Slashdot Mirror


User: Guspaz

Guspaz's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
4,511
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 4,511

  1. Re:free electricity! on NASA Tests Microwave Space Drive · · Score: 1

    What atmosphere would a 747 in space have to contend with? Of course it's absurd to have put a 747 in space to begin with, but then that was bluefoxlucid's example, not mine.

  2. Re:free electricity! on NASA Tests Microwave Space Drive · · Score: 5, Informative

    Luckily, there are existing electric propulsion technologies. They don't provide much thrust, but they're extraordinarily efficient (they require so little "fuel" as to effectively not be using any, with VASIMR producing roughly 10x-20x the fuel efficiency of chemical rockets, and the current VASIMR engine is very inefficient in terms of heat loss and such). The problem is that we've never had any large source of power in space, so while electric propulsion is great for getting your probe around the solar system with a minimum of fuel consumption, or perhaps automated cargo runs to some future colony that isn't time sensitive, they're not going to get you anywhere.

    However, if you fit a nuclear reactor inside a 747, strap a bunch of if VASIMR thrusters to it, then that'd actually work. You wouldn't get much thrust, though... the 200 kW VASIMR engine produces only 5N of thrust. If you put a nuclear reactor on the thing similar to what you'd find in a submarine, you'd get 300N of thrust. Compare that to the "Draco" rockets used by a SpaceX dragon as manoeuvring thrusters... they have 400N of thrust.

  3. Re:Not a big surprise on iFixit Takes Apart the Oculus Rift DK2, Finds Galaxy Note 3 Display Inside · · Score: 2

    Except in this case, Oculus and Samsung aren't operating as competitors, they have a partnership for producing VR devices? Samsung is contributing hardware to Oculus, and Oculus is contributing software to Samsung.

  4. Re:I thought that the OR2 delivered a 1080p displa on iFixit Takes Apart the Oculus Rift DK2, Finds Galaxy Note 3 Display Inside · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Dual screens was never in the plans for any Rift, why would it be a surprise or a disappointment? The consumer version is expected to use at least a 2560x1440 display.

  5. Re:NOT Samsung Exynos on Raspberry Pi-Compatible Development Board Released · · Score: 1

    Realize what now? The description said an Exynos for $30, and it isn't.

    The Pi is too slow to do things at which it would otherwise be well suited, like for digital signage applications. A cheap little machine that can be stuck on the back of a TV doing nothing but running a fullscreen web browser would be handy.

  6. Re:NOT Samsung Exynos on Raspberry Pi-Compatible Development Board Released · · Score: 1

    The description says an Exynos SoC for $30. The description is incorrect. Is it really so insane to have hoped that the information in the description was accurate?

  7. Enough is enough on Amazon's eBook Math · · Score: 2

    I'm sick of paying $16 for eBooks when the hardcover version sells for $12... I'm with Amazon on this one.

  8. Re:NOT Samsung Exynos on Raspberry Pi-Compatible Development Board Released · · Score: 1

    And it's too bad, too. The Raspberry Pi is a really neat little device, but the CPU performance limitations are really tough for a lot of use cases. As I read the description, I was excited at the idea of having an Exynos with modern ARM processors at the $30 pricepoint, but... nope.

  9. Re:I blame Obama if this fails. on Tesla and Panasonic Have Reached an Agreement On the Gigafactory · · Score: 1

    I was thinking of a different meaning of the word "stroke".

  10. Re:I blame Obama if this fails. on Tesla and Panasonic Have Reached an Agreement On the Gigafactory · · Score: 1

    *woosh*

  11. Re:I blame Obama if this fails. on Tesla and Panasonic Have Reached an Agreement On the Gigafactory · · Score: 2

    I'm amused at the mental image of something being destroyed by a "drone stroke".

  12. Re:I'll believe it when it actually happens. on eSports Starting To Go Mainstream · · Score: 1

    Or back into the 90s with Starcraft if you consider that DOTA was a port (albeit one with a significant increase in complexity) of Aeon of Strife.

  13. Re:SLS and comparing to spacex on SLS Project Coming Up $400 Million Short · · Score: 1

    Marlin 2 and Falcon XX were hypothetical, and SpaceX didn't go that direction. They're currently building the Raptor, a methane engine with more thrust than the Saturn V's F-1 engines, and the "BFR", which is basically the same idea as Falcon XX.

  14. Re:SLS and comparing to spacex on SLS Project Coming Up $400 Million Short · · Score: 2

    He did state publicly that he promised NASA that he could build a rocket comparable to the SLS on a fixed-price $2 billion contract (meaning NASA would not pay a dime for budget overruns), although that price didn't include any second-stage upgrades NASA might require to meet its needs.

    SpaceX is actually going ahead with their SLS-like competitor (Codenamed "BFR", I think you can guess what that stands for), and they're supposed to start testing on the methane-powered engines (Raptor) soon, which are supposed to be both more powerful and more efficient than the F-1 engines used in the Saturn V. However, without any customers paying for the R&D, BFR will take a lot longer to build than it would have if NASA contracted SpaceX to do it.

    So, yeah. SpaceX offered NASA a contract to build an entire replacement for the SLS for less than a year of SLS funding.

  15. Re:According to Wikipedia on SLS Project Coming Up $400 Million Short · · Score: 1

    Look at it this way, politicians produce so much hot air that you don't need a life-support system.

  16. Re:Can I go anywhere useful yet? on Long-range Electric Car World Speed Record Broken By Australian Students · · Score: 1

    Battery swaps are unbelievably more complex to swap than switching a standardized propane tank. EV batteries (for long-range EVs) are massively larger and heavier than a propane tank, and in some cases are actually structural parts of the vehicle. Tesla designed an automated system that works for the Model S, which knows where the bolts are on the battery to remove it from the car as well as exactly how much to tighten the bolts. It'd probably also work on the Model X, which uses the same battery packs. But what about the Model S, which won't? Now you've got to handle two different kinds of battery packs, potentially different sizes and shapes, with bolts in different places... And then, handling it for other manufacturers? It's not hard to create a charge station adapter, but handling battery packs that are completely different sizes/shapes? No way. They'd have to standardize to a degree that would be a severe restriction in car design.

  17. Re:Can I go anywhere useful yet? on Long-range Electric Car World Speed Record Broken By Australian Students · · Score: 1

    Tesla is just starting their expansion, sure, but the plan shows three superchargers between Montreal and Toronto alone...

    They build them along popular routes, with the plan being to have them ever few hundred kilometers. They're programmed into the satnav, so planning a road trip shouldn't be any more complicated than plugging your destination address into the car and hitting the gas peddle, with the car routing you to superchargers as required.

  18. Re:Can I go anywhere useful yet? on Long-range Electric Car World Speed Record Broken By Australian Students · · Score: 1

    That's a bit odd, no? If I leave my home in Montreal at 9AM to drive to Toronto, I'll stop at noon for lunch. I imagine most people don't drive 6-7 hours without a break.

  19. Re:Avoiding Amazon Web Services? on Amazon's Ambitious Bets Pile Up, and Its Losses Swell · · Score: 1, Troll

    You don't move to AWS if you care that much about budget; among cloud providers, they have some of the highest costs, and lowest performance. They're also one of the most flexible (in terms of what you can do), but there are a lot of mature cloud providers out there that will give you the same performance for a fraction the cost. Just not necessarily the breadth of services.

  20. Re:Avoiding Amazon Web Services? on Amazon's Ambitious Bets Pile Up, and Its Losses Swell · · Score: 1

    AWS is estimated to represent about $3 billion in revenue to Amazon, it's been a very long time since it had anything to do with Amazon's excess capacity.

  21. Re:Can I go anywhere useful yet? on Long-range Electric Car World Speed Record Broken By Australian Students · · Score: 2

    No, but I certainly wouldn't try to do those 6-7 hour drives in a gasoline car without a break either. If you're going to stop for a bite midway, why not charge up while you're at it? And then you're not increasing the length of your trip.

    Battery swaps might make this even less of an issue (a two minute pit stop rather than a thirty minute pit stop), but I'm a bit more skeptical about the practicality of those.

    With the charging networks coming along, saying that EVs can't do big trips is (or will shortly be) false. The question is how inconvenient a big trip will be, and I'd argue that as long as your EV can drive longer than you'd want to before taking a break, it's practical.

  22. It happened before on How a Solar Storm Two Years Ago Nearly Caused a Catastrophe On Earth · · Score: 5, Informative

    In the 80s, Quebec's power grid got taken out by solar storms. It was particularly susceptible because we have a ton of really long-distance runs:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    That one was just bad enough to flip circuit breakers on the grid, but it still caused a 9 hour power outage. Some satellites also lost control.

  23. Re:What flyout and back plan? on SpaceX Releases Video of Falcon Rocket's Splashdown · · Score: 3, Informative

    At the point where the booster separates, it has burned most of its fuel, and weighs a fraction as much as it did at launch. As a result, it requires far less fuel to kill its velocity and put itself on a trajectory back towards the launch site than the initial launch did (far less mass to accelerate on the return trip).

    It does still require some extra fuel (hence why they talk about having to use expendable Falcon 9s for missions that are close to the max payload capacity until they can get Falcon Heavy flying), but for small to medium sized cargoes, they have the fuel to burn.

  24. Re:Maybe it's just me ... on The "Rickmote Controller" Can Hijack Any Google Chromecast · · Score: 0

    They're not out $35, it's basically a jammer, and only works while in range of the chromecast's wifi.

    A wifi jammer would make the chromecast just as inoperable.

  25. Re:It's not really accepting Bitcoin any more than on Dell Starts Accepting Bitcoin · · Score: 1

    By your reasoning, Dell doesn't accept credit cards either.