Elon had made a comment that the fuel for a launch was about $200,000. All the money is tied up in the hardware of which most cannot be reused. If they don't have to keep building new launchers ($50M) each time, things get real cheap, real fast. The fuel required for power descent is a pretty small fraction relative to what it takes to achieve orbit. Even if they had to make two or three trips to get the same mass to orbit the total cost is still two orders of magnitude lower. Being able to reuse the "whole" vehicle is game changing. Even if they could only come up with a miserable failure rate, let say a 50/50 chance of successful reentry and landing of the launch vehicle it'd still be a huge savings.
When Elon pulls this off space will become accessible to a whole new crowd. It won't just be large corporations and multi-millionaire tourists.
You would be wise to learn that you should never bet against a geek with a dream and the passion, drive and intelligence to back it up. Elon is just such a person. The only way this guy will fail is if the MIC starts playing dirty.
The tiles are extracting 5mm worth of potential relative to the level of the floor. 5mm that the person has to climb out of to regain what was extracted to be once again level with the floor. 5mm can really add up. Especially when you're a fat, lazy, American. Assume a storey is 5m high, now assume an average human makes two strides for every meter or 10mm climbed for every meter traveled. That means after walking 500m they've climbed the equivalent of a flight of stairs. Are you really telling me that the Wal-Mart scooter culture is not going to care about climbing a few flights of stairs that they'd normally take an escalator for during their trip to the mall?
Don't worry, some kind soul representing GM/OnStar will explain it all to him. He'll take a nice long vacation in the Bahamas with his secretary and never press the issue again.
the history of the PC. How many decades did it take for us to get where we are? The first PC was some 50 years in the making and by today's standards was downright laughable in its capabilities. The first computers weren't Von Neumann machines either. You had to have a team of dedicated operators reconfigure patch cables between between outputs and inputs for each an every calculation! To be so pessimistic so early in the life of quantum computing is insulting to the progress we've made so far which is considerably outstripping the pace of development of the modern computer.
You need an MBA (Master of Bullsh*t Arts). Essentially it's a degree in social engineering through plausible fabrication of reality while keeping a straight face. This should of course not be confused with the career path for politicians which starts with a law degree wherein you learn social engineering through the plausible misrepresentation of facts while keeping a straight face.
Actually no. The drug manufacturer may file a 505(b)(2) application with the FDA instead of a traditional new drug application allowing them to forgo pre-clinical and clinical trials in most cases. Instead the manufacturer is able to cite facts established from the drug upon which this new version is based. Further, in so doing, the manufacturer can receive a 3 to 5 year market exclusivity on the product depending upon the extent of the change.
Actually, engineers resolved the notion of the user powered pump quite some time ago. It's really cool, you just squeeze or depress the mechanism and out comes the product. For the lazy though they've come up with the ingenious notion of replacing the aerosol with carbon dioxide or nitrous oxide when used in human consumables. Either way there are alternatives to CFCs and most cost no different or even less than CFC propellant. The problem isn't the propellant it's the drug manufacturers that feel like charging more.
At least in the US there are gyms that can fit even tight budgets--$10/month not being unheard off for single membership. However as the saying goes "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink" would be most apropos. If it were about cost then we wouldn't see such an overwhelming number of fat, lazy gluttonous, middle-class sots.
Firstly it's high unlikely that Moore's law will be retiring any time soon. All we are seeing is a slow down in the advancement of shrinking the manufacturing process. That doesn't say anything about performance improvements by other means. We are continually seeing advancement in performance per watt which is enabling CPUs to spread their dies not only "out" but even now we're seeing the prospect of "up" with promising research in layering techniques. Beyond that there are carbon rather than silicon based materials coming online that promise to further improve upon the performance per watt angle. We're even starting to see glimmers of hope in the quantum computing arena which would be game changing.
With respect to small companies being able to enter the market and compete with the "big guys" I would seriously doubt it. The first and obvious reason being the cost factor being a barrier to entry. The equipment isn't cheap and contending in the patent arena is worse. The most you'll ever see here is university level research being sold off to the big guys.
I would suggest somewhere around 3 or 4 if my observations of children is any kind of guide. They've got the whole religious "love everybody" idea but are selfish to the core and violent when they don't get their way.
I understand the concern with the disparity issue but to me that is not a justifiable reason to prevent advancement for those that can and have the desire to. I see it as little different than closing down gyms and banning the sale of athletic equipment because there are a bunch of fat, lazy, gluttonous sots and we don't want to create a disparity of health between them and those with motivation and self discipline. Or the unfortunately all too common holding back the smart kids because the stupid ones can't keep pace.
I think you've hit the nail on the head. What's bothering me though are these draconian "walled gardens" that are continuing to be pushed onto us. What's bothering me even more is the move towards "leaseable" applications that if not in whole at least in part reside on a corporate server farm somewhere rather than my hard drive. Not only are we losing traditional ownership but the ability to use them is depending upon fragile infrastructure. They are creating huge vulnerabilities subject to the whims of both nature and governments.
Since the Netflix blog doesn't let anyone in that doesn't have a Facial book account (stupid in it's own right) I'll post here...
Mr. Hastings,
Are you purposefully trying to kill this business? Are you tired of being CEO and don't have the courage to step down?
I could understand the need to charge more. Do I like paying more? No, but then when I consider the rip off that is cable TV you folks were still coming out smelling like roses. However, this "unbundling" of your DVD and Streaming service is needlessly destroying the value of your product. The "one stop shop" aspect--even in its somewhat clumsy split personality incarnation--was appreciated and valuable. Since you want to present the DVD and streaming service as two separate services you will now compete for my money on two separate fronts. You had better hope that your "two" services can compete individually better than the alternatives. I am no longer compelled to keep one for the sake of the other.
BTW. stop patronizing us with these letters. You're not engendering any favor or sympathy because of them, quite the opposite really.
I'm assuming consumer interests will not be served and AT&T will be allowed to proceed after greasing a few palms. With this in mind does anyone have any recommendations as to which carrier to switch off to and why?
Slashdot Mirror
Elon had made a comment that the fuel for a launch was about $200,000. All the money is tied up in the hardware of which most cannot be reused. If they don't have to keep building new launchers ($50M) each time, things get real cheap, real fast. The fuel required for power descent is a pretty small fraction relative to what it takes to achieve orbit. Even if they had to make two or three trips to get the same mass to orbit the total cost is still two orders of magnitude lower. Being able to reuse the "whole" vehicle is game changing. Even if they could only come up with a miserable failure rate, let say a 50/50 chance of successful reentry and landing of the launch vehicle it'd still be a huge savings.
When Elon pulls this off space will become accessible to a whole new crowd. It won't just be large corporations and multi-millionaire tourists.
You would be wise to learn that you should never bet against a geek with a dream and the passion, drive and intelligence to back it up. Elon is just such a person. The only way this guy will fail is if the MIC starts playing dirty.
The tiles are extracting 5mm worth of potential relative to the level of the floor. 5mm that the person has to climb out of to regain what was extracted to be once again level with the floor. 5mm can really add up. Especially when you're a fat, lazy, American. Assume a storey is 5m high, now assume an average human makes two strides for every meter or 10mm climbed for every meter traveled. That means after walking 500m they've climbed the equivalent of a flight of stairs. Are you really telling me that the Wal-Mart scooter culture is not going to care about climbing a few flights of stairs that they'd normally take an escalator for during their trip to the mall?
It doesn't really matter because in the end since humans are trending towards fat, lazy blobs that travel about in Wal-Mart scooters.
But irradiating food to kill pathogens is considered unsafe... *sigh*
That's cute and all but no one bu Anonymous has those. However, you can Popvox them.
No we have this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and of course the very much abbreviated list wouldn't be complete without this
So what good will that do for the American market?
I guess they didn't want my business.
Don't worry, some kind soul representing GM/OnStar will explain it all to him. He'll take a nice long vacation in the Bahamas with his secretary and never press the issue again.
the history of the PC. How many decades did it take for us to get where we are? The first PC was some 50 years in the making and by today's standards was downright laughable in its capabilities. The first computers weren't Von Neumann machines either. You had to have a team of dedicated operators reconfigure patch cables between between outputs and inputs for each an every calculation! To be so pessimistic so early in the life of quantum computing is insulting to the progress we've made so far which is considerably outstripping the pace of development of the modern computer.
Inflation before IPO? Really? Would someone really do such a thing? I cannot believe this! Where are their ethics?
You need an MBA (Master of Bullsh*t Arts). Essentially it's a degree in social engineering through plausible fabrication of reality while keeping a straight face. This should of course not be confused with the career path for politicians which starts with a law degree wherein you learn social engineering through the plausible misrepresentation of facts while keeping a straight face.
Actually no. The drug manufacturer may file a 505(b)(2) application with the FDA instead of a traditional new drug application allowing them to forgo pre-clinical and clinical trials in most cases. Instead the manufacturer is able to cite facts established from the drug upon which this new version is based. Further, in so doing, the manufacturer can receive a 3 to 5 year market exclusivity on the product depending upon the extent of the change.
Actually, engineers resolved the notion of the user powered pump quite some time ago. It's really cool, you just squeeze or depress the mechanism and out comes the product. For the lazy though they've come up with the ingenious notion of replacing the aerosol with carbon dioxide or nitrous oxide when used in human consumables. Either way there are alternatives to CFCs and most cost no different or even less than CFC propellant. The problem isn't the propellant it's the drug manufacturers that feel like charging more.
It's rather fascinating to see just were arrogance will land you...
At least in the US there are gyms that can fit even tight budgets--$10/month not being unheard off for single membership. However as the saying goes "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink" would be most apropos. If it were about cost then we wouldn't see such an overwhelming number of fat, lazy gluttonous, middle-class sots.
Firstly it's high unlikely that Moore's law will be retiring any time soon. All we are seeing is a slow down in the advancement of shrinking the manufacturing process. That doesn't say anything about performance improvements by other means. We are continually seeing advancement in performance per watt which is enabling CPUs to spread their dies not only "out" but even now we're seeing the prospect of "up" with promising research in layering techniques. Beyond that there are carbon rather than silicon based materials coming online that promise to further improve upon the performance per watt angle. We're even starting to see glimmers of hope in the quantum computing arena which would be game changing.
With respect to small companies being able to enter the market and compete with the "big guys" I would seriously doubt it. The first and obvious reason being the cost factor being a barrier to entry. The equipment isn't cheap and contending in the patent arena is worse. The most you'll ever see here is university level research being sold off to the big guys.
I would suggest somewhere around 3 or 4 if my observations of children is any kind of guide. They've got the whole religious "love everybody" idea but are selfish to the core and violent when they don't get their way.
I understand the concern with the disparity issue but to me that is not a justifiable reason to prevent advancement for those that can and have the desire to. I see it as little different than closing down gyms and banning the sale of athletic equipment because there are a bunch of fat, lazy, gluttonous sots and we don't want to create a disparity of health between them and those with motivation and self discipline. Or the unfortunately all too common holding back the smart kids because the stupid ones can't keep pace.
I think you've hit the nail on the head. What's bothering me though are these draconian "walled gardens" that are continuing to be pushed onto us. What's bothering me even more is the move towards "leaseable" applications that if not in whole at least in part reside on a corporate server farm somewhere rather than my hard drive. Not only are we losing traditional ownership but the ability to use them is depending upon fragile infrastructure. They are creating huge vulnerabilities subject to the whims of both nature and governments.
Since the Netflix blog doesn't let anyone in that doesn't have a Facial book account (stupid in it's own right) I'll post here...
Mr. Hastings,
Are you purposefully trying to kill this business? Are you tired of being CEO and don't have the courage to step down?
I could understand the need to charge more. Do I like paying more? No, but then when I consider the rip off that is cable TV you folks were still coming out smelling like roses. However, this "unbundling" of your DVD and Streaming service is needlessly destroying the value of your product. The "one stop shop" aspect--even in its somewhat clumsy split personality incarnation--was appreciated and valuable. Since you want to present the DVD and streaming service as two separate services you will now compete for my money on two separate fronts. You had better hope that your "two" services can compete individually better than the alternatives. I am no longer compelled to keep one for the sake of the other.
BTW. stop patronizing us with these letters. You're not engendering any favor or sympathy because of them, quite the opposite really.
Sincerely,
-- Your no longer loyal customer
I'm rather curious as to when sci-fi will become fulfilled prophecy as these companies go to war with real weapons.
Don't worry, the US has recently passed a patent reform bill. All is solved.
I'm assuming consumer interests will not be served and AT&T will be allowed to proceed after greasing a few palms. With this in mind does anyone have any recommendations as to which carrier to switch off to and why?