Comment Need "Powerhouse" playing in the background (Score 1) 79
For full effect, you need Raymond Scott's Powerhouse playing in the background when watching this (or any other) Rub Goldberg machine.
For full effect, you need Raymond Scott's Powerhouse playing in the background when watching this (or any other) Rub Goldberg machine.
You keep using this word "digital". I do not think it means what you think it means.
That's not how optics work. You need to image what you want to see onto your detector.
To test this: remove the lens from your DSLR and take a photo. You'll get nothing but blur.
No. Not in the sense that it would sit in Hubble-type orbit for a year while it's tested, and astronauts go to turn wrenches and adjust things that aren't right. And yes, I suspect that would much more than "a bit of extra time and effort." It's probably completely at odds to being launched to L2, and would be an incredible cost and complexity adder.
But it has pre-flight testing and a lengthy in-space verification process as it reaches L2.
Actuated primary mirror segments, actuated secondary mirror, and a wavefront sensor system enable it to self-align. While it's much more complicated, and unreachable for servicing, it's also much more flexible for on-orbit self corrections.
JWST has spectroscopy e.g. NIRSPec = Near Infra-Red Spectrophotometer.
The JWST is more about massive light gathering (seeing closer to the dawn of the universe than ever before) than pretty visible-light images.
They're not. Just the one.
Ooh! Look! They've invented paper and the $0.99 solar-powered calculator!
HP's already announced and seemingly canceled amazing new Win7 tablet. They've bought WebOS and then suggested that they're going to stuff it in printers, so forget about tablets for now. So what are they doing here? More stuff that doesn't exist or won't leave the lab? Or won't be sold until I've already bought my iPad 2?
Why don't these companies mimic Apple where it matters? Don't rumor, tease, prototype, spin, et cyk? Shut up until you've got something work talking about...and then release it!
You're buying outdated, conventional desktop platform for kids that will be developing on Mobile / Touch OS systems in 8-12 years.
That is, you can't predict the future, so get an appropriate system to teach them fundamentals, problem-solving, and some immediate skills.
While you're right that NASA use of Mac OS X is much higher, it's not true industry wide. The *only* people with Macs are the NASA employees. Everyone else, working at conventional companies like Boeing and Northrop Grumman use PCs.
This is not good or bad, it just is. NASA gives their technical people significant freedom in choosing their computer and software. But it's atypical. Everyone else buys Wintel systems.
(I'm a Ph.D. working on a NASA project through a major subcontractor. I just spent the week at a joint meeting with NASA, ESA, and industry reps for a NASA project.)
From the article, "This month, ITT Corp. in Rochester, N.Y., demonstrated robotic mirror installation equipment designed to position segments on the backplane."
I'm pleased to say that I was one of the individuals giving that demo to the JWST review team
Yes, we've considered it. And dismissed it. This is obviously not a PR stunt by Apple. They don't do early reveals on their hardware. They've not revealed the past three iPhones. They didn't clumsily leak the iPad's design. It's obvious they don't care or need to leak in on the 4th iteration of iPhone, a device that's guaranteed to be a success.
And when they do leak info, it goes to the Wall Street Journal or The New York Times. It doesn't go to Gizmodo.
Unfortunately the article gets the technical aspects wrong.
NASA is not "freezing" the mirror segments to make sure they "survive" space.
The JWST will operate at a cryogenic temperature in space. The mirrors are measured at cryovac to guide the manufacturing process so they will have the correct optical prescription at the telescope's operational temperature.
Similarly, we're testing support optics, for the pre-launch JWST testing, at cryo. We'll have the first of a one set down to temp in short order.
In most courtrooms, Jurors are not allowed to take notes. They can merely listen. For hours at a time. Then come to a decision.
By "downfall" you mean 60% increase in stock price YTD? Or by downfall you mean Apple's record profits last quarter? Or is their 90% ownership of the over-$1000 retail computer market?
By all measures, Apple's "downfall" of selling expensive hardware is anything buy.
Understanding is always the understanding of a smaller problem in relation to a bigger problem. -- P.D. Ouspensky
