schwarrrtz

10 ms·

61.
by schwarrrtz 10y ago
SpaceX is sponsoring a competition for engineering students. http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop
62.
by schwarrrtz 10y ago
Wouldn't you still have that problem with a federated system? You could roll your own uber-secure decentralized messaging protocol right now, if you wanted, but if nobody else adopts it then you're basically SOL.
63.
by schwarrrtz 10y ago
Yes, definitely. If you had an engine with 3000s Isp, which according to Wikipedia wouldn't be unreasonable for an ion thruster, then your mass fraction would be about exp(-2/30) ~ 0.94. So you'd only need 6% of your payload
64.
by schwarrrtz 10y ago
Assuming they'll deliver you onto a Mars transfer orbit, you need ~2 km/s for the Mars capture maneuver. Assuming you have an engine with ~300s Isp, you need a mass fraction of exp(-2/3) ~ 0.5. So you need your payload to be
65.
by schwarrrtz 10y ago
Yup. > There are a large number of functions that are overly complex. By the standard industry metrics some of them are untestable, meaning that it is so complicated a recipe that there is no way to develop a reliable test suite or test
66.
by schwarrrtz 10y ago
That's a good point. Found an interesting article about this: > Orbits tend to decay over time, at a rate determined by the initial altitude. Anything above 2,000 km will take millennia to return to Earth, while satellites further d
67.
by schwarrrtz 10y ago
You need to be at a certain karma level to downvote.
68.
by schwarrrtz 10y ago
The moon is much less dynamic than the earth, which could be covered in jungles or ice or something that makes it difficult to detect the (former) presence of intelligent life. IMO it's plausible that aliens might find artifacts on the
69.
by schwarrrtz 10y ago
Yup. One possible solution we're considering in Vancouver is some kind of residency requirement - for example, if you don't live in your property (or rent it out) for more than x% of the year, you get penalized on your property ta
70.
by schwarrrtz 11y ago
Maybe the water absorbs neutrons and slows down the chain reaction?
71.
by schwarrrtz 11y ago
This video also inspired an excellent podcast from 99 Percent Invisible about the challenges and dangers of automation. I would highly recommend listening. http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/children-of-the-magent...
72.
by schwarrrtz 11y ago
The moon is really dusty, which might be problematic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_soil#Moon_dust_fountains...
73.
by schwarrrtz 11y ago
Mitt Romney, comparing Tesla to Solyndra, in 2012: > But don’t forget, you put $90 billion, like 50 years’ worth of breaks, into—into solar and wind, to Solyndra and Fisker and Tesla and Ener1. I mean, I had a friend who said you don’t j
74.
by schwarrrtz 11y ago
Maybe using upvotes divided by age as a metric would help with the first problem... although I suspect the distribution of upvotes over time is some kind of exponential decay... hrm.
75.
by schwarrrtz 11y ago
I think what he means is that building a GUI wrapper around a CLI can't make up for deficiencies in the CLI itself. I don't think he's against GUIs in general.
76.
by schwarrrtz 11y ago
Moxie on GPG: > The protocol reflects layers of cruft built up over the 20 years that it took for cryptography (and software engineering) to really come of age, and the fundamental architecture of PGP also leaves no room for now critical
77.
by schwarrrtz 11y ago
Such an incredible film. Well worth the 3.5hr running time.
78.
by schwarrrtz 11y ago
The real question is whether said keyboard is HTCPCP compliant. https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2324.txt
79.
by schwarrrtz 11y ago
Hm. Interesting. I can see a couple of other possibilities: 1) The upgraded hardware was required to support the current draw in the regular P90D, and the decision to offer the Ludicrous upgrade was an economic one. 2) The upgraded hardware
80.
by schwarrrtz 11y ago
That's very interesting. I found a relevant thread on TMC[0] which seems to show that the two packs have the same part number. However, it didn't have a direct report of a software upgrade in a service center. Do you have a source
81.
by schwarrrtz 11y ago
No, that upgrade involves replacing the main pack contactor and fuse so they can handle the higher current draw.
82.
by schwarrrtz 11y ago
I'm just glad that companies like SpaceX, Tesla, Boom, Faraday Future, and others are taking on hard, interesting problems. To be fair, SpaceX and Tesla are much ( much ) farther up their growth curve, but as for the inherent technical
83.
by schwarrrtz 11y ago
A 70% battery mass fraction seems like a huge engineering challenge for an aircraft. I did a quick calculation of fuel mass fraction for the various Boeing 777 models [0] which ranged from ~13% to ~36%. Not saying it's impossible. Just
84.
by schwarrrtz 11y ago
The specific energy of kerosene is ~40 MJ/kg [0] while the specific energy of lithium ion batteries is ~1 MJ/kg [1]. Unsure how much energy you'd save from the difference in drag, but I'd guess that significant improveme
85.
by schwarrrtz 11y ago
i think that depends on how badass the copilot is
86.
by schwarrrtz 11y ago
you can copy elements in interface builder, iirc. you can't copy their constraints, which makes sense because the copied instances necessarily have different constraints. otherwise the copies would just stack on top of each other. in m
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“People will fall for it like a drug” – Game devs on the future of VR(arstechnica.co.uk)
3 points by schwarrrtz 11y ago|0 comments
88.
by schwarrrtz 11y ago
other articles by this author: "Silicon Valley exploits time and space to extend the frontiers of capitalism" [0] "Why growing old the Silicon Valley way is a prescription for loneliness" [1] SV certainly has problems, b
89.
by schwarrrtz 11y ago
> For most Opera users, the sale came as a bit of a shock, not in the least because Qihoo 360 doesn’t necessarily have the best reputation. Why doesn't Qihoo 360 have a good reputation?
90.
by schwarrrtz 11y ago
Also, stars that are large enough to experience a supernova have shorter lifespans than our Sun, giving less time for life to develop.

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