Closed quarry ? You must be one of those wishy-washy liberals, letting them off easy. Unless you wanted to drop them into the quarry from, say. 15000 feet above. . .
Feet-first into a wood-chipper for these. . . .
. ..to GET to.99999998 c, this is unlikely to be a concern. And if you have the effectively-infinite energy to move a ship at this speed, providing sufficient shielding should be a trivial exercise in additional hand-wavium. . . .
Welcome to Slashdot, I love you. . . . (evil grin).
Idiocracy is more likely. We're not getting off-planet anytime soon. ..and more's the pity. In fact, the more likely use of rocketry would be a "Marching Morons" scenario. ..except we wouldn't need rockets. . . just jets that look vaguely rocket or shuttle-like. . .
Because the typical concept involved scooping lunar "soil", rather than rocks. Easier to compact for mass-driver launch, easier to handle as it melts, and easy to mine: just scrape it up.
And because "regolith" is the correct technical term, "soil" typically implies a rock product decayed via water, chemical, and organic processes. Regolith is just a finely divided, heterogenous rock-derived product, with grain size typically less than a centimeter, lying on top of a base layer of solid rock.
And, finally, because my original training was in Geology. And my professors would slap me for being imprecise! (grin)
How exactly does this affect my vote counting or not ? It just means more spam in the mail - which becomes kindling in my fireplace, and more commercials on radio and TV. ..which I generally don't listen to or watch anyway.
They're ALL pimps and whores, and if they want to spend more money in political advertising BS, well, it's a free country, and the rest of us are free to ignore the noise. . .
Who says you need light to do it ? A sufficiently-focused microwave beam would do the trick, AND be invisible. All you have to do is package it as the Orbital Death-Ray, and . . . Profit!!!
Actually, the efficiency comes if you build in-orbit from indigenous materials. The classic powersat concept generally involves lunar regolith mining, launch to low Lunar orbit via magnetic mass-driver, and solar smelting in orbit.
The first one, and associated infrastructure, costs a fortune. However, after that, your only costs are ongoing personnel costs, O&M., and the cost of new ground stations. Because the powersat-production infrastructure remains intact in orbit.
Additionally, you don't have to use silicon or other semi-conductor photocells for power: you could set up mirror arrays to concentrate sunlight on a working fluid, to heat it, and run the resulting heated gas through turbines for power generation. Obviously, you'd need a closed-loop system for that, but with large mirror arrays, behind each would be an area completely out of sunlight, and ideal for heat sinks for cooling the gases back to fluid for re-use in the cycle. ..
The economics of payback are actually not that bad: ~20 years for capital payback, and all profit from that point on. . .
. ..which, in turn, has ALREADY saluted "Firefly" in the "Vampire Weekend" episode this season: for about the first 5 minutes, Castle is dressed as Captain Tightpants. Plus large dollops of Buffyverse references as well.
And, of course, Nathan Fillion will likely also be involved in the next "Doctor Horrible" project. .
Or, you COULD do what Baen Books does. TRUSTS their readers.
By providing inexpensive, DRM-free electronic editions, and even a Free Library , and occaisionally bundling entire DRM-free CD-ROMS of many of their books with new offerings, with not just permission, but ENCOURAGEMENT to freely copy and distribute.
The folks at Baen seem to realize that if you trust your customers, and provide a good product, you'll sell books. The books may not be to everyone's tastes (the general Baen audience is distinctly right of center. ..), but that's life. . .
Even so, consider the social mobility of an engineer, compared to that of other professions, in societies that are mostly plutocratic and family-connected. One of the ONLY ways to generate positive visibility, and thus, potential advancement, is in engineering and the sciences. Thus, the more achievement-oriented students are drawn to these areas. Unfortunately, terrorists and extremists ALSO tend to be achievement-oriented, so you have two social trends impacting and reinforcing each other to cause a unusual amount of Engineers amongst the Terrorists. . . Add to that the typical training in planning and infrastructure, which also tend to be useful for terrorists, and you have a plausible explanation.
I'll at least argue this over the cold adult beverage of my opponent's choice. . . . (grin)
Actually, I read Bruce regularly.
My point was, if TSA is actually GOING to do the Investigation and Intelligence method, then implement a response in accordance with the indicators:
No indicators, no action, as the number of indicators goes up, raise the response level to the appropriate level for the individual at hand.
In other words, ACTUALLY USE THE RESULTS OF INVESTIGATION AND INTELLIGENCE IN A TIMELY AND APPROPRIATE MANNER. . .
Otherwise, any effort expended gathering data that will not be used, is just a waste of effort and money. . .
. ..simply, that as far as the TSA and similar efforts go, the Emperor not only has no clothes, nobody ever remotely NEAR him has a stitch on.
About the only people doing airline security right are the Israelis, and their model only works because of the relatively limited scope of El Al's operations.
The Christmas Day "panty bombing" showed cascade failures in the intelligence and investigation systems that are the only effective methods of defense against terrorism.
In a RATIONAL world, **one** terrorism flag (i.e. one-way ticket, buying with cash, no luggage, watch list, etc) would yield pulling the passenger aside and "enhanced investigation": two flags, and the person is getting a very thorough body and luggage search, and three or more flags, it's grab the latex gloves, because it's a strip-search and fine-tooth comb search through luggage and posessions.
But, alas, because some people don't bother checking, or reporting (assuming it's their job to do so. ..) in a timely matter, really obvious cases are allowed to pass, and the aftermath of Enhanced Security Theater does nothing but inconvenience the public, and potentially cause so much noise as to effectively mask any REAL events or dry-runs in progress. . .
Rotsa Ruck on that. I was up for a DHS Cybersecurity position, that AFTER I was deemed "acceptable" suddenly plummeted 30+K in salary, because they were talking "Engineer" pay and suddenly only had "Analyst" slots available. . .
Athletes > Gym class. So that's a fairly spurious reference. If we were talking HS ATHLETES, in competive sports, wearing heart monitors, the argument would hold. But we're not, we're talking Gym Class. . .
More importantly, if you offer to pay in US dollars, they HAVE to take it. That lovely little fine print on the bills: "Legal Tender for All Debts, Public or Private". . . .
Cap'n! I kenna get nae antimatter from the Exxon Station!!!
But, seriously, we already have personal aircraft that run on fuels with the same energy density as automotive fuels: 87 AVGAS, for example, isn't terribly different from 87-octane auto fuel.
Of course, you can drive your car from any driveway, where a personal aircraft generally requires the infrastructure of an airport, and a significantly higher level of operator training than a car does.
But, again, liability raises its' head. A car fail-safes to stopping on the side of the road: gliding a powered aircraft with no engine (and no hydraulics) to a safe landing is a much harder task, and far tougher to automate significantly to make it relatively idiot-proof. ..
And should the manufacturer fail in any way in arranging this complex task, they can expect to be sued out of existence, whereas failures in automobiles must be quite egregious before liability becomes an issue. . .
Indeed. Anyone remember a certain flaming turd called Hellgate: London, pushed out to fail by EA ? Forums rife with publisher censorship ? Hell, HGL CREATED the word "flagshipped" as synonymous with epic game management failure, much of which can be attributed to EA pushing to deliver before really ready. . .
I would like to suggest a single root cause: The Plague of Lawyers.
Think about it: Liability alone has decimated the light-aircraft industry, imagine what it would do to manufacturers of flying cars. And International Law, such as the UN Outer Space Treaty and the Moon Treaty effectively prevents private efforts, as it seriously impedes private enterprise in space.
I'll at least argue this over the cold beverage of an opponents' choice. . .
The obvious retaliatory move is to bring this to the attention of the denizens of 4chan/b/ . They'll goatse the Seminary to death, or at least to damnation. . . and have, dare I say it, one hell of a good time doing so. . . .
Slashdot Mirror
But has yet to face global justice for the greatest travesty ever inflicted on the human race. I refer, of course, to William Shatner. . . .
Closed quarry ? You must be one of those wishy-washy liberals, letting them off easy. Unless you wanted to drop them into the quarry from, say. 15000 feet above. . . Feet-first into a wood-chipper for these. . . .
. . .to GET to .99999998 c, this is unlikely to be a concern. And if you have the effectively-infinite energy to move a ship at this speed, providing sufficient shielding should be a trivial exercise in additional hand-wavium. . . .
Welcome to Slashdot, I love you. . . . (evil grin). Idiocracy is more likely. We're not getting off-planet anytime soon. . .and more's the pity. In fact, the more likely use of rocketry would be a "Marching Morons" scenario. . .except we wouldn't need rockets. . . just jets that look vaguely rocket or shuttle-like. . .
And because "regolith" is the correct technical term, "soil" typically implies a rock product decayed via water, chemical, and organic processes. Regolith is just a finely divided, heterogenous rock-derived product, with grain size typically less than a centimeter, lying on top of a base layer of solid rock.
And, finally, because my original training was in Geology. And my professors would slap me for being imprecise! (grin)
How exactly does this affect my vote counting or not ? It just means more spam in the mail - which becomes kindling in my fireplace, and more commercials on radio and TV. . .which I generally don't listen to or watch anyway.
They're ALL pimps and whores, and if they want to spend more money in political advertising BS, well, it's a free country, and the rest of us are free to ignore the noise. . .
Who says you need light to do it ? A sufficiently-focused microwave beam would do the trick, AND be invisible. All you have to do is package it as the Orbital Death-Ray, and . . . Profit!!!
The first one, and associated infrastructure, costs a fortune. However, after that, your only costs are ongoing personnel costs, O&M., and the cost of new ground stations. Because the powersat-production infrastructure remains intact in orbit.
Additionally, you don't have to use silicon or other semi-conductor photocells for power: you could set up mirror arrays to concentrate sunlight on a working fluid, to heat it, and run the resulting heated gas through turbines for power generation. Obviously, you'd need a closed-loop system for that, but with large mirror arrays, behind each would be an area completely out of sunlight, and ideal for heat sinks for cooling the gases back to fluid for re-use in the cycle. . .
The economics of payback are actually not that bad: ~20 years for capital payback, and all profit from that point on. . .
And, of course, Nathan Fillion will likely also be involved in the next "Doctor Horrible" project. .
By providing inexpensive, DRM-free electronic editions, and even a Free Library , and occaisionally bundling entire DRM-free CD-ROMS of many of their books with new offerings, with not just permission, but ENCOURAGEMENT to freely copy and distribute.
The folks at Baen seem to realize that if you trust your customers, and provide a good product, you'll sell books. The books may not be to everyone's tastes (the general Baen audience is distinctly right of center. . .), but that's life. . .
Pretty soon. . . .they'll start using MANAGERS. And then, WE'VE GOT OSAMA NAILED. . . .
(evil grin: imagining a pointy-haired Terrorist. . .)
Even so, consider the social mobility of an engineer, compared to that of other professions, in societies that are mostly plutocratic and family-connected. One of the ONLY ways to generate positive visibility, and thus, potential advancement, is in engineering and the sciences. Thus, the more achievement-oriented students are drawn to these areas. Unfortunately, terrorists and extremists ALSO tend to be achievement-oriented, so you have two social trends impacting and reinforcing each other to cause a unusual amount of Engineers amongst the Terrorists. . . Add to that the typical training in planning and infrastructure, which also tend to be useful for terrorists, and you have a plausible explanation. I'll at least argue this over the cold adult beverage of my opponent's choice. . . . (grin)
Actually, I read Bruce regularly. My point was, if TSA is actually GOING to do the Investigation and Intelligence method, then implement a response in accordance with the indicators: No indicators, no action, as the number of indicators goes up, raise the response level to the appropriate level for the individual at hand. In other words, ACTUALLY USE THE RESULTS OF INVESTIGATION AND INTELLIGENCE IN A TIMELY AND APPROPRIATE MANNER. . . Otherwise, any effort expended gathering data that will not be used, is just a waste of effort and money. . .
. . .simply, that as far as the TSA and similar efforts go, the Emperor not only has no clothes, nobody ever remotely NEAR him has a stitch on.
About the only people doing airline security right are the Israelis, and their model only works because of the relatively limited scope of El Al's operations.
The Christmas Day "panty bombing" showed cascade failures in the intelligence and investigation systems that are the only effective methods of defense against terrorism.
In a RATIONAL world, **one** terrorism flag (i.e. one-way ticket, buying with cash, no luggage, watch list, etc) would yield pulling the passenger aside and "enhanced investigation": two flags, and the person is getting a very thorough body and luggage search, and three or more flags, it's grab the latex gloves, because it's a strip-search and fine-tooth comb search through luggage and posessions.
But, alas, because some people don't bother checking, or reporting (assuming it's their job to do so. . .) in a timely matter, really obvious cases are allowed to pass, and the aftermath of Enhanced Security Theater does nothing but inconvenience the public, and potentially cause so much noise as to effectively mask any REAL events or dry-runs in progress. . .
Rotsa Ruck on that. I was up for a DHS Cybersecurity position, that AFTER I was deemed "acceptable" suddenly plummeted 30+K in salary, because they were talking "Engineer" pay and suddenly only had "Analyst" slots available. . .
Athletes > Gym class. So that's a fairly spurious reference. If we were talking HS ATHLETES, in competive sports, wearing heart monitors, the argument would hold. But we're not, we're talking Gym Class. . .
More importantly, if you offer to pay in US dollars, they HAVE to take it. That lovely little fine print on the bills: "Legal Tender for All Debts, Public or Private". . . .
. . .but where was the frickin' laser on its' head ??
And stop buttering us up. . .
But, seriously, we already have personal aircraft that run on fuels with the same energy density as automotive fuels: 87 AVGAS, for example, isn't terribly different from 87-octane auto fuel.
Of course, you can drive your car from any driveway, where a personal aircraft generally requires the infrastructure of an airport, and a significantly higher level of operator training than a car does.
But, again, liability raises its' head. A car fail-safes to stopping on the side of the road: gliding a powered aircraft with no engine (and no hydraulics) to a safe landing is a much harder task, and far tougher to automate significantly to make it relatively idiot-proof. . .
And should the manufacturer fail in any way in arranging this complex task, they can expect to be sued out of existence, whereas failures in automobiles must be quite egregious before liability becomes an issue. . .
Indeed. Anyone remember a certain flaming turd called Hellgate: London, pushed out to fail by EA ? Forums rife with publisher censorship ? Hell, HGL CREATED the word "flagshipped" as synonymous with epic game management failure, much of which can be attributed to EA pushing to deliver before really ready. . .
Think about it: Liability alone has decimated the light-aircraft industry, imagine what it would do to manufacturers of flying cars. And International Law, such as the UN Outer Space Treaty and the Moon Treaty effectively prevents private efforts, as it seriously impedes private enterprise in space.
I'll at least argue this over the cold beverage of an opponents' choice. . .
In fact, it's a series of tubes. . . . And we call the bandwidth, the "Stevens Effect" (evil grin)
Oh, and BTW, what's wrong with Palin ? I stand to make some serious coin from her, as I own several of the PILF.* domains. . . . (evil grin)
The obvious retaliatory move is to bring this to the attention of the denizens of 4chan /b/ . They'll goatse the Seminary to death, or at least to damnation. . . and have, dare I say it, one hell of a good time doing so. . . .