Re: Fly me to the moon
Plenty of pressure on Venus, maybe Mercury?
5199 publicly visible posts • joined 19 May 2008
SuperHeavy launch of Starship, then refuel in elliptical orbit - then send dragon up to add crew.
Go to moon, return to elliptical orbit, go back to the dragon for reentry.
It's entirely possible that they could do that before SLS is ready - they are a long way behind, but running significantly faster.
Or you are assuming that electric drivetrains are as horrifically inefficient as ICE ones...
250Wh/m is pretty easily achievable for cars, since that was what being discussed, and the mileage figure I quoted was for cars.
A gallon of gasoline (so probably a US gallon) contains approximately (and I'm rounding up) 40 kWh, and will move a car ~40 miles (yes, some cars are more efficient, and some are less efficient - this is a guess at my end and it makes the maths easy.)
That guesstimate puts an EV drivetrain at four times the efficiency of an ICE one, so you can divide all your numbers by four easily (my assumption here is that the same saving would be achieved on a larger vehicle as well, which isn't unreasonable - though larger engines do tend to be marginally more efficient, the difference in scale is actually fairly small amongst road vehicles).
Nope - my figures are based on the current national average mileage (rounded up), then 250Wh/m, which is not a particularly difficult figure to achieve if you don't drive like an arse - I even manage it most of the time in my MG ZS, which is about as aerodynamic as a brick.
So no... I don't think my maths is out by a factor of two.
I said heat pumps, not necessarily air source ones. But one house taking more than average amount of energy to heat doesn't mean that it took more energy to heat because it was using a heat pump. A ferrari takes more fuel than the average car to travel a mile, that doesn't mean it isn't better without a hole in the fuel line.
In fact: "As soon as the temperatures start to drop below 3C, we notice a difference in the ambient temperature in some of cooler rooms, which we have put down to insulation, because the flow temperatures are still at 45C."
So the loop was fine, it was the insulation that wasn't - put a hole in the fuel line of any vehicle and it will use more fuel.
To get less energy out than you put in would be a remarkable feat indeed (though well designed heat pumps often do dump the waste heat externally)
We all have heat pumps that work at extracting heat energy from a location with a temperature significantly below freezing - it's called a freezer. Their peak efficiency is found with a relatively small delta between the temperatures, but that's all we really need...
If you live in an area where the air temperature is routinely 30 below then you probably want ground source rather than air source, since ground temperature is generally significantly warmer (in the winter months) and cooler (in the summer months) to allow easy reversal of the heat pump.
Ah yes the my fourteenth hand petrol car is cheaper than your new electric car.
Well, D'uh.
20 miles a day is more than most people drive on average, so isn't an unreasonable target.
When you compare a new petrol car with a new electric car... then you end up with a much smaller difference in initial cost, and the running cost is still much cheaper than for the EV than an ICE - It's also significantly cheaper in terms of environmental costs, both globally and locally.
These newfangled petrol cars will never catch on, they don't run on oats, and my old horse is cheaper.
What he is is a man with a vision, who has made extraordinary wealth and is now spending vast amounts of that wealth on projects which further that vision.
Bezos wailing that he needs an enormous bung from congress is pitiful, I think we can all agree with that.
Electrification of transport, it's not a new idea - but Tesla has done more to make it mainstream than most others, by lighting a fire under existing manufacturers, showing what can be done.
Space travel - SpaceX nearly collapsed, but then they managed to get an F1 to orbit, and then developed the F9, and then started bloody landing the boosters and flying them again, and again, and again.
There is still a good chance that SLS/Orion will reach orbit before Starship, but if you count doing 85% of a lap as basically orbit then it will be a close run thing - if the first starship booster flight goes without a hitch then they'll get there first, if not then SLS has a chance in November - though SpaceX might turn up for a second launch by then...
Yes - much of their funding comes from NASA, but that's part of the commercial supply services which anyone can bid on and supply.
The boring company - Yeah, not sure I see the value in this vision particularly. But I don't expect everything he touches to be fairy dust.
I celebrate both, as well as spaceX.
But realistically claiming that BO don't dump carbon is ignoring that they are dumping water vapour high into the atmosphere, which is also a reasonably effective greenhouse gas...
And I am not aware that they are shouting about it being carbon neutral hydrogen
Celebrate them all - I just struggle to see what blue origin have been doing - they have been around two years longer than SpaceX and are yet to send anything to orbit.
It's not as if Mr Bezos is short of money to fund their development programme.
Virgin Galactic have always been about the tourism, and Virgin Orbital have put payloads into orbit (yes, different companies, VO spun out of VG), despite being two year younger than spaceX.
No - he is spending money to get to other planets, not just to get to space for a brief visit, but to have long term colonies on other planets.
It's virtually aiming for the stars (technically only one of the wandering stars, but the sentiment of the phrase applies), and in building that capability SpaceX have become a prolific and successful launch provider.
Not everyone has had the chance yet - so we’re not even down to those who should be tied down and jabbed.
(Assumption that there is no pork product or similarly religiously restricted substance - there isn’t as far as I am aware of.
Being anti-Vaxxer isn’t a religion.
Well - depends what they're doing.
If they're increasing the limit when you pay by poke rather than PIN, and again if you pay by PIN over wafting the card near a reader... then it is requiring a higher degree of security at each stage (nothing, 1/10k, 1/100k maybe)
That's not an entirely unreasonable approach.
On the basis that the previous incident required a significant response I don't think sending a fleet of fire engines is misplaced, even if it did end up being a minor smoulder in the end.
That's why we need to have spare capacity in all our public services, so that they can deal with the unexpected. That something unexpected will happen is entirely predictable, it's just hard to know what the something will be.
I'm torn...
Paper charts are an excellent locally accessible, resilient form of note storage at point of care in hospitals. We wouldn't want to suddenly have no notes due to a ransomware attack.
On the other hand digital notes there would probably have meant that I was given steroids when they were prescribed, and my hearing would very likely be significantly less damaged than after the ~ 1 week delay that happened. Telling a barely functioning patient what you are prescribing them is not a route to have that information relayed to the ward.
The plaintiff shouldn't be able to do that - but the defendant should.
Once you've brought a lawsuit you have to carry it through to completion. The defence were dragged in, they can poke it whichever way they want, and ask for dismissal whenever they want.
Frankly if a case is dismissed like that then there should be a significant penalty for the plaintiff (at least the costs of the defendant)
US law is all that matters, but an article which is internationally available and talks about the reader's "mutual civic heritage as Americans" is rather badly focussed.
My point wasn't that the legislation was misrepresented, but that the article assumed that the reader was USian. I don't have any USian civic heritage to be ignorant about.
Honest question. If the First Amendment says what it says, how can libel and slander laws be established, given they necessarily abridge freedoms explicitly mentioned in the text, and said text contains no exceptions to allow for restraining such in the name of rights clashes?
Libel and Slander legislation predates the constitution, and most current legislation appears to be at the state level, and states aren't congress... (Though the 14th comes into play then)
This is probably as good a starting point as any for a google rabbit hole.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation_and_the_First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
Not just part of the federal government but part of congress - the *only* branch of government which is constrained by the 1st amendment.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Open source software is still a "rich kids" club, where people from impoverished backgrounds cannot participate in, as they simply cannot afford to work for free. This creates a social divide in the IT world, which we can still see today.
But it also creates a world where those same kids *can* engage with technology for free.
Also - many companies aren't in a position to contribute.
What does a hairdresser using an open source calendaring system contribute?
What does a small retail company who uses open source office systems contribute?
The fact that tech companies do is good - they are in a position to do so, but most companies don't have the capacity to do more than report any bugs they find nicely, and I'm sure that happens informally.