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Journal Journal: Intrepid Ibex 8.10

I eventually had given up on Ubuntu because I just missed the simplicity of OS X, but now that my two Macbooks were stolen, I decided to give Ubuntu another go on my new PC.

Comment Re:Iron Man's Suit Defies Physics -- Mostly (Score 2, Interesting) 279

Hydrogen peroxide powered rocket packs fly for around 30 seconds, because they have a specific impulse of around 125, meaning that one pound of propellant can make 125 pound-seconds of thrust, meaning that it takes about two pounds of propellant for every second you are in the air. Mass ratios are low for anything strapped to a human, so the exponential nature of the rocket equation can be safely ignored.

A pretty hot (both literally and figuratively) bipropellant rocket could manage about twice the specific impulse, and you could carry somewhat heavier tanks, but two minutes of flight on a rocket pack is probably about the upper limit with conventional propellants.

However, an actual jet pack that used atmospheric oxygen could have an Isp ten times higher, allowing theoretical flights of fifteen minutes or so. Here, it really is a matter of technical development, since jet engines have thrust to weight ratios too low to make it practical. There is movement on this technical front, but it will still take a while.

John Carmack
User Journal

Journal Journal: Ubuntu! XP is gone forever.

So far, so smooth. All my hardware seems to work with Ubuntu :-)

I basically deleted everything from my harddrive minus the 25 gigs of music, pictures, and important files. I moved those to a separate 50 gig partition. The remaining 70 gigs are for linux, linux apps, and whatever else I may download.
User Journal

Journal Journal: Migrating from Windows XP to Ubuntu Linux

So I've decided that since all the major programs I use on my Windows XP box have linux counterparts, that it might be time to switch to a linux distro.

I'm a huge fan of Ubuntu Linux... the LiveCD is blazingly fast, even on my older Pentium II-450 box.
Debian

Journal Journal: Ubuntu Linux (Hoary)

I've always been a little scared of using Linux, because the last few dozen times I've installed it, it was such a pain to setup and get running.

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