IIRC, He3 is deposited on the surface by solar wind in the first place, so you're not taking away mass that wasn't being added by something else. For metal mining, asteroids are probably just as good.
In any case, He3 is just one possible energy source available if we could reduce launch costs (and invent a nuclear reactor that can use He3, which is just theoretical at this point). Solar sats are probably a better option.
If we had the technology to haul hydrocarbons from another planet economically, we'd have the technology to do away with hydrocarbons completely. Once you have cheap access to space, a bunch of different energy source open up. Take your pick: solar satellites, He3 from the moon for advanced nuclear reactors, hydrogen from Jupiter's atmosphere, and probably a bunch of others that nobody's thought up yet. Cars will either need to become electric or run on Fischer-Tropes produced gas.
This announcement is interesting scientifically, but has no relevance to energy problems.
IIRC, the RIAA only deals with the copyright on the end recording. Copyrights are held separately for lyrics and actual melody, and are prosecuted by a separate group (though probably with a lot of the same people on both).
But basically, yes, I see Microsoft's site getting itself sued by someone over a bunch of "Fergalicious" ringtones.
I disagree, on the basis that there exists an objective reality that isn't defined by our perceptions. However, when speaking in terms of astrophysics, it's often convenient to say what's happening now, not 12 billion years ago. Of course, this is one part of a larger debate on perception defining reality.
"Market correction" doesn't necessarily mean the market will disappear, but that there's more players than can be sustained in the market, and some of them are going to have to go away or be scaled back.
Again, the hardcore market will probably continue to exist, but this constant push towards better and better graphics is reaching both technological and market limits. That's why we're starting to see games that are half-finished with "extra" pieces made into downloadable content, or the addition of in-game advertising; the rate consumers are willing to spend on a game on a retail shelf is barely enough to break even. If consumers reject this model, the industry is going to have to crash.
But that might be OK, since the effect of a crash is usually to clear out the dross. Quality market players tend to survive (think of how Amazon and Yahoo are still around and doing well, while boo.com is not).
To a company, the security of national secrets is an externality. Leaking classified information won't directly affect their bottom line, and in fact could bolster it if nothing says that can't turn around and sell those secrets to other countries. The solution is for the government to never sign a contract without guarantees about the secrecy of data, vetting people who work on the project, and other such measures, which I'm sure is standard practice.
How much money do you think the Bejeweled people are sitting on?
There's probably a pending market correction on hardcore games. Graphics are hitting diminishing returns (double the processing power only gets you a marginally better image), and people who are good producing those graphics demand a high salary. The hardcore development houses are inevitably going to scale back when they realize that small puzzle games that are hacked up in a month by one guy are turning the same profit as their hundred-large teams turning out the next Madden game.
The hardcore market will probably still exist, of course, but I think it's going to have to regress.
Blame estrogen in the food. It's tending to cause early puberty in girls, and late puberty in boys. Older textbooks used to quote 14 as the age when puberty hits (IIRC), but now it's almost anywhere from 8-15, depending on gender and how much processed food you eat.
Except that Ballmer at least continues to run a successful company, instead of running a currently successful company into the ground, while at the same time doing obscene things to the corpse of the company's founder.
Each additional stop increases its usefulness (at least to a point), and therefore increases its profitability. Having two other stops divided roughly evenly across the country (and maybe another one; Vegas, perhaps?), along with an on-board car storage section like the Chunnel has, makes the whole system a very easy way to take a vacation.
All the big engineering projects of the last 20-30 years have been in either Europe or Asia (such as the Chunnel, Millau Viaduct, Kansai International Airport, etc.). All the US gets is the Shuttle and the ISS, which have both become a big turkey. Bugger the cost, I want to see a maglev from NY to LA with stops in Chicago and Denver.
Out of actual tax dollars? Surprisingly little, especially considering that congresscritters have to keep up two residences, one in DC and one in their home district, and DC is a very expensive area to live in. To be a politician, you pretty much have to be rich first, then you can start blazing the campaign trail.
Campaign funds generally don't come from taxes (at least, not much) or the individual's salary. They mostly come from a combination of the person's previously-built wealth, individual contributions, or from various lobby groups.
Explain again why 95% of people need fiber to their home. 5% of internet users use 50% of the bandwidth
That will change once people start wanting HD TV over Internet.
why are we talking about wiring fiber to people's homes when there are thousands of starving children in the US?
Because keeping up on spending, even on luxury goods, means that the other few million children have parents with jobs, and therefore aren't starving. Even if you had the money to do it, simply giving handouts en mass would just drive up inflation, and all those people would be exactly where they started within a year.
According to a Naval Research Document (PDF link), we're reaching the limits of what chemically-launched ballistics can do at about 1.5 km/s. You can get more with rocket-assisted projectiles, but that makes the projectile a lot more complex and possibly easier to track on infared.
I hate the "right tool for the job" cliche. Not because it's necessarily wrong, but because it tends to be used by people who automatically assume that their tool is the right one and wish to stop any serious discussion about other possibilities.
In practice, you almost never want to use only one element of an array. If you do, you probably actually wanted to use an associative array. Instead, you generally want to work over the complete array, such as with map, grep, or foreach (or whatever the PHP equivalents are).
There are cases where you do need to index a specific array element (like sorting operations, and then only if you don't have a library that provides one for you), but these are the exception. You could have a useful programming language that doesn't have any array indexes at all.
Somebody must be buying from these companies, or they wouldn't be trying such abusive advertisement tactics. Who are these people? Are they smart enough to breed? And if so, what argument is there against sterilizing them?
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But He3 has a whole extra neutron to account for!
IIRC, He3 is deposited on the surface by solar wind in the first place, so you're not taking away mass that wasn't being added by something else. For metal mining, asteroids are probably just as good.
In any case, He3 is just one possible energy source available if we could reduce launch costs (and invent a nuclear reactor that can use He3, which is just theoretical at this point). Solar sats are probably a better option.
If we had the technology to haul hydrocarbons from another planet economically, we'd have the technology to do away with hydrocarbons completely. Once you have cheap access to space, a bunch of different energy source open up. Take your pick: solar satellites, He3 from the moon for advanced nuclear reactors, hydrogen from Jupiter's atmosphere, and probably a bunch of others that nobody's thought up yet. Cars will either need to become electric or run on Fischer-Tropes produced gas.
This announcement is interesting scientifically, but has no relevance to energy problems.
IIRC, the RIAA only deals with the copyright on the end recording. Copyrights are held separately for lyrics and actual melody, and are prosecuted by a separate group (though probably with a lot of the same people on both).
But basically, yes, I see Microsoft's site getting itself sued by someone over a bunch of "Fergalicious" ringtones.
I disagree, on the basis that there exists an objective reality that isn't defined by our perceptions. However, when speaking in terms of astrophysics, it's often convenient to say what's happening now, not 12 billion years ago. Of course, this is one part of a larger debate on perception defining reality.
"Market correction" doesn't necessarily mean the market will disappear, but that there's more players than can be sustained in the market, and some of them are going to have to go away or be scaled back.
Again, the hardcore market will probably continue to exist, but this constant push towards better and better graphics is reaching both technological and market limits. That's why we're starting to see games that are half-finished with "extra" pieces made into downloadable content, or the addition of in-game advertising; the rate consumers are willing to spend on a game on a retail shelf is barely enough to break even. If consumers reject this model, the industry is going to have to crash.
But that might be OK, since the effect of a crash is usually to clear out the dross. Quality market players tend to survive (think of how Amazon and Yahoo are still around and doing well, while boo.com is not).
To a company, the security of national secrets is an externality. Leaking classified information won't directly affect their bottom line, and in fact could bolster it if nothing says that can't turn around and sell those secrets to other countries. The solution is for the government to never sign a contract without guarantees about the secrecy of data, vetting people who work on the project, and other such measures, which I'm sure is standard practice.
How much money do you think the Bejeweled people are sitting on?
There's probably a pending market correction on hardcore games. Graphics are hitting diminishing returns (double the processing power only gets you a marginally better image), and people who are good producing those graphics demand a high salary. The hardcore development houses are inevitably going to scale back when they realize that small puzzle games that are hacked up in a month by one guy are turning the same profit as their hundred-large teams turning out the next Madden game.
The hardcore market will probably still exist, of course, but I think it's going to have to regress.
Lord help us when that happens.
Alternatively, espionage could be a great way to pad your margins.
Blame estrogen in the food. It's tending to cause early puberty in girls, and late puberty in boys. Older textbooks used to quote 14 as the age when puberty hits (IIRC), but now it's almost anywhere from 8-15, depending on gender and how much processed food you eat.
Except that Ballmer at least continues to run a successful company, instead of running a currently successful company into the ground, while at the same time doing obscene things to the corpse of the company's founder.
Each additional stop increases its usefulness (at least to a point), and therefore increases its profitability. Having two other stops divided roughly evenly across the country (and maybe another one; Vegas, perhaps?), along with an on-board car storage section like the Chunnel has, makes the whole system a very easy way to take a vacation.
All the big engineering projects of the last 20-30 years have been in either Europe or Asia (such as the Chunnel, Millau Viaduct, Kansai International Airport, etc.). All the US gets is the Shuttle and the ISS, which have both become a big turkey. Bugger the cost, I want to see a maglev from NY to LA with stops in Chicago and Denver.
At risk of being off-topic, Ann Coulter just said she'd back Hillary, so I think the four horsemen should be around here any minute now.
Whatever it is, it probably literally translates to "bad movie".
Out of actual tax dollars? Surprisingly little, especially considering that congresscritters have to keep up two residences, one in DC and one in their home district, and DC is a very expensive area to live in. To be a politician, you pretty much have to be rich first, then you can start blazing the campaign trail.
Campaign funds generally don't come from taxes (at least, not much) or the individual's salary. They mostly come from a combination of the person's previously-built wealth, individual contributions, or from various lobby groups.
Explain again why 95% of people need fiber to their home. 5% of internet users use 50% of the bandwidth
That will change once people start wanting HD TV over Internet.
why are we talking about wiring fiber to people's homes when there are thousands of starving children in the US?
Because keeping up on spending, even on luxury goods, means that the other few million children have parents with jobs, and therefore aren't starving. Even if you had the money to do it, simply giving handouts en mass would just drive up inflation, and all those people would be exactly where they started within a year.
Telecommuting generally means fast, stable Internet access, which many of those small communities don't have.
Publius disagrees.
So, Rail Guns break Newton's Third Law of Motion?
According to a Naval Research Document (PDF link), we're reaching the limits of what chemically-launched ballistics can do at about 1.5 km/s. You can get more with rocket-assisted projectiles, but that makes the projectile a lot more complex and possibly easier to track on infared.
I hate the "right tool for the job" cliche. Not because it's necessarily wrong, but because it tends to be used by people who automatically assume that their tool is the right one and wish to stop any serious discussion about other possibilities.
No, gack, flasck, no.
In practice, you almost never want to use only one element of an array. If you do, you probably actually wanted to use an associative array. Instead, you generally want to work over the complete array, such as with map, grep, or foreach (or whatever the PHP equivalents are).
There are cases where you do need to index a specific array element (like sorting operations, and then only if you don't have a library that provides one for you), but these are the exception. You could have a useful programming language that doesn't have any array indexes at all.
Somebody must be buying from these companies, or they wouldn't be trying such abusive advertisement tactics. Who are these people? Are they smart enough to breed? And if so, what argument is there against sterilizing them?