hmm.. the mac mini, the iPod shuffle, price drops across the ipod line. and it's only march.
I sure would like a non reg version of the article
on
Re-Imagining Apple
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· Score: 0, Offtopic
reg is annoying.
deja vu? didn't this one get /.'d a while back?
on
The Solar Death Ray
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· Score: 1
I read an article about http://www.amasci.com/amateur/mirror.htmlthis solar array quite a while ago, I thought it had been posted hear.
112 mirrors doesn't really sound like a lot.. if you covered a 4 by 8 sheet of plywood with 1 inch mirrors, you'd be able to get 4608 mirrors in your array, not allowing for clearance. if you use the same number and make the mirros 3/4 inch, you would end up with a target spot around that size at 4608 times the power of the sun.
I think that would do some considerable damage.
The only thing that worries me about self replicating machines is the "grey goo" problem. This is pretty much only an issue with nanotech replicators, I don't see it happening with this approach. For those not familiar with the term, the grey goo issue is when self replicating machines go out of control and turn everything into copies of themselves, rather than the target material.
Altho the approach described in the article won't work with all metal alloys or glass, it's very likely that this type of machine could make molds. Making a negative of a 3d model isn't that much harder than making a positive. Anyone who's ever done any sand casting of metal will get the idea.
Although the seed cost of 25k (pounds? what is that, about 40k usd?) might sound prohibitive to get the ball rolling, keep in mind that the cost of rapid prototyping machines has hit that price point only a short time after they cost millions.
One of the great benefits of fabs like this would be a shift from mass production to single person production. Once everyone has a fab on their desktop, and a supply of low cost feedstock, the economy of scale that makes mass production a good idea no longer comes into play. If you want a set of plastic bowels, plastic toys, or whatever, they don't have to be the same as the rest of the production run, they can be made special just for you. If this is the case, perhaps the design behind the objects will become valuable. Anyone with a pc and the right software could become and industrial designer.
I'm still eagerly awaiting the arrival of nanoassemblers, which I think will be bigger than fire, but this is an exciting development that could change a lot of things.
I think this is a great idea. A business model based on giving something away is one of my favorites, and has been since the release of doom 1.0. If done well, everyone benefits.
One thing I'm wondering.. this persistant band of content. How long will it take until someone comes up with a way to disable that? I seem to recall various other schemes that used a similar concept, and it always seemed like someone would quickly come up with a method for removing the revenue generating add content.
Maybe a similar idea would work better, i.e. instead of a persistent bar of content, you could have an add filled portal type page that the user sees when they first access the hot spot. Not hard to set up at all.
Of course, it might be that their ad content is just fine, and not a bother. Google is an example of a company doing that kind of thing correctly. We get a useful service, and the ads aren't flashing yellow monstrosities. If done wrong, tho, it can be a nightmare.
Although the ISS has been marketed from time to time as a "jumping off point", it's not really designed to be one.
Even if we did have a properly designed way station, in the right orbit, at the right inclination, there's an entire infrastructure that doesn't exist. To truly get good use out of a way station, you need specialized space craft, rather than a general purpose pickup truck.
For example, there are very different mission requirements for getting personnel into low earth orbit as opposed to material. It doesn't make any sense to try and use one vehicle, like the shuttle, for both. Material can withstand greater acceleration than people, without the need for life support. So why not have different lifters for people and parts?
Also, any craft that travel from the earth to orbit have certain needs based on the fact that they travel through the atmosphere, and have to reenter that atmosphere. Aerodynamic design, heat shields, etc. These are design features that aren't really anything except for dead weight when you're trying to go from low earth orbit to high earth orbit.
A space tug designed specifically to go from low orbits to high orbits could probably do the job a lot better, and more safely.
High earth orbit also makes a lot more sense as an assembly point. Why would you want to put all your goodies together over the course of time when you still have so much gravity well to climb up out of?
Low earth orbit is also full of junk. I don't know how many pieces of space garbage they're currently tracking in LEO, but I know there's a bunch of it. Why not have your assembly point a little farther out where there's less stuff to put a hole in your mars spaceship?
Of course, if you go out a useful distance, you'll need radiation shielding, a lot more than what the ISS has.
If you're going to be assembling larger craft for manned interplanetary missions, you'll need room to store all your stuff, whether it be vehicle components, reaction mass, consumables, construction crew, whatever. The ISS doesn't have room for any of that junk, even if you through a bunch of inflatable hab modules at it.
The ISS is a laboratory, and it's serving that purpose pretty darn well, despite the fact that it's not even fully staffed or supplied.
Imho, we need a way station, but the ISS isn't it, never was, and never will be.
We've done quite a bit of experimenting with renderfarm hardware. Don't know quite as much about the software aspects of it, as I'm heavily invested in 3dsMax, knowledgewise, so that's what we've been sticking with.
The best solution we found as far as bang for buck was getting whatever AMD chip was fastest at the $100 or less price point, and adding motherboard, powersupply, and memory, 512 meg per unit. no cases, we just have all the motherboards in a custom built case (an old server rack that we gutted and tricked out with extra fans..). No hard drives, everything boots of the network. No video, only the actual workstation needs video. All the mother boards have integrated 100 ethernet, so no network cards. No floppies, mice, keyboards, sound, speakers, all that stuff is pretty much not needed for renderfarm nodes.
The $100 price point for the AMD chips is not the result of extensive research, it just seems that after buying them for the last few years that seems to be the best point as far as horsepower for dollars.
We're still running nt4, as those are the licenses we had.. tried XPpro on a couple computers, and it was way slow.
Max has network rendering stuff that comes with that has worked great for us, I don't know about Maya or the other packages.
We're going to stick with this setup for now. If a huge project comes down the pipe, we plan on doing some research into an all linux setup, with some kind of open source rendering software that will integrate well with a decent 3d package.
Last but not least, consider NOT buying a render farm. When we had some huge projects and a tight deadline, we made deals with some of our security and consulting customers, to use their entire network of PC's as a render farm. 700 average desktops at a state office end up doing a pretty good job as a render farm.
This is big breakthrough for this team. As soon as I heard Rutan was in the mix, I figured these folks were the ones to watch.
Even if they do win the X prize, however, what will the impact on manned space flight be?
imho, manned space flight is never going to get anywhere until private companies discover a way to make a profit by putting people into space.
Sattelites were pretty much a scientific curiousity, or for research, until the profit making possibilities with communications sat's became known. Once there was a way to make a profit, you started seeing all kinds of stuff going up, and a variety of launch systems to get it there.
What will be the big money maker that will make human space flight profitable? Is space tourism a sufficient driving force? I think the cost will have to come down to well below 20 million a ticket before that's the case.
Slashdot Mirror
hmm.. the mac mini, the iPod shuffle, price drops across the ipod line. and it's only march.
reg is annoying.
I read an article about http://www.amasci.com/amateur/mirror.htmlthis solar array quite a while ago, I thought it had been posted hear. 112 mirrors doesn't really sound like a lot.. if you covered a 4 by 8 sheet of plywood with 1 inch mirrors, you'd be able to get 4608 mirrors in your array, not allowing for clearance. if you use the same number and make the mirros 3/4 inch, you would end up with a target spot around that size at 4608 times the power of the sun. I think that would do some considerable damage.
The only thing that worries me about self replicating machines is the "grey goo" problem. This is pretty much only an issue with nanotech replicators, I don't see it happening with this approach. For those not familiar with the term, the grey goo issue is when self replicating machines go out of control and turn everything into copies of themselves, rather than the target material. Altho the approach described in the article won't work with all metal alloys or glass, it's very likely that this type of machine could make molds. Making a negative of a 3d model isn't that much harder than making a positive. Anyone who's ever done any sand casting of metal will get the idea. Although the seed cost of 25k (pounds? what is that, about 40k usd?) might sound prohibitive to get the ball rolling, keep in mind that the cost of rapid prototyping machines has hit that price point only a short time after they cost millions. One of the great benefits of fabs like this would be a shift from mass production to single person production. Once everyone has a fab on their desktop, and a supply of low cost feedstock, the economy of scale that makes mass production a good idea no longer comes into play. If you want a set of plastic bowels, plastic toys, or whatever, they don't have to be the same as the rest of the production run, they can be made special just for you. If this is the case, perhaps the design behind the objects will become valuable. Anyone with a pc and the right software could become and industrial designer. I'm still eagerly awaiting the arrival of nanoassemblers, which I think will be bigger than fire, but this is an exciting development that could change a lot of things.
thanks for posting that, it was the only way I could see it. I really appreciate it. Hope you don't have a /. meltdown =)
I think this is a great idea. A business model based on giving something away is one of my favorites, and has been since the release of doom 1.0. If done well, everyone benefits. One thing I'm wondering.. this persistant band of content. How long will it take until someone comes up with a way to disable that? I seem to recall various other schemes that used a similar concept, and it always seemed like someone would quickly come up with a method for removing the revenue generating add content. Maybe a similar idea would work better, i.e. instead of a persistent bar of content, you could have an add filled portal type page that the user sees when they first access the hot spot. Not hard to set up at all. Of course, it might be that their ad content is just fine, and not a bother. Google is an example of a company doing that kind of thing correctly. We get a useful service, and the ads aren't flashing yellow monstrosities. If done wrong, tho, it can be a nightmare.
I didn't get it at first, but once I did, possibly on of the funniest things I've read at /.
=)
Although the ISS has been marketed from time to time as a "jumping off point", it's not really designed to be one.
Even if we did have a properly designed way station, in the right orbit, at the right inclination, there's an entire infrastructure that doesn't exist. To truly get good use out of a way station, you need specialized space craft, rather than a general purpose pickup truck.
For example, there are very different mission requirements for getting personnel into low earth orbit as opposed to material. It doesn't make any sense to try and use one vehicle, like the shuttle, for both. Material can withstand greater acceleration than people, without the need for life support. So why not have different lifters for people and parts?
Also, any craft that travel from the earth to orbit have certain needs based on the fact that they travel through the atmosphere, and have to reenter that atmosphere. Aerodynamic design, heat shields, etc. These are design features that aren't really anything except for dead weight when you're trying to go from low earth orbit to high earth orbit.
A space tug designed specifically to go from low orbits to high orbits could probably do the job a lot better, and more safely.
High earth orbit also makes a lot more sense as an assembly point. Why would you want to put all your goodies together over the course of time when you still have so much gravity well to climb up out of?
Low earth orbit is also full of junk. I don't know how many pieces of space garbage they're currently tracking in LEO, but I know there's a bunch of it. Why not have your assembly point a little farther out where there's less stuff to put a hole in your mars spaceship?
Of course, if you go out a useful distance, you'll need radiation shielding, a lot more than what the ISS has.
If you're going to be assembling larger craft for manned interplanetary missions, you'll need room to store all your stuff, whether it be vehicle components, reaction mass, consumables, construction crew, whatever. The ISS doesn't have room for any of that junk, even if you through a bunch of inflatable hab modules at it.
The ISS is a laboratory, and it's serving that purpose pretty darn well, despite the fact that it's not even fully staffed or supplied.
Imho, we need a way station, but the ISS isn't it, never was, and never will be.
We've done quite a bit of experimenting with renderfarm hardware. Don't know quite as much about the software aspects of it, as I'm heavily invested in 3dsMax, knowledgewise, so that's what we've been sticking with. The best solution we found as far as bang for buck was getting whatever AMD chip was fastest at the $100 or less price point, and adding motherboard, powersupply, and memory, 512 meg per unit. no cases, we just have all the motherboards in a custom built case (an old server rack that we gutted and tricked out with extra fans..). No hard drives, everything boots of the network. No video, only the actual workstation needs video. All the mother boards have integrated 100 ethernet, so no network cards. No floppies, mice, keyboards, sound, speakers, all that stuff is pretty much not needed for renderfarm nodes. The $100 price point for the AMD chips is not the result of extensive research, it just seems that after buying them for the last few years that seems to be the best point as far as horsepower for dollars. We're still running nt4, as those are the licenses we had.. tried XPpro on a couple computers, and it was way slow. Max has network rendering stuff that comes with that has worked great for us, I don't know about Maya or the other packages. We're going to stick with this setup for now. If a huge project comes down the pipe, we plan on doing some research into an all linux setup, with some kind of open source rendering software that will integrate well with a decent 3d package. Last but not least, consider NOT buying a render farm. When we had some huge projects and a tight deadline, we made deals with some of our security and consulting customers, to use their entire network of PC's as a render farm. 700 average desktops at a state office end up doing a pretty good job as a render farm.
This is big breakthrough for this team. As soon as I heard Rutan was in the mix, I figured these folks were the ones to watch. Even if they do win the X prize, however, what will the impact on manned space flight be? imho, manned space flight is never going to get anywhere until private companies discover a way to make a profit by putting people into space. Sattelites were pretty much a scientific curiousity, or for research, until the profit making possibilities with communications sat's became known. Once there was a way to make a profit, you started seeing all kinds of stuff going up, and a variety of launch systems to get it there. What will be the big money maker that will make human space flight profitable? Is space tourism a sufficient driving force? I think the cost will have to come down to well below 20 million a ticket before that's the case.