We've been in a decaying orbit for decades. We're starting to hit the atmosphere now, it's heating up and becoming turbulent. It only gets more violent from here on down.
I played softball back then on occasion (and delivered newspapers as well), so I knew about gloves. Didn't care for them, they cut off too much of the feeling in my palms. Robotron was tricky, very sensitive joysticks and you had to be able to make very tiny movements at times to sneak thru small openings in the crowds of enemies whilst trying to shoot in four directions at once.
Fingerless gloves worked great for Defender, tho:)
Ah,nostalgia... hard to believe that was a quarter of a century ago:)
Robotron palm... those round plastic grips on the arcade version's joysticks could literally wear holes in your palms if you were marathon playing (I got good enough to play for more than four hours on a single quarter so I had personal experience with that:) )
I remember that magazine, although I never saw that particular article. Sounds like a real gem.
You ought to contribute that to the wiki article on KM. Perhaps somewhere out there someone still has some old mags... I've seen a few issues for sale on ebay from time to time.
Or just do what those of us who grew up before all this stuff became available did; agree to meet somewhere, and either you are there, or you aren't. If your friends aren't there, wait a while. Or don't.
Tracking, hell. Modern cellphones already provide that ability. "click click ring 'hey dude, I'm by the beer tent, where are you?'"
I'm not sure I can agree. Mass disease outbreaks, while they can be devastating, typically don't have the potential of wiping out large numbers of other species or destroying entire ecosystems.
One doesn't need orbital capabilities to shoot down a satellite. Suborbital rocket technology and good tracking is sufficient.
Launch a shot canister straight up with a rocket capable of achieving the proper height, that can detonate it's payload at the proper time to intercept a satellite in such and so an orbit.
Until the US or anyone else has satellites capable of detection of such launches (radar tracking and countermeasure), and the delta-V capabilities to evade such (not likely) then LEO sats are going to be vulnerable.
Building rockets that can achieve a thousand km of altitude is pretty simple, nowadays. Tracking the sats just involves a simple radio antennae and knowledge of the frequencies used, plus some decent software.
I guess my point is that treaties regarding shooting down satellites are pretty pointless when it's becoming easy for any group of people with money and access to the tech to do it...
I live out on the SD/WY border, and the arguments out here about gun control are pretty hilarious - christian conservatives (think of the childern!) and liberal progressives (guns are bad!) arguing pro, everyone else (which is most everyone, out here) wondering wtf all these idiots are talking about;)
The problem is a lot deeper than party affiliation. Many people out here think both sides are full of it...
And extremists use the religious differences to fan that hatred into self-damaging levels of action.
On both sides...
But if we didn't interfere and exploit them, sure, the religious disagreement wouldn't go away, but it would settle down to the same level of agreeability that all relgious factions reach when you have mutual respect.
This is pure fantasy when applied to the human race as a whole.
As someone who *is* a "poor white person" (average annual income over the last twenty years under the "poverty line") I find your statement "offensive".
Drop the fucking political correctness for two minutes, will ya? Sheese. Don't propagate the stupidity any more than you have to.
EVERYBODY is "allergic" to mosquito bites. That's what the swelling at the site of the bite is all about. It's called an immune reaction, read up on it.
SB (Who is originally from Minnesota and one of those people who is a mosquito magnet, which is why I live in a dry climate now where mosquitoes are almost unknown...)
You could send something as simple as a yes/no - yes, I've read your message , or no, I haven't.
Add a few more entanglements to it, and you could send more. One time pad X wrt x. If this particular part gets read, yes; if that other part doesn't get read, no.
On/off? requiring a shared sequence.
Someone who understands it better, correct me and be more clear, please.
The fact that what is in the pits is a mystery contributes to the cleanup difficulty and the slow rate of progress. Lawsuits between contractors and the DOE halt cleanup projects for years or decades.
So have the military do it.
Record keeping for the waste pits all over the country were pretty bad.
Not an excuse for not dealing with it, although it does make it a lot harder to, I agree.
I did some work out at the Idaho National Lab where a lot of waste was shipped. Some of those pits were open into the '70s when there was some major flooding. Some barrels started to float so they shot them with rifles until they sank again.
Good grief. What in the hell were they thinking? Do you happen to have a cite for that, if you're still watching this thread, that is?
Did they sink into the same pit? There is a naval gun range out there and there are worries that some stray unexploded ordnance could be in the pits. And gods know what else.
Another stellar example of the sort of lack of common sense I was talking about. What sort of fool puts a nuclear waste site where it could be hit by stray test shots; or dumps unexploded ordnance into that same pit?
Same sort of fool that keeps blowing the problem off...
It's not easy to find a low bidding contractor to clean up when they aren't sure what is there.
Don't get me started about "lowest bidders";) A problem such as this needs to be contracted to the most competent and experienced bidder, not the lowest one. To do so otherwise is criminal negligence.
"We need you to clean up some nuclear waste buried in barrels. Mostly contaminated clothing and work waste. Oh, and the soil may need to be remediated due to leakage. Oh, but you might find an artillery shell or two, so be careful. And, well, there could be uranium or plutonium in a fissile quantity, so plan to deal with that, too. Oh, and if you do find some ordnance and it explodes it could create an nuclear explosion if there is nearby fissile material, so plan to contain that, too."
So what? If the government doesn't detail the potential for the hazards to the contractor, then the gov is at fault for not doing so, and if I were that contractor and I were lied to, I'd be suing the government too...
So do it RIGHT, dammit. Don't pussyfoot around the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
*Any* supernatural entity is by definition outside the sphere of human understanding entirely.
Which also means that any belief in any supernatural entity is entirely in the mind of the believer ;)
One can only split hairs so far.
We've been in a decaying orbit for decades. We're starting to hit the atmosphere now, it's heating up and becoming turbulent. It only gets more violent from here on down.
SB
Piffle. 27F is t-shirt weather :)
SB
I played softball back then on occasion (and delivered newspapers as well), so I knew about gloves. Didn't care for them, they cut off too much of the feeling in my palms. Robotron was tricky, very sensitive joysticks and you had to be able to make very tiny movements at times to sneak thru small openings in the crowds of enemies whilst trying to shoot in four directions at once.
Fingerless gloves worked great for Defender, tho :)
Ah,nostalgia... hard to believe that was a quarter of a century ago :)
SB
Robotron palm... those round plastic grips on the arcade version's joysticks could literally wear holes in your palms if you were marathon playing (I got good enough to play for more than four hours on a single quarter so I had personal experience with that :) )
SB
I remember that magazine, although I never saw that particular article. Sounds like a real gem.
You ought to contribute that to the wiki article on KM. Perhaps somewhere out there someone still has some old mags... I've seen a few issues for sale on ebay from time to time.
Cheers,
SB
Or just do what those of us who grew up before all this stuff became available did; agree to meet somewhere, and either you are there, or you aren't. If your friends aren't there, wait a while. Or don't.
Tracking, hell. Modern cellphones already provide that ability. "click click ring 'hey dude, I'm by the beer tent, where are you?'"
lazy wankers ;)
SB
The modern legal system: flip a coin, chances are better, either way.
What a wonderful hole we've dug ourselves into. I wonder how many generations it'll take to sort it out? Assuming we start now, that is.
Sure makes for plenty of material for future historians to debate ;)
Pardon me if I think that our society is well and truly fucked.
SB
I'm not sure I can agree. Mass disease outbreaks, while they can be devastating, typically don't have the potential of wiping out large numbers of other species or destroying entire ecosystems.
SB
What, nuke the country that makes about half of our imported market goods? Madness ;-)
SB
Excellent points. But...
One doesn't need orbital capabilities to shoot down a satellite. Suborbital rocket technology and good tracking is sufficient.
Launch a shot canister straight up with a rocket capable of achieving the proper height, that can detonate it's payload at the proper time to intercept a satellite in such and so an orbit.
Until the US or anyone else has satellites capable of detection of such launches (radar tracking and countermeasure), and the delta-V capabilities to evade such (not likely) then LEO sats are going to be vulnerable.
Building rockets that can achieve a thousand km of altitude is pretty simple, nowadays. Tracking the sats just involves a simple radio antennae and knowledge of the frequencies used, plus some decent software.
I guess my point is that treaties regarding shooting down satellites are pretty pointless when it's becoming easy for any group of people with money and access to the tech to do it...
SB
I live out on the SD/WY border, and the arguments out here about gun control are pretty hilarious - christian conservatives (think of the childern!) and liberal progressives (guns are bad!) arguing pro, everyone else (which is most everyone, out here) wondering wtf all these idiots are talking about ;)
The problem is a lot deeper than party affiliation. Many people out here think both sides are full of it...
SB
And extremists use the religious differences to fan that hatred into self-damaging levels of action.
On both sides...
But if we didn't interfere and exploit them, sure, the religious disagreement wouldn't go away, but it would settle down to the same level of agreeability that all relgious factions reach when you have mutual respect.
This is pure fantasy when applied to the human race as a whole.
SB
Cognitive dissonance is another way to describe religious fanaticism...
SB
Religion is the most effective manipulator of the masses.
Fixed it fer ya. ;)
SB
He found his path to wealth before he had the chance to develop any common sense or earn any wisdom.
It's a common human failing. Doesn't excuse it. He's trying to "correct" his public image. I wish him luck in that.
SB
Tech support, circa 198x: Teaching people how to use their operating systems and software.
Tech support, circa 2009: Virus removal, fixing broken MS Office updates, etc.
What were you talking about, again?
SB
Bite, don't nibble.
SB
As someone who *is* a "poor white person" (average annual income over the last twenty years under the "poverty line") I find your statement "offensive".
Drop the fucking political correctness for two minutes, will ya? Sheese. Don't propagate the stupidity any more than you have to.
SB
News Flash:
EVERYBODY is "allergic" to mosquito bites. That's what the swelling at the site of the bite is all about. It's called an immune reaction, read up on it.
SB (Who is originally from Minnesota and one of those people who is a mosquito magnet, which is why I live in a dry climate now where mosquitoes are almost unknown...)
Deliberately introducing synthetic toxins into one's environment is a bad idea no matter what spin one puts on it.
SB
Not as good as the shock value he would have had if he'd said "...and some of them are carrying malaria"...
SB
You could send something as simple as a yes/no - yes, I've read your message , or no, I haven't.
Add a few more entanglements to it, and you could send more. One time pad X wrt x. If this particular part gets read, yes; if that other part doesn't get read, no.
On/off? requiring a shared sequence.
Someone who understands it better, correct me and be more clear, please.
SB
That's better... but in my opinion, he should have extended the period to "after my administration of the White House is over".
That would really mean something.
SB
The fact that what is in the pits is a mystery contributes to the cleanup difficulty and the slow rate of progress. Lawsuits between contractors and the DOE halt cleanup projects for years or decades.
So have the military do it.
Record keeping for the waste pits all over the country were pretty bad.
Not an excuse for not dealing with it, although it does make it a lot harder to, I agree.
I did some work out at the Idaho National Lab where a lot of waste was shipped. Some of those pits were open into the '70s when there was some major flooding. Some barrels started to float so they shot them with rifles until they sank again.
Good grief. What in the hell were they thinking? Do you happen to have a cite for that, if you're still watching this thread, that is?
Did they sink into the same pit? There is a naval gun range out there and there are worries that some stray unexploded ordnance could be in the pits. And gods know what else.
Another stellar example of the sort of lack of common sense I was talking about. What sort of fool puts a nuclear waste site where it could be hit by stray test shots; or dumps unexploded ordnance into that same pit?
Same sort of fool that keeps blowing the problem off...
It's not easy to find a low bidding contractor to clean up when they aren't sure what is there.
Don't get me started about "lowest bidders" ;) A problem such as this needs to be contracted to the most competent and experienced bidder, not the lowest one. To do so otherwise is criminal negligence.
"We need you to clean up some nuclear waste buried in barrels. Mostly contaminated clothing and work waste. Oh, and the soil may need to be remediated due to leakage. Oh, but you might find an artillery shell or two, so be careful. And, well, there could be uranium or plutonium in a fissile quantity, so plan to deal with that, too. Oh, and if you do find some ordnance and it explodes it could create an nuclear explosion if there is nearby fissile material, so plan to contain that, too."
So what? If the government doesn't detail the potential for the hazards to the contractor, then the gov is at fault for not doing so, and if I were that contractor and I were lied to, I'd be suing the government too...
So do it RIGHT, dammit. Don't pussyfoot around the problem.
SB