The founder has been working on it for decades. If he'd had these tiny Wankel engines when the Mazda RX-7 came out, he would have had a Skycar flying decades ago. Microprocessors have been available since 1975, so he might have gotten suitable controllers quite some time ago.
As it is, he does now have these engines with as much power as that in a good single-engine plane -- with four of them it's little wonder it can make a brick fly. Having eight of them is a nice level of redundancy. And I'm glad the ballistic parachute is now available, as well as plenty of computer power for a smooth ride...and eventually automated navigation (an infrastructure problem, not a GPS challenge).
Problem already solved. Many tracks. Main problem is the stations are so expensive (price is cheaper if the elevator and its cost is shared with neighboring buildings which can take advantage of the wheelchair accessibility and the second-story business space around the station -- some cities such as Minneapolis have the second floors woven together like a huge mall due to enclosed pedestrian bridges).
Re:Okay ... a few things that really bug me here .
on
The End of Solotrek
·
· Score: 1
It looks to me like the hands would have to be constantly working on keeping the damned thing in the air, how the hell could you fire a weapon etc. with no hands?
Look at the classic helicopter controls. Both feet to control direction, one hand to control tilt of rotor, one hand controlling pitch of rotor blade, one hand to operate avionics (all those switches on various panels), and three eyes for watching the other choppers, the ground, and the damn fuel gauge.
Re:Please don't fly over my house!
on
The End of Solotrek
·
· Score: 2, Funny
imagine driving home from a bar at 2:30am in 3 dimensions...
I think it would greatly decrease the continuing problems caused by repeat drunk drivers.
Yes, L.A. is a good place for an airborne commute.
On some days, the 101st Airborne.
For that run-down feeling...
on
Got Sleep?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
A few years ago a researcher simply noticed that there are no animals which never sleep. Some use partial sleep, such as dolphins and ducks (ducks seem to sleep one half of the brain at a time -- they usually sleep with one eye open). Never having to sleep would obviously be a tremendous evolutionary advantage, yet no advanced animals do it.
So probably sleep is due to a very simple requirement. The theory is that brains simply use more energy than the blood can deliver to them. Sleep is needed to store energy for the next day's use.
When the brain starts running out of energy, those cells which run out of power start malfunctioning. That's why hallucinations, usually starting with flickers in the field of vision, are common (the periphery of the eye is wired to detect movement, so bad signals often get interpreted as motion, which the rest of the brain ascribes due to small things which ran out of sight before they could be examined in detail, thus the impression is of insects or spiders). Totally running out of energy is a bad thing, so the occasional death due to sleep deprivation is not surprising.
Sugared caffeine seems like a reasonable way to stay awake longer, although a more precise mixture of nutrients would work better. However, sleep is necessary unless somehow a lot more nutrition can be delivered than now is.
It does seem that advanced brains are doing some maintenance during sleep. As others have noted, the obvious example is that sleep has some effects on long-term memory -- although sleep does not force storage of all memories, such as trauma victims who won't remember details of an event when they next sleep.
100 meters of vertical space? Where did you find that requirement listed?
Made it up, based on actual roller coasters which are over 50 meters high. Acceleration can simulate many G-forces, but if you're going to duplicate the forces then the same vertical space is needed. (Yes, gravity is acceleration -- I said duplicate, not simulate)
However, I actually did work with a robotic warehouse which used automated forklifts that were strong enough to toss you against the ceiling which was 20 meters up... you and ten friends, at the same time. Such things have to be programmed correctly -- I'm sure this roller coaster ride is carefully programmed in its dedicated controller, and the Microsoft Windows device is just a pretty display for the system; there's also a big red button nearby along with various limits switches.
I heard that is a "modest missile defense shield".
So they'll have to ask it "are you a powerful rocket?"
They'll be able to shoot it if it replies "Oh, I'm just a warhead with a little push in the right direction. I just try to get the bomb near its target. I'm just doing my job."
Why didn't NASA send out repeaters behind it ? I'd imagine that a series of repeaters behind it would be able to get information back to us on earth...
The receivers on Earth are based on huge dishes. Please do launch some.
You need two dishes, to receive and to send back to the next link.
The last repeater in the chain has to know where to aim at Earth. (which one is "last" when you keep launching new ones...and new ones are faster?)
There's no "behind" when throwing things through moving gravitational fields...Unless you use nuclear engines so they're always under drive and can maintain course. (put a net on the relay ships, so you can grab Pioneer as it is passed)
You can't use these relays for other probes if you only have two dishes and they're locked in the chain.
Cleanup in aisle 8!
"Attention, shoppers: please do not try the light sabers inside the building. Any sales droid can direct you to the sandbox which is safety-shielded with computer cases which have been cursed to protect them from tampering and anger."
You don't have to have two sysadmins.
Your sysadmin has to operate transparently, so anyone (any techie) who looks at what is being done can see what is done, how to do it, and why.
A system administrator should be documenting all the procedures, so everything can be kept running during vacation or when sysadmin is otherwise not available. Everything should be backed up, restoral process should be documented, and all local modifications documented.
In this case, the source code for the local modifications should have been available for review and a recompilation should match what is installed.
Incidentally, the auditor has some questions about those machines with patched and repatched binary operating systems and autoupdated applications...
Gold is pointing out that carbon can be much deeper, and availability at the surface is dependent upon deep geology rather than past surface pools of muck.
No one has suggested that oil avaliability is dependant on 'past surface pools of muck'; I really don't understand where you are getting this from.
"Surface" as in "origin not in deep rock". "Pools of muck" as in "plant and animal matter buried in low-oxygen conditions" (has to be low-oxygen or the long chains with hydrogen will not exist and no long-chain hydrocarbons can appear).
Why hydrocarbons should have been retained in the mantle when every other volatile has been effectively stripped (due to melting and cycling through oceanic crust) is unexplained.
By "stripped", I assume you mean broken down from long chain molecules to simpler structures. Methane (CH4) is rather simple. Gold repeatedly points out that methane is more common at greater depth, and hydrocarbons become more complex with decreasing depth. Just what would be expected if the material is being altered as it rises.
Carbon in subducted rock has to go someplace. There are five possibilities:
Carbon might sink and be lost (unlikely as it is less dense than nickel-iron)
Carbon might be trapped and never rise (unlikely, as volcanoes often bring material up from subducted areas).
Carbon might bubble up early in the process and leak right at the fault.
Carbon might travel great distances under crust, whether dissolved in mantle material, in deposits under crust, or in lower levels of crust.
Carbon might accumulate near subduction areas and push upward.
Gold's ignorance of the last 40 years of geology shines through; dismissing the entire science of petroleum geology is bad enough for a non-geologist, dismissing plate tectonics, standard planet formation theories, basic physics, and in fact anything that gets in the way of his theory is worse.
Yup, awful crimes. How was Copernicus punished?
I haven't seen him dismissing plate tectonics, although I don't know if he believes that the 4 billion-year-old continental cratons contain carbon from Earth's formation, or if the deep carbon in them is from subducted ocean floor (ocean floor before 200 Ma is gone).
As an astronomer, he probably knows planetary formation and physics quite well. He does state that no gases were incorporated in Earth, so carbon, water, and nitrogen must have come from material within the planet. I don't know what he thinks happened to lighter elements during the Earth-shattering impact which created the Moon (my observation is that the Moon's density is significantly less than Earth, so much separation of dense material must have already happened before impact -- or dense material didn't splash high enough to stay in orbit).
Middle East has been greatly disrupted by tectonic activity (90 degree rotation is somewhat drastic), and obviously there are many faults to deeper areas. So the search for "source" rock has actually been the search for rock which met expectations near the reservoirs.
90 degree rotation is not very drastic.
Well, I thought for recent time it was. Although perhaps the subduction under the Arabian plate since 650 Ma was more important in carbon sources than the movement. The pressures by surrounding plates are interesting, but I don't know if that caused any fractures in the oil-producing areas -- volcanic rock is to the west, not within the oil fields.
And the fact that source rocks have been found, with appropriate thermal conditions and migration pathways is pretty strong evidence, especially as when these rocks are NOT found, there is no oil.
The biogenic theory requires certain source rocks, so finding such rocks includes the biogenic theory as a possibility in the Arabian area (even in the basement rocks in Yemen, due to proximity of biogenic source rocks). Abiogenic theories don't care what kind of rock is near the surface, although obviously an impermeable cap is needed for a reservoir where we tap one. There also are issues about the temperature and pressures being insufficient to create biogenic oil in shallow sedimentary rocks.
Biogenic origin theory does not explain finds where there are no expected formations. There are hundreds of producing wells in basement rocks, and some hydrocarbons have been found in rather unconventional areas. Gold has plenty of references to his experiences drilling in the Swedish impact ring. Anhydride Petroleum continues exploring the basement oil/gas which Hunt believes are part of the source of the Athabasca Tar Sands.
Have a read of this:
Petroleum geology, Saudi Arabia. [sc.edu]
Nice description of the biogenic interpretation.
To read from Gold's site:
If the major volume of the Earth has never been molten, the mantle of the Earth underneath the crust must still contain the diversity of chemistry, the chemical energy sources and the sources of gases and liquids that would be the legacy of an accretion process from diverse and initially cold solids.
Except that mid ocean ridge basalts [which sample the mantle beneath effectively] exhibit an extreme uniformity of compositions. Basic physics also gives us raleigh numbers for the mantle indicating that it is well mixed.
Yes, the mid-Atlantic ridge is a spreading zone, so it should have metal-rich magma rather than the silicon-rich lava in a compression zone. So if mantle magma is well-mixed, whether there is carbon in it depends upon whether carbon can mix or dissolve in nickel-iron, and it can be expected to be everywhere. Carbon dioxide is in mantle magma, so carbon is indeed part of the global molten mix.
So the same weak points along the Southeast Asia plate edges which cause volcanoes also cause hydrocarbons to become available near the surface.
No, the hydrocarbons are found in the back-arc settings. These are not 'weak points causing volcanoes', it's subducting slab dehydration melting the mantle above. Hawaii is not mentioned by Gold probably for the reason that it is known to have a deep component to it's magma and yet emits little or no methane.
Actually, Gold mentions Hawaii briefly (your browser might have a Control-F search command), and as I mentioned above carbon dioxide emissions have been studied in Hawaii. Carbon dioxide is not methane, but it shows carbon at 40 km depth from a mantle source.
how deeply were those basins drilled?
To basement. Which is standard practice in frontier areas.
Of course. Because someone expecting solid rock to have no hydrocarbons under it would stop drilling there..not that we can drill dozens or hundreds of kilometers deep anyway. Gold is pointing out that carbon can be much deeper, and availability at the surface is dependent upon deep geology rather than past surface pools of muck.
As far as the middle east goes, there is one major source rock and one minor one for the entire region. The Late Callovian ocean floor? Gold thinks the rocks in the area are simply reservoirs which are capturing the upward flow. The Middle East has been greatly disrupted by tectonic activity (90 degree rotation is somewhat drastic), and obviously there are many faults to deeper areas. So the search for "source" rock has actually been the search for rock which met expectations near the reservoirs.
Gold seems to be under the impresion that oil has to form in situ; it does not. The composition and age of the reservior rock and caprock have nothing to do with oil formation. And it's not 'rotting'; it's thermal decomposition under a known range of parameters.
He agrees that oil is formed elsewhere, but dozens of kilometers further down than the 3 km which you expect. How does this thermal decomposition cause molecules to replace iron with nickel atoms, and reach the 700C+ temperature and pressure of 60 km down? (Two Sources...)
He also is ignorant of the fact that surface structural trands are invariably controlled by pre existing old trends. he also seems to think that island arc volcanoes are the result of deep heat sources and not subduction, ignoring a huge amount of evidence.
I haven't found reference to his belief on the origin of volcanoes themselves. He does state that they do emit much more gas than gas biogenic origin can explain. He's well aware of subduction and the tectonic faults, but points out that the resulting fractures offer routes for hydrocarbons to pass upward. So the same weak points along the Southeast Asia plate edges which cause volcanoes also cause hydrocarbons to become available near the surface. This is a different cause of volcanoes than one such as the Hawaiian "hot spot", whose cause I have not seen him mention (except that they also emit flammable gases...I don't know what possible biogenic source is there).
And he forgets that the earth has been completely molten and outgassed.
He didn't forget, he states that the Earth cold-formed with partial melting (see The Formation Process of the Earth). His specialty in astronomy might help him with that conclusion, as planetary accretion is studied in the field of astronomy more than it is in geology. We can also see that Venus retained a lot of carbon during its formation -- that atmosphere certainly didn't get boiled away.
And no, you can't see oil moving on 3D seismic, whatever the wall street journal says.
You are obviously aware of the attraction of the New York Times' "All The News That's Fit To Print" slogan. Not all news sources can include everything, for various reasons which include reporting skills, sources, print space, editorial policy, and editor's moods./., K5, Google News, mailing lists, Journals, and Blogs are well-known online publications with variations of such limits (editorial policy is particularly simple in blogs when the publisher, reporter and editor are the same person).
Slashdot Mirror
Just make sure the delay due to the seasonal equipment protection feature is documented.
As it is, he does now have these engines with as much power as that in a good single-engine plane -- with four of them it's little wonder it can make a brick fly. Having eight of them is a nice level of redundancy. And I'm glad the ballistic parachute is now available, as well as plenty of computer power for a smooth ride...and eventually automated navigation (an infrastructure problem, not a GPS challenge).
Put them on eBay, offer shipping to anywhere in the world, and the bidding will go rather high...
Problem already solved. Many tracks. Main problem is the stations are so expensive (price is cheaper if the elevator and its cost is shared with neighboring buildings which can take advantage of the wheelchair accessibility and the second-story business space around the station -- some cities such as Minneapolis have the second floors woven together like a huge mall due to enclosed pedestrian bridges).
Look at the classic helicopter controls. Both feet to control direction, one hand to control tilt of rotor, one hand controlling pitch of rotor blade, one hand to operate avionics (all those switches on various panels), and three eyes for watching the other choppers, the ground, and the damn fuel gauge.
I think it would greatly decrease the continuing problems caused by repeat drunk drivers.
Yes, L.A. is a good place for an airborne commute.
On some days, the 101st Airborne.
So probably sleep is due to a very simple requirement. The theory is that brains simply use more energy than the blood can deliver to them. Sleep is needed to store energy for the next day's use.
When the brain starts running out of energy, those cells which run out of power start malfunctioning. That's why hallucinations, usually starting with flickers in the field of vision, are common (the periphery of the eye is wired to detect movement, so bad signals often get interpreted as motion, which the rest of the brain ascribes due to small things which ran out of sight before they could be examined in detail, thus the impression is of insects or spiders). Totally running out of energy is a bad thing, so the occasional death due to sleep deprivation is not surprising.
Sugared caffeine seems like a reasonable way to stay awake longer, although a more precise mixture of nutrients would work better. However, sleep is necessary unless somehow a lot more nutrition can be delivered than now is.
It does seem that advanced brains are doing some maintenance during sleep. As others have noted, the obvious example is that sleep has some effects on long-term memory -- although sleep does not force storage of all memories, such as trauma victims who won't remember details of an event when they next sleep.
A battlefield is a light and sound machine...
Made it up, based on actual roller coasters which are over 50 meters high. Acceleration can simulate many G-forces, but if you're going to duplicate the forces then the same vertical space is needed. (Yes, gravity is acceleration -- I said duplicate, not simulate)
However, I actually did work with a robotic warehouse which used automated forklifts that were strong enough to toss you against the ceiling which was 20 meters up... you and ten friends, at the same time. Such things have to be programmed correctly -- I'm sure this roller coaster ride is carefully programmed in its dedicated controller, and the Microsoft Windows device is just a pretty display for the system; there's also a big red button nearby along with various limits switches.
No. Not anywhere near twenty years.
Oh, it's safe. They're using Microsoft Windows, which can't be used for anything where human life is in danger. Obviously it must be safe.
The hard part is finding a building with the 100 meters of vertical space... :-)
The IO Networks AnywhereUSB is a USB host. That's all it is. It has USB master ports which you use through IP.
That's probably not quite what you had in mind...
Bug reported and fixed.
So they'll have to ask it "are you a powerful rocket?"
They'll be able to shoot it if it replies "Oh, I'm just a warhead with a little push in the right direction. I just try to get the bomb near its target. I'm just doing my job."
Cleanup in aisle 8!
"Attention, shoppers: please do not try the light sabers inside the building. Any sales droid can direct you to the sandbox which is safety-shielded with computer cases which have been cursed to protect them from tampering and anger."
Your sysadmin has to operate transparently, so anyone (any techie) who looks at what is being done can see what is done, how to do it, and why.
A system administrator should be documenting all the procedures, so everything can be kept running during vacation or when sysadmin is otherwise not available. Everything should be backed up, restoral process should be documented, and all local modifications documented.
In this case, the source code for the local modifications should have been available for review and a recompilation should match what is installed.
Incidentally, the auditor has some questions about those machines with patched and repatched binary operating systems and autoupdated applications...
Carbon in subducted rock has to go someplace. There are five possibilities:
- Carbon might sink and be lost (unlikely as it is less dense than nickel-iron)
- Carbon might be trapped and never rise (unlikely, as volcanoes often bring material up from subducted areas).
- Carbon might bubble up early in the process and leak right at the fault.
- Carbon might travel great distances under crust, whether dissolved in mantle material, in deposits under crust, or in lower levels of crust.
- Carbon might accumulate near subduction areas and push upward.
Yup, awful crimes. How was Copernicus punished?I haven't seen him dismissing plate tectonics, although I don't know if he believes that the 4 billion-year-old continental cratons contain carbon from Earth's formation, or if the deep carbon in them is from subducted ocean floor (ocean floor before 200 Ma is gone).
As an astronomer, he probably knows planetary formation and physics quite well. He does state that no gases were incorporated in Earth, so carbon, water, and nitrogen must have come from material within the planet. I don't know what he thinks happened to lighter elements during the Earth-shattering impact which created the Moon (my observation is that the Moon's density is significantly less than Earth, so much separation of dense material must have already happened before impact -- or dense material didn't splash high enough to stay in orbit).
Well, I thought for recent time it was. Although perhaps the subduction under the Arabian plate since 650 Ma was more important in carbon sources than the movement. The pressures by surrounding plates are interesting, but I don't know if that caused any fractures in the oil-producing areas -- volcanic rock is to the west, not within the oil fields. The biogenic theory requires certain source rocks, so finding such rocks includes the biogenic theory as a possibility in the Arabian area (even in the basement rocks in Yemen, due to proximity of biogenic source rocks). Abiogenic theories don't care what kind of rock is near the surface, although obviously an impermeable cap is needed for a reservoir where we tap one. There also are issues about the temperature and pressures being insufficient to create biogenic oil in shallow sedimentary rocks.Biogenic origin theory does not explain finds where there are no expected formations. There are hundreds of producing wells in basement rocks, and some hydrocarbons have been found in rather unconventional areas. Gold has plenty of references to his experiences drilling in the Swedish impact ring. Anhydride Petroleum continues exploring the basement oil/gas which Hunt believes are part of the source of the Athabasca Tar Sands.
Nice description of the biogenic interpretation. Yes, the mid-Atlantic ridge is a spreading zone, so it should have metal-rich magma rather than the silicon-rich lava in a compression zone. So if mantle magma is well-mixed, whether there is carbon in it depends upon whether carbon can mix or dissolve in nickel-iron, and it can be expected to be everywhere. Carbon dioxide is in mantle magma, so carbon is indeed part of the global molten mix. Actually, Gold mentions Hawaii briefly (your browser might have a Control-F search command), and as I mentioned above carbon dioxide emissions have been studied in Hawaii. Carbon dioxide is not methane, but it shows carbon at 40 km depth from a mantle source.No CEO bobble heads on eBay. Does that mean they're rare?
Well, they're at least as common as "cigar butts"...zero of those on eBay.
I believe that was suggested already -- see the references to UserFriendly.Org.
Does your real name begin with "Ch"?
Aha.. so it was the "light PCs" versus the "black PCs".
To basement. Which is standard practice in frontier areas.
Of course. Because someone expecting solid rock to have no hydrocarbons under it would stop drilling there..not that we can drill dozens or hundreds of kilometers deep anyway. Gold is pointing out that carbon can be much deeper, and availability at the surface is dependent upon deep geology rather than past surface pools of muck.
As far as the middle east goes, there is one major source rock and one minor one for the entire region.
The Late Callovian ocean floor? Gold thinks the rocks in the area are simply reservoirs which are capturing the upward flow. The Middle East has been greatly disrupted by tectonic activity (90 degree rotation is somewhat drastic), and obviously there are many faults to deeper areas. So the search for "source" rock has actually been the search for rock which met expectations near the reservoirs.
Gold seems to be under the impresion that oil has to form in situ; it does not. The composition and age of the reservior rock and caprock have nothing to do with oil formation. And it's not 'rotting'; it's thermal decomposition under a known range of parameters.
He agrees that oil is formed elsewhere, but dozens of kilometers further down than the 3 km which you expect. How does this thermal decomposition cause molecules to replace iron with nickel atoms, and reach the 700C+ temperature and pressure of 60 km down? (Two Sources...)
He also is ignorant of the fact that surface structural trands are invariably controlled by pre existing old trends. he also seems to think that island arc volcanoes are the result of deep heat sources and not subduction, ignoring a huge amount of evidence.
I haven't found reference to his belief on the origin of volcanoes themselves. He does state that they do emit much more gas than gas biogenic origin can explain. He's well aware of subduction and the tectonic faults, but points out that the resulting fractures offer routes for hydrocarbons to pass upward. So the same weak points along the Southeast Asia plate edges which cause volcanoes also cause hydrocarbons to become available near the surface. This is a different cause of volcanoes than one such as the Hawaiian "hot spot", whose cause I have not seen him mention (except that they also emit flammable gases...I don't know what possible biogenic source is there).
And he forgets that the earth has been completely molten and outgassed.
He didn't forget, he states that the Earth cold-formed with partial melting (see The Formation Process of the Earth). His specialty in astronomy might help him with that conclusion, as planetary accretion is studied in the field of astronomy more than it is in geology. We can also see that Venus retained a lot of carbon during its formation -- that atmosphere certainly didn't get boiled away.
And no, you can't see oil moving on 3D seismic, whatever the wall street journal says.
Try Google with "4D technique oil flow".
"4D seismic monitoring is the process of repeating 3D seismic surveys at a given site in time-lapse mode. This technique allows us to make 3D images of changes in dynamic subsurface properties as a function of time. In particular, images of heterogeneous fluid flow can be obtained that show spatial and temporal variation in fluid saturation, pressure and temperature."
You are obviously aware of the attraction of the New York Times' "All The News That's Fit To Print" slogan. Not all news sources can include everything, for various reasons which include reporting skills, sources, print space, editorial policy, and editor's moods. /., K5, Google News, mailing lists, Journals, and Blogs are well-known online publications with variations of such limits (editorial policy is particularly simple in blogs when the publisher, reporter and editor are the same person).