Technically you're right, it wasn't dumb. Energia had a very nice throttleable engine, but Energia was not quite reusable. The strapons it used were pretty much exactly the same as Zenit stage 1, and the core engine was basically a 10 use SSME that no one trusted to actually be reusable. Tests since then have shown it could probably be reused at least once, but there were no known plans to at the time of Buran's launch. In fact, while the strapons were planned to be eventually reusable (parachute return) during the lifetime of the base Energia configuration, the only one actually tested, a reusable core was only planned for implementation if a design variant (Energia-2) was picked up for use.
Lot of reliable info on Energia at astronautix. Also, Energia (the design bureau) retains some pages on Energia (the rocket) at their Energia page.
So, while you are correct that it was throttleable, it was not reusable. It was designed to be possible, but it was not used in that fashion at the time of its only launch.
Energia-2 was about as far along as our own flyback boosters are, i.e. non-existent. If you want pretty artwork of US reusable boosters, I could find you some, but if you want actual US reusable boosters, you'd be SOL (Shuttle Out of Luck).
Buran was launched on an Energia-1, which was a large non-reusable booster. Energia-2 was a pipe dream that was, to my knowledge, never even into design phase, only in the pretty art phase.
Also, WTF? Buran didn't have reusable engines. Buran didn't have engines at all! It was just piggybacked on Energia, the quintessential Russian BDB. Where exactly do you see reuseable engines?
Asymmetrical warfare doesn't work for a country like China. Not in the way you're suggesting, at any rate.
A Q ship attack would pretty quickly result in a massive nuclear retaliation via ICBM and bomber. China isn't stupid, and wouldn't go that route. Yeah, they could use small asy attacks to disrupt shipping and such, but that's not likely to be significantly more effective than traditional military techniques like, you know, just sinking the ships.
Asymmetrical warfare works for asymmetric forces; when you have relatively equal forces (e.g. US and China), asymmetric techniques are far less effective.
Cingular. They throw in a bunch of SMS and MMS messages too. Not international, but not exactly hard to get an international SIM and carrier if you're going to be overseas for a while, and probably a lot cheaper than paying T-Mobile's overseas rates.
The TV industry pretty much exclusively uses Beta in day-to-day, although its a different format than consumer Beta was (larger tapes, etc.). Also, they're starting to move to digital tapes, from what I've seen. But Beta is still king in TV land. However, much like Minidisc, Beta is very much a niche format.
Data cable on my phone (non-bluetooth) is for using it as a GPRS modem, grabbing pictures off of it, uploading new ringtones, etc, etc. It's a Motorola. I don't actually use the sync phonebook feature.
He correctly described chaos as extreme sensitivity to initial conditions. In a classical (read: non-quantum, non-probabilistic) world, chaos is the effect that makes effects very difficult to predict from a starting state, due to the initial condition problem.
Since we don't appear to live in a classical world, not only do we have sensitive dependence, which means that macro-scale events can appear effectively random, we also have quantum mechanics, which implies that many things (decay of radioactive particles, Brownian noise, Johnson noise) are fundamentally random in nature.
Actually, the other problem (probably bigger, even) is that more and more of our communication has gone wireline or low-power line of sight. We're no longer radiating quite as much easily detectable RF, and the SETI guys assume that there's only a finite amount of time where a civilization would unintentionally radiate.
Basically, I've heard it called the window and door problem - we have a window of 50-100 years (I forget whose estimate) when a civilization is accidentally radiating to find them, and then we have to wait for them to open the door by transmitting intentional beacons.
He never said "Better" from what I've read, just "costs less energy". He is, of course, correct in that sending physical objects fairly slowly is a lot cheaper than the energy requirements for a reasonably detectable signal at XX light years.
But its also a lot slower, and probably harder to detect, making it not necessarily "better".
(I found the original BBC radio series on Soulseek - it has provided me with many a happy hour of driving and eliminated much frustration at Chicago traffic - yes, I'm stop and going 15 MPH, but I'm stop and going to the tune of Ford Prefect!)
I've seen a fair number recently that don't bother to include air numbers, or not prominently when I scanned them.
Generally, I don't do heat calculations; we have people who took thermodynamics do that. However, they all hate using only air temp because its *useless* - air temp affects a component surface-mounted to a flex PCB on a metal rigidizer far differently from a through-hole component with a heat sink. They wind up doing the heat calcs because they know air temp means nothing, and since we work on products that have huge heat issues (automotive powertrain electronics), they don't have the option of just saying "Well, it's inside the air temp spec, must be okay!"
But to my (limited electrical engineer's) understanding, mostly they use simulation (ICEPAK, I think?) to do the heat transfer calcs, and using the results get junction temps in circuit.
I've seen components run perfectly fine at a 200C air temp. I've seen them fail (consistently, and I mean fail, not be out of spec) at 50C. I no longer trust air temp specs to give me safe numbers and I make sure I get junction numbers somehow.
I'm not even sure you're right about "owners of consoles are teens" anymore; I think just as many 20-somethings own consoles as kids. The majority of GameCube owners might be teens/kids, the majority of GBA owners maybe, but consoles as a whole is not specifically a youth market anymore.
Simulations (airplane, car, ship, etc.) Sports games (hey, you may not, but I like them) DDR/karaoke type games Tetris MMOs aren't really any of the 4 you listed above (maybe FPS, but not really) Puzzle games like Myst Graphic adventures
There are probably more, those were just off the top of my head.
Operating temperatures for industrial are very commonly rated to 125 junction temperature. Milspec is usually rated to 150 junction temperature. Your numbers are sometimes used as air temperature, but air temperature totally ignores any heat effects from the PCB, possible heatsinking, conformal coats, etc.
Air numbers are nice, but junction numbers are the ones that actually matter.
Slashdot Mirror
Technically you're right, it wasn't dumb. Energia had a very nice throttleable engine, but Energia was not quite reusable. The strapons it used were pretty much exactly the same as Zenit stage 1, and the core engine was basically a 10 use SSME that no one trusted to actually be reusable. Tests since then have shown it could probably be reused at least once, but there were no known plans to at the time of Buran's launch. In fact, while the strapons were planned to be eventually reusable (parachute return) during the lifetime of the base Energia configuration, the only one actually tested, a reusable core was only planned for implementation if a design variant (Energia-2) was picked up for use.
Lot of reliable info on Energia at astronautix. Also, Energia (the design bureau) retains some pages on Energia (the rocket) at their Energia page.
So, while you are correct that it was throttleable, it was not reusable. It was designed to be possible, but it was not used in that fashion at the time of its only launch.
Energia-2 was about as far along as our own flyback boosters are, i.e. non-existent. If you want pretty artwork of US reusable boosters, I could find you some, but if you want actual US reusable boosters, you'd be SOL (Shuttle Out of Luck).
Buran was launched on an Energia-1, which was a large non-reusable booster. Energia-2 was a pipe dream that was, to my knowledge, never even into design phase, only in the pretty art phase.
I agree with you. But the person I was replying to suggested asymmetrical warfare, and I was responding to them, not to you.
Also, WTF? Buran didn't have reusable engines. Buran didn't have engines at all! It was just piggybacked on Energia, the quintessential Russian BDB. Where exactly do you see reuseable engines?
Without a track record, and considering Russia's engine history, I wouldn't bet on them developing a reusable engine without a LOT of testing first.
Asymmetrical warfare doesn't work for a country like China. Not in the way you're suggesting, at any rate.
A Q ship attack would pretty quickly result in a massive nuclear retaliation via ICBM and bomber. China isn't stupid, and wouldn't go that route. Yeah, they could use small asy attacks to disrupt shipping and such, but that's not likely to be significantly more effective than traditional military techniques like, you know, just sinking the ships.
Asymmetrical warfare works for asymmetric forces; when you have relatively equal forces (e.g. US and China), asymmetric techniques are far less effective.
"Red Wizard needs food."
"Red Wizard needs food badly."
"Red Wizard is about to die."
Molyneaux is a ripoff artist!
Except a noise burst washed out one character.
One very important character.
"How To Cook For Forty: Humans"
Cingular. They throw in a bunch of SMS and MMS messages too. Not international, but not exactly hard to get an international SIM and carrier if you're going to be overseas for a while, and probably a lot cheaper than paying T-Mobile's overseas rates.
No.
The firmware supports the feature set.
The carrier setup, which is different from the firmware, does not.
It's a subtle point, but a valid one, as you can change your carrier setup without changing firmware.
The TV industry pretty much exclusively uses Beta in day-to-day, although its a different format than consumer Beta was (larger tapes, etc.). Also, they're starting to move to digital tapes, from what I've seen. But Beta is still king in TV land. However, much like Minidisc, Beta is very much a niche format.
Data cable on my phone (non-bluetooth) is for using it as a GPRS modem, grabbing pictures off of it, uploading new ringtones, etc, etc. It's a Motorola. I don't actually use the sync phonebook feature.
You were saying?
Subject line is... ELECTROMAGNETISM WITH PLASTIC MAGNETS.
Please read subject more carefully kthxbye.
He correctly described chaos as extreme sensitivity to initial conditions. In a classical (read: non-quantum, non-probabilistic) world, chaos is the effect that makes effects very difficult to predict from a starting state, due to the initial condition problem.
Since we don't appear to live in a classical world, not only do we have sensitive dependence, which means that macro-scale events can appear effectively random, we also have quantum mechanics, which implies that many things (decay of radioactive particles, Brownian noise, Johnson noise) are fundamentally random in nature.
Actually, the other problem (probably bigger, even) is that more and more of our communication has gone wireline or low-power line of sight. We're no longer radiating quite as much easily detectable RF, and the SETI guys assume that there's only a finite amount of time where a civilization would unintentionally radiate.
Basically, I've heard it called the window and door problem - we have a window of 50-100 years (I forget whose estimate) when a civilization is accidentally radiating to find them, and then we have to wait for them to open the door by transmitting intentional beacons.
He never said "Better" from what I've read, just "costs less energy". He is, of course, correct in that sending physical objects fairly slowly is a lot cheaper than the energy requirements for a reasonably detectable signal at XX light years.
But its also a lot slower, and probably harder to detect, making it not necessarily "better".
What if we deliver this encoded DNA to a species that uses, say, a silicon matrix encoding their genetics?
Why would they even look at DNA, if they didn't realize it was a way to encode info as well as the foundation of life for us?
The admiral's ship, of course.
(I found the original BBC radio series on Soulseek - it has provided me with many a happy hour of driving and eliminated much frustration at Chicago traffic - yes, I'm stop and going 15 MPH, but I'm stop and going to the tune of Ford Prefect!)
I've seen a fair number recently that don't bother to include air numbers, or not prominently when I scanned them.
Generally, I don't do heat calculations; we have people who took thermodynamics do that. However, they all hate using only air temp because its *useless* - air temp affects a component surface-mounted to a flex PCB on a metal rigidizer far differently from a through-hole component with a heat sink. They wind up doing the heat calcs because they know air temp means nothing, and since we work on products that have huge heat issues (automotive powertrain electronics), they don't have the option of just saying "Well, it's inside the air temp spec, must be okay!"
But to my (limited electrical engineer's) understanding, mostly they use simulation (ICEPAK, I think?) to do the heat transfer calcs, and using the results get junction temps in circuit.
I've seen components run perfectly fine at a 200C air temp. I've seen them fail (consistently, and I mean fail, not be out of spec) at 50C. I no longer trust air temp specs to give me safe numbers and I make sure I get junction numbers somehow.
Eh, hell. I missed resilience, although he did also say resistance.
But I stand by my point re: conduction - look at the title, fuckwit. Electromagnetism. Electromagnets. Clear?
I'm not even sure you're right about "owners of consoles are teens" anymore; I think just as many 20-somethings own consoles as kids. The majority of GameCube owners might be teens/kids, the majority of GBA owners maybe, but consoles as a whole is not specifically a youth market anymore.
Magnets in electromagnets do conduct.
And he said resistance, not resilience.
Damn, you got to it before me.
I was going to go for 'euphemism for "worst sounding speakers ever so that if it sounded good on them, it had to sound good on anything else"'
Simulations (airplane, car, ship, etc.)
Sports games (hey, you may not, but I like them)
DDR/karaoke type games
Tetris
MMOs aren't really any of the 4 you listed above (maybe FPS, but not really)
Puzzle games like Myst
Graphic adventures
There are probably more, those were just off the top of my head.
Operating temperatures for industrial are very commonly rated to 125 junction temperature. Milspec is usually rated to 150 junction temperature. Your numbers are sometimes used as air temperature, but air temperature totally ignores any heat effects from the PCB, possible heatsinking, conformal coats, etc.
Air numbers are nice, but junction numbers are the ones that actually matter.