Also the first thing I thought of. Why the Hell not? How much delta-v would it take to push it into a stable orbit. Sounds like a better use of $$ than a lunar base. At least a lunar base as a jumping off point for Mars. This thing (or Cruithne) seem destined to become space stations at some point - why not now?
'Like they say, nobody ever said on their deathbed "I wish I'd spent more time at work".'
Trite and true, but how many have said "I wish I could have put my kids through college", "If could have afforded health care I wouldn't be here now", "I wish I hadn't had to kill my female children so I could afford to feed my male children", et friggen cetera..
"Sure, one can argue that if two theories are functionally equivalent, there's no downside to taking the simpler one. But has anyone demontrated this logically or mathematically?"
It's really a postulate, an unprovable given. If the 2 theories are really functionally equivalent you must accept the simpler. The more complex one only wins if it can explain behaviour that the simple one can't. Then they aren't really equivalent, are they?
Assume for the moment that Einstein's physics and Newton's physics are functionally equivalent. Einstein's is more complex. If both came out in Newton's time, Einstein's would have to be rejected. Einstein's explains many things that Newton's doesn't - but back then they didn't realize that those things needed explaining. The only thing that could be pointed to then that Newton's didn't capture is slight misprediction of the orbit of Mercury. I'm not sure they could even measure it's orbit accurately enough to detect the misprediction back then. Not really good enough for Einstein to be percieved as more than a crank.
As time goes on more and more evidence accumulates that Einstein can explain and Newton can't. They become less and less equivalent.
"Sorry, don't think so. How many WinZip registration keys are floating around the internet? How much lost profit $$ does that represent for them?"
None.
The $$ is in corporate licenses. Every mid to large company knows perfectly well that there are hundreds/thousands of copies of winzip being used by their employees. The license is cheap CYA. I bet there isn't a single SP 500 company without a corporate license to winzip
"Don't do a corporation unless you have serious starting capital"
Partially correct. The other half is "or you think someone may want to sue you". In this world, someone always wants to sue you. A DBA provides no protection for your assets. They sue, you can lose your house. An LLC or S-corp provides effective cover. The real downside is a minimum of $880 a year in corporation costs in California.
"There are resources on Mars. There are no resources in orbits (Well, until you get to the asteroid belt)"
Sure there are. What would it cost to push Cruithne into the earth/sun trojan point? We don't really know its mass so you can't come up with exact number, but I'd bet "not much". Particularly not much if it turns out to be composed at least partially of volaties that can be used as fuel. I guess you could just leave it where it is and put up a sign that says "welcome to space station Cruithne!" but it would be easier to deal with if it held still. A 5km wide mass sitting in the trojan point is a space station waiting to happen, almost regardless of what it's composed of.
Lets grant the "star trek universe" enough of a widespread understanding that we can call it a thought experiment. It is one on many levels, but just look from the scarcity point of view. Your first point is wrong - there is a need for money. Currency, barter and other types of exchange are more and more important as you travel further and further out into the Harry Mud edges of the frontier. Granted, they don't seem terribly important on Earth and more highly developed planets. This would also be true with a late stage nanotech society.
Second, in that universe it seems pretty clear that not all things replicate equally well. Many luxury goods (wines, brandy, foods). Also some necessities - if you could replicate di-lithium crystals the society would not work the way it does. Nano would also work this way. Unlike the start trek universe 'tea, earl grey, hot' would be one of those things that molecular mfg wouldn't work that well for. There is a nano factory called a tea plant that produces a concentrated substance in its leaves that does a great job. Nano would/could go a long way to up yields on tea, automate care (aphid hunting nanobots would be preferable to pesticides) but the tea plantations are there to stay. Someone(s) still going to have to have to run the operation. Probably someone that is a hard core tea geek (yes, they exist) would do 80% for love of the process and 20% for those luxury goods that don't replicate well (maybe he's also a stinky cheese geek or collects antiques).
So, who cleans the toilets? A toilet that needs a human to clean it is a poorly designed toilet - why buy that model? "the droids would clean it" is a valid answer to some extent, but for the toilet example it should just be self cleaning.
In the larger sense it makes sense to ask "who does the unpleasant jobs, whatever they may be, there are bound to be some". As many reasons as there are people, I suppose. In the Federation we see many of these things done by star fleet folks. They do it for pride of position, duty, a tradition of public service, earning their way into the company of those they respect (same reason we humiliate recruits in boot camp). Hard scrabble miners do it in hopes of great riches (what does that mean? It clearly still means something) and probably because they don't 'play well with others' and couldn't get on in more civilized parts.
If pople are freed of having to spend most of they waking hours on basic survival they will find thngs to do. Some destructive, some stupid, some brilliant and some that areas that look to other people as crazy (why would someone spend 4+ hours a day working in a garden if they didn't need the $$/food?).
"You still do not appear to understand the impact of my short piece in Scientific American. Much like you can't make a boy and a girl fall in love with each other simply by pushing them together, you cannot make precise chemistry occur as desired between two molecular objects with simple mechanical motion along a few degrees of freedom in the assembler-fixed frame of reference."
To strain the analogy - no, but you can probably get them to mate and that's good enough. A better analogy may have been that you can't take Feynman's parents and smash them together and get Richard Feynman. That would be truer, though if you did it enough times you would probably come pretty close. Drexler's ideas on mechanosynthesis assume a certain amount of waste and a certain amount of "close enough".
I'm sure the ACLU and the EFF and the other orgs that I give time and $$ to felt that it made a difference - but it *isn't* making a difference. They are all fighting rear-guard actions; winning some, losing some. Maybe it would be even worse without them, it probably would. Keeping things from getting even worse even more quickly isn't cutting it, frankly.
"Would it be cheaper to send people up to the asteroid to mine or, send automated equipment to return the asteroid to earth orbit (or even a controlled re-entry)?"
It would almost certainly be cheaper. Once you are out in space things become expensive based on how much fuel and how much change in velocity is required to get there and back. Mars is *expensive* from that point of view. And given that it seems to be mostly low grade iron ore - why bother? With asteriods, comets and near earth objects the fuel costs are low and the ore quality is much much higher. You can pick and choose what you want. High quality metallic ores? No problem. Need volatiles for fuel and oxygen for your team? No problem. Pick an object and go get it. For an object that is basically a frozen ball of hydrocarbons all you need to do is haul a rocket engine out there and melt yourself enough fuel to push it where you want it.
I just don't see the point of mining heavy bodies unless it is for a colony that is *on* that body.
"There is a reason that Ford is bringing Focus production back into the USA from Mexico, unions and all."
If they are, it's not for quality reasons. I think it's understood by anyone that cares that the build quality of the Zx3, Zx5 and SVT Focus made in Hermosillo is significantly higher than that of the sedans made in the US.
Exactly. Public schools do not have that power and it would take major draconian big-brother lawmaking to give them that power. I know that many schools have policies that they think control the students off the school grounds - but those are totally unenforcable. The only way they get that power is with parents consent. If the parents do not explicitly consent, they are SOL
And yet we already have the "write your senator" posts all over this thread. Feinstein *is* my senator and doesn't give a rat's ass about my opinion unless it includes a check for $264,567.
And yet, amazingly the opposition manages to run someone against her each time she's up for relelection that's even worse than she is.
"how about nudging a comet towards the moon once the technology is feasible?"
This doesn't take any technology that we don't have now, just some engineering and a strong enough will to do it. A comet wouldn't be the best thing, it would take a lot of delta v to alter it course. Best would a NEO. Plenty of them about. Take your pick, one full of volatiles for water/methane/etc or a denser one for ores.
Yup, I got that onw when trying to sell a used car. The "certified bank cheque" sent was such an obvious badly forged fugly thing that I can't imagine anyone being taken in by it. Just for grins I showed it to the local bank's manager. In addition to the things I had spotted he pointed out that they got the bank number wrong, many things were in the wrong place, etc. etc.
Nah, I've done this myself as have countless others. It won't fry. It will fail in mid boot with default settings. If you underclock (or underbus) it will normally work just fine. Since that is the sensible thing to start with when seeing the mid boot crash, that's often where troubleshooting ends. browse through groups.google and other places and you will find that the vast majority of people that have athlons that won't run "up to speed" turn out to be backwards heatsinks.
I agree. It is one of few examples I can think of that were "real" science on TV. But Scientific American? Didn't they already whore themselves out for some terrible pop science TV thingy? A quick google says yes - it was that 3rd grade pop science thing with Alan Alda. I think that disqualifies them as the standard bearer. There are enough channels now that a real science channel that carries enough content to take someone from the scientific ignorance that the school system produces to a general 4 year degree level seems possible.
Even better than Mechanical Universe as the model for a channel(s) would be The Young Ladies Illustrated Primer (Diamond Age for the 2 people here that don't get the reference).
"The 20 mile drive on the freeway to work typically takes me an hour--on the bus it would take me an hour and a half, minimum. And light rail (and the newly constructed L.A. subway) is a joke here"
Too true. I actually live not too far from a metrolink line. Problem is that all the lines are designed to take you downtown. I don't need to go downtown, I need to go to Northridge. It too is on a metrolink route, but a different one. They cross, but since the timetables are designed to take people downtown the layover between lines is long (sit in station for over an hour).
So, I check their routing site. I like to do this from time to time, since, who knows, it may actually work someday. Nope. 1) drive 5 miles to nearest station. 2) take train for another 5 miles for a $4.25 fare. 3) take bus and pay them an additional $2.75 4) change buses again 5) walk about a mile to get to work.
Yup. I'm paying $14 a day, leaving home at 5:45 am, still driving, walking through rain or whatever - and I will still be late getting in. The only way I could make an 8am meeting would be to sleep under my desk the night before. MY commute time goes from ~2 hours a day to ~5 hours a day. I'm really likely to do that....
Slashdot Mirror
Also the first thing I thought of. Why the Hell not? How much delta-v would it take to push it into a stable orbit. Sounds like a better use of $$ than a lunar base. At least a lunar base as a jumping off point for Mars. This thing (or Cruithne) seem destined to become space stations at some point - why not now?
'Like they say, nobody ever said on their deathbed "I wish I'd spent more time at work".'
Trite and true, but how many have said "I wish I could have put my kids through college", "If could have afforded health care I wouldn't be here now", "I wish I hadn't had to kill my female children so I could afford to feed my male children", et friggen cetera..
"Sure, one can argue that if two theories are functionally equivalent, there's no downside to taking the simpler one. But has anyone demontrated this logically or mathematically?"
It's really a postulate, an unprovable given. If the 2 theories are really functionally equivalent you must accept the simpler. The more complex one only wins if it can explain behaviour that the simple one can't. Then they aren't really equivalent, are they?
Assume for the moment that Einstein's physics and Newton's physics are functionally equivalent. Einstein's is more complex. If both came out in Newton's time, Einstein's would have to be rejected. Einstein's explains many things that Newton's doesn't - but back then they didn't realize that those things needed explaining. The only thing that could be pointed to then that Newton's didn't capture is slight misprediction of the orbit of Mercury. I'm not sure they could even measure it's orbit accurately enough to detect the misprediction back then. Not really good enough for Einstein to be percieved as more than a crank.
As time goes on more and more evidence accumulates that Einstein can explain and Newton can't. They become less and less equivalent.
"Sorry, don't think so. How many WinZip registration keys are floating around the internet? How much lost profit $$ does that represent for them?"
None.
The $$ is in corporate licenses. Every mid to large company knows perfectly well that there are hundreds/thousands of copies of winzip being used by their employees. The license is cheap CYA. I bet there isn't a single SP 500 company without a corporate license to winzip
"Don't do a corporation unless you have serious starting capital"
Partially correct. The other half is "or you think someone may want to sue you". In this world, someone always wants to sue you. A DBA provides no protection for your assets. They sue, you can lose your house. An LLC or S-corp provides effective cover. The real downside is a minimum of $880 a year in corporation costs in California.
"There are resources on Mars. There are no resources in orbits (Well, until you get to the asteroid belt)"
Sure there are. What would it cost to push Cruithne into the earth/sun trojan point? We don't really know its mass so you can't come up with exact number, but I'd bet "not much". Particularly not much if it turns out to be composed at least partially of volaties that can be used as fuel. I guess you could just leave it where it is and put up a sign that says "welcome to space station Cruithne!" but it would be easier to deal with if it held still. A 5km wide mass sitting in the trojan point is a space station waiting to happen, almost regardless of what it's composed of.
Lets grant the "star trek universe" enough of a widespread understanding that we can call it a thought experiment. It is one on many levels, but just look from the scarcity point of view. Your first point is wrong - there is a need for money. Currency, barter and other types of exchange are more and more important as you travel further and further out into the Harry Mud edges of the frontier. Granted, they don't seem terribly important on Earth and more highly developed planets. This would also be true with a late stage nanotech society.
Second, in that universe it seems pretty clear that not all things replicate equally well. Many luxury goods (wines, brandy, foods). Also some necessities - if you could replicate di-lithium crystals the society would not work the way it does. Nano would also work this way. Unlike the start trek universe 'tea, earl grey, hot' would be one of those things that molecular mfg wouldn't work that well for. There is a nano factory called a tea plant that produces a concentrated substance in its leaves that does a great job. Nano would/could go a long way to up yields on tea, automate care (aphid hunting nanobots would be preferable to pesticides) but the tea plantations are there to stay. Someone(s) still going to have to have to run the operation. Probably someone that is a hard core tea geek (yes, they exist) would do 80% for love of the process and 20% for those luxury goods that don't replicate well (maybe he's also a stinky cheese geek or collects antiques).
So, who cleans the toilets? A toilet that needs a human to clean it is a poorly designed toilet - why buy that model? "the droids would clean it" is a valid answer to some extent, but for the toilet example it should just be self cleaning.
In the larger sense it makes sense to ask "who does the unpleasant jobs, whatever they may be, there are bound to be some". As many reasons as there are people, I suppose. In the Federation we see many of these things done by star fleet folks. They do it for pride of position, duty, a tradition of public service, earning their way into the company of those they respect (same reason we humiliate recruits in boot camp). Hard scrabble miners do it in hopes of great riches (what does that mean? It clearly still means something) and probably because they don't 'play well with others' and couldn't get on in more civilized parts.
If pople are freed of having to spend most of they waking hours on basic survival they will find thngs to do. Some destructive, some stupid, some brilliant and some that areas that look to other people as crazy (why would someone spend 4+ hours a day working in a garden if they didn't need the $$/food?).
Smalley says:
"You still do not appear to understand the impact of my short piece in Scientific American. Much like you can't make a boy and a girl fall in love with each other simply by pushing them together, you cannot make precise chemistry occur as desired between two molecular objects with simple mechanical motion along a few degrees of freedom in the assembler-fixed frame of reference."
To strain the analogy - no, but you can probably get them to mate and that's good enough. A better analogy may have been that you can't take Feynman's parents and smash them together and get Richard Feynman. That would be truer, though if you did it enough times you would probably come pretty close. Drexler's ideas on mechanosynthesis assume a certain amount of waste and a certain amount of "close enough".
Eh? offtopic? the mods probably don't remember that Dune was a satellite of Vega...
not all that earthlike
I'm sure the ACLU and the EFF and the other orgs that I give time and $$ to felt that it made a difference - but it *isn't* making a difference. They are all fighting rear-guard actions; winning some, losing some. Maybe it would be even worse without them, it probably would. Keeping things from getting even worse even more quickly isn't cutting it, frankly.
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
and yet it still doesn't seem to make any difference. What next, oh wise one?
That's a reason to push resources down a gravity well, not a good reason to pull it up in the first place.
"Would it be cheaper to send people up to the asteroid to mine or, send automated equipment to return the asteroid to earth orbit (or even a controlled re-entry)?"
It would almost certainly be cheaper. Once you are out in space things become expensive based on how much fuel and how much change in velocity is required to get there and back. Mars is *expensive* from that point of view. And given that it seems to be mostly low grade iron ore - why bother? With asteriods, comets and near earth objects the fuel costs are low and the ore quality is much much higher. You can pick and choose what you want. High quality metallic ores? No problem. Need volatiles for fuel and oxygen for your team? No problem. Pick an object and go get it. For an object that is basically a frozen ball of hydrocarbons all you need to do is haul a rocket engine out there and melt yourself enough fuel to push it where you want it.
I just don't see the point of mining heavy bodies unless it is for a colony that is *on* that body.
"There is a reason that Ford is bringing Focus production back into the USA from Mexico, unions and all."
If they are, it's not for quality reasons. I think it's understood by anyone that cares that the build quality of the Zx3, Zx5 and SVT Focus made in Hermosillo is significantly higher than that of the sedans made in the US.
Exactly. Public schools do not have that power and it would take major draconian big-brother lawmaking to give them that power. I know that many schools have policies that they think control the students off the school grounds - but those are totally unenforcable. The only way they get that power is with parents consent. If the parents do not explicitly consent, they are SOL
Bingo! And my congressman is Howard "Buck" McKeon a 100% died in the wool tool of the republican right
And yet we already have the "write your senator" posts all over this thread. Feinstein *is* my senator and doesn't give a rat's ass about my opinion unless it includes a check for $264,567.
And yet, amazingly the opposition manages to run someone against her each time she's up for relelection that's even worse than she is.
"how about nudging a comet towards the moon once the technology is feasible?"
This doesn't take any technology that we don't have now, just some engineering and a strong enough will to do it. A comet wouldn't be the best thing, it would take a lot of delta v to alter it course. Best would a NEO. Plenty of them about. Take your pick, one full of volatiles for water/methane/etc or a denser one for ores.
Yup, I got that onw when trying to sell a used car. The "certified bank cheque" sent was such an obvious badly forged fugly thing that I can't imagine anyone being taken in by it. Just for grins I showed it to the local bank's manager. In addition to the things I had spotted he pointed out that they got the bank number wrong, many things were in the wrong place, etc. etc.
I though first of Stephen Baxter's Manifold Space Novel. He almost certainly got the idea from Niven's short though.
Which is itself a nod from Matt Groening to Asimov's classic short "Nightfall"
Nah, I've done this myself as have countless others. It won't fry. It will fail in mid boot with default settings. If you underclock (or underbus) it will normally work just fine. Since that is the sensible thing to start with when seeing the mid boot crash, that's often where troubleshooting ends. browse through groups.google and other places and you will find that the vast majority of people that have athlons that won't run "up to speed" turn out to be backwards heatsinks.
I agree. It is one of few examples I can think of that were "real" science on TV. But Scientific American? Didn't they already whore themselves out for some terrible pop science TV thingy? A quick google says yes - it was that 3rd grade pop science thing with Alan Alda. I think that disqualifies them as the standard bearer. There are enough channels now that a real science channel that carries enough content to take someone from the scientific ignorance that the school system produces to a general 4 year degree level seems possible.
Even better than Mechanical Universe as the model for a channel(s) would be The Young Ladies Illustrated Primer (Diamond Age for the 2 people here that don't get the reference).
"The 20 mile drive on the freeway to work typically takes me an hour--on the bus it would take me an hour and a half, minimum. And light rail (and the newly constructed L.A. subway) is a joke here"
Too true. I actually live not too far from a metrolink line. Problem is that all the lines are designed to take you downtown. I don't need to go downtown, I need to go to Northridge. It too is on a metrolink route, but a different one. They cross, but since the timetables are designed to take people downtown the layover between lines is long (sit in station for over an hour).
So, I check their routing site. I like to do this from time to time, since, who knows, it may actually work someday. Nope. 1) drive 5 miles to nearest station. 2) take train for another 5 miles for a $4.25 fare. 3) take bus and pay them an additional $2.75 4) change buses again 5) walk about a mile to get to work.
Yup. I'm paying $14 a day, leaving home at 5:45 am, still driving, walking through rain or whatever - and I will still be late getting in. The only way I could make an 8am meeting would be to sleep under my desk the night before. MY commute time goes from ~2 hours a day to ~5 hours a day. I'm really likely to do that....