27 comments and not one actually on topic. Does anyone care about these statistics? Or know what to do with them? For that matter, has anyone successfully read the paper without their eyes glazing over? I'm sure its a fascinating paper to someone, but I can't get past the first two pages without loosing all concentration. And I'm weird enough that I usually like this stuff!
Ouch. That's rough. And I take it that your admin just won't install StarOffice? It's no wonder that everyone thinks of Solaris as out-of-date. None of the admins will run them as modern machines!
> The answer is simple, simply reroute the EPS conduit to > discharge antimatter through the deflector dish, and > possibly adjust the Heisenberg compensator for the > occasion.
Do what I do. Change their IE icon to launch FireBird. If I could just change the icons and that sickle to look like IE, I might have a chance at the more computer literate.:-)
> And if you actually got that, you're too much of a Sun geek.
Or perhaps a Java programmer. Would that be Forte4Forte, Forte4Java or Forte4C (now all known as Sun ONE, with the later formerly known as Sun Workshop). Erm. Maybe I shouldn't have admitted I know that...
No, I think you're quite wrong. I've read the book quite a few times and I don't remember the moon being mentioned. In fact, I think you'll find this passage (courtesy of Gutenberg) enlightening:
`I looked for the building I knew. Then my eye travelled along to the figure of the White Sphinx upon the pedestal of bronze, growing distinct as the light of the rising moon grew brighter.
In Wells' version, the downfall of men came not from some great catastrophe, but from the haugtiness of the "Rich Upper Class" and the mutations brought about by the underground toil of the "Working Class". The irony was that the masters became the slaves and the slaves became the masters.
The new movie screwed everything up and overall made very little sense. If you want to see a movie true to the book, go rent the 1960's version. The only thing they added was nuclear war (an unheard of concept in Wells' time).
> Once you have worked out a way to get machines capable > of processing large chunks of rock...
You build them. Very simply, the moon will need to go through industrial development, first doing basic mining and building, possibly with occasional help from Earth. As time goes on, they'll go through an accelerated industrial development, whereupon smaller machines are used to create larger ones.
> Unless you have autonymous robots to do the job (and > fix each other) then there are still likely to be humans > around these dangerous chemicals. Whatever the final > product is it most likely needs to be safe.
In a near vacuum? Seems a bit counterintuitive. Remember, humans on the moon can only live in self-contained environments. Unless someone screws up, there's no way that the chemicals can magically appear inside this environment. Plus, no water means no water seepage, which means no underground contamination. I suppose you could have issues if a hydroponics farm was near a mining area (i.e. water is injected into the soil to grow food), but the simplest solution there is to make sure there's a bit of distance between them.
> Where are you going to get the fuel for such reactors?
Where do we get them today? Now, I am assuming that some nuclear material will be shipped up for a seed reactor. That seed reactor should be enough power for a few years of development. (i.e. Until the industry is developed enough to produce more Uranium rods.)
> Depends on the mineral. Quite a few mineral deposits are > created by living organisms.
True enough. But the minerals most used in manufacturing (metals, gases, and what not) are core materials in the Universe. If they could get a good Uranium production going, the moon would have enough power to manufacture more exotic materials.
> There is nothing easy about mining the Moon. Otherwise > it would be done regularly.
It's kind of hard to mine the moon when there's no one there to do it. You realize that we've shipped (total) only a few tons of material to the moon. Most of it was exploration equipment (e.g. the lunar rover) and not any sort of industrial seed equipment. In fact, the moon missions we have done, have been pretty wasteful. They've accomplished the equivalent of climbing Everest. "We came, we saw, we nearly lost a few on the way, so we didn't go back."
> Can you explain to me how you can get TONS of purified > material safely to the ground on Earth?
See comment on "Space Truck". Remember, it takes less energy to go deeper into a gravity well than it does to go farther up a gravity well.
> Right after you explain to me just how you would get it off the Moon, of course...
NASA actually had this figured out years ago. The low gravity of the moon allows for a Mass Driver to be an efficient way to eject materials into Earth orbit. Yeah, you need to aim correctly or they'll burn up in Earth's atmosphere instead of going into orbit. But that's a solvable problem.
> Don't give me that "water on the south pole" bullshit either
Erm... I thought that was MARS. I haven't heard of anyone claiming water on the moon. I'm sure there's some, but not in any appreciable quantities. You'd need nuclear power up there to crack various materials for Oxygen, Nitrogen, and Hydrogen. Once you're able to do that, life support becomes self-sustaining. (i.e. No need to ship water or oxygen.)
> The only thing the Moon is good for is as a stop off point > for further destinations and tourism.
Tourism would be great. However, the launch cost of shipping large numbers of people that far out of Earth's gravity well would be prohibitive. Say you wanted to move 100 people per flight. You'd probably need a rocket about three times as powerful as the Saturn 5 (Anyone want to run the numbers for me? Assume an average of about 150 pounds per person.). Now if you had moon industry, you could launch people into LEO, then send a moon runabout to dock and pick them up. The materials for the launch back into high orbit would be provided by the moon industry (which, again, could produce at a rate far outstripping anything here on Earth).
> What materials are found on the Moon that you cannot > find here or manufacture here?
AFAIK, there are no "special" materials on the moon. Simply the ability to easily mine them. Here on Earth, mining produces a tremendous environmental impact. Strip mines especially are considered a very bad thing. On the moon, there is no environment to impact. Just cut out large chunks and process them in the most efficient way possible. If that means tons of chemicals that would normally be dangerous to humans, or giant nuclear reactors to melt the minerals, then you can do it.
Another thing to consider is mineral density. I'm no geologist, but I'm willing to bet that lack of an Eco-System to move minerals around, greatly increases mineral density.
> Oh sure, as if Jules Verne ever actually existed. Sucker.
Apply Occam's Razor. Which is easier to believe. That the moon exists, or that it's a great hoax.
More history from B.C.:
Deuteronomy 4:19 - And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven
Joshua 10:13 - And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day
1 Samuel 20:5 - And David said unto Jonathan, Behold, to morrow is the new moon, and I should not fail to sit with the king at meat: but let me go, that I may hide myself in the field unto the third day at even.
etc., etc., etc.
Oh wait, let me guess. Judaism and Christianity are modern hoaxes as well. And the Dark Ages never happened. EVERYHTHING YOU KNOW OF HISTORY IS WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!!!
It's all a conspiracy. I'm NOT paranoid! Everyone IS after me!
> Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and > preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the > revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the > "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- > anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially > launched.
> What exists on the Moon that cannot be found or created at a price tag magnitudes lower on the Earth?
The ability to manufacture craft at the edge of our gravity well. With the proper industry, the moon could develop mining and manufacture that would allow for cheap launch of vehicles destined for elsewhere in our solar system (e.g. Mars). Plus, if someone would bring down launch costs, we could send up giant space trucks who will catch materials launched into LEO by those on the moon. These space trucks will then be able to bring these materials back to Earth.
> I punched the hole through, and it sped right up > to 50-60KB/s (512/128 ADSL is better than dial-up, > but when you need sheer speed, it's hard to get).
I do actually have a hole punched through my personal firewall. At work, I'm afaid I'm not the network admin. Like I said, I can get 60-80K per second. However, at that rate, it takes all day to download 1800 megs.
No, that would be the OTHER end. The OC-3 line is perfectly capable of pulling 300K to damn near a Meg per second (saw it once). The problem is on the other end where thousands of Slashdotters are jamming servers far and wide.
> Having said that, if it takes you an entire day to > download 3 CDs, talk to your provider. Takes me a > couple of hours at most with my cable ISP. Or use the > nice Netherlands mirrors, they're always fast:)
Almost missed this. The problem isn't really on my end. It's very difficult to be on a good internet node where you can snag better than 60-80K per second. I have two DSL lines and one OC3 at my disposal, and they all have similar performance. On days like this (just after a big announcement), you can't expect better than 20K per second. I could try to schedule downloads for "non-peak periods", but to be honest, I don't really have the time or energy to screw with it.
> Just download the first CD. Done. Assuming you don't want any extras that is:)
I don't think that's true anymore. Last time I tried RedHat 8, it required the first two CDs for a minimal install. It's possible that the third CD isn't needed, but their site is completely non-helpful on that point.
> You might look insightful if you actually looked at the software versus spouting off.
I might at that. Too bad that it's too difficult to download due to being distributed on THREE CDS. (That's 1800megs for you kids at home.) Thankfully, someone else has been quite a bit more helpful than you and pointed out a Net Install CD. I may actually have a chance to try it out now.
Slashdot Mirror
27 comments and not one actually on topic. Does anyone care about these statistics? Or know what to do with them? For that matter, has anyone successfully read the paper without their eyes glazing over? I'm sure its a fascinating paper to someone, but I can't get past the first two pages without loosing all concentration. And I'm weird enough that I usually like this stuff!
Ouch. That's rough. And I take it that your admin just won't install StarOffice? It's no wonder that everyone thinks of Solaris as out-of-date. None of the admins will run them as modern machines!
Not to fear! I already read your mind. :-)
...here's the HTML Version courtesy of Google.
> The answer is simple, simply reroute the EPS conduit to
> discharge antimatter through the deflector dish, and
> possibly adjust the Heisenberg compensator for the
> occasion.
And viola! A cup of coffee!
Do what I do. Change their IE icon to launch FireBird. If I could just change the icons and that sickle to look like IE, I might have a chance at the more computer literate. :-)
> And if you actually got that, you're too much of a Sun geek.
Or perhaps a Java programmer. Would that be Forte4Forte, Forte4Java or Forte4C (now all known as Sun ONE, with the later formerly known as Sun Workshop). Erm. Maybe I shouldn't have admitted I know that...
No, I think you're quite wrong. I've read the book quite a few times and I don't remember the moon being mentioned. In fact, I think you'll find this passage (courtesy of Gutenberg) enlightening:
`I looked for the building I knew. Then my eye travelled along to the figure of the White Sphinx upon the pedestal of bronze, growing distinct as the light of the rising moon grew brighter.
In Wells' version, the downfall of men came not from some great catastrophe, but from the haugtiness of the "Rich Upper Class" and the mutations brought about by the underground toil of the "Working Class". The irony was that the masters became the slaves and the slaves became the masters.
The new movie screwed everything up and overall made very little sense. If you want to see a movie true to the book, go rent the 1960's version. The only thing they added was nuclear war (an unheard of concept in Wells' time).
> Once you have worked out a way to get machines capable
> of processing large chunks of rock...
You build them. Very simply, the moon will need to go through industrial development, first doing basic mining and building, possibly with occasional help from Earth. As time goes on, they'll go through an accelerated industrial development, whereupon smaller machines are used to create larger ones.
> Unless you have autonymous robots to do the job (and
> fix each other) then there are still likely to be humans
> around these dangerous chemicals. Whatever the final
> product is it most likely needs to be safe.
In a near vacuum? Seems a bit counterintuitive. Remember, humans on the moon can only live in self-contained environments. Unless someone screws up, there's no way that the chemicals can magically appear inside this environment. Plus, no water means no water seepage, which means no underground contamination. I suppose you could have issues if a hydroponics farm was near a mining area (i.e. water is injected into the soil to grow food), but the simplest solution there is to make sure there's a bit of distance between them.
> Where are you going to get the fuel for such reactors?
Where do we get them today? Now, I am assuming that some nuclear material will be shipped up for a seed reactor. That seed reactor should be enough power for a few years of development. (i.e. Until the industry is developed enough to produce more Uranium rods.)
> Depends on the mineral. Quite a few mineral deposits are
> created by living organisms.
True enough. But the minerals most used in manufacturing (metals, gases, and what not) are core materials in the Universe. If they could get a good Uranium production going, the moon would have enough power to manufacture more exotic materials.
> There is nothing easy about mining the Moon. Otherwise
> it would be done regularly.
It's kind of hard to mine the moon when there's no one there to do it. You realize that we've shipped (total) only a few tons of material to the moon. Most of it was exploration equipment (e.g. the lunar rover) and not any sort of industrial seed equipment. In fact, the moon missions we have done, have been pretty wasteful. They've accomplished the equivalent of climbing Everest. "We came, we saw, we nearly lost a few on the way, so we didn't go back."
> Can you explain to me how you can get TONS of purified
> material safely to the ground on Earth?
See comment on "Space Truck". Remember, it takes less energy to go deeper into a gravity well than it does to go farther up a gravity well.
> Right after you explain to me just how you would get it off the Moon, of course...
NASA actually had this figured out years ago. The low gravity of the moon allows for a Mass Driver to be an efficient way to eject materials into Earth orbit. Yeah, you need to aim correctly or they'll burn up in Earth's atmosphere instead of going into orbit. But that's a solvable problem.
> Don't give me that "water on the south pole" bullshit either
Erm... I thought that was MARS. I haven't heard of anyone claiming water on the moon. I'm sure there's some, but not in any appreciable quantities. You'd need nuclear power up there to crack various materials for Oxygen, Nitrogen, and Hydrogen. Once you're able to do that, life support becomes self-sustaining. (i.e. No need to ship water or oxygen.)
> The only thing the Moon is good for is as a stop off point
> for further destinations and tourism.
Tourism would be great. However, the launch cost of shipping large numbers of people that far out of Earth's gravity well would be prohibitive. Say you wanted to move 100 people per flight. You'd probably need a rocket about three times as powerful as the Saturn 5 (Anyone want to run the numbers for me? Assume an average of about 150 pounds per person.). Now if you had moon industry, you could launch people into LEO, then send a moon runabout to dock and pick them up. The materials for the launch back into high orbit would be provided by the moon industry (which, again, could produce at a rate far outstripping anything here on Earth).
Ancient Egypt/Israel: Book of Genesis
> What materials are found on the Moon that you cannot
> find here or manufacture here?
AFAIK, there are no "special" materials on the moon. Simply the ability to easily mine them. Here on Earth, mining produces a tremendous environmental impact. Strip mines especially are considered a very bad thing. On the moon, there is no environment to impact. Just cut out large chunks and process them in the most efficient way possible. If that means tons of chemicals that would normally be dangerous to humans, or giant nuclear reactors to melt the minerals, then you can do it.
Another thing to consider is mineral density. I'm no geologist, but I'm willing to bet that lack of an Eco-System to move minerals around, greatly increases mineral density.
> Oh sure, as if Jules Verne ever actually existed. Sucker.
Apply Occam's Razor. Which is easier to believe. That the moon exists, or that it's a great hoax.
More history from B.C.:
Deuteronomy 4:19 - And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven
Joshua 10:13 - And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day
1 Samuel 20:5 - And David said unto Jonathan, Behold, to morrow is the new moon, and I should not fail to sit with the king at meat: but let me go, that I may hide myself in the field unto the third day at even.
etc., etc., etc.
Oh wait, let me guess. Judaism and Christianity are modern hoaxes as well. And the Dark Ages never happened. EVERYHTHING YOU KNOW OF HISTORY IS WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!!!
It's all a conspiracy. I'm NOT paranoid! Everyone IS after me!
BTW, what was your name and address again...
> Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and
> preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the
> revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the
> "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents --
> anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially
> launched.
From the Earth to the Moon; 1865; Jules Verne
Would you like to play again? (y/n)
> What exists on the Moon that cannot be found or created at a price tag magnitudes lower on the Earth?
The ability to manufacture craft at the edge of our gravity well. With the proper industry, the moon could develop mining and manufacture that would allow for cheap launch of vehicles destined for elsewhere in our solar system (e.g. Mars). Plus, if someone would bring down launch costs, we could send up giant space trucks who will catch materials launched into LEO by those on the moon. These space trucks will then be able to bring these materials back to Earth.
> I punched the hole through, and it sped right up
> to 50-60KB/s (512/128 ADSL is better than dial-up,
> but when you need sheer speed, it's hard to get).
I do actually have a hole punched through my personal firewall. At work, I'm afaid I'm not the network admin. Like I said, I can get 60-80K per second. However, at that rate, it takes all day to download 1800 megs.
No, that would be the OTHER end. The OC-3 line is perfectly capable of pulling 300K to damn near a Meg per second (saw it once). The problem is on the other end where thousands of Slashdotters are jamming servers far and wide.
> Having said that, if it takes you an entire day to :)
> download 3 CDs, talk to your provider. Takes me a
> couple of hours at most with my cable ISP. Or use the
> nice Netherlands mirrors, they're always fast
Almost missed this. The problem isn't really on my end. It's very difficult to be on a good internet node where you can snag better than 60-80K per second. I have two DSL lines and one OC3 at my disposal, and they all have similar performance. On days like this (just after a big announcement), you can't expect better than 20K per second. I could try to schedule downloads for "non-peak periods", but to be honest, I don't really have the time or energy to screw with it.
> Just download the first CD. Done. Assuming you don't want any extras that is :)
I don't think that's true anymore. Last time I tried RedHat 8, it required the first two CDs for a minimal install. It's possible that the third CD isn't needed, but their site is completely non-helpful on that point.
> You might look insightful if you actually looked at the software versus spouting off.
I might at that. Too bad that it's too difficult to download due to being distributed on THREE CDS. (That's 1800megs for you kids at home.) Thankfully, someone else has been quite a bit more helpful than you and pointed out a Net Install CD. I may actually have a chance to try it out now.
> Mac OSX _is_ distributed over the 'net.
> Try eMule.
That has to be the stupidest argument that anyone has ever used. Get a life, will you?
> Your wrong, it doesn't even come close to windows.
Huh?
Larger than the Sun... check
Where's all the space going... check
Solaris is on two CDs... check
Other distros break stuff out into extra CDs... check
Who said anything about Windows?!
Thank you! Somebody give this guy some mod points!
> To be honest, I'd rather spend a few extra minutes downloading
Ahem. Minutes? Try hours. Lots of them.