Recent content by Ken Fabian

Is this scalable? Suitable for a moon base power supply? Enough of them with enough batteries seems possible but other options are possible. RTG - well, the radioactive decay part - seems best for simple heating uses and the thermoelectric for continuous power supply for low demand...

I'll give it a read. Not a good start with Kobo, created account, six attempts to sign in and a password reset finally got me that far. Entered my payment method, downloaded Kobo reader to phone, but tried to buy the book from the laptop where I started - got oops, try later over and over...

It was the person who spoke of it to me that had the woo'ish interpretation, which probably was wide of the mark and probably unfair to Penrose. I have thoughts about consciousness (thinkin' about thinkin' - aka philosophy?) but I know so little of science and academia on the subject that they...

Thanks Scott. I did have vague recollections of Penrose associated with writing on consciousness before this more recent reference to it came up... but I won't be buying those books or listen to an AI Roger explaining it. Not that I think physics has nothing to do with consciousness, because I...

The most recent mention of Penrose for me was as a proponent of some kind of (paraphrasing) 'consciousness as a fundamental physical characteristic of our universe' woo. I didn't follow up with any attempts to check if that was the real famous mathematician/physicist or an AI generated...

As others note, such tools as calipers can be very cheap and easy to obtain. Without them I would try a simple woodworkers or builders 'square' on a flat surface, marking on the surface on either side inside the square then measuring that gap. An engineer's scribe (or sharpened nail) would mark...

I disagree. I think you greatly underestimate the extent advanced manufacturing is dependent on a comprehensively capable wider economy. Batteries have a variety of materials and components in them of high purity and quality and each draws on yet more equipment, materials, components...

It isn't clear what the energy needs will be. I'm not sure consistently continuous energy will be appropriate for a moon base - although a combination of small nuclear and significant amounts of battery storage could use excess power. There is surely a need for redundancy too - one alone is...

I do think solar and batteries will be the preferred choice for a base if a base gets built, despite needing a lot of them. Better for Lunar bases than Antarctica where the primary energy source is diesel generators and batteries aren't expected to provide a Winter's worth but used make the...

I do think near Earth asteroids will always beat the moon for accessibility/cost - primarily Platinum Group Metals as target and for making rocket fuels as the no.1 resource space mining needs by mass (and avoiding mass sent from Earth is crucial to lower costs). No deep gravity well or...

I suspect 2 tilt tracking solar farms on high ground (or 3 fixed) and cabling would require less materials, equipment, construction and maintenance than a railway. Very uneven terrrain, a lot of going around craters and boulder fields. Cabling that long and able to work in the extremes of heat...

Hard to say who I like best and my exposure to jazz is limited (but heard a lot of Dixieland as a child - dad liked it). The tunes/songs I like best are probably the more widely heard 'commercial' sorts the dedicated fans might call selling out. eg ones like Take Five, Watermelon Man, Girl...

The comparison to human skin is yours - it never occurred to me. Ugliness is in the eyes of the beholder and familiarity brings with it acceptance of things as they are.

If it were orbiting Earth it would not be like it is, although the high sulfur content may have coloured those Lunar Maria and given a yellow/orange appearance.

They will learn to use renewable energy better from it - and the lesson will NOT be to rely less on renewable energy. More big batteries with grid forming inverters are going to add a grid stabilising buffer - given the pace of global uptake, probably significant amounts have been added already...