I was watching NASA-TV a few weeks ago (yes, I have no life) and there was an interesting little show about aerogel. They demonstrated how it was formed and what kinds of things it can do. One of them was that they took a 2 gram (I'm just guessing here:)) cube of aerogel and sat ontop of it about 8kg of weights. That is pretty amazing. Oh, and here and here are little articles about the aerogel debris collector.
The exhaust from liquid-fueled rockets is many magnitudes less polluting than any internal-combustion engine. So, you might want to worry about the 825325123 cars pumping out noxious gasses and heat every day.
And why is it that a randomly shed bolt or chip of metal would travel in a 'west to east orbit' as opposed to the infinite other orbits it could wind up in?
There are plans now to send a small glider-like powered aircraft to mars that could deploy burrowing probes (they just impact, no cushoning) on specific targets.
Right now, a satellite is being developed that will use a mesh of aerogel pockets to trap micrometiorites for study, as aerogel is the only substance available that can trap them while not damaging them. So, yes, it can be in a vacuum.:)
DeCSS is simply a tool that lets you decode the format of a DVD movie. What you do with the movie after that is your buisness, legal or illegal. This is a tool; and just like other tools, it can be used for good or it can be abused. Banning a tool simply because it has the ability to facilitate illegal actions is as stupid as banning a hammer for the same reason (you could break into a house via smashing a window, or injure someone with it).
Another good shield for space debris is aerogel, it's over 99% air so it's very light, but it is extremely strong and has elasticity so a layer of it around a spacecraft wouldn't add too much to the overall weight of the craft, but would help protect it from the smaller of the orbiting debris.
That's kind of funny, but it's a good point. Most, if not all of the advancements in avation were the results of building a better weapon. Too bad we don't have a good cold war going to stimulate space programs ala the Apollo program.
One 'scientific benefit gained in the last 10 years of manned space flight' would be the knowledge of how to shape and prepare for the next 10 years of manned space flight. We can't just jump into space without experiencing it's difficulties, and knowing about what works and what doesn't.
That's just beacuse exploring the universe, and building a very ambitious project just doesn't capture eyeballs like yuppies on an island eating rats and being greedy, or Regis asking multiple-choice questions for insane ammounts of money...
The funny thing about 'winning at all costs' is that the user doesn't actually ever really win if they cheat. They just prove that they're too lazy or inept to actually win the right way.
SETI isn't directly detecting intelligent life, it's just detecting a side effect of it: strong, point-sourced radio waves that may, or may not have a pattern, but are definately not background radiation or interference.
Now, bearing in mind that I don't do this for a living, wouldn't it be possible to set up a logging program that ran a metric on each message that came through, based on date, to and from and message content, that could not be reversed to actually produce that data, but would have an astronomically improbable chance of being reproduced by a fake message?
What you want is an MD5 hash of the message concated (sp?) with it's length and the time.
Heh, I agree that TI's are better:) I have an HW1 89, and just love it. I even managed to put in a jack/diode for an external power supply. (I hate changing batteries!)
He could use some telnet software for his HP calc (there is such a thing) and use a modem to dialup to a unix shell (this can be done) and do some 'dastardly' deeds. But that's all just speculation:)
Slashdot Mirror
Not just the beeping KB, but the useless flashy animations.
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I was watching NASA-TV a few weeks ago (yes, I have no life) and there was an interesting little show about aerogel. They demonstrated how it was formed and what kinds of things it can do. One of them was that they took a 2 gram (I'm just guessing here :)) cube of aerogel and sat ontop of it about 8kg of weights. That is pretty amazing. Oh, and here and here are little articles about the aerogel debris collector.
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The exhaust from liquid-fueled rockets is many magnitudes less polluting than any internal-combustion engine. So, you might want to worry about the 825325123 cars pumping out noxious gasses and heat every day.
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And why is it that a randomly shed bolt or chip of metal would travel in a 'west to east orbit' as opposed to the infinite other orbits it could wind up in?
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There are plans now to send a small glider-like powered aircraft to mars that could deploy burrowing probes (they just impact, no cushoning) on specific targets.
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Stupidity in the Courts: Public Has Little Faith in Gov
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Elliptic cure cryptography is the future.
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Right now, a satellite is being developed that will use a mesh of aerogel pockets to trap micrometiorites for study, as aerogel is the only substance available that can trap them while not damaging them. So, yes, it can be in a vacuum. :)
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There was recently an article on slashdot that dealt with that topic (photonic switching).
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DeCSS is simply a tool that lets you decode the format of a DVD movie. What you do with the movie after that is your buisness, legal or illegal. This is a tool; and just like other tools, it can be used for good or it can be abused. Banning a tool simply because it has the ability to facilitate illegal actions is as stupid as banning a hammer for the same reason (you could break into a house via smashing a window, or injure someone with it).
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Another good shield for space debris is aerogel, it's over 99% air so it's very light, but it is extremely strong and has elasticity so a layer of it around a spacecraft wouldn't add too much to the overall weight of the craft, but would help protect it from the smaller of the orbiting debris.
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Oh, I forgot one other thing. The US doesn't have a President with the balls to take the initiative with those sorts of programs.
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That's kind of funny, but it's a good point. Most, if not all of the advancements in avation were the results of building a better weapon. Too bad we don't have a good cold war going to stimulate space programs ala the Apollo program.
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One 'scientific benefit gained in the last 10 years of manned space flight' would be the knowledge of how to shape and prepare for the next 10 years of manned space flight. We can't just jump into space without experiencing it's difficulties, and knowing about what works and what doesn't.
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That's just beacuse exploring the universe, and building a very ambitious project just doesn't capture eyeballs like yuppies on an island eating rats and being greedy, or Regis asking multiple-choice questions for insane ammounts of money...
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The funny thing about 'winning at all costs' is that the user doesn't actually ever really win if they cheat. They just prove that they're too lazy or inept to actually win the right way.
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SETI isn't directly detecting intelligent life, it's just detecting a side effect of it: strong, point-sourced radio waves that may, or may not have a pattern, but are definately not background radiation or interference.
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And have you never wondered what the advent of this observatory has meant for the Arecibeños that were displaced by its construction?
And just how many people were living in that limestone basin before the telescope was built?
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And while I'm at it, maybe I'll buy the visible spectrum; and then sue everyone who owns a light emitter. Yeah, that's the ticket.
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I think you just breathed a little bit of MY air.
I'd like $10 million USD, please.
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Because of the DMCA, even including a small portion of the origional song is illegal, so those cuckoo songs themselves are copyright violations.
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Yes, if people violating their precious DMCA.
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Now, bearing in mind that I don't do this for a living, wouldn't it be possible to set up a logging program that ran a metric on each message that came through, based on date, to and from and message content, that could not be reversed to actually produce that data, but would have an astronomically improbable chance of being reproduced by a fake message?
What you want is an MD5 hash of the message concated (sp?) with it's length and the time.
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Heh, I agree that TI's are better :)
I have an HW1 89, and just love it. I even managed to put in a jack/diode for an external power supply. (I hate changing batteries!)
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He could use some telnet software for his HP calc (there is such a thing) and use a modem to dialup to a unix shell (this can be done) and do some 'dastardly' deeds. :)
But that's all just speculation
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