catalytic converters -- protect the environment, cheap, only downside is it lowers power very slightly.
airbags -- cheap, saves lives, downside is possible added injury due to deployment but overall benefit is worth it
seatbelts -- very cheap, saves lives.
automated traffic system -- vastly increases costs, reduces traffic congestion, reduces traffic fatalities only if the system is perfect and the mechanical parts never fail. What if you blow a tire? The car behind you might still plow into you, only now instead of at 70 mph it's plowing into you at 150 mph. What if the actual auto-drive system fails? Maybe you swerve into oncoming traffic. This is just hardware failure. What if you get hacked / get a "virus"?
In actuality, I didn't mean to imply the ACLU is a means to stifle innovation, but rather there is a legitimate argument to be made that such a system does discriminate against the lower classes. That IS a battle the ACLU would fight.
Today's teens are starting to seriously think hybrids, electrics and hydrogen-powered cars are cool.
Today's teens also think aston martins, ferraris, and lotus elises are cool as well. Granted, hybrids have taken on a "hip" status, but they haven't replaced sports cars. Many teenagers still think that '69 Charger is pretty darn cool too.
If you haven't noticed, auto manufacturers are in the midst of a huge horsepower war that hasn't been seen in decades. 400 bhp is now becoming standard on upper-end luxury vehicles, with the 500hp threshold being crossed by vehicles still south of 100k. It also so happens that this is being done with engines that aren't just "bigger" as in the mid-20th century, but rather with exciting new efficient technology.
Cars have been status symbols since they were invented a hundred years ago, and that hasn't changed at all. High gas prices don't matter. I live in California and pay $2.99/gallon these days. If I was paying $2.00/gallon, I'd save $600 a year. Whoopee. My sports car gets 23 mpg, and a "fuel-efficient" non-hybrid gets 35 mpg. Is my car worth the price delta? You bet it is.
It would not be unreasonable to make it legally required to use such a system on some highways. You don't like it, take the side streets.
Nice thought experiment. In reality? Good luck getting your congressmen and senators to vote for this. First the auto-lobby will scream bloody-murder because it would require extra systems in every car, which raises their costs. They sure as heck aren't going to eat into their own profits, so that means the price increases are passed along to the consumers, who want to know why their honda accords now cost $35,000 for a feature they don't want anyhow.
This doesn't even take into consideration the ACLU who will claim this is a movement to make cars inaccessible to poor people, as well as the far right who doesn't want no stinkin' computer driving when they can do it perfectly well themselves.
In summary, you have a system that is popular with about 18% of the population. Yep, I bet that one races through the legislature.
relinquish all control of our cars once we enter the freeway
Although your numbers are probably a joke, the actual theory merits discussion. Still, it won't happen for quite a while. People enjoy driving far too much. Movies like I, Robot and others involving "manual overrides" are actually fairly close to the truth. You think all the owners who buy sports cars, whether it's a base-model ford mustang or a top-end ferrari, are going to be satisfied "turning over all control" of their car and just reading the newspaper or watching a movie on the way to work? The only way this highway works is if every single car participates, otherwise the stupid human will be bumping into the super-fast computer-driven cars all day. Good luck getting buy-in from 100% of drivers. Not during my lifetime.
skype A nice, free VOIP solution that plays nice with firewalls and is easy to set up.
This is a corporation. You don't need to go free, and in fact, don't want to go free. In many corporate board rooms, open source or "free" software still raises eyebrows... especially if you have a non-computer using CEO.
Get a full teleconferencing solution from a phone company. Hook up a camera to a plasma screen that tracks and zooms in to the sound of a voice, but make sure it's not set too sensitive. We had a meeting where someone kept jingling change in his pocket so the camera zoomed in on his crotch every three minutes. It's all in the calibration.
Read the terms of service for slashdot. It states very clearly when you register:
Section V, subsection ii(c): We will not refund the time required to read either our lead-in summaries or TFA itself. Most of what we share is drivel. However, some of our commentary and exposition is so exceptionally useful that clearly any amount of time wasted on the offending sections is well-compensated for by the supreme quality of those diamonds in the rough. Quit whining.
I recently started a blog that I'm purposely not advertising anywhere, because for now I'm simply using it as a way to share my thoughts with just a close circle of friends. But I've been thinking about the issue of "blogebrity" for a few months now.
I wonder what percent of bloggers start a blog out of some misguided attempt to achieve "celebrity" or acceptance among the cloaked masses?
I'm sure many bloggers, well, blog because they actually do have something good to say, but at the same time there are tons of hacks out there just trying to get page-views and AdSense clicks that pollute the infosphere.
Being a page-view whore isn't much better than being the jackass who yells and raises their hands in the back of a video interview.
Ariane 5: LEO: 17500 kg, GTO: 6200 kg.
Minotaur: LEO: 640 kg.
Atlas V: LEO: 8500 kg - 19000 kg, GTO: 4500 - 8000 kg.
Delta IV: LEO: 7800 kg - 23,450 kg, GTO: 4000 - 13000 kg. (depends on configuration)
Pegasus: LEO: 500 kg.
These numbers are gathered from a variety of sources so in some cases could be off slightly, but are a good indicator of context. Note Atlas has had 76 consecutive launches without failure, and I believe Ariane also has a pretty good track record of safety.
I wasn't saying that the current techs are the end all, just that all we ever hear about are all these amazing magical technologies that will blow the existing techs away.
Understood. And to a certain extent, you're right -- there is a whole lot of marketing crap that is put out there for public consumption in the hopes of attracting investors or what have you. But the alternative to hearing about all these new developments is to not hear about anything until it is actually usuable by the public -- and I, for one, would rather find out that Quantum Computers can now handle 5 qubits instead of 4, rather than wait until 2030 when one is sitting on my desk.
So are you saying that LCDs and Plasma TVs are the end-all for TV development? These new devices are betterfastercheaper, but that doesn't mean today! It means that after the initial development period, this technology will replace the older version. It's an evolution of technology.
Did anyone notice that in one of the quoted emails, they had a list of starting salaries and starting shares for the new company?
There were 8 employees of this new company -- 7 men, 1 woman. All were labeled "Partner."
There were 7 people with salaries of $150,000, and 1 person with a salary of $60,000. Guess who was who.
Without knowing more of the specifics of each person's qualification, I find an interesting that another "Partner" has just 1/40th of the shares of many of the partners and just over 1/3rd the salary.
Gender discrimination is alive and well in Canada.
Seeing as how one of the programs available on that website is "Assniffer," it makes you wonder if he's naming things just to see if stupid people will actually use them in conversation.
Lift Capability:
Can carry up to 47,800 pounds (21,682 kg) into a low-earth orbit
up to 12,700 pounds (5,761 kg) into a geosynchronous orbit when launched from Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla.;
and up to 38,800 pounds (17,599 kg) into a low-earth polar orbit when launched from Vandenberg AFB.
Using an inertial upper stage, the Titan IVB can transport up to 5,250 pounds (2,381 kg) into geosynchronous orbit.
Over twice the cargo capacity, huh? Check your sources.
You're awfully aggressive. I'm referring to the fact that the payloads in the shuttle are specifically designed so they can be removed directly from the shuttle bay and captured by the ISS's robotic arms for installation. Did you bother to RTFA?
From the article:
Even more critically, the space shuttle provides an excellent delivery service, bringing the cargo right up next to the space station, where the station's robot arms can remove it from the cargo bay and attach it to the desired location on the station. Without the shuttle's services, a station-bound cargo module would need its own hefty rocket and guidance package that would need years of expensive testing before it could be trusted with irreplaceable station components.
Our rockets can put the payload into any orbit and location, but getting the payload to line up for docking directly after being placed in orbit is another issue entirely.
I think the point is that Burt Rutan and Scaled did something that few thought possible, and more importantly they did it using an ingenious design and with incredible efficiency.
Maybe few outside the industry. Rutan's accomplishments were not exactly "revolutionary." Other X-prize teams with far less expertise and less manpower came quite close to succeeding, as well. This was just not an area of much research prior to the "X-prize" -- which is the main reason why the X-prize was such a great thing for science. All the participants were going for the notoriety and the fame, not for the $10 million bonus. (See actual development costs of SpaceShipOne for more details).
Burt already has plans made for a 7 man orbital rocket, and even space station for the common man.
So do lots of other groups. Orbital travel is far from just over the hill, however. Going from current private airplane technology (where Rutan already had years of experience) to what SpaceShipOne achieved is nothing compared to going from what SpaceShipOne achieved to being able to cheaply and easily transport people and materials into orbit.
I think the trend is far more important than where we are in the trend. And if you follow the trend out 10 or 20 years, I think you'll see groups and companies surpassing NASA and other governments in terms of complexity, success, usefulness, and efficiency.
Agreed 100%. The future of space travel will be run by multi-national private industry, and will be far more efficient and successful than what NASA could justify to Congressional Committees. Just don't throw your life savings into Rutan's corner just yet. There's a long way to go, and lots of other people to lead us there.
So now you're talking about 60% of the shuttle's cost without the ability to steer the space vehicle to exactly where you need it to be without adding lots of thrusters and other forms of correction once in orbit. By the time you develop those systems and install them, your ~ 300m has approached ~ 500m, the cost of a shuttle launch anyhow. Not exactly a far more cost effective solution as you suggested.
Don't underestimate Burt Rutan. The Ansari's did and it cost them $10M...
Come on. Ansari put up the prize for the publicity. $10 million is a drop in the bucket. Are you seriously trying to claim that the people behind the X-Prize were rooting for the participants to fail? Take off that tinfoil hat, please.
Fair enough, if Rutan can do an orbital spaceship, more power to him. But we're still ten years off, at least, before we get to a "SpaceShipOne" level of craft that can be a reusuable-to-orbit vehicle. A lot of things can happen in that time. Scaled's experience thus far doesn't even make them a favorite in that race. It's wide open.
Not to mention that a SpaceShipOne development cost > $20 million for a "$10 million prize." $50 million doesn't even DENT the development costs for ORBITAL travel.
What do you do when you need to bring up 20 metric tons on one flight, because it's a pre-fabricated module that took years of development on Earth? Can't exactly reassemble everything in space.
Once again, while I do admit that what Scaled has done is good for the "space industry," there is not necessarily a direct correlation between suborbital jaunts such as SpaceShipOne's and true orbital flight. The design skillset and materials required are completely different between the two types of "flight," and Rutan will not be seen as the "Father of Private Spaceflight" -- whoever builds the first private orbital plane will be.
The shuttles are also strapped onto "big bottle" rockets for a large portion of the flight -- without the Big Dumb Booser or the SRBs, it wouldn't get very far.
The shuttle does have an advantage in that it can easily allow the ISS to install equipment straight out of the shuttle's bay, but other than that, the shuttle isn't very special.
If you took an airplane completely apart and put it completely back together before every flight, then you would have a point of comparison. But for the amount of effort that goes into the Shuttle program for "safety reasons," it's record is quite poor.
Looking past the cost to something being "pretty damned cool" is not exactly a good trade for where you should put time and resources.
Rutan's accomplishment, while impressive, is a glorified airplane. Doing orbital insertion and orbital return is a far more complex task. The media frequently links "private space enterprise" with the X-prize attempts, but while they are a start towards a burdgeoning industry, we are still miles away from having another realistic orbital option in place.
That maps to Everett, WA (CLEC) according to thedirectory.org. That's based on 425 - 789. If this is in fact where the company is based, this is some fun detective work...
Slashdot Mirror
catalytic converters -- protect the environment, cheap, only downside is it lowers power very slightly.
airbags -- cheap, saves lives, downside is possible added injury due to deployment but overall benefit is worth it
seatbelts -- very cheap, saves lives.
automated traffic system -- vastly increases costs, reduces traffic congestion, reduces traffic fatalities only if the system is perfect and the mechanical parts never fail. What if you blow a tire? The car behind you might still plow into you, only now instead of at 70 mph it's plowing into you at 150 mph. What if the actual auto-drive system fails? Maybe you swerve into oncoming traffic. This is just hardware failure. What if you get hacked / get a "virus"?
In actuality, I didn't mean to imply the ACLU is a means to stifle innovation, but rather there is a legitimate argument to be made that such a system does discriminate against the lower classes. That IS a battle the ACLU would fight.
Today's teens are starting to seriously think hybrids, electrics and hydrogen-powered cars are cool.
Today's teens also think aston martins, ferraris, and lotus elises are cool as well. Granted, hybrids have taken on a "hip" status, but they haven't replaced sports cars. Many teenagers still think that '69 Charger is pretty darn cool too.
If you haven't noticed, auto manufacturers are in the midst of a huge horsepower war that hasn't been seen in decades. 400 bhp is now becoming standard on upper-end luxury vehicles, with the 500hp threshold being crossed by vehicles still south of 100k. It also so happens that this is being done with engines that aren't just "bigger" as in the mid-20th century, but rather with exciting new efficient technology.
Cars have been status symbols since they were invented a hundred years ago, and that hasn't changed at all. High gas prices don't matter. I live in California and pay $2.99/gallon these days. If I was paying $2.00/gallon, I'd save $600 a year. Whoopee. My sports car gets 23 mpg, and a "fuel-efficient" non-hybrid gets 35 mpg. Is my car worth the price delta? You bet it is.
It would not be unreasonable to make it legally required to use such a system on some highways. You don't like it, take the side streets.
Nice thought experiment. In reality? Good luck getting your congressmen and senators to vote for this. First the auto-lobby will scream bloody-murder because it would require extra systems in every car, which raises their costs. They sure as heck aren't going to eat into their own profits, so that means the price increases are passed along to the consumers, who want to know why their honda accords now cost $35,000 for a feature they don't want anyhow.
This doesn't even take into consideration the ACLU who will claim this is a movement to make cars inaccessible to poor people, as well as the far right who doesn't want no stinkin' computer driving when they can do it perfectly well themselves.
In summary, you have a system that is popular with about 18% of the population. Yep, I bet that one races through the legislature.
relinquish all control of our cars once we enter the freeway
Although your numbers are probably a joke, the actual theory merits discussion. Still, it won't happen for quite a while. People enjoy driving far too much. Movies like I, Robot and others involving "manual overrides" are actually fairly close to the truth. You think all the owners who buy sports cars, whether it's a base-model ford mustang or a top-end ferrari, are going to be satisfied "turning over all control" of their car and just reading the newspaper or watching a movie on the way to work? The only way this highway works is if every single car participates, otherwise the stupid human will be bumping into the super-fast computer-driven cars all day. Good luck getting buy-in from 100% of drivers. Not during my lifetime.
Fair enough. Nevermind.
USAflt2003, I'm hesitant to post my email address out for public consumption, but you and I need to talk. Any suggestions?
skype A nice, free VOIP solution that plays nice with firewalls and is easy to set up.
This is a corporation. You don't need to go free, and in fact, don't want to go free. In many corporate board rooms, open source or "free" software still raises eyebrows... especially if you have a non-computer using CEO.
Get a full teleconferencing solution from a phone company. Hook up a camera to a plasma screen that tracks and zooms in to the sound of a voice, but make sure it's not set too sensitive. We had a meeting where someone kept jingling change in his pocket so the camera zoomed in on his crotch every three minutes. It's all in the calibration.
Read the terms of service for slashdot. It states very clearly when you register:
Section V, subsection ii(c): We will not refund the time required to read either our lead-in summaries or TFA itself. Most of what we share is drivel. However, some of our commentary and exposition is so exceptionally useful that clearly any amount of time wasted on the offending sections is well-compensated for by the supreme quality of those diamonds in the rough. Quit whining.
I recently started a blog that I'm purposely not advertising anywhere, because for now I'm simply using it as a way to share my thoughts with just a close circle of friends. But I've been thinking about the issue of "blogebrity" for a few months now.
I wonder what percent of bloggers start a blog out of some misguided attempt to achieve "celebrity" or acceptance among the cloaked masses?
I'm sure many bloggers, well, blog because they actually do have something good to say, but at the same time there are tons of hacks out there just trying to get page-views and AdSense clicks that pollute the infosphere.
Being a page-view whore isn't much better than being the jackass who yells and raises their hands in the back of a video interview.
Ariane 5: LEO: 17500 kg, GTO: 6200 kg.
Minotaur: LEO: 640 kg.
Atlas V: LEO: 8500 kg - 19000 kg, GTO: 4500 - 8000 kg.
Delta IV: LEO: 7800 kg - 23,450 kg, GTO: 4000 - 13000 kg. (depends on configuration)
Pegasus: LEO: 500 kg.
These numbers are gathered from a variety of sources so in some cases could be off slightly, but are a good indicator of context. Note Atlas has had 76 consecutive launches without failure, and I believe Ariane also has a pretty good track record of safety.
I wasn't saying that the current techs are the end all, just that all we ever hear about are all these amazing magical technologies that will blow the existing techs away.
Understood. And to a certain extent, you're right -- there is a whole lot of marketing crap that is put out there for public consumption in the hopes of attracting investors or what have you. But the alternative to hearing about all these new developments is to not hear about anything until it is actually usuable by the public -- and I, for one, would rather find out that Quantum Computers can now handle 5 qubits instead of 4, rather than wait until 2030 when one is sitting on my desk.
So are you saying that LCDs and Plasma TVs are the end-all for TV development? These new devices are betterfastercheaper, but that doesn't mean today! It means that after the initial development period, this technology will replace the older version. It's an evolution of technology.
Then she shouldn't be considered a "Partner" of the firm
Did anyone notice that in one of the quoted emails, they had a list of starting salaries and starting shares for the new company?
There were 8 employees of this new company -- 7 men, 1 woman. All were labeled "Partner."
There were 7 people with salaries of $150,000, and 1 person with a salary of $60,000. Guess who was who.
Without knowing more of the specifics of each person's qualification, I find an interesting that another "Partner" has just 1/40th of the shares of many of the partners and just over 1/3rd the salary.
Gender discrimination is alive and well in Canada.
Seeing as how one of the programs available on that website is "Assniffer," it makes you wonder if he's naming things just to see if stupid people will actually use them in conversation.
And over twice its cargo capacity.
From this page:
Lift Capability: Can carry up to 47,800 pounds (21,682 kg) into a low-earth orbit up to 12,700 pounds (5,761 kg) into a geosynchronous orbit when launched from Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla.; and up to 38,800 pounds (17,599 kg) into a low-earth polar orbit when launched from Vandenberg AFB. Using an inertial upper stage, the Titan IVB can transport up to 5,250 pounds (2,381 kg) into geosynchronous orbit.
Over twice the cargo capacity, huh? Check your sources.
You're awfully aggressive. I'm referring to the fact that the payloads in the shuttle are specifically designed so they can be removed directly from the shuttle bay and captured by the ISS's robotic arms for installation. Did you bother to RTFA?
From the article:
Our rockets can put the payload into any orbit and location, but getting the payload to line up for docking directly after being placed in orbit is another issue entirely.
I think the point is that Burt Rutan and Scaled did something that few thought possible, and more importantly they did it using an ingenious design and with incredible efficiency.
Maybe few outside the industry. Rutan's accomplishments were not exactly "revolutionary." Other X-prize teams with far less expertise and less manpower came quite close to succeeding, as well. This was just not an area of much research prior to the "X-prize" -- which is the main reason why the X-prize was such a great thing for science. All the participants were going for the notoriety and the fame, not for the $10 million bonus. (See actual development costs of SpaceShipOne for more details).
Burt already has plans made for a 7 man orbital rocket, and even space station for the common man.
So do lots of other groups. Orbital travel is far from just over the hill, however. Going from current private airplane technology (where Rutan already had years of experience) to what SpaceShipOne achieved is nothing compared to going from what SpaceShipOne achieved to being able to cheaply and easily transport people and materials into orbit.
I think the trend is far more important than where we are in the trend. And if you follow the trend out 10 or 20 years, I think you'll see groups and companies surpassing NASA and other governments in terms of complexity, success, usefulness, and efficiency.
Agreed 100%. The future of space travel will be run by multi-national private industry, and will be far more efficient and successful than what NASA could justify to Congressional Committees. Just don't throw your life savings into Rutan's corner just yet. There's a long way to go, and lots of other people to lead us there.
So now you're talking about 60% of the shuttle's cost without the ability to steer the space vehicle to exactly where you need it to be without adding lots of thrusters and other forms of correction once in orbit. By the time you develop those systems and install them, your ~ 300m has approached ~ 500m, the cost of a shuttle launch anyhow. Not exactly a far more cost effective solution as you suggested.
Don't underestimate Burt Rutan. The Ansari's did and it cost them $10M...
Come on. Ansari put up the prize for the publicity. $10 million is a drop in the bucket. Are you seriously trying to claim that the people behind the X-Prize were rooting for the participants to fail? Take off that tinfoil hat, please.
Fair enough, if Rutan can do an orbital spaceship, more power to him. But we're still ten years off, at least, before we get to a "SpaceShipOne" level of craft that can be a reusuable-to-orbit vehicle. A lot of things can happen in that time. Scaled's experience thus far doesn't even make them a favorite in that race. It's wide open.
Not to mention that a SpaceShipOne development cost > $20 million for a "$10 million prize." $50 million doesn't even DENT the development costs for ORBITAL travel.
What do you do when you need to bring up 20 metric tons on one flight, because it's a pre-fabricated module that took years of development on Earth? Can't exactly reassemble everything in space.
Once again, while I do admit that what Scaled has done is good for the "space industry," there is not necessarily a direct correlation between suborbital jaunts such as SpaceShipOne's and true orbital flight. The design skillset and materials required are completely different between the two types of "flight," and Rutan will not be seen as the "Father of Private Spaceflight" -- whoever builds the first private orbital plane will be.
The shuttles are also strapped onto "big bottle" rockets for a large portion of the flight -- without the Big Dumb Booser or the SRBs, it wouldn't get very far.
The shuttle does have an advantage in that it can easily allow the ISS to install equipment straight out of the shuttle's bay, but other than that, the shuttle isn't very special.
If you took an airplane completely apart and put it completely back together before every flight, then you would have a point of comparison. But for the amount of effort that goes into the Shuttle program for "safety reasons," it's record is quite poor.
Looking past the cost to something being "pretty damned cool" is not exactly a good trade for where you should put time and resources.
Rutan's accomplishment, while impressive, is a glorified airplane. Doing orbital insertion and orbital return is a far more complex task. The media frequently links "private space enterprise" with the X-prize attempts, but while they are a start towards a burdgeoning industry, we are still miles away from having another realistic orbital option in place.
That maps to Everett, WA (CLEC) according to thedirectory.org. That's based on 425 - 789. If this is in fact where the company is based, this is some fun detective work...