Weight is absolutely critical in commercial aviation and the power density of jet fuel is better and it is consumed during flight and reduces the weight of the aircraft. Batteries are heavy, and they stay heavy when discharged, they become dead weight. It just doesn't seem like a practical application for electricity.
Again, that said, it is a really cool technology demonstration. I just don't see commercial viability.
Who said it is a deterministic process? Evolution is based on random mutations. All that is being suggested in that given a large number of experiments a more optimal solution tends to be found, if one exists. That similar environments can independently converge (discover) upon such a solution. Its not unlike multiple independent runs of a Monte Carlo simulation finding the same maxima.
Convergent evolution suggests it is somewhat predictable, unrelated species having evolved similar solutions to similar problems. If a solution is clearly better nature will tend to go there given sufficient time and experimentation (mutation).
The fact that a trait may be expressed by different DNA sequences doesn't really seem to undermine this. The DNA sequences are implementation details. Evolution is about solutions and environments not DNA sequences.
Its not just the temperature, its the volume of air flowing over the aircraft. Imagine if the wings, tail, fuselage, etc could function as a heat sink.
Jet fuel has at least 50 times the energy density of lithium batteries...
And various aircraft ranging from a Boeing 777 to a US Navy F/A-18 have been flown using aviation biofuel, carbon neutral. Its experimental an hellaciously expensive but its a more realistic future.
With only 45 minutes to one hour of flight time I don't see how this is considered viable or even safe.
Well if you consider it a technology demonstrator its pretty impressive, and that is all it is claimed to be. Plus it gets bonus points for resembling an A-10, see pictures from front.
So which is worse - carbon footprint or trying to dispose of nuclear waste. Either way, there is no such thing as a zero-emission engine. Somewhere there is something that is creating waste products that have to be dealt with.
4th generation nuclear reactors will use the waste of previous generation reactors as fuel. So dealing with current waste is storing it for 30 years until the 4th gen reactors arrive commercially (research reactors are already running) and can burn it up as fuel. The waste from the 4th gen is far less dangerous and only remains hazardous for a few hundred years rather than tens of thousands.
3rd gen reactors are starting commercial construction and while they don't have the waste/fuel benefits of 4th gen they are much safer than previous generations.
That's still a good amount of time to be useful for things like island hopping.
The article states endurance between 45 minutes and 1 hour. But lets be optimistic and assume 1 hour...
Not all that time is "available", at *least* 20 minutes should be reserved for safety. Lets subtract 5 minutes at each end for traffic patterns. So we're really looking at something closer to 30 minutes in practice.
Once you factor in taxiing, climb, descent, etc... maybe a 60 mile one way (plane stays and has time for recharge) or 25 mile round trip (plane immediately returns)?
Now if you are being pessimistic and going with a 45 minute endurance then we're looking at about 15 minutes in practice. Maybe a 25 mile one way flight?
Yes those numbers are not linear. The difference between 1 hour and 45 minute duration is coming entirely out of cruise time. Safety margin, traffic, ascent, descent, taxiing, etc are unchanged.
That said, this aircraft is incredible. But it is only a technology demonstrator.
However it should be awarded bonus points for resembling the A-10 a little.:-)
The publishers I've dealt with won't accept a written manuscript. You must submit it electronically.
The rules are different for you and I and GRRM. If he showed up at a publisher with a 1,000 trailer trucks filled with clay tablets for book 6 they would sign a deal and cut him a check.
I was just thinking this would be something a Raspberry Pi would be perfect for.
In fact, if Wordperfect was still around in a reasonable condition, they could just sell the complete package in a box (just add keyboard and monitor). Or they could just sell the SD card.
So mainframes are resurrected via the cloud and now dedicated word processors will be resurrected via pis. The 1970s are returning.:-)
This is because, as a developer, you're a user who understands and knows what you want. Microsoft is writing software for the kind of people who'd type google into the google search bar to get to google.
You know, typing a domain name into search is not a terrible thing to do. It is a valid strategy to avoid domain name typos that may land you on a malware site.
"Oh sorry you'll have to send me more money, the value of this cryptocurrency dropped 20% in the 5 seconds it took to process the transaction."
That is a solved problem, some exchanges offer merchant services where the exchange does the conversion and bitcoin transfer and pays the merchant after coin transfer confirmation. The amount credited to the merchant is exactly the amount the merchant specified at the start of the process. At the end of the day the total credited to the merchant is transferred to the merchant's bank account. The merchant never touches a bitcoin, it bills, receives and does all of its accounting in dollars.
Maybe true (some docs are independent contractors). But in any sort of hospital, anything computer related, has to go through IT.
A while ago some article around here mentioned a group of doctors who had privileges at a local hospital. The hospital required the medical group to agree to hospital IT policies, security audits and unannounced penetration tests in order to connect the group's computers to the hospital network.
... can anyone elaborate as to why this would be a better road than just springing for a Raspberry Pi?
I have some old systems in the closet running as headless Linux boxes. I recently realized some of those were about the same CPU and RAM -wise as a Raspberry Pi B I had on my desk for a current project. The Pi was about US$45 with case and power. I'm thinking of attaching an external USB HD and mounting a NAS HD for some comparison test to these old systems. Don't need blazing performance for the local subversion or media wiki server in the closet, might save space and watts and decibels with the Pi. Should be a fun experiment.
As much as we would all really love solar and wind to scale to a level necessary for global needs that is not going to happen with current technology. Its many decades off. Lots of science and engineering are needed to get solar there. We need something to bridge the gap between today and that future date where solar scales.
Always amusing at fans of nuclear power, which requires billions to construct plants and house hazardous waste for dozens of generations into the future, cluck about how $30,000 for solar panels or a few million for a windfarm is "impractical".
France, 75% nuclear, some of the lowest rates in Europe. Germany, 25% renewable, some of the highest rates in Europe. The billions of people in the developing world are coming on to the grid and going to be using the less expensive alternatives, that is either fossil fuel or nuclear. If nuclear is not part of the solution to move from fossil fuels then such a move is drastically delayed. That is the inconvenient truth. A 30 year time frame to move to 80% renewables is beyond wishful thinking, its fantasy. The science and engineering are not on that trajectory.
4th gen reactors can consume waste from previous gen reactors as fuel. Test reactors are running. 3rd gen commercial reactors are about to begin construction.
I don't think combat is the primary concern of this project, but rater safe training and operation of these vehicles here home in Norway where I believe all our tanks are. A few years ago, a tank drove off the road during training mid winter and sank with the operators in a march, and to make sure incidens like that doesn't happen is probably why they are using software and hardware of this class and with this time frame instead of using millions on combat focused systems.
I doubt its just for training. You have to train the way you fight. You can't expect crews to use oculus during training and then switch to small metal ports during battle.
Maybe. Coal emits a ridiculous amount of radiation... Also, according to the Torch report, 60k people died from Chernobyl, which is a tragedy, but a drop in the bucket compared to coal.
"Using historical production data, we calculate that global nuclear power has prevented an average of 1.84 million air pollution-related deaths and 64 gigatonnes of CO2-equivalent (GtCO2-eq) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that would have resulted from fossil fuel burning. On the basis of global projection data that take into account the effects of the Fukushima accident, we find that nuclear power could additionally prevent an average of 420,000-7.04 million deaths and 80-240 GtCO2-eq emissions due to fossil fuels by midcentury, depending on which fuel it replaces. By contrast, we assess that large-scale expansion of unconstrained natural gas use would not mitigate the climate problem and would cause far more deaths than expansion of nuclear power." http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/...
The NHS and the welfare state are different things. One is a health service and the other is a social security system. I'm not sure where the rest of your waffle is going but then this is a typical tactic by libertarians - end the argument by boring the shit out of the opponent.
You brought the NHS into the discussion, not me. I've merely said that minimalist government is not no government, and that the Economist article that said British youth were increasingly in favor of smaller government made no mentioned of NHS.
I know it is genius. I am from here and the reference was to British youth or did you happen to miss that while you were quoting it?
I knew The Economist was British. What was unclear is wether you knew that the article was in a British publication. Attempting to rebut a British author in a highly respected British magazine by claiming that you are British is a bit strange, suggesting that you were unaware of the later.
If British youth really were libertarian leaning as that opinion piece seems to suggest then they would see the NHS as a bad thing.
That is your opinion. The article says no such things, hence the labeling of your original objection as a straw man.
Knowing more British youth than either you or the author, I'm telling you that's not true.
The attitudes expressed in the article are from the British Social Attitudes survey, a survey that has been running for many decades. If you read the first Economist article, I guess you didn't click on the link to a different article where the details were presented.
"More than two-thirds of people born before 1939 consider the welfare state “one of Britain’s proudest achievements”. Less than one-third of those born after 1979 say the same. According to the BSA, members of Generation Y are not just half as likely as older people to consider it the state’s responsibility to cover the costs of residential care in old age. They are also more likely to take such a hard-hearted view than were members of the famously jaded Generation X (born between 1966 and 1979) at the same stage of life." http://www.economist.com/news/...
But then you also missed the fact that I was making a sarcastic reference to the ridiculous hysteria about universal healthcare in your country.
No, I got the reference, but it was irrelevant, a straw man.
Slashdot Mirror
Truly, we got an offer we couldn't decline.
Many successful FOSS projects are corporate sponsored or subsidized, so corporations are going to be able to provide direction.
The days of volunteers controlling things are long gone for many large and/or successful projects.
Weight is absolutely critical in commercial aviation and the power density of jet fuel is better and it is consumed during flight and reduces the weight of the aircraft. Batteries are heavy, and they stay heavy when discharged, they become dead weight. It just doesn't seem like a practical application for electricity.
Again, that said, it is a really cool technology demonstration. I just don't see commercial viability.
Who said it is a deterministic process? Evolution is based on random mutations. All that is being suggested in that given a large number of experiments a more optimal solution tends to be found, if one exists. That similar environments can independently converge (discover) upon such a solution. Its not unlike multiple independent runs of a Monte Carlo simulation finding the same maxima.
Convergent evolution suggests it is somewhat predictable, unrelated species having evolved similar solutions to similar problems. If a solution is clearly better nature will tend to go there given sufficient time and experimentation (mutation).
The fact that a trait may be expressed by different DNA sequences doesn't really seem to undermine this. The DNA sequences are implementation details. Evolution is about solutions and environments not DNA sequences.
Its not just the temperature, its the volume of air flowing over the aircraft. Imagine if the wings, tail, fuselage, etc could function as a heat sink.
Jet fuel has at least 50 times the energy density of lithium batteries ...
And various aircraft ranging from a Boeing 777 to a US Navy F/A-18 have been flown using aviation biofuel, carbon neutral. Its experimental an hellaciously expensive but its a more realistic future.
With only 45 minutes to one hour of flight time I don't see how this is considered viable or even safe.
Well if you consider it a technology demonstrator its pretty impressive, and that is all it is claimed to be. Plus it gets bonus points for resembling an A-10, see pictures from front.
So which is worse - carbon footprint or trying to dispose of nuclear waste. Either way, there is no such thing as a zero-emission engine. Somewhere there is something that is creating waste products that have to be dealt with.
4th generation nuclear reactors will use the waste of previous generation reactors as fuel. So dealing with current waste is storing it for 30 years until the 4th gen reactors arrive commercially (research reactors are already running) and can burn it up as fuel. The waste from the 4th gen is far less dangerous and only remains hazardous for a few hundred years rather than tens of thousands.
3rd gen reactors are starting commercial construction and while they don't have the waste/fuel benefits of 4th gen they are much safer than previous generations.
Water conducts heat 4x faster than air (IIRC from scuba training) but that air at 30,000 feet is 20-30 below zero fahrenheit.
That's still a good amount of time to be useful for things like island hopping.
The article states endurance between 45 minutes and 1 hour. But lets be optimistic and assume 1 hour ...
... maybe a 60 mile one way (plane stays and has time for recharge) or 25 mile round trip (plane immediately returns)?
:-)
Not all that time is "available", at *least* 20 minutes should be reserved for safety. Lets subtract 5 minutes at each end for traffic patterns. So we're really looking at something closer to 30 minutes in practice.
Once you factor in taxiing, climb, descent, etc
Now if you are being pessimistic and going with a 45 minute endurance then we're looking at about 15 minutes in practice. Maybe a 25 mile one way flight?
Yes those numbers are not linear. The difference between 1 hour and 45 minute duration is coming entirely out of cruise time. Safety margin, traffic, ascent, descent, taxiing, etc are unchanged.
That said, this aircraft is incredible. But it is only a technology demonstrator.
However it should be awarded bonus points for resembling the A-10 a little.
The publishers I've dealt with won't accept a written manuscript. You must submit it electronically.
The rules are different for you and I and GRRM. If he showed up at a publisher with a 1,000 trailer trucks filled with clay tablets for book 6 they would sign a deal and cut him a check.
I was just thinking this would be something a Raspberry Pi would be perfect for.
In fact, if Wordperfect was still around in a reasonable condition, they could just sell the complete package in a box (just add keyboard and monitor). Or they could just sell the SD card.
So mainframes are resurrected via the cloud and now dedicated word processors will be resurrected via pis. The 1970s are returning. :-)
This is because, as a developer, you're a user who understands and knows what you want. Microsoft is writing software for the kind of people who'd type google into the google search bar to get to google.
You know, typing a domain name into search is not a terrible thing to do. It is a valid strategy to avoid domain name typos that may land you on a malware site.
"Oh sorry you'll have to send me more money, the value of this cryptocurrency dropped 20% in the 5 seconds it took to process the transaction."
That is a solved problem, some exchanges offer merchant services where the exchange does the conversion and bitcoin transfer and pays the merchant after coin transfer confirmation. The amount credited to the merchant is exactly the amount the merchant specified at the start of the process. At the end of the day the total credited to the merchant is transferred to the merchant's bank account. The merchant never touches a bitcoin, it bills, receives and does all of its accounting in dollars.
Maybe true (some docs are independent contractors). But in any sort of hospital, anything computer related, has to go through IT.
A while ago some article around here mentioned a group of doctors who had privileges at a local hospital. The hospital required the medical group to agree to hospital IT policies, security audits and unannounced penetration tests in order to connect the group's computers to the hospital network.
When will they ruin Fortran, like they are ruining everything else?
The did, f2c. :-)
... can anyone elaborate as to why this would be a better road than just springing for a Raspberry Pi?
I have some old systems in the closet running as headless Linux boxes. I recently realized some of those were about the same CPU and RAM -wise as a Raspberry Pi B I had on my desk for a current project. The Pi was about US$45 with case and power. I'm thinking of attaching an external USB HD and mounting a NAS HD for some comparison test to these old systems. Don't need blazing performance for the local subversion or media wiki server in the closet, might save space and watts and decibels with the Pi. Should be a fun experiment.
Also mostly vaporware.
Test reactors are up and running. Its actually comparable to some of the commercial scale solar generation test facilities.
"Only" for a few centuries. Nuclear power is the most expensive power source invented by man.
France is 75% nuclear and has the lowest rates in Europe.
Always amusing at fans of nuclear power, which requires billions to construct plants and house hazardous waste for dozens of generations into the future, cluck about how $30,000 for solar panels or a few million for a windfarm is "impractical".
France, 75% nuclear, some of the lowest rates in Europe. Germany, 25% renewable, some of the highest rates in Europe. The billions of people in the developing world are coming on to the grid and going to be using the less expensive alternatives, that is either fossil fuel or nuclear. If nuclear is not part of the solution to move from fossil fuels then such a move is drastically delayed. That is the inconvenient truth. A 30 year time frame to move to 80% renewables is beyond wishful thinking, its fantasy. The science and engineering are not on that trajectory.
4th gen reactors can consume waste from previous gen reactors as fuel. Test reactors are running. 3rd gen commercial reactors are about to begin construction.
What costs more? 1MW jamming gear, or HARM missiles?
Losing costs more than either.
I don't think combat is the primary concern of this project, but rater safe training and operation of these vehicles here home in Norway where I believe all our tanks are. A few years ago, a tank drove off the road during training mid winter and sank with the operators in a march, and to make sure incidens like that doesn't happen is probably why they are using software and hardware of this class and with this time frame instead of using millions on combat focused systems.
I doubt its just for training. You have to train the way you fight. You can't expect crews to use oculus during training and then switch to small metal ports during battle.
Maybe. Coal emits a ridiculous amount of radiation... Also, according to the Torch report, 60k people died from Chernobyl, which is a tragedy, but a drop in the bucket compared to coal.
"Using historical production data, we calculate that global nuclear power has prevented an average of 1.84 million air pollution-related deaths and 64 gigatonnes of CO2-equivalent (GtCO2-eq) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that would have resulted from fossil fuel burning. On the basis of global projection data that take into account the effects of the Fukushima accident, we find that nuclear power could additionally prevent an average of 420,000-7.04 million deaths and 80-240 GtCO2-eq emissions due to fossil fuels by midcentury, depending on which fuel it replaces. By contrast, we assess that large-scale expansion of unconstrained natural gas use would not mitigate the climate problem and would cause far more deaths than expansion of nuclear power."
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/...
The NHS and the welfare state are different things. One is a health service and the other is a social security system. I'm not sure where the rest of your waffle is going but then this is a typical tactic by libertarians - end the argument by boring the shit out of the opponent.
You brought the NHS into the discussion, not me. I've merely said that minimalist government is not no government, and that the Economist article that said British youth were increasingly in favor of smaller government made no mentioned of NHS.
I know it is genius. I am from here and the reference was to British youth or did you happen to miss that while you were quoting it?
I knew The Economist was British. What was unclear is wether you knew that the article was in a British publication. Attempting to rebut a British author in a highly respected British magazine by claiming that you are British is a bit strange, suggesting that you were unaware of the later.
If British youth really were libertarian leaning as that opinion piece seems to suggest then they would see the NHS as a bad thing.
That is your opinion. The article says no such things, hence the labeling of your original objection as a straw man.
Knowing more British youth than either you or the author, I'm telling you that's not true.
The attitudes expressed in the article are from the British Social Attitudes survey, a survey that has been running for many decades. If you read the first Economist article, I guess you didn't click on the link to a different article where the details were presented.
"More than two-thirds of people born before 1939 consider the welfare state “one of Britain’s proudest achievements”. Less than one-third of those born after 1979 say the same. According to the BSA, members of Generation Y are not just half as likely as older people to consider it the state’s responsibility to cover the costs of residential care in old age. They are also more likely to take such a hard-hearted view than were members of the famously jaded Generation X (born between 1966 and 1979) at the same stage of life."
http://www.economist.com/news/...
But then you also missed the fact that I was making a sarcastic reference to the ridiculous hysteria about universal healthcare in your country.
No, I got the reference, but it was irrelevant, a straw man.
Yes I did thanks. Not a strawman just knowledge of my country and its people.
Actually it is a straw man. Removal of NHS was not mentioned in the cited article.
As for your appeal to authority by nationality, that fails too. The cited article is from The Economist, a British publication.