I could be totally wrong and often am, but the voices in my head say the/. spin on this speaks to working conditions more then management philosophy.
Many of us have done early-career stints in larger organizations where we learned to our horror that technical experts are viewed as evil twits, not assets. That's why so many of us nerds of a certain age walk around with pinched pained expressions. Caused by thoughts like, why doesn't anything make any SENSE? You would think, working in technology and all, being a wizard would bring with it a certain amount of status and security. It just doesn't seem to be the case.
It's not so much the sub vs in-house question as the management vs expert question that always seems to get answered in a predictably bad way. What's even worse, former geeks who grow up and get into decision-making positions are often i.m.experience the worst offenders, becoming the most vicious defenders of the bottom-line view of things, lording it over the rest of us who see our jobs as being to tease Mother Nature into behaving long enough to do something useful. And she's a fickle old witch.
The big organizations who do seem to do some technology ok, the GEs, the HPs, the IBMs, well as far as I can tell they accomplish it by being practically Darwinian. They have their research chairs sure, but they succeed in business by absolutely grinding middle management into powder so that the survivors are just about sociopaths.
I don't know, I guess in this phase of human development if a person wants to do something with love and passion it has to be a hobby. A few lucky ones might get paid for it. Everybody else chases bucks.
There's an article up at the LA Times about Peter Drucker. If you don't know, Druker was an economist who said things like:
The enterprise exists on sufferance and exists only as long as the society and the economy believe that it does a necessary, useful, and productive job.
As pointed out above by noidentity and others, people who have risen in the economic hierarchy thanks to institutions built by the people for the people owe their success to society's edifices as much as themselves. Sure someone may be a talented corporate cost-cutter with the nickname "Chainsaw" or a writer nobody has ever heard of, but they would be flipping burgers if it wasn't for the artificial man-made constructs of incorporation and copyright.
There's an implicit Ann Rand-ian quality to Alexie's thinking: progress for all depends on the special qualities of a few geniuses who naturally deserve the good life. Putting aside the fact that most admirers of Rand ignore that her elite characters all had a social conscience and gave back, few people who claim to be rainmakers stop to consider where they got the water that makes the rain.
But that's all background really, the issue that Alexie is talking about is the economic value of what he does. That value is assigned by society and I think it's fair to say that the generation growing up doesn't see as much value in it as he does. And they may have a point. Upsetting as it may be to artists, would the world fall apart if it was even harder to make a living doing what they do? Did Avatar give us free electricity? Feed Africa?
The artistic community might also want to ask itself if copyright had not been extended to ridiculous lengths and more books that people actually want to read were in the public domain, would that have prevented a lot of piracy? Experience has shown that where legal alternatives exist for people to get what they want they will chose those alternatives. I don't think too many people explicitly know how many works they have been denied by copyright reform but I think they can sense it.
The conflict we have now exists because this generation's instincts clash with the status quo. It remains to be seen whether or not the interests represented by Rupert Murdoch`s media machine can keep the lid on things.
I remember what Engineering school was like. It wouldn't surprise me if there is more to this than just practical skills.
First of all, Skule was harrowing and lonely. Nobody else on campus hit the books harder than eng students and that already is a reason that, shall we say, our social skills aren't always top notch. On top of that there is the condition of apartness that comes from specializing in something that nobody else gets and that gets magnified by the disrespectful attitude towards the arts you find at eng school. We all know what that was like.
And there's more. At my school the eng faculties operated on an attrition basis, failing almost half the class each year. I understand that was financially motivated, the big year 1 and 2 classes bring in tuition that supports 3 and 4's. That creates a lot of people feeling the way you do when you blow out of college, a little bit lost.
And finally there is the engineering curriculum. It's not all that well rounded. It's always been my opinion that Engineering should be a 5 year degree with some social and poli sci, or have a pre-eng phase like medicine so people could get channeled away from it in an orderly fashion instead of getting dumped out on the street when they fail. Pre-eng would be a better general-purpose education for people that don't make it all the way through.
I just think the normal approach to eng education is almost guaranteed to create outsiders.
Don't all apocalypse movies start with ominous scientific discoveries in remote geographical locations?
I hereby predict that within 4 or 5 years the UN will unveil a scheme to Save Mankind from, ummmmmmm, a passing neutron star. The scheme will feature a 1000 MT hydrogen bomb, spaceships, and short wave radio. Nicolas Cage, some hot babe, and a cute kid will survive...on Mars!
You do realize that there will be a SpaceShipThree, Four, Five, etc, so long as the business remains profitable?
This means more than you may realize. While "Vomit Comet" is colloquially expressed, it is essentially correct. SS2's engine has a specific impulse of around 250 which is low (LOX/LH might give you around 450). What's that mean? The mass fraction to reach orbit (propellant/structure + payload weight) of a launcher that uses this type of engine would be in the low hundreds:1 compared to 7:1 for a LOX/LH engine.
At the same time SS2's oxidizer tank is heavy because the N2O is pressure fed and not pump fed. Heavy tank to withstand the pressure. The combination of low Isp and a pressurized tank means this particular arrangement will never work as an orbital launcher no matter how much it is scaled up. That's not an opinion, it just won't.
So if a hypothesized SS3 were to be orbital it would have to be a different technology altogether. Assuming BR would be allergic to going the BSR route (Big Stupid Rocket), one suspects he has something air-breathing in mind. The only two things I know of along those lines are SCRAM and Pulse Detonation and the latter might be purely tinfoil-hat. But even SCRAM has big challenges not the least of which is that nobody has made an operational vehicle using one and the best publicly available information on the concept (NASP) hints that aerodynamic heating *on the way up* was the killer. That might be why recent talk about SCRAM is in reference to really fast airplanes, not launchers.
Apart from that, almost any combination of expendable/reusable rocket-propelled boosters/launchers/orbiters has been thought of before. Early in the Shuttle program NASA looked at a great big flyback liquid fueled booster instead of a throw-away tank and solids, but the darn thing had to be the size of the Empire State building.
All that is to say I'm curious to know what he has in mind for orbital. Tempered with the memories of Rutan's early days when he was downright religious about canards due to their amazing efficiency, he said.
All public and private communications of all executives of companies in the UK valued at 500 million or more will be monitored for illegal, unethical, and undesired behaviour.
"If we had only known what certain Wall Street bankers had been up to the world could have avoided financial losses in the trillions. In a world of high speed communication and free flowing capital, the expectations of privacy have to be balanced against the interests of all stakeholders." said noted expert florescent_beige.
I think ion thrusters would be a better way to go for ISS boosting.
These calcs show the drag force on the ISS is about 0.25N.
These tables show that to get 250 mN thrust you are going to need ~10 kW of constant electrical power. That is 8-ish % of the ISS available electrical power. It seems very do-able.
Possibly ISS electrical power is so stretched that using it to boost is considered a waste. Certainly it is possible without VASIMR.
Despite it's high specific impulse this engine isn't the whole answer to the exploration of the solar system. Blame the inverse square law.
It may be feasible to power an slow unmanned Earth-Moon VASIMR transfer vehicle with solar, but at Mars solar radiation is only 25% as strong and at Jupiter it's 4%. So you are talking about nuclear for probes to the outer planets and for manned missions to anywhere.
There's nothing technological that would stop space-based nuclear but you just know it'll take years to get that done.
New Scientist has an article that says VASIMR + nuclear = 39-day transit time to Mars.
I've seen talk about a massive increase in surveillance as a tool against roadside bombs. The only arguments I've seen against it have been along the lines of; can't do it, it would cost to much.
Some guys built five model airplanes with gps autopilots and sent them across the Atlantic: one made it. Google "Tans Atlantic Model". These were not sophisticated air vehicles, they probably cost a few hundred dollars each.
So, buy a few thousand models like that and send them cruising up and down the roads that NATO uses at about 500 feet. Put cameras on some of them and hire a bunch of unemployed college graduates to look at the video. I bet you could do all that for less than two million.
The sound of the engines would be a deterrent on it's own, and who cares if you lose 25% of them a month. One would cost less than an artillery shell.
University is more than a bunch of classes and tests. It's a life experience including: moving away from home and living on your own for the first time, meeting and getting along with people who are more talented than you (a shock if you aren't used to it), establishing friendships and the beginnings of a life-long network, finding out where professors come from, buying some Staedler instruments and spending hours admiring them (partly because you can't afford to do anything else after you paid for them with that month's food money), and discovering the university library.
I can't be the only one who's outlook on life was modified by spending time in a library like the Robarts. There's an atmosphere of concentrated truth in a place like that you just don't find anywhere else. First, you find out that the world is full of people who know a whole lot. Second, you learn that people have spent a lot of time writing down what they know. And the scale of what I'm talking about only really becomes clear when you stand in a library stack with books stretching off forever and ever, each one some person's passionate little gem.
To me, higher learning is about more than just getting some facts straight so you can get a job.
But having said all that, it will be true that other models of learning will bring education to people who otherwise wouldn't get it, and who can argue with that?
There is already a material out there that is better than Kevlar, it's called Spectra. It's an ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene and despite its existence Kevlar continues to be the standard.
Something needs to be *a lot* better to displace an established standard, not just somewhat better.
According to wikipedia the density of nanotube is not that much different from Kevlar. Kevlar ~1.4, nanotube ~1.3.
So where's the advantage over Kevlar? It could be that the ballistic performance is much better than Kevlar allowing you to make armor with less material but otherwise this isn't an obviously better material than Kevlar.
In ballistic applications Kevlar will probably continue to win based on cost.
As for structural uses, back in the annals of history aramid fiber (Kevlar) was thought to be the Next Big Thing. Then people started to realize that while very fantastic in tension, aramid has sucky compression properties (using Kevlar has been compared to designing with chain). I wonder if nanotubes will suffer the same fate.
Call me a troglodyte I don't mind. I remember the first CADAM systems that came out in the 80's that used light pens to select things on the screen. It was exhausting after an hour or so.
Maybe I don't get it but I think touch and gesture has the same problem: it's tiring after a while. I suppose on small devices and fun things it has it's place but the mouse will never go away for real work.
Not that I do any real work but if I did I'd use a mouse.
Has anyone considered the possibility that the little galaxy has a plan? Maybe it's infused with negative-spin tachyonic dark energy type X that will cause Andromeda to implode. Then who will devour whom? Bwaha etc etc
Slashdot Mirror
I could be totally wrong and often am, but the voices in my head say the /. spin on this speaks to working conditions more then management philosophy.
Many of us have done early-career stints in larger organizations where we learned to our horror that technical experts are viewed as evil twits, not assets. That's why so many of us nerds of a certain age walk around with pinched pained expressions. Caused by thoughts like, why doesn't anything make any SENSE? You would think, working in technology and all, being a wizard would bring with it a certain amount of status and security. It just doesn't seem to be the case.
It's not so much the sub vs in-house question as the management vs expert question that always seems to get answered in a predictably bad way. What's even worse, former geeks who grow up and get into decision-making positions are often i.m.experience the worst offenders, becoming the most vicious defenders of the bottom-line view of things, lording it over the rest of us who see our jobs as being to tease Mother Nature into behaving long enough to do something useful. And she's a fickle old witch.
The big organizations who do seem to do some technology ok, the GEs, the HPs, the IBMs, well as far as I can tell they accomplish it by being practically Darwinian. They have their research chairs sure, but they succeed in business by absolutely grinding middle management into powder so that the survivors are just about sociopaths.
I don't know, I guess in this phase of human development if a person wants to do something with love and passion it has to be a hobby. A few lucky ones might get paid for it. Everybody else chases bucks.
Doesn't anyone else wonder how the motion detector works?
I'm thinking micro-changes in air density.
There's an article up at the LA Times about Peter Drucker. If you don't know, Druker was an economist who said things like:
The enterprise exists on sufferance and exists only as long as the society and the economy believe that it does a necessary, useful, and productive job.
As pointed out above by noidentity and others, people who have risen in the economic hierarchy thanks to institutions built by the people for the people owe their success to society's edifices as much as themselves. Sure someone may be a talented corporate cost-cutter with the nickname "Chainsaw" or a writer nobody has ever heard of, but they would be flipping burgers if it wasn't for the artificial man-made constructs of incorporation and copyright.
There's an implicit Ann Rand-ian quality to Alexie's thinking: progress for all depends on the special qualities of a few geniuses who naturally deserve the good life. Putting aside the fact that most admirers of Rand ignore that her elite characters all had a social conscience and gave back, few people who claim to be rainmakers stop to consider where they got the water that makes the rain.
But that's all background really, the issue that Alexie is talking about is the economic value of what he does. That value is assigned by society and I think it's fair to say that the generation growing up doesn't see as much value in it as he does. And they may have a point. Upsetting as it may be to artists, would the world fall apart if it was even harder to make a living doing what they do? Did Avatar give us free electricity? Feed Africa?
The artistic community might also want to ask itself if copyright had not been extended to ridiculous lengths and more books that people actually want to read were in the public domain, would that have prevented a lot of piracy? Experience has shown that where legal alternatives exist for people to get what they want they will chose those alternatives. I don't think too many people explicitly know how many works they have been denied by copyright reform but I think they can sense it.
The conflict we have now exists because this generation's instincts clash with the status quo. It remains to be seen whether or not the interests represented by Rupert Murdoch`s media machine can keep the lid on things.
I remember what Engineering school was like. It wouldn't surprise me if there is more to this than just practical skills.
First of all, Skule was harrowing and lonely. Nobody else on campus hit the books harder than eng students and that already is a reason that, shall we say, our social skills aren't always top notch. On top of that there is the condition of apartness that comes from specializing in something that nobody else gets and that gets magnified by the disrespectful attitude towards the arts you find at eng school. We all know what that was like.
And there's more. At my school the eng faculties operated on an attrition basis, failing almost half the class each year. I understand that was financially motivated, the big year 1 and 2 classes bring in tuition that supports 3 and 4's. That creates a lot of people feeling the way you do when you blow out of college, a little bit lost.
And finally there is the engineering curriculum. It's not all that well rounded. It's always been my opinion that Engineering should be a 5 year degree with some social and poli sci, or have a pre-eng phase like medicine so people could get channeled away from it in an orderly fashion instead of getting dumped out on the street when they fail. Pre-eng would be a better general-purpose education for people that don't make it all the way through.
I just think the normal approach to eng education is almost guaranteed to create outsiders.
Don't all apocalypse movies start with ominous scientific discoveries in remote geographical locations?
I hereby predict that within 4 or 5 years the UN will unveil a scheme to Save Mankind from, ummmmmmm, a passing neutron star. The scheme will feature a 1000 MT hydrogen bomb, spaceships, and short wave radio. Nicolas Cage, some hot babe, and a cute kid will survive...on Mars!
You do realize that there will be a SpaceShipThree, Four, Five, etc, so long as the business remains profitable?
This means more than you may realize. While "Vomit Comet" is colloquially expressed, it is essentially correct. SS2's engine has a specific impulse of around 250 which is low (LOX/LH might give you around 450). What's that mean? The mass fraction to reach orbit (propellant/structure + payload weight) of a launcher that uses this type of engine would be in the low hundreds:1 compared to 7:1 for a LOX/LH engine.
At the same time SS2's oxidizer tank is heavy because the N2O is pressure fed and not pump fed. Heavy tank to withstand the pressure. The combination of low Isp and a pressurized tank means this particular arrangement will never work as an orbital launcher no matter how much it is scaled up. That's not an opinion, it just won't.
So if a hypothesized SS3 were to be orbital it would have to be a different technology altogether. Assuming BR would be allergic to going the BSR route (Big Stupid Rocket), one suspects he has something air-breathing in mind. The only two things I know of along those lines are SCRAM and Pulse Detonation and the latter might be purely tinfoil-hat. But even SCRAM has big challenges not the least of which is that nobody has made an operational vehicle using one and the best publicly available information on the concept (NASP) hints that aerodynamic heating *on the way up* was the killer. That might be why recent talk about SCRAM is in reference to really fast airplanes, not launchers.
Apart from that, almost any combination of expendable/reusable rocket-propelled boosters/launchers/orbiters has been thought of before. Early in the Shuttle program NASA looked at a great big flyback liquid fueled booster instead of a throw-away tank and solids, but the darn thing had to be the size of the Empire State building.
All that is to say I'm curious to know what he has in mind for orbital. Tempered with the memories of Rutan's early days when he was downright religious about canards due to their amazing efficiency, he said.
I notice WK2 has a conventional tail.
Software is sometimes conceptualized as a machine, and machines are patentable, therefore software should be too.
Software can be implemented in hardware, which makes it patentable even when it's not implemented in hardware.
The following terms are common to both software and hardware manufacturers:
research, competitive analysis, functionality, specifications, operational environment, operating characteristics, interfaces, modules, engineering, implemented, debugged, tested, quality assurance, alpha and beta testing, documentation, installation, training, OEM, component, system, re-packaged, maintenance, warrants, workmanship, guarantees, errors, defects, improved, enhanced, upgraded, and models
and therefore the products of software companies should be patentable just like the products of hardware companies.
Respectfully to Mr. Goetz, my reaction to his points is "So?". Analogies are aids to thought, not legal arguments.
Those are large and very high speed pumps that operate at the limit of what materials science can provide
The fuel pump puts out 69,000 horsepower at 37,000 rpm while being roughly the size of a car engine.
I say no.
All public and private communications of all executives of companies in the UK valued at 500 million or more will be monitored for illegal, unethical, and undesired behaviour.
"If we had only known what certain Wall Street bankers had been up to the world could have avoided financial losses in the trillions. In a world of high speed communication and free flowing capital, the expectations of privacy have to be balanced against the interests of all stakeholders." said noted expert florescent_beige.
That now prolonged ocean cooling is fatal to the “official” theory that “global warming” will happen
Horseypucks
I think ion thrusters would be a better way to go for ISS boosting.
These calcs show the drag force on the ISS is about 0.25N.
These tables show that to get 250 mN thrust you are going to need ~10 kW of constant electrical power. That is 8-ish % of the ISS available electrical power. It seems very do-able.
Possibly ISS electrical power is so stretched that using it to boost is considered a waste. Certainly it is possible without VASIMR.
Despite it's high specific impulse this engine isn't the whole answer to the exploration of the solar system. Blame the inverse square law.
It may be feasible to power an slow unmanned Earth-Moon VASIMR transfer vehicle with solar, but at Mars solar radiation is only 25% as strong and at Jupiter it's 4%. So you are talking about nuclear for probes to the outer planets and for manned missions to anywhere.
There's nothing technological that would stop space-based nuclear but you just know it'll take years to get that done.
New Scientist has an article that says VASIMR + nuclear = 39-day transit time to Mars.
I've seen talk about a massive increase in surveillance as a tool against roadside bombs. The only arguments I've seen against it have been along the lines of; can't do it, it would cost to much.
Some guys built five model airplanes with gps autopilots and sent them across the Atlantic: one made it. Google "Tans Atlantic Model". These were not sophisticated air vehicles, they probably cost a few hundred dollars each.
So, buy a few thousand models like that and send them cruising up and down the roads that NATO uses at about 500 feet. Put cameras on some of them and hire a bunch of unemployed college graduates to look at the video. I bet you could do all that for less than two million.
The sound of the engines would be a deterrent on it's own, and who cares if you lose 25% of them a month. One would cost less than an artillery shell.
This system does not operate like a human at all. A human operator does not look for signs of terrorist activities. A human operator looks at boobs.
University is more than a bunch of classes and tests. It's a life experience including: moving away from home and living on your own for the first time, meeting and getting along with people who are more talented than you (a shock if you aren't used to it), establishing friendships and the beginnings of a life-long network, finding out where professors come from, buying some Staedler instruments and spending hours admiring them (partly because you can't afford to do anything else after you paid for them with that month's food money), and discovering the university library.
I can't be the only one who's outlook on life was modified by spending time in a library like the Robarts. There's an atmosphere of concentrated truth in a place like that you just don't find anywhere else. First, you find out that the world is full of people who know a whole lot. Second, you learn that people have spent a lot of time writing down what they know. And the scale of what I'm talking about only really becomes clear when you stand in a library stack with books stretching off forever and ever, each one some person's passionate little gem.
To me, higher learning is about more than just getting some facts straight so you can get a job.
But having said all that, it will be true that other models of learning will bring education to people who otherwise wouldn't get it, and who can argue with that?
There is already a material out there that is better than Kevlar, it's called Spectra. It's an ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene and despite its existence Kevlar continues to be the standard.
Something needs to be *a lot* better to displace an established standard, not just somewhat better.
According to wikipedia the density of nanotube is not that much different from Kevlar. Kevlar ~1.4, nanotube ~1.3.
So where's the advantage over Kevlar? It could be that the ballistic performance is much better than Kevlar allowing you to make armor with less material but otherwise this isn't an obviously better material than Kevlar.
In ballistic applications Kevlar will probably continue to win based on cost.
As for structural uses, back in the annals of history aramid fiber (Kevlar) was thought to be the Next Big Thing. Then people started to realize that while very fantastic in tension, aramid has sucky compression properties (using Kevlar has been compared to designing with chain). I wonder if nanotubes will suffer the same fate.
Call me a troglodyte I don't mind. I remember the first CADAM systems that came out in the 80's that used light pens to select things on the screen. It was exhausting after an hour or so.
Maybe I don't get it but I think touch and gesture has the same problem: it's tiring after a while. I suppose on small devices and fun things it has it's place but the mouse will never go away for real work.
Not that I do any real work but if I did I'd use a mouse.
Has anyone considered the possibility that the little galaxy has a plan? Maybe it's infused with negative-spin tachyonic dark energy type X that will cause Andromeda to implode. Then who will devour whom? Bwaha etc etc
eom
Easy. If it wasn't Time it must have been Space.
Russia is currently planning to send its own expedition to Mars some time in the future.
Smart thinking. That will avoid all those universe-destroying paradoxes caused by planning to do it sometime in the past.
There was a species of human who's legs would fall off when they got scared too. All eaten though. Sad.
...Sunken-Eyed Lemur...scientific name masturbatus furious...
They have a scientific name for /. readers?