You are probably right, and in respect to cooperation space I am most concerned. It is only a matter of time before a nation (probably China) declares a region in orbit theirs. Worse, I suspect someone will eventually try to lay claim to some or all of the moon (again, likely China). It is sad because science, especially space science, should engender cooperation. If anything ever inspires us to drop our imaginary borders, it will be science. Conversely, if we go extinct, science will be the weapon.

I accept that China is now a leader in science and technology. I wish them the best on this project and I am sure it will yield fantastic science. I just hope by "international collaborators" they mean more than the Russian Federation. As an American, I hope we get in on the action.

Just one thing though: if you are going to go to the trouble to build such a big and expensive machine, why not build a linear collider? I realize it would take more land, but I'm sure they have it and the science would be even better. Correct me if I am wrong, but after the second refit of the LHC, isn't the next big international European science project going to be a big honking linear collider? At that point, it won't matter that China's collider is bigger, you can get more interesting results from a gigantic linear collider. Although the idea of a super-proton collider does tickle me a bit.

Slashdot editors,

Please don't ruin this by turning it into a video interview where you don't actually ask anyone's questions like you did the last one.

Sincerely,
Speaking for a lot of us.

Considering we have yet to - and may never - quantify the overall cognitive process that gives rise to our own sentient intelligence, will we have any way of knowing if and when we create a truly aware artificial intelligence?

Also the ports tree is a joy to work with. It also offers a much more sane environment for editing and managing configuration files. Not to mention the excellent FreeBSD handbook and well thought out, easily searchable documentation in general.

With a flexible OLED display that wraps around my entire forearm. Not sure where to put the battery, but I would not be surprised if that turns out to be a future tech.

I remember the first time I compiled it at version 0.6.3 - It was a hopelessly pathetic win95 clone. I was sure it would go nowhere. Then the 1.0 release came along and it was clear it had a future. I don't much care for KDE myself, but I do note it's contribution.

Everyone in this thread has made excellent points regarding the problems with re-using the main engines, as well as using solid rocket boosters. I see the folly.

I don't understand the criticism regarding the use of modified space shuttle engines and a coolant system from the Air Force. As far as I am aware, we never lost a shuttle due to main engine failure, and the Air Force is pretty good at not blowing things up. I have been following the SLS for awhile, and if they can manage to pull off the overall designs they have in mind without budget cuts or severe cost overruns ruining things, I believe it will be a fine rocket. Otherwise SpaceX is well on their way toward manned flight and their heavy lifter among other things, so I think were pretty well covered.

If this series had been presented in the traditional ask slashdot format, it would have garnered at least a couple hundred comments and an interesting discussion. You know, the one where the most highly rated questions are presented, coupled with the user name of the person that asked it, and followed by the response - all in text format. I don't see where anyone's questions are actually being presented here. How could this have gone so wayward? We deserve an explanation as to the thought process that ruined something that could have been great. You had the attention of Lawrence Lessig and you fucked it up. I don't get it.

It'd mean starting over from scratch with a whole new architecture, redoing decades of work in hardware and software.

So? I would say that is bound to happen eventually anyhow. Traditional integrated circuits are quickly on their way to becoming a stick in the mud. Something fundamentally different will have to replace them eventually.

The reason Apple stuck with the Power architecture for so long, was because IBM promised them quad and greater core chips running at 8 Ghz, air cooled, by 2005. Needless to say, they didn't even come close to delivering. It was that failure that led Apple to switch to x86.

I would be curious to know more about the architecture and all around chip specs they are using in their prototype: clock speed, memory interface, etc. The article states they are developing a version of Linux to test it on, so it's safe to say it's an established architecture. Anyway, I am excited to see the results once they have tested it on Linux. While this does not help with the density per core problem, perhaps it will help extend Moore's Law from the perspective of speed increase in respect to micro circuitry.

Your first idea? No. Second? Sure. Overwhelmingly it has to do with the economic sanctions we (US) slapped on them. They are not in a position to do the same back except to do business elsewhere and at home is always a good place.

The missing manual.