But why do this? Why try to grow plain ol simple veggies in one of mankind's most complex artificial environments? We know we can run clean rooms that filter all manner of things out. We know you can do closed cycle hydroponics. So now you can do it close to a polluted zone (or Trenton, New Jersey, if you are desperate).
Woot.
Is the low potassium / nitrate that much of an advantage?
Unfortunately, I think you're mostly right. The second biggest elephant in the room is our untested, unknown and purely hypothetical ability do what amounts to re terraforming the planet. The biggest elephant is our (planetwide) political will to do something other than piss in each other's Cheerios.
Beginning to smell like a whole lotta elephant in here.
1. The ISS was a mistake in and of itself. The science its done wasn't worth the money.
The same can be said for any large, multi national project - science, engineering, 'sports'.
There were cheaper ways to attain the same knowledge.
Always. Especially in hindsight and especially before a project is started.
That money could have been better spent on other NASA projects.
See previous.
2. Never trust the Russians. By all means do whatever in the name of diplomacy. But NEVER trust them.
Don't trust ANYBODY. Including ourselves.
3. Allowing the US to lose its ability to go to space while the ISS remained active.
4. Not cultivating alternatives from spaceX etc that offered to fill the gap.
It goes without saying that the US is run badly these days.
Yep, Stupid. Stupid. Even for the US, it was stupid.
The politics being what they are about half the population will never admit it but such is the reality. As a people, we need to grow beyond our factionalism, find common ground, and hold our leaders to some reasonable standards. Otherwise, we'll just bounce between one faction's incompetents and the other's. Each side giving the profound incompetence of its own candidates a blind eye until they're out of political capital and then it shifts to the next guy. Back and forth.
While your goals are laudable, they are not likely achievable. Look back at the 10000 year history of 'modern' man and you see the same thing over and over again.
And that little fact is almost entirely due to Congress' inability to think past pork and the next re election cycle. Yes, NASA has some internal issues (as does every human endevour with more than one person involved) but yo-yo funding and put-it-here thinking have really trashed the agency.
But anyway, all I wanted to say is to go look at that picture. Look at that control panel! Now that's technology. Switches! Meters! A model 30 (?) teletype with key travel measured in furlongs.
(And, as an aside, for a picture in the 1960's it was remarkably 'diverse'. A woman, a black man and and a skinny geek with a tie. Mayhaps we've not moved as far forward as we give ourselves credit for.)
I mean really folks, how hard is it to take your smartphone, snap a picture of that expensive $gizmo, snap a pic of the receipt, maybe a closeup of the SN??
I've done that for all of my camera gear, guns and whatnot. The data sits in my 1password file. Encrypted and copied to dropbox. Encrypted and copied to off site storage. If I lose all of that, well, sucks to be me. But it takes but a few seconds whenever you buy something expensive.
Get some insurance, pat your Doug on it's head and enjoy life.
For all of you who take your cue from the Adobe marketing team, the moniker "Creative Cloud" is really a misnomer. Yes, the applications have to hit the authentication servers - every 90 days or so. The applications are run locally. The only thing that is 'cloudlike' is Adobe's 'Behance' service which is a store, a Dropbox wannabe and a typeface collection.
It's a dick move and one that benefits Adobe rather than Adobe's customers (amazing...), but it's Not The End Of The World.
Which means that Adobe has something like 89 days to get the servers running. It checks monthly, but you can go off line for quite some time before it has hissies.
If you're addicted to TypeKit or if you are one of the five people using their cloud storage, you might have an issue.
The rest of us, not so much. In fact, if the software quits pestering me about Yet Another Upgrade Today, I'd be perfectly happy.
And to be a bit pedantic, Stevens was involved in a bunch of 'things to nowhere'. Bridges, roads, airports, train tracks, more roads and a couple of random military installations. Of course, in Alaska, it's pretty easy to make things that go to various bits of nowhere since there is an enormous amount of nowhere just about everywhere.
There is a rumor up here in Alaska that suggests one of the reasons they want to shut down HAARP and a few other expensive but useless projects is to funnel money into the Ted Stevens Resurrection Effort. Initial experiments were hopeful: They scraped some stuff off the crash site and managed to grow a bunch of confused mosquitos and one pissed off moose. Then the funding ran out.
Life here has just not been the same since Uncle Teddy left us.
Yeah, the new stuff is smaller. And they managed to put it on the Internet so it doesn't have be located way the hell out there in Alaska. That's what Ms. Murkowski's staffer told her anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
Disastrous - well, that's a loaded term. One organism's disaster is another's dinner. The world / universe just is.
But humans, along with all sorts of other plants and animals, have been changing the environment for a very long time.
For quite a bit more detail on South America, read 1493 and some of his other books.
TL;DR - there is no such thing as purely 'natural'.
But why do this? Why try to grow plain ol simple veggies in one of mankind's most complex artificial environments? We know we can run clean rooms that filter all manner of things out. We know you can do closed cycle hydroponics. So now you can do it close to a polluted zone (or Trenton, New Jersey, if you are desperate).
Woot.
Is the low potassium / nitrate that much of an advantage?
Yes, you concentrate them and convert it into nitroglycerin, just like any red blooded, paranoid - psychotic would do.
Thus the EPA feeds the ATF and the cycle of American life is complete!
It's got electrolytes!
Nothing prior to 2005? High School and my first marriage didn't exist?
Phew! That makes me feel much better.
Hit the power switch until the screen shows a pleasant, uniform dark grey color.
Now you're set to enjoy the Slashdot experience as it was meant to be.
Unfortunately, I think you're mostly right. The second biggest elephant in the room is our untested, unknown and purely hypothetical ability do what amounts to re terraforming the planet. The biggest elephant is our (planetwide) political will to do something other than piss in each other's Cheerios.
Beginning to smell like a whole lotta elephant in here.
1. The ISS was a mistake in and of itself. The science its done wasn't worth the money.
The same can be said for any large, multi national project - science, engineering, 'sports'.
There were cheaper ways to attain the same knowledge.
Always. Especially in hindsight and especially before a project is started.
That money could have been better spent on other NASA projects.
See previous.
2. Never trust the Russians. By all means do whatever in the name of diplomacy. But NEVER trust them.
Don't trust ANYBODY. Including ourselves.
3. Allowing the US to lose its ability to go to space while the ISS remained active.
4. Not cultivating alternatives from spaceX etc that offered to fill the gap.
It goes without saying that the US is run badly these days.
Yep, Stupid. Stupid. Even for the US, it was stupid.
The politics being what they are about half the population will never admit it but such is the reality. As a people, we need to grow beyond our factionalism, find common ground, and hold our leaders to some reasonable standards. Otherwise, we'll just bounce between one faction's incompetents and the other's. Each side giving the profound incompetence of its own candidates a blind eye until they're out of political capital and then it shifts to the next guy. Back and forth.
While your goals are laudable, they are not likely achievable. Look back at the 10000 year history of 'modern' man and you see the same thing over and over again.
Might as well get used to it.
And that little fact is almost entirely due to Congress' inability to think past pork and the next re election cycle. Yes, NASA has some internal issues (as does every human endevour with more than one person involved) but yo-yo funding and put-it-here thinking have really trashed the agency.
You reap what you sow. /grump
You do realize that 'voluntary Ritalin usage" is another way of say methamphetamine abuse.
Actually, the REAL story is that Slashdot web designers have finally found a web site worse than beta.
The goggles! They do nothing!
It's explained in the article
Your point being?
Bah, you're the only one worried about that.
But anyway, all I wanted to say is to go look at that picture. Look at that control panel! Now that's technology. Switches! Meters! A model 30 (?) teletype with key travel measured in furlongs.
(And, as an aside, for a picture in the 1960's it was remarkably 'diverse'. A woman, a black man and and a skinny geek with a tie. Mayhaps we've not moved as far forward as we give ourselves credit for.)
That, like every other law of the universe and deep philosophical insight, is simply a refactoring of Murphy's Law.
Hmm.. What about $50 on the outside of the door? Do you think that would keep them from breaking the lock and rummaging around inside?
I mean really folks, how hard is it to take your smartphone, snap a picture of that expensive $gizmo, snap a pic of the receipt, maybe a closeup of the SN??
I've done that for all of my camera gear, guns and whatnot. The data sits in my 1password file. Encrypted and copied to dropbox. Encrypted and copied to off site storage. If I lose all of that, well, sucks to be me. But it takes but a few seconds whenever you buy something expensive.
Get some insurance, pat your Doug on it's head and enjoy life.
It is you. Turn the damn fan on!
For all of you who take your cue from the Adobe marketing team, the moniker "Creative Cloud" is really a misnomer. Yes, the applications have to hit the authentication servers - every 90 days or so. The applications are run locally. The only thing that is 'cloudlike' is Adobe's 'Behance' service which is a store, a Dropbox wannabe and a typeface collection.
It's a dick move and one that benefits Adobe rather than Adobe's customers (amazing ...), but it's Not The End Of The World.
Which means that Adobe has something like 89 days to get the servers running. It checks monthly, but you can go off line for quite some time before it has hissies.
If you're addicted to TypeKit or if you are one of the five people using their cloud storage, you might have an issue.
The rest of us, not so much. In fact, if the software quits pestering me about Yet Another Upgrade Today, I'd be perfectly happy.
Apparently those are fighting words to some mods. Interesting. I wonder if we're in a Prozac shortage or something.
And to be a bit pedantic, Stevens was involved in a bunch of 'things to nowhere'. Bridges, roads, airports, train tracks, more roads and a couple of random military installations. Of course, in Alaska, it's pretty easy to make things that go to various bits of nowhere since there is an enormous amount of nowhere just about everywhere.
There is a rumor up here in Alaska that suggests one of the reasons they want to shut down HAARP and a few other expensive but useless projects is to funnel money into the Ted Stevens Resurrection Effort. Initial experiments were hopeful: They scraped some stuff off the crash site and managed to grow a bunch of confused mosquitos and one pissed off moose. Then the funding ran out.
Life here has just not been the same since Uncle Teddy left us.
Mind control, huh? Can you point me towards anything that resembles mind control, just a tiny bit?
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Especially YouTube.
Yeah, the new stuff is smaller. And they managed to put it on the Internet so it doesn't have be located way the hell out there in Alaska. That's what Ms. Murkowski's staffer told her anyway.