The question is, are we going to become the locusts of the universe, gobbling up resources and then moving on? We're doing a good job of that here...
Feldgercarb! (sp?) You've been watching Independence Day too much. That Malthusian view of resources is as dead as Bret Spinner after the alien got him. 8-)
99.9999999% of all the iron, manganese, aluminum, zinc, silver, gold, etc., that the human race has ever mined is still on the planet, just redistributed a bit. How is it gobbled up and gone? Heck, our landfills are richer in some elements that the projected low-grade ores that will be mined around 40 years from now. When that happens, expect the dumps to be run through a refinery. Recycling at last!;^) --
You're missing the point here. The attempt to make an artificial environment, either in a habitat or trying to coax Mars' back into action, will give us considerable insight into Earth's ecosystems.
Take your point with the strawberries and spider mites: What could you learn if you could simplify the system down to just one independent variable? Or two? And, if you could prevent contamination by using free-flying biome "greenhouses" separated by miles of vacuum and raw sunlight?
Exploring space probably won't extend our personal lifetimes (although the elderly might last longer in a low gravity environment), but colonization may well extend our species' lifetime. Since it is every species' duty to survive for as long as possible, therefore space travel is a biological imperative, as unarguable as breathing. QED. 8-)
Now, if we could just convince the Congress-critters of that when they're doing the budget.... --
If this technology proves to be flawless and is able to be implemented in a cost effective manor. I think you will see more funding and research behind it. The global implications of colonizating/terraforming Mars are obvious and have been looked at for many years. The only unfortunate thing is that each planet would be cut off from each other. THis technology, however, now puts us one step closer to achieving that.
If you're going to wish for a new technology to be "flawless and is able to be implemented in a cost effective manner" without going through the intermediate research steps, then also wish for a pony.
One makes as much about sense as the other.
Sorry if this sounds like a flame, but it's important to make the point: Ya gotta invest in the research to get the final product. (And, typically learn a whole lot on the way, giving rise to new technologies undreamt of earlier.)
NASA gets around half a percent of the US Federal budget. We need more research like this, and some of the most promising ideas need to be tested as part of the Deep Space series of engineering test beds. I'd rather have my tax money used for these purposes than the usual government boondoggles. --
The short answer, as you've noted above, is that there is no evidence of any damage caused by microwaves below energy levels strong enough to cause heating. And, this conclusion was reached after over a decade of research, mostly triggered by that Currents of Death scare-monger book.
For more info, try Cellular Phone Antennas and Human Health, a FAQ page by John E. Moulder, Prof of Radiation Oncology. He even has a section on the Israeli low-level RF health claims.
Dr. Moulder maintains several other radiation-related FAQs, for all your EMF FAQ needs. 8-) --
Re:CNN Microsoft poll results (as of 3:46pm centra
on
Microsoft Quickies
·
· Score: 1
Minesweeper existed on character screens long before MicroSoft was even formed.
Yeah. The first place I ever saw Minesweeper was on a Tektronix 4051 Intelligent Graphics terminal (one of their static storage display CRTs with a 6502 and 8K BASIC inside). That was in 1979 and I suspect that Minesweeper was old even then. --
A) there were no superoxide peaks on the chemical analyses
What chemical analyses? Viking's instruments were aimed at the detection of life, not oddball inorganic chemicals. Check the Viking 1 Lander Experiment List:
The Gas Chromatograph/Mass Spectrometer measured the volatile substances given off when surface dirt was roasted, but superoxides aren't volatile.
The biology experiments (GEX/LR/PR) were the ones that gave the weird results, but were designed to detect organic compounds (PR) or microbes (LR, GEX).
The X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometer (XRFS) could only detect elements, not their molecular composition.
The other instruments like RPA or NMS only worked during the landing, not on the surface.
b) as the original poster said, such chemicals are not consistent with our current understanding of Martian surface and atmospheric chemistry. They would have given up their oxygen (or reacted with other substances) millions of years ago. they are highly reactive, and Mars, with its thin atmosphere, gets more UV than the earth's surface
On the contrary, you're near the proposed solution. Yes, the super-oxides break down easily, but they are likely produced by the UV light, eventually reaching an equilibrium point. Bingo! Super-oxides in the dirt.
I think that NASA's problems with the results was that when the dirt was added to the different growth media (water or chicken soup-like mixtures of nutrients), the dirt started releasing oxygen.
That's not good. In fact, that works like hydrogen peroxide or the perborate stuff that is added to laundry detergent for "extra bleaching action." 8-) The best guess, given the limited instruments on Viking: Mars' soil contains super-oxides, probably iron super-oxides.
These chemicals are similar to hydrogen peroxide or bleach powder -- they contain extra oxygen in their molecule, and when they touch any organic chemical --Pow!-- they break down and release a very reactive atomic oxygen. (O2 is fairly stable, but a single O will react with just about anything burnable.) Any protein or celluose cell walls would be attacked and probably destroyed.
Life As We Know It(TM) would have a tough enough time living on Mars to start with, let along having to cope with dust and dirt that acts like bleach.
What we really need is a new, improved set of probes with tests for life that could distinguish between weird chemicals and living things.... --
Mars has a very thin atmosphere composed mostly of the tiny amount of remaining carbon dioxide (95.3%) plus nitrogen (2.7%), argon (1.6%) and traces of oxygen (0.15%) and water (0.03%). The average pressure on the surface of Mars is only about 7 millibars (less than 1% of Earth's), but it varies greatly with altitude from almost 9 millibars in the deepest basins to about 1 millibar at the top of Olympus Mons. But it is thick enough to support very strong winds and vast dust storms that on occasion engulf the entire planet for months. Mars' thin atmosphere produces a greenhouse effect but it is only enough to raise the surface temperature by 5 degrees (K); much less than what we see on Venus and Earth.
So, no significant methane, which is a pity. The proposed Mars Direct fuel factories could use an easy source of hydrogen.
Also, I don't think that most forms of algae can survive in Mars' current environment, but some strains of lichen (symbiotic fungi and algae) have been tested in "Mars jars" and lived. Maybe with some genetic engineering the lichen could thrive and spread.
But, what happens to that 5 K greenhouse if too much CO2 is turned to O2? Can some other greenhouse gas be released to make up for it? To increase it?
Side thought: If the dirt on Mars contains lots of iron oxides (and some suspected super-oxides) why not make a solar powered refinery module that would turn that into iron and oxygen gas? (Yeah, I know: cost and weight, plus modules don't reproduce. We need to hack some chemosynthetic bacteria so they don't need to live in water....) --
I'm pretty sure it's not a 64-way SMP box. It's 16, 4 way SMP boxes in giant purple cabinets.
No, the cabinets are gray and black. They used to be a rather poor mixture of maroon and off-gray, but maybe Sequent's marketing department got tired of weird colors and switched to something suitable for a funeral.;-)
The article is misleading. NUMA is not the same as SMP. Hope that helps.
True, NUMA is not the same as SMP. It is a bunch of SMP boxes doing a Vulcan Mind Meld via expensive high-speed HW interconnects and caches so that it acts like a whopping big SMP box, without all the usual bus bottlenecks. (Instead, it has unusual bus bottlenecks.)
Btw, these boxes also all run NT. (but who cares?):P
Amusingly enough, NT doesn't run at all well on NUMA boxes. And, it won't until changes are made in the memory management, scheduling, buffer DMA, and interrupt routing algorithms. But, we don't have the source code for NT.... 8-) --
If I recall correctly, your description matches what Sequent published on their web site. They seemed to be using ccNUMA with a fairly large MESI cache on their custom chips.
Their hardware interconnect was a SCI (Scalable Coherent Interconnect) ring with a bandwidth of around 1 Gb/sec/link. This is not, IMHO, the best link to use today. In fairness to Sequent, SCI may have been the best thing available at the time. They started shipping in '96 or '97, so the R&D must have happened a few years earlier.
I also thought the multi-path I/O was pretty cool. It is a FibreChannel SAN (Storage Area Network) with multiple controllers, F-C switches, and EMC RAID boxes, with fail-overs that work a little like the Internet, rerouting around dead hardware. --
This topic comes up every time there is a successful USA space probe. While some photos are released immediately (PR), the bulk of the data collected by each instrument is exclusively available to that project that built and/or manages that instrument for one year after collection. This is a perk needed to attract top scientists from the universities and keep them working with the labyrinthine NASA bureaucracy for the years, sometimes decades, needed for the mission.
Sure, some folks will release all of their data almost immediately, but it is up to them to do so.
And, after the year is up, the taxpayers get their due. This system has been used since the dawn of the space program. It's a little late to gripe about it now. --
... It's amusing, in a painful way, to watch Microsoft make fools of the DoJ's experts at trial. Their contempt for the trial, the judge, the prosecuting attorneys -- these are not acts of reckless stupidity, though it may seem that way.
I'm willing to believe that Gates and Ballmer are Evil Geniuses(TM) in their bewailing of the corporate split-up: "Don't throw me in dat dere briar patch, Brer Fox!" Given the guilty ruling, they may be angling for a structural remedy that will enhance their stock value.
But, why would any sane legal strategy be based on those two rigged videos? They could only annoy the judge and help M$ lose the case. Rather than ditching the case, Ballmer and Gates, Evil Geniuses At Large(TM), could have settled at any point during the trial and had a bit more control over their fate than I suspect Judge Jackson will give them. --
Re:Sounds like sloppyness
on
Silicon Hell
·
· Score: 1
For example, the lead item about the exploding barrel of nitric acid made me wonder. Why hadn't they neutralized the acid with a base?
I'm not a chemist, but this doesn't necessearily sound like a good idea. If you want a violent reaction, mixing an acid and a base is probably a good bet, and that's exactly what occured.
From the article: The April 16 explosion likely occurred because the acid was mixed with an incompatible chemical, according to the fire department, which is still investigating.
So, was it you that caused that explosion?
Mixing a strong acid with a strong base does liberate enough energy to boil water. The escaping steam can splatter the stuff all over and cause eye/skin burns. Hence all the warnings in university chemistry classes on using the correct procedure for mixing anything else with said strong acids or bases.
But, because the dilution procedures do exist, it is possible to neutralize the nitric acid in the barrel. Namely, do it slowly inside an apparatus made of heat and pressure resistant material. This is normal chemical engineering technique.
In regards to the "incompatible chemical", you do realize that with strong enough nitric acid just about everything is `incompatible.' For example, Red Fuming Nitric Acid (RFNA) is a hypergolic (self-igniting) rocket fuel combo when mixed with hydrazine or several other fuels. (The acid is the oxidizer, the other chemical is the fuel.) Concentrated nitric acid will react with loads of common stuff to release considerable amounts of heat, if not usually enough to ignite the mixture. Mix in a number of metals (say some aluminum or magnesium) and you'll get a release of heat and hydrogen gas -- a prime set-up for an explosion.
That's why it is not a good idea to leave concentrated nitric acid sitting around in a barrel.
In fairness to whichever company did this, the acid in the barrel probably wasn't too highly concentrated. Still, why didn't they neutralize it?
Did I cause the explosion? No. I know better. And now you do, too. 8-) --
Sounds like sloppyness
on
Silicon Hell
·
· Score: 1
Many of the horror stories presented were easily preventable. For example, the lead item about the exploding barrel of nitric acid made me wonder. Why hadn't they neutralized the acid with a base? That would have made storage for disposal much safer.
Some of the accidents were probably caused by tired people, like the worker who accidently mixed alcohol, nitric acid, and hydrofluoric acid. He survived the fireball, but died soon later. Many of the IC fabs require employees to work 12 hour shifts to reduce particulate introduction into the clean rooms. Near the end of a shift people are so tired that they aren't thinking straight. My brother worked in a fab for a few years, but quit. The money just wasn't worth the strain on his system. --
As long as their server only counts ad impressions or ad click-throughs for billing purposes, I'm not adding to their advertisement bottom line.
Yes, IJB works great. I use Stefan Waldherr's slightly hacked version from http://www.waldherr.org/junkbuster/. (It displays a "Junkbuster" image as well as the empty image or a broken link.) Also check out his filter files on the update page. --
I see your point that there haven't been many missions to asteroids, but three pictures is plent when they're all the same.
In reality there are many types of asteroids, grouped either by composition or surface spectra, or both. I quote from Bill Arnett's excellent The Nine Planets:
C-type, includes more than 75% of known asteroids: extremely dark (albedo 0.03); similar to carbonaceous chondrite meteorites; approximately the same chemical composition as the Sun minus hydrogen, helium and other volatiles;
S-type, 17%: (Stony) relatively bright (albedo.10-.22); metallic nickel-iron mixed with iron- and magnesium-silicates;
M-type, most of the rest: (Metal) bright (albedo.10-.18); pure nickel-iron.
There are also a dozen or so other rare types.
If you think that's not important, let me appeal to your greed. Supposing the M-type meteorites we have in collections are representative of the M-type asteroids, then most of the M asteroids are richer in platinum group metals that the ore they mine in South Africa.
Admittedly, with launch costs as high as they are, it wouldn't matter if you could go to a type M asteroid and pick up sacks of minted gold coins. A reasonable payload wouldn't pay for launching the mission. That's where John Lewis' Mining the Sky comes in handy. Lewis has worked out how to return payloads that are entirely unreasonable by today's limited standards.
The first asteroid "gold strike" will probably be dirt. If you sent a robot probe out to the asteroid that has the cheapest return fuel cost. (It used to be Nereus, but I believe that an even cheaper one was discovered.) Have the robot scrape up some dust from the surface, bag it, then return to low Earth orbit. Sell the dirt to NASA as shielding for the space station. If the asteroid has enough metal in the dirt, extract it and charge extra for that. If the asteroid was a carbonaceous chondrite, roast the dirt in a solar oven and condense out the water and other volatiles released. Sell those seperately at a premium price. Sell the slag for radiation shielding.
Lewis claims that you could return from Nereus 20 to 50 kg of dirt for every kg you launch. That's not quite good enough to be profitable today, but with cheaper launchers....
Oh, and as everyone else has probably pointed out, we need to know what asteroids are made of in case we ever have to nudge one away from Earth. (Bruce Willis can go only if it is a one-way trip. 8-) --
Let's be fair here. The "granola mystics" as jamesec unfairly names them, aren't afraid (at least the educated ones which are more than you think) of Cassini becoming a mini nuke....
You must not have been paying attention during the Cassini protests. Either they were repeating drivel verbatim or they were deliberately lying. I believe it was some of both. Take a look at: http://www.nonviolence.org/noflyby/intro.htm which deliberately tries to confuse a peaceful science probe powered by RTGs with space nuclear weapons. It switched from being an anti-Cassini site to a "throw the probe away -- don't flyby Earth" site. Please peruse the careful mixture of facts and, to put it kindly, non-facts. Moreover, a couple people who claimed to be members of that organization engaged in flame wars in sci.space.policy, so they can't even claim that the inaccuracies were accidental. They were pointed out during the flame war.
... Plutonium 238, while not fissionable is just as nasty to the biosphere as 239....
Actually, Pu-238 is worse in the short term than Pu-239. It's shorter half life (86.4yr vs. 24,390yr) means that a gram of 238 will emit more radiation than a gram of 239. However, its faster decay means it won't be around as long. This is an advantage. A stainless steel shell can contain 238 long enough for it to decay to harmless levels. Of course it is Pu-238 dioxide, an extremely insoluable ceramic, so there was no great danger in the first place, but every little bit helps.
... The watchdogs do serve a purpose, if only to keep NASA honest about such things. A few decades back, a NASA contractor got pretty sloppy about a liquid oxygen tank that was dropped in manufacture. About 2 years later, the damage would blow out the side of the Apollo 13 service module.
Yes, watchdogs help to keep a bureaucracy on its toes, but only rational ones. Far too many of the Cassini protesters had not read the environmental impact report, nor the summary posted on the web. They hadn't bothered to familiarize themselves with the structure of the RTGs nor the precautions taken against contamination. As such, they came off as a bunch of zealots who were railing against the Eviiilll Plutonium(TM) in the probe. It literally looked like a bunch of religious fanatics spamming web news sites and Usenet.
Maybe you think this is an unfair characterization. If so, please check with Deja News and other archives. I suspect you'll be as embarrassed by these people as I was. In any case, none of them could have helped to prevent a subtle failure like Apollo 13. They simply don't operate at that level of detail and aren't interested in trying.
Now, it is entirely possible that your educated granola mystics were not deceived by the spin and were not opposed to Cassini's launch. Or, if they were opposed, then they had actual reasons for their position. If so, then I must ask: Why were they silent? Why let the yammerheads grab and hold the spotlight? How can they expect a movement to be taken seriously when all the public sees is a bunch of loony tunes?
The space enthuisasts and the environmental groups should be allies more often then at odds. Both sides share fault in this, but in my opinion, the arrogance of the techheads has done most of the damage.
I agree that this should be and again I disagree on allocating the blame. 8-) Yes, I want to move nearly all heavy industry into space. Let's start mining the asteroids for metal and close all strip mines; let's try a test-sized solar power satellite, etc. It's the people who don't work out the possible risks and rewards of a proposal but respond at a knee-jerk emotional level that are keeping us stuck in the hole we're in. And, the vast majority of those folks call themselves "environmentalists," generally without taking a single college course in biology, statistics, ecology, etc.... --
No, if I recall correctly, both Galileo and Cassini use RTGs (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators) for power. For decade long missions to the outer planets they are the only real option.
Whether RTGs are "nuclear" depends on your definition. They don't use nuclear fission but instead use the heat from the natural decay of Plutonium 238 (not the bomb isotope P-239) but that's a detail totally ignored most of the granola mystics.
Ion drives are cool. We need more experiments like DS1. (Curiously, you'd want a honest-to-Cthulhu space fission reactor for an ion drive mission to the outer planets. Either that, or plan to do most of your thrust while in the inner solar system.) --
Where did I state that Linux' stability compromises performance or features? I only said it often does and this is undoubtedly the case in some parts of the Linux-kernel.
So? There's always another place where you can optimize the code. What of it?
Also, you'll be less misunderstood if you stop repeating M$'s favorite excuse for Win9X's famous instability.;-) --
Not to be a nitpicker (here on/.? Naahhh!;-) but I disagree with some of your assumptions:
Since Linux was originally much more geared towards and used for server-applications and has only been moving into the desktop-market for a relatively short period, I can imagine the operating system is not entirely optimized for playing games.
Was making a better server really one of Linus' goals? I think not. Instead, servers are a niche where we can slide Linux in under the PHB's radar. Also, the only OSs that are entirely optimized for playing games are game consoles.
Remember how long it took for Direct-X to catch on? It took M$ several versions to make an ABI and implementation that didn't stink. Hopefully, we can avoid this....
Stability often comes at the cost of performance and features,....
Here is why I hit the "Reply" link. Stability does not have to be compromised by performance or features, not if the OS / Graphics package is designed properly. Did SGI's graphics eye-candy jeopardize it's speed or reliability? (OK, they've fallen on hard times recently, but think back about 5 years.)
Even if we accept, for the sake of argument, that the topmost levels of a political web site must be written at the "sound bite" level, there is no reason not to link to progressively meatier essays on the candidate's platform and proposed policies. That's what I want. Why isn't this done? And, why did Mr. Green not even acknowledge the issue?
How many times have you read speeches in which some politician bewails the lack of interest by the American voter? Now here is a chance to speak directly to interested constituents and they shrink from it.
I think that both the Republicans and Democrats (don't know about the Libertarians) are still afraid of the 'net and the power it returns to the people. Why else would the FBI's key escrow plan have such strong bipartisan support? Bletch! The very thought sours my stomach.... --
I doubt that I can walk to L.A., given a huge amount of time without the external support necessary that isn't needed when walking across my living room. So given those conditions I do deny that one can walk across my living room, then using identical means walk to L.A.
Really? How, then, do you explain that the Lewis and Clark party got from the East coast to the West coast of North America? (Hint: They didn't take the freeways.)
How did the mountain men who left their names all over California arrive if not on foot (theirs or a horse's)?
The fact that you or I don't have the necessary woodcraft to do it doesn't mean that it can't be done and, in fact, was done. If I really wanted to, I could learn those skills and walk to N.Y. without massive infrastructure or pulling a trailer full of freeze dried food. So could you.
You're trying to duck the basic argument: There is an evolutionary process that is working today and has caused new species to form. (See Observed Instances of Speciation and Some More Observed Speciation Events for details.) It is seen in the evolution of antibiotic resistant bacteria and the beak size of Darwin's finches.
Your Argument From Incredulity about walking to N.Y.C. is about as weighty as some of the other postings on evolution: They don't believe it is possible, so didn't even check to see if it has happened. --
Slashdot Mirror
Feldgercarb! (sp?) You've been watching Independence Day too much. That Malthusian view of resources is as dead as Bret Spinner after the alien got him. 8-)
99.9999999% of all the iron, manganese, aluminum, zinc, silver, gold, etc., that the human race has ever mined is still on the planet, just redistributed a bit. How is it gobbled up and gone? Heck, our landfills are richer in some elements that the projected low-grade ores that will be mined around 40 years from now. When that happens, expect the dumps to be run through a refinery. Recycling at last! ;^)
--
Take your point with the strawberries and spider mites: What could you learn if you could simplify the system down to just one independent variable? Or two? And, if you could prevent contamination by using free-flying biome "greenhouses" separated by miles of vacuum and raw sunlight?
Exploring space probably won't extend our personal lifetimes (although the elderly might last longer in a low gravity environment), but colonization may well extend our species' lifetime. Since it is every species' duty to survive for as long as possible, therefore space travel is a biological imperative, as unarguable as breathing. QED. 8-)
Now, if we could just convince the Congress-critters of that when they're doing the budget....
--
If you're going to wish for a new technology to be "flawless and is able to be implemented in a cost effective manner" without going through the intermediate research steps, then also wish for a pony.
One makes as much about sense as the other.
Sorry if this sounds like a flame, but it's important to make the point: Ya gotta invest in the research to get the final product. (And, typically learn a whole lot on the way, giving rise to new technologies undreamt of earlier.)
NASA gets around half a percent of the US Federal budget. We need more research like this, and some of the most promising ideas need to be tested as part of the Deep Space series of engineering test beds. I'd rather have my tax money used for these purposes than the usual government boondoggles.
--
6. It did not use stroboscopic effects to induce epileptic seizures in its victims^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hviewers.
--
For more info, try Cellular Phone Antennas and Human Health, a FAQ page by John E. Moulder, Prof of Radiation Oncology. He even has a section on the Israeli low-level RF health claims.
Dr. Moulder maintains several other radiation-related FAQs, for all your EMF FAQ needs. 8-)
--
Yeah. The first place I ever saw Minesweeper was on a Tektronix 4051 Intelligent Graphics terminal (one of their static storage display CRTs with a 6502 and 8K BASIC inside). That was in 1979 and I suspect that Minesweeper was old even then.
--
What chemical analyses? Viking's instruments were aimed at the detection of life, not oddball inorganic chemicals. Check the Viking 1 Lander Experiment List:
The Gas Chromatograph/Mass Spectrometer measured the volatile substances given off when surface dirt was roasted, but superoxides aren't volatile.
The biology experiments (GEX/LR/PR) were the ones that gave the weird results, but were designed to detect organic compounds (PR) or microbes (LR, GEX).
The X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometer (XRFS) could only detect elements, not their molecular composition.
The other instruments like RPA or NMS only worked during the landing, not on the surface.
b) as the original poster said, such chemicals are not consistent with our current understanding of Martian surface and atmospheric chemistry. They would have given up their oxygen (or reacted with other substances) millions of years ago. they are highly reactive, and Mars, with its thin atmosphere, gets more UV than the earth's surface
On the contrary, you're near the proposed solution. Yes, the super-oxides break down easily, but they are likely produced by the UV light, eventually reaching an equilibrium point. Bingo! Super-oxides in the dirt.
Reference: Viking Project Information
--
That's not good. In fact, that works like hydrogen peroxide or the perborate stuff that is added to laundry detergent for "extra bleaching action." 8-) The best guess, given the limited instruments on Viking: Mars' soil contains super-oxides, probably iron super-oxides.
These chemicals are similar to hydrogen peroxide or bleach powder -- they contain extra oxygen in their molecule, and when they touch any organic chemical --Pow!-- they break down and release a very reactive atomic oxygen. (O2 is fairly stable, but a single O will react with just about anything burnable.) Any protein or celluose cell walls would be attacked and probably destroyed.
Life As We Know It(TM) would have a tough enough time living on Mars to start with, let along having to cope with dust and dirt that acts like bleach.
What we really need is a new, improved set of probes with tests for life that could distinguish between weird chemicals and living things....
--
No, according to The Nine Planets mirror:
So, no significant methane, which is a pity. The proposed Mars Direct fuel factories could use an easy source of hydrogen.Also, I don't think that most forms of algae can survive in Mars' current environment, but some strains of lichen (symbiotic fungi and algae) have been tested in "Mars jars" and lived. Maybe with some genetic engineering the lichen could thrive and spread.
But, what happens to that 5 K greenhouse if too much CO2 is turned to O2? Can some other greenhouse gas be released to make up for it? To increase it?
Side thought: If the dirt on Mars contains lots of iron oxides (and some suspected super-oxides) why not make a solar powered refinery module that would turn that into iron and oxygen gas? (Yeah, I know: cost and weight, plus modules don't reproduce. We need to hack some chemosynthetic bacteria so they don't need to live in water....)
--
No, the cabinets are gray and black. They used to be a rather poor mixture of maroon and off-gray, but maybe Sequent's marketing department got tired of weird colors and switched to something suitable for a funeral. ;-)
The article is misleading. NUMA is not the same as SMP. Hope that helps.
True, NUMA is not the same as SMP. It is a bunch of SMP boxes doing a Vulcan Mind Meld via expensive high-speed HW interconnects and caches so that it acts like a whopping big SMP box, without all the usual bus bottlenecks. (Instead, it has unusual bus bottlenecks.)
Btw, these boxes also all run NT. (but who cares?) :P
Amusingly enough, NT doesn't run at all well on NUMA boxes. And, it won't until changes are made in the memory management, scheduling, buffer DMA, and interrupt routing algorithms. But, we don't have the source code for NT.... 8-)
--
Their hardware interconnect was a SCI (Scalable Coherent Interconnect) ring with a bandwidth of around 1 Gb/sec/link. This is not, IMHO, the best link to use today. In fairness to Sequent, SCI may have been the best thing available at the time. They started shipping in '96 or '97, so the R&D must have happened a few years earlier.
I also thought the multi-path I/O was pretty cool. It is a FibreChannel SAN (Storage Area Network) with multiple controllers, F-C switches, and EMC RAID boxes, with fail-overs that work a little like the Internet, rerouting around dead hardware.
--
Sure, some folks will release all of their data almost immediately, but it is up to them to do so.
And, after the year is up, the taxpayers get their due. This system has been used since the dawn of the space program. It's a little late to gripe about it now.
--
I disagree. If the M$ legal team was so smart, why did they submit a doctored video tape of a rigged demo? To refresh your memory, here are some URLs dug from The Register's archives:
DoJ skewers MS exec over falsified video
'Slow' machine in test video was running MS Office
MS exec recants over video 'inconsistency'
MS screws-up video remake, and admits it wasn't real anyway
Allchin takes a beating over video
How MS tried to dig itself out of video hell
MS video II - full transcript, again...
Conclusion: DoJ spin bowls MS video clean
I'm willing to believe that Gates and Ballmer are Evil Geniuses(TM) in their bewailing of the corporate split-up: "Don't throw me in dat dere briar patch, Brer Fox!" Given the guilty ruling, they may be angling for a structural remedy that will enhance their stock value.
But, why would any sane legal strategy be based on those two rigged videos? They could only annoy the judge and help M$ lose the case. Rather than ditching the case, Ballmer and Gates, Evil Geniuses At Large(TM), could have settled at any point during the trial and had a bit more control over their fate than I suspect Judge Jackson will give them.
--
Mixing a strong acid with a strong base does liberate enough energy to boil water. The escaping steam can splatter the stuff all over and cause eye/skin burns. Hence all the warnings in university chemistry classes on using the correct procedure for mixing anything else with said strong acids or bases.
But, because the dilution procedures do exist, it is possible to neutralize the nitric acid in the barrel. Namely, do it slowly inside an apparatus made of heat and pressure resistant material. This is normal chemical engineering technique.
In regards to the "incompatible chemical", you do realize that with strong enough nitric acid just about everything is `incompatible.' For example, Red Fuming Nitric Acid (RFNA) is a hypergolic (self-igniting) rocket fuel combo when mixed with hydrazine or several other fuels. (The acid is the oxidizer, the other chemical is the fuel.) Concentrated nitric acid will react with loads of common stuff to release considerable amounts of heat, if not usually enough to ignite the mixture. Mix in a number of metals (say some aluminum or magnesium) and you'll get a release of heat and hydrogen gas -- a prime set-up for an explosion.
That's why it is not a good idea to leave concentrated nitric acid sitting around in a barrel.
In fairness to whichever company did this, the acid in the barrel probably wasn't too highly concentrated. Still, why didn't they neutralize it?
Did I cause the explosion?
No. I know better.
And now you do, too. 8-)
--
Some of the accidents were probably caused by tired people, like the worker who accidently mixed alcohol, nitric acid, and hydrofluoric acid. He survived the fireball, but died soon later. Many of the IC fabs require employees to work 12 hour shifts to reduce particulate introduction into the clean rooms. Near the end of a shift people are so tired that they aren't thinking straight. My brother worked in a fab for a few years, but quit. The money just wasn't worth the strain on his system.
--
As long as their server only counts ad impressions or ad click-throughs for billing purposes, I'm not adding to their advertisement bottom line.
Yes, IJB works great. I use Stefan Waldherr's slightly hacked version from http://www.waldherr.org/junkbuster/. (It displays a "Junkbuster" image as well as the empty image or a broken link.) Also check out his filter files on the update page.
--
In reality there are many types of asteroids, grouped either by composition or surface spectra, or both. I quote from Bill Arnett's excellent The Nine Planets:
- C-type, includes more than 75% of known asteroids: extremely dark (albedo 0.03); similar to carbonaceous chondrite meteorites; approximately the same chemical composition as the Sun minus hydrogen, helium and other volatiles;
- S-type, 17%: (Stony) relatively bright (albedo
.10-.22); metallic nickel-iron mixed with iron- and magnesium-silicates; - M-type, most of the rest: (Metal) bright (albedo
.10-.18); pure nickel-iron. - There are also a dozen or so other rare types.
If you think that's not important, let me appeal to your greed. Supposing the M-type meteorites we have in collections are representative of the M-type asteroids, then most of the M asteroids are richer in platinum group metals that the ore they mine in South Africa.Admittedly, with launch costs as high as they are, it wouldn't matter if you could go to a type M asteroid and pick up sacks of minted gold coins. A reasonable payload wouldn't pay for launching the mission. That's where John Lewis' Mining the Sky comes in handy. Lewis has worked out how to return payloads that are entirely unreasonable by today's limited standards.
The first asteroid "gold strike" will probably be dirt. If you sent a robot probe out to the asteroid that has the cheapest return fuel cost. (It used to be Nereus, but I believe that an even cheaper one was discovered.) Have the robot scrape up some dust from the surface, bag it, then return to low Earth orbit. Sell the dirt to NASA as shielding for the space station. If the asteroid has enough metal in the dirt, extract it and charge extra for that. If the asteroid was a carbonaceous chondrite, roast the dirt in a solar oven and condense out the water and other volatiles released. Sell those seperately at a premium price. Sell the slag for radiation shielding.
Lewis claims that you could return from Nereus 20 to 50 kg of dirt for every kg you launch. That's not quite good enough to be profitable today, but with cheaper launchers....
Oh, and as everyone else has probably pointed out, we need to know what asteroids are made of in case we ever have to nudge one away from Earth. (Bruce Willis can go only if it is a one-way trip. 8-)
--
You must not have been paying attention during the Cassini protests. Either they were repeating drivel verbatim or they were deliberately lying. I believe it was some of both. Take a look at: http://www.nonviolence.org/noflyby/intro.htm which deliberately tries to confuse a peaceful science probe powered by RTGs with space nuclear weapons. It switched from being an anti-Cassini site to a "throw the probe away -- don't flyby Earth" site. Please peruse the careful mixture of facts and, to put it kindly, non-facts. Moreover, a couple people who claimed to be members of that organization engaged in flame wars in sci.space.policy, so they can't even claim that the inaccuracies were accidental. They were pointed out during the flame war.
Actually, Pu-238 is worse in the short term than Pu-239. It's shorter half life (86.4yr vs. 24,390yr) means that a gram of 238 will emit more radiation than a gram of 239. However, its faster decay means it won't be around as long. This is an advantage. A stainless steel shell can contain 238 long enough for it to decay to harmless levels. Of course it is Pu-238 dioxide, an extremely insoluable ceramic, so there was no great danger in the first place, but every little bit helps.
Yes, watchdogs help to keep a bureaucracy on its toes, but only rational ones. Far too many of the Cassini protesters had not read the environmental impact report, nor the summary posted on the web. They hadn't bothered to familiarize themselves with the structure of the RTGs nor the precautions taken against contamination. As such, they came off as a bunch of zealots who were railing against the Eviiilll Plutonium(TM) in the probe. It literally looked like a bunch of religious fanatics spamming web news sites and Usenet.
Maybe you think this is an unfair characterization. If so, please check with Deja News and other archives. I suspect you'll be as embarrassed by these people as I was. In any case, none of them could have helped to prevent a subtle failure like Apollo 13. They simply don't operate at that level of detail and aren't interested in trying.
Now, it is entirely possible that your educated granola mystics were not deceived by the spin and were not opposed to Cassini's launch. Or, if they were opposed, then they had actual reasons for their position. If so, then I must ask: Why were they silent? Why let the yammerheads grab and hold the spotlight? How can they expect a movement to be taken seriously when all the public sees is a bunch of loony tunes?
The space enthuisasts and the environmental groups should be allies more often then at odds. Both sides share fault in this, but in my opinion, the arrogance of the techheads has done most of the damage.
I agree that this should be and again I disagree on allocating the blame. 8-) Yes, I want to move nearly all heavy industry into space. Let's start mining the asteroids for metal and close all strip mines; let's try a test-sized solar power satellite, etc. It's the people who don't work out the possible risks and rewards of a proposal but respond at a knee-jerk emotional level that are keeping us stuck in the hole we're in. And, the vast majority of those folks call themselves "environmentalists," generally without taking a single college course in biology, statistics, ecology, etc....
--
No, if I recall correctly, both Galileo and Cassini use RTGs (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators) for power. For decade long missions to the outer planets they are the only real option.
Whether RTGs are "nuclear" depends on your definition. They don't use nuclear fission but instead use the heat from the natural decay of Plutonium 238 (not the bomb isotope P-239) but that's a detail totally ignored most of the granola mystics.
Ion drives are cool. We need more experiments like DS1. (Curiously, you'd want a honest-to-Cthulhu space fission reactor for an ion drive mission to the outer planets. Either that, or plan to do most of your thrust while in the inner solar system.)
--
So? There's always another place where you can optimize the code. What of it?
Also, you'll be less misunderstood if you stop repeating M$'s favorite excuse for Win9X's famous instability. ;-)
--
Since Linux was originally much more geared towards and used for server-applications and has only been moving into the desktop-market for a relatively short period, I can imagine the operating system is not entirely optimized for playing games.
Was making a better server really one of Linus' goals? I think not. Instead, servers are a niche where we can slide Linux in under the PHB's radar. Also, the only OSs that are entirely optimized for playing games are game consoles.
Remember how long it took for Direct-X to catch on? It took M$ several versions to make an ABI and implementation that didn't stink. Hopefully, we can avoid this....
Stability often comes at the cost of performance and features, ....
Here is why I hit the "Reply" link. Stability does not have to be compromised by performance or features, not if the OS / Graphics package is designed properly. Did SGI's graphics eye-candy jeopardize it's speed or reliability? (OK, they've fallen on hard times recently, but think back about 5 years.)
I'd like to see one of these.
--
How many times have you read speeches in which some politician bewails the lack of interest by the American voter? Now here is a chance to speak directly to interested constituents and they shrink from it.
I think that both the Republicans and Democrats (don't know about the Libertarians) are still afraid of the 'net and the power it returns to the people. Why else would the FBI's key escrow plan have such strong bipartisan support? Bletch! The very thought sours my stomach....
--
I also liked Lewis and Lewis' earlier work (out of print) Breaking the Bonds of Earth: Utilizing Space Resources (or some such).
Haven't picked up a copy of Comet and Asteroid Impact Hazards on a Populated Earth: Computer Modeling yet. Must see if the Univ of Arizona press has it, because I'm still angry at Amazon.
--
Really? How, then, do you explain that the Lewis and Clark party got from the East coast to the West coast of North America? (Hint: They didn't take the freeways.)
How did the mountain men who left their names all over California arrive if not on foot (theirs or a horse's)?
The fact that you or I don't have the necessary woodcraft to do it doesn't mean that it can't be done and, in fact, was done. If I really wanted to, I could learn those skills and walk to N.Y. without massive infrastructure or pulling a trailer full of freeze dried food. So could you.
You're trying to duck the basic argument: There is an evolutionary process that is working today and has caused new species to form. (See Observed Instances of Speciation and Some More Observed Speciation Events for details.) It is seen in the evolution of antibiotic resistant bacteria and the beak size of Darwin's finches.
Your Argument From Incredulity about walking to N.Y.C. is about as weighty as some of the other postings on evolution: They don't believe it is possible, so didn't even check to see if it has happened.
--
Not always. "The Princess Bride" movie is just as good as the book. And, "The Hunt for Red October" was a good movie of a better book.
Can't think of any others off-hand.
--