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User: religionofpeas

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  1. "America, after all, was and is a country of immigrants,” Pichai wrote Yes, so the native Americans had nothing to worry about.

  2. Re:Cheaper Maybe on How George W. Bush and NASA Saved SpaceX From Financial Ruin (blastingnews.com) · · Score: 1

    It doesn't even work in small 'commune' scale, where 10 people share a house without rule. At some point people will get mad at the one slacker that eats the food, and drinks the beer, but refuses to do the laundry or dishes.

  3. Re:Unsurmountable obstacles on Hawking Backs $100 Million Interstellar Travel Project to Send 'Nano-Craft' To Nearest Star · · Score: 1

    1+2, yes sufficiently strict laws to prohibit getting children would work, but we're not going to have global strict laws. Some countries will continue to encourage child birth + emigration. 3: poor people already more children than rich people, and they're not going to stop unless you let the children die, which means you're back to where you started. 4: your puny stigma is no match for the forces of evolution.

  4. We can treat all the rocks and dust in the solar system as basically standing still

    If you fly a probe through the asteroid belt, or any other kind of dust or rocks, it doesn't matter if they're standing still or moving.

  5. Re:Obligatory Fermi on Hawking Backs $100 Million Interstellar Travel Project to Send 'Nano-Craft' To Nearest Star · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Half an hour is a really long time. After a few seconds at 0.1 c, it would already be a huge challenge to keep a laser beam focused on a 10 meter target.

  6. Re:Unsurmountable obstacles on Hawking Backs $100 Million Interstellar Travel Project to Send 'Nano-Craft' To Nearest Star · · Score: 1

    history shows, that once electricity, television and contraceptives are introduced, population growth slows down significantly

    Temporarily, yes. But after a few generations, it'll pick back up. Welcome to Evolution 101.

  7. We can barely detect the light coming back from the reflector on the Moon. Out of 10^17 photons/second sent at the reflector, we receive less than one back. This isn't going to work over distances of light years.

  8. Re:Unsurmountable obstacles on Hawking Backs $100 Million Interstellar Travel Project to Send 'Nano-Craft' To Nearest Star · · Score: 2, Insightful

    approximately 50% of world's population did not have proper sewer, and approximately 15% do not have running water and electricity.

    If you solve that, you'd get a bigger population, followed by the same problems on a larger scale.

  9. you'd not be aiming the laser at the destination system (it would move some by the time the probe got there).

    That's a good point. So, basically you'd use the laser to give it a short boost, and then let it coast to the destination.

  10. There are theoretical limits to the size of the laser spot. Making it smaller requires uses shorter wavelength, but you can't make the wavelength too short, or the light will go through the sail.

  11. Also, related to that, once the craft gets to its destination, how does it slow down and send back information?

    It doesn't. It makes a few pictures during a fly-by and sends those.

  12. No, because the photons would be aimed at the probe, not at us.

    If the beam is wide enough, it would hit both. The laser we use for lunar ranging has a 6.5 km spot on the Moon's surface, and the Moon is very close.

  13. You can see a laser beam when you get in its path.

  14. They probably assume that space is empty enough not to worry. Probes to Jupiter and beyond have to fly through the asteroid belt and that's never been a problem.

  15. I'm aware of no human technology which would enable us to say with any certainty at all that there aren't 10,000,000 similar-sized alien probes in our solar system right now.

    You don't think we'd be able to detect the powerful lasers that would be aimed at them ?

  16. If FTL communication is possible, it means that the theory of general relativity is completely wrong. But if that's the case, you'd expect to have seen indications of that by now.

  17. Re:Bbbbut Capitalism on How George W. Bush and NASA Saved SpaceX From Financial Ruin (blastingnews.com) · · Score: 1

    The space station is doing basic science like, how does fire propagate in 0 G so we'll know how to design for space and for space fire prevention/fighting;

    Circular argument. If we didn't have to maintain the space station, we didn't need to know how to design for space and fire. The rest of the experiments are not very useful either.

    Oh, you also got a lot of weather reports andd phone calls and internet connections from comsats and weathersats the shuttle lofted; is every goddamned 5-day forecast you ever heard and much of the data you get by phone or net enough of a benefit for you?

    False dilemma. These satellites could have been launched with a cheaper rocket.

  18. Re:Bbbbut Capitalism on How George W. Bush and NASA Saved SpaceX From Financial Ruin (blastingnews.com) · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The problem is that government isn't a very tough negotiator. There's little incentive to do so when it's not your money.

  19. Re:Studies in the blind spots of academia on Life Expectancy Study: It's Not Just What You Make, It's Where You Live (npr.org) · · Score: -1, Troll

    Allow me to summarize their findings. Poor people are more likely to be obese and obese people have a shorter life expectancy*

    Better summary: people who make poor choices are more likely to be poor, obese, and have shorter life spans.

  20. Re:Perhaps most damning of all... on Slashdot Asks: It's Been a Year Since Apple Watch Release, What's Your Thought On It? · · Score: 1

    I'm certainly not Apple's core market,

    nice pun

  21. Re:Its useless junk on Slashdot Asks: It's Been a Year Since Apple Watch Release, What's Your Thought On It? · · Score: 1

    how can you make meaningful changes if you do not measure what you are changing?

    You can measure the time with a regular watch. You can measure distance by checking a map before/after.. You can also exercise to a certain feeling of exhaustion. I've tried exercising with a sports watch, but in the end, it encouraged me to always try to improve on previous results which led to injuries.

    For me doing little things like parking further away and using the Bathroom on the far side of the building instead of the one that is 20 feet away has made a difference.

    You don't need a watch for that.

  22. Re:A complete waste of resources on SpaceX Delivers World's First Inflatable Room For Astronauts (go.com) · · Score: 1

    Just stopping to do things will not be sufficient at this point.

    It still would be preferable to continuing with business as usual, but that's exactly what we're doing. Everybody agrees that saving the planet would be nice, but a lot of people think watching TV with a beer is ever nicer. With that attitude, who's going to fund trillions for a space colony with little chance of success ?

  23. Re:A complete waste of resources on SpaceX Delivers World's First Inflatable Room For Astronauts (go.com) · · Score: 1

    We are using a lot more resources to improve the odds here on Earth and the results are pretty meh.

    So why do you think results would be any better if we tried to do the same on another planet ? The underlying reasons for things going "meh" aren't suddenly going to disappear just because we're using rockets.

  24. Re:A complete waste of resources on SpaceX Delivers World's First Inflatable Room For Astronauts (go.com) · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Let's figure out how to build structures like space stations on a larger scale or a moon base. When we're able to successfully put a colony in space or on the moon, then perhaps we can look toward going to Mars. For now, though, this is a tremendous waste of time and resources.

    Space stations and a moon base are an even bigger waste of time and resources.

    I get that we'll eventually need to colonize other worlds

    A small and fragile colony on another planet isn't going to add any significant improvement to the odds of survival. We could use the same resources to improve the odds here on Earth by a greater degree.

  25. Re:tl;dr on VR Tested by NFL To Confront Sexism and Racism (usatoday.com) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Of course, some people are just not ever going to get the message. Not everyone has empathy, even when beaten with it.

    It's not just about empty or "getting the message". Where I live, people generally don't want to hire Moroccans, but would be happy to hire a Korean. And it has nothing to do with skin color, but everything with past experiences with Moroccans. They generally show up late, use sick leave as vacation, have little respect for customers or superiors, have poorer education and sometimes even steal stuff from the company. Of course, these are generalizations, but they don't come from a vacuum, they are based on day to day experiences. On the other hand, in the Moroccans stores, you don't find any non-Moroccans working there, and very rarely do you see a woman.