Among other things, it means that if the feds do not change things so only MS Office is acceptable, Google can restart the lawsuit with no problems.
Essentially, this is a peace offering by Google - "we want you to fix the objectionable part of your original RFP, and we'll stop suing you to let you do that in peace. BUT, if you don't fix it, we'll see you in court"
So I'm wondering if 900 lbs. would be enough for a tiny capsule, with minimal life support, to get a single person into orbit.
Probably.
Maybe.
You're talking about 700 pounds once you'e made allowance for the passenger. Which is a bit tight.
On the other hand, Mercury, sans heat shield and a lot of electronics (which are, of course, much lighter now) didn't weigh much more than that. And we have better material technology now, so a lighter mercury might be doable in 900 pounds.
Note, for reference, that a Falcon 9 can loft a Dragon capsule for only $50-odd million. Assuming you have a Dragon capsule, of course - not sure if SpaceX has bothered to set a price on the things yet.
Possibly because a Treaty "signing" is pretty much meaningless under US law.
We signed Kyoto remember?
Until the Senate ratifies it, Obama's signature means nothing at all. (and in the case of Kyoto, after Bill had Al sign it, Bill didn't even bother to present it to the Senate for ratification, knowing it wouldn't be ratified).
But as usual I guess people will shoot me down for daring to suggest that some people shouldn't be allowed to vote. How horriffic.
In general, when considering whether "some people shouldn't be allowed to vote", the first people to be put on the list of "not allowed to vote" should be the ones who favour the idea that "some people shouldn't be allowed to vote".
Or did you really mean "some OTHER people shouldn't be allowed to vote"?
So, what, everyone, being unemployed, just sits in the dark and starves ?
I think that would be one of the best times to scrap our money-driven society.
I agree. A money-driven society is a society of scarcity - it's a reasonably effective way of dividing up limited resources.
A society where machines do all the work is a society of plenty, and we don't need to divide up scarce resources, since there are no limited resources.
And, yes, I know that there will still be limits on growth - but they will be orders of magnitude higher, especially once we reach the point where the machines building all the stuff also build new machines to build stuff when we need more stuff....
And I know it's needed in Louisiana. No, not because of the Mexicans, because of the Cajuns - I've lived here 20+ years, and still can't understand someone with a thick Cajun accent.
If you can' unnerstan' dem, why you move der, cher?
Because the people of New Orleans don't speak with Cajun accents. They sound more like New Yorkers. Which I can understand just fine, thank you.
I expect that it would be seen as a great idea if a Democrat-controlled State had thought of it.
Alas, a Republican-controlled State thought of it, so it's evil.
Until the Republicans get control of the Federal government, at least. After that, it'll only be evil if a Democrat-controlled State suggests it.
That said, I approve of the idea in general. There's not a really good reason why students should have to wade through the teacher's accent to figure out what she's saying.
Plus we get the added benefit of teaching the kids to speak intelligibly. I expect that's needed in Arizona.
And I know it's needed in Louisiana. No, not because of the Mexicans, because of the Cajuns - I've lived here 20+ years, and still can't understand someone with a thick Cajun accent.
Transport 100,000 people to an off-world location of your choosing
Make sure accommodations are built and ready for them
Make them go from 100% to 0% dependent on earth for their survival within 100 years
Explain who will pay for it, how, and why
Oddly enough, when the Pilgrims went to Plymouth Rock, they took fewer than 100,000.
Their accomodations weren't built and waiting for their arrival.
And they didn't go from 100% to 0% dependent on Europe in 100 years, either.
Personally, I'd settle for 50-100 people (roughly comparable in number to the Pilgrims) in my lifetime, and aim to make them independent on Earth within 300 years.
And, of course, we make them independent on Earth in a sensible fashion - IC's are light, so it's not really all that important that they need to import them from Earth (as one example), but building houses/domes/whatever people live in is mass-intensive (and relatively simple), so it should have a high priority in the whole process of "becoming independent of Earth".
Not, mind you, that there's any chance of that happening in my lifetime. Kennedy made his speech after I was born, and Armstrong took his "small step for a man" when I was 10. But it doesn't look like even the optimistic assumption for going back to the Moon involve periods within my lifetime, much less getting to Mars.
According to my calculations, this works out to about 8 Mwatts of generating capacity
Averaged over 24 hours a day, seven days a week, of course. In practice, it'll probably be closer to 20MW worth of panels.
So, they'll basically have carbon credits (assuming CA is doing them by then) worth about $500K per year. Plus the electricity savings. Minus the increased property taxes based on the higher valuation of the property for the solar system.
Wonder how much those solar panels are going to cost...
As always, both Tepco and the Japanese government have massively downplayed the actual severity of this thing. It's worse than Chernobyl. Much, much worse.
Following your link, I find that the danger is being "ingored".
Personally, I tend to discount "alternative media" that can't spell. Makes me wonder what else they can't do correctly.
So my patent on "A method of using time travel as a landfill to send trash far enough forward in time that it no longer is of consequence" wont be accepted?
Send it into the past. Once you get farther back than about 50 K-years, it'll be gone, but reusable.
The latter was conceptually obsolete before it seriously got onto drawing boards.
Shuttle became conceptually obsolete when they decided to stop building them after five were completed.
The only way Shuttle could hope to make sense was if we'd begun expanding our manned presence in space (space stations, lunar runs, that sort of thing) enormously. Note that 50 Shuttle flights per year means that over the lifetime of the Shuttle, we'd have been able to build a space station 50 times as big as ISS, and still had flights left over to do annual lunar flights with an earth orbit to lunar orbit transfer vehicle left in orbit and refueled by Shuttle as needed.
Which would have been feasible with 25-50 Shuttles, and one (or more) Shuttle flights per week.
As was, we had too many Shuttles for the jobs that were available given the constraints of a flight every couple months, and too few to do anything much that couldn't be done better if we'd left the Saturn V assembly line open.
Not yet, but if it's possible to reprogram white blood cells via retroviruses, then perhaps someday it will be as simple as doing a plasma collection and then a few days later having the cells re-infused.
I am currently a candidate for an experimental treatment that does just that - plasma collection at start, then they convince the white blood cells to reproduce like mad, then put them back into me at weekly intervals.
Hopefully, my turn to play guinea pig for this one will come up this next month.
The Browning was not an individual combat weapon. One or two were issued per squad and they were used in teams. The M1 was the individual combet weapon.
The BAR was fired by one man. From the shoulder or hip, if needed. The other half of the team just carried ammo, since the BAR was a heavy mother.
Note that Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker both used the BAR. You may remember them as Bonnie and Clyde (yes, a girl can do full-auto with a BAR).
Note also that the M1, which does NOT meet the definition of "assault weapon" (oddly enough, neither does the M-16, though the AR-15 does), fired.30-06 just as fast as you could pull the trigger (which is how fast an AR-15 fires).
The AR-15 fires the exact same ammunition as the M-16 assault rifle. There are kits that can be bought on the internet to make it a full automatic weapon. And while the accuracy *may* be slightly less than the M-16, the bullets fired from an AR-15 are just as deadly as those from an M-16. And it will absolutely fire as fast as you can squeeze that trigger.
This is true for my shotgun as well. Except that my shotgun is NOT considered an "evil assault weapon" and is FAR more deadly than any AR-15.
Note that it's also true for my mini14. Which is also NOT considered an "evil assault weapon", though it is semi-automatic, convertible to full-auto if you buy an illegal kit and illegally modify the gun, and fires exactly the same cartridge as the M-16.
Note, for the record, that military rifles, in general, use rather weak cartridges, not the super-deadly ones you might expect. The M-16 fires a cartridge that would be considered a mediocre "varmint round", and totally unsuitable (not to mention illegal in most States) for hunting something man-sized (like a white-tail deer).
The AK-47, by the way, fires a cartridge that is ballistically similar to the.30-30 - suitable for a deer rifle at short range, totally unacceptable for that purpose once you get out into open country.
On the other hand, my.30-06 will go through your body armour. And yes, you can buy semi-auto.30-06 rifles.
equired 600,000 "liquidators" to be mobilised to build a cover on top of the reactor (most of which died of severe radiation poisoning less than 20 years later)
No, Chernobyl didn't kill "most of...600,000 liquidators". So far, Chernobyl seems to have done in less than 1% of the "liquidators", rather than "most of them".
Note that even the 1% number is, at best, a guess. ~1% of them have died of some form of cancer. In a normal population, about 20% die from cancer of one form or another, so the ~1% is basically noise in the system.
and removed 10 million of acres of land from Belarus and Ukraine?
The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is less than one million acres.
Britain is quite beautiful if you are in the countryside.
Hate to burst your bubble, but if you get away from major metropolitan areas in the USA, you'll find that the USA is quite beautiful if you in the countryside....
I've been to other countries, and people there don't have the same pathological reaction to evolution and AGW I come to expect from Americans.
If you get away from American newspapers and other news sources, you can go years without ever hearing anyone even mentioning "evolution" or any of its alternatives.
Global warming, you'll hear about a bit more often. Generally, people will use it as a joke when enduring a particularly hot (or particularly cold) day.
But really, neither really matters all that much to most Americans....
Actually what climate scientists' findings on global warming imply is that we should improve our energy efficiency.
That will actually improve things for the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of folks. The only people who are going to lose out on energy efficiency are a handful of parasites whose contributions to this world we will assuredly not miss.
If you approach "improve energy efficiency" from the perspective of "when old, inefficient devices wear out, replace them with high-efficiency devices", then no argument.
If, on the other hand, your notions of "improve energy efficiency" reduce to "everyone, everywhere, has to get rid of their old, inefficient devices and replace them RIGHT NOW with new, higher efficiency devices", then "improving energy efficiency" means hardship for all but the very rich everywhere.
Slashdot Mirror
Which is the key phrase in this whole business.
Among other things, it means that if the feds do not change things so only MS Office is acceptable, Google can restart the lawsuit with no problems.
Essentially, this is a peace offering by Google - "we want you to fix the objectionable part of your original RFP, and we'll stop suing you to let you do that in peace. BUT, if you don't fix it, we'll see you in court"
Probably.
Maybe.
You're talking about 700 pounds once you'e made allowance for the passenger. Which is a bit tight.
On the other hand, Mercury, sans heat shield and a lot of electronics (which are, of course, much lighter now) didn't weigh much more than that. And we have better material technology now, so a lighter mercury might be doable in 900 pounds.
Note, for reference, that a Falcon 9 can loft a Dragon capsule for only $50-odd million. Assuming you have a Dragon capsule, of course - not sure if SpaceX has bothered to set a price on the things yet.
Possibly because a Treaty "signing" is pretty much meaningless under US law.
We signed Kyoto remember?
Until the Senate ratifies it, Obama's signature means nothing at all. (and in the case of Kyoto, after Bill had Al sign it, Bill didn't even bother to present it to the Senate for ratification, knowing it wouldn't be ratified).
In general, when considering whether "some people shouldn't be allowed to vote", the first people to be put on the list of "not allowed to vote" should be the ones who favour the idea that "some people shouldn't be allowed to vote".
Or did you really mean "some OTHER people shouldn't be allowed to vote"?
Umm, no.
1.49454779e-5 is certainly correct.
Alas, 1.49-etc isn't actually 0.0000015%. It's not even 0.0000015. The number you were searching for was 0.0015%....
Of course, when the King James Bible was being written, that WAS prose.
Or do you really think that English as YOU speak it today is the same as it was spoken for the last 500 years or so?
I hate when I screw up the blockquotes. Makes me think I'm going senile.
Because the people of New Orleans don't speak with Cajun accents. They sound more like New Yorkers. Which I can understand just fine, thank you.
I expect that it would be seen as a great idea if a Democrat-controlled State had thought of it.
Alas, a Republican-controlled State thought of it, so it's evil.
Until the Republicans get control of the Federal government, at least. After that, it'll only be evil if a Democrat-controlled State suggests it.
That said, I approve of the idea in general. There's not a really good reason why students should have to wade through the teacher's accent to figure out what she's saying.
Plus we get the added benefit of teaching the kids to speak intelligibly. I expect that's needed in Arizona.
And I know it's needed in Louisiana. No, not because of the Mexicans, because of the Cajuns - I've lived here 20+ years, and still can't understand someone with a thick Cajun accent.
Oddly enough, when the Pilgrims went to Plymouth Rock, they took fewer than 100,000.
Their accomodations weren't built and waiting for their arrival.
And they didn't go from 100% to 0% dependent on Europe in 100 years, either.
Personally, I'd settle for 50-100 people (roughly comparable in number to the Pilgrims) in my lifetime, and aim to make them independent on Earth within 300 years.
And, of course, we make them independent on Earth in a sensible fashion - IC's are light, so it's not really all that important that they need to import them from Earth (as one example), but building houses/domes/whatever people live in is mass-intensive (and relatively simple), so it should have a high priority in the whole process of "becoming independent of Earth".
Not, mind you, that there's any chance of that happening in my lifetime. Kennedy made his speech after I was born, and Armstrong took his "small step for a man" when I was 10. But it doesn't look like even the optimistic assumption for going back to the Moon involve periods within my lifetime, much less getting to Mars.
Averaged over 24 hours a day, seven days a week, of course. In practice, it'll probably be closer to 20MW worth of panels.
So, they'll basically have carbon credits (assuming CA is doing them by then) worth about $500K per year. Plus the electricity savings. Minus the increased property taxes based on the higher valuation of the property for the solar system.
Wonder how much those solar panels are going to cost...
Following your link, I find that the danger is being "ingored".
Personally, I tend to discount "alternative media" that can't spell. Makes me wonder what else they can't do correctly.
Send it into the past. Once you get farther back than about 50 K-years, it'll be gone, but reusable.
Shuttle became conceptually obsolete when they decided to stop building them after five were completed.
The only way Shuttle could hope to make sense was if we'd begun expanding our manned presence in space (space stations, lunar runs, that sort of thing) enormously. Note that 50 Shuttle flights per year means that over the lifetime of the Shuttle, we'd have been able to build a space station 50 times as big as ISS, and still had flights left over to do annual lunar flights with an earth orbit to lunar orbit transfer vehicle left in orbit and refueled by Shuttle as needed.
Which would have been feasible with 25-50 Shuttles, and one (or more) Shuttle flights per week.
As was, we had too many Shuttles for the jobs that were available given the constraints of a flight every couple months, and too few to do anything much that couldn't be done better if we'd left the Saturn V assembly line open.
I am currently a candidate for an experimental treatment that does just that - plasma collection at start, then they convince the white blood cells to reproduce like mad, then put them back into me at weekly intervals.
Hopefully, my turn to play guinea pig for this one will come up this next month.
The BAR was fired by one man. From the shoulder or hip, if needed. The other half of the team just carried ammo, since the BAR was a heavy mother.
Note that Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker both used the BAR. You may remember them as Bonnie and Clyde (yes, a girl can do full-auto with a BAR).
Note also that the M1, which does NOT meet the definition of "assault weapon" (oddly enough, neither does the M-16, though the AR-15 does), fired .30-06 just as fast as you could pull the trigger (which is how fast an AR-15 fires).
Didn't we get this a couple weeks back?
Use HIV to reprogram his white blood cells to attack cancer?
Three words: Browning Automatic Rifle.
This is true for my shotgun as well. Except that my shotgun is NOT considered an "evil assault weapon" and is FAR more deadly than any AR-15.
Note that it's also true for my mini14. Which is also NOT considered an "evil assault weapon", though it is semi-automatic, convertible to full-auto if you buy an illegal kit and illegally modify the gun, and fires exactly the same cartridge as the M-16.
Note, for the record, that military rifles, in general, use rather weak cartridges, not the super-deadly ones you might expect. The M-16 fires a cartridge that would be considered a mediocre "varmint round", and totally unsuitable (not to mention illegal in most States) for hunting something man-sized (like a white-tail deer).
The AK-47, by the way, fires a cartridge that is ballistically similar to the .30-30 - suitable for a deer rifle at short range, totally unacceptable for that purpose once you get out into open country.
On the other hand, my .30-06 will go through your body armour. And yes, you can buy semi-auto .30-06 rifles.
No, Chernobyl didn't kill "most of...600,000 liquidators". So far, Chernobyl seems to have done in less than 1% of the "liquidators", rather than "most of them".
Note that even the 1% number is, at best, a guess. ~1% of them have died of some form of cancer. In a normal population, about 20% die from cancer of one form or another, so the ~1% is basically noise in the system.
The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is less than one million acres.
Hate to burst your bubble, but if you get away from major metropolitan areas in the USA, you'll find that the USA is quite beautiful if you in the countryside....
It should be noted that millions of people have died of insect-borne diseases because DDT was banned.
Arguably, the birds lives are worth more than the lives of people in countries far away that you don't know.
Just as arguably, "Silent Spring" (which seems to be the primary source of the "bad DDT" movement) was "good science" as opposed to "good politics"
But it's really hard to argue that banning DDT was especially scientific or an unalloyed good.
If you get away from American newspapers and other news sources, you can go years without ever hearing anyone even mentioning "evolution" or any of its alternatives.
Global warming, you'll hear about a bit more often. Generally, people will use it as a joke when enduring a particularly hot (or particularly cold) day.
But really, neither really matters all that much to most Americans....
If you approach "improve energy efficiency" from the perspective of "when old, inefficient devices wear out, replace them with high-efficiency devices", then no argument.
If, on the other hand, your notions of "improve energy efficiency" reduce to "everyone, everywhere, has to get rid of their old, inefficient devices and replace them RIGHT NOW with new, higher efficiency devices", then "improving energy efficiency" means hardship for all but the very rich everywhere.