Pu-238 is the isotope used for RTGs. 239 is the isotope used for weapons. Different type, so that wouldn't work, as much as it would be neat if it would.
OK, I'm not a cosmologist. The Big Bang is a theory so could certainly be wrong, so I'm posing a question here as well as posing a 'what if?'. We're looking for the God Particle (Higgs boson), which attaches itself to all matter except photons. Well, I think they attach to photons in some way too. Where I'm going is to a steady state universe where the most distant light has been affected by Higgs' particles. That light has lost energy getting here though not velocity. We see it as a red shift. Further along back in that direction, the photons have been affected enough to no longer be light but background RF radiation. Is it possible that we are truly in an infinite universe and that the most distant sources of photons that we can discern are now in the RF range? Not because of a receding outer limit but because their extreme distance has drained their energy?
Those of us who have a shot at living for many more years but have had a hard look at the grim reaper peering back at us recently might have a different perspective than those in their healthy years have. I remember sitting in the waiting room of the oncology department of a major hospital awaiting my turn under the accelerator, about seven years ago. A few of us in that room of gloom and doom made friends because we scheduled our appointment at the same time every week, for many weeks. Some of us joked about our conditions and expected demise. My wife couldn't handle it so stayed outside, but to those of us in there that I got to know, we did quite well I think, thanks to humor.
On the bigger scale, every healthy soul is in the same boat in life. We have to joke about this condition we call life--it's going to kill us one way or another. Though it might be tragic to watch how some people find ways to go out, it is most interesting. With the Darwin Awards, even amusing given an objective perspective.
Do any of these models include a universe that is truly infinite and contains mass and energy that is also infinite? Wouldn't our known universe overpower observations of the effects this distant mass of energy and gravity have on us? Seems that we think in terms of our universe as being finite in terms of size and time. What's to say that our Big Bang was not just a local event in a much bigger scene?
I'll miss them. When I wanted to find a store where I could walk in, select my software right there, then pay and walk out with it then and there, they were always there. Fry's is about the same distance from me as they were, but I've never felt comfortable with their wares. I could get in and out quickly, not like the long lines at Fry's. If I had a problem, they handled it smoothly, not like at Fry's. I paid more for this privilege I'll admit. When I'm not in a hurry I order from online sources.
Their selections were great, almost always having what I needed in a hurry. We need more stores like this, not fewer. Someone needs to come along and show the remaining stores how to do it right. They couldn't do it, Fry's, CC, and BB don't do it. Who is next?
Back in the good ole days, CCl4 (Carbon Tetra-Chloride) was readily available and killed everything you wanted gone. Termites, cockroaches, scorpions, spiders, you name it. If you had an idea where they might be hiding, you simply poured some of that stuff into that area and you'd never see them again. Why can't I find that stuff anymore?
Those flying pigs used to paint my car every night, especially in the spring. Finally I started to try to train them to go paint the neighbor's cars instead of mine. I use a nasty green laser pointer--it says it's legal, but I sure wouldn't want to get hit in the eye with it. Almost every morning while it's still dark, often before I've done my morning SSS ritual, I go out and bug any pigs roosting over my car with my laser pointer. For the most part, they remember the message now and leave me alone. Started doing this two years ago and my personal crow population keeps going down. They have become somewhat desensitized so that now I have to really hit them whereas before I only had to illuminate the leaves around them, but they do respond.
A couple of guys I work with have loudly proclaimed that if the taxes turn on, on Nov. 1, they will abandon their subscriptions with their ISPs. (Nice cross section for the decision makers, I know.). Their claim is that the internet is just entertainment to them and they wouldn't miss it because they read newspapers daily. But, if they really mean it and if there are a substantial number of people who feel the same, the usage of our energy just could take a hit, downward.
If we could shed about 60% of the solar panels on our space vehicles, that would be a tremendous boost in our ability to launch neat stuff cheaper. The question that comes up though is, how well will this new coating survive the rigors of the space environment? If it degrades faster than our current choice then we probably cannot qualify it as a replacement for our current cells. Until that question is addressed, flown and tested, this remains as only a neat future potential. Space drives the race.
I call baloney because of the archival quality I've found with CD's. We were promised decades and I've not seen anything like that. My tapes were worse, but continuing to stuff files over to new HD's has been the answer for me. We depend on HD's to fail, so we compensate. We were not alerted to the short life of CD's, and DVD's that we burn. I have no reason to believe that the new HD or Blu-Ray disks will be any better for the long term.
We have apparently taken some point in space as our origin (our galactic origin) when we say this. What the heck is our velocity of this area relative to our known universe? Is there a central point, somewhere, from which we may hang an anchor
Yep, won't happen. Many of us remember the OS/2 vs Windows days. IBM just didn't want the fight they would have with MS, so folded even though they held a great hand.
How can those who have embraced Linux over the MS offerings forget Warp 4? Loved that OS and learned to like IBM for trying to compete with MS with that system. At the time, I'm convinced that it was the best PC based operating system out there.
How is today so different than when I was a kid? Back then I'd save up my dimes and nickels until I could buy a 45 with something on it I really wanted. There'd usually be something on the other side that I didn't really care for, but I got what I wanted for 89 cents. Near as I can tell from what I can find on Googling the inflation rate since then, it'd probably cost in the order of $10.00 now for the same thing. From that perspective, I don't think we're getting newly shafted by paying multiple bucks for a single song today.
True, but if you think in of terms of the potential of such an 'ultrauber' cap, the gas tank analog has faults. I think that the first problem would be in making it safe in a contained environment. A short in such a fully charged cap could result in as much energy released in a brief duration as to be equivalent to a nuclear bomb. There'd have to be a modest limit on how much energy such a cap could be allowed to hold, for civilian use anyway. Given that, the gas tank parallel is fine.
One thing for something in my pocket that might light up my way at night, and another for a military satellite that might want to cease to exist, plus everything in between. Seems though, that truly superconducting paired with superinsulating, could make for a very small device capable of unlimited energy storage.
Almost in the sci-fi realm at this point, but what will the ultimate cap be? I'm thinking a superconducting film over a superinsulating film. I once asked a physicist (specialty was quantum physics) if a super insulating substance could be devised, much the same as are some with super conducting qualities. He scratched for a while then suggested that they just may.
Seems we're slowly heading in that direction. A small device holding as much energy as this imagined device could hold is scary to think about if it fails while fully charged though.
This isn't just science. It's politics too. As soon as another country makes the bold leap and beats us to Mars, they are the winner. They will have built upon a pyramid of technology that will leave us like we did to the old USSR. As we work on getting machines on that planet they may well be working on getting people there and we shouldn't dismiss this as only a possibility. They are gutsy enough to even work on one way trips. With our present view, China will own Mars.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm curious why we've not seen any releases of Russian actions in Chechnya, by these folks.
Pu-238 is the isotope used for RTGs. 239 is the isotope used for weapons. Different type, so that wouldn't work, as much as it would be neat if it would.
OK, I'm not a cosmologist. The Big Bang is a theory so could certainly be wrong, so I'm posing a question here as well as posing a 'what if?'. We're looking for the God Particle (Higgs boson), which attaches itself to all matter except photons. Well, I think they attach to photons in some way too. Where I'm going is to a steady state universe where the most distant light has been affected by Higgs' particles. That light has lost energy getting here though not velocity. We see it as a red shift. Further along back in that direction, the photons have been affected enough to no longer be light but background RF radiation. Is it possible that we are truly in an infinite universe and that the most distant sources of photons that we can discern are now in the RF range? Not because of a receding outer limit but because their extreme distance has drained their energy?
Those of us who have a shot at living for many more years but have had a hard look at the grim reaper peering back at us recently might have a different perspective than those in their healthy years have. I remember sitting in the waiting room of the oncology department of a major hospital awaiting my turn under the accelerator, about seven years ago. A few of us in that room of gloom and doom made friends because we scheduled our appointment at the same time every week, for many weeks. Some of us joked about our conditions and expected demise. My wife couldn't handle it so stayed outside, but to those of us in there that I got to know, we did quite well I think, thanks to humor.
On the bigger scale, every healthy soul is in the same boat in life. We have to joke about this condition we call life--it's going to kill us one way or another. Though it might be tragic to watch how some people find ways to go out, it is most interesting. With the Darwin Awards, even amusing given an objective perspective.
Painful point, but I think that's true in the hardware world as well.
Do any of these models include a universe that is truly infinite and contains mass and energy that is also infinite? Wouldn't our known universe overpower observations of the effects this distant mass of energy and gravity have on us? Seems that we think in terms of our universe as being finite in terms of size and time. What's to say that our Big Bang was not just a local event in a much bigger scene?
I'll miss them. When I wanted to find a store where I could walk in, select my software right there, then pay and walk out with it then and there, they were always there. Fry's is about the same distance from me as they were, but I've never felt comfortable with their wares. I could get in and out quickly, not like the long lines at Fry's. If I had a problem, they handled it smoothly, not like at Fry's. I paid more for this privilege I'll admit. When I'm not in a hurry I order from online sources.
Their selections were great, almost always having what I needed in a hurry. We need more stores like this, not fewer. Someone needs to come along and show the remaining stores how to do it right. They couldn't do it, Fry's, CC, and BB don't do it. Who is next?
How many millions/billions spent on this didn't end up in the pockets of the aerospace worker citizens of the US?
Don't hook me on something as great as Firefly was, then try to entice me back. I feel hosed and I'm not buying any new BS.
Back in the good ole days, CCl4 (Carbon Tetra-Chloride) was readily available and killed everything you wanted gone. Termites, cockroaches, scorpions, spiders, you name it. If you had an idea where they might be hiding, you simply poured some of that stuff into that area and you'd never see them again. Why can't I find that stuff anymore?
If it's not a Brown Shirt, I am not interested.
Those flying pigs used to paint my car every night, especially in the spring. Finally I started to try to train them to go paint the neighbor's cars instead of mine. I use a nasty green laser pointer--it says it's legal, but I sure wouldn't want to get hit in the eye with it. Almost every morning while it's still dark, often before I've done my morning SSS ritual, I go out and bug any pigs roosting over my car with my laser pointer. For the most part, they remember the message now and leave me alone. Started doing this two years ago and my personal crow population keeps going down. They have become somewhat desensitized so that now I have to really hit them whereas before I only had to illuminate the leaves around them, but they do respond.
A couple of guys I work with have loudly proclaimed that if the taxes turn on, on Nov. 1, they will abandon their subscriptions with their ISPs. (Nice cross section for the decision makers, I know.). Their claim is that the internet is just entertainment to them and they wouldn't miss it because they read newspapers daily. But, if they really mean it and if there are a substantial number of people who feel the same, the usage of our energy just could take a hit, downward.
Don't worry folks. Bubble Memory is just around the corner. Once that hits the consumer market, HD's will quickly become a memory too.
If we could shed about 60% of the solar panels on our space vehicles, that would be a tremendous boost in our ability to launch neat stuff cheaper. The question that comes up though is, how well will this new coating survive the rigors of the space environment? If it degrades faster than our current choice then we probably cannot qualify it as a replacement for our current cells. Until that question is addressed, flown and tested, this remains as only a neat future potential. Space drives the race.
I call baloney because of the archival quality I've found with CD's. We were promised decades and I've not seen anything like that. My tapes were worse, but continuing to stuff files over to new HD's has been the answer for me. We depend on HD's to fail, so we compensate. We were not alerted to the short life of CD's, and DVD's that we burn. I have no reason to believe that the new HD or Blu-Ray disks will be any better for the long term.
We have apparently taken some point in space as our origin (our galactic origin) when we say this. What the heck is our velocity of this area relative to our known universe? Is there a central point, somewhere, from which we may hang an anchor
Yep, won't happen. Many of us remember the OS/2 vs Windows days. IBM just didn't want the fight they would have with MS, so folded even though they held a great hand.
Does sound interesting and crazy ideas should be encouraged. The payback on this one though, as mentioned, just seems pathetic.
How can those who have embraced Linux over the MS offerings forget Warp 4? Loved that OS and learned to like IBM for trying to compete with MS with that system. At the time, I'm convinced that it was the best PC based operating system out there.
But now he has to deal with 6-Sigma. Innovation is discarded.
How is today so different than when I was a kid? Back then I'd save up my dimes and nickels until I could buy a 45 with something on it I really wanted. There'd usually be something on the other side that I didn't really care for, but I got what I wanted for 89 cents. Near as I can tell from what I can find on Googling the inflation rate since then, it'd probably cost in the order of $10.00 now for the same thing. From that perspective, I don't think we're getting newly shafted by paying multiple bucks for a single song today.
True, but if you think in of terms of the potential of such an 'ultrauber' cap, the gas tank analog has faults. I think that the first problem would be in making it safe in a contained environment. A short in such a fully charged cap could result in as much energy released in a brief duration as to be equivalent to a nuclear bomb. There'd have to be a modest limit on how much energy such a cap could be allowed to hold, for civilian use anyway. Given that, the gas tank parallel is fine.
One thing for something in my pocket that might light up my way at night, and another for a military satellite that might want to cease to exist, plus everything in between. Seems though, that truly superconducting paired with superinsulating, could make for a very small device capable of unlimited energy storage.
Almost in the sci-fi realm at this point, but what will the ultimate cap be? I'm thinking a superconducting film over a superinsulating film. I once asked a physicist (specialty was quantum physics) if a super insulating substance could be devised, much the same as are some with super conducting qualities. He scratched for a while then suggested that they just may.
Seems we're slowly heading in that direction. A small device holding as much energy as this imagined device could hold is scary to think about if it fails while fully charged though.
I don't think you're flamebait.
This isn't just science. It's politics too. As soon as another country makes the bold leap and beats us to Mars, they are the winner. They will have built upon a pyramid of technology that will leave us like we did to the old USSR. As we work on getting machines on that planet they may well be working on getting people there and we shouldn't dismiss this as only a possibility. They are gutsy enough to even work on one way trips. With our present view, China will own Mars.