I find this statement to be true more for computer monitors than for television screens. Too many people end up with TV screens so large that the individual pixels become annoyingly visible. HD mitigates this, but most channels still use SD.
Pick a TV screen size that's appropriate for your viewing distance, instead of the bigger == better fallacy.
That would be an advantage in some cases (e.g. practicing in a non-soundproof room in an apartment building). Finally, a brass instrument that can be played quietly if so desired.
Whoa there. There was no bashing going on in my comment.
GP said "...the massive foresight it must have taken at launch time to make them relevant decades later". I thought GP was referring to Gravity Probe B. GP was launched 7 years ago, not decades. Its equipment was developed specifically for this mission. Development took a long time, but the ultimate goal was always clear, in other words Gravity Probe B's results are due to proper planning. Not 'foresight'.
Foresight is defined as "The ability to predict... what will happen or be needed in the future". In this context, I assumed that GP meant 'a probe was launched decades ago with some instruments on board that we, decades later, figured out to be useful for confirming Einstein's predictions'.
the massive foresight it must have taken at launch time to make them relevant decades later,
The satellite we're talking about here was launched in 2004. The project ran for much longer, that time was spent developing the technology. FTFA:
Decades of research and testing led to groundbreaking technologies to control environmental disturbances that could affect the spacecraft, such as aerodynamic drag, magnetic fields and thermal variations. Furthermore, the mission's star tracker and gyroscopes were the most precise ever designed and produced.
Very impressive research, yes. 'Massive foresight', not so much.
Beta vs VHS -> Sony collected royalties for over two decades on Beta in the form of Betacam recording and the professional TV industry (where image quality did in fact matter more).
The only thing Betacam and Betamax have in common is the physical tape cassette. Betacam ran at ~6x the speed of Betamax and used a different recording format to achieve much higher quality.
DAT vs standard audiotape vs CD Audio -> DAT was actually very popular in Europe and Asia for a good while. Licensing restrictions and "piracy worries" kept it mostly out of the US thanks to the MafiAA.
DAT was popular in the professional audio industry as it was the first relatively affordable digital recording medium. Still, the technology used meant it was much more expensive initially than the analogue cassettes it replaced. The digital copy protection imposed by the *AA was an issue in Europe as much as the USA. Lack of sales volume kept the price high.
After the Chernobyl accident, the team that had created the Lunokhod rovers was asked to build remote-controlled vehicles (RCV) to help clean up. The RCV's first task was to remove reactor debris (chunks of graphite from the core) from a roof, by pushing it off the edge of the roof. The RCVs worked well; eventually though they failed due to the radiation. This despite them being rad-hardened, as the original Lunokhods had been powered by an RTG.
And another remote that tries to confine a computer UI into the classic TV remote. Granted, adding the keyboard is a nice touch, but it's still too limited.
I've been using a mediacenter computer for a few years now. The remote control solution I use: - keyboard - mouse - Griffin Powermate
1. a mouse makes for a much better pointing device than a four-way button 2. the keyboard and VLC's configurability gives me dedicated buttons for VLC's functions, like very short jump/short jump/medium jump/long jump; crop/aspect ratio; subtitles. Much better than the buttons on this remote which are straight copies from a VCR UI. 3. the best way to control volume is a rotary knob. The Powermate is ideal for this. I never want to go back to the incredibly annoying +/- buttons on a remote.
Usually, transparency is a good thing. In this case though, wouldn't the smart play have been to let sleeping dogs lie? Karim can't have been the only terrorist to rely on breakable encryption.
That's incorrect. The Buran program included a number of airframes. One of them, OK-GLI, was an atmospheric test bed. It featured four jet engines so it could take off under its own power. It was used to test the glide characteristics of the airframe. OK-GLI is now on display in Speyer. Maybe your confusion stems from the fact that both the program and the first shuttle in that program to be used for an orbital flight (OK-1K1) were named Buran.
Agreed. If that's your goal, you could prepare an extension cord with appropriately-sized alligator clips [1], so you could hook it up to any car battery directly. You'll need to keep a roll of duct tape around so you can insulate the clips once you've attached them.
The only drawback of that set is that it's unfused. That's necessary for jumpstarting, but for powering something else it's better to have a fuse in there, preferably as near the battery as possible.
Unfortunately my entire plant draws just a little too much for the cigarette lighter plug, probably 15 amps total. If I could invest in new phones / new servers / etc and...
Your car can easily supply 15A. It's just the crappy cigarette lighter plug that can't handle that load. It's pretty simple to add a custom power socket to your car though.
If you do this, do get some heavy-gauge wiring to run from the car to your servers. At 12V, wiring losses add up, and cabling can get pretty warm if it's not thick enough. .
ISTR that 90% of emergency calls are not emergencies but pranks and non-emergency police/firebrigade/ambulance business. That's what this is designed to cut down on.
In additions to the reasons already mentioned, keeping a big, heavy turbine running at 50/60 Hz in an earthquake is likely to (violently) destroy the turbine. So you need to stop the turbine, which means you've got to stop producing steam. In case of a BWR, the steam is radioactive so you can't vent it so you have to scram the reactor.
It's my observation that short charging times lead to early battery replacement. I'd rather the charger take it a bit slower and avoid overheating or overcharging the battery.
Tax evasion, I guess. Over here (.nl) married couples can fine a combined tax return that results in the couple paying lower taxes than they would have paid as two separate households. Also things like inheritance (spouses pay a lower estate tax).
The most compact nuclear power plants around (naval units used in submarines) weigh about 1000 tons. These use highly enriched uranium, so they would be seen as a security risk. Containerizing this unit would mean at least 50 40-ft containers (with each container at its maximum weight), you probably need more because most containers won't reach this density. That would give something like 80 MW. Considering that a 20-ft container can hold at least a 1-MW diesel generator with its fuel supply, having a containerized nuclear reactor would seem to hold little advantage over diesel gensets.
There's also the problem that you really want the reactor vessel and the primary coolant loop as one unit, since you can't easily disconnect these once the reactor has been active and has irradiated the primary loop. Now the reactor vessel alone is larger than a standard container. You'd end up with a very large and heavy undivisible central unit.
You'd be better off leaving the reactor on a ship and just running a cable ashore. For smaller power needs, existing containerized diesel gensets are a good solution.
For glasses/sunglasses this isn't so hard since you can easily clean the lenses in a sink with soap.
Uh, do you actually wear glasses? Mine need cleaning every day, and I'm not going to take the time to do it in a sink. I mostly use a soft cloth instead.
Slashdot Mirror
elements name YOU!
I find this statement to be true more for computer monitors than for television screens. Too many people end up with TV screens so large that the individual pixels become annoyingly visible. HD mitigates this, but most channels still use SD.
Pick a TV screen size that's appropriate for your viewing distance, instead of the bigger == better fallacy.
The site works well for me; I've got my account prefs set to use the old Discussion System (D1).
And it requires speakers.
That would be an advantage in some cases (e.g. practicing in a non-soundproof room in an apartment building). Finally, a brass instrument that can be played quietly if so desired.
Whoa there. There was no bashing going on in my comment.
GP said "...the massive foresight it must have taken at launch time to make them relevant decades later". I thought GP was referring to Gravity Probe B. GP was launched 7 years ago, not decades. Its equipment was developed specifically for this mission. Development took a long time, but the ultimate goal was always clear, in other words Gravity Probe B's results are due to proper planning. Not 'foresight'.
Foresight is defined as "The ability to predict ... what will happen or be needed in the future". In this context, I assumed that GP meant 'a probe was launched decades ago with some instruments on board that we, decades later, figured out to be useful for confirming Einstein's predictions'.
the massive foresight it must have taken at launch time to make them relevant decades later,
The satellite we're talking about here was launched in 2004. The project ran for much longer, that time was spent developing the technology. FTFA:
Decades of research and testing led to groundbreaking technologies to control environmental disturbances that could affect the spacecraft, such as aerodynamic drag, magnetic fields and thermal variations. Furthermore, the mission's star tracker and gyroscopes were the most precise ever designed and produced.
Very impressive research, yes. 'Massive foresight', not so much.
Beta vs VHS -> Sony collected royalties for over two decades on Beta in the form of Betacam recording and the professional TV industry (where image quality did in fact matter more).
The only thing Betacam and Betamax have in common is the physical tape cassette. Betacam ran at ~6x the speed of Betamax and used a different recording format to achieve much higher quality.
DAT vs standard audiotape vs CD Audio -> DAT was actually very popular in Europe and Asia for a good while. Licensing restrictions and "piracy worries" kept it mostly out of the US thanks to the MafiAA.
DAT was popular in the professional audio industry as it was the first relatively affordable digital recording medium. Still, the technology used meant it was much more expensive initially than the analogue cassettes it replaced. The digital copy protection imposed by the *AA was an issue in Europe as much as the USA. Lack of sales volume kept the price high.
After the Chernobyl accident, the team that had created the Lunokhod rovers was asked to build remote-controlled vehicles (RCV) to help clean up. The RCV's first task was to remove reactor debris (chunks of graphite from the core) from a roof, by pushing it off the edge of the roof. The RCVs worked well; eventually though they failed due to the radiation. This despite them being rad-hardened, as the original Lunokhods had been powered by an RTG.
I wonder if it would be feasible to use one of the intact reactors on the site (unit 5 or 6) to boil the water.
And another remote that tries to confine a computer UI into the classic TV remote. Granted, adding the keyboard is a nice touch, but it's still too limited.
I've been using a mediacenter computer for a few years now. The remote control solution I use:
- keyboard
- mouse
- Griffin Powermate
1. a mouse makes for a much better pointing device than a four-way button
2. the keyboard and VLC's configurability gives me dedicated buttons for VLC's functions, like very short jump/short jump/medium jump/long jump; crop/aspect ratio; subtitles. Much better than the buttons on this remote which are straight copies from a VCR UI.
3. the best way to control volume is a rotary knob. The Powermate is ideal for this. I never want to go back to the incredibly annoying +/- buttons on a remote.
Usually, transparency is a good thing. In this case though, wouldn't the smart play have been to let sleeping dogs lie? Karim can't have been the only terrorist to rely on breakable encryption.
That's incorrect. The Buran program included a number of airframes. One of them, OK-GLI, was an atmospheric test bed. It featured four jet engines so it could take off under its own power. It was used to test the glide characteristics of the airframe.
OK-GLI is now on display in Speyer.
Maybe your confusion stems from the fact that both the program and the first shuttle in that program to be used for an orbital flight (OK-1K1) were named Buran.
If a Shuttle comes to Europe, I'd argue it should go to the Technical Museum in Speyer, D. They already have a Buran (the atmospheric test bed).
Agreed. If that's your goal, you could prepare an extension cord with appropriately-sized alligator clips [1], so you could hook it up to any car battery directly. You'll need to keep a roll of duct tape around so you can insulate the clips once you've attached them.
1: e.g. the ones found on jump leads.
The only drawback of that set is that it's unfused. That's necessary for jumpstarting, but for powering something else it's better to have a fuse in there, preferably as near the battery as possible.
Unfortunately my entire plant draws just a little too much for the cigarette lighter plug, probably 15 amps total. If I could invest in new phones / new servers / etc and ...
Your car can easily supply 15A. It's just the crappy cigarette lighter plug that can't handle that load. It's pretty simple to add a custom power socket to your car though.
If you do this, do get some heavy-gauge wiring to run from the car to your servers. At 12V, wiring losses add up, and cabling can get pretty warm if it's not thick enough. .
ISTR that 90% of emergency calls are not emergencies but pranks and non-emergency police/firebrigade/ambulance business. That's what this is designed to cut down on.
In additions to the reasons already mentioned, keeping a big, heavy turbine running at 50/60 Hz in an earthquake is likely to (violently) destroy the turbine.
So you need to stop the turbine, which means you've got to stop producing steam. In case of a BWR, the steam is radioactive so you can't vent it so you have to scram the reactor.
I don't organize my films. Any information I want can be found through IMDB, I'm nog going to replicate that at home. Titles are enough.
It's my observation that short charging times lead to early battery replacement. I'd rather the charger take it a bit slower and avoid overheating or overcharging the battery.
Tax evasion, I guess. Over here (.nl) married couples can fine a combined tax return that results in the couple paying lower taxes than they would have paid as two separate households.
Also things like inheritance (spouses pay a lower estate tax).
The most compact nuclear power plants around (naval units used in submarines) weigh about 1000 tons. These use highly enriched uranium, so they would be seen as a security risk.
Containerizing this unit would mean at least 50 40-ft containers (with each container at its maximum weight), you probably need more because most containers won't reach this density. That would give something like 80 MW. Considering that a 20-ft container can hold at least a 1-MW diesel generator with its fuel supply, having a containerized nuclear reactor would seem to hold little advantage over diesel gensets.
There's also the problem that you really want the reactor vessel and the primary coolant loop as one unit, since you can't easily disconnect these once the reactor has been active and has irradiated the primary loop.
Now the reactor vessel alone is larger than a standard container. You'd end up with a very large and heavy undivisible central unit.
You'd be better off leaving the reactor on a ship and just running a cable ashore. For smaller power needs, existing containerized diesel gensets are a good solution.
For glasses/sunglasses this isn't so hard since you can easily clean the lenses in a sink with soap.
Uh, do you actually wear glasses? Mine need cleaning every day, and I'm not going to take the time to do it in a sink. I mostly use a soft cloth instead.
The video makes it look like it does. Or is this a consequence of the zoom factor used, and did Cassini pass the equator outside of the rings?
No.