mkn

7 ms·

1.
by mkn 14y ago
I've always been skeptical of these liquid-air cycles, but this scheme strikes me as especially problematic in that an ejector ramjet would be mechanically simpler and have the same top speed. For the curious, an ejector-ramjet (or ram-rock
2.
by mkn 14y ago
I find your comment amusing in light of my particular frustration with the near anonymity of SpaceX in relation to its accomplishments, especially in addition to the nearly universally unfavorable press it gets over at AviationWeek.com. And
3.
by mkn 14y ago
Item [8] was mentioned in this talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEfedtQVOY by Meredith Patterson. She contends, and it seems sound to me, that the time has passed to be "tolerant when accepting," and that you should instead only acce
4.
by mkn 15y ago
We could be saved by the square-cube law, or, The Power of Being Big. In essence, let's assume you've made your own fully-shielded space capsule for one, and that you need, for example, a pound of material for every square inch of its surfa
5.
by mkn 15y ago
There a couple of things that allow him to make these claims without being "laughed out of the room," as you say, but they don't have to do with his personality in the sense in which I take your meaning. First, there is the rocket equation.
6.
by mkn 15y ago
I hate Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Not on a personal level, mind you. He's probably a nice guy to have beers with. But he's a shill for NASA. He's a good shill, but he's a shill, nonetheless. A little background. I'm old enough to have been "inspi
7.
by mkn 15y ago
After seeing that clip, I wondered how Cernan and Armstrong could have said the things they said and, eventually, how they could even feel qualified to comment. I think the answer to both questions is related. Armstrong and Cernan are just
8.
Correcting Human Mitochondrial Mutations(sciencedaily.com)
7 points by mkn 15y ago|1 comments
9.
by mkn 15y ago
Actually, it turns out that it's neither heinous nor poisonous. You seem to be having an allergic reaction to the contrast between advice about how the actual world functions and how actual productive people function in it, and the flowery
10.
by mkn 15y ago
I can see why people get all fuzzy and romantic about their children and their children's future, but these people are just going to end up crippling their children for lack of realistic ideas about real skills to learn. Let's set aside que
11.
by mkn 15y ago
"Human hearing is limited to 20k because frequencies higher than that are perceived as painful? Dont agree with that one." Yeah, that's a silly one. I disagree with it, too. It's a good thing it appears nowhere in the fine article . Are yo
12.
by mkn 15y ago
I think the entire discussion would be helped by the simple realization that programming is not really all that glamorous nor scientific. It seems like a lot of programmers have math envy, but programming is much more like managing an offic
13.
by mkn 15y ago
Huh. I really thought the days of the (she-was|they-were)-asking-for-it-I-mean-look-at-how-(she-was-dressed|well-covered-their-market-was) argument were over. Wonders never cease, I guess. If their patent work left them confident that th
14.
by mkn 15y ago
The cost per kg currently around $10k, about half what it cost on the shuttle. If you assume a payload mass fraction of 2% and a vehicle mass fraction of 10%, you have a fuel-to-weight ratio of 44:1. So, it takes--switching to English units
15.
by mkn 15y ago
The stupidity of ideas like this is they are counterproductive. If your employees are 'shopping around' or seriously entertaining recruitment offers it likely means they are unhappy in your employ. In this case it is best for everyone for
16.
by mkn 15y ago
This is a hi-fidelity recapitulation of one of the main pop theories of negotiation, that good bargaining is always hard bargaining, especially if it's brainless. However, I think it's completely wrongheaded. There's a great book called Ge
17.
by mkn 15y ago
What you've all just witnessed is power talk masquerading as service talk. What cdata has actually said is, "Sorry, you're not our customer. The websites that use us are our customers. Your feedback isn't really wanted. Fuck off." The "fuck
18.
by mkn 15y ago
"The Internet is the first technology since the printing press, which could lower the cost of a great education and, in doing so, make that cost-benefit analysis much easier for most students." Perhaps it will bring the cost of an education
19.
by mkn 15y ago
It turns out that "relative efficiencies" from an energy standpoint is not the relevant consideration, by two or three orders of magnitude. Fuel costs for launch vehicles are a negligible fraction of the total cost to fly. Musk is working t
20.
by mkn 15y ago
Human languages are far more complex and verbose than is required for talking to computers. This is mostly a quibble, but human languages are not more verbose than computer languages, generally. I can generally rely on you to allocate all
21.
by mkn 15y ago
In U.S. dollars in the year 2000, it came to about $16 of fuel per pound of payload launched. We had a homework assignment to figure out that number in our propulsion class at the University of Washington. Shocking. The rest of that $10k pe
22.
by mkn 15y ago
"Contrary to popular belief, the people in government who make laws and control regulation are not bumbling idiots." Actually, in the case of the export restriction laws in question, they were bumbling idiots. These laws were passed in hast
23.
by mkn 15y ago
Your argument is essentially "marketing is bad". Which is a shadow argument for "capitalism is bad". While your formulation is deliberately obtuse, the underlying sentiment can be quite damning for a certain kind of free market fan-boy, t
24.
by mkn 15y ago
I'm all about anti-harassment guidelines, but the following is just as offensive as harassment: I’d like to borrow a line from the Flickr Community Guidelines, which use the term Creepiness as follows: "You know that guy. Don’t be that guy
25.
by mkn 15y ago
I was a little disappointed, as well. It looks like it was perhaps titled by an editor or, conversely, edited down to its introduction so that the title no longer matched. That said, I do hope, now that the program is gone and the cheer-lea
26.
by mkn 15y ago
In context, I think it means the former. Not having the context available, your interpretation of the remarks at hand might make more sense. However, a motif of Rand's is to moralize about capitalism and individuality. One of the themes, of
27.
by mkn 15y ago
I'm probably going overboard by responding to both the Rand fanboy quotes, but here goes. There's no way to rule innocent men. Yes, there is, to the extent that that rule is legitimate. Usually, just powers arise from the consent of the
28.
by mkn 15y ago
I don't find that to be the most plausible mechanism for the proliferation of laws at all. More likely, it's an emergent property of the legal system in a democratic context that can probably be explained in terms of game theory. At any leg
29.
by mkn 15y ago
It's a little disingenuous to... I know we're supposed to be civil and not say anything to anyone on here that we wouldn't say to their faces, but, well, but nothing. I'd say the following to your face. Fuck you. It's out of line to call
30.
by mkn 15y ago
In the days where software was distributed on magnetic media, such as reels of tape, cassettes, or floppy disks, it cost a lot of money to get the product to a customer. One of us is misremembering. I seem to recall an interview with Ga

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