Slashdot Mirror

Google > NASA for directions
Mars is roughly 3715 miles from me, as the deepcrow flies.

I'm not scared. I wouldn't be all that worried about riding such a train(not that I am particularly likely to be traveling from New York to L.A. or vice versa). I do think it would make an attractive target for someone wishing to cause disruption. If the train had just been disrupted(say somebody damaged the track in one spot, without even killing anyone) and there were flights available at similar cost, it would have a problem keeping customers, safe or not. So the integrity of the track is extremely important to the operation of the train as a business, even if the actual train ride is perfectly safe and no one ever dies on it. Not to mention the need for a fence to keep animals and such from taking a nap on the track at the wrong time of day and whatnot.

Also, they seem to have screwed up in the article, as the shortest path between New York and L.A. is 2462 miles (3961 km):

http://www.indo.com/cgi-bin/dist?place1=New+York%2C+New+York&place2=Los+angeles%2C+california

At the cost they give, $25 million per kilometer, that's more like $99 billion, or to put that evil edge on it, 100 billion dollars. Maybe I am missing something.

It basically doesn't make any sense to build it, the shortest transit time for people living at either end would be ~7 hours(or probably worse), and if it stopped anywhere in between, that goes right to hell. With the flight part of flying taking less than 6 hours, you are going to need to off some combination of cheaper tickets and non/low stop service to compete.

More to the point, the distance between San Francisco (in California, USA) and London (in England) is about 5000 miles. That same passenger jet at mach 7 can bring its passengers from London to San Francisco in about 1 hour. The trip would be much cheaper than that offered by a subsonic plane because 1 hour is only enough time for cheap snacks like airline peanuts and Coca-Cola whereas a 14-hour flight would mean an expensive (but low-quality) dinner tray.

On the other hand, a 1-hour flight would facilitate global infidelity. An errant British businessman could fly to San Francisco, have dinner and sex with his squeeze, and then return to London within 4 hours.

Also, I was trying to find how far he would have to swim and found this site where I found theres a town called Oslo in the USA and also found that he would have to swim 683 miles (5927 km) (3200 nautical miles) from Oslo to New York (they didn`t have any norwegian coastal towns available for search).

> As he's explained to me, Hindu has yet to find itself in a real conflict with science.

How can i put this nicely... he's wrong. Witness...
the caste system (theory of racial superiority, google for "Aryan Dasyu"), mythical creation history (giant turtle supporting the world), support for unscientific superstitions make the Indian populations easy prey for charlatans etc.

Don't get me wrong - there are many things right with Hindu tradition, with wisdom about herbs, medicines, several graceful and beautiful customs, etc. But as a religion, it's just not right. :0)

I'm an Hindu by ethnicity (I have no part in the religion anymore).

Of course, they do have a lingering border dispute with China as well.

Distance between New Delhi and Islamabad: 406 miles (653 km)

Distance between New Delhi and Beijing: 2341 miles (3768 km)

None of the USA's current fleet of ICBM's (AFAIK) use cryogenic motors for their primary stages. However, previous generations certianly did, (Redstone, Titan, etc)

Although this rocket may very well be intended for civilian or commercial service, I think that it is also to demonstrate to the world India's continued development of rocket systems, keeping in the audience's mind that they can put increasingly large nuclear payloads increasingly farther away.

Of course, they do have a lingering border dispute with China as well.

Distance between New Delhi and Islamabad: 406 miles (653 km)

Distance between New Delhi and Beijing: 2341 miles (3768 km)

None of the USA's current fleet of ICBM's (AFAIK) use cryogenic motors for their primary stages. However, previous generations certianly did, (Redstone, Titan, etc)

Although this rocket may very well be intended for civilian or commercial service, I think that it is also to demonstrate to the world India's continued development of rocket systems, keeping in the audience's mind that they can put increasingly large nuclear payloads increasingly farther away.

How Far is It?

Yes. According to this distance calculator, the distance between New York and Tokyo is 6760 miles (10879 km).

Compare this to a satellite at an altitude of 36,000 Km, and consider the data has to go up and down.

That's the reason they lay fiber optical cables overseas instead of using satellites wich, I guess, wo0uld be cheaper.

Yes. According to this distance calculator, the distance between New York and Tokyo is 6760 miles (10879 km).

Compare this to a satellite at an altitude of 36,000 Km, and consider the data has to go up and down.

That's the reason they lay fiber optical cables overseas instead of using satellites wich, I guess, wo0uld be cheaper.

But what if I'm in Auckland and you're in Wellington (both NZ)? Well, we're only 485km away, yet we'll have more than double the latency that a terrestrial system would have. A wireless solution is not sufficient (I think) for spanning gaps of hundreds of kilometers, so you will need to lay fiber somewhere. Also, wireless border hopping (in Europe, for example) would be a pain in the arse, since you'd have to obtain rights to the same frequency on both sides of the border, a bothersome proposition. And even if you go to laser, you still have latency in the transmission hardware being tacked on

So you've got latency issues going to satellite. This isn't a new issue, and I might write it off if I gained the ability to read Slashdot on my yacht in the Mediterranean (what do you think I do during the summer?).

However, there's one more issue: upgrades. You may have heard the term "dark fiber" (or fibre, depending). Simply, when Joe's Telco decides to lay fiber, they lay a lot more than they need, since they can't just go back and lay more easily. There's this unused ("dark") fiber laying around that can have equipment hooked on to it to expand the network. And the network hardware can be upgraded at any time (optical switches, anyone?). You can upgrade a satellite (such as Hubble), but it's not cheap. And in all probability, the network will not improve all that much over time (maybe better compression routines).

So don't write off fiber/fibre entirely. Of course, a satellite AND fibre network would be ideal.

At 1 metre resolution I doubt that we could see CmdrTaco's plaid shirt!

As part of the Tiger Mapping Service, we provide a 1990 Census gazetteer of counties, places and zipcodes in the United States, so you can find a place by name without having to know the LAT/LON coordinates. This is done using a simple text database condensed from Census data files. We are making this file available to the public. Note: The vintage of the geography in these files (Places, MCDs etc.) is 1990 to match the 1990 Census data available from the Census Bureau.

Some thing else that is interesting is a perl script that calculates the distance between two locations given the long/lat in the form of the previous db's with a relatively low margin of error, on the order of a couple tenth's of a percent. For more information, the website can be reached here.

This stuff is pretty interesting and I think I might even have a use for it. Please post any more insights.

As part of the Tiger Mapping Service, we provide a 1990 Census gazetteer of counties, places and zipcodes in the United States, so you can find a place by name without having to know the LAT/LON coordinates. This is done using a simple text database condensed from Census data files. We are making this file available to the public. Note: The vintage of the geography in these files (Places, MCDs etc.) is 1990 to match the 1990 Census data available from the Census Bureau.

Some thing else that is interesting is a perl script that calculates the distance between two locations given the long/lat in the form of the previous db's with a relatively low margin of error, on the order of a couple tenth's of a percent. For more information, the website can be reached here.

This stuff is pretty interesting and I think I might even have a use for it. Please post any more insights.