...if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. Are they now saying that information can be misused by wrong-doers, and that privacy actually has a value?
The Brazilian papers are doing the right thing if they feel that Google news (and similar indexers/aggregators) are costing more clicks/view/revenue than they are bringing in. Opt out. I suspect they are wrong, but they are welcome to try it for awhile. If it doesn't work, they can always change their minds and opt back in.
Unlike the French media, which expects Google to channel views to them for nothing and pay them for the privilege.
I meant the total cost of the returned product vs its locally mined competitors. Platinum group metals extracted from asteroids may currently be much more expensive than Earth-mined PGMs, so there's no market for bringing asteroid-PGMs down to Earth. But to get anything from Earth into space adds thousands of dollars per kilogram, changing the cost equation dramatically. So the initial market for anything produced in space is to use it in space.
(Of course, once we have in-situ fuel, reusable cargo transport between asteroid mines and Earth-orbit, and are making enough profit to have paid off all our asteroid mining technology, then we may find that a "waste product" from our asteroid mining, like PGMs, or even nickel-iron, is price-competitive even on Earth. When we cross that line, the rules of the game change forever.)
Why not put a well-shielded controller instead and have the people control it remotely from a safe location? Well, it is Japan, the land of the weird ideas.
Aren't you curious what God was up to before genesis? I mean, if God has existed forever, and the universe is just 6000 years old, then what the hell was he doing all the rest of that time? Off making other universes? Were they successful or not? How much baggage does God have? Are the angels the result of those previous geneses? If not, when were the angels created? And the cherubs, oh why won't anyone think of the cherubs?!
The theological implications of this new science are infinite and staggering.
Samsung wouldn't have gone very far unless the Middle Eastern oil companies provided them with petrochemicals for the Galaxy's plastic cover. However, there is nothing made by Samsung in any product supplied by the said companies. Now...who is the innovator?
The advantage isn't taking metals back. It's using them on Mars. If there really is even just metallic iron, that'd be a HUGE benefit for colonization.
However, without trade, the colony will always be dependent on its parent nation. And that's not really a colony, it's just an outpost. A really expensive outpost.
The advantage with asteroids (and to some extent lunar development), is that you can serve other markets. Even if it's not cost effective to bring the product back to Earth, as long as it's cheaper than launching from Earth, there should be a small but growing market for in-orbit delivery. Starting with fuel, then air/water, then bulk shielding and crude structures, and developing through more complex manufactured materials. And each stage also feeds back on itself, if you can supply fuel cheaper than Earth-launch, you lower your own running costs, and make whole new activities possible in space which creates whole new markets...
Such a process, once started, should then develop naturally, with each stage paying for itself and creating a market for the next stage; without requiring constant funding through traditional space agencies. [Although it will also give space agencies more bang for their buck. As well as making space exploration easier to justify to the average voter, and the very average politicians.] Until one day you read about how many people permanently live in space, and you realise that we are finally genuinely out there.
Mars won't do that. It will always be a "program", a drain. Historically, colonies like that always fail.
Differentiated metals on Mars almost certainly came from asteroid impacts. (*) So discovering rare elemental metals on Mars means that you'll find it on asteroids (ie, not just on metallic asteroids, impacts mean the average carbonaceous will have a good coating of metallic elements.)
(* Unless there's some native metal crapping lifeform on Mars. Which is also okay.)
Each year we dump 6 million tons of garbage in the oceans. That's how much we care.
I will happily angrily shout at a company dumping 100 tons of waste because they can't be bothered not dumping it. I'm happy to support, through my council taxes, gratings to stop a few hundred tons of plastic waste from washing into the sea via local storm-water. But no, I'm not going to get upset over someone deliberately releasing a tiny amount of chemical fertiliser to achieve two specific positive effects, very slightly increasing regional fish biomass and very slightly reducing global CO2.
Even as research, this is a trivial amount. And given how potentially useful the technique, we damn well should be doing the research.
Every year we take 100 million tons of biomass from the oceans (mostly as pelagic fish, 70m tons). And each year, we dump 6 million tons of garbage in the oceans, 2 million tons of waste oil, and discharge about 450 cubic kilometres of waste water into rivers (about 450 billion tons, so even ppb chemicals release more than 100 tons).
But lets worry about 100 tons of iron sulphate dust.
Not really. The past attempts, including the shuttle, were all designed and created (and even operated) through a cascade of external cost-plus contractors. I'm not sure if NASA has ever tried to actually build its own launcher in-house.
Frankly it would be an interesting exercise, just to see what happens. I suspect the order of expense, from cheapest to most expensive would turn out to be: 1) Fixed price-on-delivery purchase of services under SAA, 2) in-house development, 3) traditional cost-plus contracting under FAR. Ie, the mandated way of doing things is the most needlessly wasteful.
"The actual total cost of the shuttle program [...] is $196 billion." [...] divided by 135 missions [...] yields 1.452 billion dollars per 28K lb mission
Worse than that. If you compare the shuttle program's annual budget with the number of missions flown in a particular year, there's almost no correlation. The cost of having a shuttle program was pretty much the same whether you launched 4 flights per year, or one, or none. Hence, ModernGeek's claim that
"We could have flown the shuttle once a year for 1/4th the cost,"
is crap. It would have cost $3 billion per year, the minimum cost of maintaining the facilities and staff necessary for the shuttle program.
But it's worse than that. The stated capacity for the Dragon deliveries is for internal, pressurised payload. The "28,000 lbs" figure that ModernGeek quotes for the shuttle is unpressurised payload in the cargo-bay. If you want to lift unpressurised payload, you can use the full capacity of an F9 launch (or any of the more expensive, but still cheaper than the shuttle, rival launchers like the Delta-IV Heavy.)
But it's worse than that. The reason SpaceX's contract is broken up over 12 launches is that NASA wants 12 launches; access not payload capacity. So you need to compare Dragon with the cost of 12 shuttle launches, which, at a program maximum of 4 per year, means $9billion at an absolute, fire-sale, cutting-corners, minimum.
Or enable us to digest grass. Solving 3rd world hunger, briefly. For the west, perhaps the opposite, turning excess fats, sugars and highly processed carbs into indigestible starches. Oh, of course, parasitic intestinal worms that turn excess fats, sugars and highly processed carbs into a nutritious paste suitable for export as food aide. Solves western obesity and 3rd world starvation (without us having to actually do anything).
[Natural parasites and worms already have vastly more capabilities than any likely nanobots.]
You don't arrest them for the crime you incite them to commit, it just allows you to identify and tag them. Then you monitor them for other illegal activities. That's what you arrest them for. (And by monitoring their communication, you can pick up other criminals that weren't attracted by the initial incitement. Allowing you to conduct coordinated international raids that take out entire networks. Also, you can find the few very best coders and recruit them. Possibly to work against their own government.)
And if you really did unreasonably "incite" some of them, they won't commit other crimes, so they get away with it.
Slashdot Mirror
...if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. Are they now saying that information can be misused by wrong-doers, and that privacy actually has a value?
The Brazilian papers are doing the right thing if they feel that Google news (and similar indexers/aggregators) are costing more clicks/view/revenue than they are bringing in. Opt out. I suspect they are wrong, but they are welcome to try it for awhile. If it doesn't work, they can always change their minds and opt back in.
Unlike the French media, which expects Google to channel views to them for nothing and pay them for the privilege.
I meant the total cost of the returned product vs its locally mined competitors. Platinum group metals extracted from asteroids may currently be much more expensive than Earth-mined PGMs, so there's no market for bringing asteroid-PGMs down to Earth. But to get anything from Earth into space adds thousands of dollars per kilogram, changing the cost equation dramatically. So the initial market for anything produced in space is to use it in space.
(Of course, once we have in-situ fuel, reusable cargo transport between asteroid mines and Earth-orbit, and are making enough profit to have paid off all our asteroid mining technology, then we may find that a "waste product" from our asteroid mining, like PGMs, or even nickel-iron, is price-competitive even on Earth. When we cross that line, the rules of the game change forever.)
Oh, clever. Thank you for that.
(I will try to remember that the next time I'm being a sarcastic jerk in response to one of these old-media/new-media stories. :)
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
Watching pr0n.
Eeeevery sperm is saaacred...
Why not put a well-shielded controller instead and have the people control it remotely from a safe location? Well, it is Japan, the land of the weird ideas.
And risk ruining a perfectly good robot?
As long as the suit comes in five distinct models which can join up to become a single unit, I will be happy.
They made a game of it. See how many they could count in an hour, and then try to beat it.
Aren't you curious what God was up to before genesis? I mean, if God has existed forever, and the universe is just 6000 years old, then what the hell was he doing all the rest of that time? Off making other universes? Were they successful or not? How much baggage does God have? Are the angels the result of those previous geneses? If not, when were the angels created? And the cherubs, oh why won't anyone think of the cherubs?!
The theological implications of this new science are infinite and staggering.
New Slashdot meme?
"In Communist China, government..."
Shhhh. Anything that dilutes the meaning of the word "pirating" is a good thing.
Samsung wouldn't have gone very far unless the Middle Eastern oil companies provided them with petrochemicals for the Galaxy's plastic cover. However, there is nothing made by Samsung in any product supplied by the said companies. Now...who is the innovator?
Bet you a shiny dollar there is.
Samsung Heavy Industries.
Is there anything of actual value to our planet Earth that we can glean from pure knowledge (and knowledge alone) of Mars?
The question itself precludes, by definition, the value of any answer.
The advantage isn't taking metals back. It's using them on Mars. If there really is even just metallic iron, that'd be a HUGE benefit for colonization.
However, without trade, the colony will always be dependent on its parent nation. And that's not really a colony, it's just an outpost. A really expensive outpost.
The advantage with asteroids (and to some extent lunar development), is that you can serve other markets. Even if it's not cost effective to bring the product back to Earth, as long as it's cheaper than launching from Earth, there should be a small but growing market for in-orbit delivery. Starting with fuel, then air/water, then bulk shielding and crude structures, and developing through more complex manufactured materials. And each stage also feeds back on itself, if you can supply fuel cheaper than Earth-launch, you lower your own running costs, and make whole new activities possible in space which creates whole new markets...
Such a process, once started, should then develop naturally, with each stage paying for itself and creating a market for the next stage; without requiring constant funding through traditional space agencies. [Although it will also give space agencies more bang for their buck. As well as making space exploration easier to justify to the average voter, and the very average politicians.] Until one day you read about how many people permanently live in space, and you realise that we are finally genuinely out there.
Mars won't do that. It will always be a "program", a drain. Historically, colonies like that always fail.
Differentiated metals on Mars almost certainly came from asteroid impacts. (*) So discovering rare elemental metals on Mars means that you'll find it on asteroids (ie, not just on metallic asteroids, impacts mean the average carbonaceous will have a good coating of metallic elements.)
(* Unless there's some native metal crapping lifeform on Mars. Which is also okay.)
Each year we dump 6 million tons of garbage in the oceans. That's how much we care.
I will happily angrily shout at a company dumping 100 tons of waste because they can't be bothered not dumping it. I'm happy to support, through my council taxes, gratings to stop a few hundred tons of plastic waste from washing into the sea via local storm-water. But no, I'm not going to get upset over someone deliberately releasing a tiny amount of chemical fertiliser to achieve two specific positive effects, very slightly increasing regional fish biomass and very slightly reducing global CO2.
Even as research, this is a trivial amount. And given how potentially useful the technique, we damn well should be doing the research.
Yes. In both French and English.
Every year we take 100 million tons of biomass from the oceans (mostly as pelagic fish, 70m tons). And each year, we dump 6 million tons of garbage in the oceans, 2 million tons of waste oil, and discharge about 450 cubic kilometres of waste water into rivers (about 450 billion tons, so even ppb chemicals release more than 100 tons).
But lets worry about 100 tons of iron sulphate dust.
Not really. The past attempts, including the shuttle, were all designed and created (and even operated) through a cascade of external cost-plus contractors. I'm not sure if NASA has ever tried to actually build its own launcher in-house.
Frankly it would be an interesting exercise, just to see what happens. I suspect the order of expense, from cheapest to most expensive would turn out to be: 1) Fixed price-on-delivery purchase of services under SAA, 2) in-house development, 3) traditional cost-plus contracting under FAR. Ie, the mandated way of doing things is the most needlessly wasteful.
"The actual total cost of the shuttle program [...] is $196 billion." [...] divided by 135 missions [...] yields 1.452 billion dollars per 28K lb mission
Worse than that. If you compare the shuttle program's annual budget with the number of missions flown in a particular year, there's almost no correlation. The cost of having a shuttle program was pretty much the same whether you launched 4 flights per year, or one, or none. Hence, ModernGeek's claim that
"We could have flown the shuttle once a year for 1/4th the cost,"
is crap. It would have cost $3 billion per year, the minimum cost of maintaining the facilities and staff necessary for the shuttle program.
But it's worse than that. The stated capacity for the Dragon deliveries is for internal, pressurised payload. The "28,000 lbs" figure that ModernGeek quotes for the shuttle is unpressurised payload in the cargo-bay. If you want to lift unpressurised payload, you can use the full capacity of an F9 launch (or any of the more expensive, but still cheaper than the shuttle, rival launchers like the Delta-IV Heavy.)
But it's worse than that. The reason SpaceX's contract is broken up over 12 launches is that NASA wants 12 launches; access not payload capacity. So you need to compare Dragon with the cost of 12 shuttle launches, which, at a program maximum of 4 per year, means $9billion at an absolute, fire-sale, cutting-corners, minimum.
Or enable us to digest grass. Solving 3rd world hunger, briefly. For the west, perhaps the opposite, turning excess fats, sugars and highly processed carbs into indigestible starches. Oh, of course, parasitic intestinal worms that turn excess fats, sugars and highly processed carbs into a nutritious paste suitable for export as food aide. Solves western obesity and 3rd world starvation (without us having to actually do anything).
[Natural parasites and worms already have vastly more capabilities than any likely nanobots.]
You don't arrest them for the crime you incite them to commit, it just allows you to identify and tag them. Then you monitor them for other illegal activities. That's what you arrest them for. (And by monitoring their communication, you can pick up other criminals that weren't attracted by the initial incitement. Allowing you to conduct coordinated international raids that take out entire networks. Also, you can find the few very best coders and recruit them. Possibly to work against their own government.)
And if you really did unreasonably "incite" some of them, they won't commit other crimes, so they get away with it.
But if I've learned anything from the Die Hard movies, it's that posing as terrorists is the ideal way of hiding an elaborate theft.
Errr, the toilet isn't the "source".
Although that would be an innovation worth posting on Slashdot: parasitic intestinal worms engineered to turn faeces into compost in vivo.