Yes and no. It's disposable in the sense that the science done on this cyclotron won't be lost when the hardware is scrapped. But I find it does help to be able to see and experience the hardware even if it's not useful anymore. I've visited a number of science and technology museums over the years, and even if I'm familiar with the ideas behind the artefacts shown, they never fail to shed new light on the knowledge I already have.
We inevitably attach sentiment to things like cars or houses or boats or gigantic cyclotrons but they are just...things. There's a large gap between preserving nothing and preserving everything. The Navy ends up preserving only the most notable and interesting ships, the same thing applies to scientific equipment.
I use grep regularly enough to know generally how to build an expression, but not often enough to know each (I use grep in 3-4 different editors) application's quirks/implementation details off the top of my head, so I end up having to look up something regularly. I always use the application's Help file rather than the grep manual I've got laying around somewhere. Opening the Help file for the app and using its search function is a lot quicker than having to leaf through a book (worse when the book has a bad index). The only time this is annoying is when I've got a lack of screen real estate, but that's usually when I'm on the road and won't have access to any books anyway.
These chips use moving parts. TFA mentions concerns over the longevity of the read/write element, but I'd expect the rest of the system to be more vulnerable than solid-state memory as well. With thousands of read/write probes working in parallel, there are lots of points of failure. Also, a mechanical system would have to be pretty incredible to beat the access times offered by current memory.
As to the problem of how to use 1 TB of RAM, spending any time at all thinking of this is foolish and wasteful.
You may have come up with all sorts of amazing ideas. But none of them would have done you any good, because the developers (Mostly Microsoft, but Linux is far from lean and mean any more either) already decided what to do with it, And where did those developers come up with those ideas? Microsoft's decisions in this area may be driven mostly by corporate greed, but we've got the chance to do something different with Linux. This is the time to start thinking about the great stuff we can add to version X+2 of the Linux kernel.
Accepting the status quo is what's foolish and (ultimately) wasteful when it comes to computers.
Me, I'd go with a real live mule instead for all applications you'd use this in. Same payload capacity, not much bigger, totally silent, self-refuelling, costs $hundreds rather than $hojillions. Self-refueling? That rather depends on the terrain you're on. Totally silent? Until it brays (or whatever mules do) at exactly the wrong moment and ruins your ambush. Livestock needs to be taken care of every day, is much more maintenance-intensive than anything mechanical. It also can't be stowed in a container for easy long-range transport.
I frankly don't see the actual use in war, besides transporting things, Um, that "besides" you're brushing off so easily is a pretty big one. Today, a common load carried by (US) infantry soldiers weighs around 45 kg. That's a LOT to be lugging around, and it's increasing due to new equipment being added (plus its batteries) and more stringent requirements on e.g. body armor. If you can offload half that onto a mechanical dog, the effectiveness of your unit would increase dramatically. War is mostly a logistical operation with some fighting going on at the fringes. Anything that improves the logistics gives you an advantage.
Comparing aero engines to auto engines isn't even a remotely fair comparison. Maybe. I'm not saying aero engines should develop 100 bhp/litre, though. I'm just observing that the car industry has seen lots of progress, in terms of efficiency and reliability (maintenance intervals are 10x longer now than then, plus breakdowns are basically nonexistent) as well as specific power, which contrasts your claims that modern aero engines are basically the same as 50 years ago rather starkly.
I appreciate the overriding need for safety, but 'no progress at all' is rather underwhelming.
GA may be doing well now, but e.g. Cessna didn't produce anything between 1986 and 1992. In roughly that timeframe, investment in new technology would have been zero. It's only recently that a few new options (like the aftermarket diesels you mentioned) have become available.
"A plane like a Cessna 310 twin engine airplane first flew in 1953 with engines that are extremely inefficient and underpowered relative to today's engines." Bullshit. For all practical purposes, the horizontally opposed piston engine that's in an aircraft now is exactly the same as the one that was put in a new aircraft 50 years ago. Yes, and that was the GP's point. The cost of certifying new designs is hideous, so Lycoming keeps cranking out the same old design with minor variations. I'll bet they still use magnetos instead of en electronic engine management system. FADEC is common on turbine engines these days, so why not on recips?
The 30 bhp/litre you mention illustrates the point. In 50 years, car engines have on average doubled their specific power, and performance cars routinely exceed 100 bhp/litre now. More power can come at a cost in terms of reliability, but there's no technical reason a safe aircraft engine can't be made that exceeds 30 bhp/l. The only reason is economical: thanks to litigation, the general aviation industry has been in the tank with no money to invest in new designs. In the mean time, car companies have spent billions on the internal combustion engine.
The bottom line, though, is that despite what the auto companies might like you to think, there have not been any truly revolutionary developments in the design of the reciprocating internal combustion engine in well over 50 years. Sure there have. Digital engine management is the big one, turbocharging may have been around forever but modern manufacturing and (again) digital engine management are enabling a renaissance of its use in cars to achieve unheard-of levels of economy (including weight savings that should have the aviation industry salivating at the prospect).
If it takes three weeks to forge one vessel, why can they only produce four vessels per year?
Also, the forging is described as a cylinder, which leaves the top and bottom of the pressure vessel. How do you weld 30 cm thick steel? ISTR reading about submarine construction (which use a pressure hull maybe a few cm thick) where welding the hull sections had to take place at night because daytime operations would overload the local power grid. These vessels would be even more difficult to weld correctly.
A superconducting grid would be nice, but (assuming current-day superconductors which require liquid nitrogen for cooling) is decidedly nontrivial to build and maintain. Copper/aluminium wire can easily be strung between towers. A superconducting wire has to be enclosed by the cooling medium, making the 'cable' assembly unwieldy and I suspect putting the assembly underground becomes the only option.
There's also the failure modes to consider: losing the cooling probably means the wire will melt.
For every citizen who uses the location data of a firetruck to avoid the fire, there'll be 10 moronic disaster tourists who'll turn up at every fire.
Re:Comics as real literature
on
Reading Comics
·
· Score: 1
Why allow something as arbitrary and nonsensical as the concept of "literature" to enter the picture at all? Comics need no validation beyond your enjoyment of them.
The module is not designed to survive re-entry. ESA is studying a modified version that allows re-entry with a crew on board.
'Human launch capability' also depends on the launch rocket. I suspect the Ariane V isn't man-rated. That may be a matter of certification, or the G-loading may be too high for humans.
Slashdot Mirror
How about making sure Clarke Orbit becomes the common name for the geostationary orbit?
I wonder how strong that magnet is.
Some of its parts have been sent to the Smithsonian years ago. All that's left is the magnet.
I use grep regularly enough to know generally how to build an expression, but not often enough to know each (I use grep in 3-4 different editors) application's quirks/implementation details off the top of my head, so I end up having to look up something regularly. I always use the application's Help file rather than the grep manual I've got laying around somewhere.
Opening the Help file for the app and using its search function is a lot quicker than having to leaf through a book (worse when the book has a bad index). The only time this is annoying is when I've got a lack of screen real estate, but that's usually when I'm on the road and won't have access to any books anyway.
1. Make the haystack smaller, and/or
2. Make the needle(s) bigger You forgot
3. Run the haystack through an MRI machine.
These chips use moving parts. TFA mentions concerns over the longevity of the read/write element, but I'd expect the rest of the system to be more vulnerable than solid-state memory as well. With thousands of read/write probes working in parallel, there are lots of points of failure. Also, a mechanical system would have to be pretty incredible to beat the access times offered by current memory.
Accepting the status quo is what's foolish and (ultimately) wasteful when it comes to computers.
Livestock needs to be taken care of every day, is much more maintenance-intensive than anything mechanical. It also can't be stowed in a container for easy long-range transport.
If you can offload half that onto a mechanical dog, the effectiveness of your unit would increase dramatically.
War is mostly a logistical operation with some fighting going on at the fringes. Anything that improves the logistics gives you an advantage.
Nobody expects the Federal Inquisition!
I appreciate the overriding need for safety, but 'no progress at all' is rather underwhelming.
GA may be doing well now, but e.g. Cessna didn't produce anything between 1986 and 1992. In roughly that timeframe, investment in new technology would have been zero. It's only recently that a few new options (like the aftermarket diesels you mentioned) have become available.
The 30 bhp/litre you mention illustrates the point. In 50 years, car engines have on average doubled their specific power, and performance cars routinely exceed 100 bhp/litre now. More power can come at a cost in terms of reliability, but there's no technical reason a safe aircraft engine can't be made that exceeds 30 bhp/l. The only reason is economical: thanks to litigation, the general aviation industry has been in the tank with no money to invest in new designs. In the mean time, car companies have spent billions on the internal combustion engine. The bottom line, though, is that despite what the auto companies might like you to think, there have not been any truly revolutionary developments in the design of the reciprocating internal combustion engine in well over 50 years. Sure there have. Digital engine management is the big one, turbocharging may have been around forever but modern manufacturing and (again) digital engine management are enabling a renaissance of its use in cars to achieve unheard-of levels of economy (including weight savings that should have the aviation industry salivating at the prospect).
If it takes three weeks to forge one vessel, why can they only produce four vessels per year?
Also, the forging is described as a cylinder, which leaves the top and bottom of the pressure vessel. How do you weld 30 cm thick steel? ISTR reading about submarine construction (which use a pressure hull maybe a few cm thick) where welding the hull sections had to take place at night because daytime operations would overload the local power grid. These vessels would be even more difficult to weld correctly.
Steve Jobs sees this as a personal insult and decides to sue ZapMedia into oblivion rather than settle.
Brilliant. If the power line fails, then the surrounding hydrogen will explode.
A superconducting grid would be nice, but (assuming current-day superconductors which require liquid nitrogen for cooling) is decidedly nontrivial to build and maintain. Copper/aluminium wire can easily be strung between towers. A superconducting wire has to be enclosed by the cooling medium, making the 'cable' assembly unwieldy and I suspect putting the assembly underground becomes the only option.
There's also the failure modes to consider: losing the cooling probably means the wire will melt.
If they had published a game and associated hardware, we could have been hacking the Gibson by now...
For every citizen who uses the location data of a firetruck to avoid the fire, there'll be 10 moronic disaster tourists who'll turn up at every fire.
Why allow something as arbitrary and nonsensical as the concept of "literature" to enter the picture at all? Comics need no validation beyond your enjoyment of them.
Dogs have owners, cats have staff...
The module is not designed to survive re-entry. ESA is studying a modified version that allows re-entry with a crew on board.
'Human launch capability' also depends on the launch rocket. I suspect the Ariane V isn't man-rated. That may be a matter of certification, or the G-loading may be too high for humans.
High-power radio transmitters still use vacuum tubes.