...what the underlaying OS is for the system as long as I get my paycheck.
Still, it saddens me somewhat to see that the Norwegian Armed Forces - who pay my paycheck - are going to switch to yet another windowsbased system as they are changing the system for keeping track of the money (Prosjekt GOLF). Off course, I know why too, the entire intranet for the Norwegian Armed Forces (FISbasis) are running Windows NT something or other.. you know, the one that looks like Win98...
On the bright side, it appers that a number of the systems I'm not allowed to talk about, running stuff that I'm not supposed to know about *smiles* in places that don't exist, are running on a somewhat modified and customised Linux, since it's considered a better system with regards to uptime and so forth.
And we're too cheap to give our astronauts some real protection, like thier own escapable lifepod, built into the shuttle's design.
Funny as it might seem, the problem of 'bail out' in space was studied closely in the fifties and early sixties. As usuall, the Encyclopedia
Astronautica has more info, of which I have taken some samples from below.
Back in the early days of spaceflight it was envisioned that flying in space would be like flying any other kind of high-performance aircraft. Thought was therefor given to ejecting from a damaged craft, just as you can fom most military jets. They studied a one crew
balistic capsule with a weight per crew of 327 kilograms and
a six
crew balistic capsule, mass per crew 548 kilograms. Breaking
away from the ideas of capsules, you had MOOSE; a
inflatable heatshield and parachute combination with a weight of
215 kilogram. Paracone
was a simular idea, but with an all up weight of 227 kilograms.
An derivative of the existing systems for the B-58 lead to EGRESS,
with a weight per crew of 370 kilograms.
Despite this promising start, what did NASA come up with for the shuttle when it was designed? Yes, the infamous Rescue
Ball!
As you can see, there really is technical reason why NASA shouldn't be able to equip the shuttle with 'lifepods', but another, very real reason. The lightest of the systems I've picked weights just under a quarter of a ton for each astronaut in question. FOr the seven man crew on Colombia, thats just over two tons to haul into space and back again - two tons less cargo. See why the shuttle don't have liferafts? They simply eats too much of the payload. It makes more sence to add more reservefuel to each mission, in order to make sure any shuttle could, if needed, rendevous with the ISS and stay there until a rescueshuttle / several Souyz caspules could be launched to pick them up.
The Generals have always laid plans to fight the last war over again... and now the civilan goverment are planning to meet the last attack.
The initial plan of the French and British during WW1 was to prevent the Germans from using the same tactics as they did in the German-French war of 1870-1871. With it's overfocus on the attack however, this lead to the quagmire of the western front with it's millions upon millions of dead.
Having learned their lessons, the allies developed a masterplan that focused on the defence so they wounldn't have to fight a trench war again. And they didn't had to do that, as the Germans easily outflanked the heavily fortified border. To misuse a popular qoute from Fark; "France surrenders".
During the early years of the Cold War, both the east and the west trained and planned a massive conventional confrontation, even if they both intended to use atomic warheads to decimate the enemys conventional strenght (and some terrorbombing too, but that was a natural outgrowth of the things the germans, british and americans had been doing in WW2).
Then US forces trained for a conventional war in Europe found themself fighting an unconventional war in SE Asia - so for the next couple of decades everyone trained to battle guerilla fources.
These days we seem to try to fight the war on terror like we fought Iraq in the first gulf war (y'know, the one which UN and the international comunity sanctioned)... and guess what? The terrorist are one step ahead of us.
The next big attack, if it ever comes (and I pray not) will not be jets into buildings. That has been done, and the security has been thightened up. The next big one will be something we don't expect, and therefore havn't prepared for. Dream up your own horrors as to what it may be...
instructed judges to examine the scientific method underlying expert evidence and to admit only that evidence that was both "relevant and reliable."
In other words, the science behind the experts testemone should be sound - and reprodusable. As far as beeing relevant... well, you don't want the plaintiff to bring in an expert on lungcancer if the case is about a braintumour, would you?
Basicly, INAL and all that, I read this as "the judge shouldn't turn his courtroom into a show of weird 'science'."
You may not be aware of it, but most of this 'new' capabilities was avilable to the US in the late fifties, in the form of the Navaho intercontinental cruisemissile. True, it was a one way weapon on operational missions, but test missions were flown with retn to base.
It's funny... the US developed the Navaho based on the idea the germans had in the A4b / A9, which was contrived as a way to lenghten the range of the A4 (V2), only to cancel it and develop the Atlas ICBM wich offered the potential for longer range and shorter reactiontime... History seems to run in circles, just like a wheel...
Besides buying copies of "Mein Kampf" and "The Anarchist's Cookbook," what sort of flags could be construed as putting one's transactions over the limit?
I guess buying GPS-systems, small jet-engines and books on aerodynamics may fool them into thinking you plan to pull
a stunt like this.
In all seriousness thought, there are two things I am really curious about. Fristly; if no courtorder are needed, how do they make sure that the one asking for the information is in fact entitled to it? Secondly, will this 'service' be extended to non-US police as well (as a significant numbersellers and buyers actually hails from the rest of the world)?
Or for those not so keen on abverbiations, Problem Exist Between Keyboard And Chair.
Make sure you got the latest anti-virus program. Do not open attachments from prople you don't know. Be wary about opening attachement from people you do know. Avoid HTML-enchanted (ha!) mail like the plauge. If possible, run another e-mail client than Outlook and Outlook Express. Set up and maintain a firewall that can block traffic that goes out as well as in. Use common sence - you wouldn't enter a house of ill repute in real life in fear of a STD, so you shouldn't visit a website of ill repute in fear of getting a virus or worse.
Seriously... if more people used their heads to think with and was a little more suspious about things, this would not be a problem.
Having RTFA and most of the comments, I'm a bit baffeled by the slasdot community today. Even I see this not as a article in how to use Linux or anything, but more as the sort of commentary that you can read on page three of most computermagazines these days. Saying things like "we knew that" and "is this news" actually misses the point, as he isn't speaking to those who already uses Linux but rather to those who still sees Windows as the only operating system out there. He isn't preaching to the choir my friends, he is preaching to the heatens, like myself.
The article / editorial / comment is more of a key than a crowbar... it may wet peoples appetite for the 'free*' OS they can get from their nerdy friends - even if the setup can be more of a hazzle than Windows is (well, than Windows can be; I used several hours patching up my spare PC yesterday after upgrading to XP). As such, I would say this is a good little article. He mentiones several of the pros of Linux, a few of the drawbacks, points out that it isn't a scary thing to try and that it is realivelty easy to do. He even adds a numer of links to distros, info on opensourse and the Linux Newbie Administration Guide... The only thing he don't add is the URL to knoppix so people could try Linux without having to change anything on their 'puter.
*) However you want to define 'free' as far as Linux go...
Actually, one of the first reasons to send man into space - apart from showing off to the rest of the world - was that man could observe, interact with and if necessary correct the automatic systems. This still holds true. What also still holds true is that a human is infinitly more adaptable than a computer can ever be with todays technology. If a automatic, or semi-automatic, probe finds itself in a situation that is outside its programmed parameters, it can't do anything about it. Chances is that it wont even 'notice' it, as it may lack the proper sensors. Human on the other hand is likely to notice, ponder the problem and take action.
The offshot of this? Use automatic systems for the routinemissions and possible for trailblazing, use human spacemen (astronaut / kosmonauts / yuhangyuan) for exploring.
And while we wait for for the next mission to Mars, we might as well keep the spacemen trained by letting them see if you can train ants to sort small screws in weightlessness...=)
Logic dictates that if it should make sence to plan on launching any sort of craft from Mars, they would have to be built localy - something which I could, and maybe should, have pointed out more clearly. I did point out that the solar-arrays could be made by local materials, but . I'm not suggesting that launching from Mars is something we'll do next year, but when humanity grows up enought to not just colonize our neighbours in space but consider interplantary and interstellar missions it would make sence to launch from Mars - if we indeed launch for the surface of a planet in the first place and not from a spacestation.
But for starters, they can use this idea to refuel the "return to earth" vehicle... Off course, there will be little or no time building massive solar arrays on the first few manned missions, but nucular power can be utilised.
While going into space on top of a roman candle is a horrible inefficent way of doing things, it's the technology we master today. What technology we master when we are setting up a launchfacility on Mars we can only speculate about, but lets assume that the elsewheredrive isn't yet avilable and we have to make do with LH and LOX (liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen).
However, it'll cost far less, energywise, to launch something from Mars than from the earth. Mars has a escape velocity of just 5.03 km/s^2, compared to earths 11.19 km/s^2. And as we all know that Ek = m*v^2, the energy needed to deliver something into interplanitary space from Mars will be roughtly 1/5th of what it'll cost us to launch it from the surface of the earth (launching from the moon will cost under 1/20th of launching from the earth - but there is no readily avilable supply of water on the moon as far as I know).
Having seen that there is indeed some sence in building and launching oldfashion chemical rockets from the surface of the red planet, lets consider just how to split the water into oxygen and hydrogen, before we compress/freeze it. This takes, as pointed out, a whole lot of energy. Fortunatly however, bang smack in the middle of our solar system we got a gigantic nuclear furnace pumping out more energy than even the western civilisation can waste. True, Mars is somewhat farther from the earth, and the Solar irradiance is just 589.2 W/m^2 (or about 43.1% of earths), but Mars contains large open deserts and has less problems with clouds than earth do. Large solar farms should solve the problem, and I'm fairly sure that Mars itself can provide the necesary materials to construct them.
All information about Mars in this reply is taken from Nasa's Mars Fact Sheet.
Disclaimer; I'm not a Gentoo user, or even a daily user of any Linux-distro. Partly this is because I 'grew up' on Windows, partly because I've mostly been more interested in what I do on my PC than with what OS is on the bottom. However, I've been playing a lot with Knoppix lately, and are considering moving to Linux when I upgrade my computer later this year.
Reading the articles posted, and the 'reply' that was posted slightly higher up in the comments, I feel that this is but a reflection of what is the largest problem, and yet one of the great strenghts, of open source operating systems: They are dependant of the 'personal chemistry' between the various contributers. If they fall out, as it has clearly happened in this cause, the distrebution can suffer near fatal wounds (if he pulls all the hardware he says he has loaned to the project, I think things can get messy for a while). On the other hand, we might see two good (or even great) distributions where there only was one before.
The articles also raises a number of valid points which should be taken to heart by all who contribute to open source software; unclear roadmaps, unclear lines of command, hard to get a descission made, lack of communications. While these issues are found in closed source operations as well, it is easier to combat them in that area as they are traditionaly more hirarcical in their organisation.
Oh well, one more distro to consider when I take the leap into using Linux as my main OS
So why not do as the good people over at mini-itx.com and roll your own? You may not save all that much money on it, but you can get a system thats tailormade for your needs and absolutly one of a kind... or you can molest some pooroldcomputerandpimpitout with some new, faster hardware.
Actually, the guy who molested a Commodore SX-64 on the same site did just that. See http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/sx64/ for details - including how he even stealthed all the ports. The day my trusty, still functional C64 dies I might do the same... but for now, I'm more tempted about trying to squuese a MiniITX board into my PSX which died last christmas...
Traditional Science (WTFever that means) does not say anything is impossible. It only says that if you do X, you will get Y. Uhm... That's putting things very much to a point. There are certain things the Laws of Physics (even thought they may be nothing more than guidelines) states you cannot do. You cannot create energy out of nothing. Heat cannot flow from a warm place to a cold (without help). You can't accelerate past the speed of light.
One has nothing whatsoever to do with the other. Well, it was a tounge in cheek attemt at humour... if you manage one thing thats impossible, then you might as well do two impossible things. Impossible in this context means "falling outside what the 'Laws of Physics' allows".
..to qoute the article on that gravitycontroled spaceship: Rozsnyay said that rocketry has been around for over half a century. That technology is tested and proven, he said. "Gravity control on the other hand does not -- and could not -- even exist according to traditional science," he explained.
So, we have the leader/spokesman of the GCT claiming that they are working to develop a technology that is 'outside' of what science say is even remotly possible (and that in day and age where some scientist ponders on the possibility of timetravel). I don't think they should expect people to take them seriously, and I know that even if they showed a working model to me I'll have big trouble beliving it. The first thing I would do would be to look for the hidden piece of wire =)
In a way, it is as if they claim that they can build a Pertetum(sp?) Mobile - something every halfbaked highschoolstudent with a minimum of knowledge about the basic laws of physics knows is impossible. If someone finds a "loophole" in the laws of physics however... I guess we could have machines generating more power than they consumed, and we would probaly use them to controll gravity with.
Common sence, or at least my cynical sence, dictates that it increases at least 25% - 10% to the goverment, and another 15% to 'cover administration, losses and generaly piss you off'.
Looking at the pictures and the "technical data" at boings site, the 'new 7E7 is basicly a 7whatever7 (ie; the same basic airframedesign they have streached, shrinked, expanded and elongated since the first 707 was drawn) with some new lightweight materials and some more efficent engines on the wings. So it's not as much a new plane as a rehash of an old one.
On the other hand, it makes sence to base the design on a known, working design. Less cost in retraining aircrew and technical personell, known to work with existing airport fasilities, less time (and money) spendt on validating the design and so forth.
On the third hand, this is the twentyfirst century. We should have daily flights to the moon-colonies by now, as well as hypersonic transport between major metropols. Whats the point of living in the future when it's just like the past, only more expencive?
What prevents the US from setting up any good public transport? It's a cultural barrier.
Spot on. I've just returned from a three and a half week vacation in the US (West Virgina to be more precise), and while you might argue that there is a real need to have cars to get around there is also the truth that there is no will among the people in power to build a decent system for public transport. Point in proof; I spendt my time living with friends in Huntington and St Albans. Both friends work in Charleston (the state capital), and even if the railroad run thru all three cities / towns, they were forced to own and use a car to get to work... since there was no passangercarreing train serving the local area. Lets compare this to where I live - the southeastern part of Norway. The distance from Moss to Oslo (the capital of Norway) is about the same as from Huntington to Charleston (about one hour by car). Number of passangertrains from Moss to Oslo in one day: 18 each way. Some are direct connections (Intercity), some are local trains that stop at every major and most minor stations along the way. Once in Oslo you can either board a local bus, jump on a tram or take to subway to where you work (Oslo is a fairly large place, both in area and the number of people living there).
Oh well, we're just crazy europeans - but at least we don't have to spend an hour each day hunting for a place to park our car.
I can see several sensible reasons why the teams were given an SUV to modify (and thats not counting their apperant popularity in the US).
Space: If you outfit a vehicle with what is basicly a prototype propulsionsystem, it'll take more room than a productionsystem will do at some point in the future. Thus, the system they can shoehorn into a SUV today will fit a saloon in two years time, and your motorbike in a decade.
Weight/power ratio: If you can develop an engine powerfull enought to push a two ton box at a sensible speed, it is certainly powerfull enought to move a lighter and more aerodynamical vehicle too. The opposit is not always true. If the teams had been tasked in modefying a Ferrari or something, it would have been way cool, but for a system to achive production status it must be applicable "across the board".
Ease / cost of modification: A large car gives you plenty of space to fool around, letting you use equipment off the shelf instead of having to get everthing made espesially for the prototype. The enginecompartment in my Rover 200 is packed thight while the one in my fathers Opel Astra has plenty more room, and a SUV would be a ballroom compared to thatg again.
..like, for instance, Norwegian ones (see http://www.norgesbank.no/english/notes_and_coins/n otes.html for more on those) which has real securitymeasures like holograms and 'mother of pearl'-effect on it. Good luck trying to copy or scan that, 'cuz it plain can't be done without very, very specialised equipment. In fact, a while back I wrote up a short piece on Norwgian money for one of my american friends who were comming over to visit, and since he wondered how they have apperantly managed to scan it at http://www.norgesbank.no/english/notes_and_coins/c ounterfeit200kr.html , I gave them a call and asked - and was told that that picture was made out of a "number of scans at various angles blended together". For some reason they didn't want to give me any more details on how to achive that efect...
Sorry for not giving proper links, but I seem to have misplaced my little 'cheat-note' on how to write that bit of code...
All I know is that I wouldn't want one if you threw it after me... in fact, I might throw it right back.
My best guess is that the celebral challenged induvidual who decided to liberate this piece of overpriced, overhyped garbage thought it was one of those old handpushed lawnmovers...;
Slashdot Mirror
...what the underlaying OS is for the system as long as I get my paycheck.
Still, it saddens me somewhat to see that the Norwegian Armed Forces - who pay my paycheck - are going to switch to yet another windowsbased system as they are changing the system for keeping track of the money (Prosjekt GOLF). Off course, I know why too, the entire intranet for the Norwegian Armed Forces (FISbasis) are running Windows NT something or other.. you know, the one that looks like Win98...
On the bright side, it appers that a number of the systems I'm not allowed to talk about, running stuff that I'm not supposed to know about *smiles* in places that don't exist, are running on a somewhat modified and customised Linux, since it's considered a better system with regards to uptime and so forth.
And we're too cheap to give our astronauts some real protection, like thier own escapable lifepod, built into the shuttle's design.
Funny as it might seem, the problem of 'bail out' in space was studied closely in the fifties and early sixties. As usuall, the Encyclopedia Astronautica has more info, of which I have taken some samples from below.
Back in the early days of spaceflight it was envisioned that flying in space would be like flying any other kind of high-performance aircraft. Thought was therefor given to ejecting from a damaged craft, just as you can fom most military jets. They studied a one crew balistic capsule with a weight per crew of 327 kilograms and a six crew balistic capsule, mass per crew 548 kilograms. Breaking away from the ideas of capsules, you had MOOSE; a inflatable heatshield and parachute combination with a weight of 215 kilogram. Paracone was a simular idea, but with an all up weight of 227 kilograms. An derivative of the existing systems for the B-58 lead to EGRESS, with a weight per crew of 370 kilograms.
Despite this promising start, what did NASA come up with for the shuttle when it was designed? Yes, the infamous Rescue Ball!
As you can see, there really is technical reason why NASA shouldn't be able to equip the shuttle with 'lifepods', but another, very real reason. The lightest of the systems I've picked weights just under a quarter of a ton for each astronaut in question. FOr the seven man crew on Colombia, thats just over two tons to haul into space and back again - two tons less cargo. See why the shuttle don't have liferafts? They simply eats too much of the payload. It makes more sence to add more reservefuel to each mission, in order to make sure any shuttle could, if needed, rendevous with the ISS and stay there until a rescueshuttle / several Souyz caspules could be launched to pick them up.
..if I hadn't been so busy getting my fix of information, cyberpr0n and coffeine, I might even have read more than the first page.
Luckely, for other addictions there are tests to prove you're in the dangersone =P
The Generals have always laid plans to fight the last war over again... and now the civilan goverment are planning to meet the last attack.
The initial plan of the French and British during WW1 was to prevent the Germans from using the same tactics as they did in the German-French war of 1870-1871. With it's overfocus on the attack however, this lead to the quagmire of the western front with it's millions upon millions of dead.
Having learned their lessons, the allies developed a masterplan that focused on the defence so they wounldn't have to fight a trench war again. And they didn't had to do that, as the Germans easily outflanked the heavily fortified border. To misuse a popular qoute from Fark; "France surrenders".
During the early years of the Cold War, both the east and the west trained and planned a massive conventional confrontation, even if they both intended to use atomic warheads to decimate the enemys conventional strenght (and some terrorbombing too, but that was a natural outgrowth of the things the germans, british and americans had been doing in WW2).
Then US forces trained for a conventional war in Europe found themself fighting an unconventional war in SE Asia - so for the next couple of decades everyone trained to battle guerilla fources.
These days we seem to try to fight the war on terror like we fought Iraq in the first gulf war (y'know, the one which UN and the international comunity sanctioned)... and guess what? The terrorist are one step ahead of us.
The next big attack, if it ever comes (and I pray not) will not be jets into buildings. That has been done, and the security has been thightened up. The next big one will be something we don't expect, and therefore havn't prepared for. Dream up your own horrors as to what it may be...
instructed judges to examine the scientific method underlying expert evidence and to admit only that evidence that was both "relevant and reliable."
In other words, the science behind the experts testemone should be sound - and reprodusable. As far as beeing relevant... well, you don't want the plaintiff to bring in an expert on lungcancer if the case is about a braintumour, would you?
Basicly, INAL and all that, I read this as "the judge shouldn't turn his courtroom into a show of weird 'science'."
You may not be aware of it, but most of this 'new' capabilities was avilable to the US in the late fifties, in the form of the Navaho intercontinental cruisemissile. True, it was a one way weapon on operational missions, but test missions were flown with retn to base.
It's funny... the US developed the Navaho based on the idea the germans had in the A4b / A9, which was contrived as a way to lenghten the range of the A4 (V2), only to cancel it and develop the Atlas ICBM wich offered the potential for longer range and shorter reactiontime... History seems to run in circles, just like a wheel...
Besides buying copies of "Mein Kampf" and "The Anarchist's Cookbook," what sort of flags could be construed as putting one's transactions over the limit?
I guess buying GPS-systems, small jet-engines and books on aerodynamics may fool them into thinking you plan to pull a stunt like this.
In all seriousness thought, there are two things I am really curious about. Fristly; if no courtorder are needed, how do they make sure that the one asking for the information is in fact entitled to it? Secondly, will this 'service' be extended to non-US police as well (as a significant numbersellers and buyers actually hails from the rest of the world)?
Not me anyway - happy Opera-user
Or for those not so keen on abverbiations, Problem Exist Between Keyboard And Chair.
Make sure you got the latest anti-virus program. Do not open attachments from prople you don't know. Be wary about opening attachement from people you do know. Avoid HTML-enchanted (ha!) mail like the plauge. If possible, run another e-mail client than Outlook and Outlook Express. Set up and maintain a firewall that can block traffic that goes out as well as in. Use common sence - you wouldn't enter a house of ill repute in real life in fear of a STD, so you shouldn't visit a website of ill repute in fear of getting a virus or worse.
Seriously... if more people used their heads to think with and was a little more suspious about things, this would not be a problem.
Having RTFA and most of the comments, I'm a bit baffeled by the slasdot community today. Even I see this not as a article in how to use Linux or anything, but more as the sort of commentary that you can read on page three of most computermagazines these days. Saying things like "we knew that" and "is this news" actually misses the point, as he isn't speaking to those who already uses Linux but rather to those who still sees Windows as the only operating system out there. He isn't preaching to the choir my friends, he is preaching to the heatens, like myself.
The article / editorial / comment is more of a key than a crowbar... it may wet peoples appetite for the 'free*' OS they can get from their nerdy friends - even if the setup can be more of a hazzle than Windows is (well, than Windows can be; I used several hours patching up my spare PC yesterday after upgrading to XP). As such, I would say this is a good little article. He mentiones several of the pros of Linux, a few of the drawbacks, points out that it isn't a scary thing to try and that it is realivelty easy to do. He even adds a numer of links to distros, info on opensourse and the Linux Newbie Administration Guide... The only thing he don't add is the URL to knoppix so people could try Linux without having to change anything on their 'puter.
*) However you want to define 'free' as far as Linux go...
Actually, one of the first reasons to send man into space - apart from showing off to the rest of the world - was that man could observe, interact with and if necessary correct the automatic systems. This still holds true. What also still holds true is that a human is infinitly more adaptable than a computer can ever be with todays technology. If a automatic, or semi-automatic, probe finds itself in a situation that is outside its programmed parameters, it can't do anything about it. Chances is that it wont even 'notice' it, as it may lack the proper sensors. Human on the other hand is likely to notice, ponder the problem and take action.
The offshot of this? Use automatic systems for the routinemissions and possible for trailblazing, use human spacemen (astronaut / kosmonauts / yuhangyuan) for exploring.
And while we wait for for the next mission to Mars, we might as well keep the spacemen trained by letting them see if you can train ants to sort small screws in weightlessness...=)
No one ever saw the old USSR and US really cooperating in space, of all places.
Apart from the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project you mean?
Logic dictates that if it should make sence to plan on launching any sort of craft from Mars, they would have to be built localy - something which I could, and maybe should, have pointed out more clearly. I did point out that the solar-arrays could be made by local materials, but . I'm not suggesting that launching from Mars is something we'll do next year, but when humanity grows up enought to not just colonize our neighbours in space but consider interplantary and interstellar missions it would make sence to launch from Mars - if we indeed launch for the surface of a planet in the first place and not from a spacestation.
But for starters, they can use this idea to refuel the "return to earth" vehicle... Off course, there will be little or no time building massive solar arrays on the first few manned missions, but nucular power can be utilised.
While going into space on top of a roman candle is a horrible inefficent way of doing things, it's the technology we master today. What technology we master when we are setting up a launchfacility on Mars we can only speculate about, but lets assume that the elsewheredrive isn't yet avilable and we have to make do with LH and LOX (liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen).
However, it'll cost far less, energywise, to launch something from Mars than from the earth. Mars has a escape velocity of just 5.03 km/s^2, compared to earths 11.19 km/s^2. And as we all know that Ek = m*v^2, the energy needed to deliver something into interplanitary space from Mars will be roughtly 1/5th of what it'll cost us to launch it from the surface of the earth (launching from the moon will cost under 1/20th of launching from the earth - but there is no readily avilable supply of water on the moon as far as I know).
Having seen that there is indeed some sence in building and launching oldfashion chemical rockets from the surface of the red planet, lets consider just how to split the water into oxygen and hydrogen, before we compress/freeze it. This takes, as pointed out, a whole lot of energy. Fortunatly however, bang smack in the middle of our solar system we got a gigantic nuclear furnace pumping out more energy than even the western civilisation can waste. True, Mars is somewhat farther from the earth, and the Solar irradiance is just 589.2 W/m^2 (or about 43.1% of earths), but Mars contains large open deserts and has less problems with clouds than earth do. Large solar farms should solve the problem, and I'm fairly sure that Mars itself can provide the necesary materials to construct them.
All information about Mars in this reply is taken from Nasa's Mars Fact Sheet.
Disclaimer; I'm not a Gentoo user, or even a daily user of any Linux-distro. Partly this is because I 'grew up' on Windows, partly because I've mostly been more interested in what I do on my PC than with what OS is on the bottom. However, I've been playing a lot with Knoppix lately, and are considering moving to Linux when I upgrade my computer later this year.
Reading the articles posted, and the 'reply' that was posted slightly higher up in the comments, I feel that this is but a reflection of what is the largest problem, and yet one of the great strenghts, of open source operating systems: They are dependant of the 'personal chemistry' between the various contributers. If they fall out, as it has clearly happened in this cause, the distrebution can suffer near fatal wounds (if he pulls all the hardware he says he has loaned to the project, I think things can get messy for a while). On the other hand, we might see two good (or even great) distributions where there only was one before.
The articles also raises a number of valid points which should be taken to heart by all who contribute to open source software; unclear roadmaps, unclear lines of command, hard to get a descission made, lack of communications. While these issues are found in closed source operations as well, it is easier to combat them in that area as they are traditionaly more hirarcical in their organisation.
Oh well, one more distro to consider when I take the leap into using Linux as my main OS
...judging by the spesifications is isn't much more than one of the lower-power mini-itx motherboards from VIA and some bundled perhipals.
So why not do as the good people over at mini-itx.com and roll your own? You may not save all that much money on it, but you can get a system thats tailormade for your needs and absolutly one of a kind... or you can molest some poor old computer and pimp it out with some new, faster hardware.
Actually, the guy who molested a Commodore SX-64 on the same site did just that. See http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/sx64/ for details - including how he even stealthed all the ports. The day my trusty, still functional C64 dies I might do the same... but for now, I'm more tempted about trying to squuese a MiniITX board into my PSX which died last christmas...
Traditional Science (WTFever that means) does not say anything is impossible. It only says that if you do X, you will get Y. Uhm... That's putting things very much to a point. There are certain things the Laws of Physics (even thought they may be nothing more than guidelines) states you cannot do. You cannot create energy out of nothing. Heat cannot flow from a warm place to a cold (without help). You can't accelerate past the speed of light.
One has nothing whatsoever to do with the other. Well, it was a tounge in cheek attemt at humour... if you manage one thing thats impossible, then you might as well do two impossible things. Impossible in this context means "falling outside what the 'Laws of Physics' allows".
..to qoute the article on that gravitycontroled spaceship: Rozsnyay said that rocketry has been around for over half a century. That technology is tested and proven, he said. "Gravity control on the other hand does not -- and could not -- even exist according to traditional science," he explained.
So, we have the leader/spokesman of the GCT claiming that they are working to develop a technology that is 'outside' of what science say is even remotly possible (and that in day and age where some scientist ponders on the possibility of timetravel). I don't think they should expect people to take them seriously, and I know that even if they showed a working model to me I'll have big trouble beliving it. The first thing I would do would be to look for the hidden piece of wire =)
In a way, it is as if they claim that they can build a Pertetum(sp?) Mobile - something every halfbaked highschoolstudent with a minimum of knowledge about the basic laws of physics knows is impossible. If someone finds a "loophole" in the laws of physics however... I guess we could have machines generating more power than they consumed, and we would probaly use them to controll gravity with.
Common sence, or at least my cynical sence, dictates that it increases at least 25% - 10% to the goverment, and another 15% to 'cover administration, losses and generaly piss you off'.
Looking at the pictures and the "technical data" at boings site, the 'new 7E7 is basicly a 7whatever7 (ie; the same basic airframedesign they have streached, shrinked, expanded and elongated since the first 707 was drawn) with some new lightweight materials and some more efficent engines on the wings. So it's not as much a new plane as a rehash of an old one.
On the other hand, it makes sence to base the design on a known, working design. Less cost in retraining aircrew and technical personell, known to work with existing airport fasilities, less time (and money) spendt on validating the design and so forth.
On the third hand, this is the twentyfirst century. We should have daily flights to the moon-colonies by now, as well as hypersonic transport between major metropols. Whats the point of living in the future when it's just like the past, only more expencive?
What prevents the US from setting up any good public transport? It's a cultural barrier.
Spot on. I've just returned from a three and a half week vacation in the US (West Virgina to be more precise), and while you might argue that there is a real need to have cars to get around there is also the truth that there is no will among the people in power to build a decent system for public transport. Point in proof; I spendt my time living with friends in Huntington and St Albans. Both friends work in Charleston (the state capital), and even if the railroad run thru all three cities / towns, they were forced to own and use a car to get to work... since there was no passangercarreing train serving the local area. Lets compare this to where I live - the southeastern part of Norway. The distance from Moss to Oslo (the capital of Norway) is about the same as from Huntington to Charleston (about one hour by car). Number of passangertrains from Moss to Oslo in one day: 18 each way. Some are direct connections (Intercity), some are local trains that stop at every major and most minor stations along the way. Once in Oslo you can either board a local bus, jump on a tram or take to subway to where you work (Oslo is a fairly large place, both in area and the number of people living there).
Oh well, we're just crazy europeans - but at least we don't have to spend an hour each day hunting for a place to park our car.
I can see several sensible reasons why the teams were given an SUV to modify (and thats not counting their apperant popularity in the US).
Space: If you outfit a vehicle with what is basicly a prototype propulsionsystem, it'll take more room than a productionsystem will do at some point in the future. Thus, the system they can shoehorn into a SUV today will fit a saloon in two years time, and your motorbike in a decade.
Weight/power ratio: If you can develop an engine powerfull enought to push a two ton box at a sensible speed, it is certainly powerfull enought to move a lighter and more aerodynamical vehicle too. The opposit is not always true. If the teams had been tasked in modefying a Ferrari or something, it would have been way cool, but for a system to achive production status it must be applicable "across the board".
Ease / cost of modification: A large car gives you plenty of space to fool around, letting you use equipment off the shelf instead of having to get everthing made espesially for the prototype. The enginecompartment in my Rover 200 is packed thight while the one in my fathers Opel Astra has plenty more room, and a SUV would be a ballroom compared to thatg again.
..like, for instance, Norwegian ones (see http://www.norgesbank.no/english/notes_and_coins/n otes.html for more on those) which has real securitymeasures like holograms and 'mother of pearl'-effect on it. Good luck trying to copy or scan that, 'cuz it plain can't be done without very, very specialised equipment. In fact, a while back I wrote up a short piece on Norwgian money for one of my american friends who were comming over to visit, and since he wondered how they have apperantly managed to scan it at http://www.norgesbank.no/english/notes_and_coins/c ounterfeit200kr.html , I gave them a call and asked - and was told that that picture was made out of a "number of scans at various angles blended together". For some reason they didn't want to give me any more details on how to achive that efect...
Sorry for not giving proper links, but I seem to have misplaced my little 'cheat-note' on how to write that bit of code...
All I know is that I wouldn't want one if you threw it after me... in fact, I might throw it right back.
My best guess is that the celebral challenged induvidual who decided to liberate this piece of overpriced, overhyped garbage thought it was one of those old handpushed lawnmovers... ;