Really? a BIOHAZARD suit for RADIOACTIVE protection?
While you jab at journalists is certainly reasonable, you don't sound all that smart yourself.
Yes, people wear hazmat-type suits for nucular stuff all the time. Look at all the Fukashima pictures. The reason for that is that alpha particles are often attached to dusts and other floaty particles and one should avoid internalizing them. While you could potentially deal with that with just a gas mask (breathing being the most likely route) it's typically felt that swathing the person in Tyvek or whatnot is safer so they can't scratch their balls and then pick their nose an ingest some nasty.
That said, the most likely reason for the suits are 1) They look cool, they look like You Mean Business and 2) the XB-37 is fueled with at least one and possibly several highly reactive chemical fuels, none of which you want anywhere near your personal space.
If you've ever watched a Shuttle landing to the point where they're letting the crew out, the first people to arrive are the fire trucks, then folks in Hazmat suites to make sure that there is no unreacted hydrazine (from the Reaction Control System) leaking around. It's very, very volatile. The XB-37 Wikipedia article describes shifting the main engine off the hydrogen perioxide (which at the concentrations used is pretty nasty stuff in and of itself) but they may still have hydrazine for the control thrusters.
Besides, they look cool and let you know that the Air Force means business.
From the Wikipedia article (Enterprise is the OV-101)
The design of OV-101 was not the same as that planned for OV-102, the first flight model; the tail was constructed differently, and it did not have the interfaces to mount OMS pods. A large number of subsystems—ranging from main engines to radar equipment—were not installed on this vehicle, but the capacity to add them in the future was retained. Instead of a thermal protection system, its surface was primarily covered with simulated tiles made from polyurethane foam. Fiberglass was used for the leading edge panels in place of the reinforced carbon-carbon ones of spaceflight-worthy orbiters. Only a few sample thermal tiles and some nomex blankets were real.
The big problem with COWS is privacy. The newer US regs make it illegal for anyone else to be able to see the screen. A laptop on wheels, especially with a newer screen, can be seen by bystanders which is a bozo no-no. The 'legal' COWS have flaps and doors and look essentially like a closet on wheels and are pretty useless and stupefyingly expensive (more than the laptop).
Nurses liked them because they could hold various nurse gizmos like BP cuffs and thermometers.
Tablets are going to replace this particular niche as you noticed.
These last forever. I have an old Neolt that I bought in the mid seventies. Still going strong. Heavy as hell. I've clamped some Anthro things (look above) to it for a large mostly standing workstation. Use a drafting chair for the times you need to sit still.
Well, if you believe a significant number of Slashdot posters they are so dangerous to the established world order that they need to triply encrypt their data, send it via a darknetted Tor system and only read it under an infrared light after scanning the room for stray electromagnetic emissions. These highly sought after individuals might well need water purification systems for their discretely located subterranean lair.
When you're lost at sea, we will be sure to tell the Coast Guard not to bother looking for you. So stick to your backyard, you'll be much better off.
It's what governments do. Even the nasty 'ol Iranians would get up out of bed and wander around all night long looking for your sorry ass should the need arise.
Oh, any unreasonable photographer will do that in a nice place.
That said, uploading to the Internet is kinda dumb. Just take a pair of cheap hard drives, download it to both, keep a copy on the laptop. If you're going through customs, give one to someone else in the unlikely event you're mistaken for a terrorist. You can also mail a drive back.
Forget the Internet for a while. You'll be healthier and happier.
If we're going to rag on drugs, we should start with alcohol. Ask any policeman, fireman, EMT, ER staffer. We have entire ER wings devoted to that one particular drug.
Since we, as a country, decided that it was OK to pickle ourselves into oblivion while simultaneously plastering bystanders to the concrete, then getting all high and mighty about pretty much any other 'recreational' substance is the height of hypocrisy.
Or have you completely missed the fact that the little "Apple TV" picture you linked has been for sale for a couple of years and isn't the mythical Apple "Living Room Killer" device that the Jobsian disciples are fervently praying for?
This thing would be a lot more useful if it were possible to see the underlying satellite images. I can see two spots in a nearby national park that it claims have been subject to forest disturbances. One is deep in the backwoods and a little hard to attribute to anything other than natural processes or artifact, but the other is within a few kilometers of a road and is very likely that somebody cut it down illegally. It would be nice to see what this thing is seeing rather than sending out a crew to investigate what might just have been a cloud confusing a beta-quality tool.
Yeah. There are a number of local sites I'd like to look at. Especially the ones that are located in the water. I'm assuming the data comes from the forest edge, but it looks odd. If you look at the data for, example, Southeastern Alaska you see giant swaths of dots that occur in a regular pattern. I'm assuming that the center location of the data point and that area surrounding it has evidence of vegetation change from the sensor.
Zoom out and you see that the entire boreal landscape is dotted.
So, either 1) forestation changes (not necessarily de forestation, but some sort of change profound enough to get picked up by the system) is happening all over the boreal landscape (an enormous amount of the planet, larger than the Amazonian Rainforest) or 2) the data doesn't mean a whole lot - that there are two many false positives (at least in this presentation) to be particularly useful.
Either that or there are one hell of a lot of Canadian lumberjacks jumping about.
Merritt Island was a mosquito laden swamp before NASA got there. Cape Canaveral didn't really change the area all that much - it turned into a mosquito laden swamp dotted with a couple of roads and gantries with the occasional fragment of shredded aluminum scattered about.
I know this because I grew up there. Actually a bit south of the Cape but close enough.
I don't know much about SpaceX's launch frequencies. My point being that an occasional launch - every couple weeks or so - didn't seem to affect animals much, but perhaps daily explosions might be a different issue. Of course, as I mentioned, about the only thing that routinely gets the attention of a 'dillo is a car tire directly overhead.
What's the condition of Merritt? Before and after NASA? Is it affected the same way as Brownsville would be?
It is, was and will be a pestilential swamp. Mosquitoes, alligators and snakes don't much mind rocket launches. There are a bunch of birds there as well but they seem pretty happy. The launch facilities really just take up a small strip of land right on the coast. Given the requirement to have lots of space around each launcher it's easy to go off a main road and end up in the bush and think you're in the middle of nowhere.
There was a fair amount of hazmat stuff from the 50's and 60's lying around but that's mostly been cleaned up now.
A bigger issue would be frequency of launches. The Cape really isn't very active these days and hasn't been for a long time. If SpaceX was pushing hundreds of launches per year, that might affect wildlife. OTOH, armadillos are pretty damned stupid. Not much bothers them. Not even Texans.
Slashdot Mirror
Now it looks like Safari.
Last week it looked like Chrome.
I'm going back to Internet Explorer. Or maybe Mosaic.
Either that or I'm going to wait another week for Firefox 16 which will likely imitate Facebook.
1 year in orbit, 1 year to mars. Seems like a trial of whether the thing can stay sealed up and functional that long.
You're suggesting that the US Air Force is planning on invading Mars?
Look, I know they have mission plans for all sorts of unlikely things, but I believe you're pushing the envelope here.
Really? a BIOHAZARD suit for RADIOACTIVE protection?
While you jab at journalists is certainly reasonable, you don't sound all that smart yourself.
Yes, people wear hazmat-type suits for nucular stuff all the time. Look at all the Fukashima pictures. The reason for that is that alpha particles are often attached to dusts and other floaty particles and one should avoid internalizing them. While you could potentially deal with that with just a gas mask (breathing being the most likely route) it's typically felt that swathing the person in Tyvek or whatnot is safer so they can't scratch their balls and then pick their nose an ingest some nasty.
That said, the most likely reason for the suits are 1) They look cool, they look like You Mean Business and 2) the XB-37 is fueled with at least one and possibly several highly reactive chemical fuels, none of which you want anywhere near your personal space.
The hazmat suites are for hydrazine. Nasty stuff.
If you've ever watched a Shuttle landing to the point where they're letting the crew out, the first people to arrive are the fire trucks, then folks in Hazmat suites to make sure that there is no unreacted hydrazine (from the Reaction Control System) leaking around. It's very, very volatile. The XB-37 Wikipedia article describes shifting the main engine off the hydrogen perioxide (which at the concentrations used is pretty nasty stuff in and of itself) but they may still have hydrazine for the control thrusters.
Besides, they look cool and let you know that the Air Force means business.
From the Wikipedia article (Enterprise is the OV-101)
The design of OV-101 was not the same as that planned for OV-102, the first flight model; the tail was constructed differently, and it did not have the interfaces to mount OMS pods. A large number of subsystems—ranging from main engines to radar equipment—were not installed on this vehicle, but the capacity to add them in the future was retained. Instead of a thermal protection system, its surface was primarily covered with simulated tiles made from polyurethane foam. Fiberglass was used for the leading edge panels in place of the reinforced carbon-carbon ones of spaceflight-worthy orbiters. Only a few sample thermal tiles and some nomex blankets were real.
The big problem with COWS is privacy. The newer US regs make it illegal for anyone else to be able to see the screen. A laptop on wheels, especially with a newer screen, can be seen by bystanders which is a bozo no-no. The 'legal' COWS have flaps and doors and look essentially like a closet on wheels and are pretty useless and stupefyingly expensive (more than the laptop).
Nurses liked them because they could hold various nurse gizmos like BP cuffs and thermometers.
Tablets are going to replace this particular niche as you noticed.
These last forever. I have an old Neolt that I bought in the mid seventies. Still going strong. Heavy as hell. I've clamped some Anthro things (look above) to it for a large mostly standing workstation. Use a drafting chair for the times you need to sit still.
He also lives in a trailer park and is batshit insane.
But whatever floats your boat.
Don't stand (or anything else) ALL DAY.
Move around.
I suggest sprinkling toddlers throughout the workspace. That would keep everybody on their toes.
I've tried the standing desk thing before, but I found it difficult to play any skill-based game, such as an FPS while standing.
Ahem.
I thought we're supposed to be working......
It appears that you've gone off your meds again, number 980855.
Please return to the reeducation cell immediately.
A Volcano could have spit out the this stuff?
Stop that! Stop that!
You're not going to talk about Scientology while I'm here.....
Well, if you believe a significant number of Slashdot posters they are so dangerous to the established world order that they need to triply encrypt their data, send it via a darknetted Tor system and only read it under an infrared light after scanning the room for stray electromagnetic emissions. These highly sought after individuals might well need water purification systems for their discretely located subterranean lair.
When you're lost at sea, we will be sure to tell the Coast Guard not to bother looking for you. So stick to your backyard, you'll be much better off.
It's what governments do. Even the nasty 'ol Iranians would get up out of bed and wander around all night long looking for your sorry ass should the need arise.
He's a pizza. What the hell does that have to do with this thread?
Oh, any unreasonable photographer will do that in a nice place.
That said, uploading to the Internet is kinda dumb. Just take a pair of cheap hard drives, download it to both, keep a copy on the laptop. If you're going through customs, give one to someone else in the unlikely event you're mistaken for a terrorist. You can also mail a drive back.
Forget the Internet for a while. You'll be healthier and happier.
If we're going to rag on drugs, we should start with alcohol. Ask any policeman, fireman, EMT, ER staffer. We have entire ER wings devoted to that one particular drug.
Since we, as a country, decided that it was OK to pickle ourselves into oblivion while simultaneously plastering bystanders to the concrete, then getting all high and mighty about pretty much any other 'recreational' substance is the height of hypocrisy.
I could be wrong, but laying on a couch and talking to your TV for hours on end has the potential to be a soul-deadening experience.
As if laying on your couch and simply watching your TV is the pinnacle of Western Civilization?
"TV, I'd like to watch 'Boardwalk Empire'"
"Mobile Tata - I don't understand boardwalk empire."
"TV, play 'Boardwalk Empire'"
"I couldn't find 'Boardwalk Empire' in your music, Mobile Tata.
"Oh fuck it, make me some popcorn"
"I'd blush if I could"
Somehow, I don't see this as working out too well
(Dialog pulled directly from yeah-but-it's-still-a-beta Siri)
Looks like there will be a box, here is a link from apple themselves:
http://images.apple.com/appletv/images/buystrip_hero.png
Did you just whoosh us?
Are you trying to be subtly humorous?
Or have you completely missed the fact that the little "Apple TV" picture you linked has been for sale for a couple of years and isn't the mythical Apple "Living Room Killer" device that the Jobsian disciples are fervently praying for?
This thing would be a lot more useful if it were possible to see the underlying satellite images. I can see two spots in a nearby national park that it claims have been subject to forest disturbances. One is deep in the backwoods and a little hard to attribute to anything other than natural processes or artifact, but the other is within a few kilometers of a road and is very likely that somebody cut it down illegally. It would be nice to see what this thing is seeing rather than sending out a crew to investigate what might just have been a cloud confusing a beta-quality tool.
Yeah. There are a number of local sites I'd like to look at. Especially the ones that are located in the water. I'm assuming the data comes from the forest edge, but it looks odd. If you look at the data for, example, Southeastern Alaska you see giant swaths of dots that occur in a regular pattern. I'm assuming that the center location of the data point and that area surrounding it has evidence of vegetation change from the sensor.
Zoom out and you see that the entire boreal landscape is dotted.
So, either 1) forestation changes (not necessarily de forestation, but some sort of change profound enough to get picked up by the system) is happening all over the boreal landscape (an enormous amount of the planet, larger than the Amazonian Rainforest) or 2) the data doesn't mean a whole lot - that there are two many false positives (at least in this presentation) to be particularly useful.
Either that or there are one hell of a lot of Canadian lumberjacks jumping about.
The only change would be the pennies in your pocket. That's all of what would be left of your savings after Romney finished off the rest of the 99%
At least Obama is likely to leave you with a quarter or two.
Merritt Island was a mosquito laden swamp before NASA got there. Cape Canaveral didn't really change the area all that much - it turned into a mosquito laden swamp dotted with a couple of roads and gantries with the occasional fragment of shredded aluminum scattered about.
I know this because I grew up there. Actually a bit south of the Cape but close enough.
I don't know much about SpaceX's launch frequencies. My point being that an occasional launch - every couple weeks or so - didn't seem to affect animals much, but perhaps daily explosions might be a different issue. Of course, as I mentioned, about the only thing that routinely gets the attention of a 'dillo is a car tire directly overhead.
What's the condition of Merritt? Before and after NASA? Is it affected the same way as Brownsville would be?
It is, was and will be a pestilential swamp. Mosquitoes, alligators and snakes don't much mind rocket launches. There are a bunch of birds there as well but they seem pretty happy. The launch facilities really just take up a small strip of land right on the coast. Given the requirement to have lots of space around each launcher it's easy to go off a main road and end up in the bush and think you're in the middle of nowhere.
There was a fair amount of hazmat stuff from the 50's and 60's lying around but that's mostly been cleaned up now.
A bigger issue would be frequency of launches. The Cape really isn't very active these days and hasn't been for a long time. If SpaceX was pushing hundreds of launches per year, that might affect wildlife. OTOH, armadillos are pretty damned stupid. Not much bothers them. Not even Texans.
Perhaps they could just lease the pad, like Google has done.
If it's good enough for Sergy, it should be OK with Elon.