I never thought of the "where would a bullet go in space" question. I guess that would make for a rather funny looking platform. It would need a big armored wall for when it came the whole way around.:) That, or they'd have to be careful to shoot off of their plane. If they shot down a little, it would tend to (hopefully) continue in a decaying orbit.
Militarization of space doesn't necessarily mean guns against other spaceships. A rain of titanium rods down from an orbiting platform towards the ground would be nasty.
I suspect the want for resources is why we've checked out moon rocks, asteroid composition, etc. Of course, we've only looked at a very small part of anything we've investigated.
The cold war cost a fortune, and only served to show who had the bigger dick (and budget). You have a nuke? We'll build 10. We have 10, you'll build 100. It just kept getting bigger and bigger, until... well... the cold war fell apart.
I think your rant may have been well placed. With the international treaties against nations laying claim to space objects, and agreements not to send any armed space vehicles, it doesn't allow for war there. On the other hand, if a nation were to do exactly that, they would have the upper hand.
Imagine some rogue nation develops a significant space program, *AND* arms it. There would be no way to defend against it, or for other nations to fight against it. Of course, with the way things usually go, the rogue nation would be the US, swearing to defend the neutrality of space through superior force, and in such stop evil nations from having a space program.
Since we can't militarize space, there's no incentive for military involvement in space, except for spy and communication satellites, which are run happily from the ground.
I've argued quite a bit, if nations of Earth were to stop wasting their resources on crap they are now, we could have a significant space presence, with a strong step towards deep space exploration. We will never learn how to do it unless we work at it.... and for a car analogy. If we had looked at the M. Brezin car 1769, which could do a whopping 2mph, and said "this is too slow, it will never be worth pursuing", we would still be traveling on foot, horseback, and by horse drawn carriage. Today, we look at space travel and say "it will take too long to get anywhere", so we don't try. 6 months to Mars? Of course it is, we're still in the Bronze Age of space travel. We've discovered a little, but we have an awful long way to go.
I like those. I did one of their "test" once. The guy talked to me, and asked lots of questions. I remained calm, and answered every one of them any way I wanted. The needle didn't move. After a few minutes, he began doubting the machine, and then questioned me on if I was operating it right. With the simple instructions "hold these loosely in your hands", there wasn't much for me to mess up. Since he had turned the sensitivity all the way up because he couldn't get a response, when he told me to hold them a little tighter, the needle shot all the way to the right. I suggested he turn the sensitivity down.:)
I held on a little tighter, and he adjusted the machine again, so it was now showing neutral. The questions resumed, and I didn't show any sort of reaction to any of the questions. He got real frustrated with me (Hey dude, reactionary mind. Practice what you preach.), and gave up on it. I guess I wouldn't be a good cult member, if they won't know that I'm lying to them or not. Too bad, I wanted to join up, so I could take over.;)
If you really don't care about what you're saying, everything will show you're answering truthfully. When you start overthinking the questions, that's where you'll run into trouble. Consider these questions during a polygraph.
(Q = question. T = thought. A = verbal answer. R = Result)
Q: Did you know the victim Bob?
T: Ya, I know bob.
A: yes.
R: Pass
Q: Are you aware that Bob is missing?
T: Everyone knows Bob is missing, that's why I'm here. This is easy.
A: Yes
R: Pass
Q: Do you know where Bob is?
T: Buried in that empty field. Shit, they know I killed Bob. They're going to figure it out!
A: No.
R: FAIL!
Q: Did you have anything to do with Bob disappearing?
T: Oh shit, they know I did it. They know I shot him, and buried him. I'm going to prison forever.
A: No.
R: FAIL!
There are all kinds of things that happen, that rarely make the news.
I heard a house explosion. Like, it shook our building about 1/4 mile away, so we went looking for what caused it. that wasn't very hard. By the time we got outside, there was a column of smoke rising. When we got there, fire rescue was on the scene, and reporters were just starting to show up. I hung around long enough to get the whole story, and then left.
The story was... A little old lady lived with two room mates in an older house. Her husband had passed away a while before, but she still had two of his oxygen tanks stored in the laundry room. A fire started in the clothes dryer, and when the tanks reached burst pressure, they did. That's what we heard.
It made one of the local news web sites for a few hours. The other local stations didn't bother to run it.
Just because something happens doesn't mean it makes it to publication. Houses burn. Boats sink. People go missing. Unless there's something that catches the eye of the mass media (usually celebrity involvement), at most it'll be a blurb buried in a local publication. Blood and guts are sometimes good for the ratings, but that doesn't always do it.
I'm sure we all remember the accident in California where the girl took her dads car, went speeding down a highway at 90mph+, lost control and had a fatal accident. National news, etc, etc.
Around the same period, someone I knew was in a fatal accident. He was the passenger in a car that was doing 90mph+ on a highway, lost control, and both of them died. I eventually found out by word of mouth from one of his friends, but they didn't have the details. I finally found a two paragraph story buried on one local news site, which at least gave me a date and location. To anyone else, it was a non-story. If a local news crew happened on the scene first, and got pictures of the blood and guts, it would have probably been national news.
I like using a boating accident as an example. Well, it reminds me of MST3k quote "This was no boating accident".:) So a boating accident, house fire, random shooting, accidental prescription overdoes, or the victim just disappears, it really doesn't matter.
Since it's rotating, the centrifugal force keeps it from falling down upon itself. Unless the mass of the solar system stops spinning, it will maintain (somewhat) its density.
The same could be said for the galaxy. If it were to stop spinning, it would collapse upon itself. That wouldn't be a very good thing.:)
I wouldn't be too worried about a hyperdense mass that used to be our galaxy any time soon though.
That was just an example. There are plenty of ways a person can have an accident that never gets questioned after the initial investigation. Car accident, slip & fall, mugging, home invasion, or even "natural" causes as you mentioned. Boating accidents are an easy way to explain away whey no body was found, and little evidence left behind.
Nope, that sounds more like the definition of spying. Giving the intelligence to the enemy, or to the general public doesn't matter. For all we know, he's been trading valuable information, and publishing embarrassing information. I don't honestly believe that, but I'm sure if he "cooperates", it will be used at his trial, assuming he gets one. Otherwise, we'll hear about a tragic boating accident in which he didn't make it. You have to watch the buildup of gas fumes in the engine compartment, a boat can just explode without any notice.
We've made the documents available to you for eons. It's not our fault that you simple creatures haven't been able to figure out how to get your lazy selves off of that rock you call home.
They're available in the records department, in the planning office at Alpha Centauri, for almost a million years.
Your failure to read the documents does not constitute an excuse to not follow the galactic laws.
Are you so sure about that? Wouldn't it be more efficient to find a planet that will be moving close to your destination with a few viable life forms, let them propagate, and then collect them later? The Earth is like a nice petri dish. Drop a few specimens in, and in a while you have a full fledged colony.
We'll find out in about 2 years, when we've come to our destination, and the planet is culled for the slaves that have been propagating across it.
Imagine the size of the ship you'd need to move 7 billion slaves. Not only the storage space, but you'd have to carry supplies for the duration. When trading in numbers like that, it's economically viable to just wait and let them deliver themselves. It's not like they can go anywhere. The farthest they've ever managed to go is about 250,000 miles, just beyond their own moon. They have no way to get away, and don't even weapons to fight us. We left agents on the planet to try to keep them from killing each other, so we don't lose our investment.
Err, I mean, no, there would be no such thing as intergalactic slave trading. Now go look at Lolcats or watch American Idol. Don't worry about what could be out there.
As I understand it, it's not the mass that matters, it's the density.
You could have an object the size of our solar system, with a very low density, but a mass that far exceeds our sun, which would just remain a non-burning object.
If the density reaches a critical threshold, it could then start burning, and be a star. Well, if the density becomes too great, it could also become a black hole (i.e., extreme gravitational force, pulling everything including light back into it)
I'm no astrophysicist though. I'm sure someone else can give a more educated interpretation of the facts.
Well, my car has 6 gears. 4th is 1:1. 5th and 6th are both overdrive. I can go into 6th at 50mph or over 100mph, depending on how I'm driving. At 50mph, it takes a lot more fuel, because the RPM's are so low.
Internal combustion engines don't operate on a flat line for their efficiency and power. That's where everything goes screwy.
I surprised myself at work one day. A while back, I had doctored up a photo that I took inside an Equinix datacenter, and put Thor from Stargate into it. I made that the background on my machine. The only time I reboot is for a kernel upgrade or after a power outage. I was laughing inside when I saw it after a power outage. There's something to be said to being welcomed to your Linux desktop by an Asgard.:)
I still tell people the picture is real, and since most of them have never visited a datacenter, much less a Equinix datacenter, they look and have to accept that it's real.:) I have most people convinced that I've done lots of things I can't talk about. The truth is, they just wouldn't understand or care.
The question then becomes, which is real information, and which is disinformation.:)
More than half of what I put online is disinformation. Anyone profiling me knows that I live in New York, California, Florida, Alaska, and Iceland. Well, except when I'm not there, then I'm anywhere else.
My entire online presence is a well choreographed illusion, with a myriad of aliases and other disinformation. I'm always entertained when someone finds another alias for me. Sometimes I'm surprised when they pop up with an alias that I hadn't used in decades.
If someone were to stumble onto my real identity, they may as well be searching for "John Smith", as there are thousands of people with my name world wide, with varying levels of expertise. There are several that work in similar fields, so I am surprised that I haven't encountered at least one of them in real life yet.
I thought of retaining the attorney with my name, and becoming a patient with the doctor with my name, just to keep things really interesting.
Any place called "prohibited area" sounds like a dare. It's kind of like putting a big "do not enter" sign with no obvious reason why. 95% of folks won't go. The rest of us will say "Hmm, I wonder why it's prohibited, lets go have a look.":)
Sometimes I don't deal well with authority, especially when it's just a line on a map that says "don't go here.". Well, unless I drew the line, but that would be because I already went there.:)
Their sign doesn't scare me. Of course guys with guns do, which I'd probably end up encountering when they see me trekking off the road.:) It's a good thing I don't live near there. That'll keep me out of trouble.:)
That's what I thought when I first read it too. Hmm, a wearable eyepiece that projects the image directly into your eye (i.e., nothing visible to outside viewers). That could be useful. Then I read what it actually means, and was again disappointed with marketing fluff.
That's what I thought when I first read it too. Hmm, a wearable eyepiece that projects the image directly into your eye. That could be useful. Then I read what it actually means, and was again disappointed with marketing fluff.
You know, I've never bothered to research these at all. I kind of took it at face value that they were done by NASA for their projects. While some were popularized by the use by NASA, they still existed much earlier. And even Tang isn't a NASA product.
Teflon - Roy Plunkett of Kinetic Chemicals - Invented 1938 - Trademarked 1945
Velcro - George de Mestral - Invented 1941 - Patented 1955
Integrated Circuit - Theorized by Geoffrey W.A. Dummer, British Ministry of Defence 1952 - Demonstrated Jack Kilby 1956
Tang - William A. Mitchell for General Foods Corporation Invented in 1957 - Marketed in 1959 - Used by NASA 1965
A lot of projects aren't done by the government agency who seems to have done it. There's an awful lot of work done by government subcontractors. That goes as far as the fact that NASA didn't build the space shuttle.
Solid Rocket Boosters - Thiokol/Alliant Techsystems External Fuel Tank - Lockheed Martin (Martin Marietta) Orbiter - Rockwell/Boeing
I guess that goes with the idea of, a smart man can do. A smarter man can delegate.
Some automotive pieces are delegated also, but they do a lot of work in-house.
Slashdot Mirror
I never thought of the "where would a bullet go in space" question. I guess that would make for a rather funny looking platform. It would need a big armored wall for when it came the whole way around. :) That, or they'd have to be careful to shoot off of their plane. If they shot down a little, it would tend to (hopefully) continue in a decaying orbit.
Militarization of space doesn't necessarily mean guns against other spaceships. A rain of titanium rods down from an orbiting platform towards the ground would be nasty.
I suspect the want for resources is why we've checked out moon rocks, asteroid composition, etc. Of course, we've only looked at a very small part of anything we've investigated.
The cold war cost a fortune, and only served to show who had the bigger dick (and budget). You have a nuke? We'll build 10. We have 10, you'll build 100. It just kept getting bigger and bigger, until ... well ... the cold war fell apart.
I think your rant may have been well placed. With the international treaties against nations laying claim to space objects, and agreements not to send any armed space vehicles, it doesn't allow for war there. On the other hand, if a nation were to do exactly that, they would have the upper hand.
Imagine some rogue nation develops a significant space program, *AND* arms it. There would be no way to defend against it, or for other nations to fight against it. Of course, with the way things usually go, the rogue nation would be the US, swearing to defend the neutrality of space through superior force, and in such stop evil nations from having a space program.
Since we can't militarize space, there's no incentive for military involvement in space, except for spy and communication satellites, which are run happily from the ground.
I've argued quite a bit, if nations of Earth were to stop wasting their resources on crap they are now, we could have a significant space presence, with a strong step towards deep space exploration. We will never learn how to do it unless we work at it. ... and for a car analogy. If we had looked at the M. Brezin car 1769, which could do a whopping 2mph, and said "this is too slow, it will never be worth pursuing", we would still be traveling on foot, horseback, and by horse drawn carriage. Today, we look at space travel and say "it will take too long to get anywhere", so we don't try. 6 months to Mars? Of course it is, we're still in the Bronze Age of space travel. We've discovered a little, but we have an awful long way to go.
I like those. I did one of their "test" once. The guy talked to me, and asked lots of questions. I remained calm, and answered every one of them any way I wanted. The needle didn't move. After a few minutes, he began doubting the machine, and then questioned me on if I was operating it right. With the simple instructions "hold these loosely in your hands", there wasn't much for me to mess up. Since he had turned the sensitivity all the way up because he couldn't get a response, when he told me to hold them a little tighter, the needle shot all the way to the right. I suggested he turn the sensitivity down. :)
I held on a little tighter, and he adjusted the machine again, so it was now showing neutral. The questions resumed, and I didn't show any sort of reaction to any of the questions. He got real frustrated with me (Hey dude, reactionary mind. Practice what you preach.), and gave up on it. I guess I wouldn't be a good cult member, if they won't know that I'm lying to them or not. Too bad, I wanted to join up, so I could take over. ;)
If you really don't care about what you're saying, everything will show you're answering truthfully. When you start overthinking the questions, that's where you'll run into trouble. Consider these questions during a polygraph.
(Q = question. T = thought. A = verbal answer. R = Result)
Q: Did you know the victim Bob?
T: Ya, I know bob.
A: yes.
R: Pass
Q: Are you aware that Bob is missing?
T: Everyone knows Bob is missing, that's why I'm here. This is easy.
A: Yes
R: Pass
Q: Do you know where Bob is?
T: Buried in that empty field. Shit, they know I killed Bob. They're going to figure it out!
A: No.
R: FAIL!
Q: Did you have anything to do with Bob disappearing?
T: Oh shit, they know I did it. They know I shot him, and buried him. I'm going to prison forever.
A: No.
R: FAIL!
There are all kinds of things that happen, that rarely make the news.
I heard a house explosion. Like, it shook our building about 1/4 mile away, so we went looking for what caused it. that wasn't very hard. By the time we got outside, there was a column of smoke rising. When we got there, fire rescue was on the scene, and reporters were just starting to show up. I hung around long enough to get the whole story, and then left.
The story was... A little old lady lived with two room mates in an older house. Her husband had passed away a while before, but she still had two of his oxygen tanks stored in the laundry room. A fire started in the clothes dryer, and when the tanks reached burst pressure, they did. That's what we heard.
It made one of the local news web sites for a few hours. The other local stations didn't bother to run it.
Just because something happens doesn't mean it makes it to publication. Houses burn. Boats sink. People go missing. Unless there's something that catches the eye of the mass media (usually celebrity involvement), at most it'll be a blurb buried in a local publication. Blood and guts are sometimes good for the ratings, but that doesn't always do it.
I'm sure we all remember the accident in California where the girl took her dads car, went speeding down a highway at 90mph+, lost control and had a fatal accident. National news, etc, etc.
Around the same period, someone I knew was in a fatal accident. He was the passenger in a car that was doing 90mph+ on a highway, lost control, and both of them died. I eventually found out by word of mouth from one of his friends, but they didn't have the details. I finally found a two paragraph story buried on one local news site, which at least gave me a date and location. To anyone else, it was a non-story. If a local news crew happened on the scene first, and got pictures of the blood and guts, it would have probably been national news.
I like using a boating accident as an example. Well, it reminds me of MST3k quote "This was no boating accident". :) So a boating accident, house fire, random shooting, accidental prescription overdoes, or the victim just disappears, it really doesn't matter.
The only thing I've learned from the Raelians (and other cults), is that I should start one of my own.
Well, maybe.
Since it's rotating, the centrifugal force keeps it from falling down upon itself. Unless the mass of the solar system stops spinning, it will maintain (somewhat) its density.
The same could be said for the galaxy. If it were to stop spinning, it would collapse upon itself. That wouldn't be a very good thing. :)
I wouldn't be too worried about a hyperdense mass that used to be our galaxy any time soon though.
Well, explosions are flashy, but it's not totally uncommon. The bilge fan fails, and the rest is history.
Check this search.
This is what can happen (with pic).
That was just an example. There are plenty of ways a person can have an accident that never gets questioned after the initial investigation. Car accident, slip & fall, mugging, home invasion, or even "natural" causes as you mentioned. Boating accidents are an easy way to explain away whey no body was found, and little evidence left behind.
Nope, that sounds more like the definition of spying. Giving the intelligence to the enemy, or to the general public doesn't matter. For all we know, he's been trading valuable information, and publishing embarrassing information. I don't honestly believe that, but I'm sure if he "cooperates", it will be used at his trial, assuming he gets one. Otherwise, we'll hear about a tragic boating accident in which he didn't make it. You have to watch the buildup of gas fumes in the engine compartment, a boat can just explode without any notice.
We've made the documents available to you for eons. It's not our fault that you simple creatures haven't been able to figure out how to get your lazy selves off of that rock you call home.
They're available in the records department, in the planning office at Alpha Centauri, for almost a million years.
Your failure to read the documents does not constitute an excuse to not follow the galactic laws.
Are you so sure about that? Wouldn't it be more efficient to find a planet that will be moving close to your destination with a few viable life forms, let them propagate, and then collect them later? The Earth is like a nice petri dish. Drop a few specimens in, and in a while you have a full fledged colony.
We'll find out in about 2 years, when we've come to our destination, and the planet is culled for the slaves that have been propagating across it.
Imagine the size of the ship you'd need to move 7 billion slaves. Not only the storage space, but you'd have to carry supplies for the duration. When trading in numbers like that, it's economically viable to just wait and let them deliver themselves. It's not like they can go anywhere. The farthest they've ever managed to go is about 250,000 miles, just beyond their own moon. They have no way to get away, and don't even weapons to fight us. We left agents on the planet to try to keep them from killing each other, so we don't lose our investment.
Err, I mean, no, there would be no such thing as intergalactic slave trading. Now go look at Lolcats or watch American Idol. Don't worry about what could be out there.
Reflected light doesn't count as "shining". :)
As I understand it, it's not the mass that matters, it's the density.
You could have an object the size of our solar system, with a very low density, but a mass that far exceeds our sun, which would just remain a non-burning object.
If the density reaches a critical threshold, it could then start burning, and be a star. Well, if the density becomes too great, it could also become a black hole (i.e., extreme gravitational force, pulling everything including light back into it)
I'm no astrophysicist though. I'm sure someone else can give a more educated interpretation of the facts.
Well, he was only 9 times the mass after he was done.
Nom, nom, nom.
I guess I forgot the step where I wait patiently while the whois information updates. I hate this part.
Well, my car has 6 gears. 4th is 1:1. 5th and 6th are both overdrive. I can go into 6th at 50mph or over 100mph, depending on how I'm driving. At 50mph, it takes a lot more fuel, because the RPM's are so low.
Internal combustion engines don't operate on a flat line for their efficiency and power. That's where everything goes screwy.
I could go and change my information, and then select the privacy setting, so all you'll see is the provider's info. :)
It should be a clue from the telephone number. Another number I use a lot is 212 555 1212. :)
The address is an arbitrary mail drop. Try mailing me a letter. It'll get returned by the folks there, that have never heard of me.
You don't spend a lot of time in shells, or the console of Unix machines, do you?
I surprised myself at work one day. A while back, I had doctored up a photo that I took inside an Equinix datacenter, and put Thor from Stargate into it. I made that the background on my machine. The only time I reboot is for a kernel upgrade or after a power outage. I was laughing inside when I saw it after a power outage. There's something to be said to being welcomed to your Linux desktop by an Asgard. :)
I still tell people the picture is real, and since most of them have never visited a datacenter, much less a Equinix datacenter, they look and have to accept that it's real. :) I have most people convinced that I've done lots of things I can't talk about. The truth is, they just wouldn't understand or care.
The question then becomes, which is real information, and which is disinformation. :)
More than half of what I put online is disinformation. Anyone profiling me knows that I live in New York, California, Florida, Alaska, and Iceland. Well, except when I'm not there, then I'm anywhere else.
My entire online presence is a well choreographed illusion, with a myriad of aliases and other disinformation. I'm always entertained when someone finds another alias for me. Sometimes I'm surprised when they pop up with an alias that I hadn't used in decades.
If someone were to stumble onto my real identity, they may as well be searching for "John Smith", as there are thousands of people with my name world wide, with varying levels of expertise. There are several that work in similar fields, so I am surprised that I haven't encountered at least one of them in real life yet.
I thought of retaining the attorney with my name, and becoming a patient with the doctor with my name, just to keep things really interesting.
Well, from the little bit I know about it, the best direction to look would be up. Gravity should be taking care of the rest. :)
Any place called "prohibited area" sounds like a dare. It's kind of like putting a big "do not enter" sign with no obvious reason why. 95% of folks won't go. The rest of us will say "Hmm, I wonder why it's prohibited, lets go have a look." :)
Sometimes I don't deal well with authority, especially when it's just a line on a map that says "don't go here.". Well, unless I drew the line, but that would be because I already went there. :)
Their sign doesn't scare me. Of course guys with guns do, which I'd probably end up encountering when they see me trekking off the road. :) It's a good thing I don't live near there. That'll keep me out of trouble. :)
That's what I thought when I first read it too. Hmm, a wearable eyepiece that projects the image directly into your eye (i.e., nothing visible to outside viewers). That could be useful. Then I read what it actually means, and was again disappointed with marketing fluff.
That's what I thought when I first read it too. Hmm, a wearable eyepiece that projects the image directly into your eye. That could be useful. Then I read what it actually means, and was again disappointed with marketing fluff.
You know, I've never bothered to research these at all. I kind of took it at face value that they were done by NASA for their projects. While some were popularized by the use by NASA, they still existed much earlier. And even Tang isn't a NASA product.
Teflon - Roy Plunkett of Kinetic Chemicals - Invented 1938 - Trademarked 1945
Velcro - George de Mestral - Invented 1941 - Patented 1955
Integrated Circuit - Theorized by Geoffrey W.A. Dummer, British Ministry of Defence 1952 - Demonstrated Jack Kilby 1956
Tang - William A. Mitchell for General Foods Corporation Invented in 1957 - Marketed in 1959 - Used by NASA 1965
A lot of projects aren't done by the government agency who seems to have done it. There's an awful lot of work done by government subcontractors. That goes as far as the fact that NASA didn't build the space shuttle.
Solid Rocket Boosters - Thiokol/Alliant Techsystems
External Fuel Tank - Lockheed Martin (Martin Marietta)
Orbiter - Rockwell/Boeing
I guess that goes with the idea of, a smart man can do. A smarter man can delegate.
Some automotive pieces are delegated also, but they do a lot of work in-house.