Unfortunately, fissionable stuff is running out just as quickly as burnable. Pray that we get fusion to work soon.
Actually, if we used breeder reactors, we'd have enough nuclear fuel to last us millions of years (the idea with breeder reactors being that U-238 is used as a moderator and converted into Pu-239 (a fissionable substance) in the process).
Actually, to reach an elevation of 100km, you need a velocity of exactly 1.40 km/s, assuming gravity is 9.8 m/s^2. Much less than half of escape velocity.
One cannot "solve" chess or any game requiring two or more participants for that matter.
I will disprove your statement with a counterexample:
A game with the following rules: There is a board with one square. Each player has a single piece. On a player's turn, that player can either place his piece or do nothing. The first player to place his piece wins.
Obviously this game has a very simple solution: place your piece. Your statement that no two-player game can be solved is obviously false.
For a slightly less exaggerated example, look at Tic-Tac-Toe. There is a precise set of rules used to determine the ideal move at any time. Any player with a reasonable amount of experience has solved Tic-Tac-Toe.
Chess is the same. It's just a bit more complicated.
Re:Texas style ramen / Cereal Ramen
on
Space Ramen!
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· Score: 1
for cereal ramen just eat the ramen uncooked! Use the extra packet for texas style ramen above!!
I used to make it as soup, and then pour corn flakes into it.
Re:Alternative to Death Penalty?
on
Time Travel
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· Score: 1
So if they step on a bug, it was probably the bug that would otherwise have mutated into a poisonous insect that would have killed the first tribe of human
Many people in the developing countries die because of stravation and medical undersupply. I find _that_ disturbing. Having many children is their only possibility of some kind of old-age pension.
That doesn't make a lot of sense. There's not enough food, so the solution is to create more hungry mouths? If there's not enough food, you shouldn't be fucking as much. Then there's more to go around, and everyone gets some.
I don't think this theory quite works. Here's why:
Data in a computer is a representation of something else. What it actually means is purely up to the user. There's really nothing magical about a computer that makes the data in it real. If a universe simulated in a computer is "real," then so is a printout of all the data after the program is finished.
So imagine you've got this sentence that represents the output from a very simple universe. Say this sentence is "ba ka da." In God1's Language, this means "let there be light."
But in God2's language, it means "rabbits are fast."
And in God3's language, it means "God1 is an idiot."
See what I'm getting at? There are an infinite number of ways in which a string of bits (which is all that a simulation is) could be interpreted.
So if the universe is really a computer simulation, then that same simulation will also encompass every conceivable universe. Which means that you really don't need the simulation at all; any old data will do just fine.
Why is it so difficult to accept that we simply may not have the mental capacity to comprehend the nature of the universe?
It's difficult to accept because history shows that it is not true. Whenever new facts come along, our physics change to accomodate them. So with each experiment, we come a bit closer to the truth.
We may or may not find the truth eventually, and there's no way to be sure if we do, but the principles aren't that complicated. Physical laws seem pretty simple, really; it's just a matter of finding the right ones.
Try reading once in a while. There's a lot of good stuff out there. Here are some really good ones that you've probably never heard of:
Footfall (Niven, Pournelle), Protector (Niven), The Ring of Charon (Allen), any one Stephen Baxter book (but not two), Starstrike (Gear), Collision Course (Silverberg, I think), and for some fantasy: Silverlock (Myers), A Game of Thrones (Martin).
There's a lot more good stuff out there, too. Don't read anything by Piers Anthony.
NASA is the very definition of bloat. Spaceflight is, at least in principle, much simpler than regular flight.
A kilogram of liquid hydrogen costs something like $100, but launching a kilogram into orbit costs something like $20,000. Where does all that money go? Paper, mostly. Supposedly all the paper it takes to launch a shuttle outweighs the shuttle itself.
Spaceflight doesn't need to be complicated. It's just like launching model rockets, except bigger and with more volatile fuel.
That theory sounds pretty crackpot to me. How did the people get to Europa? Big stone-age spaceships?;-)
Anyhow, it seems unlikely to me that any culture could last for the 70,000 years needed for the Egyptian and American civilizations to arise. And if these people already knew how to build pyramids, what were they doing for the past 70,000 years anyway? Watching TV?
For that matter, if any culture from 70,000 years ago did survive that long, it would not have remained confined to Egypt and America. It would be everywhere.
Re:Before people start bitching
on
Poor NASA
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· Score: 1
Hell, we shouldn't be wasting time on the ISS, if you ask me. Not that I'm against spaceflight; far from it. But there are cheaper, more interesting, and more rewarding things to do in space than throwing junk into low orbit.
NASA should be mass-producing space probes. The big problem with NASA as I see it is that they don't mass-produce anything. It's the space station. It's the Mars probe. If we could just churn out a thousand identical rockets, well, we could really go places.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, fissionable stuff is running out just as quickly as burnable. Pray that we get fusion to work soon.
Actually, if we used breeder reactors, we'd have enough nuclear fuel to last us millions of years (the idea with breeder reactors being that U-238 is used as a moderator and converted into Pu-239 (a fissionable substance) in the process).
Actually, to reach an elevation of 100km, you need a velocity of exactly 1.40 km/s, assuming gravity is 9.8 m/s^2. Much less than half of escape velocity.
I think that was Manifold: Time
I guess that explains why nobody ever develops new hallucinogens.
Blasters are not lasers.
One cannot "solve" chess or any game requiring two or more participants for that matter.
I will disprove your statement with a counterexample:
A game with the following rules: There is a board with one square. Each player has a single piece. On a player's turn, that player can either place his piece or do nothing. The first player to place his piece wins.
Obviously this game has a very simple solution: place your piece. Your statement that no two-player game can be solved is obviously false.
For a slightly less exaggerated example, look at Tic-Tac-Toe. There is a precise set of rules used to determine the ideal move at any time. Any player with a reasonable amount of experience has solved Tic-Tac-Toe.
Chess is the same. It's just a bit more complicated.
for cereal ramen just eat the ramen uncooked! Use the extra packet for texas style ramen above!!
I used to make it as soup, and then pour corn flakes into it.
So if they step on a bug, it was probably the bug that would otherwise have mutated into a poisonous insect that would have killed the first tribe of human
Actually, I'd say it was probably just a bug.
Yes, exactly -- what would you use if you wanted to factor a 256-bit prime, your brain, or a computer?
You can't factor prime numbers. They're already factored.
Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a "permanent" magnet.
Many people in the developing countries die because of stravation and medical undersupply. I find _that_ disturbing. Having many children is their only possibility of some kind of old-age pension.
That doesn't make a lot of sense. There's not enough food, so the solution is to create more hungry mouths? If there's not enough food, you shouldn't be fucking as much. Then there's more to go around, and everyone gets some.
I don't think this theory quite works. Here's why:
Data in a computer is a representation of something else. What it actually means is purely up to the user. There's really nothing magical about a computer that makes the data in it real. If a universe simulated in a computer is "real," then so is a printout of all the data after the program is finished.
So imagine you've got this sentence that represents the output from a very simple universe. Say this sentence is "ba ka da." In God1's Language, this means "let there be light."
But in God2's language, it means "rabbits are fast."
And in God3's language, it means "God1 is an idiot."
See what I'm getting at? There are an infinite number of ways in which a string of bits (which is all that a simulation is) could be interpreted.
So if the universe is really a computer simulation, then that same simulation will also encompass every conceivable universe. Which means that you really don't need the simulation at all; any old data will do just fine.
Why is it so difficult to accept that we simply may not have the mental capacity to comprehend the nature of the universe?
It's difficult to accept because history shows that it is not true. Whenever new facts come along, our physics change to accomodate them. So with each experiment, we come a bit closer to the truth.
We may or may not find the truth eventually, and there's no way to be sure if we do, but the principles aren't that complicated. Physical laws seem pretty simple, really; it's just a matter of finding the right ones.
how do we determine our distance from another point in spacetime? Simple.. (X1-X0)+(Y1-Y0)+(Z1-Z0)+(T1-T0)..
Sounds like someone's never heard of Pythagoras.
Gah. I meant 3 billion.
Actually, IIRC it's more like 3 million years.
...you'll want all the technology you can get.
Actually, even plants and fungi have 90% human DNA.
I can't think of any reason why anyone would want to have cow genes ;)
as long as it is not yet centient it is not human
Then how do you explain George W?
Try reading once in a while. There's a lot of good stuff out there. Here are some really good ones that you've probably never heard of:
Footfall (Niven, Pournelle), Protector (Niven), The Ring of Charon (Allen), any one Stephen Baxter book (but not two), Starstrike (Gear), Collision Course (Silverberg, I think), and for some fantasy: Silverlock (Myers), A Game of Thrones (Martin).
There's a lot more good stuff out there, too. Don't read anything by Piers Anthony.
NASA is the very definition of bloat. Spaceflight is, at least in principle, much simpler than regular flight.
A kilogram of liquid hydrogen costs something like $100, but launching a kilogram into orbit costs something like $20,000. Where does all that money go? Paper, mostly. Supposedly all the paper it takes to launch a shuttle outweighs the shuttle itself.
Spaceflight doesn't need to be complicated. It's just like launching model rockets, except bigger and with more volatile fuel.
Anyhow, it seems unlikely to me that any culture could last for the 70,000 years needed for the Egyptian and American civilizations to arise. And if these people already knew how to build pyramids, what were they doing for the past 70,000 years anyway? Watching TV?
For that matter, if any culture from 70,000 years ago did survive that long, it would not have remained confined to Egypt and America. It would be everywhere.
Hell, we shouldn't be wasting time on the ISS, if you ask me. Not that I'm against spaceflight; far from it. But there are cheaper, more interesting, and more rewarding things to do in space than throwing junk into low orbit.
NASA should be mass-producing space probes. The big problem with NASA as I see it is that they don't mass-produce anything. It's the space station. It's the Mars probe. If we could just churn out a thousand identical rockets, well, we could really go places.
Yeah. Check out .the .product - it can be found here. A five-minute long 3D-rendered demo in 64k... compressed 30,000:1