Maybe the race is 20 launches to 100km or somesuch, and the pits are refueling and repairing between launches. That could be fun to watch. Especially the "restarts" where 20 rockets launch at once.:)
Somewhere I read once about the military developing transports that work like this. Probably read it on slashdot. Anyway... imagine a nuclear power plant in the heart of this thing generating the power for the ion lifter... Somebody in this discussion already figured the power at 180 W/lb. Let's say you want a craft that can carry 100 tons (200,000 lbs). That'd take 36MW. The nuclear reactors around here generate over 1000MW. Wonder how much they'd weigh scaled down to 36MW. Hmmm... that'd be one heck of a ship. Imagine how long (years) it could hover in the air without being refueled... until the reactor rods were spent...
Okay, folks... don't flame me... just thinking out loud...
of course, even if the RFID tag can't be updated or changed, it could still be used to track Tom Cruise, in this case. If the RFID tag simply returns a serial number, just look it up in the database. no need to store all that on the RFID tag.
actually, they wouldn't have to disable the tag to know if the item was stolen. just look up the serial number of the item. if 'select serialnumber from itemssold' comes back empty, it was stolen.
{rant} I used to live in Indiana where they don't have daylight savings time. THEY are the "silly people". I like my daylight savings time, thank you very much. I don't like getting up at 4:30 in the morning to make the most of the day. I like the sun setting as late as possible (by the clock) in the summer... gives more time for mowing the yard, fixing up the house, etc. In Indiana, the place I worked actually changed their office hours in the summer to help make up for the fact that we didn't change our clocks. The fact that the sun sets at 8:30 in the middle of the summer in Indiana was one of the things I HATED about Indiana. That and the wind! {/rant}
The McDonald's Co. opens stores called "McDonald's Restaurant", and gets a trademark on "McDonald's Restaurant". Later, they get a trademark on "Restaurant", and begin calling all their, ahem, restaurants, "Restaurant". Still later, some company calls their restaurant "Lestaurant" and gets sued by McDonald's because it's only one letter different than "Restaurant". Lestaurant turns around and sues McDonald's saying that "Restaurant" is a generic term to start with and that their trademark is invalid.
Now, if you don't like my point, allow me to cut and paste, and replace McDonalds with Microsoft, Restaurant with Windows, etc...
The Microsoft Co. creates a windows product called called "Microsoft Windows", and gets a trademark on "Microsoft Windows". Later, they get a trademark on "Windows", and begin calling all their, ahem, windows products, "Windows". Still later, some company calls their windows product "Lindows" and gets sued by Microsoft because it's only one letter different than "Windows". Lindows turns around and sues Microsoft saying that "Windows" is a generic term to start with and that their trademark is invalid.
It seems Microsoft has a habbit of naming products "Microsoft Word", "Microsoft Flight Simulator", "Microsoft Windows", etc., and then dropping the "Microsoft" part to attempt to get the public to associate the generic term with Microsoft. I think it would be appropriate if the practice came back to haunt them.
40 cents per day for every single American really isn't that staggering of a figure when you realize we throw away more than that on Cokes and potatoe chips. So we put people on the moon for less than we spend on Cokes... cool.:)
And what's a third of a milliliter? Come on folks, it's a simple question. A third of a tablespoon is a teaspoon. Base 10 is nice, but it is divisible evenly by exactly 2 and 5. Base 12 is divisible by 2, 3, 4 and 6. Much easier for doing math in your head.
I need to divide by integers every time I step into my workshop to build something, be it furniture or whatever. How often do you need to convert cubic kilometers to liters anyway?
Multiples of ten is great, but what about multiples of 2, 3, 4, 6, 8? Quick, Sparky, what's a third of a meter? Stumped? What's a third of a yard? 1 foot! What's a third of 4 feet? 16 inches! What's a third of 5 feet? 20 inches! Know how often somebody needs to convert between yards and miles? NEVER! Or between inches and miles? WHAT's THE POINT?!? Know how often someone needs to take a measurement and divide it nicely into halfs, thirds, quarters and the like? ALL THE TIME! Geez... who would devise a measuring system that can't even be divided by 3 easily. Idiots.
Thank you, sir, for your insightful comment. Keep the metric system where it belongs... in science where converting between mass, length, volume, temp, etc, is actually done. Leave the rest of us the heck alone. I will be using feet and inches for everything from woodworking to measuring my son's height until the day I die. What are they going to do, make my tape measure contraband? hmmm... better not suggest that... they're already doing such idiotic things on the other side of the pond... Yet, I'll gladly use the metric system where it makes sense.
12x5280 = 63360 inches in a mile, but why do you care? The supposed advantage of the metric system is converting units. Who cares how many inches are in a mile?
Here's something I care about: I do woodworking, carpentry, and stuff in my spare time. I'm remodeling our house right now, which is consuming all my spare time (that I'm not on/. at work:). Let's say I want to split a 4'x8' sheet of plywood into thirds each way. In my head, that's 16 inches by 32 inches... gee... no fractions, no decimals... Let's say we had a metric sheet of plywood that was 1 meter by 3 meters (closest I can get to 4' by 8' in whole meters). Let's say I want to divide it into thirds each way. That's 0.33333.. meters by 1 meter. Yep. That's useful.
What's a third of a yard? 1 foot. What's half a foot? 6 inches. What's a third of a foot? 4 inches. What's a quarter of a foot? 3 inches. Nice whole numbers.
What's a third of a meter? 0.33333.. meters, or 33.3333.. cm. What's half of 33.3333.. cm? 16.6666.. cm. What's a third of 33.3333.. cm? 11.1111.. cm. What's a quarter of 33.3333.. cm? 8.3333.. cm. The French can keep their 18th century invention called the metric system.
Re:America will never put up with 8 HP
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239 MPG Car
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· Score: 2
"I do not care if your car has 400 HP, I will cream you."... until you hit an SUV head-on. The passenger in the SUV wakes up and says "what was that?" The driver says, "Nothing, honey, I think I just ran over a possum... go back to sleep.":)
Re:Cute, but impractical
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239 MPG Car
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· Score: 2
Just what I want... a car that crumples and disintegrates in a crash. No thanks.
it'll only use a tenth of a gallon before being squashed like a bug on the highway! Seriously, I value my life too much to trust it to something as comical as this thing. Maybe for commuting around tiny little streets in Europe, but not for driving 5 hours to see Grandma for Thanksgiving.
"I actually have two 20 footers in series piping a signal from the output of the amp in the stereo down through the central vaccum tube, above the ceiling panels in the basement and down to my computer. It's ugly, but it works."
I was sitting here trying to figure out if you're some kind of audiophile (central "vacuum tube"...?)... why would you be running cables through a vacuum tube... must be one heck of a vacuum tube to need 20' cables to run through it... until it hit me that's "central vacuum" tube...:)
The AC that replied to you pointed out the possible benefits for solar cells, but...
The reason the Sun designer described it as "the holy grail" is timing circuitry on CPU's. What's the figure, something like 75-80% of a CPU is dedicated to timing circuitry? Think about what happens when you replace all that timing circuitry with a light pulse, and just pick it up wherever you need it. Eliminate all the wiring currently used to distribute the timing, and you get lower power, tons more silicon to devote to other things, and probably the potential for speed gains.
Tennessee passed a Do Not Call law some years back. The state maintains a Do Not Call list, which is free to join. By state law telemarketers must abide by it, with stiff penalties if they don't. I signed up and have had zero telemarketers call since. That was about 2 years ago. Any other states (or other countries, for those outside the USA) have anything similar?
I way ahead of you man... rain is already the only thing that keeps my truck clean. One of the downsides to parking my car in the carport is that I actually have to wash it!
I was first introduced to logo when my 2-years-younger brother came home from school with a homework assignment. I had learned programming in Basic (ZX81, TS2068, C128), and I think I had started learning C at the time (still in high school). Anyway, my brother was NEVER interested in computers, but he was able to pick up LOGO very quickly. They were mostly writing recursive programs for drawing "snow-flakes" and other shapes.
When I first read that headline, I read "Corn made from plastic". I had that back in elementary school.:) Plastic made from corn, though... that's cool.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe the race is 20 launches to 100km or somesuch, and the pits are refueling and repairing between launches. That could be fun to watch. Especially the "restarts" where 20 rockets launch at once. :)
Somewhere I read once about the military developing transports that work like this. Probably read it on slashdot. Anyway... imagine a nuclear power plant in the heart of this thing generating the power for the ion lifter... Somebody in this discussion already figured the power at 180 W/lb. Let's say you want a craft that can carry 100 tons (200,000 lbs). That'd take 36MW. The nuclear reactors around here generate over 1000MW. Wonder how much they'd weigh scaled down to 36MW. Hmmm... that'd be one heck of a ship. Imagine how long (years) it could hover in the air without being refueled... until the reactor rods were spent...
Okay, folks... don't flame me... just thinking out loud...
of course, even if the RFID tag can't be updated or changed, it could still be used to track Tom Cruise, in this case. If the RFID tag simply returns a serial number, just look it up in the database. no need to store all that on the RFID tag.
actually, they wouldn't have to disable the tag to know if the item was stolen. just look up the serial number of the item. if 'select serialnumber from itemssold' comes back empty, it was stolen.
The parent of this got modded funny, but it's true. I guess it's funny as well.
{rant}
I used to live in Indiana where they don't have daylight savings time. THEY are the "silly people". I like my daylight savings time, thank you very much. I don't like getting up at 4:30 in the morning to make the most of the day. I like the sun setting as late as possible (by the clock) in the summer... gives more time for mowing the yard, fixing up the house, etc. In Indiana, the place I worked actually changed their office hours in the summer to help make up for the fact that we didn't change our clocks. The fact that the sun sets at 8:30 in the middle of the summer in Indiana was one of the things I HATED about Indiana. That and the wind!
{/rant}
No, the argument would be more like this...
The McDonald's Co. opens stores called "McDonald's Restaurant", and gets a trademark on "McDonald's Restaurant". Later, they get a trademark on "Restaurant", and begin calling all their, ahem, restaurants, "Restaurant". Still later, some company calls their restaurant "Lestaurant" and gets sued by McDonald's because it's only one letter different than "Restaurant". Lestaurant turns around and sues McDonald's saying that "Restaurant" is a generic term to start with and that their trademark is invalid.
Now, if you don't like my point, allow me to cut and paste, and replace McDonalds with Microsoft, Restaurant with Windows, etc...
The Microsoft Co. creates a windows product called called "Microsoft Windows", and gets a trademark on "Microsoft Windows". Later, they get a trademark on "Windows", and begin calling all their, ahem, windows products, "Windows". Still later, some company calls their windows product "Lindows" and gets sued by Microsoft because it's only one letter different than "Windows". Lindows turns around and sues Microsoft saying that "Windows" is a generic term to start with and that their trademark is invalid.
Or something like that...
It seems Microsoft has a habbit of naming products "Microsoft Word", "Microsoft Flight Simulator", "Microsoft Windows", etc., and then dropping the "Microsoft" part to attempt to get the public to associate the generic term with Microsoft. I think it would be appropriate if the practice came back to haunt them.
amen to that... and my wife's a teacher.
40 cents per day for every single American really isn't that staggering of a figure when you realize we throw away more than that on Cokes and potatoe chips. So we put people on the moon for less than we spend on Cokes... cool. :)
And what's a third of a milliliter? Come on folks, it's a simple question. A third of a tablespoon is a teaspoon. Base 10 is nice, but it is divisible evenly by exactly 2 and 5. Base 12 is divisible by 2, 3, 4 and 6. Much easier for doing math in your head.
I need to divide by integers every time I step into my workshop to build something, be it furniture or whatever. How often do you need to convert cubic kilometers to liters anyway?
Multiples of ten is great, but what about multiples of 2, 3, 4, 6, 8? Quick, Sparky, what's a third of a meter? Stumped? What's a third of a yard? 1 foot! What's a third of 4 feet? 16 inches! What's a third of 5 feet? 20 inches! Know how often somebody needs to convert between yards and miles? NEVER! Or between inches and miles? WHAT's THE POINT?!? Know how often someone needs to take a measurement and divide it nicely into halfs, thirds, quarters and the like? ALL THE TIME! Geez... who would devise a measuring system that can't even be divided by 3 easily. Idiots.
Thank you, sir, for your insightful comment. Keep the metric system where it belongs... in science where converting between mass, length, volume, temp, etc, is actually done. Leave the rest of us the heck alone. I will be using feet and inches for everything from woodworking to measuring my son's height until the day I die. What are they going to do, make my tape measure contraband? hmmm... better not suggest that... they're already doing such idiotic things on the other side of the pond... Yet, I'll gladly use the metric system where it makes sense.
12x5280 = 63360 inches in a mile, but why do you care? The supposed advantage of the metric system is converting units. Who cares how many inches are in a mile?
/. at work :). Let's say I want to split a 4'x8' sheet of plywood into thirds each way. In my head, that's 16 inches by 32 inches... gee... no fractions, no decimals... Let's say we had a metric sheet of plywood that was 1 meter by 3 meters (closest I can get to 4' by 8' in whole meters). Let's say I want to divide it into thirds each way. That's 0.33333.. meters by 1 meter. Yep. That's useful.
Here's something I care about: I do woodworking, carpentry, and stuff in my spare time. I'm remodeling our house right now, which is consuming all my spare time (that I'm not on
What's a third of a yard? 1 foot. What's half a foot? 6 inches. What's a third of a foot? 4 inches. What's a quarter of a foot? 3 inches. Nice whole numbers.
What's a third of a meter? 0.33333.. meters, or 33.3333.. cm. What's half of 33.3333.. cm? 16.6666.. cm. What's a third of 33.3333.. cm? 11.1111.. cm. What's a quarter of 33.3333.. cm? 8.3333.. cm. The French can keep their 18th century invention called the metric system.
"I do not care if your car has 400 HP, I will cream you." ... until you hit an SUV head-on. The passenger in the SUV wakes up and says "what was that?" The driver says, "Nothing, honey, I think I just ran over a possum... go back to sleep." :)
Just what I want... a car that crumples and disintegrates in a crash. No thanks.
it'll only use a tenth of a gallon before being squashed like a bug on the highway! Seriously, I value my life too much to trust it to something as comical as this thing. Maybe for commuting around tiny little streets in Europe, but not for driving 5 hours to see Grandma for Thanksgiving.
"I actually have two 20 footers in series piping a signal from the output of the amp in the stereo down through the central vaccum tube, above the ceiling panels in the basement and down to my computer. It's ugly, but it works." ... why would you be running cables through a vacuum tube... must be one heck of a vacuum tube to need 20' cables to run through it... until it hit me that's "central vacuum" tube... :)
I was sitting here trying to figure out if you're some kind of audiophile (central "vacuum tube"...?)
The AC that replied to you pointed out the possible benefits for solar cells, but...
The reason the Sun designer described it as "the holy grail" is timing circuitry on CPU's. What's the figure, something like 75-80% of a CPU is dedicated to timing circuitry? Think about what happens when you replace all that timing circuitry with a light pulse, and just pick it up wherever you need it. Eliminate all the wiring currently used to distribute the timing, and you get lower power, tons more silicon to devote to other things, and probably the potential for speed gains.
Tennessee passed a Do Not Call law some years back. The state maintains a Do Not Call list, which is free to join. By state law telemarketers must abide by it, with stiff penalties if they don't. I signed up and have had zero telemarketers call since. That was about 2 years ago. Any other states (or other countries, for those outside the USA) have anything similar?
In Mozilla or Netscape, a simple CTRL-KP+ does the trick.
I way ahead of you man... rain is already the only thing that keeps my truck clean. One of the downsides to parking my car in the carport is that I actually have to wash it!
I was first introduced to logo when my 2-years-younger brother came home from school with a homework assignment. I had learned programming in Basic (ZX81, TS2068, C128), and I think I had started learning C at the time (still in high school). Anyway, my brother was NEVER interested in computers, but he was able to pick up LOGO very quickly. They were mostly writing recursive programs for drawing "snow-flakes" and other shapes.
When I first read that headline, I read "Corn made from plastic". I had that back in elementary school. :) Plastic made from corn, though... that's cool.