Most of the strategic targets are in a much safer place By that, do you mean higher orbit? If we can put something in an orbit, there ought to be little doubt that we could take something in that orbit down.
And what are these alternatives you speak of? Naval vessels with radio interception equipment? Those won't reach inland signals, and are vulnerable to everything from bombers to torpedoes to a couple guys in a speedboat full of explosives.
And the SR-71 isn't nearly as invulnerable as it once was.
Well, according to Netcraft, the libertarians, communists and independent parties's sites are all running Linux. The American Green party is running FreeBSD.
It definitely requires some tuning. I've found that my settings have settled down to a "hidden" threshold of -1, and an "abbreviated" threshold of 0. On the left-side gauge, this corresponds to having the bottom bar one notch above the bottom, and the top bar one notch farther up.
Discussion2 is readable and entertaining. And I can even read those anonymous posts that aren't written like preschool books, thanks to the Abbreviated view.
Discussion2's best feature, though, is that I can collapse and expand entire trees, in order to help keep track of what I've already read. (This is vital with all the recent 300+ comment stories.)
I don't think having soil metals already oxidized would be a major issue...Mining operations already require breaking apart minerals to get the pure metals, so it's something we already know how to do.
Simply producing gases from the existing atmosphere would be helpful in and of itself, and a difficult process for bacteria to reverse.
Here's a question, though. Let's say we were able to bring Mars' atmosphere all the way up to 5psi. How long would that last? It was my understanding that Mars' atmosphere is as thin as it is because it doesn't have enough gravity to hold down more gasses than it already does.
It's often said that ideas are a dime a dozen, but implementations are few and far between.
If it had been done on a normal time scale, the novelty here would be the fact that the implementation exists. But considering it was done in three weeks, instead of six months, shows the sheer speed and effectiveness that Miguel's teams demonstrate.
Sure, there may be a lot of it around, but the vapor pressure is going to be so low it would be very hard for bacteria to keep their water inside and not just instantly dry up. That just means they'll have to adapt.
Essentially you are saying that privacy is only for the elite. "Elite" being, "Those who can afford it."
Yeah, that's kinda how pure capitalism works. That's why things like Freenet and Tor are so nice; They're community efforts intended to guarantee privacy. Perhaps someone needs to develop a secure P2P email network.
IANA Ergonomics Expert, but from a computing standpoint, this is not the best idea for a mouse. With a standard mouse, finer motion control of the mouse is done with the fingertips and wrist, not the hand and arm. Then take the force sensor from a laptop "eraser" mouse, and attach one of these as a handle.
I've been having this debate on a forum I started (link in sig). I hold that in order to have territory, one has to have a common set of rules among interested parties, and a means to enforce those rules.
Without the common set of rules, territory becomes a matter of who can enforce their claims.
Really? I know they can get close, and it's possible to prove that power must be consumed to change state, but I'd love to see a device with no leakage. Gates such as those used in NAND flash devices (dual MOSFETs) get pretty close, but I'm pretty sure even they leak, especially on read operations. You got me there. I'd forgotten about leakage across the insulating layer due to quantum tunneling. OTOH, a vacuum tube doesn't work well without power to the heating element. Come to think of it, though, one could still get current flow at ambient temperatures; It just wouldn't be nearly as large as when you have a hot cathode.
My point is that quantum computers are not just special transistors with slightly different properties. They really are a completely different thing. You're never going to make an amplifier out of quantum gates, and you're never going to make a quantum computer out of transistors Point taken and noted. I'm still not very clear on how quantum computing works, but I'm looking forward to reading more discussions like this one in the future.
Yup, which suggests that discovering it, and understanding it, may give us some control over mass and inertia.. or, to put that in layman's terms: anti-gravity If you have control over mass, you have control the m component of the special theory of relativity, and thus control over how much energy a particle represents. If you can come up with negative mass (necessary for gravitic repulsion), you can come up with negative energy.
Negative energy. Wormholes and warp drives. I think anti-gravity could quite possibly be the least interesting aspect of control over mass...
Luckely in 2804 an covert organization finds another history-pedia explaining how to stop the (then in the future) 3243-pedia actions from succeeding. But before they got to the final instructions, one of the technicians in care of the mystery -pedia typo'd the passcode to the safe three times, leading to an automated incineration of its contents...
To illustrate, let me describe something about military secrecy. (I read it years ago, so I paraphrase, but it'll give you a rough idea.) If you have one "level 1" document, the classification of your collection is merely "level 1". If you have one hundred "level 1" documents, your collection is actually "level 2".
Why? Because inferences can be made from collections of documents. With enough data, one can read between the lines.
So it's in the military's best interest to keep as much "innocuous" information as concealed as possible. You may only know when a SEAL training operation is happening on your beach, but with knowledge of enough occurrences of such operations, analysts in Russia, North Korea or Iran can realize when they need to be more watchful of their coasts. You may only overhear mention of different lot numbers of 20mm cannon rounds, but analysts could use that knowledge to know if the US is ramping up production of aircraft ammunition.
You're mistaking "market" and "mass-market", and forgetting that businesses catering to niche markets are plentiful. There are more email providers than multi-million-dollar ISPs and the multi-million-user free-email providers.
Take hosting providers, for one. Every hosting provider I've looked into offers email accounts, and it would be relatively trivial to set one up in Sealand or the Philippines, where data retention laws don't reach.
Colos might be another example familiar to Slashdot users. There's nothing that prevents you from getting a box at a colo and setting up your own mail server that uses encrypted POP access and an encrypted form of SMTP. No matter how much money gets offered, the colo can't simply sell your data, they'd have to break into your box first. (And if you're honestly concerned about it, you should have the system locked down in such a way to make it difficult for a person with physical access to break into.)
I know people who buy shared hosting plans and colo boxes specifically for these reasons. If hosting providers and colos became hostile towards these practices, concerned users would migrate to one or two providers that pop up specifically for these purposes.
That works fine until you have a business that caters to the privacy-conscious. And if you truly believe in the free market, you believe that such businesses would come to exist.
Slashdot Mirror
And what are these alternatives you speak of? Naval vessels with radio interception equipment? Those won't reach inland signals, and are vulnerable to everything from bombers to torpedoes to a couple guys in a speedboat full of explosives.
And the SR-71 isn't nearly as invulnerable as it once was.
About time we got ornithopters...
Can I get my inheritance, now?
Well, according to Netcraft, the libertarians, communists and independent parties's sites are all running Linux. The American Green party is running FreeBSD.
It definitely requires some tuning. I've found that my settings have settled down to a "hidden" threshold of -1, and an "abbreviated" threshold of 0. On the left-side gauge, this corresponds to having the bottom bar one notch above the bottom, and the top bar one notch farther up.
Discussion2 is readable and entertaining. And I can even read those anonymous posts that aren't written like preschool books, thanks to the Abbreviated view.
Discussion2's best feature, though, is that I can collapse and expand entire trees, in order to help keep track of what I've already read. (This is vital with all the recent 300+ comment stories.)
by rustalot42684 (1055008) Alter Relationship on 11:34 Wednesday 27 June 2007 (#19663739)
IE7 doesn't work on Linux. Slashdot users are all communists, so none of them would be using it. Uh..."Greetings, comrade"?
Here you go. I once spent two weeks straight doing little else aside from reading the articles in Ars's Technopaedia.
Ah. The question still stands, though, even if we were to increase the density of the atmosphere, how long would it last without maintenance?
That's the same point I wanted to make.
The same concept would apply well to living in even zero-G permanently.
I don't think having soil metals already oxidized would be a major issue...Mining operations already require breaking apart minerals to get the pure metals, so it's something we already know how to do.
Simply producing gases from the existing atmosphere would be helpful in and of itself, and a difficult process for bacteria to reverse.
Here's a question, though. Let's say we were able to bring Mars' atmosphere all the way up to 5psi. How long would that last? It was my understanding that Mars' atmosphere is as thin as it is because it doesn't have enough gravity to hold down more gasses than it already does.
It's often said that ideas are a dime a dozen, but implementations are few and far between.
If it had been done on a normal time scale, the novelty here would be the fact that the implementation exists. But considering it was done in three weeks, instead of six months, shows the sheer speed and effectiveness that Miguel's teams demonstrate.
Yeah, that's kinda how pure capitalism works. That's why things like Freenet and Tor are so nice; They're community efforts intended to guarantee privacy. Perhaps someone needs to develop a secure P2P email network.
How strong a magnetic field is required to deflect radiation over a dome of, say, 1km?
While I wouldn't try doing it with an electromagnet, a strong enough permanent magnet might protect individual settlements.
I've been having this debate on a forum I started (link in sig). I hold that in order to have territory, one has to have a common set of rules among interested parties, and a means to enforce those rules.
Without the common set of rules, territory becomes a matter of who can enforce their claims.
I was wondering the other day if Mars soil had the nutrients in it to support our plantlife.
Anyone know of any botany research on the subject? I know we analyzed a few samples of Mars soil in the 70s.
Granted, that's a function of combining MOSFETs, but still not something you can do with a combination of tubes. (Unless I'm very much mistaken...)
Perhaps quantum computing will speed up regex engines?
Negative energy. Wormholes and warp drives. I think anti-gravity could quite possibly be the least interesting aspect of control over mass...
To illustrate, let me describe something about military secrecy. (I read it years ago, so I paraphrase, but it'll give you a rough idea.) If you have one "level 1" document, the classification of your collection is merely "level 1". If you have one hundred "level 1" documents, your collection is actually "level 2".
Why? Because inferences can be made from collections of documents. With enough data, one can read between the lines.
So it's in the military's best interest to keep as much "innocuous" information as concealed as possible. You may only know when a SEAL training operation is happening on your beach, but with knowledge of enough occurrences of such operations, analysts in Russia, North Korea or Iran can realize when they need to be more watchful of their coasts. You may only overhear mention of different lot numbers of 20mm cannon rounds, but analysts could use that knowledge to know if the US is ramping up production of aircraft ammunition.
That's why.
You're mistaking "market" and "mass-market", and forgetting that businesses catering to niche markets are plentiful. There are more email providers than multi-million-dollar ISPs and the multi-million-user free-email providers.
Take hosting providers, for one. Every hosting provider I've looked into offers email accounts, and it would be relatively trivial to set one up in Sealand or the Philippines, where data retention laws don't reach.
Colos might be another example familiar to Slashdot users. There's nothing that prevents you from getting a box at a colo and setting up your own mail server that uses encrypted POP access and an encrypted form of SMTP. No matter how much money gets offered, the colo can't simply sell your data, they'd have to break into your box first. (And if you're honestly concerned about it, you should have the system locked down in such a way to make it difficult for a person with physical access to break into.)
I know people who buy shared hosting plans and colo boxes specifically for these reasons. If hosting providers and colos became hostile towards these practices, concerned users would migrate to one or two providers that pop up specifically for these purposes.
That works fine until you have a business that caters to the privacy-conscious. And if you truly believe in the free market, you believe that such businesses would come to exist.