Oops, my post had a mental slip. The Chinese didn't have a moon program
in the 70's. It was just an earth orbit project.
Rename the coaster "Charman Mao's Human ICBM Payload".
You may pull close to 5G's on a particularly good coaster, but the duration of that force is nowhere near the length of exposure experienced by astronauts.
Maybe a roller coaster's G force rivals that of
wimpy modern rockets, but it's nothing compared
to old school space travel. Here's an example.
(I'm sure there's better examples, but I happened
accross this one a few days ago so I still
remembered where to find it.) This is from the
astronautix.com page about
the cancelled 1970's Chinese moon program:
There is just enough space for a single astronaut within the FSW capsule (despite statements by some Western experts to the contrary). Drawings and photographs released show that the ablative impregnated-oak nose cap covered electrical equipment. The spherical aft dome contained the recovery parachute. The space for an astronaut in the intermediate bay would be quite limited. The ride would also be rough, worse than that of any other first generation manned spacecraft - 6 to 11 G's and 150 dB during launch, 8 to 20 G's on re-entry, and a landing speed of 4 to 14 m/s. In the absence of a soft-landing system, recovery at sea may have been necessary. Alternatively, the astronaut may have been provided with an ejection seat in order to bail out of the capsule before landing or in the case of launch vehicle failures (as in the Soviet Vostok spacecraft).
Maybe that should be an idea for a next-generation
20 G roller coaster. They could name it something like
"Chairman Mao's Moon Blaster".
Recently Creation Scientists (even though evolution and creation as a theory for origins are philosophy and not science) proposed that the speed of light had changed over time. They later discarded this theory because it had fatal flaws
Why do they bother? If there really is an invisible
man who runs the universe, any attempt at scientific
reasoning or analysis is futile.
This guy could change all of the physical rules,
alter all physical evidence, and even fsck with
your mind at will. In fact, under this scenario, the
evidence that has been left for us (strange bones
carefully arranged into historical families,
radioisotopes, lightwaves streaming in from the
sky, etc.) is clearly meant
to deliberately mislead us.
If you really buy into this outlook on life,
you'd be better off just ignoring the physical
world and focus on trying to interpret the meanings
of the mystical texts that are supposed to hold more credibility
than physical evidence.
If everyone around you calls you a fool, would that make you one?
If that happened, I'd have to consider that there
was a distinct possiblity that I was in fact a fool.
What are these "multiple definitions" you speak of?
I should have said multiple meanings. IIRC, the
most overloaded word in English is "set", which has
1 or 2 dozen meanings. I have no problem distinguishing
the difference between "setting an option", a
"TV set", a "union of sets", "game set and match",
"setting a glass on the table", etc. using the context
around the word.
"Hack" has at least the meanings:
Striking with a sharp implement like an ax
An incompetent practitioner of a skill
Programming computers in a "cool" fashion
Attacking the security of computer systems
It's just not that big of a deal. If English language
scholars can't hold back the masses from changing
the usage of "shall" and "will" over the last
century, a few computer geeks won't convince
the general population to drop the word "hack"
in favor of a term easily confused with a crispy
biscuit.
If everyone calls it hacking, it's hacking by definition.
Just like the vast majority of commonly used
words, this word has multiple definitions. Deal with it.
If the U.S. had a competitor in this race for Mars like they did for the moon in the late 60s, they would have a man there in a few short, focussed years.
One of the primary reasons that we managed to get to the moon
so quickly is because the computers of the day
had only a few kilobytes of memory. This meant
that the corresponding software had to be small
and writing it was a tractable problem.
It has been said that software is a gas that expands to fill its
container. Today, with terabytes of storage
available, it is very unlikely that we could
finish writing and testing the
software for this mission before it was
cancelled due to schedule and budget overruns.
This is one case where
advances in technology has actually made it
almost impossible to do something we used to have the
potential to do.
Re:Development Processes be damned..
on
Bitter Java
·
· Score: 4, Funny
Perhaps your lovely functional language is just particularly suited to a particular pattern - that doesn't mean it isn't there.
For some functional languages, it seems you can use
any design pattern you want - as long as it's recursion.
just cover the front of your monitor with duct tape.
While that works, it's not very ergonomic. A better
solution is to use duct tape and cardboard
to make a cone-shaped visor like the one
used by Mr. Spock.
You'll have the satisfaction of knowing that your
visor has a real function, whereas Mr. Spock's
visor was a just cheap prop made necessary by the
constraints of a low production budget.
This solution provides security, and makes you
look way 1337 to boot!
Information about the 123 deaths from meteorites in the past couple of centuries is here
I'd have to take that listing with a big grain of
salt. Notice how there are almost no deaths
reported in the 20th century (and almost
no incidents at all in the last 50 years) despite the
fact that the population was at least 4 times
greater than in the 19th century, where
total carnage was reported.
The great thing about the Internet is that
you can find pages to back any argument.
For example:
There are some old Chinese records of people being killed by falling meteorites, but there is no record of meteorite deaths in modern times. Elizabeth Hodges, of Sylacauga, Alabama, was given a terrible bruise on the side by a falling meteorite in 1954, and a young boy was struck in the head by a meteorite that had been slowed down by the leaves of a banana plant in Uganda in 1992. The Nakhla meteorite killed a dog when it fell in Egypt in 1911.
Some researchers claim to have found reports in Chinese annals of people being killed by meteorites including tens of thousand of people in the 15th century. Many of the stories of meteorite fatalities are probably untrue. Some undoubtedly are due to hailstones rather than meteorites which, even today, can result in a large number of deaths, such as the 92 people killed in Bangladesh on 14 April 1986.
And then it goes on to say that "The small size of strangelets means the blast is only big enough to have a very localised effect and humans are unlikely to be harmed." How can several thousand tons of TNT not harm someone if he or she is hit?
I would
guess that most of the "thousands of tons of TNT"
is released deep under ground as the
particle travels through the earth spread over
hundreds of miles. Thus, the total energy
given off at any one point would be relatively
small. Maybe the explosion at the actual
surface of the earth would just be a smallish
bang.
Humans would unlikely to be harmed because they
are unlikely to be hit directly. IIRC, there is no record
of anyone ever being hit and killed by a
meteor. All the people on earth just don't add up to
a very big target.
And I don't really care how much RoadRunner screws with their customers, as long as they make money and build my retirement fund for me.
Unfortunately for you, AOL/TW's brilliant scheme
to pad your retirement account by manipulating
usenet headers has failed miserably. Last
quarter, they posted the largest net loss in
U.S. history ($54 billion).
Last week they announced that the
SMTP and NNTP Header Development Division
will be axed to save costs; this is expected
to result in massive layoffs.
Speaking of Dymaxions, I've always been a fan
of his 3-wheeled
Dymaxian automobiles.
20 feet long, V8-powered, 120MPH max, 25-30 MPG, zero turning
radius. Impressive specs from the early 1930's that
are often not matched by today's vehicles.
You shouldn't assume what people know jack shit about.
I am already aware most of your details about the
Buran. You're focusing on technicalities of
the propulsion system, which are not the
most unique aspects of the shuttle.
Here is an excerpt from astronautix
(link broken this instant; here's the Google cache)
describing of the decision process
the Buran designers went through regarding
the orbiter itself:
The final analysis of the problems indicated that the rational solution was an orbiter of the aircraft type. There was severe criticism of the decision to copy the space shuttle configuration. But earlier studies had considered numerous types of aircraft layouts, vertical takeoff designs, and ground- and sea- launched variants. The NPO Energia engineers could not find any configuration that was objectively better. This only validated the tremendous amount of work done in the US in refining the design. There was no point in picking a different inferior solution just because it was original.
Therefore a straight aerodynamic copy of the US space shuttle, was selected as the orbiter configuration on 11 June 1976. MiG was selected as subcontractor to build the orbiter.
This leaves little doubt about where
the idea of a lumbering delta-winged orbiter vehicle
strapped to the side of a huge gas tank originated.
First (or maybe not first) their space shuttle program was cancelled and never flew (even though they had a better shuttle design than NASA),
IIRC, they did do one successful unmanned orbital flight
of the Buran. I think the fact that they managed
to launch and land the thing on autopilot
on the first try was a pretty impressive feat.
The only stupid part was trying to replicate the
ill-conceived US shuttle in the first place.
Do they actually have time to read them? Or are they more for show?
Back before the Web when I was a hardware designer,
books were a kind of currency that engineering
salespeople used to entice you to meet with them.
Each chip manufacturer printed stacks and stacks
of data books covering their various product lines.
They'd give these to the sales reps who would
cart them in on dollies to hand out to the engineers
who showed up to hear their latest pitch.
In a way, huge bookshelves with hundreds of
books was a status symbol, showing that you'd
been around a while and a lot of people thought
it was worthwile to give you books. It was
useful to have all of that info available, but few
people actually used more than 1% the data
that was on their shelves.
The instant the chip companies put their chip
data on the web, all of those books became
totally useless. Now I'm doing software,
everything is online,
and I can go for weeks on end without picking
up a technical book.
I do sometimes miss the office atmosphere
you get from row after row of
data books neatly segregated by the corporate
logos and color schemes on their spines.
It had an important look to it.
Consider that releases of Office come every two or years--and that's improving code that already exists.
The actual coding only takes a couple of weeks.
The rest of the time is consumed by product
planners trying to think of any new
features compelling enough to justify the price
of an upgrade.
...And would keep many Americans in (better) shape, which means fewer pounds commuting daily, which means less gas burned by American SUVs, which means less pollution!
The energy saved moving around fewer actual fat pounds is only
a secondary effect. The main effect is this:
If you don't have an enormous fat ass, you're less
likely to feel that you need a
5774 pound vehicle
to accomodate your girth.
Remind me how exactly having to ride an exercise bike to generate electricity would raise my quality of living?
As time goes by, the world predicted by the movie
Soylent Green seems to get closer
and closer to reality. IIRC, didn't Edward G. Robinson
pedal a bicycle to generate power?
That is why, when you purchase another company, you enter a phase call "Due Diligence" so you can find out what kind of scumbags/angels you are buying. So, yes it is entirely Microsoft's fault for not researching the company they were buying.
Yeah, a dialog box probably popped up with
a bunch of boring legal documents in it:
"The status of this company is described below.
You must accept this status in order to
complete your purchase of this company.
Press 'Yes' to accept or 'No' to cancel."
We can all guess as to whether they read all
of the text before clicking on "Yes"...
I sort of laughed until I realized that's how I check my e-mail at work (as someone pointed out on slashdot the other day). Check your mail anywhere - no browser, mail client, or window enviornment needed.
That's highly inconvenient when you get a
VBScript virus. You have to pull out your
paper address book manually step
through the code to figure out who to forward it
to. Then you have to tediously type in
the multiple commands
to propagate the message. Correctly handling
the binary attachment payloads is a bitch, as well.
Computers were invented to automate things
and make things easier. Your life would
be much easier if you got some modern software!
Ouch. You have an expensive computer. My 1GHz Toshiba laptop draws about 30watts finding prime numbers. I bet your air conditioner gets a workout.
My laptop draws only 20 watts. I don't play
unreal tournament on it though.
Laptops aren't optimized for speed. I'm sure
you're getting less than 1.0/1.8 of the performance
as my system. Throw in consideration for the
power wasted by my
honking graphics card, and you're probably
not getting more instructions per joule than I am.
BTW, I only run that beast of a machine when I'm
using it.
Slashdot Mirror
Oops, my post had a mental slip. The Chinese didn't have a moon program in the 70's. It was just an earth orbit project. Rename the coaster "Charman Mao's Human ICBM Payload".
Maybe a roller coaster's G force rivals that of wimpy modern rockets, but it's nothing compared to old school space travel. Here's an example. (I'm sure there's better examples, but I happened accross this one a few days ago so I still remembered where to find it.) This is from the astronautix.com page about the cancelled 1970's Chinese moon program:
Maybe that should be an idea for a next-generation 20 G roller coaster. They could name it something like "Chairman Mao's Moon Blaster".
I think he might of wanted to know the number of cubic cubits in 40 ounces. I work that out to be .0124 cu^3.
Why do they bother? If there really is an invisible man who runs the universe, any attempt at scientific reasoning or analysis is futile.
This guy could change all of the physical rules, alter all physical evidence, and even fsck with your mind at will. In fact, under this scenario, the evidence that has been left for us (strange bones carefully arranged into historical families, radioisotopes, lightwaves streaming in from the sky, etc.) is clearly meant to deliberately mislead us.
If you really buy into this outlook on life, you'd be better off just ignoring the physical world and focus on trying to interpret the meanings of the mystical texts that are supposed to hold more credibility than physical evidence.
If that happened, I'd have to consider that there was a distinct possiblity that I was in fact a fool.
What are these "multiple definitions" you speak of?
I should have said multiple meanings. IIRC, the most overloaded word in English is "set", which has 1 or 2 dozen meanings. I have no problem distinguishing the difference between "setting an option", a "TV set", a "union of sets", "game set and match", "setting a glass on the table", etc. using the context around the word.
"Hack" has at least the meanings:
Striking with a sharp implement like an ax
An incompetent practitioner of a skill
Programming computers in a "cool" fashion
Attacking the security of computer systems
It's just not that big of a deal. If English language scholars can't hold back the masses from changing the usage of "shall" and "will" over the last century, a few computer geeks won't convince the general population to drop the word "hack" in favor of a term easily confused with a crispy biscuit.
This is not even an issue. The senator knows that every upstanding american citizen is:
- financial: a hard-working taxpayer
- medical: leads a clean life
- ethnic: is from good stock
- religious: is a proud and dedicated churchgoer
- political: supports his president 100%
- social security: skeptical of its goals
- sexual orientation: damned straight
So you see, there really isn't any unique information to keep secret. The proposed legislation is about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.If everyone calls it hacking, it's hacking by definition. Just like the vast majority of commonly used words, this word has multiple definitions. Deal with it.
One of the primary reasons that we managed to get to the moon so quickly is because the computers of the day had only a few kilobytes of memory. This meant that the corresponding software had to be small and writing it was a tractable problem.
It has been said that software is a gas that expands to fill its container. Today, with terabytes of storage available, it is very unlikely that we could finish writing and testing the software for this mission before it was cancelled due to schedule and budget overruns.
This is one case where advances in technology has actually made it almost impossible to do something we used to have the potential to do.
For some functional languages, it seems you can use any design pattern you want - as long as it's recursion.
While that works, it's not very ergonomic. A better solution is to use duct tape and cardboard to make a cone-shaped visor like the one used by Mr. Spock.
You'll have the satisfaction of knowing that your visor has a real function, whereas Mr. Spock's visor was a just cheap prop made necessary by the constraints of a low production budget.
This solution provides security, and makes you look way 1337 to boot!
I prefer to think of it like this: IDE providees 1/2 bus per device, whereas SCSI only provides a pitiful 1/16 bus per device.
I'd have to take that listing with a big grain of salt. Notice how there are almost no deaths reported in the 20th century (and almost no incidents at all in the last 50 years) despite the fact that the population was at least 4 times greater than in the 19th century, where total carnage was reported. The great thing about the Internet is that you can find pages to back any argument. For example:
From here:
And from here:
I would guess that most of the "thousands of tons of TNT" is released deep under ground as the particle travels through the earth spread over hundreds of miles. Thus, the total energy given off at any one point would be relatively small. Maybe the explosion at the actual surface of the earth would just be a smallish bang.
Humans would unlikely to be harmed because they are unlikely to be hit directly. IIRC, there is no record of anyone ever being hit and killed by a meteor. All the people on earth just don't add up to a very big target.
Unfortunately for you, AOL/TW's brilliant scheme to pad your retirement account by manipulating usenet headers has failed miserably. Last quarter, they posted the largest net loss in U.S. history ($54 billion).
Last week they announced that the SMTP and NNTP Header Development Division will be axed to save costs; this is expected to result in massive layoffs.
20 feet long, V8-powered, 120MPH max, 25-30 MPG, zero turning radius. Impressive specs from the early 1930's that are often not matched by today's vehicles.
This leaves little doubt about where the idea of a lumbering delta-winged orbiter vehicle strapped to the side of a huge gas tank originated.
IIRC, they did do one successful unmanned orbital flight of the Buran. I think the fact that they managed to launch and land the thing on autopilot on the first try was a pretty impressive feat.
The only stupid part was trying to replicate the ill-conceived US shuttle in the first place.
Back before the Web when I was a hardware designer, books were a kind of currency that engineering salespeople used to entice you to meet with them. Each chip manufacturer printed stacks and stacks of data books covering their various product lines. They'd give these to the sales reps who would cart them in on dollies to hand out to the engineers who showed up to hear their latest pitch.
In a way, huge bookshelves with hundreds of books was a status symbol, showing that you'd been around a while and a lot of people thought it was worthwile to give you books. It was useful to have all of that info available, but few people actually used more than 1% the data that was on their shelves.
The instant the chip companies put their chip data on the web, all of those books became totally useless. Now I'm doing software, everything is online, and I can go for weeks on end without picking up a technical book.
I do sometimes miss the office atmosphere you get from row after row of data books neatly segregated by the corporate logos and color schemes on their spines. It had an important look to it.
The actual coding only takes a couple of weeks. The rest of the time is consumed by product planners trying to think of any new features compelling enough to justify the price of an upgrade.
The energy saved moving around fewer actual fat pounds is only a secondary effect. The main effect is this: If you don't have an enormous fat ass, you're less likely to feel that you need a 5774 pound vehicle to accomodate your girth.
As time goes by, the world predicted by the movie Soylent Green seems to get closer and closer to reality. IIRC, didn't Edward G. Robinson pedal a bicycle to generate power?
Yeah, a dialog box probably popped up with a bunch of boring legal documents in it:
"The status of this company is described below. You must accept this status in order to complete your purchase of this company. Press 'Yes' to accept or 'No' to cancel."
We can all guess as to whether they read all of the text before clicking on "Yes"...
That's highly inconvenient when you get a VBScript virus. You have to pull out your paper address book manually step through the code to figure out who to forward it to. Then you have to tediously type in the multiple commands to propagate the message. Correctly handling the binary attachment payloads is a bitch, as well.
Computers were invented to automate things and make things easier. Your life would be much easier if you got some modern software!
My laptop draws only 20 watts. I don't play unreal tournament on it though.
Laptops aren't optimized for speed. I'm sure you're getting less than 1.0/1.8 of the performance as my system. Throw in consideration for the power wasted by my honking graphics card, and you're probably not getting more instructions per joule than I am.
BTW, I only run that beast of a machine when I'm using it.
Idle: 107 watts
Unreal Tournament: 132 watts