Here's my best guess (and I'm a second year ECE major, so I know some physics, but not THAT much...):
Fusion requires a lot of heat, because the point is to be atoms flying around really, really fast, so when they smash into each other they stick together and make a bigger atom, instead of bouncing apart. Heat is really a measure of atomic activity (meaning, lots of heat makes atoms move very fast). So the idea behind the fusion reactor is that if we get a certain area hot enough, all we have to do is keep adding fuel and it will sustain the reaction. (think of it as a normal wood fire, only instead of chemical energy being freed from the wood, its atomic energy being released from sea water. Once you get a wood fire going, all you have to do is add wood, same idea with the sea water.) So that's how you get energy from fusion.
The issue is that the temperatures required will melt anything that is in contact with it. The solution is to use magnetic fields to hold all the fuel away from the walls of the container. A toroid (picture a donut, with a magnetic field flowing inside of it) is the best way to do it, because its fairly easy to make one (basically you take a solenoid and stick both ends together to make a circle) and its a more stable field than trying to get a spherical container.
Yes, I believe that if a kid doesn't want to learn, let them languish behind the grill at a burger joint for a few years to get inspired to go back and learn something.
I agree completely. As a student, I can tell you that there are few things more upsetting than showing up in a class all ready to go, and have some jerk who really doesn't want to be there talking or screwing around, because its distracting. If a student doesn't want to be in class, I don't want him there either, because it affects my ability to learn.
I've always thought that the real reason why private middle/high schools do better is because they can GET RID OF the people who don't want to be there.
I know I'm several days behind, here on slashdot, but what "National Emergency" do you envision anyone needing some sort of assult weapon for? Hunting, I can understand, even if I'm not a fan. Self defense, OK, but "National Emergency?" That's why we have a military, the whole point of the National Guard is to deal with National Emergencies... I promise you that the National Guard can handle just about anything better than Timmy the Meth Head.
Now if you think that the National Guard, or the Army, or Navy, or whatever is going to be the cause of this emergency... well that's a whole different ball of conspiricy theory nutjobiness...
There really isn't a reason for anyone (Meth head or normal) to own assult weapons. Anything that involves killing people (and that's all an assult rifle is good for: killing people) should be dealt with by the government, where there is at least some kind of accountability.
It also used to be that you could drop out of high school, get a job as at the local steel mill / coal mine / other physically demanding job, and make a decent enough living to support a family. The market changed, probably due to automation of many of those jobs, and now having a strong back and a weak mind isn't enough to get by on.
I don't think I'd blame the government, just the market, though if you can offer some examples of those lost economic freedoms I'd be willing to change my mind...
A collection of cells that has no functioning higher nervous system is not human.
Even if that collection of cells has human DNA? If you were to take a genetic sample from a zygote and a grown person, could you tell in the lab which was which? What if the genetic info says "I'm human" even if it only looks like a bunch of cells?
It seems a little inconsistent to me, claiming to be a progressive beleiver in the scientific theory and then using the "it doesn't look like me, so its not a person arguement" instead of defining a person as "anything with recognizable human DNA."
I'm not some radical Christian, but it seems to me that we know what that thing is. If it has a human's genetic code, then call it a person.
As I'm sure that many other/.ers are rushing to inform you, bird flu HAS transmitted from bird to human. It hasn't yet been confirmed to spread person to person, though they have some suspected cases. The lowest number I've heard on human deaths from bird flu is 60.
In case your biological history is a little rough, smallpox, the plauge, AIDS, the flu and virtually ever other major human killer has started off as a animal illness, and then spread to people.
I love your line of reasoning on SARS. Because a bunch of countries worked really hard to contain it, it was never a threat. So because we never ended the world during the Cold War, then nuclear weapons clearly were never a threat either.
I agree that car crashes are a serious issue, but AIDS alone claims 3 millino deaths a year. How long ago was it that AIDS was as small as bird flu? If there's even a chance that it could cause that kind of damage, then I'd rather deal with it NOW.
The only fiasco I see here is your misinformation.
I hate to break it to you, but most really good universities offer very little in the way of merit based scholarships. I know quite a few people here who are on aid scholarships, but that's because the University decided that there parents couldn't afford it, not because they've EARNED it more. Maybe "back in your day, when they actually had standards" they gave merit money, today its mostly for poor people.
For example: My g/f goes to Georgetown University, SFS (School of Foreign Service) which is the place to go if you're into language / politics like she is. She's fluent in French, working on Arabic, and planning on graduating with a Masters in 4 - 4.5 years. (she, like me, took ~ 10 A.P. courses in HS, so she is pretty much skipped her sophomore year) She works 20 hours a week, does Army ROTC, and just recently decided to drop the sailing team in favor of the Equestrian Team. She has a 3.7 at the best school anywhere for her concentration. The university offered her basically ZERO in terms of merit scholarships. It might have been something like 2 grand/year, which is roughly 5% off the total cost. She got more in terms of finianical aid, but she decided it wasn't enough and went with the AROTC idea.
Basically, the only place right now where you can get a full ride, non-sports (ie, involving actual acedemic merit) scholarship is the military. Both my g/f and I decided to "Take some personal responsbility," and went for it. I could have gone in state for free (VA tech was basically offering to pay me...) but I wanted to get a real top notch education, so I'm waking up at 0500 when everyone else is still sleeping off the night before's party.
I'm glad that when/where ever you went to school, they gave you cash, but today at top notch Colleges, they don't look at your merit when they're giving out scholarships. The article suggested that maybe we should remedy that by offering college money to good students in return for teaching, but you decided that to just blame religion, because attacking people is much easier than attacking actual problems.
Which is of course why TFA article doesn't mention religion at all.
Because the brightest minds we have missed the simple solution that you see clearly.
OR maybe its because an smart (fairly relgious) individual like myself has to break the bank to get a decent education.
I'm at Carnegie Mellon University, which is ranked in the top 3 in both Computer Science and Computer Engineering in the US and the total cost is $160,000+
I'm NROTC, so the US Navy is footing the bill, but I know that most of my classmates could use a hand. There's probably a lot of people who could great great educations here (or MIT, or where ever) and CAN'T AFFORD IT.
TFA mentions that they want to pay people to go to good schools and then teach. I'd take a $20,000 a year scholarship if all I had to do was teach for 5 years.
I know mindlessly attaching people who are different from you helps you feel good about yourself, but grow up, RTFA, and post intelligently.
Re:Easy counter measures, not worth killing whales
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Sonic Torpedo Defense
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· Score: 1
This is based on what? Your knowledge of old WWII movies? I'm presently doing Navy ROTC, and the above description is basically what our Sub Officer told us freshmen year. If you drive a torpedo at 5 knots instead of 30 its not nearly as loud. While I don't have personal experience on this matter, the LT had a several years in the fleet in addition to all the schooling they send Sub guys through.
Most torpedos don't just charge in any more, when they're going at full speed they make a bunch of noise which a) gives the enemy more time to react, and b) tells them right where you are. If you drive in slowly, you make less noise, give them less reaction time, and don't give away your position.
Re:Easy counter measures, not worth killing whales
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Sonic Torpedo Defense
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· Score: 1
In addition, modern torpedos use sonar to find their targets. They have all kinds of hunter killer patterns programmed in to find their targets, none of which are "drive straight ahead." (Its more like "Drive up to X point real slow, with sonar off, so the ship doesn't realize you're coming, then, go active, hunt it down, and blow it up. If their is a countermeasure, identify it an avoid it. If you miss, circle until you find it. Stay between X and Y depth, and don't go more than Z distance from the spot you went active at.")
This all invovles using ACTIVE SONAR. Any defense designed into the torpedo to protect against the *sound pulse* would likely render its sonar dome useless as well.
Doesn't a surpressor seriously effect the accuracy of a rifle? And 800 meters is a long shot, especially in an urban area (which is the place it would be most likely to be used, since that's where we're fighting right now.)
Actually, this robot would be really useful to catch that guy. The whole point is that the REDOWL tells you, after only ONE SHOT, that the bad guy is at X range in the Y direction. Its not supposed to return fire, because in telling you were the sniper is, he has helped to undo the sniper's biggest advantage: stealth.
It can give you an infared image of him and his location, a direction and distance, and even light him up with conventional lights.
A whole bunch of these bots, attached to trucks, humvees, tanks, carried on backpacks (they're under 10 pounds) whatever, is probably the best way to get a serial sniper. When he fires, you close in on his location. If he fires again, you just get a better read on his location. If he doesn't, ever shot he takes becomes a game of cat and mouse, because our guys know roughly where he is.
In regards to the robot being to slow returning fire:
Most sniper doctrine dictates that you a) don't fire frequently, b) don't move suddenly.
Both of those actions give a sniper away, and a spotted sniper is a dead sniper (they don't have particularly heavy armor, or the ability to rapid fire, at least not to the extent that a normal soilder does.)
It makes a lot of sense for what we're doing in Iraq, really. If you're walking down a street in Bagdad and take fire, the first thing you do is take cover. Then you try to find out where the baddie is so you can off him. If your killer romba has found him, it just saves you the time of looking.
As to being fooled, it probably wouldn't be to hard to have it track multiple targets. Navy ships have radars that can track 300+ at once. Well enough to put AA missiles on any of them at a word.
Navy flight surgeon http://www.vnh.org/FSManual/01/03Hypoxia.html/ gives you a maxium of 45 seconds of useful consciousness at 35000 ft. assuming a rapid loss of cabin pressure. Its only 45 seconds at 40,000. This is assuming that you are sitting still. If you are preforming "moderate activity" (say screaming your head off because you are are scared stupid) it drops to 30 and 18 seconds (35 and 40 thousand ft, respectively.) Even 30 seonds isn't a lot of time. You need to recognize that there is a problem, identify the problem, and correct it, all in that time, with impared cognitive abilities due to hypoxia. If you're a hot shit Navy Jet Jock whose trained for years to handle that kind of conditions, then no problem. If you are the average airline passenger (and likely the average airline pilot) that's not nearly enough time. I have no idea how violent a depressurization of this kind would be, but if it didn't rock the plane too much, the pilot's first warning that something is wrong might be when he passes out. Hypoxia = nasty
Re:Confusing the transitory with the long-lasting?
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Google Ant
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Yah! He should have named it something meaningful, like some sort of vauge latin description that the average human being cannot understand.
At least he gave the name as a gesture of thanks, instead of naming it after himself or his pet.
"Cash filled Space Agency" and NASA in the same sentence?
1965 NASA budget: 5 billion (rough 28 billion in todays $$)
2006 NASA budget: 16 billion
In 1965, NASA was only concerned with putting a man on the moom.
Today, NASA is working (all at the same time, mind you) towards:
Putting a man on Mars.
Sending dozens of rovers to Mars.
Putting satellites in orbit over Moons of the Gas giants.
Continue operation of objects leaving the Solar System.
And about a dozen other operations and projects of varying importance that I, as an uninterested outsider have no knowledge of.
So NASA is working on a considerately smaller budget than it was during the space race, and does much more.
A little research has giving me a budget for the RKA of just under 1 billion (900 million) but I'm unaware of any Russian space efforts beyond basic earth orbit. How many Mars landers do they have?
Did you read the wiki article you linked to? It pretty much answered your question. Virtually every nuclear powered rocket has the same problems:
If the nuclear material remains inside the rocket, the rocket cannot get a thrust to weight ratio of 1:1. The rocket itself begins to melt before the tempuratures required to produce that kind of pressure (and therefore thrust).
If the nuclear materal exits the rocket, the thrust can be much larger, but it spews radioactive waste all over the place. Great for getting from orbit to Mars, but not a great idea if you're trying to get into orbit.
The third issue is reentry. Think of the dedris path of Columbia. It covered probably 7-8 states. Imagine if there had been nuclear material in the shuttle... *shutter*
I'm not saying its not a good idea, but it needs a lot more research. Not using nuclear power to get into space has very little to do with popular opinino and everything to do with engineering problems.
I knew this one girl in my high school who had some SERIOUS concentration problems after smoking pot for a while.
Freshmen year she was on the all Honors / A.P. course track, and by senior year she was in all the "Basic Remedial XYZ for dummies" courses. She talked a bunch of people out of smoking pot after she stopped.
I try not to judge people, but it wasn't worth risking to me.
I mostly know about Catholic teachings, but most non-fundamentalist Christian groups hold the whole 7 day creation bit to be metaphorical. ie the 7 days represent 7 distinct periods during creation, which could be millions of years long. Just because there isn't any specific mention of an event doesn't mean it couldn't have happened. "On the x day God created the heavens and the earth." Heavens= moon, stars, Titans, etc.
At least for Catholics, the big bang and evolution have been acceptable beleifs for quite a few years (evolution was proclaimed officially ok before John Paul II). Most mainstream religions are a lot more open and flexable than you think.
To figure anything useful out, we'd probably have to look at orbits as well. Is Mars moving closer or further from the sun at this point in the orbit? and the earth? To draw corrilations, we'd probably have to look at some other nearby planets (Venus?) and plot the orbits/temps together.
If it's based on mostly memory specific tasks (like speling, for xampl), then I'd say the information age, with spell checkers and the like do make us 'dumber.'
But if its based on reasoning ability, the information age has probably raised average intelligence. I may not be able to spell, but I can handle many different kinds of systems and adapt to new ones in ways that people 100 years ago probably couldn't. And the fact that I have to constantly learn new tech (how to upgrade this software, how to program my new VCR, etc.) plays into that.
I don't know why the parent was modded flaimbait, its true, if a little blunt.
The original intent of the space program was to open another "front" in the Cold War. The USSR spent billions trying to beat us to the moon, which undoubtedly play a part in their economic collapse.
We no longer have the Cold War to drive us to the moon, and the moon doesn't have any real appeal from an economic point of view. It has no raw materials to be mined, no strategic value, no real purpose to be there.
I'm for space exploration as much as the next guy, but right now there isn't a good reason to put men on either the moon or Mars.
Slashdot Mirror
Fusion requires a lot of heat, because the point is to be atoms flying around really, really fast, so when they smash into each other they stick together and make a bigger atom, instead of bouncing apart. Heat is really a measure of atomic activity (meaning, lots of heat makes atoms move very fast). So the idea behind the fusion reactor is that if we get a certain area hot enough, all we have to do is keep adding fuel and it will sustain the reaction. (think of it as a normal wood fire, only instead of chemical energy being freed from the wood, its atomic energy being released from sea water. Once you get a wood fire going, all you have to do is add wood, same idea with the sea water.) So that's how you get energy from fusion.
The issue is that the temperatures required will melt anything that is in contact with it. The solution is to use magnetic fields to hold all the fuel away from the walls of the container. A toroid (picture a donut, with a magnetic field flowing inside of it) is the best way to do it, because its fairly easy to make one (basically you take a solenoid and stick both ends together to make a circle) and its a more stable field than trying to get a spherical container.
Hope this helps!
Jim
I agree completely. As a student, I can tell you that there are few things more upsetting than showing up in a class all ready to go, and have some jerk who really doesn't want to be there talking or screwing around, because its distracting. If a student doesn't want to be in class, I don't want him there either, because it affects my ability to learn.
I've always thought that the real reason why private middle/high schools do better is because they can GET RID OF the people who don't want to be there.
Now if you think that the National Guard, or the Army, or Navy, or whatever is going to be the cause of this emergency... well that's a whole different ball of conspiricy theory nutjobiness...
There really isn't a reason for anyone (Meth head or normal) to own assult weapons. Anything that involves killing people (and that's all an assult rifle is good for: killing people) should be dealt with by the government, where there is at least some kind of accountability.
I don't think I'd blame the government, just the market, though if you can offer some examples of those lost economic freedoms I'd be willing to change my mind...
Even if that collection of cells has human DNA? If you were to take a genetic sample from a zygote and a grown person, could you tell in the lab which was which? What if the genetic info says "I'm human" even if it only looks like a bunch of cells?
It seems a little inconsistent to me, claiming to be a progressive beleiver in the scientific theory and then using the "it doesn't look like me, so its not a person arguement" instead of defining a person as "anything with recognizable human DNA."
I'm not some radical Christian, but it seems to me that we know what that thing is. If it has a human's genetic code, then call it a person.
In case your biological history is a little rough, smallpox, the plauge, AIDS, the flu and virtually ever other major human killer has started off as a animal illness, and then spread to people.
I love your line of reasoning on SARS. Because a bunch of countries worked really hard to contain it, it was never a threat. So because we never ended the world during the Cold War, then nuclear weapons clearly were never a threat either.
I agree that car crashes are a serious issue, but AIDS alone claims 3 millino deaths a year. How long ago was it that AIDS was as small as bird flu? If there's even a chance that it could cause that kind of damage, then I'd rather deal with it NOW.
The only fiasco I see here is your misinformation.
For example: My g/f goes to Georgetown University, SFS (School of Foreign Service) which is the place to go if you're into language / politics like she is. She's fluent in French, working on Arabic, and planning on graduating with a Masters in 4 - 4.5 years. (she, like me, took ~ 10 A.P. courses in HS, so she is pretty much skipped her sophomore year) She works 20 hours a week, does Army ROTC, and just recently decided to drop the sailing team in favor of the Equestrian Team. She has a 3.7 at the best school anywhere for her concentration. The university offered her basically ZERO in terms of merit scholarships. It might have been something like 2 grand/year, which is roughly 5% off the total cost. She got more in terms of finianical aid, but she decided it wasn't enough and went with the AROTC idea.
Basically, the only place right now where you can get a full ride, non-sports (ie, involving actual acedemic merit) scholarship is the military. Both my g/f and I decided to "Take some personal responsbility," and went for it. I could have gone in state for free (VA tech was basically offering to pay me...) but I wanted to get a real top notch education, so I'm waking up at 0500 when everyone else is still sleeping off the night before's party.
I'm glad that when /where ever you went to school, they gave you cash, but today at top notch Colleges, they don't look at your merit when they're giving out scholarships. The article suggested that maybe we should remedy that by offering college money to good students in return for teaching, but you decided that to just blame religion, because attacking people is much easier than attacking actual problems.
Because the brightest minds we have missed the simple solution that you see clearly.
OR maybe its because an smart (fairly relgious) individual like myself has to break the bank to get a decent education.
I'm at Carnegie Mellon University, which is ranked in the top 3 in both Computer Science and Computer Engineering in the US and the total cost is $160,000+
I'm NROTC, so the US Navy is footing the bill, but I know that most of my classmates could use a hand. There's probably a lot of people who could great great educations here (or MIT, or where ever) and CAN'T AFFORD IT.
TFA mentions that they want to pay people to go to good schools and then teach. I'd take a $20,000 a year scholarship if all I had to do was teach for 5 years.
I know mindlessly attaching people who are different from you helps you feel good about yourself, but grow up, RTFA, and post intelligently.
Most torpedos don't just charge in any more, when they're going at full speed they make a bunch of noise which a) gives the enemy more time to react, and b) tells them right where you are. If you drive in slowly, you make less noise, give them less reaction time, and don't give away your position.
This all invovles using ACTIVE SONAR. Any defense designed into the torpedo to protect against the *sound pulse* would likely render its sonar dome useless as well.
He failed freshman physics AND Tropedos 101.
Doesn't a surpressor seriously effect the accuracy of a rifle? And 800 meters is a long shot, especially in an urban area (which is the place it would be most likely to be used, since that's where we're fighting right now.)
It can give you an infared image of him and his location, a direction and distance, and even light him up with conventional lights.
A whole bunch of these bots, attached to trucks, humvees, tanks, carried on backpacks (they're under 10 pounds) whatever, is probably the best way to get a serial sniper. When he fires, you close in on his location. If he fires again, you just get a better read on his location. If he doesn't, ever shot he takes becomes a game of cat and mouse, because our guys know roughly where he is.
This kind of thing is the way to catch pros.
Most sniper doctrine dictates that you a) don't fire frequently, b) don't move suddenly.
Both of those actions give a sniper away, and a spotted sniper is a dead sniper (they don't have particularly heavy armor, or the ability to rapid fire, at least not to the extent that a normal soilder does.)
It makes a lot of sense for what we're doing in Iraq, really. If you're walking down a street in Bagdad and take fire, the first thing you do is take cover. Then you try to find out where the baddie is so you can off him. If your killer romba has found him, it just saves you the time of looking.
As to being fooled, it probably wouldn't be to hard to have it track multiple targets. Navy ships have radars that can track 300+ at once. Well enough to put AA missiles on any of them at a word.
Navy flight surgeon http://www.vnh.org/FSManual/01/03Hypoxia.html/ gives you a maxium of 45 seconds of useful consciousness at 35000 ft. assuming a rapid loss of cabin pressure. Its only 45 seconds at 40,000. This is assuming that you are sitting still. If you are preforming "moderate activity" (say screaming your head off because you are are scared stupid) it drops to 30 and 18 seconds (35 and 40 thousand ft, respectively.) Even 30 seonds isn't a lot of time. You need to recognize that there is a problem, identify the problem, and correct it, all in that time, with impared cognitive abilities due to hypoxia. If you're a hot shit Navy Jet Jock whose trained for years to handle that kind of conditions, then no problem. If you are the average airline passenger (and likely the average airline pilot) that's not nearly enough time. I have no idea how violent a depressurization of this kind would be, but if it didn't rock the plane too much, the pilot's first warning that something is wrong might be when he passes out. Hypoxia = nasty
At least he gave the name as a gesture of thanks, instead of naming it after himself or his pet.
1965 NASA budget: 5 billion (rough 28 billion in todays $$)
2006 NASA budget: 16 billion
In 1965, NASA was only concerned with putting a man on the moom.
Today, NASA is working (all at the same time, mind you) towards:
Putting a man on Mars.
Sending dozens of rovers to Mars.
Putting satellites in orbit over Moons of the Gas giants.
Continue operation of objects leaving the Solar System.
And about a dozen other operations and projects of varying importance that I, as an uninterested outsider have no knowledge of.
So NASA is working on a considerately smaller budget than it was during the space race, and does much more.
A little research has giving me a budget for the RKA of just under 1 billion (900 million) but I'm unaware of any Russian space efforts beyond basic earth orbit. How many Mars landers do they have?
If the nuclear material remains inside the rocket, the rocket cannot get a thrust to weight ratio of 1:1. The rocket itself begins to melt before the tempuratures required to produce that kind of pressure (and therefore thrust).
If the nuclear materal exits the rocket, the thrust can be much larger, but it spews radioactive waste all over the place. Great for getting from orbit to Mars, but not a great idea if you're trying to get into orbit.
The third issue is reentry. Think of the dedris path of Columbia. It covered probably 7-8 states. Imagine if there had been nuclear material in the shuttle... *shutter*
I'm not saying its not a good idea, but it needs a lot more research. Not using nuclear power to get into space has very little to do with popular opinino and everything to do with engineering problems.
I told you, no judgements, just a little personal story...
Freshmen year she was on the all Honors / A.P. course track, and by senior year she was in all the "Basic Remedial XYZ for dummies" courses. She talked a bunch of people out of smoking pot after she stopped.
I try not to judge people, but it wasn't worth risking to me.
I mostly know about Catholic teachings, but most non-fundamentalist Christian groups hold the whole 7 day creation bit to be metaphorical. ie the 7 days represent 7 distinct periods during creation, which could be millions of years long. Just because there isn't any specific mention of an event doesn't mean it couldn't have happened. "On the x day God created the heavens and the earth." Heavens= moon, stars, Titans, etc.
At least for Catholics, the big bang and evolution have been acceptable beleifs for quite a few years (evolution was proclaimed officially ok before John Paul II). Most mainstream religions are a lot more open and flexable than you think.
Its too bad we only have one giant eye in the sky...
And have more than 3 years of data.
If it's based on mostly memory specific tasks (like speling, for xampl), then I'd say the information age, with spell checkers and the like do make us 'dumber.'
But if its based on reasoning ability, the information age has probably raised average intelligence. I may not be able to spell, but I can handle many different kinds of systems and adapt to new ones in ways that people 100 years ago probably couldn't. And the fact that I have to constantly learn new tech (how to upgrade this software, how to program my new VCR, etc.) plays into that.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6555449/
What would have happened if it had been Detriot or Atlanta?
The original intent of the space program was to open another "front" in the Cold War. The USSR spent billions trying to beat us to the moon, which undoubtedly play a part in their economic collapse.
We no longer have the Cold War to drive us to the moon, and the moon doesn't have any real appeal from an economic point of view. It has no raw materials to be mined, no strategic value, no real purpose to be there.
I'm for space exploration as much as the next guy, but right now there isn't a good reason to put men on either the moon or Mars.
It's too bad, I'd go.