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Comment Re:Units hurt the brain (Score 1, Insightful) 74

Being a European i have no clue how much a pound is, and probably British and US pounds differ too. Ok, i could guess a pound is about half a kilogram. Still makes no sense to mix them up in a scientific article.

Wrong guess, minus five.

Hint: the pound is a unit of FORCE, the kilogram is a unit of MASS. It makes no more sense to measure thrust in kilograms than it does to measure distance in square meters.

If you really want to have consistency, they should have measured the thrust in newtons, NOT in kilograms.

The fact that Europeans (at least one of them) don't know their own measurement system any better than that is appalling....

Comment Re:Region-Specific (Score 1) 86

So you make a regional system by setting up the orbits so that there are always 3-4 satellites visible from the region of interest. Occasionally you will be able to get a fix elsewhere in the world, but usually not.

Actually, while it's generally pretty trivial to make sure 3-4 (5+ would be better) are visible from any given point on Earth, it's rather harder (read: nearly impossible) to make sure 3-4 are visible from any point in India but NOT from any point outside India.

Unless the satellites are in geosynchronous orbits, of course, but then you're not going to have the separations you need for a good solution.

Realistically, India needs an array like GPS or GLONASS, not just seven satellites.

Comment Re:Let me get this right (Score 2) 839

It encourages people to save and hoard till the day they die, which defeats the purpose of money.

So, if it encourages people to build up some capital, it's a bad thing, eh?

Yes, I'm aware that current economic theories pretty much rely on most everyone spending their money as fast as they make it.

And then bitch about the fact that they don't set aside money for their old age, or to deal with bad economic times, etc....

Comment Re:US,Nigeria (Score 4, Insightful) 381

Hmm, interesting theory, that.

Both Nigeria and the USA began their ebola problems with one (1) Liberian man entering their country with ebola.

Nigeria ended up with ~20 ebola cases, of which 9 died.

So far, the USA has had ~3 cases, of which one has died.

Now, the USA isn't done yet. Probably. Maybe. We'll see.

But so far, our situation is essentially identical with Nigeria's, and our outcome is the same as or better than their outcome. Note the "so far" - it's important.

Comment Re:wow (Score 1) 571

and learned that the fast neutrons cause neutron activation, creating often long-lived radioactive isotopes of what they hit

Or non-radioactive isotopes. Or short-lived radioactive isotopes. Or fission (yes, you can do fission with fast neutrons, it's just inadvisable). Just depends on what they hit.

Comment Re:Of course! (Score 1) 571

So yes, every nuclear reactor that thinks and sooner later gets breached: is a ecologic disaster. And YOU certainly would not like to live close to it or be depending on fish fished there.

I'm curious as to how a fusion reactor can be an ecological disaster.

Yeah, the fuel will spread all over the ocean, but the fuel is hydrogen, so it's not like we're going to notice a few kg extra hydrogen in an ocean that is 1/9th hydrogen.

The fusion byproducts are tritium (again, hydrogen), and helium (chemically inert, and part of the atmosphere).

The shell? It might get irradiated. But slightly radioactive iron isn't really a meaningful disaster, unless you've managed to stick a megaton or so of iron into the 500 cubic feet of that reactor (hmm, 7 foot by 10 foot. Wonder if that's seven feet in diameter and ten tall, or seven feet tall and ten in diameter?). Hint: a million tons of iron won't fit into that volume....

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