Math. Do you Speak it? There is no such thing as 4 times closer.
English. Do you speak it? If you're not a native speaker, then it's understandable that you're not familiar with some of the intricacies and oddities of the language, but for fluent speakers of English, there's no trouble parsing phrases such as "twice as short" (means the same as "half as tall"), or "four times closer" ("a quarter the distance"), etc. Just invert the number when you reverse the directional (e.g. from "closer" to "further", "shorter" to "taller", etc).
Yes, but... if Musk is half as successful as he thinks he will be, the USAF can go take a flying leap, plenty of others will be falling over each other to buy his services.
Energy doesn't appear out of nowhere for free.
Walking on these floor tiles requires more energy than regular floors.
The second point does not follow from the first. Walking expends energy. Since the process is nowhere near 100% efficient, it follows that energy can be extracted from the process for useful purposes without requiring more energy to be expended or impeding movement in any way. Energy that would necessarily be expended in any case is put to use instead of being wasted as normal.
I love this kind of "logic". No matter how quickly or slowly you release something, trolls will claim it's evidence for it being unsafe. Thus, no matter what the evidence is, it supports the "argument" being made. Sorry, but this is what qualifies for the "not even wrong" label. It's sad some people's brains actually work this way...
Also, remember that "All Nippon Airways" isn't some English translation; that is the official name of the airline given by the Japanese. Nippon is one of the older western-translations of the country's name "Nihon".
Which is, of course, just another translation. The correct spelling is "", but/. will probably make mincemeat out of that as soon as I save it. Wake up and smell the non-ASCII present,/.!
If you knew anything about either plane, you would know that they have absolutely nothing in common. The A380 can carry nearly twice as many passengers, so if you're going to compare it to a Boeing plane it should be the 747.
I know the 787 has wings. Since you claim they have "absolutely nothing in common", I'm curious about what the A380 uses to generate lift.
It makes no difference. All Americans block the A380 from their minds when discussing aircraft. Same thing with Concord, etc.
Not really. It's more along the lines of Airbus claiming a few years ago that doing what the 787 is doing was "ridiculous". Now you're saying "we're already doing it"? To turn around now and say "we're doing it already" when just a few years ago you were claiming it was "ridiculous" makes it pretty obvious you've no idea what you're talking about, and are just trying to backpedal and spin.
No kidding, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and this is one mother of an extraordinary claim.
It would be, if the claim in question was being made. But it isn't. From TFA:
But the group understands that what are known as "systematic errors" could easily make an erroneous result look like a breaking of the ultimate speed limit, and that has motivated them to publish their measurements.
...for now, he explained, "we are not claiming things, we want just to be helped by the community in understanding our crazy result - because it is crazy".
The fundamental notion being contradicted is that you must have a cause before you have its effect, something that is not true in a universe with FTL travel (and thus, necessarily, time travel).
Physics was presented with evidence of the lack of causality almost 40 years ago, it's just that until now we haven't had any real evidence.
You realize that's a contradiction? If we haven't had any real evidence until now, then we weren't presented with any 40 years ago. If we were, then it's not true we haven't had any until now.
Not terribly relevant. The issue is, these are people giving their credit card number to someone who cold-called them on the phone. They didn't even place the call, so it's not like they even know what phone number they dials -- they received a call from someone who could be anyone for all they know, and then gave them their credit card number. Placing a call and giving your credit card number to the person at the organization you called is one thing, but giving it to someone who called you out of the blue?
Amount of technical knowledge here is irrelevant. These people have a common sense deficiency.
...or we could just capture the solar energy more directly and turn it into electricity and use it!
We could. However, nature will continue to do its thing regardless of what we're also doing. The question is, can we also benefit from what nature is doing and is going to keep doing regardless, or is it not economically feasible to benefit from nature's efforts? If there is some efficient way to harvest nature's bounty here, we'd be fools to let the energy go to waste, unless harvesting it causes some significant harm or is simply not cost effective.
I thought the solid surfaces of gas giants weren't rocky at all, but rather hydrogen compressed to a metallic state under extreme pressure? Without the pressure, the gas would melt and then boil away.
At the surface, that's probably true. It does not contradict the notion, still generally held to be true, that there's a rocky core underneath that.
Why weren't these planets stripped of their atmosphere?
Some of them quite clearly are being stripped, undergoing significant mass loss as their stars blast away at their atmosphere. Remember, for most everything you look at, it is not in its end-state.
American beating China to Mars is about as likely as Britain beating America to the moon. When an empire dissolves, it ceases to lead, no matter how huge and powerful it once was. Empires are expensive, and sooner or later, the populace at the core gets tired of paying the cost. The Tea Party is just the latest symptom of that inevitable trend, and I don't see any mass movement in America saying we need the government to be raising and spending more. Until that happens (and I don't think it ever will), whether we admit it or not, we've decided we don't want to be world leaders anymore. It's an expensive job, and we don't want to pay for it. Wake me up when the majority of people in America agree we aren't taxed enough, and you can make a counterargument that won't be laughable.
Let Space X figure it out on their own. They want to be a Private Venture then they can raise the money on their own.
And probably be better off for it. The last thing they need is a single customer with a large enough wallet to essentially dictate to them how to run things. Might net a lot of cash in the short term, but it's not really in their best interests for the long term.
If this thing ever goes to the Moon they'll find tourists waving at them at the landing site, having flown there for a fraction of the cost using a Falcon 9 Heavy.
More likely, they're find tourists at the landing site, but they won't be able to speak to them unless they know Mandarin.
And with the money they would have saved by not using the Shuttle, they could have afforded to build and launch a new Hubble Telescope to replace the broken one.
And it would have been a better telescope to boot. If you like things like the Hubble, the Mars rovers, and all the truly scientifically useful stuff we've done over the years, and you know what you're talking about, you've been a critic and hater of the Shuttle program for decades. There is so much great space exploration and science we could have gotten done for a fraction of the cost if we weren't wasting huge amounts of money doing idiotic shit like sending people in space to do jobs robots can do a million times better.
What NASA appear to be saying is that they've made no significant progress in spacecraft or engine design over the past 40 years.
Admitting that, and then starting from where we were 40 years and and building on that so that we start making significant progress again (instead of wasting another 40 years on a dead-end) is a good idea that will help move forward the state of the art and insure you're using rockets instead of horses and bows as you fear. I'm not sure why you're taking this as meaning the opposite, other than perhaps a complete lack of understanding of how you make progress.
Saturn V looking rocket with strap on boosters like a Soyuz, with a small capsule on top? The 1960s were so great we're going to go back to them?
When you make a wrong turn, sometimes you have to backtrack before you can truly go forward. Anyone afraid to step back guaranteed to be not very good at moving forward over the long term.
Any species capable of interstellar travel must, by definition, be a social species. It's not the type you technology you can achieve without cooperation. I personally believe that the concept of an alien species who would have no qualms about destroying another sentient species is science fiction, and nothing more.
I would say the one known sapient species we know of today provides a strong counterexample to your assertion.
Anyone capable of coming here would be much more interested in our cultures than in our meat. Earth has plenty of other animals we'd be happy to share with them at a table while talking about our art, our science, our philosophies, and hell, even our reality TV.
It is true, however, that any species capable of interstellar travel has no doubt developed much more efficient methods of producing meat, e.g. farming/animal husbandry. I seem to recall that's much lower on the tech tree than FTL drives.
Slashdot Mirror
Math. Do you Speak it? There is no such thing as 4 times closer.
English. Do you speak it? If you're not a native speaker, then it's understandable that you're not familiar with some of the intricacies and oddities of the language, but for fluent speakers of English, there's no trouble parsing phrases such as "twice as short" (means the same as "half as tall"), or "four times closer" ("a quarter the distance"), etc. Just invert the number when you reverse the directional (e.g. from "closer" to "further", "shorter" to "taller", etc).
Not every /. story is intended to be edifying for you personally. Feel free to simply skip over the stories that are of interest only to others.
It's what Slashdot is supposed to be.
^
Yes, but... if Musk is half as successful as he thinks he will be, the USAF can go take a flying leap, plenty of others will be falling over each other to buy his services.
Energy doesn't appear out of nowhere for free. Walking on these floor tiles requires more energy than regular floors.
The second point does not follow from the first. Walking expends energy. Since the process is nowhere near 100% efficient, it follows that energy can be extracted from the process for useful purposes without requiring more energy to be expended or impeding movement in any way. Energy that would necessarily be expended in any case is put to use instead of being wasted as normal.
I love this kind of "logic". No matter how quickly or slowly you release something, trolls will claim it's evidence for it being unsafe. Thus, no matter what the evidence is, it supports the "argument" being made. Sorry, but this is what qualifies for the "not even wrong" label. It's sad some people's brains actually work this way...
Also, remember that "All Nippon Airways" isn't some English translation; that is the official name of the airline given by the Japanese. Nippon is one of the older western-translations of the country's name "Nihon".
Which is, of course, just another translation. The correct spelling is "", but /. will probably make mincemeat out of that as soon as I save it. Wake up and smell the non-ASCII present, /.!
If you knew anything about either plane, you would know that they have absolutely nothing in common. The A380 can carry nearly twice as many passengers, so if you're going to compare it to a Boeing plane it should be the 747.
I know the 787 has wings. Since you claim they have "absolutely nothing in common", I'm curious about what the A380 uses to generate lift.
It makes no difference. All Americans block the A380 from their minds when discussing aircraft. Same thing with Concord, etc.
Not really. It's more along the lines of Airbus claiming a few years ago that doing what the 787 is doing was "ridiculous". Now you're saying "we're already doing it"? To turn around now and say "we're doing it already" when just a few years ago you were claiming it was "ridiculous" makes it pretty obvious you've no idea what you're talking about, and are just trying to backpedal and spin.
No kidding, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and this is one mother of an extraordinary claim.
It would be, if the claim in question was being made. But it isn't. From TFA:
But the group understands that what are known as "systematic errors" could easily make an erroneous result look like a breaking of the ultimate speed limit, and that has motivated them to publish their measurements.
...for now, he explained, "we are not claiming things, we want just to be helped by the community in understanding our crazy result - because it is crazy".
The speed of light in a vacuum is the same regardless of the reference frame.
FTFY
The fundamental notion being contradicted is that you must have a cause before you have its effect, something that is not true in a universe with FTL travel (and thus, necessarily, time travel).
Physics was presented with evidence of the lack of causality almost 40 years ago, it's just that until now we haven't had any real evidence.
You realize that's a contradiction? If we haven't had any real evidence until now, then we weren't presented with any 40 years ago. If we were, then it's not true we haven't had any until now.
Most computer users aren't geeks...
Not terribly relevant. The issue is, these are people giving their credit card number to someone who cold-called them on the phone. They didn't even place the call, so it's not like they even know what phone number they dials -- they received a call from someone who could be anyone for all they know, and then gave them their credit card number. Placing a call and giving your credit card number to the person at the organization you called is one thing, but giving it to someone who called you out of the blue?
Amount of technical knowledge here is irrelevant. These people have a common sense deficiency.
...or we could just capture the solar energy more directly and turn it into electricity and use it!
We could. However, nature will continue to do its thing regardless of what we're also doing. The question is, can we also benefit from what nature is doing and is going to keep doing regardless, or is it not economically feasible to benefit from nature's efforts? If there is some efficient way to harvest nature's bounty here, we'd be fools to let the energy go to waste, unless harvesting it causes some significant harm or is simply not cost effective.
I thought the solid surfaces of gas giants weren't rocky at all, but rather hydrogen compressed to a metallic state under extreme pressure? Without the pressure, the gas would melt and then boil away.
At the surface, that's probably true. It does not contradict the notion, still generally held to be true, that there's a rocky core underneath that.
Why weren't these planets stripped of their atmosphere?
Some of them quite clearly are being stripped, undergoing significant mass loss as their stars blast away at their atmosphere. Remember, for most everything you look at, it is not in its end-state.
Wasn't something like this the cause of the fall of Ringworld civilization?
American beating China to Mars is about as likely as Britain beating America to the moon. When an empire dissolves, it ceases to lead, no matter how huge and powerful it once was. Empires are expensive, and sooner or later, the populace at the core gets tired of paying the cost. The Tea Party is just the latest symptom of that inevitable trend, and I don't see any mass movement in America saying we need the government to be raising and spending more. Until that happens (and I don't think it ever will), whether we admit it or not, we've decided we don't want to be world leaders anymore. It's an expensive job, and we don't want to pay for it. Wake me up when the majority of people in America agree we aren't taxed enough, and you can make a counterargument that won't be laughable.
Let Space X figure it out on their own. They want to be a Private Venture then they can raise the money on their own.
And probably be better off for it. The last thing they need is a single customer with a large enough wallet to essentially dictate to them how to run things. Might net a lot of cash in the short term, but it's not really in their best interests for the long term.
You're using the wrong set of facts, from the wrong universe. In the FOX universe, it's losing money...
If this thing ever goes to the Moon they'll find tourists waving at them at the landing site, having flown there for a fraction of the cost using a Falcon 9 Heavy.
More likely, they're find tourists at the landing site, but they won't be able to speak to them unless they know Mandarin.
And with the money they would have saved by not using the Shuttle, they could have afforded to build and launch a new Hubble Telescope to replace the broken one.
And it would have been a better telescope to boot. If you like things like the Hubble, the Mars rovers, and all the truly scientifically useful stuff we've done over the years, and you know what you're talking about, you've been a critic and hater of the Shuttle program for decades. There is so much great space exploration and science we could have gotten done for a fraction of the cost if we weren't wasting huge amounts of money doing idiotic shit like sending people in space to do jobs robots can do a million times better.
What NASA appear to be saying is that they've made no significant progress in spacecraft or engine design over the past 40 years.
Admitting that, and then starting from where we were 40 years and and building on that so that we start making significant progress again (instead of wasting another 40 years on a dead-end) is a good idea that will help move forward the state of the art and insure you're using rockets instead of horses and bows as you fear. I'm not sure why you're taking this as meaning the opposite, other than perhaps a complete lack of understanding of how you make progress.
Saturn V looking rocket with strap on boosters like a Soyuz, with a small capsule on top? The 1960s were so great we're going to go back to them?
When you make a wrong turn, sometimes you have to backtrack before you can truly go forward. Anyone afraid to step back guaranteed to be not very good at moving forward over the long term.
Any species capable of interstellar travel must, by definition, be a social species. It's not the type you technology you can achieve without cooperation. I personally believe that the concept of an alien species who would have no qualms about destroying another sentient species is science fiction, and nothing more.
I would say the one known sapient species we know of today provides a strong counterexample to your assertion.
Anyone capable of coming here would be much more interested in our cultures than in our meat. Earth has plenty of other animals we'd be happy to share with them at a table while talking about our art, our science, our philosophies, and hell, even our reality TV.
It is true, however, that any species capable of interstellar travel has no doubt developed much more efficient methods of producing meat, e.g. farming/animal husbandry. I seem to recall that's much lower on the tech tree than FTL drives.