In the form of Natal, certainly cheap. Mighty fun stuff; somebody will finally make, using also this thing, robotic overlords good enough to doom us all.
Assuming there will be free Windows SDK at the least, of course... (or, even better, the protocol will be clear enough to figure out easily into lib usable across platforms)
You mean "gods", right? That particular book of mythology certainly does have something to do with the character typically called "God", who goes also by the name of Yahweh, Elohim, and so on...
I suspect we will have to wait significantly less than "centuries" for larger dataset regarding life in the Universe. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if in less than two decades we will have telescopes capable of resolving Earth-like planets and analyzing their atmospheres (and highly active biospheres probably tend to heavily influence those)
Even in our system the list of suspect places is quite long, giving us plenty opportunities for exploration. Not only Mars, but also Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, even Enceladus of high atmosphere of Venus; at the least.
"Organic" simply means based on carbon chemistry. And since carbon is one of the most abundant elements in the Universe...you can find organic molecules pretty much anywhere; doesn't mean at all that life processes are responsible for their presence.
But they are a good starting point for life, given proper conditions...
Though existence / non-existence of life isn't a scientific theory per se, it's mostly a datapoint, observation (establishment of which might in this case depend on many scientific theories, granted; but that's not exactly the same and I'd wager they will choose a very strong ones)
BTW, are you skeptical that your great-great-grandparents existed?
Negligible effect; majority of the energy in the collision comes from the orbital velocity of satellite, not the impactor (which is almost stationary in comparison). Plus such kinds of collisions behave quite weird and probably don't transfer momentum very well.
But what you suggest would make the projectile much less effective. Bigger rocket required, easier to notice and intercept, more time for evasive maneuvers, target being on the noisy background of Earth.
Where do you people get those ideas? There would be certainly no "flying off into space", of anything - giving the kill vehicle energies required would be pointless. As pointless as any explosives or trying to "reorient" the satellite. And it would certainly not "push it into lower orbit" the way you imagine.
Simply put, at few kilometers per second contact speed, the contact itself is enough to shatter the satellite into thousands of pieces (which will deorbit faster due to much larger area to mass ratio, much larger drag)
OTOH it's quite an easy way to be remembered for a bit longer and by a somewhat larger group of people; even have encyclopedic records about oneself, for example.
That's the best any of us can hope for anyway, after death.
From your requirements, you should like plasma TVs...better get one while that's still possible (yes, I don't think you should expect any radically new tech really launching anytime soon)
No, that speed is far beyond practical limits of chemical rockets. Also, novel kinds of propulsion generally rarely would have a chance to go beyond 10%, if remaining practical.
And read up about gravity assist more. Suffice to say, you can't obtain via slingshot the energy from the Sun while still being in orbit around it; and if you already aren't, it would be only practical in certain directions relative to the movement of the Sun around the Milky Way.
What would work is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberth_effect , but not after passing the Sun (which would count as a grave waste of fuel) but during nearest approach.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems it's a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-of-flight_camera , made with the tech MS acquired from 3DV Systems.
In the form of Natal, certainly cheap. Mighty fun stuff; somebody will finally make, using also this thing, robotic overlords good enough to doom us all.
Assuming there will be free Windows SDK at the least, of course... (or, even better, the protocol will be clear enough to figure out easily into lib usable across platforms)
I think you just described Apple fans too.. and they're far more numerous. :)
Simply looking at their marketshare (global one, please...) makes the last part highly unlikely.
...mineralized evidence, isotope dating of which supports the notion of its formation while the rock was still on Mars.
You mean "gods", right? That particular book of mythology certainly does have something to do with the character typically called "God", who goes also by the name of Yahweh, Elohim, and so on...
Personally I'm surprised at McKay not being as uncompromising as usual.
"Change", anyone?...
I suspect we will have to wait significantly less than "centuries" for larger dataset regarding life in the Universe. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if in less than two decades we will have telescopes capable of resolving Earth-like planets and analyzing their atmospheres (and highly active biospheres probably tend to heavily influence those)
Even in our system the list of suspect places is quite long, giving us plenty opportunities for exploration. Not only Mars, but also Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, even Enceladus of high atmosphere of Venus; at the least.
"Organic" simply means based on carbon chemistry. And since carbon is one of the most abundant elements in the Universe...you can find organic molecules pretty much anywhere; doesn't mean at all that life processes are responsible for their presence.
But they are a good starting point for life, given proper conditions...
Though existence / non-existence of life isn't a scientific theory per se, it's mostly a datapoint, observation (establishment of which might in this case depend on many scientific theories, granted; but that's not exactly the same and I'd wager they will choose a very strong ones)
BTW, are you skeptical that your great-great-grandparents existed?
Negligible effect; majority of the energy in the collision comes from the orbital velocity of satellite, not the impactor (which is almost stationary in comparison). Plus such kinds of collisions behave quite weird and probably don't transfer momentum very well.
But what you suggest would make the projectile much less effective. Bigger rocket required, easier to notice and intercept, more time for evasive maneuvers, target being on the noisy background of Earth.
Where do you people get those ideas? There would be certainly no "flying off into space", of anything - giving the kill vehicle energies required would be pointless. As pointless as any explosives or trying to "reorient" the satellite. And it would certainly not "push it into lower orbit" the way you imagine.
Simply put, at few kilometers per second contact speed, the contact itself is enough to shatter the satellite into thousands of pieces (which will deorbit faster due to much larger area to mass ratio, much larger drag)
Many here imagined worse.
Oh, don't forget to mention the Space Shuttle
And the few test firings were with the cannon pointing "back", so the projectiles rapidly deorbited.
Human one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_papillomavirus
OTOH it's quite an easy way to be remembered for a bit longer and by a somewhat larger group of people; even have encyclopedic records about oneself, for example.
That's the best any of us can hope for anyway, after death.
I'm just paraphrasing one saying about SciFi. It's always best when you are twelve (or any other your golden age, really)
From your requirements, you should like plasma TVs...better get one while that's still possible (yes, I don't think you should expect any radically new tech really launching anytime soon)
"The golden age of gaming is twelve"
No, that speed is far beyond practical limits of chemical rockets. Also, novel kinds of propulsion generally rarely would have a chance to go beyond 10%, if remaining practical.
And read up about gravity assist more. Suffice to say, you can't obtain via slingshot the energy from the Sun while still being in orbit around it; and if you already aren't, it would be only practical in certain directions relative to the movement of the Sun around the Milky Way.
What would work is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberth_effect , but not after passing the Sun (which would count as a grave waste of fuel) but during nearest approach.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch/
RSS, e-mail, Twitter, OSX & Yahoo Widget; whatever you prefer.
Cats?! You don't want to save anything that makes you human?!
PS. This one gallon per day per person isn't as bad as it sounds - it's a total water input necessary, including what you get in meals.
Imagine: a Kindle with reworked UI and, most importantly, having e-ink screen replaced with refreshable Braille display.
It's all just a stream of characters after all, and it's up to the device how to display them.
So...the Chinese might simple create lookalikes of websites that aren't present in their market, ending with *.cn domain?
But some of us like people...