I know one of the guys who helped debunk the thing way back when, and there's so much disgust for the original guys that it seems to be a foregone conclusion that cold fusion can never work.
Most cold fusion press releases sound like this:
We looked for excess neutrons
We found excess neutrons!
?????
Cold fusion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Most cold fusion efforts seem to be little better than alchemy - tossing and mixing things together and then describing the effects in mystical technobabble. It would help a lot if they acted and sounded more like actual scientists with an actual theory of what they were trying to accomplish and actual test protocols describing how they intend to test elements of the theory and what the expected results are and why.
It doesn't help that cold fusion community has had problems in peer reviewing themselves (when all your 'peers' are True Believers, peer review really isn't worth much) and (worse yet) in demonstrating repeatable experiments.
I think the original claim got a lot of fury from people who not only dismissed the research, but the way they announced it via press conference.
The original (P&F) announcement generated a lot of fury - because the announcement was all they had. No papers, reviewed or not, no test protocols, nothing but a press release. It took a long time for any details to become available, as P&F's attention was concentrated on self aggrandizement rather than science.
In this case, the researchers are doing the right things - publishing first in peer reviewed journals, making presentations at the major conferences, getting the results validated by other experts.
Except they haven't actually had the results validated... They've produced something that looks like neutron tracks, and had an expert go "yeah, that looks like neutron tracks", but that's a long way from "is confirmed to be neutron tracks". This announcement sounds dangerously like P&F's - in that they found signs in a specific test setup, but didn't vary the setup. That they seem to have found neutrons with one very specific detection method, but don't appear to have tried any other detection methods raises huge red flags.
it's named after a bureaucrat, not a scientist. To me, the JWS is right up there with the USS Carl Vinson, John Stennis, and any of the US warships named after presidents. It's just pathetic and sends all the wrong messages.
Yeah. Afterr all the guy who all but built NASA from the ground up and who steered NASA through the Apollo years can't possibly be an important figure.
The unfortunate reality is aerospace companies are strongly motivated by the Federal Gov't proposal selection process to bid too low and too fast for high-risk projects like JWST.
You'd have a point if that was how the JWST was being built, JWST is being built by NASA, not contracted out.
Does anyone know if Orion will be able to service it?
Have provisions been made on the JWST since to allow for removal/change of the instruments/gyroscopes like Hubble? What about docking ports or grappling interfaces?
No and No. The Earth-Sun L2 point that the JWST will operate at is 1.5 million kilometers away, where the moon averages around 400k kilometers away. Not that the Orion has any grapplers to grab onto the JWST anyhow. Nor does Orion have an airlock to allow for safe spacewalks - the entire craft must be depressurized and the entire crew in spacesuits.
The other biggest problem with the Navy is the foolish insistence on having private shipyards build warships. The idea of having private shipyards is certainly sound - but ultimately, Naval warships are rather nothing like their civilian counterparts and so its not really right to say that privatization makes any sense.
That's a fascinating claim, but one you completely and utterly fail to provide significant supporting facts for.
It's doubly interesting when you consider far more USN warships have been built in private yards than public, and that this has been true for at least fifty years. Even more interesting, both the largest and most complex warships (CVNs) and the warships needing the most specialized engineering and construction talent (SSNs and SSBNs) are solely built in civilian yards.
The Navy really does need to operate its own yards, take on its own construction, and just clear out some of the cost overruns and red tape as contractors want projects to overrun, but the Navy wants its ships sooner rather than later.
You think civilian yards have cost overruns and red tape? You've obviously never dealt with a navy shipyard.
Then, some day, if you put in a hero's effort, you might be able to be an entry-level programmer.
Peter, I understand why you are being negative (as with most of the replies here). Programming is not an easy field to succeed in. But neither is any other field. And besides, why are we discouraging someone to do what he loves?
He's not discouraging him - he's telling him the honest truth. Better the asker know the truth now than after he burns his bridges and financial reserves.
"I have been a programmer and manager. I can tell you that without a formal training in the field I wouldn't even bring you in for an interview.
Then I'd say you're missing out on good talent. I have yet to interview ANYONE just out of school who knew a damn thing aside from how to spell "Java" or point click drag, which tells me formal training is crap.
Maybe your company could try offering enough money that people who've been to real schools think it worth their time to send you a resume.
One of the best pieces of advice I've ever heard is that if they ask you if you know a certain technology or language, to always say yes. A good programmer, hell, even a decent programmer will be able to pick up a language fast enough that it won't matter, but an incompetent interviewer or someone who can't program won't understand that.
And what you'll end up being is the guy. The guy who doesn't hold his weight on the team. The guy who codes at half the speed of everyone else. They guy whose code has to be fixed by others...
The guy we so often see people complaining about on Slashdot.
To some extent, the HR guy nails it on the head in at least respect... You may have great experience writing (and deploying) new software, but many places are hiring not just to write new stuff but to maintain older stuff as well.
Studio time can be really expensive, and there's just not a lot anyone can do about that. There's always the option of at home recording, however, I don't know if any of you guys have ever tried to record at home, but without at least a few hundred dollars of equipment, you're going to have a hard time getting anywhere. Especially if you want it to actually sound good.
The real problem, I suspect, is that while the cost of the right equipment and software for a home recording/editing studio (emphasis on editing and post processing) is dropping down into the (somewhat) affordable range... The cost of the equipment to sound that good while playing live remains high.
Not to mention that you need musical talent to start with (a rare commodity), and a source of songwriting talent (equally rare) as well. You're only going to go so far as a cover band... Then there's the real killer in our ADD/Instant Gratification age, you need to practice, self critique, and practice some more. You need to sound good to more than just your friends (even if they are sober).
I have not bought a new CD for 2 years because most out there are utter garbage. I have bought a lot of used classic (older than 3 year old release) ones
Sounds more like you have reached the same point in your life than many people seem to reach - their musical tastes freeze, and anything after that is just [crap|noise|meaningless].
The tendency of the music industry to over-saturate the market with the flavor of the month genre started with disco.
I said since the Dawn of Disco since that was about the time I was old enough to start paying attention to such things. But saturating with the flavor of the month goes right back to the dawn of the rock era, and according to people more familiar with such than I, right back to the dawn of the 'pop' music era around the turn of the century.
That's why there was a backlash to it (disco that is). The same thing happened to Metal. The A&R men got ahold of it and before too long you had the Metal equivalents of the Village People.
Really, I haven't heard a decent mainstream track in the past year. At least, not one that made me want to go out to the store and buy an entire album.
Seems I've been hearing that since about the Dawn Of Disco.
It's certainly true that the neutron flux will cause the containment vessel to become highly radioactive but by selecting the correct materials for it that radioactivity will be very short lived.
Assuming of course that the materials that will have short half lives are materials compatible with the core of a fusion reactor. That's not a given.
I believe that they are talking about half lives of a few years at most. In other words the plant would only need to sit there for maybe 100 years before it could be decommissioned and recycled.
IIRC, for the ITER reactor they are planning on a 20 year period between decommissioning and dismantlement, followed by burial. Not recycling.
There is such a method. But what Shell will be doing (in that future time) isn't freeloading, but pumping cash into energy investments that are risky now (which is why they are getting out) but will have by then been shown to be viable.
*facepalm* Biofuels do not "starve the third world." Nobody credible on the subject of biofuels has seriously advocated using food crops for fuel ("credible" includes those who are not obviously shills for the corn growers here).
We aren't discussing what biofuel advocates advocate. We are discussing what is actually happening in the real world, today.
The crops that, so far, have shown the best potential for fuel sources are not only not food/feed crops, but they can be grown on land that is otherwise unsuitable for food crops.
However, those crops are having a hard time taking off in the real world because of the investment required to open up that marginal land, versus the government subsidies and current (and probably short lived) public giddiness over biofuels.
So enough with the "starving the third world" nonsense. There is zero credibility in that argument.
The one with zero credibility in his argument is the one who insists what is actually happening in the real world can't possibly happen because it doesn't happen in his fantasy world.
Isn't it pretty much a foregone conclusion that cellulose based ethanol makes no sense when compared to algae or Jatropha (or similar oil seed plants that can grow on non-arable land) which can be converted to biodiesel?
The idea isn't to grow crops for direct fermentation - but to convert plant (cellulose) waste that isn't used for other purposes. (Like animal feed.)
At MECO and separation the ET has considerable velocity, the exact same nearly orbital velocity as the Orbiter it just separated from in fact, so it doesn't just stop - it coasts both upwards and downrange in a (sub orbital) ballistic arc after separation.
For ISS missions this means the ET's apogee is around 225 kilometers or 122 miles. (Confirmed with a friend who works in the Shuttle program.)
Slashdot Mirror
If it isn't repeatable, it isn't science.
Anybody who says it is nuclear has to explain a large amount of energy, far beyond what physics, nuclear science, or chemistry can explain.
Most cold fusion press releases sound like this:
Most cold fusion efforts seem to be little better than alchemy - tossing and mixing things together and then describing the effects in mystical technobabble. It would help a lot if they acted and sounded more like actual scientists with an actual theory of what they were trying to accomplish and actual test protocols describing how they intend to test elements of the theory and what the expected results are and why.
It doesn't help that cold fusion community has had problems in peer reviewing themselves (when all your 'peers' are True Believers, peer review really isn't worth much) and (worse yet) in demonstrating repeatable experiments.
The original (P&F) announcement generated a lot of fury - because the announcement was all they had. No papers, reviewed or not, no test protocols, nothing but a press release. It took a long time for any details to become available, as P&F's attention was concentrated on self aggrandizement rather than science.
Except they haven't actually had the results validated... They've produced something that looks like neutron tracks, and had an expert go "yeah, that looks like neutron tracks", but that's a long way from "is confirmed to be neutron tracks". This announcement sounds dangerously like P&F's - in that they found signs in a specific test setup, but didn't vary the setup. That they seem to have found neutrons with one very specific detection method, but don't appear to have tried any other detection methods raises huge red flags.
IOW "my mind is made up, don't confuse with facts, I prefer mindless bigotry".
Yeah. Afterr all the guy who all but built NASA from the ground up and who steered NASA through the Apollo years can't possibly be an important figure.
You'd have a point if that was how the JWST was being built, JWST is being built by NASA, not contracted out.
No and No. The Earth-Sun L2 point that the JWST will operate at is 1.5 million kilometers away, where the moon averages around 400k kilometers away. Not that the Orion has any grapplers to grab onto the JWST anyhow. Nor does Orion have an airlock to allow for safe spacewalks - the entire craft must be depressurized and the entire crew in spacesuits.
That's a fascinating claim, but one you completely and utterly fail to provide significant supporting facts for.
It's doubly interesting when you consider far more USN warships have been built in private yards than public, and that this has been true for at least fifty years. Even more interesting, both the largest and most complex warships (CVNs) and the warships needing the most specialized engineering and construction talent (SSNs and SSBNs) are solely built in civilian yards.
You think civilian yards have cost overruns and red tape? You've obviously never dealt with a navy shipyard.
He's not discouraging him - he's telling him the honest truth. Better the asker know the truth now than after he burns his bridges and financial reserves.
Maybe your company could try offering enough money that people who've been to real schools think it worth their time to send you a resume.
And what you'll end up being is the guy. The guy who doesn't hold his weight on the team. The guy who codes at half the speed of everyone else. They guy whose code has to be fixed by others...
The guy we so often see people complaining about on Slashdot.
To some extent, the HR guy nails it on the head in at least respect... You may have great experience writing (and deploying) new software, but many places are hiring not just to write new stuff but to maintain older stuff as well.
Pretty much the same here - about the time Grunge went commercial and I turned thirty...
The real problem, I suspect, is that while the cost of the right equipment and software for a home recording/editing studio (emphasis on editing and post processing) is dropping down into the (somewhat) affordable range... The cost of the equipment to sound that good while playing live remains high.
Not to mention that you need musical talent to start with (a rare commodity), and a source of songwriting talent (equally rare) as well. You're only going to go so far as a cover band... Then there's the real killer in our ADD/Instant Gratification age, you need to practice, self critique, and practice some more. You need to sound good to more than just your friends (even if they are sober).
Sounds more like you have reached the same point in your life than many people seem to reach - their musical tastes freeze, and anything after that is just [crap|noise|meaningless].
I said since the Dawn of Disco since that was about the time I was old enough to start paying attention to such things. But saturating with the flavor of the month goes right back to the dawn of the rock era, and according to people more familiar with such than I, right back to the dawn of the 'pop' music era around the turn of the century.
Long before that, you had the Pre-Fab Four...
Seems I've been hearing that since about the Dawn Of Disco.
Yeah, it's easy to build things cheap when you get the components cheap.
If you're lucky, $60,000 will stay in your economy - most of the ticket price will go to Virgin Galactic.
Assuming of course that the materials that will have short half lives are materials compatible with the core of a fusion reactor. That's not a given.
IIRC, for the ITER reactor they are planning on a 20 year period between decommissioning and dismantlement, followed by burial. Not recycling.
There is such a method. But what Shell will be doing (in that future time) isn't freeloading, but pumping cash into energy investments that are risky now (which is why they are getting out) but will have by then been shown to be viable.
We aren't discussing what biofuel advocates advocate. We are discussing what is actually happening in the real world, today.
However, those crops are having a hard time taking off in the real world because of the investment required to open up that marginal land, versus the government subsidies and current (and probably short lived) public giddiness over biofuels.
The one with zero credibility in his argument is the one who insists what is actually happening in the real world can't possibly happen because it doesn't happen in his fantasy world.
From the summary: Editors at Wikipedia have removed a link to a blacklisted web site that sat uncontested for over 24 hours
So much for the claim (so often made by the WikiMafia and their fanboys) that trolling is caught and reverted within minutes.
The idea isn't to grow crops for direct fermentation - but to convert plant (cellulose) waste that isn't used for other purposes. (Like animal feed.)
Long answer: See my comment here.
Short answer: The tank's trajectory tops out at 122 nautical miles, while the boundary of space is considered to be 50 nautical miles.
To supplement Clayjar's comment...
At MECO and separation the ET has considerable velocity, the exact same nearly orbital velocity as the Orbiter it just separated from in fact, so it doesn't just stop - it coasts both upwards and downrange in a (sub orbital) ballistic arc after separation.
For ISS missions this means the ET's apogee is around 225 kilometers or 122 miles. (Confirmed with a friend who works in the Shuttle program.)