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Comment Where is it practical? (Score 1) 127

But it does not allow rockets to reenter the Earth's atmosphere at orbital velocities, slow down, and land.

How about the Moon and Mars? It seems to me that the fuel capacity of Dragon isn't enough to do both lunar descent and ascent just on the Super Draco thrusters and the trunk's fuel capacity.

Comment What's really impressive (Score 2) 127

The impressive part is that they do it with an actual rocket that is 106 feet tall, and that they have launched it 7 times with 0 failures.

Using the same engine, rather than treating the engine as a disposable object that only performs one burn in its lifetime. Most rocket engines can't be throttled, can't be shut down and then restarted in flight or otherwise.

The tricky part is going to be for any stage to have enough delta-V to return to the pad after lifting a payload to orbit. Also, as far as I can tell, this takes a drag chute for lower stages, and a re-entry shield for upper ones.

Bruce

Comment I can't wait! (Score 0) 395

For a few months I am consulting in San Jose and driving from Berkeley. I can't wait for all of those folks to move to the cities and get off the roads! Typical commute is 1.5 hours to drive no more than 49 miles. Even getting on the road at 6 AM doesn't beat the traffic.

Comment Re:Phenotipyc variance (Score 1) 204

I am no authority on homosexuality. All I really know is that I meet a lot of gay folks here in Berkeley, and they are every bit as nice as anyone else.

Nor am I a genetics expert. But I know enough to hold a discussion.

You are right that there may be no genetic connection with homosexuality, because it doesn't seem to be inherited in general. But there are intriguing differences such as digit ratio, and we know that many developmental differences can have a genetic factor. Who knows what we will find?

I think the flaw with your argument is that you are assuming that homosexuals don't breed. Not true, and there may also be factors increasing the success of their offspring such as small, educated and relatively affluent families.

Next, do not assume that direct reproductive success is the only possible pro-survival factor. The contribution of homosexuals to the reproductive success of their close genetic relatives or even their community may be a pro-survival factor for genes like their own.

Comment Not necessarily the right place (Score 2, Insightful) 97

I have no objection to protocol experiments that are 100% Open Source implementations. I wouldn't trust one that was not, and an Open Standard is just instructions for people who make implementations.

But it seems that a lot of this might belong in a system facility rather than the browser and server. I don't know if it makes sense to put all of TLS in the kernel, but at least it could go in its own process. Using UDP is fine for an experiment, but having 200 different ad-hoc network stacks each tied into their own application and all of them using UDP is not.

Comment Re:It's dead either way, why not try this? (Score 1) 371

What you want exists under the Part 5 rules, which you can read here. That is a separate radio service that allows experimentation for commercial purposes and other things that would not fit in Amateur radio. You have to file notices, but you can do what you want, and on a lot of different frequencies.

The Part 97 rules for the Amateur Sevice create a pretty good balance between the needs of all of the various users of Amateur radio. It's not really designed for all sorts of experimentation without limit, it's more for experimentation by individuals with explicitly non-profit and personal motivation.

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