OK, let's use boats as an example. For non commercial use, any old idiot can drive a boat. And many do. Boats have autopilots. They're quite common these days and actually have more routing options than a Tesla AP. I can program my boat to autonomously steer its way until the tanks run dry. Of course, that is a remarkably stupid thing to do but it happens.
And AP equipped boats crash all of the time. So far there hasn't been a giant wave of insurance companies insisting that we ditch the things (nice puns, eh?)
Why is it important to NOT seed worlds where life is starting? Is there actually a moral code the universe follows? What's the difference of some random chunk rock that got sheered off a planet with viable DNA or microbes on it chance impacting on a world or our probe? Life just has the impetus to move forward, there's no morality involved with it. Water finds it's own level, does it choose to go around a village? Does electricity make a conscious choice to NOT zap a herd of cows while coming down from a cloud? Does Ebola only kill the bad people? Imposing church influence views on a science program is the wrong thing to do here.
Because one of the fundamental questions of biology / philosophy and science fiction (have I left anybody else out?) is whether or not we're unique little snowflakes or if life just happens any time there is enough light, heat and garbage to get things going. Until we answer that we should be very careful to keep our ugly little biosphere to ourselves.
Avoid seeding life where it already exists. I would think destroying the alien life and then reseeding our life would be a great start. This ecofascist pro-xeno thinking is alien and bizarre to to me. If it is alien life and it can't defend itself it needs to be ground under our heels. Our cattle grazing on Proxima b, our sheep on Kepler 437c. Only if they are as powerful as we should we even communicate with them so they can receive the terms of their surrender. Human hegemony for the galaxy on the backs of uneducated aliens held in a near-animal savage state of existence.
I love blinking leds! I want more of it! I want a blinking led for connected users, one of it for transmission errors, one it for internet latency, and more! Nothing is more cool and nerdy than a row of blinking leds:)
You must have gone totally orgasmicwhen the first Alien movie came out.
If they were that concerned about the led's and wanted to do something about them, assuming the device was no longer under warranty, why didn't they just trace the node that the led is connected to and simply bypass the smt resistor by removing it, taking a small guage solid wire, soldering it to the resistor and installing a 5kohm potentiometer that they could mount to a circuit board that can be fastened down using one or two screws, washers and nuts to the casing, with the pot knob exposed outward so that they can install a pot knob cover. All the job needs is a esd safe soldering station, a small hand drill or electric drill, and access to digikey.
Try that in a hospital and Bioengineering (or whatever they call the folks that are tasked with fixing things with batteries and / or power cords) will be on you like a ton of bricks. No mods! No kinks! No tape! You leave it ** alone ** or something Very Bad could possibly happen and we don't want that, do we?
Hell, I can give our guys the willies by walking around with some zip ties.
don't you have massive monopolistic issues with AT&T, comcast and your shitty internet (you know the old fashioned non latent internet that doesn't use radio). Did capitalism win there too? Sometimes it's hard to see what is wrong when you don't know it could be a lot better.
Perhaps, but we're better at sarcasm than pretty much anyone else in the world.
Umm, right. You don't just 'unhook' the autopilot and stuff in a new one. This is not a car stereo.
I suppose you could just sneak a 777 off the tarmac a bit ('hey guy's, it's cool') and rip out the cockpit guts and stuff your new black box in, do extensive system checks, button up everything and sneak it back. Without anybody whatsoever noticing.
Oh, I don't know about the 'hundreds' part. I've pulled pocket fuzz out of various 3.5 mm jacks on numerous occasions. Not that hard - unclear why Mr. Genius had so much trouble.
The headphone jack IS a weak link. Lots of torque on the jack, it sticks out and gets snagged. BUT. Bluetooth audio quality sucks (there, I've said it again). I don't have to worry about whether or not the damned headphone has enough power to make it through.
Have you ever actually worked on a project like that? You don't get an unlimited engineering, time or weight budget. You sometimes have to make guesses and assumptions. Sometimes those don't entirely work out. You almost never get to make it as robust as you would like.
Not to mention that no one had ever done this before. You know, 'boldly go where no one has gone before' type thing.
They disapointed this loyal customer when they stopped including secondary sd card slots... dissapointed me even further when they sealed the case. What's left?
Burning down your house seems like the logical next step, yes?
There was no one at all 'in the vicinity'. These people aren't idiots. The system was a T-3, ready to start the firing sequence. Humans had been kicked out long ago. Security has made several sweeps of the area. People looked at cameras. Unless some pelicans have taken up cigarettes, the explosion wasn't due to a nic-fit.
There is a reason why you launch giant tubes full of high powered explosives in the middle of deserts or swamps.
Quasi edit - On reflection, it could have been due to a drone. The seem to be the current boogie man.
The other assumption of spacecraft uniqueness is becoming less and less true. Most of the bigger comm satellites are built on a more or less common backplane. The radios are not one off devices. They are still hella expensive because things have to be fairly robust to get to and survive in space, but we're seeing more and more benefits of commonality and at least low volume production costs.
Comm satellites costs have come down significantly in the past decade, especially when you figure in performance and life cycle costs.
The difference with aircraft being is that you have a central authority controlling and regulation what paths aircraft take, so no, it's not better.
What? You think you can drive anywhere? A 'central authority controlling and regulation what paths cars (aircraft) take' sounds one hell of a lot like a road.
This might be the perfect time for some shotgun shell manufacturer to work on a 'drone load'. Magnetized steel to mess up the compass just before the final blow. Sized perfectly to powder light plastic objects but remain harmless to birds, pedestrians and real aircraft. Bonus points for being biodegradable.
Slashdot Mirror
"Terrain, Terrain, Terrain. Pull Up. Terrain. Terrain. Terrain. Pull Up."
That's what planes do.
No sense getting personal.
OK, let's use boats as an example. For non commercial use, any old idiot can drive a boat. And many do. Boats have autopilots. They're quite common these days and actually have more routing options than a Tesla AP. I can program my boat to autonomously steer its way until the tanks run dry. Of course, that is a remarkably stupid thing to do but it happens.
And AP equipped boats crash all of the time. So far there hasn't been a giant wave of insurance companies insisting that we ditch the things (nice puns, eh?)
Progress, and human stupidity, trundle on.
"But in the end, society ended up better"
That is debatable for the tens of millions who were killed as a direct result.
'For the good of all us.
Except the ones that are dead.'
Blue Origin has flown the New Shepard. Four times.
Yes, it's not-quite-there ware so far. But he has a plan that makes as least as much sense as SpaceX.
Why is it important to NOT seed worlds where life is starting? Is there actually a moral code the universe follows? What's the difference of some random chunk rock that got sheered off a planet with viable DNA or microbes on it chance impacting on a world or our probe? Life just has the impetus to move forward, there's no morality involved with it. Water finds it's own level, does it choose to go around a village? Does electricity make a conscious choice to NOT zap a herd of cows while coming down from a cloud? Does Ebola only kill the bad people? Imposing church influence views on a science program is the wrong thing to do here.
Because one of the fundamental questions of biology / philosophy and science fiction (have I left anybody else out?) is whether or not we're unique little snowflakes or if life just happens any time there is enough light, heat and garbage to get things going. Until we answer that we should be very careful to keep our ugly little biosphere to ourselves.
Avoid seeding life where it already exists. I would think destroying the alien life and then reseeding our life would be a great start. This ecofascist pro-xeno thinking is alien and bizarre to to me. If it is alien life and it can't defend itself it needs to be ground under our heels. Our cattle grazing on Proxima b, our sheep on Kepler 437c. Only if they are as powerful as we should we even communicate with them so they can receive the terms of their surrender. Human hegemony for the galaxy on the backs of uneducated aliens held in a near-animal savage state of existence.
This funny story about Vogons comes to mind .....
What a happy coincidence... the Moon is made from exactly the part of the Earth that humans are most familiar with exploiting.
Other people?
I love blinking leds! I want more of it! I want a blinking led for connected users, one of it for transmission errors, one it for internet latency, and more! Nothing is more cool and nerdy than a row of blinking leds :)
You must have gone totally orgasmicwhen the first Alien movie came out.
If they were that concerned about the led's and wanted to do something about them, assuming the device was no longer under warranty, why didn't they just trace the node that the led is connected to and simply bypass the smt resistor by removing it, taking a small guage solid wire, soldering it to the resistor and installing a 5kohm potentiometer that they could mount to a circuit board that can be fastened down using one or two screws, washers and nuts to the casing, with the pot knob exposed outward so that they can install a pot knob cover. All the job needs is a esd safe soldering station, a small hand drill or electric drill, and access to digikey.
Try that in a hospital and Bioengineering (or whatever they call the folks that are tasked with fixing things with batteries and / or power cords) will be on you like a ton of bricks. No mods! No kinks! No tape! You leave it ** alone ** or something Very Bad could possibly happen and we don't want that, do we?
Hell, I can give our guys the willies by walking around with some zip ties.
Jeez you guys. Just duct tape the things. Nothing gets through two layers of duct tape.
don't you have massive monopolistic issues with AT&T, comcast and your shitty internet (you know the old fashioned non latent internet that doesn't use radio). Did capitalism win there too? Sometimes it's hard to see what is wrong when you don't know it could be a lot better.
Perhaps, but we're better at sarcasm than pretty much anyone else in the world.
USA! USA! USA!
Umm, right. You don't just 'unhook' the autopilot and stuff in a new one. This is not a car stereo.
I suppose you could just sneak a 777 off the tarmac a bit ('hey guy's, it's cool') and rip out the cockpit guts and stuff your new black box in, do extensive system checks, button up everything and sneak it back. Without anybody whatsoever noticing.
But I doubt it.
You're both right. This imbecile would be lost at sea trying to find an internet connection and forfeit using the actual radio to call for help.
Let me know how calling for help using an FM receiver works for you, will you?
Oh, I don't know about the 'hundreds' part. I've pulled pocket fuzz out of various 3.5 mm jacks on numerous occasions. Not that hard - unclear why Mr. Genius had so much trouble.
The headphone jack IS a weak link. Lots of torque on the jack, it sticks out and gets snagged. BUT. Bluetooth audio quality sucks (there, I've said it again). I don't have to worry about whether or not the damned headphone has enough power to make it through.
And Bluetooth audio sucks.
Quality headphones are wired. Bluetooth really sucks for high end audio. For listening to pop music in your Ford Focus, they're fine.
Do. Not. Want.
Have you ever actually worked on a project like that? You don't get an unlimited engineering, time or weight budget. You sometimes have to make guesses and assumptions. Sometimes those don't entirely work out. You almost never get to make it as robust as you would like.
Not to mention that no one had ever done this before. You know, 'boldly go where no one has gone before' type thing.
Reality is a bitch at times.
Holographic storage.
Fusion power.
Flying cars.
Real soon now.....
Look, I know we've all argued about the size of cell phones and all.
But they're not that small.
They disapointed this loyal customer when they stopped including secondary sd card slots... dissapointed me even further when they sealed the case. What's left?
Burning down your house seems like the logical next step, yes?
There was no one at all 'in the vicinity'. These people aren't idiots. The system was a T-3, ready to start the firing sequence. Humans had been kicked out long ago. Security has made several sweeps of the area. People looked at cameras. Unless some pelicans have taken up cigarettes, the explosion wasn't due to a nic-fit.
There is a reason why you launch giant tubes full of high powered explosives in the middle of deserts or swamps.
Quasi edit - On reflection, it could have been due to a drone. The seem to be the current boogie man.
Or Aliens.
So to speak ......
The other assumption of spacecraft uniqueness is becoming less and less true. Most of the bigger comm satellites are built on a more or less common backplane. The radios are not one off devices. They are still hella expensive because things have to be fairly robust to get to and survive in space, but we're seeing more and more benefits of commonality and at least low volume production costs.
Comm satellites costs have come down significantly in the past decade, especially when you figure in performance and life cycle costs.
Progress as promised.
At multiple millions of dollars for a thirty minute flight I'm damn sure going to the plane, pilot AND the flight attendants.
The difference with aircraft being is that you have a central authority controlling and regulation what paths aircraft take, so no, it's not better.
What? You think you can drive anywhere? A 'central authority controlling and regulation what paths cars (aircraft) take' sounds one hell of a lot like a road.
This might be the perfect time for some shotgun shell manufacturer to work on a 'drone load'. Magnetized steel to mess up the compass just before the final blow. Sized perfectly to powder light plastic objects but remain harmless to birds, pedestrians and real aircraft. Bonus points for being biodegradable.
Perhaps a Kickstarter?