what?
A localized magnetic field may protect a dome from radiation, but large scale terra-forming/colonization is going to need a global magnetic field to protect and allow the very existence of a thicker atmosphere. The power needed to operate a global artificial magnetic field would be absolutely stupefying.
old people are harder to keep alive. Ever try to do tech support for your grandmother over the phone? now imagine trying to walk her through a medical procedure like a heart stint with a 20 minute communication delay. The elderly (age 65 and over) made up around 13 percent of the U.S. population in 2002, but they consumed 36 percent of total U.S. personal health care expenses. That number has only gone up in the last 11 years, thanks to an aging baby boomer generation. And you want to send them to mars?
If we're ever to colonize mars, we're going to need to find a way to restart its magnetic field. Whole process is moot without it, the magnetic field is what keeps solar wind/radiation from stripping the atmosphere off of earth, and the lack thereof is why mars atmosphere is so thin and useless.
The sort of people who, if they open their wallet, and a 100$ bill slips out and falls to the ground, the time it takes to bend down and retrieve it (aka, make 100$) is wasted, because their time is worth more than 50$ per second at their rate of income.
I agree, many of them do serve a purpose. But do they all need to be 150 lumen LED's? as long as its detectable at comfortable lighting levels, that is enough, no reason to be lighting the room with the power indicator on your monitor.
touch screen also requires that your thumbs not be shaped like a smashed toe. I don't personally hate touch screens, but typing on most of them involves vast amounts of typos as i aim for 1 'key' and brush 3 others in my attempt. And this is why auto correct was invented.
I've not seen anyone use a painting easel at arms length much. Really, the pose I tend to see is standing *much*closer to the canvas, elbow propped against the ribcage, allowing fine motor control of the fingers to produce fine details on the canvas. Sure, some abstract painters may use huge broad strokes for some of their work, and even detail painters will use a big brush and broad strokes for covering large areas with base coats, but when it comes to fine details, its all about getting close, small movements, precise control. Which is were the whole 'Minority Report' design goes out the window. No one wants to do 8 hours of complex data entry at arms length doing yoga moves.
And also, its a plot device. Remember, at the time, the existence of a little thin computer screen that held reams of information was still a good 15 years out or more, and a lot of people didn't even use computers much, so the idea of 'multiple documents on one device' was much more abstract. The image of a desk covered in books and papers was what 'Work' looked like 20 odd years ago to a lot more people than it does now. Showing someone doing 'research' with 1 document would seem disingenuous back then.
A lot of the props where not digitally added originally. (think about TNG, season 1. All the planets where added in, and looked like they where made in MS paint). A lot of the controls where lexan with a black coating on the back, with the interface mapped out in other color plastic, and backlit. Only a very small amount of the interface was CG. ( if it could be done cheep and quick by sliding a plastic shield, it was done CG didn't used to be the quick and cheep it is now)
Landing gear handle - lever with a wheel on the end, taxi light - switch shaped like a T, etc.
that... that is somewhere between Completely Awesome, and mildly hilarious.
Information like that is bad for me. It makes me feel like, knowing that, I might be able to work out the basic functions of cockpit controls by sitting and looking at them for a while. I assume it is probably not as simple as that.
I think the idea behind the 'sick sticks' would be something along the lines of 'non-lethal' weapons. Can you imagine the (hilarious) police brutality claims that would accompany such a device?
'Your honor, I was brutalized by the police!'
'lets see the bruises son.'
'well, actually, they just made me throw up on my new nikes, but it was terrible!'
-Judge just stares at the guy-
I've never fully understood the need to have little lights on every damn thing. My DSL modem has 5 lights on all the time, some of which blink. My Battery Backup has a light on it, my speakers have a light on them, my Monitor has a light in the power button, my XBox power brick has a light that you might be able to see from orbit, the Power strip in the living room has a light in it, my Laptop has a light that 'breathes' when the computer is asleep. 90% of these device are pretty damn obvious if they are 'On' or 'Off' without a glowing indicator. Hell, I had a router once that had a little blue dome on the top, and inside where about 18 LED's that flashed in some sort of relation to the WIFI activity. Looked like a epileptic stroke at a disco. Later versions of that router came with a button to turn the LED dome off, but the first model just had a little plastic shield you where supposed to clip in place if it was annoying.
Long story short, Foil Tape with tiny pinholes in it has become my friend. I simply cut a bit of tape, poke a tiny needle-hole in it, and affix it over the LED. I can still see the indicator if I need/desire to, but am not barraged with little flickering lights in my bedroom at night.
I believe the terrain was pulled from GIS data, (the article mentions the creators wanting to show off some of Russia's natural beauty) and the article says they procedurally placed the foliage and rocks, so Its all the work of very well designed math problems. But you are right, they did seem to do a meticulous job getting those math problems to reflect natural patterns.
Radio Telescopes function by 'listening' to the noise generated by stars and other celestial objects. radar works by sending out a signal, and 'listening' it being reflected back, and uses the distortions in that reflection to calculate the location of an object. (more or less, thats a simplified version obviously). Now, imagine trying to detect something, that is moving so fast, that by the time the radio reflection gets back to you, it has moved entirely out of the area of sky you where scanning. the result would simply be a brief 'pip' on the screen, and the next scan pass would show nothing. Now imagine that there are hundreds, if not thousands of those objects out there, at various ranges and speeds, PLUS all the artificial satellites between us and those objects. The result on your screen would be something like the 'snow' on a TV tuned to an empty over the air broadcast channel. And that is just looking at a more or less postage stamp sized swatch of the sky. Beyond that, the interference caused by flooding the sky with radar signals would likely cause problems for terrestrial vehicles that use radar for navigation. Yes, it would be good if we could detect and track the (probably billions) of near earth objects, down to the smallest grain of interstellar gravel, but in the practical sense, we have neither the time, money, computing power, or sensing technology to achieve such a goal.
this thing was 15 meters across, jet black, and moving like a bat out of hell. To paraphrase people that look for near earth objects "Its invisible until it hits the atmosphere."
The sad fact of the matter is, no matter how much money you pour into programs to locate and track near earth objects, there is no way to detect objects of this size and velocity with any degree of reliability.
I agree, the main thing that makes progress bars frustrating, is that most of them *try* to estimate the time. "% complete" or "X of Y tasks done" takes most of the guessing away, and gives the user a better idea how long things might take.
And this is why I refuse to install system updates for at least a month after they are released. Let some other poor sod brick their phone with an obscure bug, and get the fixed update once they finish the croudsourcing beta test.
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gravity *and* magnetic field. Mars low gravity, combined with its weak magnetic field, does bad things to its atmosphere.
what?
A localized magnetic field may protect a dome from radiation, but large scale terra-forming/colonization is going to need a global magnetic field to protect and allow the very existence of a thicker atmosphere. The power needed to operate a global artificial magnetic field would be absolutely stupefying.
old people are harder to keep alive. Ever try to do tech support for your grandmother over the phone? now imagine trying to walk her through a medical procedure like a heart stint with a 20 minute communication delay. The elderly (age 65 and over) made up around 13 percent of the U.S. population in 2002, but they consumed 36 percent of total U.S. personal health care expenses. That number has only gone up in the last 11 years, thanks to an aging baby boomer generation. And you want to send them to mars?
If we're ever to colonize mars, we're going to need to find a way to restart its magnetic field. Whole process is moot without it, the magnetic field is what keeps solar wind/radiation from stripping the atmosphere off of earth, and the lack thereof is why mars atmosphere is so thin and useless.
How do you define "absurdly rich"?
The sort of people who, if they open their wallet, and a 100$ bill slips out and falls to the ground, the time it takes to bend down and retrieve it (aka, make 100$) is wasted, because their time is worth more than 50$ per second at their rate of income.
Yes, these people exist.
I agree, many of them do serve a purpose. But do they all need to be 150 lumen LED's? as long as its detectable at comfortable lighting levels, that is enough, no reason to be lighting the room with the power indicator on your monitor.
touch screen also requires that your thumbs not be shaped like a smashed toe. I don't personally hate touch screens, but typing on most of them involves vast amounts of typos as i aim for 1 'key' and brush 3 others in my attempt. And this is why auto correct was invented.
I've not seen anyone use a painting easel at arms length much. Really, the pose I tend to see is standing *much*closer to the canvas, elbow propped against the ribcage, allowing fine motor control of the fingers to produce fine details on the canvas. Sure, some abstract painters may use huge broad strokes for some of their work, and even detail painters will use a big brush and broad strokes for covering large areas with base coats, but when it comes to fine details, its all about getting close, small movements, precise control. Which is were the whole 'Minority Report' design goes out the window. No one wants to do 8 hours of complex data entry at arms length doing yoga moves.
And also, its a plot device. Remember, at the time, the existence of a little thin computer screen that held reams of information was still a good 15 years out or more, and a lot of people didn't even use computers much, so the idea of 'multiple documents on one device' was much more abstract. The image of a desk covered in books and papers was what 'Work' looked like 20 odd years ago to a lot more people than it does now. Showing someone doing 'research' with 1 document would seem disingenuous back then.
A lot of the props where not digitally added originally. (think about TNG, season 1. All the planets where added in, and looked like they where made in MS paint). A lot of the controls where lexan with a black coating on the back, with the interface mapped out in other color plastic, and backlit. Only a very small amount of the interface was CG. ( if it could be done cheep and quick by sliding a plastic shield, it was done CG didn't used to be the quick and cheep it is now)
Landing gear handle - lever with a wheel on the end, taxi light - switch shaped like a T, etc.
that... that is somewhere between Completely Awesome, and mildly hilarious.
Information like that is bad for me. It makes me feel like, knowing that, I might be able to work out the basic functions of cockpit controls by sitting and looking at them for a while. I assume it is probably not as simple as that.
That clip always makes me get the twitchy eyeball of brain trauma caused by over exposure to 'dumb'.
I think the idea behind the 'sick sticks' would be something along the lines of 'non-lethal' weapons. Can you imagine the (hilarious) police brutality claims that would accompany such a device?
'Your honor, I was brutalized by the police!'
'lets see the bruises son.'
'well, actually, they just made me throw up on my new nikes, but it was terrible!'
-Judge just stares at the guy-
"Bob! all the wires are purple!"
"well, red and blue mixed makes purple, cut em all!"
I've never fully understood the need to have little lights on every damn thing. My DSL modem has 5 lights on all the time, some of which blink. My Battery Backup has a light on it, my speakers have a light on them, my Monitor has a light in the power button, my XBox power brick has a light that you might be able to see from orbit, the Power strip in the living room has a light in it, my Laptop has a light that 'breathes' when the computer is asleep. 90% of these device are pretty damn obvious if they are 'On' or 'Off' without a glowing indicator. Hell, I had a router once that had a little blue dome on the top, and inside where about 18 LED's that flashed in some sort of relation to the WIFI activity. Looked like a epileptic stroke at a disco. Later versions of that router came with a button to turn the LED dome off, but the first model just had a little plastic shield you where supposed to clip in place if it was annoying.
Long story short, Foil Tape with tiny pinholes in it has become my friend. I simply cut a bit of tape, poke a tiny needle-hole in it, and affix it over the LED. I can still see the indicator if I need/desire to, but am not barraged with little flickering lights in my bedroom at night.
So what you are saying is, from now on, when setting up any new TV, I clearly am a store?
That was my first thought. "so he 'invented' a hot glue gun?". Color me not impressed.
I believe the terrain was pulled from GIS data, (the article mentions the creators wanting to show off some of Russia's natural beauty) and the article says they procedurally placed the foliage and rocks, so Its all the work of very well designed math problems. But you are right, they did seem to do a meticulous job getting those math problems to reflect natural patterns.
article says its not a pre-defined path, you have free fly through control, or you can choose 'hike through' control, IE FPS shooter controls.
Radio Telescopes function by 'listening' to the noise generated by stars and other celestial objects. radar works by sending out a signal, and 'listening' it being reflected back, and uses the distortions in that reflection to calculate the location of an object. (more or less, thats a simplified version obviously). Now, imagine trying to detect something, that is moving so fast, that by the time the radio reflection gets back to you, it has moved entirely out of the area of sky you where scanning. the result would simply be a brief 'pip' on the screen, and the next scan pass would show nothing. Now imagine that there are hundreds, if not thousands of those objects out there, at various ranges and speeds, PLUS all the artificial satellites between us and those objects. The result on your screen would be something like the 'snow' on a TV tuned to an empty over the air broadcast channel. And that is just looking at a more or less postage stamp sized swatch of the sky. Beyond that, the interference caused by flooding the sky with radar signals would likely cause problems for terrestrial vehicles that use radar for navigation. Yes, it would be good if we could detect and track the (probably billions) of near earth objects, down to the smallest grain of interstellar gravel, but in the practical sense, we have neither the time, money, computing power, or sensing technology to achieve such a goal.
this thing was 15 meters across, jet black, and moving like a bat out of hell. To paraphrase people that look for near earth objects "Its invisible until it hits the atmosphere."
The sad fact of the matter is, no matter how much money you pour into programs to locate and track near earth objects, there is no way to detect objects of this size and velocity with any degree of reliability.
I agree, the main thing that makes progress bars frustrating, is that most of them *try* to estimate the time. "% complete" or "X of Y tasks done" takes most of the guessing away, and gives the user a better idea how long things might take.
And this is why I refuse to install system updates for at least a month after they are released. Let some other poor sod brick their phone with an obscure bug, and get the fixed update once they finish the croudsourcing beta test.
better hand those over also then. Listen, its just so they can keep you 'safe'.
google 'republic of texas standoff' to see how well forming your own nation works.