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User: robbak

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Comments · 633

  1. Re:Does Anyone Remember the Star Wars Defence Prog on Satellite Collision Debris May Hamper Space Launch · · Score: 1

    No, you couldn't. I did the math.

    The image of the sun, created by a perfect paraboloid mirror with a focal length of 11 km, would be 11,000 km across.
    So, I'd be able to see your mirror, and it would even cast a discernible shadow, but as for burning - I wouldn't even be able to read by it!

  2. Re:Geostationairy? on Satellite Collision Debris May Hamper Space Launch · · Score: 1

    These satellites are (were?) actually fairly high. They were high for NEO satellites. The only thing higher, really, are the geostationary birds. Hence, they will have to take this new debris cloud into account when launching them.
    And as they had enough on their minds when making these things climb up to geostationary already, they're not to happy about it.

  3. Re:Does Anyone Remember the Star Wars Defence Prog on Satellite Collision Debris May Hamper Space Launch · · Score: 1

    re-reply: lenses or images focus things into an image, magnified or reduced by an amount proportionate to their focal length.

    At a few inches, the sun's image is focused to a scorching image about a millimeter across. At a few hundred kilometers, that image is going to be (at a guess, someone else can do the math) miles across. Far to low a density to do any serious damage to an orbiting item.

  4. Re:Does Anyone Remember the Star Wars Defence Prog on Satellite Collision Debris May Hamper Space Launch · · Score: 1

    Assuming you were being serious, by the time your carefully focused beams travel through the large and chaotic optical device we call our atmosphere, they would be so scattered there wouldn't be enough left to give you a decent tan. Or skin cancer, if you prefer.

  5. Re:*Sniff* they grow up so fast! on Slashdot.org Self-Slashdotted · · Score: 1

    Yes, similar thing happened at this Internet Cafe I admin. I left a RJ45 joiner lying around, and someone (I won't assume malice) used it to connect two of our cables. I am ashamed to say it took some time and binary division to track it down.

  6. Re:Complication? on Leap Second To Be Added Dec 31, 2008 · · Score: 1

    The main contributing factor is the occurrences of earthquakes. A few earthquakes allow th earth to shrink slightly at the equator, and, like a child on a spinning office chair pulling his arms and legs in, the earth speeds up slightly. Another shift makes the earth expand, and we slow down.

    There is no way to predict this. All you can do is measure it. The question becomes how accurately we should make our atomic time follow these changes. Leap seconds every few years, or leap minutes every few hundred? I personally like the current system.

  7. I have no Idea! on Google, Apple, Microsoft Sued Over File Preview · · Score: 1

    The best they can hope for is being slapped down quickly, before Microsoft, Apple and Google incur much legal costs for them to pay.
    This sounds like a quick way to bankruptcy.

  8. Re:It must be real on EEStor Issued a Patent For Its Supercapacitor · · Score: 1

    I suppose it is the result of multiplying 52 kW by 3600 seconds and coming up with 187 megajoules.

    Release all that energy in an uncontrolled way and things go boom.

    One hopes that the devices will have internal fuses, so that if a short happens in one section, will only dump a little of the energy. Even so, preventing a runaway occurring in an extreme situation (capacitor in a compactor with many sharp pieces of solid steel?) would be very difficult.

  9. Re:Depends... on Long-Term Personal Data Storage? · · Score: 1

    dd -if=/dev/ad0 -of /dev/ad0

    It's actually in the man page. It will read every byte and write it back. The drives error correction will ensure that the data comes off correct, and any bad sectors will be mapped off.

    If you like buying things, spinrite will do a very complete job of it.

  10. Re:Pending Doom on 1.4 Billion Pixel Camera To Watch For Asteroids · · Score: 1

    Thank you: You are, of course, completely correct. I do not know how I managed to so badly mis-read your comment.

    Again, sorry and thank you.

  11. Re:What kind of lenses? on 1.4 Billion Pixel Camera To Watch For Asteroids · · Score: 1

    I've always thought that, if a lens is set to infinity, then everything is blurred to the size of the aperture.
    Suffice to say, when you are looking at any astronomical object, a blur of 2 or 3 metres is not of concern. (Side point: a photographer rarely uses an infinity focus. They use the closest focal length that leaves the most distant object adequately focused. This gives the best depth of field.)
    Of course, more advanced optical theory,the sort that deals with interference and diffraction, limit resolution to the right number of arc-seconds, which renders all of this moot.

  12. Re:Pending Doom on 1.4 Billion Pixel Camera To Watch For Asteroids · · Score: 1

    Um, no. You have been watching too many movies.

    An explosion in space does - practically nothing. An explosion on earth pushes the air away in a big shock wave that does the damage. An explosion in space dissipates immediately with little effect except to the item that exploded. (related phenomenon: Why the lunar landers produced so little dust, and no crater.)
    For an explosive device to do much, it would have to be embedded into the asteroid and blow a chunk off the side. Then conservation of momentum would mean that the asteroid would change path.
    A gravity tug is still the best option. Slow and steady, needs a few years, but it would work.

  13. Re:Pending Doom on 1.4 Billion Pixel Camera To Watch For Asteroids · · Score: 1

    This device is all about finding them. Once you have found something that has an orbit that brings it close to the earth, hundreds of telescopes will be pointed at it, leading to many highly accurate measurements that will specify its location and orbit to a nice precision.
    This device will find asteroids with a 1 on 1000 chance of impacting. Withing a few days, we'll know to 1 in 100. Give it a week, month or year, and we'll know what street to paint an X on.

  14. Re:Metrics on Small Asteroid On Collision Course With Earth · · Score: 1

    Hiroshima was between 12 and 15 kilotons, Nagasaki, 20 to 22.

  15. Re:how big? on Small Asteroid On Collision Course With Earth · · Score: 1

    All based on its brightness. I don't think they could have estimated its mass.

    So, if it is a real dull black, it could be bigger. Their error bars were big: Their estimates were between 1 and 3 meters across.

    Anyway, that's impact. I hope there were some pictures!

  16. Re:3m wide but 2km long ? on Small Asteroid On Collision Course With Earth · · Score: 1

    No, or course.

    Seriously, it would be rotating, like every other astronomical body, and we would detect the wildly changing brightness levels.

    If it was long, thin and end on, the item would rapidly be rotated by aerodynamic forces until it is side on, where it would instantly break up, like, well, Challenger.

    Note that we are looking at the object side-on. It is more like an object that is being gently lobbed into our path. Earth's speed around the sun = 29.7859163 km / sec
    http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=com.ubuntu%3Aen-US%3Aunofficial&hs=nf2&q=1+AU+*+2*+pi+%2F+1+year+in+km%2Fsec&btnG=Search&meta= (google calculator is amazing!)

  17. Further Updates from jpl at T-60min on Small Asteroid On Collision Course With Earth · · Score: 2, Informative

    Update - 6:45 PM PDT (1 hour prior to atmospheric entry)

    Since its discovery barely a day ago, 2008 TC3 has been observed extensively by astronomers around the world, and as a result, our orbit predictions have become very precise. We estimate that this object will enter the Earth's atmosphere at around 2:45:28 UTC and reach maximum deceleration at around 2:45:54 UTC. These times are uncertain by +/- 15 seconds or so. The time at which any fragments might reach the ground depends a great deal on the physical properties of the object, but should be around 2:46:20 UTC +/- 40 seconds.

    T-750 and counting

  18. T-20minutes, by my calculations on Small Asteroid On Collision Course With Earth · · Score: 1

    Any Slashdotters out there with cameras &c?

  19. Re:now you know why.. on Getting Paid To Abandon an Open Source Project? · · Score: 1

    Could you explain to me how you would close off BSD code? Sure, you could distribute binaries without source, and make whatever changes you want to your copy of the codebase and distribute binaries based on your new codebase: But how would that effect the original code?
    Once it is out there under a BSD licence, it is out there, forever free. Really free: with no open-source-only restrictions like GPL.

  20. Look at your CPU on Another Way the LHC Could Self-Destruct · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The physics that allow us to build 5GHZ chips at 5nm is due to a thorough understanding of the atom. Our understanding of the atom is due to work done in 'atom smashers' like these.
    This is not pointless science. Yes, we don't know what we will find, or how we will use it, but we will find something, and we will find it useful.
    I can't say what history will record about the LHC. But it will be important, I can grant yo that.

  21. What do you mean, Anti-business? on Tech Vs. Business? · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'd like to know what you mean by anti-business. Many suits have no knowledge of anything technical, and so make requests and demands that violate things like 'logic' and the laws of physics. When the tech staff attempts to point this out, they are often told that they are being needlessly obstructive. Pleas that it is the universe that is preventing them fall on deaf ears.

    Is this what you mean? Is an insistence on following the laws of physics "Anti-Business"?

  22. Re:Really? on NIST Releases Report On WTC 7 Collapse · · Score: 1

    All you have to do is damage enough of it to start a collapse. Like a fire weakening the steel, uneven heating causing some to expand more than others, and loss of support due to physical damage. Loose a couple of floor structures tying the outside supports to the inside, and the outer skin buckles, and down she comes.

    OH, what caused all the floors to collapse? Try several thousand tonnes at 10m/s/s. Not much is going to stop that! Give it 3 seconds, and it's doing 100km/hr.

  23. Re:oh ok on NIST Releases Report On WTC 7 Collapse · · Score: 1

    Yes, that is correct. Exactly as the theory says it should.
    With that much mass falling at that sort of speeds, the existing structure would not have much effect on its collapse.

  24. Re:One thinks a Uni would not mangle it this bad on Researchers Pave Way For Compressor-Free Refrigeration · · Score: 1

    OK, then you and I can probably agree that it is at least ambiguous. And you will also agree that heat transfers are regularly misunderstood.

    When the charge is applied, the polymer becomes warm. If it is warmer than its surroundings, it will subsequently cool to the temperature of its surroundings.

    If that is what the writer meant, then he did not make his point very well. My reading of that statement indicated to me that applying the charge would make the temperature of the item drop as well as making it give out heat: clearly impossible. In order to give out heat, it must first become hotter.

    I imagine that the science-literate person wrote a clear and precise description, which a later reviser shortened into the mess we read.

  25. Re:Portable Cooling on Researchers Pave Way For Compressor-Free Refrigeration · · Score: 1

    Maybe: but this is about making the same thing get hotter or colder. More machinery is needed to use that to make a flow of heat from one place to another.

    A simple way: take two blocks of this stuff. Energise A, it becomes hot: allow it to cool.
    Place A and B Together, energise B and de-energize A. A cools off, pulling all the heat from B.
    Seperate them again, energise A again to dispose of the heat pulled from B. De-energize B, and you have achieved refrigeration. Rinse and repeat.

    No doubt there are better ways to make a cycle like this (pumping some coolant, maybe), but none of them (that I can think of) make for a very portable device.