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User: Kiryat+Malachi

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  1. Re:sublight speed ;) on X-43A Hits Mach 7 · · Score: 1

    Bleh. Too tired, too long since I've done real math (that doesn't relate to control systems). The integral of a decreasing quantity over an infinite period of time is not necessarily infinite, of course, and I'm too lazy to check whether the form of the force equation for gravity is one of the integrals that would converge to a finite quantity for infinite time.

    So, if it is, ignore all my jibba-jabba about there being no such period of time.

  2. Re:sublight speed ;) on X-43A Hits Mach 7 · · Score: 1

    Actually, in the fixed/non-rotating case, there is no time period wherein 1 m/s maintained velocity is sufficient to escape Earth's gravity. Assuming no acceleration, the Earth's gravity will provide a constant (though very small) acceleration in the direction of Earth. Over infinite time, even a small acceleration can overcome that initial velocity, leading our hypothetical spacecraft to slowly, slowly slow down and then begin to fall back to Earth faster and faster. In the non-fixed/rotating frame, this is of course a lot more complex, but even there it should eventually decay (assuming there is no Sun/other planets/etc.).

  3. Re:Most idiotic complaint on Congress To Force Cable a la Carte Plans · · Score: 1

    No, I wouldn't be surprised about who watches it, no one seems real ashamed to admit it. My friend's brother works for WWE (promoter of some kind, I think - I don't much pay attention) so I do have some familiarity with it.

    But top-rated doesn't exactly impress me. I remember that the top-rated network programs are things like Survivor and Friends.

    The thing about wrestling I find most impressive is their marketing/merch campaigns. They're *good* at that. Other than that, I find it boring and more than a little bit silly.

  4. Re:Doubt it Re:10 seconds on X-43A Hits Mach 7 · · Score: 1

    I wasn't seriously suggesting 'strapping on bigger tanks' to the existing design.

    I meant something more along the lines of 'on the next design, knowing that the combustion will work, make the design large enough to be able to hold fuel sufficient for sustained combustion and appropriate heatsinking/materials to tolerate the sustained high speed'.

    I just chose to contract it to 'strap on bigger tanks'.

  5. Re:sublight speed ;) on X-43A Hits Mach 7 · · Score: 1

    Hmm. Been a while since I did orbital mechanics, but yes, I believe it would fall to Earth (ignoring shit like relativistic frame dragging, which sounds like it might make a difference, but I know nothing about).

    Orbit requires tangential velocity. If you assumed Earth is fixed in space and non-rotating, then yes, it should fall straight back down.

  6. Re:sublight speed ;) on X-43A Hits Mach 7 · · Score: 1

    It's okay. I forgive you. :)

    (I couldn't come up with a better sentence structure, I knew someone was gonna misread it...)

  7. Re:While your at it, get rid of "Channels" complet on Congress To Force Cable a la Carte Plans · · Score: 1

    Comcast already has a limited version of this; went home to visit my parents and (they have HBO) caught up on the last few episodes of various HBO shows on my own time. Watched a couple movies, too.

    Not everything is available through Comcast's on-demand system, but a surprisingly large amount of content is. HBO and Showtime both seemed to have simply added *all* of their content for the previous month to the on-demand listings; wouldn't we all like to be free of trying to catch the 2AM showing of some movie?

    As to losing prime-time ad slots; instead of pricing ads by timeslot, price them by show; an ad on "Friends" is expensive, an ad on "Joe-Bob's House of Fishing" is not.

  8. Re:Striking a balance... on Congress To Force Cable a la Carte Plans · · Score: 1

    Well, I could understand if they were bundled like:

    ESPN Bundle: ESPN1, 2, and Classic: $5/mo.
    HBO Bundle: 25 HBOs, $20/mo. (How many HBOs are we up to now?)
    'Learning' Bundle: TLC, History, Discovery, NASATV: $5/mo.
    Music bundle: MTV1, MTV2, BET, add some more random music networks. $7.50/mo.
    Spanish bundle: Univision, local Spanish programming, whatever other Spanish-language programming is on the network. $10/mo.

    Bundles that are reasonably likely to be purchased by viewers based on the fact that people who like ESPN1 probably want ESPN2, those are okay. But I like Cartoon Network. That does NOT mean I like MTV.

  9. Re:Thank you McCain on Congress To Force Cable a la Carte Plans · · Score: 1

    Actually, the Spanish channel probably would survive; there are people, especially in urban areas (the very places most likely to have Spanish-language local programming) who speak Spanish quite a bit better than they speak English.

    The whole point is that you pay for what you want; you and I get Comedy Central, CSPAN, and Cartoon Network (well, I get Cartoon Network), and Jose Seis-Cerveza gets Univision and Locale Dos.

  10. Re:Most idiotic complaint on Congress To Force Cable a la Carte Plans · · Score: 1

    You make all these (valid, accurate, GOOD) complaints about how the quality of content has gone down on cable...

    And then you complain there's less wrestling on TV. Funny, by me, that means there's at least one way in which the quality of content has gone *up*.

  11. Re:Canadians are used to this on Congress To Force Cable a la Carte Plans · · Score: 1

    I often wonder whether Canadians are exposed to any of the extremely cool, less-promoted Canadian music that's played on their radio.

    Actually, no I don't. Just like US citizens don't bother listening to the few radio stations that play worthwhile things (WFMU, KTRU, WCBN, WSUM, WNUR, WLUW, etc.), I assume that Canadians turn off their radio when Britney stops singing and the unknown Canadian starts playing guitar.

  12. Re:More for all channels, but not the point... on Congress To Force Cable a la Carte Plans · · Score: 1

    Dropped cable. Rent DVDs of the shows I want to watch (which are mostly HBO shows anyway).

    The only things I miss seeing on TV anymore are CSPAN, Adult Swim, and West Wing, and I can watch the first one online, download episodes of the second one, and the third one will be out on DVD someday.

    We'll get there.

  13. Re:10 seconds on X-43A Hits Mach 7 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Proof of concept.

    It worked for 10 seconds. That was all this design is supposed to do, and all it is likely capable of doing, but it proved their combustion chamber design works.

    Now they can strap big fuel tanks on and go for a longer sustained burn, if they want to.

  14. Re:sublight speed ;) on X-43A Hits Mach 7 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Uhm.... no. You are correct in your definition of escape velocity, but orbiting spacecraft reach speeds just about as fast.

    Orbital mechanics tells us that the velocity of an orbiting object is dependent on the mass of the object you're orbiting, and the distance you are from the surface. Thus, when Shuttle is orbiting at 300km altitude, it is traveling at 7.73 km/sec. In order to achieve that orbit, it has to achieve that speed, tangential to the direction of gravity. It can do this (neglecting friction) in one burst at ground level, or over time, but it has to hit that speed to hit orbit.

  15. Well. on Creativity, a Problem for the Gaming Industry? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They have to pay for Animal Crossing and Pikmin somehow.

  16. Re:Unjust? Enenforceable? How? on RIAA To Subpoena Univ. of Michigan Names · · Score: 1

    Homicide laws are not impossible to enforce uniformly. The police make a genuine attempt (well, usually) to track down the protagonist of every single murder that occurs. The same cannot be said for file-sharing, and in fact, the same is IMPOSSIBLE for file-sharing, simply due to the volume of the crime. To paraphrase a show I love: Any law that makes 50 million Americans into criminals is probably a bad law.

    I find copyright law to be unjust because it runs too long, allows sale of the ultimate control (check French copyright law - you can sell distribution rights to a company, but they can never own the fundamental rights to the song; the artists own that).

    (Nice ad hominem, calling me a 'punk'. I'm a musician who makes no money from it because I give away sample songs online, and charge cost-of-distribution to ship someone a CD. I worked for a long time at an independent radio station, working with small artists, many of whom operated the same way. I've given away my time and knowledge to help them record, for free. Most musicians I know would rather have more people listening to their music than make extra money from it. They aren't all Britney.)

    I don't have a problem rewarding people for their work, but I have a problem with requiring laws and lawsuits to do it. Fundamentally, economics are different now; we can copy something a near-infinite number of times for an infinitesimally small cost. This HAS to change economics. The cost of providing someone with access to a CD's worth of music and the cost of providing someone with access to ALL CD's worth of music is, spread out over the US population, nearly identical. This suggests that there needs to be a fundamental shift in how we economically regard commodities of an informational base, as opposed to commodities of a 'real' base.

  17. Re:Clue train on wrong track on RIAA To Subpoena Univ. of Michigan Names · · Score: 1

    Uniformly refers to attempting to prosecute everyone who commits the crime. Universal might have been a better way to refer to it.

    It's the same reason that marijuana criminalization is unjust; we can't imprison everyone who (shares files/smokes pot).

    As to my second statement: Innovation is not (necessarily) information. I'm speaking economically - the economics of a scarcity based economy CANNOT apply to an economy where valuable goods are fundamentally not scarce. There's nothing unfair about wanting to get paid for your music; there's just the fact that when the cost of duplication becomes zero, classical economics fails, and we have to work out a new system (universal licensing, maybe?) that works with a zero duplication cost. Legally mandated scarcity fails in a global world where the ability to casually violate that law becomes common.

  18. Re:Does this small 'computer' run Linux? on Asus Launching a Wi-Fi Hard Drive · · Score: 1

    A lot (by no means all, or even really most) recent computer hardware does require some firmware, but many/most firmware systems are OSless - they don't do memory management, multi-tasking, file management, or any of the other crap OSes handle.

    As to OSless for this - I'm with you, it probably isn't, since I recall it being web-configurable, which implies a web server, which implies multi-tasking. But firmware != an OS, generally.

  19. Quote is inexact on Latest Chernobyl Motorcycle Photos · · Score: 1

    500 roentgen of alpha radiation is a lot, lot worse than 500 roentgen of x-rays... they both might be enough to kill you, but the quote should really use proper units - rems (or Sieverts), the unit of biological dose.

  20. Re:Question for physics people on Latest Chernobyl Motorcycle Photos · · Score: 5, Informative

    Very different units.

    Roentgens measure ionizing radiation in air/free field. Rems (actually REM, an acronym for Roentgen-Equivalent Man) are a measure of how much biological damage a given amount of radiation does. Basically, one roentgen of gamma radiation is appx. equivalent to one rad absorbed is appx. equivalent to one rem. However, other types of radiation have different conversions - for instance, one rad of alpha radiation is appx. equivalent to 20 rems of exposure.

    The short version - "In summary, the roentgen is a unit of exposure, the rad is a unit of absorbed dose, and the rem is a unit of biological dose."

    (data from http://www.radford.edu/~fac-man/Safety/Radiation/c hp5.htm)

  21. Re:Nothing New Here on WTO Wants USA to Gamble Online · · Score: 1

    There's a huge fucking difference between breaking an agreement you've signed, and never entering into that agreement in the first place.

    And no one currently enforces to Kyoto, since the trigger condition (55% of CO2 emitters must ratify) has not been reached.

  22. Re:scramjet? on Second Test of X-43A Scramjet Tomorrow · · Score: 1

    You mean ValuJet, right?

    Bringing a new meaning to the term "system crash".

  23. Re:Clue train on wrong track on RIAA To Subpoena Univ. of Michigan Names · · Score: 1

    It is impossible to enforce the law uniformly.

    Thus, the law is effectively unjust and unenforceable.

    We're going to have to deal with the fact that an economy based on scarcity CANNOT apply to information, and come up with some way to deal with it.

  24. Re:Be careful of the source on RIAA To Subpoena Univ. of Michigan Names · · Score: 1

    I know you're just being pedantic about the article title, but the Daily is... not awful, let's say. They're good at misquoting (hell, I should know, they misquoted the HELL out of me for an article on webcasting restrictions a couple years back) but they do try to get the story right. Most of the time.

    The rest of the time they just copy the AP wire like 99% of the papers in this country anyway.

  25. Re:Your new career is going well, mrwonton on RIAA To Subpoena Univ. of Michigan Names · · Score: 1

    SKR went out of business because they weren't a very good record store anymore. Same with Discount (ELib and State). Wherehouse, the entire chain pretty much went broke. Tower got forced out by the University.

    Encore Records? Still doing just fine. Just fine. Record Exchange does okay. PJ's even seems to be doing okay, last I talked to Marc, and they have the worst location ever.

    And actually, SKR didn't even go out of business. They just couldn't afford their E Liberty space anymore (due mostly to the fact that they were charging 15-20 a CD, and had a mediocre selection). They're in the basement of Bivouac these days.

    (I grew up in Ann Arbor, went to school there, the whole 9 yards. I also spent 4 years working for, and 1 year running, WCBN. I know of what I speak.)