I think that the probability of intelligent life on another planet, or moon, in the Universe is close to certainty.
However, I strongly suspect that the probability of communicating with intelligent life originating from elsewhere in the Universe is close to zero.
Whether we find any definitive signs of intelligent life elsewhere is probably extremely small.
In reality, the only solution to meet every expanding energy needs while still reducing CO2 leads only to one answer - nuclear power.
Nuclear power is the one cheap CO2 free source we can make happen all around the globe quickly for a large amount of power produced, at this point the plants are well-understood and quite safe.
When even people like Bill Gates are pushing nuclear power, you know a sea-change is at hand.
Nuclear power is simply too expensive when all relevant costs are considered.
Also Solar & Wind plants can be put into production much faster and for far less cost than nuclear.
Nuclear power is scary and the the booboisie are and will remain too stupid to accept nukes though the actual volume of nuclear waste is trivial.
Technical solutions which go against irreversible public attitudes will not be implemented in democracies.
Nuclear power stations cost more to build and to run than either Solar or Wind.
Even worse, the costs of decommissioning Nuclear power stations cost more than either Solar or Wind.
The above, of course, considers all the costs involved. Subsidies, provided by governments, will reduce the costs of the operators of nuclear power stations -- but this merely passes on the costs to others, it does not reduce the real costs.
Technical solutions which are grossly uneconomic should be avoided, regardless of your political affiliations.
The very real dangers of Nuclear power, are additional reasons for avoiding it.
Any other approach to energy is just nonsense. The solar stuff is coming along well, we just need to get some more advanced nuclear reactor designs into production.
As a side benefit with so much cheap power to be had, lots more economical to desalinize water or create hydrogen. California is going to have to do that eventually.
Nuclear power stations are more costly than Solar/wind plus battery farms for the same amount of energy production -- further, Nuclear power stations take several years longer to put into operation. Not to mntion the cost to deal with the spent fuel and properly decommissioning Nuclear power stations in a safe way!
So the strategy of relying on Solar/wind plus battery farms, is the best effective and economic strategy.
I used to use GNOME 2, but when they foisted GNOME 3 on us, I fled to XFCE. Now I've been using Mate for a few years and find its sufficiently customisable to meet all my needs.
In fact one of the Mate developers was kind enough to increase the maximum number of virtual desktops from 16 to 36 at my request.
I found GNOME 3 to be a Triumph of Fashion over Functionality! I hate thus 'Don't worry your tiny little mind, we know best mentality'!
This applesque mentality is behind Microsoft's Metro disaster, Ubuntu's unity, and the abomination of the modern KDE desktop environment. I'd first met this kind of thing with the original Apple Lisa, the up market version of the original MacIntosh.
Please. No nonsense about Chernobyl or Fukushima. Those reactors are negative void coefficient reactors and no reactor created in the past few decades for power generation has been a negative void coefficient reactor.
If the public wasn't falling for Big Oil's nuclear is bad scare tactics, all our generating stations would have been retooled to modern reactor designs ages ago, and much of our power would be from Nuclear these days. For working at night, to being carbon neutral, it's a great energy source.
When you factor in the cost of decommissioning and dealing with spent fuel rods, nuclear is uneconomic.
They should eliminate subsidies for nuclear and fossil power, and work on putting in more solar and wind power generation.
Elon is doing more for humanity than any other human living or dead.
He's only chasing great people right now, and until he surpasses Norman Borlaug he won't be doing more for humanity than any other human living or dead.
Norman, is certainly a great man who stands out over most other people and is vastly under appreciated, but I would still put Elon ahead of him.
It is a good idea to at least give a brief outline to back up your statement.. For those who are to lazy to look him up: "Norman Ernest Borlaug was an American agronomist who led initiatives worldwide that contributed to the extensive increases in agricultural production termed the Green Revolution. "
a handful of wealthy plutocrats are. Bezos & Zuckerberg (the folks being parodied) are both ruthless businessmen. Elon Musk is a Union buster. They're not well meaning idiots, and making them out to be via parody only serves to make the look better/kinder than they really are.
Elon is doing more for humanity than any other human living or dead.
He has made Electric Vehicles sexy, and forced all the existing Vehicle manufacturers to go electric. EV's cost less to run and require considerably less maintenance than combustion engine cars. Note that even when the electricity to charge the battery comes from fossil fuels, it is more efficient to burn the fuel in a power station than in a car, plus EV's require considerably less energy to run -- so they are a win even in this situation
Elon is also investing heavily in solar and storage batteries. So is this also reduces dependence on polluting fossil fuels like coal & oil.
Note that going nuclear is not a viable option. Apart from the cost & needed 10+ years to construct a nuclear power station, the cost of dealing with spent fuel rods & decommissioning the nuclear reactors make them uneconomic -- if you ignore the huge subsidies.
Elon developed his own rockets and rocket engines. His company is the only one to make totally reusable first stages. SpaceX has more than halved the cost of launching to space. With the BFR (or whatever it is called this week), he will bring the cost per kilo down from over $1000, to about $20.
When using Slashdot, without being logged in, I saw a post claiming nuclear was the way to go. I tried commenting, but was told anonymous posting was not allowed.
However, when I logged in, I can no longer see the post I tried to reply too -- no matter what I do!
> Then (Score:3)
> by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Friday January 03, 2020 @12:30PM > (#59582722)
> Then I guess we'd better hurry up and go full nuclear, and find
> technological ways to sequester carbon. Snarking and name
> calling just doesn't seem to be getting the job done.
Before you invest any further into nuclear, find safe & economic ways to deal with spent fuel rods & decommissioning old reactors. Currently solar & wind power sources are faster to set up & far cheaper when all costs are considered.
Assuming that a sub-orbital flight doesn't greatly increase the distance needed to travel to reach another spot on Earth and half the distance and time to accelerate and the other half to decelerate:
circumference of Earth is 40 x 10^6 m, therefore, greatest distance to travel is half of that or 20 x 10^6 m and half of that is 10 x 10^6 m
s = 10 x 10^6 m
t = 30 minutes = 1800 seconds
s = 1/2 a t^2
a = 2 * s / (t^2)
a = 6 m/s^2 = 0.6 g
So, unless I've screwed up the calculations, it looks like the acceleration/deceleration wouldn't be a problem.
g is about 9.81 m/s^2
therefore a is about 0.63g
So I think your calculations are accurate enough for this discussion - except that the take off acceleration will be 1.6 g (assumes rocket is initially climbing vertically), as the calculated acceleration needs to be added to the Earth's gravity!
Though in practice, the take off acceleration will be a lot higher, as most of the journey will probably be coasting, and then there will be deacceleration at the other end (assuming human a safe landing is required!).
If the entire flight is powered, then the maximum acceleration will be at least 4 times greater (before you allow for the Earth's gravity!).
Note that we are doing rough calculations here, and that we are ignoring many details such:
(1) as air resistance
(2) gravity falls off with height
(3) the rocket is not moving in a straight line
(4) acceleration instantly changes from one value to another
(0, +a, -a)
(5) accelerating slowly burns up more fuel
(6) reduced mass of rocket due to fuel consumption
What city & provider?
I've programmed in over 25 different languages over the last 50+ years. I started with BASIC, FORTRAN, and ALGOL. I've had years of experience in COBOL and Java, as well as SQL. Also had lots of fun teaching C to experienced programmers -- and actually got paid heaps to do so!
I actually like the fact that indentation is semantically meaningful in Python, and especially no longer needing to terminate statements with a semicolon (or full stop, in the case of COBOL). There are several Python features I'd really like to be introduced to Java.
I find Python a bit gimmicky and its multi-threading performance was not up to what I was used to in Java - when I tried about 5 years ago. Though I do respect Python's usefulness, and may get back into it someday.
Am toying with Clojure at the moment.
Drive a Diesel for the wildlife!
You forget Thomas the Tank Engine's admonishment that "Coughs and sneezles spread Diseasels!". https://ttte.fandom.com/wiki/T...
Seriously, we need to drop all of these idiotic private companies doing clearance duty. We are getting far too many ppl that do not belong.
Absolutely! The next thing you know, they'll be letting in idiots that won't even type out entire words! -_-
Far worse, they may even elect a president, who has extreme difficulty typing a coherent sentence, and are proud of their ignorance!
Hmm...
On third thoughts, perhaps we could make use of the weak magnetic field between the stars???
The rule on staying alive as a forecaster is to give 'em a number or give 'em a date, but never give 'em both at once. -- Jane Bryant Quinn
