question, is it only the surface of the sun thats on fire/hot/fissioning ?
No, it's the other way round. The fusion reactions happen deep inside the sun (where it's hot enough), but we can only see the outer layers because they emit visible light.
I don't think a country in which a person is forced by law to work 60% of their working hours as an unpaid slave to others can be called civilized.
You're free to leave, so you're not a slave. And not all of those 60% can count as working for others. I'd be glad to take libertarian propaganda seriously if it didn't have such gaping holes in it.
30000 lbs... how many obese Americans does it take to reach 30000lbs? Can you fit this many on a jumbo jet?
Simple math would have given you the answer. Assume a very modest 200 lbs per person, 150 people would weigh 30000 lbs. That many will easily fit on a jumbo jet, with plenty of space left.
This is equivalent to approximately 1.4% of the power output of the Sun.
Hm. Suppose that aliens a few hundred lightyears away have their telescopes pointed at us in a few hundred years, could they detect the test? 1/100 of the power of the sun, albeit just for a few nanoseconds, sounds fairly significant.
Yeah...you do realize Orwell was a right-wing nutbag, right?
I hope you're joking. Orwell was a self-professed socialist. Well, nowadays we'd call him a social democrat, but still.
His 1984 was squarely aimed at...the commies!
It was aimed at Stalinism and totalitarinism, which he viewed as very much what socialism _shouldn't_ become. He was smart enough to see that no right-wing nutbag needed such a book.
You don't honestly believe the Pirate Party is going to make it past the 5% hurdle in Germany, are you?
That would be nice, but it's not necessary. They'd cause quite a stir (and get a good shot at continued existence, due to getting campaign cost reimbursement) if they made it above the 0.5% hurdle. It's a bit much to hope for a direct mandate, but that'd be even more spectacular.
Unlike in Contact the machine is designed wipe out the receiving civilisation and suck up all available power and resources building copies of itself which then broadcast the plans to other civilisations.
That works until you find a civilization which thinks that your design interesting but needs a few improvements, and sends a prototype improved model back to you.
Apparently, some people in the German government haven't realized yet that the Pirate party has made it on the ballots in some places, and that the next election is less than two months away.
Just keep giving them some more free advertising.
Completely unrelated, I'd also see some legislation allowing the Federal Constitutional Courts to hand out savage beatings with the clue stick to everyone involved in drafting and passing unconstitutional laws. And they should broadcast it on TV, too.
All this is assuming that we would know immediately if there were a 50-100 million year old alien probe in our solar system's backyard.
Yes. There could be half a bajillion alien probes in the Kuiper belt, transmitting the latest antics of the Earthlings right to GalaxyTV, and we'd have no idea.
I wonder why should one consider a colonisation of the whole Galaxy?
Because someone else might have the same idea, and you need to beat them to it.
Isn't it a too damn big territory to defend - explore - colonize?
Well, if you manage to colonize the whole galaxy, you probably don't have to worry about defending it from external threats for quite a while.
Without talking about the astronomical (ha ha) amount of human (E.T.) resources it would take to launch such an enterprise!
Yes, it takes quite a bit of resources to start, but once you have it going, the law of exponential growth is on your side... at least until you run out of galaxy to colonize.
The concrete bunker is a safety system that those morons could not disable
What, you don't think that morons can leave the doors open long enough that that mechanism to close them becomes nonfunctional due to the high temperatures inside?
Remember, we're talking about morons here. Not "Oops, I pressed the wrong button by accident.", but "Hey, this is a safety system, but if we take it offline for just a while then we can make our work so much more convenient.".
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No, it's the other way round. The fusion reactions happen deep inside the sun (where it's hot enough), but we can only see the outer layers because they emit visible light.
It's actually a copy of the Ho-229/Go-229, only slightly scaled up. *SCNR*
You're free to leave, so you're not a slave. And not all of those 60% can count as working for others. I'd be glad to take libertarian propaganda seriously if it didn't have such gaping holes in it.
30000 lbs ... how many obese Americans does it take to reach 30000lbs? Can you fit this many on a jumbo jet?
Simple math would have given you the answer. Assume a very modest 200 lbs per person, 150 people would weigh 30000 lbs. That many will easily fit on a jumbo jet, with plenty of space left.
No no no, you're thinking too un-Orwellian. The "Do not ride the bomb!" signs were amended to "Do not ride the bomb without waving a US flag".
Ever heard of air raid shelters?
No to mention that there's no "test" like one on a real target.
Hm. Suppose that aliens a few hundred lightyears away have their telescopes pointed at us in a few hundred years, could they detect the test? 1/100 of the power of the sun, albeit just for a few nanoseconds, sounds fairly significant.
30,000 pounds is 15 tons. That's 1000 times less than even a very small nuke.
Err ... no. _Very small_ nukes go down well into the sub-kiloton range.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)
I hope you're joking. Orwell was a self-professed socialist. Well, nowadays we'd call him a social democrat, but still.
His 1984 was squarely aimed at...the commies!
It was aimed at Stalinism and totalitarinism, which he viewed as very much what socialism _shouldn't_ become. He was smart enough to see that no right-wing nutbag needed such a book.
Doing sufficient damage to the device so it explodes?
Woud throwing the device containing it out the back door suffice?
I'd say it's "Throwing your iPod may break it."
Seriously. Apples lawyers are going to be all over this.
That would be nice, but it's not necessary. They'd cause quite a stir (and get a good shot at continued existence, due to getting campaign cost reimbursement) if they made it above the 0.5% hurdle. It's a bit much to hope for a direct mandate, but that'd be even more spectacular.
pichan. Now even more irrational.
That works until you find a civilization which thinks that your design interesting but needs a few improvements, and sends a prototype improved model back to you.
The difference is the police decide what goes on that list after they manually check the sites, there's no political agenda.
There's always a problem if the police can just do stuff without a judge being able to review their decisions.
But then the small indoors is in danger. We need to move everybody to the moon, starting with the people who create laws like these.
The moon? The MOON ?! You're thinking way too short.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_Ark#Golgafrincham
Just keep giving them some more free advertising.
Completely unrelated, I'd also see some legislation allowing the Federal Constitutional Courts to hand out savage beatings with the clue stick to everyone involved in drafting and passing unconstitutional laws. And they should broadcast it on TV, too.
Yes they can. At least some of those that are in Mars orbit. There are some nice pictures of the landers, the parachutes, etc.
We pretty much know what rocks and ice look like. If the aliens aren't spectacularly good at masquerading as rock and ice, we'll recognize them.
Yes. There could be half a bajillion alien probes in the Kuiper belt, transmitting the latest antics of the Earthlings right to GalaxyTV, and we'd have no idea.
I wonder why should one consider a colonisation of the whole Galaxy?
Because someone else might have the same idea, and you need to beat them to it.
Isn't it a too damn big territory to defend - explore - colonize?
Well, if you manage to colonize the whole galaxy, you probably don't have to worry about defending it from external threats for quite a while.
Without talking about the astronomical (ha ha) amount of human (E.T.) resources it would take to launch such an enterprise!
Yes, it takes quite a bit of resources to start, but once you have it going, the law of exponential growth is on your side ... at least until you run out of galaxy to colonize.
What, you don't think that morons can leave the doors open long enough that that mechanism to close them becomes nonfunctional due to the high temperatures inside?
Remember, we're talking about morons here. Not "Oops, I pressed the wrong button by accident.", but "Hey, this is a safety system, but if we take it offline for just a while then we can make our work so much more convenient.".
You forget a basic fact of radiation: It decays away. IIRC, after 400 years, the waste is as radioactive as the soil it was drawn from.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-lived_fission_product
And some of these are fairly problematic, like Iodine-129.