Or Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. A comet instead of an asteroid, set now (well, now as of when the book was written, which was pre-Shuttle) instead of in the future.
once you have a copy of a song, or game, or book, it's hard to get around to shelling out the cash you would have paid if you hadn't had access to a copy
This amused me greatly, since I downloaded a book from the Baen Free Library this past Friday, read the first five chapters, then stopped at a bookstore over the weekend and bought a copy of that book, plus two others by the same author. Plus a new book by another author I discovered in the BFL. And I ordered the Webscription version of that book as well.
So, just out of curiousity, why is prostitution "more serious vice" then recreational drug use?
Seriously, the biggest issue when it comes to making illegal things legal (or vice versa), is that you can't possibly anticipate all the side-effects. You'll never know whether you have helped society or harmed it, until you do. And then it's generally too late.
Remove the electoral college, it was put there because the founders did not trust the tyranny of the majority! Think about that.
I take it from this comment that you do trust the tyranny of the majority. If so, may one ask why? You're not in the majority, after all. Remember that the tyranny of the majority implies that if 50% + 1 think that all blacks/asians/gays/priests/computer programmers/whatever need to be killed, then off they go to the gas chambers...
Okay, but could I just take a lot of spent fuel, extract just the "pure" U235 and reconstitute it into a big ball of "pure" 95%> U-235?
For what it's worth, that is an INCREDIBLY difficult thing to do. Not impossible, or even implausible, just difficult. It takes some really big equipment - say, the size of an average oil-refinery, and a fair amount of time (the Manhattan project took a couple of years to get enough U-235 to make one bomb). It would certainly be easier now than then. But note that only 10 nations have ever pulled it off. And only one ever did it without outside help.
Besides, if you can do it, what's to stop you from just extracting some pitchblende from the ground and doing the same thing?
If extracting the "good stuff" were a trivial exercise, we would do that rather than store the stuff. After all, the U-235 would be just as useful to us as to a hypothetical terrorist. More really, as we could use it to fuel another reactor.
It's funny in a way. All across the world the same thinking is prevalent (I do not accuse the previous poster of thinking like this). "Nuclear power is good and safe and perfect, but don't even think of storing all the waste near where I live!"
Store it where I live. Doesn't bother me. Well, other than the thought of all that stuff sinking into the swamp...:)
The NIMBY problem is well known, and is the major reason that waste storage for radioactives is STILL an issue. If it were not for all the nuclear-phobic twits out there, the issue would have been resolved in the 60s.
Now you are 280 pounds? You want to lose weight? Well you don't want to lose more then 2 pounds a week it's not healthy so here is all you need to do. Eat 1500 calories a day.
Try the diabetic diet guidelines.
Decide your target weight. Multiply be 10. That's how many calories per day to eat and lose weight without adverse side-effects. When you get to your target weight, increase intake to 15 calories per pound.
Moderate exercise is required. Both fats and carbs are restricted, but neither excessively. Three meals plus two snacks per day.
As for cancer-in-the-thirties, if you look at breast cancer rates in the US, you'll find that breast cancer is consistently highest in the mid point between two nuclear reactors. And it's a cancer that can strike in the 30's.
Knowing nothing about breast cancer (other than that more women get it than do men:) ), but a fair amount about nuclear power, I offer this:
Assuming nuclear power plants are a source of radiation and radioactive contamination (which they are), and assuming more or less random distribution of nuclear power plants (which they aren't), then "mid point between two nuclear power plants" is a higher breast cancer risk only if breast cancer risk is lowered in the presence of low-level readioactivity/contamination. By any objective measure, levels of radioactivity/contamination from nuclear power plants are higher near one power plant than (relatively) far from two power plants. Midpoint between two power plants is about as safe as it gets, unless your definition of "mid point between" is "between two reactor vessels at the same site".
When I quit taking caffeine, I quit cold-turkey. With one preperatory step. When I chugged my last Pepsi, I took two extra-strength tylenol with the last swallow. Then I continued the extra-strength tylenol every four hours for three days. Never had a problem, and never drank any caffeine since then (1989).
That's why insurance companies and HMOs fight tooth and nail to be able to deny people treatments
I've always been fascinated at the notion that insurance companies and HMOs "deny people treatments". All they can do is refuse to pay for treatments. And if they do, you can always pay for the treatment yourself. While living without health insurance once or twice in my life, I have found no difficulty in getting any treatment I needed...
You[r supreme court] elected George W., thus creating the least constitutionally responsible executive branch in the past hundred years...
Actually, I'd have to say that the Ford/Rockefeller administration was the "least constitutionally responsible executive branch in the past hundred years". Neither Ford nor Rockefeller were elected to the office they held. Neither even ran for the office they were in...
But even when one of these asteroids passes this close - which is only known to have happened 6 times since we've been able to record these events (about 50 years?) - there is still only about a 1 in 100 chance it will hit the planet.
hmmm...6 events in 50 years. That's averaging one event every 8 years. 1% chance of a hit per event. That means the odds give us a 50-50 chance of a hit every 550 years, plus or minus. That's not bad odds, really.
I haven't read the book either; does it have the same concept that you only become a full citizen (with the right to vote) if you join the military? See, over here in euro-weenie land, that's what we call "fascism".
In Starship Troopers, you get the right to vote AFTER serving for two years in "public service". The "public service" MAY be the military, but probably won't be. I believe the number mentioned in the story was 98% chance of it NOT being in the military.
Over here we call "fascism" a system of government where the means of production are in the hands of individuals, but the control of those means are in the hands of the government. Has nothing to do with votes, or lack of same...
This, of course, doesn't change the fact that, throughout history, the United States has traditionally sat on its butt and done jack shit unless its hand was forced.
And why SHOULD the USA do anything unless its hand is forced? I have never noticed anything in the history books that suggest that preemptive actions, like the British attack on Germany in 1905 (Oh, wait, that didn't happen!), were particularly common. Remember that the various countries involved in WW1 (and WW2) got involved when they were REQUIRED to by the situation.
The US only got involved in World War One in 1917, three years after the conflict started, and even then it only sent a token force into combat.
And it only "sent a token force into combat" because the war ended before it could bring more force into play. And the war ended not as a result of British or French actions, but as a result of a really stupid German decision (the German 1918 offensive on the western front was the action of a lunatic).
In World War Two, it took a direct smack in the face (Pearl Harbour) to wake the US up from the dream that it could isolate itself from world affairs.
Hmmm. The British and French, as I recall, did not invade Germany in '39 either. Nor did the Russians attack Germany in '40. I wonder why everyone who gets on the US' case for staying out of a European war doesn't also get on the Russian case for the same thing...
And before Pearl Harbor, the US supplied Great Britain and the Soviet Union with tanks, planes, ships, food, oil, etc, etc, etc. Frankly, the US violated its own Neutrality Act and international principles about neutrality to bail out the British and Soviets. Don't whine about us being late to the game, when we couldn't have provided more help to the Allies than we did any earlier than we did.
Even then the US only declared war on Japan - it took Germany's declaration of war on the US for America to get involved in the war in Europe.
Our government and the British government had been involved in talks for quite some time before Pearl Harbor, discussing the actions to be taken by us when we entered the war against Germany. The only reason we didn't declare war on Germany first was because they were a bit faster to the punch. And, frankly, Hitler was an idiot for declaring war on the USA.
They both have atmospheric drag to contend with. Presumably the "outsider" will have significantly more velocity but an unknown composition, shape and reentry angle all of which are known vis a vis the orbiter.
Is the outsider problem simple enough to predict where it will land?
Mostly. If the outsider is coming in at a very shallow angle, then atmospheric effects could give a quite broad possible impact area. Much more likely though, the outsider is impacting at a fairly acute angle. Which means it plows through the atmosphere in about 15 seconds, with minimal perturbation.
That said, if my ascent vehicle breaks down and I have to hang out until help arrives, I want to be on Mars -- I have a much better chance of survival.
If your ascent vehicle breaks on Mars, you have a minimum 8 month wait for rescue. If it breaks on the moon, the wait is like 3 days.
I think I'll take the 3 day wait over the 240 day wait anytime...
Why go to the movies, spend time with your friends or read a book, when you could spend that time much more productively with a second job and lots of overtime?
Time is money does not equal Maximize money. A better translation might be: maximize available time by paying someone else to do the stuff you don't want to do, in order to free the time to do the stuff you do want to do. In other words, don't spend an hour of your life changing the oil in your car, when you could pay someone else to do it and use that hour to have sex. Or program. Whatever you enjoy.
But if you enjoy changing the oil in your car, have fun!
the sad truth is, it's just like the tobacco companies: they're just too big and no _real_ change will happen until some major players (i.e. states) become involved.
Whatever makes you think that the states (or the feds, for that matter) want to do anything about the tobacco companies?
Do yourself the favour of finding out how much tobacco taxes your state takes in every year. Then, and only then, will you understand how little desire there is on the part of the states to do anything about the tobacco companies...
On the contrary. It's the cost of a broadband connection vis-a-vis dial-up that's slowing adoption. If the average user is paying $9.95 (yeah, right) or $19.95, $40 seems way to much. Throttling the pipe should allow the companies to sell an entry level service for $29.99, then premium services for $39.99, etc.
On the other hand, I am using dial-up. I have been considering broadband for several months. I have postponed such consideration until after the current wave or price changes/usage limits settles down.
So three months ago I was planning on getting broadband this summer. Now I'm thinking probably no earlier than next year. And I won't do it then if I can't get a higher cap than, say, 10GB per month (I can get 6GB with my modem, even with my crappy phone line) for a reasonable fee. And reasonable is NOT $100/month...
The car payments are crazy. It seems like people across all the economic stratas are spending way to much on cars. People with no money are paying $800 or more every month on their cars (sometimes more than one car). It's a far better idea to keep your cars until they are worn out and to put as much down as you can (unless you have a great loan rate).
Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to determine whether these people were making sensible decisions. The key piece of information required to determine whether someone with a couple of late-model cars is making sensible decisions is "what did he have BEFORE he bought these late-model cars?"
If the answer is "a 1988 Dodge and a 1985 Pinto", then obviously he is behaving sensibly, and we just caught him right after he replaced his old cars. If the answer is "a 1999 Chrysler and a 1998 SUV", then he is probably wasting money like a madman...
I currently own two cars - one with 240,000 miles on it, the other with around 190,000. I'll be replacing them in a couple of years. Until I do, I will have zero car payment. Right afterwards, I wouldn't be surprised if I had $800+ in car payments for a few years. Then, back to ten years without payments:)
Part of the reason for high credit card interest is a high rate of non-payment of credit card debt. The people paying the interest are paying to cover the ocst of the people who don't bother to pay their credit card debt...
Slashdot Mirror
Or Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. A comet instead of an asteroid, set now (well, now as of when the book was written, which was pre-Shuttle) instead of in the future.
Just because you don't like the business model doesn't give you the authority to circumvent it illegally
Actually, you do. It's called "civil disobedience", and has traditionally been used to get bad laws changed.
once you have a copy of a song, or game, or book, it's hard to get around to shelling out the cash you would have paid if you hadn't had access to a copy
This amused me greatly, since I downloaded a book from the Baen Free Library this past Friday, read the first five chapters, then stopped at a bookstore over the weekend and bought a copy of that book, plus two others by the same author. Plus a new book by another author I discovered in the BFL. And I ordered the Webscription version of that book as well.
So, just out of curiousity, why is prostitution "more serious vice" then recreational drug use? Seriously, the biggest issue when it comes to making illegal things legal (or vice versa), is that you can't possibly anticipate all the side-effects. You'll never know whether you have helped society or harmed it, until you do. And then it's generally too late.
Remove the electoral college, it was put there because the founders did not trust the tyranny of the majority! Think about that.
I take it from this comment that you do trust the tyranny of the majority. If so, may one ask why? You're not in the majority, after all. Remember that the tyranny of the majority implies that if 50% + 1 think that all blacks/asians/gays/priests/computer programmers/whatever need to be killed, then off they go to the gas chambers...
If you have a drivers licence then you have a right to drive on the highway, but only if you stay within the speed limit.
Actually, if you have a driver's license, you have the PRIVILEGE of driving on the highways. You do not have a RIGHT to do so.
Okay, but could I just take a lot of spent fuel, extract just the "pure" U235 and reconstitute it into a big ball of "pure" 95%> U-235?
For what it's worth, that is an INCREDIBLY difficult thing to do. Not impossible, or even implausible, just difficult. It takes some really big equipment - say, the size of an average oil-refinery, and a fair amount of time (the Manhattan project took a couple of years to get enough U-235 to make one bomb). It would certainly be easier now than then. But note that only 10 nations have ever pulled it off. And only one ever did it without outside help.
Besides, if you can do it, what's to stop you from just extracting some pitchblende from the ground and doing the same thing?
If extracting the "good stuff" were a trivial exercise, we would do that rather than store the stuff. After all, the U-235 would be just as useful to us as to a hypothetical terrorist. More really, as we could use it to fuel another reactor.
It's funny in a way. All across the world the same thinking is prevalent (I do not accuse the previous poster of thinking like this). "Nuclear power is good and safe and perfect, but don't even think of storing all the waste near where I live!"
Store it where I live. Doesn't bother me. Well, other than the thought of all that stuff sinking into the swamp...:)
The NIMBY problem is well known, and is the major reason that waste storage for radioactives is STILL an issue. If it were not for all the nuclear-phobic twits out there, the issue would have been resolved in the 60s.
But the half life of the fuel is something like 8 DAYS, not 10,000 YEARS.
Which makes it about 500,000 times as radioactive.
Remember that long half-life radioactives are long-half life because they aren't really very radioactive.
Now you are 280 pounds? You want to lose weight? Well you don't want to lose more then 2 pounds a week it's not healthy so here is all you need to do. Eat 1500 calories a day.
Try the diabetic diet guidelines.
Decide your target weight. Multiply be 10. That's how many calories per day to eat and lose weight without adverse side-effects. When you get to your target weight, increase intake to 15 calories per pound.
Moderate exercise is required. Both fats and carbs are restricted, but neither excessively. Three meals plus two snacks per day.
Or, use JR's diet: "Eat less, move around more".
As for cancer-in-the-thirties, if you look at breast cancer rates in the US, you'll find that breast cancer is consistently highest in the mid point between two nuclear reactors. And it's a cancer that can strike in the 30's.
Knowing nothing about breast cancer (other than that more women get it than do men :) ), but a fair amount about nuclear power, I offer this:
Assuming nuclear power plants are a source of radiation and radioactive contamination (which they are), and assuming more or less random distribution of nuclear power plants (which they aren't), then "mid point between two nuclear power plants" is a higher breast cancer risk only if breast cancer risk is lowered in the presence of low-level readioactivity/contamination. By any objective measure, levels of radioactivity/contamination from nuclear power plants are higher near one power plant than (relatively) far from two power plants. Midpoint between two power plants is about as safe as it gets, unless your definition of "mid point between" is "between two reactor vessels at the same site".
When I quit taking caffeine, I quit cold-turkey. With one preperatory step. When I chugged my last Pepsi, I took two extra-strength tylenol with the last swallow. Then I continued the extra-strength tylenol every four hours for three days. Never had a problem, and never drank any caffeine since then (1989).
That's why insurance companies and HMOs fight tooth and nail to be able to deny people treatments
I've always been fascinated at the notion that insurance companies and HMOs "deny people treatments". All they can do is refuse to pay for treatments. And if they do, you can always pay for the treatment yourself. While living without health insurance once or twice in my life, I have found no difficulty in getting any treatment I needed...
You[r supreme court] elected George W., thus creating the least constitutionally responsible executive branch in the past hundred years...
Actually, I'd have to say that the Ford/Rockefeller administration was the "least constitutionally responsible executive branch in the past hundred years". Neither Ford nor Rockefeller were elected to the office they held. Neither even ran for the office they were in...
But even when one of these asteroids passes this close - which is only known to have happened 6 times since we've been able to record these events (about 50 years?) - there is still only about a 1 in 100 chance it will hit the planet.
hmmm...6 events in 50 years. That's averaging one event every 8 years. 1% chance of a hit per event. That means the odds give us a 50-50 chance of a hit every 550 years, plus or minus. That's not bad odds, really.
I haven't read the book either; does it have the same concept that you only become a full citizen (with the right to vote) if you join the military? See, over here in euro-weenie land, that's what we call "fascism".
In Starship Troopers, you get the right to vote AFTER serving for two years in "public service". The "public service" MAY be the military, but probably won't be. I believe the number mentioned in the story was 98% chance of it NOT being in the military.
Over here we call "fascism" a system of government where the means of production are in the hands of individuals, but the control of those means are in the hands of the government. Has nothing to do with votes, or lack of same...
This, of course, doesn't change the fact that, throughout history, the United States has traditionally sat on its butt and done jack shit unless its hand was forced.
And why SHOULD the USA do anything unless its hand is forced? I have never noticed anything in the history books that suggest that preemptive actions, like the British attack on Germany in 1905 (Oh, wait, that didn't happen!), were particularly common. Remember that the various countries involved in WW1 (and WW2) got involved when they were REQUIRED to by the situation.
The US only got involved in World War One in 1917, three years after the conflict started, and even then it only sent a token force into combat.
And it only "sent a token force into combat" because the war ended before it could bring more force into play. And the war ended not as a result of British or French actions, but as a result of a really stupid German decision (the German 1918 offensive on the western front was the action of a lunatic).
In World War Two, it took a direct smack in the face (Pearl Harbour) to wake the US up from the dream that it could isolate itself from world affairs.
Hmmm. The British and French, as I recall, did not invade Germany in '39 either. Nor did the Russians attack Germany in '40. I wonder why everyone who gets on the US' case for staying out of a European war doesn't also get on the Russian case for the same thing...
And before Pearl Harbor, the US supplied Great Britain and the Soviet Union with tanks, planes, ships, food, oil, etc, etc, etc. Frankly, the US violated its own Neutrality Act and international principles about neutrality to bail out the British and Soviets. Don't whine about us being late to the game, when we couldn't have provided more help to the Allies than we did any earlier than we did.
Even then the US only declared war on Japan - it took Germany's declaration of war on the US for America to get involved in the war in Europe.
Our government and the British government had been involved in talks for quite some time before Pearl Harbor, discussing the actions to be taken by us when we entered the war against Germany. The only reason we didn't declare war on Germany first was because they were a bit faster to the punch. And, frankly, Hitler was an idiot for declaring war on the USA.
They both have atmospheric drag to contend with. Presumably the "outsider" will have significantly more velocity but an unknown composition, shape and reentry angle all of which are known vis a vis the orbiter. Is the outsider problem simple enough to predict where it will land?
Mostly. If the outsider is coming in at a very shallow angle, then atmospheric effects could give a quite broad possible impact area. Much more likely though, the outsider is impacting at a fairly acute angle. Which means it plows through the atmosphere in about 15 seconds, with minimal perturbation.
That said, if my ascent vehicle breaks down and I have to hang out until help arrives, I want to be on Mars -- I have a much better chance of survival.
If your ascent vehicle breaks on Mars, you have a minimum 8 month wait for rescue. If it breaks on the moon, the wait is like 3 days.
I think I'll take the 3 day wait over the 240 day wait anytime...
Why go to the movies, spend time with your friends or read a book, when you could spend that time much more productively with a second job and lots of overtime?
Time is money does not equal Maximize money. A better translation might be: maximize available time by paying someone else to do the stuff you don't want to do, in order to free the time to do the stuff you do want to do. In other words, don't spend an hour of your life changing the oil in your car, when you could pay someone else to do it and use that hour to have sex. Or program. Whatever you enjoy.
But if you enjoy changing the oil in your car, have fun!
Off topic.
the sad truth is, it's just like the tobacco companies: they're just too big and no _real_ change will happen until some major players (i.e. states) become involved.
Whatever makes you think that the states (or the feds, for that matter) want to do anything about the tobacco companies?
Do yourself the favour of finding out how much tobacco taxes your state takes in every year. Then, and only then, will you understand how little desire there is on the part of the states to do anything about the tobacco companies...
so most cars clip along at upto 160km/h (that's like 73mph for the yanks in the crowd).
Sounds a lot closer to 100 mph than to 73mph. Last I checked, 73 mph is pretty close to 120Km/h...
On the contrary. It's the cost of a broadband connection vis-a-vis dial-up that's slowing adoption. If the average user is paying $9.95 (yeah, right) or $19.95, $40 seems way to much. Throttling the pipe should allow the companies to sell an entry level service for $29.99, then premium services for $39.99, etc.
On the other hand, I am using dial-up. I have been considering broadband for several months. I have postponed such consideration until after the current wave or price changes/usage limits settles down.
So three months ago I was planning on getting broadband this summer. Now I'm thinking probably no earlier than next year. And I won't do it then if I can't get a higher cap than, say, 10GB per month (I can get 6GB with my modem, even with my crappy phone line) for a reasonable fee. And reasonable is NOT $100/month...
The car payments are crazy. It seems like people across all the economic stratas are spending way to much on cars. People with no money are paying $800 or more every month on their cars (sometimes more than one car). It's a far better idea to keep your cars until they are worn out and to put as much down as you can (unless you have a great loan rate).
Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to determine whether these people were making sensible decisions. The key piece of information required to determine whether someone with a couple of late-model cars is making sensible decisions is "what did he have BEFORE he bought these late-model cars?"
If the answer is "a 1988 Dodge and a 1985 Pinto", then obviously he is behaving sensibly, and we just caught him right after he replaced his old cars. If the answer is "a 1999 Chrysler and a 1998 SUV", then he is probably wasting money like a madman...
I currently own two cars - one with 240,000 miles on it, the other with around 190,000. I'll be replacing them in a couple of years. Until I do, I will have zero car payment. Right afterwards, I wouldn't be surprised if I had $800+ in car payments for a few years. Then, back to ten years without payments :)
How are they left "holding the bag"?
Part of the reason for high credit card interest is a high rate of non-payment of credit card debt. The people paying the interest are paying to cover the ocst of the people who don't bother to pay their credit card debt...