It looks like this track goes straight down along the launch tower, while the old system had wires going from the top of the tower at a shallow angle. It seems to me that the old solution gets you out of the blast radius quicker. It certainly stays farther away from the noisy end of the rocket.
Don't be so sure the Japanese will fold. If other projects are any indication, they are very determined to keep producing their own warplanes. See the F-2 fighter (basically duplicating the F-16, even though unit cost rose to 4x that of the F-16). They also ave a maritime patrol aircraft in development (the P-X) for which they decided to develop a unique airframe, when it would have been much cheaper to use an existing airliner. It's mostly a matter of political will. That's why Sweden still builds its own fighters. That's also why the Israelis cancelled the Lavi: political pressure from the US to buy American aircraft instead.
Re:Oh, so much karma to burn..
on
Ask Rob Malda
·
· Score: 1
Um, you do realize that both the R-7 and the Soyuz launcher have 20 engines in the first stage. IMO, this shows there's nothing inherently wrong with clustering large numbers of engines together.
There were several problems with the N-1:
1. they were on a small budget, so they couldn't/didn't want to do full-scale tests. The idea was to go from unit tests to launching rockets in one step, and keep launching rockets until they got it right. They fully expected to lose a few rockets.
2. Korolov died, and his successor lacked the political clout to ensure continued funding.
3. Apollo 11 happened, which ended the political will to fund the program.
I've read several comments in this thread lamenting the extinction of cultures as a result of the loss of their language, as if the two are inextricably linked. I'd argue that traditions and customs will continue to exist if they're still relevant independently of the language. Granted, old documents (if they exist) will eventually become inaccessible, but those are only part of a group's culture. This depends on the speed of extinction, though. If a language is lost gradually because its speakers become bilingual and then switch to their second language, their culture should remain intact.
As for old documents becoming unreadable: this article puts the number of dying languages at 3500, with half of those having no written form. Those 3500 languages are spoken by 0.2 % of the world's population.
I'd rather have the drawbacks of proportional representation than those of a district system (where you tend to end up with two viable parties, neither of which represent the views of the majority of the people). I agree that campaign promises are something that needs improvement, though.
I just realised I haven't used a calculator in 10 years (i.e. ever since I started using a computer for work full-time), even though I have a very nice HP-42s sitting in the closet. The calculator app and spreadsheet on my computer are just more convenient. The UI of the calculator app still could stand improvement, though (e.g. I'd like to be able to select a number in any application, and then right-click and do unit conversions, or send it to the calculator faster than with copy/paste).
Do calculators still get used in the office (or basically anywhere except school)?
yeah, yeah, yeah. Details. As you say, in the end it's the national number of votes that counts, not a count by district. It's not a district system in the sense used by e.g. the USA and the UK.
I've never used a mechanical system, but I can imagine several problems. The 'hanging chads' has been well publicised. Also, how well does a mechanical system scale? For national elections, you have to be able to mark one choice from several hundred. That's rather a large piece of paper to manipulate into the machine. The last time I used a paper ballot, the ballot was about A2-sized and was folded like a map. I suspect a printer has less chance of damaging the ballot than a hole punch would.
Redistricting isn't a problem in the Netherlands because we don't use districts. There's been talk of introducing a district system, but that particular disaster we've been able to avoid so far.
Over here, telephone lines are in the ground, generally in 240-pair bundles. Accessing one requires digging (incl. knowing where to dig), plus time to find the correct pair. It's doable, but rather more difficult than dialing into a modem.
You can (could?) get private phone lines, that aren't connected to the public phone network at all ('direct line'). The telephone company can connect incoming lines directly to each other, bypassing the exchange entirely. To hack such a line, you'd need physical access to the exchange building.
All TI demonstrated in 1967 was a prototype that weighed 3 pounds. TI's own website places the introduction of their first "consumer electronics product", the TI-2500 Datamath, at 1972. this page lists portable calculators appearing in 1970, and pocket calculators in 1971. No TI firsts there.
Slashdot Mirror
with trolls being able to think better when it's cold.
It looks like this track goes straight down along the launch tower, while the old system had wires going from the top of the tower at a shallow angle. It seems to me that the old solution gets you out of the blast radius quicker. It certainly stays farther away from the noisy end of the rocket.
an in-quel?
Why aren't the NSA and the CIA all over this?
What makes you think they're not?
Don't be so sure the Japanese will fold. If other projects are any indication, they are very determined to keep producing their own warplanes. See the F-2 fighter (basically duplicating the F-16, even though unit cost rose to 4x that of the F-16). They also ave a maritime patrol aircraft in development (the P-X) for which they decided to develop a unique airframe, when it would have been much cheaper to use an existing airliner.
It's mostly a matter of political will. That's why Sweden still builds its own fighters. That's also why the Israelis cancelled the Lavi: political pressure from the US to buy American aircraft instead.
You must be new here.
I'll see your Star Trek-induced optimism, and raise you Greed is eternal
AIU = As I Understand
we can hack the Gibson!
AIU, gas isn't the medium used. This system measures vibrations (sound waves) traveling through the skin of the spaceship.
they lost the plot, then?
Um, you do realize that both the R-7 and the Soyuz launcher have 20 engines in the first stage. IMO, this shows there's nothing inherently wrong with clustering large numbers of engines together.
There were several problems with the N-1:
1. they were on a small budget, so they couldn't/didn't want to do full-scale tests. The idea was to go from unit tests to launching rockets in one step, and keep launching rockets until they got it right. They fully expected to lose a few rockets.
2. Korolov died, and his successor lacked the political clout to ensure continued funding.
3. Apollo 11 happened, which ended the political will to fund the program.
You must be new here.
Q: What am I doing wrong here?
A: Windows
I've read several comments in this thread lamenting the extinction of cultures as a result of the loss of their language, as if the two are inextricably linked. I'd argue that traditions and customs will continue to exist if they're still relevant independently of the language. Granted, old documents (if they exist) will eventually become inaccessible, but those are only part of a group's culture. This depends on the speed of extinction, though. If a language is lost gradually because its speakers become bilingual and then switch to their second language, their culture should remain intact.
As for old documents becoming unreadable:
this article puts the number of dying languages at 3500, with half of those having no written form. Those 3500 languages are spoken by 0.2 % of the world's population.
I'd rather have the drawbacks of proportional representation than those of a district system (where you tend to end up with two viable parties, neither of which represent the views of the majority of the people). I agree that campaign promises are something that needs improvement, though.
I just realised I haven't used a calculator in 10 years (i.e. ever since I started using a computer for work full-time), even though I have a very nice HP-42s sitting in the closet. The calculator app and spreadsheet on my computer are just more convenient. The UI of the calculator app still could stand improvement, though (e.g. I'd like to be able to select a number in any application, and then right-click and do unit conversions, or send it to the calculator faster than with copy/paste).
Do calculators still get used in the office (or basically anywhere except school)?
yeah, yeah, yeah. Details. As you say, in the end it's the national number of votes that counts, not a count by district. It's not a district system in the sense used by e.g. the USA and the UK.
I've never used a mechanical system, but I can imagine several problems. The 'hanging chads' has been well publicised. Also, how well does a mechanical system scale? For national elections, you have to be able to mark one choice from several hundred. That's rather a large piece of paper to manipulate into the machine. The last time I used a paper ballot, the ballot was about A2-sized and was folded like a map. I suspect a printer has less chance of damaging the ballot than a hole punch would.
Redistricting isn't a problem in the Netherlands because we don't use districts. There's been talk of introducing a district system, but that particular disaster we've been able to avoid so far.
With a paper system, you're reduced to rigging the results one vote at a time. With electronic voting, you could change thousands of votes at once.
What you say???
Over here, telephone lines are in the ground, generally in 240-pair bundles. Accessing one requires digging (incl. knowing where to dig), plus time to find the correct pair. It's doable, but rather more difficult than dialing into a modem.
You can (could?) get private phone lines, that aren't connected to the public phone network at all ('direct line'). The telephone company can connect incoming lines directly to each other, bypassing the exchange entirely. To hack such a line, you'd need physical access to the exchange building.
All TI demonstrated in 1967 was a prototype that weighed 3 pounds. TI's own website places the introduction of their first "consumer electronics product", the TI-2500 Datamath, at 1972.
this page lists portable calculators appearing in 1970, and pocket calculators in 1971. No TI firsts there.