A sinister program to create protective goggles? Do you even work with lasers? If you're using a laser to destroy something metal, there's a good chance of reflections. But somehow, you translated this into a weapon designed for blinding people. Yeah, I'll admit, if you're hit in the head with a 100kw laser, you'll be blind. And smoking.
Microwave weapons were abandoned because they were unwieldy, blocked by foliage, and you couldn't protect the soldier from his own weapon. Microwaves "Crawl" along metal surfaces, so you'd be slowly cooking yourself.
Poison gas is not precise enough and works too slowly.
Land mines work great. Just because some countries aren't mature enough to use them doesn't mean that you should penalize the mature countries. I don't accept "Catering to the lowest denomination" in my personal life. I certainly wouldn't accept it in an international arena.
Yes, the US really IS the good guys. Think about that for a while.
Yeah they created the modern world, two THOUSAND years ago.
We're talking about the country that exists today. Now. The stability that made them the most advanced culture in the world also stopped their progression.
And I'm not talking about "Cool" or "Uncool". You're never going to be a world leader if your plan is to simply copy what the world leader has. You're just another follower then.
" It blows my mind everytime they guide something down that took millions too get up there instead of coming up with a way to get stuff into a parking orbit. "
I always figured the Hubble's main lens would make a great start for a 0-g foundry.
You know, focusing the sun's light onto unrefined ore to melt it.
Gee, with some wire and some magnets, a pole and anything that floated, they could generate plenty of power from the waves.
Or paint a box black, fill it with water and cover it over with glass and put it outside. Steam! Woo!
You said that desalination was HARD. Not that cutting off the power supply would make living there impossible. Stick with your original arguments and learn to loose gracefully.
Boil water, vent steam to a cool container which will condense it back to water.
Oooooo. That's rough! How can they possibly master such a difficult proccess?
From a desalination website:
"The second method is distillation where seawater is heated to produce steam, which is then condensed to produce water with a low salt concentration and few of the other impurities contained in the original water."
I just think WW3 will happen eventually, maybe for reasons that are completely unfathomable to us now. Please explain why you think it can't.
Because for it to happen, the alternative would have to be just as bad. So you have nothing to loose. And before you go on about how a madman can get their hands on a nuclear arsenal, it's not that simple. A nuke can't just lay there waiting to be used. They need periodic maintenance by intelligent workers, otherwise they stop working. So, for an end of the world scenario to happen, someone would have to gain access to and be able to use ALL of the world's nukes. Which happen to be in working order.
I am well aware of the concepts of deterrence. I just think WW3 will happen eventually, maybe for reasons that are completely unfathomable to us now. Please explain why you think it can't.
No, no NO. You deliberately cut out the point I was making. Which was "It's possible, but considering that those two countries have had all the reasons in the would to go to nuclear war with each other, and haven't then the chances of nuclear war are far slimmer than you originally thought."
prior humanity. What if Hitler had nukes? Or Hussein? Or Al Qaida?
Woulda, coulda, shoulda. How about a comparison against something that actually exists instead of these bogeymen you've conjured. This connects to my "Maintenance men" point I made above.
1. People kill each other in large groups, yes. But to assume that they would do something in an uncontrolled, runaway reaction is ridiculous. The people in charge of wars do their damnest to not put themselves in danger. Have faith in humanities cowardice and self-interest. So no, I don't think people have changed.:)
2. Hmm, Devastating. "To lay waste; destroy." Well that's just incorrect. The most devastating weapon mankind has in its possession is the Megaton nukes. We're not creating/developing more powerful nukes. We are designing more ACCURATE weapons. Nukes are old school; the military now wants weapons that take out a target, and just the target, in one shot.
Heck, they don't even want to use nukes if they don't have to because of the political fallout. Fuel-air bombs are the new darling of the military. The power of a small nuke and none of the radiation.
Well, seeing how everything is growing really well on that "Poisoned" bit of land. Maybe your definition of poison isn't the same as the rest of the world.
1 A substance that causes injury, illness, or death, especially by chemical means.
You can't use economic arguments. Why? Because our current economics don't take into account the cost of pollution (externalities) -- what makes you think that things will change in 50 years? Has current pollution made us change? Please.
Um, yes? Two things, first, you CAN use economic arguments. Materials have been getting cheaper and cheaper. It's not like we just run a pipe from the river to our homes. That water already goes though a lot of processing.
Second, we have far less pollution around than when I was a kid. So, by using the WWF logic, we'll have no pollution by 2050!
"It must be stated that, at the out-set of these experiments, the researcher was completely ignorant of microwave technology."
Ack, I'm caught between rolling my eyes and saying "Well, a lot of progress is made by people who don't know what they shouldn't be doing."
What the hell, good luck guys. If you plan on reaching 900 degrees, I strongly suggest tearing apart that microwave and rebuilding it out of stuff that can take the heat.
Well, we'll ignore the fact that with these new savings, the airplane can travel non-stop to pretty much anywhere.
I'm assuming you're saying that it's 30-60$ of fuel per passanger. Which would be a bad metric because the plane is rarely at full capacity.
"Southwest Airlines is the fifth largest airline company in America, operating more than 2,100 flights per day."
Lets try approaching this from a different angle. SW Airlines has about 750,000 flights a year. In this scenerio, if they switched over completely to this new design, their fuel costs would go down 30%. Essentally, 225,000 flights are now fueled for FREE.
It gets better. Many people buy tickets purely by price. Now that you can undercut the competition, your planes have far more seats with passangers. Where the competion has empty seats, which cost money to fly to the next airport.
On top of that, the empty seats on the new planes are less financally damaging to the company the the empty seats in a less efficient plane.
Personally, I'd love to see this plane produced. It's time that the Airlines modernized their airframes.
I'm really amazed at the cluelessness of Slashdot this time around. From the guy who thinks 30% isn't a large saving, to the people who have no idea how a business is run.
To the guys who think the design is doomed because it doesn't fit with in airports RIGHT THIS SECOND.
Either we've been overrun by trolls, or all the intelligent people have left.
A 15 hour cross country trip in a train? Have you even tried to book a train trip...ever?
In an attempt to save money, I looked to see how much it would cost to take the train to Denver, from the middle of Illinois. Not only did it cost the same, but the train trip would take TWO DAYS.
To travel about 1000 miles.
Amtrack is loosing money, the airlines are making money. You say that the only reason is because they aren't properly accounting for it's enviromental costs? Fine. What are the enviromental costs for a train? Also, don't forget that time is money too. Add in those costs to your calculations.
Slashdot Mirror
If this isn't the most....sigh.
A sinister program to create protective goggles?
Do you even work with lasers? If you're using a laser to destroy something metal, there's a good chance of reflections. But somehow, you translated this into a weapon designed for blinding people. Yeah, I'll admit, if you're hit in the head with a 100kw laser, you'll be blind. And smoking.
Microwave weapons were abandoned because they were unwieldy, blocked by foliage, and you couldn't protect the soldier from his own weapon. Microwaves "Crawl" along metal surfaces, so you'd be slowly cooking yourself.
Poison gas is not precise enough and works too slowly.
Land mines work great. Just because some countries aren't mature enough to use them doesn't mean that you should penalize the mature countries. I don't accept "Catering to the lowest denomination" in my personal life. I certainly wouldn't accept it in an international arena.
Yes, the US really IS the good guys. Think about that for a while.
You guys saw him admitting that Linux made them change their ways.
I read it as "The reason the cost of Windows hasn't gone down is because of Linux."
Hey, it was in his HEAD.
How much functional hardware can YOU stick in your head? None? Well then 160GB is pretty damn impressive.
I thought all the land was owned by Royalty back then, and the people were leased it. Or something.
Yeah they created the modern world, two THOUSAND years ago.
We're talking about the country that exists today. Now. The stability that made them the most advanced culture in the world also stopped their progression.
And I'm not talking about "Cool" or "Uncool". You're never going to be a world leader if your plan is to simply copy what the world leader has. You're just another follower then.
Yeah, but I don't see them CREATING anything!
Everything I hear about China is their ability to copy stuff! Wooo. China, the world's biggest copy center.
" It blows my mind everytime they guide something down that took millions too get up there instead of coming up with a way to get stuff into a parking orbit. "
I always figured the Hubble's main lens would make a great start for a 0-g foundry.
You know, focusing the sun's light onto unrefined ore to melt it.
Gee, with some wire and some magnets, a pole and anything that floated, they could generate plenty of power from the waves.
Or paint a box black, fill it with water and cover it over with glass and put it outside. Steam! Woo!
You said that desalination was HARD. Not that cutting off the power supply would make living there impossible. Stick with your original arguments and learn to loose gracefully.
Or learn how to make your point.
Not as simple as you'd like it to be?
Boil water, vent steam to a cool container which will condense it back to water.
Oooooo. That's rough! How can they possibly master such a difficult proccess?
From a desalination website:
"The second method is distillation where seawater is heated to produce steam, which is then condensed to produce water with a low salt concentration and few of the other impurities contained in the original water."
Because for it to happen, the alternative would have to be just as bad. So you have nothing to loose. And before you go on about how a madman can get their hands on a nuclear arsenal, it's not that simple. A nuke can't just lay there waiting to be used. They need periodic maintenance by intelligent workers, otherwise they stop working. So, for an end of the world scenario to happen, someone would have to gain access to and be able to use ALL of the world's nukes. Which happen to be in working order.
I am well aware of the concepts of deterrence. I just think WW3 will happen eventually, maybe for reasons that are completely unfathomable to us now. Please explain why you think it can't.
No, no NO. You deliberately cut out the point I was making. Which was "It's possible, but considering that those two countries have had all the reasons in the would to go to nuclear war with each other, and haven't then the chances of nuclear war are far slimmer than you originally thought."
prior humanity. What if Hitler had nukes? Or Hussein? Or Al Qaida?
Woulda, coulda, shoulda. How about a comparison against something that actually exists instead of these bogeymen you've conjured. This connects to my "Maintenance men" point I made above.
1. People kill each other in large groups, yes. But to assume that they would do something in an uncontrolled, runaway reaction is ridiculous. The people in charge of wars do their damnest to not put themselves in danger. Have faith in humanities cowardice and self-interest. So no, I don't think people have changed. :)
2. Hmm, Devastating. "To lay waste; destroy." Well that's just incorrect. The most devastating weapon mankind has in its possession is the Megaton nukes. We're not creating/developing more powerful nukes. We are designing more ACCURATE weapons. Nukes are old school; the military now wants weapons that take out a target, and just the target, in one shot.
Heck, they don't even want to use nukes if they don't have to because of the political fallout. Fuel-air bombs are the new darling of the military. The power of a small nuke and none of the radiation.
Why do you think that if someone has a 15 megaton warhead, they'll go "Lets use it!"
Hiroshima was 15 Kt, but it was the most "Unclean" nuke we've ever made.
Nuclear war will not happen eventually, the use of nuclear weapons will probably happen again. But the doomsday cold war scenario is pretty much dead.
Look at India and Pakistan. Both armed with nukes, at war, religious extremists on at least one side. Still, no nukes being fired.
What kind of conditions is it going to take to get these people to fire a nuclear missile at each other?
And just because you have access to more powerful bombs, doesn't mean they're going to be used. Your grasp of how the military works is weak.
And you have no idea if we're too powerful for our own good. What are you supposed to compare us against?
Interesting, would you consider his "Bio of a Space Tyrant" series to not be one of his earlier books?
Oh really? Then how do you explain that the current North American reproduction rate is TWO?
As in, for every couple, they have two children. Woah! How are we going to be able to handle that kind of population growth!?
People don't stop reproducing totally. That's ridiculous. But when given the tools they don't have more children than they can handle.
Statistically speaking.
Eh, I'd like to make an adjustment to "So stop worrying!"
It's ok to worry, but stop freaking out. It's not constructive.
Poisoned eh?
Well, seeing how everything is growing really well on that "Poisoned" bit of land. Maybe your definition of poison isn't the same as the rest of the world.
1 A substance that causes injury, illness, or death, especially by chemical means.
2 Something destructive or fatal.
Remember, English is the language of Slashdot.
Um, yes? Two things, first, you CAN use economic arguments. Materials have been getting cheaper and cheaper. It's not like we just run a pipe from the river to our homes. That water already goes though a lot of processing.
Second, we have far less pollution around than when I was a kid. So, by using the WWF logic, we'll have no pollution by 2050!
Hey, wanna go to Hiroshima with me? I hear it's a great tourist trap. I'm sure it shouldn't be that hard to find a hotel there.
Oh wait, that can't be true! The area must be uninhabitable for hundreds or thousands of years!
That lush forrest is not fooling you!
People keep saying this, but unless the inside of your case was put together with airflow in mind, I don't see this happening.
I've noticed my computer is far cooler without the case than with.
Get a modern IDE burner with "Burn-proof" technology.
You'll never make another coaster again.
Originally, I had bought a SCSI card and SCSI 4x burner for two reasons.
One was reliablility. I didn't want to make any coasters. It's never given me one in fact.
Two, from everything I had read, burning speeds for IDE would never go beyond 2x.
Cost for card and burner? 600$
Removed card and burner last week and replaced them with a 40x IDE burner that cost me 100$.
Ah well. The price for being cutting edge.
Do you also have the word "Bitch" torn out of the family dictionary?
"It must be stated that, at the out-set of these experiments, the researcher was completely ignorant of microwave technology."
Ack, I'm caught between rolling my eyes and saying "Well, a lot of progress is made by people who don't know what they shouldn't be doing."
What the hell, good luck guys. If you plan on reaching 900 degrees, I strongly suggest tearing apart that microwave and rebuilding it out of stuff that can take the heat.
Well, we'll ignore the fact that with these new savings, the airplane can travel non-stop to pretty much anywhere.
I'm assuming you're saying that it's 30-60$ of fuel per passanger. Which would be a bad metric because the plane is rarely at full capacity.
"Southwest Airlines is the fifth largest airline company in America, operating more than 2,100 flights per day."
Lets try approaching this from a different angle. SW Airlines has about 750,000 flights a year. In this scenerio, if they switched over completely to this new design, their fuel costs would go down 30%. Essentally, 225,000 flights are now fueled for FREE.
It gets better. Many people buy tickets purely by price. Now that you can undercut the competition, your planes have far more seats with passangers. Where the competion has empty seats, which cost money to fly to the next airport.
On top of that, the empty seats on the new planes are less financally damaging to the company the the empty seats in a less efficient plane.
Personally, I'd love to see this plane produced. It's time that the Airlines modernized their airframes.
I'm really amazed at the cluelessness of Slashdot this time around. From the guy who thinks 30% isn't a large saving, to the people who have no idea how a business is run.
To the guys who think the design is doomed because it doesn't fit with in airports RIGHT THIS SECOND.
Either we've been overrun by trolls, or all the intelligent people have left.
A 15 hour cross country trip in a train? Have you even tried to book a train trip...ever?
In an attempt to save money, I looked to see how much it would cost to take the train to Denver, from the middle of Illinois. Not only did it cost the same, but the train trip would take TWO DAYS.
To travel about 1000 miles.
Amtrack is loosing money, the airlines are making money. You say that the only reason is because they aren't properly accounting for it's enviromental costs? Fine. What are the enviromental costs for a train? Also, don't forget that time is money too. Add in those costs to your calculations.
Yeah, the horror. Stop treating your people like the stuff you scrape off the bottom of your shoe.