Again with the Joules. Joules say nothing about how quickly the energy is imparted. Would you rather carry 10 lbs once a minute, or 600lbs once an hour? They're both the same amount of work, after all..
That depends on your idea of "most" then, doesn't it? If you ate just under 3/4 of my cookies, I'd say you ate most of them, and in fact, I'd probably not be very happy about it!
Burying corpses is so wasteful in the grand scheme of things.
Yeah, you say that now, but when Humanity 2.0 is drilling for hydrocarbons to power their mastadonless carriages in 30,000 years, they'll be glad you opted for interring.
most of the extrasolar systems we've found also tend to have Jupiter-like and larger planets and that in the majority of cases, these planets are either fairly close to their stars or in highly eccentric orbits.
That's not an attribute of solar systems in general; it's an attribute of solar systems *we can detect* by viewing perturbations in a star's relative position. There's a reason the first planets have had extremely short orbits and extremely large mass. By virtue of the methodology, the larger the planet and the closer the orbit (which makes for a larger/faster wobble, respectively), the easier we can detect them. A planet with the mass of our Sun would still take centuries to detect with current technology if it had the orbital period of Pluto.
Granted, you qualified your statement, but then you went on to describe the likelihood of an Earth-like planet based on our limited findings. That's a bit like saying "The faintest stars we can see with the naked eye are magnitude 4, therefore it's unlikely that many stars are dimmer than that."
Yeah, sounds great until some asshole decides to found New California smack dab in the middle of the asteroid belt after exclaiming, "Oh, it's so shiny here!" Then we'll all be obligated to subsidize their insurance premiums and use Federation tax money to help them them rebuild every few years. True, they will have prescriptions for medicinal space marijuana (because what New Californians need is more drugs), but unfortunately they'll have to go outside to smoke it.
And when it blocks out points of light behind it, commonly know as stars, then what? Oh, I know.. maybe it could just hide on the side of the earth with no people. (For the record, that will be whichever side happens to spot it first.)
Eh.. Freedom of Speech really bears no relevance to the moderation system. Anyone is free to post just about anything they like (if they can make it past the filters). The freedom to express oneself is not a mandate for anyone else to have to listen.
Also, King George was a troll. Probably a member of GNAUK as well.
a regular user who's upgrading the OS should not notice a too big difference, nor should he have to upgrade the computer.
Yeah! Thanks to Linux, I haven't bought any new hardware since the Commodore 64, and I don't notice ANY difference! X still won't run, and all of the shell commands still result in ?SYNTAX ERROR. But it boots WAY faster than XP!
That's not just MS, and it's not limited to operating systems -- the first new model of anything follows a similar trend. Vehicles, appliances, mobiles, computer hardware, and so on. It's basically a given that a subsequent revision will have both higher reliability and more and improved features. On the plus side, OS revisions are typically free. Good luck getting Toyota to put '08 features in your '05 Camry free of charge (or even sell you an '05 with '08 features at a fraction of the original price). Patience is a virtue, and waiting for a given product to mature is almost always more rewarding than falling into the trap of early adopting.
(The same goes for kids, BTW.. I recommend waiting until they're 3-4 to adopt. Anything newer almost universally exhibits constant leaks and alarms, difficulty interpreting commands, and garbled output.)
WARNING: Pregnant women, the elderly, and children under 10 should avoid prolonged exposure to Tiger.
Caution: Tiger may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds.
Tiger contains a liquid core, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at.
Do not race Tiger on concrete.
Discontinue contact with Tiger if any of the following occurs:
itching
vertigo
dizziness
tingling in extremities
loss of balance or coordination
slurred speech
temporary blindness
profuse sweating
or heart palpitations
If Tiger begins to growl, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.
Tiger may prefer certain types of skin.
When not in use, Tiger should be returned to its special container. Failure to do so relieves the owners of Tiger, San Francisco Zoo, of any and all liability.
DNA of Tiger includes an unknown glowing green substance which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space.
Tigers have been shipped to our troops in Saudi Arabia and are being dropped by our warplanes on Iraq.
Pressing is just using a larger iron to get the job done faster. What would be ironic is if you ironed your BCGs, on account of the fact that you weren't wearing them.
...the fact that there are entire Wikipedia articles on each episode of Star Trek, or the fact that the submitter not only knew this, but knew a relevant episode to link to as well.
Eh.. you can't hear what you can't hear. Sure, they could use active sonar, but A) that doesn't effectively penetrate thermal layers, and B) subs can go under those layers, but they don't want to use active sonar and give away their position. Active sonar is generally reserved for when there's an expected threat, you believe your position has already been compromised, and you have a far greater interest in knowing exactly where the other guy is than in staying hidden -- usually so you can send him a present. I would be inclined to chalk this up more to effective stealth techniques than anything the fleet could or should have done differently. It's not like a more sensitive microphone could magically lower the noise floor of the ocean or peer through thermal layers, and as long as a vessel stays below those, it's golden. There is no such thing as omnipotence.
I find that carrier story to be less than credible. Surprisingly, carriers are generally understood to be the fastest ship in the fleet, because they need to be; both to facilitate takeoffs and to be able to run away from just such a threat. Their top speed is classified, but it is probably safe to assume they can outrun their battlegroup if necessary. And that's just the surface.
Subs can indeed travel faster underwater than on the surface, however their props are designed for stealth first and speed second. That priority almost guarantees that the prop would cause cavitation at high speeds, which would basically destroy a very expensive item, so even if a captain *could* push his boat that fast, he would likely cripple it. Aside from that, traveling underwater inherently requires more energy due to vastly increased friction, and it's extremely unlikely that the sub would be have the power to keep up in the first place. Subs are designed to pop up to 40-60 feet, launch some fish or some birds, and get back down, not chase down a panicked warship.
A flopped international dollar would be a severe blow, but it wouldn't have any short term effect on the viability of the military, and even long term, it wouldn't come close to crippling the armed forces. Even with a low exchange rate, the dollar would still be useful for domestic purposes, and the only thing the US is internationally reliant on is oil (and maybe cheap clothes). There is more than enough oil in domestic reserves and fields to keep the armed forces running for the foreseeable future; not to mention that all of the subs, and all but one of the carriers are nuclear powered. With small exception, everything the military buys is produced completely in the US, for the very reason that international dependence is a strategic weakness. Food would not even be an issue, but you can bet that WWII style rationing (which wasn't really even necessary back then) would take effect if required, and factories would shift to support wartime efforts likewise, if required. The government doesn't "run out of money," they print the stuff, which is not to say they'd print themselves some more, but they'd take more in the form of taxes. Just because the American people are generally not in support of THIS war does not mean that they wouldn't support ANY war.
That said, I am not promoting war -- military action should always be the absolute last option in any conflict. Physical conflicts are always unacceptable in a civilized society, and they should be just as unacceptable on a global scale.
Slashdot Mirror
Again with the Joules. Joules say nothing about how quickly the energy is imparted. Would you rather carry 10 lbs once a minute, or 600lbs once an hour? They're both the same amount of work, after all..
That "300 terawatts" is nothing if you take into account how short the beam lasts.
That's like saying the kinetic energy of a bullet is nothing when averaged over an hour.
That depends on your idea of "most" then, doesn't it? If you ate just under 3/4 of my cookies, I'd say you ate most of them, and in fact, I'd probably not be very happy about it!
tidal forces will tear apart anything within, roughly, the A ring.
So you're saying that putting something inside the A ring would likely a hole tear?
I learned my sense of humor largely from exposure to lucasfilm games.
We'd be in real trouble if you ever used it!
Burying corpses is so wasteful in the grand scheme of things.
Yeah, you say that now, but when Humanity 2.0 is drilling for hydrocarbons to power their mastadonless carriages in 30,000 years, they'll be glad you opted for interring.
Shame the Bible wasn't written in English. Of course, I'm sure there was nothing lost in translation...
most of the extrasolar systems we've found also tend to have Jupiter-like and larger planets and that in the majority of cases, these planets are either fairly close to their stars or in highly eccentric orbits.
That's not an attribute of solar systems in general; it's an attribute of solar systems *we can detect* by viewing perturbations in a star's relative position. There's a reason the first planets have had extremely short orbits and extremely large mass. By virtue of the methodology, the larger the planet and the closer the orbit (which makes for a larger/faster wobble, respectively), the easier we can detect them. A planet with the mass of our Sun would still take centuries to detect with current technology if it had the orbital period of Pluto.
Granted, you qualified your statement, but then you went on to describe the likelihood of an Earth-like planet based on our limited findings. That's a bit like saying "The faintest stars we can see with the naked eye are magnitude 4, therefore it's unlikely that many stars are dimmer than that."
Yeah, sounds great until some asshole decides to found New California smack dab in the middle of the asteroid belt after exclaiming, "Oh, it's so shiny here!" Then we'll all be obligated to subsidize their insurance premiums and use Federation tax money to help them them rebuild every few years. True, they will have prescriptions for medicinal space marijuana (because what New Californians need is more drugs), but unfortunately they'll have to go outside to smoke it.
According to *my* formula, I also have a 2^n chance of winning the lottery. Surprising it hasn't happened already...
We might be able to fire ourselves off in a single direction, but how do we slow down and what if we need to change course.
If only there was some sort of force which acted on the vector of an object in motion without a collision... if only.
Oh well, excuse me while I jump to the moon.
I think the infinite lag aboard said FTL vessel would start to piss people off real quick.
And when it blocks out points of light behind it, commonly know as stars, then what? Oh, I know.. maybe it could just hide on the side of the earth with no people. (For the record, that will be whichever side happens to spot it first.)
Hey, someone's gotta liberate Titan. Might as well be us!
IMO, it's the fault of the corporations who supported the campaigns of the politicians who then enacted laws in favor of said corporations.
Eh.. Freedom of Speech really bears no relevance to the moderation system. Anyone is free to post just about anything they like (if they can make it past the filters). The freedom to express oneself is not a mandate for anyone else to have to listen.
Also, King George was a troll. Probably a member of GNAUK as well.
a regular user who's upgrading the OS should not notice a too big difference, nor should he have to upgrade the computer.
Yeah! Thanks to Linux, I haven't
bought any new hardware since the
Commodore 64, and I don't notice ANY
difference! X still won't run, and all
of the shell commands still result in
?SYNTAX ERROR. But it boots WAY faster
than XP!
And finally... 75,000. Out of how many copies sold? That's not even 1% of their user base.
True, but you have to consider that for every 1 signature, there's probably AT LEAST 0.75 individuals who feel the same way.
That's not just MS, and it's not limited to operating systems -- the first new model of anything follows a similar trend. Vehicles, appliances, mobiles, computer hardware, and so on. It's basically a given that a subsequent revision will have both higher reliability and more and improved features. On the plus side, OS revisions are typically free. Good luck getting Toyota to put '08 features in your '05 Camry free of charge (or even sell you an '05 with '08 features at a fraction of the original price). Patience is a virtue, and waiting for a given product to mature is almost always more rewarding than falling into the trap of early adopting.
(The same goes for kids, BTW.. I recommend waiting until they're 3-4 to adopt. Anything newer almost universally exhibits constant leaks and alarms, difficulty interpreting commands, and garbled output.)
Pressing is just using a larger iron to get the job done faster. What would be ironic is if you ironed your BCGs, on account of the fact that you weren't wearing them.
...the fact that there are entire Wikipedia articles on each episode of Star Trek, or the fact that the submitter not only knew this, but knew a relevant episode to link to as well.
Eh.. you can't hear what you can't hear. Sure, they could use active sonar, but A) that doesn't effectively penetrate thermal layers, and B) subs can go under those layers, but they don't want to use active sonar and give away their position. Active sonar is generally reserved for when there's an expected threat, you believe your position has already been compromised, and you have a far greater interest in knowing exactly where the other guy is than in staying hidden -- usually so you can send him a present. I would be inclined to chalk this up more to effective stealth techniques than anything the fleet could or should have done differently. It's not like a more sensitive microphone could magically lower the noise floor of the ocean or peer through thermal layers, and as long as a vessel stays below those, it's golden. There is no such thing as omnipotence.
I find that carrier story to be less than credible. Surprisingly, carriers are generally understood to be the fastest ship in the fleet, because they need to be; both to facilitate takeoffs and to be able to run away from just such a threat. Their top speed is classified, but it is probably safe to assume they can outrun their battlegroup if necessary. And that's just the surface.
Subs can indeed travel faster underwater than on the surface, however their props are designed for stealth first and speed second. That priority almost guarantees that the prop would cause cavitation at high speeds, which would basically destroy a very expensive item, so even if a captain *could* push his boat that fast, he would likely cripple it. Aside from that, traveling underwater inherently requires more energy due to vastly increased friction, and it's extremely unlikely that the sub would be have the power to keep up in the first place. Subs are designed to pop up to 40-60 feet, launch some fish or some birds, and get back down, not chase down a panicked warship.
A flopped international dollar would be a severe blow, but it wouldn't have any short term effect on the viability of the military, and even long term, it wouldn't come close to crippling the armed forces. Even with a low exchange rate, the dollar would still be useful for domestic purposes, and the only thing the US is internationally reliant on is oil (and maybe cheap clothes). There is more than enough oil in domestic reserves and fields to keep the armed forces running for the foreseeable future; not to mention that all of the subs, and all but one of the carriers are nuclear powered. With small exception, everything the military buys is produced completely in the US, for the very reason that international dependence is a strategic weakness. Food would not even be an issue, but you can bet that WWII style rationing (which wasn't really even necessary back then) would take effect if required, and factories would shift to support wartime efforts likewise, if required. The government doesn't "run out of money," they print the stuff, which is not to say they'd print themselves some more, but they'd take more in the form of taxes. Just because the American people are generally not in support of THIS war does not mean that they wouldn't support ANY war.
That said, I am not promoting war -- military action should always be the absolute last option in any conflict. Physical conflicts are always unacceptable in a civilized society, and they should be just as unacceptable on a global scale.