one thing I haven't seen mentioned: Any wooden packaging (crates, pallets, etc.) needs to be fumigated http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISPM_15. Otherwise you'll likely have trouble clearing it on the other end.
I have not been involved with the system lay-out, but I can see the allure. Landing at sea helps, because: - The population density is lower, i.e. it's easier to show that your landing doesn't endanger the un-involved public. - Your landing point is relatively free, so you can return from varied orbits without needing excessive cross-range.
Why would you want to land _on_ the support ship/barge as opposed next to it? - Dunking stuff into sea-water is harsh on said stuff. It can be designed around, but it constrains choices of materials etc. While solving an already hard problem additional constraints of these sorts are best avoided. - Ships can be built in ways to almost eliminate wave-action, which would impose more (and more varied) structural loads in a water landing.
Is all this worth the trade-off of having to pull of a precision landing every time, and having to maintain/operate/design an (expensive, possibly custom) support ship?
I don't know. Mr. Bezos might know more, but I doubt that he knows for sure either.
And if he's trying to see if he can read data patterns off platters by hand from a dismantled drive, and needs a known test pattern to calibrate his equipment with?
If that's the case he'll learn that reverse-engineering is hard. In this particular case nigh impossibly hard, if it needs to be done on modern hardware. As others have said easier on MFM drives.
Look at the graphs, look at historical records in the rocks. Ask yourselves, did we cause global warming or are we merely part of it ? I think the graphs speak for themselves.
Yes it does speak for it self, possibly not in the way you think, though. The large scale graph shows that from -400000 to 0 carbon dioxide concentrations varied between ~190ppmv and ~300ppmv; changes occurred relatively slowly, the fastest up-ticks are on timescales of 1k-10k years (hard to be precise from this scale). The new peak on the far right of this graph is unique in two ways: -The absolute level is about 25% higher than any of the 4 previous peaks and about 40% higher than the average of the graph. -The rate of change is completely unprecedented, about 90ppmv/200years, i.e. the vertical line inside the ellipse.
I am no expert in the matter, and I know that correlation does not necessarily imply causation. However, just judging from your graph, I see a unique feature in the data, nicely aliened with a drastic population increase of a certain two-legged critter (obviously not shown here) and a change of habits of said critter (massive burning of coal/oil). So, unless you have a compelling alternate explanation I'll stick with man-made increase of CO2 levels.
The problem is that many sites will check if the browser is IE, and then do various workarounds. [...] if browser is IE, but version 7 then do the hack
This still means there is going to be a reasonably standard-compliant version (for IE8) which should work fine for opera, safari, firefox and friends. To me this seems to be a distinct improvement over the current state where there's sites which don't work for non-IE, period.
Yeah. I'd really like to like OpenBSD. Technically, it's superb. It's smooth, polished, well documented [...] every time I try to use it, I run up against the OpenBSD developers, who are an arrogant bunch of elitist assholes.[...] Despite this, the actual operating system is definitely worth checking out if you're interested in what a well-designed Unix actually looks like. Linux can learn a lot from it.
At a cruising speed of 85mph, I get 26mpg. at 80mph, I got 24mpg. And at 65, i got about 20mpg [...] best fuel economy somewhere between 1800 to 2200 rpm [...] If I'm in 6th gear it's turning about 2000rpm at 85mph.
Have you done a comparison against whatever speed your car does in 5th gear at 2000rpm?
Big fireworks (aka. solids) are not necessarily the best choice for a first stage. The arguments for the stick were that it is: -A known quantity -Manrated -In production
Then it gained a segment, because the CEV gained some weight. Now these new problems might force a redesign in thrust profile etc.. So basically we'll end up with a big, shiny, new fireworks, invalidating the original argument.
When the basis for a technical decision are no longer valid, it's best to assess anew. Anyone wants to bet on that happening?
Thats only possible with a landing site close to the equator. And for a first mission it seems prudent to use belt, suspenders, duct-tape and a liberal ammount of armor plating.
Next, you'll be telling us that the Americans didn't crack the German Enigma code (as per the film "U-571"), and that instead the code was cracked by a rag-tag collection of scientists, linguists and crossword-puzzle addicts at Bletchley Park in England.
Which led to the loss of a space probe, back in the day.
Do you have a source for this? I've heard this story (or a similar one) before. But in the version I heard, it just turned out that a new trajectory software wasn't quite as accurate as it was expected to be.
After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, the problem was tracked down to the code you showed; i.e. a iterative method was executed just once instead of 10 times. But in my version this happened before the software was used to calculate a trajectory for a real probe.
Yep, OTOH you have one place (pad) to recharge your PDA, Phone, MP3-player, camera, GPS-receiver and what not.
So at least it would save desk-space/power-outlets/cable-chaos if all your gadgets supported this technology (possibly by simply buying a new battery-pack with a receiver-coil and recharge-control).
We can survive in anything from tropical jungles to frozen tundra.
Well, maybe you can; The Yanomami sure can (but only in the jungle part) -- I probably couldn't.
And I consider myself a pretty outdoorsy person, I have some survival experiences and have done multiple-week trips away from civilisation. That said, I usually buy food, rain-jacket, tent, matches etc.
With a complete breakdown of civilisation, in a benign climate, I would give myself a 50/50 chance to survive the first year as a hunter-gatherer. Better with some help or infrastructure still in place; Worse if conditions wouldn't be benign (water/food scarcity, harsh winter, etc).
If you go down this line for one or two generations you will end up somewhere between stone- and middle ages -- at best.
Aha, so if your car starts to make funny noises, or some warning light flashes, you fix that yourself? It's not impossible, you know. I can fix about anything wrong with an "old-fashioned" car (I won't touch them electronics though, ABS/ESP/what-have-you). But that doesn't mean that I always fix it myself. It's a trade of between my time and money to the mechanic.
Now for my mom, she doesn't know how to fix her car and she should not have to. She bought it to drive from A to B, not to tinker with the stuff under the hood. Sure, some technical knowledge is good (tape up a leaking hose, to make it to the garage etc.) but it's not mandatory to drive a car.
Just because you don't know how do use a computer doesn't mean you can't learn. It
especially does not mean that you shouldn't have to learn.
In my opinion it means exactly that. Any one person can not be an expert in all possible areas. Why should expertise in "computers"/Linux/BSD/whatever be mandatory? I'm all for some basic knowledge, to be able to make informed decisions. But that does not justify the amount of time needed to get familiar with any of the free Unix-clones. So, if I'd buy a computer for my mom, it'd probably be a mac. Because it just does what it's supposed to do (or so I'm told).
I'm inclined to act on behalf of Jack Northrop, who was flying blended wing bodies in the 40's.
Arado was working on this too; they built a couple of prototypes, but I'm not sure wether they flew them.
Of course, the Nazi's had everyone beat with their ME-262 Komet - a rocket powered blended wing fighter-interceptor
Me-262: jet-fighter
Me-163: rocket fighter, unbelivably dangerous to fly (hydrazine hydrate and methanol with hydrogen-peroxid as an oxidizer)
Re:Brain Emulation no longer a hardware challenge.
on
Arguing A.I.
·
· Score: 1
> It doesn't really matter what level of hardware
> is used to run a brain, a human brain running
> 100X slower (as estimated in the post above),
> would still be able to run - the only limiting
> factor at the moment is the software used to
> emulate the brain functions.
This assumes that the brain works like a digital
computer (Turing machine, if you like), or can at
least be approximated by one.
I'm not sure wether this is proven/likely or not.
> When they say that they will make this but hope
> never to turn it on, I can't believe they mean
> they will put it into the chips but disable it,
> but that's what it sounds like.
Remember the 486sx? AFAIR that was a plain 486
with disabled FPU. You could even buy a 487sx
which was again just a plain 486 with an "enabled" FPU.
Slashdot Mirror
But sons of bitches -- yeah.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5MZiF-eJIM
Hey,
one thing I haven't seen mentioned: Any wooden packaging (crates, pallets, etc.) needs to be fumigated http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISPM_15. Otherwise you'll likely have trouble clearing it on the other end.
Cheers,
Michael
I have not been involved with the system lay-out, but I can see the allure. Landing at sea helps, because:
- The population density is lower, i.e. it's easier to show that your landing doesn't endanger the un-involved public.
- Your landing point is relatively free, so you can return from varied orbits without needing excessive cross-range.
Why would you want to land _on_ the support ship/barge as opposed next to it?
- Dunking stuff into sea-water is harsh on said stuff. It can be designed around, but it constrains choices of materials etc. While solving an already hard problem additional constraints of these sorts are best avoided.
- Ships can be built in ways to almost eliminate wave-action, which would impose more (and more varied) structural loads in a water landing.
Is all this worth the trade-off of having to pull of a precision landing every time, and having to maintain/operate/design an (expensive, possibly custom) support ship?
I don't know. Mr. Bezos might know more, but I doubt that he knows for sure either.
Cheers,
Michael
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsU1t2vkURg
Hail to the King Baby!
If that's the case he'll learn that reverse-engineering is hard. In this particular case nigh impossibly hard, if it needs to be done on modern hardware. As others have said easier on MFM drives.
Clearly you've never met a Real Programmer.
Cheers,
Michael
So I take it you have burglaries all sorted in the US?
Cheers,
Michael
Yes it does speak for it self, possibly not in the way you think, though. The large scale graph shows that from -400000 to 0 carbon dioxide concentrations varied between ~190ppmv and ~300ppmv; changes occurred relatively slowly, the fastest up-ticks are on timescales of 1k-10k years (hard to be precise from this scale).
The new peak on the far right of this graph is unique in two ways:
-The absolute level is about 25% higher than any of the 4 previous peaks and about 40% higher than the average of the graph.
-The rate of change is completely unprecedented, about 90ppmv/200years, i.e. the vertical line inside the ellipse.
I am no expert in the matter, and I know that correlation does not necessarily imply causation. However, just judging from your graph, I see a unique feature in the data, nicely aliened with a drastic population increase of a certain two-legged critter (obviously not shown here) and a change of habits of said critter (massive burning of coal/oil).
So, unless you have a compelling alternate explanation I'll stick with man-made increase of CO2 levels.
Cheers,
Michael
This still means there is going to be a reasonably standard-compliant version (for IE8) which should work fine for opera, safari, firefox and friends. To me this seems to be a distinct improvement over the current state where there's sites which don't work for non-IE, period.
Cheers,
Michael
... is in front of the screen ;-)
Yeah. I'd really like to like OpenBSD. Technically, it's superb. It's smooth, polished, well documented [...] every time I try to use it, I run up against the OpenBSD developers, who are an arrogant bunch of elitist assholes.[...]
Despite this, the actual operating system is definitely worth checking out if you're interested in what a well-designed Unix actually looks like. Linux can learn a lot from it.
Despite? Or because? Just asking :-)
Cheers,
Michael
Have you done a comparison against whatever speed your car does in 5th gear at 2000rpm?
Cheers,
Michael
Big fireworks (aka. solids) are not necessarily the best choice for a first stage. The arguments for the stick were that it is:
-A known quantity
-Manrated
-In production
Then it gained a segment, because the CEV gained some weight. Now these new problems might force a redesign in thrust profile etc.. So basically we'll end up with a big, shiny, new fireworks, invalidating the original argument.
When the basis for a technical decision are no longer valid, it's best to assess anew. Anyone wants to bet on that happening?
Cheers,
Michael
Free return trajectory.
Thats only possible with a landing site close to the equator.
And for a first mission it seems prudent to use belt, suspenders, duct-tape and a liberal ammount of armor plating.
Actually it was the Poles who cracked enigma
Do you have a source for this? I've heard this story (or a similar one) before. But in the version I heard, it just turned out that a new trajectory software wasn't quite as accurate as it was expected to be.
After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, the problem was tracked down to the code you showed; i.e. a iterative method was executed just once instead of 10 times. But in my version this happened before the software was used to calculate a trajectory for a real probe.
Yep, OTOH you have one place (pad) to recharge your PDA, Phone, MP3-player, camera, GPS-receiver and what not.
So at least it would save desk-space/power-outlets/cable-chaos if all your gadgets supported this technology (possibly by simply buying a new battery-pack with a receiver-coil and recharge-control).
You need better dependency handling.
Groups of humans -- yes; One human -- no.
Well, maybe you can; The Yanomami sure can (but only in the jungle part) -- I probably couldn't.
And I consider myself a pretty outdoorsy person, I have some survival experiences and have done multiple-week trips away from civilisation. That said, I usually buy food, rain-jacket, tent, matches etc.
With a complete breakdown of civilisation, in a benign climate, I would give myself a 50/50 chance to survive the first year as a hunter-gatherer. Better with some help or infrastructure still in place; Worse if conditions wouldn't be benign (water/food scarcity, harsh winter, etc).
If you go down this line for one or two generations you will end up somewhere between stone- and middle ages -- at best.
Now for my mom, she doesn't know how to fix her car and she should not have to. She bought it to drive from A to B, not to tinker with the stuff under the hood. Sure, some technical knowledge is good (tape up a leaking hose, to make it to the garage etc.) but it's not mandatory to drive a car. In my opinion it means exactly that. Any one person can not be an expert in all possible areas. Why should expertise in "computers"/Linux/BSD/whatever be mandatory? I'm all for some basic knowledge, to be able to make informed decisions. But that does not justify the amount of time needed to get familiar with any of the free Unix-clones.
So, if I'd buy a computer for my mom, it'd probably be a mac. Because it just does what it's supposed to do (or so I'm told).
Arado was working on this too; they built a couple of prototypes, but I'm not sure wether they flew them.
Of course, the Nazi's had everyone beat with their ME-262 Komet - a rocket powered blended wing fighter-interceptor
Me-262: jet-fighter
Me-163: rocket fighter, unbelivably dangerous to fly (hydrazine hydrate and methanol with hydrogen-peroxid as an oxidizer)
> It doesn't really matter what level of hardware
> is used to run a brain, a human brain running
> 100X slower (as estimated in the post above),
> would still be able to run - the only limiting
> factor at the moment is the software used to
> emulate the brain functions.
This assumes that the brain works like a digital
computer (Turing machine, if you like), or can at
least be approximated by one.
I'm not sure wether this is proven/likely or not.
> When they say that they will make this but hope
> never to turn it on, I can't believe they mean
> they will put it into the chips but disable it,
> but that's what it sounds like.
Remember the 486sx? AFAIR that was a plain 486
with disabled FPU. You could even buy a 487sx
which was again just a plain 486 with an "enabled" FPU.
> For the total bulk work that the NSA etc. do, reducing the number of people with strong crypto makes their lives easier.
Like for industrial espionage?