Posts by ZankerH
59 posts • joined Saturday 12th March 2011 10:50 GMT
Re: I must admit
The solid rocket boosters are, in essence, large steel tubes filled with high explosives. Liquid fuel rocket engines are much more easily damaged, and their outer shells don't tend to be as thick and durable as the shuttle SRBs, so "lob it in the ocean and come pick it up later" isn't really an option, as SpaceX learned in their earlier test flights.
Cost of fuel per Falcon 9 flight: on the order of US$200 000
Cost of manufacturing a new Falcon 9: on the order of US$50 000 000
Bringing some excess fuel along is obviously cheaper than making another rocket.
Posted in What are quantum computers good for?
Re: Ummm. Sort of helpful
That was back when electronic transistors were measured in microns and processors were simple enough to be understood by a single person at the transistor level. As it is, (silicon) electronics are hitting several brick walls of physics, namely gate size, transistor count, heat dissipation and switching speed. By the end of this decade, the only way to make more powerful computing devices with silicon electronics will be to make them larger (since MOSFETs will have been shrunk as far as is physically possible) and therefore more power consuming. That's why we _need_ a new paradigm shift, and quantum is looking as good as any other - unlike the 70s, bog standard hardware doesn't have much space for improvement left.
Unfortunately, at current prices of gold and space travel, retrieving gold (or just about any natural material) from Mars wouldn't be worth it.
Re: cases also appeared for...
I could get behind that. I've been using TVs as dumb screens for my DIY HTPC for years now. I'd very much love to be able to just buy a 50" dumb screen, without all the bells and whistles I'll never use.
Re: NASA - missing a trick here !
Well, the Russians will be happy to draw you a pair of boobs on the Moon for free.
http://www.universetoday.com/60142/did-you-know-russian-lunokhod-rovers-created-memorials-on-the-moon-honoring-women/
Re: Hmm
Good. The thought of tons of aluminium and steel being operated at dozens of metres per second by an intelligent agent with reaction times measured in significant fractions of a second scares me. The faster we switch to robotic cars, the less people will die on the roads.
Re: Nice article, shame about the title.
Titles (and figuring them out) is half the fun, silly.
Re: why I read the Reg
TEVATRON IS THE SHIT, FUCK LHC FANBOYS AND THEIR PRETENTIOUS CONFINDENCE LEVEL LIMITS!!!1
Re: Proof?
But even 5-sigma is just an arbitrary point at which they've decided to call it "okay, we're confident enough to announce". Even the current "inconclusive" evidence (3.6 sigma) amounts to a probability of .99973 - more than enough for sane non-physicists.
Re: Ugh - God particle
"Higgsy" and "Higgsiness" need to become part of everyday vocabulary.
Re:"Operating Systems", rather than the "Souls of the computer".
Take that back, filthy heathen!
We conjure the spirits of the computer with our spells!
APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL APPLY EVAL
We conjure the spirits of the computer with our spells!
Re: The simulations look impressive
http://alcor.org/
Re: Virgin on the silly
But the SS2 couldn't possibly re-enter the atmosphere from LEO and survive, nor could it possibly carry enough fuel to reach orbital velocity, it's simply not designed with that in mind.
Re: Virgin on the silly
But they are doing something useful - namely, launching millionaires on a highly risky and completely experimental spacecraft. If any of them succeed in not coming back, sir Branson is off my personal "eat the rich" list.
Re: time on mars
I'm not saying it's aliens, but it's definitely aliens.
Posted in SpaceX Dragon chokes at the last second
To put it in Lübke English
Porcupines reproduce very, very carefully.
Great
Let's stop driving on the wrong side of the road while we're at it.
It's more like a W-turn at this point, no?
Not if a sane policy for administering the aging cure is implemented. Like handing in your ovaries in exchange for it.
Re: Errm...
You could argue Turing saved us from Nazis as well as inventing computer science. The U-boats basically had free reign over the atlantic before their encryption was broken. Darwin's insights remained purely theoretical until long after his death, whereas Turing helped win a war and started technology that's fundamentally transformed our lives.
Posted in Boffins demo time-warp cloaking device
Space warp? Time bending?
This does it folks, we're now officialy in The Future.
Seriously, I wish they stopped using "god particle". It doesn't convey any useful information, it's nonsense and it gives religious people scary ideas about CERN. I propose we use the original provisional designation instead - "the goddamn particle".
Posted in 2011's Best... Smartphones
THIS IS AN OUTRAGE
Seriously, wtf? THE best selling and repeatedly highest rated phone of this year, and not even a mention?
Good
If I can't have my posthuman extropian weirdtopia, I at least want to not see poor people in the future. Although not having to put up with MS products would be pretty high on the priorities list as well.
See no evil, hear no evil...
Posted in Samsung Galaxy Note
Stylus double tap while holding the button opens up a quick note window. To take a screenshot, hold down the stylus button and hold the stylus against a screen.
Posted in Samsung Galaxy Note
The UK prices are completely outrageous. I've ordered mine from Germany for €480 - sim-free, unlocked.
Are you implying Apple listens to its costumers?
This'll just increase the incidents of "mugging". Of course, the victims will have forgotten to identify the attacker or contact the police, out of emotional distress.
Posted in China to take women to heaven and back
Token?
I wonder whether this will turn out to be a genuine gesture of gender equality, or a one-of like in the soviet space program.
Oh boy...
I hope they do show up. I expect they'll swiftly get mauled to death by an army of rabid apple fans.
Posted in Obama+world pays tribute to Steve Jobs
Nope.
He did not "pass on", nor will he "rest in peace". The pattern making up his consciousness has been destroyed, and he has ceased to exist.
Yes, Steve Jobs will be remembered by many, but stop the religious nonsense, Cthulhu eat ye last.
Posted in Apple outs iPhone micro USB adaptor
"to ensure fewer chargers need ship"
One still ships with every mobe, regardless of whether it needs to. I'm all in favour of standardisation in this area, but if it's to have any real effect, chargers should stop shipping with new phones by default, and be bought separate instead. I've got 5 micro USB chargers sitting in my drawers, what am I supposed to do with them?
Posted in Kinect 'augments' Bulgarian airbags
What the **** did I just watch.
Japan - producing 87% of the world's weird shit since 1945.
Choice is good
To summarise, samsung now offers or plans to offer android smartphones/tablets in the following sizes
3.5"
4.5"
5.3"
6"
7"
7.7"
8.9"
10.1"
Compare to Apple's "You want this, period" policy.
re: Doners
Organ doners? I prefer a good lamb doner myself, but to each his own.
Love it, but...
can it play crysis while tweetbooking about my cloud-enabled, social, geotagged bowel movements?
Posted in Got a non-iPad tablet? Weirdo
Well, there are the Dell Streak and Samsung Galaxy Note at 5 inches. It's becoming less of a divide and more of a continuity. I really see current tablets as a bridge between where netbooks are now and where smartphones will be in a couple of years.
Everyone is entitled to their beliefs. Everyone with ridiculous, irrational beliefs they're incapable of evaluating critically is entitled to get laughed at.
"beliveing"
I can't believe nobody pointed this out yet. I guess the skiddie kit didn't come with a spell checker?
Would it immediately solve all of the world's problems? Nope. Would the human condition be fundamentally improved if the majority of mankind stopped blindly believing in unprovable hypotheses? You bet.
I would have stopped at "totally irrational and unfounded belief", since all the "worldly" transgressions of religious institutions really originate from that fundamental requirement to convince yourself you believe something which can't be justified with factual evidence or the rational thought process.
Nothing like the dell streak
Wow, this has the same resolution as the 10 inch android tablets. What's the dpi? Does it beat the jesus phone?
Already exists
It's called "using a real email client".
Seriously, why the hell do people still use webmail?
Google - department of redundancy department.
Posted in NASA to work on approved sci-fi books
title
Poor wording, perhaps "scientifically feasible" would be more accurate. As in, keeping the handwavium and technobabble to a minimum.
Posted in Apple MacBook Pro 17in 2011
nope
You're thinking "netbook". "Notebook" is a generic term for a laptop computer.
