The sensible thing to do is to build the craft in space. Then the mass of the vehicle really isn't that much of an overarching concern.
Build it out of materials that are already in space, to avoid having to lift the mass of the building materials out of the gravity well. Grabbing a decent sized asteroid into Earth orbit and hollowing it out would work for the shell. Use the material extracted from the cavity to ensure it's airtight. Moving an asteroid might sound like it would take a lot of energy, but that depends on your time frame. If you need it here tomorrow? Yeah, that's a lot of work. Need it here in 2063 or 2113? Calculate a long-term course (possibly with a little slingshot boost around Mars) then give it a shove and wait. You could even get automated machinery started hollowing it out on its trip.
You might even be able to avoid lifting (some of) the necessary supplies -- catch and orbit a comet and melt it down for water and other goodies, or choose a carbonaceous chondrite as your vehicle.
And then if the project becomes popular and many additional backers want in, you add in a new tier with a later estimated delivery date for the second batch of units.
Surely the WBC wouldn't object to someone exercising their right of freedom of speech by erecting billboards on property they purchased near the WBC's building that read something like:
'I am not affiliated in any way, shape, or form with the owners of that building. (with an arrow pointing to the WBC building)' -- God
So how much would the land, permits, and construction costs for such a billboard be these days?
They may have a right to speak, but they do NOT have a right to an audience.
If the police believe that the WBC speaking would incite a riot (and given what I've read, I think that's possible if they show up) then in the interest of public safety they should be prepared to shut down or move the WBC's protest as soon as the situation becomes dangerous (which is probably about 5 seconds after the WBC arrives.)
My guess is that the White House is going to respond a little bit seriously and call out the Outer Space Treaty as a reason why we can't create a Death Star. Or maybe if they respond around Christmas they'll show several LEGO Death Star kits they've purchased and donated to charity and call the task completed. [Nothing in the petition asked for a FULL SIZED Death Star, after all.]
No. Everyone should send them a physical letter containing a statement endorsing your favorite political candidate (ideally in a box with several bricks inside) sent COD. Mark the box as a political advertisement. Surely they won't refuse your political message even if it costs them money?
That would be like having someone walk up to your car while you're stopped at a red light and washing your (already clean) windshield and you being required to pay them a dollar for that job even though you neither asked for nor wanted it.
That's why cop cars have cameras. We the people can record the cops doing their job. The cops can record themselves doing their jobs. If a news network broadcasts the citizen's footage without specific segments, the police can release their own footage with those specific segments included to show their side of the story.
"I've heard about a lot of stories recently about big companies getting hacked or their documents being held hostage by hackers that encrypt them. Do we have a backup for the documents on this server? If not, I'd like you to work on coming up with a backup system -- maybe something like Google Docs or something similar."
If that doesn't work, let him go on vacation for a couple days. Call him repeatedly asking for help locating documents during that vacation. You want to annoy him just a little bit. When he returns, apologize for disturbing him so much then suggest that you had trouble navigating the system. If the documents were organized a little better, or if there was less old cruft, you wouldn't have had to disturb his vacation so often. Offer to help him if he wants to spend a little time reorganizing or exploring alternate solutions that may have features to make his task of document maintenance and your task of document location easier.
If these batteries are partially exposed from below, they won't do too well in northern states in spring. Melting snow and ice combined with leftover salt used to try to melt winter snow and ice could easily splash up onto the batteries, and if it's been a heavy precipitation winter that could do a number on the batteries.
I remember being called three times. Once I got out of it because the date for which I was scheduled was a week after I was scheduled to move out of the county and that was one of the allowed reasons to have it cancelled. Once I had it switched to a different court (in the next town over from where I live) because it would have taken me about two hours to get to the courthouse (damn gerrymandered counties) and when I showed up at the closer court on the appropriate day I was not selected. The other time I was scheduled for the court in the next town over, showed up, and was not selected.
Voting Day should be a federal holiday, and businesses that choose to stay open must provide paid time off for employees working that day to visit their polling places.
Each time I've been called, I was given the option to reschedule my service to sometime in the next year. Last time I was called I did so and served on the date I'd scheduled (though I wasn't empaneled.) So if you know that bids/proposals are most often due on a Monday, schedule your service for a Wednesday or Thursday.
And how do you get your phone OFF the list if someone adds it maliciously or accidentally (types a 2 instead of a 3 when entering the identifier for a phone that's been stolen, for example?) Who do you need to contact (from a different phone or in person, naturally) and what proof do you need to give that you are the owner of the phone?
I propose that the Internet be declared a sovereign entity or a federation of sovereign entities (one per nationwide network, perhaps) similar to the way the Holy See is a sovereign entity (headed by the Pope) with whom nations can maintain diplomatic relations. I nominate Vint Cerf for the title of chairman of the Internet Federation (in part due to his RFC 3271.) The Internet Foundation would be responsible for global guidelines that nationwide networks must follow to be considered part of the Internet; nationwide networks would be allowed to come up with other guidelines as long as they don't violate the global guidelines.
So the OSCE needs to "deputize" a voter in each county and have that voter report back to the international observer team what they saw. That would satisfy requirement 1 of that quoted section. If necessary, hire that person for the day and expense the cost of the temporary hire to the UN.
If you want to robodial you need to submit a declaration to the FTC and your phone company (under penalty of perjury) that you're dialing people that have opted into receiving your call, or it should be part of your contract with the phone company (with hefty fines for violation, to be split between the phone company and the Feds. [This split is motivation for the phone company to abide by the system.]) If you start doing something that looks like robodialing without submitting that declaration, the phone company should be free to block you. [This addresses the case of people that don't want to play by the rules at all.]
If the phone company receives complains that you're receiving robodialed calls to which you DIDN'T opt in, the phone company should be able to demand proof that the complainers opted-in. If the organization that robodialed can't provide that proof, they should escalate the offense to the FTC and the legal system should enforce the penalty. [This offers incentive to legitimate companies to do the right thing.]
There should be a limited exception to this for emergency services to be used in the event of an actual emergency (police announcing that an armed and dangerous convict is in the area, fire department or emergency management organization [FEMA etc.] announcing an evacuation order, etc.)
In this case, when the school purchased the robodialer they would submit such a declaration to the FTC and the phone company. The school could send a form home with a student on their first day at a new school requesting that the parents opt into the cancellation notification system (and perhaps giving a choice of notification type: phone, email, or both.) Then if a parent complained, the school could show the signed permission slip as proof of opting in.
I love the subdermal idea. I feel they should start tagging the entire human population. I'll be first in line. Imagine being able to log in to your computer by just walking up to it. Or have your car unlock and start up when you walk up to it. House unlock. Or house alarm goes off when an unrecognized RFID enters. You get the picture.
So for about $250 I can log into your computer or unlock your car or house by just walking up to it? I guess that would make 13.56 MHz the "skeleton frequency."
Seems like laws and bills and crap should logically go through the Supreme Court *before* being enacted...
NO. Absolutely not. That would be the exact equivalent of giving the supreme court the power to enact law, which is not its job. Executive branch creates laws, all the judicial branch does is see if its constatutional. That's It.
The legislative branch creates bills, votes upon them, and if approved hands them off to the executive branch for signing and enforcement. The executive branch enforces the law, it doesn't really create the law in the sense I think you're implying.
Slashdot Mirror
The sensible thing to do is to build the craft in space. Then the mass of the vehicle really isn't that much of an overarching concern.
Build it out of materials that are already in space, to avoid having to lift the mass of the building materials out of the gravity well. Grabbing a decent sized asteroid into Earth orbit and hollowing it out would work for the shell. Use the material extracted from the cavity to ensure it's airtight. Moving an asteroid might sound like it would take a lot of energy, but that depends on your time frame. If you need it here tomorrow? Yeah, that's a lot of work. Need it here in 2063 or 2113? Calculate a long-term course (possibly with a little slingshot boost around Mars) then give it a shove and wait. You could even get automated machinery started hollowing it out on its trip.
You might even be able to avoid lifting (some of) the necessary supplies -- catch and orbit a comet and melt it down for water and other goodies, or choose a carbonaceous chondrite as your vehicle.
And then if the project becomes popular and many additional backers want in, you add in a new tier with a later estimated delivery date for the second batch of units.
Surely the WBC wouldn't object to someone exercising their right of freedom of speech by erecting billboards on property they purchased near the WBC's building that read something like:
'I am not affiliated in any way, shape, or form with the owners of that building. (with an arrow pointing to the WBC building)' -- God
So how much would the land, permits, and construction costs for such a billboard be these days?
They may have a right to speak, but they do NOT have a right to an audience.
If the police believe that the WBC speaking would incite a riot (and given what I've read, I think that's possible if they show up) then in the interest of public safety they should be prepared to shut down or move the WBC's protest as soon as the situation becomes dangerous (which is probably about 5 seconds after the WBC arrives.)
My guess is that the White House is going to respond a little bit seriously and call out the Outer Space Treaty as a reason why we can't create a Death Star. Or maybe if they respond around Christmas they'll show several LEGO Death Star kits they've purchased and donated to charity and call the task completed. [Nothing in the petition asked for a FULL SIZED Death Star, after all.]
No. Everyone should send them a physical letter containing a statement endorsing your favorite political candidate (ideally in a box with several bricks inside) sent COD. Mark the box as a political advertisement. Surely they won't refuse your political message even if it costs them money?
That would be like having someone walk up to your car while you're stopped at a red light and washing your (already clean) windshield and you being required to pay them a dollar for that job even though you neither asked for nor wanted it.
That's why cop cars have cameras. We the people can record the cops doing their job. The cops can record themselves doing their jobs. If a news network broadcasts the citizen's footage without specific segments, the police can release their own footage with those specific segments included to show their side of the story.
No it doesn't. The Supreme Court refuses to hear most of the cases that seek certification to appeal.
According to the Supreme Court website they agree to hear about 1% of the petitions they receive. This case was part of the 99%.
"I've heard about a lot of stories recently about big companies getting hacked or their documents being held hostage by hackers that encrypt them. Do we have a backup for the documents on this server? If not, I'd like you to work on coming up with a backup system -- maybe something like Google Docs or something similar."
If that doesn't work, let him go on vacation for a couple days. Call him repeatedly asking for help locating documents during that vacation. You want to annoy him just a little bit. When he returns, apologize for disturbing him so much then suggest that you had trouble navigating the system. If the documents were organized a little better, or if there was less old cruft, you wouldn't have had to disturb his vacation so often. Offer to help him if he wants to spend a little time reorganizing or exploring alternate solutions that may have features to make his task of document maintenance and your task of document location easier.
If these batteries are partially exposed from below, they won't do too well in northern states in spring. Melting snow and ice combined with leftover salt used to try to melt winter snow and ice could easily splash up onto the batteries, and if it's been a heavy precipitation winter that could do a number on the batteries.
http://www.dmv.org/how-to-guides/road-salt.php
I remember being called three times. Once I got out of it because the date for which I was scheduled was a week after I was scheduled to move out of the county and that was one of the allowed reasons to have it cancelled. Once I had it switched to a different court (in the next town over from where I live) because it would have taken me about two hours to get to the courthouse (damn gerrymandered counties) and when I showed up at the closer court on the appropriate day I was not selected. The other time I was scheduled for the court in the next town over, showed up, and was not selected.
Voting Day should be a federal holiday, and businesses that choose to stay open must provide paid time off for employees working that day to visit their polling places.
Each time I've been called, I was given the option to reschedule my service to sometime in the next year. Last time I was called I did so and served on the date I'd scheduled (though I wasn't empaneled.) So if you know that bids/proposals are most often due on a Monday, schedule your service for a Wednesday or Thursday.
And how do you get your phone OFF the list if someone adds it maliciously or accidentally (types a 2 instead of a 3 when entering the identifier for a phone that's been stolen, for example?) Who do you need to contact (from a different phone or in person, naturally) and what proof do you need to give that you are the owner of the phone?
I propose that the Internet be declared a sovereign entity or a federation of sovereign entities (one per nationwide network, perhaps) similar to the way the Holy See is a sovereign entity (headed by the Pope) with whom nations can maintain diplomatic relations. I nominate Vint Cerf for the title of chairman of the Internet Federation (in part due to his RFC 3271.) The Internet Foundation would be responsible for global guidelines that nationwide networks must follow to be considered part of the Internet; nationwide networks would be allowed to come up with other guidelines as long as they don't violate the global guidelines.
So the OSCE needs to "deputize" a voter in each county and have that voter report back to the international observer team what they saw. That would satisfy requirement 1 of that quoted section. If necessary, hire that person for the day and expense the cost of the temporary hire to the UN.
If you want to robodial you need to submit a declaration to the FTC and your phone company (under penalty of perjury) that you're dialing people that have opted into receiving your call, or it should be part of your contract with the phone company (with hefty fines for violation, to be split between the phone company and the Feds. [This split is motivation for the phone company to abide by the system.]) If you start doing something that looks like robodialing without submitting that declaration, the phone company should be free to block you. [This addresses the case of people that don't want to play by the rules at all.]
If the phone company receives complains that you're receiving robodialed calls to which you DIDN'T opt in, the phone company should be able to demand proof that the complainers opted-in. If the organization that robodialed can't provide that proof, they should escalate the offense to the FTC and the legal system should enforce the penalty. [This offers incentive to legitimate companies to do the right thing.]
There should be a limited exception to this for emergency services to be used in the event of an actual emergency (police announcing that an armed and dangerous convict is in the area, fire department or emergency management organization [FEMA etc.] announcing an evacuation order, etc.)
In this case, when the school purchased the robodialer they would submit such a declaration to the FTC and the phone company. The school could send a form home with a student on their first day at a new school requesting that the parents opt into the cancellation notification system (and perhaps giving a choice of notification type: phone, email, or both.) Then if a parent complained, the school could show the signed permission slip as proof of opting in.
I love the subdermal idea. I feel they should start tagging the entire human population. I'll be first in line. Imagine being able to log in to your computer by just walking up to it. Or have your car unlock and start up when you walk up to it. House unlock. Or house alarm goes off when an unrecognized RFID enters. You get the picture.
So for about $250 I can log into your computer or unlock your car or house by just walking up to it? I guess that would make 13.56 MHz the "skeleton frequency."
Jimmy says "But I have my ID right here!" then pulls his ID out of his wallet and shows it to the administrator.
John Scalzi said something similar a few months before that, though not quite as extreme.
Seems like laws and bills and crap should logically go through the Supreme Court *before* being enacted...
NO. Absolutely not. That would be the exact equivalent of giving the supreme court the power to enact law, which is not its job. Executive branch creates laws, all the judicial branch does is see if its constatutional. That's It.
The legislative branch creates bills, votes upon them, and if approved hands them off to the executive branch for signing and enforcement. The executive branch enforces the law, it doesn't really create the law in the sense I think you're implying.
According to Wikipedia they already have. Challenger class, NCC-57537.
Right. This sounded more like "I'm sorry you're upset about what we did to you." not "I'm sorry about what we did to you."
The state of Texas threatened something like that. It didn't work.