anyway -- playing games on that would be rediculously hard. the point of IMAX is so that your entire peripheral vision is occupied. except that in games etc, the part of the screen which is now at the far end of your p.vision actually conveys important information... so i would imagine this won't come out too well.
but it's all about the bragging rights afterall, i guess.
1) lego mind-storm (no-brainer) 2) electronic experiment kit (radio-shack) 3) in Fry's electronics -- i found a fuel-cell experiment model car kit, pretty cool stuff. 4) any RC car will have you tinkering for hours 5) build your own kite / balsa airplane together
i mean... sadly enough -- people look for toys nowadays to keep the child busy, and the "nicer" parents try to find toys that keep the child busy while "stimulates their mind". i am sorry, but the best way to stimulate their mind is to *SPEND TIME WITH YOUR KID*! if you are willing to give some effort to spending time with them, then anything around you can become a mind-stimulating adventure; gardens are eco-systems full of knowledge to be discovered. a swing at the playground has many physics wonders. salt chrystalizing on the beach is a marvel of chemistry.
with all due respect -- trying to find toys to keep kids busy vs. finding mindless TV shows to babysit your offspring rates about the same level in my book -- toys that are stimulating or otherwise.
I believe your arguments, in fact, supports my point rather than refute it.
it it often difficult for people who have never experienced poverty (the no-food-no-water kind) to really understand what it is like to be in such a situation. Imagine a person in ancient times who have never seen the ocean (and does not have glossy print pictures to show him) -- asking him what it is like beyond land will yield you an answer in the order of "well, it is non-land, of course". For many, their understanding of starvation boils down to this, unfortunately.
hence you would also not know that when you are really hungry, food takes presidence over other luxuries. I believe many people from the former USSR and East Germany is agreeing with me on this with their actions. they are willing to give up some of the hard-earned freedom in exchange for their *livelihood*, which i believe is a choice that may though not seemingly romantic or heroic, but necessary.
In GM's dreams, the AUTOnomy becomes ready to debut at about the time China's billion-plus people are economically ready for car ownership.
how do i put this in easy terms...
AINT - GONNA - HAPPEN.
1 billion people crowded into an area larger than the US. -- not that hard, right? *wrong*. if you look at the population density of china, you will see that most people live in the east, costal areas where fertile land and rice farms exist. huge chunks of land (say, Tibet, or the mongolian desert) supports no life. and as the trend continue -- the city will gets very very crowded -- so; no place for cars buddy.
think Tokyo. do you know how many people drives to work in Tokyo?
anyway -- as the economy gets better, people will start to afford cars in China. but i really hope GM is not counting on each family to buy one. right now *bicycle* parking is hard to find! more than 5% of city dwellers owning cars is a rediculous concept, and due to the scarcity of land (mostly are farms now -- there won't be any suburbs as the US knows it. But even then -- the population trend has been influxes of people into cities.
GM should have actually done some studies before banking on such a stupid assumption. it would have made better money selling them fuel cell buses (china needs new buses -- badly)
btw -- did you know that China is still using leaded gasoline? not switching to unleaded until 2004. wow.
I know a lot of people will disagree with me here -- but I personally think some of this stuff is, in fact, quite necessary.
I see the chinese government with one primary function right now above all else. SOCIAL STABILITY. you do not appreciate how delicate things are until you consider that keeping a billion and half people fed (reasonably), and live in a GROWING economy despite the world's financial slowdown -- is difficult to say the least.
Think about it - if the government actually just went away in a bang - some revolutionarys (irony for those who gets it) take over and starts anew: what do you really think is going to happen to China? total chaos... It would not be so bad if there are more $$ flowing through (read: homogenously distributed), or if there are not so many people. but bottom line is: social stability goes sour = many people starve to death.
now -- even if you are this humanitarian AMERICAN at the helm of the chinese government. without being way too rediculously "freedom above everyithng including pizza and beer (read: bread and water)" -- you will realize that it is practical, nay, MORAL, to allow the freedom side of things to slide for a couple decades while everything else falls into place.
Take FaLun Gong for example. You know why chinese govn't are afraid / worried about them? because there are precedenting incidents involving religious cults. china has a lot of history so there are a lot to learn from: in the past, a movement similar to FaLun (May Hua? i don't remember) has overthrown govn't before. I am not surprised that the government is curbing it.
Anyway -- i am not saying that i *like* what is happening to china in regards to freedom. but if giving up some of my freedom means that the country rest on this fragile balance and people do not starve to death left and right -- i will deal.
side note: things will change eventually anyway. I would say that with the infusion of some economical power and growing number of middle-class families; along with better education, the change will come. it will just come slowly, and while it is not completely here -- some sacrifices may need to be made to make sure anarchy does not ruin the whole thing.
for those who are worried about world war and what not: i doubt it. the US and China has become quite inter-dependent economy-wise. US companies thrives on the fabs and plants in china (look around you and see how many theose damn "made in china" stickers you can find) -- and china on the US's capital investments. so no war -- just evolution to a world economy. the only obstacle to this is probabbly taiwan, actually... but otherwise, china's bulging military is just a compensatory effort -- they won't be used unless something goes very sour -- and due to the aforementioned economical relationships -- nothing will get that bad.
i don't know if many of you guys are realizing this -- but anybody have a clue how hard it is to find non-flash memory these days?
i mean -- nobody uses those things? i bet you a dollar to a donut that meg-for-meg, flash comes in cheaper.
think about other memories too -- EDO 256M is $42; PC133 SDRAM is 256M; wait a sec -- isn't SDRAM "better" than EDO?
supply and demand, bud...
besides -- not telling you that the thing is flash-able avoids you even *asking* an upgrade. it makes two things easier: tech support and $$;
they make more money (you buy new system) AND they don't have to support wacked out Treo100 running Palm 4.2 configurations. hey i'd do it too.
except back to the first point: i *would* put non-flashable ROM in the thing except that 1) it will drive up the cost by 5 bux per unit 2) if i ever need to do a recall (OS bug, say), i trash crates of units instead of re-flash and sell them refurbed 3) any system that is really broke and returned and needs to be reflashed - i can't fix 'em
yeah... i bet if you were them you would make the exact same choices.
the quote from the movie, near verbatim, is "combined with a form of fusion"...
fact is that. 1) it's a story. live with it. 2) it actually *might* be possible -- let's go wild and screw around here: because frankly, everything we do not have data on COULD be possible, right?
it is *possible* that large-scale controlled fusion is not possible without a significant amount of fine grain control -- and the fine-ness of the grain is down to plank's level. since the human brain is a direct reflection of the spacetime quantum ripples, humans are therefore needed to make sure everything keeps running; in essense we are like battery terminals, except regulating the huge fusion reactor down below.
ANYWAY... side note: even crap we know for a fact is bs can still make a good story. read Issac Asimov's "The Gods Themselves". in a Sci-Fi convention that he attended, some guy was talking about Plutonium with atomic weight of 196 or some such non-sense. (Pu usually have atomic weights around 244, FYI) -- Asimov was so pissed at the stupidity and said: you are sooo dumb, but to show how damn smart i am, i am going to write a story around Pu/196! -- the moral of the story is that even bs makes a good story.
now - i admit i was making a failed attempt at humor -- but i really intended to point out the false sense of security my post's parent had about the issue, without spending the time disceting everything there.
basic argument goes something like this:
1) without some kind of AI, these robots are useless 2) the AI will have, or need to eventually have genetic algorithms incorporated to be actually effective in battles 3) the moment the genetic algorithm takes off, you are tinkering with evolution -- and with evolution you can not keep Asimov's 3 laws of robotics rooted in their programming 4) and bad things will happen.
anyway; moot point; M$ will have us all for lunch before any robots can. sigh...
But will he avoid the "death plunge oh I wish I didn't do this" syndrome?
yes because there will be no reservation at the time of launch.
you have something you want to achieve. you either take your chances and try it, or regret that you never tried. true -- you might die trying; but to some it's better to have tried and failed (died, in some cases) than to never have tried at all.
Maybe it'll help convince other people that building manned rocket's should only be done by really smart people with serious engineering expertise and a serious budget.
i would say that he have a "serious" budget...
remember - private industries doing space travel (or, shoot self up and down in rocket in general) costs magnatudes less than certain budget guzzling government organizations.
and don't diss on the man because he is not what you consider smart. many mechanics and car tuners (old days, anyhow) knows a lot about practical knowledge without ever finishing high school.
i think it is much more important that this man is doing something that he really wants to do and puts the dedication and effort behind it. this, i believe, is the smartest thing you can do, because you avoid the "death bed oh i wish i did this and that" syndrom. this action/decision alone is "smarter" than most of the folks out there stuck in their misery ridden lives and keep pushing the things they really wanted to do into tomorrow, and tomorrow again
while this is cool and geeky as f*king heck... it's a bit over done.
1) you can buy capacitors for less trouble. true, large 330V caps does cost money and he is getting this for next to nothing, but i think it's better to shell out a couple hundred bux for components for that gauss gun instead of subjecting myself to hours upon hours of de-soldering and discharging capacitors and getting flashed.
2) if you *really wanted*, you can also pull caps off old TVs, or any CRT in general; and they can go up to 20kV! heck man... for self-mutilation fun, doesn't 20kV sound better than 0.3kV? (erm... becareful when you do this. those caps can hold charge for like 20 years)
3) you can achieve the same with a large (i mean gigantic) low voltage capacitor, which would actually handle more current anyhow. (car) Audiophiles probabbly know what i am talking about. there are 10-15V capacitors for your huge woofers that carry up to 10 FARADS. nope you did not read this wrong... 10F, no m,u,n,p; straight up 10F. if you wanted the high voltage, either build yourself a HV transformer (easy) or salvage one from a junkyard (you know, ignition system).
but otherwise, rock on. i would like to see the 5kJ gauss gun in action someday, preferably tested on a furby or something
heh... i don't like chicago much anyway...(lived there for 4 years) j/k
sigh -- what's your point? hell, let's talk about the "homeland security" for a second. the united states have a little-heard of department. i think it goes something like Department of DEFENSE. if we need a homeland security office, then would you please tell me what the f* the Military, CIA, FBI, and massive local and state police forces are for anyways? So far we have gotten sh*t like 40 armed men arresting a warez group leader, and we need MORE money poured in that direction?
and for your information. WWII time frame, in U of Chicago basement there was an experimental reactor operating with minimal safety guardband(s). it is lucky for chicago that the thing never blew, especially since our understanding of the nuclear process was so much less than today. i would say that chicago is in a much smaller threat today than back then, terrorists and all.
lastly, i would wager to say that the nuclear waste sitting in all of the plants today pose a much more serious threat than a lone terrorist with a dirty bomb. the yucca mountains are finally approved, so it's less of an issue now -- but still, you have been living in the same way without complaining.
heck, driving a car would make you more at danger than terrorists; i don't see 40 billion dollar initiatives on requiring breathalyzers on cars, or magnetic pegs embedded in roads and auto-drive systems?
There are also a handful of "love seat" stations, outfitted with two computers and a double-wide bench. Theoretically, this is so guys can play videogames while their girlfriends video-chat with pals.
gawd... that is just SO wrong in so many ways.
i mean, in a movie theatre, where you also do not communicate much, at least the two person have something in common that was shared, besides the snuggling and making out and the occational nobody-is-around-so-lets-get-down-and-dirty. but this is horrible. you might be sitting next to eachother but in reality the two of you are further apart than if i was chatting with my gf in morse code or campbells-cans-and-string
besides that, there is the $$ issue. i am sure the love-stations costs more, but there seems hardly a point to it, since the exact same can be accomplished if the two person is sitting across the room, nay, across town from eachother.
bah... maybe i am just used to the old method(s) of dating.
As somebody has already pointed out, and most of us can deduce with some thought -- one of the primary reasons why we are not on mars yet is because of the lack of immediate return.
At *best* a manned mars mission, or any important space-endeavor (say, moon-base) will be so costly time-wise, it will way overshadow a politician's limited term, and they won't give a damn about it. to make it worse, even if we did any of these (moon base / mars mission), the politicians have little to show for it except the "we did it" and that isn't helping.
i am sure they can come up with something clever, of course, if they ever wanted to: "look everyone, we the US, even under terrorist threats and in the post 9-11 world, can still acomplish grand tasks like _______" but they won't. because they can do the same thing by passing some cheesy law about corporate fraud and whatnot and achieve similar effect.s
back to the topic: china, on the other hand, does not have this problem of limited administration. (unless they get overthrown someday, which for the good of the world, i hope not) and with the US getting new fighters and national missle defense etc, going to space would really give them an edge.
which is good... because as soon as a threat comes up, the US will hopefully get in gear and haul ass. otherwise, well, chinese moon-base as it is, humanity as a whole does not really suffer.
on the other hand - i can see one way to make this work within the US, though unlikely: if one party (say, democrats) decided, *as a whole party*, that going to space is something they want to do, then maybe it can be done. it will need some seriously intricate conditions to work out, but can work out none-the less. this is hoping that we as citizens (not only slashdot, now) actually cares about this going to space deal, and republicans (for example) does not jump in the bandwagon -- because if they did, then "going to space" is no longer an exclusive propaganda-machine, and the actual execution will likely get diluted.
last small note: Bush asked congress for 40billion to fight the "war on terrorism", by the way. to put things in perspective in a little bit. over budget as ISS may be, it's a better 30b spent than certain other places where money is going.
now... if you just bounced onto that company online -- what goes on in your mind? 1) public fund open source software company 2) beer related software company 3) beer
my reaction was somewhere between 2 and 3 above, leaning strongly toward 3...
(i) dependence on individual brilliance rather than a good system and (ii) concentration of knowledge within a few individuals.
in certan cultures where people does not get fired too much (hint hint: asian country starting with "J">, it is actually opposite as what you say.
the rest is the same, though (the crazy long hours).
think about it... concentration on knowledge serves one and only one purpose -- job security. however, when job security is a non-issue (or, at least a LOT less of an issue than, say, in the US), knowledge gets shared plenty quick -- because the more you teach people to do stuff, the more they can do and the less (hopefully) you have to do.;-) pretty neat eh? i think china and india cannot cope with the crazyness because of the cultural situation *and* lack of job security.
anyway -- not saying that other countries got it all figured out -- but at least it's working out better than you are describing in certain places. US work model has its own problems too -- heh... man don't even get me started.
Everybody saw Akira, right? remember Sol? yeah... i remember Sol...
unlike the Starwars (Regan) lasers -- these are solid state so as long as you have a power source, they can be re-used. with the advances in today's high capacity capacitors (erm), just hook up that laser satellite to a solar panel and let her rip. boost the power a litter and who says you can't burn down airplanes in flight and stuff?
and (unlikely, but) if somebody hacked the satellite network? oh boy... i think i am going to buy some SPF4000 sunscreen.
future warfare is getting gonna get really interesting, really fast.
In the 80s territorial waters were extended to 12 miles. Sealand's nation status is this unclear...
i am reciting this from memory so some info might be corrupted -- but i believe the principality of sealand declared an extension of 12-mile boundary either on the day on one day before G.B did it -- so the "channel" between the two erm... countries is split half half -- and sealand's independence is grandfathered in.
which is good.
anyway you can read all about sealand at the heavenCo site; i can't "deep link" anymore, so go find it yourself:-)
with M$, it is theoretically impossible as well to achieve their advertised up-time; ( i think back when they ran some ad (still running?) about how windows can achieve three or four 9s of uptime).
Total bullshit... let's see -- windows machine *requires* reboot every time you apply a patch; a reboot on a large machine is... i dunno, 10 minutes if you got a lot of crap. security update turns up about twice a week or so... that puts up to be ~99.8% MAXIMUM;
even if you don't buy my numbers, three 9s uptime means every week you only gets ~6 seconds downtime.
yeah... sure... not if you want to patch up than internet explorer / IIS so your system does not die from DoS, hackers, or worms!
Slashdot Mirror
check it out here.
anyway -- playing games on that would be rediculously hard. the point of IMAX is so that your entire peripheral vision is occupied. except that in games etc, the part of the screen which is now at the far end of your p.vision actually conveys important information... so i would imagine this won't come out too well.
but it's all about the bragging rights afterall, i guess.
1) lego mind-storm (no-brainer)
2) electronic experiment kit (radio-shack)
3) in Fry's electronics -- i found a fuel-cell experiment model car kit, pretty cool stuff.
4) any RC car will have you tinkering for hours
5) build your own kite / balsa airplane together
i mean... sadly enough -- people look for toys nowadays to keep the child busy, and the "nicer" parents try to find toys that keep the child busy while "stimulates their mind". i am sorry, but the best way to stimulate their mind is to *SPEND TIME WITH YOUR KID*! if you are willing to give some effort to spending time with them, then anything around you can become a mind-stimulating adventure; gardens are eco-systems full of knowledge to be discovered. a swing at the playground has many physics wonders. salt chrystalizing on the beach is a marvel of chemistry.
with all due respect -- trying to find toys to keep kids busy vs. finding mindless TV shows to babysit your offspring rates about the same level in my book -- toys that are stimulating or otherwise.
Hacker (refered to as cracker from here forth) cracks M$ and distribute windows source code to everyone.
people realize how awfully written windows *really* is, and everyone switches to linux / BSD / OSX;
bill and steve shoot themselves...
you think they'd give out life sentence for that?
i wonder how scratch-resistant this is;
i mean -- one little scratch will now render hundreds of megabytes unreadable...
makes no difference to me if in the end half the storage space is dedicated to data-redundancy.
i want those little data-cubes you keep seeing in Sci-Fi movies. those are neater than the disk format.
I believe your arguments, in fact, supports my point rather than refute it.
it it often difficult for people who have never experienced poverty (the no-food-no-water kind) to really understand what it is like to be in such a situation. Imagine a person in ancient times who have never seen the ocean (and does not have glossy print pictures to show him) -- asking him what it is like beyond land will yield you an answer in the order of "well, it is non-land, of course". For many, their understanding of starvation boils down to this, unfortunately.
hence you would also not know that when you are really hungry, food takes presidence over other luxuries. I believe many people from the former USSR and East Germany is agreeing with me on this with their actions. they are willing to give up some of the hard-earned freedom in exchange for their *livelihood*, which i believe is a choice that may though not seemingly romantic or heroic, but necessary.
don't drink so much coffee.
how do i put this in easy terms...
AINT - GONNA - HAPPEN.
1 billion people crowded into an area larger than the US. -- not that hard, right? *wrong*. if you look at the population density of china, you will see that most people live in the east, costal areas where fertile land and rice farms exist. huge chunks of land (say, Tibet, or the mongolian desert) supports no life. and as the trend continue -- the city will gets very very crowded -- so; no place for cars buddy.
think Tokyo. do you know how many people drives to work in Tokyo?
anyway -- as the economy gets better, people will start to afford cars in China. but i really hope GM is not counting on each family to buy one. right now *bicycle* parking is hard to find! more than 5% of city dwellers owning cars is a rediculous concept, and due to the scarcity of land (mostly are farms now -- there won't be any suburbs as the US knows it. But even then -- the population trend has been influxes of people into cities.
GM should have actually done some studies before banking on such a stupid assumption. it would have made better money selling them fuel cell buses (china needs new buses -- badly)
btw -- did you know that China is still using leaded gasoline? not switching to unleaded until 2004. wow.
I know a lot of people will disagree with me here -- but I personally think some of this stuff is, in fact, quite necessary.
I see the chinese government with one primary function right now above all else. SOCIAL STABILITY. you do not appreciate how delicate things are until you consider that keeping a billion and half people fed (reasonably), and live in a GROWING economy despite the world's financial slowdown -- is difficult to say the least.
Think about it - if the government actually just went away in a bang - some revolutionarys (irony for those who gets it) take over and starts anew: what do you really think is going to happen to China? total chaos... It would not be so bad if there are more $$ flowing through (read: homogenously distributed), or if there are not so many people. but bottom line is: social stability goes sour = many people starve to death.
now -- even if you are this humanitarian AMERICAN at the helm of the chinese government. without being way too rediculously "freedom above everyithng including pizza and beer (read: bread and water)" -- you will realize that it is practical, nay, MORAL, to allow the freedom side of things to slide for a couple decades while everything else falls into place.
Take FaLun Gong for example. You know why chinese govn't are afraid / worried about them? because there are precedenting incidents involving religious cults. china has a lot of history so there are a lot to learn from: in the past, a movement similar to FaLun (May Hua? i don't remember) has overthrown govn't before. I am not surprised that the government is curbing it.
Anyway -- i am not saying that i *like* what is happening to china in regards to freedom. but if giving up some of my freedom means that the country rest on this fragile balance and people do not starve to death left and right -- i will deal.
side note: things will change eventually anyway. I would say that with the infusion of some economical power and growing number of middle-class families; along with better education, the change will come. it will just come slowly, and while it is not completely here -- some sacrifices may need to be made to make sure anarchy does not ruin the whole thing.
for those who are worried about world war and what not: i doubt it. the US and China has become quite inter-dependent economy-wise. US companies thrives on the fabs and plants in china (look around you and see how many theose damn "made in china" stickers you can find) -- and china on the US's capital investments. so no war -- just evolution to a world economy. the only obstacle to this is probabbly taiwan, actually... but otherwise, china's bulging military is just a compensatory effort -- they won't be used unless something goes very sour -- and due to the aforementioned economical relationships -- nothing will get that bad.
i don't know if many of you guys are realizing this -- but anybody have a clue how hard it is to find non-flash memory these days?
i mean -- nobody uses those things? i bet you a dollar to a donut that meg-for-meg, flash comes in cheaper.
think about other memories too -- EDO 256M is $42; PC133 SDRAM is 256M; wait a sec -- isn't SDRAM "better" than EDO?
supply and demand, bud...
besides -- not telling you that the thing is flash-able avoids you even *asking* an upgrade. it makes two things easier: tech support and $$;
they make more money (you buy new system) AND they don't have to support wacked out Treo100 running Palm 4.2 configurations. hey i'd do it too.
except back to the first point: i *would* put non-flashable ROM in the thing except that
1) it will drive up the cost by 5 bux per unit
2) if i ever need to do a recall (OS bug, say), i trash crates of units instead of re-flash and sell them refurbed
3) any system that is really broke and returned and needs to be reflashed - i can't fix 'em
yeah... i bet if you were them you would make the exact same choices.
fact is that.
1) it's a story. live with it.
2) it actually *might* be possible -- let's go wild and screw around here: because frankly, everything we do not have data on COULD be possible, right?
it is *possible* that large-scale controlled fusion is not possible without a significant amount of fine grain control -- and the fine-ness of the grain is down to plank's level. since the human brain is a direct reflection of the spacetime quantum ripples, humans are therefore needed to make sure everything keeps running; in essense we are like battery terminals, except regulating the huge fusion reactor down below.
ANYWAY... side note: even crap we know for a fact is bs can still make a good story. read Issac Asimov's "The Gods Themselves". in a Sci-Fi convention that he attended, some guy was talking about Plutonium with atomic weight of 196 or some such non-sense. (Pu usually have atomic weights around 244, FYI) -- Asimov was so pissed at the stupidity and said: you are sooo dumb, but to show how damn smart i am, i am going to write a story around Pu/196! -- the moral of the story is that even bs makes a good story.
now - i admit i was making a failed attempt at humor -- but i really intended to point out the false sense of security my post's parent had about the issue, without spending the time disceting everything there.
basic argument goes something like this:
1) without some kind of AI, these robots are useless
2) the AI will have, or need to eventually have genetic algorithms incorporated to be actually effective in battles
3) the moment the genetic algorithm takes off, you are tinkering with evolution -- and with evolution you can not keep Asimov's 3 laws of robotics rooted in their programming
4) and bad things will happen.
anyway; moot point; M$ will have us all for lunch before any robots can. sigh...
and in the future, depending again on humans as their power source when we "scorch the skys" to cut off solar power.
yes because there will be no reservation at the time of launch.
you have something you want to achieve. you either take your chances and try it, or regret that you never tried. true -- you might die trying; but to some it's better to have tried and failed (died, in some cases) than to never have tried at all.
kinda like braveheart... in some ways.
i would say that he have a "serious" budget...
remember - private industries doing space travel (or, shoot self up and down in rocket in general) costs magnatudes less than certain budget guzzling government organizations.
and don't diss on the man because he is not what you consider smart. many mechanics and car tuners (old days, anyhow) knows a lot about practical knowledge without ever finishing high school.
i think it is much more important that this man is doing something that he really wants to do and puts the dedication and effort behind it. this, i believe, is the smartest thing you can do, because you avoid the "death bed oh i wish i did this and that" syndrom. this action/decision alone is "smarter" than most of the folks out there stuck in their misery ridden lives and keep pushing the things they really wanted to do into tomorrow, and tomorrow again
while this is cool and geeky as f*king heck... it's a bit over done.
1) you can buy capacitors for less trouble. true, large 330V caps does cost money and he is getting this for next to nothing, but i think it's better to shell out a couple hundred bux for components for that gauss gun instead of subjecting myself to hours upon hours of de-soldering and discharging capacitors and getting flashed.
2) if you *really wanted*, you can also pull caps off old TVs, or any CRT in general; and they can go up to 20kV! heck man... for self-mutilation fun, doesn't 20kV sound better than 0.3kV? (erm... becareful when you do this. those caps can hold charge for like 20 years)
3) you can achieve the same with a large (i mean gigantic) low voltage capacitor, which would actually handle more current anyhow. (car) Audiophiles probabbly know what i am talking about. there are 10-15V capacitors for your huge woofers that carry up to 10 FARADS. nope you did not read this wrong... 10F, no m,u,n,p; straight up 10F. if you wanted the high voltage, either build yourself a HV transformer (easy) or salvage one from a junkyard (you know, ignition system).
but otherwise, rock on. i would like to see the 5kJ gauss gun in action someday, preferably tested on a furby or something
fry a diode, for example
sigh -- what's your point? hell, let's talk about the "homeland security" for a second. the united states have a little-heard of department. i think it goes something like Department of DEFENSE. if we need a homeland security office, then would you please tell me what the f* the Military, CIA, FBI, and massive local and state police forces are for anyways? So far we have gotten sh*t like 40 armed men arresting a warez group leader, and we need MORE money poured in that direction?
and for your information. WWII time frame, in U of Chicago basement there was an experimental reactor operating with minimal safety guardband(s). it is lucky for chicago that the thing never blew, especially since our understanding of the nuclear process was so much less than today. i would say that chicago is in a much smaller threat today than back then, terrorists and all.
lastly, i would wager to say that the nuclear waste sitting in all of the plants today pose a much more serious threat than a lone terrorist with a dirty bomb. the yucca mountains are finally approved, so it's less of an issue now -- but still, you have been living in the same way without complaining.
heck, driving a car would make you more at danger than terrorists; i don't see 40 billion dollar initiatives on requiring breathalyzers on cars, or magnetic pegs embedded in roads and auto-drive systems?
gawd... that is just SO wrong in so many ways.
i mean, in a movie theatre, where you also do not communicate much, at least the two person have something in common that was shared, besides the snuggling and making out and the occational nobody-is-around-so-lets-get-down-and-dirty. but this is horrible. you might be sitting next to eachother but in reality the two of you are further apart than if i was chatting with my gf in morse code or campbells-cans-and-string
besides that, there is the $$ issue. i am sure the love-stations costs more, but there seems hardly a point to it, since the exact same can be accomplished if the two person is sitting across the room, nay, across town from eachother.
bah... maybe i am just used to the old method(s) of dating.
As somebody has already pointed out, and most of us can deduce with some thought -- one of the primary reasons why we are not on mars yet is because of the lack of immediate return.
At *best* a manned mars mission, or any important space-endeavor (say, moon-base) will be so costly time-wise, it will way overshadow a politician's limited term, and they won't give a damn about it. to make it worse, even if we did any of these (moon base / mars mission), the politicians have little to show for it except the "we did it" and that isn't helping.
i am sure they can come up with something clever, of course, if they ever wanted to: "look everyone, we the US, even under terrorist threats and in the post 9-11 world, can still acomplish grand tasks like _______" but they won't. because they can do the same thing by passing some cheesy law about corporate fraud and whatnot and achieve similar effect.s
back to the topic: china, on the other hand, does not have this problem of limited administration. (unless they get overthrown someday, which for the good of the world, i hope not) and with the US getting new fighters and national missle defense etc, going to space would really give them an edge.
which is good... because as soon as a threat comes up, the US will hopefully get in gear and haul ass. otherwise, well, chinese moon-base as it is, humanity as a whole does not really suffer.
on the other hand - i can see one way to make this work within the US, though unlikely: if one party (say, democrats) decided, *as a whole party*, that going to space is something they want to do, then maybe it can be done. it will need some seriously intricate conditions to work out, but can work out none-the less. this is hoping that we as citizens (not only slashdot, now) actually cares about this going to space deal, and republicans (for example) does not jump in the bandwagon -- because if they did, then "going to space" is no longer an exclusive propaganda-machine, and the actual execution will likely get diluted.
last small note: Bush asked congress for 40billion to fight the "war on terrorism", by the way. to put things in perspective in a little bit. over budget as ISS may be, it's a better 30b spent than certain other places where money is going.
goodness... Cliff man: you remember enough from that (bad) movie that vividly to talk about it?
there are newer movies much more worthy of rememberance, ya know...
now... if you just bounced onto that company online -- what goes on in your mind?
1) public fund open source software company
2) beer related software company
3) beer
my reaction was somewhere between 2 and 3 above, leaning strongly toward 3...
in certan cultures where people does not get fired too much (hint hint: asian country starting with "J">, it is actually opposite as what you say.
the rest is the same, though (the crazy long hours).
think about it... concentration on knowledge serves one and only one purpose -- job security. however, when job security is a non-issue (or, at least a LOT less of an issue than, say, in the US), knowledge gets shared plenty quick -- because the more you teach people to do stuff, the more they can do and the less (hopefully) you have to do. ;-) pretty neat eh? i think china and india cannot cope with the crazyness because of the cultural situation *and* lack of job security.
anyway -- not saying that other countries got it all figured out -- but at least it's working out better than you are describing in certain places. US work model has its own problems too -- heh... man don't even get me started.
Everybody saw Akira, right? remember Sol? yeah... i remember Sol...
unlike the Starwars (Regan) lasers -- these are solid state so as long as you have a power source, they can be re-used. with the advances in today's high capacity capacitors (erm), just hook up that laser satellite to a solar panel and let her rip. boost the power a litter and who says you can't burn down airplanes in flight and stuff?
and (unlikely, but) if somebody hacked the satellite network? oh boy... i think i am going to buy some SPF4000 sunscreen.
future warfare is getting gonna get really interesting, really fast.
i am reciting this from memory so some info might be corrupted -- but i believe the principality of sealand declared an extension of 12-mile boundary either on the day on one day before G.B did it -- so the "channel" between the two erm... countries is split half half -- and sealand's independence is grandfathered in.
which is good.
anyway you can read all about sealand at the heavenCo site; i can't "deep link" anymore, so go find it yourself :-)
ever heard of lower overall cost? (something M$ was advertising side-by-side, btw)
with M$, it is theoretically impossible as well to achieve their advertised up-time; ( i think back when they ran some ad (still running?) about how windows can achieve three or four 9s of uptime).
Total bullshit... let's see -- windows machine *requires* reboot every time you apply a patch; a reboot on a large machine is... i dunno, 10 minutes if you got a lot of crap. security update turns up about twice a week or so... that puts up to be ~99.8% MAXIMUM;
even if you don't buy my numbers, three 9s uptime means every week you only gets ~6 seconds downtime.
yeah... sure... not if you want to patch up than internet explorer / IIS so your system does not die from DoS, hackers, or worms!