Slashdot Mirror

Our club had an ATM workshop in May and we tested the true focal length of a mirror and then used Newt to plugin the values which calculated the proper distance the secondary mirror should be from the primary mirror. Values included, the size of the and the travel of the focuser, focal length of mirror and the size of the secondary to name a few. I was surprised by the fact that a mirror advertised as F/6 may not be and you have to test it which really determines the placement of the two mirrors in relation to one another.

I appreciate your advice and will be checking your website in more depth.

Cheers

You can't teach a new dog old tricks.

I suddenly got a mental image of a beagle sitting on the barren wasteland surface of Mars...maybe they should've named the probe Spike.

For quite some time their filtering has been effective. Brightmail won't say how they do it, but human screening, and subsequent filtering of emails containing links to spamvertised domains seemed to be a part of it.

Lately I have just been spammed silly. Looking at the spams (what choice do I have) the same spamvertised domains are represented over and over. This had not happened in the past.

This spam continues after desperately hitting the "Report Spam" button (available on their webmail interface only).

This supports the theory that either ATT or their contract spam filtering with Brightmail are passing or inserting certain mails.

With this development, I am not inclined to extend this service contract with ATT. I will be certain to pass on this information when the contract is terminated.

LizardTech make some other awesome products such as Genuine Fractals for Photoshop. Incidentally this is also used by DSLR photography enthusiasts to sharpen their images better than most traditional techniques are able to achieve.

Investigation leads to knowledge, but spiritual things must be sought by spiritual means.

I agree.

[...]Then, your slate of transgressions and guilt will be wiped clean.

[Quoted from here]:
The idea that one is forgiven by the death and resurrection of Jesus is an avenue of mischief. I can do what I want because "Jesus forgives me." I can be a sinner because "Jesus died for my sins." This logic is used on a daily basis by Christians worldwide. They commit the sin and then pray for forgiveness, and under biblical guidelines, they are given it. The Catholics have taken this to a new level with confession. Say a "Hail Mary" and play with your rosary beads and you're forgiven and ready to enter the Pearly Gates again. This idea is immoral in my view and leads to many immoral acts.

I know because I follow the news over there very closely.

It comes as no surprise to me that you are following Fox news very closely. Do you really find it strange that the Palestinians would like the Israelis to leave?

If you denounce UN resolutions and claim they have no credibility, what right do you think Israelis have to claim land in Palestine?

And please don't point at obscure bible quotes. There are a lot of othodox Jews claiming the that the current state of Israel has no foundation in the bible. What you need to do is take a bath, relax and start thinking outside of the little box full of pre-fabricated bible-study group propaganda. If you need help and want to challenge your own thinking, please have a look at this website.

I did a quick Google on the first time humans passed the "sound barrier" in 1947. 50 years later, every school kid knows^W should know Chuck Yeager's name

Please correct the above.

Not to take anything away from Chuck Yeager, who did a terrible dangerous thing, but in 1997 the US Air Force has admitted that George Welch broke the sound barrier twice in the XP-86 (the test version of the Sabre, which was a front line fighter through the 1950's and early 60's).

Although ordered not to enter supersonic trials until Bell's project was complete, he purposly dove his plane on October 1st, 1947, and again 15 minutes before Yeagers flight on October 15th, 1947. He later died testing the YF-100 in 1954.

This is why Yeager's record has changed from "The first man to break the sound barrier" to "The first man to break the sound barrier in level flight", but they still try to avoid mentioning George Welch.

This is also why you shouldn't always trust Google. Check again, but this time for his name and you'll find a lot of articles that mention this. He was also involved in another famous aviation act, as he was one of the few pilots who took off from Pearl Harbour to attack the incoming Japanese air raid, and you'll find that he is also widely discussed as one of the few people who should have been ordered the Congressional Medal of Honor twice.
Click Here for information on his actions at Pearl Harbour
Click Here for information about him breaking the sound barrier

I don't think I ever had 720Kb 5.25's. I had 1.2MB and 360KB drives. Before that on my trusty Radio Shack Trash-80, I had a cassette tape drive and a stringy floppy. How many of you have heard of a stringy floppy before? It was a business card sized tape that was endless loop IIRC. About 1/8" thick, the tape was 1/16" thick. See TechWeb for definition, the cool manual here, an old Creative Computing article, and great scans of an old review here.

I was so l337 with my trs-80, expansion board, and stringy floppy. I was so sad when my space invaders game (galactic something?) got eaten by that damn drive.

Glad to see work is progressing with regard to on orbit repair. That's a capability which will benefit all kinds of future activity in space.

I don't know, though, about a shuttle replacement becoming less likely though. NASA might not come up with a replacement (think National Aerospace Plane, X-33) but teams now competing for the X Prize could very well produce an orbital vehicle down the line.

If a small group can win the X Prize, it will show a better way to pursue space engineering than NASA's dysfunctional bureaucracy. Such a win will lead people to start investing real money in new space technology. It's already known that if we can reduce the cost to orbit from $10K/pound ($20K/kilo) to around $1K/pound ($2K/kilo) lots of opportunities will arise for space based activity. Get that price down to $10/pound (if possible) and you see people like me taking off for orbit to do things like create art. At that lower price we might even see zero gravity dance like that envisioned by Spider and Jeanne Robinson. The possibilities are truly endless.

Those arguments have been put forward by many bible wielding maniacs before you. Your arguments are based on your view of the bible as being the only true source of information. (Guess what? Full text search of Moby Dick for "Gaza" returned zero results! Hmmm.)

If the Koran does not make statements about claiming land from other people then I am all for it.

Can I claim Gaza if I write a book saying that I have a "right" to that area?

In order for you to get back on track with your life I suggest you talk to this guy.

I can't tell...I think it is in the screener but not in the consumer DVD. But it's really hard to tell. Why? Because the car is really far off in the distance, and there's definitely something going on in that area of the screen, but I can't tell if it's a car or just a result of compression artifacts and my substandard television. This area of the screen does look a little different between the screener and the consumer, but once again, it's a little hard to tell (the images are different brightnesses, too, which might be tricking my brain).

In any case, no screencaps from me, but this page has images highlighting the car. Even with that page to guide me, I'm still not sure.

On inlets:
also
Dont know if it is authoritative or not, but it basically matches my understanding.

The speed of the air at the compressor face is an issue for all supersonic aircraft, not just the mach 3 variety.

On the XB-70 ( compression lift is discussed )
The wing tips fold down as part of how the compression lift is "captured" under the aircraft.

The parent post isn't offtopic, but is rather a reference to the PBS kids show of the 80's called "3-2-1 Contact". (See http://home.att.net/~tvthemelyrics/3-2-1.htm)

If you like Gigalo Joe (great Jude Law over-the-top performance), I found this story about Gigalo Jane. Remember her? All 1 line and 15 seconds they gave her in the movie? I wonder what was left on the cutting room floor.

[Adult Content Warning]
G. Jane
[/Adult Content Warning]

Why the warning? Hey, they are sex-bots.

1. Afghanistan, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003
2. Bosnia, 1994, 1995
3. Cambodia, 1969-70
4. China, 1945-46
5. Congo (now Zaire), 1964
6. Cuba, 1959-1961 ("Bay of Pigs" invasion)
7. El Salvador, 1980s
8. Grenada, 1983
9. Guatemala, 1954, 1960, 1967-69
10. Indonesia, 1958
11. Iran, 1987
12. Iraq, 1991-2000, 2003 (The U.S. government used radioactive bombs in the first war against Iraq. See United States War Crimes Against Iraq for what appears to be an accurate history.)
13. Korea and China, 1950-53 (Korean War)
14. Kuwait, 1991
15. Laos, 1964-73
16. Lebanon, 1983, 1984 (both Lebanese and Syrian targets)
17. Libya, 1986
18. Nicaragua, 1980s
19. Panama, 1989. The U.S. government called it "Operation Just Cause". The link is to a U.S. military web site.
20. Peru, 1965
21. Somalia, 1993
22. Sudan 1998. There are doubts

You are correct that a light year is the distance they would travel if at 'warp 1' for 365 days.

Go here if you want the Star Trek definitions for the warp scale. Obviously, 5x, 10x, hell even 100x would be too slow to take the Enterprise across the Milky Way in a hurry.

For reasons I can't understand, Slashdot alters the link to remove the underscore when the link is expressed as href="DB_Story.home.att.net". I know this form doesn't meet the applicable RFC, however neither AT&T, my browser, nor any ISP's along the traceroute ever complained to me when it was expressed this way.

[Adult Material Warning]
Elf Sternberg and DB Story
[/Adult Material Warning]

have written a lot of enjoyable speculative fiction on this subject. I agree with them that in the same way the Sony Betamax became a guaranteed success when people became able to watch porn/erotica in the privacy of their own homes, it will be sex that successfully sells A.I. robots to the masses. And the pressures to be ahead of competitors will inevitably lead to robot minds comparable to human minds.

Even Scientific American's turn of the millennium issue three and a half years ago had a big article predicting human level artificial intelligence within 30 years or so. I hope these predictions are a bit more accurate than that for flat-screen, hang on the wall televisions that were 5 years away for the last 25.

This kind of a thing is nothing new. People have been taking stereoscopic photos for years. Actually the craze was back in the 50's. Most of the stereoscopic cameras you can still buy are mostly made in the 50's with a very few exceptions.

http://home.att.net/~drt-3d/toys/bogen/index.htm.

David Burder made a custom stereoscopic digital camera, but as far as I know, it's not really for sale.

...make one for loud annoying kids.

perhaps i cant make some suggestions to fix your problem?

Why did bill clinton put astroturf in the back of his truck?

So he could plant Gennifer Flowers!!!

It's also important to note that the primary concern on cable and certain ADSL networks is the upstream traffic. Cable in particular normally allocates 1/10th of their bandwidth to upstream and 90% to downstream. Too much going out and everyone loses.

Some additional information:
How the Upstream Cap can affect Downstream Speed(Navas Cable Modem/DSL Tuning Guide)

Not sure if anybody else notices, but most broadband cable commercials on television always reference "download" speeds, i.e. Yosemite Sam "I'm a downloading movies and music faster than ever."... No mention of upload speed, though, or "sharing" for that matter.

It's also important to note that the primary concern on cable and certain ADSL networks is the upstream traffic. Cable in particular normally allocates 1/10th of their bandwidth to upstream and 90% to downstream. Too much going out and everyone loses.

Some additional information:
How the Upstream Cap can affect Downstream Speed(Navas Cable Modem/DSL Tuning Guide)

Not sure if anybody else notices, but most broadband cable commercials on television always reference "download" speeds, i.e. Yosemite Sam "I'm a downloading movies and music faster than ever."... No mention of upload speed, though, or "sharing" for that matter.

Just about every crime you can imagine now has a codified "conspiracy to commit $CRIME" law. No longer do you have to actually rob a bank, or murder someone, or kidnap someone; you just have to plan it, and that's enough to toss you in the clink.

I don't see a problem there, provided the laws are applied justly. "Conspire" doesn't mean 'to plan,' it means 'to secretly agree to commit a crime.' Say you're standing in line at the bank and idly notice some vulnerabilities that might allow a successful heist. If you keep those thoughts to yourself, or if you quietly point them out to the bank's president, you haven't committed a crime. If, on the other hand, you pass the information along to some thug pals of yours knowing that there's a good chance they'd take a crack at carrying out your plan, you're just as guilty as they are even if a) you're nowhere near the bank at the time, or b) the cops get wise and pick up your pals before they ever get to the bank.

Soon enough, we'll have people being arrested for crimes they might have eventually committed someday, even if there is no proof of any plan to commit such crimes.

This doesn't follow. We've had laws against conspiracy for a very long time. Four people were hanged and several more sent to prison for conspiring to assassinate Lincoln, for example, despite the fact that Booth, who pulled the trigger, had been shot to death. Still, thoughtcrime really hasn't come to pass.

Interestingly, crime prediction technology does exist, but it mostly just tells us stuff like "since the unemployment rate is up, Christmas is coming, and there are a lot of banks downtown, there's a greater than usual chance of bank robberies downtown next month."

2. A national railway that stretches from one side of the country to the other.

Yeah, we're very proud of our implementation of RFC UP-844, IP over rails.

What is the point of owning a street legal racing car when you aren't allowed to actualy race it on the street beyond the first gear?

Dear Bill,
here is my suggestion: take some time off! Visit lovely Germany with its elaborated system of unlimited highways famously known as Autobahn. Experience the genuine feeling of passing by pathetic, unworthy Volkswagen Passats, leaving them behind on the right lane like they are standing still while zooming over the tarmac on the left lane at unimaginable 215mph, and all this without any fears of the highway police who gratefuly welcomes anyone who obeys the speed limit of at least 40mph. Or choose the inter-city roads traveling the landscapes. Although limited to 60mph, the beautiful picturesque design and lay-out of the road provide an unporecedented experience.

But maybe you will find this too expensive, for there is one thing that even you can not buy and no one has too much of, you do not have the time.

in fact Argentina put Skyhawks up against the Sea Harriers in the Falklands war and they're not supersonic.

Here are the Skyhawk Tech Specs - top speed 675 mph - and to jog you memory the Speed of Sound is 761 mph (1,223 km/h).

Here is a link to Skyhawks in Argentina and in the Argentine Forces during the Falklands war.

They did field four Super Etendard Fighters which are supersonic - but not against the Sea Harriers. The Sea Harriers were lost mainly through accidents, SAMs and small arms fire! British Aircraft Lost.

Here's a breakdown of Argentine Aircraft Lost - you'll see they were shot down mainly by missiles - some from ships others by Sea Harriers. The Sea Harrier can thus be seen as a platform for missiles - and can not really be lauded as a performance aircraft - though the VTOL ability is amazing.

I'm no war or fighter nut - these links above were found on Google over a 10 minute period - it's called research - something I don't think you actually did :) No hard feelings just do a Google and show us the links if you feel strongly enough about your position.

Just the facts Man!

The real problem is large ISPs/backbones like UUNet/MCI, Cogent, Comcast, Level3, China Netcom, AT&T, Brasil Telecom, and Above.net (among others) who flat-out refuse to do anything about the spammers to whom they provide connectivity.

Complaints sent to any of them are promptly auto-acked and then /dev/nulled (if they don't bounce) and so the spammers keep on spamming, most likely due to ephemeral pink contracts and the crooked marketing/sales departments that agree to them, who then put pressure on abuse personel and network admins to ignore complaints about the contracted spammers.

Because of this, those large ISPs and backbones end up on blacklists, DNS blocklists, and a wide variety of other filters. For them, the money they make off the spammers seems to be of greater concern than the money they make off legitimate customers, i.e. those who end up with their netblocks on every blacklist because of who their providers are.

If it weren't for rogue ISPs and backbones, there would be little use for blacklists or blocklists. However, those reprehensible companies do exist. And because of their policies on spam, they continue to be blocked. Money gained from spammers guarantees the blacklists' continued existence.

It's all just cause and effect. As much as it sounds like a conspiracy theory, I truly believe that it isn't, after fighting spam, one email at a time, since 1997.

The whole concept of AND/OR/NAND is a Boolean construct. The gates define the 16 functions that can be expressed by two boolean variables. Ternary or quarternary logic would more basic functions, and different ones, but it would be easy to implement boolean logic as well (like your quarternary example).

Try reading this for a quick primer.

It wont happen all at once, its a different paradigm and a definate learning curve, like the difference between imperative, functional and object oriented programming. But it has definate advantages, beyond the Moores law tripe.

I recenly bought a bunch of Inova Microlights to pass out at work as a going away gift and the amout of light they product for their size in amazing.

I've been really itching to get ahold of a next generation Luxeon Star LED light. The CMG Sonic and Infinity look prety sturdy.

More information and comparisons on LEDs and LED flashlights han be found here.

Well, you kind of did it a silly way.

You should have used MS-DOS's interlnk and interserv

Whatever happened to the grandaddy of all govt information systems, SCMODS = State County Municipal Offender Data System?

When I read about this and saw the picture, I immediately thought of Scaled Composites' entry Space Ship One and jumping from it at apogee. Space Ship One returns to earth in a high drag configuration to minimize aerodynamic heating (which would be important for a parachutist).

As for the technology being available, this was first done in 1962 by USAF Capt. Joe Kittinger.

The only element required now is to find somebody stupid enough to try it.

myke

1. Afghanistan, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003
2. Bosnia, 1994, 1995
3. Cambodia, 1969-70
4. China, 1945-46
5. Congo (now Zaire), 1964
6. Cuba, 1959-1961 ("Bay of Pigs" invasion)
7. El Salvador, 1980s
8. Grenada, 1983
9. Guatemala, 1954, 1960, 1967-69
10. Indonesia, 1958
11. Iran, 1987
12. Iraq, 1991-2000, 2003 (The U.S. government used radioactive bombs in the first war against Iraq. See United States War Crimes Against Iraq for what appears to be an accurate history.)
13. Korea and China, 1950-53 (Korean War)
14. Kuwait, 1991
15. Laos, 1964-73
16. Lebanon, 1983, 1984 (both Lebanese and Syrian targets)
17. Libya, 1986
18. Nicaragua, 1980s
19. Panama, 1989. The U.S. government called it "Operation Just Cause". The link is to a U.S. military web site.
20. Peru, 1965
21. Somalia, 1993
22. Sudan 1998. There are doubts that the pharmaceutical plant that was bombed was making weapons.
23. Vietnam, 1961-73 (An estimated 2,000,000 Vietnamese were killed.)
24. Yugoslavia, 1999

There are many sources for this information. For example, see this PBS web page: PBS: A Chronology of U.S. Military Interventions (PBS is the Public Broadcasting System in the U.S.) Also see From Wounded Knee to Afghanistan: A Century of U.S. Military Interventions [zmag.org] and The government of the United States is a consistent opponent of international law. [prairie-fire.org]

I put some links and explanation together about wh

• Aluminum frames have a harsh ride

• Titanium frames are soft and whippy

• Steel frames go soft with age, but they have a nicer ride quality

• England's Queen Elizabeth is a kingpin of the international drug trade

I disagree. When blacks couldn't vote, blacks were also prevented from holding office. If they don't let you vote on a Mac, it doesn't be they are barring Mac-users from holding office.

Them them a break, they are looking to implement a new voting method. Let them do in on state at a time, one OS at a time.

I would say that only letting people in select counties in one state is a bad idea. What happens if the select counties happen to be counties where one party is stronger and this new convient method of voting gives them a much higher turnout.

I'm worried because urban areas are usually vote Dem. and by the looks of this, a few counties is all that matters.

Always thought those things were way too loud *ducks*

What about the Gateway 2000 Anykey keyboards?? I have one myself that I swiped from the computer lab long ago... love the touch, and the programming features come in pretty handy. Can even remap keys to emulate the "MS keys" if you so desire. Occasionally it will get a little outta whack, so it's handy to have a reference on how to clear the thing if ncessary :)

http://emerson13.home.att.net/AnyKey_Instructions. htm

Liquid nitrogen to make the ice cream, and liquid oxygen to start the barbeque :-)

You beat me to it, but at least I can post a link to that classic web page of mixing LOX with BBQs....

Arghh! Disaster! The original page has gone. This will have to do

Simon

There is a technique to allow 24-bit imagery to encode more than 8 bits of greyscale. It is called pseudogrey, and described at pseudoGrey.html.

Exactly 1,786 grey levels can be uniquely encoded, without degrading the color content. Someone even incorporated the technique into a photoshop plugin.

-- Rich

Radio Frequency IDentification

The article pointed out an interesting variant of TCP for improving transfer performance. However, the conditions they were using are the equivalent of trying to break the land speed record on a salt lake that's as smooth as a billiard-table and hard as cement.

In other words: it's not very realistic, nor appropriate for most internet usage with shitty connections. It would be like trying to use a 600mph dragster (this protocol) on a dirt trail up the side of a mountain (a 56k modem). Even at a highway speed of 80mph (with regular broadband), you don't need anything much faster than a regular vehicle - and anything specialised is liable to give you problems.

Having said that, there's no reason not to mess with your broadband connection (tweak the MTU, TCP window, etc) to see if you can eek more performance out of your existing protocols. There is an excellent broadband tweaking guide that's well worth reading and did help my Windows box. YMMV.

1. Afghanistan, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003
2. Bosnia, 1994, 1995
3. Cambodia, 1969-70
4. China, 1945-46
5. Congo (now Zaire), 1964
6. Cuba, 1959-1961 ("Bay of Pigs" invasion)
7. El Salvador, 1980s
8. Grenada, 1983
9. Guatemala, 1954, 1960, 1967-69
10. Indonesia, 1958
11. Iran, 1987
12. Iraq, 1991-2000, 2003 (The U.S. government used radioactive bombs in the first war against Iraq. See United States War Crimes Against Iraq for what appears to be an accurate history.)
13. Korea and China, 1950-53 (Korean War)
14. Kuwait, 1991
15. Laos, 1964-73
16. Lebanon, 1983, 1984 (both Lebanese and Syrian targets)
17. Libya, 1986
18. Nicaragua, 1980s
19. Panama, 1989. The U.S. government called it "Operation Just Cause". The link is to a U.S. military web site.
20. Peru, 1965
21. Somalia, 1993
22. Sudan 1998. There are doubts that the pharmaceutical plant that was bombed was making weapons.
23. Vietnam, 1961-73 (An estimated 2,000,000 Vietnamese were killed.)
24. Yugoslavia, 1999

There are many sources for this information. For example, see this PBS web page: PBS: A Chronology of U.S. Military Interventions (PBS is the Public Broadcasting System in the U.S.) Also see From Wounded Knee to Afghanistan: A Century of U.S. Military Interventions [zmag.org] and The government of the United States is a consistent opponent of international law. [

As we're talking about old cartoons and stuff, maybe this link can be amusing to you.

You'd have to put two next to each other so you can coordinate the movements, but such a technique would allow you to scroll around a big screen quickly and accurately after a few minutes of practice.

You mean, like this?

Your /. nickname is quite fitting. :-)

~Philly

three dimensions. an equalateral triangle's widest point, as you said, its edge. it has narrower points tho, the narrowest being its height (perpendicular from the center of one edge to the point opposite).

Pass it through sideways, with one point in one corner of the hole, and an edge at a second corner, vertical.

--Sean
(p.s. -- These work tho.)

No, I don't usually bring that up. But, given the topic, I think it is relevant.

Yes, I do well on various kinds of IQ tests. I also have some real world accomplishments to my credit. To get a flavor of some of my abilities, check out my personal web site. Some of it is serious, some not. The software side isn't fancy -- the point of the site is the content (words, pictures) not software. I have also done reasonably well in life. I make enough money to live indoors, sometimes do interesting work and have lots of friends. OK, I go in for understatement and I can be weird.

These sorts of tests can screen out the obviously unqualified. They also can offend those of us who are good enough for the job. I've deliberately blown such tests a few times in my life. Once I walked out without even taking the test -- the company made that bad an impression on me. The recruiter who set up the experience was surprised.

Hiring people is still a black art. Once you've eliminated the obviously unqualified, you might as well use some random criteria. Is there any alternative? Yes -- hire people who are already somewhat known to you. That way you get a fuller idea of what the person is actually like. It's easy (well, it is for me) to maintain an act for a few interviews.

These puzzle tests do test intelligence to some extent. They also help make sure that the person being hired is at least somewhat like the people doing the hiring. And are willing to put up with something the corporation thinks important.

Do such measures make me think well of a company? Not really. There are many things that can limit what you can do. Yes, a lower intelligence can be a handicap. So, unfortunately, can a dysfunctional corporate culture.

I don't think I would like working at Microsoft. Gates seems too much of an autocrat. Yes, it's nice to work with intelligent people. But it's also nice to work in an enviroment where you're reasonably free. I don't know how Microsoft stacks up in that regard. Their lack of innovation doesn't speak too highly for them.

F-105 Thunderchief (this was originally designed for nuclear strike, even though that wasn't what it became famous for).

F-105. F-101 Voodoo (the toss computer was made by Mergenthaler Linotype of all people)!

B-47 Stratojet (a pretty big aircraft for this kind of maneuver).

Shameless plug -- they might find my Interactive Color Wheel to be quite fascinating and educational.

So far it seems to handle tabs better. I had v.67 and it would usually mess up tabs a bit--draw the borders wrong (overlapping in wierd ways) and leave more than one drawn in the lighter color to suggest the active tab. Seems fixed so far. Still no support for the 4-year-old fieldset tag, though. Too bad, it's handy in forms.

And it still screws up sending text messages from this AT&T page. Type text into the sender and subject box and it only shows 1 character at a time. Type into the message box and it streams backwards! Hit 'send' and the recipient gets the last letter of the sender's name, the last letter of the subject, and the message is indeed backwards. I'm sure it has something to do with the wacky JS they use to count characters.