The surface will be -50C because of the angle the light hits it, but surley any station built there will receive exactly the same amount of sunlight as a base on the lunar equator - ie, it'll still get very very hot.
There is less energy per unit area on the moon's surface, because of the angle of the light. Of course, the precise geometry of the base has a big impact on how light is absorbed -- a very short structure with a flat roof would have a very low energy density on the roof, but something built vertically, like a book standing on edge, would get much more per unit area.
The surface temperature is "moderate" because light falls at a very shallow angle relative to the surface.
Okay. Assume, generously, that carbon makes up 1% of Earth's mass -- approximately 6e22 kilograms of carbon. Spread this carbon throughout the volume from my previous post (24 trillion cubic miles, sorry for mixing units, Google makes it too easy to do so). This gives a density of 0.0006 grams per cubic centimeter.
Estimates of the density of carbon nanotubes vary, but a value of 2.6 grams per cm^3 is in the ballpark. This means we have less than 1/4000th of the necessary carbon to build the sphere.
So, still impossible. Unless you decrease the radius of the sphere. Because the sphere is extremely thin compared to its radius, its volume goes approximately as the square of radius, not the cube -- so in order to get a reasonable volume (which we could actually fill with nanotubes) we'd need to decrease the radius by a factor of 63. This would put it well inside of Mercury's orbit, a completely useless location.
Would you really rather be without an internet connection at all rather than sign onto one with onerous terms of service? Would you really be willing to move?
Weird question to ask. First, you can still get dialup service. The bandwidth will be lower, but it will almost certainly be unencumbered by silly contracts. Are you really willing to sacrifice your principles because of bandwidth? You'd rather move than downgrade to a slower connection?
Look it up. Build it just outside the orbit of Earth. Only problem is finding the funding, and probably some stability issues, but...
There's another problem, which is finding the material.
Assume a Dyson sphere of 1 foot thickness (ridiculously thin, so this is underestimating the problem). Assume that the Dyson sphere is placed at a radius from the Sun of 100 million miles. The volume of such a sphere will be just about 24 trillion cubic miles.
The volume of the entire planet Earth is only 260 billion cubic miles. Even if we mined the entire Earth into nothingness, we'd only have 1% of the material needed to build the sphere. And that's for a sphere that's only 1 foot thick!
You may say "Why can't we use the material from the asteroid belt?" Good idea, but the total volume of all the asteroids in that belt is less than that of the Earth (by most estimates, the mass of the asteroid belt is only 1/1000th that of Earth -- assuming similar densities, that means a volume of about 1/1000th that of Earth).
There just isn't enough material in this solar system to build a Dyson sphere.
A transistor can never be created that operates at 6Thz. You might be able to make something that acts like a transistor, but it won't be a transistor, it will be something fundamentally different.
Yes. I don't deign to invent new terminology before the technology exists. Let's call it a "transistor-like device which switches really really fast." Better?
You were trolled to prove you lack understanding of physics, and you took the bait.
I understand physics just fine (got a degree in it and everything). You're just being anal. But hey, it's Slashdot.
1GHz clock = switch once each 1 nano-second. 1 nano-second = 1x10^-9 second.
so 1x10^-9 x 3x10^8 = 0.3 meter. or about a foot. 3.4GHz signal can travel about 4 inches within one switch. now you can do the math, how close the transistors have to be to meet the speed requirement.
While this is all true, I question whether it is necessary for all parts of the chip to be able to communicate with all other parts as fast as possible. Chips are already pipelined -- if the pipeline is physically arranged accordingly, most of this propagation delay can be made irrelevant. If two parts of a chip are in close communication all of the time, then they should be adjacent to each other.
This is definitely a physical limitation, but that doesn't mean it can't be designed around.
So, 6THz is just a hop-skip-and-jump away? After all... 600GHz to 1THz isn't even 2X so it should be trivial, then another 2X to get to 2THz, then just a measely 1.5X to get to 3THz, then another easy 2X to get to 6THz!
Yeah, that's basically what I'm saying. Haven't you paid attention in the last, oh, 40 years or so?
Just remember that "hop-skip-and-jump" is three incremental steps, not one big one.
Simply making such a broad statement tells us that, while you may write software, you ain't no engineer.
I fail to see the connection with engineering...
And a broad statement doesn't imply that there are no exceptions.
I learned this system of values from the guy who designed the antenna positioning system for the space shuttle (now my boss), if that means anything to you.
You jest, but in all seriousness... It's not even a factor of two to get from 600 to 1000. At least in software engineering, speed improvements less than, say, 5x, aren't really that impressive. Does the same hold true in electrical engineering?
I typically don't bother optimizing something unless I believe I can make it 10 times faster. That is, unless we really need every last ounce of performance (which is rarely).
But seriously, a previous poster had a point, what's the relationship between the speed of a transitor and the speed of a proccessor? Because 600GHz is a HUGE jump over 3.4GHz.
The transistors in a 3.4 GHz chip are capable of switching faster than 3.4 GHz. The chip as a whole runs at that particular speed because heat dissipation becomes problematic at higher speeds. The individual components are there, but we haven't figured out how to put them all together yet to achieve higher speeds. A processor is MUCH more complicated than a single transistor... Don't expect to see 600 GHz chips made out of 600 GHz transistors. Once we get to 10 THz transistors, you might start thinking about 600 Ghz chips...
These keyboards have been in use for quite a while...durable, washable, and yes, they can be sterilized.
I'm going to nitpick here, because I'm a homebrewer and thus I deal with sanitation on a regular basis.
A sealed keyboard cannot be sterilized unless you autoclave it. It can be sanitized, which means removing something like 99.999% of microorganisms, but it is not sterile in the sense that there is no remaining life whatsoever. No chemical agent can kill 100% of microorganisms (maybe sulfuric or hydrochloric acid at nearly 100%, but only after a long exposure period, and it would eat away the material you were trying to sterilize). Only heat (and radiation) can truly sterilize.
Now, if these keyboards you speak of can survive autoclaving temperatures, then by all means, go for it (if you have a large enough autoclave).
Many people casually confuse sanitation and sterilization, but they aren't strictly the same thing.
Constructing a buffer overflow is practically impossible without access to a test platform. You'd have to be omniscient. I suppose he could hack in to the professor's system and steal the source code...
So, get a better colo. What you have described may or may not be messed up. If it's just a matter of "a few spam complaints that weren't dealt with quickly enough" then it may or may not be a good idea for MAPS to block 180,000 IPs. No way for us (or you!) to know. All you can do is get a colo that doesn't have this problem.
Come on, Elwood. This argument just doesn't fly.
Say the United States has some fucked up policies regarding the Middle East. So a few people from that part of the world decide to take out a couple of buildings. Was that a good idea? No way to know, right? All we can do is move to a country that doesn't piss off Muslims.
It's a bullshit argument. Just because lives aren't at stake doesn't somehow make it valid.
Wow, I don't know where YOU live and what options YOU have, but I've never seen a mill anywhere that cost more than $100 that was worth it.
If you aren't getting "good enough" efficiency with a $100 mill I think you are doing something wrong. Hundreds of very experienced people would strongly disagree with you on this.
Hell yeah. I just brewed up a wheat myself on Saturday. 8 pounds wheat malt extract, 12 ounces of honey, Tett and Saaz for hops, and #1056 for the yeast. This stuff is gonna be STRONG I think:-)
Back to the topic of this article, if I had $100 laying around I'd spend it on a nice grain mill. That's the only thing really holding me back from going to all grain brewing at this point.
I strongly agree. Brewing beer is kind of like biological hacking -- can you learn to use living organisms (and not those big ones that think, that's cheating) as a tool to accomplish what you want?
The number of variables and parameters that can be tweaked throughout the beer brewing process is a hacker's dream come true.
Plus, it helps to relieve some of the general ignorance that most people have about what beer actually IS. I actually read here on Slashdot once that different beers are achieved by, get this, roasting the hops in various ways. My gawd.
Slashdot Mirror
There is less energy per unit area on the moon's surface, because of the angle of the light. Of course, the precise geometry of the base has a big impact on how light is absorbed -- a very short structure with a flat roof would have a very low energy density on the roof, but something built vertically, like a book standing on edge, would get much more per unit area.
The surface temperature is "moderate" because light falls at a very shallow angle relative to the surface.
Okay. Assume, generously, that carbon makes up 1% of Earth's mass -- approximately 6e22 kilograms of carbon. Spread this carbon throughout the volume from my previous post (24 trillion cubic miles, sorry for mixing units, Google makes it too easy to do so). This gives a density of 0.0006 grams per cubic centimeter.
Estimates of the density of carbon nanotubes vary, but a value of 2.6 grams per cm^3 is in the ballpark. This means we have less than 1/4000th of the necessary carbon to build the sphere.
So, still impossible. Unless you decrease the radius of the sphere. Because the sphere is extremely thin compared to its radius, its volume goes approximately as the square of radius, not the cube -- so in order to get a reasonable volume (which we could actually fill with nanotubes) we'd need to decrease the radius by a factor of 63. This would put it well inside of Mercury's orbit, a completely useless location.
Weird question to ask. First, you can still get dialup service. The bandwidth will be lower, but it will almost certainly be unencumbered by silly contracts. Are you really willing to sacrifice your principles because of bandwidth? You'd rather move than downgrade to a slower connection?
It really shortens the list.
There's another problem, which is finding the material.
Assume a Dyson sphere of 1 foot thickness (ridiculously thin, so this is underestimating the problem). Assume that the Dyson sphere is placed at a radius from the Sun of 100 million miles. The volume of such a sphere will be just about 24 trillion cubic miles.
The volume of the entire planet Earth is only 260 billion cubic miles. Even if we mined the entire Earth into nothingness, we'd only have 1% of the material needed to build the sphere. And that's for a sphere that's only 1 foot thick!
You may say "Why can't we use the material from the asteroid belt?" Good idea, but the total volume of all the asteroids in that belt is less than that of the Earth (by most estimates, the mass of the asteroid belt is only 1/1000th that of Earth -- assuming similar densities, that means a volume of about 1/1000th that of Earth).
There just isn't enough material in this solar system to build a Dyson sphere.
Yes. I don't deign to invent new terminology before the technology exists. Let's call it a "transistor-like device which switches really really fast." Better?
You were trolled to prove you lack understanding of physics, and you took the bait.
I understand physics just fine (got a degree in it and everything). You're just being anal. But hey, it's Slashdot.
While this is all true, I question whether it is necessary for all parts of the chip to be able to communicate with all other parts as fast as possible. Chips are already pipelined -- if the pipeline is physically arranged accordingly, most of this propagation delay can be made irrelevant. If two parts of a chip are in close communication all of the time, then they should be adjacent to each other.
This is definitely a physical limitation, but that doesn't mean it can't be designed around.
Yeah, that's basically what I'm saying. Haven't you paid attention in the last, oh, 40 years or so?
Just remember that "hop-skip-and-jump" is three incremental steps, not one big one.
I fail to see the connection with engineering...
And a broad statement doesn't imply that there are no exceptions.
I learned this system of values from the guy who designed the antenna positioning system for the space shuttle (now my boss), if that means anything to you.
Cool info. Thanks for the links.
I don't think so either, I was just debating a point of terminology. Beds are made sanitary, not sterile.
I typically don't bother optimizing something unless I believe I can make it 10 times faster. That is, unless we really need every last ounce of performance (which is rarely).
The transistors in a 3.4 GHz chip are capable of switching faster than 3.4 GHz. The chip as a whole runs at that particular speed because heat dissipation becomes problematic at higher speeds. The individual components are there, but we haven't figured out how to put them all together yet to achieve higher speeds. A processor is MUCH more complicated than a single transistor... Don't expect to see 600 GHz chips made out of 600 GHz transistors. Once we get to 10 THz transistors, you might start thinking about 600 Ghz chips...
I'm going to nitpick here, because I'm a homebrewer and thus I deal with sanitation on a regular basis.
A sealed keyboard cannot be sterilized unless you autoclave it. It can be sanitized, which means removing something like 99.999% of microorganisms, but it is not sterile in the sense that there is no remaining life whatsoever. No chemical agent can kill 100% of microorganisms (maybe sulfuric or hydrochloric acid at nearly 100%, but only after a long exposure period, and it would eat away the material you were trying to sterilize). Only heat (and radiation) can truly sterilize.
Now, if these keyboards you speak of can survive autoclaving temperatures, then by all means, go for it (if you have a large enough autoclave).
Many people casually confuse sanitation and sterilization, but they aren't strictly the same thing.
Just tell the kid the truth, the movie might be scary and it might give him bad dreams. Let him make his own decision.
EXACTLY. People typically serve less time than this for murder.
What does this mean?
It means you are better off if you kill the witnesses.
Don't you mean, "And yes, it was noticed that the sentences made by you were passive?"
Constructing a buffer overflow is practically impossible without access to a test platform. You'd have to be omniscient. I suppose he could hack in to the professor's system and steal the source code...
I guess the Mafia is okay too, it's a huge organization, so you had better "cope with reality," right?
Come on, Elwood. This argument just doesn't fly.
Say the United States has some fucked up policies regarding the Middle East. So a few people from that part of the world decide to take out a couple of buildings. Was that a good idea? No way to know, right? All we can do is move to a country that doesn't piss off Muslims.
It's a bullshit argument. Just because lives aren't at stake doesn't somehow make it valid.
Because we all know that harming innocent bystanders is a legitimate method of argumentation...
They are "clueless" because they didn't respond "in time" to some vigilante organization?
If you aren't getting "good enough" efficiency with a $100 mill I think you are doing something wrong. Hundreds of very experienced people would strongly disagree with you on this.
Back to the topic of this article, if I had $100 laying around I'd spend it on a nice grain mill. That's the only thing really holding me back from going to all grain brewing at this point.
The number of variables and parameters that can be tweaked throughout the beer brewing process is a hacker's dream come true.
Plus, it helps to relieve some of the general ignorance that most people have about what beer actually IS. I actually read here on Slashdot once that different beers are achieved by, get this, roasting the hops in various ways. My gawd.