If we are lucky, graphene will come to our rescue on this issue too. There are early indications that this will be so. I'm sure it would take a bazillion layers, but that would surely still be orders of magnitude lighter than heavy metals. At the worst, say maybe lead would still have to incorporated, but it would still probably be practical (light enough) to get it off the ground in the first place. I swear graphene is shaping up to be the most important discovery in the history of discovery.
That's not a bad point. It really would make sense to have classifications such as: space class suite, Luna class suite, Mars class suite, etc... After all, the needs are very different and unique to each environment.
It's not that we don't have the means to get there, surely we do have the technology. The problem is that, with the exception of the recently emerging and still infantile commercial space industry, human space flight is the product of, and at the limiting whim of political posturing. As long as politics are leading us no where fast, we are stuck on or at least around this wonderful moldy rock.
Another important experiment that we need to perform - and that somehow never gets talked about - is radiation proofing an interplanetary spaceship. The only reason we can leave people in orbit for extensive periods is because they are within enough of the Earth's electromagnetic field to be protected from the bulk of solar radiation, making it easier to shield. The biggest obstacle in going to Mars will likely prove to be shielding a spacecraft from extreme radiation over the long transit time.
Almost all science fiction in the history of science fiction goes so far as to flat out make up extra laws of physics to keep the story going. There are even famous hard sci-fi novels that implement impossible technologies for the sake of the plot. Science fiction is fantasy, consequently the science itself is often fictional. In the face of that, a few minor transgressions are nothing and there was no way to move the plot along in an entertaining Hollywood style fashion without these mistakes. This is an average movie for average people, as are most and we should be glad that average people find space interesting enough to see the movie at all.
Where I live in the mid-west has been both part of one of the tallest mountain ranges in the planets history, yet has also been at the bottom of a very deep ocean. I imagine both of those states will come back around again before the sun goes boom - perhaps more than once. Geological time is my number one fascination, side-by-side with the cosmos.
Sometimes I wonder if we will ever stumble across a one billion year old time capsule from a sentient species that previously lived on this planet. It's safe to say that sufficient time would erase any trace of even an advanced civilization with the exception of anything that was purposely preserved. Yes, that would be cool.
While I am far from an expert in the field, there are ways of breaking down mathematics into extremely basic building blocks (visual) that could presumably be deciphered by any mathematically inclined sentient species and that once built up would provide the key\decoder for the rest of the data.
Increasing killing efficiency to save lives. The irony is over the top. All sides taken into account, we will not be satisfied as a species until every last human is dead. At least then we will have lasting peace and equality.
I find it interesting that his efforts go back this far and span another agency. He was aware of things back at the CIA that even then disgusted him so much he was already trying to do what he ultimately accomplished. Most people that upset would have simply quit and walked away from the whole thing, or turned a blind eye. Instead, he dug in deeper and moved to an even more secret agency - it's safe to say he had intent. That took a lot of backbone. Snowden is like a one person spy agency, only working for the people instead of against. This guy manages to earn more respect from me on a weekly basis it seems.
If the Nobel Peace Price was everything that it should stand for, I would still vote Malala and would deride this choice over her. But between having in the past chosen the likes of Kissinger, and oh so prematurely, Obama, I say good for her for not being chosen. The real question is: is it not sad that we need a prize for being a good human being at all?
In some cases the only reason we are not afraid of change is because we are terrified of the present - because we turned a blind eye toward what led to that present. Other times we are not afraid of change because we are oh so very royally pissed off at the present. Often it's both. In the final instance we are not afraid of change because it means more bandwidth, better graphics, new medicines, and the promise of low orbit vacationing. When we are afraid of change that must happen for the improvement of our society, that change is accomplished through picketing, civil disobedience, propaganda, rioting, and violence.
I'm awfully surprised to see this comment modded up... especially on Slashdot. The crowd here should know that social engineering has always been an integral part of hacking. Penetration testers even use it. If I took a bunch of infected USB sticks and tossed them around the employee parking lot of a bank in the dark of the night, and then the next morning the bank employees say 'Yipee! Free thumb drives!' Then run inside and stick them in their computers as fast as they can like a bunch of idiots to see what's on them, quietly letting me into their systems, is that not hacking? I say yes. In the black hat sense anyhow.
Oceans of liquid carbon? Despite the immense gravity and high temperatures, I can't help but wonder if epochs of time have resulted in forms of life we would find bizarre.
People have been making similar predictions about the convergence of the two platforms since long before the Edge was announced. Albeit fancifully as no one making said predictions ever seems to be taking themselves entirely seriously. It is an interesting idea to bat around now and then, but is aloof and aloft for the foreseeable future.
??? - 3rd party Android GUI's are a dime a dozen. It would not take a tremendous amount of effort to develop something that is more of a compromise. But why would I even want to use it in a desktop capacity without desktop apps? I happen to require those apps. I think you're missing the point entirely: this is the problem this project is trying to solve in the first place. Only they are going about it wrong. If you don't believe me, watch their demonstration video.
Saving a spreadsheet downloaded in Android, then rebooting into Linux to edit it, then rebooting back into Android to send it back with a touch-centric email client, or any similar workflow seems rather archaic. It's like over a decade ago when on occasion I would absolutely have to reboot into Windows to get something done - it was annoying (and destroyed my uptime!). Further, you need a keyboard and mouse to operate this device under Linux - at least that's what the demo video shows, and I don't see how it could be done any other way (in a practical sense).
This is the total wrong approach. Now that Android is making it's way onto desktop type machines, perhaps it's time to look at porting applications like LibreOffice and Gimp over to Android. You would still want to plug in a keyboard and mouse to use them, but at least you wouldn't have to reboot multiple times in order to complete what amounts to a single task. Also, it would be nice to drop my phone into a dock that connects it to a monitor, mouse, and keyboard - but only if I have desktop applications available. If for some Android OS-centric technical reason, porting full scale apps makes no sense, then it's time to look at some kind of practical OS hybridization. Not to mention the time is now to steal Microsoft's thunder and if we don't make such moves now, I can't promise it will still be that time in two or three years.
Slashdot Mirror
It is only in science fiction that the aesthetics of a space suit are a priority.
Maybe we could just send Megadeth or Cradle of Filth to Mars, they are already heavy metal!
If we are lucky, graphene will come to our rescue on this issue too. There are early indications that this will be so. I'm sure it would take a bazillion layers, but that would surely still be orders of magnitude lighter than heavy metals. At the worst, say maybe lead would still have to incorporated, but it would still probably be practical (light enough) to get it off the ground in the first place. I swear graphene is shaping up to be the most important discovery in the history of discovery.
That's not a bad point. It really would make sense to have classifications such as: space class suite, Luna class suite, Mars class suite, etc... After all, the needs are very different and unique to each environment.
It's not that we don't have the means to get there, surely we do have the technology. The problem is that, with the exception of the recently emerging and still infantile commercial space industry, human space flight is the product of, and at the limiting whim of political posturing. As long as politics are leading us no where fast, we are stuck on or at least around this wonderful moldy rock.
Spaceships need space suites too.
Another important experiment that we need to perform - and that somehow never gets talked about - is radiation proofing an interplanetary spaceship. The only reason we can leave people in orbit for extensive periods is because they are within enough of the Earth's electromagnetic field to be protected from the bulk of solar radiation, making it easier to shield. The biggest obstacle in going to Mars will likely prove to be shielding a spacecraft from extreme radiation over the long transit time.
I fear it's the latter, but I'll give the course of events their chance to play out in our favor.
One of my favorites. Good call non-the-less : p
Almost all science fiction in the history of science fiction goes so far as to flat out make up extra laws of physics to keep the story going. There are even famous hard sci-fi novels that implement impossible technologies for the sake of the plot. Science fiction is fantasy, consequently the science itself is often fictional. In the face of that, a few minor transgressions are nothing and there was no way to move the plot along in an entertaining Hollywood style fashion without these mistakes. This is an average movie for average people, as are most and we should be glad that average people find space interesting enough to see the movie at all.
Can we please stop fact-checking the movies?
Where I live in the mid-west has been both part of one of the tallest mountain ranges in the planets history, yet has also been at the bottom of a very deep ocean. I imagine both of those states will come back around again before the sun goes boom - perhaps more than once. Geological time is my number one fascination, side-by-side with the cosmos.
Sometimes I wonder if we will ever stumble across a one billion year old time capsule from a sentient species that previously lived on this planet. It's safe to say that sufficient time would erase any trace of even an advanced civilization with the exception of anything that was purposely preserved. Yes, that would be cool.
While I am far from an expert in the field, there are ways of breaking down mathematics into extremely basic building blocks (visual) that could presumably be deciphered by any mathematically inclined sentient species and that once built up would provide the key\decoder for the rest of the data.
Yes, I must be new here. As long as us some of us can exist in a different reality, then I am perpetually new here.
What hope do we have then? Clearly some of us are capable of existing outside that. This is a genuine question, not a question as a statement.
Increasing killing efficiency to save lives. The irony is over the top. All sides taken into account, we will not be satisfied as a species until every last human is dead. At least then we will have lasting peace and equality.
I find it interesting that his efforts go back this far and span another agency. He was aware of things back at the CIA that even then disgusted him so much he was already trying to do what he ultimately accomplished. Most people that upset would have simply quit and walked away from the whole thing, or turned a blind eye. Instead, he dug in deeper and moved to an even more secret agency - it's safe to say he had intent. That took a lot of backbone. Snowden is like a one person spy agency, only working for the people instead of against. This guy manages to earn more respect from me on a weekly basis it seems.
Mod funny if you get the reference. Mod informative if you want to be funny.
NES Max
If the Nobel Peace Price was everything that it should stand for, I would still vote Malala and would deride this choice over her. But between having in the past chosen the likes of Kissinger, and oh so prematurely, Obama, I say good for her for not being chosen. The real question is: is it not sad that we need a prize for being a good human being at all?
In some cases the only reason we are not afraid of change is because we are terrified of the present - because we turned a blind eye toward what led to that present. Other times we are not afraid of change because we are oh so very royally pissed off at the present. Often it's both. In the final instance we are not afraid of change because it means more bandwidth, better graphics, new medicines, and the promise of low orbit vacationing. When we are afraid of change that must happen for the improvement of our society, that change is accomplished through picketing, civil disobedience, propaganda, rioting, and violence.
I'm awfully surprised to see this comment modded up... especially on Slashdot. The crowd here should know that social engineering has always been an integral part of hacking. Penetration testers even use it. If I took a bunch of infected USB sticks and tossed them around the employee parking lot of a bank in the dark of the night, and then the next morning the bank employees say 'Yipee! Free thumb drives!' Then run inside and stick them in their computers as fast as they can like a bunch of idiots to see what's on them, quietly letting me into their systems, is that not hacking? I say yes. In the black hat sense anyhow.
Oceans of liquid carbon? Despite the immense gravity and high temperatures, I can't help but wonder if epochs of time have resulted in forms of life we would find bizarre.
People have been making similar predictions about the convergence of the two platforms since long before the Edge was announced. Albeit fancifully as no one making said predictions ever seems to be taking themselves entirely seriously. It is an interesting idea to bat around now and then, but is aloof and aloft for the foreseeable future.
??? - 3rd party Android GUI's are a dime a dozen. It would not take a tremendous amount of effort to develop something that is more of a compromise. But why would I even want to use it in a desktop capacity without desktop apps? I happen to require those apps. I think you're missing the point entirely: this is the problem this project is trying to solve in the first place. Only they are going about it wrong. If you don't believe me, watch their demonstration video.
Saving a spreadsheet downloaded in Android, then rebooting into Linux to edit it, then rebooting back into Android to send it back with a touch-centric email client, or any similar workflow seems rather archaic. It's like over a decade ago when on occasion I would absolutely have to reboot into Windows to get something done - it was annoying (and destroyed my uptime!). Further, you need a keyboard and mouse to operate this device under Linux - at least that's what the demo video shows, and I don't see how it could be done any other way (in a practical sense).
This is the total wrong approach. Now that Android is making it's way onto desktop type machines, perhaps it's time to look at porting applications like LibreOffice and Gimp over to Android. You would still want to plug in a keyboard and mouse to use them, but at least you wouldn't have to reboot multiple times in order to complete what amounts to a single task. Also, it would be nice to drop my phone into a dock that connects it to a monitor, mouse, and keyboard - but only if I have desktop applications available. If for some Android OS-centric technical reason, porting full scale apps makes no sense, then it's time to look at some kind of practical OS hybridization. Not to mention the time is now to steal Microsoft's thunder and if we don't make such moves now, I can't promise it will still be that time in two or three years.