That's how the Kinect 1 works. It projects structured light and then reconstructs the world based on deviations from the expected pattern. It's built from off-the-shelf parts. The Kinect 2 measures the time it takes for an emitted laser light to be reflected back to the sensor. It's much more accurate and reliable, but requires purpose-made sensors, thus increasing the cost. Here's a good article with technical descriptions of the two methods: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs...
"The study - commissioned by bubble bath and shower gel firm Radox Spa - found the song was even more relaxing than a massage, walk or cup of tea."
The sort of sponsored bollocks that passes for science reporting in the Daily Mail makes the front page of Slashdot. I know the front page of Slashdot isn't run by the world's most incisive editing team, but come on!
This is just a symptom of the trend for programming languages to be as abstracted as the apailable computing power allows? Computers are now powerful enough for programming to be done entirely without the use of lines of code. Just like the generational changes from assembler to compiled code to interpreted code, the next jump will be to a programming method that requires even less technical skill. Maybe. We'll see soon, i hope!
Well, then we're not going anywhere. NASA cannot *afford* a Saturn V class vehicle with its current budget. That budget is not going to increase any time soon. Therefore, we have to get the best for our money. That means Shuttle-C or DIRECT. Ares 5 is just too big for the infrastructure we have.
Laser projector? How can you project a raster image using a inherently vector system?
I don't get it. How does it know how big the pixels should be?
(Or maybe it's obvious and I just need a beating with the clue stick here)
The light from the three RGB lasers is scanned in rows just like the electron beam in a CRT. To sweep the angle, a tiny mirror flexes very fast. The technical challenge for these projectors has been switching the mirror fast enough and getting decent performance from miniature red green and blue lasers. I think the blue one was the tough nut to crack.
This blacklist was specifically for the construction industry - for those who haven't RTFA. The terrible thing is that this list, and its sale for money, has been around for years and years. It's the industry's dirty little secret. It's only now they've computerised the records that they can use the Data Protection Act to prosecute. Sadly, I have no doubt that the information will live on somehow. All the major players have fingers in the pie and won't give it up, I think.
Which is incredibly wasteful. As I mentioned previously, it's like using a semi with the trailer unhitched to drive to the store. You can do it, but you might as well be burning money.
Except that the J120 is only used for Orion-only missions. ie. to the ISS. And there will be so few of those missions, that the savings you make on development and infrastructure for Ares 1 actually make the J120 the cheaper option. The DIRECT architecture is all about the J232. And 2 of those are cheaper than an Ares1 and an Ares5.
Jupiter is still very much alive, and the team is busy making presentations to and reports for all the interested parties in this situation. Take a look at this thread over at nasaspaceflight for the latest rumblings: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=12379.3250
there is the danger of the self-refferential wiki-loop, where an unverified statement on wikipedia gets used in a reputable newspaper, which is then used to 'verify' the original statement.
The ESAS study is known to many at NASA as flimsy peice of work. Mike Griffin had his pre-conceived ideas of what a moon architecture should be like, and imposed it on the Shuttle infrastructure. Ares V can be made to work. Ares I can be made to work. I do not doubt this - NASA engineers are dome of the best in the world. But NASA must operate in a financial and political environment. In current conditions, Ares V will be so expensive - as a program - that a sustainable lunar exploration program can never be built around it. The very real danger is that NASA will succesfully fly the Ares I, and then be denied the billions more needed to build the Ares V. Thus condemning America to Low Earth Orbit for another 30 years
As for this study that you question, you can ask some of the people who have seen it. They post on http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/ and if you spend the time, you will find just how this proposal is not hacked together by crazy armchair rocket fans, but by actual NASA engineers, at every level in the organisation.
The Ares V is not being super-sized because it's the best way of getting back to the moon. This rocket is the result of NASA administrator Mike Griffin's desire to build the biggest mofo rocket ever built. It is so big, much of the Kennedy Space Center infrastructure will have to be rebuilt. This will cost billions more. The main fuel tank is much wider than the shuttle tank. This requires a new production line, transportation barge and infrastructure at the cape. The 'extended' solid boosters require extensive design work and are not cheap either.
Meanwhile, the Ares I is,undersized. At every design review, it is struggling to meet the thrust requirements for getting the Orion capsule into orbit. The Orion itself is suffering as a result, having to be stripped back to the bones before safety systems are carefully added back in.
So, instead of designing two badly sized, expensive rockets that has almost no hardware re-used from the Shuttle, NASA could be building a direct evolution of that hardware. Luckily, such a design already exists. It's been proposed by NASA engineers twice in the past - after the fatal Shuttle accidents. The idea is simple: Retain the existing Shuttle tank and solids. Place engine on the bottom of the tank. Place a payload on top of the tank. This concept has been around for years, but today it's being promoted as DIRECT.
This architecture will meet all the lifting requirements for getting back to the room whilst being: Cheaper (by many billions), and Sooner (the 'flight gap' after shuttle retirement is reduced from 6 years to 2. This retains all the technical staff that would otherwise be layed off. A similar brain drain after Apollo did massive damage to NASA and we don't want that to happen again
I could go on and on. It is obvious that DIRECT is the better option. They are actively lobbying congress and have plenty of support within NASA. In fact, an internal NASA study found that DIRECT was superior to Ares in every way, but this study was squashed by management. With DIRECT, the next president can have astronauts back in space in his administration. But only if his NASA administrator cancels Ares and Chooses DIRECT.
is the work (also funded by the navy) undertaken by Dr. Bussard (of interstellar spaceship fame). His design for an electrostatic inertial confinement machine shows more promise than the heavy, expensive tokamak prefered by the internatinal ITER project, and has been built and tested in the lab, but not yet to an energy-return scale. The work was kept secret due to the source of funding, for the last 12 years, so it is only now that we're hearing aboutu it.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846 673788606 - Lecture given by Bussard at google, giving an overview of the project. 1:30 long, so if you don't have time, read:
http://www.askmar.com/ConferenceNotes/2006-9%20IAC %20Paper.pdf - Summary paper, outlining the research and results so far. The real research paper is yet to be published, but that's what he's working on now.
I wrote to my MP (Keith Hill - complete nulabour drone) about this and actually got a letter back in the mail. I can't be arsed to type the whole thing out, but here are some highlights:
"There has been a lot of mischief making recently in the media and among certain MPs concerning the Bill. I can assure you that the Bill will not lead to ministers having the power to dictatorially create legislation, unfettered by Parliament"
Thanks for the platitudes. He goes on about what the bill is intended for.
However, the next bit is more interesting.
"What recent reports have conveniently ignored is that there are conditions in place safeguarding when these powers can be used, including guarantees of Parliamentary scrutiny and veto of the use of the power. Specifically...
1. A requirement to consult. For example this would include organisations substantially affected by the proposals such as business, trade unions, charities, etc.
2. A requirement to lay an Explanatory Document before Parliament setting out why the minister wishes to use the power.
3. The minister must express a view of specific better regulations aims where approriate"
So far, so fluffy. However...
"4. Parliamentary scrutiny and right to veto"
Now I didn't spot that when I was reading the bill. If it really is there, then my criticism might wane a bit.
He then goes on with two paragraphs of pro-business "effective and targeted regulation" etc. with a "while protecting the hard-won standards for working people that Labour has secured" for old time's sake.
I'm pleased that the guy took the time to write back, but he is obviously following the party line on this one.
But Live! Arcade is part of the no-fee section of Live! You only need to pay a subscription if you want to play muliplayer online. The content download, high score tables etc. parts of Live! are free.
magnetically levitate another magnet which requires, according to any analysis you choose, a continual exertion of force and therefore power and energy)
I am currently levitating my cup of coffee 3 feet off the ground. Woah! Spooky! Look, it's not even moving! That's because there's a freaknig DESK holding it there. Replace 'desk' with 'magnetic field' and you have your answer. No work is being done because nothing is moving and nothing is heating up and nothing is radiating. Get. A. Clue.
Slashdot Mirror
That's how the Kinect 1 works. It projects structured light and then reconstructs the world based on deviations from the expected pattern. It's built from off-the-shelf parts. The Kinect 2 measures the time it takes for an emitted laser light to be reflected back to the sensor. It's much more accurate and reliable, but requires purpose-made sensors, thus increasing the cost. Here's a good article with technical descriptions of the two methods: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs...
...and Slashdot covered it at the time: http://hardware.slashdot.org/s...
I think the submitter meant to post this story, which is about the new record of 24.2GW: http://www.iflscience.com/tech...
Same architect as the London tower :-D
Yep. That hotel in Vegas, The Vdara, was designed by Rafael Vinoly. The London building was designed by..... Yep. Rafael Vinoly. No joke.
I would like you to go into more detail, seeing as nobody else has yet!
"The study - commissioned by bubble bath and shower gel firm Radox Spa - found the song was even more relaxing than a massage, walk or cup of tea."
The sort of sponsored bollocks that passes for science reporting in the Daily Mail makes the front page of Slashdot. I know the front page of Slashdot isn't run by the world's most incisive editing team, but come on!
But it also requires doubt.
That's what makes it special.
This is just a symptom of the trend for programming languages to be as abstracted as the apailable computing power allows? Computers are now powerful enough for programming to be done entirely without the use of lines of code. Just like the generational changes from assembler to compiled code to interpreted code, the next jump will be to a programming method that requires even less technical skill. Maybe. We'll see soon, i hope!
Well, then we're not going anywhere. NASA cannot *afford* a Saturn V class vehicle with its current budget. That budget is not going to increase any time soon. Therefore, we have to get the best for our money. That means Shuttle-C or DIRECT. Ares 5 is just too big for the infrastructure we have.
Laser projector? How can you project a raster image using a inherently vector system?
I don't get it. How does it know how big the pixels should be?
(Or maybe it's obvious and I just need a beating with the clue stick here)
The light from the three RGB lasers is scanned in rows just like the electron beam in a CRT. To sweep the angle, a tiny mirror flexes very fast. The technical challenge for these projectors has been switching the mirror fast enough and getting decent performance from miniature red green and blue lasers. I think the blue one was the tough nut to crack.
This blacklist was specifically for the construction industry - for those who haven't RTFA. The terrible thing is that this list, and its sale for money, has been around for years and years. It's the industry's dirty little secret. It's only now they've computerised the records that they can use the Data Protection Act to prosecute. Sadly, I have no doubt that the information will live on somehow. All the major players have fingers in the pie and won't give it up, I think.
Which is incredibly wasteful. As I mentioned previously, it's like using a semi with the trailer unhitched to drive to the store. You can do it, but you might as well be burning money.
Except that the J120 is only used for Orion-only missions. ie. to the ISS. And there will be so few of those missions, that the savings you make on development and infrastructure for Ares 1 actually make the J120 the cheaper option. The DIRECT architecture is all about the J232. And 2 of those are cheaper than an Ares1 and an Ares5.
Jupiter is still very much alive, and the team is busy making presentations to and reports for all the interested parties in this situation. Take a look at this thread over at nasaspaceflight for the latest rumblings: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=12379.3250
there is the danger of the self-refferential wiki-loop, where an unverified statement on wikipedia gets used in a reputable newspaper, which is then used to 'verify' the original statement.
:))
The Register loves this sort of thing: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/17/wikipedia_and_the_mirror/ is a minor example, but who knows what else has been elevated to truth by circular reasoning? (smart alec answers to *that* question are welcome
Any keyboard without a two-line return key automatically fails the 'best keyboard in the world' test.
The ESAS study is known to many at NASA as flimsy peice of work. Mike Griffin had his pre-conceived ideas of what a moon architecture should be like, and imposed it on the Shuttle infrastructure. Ares V can be made to work. Ares I can be made to work. I do not doubt this - NASA engineers are dome of the best in the world. But NASA must operate in a financial and political environment. In current conditions, Ares V will be so expensive - as a program - that a sustainable lunar exploration program can never be built around it. The very real danger is that NASA will succesfully fly the Ares I, and then be denied the billions more needed to build the Ares V. Thus condemning America to Low Earth Orbit for another 30 years
As for this study that you question, you can ask some of the people who have seen it. They post on http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/ and if you spend the time, you will find just how this proposal is not hacked together by crazy armchair rocket fans, but by actual NASA engineers, at every level in the organisation.
That rocket is designed by NASA, it's just that the NASA employees responsible have done so in their own time, and in secret.
The Ares V is not being super-sized because it's the best way of getting back to the moon. This rocket is the result of NASA administrator Mike Griffin's desire to build the biggest mofo rocket ever built. It is so big, much of the Kennedy Space Center infrastructure will have to be rebuilt. This will cost billions more. The main fuel tank is much wider than the shuttle tank. This requires a new production line, transportation barge and infrastructure at the cape. The 'extended' solid boosters require extensive design work and are not cheap either.
,undersized. At every design review, it is struggling to meet the thrust requirements for getting the Orion capsule into orbit. The Orion itself is suffering as a result, having to be stripped back to the bones before safety systems are carefully added back in.
Meanwhile, the Ares I is
So, instead of designing two badly sized, expensive rockets that has almost no hardware re-used from the Shuttle, NASA could be building a direct evolution of that hardware. Luckily, such a design already exists. It's been proposed by NASA engineers twice in the past - after the fatal Shuttle accidents. The idea is simple: Retain the existing Shuttle tank and solids. Place engine on the bottom of the tank. Place a payload on top of the tank. This concept has been around for years, but today it's being promoted as DIRECT.
http://www.directlauncher.com/
lots of discussion here: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=12379.0
This architecture will meet all the lifting requirements for getting back to the room whilst being: Cheaper (by many billions), and Sooner (the 'flight gap' after shuttle retirement is reduced from 6 years to 2. This retains all the technical staff that would otherwise be layed off. A similar brain drain after Apollo did massive damage to NASA and we don't want that to happen again
I could go on and on. It is obvious that DIRECT is the better option. They are actively lobbying congress and have plenty of support within NASA. In fact, an internal NASA study found that DIRECT was superior to Ares in every way, but this study was squashed by management. With DIRECT, the next president can have astronauts back in space in his administration. But only if his NASA administrator cancels Ares and Chooses DIRECT.
is the work (also funded by the navy) undertaken by Dr. Bussard (of interstellar spaceship fame). His design for an electrostatic inertial confinement machine shows more promise than the heavy, expensive tokamak prefered by the internatinal ITER project, and has been built and tested in the lab, but not yet to an energy-return scale. The work was kept secret due to the source of funding, for the last 12 years, so it is only now that we're hearing aboutu it. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846 673788606 - Lecture given by Bussard at google, giving an overview of the project. 1:30 long, so if you don't have time, read:
http://www.askmar.com/ConferenceNotes/2006-9%20IAC %20Paper.pdf - Summary paper, outlining the research and results so far. The real research paper is yet to be published, but that's what he's working on now.
I wrote to my MP (Keith Hill - complete nulabour drone) about this and actually got a letter back in the mail. I can't be arsed to type the whole thing out, but here are some highlights:
"There has been a lot of mischief making recently in the media and among certain MPs concerning the Bill. I can assure you that the Bill will not lead to ministers having the power to dictatorially create legislation, unfettered by Parliament"
Thanks for the platitudes. He goes on about what the bill is intended for.
However, the next bit is more interesting.
"What recent reports have conveniently ignored is that there are conditions in place safeguarding when these powers can be used, including guarantees of Parliamentary scrutiny and veto of the use of the power. Specifically...
1. A requirement to consult. For example this would include organisations substantially affected by the proposals such as business, trade unions, charities, etc.
2. A requirement to lay an Explanatory Document before Parliament setting out why the minister wishes to use the power.
3. The minister must express a view of specific better regulations aims where approriate"
So far, so fluffy. However...
"4. Parliamentary scrutiny and right to veto"
Now I didn't spot that when I was reading the bill. If it really is there, then my criticism might wane a bit.
He then goes on with two paragraphs of pro-business "effective and targeted regulation" etc. with a "while protecting the hard-won standards for working people that Labour has secured" for old time's sake.
I'm pleased that the guy took the time to write back, but he is obviously following the party line on this one.
But Live! Arcade is part of the no-fee section of Live! You only need to pay a subscription if you want to play muliplayer online. The content download, high score tables etc. parts of Live! are free.
THey are close enough to the earth that its magnetic field protects them from cosmic radiation, much like it does for us.
magnetically levitate another magnet which requires, according to any analysis you choose, a continual exertion of force and therefore power and energy)
I am currently levitating my cup of coffee 3 feet off the ground. Woah! Spooky! Look, it's not even moving! That's because there's a freaknig DESK holding it there. Replace 'desk' with 'magnetic field' and you have your answer. No work is being done because nothing is moving and nothing is heating up and nothing is radiating. Get. A. Clue.
An infinite energy machine you say?
Fascinating. Perhaps we can arrange a swap. I have several major metropolitan bridges that I own the rights to...
Well, how about:
"Robert's your Auntie's live-in lover"