If I'm wandering around an area thats new to me, ok I usually get lost, but before then I am physically retracing my steps in reverse. I follow the familiar landmarks, buildings whatever as i return to my starting point. I don't see whats so astounding that another animal would be hardwired to follow a simialar process to retrace its steps. I mean the rat probably has much more difficultly with visualizing a maze as a whole, it would be wasting its time thinking about how it got to every single point in its journey when it could use some inbuilt hardwiring to automatically learn the return journey. The return journey is the most important one for the rat to learn anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_escape#Th ermal_Escape_Mechanisms
Mass is only one reason, I believe solar wind is the main cause of Atmospheric_escape on Mars, as it doesn't have a strong magnetic field to protect it. Alot of people worry that this will happen to earth the next time our magnetic field flips.
Could they just consider the He used to lift the craft under load an acceptable loss for transporting the troops? Once the blimp drops off the troops it could just bleed off the He replacing it with air (or some safer gas that's about as heavy as air). The He could then be replaced next time it picks up troops. Or is this more or less the same as the method you mentioned where they condense the He?
Sorry my bad, I didn't actually read it... it was just one of the first ones google spat out. (I'd forogtten where I'd read about it before) My point was based on the fact that unleaded petrol could very well turn out to be worse for your health than leaded. This might be an acceptable risk considering the benefits it offers, time will tell(unless I'm wrong already of course). Several "solutions" to global warming have huge risks associated with them, again some may be acceptable but I feel the best thing we can do, in the short term at least, is simply try to reduce our impact on the environment. Most of the proposed solutions follow this line I think, but I've read a few crazy ones, cloud generating ships, sun blocking satellites, dumping loads of iron in parts of the oceans etc the list goes on and on. Even simple no brainer solutions can potentially backfire. When microwaves were introduced it was thought energy consuption would be reduced due to fact that microwaves were more efficient than conventional ovens. As it turned out consumers then wanted more ready made meals and energy consumtion went up in the industrial sector for a net negative impact overall. Basically to sum up my badly written and long winded post I think we need change asap but all we can do for now is carefully figure out and implement ways to cut emissions.
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/1997/292/292p9.ht m/
The solution can often be worse than the cure.
I believe global warming is real, getting worse and worth worrying about. But care has to be given when deciding upon how we deal with it. I suspect there is no perfect solution, and temperatures will still be climbing long after I'm dead. All I think we can do is reduce our influence on the problem and hope in time that climate change will level off. Failing that we could just paint all the deserts white etc that might work....
I believe the height of an elevator shaft is also limited by the fact that a conventional one essentially weakens a building. I guess with this tech people with start enginering the elevator shafts to be stronger and longer.
A very common argument, but one that's not really backed up by research. First of all, the wind in an area is read for about a year and analysed to insure that it's actually worthwhile putting up a turbine. It depends on the area of course but usually you lose one or two days a year to strong wind. Fluctuations etc are taken into account and a predicted output for a year of operation is worked out. You do still need the power plants you're just able to run them at a lower output most of the time.
I fed up of all the moaning and b***hing I have to wade through to fine an interesting comment which actually relates to the parent article(ironic that I'm off topic myself I guess). Yes, Linux is great windows is bad etc The question isn't which OS is better, it's why do you think anyone would bother listening to your rant over the millions of other perfectly good rants that are being spammed into blogs the world over even as I type this comment. Microsoft mightn't have the best OS (cough) but it has the most successful one, live with it or get bent.
I thought the argument was that the release cycle was too slow to be of any use, not which was easier, which OS is better or whatever (yawn). I use windows not because I think it's better but simply because learning a new OS is more effort it's really worth to me (and I'm lazy). And for the record slipstreaming windows with sp2 and a few drivers is a doddle there's freeware apps available which reduce the process to a few button clicks. Hence the reason I'm bothered doing it at all.
I have to disagree with that. I've had problems in the past (getting my computer to recognise my SATA drives that is) but the mother board should supply the required drivers. And you can always create slipstreamed backups of windows that include new drivers, service packs, applications etc
http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&q=slpstream+wind ows&meta=
When someone has physical access to the machine, they can do a number of things to get around passwords etc. They could place a key logger between the keyboard and the computer for example. Or if the monitor was a CRT it would also be broadcasting everything that it displays. Anyone with the right equipment could watch everything the user was doing like a tv program (a fairly fuzzy one at least)
I'm sure if you asked a woman she'd disagree... but back on topic it'd be nice if it was smaller but I don't see any particualar reason to limit them to DVD size. You can't fit a tape backup into a standard 5 inch bay either. Its not a DVD, so it has it's own standard for size. And since it's for data backup I'd go for bigger is better. At 13 cm its still smaller than a tape at least.
"nobody powers gadgets off oil" or to be more accurate most people do, at least indirectly anyway. And for the next few years any fuel cell tech will run indirectly off oil as well. Your 100% correct about the reason for using fuel cells in gadgets, I was just getting a bit off topic and wanted to add my own 2 cent on the argument it always generates.
All these articles, about hydrogen fuel cells always lead to the same argument being posted. Ie: Hydrogen isn't a better fuel source than oil because it requires electricity to produce. To get electricity you have to burn more oil, and due to losses in the circuit you'd be better off just burning the oil in the first place. This argument is flawed (at least IMOA). Don't look at hydrogen or oil as competing fuel sources, consider them to be simply different mediums for transfer energy. With oil the circuit is Sun -> Plants->Dinosaurs->Oil, Coal, whatever. An awful lot of energy is lost in that circuit. The Oil itself requires energy to extract and refine for a start, and plants and animals are not very efficient. Anyway bottom line is, oil just represents loads of stored solar energy, which we're using faster than we're replacing. With hydrogen you can store energy from multiple sources, solar wind, nuclear, etc. As long as those sources don't release pollutants etc it's a much cleaner and faster energy transfer medium. It's not as energy dense, but it's easily more energy efficient and cost effective than growing a butt load of plants and dinosaurs and waiting for thousands of years while they turn into Oil.
You could literally buy a ton of regular old paper and ink for 3,000, and it would be money much better spent. I love the idea of E-Ink but 3,000! I couldn't justify spending that much on a finished E-Ink product, let alone on a bunch of components that I'd likely end up toasting by accident.
The military is currently researching railgun technology. The shells said railgun will fire are inert and will not explode in the same manner as conventional shells. They'll simply strike the unfortunate target with such force that it'll basically explode. Nasa did the same thing, just with more mass and more velocity, no chemical reaction could explode with the same force obtained by striking a target in this manner.
As I understand it a spongy asteroid will absorb much more force than a harder one of similar mass. Trying to break a sponge for example is far less fun than trying to break some silly figurine. I'm also guessing that the powder itself wouldn't be able to explode like (or at least to the same extent as) it would in an oxygen rich environment.
I have a Bluetooth mouse with 2 extra buttons (they function as back and forward on IE) You'd imaging they'd come in handy for gaming, but I found the opposite to be true.
I tend to get a bit agitated in FPS games
More buttons = smaller buttons,
Small buttons + big fingers = Me bashing the hell out of my mouse when the wrong button gets pressed.
"The fingers you have used to dial are too fat. To order a special
dialing wand, please mash the keypad with your palm now."
I haven't been able to get to the site so I'm writing this based on my understanding of regular telescopes. Which can gather lots of light mostly because they're huge. You simply cannot get this kind of light gathering ability in a hand held device, they're too small.
Slashdot Mirror
If I'm wandering around an area thats new to me, ok I usually get lost, but before then I am physically retracing my steps in reverse. I follow the familiar landmarks, buildings whatever as i return to my starting point. I don't see whats so astounding that another animal would be hardwired to follow a simialar process to retrace its steps. I mean the rat probably has much more difficultly with visualizing a maze as a whole, it would be wasting its time thinking about how it got to every single point in its journey when it could use some inbuilt hardwiring to automatically learn the return journey. The return journey is the most important one for the rat to learn anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_escape#Th ermal_Escape_Mechanisms
Mass is only one reason, I believe solar wind is the main cause of Atmospheric_escape on Mars, as it doesn't have a strong magnetic field to protect it. Alot of people worry that this will happen to earth the next time our magnetic field flips.
Could they just consider the He used to lift the craft under load an acceptable loss for transporting the troops? Once the blimp drops off the troops it could just bleed off the He replacing it with air (or some safer gas that's about as heavy as air). The He could then be replaced next time it picks up troops. Or is this more or less the same as the method you mentioned where they condense the He?
Sorry my bad, I didn't actually read it... it was just one of the first ones google spat out. (I'd forogtten where I'd read about it before) My point was based on the fact that unleaded petrol could very well turn out to be worse for your health than leaded. This might be an acceptable risk considering the benefits it offers, time will tell(unless I'm wrong already of course). Several "solutions" to global warming have huge risks associated with them, again some may be acceptable but I feel the best thing we can do, in the short term at least, is simply try to reduce our impact on the environment. Most of the proposed solutions follow this line I think, but I've read a few crazy ones, cloud generating ships, sun blocking satellites, dumping loads of iron in parts of the oceans etc the list goes on and on. Even simple no brainer solutions can potentially backfire. When microwaves were introduced it was thought energy consuption would be reduced due to fact that microwaves were more efficient than conventional ovens. As it turned out consumers then wanted more ready made meals and energy consumtion went up in the industrial sector for a net negative impact overall. Basically to sum up my badly written and long winded post I think we need change asap but all we can do for now is carefully figure out and implement ways to cut emissions.
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/1997/292/292p9.ht m/
The solution can often be worse than the cure.
I believe global warming is real, getting worse and worth worrying about. But care has to be given when deciding upon how we deal with it. I suspect there is no perfect solution, and temperatures will still be climbing long after I'm dead. All I think we can do is reduce our influence on the problem and hope in time that climate change will level off. Failing that we could just paint all the deserts white etc that might work....
I believe the height of an elevator shaft is also limited by the fact that a conventional one essentially weakens a building. I guess with this tech people with start enginering the elevator shafts to be stronger and longer.
A very common argument, but one that's not really backed up by research. First of all, the wind in an area is read for about a year and analysed to insure that it's actually worthwhile putting up a turbine. It depends on the area of course but usually you lose one or two days a year to strong wind. Fluctuations etc are taken into account and a predicted output for a year of operation is worked out. You do still need the power plants you're just able to run them at a lower output most of the time.
I fed up of all the moaning and b***hing I have to wade through to fine an interesting comment which actually relates to the parent article(ironic that I'm off topic myself I guess). Yes, Linux is great windows is bad etc The question isn't which OS is better, it's why do you think anyone would bother listening to your rant over the millions of other perfectly good rants that are being spammed into blogs the world over even as I type this comment. Microsoft mightn't have the best OS (cough) but it has the most successful one, live with it or get bent.
I thought the argument was that the release cycle was too slow to be of any use, not which was easier, which OS is better or whatever (yawn). I use windows not because I think it's better but simply because learning a new OS is more effort it's really worth to me (and I'm lazy). And for the record slipstreaming windows with sp2 and a few drivers is a doddle there's freeware apps available which reduce the process to a few button clicks. Hence the reason I'm bothered doing it at all.
I have to disagree with that. I've had problems in the past (getting my computer to recognise my SATA drives that is) but the mother board should supply the required drivers. And you can always create slipstreamed backups of windows that include new drivers, service packs, applications etc http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&q=slpstream+wind ows&meta=
When someone has physical access to the machine, they can do a number of things to get around passwords etc. They could place a key logger between the keyboard and the computer for example. Or if the monitor was a CRT it would also be broadcasting everything that it displays. Anyone with the right equipment could watch everything the user was doing like a tv program (a fairly fuzzy one at least)
Not sure how the limbo position would work exactly but it sure sounds like fun.
I'm sure if you asked a woman she'd disagree... but back on topic it'd be nice if it was smaller but I don't see any particualar reason to limit them to DVD size. You can't fit a tape backup into a standard 5 inch bay either. Its not a DVD, so it has it's own standard for size. And since it's for data backup I'd go for bigger is better. At 13 cm its still smaller than a tape at least.
"nobody powers gadgets off oil" or to be more accurate most people do, at least indirectly anyway. And for the next few years any fuel cell tech will run indirectly off oil as well. Your 100% correct about the reason for using fuel cells in gadgets, I was just getting a bit off topic and wanted to add my own 2 cent on the argument it always generates.
All these articles, about hydrogen fuel cells always lead to the same argument being posted. Ie: Hydrogen isn't a better fuel source than oil because it requires electricity to produce. To get electricity you have to burn more oil, and due to losses in the circuit you'd be better off just burning the oil in the first place. This argument is flawed (at least IMOA). Don't look at hydrogen or oil as competing fuel sources, consider them to be simply different mediums for transfer energy. With oil the circuit is Sun -> Plants->Dinosaurs->Oil, Coal, whatever. An awful lot of energy is lost in that circuit. The Oil itself requires energy to extract and refine for a start, and plants and animals are not very efficient. Anyway bottom line is, oil just represents loads of stored solar energy, which we're using faster than we're replacing. With hydrogen you can store energy from multiple sources, solar wind, nuclear, etc. As long as those sources don't release pollutants etc it's a much cleaner and faster energy transfer medium. It's not as energy dense, but it's easily more energy efficient and cost effective than growing a butt load of plants and dinosaurs and waiting for thousands of years while they turn into Oil.
You could literally buy a ton of regular old paper and ink for 3,000, and it would be money much better spent. I love the idea of E-Ink but 3,000! I couldn't justify spending that much on a finished E-Ink product, let alone on a bunch of components that I'd likely end up toasting by accident.
Install a ram scoop on the front of the vehicle!
If only they'd googled gmail before they named the mail service.
The military is currently researching railgun technology. The shells said railgun will fire are inert and will not explode in the same manner as conventional shells. They'll simply strike the unfortunate target with such force that it'll basically explode. Nasa did the same thing, just with more mass and more velocity, no chemical reaction could explode with the same force obtained by striking a target in this manner.
Thanks alot, I bet one'll hit us now *blasted desk is covered in plastic veneer, runs off to find a real piece of wood to touch*
As I understand it a spongy asteroid will absorb much more force than a harder one of similar mass. Trying to break a sponge for example is far less fun than trying to break some silly figurine. I'm also guessing that the powder itself wouldn't be able to explode like (or at least to the same extent as) it would in an oxygen rich environment.
More buttons = smaller buttons,
Small buttons + big fingers = Me bashing the hell out of my mouse when the wrong button gets pressed.
"The fingers you have used to dial are too fat. To order a special dialing wand, please mash the keypad with your palm now."
I haven't been able to get to the site so I'm writing this based on my understanding of regular telescopes. Which can gather lots of light mostly because they're huge. You simply cannot get this kind of light gathering ability in a hand held device, they're too small.
Hi, could everyone stop clicking on the link for a minute so I can open it, thanks.
Like hell I'll buy a system that runs on steam, petrol maybe but whats wrong with electricity