"Hmm, ion engine Isp of 20000, say. Thrust of 10 newtons. All-up spacecraft mass of 75 tons.
Time to escape speed from LEO, about 22 months.
Next generation ion engines produce far more thrust.. (`~833 newton/sec).. reducing time to escape orbit to a little over week.. Fringe benefit, the space craft would only consume ~4 kg of xenon to accomplish that task..
That leaves all other propulsion tech, including nuclear in the dust so to speak..
Seams to me that Solar-PV-ion drive is the only real way to go..
Anything else is going to run into material thermal limits needed to provide the directional trust vector needed.
As for powering a moon base. Better to string a HVDC line near the poles, and collect the electrical energy produced energy from half a dozen PV installations. No moving parts, redundancy, no refueling. Most of the elements needed for construction in abundant supply.
"The First problem with predictions about "Peak Oil", or peak anything for that matter, is that it assumes the current known reserves are all that exist.
Totally incorrect.. Peak oil (supply) is based upon the notion that new discoveries(on average) have been declining for many decades and the output from those new discoveries is insufficient to overcome the production declines in existing oil fields.
Another item to consider.. is that the oil exporting countries are steadily consuming a greater share of the their production. Thus reducing the amount of oil for purchase in the international market.
The only way out of the mess is by conservation, Some of us(citizens) have already stepped up to plate and the USA reduced consumption by several million barrels day.. We still have a long way to go.. The USA currently produces 5.5-6Mbbs of crude per day, and imports 8-9Mbbs/day.. Note: Crude oil Imports were as high as 12Mbbs/day in 2005
Add to misery. these smart meters have a much shorter lifespan(5-7 years) and you are likely to get thr short end of stick(over billing) when it fails..
Just think more Chinese made components(bad caps?) that you can't unplug!!
"The lack of emergency diesel to be deployed by helicopter is puzzling,"
Lack of electrical power was just the tip of iceberg.. Most of the electric motors driving the pumps, and their control systems located in Turbine Hall basements were flooded by salt water, thus requiring significant efforts(months worth) to restore. Backup Generators were onsite within 6 hours..
The biggest problem for those other Web Sites.. is Dynamic web pages.. I.E.. There is nothing to link too.. by Google or 3rd parties, thus the site gets a lower ranking.
I ran into this problem in Federal lawsuit filed in 2004, where a Large MNC was suing one of it's former manufacturing reps/distributor. One of claims of it's lawsuit was than the former rep was ranked higher (for TM product name), than the manufacturer.. Mind you the rep had removed nearly all references to the products on it's web site in question several years prior.
The manufacturers use of dynamic pages.. was one of it's downfalls. The other downfall was the lack of synergistic linking from other sites. Thus an old dead 3rd party links(& descriptions) were still out ranking the MNC's live, (but extremely flawed), product web site.
We had to contact each of the referencing web sites and get them to remove those old links, plus delete google's caches(nocache directive for at least six months) in order to depress the former manufacturer rep's rankings for those TM keywords.
Needless to say.. the procedure (plus some other nasties), under cut the MNC's case significantly, and they settled out of court for a pittance.
The FTC & complain-tees are making the same mistake, since those competing web sites are build upon the same flawed unpredictable dynamic web pages.
Frequently overturned judicial rulings will hurt that judge's chances for advancement.. If a complaint is filed, the chief judge(for the district) will assign it to an appointed judicial committee for review.. That proceeding can result in private or public censure..
The Chief judge can also place that judge on low profile case list for an indefinite period.
I.E.. Apple forfeits some of the bond they posted for PI, up to 96.5 million dollars, maybe more.
This ruling can also put a serious dent in the Apple's victory over Samsung SJ court. The same reasoning will overturn that verdict as well. (Apple didn't show they were damaged by Customers seeking out those specific patented features.)
Additionally those features represent a tiny fraction of the overall value of the phones.. (big hit to damages award),
I first noticed it around the 17th of August, before that date, no problem.. I assumed it was implemented for RNC convention, but the convention is gone now and T-mobile's filtering nasty is still active.
I can no longer remote admin any of my customers networks (router web pages, remote desktop, etc) using non-standard network ports(8000+ range) over t-mobiles wireless network.
T-Mobile appears to be using a combination of unsolicited tcp resets and throttling down to 60kbits, (even simple web pages no longer load).
I guess I'll have to look around for someone else's wireless solution or just tell customers.. sorry our of luck until I can find a landline.
"Speaking as someone who was born and spent the first 5 or so years of my life when everyone was setting off megaton atomic warheads ABOVE GROUND and living with more fallout than you can shake a geiger tube at,"
Thus you may never know that you're already paying the price for our previous follies. Don't make it worse for the next generation by building upon the follies of the past..
Techincally... the offending DCMA claim is claiming false copyright ownership (defacto case of copyright infringement).
The statutory damages for copyright is limited to $150,000, but in cases of copyright infringement for commercial gain, the compensatory/punitive damages have no limit.. In theory NASA could rip scrips a new ass.ole, (5/10 million should do it), if they wanted to pursue the matter.
Windows 7 has some real nasty unfixed bugs. I.E. Not ready for prime time, and certainly not paying customers.
The most annoying one.. Is the magic keyboard, control lock sequence that seams to reoccur weekly. I.E.. Your touch typing away, and all of sudden every key starts acting like its some sort of control function..
Sometimes a log out/in sequence will clear the condition, sometimes system reboot is required. On-screen keyboard is of no help, it's crippled just like the real keyboard. I've never seen anything like it on Linux/Unix or previous windows versions.
"NRC report says 35 Nuclear power plants in the US are threatened by potential upstream dam failure"!!!
How much do you want to bet, that the NRC gives these "at risk" plants 20 year operating license extensions??
I plugged in a +4 meter(+13 feet) sea level rise for my area of South Florida and it indicates most of my waterfront(sea level) city is still mostly dry. That's not going to happen, No way, no how.
Almost NONE of the buildings around me have a floor ground floor elevation higher than 7.5 ft above the current mean sea level.. Tack on spring tides of up to +3.3ft on top of +13ft and you'll see it's going to get wayy ugly before that map indicates trouble.
I.E. A 4 Meter sea level increase would put low tide near the roof of my house. But the map indicates my waterfront property is mostly dry. I suspect they swapped feet for meters, (an error by 3.25x), when they displayed estimated sea level increase.
"This was already proved in court when apple's lawyers asked samsung's lawyers to tell them which of two devices was made by Samsung, and which by Apple... Samsung's lawyers couldn't tell the difference."
At which point, Samsung should fired and then sued their lawyers for malpractice. Failure to prepare for court room appearances, (especially in a trade dress patent case), is gross negligence of the worst kind.
It should have been stupid easy to notice the aspect ratio differences to all but the blind. Clearly, Samsung lawyers were not prepared for the courtroom, that day.
Any cloud configuration will only be as good as the weakest link. In most cases an INTERNET connection is often impaired for several hours or days per month (DNS failure, routing loops, basic connectivity loss). I.E. (Internet based Cloud == A really weak link.).
Same goes for wireless, all it takes is leaky Microwave oven to swamp the 802.11 b/g/n band and shut down the network, (Hardwire everything important.)
For maximum reliability... select a server design that reduces power consumption/ and heat dissipation. Lower cooling requirements reduces rpms on most fans, which == extended lifespan, choose slower spinning disk drives, consider using 2.5" drives, and/or ssd's, set them up in raid 1, fail over configuration. Install ECC memory and configure memory scrubbing, even on the the workstations..
Do not load user data on OS disks. Do not select the newest highest density disk drives. (risky bet, with limited track record)
Keep server(s) dedicated to minimal function. Reboot M$ OS's once a week(to clear out nasty memory leaks). Shut off all automatic updates. Block most access to the Internet. Don't host any printers off of the servers.
Backup nightly, configure SQL failover, select a UPS with large external battery. (power server, network switch, router, etc from UPS).
Considering that modern Cell phones operate near the frequency of uWave ovens, and the owners are placing the antennas next to their heads it would be prudent to limit your exposure.
Use a bluetooth headset or use the speaker phone setting. Get some distance between the antenna and your head. or just send a text message.
B.T.W.. A number of insurance co's now consider cell phone manufacturers to be Uninsurable Risks.
More like every DVD player that's been manufactured(1995 onward). It's the programming for user operation prohibition flag, inside the player, (rom/pc software), that prevents the skipping of the FBI warning/commercial previews prior to viewing the content.
But, if the license is for x% of unit cost and the Qualcomm chips represent a small fraction of the overall cost, then Samsung is getting ripped off.
Meanwhile, I find it odd that Apple is getting ready to release an Iphone(5) with a larger(4") screen, in effect, copying Samsung's trend toward larger screens, so much for those trade and dress claims.
As for the tablets.. Sumsung uses 16x9 aspect ratio screens while Apple is still using 4x3.. Additionally Samsung has added a microSD slot to their new tablet line.
I wonder just how much longer Apple customers will tolerate the lack of battery replacement/expansion/lock-in in their purchases.
I'm posting another copy of my first post in this thread, because the first one got modded down to flamebait.. Slashdot has got to stop given mod points to these industry trolls, whom are subverting this forum to their will by suppressing alternative views. By the time the metamod mechanism kicks in, it too late, they've accomplished their goal of suppression.
.
Any work published by UNSCEAR, a branch of the IAEA should be treated as trash..
The United Nations has already ramped up its UNSCEAR ostrich team. Its chairman Wolfgang Weiss was asked what health effects Japan would suffer, after the numerous Terabequerels discharged. Weiss replied, "From what I know now, nothing, because levels are so low."
Weiss and UNSCEAR have discredited themselves before they even got started. Their goal is to collect reams of data in the first two years, long before the cancers begin to metastasize, then claim victory for the atom and move on.
Weiss openly lied when he said, "The only proven effect after Chernobyl was thyroid cancer in children." Anyone who's even glanced at the Chernobyl disaster knows numerous people died, including thousands of "liquidators" the Soviet conscripts who cleaned up the mess. Independent research flies in the face of the UN cover-ups and places mortality at approximately one million casualties (Yablokov, 2009).
Weiss, the current UNSCEAR head, claimed:
"In Fukushima, the people were evacuated before any [radioactive] release took place..." (Reuters)
What? Another lie! What nonsense is this man floating as trial balloons? Nothing of the sort happened. Hundreds of thousands are still there, now, living in contaminated regions blanketed with Cesium 137.
Have no illusions about UNSCEAR and the IAEA. It is their job to make this go away, pretend all is fine. Cancers can take decades to form, and cancers are not counted by UNSCEAR, excepting the glaringly undeniable childhood thyroid variety. Here's an aside: If UNSCEAR admits that radiation releases cause thyroid cancers, is it not at least conceivable to them that the absorbed radiation is also causing other illnesses as well?
Numerous other maladies: birth defects, stillbirths, heart, lung, brain, organ diseases will certainly not be counted, and their victims will be ignored by the UN agencies. That means they never happened, right?
UNSCEAR and IAEA have turned science on its head with a logical fallacy that seems to pass unnoticed in the media. They claim that because there are "no biomarkers specific to radiation, it is not possible to state scientifically that radiation caused a particular cancer in an individual." (UNSCEAR, 2008) And they use this as some kind of insane proof that the cancers were not caused by radiation.
The UN then prepares faulty, fraudulent "death toll" counts that omit cancers when there is no scientific basis for omitting them. The "no biomarkers" logic cannot be used to rule out that radiation caused cancers: it's then an unknown. Radiation doesn't just magically lose its carcinogenic properties because of a faulty screening condition that disqualifies people from being counted. These are gradeschool shenanigans gone global."
Slashdot Mirror
"Hmm, ion engine Isp of 20000, say. Thrust of 10 newtons. All-up spacecraft mass of 75 tons. Time to escape speed from LEO, about 22 months.
Next generation ion engines produce far more thrust.. (`~833 newton/sec).. reducing time to escape orbit to a little over week.. Fringe benefit, the space craft would only consume ~4 kg of xenon to accomplish that task..
That leaves all other propulsion tech, including nuclear in the dust so to speak..
Seams to me that Solar-PV-ion drive is the only real way to go..
Anything else is going to run into material thermal limits needed to provide the directional trust vector needed.
As for powering a moon base. Better to string a HVDC line near the poles, and collect the electrical energy produced energy from half a dozen PV installations. No moving parts, redundancy, no refueling. Most of the elements needed for construction in abundant supply.
"but that would require getting direct access to the main battery output to sustain whole-house amperages"
That shouldn't be too difficult in the near future".
The new high performance charging connector allows direct access to the EV battery via low impedance connection.
You file a complaint with the FTC after they've received a fair number of complaints...
The FTC will sue "AT&T" for "unfair or deceptive trade practices"
"The First problem with predictions about "Peak Oil", or peak anything for that matter, is that it assumes the current known reserves are all that exist.
Totally incorrect.. Peak oil (supply) is based upon the notion that new discoveries(on average) have been declining for many decades and the output from those new discoveries is insufficient to overcome the production declines in existing oil fields.
Another item to consider.. is that the oil exporting countries are steadily consuming a greater share of the their production. Thus reducing the amount of oil for purchase in the international market.
The only way out of the mess is by conservation, Some of us(citizens) have already stepped up to plate and the USA reduced consumption by several million barrels day.. We still have a long way to go.. The USA currently produces 5.5-6Mbbs of crude per day, and imports 8-9Mbbs/day.. Note: Crude oil Imports were as high as 12Mbbs/day in 2005
"You don't spoof to get lower bills. You spoof so your neighbors get higher bills."
Or just shutoff the electricity to the neighbors you don't like.
If they don't catch fire and burn your house down first..
Add to misery. these smart meters have a much shorter lifespan(5-7 years)
and you are likely to get thr short end of stick(over billing) when it fails..
Just think more Chinese made components(bad caps?) that you can't unplug!!
"The lack of emergency diesel to be deployed by helicopter is puzzling,"
Lack of electrical power was just the tip of iceberg.. Most of the electric motors driving the pumps, and their control systems located in Turbine Hall basements were flooded by salt water, thus requiring significant efforts(months worth) to restore. Backup Generators were onsite within 6 hours..
The biggest problem for those other Web Sites.. is Dynamic web pages.. I.E.. There is nothing to link too.. by Google or 3rd parties, thus the site gets a lower ranking.
I ran into this problem in Federal lawsuit filed in 2004, where a Large MNC was suing one of it's former manufacturing reps/distributor. One of claims of it's lawsuit was than the former rep was ranked higher (for TM product name), than the manufacturer.. Mind you the rep had removed nearly all references to the products on it's web site in question several years prior.
The manufacturers use of dynamic pages.. was one of it's downfalls. The other downfall was the lack of synergistic linking from other sites. Thus an old dead 3rd party links(& descriptions) were still out ranking the MNC's live, (but extremely flawed), product web site.
We had to contact each of the referencing web sites and get them to remove those old links, plus delete google's caches(nocache directive for at least six months) in order to depress the former manufacturer rep's rankings for those TM keywords.
Needless to say.. the procedure (plus some other nasties), under cut the MNC's case significantly, and they settled out of court for a pittance.
The FTC & complain-tees are making the same mistake, since those competing web sites are build upon the same flawed unpredictable dynamic web pages.
Frequently overturned judicial rulings will hurt that judge's chances for advancement.. If a complaint is filed, the chief judge(for the district) will assign it to an appointed judicial committee for review.. That proceeding can result in private or public censure..
The Chief judge can also place that judge on low profile case list for an indefinite period.
I.E.. Apple forfeits some of the bond they posted for PI, up to 96.5 million dollars, maybe more.
This ruling can also put a serious dent in the Apple's victory over Samsung SJ court. The same reasoning will overturn that verdict as well. (Apple didn't show they were damaged by Customers seeking out those specific patented features.)
Additionally those features represent a tiny fraction of the overall value of the phones.. (big hit to damages award),
I first noticed it around the 17th of August, before that date, no problem.. I assumed it was implemented for RNC convention, but the convention is gone now and T-mobile's filtering nasty is still active.
I can no longer remote admin any of my customers networks (router web pages, remote desktop, etc) using non-standard network ports(8000+ range) over t-mobiles wireless network.
T-Mobile appears to be using a combination of unsolicited tcp resets and throttling down to 60kbits, (even simple web pages no longer load).
I guess I'll have to look around for someone else's wireless solution or just tell customers.. sorry our of luck until I can find a landline.
"Speaking as someone who was born and spent the first 5 or so years of my life when everyone was setting off megaton atomic warheads ABOVE GROUND and living with more fallout than you can shake a geiger tube at,"
You forget that back then our government ordered Iodine supplements to be added to dairy cow feed. And the sharp rise in baby boomer cancer rates.
Thus you may never know that you're already paying the price for our previous follies. Don't make it worse for the next generation by building upon the follies of the past..
"So, this means the US almost hit the targets of the Kyoto Protocol. Interesting.
Not exactly.. Kyoto Annex B.. US target is 7% below 1990 levels or 4.65 Billion tonns..
Verses current 2012 estimate of 5.2 billion tonns of CO2 emissions..
Achieving this goal would require cutting coal consumption by another 50% or so.
Note: Coal is still responsible for 1.5 billion tonns of 2012 US CO2 emissions.
Techincally... the offending DCMA claim is claiming false copyright ownership (defacto case of copyright infringement).
The statutory damages for copyright is limited to $150,000, but in cases of copyright infringement for commercial gain, the compensatory/punitive damages have no limit.. In theory NASA could rip scrips a new ass.ole, (5/10 million should do it), if they wanted to pursue the matter.
Additionally..
Civil rights violation. (federal)
Witness tampering.. (federal)
Obstruction by violence... (federal felony).
If another cop is present and observes the illegal act by another cop and does nothing to report it or stop it. Tack on conspiracy charges.
Windows 7 has some real nasty unfixed bugs. I.E. Not ready for prime time, and certainly not paying customers.
The most annoying one.. Is the magic keyboard, control lock sequence that seams to reoccur weekly.
I.E.. Your touch typing away, and all of sudden every key starts acting like its some sort of control function..
Sometimes a log out/in sequence will clear the condition, sometimes system reboot is required. On-screen keyboard is of no help, it's crippled just like the real keyboard. I've never seen anything like it on Linux/Unix or previous windows versions.
"2. The best reactor designs in the world are only good up to about a 7.9 on the Richter scale."
3. Or the next Upstream Dam failure....
"NRC report says 35 Nuclear power plants in the US are threatened by potential upstream dam failure"!!!
How much do you want to bet, that the NRC gives these "at risk" plants 20 year operating license extensions??
That map is not very accurate..
I plugged in a +4 meter(+13 feet) sea level rise for my area of South Florida and it indicates most of my waterfront(sea level) city is still mostly dry. That's not going to happen, No way, no how.
Almost NONE of the buildings around me have a floor ground floor elevation higher than 7.5 ft above the current mean sea level.. Tack on spring tides of up to +3.3ft on top of +13ft and you'll see it's going to get wayy ugly before that map indicates trouble.
I.E. A 4 Meter sea level increase would put low tide near the roof of my house. But the map indicates my waterfront property is mostly dry. I suspect they swapped feet for meters, (an error by 3.25x), when they displayed estimated sea level increase.
"This was already proved in court when apple's lawyers asked samsung's lawyers to tell them which of two devices was made by Samsung, and which by Apple... Samsung's lawyers couldn't tell the difference."
At which point, Samsung should fired and then sued their lawyers for malpractice. Failure to prepare for court room appearances, (especially in a trade dress patent case), is gross negligence of the worst kind.
It should have been stupid easy to notice the aspect ratio differences to all but the blind. Clearly, Samsung lawyers were not prepared for the courtroom, that day.
I see some poor choices being made..
Any cloud configuration will only be as good as the weakest link. In most cases an INTERNET connection is often impaired for several hours or days per month (DNS failure, routing loops, basic connectivity loss). I.E. (Internet based Cloud == A really weak link.).
Same goes for wireless, all it takes is leaky Microwave oven to swamp the 802.11 b/g/n band and shut down the network, (Hardwire everything important.)
For maximum reliability... select a server design that reduces power consumption/ and heat dissipation. Lower cooling requirements reduces rpms on most fans, which == extended lifespan, choose slower spinning disk drives, consider using 2.5" drives, and/or ssd's, set them up in raid 1, fail over configuration. Install ECC memory and configure memory scrubbing, even on the the workstations..
Do not load user data on OS disks. Do not select the newest highest density disk drives. (risky bet, with limited track record)
Keep server(s) dedicated to minimal function. Reboot M$ OS's once a week(to clear out nasty memory leaks). Shut off all automatic updates. Block most access to the Internet. Don't host any printers off of the servers.
Backup nightly, configure SQL failover, select a UPS with large external battery. (power server, network switch, router, etc from UPS).
Considering that modern Cell phones operate near the frequency of uWave ovens, and the owners are placing the antennas next to their heads it would be prudent to limit your exposure.
Use a bluetooth headset or use the speaker phone setting. Get some distance between the antenna and your head. or just send a text message.
B.T.W.. A number of insurance co's now consider cell phone manufacturers to be Uninsurable Risks.
More like every DVD player that's been manufactured(1995 onward). It's the programming for user operation prohibition flag, inside the player, (rom/pc software), that prevents the skipping of the FBI warning/commercial previews prior to viewing the content.
But, if the license is for x% of unit cost and the Qualcomm chips represent a small fraction of the overall cost, then Samsung is getting ripped off.
Meanwhile, I find it odd that Apple is getting ready to release an Iphone(5) with a larger(4") screen, in effect, copying Samsung's trend toward larger screens, so much for those trade and dress claims.
As for the tablets.. Sumsung uses 16x9 aspect ratio screens while Apple is still using 4x3.. Additionally Samsung has added a microSD slot to their new tablet line.
I wonder just how much longer Apple customers will tolerate the lack of battery replacement/expansion/lock-in in their purchases.
I count three authoritative references in my qoute..
Just because they're not clickable doesn't mean their not true.
I'm posting another copy of my first post in this thread, because the first one got modded down to flamebait.. Slashdot has got to stop given mod points to these industry trolls, whom are subverting this forum to their will by suppressing alternative views. By the time the metamod mechanism kicks in, it too late, they've accomplished their goal of suppression.
.
Any work published by UNSCEAR, a branch of the IAEA should be treated as trash..
I quote a few paragraphs from an op-ed written by Joe Giambone, since I couldn't express my disgust any better than he has done already, Nuclear Nightmare Worsens - By Joe Giambrone (22/6/11) [futurefastforward.com]
"Send in the Clowns
The United Nations has already ramped up its UNSCEAR ostrich team. Its chairman Wolfgang Weiss was asked what health effects Japan would suffer, after the numerous Terabequerels discharged. Weiss replied, "From what I know now, nothing, because levels are so low."
Weiss and UNSCEAR have discredited themselves before they even got started. Their goal is to collect reams of data in the first two years, long before the cancers begin to metastasize, then claim victory for the atom and move on.
Weiss openly lied when he said, "The only proven effect after Chernobyl was thyroid cancer in children." Anyone who's even glanced at the Chernobyl disaster knows numerous people died, including thousands of "liquidators" the Soviet conscripts who cleaned up the mess. Independent research flies in the face of the UN cover-ups and places mortality at approximately one million casualties (Yablokov, 2009).
Weiss, the current UNSCEAR head, claimed:
"In Fukushima, the people were evacuated before any [radioactive] release took place..." (Reuters)
What? Another lie! What nonsense is this man floating as trial balloons? Nothing of the sort happened. Hundreds of thousands are still there, now, living in contaminated regions blanketed with Cesium 137.
Have no illusions about UNSCEAR and the IAEA. It is their job to make this go away, pretend all is fine. Cancers can take decades to form, and cancers are not counted by UNSCEAR, excepting the glaringly undeniable childhood thyroid variety. Here's an aside: If UNSCEAR admits that radiation releases cause thyroid cancers, is it not at least conceivable to them that the absorbed radiation is also causing other illnesses as well?
Numerous other maladies: birth defects, stillbirths, heart, lung, brain, organ diseases will certainly not be counted, and their victims will be ignored by the UN agencies. That means they never happened, right?
UNSCEAR and IAEA have turned science on its head with a logical fallacy that seems to pass unnoticed in the media. They claim that because there are "no biomarkers specific to radiation, it is not possible to state scientifically that radiation caused a particular cancer in an individual." (UNSCEAR, 2008) And they use this as some kind of insane proof that the cancers were not caused by radiation.
The UN then prepares faulty, fraudulent "death toll" counts that omit cancers when there is no scientific basis for omitting them. The "no biomarkers" logic cannot be used to rule out that radiation caused cancers: it's then an unknown. Radiation doesn't just magically lose its carcinogenic properties because of a faulty screening condition that disqualifies people from being counted. These are gradeschool shenanigans gone global."