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Comment Humans sent to Mars for less than you think! (Score 1) 309

It's simple: Make it a one-way trip. This wouldn't necessarily be a suicide trip - it may still be cheaper to make it a one-way trip and send regular "care packages" containing food, water and other things needed to sustain permanent human life on Mars than to make it a round trip, and with humans living the rest of their lives on Mars, a HUGE amount of exploration and study could be done.

Yes, I know, it's slightly controversial, and it relies on many things going right (followup supplies reliably arriving) and CONTINUING to go right (followup supplies continuing to be sent in spite of political changes), but the cost/benefit ratio is so much greater than a visit-and-turnaround mission, it should be seriously studied.

Comment Re:The real problem... (Score 1) 458

Blast from the past, one of the biggest indie "hit songs" on mp3.com:
Fisher, "I Will Love You"

I grew up on WPLO FM in Atlanta between about 1968 and 1975 when it was a format I later heard called "underground FM" - commercial rock that was often not in the Top 40's, but quite interesting. If anyone can tell me where I could find some playlists for that station, I would be quite grateful (yes, they played the Dead). I recall Curved Air and Renaissance as two prog-rock or alt-rock bands they played, but there was a lot of music I can't remember the song titles or artists' names, but would love to hear again. I learned there is much more good music than was/is played on "conventional" popular radio.

So when I discovered independent music on the Internet through mp3 hosts, almost exclusively mp3.com in the late '90's, I ate it up. I remember when mp3.com died, artists spread out to soundclick, the late IUMA, and/or whevever else they could find for hosts (I found these hosts by websearching the names of the artists/bands I had listened to on mp3.com).

Here's two sites that list lots of music hosting sites for independent music artists, it rates them from the artist's point of view, but they may be worth looking over as a listener as well (while sites have all genres, many sites tend to specialize in certain genres):
http://www.compo10.com/MusicHosts.htm
http://www.armydiller.com/musichosting.htm
In general, downloads are either free or only partial songs and charge-for-the-whole thing, depending on options the artist sets.

Many indie artists DO put their material on P2P networks in an effort to increase exposure, but I've stayed away from using the crapware necessary to get it.

mp3.com itself has been "back" for perhaps a couple years as far as being an indie host again, but I haven't really heard about it, I just happened to notice it when I went there one day. It doesn't look like the 'cred' or excitement of the late '90's is there anymore.

One more artist I learned about and bought the CD from ten years ago thanks to mp3.com, country singer "Dorene." Here's her old CD online as free MP3's as well as a new song:
http://www.dorenekedney.com/

Comment Terrorists now leaving Facebook in droves! (Score 1) 204

Either that or they're starting to post some wildly misleading info on their Facebook and other social networking site pages.

I remember around late 2001 or 2002, it was reported that "the terrorists" were using porn chatrooms to communicate, at least until that news was reported to the press, then they moved on to some other clandestine way to communicate.

With all the web forums, Usenet, email IRC and other Internet traffic, the government really will have to snoop everything to track terrorists.

Comment Re:Space - application with today's Superconductor (Score 1) 71

Common sense: FAIL

The two sides (in and out) of your can are only at a few hundred Kelvin, and the rate of IR leaving one side for the other is very low (and being only a few Kelvin apart, the net rate is going to be even lower). The sun, however, is at a few million Kelvin, and thus sends out IR at a much higher rate.

Perhaps you're thinking of the inner core where fusion takes place. The surface, which is what radiates heat, light and other things to Earth, is not nearly as hot. One online figure is 5777k:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun

The rest of your point is still valid, radiation isn't nearly as effective at moving heat as are conduction and convection, and that's why a Thermos bottle works.

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