That's nice, but it reflects Tesla's work in his "dumb RF" period. Tesla's AC work was great, but his concept of RF was bogus.
It doesn't matter to the Tesla fanbois - everything he did and everything he touched was pure genius, always and forever, amen. Even the bits that are (to put it kindly) poorly documented, the rumors, the urban legends... If Tesla's name is attached, it's Holy Writ.
But how much will it cost to harvest the plastic from the ocean rather than creating it from scratch
Despite all the hype - there are no 'islands' of plastic garbage, just areas of the ocean with a few extra tenths of a gram of microscopic bits of plastic per cubic meter. This suggests that it will be very expensive indeed to collect and recycle the plastic.
What about Alpha Centauri? I suppose the binary nature of the star system could make it hard to detect any planets there.
No, since we know of the existence and orbital period of the two bodies, all it takes is a little extra number crunching to removes those wobbles from the data. It's pretty straightforward signal analysis. That the frequency of those wobbles will be different from the frequency of planetary wobbles just makes it easier.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess than since I'm 44 years old there's a good chance older than you, so don't talk down to me like I'm your junior.
If you don't want to be talked down to - then don't make ignorant political posts.
Case in point:
Stop injecting politics into crap that's not political. I was discussing internet bandwidth, not the November general election. If I were eating and said "MMM, good cheeseburger!" you'll find a f'ing way to make it about Obama.
Since the original poster didn't mention politics...
STFU
Illustrating neatly why you were, and should be talked down to. You're an immature over entitled jackass.
Good. Nice to see plutonium used for more worthwhile endeavours than nuclear weapons.
That's like saying "Good. Nice to see aluminum used for more worthwhile endeavours than nuclear weapons". It's not insightful, it's ludicrous - the isotope of Plutonium used in RTG's is useless for bombs, and the isotope used in bombs is useless for RTG's.
As a dinosaur, I always have in the back of my mind the modular design of the computer. PC's were originally sold to us on expandability - the ISA slots.
And back in the day when computers were wheezing little two bangers - that expandability was vitally important. Not so much any more. This is 2012, not 1992 when we'd run through half a dozen video generations, half a dozen processor generations, half a dozen modem generations... Except for hardcore gamers, the computer is more-or-less a stable product compared to user needs now than is was then. I've had this computer now for seven years - and it still does all I need it to do. (The *only* reason I'm considering replacing it is because XP is dropping off the list of supported OS's for my major applications.) The rig on the next desk over, which I bought because this one was underpowered for MMO's is five years old... Even the younger machine has lasted literally five times as long as any single configuration I've ever owned before.
And unfortunately as I age, I am slowly but surely moving into a very niche market.
You've always been a niche market. People have always wanted a machine they could plug in, turn on, and have it just work - and Apple, and Dell, and HP, and Gateway, and... a long list of lesser lights have made a great deal of money selling preconfigured turnkey machines to the masses for a very long time indeed.
if the tea party losers would shut up for a moment, you can get DOWNTOWN point A to DOWNTOWN point B in very fast time, faster than a plane taking into consideration the taxi to the two airports of point A and point B
Sure, if the downtown's are fairly close to each other... Say, less than 300 miles apart. Much beyond that, and the 200mph train starts to lag more and more behind the 500mph plane. The problem is, outside of the Bos-Wash corridor - there's practically no place in the US where there are major cities that close together. (Not that most destinations are downtown anyways. Nowadays it's just as likely to be further out toward the fringes where costs are lower.)
rail used to be something amazing in my country. we let it rot
Sure, we used to have "amazing" passenger rail systems in the country (if you could afford to travel in a compartment, otherwise it was not all the comfortable)... but it bled money from every pore and opening. The railroads only ran passenger services as long as they did because they believed the loss leader served as valuable advertising for the freight services. It rotted because nobody could afford to maintain it. The only reason Amtrak makes any money at all is because of a loophole - it's limited by law to intercity trains, and the Northwest Corridor is dense enough to allow it operate "intercity" trains that are actually commuter trains.
And that's another huge problem with high speed passenger rail in the US - it's simply going to be too expensive to build to recoup the costs from ticket revenue.
This is like leaving Philadelphia's 30th Street Station at 10 a.m. and arriving in Atlanta by 3 p.m.
Current flight times between the two cities can be as low as two hours and a handful of minutes according to Expedia - three hours faster than your much vaunted train. (And of the longer flights, the majority are still faster than the train.) If you make the minimal effort needed to avoid traveling at peak/rush hour times.... you don't actually save any time on the train. Except for flying the first day planes were flying after 9/11, it's never taken me more than forty five minutes to park and get through security, usually it's under half an hour. (And if we build high speed rail, security is going to be there.)
tea party morons: please shut up and die and allow the USA to become a modern country. thanks
No, the morons are those who insist that high speed rail is the solution while ignoring (or being blithely ignorant of) the actual facts.
The American approach instead is to use the adversarial court system as the primary means of regulation. If there were a suspected auto defect, for example, a European government would investigate it, and then based on the results of their investigation would issue orders to fix the problem (if real) and/or fines. In the American system, instead, it is up to people who allege they have been harmed to bring a lawsuit and prove their case in court.
You should have picked a better example - because product recalls due to lawsuits are pretty rare. Generally, they're either voluntary (by the manufacturer), suggested (without a lawsuit) by a third party (such as a consumer watchdog group), or imposed by the regulatory agencies you claim don't exist.
And instead, replaces them with bulky electrical power sources. There's no free lunch
Nuclear power sources can be extremely high power, for relatively little size and weight.
Maybe you should actually look up the weight of some actual spaceborne nuclear power sources, they're quite heavy for any significant power. (Curiosity's weigh over 100lb each, with an output on only 150 watts.) Not to mention that none exist down in the size range of the satellites this thruster system is designed for.
NASA is upgrading RTG to more efficient Stirling radioisotope generators (SRG), and full-fledged nuclear reactors are sometimes used, with an even better power to weight ratio.
NASA has some pie-in-the-sky research to build SRG's, true. But they aren't flying anytime soon.
Not to mention that regardless of efficiency, they're very expensive - and, again, not going to be used on the small cheap satellites this thruster array is designed for.
"The tiny, flat design could obviate the need for bulky propellant tanks."
And instead, replaces them with bulky electrical power sources. There's no free lunch - whether the thrust comes from electricity or from reacting chemicals, it's got to come from somewhere.
Though, if you actually read TFA, you find there actually is a "fuel tank" built into the thruster... But, as the tank is very small, means a very limited lifetime.
Translation: "I don't actually know anything, but I have admantium blinders, rose colored glasses, and a gas mask to protect myself from the smoke I'm blowing".
But seriously, in this era of re-discovering and correctly honouring scientists for their hard-work and genius (like Alan Turing is now rightly getting, for example) why is Tesla still languishing?
No, Alan Turing has been overhyped for nearly thirty years, and the same goes for Tesla.
This type of blimp also has Naval uses... Such as coastline surveillance, or keeping an eye on a naval base. Or shadowing a ship/boat or formation at sea. Or flying top cover for one of our formations (like a loitering supply or amphibious group).
To echo what he says; just because it's low tech doesn't mean it doesn't have uses in high tech warfare.
Oh come on. I can't imagine that this $400 "satellite" has a propulsion system of any kind. It will deorbit in months if not weeks, and burn up on reentry in to the atmosphere.
It doesn't need a propulsion system to avoid deorbiting in weeks or months - it just needs to be put in a high enough orbit that atmospheric drag is minimized. Out beyond a couple of hundred miles, you're into a lifetime of years if not decades. Out a couple of thousand and you start getting into the centuries if not millenia range.
Not to mention, there's a huge range between a few hundred miles and geosynchronous that's all-but-empty because the orbits aren't all that useful.
First, a NASA administrator would be named to a ten year term. The intent is to provide some continuity in the way the space agency is run and to remove it, as much as possible, from the vagaries of politics. GOOD.
Actually, neutral... or at best meaningless. The NASA administrator is already about as insulated from politics as you can get and be an appointed official. (They tend to serve multiple administrations, regardless of party.) The problem, historically, with the office of the administrator is finding someone competent to take it. He's at the mercy of Congressional and Executive meddling, the fickle winds of public opinion, and gets all of the blame and none of the credit. It's a job that almost nobody wants.
-NASA could get stuck with a bad administrator As a part of the executive branch, the president himself has oversight. Also, very unlikely; you dont get picked to run nasa if you're a bad manager
Given the problems in finding a NASA administrator in the first place... Yes, bad managers get picked because they're the best that could be found. Both James Beggs and Richard Truly were disasters for NASA. Dan Goldin was marginal at best...
-multi-year budgets might be a bit unconstitutional On what grounds?
On the grounds that the Constitution has historically been interpreted as prohibiting multiyear commitments (because it specifies an annual budget) and binding a future Congress's behavior.
NASA planners would know how much they have to spend four or so years going forward and would not have to worry about being cut off at the knees by Congressional appropriators year after year.
Not gonna happen without overhauling how Congress doles out money.... which is a two step process currently. First, the Budget is passed, then an Appropriations Bill is passed authorizing the spending of money. Congress meddles at both steps, as does the Administration.
Basically, this is a bill that doesn't actually solve any problems, or even give any indication that the framers actually understand what the problems are in the first place.
Or alternatively perhaps we'll go back to goods that are designed to be repaired more easily instead of being junked just because 1 capacitor blew that could be replaced for pennies.
Pay your labor force pennies, and buy the cheapest possible crap capacitor... and you'll get your replacement costs down to a few nickels.
Has the "We The People" website had one iota of influence on ANY issue?
Nope. It was nothing but a shrewdly calculated move to appeal to the base - something that President Obama and his handlers are grandmasters at. The only difference between the Democrats and Republicans is that Democrats have kept their "grassroots" campaign in house rather than outsourcing it.
That wasn't true of the US from WWII to about 1960. Truman and Eisenhower were modest people. Truman ran a hat store. Eisenhower was a night supervisor at a creamery before he got into West Point. That period was probably the most successful in American history.
My, what rose colored glasses you have.
Truman was a dyed-in-the-wool machine politician who inherited the presidency from Roosevelt - and he was only in the position because of deals made in smoke filled back rooms and political patronage. Eisenhower was a war hero who was drafted (after much struggle) by the Republican Party to exploit his popularity and give them a chance to break the long dominance of the Democratic party.
Not to mention that the House and Senate were already dominated by career politicians.
A few dollars of support to a local programmer (in conjunction with the aforementioned accountant to keep things moving in the right direction) will keep you out of the legal ditches as well as ACTUALLY support FOSS software.
Any programmer reliable and knowledgeable enough to risk your business over is going to cost you more than a few dollars... (And don't pay him in food either, that cost mounts fast.) The there's the costs of getting the accountant to write up all the law and code changes in a format the programmer can grok and convert into reliable stable code... (And doing so annually, *at a minimum*.)
In general, there is a price to pay for freedom.
And it's a much higher price than most people realize... And you're still not free, not really. The experienced programmer or the accountant you've finally gotten trained moves on or gets hit by a bus, and you're well and truly screwed.
Use FOSS if you want to - but go into it with your eyes open, and know you're stepping into what may be a minefield.
We knew of plate tectonics long before we had that kind of precision. OTOH, we knew of it because of intensive geological explorations.... which is also impractical on Mars for the near future.
Slashdot Mirror
Is a valuable part of the security tool box - the bad guys can't be prepared for a security measure they aren't aware of.
It doesn't matter to the Tesla fanbois - everything he did and everything he touched was pure genius, always and forever, amen. Even the bits that are (to put it kindly) poorly documented, the rumors, the urban legends... If Tesla's name is attached, it's Holy Writ.
Despite all the hype - there are no 'islands' of plastic garbage, just areas of the ocean with a few extra tenths of a gram of microscopic bits of plastic per cubic meter. This suggests that it will be very expensive indeed to collect and recycle the plastic.
No, since we know of the existence and orbital period of the two bodies, all it takes is a little extra number crunching to removes those wobbles from the data. It's pretty straightforward signal analysis. That the frequency of those wobbles will be different from the frequency of planetary wobbles just makes it easier.
If you don't want to be talked down to - then don't make ignorant political posts.
Case in point:
Since the original poster didn't mention politics...
Illustrating neatly why you were, and should be talked down to. You're an immature over entitled jackass.
That's like saying "Good. Nice to see aluminum used for more worthwhile endeavours than nuclear weapons". It's not insightful, it's ludicrous - the isotope of Plutonium used in RTG's is useless for bombs, and the isotope used in bombs is useless for RTG's.
And back in the day when computers were wheezing little two bangers - that expandability was vitally important. Not so much any more. This is 2012, not 1992 when we'd run through half a dozen video generations, half a dozen processor generations, half a dozen modem generations... Except for hardcore gamers, the computer is more-or-less a stable product compared to user needs now than is was then. I've had this computer now for seven years - and it still does all I need it to do. (The *only* reason I'm considering replacing it is because XP is dropping off the list of supported OS's for my major applications.) The rig on the next desk over, which I bought because this one was underpowered for MMO's is five years old... Even the younger machine has lasted literally five times as long as any single configuration I've ever owned before.
You've always been a niche market. People have always wanted a machine they could plug in, turn on, and have it just work - and Apple, and Dell, and HP, and Gateway, and... a long list of lesser lights have made a great deal of money selling preconfigured turnkey machines to the masses for a very long time indeed.
Sure, if the downtown's are fairly close to each other... Say, less than 300 miles apart. Much beyond that, and the 200mph train starts to lag more and more behind the 500mph plane. The problem is, outside of the Bos-Wash corridor - there's practically no place in the US where there are major cities that close together. (Not that most destinations are downtown anyways. Nowadays it's just as likely to be further out toward the fringes where costs are lower.)
Sure, we used to have "amazing" passenger rail systems in the country (if you could afford to travel in a compartment, otherwise it was not all the comfortable)... but it bled money from every pore and opening. The railroads only ran passenger services as long as they did because they believed the loss leader served as valuable advertising for the freight services. It rotted because nobody could afford to maintain it. The only reason Amtrak makes any money at all is because of a loophole - it's limited by law to intercity trains, and the Northwest Corridor is dense enough to allow it operate "intercity" trains that are actually commuter trains.
And that's another huge problem with high speed passenger rail in the US - it's simply going to be too expensive to build to recoup the costs from ticket revenue.
Current flight times between the two cities can be as low as two hours and a handful of minutes according to Expedia - three hours faster than your much vaunted train. (And of the longer flights, the majority are still faster than the train.) If you make the minimal effort needed to avoid traveling at peak/rush hour times.... you don't actually save any time on the train. Except for flying the first day planes were flying after 9/11, it's never taken me more than forty five minutes to park and get through security, usually it's under half an hour. (And if we build high speed rail, security is going to be there.)
No, the morons are those who insist that high speed rail is the solution while ignoring (or being blithely ignorant of) the actual facts.
You should have picked a better example - because product recalls due to lawsuits are pretty rare. Generally, they're either voluntary (by the manufacturer), suggested (without a lawsuit) by a third party (such as a consumer watchdog group), or imposed by the regulatory agencies you claim don't exist.
That's essentially what Google has been trying to do with books... so it should be OK for Facebook to do it.
That's 30kw thermal - only about 500w electrical. Learn to read you moron.
OK, you have me there, it's been a while since I looked into them.
Not wrong on both counts... rather utterly disconnected from reality on both counts.
Maybe you should actually look up the weight of some actual spaceborne nuclear power sources, they're quite heavy for any significant power. (Curiosity's weigh over 100lb each, with an output on only 150 watts.) Not to mention that none exist down in the size range of the satellites this thruster system is designed for.
NASA has some pie-in-the-sky research to build SRG's, true. But they aren't flying anytime soon.
Not to mention that regardless of efficiency, they're very expensive - and, again, not going to be used on the small cheap satellites this thruster array is designed for.
Solar panels are still heavy and bulky. Duh.
"The tiny, flat design could obviate the need for bulky propellant tanks."
And instead, replaces them with bulky electrical power sources. There's no free lunch - whether the thrust comes from electricity or from reacting chemicals, it's got to come from somewhere.
Though, if you actually read TFA, you find there actually is a "fuel tank" built into the thruster... But, as the tank is very small, means a very limited lifetime.
Translation: "I don't actually know anything, but I have admantium blinders, rose colored glasses, and a gas mask to protect myself from the smoke I'm blowing".
No, Alan Turing has been overhyped for nearly thirty years, and the same goes for Tesla.
Yeah, there really are that many people who are that clueless. I shouldn't be surprised, but I am.
If the US wanted Assange, they'd extradite him directly from the UK.
To add to what Baloroth says;
This type of blimp also has Naval uses... Such as coastline surveillance, or keeping an eye on a naval base. Or shadowing a ship/boat or formation at sea. Or flying top cover for one of our formations (like a loitering supply or amphibious group).
To echo what he says; just because it's low tech doesn't mean it doesn't have uses in high tech warfare.
It doesn't need a propulsion system to avoid deorbiting in weeks or months - it just needs to be put in a high enough orbit that atmospheric drag is minimized. Out beyond a couple of hundred miles, you're into a lifetime of years if not decades. Out a couple of thousand and you start getting into the centuries if not millenia range.
Not to mention, there's a huge range between a few hundred miles and geosynchronous that's all-but-empty because the orbits aren't all that useful.
Actually, neutral... or at best meaningless. The NASA administrator is already about as insulated from politics as you can get and be an appointed official. (They tend to serve multiple administrations, regardless of party.) The problem, historically, with the office of the administrator is finding someone competent to take it. He's at the mercy of Congressional and Executive meddling, the fickle winds of public opinion, and gets all of the blame and none of the credit. It's a job that almost nobody wants.
Given the problems in finding a NASA administrator in the first place... Yes, bad managers get picked because they're the best that could be found. Both James Beggs and Richard Truly were disasters for NASA. Dan Goldin was marginal at best...
On the grounds that the Constitution has historically been interpreted as prohibiting multiyear commitments (because it specifies an annual budget) and binding a future Congress's behavior.
Not gonna happen without overhauling how Congress doles out money.... which is a two step process currently. First, the Budget is passed, then an Appropriations Bill is passed authorizing the spending of money. Congress meddles at both steps, as does the Administration.
Basically, this is a bill that doesn't actually solve any problems, or even give any indication that the framers actually understand what the problems are in the first place.
Pay your labor force pennies, and buy the cheapest possible crap capacitor... and you'll get your replacement costs down to a few nickels.
Nope. It was nothing but a shrewdly calculated move to appeal to the base - something that President Obama and his handlers are grandmasters at. The only difference between the Democrats and Republicans is that Democrats have kept their "grassroots" campaign in house rather than outsourcing it.
My, what rose colored glasses you have.
Truman was a dyed-in-the-wool machine politician who inherited the presidency from Roosevelt - and he was only in the position because of deals made in smoke filled back rooms and political patronage. Eisenhower was a war hero who was drafted (after much struggle) by the Republican Party to exploit his popularity and give them a chance to break the long dominance of the Democratic party.
Not to mention that the House and Senate were already dominated by career politicians.
Any programmer reliable and knowledgeable enough to risk your business over is going to cost you more than a few dollars... (And don't pay him in food either, that cost mounts fast.) The there's the costs of getting the accountant to write up all the law and code changes in a format the programmer can grok and convert into reliable stable code... (And doing so annually, *at a minimum*.)
And it's a much higher price than most people realize... And you're still not free, not really. The experienced programmer or the accountant you've finally gotten trained moves on or gets hit by a bus, and you're well and truly screwed.
Use FOSS if you want to - but go into it with your eyes open, and know you're stepping into what may be a minefield.
We knew of plate tectonics long before we had that kind of precision. OTOH, we knew of it because of intensive geological explorations.... which is also impractical on Mars for the near future.