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User: mosb1000

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  1. if the US gets a working missile defense system, how long will it be before other countries get one working?

    That would be great! I don't wan't to nuke anybody! I don't want anybody to get nuked! Why would I be bothered if someone else developed a missile shield?!

  2. Re:Once space elevators are built on both planets, on Elon Musk: Future Round-Trip To Mars Could Cost Under $500,000 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    reusable hardware is the most expensive imaginable hardware

    People seem to be saying this because the Space Shuttle was fantastically expensive. The problem with that is that where were a lot of poor decisions that went into the shuttle (the ceramic heat shield, and the solid boosters) that we don't have to repeat in every new reusable launch system. Even in the '90s with Venture Star NASA was trying to move away from those technologies because they knew they were expensive and not beneficial.

    There's nothing wrong with looking at your failures, seeing where they went wrong, learning from them, and trying again. The result is by no means a foregone conclusion. Can you imagine if the Wright Brothers had said "people have been trying to build airplanes for a hundred years and no one's succeeded so we may as well not even try." It's absurd to think we should give up on reusable space craft simply because the Space Shuttle didn't save money. Especially since the things that made it too expensive are so obvious and fixable.

  3. Re:Step 1 on Elon Musk: Future Round-Trip To Mars Could Cost Under $500,000 · · Score: 1

    The shuttle did save a lot of money by reusing engines. They just lost it elsewhere in the project. I don't see how pointing that out is "rewriting history."

    The most expensive part of a rocket is its R+D, by a huge margin.

    That really depends how many you launch, don't you think?

  4. Re:Step 1 on Elon Musk: Future Round-Trip To Mars Could Cost Under $500,000 · · Score: 1

    The idea that re-usability makes all costs except for fuel go away is just plain stupid.

    Gosh, it's a good thing nobody said that then.

  5. Yes. on U.S. Missile Defense Against Iran Makes China/Russia Mad, Might Not Even Work · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Is a system that could save millions of lives without infringing on our freedoms worth it? Yes. How could anyone think otherwise. These missile defense system can not feasibly be used offensively. If someone gets mad at us for wanting to be able to defend ourselves, isn't that their problem?

  6. Re:Step 1 on Elon Musk: Future Round-Trip To Mars Could Cost Under $500,000 · · Score: 2

    The single most expensive part of a rocket is it's engine. After that it's the fuel tanks. There is no reason these things couldn't be reused without any significant refurbishment between trips, as long as you could recover them. Indeed, the space shuttle was able to save a lot of money by not replacing the engines after every launch. But they had an expensive experimental heat shield that needed extensive repairs after every launch. Add to that the ill-advised use of solid boosters, and you get what adds up to a really bad idea. There's no reason you can't keep the parts of the shuttle program that worked (reusing the engines) and get rid of the rest (the ceramic heat shield, the solid rocket boosters, putting the orbiter next to the fuel tank instead of on top of it).

  7. Re:Once space elevators are built on both planets, on Elon Musk: Future Round-Trip To Mars Could Cost Under $500,000 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Incidentally, fuel accounts for about 1% of the $50 million launch cost of a Falcon 9. That's what Elon Musk is trying to say. If you can get to a point where reassembling and reusing the launch vehicle costs as much as it's fuel, you can bring the cost of space flight down by two orders of magnitude.

  8. Re:The Space Shuttle was supposed to be cheap too on Elon Musk: Future Round-Trip To Mars Could Cost Under $500,000 · · Score: 2

    It turns out that maintenance of a reusable spacecraft is sometimes more expensive than buying a new one.

    . . . if your spacecraft was designed by a congressional committee.

  9. Re:one word on Elon Musk: Future Round-Trip To Mars Could Cost Under $500,000 · · Score: 1

    He's not going to be using the space shuttle, so what does it matter how much fuel the space shuttle uses?

    How does he propose that he is going to go to mars an back while carrying supplies for the whole trip?

    The same way you bring supplies for any trip. You figure out what you'll need and you bring it with you.

  10. Too long? on Apple Sued By Belgian Consumer Association For Not Applying EU Warranty Laws · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Isn't it unreasonable to require a warranty longer than a year for a consumer product? Realistically, if the device you bought is defective you should realize it within a few months. But certainly a year is long enough to notice a defect and get a replacement/repair.

  11. Re:The problem. on Futuristic Biplane Design Eliminates Sonic Boom · · Score: 1

    The military isn't investigating new swing wing designs, even though they have obvious benefits for carrier launch planes and supersonic planes, simply because they cost too much to keep in the air. It's unlikely you'll ever see a commercial one for the same reason. It's too expensive to have moving portions of the wing supporting the weight of the aircraft.

  12. Re:I hope he realizes he did more harm than good on Foxconn "Glad That Mike Daisey's Lies Were Exposed" · · Score: 1

    Because the factories involved were not Foxconn. If I said that you committed a murder, but I knew it was actually your brother, would you then say "but we both have the same mother!" It's absurd to hold one company accountable for the actions of another simply because they both supply the same customer.

  13. Re:To infinity and beyond... on Scientists Build Graphene From Scratch, Atom By Atom · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Room temperature superconductors.

  14. That makes no sense. on Psychic Ability Claim Doesn't Hold Up In New Scientific Experiments · · Score: 1

    How was this not a double blind study? The words displayed twice were chosen at random by a computer. Do you know what double blind means?

  15. Re:Not sure how to feel. on This American Life Retracts Episode On Apple Factories In China · · Score: 1

    Maybe that was true at the turn of the last century, but is it still true today? I haven't seen it happen in my lifetime. Maybe you could say everyone's stopped trying, but I think it's more likely that modern attempts haven't gone anywhere.

    Can you honestly say you take a man performing mock interviews on stage seriously? Do you really think it could have had the same effect? It wouldn't have gotten on TAL, that's for sure.

  16. Re:You are nuts. on Rutgers Student Ravi Convicted of Bias Intimidation and Spying · · Score: 1

    The crime of bias intimidation carries a sentence up to 10 years.

  17. Re:because unlike fingerprints, this one's not acc on New York State Passes DNA Requirement For Almost All Convicted Criminals · · Score: 1

    There is no kind of evidence which infallible. But the way DNA evidence is analyzed makes it more reliable than other kinds. The reason you can find stories like that are the scientific controls used. The reason that it doesn't come up for fringerprints or other types of evidence is they lack controls entirely.

  18. Re:because unlike fingerprints, this one's not acc on New York State Passes DNA Requirement For Almost All Convicted Criminals · · Score: 1

    This is nonsense. There is no piece of evidence that should be sufficient to convict someone on its own. That doesn't make such evidence "unreliable."

  19. Not sure how to feel. on This American Life Retracts Episode On Apple Factories In China · · Score: 1

    The overall idea presented in the story, that you should care about what's going on in the new global economy, is correct. It seems that the stories he got from actually interviewing workers were not, in his mind, compelling enough to move people to action. Most of the real stories are things that happen here: people working overtime, people who are underpaid, repetitive stress injury, worker accidents and the like.

    So he made up some plausable sounding stories to make his point. It's not false in spirit, but he had to present it as literal truth for people to take it seriously. And the reality is that most of the news we read has been similarly embellished. The same way most pictures of models have been photoshopped.

    So the real problem is that most people, when presented with objective facts and figures, are not able to put that information in context and connect it to the underlying human story.

  20. Re:You are nuts. on Rutgers Student Ravi Convicted of Bias Intimidation and Spying · · Score: 1

    If you look up the details of the case, you will see that only he and his girlfriend viewed the live video chat session. And he didn't intimidate his girlfriend into making a false statement, but he texted her about it while she was talking to the police. And he tweeted that he'd witnessed his roommate having sex with a guy. This is what I mean when I say you couldn't be bothered to consider the actual events. You have no clue what you're talking about, and you don't really seem to care.

    Even if what what you'd said we're true, it's not the kind of thing that should be able to send you to prison.

  21. Crimethink on Rutgers Student Ravi Convicted of Bias Intimidation and Spying · · Score: 1

    The word you are looking for is cimethink. The problem with trying to point out what you are trying to point out is that the people you are arguing with are proficient at doublethink, so they can agree with everything you say in one situation, and disagree with it in another.

    What a lot of people don't get is that many people have read 1984 and taken it to be a model for how the world should work.

  22. You are nuts. on Rutgers Student Ravi Convicted of Bias Intimidation and Spying · · Score: 1

    This result is in no way proportional to the crime. And you are a nut for thinking it is, and for implying that you hope he gets raped in prison.

    We now live in a world where you can get 10 years on prison for spying on your roommate with a webcam thanks like idiots like you who can't be bothered to take 10 seconds to look at a situation rationally.

  23. Re:because unlike fingerprints, this one's not acc on New York State Passes DNA Requirement For Almost All Convicted Criminals · · Score: 1

    DNA testing has been shown to be basically unreliable.

    There's nothing unreliable about DNA testing. They even employ controls to rule out laboratory contamination.

    Fingerprints are actually *more* reliable.

    A pseudoscientific method is not more reliable. They don't employ any controls in fingerprint analysis at all. No one who knows anything about this thinks fingerprints are more reliable in DNA. The difference is that with DNA they've taken steps to determine how reliable it is. With fingerprints, they haven't.

  24. Re:Fuck off. on Astroturfing For Speed Cameras · · Score: 1

    They don't make any meds for what I've got.

  25. Fuel cells are overrated. on Cheap Solar Panels Made With An Ion Cannon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You can burn the hydrogen in a combined cycle plant and get 70% efficiency. Fuel cells are overrated.