Wow, I'm amazed, strapping two sticks of dynamite between a tank of increadibly flammable gasses might end up in disaster?
These astronauts were accepting a risk and the whole thing was a bummer, but more people die getting hit by cars a day than being strapped on dangerous rockets.
The reason it was such a big deal was the media and politicians using it to full propaganda value. Nothing like a little shared greaf to bring the nation together. I should remind you, that America in the 1980's had lots of social conflict lying just below the surface.
Yes, you are AGAIN completely correct. As we all know, laptops have only in the last few months featured touch pads, relying before that on direct command line input on a one button keypad.
Have you ever written Chinese characters? Do you know how frustrating it is learning them through typing them out in pinyin and choosing a character? That is not how you learn them!
Learning to write hanzi on a querty is like learning to write roman letters by having to type "que", "doubleyou", "ee", "arrrr", "tee", "wye" just to type "qwerty".
Yet again we run into absolute cultural ignorance on this thread.
Did you actually read the parent posts? The whole point of it and many other posters was, that $100 laptops are not for those living in horrible conditions duying of hunger, and more importantly, MOST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD DON'T SUFFER HORRIBLE POVERTY.
Most people suffer poverty, yes, but not the kind you imagine everyone else in the world lives in. This laptop is for those people who have enough food from their own fields or their own low paying jobs, but can't afford an education.
It should ship with a pad that can be used as a mouse AND a writing pad for hanzi, but the prototype only had trackballs on both sides of the monitor and a regular keyboard.
I think one reason people on Slashdot have such a pessimistic view of the $100 laptop, is the images that have been conjured up by Negroponte and co. Mostly extremely poor children living in some jungle village somewhere.
In reality, these laptops would probably be used by the urban poor and working class or those in well developed rural areas in rapidly developing countries. I have been to Fujian porvince in China, stood in a rice field and then used the internet, in a small village composed of mostly really old windowless stone buildings.
Urban infrastructure was near enough to provide internet and electricity to those who could afford it, but even so, people were very poor. This is the kind of setting I can easily see the laptop coming to its own. Those people were poor enough so as not to be able to afford good educational material, but can sustain themselves and would not benefit from food or whatever Slashdotters are offering instead of laptops.
I think those pessimistic views reflect an inherent ignorance about the world. The media often paints a rather bleak picture of the rest of the world, whereas most people get along fine, though could always use a little help.
I think NASA should just cut all the manned missions and concentrate on space probes. Much more information for the buck.
However, I do think going to mars would be worth doing, IF they got smart about it (and yes, I realize they need the ISS for learning how to go to mars, but the ISS isn't designed to be a precursor to a mars mission). The "one way" idea I thought was worth exploring, put some risk into it, that risk might be worth taking. You know, the one where they send one rocket a year with more and more equipment, but no return fuel, only equipment later to manufacture their own return fuel and hopefully a permanent mars base.
NASA is overly concerned with human life and the propaganda fall out of losing astronauts to be an effective exploration organization. Fireman and racecardrivers take risks in daily life, I'm sure they would find plenty of skilled volunteers for a one way mission.
I guess it is finally coming to the open, the long held big secret, that politics in the USA is eicredibly corrupt. I guess any republicans critical of the Abramoff affair have a point -of sorts; democrats are just as corrupt, they just haven't been caught yet.
The US really needs a reset of the political system, and lucky us, the Bush administration is going to provide us with one. By making the USA into some kind of banana republic dictatorship, politics won't matter anymore!
Any one want to bet who the next president is going to be? I'm putting my money on G. W. Bush.
"They'd have to setup mini-cell towers at intervals along almost the entire length of the system. It would be prohibitively expensive to try and shoehorn this is after the fact."
I call BS! This is not how subways are wired for cell service.
So what you are saying is, that the original Star Trek series was actually a show about a really loysy reality TV show from the future. Wow, communicators, red jumpsuits, teleportation, warpdrives.... They really WERE ahead of their times!
"3 - Pages that don't contain the information "as advertised" - you know the ones...you click on a link and it goes to some search page that tries to reset your home page."
It really is worrisome, that a president can break the law but is not immediately sitting in court. I think this is telling. The political system in the US is not set up for rule of law or democracy, but power.
I'm telling you, things are getting worse. Welcome to fachist America, folks!
COPA is designed to increase government powers to get access to information, using an issue most can agree on. No-one wants children to have access to porn (though I'm not sure what ill effects seeing porn actually has on a child) and thus everyone can agree that we MUST take this important step towards a fachist America.
Re:The website that changed policy
on
Pluto Probe Launches
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
So if they end up going to mars, it too will be because of the various websites that want that to happen?
"Not with the Prius. Because when it turns on its engine it actually uses the motor to spin the engine up to its operating rpm before injecting the gasoline and sparking the plugs. When a typical car starts its engine with a starter as I remember it's only up to something like 200-300 rpm."
Now that is academic. First of all, lets see some hard info on what you just said. Maybe the Prius just spins the engine up to 200-300rpm as well, somehow, I can't see the engine being spun up to 2000rmp.
Perhaps what you were meaning to say was that the electric motor pulls the car along and then the engine starts at some point later on?
Second of all, I would like to get some hard facts on the 200-300rpm figure. Is this what all cars do? I think different cars have different starters. My car, when it starts, turns the engine once or twice and then it catches.
"And you keep talking about these smoke and mirrors about total system pollution, but I don't see any numbers to suggest that the Prius is any more polluting over it's lifecycle than anything else."
This is simple. The Prius has more mechanical parts than an average car, so unless they were able to change the laws of physics, I think it is quite safe to say this.
I think you should check out the link I put in one of the parents, to the VW Lupo 3l that gets much better fuel efficiency than a prius, without being a hybrid. It saves fuel by turning the engine off.
Yes, you have some good points there. Biodiesel wins hands down over ethanol for the simple fact, that you need heat to distill ethanol, but biodiesel can be pressed out of plant matter.
I also agree with parent on diesels. PSA has come out with a new line of really small super efficient diesel engines that have a displacement of only 1.3 liters.
The reason I think diesels flopped in the States, was not only the aforementioned Oldsmobile diesels, but also the fact that the old style diesels were not really very powerful. Tho I have actually driven a car with one of those GM diesels and it wasn't bad on power, I mean, those old v8's didn't really have all that much power.
But everything has changed, I testdrove an Audi A4 with a 1.9l TDI engine, and it was way powerful! Just gobs of torque, though it wouldn't really rev. I think most americans would prefer power like that, where you don't really need to massage the pedal to make the thing go.
American diesel has alot of sulphur in it, this makes it unsuitable for new urea filters that clean out the nox and the particulates. However, northern European diesel usually comes from Russia, where there is also a high sulfur content. There is a refinery in Finland that turns it into zero sulphur diesel.
I wonder if US refineries are so old and decrepit and have too much work on their hands already, just meeting supply, that building a refinery to take the sulphur out of diesel can't be done.
"Toyota's executive engineer for environmental technology, drives an '04 Prius and said he typically gets between 53 mpg and 55 mpg combined. But he says he knows exactly how to "pulse drive" the car - that is, to accelerate briskly and get it up to speed, then mostly coast and let the electric motor handle the slight modifications needed to keep the vehicle at speed. Hermance says the average mileage among Classic drivers is about 44 mpg. But car makers (including Toyota) are not allowed to publicize anything other than the EPA figures.
A survey of 750 first-generation Prius owners on yahoo.com showed them obtaining between 35 mpg and 55 mpg combined driving, with an average of 44. An early poll of 30 2004 Prius owners showed most got between 45 mpg and 49 mpg.
"Actually, it would get an economy DECREASE from a theoretical non-hybrid Prius. You're toting around all this hybrid equipment (= more weight), and converting gasoline to heat to motion to electricity to motion (= more energy, not less). The ONLY thing that a hybrid can do to improve economy is regenerative breaking.
Yes, that and shutting the engine off while stopped and an electric motor powerboost during acceleration.
Either way, hybrids so far are nice, but a bit of a waste of money, as better fuel efficiency could be gained in other ways first.
All cars should have small frugal displacement engines. All cars should have aerodynamically efficient shapes, light equipment most important of all be small.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, I'm amazed, strapping two sticks of dynamite between a tank of increadibly flammable gasses might end up in disaster?
These astronauts were accepting a risk and the whole thing was a bummer, but more people die getting hit by cars a day than being strapped on dangerous rockets.
The reason it was such a big deal was the media and politicians using it to full propaganda value. Nothing like a little shared greaf to bring the nation together. I should remind you, that America in the 1980's had lots of social conflict lying just below the surface.
Whats up with you and pointy hair!?!
Yes, you are AGAIN completely correct. As we all know, laptops have only in the last few months featured touch pads, relying before that on direct command line input on a one button keypad.
Have you ever written Chinese characters? Do you know how frustrating it is learning them through typing them out in pinyin and choosing a character? That is not how you learn them!
Learning to write hanzi on a querty is like learning to write roman letters by having to type "que", "doubleyou", "ee", "arrrr", "tee", "wye" just to type "qwerty".
Yet again we run into absolute cultural ignorance on this thread.
Did you actually read the parent posts? The whole point of it and many other posters was, that $100 laptops are not for those living in horrible conditions duying of hunger, and more importantly, MOST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD DON'T SUFFER HORRIBLE POVERTY.
Most people suffer poverty, yes, but not the kind you imagine everyone else in the world lives in. This laptop is for those people who have enough food from their own fields or their own low paying jobs, but can't afford an education.
Your cultural chauvinism disgusts me!
I got Back Web with my Logitech mouse software. Screw them!
Give a man a fish and feed him for a day
... umm whats the plural of "fish" anyway?
Give a man feces and
They should ship computers to Europe equipped ONLY with pads and software in Chinese, and let us figure it out once the economy picks up.
It should ship with a pad that can be used as a mouse AND a writing pad for hanzi, but the prototype only had trackballs on both sides of the monitor and a regular keyboard.
I think they have it worked out already:
1. Start war with foreign country
2. Go to said country
3. Destroy everything with depleted uranium rounds
4. Go to 1.
I think one reason people on Slashdot have such a pessimistic view of the $100 laptop, is the images that have been conjured up by Negroponte and co. Mostly extremely poor children living in some jungle village somewhere.
In reality, these laptops would probably be used by the urban poor and working class or those in well developed rural areas in rapidly developing countries. I have been to Fujian porvince in China, stood in a rice field and then used the internet, in a small village composed of mostly really old windowless stone buildings.
Urban infrastructure was near enough to provide internet and electricity to those who could afford it, but even so, people were very poor. This is the kind of setting I can easily see the laptop coming to its own. Those people were poor enough so as not to be able to afford good educational material, but can sustain themselves and would not benefit from food or whatever Slashdotters are offering instead of laptops.
I think those pessimistic views reflect an inherent ignorance about the world. The media often paints a rather bleak picture of the rest of the world, whereas most people get along fine, though could always use a little help.
Brittain is, I believe, one of the most atheistic countries in the world. That is, a huge part of the population considers themselves atheists.
Are pet rocks as good as live pets too?
I think NASA should just cut all the manned missions and concentrate on space probes. Much more information for the buck.
However, I do think going to mars would be worth doing, IF they got smart about it (and yes, I realize they need the ISS for learning how to go to mars, but the ISS isn't designed to be a precursor to a mars mission). The "one way" idea I thought was worth exploring, put some risk into it, that risk might be worth taking. You know, the one where they send one rocket a year with more and more equipment, but no return fuel, only equipment later to manufacture their own return fuel and hopefully a permanent mars base.
NASA is overly concerned with human life and the propaganda fall out of losing astronauts to be an effective exploration organization. Fireman and racecardrivers take risks in daily life, I'm sure they would find plenty of skilled volunteers for a one way mission.
The Japanese have an awful taste in alcoholic drinks matched only by the Chinese and the Koreans.
Sochu and sake remind me of watered down homemade bootleg and the stuff they drink in prison, respectively.
Anything they can do to make these taste better is okay in my book, though I doubt it to be possible.
I guess it is finally coming to the open, the long held big secret, that politics in the USA is eicredibly corrupt. I guess any republicans critical of the Abramoff affair have a point -of sorts; democrats are just as corrupt, they just haven't been caught yet.
The US really needs a reset of the political system, and lucky us, the Bush administration is going to provide us with one. By making the USA into some kind of banana republic dictatorship, politics won't matter anymore!
Any one want to bet who the next president is going to be? I'm putting my money on G. W. Bush.
"They'd have to setup mini-cell towers at intervals along almost the entire length of the system. It would be prohibitively expensive to try and shoehorn this is after the fact." I call BS! This is not how subways are wired for cell service.
So what you are saying is, that the original Star Trek series was actually a show about a really loysy reality TV show from the future. Wow, communicators, red jumpsuits, teleportation, warpdrives.... They really WERE ahead of their times!
"the halo effect"
Is that the effect where after seeing a website, you'd rather go hammer nails through your penis than look at it?
"3 - Pages that don't contain the information "as advertised" - you know the ones...you click on a link and it goes to some search page that tries to reset your home page."
How about using Firefox or Opera?
It really is worrisome, that a president can break the law but is not immediately sitting in court. I think this is telling. The political system in the US is not set up for rule of law or democracy, but power.
I'm telling you, things are getting worse. Welcome to fachist America, folks!
COPA is designed to increase government powers to get access to information, using an issue most can agree on. No-one wants children to have access to porn (though I'm not sure what ill effects seeing porn actually has on a child) and thus everyone can agree that we MUST take this important step towards a fachist America.
So if they end up going to mars, it too will be because of the various websites that want that to happen?
"Not with the Prius. Because when it turns on its engine it actually uses the motor to spin the engine up to its operating rpm before injecting the gasoline and sparking the plugs. When a typical car starts its engine with a starter as I remember it's only up to something like 200-300 rpm."
Now that is academic. First of all, lets see some hard info on what you just said. Maybe the Prius just spins the engine up to 200-300rpm as well, somehow, I can't see the engine being spun up to 2000rmp.
Perhaps what you were meaning to say was that the electric motor pulls the car along and then the engine starts at some point later on?
Second of all, I would like to get some hard facts on the 200-300rpm figure. Is this what all cars do? I think different cars have different starters. My car, when it starts, turns the engine once or twice and then it catches.
"And you keep talking about these smoke and mirrors about total system pollution, but I don't see any numbers to suggest that the Prius is any more polluting over it's lifecycle than anything else."
This is simple. The Prius has more mechanical parts than an average car, so unless they were able to change the laws of physics, I think it is quite safe to say this.
I think you should check out the link I put in one of the parents, to the VW Lupo 3l that gets much better fuel efficiency than a prius, without being a hybrid. It saves fuel by turning the engine off.
Yes, you have some good points there. Biodiesel wins hands down over ethanol for the simple fact, that you need heat to distill ethanol, but biodiesel can be pressed out of plant matter.
I also agree with parent on diesels. PSA has come out with a new line of really small super efficient diesel engines that have a displacement of only 1.3 liters.
The reason I think diesels flopped in the States, was not only the aforementioned Oldsmobile diesels, but also the fact that the old style diesels were not really very powerful. Tho I have actually driven a car with one of those GM diesels and it wasn't bad on power, I mean, those old v8's didn't really have all that much power.
But everything has changed, I testdrove an Audi A4 with a 1.9l TDI engine, and it was way powerful! Just gobs of torque, though it wouldn't really rev. I think most americans would prefer power like that, where you don't really need to massage the pedal to make the thing go.
American diesel has alot of sulphur in it, this makes it unsuitable for new urea filters that clean out the nox and the particulates. However, northern European diesel usually comes from Russia, where there is also a high sulfur content. There is a refinery in Finland that turns it into zero sulphur diesel.
I wonder if US refineries are so old and decrepit and have too much work on their hands already, just meeting supply, that building a refinery to take the sulphur out of diesel can't be done.
3 l per 100km = 78.4048614 miles per gallon
"Toyota's executive engineer for environmental technology, drives an '04 Prius and said he typically gets between 53 mpg and 55 mpg combined. But he says he knows exactly how to "pulse drive" the car - that is, to accelerate briskly and get it up to speed, then mostly coast and let the electric motor handle the slight modifications needed to keep the vehicle at speed. Hermance says the average mileage among Classic drivers is about 44 mpg. But car makers (including Toyota) are not allowed to publicize anything other than the EPA figures.
A survey of 750 first-generation Prius owners on yahoo.com showed them obtaining between 35 mpg and 55 mpg combined driving, with an average of 44. An early poll of 30 2004 Prius owners showed most got between 45 mpg and 49 mpg.
"Actually, it would get an economy DECREASE from a theoretical non-hybrid Prius. You're toting around all this hybrid equipment (= more weight), and converting gasoline to heat to motion to electricity to motion (= more energy, not less). The ONLY thing that a hybrid can do to improve economy is regenerative breaking.
Yes, that and shutting the engine off while stopped and an electric motor powerboost during acceleration.
Of course you could still turn the engine off like some vehicles do.
Either way, hybrids so far are nice, but a bit of a waste of money, as better fuel efficiency could be gained in other ways first.
All cars should have small frugal displacement engines. All cars should have aerodynamically efficient shapes, light equipment most important of all be small.