Not necessarily - if you make a large change (like blow it up) it will be replaced. If you make a sublte change (so that it always misses) the enemy will continue to rely on it well into the fight - even if it does nothing!
Hm. So you seem to be saying that it is impossible for Microsoft to accomplish the job that "outfits that specifically try to pull apart and find out what happenned" can do without even seeing any code?
As I understand it, you are right. Dropping the gear is a criticality one item (doing it wrong is loss of orbiter) that must be timed correctly. The astronauts didn't like the computer having that power, so the computer cannot drop the gear. (If you drop the gear too early, the gear melt off. Too late, and they don't survive the landing.
The hammer will hit the ground sooner than the feather, assuming that they are not dropped in the same position and at the same time. Why? Because the planet you are on (moon, whatever) is also attracted towards the object, and the moons moves faster towards a hammer than a feather...
Just for a second, assume that your soul is a program running on some very impressive hardware, the human brain. In this case, is the soul really in the physical brain? I would say no, that the soul is in the code - code which, as an abstraction, cannot be destroyed (only forgotten). You can destroy various parts of the brain, and therefor alter the code that is left, but at that point the person is a different person - or at the very least a different manifestation.
Saying you can use drugs to change a person's "soul" is like saying you can rewire a robot to do the opposite of what the controlling program says. It may be true, but I doubt you will convince anyone that you have changed the program by rewiring the outputs.
The soul can trascend the physical form easily if it is software - in fact it would then not have a physical form.
One problem is that a lot of the overhead is per flight. Right now, the maximum number of launches that can be done per year is probably near 10 - that limit is based on manpower to perform turnaround checks. Increasing the number of flights per year beyond that would require a corresponding increase in personnel, and therefore funding.
The shuttle is WAY too complex. It was designed to do everything (it has a bombing mission requirement, for goodness sake!) and ended up with the required capabilities, but at a frightful cost.
I think it would be better to give NASA a simple goal (such as 7 people to LEO and back safely), and see what could happen.
But that won't happen - too much politics involved.
To be honest, there are 2-3 people that think this would work for every hundred that don't. Yes, hopefully that is just because the few won't reveal their technology - but it is more likely that it just doesn't work.
The reason it is considered unlikely is that hypersonic drag goes up with velocity cubed, while lift goes up with velocity squared. That means that as you go faster, the problems get harder. (The lift is included only to show that you cannot "fly to orbit". Blimps presumably won't use lift.)
The only reason I can see that it may be possible (if very unlikely) is that the drag of a blimb would scale with the frontal area, not the volume. So a blimb the size of a Death Star (but cigar shaped) would have lots of mass available for engines, power, and fuel and a disproportionally small cross section.
This is an excellent analysis, but I don't agree with the conclusion. In my opinion, the primary reason we needed an electoral college in the past was the insuficient flow of information. In the past, the average citizen could not really know enough about the candidates to make a decision. Today, with the internet, I believe that has changed. Information about candidates is available from everyone with something to say, and the internet uses survival of the fittest (or most often correct) to determine who is listened to. (As opposed to only hearing what the candidates have paid for me to hear. Of course, my opinion of most often correct is different from yours - but that is the great thing about it!)
So I think that the current system working pretty well for our time.
I hate to be the one that breaks it to you, but the gun is sold. Every once in a while, all excess government assets are auctioned to the public. Surely you have seen those little flyers, right?
The government does not maintain of museum of murder weapons. Neither does it maintain a smelting operation...
Unfortunately, this is not necessarily true. For example, let's say that your code has this one loop where all the time is spent:
for (int cnt=0; cnt
(OK, silly example, bear with me)
Implemented in (insert favorite language here), this code is optimized to a shift operation. Implemented in (insert rival here), this uses the processor's divide function. The favorite beats the rival, we declare victory!
Except that we have only really shown that our favorite is better then its rival in one case. It would be better to explain that case so that others can make reasonable decisions based on the job at hand. For example, in this case is it Java that is slow? Is it the Spring/Hibernate thing? Is it method calls? Is it math operators? Is it networking?
I wish I could read the site, but it seems that this was really just a fanboy saying he is better than the other fanboys... I would like to know in what edge cases one is better than the other...
A lot of good points, but "dropping rocks" from orbit is a lot harder than it looks. Small rocks wouldn't survive reentry, and large rocks are too hard to move to an impact trajectory. Remember, in order to alter the orbit of an object large enough to do damage in order to miss the Earth we would need years and notice and use of our most powerful energy sources. Unless we find a rock almost about to hit Earth anyway, it would be nearly impossible to do damage using rocks.
This is a common enough thought that perhaps there is a misunderstanding of orbital mechanics? If you are on the space station, and throw a rock down, it will go down for half an orbit, then come back up and smack you (or if it misses it will go about as far up away from you as it went down). In order to have the rock hit Earth, you need to throw the rock hard enough to go into the atmosphere and not bounce back out. If you throw it directly behind you, you have to throw it 200-400 m/s or so. But then it reenters like any other meteorite - unpredictable impact zone and unlikely to survive atmospheric heating. To really cause damage, you would need to give it 2000-4000 m/s (about half orbital speed) so that it goes almost straight down. Of course, that takes so much energy that you might as well just use an ICBM.
The danger from space would be beamed weapons. My favorite would be a high-intensity millimeter wave transmitter - it would cause intense, nonlethal, but dibilitating pain in the target. That way you can incapacitate all the bad guys, send in the good guys, and noone has to die. (Well, before the trial at least...)
Sort of - it only takes one person to make a few tens of other people have to do a lot more than their share - but on average even the bad apples don't destroy society.
My thoughts are somewhat similar - I think that once someone has committed murder, they have broken down an important psychological barrier. Repeat murder rates are far higher than "normal" murder rates.
There is a very low repeated murder rate for those given the death penalty...
I've seen somewhere a simple disproof of the "Grey Goo" problem. It goes like this - it takes energy and resources to build a copy of yourself, so it is reasonable to assume that build rates are limited. Further, nature has had a very long time to build a Grey Goo creator - but nothing even comes close.
Actually, the program was put on hold until this was resolved. When someone thought the entire atmosphere might burn up, they decided not to continue. It wasn't until they confirmed that that wouldn't happen that they proceeded with the tests.
Well, it was because of copyright (the law was based on a copyright claimed on a phone book), but a poster below says it may have been thrown out. What do I know, IANAL.
Um, the exit strategy is pretty much the only thing the VC cares about! VC's want to lend you some money for a short time (3-5 years). They do not want to invest in a company that they will keep! (Those people are called investors, not VCs)
If you are talking to VCs, and you want to keep the company your own - talk about going public or having a stock buyout program.
This isn't true anymore. Data in a database can be copyrighted - so if you buy a zipcode database, modify the formatting, and resell it you will be sucessfully sued. Just ask your lawyer.
Slashdot Mirror
Not necessarily - if you make a large change (like blow it up) it will be replaced. If you make a sublte change (so that it always misses) the enemy will continue to rely on it well into the fight - even if it does nothing!
I got it! It's 127.43.52.36 - but your too late, I have already fried his machine - heh!
Now let me find out what this File not Found prompt was about, anyway...
Hm. So you seem to be saying that it is impossible for Microsoft to accomplish the job that "outfits that specifically try to pull apart and find out what happenned" can do without even seeing any code?
Interesting.
As I understand it, you are right. Dropping the gear is a criticality one item (doing it wrong is loss of orbiter) that must be timed correctly. The astronauts didn't like the computer having that power, so the computer cannot drop the gear. (If you drop the gear too early, the gear melt off. Too late, and they don't survive the landing.
Just to throw a wench in the works...
The hammer will hit the ground sooner than the feather, assuming that they are not dropped in the same position and at the same time. Why? Because the planet you are on (moon, whatever) is also attracted towards the object, and the moons moves faster towards a hammer than a feather...
Just for a second, assume that your soul is a program running on some very impressive hardware, the human brain. In this case, is the soul really in the physical brain? I would say no, that the soul is in the code - code which, as an abstraction, cannot be destroyed (only forgotten). You can destroy various parts of the brain, and therefor alter the code that is left, but at that point the person is a different person - or at the very least a different manifestation.
Saying you can use drugs to change a person's "soul" is like saying you can rewire a robot to do the opposite of what the controlling program says. It may be true, but I doubt you will convince anyone that you have changed the program by rewiring the outputs.
The soul can trascend the physical form easily if it is software - in fact it would then not have a physical form.
No, no, no! It is a job for NEMO.
National Ergonomic Men out of Orbit....
OK, I'll stop now...
One problem is that a lot of the overhead is per flight. Right now, the maximum number of launches that can be done per year is probably near 10 - that limit is based on manpower to perform turnaround checks. Increasing the number of flights per year beyond that would require a corresponding increase in personnel, and therefore funding.
The shuttle is WAY too complex. It was designed to do everything (it has a bombing mission requirement, for goodness sake!) and ended up with the required capabilities, but at a frightful cost.
I think it would be better to give NASA a simple goal (such as 7 people to LEO and back safely), and see what could happen.
But that won't happen - too much politics involved.
Not even to mention the fact that if the election was THAT close, obviously the people will be aproximately equally served either way...
To be honest, there are 2-3 people that think this would work for every hundred that don't. Yes, hopefully that is just because the few won't reveal their technology - but it is more likely that it just doesn't work.
The reason it is considered unlikely is that hypersonic drag goes up with velocity cubed, while lift goes up with velocity squared. That means that as you go faster, the problems get harder. (The lift is included only to show that you cannot "fly to orbit". Blimps presumably won't use lift.)
The only reason I can see that it may be possible (if very unlikely) is that the drag of a blimb would scale with the frontal area, not the volume. So a blimb the size of a Death Star (but cigar shaped) would have lots of mass available for engines, power, and fuel and a disproportionally small cross section.
I don't see how that will be built, though.
This is an excellent analysis, but I don't agree with the conclusion. In my opinion, the primary reason we needed an electoral college in the past was the insuficient flow of information. In the past, the average citizen could not really know enough about the candidates to make a decision. Today, with the internet, I believe that has changed. Information about candidates is available from everyone with something to say, and the internet uses survival of the fittest (or most often correct) to determine who is listened to. (As opposed to only hearing what the candidates have paid for me to hear. Of course, my opinion of most often correct is different from yours - but that is the great thing about it!)
So I think that the current system working pretty well for our time.
I hate to be the one that breaks it to you, but the gun is sold. Every once in a while, all excess government assets are auctioned to the public. Surely you have seen those little flyers, right?
The government does not maintain of museum of murder weapons. Neither does it maintain a smelting operation...
Arg! That was supposed to be:
for (int cnt=0; cnt<100000000; cnt++) f=f/8;
Unfortunately, this is not necessarily true. For example, let's say that your code has this one loop where all the time is spent:
for (int cnt=0; cnt
(OK, silly example, bear with me)
Implemented in (insert favorite language here), this code is optimized to a shift operation. Implemented in (insert rival here), this uses the processor's divide function. The favorite beats the rival, we declare victory!
Except that we have only really shown that our favorite is better then its rival in one case. It would be better to explain that case so that others can make reasonable decisions based on the job at hand. For example, in this case is it Java that is slow? Is it the Spring/Hibernate thing? Is it method calls? Is it math operators? Is it networking?
I wish I could read the site, but it seems that this was really just a fanboy saying he is better than the other fanboys... I would like to know in what edge cases one is better than the other...
A lot of good points, but "dropping rocks" from orbit is a lot harder than it looks. Small rocks wouldn't survive reentry, and large rocks are too hard to move to an impact trajectory. Remember, in order to alter the orbit of an object large enough to do damage in order to miss the Earth we would need years and notice and use of our most powerful energy sources. Unless we find a rock almost about to hit Earth anyway, it would be nearly impossible to do damage using rocks.
This is a common enough thought that perhaps there is a misunderstanding of orbital mechanics? If you are on the space station, and throw a rock down, it will go down for half an orbit, then come back up and smack you (or if it misses it will go about as far up away from you as it went down). In order to have the rock hit Earth, you need to throw the rock hard enough to go into the atmosphere and not bounce back out. If you throw it directly behind you, you have to throw it 200-400 m/s or so. But then it reenters like any other meteorite - unpredictable impact zone and unlikely to survive atmospheric heating. To really cause damage, you would need to give it 2000-4000 m/s (about half orbital speed) so that it goes almost straight down. Of course, that takes so much energy that you might as well just use an ICBM.
The danger from space would be beamed weapons. My favorite would be a high-intensity millimeter wave transmitter - it would cause intense, nonlethal, but dibilitating pain in the target. That way you can incapacitate all the bad guys, send in the good guys, and noone has to die. (Well, before the trial at least...)
Sort of - it only takes one person to make a few tens of other people have to do a lot more than their share - but on average even the bad apples don't destroy society.
Eternal vigilence and all that!
So you are saying that trying to maximize your personal profit is sometimes in the best interests of society?
That is my point.
Society works because of trust and goodwill, and because most people are trustworthy and reciprocate goodwill.
This includes the majority of the people in the government...
So then...
What is your motive?
(Or did you mean other than yourself?)
How does a criminal serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole commit crimes?
Because he is released on parole after serving 3 years...
My thoughts are somewhat similar - I think that once someone has committed murder, they have broken down an important psychological barrier. Repeat murder rates are far higher than "normal" murder rates.
There is a very low repeated murder rate for those given the death penalty...
I've seen somewhere a simple disproof of the "Grey Goo" problem. It goes like this - it takes energy and resources to build a copy of yourself, so it is reasonable to assume that build rates are limited. Further, nature has had a very long time to build a Grey Goo creator - but nothing even comes close.
Ergo, Grey Goo is not likely.
Actually, the program was put on hold until this was resolved. When someone thought the entire atmosphere might burn up, they decided not to continue. It wasn't until they confirmed that that wouldn't happen that they proceeded with the tests.
Well, it was because of copyright (the law was based on a copyright claimed on a phone book), but a poster below says it may have been thrown out. What do I know, IANAL.
Um, the exit strategy is pretty much the only thing the VC cares about! VC's want to lend you some money for a short time (3-5 years). They do not want to invest in a company that they will keep! (Those people are called investors, not VCs)
If you are talking to VCs, and you want to keep the company your own - talk about going public or having a stock buyout program.
This isn't true anymore. Data in a database can be copyrighted - so if you buy a zipcode database, modify the formatting, and resell it you will be sucessfully sued. Just ask your lawyer.