There is no need for glider-based spacecraft. Wings are useless in space. "man-rated" launch vehicles cost something like $10k per pound to go to orbit. The extra pounds for wings are a massive waste of money and resources.
The original design--The Capsule--was the right idea! Why not build a re-usable capsule?
This has been an interesting conversation. I think we agree on a few things.
Not all illegal aliens are violent dangerous criminals
Despite being dangerous and illegal, it's still rational for someone struggling in a developing country to try to live here. The opportunities and incentives outweigh the risks.
It's probably a good idea to enforce the laws against the employers that exploit these people (i'll give you this one)
Lack of motivation of the 2nd generation kids is key part of the problem.
If 6 billion people move here, it would be bad. However, people are coming, we must deal with that.
I agree there must be some sort of throttle controlling the rate of immigration.
Immigration will eventually change everything about this country. (you seem to imply this is bad. I don't).
I disagree that we can simply remove the social net from beneath them. These people need health care from time to time. Their only option is an emergency room or death. In most cases, they probably wait until their situation gets so bad that they must the emergency room. This is a shame. Many illnesses and diseases could be treated by a lower cost primary care physician, if they have access too it. Maybe this new idea of having low cost primary care doctors working in places like Walmart or Target is a good idea. (They plan to charge $40 for a 15 minute consultation).
When you talk about removing the net from beneath them, I get this image of a woman about to give birth, or a man just hit by a car waiting outside an ER. Then the admissions nurse refuses to let them in because they are undocumented. I just can't see them being that cruel. It's not ethical, inhumane, and doesn't fit with the American value system. There has to be some other solution.
Perhaps the balance will come from people like you pulling one direction and people like me pulling the other.
You have pointed out some flaws in my arguments. I give you points for that. I'm not actually a "dunce", I just don't spend a lot of time editing my slashdot comments.
We seem to agree that they will still come whether it's legal or not. "It's the gift that keeps on giving", you said. I still ask you the same question: Why not give them legal status? This way, they can pay taxes, not have to steal SSNs to get healthcare, and have rights oppose unfair wages and working conditions? Giving legal status may cost us something --- forgiving some back taxes on $3 an hour wages. I think the benefits of this is worth more than forgiving the back taxes. In the long run, they can work towards higher wages (legally), and put more money into the Social Security and Medicare system. Hey, maybe they could enroll in courses legally, and work towards jobs with benefits. This way they don't leech of the system. These people don't want to live in poor enclaves, it just seems like their only option.
(btw, let's agree that the medicare and SS systems are broken. The current pyramid funding scheme will eventually implode, illegal aliens or not. The only reasonable solution to this is earning better return on the money in the system. This is a whole different issue.)
Seriously: Do you really think increasing enforcement or penalties will really help the situation? In my opinion we are pushing illegals into a corner in which some of them think that illegal (felony level, i mean) activity is a good option. There has to be some compromise here.
This is why I use the term "fear-mongering". I bring up illegal aliens adding value to the economy. You bring up murders and jailed statistics. You have this image of scheming Mexicans sitting across the border loading their guns and sharpening their knives thinking of ways to kill Americans! yeah! There may be some of these people. They are probably part of the illegal drug trade.
This should not be confused with the majority of these people. Most of them live in poverty. They see the wealth of the US, and decide they should go there, despite the risks, and get a job. This way they can earn a meager living and send their kids through American schools so that they can grow up to have good productive lives. The long term payoff is positive.
Is America only meant for Decedents of white Europeans? Is that the bottom line of your argument? Why can't we give the hard-working, law-abiding, family-values type illegal alian legal work status? Why not allow them to pay taxes and earn their way to legal citizenship. Who cares if we forgive some of their unpaid taxes. It's just an incentive to get them on the books, so we don't have to pay for so much enforcement.
If you are really worried about wasteful government spending, maybe you should be more upset about the adventure in Iraq. At best, the cost of illegal aliens is a tiny fraction of the cost of that dubious endeavor.
Every time I hear an argument like this I get frustrated. People always say things based on dubious math calculated by fear-mongering conservatives like "immigrants cost $10k/per year". However, they never stop to consider that migrant workers might actually ADD VALUE to the economic system. How much money to Americans save every year on food because of low-cost migrant labor? How about other services? I imagine that it more than offsets the dubious number of $10k/year in government services (if that's even correct).
The other argument that is infuriating is "they don't pay taxes!". Well, let them. I'm sure they would be happy to pay taxes as a registered guest worker, if the process to become a registered worker is not too onerous.
On the other end of the argument, At least one of Bill Gates comments about highly skilled workers is right. By retaining some of the talent that goes through our universities, the USA will reap benefits from the products they invent or improve. They are not just "taking away jobs", they are adding jobs by adding value to the economic system. More new ideas leads to economic growth in the US instead of abroad.
Here's an example of a stupid immigration move: The father of the chinese rocket program, H. S. Tsien, used to work with Von Karman at Caltech. He co-founded the Jet Propulsion Lab. Someone decided he was a security threat because he might be a communist. Well, they deported him, and now the US has the threat of chinese ICBMs pointed at us. Brilliant move!
Why not call the insurance company and tell them what has happened. Most likely, they would rather pressure the police to track down the theif rather than simply pay the claim.
I've been thinking about installing a phone-home system on my laptops myself. Last year I had two stolen from my home. I also had my car stolen and stripped a few months ago. Boston cops are not too helpful either. They just grunt, shrug and fill out forms as slowly as possible.
There is no requirement that NASA must launch all US government payloads. The parts of the ISS, unfortunately, were designed to fit exactly in the Shuttle Cargo Bay. There is no law stating that they must be launched by the shuttle, however, it will be expensive to modify them to take launch loads from another launcher.
There are many launch providers in the world, including Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Orbital, China, Russia, India, Ariane, Japan... and others I can't think of right now. Elon Musk thinks he can do it much cheaper than the competition. Let's see how it goes first. Personally, I think he is going to run into a lot of unexpected costs and techinical problems as the Falcon 1 evolves into the Falcon 5 and 9. I'd be happy to see him pull it off, but I have my doubts.
Well, this is just one cynic's opinion. Spaceref.com's articles usually have a pesamistic, negative overtone to them.
There will probably be a smaller work force required for these new launch systsems, HOWEVER, there will be new workforce requirements for processing and testing the CEV as well as future moon/mars exploration hardware. Keith Cowing neglects to mention that.
I'm not sure if that is true of not... MIR was a much smaller design. Here are two things I do know about MIR:
--There was a major fire in 1997, the crew was barely able to extinguish it before it killed them (story here).
--We have no idea what the failure rate of equipment on MIR was before the USSR collapsesd. Who knows what might have happened up there. It was not reported in the press.
You are wrong on this one. I ran into this a few years ago and I had to sit down and prove it to myself on paper.
Use positive and negative numbers when you run a test. It's true. 5 is not actually closer to the higher number. It's right in the middle. You have to round it up half the time and round it down half the time to make the rounding come out equal.
When I first saw this, I was pretty adamant that it was wrong too, but it isn't. It makes sense.
Do the math. Prove it to yourself.
Re:Segway is irrelevant to American cities
on
This is IT?
·
· Score: 1
your going to sell a 4000 USD vehiacle in countries with little money?
no, but thinking long term, I think the price will come way down. Maybe comparable to gas-powered motor scooters. The cost of the parts (when mass produced) isn't that high. The high price is because they need to pay for their R&D costs. It will certainly come down if they get enough orders. They have 17 years of patent protection to increase their manufacturing output. Besides, not everyone in other countries is poor.
imagine everyone aroung you on one of these? really think about it in a practical manner.
you really want everyone zooming around on these in a crowd? plus you can't move faster then the guy in front of you. so you are
regulated to there speed, not yours.
You should see the people I walk by everyday. By FAR, I would not be the strangest thing around. nor would I really care. I really don't think there will be whole lot of these things around anyway. At least not for a long time.
As a last point, warehouses and factories are acutually a huge market. How do you think they retrieve a book you order from Amazon? Somebody or some machine or whatever has to go fetch it from a shelf in some enormous place. If you could zip around still standing up all around the factory, it would greatly improve your ability to fetch little items here and there.
It only take about 30,000 sales of the initial model to offset the R&D costs. Worldwide, is that a stretch? maybe. But, as we all have seen, there is no need to be profitable here. All they have to do is go public.:)
You're right, you can't eliminate acceleration. What you can do is keep it low enough (or increasing at a low enough rate) so that it is not perceivable by humans.
Re:Segway is irrelevant to American cities
on
This is IT?
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
We working in a global market. So what if most american cities can't make use of the segway? Who cares? This country is only 260 million out of 5 billion people. Small potatoes. What about China or India? They have huge cites, and few cars.
What happens when this thing gets lighter, more durable, and cheaper?
I know that I could use it right now (Boston). I walk to work everyday about 1.5 miles, and it would be cool to be able to ride on one of these. In fact, I would move futher if I could pipe along at 17 miles an hour.
I'm suprised at all the negative comments in this forum. Who wouldn't want one of these? What if it got down to $500? I mean, it's not as cool as a personal helicopter, but it's cool allright.
Think industrial, not just cites. Would this we useful getting around a large factory? (yes) How about delivering mail, fedex, or pizza door to door? (yes)
We all realize that it's not going to instantly change the world, but neither did the automobile or the airplane. It was a long process before things changed. Given time these things might get adopted all over the place. We'll see how it goes.
I like to think of it as an alternative to the bike, not competition. Both can easily coexist.
Re:No Engine?
on
This is IT?
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I used to be a Rocket Scientist (for real.... well, actually a Guidance, Navigation, and Control Flight Software Engineer for rockets) and this confused me a bit too.
If you look at the flash diagram, it actually has two small electric motors. (these aren't "engines"?).
The gyroscopes are used to provide torques to help the rider balance. The accelerometers detect the command motions (leaning forward or back or straight up). The small motors propel the Segway forward. (or backwards).
The fancy trick here is getting the control system software to tell the difference between a rider falling forward and 'commanding' forward by leaning forward. (amoung other fancy tricks). Overall the concept is simple, but the implentation is not as easy as it looks.
In my car, higher octane is better because if use less than 91, my car drive like crap, so on a subjective scale, I would say
87 octane -- drive like crap
91 octane -- drive real nice
hmm... I think 91 octane is better than 87 octane.
Another way to look at it is to say that it is more difficult to refine the 91 octance fuel than 87 octane fuel, so 91 octane fuel is, in a sense, higher quality.
all of which has nothing to do with Athlons and Pentiums...
Slashdot Mirror
I read this headline, and all I can think of is Steve Jobs being questioned in a tuxedo with a top hat and a cane, like this guy: http://bit.ly/fVUUOJ
There is no need for glider-based spacecraft. Wings are useless in space. "man-rated" launch vehicles cost something like $10k per pound to go to orbit. The extra pounds for wings are a massive waste of money and resources.
The original design--The Capsule--was the right idea! Why not build a re-usable capsule?
I have spoken with 4 Google employees, all who have given the same information.
They are moving to Mac or Linux, employee's option.
Exceptions are only given on a case-by-case basis.
This is a misconception. Most ads are sold on a cost per view basis. Cost per click is primarily a way to sell search-engine based text ads.
sorry, typo, it should say "Do you have any recommendations for laptop tracker software?"
Does you have any recommendations for laptop tracker software?
While this may be true, legislation which does not take into account the real human factors in the situation tends to be bad as well.
I disagree that we can simply remove the social net from beneath them. These people need health care from time to time. Their only option is an emergency room or death. In most cases, they probably wait until their situation gets so bad that they must the emergency room. This is a shame. Many illnesses and diseases could be treated by a lower cost primary care physician, if they have access too it. Maybe this new idea of having low cost primary care doctors working in places like Walmart or Target is a good idea. (They plan to charge $40 for a 15 minute consultation).
When you talk about removing the net from beneath them, I get this image of a woman about to give birth, or a man just hit by a car waiting outside an ER. Then the admissions nurse refuses to let them in because they are undocumented. I just can't see them being that cruel. It's not ethical, inhumane, and doesn't fit with the American value system. There has to be some other solution.
Perhaps the balance will come from people like you pulling one direction and people like me pulling the other.
We seem to agree that they will still come whether it's legal or not. "It's the gift that keeps on giving", you said. I still ask you the same question: Why not give them legal status? This way, they can pay taxes, not have to steal SSNs to get healthcare, and have rights oppose unfair wages and working conditions? Giving legal status may cost us something --- forgiving some back taxes on $3 an hour wages. I think the benefits of this is worth more than forgiving the back taxes. In the long run, they can work towards higher wages (legally), and put more money into the Social Security and Medicare system. Hey, maybe they could enroll in courses legally, and work towards jobs with benefits. This way they don't leech of the system. These people don't want to live in poor enclaves, it just seems like their only option.
(btw, let's agree that the medicare and SS systems are broken. The current pyramid funding scheme will eventually implode, illegal aliens or not. The only reasonable solution to this is earning better return on the money in the system. This is a whole different issue.)
Seriously: Do you really think increasing enforcement or penalties will really help the situation? In my opinion we are pushing illegals into a corner in which some of them think that illegal (felony level, i mean) activity is a good option. There has to be some compromise here.
This is why I use the term "fear-mongering". I bring up illegal aliens adding value to the economy. You bring up murders and jailed statistics. You have this image of scheming Mexicans sitting across the border loading their guns and sharpening their knives thinking of ways to kill Americans! yeah! There may be some of these people. They are probably part of the illegal drug trade.
This should not be confused with the majority of these people. Most of them live in poverty. They see the wealth of the US, and decide they should go there, despite the risks, and get a job. This way they can earn a meager living and send their kids through American schools so that they can grow up to have good productive lives. The long term payoff is positive.
Is America only meant for Decedents of white Europeans? Is that the bottom line of your argument? Why can't we give the hard-working, law-abiding, family-values type illegal alian legal work status? Why not allow them to pay taxes and earn their way to legal citizenship. Who cares if we forgive some of their unpaid taxes. It's just an incentive to get them on the books, so we don't have to pay for so much enforcement.
If you are really worried about wasteful government spending, maybe you should be more upset about the adventure in Iraq. At best, the cost of illegal aliens is a tiny fraction of the cost of that dubious endeavor.
Every time I hear an argument like this I get frustrated. People always say things based on dubious math calculated by fear-mongering conservatives like "immigrants cost $10k/per year". However, they never stop to consider that migrant workers might actually ADD VALUE to the economic system. How much money to Americans save every year on food because of low-cost migrant labor? How about other services? I imagine that it more than offsets the dubious number of $10k/year in government services (if that's even correct).
The other argument that is infuriating is "they don't pay taxes!". Well, let them. I'm sure they would be happy to pay taxes as a registered guest worker, if the process to become a registered worker is not too onerous.
On the other end of the argument, At least one of Bill Gates comments about highly skilled workers is right. By retaining some of the talent that goes through our universities, the USA will reap benefits from the products they invent or improve. They are not just "taking away jobs", they are adding jobs by adding value to the economic system. More new ideas leads to economic growth in the US instead of abroad.
Here's an example of a stupid immigration move: The father of the chinese rocket program, H. S. Tsien, used to work with Von Karman at Caltech. He co-founded the Jet Propulsion Lab. Someone decided he was a security threat because he might be a communist. Well, they deported him, and now the US has the threat of chinese ICBMs pointed at us. Brilliant move!
Protectionist Immigration Solves Nothing
Why not call the insurance company and tell them what has happened. Most likely, they would rather pressure the police to track down the theif rather than simply pay the claim.
I've been thinking about installing a phone-home system on my laptops myself. Last year I had two stolen from my home. I also had my car stolen and stripped a few months ago. Boston cops are not too helpful either. They just grunt, shrug and fill out forms as slowly as possible.
The only satellites that NASA has launched recently are the Chandra Space Telescope and the ISS itself.
The most recent US Government non-NASA, non-Military satellite was NOAA-18, launched May 20, 2005 on a Boeing Delta Rocket.
If you don't believe me, check the Launch Log.
There is no requirement that NASA must launch all US government payloads. The parts of the ISS, unfortunately, were designed to fit exactly in the Shuttle Cargo Bay. There is no law stating that they must be launched by the shuttle, however, it will be expensive to modify them to take launch loads from another launcher.
There are many launch providers in the world, including Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Orbital, China, Russia, India, Ariane, Japan... and others I can't think of right now. Elon Musk thinks he can do it much cheaper than the competition. Let's see how it goes first. Personally, I think he is going to run into a lot of unexpected costs and techinical problems as the Falcon 1 evolves into the Falcon 5 and 9. I'd be happy to see him pull it off, but I have my doubts.
Well, this is just one cynic's opinion. Spaceref.com's articles usually have a pesamistic, negative overtone to them.
There will probably be a smaller work force required for these new launch systsems, HOWEVER, there will be new workforce requirements for processing and testing the CEV as well as future moon/mars exploration hardware. Keith Cowing neglects to mention that.
--There was a major fire in 1997, the crew was barely able to extinguish it before it killed them (story here).
--We have no idea what the failure rate of equipment on MIR was before the USSR collapsesd. Who knows what might have happened up there. It was not reported in the press.
--Here is list of problems on MIR: (list)
This is a non-story. The problem was fixed. Here is a link to Spaceflight Now: SpaceFlightNow
there was an extra space in the 'Win' part of the link. it should be
this....
Read the other replies.
You are wrong on this one. I ran into this a few years ago and I had to sit down and prove it to myself on paper.
Use positive and negative numbers when you run a test. It's true. 5 is not actually closer to the higher number. It's right in the middle. You have to round it up half the time and round it down half the time to make the rounding come out equal.
When I first saw this, I was pretty adamant that it was wrong too, but it isn't. It makes sense.
Do the math. Prove it to yourself.
no, but thinking long term, I think the price will come way down. Maybe comparable to gas-powered motor scooters. The cost of the parts (when mass produced) isn't that high. The high price is because they need to pay for their R&D costs. It will certainly come down if they get enough orders. They have 17 years of patent protection to increase their manufacturing output. Besides, not everyone in other countries is poor.
imagine everyone aroung you on one of these? really think about it in a practical manner. you really want everyone zooming around on these in a crowd? plus you can't move faster then the guy in front of you. so you are regulated to there speed, not yours.
You should see the people I walk by everyday. By FAR, I would not be the strangest thing around. nor would I really care. I really don't think there will be whole lot of these things around anyway. At least not for a long time.As a last point, warehouses and factories are acutually a huge market. How do you think they retrieve a book you order from Amazon? Somebody or some machine or whatever has to go fetch it from a shelf in some enormous place. If you could zip around still standing up all around the factory, it would greatly improve your ability to fetch little items here and there.
It only take about 30,000 sales of the initial model to offset the R&D costs. Worldwide, is that a stretch? maybe. But, as we all have seen, there is no need to be profitable here. All they have to do is go public. :)
You're right, you can't eliminate acceleration. What you can do is keep it low enough (or increasing at a low enough rate) so that it is not perceivable by humans.
We working in a global market. So what if most american cities can't make use of the segway? Who cares? This country is only 260 million out of 5 billion people. Small potatoes. What about China or India? They have huge cites, and few cars.
What happens when this thing gets lighter, more durable, and cheaper?
I know that I could use it right now (Boston). I walk to work everyday about 1.5 miles, and it would be cool to be able to ride on one of these. In fact, I would move futher if I could pipe along at 17 miles an hour.
I'm suprised at all the negative comments in this forum. Who wouldn't want one of these? What if it got down to $500? I mean, it's not as cool as a personal helicopter, but it's cool allright.
Think industrial, not just cites. Would this we useful getting around a large factory? (yes) How about delivering mail, fedex, or pizza door to door? (yes)
We all realize that it's not going to instantly change the world, but neither did the automobile or the airplane. It was a long process before things changed. Given time these things might get adopted all over the place. We'll see how it goes.
I like to think of it as an alternative to the bike, not competition. Both can easily coexist.
I used to be a Rocket Scientist (for real.... well, actually a Guidance, Navigation, and Control Flight Software Engineer for rockets) and this confused me a bit too.
If you look at the flash diagram, it actually has two small electric motors. (these aren't "engines"?).
The gyroscopes are used to provide torques to help the rider balance. The accelerometers detect the command motions (leaning forward or back or straight up). The small motors propel the Segway forward. (or backwards).
The fancy trick here is getting the control system software to tell the difference between a rider falling forward and 'commanding' forward by leaning forward. (amoung other fancy tricks). Overall the concept is simple, but the implentation is not as easy as it looks.
In my car, higher octane is better because if use less than 91, my car drive like crap, so on a subjective scale, I would say
87 octane -- drive like crap
91 octane -- drive real nice
hmm... I think 91 octane is better than 87 octane.
Another way to look at it is to say that it is more difficult to refine the 91 octance fuel than 87 octane fuel, so 91 octane fuel is, in a sense, higher quality.
all of which has nothing to do with Athlons and Pentiums...
so what? only you remember it.
Actually Chandra is a space-based telescope, very similar to Hubble, but not as famous because it's working perfectly.
In space, you don't have to worry about the Earth spinning.
Check out http://chandra.harvard.edu