I said per kilowatt-hour produced. Geesh... did you even pay attention to what I had to say?
Chernobyl was awful, and I don't dispute that. I also noted it was a major exception to the general rule. The one thing that makes Chernobyl so incredibly awful is due to the fact that all of the material is concentrated in one place. The reason I hesitate about how damaging it was in comparison to coal is due to the fact that Chernobyl is not only a major facility, but that it is still supplying electricity to the Grid in Eastern Europe.
It is likely that Chernobyl would beat out a coal plant using sources particularly high in radioactive elements in terms of kilowatt-hours of energy produced, but I don't think it would be several orders of magnitude higher. Keep in mind that the coal plants spew this "waste" willy-nilly all over the entire area where they are located, and over the course of decades and not all at once like the Chernobyl disaster did. I also lack all of the specific numbers to do a strict comparison.
That facility is also an example of awful engineering that simply wouldn't happen in the regulatory environment of western governments, but that is a separate issue.
As far as citations or evidence, I could give dozens here. Here are a couple that perhaps you ought to read if you don't want to believe little old me:
At least so far as some "common sense" stuff, keep in mind that coal comes from underground sources and that often that coal is mixed with a whole bunch of other elements, including nearly every naturally occurring radioactive element on the Earth. Trace amounts of Uranium alone is sufficient to spread huge amounts of low-level radiation over nearly all of the soot fall-out that comes from the burning of coal... and that goes right up the chimney.
BTW, as far as the nuclear industry being aware of this... it has been "common knowledge" for decades. They have used this argument, but very few people are really paying attention. Certainly not the "greens" that get into an uproar over the construction of nuclear power plants. This isn't in the major news media outlets because it isn't really even news. There isn't anything "new" about this sort of information, even if it may be a revelation to you.
There are some hard limits to what a typical IEC fusion reactor can produce... as the "grid" that encloses the fusion core also tends to absorb some of the particles that are needed to sustain the reaction.
What the IEC (Internal Electrostatic Confinement) reactor does really well is produce a stable neutron source that can be turned on and off with a switch. There are some very useful applications for such a device in terms of nuclear physics research and medical treatments where this would have tremendous value even if you can't reach anything even near a break-even energy production for the device.
For a medial device, it is really nice in terms of being able to have a neutron source that can be turned off, pulled apart for maintenance, and when the equipment is de-commissioned or surplussed you don't need to get deal with radioactive waste disposal. It can also be installed without having to get special permits from the Atomic Energy Commission.
Actually, Bussard was trying to use a Boron-11 fuel matrix that doesn't release neutrons in the same fashion as Deuterium fusion does. One of the reasons for this is precisely to help cut down on the neutron flux coming from the reactor.
His design goal was to use it as a direct drop-in replacement for boilers at coal-fired power plants, using similar sorts of shielding and precautions as would be already in place for such a facility. Water in the boiler itself would offer what extra protection would be needed, and radiation levels for released radioactive products would be lower than would be typical for a coal plant as well.
FYI, coal plants release far more radioactive waste per kWh generated than the worst and most inefficient nuclear power plants... with perhaps the singlar exception of Chernobyl. Even that I'm not 100% certain of.
This said, you are correct that the fusion rate in a Polywell is something of a much greater concern if you actually got one going, and would be leathal if it used traditional fusion fuel targets.
Re:Groklaw is an example of the power of open sour
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Grokking SCO's Demise
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· Score: 1
That was immediately after the lawsuit was filed... and why nearly everybody in the "geek community" was so eager to short the stock. Clearly it was over-inflated at $20/share when all that really changed was the filing of the lawsuit.
It has since been delisted from NASDAQ due to the stock price falling so low, and with bankruptcy has eaten what little value may have remained.
Re:Groklaw is an example of the power of open sour
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Grokking SCO's Demise
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Perhaps I'm missing something here. When did SCO have a major run-up on their stock?
From what I understand, SCO was one of the most heavily shorted public stocks ever. So much so that a number of even stock brokers who know what was going on with the lawsuits were discouraging clients from getting too aggressive on the stock in this way.
BTW, a short position can have a varying window that you need before you "buy it back". It all depends on the contract that you sign, although I would agree it tends to be in the range of a few weeks to a few months... not the years and years it has been with SCO lately. I do remember that shortly before it was delisted on NASDAQ, the price suddenly shot back up briefly, and there was quite a bit of speculation that it was due to some large groups of folks covering their short positions. That was about the only "good news" I've seen with this company since the lawsuit was initiated.
As far as the folks who were in a "long position" on SCO.... they're screwed. They now have a bit of computer history in terms of the paper their stock certificates represent, but only for collectors of that sort of esoteric historical document.
I can't speak for arminw here, but I can speak for myself in terms of Christianity being the center of my life.
I will admit to a bias due to my ancestral heritage in terms of my selection of Christianity as opposed to Islam or Buddhism. This isn't the only answer, but it does have an impact upon a great many people, including myself. At least listening to my parents and trying to find out what they believe gives at least a model and guideline for my own beliefs. To reject your parent's belief is to also reject yourself in a fashion.
I've also seen the transformative impact that the teaching of Jesus have been upon previous "unbelievers". For those who really dig into the teaching of Jesus and try to understand just what it was that he taught, to try and understand his parables, and to figure out just what it is about this Jewish rabbi from about 2k years ago that has been a topic of conversation ever since, there is some incredible depth to his philosophies.
For those I've met that have really taken these teaching and apply them into their lives, I have seen them begin to live a much more full, happier, and complete life. They love their families more, they care about their neighbors, and they become people who are a positive value to the communities where they live. If they are poor... and I mean dirt poor living on the very edge of survival and not just some stupid bureaucratic definition of poverty... I've seen these people literally become wealthy due to the power and influence of God upon their souls.
Now up to this point you could say that nearly any more or less wholesome religion that has a center on some higher power/being/force could do this to nearly anybody and be as useful as anything else. By wholesome, I mean something that has passed the test of time and has been more or less useful for a group of people in a generational sense. A corrupt religion would be one that destroys others through bloody sacrifices or ultimately forces the world at large to eliminate that religion... aka national socialism and this fanatical version of Islam that claims you are better off being dead if you can take a few "infidels" with you on the way.
The final thing that makes a difference is a sort of personal experience with your god in some way. I've seen a number of people of whom I'm quite close to that have had this happen... and they aren't all Christian either. Classical Evangelical Christians would call this "being born again", but the point here is that you have to directly experience GOD in your life in some fashion. It is something so singularly powerful that from that point on you can't deny the existence of God and you seek to reverence him in all aspects of your life from that point forward.
My own experience is something so sacred that I don't think it is appropriate to be published here in a format like this on slashdot. But it was a major life-changing experience, and there is no reason it can't happen to you. It takes a little bit of faith and an open enough mind to be able to allow even the concept of something like this to happen to you.
The rest of the religious trappings such as a die-hard faith in the accuracy of the Bible and seeking after the words of other co-religionists is more for personal knowledge building, but still doesn't impact the ultimate truths that you can find on your own. At best all religious leaders ultimately can do is to facilitate the ability for you to find your own peace and definition of God into your own life.
Re:Groklaw is an example of the power of open sour
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Grokking SCO's Demise
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Oh, I don't think the SEC has even started yet. Those things take time, and the SEC is waiting for the legal fallout to happen first. This is a typical pattern for the SEC as well, where they wait for all of the normal legal evidence to come out in the various lawsuits, and then add the final insult to injury in the end.
Too bad the SEC couldn't have saved the shareholders (*cough*) some grief by more closely investigating the pump and dump accusations. From what I've seen, besides the compensation on the part of the senior execs at SCO, the only other people who've made money on SCO were those who shorted the stock. Even that wasn't a fantastic deal due to the protracted nature of this legal fight.
I will say that this company seems like the ultimate zombie that just can't be killed. They've used up at least seven of the nine lives that should have killed them a long time ago, and yet they keep coming back for more. I'm really interested in seeing just how much longer they can last... and wondering if the creditors who are taking over the company ownership need to get their head examined for wanting to continue the lawsuits. Then again, who is so incredibly stupid as to loan money to SCO with the hopes that it will someday be paid back?
I promise you that I'm not lying. The kid is currently in the Idaho state prison system and I met him through my mother-in-law who was doing some work for the U.S. Census Bureau there.
Yeah, it is outrageous, and I would hope that somebody would at least take a look at what was happening there.
Of course I know one easy way for you to find out if I'm lying about this: try it and see if you'll end up in the same fate as this kid. I'm sure not going to try.
Besides, I don't think you were really joking here either, regardless of what you are later claiming.
I think you are taking this sort of thing far too casually. Just don't get caught in a courtroom or be brought before a deposition and having to answer why you were so incredibly stupid to sign a document with the forged signature of Adolf Hitler.
I promise that not only will there be legal consequence to such a stupid act, but your credibility for anything else you will say will be shot to hell.
I, unfortunately, know of a kid who signed the name "Mickey Mouse" to a credit card application and did 10 years in prison because of it, under the charge of "credit card fraud". He put a whole bunch of other B.S. into the application that perhaps ought to have given the judge a chuckle and had the case thrown out of court, but instead the judge lacked humor and tossed the book at him. This BTW was the only credit card application that the kid had ever filled out in his life, and made the mistake of filling it out the day after his 18th birthday (and therefore legally an adult).
The problem with groups like the American Medical Association or the American Bar Association is that they should be treated like lobbying groups such as AARP, NRA, or even the FSF. Instead, they are treated as quasi-governmental licensing bodies that regulate their professions, control graduation rates (via "performance standards" and "accreditation") of those going into the profession, and take upon themselves a role in actual law enforcement in terms of regulating the behavior of their members. This "law enforcement" often even takes on actual authority by statutory law given to them by state legislators.
One problem that is unfortunate in this case is that these organizations are usually very reluctant to punish their own members except in the very most serious examples of malpractice or unethical behavior. At the same time, mavericks and those who buck the system tend to be crucified very quickly and drummed out of those kind of professions, even if their actions ultimately do quite a bit of good for everybody involved.
In essence, SoundExchange is just taking this sort of practice further into the realm of copyright enforcement authority. Yeah, it is a bit of a stretch here, but it is an example of an industry trade group getting governmental authority when none is actually warranted. It is one thing for a group of copyright holders to set up a royalty payment system for its members, and something completely different for that same group to insist that they also collect fees for non-members as well.
You aren't even allowed, by law, to set up a competing group that sets up an independent schedule of royalty fees for a separate group of musicians/music. That is where the law stinks.
Unfortunately, in spite of "the law" being against the concept, the RIAA via the Copyright Board is asserting its authority over music produced by non-members as well.
The theory goes like this: Rather than having to look up the copyright status of each and every work of art, you can appeal to something like the copyright royalty board to simply take the artistic works (in this case music) and then pay the flat royalty fee to the "industry representatives".
By itself, I don't mind the concept that a group of copyright holders could form their own group and set some standardized royalty payments for how you can access what they produce. But unfortunately that isn't what is happening here. Instead this is forcing the entire "industry" to comply with a set of guidelines (read "laws" here as they have the force of "law" behind them) that have the payments go to a group of non-governmental bureaucrats of a private association.
Yeah, you can also give you copyrighted works away individually, but you can't set up an independent group of indy artists to make a competing organization here to set up their own royalty arrangements. That is the part that stinks here, and what needs to be challenged.
None of this really makes sense to me, and it gets far more confusing the more I dig into these rules. Very little of this is to protect individual artists or to allow venues to be available for people to hear anything other than the super-star status type musicians.
Some people look at the success of "American Idol" and think of how wonderful it is that they have "discovered" so much amazing talent. I look at the show and think of how awful it is that such musicians are stuck in the "hinterlands" and that such a show is the only realistic way to break into the music scene any more due to a nearly complete collapse of the music industry. It is ordinary folks who are getting screwed in this case.
I would love to see somebody get nailed for fees if all they "broadcast" is only indy & "free content" music. That would be an epic battle royale that I'm fairly certain would also get quite a few people from the open source/free content movement to help chip in and join in the fun.
As far as a Freenet application, in theory it should work but I don't think Freenet is set up in such a way to work out very well in this situation. It might just take setting up a whole new P2P system just for this sort of application. I do get what you are suggesting here.
BTW, one of the things that helps to protect a P2P network is the distribution of legitimate and legal content.... something that most P2P supporters seem to be missing most of the time. If the purpose of setting up such a network is to reduce server demand and bandwidth by dispersing the content distribution, that is a completely different situation than necessarily trying to sneak in "illegal content"... however you might define that term.
A patent isn't a state issue, but rather a federal one. Patents are filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, so it really is a federal law here where individual state laws really don't apply... at least in terms of patent ownership and such.
Patents are filed in the name of an individual, and are issued to individuals, not corporations. This said, there may be a condition of employment that requires you to license these patents to your employer on an exclusive basis... in essence having your employer "own" the patent.
I will say, however, that this ought to have been a well settled issue by the company he was working for when he was hired. If they are asking for a retroactive contract and forcing the employee to agree to do this well after the company is established and as a condition of continued employment, they may be in a lot more trouble legally speaking. Particularly if this is about professional services which you provided under the assumption that you could keep the legal IP that you generated on your own.
You are correct that state employment law does get into this mess as well, but that would mainly be in regards to what the consequences to the employer would be if they would dismiss an employee who refuses to participate in these sort of patent investigations.
It shows how totally off the patent system is if you can get somebody else to file for a patent for an idea that you came up with in the first place.
Yeah, I know that sometimes creativity is a group effort and that several people can come up with an idea by each contributing a little piece of the whole, but that doesn't happen all that much.
Keep in mind that most patents are filed not for offensive "IP" battles, but rather for defensive purposes just in case some idiot decides to go after them. The best sort of prior art is another patent that has been filed earlier about the same thing... and THAT courts clearly recognize. I've been involved in exactly that sort of patent fight before myself, and it was fun pulling out an expired patent to fight off some stupid IP-only company trying to enforce some of their patents.
I consider definitions of "planets" that require their orbiting a major stellar object to be ultimately unworkable. The current IAU definition of a planet is really something almost completely unworkable for what is to come as we start to seriously explore stellar systems in the future.
To me, the only realistic method of even defining "a planet" is to use physical characteristics such as atmospheric properties, if such a body is massive enough to form a spherical shape, or other similar criteria. If that definition "promotes" worlds like Titan, Triton, and the Galilean Moons to planetary status, then so be it.
All this said, I don't see any realistic method using current techniques to even identify such "satellite planets" that may fall into habitable zones without actually sending a physical probe to those places and snapping a few pictures along the way. Since we don't have any data at all to look at for this kind of potential with perhaps just four data points that may or may not be typical elsewhere. Since all four orbit the same star, it is very difficult to make any sort of realistic statistical assumptions.
I do think such physical explorations will happen, but that is the stuff of the 23rd Century or later. No, I'm not talking Star Trek, as I think "warp drives" are unlikely to be discovered, but rather how long it will take for any future congresses of a major economic power to get their act together to be able to build an interstellar spacecraft of any kind, even if it is unmanned.
What this does do, in terms of some realistic statistical calculations in regards to earth-like planets, is to adjust the Drake Equation downward by reducing statistically the number of potential planets that might be capable of supporting carbon-based life in aqueous solutions.
This paper is significant so far as to reduce the potential number of planets possible by a couple orders of magnitude.
Yeah, out of the billions of stars in our galaxy and out of the billions of galaxies in our universe, this still means there may be a bunch of other intelligent beings on other planets living sort of like we are right now, perhaps even communicating electronically and debating topics like this.
Even if that were true, this estimate means that what we thought was a somewhat common event happening is actually something much more rare... and IMHO makes this special little planet we live upon something all that more important to preserve and take care of properly.
The role that free content licenses offer is that they ensure that what you "give away" stays given away by downstream users of that content.
Yeah, I know people give away software without the GPL.... heck I did that for decades including well before the GPL became vogue. Unfortunately I also saw others take the software I wrote, claim it as their own, and slap a copyright on it where they charged others for what was something I freely gave away under the expectation that they would in turn do the same thing.
I also think you misunderstand what exactly is the item given away here. While sometimes "product samples" are given away in terms of advertising value, there is a huge difference between giving away a few well placed samples vs. throwing the designs out into the "public domain" and letting others toy with your ideas. Computer software is the design of the system, just as blueprints are for buildings or schematics are for mechanical designs. Reproducible artistic expression falls into the same category, where even image/cinema/audio construction is the design of what you are experiencing.
This is like the difference between allowing somebody to get a few limited copies of a popular song on iTunes with a code that is on the bottom of a can of soda vs. getting a song released under a free content license that allows you to tweak it and try a different variation that adds your own flavor to that expression.
What you pay for (and what is often given away) with computer software is the physical media that contains the computer software, even though what you are desiring is the bits that contain the design. Microsoft often gives away their software for free... and you don't even have to "pirate" much of their software. Just go to "microsoft.com" to get legal copies. But you sure don't have permission to reverse-engineer the software, decompile, or make modifications to any of that stuff unless you have licensed (usually at great expense) that "right" from the folks in Redmond.
You got the wrong comparison with the automotive industry here.
Imagine, if you will, that some automotive company released the designs of their automobiles under something like a GPL/Free-type license (with any patents explicitly granted under such a license). They still would able to manufacture the vehicles and even still maintain dealerships/service centers. But they would be establishing designs that would turn into standards rather than forcing auto parts stores to stock dozens of different parts that are all basically identical in function and performance.
The huge key here is that the barriers to entry are lowered for others to come into the field and be able to provide parts.... although those who have a proven "brand" and reputation will still be able to succeed with selling parts and vehicles as opposed to fly-by-night startups.
IMHO that is the primary issue of "intellectual property" that should still be enforced... that you can't claim to be somebody you aren't. The "artist" or "engineer" who made the design should still get credit so far as to build a reputation.
This isn't even really an "American practice", as the "American Broadcasting Company" (ABC) didn't have nearly so much commentary when they were the "host network" of the Olympics prior to NBC's coverage.
Some of the "color" commentary is IMHO acceptable during actual sporting events, but not for the opening and closing ceremonies. I usually just scream at my television trying to tell the stupid "hosts" to shut up so I can listen to what is being said during the ceremony itself.... knowing that all that does is piss off my wife.
I think some of this also has to do with the outrageous salaries that some of these commentators are earning during the Olympics, and that NBC is hoping to get these "anchors" to earn their money. Top anchors like Bob Costas get several million dollars just to be there.
Reliability is a key factor: you have to turn out satellites or launchers that work everytime.
I disagree with this sentiment. Even the most well established launchers with decades-old systems of proven performance still have malfunctions and don't always deliver as promised. Heck, even companies like Federal Express... that require consistent and timely deliveries in order to maintain their reputation... still have problems with trucks that catch fire or cargo that disappears due to other vehicle mishaps.
I will admit, however, that reliability is an important issue, and it is something that nearly every vehicle manufacturer (generally) strives to achieve... be that a boat, plane, automobile, or in this case rockets.
One of the goals that SpaceX is trying to accomplish is that they want to bring mass-production techniques into rocket building, and produce enough of them that the cost of manufacturing any given rocket is irrelevant.
Precision can be done on mass produced items. Optical disc technologies (aka CDs and DVDs and similar items) require such fine precision that the individual bits produce a diffraction grating due to their size at about the wavelength of visible light. Yet both the "manufacturing" devices (aka optical disc writers) as well as the play-back devices are cheap enough that most people consider them to be cheap consumer electronics junk.
As for the question "will they (SpaceX) succeed in being reliable?", I have to ask in response... why do you think they won't be reliable? To suggest that they won't be reliable implies that they take a shoddy approach and inconsistently manufacturer the parts on their rocket so it behaves differently each time. On the contrary, they seem to be able to consistently produce identical vehicles each time in their manufacturing process.
What SpaceX is going through here is to re-learn lessons unfortunately lost due to hard-won knowledge not getting documented by earlier eras of rocket builders.... and having a relatively young engineering team who is forgetting some basic lessons about vehicle building in general. Elon Musk himself said it best, when he said "Rocket science looks hard, and it is harder than it looks". Every lesson that they learn is getting put into the future designs and "fixing" the problems that they are discovering over time.
The real question is if SpaceX can get up enough successful rocket launches before their current set of customers bail out on them?
IMHO the issue with the residual thrust is something that is more related to having engineers who have practical hands-on experience with flying hardware that can stand up to management and say "hey! I think this could be a huge problem!"
The problem is that engineers with this sort of experience have some very gray hair and are either retired or dead... because they were the ones who helped build the rockets of the 1940's-1960's. New "from scratch" rocket designs are incredibly rare for either for-profit or government research.
When the Delta IV rocket was designed, Boeing had the "luxury" of being able to entice some of their former employees who retired to be able to come back and help with a new generation of rocket building. If you read the 'pedia article, the RS-68 engine on the Delta IV was "the first large, liquid-fueled rocket engine designed in the U.S. since the Space Shuttle Main Engine". It really is that bad in terms of the depth of experience available to be able to answer these sort of questions about how to build a new rocket engine and to have the institutional experience to know what each engine design might do.
SpaceX is building that sort of institutional knowledge with a comparatively young group of engineers who are going to be around for a great many years to come. Unfortunately, that sort of experience doesn't come cheaply, and requires sending up actual hardware into vacuum conditions.
BTW, I do think the time will come for rocket test stands that will have to be built in space or on a place like the Moon. The only problem is that we need to get people there in the first place, and we have to start at a place like the Earth as that is where the engineers are at the moment.
The primary investor in SpaceX is Elon Musk himself. He's been able to get some additional investment capital from several of his "friends", but they all know him personally and are very familiar with the company and his goals.
The "small problem" that needed to be corrected in this case was simply a timing delay in the guidance software that allowed a little more time before stage separation. Admittedly this was due to a change in specifications that wasn't carried forward to the software engineer... or at least accounted for.
Having dealt with hardware specification changes when writing device drivers, I can only imagine the frustrations that those software engineers are going through on such a mission critical piece of code.
Rocket building is paying attention to even the slightest detail, and not letting it blow up on you. Also, with any engineering group, there is an institutional knowledge that builds up over time and learns from its mistakes. Unfortunately for rocket builders, most of those with the institutional memory about how to build new rocket systems from scratch are either retired or have died of old age some time ago.
All in all, SpaceX and Mr. Musk are doing quite well given the track record for new rocket designs in the past, and there are some very hopeful signs that SpaceX is doing the right thing. If they succeed, SpaceX is going to be a very profitable company in the long run.
Not quite the pessimistic attitude you are showing here.
SpaceX is building real hardware and "getting it up there". I would call that a bit better than a typical fireworks company.
Besides, the problem with this last launch was more of things bumping into each other when they shouldn't have. It is also a situation where they made several changes to their rocket and were testing them all out at the same time. While the $10 million or so that it costs for them to send up a Falcon 1 rocket is expensive enough to not want to do repeated testing, it does make it more complicated to call something like this an "operational flight" when not all components have been tested in actual flight conditions.
If they can get another rocket shipped to Kwajalein and launched in less than a month, that will speak far more about SpaceX's capabilities than can possibly be said about snarky remarks like being a fireworks company.
They are certainly a whole lot closer to bringing down the cost of rocketry than companies like Rocketplane Kistler who haven't even really launched any hardware or even tested it in things like wind tunnels or a launch stand.
All this said, SpaceX does need to deliver something to orbit real soon. It looks like the Malasyian government is getting quite nervous about being the next customer to send something up, given the track record for SpaceX to put things into orbit. They simply must get this next launch if they are to keep some of their customers.
Slashdot Mirror
I said per kilowatt-hour produced. Geesh... did you even pay attention to what I had to say?
Chernobyl was awful, and I don't dispute that. I also noted it was a major exception to the general rule. The one thing that makes Chernobyl so incredibly awful is due to the fact that all of the material is concentrated in one place. The reason I hesitate about how damaging it was in comparison to coal is due to the fact that Chernobyl is not only a major facility, but that it is still supplying electricity to the Grid in Eastern Europe.
It is likely that Chernobyl would beat out a coal plant using sources particularly high in radioactive elements in terms of kilowatt-hours of energy produced, but I don't think it would be several orders of magnitude higher. Keep in mind that the coal plants spew this "waste" willy-nilly all over the entire area where they are located, and over the course of decades and not all at once like the Chernobyl disaster did. I also lack all of the specific numbers to do a strict comparison.
That facility is also an example of awful engineering that simply wouldn't happen in the regulatory environment of western governments, but that is a separate issue.
As far as citations or evidence, I could give dozens here. Here are a couple that perhaps you ought to read if you don't want to believe little old me:
At least so far as some "common sense" stuff, keep in mind that coal comes from underground sources and that often that coal is mixed with a whole bunch of other elements, including nearly every naturally occurring radioactive element on the Earth. Trace amounts of Uranium alone is sufficient to spread huge amounts of low-level radiation over nearly all of the soot fall-out that comes from the burning of coal... and that goes right up the chimney.
BTW, as far as the nuclear industry being aware of this... it has been "common knowledge" for decades. They have used this argument, but very few people are really paying attention. Certainly not the "greens" that get into an uproar over the construction of nuclear power plants. This isn't in the major news media outlets because it isn't really even news. There isn't anything "new" about this sort of information, even if it may be a revelation to you.
There are some hard limits to what a typical IEC fusion reactor can produce... as the "grid" that encloses the fusion core also tends to absorb some of the particles that are needed to sustain the reaction.
What the IEC (Internal Electrostatic Confinement) reactor does really well is produce a stable neutron source that can be turned on and off with a switch. There are some very useful applications for such a device in terms of nuclear physics research and medical treatments where this would have tremendous value even if you can't reach anything even near a break-even energy production for the device.
For a medial device, it is really nice in terms of being able to have a neutron source that can be turned off, pulled apart for maintenance, and when the equipment is de-commissioned or surplussed you don't need to get deal with radioactive waste disposal. It can also be installed without having to get special permits from the Atomic Energy Commission.
Actually, Bussard was trying to use a Boron-11 fuel matrix that doesn't release neutrons in the same fashion as Deuterium fusion does. One of the reasons for this is precisely to help cut down on the neutron flux coming from the reactor.
His design goal was to use it as a direct drop-in replacement for boilers at coal-fired power plants, using similar sorts of shielding and precautions as would be already in place for such a facility. Water in the boiler itself would offer what extra protection would be needed, and radiation levels for released radioactive products would be lower than would be typical for a coal plant as well.
FYI, coal plants release far more radioactive waste per kWh generated than the worst and most inefficient nuclear power plants... with perhaps the singlar exception of Chernobyl. Even that I'm not 100% certain of.
This said, you are correct that the fusion rate in a Polywell is something of a much greater concern if you actually got one going, and would be leathal if it used traditional fusion fuel targets.
That was immediately after the lawsuit was filed... and why nearly everybody in the "geek community" was so eager to short the stock. Clearly it was over-inflated at $20/share when all that really changed was the filing of the lawsuit.
It has since been delisted from NASDAQ due to the stock price falling so low, and with bankruptcy has eaten what little value may have remained.
Perhaps I'm missing something here. When did SCO have a major run-up on their stock?
From what I understand, SCO was one of the most heavily shorted public stocks ever. So much so that a number of even stock brokers who know what was going on with the lawsuits were discouraging clients from getting too aggressive on the stock in this way.
BTW, a short position can have a varying window that you need before you "buy it back". It all depends on the contract that you sign, although I would agree it tends to be in the range of a few weeks to a few months... not the years and years it has been with SCO lately. I do remember that shortly before it was delisted on NASDAQ, the price suddenly shot back up briefly, and there was quite a bit of speculation that it was due to some large groups of folks covering their short positions. That was about the only "good news" I've seen with this company since the lawsuit was initiated.
As far as the folks who were in a "long position" on SCO.... they're screwed. They now have a bit of computer history in terms of the paper their stock certificates represent, but only for collectors of that sort of esoteric historical document.
I can't speak for arminw here, but I can speak for myself in terms of Christianity being the center of my life.
I will admit to a bias due to my ancestral heritage in terms of my selection of Christianity as opposed to Islam or Buddhism. This isn't the only answer, but it does have an impact upon a great many people, including myself. At least listening to my parents and trying to find out what they believe gives at least a model and guideline for my own beliefs. To reject your parent's belief is to also reject yourself in a fashion.
I've also seen the transformative impact that the teaching of Jesus have been upon previous "unbelievers". For those who really dig into the teaching of Jesus and try to understand just what it was that he taught, to try and understand his parables, and to figure out just what it is about this Jewish rabbi from about 2k years ago that has been a topic of conversation ever since, there is some incredible depth to his philosophies.
For those I've met that have really taken these teaching and apply them into their lives, I have seen them begin to live a much more full, happier, and complete life. They love their families more, they care about their neighbors, and they become people who are a positive value to the communities where they live. If they are poor... and I mean dirt poor living on the very edge of survival and not just some stupid bureaucratic definition of poverty... I've seen these people literally become wealthy due to the power and influence of God upon their souls.
Now up to this point you could say that nearly any more or less wholesome religion that has a center on some higher power/being/force could do this to nearly anybody and be as useful as anything else. By wholesome, I mean something that has passed the test of time and has been more or less useful for a group of people in a generational sense. A corrupt religion would be one that destroys others through bloody sacrifices or ultimately forces the world at large to eliminate that religion... aka national socialism and this fanatical version of Islam that claims you are better off being dead if you can take a few "infidels" with you on the way.
The final thing that makes a difference is a sort of personal experience with your god in some way. I've seen a number of people of whom I'm quite close to that have had this happen... and they aren't all Christian either. Classical Evangelical Christians would call this "being born again", but the point here is that you have to directly experience GOD in your life in some fashion. It is something so singularly powerful that from that point on you can't deny the existence of God and you seek to reverence him in all aspects of your life from that point forward.
My own experience is something so sacred that I don't think it is appropriate to be published here in a format like this on slashdot. But it was a major life-changing experience, and there is no reason it can't happen to you. It takes a little bit of faith and an open enough mind to be able to allow even the concept of something like this to happen to you.
The rest of the religious trappings such as a die-hard faith in the accuracy of the Bible and seeking after the words of other co-religionists is more for personal knowledge building, but still doesn't impact the ultimate truths that you can find on your own. At best all religious leaders ultimately can do is to facilitate the ability for you to find your own peace and definition of God into your own life.
Oh, I don't think the SEC has even started yet. Those things take time, and the SEC is waiting for the legal fallout to happen first. This is a typical pattern for the SEC as well, where they wait for all of the normal legal evidence to come out in the various lawsuits, and then add the final insult to injury in the end.
Too bad the SEC couldn't have saved the shareholders (*cough*) some grief by more closely investigating the pump and dump accusations. From what I've seen, besides the compensation on the part of the senior execs at SCO, the only other people who've made money on SCO were those who shorted the stock. Even that wasn't a fantastic deal due to the protracted nature of this legal fight.
I will say that this company seems like the ultimate zombie that just can't be killed. They've used up at least seven of the nine lives that should have killed them a long time ago, and yet they keep coming back for more. I'm really interested in seeing just how much longer they can last... and wondering if the creditors who are taking over the company ownership need to get their head examined for wanting to continue the lawsuits. Then again, who is so incredibly stupid as to loan money to SCO with the hopes that it will someday be paid back?
I promise you that I'm not lying. The kid is currently in the Idaho state prison system and I met him through my mother-in-law who was doing some work for the U.S. Census Bureau there.
Yeah, it is outrageous, and I would hope that somebody would at least take a look at what was happening there.
Of course I know one easy way for you to find out if I'm lying about this: try it and see if you'll end up in the same fate as this kid. I'm sure not going to try.
Besides, I don't think you were really joking here either, regardless of what you are later claiming.
I think you are taking this sort of thing far too casually. Just don't get caught in a courtroom or be brought before a deposition and having to answer why you were so incredibly stupid to sign a document with the forged signature of Adolf Hitler.
I promise that not only will there be legal consequence to such a stupid act, but your credibility for anything else you will say will be shot to hell.
I, unfortunately, know of a kid who signed the name "Mickey Mouse" to a credit card application and did 10 years in prison because of it, under the charge of "credit card fraud". He put a whole bunch of other B.S. into the application that perhaps ought to have given the judge a chuckle and had the case thrown out of court, but instead the judge lacked humor and tossed the book at him. This BTW was the only credit card application that the kid had ever filled out in his life, and made the mistake of filling it out the day after his 18th birthday (and therefore legally an adult).
The problem with groups like the American Medical Association or the American Bar Association is that they should be treated like lobbying groups such as AARP, NRA, or even the FSF. Instead, they are treated as quasi-governmental licensing bodies that regulate their professions, control graduation rates (via "performance standards" and "accreditation") of those going into the profession, and take upon themselves a role in actual law enforcement in terms of regulating the behavior of their members. This "law enforcement" often even takes on actual authority by statutory law given to them by state legislators.
One problem that is unfortunate in this case is that these organizations are usually very reluctant to punish their own members except in the very most serious examples of malpractice or unethical behavior. At the same time, mavericks and those who buck the system tend to be crucified very quickly and drummed out of those kind of professions, even if their actions ultimately do quite a bit of good for everybody involved.
In essence, SoundExchange is just taking this sort of practice further into the realm of copyright enforcement authority. Yeah, it is a bit of a stretch here, but it is an example of an industry trade group getting governmental authority when none is actually warranted. It is one thing for a group of copyright holders to set up a royalty payment system for its members, and something completely different for that same group to insist that they also collect fees for non-members as well.
You aren't even allowed, by law, to set up a competing group that sets up an independent schedule of royalty fees for a separate group of musicians/music. That is where the law stinks.
Unfortunately, in spite of "the law" being against the concept, the RIAA via the Copyright Board is asserting its authority over music produced by non-members as well.
The theory goes like this: Rather than having to look up the copyright status of each and every work of art, you can appeal to something like the copyright royalty board to simply take the artistic works (in this case music) and then pay the flat royalty fee to the "industry representatives".
By itself, I don't mind the concept that a group of copyright holders could form their own group and set some standardized royalty payments for how you can access what they produce. But unfortunately that isn't what is happening here. Instead this is forcing the entire "industry" to comply with a set of guidelines (read "laws" here as they have the force of "law" behind them) that have the payments go to a group of non-governmental bureaucrats of a private association.
Yeah, you can also give you copyrighted works away individually, but you can't set up an independent group of indy artists to make a competing organization here to set up their own royalty arrangements. That is the part that stinks here, and what needs to be challenged.
None of this really makes sense to me, and it gets far more confusing the more I dig into these rules. Very little of this is to protect individual artists or to allow venues to be available for people to hear anything other than the super-star status type musicians.
Some people look at the success of "American Idol" and think of how wonderful it is that they have "discovered" so much amazing talent. I look at the show and think of how awful it is that such musicians are stuck in the "hinterlands" and that such a show is the only realistic way to break into the music scene any more due to a nearly complete collapse of the music industry. It is ordinary folks who are getting screwed in this case.
I would love to see somebody get nailed for fees if all they "broadcast" is only indy & "free content" music. That would be an epic battle royale that I'm fairly certain would also get quite a few people from the open source/free content movement to help chip in and join in the fun.
As far as a Freenet application, in theory it should work but I don't think Freenet is set up in such a way to work out very well in this situation. It might just take setting up a whole new P2P system just for this sort of application. I do get what you are suggesting here.
BTW, one of the things that helps to protect a P2P network is the distribution of legitimate and legal content.... something that most P2P supporters seem to be missing most of the time. If the purpose of setting up such a network is to reduce server demand and bandwidth by dispersing the content distribution, that is a completely different situation than necessarily trying to sneak in "illegal content"... however you might define that term.
Actually, you aren't quite correct.
A patent isn't a state issue, but rather a federal one. Patents are filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, so it really is a federal law here where individual state laws really don't apply... at least in terms of patent ownership and such.
Patents are filed in the name of an individual, and are issued to individuals, not corporations. This said, there may be a condition of employment that requires you to license these patents to your employer on an exclusive basis... in essence having your employer "own" the patent.
I will say, however, that this ought to have been a well settled issue by the company he was working for when he was hired. If they are asking for a retroactive contract and forcing the employee to agree to do this well after the company is established and as a condition of continued employment, they may be in a lot more trouble legally speaking. Particularly if this is about professional services which you provided under the assumption that you could keep the legal IP that you generated on your own.
You are correct that state employment law does get into this mess as well, but that would mainly be in regards to what the consequences to the employer would be if they would dismiss an employee who refuses to participate in these sort of patent investigations.
If you do that, you may be committing perjury (depending on the document). I would strongly discourage such a practice.
It would be better if you didn't sign the document at all, even if it meant you got fired, than to do something this stupid.
This is awful advise.
It shows how totally off the patent system is if you can get somebody else to file for a patent for an idea that you came up with in the first place.
Yeah, I know that sometimes creativity is a group effort and that several people can come up with an idea by each contributing a little piece of the whole, but that doesn't happen all that much.
Keep in mind that most patents are filed not for offensive "IP" battles, but rather for defensive purposes just in case some idiot decides to go after them. The best sort of prior art is another patent that has been filed earlier about the same thing... and THAT courts clearly recognize. I've been involved in exactly that sort of patent fight before myself, and it was fun pulling out an expired patent to fight off some stupid IP-only company trying to enforce some of their patents.
I consider definitions of "planets" that require their orbiting a major stellar object to be ultimately unworkable. The current IAU definition of a planet is really something almost completely unworkable for what is to come as we start to seriously explore stellar systems in the future.
To me, the only realistic method of even defining "a planet" is to use physical characteristics such as atmospheric properties, if such a body is massive enough to form a spherical shape, or other similar criteria. If that definition "promotes" worlds like Titan, Triton, and the Galilean Moons to planetary status, then so be it.
All this said, I don't see any realistic method using current techniques to even identify such "satellite planets" that may fall into habitable zones without actually sending a physical probe to those places and snapping a few pictures along the way. Since we don't have any data at all to look at for this kind of potential with perhaps just four data points that may or may not be typical elsewhere. Since all four orbit the same star, it is very difficult to make any sort of realistic statistical assumptions.
I do think such physical explorations will happen, but that is the stuff of the 23rd Century or later. No, I'm not talking Star Trek, as I think "warp drives" are unlikely to be discovered, but rather how long it will take for any future congresses of a major economic power to get their act together to be able to build an interstellar spacecraft of any kind, even if it is unmanned.
You are assuming that the average /. poster has intelligence.
What this does do, in terms of some realistic statistical calculations in regards to earth-like planets, is to adjust the Drake Equation downward by reducing statistically the number of potential planets that might be capable of supporting carbon-based life in aqueous solutions.
This paper is significant so far as to reduce the potential number of planets possible by a couple orders of magnitude.
Yeah, out of the billions of stars in our galaxy and out of the billions of galaxies in our universe, this still means there may be a bunch of other intelligent beings on other planets living sort of like we are right now, perhaps even communicating electronically and debating topics like this.
Even if that were true, this estimate means that what we thought was a somewhat common event happening is actually something much more rare... and IMHO makes this special little planet we live upon something all that more important to preserve and take care of properly.
I think you miss my point...
The role that free content licenses offer is that they ensure that what you "give away" stays given away by downstream users of that content.
Yeah, I know people give away software without the GPL.... heck I did that for decades including well before the GPL became vogue. Unfortunately I also saw others take the software I wrote, claim it as their own, and slap a copyright on it where they charged others for what was something I freely gave away under the expectation that they would in turn do the same thing.
I also think you misunderstand what exactly is the item given away here. While sometimes "product samples" are given away in terms of advertising value, there is a huge difference between giving away a few well placed samples vs. throwing the designs out into the "public domain" and letting others toy with your ideas. Computer software is the design of the system, just as blueprints are for buildings or schematics are for mechanical designs. Reproducible artistic expression falls into the same category, where even image/cinema/audio construction is the design of what you are experiencing.
This is like the difference between allowing somebody to get a few limited copies of a popular song on iTunes with a code that is on the bottom of a can of soda vs. getting a song released under a free content license that allows you to tweak it and try a different variation that adds your own flavor to that expression.
What you pay for (and what is often given away) with computer software is the physical media that contains the computer software, even though what you are desiring is the bits that contain the design. Microsoft often gives away their software for free... and you don't even have to "pirate" much of their software. Just go to "microsoft.com" to get legal copies. But you sure don't have permission to reverse-engineer the software, decompile, or make modifications to any of that stuff unless you have licensed (usually at great expense) that "right" from the folks in Redmond.
Yes, this is a design issue.
You got the wrong comparison with the automotive industry here.
Imagine, if you will, that some automotive company released the designs of their automobiles under something like a GPL/Free-type license (with any patents explicitly granted under such a license). They still would able to manufacture the vehicles and even still maintain dealerships/service centers. But they would be establishing designs that would turn into standards rather than forcing auto parts stores to stock dozens of different parts that are all basically identical in function and performance.
The huge key here is that the barriers to entry are lowered for others to come into the field and be able to provide parts.... although those who have a proven "brand" and reputation will still be able to succeed with selling parts and vehicles as opposed to fly-by-night startups.
IMHO that is the primary issue of "intellectual property" that should still be enforced... that you can't claim to be somebody you aren't. The "artist" or "engineer" who made the design should still get credit so far as to build a reputation.
This isn't even really an "American practice", as the "American Broadcasting Company" (ABC) didn't have nearly so much commentary when they were the "host network" of the Olympics prior to NBC's coverage.
Some of the "color" commentary is IMHO acceptable during actual sporting events, but not for the opening and closing ceremonies. I usually just scream at my television trying to tell the stupid "hosts" to shut up so I can listen to what is being said during the ceremony itself.... knowing that all that does is piss off my wife.
I think some of this also has to do with the outrageous salaries that some of these commentators are earning during the Olympics, and that NBC is hoping to get these "anchors" to earn their money. Top anchors like Bob Costas get several million dollars just to be there.
I disagree with this sentiment. Even the most well established launchers with decades-old systems of proven performance still have malfunctions and don't always deliver as promised. Heck, even companies like Federal Express... that require consistent and timely deliveries in order to maintain their reputation... still have problems with trucks that catch fire or cargo that disappears due to other vehicle mishaps.
I will admit, however, that reliability is an important issue, and it is something that nearly every vehicle manufacturer (generally) strives to achieve... be that a boat, plane, automobile, or in this case rockets.
One of the goals that SpaceX is trying to accomplish is that they want to bring mass-production techniques into rocket building, and produce enough of them that the cost of manufacturing any given rocket is irrelevant.
Precision can be done on mass produced items. Optical disc technologies (aka CDs and DVDs and similar items) require such fine precision that the individual bits produce a diffraction grating due to their size at about the wavelength of visible light. Yet both the "manufacturing" devices (aka optical disc writers) as well as the play-back devices are cheap enough that most people consider them to be cheap consumer electronics junk.
As for the question "will they (SpaceX) succeed in being reliable?", I have to ask in response... why do you think they won't be reliable? To suggest that they won't be reliable implies that they take a shoddy approach and inconsistently manufacturer the parts on their rocket so it behaves differently each time. On the contrary, they seem to be able to consistently produce identical vehicles each time in their manufacturing process.
What SpaceX is going through here is to re-learn lessons unfortunately lost due to hard-won knowledge not getting documented by earlier eras of rocket builders.... and having a relatively young engineering team who is forgetting some basic lessons about vehicle building in general. Elon Musk himself said it best, when he said "Rocket science looks hard, and it is harder than it looks". Every lesson that they learn is getting put into the future designs and "fixing" the problems that they are discovering over time.
The real question is if SpaceX can get up enough successful rocket launches before their current set of customers bail out on them?
IMHO the issue with the residual thrust is something that is more related to having engineers who have practical hands-on experience with flying hardware that can stand up to management and say "hey! I think this could be a huge problem!"
The problem is that engineers with this sort of experience have some very gray hair and are either retired or dead... because they were the ones who helped build the rockets of the 1940's-1960's. New "from scratch" rocket designs are incredibly rare for either for-profit or government research.
When the Delta IV rocket was designed, Boeing had the "luxury" of being able to entice some of their former employees who retired to be able to come back and help with a new generation of rocket building. If you read the 'pedia article, the RS-68 engine on the Delta IV was "the first large, liquid-fueled rocket engine designed in the U.S. since the Space Shuttle Main Engine". It really is that bad in terms of the depth of experience available to be able to answer these sort of questions about how to build a new rocket engine and to have the institutional experience to know what each engine design might do.
SpaceX is building that sort of institutional knowledge with a comparatively young group of engineers who are going to be around for a great many years to come. Unfortunately, that sort of experience doesn't come cheaply, and requires sending up actual hardware into vacuum conditions.
BTW, I do think the time will come for rocket test stands that will have to be built in space or on a place like the Moon. The only problem is that we need to get people there in the first place, and we have to start at a place like the Earth as that is where the engineers are at the moment.
The primary investor in SpaceX is Elon Musk himself. He's been able to get some additional investment capital from several of his "friends", but they all know him personally and are very familiar with the company and his goals.
The "small problem" that needed to be corrected in this case was simply a timing delay in the guidance software that allowed a little more time before stage separation. Admittedly this was due to a change in specifications that wasn't carried forward to the software engineer... or at least accounted for.
Having dealt with hardware specification changes when writing device drivers, I can only imagine the frustrations that those software engineers are going through on such a mission critical piece of code.
Rocket building is paying attention to even the slightest detail, and not letting it blow up on you. Also, with any engineering group, there is an institutional knowledge that builds up over time and learns from its mistakes. Unfortunately for rocket builders, most of those with the institutional memory about how to build new rocket systems from scratch are either retired or have died of old age some time ago.
All in all, SpaceX and Mr. Musk are doing quite well given the track record for new rocket designs in the past, and there are some very hopeful signs that SpaceX is doing the right thing. If they succeed, SpaceX is going to be a very profitable company in the long run.
Not quite the pessimistic attitude you are showing here.
SpaceX is building real hardware and "getting it up there". I would call that a bit better than a typical fireworks company.
Besides, the problem with this last launch was more of things bumping into each other when they shouldn't have. It is also a situation where they made several changes to their rocket and were testing them all out at the same time. While the $10 million or so that it costs for them to send up a Falcon 1 rocket is expensive enough to not want to do repeated testing, it does make it more complicated to call something like this an "operational flight" when not all components have been tested in actual flight conditions.
If they can get another rocket shipped to Kwajalein and launched in less than a month, that will speak far more about SpaceX's capabilities than can possibly be said about snarky remarks like being a fireworks company.
They are certainly a whole lot closer to bringing down the cost of rocketry than companies like Rocketplane Kistler who haven't even really launched any hardware or even tested it in things like wind tunnels or a launch stand.
All this said, SpaceX does need to deliver something to orbit real soon. It looks like the Malasyian government is getting quite nervous about being the next customer to send something up, given the track record for SpaceX to put things into orbit. They simply must get this next launch if they are to keep some of their customers.