It appears you didn't read the entirety of my comment before replying. The time and cost to re-build a seized lab was highlighted as the primary consideration for whether this makes sense or not.
Actually, I did. You seem to have missed that I did was supply the reality behind your comments and highlight that it would be a complex and expensive process that you didn't seem to understand the realities of.
If the procedures for creating the materials samples or prototypes aren't being stored as data, then it can't work. So building and enforcing SOP's is a necessary step, but any ISO9000 manufacturing company is going to be doing that anyway.
And seemingly still don't understand the complexity and reality, instead falling back on the "it's easy to do from the keyboard" mentality.
Seriously, if you Yanks think this is the epitome of modern banking: we Europeans are doubling up in laughter here.
Seriously, that's because that's your default response due to your (IMO mistaken) belief that the way Europeans do anything is automagically superior to anyone else's way of doing things. And you'll tell that you anyone who stand still long enough to listen.
And then, like the hypocritical bastards you are, you'll whine when anyone else does the same thing.
We do things completely electronic here, by direct bank transfers. No need to take photographs of a paper cheque. In fact, I haven't seen a cheque since childhood (when an aunt from Australia sent one. We had a hell of a trouble cashing it).
Yes, taking away options and choices from people (for the benefit of the banks and corporations and governments who've convinced you it's actually for your benefit) is obviously superior to any other way of doing things.
If this is being implemented properly, everything is rigorously documented, stored centrally, backed up and moved to several other countries every night.
That's fine for your data, but your hardware, prototypes, material samples, etc... etc... can't be backed up nightly and sent to other countries.
If China or any other government does a hulksmash, then they lose that facility. They start another one elsewhere.
Sure you can 'just' start another one elsewhere. So long as you don't need money you don't have to replace hardware and equipment you had to leave behind. And so long as you can figure out how to replace any material samples or prototypes you had to leave behind. And make sure you keep a hot spare time machine running so you can travel back in time at your new facility and re-start all those long duration experiments and studies you had to leave behind.
I think you like most Slashdotters have forgotten that not everything in the world is virtual and trivially accomplished from your keyboard.
I couldn't easily move my woodshop across the *county* by just taking my data. Half my equipment is no longer in production. I've more than a few specialized jigs hand built to match that machinery. I've got wood that's been drying for over a year and that won't be ready to use for another. I've got dozens of sample boards of various finishes, finishing methods, and woods stored. Etc... Etc... Even if I did move everything, I'd be behind the efficiency curve for months while I worked out new storage locations, new machinery layout, new workflows...
I have helped move several small businesses (both retail and production), I can't even imagine how difficult it would be for a fully operational R&D facility of any significant size.
Yeah, that's why we make people like miners, metal workers, woodworkers, and others who work around artificially produced (and thus still sharp) dust wear personal protective equipment.
Yes, but they're directly breathing it in. One would think that not many people will be inhaling dust directly from the lunar surface, since there's no air to breathe.
You're the one who brought up breathing it.
It'd only be there by deposition on clothing, such as mentioned in the article. And I wouldn't wear a respirator in the mine's break room, or upstairs of my wood shop.
A mine's break room has filtered ventilation. If your woodshop is like mine (I.E. primarily a power tool user), you have a dust collector or a shop vac hooked up the machinery's dust ports, and possibly an air cleaner of some kind. Professional shops certainly have dust collectors and air cleaners.
And that's the thing - in the space suit changing and maintenance areas and in the maintenance bays for equipment brought in from outside, there's going to be a lot of surface dust. Which means there will be personal protective equipment and air cleaners in use, just like in dusty industrial environments here on earth. Lunar bases have much more in common with a mine or professional industrial woodshop than a hobbyist shop.
While I can't imagine there will be extreme isolation measures taken, there will definitely be some measures (like air showers or cleanside/dirtyside changing rooms) taken to keep dust out of the living areas. The long term hazards of breathing the dust, and to machinery are just too great.
Regolith is the geological name for for dust covered Lunar surface. Dust is the name for the dust. (Kinda like a beach is made up of sand.)
Basically, it's different enough from Earth sand and dust to be interesting, but Earth grit is still abrasive. You probably wouldn't have any more trouble with your lenses than you would on Earth.
Earth grit, which isn't exactly common outside of sandy or windblown areas, is abrasive. Earth dust, which like Lunar dust is ubiquitous, isn't. So to some extent you're comparing apples (ubiquitous non abrasive Earth dust) to oranges (ubiquitous abrasive Lunar dust.)
Wait... haven't we already sent people to the moon? If it was going to wreck our solar panels, lenses, or people, wouldn't we have already found that out?
We have already found out that in the very short term (think hours) Lunar dust is highly damaging to moving parts. much more so than terrestrial dust. (It even damages things that you wouldn't normally think of as a moving part - like folds in clothing, or between the fingers of gloves.) We don't really have enough experience with long terms operations in Lunar dust, especially in and around operations that will disturb the dust.
But it's pretty clear that the dust is going to be a major problem for equipment like the machine described in TFA, as well as for mining machines associated with recovering lunar water.
I think that humans won't have too much trouble with it as far as inhaling goes - it'll get trapped in mucus as well as all the other dust we inhale.
Yeah, that's why we make people like miners, metal workers, woodworkers, and others who work around artificially produced (and thus still sharp) dust wear personal protective equipment.
Re:Oh great, Sony
on
I Want My GTV
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· Score: 4, Insightful
But if that company is willing to walk away from China, instead of compromising
Let's wait until they actually do walk away from China before making grandiose claims about them walking away from China, k?
They need to remake the Ultima franchise from the beginning. Arguably they could just use the Dragon Age engine and toolset that Bioware just developed, though I would hope a proper Ultima game would have one seamless world as opposed to maps like Dragon Age. Someone needs to make this happen, like yesterday.
And people wonder why Hollywood, the record industry, and the publishing industry keep pumping out sequels, remakes, re-imaginings, and more, more, more of the same.
At one point, Richard Garriott declared himself to be ruler of the moon, based on him being the only non-government entity to own anything physically on the moon.
Well, a Grumman employee snuck a picture if his daughter onto Eagle's descent stage, and one of the astronauts lefts a bible on a rover seat, and another left a memorial [to fallen astronauts] statute... And that's just the ones we know about.
With superfast streaming and downloading, indie filmmakers will soon be able to effectively distribute feature films online and promote them using social media such as Facebook and Twitter.
Which means their already minuscule audience will be minuscule audiences who can stream and download faster.
The you fall into the "has an agenda or is bad at math" category and can safely be disregarded. Willing and cheerful denial of the facts is not a sign of intelligence.
And how do you know that these things have credibility on a specific subject covered by a paper? Sure they may have credibility in the aggregate but that is rarely what we are interested in. And how does someone with little to no knowledge of the field tell the difference?
How does someone with little or no knowledge tell the difference? By doing his due diligence and research and becoming knowledgeable in the field. Or by relying on the sources discussed in my original reply.
Journals are only as credible as the people who review the articles and the people who submit them. The same with texts. And experts. The Lancet published a paper by Wakefield et al in 1998. In 2004, ten of the 13 authors retracted their support, yet it took another six years for the Lancet to retract the study. Would you consider that highly respected peer reviewed journal to have credibility?
Yes, I would. But that's mostly because I recognize the difference between a single error and a pattern and I'm intelligent enough to not play games as you do.
By credibility I mean the degree of credibility, which includes total incredibility. I didn't mean to say that typical wikipedia articles are credible (nor that they are incredible).
If the typical article is not reliably credible, then the whole cannot be regarded as credible either can it?
And now for the entirely predictable posts claiming low power lighting causes cancer, are crap, and cause global warming...
As well as the equally predictable slew of posts filled with handwaving and smokescreens declaring that anyone who doesn't rush out and buy a cartload of CFL's is mentally and morally deficient, and that any problems they have with the bulbs are figments of their imagination. After all, if you most be intelligent and perceptive to see the Emperor's new clothes.
The first argument goes the mercury in CFLs is going to kill us. This argument comes up and is destroyed every time. It will suffice to say there is little mercury, isn't that dangerous and burning coal puts out a lot more.
It suffices to say "there is a little mercury" only to someone with an agenda or who is bad at math. "A little mercury" multiplied by " (eventually) millions of bulbs in service" equals "a lot of mercury potentially entering the environment". That coal produces more is irrelevant.
Established journals (peer reviewed or not as appropriate to the field) and/or news sources relative to the field. Acknowledged experts within the field. Acknowledged texts relative to the field.
If Wikipedia has any credibility at all, it's because it has cribbed from these sources (among many others).
In part the credibility of information maybe an external factor, determined by its origin and the media through which it is transmitted.
Translated: I saw it on the intertubes, so it must be true.
Its 'credibility' is also no doubt helped by it's high rank in searches. (In Google's case particularly, you'd have a hard time designing a site better suited to spamming the search engine results.)
But I think that part of the credibility is due to the information itself. By reading a wikipedia article, you typically get quite a good impression of its credibility, by the stylistic quality of the text, it's structure, presence/absence of references, and most importantly, the quality of the argumentation.
You must be reading a very different Wikipedia than I am, because I find none of those things to be true. The 'stylistic quality' is usually that of a committee of middle schoolers. The structure looks good, because it has an outline, but often repeats information and even more often presents it without any well thought out flow and organization.
Facebook is slowly turning into the WalMart equivalent for the internet. Sure, you could go to flickr for the photos, twitter for the updates, upcoming for the events, youtube/hulu for videos, gtalk/yahoo for IM, gmail to send messages
In other words, what Google and Yahoo! and many others have tried to do - become the One Site To Rule Them All.
Friending someone on MyFaceJournal isn't really any different than an undercover officer striking up a conversation with them while they're picking up something at their local convenience store. They're in public with no expectation of privacy.
Do you have a cite that actually supports your claim? The link you provide describes him a developing a process to refine uranium compounds into purified uranium, not processes to obtain rare earths.
When I follow the links from your linked article it does indeed describe the laboratory he founded as developing processes to process rare earths, but again your claim of using "a lot fewer resources than being discussed here" is not supported.
If these rare earths are so rare and valuable, and only going to become more so, why should the upfront cost matter? The plant should still make a huge profit, unless I am misunderstanding basic economics.
You're misunderstanding basic economics on two fronts;
High prices don't mean huge profits if there are high costs involved.
And there will be high costs involved here - due the need to commit funds years in advance to work through the regulatory process, the inevitable lawsuits from NIMBYs. acquisition of machinery, construction, and start up. The interest charges alone will amount to quite a sum.
Start making phones and motherboards in the US again. Would you pay $10 more for a Google Motherboard built in Iowa or Idaho over an Asus built in China if it was the same quality?
In the unlikely instance the price difference was that small, sure. But it won't be.
For instance, if you are a Sikh you are allowed to use a motorbike without a helmet since you have a turban in the way (although to be honest, in that case your violation doesn't harm anyone else).
Yes, if he's in an accident the higher amount of ER/hospital time he may require harms no one. After all, the man hours available in ERs and hospitals are infinite and virtually free of cost. (Well, to him anyways. The taxpayers pay.)
Not harming anyone else isn't the same as not having consequences for anyone else.
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Actually, I did. You seem to have missed that I did was supply the reality behind your comments and highlight that it would be a complex and expensive process that you didn't seem to understand the realities of.
And seemingly still don't understand the complexity and reality, instead falling back on the "it's easy to do from the keyboard" mentality.
Seriously, that's because that's your default response due to your (IMO mistaken) belief that the way Europeans do anything is automagically superior to anyone else's way of doing things. And you'll tell that you anyone who stand still long enough to listen.
And then, like the hypocritical bastards you are, you'll whine when anyone else does the same thing.
Yes, taking away options and choices from people (for the benefit of the banks and corporations and governments who've convinced you it's actually for your benefit) is obviously superior to any other way of doing things.
No, actually it's a *good* thing our legal system won't let you file rants and PR puff pieces as legal responses.
That's fine for your data, but your hardware, prototypes, material samples, etc... etc... can't be backed up nightly and sent to other countries.
Sure you can 'just' start another one elsewhere. So long as you don't need money you don't have to replace hardware and equipment you had to leave behind. And so long as you can figure out how to replace any material samples or prototypes you had to leave behind. And make sure you keep a hot spare time machine running so you can travel back in time at your new facility and re-start all those long duration experiments and studies you had to leave behind.
I think you like most Slashdotters have forgotten that not everything in the world is virtual and trivially accomplished from your keyboard.
I couldn't easily move my woodshop across the *county* by just taking my data. Half my equipment is no longer in production. I've more than a few specialized jigs hand built to match that machinery. I've got wood that's been drying for over a year and that won't be ready to use for another. I've got dozens of sample boards of various finishes, finishing methods, and woods stored. Etc... Etc... Even if I did move everything, I'd be behind the efficiency curve for months while I worked out new storage locations, new machinery layout, new workflows...
I have helped move several small businesses (both retail and production), I can't even imagine how difficult it would be for a fully operational R&D facility of any significant size.
You're the one who brought up breathing it.
A mine's break room has filtered ventilation. If your woodshop is like mine (I.E. primarily a power tool user), you have a dust collector or a shop vac hooked up the machinery's dust ports, and possibly an air cleaner of some kind. Professional shops certainly have dust collectors and air cleaners.
And that's the thing - in the space suit changing and maintenance areas and in the maintenance bays for equipment brought in from outside, there's going to be a lot of surface dust. Which means there will be personal protective equipment and air cleaners in use, just like in dusty industrial environments here on earth. Lunar bases have much more in common with a mine or professional industrial woodshop than a hobbyist shop.
While I can't imagine there will be extreme isolation measures taken, there will definitely be some measures (like air showers or cleanside/dirtyside changing rooms) taken to keep dust out of the living areas. The long term hazards of breathing the dust, and to machinery are just too great.
Regolith is the geological name for for dust covered Lunar surface. Dust is the name for the dust. (Kinda like a beach is made up of sand.)
Earth grit, which isn't exactly common outside of sandy or windblown areas, is abrasive. Earth dust, which like Lunar dust is ubiquitous, isn't. So to some extent you're comparing apples (ubiquitous non abrasive Earth dust) to oranges (ubiquitous abrasive Lunar dust.)
We have already found out that in the very short term (think hours) Lunar dust is highly damaging to moving parts. much more so than terrestrial dust. (It even damages things that you wouldn't normally think of as a moving part - like folds in clothing, or between the fingers of gloves.) We don't really have enough experience with long terms operations in Lunar dust, especially in and around operations that will disturb the dust.
But it's pretty clear that the dust is going to be a major problem for equipment like the machine described in TFA, as well as for mining machines associated with recovering lunar water.
Yeah, that's why we make people like miners, metal workers, woodworkers, and others who work around artificially produced (and thus still sharp) dust wear personal protective equipment.
Let's wait until they actually do walk away from China before making grandiose claims about them walking away from China, k?
And people wonder why Hollywood, the record industry, and the publishing industry keep pumping out sequels, remakes, re-imaginings, and more, more, more of the same.
Well, a Grumman employee snuck a picture if his daughter onto Eagle's descent stage, and one of the astronauts lefts a bible on a rover seat, and another left a memorial [to fallen astronauts] statute... And that's just the ones we know about.
So Garriot's claim is tenuous at best.
I've been waiting for this - because it's a rare organization that can long resist the desire to go political.
So much for their independence and reliability.
Which means their already minuscule audience will be minuscule audiences who can stream and download faster.
The you fall into the "has an agenda or is bad at math" category and can safely be disregarded. Willing and cheerful denial of the facts is not a sign of intelligence.
How does someone with little or no knowledge tell the difference? By doing his due diligence and research and becoming knowledgeable in the field. Or by relying on the sources discussed in my original reply.
Yes, I would. But that's mostly because I recognize the difference between a single error and a pattern and I'm intelligent enough to not play games as you do.
If the typical article is not reliably credible, then the whole cannot be regarded as credible either can it?
As well as the equally predictable slew of posts filled with handwaving and smokescreens declaring that anyone who doesn't rush out and buy a cartload of CFL's is mentally and morally deficient, and that any problems they have with the bulbs are figments of their imagination. After all, if you most be intelligent and perceptive to see the Emperor's new clothes.
It suffices to say "there is a little mercury" only to someone with an agenda or who is bad at math. "A little mercury" multiplied by " (eventually) millions of bulbs in service" equals "a lot of mercury potentially entering the environment". That coal produces more is irrelevant.
Established journals (peer reviewed or not as appropriate to the field) and/or news sources relative to the field. Acknowledged experts within the field. Acknowledged texts relative to the field.
If Wikipedia has any credibility at all, it's because it has cribbed from these sources (among many others).
Translated: I saw it on the intertubes, so it must be true.
Its 'credibility' is also no doubt helped by it's high rank in searches. (In Google's case particularly, you'd have a hard time designing a site better suited to spamming the search engine results.)
You must be reading a very different Wikipedia than I am, because I find none of those things to be true. The 'stylistic quality' is usually that of a committee of middle schoolers. The structure looks good, because it has an outline, but often repeats information and even more often presents it without any well thought out flow and organization.
In other words, what Google and Yahoo! and many others have tried to do - become the One Site To Rule Them All.
Friending someone on MyFaceJournal isn't really any different than an undercover officer striking up a conversation with them while they're picking up something at their local convenience store. They're in public with no expectation of privacy.
Do you have a cite that actually supports your claim? The link you provide describes him a developing a process to refine uranium compounds into purified uranium, not processes to obtain rare earths.
When I follow the links from your linked article it does indeed describe the laboratory he founded as developing processes to process rare earths, but again your claim of using "a lot fewer resources than being discussed here" is not supported.
You're misunderstanding basic economics on two fronts;
If I'm paying for their medical care (via taxes or insurance premiums), I have no problem with that.
That depends on the injury doesn't it? I.E. you are treating something as an absolute that is a variable.
In the unlikely instance the price difference was that small, sure. But it won't be.
Yes, if he's in an accident the higher amount of ER/hospital time he may require harms no one. After all, the man hours available in ERs and hospitals are infinite and virtually free of cost. (Well, to him anyways. The taxpayers pay.)
Not harming anyone else isn't the same as not having consequences for anyone else.