The Airborne Series (Airborne, Skybreaker, Starclimber) by Kenneth Opel.
Award winning series set in an alternate Edwardian time, where airplanes don't exist, but airships rule the skies.
2nd book is my favorite.
Can you expect to walk to your fridge without incident? generally yes.
But if someone tells your wife that the floor isn't safe and she tells you to go ahead anyway, does this change your argument ?
Can you expect to drive 50 miles without incident? generally yes but quite often (this mornings commute) no.
If the radio news says road conditions are dangerous and you go ahead anyway, does this change your argument ?
Can you expect to achieve orbit, the shuttle must accelerate from zero to a speed of almost 28,968 kilometers per hour (18,000 miles per hour), a speed nine times as fast as the average rifle bullet. without incident ever? no you cannot.
When your technical teams break out of normal behavior to clamor for delay to for technical reasons indicating why failure risk is unusually higher than normal or when points of failure are identified, but not mitigated for whatever bureaucratic reasons then you have failed. Failed. FAILED. People died, not because of known risks taken, but by negligence of their superiors. There is no forgiveness, no release from this kind of failure.
My son takes allergy treatment medications. When we were away from home, some of his medications were damaged (bottle opened and contents got wet) so we had to get an emergency refill. The local pharmacist used a generic version of the drug. My son reacted badly to the generic drug (in fact, is allergic to the generic version of his allergy meds). It was a very long night/day after that.
Now we have a constant fight with our regular pharmacy whenever they try to replace the drug with that generic version. Our drug policy does not require generic substitution, nor does the pharmacy officially require it. They have ignored the physician's requirement on the prescription for the name brand on multiple occasions.
Obviously, this is not a normal situation, but I have a very difficult time when a pharmacist overrides a specific physician's instructions in order to save somebody some money.
Just note, the data used with respect to cell phone usage was less than 40 minutes per day. Yes, the base data is that old. How much do folks use there phones now ?
Many new finds will have portions of the find left unexcavated/unopened for the explicit reason that better techniques may be available in the future, so they leave them alone until then.
1) We're still looking. It helps to find planets so we know where to look. Space is big, really.
2) By 'water' I will assume you mean water in its liquid phase, because water in solid form has been found all over the place. Its common as muck.
3) As soon as you can tell me exactly what you mean by "like earth". Do you mean with oceans and land and nitrogen/oxygen rich atmosphere with white and black sand beaches and restaurants where the steak overhangs the plate on 3 sides? If you mean have you found a planet which you could beam down to without breathing/life support gear (and live), then no, not yet.
As for the discoveries being hokum, it sounds like you're waiting for the ULTIMATE DISCOVERY. Sorry guy, but its all incremental knowledge that will let us find the big stuff. Finding important stuff in hard to find places a long way away tends not to be done "by accident" but by years of hard work. Any idiot can discover the moon on his own, but can you honestly say that you could have discovered that the Earth moves around the sun, and not the other way around?
Would you spend the years in careful observation, with meticulous record keeping, facing the storms of "intelligent criticism", to collect enough data to prove your point to the world that your crazy idea makes sense? Lots of professional people do, they are scientists; lots of other people do too, they can be hobbyists; lots of crazy people do too, they may be just crazy.
No. If you increase the food supply, you will have the base population expand and then have more people starving. If the worlds' population is stable, and you increase the food supply, then its a win. But we have already shown that the human population is expanding and will continue to expand until the mortality rate equals birthrate for the planet as a whole. you want more people to die of starvation? Increase the food supply and wait. You want fewer people to die of starvation? Reduce base human population and the number of people starving will go down. Kill of 2B now, and number of starving folks (always some percentage of total population) will be reduced. Sorry folks, but animal herds done regulate themselves until a significant portion of the population is on the tipping point of starvation.
Thankfully, engineering was split into military and civilian engineering a loooong time ago. Software engineering is simply a recent offshoot from civilian engineering which has been split to the vast number of engineering disciplines we know today. As for being clever and morally bankrupt, engineers are clever. As for morally bankrupt, perhaps is not the tool that is morally bankrupt, but rather the uses it is put to. You cannot claim that the design of a passenger aircraft is morally bankrupt, and yet without that design, a lot of bad things would not have happened in they way they happened.
It is acceptable to say that some technological advances have no purpose or meaningful reason to exist other than morally bankrupt ones, but thankfully, they are few and far between.
The Artic Archipeligo is Canada's. Ask permission first. Despite what the American government may think, there is no international waterway through the Artic Archipeligo.
BZZT
the human body is a 3D object, but exists in time. i.e. the human body exists in 4D - You are a 4D life form. If you wish to state that eyes see a 2d plane, they also see it as it changes in time, i.e. 3D 2 in space, 1 in time. Watching a movie is a 3D experience. Watching a 3D movie is a 4D experience
It changed when your company went public. As soon as the first duty of the company changed from working owners to non-employee shareholders, employees are simply meaningless. As a shareholder of our own privately held firm, our employees are our number one asset. Layoffs, when necessary due to lower service demands, are keenly felt. If our firm was to go public, we would morph into the same heartless money machines as all other publicly traded firms. You want employees to matter? Don't go public.
The thin atmosphere is in fact one of the largest problems to overcome. the gravity is high enough that rocket powered landings aren't an option and gliders and parachutes can generate enough lift for a heavy lander.
Landing (and getting off) Mars is certainly not trivial. This is one of the major reasons why there is such a low sucess rate for landings.
The lack of a Magnetosphere will limit human exposure on the surface and will also limit our ability to change the atmosphere (if we ever envisioned trying to change it).
Colonizing (or just even establishing a base) is rather hard when you can't land anything heavier than the existing rovers without resorting to air bags or bouncing.
A gassification plant (portable or fixed) heats the fuel (of whatever source) up to high temperatures so the gases formed tend to be H2, CO, etc., without the presence of oxygen. These gases can the be combusted for energy. Yes it creases CO2. So does piling your leaves in the back yard. The whole point of the gassification plant is to avoid methane which has a significantly larger greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide.
An incinerator heats the waste in the presence of oxygen to simply burn (oxidize) the waste. Burning the wastes directly can lead to all sorts of other chemical by-products, as the temperatures aren't as high.
Slashdot Mirror
The Airborne Series (Airborne, Skybreaker, Starclimber) by Kenneth Opel. Award winning series set in an alternate Edwardian time, where airplanes don't exist, but airships rule the skies. 2nd book is my favorite.
Can you expect to walk to your fridge without incident? generally yes.
But if someone tells your wife that the floor isn't safe and she tells you to go ahead anyway, does this change your argument ?
Can you expect to drive 50 miles without incident? generally yes but quite often (this mornings commute) no.
If the radio news says road conditions are dangerous and you go ahead anyway, does this change your argument ?
Can you expect to achieve orbit, the shuttle must accelerate from zero to a speed of almost 28,968 kilometers per hour (18,000 miles per hour), a speed nine times as fast as the average rifle bullet. without incident ever? no you cannot.
When your technical teams break out of normal behavior to clamor for delay to for technical reasons indicating why failure risk is unusually higher than normal or when points of failure are identified, but not mitigated for whatever bureaucratic reasons then you have failed. Failed. FAILED. People died, not because of known risks taken, but by negligence of their superiors. There is no forgiveness, no release from this kind of failure.
My son takes allergy treatment medications. When we were away from home, some of his medications were damaged (bottle opened and contents got wet) so we had to get an emergency refill. The local pharmacist used a generic version of the drug. My son reacted badly to the generic drug (in fact, is allergic to the generic version of his allergy meds). It was a very long night/day after that. Now we have a constant fight with our regular pharmacy whenever they try to replace the drug with that generic version. Our drug policy does not require generic substitution, nor does the pharmacy officially require it. They have ignored the physician's requirement on the prescription for the name brand on multiple occasions. Obviously, this is not a normal situation, but I have a very difficult time when a pharmacist overrides a specific physician's instructions in order to save somebody some money.
Just note, the data used with respect to cell phone usage was less than 40 minutes per day. Yes, the base data is that old. How much do folks use there phones now ?
My word, you are correct. 380 M LY as local has even more awesomesauce dumped on it.
You know the universe is large, when things out to 380 LY away are referred to as "local"
Many new finds will have portions of the find left unexcavated/unopened for the explicit reason that better techniques may be available in the future, so they leave them alone until then.
Oh ho! Another source for Melted Nanoribbons! Can't wait to get them to Jita before the market crashes
He's not the commander-in-chief.
There is no substitute for hard work in science.
And no substitute for checking your spelling.
1) We're still looking. It helps to find planets so we know where to look. Space is big, really.
2) By 'water' I will assume you mean water in its liquid phase, because water in solid form has been found all over the place. Its common as muck.
3) As soon as you can tell me exactly what you mean by "like earth". Do you mean with oceans and land and nitrogen/oxygen rich atmosphere with white and black sand beaches and restaurants where the steak overhangs the plate on 3 sides? If you mean have you found a planet which you could beam down to without breathing/life support gear (and live), then no, not yet.
As for the discoveries being hokum, it sounds like you're waiting for the ULTIMATE DISCOVERY. Sorry guy, but its all incremental knowledge that will let us find the big stuff. Finding important stuff in hard to find places a long way away tends not to be done "by accident" but by years of hard work. Any idiot can discover the moon on his own, but can you honestly say that you could have discovered that the Earth moves around the sun, and not the other way around?
Would you spend the years in careful observation, with meticulous record keeping, facing the storms of "intelligent criticism", to collect enough data to prove your point to the world that your crazy idea makes sense? Lots of professional people do, they are scientists; lots of other people do too, they can be hobbyists; lots of crazy people do too, they may be just crazy.
There is no substitute for hard work in scuence.
Having success against targeting drone is one thing, but up against the living?
Good Grief! I haven't heard that song in ages. Thanks for the guffaw
hmmm webSense turned off at the moment here.
BTW, interesting how the exterior temp rose near the apex of the flight - I'm not sure I understand why. But then, this is almost rocket science.
Punko
No. If you increase the food supply, you will have the base population expand and then have more people starving. If the worlds' population is stable, and you increase the food supply, then its a win. But we have already shown that the human population is expanding and will continue to expand until the mortality rate equals birthrate for the planet as a whole. you want more people to die of starvation? Increase the food supply and wait. You want fewer people to die of starvation? Reduce base human population and the number of people starving will go down. Kill of 2B now, and number of starving folks (always some percentage of total population) will be reduced. Sorry folks, but animal herds done regulate themselves until a significant portion of the population is on the tipping point of starvation.
In my very small EVE corp (30 bodies, not counting alts) 3 are (verified) female. Thats 10%. BTW median age >35
Thankfully, engineering was split into military and civilian engineering a loooong time ago. Software engineering is simply a recent offshoot from civilian engineering which has been split to the vast number of engineering disciplines we know today. As for being clever and morally bankrupt, engineers are clever. As for morally bankrupt, perhaps is not the tool that is morally bankrupt, but rather the uses it is put to. You cannot claim that the design of a passenger aircraft is morally bankrupt, and yet without that design, a lot of bad things would not have happened in they way they happened.
It is acceptable to say that some technological advances have no purpose or meaningful reason to exist other than morally bankrupt ones, but thankfully, they are few and far between.
The Artic Archipeligo is Canada's. Ask permission first. Despite what the American government may think, there is no international waterway through the Artic Archipeligo.
BZZT the human body is a 3D object, but exists in time. i.e. the human body exists in 4D - You are a 4D life form. If you wish to state that eyes see a 2d plane, they also see it as it changes in time, i.e. 3D 2 in space, 1 in time. Watching a movie is a 3D experience. Watching a 3D movie is a 4D experience
It changed when your company went public. As soon as the first duty of the company changed from working owners to non-employee shareholders, employees are simply meaningless. As a shareholder of our own privately held firm, our employees are our number one asset. Layoffs, when necessary due to lower service demands, are keenly felt. If our firm was to go public, we would morph into the same heartless money machines as all other publicly traded firms. You want employees to matter? Don't go public.
.... while completely ignoring the velocity of money. People employed by the govt. still buy things. Especially haircuts.
The thin atmosphere is in fact one of the largest problems to overcome. the gravity is high enough that rocket powered landings aren't an option and gliders and parachutes can generate enough lift for a heavy lander.
Landing (and getting off) Mars is certainly not trivial. This is one of the major reasons why there is such a low sucess rate for landings.
The lack of a Magnetosphere will limit human exposure on the surface and will also limit our ability to change the atmosphere (if we ever envisioned trying to change it).
Colonizing (or just even establishing a base) is rather hard when you can't land anything heavier than the existing rovers without resorting to air bags or bouncing.
Sufficient Gravity - Check
Sufficient Sunlight - Check
Friable surface (soil) - Check
Sufficient Source of water - check
Sufficient Atmosphere - ummmmm
Sufficient Magnetosphere - uh oh
Cigar - Nope.
Close, but no cigar.
gassifier != incinerator
A gassification plant (portable or fixed) heats the fuel (of whatever source) up to high temperatures so the gases formed tend to be H2, CO, etc., without the presence of oxygen. These gases can the be combusted for energy. Yes it creases CO2. So does piling your leaves in the back yard. The whole point of the gassification plant is to avoid methane which has a significantly larger greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide.
An incinerator heats the waste in the presence of oxygen to simply burn (oxidize) the waste. Burning the wastes directly can lead to all sorts of other chemical by-products, as the temperatures aren't as high.
I believe the parent was suggesting a submarine as the best place to simulate a Mars base, as opposed of using a submarine as a Mars base.