I don't need and generally don't use these extra features of the phone. I have Sanyo PM-8200, and I got it because I wanted a [new] phone with a speakerphone, and a lightweight (3.6 oz.) at that. So who cares if it has a camera in it? I don't subscribe to this PCS Vision thing, and I won't.
However it is useful to be able to use a camera once in a while, since it's more likely that I have the phone with me as opposed to a standalone digital photo camera. I treat it as a free add-on that I may use as I please.
I don't use SMS either. I disabled most of it already, it's easy. But if I want to create a small todo item, I can. Or I can create a voice memo, I use that too.
Basically, it's the same as with cheap motherboards (as it was discussed on/. yesterday or so.) You buy mainstream products because they cost less. In case of PM-8200, it may cost a bit more than other phones (depends on what deal you get) but it's a good phone on its own, and it's worth some investment. Or you can go with free, there are many of those still.
With Windows, though, the phone makers will be mostly concerned about performance vs. power consumption. My phone needs charging once a week, assuming that you use it a couple times per day. If a Windows phone needs daily charging, or if it weighs 8 oz. for example, this will be a serious impediment. The market will decide. And if MS manages to make it half-decent, for a change, good for them.
The newer AGP connectors, and all PCIE connectors, have a small latch at the far end of the connector. The latch goes into a cutout at the end of the card and kind of helps it to stay connected.
Older AGP connectors had no latch at all. But, for example, an MSI m/board that I have here has this latch, I just checked.
Not simply better (except video) - the onboard stuff is more reliable too. It's all soldered to the board, and there are no contacts involved.
Compare that to PCI. Card edge connectors are notoriously unreliable if the chassis is not aligned properly (and most aren't.) You just shove the card into the slot and hope that most of gold fingers make a contact good enough. But I had boxen that failed because of that. The reason is that plain vanilla PCI connectors don't have a latch at the end. (AGP and PCIE connectors do have a latch, now that we know that one is needed.) If you shake the box the cards can easily pop out of the slots, and you have to open it all up to push them back in.
I don't remember the movie (though I have a tape somewhere). But what you say is actually true. Morse code is a simple encoding which allows to send characters (messages) using only on-off keying - such as light on/off, sound on/off, pause short/long... This is very important because there are situations when all you have is on-off. Being such a simple code, it is important for survival; but with modern reliance upon gadgets this particular art is getting lost.
I was building such keyers (with SN74 logic, of course) one after another after another, because my friends always wanted one... at the end I built quite a nice keyer for myself and it stayed with me longer than usual.
The trick is that it's easier to transmit the code with a modern keyer - easier than typing, probably. Your hand is completely relaxed, and you only use the thumb and the index finger. The keyer does most of the work - but you must hear what it does, and change the position of the paddle as needed. You do it, in fact, predictively - and it is extremely easy after some practice (a few contests will do it for life:-)
Compared to that, cell phone keyboards are awful. I completely and totally refuse to participate in texting, unless it's unavoidable.
I plan to create custom ringers in Morse code and upload them to my phone. So when some people called I will be notified by the ringer, and hardly anyone else will know what it means.
You will look like someone distracted from the subject being discussed. The boss (or whoever manages the meeting) will notice instantly that you are looking at your phone and not at your coworkers, and that you don't pay attention. Do you really want to be reminded: "And now Dave will tell us how he proposes to rework the code to address this very issue..." - then you will look much worse than you feared.
You probably erroneously think that golf is an outdoors activity. But on my planet golf is played indoors, in a small room with hundreds of players standing as close to each other as possible, so close that it's a challenge even to reach for your cell phone! I can completely understand the grandparent's concern, he is probably from my planet too:-)
I understand what you mean, but there is a solution; it is described here and when I read it it seemed logical enough to me. It depends, of course, on the initial orbit of the asteroid, and if it is not aligned with Earth orbit plane then it's just too bad, get another one.
It's also mathematically impossible because the force per unit time you get out of a solar sail is constant.
Unless, of course, you can control your solar sail - like, say, its surface:-)
The momentum of an out of control spin and descent on a Columbia pod would have caused huge amounts of g-forces. Would the astronauts have been able to survice that?
This is a non-problem because the same G-forces would have destroyed the aluminum framework of the Shuttle by then, and the debris then could spin all they want, and the capsule would aerostabilize itself within seconds (note that capsules are not spheres, this is exactly for stabilization purposes.)
What about the heat from re-entry? How much heat was still there? Would there havve been a need for an extra heat shield around this emergency pod?
Depends on how much shielding you put on. All US and Russian capsules were/are designed for full thermal profile, from the orbit to the ground and for worst possible path. The heat shield does not seem to be a large factor as long as you don't want it to be reusable.
Would a system be needed to stabilize the pod if the spin was so high that parachutes would be torn to shreds?
No, because the parachute won't open until close to the ground. Practically speaking, the parachute can be safely deployed from anywhere higher than 300 feet. Note that capsules use SRB assist at the moment of landing, so they can take a higher landing speed than your normal skydiver can afford.
In case of Columbia, it fell apart at 10 miles and Mach 18. The capsule would be merrily falling through the atmosphere for minutes before even considering to open the parachute. It would cross several states in doing so. There would be absolutely no danger to the parachute - it is folded inside the capsule (and protected as well as astronauts themselves) until it is deployed.
In case of Challenger, the force of explosion would push the capsule miles away, and it would be falling into the ocean also for minutes (as debris did) and quite far from the main debris field. Of course if the emergency escape tower is still attached it would be activated, and then the capsule would be taken to safety, really far away (tens of miles) from the debris cloud.
So in both cases the failure of the vehicle is very far, time-wise and distance-wise, from the moment of deployment of the main parachute. And you are free to deploy at the last possible moment, thus minimizing its exposure to falling debris. In any case it beats being contained to a crew cabin with no escape.
it would have to be delivered in a relatively short amount of time -- hours at the very most
Don't choose asteroids that fly too fast. Earth is 7 light-seconds from the Sun, IIRC, it's plenty of distance by all standards.
Otherwise you'd be claiming that the Deep Impact mission is impossible since it has to be completed "within hours". But obviously it is possible; there are plenty of asteroids that are well studied (at least because we don't want to be hit by them), so you only need to choose the one that you can slow down as needed.
Also, with regard to speed, the asteroid does not have to stand still relative to Earth - it will fall onto the planet then. What you want is to guide it onto some orbit around the Earth, and its speed will translate into the height of the orbit. That speed will have to be considerable - several kilometers per second. So you need that speed.
Besides, Earth's own orbital speed is 30 km/s, and it can be used since asteroid is not linked into Earth's gravity yet. In other words, if your asteroid is flying at 40 km/s it can be nicely parked in an orbit just as it is.
Sorry, but a "solar sail" could never do the job, even it were possible to manufacture and erect one, say, ten million miles across.
I must go and drown myself then, since in 1950s it was absolutely obvious that nobody can or will make more than a few transistors on one silicon crystal. Before that it was ridiculous to even suggest that one can talk to someone else over large distances. Before that nobody doubted that Earth was flat.
A solar sail is perfectly doable as long as you have a plan and you know what you are doing. Sure it would be stupid to unfold one blanket and think that it will work. But you can unfold a million of them, staggered or whatever, and any single failure will be irrelevant. Open your mind.
Energiya probably still can be built if needed, it's a relatively recent design and it flew already. But here is the reason that you hinted at: there is no need.
You are much more likely to see Soyuz launch from
Kourou than from KSC. That launch site is better positioned, and French food is better too:-) Russia already signed several agreements with ESA, as I understand, and will begin construction of the Soyuz launch complex there.
I can't imagine what it would take to change the orbit of an object the size of a geographical feature.
I can. Use a solar sail with size proportional to the mass of your geographical feature. Allow the asteroid to swing by the Sun, and by the time it's back it's as tame as a pet mouse. Some formulas are involved, of course, but nothing more complex than Isaac Newton could do.
The escape tower is jettisoned when it is no longer needed - such as when the vehicle is high enough so that just a release of the capsule is sufficient to move it away from the stack. The capsule will land on its own, so no further action is needed.
Were the Shuttle equipped with a life support capsule where all the people are to stay during launch and landing, they all would have survived:
Challenger explosion would simply throw the capsule away from the stack. Being rugged enough to survive even a ballistic landing, it would sustain no damage whatsoever and could land normally, using its own parachutes. We know that some astronauts survived even within Challenger's cabin until they hit the water. They'd all survive in a capsule; probably they'd be just bruised by the seat belts.
Columbia breakdown would simply release the capsule from the rest of the debris, and it would have landed normally; people inside would not be even inconvenienced.
Airliners have other safety requirements. For example, a four-engine airplane can fly on two engines and survivably land on one. You are much better off inside an airliner than outside.
The JP's quote says nothing about occupants, so for all practical purposes the vehicle only has to carry itself to the orbit. There is no specification of how many parts is it allowed to replace after each flight.
As it stands, I take a good sized metal ball and call it a spacecraft. Anyone with a rocket can launch this ball to LEO, and when it falls back - launch it again and again (replacing the whole rocket for each launch.) The fact that the ball has a small engine and a parachute inside will qualify it as "operational".
Basically, a $2B project can not be specified on a back of an envelope.
Most missions land with very moderate deceleration; only ballistic landing is up to 6G, and only for a few minutes at that.
The good part about the capsule is its low-tech design; very little can be broken. Once you are in atmosphere you will land, and even if you land using the worst possible trajectory you still know that it is not dangerous. Basically, once you dive into the atmosphere you are safe. Your only danger is if the parachute fails to open, but it's designed to be simple and reliable too.
But Shuttle is a different story. Once you enter the atmosphere you are committed to a most intricate song and dance through tens of thousands of miles across the planet, at exceptionally supersonic speeds, where your vehicle must maneuver just right at every moment, and it does not even have a permanent power source at this time! And after those tens of thousands of miles in the air you have to land on a strip with precision of meters, and you don't have any propulsion to try a different approach! Talk about risky.
Mag Buyers - They get access every month they buy the mag. All they have to do is enter that months code.
How is this code supposed to stay secret? Anyone can look into a magazine on the shelf and copy the code; you don't have to own the magazine for that. More likely, however, the code will be published at zeroth minute after the magazine goes into print.
The number of guns owned by citizens has nothing to do with how civilized the country is. British subjects, for example, have no guns because they can't have them, not only because they don't want them. I believe the same situation is in Japan. Before 20th century weapons were available primarily to most civilized societies (such as knights and other aristocracy), and if you wanted to search for a weaponless class you'd find yourself among beggars.
If all countries suddenly legitimize guns I am sure the citizens would be buying them regardless of the country. This, I believe, is because people all over the world want to be able to protect themselves if a need arises. Sure, the Pope probably won't be arming himself any time soon:-) but anyone else might very well consider. Armed society is a polite society, as they say...
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However it is useful to be able to use a camera once in a while, since it's more likely that I have the phone with me as opposed to a standalone digital photo camera. I treat it as a free add-on that I may use as I please.
I don't use SMS either. I disabled most of it already, it's easy. But if I want to create a small todo item, I can. Or I can create a voice memo, I use that too.
Basically, it's the same as with cheap motherboards (as it was discussed on /. yesterday or so.) You buy mainstream products because they cost less. In case of PM-8200, it may cost a bit more than other phones (depends on what deal you get) but it's a good phone on its own, and it's worth some investment. Or you can go with free, there are many of those still.
With Windows, though, the phone makers will be mostly concerned about performance vs. power consumption. My phone needs charging once a week, assuming that you use it a couple times per day. If a Windows phone needs daily charging, or if it weighs 8 oz. for example, this will be a serious impediment. The market will decide. And if MS manages to make it half-decent, for a change, good for them.
Older AGP connectors had no latch at all. But, for example, an MSI m/board that I have here has this latch, I just checked.
Compare that to PCI. Card edge connectors are notoriously unreliable if the chassis is not aligned properly (and most aren't.) You just shove the card into the slot and hope that most of gold fingers make a contact good enough. But I had boxen that failed because of that. The reason is that plain vanilla PCI connectors don't have a latch at the end. (AGP and PCIE connectors do have a latch, now that we know that one is needed.) If you shake the box the cards can easily pop out of the slots, and you have to open it all up to push them back in.
The second video card can be used to drive the second monitor, which is very nice if you work with many windows at a time.
I don't remember the movie (though I have a tape somewhere). But what you say is actually true. Morse code is a simple encoding which allows to send characters (messages) using only on-off keying - such as light on/off, sound on/off, pause short/long... This is very important because there are situations when all you have is on-off. Being such a simple code, it is important for survival; but with modern reliance upon gadgets this particular art is getting lost.
The trick is that it's easier to transmit the code with a modern keyer - easier than typing, probably. Your hand is completely relaxed, and you only use the thumb and the index finger. The keyer does most of the work - but you must hear what it does, and change the position of the paddle as needed. You do it, in fact, predictively - and it is extremely easy after some practice (a few contests will do it for life :-)
Compared to that, cell phone keyboards are awful. I completely and totally refuse to participate in texting, unless it's unavoidable.
Real conversation, with a real person, is not like that. Try it :-)
I plan to create custom ringers in Morse code and upload them to my phone. So when some people called I will be notified by the ringer, and hardly anyone else will know what it means.
You will look like someone distracted from the subject being discussed. The boss (or whoever manages the meeting) will notice instantly that you are looking at your phone and not at your coworkers, and that you don't pay attention. Do you really want to be reminded: "And now Dave will tell us how he proposes to rework the code to address this very issue..." - then you will look much worse than you feared.
You probably erroneously think that golf is an outdoors activity. But on my planet golf is played indoors, in a small room with hundreds of players standing as close to each other as possible, so close that it's a challenge even to reach for your cell phone! I can completely understand the grandparent's concern, he is probably from my planet too :-)
It's also mathematically impossible because the force per unit time you get out of a solar sail is constant.
Unless, of course, you can control your solar sail - like, say, its surface :-)
This is a non-problem because the same G-forces would have destroyed the aluminum framework of the Shuttle by then, and the debris then could spin all they want, and the capsule would aerostabilize itself within seconds (note that capsules are not spheres, this is exactly for stabilization purposes.)
What about the heat from re-entry? How much heat was still there? Would there havve been a need for an extra heat shield around this emergency pod?
Depends on how much shielding you put on. All US and Russian capsules were/are designed for full thermal profile, from the orbit to the ground and for worst possible path. The heat shield does not seem to be a large factor as long as you don't want it to be reusable.
Would a system be needed to stabilize the pod if the spin was so high that parachutes would be torn to shreds?
No, because the parachute won't open until close to the ground. Practically speaking, the parachute can be safely deployed from anywhere higher than 300 feet. Note that capsules use SRB assist at the moment of landing, so they can take a higher landing speed than your normal skydiver can afford.
In case of Columbia, it fell apart at 10 miles and Mach 18. The capsule would be merrily falling through the atmosphere for minutes before even considering to open the parachute. It would cross several states in doing so. There would be absolutely no danger to the parachute - it is folded inside the capsule (and protected as well as astronauts themselves) until it is deployed.
In case of Challenger, the force of explosion would push the capsule miles away, and it would be falling into the ocean also for minutes (as debris did) and quite far from the main debris field. Of course if the emergency escape tower is still attached it would be activated, and then the capsule would be taken to safety, really far away (tens of miles) from the debris cloud.
So in both cases the failure of the vehicle is very far, time-wise and distance-wise, from the moment of deployment of the main parachute. And you are free to deploy at the last possible moment, thus minimizing its exposure to falling debris. In any case it beats being contained to a crew cabin with no escape.
Don't choose asteroids that fly too fast. Earth is 7 light-seconds from the Sun, IIRC, it's plenty of distance by all standards.
Otherwise you'd be claiming that the Deep Impact mission is impossible since it has to be completed "within hours". But obviously it is possible; there are plenty of asteroids that are well studied (at least because we don't want to be hit by them), so you only need to choose the one that you can slow down as needed.
Also, with regard to speed, the asteroid does not have to stand still relative to Earth - it will fall onto the planet then. What you want is to guide it onto some orbit around the Earth, and its speed will translate into the height of the orbit. That speed will have to be considerable - several kilometers per second. So you need that speed.
Besides, Earth's own orbital speed is 30 km/s, and it can be used since asteroid is not linked into Earth's gravity yet. In other words, if your asteroid is flying at 40 km/s it can be nicely parked in an orbit just as it is.
Sorry, but a "solar sail" could never do the job, even it were possible to manufacture and erect one, say, ten million miles across.
I must go and drown myself then, since in 1950s it was absolutely obvious that nobody can or will make more than a few transistors on one silicon crystal. Before that it was ridiculous to even suggest that one can talk to someone else over large distances. Before that nobody doubted that Earth was flat.
A solar sail is perfectly doable as long as you have a plan and you know what you are doing. Sure it would be stupid to unfold one blanket and think that it will work. But you can unfold a million of them, staggered or whatever, and any single failure will be irrelevant. Open your mind.
Energiya probably still can be built if needed, it's a relatively recent design and it flew already. But here is the reason that you hinted at: there is no need.
You are much more likely to see Soyuz launch from Kourou than from KSC. That launch site is better positioned, and French food is better too :-) Russia already signed several agreements with ESA, as I understand, and will begin construction of the Soyuz launch complex there.
I can. Use a solar sail with size proportional to the mass of your geographical feature. Allow the asteroid to swing by the Sun, and by the time it's back it's as tame as a pet mouse. Some formulas are involved, of course, but nothing more complex than Isaac Newton could do.
Were the Shuttle equipped with a life support capsule where all the people are to stay during launch and landing, they all would have survived:
Challenger explosion would simply throw the capsule away from the stack. Being rugged enough to survive even a ballistic landing, it would sustain no damage whatsoever and could land normally, using its own parachutes. We know that some astronauts survived even within Challenger's cabin until they hit the water. They'd all survive in a capsule; probably they'd be just bruised by the seat belts.
Columbia breakdown would simply release the capsule from the rest of the debris, and it would have landed normally; people inside would not be even inconvenienced.
Airliners have other safety requirements. For example, a four-engine airplane can fly on two engines and survivably land on one. You are much better off inside an airliner than outside.
As it stands, I take a good sized metal ball and call it a spacecraft. Anyone with a rocket can launch this ball to LEO, and when it falls back - launch it again and again (replacing the whole rocket for each launch.) The fact that the ball has a small engine and a parachute inside will qualify it as "operational".
Basically, a $2B project can not be specified on a back of an envelope.
Your question is misdirected. This is Slashdot, and /.ters don't leave their homes, ever :-)
Most missions land with very moderate deceleration; only ballistic landing is up to 6G, and only for a few minutes at that.
The good part about the capsule is its low-tech design; very little can be broken. Once you are in atmosphere you will land, and even if you land using the worst possible trajectory you still know that it is not dangerous. Basically, once you dive into the atmosphere you are safe. Your only danger is if the parachute fails to open, but it's designed to be simple and reliable too.
But Shuttle is a different story. Once you enter the atmosphere you are committed to a most intricate song and dance through tens of thousands of miles across the planet, at exceptionally supersonic speeds, where your vehicle must maneuver just right at every moment, and it does not even have a permanent power source at this time! And after those tens of thousands of miles in the air you have to land on a strip with precision of meters, and you don't have any propulsion to try a different approach! Talk about risky.
How is this code supposed to stay secret? Anyone can look into a magazine on the shelf and copy the code; you don't have to own the magazine for that. More likely, however, the code will be published at zeroth minute after the magazine goes into print.
The number of guns owned by citizens has nothing to do with how civilized the country is. British subjects, for example, have no guns because they can't have them, not only because they don't want them. I believe the same situation is in Japan. Before 20th century weapons were available primarily to most civilized societies (such as knights and other aristocracy), and if you wanted to search for a weaponless class you'd find yourself among beggars.
If all countries suddenly legitimize guns I am sure the citizens would be buying them regardless of the country. This, I believe, is because people all over the world want to be able to protect themselves if a need arises. Sure, the Pope probably won't be arming himself any time soon :-) but anyone else might very well consider. Armed society is a polite society, as they say...
However those Italian barbarians not only expected their right-wing government to fork over cash on someone's behalf, but that actually happened.
It is very sad when people pay taxes to their government and don't dare to expect something back.
They still have a very good reason to fear the security forces - probably even more than ever.