Sorry to be so pedantic and punchy in correcting this, but I think it's a little annoying - bordering on delusional - how often slashdot people, reddit people, etc. give Tesla and SpaceX credit for things far, far beyond what they've actually accomplished so far. Those companies have impressive potential, but they're **far** from replacing Chrysler, NASA, Lockheed, or any other the other entities in their markets.
Mod the parent up - the grandparent is frankly delusional in ranking Tesla among the "Big Three". A quick Google search shows there's over three dozen dealer groups who sell more cars per year than Tesla has built in the last decade. (The largest dealer group alone sold 318,000 cars in 2014 - versus 78,000 Model S sedans over the last three years.)
On geologic time scales, that's true. On time scales relevant to human occupation and terraforming, it's not an issue.
However, on the timescales relevant to human occupation and terraforming... the fallout from the (tens of?) thousands of thermonuclear weapons is very much an issue. To have any significant effect, they'll have to be either near surface (the second worst for fallout) or surface (the worst) bursts. And no, "clean" weapons won't really make much of a difference. They're only "clean" in comparison, by any rational standard they're nasty dirty.
One only needs to watch the drek on the National Geographic channel -- an endless parade of shockumentaries and "reality" TV -- to see the lowest common denominator at which Rupert Murdoch is aiming. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we can also expect as the future of National Geographic Magazine. Loads of articles intended to shock, articles on the latest travels of the celebrities du jour, plenty of paid product placements, and precisely no actual science.
As I'm seeing discussion of this across the web, I'm starting to wonder how many people commenting have actually read National Geographic Magazine anytime in the last three decades. The level of science there has been steadily decreasing for a very long time - replaced slowly by adventure reporting not entirely unbiased "issue" reporting. On the other hand, the bias matches that of liberal/libertarian demographic that makes up a good part of the/. demographic, so it's probably been invisible to them. Which also explains why so many are mourning a mistaken image, rather than seeing it for the drek it has become. The science based National Geographic was bedridden by the 80's, comatose by the 90's, and has been on life support machines since the 00's.
Just like Discover, Scientific American, and Omni before it.
Why? Because real science is fucking boring, so boring that even those supposedly interested in it failed to notice it slipping away. It's no surprise to me that same demographic worships at the faux science altars of Mythbusters, Alton Brown, Bill Nye, and Niel DeGrasse Tyson - they want science, but only if it's tarted up, made entertaining, and reduced to sound bites they can pass around like cargo cultists. On Slashdot there's a constant refrain about the slipping position of science in American culture, and while it's often blamed on the conservatives and the Religious Right... Look to your mirrors and consider carefully the glass house in which you dwell.
And, as usual, the truth will be modded down - because it hurts.
This all sounds like what many companies would do when faced with an upstart competitor - basically what's known as "playing hardball".
The American Egg Board isn't a company - it's a marketing consortium. And such consortiums are specifically prohibited by USDA regulations from engaging in smear campaigns.
I used to be a bench tech, repairing consumer electronics (chiefly VCRs, but stereos, preamps, cassette decks, etc.. as well) and, outside of head cleanings (which are also tricky on helical scanning head), idler/belt replacements, or minor alignments, the repairs I made were typically outside the capability of the average buyer (and how many people have an oscilloscope and function generator in their house?)
I used to be a service writer for a repair service, and I have to agree with you - the degree of DIY repairs in the past isn't nearly what the golden rosy past crowd here on/. seems to think. The/. demographic are, in the main, tinkerers and it simply doesn't occur to them that most people aren't.
Also, if schematics were made available upon request (an email for example), that would probably nip a lot of the impulsive weekend hackers in the bud while still allowing serious techs access to them.
That's the real problem with planned obsolescence and the unavailability of information and parts - the death of the authorized service center and the resulting loss of jobs. This isn't just consumer electronics, it's a broad base of consumer goods - everything from cars to appliances.
To Dani's comment, I'll just add that, the day that an asteroid assay is done and proves that the thing is actually more than 1% platinum, or any other of the many proposed ways to make space economically interesting proves out, the land rush will be on.
There is no mineral or resource valuable enough that you wouldn't got broke bringing it back to Earth - even if it were stacked in neat little ingots so you wouldn't have to refine it, just open the hatch and shovel it in. None. Zip. Zero. Nada.
And it has to be a front surface mirror lest the substrate or any protective coverings or coatings absorb the laser energy and negate the point of having a mirror in the first place... I.E. the most difficult kind of mirror to keep as clean and flawless as it has to be to provide the desired protection.
Seriously... designing stores to increase/maximize sales and profits rather than for customer convenience is old, old news. (Not like 1980 old, more like 1890 old.)
It takes pretty impressive doublethink to suggest that pessimism about a hypothetical nuclear exchange that the government's own strategists were talking about in terms of 'mutually assured destruction' and 'deterrence' is somehow a product of propaganda.
You've got your timeline all screwed up... The papers are dated 1959, when the "official" position was still (more-or-less) that a nuclear exchange with the Soviets was winnable and the effects of Tailgunner Joe's Red Scare still lingered on the political landscape. "Mutual destruction" and "deterrence" wouldn't become the primary US strategy until the Kennedy administration.
Also, check out your local meetups via meetup.com . Good luck
This - no matter what the hobby, working face to face with others is always useful. Doubly so for a real world hobby where you can go check out their work or bring your stuff to a meet to ask questions.
But the biggest thing in this respect, is to work with your relative.
* contender against the C-5 Galaxy for a military transport, against which it lost * developed with money from the military, but nooo, never got subsidies (as is always held against Airbus)
Wrong on both counts. The Boeing aircraft that would have become the C5 was an entirely separate project, and the 747 was entirely an internal (and civilian) project.
* ultimately sank its first customer, Pan Am, as they never really recovered from the costs of introducing that airplane
Virtually every other nasa mission has the same budget profile of expecting early failure so not budgeting in the costs of maintaining the mission.
That may have been the case decades ago when you were there, but you haven't been keeping up with the news - fully funded extended missions are now the norm.
But conventional ferric oxide tapes would have melted in the sterilization process, so they took a page from Hitler's scientists who pioneered magnetic recording on magnetic stainless steel tapes.
The use of steel tapes was indeed pioneered in Germany - but in 1924, while Hitler was in prison.
Radiation damage to integrated electronics in satellites was a big problem at the time, and I'm not sure why that's different now, but in any case they decided to use core memory rather than chip memory. (hence the term "core dump" for all you youngsters).
It was a known, and well managed problem, by the time the Viking's were designed.
Only this wasn't your grandmother's knitting style core memory but rather the cores were applied by evaporating the magnetic material onto the wires allowing a tight radiation impervious memory mesh to be synthesized.
That's called plated wire memory, and it was actually very common in aerospace applications.
Look, I'm an American but the summary is a ludicrous troll.
Hell, the article is a ludicrous troll. The author speaks of "analog gauges", but fails to mention that digital cockpits are standard on new builds (and have been for over a decade) as well as being available for retrofit on older models. He also fails to mention that while it's not the leader, the 747-800 is still selling quite well.
Sure, there's a "whole lotta red" if you just look... and you're the kind who gives out blue ribbons for just trying. In reality, if you actually read rather than just comparing the visual count of flags, a lot of those "red" probes were complete failures.
And that's the story of Soviet era space exploration in a nutshell - they achieved some impressive firsts, but they were also virtually completely unable to follow up on them. Partly because of their technological lag, partly because of budget problems, partly because they kept pushing for missions to fly on certain dates (such as May Day) or before anyone else rather than when the spacecraft was ready.
That is not an example. Do a little research before making such an extravagant claim.
Don't hold me to a standard you refuse to hold yourself to mate.
I'm not aware of a car on the market today that hasn't been recalled for something in the past 2-3 years.
Ah, I see that you're unaware that cars are only a very small part of "industries". Or, you're trying to retroactively limit your former claim of "what industries?" to "what automobiles?". No dice.
The papers described here are not necessarily completely bogus, however the authors gamed the review system to get them in. Whether the science was crap or not is not clear. Cheating the peer review system suggests there is a chance of the paper being fabricated completely but that does not guarantee it.
Nice - you act like all recalls should be held accountable, but hold the papers to an entirely different standard.
Pretty much every one. That's why recalls are such big news - they're actually pretty rare compared to the volume of products. And recalls for products that simply don't work (the equivalent of faked papers) as opposed to one or more features not working are practically non existent.
Slashdot Mirror
Mod the parent up - the grandparent is frankly delusional in ranking Tesla among the "Big Three". A quick Google search shows there's over three dozen dealer groups who sell more cars per year than Tesla has built in the last decade. (The largest dealer group alone sold 318,000 cars in 2014 - versus 78,000 Model S sedans over the last three years.)
There is that indeed.
The public isn't interested in space, period.
The past N media spectaculars (fiction or non) didn't change that, the N+1th won't either. There's no camel's back for the straw to break.
However, on the timescales relevant to human occupation and terraforming... the fallout from the (tens of?) thousands of thermonuclear weapons is very much an issue. To have any significant effect, they'll have to be either near surface (the second worst for fallout) or surface (the worst) bursts. And no, "clean" weapons won't really make much of a difference. They're only "clean" in comparison, by any rational standard they're nasty dirty.
Am I the only one that think that Elon Musk has crossed the line from visionary to full blown nutjob?
No, they're long out of the "real" documentary business.
As I'm seeing discussion of this across the web, I'm starting to wonder how many people commenting have actually read National Geographic Magazine anytime in the last three decades. The level of science there has been steadily decreasing for a very long time - replaced slowly by adventure reporting not entirely unbiased "issue" reporting. On the other hand, the bias matches that of liberal/libertarian demographic that makes up a good part of the /. demographic, so it's probably been invisible to them. Which also explains why so many are mourning a mistaken image, rather than seeing it for the drek it has become. The science based National Geographic was bedridden by the 80's, comatose by the 90's, and has been on life support machines since the 00's.
Just like Discover, Scientific American, and Omni before it.
Why? Because real science is fucking boring, so boring that even those supposedly interested in it failed to notice it slipping away. It's no surprise to me that same demographic worships at the faux science altars of Mythbusters, Alton Brown, Bill Nye, and Niel DeGrasse Tyson - they want science, but only if it's tarted up, made entertaining, and reduced to sound bites they can pass around like cargo cultists. On Slashdot there's a constant refrain about the slipping position of science in American culture, and while it's often blamed on the conservatives and the Religious Right... Look to your mirrors and consider carefully the glass house in which you dwell.
And, as usual, the truth will be modded down - because it hurts.
The American Egg Board isn't a company - it's a marketing consortium. And such consortiums are specifically prohibited by USDA regulations from engaging in smear campaigns.
I used to be a service writer for a repair service, and I have to agree with you - the degree of DIY repairs in the past isn't nearly what the golden rosy past crowd here on /. seems to think. The /. demographic are, in the main, tinkerers and it simply doesn't occur to them that most people aren't.
That's the real problem with planned obsolescence and the unavailability of information and parts - the death of the authorized service center and the resulting loss of jobs. This isn't just consumer electronics, it's a broad base of consumer goods - everything from cars to appliances.
I live in WA, out on the peninsula, and I don't think any local store carries anything that strong. :)
Given the glacial pace and lack of ambition the Chinese have displayed so far... whatever you're smoking in order to believe this has to be illegal.
The Soyuz capsule has pretty much no spare volume for carrying cargo.
There is no mineral or resource valuable enough that you wouldn't got broke bringing it back to Earth - even if it were stacked in neat little ingots so you wouldn't have to refine it, just open the hatch and shovel it in. None. Zip. Zero. Nada.
And it has to be a front surface mirror lest the substrate or any protective coverings or coatings absorb the laser energy and negate the point of having a mirror in the first place... I.E. the most difficult kind of mirror to keep as clean and flawless as it has to be to provide the desired protection.
I'd almost forgotten about that nutcase and his obsession with Skylon.
Seriously... designing stores to increase/maximize sales and profits rather than for customer convenience is old, old news. (Not like 1980 old, more like 1890 old.)
You've got your timeline all screwed up... The papers are dated 1959, when the "official" position was still (more-or-less) that a nuclear exchange with the Soviets was winnable and the effects of Tailgunner Joe's Red Scare still lingered on the political landscape. "Mutual destruction" and "deterrence" wouldn't become the primary US strategy until the Kennedy administration.
This - no matter what the hobby, working face to face with others is always useful. Doubly so for a real world hobby where you can go check out their work or bring your stuff to a meet to ask questions.
But the biggest thing in this respect, is to work with your relative.
Wrong on both counts. The Boeing aircraft that would have become the C5 was an entirely separate project, and the 747 was entirely an internal (and civilian) project.
[[Citation Needed]]
That may have been the case decades ago when you were there, but you haven't been keeping up with the news - fully funded extended missions are now the norm.
The use of steel tapes was indeed pioneered in Germany - but in 1924, while Hitler was in prison.
It was a known, and well managed problem, by the time the Viking's were designed.
That's called plated wire memory, and it was actually very common in aerospace applications.
Hell, the article is a ludicrous troll. The author speaks of "analog gauges", but fails to mention that digital cockpits are standard on new builds (and have been for over a decade) as well as being available for retrofit on older models. He also fails to mention that while it's not the leader, the 747-800 is still selling quite well.
Sure, there's a "whole lotta red" if you just look... and you're the kind who gives out blue ribbons for just trying. In reality, if you actually read rather than just comparing the visual count of flags, a lot of those "red" probes were complete failures.
And that's the story of Soviet era space exploration in a nutshell - they achieved some impressive firsts, but they were also virtually completely unable to follow up on them. Partly because of their technological lag, partly because of budget problems, partly because they kept pushing for missions to fly on certain dates (such as May Day) or before anyone else rather than when the spacecraft was ready.
Don't hold me to a standard you refuse to hold yourself to mate.
Ah, I see that you're unaware that cars are only a very small part of "industries". Or, you're trying to retroactively limit your former claim of "what industries?" to "what automobiles?". No dice.
Nice - you act like all recalls should be held accountable, but hold the papers to an entirely different standard.
Can you say "bias"? I thought you could.
Kindly fuck off.
Try reading what you write, and I quote - "It doesn't even have the cool-and-unprecedented factor".
Pretty much every one. That's why recalls are such big news - they're actually pretty rare compared to the volume of products. And recalls for products that simply don't work (the equivalent of faked papers) as opposed to one or more features not working are practically non existent.