Science fiction is as legitimate a artistic expression as anything else, if not more legitimate because it is generally written by people who have a better understanding of nature than your average artist.
That's the conceit of SF fandom. (Based on cherry-picking the SF writers they use as their examples.) In reality, SF writers come from all over the spectrum, though the most successful are generally those who do have a better understanding or at least can simulate it to the low fidelity required by SF fandom.
This is also how analog computers work. They're extremely fast and efficient, but imprecise.
On the contrary - they can be extremely precise. Analog computing elements were part of both the Saturn V and Apollo CSM stack guidance & navigation systems for example. Analog systems were replaced by digital systems for a wide variety of reasons, but accuracy was not among them.
However, it does happen often enough to be well known that some students do this
Not when I was growing up it didn't. Not where I've lived for the last thirty years it doesn't.
That's why they're taken seriously, not because it's post 9-11, but because they're rare.
You're both wrong and clueless, and repeated defense of your original mistaken statement... well, the first rule of holes is "when you're in one, stop digging".
Hence the confused approach there where the US government is saying one day Bitcoin is cool and it's all OK, and then next day threatening Bitcoin businesses with jail time. They can't quite decide which direction to go in, it seems.
Huh? There's no confusion at all. The US Government is 'totally cool' with Bitcoins so long as you comply with existing financial regulations. The Bitcoin business (the physical coin dealer) wasn't threatened with jail because he dealt in Bitcoins - but because he didn't so comply. The difference isn't semantic and is about as subtle as thermonuclear weapon. I suspect he won't be the last, I bet there's a lot of people out there trading and speculating in Bitcoin that otherwise wouldn't be speculating and trading in currencies and financial instruments - and because they're operating outside traditional and existing channels they don't realize they're playing with fire.
The copyright cartel are very skilled at propaganda; it follows that they would invent emotive and abusive terms for copyright infringement, like 'theft', 'stealing', 'piracy', 'criminal', etc.
*sigh*. No. Just fucking NO.
The people skilled at propaganda in this discussion are the ANTI copyright folks. Using the terms 'theft', 'stealing', 'piracy', 'criminal', for copyright violations goes back over a century - long before there was a 'copyright cartel'.
I did read what you wrote, but what you wrote (both in that message as well as this one) is complete bullshit utterly disconnected from reality.
Yep, thirty years ago is when the politics let us down thanks to Nixon's cuts to start with.
ROTFLMAO. No. Nixon's cuts 'let us down' almost not at all, not after LBJ's cuts (almost 50% over four years).
There WERE enough bits of Saturn V as seen by the pieces which are now on display but were operational back then
No, there were not enough bits of the Saturn V - not only are most of the displayed bits non flight items to begin with there was no IU available.
and there WAS a bit over four years between the final mission and when it was too late to boost the space station into a higher orbit.
Your plan requires a time machine as well as more of the Saturn V than we actually had - because it wasn't until less than a year before it was too late that they knew it was too late.
Luna 9 did not have a computer. It was all careful launch timing and Newtonian mechanics to ensure it got where it needed to be and deployed what it needed to precisely when it needed to. The closest thing it had to a computer was a clock that made these things happen at precise intervals.
A certain amount of luck was involved too... a couple of feet more per second error, and that timer (pre-programmed on the ground before flight) could have been hopelessly out of sync with what was actually happening.
If the whole thing weighed 220 lbs., where would you even fit a meaningful 1966 computer?
SLBM guidance computers of the era weighed in at around forty to sixty pounds. Gemini's onboard guidance computer tipped the scales at a hair under sixty pounds. The Apollo guidance computer (directly descend from an SLBM system) weighed seventy pounds.
Not that they had one, or the Soviets were that advanced of course, but not all meaningful computers available in the sixties were room sized behemoths weighing tons.
We totally let them down, at least in terms of space exploration. I blame politics, and to some extent NASA (though mostly because of politics).
It's funny that you blame politics for "letting us down" with regards to space exploration, but fail to acknowledge it's responsibility for getting us there in the first place.
No, scratch that. It's not funny. It's frightening as hell that you're either so ill informed or so blithely unaware of what really happened and why.
"the highly anticipated and near-capacity Donkey Kong world championship, held at the 1UP arcade and bar."
*Yawn* looking at the images I can find on the web, "capacity" is maybe a couple of hundred people. You'd have to have a very narrow special interest or live in a very remote area to *not* be able to gather that kind of 'crowd'.
Seriously, this sounds like a collection of random ideas rather than the result of proper studies. A couple sound like nutbar dreams, others sound like the folks proposing them aren't necessarily stupid but do have little grasp on science.
You measure the efficiency of a centrifuge by measuring the energy consumed per SWU. This feeds into determining the EROEI that is the subject of grandparent's (clueless and disconnected from reality) complaint.
The sound you heard was my point whooshing over your head. Again, unsurprising considering your bias, and what I must now conclude is deliberate ignorance on your part.
Had you bothered to read what I quoted, you'd note I was addressing your comment on US nukes.
I can't count the number of complaints I've heard about solar energy payback time from nuke nuts on slashdot, yet all this time its been horrible to non-existent for US nukes.
You seem to be unaware that commercial fuel is only moderately enriched, and the enrichment process is done with (very energy efficient) centrifuges. (Actually, I'm being kind here, your handle, homepage, journal, and posting history all make your bias abundantly clear.)
They acknowledged that the problem existed (9 months ago) and promised a solution in the future.
And yeah, it's coincidence that future date shows up just a few days after the story starts to spread in the media. And oddly enough... the CEO seemed unaware that problem existed and needed fixing (from his own tweet "Doesn't sound right. If it is, we certainly need to fix it. Investigating...").
So, here's the facts jackass; The problem was known, but went unacknowledged, and when it was finally acknowledged, it went unfixed for a considerable time (after the patch that supposed to fix it) until the CEO learned the media was on the scent.
So piss the hell off back your drug addled dreamworld fanboi. You have no fucking clue what you're talking about and no real interest in any facts.
However, not once have I seen the complaints backed up with facts, examples, or otherwise, just negativity without any indication as to why.
The blindest are those willingly so - those who chose not to see.
Could someone please explaint to me why there is this hate on Elon Musk, and what it is about?
Take SpaceX for example - where the fanbois refuse to acknowledge the problems the Falcon 9 has experienced and who also treat the Falcon Heavy as if it were a proven craft rather than vaporware. Or take this story... where the blunt facts of the matter are this - the problem has existed for quite a while and was ignored by Tesla and Musk. Until it started getting media attention.
Etc... etc...
Facts aren't hate - except to the fanbois.
If this has to be explained to you... well, then you're either among the fanbois or terminally clueless as to the world around you.
Tesla is trying to get itself a foothold in the market and Elon feels personally responsible if there's a defective product that has reached the attention of the media because it reflects badly upon the company.
There, FTFY.
Elon Musk is a master at manipulating the media and the fanbois.
2. China & India, you really need to step up your game. It's not quite as big a boost to national prestige when hobbyist makers are getting their stuff launched.
I'm trying to parse your meaning here... Are you seriously suggesting that because amateurs are now able to do what the professionals were doing sixty plus years ago... China and India (who are doing stuff far more advanced than the amateurs) are falling behind? That's like claiming Boeing and Airbus need to be worried because someone has built a four engined RC aircraft - absolutely ludicrous.
If SpaceX starts providing unused space for hobby payloads to fly standby, every school science project could get launched.
I can't figure out whether you vastly overestimate the number of SpaceX launches and the spare payload available, or if you underestimate the number of potential school science projects (in the US) by multiple orders of magnitude. Either way, you're way, way off base.
One of the main concerns was the small size and the ability to easy install and replace avionics. This led to the decision that all external side panels will have to accommodate being taken on and off - no welding, only on the main structure.
This is a technique known to aerospace engineers for fifty odd years.
The timing of it's original discovery and implementation had a unexpected impact on space history though... NASA first encountered the same problems with Mercury - not so much because it's size, but because all the systems were packed inside one on top of each other with no provision for access. This caused many problems during assembly and launch preps as often connections had to be broken and unrelated equipment removed to get at a part that needed replacement, repair, or adjustment. So, when NASA and McDonnell (they hadn't yet merged with Douglas) were evolving the design into the Mercury MKII and eventually Gemini, they re-arranged things. They shrunk the pressure vessel a bit, enlarged the structural shell a bit, and packed as many systems as possible into the space between and behind access doors.
But Apollo's design was already largely frozen - it retained the Mercury type design of having almost everything packed into the pressure vessel. (Yes, the design sequence goes Mercury-Apollo-Gemini, out of order from the flight order.) The result was that it was extremely difficult to work inside the Apollo capsule, to track work accomplished, and easy to damage adjacent systems and equipment - damage that was later believed to have been the source of ignition for Apollo 1.
The article is FUD. Why? Because there is still demand for this service.
There's still a demand for print magazines and dead tree newspapers - yet they're shrinking and dwindling and failing left and right. There's a demand for sheet and roll film - yet Kodak and it's competitors are mostly either out of the market or bankrupt.
Just because there is demand, that doesn't mean it's economically viable to serve it.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, I noticed. That I pointed out the fallacy in that belief seems to have escaped you in your rush to build a strawman and set it alight.
That's the conceit of SF fandom. (Based on cherry-picking the SF writers they use as their examples.) In reality, SF writers come from all over the spectrum, though the most successful are generally those who do have a better understanding or at least can simulate it to the low fidelity required by SF fandom.
You need to get your estimates and information from somewhere other than wingnuts.
On the contrary - they can be extremely precise. Analog computing elements were part of both the Saturn V and Apollo CSM stack guidance & navigation systems for example. Analog systems were replaced by digital systems for a wide variety of reasons, but accuracy was not among them.
In other words, what happened at your school is exactly what I said happened - they were not common and were taken seriously.
Go back to that school and learn some reading comprehension moron.
Not when I was growing up it didn't. Not where I've lived for the last thirty years it doesn't.
That's why they're taken seriously, not because it's post 9-11, but because they're rare.
You're both wrong and clueless, and repeated defense of your original mistaken statement... well, the first rule of holes is "when you're in one, stop digging".
Huh? There's no confusion at all. The US Government is 'totally cool' with Bitcoins so long as you comply with existing financial regulations. The Bitcoin business (the physical coin dealer) wasn't threatened with jail because he dealt in Bitcoins - but because he didn't so comply. The difference isn't semantic and is about as subtle as thermonuclear weapon. I suspect he won't be the last, I bet there's a lot of people out there trading and speculating in Bitcoin that otherwise wouldn't be speculating and trading in currencies and financial instruments - and because they're operating outside traditional and existing channels they don't realize they're playing with fire.
*sigh*. No. Just fucking NO.
The people skilled at propaganda in this discussion are the ANTI copyright folks. Using the terms 'theft', 'stealing', 'piracy', 'criminal', for copyright violations goes back over a century - long before there was a 'copyright cartel'.
I did read what you wrote, but what you wrote (both in that message as well as this one) is complete bullshit utterly disconnected from reality.
ROTFLMAO. No. Nixon's cuts 'let us down' almost not at all, not after LBJ's cuts (almost 50% over four years).
No, there were not enough bits of the Saturn V - not only are most of the displayed bits non flight items to begin with there was no IU available.
Your plan requires a time machine as well as more of the Saturn V than we actually had - because it wasn't until less than a year before it was too late that they knew it was too late.
No, Fox didn't buy Slashdot. But a Two Minute Hate *has* long been a feature of Slashdot.
Well... let's see. There weren't any operational Saturn V's, and there weren't years.
Skylab was nearly thirty years ago, if you insist on believing nonsense rather than acquainting yourself with the facts, the problem isn't politics.
A certain amount of luck was involved too... a couple of feet more per second error, and that timer (pre-programmed on the ground before flight) could have been hopelessly out of sync with what was actually happening.
SLBM guidance computers of the era weighed in at around forty to sixty pounds. Gemini's onboard guidance computer tipped the scales at a hair under sixty pounds. The Apollo guidance computer (directly descend from an SLBM system) weighed seventy pounds.
Not that they had one, or the Soviets were that advanced of course, but not all meaningful computers available in the sixties were room sized behemoths weighing tons.
It's funny that you blame politics for "letting us down" with regards to space exploration, but fail to acknowledge it's responsibility for getting us there in the first place.
No, scratch that. It's not funny. It's frightening as hell that you're either so ill informed or so blithely unaware of what really happened and why.
"the highly anticipated and near-capacity Donkey Kong world championship, held at the 1UP arcade and bar."
*Yawn* looking at the images I can find on the web, "capacity" is maybe a couple of hundred people. You'd have to have a very narrow special interest or live in a very remote area to *not* be able to gather that kind of 'crowd'.
[[Citation Needed]]
Seriously, this sounds like a collection of random ideas rather than the result of proper studies. A couple sound like nutbar dreams, others sound like the folks proposing them aren't necessarily stupid but do have little grasp on science.
No, the one lacking a clue is you.
You measure the efficiency of a centrifuge by measuring the energy consumed per SWU. This feeds into determining the EROEI that is the subject of grandparent's (clueless and disconnected from reality) complaint.
The sound you heard was my point whooshing over your head. Again, unsurprising considering your bias, and what I must now conclude is deliberate ignorance on your part.
Had you bothered to read what I quoted, you'd note I was addressing your comment on US nukes.
You seem to be unaware that commercial fuel is only moderately enriched, and the enrichment process is done with (very energy efficient) centrifuges. (Actually, I'm being kind here, your handle, homepage, journal, and posting history all make your bias abundantly clear.)
Without funding, this is all just more smoke and mirrors from Mars One - and they don't have the money to even do a decent set of concept studies.
And yeah, it's coincidence that future date shows up just a few days after the story starts to spread in the media. And oddly enough... the CEO seemed unaware that problem existed and needed fixing (from his own tweet "Doesn't sound right. If it is, we certainly need to fix it. Investigating...").
So, here's the facts jackass; The problem was known, but went unacknowledged, and when it was finally acknowledged, it went unfixed for a considerable time (after the patch that supposed to fix it) until the CEO learned the media was on the scent.
So piss the hell off back your drug addled dreamworld fanboi. You have no fucking clue what you're talking about and no real interest in any facts.
The blindest are those willingly so - those who chose not to see.
Take SpaceX for example - where the fanbois refuse to acknowledge the problems the Falcon 9 has experienced and who also treat the Falcon Heavy as if it were a proven craft rather than vaporware. Or take this story... where the blunt facts of the matter are this - the problem has existed for quite a while and was ignored by Tesla and Musk. Until it started getting media attention.
Etc... etc...
Facts aren't hate - except to the fanbois.
If this has to be explained to you... well, then you're either among the fanbois or terminally clueless as to the world around you.
There, FTFY.
Elon Musk is a master at manipulating the media and the fanbois.
I'm trying to parse your meaning here... Are you seriously suggesting that because amateurs are now able to do what the professionals were doing sixty plus years ago... China and India (who are doing stuff far more advanced than the amateurs) are falling behind? That's like claiming Boeing and Airbus need to be worried because someone has built a four engined RC aircraft - absolutely ludicrous.
I can't figure out whether you vastly overestimate the number of SpaceX launches and the spare payload available, or if you underestimate the number of potential school science projects (in the US) by multiple orders of magnitude. Either way, you're way, way off base.
This is a technique known to aerospace engineers for fifty odd years.
The timing of it's original discovery and implementation had a unexpected impact on space history though... NASA first encountered the same problems with Mercury - not so much because it's size, but because all the systems were packed inside one on top of each other with no provision for access. This caused many problems during assembly and launch preps as often connections had to be broken and unrelated equipment removed to get at a part that needed replacement, repair, or adjustment. So, when NASA and McDonnell (they hadn't yet merged with Douglas) were evolving the design into the Mercury MKII and eventually Gemini, they re-arranged things. They shrunk the pressure vessel a bit, enlarged the structural shell a bit, and packed as many systems as possible into the space between and behind access doors.
But Apollo's design was already largely frozen - it retained the Mercury type design of having almost everything packed into the pressure vessel. (Yes, the design sequence goes Mercury-Apollo-Gemini, out of order from the flight order.) The result was that it was extremely difficult to work inside the Apollo capsule, to track work accomplished, and easy to damage adjacent systems and equipment - damage that was later believed to have been the source of ignition for Apollo 1.
/paulharvey
There's still a demand for print magazines and dead tree newspapers - yet they're shrinking and dwindling and failing left and right. There's a demand for sheet and roll film - yet Kodak and it's competitors are mostly either out of the market or bankrupt.
Just because there is demand, that doesn't mean it's economically viable to serve it.