombing” approach Williamson advocates”. I say, you got that wrong, Mr. A. Paller. The military is looking for offensive ways to operate in the Information domain. The military is looking for actual cyber-weapons. So it’s not just about solutions, it’s also the bigger picture of operating in the Information Domain.

The U.S. military might be thinking that it will be enough to destroy information platforms to avoid Computer network warfare. That’s a legitimate way to consider it. However, I would suggest giving thought to these notions of Computer network warfare.

U.S. Information Domain Forces?

Obviously, each domain requires special forces in the military. Now they have US Army, US NAVY, US Air Force. The Space domain will be handled by the Air Force. But what about the Information Domain?

I would guess that a special branch in the US Army might be created. I actually think it’s time for that, because thus far these tasks have been assigned to existing commands, but these tasks require more explicit insight, attention to detail, etc.

Also we have to remember that the whole U.S. military is performing unification from the inside and this process is driven by the objective force — a goal to have a very precise, optimized, synchronized command and control — the idea taken from the rationale of economical thinking. Though this idea is under controversy, I will just say that I would see this new branch not only as a part and participant of this process, but also as a huge contributor in moving forwards to the objective force.

Conclusions and Suggestions

The U.S. Military is at the first stage of its military operations in the Information Domain — it’s still week. But the fact itself that the U.S. Military is entering the Information Domain which includes the Internet is enough to make this maneuver exceptional. However, the Army has to see the other two steps ahead of it.

For that reason the U.S. Military requires more offensive tasks in the Information Domain. In the next Field Manual of Military Operations the U.S. Army should expand the section that deals with Command and control warfare in the Information Domain and add more offensive tasks to the general list.

The Pentagon is going to need a lot of professional and good quality intelligence to deal with these sort of things. The Army still has to define the term “intelligence” very carefully. It’s not enough to say that we’re going to use intelligence for all these tasks. It is necessary to analyze thoroughly what kind of intelligence and roles are required.

This is a wide open discussion. It’ll be really interesting to see it evolve. If you got any comments, please leave a reply.

The main features of this layout are: (1) it’s fully flexible or fluid, if you will, — it occupies the full height and width of the browser window and readjusts itself on window resize; (2) it has 5 commonly used spaces or bars, as they call it, that is: header (static), sidebar (scrollable), mainbar (scrollable), ad space (static), and footer (static); (3) built-in flexibility — it can be modified easily to fit your personal needs.

Also check out the technical specifications. It’s (1) pure, valid CSS with no invalid CSS hacks; (2) tableless, JavaScript free; (3) cross-browser friendly, tested on IE5+, FF1+, Opera7+ and Safari2+; (4) fully accessible, no frames whatsoever.

However, this time I won’t be explaining CSS code line by line as I had been doing previously. I just want to draw your attention to things and limitations that have to be taken into account, if you want to successfully use this project.

Use a CSS reseting tool

It is becoming more and more common to use a CSS resetting tool. Same here. I am using my own reset.css file. This resets the default browser styling, saves time and space. It will be included in the project files — please note that.

Keep CSS layout sep

Thing number two is to keep the CSS that defines and controls the layout in a separate CSS file. As you will/can see in the project files I have the layout defined in a separate layout.css file. I can think of two good reasons for that: (1) it will keep you organized, there is a great practice of discerning two types of CSS definitions, that is, layout and theme; (2) another technical issue is that we want IE5 to ignore and not read some of the CSS lines that might lead it to a crash. So we put those lines at the very bottom of this separate CSS file and break line above them with an inline high pass filter:

i{content:"\"/*"}

This is an absolutely valid CSS code. It will make IE5 ignore everything that is below this line.

Put IE in ‘quirks mode’

That’s right, this approach works only if IE6 or earlier is in the so called ‘quirks mode’. This is mainly because I want to exploit IE’s box model glitch. For those who still don’t know how to put IE into ‘quirks mode’, I have two bits of code. To do that you need to put something that would look like a HTML comment on the very first line of your HTML document, before the doctype element. It can be the xml prologue:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

…or just a simple HTML comment:

<!-- -->

Some of you might consider this as a drawback and, yes, I agree that in some cases, having IE with this mode on, is inconvenient. So we have to keep this limitation in mind.

Download & Preview

• Full Window CSS Layout demo (with some content)
  
• Full Window CSS Layout demo (empty, totally clean)
• All zipped project files

If you manage to keep everything else you add clean, you should have a nicely working, valid CSS only Full Window CSS Layout solution.

If you got any comments, questions or bug reports don’t hesitate to leave a reply below. Also you can check other related pure css topics for more css driven solutions.

Have fun!

Personally, I’ve always admired CSS only drop down menus (hereinafter dropdown). I think it is a perfect impression of what CSS is for as well as where it is headed. Therefore, I thought that it is in my intention to show you my take on this issue and at the same time give you heads up on what else CSS can do apart from styling and give it a little of dynamics or action, if you will.

Technically, CSS2 has all necessary capabilities in order to create a nicely working dropdown menu with no help from JavaScript whatsoever. That’s basically because of the dynamic hover selector, which can be a great substitute for JavaScript functions. This is the core reason for which pure CSS dropdowns are possible in practise. Of course, there are other great CSS2 features that can also be used and contribute to this type of project. You should keep that in mind.

However, as you might know, widely used Internet Explorer browser version 6 or earlier does not support this selector. To make matters worse, IE browser 7 or earlier has major issues in terms of CSS2 support. This leads us to the problem that I can not show you the ideal CSS dropdown solution having all browsers on board. So I’ve decided to not include cross-browser support and I will simply give you a taste of what I call CSS Strict.

CSS Strict is still in my labs, but inevitably it will payoff, hopefully in the near future. I surely want to be ready. Coding in this mode is also a lot of fun, because you can use literally all the great features of CSS2 or even CSS3.

So let’s explore the main dropdown module — horizontal dropdown — and its secondary components — vertical left-to-right direction and vertical right-to-left direction dropdown — in detail.

Main Dropdown Module: dropdown.css

Okay, the first thing you should notice is that the best HTML structure for this type of project is the unordered list or ul for short. That’s why I’m going to apply our new dropdown class to the ul tags only. Any valid unordered list will do — no biggie here.

The other very important thing is that you must have some kind of CSS resetting tool that would remove the default styling of HTML elements. I am using my own reset.css file. There are other similar tools out the: on Yahoo!, Eric Myer has one too.

Now, keep in mind that you might have multiple dropdowns on the same page or other absolutely positioned elements that form the stack of layers which can sit on each other. We want to make sure that our dropdown menus don’t appear behind any such elements, so we respond to this by relatively positioning the dropdown and automatically putting it in the stack at a chosen point 596, which is pretty high and should be enough to keep it and everything it has inside on top of everything.

ul.dropdown {
 position: relative;
 z-index: 596;
}

Ok, great. The next thing we do is work on the inner lists. Since this structure supports hierarchies, which of course it does, normally we want only the first level list to be visible. So by default, we hide all inner list. Display parameter is set to none for this reason.

What we also do to all inner lists is, of course, position them absolutely. We basically want to give them an absolutely autonomous position with one important condition — they must generate from the list item that they belong to (hereinafter the parent). I will get back to this later in this article, but having that in mind, let’s think of the dropdown as a drawer which is not static and it can move, but at the same time it is constrained by some basic rules — you can imagine that. Well, we have rules here too, just slightly different. Rule number one is to put the dropdown just right below the parent. So the top margin will be the whole height of the parent or 100%, the left margin will equal to 0, and the width — 100%. Please note that these values correspond to the size of the parent item. Rule number two, since this is a absolutely positioned element, you have to set the stack order to 597, which is one point higher than the previously positioned root list.

ul.dropdown ul {
 display: none;
 position: absolute;
 top: 100%;
 left: 0;
 z-index: 597;
 width: 100%;
}

So far so good. Here comes another specific rule. Remember we just put all inner lists below their parent items? Well, it turns out that this is only good for the 1st level dropdown lists. The 2nd and all other higher level dropdowns should normally appear on the starboard side if their parents. That’s why we have to override top and left parameter values for all these lists. Again, these values correspond to the size of the parent item. 2px that you can see below is my free choice.

ul.dropdown ul ul {
 top: 2px;
 left: 100%;
}

Now we get to the point when we have to format the list items or li tags for short. Potentially each list item can hold a new list, it can be what I called the parent. But the absolutely positioned inside list won’t rest against this item, unless we assign to it the relative position. Such position requires us to set the z-index. The next number in the stack is 598, because we want each following list to be higher than the preceding.

ul.dropdown li {
 position: relative;
 z-index: 598;
}

This one below is a contingency line. I’ve seen situations in which the active list appears behind other lists of the same dropdown menu. I’m just being consistent and careful and I think this definition here makes sense:

ul.dropdown li:hover {
 z-index: 599;
}

Another short line here will place all top level list items in a horizontal row, but only the top level!

ul.dropdown > li {
 float: left;
}

Last but really not least, we do the action stuff. This line here will send a command to show the first successive list that belongs to the list item that the user has rolled over. Remember we previously hid all inner list? Well right here we do the opposite, but only to the list that has been triggered.

ul.dropdown li:hover > ul {
 display: block;
}

Vertical Left-to-Right Direction Dropdown Component: dropdown.vertical.css

In this section I’m going to deal with the vertical left-to-right direction dropdown menu component. It’s only a component, it relies on the main dropdown module, so the first task is to import a css file that has all the above lines that I’ve just discussed.

@import "dropdown.css";

Now, having all module lines on-board it’s time to fix this thing to our new liking. Easy. Before that, note that I’ve extended the dropdown class definition with additional class name vertical. So now all the lines in this section will work if the unordered list has both class names: dropdown and vertical.

Our vertical dropdown will of course list its items vertically. We probably don’t want it to be too wide, so the first constrain we apply is to the width. I’ve just set a default value to 200 pixels, which I think is an optimal width. It’s a free choice.

ul.dropdown.vertical {
 width: 200px;
}

Remember on the main module we have placed the 2nd and all other higher level dropdowns on the starboard side if its parent? In this case, all inner lists should be in this position. Same css definitions, only applies for all lists.

ul.dropdown.vertical ul {
 top: 2px;
 left: 100%;
}

And finally top level list items should not be in a horizontal row here. We override this definition and set the float parameter to none, like this:

ul.dropdown.vertical > li {
 float: none;
}

Vertical Right-to-Left Direction Dropdown Component: dropdown.vertical.rtl.css

The vertical right-to-left dropdown component extends the vertical left-to-right or the default vertical component. It’s no need to import the main dropdown module here. The default vertical component will do.

@import "dropdown.vertical.css";

I have now added the third extension or the third class name to the menu. I call it rtl, which stands for right-to-left obviously. You can see that all CSS definitions now work even under 3 conditions: (1) when the unordered list has all 3 class names: dropdown, vertical and rtl; (2) if the html tag has its dir attribute set to rlt (usually for Arabic and Hebrew support) or (3) if the unordered list itself has a dir attribute set to rtl.

Obviously, the first thing is to move the whole menu to the right side, because it reads from right to the left. Float parameter is set to right for this reason.

ul.dropdown.vertical.rtl,
html[dir=rtl] ul.dropdown.vertical,
ul.dropdown.vertical[dir=rtl] {
 float: right;
}

Here we place all inner lists at the port side of their parent list item. We override the left parameter to auto which in the previous component was set to 100%. Finally, we do the opposite with the right margin and set it to 100% which will move the inner lists to the left of their parent items.

ul.dropdown.vertical.rtl ul,
html[dir=rtl] ul.dropdown.vertical ul,
ul.dropdown.vertical[dir=rtl] ul {
 right: 100%;
 left: auto;
}

Below is the last piece of code. Under the first condition the text in the list items should normally be right aligned as it would be if we had the other two conditions in effect.

ul.dropdown.vertical.rtl li {
 text-align: right;
}

Conclusions

As you can see, CSS2 provides us with all necessary tools to create a dropdown without having to code too much. What is more, we managed to keep it modular, fully optimized and clean. Actually, much of these lines work in CSS Transitional – a mode which incorporates all browsers and pays attention to annoying browser bugs. However, under CSS Transitional you still have to use JavaScript helpers to make it work. That wasn’t my intention. When IE8 is out, hopefully this will work on the whole palette of browsers.

I don’t know if you have noticed, but CSS does not have any commands to identify list items that have other lists inside. We usually want to have arrows on those list items to show the user which of them will expand. Unfortunately, as far as I know, so far CSS3 hasn’t addressed this issue and I think that they should consider adding support for that.

Preview & Download

• Horizontal Drop Down Menu Demo
• Vertical Left-to-Right Direction Drop Down Menu
• Vertical Right-to-Left Direction Drop Down Menu
• Fully Packed Pure CSS Drop Down Menu Demo

Download the project files: CSS-Drop-Down-Menu-Suite_by-Tom-Lwis.zip

Today is also a great day because we get to talk about the international endeavour in space - a joint effort to build the ISS. Indeed, the ISS is a remarkable achievement of many nations, a new bright star in the night sky as they say it.

What they also say is that it is a long lasting endeavour and that the future of space exploration is international as well.

We learn how to live and operate in space, we learn how to work together as an international team and that’s what gets us all tingly and excited!

This is probably what you can almost every time hear from space business officials after every successful step in space. It’s truly a fascinating journey, I’d like to agree. But are we all gonna travel the same distances? I mean, You? Me? NASA, ESA, JAXA, space agencies in Russia and China?..

Whenever it is this special day, I remember a short bit of a dialog between Mr. Ken Calvert, member of the United States House of Representatives, and Dr. Scott J. Horowitz, NASA’s Associate Administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at the September 28th, 2006 hearing of The House Committee on Science “Implementing the Vision for Space Exploration: Development of the Crew Exploration Vehicle.” The dialog goes like this:

Mr. Calvert. There is competition out there today, isn’t there?
Dr. Horowitz. Yes, sir. Anybody who understands what this is all about is out there going to space. There are many other people.
Mr. Calvert. You know, I was looking at the - you know, I was commenting with my seatmate here about the Ares V and the lift capability of that, and of course, we go back and think of the old Saturn, but that has a lift capability of what, approximately 100 tons?
Dr. Horowitz. This one can lift a little more than Saturn V, about 125 metric tons.
Mr. Calvert. One hundred twenty-five metric tons. What is the heaviest lift capability we have now?
Dr. Horowitz. It is less than the small rocket you see to its left, which is on the order of 20 to 25 metric tons.
Mr. Calvert. Now, is there potentially other revenue streams that could be utilized for Ares V in other parts of the government?
Dr. Horowitz. Yes, sir, I am sure there are other people that might be interested.
Mr. Calvert. You mean, there is no country in the world at this point that can launch 125 metric tons?
Dr. Horowitz. Sir, there is nobody else who has this capability.

If it’s really an international endeavor, why do we have to talk about who has the heaviest lift capability in the world? What’s your money on - competition or collaboration?

Specifically in this article, titled “Sticky Footer”, I will give you a step by step guide on how to create css sticky footers at the bottom of the page. I know that there are other methods out there and this issue has attracted more attention recently, but this is what I use and in my view it’s cleaner and applicable to existing HTML structures and you won’t have trouble uploading it to your web hosting provider.

It fulfills all main requirements of this type of solution: (a) it sticks at the bottom of the page only if all other content of the page does not occupy the full height of the page; (b) it works on IE5+, FF1+, Opera7+, Safari2+ and maybe even more; (c) and most importantly, it’s pure CSS.

So let’s get started…

Step 1: HTML markup

The first thing we do is get acquainted with the basic HTML markup for this project. As I mentioned before this is a common HTML structure. We have a page container and content inside. The only thing that might be odd is that the footer is below and not inside the page container. This is important. Other than that it’s pretty straightforward:

<div id="container">
 <div id="content"></div>
</div>
<div id="footer">My Sticky Footer</div>

Step 2: “body stretching”

Secondly, stretch html, body and page container elements to full window height. Notice that to make page container inherit body overflow I am using min-height property. Since IE6 or earlier does not support this, we have to make sure that IE, but only IE, applies height property to fix it. Here’s the right way to do it:

html, body, #container { height: 100%; }
body > #container { height: auto; min-height: 100%; }

Step 3: positioning the footer

Thirdly, we have to place the footer right after page container, creating a body overflow. However, we want it to be visible, so we forcibly move it up overlapping the bottom of page container — negative top margin for that reason. To make sure the whole footer is visible, negative margin must be equal to defined footer height. To fully secure footer’s position let’s clear both sides of floating elements, just in case.

#footer {
 clear: both;
 position: relative;
 z-index: 10;
 height: 3em;
 margin-top: -3em;
}

Step 4: finishing touches

Finally, we have to protect page content bottom from finding itself behind the footer by doing this:

#content { padding-bottom: 3em; }

Note that padding value is equal to footer height.

There you have it! You might want to check this sticky footer in action to get a sense of how it’s working.

It is true that our presidents and political leaders look up at the stars as we all do. But there is one important difference. In their eyes all that vast and dark space becomes a nation’s agenda, an ultimate goal for more control and power. To justify this statement, we need to remember Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th President of the United States. During the Space Race he said that:

There is something more important than the ultimate weapon and that’s the ultimate position. The position of total control over the Earth that lies somewhere in outer space.

In these words also lies the sense of how political and military space objectives are being built in the minds of our leaders. So it is no wonder that nations try to conquer the space above us and find that ultimate position that L. B. Johnson was talking about. However, at this point of time there are only three nations (USA, Russia and China) that can lift a man into space and bring him safely back to Earth. In this small group the U.S. has the leading position and the biggest experience of flying into space. This fact is enough to make its position exceptional among all other countries.

There are thousands of satellites, orbiting the Earth. Most of them are controlled by the U.S. and all of them are vulnerable to military attack from Earth. This has led the U.S. to a desire to protect its space capabilities, and to be able to deny the use of similar capabilities to potential adversaries in the event of conflict. Therefore, this subjects us to an assumption that U.S. domination in space will increase its military aggression in space. For this to find out we need to study U.S. evolution of space-power and understand the historical background that can lead us to some preconditions of its current doctrine which is our second main target. We will also touch on the theoretical concepts of space policy and space strategy that can be further used to analyze US space actions. But first things must come first.

Evolution of Space-Power Doctrine

Every strong space nation has its own space doctrine. To review the evolution of the US space doctrine, I am going to look at M. V. Smith’s Ten Propositions Regarding Spacepower which is a remarkable study of space power from the perspective of an Air Force officer. Smith argues that three distinct geopolitical events shaped American space-power doctrine: (1) Cold War, (2) Operation Desert Storm and (3) joins control doctrine. The first – the Cold War – enticed America into space as a means to spy on the Soviet Union, which also drove America’s early support for space treaties that ensured freedom of access to space. The second event, he argues, was Operation Desert Storm, which demonstrated the military capabilities of space in conventional warfare. This event occurred in the waning days of the Cold War, when nuclear tensions were greatly reduced. Since that time, the U.S. military has freely sought to exploit space systems as a means of enhancing terrestrial war fighting. Finally, the general joins control doctrine advocates who favor developing the capability to use force (when required) to secure American access to space and to deny the same to an adversary.

I would summarize U.S. evolution of spacepower in the following three stages. First stage was to enter the space and to catch up with its only rival in space – the Soviet Union. Afterwards, when the Americans took the leading position in this competition, they wanted to make it useable mostly for enhancing military operations on ground (e.g. Operation Desert Storm) and threatening rivals of its achievements in space (e.g. Reagan’s “Star Wars”). And the final stage is the military control of space which is currently under a controversy that can lead to two possible outcomes: peaceful partnership or more aggression and power and finally weaponization of space.

Smith himself presents the most pessimistic view on this issue, pointing out that wherever mankind goes, weapons follow. To his mind, weaponizing space is inevitable. Although reasons exist for not weaponizing space, but they fail to take into account the technological imperative that often drives human behavior in ways frequently beyond rational thought. When weapons will appear in space is anybody’s guess, but political and military pragmatists must assume that someone will put them there and plan accordingly.

To make things even more clear we need to understand not only the evolution, but also the concept of space strategy. Obviously, there is knowledge of how power can be gained in space. Therefore, we will take a look at E. C. Dolman’s book Astropolitics presenting a unique concept of control of space that can help create military space policy and strategy. Of course, there are other related studies, but this is one of the first major analysis of space geopolitics.

Astropolitics

Dolman defines astropolitics as “the study of the relationship between outer space terrain and technology and the development of political and military policy and strategy”. In this study he applies traditional mackinderian discipline of geopolitics. Following Halford Mackinder’s approach, Dolman divides our solar system into four regions: (1) terra (Earth and space to a point just below sustained, unpowered orbit); (2) terran space (lowest viable orbit to just beyond geostationary altitude); (3) lunar space (just beyond geostationary orbit to just beyond lunar orbit); and (4) solar space (everything else in the solar system) (pp. 69–70). All spaceflight must traverse Low-Earth Orbit (LEO). Dolman identifies this orbit as the first and most important astropolitical strategic narrow. And he says that:

Who controls Low-Earth Orbit controls Near-Earth space. Who controls Near-Earth space dominates Terra. Who dominates Terra determines the destiny of humankind.

That’s why the ultimate strategy for any country seeking for more space power would be to control the first astropolitical narrow or LEO. It seems that LEO for Dolman is the Johnson’s ultimate position. At least it is true from a geopolitical point of view.

Dolman advocates three immediate steps for the United States: (1) withdraw “from the current space regime and announce it is establishing a principle of free-market sovereignty in space”; (2) use “its current and near-term capabilities to seize military control” of LEO; and (3) establish “a national space coordination authority” to “define, separate, and coordinate the efforts of commercial, civilian, and military space projects”.

It is important to emphasize that the ultimate goal of astropolitics and Astropolitik according to Dolman is not the militarization of space. Rather, the militarization of space is a means to an end, part of a longer-term strategy. The goal is to reverse the current international malaise in regard to space exploration, and to do so in a way that is efficient and that harnesses the positive motivations of individuals and states striving to improve their conditions. It is a neoclassical, market-driven approach intended to maximize efficiency and wealth.

Dolman’s strategy is very delicate in terms of the space weaponization issue which is inevitable to Smith as result of pragmatic policy towards the space. Smith says that pragmatic politicians carry weapons whereever they go and Dolman adds to this that they carry the weapons, but don‘t show them outright. However, they both agree that space weaponization is going to happen. To find out more we need to analyze current U.S. space policy.

USA Astropolitics

U.S. reestablished its ambitions in weaponizing space in 2001 when a Space Commission led by Donald Rumsfeld released U.S. space security policy review. The main goal of that commission was to revise U.S. space security program and to address any issues and means to eliminate them. The commission reported that U.S. government was not ready to counter military threats in space and that these threats are a historical inevitability.

The whole idea of controlling the space was not new to Rumsfeld’s commission. In fact, the goal of U.S. superiority in space has been developed by every national space policy doctrine since Eisenhower. However, Rumsfeld’s committee made one step forward by making it clear that U.S. should expand its operations in space and even use force if necessary. Commission argued that U.S. has the largest number of any kind of devices in space that are vulnerable to enemy attacks (e.g. ASAT Anti-satellite weapons on the ground). The commission also stated that

The U.S. is more dependent on space than any other nation. Yet the threat to the US and its allies in and from space does not command the attention it merits.

The U.S., argues Rumsfeld, cannot allow its rivals to obtain asymmetric military superiority.

One of the most popular quotes from the Space Commission was that the U.S .could face a „space Pearl Harbor”. For this reason the Commission encouraged U.S. government to prepare a plan how to counter attacks in space. The Space Commission concluded that „it is possible to project power through and from space in response to events anywhere in the world. Having this capability would give the United States a much stronger deterrent and, in a conflict, an extraordinary military advantage.“

The second document I would like to point out here is The National space policy plan (Oct., 2006) that claims the right of the United States to “deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space” and at the same time to “dissuade or deter others” from developing similar capabilities to deny US access to space, and asserts the right to unimpeded use of space as a U.S. right, not an international right. It was mentioned that this plan might contravene the 1967 Outer Space Treaty that prohibits weapons of mass destruction either in orbit or celestial-based. US has been ignoring any international efforts to prohibit weaponization of space. In the same month U.S. at the UN General Assembly voting against arms race in space was the only country to cast its vote against such prohibition. Anybody might think that in this way the U.S. is trying to withdraw from the current space regime as stated by Dolman.

Tom Barry makes an interesting note that the “October release of the National Space Policy comes on the heels of a report by the “Independent Working Group on Missile Defense, the Space Relationship, and the 21st Century,” which is a misnamed task force assembled by various right-wing policy institutes.” They call themselves Independent Working Group as having no role in the U.S. space policy. The group’s members and sponsors include many key figures and institutions that advocate a more aggressive nuclear weapons and space weapons policy. No matter what they represent, it looks like space militarization issue has reached a point when not only the military, but also scientific community is pushing for space weapons. So it will be very interesting to find out whether space weaponization initiative will remain at stake with a new president at office.

So far these institutes claim that within three years, a space-based missile defense system should be tested. Also US should deploy 1,000 Brilliant Pebbles-like space-based interceptors. And because of the centrality of space to U.S. national security, efforts to counter U.S. primacy in space via restrictive legal regimes should be rejected.

The task force claims that the 21st century maintenance of the “U.S. lead in space may indeed be pivotal to the basic geopolitical, military, and economic status of the United States. Consolidation of the preeminent U.S. position in space is akin to Britain’s dominance of the oceans in the 19th century.” An improved report was also released in 2007. It states again that “space represents an arena of crucial importance to the United States for civil, commercial, and national security purposes.” As such, it is essential that the United States to be able to use space for missile defense.

Another interesting point is the commercialization of space assets. Commercial space assets make all actors space powers. The advent of commercial vendors selling military-related space products has created a new form of mercenary. The types of asymmetric advantages the superpowers once enjoyed because of their space prowess is quickly eroding because anyone who is able to pay the price can receive certain kinds of space support. Military and law-enforcement planners must take into account the potential for any opponent to exploit these commercial services. In the light of global fight against terrorism the U.S. might be afraid of commercial space initiative and control. Rumsfeld’s commission in its recommendations also stressed the dangers of commercial sector in space which would have no regulations in early years of space utilization.

Conclusions

It doesn’t seem to me that the everyday growing human presence in space will dispense with weapons and security projects for balancing power in space. As soon as we see more assets in space that are of a vital importance to the countries on the ground, there will be a need for the same security guarantees as we have now on the ground.

All these facts support the idea that the U.S. is seeking to finally step into the third stage – military control of space – of its evolution of space strategy. This is current tendency that of course later may change in one way or another. But other countries are already preparing their own military responses to the U.S. controversial plans and in the global scale we can see that a new defence system is growing. Later it might be too late for the US to go back. New programs include development of ASAT weapons on the ground and later in space. It can be predicted that during the upcoming decade we will see ASAT weapons in the international arena. They will be announced as legitimate means to counter hostile US satellites in space. International institutions may develop an ASAT non-proliferation agreement which can become another problem in the international relations arena.

Finally, several countries, such as Russia and China, have already developed counter-space weapons that directly threaten U.S. space operations. 48 Other states are likely to proliferate these or similar weapons in the coming decades. In sum, the U.S. military increasingly relies upon space assets. Therefore it is in their interest to protection them from enemy attack. At the same time, the U.S. has an interest in denying adversaries the ability to exploit their own space assets to gain advantage over them.