I'd love to see a short about Itchy (Chewie's son) going to school, and ripping the arms off his teacher when he gets flunked on the Imperial pronunciation test... Yeah! Get midieval Itchy! Star Wars Xmas Special 2: Itchy's Revenge! Have Quentin Tarantino direct!
Additionally, RadLight operates out of Slovakia (judging from the slovakia.org website that pops up the moment the webpage loads)... Now I dunno, but doesn't a company have to operate within a country which has laws match the terms of their licensing agreements? How does a non international "company" enforce it's licenses?
Yep, and every time we have a panel go kablooie, we have to launch replacements to the tune of several million dollars... In the case of space probes, many (all?) have some form of radiological decay reactors as a source of backup power...
In the case of the moon, you're talking about panels *on* the surface, which, unlike the earth, means that even a near miss would blanket the panels in dust kicked up by surface impacts...
Secondly, consider the fact that the satellites in orbit are relatively well spread out, and as such have a fairly slim chance of meteorite impacts... Additionally, we have preexisting knowlege of meteor showers, and usually cope with such by commanding the satellites to turn their panels away to reduce the chances of damage... Since the surface area of the earth is considerably larger than the moon as well, there is, statistically, a far lower chance of being in the path of any small to moderate sized meteors (hence why, to record, we haven't had one manned spacecraft suffer a direct hit)...
Meteor impacts on the moon are far less predictable, and as the panels would always be sedentary, there would be no way to protect against direct hits...
Don't forget the logistical nightmare of replacing/cleaning solar panels due to dust contamination and/or damage from meteorite/micrometeor impacts...
Also, if I recall correctly, astronauts returning from the moon had a peculiar microscopic pitting of their helmet faceplates due to cosmic ray impacts... Is there any evidence that solar cells would be subject to the same pitting, or are they dense enough to be immune to those effects (being that the faceplates being made of dense plastic instead of silicon)?
I don't bother watching X-Files anymore since the show has gone into the proverbial toilet... Slept through the episode, but bet the roommate that the Lone Gunmen would be the ones to die based on the ad... Thanks for proving me right (and that X-Files is incredibly predictable now, and no longer worth watching)...
"Hydrogen can neither be mined nor found through exploration.": Wrong.
Recently NASA discovered that large concentrations of hydrogen gas exist in the earth's rocky crust (as much as several hundred pounds of hydrogen in a cubic meter of rock). It can be mined, and as NASA has proven HAS been found through exploration. Mind you, not the same variety as "Lets blow a hole in the ground and see what comes up", but still far more available than previously believed. Essentially left over gasses from the formation of the solar system.
Mining can still be environmentally damaging if not inefficient, but still can be much more economical than existing means of hydrogen extraction.
If you ever read Firefly, you'd think the Xanth author was a pedophile (and thusly arrestable under the same laws) as a result... Along with anyone who's wife/girlfriend ever dressed as a cheerleader or girl scout to spice up their love life...
Well, frankly there's a lot of 'Mericans who generally make the same "What the hell just happened?!?" comments with many animated series/movies, happened with Akira, happened with Mononoke Hime, it was inevitable it would happen here as well...
Sure they do! They hold a monopoly on Apple computers! Nobody else can build an Apple computer (or even a PC knockoff) without drawing the wrath of their legal department... They practically have a monopoly on the PowerPC based computer market as well (the OpenPPC computer won't stand a chance unless the buyer installs Linux PPC, and even then it won't get even a fragment of the desktop market)...
There's several problems with the light rail plans...
(1) They're already seriously overbudget, and still not one foot of rail has been put down...
(2) They're limited by geography... Seattle (and the Puget Sound, which they'll have to serve if they're to cut the traffic problems- Second only to Los Angeles) is actually made up of both peninsulae and islands, varying from extremely steep hills down to marshlands and rivers...
(3) They're also limited by the NIMBY factor, nobody wants "noise" or the possibility that their cul de sacs could have outsiders passing through their neighborhoods...
(4) Along the same lines, the reason most existing subway systems are successful (and underground) is due to the fact that the city governments in the early 1900s could get away with literally tearing up whole miles of roadways and waterworks without the consent of their constituents...
(5) Most importantly: The Puget Sound (like most of Washington state) are *earthquake* zones, requiring several million dollars more in structural reinforcement, permits and inspections to ensure the tunnels don't collapse... The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the safest subway in the world, but the citizens of the bay area paid a heavy price for it's construction... Same story applies for the subway system built in Los Angeles...
The difference is pretty simple when you consider the following: The average number of computer users numbered in the low millions, if not the high hundreds of thousands... AND the zip format was almost immediately known (practically open source when you think about it)... Those who sent out files with.zip extensions would let people know where they could find the software to decompress said files...
Making matters worse, you have millions of people looking at these files asking "WTF?!? How do I open these?!? (especially with Outlook Express or other generic off the shelf news clients)
Look at the yENC format, and you'll immediately note the difference... Nobody posting it tells you WHERE to find the nessesary software to open the attachments, at best you will find a description of why yENC is being used, nothing more...
That's a good question, take for example the first test tube babies... Nowadays invitro fertilization is commonplace, but the first few had to spend the first formative years of their lives with TV cameras shoved in their faces, and their entire lives reduced to media circuses...
That's just ONE factor... However, how did their lives go outside when the cameras were turned off? Were they treated better or worse by their peers, were they made fun of in school, etc?
Nah, long ago it was determined that the majority of human behavior is caused by how said humans are raised (unless you're talking full blown congenital or genetic defects)... If one was to clone Hitler or any other varieties of supervillains, stuck them into nice caring and loving homes, etc etc etc, then they would probably wind up like anyone else... Hitler, for example, was heavily abused (mentally and phsically) by his father, not to mention went through WWI... And as anyone who went through such (or studied such) a situation like that can tell you, it can make even the nicest, Mr. Rogersesque person into a raving homicidal lunatic...
There is a differnce between what we used to call "Workaholism" and "Internet Time"... Workaholism is a refusal to stop working (or prompting to work) for a measured period of time to force either change or innovation through personal or redirected physical, mechanical and technological means...
Internet time, however, is a different beast... For lack of a better word, it is a mental dependance on instantaneous gratification, eg: if it doesn't happen the nanosecond you think of or want it, bitch gripe and moan until someone does it for you (if you don't do it yourself)... Your music, videos, or websites must load now now now, and if your distributed computing doesn't come to par, it's not your fault, it's the guy running the (pick the OS you gripe about the most) OS of the week...
Your attention spans are measured in seconds, not minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or even years... If the work isn't done by then, then an incredible offense has been performed, the likes of which are worthy of jihad du jour, flamewars, or what have you... Take this from someone who was diagnosed with ADHD over 20 years ago, most of those today make me look like an attentive, slow, and otherwise average representative member of society *gag*...
For a best case example, compare this to Linux users who wait months for the newest kernel to fix their bugs, as opposed to those who wait weeks for Microsoft to come up with their patches/service packs... Microsoft is expected to rebuild a OS (from scratch) far faster than Linux, and is condemnned the moment it exceeds hours past another exploit being exposed, while Linux users wait patiently for months for the equivelent being released...
They also had fire retardent foam in the aircraft hangars, etc, which does an incredible job to put out fuel fires... If these systems were in place, the fire would have lasted 10 minutes tops, just a cup of foam concentrate between the towers would ghave done the job... Hindsight is always 20/20, of course, though it seems doolish that they never took such into account...
Slashdot Mirror
I'd love to see a short about Itchy (Chewie's son) going to school, and ripping the arms off his teacher when he gets flunked on the Imperial pronunciation test... Yeah! Get midieval Itchy! Star Wars Xmas Special 2: Itchy's Revenge! Have Quentin Tarantino direct!
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!
Hey maw! Bring out tha Polaroid!
Additionally, RadLight operates out of Slovakia (judging from the slovakia.org website that pops up the moment the webpage loads)... Now I dunno, but doesn't a company have to operate within a country which has laws match the terms of their licensing agreements? How does a non international "company" enforce it's licenses?
Yep, and every time we have a panel go kablooie, we have to launch replacements to the tune of several million dollars... In the case of space probes, many (all?) have some form of radiological decay reactors as a source of backup power...
In the case of the moon, you're talking about panels *on* the surface, which, unlike the earth, means that even a near miss would blanket the panels in dust kicked up by surface impacts...
Secondly, consider the fact that the satellites in orbit are relatively well spread out, and as such have a fairly slim chance of meteorite impacts... Additionally, we have preexisting knowlege of meteor showers, and usually cope with such by commanding the satellites to turn their panels away to reduce the chances of damage... Since the surface area of the earth is considerably larger than the moon as well, there is, statistically, a far lower chance of being in the path of any small to moderate sized meteors (hence why, to record, we haven't had one manned spacecraft suffer a direct hit)...
Meteor impacts on the moon are far less predictable, and as the panels would always be sedentary, there would be no way to protect against direct hits...
Can I get some of those full size Jar Jar Binks mannequins on the cheap? Those would make excellent live fire target practice dummies...
Don't forget the logistical nightmare of replacing/cleaning solar panels due to dust contamination and/or damage from meteorite/micrometeor impacts...
Also, if I recall correctly, astronauts returning from the moon had a peculiar microscopic pitting of their helmet faceplates due to cosmic ray impacts... Is there any evidence that solar cells would be subject to the same pitting, or are they dense enough to be immune to those effects (being that the faceplates being made of dense plastic instead of silicon)?
I don't bother watching X-Files anymore since the show has gone into the proverbial toilet... Slept through the episode, but bet the roommate that the Lone Gunmen would be the ones to die based on the ad... Thanks for proving me right (and that X-Files is incredibly predictable now, and no longer worth watching)...
Specifically in this very article: http://slashdot.org/science/02/04/15/1628207.shtml ?tid=134
"Hydrogen can neither be mined nor found through exploration.": Wrong.
Recently NASA discovered that large concentrations of hydrogen gas exist in the earth's rocky crust (as much as several hundred pounds of hydrogen in a cubic meter of rock). It can be mined, and as NASA has proven HAS been found through exploration. Mind you, not the same variety as "Lets blow a hole in the ground and see what comes up", but still far more available than previously believed. Essentially left over gasses from the formation of the solar system.
Mining can still be environmentally damaging if not inefficient, but still can be much more economical than existing means of hydrogen extraction.
If you ever read Firefly, you'd think the Xanth author was a pedophile (and thusly arrestable under the same laws) as a result... Along with anyone who's wife/girlfriend ever dressed as a cheerleader or girl scout to spice up their love life...
Oh yeah, and Britney Spears as well...
It's not how well the dog speaks, but the fact that the dog can speak at all...
Well, frankly there's a lot of 'Mericans who generally make the same "What the hell just happened?!?" comments with many animated series/movies, happened with Akira, happened with Mononoke Hime, it was inevitable it would happen here as well...
Sure they do! They hold a monopoly on Apple computers! Nobody else can build an Apple computer (or even a PC knockoff) without drawing the wrath of their legal department... They practically have a monopoly on the PowerPC based computer market as well (the OpenPPC computer won't stand a chance unless the buyer installs Linux PPC, and even then it won't get even a fragment of the desktop market)...
There's several problems with the light rail plans...
(1) They're already seriously overbudget, and still not one foot of rail has been put down...
(2) They're limited by geography... Seattle (and the Puget Sound, which they'll have to serve if they're to cut the traffic problems- Second only to Los Angeles) is actually made up of both peninsulae and islands, varying from extremely steep hills down to marshlands and rivers...
(3) They're also limited by the NIMBY factor, nobody wants "noise" or the possibility that their cul de sacs could have outsiders passing through their neighborhoods...
(4) Along the same lines, the reason most existing subway systems are successful (and underground) is due to the fact that the city governments in the early 1900s could get away with literally tearing up whole miles of roadways and waterworks without the consent of their constituents...
(5) Most importantly: The Puget Sound (like most of Washington state) are *earthquake* zones, requiring several million dollars more in structural reinforcement, permits and inspections to ensure the tunnels don't collapse... The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is the safest subway in the world, but the citizens of the bay area paid a heavy price for it's construction... Same story applies for the subway system built in Los Angeles...
The difference is pretty simple when you consider the following: The average number of computer users numbered in the low millions, if not the high hundreds of thousands... AND the zip format was almost immediately known (practically open source when you think about it)... Those who sent out files with .zip extensions would let people know where they could find the software to decompress said files...
Making matters worse, you have millions of people looking at these files asking "WTF?!? How do I open these?!? (especially with Outlook Express or other generic off the shelf news clients)
Look at the yENC format, and you'll immediately note the difference... Nobody posting it tells you WHERE to find the nessesary software to open the attachments, at best you will find a description of why yENC is being used, nothing more...
Neither, the operative term is "Irony"... Maybe Slashdot should have a moderation category for that?
Do you REALLY want an army of Bill Gateseses rampaging across the world? Say no to cloning!!! Clone Linus instead! Open source clones for all!
*gets image of giant radioactive Madam Curie running amok with laser beam eyes* Bart: "Kewl!"
That's a good question, take for example the first test tube babies... Nowadays invitro fertilization is commonplace, but the first few had to spend the first formative years of their lives with TV cameras shoved in their faces, and their entire lives reduced to media circuses...
That's just ONE factor... However, how did their lives go outside when the cameras were turned off? Were they treated better or worse by their peers, were they made fun of in school, etc?
Nah, long ago it was determined that the majority of human behavior is caused by how said humans are raised (unless you're talking full blown congenital or genetic defects)... If one was to clone Hitler or any other varieties of supervillains, stuck them into nice caring and loving homes, etc etc etc, then they would probably wind up like anyone else... Hitler, for example, was heavily abused (mentally and phsically) by his father, not to mention went through WWI... And as anyone who went through such (or studied such) a situation like that can tell you, it can make even the nicest, Mr. Rogersesque person into a raving homicidal lunatic...
There is a differnce between what we used to call "Workaholism" and "Internet Time"... Workaholism is a refusal to stop working (or prompting to work) for a measured period of time to force either change or innovation through personal or redirected physical, mechanical and technological means...
Internet time, however, is a different beast... For lack of a better word, it is a mental dependance on instantaneous gratification, eg: if it doesn't happen the nanosecond you think of or want it, bitch gripe and moan until someone does it for you (if you don't do it yourself)... Your music, videos, or websites must load now now now, and if your distributed computing doesn't come to par, it's not your fault, it's the guy running the (pick the OS you gripe about the most) OS of the week...
Your attention spans are measured in seconds, not minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or even years... If the work isn't done by then, then an incredible offense has been performed, the likes of which are worthy of jihad du jour, flamewars, or what have you... Take this from someone who was diagnosed with ADHD over 20 years ago, most of those today make me look like an attentive, slow, and otherwise average representative member of society *gag*...
For a best case example, compare this to Linux users who wait months for the newest kernel to fix their bugs, as opposed to those who wait weeks for Microsoft to come up with their patches/service packs... Microsoft is expected to rebuild a OS (from scratch) far faster than Linux, and is condemnned the moment it exceeds hours past another exploit being exposed, while Linux users wait patiently for months for the equivelent being released...
They also had fire retardent foam in the aircraft hangars, etc, which does an incredible job to put out fuel fires... If these systems were in place, the fire would have lasted 10 minutes tops, just a cup of foam concentrate between the towers would ghave done the job... Hindsight is always 20/20, of course, though it seems doolish that they never took such into account...
I remember this being the "next big thing" about a couple of years ago, what happened? These guys couldn't swing the licensing?
That they haven't advertised these foremost for pet tags, most folks care more about their pets' safety than their kids...