Yeah, I really just pulled the 500 mile figure from nowhere (obviously). As I pointed out to another poster, I was coming at it from the angle of beating gravity by just climbing (literally) above it. Now that I get thinking more about it, those nuclear power plants coupled with pulleys and/or railgun type stuff could do the job just as well. Put the ships in evacuated tubes, You would only need, what, I have no idea. 5km? 10? To avoid atmospheric drag. Still a fantastical undertaking, but we could do it.
Well to be honest I just pulled the 500 mile high figure from nowhere, it could be 100km, or 30km, or even 1km; I started by thinking you could beat the gravity well by building a structure tall enough to be able to easily haul stuff up and launch it, but now I'm thinking if you put those nuclear power stations in it, that ramp and pulley idea would be more than enough to achieve escape velocity. Engineering those, now that would be a tricky feat, but I am sure well within our capabilities. Someone earlier shot down the railgun idea, but how high do you need to be to dodge real atmospheric drag? Or you could put the ships in an evacuated tube... hmmmm...
Thats an interesting point but as I pointed out to another poster, the ramp wouldn't need to be perfectly pyramidal, solid, or even have four sides. Besides in a pyramid, the weight is distributed around the base, so its not like the many gigatons are all resting on the one spot... the logistics would be lively, no doubt, but still doable, and hey, to get a couple of hundred orbital launches a day we could do it. I mean, space would be an open resource to everyone, and I mean everyone. Besides, I'm sure when the emporer of China said "right, wall off Mongolia and Siberia for me" he got a few strange looks too...
IANANWBARS (I am not and never will be a rocket scientist) but how does that impact the pyramid idea? Or is there any bearing on it? I'm not sure I track you...
Well it wouldn't have to be 45 degrees, a perfect square, or even solid. Even a three-sided pyramid with one side forming an elliptical bay in the sea for splashdowns (or gargantuan ore drops, a la Peter F Hamilton's Neutronium Alchemist series) might do the job. I think the sea somewhere would be the only option, and obviously someplace tectonically stable. A structure like that, you could have laboratories and shipyards the size of New York city, factories to process the near-infinite resources of space, hell you could do all that a hundred times over and still have enough room to comfortably house most of the world's population. Its a winner!
Hate to reply to myself, but when you have an idea... Eh you could even put a couple of hundred pulleys going up one side, with a couple of nuclear power stations buried in there to power them (and internal elevators going up and down, as well as any other power requirements). Surely you could reach escape velocity with ease and en masse by using very cost effective nuclear power like this... and also it could be based in a sea somewhere, so returning vessels could splash down nearby. Now that would be a serious spaceport!:D And all readily doable and not making the greens shriek or anything (except for a 500 mile by 300 mile strip of ocean that we weren't using anyway:D). Or if that doesn't sit right, the equatorial third world nation of choice would be more than happy to make itself richer than America and Europe combined by hosting the world's first true spaceport...
Why don't we just build a 500 mile high pyramid of some description? And maybe run a ramp up it, and a pulley system maybe so we can use very simple earthbound techniques to get projectiles to an incredible speed before liftoff? Alternately, its surely easier and cheaper to get a launch from 500 miles up, or put the tail end of a space elevator there. And we could do it with existing technology easily. Its like the question, if there were stairs going to the moon, could you walk it... the answer to that one is yes.
Okay I'm way late to the party and will probably never be read, but I do have to speak. There needs to be a line drawn under terrorists and a different line under everyone else. The Irish Republican Army are an organised, extremely well trained and funded group whose sole goal is to effect political change by means of causing fear in the UK populace. These qualify as terrorists. A bunch of yuppies and weekend warriors do not qualify as terrorists. Al-Queada, responsible for the 9-11 attacks (although the whole affair stinks to high heaven if you ask me) are terrorists. Criminal gangs, even as far north as the Russian mafia, are not.
Trying to lump all of these groups into one group "terrorists" is like trying to fit all classes and types of thieves into the category "armed bank robbers", with a similar disparity in punishment and response. The only effect it will have is to polarise moderate groups into extremes, and create the very problem they are seeking to remove. Since we are being treated like armed bank robbers, may as well get armed and rob a bank!
Not that this means anything to politicians. They just wave the terrorist label around to have a boogey man to pass whatever laws and measures they like. At the risk of godwinning myself, it was Hitler that said something like "if only criminals can be punished, make everyone a criminal". You get the idea anyway.
Jesus christ, talk about a self fulfilling prophecy. You actually hunted through my posting history for an opportunity to burble more fat. If I may repeat myself
Oh fuck off you passive aggressive latte sipping pederast. I shit bigger than you.
frankly, who cares if his post gets rated high or not?
Four words; signal to noise ratio. Lets cut down on the superfluous karma whoring, please, so the more interesting stuff (that makes slashdot what it is) has a chance.
I think not. My robotic legions with laser beams for eyeballs will scourge them. Many and plaintive shall be the the mewlings from the smouldering ruins of their kitty litter cities. My mighty engines of war will spew forth from their cavernous underground iron factories and the earth will tremble under their steely clacking locomotion devices! The dust of centuries will cover the pussies!
Wow the bleeding heart Americans/Westerners who die at nite thinking how much the Chinese are suffering.
Actually I couldn't give a flying fuck in hard vacuum about Chinese suffering. I just don't care. Heheh. What I do care about is another shitpot dictatorship destabilising a region that contains places I do care about.
The Chinese people do know one thing for sure, that its better to be ruled by Chinese dictators rather than US thugs.
So let me see... you're entire argument amounts to getting the best daddy in prison? Thats it? Better to be porked by this guy, because the other guy has a bigger john? You fail at life, I'd take it as a kindness if you stop breathing my air now, ktnx.
Those days are over so grow up and accept the reality.
Reality, yes, thats something that China is big on.
how much XYZmart sells "made in china" stuff in the US, its obvious that without the cheap chinese goods and their style of governance, half the American consumers would be dead.
Woah slow down there sparky. Here is a little history lesson for you. It used to be "made in Japan". Now its "made in China". In five years, it will be "made in Vietnam". Its already one third cheaper to pay people in vn, who also have a higher level of English literacy. And as for style of governance, the Japanse democratic approach enabled them to take advantage of their boom while they had it. In China, with all the wealth at the top, when the boom ends (2-3 years) the entire thing will collapse over sidewys, just like the last time.
not even one protesting against the brutal exploitation of deadly-cheap labor that american/european enterprises indulge in these 3rd world countries.
They want western wages, let em come to the west and compete with the superb local workforce. Until then, they are paid a fine wage by the standards of their homelands. Hell, I can't even own land in most of those countries; does that seem right to you?
Back in the washing machine, troll, your brain is safer there.
I can see several chinese cities becoming transport hubs along the lines of Singapore or LAX before long.
I can see several Chinese cities becoming the equivalent to Calcutta or Manila. Vast, sprawling, third world slums, the crown jewels of their third world nation. The writing is well and truly on the wall for China; Vietnam is now one third cheaper to get workers. And what would you like to bet they have a higher level of Eglish literacy? So its bye bye China. Once the yuan is floated, inflation will rise at a massive level, and the value of China's exports will collapse. And they will float the yuan; the US will make sure of that. Maybe they'll swap Taiwan for it. Social inequality, mass suppression of rights, and what amounts to a generation of lazy bastards spawned by the "one child per family" policy, I really wouldn't worry about China in the near future. And please don't tell me about their fast growing economy. Its easy to have massive growth rates when you are starting with nothing. Thanks for that, chairman Mao.
The above post may contain sarcasm and traces of irony. Please consult your doctor before responding.
IMHO the solution would be to stop the censorship, not find other way around it.
There is not much incentive to do so until people have a peek at whats on the other side. This effort is definetely the egg to the the chicken of ending censorship.
the hammer will be brought down and somebody will have to pay for this!
No, they won't. The arm of the Chinese government is no longer than the arm of the muslims rioting about the cartoons. At the end of the day, its just another shitpot third world country with a tiny elite trying to keep the rest of the population under control through terror and ignorance.
People over there are going to end up in jail anyway. The chinese government likes to leave metaphorical bricks under metaphorical hats on the pavement; its the kind fo mentality that will get you anyway. People over there may as well learn something new and valuable while they are kicking that hat.
Indeed, this does bring up a very curious issue amongst those who take a stance against unsolicited email.
No, it really doesn't. Spam is notoriously hard to stop and filter, and many more experienced and intelligent hands than those the Chinese have available have failed roundly at the task. If someone wants to turn this blight on the internet to a valuable, moral, and direct stand against totalitarian tinpot dictators like those currently ruling China, more power to them, says I.
If I had to count on one company to stand up and fight for personal privacy,
It wouldn't be "teh Google". I mean, what, are you astroturfing? They refused government requests for that information because that information is their stock in trade. They haven't got a whole lot else of any real value. As I pointed out before, it would be like asking walmart to give up their entire stock of beans, while still buying it in, forever. And on the recent yahoo turning in a dissident debacle, how long do you think it will be before the same exact thing happens to google?
Meanwhile, Chinese users please click here.
What is that meant to be? You think that site isn't blocked in China too?
I can easily tell the difference between 300dpi and 1200dpi or 2400dpi
Eh no you can't, and I seriously doubt you have ever seen seen print any higher than 300 dpi. A fax machine won't do 300dpi, not in a million years. You might be thinking of scan resolution, which is a different kettle of fish, or you may be confusing dpi with lpi, with is a messy concept to explain, and some of us have to get to work.
It reaches a stage when its very difficult to discern any real advantages "new media" has over older types. I mean, there is a limit to what resolution your eye can discern, just like in printing; There's no point in going any higher than 300 dpi (professional offset printing resolution). Once you don't have problems with blurriness or ghosting, it really can't get much better. They either need to produce an entirely different (immersive?) experience, or make bigger screens cheaper. I'd drop a grand on a 10 foot wide wallscreen, no problem. It seems to me like the executives at sony and the rest of them are stuck in an 80's gold rush mindset. The eighties are over boys - deal with it.
I agree. Its quite funny to see all these international corporations falling over one another to get into china and stay in. A new market of a billion doesn't mean crap when only ten or twenty million of them can afford your services. Mind you, I can sort of see yahoo's point here, all they sell is advertising and eyeballs. As to what they can charge for their advertising, thats a different story.
The growth in China's economy is about to hit a roadbump (roadblock?) in the race to the bottom, anyway. Its actually one third cheaper to hire people in Vietnam than China now; the China Price is no longer the cheapest. So that's where the business will go next.
I should know, I'm opening an office there in a couple of months myself.
Slashdot Mirror
Why not just evacuate the tube the vessel is launched in?
Yeah, I really just pulled the 500 mile figure from nowhere (obviously). As I pointed out to another poster, I was coming at it from the angle of beating gravity by just climbing (literally) above it. Now that I get thinking more about it, those nuclear power plants coupled with pulleys and/or railgun type stuff could do the job just as well. Put the ships in evacuated tubes, You would only need, what, I have no idea. 5km? 10? To avoid atmospheric drag. Still a fantastical undertaking, but we could do it.
Well to be honest I just pulled the 500 mile high figure from nowhere, it could be 100km, or 30km, or even 1km; I started by thinking you could beat the gravity well by building a structure tall enough to be able to easily haul stuff up and launch it, but now I'm thinking if you put those nuclear power stations in it, that ramp and pulley idea would be more than enough to achieve escape velocity. Engineering those, now that would be a tricky feat, but I am sure well within our capabilities. Someone earlier shot down the railgun idea, but how high do you need to be to dodge real atmospheric drag? Or you could put the ships in an evacuated tube... hmmmm...
Thats an interesting point but as I pointed out to another poster, the ramp wouldn't need to be perfectly pyramidal, solid, or even have four sides. Besides in a pyramid, the weight is distributed around the base, so its not like the many gigatons are all resting on the one spot... the logistics would be lively, no doubt, but still doable, and hey, to get a couple of hundred orbital launches a day we could do it. I mean, space would be an open resource to everyone, and I mean everyone. Besides, I'm sure when the emporer of China said "right, wall off Mongolia and Siberia for me" he got a few strange looks too...
IANANWBARS (I am not and never will be a rocket scientist) but how does that impact the pyramid idea? Or is there any bearing on it? I'm not sure I track you...
Well it wouldn't have to be 45 degrees, a perfect square, or even solid. Even a three-sided pyramid with one side forming an elliptical bay in the sea for splashdowns (or gargantuan ore drops, a la Peter F Hamilton's Neutronium Alchemist series) might do the job. I think the sea somewhere would be the only option, and obviously someplace tectonically stable. A structure like that, you could have laboratories and shipyards the size of New York city, factories to process the near-infinite resources of space, hell you could do all that a hundred times over and still have enough room to comfortably house most of the world's population. Its a winner!
Hate to reply to myself, but when you have an idea... Eh you could even put a couple of hundred pulleys going up one side, with a couple of nuclear power stations buried in there to power them (and internal elevators going up and down, as well as any other power requirements). Surely you could reach escape velocity with ease and en masse by using very cost effective nuclear power like this... and also it could be based in a sea somewhere, so returning vessels could splash down nearby. Now that would be a serious spaceport! :D And all readily doable and not making the greens shriek or anything (except for a 500 mile by 300 mile strip of ocean that we weren't using anyway :D). Or if that doesn't sit right, the equatorial third world nation of choice would be more than happy to make itself richer than America and Europe combined by hosting the world's first true spaceport...
Why don't we just build a 500 mile high pyramid of some description? And maybe run a ramp up it, and a pulley system maybe so we can use very simple earthbound techniques to get projectiles to an incredible speed before liftoff? Alternately, its surely easier and cheaper to get a launch from 500 miles up, or put the tail end of a space elevator there. And we could do it with existing technology easily. Its like the question, if there were stairs going to the moon, could you walk it... the answer to that one is yes.
Okay I'm way late to the party and will probably never be read, but I do have to speak. There needs to be a line drawn under terrorists and a different line under everyone else. The Irish Republican Army are an organised, extremely well trained and funded group whose sole goal is to effect political change by means of causing fear in the UK populace. These qualify as terrorists. A bunch of yuppies and weekend warriors do not qualify as terrorists. Al-Queada, responsible for the 9-11 attacks (although the whole affair stinks to high heaven if you ask me) are terrorists. Criminal gangs, even as far north as the Russian mafia, are not.
Trying to lump all of these groups into one group "terrorists" is like trying to fit all classes and types of thieves into the category "armed bank robbers", with a similar disparity in punishment and response. The only effect it will have is to polarise moderate groups into extremes, and create the very problem they are seeking to remove. Since we are being treated like armed bank robbers, may as well get armed and rob a bank!
Not that this means anything to politicians. They just wave the terrorist label around to have a boogey man to pass whatever laws and measures they like. At the risk of godwinning myself, it was Hitler that said something like "if only criminals can be punished, make everyone a criminal". You get the idea anyway.
Jesus christ, talk about a self fulfilling prophecy. You actually hunted through my posting history for an opportunity to burble more fat. If I may repeat myself
Oh fuck off you passive aggressive latte sipping pederast. I shit bigger than you.
Best regards,
Best regards,
Oh fuck off you passive aggressive latte sipping pederast. I shit bigger than you.
frankly, who cares if his post gets rated high or not?
Four words; signal to noise ratio. Lets cut down on the superfluous karma whoring, please, so the more interesting stuff (that makes slashdot what it is) has a chance.
I think not. My robotic legions with laser beams for eyeballs will scourge them. Many and plaintive shall be the the mewlings from the smouldering ruins of their kitty litter cities. My mighty engines of war will spew forth from their cavernous underground iron factories and the earth will tremble under their steely clacking locomotion devices! The dust of centuries will cover the pussies!
All who would infect my brain with parasites...
Die!
Wow the bleeding heart Americans/Westerners who die at nite thinking how much the Chinese are suffering.
Actually I couldn't give a flying fuck in hard vacuum about Chinese suffering. I just don't care. Heheh. What I do care about is another shitpot dictatorship destabilising a region that contains places I do care about.
The Chinese people do know one thing for sure, that its better to be ruled by Chinese dictators rather than US thugs.
So let me see... you're entire argument amounts to getting the best daddy in prison? Thats it? Better to be porked by this guy, because the other guy has a bigger john? You fail at life, I'd take it as a kindness if you stop breathing my air now, ktnx.
Those days are over so grow up and accept the reality.
Reality, yes, thats something that China is big on.
how much XYZmart sells "made in china" stuff in the US, its obvious that without the cheap chinese goods and their style of governance, half the American consumers would be dead.
Woah slow down there sparky. Here is a little history lesson for you. It used to be "made in Japan". Now its "made in China". In five years, it will be "made in Vietnam". Its already one third cheaper to pay people in vn, who also have a higher level of English literacy. And as for style of governance, the Japanse democratic approach enabled them to take advantage of their boom while they had it. In China, with all the wealth at the top, when the boom ends (2-3 years) the entire thing will collapse over sidewys, just like the last time.
not even one protesting against the brutal exploitation of deadly-cheap labor that american/european enterprises indulge in these 3rd world countries.
They want western wages, let em come to the west and compete with the superb local workforce. Until then, they are paid a fine wage by the standards of their homelands. Hell, I can't even own land in most of those countries; does that seem right to you?
Back in the washing machine, troll, your brain is safer there.
No, A fucking coward.
That shitpot thirld world country has a seat on the UN security council
So does France - so what? That hardly qualifies as the signature of a world power.
one of the world's eight largest economies.
With a miniscule middle class. You should think about what the ramifications of that are. Size, in this case, really doesn't matter.
I can see several chinese cities becoming transport hubs along the lines of Singapore or LAX before long.
I can see several Chinese cities becoming the equivalent to Calcutta or Manila. Vast, sprawling, third world slums, the crown jewels of their third world nation. The writing is well and truly on the wall for China; Vietnam is now one third cheaper to get workers. And what would you like to bet they have a higher level of Eglish literacy? So its bye bye China. Once the yuan is floated, inflation will rise at a massive level, and the value of China's exports will collapse. And they will float the yuan; the US will make sure of that. Maybe they'll swap Taiwan for it. Social inequality, mass suppression of rights, and what amounts to a generation of lazy bastards spawned by the "one child per family" policy, I really wouldn't worry about China in the near future. And please don't tell me about their fast growing economy. Its easy to have massive growth rates when you are starting with nothing. Thanks for that, chairman Mao.
The above post may contain sarcasm and traces of irony. Please consult your doctor before responding.
IMHO the solution would be to stop the censorship, not find other way around it.
There is not much incentive to do so until people have a peek at whats on the other side. This effort is definetely the egg to the the chicken of ending censorship.
the hammer will be brought down and somebody will have to pay for this!
No, they won't. The arm of the Chinese government is no longer than the arm of the muslims rioting about the cartoons. At the end of the day, its just another shitpot third world country with a tiny elite trying to keep the rest of the population under control through terror and ignorance.
People over there are going to end up in jail anyway. The chinese government likes to leave metaphorical bricks under metaphorical hats on the pavement; its the kind fo mentality that will get you anyway. People over there may as well learn something new and valuable while they are kicking that hat.
Indeed, this does bring up a very curious issue amongst those who take a stance against unsolicited email.
No, it really doesn't. Spam is notoriously hard to stop and filter, and many more experienced and intelligent hands than those the Chinese have available have failed roundly at the task. If someone wants to turn this blight on the internet to a valuable, moral, and direct stand against totalitarian tinpot dictators like those currently ruling China, more power to them, says I.
And its about goddam time.
If I had to count on one company to stand up and fight for personal privacy,
It wouldn't be "teh Google". I mean, what, are you astroturfing? They refused government requests for that information because that information is their stock in trade. They haven't got a whole lot else of any real value. As I pointed out before, it would be like asking walmart to give up their entire stock of beans, while still buying it in, forever. And on the recent yahoo turning in a dissident debacle, how long do you think it will be before the same exact thing happens to google?
Meanwhile, Chinese users please click here.
What is that meant to be? You think that site isn't blocked in China too?
I think you are smoking "teh crack".
I can easily tell the difference between 300dpi and 1200dpi or 2400dpi
Eh no you can't, and I seriously doubt you have ever seen seen print any higher than 300 dpi. A fax machine won't do 300dpi, not in a million years. You might be thinking of scan resolution, which is a different kettle of fish, or you may be confusing dpi with lpi, with is a messy concept to explain, and some of us have to get to work.
It reaches a stage when its very difficult to discern any real advantages "new media" has over older types. I mean, there is a limit to what resolution your eye can discern, just like in printing; There's no point in going any higher than 300 dpi (professional offset printing resolution). Once you don't have problems with blurriness or ghosting, it really can't get much better. They either need to produce an entirely different (immersive?) experience, or make bigger screens cheaper. I'd drop a grand on a 10 foot wide wallscreen, no problem. It seems to me like the executives at sony and the rest of them are stuck in an 80's gold rush mindset. The eighties are over boys - deal with it.
I agree. Its quite funny to see all these international corporations falling over one another to get into china and stay in. A new market of a billion doesn't mean crap when only ten or twenty million of them can afford your services. Mind you, I can sort of see yahoo's point here, all they sell is advertising and eyeballs. As to what they can charge for their advertising, thats a different story.
The growth in China's economy is about to hit a roadbump (roadblock?) in the race to the bottom, anyway. Its actually one third cheaper to hire people in Vietnam than China now; the China Price is no longer the cheapest. So that's where the business will go next.
I should know, I'm opening an office there in a couple of months myself.