An Orion does not make for a cheap space program. Sure, the craft itself is cheap. But then you have to add in the cost of what it does to the launch site and everything in the vacinity.
Just launch it from some piece of ice at the (ant)arctics, and you're left with just the cost of transportation to the launch site.
And don't forget: Orion is proposed to scale up better than down, so that: 1) you eventually need less launches, so less sites. 2) mass-transit causes cost-per-kilo of transportation to launch site to drop significantly.
The real long-term cost is fission-ash stuck in magnetosphere and eventually returning to earth.
This, IMHO, is the real, long-term cost, which should be weighted against environmental benefits from such a cheap access method to space: such as clean energy from SPS.
I'm not sure just how much of a part you played in GnuCash's development but your attitude confirms my opinion that it would be very dangerous indeed to use an open source product to store important dfinancial data
And this is backed up by your later arguments how ? please give rational, technical justifications for your claim.
The fact of life is that using the industry standard file format is incredibly important to acceptance of a product like this.
Gravity is a "fact of life". What you made was an estimate w.r.t. an engineering+marketting decision. Does have (perhaps) empirical implications, but, fact it is not.
(In the following I use "naive" in the SW-devellopment context:)
For which I will give you a competing estimate: File formats are, by themselves, not directly important to the naive user; as long as you provide the tools to transform between them.
Formats are, however, exteremely important to the knowledgable user (a.k.a. developper). And this is indirectly important to the users, as simpler, cleaner formats make for easier developpment and maintainance.
Try and get your head around two facts:
Again, saying something is a fact does not make it so.
Most accountants could hardly understand a word of your posting.
Most music lovers wouldn't understand the technical discussion between two conductors either, that does not mean they couldn't enjoy their music...
All they would understand is that you think they are stupid for wanting Quicken compatibility.
No, they would understand there are things they do not know w.r.t. SW-dev. which is not the same as being stupid ! Importance of open-formats and vendor-lockdown can be explained to laymen just the same, though.
Most of GnuCash's "customers" are accountants.
Can you back this statement up with numbers ? A reference ? I'm not saying you're wrong, I truly don't know. I must say this will surprize me, b/c gnucash is a personal finance software.
God did not implement a business model while building the human ear. He should have spoken to Bill Gates or Hillary Rosen or Hatch and implemented DRM in the cochlea or tympannum or whatever.
But there are quite efficient filtering hard/software already installed:
: are you at the computer again ? I told you to wash the dishes yesterday...
Since I am only an amatuer astronomer, I don't refute your claim but I always understood it to be the process of nuclear fusion itself to be what keeps a star from collapsing on itself.
True, but not contradictory.
Pressure (both the particles' thermal- and the radiation's-) does keeps a star from imploding. But what supplies the energy to maintain this situation is fusion.
It's like muscles and tendons: what moves the skeleton are both muscles and tendons: the muscles provide the force, but w/o tendons to transport it, the skeleton will not move...
A solar sail is a one-way trip only - away from the sun. If you want to get back you need to use some other form of propulsion.
Wrong.
to return to a lower oribit, think angular momentum:
1) use the So.Sa. to reduce your angular momentum (ang. vel.).
result: orbit becomes more excentric (have radial velocity). Perihelion decreases. 2) when droping towards sun, use So. Sa. to reduce your radial velocity, while increasing your angular momentum.
result: you will now be at a lower orbit with less excentricity. e.g., the Earth's orbit.
HP has many layers (moreso than narnia, IMHO), and I advise reading the first 3 books at least before passing judgmennt; the story and associations get darker and more adult.
Also, try reading it looking for transformed existing mythologies.
That said, If your time is currently so precious (or reading slow) that you cannot read ~1000 pages "just" for trying a new hobby, don't read it, wait for a better time.
For sure, in plasma physics, both types of carriers are very important, though in this case it is electrons and ions, rather than holes.
Well, I know about ions in plasma. I was refering to a possible holes-in-electron-field description. Wether such a description exists, or is in any way useful, I do not know.
For solid state, the holes are the electronic eigen-functions left unoccupied in the conductance band. For plasma I do not see an analogical model. But that does not mean there isn't any.
(And although Dirac's prediction of positrons does spring to mind, it is not really applicable. AFAIK, it is a quantum-relativistic theory which is applicable at very high enrgies.)
no they are RISING. Houses cost more now in MA than they ever had, rent and apartment prices for a studio are over $1000 a month,
OK, I accept the correction, but it doesn't make sense to me at all. How can the house-owners find tenants able to pay the same (average) rent?
heres what will happen, people will either live with roomates, or they will move to China. I do not see the average person paying $2000 a month rent while they make $1500 a month.
In the long-term, a large population sharing rent should have the effect of reducing rent; more appartments will remain empty; and an owner is better off with 75% rent than 0.
I pay about 25% in income tax. Then I pay the state. Then I pay property tax. And fuel tax. And when I spend money to actually fucking buy something, I spend 6% tax plus the 1% local option tax.
W/O getting into what SHOULD be done in the US (I don't know), from the figures you gave it appears the US taxes are relatively quite low, say 30..35%.
High taxes are more like 50..60% (income + VAT) I'm not from the US, and would have liked 30% taxes very much, thankyou.
Or better yet, if that's the case, why do they bother even trying to explain it to the rest of us ?
Because formalizing and explaining something (in the forms of publishing hypothesis, articles, and eventually theories) have prooved to be a most efficient tools for scientific ideas development and verification.
Like Feynman said, you yourself are the easiest person to con.
This is why even a singular genius like Einstein or Gauss gains from explaining his ideas (at least once) to others. Thus, a significant portion of Einstein's work consisted of letters to other physicists.
can't be radio; visual light more likely.
on
Nanotechnology
·
· Score: 1
Actualy, I don't see how you can use a wavelength larger than the receptor; this means you can't use w.l. much higher than IR (~ 1 micron) (most definately not radio).
From the other end, you're limited to non-ionizing radiation (or your micro-machines will break...). It means that the w.l. is lower-bounded somewhere in the UV domain (say, ~200nm).
This means you can use carrying radiation along the visual regime (400..700nm) or a bit further, not too much though.
(IANAB, but I guess these are roughly the constraints for the plants chloroplasts as well; of course, chloroplasts are nanomachines powered wirelessly:-) . Taking this view, it's not surprizing life evolved on a planet with a star radiating mostly in the visual domain.)
Slashdot Mirror
An Orion does not make for a cheap space program. Sure, the craft itself is cheap. But then you have to add in the cost of what it does to the launch site and everything in the vacinity.
Just launch it from some piece of ice at the (ant)arctics, and you're left with just the cost of transportation to the launch site.
And don't forget: Orion is proposed to scale up better than down, so that:
1) you eventually need less launches, so less sites.
2) mass-transit causes cost-per-kilo of transportation to launch site to drop significantly.
The real long-term cost is fission-ash stuck in magnetosphere and eventually returning to earth.
This, IMHO, is the real, long-term cost, which should be weighted against environmental benefits from such a cheap access method to space: such as clean energy from SPS
Will technology advance if people are not trying to solve technological problems ?
Although scientific breakthroughs do occur, the best way to advance propulsion tech is by researching and using propulsion tech
The only reason manned spaceflight is expensive is because ALL spaceflight is terribly expensive.
All chemicaly-based flight (due to low ISP). An nuclear-pulse (Orion) based drive could have dropped the cost by several o.o.m.
I'm not sure just how much of a part you played in GnuCash's development but your attitude confirms my opinion that it would be very dangerous indeed to use an open source product to store important dfinancial data
...
And this is backed up by your later arguments how ? please give rational, technical justifications for your claim.
The fact of life is that using the industry standard file format is incredibly important to acceptance of a product like this.
Gravity is a "fact of life". What you made was an estimate w.r.t. an engineering+marketting decision. Does have (perhaps) empirical implications, but, fact it is not.
(In the following I use "naive" in the SW-devellopment context:)
For which I will give you a competing estimate: File formats are, by themselves, not directly important to the naive user; as long as you provide the tools to transform between them.
Formats are, however, exteremely important to the knowledgable user (a.k.a. developper). And this is indirectly important to the users, as simpler, cleaner formats make for easier developpment and maintainance.
Try and get your head around two facts:
Again, saying something is a fact does not make it so.
Most accountants could hardly understand a word of your posting.
Most music lovers wouldn't understand the technical discussion between two conductors either, that does not mean they couldn't enjoy their music
All they would understand is that you think they are stupid for wanting Quicken compatibility.
No, they would understand there are things they do not know w.r.t. SW-dev. which is not the same as being stupid !
Importance of open-formats and vendor-lockdown can be explained to laymen just the same, though.
Most of GnuCash's "customers" are accountants.
Can you back this statement up with numbers ? A reference ?
I'm not saying you're wrong, I truly don't know.
I must say this will surprize me, b/c gnucash is a personal finance software.
bitemedarl.com
You're voluntarily offering him an artery ? darwinawards will go off the scale
God did not implement a business model while building the human ear. He should have spoken to Bill Gates or Hillary Rosen or Hatch and implemented DRM in the cochlea or tympannum or whatever.
But there are quite efficient filtering hard/software already installed:
: are you at the computer again ? I told you to wash the dishes yesterday
: hmm. Did you say something, dear ?
Those who are good, do a great deal more. But the squids...
What have you got against squids, anyway ?
smart, tasty buggers.
Since I am only an amatuer astronomer, I don't refute your claim but I always understood it to be the process of nuclear fusion itself to be what keeps a star from collapsing on itself.
...
True, but not contradictory.
Pressure (both the particles' thermal- and the radiation's-) does keeps a star from imploding. But what supplies the energy to maintain this situation is fusion.
It's like muscles and tendons: what moves the skeleton are both muscles and tendons: the muscles provide the force, but w/o tendons to transport it, the skeleton will not move
--HTH
I also think that slashdotters should note that this was published in the Arxiv, which is NOT a peer reviewed publication
That explains a lot.
A solar sail is a one-way trip only - away from the sun. If you want to get back you need to use some other form of propulsion.
Wrong.
to return to a lower oribit, think angular momentum:
1) use the So.Sa. to reduce your angular momentum (ang. vel.).
result: orbit becomes more excentric (have radial velocity). Perihelion decreases.
2) when droping towards sun, use So. Sa. to reduce your radial velocity, while increasing your angular momentum.
result: you will now be at a lower orbit with less excentricity. e.g., the Earth's orbit.
QED.
HP has many layers (moreso than narnia, IMHO), and I advise reading the first 3 books at least before passing judgmennt; the story and associations get darker and more adult.
.
.
Also, try reading it looking for transformed existing mythologies
That said, If your time is currently so precious (or reading slow) that you cannot read ~1000 pages "just" for trying a new hobby, don't read it, wait for a better time
For sure, in plasma physics, both types of carriers are very important, though in this case it is electrons and ions, rather than holes.
Well, I know about ions in plasma. I was refering to a possible holes-in-electron-field description. Wether such a description exists, or is in any way useful, I do not know.
For solid state, the holes are the electronic eigen-functions left unoccupied in the conductance band. For plasma I do not see an analogical model. But that does not mean there isn't any.
(And although Dirac's prediction of positrons does spring to mind, it is not really applicable. AFAIK, it is a quantum-relativistic theory which is applicable at very high enrgies.)
This convention was set before it was found electrons are current conductors, and they actually flow from - to + , of course.
ment to say current carriers, of course.
disclaimer: IANASSP (solid-state-phys.)
The convention is that current flows from + to -
This convemntion was set before it was found electrons are current conductors, and they actually flow from - to + , of course.
That being said, I must add that AFAIK electrical current in metals can also carried by positive "holes" in the electron sea, which flow from + to -
Wether such a description can be used in gasous/plasma environment I'm not sure.
P.S., anyone who makes "David & Goliath" comparisons is an idiot. David was fighting a righteous battle and had God on his side,
...
Well, he was also quite a smart guy; used a long-range weapon against a sword
It doesn't have any competition in that regard...
... ;->
I don't know if it's to be called loving, but my guess is IBM is going to do, err, something , to them
There is no excuse for bad manners in any setting,
...
Let me guess, You havn't been in the army
(Come to think of it, you're called sanity , of course you haven't. )
no they are RISING. Houses cost more now in MA than they ever had, rent and apartment prices for a studio are over $1000 a month,
OK, I accept the correction, but it doesn't make sense to me at all. How can the house-owners find tenants able to pay the same (average) rent?
heres what will happen, people will either live with roomates, or they will move to China. I do not see the average person paying $2000 a month rent while they make $1500 a month.
In the long-term, a large population sharing rent should have the effect of reducing rent; more appartments will remain empty; and an owner is better off with 75% rent than 0.
This the first time I've heard this. Man, I wish you were right. Do you have any links to back this up?
It was a question, not an assertion (though poorly stated).
In my country - this is exactly what happens: public's buying power decreased, and with it real-estate prices.
If this hasn't happend in the US, either the crisis is not very severe, or it's going to happen, or something else besides market-economy is at play.
Aren't real-estate prices in the US dropping ?
The way I see it, (most of the) people will always be able to obtain
housing (to rent or buy), but they may lose on real-estate investments.
I pay about 25% in income tax. Then I pay the state. Then I pay property tax. And fuel tax. And when I spend money to actually fucking buy something, I spend 6% tax plus the 1% local option tax.
W/O getting into what SHOULD be done in the US (I don't know), from the figures you gave it appears the US taxes are relatively quite low, say 30..35%.
High taxes are more like 50..60% (income + VAT) I'm not from the US, and would have liked 30% taxes very much, thankyou.
They (IBM, of course) are complete and utter morons. Which I see no evidence of.
Expect IBM to make an offer for SCO, to publically announce that it has now "bought the rights to Linux", and it will start to assert control over it.
Yeah, right, FUD themselves in the foot, they will.
But isn't water vapour the most potent greenhouse agent in our atmosphere?
yes, but IIRC the water and CO2 absorption spectra are complementary; IOW
, CO2 and water block different IR "colors".
Since there is a lot more water vapour (0..4%) in the atmosphere than CO2 (0.035%), CO2 changes are much more important.
Or better yet, if that's the case, why do they bother even trying to explain it to the rest of us ?
Because formalizing and explaining something (in the forms of publishing hypothesis, articles, and eventually theories) have prooved to be a most efficient tools for scientific ideas development and verification.
Like Feynman said, you yourself are the easiest person to con.
This is why even a singular genius like Einstein or Gauss gains from explaining his ideas (at least once) to others. Thus, a significant portion of Einstein's work consisted of letters to other physicists.
Actualy, I don't see how you can use a wavelength larger than the receptor; this means you can't use w.l. much higher than IR (~ 1 micron) (most definately not radio).
...). It means that the w.l. is lower-bounded somewhere in the UV domain (say, ~200nm).
:-) . Taking this view, it's not surprizing life evolved on a planet with a star radiating mostly in the visual domain.)
From the other end, you're limited to non-ionizing radiation (or your micro-machines will break
This means you can use carrying radiation along the visual regime (400..700nm) or a bit further, not too much though.
(IANAB, but I guess these are roughly the constraints for the plants chloroplasts as well; of course, chloroplasts are nanomachines powered wirelessly