It's not the shove. It's the slowing down part. The gravity assists decelerate the probe until the onboard propellant has a hope of establishing a stable orbit around Mercury. It's a way of tapping the vast potential energy represented by a planetary sized mass.
Remember, the probe is moving further into the Solar System, so it needs to *decelerate* from Earth-normal angular momentum.
Schmontinuity! I'm not a continuity geek, but, geez, did you LOOK at the picture? He's got a big, cute bobble head. They've turned Marvin into Son Of Twiki.
"Bedebedebedebedebedebedebede! I'm feeling very depressed, Buck..."
You can launch a giant ship with a giant fuel tank that cost 800 billion dollars, or you can launch a small, reasonably priced craft and use the gravitation of the planets to do your work for you.
The estate of Milton Sirotta (nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner) long known as the coiner of the term "googol" when Milton was 9 years old, is suing the pants off Google.com.
"On the toilet" : 1,624,115
"In Soviet Russia" : 890,560
"While commuting" : 5,109
"While stuffing face with food" : 4,483
"While watching pr0n" : 1,294
"While having sex (solo)" : 1,154
"Inside Michael Moore's colon" : 27
"Inside George Bush's head" : 25
"Hiding in the rafters at the Democratic convention... my God, the gas! The gas and hot air and bullshit are suffocating me! : 1
"While having sex (with partner)" : 0
Gandalf: James Gandolfini
Aragorn: Governor Schwarzenegger
Saruman: Micahel J. Nelson
Boromir: JFK Jr's corpse
Frodo: "Dib" from Invader Zim
Sam: Introducing Puddles, the wonder Chow-Chow
Merry: Mary Kate Olsen
Pippen: Ashley Olsen
Gimli: Star Jones
Legolas: Clint Howard
Arwen: CGI character with enhanced breast physics
Galadriel: David Bowie
Sauron: character edited out and replaced by street smart, but wise beyond his years, young, hip black character.
Maul walks around like a caged tiger while Gui-Con just sits there meditating. This is not exciting! This does not build suspense!
Actually, that was one of the *better* dramatic moments in the film. It would not have been enhanced in anyway by one liners or any other sort of dialog. It spelled out each character in full without anyone uttering a single word. It was a suprisingly sophisticated moment in an otherwise poor film, making me suspect it was an accident.;-)
That was the perfect opportunity for a short conversation between warriors to take place and give the audience insight into the conflict! Doesn't Maul have anything to say? Doesn't he even want to mock the jedi? Is Gui-Con so dead to the world that he's not even remotely curious why this guy has appeared out of nowhere to kill him?
This is immature. Would the Seven Samauri have been improved if the samurai and the bandits tried to discuss their differences? The Sith know what the Jedi are, and the Jedi know what the Sith are. The audience, if they have been paying attention, also understand this. Words become extraneous. In the silence of the scene hangs the history of these two groups. The time for reasoning and discussion is generations past. But, again, I suspect this effect was accidental.
This consideration is, in fact, what prevents a lot of possibly great stuff from happening. But if you even breathe the words "tort reform" you get branded a hyper right wingnut.
Where I work, you have to fill out a form and submit it to get a project directory (a directory where all the PWB designs and FPGA compilations live) made. It takes a couple days.
This is what is involved in making a project directory:
mkdir directory_name
And then they act as if they have just given you a blow job and swallowed.
Getting something recovered off the daily tape backup requires and act of Congress.
I agree with the general attutide around here on matters of copyright, but could it be possible to view this issue as a protection of the minority from the majority?
I see a lot of people saying that these laws are bad NOT because they are badly written or inefficient, but because "most" people don't like them. This is supposed to be representative government, right?
But majority opinion only matters up to the boundary where it crosses into the rights of the minority, or even a single person. The minority in this case, of course, is the artist, and the majority is the consumers of the art. The artist has created something that has a high demand and, as a result, an intrinsic value beyond any concept of it being a unique physical object or not. If there was no demand, this problem would not exist. To copy a song isn't theft, but there is a loss of value there. There's a consumer who desired the product. The copy also has value brought into being by the consumer's desire to have a copy.
Maybe the consmuer would not have wanted it if paying for it was the only option, but now were getting into a speculative area that does not make for good legislation. You can't write "follow this rule, unless you really don't want to" in a law book.
I'm not advocating this, just tossing it out to munch on. Maybe we need to once and for all clearly delineate what rights, exactly and precisely, the creators of easily reproduced art have. Right now it seems to be a mishmash. One ruling here about VCRs. Another here on portable players. Instead of another layer of laws, we need to shake it all out and get it straight.
And, no, sorry, but "information wants to be free" is not a rational legal concept.;-) Too often that means, "I want that information, and I want it for free."
The problem with SETI fanatics is that they assume that aliens are using primitive EM waves to communicate.
That actually covered by the fc and L factors. But it's still a useless equation.
If EM waves were the only way to communicate, we would be bombarded with intelligent signals from all directions.
At some level, but free space losses drop the signal levels until they get lost in the background noise, even in the microwave window. I design satcom links, and that's the biggest factor we fight: the signal attenuation simply due to distance. Hence, antennas in which you could land a small plane.
Why do people continually trot it out like some sort of alchemical wonder? It's a Probability 101 equation composed almost entirely of unknown variables. I mean, we can't even be positive about N, the number of stars in the Milky Way.
Shostak admits that there are myriad uncertainties surrounding his prediction
Yeah, no kidding, Edison.
When I plug *my* misapthropic numbers into the bloody bloody bloody bastard Drake bloody equation, I basically prove even WE don't exist. Plug in the dewey-eyed, rabbit hugging optimist numbers, and you get aliens already knocking on the door and introducing themselves as your new enighbors.
So how interesting are actor biographies? I started reading a few in the magazine, and I found my eyes drifting to the adverts. To my dying day, I'll never undrestand the culture of celebrity fandom.
Even if there's an actor or musician or writer whose work I enjoy, I have zero real desire to know anything beyond the result of their respective crafts. This probably stems from when I was much younger, and I would watch an interview with a band (or someone) I liked, and I would discover what mind numbingly vapid goons they were. I even found Douglas Adams on Letterman to be pretty uninteresting, although he seemed to be an OK fellow.
Many of the articles were pretty encapsulated, and would focus on a couple major events in that person's life. You could do one about anyone who did anything significant in their lives. And most people have some number of unusual anecdotes to tell about their lives, especially if they are bright people.
Slashdot Mirror
1. Buy iPod.
2. But $10 universal remote from WalMart.
3. Use corner of universal remote to push iPod buttons and rotate volume dealy-widget.
So much more cool and high tech than using your primitve old finger.
IT Guy #2: (puts down Moauntain Dew) Yeah?
IT Guy #1: I just installed the update to GNOME.
IT Guy #2: (Picks up Cheezy Poofs) Yeah?
IT Guy #1: Should it default to something called the "I Love Osama" theme?
IT Guy #2: (Searching for Ding Dongs) Dunno.
IT Guy #1: It has a picture of the smoking World Trade Centers on the desktop.
IT Guy #2: (Found Nutty Ho-Ho in pocket instead) Huh.
IT Guy #1: And the screensaver is the Nick Berg video.
IT Guy #2: (Looks tiredly in direction of bathroom) Huh.
IT Guy #1: Aw, crap. It just installed the Anthrax2WstrnDevl worm on every machine from here to the main data center in Atlanta.
IT Guy #2: So blame the Windows Longhorn server in the marketing cluster.
IT Guy #1: Eh. Good plan.
And so on and so forth...
Remember, the probe is moving further into the Solar System, so it needs to *decelerate* from Earth-normal angular momentum.
"Bedebedebedebedebedebedebede! I'm feeling very depressed, Buck..."
NASA can explain it better: http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/the_mission/mission_de sign.html
"Brain the size of a planet" was not meant to be taken LITERALLY!
The estate of Milton Sirotta (nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner) long known as the coiner of the term "googol" when Milton was 9 years old, is suing the pants off Google.com.
NM
...are just the lowest form of life. You really are.
Way to ruin my Monday, you, you, you poopie-head! :-P
*sniffle*
"On the toilet" : 1,624,115
"In Soviet Russia" : 890,560
"While commuting" : 5,109
"While stuffing face with food" : 4,483
"While watching pr0n" : 1,294
"While having sex (solo)" : 1,154
"Inside Michael Moore's colon" : 27
"Inside George Bush's head" : 25
"Hiding in the rafters at the Democratic convention... my God, the gas! The gas and hot air and bullshit are suffocating me! : 1
"While having sex (with partner)" : 0
Like 99.9% of humanity, they read headlines to find things that fit their ideological filters and preconceived notions.
Well... I might as well add to the suckfest:
Gandalf: James Gandolfini
Aragorn: Governor Schwarzenegger
Saruman: Micahel J. Nelson
Boromir: JFK Jr's corpse
Frodo: "Dib" from Invader Zim
Sam: Introducing Puddles, the wonder Chow-Chow
Merry: Mary Kate Olsen
Pippen: Ashley Olsen
Gimli: Star Jones
Legolas: Clint Howard
Arwen: CGI character with enhanced breast physics
Galadriel: David Bowie
Sauron: character edited out and replaced by street smart, but wise beyond his years, young, hip black character.
Scientology sues people too much.
OK, let's see what they do with that one.
Actually, that was one of the *better* dramatic moments in the film. It would not have been enhanced in anyway by one liners or any other sort of dialog. It spelled out each character in full without anyone uttering a single word. It was a suprisingly sophisticated moment in an otherwise poor film, making me suspect it was an accident. ;-)
That was the perfect opportunity for a short conversation between warriors to take place and give the audience insight into the conflict! Doesn't Maul have anything to say? Doesn't he even want to mock the jedi? Is Gui-Con so dead to the world that he's not even remotely curious why this guy has appeared out of nowhere to kill him?
This is immature. Would the Seven Samauri have been improved if the samurai and the bandits tried to discuss their differences? The Sith know what the Jedi are, and the Jedi know what the Sith are. The audience, if they have been paying attention, also understand this. Words become extraneous. In the silence of the scene hangs the history of these two groups. The time for reasoning and discussion is generations past. But, again, I suspect this effect was accidental.
This consideration is, in fact, what prevents a lot of possibly great stuff from happening. But if you even breathe the words "tort reform" you get branded a hyper right wingnut.
This is what is involved in making a project directory:
mkdir directory_name
And then they act as if they have just given you a blow job and swallowed.
Getting something recovered off the daily tape backup requires and act of Congress.
The Mac zealot.
Linux zealots.
The born again Christian.
Muslim extremists
The guy who just saw Fahrenheit 9/11.
The guy who MADE Fahrenheit 9/11.
The guy who thinks he knows the best restaurant in town.
The guy who thinks he OWNS the best restaurant in town.
The Atkins dieter or health nut who tells you how crappy what you're eating is.
Morbidly obese people who claim to never eat anything.
The grammar nazi.
Members of the American Nazi Party.
People who explain themselves for too long.
People who post snide lists on message boards. :)
I see a lot of people saying that these laws are bad NOT because they are badly written or inefficient, but because "most" people don't like them. This is supposed to be representative government, right?
But majority opinion only matters up to the boundary where it crosses into the rights of the minority, or even a single person. The minority in this case, of course, is the artist, and the majority is the consumers of the art. The artist has created something that has a high demand and, as a result, an intrinsic value beyond any concept of it being a unique physical object or not. If there was no demand, this problem would not exist. To copy a song isn't theft, but there is a loss of value there. There's a consumer who desired the product. The copy also has value brought into being by the consumer's desire to have a copy.
Maybe the consmuer would not have wanted it if paying for it was the only option, but now were getting into a speculative area that does not make for good legislation. You can't write "follow this rule, unless you really don't want to" in a law book.
I'm not advocating this, just tossing it out to munch on. Maybe we need to once and for all clearly delineate what rights, exactly and precisely, the creators of easily reproduced art have. Right now it seems to be a mishmash. One ruling here about VCRs. Another here on portable players. Instead of another layer of laws, we need to shake it all out and get it straight.
And, no, sorry, but "information wants to be free" is not a rational legal concept. ;-) Too often that means, "I want that information, and I want it for free."
Or these:
That's just... wrong, somehow.
That actually covered by the fc and L factors. But it's still a useless equation.
If EM waves were the only way to communicate, we would be bombarded with intelligent signals from all directions.
At some level, but free space losses drop the signal levels until they get lost in the background noise, even in the microwave window. I design satcom links, and that's the biggest factor we fight: the signal attenuation simply due to distance. Hence, antennas in which you could land a small plane.
Shostak admits that there are myriad uncertainties surrounding his prediction
Yeah, no kidding, Edison.
When I plug *my* misapthropic numbers into the bloody bloody bloody bastard Drake bloody equation, I basically prove even WE don't exist. Plug in the dewey-eyed, rabbit hugging optimist numbers, and you get aliens already knocking on the door and introducing themselves as your new enighbors.
Which shows how little attention I pay to celebrities. :-)
Ted is clearly bored.
Even if there's an actor or musician or writer whose work I enjoy, I have zero real desire to know anything beyond the result of their respective crafts. This probably stems from when I was much younger, and I would watch an interview with a band (or someone) I liked, and I would discover what mind numbingly vapid goons they were. I even found Douglas Adams on Letterman to be pretty uninteresting, although he seemed to be an OK fellow.
Many of the articles were pretty encapsulated, and would focus on a couple major events in that person's life. You could do one about anyone who did anything significant in their lives. And most people have some number of unusual anecdotes to tell about their lives, especially if they are bright people.