The submission has one detail wrong - the neutron star is orbiting the other star in only 11 minutes. The situation is the same as the Earth going around the sun (the definition of a year) in only 11 minutes.
Neutron stars actually spin much faster than that. The neutron star B1937+21, discovered in 1982 rotates in 1.6 milliseconds (625 full spins per second). Rapidly spinning neutron stars are also called pulsars, because of the radio pulses they emit. One of the first pulsars discovered was the neutron star in the middle of the Crab Nebula, which rotates 33 times per second.
A few complicating factors show up, too. If the object isn't coming straight down (almost certainly it isn't), it will be hitting the atmosphere at an angle. Depending on the angle and the density of the object, the impact point can shift thousands of miles. A real life example is the reentry of umanned spacecraft. They hit the atmosphere at *very* low angles, so, even though we know the orbits of these object well enough to predict their positions to within meters, by the time they reach the ground we can't even predict where they'll hit within hundreds of kilometers. An object like this potential asteroid, where we don't know the orbit to anything like the same accuracy leaves the predictions with results like "it'll hit around 33 degrees north latitude somewhere within a few thousand kilometers of 25 degrees west longitude". The predictions will be probability graphs across a map of the world. One of the biggest uncertainties is the density of the object.
No. The first trancendental number proven to be so was specifically constructed to be easy to prove to be trancendental. The number is the sum of the infinite series (10^-1! + 10^-2! + 10^-3!... = 0.11000100000000000000001...). The digits in this number are most definitely *not* random, but the number is trancendental.
Yes. Pi has been proven to be a trancendental number, that is a number which cannot be expressed as a root of a finite polynomial equation. Trancendental numbers have been proven as a class to be non-terminating and non-repeating.
Of course, keep in mind that this is the whole *point* of legislation. I strongly disagree with what's being done, but this is exactly how "the system" gets things done. If you don't like the way something is, get a law passed (or revoked, as the case may be). The MPAA and RIAA stand to increase their profits substantially at our expense without providing significant value to us, the consumers. Since they have a *lot* more money than we do, they can buy off senators and congressthings and get the laws passed they want. Nothing has changed in the situation here - they've just found a particularly noxious way to emphasize the power money brings.
NASA is doing lots of stuff. As we speak, the Mars Global Surveyor mission http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ is sending back tons of images and mapping the surface of the entire planet in great detail. Unfortunately, the last two probes arriving there both failed, but the US has sent lots of probes to Mars to set all this up. With the two failures comes a lot of finger-pointing, so they now have to take a couple steps back and start working their way toward the Mars missions they really want to do. They just realize (especially with this being an election year) that Congressional cretins will sieze on their recent failures to make reasonable sounding (to the sheeple) cuts in NASA's budget if they propose anything too dramatic.
That's all fine, except for one thing. Bankrupcy does not cover judgements. If a court rules that you owe somebody a ton of money, then you declare bankruptcy, you *still* owe them a ton of money. IANAL, but my dad, who IS, has made certain that I understand that fines and penalties assessed by courts cannot be gotten rid of by declaring bankruptcy.
Your points on voting within a large population are well taken. When I vote, my focus is not on Presidential candidates. When the Electoral College is added in, my vote there is nearly worthless.
Instead, concentrate on the local issues. In every election there are numerous ballot issues asking useful things like, "Should we tax everybody so we can have lights at the local softball field?" For these issues my vote is relatively important, because there are not that many people eligible to vote on them. Also, these issues are often some of the most significant for the local area I live in.
In one area I lived there was an issue to have the local city no longer use the city next door's water system, but build our own. The issue passed, narrowly. The immediate effect was that water bills went up 500% for 20 years. The longer term effect was that the extra expense made it impractical for many local businesses to remain local, so they moved to nearby cities. The local shopping malls all died.
So I won't sweat my vote for President, but I'll be studying the local and state issues in detail.
When thinking about this sort of thing it's important to keep a wide perspective. The purpose of gathering requirements is to ensure that the right stuff get written. If you're coding the changes yourself for yourself, you'll know when you've gotten it right - so you don't need to have written requirements. If you're coding stuff for other people, then you need to gather all the information you can so you can get it right.
When doing all this development life cycle stuff you need to keep the *why* in mind, or you rapidly end up with a lot of bureaucratic BS which wastes everybody's time and effort.
There will be no fallout from a high air blast. By _definition_, "fallout" is material swept up into the fireball which then "falls out" of the blast. Fallout can only occur when the blast is low enough for material to be swept up into the fireball, and high air blasts are, again by definition, too high for this to be significant.
FG Powers plane was brought down by conventional explosives. He survived the blast and was eventually swapped for a Soviet spy.
Other than that, you're correct. The main idea is that you don't have to score a direct hit to bring down the bomber. You just gotta be close. As they say, Close enough for atom bombs or hand grenades.
The poor sods here who work production support are simply _expected_ to do it, as part of their normal job - even though it's off hours. That's one of the reasons I transferred to a department where I don't have to carry the damn beeper and answer phone calls at 1 AM an more. The baffling part is why people put up with it. It has been proposed multiple times to management, and they keep coming up with lame excuses why not.
1) Approved patent requests are reviewed, using a sophisticated deterministic algorithm, by a monodecadic aged individual to determine whether stated improvements or methods for accomplishing said improvements are "obvious" to this individual.
2) In the event that the approved patent fails the review, forceful application of an appropriately shod lower extremity to the gluteus maximus of the associated Patent Office personnel is provided as immediate feedback.
In other words, if it's obvious to a 10 year old child, kick the reviewer(s) in the ass!
Actually, biologists recognise seven kingdoms of life now... Animals, plants, two for bacteria, protista, eumycota (what you usually think of as fungi), and chromista (kelp is an example).
The fungi described are all the common molds you find when food in your house goes bad. Penicillium is the common greenish mold, and the other two are the common white, gray, and black molds. Fungi are among the most durable organisms on the face of the earth - it should come as no surprise that they would survive on Mir (or in other spacecraft). Lichens are primarily fungi, and they survive in some of the most inhospitable places on earth. Their primary food source in space is skin, hair, and other "stuff" we humans regularly shed, along with the organic materials built into the spacecraft - insulation and stuff like that. The greatest risks they pose are possible damage to the spacecraft and the astronauts possibly inhaling large quantities of spores. Inhaling the spores can sometimes cause severe allergic reactions, which can be life threatening.
It's exactly the same situation as the sun's "rays" when the sun is setting. They appear to radiate in all directions from the sun, but they are, in fact, all parallel. In two hours you've actually covered about 30 degrees, so you're actually under a slightly different part of the orbit but the overall general direction you see is southward, and usually eastward. The second time the ISS is actually appearing to travel pretty much southward, not westward.
Keep in mind that Dr. O'Neill did have economics in mind when he wrote this. His idea was to use the stations as enormous solar power plants, then discover some way to transmit the generated power down to earth. Back then (about 1977) the technology for that kind of high level power transmission didn't exist, and I haven't kept up with that field since then, but it seemed likely that we would have the technology within 10 years. If fossil fuel prices continue to escalate, this type of thing may yet become economical.
Re:The Solution is Quite Clear but very unpleasant
on
Living Terrors
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· Score: 1
A realistic response is probably more like what the Russians did in the Middle East back in the 80s. A couple Russian agents were kidnapped and murdered. The Russians sent agents into the area, hunted down several of those responsible, kidnapped, "interrogated", executed and decapitated them, then left the bodies where they would be found as a clear message. The result was that their people were left alone by the groups that then went on to kidnap several people from the US and Europe. While many members of terrorist groups (not just in the Middle East) are extremely willing to sacrifice their lives for the cause, it is notable that their leaders seem to not show the same zeal. And if those leaders believe that retribution is likely or certain, they will be a lot less willing to sponsor this sort of nonsense.
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The submission has one detail wrong - the neutron star is orbiting the other star in only 11 minutes. The situation is the same as the Earth going around the sun (the definition of a year) in only 11 minutes.
Neutron stars actually spin much faster than that. The neutron star B1937+21, discovered in 1982 rotates in 1.6 milliseconds (625 full spins per second). Rapidly spinning neutron stars are also called pulsars, because of the radio pulses they emit. One of the first pulsars discovered was the neutron star in the middle of the Crab Nebula, which rotates 33 times per second.
Obligatory links:
Jodrell Bank
Parkes
Arecibo
A few complicating factors show up, too. If the object isn't coming straight down (almost certainly it isn't), it will be hitting the atmosphere at an angle. Depending on the angle and the density of the object, the impact point can shift thousands of miles. A real life example is the reentry of umanned spacecraft. They hit the atmosphere at *very* low angles, so, even though we know the orbits of these object well enough to predict their positions to within meters, by the time they reach the ground we can't even predict where they'll hit within hundreds of kilometers. An object like this potential asteroid, where we don't know the orbit to anything like the same accuracy leaves the predictions with results like "it'll hit around 33 degrees north latitude somewhere within a few thousand kilometers of 25 degrees west longitude". The predictions will be probability graphs across a map of the world. One of the biggest uncertainties is the density of the object.
No. The first trancendental number proven to be so was specifically constructed to be easy to prove to be trancendental. The number is the sum of the infinite series (10^-1! + 10^-2! + 10^-3!... = 0.11000100000000000000001...). The digits in this number are most definitely *not* random, but the number is trancendental.
Yes. Pi has been proven to be a trancendental number, that is a number which cannot be expressed as a root of a finite polynomial equation. Trancendental numbers have been proven as a class to be non-terminating and non-repeating.
Of course, keep in mind that this is the whole *point* of legislation. I strongly disagree with what's being done, but this is exactly how "the system" gets things done. If you don't like the way something is, get a law passed (or revoked, as the case may be). The MPAA and RIAA stand to increase their profits substantially at our expense without providing significant value to us, the consumers. Since they have a *lot* more money than we do, they can buy off senators and congressthings and get the laws passed they want. Nothing has changed in the situation here - they've just found a particularly noxious way to emphasize the power money brings.
NASA is doing lots of stuff. As we speak, the Mars Global Surveyor mission http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/ is sending back tons of images and mapping the surface of the entire planet in great detail. Unfortunately, the last two probes arriving there both failed, but the US has sent lots of probes to Mars to set all this up. With the two failures comes a lot of finger-pointing, so they now have to take a couple steps back and start working their way toward the Mars missions they really want to do. They just realize (especially with this being an election year) that Congressional cretins will sieze on their recent failures to make reasonable sounding (to the sheeple) cuts in NASA's budget if they propose anything too dramatic.
That's all fine, except for one thing. Bankrupcy does not cover judgements. If a court rules that you owe somebody a ton of money, then you declare bankruptcy, you *still* owe them a ton of money. IANAL, but my dad, who IS, has made certain that I understand that fines and penalties assessed by courts cannot be gotten rid of by declaring bankruptcy.
Your points on voting within a large population are well taken. When I vote, my focus is not on Presidential candidates. When the Electoral College is added in, my vote there is nearly worthless.
Instead, concentrate on the local issues. In every election there are numerous ballot issues asking useful things like, "Should we tax everybody so we can have lights at the local softball field?" For these issues my vote is relatively important, because there are not that many people eligible to vote on them. Also, these issues are often some of the most significant for the local area I live in.
In one area I lived there was an issue to have the local city no longer use the city next door's water system, but build our own. The issue passed, narrowly. The immediate effect was that water bills went up 500% for 20 years. The longer term effect was that the extra expense made it impractical for many local businesses to remain local, so they moved to nearby cities. The local shopping malls all died.
So I won't sweat my vote for President, but I'll be studying the local and state issues in detail.
When thinking about this sort of thing it's important to keep a wide perspective. The purpose of gathering requirements is to ensure that the right stuff get written. If you're coding the changes yourself for yourself, you'll know when you've gotten it right - so you don't need to have written requirements. If you're coding stuff for other people, then you need to gather all the information you can so you can get it right.
When doing all this development life cycle stuff you need to keep the *why* in mind, or you rapidly end up with a lot of bureaucratic BS which wastes everybody's time and effort.
There will be no fallout from a high air blast. By _definition_, "fallout" is material swept up into the fireball which then "falls out" of the blast. Fallout can only occur when the blast is low enough for material to be swept up into the fireball, and high air blasts are, again by definition, too high for this to be significant.
FG Powers plane was brought down by conventional explosives. He survived the blast and was eventually swapped for a Soviet spy.
Other than that, you're correct. The main idea is that you don't have to score a direct hit to bring down the bomber. You just gotta be close. As they say, Close enough for atom bombs or hand grenades.
The poor sods here who work production support are simply _expected_ to do it, as part of their normal job - even though it's off hours. That's one of the reasons I transferred to a department where I don't have to carry the damn beeper and answer phone calls at 1 AM an more. The baffling part is why people put up with it. It has been proposed multiple times to management, and they keep coming up with lame excuses why not.
1) Approved patent requests are reviewed, using a sophisticated deterministic algorithm, by a monodecadic aged individual to determine whether stated improvements or methods for accomplishing said improvements are "obvious" to this individual.
2) In the event that the approved patent fails the review, forceful application of an appropriately shod lower extremity to the gluteus maximus of the associated Patent Office personnel is provided as immediate feedback.
In other words, if it's obvious to a 10 year old child, kick the reviewer(s) in the ass!
Actually, biologists recognise seven kingdoms of life now... Animals, plants, two for bacteria, protista, eumycota (what you usually think of as fungi), and chromista (kelp is an example).
The fungi described are all the common molds you find when food in your house goes bad. Penicillium is the common greenish mold, and the other two are the common white, gray, and black molds. Fungi are among the most durable organisms on the face of the earth - it should come as no surprise that they would survive on Mir (or in other spacecraft). Lichens are primarily fungi, and they survive in some of the most inhospitable places on earth. Their primary food source in space is skin, hair, and other "stuff" we humans regularly shed, along with the organic materials built into the spacecraft - insulation and stuff like that. The greatest risks they pose are possible damage to the spacecraft and the astronauts possibly inhaling large quantities of spores. Inhaling the spores can sometimes cause severe allergic reactions, which can be life threatening.
It's exactly the same situation as the sun's "rays" when the sun is setting. They appear to radiate in all directions from the sun, but they are, in fact, all parallel. In two hours you've actually covered about 30 degrees, so you're actually under a slightly different part of the orbit but the overall general direction you see is southward, and usually eastward. The second time the ISS is actually appearing to travel pretty much southward, not westward.
Keep in mind that Dr. O'Neill did have economics in mind when he wrote this. His idea was to use the stations as enormous solar power plants, then discover some way to transmit the generated power down to earth. Back then (about 1977) the technology for that kind of high level power transmission didn't exist, and I haven't kept up with that field since then, but it seemed likely that we would have the technology within 10 years. If fossil fuel prices continue to escalate, this type of thing may yet become economical.
A realistic response is probably more like what the Russians did in the Middle East back in the 80s. A couple Russian agents were kidnapped and murdered. The Russians sent agents into the area, hunted down several of those responsible, kidnapped, "interrogated", executed and decapitated them, then left the bodies where they would be found as a clear message. The result was that their people were left alone by the groups that then went on to kidnap several people from the US and Europe. While many members of terrorist groups (not just in the Middle East) are extremely willing to sacrifice their lives for the cause, it is notable that their leaders seem to not show the same zeal. And if those leaders believe that retribution is likely or certain, they will be a lot less willing to sponsor this sort of nonsense.