I've only used recent Tek scopes, but their interface is reasonably intuitive if you're used softkeys before. I think most scopes have a fairly similar interface these days, it's just a matter of how "multifunction" you want each individual control...
One of the few things that I've seen that's been a good use of technology is using those in-class polling kits. You basically ask a multiple-choice question on a concept, then the class is polled. Once everyone answers, you can see the distribution and know what people were thinking. Can be useful to know if you're not getting an important concept over on the students and you know during class. The drawback is that it's limited to multiple-choice type answers, but you can require them to do a bit of work on their own.
For those at a college/university there's a program called Space Scholars and Directed Energy Scholars for those interested in space vehicles and lasers. Plusses: Interesting work, laid back atmosphere, better paying than school jobs. Minuses: It's gov't work, doesn't pay as well as some private internships, and it usually takes a while to get back to you if you've been selected (late April/early May for a late May/early June start). There's some preference for graduate students, but there are always a few projects for undergrads.
But the government workforce is desparate for fresh blood, or will be in a few years, so it might be a good way to see if you can deal with it.
Energy isn't the only cost driver. Employees and tipping fees are also big pieces of the pie. When they're high enough, recycling makes sense.
Energy isn't everything.
I think you've nailed the idea. It's not just energy ROI. You have to consider the costs of disposing of the trash as well, as people don't want loads of trash sitting around and certainly not getting imported from places where there's no room. It's why recycling doesn't make as much sense in the midwest as on the coasts -- it's reflected in the tipping fees you pay for trash. Here in MA we pay about $85-120/ton to dump trash, plus hauling fees. In the midwest and southwest it's down around $30. So recycling makes sense, you just have to think in a bigger picture. Cost diversion rather than energy savings, material reuse vs. the energy needed to refine it, lots of jobs (recycling supports about 19,000 jobs in MA alone) vs. lots of landfills.
I work with a nonprofit doing some of this...
on
Turning Garbage into Gold
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Works on college move-outs. All the reusable trash thrown out -- clothes, furniture, random stuff -- gets collected, sorted, and sold back to students and the community in the fall, proceeds generally going to the groups (student groups, charities, etc.) that provided the labor. Called Dump and Run. You will realize that anyone with a sign on the street for "large yardsale" does not know what they're talking about when you sell several tons of stuff for thousands of dollars. The sales I've been involved with are talking about a dozen tons for over $5 grand and they're for a school of under 2000 undergrads.
I, Robot following Asimov's book would be really dull. But you should read the Harlan Ellison script that he put together for I, Robot. It's excellent, and much better than the CGI-fest that is the Will Smith version. (not actually as bad as I was expecting, but then again, expectations were rather low) Both realized that you had to have some sort of human-interest story as the core, rather than what was in Asimov's books. Ellison focused on Calvin and drew in some elements of the early Robot-Empire-Foundation series (but totally ignored the vast majority of it) to make a much better version. It's available in bookstores from time to time.
Just saw some papers at a conference on this... some very interesting thoughts on how you can use entagled triplets to send information backwards in time even...
They are available on the web too: http://www.novatialabs.com/
Check out the Quantum Tic-Tac-Toe link. If nothing else, they've given us a reason to play Tic-Tac-Toe again.
Most military hardware on orbit is hardened against events like this. It'll survive for a while. At least long enough for us to figure out what to do about whoever launched it. I can only point to that scientific american issue for more information on what may or may not be possible in such an event. Regardless, ALL civillian LEO craft will be destroyed within months, if not weeks. GEO sats would be unaffected for the most part.
The event is called Starfish and it pretty much cleaned out LEO. I think we just gave the data to the Soviets and told them "don't do this, it's just that bad for both of us."
One thing you do NOT want to do is to set off a nuke in orbit. One good blast and LEO is uninhabitable by all satellites for years. There was a Scientific American article on this in August 04. So atomic weapons in earth orbit are a bad thing. We need other ideas, such as big balls of foam with awful ballistic coefficients or something like that.
I knew a bunch of people doing this in the Boston area back in '98. Of course that was before enough people had broadband and then cam eteh tech crash and they got laid off and I lost touch... but still.. wonder if this is the same crew.
This page is a good start for learning about all the fun stuff that you have to do. Not quite the math you're looking for, but it covers stuff other than just orbits.
How can that be possible?! Could it be that some people are very bright, have good memories, AND can do well in high pressure situations?
Perhaps some do well because they don't percieve the test as a high-pressure situation? I for one do pretty well on tests, but do not usually percieve them as life- and career-threatening events that it seems some of my peers do. I think much of the article may be correct, and the perception of crisis can blunt otherwise smart people.
The
X-15 was the first plane to fly into space, and I'm sure much of its heritage will be carried on with SpaceShipOne. An excellent history of the program by an actual member of the program is
At the Edge of Space" by Milton Thompson. It is amazing to learn about the worries about the reaction control system for out-of-atmosphere flight and how their reentry procedures and much of their data enabled the Shuttle program.
To Mike and the rest of the SpaceShipOne crew, best of luck tomorrow.
Would you allow a competitor to advertise inside a brick and mortar store? I can fully understand why Beans is doing this. I'd be pissed too. But I'm not sure how much of a case they'd have.
There might have to be some reform on the internet advertising agencies' part here. Anyone know more about how they're set up?
Hydro power is now on the way out as a major power source. Many dams have been removed in Western countries because they lead to salinization of cropland, destruction of hatcheries, and they just cost so bloody much. More dams have been destroyed than built in the last 20 years. On the other hand, wind and tidal power are becomming more viable because they do not munch the ecosystem in quite the same way.
Besides, wind turbines will cool the atmosphere by some tiny amount to offset global warming.
With all these subpoenas, IBM may just be hunting for more than just evidence that SCO is completely wrong in their claims... Might even be that they're looking to get some dirt on Microsoft or bring down a few other companies with SCO.
Slashdot Mirror
There are No GPS satellites in GEO. They have their own special orbits. The title is really, really wrong... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gps#Space_segment
I've only used recent Tek scopes, but their interface is reasonably intuitive if you're used softkeys before. I think most scopes have a fairly similar interface these days, it's just a matter of how "multifunction" you want each individual control...
One of the few things that I've seen that's been a good use of technology is using those in-class polling kits. You basically ask a multiple-choice question on a concept, then the class is polled. Once everyone answers, you can see the distribution and know what people were thinking. Can be useful to know if you're not getting an important concept over on the students and you know during class. The drawback is that it's limited to multiple-choice type answers, but you can require them to do a bit of work on their own.
For those at a college/university there's a program called Space Scholars and Directed Energy Scholars for those interested in space vehicles and lasers. Plusses: Interesting work, laid back atmosphere, better paying than school jobs. Minuses: It's gov't work, doesn't pay as well as some private internships, and it usually takes a while to get back to you if you've been selected (late April/early May for a late May/early June start). There's some preference for graduate students, but there are always a few projects for undergrads. But the government workforce is desparate for fresh blood, or will be in a few years, so it might be a good way to see if you can deal with it.
Energy isn't the only cost driver. Employees and tipping fees are also big pieces of the pie. When they're high enough, recycling makes sense. Energy isn't everything.
I think you've nailed the idea. It's not just energy ROI. You have to consider the costs of disposing of the trash as well, as people don't want loads of trash sitting around and certainly not getting imported from places where there's no room. It's why recycling doesn't make as much sense in the midwest as on the coasts -- it's reflected in the tipping fees you pay for trash. Here in MA we pay about $85-120/ton to dump trash, plus hauling fees. In the midwest and southwest it's down around $30. So recycling makes sense, you just have to think in a bigger picture. Cost diversion rather than energy savings, material reuse vs. the energy needed to refine it, lots of jobs (recycling supports about 19,000 jobs in MA alone) vs. lots of landfills.
Works on college move-outs. All the reusable trash thrown out -- clothes, furniture, random stuff -- gets collected, sorted, and sold back to students and the community in the fall, proceeds generally going to the groups (student groups, charities, etc.) that provided the labor. Called Dump and Run. You will realize that anyone with a sign on the street for "large yardsale" does not know what they're talking about when you sell several tons of stuff for thousands of dollars. The sales I've been involved with are talking about a dozen tons for over $5 grand and they're for a school of under 2000 undergrads.
I, Robot following Asimov's book would be really dull. But you should read the Harlan Ellison script that he put together for I, Robot. It's excellent, and much better than the CGI-fest that is the Will Smith version. (not actually as bad as I was expecting, but then again, expectations were rather low) Both realized that you had to have some sort of human-interest story as the core, rather than what was in Asimov's books. Ellison focused on Calvin and drew in some elements of the early Robot-Empire-Foundation series (but totally ignored the vast majority of it) to make a much better version. It's available in bookstores from time to time.
Just saw some papers at a conference on this... some very interesting thoughts on how you can use entagled triplets to send information backwards in time even... They are available on the web too: http://www.novatialabs.com/ Check out the Quantum Tic-Tac-Toe link. If nothing else, they've given us a reason to play Tic-Tac-Toe again.
Most military hardware on orbit is hardened against events like this. It'll survive for a while. At least long enough for us to figure out what to do about whoever launched it. I can only point to that scientific american issue for more information on what may or may not be possible in such an event. Regardless, ALL civillian LEO craft will be destroyed within months, if not weeks. GEO sats would be unaffected for the most part.
The event is called Starfish and it pretty much cleaned out LEO. I think we just gave the data to the Soviets and told them "don't do this, it's just that bad for both of us."
One thing you do NOT want to do is to set off a nuke in orbit. One good blast and LEO is uninhabitable by all satellites for years. There was a Scientific American article on this in August 04. So atomic weapons in earth orbit are a bad thing. We need other ideas, such as big balls of foam with awful ballistic coefficients or something like that.
I knew a bunch of people doing this in the Boston area back in '98. Of course that was before enough people had broadband and then cam eteh tech crash and they got laid off and I lost touch... but still.. wonder if this is the same crew.
This page is a good start for learning about all the fun stuff that you have to do. Not quite the math you're looking for, but it covers stuff other than just orbits.
But... no throat, no supersonic flow... sooooo much energy being lost there...
Perhaps some do well because they don't percieve the test as a high-pressure situation? I for one do pretty well on tests, but do not usually percieve them as life- and career-threatening events that it seems some of my peers do. I think much of the article may be correct, and the perception of crisis can blunt otherwise smart people.
Did anyone else notice the page file was lemming.htm?
To Mike and the rest of the SpaceShipOne crew, best of luck tomorrow.
There might have to be some reform on the internet advertising agencies' part here. Anyone know more about how they're set up?
Hydro power is now on the way out as a major power source. Many dams have been removed in Western countries because they lead to salinization of cropland, destruction of hatcheries, and they just cost so bloody much. More dams have been destroyed than built in the last 20 years. On the other hand, wind and tidal power are becomming more viable because they do not munch the ecosystem in quite the same way. Besides, wind turbines will cool the atmosphere by some tiny amount to offset global warming.
With all these subpoenas, IBM may just be hunting for more than just evidence that SCO is completely wrong in their claims... Might even be that they're looking to get some dirt on Microsoft or bring down a few other companies with SCO.
I was there last summer and it looked in fairly decent condition, but then again, it's the little stuff that will make it fail...
Ahhh... that's the thing. They can get rocket science but not rocket SCIENCE!. Not mad enough.
More coverage at Spacedaily, Space.com, and of course the usual news outlets CNN et al...
Press conference here at 9:30pm PST, so in about 25 min.