Which is especially funny given his recent moves to release 22 convicted drug offenders.
Note that those 22 drug offenders have served at least ten years in prison each, and as of the last changes in the law relative to drug offenses they have also served more than the MAXIMUM current law allows.
In other words, good that he pardoned them, but it's not like it was a really impressive thing for him to let them out after they'd served the maximum currently legal sentence (admittedly, when they were convicted, the maximum was considerably longer)....
What's pathetic about those pardons is the "requirement" that they have served at least ten years of their original sentence first. There are a LOT of people in prison who haven't served ten years yet, but whose new maximum sentences are LESS THAN ten years. They'll have to stay in till they've gotten ten years under their belts, and probably another President....
We have had methods of providing thrust in space without using rockets since 1916, the year the first ion thruster was built. Both use electricity to produce thrust.
Note, for the record, that an ion thruster IS a rocket - it shoots mass out the back (ions, in this case, accelerated electricly) just like any other rocket.
Note that if this EM drive pushes photons out the back, it is also a rocket. However, what I've read on the subject says it doesn't push photons out the back (not even microwave photons), so it's either something unexpected, or a huge steaming pile.
I'll be interested in the first deep-space probe built to test this thing. Should be simple enough - solar panels for power, EM-Drive for push, a comm-channel or six, and something to announce its presence, so we can determine its velocity relative to Earth at all times. If it accelerates, we win. If not, we wasted the cost of a (small) satellite....
On that point, I thought we could go to Mars in 3 months or so now; it just takes a nuclear rocket rather than chemical, plasma or EM drives.
Nuclear rocket that can reach Mars in three months...
Assuming NERVA performance, we're talking a definite NO. Mass ratio (loaded mass/empty mass) needs to be north of 300.
Assuming a liquid-core nuclear rocket, well, we could get that mass ratio down to maybe 5, which is achievable. Maybe. Liquid-core nuke rockets are heavy on the theory and light on the "materials that can retain strength while in physical contact with molten uranium" required.
Assuming a gaseous-core nuclear rocket, it would be a piece of cake. However, even more magic materials required for that one....
Your argument has one flaw - just because someone uses a password manager doesn't mean he will pick strong passwords...
PasswordSafe.
Generates random passwords for you, using specifications you provide (generally that means "generate a password consistent with the site requirements") as to length and content.
You never have to even look at your passwords if you don't want to - they're not displayed by default, so someone looking over your shoulder while you use it won't see a password by accident. Right-click, copy password to clipboard, paste to password field for website. Then PasswordSafe overwrites the piece of memory your password used in the clipboard several times with gibberish to make it harder for someone to find it that way.
So, pick one really good password (or passphrase - it doesn't have a limit on password size for itself) for your PasswordSafe, and let it generate all of your other passwords for you, and remember them and secret questions and whatever else you need to remember.
And it's not like the functionality I've described is unique to passwordsafe. Pretty much every password manager I've looked at has the same basic functionality....
Cities generally require permits or licenses for things like concerts. Which means they can legally prevent a concert from occurring, just by refusing to issue the permit/license.
Note that this sort of permit/license is justified under the theory that it requires extra city services to do this sort of thing - more cops, more street cleanup, etc.
You shouldn't have to illegally bribe him extra to have him do what's best for the general public that he's being legally paid to serve.
The Attorney General is not being paid to serve the general public. He's being paid to serve the government. Best to think of him as the governor's lawyer (or President's lawyer).
Sometimes the government's interests are aligned with the general public's interests. Sometimes, not so much so.
We cannot afford an accident like Chernobyl in Western Europe.
Pretty easy to avoid a Chernobyl in Western Europe:
1) Do NOT, under any circumstances, build a nuclear plant without a containment building.
2) Do NOT, under any circumstances, disable all of a nuclear plant's safety interlocks in order to run a test.
3) Do NOT, under any circumstances, push a nuclear plant to the ragged edge of a meltdown in order to run a test.
Follow those three rules, and a Chernobyl in Western Europe will be pretty much impossible without detonating a nuclear weapon atop a nuclear reactor. And if that happens, you've got bigger problems than a meltdown....
You did, in fact, "forget how to science" - he's right.
From TFA, it's 1.6x the diameter of Earth, and 5x the mass of Earth.
Which puts it about 2x the surface G, when rounded to two significant digits (1.95+).
Note this world is rather denser than Earth - 5x the mass packed into 4x the volume. Should be a great place for heavy metal poisoning. Or toxic wastelands. Something like that....
Once you're in orbit, after all, it only takes something like an extra 800 ms-1 of delta-V to get to the moon (less if you want to get really tricky about it, but with humans speed is a factor too).
Umm, no.
DeltaV required to go from LEO to a lunar transition orbit is in the vicinity of 3000 m/s.
Now, if you want to enter lunar orbit when you get there, you'll need another 1000 m/s or so, depending on height of orbit and other gory details.
Plus there's the 1200 m/s or so to actually land.
Those numbers can be fudged a bit by the mission profile - an Earth Return trajectory will use a bit more deltaV than an absolute minimum deltaV trajectory. A landing direct from lunar transition orbit will save you a bit (while making your spacecraft larger and more complicated). But, big picture, LEO to Tranquility Base is going to take more than 5000 m/s, rather than "an extra 800 ms-1"....
active radar is something that a more advanced race will need more powerful versions of to track things in their solar system
Why not use transponders?
Because it's hard to put a transponder on a rock that you've never detected before. And detecting a rock that might produce a C-T Boundary on your planet if you don't notice in time is....bad.
And if they're really advanced, they'll point their radars relatively close to the plane of the ecliptic where all the stuff is.
Except, possibly, that one rock that would produce a C-T Boundary if it reached the ground...
Imagine if a highway officer saw a car go by today without a person's hands on the wheels. Even if the car was going the speed limit, it would likely be pulled over until the officer knew that this car was self-driving.
I suppose it's possible that a cop might get excited about seeing a car go by without a person's handson the wheel. It must be noted, however, that a fair number of drivers of cars with power steering drive with one hand on the bottom of the steering wheel (and thus completely out of sight to passersby). Cops aren't stopping those people (these people, I should say, since I'm one of them on the Interstates, at least), so I suspect that the issue isn't as signifcant as you suggest....
If I were to buy an electric tomorrow (I'm mowing grass today, so it'll have to wait), I would not be able to find a supercharger near me.
Nor would I be able to do a quick battery swap.
And while I *do* drive fewer than 150 miles most days, having to have another car (or rent one) the times I do want to go more than 150 miles would be a strike or two against an electric.
Note that "next year's big new improvements" aren't enough to make me consider a product that doesn't meet my needs THIS YEAR.
Yeah, things may change in a few years. When they do, I may buy an electric. Note, by the by, that gasoline automobiles could not reliably drive across the USA (due to limitations on availability of gas stations) for perhaps 20 years after their introduction. If electrics follow that pattern (and they require even more significant infrastructure than gas cars, which didn't really need gas pumps, just availability of gasoline), then the electric might be generally useful as a drop-in replacement for a gas car by 2030 or so.
Yeah, I'm surprised that computer geeks don't more broadly embrace electric vehicles based solely on the principle of flexibility.
Well, one reason is that they're not all that flexible in terms of long-range travel. Driving more than the distance of a charge in a day is...difficult. And time-consuming.
This is not true of gasoline cars. Note, by the by, that it WAS true back in the day when gasoline was bought in drug stores....
The problem is that putting those two charts right next to each other also displays the timeline.
Alas, a degree of temperature change over the last two millenia doesn't really get people all that excited.
It's just like that "Sea level could rise 20 feet!!!" thing last week (early this week? whichever). Yeah, it could. At the rate they were citing, it would take nearly two millenia for it to do that.
Unfortunately, it's really hard for a species that lives a century or less to get really excited about problems that won't be serious for a millenium or more....
In a cashless society the government van put a tax on deposits that can't be avoided by holding currency. In other words, it makes it possible to seize savings in a way that is fairly automated.
Government doesn't have to do that. They can already print money, which allows them to inflate your savings into nonexistence.
Note that inflating the currency also allows them to do unto the currency you're holding. A more comprehensive solution all around.
Slashdot Mirror
Note that those 22 drug offenders have served at least ten years in prison each, and as of the last changes in the law relative to drug offenses they have also served more than the MAXIMUM current law allows.
In other words, good that he pardoned them, but it's not like it was a really impressive thing for him to let them out after they'd served the maximum currently legal sentence (admittedly, when they were convicted, the maximum was considerably longer)....
What's pathetic about those pardons is the "requirement" that they have served at least ten years of their original sentence first. There are a LOT of people in prison who haven't served ten years yet, but whose new maximum sentences are LESS THAN ten years. They'll have to stay in till they've gotten ten years under their belts, and probably another President....
Note, for the record, that an ion thruster IS a rocket - it shoots mass out the back (ions, in this case, accelerated electricly) just like any other rocket.
Note that if this EM drive pushes photons out the back, it is also a rocket. However, what I've read on the subject says it doesn't push photons out the back (not even microwave photons), so it's either something unexpected, or a huge steaming pile.
I'll be interested in the first deep-space probe built to test this thing. Should be simple enough - solar panels for power, EM-Drive for push, a comm-channel or six, and something to announce its presence, so we can determine its velocity relative to Earth at all times. If it accelerates, we win. If not, we wasted the cost of a (small) satellite....
Nuclear rocket that can reach Mars in three months...
Assuming NERVA performance, we're talking a definite NO. Mass ratio (loaded mass/empty mass) needs to be north of 300.
Assuming a liquid-core nuclear rocket, well, we could get that mass ratio down to maybe 5, which is achievable. Maybe. Liquid-core nuke rockets are heavy on the theory and light on the "materials that can retain strength while in physical contact with molten uranium" required. Assuming a gaseous-core nuclear rocket, it would be a piece of cake. However, even more magic materials required for that one....
PasswordSafe.
Generates random passwords for you, using specifications you provide (generally that means "generate a password consistent with the site requirements") as to length and content.
You never have to even look at your passwords if you don't want to - they're not displayed by default, so someone looking over your shoulder while you use it won't see a password by accident. Right-click, copy password to clipboard, paste to password field for website. Then PasswordSafe overwrites the piece of memory your password used in the clipboard several times with gibberish to make it harder for someone to find it that way.
So, pick one really good password (or passphrase - it doesn't have a limit on password size for itself) for your PasswordSafe, and let it generate all of your other passwords for you, and remember them and secret questions and whatever else you need to remember.
And it's not like the functionality I've described is unique to passwordsafe. Pretty much every password manager I've looked at has the same basic functionality....
Cities generally require permits or licenses for things like concerts. Which means they can legally prevent a concert from occurring, just by refusing to issue the permit/license.
Note that this sort of permit/license is justified under the theory that it requires extra city services to do this sort of thing - more cops, more street cleanup, etc.
The Attorney General is not being paid to serve the general public. He's being paid to serve the government. Best to think of him as the governor's lawyer (or President's lawyer).
Sometimes the government's interests are aligned with the general public's interests. Sometimes, not so much so.
What "rapid increase of murder"??
Murder has been on the decline for decades. Hell, it's half what it was when I was in high school...
Presumably, you also think that kites should be treated the same way?
And baseballs, footballs, soccer balls?
While many would no doubt like to purge her, I suspect they really would prefer she get nailed for perjury....
Pretty easy to avoid a Chernobyl in Western Europe:
1) Do NOT, under any circumstances, build a nuclear plant without a containment building.
2) Do NOT, under any circumstances, disable all of a nuclear plant's safety interlocks in order to run a test.
3) Do NOT, under any circumstances, push a nuclear plant to the ragged edge of a meltdown in order to run a test.
Follow those three rules, and a Chernobyl in Western Europe will be pretty much impossible without detonating a nuclear weapon atop a nuclear reactor. And if that happens, you've got bigger problems than a meltdown....
Umm, no. Employer and employee. By definition, not consensual.
Typo. That was supposed to be "1.25", not "a.25".
And I repeat: from TFA, mass of the planet is 5x Earth Mass. Diameter (and radius) is 1.6x Earth.
Insert 5x mass and 1.6x radius into Gm/r^2, and you very quickly realize that:
1) density isn't the same as Earth's. It is, in fact, a.25x Earth density.
2) surface gravity will be ~2x Earth (1.95+g).
You did, in fact, "forget how to science" - he's right.
From TFA, it's 1.6x the diameter of Earth, and 5x the mass of Earth.
Which puts it about 2x the surface G, when rounded to two significant digits (1.95+).
Note this world is rather denser than Earth - 5x the mass packed into 4x the volume. Should be a great place for heavy metal poisoning. Or toxic wastelands. Something like that....
So, a link to an article about Tom Selleck, coupled with TFA, which talks about the firefighters being delayed TWENTY MINUTES by the drones.
So, the fire grew from ~1 square mile to ~5 square miles in 20 minutes? Really?
Or perhaps it took longer than 20 minutes, and you have some proof that it wouldn't have grown that much if those 20 minutes had been used properly?
Umm, no.
DeltaV required to go from LEO to a lunar transition orbit is in the vicinity of 3000 m/s.
Now, if you want to enter lunar orbit when you get there, you'll need another 1000 m/s or so, depending on height of orbit and other gory details.
Plus there's the 1200 m/s or so to actually land.
Those numbers can be fudged a bit by the mission profile - an Earth Return trajectory will use a bit more deltaV than an absolute minimum deltaV trajectory. A landing direct from lunar transition orbit will save you a bit (while making your spacecraft larger and more complicated). But, big picture, LEO to Tranquility Base is going to take more than 5000 m/s, rather than "an extra 800 ms-1"....
Actually, war stories begin "this is no shit. There I was..."
Because it's hard to put a transponder on a rock that you've never detected before. And detecting a rock that might produce a C-T Boundary on your planet if you don't notice in time is....bad.
Except, possibly, that one rock that would produce a C-T Boundary if it reached the ground...
I suppose it's possible that a cop might get excited about seeing a car go by without a person's handson the wheel. It must be noted, however, that a fair number of drivers of cars with power steering drive with one hand on the bottom of the steering wheel (and thus completely out of sight to passersby). Cops aren't stopping those people (these people, I should say, since I'm one of them on the Interstates, at least), so I suspect that the issue isn't as signifcant as you suggest....
If I were to buy an electric tomorrow (I'm mowing grass today, so it'll have to wait), I would not be able to find a supercharger near me.
Nor would I be able to do a quick battery swap.
And while I *do* drive fewer than 150 miles most days, having to have another car (or rent one) the times I do want to go more than 150 miles would be a strike or two against an electric.
Note that "next year's big new improvements" aren't enough to make me consider a product that doesn't meet my needs THIS YEAR.
Yeah, things may change in a few years. When they do, I may buy an electric. Note, by the by, that gasoline automobiles could not reliably drive across the USA (due to limitations on availability of gas stations) for perhaps 20 years after their introduction. If electrics follow that pattern (and they require even more significant infrastructure than gas cars, which didn't really need gas pumps, just availability of gasoline), then the electric might be generally useful as a drop-in replacement for a gas car by 2030 or so.
Well, one reason is that they're not all that flexible in terms of long-range travel. Driving more than the distance of a charge in a day is...difficult. And time-consuming.
This is not true of gasoline cars. Note, by the by, that it WAS true back in the day when gasoline was bought in drug stores....
You do know that asphalt burns, right?
The problem is that putting those two charts right next to each other also displays the timeline.
Alas, a degree of temperature change over the last two millenia doesn't really get people all that excited.
It's just like that "Sea level could rise 20 feet!!!" thing last week (early this week? whichever). Yeah, it could. At the rate they were citing, it would take nearly two millenia for it to do that.
Unfortunately, it's really hard for a species that lives a century or less to get really excited about problems that won't be serious for a millenium or more....
The most important being that anyone here has clue one what "real AI" will behave.
If you know nothing of "real AI", how can you possibly determine whether someone else "got it right" in cinema/literature?
That said, my personal favorite has always been "Mike" from "Moon is a Harsh Mistress"....
Government doesn't have to do that. They can already print money, which allows them to inflate your savings into nonexistence.
Note that inflating the currency also allows them to do unto the currency you're holding. A more comprehensive solution all around.