Recently, one of the biggest changes in mainstream music was that the big labels stopped signing bands and started building bands. This difference doesn't sound big, but it means that instead of having an album from a group that has its own sound, stage presence, and lyrics, it means one is getting a singer who is especially chosen because he/she can follow orders, lyrics specifically chosen to appeal to a certain market segment by the MBA types, and then form a band around that.
This has been going on for decades - there's a reason why The Monkees were known as the "Prefab Four".
The difference being that meatspace activism is almost pointless these days.
That mostly because most meatspace activism is like the Occupy 'Movement' - disorganized, and without a point, a plan, or an agenda. (In the rare occasions when it's not, it's a one-time affair that isn't really connected to anything else and won't have any follow on. The difference is moot really.)
And this is a real problem - because it leads people to observe those fools and assume that because their cargo cult version of activism is failure, that all activism must fail.
I am held AGHAST by the biblical-level hysteria that is circulating about Fukushima these days. It is being served up and replicated with the relish of the street-corner preacher with an end-of-world sign. Every die-off of fish is related (ignore the Atlantic), the melting starfish (never mind it's happening worldwide), from mammals to narwhals there is some serious confirmation bias being stirred.
And that's just the 'calm' comments here on/., everywhere else it's much worse.
I wonder if they sent a mouse or appropriate sized o2 to co2 animal how long the seeds could grow.
Because you start simple and work your way up when doing these kinds of thing. And because seeds convert very little CO2 to O2 because they consume very little CO2. The mouse would be dead pretty quickly.
I guess you'd also need a heater to keep the mouse alive in the cold of space. They could send a little bit of radioactive material to help regulate the temp
But then, once on the warm surface of the lit side of the moon... he'd likely be screwed by the combined heat of the source and the radiant heat of the surface. Assuming he hasn't died because of the lack of O2... or the lack of water. Or the lack of food. Or... etc... etc...
Life support, like pretty much anything else in space, gets really complicated really fast once you get beyond a couple of hours duration.
Poor track record? How so? They haven't popped one on the pad, as all the majors did getting to this point.
Seriously? Have you just crawled out of a cave? They've had multiple issues in Falcon V's seven launches to date. (Not to mention the Falcoln I.)
These posts are so three years ago. SpaceX is bi-coastal and in business.
No, they're reality. No matter how hard you try and bury your head in the sand or how many ignorant "have they popped one on the pad" comments you make.
Oh, and birds don't have to be 1/4B$ if launch costs drop by an order of magnitude. You don't have to be that careful. You can afford to lose a few.
Not gonna happen. No matter how cheap launch gets, space is still an unforgiving and difficult environment - and the costs of an outage are still high. The expense of launching is not a significant cost driver for major satellites.
Etc... etc... Though your fellow fanbois have modded you up, they're as clueless as you are.
Cheap is irrelevant when your track record is as poor as SpaceX's and your launch rate is a fraction of that needed to capture a significant chunk of the market as SpaceX's is. Companies launching quarter of billion dollar satellites don't shop solely on price like you buy pants.
Despite the endless hype that Musk trots out (and which the fanbois, being largely ignorant of the realities of both space and business, lap up like mothers milk), SpaceX is still very much a marginal player. The potential is there, but they aren't yet.
The USA and USSR had an agreement during the War that they would share in the spoils of war (like this submarine), and the USA didn't want to turn two of them over to the USSR (because the USSR didn't enter the war against Japan until after the Nagasaki bombing, but more importantly because we didn't want the USSR to get any "free" technology transfers). The USSR was a land power and not a sea power, we wanted to keep things that way....
Which has more to do with postwar paranoia than anything else. Even the USN had given up on these boats after less than a year of studying them, as they were complete turkeys.* Despite their huge size, they weren't particularly advanced technologically and the aircraft carried were fairly short ranged with unimpressive payloads. They were extraordinarily vulnerable due to their poor handling characteristics and the need for extended periods on the surface to launch or recover their aircraft. Even minor flooding in the hangar could lead to a severe list and loss-of-control.
I got to spend an afternoon once with one of the guys who brought the I-400 to Hawaii from Japan. According to him, they were scared for their lives the entire trip due to it's poor performance and handling characteristics.
Though aircraft carrying submarines have been briefly examined from time to time since WWII, nobody has tried to build one. The submarine simply imposes too many restrictions on the aircraft and vice versa. Cruise missiles and soon drones are the exception that proves the rule - they're encapsulated and fit into standard torpedo tubes and thus do not impose notable restrictions on the boat.
*By comparison, some of the German boats taken over at the end of the war were in service for trials well into the 1950's.
What's wrong here is that you're either generalizing from your own experience, or you're just pulling a complaint from your backside.
Inside a big box store, my phone's (cellular) internet connection is often shakey-to-non-existent. (Not to mention, if I'm using someone else's wi-fi, I',m not running the meter on my own data plan.)
Analysts have pointed out that the way Amazon is investing, it is clear that it intends to use it's current advantage in online retail to build a distribution network that is sufficiently advanced that any competitors will have to spend huge amounts of time/money to catch up. It's a long tail gambit.
They've been doing this for a very long time - all the way back to the dot bomb era. While other companies were buying Aeron chairs and throwing $10000 a head Christmas parties, Amazon was building distribution centers. Say what you want about Bezos and Amazon, but he's very clearly playing for the long term, and it's paying off.
The Americans prefer to watch Netflix, to vote for their next American Idol, than to encourage and lead their children towards learning the how-tos in technology.
And guess what? That's been true since roughly forever.
In other words, the Indians and the Chinese have much more curiosity than the people in the Western countries, and their curiosities are propelling onwards in strengthening themselves and their respective countries in Science and Technology, while the West, still sitting in their comfortable Lazy-Boy watching the latest flix from Hollywood.
Racism and stereotypes, ever the easy explanation for the lazy.
Nope, it's the flat-out truth. You're just repeating what's become urban legend since the story first broke a decade ago.
They absolutely were intended to prevent a rogue launch, and were mandated by the president of the US at the time, JFK, because he specifically wanted to prevent anyone in the military from being able to launch without his order.
Have you ever actually read National Security Action Memorandum 160? (As referenced in the article.) It only applies to weapons released to NATO, not to weapons in US custody. There not one shred of evidence that JFK, or any other US President, ever mandated their use on US based missiles. (Oddly enough though, the Titan II had a use-control system that was active throughout it's service life.) The whole story that they were so mandated rests solely on an undocumented claim that Robert McNamara "saw to" the installation of the PAL systems. (It remains unclear to this day when, and by who, the systems actually were mandated.)
During the Cold War PAL's wern't intended to prevent people from starting WWIII... They were meant to prevent to use of weapons that had fallen into unfriendly hands. (Which is why the codes were set to all balls in the missile silos, and why SSBN's didn't have them.)
What the last one did was raise several generations of kids who dreamed of being scientists and astronauts, not bankers and MBAs.
That's the theory. Sadly, there is not on single shred of evidence that the kids so inspired wouldn't have gone on to become scientists and astronauts without the space program. None. Zip. Nada.
. The effect that it had on the progress of human civilization as a whole is hard to quantify, but it is immense.
If it's impossible to quantify - how can you state with certainty that is immense?
I was without power for 3 days during Sandy, I charged from the car lighter (thankfully I had one that stays on when the car is off).
Thankfully, you had a car charger. Not everyone does.
So the suburbs have a reasonable solution too (I assume this would work for rural areas too).
No, replacing a network that works without additional preparation with one that requires additional preparation is not a reasonable solution. As I've said elsewhere in this discussion, the POTS has set a high bar - if your proposed 'solution' fails to meet that bar, don't even bother bringing it to the table.
A generation of kids? You're got to be kidding - because I'm part of that generation. And there's precisely no evidence that any number of additional children went into science and engineering beyond the proportion that would have anyway.
And if you think Lady Gaga is all there is to the world absent a space program, you're beyond deluded.
I would argue that they did a lot of great basic science. The type of science for knowledge sakes, which tends to lead to commercial discovers 10 to 20 years later. And yeah, it is hard to qualify.
In other words, you want me to accept your argument on faith.
And yeah, when can get into contrafactual arguments that it would have been better to do different research.
No, I'm not getting into a contrafactual argument with you because you haven't introduced any facts.
I can tell you POTS isn't as "reliable" as you think.
You have the impression that POTS is reliable because there's a small army of men and women maintaining it.
That's part of it. It's alse reliable and robust because it's designed to be so - there's redundant power supplies, alternate paths, widely distributed switching and control networks, etc... etc... Current commercial IP networks aren't designed or built to nearly the same level of reliability or robustness. Or, to put it another way... I've lost net connectivity twice in the last week. I've lost cable twice in the last year. I've lost power for more than an hour twice in the last five years. I just turned fifty a few years ago - and my POTS has failed twice in my entire life. (And that's counting the time the computer down at the local office screwed up and routed all the 373-xxxx numbers to 479-xxxx and vice versa.)
I have the 'impression' that POTS is reliable because it has repeatedly proven itself to be so. Any IP based replacement has to hurdle a very high bar in terms of quality-of-service and availability-of-service.
Saying we should keep POTS until it can be replaced with fiber, however, is like saying everyone should stick with driving Yugos until it becomes feasible for everyone to buy a Ferrari.
No, it's like saying everyone should stick with their Yugo until the bugs are wrung out of the Tesla.
Wireless technologies are a good interim solution until fiber can be deployed ubiquitously, especially in very low density areas.
Presuming a wireless technologies of sufficient robustness and coverage exists - which it doesn't.
Slashdot Mirror
This has been going on for decades - there's a reason why The Monkees were known as the "Prefab Four".
That mostly because most meatspace activism is like the Occupy 'Movement' - disorganized, and without a point, a plan, or an agenda. (In the rare occasions when it's not, it's a one-time affair that isn't really connected to anything else and won't have any follow on. The difference is moot really.)
And this is a real problem - because it leads people to observe those fools and assume that because their cargo cult version of activism is failure, that all activism must fail.
And that's just the 'calm' comments here on /., everywhere else it's much worse.
He didn't say it didn't have thrusters - he said it wasn't (or didn't appear to be) self propelled. Two very different things.
And he's correct, if it's not self propelled, it's not a ship - it's a barge.
Because you start simple and work your way up when doing these kinds of thing. And because seeds convert very little CO2 to O2 because they consume very little CO2. The mouse would be dead pretty quickly.
But then, once on the warm surface of the lit side of the moon... he'd likely be screwed by the combined heat of the source and the radiant heat of the surface. Assuming he hasn't died because of the lack of O2... or the lack of water. Or the lack of food. Or... etc... etc...
Life support, like pretty much anything else in space, gets really complicated really fast once you get beyond a couple of hours duration.
In the Navy we called it a "white mutiny". It was fairly effective at getting the attention of the chain of command.
This. Essentially these journalists are tinfoil hat nutters, making an unforced personal choice - and blaming it on others.
The same answer still applies - pulling out is preferable to damage to the device, cable, wall wart, or prongs.
Seriously? Have you just crawled out of a cave? They've had multiple issues in Falcon V's seven launches to date. (Not to mention the Falcoln I.)
No, they're reality. No matter how hard you try and bury your head in the sand or how many ignorant "have they popped one on the pad" comments you make.
Not gonna happen. No matter how cheap launch gets, space is still an unforgiving and difficult environment - and the costs of an outage are still high. The expense of launching is not a significant cost driver for major satellites.
Etc... etc... Though your fellow fanbois have modded you up, they're as clueless as you are.
Cheap is irrelevant when your track record is as poor as SpaceX's and your launch rate is a fraction of that needed to capture a significant chunk of the market as SpaceX's is. Companies launching quarter of billion dollar satellites don't shop solely on price like you buy pants.
Despite the endless hype that Musk trots out (and which the fanbois, being largely ignorant of the realities of both space and business, lap up like mothers milk), SpaceX is still very much a marginal player. The potential is there, but they aren't yet.
Which has more to do with postwar paranoia than anything else. Even the USN had given up on these boats after less than a year of studying them, as they were complete turkeys.* Despite their huge size, they weren't particularly advanced technologically and the aircraft carried were fairly short ranged with unimpressive payloads. They were extraordinarily vulnerable due to their poor handling characteristics and the need for extended periods on the surface to launch or recover their aircraft. Even minor flooding in the hangar could lead to a severe list and loss-of-control.
I got to spend an afternoon once with one of the guys who brought the I-400 to Hawaii from Japan. According to him, they were scared for their lives the entire trip due to it's poor performance and handling characteristics.
Though aircraft carrying submarines have been briefly examined from time to time since WWII, nobody has tried to build one. The submarine simply imposes too many restrictions on the aircraft and vice versa. Cruise missiles and soon drones are the exception that proves the rule - they're encapsulated and fit into standard torpedo tubes and thus do not impose notable restrictions on the boat.
*By comparison, some of the German boats taken over at the end of the war were in service for trials well into the 1950's.
What's wrong here is that you're either generalizing from your own experience, or you're just pulling a complaint from your backside.
Inside a big box store, my phone's (cellular) internet connection is often shakey-to-non-existent. (Not to mention, if I'm using someone else's wi-fi, I',m not running the meter on my own data plan.)
Security prevents people from gaining access to the weapon. Surety prevents unauthorized use.
They've been doing this for a very long time - all the way back to the dot bomb era. While other companies were buying Aeron chairs and throwing $10000 a head Christmas parties, Amazon was building distribution centers. Say what you want about Bezos and Amazon, but he's very clearly playing for the long term, and it's paying off.
And guess what? That's been true since roughly forever.
Racism and stereotypes, ever the easy explanation for the lazy.
Nope, it's the flat-out truth. You're just repeating what's become urban legend since the story first broke a decade ago.
Have you ever actually read National Security Action Memorandum 160? (As referenced in the article.) It only applies to weapons released to NATO, not to weapons in US custody. There not one shred of evidence that JFK, or any other US President, ever mandated their use on US based missiles. (Oddly enough though, the Titan II had a use-control system that was active throughout it's service life.) The whole story that they were so mandated rests solely on an undocumented claim that Robert McNamara "saw to" the installation of the PAL systems. (It remains unclear to this day when, and by who, the systems actually were mandated.)
During the Cold War PAL's wern't intended to prevent people from starting WWIII... They were meant to prevent to use of weapons that had fallen into unfriendly hands. (Which is why the codes were set to all balls in the missile silos, and why SSBN's didn't have them.)
Not only a dupe, but old, old news. This has been publicly and widely known for nearly a decade.
The sad part is that so many Slashdotters agree with them. Their reasoning is different, but the result is the same...
That's the theory. Sadly, there is not on single shred of evidence that the kids so inspired wouldn't have gone on to become scientists and astronauts without the space program. None. Zip. Nada.
If it's impossible to quantify - how can you state with certainty that is immense?
Thankfully, you had a car charger. Not everyone does.
No, replacing a network that works without additional preparation with one that requires additional preparation is not a reasonable solution. As I've said elsewhere in this discussion, the POTS has set a high bar - if your proposed 'solution' fails to meet that bar, don't even bother bringing it to the table.
A generation of kids? You're got to be kidding - because I'm part of that generation. And there's precisely no evidence that any number of additional children went into science and engineering beyond the proportion that would have anyway.
And if you think Lady Gaga is all there is to the world absent a space program, you're beyond deluded.
In other words, you want me to accept your argument on faith.
No, I'm not getting into a contrafactual argument with you because you haven't introduced any facts.
That's part of it. It's alse reliable and robust because it's designed to be so - there's redundant power supplies, alternate paths, widely distributed switching and control networks, etc... etc... Current commercial IP networks aren't designed or built to nearly the same level of reliability or robustness. Or, to put it another way... I've lost net connectivity twice in the last week. I've lost cable twice in the last year. I've lost power for more than an hour twice in the last five years. I just turned fifty a few years ago - and my POTS has failed twice in my entire life. (And that's counting the time the computer down at the local office screwed up and routed all the 373-xxxx numbers to 479-xxxx and vice versa.)
I have the 'impression' that POTS is reliable because it has repeatedly proven itself to be so. Any IP based replacement has to hurdle a very high bar in terms of quality-of-service and availability-of-service.
No, it's like saying everyone should stick with their Yugo until the bugs are wrung out of the Tesla.
Presuming a wireless technologies of sufficient robustness and coverage exists - which it doesn't.