The manned spaceflight program has always been the most popular element of NASA, both to the general public and to Congress. If the planned cuts to the manned program are successfully enacted, I'm not sure the how long the rest of this stuff will survive in the current bugetary climate. Note that I'm not necessarily saying the Constellation program is on the right track, but there is an element of the old proverb about a rising tide lifting all the boats that I think applies here.
Given how well the two MER rovers are working, why not just build a couple more of them and send them to different locations on Mars? Seems like right now it would be better to explore more areas and get a better overall view of the martian geology. Better to have a limited (from a science standpoint) presence on Mars than put all your eggs in a $2B basket, IMHO.
Yeah, the torpedo theory has been pretty well debunked. The bow is the most intact part of the Scorpion - just compare the pictures of the Scorpion to the Kursk (which did suffer an internal torpedo explosion that tore the bow apart).
There's no official explanation for the loss of the Scorpion, but from the available evidence it seems like it suffered some kind of casualty that quickly drove it under test depth (like flooding or a jammed diving plane). Check out "Silent Steel" by Stephen Johnson for a well-researched and rational look at the events surrounding the Scorpion's loss.
I may be wrong, but I don't think there is any protocol for giving proper names to GRB events and no international body to recognize such a name - like the IAU does with minor planets. It's a nice gesture put probably not something that would end up in common usage...
Working in the Holodeck is great until Professor Moriarty, Genghis Khan and Evil Lincoln show up and go on a rampage. Once that happens worker productivity is pretty much lost.
This post is just plain wrong on so many levels. And the comment about the view being "terrible" through a cassegrain is just stupid. As long as you stay away from the department-store telescopes, any modern telescope is going to give you a great view. Mass produced optics have become quite good lately - just check read some of the recent reviews in S&T or Astronomy. I can't remember the last time they had much to nitpick about regarding optical quality.
Choosing a telescope comes down more to a choice about portability and what objects you like to observe. Urban dwellers with limited time who have to travel to dark sites really like small, optically fast refractors. For someone in the country with easy access to dark skies will get a lot of use out of a larger dob. Base your choice on those factors, not trollish advice from a message board.
Lompoc's also seen huge growth in the last few years as a bedroom community for people who work in Santa Barbara or elsewhere on the central coast. Cable and telco suddenly showing up may be less of an anti-wifi conspiracy and more of a response to all the new suburb dwellers who want TV and phone service.
As long as the phone is strongly coupled to a service provider I don't see this happening. Otherwise the cell phone provider will want you to perform every transaction through their service - song downloads, games, apps, whatever. I think it's going to keep the overall cost of ownership too high for a lot of people, at least in the near term.
I think OLPC is a little scared that there might be more interest in this as a consumer device than as a philanthropic project. Given the low cost, capability and hacker-friendly nature of the OLPC (at least on paper) it could be a huge success as a commercial product.
Given that, I think they'd be crazy not to offer the buy-two-get-one options just to cut down on the black market that will otherwise develop...
True enough. If I had to re-write my post I think I'd phrase it differently. It's not a flaw, just an assumption that (IMHO) depends on a lot of things occuring at the same pace on several planets within several light years. Not impossible, but not too probable either.
The flaw with all these searches is that it assumes that any nearby civilizations are exactly at the same level of development as humanity. Isn't high-power broadcast radio actually declining on Earth right now in favor of cable, fiber, and low power systems like the small satellite DBS dishes? If an alien civilization isn't in the same +/- 50 year technological window as we are, we'll probably never hear them even if they are next door.
Still, if you don't look you'll never be sure...
want to be the one in command of a starship or a battle group. I don't care about hearing Kirk or Picard have an original adventure - it's my game, not theirs. That's why KOTOR was fun - it put you in the center of a unique Star Wars adventure, not a re-hash of the movies using the characters we all know.
Most Trek gamers would be happy with an updated version of Starfleet Command that doesn't suck.
I'd second (or third) the Mindstorms recommendations - it's great to be able to put together a complete robot in an hour or so.
When you decide to start building your own robots from scratch, I'd really recommend the David Cook books "Robot Building for Beginners" and "Intermediate Robot Building." The first book walks you step-by-step through every aspect of building a line-follower robot using simple parts and circuits. The Intermediate book is more of an "engineer's notebook" with lots of details and advice on sensors, motors, and garage machining. Great stuff and a of fun just to browse for ideas:
http://robotroom.com/
Slashdot Mirror
We should go visit it! I just got a new General Products hull for my spaceship and I'm itching to try it out!
The manned spaceflight program has always been the most popular element of NASA, both to the general public and to Congress. If the planned cuts to the manned program are successfully enacted, I'm not sure the how long the rest of this stuff will survive in the current bugetary climate. Note that I'm not necessarily saying the Constellation program is on the right track, but there is an element of the old proverb about a rising tide lifting all the boats that I think applies here.
Given how well the two MER rovers are working, why not just build a couple more of them and send them to different locations on Mars? Seems like right now it would be better to explore more areas and get a better overall view of the martian geology. Better to have a limited (from a science standpoint) presence on Mars than put all your eggs in a $2B basket, IMHO.
There's no official explanation for the loss of the Scorpion, but from the available evidence it seems like it suffered some kind of casualty that quickly drove it under test depth (like flooding or a jammed diving plane). Check out "Silent Steel" by Stephen Johnson for a well-researched and rational look at the events surrounding the Scorpion's loss.
I may be wrong, but I don't think there is any protocol for giving proper names to GRB events and no international body to recognize such a name - like the IAU does with minor planets. It's a nice gesture put probably not something that would end up in common usage...
Working in the Holodeck is great until Professor Moriarty, Genghis Khan and Evil Lincoln show up and go on a rampage. Once that happens worker productivity is pretty much lost.
This post is just plain wrong on so many levels. And the comment about the view being "terrible" through a cassegrain is just stupid. As long as you stay away from the department-store telescopes, any modern telescope is going to give you a great view. Mass produced optics have become quite good lately - just check read some of the recent reviews in S&T or Astronomy. I can't remember the last time they had much to nitpick about regarding optical quality.
Choosing a telescope comes down more to a choice about portability and what objects you like to observe. Urban dwellers with limited time who have to travel to dark sites really like small, optically fast refractors. For someone in the country with easy access to dark skies will get a lot of use out of a larger dob. Base your choice on those factors, not trollish advice from a message board.
Yeah, but atoms aren't as cute as nano-mushrooms!
Lompoc's also seen huge growth in the last few years as a bedroom community for people who work in Santa Barbara or elsewhere on the central coast. Cable and telco suddenly showing up may be less of an anti-wifi conspiracy and more of a response to all the new suburb dwellers who want TV and phone service.
Digital Consumer Enablement embiggens us all!
As long as the phone is strongly coupled to a service provider I don't see this happening. Otherwise the cell phone provider will want you to perform every transaction through their service - song downloads, games, apps, whatever. I think it's going to keep the overall cost of ownership too high for a lot of people, at least in the near term.
I think OLPC is a little scared that there might be more interest in this as a consumer device than as a philanthropic project. Given the low cost, capability and hacker-friendly nature of the OLPC (at least on paper) it could be a huge success as a commercial product. Given that, I think they'd be crazy not to offer the buy-two-get-one options just to cut down on the black market that will otherwise develop...
True enough. If I had to re-write my post I think I'd phrase it differently. It's not a flaw, just an assumption that (IMHO) depends on a lot of things occuring at the same pace on several planets within several light years. Not impossible, but not too probable either.
The flaw with all these searches is that it assumes that any nearby civilizations are exactly at the same level of development as humanity. Isn't high-power broadcast radio actually declining on Earth right now in favor of cable, fiber, and low power systems like the small satellite DBS dishes? If an alien civilization isn't in the same +/- 50 year technological window as we are, we'll probably never hear them even if they are next door. Still, if you don't look you'll never be sure...
Ugh! I couldn't get into that one. Sorry...
- I
want to be the one in command of a starship or a battle group. I don't care about hearing Kirk or Picard have an original adventure - it's my game, not theirs. That's why KOTOR was fun - it put you in the center of a unique Star Wars adventure, not a re-hash of the movies using the characters we all know. Most Trek gamers would be happy with an updated version of Starfleet Command that doesn't suck.I'd second (or third) the Mindstorms recommendations - it's great to be able to put together a complete robot in an hour or so. When you decide to start building your own robots from scratch, I'd really recommend the David Cook books "Robot Building for Beginners" and "Intermediate Robot Building." The first book walks you step-by-step through every aspect of building a line-follower robot using simple parts and circuits. The Intermediate book is more of an "engineer's notebook" with lots of details and advice on sensors, motors, and garage machining. Great stuff and a of fun just to browse for ideas: http://robotroom.com/