there were two of the *best* potential companions that only lasted a single episode: Reinette and Jenny
I agree that Reinette would have made a fantastic companion. Hard to do without doing violence to a rather wonderful (and Hugo-award winning) story, though.
Don't hold your breath, because WINE Is Not an Emulator. Unless you've got some PPC Windows programs around, that is. It doesn't emulate the x86, just intercepts the OS and library calls.
But, all the truly high performance nuclear designs require a launch from LEO or higher
Not from any inherent design limitations, just human nervousness about radiation. In space there's already a radiation hazard, so that's just a little something extra.
Max Hunter (who designed the Thor, which went on to become Delta, and heavily influenced the DC-X decision) once designed a gas-core nuclear spaceship where the fuel tank (water) took up less than half the volume of the ship. It was a lifting body and could handily make orbit from a runway. This was twenty or so years before Zubrin.
One problem with Zubrin's design is the mass of the tankage, it has to have a high surface-area to volume ratio to keep the fuel from spontaneously fissioning in the tanks which is just the opposite of what you want to minimize tank mass. It also has the same problem as Orion -- there's a certain minimum size you can make it. Hunter's design could be made much smaller.
A concern with talking about the efficiency of rockets is that you have to carefully define what you mean: normal chemical rockets have extremely high Carnot efficiencies, mediocre mass and energy efficiencies. A space elevator doesn't have a Carnot efficiency, has terrible mass efficiency, but extremely good energy efficiency. An ion thruster has no Carnot efficiency, has great mass efficiency, and terrible energy efficiency.
Now consider something like a gaseous-core nuclear rocket (fission, with the core so hot it's gaseous): high Carnot efficiency, high Isp so high mass efficiency (near ion engine's), and pretty good energy efficiency.
ACTRA is the Association of Canadian Television and Radio Artists (or used to be, I think they've modified what it stands for since I knew any actors). It's essentially an actors' union.
For any given particle, you have a problem in that converting it to antimatter violates conservation of electric charge (and spin?), but physics will occasionally let you fudge stuff like that if you do something else at the same time to get net conservation. Since a neutron has both charges, it should be "easy" to convert it to an antineutron (okay, you're converting three quarks to their antiquarks). Aka "reversing the polarity of the neutron flow";-)
Mind, being net chargeless, anti-neutrons are tricky beasts to do anything with, it's not like you can contain them in electric or magnetic fields.
Comment title refers to a 1965 movie of that name. Several flasks are stolen from a bioweapons lab, most of them contain a virus tailored to last only about 24 hours, the named bug wipes out everyone.
Similar things go for most "go to the hardware store" and "go to the drug store" and "go to the grocery store" items. The chemicals are not pure.
Any amateur chemist worth his salt (er, sorry) knows that half the fun is devising ways to extract the chemical you want from whatever source form you purchased it.
Anyone besides me remember that classic, "The Golden Book of Chemistry"? I hope I still have my copy around somewhere. All sorts of handy tips on setting up your lab with household chemicals -- and man, the stuff you could get out of a standard zinc-carbon battery. Do they even make that kind any more?
As I recall, the Anarchist's Cookbook method for making napalm is just to dissolve styrofoam in gasoline until it's all the right sludgelike consistency. Although as you say, it's not particularly useful stuff unless you're a terrorist.
But be vary careful of anything in that book. It wasn't written with safety procedures in mind, and some editions have stuff in it that is plain wrong and is likely to blow up as you try to prepare it. Which I suppose is one way of eliminating people too stupid to check second and third sources for stuff like that.
You can get methanol in almost pure form as gas line antifreeze. That might be unknown in places where it doesn't get cold enough for any water in your gas tank (eg from condensation) to freeze and plug the fuel line.
That said, though, since when have regulations had to make sense?
(And in the "you kids get off my lawn" category, I used to be able to buy saltpeter, and sulphur, and ground charcoal at my local drugstore. As a kid. In Canada. Mind, I never tried to buy more than one of those at a time. And I'll bet some of you don't even know what I'm talking about.)
There probably is some interesting and worthwhile chemistry to be done with non-exotic ingredients that don't easily go boom or convert to phosgene. (emphasis added)
Burn some PVC plastic (pipe, wire insulation, whatever) some time and see what you get.
Chemists, or those of us who learned chemistry through doing, understand these things.
"A little bit annoyed"? I'd be thinking shareholder lawsuit, especially since this seems to have been done with the knowledge and even complicity of higher management.
Since Itanium2 will run x86 code sort of natively, going Xeon->Itanium shouldn't be that hard. Migrating a VM that's running IA-64 code to a Xeon could be a little tougher.
I want to know how many injuries there have been because of this effort to 'secure' gravestones -- including traffic accidents involving the crews driving around. (Or for that matter, the marginal increase in the death rate due to increased emissions from that driving around.)
I remotely manage 50+ ProLiant servers this way, mostly via SSH to the iLO. Unfortunately since you want/need to run Windows on them you'll have to go graphic mode (via web interface and a Java app) to the OS. (I manage Linux servers so I can do it all via CLI.) You can even do remote installs via virtual media that mounts your local CD/DVD drive (or ISO image) on the remote, although that'd be painful at your speeds.
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there were two of the *best* potential companions that only lasted a single episode: Reinette and Jenny
I agree that Reinette would have made a fantastic companion. Hard to do without doing violence to a rather wonderful (and Hugo-award winning) story, though.
Don't hold your breath, because WINE Is Not an Emulator. Unless you've got some PPC Windows programs around, that is. It doesn't emulate the x86, just intercepts the OS and library calls.
But, all the truly high performance nuclear designs require a launch from LEO or higher
Not from any inherent design limitations, just human nervousness about radiation. In space there's already a radiation hazard, so that's just a little something extra.
Max Hunter (who designed the Thor, which went on to become Delta, and heavily influenced the DC-X decision) once designed a gas-core nuclear spaceship where the fuel tank (water) took up less than half the volume of the ship. It was a lifting body and could handily make orbit from a runway. This was twenty or so years before Zubrin.
One problem with Zubrin's design is the mass of the tankage, it has to have a high surface-area to volume ratio to keep the fuel from spontaneously fissioning in the tanks which is just the opposite of what you want to minimize tank mass. It also has the same problem as Orion -- there's a certain minimum size you can make it. Hunter's design could be made much smaller.
A concern with talking about the efficiency of rockets is that you have to carefully define what you mean: normal chemical rockets have extremely high Carnot efficiencies, mediocre mass and energy efficiencies. A space elevator doesn't have a Carnot efficiency, has terrible mass efficiency, but extremely good energy efficiency. An ion thruster has no Carnot efficiency, has great mass efficiency, and terrible energy efficiency.
Now consider something like a gaseous-core nuclear rocket (fission, with the core so hot it's gaseous): high Carnot efficiency, high Isp so high mass efficiency (near ion engine's), and pretty good energy efficiency.
It just has this one slight problem...
ACTRA is the Association of Canadian Television and Radio Artists (or used to be, I think they've modified what it stands for since I knew any actors). It's essentially an actors' union.
ever heard of this mono thing?
Yeah, it's a disease. The host is lethargic and slow, and can suffer inflammation.
destruction of infrastructures to get said materials should at least be labeled vandalism.
I think a more appropriate term might be sabotage.
You had 029 card punches? Luxury! I learned on an 026. ;-)
I ask the same question.
For any given particle, you have a problem in that converting it to antimatter violates conservation of electric charge (and spin?), but physics will occasionally let you fudge stuff like that if you do something else at the same time to get net conservation. Since a neutron has both charges, it should be "easy" to convert it to an antineutron (okay, you're converting three quarks to their antiquarks). Aka "reversing the polarity of the neutron flow" ;-)
Mind, being net chargeless, anti-neutrons are tricky beasts to do anything with, it's not like you can contain them in electric or magnetic fields.
And of course later model Daleks just "LE-VI-TATE!"
Comment title refers to a 1965 movie of that name. Several flasks are stolen from a bioweapons lab, most of them contain a virus tailored to last only about 24 hours, the named bug wipes out everyone.
Similar things go for most "go to the hardware store" and "go to the drug store" and "go to the grocery store" items. The chemicals are not pure.
Any amateur chemist worth his salt (er, sorry) knows that half the fun is devising ways to extract the chemical you want from whatever source form you purchased it.
Anyone besides me remember that classic, "The Golden Book of Chemistry"? I hope I still have my copy around somewhere. All sorts of handy tips on setting up your lab with household chemicals -- and man, the stuff you could get out of a standard zinc-carbon battery. Do they even make that kind any more?
Selenium! Quick, gather up the town's entire supply of Head and Shoulders shampoo!
See, without a chemist (and someone wearing a T-shirt with the periodic table on it), the town would be doomed.
As I recall, the Anarchist's Cookbook method for making napalm is just to dissolve styrofoam in gasoline until it's all the right sludgelike consistency. Although as you say, it's not particularly useful stuff unless you're a terrorist.
But be vary careful of anything in that book. It wasn't written with safety procedures in mind, and some editions have stuff in it that is plain wrong and is likely to blow up as you try to prepare it. Which I suppose is one way of eliminating people too stupid to check second and third sources for stuff like that.
You can get methanol in almost pure form as gas line antifreeze. That might be unknown in places where it doesn't get cold enough for any water in your gas tank (eg from condensation) to freeze and plug the fuel line.
That said, though, since when have regulations had to make sense?
(And in the "you kids get off my lawn" category, I used to be able to buy saltpeter, and sulphur, and ground charcoal at my local drugstore. As a kid. In Canada. Mind, I never tried to buy more than one of those at a time. And I'll bet some of you don't even know what I'm talking about.)
There probably is some interesting and worthwhile chemistry to be done with non-exotic ingredients that don't easily go boom or convert to phosgene. (emphasis added)
Burn some PVC plastic (pipe, wire insulation, whatever) some time and see what you get.
Chemists, or those of us who learned chemistry through doing, understand these things.
"A little bit annoyed"? I'd be thinking shareholder lawsuit, especially since this seems to have been done with the knowledge and even complicity of higher management.
They were indeed one of the main forces behind pay-as-you-go DIVX discs, with the players that phoned home to authorize play.
In this as in most medical contexts, the term "acute" just means as opposed to "chronic", i.e. one or both of rapid onset and short duration.
Since Itanium2 will run x86 code sort of natively, going Xeon->Itanium shouldn't be that hard. Migrating a VM that's running IA-64 code to a Xeon could be a little tougher.
I want to know how many injuries there have been because of this effort to 'secure' gravestones -- including traffic accidents involving the crews driving around. (Or for that matter, the marginal increase in the death rate due to increased emissions from that driving around.)
Nothing is safe. Not even nothing.
Context sensitive help doesn't help when you're trying to find a way to do Y and have no idea what context you need to be in to do that.
The man page may not be immediately obvious either if you don't know the command name, that's when "apropos" helps.
Yep, if you can't manage the machine in runlevel 3, you can't manage the machine.
Heck, most of the time I'm adminning multiple servers, something like "for s in `cat hosts`; do ssh -q $s your commands here ; done" is your friend.
Much more subtle. Hilarity ensues.
(I once accidentally did something with this effect. It is possible, kind of, to recover from it. Static binaries are your friends in this case.)
Agreed.
I remotely manage 50+ ProLiant servers this way, mostly via SSH to the iLO. Unfortunately since you want/need to run Windows on them you'll have to go graphic mode (via web interface and a Java app) to the OS. (I manage Linux servers so I can do it all via CLI.) You can even do remote installs via virtual media that mounts your local CD/DVD drive (or ISO image) on the remote, although that'd be painful at your speeds.