Man, if only someone could design a launch vehicle which could also be used to capture and return old satellites to Earth for disassembly.
That would not save you the cost of transporting them (back) into space. It would only add the cost of getting them down to earth (which for GEO satellites would be quite expensive as well).
Who does an old defunct satellite belong to? I suspect that it still belongs to whoever put it up there, or their executors, whoever bought the company etc.
I'd think so, too.
And who is authorised to say that something is defunct anyway?
The owner, of course. You would probably have to pay him something for the right to reuse parts of his satellite, but as long as it's cheaper than sending up a new one, it would still be a net advantage. And for the owner it's deciding between having useless junk in space he won't ever be able to use again, or getting money for someone reusing it. It's a no-brainer.
Well, If I had to decide between flying with a rocket built by a self-taught rocket scientist and having my brain operated on by a self-taught brain surgeon, I think I'd take the rocket flight.
The ideal position for such a station would IMHO be an orbit a bit above or below the geostationary one. Such a station would be a bit faster (or a bit slower) than the geostationary ones, and thus would regularly come relatively close to each one. It would also save fuel for the "harvesting module": Only a relatively minor orbit change would be needed; basically a short thrust for getting from the circular orbit into an elliptical one whose apogee (or perigee for the outer "service orbit") is in the geostationary orbit and is reached exactly at the position of the satellite. There it grabs the satellite, does another short thrust to correct the orbit (which is changed by the addition of the satellite; also you want to get back to the station, not just to the same orbit), and thus returns to the station where the satellite is recycled.
The refueling is indeed a big problem. Thrusting always involves emitting matter, and therefore even if your energy if 100% solar electric, you still will eventually have to refuel (unless you manage to build an ultra-powerful laser of ultra-low mass -- and don't fear the risk of accidentally directing it to earth or to another satellite:-))
Well, in that case, the new law should be easy to circumvent: You don't sell the product for cash, but you give it on credit, and the debt is then immediately paid back using cash.
Indeed. For example there exists at least one person in Germany having the real name "German Hacker". A name which is certain to trigger any real-name filter...
So if someone wants to research on the subject of child porn (not search for it, but search for information about it), and therefore enters that term into Google, he will cause an alarm at the police. Yeah, that makes perfectly sense. And of course they have the perfect algorithm to detect whether a photo shows an abused child. So it will never trigger if you e.g. send a holiday photo of your child at the beach to a friend.
And of course, that box will never be used for any other purpose. Well, OK, they'll probably will soon add terrorist triggers, because terrorists are very bad, too. Don't complain about the police knocking on your door, you just shouldn't have used the word "terror" when you referred to the experience with your ex. Oh, and copyright violations for sure are also a target to be added soon. Oh, and since it is installed everywhere anyway, why not use it also for criminal investigations? And of course the secret service should have access to it. And it would surely come in handy for finding whistleblowers...
Ah, and if it's already there, why not add more functionality? Maybe not just report, but also block unwanted content? After all, it's bad stuff you want to be blocked. And of course it will never block legitimate but unwanted stuff...
And of course pedophiles, terrorists, copyright violators etc. won't ever find a way around it. Sure.
Unless it was changed recently, subscribers are marked with a little star besides their name. Since the OP doesn't have that star, I guess he's no subscriber (but then, maybe you can select whether you want that star displayed or not; not being a subscriber, I don't know). However he may just have read the submission in the firehose.
But that person doesn't need to be born in the U.S. Maybe in some language "nigg" means "peace", "erd" means "of", "icks" means "world", and 6969 is considered a lucky number.
I guess they will have safety limitations built in. The position of the moon is well known, as are the times with daylight, and the limitations of the instruments. There may also be some staff overseeing the operations able to do an emergency shutdown of the instruments (stop motors, cover telescope). After all, even without malicious or stupid users, there may be situations where the telescope has to be shut down e.g. to protect it from extreme weather conditions.
Then it occurs to me, that if trading was faster, the bubbles and crashes would happen more quickly. I'm not enough of an economist to know what could damp these effects.
Well, speculating with bitcoins may be nice, but to really have fun with it, you have to make derivatives. Don't mine them and then sell them. Sell certificates now for the bitcoins you will mine. Sell options on those certificates. Mix several certificates and make new ones out of them. Create a big bitcoin bubble, and then enjoy watching that bubble burst.
Oh, you say that bitcoin is immune against this? You clearly lack imagination.
My wife plays and draws and bakes cookies with my kids too
Your wife plays cookies? I mean drawing them and baking them I can understand (although I can think of more interesting things to draw). But playing them? SCNR:-)
Darwinism doesn't apply when the penalty for stupidity (i.e. lack of fitness) is less than death or at least, sterilization.
Wrong. Darwinism also works if e.g. people having that trait have on average 2.10 children while people not having that trait have on average 2.11 children. It will take a long time for such a small effect to win, but evolution is generally a very slow process. The only important thing is that this effect persists (and is not cancelled by another effect).
I'm sure Google's thinking of ways to monetize your travels by selling your private data.
Selling your data? Don't forget that they are an advertising company themselves. The data is their most valuable asset, and selling it would only decrease the value of their ad service by allowing others to get better.
Then you thought wrong. A parsec is the distance from which the parallax of the earth's orbit around the sun, i.e. the angle at which it would be seen from there, is one arc second, i.e. 1/3600 of a degree (or 1/1296000 of a full circle).
Yeah, that must be the reason why we invest large amounts of money into big machines whose only purpose it observation, like all those big accelerators and telescopes.
Slashdot Mirror
That would not save you the cost of transporting them (back) into space. It would only add the cost of getting them down to earth (which for GEO satellites would be quite expensive as well).
This story is about geosynchronous satellites. Those are not burnt in the atmosphere. Doing so would be quite expensive, indeed.
I'd think so, too.
The owner, of course. You would probably have to pay him something for the right to reuse parts of his satellite, but as long as it's cheaper than sending up a new one, it would still be a net advantage. And for the owner it's deciding between having useless junk in space he won't ever be able to use again, or getting money for someone reusing it. It's a no-brainer.
Well, If I had to decide between flying with a rocket built by a self-taught rocket scientist and having my brain operated on by a self-taught brain surgeon, I think I'd take the rocket flight.
The ideal position for such a station would IMHO be an orbit a bit above or below the geostationary one. Such a station would be a bit faster (or a bit slower) than the geostationary ones, and thus would regularly come relatively close to each one. It would also save fuel for the "harvesting module": Only a relatively minor orbit change would be needed; basically a short thrust for getting from the circular orbit into an elliptical one whose apogee (or perigee for the outer "service orbit") is in the geostationary orbit and is reached exactly at the position of the satellite. There it grabs the satellite, does another short thrust to correct the orbit (which is changed by the addition of the satellite; also you want to get back to the station, not just to the same orbit), and thus returns to the station where the satellite is recycled.
The refueling is indeed a big problem. Thrusting always involves emitting matter, and therefore even if your energy if 100% solar electric, you still will eventually have to refuel (unless you manage to build an ultra-powerful laser of ultra-low mass -- and don't fear the risk of accidentally directing it to earth or to another satellite :-))
I'd start by writing a dictionary table of lying words...
Well, one way you could have been nicer about it was to clickie the linkie before spouting off this nonsense:
http://www.facebook.com/careers/puzzles.php?puzzle_id=20
Most places would prefer you stay inside the box and start by reading the requirements. ;)
It's a math problem, not an attempt at AI.
Actually, unless I'm missing (or misunderstanding) something, this is actually a quite simple problem. Maybe the difficulty is in making it efficient?
if User.NitpickeryScore > 10:
User.LonelinessScore++;
FTFY. I'd put parenthesis around your if-statement but this is just pseudocode.
You mean this?
(if User.NitpickeryScore > 10:
User.LonelinessScore++);
Most people would make the parentheses around the condition instead (except Lisp programmers: They would do both). :-)
Only if his advice is not second-hand. :-)
Well, in that case, the new law should be easy to circumvent: You don't sell the product for cash, but you give it on credit, and the debt is then immediately paid back using cash.
Indeed. For example there exists at least one person in Germany having the real name "German Hacker". A name which is certain to trigger any real-name filter ...
So if someone wants to research on the subject of child porn (not search for it, but search for information about it), and therefore enters that term into Google, he will cause an alarm at the police. Yeah, that makes perfectly sense. And of course they have the perfect algorithm to detect whether a photo shows an abused child. So it will never trigger if you e.g. send a holiday photo of your child at the beach to a friend.
And of course, that box will never be used for any other purpose. Well, OK, they'll probably will soon add terrorist triggers, because terrorists are very bad, too. Don't complain about the police knocking on your door, you just shouldn't have used the word "terror" when you referred to the experience with your ex. Oh, and copyright violations for sure are also a target to be added soon. Oh, and since it is installed everywhere anyway, why not use it also for criminal investigations? And of course the secret service should have access to it. And it would surely come in handy for finding whistleblowers ...
Ah, and if it's already there, why not add more functionality? Maybe not just report, but also block unwanted content? After all, it's bad stuff you want to be blocked. And of course it will never block legitimate but unwanted stuff ...
And of course pedophiles, terrorists, copyright violators etc. won't ever find a way around it. Sure.
What does Android do that iOS doesn't exactly...?
Run Linux.
Unless it was changed recently, subscribers are marked with a little star besides their name. Since the OP doesn't have that star, I guess he's no subscriber (but then, maybe you can select whether you want that star displayed or not; not being a subscriber, I don't know). However he may just have read the submission in the firehose.
E. coli in your blood? Doesn't sound very healthy to me ...
This will give 'My computer is infected' a whole new meaning.
Yeah, now a virus can easily kill your hardware.
But that person doesn't need to be born in the U.S.
Maybe in some language "nigg" means "peace", "erd" means "of", "icks" means "world", and 6969 is considered a lucky number.
I guess they will have safety limitations built in. The position of the moon is well known, as are the times with daylight, and the limitations of the instruments. There may also be some staff overseeing the operations able to do an emergency shutdown of the instruments (stop motors, cover telescope). After all, even without malicious or stupid users, there may be situations where the telescope has to be shut down e.g. to protect it from extreme weather conditions.
A tax on trading?
Well, speculating with bitcoins may be nice, but to really have fun with it, you have to make derivatives. Don't mine them and then sell them. Sell certificates now for the bitcoins you will mine. Sell options on those certificates. Mix several certificates and make new ones out of them. Create a big bitcoin bubble, and then enjoy watching that bubble burst.
Oh, you say that bitcoin is immune against this? You clearly lack imagination.
Your wife plays cookies? I mean drawing them and baking them I can understand (although I can think of more interesting things to draw). But playing them? :-)
SCNR
Wrong. Darwinism also works if e.g. people having that trait have on average 2.10 children while people not having that trait have on average 2.11 children. It will take a long time for such a small effect to win, but evolution is generally a very slow process. The only important thing is that this effect persists (and is not cancelled by another effect).
Selling your data? Don't forget that they are an advertising company themselves. The data is their most valuable asset, and selling it would only decrease the value of their ad service by allowing others to get better.
Well, the Prius was known to drive on its own even without Google. :-)
I thought "parsec" was a unit of time?
Then you thought wrong. A parsec is the distance from which the parallax of the earth's orbit around the sun, i.e. the angle at which it would be seen from there, is one arc second, i.e. 1/3600 of a degree (or 1/1296000 of a full circle).
Since the beginning of physics, actually.
Yeah, that must be the reason why we invest large amounts of money into big machines whose only purpose it observation, like all those big accelerators and telescopes.