There are actually two major types of asbestos - one that is very dangerous when particles enter the lungs, the other is much much less so. The first type is mined mainly in FSR, while the second type is the kind produced in Quebec. The whole asbestos thing was WAY overblown by the public and media who jump and shout "OMG ASBESTOS !!@~ " and sensationalize it... like almost everything else they touch.
I am currently reading it for the first time, and you are right on the bat... stuff it writes about as though it should be revolutionary or worthy of explanation is actually old hat. I have trouble getting into the mindset of a near-term-scifi written before i was born.
using nuclear as a electricity source for larger propulsion systems (ie, higher than the small ion drives currently using RTG) would be a huge step up. whenever they launch VASIMR to the station, it will only be able to fire for short bursts, because the huge solar arrays on the station cannot power it continuously. If a similar system used nuclear electricity to drive it, it could fire continuously and be a viable propulsion system.
on the other hand, using "micro pellet inertial confinement compression-induced fission" would probably produce spectabulous Isp, but it would need years (decades? this is government after all..) of research before an actual construction proposal would arise. Far too distant to be a major selling point of any budget proposal.
Had space travel been in a coma, you'd have a point. But it hasn't. Instead we've actually had what all the space fans claim to have wanted for years - a routine workaday program.
You are calling 4 manned trips a year to LEO a "workaday" program? Where it takes 12 years to get a space station completed? The shuttle directly limited spaceflight development by being dangerous, expensive and overly complex - leading to the 4 trip per year limit. Keeping up our presence in LEO going is important, absolutely, but spending 1 billion per launch to do so is not.
Obama's program is something of a bust - a modest amount of money, a booster with no mission (I smell pork), and a capsule that might be adapted to have a mission at some date in the misty future. No clear goals, no timetables, no roadmaps nothing but warm fuzzy rhetoric.
Commercial companies are developing the tech for manned LEO, so we really shouldn't be designing our own. To do better missions further out, we need a heavy lifter - exactly what Obama is proposing. By requiring the design to be finalized by 2015, it gives a deadline so that it is not just "pork barrel funding" - but still enough time to include some new tech like on orbit refueling (could greatly expand our working distance from earth). It has timeframes, goals, and roadmaps - it just isn't based on old, already-used tech, so he can't say exactly what the booster will be like. I think it is significantly better than the Constellation program - less expensive, same goals, better tech, more likely to actually happen.
Personally, of all the cell carriers, I hate rogers the/most/. Actually, Koodo (subsidiary of telus) has much better prices than other companies, and there is no penalty to drop your contract. (you have to pay your phone off, but that is never more than $150 - that is how much they allow on their "tab"). I have no idea how their smart phone selection is, but they are fine for voice and text, and very cheap.
Actually, conservative is always used in a relative sense - see for example the Conservative Party of Canada. While they are quite conservative relative to most Canadians and Canadian political parties, they really would not be branded as such south of the 49th.
2020-2009 = 11 years. In 1998, my computer had a 5 gig hard drive, and a 250mb drive was as much a joke then as it is now. you are maybe mixing up 2020 and 2030?
yeah... except it would be 6 months/at the best of times/ with conventional rockets. change none or change em both, as they are both dependent on orbital positions
legit question - i run SP2 for no good reason (other than that i use ubuntu as my main OS, and only occasionally restart to windows for the odd photoshop/excel necessity). but I have never been able to upgrade to SP3 - why make it unusable on SP2 without some reason?
I'm not sure about the rest of the slashdot membership, but I have cooked many lobsters and I have never seen them "thrash about" in an attempt to escape... in fact, they are quite lethargic in normal cold water, and don't move at all once placed in the boiling water. This quote is a blatant lie.
like most jobs though, when you are the two star workers in the company and you have been on time for all the other workdays, they usually will grant you a fair bit of leniency.
response to [1]: A fair number did actually. I did when I was still running it, and i found a number of forum posts etc to help me out with addons not working properly on WoW under wine.
But it probably wasnt a significant portion of the 10 million:)
Slashdot Mirror
i think microserfs was already written actually
Actually I bought it new 14 months ago. :^)
my samsung U430 and I are forced to disagree
There are actually two major types of asbestos - one that is very dangerous when particles enter the lungs, the other is much much less so. The first type is mined mainly in FSR, while the second type is the kind produced in Quebec. The whole asbestos thing was WAY overblown by the public and media who jump and shout "OMG ASBESTOS !!@~ " and sensationalize it ... like almost everything else they touch.
I am currently reading it for the first time, and you are right on the bat ... stuff it writes about as though it should be revolutionary or worthy of explanation is actually old hat. I have trouble getting into the mindset of a near-term-scifi written before i was born.
using nuclear as a electricity source for larger propulsion systems (ie, higher than the small ion drives currently using RTG) would be a huge step up. whenever they launch VASIMR to the station, it will only be able to fire for short bursts, because the huge solar arrays on the station cannot power it continuously. If a similar system used nuclear electricity to drive it, it could fire continuously and be a viable propulsion system.
on the other hand, using "micro pellet inertial confinement compression-induced fission" would probably produce spectabulous Isp, but it would need years (decades? this is government after all..) of research before an actual construction proposal would arise. Far too distant to be a major selling point of any budget proposal.
You are calling 4 manned trips a year to LEO a "workaday" program? Where it takes 12 years to get a space station completed? The shuttle directly limited spaceflight development by being dangerous, expensive and overly complex - leading to the 4 trip per year limit. Keeping up our presence in LEO going is important, absolutely, but spending 1 billion per launch to do so is not.
Commercial companies are developing the tech for manned LEO, so we really shouldn't be designing our own. To do better missions further out, we need a heavy lifter - exactly what Obama is proposing. By requiring the design to be finalized by 2015, it gives a deadline so that it is not just "pork barrel funding" - but still enough time to include some new tech like on orbit refueling (could greatly expand our working distance from earth). It has timeframes, goals, and roadmaps - it just isn't based on old, already-used tech, so he can't say exactly what the booster will be like. I think it is significantly better than the Constellation program - less expensive, same goals, better tech, more likely to actually happen.
Personally, of all the cell carriers, I hate rogers the /most/. Actually, Koodo (subsidiary of telus) has much better prices than other companies, and there is no penalty to drop your contract. (you have to pay your phone off, but that is never more than $150 - that is how much they allow on their "tab"). I have no idea how their smart phone selection is, but they are fine for voice and text, and very cheap.
It took me a while to get this ... then I realized you were talking about a different kind of "console" than xbox, nintendo, or playstation.
Yeah, them having videotapes (digital representations of your whole body) of you entering and exitting work daily sure is an issue.
So. How do I do this on Linux, which is the OS I actually use on my netbook?
They are test launching it in March - after significant delays by the Air Force
Because wanting to read instead of watching video is exactly what was portrayed in that film...
Actually, conservative is always used in a relative sense - see for example the Conservative Party of Canada. While they are quite conservative relative to most Canadians and Canadian political parties, they really would not be branded as such south of the 49th.
2020-2009 = 11 years. In 1998, my computer had a 5 gig hard drive, and a 250mb drive was as much a joke then as it is now. you are maybe mixing up 2020 and 2030?
yeah... except it would be 6 months /at the best of times/ with conventional rockets. change none or change em both, as they are both dependent on orbital positions
I would be.
well enough*
just being a bit pedantic, but the abbreviation "ns" is actually correct for nanosecond. see for reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nano-
legit question - i run SP2 for no good reason (other than that i use ubuntu as my main OS, and only occasionally restart to windows for the odd photoshop/excel necessity). but I have never been able to upgrade to SP3 - why make it unusable on SP2 without some reason?
I'm not sure about the rest of the slashdot membership, but I have cooked many lobsters and I have never seen them "thrash about" in an attempt to escape... in fact, they are quite lethargic in normal cold water, and don't move at all once placed in the boiling water. This quote is a blatant lie.
actually, it could be very easily conducted away using some material, and then radiated (from heat sink-like things).
and to think, i could get modded insightful sometimes if i bothered to use proper sentence structure...
in 100 years when we all have nano-assemblers, the best cars will be the ones designed by people doing it for free
like most jobs though, when you are the two star workers in the company and you have been on time for all the other workdays, they usually will grant you a fair bit of leniency.
response to [1]: A fair number did actually. I did when I was still running it, and i found a number of forum posts etc to help me out with addons not working properly on WoW under wine.
But it probably wasnt a significant portion of the 10 million :)