k, it's 2025, we've found a rocky planet around a Sun-like star with a year and day like ours. we've measured the atmosphere and it is nitrogen/oxygen with the right proportions and we've even manged to image it and gotten more than 4 pixels. What now?
let's image the surface! yeah! we see green trees and blue oceans and, oh my, are those roads? is that a city? How far away is this rock? hmmmm.
There's a wide range of solutions.. some are elegant, some are politically correct, some are nice big hacks that get the job done and stop people from using this crap to attack my parents online. Guess what I care about?
That's the idea, but don't get your hopes up. Although I currently have the perseverance to get through the code, I doubt I'll have the perseverance to get through the politics.
As I write this I'm trying to figure out how to do that in Firefox.. ya know, that whole "fix it yourself" open source thing. Nicest thing I can say about Firefox: at least the code is better than Open Office.
What really annoys me is that these things are most effective because they use javascript alerts to freeze the browser. If you could just browse away from the crap, I could teach my parents just to ignore it.
"Javascript alerts are not tab modal" has been a known bug in Firefox going on 9 years now. It's not just an annoyance, it's a security bug, fix it!
The thing you should know about NASA though is that they don't actually do shit for rational reasons - they just decide to do stuff then they justify it. The fact is, there are very few people doing rocket engine development in the US. Its such a small community that you can have conferences run by students and all the big names in the field will show up. NASA benefits by encouraging commercial interests to do rocket development and a competition is the most cost effective way to do that.
If you've got a "build a little, sell a little" mindset like John Carmack, sure. He's actually said he hasn't spent more than $1 million on Armadillo.. and last year he let slip that the group is actually profitable already. With the prize money they intend to put on a few more people fulltime.
This is why I hate arguing with people on Slashdot. Trivial shit that everyone should know should not be the topic of conversation. People say the ISS is in a bad orbit because it has an inclination where none of the interesting locations in the solar system have windows. For example, to fly from the ISS to the Moon or Mars would require vast amounts of fuel to perform an inclination change.
VMWare was releasing their changes to the kernel and to X11 back when the technology was being developed at Stanford. When the company was formed that process continued. Of course, that didn't stop anyone from claiming they were violating the GPL and were bad to the community months ago. If it bleeds it leads.
No, you're wrong. Whereas everyone else sees contribution of code as a nice bit of corporate philanthropy, Greg KH sees something completely different. He sees it as corporations dumping their code on the community so they can off-load its support. As such, he often calls on corporate contributors to step up and fund a developer or two to work on the kernel full time. This flame is no different.
Simply put, if you're affected, and you want to, you can put in a claim form and get some money from Google.. on an on-going basis. If you don't want, nothing changes. You have all the same (insanely restrictive) rights under copyright law.
I think you need to stop listening to the propaganda being spewed by the opposition and actually make up your own mind.
Google is getting some "promise not to sue" agreements from publishers.. that's it. They can't enter into agreements with these publishers to get promises that cover works the publishers don't hold the copyright on.
Is it too much to ask that people understand the subject before expressing their outrage? Oh wait, what am I asking.. duh.
Can you actually make an argument for why? I mean, if Google can enter into "promise you won't sue us" agreements with publishers, and retire the legal risks of making orphaned works available, that's good for all of us isn't it? Or are you trying to suggest that the law should change instead? How long should Google wait for that exactly?
I love your use of the word "hand" there.. like NASA can even *think* about sending anything less than a million dollar piece of hardware into space. Pretty sure just about any machine shop on the Moon would be a specially developed CNC mill that cost more than the vehicle that brought it there.
I didn't say you couldn't. So actually, you agree.
Supposed that the heavy lift capability to the Lagrange point is 100 tons.
We don't have that. Not even the beast envisioned heavy lift vehicle could do that. We wont have that until propellant depots have been deployed.
If you dedicated one flight just to lifting your cable, you could build an elevator capable of ferrying a ~50 kg payload with two flights (one for the cable, one for equipment for the cable).
Do you actually have a study to back this up or are you just pulling these numbers from your ass? This paper is the most practical lunar rotavator concept that has ever been studied. It sounds nothing like your fantasy.
Now, it is reasonable to expect the next decade or so we will produce better fibers, but assume we don't.
Lets.
With one flight, we could build this micro-elevator, send down a small rover or two, and bring up some soil samples. That would I think be worth it, all by itself.
Why? Develop the biggest launch vehicle ever to do a sample return mission? That makes Apollo look good.
If carbon nanofibers earn their promise, we might be able to send up and down a 500 km payload, again with one flight dedicated to carrying cable. That's potentially big enough to carry a person
Facepalm. Read the paper I linked above ok?
but, no matter what the payload, we would start gaining information about how to use space elevators. If they prove their worth on the Moon, that will really spur getting the R&D required for a terrestrial one, and I think we would find the resources to make the Lunar cable human capable.
A plan for risk retirement of space tethers is indeed a sensible thing for NASA to be pursuing.. but the way to do that is to fly some unmanned tether missions in LEO. After they have successfully demonstrated some basic tether concepts we can talk about scaling up to some catch-and-throw experiments. Then we can figure out how to deliver 20t to LLO and do some effective-zero-velocity ops at low lunar elevations. At that point you could actually have something practical that can take cargo both ways from LLO to the lunar surface, and you could even use that mass to increase the counterweight and bootstrap the system. From there you can start speculating on what a bigger system would entail.. would a static tether that vehicles mechanically drive along be sensible? Or would a conveyor belt type system work better? Or are static tethers just too damn inefficient?
A million paper studies can not retire the risk of space tether system.. you need to fly hardware, and so long as people are advocating grandiose "elevator" concepts, NASA won't touch it.
Slashdot Mirror
seemingly pointless, as your post insinuates
ummm.. how? Asking "what can we do about it?" does not insinuate it is pointless.. it insinuates that we have a lot of work ahead of us.
I wasn't joking. Just curious, why did you think I was?
k, it's 2025, we've found a rocky planet around a Sun-like star with a year and day like ours. we've measured the atmosphere and it is nitrogen/oxygen with the right proportions and we've even manged to image it and gotten more than 4 pixels. What now?
let's image the surface! yeah! we see green trees and blue oceans and, oh my, are those roads? is that a city? How far away is this rock? hmmmm.
There's a wide range of solutions.. some are elegant, some are politically correct, some are nice big hacks that get the job done and stop people from using this crap to attack my parents online. Guess what I care about?
patch is attached to the defect now, if you care.
my parents needs javascript.. they are not capable of turning it on and off on demand.
Not all "solutions" for geeks work for normal people.
What part of "parents" don't you understand?
That's the idea, but don't get your hopes up. Although I currently have the perseverance to get through the code, I doubt I'll have the perseverance to get through the politics.
Dude, the ticket was filed in 2000.. so it was around for at least that long.. the bug most likely goes back to the Netscape days.
As I write this I'm trying to figure out how to do that in Firefox.. ya know, that whole "fix it yourself" open source thing. Nicest thing I can say about Firefox: at least the code is better than Open Office.
A rose by any other name....
What really annoys me is that these things are most effective because they use javascript alerts to freeze the browser. If you could just browse away from the crap, I could teach my parents just to ignore it.
"Javascript alerts are not tab modal" has been a known bug in Firefox going on 9 years now. It's not just an annoyance, it's a security bug, fix it!
Here's the justification for it: http://www.xprize.org/blogs/wpomerantz/ng-llc-rules-explained
The thing you should know about NASA though is that they don't actually do shit for rational reasons - they just decide to do stuff then they justify it. The fact is, there are very few people doing rocket engine development in the US. Its such a small community that you can have conferences run by students and all the big names in the field will show up. NASA benefits by encouraging commercial interests to do rocket development and a competition is the most cost effective way to do that.
If you've got a "build a little, sell a little" mindset like John Carmack, sure. He's actually said he hasn't spent more than $1 million on Armadillo.. and last year he let slip that the group is actually profitable already. With the prize money they intend to put on a few more people fulltime.
A computer controlled VTVL rocket vehicle built by a bunch of amateurs? No, we didn't see that.
This is why I hate arguing with people on Slashdot. Trivial shit that everyone should know should not be the topic of conversation. People say the ISS is in a bad orbit because it has an inclination where none of the interesting locations in the solar system have windows. For example, to fly from the ISS to the Moon or Mars would require vast amounts of fuel to perform an inclination change.
Oh, so *you* are one of those bastards who claims inherited royalties. Die now please and have no children.
VMWare was releasing their changes to the kernel and to X11 back when the technology was being developed at Stanford. When the company was formed that process continued. Of course, that didn't stop anyone from claiming they were violating the GPL and were bad to the community months ago. If it bleeds it leads.
No, you're wrong. Whereas everyone else sees contribution of code as a nice bit of corporate philanthropy, Greg KH sees something completely different. He sees it as corporations dumping their code on the community so they can off-load its support. As such, he often calls on corporate contributors to step up and fund a developer or two to work on the kernel full time. This flame is no different.
Wow, did you not even read the summary? Greg KH bitches about everybody.
The FSF should know better than to take what is written in the media as accurate.
Here's the settlement: http://www.googlebooksettlement.com/intl/en/Final-Notice-of-Class-Action-Settlement.pdf
Simply put, if you're affected, and you want to, you can put in a claim form and get some money from Google.. on an on-going basis. If you don't want, nothing changes. You have all the same (insanely restrictive) rights under copyright law.
Anything else you have heard is bullshit.
I think you need to stop listening to the propaganda being spewed by the opposition and actually make up your own mind.
Google is getting some "promise not to sue" agreements from publishers.. that's it. They can't enter into agreements with these publishers to get promises that cover works the publishers don't hold the copyright on.
Is it too much to ask that people understand the subject before expressing their outrage? Oh wait, what am I asking.. duh.
Can you actually make an argument for why? I mean, if Google can enter into "promise you won't sue us" agreements with publishers, and retire the legal risks of making orphaned works available, that's good for all of us isn't it? Or are you trying to suggest that the law should change instead? How long should Google wait for that exactly?
I love your use of the word "hand" there.. like NASA can even *think* about sending anything less than a million dollar piece of hardware into space. Pretty sure just about any machine shop on the Moon would be a specially developed CNC mill that cost more than the vehicle that brought it there.
I actually disagree.
What a surprise.
You can use existing fiber.
I didn't say you couldn't. So actually, you agree.
Supposed that the heavy lift capability to the Lagrange point is 100 tons.
We don't have that. Not even the beast envisioned heavy lift vehicle could do that. We wont have that until propellant depots have been deployed.
If you dedicated one flight just to lifting your cable, you could build an elevator capable of ferrying a ~50 kg payload with two flights (one for the cable, one for equipment for the cable).
Do you actually have a study to back this up or are you just pulling these numbers from your ass? This paper is the most practical lunar rotavator concept that has ever been studied. It sounds nothing like your fantasy.
Now, it is reasonable to expect the next decade or so we will produce better fibers, but assume we don't.
Lets.
With one flight, we could build this micro-elevator, send down a small rover or two, and bring up some soil samples. That would I think be worth it, all by itself.
Why? Develop the biggest launch vehicle ever to do a sample return mission? That makes Apollo look good.
If carbon nanofibers earn their promise, we might be able to send up and down a 500 km payload, again with one flight dedicated to carrying cable. That's potentially big enough to carry a person
Facepalm. Read the paper I linked above ok?
but, no matter what the payload, we would start gaining information about how to use space elevators. If they prove their worth on the Moon, that will really spur getting the R&D required for a terrestrial one, and I think we would find the resources to make the Lunar cable human capable.
A plan for risk retirement of space tethers is indeed a sensible thing for NASA to be pursuing.. but the way to do that is to fly some unmanned tether missions in LEO. After they have successfully demonstrated some basic tether concepts we can talk about scaling up to some catch-and-throw experiments. Then we can figure out how to deliver 20t to LLO and do some effective-zero-velocity ops at low lunar elevations. At that point you could actually have something practical that can take cargo both ways from LLO to the lunar surface, and you could even use that mass to increase the counterweight and bootstrap the system. From there you can start speculating on what a bigger system would entail.. would a static tether that vehicles mechanically drive along be sensible? Or would a conveyor belt type system work better? Or are static tethers just too damn inefficient?
A million paper studies can not retire the risk of space tether system.. you need to fly hardware, and so long as people are advocating grandiose "elevator" concepts, NASA won't touch it.