Actually, in the solar system gaps between planets range from 1.4 to just under 2, if you count the failed planet where the asteroid belt is (probably got shredded by Jupiter's gravitational influence while it was trying to form). This tends to happen because 1.4 or so is roughly the region of stability for coplanar elliptical near-circular orbits; any closer and the third body perturbation significantly messes around with the orbit over a long time scale.
Lunar systems of gas giants are also governed by orbital resonances and stability. Typically however for moons you get PERIOD resonances, where the periods of two orbits are nearly integer ratios of each other (ex: Ganymede, Europa, and Io are in a 1:2:4 resonance). Period scales with the 3/2 power of orbital radius, so you can pretty quickly calculate that while gas giant moons fall into the same rough regime (1.4-2x the distance of the closest neighbor), in practice you get moons even closer than you'll get planets because the 3rd body perturbations of the sun are even more apparent.
Capsule description: Same overall mechanism governs spacing between planets and moons, but the 3rd-body influences are sufficiently different to affect the observed behavior.
In my opinion, the best strategy guides are the ones that go with strategy games. A few easy examples come to mind: Master of Orion 1 (written by Alan Emrich, who I maintain doesn't deserve the blame for MoO3), Alpha Centauri (probably the best strategy guide I've ever had) and Civilization: Call to Power.
Ahh, I see. At least a few years ago Statics was the main washout course for AEs. And Physics 2 (E-mag, Re-mag, Three-mag, Management) is a washout course for pretty much everyone...
There's a big difference between going on a drive where you've never been before and hanging your rear end out the window waiting for the next 18 wheeler to knock it off.
Fairly tortured analogy, I'll admit, but the first case is what we should do- Difficult things, things we've never done before. That's not the same thing as recklessly doing the very most difficult thing we could possibly, do, like the shuttle.
Oh, and this guy has more advanced degrees and experience than either of us will ever have combined. I'm fairly willing to believe he's a smart person.
The SSMEs work fabulously. Utterly fabulously. They are, without hyperbole, probably the best rocket engines in the world, where "best" is a murky figure of merit that includes thrust, specific impulse, and reliability- ESPECIALLY amazing considering their complexity! I would be screaming until my head fell off if we DIDN'T reuse the SSME on a shuttle followon, because if there is a single great thing that came out of the STS program it is the SSME.
If you want to scream about something, scream about the plan to continue using the shuttle SRBs in the future launchers.
(Good God, yet another Tech person. It's a plague, I tell you. 8th Biblical or somesuch.)
I can tell you my department at Georgia Tech is going through a near crisis right now because we've got WAY TOO MANY UNDERGRADS COMING IN and- I swear this is true- there are people grumbling from professors, to grad students, to undergrads themselves that not enough people are being pushed out of the major by ridiculously harsh grading and courses early on. The first two years are, traditionally, the "gateway" to higher classes.
When I got here in 2001 as an undergrad my department took in 150 and graduated 60 or so- Most higher level classes could get by with 1 or 2 smallish-medium sections and personalized instuction. Now that I'm a grad student 4 years later, we take in over 200 a year and graduate about 90. We've stayed at around a 40-45% graduation rate, but now we don't really have enough professors, enough classrooms, etc. to do a good job of upper level undergrad teaching, and the strain is starting to be felt in all levels.
I say, bring on an undergraduate engineering shortage- PLEASE!
I keep hearing complaints about TA's teaching courses and I wonder where I was when that happened.
I can count on one hand the number of lectures I got from a graduate student in my major classes at Georgia Tech. Circuits was taught by a TA, but I'm not even sure he counts since he already had a Ph.D in the subject and was 'just' working on another. Other than that, my department only uses graduate students to teach the labs, and even then a professor keeps fairly tight supervision on us (I'm a TA now)
Let's see... statics course... Georgia Tech... 40% on exams where the average is half that...
Yeah, I'd say you sound like an Aerospace Engineering person. Maybe Mechanical, but I didn't think they were as hardcore.
I got into engineering- specifically aerospace- because of one radical reason. I know what I want to do with my life (spacecraft design) and a few aerospace degrees seems like the most efficient way to get my feet in the door at [NASA, Boeing, Lock-Mar, Blue Origin, Spacex, name any of the other dozens of small companies] so I can show them what I can do. That's what I'm going to college and now grad school in engineering for. Less so I can learn things than so I can make an employer realize I've learned things so I can get a chance to show what I Know.
Re:Your Most Underrated Game
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Ask Sid Meier
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· Score: 1
This has to be Covert Action. Quite simply one of the most fun, engaging games of that era.
I've been playing this mod for most of the night, and I have to say I'm absolutely loving it. The balance on the map's a little off, but it's very fun on either side.
I'll be sure to inform Georgia Tech so they can take away my degree in aerospace engineering.
If you want to build on the Moon, mine stuff on the moon. It's got useful building materials and minerals and may even have water ice in the polar craters. It doesn't have organics, which is the only thing it needs.
If you want to build on the asteroids, why? To mine them? Mine what on them? Minerals and metals. Why? The only really interesting use for asteroid belt materials is to build in space. For what? To mine more asteroids? At some point there really does have to be an obvious, not-centuries-long-term profit making scheme.
I've read Zubrin's "The Case for Mars", and "Entering Space" as well as his laughably bad novel about Martian colonization. I think that largely he's become a zealot, and like all zealots, exaggerates and shades information to make his Cause look better.
Realistically, it will take over a hundred billion dollars at a minimum to set up, not a simple manned mission, but a mining operation that can produce nontrivial amounts of Stuff. With those kinds of sunk costs, and the massively high recurring costs for any such operation pretty much make it economically unfeasible until a next-next generation propulsion technology like M2P2 becomes mature.
The bigger concern honestly is contaminating Mars and ruining a search for life there. That could be an unprecedented scientific screwup and definitely one I could see a private company doing.
Even mining solid gold would not turn a profit. It's just too expensive (A few thousand dollars per pound to get into EARTH ORBIT, let alone TO MARS AND BACK) for any known material to really be an economic Winner Mars-mining wise.
I know the typical Slashdot geeks will wet their pants over this, but this simply isn't reasonable, guys.
Mine WHAT? The economics and physics of the situation are such that Martian material is valuable for using on Mars or in Mars orbit. That's IT. And even then, what does Mars have? The only really importnant thing is organic chemicals and suchlike, because otherwise it is boring mineral slag.
But laser cannons are absolute cash cows, get you more profit than any other manufacture. So the military can, if they mass produce this, afford to nuke Mars.
"And even though this seems to violate all sorts of cherished physical assumptions, Einstein needn't move over - relativity isn't called into question, because only a portion of the signal is affected."
So no, this isn't the massive, century-defining, warp-drive-enabling experiment you all are dreaming for. Sorry. It's neat, and it'll probably have cool applications though. And that should be enough.
I really, really dig HL2DM. Much more than Counterstrike, call me crazy.
I really like the new maps. The one (can't remember which it is!) that's the fairly small map, with a fairly enclosed area for the rocket launcher and a balcony overlooking the area with a shield terminal an excellent field of fire... yeah, that one's absolute mad joy in a 6v6 team deathmatch. Both teams tend to set up around two separate defensible points and lay into each other.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, in the solar system gaps between planets range from 1.4 to just under 2, if you count the failed planet where the asteroid belt is (probably got shredded by Jupiter's gravitational influence while it was trying to form). This tends to happen because 1.4 or so is roughly the region of stability for coplanar elliptical near-circular orbits; any closer and the third body perturbation significantly messes around with the orbit over a long time scale. Lunar systems of gas giants are also governed by orbital resonances and stability. Typically however for moons you get PERIOD resonances, where the periods of two orbits are nearly integer ratios of each other (ex: Ganymede, Europa, and Io are in a 1:2:4 resonance). Period scales with the 3/2 power of orbital radius, so you can pretty quickly calculate that while gas giant moons fall into the same rough regime (1.4-2x the distance of the closest neighbor), in practice you get moons even closer than you'll get planets because the 3rd body perturbations of the sun are even more apparent. Capsule description: Same overall mechanism governs spacing between planets and moons, but the 3rd-body influences are sufficiently different to affect the observed behavior.
In my opinion, the best strategy guides are the ones that go with strategy games. A few easy examples come to mind: Master of Orion 1 (written by Alan Emrich, who I maintain doesn't deserve the blame for MoO3), Alpha Centauri (probably the best strategy guide I've ever had) and Civilization: Call to Power.
I don't know, man. I for one am utterly fnord terrified of Fernando Poo.
In my experience, it's the physics professors that specifically try to punish non-physics students in EMag.
Ahh, I see. At least a few years ago Statics was the main washout course for AEs. And Physics 2 (E-mag, Re-mag, Three-mag, Management) is a washout course for pretty much everyone...
Because we want a normal, sane cost vs time curve, and we don't want to spend a significant percentage of the national budget?
There's a big difference between going on a drive where you've never been before and hanging your rear end out the window waiting for the next 18 wheeler to knock it off.
Fairly tortured analogy, I'll admit, but the first case is what we should do- Difficult things, things we've never done before. That's not the same thing as recklessly doing the very most difficult thing we could possibly, do, like the shuttle.
Oh, and this guy has more advanced degrees and experience than either of us will ever have combined. I'm fairly willing to believe he's a smart person.
The SSMEs work fabulously. Utterly fabulously. They are, without hyperbole, probably the best rocket engines in the world, where "best" is a murky figure of merit that includes thrust, specific impulse, and reliability- ESPECIALLY amazing considering their complexity! I would be screaming until my head fell off if we DIDN'T reuse the SSME on a shuttle followon, because if there is a single great thing that came out of the STS program it is the SSME.
If you want to scream about something, scream about the plan to continue using the shuttle SRBs in the future launchers.
(Good God, yet another Tech person. It's a plague, I tell you. 8th Biblical or somesuch.)
I can tell you my department at Georgia Tech is going through a near crisis right now because we've got WAY TOO MANY UNDERGRADS COMING IN and- I swear this is true- there are people grumbling from professors, to grad students, to undergrads themselves that not enough people are being pushed out of the major by ridiculously harsh grading and courses early on. The first two years are, traditionally, the "gateway" to higher classes.
When I got here in 2001 as an undergrad my department took in 150 and graduated 60 or so- Most higher level classes could get by with 1 or 2 smallish-medium sections and personalized instuction. Now that I'm a grad student 4 years later, we take in over 200 a year and graduate about 90. We've stayed at around a 40-45% graduation rate, but now we don't really have enough professors, enough classrooms, etc. to do a good job of upper level undergrad teaching, and the strain is starting to be felt in all levels.
I say, bring on an undergraduate engineering shortage- PLEASE!
I keep hearing complaints about TA's teaching courses and I wonder where I was when that happened.
I can count on one hand the number of lectures I got from a graduate student in my major classes at Georgia Tech. Circuits was taught by a TA, but I'm not even sure he counts since he already had a Ph.D in the subject and was 'just' working on another. Other than that, my department only uses graduate students to teach the labs, and even then a professor keeps fairly tight supervision on us (I'm a TA now)
Let's see... statics course... Georgia Tech... 40% on exams where the average is half that... Yeah, I'd say you sound like an Aerospace Engineering person. Maybe Mechanical, but I didn't think they were as hardcore.
I got into engineering- specifically aerospace- because of one radical reason. I know what I want to do with my life (spacecraft design) and a few aerospace degrees seems like the most efficient way to get my feet in the door at [NASA, Boeing, Lock-Mar, Blue Origin, Spacex, name any of the other dozens of small companies] so I can show them what I can do. That's what I'm going to college and now grad school in engineering for. Less so I can learn things than so I can make an employer realize I've learned things so I can get a chance to show what I Know.
This has to be Covert Action. Quite simply one of the most fun, engaging games of that era.
I'll buy it at retail if and only if the devteam can come up with an interesting single player campaign to go with the multi.
I've been playing this mod for most of the night, and I have to say I'm absolutely loving it. The balance on the map's a little off, but it's very fun on either side.
Heavy with minigun = doom
I know some of those guys. They're good drinkers. Fun at parties. Etc.
I'll be sure to inform Georgia Tech so they can take away my degree in aerospace engineering.
If you want to build on the Moon, mine stuff on the moon. It's got useful building materials and minerals and may even have water ice in the polar craters. It doesn't have organics, which is the only thing it needs.
If you want to build on the asteroids, why? To mine them? Mine what on them? Minerals and metals. Why? The only really interesting use for asteroid belt materials is to build in space. For what? To mine more asteroids? At some point there really does have to be an obvious, not-centuries-long-term profit making scheme.
I've read Zubrin's "The Case for Mars", and "Entering Space" as well as his laughably bad novel about Martian colonization. I think that largely he's become a zealot, and like all zealots, exaggerates and shades information to make his Cause look better.
Realistically, it will take over a hundred billion dollars at a minimum to set up, not a simple manned mission, but a mining operation that can produce nontrivial amounts of Stuff. With those kinds of sunk costs, and the massively high recurring costs for any such operation pretty much make it economically unfeasible until a next-next generation propulsion technology like M2P2 becomes mature.
The bigger concern honestly is contaminating Mars and ruining a search for life there. That could be an unprecedented scientific screwup and definitely one I could see a private company doing.
Even mining solid gold would not turn a profit. It's just too expensive (A few thousand dollars per pound to get into EARTH ORBIT, let alone TO MARS AND BACK) for any known material to really be an economic Winner Mars-mining wise.
I know the typical Slashdot geeks will wet their pants over this, but this simply isn't reasonable, guys.
Mine WHAT? The economics and physics of the situation are such that Martian material is valuable for using on Mars or in Mars orbit. That's IT. And even then, what does Mars have? The only really importnant thing is organic chemicals and suchlike, because otherwise it is boring mineral slag.
But laser cannons are absolute cash cows, get you more profit than any other manufacture. So the military can, if they mass produce this, afford to nuke Mars.
"And even though this seems to violate all sorts of cherished physical assumptions, Einstein needn't move over - relativity isn't called into question, because only a portion of the signal is affected."
So no, this isn't the massive, century-defining, warp-drive-enabling experiment you all are dreaming for. Sorry. It's neat, and it'll probably have cool applications though. And that should be enough.
I see better costumes at most scifi conventions. *sad but true*
For bonus points, read the comments on the blog. They're almost as funny, in many cases, as the actual entry.
I really, really dig HL2DM. Much more than Counterstrike, call me crazy.
I really like the new maps. The one (can't remember which it is!) that's the fairly small map, with a fairly enclosed area for the rocket launcher and a balcony overlooking the area with a shield terminal an excellent field of fire... yeah, that one's absolute mad joy in a 6v6 team deathmatch. Both teams tend to set up around two separate defensible points and lay into each other.
Don't hold your breath. I have ever since they stopped making NCAA for the PC way back when.