The politics is about deciding when identity should be questioned, we are talking about how to do it correctly when you decide it is needed. The odd thing is that doing it entirely using the human eye and brain is probably more efficient than most of the high tech solutions.
If the Falcon series are competetive to that degree then they can afford to be pushed on safety. Commercial spaceflight can't afford to have any conspicuous failures, and NASA can't afford to let them fail if they need them this badly. Public opinion is going to matter a lot in the spaceflight market.
This is actually the problem that aerospikes were intended to solve. A containing nozzle works well at one altitude and pathetically at most others. At any one pressure level, an aerospike performs more poorly than a conventional nozzle, but on average over all operating pressures, the efficiency is much better for a half contained nozzle. This was supposedly the advantage that would allow it to be used for SSTO.
Various commercial rockets have been proposed to operate as SSTO with a single aerospike engine. A few got off the drawing board and into testing, but they have all now been quietly forgotten.
As a backup system in case a flaw in the design of either vehicle is ever brought to light. We don't want a repeat of the shuttle days when a dangerous system was flown just because it was the only option.
The article mentions this. The results aren't just different depending on whether the ID string is correct or not, but also on what incorrect value it is set to.
Why would it be necessary to land a satellite carrying kinetic weapons once it had fired off all of its rods? Giving it wings and heat shielding would be a massive waste of effort. A rods from god weapons platform would be just a cheap box to hold the munitions together, with a big hefty booster strapped to the back for changing orbits.
This isn't a spaceplane in itself, it would only deserve the name if it were an SSTO. It's just an aerodynamic upper stage to some ancient missile technology. Perhaps the best way to think of it is as a satellite that can land itself if needed. What NASA can't do is to make a shuttle-like vehicle that is both safe enough to be allowed to carry humans (which the original shuttle wouldn't have done, if the rules weren't ignored at the time) and is also large enough to be used for resupply of the ISS.
I was going to guess that the holes in the metal were less than the size of a single CCD pixel element, but a few back of the envelope calculations inform me that they are about the same size.
Maybe more holes ruins the smooth flow of the sample?
I'll admit to not being entirely sure what a plasmon is, but I suspect it is controllable by electric fields. The article gives the impression that they are trying to find a groove pattern in the mirror such that the plasmons can be adjusted to various patterns by regulating voltage to a few lumps of nearby conductor.
I haven't kept up with the finer details of NASA's moonbase plan. Is it meant to be a joint international project with several countries having independant means to reach it? If not it does seem rather odd for ESA to want to develop this, although I can imagine Russia wanting to play its part in another space race.
It is always this way. I've been saying that we should attempt manned missions to Venus using balloons for years, and now that somebody else suggests it I feel compelled to start poking holes in the idea.
It is quite nice as a there-and-back science mission but for a long term colony it's a terrible environment. The local resources are incredibly difficult to get hold of if you have to send a balloon down to get them, remember that the record for longest lasting machine on the Venusian surface is slightly over an hour.
The only reason to go there and take humans along is if space travel has become cheap and easy enough that you can do it on a whim.
I do love the idea behind menuet, but it's not usable as anything other than a toy on most hardware. If your machine happens to be one that is supported it's probably quite fun. I have yet to see such a machine.
I've always wanted to see a solar powered articulated lorry with battery intermediate systems. If you are going to accept that with solar panels as the only energy input the vehicle will never be ready to use at any time, you might as well build something big that can carry several tonnes of batteries and let you make a respectable length of journey before having to sit in the sun for a month to recharge.
So we've found a candidate for the centre of consciousness in the brain. Who's up to volunteer to have it removed to see if they turn into a philosophical zombie?
Both protein and DNA are partially self assembling polymers, and their purposes can in theory be completely interchangeable. A lot of the most basic functions of metabolism are carried out by RNA-based structures as well as proteins.
I think that what they are proposing is to create a DNA structure that can be replicated when kept artifially fed with these new bases, but which can then be used as a drug in its own right when introduced into humans. Presumably the most common use of it would be to interact with other DNA structures, blocking genes or similar, but there's no reason to believe that you couldn't do other tricks with it.
So the face recognition continues to work as long as you don't get smacked in the face, and you can continue remembering your password as long as nobody hits you in the back of the head. Now I don't have to fear people with hammers! I can log in no matter which way I'm facing when they attack me!
Overdramatic vaguely related car analogy: Ford hires hitmen to shoot the drivers of non-Ford cars. This makes Fords the safest vehicles on the road. We should all be buying their vehicles, yes?
Take note of that "restrictions of online privacy tools" part of the summary. This isn't just trying to make assisting in copyright violation a crime, it is trying to make it enforceable as well.
Granted, taking away anonymity online is not the same thing as directly limiting free speech but it is coming uncomfortably close.
An unmanned automated airship would be the best candidate for such a thing. As long as it doesn't crash on anyone, if it were to burn up the only thing lost would be it and the cargo.
I was thinking the same thing for different reasons. It should be unmanned to give the ships a chance to prove that they are safe without fear ruining the show.
I still remember the dream of thousand tonne capacity cargo airships that would revolutionise the transport of anything big and delicate. The only purpose this sky yacht can serve that I care about is as a small scale proof of expertise in the field to attract more investment. Things probably won't work that way unfortunately.
What would interest me far more would be an attempt to make hydrogen airships once more. It is like any technology involving large amounts of energy, there are dangers but they only apply if you don't design your machine properly.
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Nonsense! 98SE is the best Windows ever. You can tell because mechwarrior 2 and AvP1 run on it.
Are you really trying to invent the copyleft equivalent of DRM?
The politics is about deciding when identity should be questioned, we are talking about how to do it correctly when you decide it is needed. The odd thing is that doing it entirely using the human eye and brain is probably more efficient than most of the high tech solutions.
If the Falcon series are competetive to that degree then they can afford to be pushed on safety. Commercial spaceflight can't afford to have any conspicuous failures, and NASA can't afford to let them fail if they need them this badly. Public opinion is going to matter a lot in the spaceflight market.
This is actually the problem that aerospikes were intended to solve. A containing nozzle works well at one altitude and pathetically at most others. At any one pressure level, an aerospike performs more poorly than a conventional nozzle, but on average over all operating pressures, the efficiency is much better for a half contained nozzle. This was supposedly the advantage that would allow it to be used for SSTO.
Various commercial rockets have been proposed to operate as SSTO with a single aerospike engine. A few got off the drawing board and into testing, but they have all now been quietly forgotten.
As a backup system in case a flaw in the design of either vehicle is ever brought to light. We don't want a repeat of the shuttle days when a dangerous system was flown just because it was the only option.
The article mentions this. The results aren't just different depending on whether the ID string is correct or not, but also on what incorrect value it is set to.
Why would it be necessary to land a satellite carrying kinetic weapons once it had fired off all of its rods? Giving it wings and heat shielding would be a massive waste of effort. A rods from god weapons platform would be just a cheap box to hold the munitions together, with a big hefty booster strapped to the back for changing orbits.
This isn't a spaceplane in itself, it would only deserve the name if it were an SSTO. It's just an aerodynamic upper stage to some ancient missile technology. Perhaps the best way to think of it is as a satellite that can land itself if needed. What NASA can't do is to make a shuttle-like vehicle that is both safe enough to be allowed to carry humans (which the original shuttle wouldn't have done, if the rules weren't ignored at the time) and is also large enough to be used for resupply of the ISS.
I was going to guess that the holes in the metal were less than the size of a single CCD pixel element, but a few back of the envelope calculations inform me that they are about the same size.
Maybe more holes ruins the smooth flow of the sample?
I'll admit to not being entirely sure what a plasmon is, but I suspect it is controllable by electric fields. The article gives the impression that they are trying to find a groove pattern in the mirror such that the plasmons can be adjusted to various patterns by regulating voltage to a few lumps of nearby conductor.
I haven't kept up with the finer details of NASA's moonbase plan. Is it meant to be a joint international project with several countries having independant means to reach it? If not it does seem rather odd for ESA to want to develop this, although I can imagine Russia wanting to play its part in another space race.
It is always this way. I've been saying that we should attempt manned missions to Venus using balloons for years, and now that somebody else suggests it I feel compelled to start poking holes in the idea.
It is quite nice as a there-and-back science mission but for a long term colony it's a terrible environment. The local resources are incredibly difficult to get hold of if you have to send a balloon down to get them, remember that the record for longest lasting machine on the Venusian surface is slightly over an hour.
The only reason to go there and take humans along is if space travel has become cheap and easy enough that you can do it on a whim.
I do love the idea behind menuet, but it's not usable as anything other than a toy on most hardware. If your machine happens to be one that is supported it's probably quite fun. I have yet to see such a machine.
You seem to be implying that the government is worried about people emigrating to space.
I've always wanted to see a solar powered articulated lorry with battery intermediate systems. If you are going to accept that with solar panels as the only energy input the vehicle will never be ready to use at any time, you might as well build something big that can carry several tonnes of batteries and let you make a respectable length of journey before having to sit in the sun for a month to recharge.
So we've found a candidate for the centre of consciousness in the brain. Who's up to volunteer to have it removed to see if they turn into a philosophical zombie?
Both protein and DNA are partially self assembling polymers, and their purposes can in theory be completely interchangeable. A lot of the most basic functions of metabolism are carried out by RNA-based structures as well as proteins.
I think that what they are proposing is to create a DNA structure that can be replicated when kept artifially fed with these new bases, but which can then be used as a drug in its own right when introduced into humans. Presumably the most common use of it would be to interact with other DNA structures, blocking genes or similar, but there's no reason to believe that you couldn't do other tricks with it.
Let's start running away now. greenfly
So the face recognition continues to work as long as you don't get smacked in the face, and you can continue remembering your password as long as nobody hits you in the back of the head. Now I don't have to fear people with hammers! I can log in no matter which way I'm facing when they attack me!
Overdramatic vaguely related car analogy: Ford hires hitmen to shoot the drivers of non-Ford cars. This makes Fords the safest vehicles on the road. We should all be buying their vehicles, yes?
Take note of that "restrictions of online privacy tools" part of the summary. This isn't just trying to make assisting in copyright violation a crime, it is trying to make it enforceable as well.
Granted, taking away anonymity online is not the same thing as directly limiting free speech but it is coming uncomfortably close.
An unmanned automated airship would be the best candidate for such a thing. As long as it doesn't crash on anyone, if it were to burn up the only thing lost would be it and the cargo.
I was thinking the same thing for different reasons. It should be unmanned to give the ships a chance to prove that they are safe without fear ruining the show.
I still remember the dream of thousand tonne capacity cargo airships that would revolutionise the transport of anything big and delicate. The only purpose this sky yacht can serve that I care about is as a small scale proof of expertise in the field to attract more investment. Things probably won't work that way unfortunately. What would interest me far more would be an attempt to make hydrogen airships once more. It is like any technology involving large amounts of energy, there are dangers but they only apply if you don't design your machine properly.