The problem is that the venusian atmosphere is mostly CO2, with some anhydrous sulfuric acid thrown in.
At greater than 200psi, and warmer than 70F (metric users can suck it. I live in the US. I don't see you guys helpfully giving imperial units on your posts! Meh! [/silly faux bitching] instead, enjoy this helpful link.) CO2 becomes a supercritical gas. With no meniscus, the atmosphere will still ascend very high above the surface, and be too hot to condense. Items on the surface will still be "crushed like grapes"
You have to wait for the atmosphere to literally start to freeze for venus.
Keeping it homeostatic against solar wind is tricky, but I would do it by putting the reflector slightly sunward of the L1 point, so that solar impulse is balanced by solar gravitation. Without knowing the mass of the reflector, I can't say how far away from L1 that would be though.
Needless to say, creating a mylar sheet "that size" would definately be newsworthy in and of itself. Shooting it into orbit unnoticed would be another amazing feat, and deploying it would be an unparalleled accomplishment.
Depending on how long you are willing to wait, and how aggressively you are eclipsing the planet, the sunshade will eventially do both:
At some point, the mean surface temperature will drop to the freezing temperature of carbon dioxide, and the atmosphere will crystallize, then snow out onto the surface, reducing surface pressure.
Again, if you have a million years or more you can spend servicing the reflector, and twiddling your thumbs.;)
A sufficiently large artificial satellite put at the "Venus - Sun" legrange point would put venus into a state of purpetual eclipse, would/could mechanically shade the planet from solar high velocity particles, and serve as a useful space based power station for the planet. (I am thinking something like a great big sheet of metal impregnated mylar, with a weighted rim, spread open and stabilized using centrepital force. Its orbital relationship with venus stabilized using reaction wheels. For space based power, use thin film PV instead of mylar. For cosmic ray deflection, use the power generated to drive a large electromagnet, and incorporate the ambient plasma from the sun into the design to inflate the field.)
Totally the thing of science fiction though. Even if you eclipsed the whole planet, it would take ages for it to cool off.
"Your foul language diminishes any point you wish to make."
The above indicates a serious failure of logic. The inclusion of profane language does not change the intrinsic statement, and therefor does not diminish the point.
It may be a less effective means of making the point, but the point itself is not diminished. This is a matter of personal irritation for me, as I have seen this line of argument before. Typically, it comes from grammarians gone wild, who insist that a misplaced apostrophe is grounds to dismiss an entire chain of written communication. It isn't.
Assertions against that simple fact only expose the willful severance of logic and reason in favor of dogmatic supplication. EG, the "Bad language degrades the position" crowd supplicates before an idealized form of discourse, and exposes its blatant bias. The "I stopped reading at 'yur'" crowd supplicates before an idealized perception of the language, and also blatantly shows its intrinsic bias.
You can't be an unbiased thinker, if you supplicate. It does not matter what it is you supplicate to. If you supplicate, you are biased, as the act of supplication requires giving preferential treatment.
You can't claim cold impartiality and rational thought in one moment, and supplicate the next. That's hypocrisy.
Interjecting "Profane" speech does not render the point diminished. It diminishes the value of the line of argument, as parsed by your biased estimation of worth. Those are very different things.
Bear in mind that it does not live in realmode dos land though, so don't go expecting to poke at the vga palette register and get away with it and other such gouche antics. (Though he might be able to poke memory from system processes instead, leading to hilarity.)
If he wants to do that, he needs to stick with dosbox+gwbasic, or dosbox+qbasic instead.
But, for simple basic class memory lane stuff, it should work fine, and be VM free.
Using eeproms would have made the price per unit prohibitively expensive. Eprom with the UV erase window would have been prohibitively expensive as well. If you note, the programable "16 in 1" cart used a UV erasable EPROM, and not an EEPROM.
The financials don't add up for using eeprom in a cart that isn't intended to be wiped.
To reprogram an ET cart, they would have had to desolder the PROM, and put a new on on. that might actually have saved money, since they could recycle the PCB that way.
What they do, is make a big show of "cracking down" on the "illegal activities exposed" by the dotcom case, but in reality, the institute their own secret courts, and spy on their own citizens stazi style.
That way when the NZ media goes fishing, they can rightfully deny the snooping done "for US interests", since it is for domestic interests!
NZ just oh so politely GIVES the information away for free! It doesn't have to, but chooses to do so anyway. If ever asked about the documents shared with the USA, it can spout the same nationalist drivel we americans get treated with:
"Oh, that's an issue of national security! We can't reveal any information like that, because it would expose ongoing investigations and endanger lives! But don't worry, we don't conduct investigations of NZ citizens because the US asks us to. We make our own determination in accordance with strict guidelines on how and when we are needed to investigate NZ citizens, and we do so only as needed for our own investigations. Don't worry citizen, everything's fine."
[Imagines female midget cosplaying as tuxedo mask. Realizes that it would be impossible to tell the difference. Retches]
*seriousness:
If NZ really really wants to spy on its own citizens, it makes MUCH more sense for them to deny the US's requests publicly, to draw much needed popular support, while enacting such policy clandestinely.
It isn't "potential abuse of power", when it is being reported AFTER THE FACT!
Giving those people MORE power to abuse, after they have already demonstrated that they cannot be trusted with the powers they have already obtained, is beyond incomprehensible!
Seriously, all NZ has to do is point a few of those major headlines out, and say "No thank you USA. We would be happy to assist you, LEGALLY, in any LEGAL investigation you may have, but the requests you send us must obey OUR soveriegn rights and laws. Since you seem to have a hard time following even your own laws, we can't really honor your requests for additional intelligence at this time, since the requests you keep sending us are clearly illegal and unconsionable."
But NO! The line of the day? Handwringing, squirming in their chairs like they have super 'roids, sweating, and heatedly whispering among themselves asking each other how they can break the law!
What is it with these dumbfucks in govt, being so pussified by other govts and their clearly "over the line" demands for intelligence feeds, that they feel it is not only justified, but clearly essential that they just blanket-endorse and "MAKE it legal" (to borrow emperor palpatine's line), for them to just roll over and BEG for more ass fucking?
Seriously? Can't they just fucking grow a pair, and tell the US to go get stuffed by a 2000lb bull elephant with genital warts?
"Oh noes! It has the DRM in it, and if you try to *DELETE* the preinstalled software, it somehow means you might try to COPY it illegally if we give you the boot loader password! Nevermind how incredibly dumb that sounds!"
Really, can't they compromise a teensy bit and digitally sign a FOSS bootloader replacement, if they can't just release the signing key?
Ok, so if I take this, and then flip a coin between a desktop linux and Android for x86 platforms, I will end up with a tablet that might actually be useful?
Because seriously-- didn't microsoft learn its lesson yet about ambiguating the desktop and tablet market spaces with its metrosexual user interface? Are they *still* trying to blur that line?/half trolling
Coming in June 2014, John Q Public TWO, RETURN to the DMV!
Our hero, John Q Public, learns that the last 12 hours he spent waiting in the infernal slow line at the DMV was all for nothing, due to a typo on his newly mailed ID card!
Prepare yourself for, RETURN to the DMV!
Its a story of pain:
[Cutscene] John Q. Public: "What do you mean you can's spell "Maple Street" !? What, did you fail highschool or something!?"
Agness T Clerk: (Sobbing) "Taking care of my little brother while mom was out fucking johns like you was really hard! I had to quit school after the 4th grade!" [/cutscene]
It's a story of Love: [Cutscene]
John Q Public and Jane Anybody kissing passionately in the DMV parking lot as the building behind them burns.
[/cutscene]
And non-stop, fast paced action* await you in:
*[voiced over short clip of asian teenager hitting every last cone in the vehicular obstacle course, before hitting a parking lot light post, and the vehicle catching fire]
Since this is just a single gene out of the many on the Y chromosome, resulting phenotypical male offspring are infertile, and the "androgenization" of the offspring is incomplete, often showing signs of feminine features.
The Y chromosome contains more than just SRY, and does quite a bit more. Specifically, it contains genes for sperm specific cellular features, like the AZF1 gene, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AZF1 ), without which you can't produce sperm cells.
Given the limited real-estate of the Y chromosome, and it's structural fragility (See the "shrinking Y chromosome" theory, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_chromosome#Shrinking_theory ), it makes LOADS of evolutionary sense to offload as much vital genetic data off of it as possible, and onto more stably recombining chromosomes as is possible.
The real thing here, is that "most of being male, is present in the female genotype". Most, but not all.
Yes, Like 100% of laser printers on the market, which use a polystyrene based toner powder, and are potentially much worse for you than that reprap ever dreamed of being.
I realize that this is a joke, but it might not be.
Hear me out here:
Drone operators send their drones to LOOK for something. Usually, out in rural america land, that thing they are looking for is "illegal marijuana farms".
So, to decoy the drones, all you have to do is make marjuana plant decoys made out of silk, and stake them out in secluded pastures and clearings. Spread some rumors about pot farming happening in the area you are staking out.
Then, when the drones fly in to investigate and take pictures, you pop them.
There are (Titan rains methane, and has large lakes of ethane), just not on Mars.
Martian atmosphere resembles a colder version of what happened to venus's atmosphere. Venus likewise lacks a strong geomagneric dynamo. Some planetary scientists speculate that this is not because venus isn't heavy enough, but because the atmosphere is so hot, that mantle convection is not viggorous enough to create the dynamo. Mars just wasn't heavy enough, or cooled too signifigantly. Not enough data is available at this time. Regardless, both planets lost much of the lighter elements of their atmospheres to space from abrasive solar particle showers, due to both planets lacking a strong magnetic dynamo.
A significant portion of a hydrocarbon's mass is hydrogen, a light element that was blasted away from said atmosphere. Mars lacks the hydrogen needed to have large quantities of molecular hydrocarbons in its atmosphere. It has carbon dioxide instead.
Titan, being one of saturn's moons, is protected by the very powerful magnetic field produced by its parent, and has such retained all the hydrogen it sucked in during its formation in the early solar system. Its atmosphere does undergo reactions with highly energetic particles caught in saturn's ring system and magnetic field, but this only causes recombinations of molecules in its upper atmosphere, and causes it to appear more hazy, rather than it being blasted off into space.
Because of this, titan retains one of the thickest atmospheres for a body of its mass in our solar system, and does have liquid phase hydrocarbons of sufficient quantity to cause liquid erosion patterns on its "land masses". Mars simply does not.
Gypsum sand and gypsum inclusions in rock strata. Calcium and sodium perchlorate salts Hydrated silica clay
All three of those require not just water, but often standing pools of water. The perchlorates especially, which at least on earth, form when salt water is slowly evaporated under exposure from strong UV radiation. Gypsum is a hydrated calcium sulphate salt, and requires liquid water to crystallize.
The hydrated silica clay can from just from ambient soil moisture working its magic on feldspar minerals, but usually requies active weathering. Like, rain.
As the parent said, there is ample evidence of water having been on mars. Lots of water.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is that the venusian atmosphere is mostly CO2, with some anhydrous sulfuric acid thrown in.
At greater than 200psi, and warmer than 70F (metric users can suck it. I live in the US. I don't see you guys helpfully giving imperial units on your posts! Meh! [/silly faux bitching] instead, enjoy this helpful link.) CO2 becomes a supercritical gas. With no meniscus, the atmosphere will still ascend very high above the surface, and be too hot to condense. Items on the surface will still be "crushed like grapes"
You have to wait for the atmosphere to literally start to freeze for venus.
Better to put the reflector "sunward" of L1, so that it wants to fall into the sun, but is pushed out by the solar wind, and held static.
For earth? (Rough geometrical computation)
Where: Earth-sun lagrange point 1.
How big: at least 12628.4km in diameter. (Earth is 12756km in diameter.) Roughly the same size as the earth. This would completely shade the earth.
(Given: Earth-Sun distance == 149600000km, earth-L1 distance == 1475000km (roughly), earth diameter == 12756km)
Keeping it homeostatic against solar wind is tricky, but I would do it by putting the reflector slightly sunward of the L1 point, so that solar impulse is balanced by solar gravitation. Without knowing the mass of the reflector, I can't say how far away from L1 that would be though.
Needless to say, creating a mylar sheet "that size" would definately be newsworthy in and of itself. Shooting it into orbit unnoticed would be another amazing feat, and deploying it would be an unparalleled accomplishment.
Depending on how long you are willing to wait, and how aggressively you are eclipsing the planet, the sunshade will eventially do both:
At some point, the mean surface temperature will drop to the freezing temperature of carbon dioxide, and the atmosphere will crystallize, then snow out onto the surface, reducing surface pressure.
Again, if you have a million years or more you can spend servicing the reflector, and twiddling your thumbs. ;)
A sufficiently large artificial satellite put at the "Venus - Sun" legrange point would put venus into a state of purpetual eclipse, would/could mechanically shade the planet from solar high velocity particles, and serve as a useful space based power station for the planet. (I am thinking something like a great big sheet of metal impregnated mylar, with a weighted rim, spread open and stabilized using centrepital force. Its orbital relationship with venus stabilized using reaction wheels. For space based power, use thin film PV instead of mylar. For cosmic ray deflection, use the power generated to drive a large electromagnet, and incorporate the ambient plasma from the sun into the design to inflate the field.)
Totally the thing of science fiction though. Even if you eclipsed the whole planet, it would take ages for it to cool off.
"Your foul language diminishes any point you wish to make."
The above indicates a serious failure of logic. The inclusion of profane language does not change the intrinsic statement, and therefor does not diminish the point.
It may be a less effective means of making the point, but the point itself is not diminished. This is a matter of personal irritation for me, as I have seen this line of argument before. Typically, it comes from grammarians gone wild, who insist that a misplaced apostrophe is grounds to dismiss an entire chain of written communication. It isn't.
Assertions against that simple fact only expose the willful severance of logic and reason in favor of dogmatic supplication. EG, the "Bad language degrades the position" crowd supplicates before an idealized form of discourse, and exposes its blatant bias. The "I stopped reading at 'yur'" crowd supplicates before an idealized perception of the language, and also blatantly shows its intrinsic bias.
You can't be an unbiased thinker, if you supplicate. It does not matter what it is you supplicate to. If you supplicate, you are biased, as the act of supplication requires giving preferential treatment.
You can't claim cold impartiality and rational thought in one moment, and supplicate the next. That's hypocrisy.
Interjecting "Profane" speech does not render the point diminished. It diminishes the value of the line of argument, as parsed by your biased estimation of worth. Those are very different things.
If he feels the need to make retro feeling console aps using a purposefully "simplified" language like BASIC, he should try QB64.
http://www.qb64.net/
Runs native on win8, doesn't need dosbox.
Bear in mind that it does not live in realmode dos land though, so don't go expecting to poke at the vga palette register and get away with it and other such gouche antics. (Though he might be able to poke memory from system processes instead, leading to hilarity.)
If he wants to do that, he needs to stick with dosbox+gwbasic, or dosbox+qbasic instead.
But, for simple basic class memory lane stuff, it should work fine, and be VM free.
No, but I am free to use Mint instead, so that is moot.
Ubuntu is a desktop linux, but not all desktop linuxes are Ubuntu. :D
As another pointed out, look at the costs.
Using eeproms would have made the price per unit prohibitively expensive. Eprom with the UV erase window would have been prohibitively expensive as well. If you note, the programable "16 in 1" cart used a UV erasable EPROM, and not an EEPROM.
The financials don't add up for using eeprom in a cart that isn't intended to be wiped.
Wow, he's gonna LOVE that I deep linked on a SLASHDOT post then!
YeeeHaw!
Enjoy your hits dude!
(Evil, maniacal laughter)
This is the inside of a 2600 cart.
There is no window.
EEPROM didnt exist yet.
To reprogram an ET cart, they would have had to desolder the PROM, and put a new on on. that might actually have saved money, since they could recycle the PCB that way.
You are misunderstanding:
What they do, is make a big show of "cracking down" on the "illegal activities exposed" by the dotcom case, but in reality, the institute their own secret courts, and spy on their own citizens stazi style.
That way when the NZ media goes fishing, they can rightfully deny the snooping done "for US interests", since it is for domestic interests!
NZ just oh so politely GIVES the information away for free! It doesn't have to, but chooses to do so anyway. If ever asked about the documents shared with the USA, it can spout the same nationalist drivel we americans get treated with:
"Oh, that's an issue of national security! We can't reveal any information like that, because it would expose ongoing investigations and endanger lives! But don't worry, we don't conduct investigations of NZ citizens because the US asks us to. We make our own determination in accordance with strict guidelines on how and when we are needed to investigate NZ citizens, and we do so only as needed for our own investigations. Don't worry citizen, everything's fine."
[Imagines female midget cosplaying as tuxedo mask. Realizes that it would be impossible to tell the difference. Retches]
*seriousness:
If NZ really really wants to spy on its own citizens, it makes MUCH more sense for them to deny the US's requests publicly, to draw much needed popular support, while enacting such policy clandestinely.
I think I am going to be violently ill.
It isn't "potential abuse of power", when it is being reported AFTER THE FACT!
Giving those people MORE power to abuse, after they have already demonstrated that they cannot be trusted with the powers they have already obtained, is beyond incomprehensible!
Seriously, all NZ has to do is point a few of those major headlines out, and say "No thank you USA. We would be happy to assist you, LEGALLY, in any LEGAL investigation you may have, but the requests you send us must obey OUR soveriegn rights and laws. Since you seem to have a hard time following even your own laws, we can't really honor your requests for additional intelligence at this time, since the requests you keep sending us are clearly illegal and unconsionable."
But NO! The line of the day? Handwringing, squirming in their chairs like they have super 'roids, sweating, and heatedly whispering among themselves asking each other how they can break the law!
WTF!
What is it with these dumbfucks in govt, being so pussified by other govts and their clearly "over the line" demands for intelligence feeds, that they feel it is not only justified, but clearly essential that they just blanket-endorse and "MAKE it legal" (to borrow emperor palpatine's line), for them to just roll over and BEG for more ass fucking?
Seriously? Can't they just fucking grow a pair, and tell the US to go get stuffed by a 2000lb bull elephant with genital warts?
How utterly shit-tastic!
"Oh noes! It has the DRM in it, and if you try to *DELETE* the preinstalled software, it somehow means you might try to COPY it illegally if we give you the boot loader password! Nevermind how incredibly dumb that sounds!"
Really, can't they compromise a teensy bit and digitally sign a FOSS bootloader replacement, if they can't just release the signing key?
Ok, so if I take this, and then flip a coin between a desktop linux and Android for x86 platforms, I will end up with a tablet that might actually be useful?
Because seriously-- didn't microsoft learn its lesson yet about ambiguating the desktop and tablet market spaces with its metrosexual user interface? Are they *still* trying to blur that line? /half trolling
Dinner with Andre? That's a total chick flick!
You should totally go see Pixelar's new kids movie "A squiggle's life" instead! Its fun for everyone!
Coming in June 2014, John Q Public TWO, RETURN to the DMV!
Our hero, John Q Public, learns that the last 12 hours he spent waiting in the infernal slow line at the DMV was all for nothing, due to a typo on his newly mailed ID card!
Prepare yourself for, RETURN to the DMV!
Its a story of pain:
[Cutscene]
John Q. Public:
"What do you mean you can's spell "Maple Street" !? What, did you fail highschool or something!?"
Agness T Clerk:
(Sobbing)
"Taking care of my little brother while mom was out fucking johns like you was really hard! I had to quit school after the 4th grade!"
[/cutscene]
It's a story of Love:
[Cutscene]
John Q Public and Jane Anybody kissing passionately in the DMV parking lot as the building behind them burns.
[/cutscene]
And non-stop, fast paced action* await you in:
*[voiced over short clip of asian teenager hitting every last cone in the vehicular obstacle course, before hitting a parking lot light post, and the vehicle catching fire]
John Q Public 2! Return to the DMV!
Look, I didn't name it that ok?
Want a truly silly name? Look up "sonic hedgehog gene".
For realz.
Actually, it does both: Turn genes on, and turn genes off.
Take for instance, "TDF Males".
(TDF == Testis Determining Factor, and is encoded by the SRY gene on the Y chromosome)
This single gene is sometimes translocated to the X chromosome in a rare mishap of cellular meiosis during gamete production.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome
Since this is just a single gene out of the many on the Y chromosome, resulting phenotypical male offspring are infertile, and the "androgenization" of the offspring is incomplete, often showing signs of feminine features.
The Y chromosome contains more than just SRY, and does quite a bit more. Specifically, it contains genes for sperm specific cellular features, like the AZF1 gene,
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AZF1 ), without which you can't produce sperm cells.
Given the limited real-estate of the Y chromosome, and it's structural fragility (See the "shrinking Y chromosome" theory, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_chromosome#Shrinking_theory ), it makes LOADS of evolutionary sense to offload as much vital genetic data off of it as possible, and onto more stably recombining chromosomes as is possible.
The real thing here, is that "most of being male, is present in the female genotype". Most, but not all.
Yes, Like 100% of laser printers on the market, which use a polystyrene based toner powder, and are potentially much worse for you than that reprap ever dreamed of being.
Since not only does the laser printer flash heat and fuse the toner powder to the paper and release styrenes and other organic nanoparticles into the air, they also frequently leak, and pose a significant powder inhalation hazard!
In other words, if you don't find your laser printer in the file room terribly dangerous, you shouldn't find the 3d printer any more so.
I realize that this is a joke, but it might not be.
Hear me out here:
Drone operators send their drones to LOOK for something. Usually, out in rural america land, that thing they are looking for is "illegal marijuana farms".
So, to decoy the drones, all you have to do is make marjuana plant decoys made out of silk, and stake them out in secluded pastures and clearings. Spread some rumors about pot farming happening in the area you are staking out.
Then, when the drones fly in to investigate and take pictures, you pop them.
There are (Titan rains methane, and has large lakes of ethane), just not on Mars.
Martian atmosphere resembles a colder version of what happened to venus's atmosphere. Venus likewise lacks a strong geomagneric dynamo. Some planetary scientists speculate that this is not because venus isn't heavy enough, but because the atmosphere is so hot, that mantle convection is not viggorous enough to create the dynamo. Mars just wasn't heavy enough, or cooled too signifigantly. Not enough data is available at this time. Regardless, both planets lost much of the lighter elements of their atmospheres to space from abrasive solar particle showers, due to both planets lacking a strong magnetic dynamo.
A significant portion of a hydrocarbon's mass is hydrogen, a light element that was blasted away from said atmosphere. Mars lacks the hydrogen needed to have large quantities of molecular hydrocarbons in its atmosphere. It has carbon dioxide instead.
Titan, being one of saturn's moons, is protected by the very powerful magnetic field produced by its parent, and has such retained all the hydrogen it sucked in during its formation in the early solar system. Its atmosphere does undergo reactions with highly energetic particles caught in saturn's ring system and magnetic field, but this only causes recombinations of molecules in its upper atmosphere, and causes it to appear more hazy, rather than it being blasted off into space.
Because of this, titan retains one of the thickest atmospheres for a body of its mass in our solar system, and does have liquid phase hydrocarbons of sufficient quantity to cause liquid erosion patterns on its "land masses". Mars simply does not.
Indeed. Just off the top of my head:
Gypsum sand and gypsum inclusions in rock strata.
Calcium and sodium perchlorate salts
Hydrated silica clay
All three of those require not just water, but often standing pools of water. The perchlorates especially, which at least on earth, form when salt water is slowly evaporated under exposure from strong UV radiation. Gypsum is a hydrated calcium sulphate salt, and requires liquid water to crystallize.
The hydrated silica clay can from just from ambient soil moisture working its magic on feldspar minerals, but usually requies active weathering. Like, rain.
As the parent said, there is ample evidence of water having been on mars. Lots of water.