Concerning Office 2007, you must really be stuck in the past.
OK, so you never work with Office XP or 2000? Um, sorry, but if you save out a document in 2007 it does not open in the older versions - and I am not going out and buying all new software for everyone in the company. In addition, the particular format that I need from Office is HTML - they totally re-did that part of Office, and it is totally incompatible at this point.
who takes the blame when the software doesn't work correctly?
You mean like, say, when Office 2007 is installed? The same person is blamed either way - and the same person has to ACTUALLY FIX the problem.
I didn't get where I am by assigning blame correctly. I got here by making things work.
even find myself using things I never would have
I've heard Microsoft turfers say that before - do you get some kind of training on how to respond? I have taught/programmed/everything using Office. I doubt there are any functions that are even vaguely useful for my business that I do not know about. I use pivot tables, complex programming, etc. when I need it.
The fact is changing an interface that industry has spent billions on teaching to their employees and adding no features has to be the dumbest move ever made by any organization. There is no way I am paying to retrain my staff just because Microsoft needs to "keep it fresh".
I, on the other hand, had to buy a new laptop as a backup unit for a new office.
1) Nothing works the same as previous operating systems. Finding the "dumb" default so I could disable them took hours (such as "hide files so you can't fix problems" and "don't show extension to give spyware a chance"). I don't want to have to relearn everything just to add one computer. 2) The new "alert" dialogs seem spiffy, until you realize that it make VNC stop working (it pauses all services) - while adding no real benefit, since the entire filesystem is writeable anyway. It doesn't help to disable the Microsoft way of doing things when the trojans can bypass it but the users can't. And don't tell me there's a way to disable it - I DON'T WANT TO LEARN A NEW SYSTEM FOR ONE NEW LAPTOP! 3) Then I installed Office 2007. Wow. That is bad. This is really bad. They did not improve a single part of it - instead they just moved everything around. Not only does it not provide any benefits, it requires 100% retraining! The file formats are, of course, not compatible - so moving one person to 2007 would require moving everyone. In addition, the one reason to use it for us was the ability to integrate with our intranet - but of course they broke compatibility with the file format. There isn't even an option to use the old format we needed, it is simply not there anymore.
So I wiped the machine. We will be using Linux running wine (and office 2000) for a short time, until we get all of our systems compatible with Open Office.
I run my companies IT departments, but I am the decision maker for three other companies in IT - and my friends that run other midsized companies are doing the same thing. Microsoft is simply to annoying to use in the modern business (at last mid-sized businesses).
A simpler solution is possible! Simply use a pogo buffer, inserted between the propellant cores and the nozzle throat.
Now, admitedly, it would need to be much larger - since we are buffering a gas here. So picture this: we have the 150 ft x 10 ft core on top of a 40 ft wide sphere, which is attached to the nozzle...
The problem with your simple fix (you are correct about the problem assessment) is this: Rockets change dramatically during flight.
When you are trying to avoid having a resonate frequency in a wide range of spectrum and your device goes from a hundred thousand pounds spread evenly to a few thousand pounds almost entirely at the top, you have a more difficult challenge then mere stiffness and structural changes can easily fix.
You don't seem to get the point - B and C separately have 30% of the power of parliment, but together have 60%. They ignore A, because A doesn't offer them anything that they want. Yes, A feels bad, but A has to make concessions, not B or C. That is the point.
I have lived in many countries in my life, and have studied this at close range. You apparently live in Canada, which is apparently perfect. That's great for Canadians (and yes, Canada seems to have a working government) - but it has no bearing on the difference between dual party and multi party systems.
"a multi-party coalition that's forced to compromise in order to get anything done."
Picture this:
party A - which 100% of the public agrees with on all issues except for two issues party B - single issue X party, 30% of the public wants this (so 70% of public is against this issue) party C - single issue Y party, 30% of the public wants this (so 70% of public is against this issue)
The votes come out as 30% B, 30% C, and 40% A. B and C form a coalition - so they get X and Y, even though 70% of the population is against those measures. Democracy has failed.
This simple example requires 30% of the voters to want the outcome - but with more parties, the required voters can be made arbitrarily small. So, you could easily see 1-2% of the population deciding a single issue, even when everyone else disagrees with them - the more parties, the worse it is.
One reason you would not notice this in your own country is that the radical 1% is also the loudest - so you would assume that more people agree with them than actually do. I actually heard a Democratic Senator canonize this, saying something to the effect of "a small group of vocal people should count more than a large group of quiet ones."
Very true - although my mind boggles somewhat at the idea of an honest politician. And of course, what would be best (from my perspective) for the public would be honest politicians in a two party system - because you would end up with real centrist politics.
In reality, though, we're not talking about honesty - we are talking about values. So a two party system rewards politicians that change their values whenever the public has different values from them. Not necessarily a bad thing, as long as they keep the fear of the public in them. (Not so good in a lame duck President, for example)
It seems that way, certainly. I attribute that to two factors:
1) The extremists are the loudest - pleasing them makes it quieter, so it seems like you have done more than you actually have. 2) The US is the most closely watched political sphere, and has the most "airing of dirty laundry".
Personally, I think the US is much better at representing the average person than the UK. The UK is much better at representing the single issue voters, like I said.
But you're right - the key is "Are they working right?"
Really, the whole issue of health care in the US is a big mess:
1. We want a capitalist system (at least we say so), so government health care is looked at as "bad" by most people (thats why we don't have it). Capitalist health care can be shown to provide better services, and provide faster technological growth. At the very least this is taken as truth for everything outside of healthcare, and so presumably would apply.
2. We don't have a capitalist system:
a) Most people have "insurance", at least partially paid for by employers. The end user never faces the supply/demand curve when getting medical services.
b) For the obvious reason, it is illegal for a hospital to turn someone away due to inability to pay. So hospitals have to provide free service for the poor anyway, but have no ability to tax others to pay for this care.
c) Medical "Insurance" is not insurance. It is fraud to buy insurance that you expect to use! What we really have are opt-in tax plans, where you opt-in to have some amount deducted from your paycheck (or work for slightly less, whatever) - in return, you get socialized medicine within certain parameters. Many people choose not to buy insurance, for many reasons (including "it costs too much")
Because of this situation, costs are obviously going to spiral up. Think about it - your personal out of pocket doesn't change no matter what is done. Obviously, you choose to have the most expensive (and therefor presumably best) procedures. If your current doctor doesn't recommend it, then you find one that does!
In a capitalist system, this doesn't happen because you pay your expected costs, and use insurance only to pay for unexpected stuff. In a socialist system, this doesn't happen because the doctors do not answer to the patient - so if they say no ultrasound, it's no ultrasound.
Ways to fix it: Either go full capitalist (with options for state-provided unexpected care, if desired), or go full socailist (with a parrallel capitalist system, if desired). But this current half-socialist stuff just doesn't work...
If you are a social liberal and a fiscal conservative, shouldn't it be the other way around? Congress can at least recommend social laws, while the President has no power to cause social change - he can only approve or veto whatever Congress gives him. Of course, Congress also passes the budget, but at least that starts with the President writing it - and recently the President seems to have an astonishing amount of power in that area.
Are you really socially conservative and fiscally liberal? Honestly, I have never met someone like that... so what do you base your division of power on?
In a dual party system what you say is true as long as votes are "against the opposition" rather than "for the better party". But at least some votes are not "anyone but him" votes - and in order to get the most possible of these votes, the parties are forced towards the center of the country in questions politics. To wit, the US elections are normally decided by the uncommitted voters - so neither party can stray too far from the center.
In a multi party system, at least all the ones I am familiar with, you no longer need the center to get elected. Instead, power is pushed to the fringes, to the single issue voters. You find a group that cares about X, and that is sufficient to get elected to office. Once elected, you join a coalition in order to have a functioning government. That coalition of single issue parties by definition takes an extreme stance on almost every issue.
So in the dual party system (US), the systems leans towards statis (classical conservative). In multiparty systems (most of the rest of the world), the bias is towards radicalism.
Think about it this way: What percentage of the population needs to want a law in order to get it passed? Dual party "working right", 50%. Multiparty "working right", a tiny fraction - they just need to promise to vote with others for their favorite issue in order to get what they want.
People keep on saying this, and congressfools keep trying to legislate it. Not everyone is like you! Believe it or not, people climb mount Everest every year - and die trying. They pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for the honor of narrowly avoiding (or succumbing to) slow death from cold.
People really do join the military when they have college degrees. People really do drive Nascars. Some people are not driven by fear to avoid death - they are driven to embrace life to the fullest.
Typically the fuel saved is irrelevant - the real reason to launch a rocket from high altitude is better engines. To a certain extent, the efficiency of a rocket engine is related to the ratio of internal engine pressure to external engine pressure - so high altitude launch lets you use lower pressure (lighter) engines and keep the same expansion ratio.
Of course, most people do that by using a first stage rocket to throw the second stage out of the atmosphere - because experimental rockets are cheaper to develop than experimental aircraft (at least that is the idea). But if you have the airplane already, it makes sense to use it.
1. The government points a gun at you and says "pay me X". You pay X, and then someone tells you that you actually only paid X-Y, because the rest was "different from the rest". Oh goody! I guess that means I can get it back somehow? No? What do you mean, no? You mean it will be distributed according to a Senator's priorities? And how is that different?
2. If a company took your money and promised to do X with it but instead "lent" the money to another company (with the same ownership) that then spent it however they wanted, you would no doubt sue them. The government is taking your money, promising to do nice things with it, and then lending it to itself so it can be given to dairy farmers to buy votes. If you don't believe this, think about how that money will be paid back - that's right, increased taxes. So they are taxing you, lending the money to themselves, and then you are paying the priciple and interest on the loan. Great deal, there!
Perhaps that is true, though too often I think people take offense at things too quickly - and some people seem to get offended just by someone else succeeding where they did not.
The flip side of that, though, is that no matter how much I understand them - if they want to kill me, I kill them first. In addition, if they are mad at me because of something my ancestors did to their ancestors, I can say sorry but if that doesn't clear it up - **** them, and I will work to remove their power base in any way I can due to self preservation instincts.
Your argument just doesn't make sense. Nature has ahd billions of years, randomly mutating. If after billions of years no organism has taken over completely, it is not possible. Humans cannot engineer better than nature (at least not over a billion years), and nature is trying to kill/displace us all!
This is not an issue - the method of transmitting power is well known, and well characterized. You use microwaves, with really big antennas - miles on a side. Since it is microwaves, the antennas do not have to be solid so it is possible to use the land below for other purposes (or not, depending on needs).
Essentially, you create an artificial sun in GEO - except it only shines in one direction and all the energy is at one microwave frequency. That makes "solar cells" much easier to design, and much more efficient.
if it's geosynchronous, you still have night time to deal with, since *shock* the earth will block the sun on you
You're not thinking in orbital distances - the Earth only blocks it for a few minutes, at local midnight. Most power usage is during the day, so this would have very little impact. (Needs some design - such as getting power from another sattelite half a time zone away, but not a hard problem).
Given: GEO orbit is 35,786 km up, the Earth is 6,400 km in radius, the sun is 150,000,000 km away. Set the problem up this way, make a triangle with one point at the sun and the other points on the GEO orbit curve. The triangle barely touches the Earth on each side - so if you draw a line through the Earth, you make a smaller triangle with exactly the same angles/side length ratios as the bigger one. That is the relationship you use to answer this question.
So [150,000,000 km] divided by [2 * 6,400 km] is the same as [150,000,000 km + 35786 km] divided by X, where X is the distance the GEO sattelite travels in the shadow of the Earth. Since the sun is so freaken far away, obviously X is approximately 12,800 km (about the diameter of the Earth). Since the GEO orbit is 224850 km in circumference, and it has a 24 hour period, GEO orbit is about 9,370 km/hr - so the sattelite is in at least some shadow for 82 minutes. But this analysis has ignored the fact that the sun is not a point source (among other things), so it is actually less than that.
So power generation starts dropping off at about 11:20 PM local time, hits zero at about 11:45 or so, comes back at 12:15 or so, and it totally back up by 12:40. Not really that bad.
Earth's escape velocity is 11.2 km/s - so since in your plan you need to go past Earth's escape to somewhere else, your "no where needs 12km/s" in not correct.
"give it enough deltaV to drop out of our solar orbit" - Earth's orbital velocity is 30 km/s. Therefor, to "drop out of solar orbit", you need to eliminate 30 km/s. (Now you can cheat and use gravity assist flybies of the moon and planets, but your delta-v will still be 30 km/s - planets are now your reaction mass!)
A boost of 12 km/s to an object going 30 km/s will take it to 42km/s, which is solar system escape. The way you look at it is this: increasing your current velocity boosts your orbital altitude on the opposite side of your orbit. So you add 12 km/s velocity, and the other side of your orbit goes from 1 AU to infinity - you escape the solar system.
As for the aiming at the sun bit, think about it as vector sums. Any object launched from Earth has 30 km/s velocity tangental to Earth's orbit. So let's say you fire the object 20 km/s straight toward the sun. Now you add the two velocities (well, you add the squares and take the square root, technically) so you have 36 km/s headed at roughly 40 degrees from Earth's orbital path. You will orbit further out than Earth in an elliptical orbit, but your orbit will necessarily intersect with Earth's orbit.
The sun ain't big compared to Earth's orbit. 40 degrees won't hack it. (Calculate the velocity to make a straight in path work - I haven't done the math, but it is probably up in the 1000km/s range. You can do it by determining the angle you need from Earth's orbit to graze the sun's "atmosphere").
Just so you know, this is a terrible idea. Anything we shoot at the sun comes back to us eventually.
Orbital mechanics - something fired at the sun, even given obscene speeds, will not hit it (the Earth is moving around the sun, light takes 5 minutes to get to us, etc.). Instead it will pass close to the sun in an elliptical orbit. The one thing we know for sure about that orbit is that it intersects Earth's orbit!
If you really want to throw it into the sun, you throw it behind us. That way it falls straight into the sun. Of course, you have to throw it at 30km/s (the speed of Earth's orbit around the sun) - which is a bit hard. If you mess up, you end up on an Earth intersecting orbit again!
A better way, if you want to call it that, would be to boost it to solar system escape velocity - about 12 km/s (42km/s in total, but you already have 30km/s).
Of course, this is all a bit silly - heavy atoms are very rare in the universe, so we shouldn't throw them away on purpose!
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Concerning Office 2007, you must really be stuck in the past.
OK, so you never work with Office XP or 2000? Um, sorry, but if you save out a document in 2007 it does not open in the older versions - and I am not going out and buying all new software for everyone in the company. In addition, the particular format that I need from Office is HTML - they totally re-did that part of Office, and it is totally incompatible at this point.
who takes the blame when the software doesn't work correctly?
You mean like, say, when Office 2007 is installed? The same person is blamed either way - and the same person has to ACTUALLY FIX the problem.
I didn't get where I am by assigning blame correctly. I got here by making things work.
even find myself using things I never would have
I've heard Microsoft turfers say that before - do you get some kind of training on how to respond? I have taught/programmed/everything using Office. I doubt there are any functions that are even vaguely useful for my business that I do not know about. I use pivot tables, complex programming, etc. when I need it.
The fact is changing an interface that industry has spent billions on teaching to their employees and adding no features has to be the dumbest move ever made by any organization. There is no way I am paying to retrain my staff just because Microsoft needs to "keep it fresh".
I, on the other hand, had to buy a new laptop as a backup unit for a new office.
1) Nothing works the same as previous operating systems. Finding the "dumb" default so I could disable them took hours (such as "hide files so you can't fix problems" and "don't show extension to give spyware a chance"). I don't want to have to relearn everything just to add one computer.
2) The new "alert" dialogs seem spiffy, until you realize that it make VNC stop working (it pauses all services) - while adding no real benefit, since the entire filesystem is writeable anyway. It doesn't help to disable the Microsoft way of doing things when the trojans can bypass it but the users can't. And don't tell me there's a way to disable it - I DON'T WANT TO LEARN A NEW SYSTEM FOR ONE NEW LAPTOP!
3) Then I installed Office 2007. Wow. That is bad. This is really bad. They did not improve a single part of it - instead they just moved everything around. Not only does it not provide any benefits, it requires 100% retraining! The file formats are, of course, not compatible - so moving one person to 2007 would require moving everyone. In addition, the one reason to use it for us was the ability to integrate with our intranet - but of course they broke compatibility with the file format. There isn't even an option to use the old format we needed, it is simply not there anymore.
So I wiped the machine. We will be using Linux running wine (and office 2000) for a short time, until we get all of our systems compatible with Open Office.
I run my companies IT departments, but I am the decision maker for three other companies in IT - and my friends that run other midsized companies are doing the same thing. Microsoft is simply to annoying to use in the modern business (at last mid-sized businesses).
(Since you would probably get this...)
A simpler solution is possible! Simply use a pogo buffer, inserted between the propellant cores and the nozzle throat.
Now, admitedly, it would need to be much larger - since we are buffering a gas here. So picture this: we have the 150 ft x 10 ft core on top of a 40 ft wide sphere, which is attached to the nozzle...
Hm - maybe that wouldn't get through congress...
The problem with your simple fix (you are correct about the problem assessment) is this: Rockets change dramatically during flight.
When you are trying to avoid having a resonate frequency in a wide range of spectrum and your device goes from a hundred thousand pounds spread evenly to a few thousand pounds almost entirely at the top, you have a more difficult challenge then mere stiffness and structural changes can easily fix.
You don't seem to get the point - B and C separately have 30% of the power of parliment, but together have 60%. They ignore A, because A doesn't offer them anything that they want. Yes, A feels bad, but A has to make concessions, not B or C. That is the point.
I have lived in many countries in my life, and have studied this at close range. You apparently live in Canada, which is apparently perfect. That's great for Canadians (and yes, Canada seems to have a working government) - but it has no bearing on the difference between dual party and multi party systems.
The problem is with this statement:
"a multi-party coalition that's forced to compromise in order to get anything done."
Picture this:
party A - which 100% of the public agrees with on all issues except for two issues
party B - single issue X party, 30% of the public wants this (so 70% of public is against this issue)
party C - single issue Y party, 30% of the public wants this (so 70% of public is against this issue)
The votes come out as 30% B, 30% C, and 40% A. B and C form a coalition - so they get X and Y, even though 70% of the population is against those measures. Democracy has failed.
This simple example requires 30% of the voters to want the outcome - but with more parties, the required voters can be made arbitrarily small. So, you could easily see 1-2% of the population deciding a single issue, even when everyone else disagrees with them - the more parties, the worse it is.
One reason you would not notice this in your own country is that the radical 1% is also the loudest - so you would assume that more people agree with them than actually do. I actually heard a Democratic Senator canonize this, saying something to the effect of "a small group of vocal people should count more than a large group of quiet ones."
Very true - although my mind boggles somewhat at the idea of an honest politician. And of course, what would be best (from my perspective) for the public would be honest politicians in a two party system - because you would end up with real centrist politics.
In reality, though, we're not talking about honesty - we are talking about values. So a two party system rewards politicians that change their values whenever the public has different values from them. Not necessarily a bad thing, as long as they keep the fear of the public in them. (Not so good in a lame duck President, for example)
It seems that way, certainly. I attribute that to two factors:
1) The extremists are the loudest - pleasing them makes it quieter, so it seems like you have done more than you actually have.
2) The US is the most closely watched political sphere, and has the most "airing of dirty laundry".
Personally, I think the US is much better at representing the average person than the UK. The UK is much better at representing the single issue voters, like I said.
But you're right - the key is "Are they working right?"
Really, the whole issue of health care in the US is a big mess:
1. We want a capitalist system (at least we say so), so government health care is looked at as "bad" by most people (thats why we don't have it). Capitalist health care can be shown to provide better services, and provide faster technological growth. At the very least this is taken as truth for everything outside of healthcare, and so presumably would apply.
2. We don't have a capitalist system:
a) Most people have "insurance", at least partially paid for by employers. The end user never faces the supply/demand curve when getting medical services.
b) For the obvious reason, it is illegal for a hospital to turn someone away due to inability to pay. So hospitals have to provide free service for the poor anyway, but have no ability to tax others to pay for this care.
c) Medical "Insurance" is not insurance. It is fraud to buy insurance that you expect to use! What we really have are opt-in tax plans, where you opt-in to have some amount deducted from your paycheck (or work for slightly less, whatever) - in return, you get socialized medicine within certain parameters. Many people choose not to buy insurance, for many reasons (including "it costs too much")
Because of this situation, costs are obviously going to spiral up. Think about it - your personal out of pocket doesn't change no matter what is done. Obviously, you choose to have the most expensive (and therefor presumably best) procedures. If your current doctor doesn't recommend it, then you find one that does!
In a capitalist system, this doesn't happen because you pay your expected costs, and use insurance only to pay for unexpected stuff. In a socialist system, this doesn't happen because the doctors do not answer to the patient - so if they say no ultrasound, it's no ultrasound.
Ways to fix it: Either go full capitalist (with options for state-provided unexpected care, if desired), or go full socailist (with a parrallel capitalist system, if desired). But this current half-socialist stuff just doesn't work...
If you are a social liberal and a fiscal conservative, shouldn't it be the other way around? Congress can at least recommend social laws, while the President has no power to cause social change - he can only approve or veto whatever Congress gives him. Of course, Congress also passes the budget, but at least that starts with the President writing it - and recently the President seems to have an astonishing amount of power in that area.
Are you really socially conservative and fiscally liberal? Honestly, I have never met someone like that... so what do you base your division of power on?
Actually, it's more complicated than that...
In a dual party system what you say is true as long as votes are "against the opposition" rather than "for the better party". But at least some votes are not "anyone but him" votes - and in order to get the most possible of these votes, the parties are forced towards the center of the country in questions politics. To wit, the US elections are normally decided by the uncommitted voters - so neither party can stray too far from the center.
In a multi party system, at least all the ones I am familiar with, you no longer need the center to get elected. Instead, power is pushed to the fringes, to the single issue voters. You find a group that cares about X, and that is sufficient to get elected to office. Once elected, you join a coalition in order to have a functioning government. That coalition of single issue parties by definition takes an extreme stance on almost every issue.
So in the dual party system (US), the systems leans towards statis (classical conservative). In multiparty systems (most of the rest of the world), the bias is towards radicalism.
Think about it this way: What percentage of the population needs to want a law in order to get it passed? Dual party "working right", 50%. Multiparty "working right", a tiny fraction - they just need to promise to vote with others for their favorite issue in order to get what they want.
People keep on saying this, and congressfools keep trying to legislate it. Not everyone is like you! Believe it or not, people climb mount Everest every year - and die trying. They pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for the honor of narrowly avoiding (or succumbing to) slow death from cold.
People really do join the military when they have college degrees. People really do drive Nascars. Some people are not driven by fear to avoid death - they are driven to embrace life to the fullest.
Typically the fuel saved is irrelevant - the real reason to launch a rocket from high altitude is better engines. To a certain extent, the efficiency of a rocket engine is related to the ratio of internal engine pressure to external engine pressure - so high altitude launch lets you use lower pressure (lighter) engines and keep the same expansion ratio.
Of course, most people do that by using a first stage rocket to throw the second stage out of the atmosphere - because experimental rockets are cheaper to develop than experimental aircraft (at least that is the idea). But if you have the airplane already, it makes sense to use it.
Hmm... I see this a lot - let me clarify:
1. The government points a gun at you and says "pay me X". You pay X, and then someone tells you that you actually only paid X-Y, because the rest was "different from the rest". Oh goody! I guess that means I can get it back somehow? No? What do you mean, no? You mean it will be distributed according to a Senator's priorities? And how is that different?
2. If a company took your money and promised to do X with it but instead "lent" the money to another company (with the same ownership) that then spent it however they wanted, you would no doubt sue them. The government is taking your money, promising to do nice things with it, and then lending it to itself so it can be given to dairy farmers to buy votes. If you don't believe this, think about how that money will be paid back - that's right, increased taxes. So they are taxing you, lending the money to themselves, and then you are paying the priciple and interest on the loan. Great deal, there!
Even if true, the result is the same. Maybe it sucks, but at least they are not actively working against us...
Perhaps that is true, though too often I think people take offense at things too quickly - and some people seem to get offended just by someone else succeeding where they did not.
The flip side of that, though, is that no matter how much I understand them - if they want to kill me, I kill them first. In addition, if they are mad at me because of something my ancestors did to their ancestors, I can say sorry but if that doesn't clear it up - **** them, and I will work to remove their power base in any way I can due to self preservation instincts.
Your argument just doesn't make sense. Nature has ahd billions of years, randomly mutating. If after billions of years no organism has taken over completely, it is not possible. Humans cannot engineer better than nature (at least not over a billion years), and nature is trying to kill/displace us all!
Evolution - nature out to kill us all.
This is not an issue - the method of transmitting power is well known, and well characterized. You use microwaves, with really big antennas - miles on a side. Since it is microwaves, the antennas do not have to be solid so it is possible to use the land below for other purposes (or not, depending on needs).
Essentially, you create an artificial sun in GEO - except it only shines in one direction and all the energy is at one microwave frequency. That makes "solar cells" much easier to design, and much more efficient.
if it's geosynchronous, you still have night time to deal with, since *shock* the earth will block the sun on you
You're not thinking in orbital distances - the Earth only blocks it for a few minutes, at local midnight. Most power usage is during the day, so this would have very little impact. (Needs some design - such as getting power from another sattelite half a time zone away, but not a hard problem).
Given: GEO orbit is 35,786 km up, the Earth is 6,400 km in radius, the sun is 150,000,000 km away. Set the problem up this way, make a triangle with one point at the sun and the other points on the GEO orbit curve. The triangle barely touches the Earth on each side - so if you draw a line through the Earth, you make a smaller triangle with exactly the same angles/side length ratios as the bigger one. That is the relationship you use to answer this question.
So [150,000,000 km] divided by [2 * 6,400 km] is the same as [150,000,000 km + 35786 km] divided by X, where X is the distance the GEO sattelite travels in the shadow of the Earth. Since the sun is so freaken far away, obviously X is approximately 12,800 km (about the diameter of the Earth). Since the GEO orbit is 224850 km in circumference, and it has a 24 hour period, GEO orbit is about 9,370 km/hr - so the sattelite is in at least some shadow for 82 minutes. But this analysis has ignored the fact that the sun is not a point source (among other things), so it is actually less than that.
So power generation starts dropping off at about 11:20 PM local time, hits zero at about 11:45 or so, comes back at 12:15 or so, and it totally back up by 12:40. Not really that bad.
Christians in America are ... under-educated, especially about their own religion...
... over educated in the history of Christianity...
Atheists is America are
Interestingly enough, there are three religious groups in the US with higher than average education. Jews, Aethiests, and Mormons (Latter day saints).
Food for thought...
Earth's escape velocity is 11.2 km/s - so since in your plan you need to go past Earth's escape to somewhere else, your "no where needs 12km/s" in not correct.
"give it enough deltaV to drop out of our solar orbit" - Earth's orbital velocity is 30 km/s. Therefor, to "drop out of solar orbit", you need to eliminate 30 km/s. (Now you can cheat and use gravity assist flybies of the moon and planets, but your delta-v will still be 30 km/s - planets are now your reaction mass!)
Um, I am a rocket engineer?
A boost of 12 km/s to an object going 30 km/s will take it to 42km/s, which is solar system escape. The way you look at it is this: increasing your current velocity boosts your orbital altitude on the opposite side of your orbit. So you add 12 km/s velocity, and the other side of your orbit goes from 1 AU to infinity - you escape the solar system.
As for the aiming at the sun bit, think about it as vector sums. Any object launched from Earth has 30 km/s velocity tangental to Earth's orbit. So let's say you fire the object 20 km/s straight toward the sun. Now you add the two velocities (well, you add the squares and take the square root, technically) so you have 36 km/s headed at roughly 40 degrees from Earth's orbital path. You will orbit further out than Earth in an elliptical orbit, but your orbit will necessarily intersect with Earth's orbit.
The sun ain't big compared to Earth's orbit. 40 degrees won't hack it. (Calculate the velocity to make a straight in path work - I haven't done the math, but it is probably up in the 1000km/s range. You can do it by determining the angle you need from Earth's orbit to graze the sun's "atmosphere").
Well, you see, it's spelled differently when they're evil.
Um, yah, thats it!
Just so you know, this is a terrible idea. Anything we shoot at the sun comes back to us eventually.
Orbital mechanics - something fired at the sun, even given obscene speeds, will not hit it (the Earth is moving around the sun, light takes 5 minutes to get to us, etc.). Instead it will pass close to the sun in an elliptical orbit. The one thing we know for sure about that orbit is that it intersects Earth's orbit!
If you really want to throw it into the sun, you throw it behind us. That way it falls straight into the sun. Of course, you have to throw it at 30km/s (the speed of Earth's orbit around the sun) - which is a bit hard. If you mess up, you end up on an Earth intersecting orbit again!
A better way, if you want to call it that, would be to boost it to solar system escape velocity - about 12 km/s (42km/s in total, but you already have 30km/s).
Of course, this is all a bit silly - heavy atoms are very rare in the universe, so we shouldn't throw them away on purpose!
Hey - I am going to mine the core! That is where all the heavy metal is anyway... my plans include a very large slurpy straw!