Battery weight could certainly be an issue. I suppose though that you could start off fully charged on the ground and use that for a boost to get you aloft.
Something that comes to mind is that, AFAIK, in a hybrid system you try to keep the combustion engine turning at it's ideal RPM regardless of load. Assuming that's the case, would there be periods where you might have extra capacity beyond what's needed for the electric motors and other electrical systems? Let's assume there is - what do you do with it? Is there a good use for it? How about running an ozone generator in the upper atmosphere?
Are you fucking serious? Are you one of the hyperactive morons disguised as a programmer that I've been forced to work with over the last few years? The kind that goes to Google reflexively instead of, you know, looking at the fucking source code? What industry do you work in where your main reference tool is a search engine? Let me know, because I'm going to start a company and move your job to India, because it obviously doesn't require much intelligence.
Probably not much. I'm guessing they just needed something to keep the company busy while they try to think up something worthy of being the next-big-thing. You can't just fire your entire marketing dept for a year or so while you wait for R&D to finish.
It seems like there are all kinds of things competing for the attention of gamers nowadays. I can't really see 'bejeweled' or whatever the hell the kids are playing on their iPads competing with WoW or whatever. But what about huge timesinks like facebook, twitter, youtube, and even internet news/chat/etc?
I can't say... I just hit 35 and I've damn near lost my ability to sit still in front of a video game. It just feels like a giant sucking waste of time - then again I'm posting on/., so what does that say about me?
Even when I did game, I'd put down $40 for half-life and get... 4-5 years out of it. So I guess I'm not a typical gamer.
Do gravitational waves radiate energy? Have we seen instances, such as during a supernova, where there was missing energy which could be explained by them?
What do you want - to be an effective programmer, or to understand CS theory that you may, depending on your specialty, never get to use?
I'm biased - I came into programming as an EE who landed a job as an embedded software engineer. I tend to work on low-level driver issues(race conditions, improper locking, buffering issues), but I've done contract work on VB6, python, C++, bash scripts, Java, OpenGL, digital video, etc... Beyond a good understanding of locking, buffering(be able to implement a circular buffer in your sleep), and how computers function(down to boolean logic, although I find comfort in knowing how to bias a transistor), I don't think you need most of what a CS guy spends his time on.
I barely know what turing complete means, and I couldn't give a shit about the towers of hanoi or a traveling salesman. None of that has ever come up in my line of work. If you don't already know about that stuff, chances are that you're not smart enough to land the type of job where you would use it.
Object oriented design took me a few years to really get. You just need to apply it, and apply it again, and apply it wrong, and see how other people have applied it wrong(no good definition of wrong here, but you'll know it when you see it). Eventually you'll get a better feel for it. I still can't architect as well as some CS friends of mine, but I consider those guys geniuses, in contrast with a lot of CS educated morons.
Write a multi-tasking OS. I wrote a simple one for the 68HC12 a few years back and it taught me a lot about what you need, and what you don't. You could probably find an emulator so you don't have the added challenge of bringing up a development board, but you really should be able to bring up a development board(write mem tests, exercise the hardware(serial ports, gpio, timers, etc)).
Do it all when you're young. Life catches up with you by the time you're 30.
We've also got to figure that the waste pile will be maintained by humans for as long as we're here. If the packages start to fail in 1000 years, then the intelligent beings of the period will have to repackage the waste for another 1000 years... big deal.
Sorry to threadjack, but speaking of Chinese ownership of rare metals, I have to wonder, don't our landfills now contain enough rare earth metals to keep us going for quite a while?
I mean, even if they somehow cut us off, wouldn't we just start reprocessing our waste? That's the one advantage of buying all of their cheap exports - we're effectively stockpiling their refined resources.
Pausing and rewinding live tv still isn't supported, but scheduling and deleting recordings on satellite boxes has been available to us for several months now.
The biggest issue I have with the system is that it produces severe macroblocking every so often when I watch HD while recording HD. Other than that very serious defect, I've been really pleased with our experience.
Ok, found some "0.75 oz ripstop nylon" on ebay which the seller claims is 42g/m^2.
Let's say the tube is 10m across, for a radius of 5m. The area per meter of height is:
2 * pi * 5 = 31.416m^2
Let's start out with a 2,000ft, or 609.6m height(yeah, 1/10 what I said, but let's try it):
31.416*609.6 = 19,151.12 m^2
Multiply by the weight per meter:
19,151.12 m^2 * 42 g/m^2 = 804.3kg = 1772 lbs
So a 2,000 foot sock of nylon that's 10m across is easily lifted by a small blimp.
So for a 20,000 foot sock, you'd need to lift 17,720 lbs. Probably not doable, but maybe.
I'm thinking that the upward rising column of air would drag on the nylon walls, reducing efficiency but increasing lift.
Ok, I just realized I forgot to include ribbing.. dammit. Ok, someone invent some nanotube ribbing. I guess if the pressure inside was higher(it always would be, right?), you could skip the ribbing and the tube would naturally stay open.
Yeah but think of it this way - if we overreact when they attack a plane, they'll think we REALLY care about planes, and so they'll keep trying to attack them.
I don't fly much, so this sounds like a pretty good strategy to me.
Slashdot Mirror
Yep - If the maintainer is out to lunch you would be doing us all a favor by forking it.
We had an incident nearby about a year ago where some asshole sprayed two dogs with bear mace as he broke-in. Dogs are great, but they're not perfect.
Battery weight could certainly be an issue. I suppose though that you could start off fully charged on the ground and use that for a boost to get you aloft.
Something that comes to mind is that, AFAIK, in a hybrid system you try to keep the combustion engine turning at it's ideal RPM regardless of load. Assuming that's the case, would there be periods where you might have extra capacity beyond what's needed for the electric motors and other electrical systems? Let's assume there is - what do you do with it? Is there a good use for it? How about running an ozone generator in the upper atmosphere?
Good point..
And maybe dark matter is just the civilizations that are trying to hide from us.
Isn't the hot air around the returning vehicle a plasma? If it is, can you repel it with proper use of electromagnetism?
Are you fucking serious? Are you one of the hyperactive morons disguised as a programmer that I've been forced to work with over the last few years? The kind that goes to Google reflexively instead of, you know, looking at the fucking source code? What industry do you work in where your main reference tool is a search engine? Let me know, because I'm going to start a company and move your job to India, because it obviously doesn't require much intelligence.
"We're sorry, but your voicemail is in another castle!"
Would all calls sound like you're talking through a giant steel pipe?
Probably not much. I'm guessing they just needed something to keep the company busy while they try to think up something worthy of being the next-big-thing. You can't just fire your entire marketing dept for a year or so while you wait for R&D to finish.
It seems like there are all kinds of things competing for the attention of gamers nowadays. I can't really see 'bejeweled' or whatever the hell the kids are playing on their iPads competing with WoW or whatever. But what about huge timesinks like facebook, twitter, youtube, and even internet news/chat/etc?
I can't say... I just hit 35 and I've damn near lost my ability to sit still in front of a video game. It just feels like a giant sucking waste of time - then again I'm posting on /., so what does that say about me?
Even when I did game, I'd put down $40 for half-life and get... 4-5 years out of it. So I guess I'm not a typical gamer.
I guess they do carry energy, and we think we've seen proof of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulse-Taylor_binary.
What happens if they don't find anything?
Do gravitational waves radiate energy? Have we seen instances, such as during a supernova, where there was missing energy which could be explained by them?
That's funny... my wife just told me about her soccer mom friend who was raving about her iPhone yesterday.
I thought Avatar's 3D was a stupid gimmick. The parts I remember being in 3D were the ashes and the credits. Did I miss something?
FTW dude.. FTW.
Why won't /. give me modpoints anymore?
That was pure ass... I don't know if my ears will ever be the same.
Look - we tried all this before in the early 80's. Giving synthesizers to people who can't play real instruments just results in horrible music.
What do you want - to be an effective programmer, or to understand CS theory that you may, depending on your specialty, never get to use?
I'm biased - I came into programming as an EE who landed a job as an embedded software engineer. I tend to work on low-level driver issues(race conditions, improper locking, buffering issues), but I've done contract work on VB6, python, C++, bash scripts, Java, OpenGL, digital video, etc... Beyond a good understanding of locking, buffering(be able to implement a circular buffer in your sleep), and how computers function(down to boolean logic, although I find comfort in knowing how to bias a transistor), I don't think you need most of what a CS guy spends his time on.
I barely know what turing complete means, and I couldn't give a shit about the towers of hanoi or a traveling salesman. None of that has ever come up in my line of work. If you don't already know about that stuff, chances are that you're not smart enough to land the type of job where you would use it.
Object oriented design took me a few years to really get. You just need to apply it, and apply it again, and apply it wrong, and see how other people have applied it wrong(no good definition of wrong here, but you'll know it when you see it). Eventually you'll get a better feel for it. I still can't architect as well as some CS friends of mine, but I consider those guys geniuses, in contrast with a lot of CS educated morons.
Write a multi-tasking OS. I wrote a simple one for the 68HC12 a few years back and it taught me a lot about what you need, and what you don't. You could probably find an emulator so you don't have the added challenge of bringing up a development board, but you really should be able to bring up a development board(write mem tests, exercise the hardware(serial ports, gpio, timers, etc)).
Do it all when you're young. Life catches up with you by the time you're 30.
We've also got to figure that the waste pile will be maintained by humans for as long as we're here. If the packages start to fail in 1000 years, then the intelligent beings of the period will have to repackage the waste for another 1000 years... big deal.
Depends... you could still do it with one laser and a beam splitter.
Add a couple of piezo-electric mirrors and you don't have too many moving parts that will fail.
Sorry to threadjack, but speaking of Chinese ownership of rare metals, I have to wonder, don't our landfills now contain enough rare earth metals to keep us going for quite a while?
I mean, even if they somehow cut us off, wouldn't we just start reprocessing our waste? That's the one advantage of buying all of their cheap exports - we're effectively stockpiling their refined resources.
Pausing and rewinding live tv still isn't supported, but scheduling and deleting recordings on satellite boxes has been available to us for several months now.
The biggest issue I have with the system is that it produces severe macroblocking every so often when I watch HD while recording HD. Other than that very serious defect, I've been really pleased with our experience.
Ok, found some "0.75 oz ripstop nylon" on ebay which the seller claims is 42g/m^2.
Let's say the tube is 10m across, for a radius of 5m. The area per meter of height is:
2 * pi * 5 = 31.416m^2
Let's start out with a 2,000ft, or 609.6m height(yeah, 1/10 what I said, but let's try it):
31.416*609.6 = 19,151.12 m^2
Multiply by the weight per meter:
19,151.12 m^2 * 42 g/m^2 = 804.3kg = 1772 lbs
So a 2,000 foot sock of nylon that's 10m across is easily lifted by a small blimp.
So for a 20,000 foot sock, you'd need to lift 17,720 lbs. Probably not doable, but maybe.
I'm thinking that the upward rising column of air would drag on the nylon walls, reducing efficiency but increasing lift.
Ok, I just realized I forgot to include ribbing.. dammit. Ok, someone invent some nanotube ribbing. I guess if the pressure inside was higher(it always would be, right?), you could skip the ribbing and the tube would naturally stay open.
So hang a ribbed nylon sock from a giant blimp at 20,000 feet... no guy wires to mess with.
Security is about everything, period.
millimeter waves already exist in the natural environment and haven't killed us all yet
Or they're a factor in aging and disease...
Probably not, but you knew someone was going to say it.
Yeah but think of it this way - if we overreact when they attack a plane, they'll think we REALLY care about planes, and so they'll keep trying to attack them.
I don't fly much, so this sounds like a pretty good strategy to me.