I've never understood this argument. During the entire cold war, we had an entire industry dedicated to producing nothing BUT weapons grade material. If we could produce it at an industrial scale and maintain security, why does this have to be an all-or-nothing deal? Can't allow reprocessing at the same level of regulation?
There is a big difference between releasing games for an existing Linux installations and the rumors about Valve creating a Linux-based console. If they create an entirely new Steam-powered Linux-based console, they short-circuit the Year-of-Linux concept. There is an established history of people buying new consoles. For the most part, they honestly don't care what the underlying OS technology is. If Valve released a new easy to use console that could play a few major league titles and attract enough developers for future games, they could easily succeed no matter what the underlying tech is. If it happens to be Linux, that's fantastic if it leads to contributions back into the mainline FOSS ecosystem.
(speaking as a major fan of John Carmack whose commitment to releasing source code literally changed my life as a youngin'.)
"Tiny fibers that comprise about 2 percent of the mixture's volume partly account for its performance."
The fibers are only one part of the improvement. The article also mentions replacing other major components in the concrete, including the bulk aggregate. Presumably the new components are also lighter and would account for the 40% reduction.
With missions that are as important and as expensive as the repair, maintenance, etc, redundancy is a high priority. If these robots were operated from the ground and failed, it could takes months before astronauts could come fix the problem themselves.
Redundancy is also a reason why these researchers are developing such an intricate, versatile humanoid robot instead of using non-humanoid designs that would probably be easier to build and more reliable. If one of those robots were to fail, there is no gaurantee that an astronaut could hop in a space suit and do the repair himself. So by forcing the robots to use the same tools as humans, astronauts can always perform as a back up and expensive shuttle missions are more likely to succeed.
Imperial System does have an advantage
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Biking @ 80 MPH
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There is no reason people can't use both.
For any scientific, engineering, or technical use, the metric system is great. The math is clean and consistent.
But its hard for people to relate the metric system to their daily lives. The imperial system is based on common things around us, like the length of our feet. That makes it much easier to for people to visualize how long something is when they hear "25 ft", and as such makes the imperial system more useful in our daily lives. There is no reason that imperial and metric systems can't live together in peace.
Re:What other MS-compatable alternatives are there
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Mozilla 0.9 Out
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There is a free version of opera. The only difference is a small ad in the upper right corner. Since the ad goes in a space that would otherwise be wasted, most people don't seem to mind it.
And there is also a Linux version, but currently its the 5.03 build, not 5.11.
One of the US FIRST teams maintains a great site to help teams involved in FIRST that includes a huge collection of pictures of robots and regionals starting from last year. Its definitely worth a look if you have some spare time and want to see some of the really cool machines.
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I've never understood this argument. During the entire cold war, we had an entire industry dedicated to producing nothing BUT weapons grade material. If we could produce it at an industrial scale and maintain security, why does this have to be an all-or-nothing deal? Can't allow reprocessing at the same level of regulation?
There is a big difference between releasing games for an existing Linux installations and the rumors about Valve creating a Linux-based console. If they create an entirely new Steam-powered Linux-based console, they short-circuit the Year-of-Linux concept. There is an established history of people buying new consoles. For the most part, they honestly don't care what the underlying OS technology is. If Valve released a new easy to use console that could play a few major league titles and attract enough developers for future games, they could easily succeed no matter what the underlying tech is. If it happens to be Linux, that's fantastic if it leads to contributions back into the mainline FOSS ecosystem.
(speaking as a major fan of John Carmack whose commitment to releasing source code literally changed my life as a youngin'.)
"Tiny fibers that comprise about 2 percent of the mixture's volume partly account for its performance."
The fibers are only one part of the improvement. The article also mentions replacing other major components in the concrete, including the bulk aggregate. Presumably the new components are also lighter and would account for the 40% reduction.
With missions that are as important and as expensive as the repair, maintenance, etc, redundancy is a high priority. If these robots were operated from the ground and failed, it could takes months before astronauts could come fix the problem themselves.
Redundancy is also a reason why these researchers are developing such an intricate, versatile humanoid robot instead of using non-humanoid designs that would probably be easier to build and more reliable. If one of those robots were to fail, there is no gaurantee that an astronaut could hop in a space suit and do the repair himself. So by forcing the robots to use the same tools as humans, astronauts can always perform as a back up and expensive shuttle missions are more likely to succeed.
There is no reason people can't use both.
For any scientific, engineering, or technical use, the metric system is great. The math is clean and consistent.
But its hard for people to relate the metric system to their daily lives. The imperial system is based on common things around us, like the length of our feet. That makes it much easier to for people to visualize how long something is when they hear "25 ft", and as such makes the imperial system more useful in our daily lives. There is no reason that imperial and metric systems can't live together in peace.
There is a free version of opera. The only difference is a small ad in the upper right corner. Since the ad goes in a space that would otherwise be wasted, most people don't seem to mind it. And there is also a Linux version, but currently its the 5.03 build, not 5.11.
One of the US FIRST teams maintains a great site to help teams involved in FIRST that includes a huge collection of pictures of robots and regionals starting from last year. Its definitely worth a look if you have some spare time and want to see some of the really cool machines.