481–490 of 517 posts
First surface photo is in too! https://i.imgur.com/C2s1job.jpg
NASA is making the raw images of everything available: https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/multimedia/raw-images/
Can't wait till they start posting raw images :)
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Yes. Any one of these things would be a massive boon to our understanding of life throughout the solar system and broader universe, right down even to here on Earth. All three of them would arguably mark a new era in Earth's history.
we are very screwed if they find life on Mars. It means life is incredibly common and thus the Great Filter theory is true and we only have a few years left as a species most likely.
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Thank you for the explanation. That was highly interesting. Does anyone else know if the human eye does perceive color directly? Is this at all technically possible? And if yes, why aren't we doing it with cameras?
...it's complicated. Very complicated. However complicated you think it is, it's more complicated than that. Please note that I'm not an expert in human eyeball physiology, I'm just a computer programmer who's tried pretty hard to come to a better understanding of how to make computer vision better. (I've failed, fyi. Caveat emptor.) The human eye has four basic cell types, rod cells and cone cells, and there are thr…
The reason is to prevent light fatigue in eyes. Ears and nose experience a quick fatigue when exposed to the same stimulant for a long time. With inverted arrangement in eyes, you have a naturally stimulated inhibition rather than a fatigue inhibition.
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> I just prefer the ten degree bands of the Fahrenheit scale for these ranges. To the identical 5 degrees range of the Celsius scale ?
It's not really identical though. Like I said, Fahrenheit is higher resolution at these scales so that is an advantage. It doesn't mean everyone should convert to F. Just that both systems have benefits. If I changed my perception of the world to C I wouldn't actually gain anything, personally, in the context of weather and HVAC. If I need to take measurements while boiling water or making ice then I would probably u…
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I, for one, would be uncomfortable with AI removing my accent. I understand it's for other people to understand me better - and I am fine with AI-generated subtitles - but altering the way I speak would reduce the amount of "me" in ways I'm not fully ok with.
What's special about speech that makes this argument apply to speech alteration but not to subtitles? It's a tool to make you easier to understand, not to erase your person.
The way someone speaks is very unique ... and it is actually very, very important how you speak to bring your point across. Or ... to convince people.
A robot voice might present the best arguments, but it will very likely loose to a good speaker who can (literally) tune in to his audience.
Speech is a complex pattern of sound waves, containing much more information, than binary encoded words.
So if there was a ML tool to make people with strong accent more understandable, why not. But you can also numble without any accent.
And I can enjoy and understand certain people with strong accents much better than natives, because they are just good speakers.
And having subtitles is one thing, but changing their voice .. would require consent I believe. (unless you run the tool for yourself, but I believe parents point was, he speaks and then automatically a tool enhances his voice, I would not like that, too)
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So 3 mm is a weird measure but 1/8 of an inch is just perfect? You are like those guys who say that Fahrenheit is better because it feels "more natural and obvious"
I don’t understand why it has to be one or the other? Working in fractions is nice sometimes. Inches are a useful size for some situations. I find it easier to say that’s three eighths than 9mm because my ruler doesn’t have different marks for the factors of each mm mark. I use both systems. I do prefer Fahrenheit for HVAC (and weather) because it’s higher resolution and has reasonable values at human scales. Thermos…
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If working with simple units of ten is beneficial then every mission should redefine units in terms of expected velocities and vehicle size so they are optimized for the actual calculations at hand. That's not realistic, obviously, so we just pick one. The units in the system are arbitrary, really. In reality regardless of the system you choose every calculation is going to end up with fractions of something. You are…
Physicists are quite fond of redefining units so that the constants they care about are all just 1. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_units ). For example, you could define mars units where the gravitational acceleration on mars is 1. Now your velocity in freefall is just equal to the time you've been freefalling! You don't even have to do a calculation! (note: Don't actually do this. Gravitational acceleration…
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It turns out that they took 640lbs (!) of weight to mars to be tossed off at various points during EDL. The video is worth watching if you'd like some more of the nitty-gritty behind the process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0NakShgbHY
Note: that's 290kg in NASA units
https://www.simscale.com/blog/2017/12/nasa-mars-climate-orbi...
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>> The hardware doesn’t think in base 10, but having more than that in imperial makes it better? >No, it means neither system has an advantage so just pick one. Or invent a new one that allows better hardware utilization. But one of the systems does have an advantage because it stays in base 10, whereas the other doesn't. >> Your document lists 12 mass units alone. I rest my case, what could possibly be more logical,…
> But one of the systems does have an advantage because it stays in base 10, whereas the other doesn't. That's a benefit to humans, not to hardware, which was the context in which I was speaking. > But you can't if you just use the `intuitive unit', and that's the whole problem. How would you measure the amount of liquid fuel in, say, the small tank for an attitude control thruster of some probe? How does that add to…