If you want, you can have multiple operating systems open on any modern PC. Seems that is like strapping a Honda trailbike on to your Chevy Volt which is bolted on to the bed of an F350 Pickup. At some point you have to ask yourself why.
And note that I've lifted the rear wheel of my motorcycle off the ground in a panic stop, so even if it tilts you all the way back so your back is touching the ground, it seems that you'd have limited stopping torque available.
Consider this a built in safety feature. The vehicle pushes you into a recumbent position - butt down, feet forward - just before you crash into the wall / pedestrian / whatever. It's really the safest way to slide into something, assuming the something isn't an 18 wheeler.
I agree - that's going to be the vehicle that revolutionizes transportation. I would trade my Accord in an instant for a $5,000-or-less electric commuter car with room for 1-2 people. 99% of my travel is going to work and back and the occasional errand.
But you are, essentially, describing a business user. Let's face it, your desires are not those of the Zombies of Endless Summer - the primary life form on the Internet. And since they can soak businesses (and oddballs like you) for those features, they're going to.
I've dumped quite a bit of money on AMSAT. Most of it has gone up in smoke (literally) but it's a nice idea. I'd be much more active if I lived anywhere I could actually help build the things, so it's sort of a vicarious ? pleasure kind of thing.
Just what we want - more space junk. You'd do better by having a small 'flight data recorder' store bus signals, compress it, and dump it out to some other satellite or ground station.
One of the big issues we're seeing (other than the actual failure, of course) is that Russia has limited ability to track the satellite from the ground. It's in a low orbit so each earth station has a very limited time to aquire the radio signals. I think the article quotes times on the order of 5 minutes. You don't know exactly what the satellite is transmitting at a given time so it may take time get enough data downlinked to understand what's going on.
Russia might do well to establish protocols with NASA and ESA to utilize their ground stations ahead of time. I'm sure that this would be perfectly obvious to the engineers and perfectly frightful to the politicians.
Come on guys, give the Ruskis a break. At least they're trying. What you have is really a small group of people on a shoe string budget with a truly horrendous administration / supervision problem (hint - the 'old' CCCP still lives in little pockets in Russia, nowhere more so than the space program). If you read some of the newsgroups you can get a feel for the frustration that is rampant.
There are a half dozen separate groups involved in Phobos / Grunt and they don't have the same level of expertise, funding or supervision. There is little (comparatively) money for integration. There are lots of politics. Looking at the problem from afar, it's clear that they have a few systematic issues of late and it's also becoming apparent they haven't fixed them.
And on top of it all, spaceflight is hard. Very hard. Unforgiving and expensive. Let this be a lesson to everyone else. Pay up, work hard or boom.
The rest of the Apple marketing team continues to roll on the floor with laughter ever time they hear this. When will it become clear that the mindset you espouse is but a rounding error on some spreadsheet?
The US is potentially on a trajectory for being temporarily able to be independent of natural gas imports for a couple of decades. There is little to suggest that we will be able to produce enough oil to eliminate imports. We can decrease oil use by some conversion of oil to natural gas but the two energy sources are not equivalent.
It's possible that there is significant oil in the Arctic, but it is by no means assured. And the US doesn't 'own' much of the Arctic floor. The Gulf of Mexico may have some additional large deposits in ultradeep water but these will be very expensive to produce. There isn't a whole lot of 'conventional' oil left in the US even with aggressive drilling.
North Dakota production is likely to be short term:
There is a more than adequate array of pipelines to handle the fuel that is being produced; at the moment, it is the oil that is the critical and valuable component. But even with a projection that the state will see about 2,000 wells a year being drilled over the next few years, with the expectation that the field will last some 20 years, the overall production is not expected to increase much beyond the levels that it is now attaining. This is because of the relatively rapid drop in well production, for which there is now a considerable data base.
Production from Texas and California fields aren't exactly 'booming' but they are holding steady - for a while. Again, horizontal drilling and fracking is a good technique to get oil out but the wells tend to drop production levels rapidly.
California shallow offshore (Santa Barbara) is more complicated:
It is difficult, at this time, to predict the future for this region – environmental pressure is great in restricting further development within the coastal areas under State control, and there are a number of known fields that lie within that limit. Beyond it lies the OCS where the pressure of rising prices might help encourage further drilling; sadly, emotion may have greater impact there than reality. At the same time, with all this potential activity, the reserves offshore are seen by the EIA to be falling.
Short answer: Drill baby, drill won't solve our problems on any sort of long term basis. It can help significantly if we get our collective heads out of our nether regions and start moving away from oil, but it will not bring cheap energy back to the table.
I saw "crawlers" before and after the scheduled test warning me that the test was not an actual emergency. Of course, I did not see any actual test message. It's a good thing they are testing this because it certainly does not work.
No, you're missing the logic here. If you DON'T see the crawlers, there IS an emergency.
His point is...Why DOES such a system matter? Please list one case where this system would be needed. If you say nuclear war then it's too late and your already dead.
I'm impressed. You really think that all of climate change can be reduced to a single equation.
Would you entertain the notion that the planet is a complex grouping of interdependent situations? Consider just one additional variable - if atmospheric CO2 rises, it changes the concentration of CO2 in the ocean which eventually changes the pH which changes a whole cascade of things.
Changing the temperature in the oceans changes currents which change food chain dynamics which, again, change a whole bunch of things down the line.
An ecology course might be of some benefit to you.
Acidic oceans would likely be 'bad' as in changing the weather patterns for much of the world, causing major shifts in marine flora and fauna - stuff that a large number of people depend on for food.
It's much more complex than just having more Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere.
Just how stable do you think civilization is today? All we have to do is not expand the economy every quarter and hissyfits crawl out of the TV. It is only going to take modest changes in either arable land, fossil fuel supply or potable water to really kick the major economies into a prolonged tailspin. That increases the probability of widespread military actions, enormous problems with refugees and other unpleasantness.
Read up on Joseph Tainter's 'Collapse of Complex Civilizations' for an overview of what will likely happen.
Yes, the planet will survive. In fact, homo stupidicus will likely survive as well. But it isn't going to be pretty.
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting letter. If I get off my butt, I'll look for the original and stare at it awhile to see if it's any different.
If you want, you can have multiple operating systems open on any modern PC. Seems that is like strapping a Honda trailbike on to your Chevy Volt which is bolted on to the bed of an F350 Pickup. At some point you have to ask yourself why.
And note that I've lifted the rear wheel of my motorcycle off the ground in a panic stop, so even if it tilts you all the way back so your back is touching the ground, it seems that you'd have limited stopping torque available.
Consider this a built in safety feature. The vehicle pushes you into a recumbent position - butt down, feet forward - just before you crash into the wall / pedestrian / whatever. It's really the safest way to slide into something, assuming the something isn't an 18 wheeler.
Ah yes. Snow Crash.
But a tired unicycle might do much better on unimproved trails / paths / hills. Not everything is paved. Yet.
I agree - that's going to be the vehicle that revolutionizes transportation. I would trade my Accord in an instant for a $5,000-or-less electric commuter car with room for 1-2 people. 99% of my travel is going to work and back and the occasional errand.
Is $20,000 + close enough?
But you are, essentially, describing a business user. Let's face it, your desires are not those of the Zombies of Endless Summer - the primary life form on the Internet. And since they can soak businesses (and oddballs like you) for those features, they're going to.
If it lands on Toronto it'll get rid of half the worlds communists.
If it lands on Washington we can give it the Nobel peace prize.
That's because we misunderestimated him.
Out of curiosity, what are your monthly costs for same?
I've dumped quite a bit of money on AMSAT. Most of it has gone up in smoke (literally) but it's a nice idea. I'd be much more active if I lived anywhere I could actually help build the things, so it's sort of a vicarious ? pleasure kind of thing.
Just what we want - more space junk. You'd do better by having a small 'flight data recorder' store bus signals, compress it, and dump it out to some other satellite or ground station.
One of the big issues we're seeing (other than the actual failure, of course) is that Russia has limited ability to track the satellite from the ground. It's in a low orbit so each earth station has a very limited time to aquire the radio signals. I think the article quotes times on the order of 5 minutes. You don't know exactly what the satellite is transmitting at a given time so it may take time get enough data downlinked to understand what's going on.
Russia might do well to establish protocols with NASA and ESA to utilize their ground stations ahead of time. I'm sure that this would be perfectly obvious to the engineers and perfectly frightful to the politicians.
Come on guys, give the Ruskis a break. At least they're trying. What you have is really a small group of people on a shoe string budget with a truly horrendous administration / supervision problem (hint - the 'old' CCCP still lives in little pockets in Russia, nowhere more so than the space program). If you read some of the newsgroups you can get a feel for the frustration that is rampant.
There are a half dozen separate groups involved in Phobos / Grunt and they don't have the same level of expertise, funding or supervision. There is little (comparatively) money for integration. There are lots of politics. Looking at the problem from afar, it's clear that they have a few systematic issues of late and it's also becoming apparent they haven't fixed them.
And on top of it all, spaceflight is hard. Very hard. Unforgiving and expensive. Let this be a lesson to everyone else. Pay up, work hard or boom.
But does iTunes offer you Porn?
If you can't find porn on an iOS device (or anything else beyond DOS) connected to the Internet, well.
Well, words fail me.
And in the interim, you could even have a functional trackpad.
Sometimes you actually have to pay for quality.
if only there were a edit button
Chuck Norris doesn't need an edit button. If Chuck Norris doesn't need one, neither does Slashdot.
The rest of the Apple marketing team continues to roll on the floor with laughter ever time they hear this. When will it become clear that the mindset you espouse is but a rounding error on some spreadsheet?
The US is potentially on a trajectory for being temporarily able to be independent of natural gas imports for a couple of decades. There is little to suggest that we will be able to produce enough oil to eliminate imports. We can decrease oil use by some conversion of oil to natural gas but the two energy sources are not equivalent.
It's possible that there is significant oil in the Arctic, but it is by no means assured. And the US doesn't 'own' much of the Arctic floor. The Gulf of Mexico may have some additional large deposits in ultradeep water but these will be very expensive to produce. There isn't a whole lot of 'conventional' oil left in the US even with aggressive drilling.
North Dakota production is likely to be short term:
There is a more than adequate array of pipelines to handle the fuel that is being produced; at the moment, it is the oil that is the critical and valuable component. But even with a projection that the state will see about 2,000 wells a year being drilled over the next few years, with the expectation that the field will last some 20 years, the overall production is not expected to increase much beyond the levels that it is now attaining. This is because of the relatively rapid drop in well production, for which there is now a considerable data base.
Production from Texas and California fields aren't exactly 'booming' but they are holding steady - for a while. Again, horizontal drilling and fracking is a good technique to get oil out but the wells tend to drop production levels rapidly.
California shallow offshore (Santa Barbara) is more complicated:
It is difficult, at this time, to predict the future for this region – environmental pressure is great in restricting further development within the coastal areas under State control, and there are a number of known fields that lie within that limit. Beyond it lies the OCS where the pressure of rising prices might help encourage further drilling; sadly, emotion may have greater impact there than reality. At the same time, with all this potential activity, the reserves offshore are seen by the EIA to be falling.
Short answer: Drill baby, drill won't solve our problems on any sort of long term basis. It can help significantly if we get our collective heads out of our nether regions and start moving away from oil, but it will not bring cheap energy back to the table.
Facebook's even going to notice that?
Ok, using that line of reasoning, I'm going to fine Facebook for $400,000. Hand it over Zuckerberg, it's a bargain.
So, the moral of the story for paranoid crazies is to drive around in your car shooting off ammunition all of the time?
Right?
I saw "crawlers" before and after the scheduled test warning me that the test was not an actual emergency. Of course, I did not see any actual test message. It's a good thing they are testing this because it certainly does not work.
No, you're missing the logic here. If you DON'T see the crawlers, there IS an emergency.
Make sense?
His point is...Why DOES such a system matter? Please list one case where this system would be needed. If you say nuclear war then it's too late and your already dead.
Zombies.
Seemed to work fine then. The government obviously doesn't want to help people who are out to lunch.
I'm impressed. You really think that all of climate change can be reduced to a single equation.
Would you entertain the notion that the planet is a complex grouping of interdependent situations? Consider just one additional variable - if atmospheric CO2 rises, it changes the concentration of CO2 in the ocean which eventually changes the pH which changes a whole cascade of things.
Changing the temperature in the oceans changes currents which change food chain dynamics which, again, change a whole bunch of things down the line.
An ecology course might be of some benefit to you.
Acidic oceans would likely be 'bad' as in changing the weather patterns for much of the world, causing major shifts in marine flora and fauna - stuff that a large number of people depend on for food.
It's much more complex than just having more Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere.
Just how stable do you think civilization is today? All we have to do is not expand the economy every quarter and hissyfits crawl out of the TV. It is only going to take modest changes in either arable land, fossil fuel supply or potable water to really kick the major economies into a prolonged tailspin. That increases the probability of widespread military actions, enormous problems with refugees and other unpleasantness.
Read up on Joseph Tainter's 'Collapse of Complex Civilizations' for an overview of what will likely happen.
Yes, the planet will survive. In fact, homo stupidicus will likely survive as well. But it isn't going to be pretty.