That setup used rather primitive (by today's standards) technology, a modified movie camera that recorded the doc images on film -- putting the Xerox tech who swapped the film out at some risk, I imagine.
Consider that today's copiers (and printers) are all digital and that it would be pretty trivial to have them store copies to flash memory for easy retrieval, either by a tech "running diagnostics" or over the wire or even wireless. (Heck, many copiers already have the built-in smarts to disallow copying/printing of currency, what's a little more firmware hidden away in there?)
Now, for the truly paranoid, consider how much of that stuff is made in China these days.
Any way you cut it, though, the Shuttle is a massive technological advancement over the Saturn V.
One would hope so, 1970s technology being so much more advanced than 1950s technology. That's not always a good thing, though -- newer technology is notorious for teething problems that take a while to get the bugs worked out.
It's more efficient,
For some arbitrary definition of "efficient".
has more powerful engines,
Which are harder to control.
can carry more weight,
Not. Gross liftoff weight of the Saturn V was about 6.3 million pounds, of Shuttle about 4.5 million pounds. Cargo weight to Earth orbit of Saturn V was about 259,000 lbs, of Shuttle about 60,000 lbs (excluding Orbiter weight -- we're talking cargo you can leave in orbit). Indeed, the Saturn V could send nearly twice as much mass to the Moon (103,000 lb) as Shuttle can put in orbit.
Sure, Shuttle-derived cargo designs that use e.g. engine pods rather than an orbiter can rival Saturn V's lift to LEO -- but then Saturn V derived designs exist to put much larger payloads in orbit -- eg the Saturn V-D (a 1968 MSFC design) had a payload of 720,000 lb to LEO, and a couple of other S-V derived designs went to a million pounds to LEO.
and eliminates many of the known issues with the Saturn V.
To be sure. And introduces many known issues of its own (parallel vs inline stack, problems of large segmented solid boosters, unexpectedly short lifespan of a high pressure engine, etc).
Yes, many of those have been overcome (although they're still working on the problems of a parallel stack), but then Shuttle has had over 100 more flights and nearly 20 more years of flight experience than Saturn V (114 vs 13 and 24 vs 5).
A follow-on vehicle -- which is long overdue -- needs to combine the lessons and technology of both Saturn and Shuttle. (Personally I'd like to see more work done on SSTO, VTOVL and aerospike engines -- and have done ever since I read Bono and Gatland's book back around 1970.)
This reminds me of a story from the British reign in India, when the Brits were trying to put a stop to the local practise of suttee, burning a widow on her husband's funeral pyre.
Some locals complained that this was part of a deeply held religious belief and long tradition, and the Brits had no right to interfere.
"Not at all", the local governor said. "You believe that it is alright to burn a woman on her husbands funeral pyre. Very well. It is our belief that anyone who tries to burn a woman alive should be hung from the neck until dead. You follow your beliefs, and we'll follow ours."
The whole "trusted platform" name is misleading. It means hardware that some 3rd party software or content vendor can trust, not hardware that the owner of said hardware can trust.
Since a TP actually limits what the owner can do with it, I suggest using the more accurate term, "trussed platform".
(trussed: (adj) bound or secured closely; "the guard was found trussed up with his arms and legs securely tied"; "a trussed chicken")
I certainly wouldn't buy a trussed platform machine.
However, the SRBs propellant is shaped to gradually reduce thrust over time (to compensate for reducing weight of the stack and limit overall acceleration).
Yep. The SRBs could be made to maintain maximum thrust throughout the flight, but doing so would probably result in critical Q. Damned powerful buggers, but also damned uncontrollable.:-/
The center engine on the SatV cuts out for the same reason, but at a later time. The Space Shuttle hits Max Q at about 1 minute into flight whereas the Saturn V hits it at 1 minute and 20 seconds.
Max Q (maximum dynamic pressure, for those following along, the maximum "wind resistance" against the vehicle) is only part of it, but the acceleration limits are different. The Shuttle stack limits acceleration to about 3G, the SatV at that point to about 4G. Center engine shutdown is well past Max Q at about 2 minutes 15 seconds, where the acceleration is approaching 4G. The outboard engines continue to burn for another 25 or so seconds beyond that. The SRBs only burn for 2 minutes.
The higher acceleration limit compensates for the initial lower accelaration off the pad. In terms of propellant to lift weight efficiency, higher acceleration is better (you don't waste as much time just countering gravity). The Gemini launches, atop modified Titan-IIs originally designed as ICBMs, had a peak acceleration of about 8G. (I believe the programmed-in limits for modern combat aircraft is 9G to keep the pilot concious.)
(And actually, designing a solid propellant grain for constant thrust is non-trivial, you have to design it so that you keep the same burning surface area as the fuel is consumed. The easiest way to do this is with a solid, end-burning grain, but that doesn't give you nearly as much thrust. The star-shaped (cross section) hole initially gives you high thrust but quickly burns down to a circular hole (lower thrust), but as the circle expands the thrust increases again. This nicely matches (if you do it right) the thrust profile you want, lowering the thrust as you approach MaxQ and then increasing after that where the air's thinner.)
Where do you get 5 million pounds? I have 3.3 million pounds of force per SRB, giving a combined total of 6.6 million pounds of force, or 29.4 kN. That's pretty darn close to the 33.4 MN of the S-IC.
I was thinking 2.3 million pounds per SRB and doubling it. I stand corrected. However, the SRBs propellant is shaped to gradually reduce thrust over time (to compensate for reducing weight of the stack and limit overall acceleration). The F-1s gain efficiency with altitude and at just before center-engine cutoff, the 5 are putting out about 9.3 million pounds thrust, dropping to about 7.4 million with 4 (1.85 million pounds thrust each).
the whole thing puts about 65,000 pounds in orbit.
The STS has a theoretical maximum of 137.8 metric tonnes to orbit. Of that, 109 metric tonnes is the orbiter itself.
You're right. My bad. That 65K number is the original design payload of the Shuttle (actual closer to 50K pounds). The Orbiter itself is a couple hundred thousand pounds which also makes orbit.
I'm not sure what you mean by "nearly the total impulse". The SRBs fired in conjunction with the SSMEs gives the shuttle a far greater efficiency than the Saturn V.
Total impulse -- thrust times time. Newton-seconds, if you like metric. "Efficiency" don't enter into it, without defining all your terms. If the Shuttle really had "a far greater efficiency than the Saturn V" (defining "efficiency" as "lift capacity"), it'd be able to put an Apollo CSM/LM combo (or equivalent mass) into trans-Lunar orbit, or a Skylab-equivalent into LEO. It can't do either, although arguably the Orbiter itself, with a Spacelab or Spacehab in the cargo bay, is nearly Skylab-equivalent. (Less roomy and shorter duration, though, although Skylab wasn't designed for reentry.)
Saturn 1C Empty: 135,218 kg SRBx2 Empty: 174,000 kg Saturn 1C Fueled: 2,286,217 kg SRBx2 Fueled: 1,180,000 kg
That's not quite an apples-to-apples comparison. Initial thrust of the 2 SRBs is about 5 million pounds, of the S1C, about 7.5 million pounds. The Shuttle launch is also augmented by the thrust of the 3 SSMEs, and the whole thing puts about 65,000 pounds in orbit. The Saturn lower stages (S1C followed by SII) could put about 200,000 pounds in orbit.
The 2 SRBs don't have quite the same thrust as the 5 F-1s of the S1C, and don't have nearly the total impulse. The S1C stage engines burn for almost a minute longer than the SRBs.
The startup sequence for the F1 is hairy as all get out (taking about 7 seconds from "ignition sequence start" to full power). Furthermore, while it may be apocryphal, Harry Stine once told me that the ignition sequence was controlled by a patch-panel programmed computer and that the documentation for the patches was long since lost and those people that knew how to do it have mostly died off.
The F1 ignition sequence includes steps like pre-filling the inlet tubes with a hypergolic mix to actually light the thing, diverting some of the fuel (kerosene) to the hydraulic system for the gimbal actuators, a controlled chill of the lox plumbing without getting the kerosene plumbing too cold (don't want any frozen lumps in there), starting the gas generators to power the turbopumps, etc. -- not necessarily in that order. The SRB ignition sequence is basically just detonating a small bomb at the top of the hollow solid fuel core.
Personally I like the idea of resurrecting the F1, but the difference in experience and reliability levels between F1 and SRB vs J2 and SSME are considerable -- and in the latter case the J2 start is simpler than the SSME start.
Yes, it is possible to duplicate a fingerprint -- story made Slashdot about two years ago.
Essentially just take a photocopy of a fingerprint, make a mask for a printed circuit board from that, etch to give you a mould, and use gelatin or similar to make a cast. The advantage of gelatin over latex is that you can eat the evidence;-)
But is it that someone would have to be within 10 feet of you for 2 hours to break it,
10 meters is about 33 feet, not 10 feet.
Even if it does take 2 hours within that range (vs scan now and crack later), somebody set up in, say, a hotel room could read data from adjacent rooms on either side, above and below.
Depending on how easy it is to get the equipment through airport security, one could set up in various waiting areas and scan away. (Depending on how discriminating the sensors are.)
The one that sends your location to the dispatcher when you dial 911 from it.
Any cell phone sold within the last couple of years, at least in the US, likely has it -- although the GPS info is generally not available to the user unless you've got some custom software.
I've never ridden a Gravitron, so I can't say whether it was really the greatest, but the Rotor, which preceded it, had the advantage of a continuous smooth (rubber coated) wall, so the adventurous could try walking (well, crawling) around on it. It was one of my favorites at the CNE in Toronto as a kid.
Space Camp/Academy in Huntsville has a version of the Gravitron to simulate the G force profile of a Shuttle launch. It goes to 3 Gs (vs Gravitron's peak 4) but the ride^H^H^H^Hsimulation lasts the full 8+ minutes of an ascent to orbit, vs Gravitron's 1 to 1.5 minutes. That I've ridden, and it's a hoot. (Just watch the head motion -- that combined with rotation sets up fluid motion in your semi-circular canals that can lead to motion sickness, which linear acceleration doesn't).
That one's a real pity. Everything about it was so good --- the animation, the concept, the style, the characterisation, the acting --- except for the actual plot.
Mostly agreed. It was better than I thought it'd be (I refused to see it in the theatre), but I still can't get past the spaceships that look like old sailing ships silliness. And no, don't tell me about solar wind unless you can explain why they didn't also have sails on the "bottom".
My favorite take on "Treasure Island" (and I've seen it as everything from a stage play to the old Disney live action film, as well as reading the book) has to be Muppet Treasure Island, with Kermit playing Captain Smollet and Tim Curry as Long John Silver. Aside from giving Ben Gunn a sex change (it's now Benjamina Gunn, played by Miss Piggy), it's not too far from the book, with the usual collection (for a Muppet movie) of musical numbers and one-liners. (The best of the Muppet movies too, IMHO).
Steve Jobs didn't leave Apple until 1985, after disappointing Mac sales -- well over a year after the 1984 commercial ran (once, during the Superbowl). He rejoined in 1996 when NeXT convinced Apple to pay for the privilege of being taken over by them (which is what really happened, in effect). The "Think Different" campaign was in 1997.
Well, yes and no. Only one per section of shaft, perhaps, but it's fairly common in very tall buildings to have some of the vertical shaft space partitioned into two or three "local" elevator shafts, with a couple of "express" shafts interconnecting the building sections. I've also seen elevator systems that use a double-decker elevator car, allowing loading/unloading on two adjacent floors at once (typically for the express elevators - use the stairs if you're only going up or down the one floor).
Without cables to get in the way, and with some way to transfer cars from one shaft to another at the top and bottom (and possibly points in between in very tall buildings), you could have dedicated 'up' and 'down' shafts with multiple maglev cars in each.
That could for example mean that the oxygen level in the atmosphere changes permanently. (It has been estimated that it was 35% when dinosaurs walked the Earth, as opposed to 21% today.)
I think "suggested" would be a better word than "estimated". Suggested to help explain the size of dinosaurs and possibly (by dramatic reduction) why they died off. But it's not necessary -- dinosaurs had a bird-like respiratory system involving air sacs in addition to lungs, making for a more efficient unidirectional airflow through the lung. (Otherwise long-necks like apatosaurus would end up reinhaling their own CO2.)
Indeed it's ridiculous: the percentage of oxygen in our atmosphere is about where it is because of equilibrium with oxidizable and flammable substances (wood, vegetation) in the environment, and it's rate of production. At 35% there'd be frequent major fires even in soggy rain forests, which would reduce the percentage O2 in the atmosphere both directly and by reduction of photosynthesis.
Crichton is also a physician. He earned his MD before he became a successful author.
Heck, most of Crichton's works are about the dangers of people incautiously tampering with nature and/or complex systems. (Think about it: "Andromeda Strain", "The Terminal Man", "Westworld", "Jurassic Park", "Prey" etc.) If he's dissing environmental alarmism, I'd be inclined to listen to him.
The methane is of particular consequence since it is a much stronger greenhouse gas and persists much longer than CO2 does.
Fortunately, methane oxidizes to CO2 and H2O. Its also much lighter than most atmospheric gases (MW of 16 vs 18 for H2O, 28 for N2, 32 for O2, and 44 for CO2). I really doubt it persists very long in any quantity.
warming sea waters melt ice faster, as the surface of the earth in that region changes from reflective white to darker colors more heat is retained
Fortunately, warming sea waters also evaporate faster, putting more water vapor in the atmosphere to create clouds. Clouds are reflective white (from the top) too, and reflect sunlight at a higher altitude than sea ice does.
Global warming to speed up as carbon levels show sharp rise [...] there's no corresponding relative increase from human emissions or other known sources. The implications are that we've tipped a balance with CO2 and triggered a feedback loop.
No, that's your inference. Since you've already described a mechanism (methane release from permafrost) by which warming increases carbon levels, it's more likely that some external cause of warming (more insolation, perhaps? the Sun's output is slightly variable, and not well measured) is causing both.
What's really scary is that we are changing the atmosphere on a scale that may not recover for thousands of years
"We"? None of your above show that it's necessarily our doing, and more likely that it isn't. Recall your "there's no corresponding relative increase from human emissions".
If that was really the case, then why is Linux, which is more than Unix ever was barely registering on the desktop market? (bold added)
Key word there, "market". That suggests something that may have a large installed user base still won't show up as part of the market if it's given away free. There's a clue in there somewhere.
Mac fans used to make a similar argument when they pointed out that MacOS systems tended to have a longer lifetime than Windows systems, so weren't replaced as often. They had (and probably still have) a larger share of the installed base than was reflected by market share. Ditto, only moreso, for Linux, whose major desktop distros are given away.
Slashdot Mirror
If Google's products sucked, no one would USE them.
I dunno. In the context of advertising-supported services, I'm having trouble reconciling that statement with the success of commercial television.
Or for that matter, the success of Microsoft software.
Yes, they are, they [flash ads] consume my bandwidth and CPU! And there's no way to switch them off!
Yes there is: FlashBlock.
Works great.
That setup used rather primitive (by today's standards) technology, a modified movie camera that recorded the doc images on film -- putting the Xerox tech who swapped the film out at some risk, I imagine.
Consider that today's copiers (and printers) are all digital and that it would be pretty trivial to have them store copies to flash memory for easy retrieval, either by a tech "running diagnostics" or over the wire or even wireless. (Heck, many copiers already have the built-in smarts to disallow copying/printing of currency, what's a little more firmware hidden away in there?)
Now, for the truly paranoid, consider how much of that stuff is made in China these days.
Any way you cut it, though, the Shuttle is a massive technological advancement over the Saturn V.
One would hope so, 1970s technology being so much more advanced than 1950s technology. That's not always a good thing, though -- newer technology is notorious for teething problems that take a while to get the bugs worked out.
It's more efficient,
For some arbitrary definition of "efficient".
has more powerful engines,
Which are harder to control.
can carry more weight,
Not. Gross liftoff weight of the Saturn V was about 6.3 million pounds, of Shuttle about 4.5 million pounds. Cargo weight to Earth orbit of Saturn V was about 259,000 lbs, of Shuttle about 60,000 lbs (excluding Orbiter weight -- we're talking cargo you can leave in orbit). Indeed, the Saturn V could send nearly twice as much mass to the Moon (103,000 lb) as Shuttle can put in orbit.
Sure, Shuttle-derived cargo designs that use e.g. engine pods rather than an orbiter can rival Saturn V's lift to LEO -- but then Saturn V derived designs exist to put much larger payloads in orbit -- eg the Saturn V-D (a 1968 MSFC design) had a payload of 720,000 lb to LEO, and a couple of other S-V derived designs went to a million pounds to LEO.
and eliminates many of the known issues with the Saturn V.
To be sure. And introduces many known issues of its own (parallel vs inline stack, problems of large segmented solid boosters, unexpectedly short lifespan of a high pressure engine, etc).
Yes, many of those have been overcome (although they're still working on the problems of a parallel stack), but then Shuttle has had over 100 more flights and nearly 20 more years of flight experience than Saturn V (114 vs 13 and 24 vs 5).
A follow-on vehicle -- which is long overdue -- needs to combine the lessons and technology of both Saturn and Shuttle. (Personally I'd like to see more work done on SSTO, VTOVL and aerospike engines -- and have done ever since I read Bono and Gatland's book back around 1970.)
This reminds me of a story from the British reign in India, when the Brits were trying to put a stop to the local practise of suttee, burning a widow on her husband's funeral pyre.
Some locals complained that this was part of a deeply held religious belief and long tradition, and the Brits had no right to interfere.
"Not at all", the local governor said. "You believe that it is alright to burn a woman on her husbands funeral pyre. Very well. It is our belief that anyone who tries to burn a woman alive should be hung from the neck until dead. You follow your beliefs, and we'll follow ours."
don't buy a trusted platform based machine
The whole "trusted platform" name is misleading. It means hardware that some 3rd party software or content vendor can trust, not hardware that the owner of said hardware can trust.
Since a TP actually limits what the owner can do with it, I suggest using the more accurate term, "trussed platform".
(trussed: (adj) bound or secured closely; "the guard was found trussed up with his arms and legs securely tied"; "a trussed chicken")
I certainly wouldn't buy a trussed platform machine.
However, the SRBs propellant is shaped to gradually reduce thrust over time (to compensate for reducing weight of the stack and limit overall acceleration).
:-/
Yep. The SRBs could be made to maintain maximum thrust throughout the flight, but doing so would probably result in critical Q. Damned powerful buggers, but also damned uncontrollable.
The center engine on the SatV cuts out for the same reason, but at a later time. The Space Shuttle hits Max Q at about 1 minute into flight whereas the Saturn V hits it at 1 minute and 20 seconds.
Max Q (maximum dynamic pressure, for those following along, the maximum "wind resistance" against the vehicle) is only part of it, but the acceleration limits are different. The Shuttle stack limits acceleration to about 3G, the SatV at that point to about 4G. Center engine shutdown is well past Max Q at about 2 minutes 15 seconds, where the acceleration is approaching 4G. The outboard engines continue to burn for another 25 or so seconds beyond that. The SRBs only burn for 2 minutes.
The higher acceleration limit compensates for the initial lower accelaration off the pad. In terms of propellant to lift weight efficiency, higher acceleration is better (you don't waste as much time just countering gravity). The Gemini launches, atop modified Titan-IIs originally designed as ICBMs, had a peak acceleration of about 8G. (I believe the programmed-in limits for modern combat aircraft is 9G to keep the pilot concious.)
(And actually, designing a solid propellant grain for constant thrust is non-trivial, you have to design it so that you keep the same burning surface area as the fuel is consumed. The easiest way to do this is with a solid, end-burning grain, but that doesn't give you nearly as much thrust. The star-shaped (cross section) hole initially gives you high thrust but quickly burns down to a circular hole (lower thrust), but as the circle expands the thrust increases again. This nicely matches (if you do it right) the thrust profile you want, lowering the thrust as you approach MaxQ and then increasing after that where the air's thinner.)
The problem here is that the number of known small iceballs out there past Neptune is growing fairly rapidly
No, not really. That assumed figure for individual members of the Ort Cloud is about a trillion and has been for quite some time.
See the word "known" in the original. In any case, I believe we're talking about the Kuiper Belt, not the Oort cloud.
However, I agree with most of your other points.
Where do you get 5 million pounds? I have 3.3 million pounds of force per SRB, giving a combined total of 6.6 million pounds of force, or 29.4 kN. That's pretty darn close to the 33.4 MN of the S-IC.
I was thinking 2.3 million pounds per SRB and doubling it. I stand corrected. However, the SRBs propellant is shaped to gradually reduce thrust over time (to compensate for reducing weight of the stack and limit overall acceleration). The F-1s gain efficiency with altitude and at just before center-engine cutoff, the 5 are putting out about 9.3 million pounds thrust, dropping to about 7.4 million with 4 (1.85 million pounds thrust each).
the whole thing puts about 65,000 pounds in orbit.
The STS has a theoretical maximum of 137.8 metric tonnes to orbit. Of that, 109 metric tonnes is the orbiter itself.
You're right. My bad. That 65K number is the original design payload of the Shuttle (actual closer to 50K pounds). The Orbiter itself is a couple hundred thousand pounds which also makes orbit.
I'm not sure what you mean by "nearly the total impulse". The SRBs fired in conjunction with the SSMEs gives the shuttle a far greater efficiency than the Saturn V.
Total impulse -- thrust times time. Newton-seconds, if you like metric. "Efficiency" don't enter into it, without defining all your terms. If the Shuttle really had "a far greater efficiency than the Saturn V" (defining "efficiency" as "lift capacity"), it'd be able to put an Apollo CSM/LM combo (or equivalent mass) into trans-Lunar orbit, or a Skylab-equivalent into LEO. It can't do either, although arguably the Orbiter itself, with a Spacelab or Spacehab in the cargo bay, is nearly Skylab-equivalent. (Less roomy and shorter duration, though, although Skylab wasn't designed for reentry.)
Saturn 1C Empty: 135,218 kg
SRBx2 Empty: 174,000 kg
Saturn 1C Fueled: 2,286,217 kg
SRBx2 Fueled: 1,180,000 kg
That's not quite an apples-to-apples comparison. Initial thrust of the 2 SRBs is about 5 million pounds, of the S1C, about 7.5 million pounds. The Shuttle launch is also augmented by the thrust of the 3 SSMEs, and the whole thing puts about 65,000 pounds in orbit. The Saturn lower stages (S1C followed by SII) could put about 200,000 pounds in orbit.
The 2 SRBs don't have quite the same thrust as the 5 F-1s of the S1C, and don't have nearly the total impulse. The S1C stage engines burn for almost a minute longer than the SRBs.
The startup sequence for the F1 is hairy as all get out (taking about 7 seconds from "ignition sequence start" to full power). Furthermore, while it may be apocryphal, Harry Stine once told me that the ignition sequence was controlled by a patch-panel programmed computer and that the documentation for the patches was long since lost and those people that knew how to do it have mostly died off.
The F1 ignition sequence includes steps like pre-filling the inlet tubes with a hypergolic mix to actually light the thing, diverting some of the fuel (kerosene) to the hydraulic system for the gimbal actuators, a controlled chill of the lox plumbing without getting the kerosene plumbing too cold (don't want any frozen lumps in there), starting the gas generators to power the turbopumps, etc. -- not necessarily in that order. The SRB ignition sequence is basically just detonating a small bomb at the top of the hollow solid fuel core.
Personally I like the idea of resurrecting the F1, but the difference in experience and reliability levels between F1 and SRB vs J2 and SSME are considerable -- and in the latter case the J2 start is simpler than the SSME start.
He has donated over $20 billion already:
Well, yeah, but $19.983 billion of that was in Windows and Office licenses.
(Ok, joke - but I'm sure some of it was.)
Yes, it is possible to duplicate a fingerprint -- story made Slashdot about two years ago.
;-)
Essentially just take a photocopy of a fingerprint, make a mask for a printed circuit board from that, etch to give you a mould, and use gelatin or similar to make a cast. The advantage of gelatin over latex is that you can eat the evidence
The details can be found in this paper.
They were getting aanywhere from 70% to 100% success rate on typical fingerprint scanners, depending on the scanner.
A google search for "fingerprint scanner mould gelatin" (no quotes) turns up a ton of other articles.
But is it that someone would have to be within 10 feet of you for 2 hours to break it,
10 meters is about 33 feet, not 10 feet.
Even if it does take 2 hours within that range (vs scan now and crack later), somebody set up in, say, a hotel room could read data from adjacent rooms on either side, above and below.
Depending on how easy it is to get the equipment through airport security, one could set up in various waiting areas and scan away. (Depending on how discriminating the sensors are.)
What gps in my cell phone?
The one that sends your location to the dispatcher when you dial 911 from it.
Any cell phone sold within the last couple of years, at least in the US, likely has it -- although the GPS info is generally not available to the user unless you've got some custom software.
I've never ridden a Gravitron, so I can't say whether it was really the greatest, but the Rotor, which preceded it, had the advantage of a continuous smooth (rubber coated) wall, so the adventurous could try walking (well, crawling) around on it. It was one of my favorites at the CNE in Toronto as a kid.
Space Camp/Academy in Huntsville has a version of the Gravitron to simulate the G force profile of a Shuttle launch. It goes to 3 Gs (vs Gravitron's peak 4) but the ride^H^H^H^Hsimulation lasts the full 8+ minutes of an ascent to orbit, vs Gravitron's 1 to 1.5 minutes. That I've ridden, and it's a hoot. (Just watch the head motion -- that combined with rotation sets up fluid motion in your semi-circular canals that can lead to motion sickness, which linear acceleration doesn't).
The Emperor's New Groove (2000) $89
Damn. There's no justice. That film is great,
Agreed, completely.
Treasure Planet (2002) $38
That one's a real pity. Everything about it was so good --- the animation, the concept, the style, the characterisation, the acting --- except for the actual plot.
Mostly agreed. It was better than I thought it'd be (I refused to see it in the theatre), but I still can't get past the spaceships that look like old sailing ships silliness. And no, don't tell me about solar wind unless you can explain why they didn't also have sails on the "bottom".
My favorite take on "Treasure Island" (and I've seen it as everything from a stage play to the old Disney live action film, as well as reading the book) has to be Muppet Treasure Island, with Kermit playing Captain Smollet and Tim Curry as Long John Silver. Aside from giving Ben Gunn a sex change (it's now Benjamina Gunn, played by Miss Piggy), it's not too far from the book, with the usual collection (for a Muppet movie) of musical numbers and one-liners. (The best of the Muppet movies too, IMHO).
Wrong, and wrong.
Steve Jobs didn't leave Apple until 1985, after disappointing Mac sales -- well over a year after the 1984 commercial ran (once, during the Superbowl). He rejoined in 1996 when NeXT convinced Apple to pay for the privilege of being taken over by them (which is what really happened, in effect). The "Think Different" campaign was in 1997.
Cool. Take the roof off the shaft and we could make orbit.
Oh, wait, that's seven miles a second. Okay, give it ten years. And some heat shielding.
You can still only have one elevator per shaft.
Well, yes and no. Only one per section of shaft, perhaps, but it's fairly common in very tall buildings to have some of the vertical shaft space partitioned into two or three "local" elevator shafts, with a couple of "express" shafts interconnecting the building sections. I've also seen elevator systems that use a double-decker elevator car, allowing loading/unloading on two adjacent floors at once (typically for the express elevators - use the stairs if you're only going up or down the one floor).
Without cables to get in the way, and with some way to transfer cars from one shaft to another at the top and bottom (and possibly points in between in very tall buildings), you could have dedicated 'up' and 'down' shafts with multiple maglev cars in each.
That could for example mean that the oxygen level in the atmosphere changes permanently. (It has been estimated that it was 35% when dinosaurs walked the Earth, as opposed to 21% today.)
I think "suggested" would be a better word than "estimated". Suggested to help explain the size of dinosaurs and possibly (by dramatic reduction) why they died off. But it's not necessary -- dinosaurs had a bird-like respiratory system involving air sacs in addition to lungs, making for a more efficient unidirectional airflow through the lung. (Otherwise long-necks like apatosaurus would end up reinhaling their own CO2.)
Indeed it's ridiculous: the percentage of oxygen in our atmosphere is about where it is because of equilibrium with oxidizable and flammable substances (wood, vegetation) in the environment, and it's rate of production. At 35% there'd be frequent major fires even in soggy rain forests, which would reduce the percentage O2 in the atmosphere both directly and by reduction of photosynthesis.
Crichton is also a physician. He earned his MD before he became a successful author.
Heck, most of Crichton's works are about the dangers of people incautiously tampering with nature and/or complex systems. (Think about it: "Andromeda Strain", "The Terminal Man", "Westworld", "Jurassic Park", "Prey" etc.) If he's dissing environmental alarmism, I'd be inclined to listen to him.
The methane is of particular consequence since it is a much stronger greenhouse gas and persists much longer than CO2 does.
Fortunately, methane oxidizes to CO2 and H2O. Its also much lighter than most atmospheric gases (MW of 16 vs 18 for H2O, 28 for N2, 32 for O2, and 44 for CO2). I really doubt it persists very long in any quantity.
warming sea waters melt ice faster, as the surface of the earth in that region changes from reflective white to darker colors more heat is retained
Fortunately, warming sea waters also evaporate faster, putting more water vapor in the atmosphere to create clouds. Clouds are reflective white (from the top) too, and reflect sunlight at a higher altitude than sea ice does.
Global warming to speed up as carbon levels show sharp rise [...] there's no corresponding relative increase from human emissions or other known sources. The implications are that we've tipped a balance with CO2 and triggered a feedback loop.
No, that's your inference. Since you've already described a mechanism (methane release from permafrost) by which warming increases carbon levels, it's more likely that some external cause of warming (more insolation, perhaps? the Sun's output is slightly variable, and not well measured) is causing both.
What's really scary is that we are changing the atmosphere on a scale that may not recover for thousands of years
"We"? None of your above show that it's necessarily our doing, and more likely that it isn't. Recall your "there's no corresponding relative increase from human emissions".
If that was really the case, then why is Linux, which is more than Unix ever was barely registering on the desktop market? (bold added)
Key word there, "market". That suggests something that may have a large installed user base still won't show up as part of the market if it's given away free. There's a clue in there somewhere.
Mac fans used to make a similar argument when they pointed out that MacOS systems tended to have a longer lifetime than Windows systems, so weren't replaced as often. They had (and probably still have) a larger share of the installed base than was reflected by market share. Ditto, only moreso, for Linux, whose major desktop distros are given away.
Good points on the other stuff.
Possesive is frequently not denoted by appending "'s".
;-)
His, hers, its.
Yours.
Mine