First, the gravity is one sixth that of earth. So 4 feet of soil would weigh equivalent to 8" on earth.
Second, we're going to be inflating them to fairly heavily compared to earth structures. There might still be less air in them than an inflatable on earth, but there'll be a larger difference between internal pressure and the zero pressure outside. That means that the structure would end up being VERY stiff comparativly.
Third, this isn't a cheap inflatable we're talking about here. This is a multi-layer kevlar and mylar reinforced structure. It's quite strong.
For a bigger example, look at asbestos. For years they're told it's fine, then when the news comes out they go after companies that have been out of the business for years and bankrupt them with court costs.
Still, the USA needs to balance the budget ASAP. We're currently living like a family maxing out their credit cards... It's going to suck when credit can no longer be gained, and we don't have the option of simply declaring bankruptcy.
But without the forces that caused the erosion on the earth, the stuff isn't going to be moving much from where you piled it up. Mostly you'll be worrying about high-traffic areas and equipment that's moving around, IE air-locks, space suits and such. The buried dome won't be getting too scratched up because the stuff, once settled, isn't moving.
What I find annoying about this is that it's indicative as to how much bureaucracy has crippled NASA that a private entrepreneur with several million dollars can effectivly keep up with it, even bypass it in specific areas.
Rigid structures, after a puncture, can provide a strong, even surface around small punctures against which a patch may be applied
Or it can provide a weak, folded, twisted and jagged surface that needs to be trimmed before a patch is applied and welded into place.
Inflated structures depend on surface-equalized pressure to keep the surface taut, and once punctured, the structure bulges outwards around the tear; the larger the tear, the less likely it is to provide a good seating surface for the sealant.
Have you ever patched a bicycle tire? This would be even simpler. The 'fabric' in this case is very much rip-stop. You take a patch, apply the appropriate cement to it, and slap it over the hole. Air pressure will take care of most of the effort of keeping the patch in place. If you want, you can then go outside and appy a similar patch to the outside. A hand holding it in place will work fine.
Exactly. Sure, conventional wisdom has metal walls being tougher than fabric, but that's because we have the luxury of using thicknesses ranging from about a quarter of an inch to yards in the case of warships.
Meanwhile about the only experience your average person has with flexible wall construction are tents. It might seem wierd, but by the weight and thickness your average tent is tougher than a metal one would be.
For an experiment, take your average soda can. It's little thinner than tent fabric. Now try to poke a hole in it with a knife. Not hard, is it? Go ahead, cut the can. Now, think about how hard that would be with a piece of fabric. Kevlar is dozens of times tougher. To the point you pile 20 or so layers together it tends to stop bullets.
Another good point would be the ability of the structure to flex in an impact. This would increase it's ability to stop penetration by spreading the energy of the projectile over a larger area and period of time.
Talk about violating the idea of saving the enviroment...
My training: Reduce - If you don't need to use 2 gallons, don't. If possible, use a friendlier substance over an unfriendly one. IE soap & water rather than a petrol based cleaner Reuse - If it's still good, keep using it. Use reusable parts when possible rather than disposables Recycle - After the first two have been done, if possible, recycle the items rather than simply throwing them away.
The actual component cost is around $80, but combined with the LCD screen itself amounts to $1200
Considering that you can buy brand new laptops for ~$600 today I doubt the LCD screen costs that much anymore.
Still, I imagine that there are alignment issues; IE making the tube easy to replace would make it more expensive and actually more likely to fail over the expected lifetime of the laptop.
As for the whole recycling issue; I kinda agree with the others that we're probably better off dumping the stuff into landfills until our technology reaches the point that it's profitable to recycle the stuff in a safe manner. I don't imagine that there's enough precious metal in your standard computer to justify shipping it all the way to china from the USA to recycle it. Thus, it may be that the only reason they're recycling stuff in such an unsafe mannor is because recycling is subsidized so it becomes profitable.
Now, bonuses for making your product easier to recycle would make sense.
I've heard that limiting prints is indeed part of the problem. What the music industry doesn't talk about is that the number of albums they release is also down.
Fewer albums released -> lower sales -> less income
I can't hear them except in the most extreme cases. But I can sure as heck see the flicker of poorly ballasted fluorescents.
It's almost certainly not the bulb. Fluorescents actually contain two parts that can wear out. The obvious one is the bulb, the non-obvious is the ballast. Signs of a failing ballast tend to be slow starting, flickering, and humming. Of course, CFLs combine the two.
If you get a new one, look for electronic ballasts. They tend to raise the frequency up into the kilohertz, quietening most noise.
The problem with your linked article is that it's looking at the cost of gas/oil electricity, which is some of the most expensive going. They're pretty much only used for peak power demands. I'm looking more at the average cost to the cost of baseband power, which is coal, nuclear, and hydro in the USA.
Still, I'm looking forward to when they get this working and economical enough.
But that will change as solar becomes cheaper than wholesale electricity.
That's a difficult yardstick to reach though. I mean, it barely makes sense for retail electricity at $.12/kwh. The average wholesale price for electricity in my area is $.04. Of course, retail is only $.08, including fuel clause.
And like I said, if it truly made sense, the power companies would be installing it themselves. Can you compete with the economy of scale they can put forth?
In my state, the only 'license' you need for firearms is for CCW, the firearms themselves are completly unlicensed.
Now, schools are currently strictly off limits for carrying. Now tell me; is it truly bad for a CCW holder, having taken training, passed a test and background investigation truly a threat to the school's occupants? More than that, is the restriction going to do any good if an individual decides to shoot the place up? I'm sure that that one extra felony out of the dozens will be the thing to make the potential killer decide not to do it.
Bleh...
Back on topic, I hope they figure out a way to crack at least a few of the hardware keys; They're there, we just have to figure them out. I also hope that these laws will start going away as the old guard in the political world go away and new blood comes in. Some senators have been in for decades.
I'm reminded of the foundation series here. A person is unpredictable, but as you get larger and larger groups, they get more predictable.
Sure, people commit 'piracy' just like they do other crimes. Sure that's bad. But should I, as a business, not take any measures against theft because it's against the law and people shouldn't do that? No - to ensure my own profit margin I have to acknowledge human nature and take some steps to prevent theft.
But how do you prevent electronic piracy? You can't, really. Therefore it's actually more profitable to bite the bullet and beat the pirates at their own game.
It would take me more time to find an illegal copy of one of Baen's books than to go to webscripton.net and pay the $6 for the book. That's worth six minutes of work for me. I buy multiple books at once - I'm even better off. Not to mention the whole accuracy thing. The OCR process introduces many errors.
Like he said, DRM hobbles legitimate e-books: 1: More expensive than pirated versions(Can't really beat free, but oh well) 2: Harder to get than pirated versions: Many books I read don't have e-book versions 3: Harder to use than pirated versions: Pirate and Baen ebooks don't have keys and encryption to deal with. You can copy and paste text for debates. Don't need a special reader.
If you go off grid, and don't use 100% of the power you generate, you are not being very green at all. you are throwing away power
I'd argue that throwing away a modest amount of that power can be cleaner than operating that clean generator. Keeping the batteries topped off reduces the usage of them and extends their life.
If you throw away 20% of the generated solar panel during the summer, but it reduces your need for a generator 50% in the winter, it'd still be better.
Going with a combination of solar and wind, you'd generate excess power occasionally, but then in addition to the batteries I'd have a heat storage system, for hot water if nothing else. On the other hand you'd usually be fairly gentle on the batteries.
The only major thing holding solar power back is it's high cost. Cut that in half and I'd be willing to bet that the power companies would be paying places to install them.
First, on power prices. I see them as remaining mostly stable. We have lots and lots of coal, and nuclear's competitive if they finally start really cranking down on the pollution. Wind's dropping as well.
left to negotiate a grid intertied agreement, if your state allows this.
Wouldn't this already be negotiated? The selling back to the grid will normally be done on a monthly net basis. The worst case is your meter drops(you're giving the utility electricity) and they don't pay you a dime. Well, worst case is they disconnect you because you're endangering the grid because somethings fouled up in your system. But this is the case regardless of whether the orgininal company is intact or not.
If the company goes under and the creditors don't bother recovering the system(IE you get it by default since it's on your roof), you're ahead of the game. Electricity for free w/no install cost. Still, I don't see this as happening. Those contracts would be worth money, and could be sold as such. You'd still get bills. And if the contract's written correctly, they can't raise rates either.
I live in a state where they use net metering, I don't have an install, but I did the research some time back for a windmill. My bill would be (KwH used - KwH produced)*standard rate. My credit if the meter goes down would be (KwH produced - KwH used)*discount rate. On a monthly basis.
My electricity usage is fairly consistant, so I shouldn't have any problems setting the system to just about neutral. I'd still need a battery or generator if I want power during utility outages though, these systems generally shut off if line power is lost to protect the line workers. They need the line power for moderation.
By the sounds of it he's driving a sports car, likely extremely streamlined with a large engine. So it takes a much higher speed for the air resistance to become the dominant factor compared to typical cars, much less SUVs.
Evidence: six gears, idle@45 in sixth, manual transmission, would like to buy a *performance* hybrid
Nice little ad, but doesn't understand the economy very well. Most of the ad's examples don't work. Cutting down the forest - increases GDP for that year. It totally forgets to mention that either stuff is built on the cleared land or generally more trees are planted for harvest later. It's a renewable resource. At this point in the USA, the vast majority of trees harvested are farmed. The Oil spill - Doesn't help GDP. First, the value of the oil is lost. Then vast amounts of resources(money) are spent to clean up the mess. The cancer diagnosis - What, it's better for them to be undiagnosed? GDP increases come from successul diagnosis and treatment of cancers, allowing the victim to continue working. Meanwhile you have somebody out of work consuming expensive products and services.
GDP is a number. It may be the most common number, but it's just a number. When we do things to improve our economy, it generally takes that into account. There's also wage averages, hours worked, employment numbers, etc...
You get into organic recycling(IE space greenhouse) and you'll probably want those bacteria operating.
Right now an enclosed live habitat with no input but sunlight would require a huge amount of mass to be self sustaining.
My idea is that even relativly crude forms of recycling may be well worth the effort, and as you get more sophisticated methods up there more and more of your waste becomes valuable resources.
Need more storage area? Send up the next supply mission without jettisoning the booster stage, which has been modified to be converted.
Of course I also think that they should try their hardest to find and prosecute the person that found the stuff in the first place.
I fully agree with this, but they've already 'found' him, the problem here is one of international law, treaties, and extradition as the hacker's a Canadian in Canada and the 'victim'/hacked computer is in the USA.
About the best they can do is inform the Canadian authorities to his actions.
The crucial difference here was that the script kiddie was not a law enforcement officer nor under any contract with same. He was an independent operator.
Now, if he'd collected the information at an officer's request, that would be a different matter.
PLCs? What are those in this context? I don't think it's a Programmable Logic Controller.;)
T8/T12 Bulbs really are cheap, especially for standard sizes.
For example 48" T8's are $1.99 each, but have a CRI(Color Rendering Index) of 78. Meanwhile one with a CRI of 95 costs $6.79.
Given that they can be expected to last 20k hours, I'm not going to complain about spending an extra $5 for better bulbs(3X!) Though I didn't get the most expensive.
Slashdot Mirror
A dell inspirion starts at $599.
But you're talking about retail vs OEM. It's kinda like how a car is actually worth more parted out than sold as a single unit.
It's probably also a much better unit than the 15" model on the $600 laptop.
This is not practical with inflatable structures.
Why wouldn't it be? This isn't earth.
First, the gravity is one sixth that of earth. So 4 feet of soil would weigh equivalent to 8" on earth.
Second, we're going to be inflating them to fairly heavily compared to earth structures. There might still be less air in them than an inflatable on earth, but there'll be a larger difference between internal pressure and the zero pressure outside. That means that the structure would end up being VERY stiff comparativly.
Third, this isn't a cheap inflatable we're talking about here. This is a multi-layer kevlar and mylar reinforced structure. It's quite strong.
For a bigger example, look at asbestos. For years they're told it's fine, then when the news comes out they go after companies that have been out of the business for years and bankrupt them with court costs.
Still, the USA needs to balance the budget ASAP. We're currently living like a family maxing out their credit cards... It's going to suck when credit can no longer be gained, and we don't have the option of simply declaring bankruptcy.
But without the forces that caused the erosion on the earth, the stuff isn't going to be moving much from where you piled it up. Mostly you'll be worrying about high-traffic areas and equipment that's moving around, IE air-locks, space suits and such. The buried dome won't be getting too scratched up because the stuff, once settled, isn't moving.
What I find annoying about this is that it's indicative as to how much bureaucracy has crippled NASA that a private entrepreneur with several million dollars can effectivly keep up with it, even bypass it in specific areas.
Lean and mean NASA no longer is.
Rigid structures, after a puncture, can provide a strong, even surface around small punctures against which a patch may be applied
Or it can provide a weak, folded, twisted and jagged surface that needs to be trimmed before a patch is applied and welded into place.
Inflated structures depend on surface-equalized pressure to keep the surface taut, and once punctured, the structure bulges outwards around the tear; the larger the tear, the less likely it is to provide a good seating surface for the sealant.
Have you ever patched a bicycle tire? This would be even simpler. The 'fabric' in this case is very much rip-stop. You take a patch, apply the appropriate cement to it, and slap it over the hole. Air pressure will take care of most of the effort of keeping the patch in place. If you want, you can then go outside and appy a similar patch to the outside. A hand holding it in place will work fine.
Exactly. Sure, conventional wisdom has metal walls being tougher than fabric, but that's because we have the luxury of using thicknesses ranging from about a quarter of an inch to yards in the case of warships.
Meanwhile about the only experience your average person has with flexible wall construction are tents. It might seem wierd, but by the weight and thickness your average tent is tougher than a metal one would be.
For an experiment, take your average soda can. It's little thinner than tent fabric. Now try to poke a hole in it with a knife. Not hard, is it? Go ahead, cut the can. Now, think about how hard that would be with a piece of fabric. Kevlar is dozens of times tougher. To the point you pile 20 or so layers together it tends to stop bullets.
Another good point would be the ability of the structure to flex in an impact. This would increase it's ability to stop penetration by spreading the energy of the projectile over a larger area and period of time.
Talk about violating the idea of saving the enviroment...
My training:
Reduce - If you don't need to use 2 gallons, don't. If possible, use a friendlier substance over an unfriendly one. IE soap & water rather than a petrol based cleaner
Reuse - If it's still good, keep using it. Use reusable parts when possible rather than disposables
Recycle - After the first two have been done, if possible, recycle the items rather than simply throwing them away.
The actual component cost is around $80, but combined with the LCD screen itself amounts to $1200
Considering that you can buy brand new laptops for ~$600 today I doubt the LCD screen costs that much anymore.
Still, I imagine that there are alignment issues; IE making the tube easy to replace would make it more expensive and actually more likely to fail over the expected lifetime of the laptop.
As for the whole recycling issue; I kinda agree with the others that we're probably better off dumping the stuff into landfills until our technology reaches the point that it's profitable to recycle the stuff in a safe manner. I don't imagine that there's enough precious metal in your standard computer to justify shipping it all the way to china from the USA to recycle it. Thus, it may be that the only reason they're recycling stuff in such an unsafe mannor is because recycling is subsidized so it becomes profitable.
Now, bonuses for making your product easier to recycle would make sense.
I've heard that limiting prints is indeed part of the problem. What the music industry doesn't talk about is that the number of albums they release is also down.
Fewer albums released -> lower sales -> less income
Maybe it's the quality, and not the age of bulb.
I can't hear them except in the most extreme cases. But I can sure as heck see the flicker of poorly ballasted fluorescents.
It's almost certainly not the bulb. Fluorescents actually contain two parts that can wear out. The obvious one is the bulb, the non-obvious is the ballast. Signs of a failing ballast tend to be slow starting, flickering, and humming. Of course, CFLs combine the two.
If you get a new one, look for electronic ballasts. They tend to raise the frequency up into the kilohertz, quietening most noise.
The problem with your linked article is that it's looking at the cost of gas/oil electricity, which is some of the most expensive going. They're pretty much only used for peak power demands. I'm looking more at the average cost to the cost of baseband power, which is coal, nuclear, and hydro in the USA.
Still, I'm looking forward to when they get this working and economical enough.
But that will change as solar becomes cheaper than wholesale electricity.
That's a difficult yardstick to reach though. I mean, it barely makes sense for retail electricity at $.12/kwh. The average wholesale price for electricity in my area is $.04. Of course, retail is only $.08, including fuel clause.
And like I said, if it truly made sense, the power companies would be installing it themselves. Can you compete with the economy of scale they can put forth?
Heh...
In my state, the only 'license' you need for firearms is for CCW, the firearms themselves are completly unlicensed.
Now, schools are currently strictly off limits for carrying. Now tell me; is it truly bad for a CCW holder, having taken training, passed a test and background investigation truly a threat to the school's occupants? More than that, is the restriction going to do any good if an individual decides to shoot the place up? I'm sure that that one extra felony out of the dozens will be the thing to make the potential killer decide not to do it.
Bleh...
Back on topic, I hope they figure out a way to crack at least a few of the hardware keys; They're there, we just have to figure them out. I also hope that these laws will start going away as the old guard in the political world go away and new blood comes in. Some senators have been in for decades.
People cause piracy.
I'm reminded of the foundation series here. A person is unpredictable, but as you get larger and larger groups, they get more predictable.
Sure, people commit 'piracy' just like they do other crimes. Sure that's bad. But should I, as a business, not take any measures against theft because it's against the law and people shouldn't do that? No - to ensure my own profit margin I have to acknowledge human nature and take some steps to prevent theft.
But how do you prevent electronic piracy? You can't, really. Therefore it's actually more profitable to bite the bullet and beat the pirates at their own game.
It would take me more time to find an illegal copy of one of Baen's books than to go to webscripton.net and pay the $6 for the book. That's worth six minutes of work for me. I buy multiple books at once - I'm even better off. Not to mention the whole accuracy thing. The OCR process introduces many errors.
Like he said, DRM hobbles legitimate e-books:
1: More expensive than pirated versions(Can't really beat free, but oh well)
2: Harder to get than pirated versions: Many books I read don't have e-book versions
3: Harder to use than pirated versions: Pirate and Baen ebooks don't have keys and encryption to deal with. You can copy and paste text for debates. Don't need a special reader.
If you go off grid, and don't use 100% of the power you generate, you are not being very green at all.
you are throwing away power
I'd argue that throwing away a modest amount of that power can be cleaner than operating that clean generator. Keeping the batteries topped off reduces the usage of them and extends their life.
If you throw away 20% of the generated solar panel during the summer, but it reduces your need for a generator 50% in the winter, it'd still be better.
Going with a combination of solar and wind, you'd generate excess power occasionally, but then in addition to the batteries I'd have a heat storage system, for hot water if nothing else. On the other hand you'd usually be fairly gentle on the batteries.
The only major thing holding solar power back is it's high cost. Cut that in half and I'd be willing to bet that the power companies would be paying places to install them.
First, on power prices. I see them as remaining mostly stable. We have lots and lots of coal, and nuclear's competitive if they finally start really cranking down on the pollution. Wind's dropping as well.
left to negotiate a grid intertied agreement, if your state allows this.
Wouldn't this already be negotiated? The selling back to the grid will normally be done on a monthly net basis. The worst case is your meter drops(you're giving the utility electricity) and they don't pay you a dime. Well, worst case is they disconnect you because you're endangering the grid because somethings fouled up in your system. But this is the case regardless of whether the orgininal company is intact or not.
If the company goes under and the creditors don't bother recovering the system(IE you get it by default since it's on your roof), you're ahead of the game. Electricity for free w/no install cost. Still, I don't see this as happening. Those contracts would be worth money, and could be sold as such. You'd still get bills. And if the contract's written correctly, they can't raise rates either.
I live in a state where they use net metering, I don't have an install, but I did the research some time back for a windmill. My bill would be (KwH used - KwH produced)*standard rate. My credit if the meter goes down would be (KwH produced - KwH used)*discount rate. On a monthly basis.
My electricity usage is fairly consistant, so I shouldn't have any problems setting the system to just about neutral. I'd still need a battery or generator if I want power during utility outages though, these systems generally shut off if line power is lost to protect the line workers. They need the line power for moderation.
At 90 mph you get a lot less mpg than at 60 mph.
By the sounds of it he's driving a sports car, likely extremely streamlined with a large engine. So it takes a much higher speed for the air resistance to become the dominant factor compared to typical cars, much less SUVs.
Evidence: six gears, idle@45 in sixth, manual transmission, would like to buy a *performance* hybrid
Hmmm....
Nice little ad, but doesn't understand the economy very well. Most of the ad's examples don't work.
Cutting down the forest - increases GDP for that year. It totally forgets to mention that either stuff is built on the cleared land or generally more trees are planted for harvest later. It's a renewable resource. At this point in the USA, the vast majority of trees harvested are farmed.
The Oil spill - Doesn't help GDP. First, the value of the oil is lost. Then vast amounts of resources(money) are spent to clean up the mess.
The cancer diagnosis - What, it's better for them to be undiagnosed? GDP increases come from successul diagnosis and treatment of cancers, allowing the victim to continue working. Meanwhile you have somebody out of work consuming expensive products and services.
GDP is a number. It may be the most common number, but it's just a number. When we do things to improve our economy, it generally takes that into account. There's also wage averages, hours worked, employment numbers, etc...
Ah, thankyou. Hadn't thought of that.
You get into organic recycling(IE space greenhouse) and you'll probably want those bacteria operating.
Right now an enclosed live habitat with no input but sunlight would require a huge amount of mass to be self sustaining.
My idea is that even relativly crude forms of recycling may be well worth the effort, and as you get more sophisticated methods up there more and more of your waste becomes valuable resources.
Need more storage area? Send up the next supply mission without jettisoning the booster stage, which has been modified to be converted.
Of course I also think that they should try their hardest to find and prosecute the person that found the stuff in the first place.
I fully agree with this, but they've already 'found' him, the problem here is one of international law, treaties, and extradition as the hacker's a Canadian in Canada and the 'victim'/hacked computer is in the USA.
About the best they can do is inform the Canadian authorities to his actions.
How do you tell which profile is currently being used if there are two dozen profiles?
The crucial difference here was that the script kiddie was not a law enforcement officer nor under any contract with same. He was an independent operator.
Now, if he'd collected the information at an officer's request, that would be a different matter.
PLCs? What are those in this context? I don't think it's a Programmable Logic Controller. ;)
T8/T12 Bulbs really are cheap, especially for standard sizes.
For example 48" T8's are $1.99 each, but have a CRI(Color Rendering Index) of 78. Meanwhile one with a CRI of 95 costs $6.79.
Given that they can be expected to last 20k hours, I'm not going to complain about spending an extra $5 for better bulbs(3X!)
Though I didn't get the most expensive.