Comment Re:well duh. (Score 1) 1328
Or, even more accurate: "Hawking modded down for massive flamebait"
Comment Re:Why mining? (Score 1) 444
Asteroids are not that radioactive, but there's a lot of radiation due to cosmic rays. high energy particles from the solar wind are also extremely dangerous, not to mention those coming from transient events like coronal mass ejections. If you don't have a magnetic field to deflect particles or a thick atmosphere to absorb them, then you're at risk. Even shielding of a spacecraft (or aircraft) can make matters worse by causing secondary collisions that interact more strongly with human tissue than the incoming high energy particles. I have heard that if you bury yourself with a few inches of dirt inside an asteroid or the lunar regolith, then you should be fine. It's the commute that kills.
Comment Re:Smells funny... (Score 1) 226
I knew pisswasser was a real product.
Comment Re:Why mining? (Score 1) 444
The moonwalkers knew it was prudent to wait for the moon to be full before making the trip, so that they would be shielded by the earth's magnetotail. However, this was before space physics models existed - they didn't know that they could end up effectively sitting in the solar wind if the interplanetary magnetic field shifted southward, and that's something that occurs rather frequently even during low solar activity. So they apparently drew their cards right. However, if we're planning to leave the earth's magnetosphere entirely then we'll really have to come up with something fancy.
Comment Re:Why mining? (Score 2, Informative) 444
The radiation problem is a big one, and I think the public doesn't yet realize how big of a problem it is. I mean, flight attendants and pilots are exposed to about as much or more than someone working in a nuclear power plant, so shouldn't they be wearing radiation badges? http://iopscience.iop.org/0952-4746/21/1/003
Now fast forward 50 yrs, with asteroid mining profits starting to take off. Will similar health risks get swept under the rug?
Comment Re:What do I think? (Score 1) 444
I mean, you could blindly aim a spaceship through the belt, and as long as it can take collisions with pebble size objects, it'll almost certainly make it through unscathed.
Don't forget, we need a pretty good estimate of the velocity distribution out there before setting up shop. A pebble-sized object moving at 500 km/s can really ruin your day.
Comment Re:And So Offered Another Inaccuracy (Score 1) 495
The article's summary is a bit narrow-minded. My suspension of disbelief for the exploding ring has less to do with the distribution of mass (almost spherically symmetric) and more to do with the distribution of energy. The fact that a lot of astrophysical objects have a clear axis of symmetry should hint that a man-made object capable of destroying a planet could also have an axis of symmetry.
Comment Re:Why has no one taken this thread seriously... (Score 1) 520
Why is it that in the engineering world, current still flows from positive to negative poles? Should be simple to get in there and change the convention, shouldn't it?
Say the convention were flipped. Well, what happens when we start carrying current using holes instead of electrons ?
Comment Why this is /. relevant (Score 1) 1
KTRU is turning into another causality of the HD radio scam. There's a nice article http://keeppublicradiopublic.com/2010/08/21/beating-the-borg/ that summarizes the problem:
Comment Re:It takes 20 years (Score 1) 179
Granted, I really liked wave. I recently got around to setting up a global warming debate amongst the physicists in my program, via wave, and then the news hits... Part of me wishes /. would have tried it out as a real-time commenting system for a couple days.
Comment Re:It takes 20 years (Score 1) 179
Compared to google wave? All of them. Compared to going to the moon? None.
Submission + - Rice University sells college radio station (savektru.org) 1
An anonymous reader writes: Earlier this week, Rice University made public its plans to sell the broadcast FM license, tower and frequency of its longtime college radio station, KTRU 91.7. The station has been student-run for more than 40 years and plays a diverse, eclectic slate of programming. The university described KTRU as an "underutilized asset" and stands to gain $9.5M from the deal, which will give Houston yet another NPR station.
Comment Re:It takes 20 years (Score 1) 179
Some contemporary examples (from wikipedia):
Youtube's official launch was November 2005. By July 2006, they had 26k videos being uploaded per day.
Facebook launched c. 2005 and had it's first 100 million users by August 2008, then doubled it in 225 days.
Apple's app store was launched mid 2008. There are now some 200k approved apps.
Twitter's tipping point happened at SXSW 2007, when it went from 20k to 60k tweets/day.
These days, how long is too long to wait for something to take off?
Comment Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free (Score 1) 671
Exactly. Has no one ever heard of a little game called Counter-Strike? In about half of ever game, the terrorists win.
Comment Re:This is why I hate most science reporting (Score 4, Informative) 167
The paper is actually a lot clearer than the press surrounding it. http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2010GL044143.shtml
FTFAbstract:
Plasma flowing poleward at the solar surface and returning equatorward near the base of the convection zone, called the meridional circulation, constitutes the Sun's conveyor-belt. Just as the Earth's great oceanic conveyor-belt carries thermal signatures that determine El Nino events, the Sun's conveyor-belt determines timing, amplitude and shape of a solar cycle in flux-transport type dynamos. In cycle 23, the Sun's surface poleward meridional flow extended all the way to the pole, while in cycle 22 it switched to equatorward near 60. Simulations from a flux-transport dynamo model including these observed differences in meridional circulation show that the transport of dynamo-generated magnetic flux via the longer conveyor-belt, with slower return-flow in cycle 23 compared to that in cycle 22, may have caused the longer duration of cycle 23.
