I would rather NASA goes somewhere, even the Moon, than plans to go somewhere even better, such as Mars, but never gets off the ground. The Mars discussions are like the Wright Brothers complaining it's not worth building the Wright Flyer until they solve how to cross the Atlantic, because who really wants to fly 259.7 meters on a sandy beach.
If an alien civilization had the means to build a Dyson sphere, why would they want to do it? By definition, they would also have to have the ability to assemble or disassemble large planets and to make them inhabitable and should be able to make as many planets as they needed.
At least with Russia, socialism provides good health care, excellent education, good jobs and vacations, and a relative even standard of living for the masses. Can you say that for the USA?
Let's give Russia the benefit of the doubt and for the sake of argument agree that health care, education, jobs, vacations, and standards of living are acceptable for all people and nobody gets left behind. But what Russia and other planned economies don't have and cannot offer their people is the freedom to choose how you want to live, or the freedom to pursue happiness on your own terms. It's suffocating and people are not happy.
Don't normally post on politics, but have disagree on this one. Money has alway an important played a role, but so did political parties, pecking orders, etc. Nowadays, it's all about the money, and a single well-heeled benefactor can keep an otherwise unviable candidate in the running. Political parties have lost much of their clout because candidates no longer need the machinery they provide.
The thing is that the Russians had developed their own space shuttle (the Buran), which they abandoned. The interesting thing in this context is that the Buran was fully automated...
The Buran had no main engines on the orbiter, instead they were on the external fuel tank. It would have been possible to launch the Buran with something like the Centaur strapped to the side in lieu of the orbiter. Why bother hauling the extra weight?
This project will probably either fail on its own, or the price will eventually come down from 250K and if I had the luxury of being a bottom-of-the- 1% er, I would wait about 10 years and see how this pans out. Let the Bieber take the first ride. Also for 250K, you could get a pretty nice private airplane and fly your heart out.
If they become unwilling or unable to sell corn seed, buy it from another company.
What's the issue?
Monsanto's business model: You buy seed from company X or make your own seed. Monsanto sends private detectives out to take samples from your crop. If they find signs of patented DNA sequences which will happen because of cross polinization, Monsanto threatens to sue you into oblivion unless you switch to Monsanto. (Legally you're guilty of "DNA piracy" unless you can prove your innocance...It's your word against Monsanto's.) Once you switch to Monsanto, you sign a contract that prohibits you from reseeding your own corn. So you have to purchase new seed from Monsanto each year. Competing seed suppliers go bankrupt because all their customers were forced to switch to Monsanto. Repeat above over and over again in market after market until Monsanto runs out of markets to monopolize and farmers no longer are able to reseed. Profits!!!
15 minutes guarantee? I rarely spent more than 5 minutes in a pharmacy...
I think for a healthy, younger person filling a single prescription for a single medication doesn't take more than a couple of minutes. But when you have older people on multiple medications from multiple doctors, the Pharmacist is the last line of defence in preventing injury or death from incompatible drugs being taken together. In that case, I would want my pharmacist to take an extra few minutes to do a sanity check.
I'm no aeronautical engineer, but when anyone mentions balloons, blimps, dirigibles, Zeppelins, etc. I think they just might be a little bit susceptible to the weather as they rely on gas bags and lighter-than-air construction to stay aloft. I'm sure Zeppelins can be a lot of fun to fly around in on a nice sunny Sunday afternoon while drinking champagne, eating oysters off the half shell and smoking a cigar, but they are hardly useful for military applications or anything requiring 24/7, 365 days per year coverage. This also goes for Nicolai Tesla's idea of transmitting electricity via balloon, or more recently google's internet balloons or Putin's monster troop Zeppelins. These ideas seem to come up from time to time, so that I'm beginning to wonder if there's an out-of-work Zeppelin Engineer who goes from town to town pitching his ideas. Kaiser Wilhelm II once said of Count Zeppelin, "of all the south Germans, he is by a wide margin the dumbest."
...In the EU the limits are stricter, the testing more rigorous....
I'm not so sure about that. The standards might be more rigorous on paper, but the EU testing methodology seems to have more industry-sponsored loopholes that are designed to make cars look much more efficient than they actually are.
3d printing will _never_ be a mainstream form of manufacturing.
First of all, mainstream manufacturing uses multiple manufacturing methods, such as milling, casting, forging, deep drawing, injection moulding, stamping, bending, etc. You use the best method for the application and desired quality and quantity. At best 3D printing could supplement traditional manufacturing methods, such as for making custom parts in very low quantities. But the idea that 3D printing could be a viable alternative for several or most traditional methods is ludicrous and a sign that a lot of 3D fans don't really understand manufacturing and have spent too much time in design studios and too little on the factory floor.
Russia is not dumb, but like any other country dumb things happen from time to time... For example, running over tons and tons of cheese with a tank to make a political statement, rather than just distributing it to the needy.
Thanks for the clarification. I agree that licensing and a standardised civilian UAV Operator training syllabus would probably be the safest alternatives and are probably inevitable. I am concerned however that it may take a midair with an airliner and the inevitable public outrage that the FAA should "do something" before it happens. The FAA could consider UAVs to be "recreational" along the same lines as ultralights, skydivers, paragliders, etc. and not require licensing. But the difference is recreational aviation is generally prohibited over populated areas, sporting events, natural disasters, at night, etc. Civilian UAVs OTOH often tend to be attracted to the airspace over those kinds of areas, so probably need some form of formal training and licensing.
Disclaimer, I'm a pilot. Visual flight rules VFR - under which drones presumably operate means by definition that the pilot needs to see and avoid other aircraft. Unless the drone operator is within visual sight of his drone, there is no way for him to fulfil his responsibilities for the safe operation of that aircraft. The typical civilain drone is much smaller than an airplane, so a pilot in an opposing aircraft probably won't see the drone until it is very, very close. He might not have time to take appropriate action, additionally, since the drone operator has no way of seeing the aircraft, he will probably not react like the pilot expects, i.e. giving way to the right.
I hate to say this, but we probably need to do it the other way around, and geofence the drones in designated areas for aircraft to avoid, much like model aircraft, high-power model rockets, etc. It's the way the military operates drones. They are only permitted to operate within Restricted or Warning areas or along designated corridors that are marked on VFR charts and listed in the NOTAMS.
....American (Google) makers are trying to build technology to keep people on the road who otherwise should be taking the shuttle van to the senior centre....
These are the kinds of people who still have 12:00 flashing on their VCR. That's how dumb and foolproof the technology needs to be. Otherwise it's just an expensive gismo.
....
The problem with this is that when an airline pilot is forced to take control, they probably have MINUTES before any real issue will arise.
They are asking car drivers to take over when there are possible issues within SECONDS (possibly less).
Not necessarily, especially if it involves fire, structural damage, rapid decompression or engine failure. Maybe the chain of events unfold over minutes or hours, but there are times where a correct decision needs to be made quickly, i.e. turn back, land straight ahead, divert, eject, etc.
"...add customer experience and diagnostic telemetry..."
They didn't say that the 'customer experience' would be a good one. Sounds almost like airlines touting their coin-operated lavatories as somehow adding to the 'customer experience', as nobody forgets the experience of not having a couple of spare quarters at 40,000 feet and three hours to go until to landing.
....80 year old dad and 35 year old mom probably don't give a shit that little Alvin got a $2000 laptop when they just bought him a BMW for his first car.
80 year old dad probably won't be around long enough to see him graduate.
Why would anyone who already has a laptop want to own a TV at all?....
Because there is more than one person living in my household. I guess I could just give every family member a laptop for movie night. But then we might as well be asking, why would anyone who has instant-messanging want to have a face to face conversation at all?
I like the original idea behind AfterStep - to make an open source implementation of Obj-C and the Foundation, and Appkit frameworks to make porting OpenSTEP applications to Linux or other open source operating systems easier. But IMHO, trying to duplicate the NeXT STEP look and feel all the way down to the vertical menus and '90s-style icons might be a fun project for a few dedicated people, but it's not a very useful endeavour.
Like, does it take a flagship to search for Klingons?
Yes because it's a five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.
Slashdot Mirror
I would rather NASA goes somewhere, even the Moon, than plans to go somewhere even better, such as Mars, but never gets off the ground. The Mars discussions are like the Wright Brothers complaining it's not worth building the Wright Flyer until they solve how to cross the Atlantic, because who really wants to fly 259.7 meters on a sandy beach.
If an alien civilization had the means to build a Dyson sphere, why would they want to do it? By definition, they would also have to have the ability to assemble or disassemble large planets and to make them inhabitable and should be able to make as many planets as they needed.
At least with Russia, socialism provides good health care, excellent education, good jobs and vacations, and a relative even standard of living for the masses. Can you say that for the USA?
Let's give Russia the benefit of the doubt and for the sake of argument agree that health care, education, jobs, vacations, and standards of living are acceptable for all people and nobody gets left behind. But what Russia and other planned economies don't have and cannot offer their people is the freedom to choose how you want to live, or the freedom to pursue happiness on your own terms. It's suffocating and people are not happy.
Don't normally post on politics, but have disagree on this one. Money has alway an important played a role, but so did political parties, pecking orders, etc. Nowadays, it's all about the money, and a single well-heeled benefactor can keep an otherwise unviable candidate in the running. Political parties have lost much of their clout because candidates no longer need the machinery they provide.
The thing is that the Russians had developed their own space shuttle (the Buran), which they abandoned. The interesting thing in this context is that the Buran was fully automated...
The Buran had no main engines on the orbiter, instead they were on the external fuel tank. It would have been possible to launch the Buran with something like the Centaur strapped to the side in lieu of the orbiter. Why bother hauling the extra weight?
This project will probably either fail on its own, or the price will eventually come down from 250K and if I had the luxury of being a bottom-of-the- 1% er, I would wait about 10 years and see how this pans out. Let the Bieber take the first ride. Also for 250K, you could get a pretty nice private airplane and fly your heart out.
If they become unwilling or unable to sell corn seed, buy it from another company.
What's the issue?
Monsanto's business model: You buy seed from company X or make your own seed. Monsanto sends private detectives out to take samples from your crop. If they find signs of patented DNA sequences which will happen because of cross polinization, Monsanto threatens to sue you into oblivion unless you switch to Monsanto. (Legally you're guilty of "DNA piracy" unless you can prove your innocance...It's your word against Monsanto's.) Once you switch to Monsanto, you sign a contract that prohibits you from reseeding your own corn. So you have to purchase new seed from Monsanto each year. Competing seed suppliers go bankrupt because all their customers were forced to switch to Monsanto. Repeat above over and over again in market after market until Monsanto runs out of markets to monopolize and farmers no longer are able to reseed. Profits!!!
Don't worry, this is Germany so something WILL happen to people at the company. This investigation won't be swept under the carpet.
I have lived in Germany for many years and don't believe that Germany is better than other western european countries in this regard.
15 minutes guarantee? I rarely spent more than 5 minutes in a pharmacy ...
I think for a healthy, younger person filling a single prescription for a single medication doesn't take more than a couple of minutes. But when you have older people on multiple medications from multiple doctors, the Pharmacist is the last line of defence in preventing injury or death from incompatible drugs being taken together. In that case, I would want my pharmacist to take an extra few minutes to do a sanity check.
Just buy a Tesla already
and let them eat cake too.
I'm no aeronautical engineer, but when anyone mentions balloons, blimps, dirigibles, Zeppelins, etc. I think they just might be a little bit susceptible to the weather as they rely on gas bags and lighter-than-air construction to stay aloft. I'm sure Zeppelins can be a lot of fun to fly around in on a nice sunny Sunday afternoon while drinking champagne, eating oysters off the half shell and smoking a cigar, but they are hardly useful for military applications or anything requiring 24/7, 365 days per year coverage. This also goes for Nicolai Tesla's idea of transmitting electricity via balloon, or more recently google's internet balloons or Putin's monster troop Zeppelins. These ideas seem to come up from time to time, so that I'm beginning to wonder if there's an out-of-work Zeppelin Engineer who goes from town to town pitching his ideas. Kaiser Wilhelm II once said of Count Zeppelin, "of all the south Germans, he is by a wide margin the dumbest."
...In the EU the limits are stricter, the testing more rigorous ....
I'm not so sure about that. The standards might be more rigorous on paper, but the EU testing methodology seems to have more industry-sponsored loopholes that are designed to make cars look much more efficient than they actually are.
3d printing will _never_ be a mainstream form of manufacturing.
First of all, mainstream manufacturing uses multiple manufacturing methods, such as milling, casting, forging, deep drawing, injection moulding, stamping, bending, etc. You use the best method for the application and desired quality and quantity. At best 3D printing could supplement traditional manufacturing methods, such as for making custom parts in very low quantities. But the idea that 3D printing could be a viable alternative for several or most traditional methods is ludicrous and a sign that a lot of 3D fans don't really understand manufacturing and have spent too much time in design studios and too little on the factory floor.
Russia is not dumb, but like any other country dumb things happen from time to time... For example, running over tons and tons of cheese with a tank to make a political statement, rather than just distributing it to the needy.
Thanks for the clarification. I agree that licensing and a standardised civilian UAV Operator training syllabus would probably be the safest alternatives and are probably inevitable. I am concerned however that it may take a midair with an airliner and the inevitable public outrage that the FAA should "do something" before it happens. The FAA could consider UAVs to be "recreational" along the same lines as ultralights, skydivers, paragliders, etc. and not require licensing. But the difference is recreational aviation is generally prohibited over populated areas, sporting events, natural disasters, at night, etc. Civilian UAVs OTOH often tend to be attracted to the airspace over those kinds of areas, so probably need some form of formal training and licensing.
I hate to say this, but we probably need to do it the other way around, and geofence the drones in designated areas for aircraft to avoid, much like model aircraft, high-power model rockets, etc. It's the way the military operates drones. They are only permitted to operate within Restricted or Warning areas or along designated corridors that are marked on VFR charts and listed in the NOTAMS.
These are the kinds of people who still have 12:00 flashing on their VCR. That's how dumb and foolproof the technology needs to be. Otherwise it's just an expensive gismo.
looks like somebody ran over Vader's face--not a chick magnet
"Druish princesses are often attracted to money, and power, and [this watch lets you know] I have BOTH!!!"
.... The problem with this is that when an airline pilot is forced to take control, they probably have MINUTES before any real issue will arise. They are asking car drivers to take over when there are possible issues within SECONDS (possibly less).
Not necessarily, especially if it involves fire, structural damage, rapid decompression or engine failure. Maybe the chain of events unfold over minutes or hours, but there are times where a correct decision needs to be made quickly, i.e. turn back, land straight ahead, divert, eject, etc.
They didn't say that the 'customer experience' would be a good one. Sounds almost like airlines touting their coin-operated lavatories as somehow adding to the 'customer experience', as nobody forgets the experience of not having a couple of spare quarters at 40,000 feet and three hours to go until to landing.
....80 year old dad and 35 year old mom probably don't give a shit that little Alvin got a $2000 laptop when they just bought him a BMW for his first car.
80 year old dad probably won't be around long enough to see him graduate.
Why would anyone who already has a laptop want to own a TV at all?....
Because there is more than one person living in my household. I guess I could just give every family member a laptop for movie night. But then we might as well be asking, why would anyone who has instant-messanging want to have a face to face conversation at all?
ok, thanks for the clarification.
I like the original idea behind AfterStep - to make an open source implementation of Obj-C and the Foundation, and Appkit frameworks to make porting OpenSTEP applications to Linux or other open source operating systems easier. But IMHO, trying to duplicate the NeXT STEP look and feel all the way down to the vertical menus and '90s-style icons might be a fun project for a few dedicated people, but it's not a very useful endeavour.
Like, does it take a flagship to search for Klingons?
Yes because it's a five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.