I'm talking relative speeds, here. The only velocity that matters is (v.bullet - v.comet). I don't care of |v.bullet| or |v.comet| is 23,000mph; I care about how hard they actually collide.
Would you bother to quote the whole thing, if you're going to criticize it?
The question is - which makes more sense economically? Terraforming the entire planet, refusing to colonize it altogether, or building biodomes all over its surface? Right now, the third option is pretty much out of the question, so we have a long-term decision to make about whether Mars is more valuable as the red planet, or as a green one.
Let's break it down a little bit and rearrange: "Right now, building biodomes all over [Mars'] surface is pretty much out of the question." Seeing as we have trouble funding individual biodomes capable of housing 10 people for a year here on Earth, my statement is accurate. We do not have the technology, funding, or expertise necessary to cover the surface of Mars ("all over its surface" as I said) with biodomes.
I then conclude that we have a long-term decision to make regarding whether terraforming it or leaving it alone is best.
As to whether "building enough biodomes to support a significant human population" is more or less expensive than terraforming, it largely depends on what you consider to be a "significant" human population. Mars is smaller than Earth. Let's be ultra-conservative and say that "significant" means no less than 100 million people (although I'm much more inclined to require 1 billion).
Since you're the biodome expert, tell me how many biodomes it would take to support that level of human population for 50 years (which is short-term). Then, tell me how much it would cost to construct said biodomes, ignoring the cost of either transporting the components from Earth or setting up manufacturing facilities on Mars.
Long-term, terraforming and leaving it alone are the only way to go. Covering the entire surface of Mars save for the "national park" areas is ridiculous at best.
Interesting...but the blurb you and Wikipedia give doesn't explain whether you end up with a planet covered in small domes or whether you build bunches of 2km-high biocubes, or what. The implicit analogy to the railroad building technique of James J. Hill (who built the only transcontinental railroad without any government help, largely by building branch lines all over the place so cover more land and generate more revenue to build the next stretch) is interesting.
I said "long-term," and also "colonize" somewhere in there. Building enough biodomes to support a significant human population can't be any less expensive than terraforming, presuming that we are capable of terraforming the place at all. The amount of material would actually be less to build a "ceiling" around the entire planet than it would be to cover the entire surface with domes.
No. Any mission launched to colonize Mars would be a multinational group. But by the time they all got there, the Americans would have eaten all the Chinese, Japanese, French, German, and Middle Eastern aboard and the Russians would have been shot out of the capsule for being too much like American rednecks: "Hey y'all, watch this!"
It's an interesting dilemma. The only really good way to colonize Mars involves terraforming it. But the only way to preserve parts of the Martian surface precludes terraforming it. I guess you could build giant Martidomes to preserve the ancient landscape, but that seems like a lot of expense just to protect part of the planet from terraforming.
The question is - which makes more sense economically? Terraforming the entire planet, refusing to colonize it altogether, or building biodomes all over its surface? Right now, the third option is pretty much out of the question, so we have a long-term decision to make about whether Mars is more valuable as the red planet, or as a green one.
I sadly can't claim the same. I'm about 8% IE, 93% FireFox. (Used MS Calculator to check my numbers, there.) I never open IE on purpose, but sometimes it still magically launches for the express purpose of updating me to the latest spyware. I mean - I have to manually click Run... and type in 'iexplore' to get the thing open, but some spyware isn't as lazy as you'd think.
Gmail is invite-only. And I'm not gonna waste mine on billg@microsoft.com. That said, I wonder how many Gmail invites he's actually received, serious or as slaps-in-the-face regarding Hotmail.;)
I've seen approximately 30 seconds of CSI in my life, and that was enough. The specific errors I got were in relation to a gun. Being a gun person, avid second-amendment supporter, and hunter, I couldn't handle it.
The key error was giving an anti-hunting-rifle slant by use of terminology that cops simply do not use for guns. The specific one I remember doesn't show this, but does show utter ignorance about guns.
They pronounced the caliber known as.308 Winchester as "three-ought-eight," probably based on the assumption that all 0's in guns are "ought." This is not the case. "Three-oh-eight" is correct, here. The "ought" notation comes in when the digit either stands alone or is part of a sub-number. For example, 00 buckshot is pronounced "double-ought" because the 0's are acting the way letters in bra sizes do: as individual digits. The caliber.30-06 Springfield is pronounced "thirty ought-six" because the -06 is not part of the caliber, but a designator from the year in which is was adopted (1906).
.308 Winchester is nothing but "three-oh-eight," and because of this and other ignorance I cannot stand to watch the show.
Crummy Science for Idiots is an accurate backronym.
What later missions? Apollo 11 is the only one that they've spent a lot of time rebutting the conspiracy theories, so as far as I'm concerned 11 happened but 12-17 never did.;)
Despite your 50% spelling and 0% capitalization rates, I'm going to respond. The definition of "burned" involving combustion is not the first definition of the word. There are ways to burn things that don't involve oxygen, at all. The looser definition I'm going under, for the sake of rhetorical readability, would include any destruction by heat or fire. I assure you that there was enough heat from the ascent stage's ignition to destroy the flag.
It'll be interesting to see, if the Pluto probe ever flies, whether that uses ion propulsion. An ion drive could really make a difference on such a long-haul flight.
Yes, it really could make a difference. Specifically, it'd make the difference between how many times you'll have to say "great" before you get to the "grand-father was alive when they launched that thing" part of the conversation your descendants will have when it gets there.
Are there any other contenders for the most obnoxious recurring duplicate story? This one has come up so many times in the past couple years that it's not even funny. There are others in that category. Which one is the worst?
Are we really so hard-up for news that we're posting yesterday's failed spam solutions today? Why not post a story about breaking the color barrier in baseball - it may not be relevant to the site (although that's even questionable lately), but at least that one worked.
The original question was "How many gigs should I make this partition?" so that was an irrelevant concern. Of course, on the same day we had a discussion about number systems with a fractional base, so I think we may have missed the forest for the trees on that observation even if it would've fit.;)
One day, we were hanging around in the ACM chapter office and someone was working on his PC. He asked how big he should make some partition because he just didn't feel like deciding, and someone said "How about a nice, even 5 gigs?"
After a few seconds had passed, somebody pointed out: "Wait...not only is 5 not even... it's prime!"
I read it initially as being that researchers at Columbia University had intentionally genetically-engineered a breed of Roundup-ready coca, and I didn't even think twice about accepting that that's what they do at Columbia.
- Do something illegal, get arrested, and excercise your right to trial before 4 years of Bush-appointed, Republican confirmed Supreme Court appointees uphold the Patriot Act's elimination of right to trial.
Agreed.
The nasty provisions of the Patriot Act are already being overturned in the Circuit Courts of Appeals. One has done it as violation of due process, and if one more Circuit does (highly likely to happen if it comes up) then the Supreme Court would be very hard-pressed to grant cert., much less to overturn the Circuits' decisions. Cert. will probably only be granted if there is a circuit split, which I don't see happening. And if it does, neither candidate would have made a difference at that level on this topic.
To me, the scary thing is that my post about the actual facts in Bush v. Gore, disputing the contention made that the Supreme Court appointed Bush President, was moderated as a Troll. Our moderators are pretty subjectively liberal - these are the people not voting for Kerry because he's too conservative for them.
Are you at all aware of the facts in Bush v. Gore? Gore wanted only certain counties recounted, and even though the recounts continually came up in Bush's favor, they wouldn't stop recounting. Their method of recounting violated Florida law, and the FL Supreme Court let them get away with it. The US Supreme Court held that Florida's court was wrong in ignoring its own election laws.
No matter how many times you count the fingers on your left hand, you will come up with the same number. And if the number on your left hand changes between recounts, there's no legitimate reason not to double-check your right hand to be sure it hasn't gained or lost any digits during the fiasco.
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No, it wouldn't. :P
I'm talking relative speeds, here. The only velocity that matters is (v.bullet - v.comet). I don't care of |v.bullet| or |v.comet| is 23,000mph; I care about how hard they actually collide.
Would you bother to quote the whole thing, if you're going to criticize it?
The question is - which makes more sense economically? Terraforming the entire planet, refusing to colonize it altogether, or building biodomes all over its surface? Right now, the third option is pretty much out of the question, so we have a long-term decision to make about whether Mars is more valuable as the red planet, or as a green one.
Let's break it down a little bit and rearrange: "Right now, building biodomes all over [Mars'] surface is pretty much out of the question." Seeing as we have trouble funding individual biodomes capable of housing 10 people for a year here on Earth, my statement is accurate. We do not have the technology, funding, or expertise necessary to cover the surface of Mars ("all over its surface" as I said) with biodomes.
I then conclude that we have a long-term decision to make regarding whether terraforming it or leaving it alone is best.
As to whether "building enough biodomes to support a significant human population" is more or less expensive than terraforming, it largely depends on what you consider to be a "significant" human population. Mars is smaller than Earth. Let's be ultra-conservative and say that "significant" means no less than 100 million people (although I'm much more inclined to require 1 billion).
Since you're the biodome expert, tell me how many biodomes it would take to support that level of human population for 50 years (which is short-term). Then, tell me how much it would cost to construct said biodomes, ignoring the cost of either transporting the components from Earth or setting up manufacturing facilities on Mars.
Long-term, terraforming and leaving it alone are the only way to go. Covering the entire surface of Mars save for the "national park" areas is ridiculous at best.
The article doesn't state if this velocity is relative to Cape Cod or relative to the comet. It makes a big difference.
820 pounds, from the first sentence of paragraph 3.
Interesting...but the blurb you and Wikipedia give doesn't explain whether you end up with a planet covered in small domes or whether you build bunches of 2km-high biocubes, or what. The implicit analogy to the railroad building technique of James J. Hill (who built the only transcontinental railroad without any government help, largely by building branch lines all over the place so cover more land and generate more revenue to build the next stretch) is interesting.
I said "long-term," and also "colonize" somewhere in there. Building enough biodomes to support a significant human population can't be any less expensive than terraforming, presuming that we are capable of terraforming the place at all. The amount of material would actually be less to build a "ceiling" around the entire planet than it would be to cover the entire surface with domes.
No. Any mission launched to colonize Mars would be a multinational group. But by the time they all got there, the Americans would have eaten all the Chinese, Japanese, French, German, and Middle Eastern aboard and the Russians would have been shot out of the capsule for being too much like American rednecks: "Hey y'all, watch this!"
It's an interesting dilemma. The only really good way to colonize Mars involves terraforming it. But the only way to preserve parts of the Martian surface precludes terraforming it. I guess you could build giant Martidomes to preserve the ancient landscape, but that seems like a lot of expense just to protect part of the planet from terraforming.
The question is - which makes more sense economically? Terraforming the entire planet, refusing to colonize it altogether, or building biodomes all over its surface? Right now, the third option is pretty much out of the question, so we have a long-term decision to make about whether Mars is more valuable as the red planet, or as a green one.
I sadly can't claim the same. I'm about 8% IE, 93% FireFox. (Used MS Calculator to check my numbers, there.) I never open IE on purpose, but sometimes it still magically launches for the express purpose of updating me to the latest spyware. I mean - I have to manually click Run... and type in 'iexplore' to get the thing open, but some spyware isn't as lazy as you'd think.
How about:
4) An attempt to prove that Oswald could have taken all the shots that day, to shut up a significant segment of the conspiracy theorists at long last
The company is offering a prize to whoever comes closest to the timing and results of Nov. 22, 1963, using this simulation.
Gmail is invite-only. And I'm not gonna waste mine on billg@microsoft.com. That said, I wonder how many Gmail invites he's actually received, serious or as slaps-in-the-face regarding Hotmail. ;)
I've seen approximately 30 seconds of CSI in my life, and that was enough. The specific errors I got were in relation to a gun. Being a gun person, avid second-amendment supporter, and hunter, I couldn't handle it.
.308 Winchester as "three-ought-eight," probably based on the assumption that all 0's in guns are "ought." This is not the case. "Three-oh-eight" is correct, here. The "ought" notation comes in when the digit either stands alone or is part of a sub-number. For example, 00 buckshot is pronounced "double-ought" because the 0's are acting the way letters in bra sizes do: as individual digits. The caliber .30-06 Springfield is pronounced "thirty ought-six" because the -06 is not part of the caliber, but a designator from the year in which is was adopted (1906).
.308 Winchester is nothing but "three-oh-eight," and because of this and other ignorance I cannot stand to watch the show.
The key error was giving an anti-hunting-rifle slant by use of terminology that cops simply do not use for guns. The specific one I remember doesn't show this, but does show utter ignorance about guns.
They pronounced the caliber known as
Crummy Science for Idiots is an accurate backronym.
What later missions? Apollo 11 is the only one that they've spent a lot of time rebutting the conspiracy theories, so as far as I'm concerned 11 happened but 12-17 never did. ;)
Despite your 50% spelling and 0% capitalization rates, I'm going to respond. The definition of "burned" involving combustion is not the first definition of the word. There are ways to burn things that don't involve oxygen, at all. The looser definition I'm going under, for the sake of rhetorical readability, would include any destruction by heat or fire. I assure you that there was enough heat from the ascent stage's ignition to destroy the flag.
It'll be interesting to see, if the Pluto probe ever flies, whether that uses ion propulsion. An ion drive could really make a difference on such a long-haul flight.
Yes, it really could make a difference. Specifically, it'd make the difference between how many times you'll have to say "great" before you get to the "grand-father was alive when they launched that thing" part of the conversation your descendants will have when it gets there.
The flag was almost certainly burned when the LEM ascent stage lit up.
Yeah, but you can't spell "Joe Straitiff Sucks" without Joe Straitiff.
Are there any other contenders for the most obnoxious recurring duplicate story? This one has come up so many times in the past couple years that it's not even funny. There are others in that category. Which one is the worst?
Are we really so hard-up for news that we're posting yesterday's failed spam solutions today? Why not post a story about breaking the color barrier in baseball - it may not be relevant to the site (although that's even questionable lately), but at least that one worked.
The original question was "How many gigs should I make this partition?" so that was an irrelevant concern. Of course, on the same day we had a discussion about number systems with a fractional base, so I think we may have missed the forest for the trees on that observation even if it would've fit. ;)
One day, we were hanging around in the ACM chapter office and someone was working on his PC. He asked how big he should make some partition because he just didn't feel like deciding, and someone said "How about a nice, even 5 gigs?"
... it's prime!"
After a few seconds had passed, somebody pointed out: "Wait...not only is 5 not even
I read it initially as being that researchers at Columbia University had intentionally genetically-engineered a breed of Roundup-ready coca, and I didn't even think twice about accepting that that's what they do at Columbia.
Agreed.
The nasty provisions of the Patriot Act are already being overturned in the Circuit Courts of Appeals. One has done it as violation of due process, and if one more Circuit does (highly likely to happen if it comes up) then the Supreme Court would be very hard-pressed to grant cert., much less to overturn the Circuits' decisions. Cert. will probably only be granted if there is a circuit split, which I don't see happening. And if it does, neither candidate would have made a difference at that level on this topic.
Screw CNN, The Onion has a complete map already.
To me, the scary thing is that my post about the actual facts in Bush v. Gore, disputing the contention made that the Supreme Court appointed Bush President, was moderated as a Troll. Our moderators are pretty subjectively liberal - these are the people not voting for Kerry because he's too conservative for them.
Are you at all aware of the facts in Bush v. Gore? Gore wanted only certain counties recounted, and even though the recounts continually came up in Bush's favor, they wouldn't stop recounting. Their method of recounting violated Florida law, and the FL Supreme Court let them get away with it. The US Supreme Court held that Florida's court was wrong in ignoring its own election laws.
No matter how many times you count the fingers on your left hand, you will come up with the same number. And if the number on your left hand changes between recounts, there's no legitimate reason not to double-check your right hand to be sure it hasn't gained or lost any digits during the fiasco.