I always make the argument, what if China decided one day to the next that 300 million (about a quarter of their country) decided to go for a walk and moved to the US via Alaska. Do you really think anybody could stop 300 million people? Answer NO!
I don't think anyone really has to. There isn't enough food between China and Alaska, or between Alaska and CONUS, to feed 300 million people. So if the Chinese decided to do something like this, we could reasonably expect the one survivor to be completely unnoticed in the trail of 300,000,000 corpses along the way.
Now, one could say that a Moon base makes more sense because it has raw materials available, but that is ignoring all the Near-Earth Asteroids, which could be reached from an LP at trivial fuel amounts.
Given that you have to ship the "trivial fuel amounts" to the LP station first, it works out as easier if you start from the Moon. Even if we never find water on the Moon, we can mine oxygen there, and oxygen is the overwhelming majority (anywhere from 80% to 89% by mass) of LH2/LOX rocket fuel.
Note that a space station orbiting the Moon is also easier to reach from Earth than one in a LP.
As a neighbor to San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), I say hear hear. I can't remember the last time I worried about SONGS going critical. Although it is fun when they test the "Doomsday Sirens".
How sad. You mean they've never bothered to turn on the reactor?
Or perhaps you're not aware that "critical" means "a steady-state self-sustaining nuclear reaction"?
A reactor is "critical" whenever it is turned on, with the exceptions of transients in power output - increasing power output makes it "super-critical", decreasing power makes it "sub-critical".
In other words, "critical" isn't a scary word when describing a nuclear reactor, though it is often used that way among the ignorant (to include the mainstream media and Hollywood).
Well, Mirrors Edge is 16:9 all the way through - which of course prompted people to ask why the game is broken, showing those white/black bars at the top and bottom all the time...
My field of view, as I sit here, is about 160 degrees, I think. 16:9 is still tunnel vision. Just a slightly wider tunnel. Realistically, you'd have to have three screens, or wraparound goggles to get a "realistic" view. Which isn't practical, just yet....
Depends almost entirely on how fast you can get on scramjets. I don't think Mach six is enough to make it worth the bother. But I'm pretty sure Mach twelve would be enough to make it worthwhile.
Basically, imagine if you were looking at our sun from another star system, and Jupiter stood out clearly as a dip in the light curve, reappearing every 8 or 9 years(?). With this, something like Io or Europa would show up as a smaller periodic variation overlaid on that larger dip. Only noise levels are standing in the way of detecting it, and apparently they think Kepler can handle it.
Well, no. It says they can detect exomoons with mass > 0.2 Earth masses. Since even Ganymede is only 0.025 Earth masses, Kepler wouldn't be able to detect any of the moons in our solar system from another star system.
If the economy is really that bad and you can't afford it, $60/month will hurt a lot more than $20/month. You'll will make up the subsidized difference in only a few months. Unless you expect to be solvent again in a few months, it's a pretty bad deal. Basic math, people.
I have a $20/month 3g data plan from ATT for my nokia e71 that I bought outright for $330. I asked them what the lowest possible cost was, which was some wierd thing they don't advertise. Then I went online and added the $15 media net plan on top of that.
So, basically, you pay $35 per month. As opposed to $60 per month. You paid $330 as opposed to $100. You come out ahead on the deal in ten months.
In other words, it's not that big an advantage, really. Yah, it's an advantage, but it's not a huge one. Certainly not enough to get excited about, unless you're pinching every penny. And if you're pinching every penny, spending $330 up front for a glorified cellphone looks a little silly.
That doesn't mean Crysis would be better without the first-person view. It's the realism that makes that kind of game.
There is relatively little "realism" in a first-person view.
Real field of vision is much wider than an FPS gives you, since most of us have peripheral vision. I always feel like I've suddenly developed tunnel-vision when I try First-Person pov.
Um, you do realize that lots of people bashing your exalted Dear Leader Bush were harrassed by the FBI, not to mention all the legally protesting people at the RNC convention who were arrested and thrown in prison on false charges (though later released)? And then, of course, there is anti-flag burning legislation always brought up by Repugs. In red states, you can't lead anyone in a school prayer unless it is to the Protestant Fundamentalist version of God.
It's all down to numbers. The Angle, Saxon and Norse invasions were mass migrations
There were more Romano-Brits than Angles, Saxons and Jutes. So it's not just numbers.
Though I've seen it argued that the hypothetical "King Arthur's" successful containment of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes during his lifetime allowed the English population to grow large enough that by the time they finally overran the remnants of Roman Britain a century later, they were numerous enough to replace the Romano-Brit culture entirely, rather than being a superficial overlay on same, as happened in France when the Franks overran the Romanized Gauls of France.
you are correct that it takes massive amounts of energy to make energy devices. The Odums talk about this a lot. At the same time, a retreat away from the Jetsons does not equal an instantaneous, or even necessarily a rapid, collapse into the neolithic.
we wouldn't necessarily have a massive die-off if we gradually phased out coal/oil/gas. The massive die-off will happen if we shut down all those evil CO2 emitters right now.
What would cause the retreat to the neolithic isn't the retreat from the Jetsons. It's the sudden die-off of 90% of the population. If we could arrange that the die-off happened far from where we live (wipe out Africa, Asia, South America, leave Europe and North America alone), then it wouldn't be a civilazation-killer. Necessarily. Maybe.
But it won't be like that. If anything, the die-off would be worse in North America and Europe, as we're far more dependent on modern technology. And when our part of civilization collapses, that'll take with it entirely too much of the industrial capacity and know-how required to make the rest of civilization continue working.
If we start, today, by forbidding the construction of any new fossil fuel powered devices worldwide, there's a reasonable chance we could replace the fossil fuel infrastructure before civilization broke down. Not a certainty, since it would require building a hell of a lot of new stuff before the old stuff gave its last gasp. But a decent chance.
If we were to take a (slightly) more reasonable approach - forbid the contruction of new fossil fuel powered devices after 1 JAN 2032, and start building nuclear, solar, wind power up massively right now, we'd not lose civilization, though a lot of people in Europe and America could look forward to reduced lifestyles for the next couple generations.
But none of that matters if the Chinese and Indians (pretty near half the world's population) don't jump on the bandwagon right now. And they won't, since this is their big chance to catch up to Europe and America. Which they won't give up without pretty convincing evidence that their world will end.
And we can't provide that evidence yet. Sure, we expect that the climate will change. For the worse in many places, for the better in some. But we can't say for sure that China will be included in that "worse", so why should they care?
This ignoring that China might not really care if a few hundred million of their people died off - their population is a lot higher than it was when they made ZPG government policy, so maybe a small die-off wouldn't bother them much.
Dammit, all those 'nucu-lar' power plants in France and elsewhere for nought, if only you'd posted earlier.....
All those nuclear power plants, in France, USA, UK, Russia, and elsewhere, are why I expected up to 10% of the population to survive the shutdown of the oil, coal, natural gas industries. Note that the self-sustaining pre-industrial population of the planet was about 3% of the current population.
Alas, even France wouldn't survive the collapse of civilization that would result. While nuclear accounts for the majority of their electricity, it doesn't supply power to the majority of their transportation infrastructure. And if you can't move food from where people grow it to where people live, people die in job lots.
> It's another glasses-based technology with "active shutter" being employed.
Great, but I wonder if these companies ever think about people with eyesight problems (yes, talking about myself) who can't properly eperience glass-based 3D movies.
No, what they're thinking is "we can sell a pair of glasses to EVERY VIEWER!! They won't be able to just invite the neighbors over to watch the game on their 82" TV, now the neighbors will have to buy their own 82" TV! Or buy a pair of our entirely reasonably priced 3D glasses for only $249.99 each..."
Those Normans who invaded then became the English. They take on the nationality of their home land which, if an invading and colonising force, would change.
So, the Normans became English when they conquered Britain, but the English didn't become Romano-British when they conquered Britain? Gotcha!
You Americans don't call yourselves English, or Irish, or Spanish after all, do you? Hell, you devote a whole day to celebrating not being English!
Well, yes, we do. Call ourselves Irish or Spanish, at least. Most of us won't admit to being English, of course. With a "-American" stuck on to the end, I admit. We even have an Irish festival in New Orleans every year.
On an interesting (to me, at least) sidenote: the reason there are Irish in the New Orleans area is that back in the 19th Century, there were some jobs going that were too hazardous to use slaves on (slaves cost money, and we can't be just throwing money down ratholes by killing slaves unnecessarily, now can we?), so the government of the time got a bunch of Irishmen to come over to do those jobs, since they were more expendable than the slaves...
The reason companies haven't got on board for the financial savings is because it is not something a single company can reap the benefits of,
Hmm, in other words, there will be no financial savings?
So, "here's a great new opportunity for our company! We have to spend a buttload of money, and we won't actually make a profit, but it's a great opportunity, trust me!"
This also means you need less military expenditure to secure and/or protect fossil fuel assets abroad (let's face it, that's what Iraq was about after all) which again leads to cost savings.
Someone has explained to you that we don't get oil from Iraq, and that we've never gotten oil from Iraq, right? Iraqi oil has mostly gone to Europe.
From Wikipedia: "The English (from Old English: Englisc) are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English."
And here I always thought the English were those lads who invaded Britain at the end of the Roman Empire and conquered the place. Only to be conquered later by the Normans.
Or we could just have a brief and rather blunt conversation with our friends in the coal, oil and beef industries.
Yep. Shut those industries down.
Then, after 90+% of the world's population dies off, the remaining 10-% can continue to live as men were "meant to live" (pretty much the way our ancestors lived 20000 years ago - the phrase you're searching for is "nasty, brutish, and short").
The only quick fix to the problem requires a massive human die-off. Until you're willing to lead that die-off by example, stop wasting time suggesting that that's the ideal answer to the problem.
Note, by the by, that if we shut down all the evil power industries (coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear), then we would no long be able to make those fluffy green power industries that some people are so enamoured of - it takes power, and lots of it, to build solar panels or windmills in industrial quantities.
The millions of tons of entirely man-made space junk still orbiting Earth
Thousands. Or perhaps hundreds. Or perhaps less.
We haven't put even one million tons of stuff into space yet, much less into orbit, much less that has stayed in orbit. Much less that is in a hazardous orbit.
Do yourself the favour of looking up which sections of the Geneva Conventions the USA is a signatory to. Then read those sections. Then come up with examples of us violating those sections.
Be aware, by the by, that we never signed on to the sections giving near-blanket immunity to guerrilla forces
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How do you think the one survivor made it?
I don't think anyone really has to. There isn't enough food between China and Alaska, or between Alaska and CONUS, to feed 300 million people. So if the Chinese decided to do something like this, we could reasonably expect the one survivor to be completely unnoticed in the trail of 300,000,000 corpses along the way.
Given that you have to ship the "trivial fuel amounts" to the LP station first, it works out as easier if you start from the Moon. Even if we never find water on the Moon, we can mine oxygen there, and oxygen is the overwhelming majority (anywhere from 80% to 89% by mass) of LH2/LOX rocket fuel.
Note that a space station orbiting the Moon is also easier to reach from Earth than one in a LP.
How sad. You mean they've never bothered to turn on the reactor?
Or perhaps you're not aware that "critical" means "a steady-state self-sustaining nuclear reaction"?
A reactor is "critical" whenever it is turned on, with the exceptions of transients in power output - increasing power output makes it "super-critical", decreasing power makes it "sub-critical".
In other words, "critical" isn't a scary word when describing a nuclear reactor, though it is often used that way among the ignorant (to include the mainstream media and Hollywood).
My field of view, as I sit here, is about 160 degrees, I think. 16:9 is still tunnel vision. Just a slightly wider tunnel. Realistically, you'd have to have three screens, or wraparound goggles to get a "realistic" view. Which isn't practical, just yet....
Depends almost entirely on how fast you can get on scramjets. I don't think Mach six is enough to make it worth the bother. But I'm pretty sure Mach twelve would be enough to make it worthwhile.
Well, no. It says they can detect exomoons with mass > 0.2 Earth masses. Since even Ganymede is only 0.025 Earth masses, Kepler wouldn't be able to detect any of the moons in our solar system from another star system.
So, basically, you pay $35 per month. As opposed to $60 per month. You paid $330 as opposed to $100. You come out ahead on the deal in ten months.
In other words, it's not that big an advantage, really. Yah, it's an advantage, but it's not a huge one. Certainly not enough to get excited about, unless you're pinching every penny. And if you're pinching every penny, spending $330 up front for a glorified cellphone looks a little silly.
So, guys with guns forcing someone to give away his stuff is basically the same as someone giving away his stuff of his own free will?
Wow....
There is relatively little "realism" in a first-person view.
Real field of vision is much wider than an FPS gives you, since most of us have peripheral vision. I always feel like I've suddenly developed tunnel-vision when I try First-Person pov.
Citations?
There were more Romano-Brits than Angles, Saxons and Jutes. So it's not just numbers.
Though I've seen it argued that the hypothetical "King Arthur's" successful containment of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes during his lifetime allowed the English population to grow large enough that by the time they finally overran the remnants of Roman Britain a century later, they were numerous enough to replace the Romano-Brit culture entirely, rather than being a superficial overlay on same, as happened in France when the Franks overran the Romanized Gauls of France.
we wouldn't necessarily have a massive die-off if we gradually phased out coal/oil/gas. The massive die-off will happen if we shut down all those evil CO2 emitters right now.
What would cause the retreat to the neolithic isn't the retreat from the Jetsons. It's the sudden die-off of 90% of the population. If we could arrange that the die-off happened far from where we live (wipe out Africa, Asia, South America, leave Europe and North America alone), then it wouldn't be a civilazation-killer. Necessarily. Maybe.
But it won't be like that. If anything, the die-off would be worse in North America and Europe, as we're far more dependent on modern technology. And when our part of civilization collapses, that'll take with it entirely too much of the industrial capacity and know-how required to make the rest of civilization continue working.
If we start, today, by forbidding the construction of any new fossil fuel powered devices worldwide, there's a reasonable chance we could replace the fossil fuel infrastructure before civilization broke down. Not a certainty, since it would require building a hell of a lot of new stuff before the old stuff gave its last gasp. But a decent chance.
If we were to take a (slightly) more reasonable approach - forbid the contruction of new fossil fuel powered devices after 1 JAN 2032, and start building nuclear, solar, wind power up massively right now, we'd not lose civilization, though a lot of people in Europe and America could look forward to reduced lifestyles for the next couple generations.
But none of that matters if the Chinese and Indians (pretty near half the world's population) don't jump on the bandwagon right now. And they won't, since this is their big chance to catch up to Europe and America. Which they won't give up without pretty convincing evidence that their world will end.
And we can't provide that evidence yet. Sure, we expect that the climate will change. For the worse in many places, for the better in some. But we can't say for sure that China will be included in that "worse", so why should they care?
This ignoring that China might not really care if a few hundred million of their people died off - their population is a lot higher than it was when they made ZPG government policy, so maybe a small die-off wouldn't bother them much.
All those nuclear power plants, in France, USA, UK, Russia, and elsewhere, are why I expected up to 10% of the population to survive the shutdown of the oil, coal, natural gas industries. Note that the self-sustaining pre-industrial population of the planet was about 3% of the current population.
Alas, even France wouldn't survive the collapse of civilization that would result. While nuclear accounts for the majority of their electricity, it doesn't supply power to the majority of their transportation infrastructure. And if you can't move food from where people grow it to where people live, people die in job lots.
Perhaps she moonlights as a member of the band "Athlete"?
No, what they're thinking is "we can sell a pair of glasses to EVERY VIEWER!! They won't be able to just invite the neighbors over to watch the game on their 82" TV, now the neighbors will have to buy their own 82" TV! Or buy a pair of our entirely reasonably priced 3D glasses for only $249.99 each..."
So, the Normans became English when they conquered Britain, but the English didn't become Romano-British when they conquered Britain? Gotcha!
Well, yes, we do. Call ourselves Irish or Spanish, at least. Most of us won't admit to being English, of course. With a "-American" stuck on to the end, I admit. We even have an Irish festival in New Orleans every year.
On an interesting (to me, at least) sidenote: the reason there are Irish in the New Orleans area is that back in the 19th Century, there were some jobs going that were too hazardous to use slaves on (slaves cost money, and we can't be just throwing money down ratholes by killing slaves unnecessarily, now can we?), so the government of the time got a bunch of Irishmen to come over to do those jobs, since they were more expendable than the slaves...
Hmm, in other words, there will be no financial savings?
So, "here's a great new opportunity for our company! We have to spend a buttload of money, and we won't actually make a profit, but it's a great opportunity, trust me!"
Someone has explained to you that we don't get oil from Iraq, and that we've never gotten oil from Iraq, right? Iraqi oil has mostly gone to Europe.
No, the Founders believed we needed to be protected from our government.
For reference, the Romans occasionally had hummingbirds on the menus at feasts. So people do (or did) eat very small birds.
And here I always thought the English were those lads who invaded Britain at the end of the Roman Empire and conquered the place. Only to be conquered later by the Normans.
Yep. Shut those industries down.
Then, after 90+% of the world's population dies off, the remaining 10-% can continue to live as men were "meant to live" (pretty much the way our ancestors lived 20000 years ago - the phrase you're searching for is "nasty, brutish, and short").
The only quick fix to the problem requires a massive human die-off. Until you're willing to lead that die-off by example, stop wasting time suggesting that that's the ideal answer to the problem.
Note, by the by, that if we shut down all the evil power industries (coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear), then we would no long be able to make those fluffy green power industries that some people are so enamoured of - it takes power, and lots of it, to build solar panels or windmills in industrial quantities.
Thousands. Or perhaps hundreds. Or perhaps less.
We haven't put even one million tons of stuff into space yet, much less into orbit, much less that has stayed in orbit. Much less that is in a hazardous orbit.
Do yourself the favour of looking up which sections of the Geneva Conventions the USA is a signatory to. Then read those sections. Then come up with examples of us violating those sections.
Be aware, by the by, that we never signed on to the sections giving near-blanket immunity to guerrilla forces