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Do computer literate foxes watch Ewetube?
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Do computer-literate frogs read Reddit?
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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Do computer-literate fish use codproject for their daily tech reading?
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I fell for that one, hook, line, and stinker.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Well done you. I had to read it half a dozen times before I realised that he's left out the 'e'! 
I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!
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Nah, they'e too busy playing "Grand Theft: Hen House."
«In art as in science there is no delight without the detail ... Let me repeat that unless these are thoroughly understood and remembered, all “general ideas” (so easily acquired, so profitably resold) must necessarily remain but worn passports allowing their bearers short cuts from one area of ignorance to another.» Vladimir Nabokov, commentary on translation of “Eugene Onegin.”
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No, that would be computer literate Welshmen who watch ewetube.
Within you lies the power for good - Use it!
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computer literate Welshmen? is there such a thing?
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
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How long do you give it before we mess that up too? 2-3 days?
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LOL!  
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time
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Nish Nishant wrote: Dead or alive?
I was thinking the same thing. 
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That's for robotic spacecraft. With humans aboard, they're projecting a month.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Because of the greater size (and mass) of the craft.
Decrease the belief in God, and you increase the numbers of those who wish to play at being God by being “society’s supervisors,” who deny the existence of divine standards, but are very serious about imposing their own standards on society.-Neal A. Maxwell
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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Indeed - but since a survivable arrival requires pretty much the same energy to slow down and land as it takes to take off and fly to mars what he has really designed is a way of bombarding mars with very high speed projectiles.
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Duncan Edwards Jones wrote: what he has really designed is a way of bombarding mars with very high speed projectiles.
All you have to do is fly there normal speed once, setup a laser on the surface that can then be used to slow down all future flights.
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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You can use the same laser to slow down!
Seriously: you cut your sail in two - a big outer ring, and a smaller inner one.
The spacecraft then turns round and the big sail focusses the laser on to the smaller sail. Yes, it gets accelerated and disappeared, but it can be arranged to slow the craft enough to land.
IIRC, Robert L Forward used it in his novel "Flight of the Dragonfly".
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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OriginalGriff wrote: Robert L Forward used it in his novel "Flight of the Dragonfly".
Beat me to it.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Problem with your physics?
The momentum from the laser needs to be reversed by the large sail. You can't do what you want to do.
Here's why: Let the momentum of the laser photons be p. For the big sail to simply absorb all of the momentum would transfer p to the sail in the same direction. Now, for the sale to re-emit that energy in the opposite direction, it would have to make it the zero-sum game that conservation of momentum demands (classical physics and all that), so now you've 2p momentum driving it forward. This energy, reflected to your smaller sail, absorbs it and it only gets p energy back in the other direction. So - you just doubled the forward speed of the ship.
If you want to reflect the light off of the little mirror, too, then you end up with a net 0: nothing happens.
Damn stinking laws of physics! You need that second deathray at the destination side for this to work.
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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No, because the two sails are no longer attached to one another. The big one accelerates off into the distance, slowing the smaller one via the reflected photons.
Think of two boats: one with a sail, and one with a fan. The fan blows the sail away from it as a byproduct of accelerating the boat it is on.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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I didn't notice anything in your original about detaching one of the sails. It was two pieces, but my visualization was different because of the missing word.
OK: the detached sail must remain in front of the craft to work. It's accelerated away very rapidly (w/2p force) as it reflects the light. The sail moves away rapidly but the p acceleration it is transmitted to the craft. Both are less massive, making the velocity change more dramatic. The two sails will separate rather quickly!
You are no longer violating laws of physics and may have your CP Points back (check, they're already back).
:SSM
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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I hadn't noticed they had gone!
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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