Slashdot Mirror

Here is the link to the 7E7 site on boeing webpage. It has a few mock-ups so you can see what it looks like.

Bzzt! Try again!

The reason why these programs use old parts is very simple: when the design process started, those parts were what was available. Complicated systems or systems that have high reliability requirements take years to fully design and qualify. Commercial products don't have these kinds of restrictions and evolve much faster. To keep a space or military system up-to-date with the commerical world would render the system unfieldable; it would never get qualified!

Take the RAH-66 Comanche helicopter. The prototype flew in 1996. It's not scheduled to enter active duty service until 2006!

Can anyone explain why apparantly 802.11b wireless connections do *not* pose a problem in planes?

The loss of its two major 'customers', Buran and Mir 2 were the killing blow to the Energia programme. The fragmentation of the Soviet industry when the Ukraine broke away prevented it being revived. The Ukrainians built the reusable strap-on boosters for Energia and chose to switch to the new Zenit booster which is now used by Sealaunch.

Best wishes,
Mike.

here is the boeing line of how interference causes "anomalous events" during flights.

Check out more info here and here.

Why aren't these billionaires exploring the depths of the oceans as James "King of the World" Cameron does?

Surely there's interesting stuff down there, like nucular radiation-enlarged squids, slime monsters and maybe a Godzilla-like creature or two.

Are any of them funding research into solar cells, wind technology, tidal power or geothermal or is it all a great big ego boost?

While it's a huge plane, which will be impressive to see, no doubt, I still don't think it has the "style" of the 747.

Gotta love the hump.

First, I have to say, driving past a computerized billboard with a fifty-foot-wide BSOD (or Windows logon screen) hovering prominently on the side of the interstate is a vastly amusing experience. Three weeks ago, a Toyota dealership off of I-405 provided me with this lovely visual gag.

What I'm really wondering about, though, is this. Ever since I first started reading about Boeing's Digital Cinema, I've been curious whether people would now start to use theaters for things other than feature films. Once the medium for displaying visual and auditory effects shifts from film to bitstreams, one could conceivably show the World Series, the State of the Union address, reruns of the Simpsons, or the 2004 Iron Chef Steel Cage Deathmatch Season Finale, in real time or through rebroadcasting. I don't know that these things would necessarily draw large crowds, or that you could get them to cough up much money per person for this, but you'd still be selling plenty of overpriced Ju Ju Bes and Fizzy Sugar Water(TM), and wouldn't be paying for the rights to show a new release instead.

What I'm really asking is: given the interesting things people find to do when the size of their display changes drastically, what new and interesting things would you do with a digital cinema?

Finally, if you were a theater owner, would you choose to get your digital bitstreams off an encrypted copper/fiber network, off of encrypted ROM/DVDs, downlink from SATCOM, etc? How do the relative merits stack up?

But seriously folks, 1800 lbs of thrust just does not seem very manly when compared to the Saturn V F1's 1.5 million lbs of studly thrustosterone. Ugh - more power!

Turning enemy countries into parking lots since 1952.

http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/b52-s trat/b52info.html

...but only if you can deal with the OS latency. My very rough understanding says any networking based on the OSI model is going to pay a sufficiently large penalty in OS latencies that remote memory probably won't be any faster than a good local disk subsystem. However, if you can get rid of that latency, you can win BIG.

Since the questioner is looking at using commodity hardware with a commodity OS using a commodity networking protocol, my gut feeling is that (s)he doesn't have a prayer. It is a cool idea, but latencies are likely to be too high.

The /. dreamers don't need to give up all hope, however. :) There is relevant work in the academic literature, using specialized hardware and software of course. The work I'm familiar with is from Hank Levy's group at UW. To sum up, based on what I remember from a class I took back in '98 from Mike Feeley (first author on said paper; also did his PhD thesis on the topic):

The motivating example came from Boeing. They had a bunch of CAD workstations all with lots of RAM (by the standards of the day). However, looking at any nontrivial part of the design required more memory than any single workstation. Paging to disk was S-L-O-W. So why not use the frequently idle memory on the other workstations? The result of the UW work was a sort of global memory management, with paging to remote workstations in the cluster as well as to disk. Using memory on the remote workstations was significantly faster than using the local disk.

So what about latency from the network stack? IIRC (and it has been five years since I talked to Mike about this...) they used myranet. In some sense myranet is basically DMA to remote workstations. One myranet node issues a write request in software, which includes the source address in memory for the data to be copied, a target node in the cluster, and the target memory address on the target node. The myranet hardware on the local workstation does DMA from the source memory location, fires it over fibre to the remote workstation, which dutifully does DMA from the myranet card to the memory locations specified by the sender. This is very fast, but not the stuff traditional general-purpose computing has been made of.

Brian

Sure. But why not a bigger bigger hammer, though.

From Everett, WA the home of the world's (currently) largest building.

Germany created and flew the first jet fighters.... Commercial jets are descended from those planes.

Not necessarily.....

http://www.midlandairmuseum.org.uk/thejet.html

The first real commercial jet aircraft was the British Comet. The concept of the jet was not solely German and the British engine was developed independently... and in fact the Germans probably used Whittle's research to develop their jet.

However the jet engine was first proven during WWII (though probably it would still have developed) and the 747 was developed first as a military cargo plane - the C5 but Boeing was beaten out by the C5 Galaxy.

I wish people would use the power of google before spouting off on stuff they don't know about - and some links to justify their opinions would be good too.

Yeah right I'm as likely to die by an asteroid as in a plane crash.
How many people were killed by asteroids in the last 20 years?
How many people were killed in pane crashes?
Oh what's that you say this isn't a fair assessment? Okay, let's do a real one:

My odds of dying in a plane crash are 1 in 500,000. But this isn't quite right because it's assuming I fly 100,000 miles a year, which I don't neither does most of the world. So this number should be lower. So assume this killer asteriod kills everyone: 6313622537 people. Since only 20 people died in the year 2000, we would need one asteriod to kill everyone on the planet every 315 million years. Maybe that's a reasonable time frame but, it's still a bullshit comparison because it assumes I'm going to live forever, unless killed by an asteroid. One must factor in the odds of me being alive when this asteriod actually hits, otherwise I'm not being killed by it am I? Say I live for 150 years (much longer than the average lifespan). If one factors in my limited lifespan, I am suddenly 4.8 x 10^-7 less likely to be killed by an asteriod, than to die in a plane crash.

The odds are so low that I may as well start getting worried about being run over by a Porsche driven by a zebra. Since:
My odds of being run over are 1 in 588.
Let's say one in every 5,000 cars is a porsche.
There are around 132,000,000 cars on the road.
Let's say there are 300,000 zebra on the face of the earth.
Finally, lets say only ten of them (circus zebra) know how to drive (10 in 300,000 odds).
Making a totally bullshit analysis, I find out that my odds are 2.58e-14 while my odds of being killed by an asteriod are 9.52e-13. Okay, so I'm a hundred or so times more likely to be killed by the asteriod, but what if I included all those bears that drive cars too? Surely the results would be terrifying.


This public service announcement has been brought to you by my unwillingness to write my DSP paper. Good night.

I think Benford had a much larger centrifuge in mind than either the STS90 or STS107 experiments.

Boeing designed a centrifuge module for the ISS that was a bit larger--2.5 meters or so, but it's not for human use.

I've never bought into the nanotech religion. We already have the functional equivalent of large-scale robotic assembly. We call these labor units "people". Maybe they are a pain to support in space, but they do function correctly - er, most of the time. ;-) Also, who or what ends up controlling nanotech gets to control space exploration. Not necessarily a good thing.

It's entirely possible that... (Score:2) by constantnormal (512494) on Wednesday February 05, @04:21AM (#5229999) ... until we achieve practical nanotechnology or large-scale robotic assembly (both here and in orbit), that making space travel practical will simply be too expensive. However, that having been said, making expensive incremental advances is the best we can do until then -- so we must keep plodding along. But what I want to know is WHY haven't important advances like the linear aerospike engine developed for the X-33 been put to use? I thought NASA's job was to push technology forward, not to bury it. For those unaware of what a linear aerospike engine is, here's one small tidbit that helps explain its value: conventional rocket engines lose effectiveness as the ambient air pressure changes and must use expensive and complex nozzle geometry changes to minimize this. The linear aerospike maintains a near-constant efficiency from surface to orbit.

I started to whine about the lack of real information contained in the above link. However, when I google for aerospike engines, I find that all the information is being dropped from the internet. For now, here's a couple of links that work - the FAQ on aerospikes and the remnants of the aerospike homepage. Googling on the USENET proved to be much more valuable in that I actually saw comparisons of aerospike technologies with regular nozzles.

The technology indeed looks interesting (and more important seems to work!), but the problem can also be solved by getting the craft out of atmosphere ASAP. Now that's done with a first stage optimized for performance in this region. Ie, it's much more compelling a feature for a SSTO (single stage to orbit) than the usual multistage rocket.

... until we achieve practical nanotechnology or large-scale robotic assembly (both here and in orbit), that making space travel practical will simply be too expensive.

However, that having been said, making expensive incremental advances is the best we can do until then -- so we must keep plodding along.

But what I want to know is WHY haven't important advances like the linear aerospike engine developed for the X-33 been put to use? I thought NASA's job was to push technology forward, not to bury it. For those unaware of what a linear aerospike engine is, here's one small tidbit that helps explain its value: conventional rocket engines lose effectiveness as the ambient air pressure changes and must use expensive and complex nozzle geometry changes to minimize this. The linear aerospike maintains a near-constant efficiency from surface to orbit.

Before the X-33 program was folded amidst cries of bug-ridden technology and cost overruns (ostensibly due to a single fuel tank failure during testing -- remember the early problems with shuttle tiles? the Apollo 100% oxygen atmosphere that resulted in 3 deaths before everything was redesigned to become more flame-retardant? The X-33 fuel tank problems were a stalking horse designed to let the military take it over.), the linear aerospike performed flawlessly. And where is it now? Check the url above to see in what part of Boeing it resides.

And with the inherent weaknesses of the decades-old shuttle fresh in your mind, check out this link (originally from www.milnet.com, but now only available via the google cache) for the advantages the X-33 presented over the shuttle. The VentureStar might not have made as good a truck as the shuttle, but unmanned cargo rockets (like those the Russians do so well) are better vehicles to boost freight into orbit.

Perhaps when we have a Chinese space station passing over the US every ninety minutes the government will figure out that NASA has a role other than a place to take funding from to backfill budgets that cannot be supported on their own merits.

Eventually, when large scale robotic manufacturing and practical nanotechnology drive the cost of making things through the floor (assuming it doesn't bury us in grey goo), we'll be able to grow space elevators and put hotels and shopping centers in orbit (not to mention nanotech development facilities, zero-G hospitals and organ farms). Until that time, access to space will continue to be controlled/blocked by that servant of the people, the gummint.

IANAAE (I am not an aerospace engineer), but I am a licensed Airframe and powerplant mechanic. One possible cause not mentioned is the rupture of tires.

Caveat, I don't know if they had any plugs in the wheels to blow out at a certain temperature like they do on airliners.

But the main tires on the shuttles are pressurized to 300PSI and the last data they received was the temp and pressure in the left mains was rising. That much air explosively ripping out into an unpresurized wheel bay could have blown the doors off. The tires blowing would have thrown heavy chunks of rubber out that could have caused structural damage that would cause the wing to fail quickly under those flight loads. Just remember what happened to the Concorde when it's tired blew.

Tires are dangerous. There's a reason they're filled in cages.

From Boeing's Web Site:
Using inflation cages.

Most airline or repair-station tire shops are equipped with inflation cages. An inflation cage consists of a strong steel structure that surrounds the wheel/tire assembly during tire inflation. Accordingly, when wheel/tire assemblies are initially inflated with bottled nitrogen in the tire shop, the wheel/tire assembly is enclosed in a cage to protect against injury and damage in case of an explosion. However, it is not always practical to use inflation cages if the wheel/tire assembly is installed on the airplane.

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft will serve as the Crew Return Vehicle during early ISS assembly. It can carry a crew of two in a medical emergency, ( three for non-medical purposes)

This comes from a company that wants to sell a replacement for the Soyuz.

actually it can only hold two.

So we've got Medipacks, StimPacks, and Anti Personnel Rocket Launchers.

Where's the Quad Damage and the Redeemer?

I think the redeemer is covered too...

This Lufthansa flight and the British Airways one that starts between JFK and LHR on Saturday use the Boeing. This technology is very different than the one being touted by Airbus. For one, the Connextion is up and running.

Airbus tapped Tenzing of Seattle to create a system which periodically connects to the net to upload/download email update a few webpages stored on a server aboard the aircraft. That's right, it's not live access to the net. Connection speeds for the Tenzing solution are slower than most dialup connections.

So whats the difference? I'm guessing Tenzing is using the same technology as airphones, while Boeing is probably using a newer satellite technology (they have a satellite division)

ABOVE THE NORTH ATLANTIC, Jan. 15, 2003 - A new era in inflight communications began today as commercial airline passengers experienced inflight broadband Internet access for the first time. Passengers aboard a Lufthansa German Airlines Boeing 747-400 were able to use their personal laptops and ones provided by the airline to gain high-speed connections to the Internet, including full access to their personal or business email accounts and files. They were able to attach files to their outgoing emails or open attachments from incoming emails, get the latest news, look up information about their destination or shop online. The service, which Lufthansa has branded as FlyNet, is powered by the revolutionary Connexion by Boeing system developed by The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA). During the three-month demonstration, Lufthansa will make the service available free-of-charge to passengers throughout the airplane, which flies daily between Frankfurt and Washington-Dulles International Airport as flights LH 418 (westbound) and LH 419 (eastbound). "With broadband connectivity, the Connexion by Boeing service gives travelers new and unprecedented choices for managing their time in flight and on the ground," said Connexion by Boeing President Scott Carson. "Lufthansa is widely recognized and respected as a leader in innovation, in communication and in customer service, and is demonstrating to its passengers today what the world of tomorrow will be like. Our collaboration with Lufthansa has resulted in the shared vision that has made this historical service available today." "The very idea of FlyNet was exciting, but what really inspired me was the enthusiasm, the professionalism and the stamina of our team during its implementation. Innovation with the customer in mind has resulted in today's world premiere," says Wolfgang Mayrhuber, Deputy Chairman of Deutsche Lufthansa AG. Lufthansa, the inaugural commercial airline customer for Connexion by Boeing, intends to equip approximately 80 long-range Boeing 747-400 and Airbus A330 / A340 jetliners with the Connexion by Boeing service capability beginning in mid-2004. About Connexion by Boeing Connexion by Boeing is a mobile information services provider that is bringing high-speed Internet, data and entertainment connectivity to aircraft in flight. The service currently is available to the executive services market in the U.S., which includes operators of private and government aircraft. The three-month service demonstration with Lufthansa begins in January 2003, followed one month later by a three-month service demonstration with British Airways, scheduled to begin in mid-February. Japan Airlines and Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) also have announced plans to equip longer-range jetliners in their fleets beginning in 2004. For additional information, visit the Connexion by Boeing web site at www.boeing.com/connexion.

ABOVE THE NORTH ATLANTIC, Jan. 15, 2003 - A new era in inflight communications began today as commercial airline passengers experienced inflight broadband Internet access for the first time. Passengers aboard a Lufthansa German Airlines Boeing 747-400 were able to use their personal laptops and ones provided by the airline to gain high-speed connections to the Internet, including full access to their personal or business email accounts and files. They were able to attach files to their outgoing emails or open attachments from incoming emails, get the latest news, look up information about their destination or shop online. The service, which Lufthansa has branded as FlyNet, is powered by the revolutionary Connexion by Boeing system developed by The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA). During the three-month demonstration, Lufthansa will make the service available free-of-charge to passengers throughout the airplane, which flies daily between Frankfurt and Washington-Dulles International Airport as flights LH 418 (westbound) and LH 419 (eastbound). "With broadband connectivity, the Connexion by Boeing service gives travelers new and unprecedented choices for managing their time in flight and on the ground," said Connexion by Boeing President Scott Carson. "Lufthansa is widely recognized and respected as a leader in innovation, in communication and in customer service, and is demonstrating to its passengers today what the world of tomorrow will be like. Our collaboration with Lufthansa has resulted in the shared vision that has made this historical service available today." "The very idea of FlyNet was exciting, but what really inspired me was the enthusiasm, the professionalism and the stamina of our team during its implementation. Innovation with the customer in mind has resulted in today's world premiere," says Wolfgang Mayrhuber, Deputy Chairman of Deutsche Lufthansa AG. Lufthansa, the inaugural commercial airline customer for Connexion by Boeing, intends to equip approximately 80 long-range Boeing 747-400 and Airbus A330 / A340 jetliners with the Connexion by Boeing service capability beginning in mid-2004. About Connexion by Boeing Connexion by Boeing is a mobile information services provider that is bringing high-speed Internet, data and entertainment connectivity to aircraft in flight. The service currently is available to the executive services market in the U.S., which includes operators of private and government aircraft. The three-month service demonstration with Lufthansa begins in January 2003, followed one month later by a three-month service demonstration with British Airways, scheduled to begin in mid-February. Japan Airlines and Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) also have announced plans to equip longer-range jetliners in their fleets beginning in 2004. For additional information, visit the Connexion by Boeing web site at www.boeing.com/connexion.

I doubt it, but I'm pretty sure you are...

Typical cargo planes costs dozens to hundreds of millions. Passenger planes are approaching $1B for new models.

A billion pesos maybe, but not even in the *ballpark* of a billion bucks

Do your reasearch. Wander over to Seattle and ask for a copy of the price list.

The most expensive thing on the list (B777-300ER) is less than a quarter of what you suggest *even* if you're American and you have that orders-of-magnitude problem with your definition of 'billion'. Your USD$230M buys you a whole lot more aeroplane than a $4M remote controlled toy with a camera innit too!

... and before you say it, yes I know that the A380 *looks* like it should cost more than a B747-400LR or a B777-300ER, but that's before you check Airbus' reputation for practically (and in some cases literally) giving the hardware away... (Qantas' first *free* A330, for example, was delivered about three weeks ago... How many other airlines bought two A380s and got one A330 free? heaps, methinks.)

Extended Twin-Engine Operations (ETOPS). For more information, see: ETOPS

The 717 (formerly MD-95) is the smallest of the MD Series. It's an 107 passenger, short/medium range high duty-cycle airplane (many flights per day). Although small compared to the -80 or -90, it offers all of the same passenger comforts as its bigger brothers (large overhead luggage bins, standard size seats), under-belly cargo holds, advanced avionics, etc. For more details, see 717

Embraer and Boeing do not compete in the same markets. Embraer's main competition comes from Bombardier and its CRJ Series of airplanes. There are as yet no 717 flying with any South American operators, but the 717 is well suited to the South American market (see Technical Specifications

The Business Strategy of the industry is to weather the current down turn.

Extended Twin-Engine Operations (ETOPS). For more information, see: ETOPS

The 717 (formerly MD-95) is the smallest of the MD Series. It's an 107 passenger, short/medium range high duty-cycle airplane (many flights per day). Although small compared to the -80 or -90, it offers all of the same passenger comforts as its bigger brothers (large overhead luggage bins, standard size seats), under-belly cargo holds, advanced avionics, etc. For more details, see 717

Embraer and Boeing do not compete in the same markets. Embraer's main competition comes from Bombardier and its CRJ Series of airplanes. There are as yet no 717 flying with any South American operators, but the 717 is well suited to the South American market (see Technical Specifications

The Business Strategy of the industry is to weather the current down turn.

Extended Twin-Engine Operations (ETOPS). For more information, see: ETOPS

The 717 (formerly MD-95) is the smallest of the MD Series. It's an 107 passenger, short/medium range high duty-cycle airplane (many flights per day). Although small compared to the -80 or -90, it offers all of the same passenger comforts as its bigger brothers (large overhead luggage bins, standard size seats), under-belly cargo holds, advanced avionics, etc. For more details, see 717

Embraer and Boeing do not compete in the same markets. Embraer's main competition comes from Bombardier and its CRJ Series of airplanes. There are as yet no 717 flying with any South American operators, but the 717 is well suited to the South American market (see Technical Specifications

The Business Strategy of the industry is to weather the current down turn.

They are cranking these thing out (literally) -- they have a moving assembly line building Next Generation 737's.

Boeing also uses this model for it's "custom" build Boeing Business Jet (BBJ) -- if you have a spare 40 million or so, get yours today!

They are actually trying to have less "dependence" on the commercial airline market (which make up close to 70% of their business) because it is way to up and down, they are focusing more on space/military applications.

They are cranking these thing out (literally) -- they have a moving assembly line building Next Generation 737's.

Boeing also uses this model for it's "custom" build Boeing Business Jet (BBJ) -- if you have a spare 40 million or so, get yours today!

They are actually trying to have less "dependence" on the commercial airline market (which make up close to 70% of their business) because it is way to up and down, they are focusing more on space/military applications.

It is no surprise to me or others with minimal knowledge of aerodynamics, why those in the (ever shrinking) non-Boeing airline industry and those in the physics world deemed this plane the 'Near Sonic Loser'.

Reason: did you ever see The Right Stuff, I thought so. Remember when Chuck was trying to break the sound barrier in the Bell X-1? It got pretty rough. This is because the shock wave (normally well in front of the wings) was moving across the control surfaces, causing very bad flight characteristics. This is what happens in near sonic flight, a bad place to stay. Once the plane breaks the sound barrier however, this shock wave 'folds' down along the fuselage and leaving the controls surfaces to what the do what they do best. This is why old Chuck got control back instantly after breaking Mach 1.

Now, I know we all wanted to shave the hour off of our weekly commutes to Tokyo but, the extra fuel costs alone doomed this project from the beginning. That is why no airline would even talk to Boeing about this plane.

On the brighter side, this frees up more resources for the plane that will revolutionize the way you fly, the BWB - Blended Wing Body.

is that USA has been known for its manufactuering, and inovation. We have lost out manufactuering capability except in aircrafts, and with MS and Bus trying hard to stimy OSS here, we will lose the edge in software.
If Boeing really wanted to make sales for a long time, they would persue the BWB. The USA military is going to need new tankers and new cargo. The tanker ideally can service 2 or more aircraft at a time. Also the cargo should be capable of carrying 2 or more M-1 tanks. And it should be efficient on fuel. The slow build-up for iraq will show that we must change from a sea based cargo, to an air-based cargo.
Likewise, the commercial world will need loads of new efficient, large cargo aircraft. The keyword is efficient.
It has 2 main drawback in carrying passengers. Passengers want windows. Yet, with screens in the seat-back, passengers will see more than they currently do. They will change. The 2'nd is crashes. This will have to be handled different, but it is no different than what is happening with the A-380.
When I was a child, the 727, 737, 747 came out and every aircraft was suppose to be disasters. The only real disasters have been the MD-11 and L-1011 for not being able to meet promises.

The article mentions flying at 20 feet above the ocean to exploit the effect which makes me wonder how they'll handle the odd rogue wave.

I honestly thought that the supersonic jet would be the savior of this company.

Their supersonic airliner project (the 2707) was canceled more than 30 years ago. I don't think that has any bearing on how Boeing is doing today.

(Read more about the Boeing 2707 here.)

I'm surprised that in the bigtime news and even local coverage here in Seattle there's been no mention of the Blended Wing Body planes. Boeing has been working on this design for several years. The BWB plane promises much better fuel economy, which the airline market is more interested in than speed. I don't get why it didn't come up immediately with the news that the supersonic thing got cancelled.

You're right: it's turboprop-based. It's supposed to save fuel by flying low and building up a "buoyant aerodynamic effect".
More links:
Daily Telegraph UK
FuturePundit.com
Seattle Times
Boeing Frontiers with larger image

You're right: it's turboprop-based. It's supposed to save fuel by flying low and building up a "buoyant aerodynamic effect".
More links:
Daily Telegraph UK
FuturePundit.com
Seattle Times
Boeing Frontiers with larger image

Actually, all of our (American) unmanned rockets are launched on Lockheed and Boeing vehicles. The government owns the launch sites but I seem to recall recently that even that has changed with one of the pads at KSC being purchased by someone. The space shuttle is maintained by a Boeing/Lockheed conglomerate under contract with NASA. And many of our space probes are built at least jointly in cooperation with industry. NASA is the beurocracy (don't mean that negatively) who pays for and manages these programs.

Their server is down already.

Download a movie directly from Boeing here.

QT format. The site also has Real Audio format.

Knunov

The Boeing Everett Factory (where they build the 747, 767, and 777) is absolutely awe-inspiring.

The Hoover Dam is deceptively MASSIVE.

The Eiffel Tower is a whole lot of iron!

The Leaning Tower of Pisa was actually quite terrifying before they put up the railings!! (Think about walking, 10 meters up, on wet, smooth-as-glass marble at like a 15 degree angle)

The Pyramids are one hell of an engineering feat!

And, although not human engineering, my favorite has to be Uluru. Yeah, it looks like just a big hunk 'o rock, but when you walk all the way around it, it's quite amazing how the hues change with literally every footstep.

• "Hi. Yeah. Erm, what the hell are 'boxen', 'VAXen', 'OSen' and 'Virii'?"
  "These are mystical non-words, which have been conjured up by stupid wankers wanting to appear hip, cool and intellectual. Nothing to see here. Please move along."

• "Why is everyone so against Microsoft? And what is up with that dollar sign?"
  "Welcome to Slashdot. Much in the same way that one dog sniffs another's ass to evaluate that individual, so is this practice of marking your grounds of viewpoint. Think of it as a Linux user bending over and farting - It is all about making their views heard.

• "Who is Junis?"
  "The most legendary troll ever to grace the pages of Slashdot. Not only was a Slashdot editor duped into posting a complete article on the opression of Kabul's geeks, but it also spawned a veritable banquet of new trolling material (such as optimum temperatures for storing Commodore hardware buried under chicken huts and the abundance of DivX Baywatch episodes)"

• "What is 'YHBT. YHL. HAND.'? I see it everywhere!"
  "This is commonly seen in comments sections after a pathetic Slashboteer or paranoid YRO fanatic has been suckered into replying to a finely crafted piece of literary genius."

• "Why the hell would someone want to re-program some obscure electronic device that is no longer produced?"
  "Many cock-smoking Slashdot users like to claim that it is 'because they can'. In fact, it boils down to 'because I've got nothing else better to do'. These are normally the same people who think that their university attendance made them technical gods and everyone else is worthless."

• "I recently saw an article on programming, and lots of people posted code snippets. Problem is, most of it was wrong. Why is that?"
  "A high percentage of Slashdot users are still in university, and think that after day 1 of 'Introduction to C' that they are ready to code embedded systems for Boeing or Raytheon. They spend endless hours posting about how they've hacked device x, when in fact all they've done is downloaded the SDK, bragged about 16-bit bus register cron-job front side bus accumulators and watched 'Anti-Trust' for the 797th time."

This troll is dedicated to Nicola Wheeler on ITV's Emmerdale. mmmmm.... top heavy....

Well, purely from an aesthetic standpoint.

There's just something about a liquid fueled center surrounded by a bunch of boosters.

The whole thing just looks beefy.

It's about cost, reliability and payload.
{Note - this goes off-topic because I googled a bit and was stunned by modern launch capability. Sorry}

A Space Shuttle can throw about thirteen tonnes into low earth orbit. That's a huge chunk of satellite. Unfortunately, NASA will charge you in excess of $500 million for the service. The reliability is excellent. One failure in over 110 launches. Probably the most reliable launcher in history. Use the Space Shuttle if it's very heavy, cost is no problem and it absolutely, certainly, definitely must get there.

Delta is an old, proven, excellent technology. It used to be considered a 'light' launcher. Delta IV, however, can smack a meaty Thirteen tonnes to orbit. Yowza. I only found that out now. OK, that vehicle hasn't been built yet.

Whoo-Hoo! I just read that page again. The Delta Heavy (not built yet, but all technology in place) can stuff 13 tonnes into Geosynchronous transfer orbit. It can throw (and this is astonishing) twenty-three humungous tonnes to low earth orbit. What the hell can compete with that?

Well, Ariane 5 ECS-B can do twelve tonnes to Geosynchronous orbit. No payload assist required for orbit transfer.

The Russian Proton
can do about 23 tonnes to low earth orbit. This is the only one I know the cost for. You want twenty-three thousand kilogrammes orbiting at 350 kilometers? 75 million dollars. Cash up front, go talk to your insurers. (The Proton is almost as insanely reliable as the shuttle, actually - certainly comparable with Delta)

Right. That's it. I'm going to become a rocket engineer. It's got to beat the hell out of managing telecoms networks for a living.

The Seattle PI had this link on their webpage.

• "Hi. Yeah. Erm, what the hell are 'boxen', 'VAXen', 'OSen' and 'Virii'?"
  "These are mystical non-words, which have been conjured up by stupid wankers wanting to appear hip, cool and intellectual. Nothing to see here. Please move along."

• "Why is everyone so against Microsoft? And what is up with that dollar sign?"
  "Welcome to Slashdot. Much in the same way that one dog sniffs another's ass to evaluate that individual, so is this practice of marking your grounds of viewpoint. Think of it as a Linux user bending over and farting - It is all about making their views heard.

• "Who is Junis?"
  "The most legendary troll ever to grace the pages of Slashdot. Not only was a Slashdot editor duped into posting a complete article on the opression of Kabul's geeks, but it also spawned a veritable banquet of new trolling material (such as optimum temperatures for storing Commodore hardware buried under chicken huts and the abundance of DivX Baywatch episodes)"

• "What is 'YHBT. YHL. HAND.'? I see it everywhere!"
  "This is commonly seen in comments sections after a pathetic Slashboteer or paranoid YRO fanatic has been suckered into replying to a finely crafted piece of literary genius."

• "Why the hell would someone want to re-program some obscure electronic device that is no longer produced?"
  "Many cock-smoking Slashdot users like to claim that it is 'because they can'. In fact, it boils down to 'because I've got nothing else better to do'. These are normally the same people who think that their university attendance made them technical gods and everyone else is worthless."

• "I recently saw an article on programming, and lots of people posted code snippets. Problem is, most of it was wrong. Why is that?"
  "A high percentage of Slashdot users are still in university, and think that after day 1 of 'Introduction to C' that they are ready to code embedded systems for Boeing or Raytheon. They spend endless hours posting about how they've hacked device x, when in fact all they've done is downloaded the SDK, bragged about 16-bit bus register cron-job front side bus accumulators and watched 'Anti-Trust' for the 797th time."

This troll is dedicated to Nicola Wheeler on ITV's Emmerdale. mmmmm.... top heavy....

A quick search on Boeing's web site found this page. http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero _10/interfere.html

Pretty much they're saying having a transmitter (typically cell phone) can make the plane do funny things, but they also cite instances of other devices doing the same. Any electronic device can emit electronic noise. Aparently the aircraft manufacturers didn't do a very good job of shielding their aircraft. Maybe they should take a clue from auto manufacturers.

Back in the early 80's when GM and Ford started equipping cars with computers to run the engine, close lightning strikes, or driving under high-voltage power lines would occasionally make the car shut off. That was very quickly fixed.

I think Slashcode should detect URLs and make them linkable automatically.

That, or the lazy ass posters can just take the extra two seconds to add the <a href=""> and </a> around their URLs and avoid the problem altogether. You don't even have to change the pull-down menu from "Plain Old Text" either, it still works!

See, look ma! I just made a link!