None of the documents on that site seem to mention the idea of producing antimatter off-Earth. This would be cheaper (once you got your factory set up) b/c you wouldn't have to transport the stuff out of Earth's gravity well, and much, much SAFER (I wouldn't want large amounts of AM being boosted through our atmosphere, much less sitting around on the surface).
I've thought before that there must be a good way to create or collect AM near the Sun. I don't know a lot about this, but I'd guess that the solar wind must contain some antiparticles as byproducts of fusion reactions. A station in solar orbit with large magnetic scoops could collect antiprotons (which are charged, after all) and store them.
If this isn't feasible, solar energy could be harnessed in some other way and converted to antimatter. Either way, the factory could have a von-Neumann type capability to expand its collection/production capacity (i.e., its two functions would be 1. produce antimatter and 2. produce more antimatter production machinery). Very soon we'd have HUGE quantities of the stuff.
Ships could stop by the station to pick up preassembled fuel pods, or the fuel could be transported closer to Earth (might be wise to keep it away from near-Earth orbit...say, no closer than the other side of the Moon...that way, if an AM engine or fuel pod blew up, the radiation burst wouldn't harm Earth-dwellers).
None of the documents on that site seem to mention the idea of producing antimatter off-Earth. This would be cheaper (once you got your factory set up) b/c you wouldn't have to transport the stuff out of Earth's gravity well, and much, much SAFER (I wouldn't want large amounts of AM being boosted through our atmosphere, much less sitting around on the surface).
I've thought before that there must be a good way to create or collect AM near the Sun. I don't know a lot about this, but I'd guess that the solar wind must contain some antiparticles as byproducts of fusion reactions. A station in solar orbit with large magnetic scoops could collect antiprotons (which are charged, after all) and store them.
If this isn't feasible, solar energy could be harnessed in some other way and converted to antimatter. Either way, the factory could have a von-Neumann type capability to expand its collection/production capacity (i.e., its two functions would be 1. produce antimatter and 2. produce more antimatter production machinery). Very soon we'd have HUGE quantities of the stuff.
Ships could stop by the station to pick up preassembled fuel pods, or the fuel could be transported closer to Earth (might be wise to keep it away from near-Earth orbit...say, no closer than the other side of the Moon...that way, if an AM engine or fuel pod blew up, the radiation burst wouldn't harm Earth-dwellers).
I said "recorded," with the understanding that there's a lot we don't know. I've never heard of anyone being killed by Tunguska. I hadn't heard about the Eastern European incident last year, but I stand corrected on that one.
The only casualty on record is some woman in Kansas or Oklahoma, who was bruised when a small meteorite crashed through her roof and hit her on the hip while she was napping on her couch. I think this was back in the 1950s.
Umm...yeah, I like that they phrased it this way, rather than in dry technical language. But it ain't exactly great poetry. It's an intentional parody of this thing, which has been floating around on inspirational posters for years. It was apparently written and copyrighted by Max Ehrmann (1872-1945) in 1927.
I always wondered what would happen to the cast of "DS9" after it went off the air...
I guess Turner pays better than Starfleet.
Marilyn Manson: "That boy tries too hard"
on
2600 v. Ford Motors
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· Score: 1
The Onion did a great parody of MM pointing out this exact aspect of his career: that it's basically designed to piss people off. He thrives on opposition.
Perhaps Corley is the kind of "activist" who likewise does whatever he can to position himself as a persecuted underdog fighting the Man. I don't know...
More rambling: Personally, I think we have to stop acting like cyberspace is some kind of fairyland where ordinary laws don't or shouldn't apply. Ford's "tarnishment" claim seems at least somewhat reasonable. I think the dilemma in cyberspace is figuring out which laws or legal precedents should apply, given that the parallels to previous situations are never exact, and that different people will view the situation using different analogies. (I.e., "the Internet is like TV" vs. "the Internet is like print media" will give you two very different ways of viewing the Internet.)
In this case, the question might be phrased as "What is a domain name like?" Is it analogous to the billboard described in the article, or something else? While I think people should be able to hyperlink to whatever they want (on the theory that a hyperlink is like a footnote, asterisk, or bibliographic reference), a domain name may indeed be more like a billboard, or perhaps more precisely, a road sign. Imagine driving along and seeing a sign saying "Fuck General Motors, Next Left"...you turn left, and find yourself at the entrance to Ford. Ford's name isn't on the sign, but the sign does direct you (unknowingly) to Ford.
I think the renewal of "X-Files" for a 10th season is bigger news than cancellation of "Lone Gunmen" after half a season. "X-Files" has actually gotten good again over the past few months. Anyone see Sunday's episode? Damn, that was well-done action/adventure TV! Full of plot holes you could drive a garbage truck thru (and they did, at the end), but that's just something you get used to, like technobabble on Trek.
I've not used AOL mail, tho I know it's pretty clunky. But one somewhat positive possible side effect of this that nobody seems to have mentioned: this could spur AOL to put more resources into their own browser and POP mail client...y'know, Netscape/Mozilla.
I don't know that the current AOL mail system has any connection to the developing Mozilla codebase. And I don't know if Mozilla's mail client is currently being developed to have Outlook-type functionality. But a lot of employees (including techies) bitching about AOL mail's weaknesses could lead to internal pressure for a switchover to some kind of Mozilla-based solution.
And this would be a Good Thing[tm], in the long run. What better situation could we imagine that could lead to the development of an open-source Outlook killer?
...Star Trek is supposed to be about SPACE travel. You know...trekking...between the stars...?
The Voyager writers seem to have forgotten this. Instead of exploring brave new worlds, they're stuck inside their own subconscious minds. They don't need faster warp engines to get home, they need a good shrink, or maybe some anti-psychotic meds, to straighten out their warped heads.
Perhaps the drift from the original show to this one reflects our culture: in the 60s we still believed the final frontier was Out There, in a wilderness that needed to be explored and tamed. Now we've gotten more introspective, or more narcissistic, depending on how you look at it. So our sci-fi shows are full of navel-gazing and New Age sermonizing.
When I first read the rumors on aintitcool.com, cribbed from casting sheets months ago, I thought "This has got to be a joke. Rick Berman and Brannon Braga are running a disinformation campaign...circulating a trashy idea so that whatever they come up with will look better."
Alas, I was wrong. I shouldn't be surprised, knowing the team that brought us seven years of Voyager time-travel/holodeck/alternate-reality/it-was-all- a-dream mindfuck idiocy.
I wish they'd give Trek a rest for about 10 years.
Meanwhile, it's high time for a Dr. Who revival...
Scientists are starting to realize that it isn't all about the DNA...it's about the whole environment in which DNA does its works. The next big frontier is "proteomics" rather than "genomics," because genes by themselves can't do much...they are activated and enabled only in certain situations.
I wonder if the fantasy of growing organs in a vat is even possible. It may turn out that our organs have to develop inside our bodies...that there are all kinds of complex interrelationships that are necessary. Trying to grow one organ in isolation from the body's other systems -- circulatory, endocrine, nervous, etc. -- may be futile. Perhaps you COULD supply a liver-in-a-vat with the exact combination of nutrients, hormones, growth factors, temperature, etc....but chances are the body can do it better.
I'm a lefty who's used to mousing with my right hand. I'm also a lover of keyboard shortcuts. But I find my right hand/arm seriously overtaxed and frequently aching because not only is the mouse on the right, so is the numerical keypad and the cursor keys. I'd like to see a keyboard with cursor keys on the left (or two sets, one left and one right).
Let's not experiment on Earth (it's the only one we've got). Mars, tho...we could move it closer in, warm it up, melt some of that ice, get the atmosphere and temperature a little more comfortable.
Mars is smaller and thus the mass that would be needed to change its orbit would be smaller. We might even be able to do something with its moons Phobos and Deimos, which (if I recall correctly) are basically just captured asteroids.
"A series of sophisticated still cameras was placed along the mapped path, each of which would shoot a single still photo. Then the photos were scanned into the computer, which created a strip of still images, similar to animation cels. The computer generated "in-between" drawings of the images much as animators draw frames to move their characters smoothly from one pose to another and the completed series of images could be passed before the viewers' eyes as quickly or slowly as the filmmakers wanted without losing clarity."
If you look carefully at that shot (which I missed totally on first viewing) it's not all that similar to "American Beauty." Yes, it's a high-angle crane shot. Otherwise, she appears to be only semi-reclining and fully clothed, in some sort of stone-paved courtyard. Those look like fallen leaves, not rose petals, blowing around. This would fit with the "autumnal," twilight feeling associated with all things Elvish in the books.
Slashdot Mirror
The code required for this would be awkward, tho.
Maybe put all your pages on backgrounds with the exact shade of purple used by SmartTags?
i.e., anarchy.
Will the ICAN (spacecraft) folks ever be able to get a domain name for their project? :)
None of the documents on that site seem to mention the idea of producing antimatter off-Earth. This would be cheaper (once you got your factory set up) b/c you wouldn't have to transport the stuff out of Earth's gravity well, and much, much SAFER (I wouldn't want large amounts of AM being boosted through our atmosphere, much less sitting around on the surface). I've thought before that there must be a good way to create or collect AM near the Sun. I don't know a lot about this, but I'd guess that the solar wind must contain some antiparticles as byproducts of fusion reactions. A station in solar orbit with large magnetic scoops could collect antiprotons (which are charged, after all) and store them. If this isn't feasible, solar energy could be harnessed in some other way and converted to antimatter. Either way, the factory could have a von-Neumann type capability to expand its collection/production capacity (i.e., its two functions would be 1. produce antimatter and 2. produce more antimatter production machinery). Very soon we'd have HUGE quantities of the stuff. Ships could stop by the station to pick up preassembled fuel pods, or the fuel could be transported closer to Earth (might be wise to keep it away from near-Earth orbit...say, no closer than the other side of the Moon...that way, if an AM engine or fuel pod blew up, the radiation burst wouldn't harm Earth-dwellers).
I've thought before that there must be a good way to create or collect AM near the Sun. I don't know a lot about this, but I'd guess that the solar wind must contain some antiparticles as byproducts of fusion reactions. A station in solar orbit with large magnetic scoops could collect antiprotons (which are charged, after all) and store them.
If this isn't feasible, solar energy could be harnessed in some other way and converted to antimatter. Either way, the factory could have a von-Neumann type capability to expand its collection/production capacity (i.e., its two functions would be 1. produce antimatter and 2. produce more antimatter production machinery). Very soon we'd have HUGE quantities of the stuff.
Ships could stop by the station to pick up preassembled fuel pods, or the fuel could be transported closer to Earth (might be wise to keep it away from near-Earth orbit...say, no closer than the other side of the Moon...that way, if an AM engine or fuel pod blew up, the radiation burst wouldn't harm Earth-dwellers).
I said "recorded," with the understanding that there's a lot we don't know. I've never heard of anyone being killed by Tunguska. I hadn't heard about the Eastern European incident last year, but I stand corrected on that one.
The only casualty on record is some woman in Kansas or Oklahoma, who was bruised when a small meteorite crashed through her roof and hit her on the hip while she was napping on her couch. I think this was back in the 1950s.
Could happen.
I can't come up with any funny jokes about M$ embracing and extending their reach to the Oort Cloud, but I'm sure someone can...
Umm...yeah, I like that they phrased it this way, rather than in dry technical language. But it ain't exactly great poetry. It's an intentional parody of this thing, which has been floating around on inspirational posters for years. It was apparently written and copyrighted by Max Ehrmann (1872-1945) in 1927.
I guess Turner pays better than Starfleet.
Perhaps Corley is the kind of "activist" who likewise does whatever he can to position himself as a persecuted underdog fighting the Man. I don't know...
More rambling: Personally, I think we have to stop acting like cyberspace is some kind of fairyland where ordinary laws don't or shouldn't apply. Ford's "tarnishment" claim seems at least somewhat reasonable. I think the dilemma in cyberspace is figuring out which laws or legal precedents should apply, given that the parallels to previous situations are never exact, and that different people will view the situation using different analogies. (I.e., "the Internet is like TV" vs. "the Internet is like print media" will give you two very different ways of viewing the Internet.)
In this case, the question might be phrased as "What is a domain name like?" Is it analogous to the billboard described in the article, or something else? While I think people should be able to hyperlink to whatever they want (on the theory that a hyperlink is like a footnote, asterisk, or bibliographic reference), a domain name may indeed be more like a billboard, or perhaps more precisely, a road sign. Imagine driving along and seeing a sign saying "Fuck General Motors, Next Left"...you turn left, and find yourself at the entrance to Ford. Ford's name isn't on the sign, but the sign does direct you (unknowingly) to Ford.
C'mon, guys, it's "Gandhi."
All we ever see stories about on /. is Trek drek.
Let the flames begin.
I don't know that the current AOL mail system has any connection to the developing Mozilla codebase. And I don't know if Mozilla's mail client is currently being developed to have Outlook-type functionality. But a lot of employees (including techies) bitching about AOL mail's weaknesses could lead to internal pressure for a switchover to some kind of Mozilla-based solution.
And this would be a Good Thing[tm], in the long run. What better situation could we imagine that could lead to the development of an open-source Outlook killer?
The Voyager writers seem to have forgotten this. Instead of exploring brave new worlds, they're stuck inside their own subconscious minds. They don't need faster warp engines to get home, they need a good shrink, or maybe some anti-psychotic meds, to straighten out their warped heads.
Perhaps the drift from the original show to this one reflects our culture: in the 60s we still believed the final frontier was Out There, in a wilderness that needed to be explored and tamed. Now we've gotten more introspective, or more narcissistic, depending on how you look at it. So our sci-fi shows are full of navel-gazing and New Age sermonizing.
Alas, I was wrong. I shouldn't be surprised, knowing the team that brought us seven years of Voyager time-travel/holodeck/alternate-reality/it-was-all- a-dream mindfuck idiocy.
I wish they'd give Trek a rest for about 10 years.
Meanwhile, it's high time for a Dr. Who revival...
Around the time Dorothy touched down in Oz.
I wonder if the fantasy of growing organs in a vat is even possible. It may turn out that our organs have to develop inside our bodies...that there are all kinds of complex interrelationships that are necessary. Trying to grow one organ in isolation from the body's other systems -- circulatory, endocrine, nervous, etc. -- may be futile. Perhaps you COULD supply a liver-in-a-vat with the exact combination of nutrients, hormones, growth factors, temperature, etc....but chances are the body can do it better.
I'm a lefty who's used to mousing with my right hand. I'm also a lover of keyboard shortcuts. But I find my right hand/arm seriously overtaxed and frequently aching because not only is the mouse on the right, so is the numerical keypad and the cursor keys. I'd like to see a keyboard with cursor keys on the left (or two sets, one left and one right).
Let's not experiment on Earth (it's the only one we've got). Mars, tho...we could move it closer in, warm it up, melt some of that ice, get the atmosphere and temperature a little more comfortable.
Mars is smaller and thus the mass that would be needed to change its orbit would be smaller. We might even be able to do something with its moons Phobos and Deimos, which (if I recall correctly) are basically just captured asteroids.
Max
"A series of sophisticated still cameras was placed along the mapped path, each of which would shoot a single still photo. Then the photos were scanned into the computer, which created a strip of still images, similar to animation cels. The computer generated "in-between" drawings of the images much as animators draw frames to move their characters smoothly from one pose to another and the completed series of images could be passed before the viewers' eyes as quickly or slowly as the filmmakers wanted without losing clarity."
If you look carefully at that shot (which I missed totally on first viewing) it's not all that similar to "American Beauty." Yes, it's a high-angle crane shot. Otherwise, she appears to be only semi-reclining and fully clothed, in some sort of stone-paved courtyard. Those look like fallen leaves, not rose petals, blowing around. This would fit with the "autumnal," twilight feeling associated with all things Elvish in the books.