Re: Impartiality and scientific theories

"(c). Until someone does that then AGW is the best explanation we have for the observed climatic changes of the last 50 years."

Please explain the failure of the models to predict the past 15 years of flat temperatures. Please explain the failure of the models to predict the increased Antarctic ice extent. Please explain why GISSTemp has methodically revised temperatures before 1950 lower and temperatures after 1950 higher. Please explain why the ARGO network is showing a flattening of upper ocean heat content. Please explain how WWF grey literature claiming that the Himalayan glaciers would disappear this century made it into the most "authoritative" document on global warming (IPCC AR4); or the host of other non-peer reviewed literature that was also included.

Please explain how the current climastrologists' models masquerading as science can be proven false. It isn't science if it isn't falsifiable and the warmists explain everything as CAGW: floods, droughts, hurricanes, lack of hurricanes (Did you know the US is currently experiencing its longest recorded stretch of no landfalling Cat 3 or higher hurricane), lack of snow followed by... snow?! Remember that masturbation and simulation are alike: do them both often enough and long enough and you start to think they're real.

This isn't science, it's the Climate Inquisition.

Is the planet warming? Yes, a little.

Are modern temps "unprecedented?" Ask the Vikings that farmed portions of Greenland a millenium ago. Could we do the same today with 11th century technology?

Is human generated CO2 contributing warming? Yes, a little, i.e. about 1C for every doubling.

Is the cult of CAGW getting paid its rent for crying wolf? It is and to the tune of billions of dollars a year.

Re: Limits.

"Is it that difficult to remember that as you go faster the distance traveled is shorter and the time it takes becomes longer?"

Yeah, no. If I take off for Proxima Centauri at 0.9c the trip doesn't "take longer." Time dilation and length contraction for me means that the trip is shorter in time and space. For the outside observer my length contracts by the Lorentz factor as well, but that's trivial in the grand scheme of things. Bottom line is that for me the trip to PC takes less than the 4.24/.9=4.7 years that you Earthers observe. It's more like 2 years in my shipboard time.

What prevents you from breaking --or more accurately going-- the speed of light is that your mass would be infinite and the energy required to get you to that speed would also be infinite. If you can avoid the singularity right at the speed of light then at least the equations don't go bang, but I don't know what imaginary mass means.

Re: Plug in cars ain't green.

The Chevy Volt is as bad as pure electrics. Even priced at $40k and with a $7500 tax credit they still lose money on every sale. The Cruz is half the price, profitable at that price and nearly as fuel efficient. Imagine if they put a diesel in the Cruz...

And turbines ARE combustion engines. I think you meant reciprocating piston engines. We'll ignore the Wankels for now.

Re: National Sales Tax

Ding! Someone finally gets it. The other reality is that businesses don't really pay taxes. Consumers, employees, and shareholders (capital) pay taxes and it's usually more of the foremost of those three.

Re: SIT UP AND PAY ATTENTION!

Fine, it's 80-100. It'll be back to 50 before the end of next year and possibly sooner.

Not impressed with HTPC

The best part of Sage is having a centralized server for the entire house. I don't want a dedicated HTPC for every screen in the house. Sage software was $80 and the extenders were $150. If you have more than a couple of screens in your house the difference in price of the extenders versus having even a cheap HTPC for every screen will quickly pay for the software.

I haven't played with MediaPortal, but it doesn't look like it has any capabilities beyond Sage. MediaPortal is also Windows only. Linux support is(was?) an after thought on Sage, but it was available and I can verify that it works.

Still, if Sage is fully Googled and ceases to work, it's good to know that there are some sub-optimal alternatives out there.

Isp and Payload/Mass/Fuel Fraction

So the density of LOX is 4600x that at sea level. So *what*? Carrying that LOX *onboard* reduces the useful payload. The best hydrocarbon rockets have a specific impulse well short of *400sec*. A ramjet has a specific impulse more than *double* that and a turbojet (jet not fan) can easily get close to *2000sec*. Since the exhaust velocity will be very high for a scramjet I expect its Isp will be closer to that of the turbojet than the ramjet. That means you get a *much* higher Isp and your payload mass fraction goes *up*. By not carrying *most* of your *reaction mass* and instead borrowing it from the atmosphere you can deliver more mass to orbit. Of course if the engines themselves are extremely heavy then that would be *bad*. A 350sec Isp rocket can deliver about 6% of it's starting fueled mass to orbit. An 800sec Isp (sc)ramjet operated for the entire burn to LEO would deliver *70%* of it's fully fueled ground mass to orbit. Breaking it up into a turbojet/ramjet/scramjet/rocket profile is left as an exercise to the reader.

Ramjet's are great for high speed applications and relatively efficient in the supersonic regime. Their only upper limitation is that combustion must occur subsonically (hence the missing SC) and when they get to the hypersonic range they have to slow down their intake air so much that they melt. SCramjets get around that by magically only slowing the intake air speed by a fraction and so have less heat load to contend with. They substitute the problem of keeping the flame lit which apparently P&W are solving. You are also right that they need to do most of their acceleration in the atmosphere and so skin temperatures, really leading edge temps, are a serious concern. And yes, you still have to get it up to at least a mid supersonic regime to transition through a ramjet and then scramjet mode, but no one outlawed variable inlet geometries. Without a doubt scramjets *are* potentially *very* useful for commercial space applications.