njarboe

50 ms·

601.
by njarboe 6y ago
Yea, politics are hard to avoid. This is one reason he wants to create a city on Mars. Having a frontier again where some people can build up society from scratch could be great for humanity. Time will tell.
602.
by njarboe 6y ago
The title should be "Peak Oil Will Never Happen" "Peak Oil" theory is about running out of oil supply. With all the fracking oil sources now available to tap in the US at relatively short notice, the world of oil is very
603.
by njarboe 6y ago
There's the old quip that corn is just one small step in the chain of converting oil into something people can eat.
604.
by njarboe 6y ago
Hopefully Bezos and Blue Origin can get New Glen on the launch pad soon. It is the only viable competitor to SpaceX that I see at the moment. One other possibility is for some company in China to appear on the scene. Elon Musk has said he w
605.
by njarboe 6y ago
It would be great to have very easy testing with a pin prick of blood. This dream is what kept Theranos going for so long, but hopefully that scandal does not scare off other people from trying.
606.
by njarboe 6y ago
It is due in part to them owning a cheap launch platform. The world has not caught up yet to how cheap space launches are going to be. SpaceX knew that with their Falcon 9 reusable rockets that launch costs for them were going to go down by
607.
by njarboe 6y ago
With diamonds embedded in the chain to prevent it from wearing out as fast.
608.
by njarboe 6y ago
The law keeps a fleet of US shipping vessels and seamen around, but makes some things in Hawaii quite a bit more expensive.
609.
by njarboe 6y ago
Nothing is 100% safe. The word "safe" is used by almost everyone to mean a feeling they get. Something is safe to them if it feels safe. Flying is "safe" if you don't fear flying. It is not if one is afraid of getti
610.
by njarboe 6y ago
These are definitely a bad. Had to tell my girlfriend, who is a high school math teacher, not to trust the info in those boxes.
611.
by njarboe 6y ago
What is a bit funny is that US astronauts landed on the moon in 1969, 1971, and 1972 but not 1970.
612.
by njarboe 6y ago
My father was a plasma physicist that researched controlled fusion and he told me that current neutron sources were not useful for this. I think was a combination of the energy spectrum of the neutrons, the flux power, and the physical size
613.
by njarboe 6y ago
That is not good. Was Arecibo the best instrument for early detection of asteroids? What are we using now?
614.
by njarboe 6y ago
Deuterium/Tritium fusion produces neutrons that will escape the magnetic fields and hit the surrounding machine producing heat but also damage. This shield around the machine absorbing the neutrons will have a circulating fluid that wi
615.
by njarboe 6y ago
Unfortunately each faculty member produces about 30 PhD students in their career (one per year). The number of faculty positions has been close to flat since the 1970's. So one in 30 PhD's will get to be faculty member. She probab
616.
by njarboe 6y ago
Regenerative braking of electric or hybrid cars solve most of this problem.
617.
by njarboe 6y ago
Thus The Boring Company and lots of tunnels.
618.
by njarboe 6y ago
ULA is definitely not like SpaceX and is not a competitor at this point. ULA is failing due to the exact problems that you describe and if your rocket is not reusable, it cannot compete outside government launches at this point. The only ot
619.
by njarboe 6y ago
Yes, it would be very harmful to humans, but so were most industrial processes. We have now eliminated almost all of them in the West (some exported to other countries). I guess my main point is that if nuclear power had been around for as
620.
by njarboe 6y ago
You would be amazed how dangerous smoke is for human health. Even today burning coal is estimated to kill a few million people per year.
621.
by njarboe 6y ago
We probably would have kept working on nuclear powered rockets and have settled the solar system with the tech by now if chemical rockets hadn't been sufficient for ICBMs.
622.
by njarboe 6y ago
One interesting thing to contemplate along these lines is that the U235 to U238 ratio of naturally occurring uranium changes through time on Earth. They had about the same abundance when the Solar System was created but they have different
623.
by njarboe 6y ago
I would hope not. There are plenty of places left where one can drive a car but not have Internet access.
624.
by njarboe 6y ago
Tesla bought the german manufacturing automation company Grohmann Engineering in Jan. 2017, so there that also.
625.
by njarboe 6y ago
Elon Musk spends a lot of money/effort not to get stuck in local maxima. I guess time will tell if Tesla's trying lots of new ideas works out for them.
626.
by njarboe 6y ago
Elon Musk said the thing that was really hard to automate was putting in wiring. Tesla has now developed a whole new type of wiring system that is much more amenable to automation.
627.
by njarboe 6y ago
Also, when going to restaurants is impossible or a real pain due to COVID, having a full kitchen in your accommodations is very nice.
628.
by njarboe 6y ago
The reason is because of the "Fair Credit Reporting Act" of 1970 said that Credit Reporting Agencies (CRA) are not liable for any errors if they are not malicious. And the act preempts any State laws that might impose other more r
629.
by njarboe 6y ago
Tesla production numbers have grown about 50% per year (with high variance). This rate looks to continue with two new large Tesla factories slated to begin production in late 2021. So they could pass GM in sales quickly as GM sales are basi
630.
by njarboe 6y ago
"settling Mars will require more sustainable lifestyles than most first world citizens now enjoy." Not if they decide to use nuclear power. Humanity has at least one more dramatic jump in power-use/person that has been ready

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