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Cheating in the Olympics extends now to even the site selection process; major league baseball didn't even have an agreement with the player's association in place to test for many PEDs until the release of Jose Canseco's book; and US football has seen the size and speed of its athletes increase to the point they no longer even resemble ordinary people.

It seems absurd that scientific researchers need follow in these footsteps, yet we find the same cheat-to-get-ahead mentality in our best and brightest people. Though science can do without the shackles of religious belief, it ought still be burdened with a basic morality.

There's actually 2 things going on.

The existing spillway is made of concrete, and suffered some structural damage.

Here is an image of the damage, from a couple of days ago, and here is that same spillway today.

The lower half of the spillway is probably completely gone. The raging water might erode up to the level of the dam, but that's not likely.

The actual problem was the emergency spillway, which is an earthen bank to the left (looking up to the dam) of the regular spillway.

You can see the damage in this image. Note that one of the eroded canyons reaches almost up to the level of the water.

If the erosion had reached the emergency spillway it would have burst, releasing a whole lot of water downstream.

Here's a closeup, and note the middle lower portion of the image. We were that close to a breech.

That didn't happen, and the waters are now below emergency levels.

However, the situation is rather precarious and the emergency spillway could still burst. There's still a lot of water still coming in to the reservoir, which is being frantically lowered.

(And yes, I wrote "Hyperloop" when I meant "High Speed Rail" above.)

There's actually 2 things going on.

The existing spillway is made of concrete, and suffered some structural damage.

Here is an image of the damage, from a couple of days ago, and here is that same spillway today.

The lower half of the spillway is probably completely gone. The raging water might erode up to the level of the dam, but that's not likely.

The actual problem was the emergency spillway, which is an earthen bank to the left (looking up to the dam) of the regular spillway.

You can see the damage in this image. Note that one of the eroded canyons reaches almost up to the level of the water.

If the erosion had reached the emergency spillway it would have burst, releasing a whole lot of water downstream.

Here's a closeup, and note the middle lower portion of the image. We were that close to a breech.

That didn't happen, and the waters are now below emergency levels.

However, the situation is rather precarious and the emergency spillway could still burst. There's still a lot of water still coming in to the reservoir, which is being frantically lowered.

(And yes, I wrote "Hyperloop" when I meant "High Speed Rail" above.)

It's not so much "the media", but that readers solicitously enjoy hearing about pompous rich farts being waffled by their wayward robot toys.

It reminds me of McDonald's failed attempts at selling health-food: nobody wants it; buyers want Big Macs and fries.

(And no, I don't mean this kind of Big Mac)

What sort of geometry are you employing to get that result? With normal Euclidean geometry it's hard to surround some one with a straight line,,, (which is what the protesters were seated in)

http://ww1.hdnux.com/photos/15...

Take a look at the pic - Officers on both sides of the line.of protesters - yet they were surrounded?
Officers couldn't pass? The protesters aren't even blocking the entire path, never mind the grass...

Never mind the fact that there are a lot of protesters who try to make a martyr out of themselves by walking the line and pushing the peace keepers to their limits, Just to show how bad the people are.

Oh yeah those protestors are a real threat to the cop!

http://ww1.hdnux.com/photos/15...

So we now live our lives judged bases on our lives at our worst never us at our best.

You know that's always been the case in crime: if someone has a bad day and commits a crime, you judge them on that crime, not how good they are the rest of the time.

The proposal is to automate as much of the operations as possible. So I assumed that. (Human astronauts spending that long in space would require breakthroughs in radiation shielding (or some kind of medical breakthrough.))

Teleoperation is easier in theory, but even designing a teleoperated repair 'bot of the complexity required is be beyond current robotic state-of-the-art. To get the dexterity/flexibility you need, the thing would still require highly advanced controls and sensors. (In the same way you've got nerve cells in your body, not just your brain.) I used "AI" as a short-hand for all that.

Radiation in space would quickly kill anything advanced enough to operate such a robot (even if the "higher functions" were remotely guided by humans on Earth). Space-hardened electronics is dumber than what is used for high end robotics, and the requirements for ribbon repair (amongst other systems) are beyond the capability of any robotic system in the lab today, so sufficiently adaptable and space hardened 'bots are multiple generations away. Technology might advance enough to allow such systems one day, perhaps even fully autonomous systems, but we don't know that it will.

It's the same with ISRU production for the towers. It might be possible, but it's currently well beyond the capability of any system on Earth. It's not just a matter of adapting technology to a more difficult environment of space, there's nothing there to adapt. I sincerely hope it becomes possible one day, but today it isn't, and we don't know that it ever will be, or what it'll look like when it arrives.

747s exist. We know they are possible. But the Wright Bros could not build a 747, no matter how much money you gave them. But most importantly, and something I should have said three or four posts ago but honestly I only just thought of it, the Wright Brothers couldn't even understand how to design the very concept of a 747, so they likely would have gone off on in the wrong direction, chasing something that actually isn't possible, even with 2014 technology.

Many of the technologies required for the lunar elevator are things we don't even know if they are possible. They seem likely; mere extensions of things we're already working on. But... well, you only need to read any old futurism article about what technology would be like today.

That's why people focus on things like the ribbon material. That's just physics. Materials either are, or aren't, strong enough. Possible, or impossible.

For snow, pre-treatment is preferable to plowing, because with even modest traffic, the roads will stay clear and you won't have to plow.

For Atlanta, a great deal is made of not having plows, and not wanting to buy them.

But pre-treatment can be done with bolt on (or drive under) spreaders that fit on the back of existing city owned trucks or hired dump trucks.

The best pre-treatment isn't rock salt these days. Most places with other than than freeze-solid temperatures opt for deicer liquids sprayed on the road from small tanker trucks, of the kind that are already in many city inventories, or which can be pulled by any Semi-tractor. Atlanta only has to look as far north as Virginia to see how its done.

You don't need special trucks, you need attachments for existing equipment. The tankers can be multi-purpose, delivering water for fire-fighting needs away from hydrants, flushing streets, etc. The sand/salt spreaders come in sized for pick-ups all the way up to dump truck size. You literally back your truck up under one of these and lower it into the bed. Any truck. Not a special truck.

You also don't need dedicated trucks to plow. Even in northers heavy snow country , they bolt plows onto standard highway department dump trucks, and keep the main highways clear. Its rather impressive to see a gang of plows, usually 3 to 6, running down the freeway, at speed, in a diagonal phalanx clearing three or 4 lanes at once. They are just dump trucks, with heavy duty mounts on the front and hydraulics for lifting. Often with a drive-under sander in the box. They use the same trucks all year around for other purposes.