I read this a couple days ago (days ago? Come on/.) and I still don't know if they corrected for income.
Dumb people tend to end up poor. Poor people use older stuff because thats all they can afford.
Not thinking its insightful to learn that poor people have cruddier older hardware.
Also smarter people are more likely to admin their own computer, thus be permitted to upgrade... Not sure how or if they accounted for that.
Its possible, that above and beyond the effect of poverty or work I.T. configuration, dumb people do dumb things, but i dunno; that's a pretty cutting edge idea worthy of a Nobel.
Oh please.This is BS. Replacement value for a rental property is around $500K max. Last I checked that is much smaller than infinity. Also, this is no different than regular household insurance, just at a much higher rate. So not only it would work, it would likely be a profit center too.
What if one of the renters kids is in the building when it gets torched and there's no fire detector or extinguisher, and "everyone knows" the side door sticks so use the front or back, blah blah.
Also, this is no different than regular household insurance, just at a much higher rate.
Not just commission/fee but also higher rate of torching / Animal House style frat parties / copper wire and pipe "recycling".
I think we agree the rate would be higher; I think high enough that it would be way beyond uneconomic; We'll have to agree to disagree on that.
Of course, patent applications are published 18 months after they are filed, so it's possible they have some applications in the works of which we are not aware.
So nothing public. Of course submarine patents are not lunch recipes or navy-related.
It seems odd that they're doing something "new" but haven't publicly filed anything legal WRT their "new" stuff. The complete lack of defensive portfolio is in itself suspicious.
If you could activate all the doors at once you could possibly overload the system.
I would disagree as "instant-lockdown" is probably one of the main features of the system. Any time they see a fight, to stop it from turning into a (bigger) riot, slap the big red switch to isolate the inmates. The opposite is the "fire switch" so you can instantly let all the inmates out of their cells; I suppose it depends on the security level of the inmates and local policies; some prisons might let them fry in their cells if there's a fire.
And if you opened all the doors and then opened them all some more simultaneously, that might well get them stuck open to the point where a human would have to manually close and lock each cell.
Now we're getting somewhere, cycle half open half closed until they all jam... assuming they are not inherently mechanically designed not to do that. It might be more expensive to design one that jams... Depending on contracts and corruption, a more expensive door that is capable of jamming might have been "required" so that expensive fixes can be applied.. But that's not the PLCs fault.
The best I can think of is turning on the entire HVAC system at the same instant, popping the circuit breakers to the facility.
Maybe you could turn the power to the TVs on and off every second until the switching power supplies blow, or maybe that wouldn't work..
The problem with getting "average joe" to infect a PLC, is PLCs and their systems are getting more complicated, to the point that only specialists mess with them. Its a temporary thing. In the past, they were too few to matter, in the future they'll be too complicated for all but specialists to have access. This is just a momentary thing where "joe average industrial maint electrician" could theoretically screw stuff up.
I'm more curious why do they need to control everything from 1 computer? What's wrong with a simple keylock or if that's too 'medieval' for you, a standalone code lock? Also, why are the showers and everything electronically controlled? That's something most homes don't have.
With more prisoners in the system than the rest of the world combined, for profit private prisons automate to save money. That makes them cheaper that govt prisons, which forces the govt prisons to automate or else all their "guests" will get transferred to "save money by using the free market". In a race to the bottom, there is no opting out.
By controlling the showers you can stop people from F-ing around during lockdown... If the guards have to go in to break up a fight, at least the water is off.
To continue growing long term Airbnb needs to become an insurance carrier making renters whole if something like this happens. EBay growth stalled when fraud became rampant. If Ebay had agreed to become a centralized third party with insurance and clearing services, i.e. a true clearing house they would be right now the size of WalMart.
The insurance plan is all about the details. Start by charging a credit card security deposit of $1000. Then charge a one time joining fee of $100 as well as an insurance fee of $15 per day for the first 50 days, going down to $5 for the next 100 and finally $1 thereafter. Then have a high deductible for renters, around $1000, since the landlord assumes responsibility for minor damages. If all the renters did is break a dish, tough luck, it happens, but something like the case above would definitely be covered.
Won't work, rental liability is infinite, or at least infinite compared to your numbers. Every "upside down" house in the country would get rented and torched. Which is a lot of losses. Maybe if you charged $50K per rental and hired the local fire department to park an engine in front of the house overnight...
Let me get this straight. The gimmick is you rent out your place to a total stranger, you don't even meet them face-to-face, and expect them not to run away with all your phat loot ? Moronic. Hotels don't trust them anywhere near as much.
Everyone is focusing on the moronity of renting to, basically, an "AC" because of THIS story. What I wonder is if the renters get to (legally) learn about the owners; are the owners ACs from the point of view of the renters?
I can see four business models where the owner is a crook:
1) House happens to burn down (arson) while renter is present so presumably the owner can not be blamed. Sucks if the renter dies in the fire; then again that makes it more "authentic".
2) House has a "big brother" style camera / videorecording infrastructure, including/especially in the bedrooms and showers. And the owner prefers to rent to attractive young people, perhaps by being on the beach or near a college campus, or maybe kids play equipment in backyard is used as a lure, etc.
3) So, someone is visiting, probably with stuff worth stealing, and someone happens to have their full itinerary, and a spare house key... Would be a shame if their laptop gets stolen... Consider a young woman and someone knows her schedule and knows she is completely alone and also has a key to her bedroom and has some bad intentions...
4) Its actually a grow op / drop house, what if the cops decide to show up that night? Is the visitor part of the gang and laundering their money, or not?
Seriously, it's a horrendous thing to have happen to you but, more seriously, you *DIDN'T* see it coming?
Maybe she did, we'll never know unless she confesses... One story I heard, which as far as I know has absolutely nothing directly to do with this case:
1) House needs substantial structural water damage / mold repairs after hurricane Andrew (or whichever one it was)
2) Owner verifies home insurance has no coverage for storm damage, but full coverage for criminal vandalism. (lightbulb turns on over owners head.. lets see how many/.ers already know how this is gonna turn out...) Owner somehow overlooks other section of insurance contract explaining coverage is void if property is rented, owner must live onsite; no rental contract allowed; etc.
3) Owner rents to local 1%er motorcycle gang. In a surprising turn of events, house is now condemned.
4) Owners statement to insurance co "I thought those hoodlums were church missionaries, I'm such a victim, that means you have to like me..."
5) Insurance co uses big red "denied" stamp.
6) Owner freaks out, OMG what am I gonna do... happens to glance at TV news sleazecast... another lightbulb appears...
7) Local newspaper and "fox news on your side" breathless TV coverage about the horrible victimization of the owner vs the rich insurance company blah blah blah. "Today's news brought to you by advertisements from the insurance co's competitors..."
Don't remember how that one turned out. A more modern retelling would be "Katrina" instead of "Andrew", or maybe upside down post-housing bubble mortgage instead of hurricane, or maybe "airbnb" instead of "1%er motorcycle gang", etc. Its an insightful story.
I'm just saying, only the most lilly white bread type can be honestly completely confused... Follow the money...
In essence, I find it hard to understand what added value AirBNB provides over either Craigslist (pay) or Couch Surfing (free, reputation-based).
Whats their patent portfolio look like? Do they have a patent on something obvious and profitable like "renting a room using an iphone" that is probably worth a billion bucks if you already own a complementary property, perhaps a world wide hotel chain. On the other hand if you don't own a world wide hotel chain then the only way to demonstrate your patent is a "LOL wut?" business model like this.
Who will be the first person to suggest placing VLBI radio telescopes at each lagrange point? Oh I guess it'll be me. A nice heavy asteroid would be convenient for vibration dampening WRT antenna pointing.
The problem is when/if we ever do planetary colonization, those L points will be in high demand for planetary relay satellites, as no matter where any other planet is in its orbit relative to earth's orbit, at least one earth L point should be in view... so what do we want there, sensitive receivers or big ole transmitters? I'm guessing we'll have some kind of scientific "quiet hours" scheme where the scientists get the first second of every minute, first minute of every hour, and first hour of every day, of radio silence. Or maybe they'll just be screwed?
On the plus side, the required level of embedded computational power should be enough for manufacturers to cryptographically lock-out aftermarket replacements, and the car's stereo/video system to freak out and stop working when it decides that your new window isn't HDCP compliant...
This, my friends, is Progress.
No sir, progress would be displaying the "service engine soon" idiot light on the cryptographically locked out window. That means if a window ever breaks, in order to pass emissions tests in my area, you need to replace it with the manufacturer's window.
Another option, is to display the speedometer on that window. Only need to emissions test the car every other year, but need to see the speedo all the time.
And progress would be if the HDCP or whatever fails, it fails "jet black" so you can't see out the window...
Otherwise people will just replace them with plain ole glass.
Because of the cubed/squared law, a little nut will deorbit way the heck faster than a heavy beam. The effect is kind of shocking, something like a magically inflated hot air balloon canopy would deorbit in hours at ISS altitude, and a skyscraper steel I-beam pointy end forward (which is not a stable orientation, BTW) would stay in orbit for decades.
Don't worry about a 6-32 nut. Worry about the truss sections.
The idea is that eventaully we will want a station in Geo synchronous orbit and that its cheaper to move this station from LEO to GSO than luanching parts up from earth. Not sure if this is true though. You would still have to launch the fuel up from Earth.
You'd also have to launch up a full machine shop and foundry, as none of the parts will work at geo. Not the comm systems, not the non-existent radiation shielding, not the cooling system, not... uh... pretty much everything but the cheap light empty shell, where nothing new will fit anyway.
Oh and the solar panels are probably only radiation rated for LEO not GEO which is a bit harsher; or maybe they are hardened to GEO levels.
Its kind of like taking the wright flyer and turning it into a B-17 by replacing all the parts one at a time.. it would be a heck of a lot easier and cheaper just to build the B-17 outright. Even the times in my example are about right, a bit more than 30 years separates each design.
I'm sure there are some families of people who would be willing to be on it for life, possibly agonizing death.
At least it would be quick... without the earth being a nice 270K hemisphere, its cooling system would kill everyone. Its built to radiate into a 270K load, not 2.7K deep space, not pointing at the sun 5000K or whatever.
Its an interesting exercise, how much boost is required; too much boost and the cooling system kills them, too little boost and they run out of air before they get anywhere.
Naah they cut all that to save money, but didn't have the guts to cut the whole thing. International contractual obligations and all that. So they orbited something pretty much useless. Oh well.
I'm firmly atheist. I don't choose to participate in skepticism advocacy, but if I choose to, I might well prefer a pseudonym. (There are several fundamentalists in my management chain at work.)
Hmm. Same deal here. The G+ profile does not have a "religion" box, but everything else in the profile has individual privacy boxes. Boss would probably assume anyone not proudly public with "evangelical christian" in that box is probably a closet muslim, so other than leaving it out entirely, I'm not sure how to work around that. The circle thing helps with your own posts, never post religious commentary to "work" group. G+ has no (current) solution to post comments. If/when they get one, then you're all good.
The other corner cases are valid, but represent less than 1% of anonymous posters. Most of ACs on G+ will be astroturfers, spammers, trollers, etc. One thing in common is the "good guys" either have money or can access money, and the "bad guys" absolutely require zero or non-zero costs. See below for a solution.
How about having a couple of flags, for "anonymous accounts" and "pseudonymous" accounts (the latter being "google knows my name and has verified it as much as anything else, but it isn't posted associated with this account). And indicate anony/psuedo accounts at the top of the profile screen. Add a security setting to block them entirely.
How would you feel about a market based solution, where you can buy anonymity? Purchase an anon account from G+ for however much you want to pay, and that price you paid is a public un-hideable part of the profile. And part of the filtration system.
I'm not willing to read a post from an AC who's not willing to "pay up" with their real name. After all, I'm giving away mine for free on G+. But if they paid $50 for that account, and I set my filter at G+ for $10, that would beat the threshold and I'd see the post. They sweetend the deal.
Don't want to give $50 to the rich and mighty GOOG? Why shouldn't GOOG partner with the united way? Stalker victim can donate $50 to the united way domestic violence prevention fund, or someone can donate on her behalf... I'd listen to a AC account purchased with a $50 donation... An AC account worth zero, eh, maybe not.
Why the hell you post as vlm and not your real name.
Its not my birth name, but brace yourself to LOL. Lets just say its like saying those guys using their full ham radio callsign as their account name are "anonymous". Um no not really. I suppose I could have used my full callsign instead when I signed up... Regardless pseudonymity on/. works on/. for reasons listed below.
Also whats your opinion about Anonymous Cowards, you think is good that a site have a full anonymity option?
I enjoy zerohedge and 4chan for the trolling itself... I guess G+ admins don't want to turn into a copy of/b/ and that is perfectly OK. If I really wanted G+ to be 4chan's/b/ then... I'd go to freaking 4chan... not complain about the completely different social mores of G+. Also I think people expect G+ to be "useful" unlike the (pleasant) waste of time that is 4chan and zerohedge.
If its got a scoring and filtering option, which/. has, then anonymity works. Also if there's a reason not to burn accounts, then yes; I'm vaguely proud of my 5 digit UID and I'm not going to burn it by posting spam and toasting my account. If I toast my account its going to be because I'm an idiot, not for trolling. Hmm maybe theres some overlap in that Venn diagram. The/. achievement system is (sorry guys) lame, but if it was real I would not risk burning it either, especially if people could filter on (checkmark to only see 'once got a +5 post') I wish/. let us view filter on Karma too.
G+ has none of the above. Turns out anonymity doesn't "work" if you have none of the above. Whoops.... I guess G+ can't have anonymity until it adds those features.
you are able to make a reasonable, albeit ironic, statement about pseudonyms and anonymity rather than some YouTube comment trash. Why can't this occur on Google Plus?
Well, thanks, but the answer is I read/. with a score filter of about +1 occasionally +2, and my fine comment above scored a +5... The decade(s) old/. filter really does work.
Give it a try, if you read/. with a filter of -1 or below, there's plenty of "you tube comment trash" level posts floating around.
G+ has absolutely nothing like that. Circles work for filtering posts, but G+ has nothing to stop ACs from spamming a friend's post. Some AC's, like you, are great. A pity you're anonymous so you can't be friended on/. or added to a G+ circle. Most ACs are selling pills, trolling, astroturfing, etc.
Why the hell do people like me who prefer anonymity always have to abstain from using the latest and greatest social technologies just because we give a damn about our privacy
Two orthogonal concepts. In fact the design of G+ seems oriented toward showing just how orthogonal those two can be... You'd probably really like the privacy aspects of circles, if you could get past the dislike of their non-anonymity policy.
Maybe I'm having a mind lapse, but how would a scanned photo-ID make for non-photoshopable proof?
Put a "cooperate with law enforcement at our discretion" clause in the TOS? I'd think there's some "anti-terrorism" govt group that would be amused at sweeping up all the fake IDs along with the fakers email accts, ip addrs, friends names and contact info, etc. Just the threat of doing it is probably sufficient.
Of course the ideal strategy is using a real ID... My mother and grandmother are never going to go online or use G+, the world is full of people like that, and they all have IDs, which now suddenly have value. How you would prove some guy on the other side of the world is not my mother is... unclear... Maybe demand a webcam pic of them holding the ID up to their face with a provided random number in the other hand?
Its expensive enough to keep the riff raff out, which is all thats needed. Waaaay to expensive to spam with, probably too expensive to astroturf or troll with...
Slashdot Mirror
I read this a couple days ago (days ago? Come on /.) and I still don't know if they corrected for income.
Dumb people tend to end up poor. Poor people use older stuff because thats all they can afford.
Not thinking its insightful to learn that poor people have cruddier older hardware.
Also smarter people are more likely to admin their own computer, thus be permitted to upgrade... Not sure how or if they accounted for that.
Its possible, that above and beyond the effect of poverty or work I.T. configuration, dumb people do dumb things, but i dunno; that's a pretty cutting edge idea worthy of a Nobel.
Won't work, rental liability is infinite,
Oh please.This is BS. Replacement value for a rental property is around $500K max. Last I checked that is much smaller than infinity. Also, this is no different than regular household insurance, just at a much higher rate. So not only it would work, it would likely be a profit center too.
What if one of the renters kids is in the building when it gets torched and there's no fire detector or extinguisher, and "everyone knows" the side door sticks so use the front or back, blah blah.
Also, this is no different than regular household insurance, just at a much higher rate.
Not just commission/fee but also higher rate of torching / Animal House style frat parties / copper wire and pipe "recycling".
I think we agree the rate would be higher; I think high enough that it would be way beyond uneconomic; We'll have to agree to disagree on that.
LOL more like how long until they show up on Fark with a "Florida" tag, in real life
Of course, patent applications are published 18 months after they are filed, so it's possible they have some applications in the works of which we are not aware.
So nothing public. Of course submarine patents are not lunch recipes or navy-related.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_patent
It seems odd that they're doing something "new" but haven't publicly filed anything legal WRT their "new" stuff. The complete lack of defensive portfolio is in itself suspicious.
If you could activate all the doors at once you could possibly overload the system.
I would disagree as "instant-lockdown" is probably one of the main features of the system. Any time they see a fight, to stop it from turning into a (bigger) riot, slap the big red switch to isolate the inmates. The opposite is the "fire switch" so you can instantly let all the inmates out of their cells; I suppose it depends on the security level of the inmates and local policies; some prisons might let them fry in their cells if there's a fire.
And if you opened all the doors and then opened them all some more simultaneously, that might well get them stuck open to the point where a human would have to manually close and lock each cell.
Now we're getting somewhere, cycle half open half closed until they all jam... assuming they are not inherently mechanically designed not to do that. It might be more expensive to design one that jams... Depending on contracts and corruption, a more expensive door that is capable of jamming might have been "required" so that expensive fixes can be applied.. But that's not the PLCs fault.
All believable, right up to:
We could blow out all the electronics.
The best I can think of is turning on the entire HVAC system at the same instant, popping the circuit breakers to the facility.
Maybe you could turn the power to the TVs on and off every second until the switching power supplies blow, or maybe that wouldn't work..
The problem with getting "average joe" to infect a PLC, is PLCs and their systems are getting more complicated, to the point that only specialists mess with them. Its a temporary thing. In the past, they were too few to matter, in the future they'll be too complicated for all but specialists to have access. This is just a momentary thing where "joe average industrial maint electrician" could theoretically screw stuff up.
I'm more curious why do they need to control everything from 1 computer? What's wrong with a simple keylock or if that's too 'medieval' for you, a standalone code lock? Also, why are the showers and everything electronically controlled? That's something most homes don't have.
With more prisoners in the system than the rest of the world combined, for profit private prisons automate to save money. That makes them cheaper that govt prisons, which forces the govt prisons to automate or else all their "guests" will get transferred to "save money by using the free market". In a race to the bottom, there is no opting out.
By controlling the showers you can stop people from F-ing around during lockdown... If the guards have to go in to break up a fight, at least the water is off.
To continue growing long term Airbnb needs to become an insurance carrier making renters whole if something like this happens. EBay growth stalled when fraud became rampant. If Ebay had agreed to become a centralized third party with insurance and clearing services, i.e. a true clearing house they would be right now the size of WalMart.
The insurance plan is all about the details. Start by charging a credit card security deposit of $1000. Then charge a one time joining fee of $100 as well as an insurance fee of $15 per day for the first 50 days, going down to $5 for the next 100 and finally $1 thereafter. Then have a high deductible for renters, around $1000, since the landlord assumes responsibility for minor damages. If all the renters did is break a dish, tough luck, it happens, but something like the case above would definitely be covered.
Won't work, rental liability is infinite, or at least infinite compared to your numbers. Every "upside down" house in the country would get rented and torched. Which is a lot of losses. Maybe if you charged $50K per rental and hired the local fire department to park an engine in front of the house overnight...
Let me get this straight. The gimmick is you rent out your place to a total stranger, you don't even meet them face-to-face, and expect them not to run away with all your phat loot ? Moronic. Hotels don't trust them anywhere near as much.
Everyone is focusing on the moronity of renting to, basically, an "AC" because of THIS story. What I wonder is if the renters get to (legally) learn about the owners; are the owners ACs from the point of view of the renters?
I can see four business models where the owner is a crook:
1) House happens to burn down (arson) while renter is present so presumably the owner can not be blamed. Sucks if the renter dies in the fire; then again that makes it more "authentic".
2) House has a "big brother" style camera / videorecording infrastructure, including/especially in the bedrooms and showers. And the owner prefers to rent to attractive young people, perhaps by being on the beach or near a college campus, or maybe kids play equipment in backyard is used as a lure, etc.
3) So, someone is visiting, probably with stuff worth stealing, and someone happens to have their full itinerary, and a spare house key... Would be a shame if their laptop gets stolen... Consider a young woman and someone knows her schedule and knows she is completely alone and also has a key to her bedroom and has some bad intentions...
4) Its actually a grow op / drop house, what if the cops decide to show up that night? Is the visitor part of the gang and laundering their money, or not?
Seriously, it's a horrendous thing to have happen to you but, more seriously, you *DIDN'T* see it coming?
Maybe she did, we'll never know unless she confesses... One story I heard, which as far as I know has absolutely nothing directly to do with this case:
1) House needs substantial structural water damage / mold repairs after hurricane Andrew (or whichever one it was)
2) Owner verifies home insurance has no coverage for storm damage, but full coverage for criminal vandalism. (lightbulb turns on over owners head .. lets see how many /.ers already know how this is gonna turn out...) Owner somehow overlooks other section of insurance contract explaining coverage is void if property is rented, owner must live onsite; no rental contract allowed; etc.
3) Owner rents to local 1%er motorcycle gang. In a surprising turn of events, house is now condemned.
4) Owners statement to insurance co "I thought those hoodlums were church missionaries, I'm such a victim, that means you have to like me..."
5) Insurance co uses big red "denied" stamp.
6) Owner freaks out, OMG what am I gonna do ... happens to glance at TV news sleazecast ... another lightbulb appears ...
7) Local newspaper and "fox news on your side" breathless TV coverage about the horrible victimization of the owner vs the rich insurance company blah blah blah. "Today's news brought to you by advertisements from the insurance co's competitors..."
Don't remember how that one turned out. A more modern retelling would be "Katrina" instead of "Andrew", or maybe upside down post-housing bubble mortgage instead of hurricane, or maybe "airbnb" instead of "1%er motorcycle gang", etc. Its an insightful story.
I'm just saying, only the most lilly white bread type can be honestly completely confused... Follow the money...
In essence, I find it hard to understand what added value AirBNB provides over either Craigslist (pay) or Couch Surfing (free, reputation-based).
Whats their patent portfolio look like? Do they have a patent on something obvious and profitable like "renting a room using an iphone" that is probably worth a billion bucks if you already own a complementary property, perhaps a world wide hotel chain. On the other hand if you don't own a world wide hotel chain then the only way to demonstrate your patent is a "LOL wut?" business model like this.
They just call it synthetic sapphire...
Interesting you mention that, I'm thinking we've finally found a mass producible window material that is more expensive than synthetic sapphire.
(If you allow non-mass producible then you get people trying to use gem quality diamonds)
Can't resolve it, just see a blur or dirtyness. Like a colloidal solution.
Though on the other had it would be like a small bomb if you broke the screen then.
Much more effective the the average burglar alarm glass breakage detector.
I wonder if you could store enough energy to make bullet-proof glass that is actually reactive armor instead of just soaking up the force?
Who will be the first person to suggest placing VLBI radio telescopes at each lagrange point? Oh I guess it'll be me. A nice heavy asteroid would be convenient for vibration dampening WRT antenna pointing.
The problem is when/if we ever do planetary colonization, those L points will be in high demand for planetary relay satellites, as no matter where any other planet is in its orbit relative to earth's orbit, at least one earth L point should be in view... so what do we want there, sensitive receivers or big ole transmitters? I'm guessing we'll have some kind of scientific "quiet hours" scheme where the scientists get the first second of every minute, first minute of every hour, and first hour of every day, of radio silence. Or maybe they'll just be screwed?
On the plus side, the required level of embedded computational power should be enough for manufacturers to cryptographically lock-out aftermarket replacements, and the car's stereo/video system to freak out and stop working when it decides that your new window isn't HDCP compliant...
This, my friends, is Progress.
No sir, progress would be displaying the "service engine soon" idiot light on the cryptographically locked out window. That means if a window ever breaks, in order to pass emissions tests in my area, you need to replace it with the manufacturer's window.
Another option, is to display the speedometer on that window. Only need to emissions test the car every other year, but need to see the speedo all the time.
And progress would be if the HDCP or whatever fails, it fails "jet black" so you can't see out the window...
Otherwise people will just replace them with plain ole glass.
Its possible to close a paypal account? If you thought it was hard to delete your facebook acct, try paypal for a real challenge.
Because of the cubed/squared law, a little nut will deorbit way the heck faster than a heavy beam. The effect is kind of shocking, something like a magically inflated hot air balloon canopy would deorbit in hours at ISS altitude, and a skyscraper steel I-beam pointy end forward (which is not a stable orientation, BTW) would stay in orbit for decades.
Don't worry about a 6-32 nut. Worry about the truss sections.
The idea is that eventaully we will want a station in Geo synchronous orbit and that its cheaper to move this station from LEO to GSO than luanching parts up from earth. Not sure if this is true though. You would still have to launch the fuel up from Earth.
You'd also have to launch up a full machine shop and foundry, as none of the parts will work at geo. Not the comm systems, not the non-existent radiation shielding, not the cooling system, not... uh... pretty much everything but the cheap light empty shell, where nothing new will fit anyway.
Oh and the solar panels are probably only radiation rated for LEO not GEO which is a bit harsher; or maybe they are hardened to GEO levels.
Its kind of like taking the wright flyer and turning it into a B-17 by replacing all the parts one at a time.. it would be a heck of a lot easier and cheaper just to build the B-17 outright. Even the times in my example are about right, a bit more than 30 years separates each design.
I'm sure there are some families of people who would be willing to be on it for life, possibly agonizing death.
At least it would be quick... without the earth being a nice 270K hemisphere, its cooling system would kill everyone. Its built to radiate into a 270K load, not 2.7K deep space, not pointing at the sun 5000K or whatever.
Its an interesting exercise, how much boost is required; too much boost and the cooling system kills them, too little boost and they run out of air before they get anywhere.
The ISS is intended to do zero gravity research.
Naah they cut all that to save money, but didn't have the guts to cut the whole thing. International contractual obligations and all that. So they orbited something pretty much useless. Oh well.
I'm firmly atheist. I don't choose to participate in skepticism advocacy, but if I choose to, I might well prefer a pseudonym. (There are several fundamentalists in my management chain at work.)
Hmm. Same deal here. The G+ profile does not have a "religion" box, but everything else in the profile has individual privacy boxes. Boss would probably assume anyone not proudly public with "evangelical christian" in that box is probably a closet muslim, so other than leaving it out entirely, I'm not sure how to work around that. The circle thing helps with your own posts, never post religious commentary to "work" group. G+ has no (current) solution to post comments. If/when they get one, then you're all good.
The other corner cases are valid, but represent less than 1% of anonymous posters. Most of ACs on G+ will be astroturfers, spammers, trollers, etc. One thing in common is the "good guys" either have money or can access money, and the "bad guys" absolutely require zero or non-zero costs. See below for a solution.
How about having a couple of flags, for "anonymous accounts" and "pseudonymous" accounts (the latter being "google knows my name and has verified it as much as anything else, but it isn't posted associated with this account). And indicate anony/psuedo accounts at the top of the profile screen. Add a security setting to block them entirely.
How would you feel about a market based solution, where you can buy anonymity? Purchase an anon account from G+ for however much you want to pay, and that price you paid is a public un-hideable part of the profile. And part of the filtration system.
I'm not willing to read a post from an AC who's not willing to "pay up" with their real name. After all, I'm giving away mine for free on G+. But if they paid $50 for that account, and I set my filter at G+ for $10, that would beat the threshold and I'd see the post. They sweetend the deal.
Don't want to give $50 to the rich and mighty GOOG? Why shouldn't GOOG partner with the united way? Stalker victim can donate $50 to the united way domestic violence prevention fund, or someone can donate on her behalf... I'd listen to a AC account purchased with a $50 donation... An AC account worth zero, eh, maybe not.
Why the hell you post as vlm and not your real name.
Its not my birth name, but brace yourself to LOL. Lets just say its like saying those guys using their full ham radio callsign as their account name are "anonymous". Um no not really. I suppose I could have used my full callsign instead when I signed up... Regardless pseudonymity on /. works on /. for reasons listed below.
Also whats your opinion about Anonymous Cowards, you think is good that a site have a full anonymity option?
I enjoy zerohedge and 4chan for the trolling itself... I guess G+ admins don't want to turn into a copy of /b/ and that is perfectly OK. If I really wanted G+ to be 4chan's /b/ then ... I'd go to freaking 4chan... not complain about the completely different social mores of G+. Also I think people expect G+ to be "useful" unlike the (pleasant) waste of time that is 4chan and zerohedge.
If its got a scoring and filtering option, which /. has, then anonymity works. Also if there's a reason not to burn accounts, then yes; I'm vaguely proud of my 5 digit UID and I'm not going to burn it by posting spam and toasting my account. If I toast my account its going to be because I'm an idiot, not for trolling. Hmm maybe theres some overlap in that Venn diagram. The /. achievement system is (sorry guys) lame, but if it was real I would not risk burning it either, especially if people could filter on (checkmark to only see 'once got a +5 post') I wish /. let us view filter on Karma too.
G+ has none of the above. Turns out anonymity doesn't "work" if you have none of the above. Whoops.... I guess G+ can't have anonymity until it adds those features.
you are able to make a reasonable, albeit ironic, statement about pseudonyms and anonymity rather than some YouTube comment trash. Why can't this occur on Google Plus?
Well, thanks, but the answer is I read /. with a score filter of about +1 occasionally +2, and my fine comment above scored a +5... The decade(s) old /. filter really does work.
Give it a try, if you read /. with a filter of -1 or below, there's plenty of "you tube comment trash" level posts floating around.
G+ has absolutely nothing like that. Circles work for filtering posts, but G+ has nothing to stop ACs from spamming a friend's post. Some AC's, like you, are great. A pity you're anonymous so you can't be friended on /. or added to a G+ circle. Most ACs are selling pills, trolling, astroturfing, etc.
Why the hell do people like me who prefer anonymity always have to abstain from using the latest and greatest social technologies just because we give a damn about our privacy
Two orthogonal concepts. In fact the design of G+ seems oriented toward showing just how orthogonal those two can be... You'd probably really like the privacy aspects of circles, if you could get past the dislike of their non-anonymity policy.
Maybe I'm having a mind lapse, but how would a scanned photo-ID make for non-photoshopable proof?
Put a "cooperate with law enforcement at our discretion" clause in the TOS? I'd think there's some "anti-terrorism" govt group that would be amused at sweeping up all the fake IDs along with the fakers email accts, ip addrs, friends names and contact info, etc. Just the threat of doing it is probably sufficient.
Of course the ideal strategy is using a real ID... My mother and grandmother are never going to go online or use G+, the world is full of people like that, and they all have IDs, which now suddenly have value. How you would prove some guy on the other side of the world is not my mother is ... unclear ... Maybe demand a webcam pic of them holding the ID up to their face with a provided random number in the other hand?
Its expensive enough to keep the riff raff out, which is all thats needed. Waaaay to expensive to spam with, probably too expensive to astroturf or troll with...