Mars Direct....hand-wave away radiation damage to the crew...
Various people have a rather strange, almost religious fervor about how "evil" radiation is, and radioactive materials are. There is a lot of both justified and irrational fear about the use of radioactive materials and techniques on Earth.
However, yes, space is filled with radiation. So is the Earth, just at different strenghts. We've had from 60 to 100 years of experience dealing with effects of radation, and I believe most of the hard-science-informed (not necessarily the 'popular science' crowd) understands the various dangers, and lack thereof.
So, the quote above dealt with radiation effects on the crew of an approx. 2 year long mission to Mars ("Mars Direct") comprising 9 months journey, 6 months on the surface, and 9 months coming home.
the amounts, types, and densities of radiation over the entire Earth-Mars trajectory are what most scientists would call 'well characterized', meaning mostly known (the shapes and locations of their bell curves are known with reasonable levels of uncertainty);
Effects of radiation on humans, electronics, food, etc. are also well-characterized;
ISS (space station Alpha) personnel living in orbit have demonstrated these measurements to be roughly correct (no 'mysterious radiation' has shown up or had any other effects);
The other comment, about a nuclear reactor on Mars to generate power, will have some reaction among the anti-nuclear crowd here, methinks. This is worrisome. Unless we can come up with a means to generate solar power that is far less massive (lighter), we cannot deliver it to Mars. Thus, we need a reactor. This will NOT pollute Mars.
The design of the reactor is as follows: Big-shielded-container-of-plutonium stays permanently sealed, no working fluids or moving parts. Plutonium generates lots of heat. Big copper bar attached to plutonium container conducts heat. Along the way, (I believe this is the method! Please correct?) a specially designed thermo-sensitive photocell 'receptor' (photovoltaic cell sensitive to infrared) generates electrical power. The other side of the receptor is connected to a big radiator (a "heat sink", alumnium or copper with lots of fins that radiates heat).
The method has no moving parts, is passively cooled, emits fairly low amounts of radiation but lots of heat, for free, with no by-products to pollute the atmosphere or soil. Just like on Earth (only slighty more so) cosmic rays, gamma rays, and other radiation rains down on the surface anyway.
Yes, ideally we'd have sets of large photocell tarps that could be spread out on the ground and used to generate power. We could use that technology here on Earth, too. There's certainly enough land there to spread it out on. The land surface area of mars is the same as Earth (but 66% of Earth's surface is ocean). So, there's lots of acreage available.
I've been thinking about this for a long time. Here's my list:
1. Medical technique (drug/etc.) to stimulate regrowth of tissue, as various lizards do. Lose an arm? Regrow it. this would have to take into account the replacement of scar tissue with healthy new tissue. Important in this are skin, nerve, and heart tissues. 2. Replacement teeth. Along the same lines as tissue regrowth for the gums, replacement teeth would have similar properties to existing teeth but be permanently implanted. We have this for hips, knees, etc., why not for teeth? 3. Technique to artificially stimulate (nuclear) Beta decay. This would allow us to reduce radioactivity immediately in radioactive materials. 4. Method/device to increase, decrease (even to become negative) the force of gravity acting on an object. This would NOT include any mechanical device; I'm talking about a gravitational FIELD force here. 5. 3 dimensional display as a transparent globe that we look into to view projected images. This would allow 3-D viewing, and would vastly assist all manner of medical and engineering processes. 6. Caller-id. Oh, sorry, we have that. 7. Recognition in the social sciences realm that peace studies deserves more research and development, allowing disparate, traditionally hateful relationships between ethic/religious/etc. groups morph into peaceful coexistence, without resorting to genocide of one or the other groups. 8. Airborne refuelling using liquid oxygen instead of jet fuel. 9. Ramjet or scramjet jet engines that can go from 100% atmospheric oxygen variably to 100% onboard oxygen, burning kerosene. 10. Same suppemental oxygen engines that are rated for very high mach numbers in rarified air. 11. Space suits that are very thin and easy to put on/take off, and work at higher than 2 psi so there's no prebreathing requirement. 12. Very high specific impulse (ISP) engines (from 1000 to 10,000) with thrust ranges in the tens or hundreds of newtons instead of millinewtons.
Medical Recuperation: SciFi hit on this a long time ago. The movie CONTACT did so, even. The zero-gravity environment would be much easier on a heart patient.
Theme Park: One of the consistent features of theme parks is 'Gravity Games!' - roller coasters play with positive/negative G's. The whirlygigs spin you around. Well, Zero G must be a lot of fun, lots of people pay lots of money to experience moments of zero g.
Real Estate! If you want to build "a house on a hill", there's no bigger hill than Olympus Mons. You will NOT run out of real estate. The problem is that Antartica is far more hospitable than Mars. But, that can be fixed with increasingly reliable machinery.
Scientific exploration: Obvious, isn't it, to put an conventional large telescope (even a multi-mirrored one) in a vacuum?
Industrial Processes: there has to be some industrial use for very, very high heat in a vacuum and zero G. Honeycombed metals? The heat could be from a very simple parabolic mirror made from cheap mylar. There's no breeze, it's unflappable at higher orbits, etc.
Prospecting: Asteroids made of small chunks of pure metal. that's worth something right there. When the impurities in the iron are Nickel and Platinum? There's value there not just in the metal, but in the location of the metal, already out of our gravity well.
Bicycles are NOT cleaner. WARNING: SATIRE ALERT! SATIRE ALERT!
The power from bicycles comes from humans eating food and producing poop. The food production takes an unbelievably large amount of energy intensive fossil fuel burning machinery to produce, and quite a bit of value-add from packaging, marketing, etc. (grin).
Likewise, the 'CLEAN ENERGY' aspect of this ignores POOP. Humans that bicycle would use more energy and create more Poop. This would in turn create proportionately more feces, which would have to be processed in an energy intensive sewage treatment plant.
Manufacturing the bicycles, paving for the roads suitably, etc. is very inefficient and Anti-Green (shall we say RED?). The most GREEN thing we can do is stop emitting greenhouse gasses ("farts"), poop ("feces"), and consuming valuable resources by eating things. I recommend all humans should hold their breath until they die and save the planet.
SATIRE ALERT! The above is Satire. Any correspondence between this and a valid opinion would be in the direct opposite direction, ideologically speaking.
It seems to me the thing we need is a hydrogen to methane (natural gas) converter.
The widely acknowledged problem with hydrogen is the storage density stinks. The tank is too big and too pressurized for safety, size, and weight concerns.
This vehicle, and many other applications, would be well suited to having a hydrogen to methane converter. Many existing fleets use natural gas in their ONLY SLIGHTLY MODIFIED internal combustion engines.
Methane is CH4, a fairly simple molecule; could we come up with a carbon source to use here? Ethane is C2H6, etc.
Likewise, there are Nitrogen compounds to use. Can someone in chemical engineering comment on the possiblities here of creating more energy-dense storage using some kind of catalyst and raw H or H2 hydrogen?
Send me. I'll give it a push and get it going again. Or, I can fix it. Of course, I'm not a Mr. Goodwrench-certified ASME mechanic. But I do have a Bachelor's Degree!
Hello Materials Scientists, Aerospace engineers, civil engineers, any nuclear scientists (thought rare, someone out there may be one):
Why Alumninum?
If I was going to create a bunch of centrifuges to functionally distill uranium hexafloride gas, I'd have plenty of money, right? So, using any exotic material I wanted would be best, given that what I'm doing has to be done exactly right and the cost of the tubes is not the big determining factor?
So, here's the question: Why Not Titanium? Is it too heavy? I believe (given very limited info on turbine design) that titanium is a much stronger (though more brittle) material for high speed / high stress components.
Or, what about Magnesium? Mg is lighter than Aluminum, and probably thus could spin faster.
Can anyone comment on that the best material would be for a high speed centrifuge? Would the corrosive nature of a floride compound dictate for or against it? is this somethin we should even be discussing the actual answer to on an open forum?
Invent a new set of 4 passwords. Make them impossible to guess, 8 chars with upper and lowercase, NOT WORDS!, and at least two nonsequential numbers. Something like "FjW7zk2a". Don't practice typing them until you fix your box (see below). Create a paper list of them, memorize them well, then once you can remember them easily for 2 weeks (vital for long term memory), destroy the list or put it in a safe deposit box.
Invent a further password that you can use all the time, that you know to be a 'dumb' password that you use to log into websites like slashdot or imdb. Make sure you only use the dumb password for dumb applications, and the good ones (above) for stuff like signing in to your online brokerage or bank's transfer-money-type-website.
Fix your box or get a new one. Make sure it has Norton or MacAfee Antivirus on it, plus a good firewall, plus AdAware's SpyAssasin (recognized as best by most of my group of IT/InfoSec friends). Only when your box is secure should you do any online activity.
Call your credit card companies and request a new card from each of them. Tell them you believe your card number has been compromised and wish a new card.
While you're on the phone with your credit card companies, tell them you add an additional password to your account that they must request and you must provide whenever you talk with them. Chase and Discover at least both do this and have honored my request for it. This adds quite a bit of new security to your account.
Visit your bank, and close your existing accounts. Transfer the money to at least two new accounts. One of those accounts should NEVER EVER have any EFT (electronic fund transfer) transactions into/out of it. If your bank allows it, request that the account type prohibit that kind of activity. The other account should be an everyday checking or savings account that you can have the EFT's done with.
You mentioned contacting the credit bureaus and having a fraud listing attached to your account. This is good; it is free and effective.
If you currently have a Debit card, cut it up. Ask your bank for a card that ONLY does ATM transactions and nothing else. You are NOT protected if a debit card is stolen or misused - your money is GONE. Credit card companies protect you from paying more than $50 if a card is stolen / misused.
Re-read your last 6 months of credit card bills. Make sure you understand each charge on it. This allows you to have the familiarity to immedately spot fraudulent charges on your bill(s) and thus to react more quickly if there is a problem.
If you feel it necessary, there are companies out there who will do credit reports daily (if not the credit bureaus themselves) and email you if there is any significant activity (new accounts opened, etc., something goes to a collection agency, etc.). This service will probably cost you about $200 per year or so, but might be worth it for your peace of mind.
Just some ideas. Best of luck to you.
Larger scale, Due to Communication
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Amateur Revolution?
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· Score: 3, Insightful
In a larger scale analysis, the speed of targeted communications has always determined the speed of advancement throughout history.
Examples abound:
Greek military advancements (Phalanx) - after city-states bonded, writing popular
Renaissance - after plague's social dislocation allowed workers to travel, talk
Renaissance (multiple causes)- after Guttenburg / printing press allowed/instigated mass literacy
Galileo's experiments - after mail is regularly possible between him and many other scientists
Industrial revolution - after enough discoveries, shared by scientists mailing each other, built on each other's work to create steam power and other major inventions
Edison's "invention factory" putting bright minds and enough tools all in one Menlo Park building complex
FireFly TV show - computing machinery advanced enough to simulate other worlds coupled with good writing (though, the Profoundly Evil (Murdoch's) Fox 'targeted' communication with NeoCon fundamentalists means 'advancement' sometimes == social regression / repression)
This list is incomplete but gives an idea.
When people can talk with other people interested in the same things, easily, quickly, and in an organized manner, the rate of change (advancement, usually)(viewed through their eyes) can really increase.
This is a danger as well as a blessing. Every society has malcontents / miscreants / criminals, and (just remember junior high school) sometimes the only thing holding them back is the encouragement of one really inventive and charismatic bad guy/gal.
I, for one, welcome our newfound Pro-Am Inventor Overlords!
Ask at the outset: - Which have Nintendo, PS2s, gameboys, etc. - which have computers already?
One Idea: Have a Show and Tell. If they're not tech savvy, keep it very high level (this is a CD Rom drive, you put CDs in it, like music CD's or ones with software on it).
Show and Tell Ideas:
Bring an old computer, open it up, and point at the major components.
Tell them what software and hardware are, bring some CD's, and some burned CDs.
If you have an old hard drive, say a 200 Meg or something silly like that, OPEN IT UP. Yes, this will completely ruin it. Make sure to mention that if you do this (!). Show them the read-write head.
Open up a CDRom Drive. Pass it around and show the major parts.
Explain Google and Wikipedia if you've got a net connection, show some big sites, ask for interests and then show them sites. Warning: this could eat time quickly, and you've only got 10 minutes.
Show them the connectors and how they're all different shapes to make sure you don't plug the wrong thing in the wrong place (reduce fear)
Get a chip, and show how the chips are connected on the motherboard with traces (wires).
Of course, if your audience is savvy, you can't impress them with cool tech, you could always do the science discussion route and explain binary numbers. But, they're a little young for that.
I have always thought the primary purpose of education was to provide perspective so people make better-informed and wiser decisions. Perspective includes reducing fear levels to allow for rational thought and contemplation. Rational thought allows for inspired choices later based on whole sets of info you can't provide by rote learning.
So: Inspire, have fun, and show that no matter how complicated something looks, it's made up of simpler things that can be understood and manipulated by people who are interested in doing that.
Tell them that it never stops getting interesting, and if they're bored, to imagine what other people find interesting about it and see if that's interesting to them.
True enough. Gas heat will not work without electricity. However, a blower fan motor typically consumers approx. 100 to 400 watts. This is very reasonable to run from a portable electric generator. The generator can run with the gas to get the house up to 85 or so, then be turned off and the heat will last for a couple of hours.
Likewise, it is very possible (though slightly risky) to turn on a gas stove and heat a subset of the home with that. WARNING: Carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide will build up if you do this!! You should crack some windows to provide fresh air if heating with a stove. This is not that dangerous if you're careful with the fresh air, and it will keep the house and occupants from freezing.
It is NOT possible to run a heat pump from any but the biggest generators. A generator big enough for a heat pump will cost huge dollars (many thousands) and, when you need it most in the coldest temperatures, it will be the least efficient.
Sorry for not putting the above info in the above article, but I was trying to be succinct. My grandparents used to live on a farm in central Kansas, and had heat pumps as their house's primary heat source. When the power went out, they had a tractor-driven generator, which was very pricey and they had to be careful about the load they put on it; as I remember, the heat pump & generator combination was somehow troublesome, I presume because of the large load, but I don't remember all the details.
HEAT PUMPS: HOW THEY WORK, ADVANTAGES / DISADVANTAGES
Heat pumps are electrically powered. They combine air conditioning (AC) (cooling) with heating. The heating is NOT electrical resistance heating; they run AC in reverse, cooling the outside air and moving that heat to the inside.
The efficiency (IMHO IIRC) is based both on the mechanical efficiency of the unit and the outside weather. Very frigid temps mean the unit works very hard and is not very efficient, and sometimes must be supplemented with electrical resistance or other heating methods.
Efficiency can be improved by using "ground loop" heat pumps. Instead of heating/cooling air, they run a working fluid through a long pipe that can be put either in the ground or into a nearby lake. Thus, instead of grabbing heat from -10 degree F air, they get it from 33 degree or warmer water. A medium sized pond (1/3 acre+ and 10+ ft. deep IIRC) will not freeze to the bottom where the pipe runs given normal home heating loads. The DISADVANTAGE to ground loops is cost; they add significantly to installation costs, but these prices are dropping slowly and steadily as techniques and technology improve.
Heat pumps have generally good efficiencies in warmer climates, in Kansas and to the south.
A prominent disadvantage of a heat pump is dependency on the electrical grid. When it's summer, AC is not usually vital to survival (at least in most states; sorry to Houston). BUT, when it's -10 degrees, heat is vital. If the power fails, this is a problem (remember ice storms in Canada 10 yrs. ago?). The competing technology, Natural Gas (90%+ methane, 10% propane etc.) is typically underground and has a very, very reliable distribution system by comparison to electricity.
So, if you live in the right states, heat pumps are great, and can be even better with a little more capital investment in a ground loop. But, more cold northern climates (last time I checked) are far less well served by this technology. Oh - and most of Oregon doesn't count as "cold northern climate" for this - it's very moderate due to the pacific). Heat pumps in Oregon probably work very well, but in places like Chicago, and especially Duluth or Fairbanks, not so much.
Just a few bits from my research for my own home. -- Kevin
A friend of mine had a chair that you sat with your butt on small part, then tucked your knees under and on a kneerest. It was supposed to be way better for his back.
Of course, I couldn't relax much in it, and when I slouched it really made me tired, and after a while my knees hurt too.
They are called "knee chairs" and links to manufacturers / resellers are here and here.
Of course, there's always the option of
mount monitor on one of those extension arms like the Dentist X-Ray tube, hooked to the ceiling facing down
likewise with a keyboard and trackball (mouse would fall)
lie on your bed, with your back in traction, under this contraption, and lastly but importantly
take breaks once in a while to have an attractive spousal-unit (gf-unit, bf-unit, whatever) massage you back out of decrepitude.
Regardless of what you do, keep doing lots of situps and pushups, so you stay limber.
I believe the only way we could create human-powered aircraft is when the components (mostly wing area) was large and light enough to overcome thrust-drag ratios.
POINT 1: Can someone comment on the maximum sustained (3 minute duration) power output of a well trained human body? I believe it's less than one horsepower... ("he was stronger than a horse"), but not by much.
Regardless, it seems to me the components on a controllable helicopter include a Sikorski rotor assembly (that allows different angles to be put on a blad depending on it's position in a rotation). That dictates towards rotor blades that can occilate rapidly, and thus can very strongly stand up to high-speed torsions as well as flexing.
POINT 2: Since the blade structure is complex, and the rotors must be quite powerful, it seems to me that dictates tight restraints on design given the weight must be severely limited. Is there any discussion of exotic materials used in any other news article? I suspect a lot. What would the rotor blades be made from, standard materials like commerical helicopters?
POINT 3: I suppose the competition prevents someone from using a power storage device like a big battery or flywheel that a person can pump up to accumulate energy?
POINT 4: Does "Human Powered" mean chemically? Suppose I dried and accumulated enough of my own "dung", then burned it to distill alcohol, then used that alcohol as fuel in a conventional helicopter, it would be "human powered"... (grin).
I believe they thought of doing mining (as in for minerals, not data) in the 1950's and 1960's using nuclear explosives.
While this was a great incomplete theory, it left out the crucial detail of environmental damage and subsequent release of radiation to the ore, the slag, and the mined-out areas. Of course, in that day-in-age it wasn't well known what the long term effects of radioactive byproducts of nuclear explosions were.
There's also the crucial political perspective of Eisenhower's use of 'Atoms for Peace' to give political cover to the Atomic Energy Commission's mandate / goals of limiting proliferation. Basically, we promised the world that if they would NOT develop nuke bombs, we would give them reactors for free power. I am not "up" on the issue, I'd defer to some Ph.D.'s who do nonproliferation studies for a living. However, I'd wager there's a tradeoff between the lives saved by not having too many nukes out there vs. the lives lost in long term radiation exposure due to waste from 3rd world reactors.
Regardless, this builds up to the idea that if you're a terrorist, and you're going to try to set off a volcano, you're going to need lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots of conventional explosives, or one medium- to large-sized nuclear bomb. And, if you have a medium to large nuke, you're not going to use it on an off-the-wall gambit like an underwater or underground explosion.
Geologists, please comment on any demonstrated effects of the use of explosives in the triggering of volcanic eruptions (if any) ?? I would suspect very few experiments, am I right?
On that note, it seems like the antenna would not be the most expensive thing to buy as an extra, being usually aluminum in a nice shape. So, do people have links to cheap antenna sales locations and/or directions for build-your-own?
On a personal level, I'd be okay with running a CAN (community area network - is this the right terminology) if I could make sure I interoperate well and share bandwidth across 2 or 3 (or more) uplinks (comcast or DSL included). But, I don't know if this is possible, illegal, immoral, mischievieous, evil, okay, cool, encouraged, verboten, slimey, offbeat, and/or reprehensible in anyone's eyes but my own.
Thank you for replying to my post - and I agree with you, more so because my father was a City Manager (Masters in Public Administration from Univ. of Kansas 1962 (Larry Rice).
YES: PA grads have good admin skills and are excellent choices in my view for mayors, school board members, and even state boards and legislatures.
However, I see the job of a politician (executive branch) as 1/3 political science (the art of the possible), 1/3 public administration (managing people and making organizations work effectively) and 1/3 legal work, understanding the existing set of legal structures.
Ideally, a politician would also have an excellent grounding in philosophy, specifically The Ethics (as Aristotle would have phrased it, with capitals). Also, they would have visited at least 25 other countries and spent at least 2 weeks in each one meeting primarily with their residents (no Intourist or Hotel Intercontinental "American Only" experinces).
Legislative branch politicians would need less Public Administration history because they would not be functionally a chief executive of an organization with thousands of employees. Rather, executive branchers should have excellent knowledge of political history, ECONOMICS (very important), and (of course) an excellent understanding of the real problems that face normal people, not just their campaign contributors. Of course, that presumes they have the best interest of their constituents at heart, and I believe most politicians do.
I know, call me an idealist, but I think most people are trying to make the world a better place. But, as we all do, they bring a huge set of presumptions about The Way Things Should Be which may or may not reflect vastly incorrect, racially, religiously, and economically biased information.
Alas... We need the political savvy of Nixon, the massive brainpower of Clinton, the morals of Carter, and the ability to inspire of Kennedy. Too bad Millard Filmore is long gone (grin;-) (not that I know anything about Filmore, no flames please!)
Re:Headline dissappointed me....
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Lawyers In Space...
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Lawyers are not allowed to hold public office
This kind of thinking causes big problems!
Follow me here... Politicians are people who (a) WRITE LAWS and (b) ENFORCE LAWS. I very much like it that my legislators, who we put there to write good laws, see inconsistencies and opportunities for improvement within existing and proposed laws, and create the legal framework for our society.
Further, when we have wiener-politicians who don't understand the law either create or enforce them, they end up causing lots of problems for both the public and the courts.
So, PLEASE elect lawyers as politicians, that's one thing they're good for. Further, please elect experienced lawyers that know their way around case law so they don't have to get on-the-job experience at taxpayer expense (where expense is measured in the human terms of suffering under misworded statutes).
Of course, everyone in a legislature doesn't have to be a lawyer, just so there's enough of them there to point out when something is jurisprudentially incorrect.
Where are the specifications for this code? What language is it written in? Where is the source kept? What platforms does it run under?
MoveOn.org is sponsoring a petition drive to urge U.S. voters to demand voter-verified paper ballots that can be audited and recounted if necessary. This is the ONLY solution.
A SECRET ballot means that the association between a specific person and a specific vote cast is vital to democracy. Doing otherwise can very easily lead to vote buying ("I'll pay you $x for proof you voted for my candidate!").
We need a specifications document laying out the requirements for this software, which platforms it runs on, etc.
We also need a copy of the existing code to (a) have a place to start from, (b) provide us something to look at and thus give us ideas for development methodologies, (c) give us a point of reference to use when lobbying congressmen, etc.
This must be on a paper trail so I know who I voted for. Election monitors (the people, one from each party, who literally looked over the shoulders of the people counting ballots in Florida) need to be able to verify the count afterwards in some statistically valid way.
Now compute the economic gain of using Perl vs. any other language: Perl vs. Nothing : $677M Perl vs. C : $1.25B Perl vs. C# : $2.77B Perl vs. Hand Optimized Assembly on Honeywell DPS-3E running GCOS operating system: Priceless
I get the right in perpetuity (forever) to re-view any show I purchase, as many times as I wish.
I get the right to copy the show as many times as I wish to whatever media I wish.
I do not have the right to sell any show.
In order to make this business model work, the amount of data sent per show should make it prohibitively expensive to keep everything.
Thus, I pay $0.05 (5 cents) for the 'Ask This Old House' epsiode 112. I would be silly to burn it to media because it would cost $0.50 to store it. Of course, if I have that much money, I have the right to do so, but it'd be silly. Any time I want to watch it again, I'll just order it up again and they'll get another 5 cents. If everyone does this, they actually get lots of money.
This is similar to my idea about music. I'd be happy to pay approx. 2 cents per song to the copyright owner (the artist, I hope?). I'm willing to spend a total of $1000 to own a library of the 50,000 most popular recordings of all time. That's probably most everything I'd want to listen to ever.
The record companies and artists get their money, I get the right to listen to all the songs I want when I want how I want where I want, and everybody's happy.
Eventually the price will come down to reasonable levels.
Music and TV and Movies all operate on the same concept as Books - Intellectual property. They should realize their business model allows for plenty of profit, just adjust it for the new realities of media costs.
Yah, I was angry. Not that angry, just a little irritated. Still, as others have noted, I paid for the paper and didn't get it.
IT'S A ROUTINE. It doesn't matter it's a 50-cent newspaper; it could be a 5-cent lollipop. I've got a nice ritual/habit/routine going of spending my 68-minute metra train commute reading the front and metro sections of the paper and then taking a nap.
When something upsets that, I have to adjust, and it's like I'm missing something I should have done.
I'm not obsessed, it's just that I've found a ritual that works for me.
Speaking as a person who loves the diversity and complexity possible in the English language: we've got one Fsck'd up Language!
To list only a few rants:
vastly inconsistent spelling;
multiple phonemes attached to one character (I think this is the way to properly note that one letter has lots of different sounds);
a complete lack of a distinction between singlular and plural 'you' (a very common situation, solved in the Southern U.S. with "y'all");
many homonyms; no representation (alphabetic characters) for sounds common in many other world languages including arabic 'Q'/'K', swahili tounge-click, and hebrew 'chai' (as in Chaunukka).
On the plus side, we do advantages of:
very few grammatical cases except possessive (word endings - for example, word Jack vs. word Jack's, although plural Jacks does confuse!);
No silly male/female/neutral distinctions for everyday objects that have no inherent gender (since when should a table be presumed male or femaale?!?!);
Large vocabulary - the number of words is very large compared to many other languages, which leads to fewer homonyms;
since we have few grammatical cases, rhyming can be more difficult and therefore more beautiful;
Verbs do not change endings when used on different subjects (he fell, she fell, we fell, they fell) (vs. french's je vais, tu va, il va, nous avons, etc.).
Just a rant, but maybe if we all decided to do something about this mother tounge of ours, we might change it for the better (being ease of use, distinctiveness, expressiveness, reduction of confusion, etc.).
Slashdot Mirror
Mars Direct....hand-wave away radiation damage to the crew...
Various people have a rather strange, almost religious fervor about how "evil" radiation is, and radioactive materials are. There is a lot of both justified and irrational fear about the use of radioactive materials and techniques on Earth.
However, yes, space is filled with radiation. So is the Earth, just at different strenghts. We've had from 60 to 100 years of experience dealing with effects of radation, and I believe most of the hard-science-informed (not necessarily the 'popular science' crowd) understands the various dangers, and lack thereof.
So, the quote above dealt with radiation effects on the crew of an approx. 2 year long mission to Mars ("Mars Direct") comprising 9 months journey, 6 months on the surface, and 9 months coming home.
- the amounts, types, and densities of radiation over the entire Earth-Mars trajectory are what most scientists would call 'well characterized', meaning mostly known (the shapes and locations of their bell curves are known with reasonable levels of uncertainty);
- Effects of radiation on humans, electronics, food, etc. are also well-characterized;
- ISS (space station Alpha) personnel living in orbit have demonstrated these measurements to be roughly correct (no 'mysterious radiation' has shown up or had any other effects);
The other comment, about a nuclear reactor on Mars to generate power, will have some reaction among the anti-nuclear crowd here, methinks. This is worrisome. Unless we can come up with a means to generate solar power that is far less massive (lighter), we cannot deliver it to Mars. Thus, we need a reactor. This will NOT pollute Mars.The design of the reactor is as follows:
Big-shielded-container-of-plutonium stays permanently sealed, no working fluids or moving parts. Plutonium generates lots of heat. Big copper bar attached to plutonium container conducts heat. Along the way, (I believe this is the method! Please correct?) a specially designed thermo-sensitive photocell 'receptor' (photovoltaic cell sensitive to infrared) generates electrical power. The other side of the receptor is connected to a big radiator (a "heat sink", alumnium or copper with lots of fins that radiates heat).
The method has no moving parts, is passively cooled, emits fairly low amounts of radiation but lots of heat, for free, with no by-products to pollute the atmosphere or soil. Just like on Earth (only slighty more so) cosmic rays, gamma rays, and other radiation rains down on the surface anyway.
Yes, ideally we'd have sets of large photocell tarps that could be spread out on the ground and used to generate power. We could use that technology here on Earth, too. There's certainly enough land there to spread it out on. The land surface area of mars is the same as Earth (but 66% of Earth's surface is ocean). So, there's lots of acreage available.
-- Kevin
I've been thinking about this for a long time.
Here's my list:
1. Medical technique (drug/etc.) to stimulate regrowth of tissue, as various lizards do. Lose an arm? Regrow it. this would have to take into account the replacement of scar tissue with healthy new tissue. Important in this are skin, nerve, and heart tissues.
2. Replacement teeth. Along the same lines as tissue regrowth for the gums, replacement teeth would have similar properties to existing teeth but be permanently implanted. We have this for hips, knees, etc., why not for teeth?
3. Technique to artificially stimulate (nuclear) Beta decay. This would allow us to reduce radioactivity immediately in radioactive materials.
4. Method/device to increase, decrease (even to become negative) the force of gravity acting on an object. This would NOT include any mechanical device; I'm talking about a gravitational FIELD force here.
5. 3 dimensional display as a transparent globe that we look into to view projected images. This would allow 3-D viewing, and would vastly assist all manner of medical and engineering processes.
6. Caller-id. Oh, sorry, we have that.
7. Recognition in the social sciences realm that peace studies deserves more research and development, allowing disparate, traditionally hateful relationships between ethic/religious/etc. groups morph into peaceful coexistence, without resorting to genocide of one or the other groups.
8. Airborne refuelling using liquid oxygen instead of jet fuel.
9. Ramjet or scramjet jet engines that can go from 100% atmospheric oxygen variably to 100% onboard oxygen, burning kerosene.
10. Same suppemental oxygen engines that are rated for very high mach numbers in rarified air.
11. Space suits that are very thin and easy to put on/take off, and work at higher than 2 psi so there's no prebreathing requirement.
12. Very high specific impulse (ISP) engines (from 1000 to 10,000) with thrust ranges in the tens or hundreds of newtons instead of millinewtons.
Just a smattering of goals here.
Industrial Space
Several things come to mind:
- Tourism: the view is fantastic.
- Medical Recuperation: SciFi hit on this a long time ago. The movie CONTACT did so, even. The zero-gravity environment would be much easier on a heart patient.
- Theme Park: One of the consistent features of theme parks is 'Gravity Games!' - roller coasters play with positive/negative G's.
- Real Estate! If you want to build "a house on a hill", there's no bigger hill than Olympus Mons. You will NOT run out of real estate.
- Scientific exploration: Obvious, isn't it, to put an conventional large telescope (even a multi-mirrored one) in a vacuum?
- Industrial Processes: there has to be some industrial use for very, very high heat in a vacuum and zero G. Honeycombed metals? The heat could be from a very simple parabolic mirror made from cheap mylar. There's no breeze, it's unflappable at higher orbits, etc.
- Prospecting: Asteroids made of small chunks of pure metal. that's worth something right there. When the impurities in the iron are Nickel and Platinum?
Just a few ideas.The whirlygigs spin you around. Well, Zero G must be a lot of fun, lots of people pay lots of money to experience moments of zero g.
The problem is that Antartica is far more hospitable than Mars. But, that can be fixed with increasingly reliable machinery.
There's value there not just in the metal, but in the location of the metal, already out of our gravity well.
Bicycles are NOT cleaner. WARNING: SATIRE ALERT! SATIRE ALERT!
The power from bicycles comes from humans eating food and producing poop. The food production takes an unbelievably large amount of energy intensive fossil fuel burning machinery to produce, and quite a bit of value-add from packaging, marketing, etc. (grin).
Likewise, the 'CLEAN ENERGY' aspect of this ignores POOP. Humans that bicycle would use more energy and create more Poop. This would in turn create proportionately more feces, which would have to be processed in an energy intensive sewage treatment plant.
Manufacturing the bicycles, paving for the roads suitably, etc. is very inefficient and Anti-Green (shall we say RED?). The most GREEN thing we can do is stop emitting greenhouse gasses ("farts"), poop ("feces"), and consuming valuable resources by eating things. I recommend all humans should hold their breath until they die and save the planet.
SATIRE ALERT! The above is Satire. Any correspondence between this and a valid opinion would be in the direct opposite direction, ideologically speaking.
It seems to me the thing we need is a hydrogen to methane (natural gas) converter.
The widely acknowledged problem with hydrogen is the storage density stinks. The tank is too big and too pressurized for safety, size, and weight concerns.
This vehicle, and many other applications, would be well suited to having a hydrogen to methane converter. Many existing fleets use natural gas in their ONLY SLIGHTLY MODIFIED internal combustion engines.
Methane is CH4, a fairly simple molecule; could we come up with a carbon source to use here? Ethane is C2H6, etc.
Likewise, there are Nitrogen compounds to use. Can someone in chemical engineering comment on the possiblities here of creating more energy-dense storage using some kind of catalyst and raw H or H2 hydrogen?
Hey:
Send me. I'll give it a push and get it going again. Or, I can fix it. Of course, I'm not a Mr. Goodwrench-certified ASME mechanic. But I do have a Bachelor's Degree!
Hello Materials Scientists, Aerospace engineers, civil engineers, any nuclear scientists (thought rare, someone out there may be one):
Why Alumninum?
If I was going to create a bunch of centrifuges to functionally distill uranium hexafloride gas, I'd have plenty of money, right? So, using any exotic material I wanted would be best, given that what I'm doing has to be done exactly right and the cost of the tubes is not the big determining factor?
So, here's the question: Why Not Titanium? Is it too heavy? I believe (given very limited info on turbine design) that titanium is a much stronger (though more brittle) material for high speed / high stress components.
Or, what about Magnesium? Mg is lighter than Aluminum, and probably thus could spin faster.
Can anyone comment on that the best material would be for a high speed centrifuge? Would the corrosive nature of a floride compound dictate for or against it? is this somethin we should even be discussing the actual answer to on an open forum?
- Invent a new set of 4 passwords. Make them impossible to guess, 8 chars with upper and lowercase, NOT WORDS!, and at least two nonsequential numbers. Something like "FjW7zk2a". Don't practice typing them until you fix your box (see below). Create a paper list of them, memorize them well, then once you can remember them easily for 2 weeks (vital for long term memory), destroy the list or put it in a safe deposit box.
- Invent a further password that you can use all the time, that you know to be a 'dumb' password that you use to log into websites like slashdot or imdb. Make sure you only use the dumb password for dumb applications, and the good ones (above) for stuff like signing in to your online brokerage or bank's transfer-money-type-website.
- Fix your box or get a new one. Make sure it has Norton or MacAfee Antivirus on it, plus a good firewall, plus AdAware's SpyAssasin (recognized as best by most of my group of IT/InfoSec friends). Only when your box is secure should you do any online activity.
- Call your credit card companies and request a new card from each of them. Tell them you believe your card number has been compromised and wish a new card.
- While you're on the phone with your credit card companies, tell them you add an additional password to your account that they must request and you must provide whenever you talk with them. Chase and Discover at least both do this and have honored my request for it. This adds quite a bit of new security to your account.
- Visit your bank, and close your existing accounts. Transfer the money to at least two new accounts. One of those accounts should NEVER EVER have any EFT (electronic fund transfer) transactions into/out of it. If your bank allows it, request that the account type prohibit that kind of activity. The other account should be an everyday checking or savings account that you can have the EFT's done with.
- You mentioned contacting the credit bureaus and having a fraud listing attached to your account. This is good; it is free and effective.
- If you currently have a Debit card, cut it up. Ask your bank for a card that ONLY does ATM transactions and nothing else. You are NOT protected if a debit card is stolen or misused - your money is GONE. Credit card companies protect you from paying more than $50 if a card is stolen / misused.
- Re-read your last 6 months of credit card bills. Make sure you understand each charge on it. This allows you to have the familiarity to immedately spot fraudulent charges on your bill(s) and thus to react more quickly if there is a problem.
- If you feel it necessary, there are companies out there who will do credit reports daily (if not the credit bureaus themselves) and email you if there is any significant activity (new accounts opened, etc., something goes to a collection agency, etc.). This service will probably cost you about $200 per year or so, but might be worth it for your peace of mind.
Just some ideas. Best of luck to you.In a larger scale analysis, the speed of targeted communications has always determined the speed of advancement throughout history.
Examples abound:
- Greek military advancements (Phalanx) - after city-states bonded, writing popular
- Renaissance - after plague's social dislocation allowed workers to travel, talk
- Renaissance (multiple causes)- after Guttenburg / printing press allowed/instigated mass literacy
- Galileo's experiments - after mail is regularly possible between him and many other scientists
- Industrial revolution - after enough discoveries, shared by scientists mailing each other, built on each other's work to create steam power and other major inventions
- Edison's "invention factory" putting bright minds and enough tools all in one Menlo Park building complex
- FireFly TV show - computing machinery advanced enough to simulate other worlds coupled with good writing (though, the Profoundly Evil (Murdoch's) Fox 'targeted' communication with NeoCon fundamentalists means 'advancement' sometimes == social regression / repression)
This list is incomplete but gives an idea.When people can talk with other people interested in the same things, easily, quickly, and in an organized manner, the rate of change (advancement, usually)(viewed through their eyes) can really increase.
This is a danger as well as a blessing. Every society has malcontents / miscreants / criminals, and (just remember junior high school) sometimes the only thing holding them back is the encouragement of one really inventive and charismatic bad guy/gal.
I, for one, welcome our newfound Pro-Am Inventor Overlords!
Ask at the outset:
- Which have Nintendo, PS2s, gameboys, etc.
- which have computers already?
One Idea: Have a Show and Tell. If they're not tech savvy, keep it very high level (this is a CD Rom drive, you put CDs in it, like music CD's or ones with software on it).
Show and Tell Ideas:
- Bring an old computer, open it up, and point at the major components.
- Tell them what software and hardware are, bring some CD's, and some burned CDs.
- If you have an old hard drive, say a 200 Meg or something silly like that, OPEN IT UP. Yes, this will completely ruin it. Make sure to mention that if you do this (!). Show them the read-write head.
- Open up a CDRom Drive. Pass it around and show the major parts.
- Explain Google and Wikipedia if you've got a net connection, show some big sites, ask for interests and then show them sites. Warning: this could eat time quickly, and you've only got 10 minutes.
- Show them the connectors and how they're all different shapes to make sure you don't plug the wrong thing in the wrong place (reduce fear)
- Get a chip, and show how the chips are connected on the motherboard with traces (wires).
Of course, if your audience is savvy, you can't impress them with cool tech, you could always do the science discussion route and explain binary numbers. But, they're a little young for that.I have always thought the primary purpose of education was to provide perspective so people make better-informed and wiser decisions. Perspective includes reducing fear levels to allow for rational thought and contemplation.
Rational thought allows for inspired choices later based on whole sets of info you can't provide by rote learning.
So: Inspire, have fun, and show that no matter how complicated something looks, it's made up of simpler things that can be understood and manipulated by people who are interested in doing that.
Tell them that it never stops getting interesting, and if they're bored, to imagine what other people find interesting about it and see if that's interesting to them.
Just my 5 cents.
Natural gas heat will not work without AC either
I presume you mean electricity not AC...
True enough. Gas heat will not work without electricity. However, a blower fan motor typically consumers approx. 100 to 400 watts. This is very reasonable to run from a portable electric generator. The generator can run with the gas to get the house up to 85 or so, then be turned off and the heat will last for a couple of hours.
Likewise, it is very possible (though slightly risky) to turn on a gas stove and heat a subset of the home with that. WARNING: Carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide will build up if you do this!! You should crack some windows to provide fresh air if heating with a stove. This is not that dangerous if you're careful with the fresh air, and it will keep the house and occupants from freezing.
It is NOT possible to run a heat pump from any but the biggest generators. A generator big enough for a heat pump will cost huge dollars (many thousands) and, when you need it most in the coldest temperatures, it will be the least efficient.
Sorry for not putting the above info in the above article, but I was trying to be succinct. My grandparents used to live on a farm in central Kansas, and had heat pumps as their house's primary heat source. When the power went out, they had a tractor-driven generator, which was very pricey and they had to be careful about the load they put on it; as I remember, the heat pump & generator combination was somehow troublesome, I presume because of the large load, but I don't remember all the details.
HEAT PUMPS: HOW THEY WORK, ADVANTAGES / DISADVANTAGES
Heat pumps are electrically powered. They combine air conditioning (AC) (cooling) with heating. The heating is NOT electrical resistance heating; they run AC in reverse, cooling the outside air and moving that heat to the inside.
The efficiency (IMHO IIRC) is based both on the mechanical efficiency of the unit and the outside weather. Very frigid temps mean the unit works very hard and is not very efficient, and sometimes must be supplemented with electrical resistance or other heating methods.
Efficiency can be improved by using "ground loop" heat pumps. Instead of heating/cooling air, they run a working fluid through a long pipe that can be put either in the ground or into a nearby lake. Thus, instead of grabbing heat from -10 degree F air, they get it from 33 degree or warmer water. A medium sized pond (1/3 acre+ and 10+ ft. deep IIRC) will not freeze to the bottom where the pipe runs given normal home heating loads. The DISADVANTAGE to ground loops is cost; they add significantly to installation costs, but these prices are dropping slowly and steadily as techniques and technology improve.
Heat pumps have generally good efficiencies in warmer climates, in Kansas and to the south.
A prominent disadvantage of a heat pump is dependency on the electrical grid. When it's summer, AC is not usually vital to survival (at least in most states; sorry to Houston). BUT, when it's -10 degrees, heat is vital. If the power fails, this is a problem (remember ice storms in Canada 10 yrs. ago?). The competing technology, Natural Gas (90%+ methane, 10% propane etc.) is typically underground and has a very, very reliable distribution system by comparison to electricity.
So, if you live in the right states, heat pumps are great, and can be even better with a little more capital investment in a ground loop. But, more cold northern climates (last time I checked) are far less well served by this technology. Oh - and most of Oregon doesn't count as "cold northern climate" for this - it's very moderate due to the pacific). Heat pumps in Oregon probably work very well, but in places like Chicago, and especially Duluth or Fairbanks, not so much.
Just a few bits from my research for my own home.
-- Kevin
Of course, I couldn't relax much in it, and when I slouched it really made me tired, and after a while my knees hurt too.
They are called "knee chairs" and links to manufacturers / resellers are here and here.
Of course, there's always the option of
- mount monitor on one of those extension arms like the Dentist X-Ray tube, hooked to the ceiling facing down
- likewise with a keyboard and trackball (mouse would fall)
- lie on your bed, with your back in traction, under this contraption, and lastly but importantly
- take breaks once in a while to have an attractive spousal-unit (gf-unit, bf-unit, whatever) massage you back out of decrepitude.
Regardless of what you do, keep doing lots of situps and pushups, so you stay limber.And EAT YOUR VEGETABLES (grin)
I like your list. But, what about the things we haven't invented yet?
Of course, I'm probably forgetting lots of stuff. Anyone have further things I've missed??
I believe the only way we could create human-powered aircraft is when the components (mostly wing area) was large and light enough to overcome thrust-drag ratios.
POINT 1: Can someone comment on the maximum sustained (3 minute duration) power output of a well trained human body? I believe it's less than one horsepower... ("he was stronger than a horse"), but not by much.
Regardless, it seems to me the components on a controllable helicopter include a Sikorski rotor assembly (that allows different angles to be put on a blad depending on it's position in a rotation). That dictates towards rotor blades that can occilate rapidly, and thus can very strongly stand up to high-speed torsions as well as flexing.
POINT 2: Since the blade structure is complex, and the rotors must be quite powerful, it seems to me that dictates tight restraints on design given the weight must be severely limited. Is there any discussion of exotic materials used in any other news article? I suspect a lot. What would the rotor blades be made from, standard materials like commerical helicopters?
POINT 3: I suppose the competition prevents someone from using a power storage device like a big battery or flywheel that a person can pump up to accumulate energy?
POINT 4: Does "Human Powered" mean chemically? Suppose I dried and accumulated enough of my own "dung", then burned it to distill alcohol, then used that alcohol as fuel in a conventional helicopter, it would be "human powered"... (grin).
I believe they thought of doing mining (as in for minerals, not data) in the 1950's and 1960's using nuclear explosives.
While this was a great incomplete theory, it left out the crucial detail of environmental damage and subsequent release of radiation to the ore, the slag, and the mined-out areas. Of course, in that day-in-age it wasn't well known what the long term effects of radioactive byproducts of nuclear explosions were.
There's also the crucial political perspective of Eisenhower's use of 'Atoms for Peace' to give political cover to the Atomic Energy Commission's mandate / goals of limiting proliferation. Basically, we promised the world that if they would NOT develop nuke bombs, we would give them reactors for free power. I am not "up" on the issue, I'd defer to some Ph.D.'s who do nonproliferation studies for a living. However, I'd wager there's a tradeoff between the lives saved by not having too many nukes out there vs. the lives lost in long term radiation exposure due to waste from 3rd world reactors.
Regardless, this builds up to the idea that if you're a terrorist, and you're going to try to set off a volcano, you're going to need lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots, and lots of conventional explosives, or one medium- to large-sized nuclear bomb. And, if you have a medium to large nuke, you're not going to use it on an off-the-wall gambit like an underwater or underground explosion.
Geologists, please comment on any demonstrated effects of the use of explosives in the triggering of volcanic eruptions (if any) ?? I would suspect very few experiments, am I right?
Are Pringles even available in Demmark?
On that note, it seems like the antenna would not be the most expensive thing to buy as an extra, being usually aluminum in a nice shape. So, do people have links to cheap antenna sales locations and/or directions for build-your-own?
On a personal level, I'd be okay with running a CAN (community area network - is this the right terminology) if I could make sure I interoperate well and share bandwidth across 2 or 3 (or more) uplinks (comcast or DSL included). But, I don't know if this is possible, illegal, immoral, mischievieous, evil, okay, cool, encouraged, verboten, slimey, offbeat, and/or reprehensible in anyone's eyes but my own.
Any ideas? Links?
Thank you for replying to my post - and I agree with you, more so because my father was a City Manager (Masters in Public Administration from Univ. of Kansas 1962 (Larry Rice).
;-) (not that I know anything about Filmore, no flames please!)
YES: PA grads have good admin skills and are excellent choices in my view for mayors, school board members, and even state boards and legislatures.
However, I see the job of a politician (executive branch) as 1/3 political science (the art of the possible), 1/3 public administration (managing people and making organizations work effectively) and 1/3 legal work, understanding the existing set of legal structures.
Ideally, a politician would also have an excellent grounding in philosophy, specifically The Ethics (as Aristotle would have phrased it, with capitals). Also, they would have visited at least 25 other countries and spent at least 2 weeks in each one meeting primarily with their residents (no Intourist or Hotel Intercontinental "American Only" experinces).
Legislative branch politicians would need less Public Administration history because they would not be functionally a chief executive of an organization with thousands of employees. Rather, executive branchers should have excellent knowledge of political history, ECONOMICS (very important), and (of course) an excellent understanding of the real problems that face normal people, not just their campaign contributors. Of course, that presumes they have the best interest of their constituents at heart, and I believe most politicians do.
I know, call me an idealist, but I think most people are trying to make the world a better place. But, as we all do, they bring a huge set of presumptions about The Way Things Should Be which may or may not reflect vastly incorrect, racially, religiously, and economically biased information.
Alas... We need the political savvy of Nixon, the massive brainpower of Clinton, the morals of Carter, and the ability to inspire of Kennedy. Too bad Millard Filmore is long gone (grin
Lawyers are not allowed to hold public office
This kind of thinking causes big problems!
Follow me here... Politicians are people who (a) WRITE LAWS and (b) ENFORCE LAWS. I very much like it that my legislators, who we put there to write good laws, see inconsistencies and opportunities for improvement within existing and proposed laws, and create the legal framework for our society.
Further, when we have wiener-politicians who don't understand the law either create or enforce them, they end up causing lots of problems for both the public and the courts.
So, PLEASE elect lawyers as politicians, that's one thing they're good for. Further, please elect experienced lawyers that know their way around case law so they don't have to get on-the-job experience at taxpayer expense (where expense is measured in the human terms of suffering under misworded statutes).
Of course, everyone in a legislature doesn't have to be a lawyer, just so there's enough of them there to point out when something is jurisprudentially incorrect.
Where are the specifications for this code?
What language is it written in?
Where is the source kept?
What platforms does it run under?
MoveOn.org is sponsoring a petition drive to urge U.S. voters to demand voter-verified paper ballots that can be audited and recounted if necessary. This is the ONLY solution.
A SECRET ballot means that the association between a specific person and a specific vote cast is vital to democracy. Doing otherwise can very easily lead to vote buying ("I'll pay you $x for proof you voted for my candidate!").
We need a specifications document laying out the requirements for this software, which platforms it runs on, etc.
We also need a copy of the existing code to (a) have a place to start from, (b) provide us something to look at and thus give us ideas for development methodologies, (c) give us a point of reference to use when lobbying congressmen, etc.
This must be on a paper trail so I know who I voted for. Election monitors (the people, one from each party, who literally looked over the shoulders of the people counting ballots in Florida) need to be able to verify the count afterwards in some statistically valid way.
Bahhh, I know people richer than that!
Now compute the economic gain of using Perl vs. any other language:
Perl vs. Nothing : $677M
Perl vs. C : $1.25B
Perl vs. C# : $2.77B
Perl vs. Hand Optimized Assembly on Honeywell DPS-3E running GCOS operating system: Priceless
- I believe television should be like books.
- I get the right in perpetuity (forever) to re-view any show I purchase, as many times as I wish.
- I get the right to copy the show as many times as I wish to whatever media I wish.
- I do not have the right to sell any show.
In order to make this business model work, the amount of data sent per show should make it prohibitively expensive to keep everything.Thus, I pay $0.05 (5 cents) for the 'Ask This Old House' epsiode 112. I would be silly to burn it to media because it would cost $0.50 to store it. Of course, if I have that much money, I have the right to do so, but it'd be silly. Any time I want to watch it again, I'll just order it up again and they'll get another 5 cents. If everyone does this, they actually get lots of money.
This is similar to my idea about music. I'd be happy to pay approx. 2 cents per song to the copyright owner (the artist, I hope?). I'm willing to spend a total of $1000 to own a library of the 50,000 most popular recordings of all time. That's probably most everything I'd want to listen to ever.
The record companies and artists get their money, I get the right to listen to all the songs I want when I want how I want where I want, and everybody's happy.
Eventually the price will come down to reasonable levels.
Music and TV and Movies all operate on the same concept as Books - Intellectual property. They should realize their business model allows for plenty of profit, just adjust it for the new realities of media costs.
Yah, I was angry. Not that angry, just a little irritated. Still, as others have noted, I paid for the paper and didn't get it.
IT'S A ROUTINE. It doesn't matter it's a 50-cent newspaper; it could be a 5-cent lollipop. I've got a nice ritual/habit/routine going of spending my 68-minute metra train commute reading the front and metro sections of the paper and then taking a nap.
When something upsets that, I have to adjust, and it's like I'm missing something I should have done.
I'm not obsessed, it's just that I've found a ritual that works for me.
-- Kevin J. Rice
I didn't get my paper this morning and was angry until I read this.
I'm not angry anymore, I'm sympathetic for the poor schmuck as well as all the customer service people who probably got yelled at this morning.
-- Kevin J. Rice
To list only a few rants:
- vastly inconsistent spelling;
- multiple phonemes attached to one character (I think this is the way to properly note that one letter has lots of different sounds);
- a complete lack of a distinction between singlular and plural 'you' (a very common situation, solved in the Southern U.S. with "y'all");
- many homonyms; no representation (alphabetic characters) for sounds common in many other world languages including arabic 'Q'/'K', swahili tounge-click, and hebrew 'chai' (as in Chaunukka).
On the plus side, we do advantages of:- very few grammatical cases except possessive (word endings - for example, word Jack vs. word Jack's, although plural Jacks does confuse!);
- No silly male/female/neutral distinctions for everyday objects that have no inherent gender (since when should a table be presumed male or femaale?!?!);
- Large vocabulary - the number of words is very large compared to many other languages, which leads to fewer homonyms;
- since we have few grammatical cases, rhyming can be more difficult and therefore more beautiful;
- Verbs do not change endings when used on different subjects (he fell, she fell, we fell, they fell) (vs. french's je vais, tu va, il va, nous avons, etc.).
Just a rant, but maybe if we all decided to do something about this mother tounge of ours, we might change it for the better (being ease of use, distinctiveness, expressiveness, reduction of confusion, etc.).-- Kevin J. Rice