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First, there is this Milky Way simulation in VRML format from Nasa, part of the Virtual Universe project; web page here, complete with vrmls of the local galaxy area with a couple thousand galaxies.

Then there is this Freeware Dos program Virtual Galaxy which let's you navigate among the local stars. This one is okay, but needs to be updated to allow for a better grade of graphics. Worth checking out, though. Actually has the most stuff as far as science data goes. Maybe an open source project can be made from it.

There is also this little page, a nice collection of vrmls for the local area of the Milky way

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re: the above twit

"Never apply a Star Trek solution to a Babylon 5 problem."
(found on a bulletin board at Fermi Lab)

I think that about sums it up.

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You realize, of course, that the RIAA is not interested in keeping Napster legal. They are interested in Driving Napster out of existance so that *they* have absolute control. The fact of somebody else having power drivers them crazy. It is probably borderline psychotic. (certainly nuerotic)

That said, I wonder how much of a audio signature is retained when you play with or edit the file.

For example, in classical music you sometimes have performances that are excellent, but which are basically at the wrong tempo as far as you are concerned. One instance of this is the first section of the Eroica Symphony (by Beethoven) which is marked to be at a speed that is stunningly fast. You can tweak the speed easily enough in a midi file, and find something close enough that it sounds convincing. But live performances are not usually done at that speed, they are usually somewhat slower. With appropriate audio software, you can take a very high fidelity copy wav file of the music, and change the speed of the music without screwing up the pitch.

[just for the info, the average speed of perfomance is this exact piece is usually 100 to 130 beats per minute, when the spec is 180. 170 or so sounds best to me.]

You now have a performance by an orchestra that never actually took place. Would the audio signature be different? Would it even be a different copyright, especially if you invested alot of work fine tuning the tempi of the individual sections?

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A bill is a *proposed* law - it is not a law in itself.

This one was never signed into law. You can read more about it at http://techlawjournal.com/telecom/81022.htm.

Also, the following interesting discussion was posted here:

I opened a piece of Spam mail this morning and got this:

Under Bill s.1618 Title III passed by the 105th U.S. Congress this mail cannot be considered Spam as long as we include contact information and removal instructions for removing you from our mailing list. To be removed from our mailing list, reply with REMOVE in the subject heading and your email address in the body, and include complete address and/or domain to be removed. <<

Have you received an email with one of these statements yet?

Let me see if I can translate it for you.

We are going to send you a ton of email whether you like it or not. Get off our backs. If you don't like it, get yourself off our lists.<<

Does that sound about right?

Well then! I guess I'd better read it. The information contained herein must be of some importance since the information has the A-OK under federal law.

Wait. Federal law?

If I remember my Saturday morning School House Rock episode correctly, for something to become a law, it has to be passed by both the House AND the Senate plus a really important person has to sign it.

It must be a law then, right? The Spammers are using it. They wouldn't lie, would they?

It would seem that enough time has passed for the president to sign the bill into law. It's been two years. We're in the 107th Congress now. I've never heard of a law allowing people to Spam me.

Hey - wait a minute. Maybe there never was a Bill S1618. I mean, it's not a law.

Darn.

There was a bill S1618 back in 1998. It passed by a 99-0 voice vote. It's called the "Anti-Slamming Amendments Act". There was even a House of Representatives equal to it, HR3888. It also passed.

The Senate version of the bill stated that S1618 was, "To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to improve the protection of consumers against `slamming' by telecommunications carriers, and for other purposes."

Hey! Wait a minute.

"Slamming"?

Is the Congress a bunch of really poor spellers...like me?

I thought this was a bill about Spamming.

Well, it is. It's just not the main push of the bill. You don't get to "Spamming" until title three. It's right in there between "Switchless Resellers" and "Miscellaneous Provisions". The Spamming section is an amendment to the amendment. There were actually four versions of bill S1618. The Spamming section didn't show up until the third incarnation. (Source: http://thomas.loc.gov )

But still, it was passed. It was passed containing the Spamming amendment so it's on the books so we all have to receive the Spam emails sent to us by people we don't even know as long as the Spammers follow S1618 Title III outlined below:

TITLE III-SPAMMING

SEC. 301. REQUIREMENTS RELATING TO TRANSMISSIONS OF UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL ELECTRONIC MAIL.

(a) INFORMATION TO BE INCLUDED IN TRANSMISSIONS- (1) IN GENERAL- A person who transmits an unsolicited commercial electronic mail message shall cause to appear in each such electronic mail message the information specified in paragraph (2). (2) COVERED INFORMATION- The following information shall appear at the beginning of the body of an unsolicited commercial electronic mail message under paragraph (1): (A) The name, physical address, electronic mail address, and telephone number of the person who initiates transmission of the message. (B) The name, physical address, electronic mail address, and telephone number of the person who created the content of the message, if different from the information under subparagraph (A). (C) A statement that further transmissions of unsolicited commercial electronic mail to the recipient by the person who initiates transmission of the message may be stopped at no cost to the recipient by sending a reply to the originating electronic mail address with the word `remove' in the subject line. (b) ROUTING INFORMATION- All Internet routing information contained within or accompanying an electronic mail message described in subsection (a) must be accurate, valid according to the prevailing standards for Internet protocols, and accurately reflect message routing. (c) EFFECTIVE DATE- The requirements in this section shall take effect 30 days after the date of enactment of this Act.

In other words, include the paragraph that started off this newsletter and offer a viable method to getting your name off of the Spammer's list. Do that, and you can Spam away because technically what you're sending cannot be considered Spam.

This sounds too bad to be true.

Great! Just great! Now I have to allow a ton of Spam to come flying through my front door and I have to read it all because the Spammers have the power of the U.S. Government behind them. It just cheeses me off. I mean...it...

Wait. What's this?

S1618 died in committee?

That means that it's null and void? It's dead? It doesn't have any power?

Oh. The Spammer never bothered to tell me that.

Never mind.

I'll just go delete that piece of mail.

(The death of S1618 in committee: Source: http://techlawjournal.com/telecom/81022.htm )

That's that. Thanks for reading.

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There is this spam filter list that some guy put together for Outlook. [Warning, the webpage is pretty hideous]

All said, the file is in text file format and is a simple list of spammer addresses, which I am sure someone could convert/import to the format needed.

The nice thing is that people send him the names of spammers. And so it is constantly updated.

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I'd love to be able to play my driving games on all 3, with the left monitor being a left view, and the right being a right view. Or a view of my nearest competitor. Or even just a big rear view mirror. The possibilities are endless.

If I recall right, Panasonic used to sell (maybe still does) a three panel wrap-around display that was completely wild. It was even written up here in Slash one or two times.

I can't find that one right now, but there is this 42" plasma display for a mere 10,000 usa dollars. Maybe when I hit the lottery.

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as I see it, there are two issues on this.

Bus Speed, and Interrupts (or their equivalent)

The speed issue is fairly straight ahead, but the interrupts issue is not so obvious. Part of it is that we are still married to archaic features of the early PCs in some regards.

An old story I heard once said that the original Intel spec of the 8088 (?) processor included a spec for 1024 hardware interrupts. IBM, of course, in their wisdom, said that the chip was not for a main frame (or something similar), and instead changed to spec to 8 interrupts. Someplace down the road, in the 286 I think(?), they realised the needed more, and expanded to 16 via a second chip. Which is what we have had to deal with ever since.

Of course 20/20 hindsight tells us they should have stuck with the original spec. But I can't say that we would have arrived at a better situation if we had all of those interrupts in the first place. People would have figured out wierd and woderful ways to use them up well before now as it is.

I still think it would be great if they somehow did a re-design so that their would be, say, 64 hardware interrupts. Even with PCI interrupt sharing, things are getting tight, it seems.

I have seen so many machines over the past few years where every interrupt was being used, and is you wanted to add something, you had to take something out. This has upset more than a few people. Which is why alot of folks stay away from the all in one non-upgradle pizza boxen systems

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What do they need long range missiles for? Pakistan's not THAT far away!

They also have long term tensions with their neighbor to the far north, China. Thus it pays to have both satellites as wel as long range missles. And then they can get their own telemetry without having to depend on the USA, etc.

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"The concept is pretty simple, it's just that no one can seem to make it work," said Howard McCurdy, a professor of public affairs at American University.

Sounds like Nasa.

Seriously, the idea is based on the observation that alot of the time you spend going into orbit you are simply coasting. And you are also bringing along alot of oxygen for the fuel. So if you could get your oxygen for the ascent from the atmosphere, and then coast to orbit, you could save a lot of weight. You would still have enough on board for manuevering jets, etc. But this requires something that can operate in the middle range of speeds of Mach 2 to Mach 10 (and higher)

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the first impression sounds like the typical stereo-typical short term short sighted planning for the VCs in trying to maximize the money return back to their wallets, regardless of the long term prospects. This is a first impression, of course, YMMV.

But this is probably the same kind of thinking that led VCs, in San Francisco to treat the remaining employees at one company so badly that they basically walked out, screwing the VCs.

Without more info it is hard to know where to point the finger, but I know where I'm placing my bets.

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I do not mind payphones, but you got to watch out for those that charge insane amounts of money, owned by a small time high price company. alot of times, say in a corner store, there will be a payphone setup where the store owner gets a piece of the action. So out of each dollar charged, the owner might get 50 cents, etc. but the clerks play dumb.

On the other hand, there are a lot of people who do not have cell phone, even now. So pay phones may still pay for themselves for a while. It may be easier just to leave them there

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Since in the next few years 64 bit processors will be coming into the mainstream I think now is the time to start work on fixing the Year 2038 issue. Operating systems will need to be changed to move from 32 to 64 bit word lengths so why not take this oppertunity to switch from 32 bit to 64 bit times on Linux and *BSD (and any other Open Source operating systems you care to mention). A further advantage would be to take make better use of the extra bits and switch to milliseconds since 1970, instead of seconds. This extra precision could be useful for some applications and will still be good till 300,000,000 AD

This is useable and sensible. I can see this.

[inserting tongue in cheek]

But we might not need to worry because of all of the other disasters that are proposed to be happening between now then then, including the end of the Maya Epoch (get your Mayan Date TShirt here, and the destruction of civilization by asteroids in 2028 (orbit info here, Seattle Times disinfo here, commentary here)

And, with the crashomatic feature in MS OS software, the world will come to an end well before that when the MS .NET system gets hit with a succesful .NET virus that wipes out lots of data from the hard drives. Of course, it will be a MS email virus, that scans the network for vulnerable files.

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So now we get to all go out and rent Japanese movies, and then criticise SWII when it comes out, because it is not as good as the original.

I remember seeing another japanese samuri film, and recognizing that it was identical with an early Clint Eastwood spaghetti western. Camera angles and all, just transplanted from Japan to the Italian version of the American west. You could almost run them side by side.

I hope SWII doesn't turn out like that. I still think it would have worked out better writing if young Darth had turned out to be identical twins. The possible plot twists would have been wonderful. (For example - who turns to the dark side - the one who goes for training, or the one who does not?) Audiences would have been second guessing all along.

Now it feels less like genius and more like a marketing machine. [shrug]

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But I thought spamming was a big money maker...

Kozmo was using spam to promote their business of delivering items to local customers. they never changed enough to cover costs. but they were making it up on volume.

What you want to do is to be in the infomercial business selling tapes, etc introducing people to the wonderful art of spam promoting regular business junk. You make money of off people sending you money for the books and tapes, etc.

(personally. I think the late night infomercial selling tapes on how to do magic is a better value.)

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I doubt that 3-D UI's will ever become big. There's a huge amount of interface overhead involved in simulating 3-D in 2-D.

Very true, but probably no more of a jump than going to a GUI vs a pure command line interface. GUIs have tremendous overhead as well, compared to command lines. It would probably fit well with speech oriented OSs.

heck, with technology advancements, the wand would probably be the CPU with built in speech recognition and wireless networking and wireless peripherals. And gesture based operations.

And then the reaction to the idea of a GUI back in 1975 was probably very similar. It would take a long time for it to become practical. But then you know the history of the computer.

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And people are just figgering out that this widget is in there?

Just how revolutionary is this gimmick if people have not even noticed it for weeks or months? And if people have not noticed this bell and whistle before, is it even news?

or does this fall into the category of if it is a major bug, it is news, but if it is an anti-bug (ie, a feature) then let the PR department deal with it.

on a separate front, I can see this when 3D interfaces become popular for computers. You'd have a widget in your hand for interfacing with the machine, and operate the unit by gestures.

The similarity of this to a magician with a magic wand is *purely* coincidental.

:)

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Consumers are expected to happily scan products, ads, etc. - thus reinforcing purchasing behavior. When they do, they will be shown only the carefully-packaged image the company wants them to see. The dangers of choice that interactivity brings have been closed off, and though consumers feel like they are doing something (scanning is fun!) they are in fact as much passive viewers as if they were watching television commercials - it's a one-way, closed system.

Why does this sound like rat in the maze sort of psychiatric mind control thought experiment? As a business plan for the marketing types?

CueHack "hacks" (opens up) this closed system by using it another way. It allows you, the consumer, to experience the same wholesome scanning pleasure as you do with the normal CueCat software, but displays other kinds of information about the companies - information that you would likely have run across if you had done a web search about the company, but that the company might prefer that you, the consumer, not see. This could be information about corporate abuse, boycotts against the company., even how much money the company is making, their corporate image as presented to shareholders, etc.

Freedom, now that is a dangerous option for the consumer. Looks like marketing is trying harder and harder to take it away from the rats in the cage.

Heck we even have folks promoting the model of life as "We are Mice in a Maze" (not the real title, but the book referanced is reviewed here, webpage here, parodied here.)

That's a nice little mouse. Enjoy your life in the maze. Nothing outside the maze is important. Learn to love the maze. The maze is your friend. Here, have some cheese.

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What get's me is that there are so many possibilities to expalin why we haven't heard anything yet.

heck, if they have anything like a trek subspace transmitter, radio would be obsolete. Obsolete as Napoleon's Semaphore system. A good place to look is the Dead Media Project, as discussed and linked in this slash article. Technologies go obsolete all of the time, so why not radio, tv, etc.

Then there is the matter of interstellar politics. Let's face it, if the local area just had the equivalent of Attila the Hun go rampaging through, it might be a good idea if no body visited. and it would be understandable if no body was transmitting.

And then again, maybe we *are* the first ones, at least for practical purposes, in our section of galaxy

And so on. There are many possible scenarios.

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Well, with alot of free services going away, between banners ads dropping out the bottom, and spam (email services) etc. alot of companies have had to look at alternatives. There was this recent slash article on juno's arbitrary use of your computer cpu cycles for their own clients via their special screen saver. (the idea really irritates me no end)

but in context the great period of the internet free lunch is going away. Banner Ads are likely to become the net equivalent of highway bill board signs for effectiveness, for example. We will have alot of services whose main purpose in life is to collect marketing data.

(I still think that we should all enter in the marketing data for our favorite politician when filling out online survey forms. This would probably help out vs spammers no end [insert smile here])

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. . . which has the effect of limiting knowledge and narrowing readers' minds. Does this customized news effect apply to /. ?

I can't say that I have ever seen this. Slash dot readers go out of their way to be fully informed and to achieve a thorough and comprehensive understanding even of viewpoints and organizations that they disagree with.

As noted: "Professor Sunstein began to theorize that a communications system granting ordinary individuals unlimited power to filter information threatens to excessively fragment and polarize citizens -- a poisonous condition for democratic self government."

I can't say that I have seen anything remotely coming close to this over even the past month or so.

;-)

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Obviously such a snafu as allowing a document out with such damaging comments can be attributed to incompetency.

But there is also the possibilities that someone who did know better let it out in the vulnerable format, knowing that someone would discover the hidden comments.

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Things like the International Cyber Crime Treaty recently discussed here, here, and here on Slash over the past six months jack the urgency of this and related issues. People in the USA can remember court cases from a year or two or three ago where some law enforcement from a state like Tennessee (?) went after a California website for being in violation of Tennessee laws.

Imagine this scenario down the road, being in violation of some countries laws where they are in sharp disagreement with the laws of that country. The absurd example would be China prosecuting the websites of exiled chinese nationals living in the USA.

This is not so absurd on second thought.

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What's interesting is that the best views from the shuttles often come from the camera mounted on the elbow of the Canadarm. As a result a large number of lovely NASA pictures have "Canada" written quite prominently in the foreground. NASA got really annoyed at this and as a result a huge US flag started appearing on the back wall of the cargo bay on any mission that was planning on using the arm.

Thank God we didn't go with corporate sponsorship.

There was an interesting satirical "photo" of what could have happened. It showed the space shuttle completely plastered and painted out in corporate logos and color schemes. For example, one of the rocket boosters painted out to resemble an energizer battery. (I can't find it right now to link to it, but I have it tacked to my office wall.)

So it could be much much worse ;-)

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Here is the actual relevant passage, minus the junk about when the hearing were to be held, etc. It actually sounds more like a tax break that a big corporation would use than an individual - Actually, this text is fairly readable.

> > > > >

Par. 3. Section 1.41-4 is revised to read as follows:
1.41-4 Qualified research for taxable years beginning after December 31, 1985.
(a) through (d) [Reserved].
(e) Internal-use computer software--

(1) General rule. Research with respect to computer software that is developed by (or for the benefit of) the taxpayer primarily for the taxpayer's internal use is eligible for the research credit only if the software satisfies the requirements of paragraph (e)(2) of this section. Generally, research with respect to computer software is not eligible for the research credit where software is used internally, for example, in general and administrative functions (such as payroll, bookkeeping, or personnel management) or in providing noncomputer services (such as accounting, consulting, or banking services).

(2) Requirements. The requirements of this paragraph (e)(2) are--
(i) The software satisfies the requirements of section 41(d)(1);
(ii) The software is not otherwise excluded under section 41(d)(4) (other than section 41(d)(4)(E)); and
(iii) One of the following conditions is met--
(A)The taxpayer uses the software in an activity that constitutes qualified research (other than the development of the internal-use software itself);
(B) The taxpayer uses the software in a production process that meets the requirements of section 41(d)(1); or
(C) The software satisfies the special rule of paragraph (e)(5) of this section.

(3)Computer software and hardware developed as a single product. This paragraph (e) does not apply to the development costs of a new or improved package of computer software and hardware developed together by the taxpayer as a single product, of which the software is an integral part, that is used directly by the taxpayer in providing technological services in its trade or business to customers. In these cases, eligibility for the research credit is to be determined by examining the combined hardware-software product as a single product.

(4)Primarily for internal use. All relevant facts and circumstances are to be considered in determining if computer software is developed primarily for the taxpayer's internal use. If computer software is developed primarily for the taxpayer's internal use, the requirements of this paragraph (e) apply even though the taxpayer intends to, or subsequently does, sell, lease, or license the computer software.

(5) Special rule. Computer software satisfies the special rule of this paragraph (e)(5) only if the taxpayer can establish that--
(i) The software is innovative (as where the software results in a reduction in cost, or improvement in speed, that is substantial and economically significant);
(ii) The software development involves significant economic risk (as where the taxpayer commits substantial resources to the development and there is a substantial uncertainty, because of technical risk, that such resources would be recovered within a reasonable period); and
(iii) The software is not commercially available for use by the taxpayer (as where the software cannot be purchased, leased, or licensed and used for the intended purpose without modifications that would satisfy the requirements of paragraphs (e)(5)(i) and (ii) of this section).

(6) Application of special rule. In determining if the special rule of paragraph (e)(5) of this section is satisfied all of the facts and circumstances are considered. The special rule allows the costs of developing internal-use software to be eligible for the research credit only if the software meets a high threshold of innovation. The facts and circumstances analysis takes into account only the results attributable to the development of the new or improved software independent of the effect of any modifications to related hardware or other software. The weight given to any fact or circumstance will depend on the particular case.

(7) Effective date. This paragraph (e) is applicable for taxable years beginning after December 31, 1985.

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This price cut made the news during the day Friday over on the Register (here), and was even commented on here (Intel cutting prices soon) CNet also had a comment of this here.

Probably got submitted a few times - The weekend crew must not read up on things during the week. although I can't blame them.

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Gibson Research has an excellent series of articles regarding the anatomy of the Click of Death. The Click of Death Webpage is here. People even sent in dead drive for dissection, and a lot of good info is there, with autopsy photos,etc. Very much worth looking through.

For those who do not know Steve Gibson, he originally got his chops as the original writer of Spinrite, one of the first drive recovery tools of the PC. He has a number of neat little free tools on his website. they are all written in assembly language.

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Bloated code will only go so far. There is only so much eye candy to do. After that, not many people are into multi media. Let's face for all of the poeple who use Napster, for example, they are *not* a large segment of the market. In the US the core market of people 18 to 45 may be about 100 million. Granted, not all of them have a computer, but not all of them are into Napster, or editing videos on the desktop, etc. a large portion of them simply use the computer for email, word processing, solitaire, and maybe some kids educational and kids games. The computers are basically there for most folks, they do what folks want, and there is no reason to upgrade. They have no urge to be cool, and they have no need for the extra cpu cycles. The tools they have work good enough.

as time goes on, that is what is going to happen, things will be "Good Enough" to do the job, and why convert over? Why spend the bucks? As noted in the article:

My trip to CompUSA makes me think that the people who screw the boxes together should be especially worried about the business customer. I for one spent most of the winter with a garage full of top-of -the-line computers from a failed dotcom I helped found last year. In fact, I think the dotcom bubble has given the entire PC industry a false sense of security over the past couple of years with a lot of fantasy money purchasing some not-so-fantasy hardware. The jig is definitely up and unless Microsoft comes out with a version of Word that can read your mind I don't see many companies going through the trauma of a hardware upgrade anytime soon.

The XP machines may want to cash in on this, to be the only computer that people will ever need, because things will be good enough, along with the .net thingy. But ultimately, that becomes another nail in the PC coffin. Which is probably why MS wants ultimately to get out of the PC oriented market.

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I imagine it would be a headache, but how difficult would it be to bring over the ports collection and the drivers from FreeBSD?

although I can agreed that in this case it would be better to go with the pure BSD installs for a standard system, and use the darwin setup for a mad scientist rig.

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As reported here in the Register, "sources say, Intel will cut the price of the 1.5GHz P4 to $519 and the 1.4GHz part to $375. The latter is as anticipated (see yesterday's report, Price cuts pave way for 23 April 1.7GHz P4 launch), but the P4 price is lower than the expected $562. On 23 April, the 1.7GHz P4 will launch at $701, down from the $776 we expected from the roadmap."

In other words, they're having problems moving them out, so they are going to slash prices.

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The point being - the project did well under the military, but nasa has it's own political agenda - discussed thoroughly above, that has stopped these programs just when they needed the most success.

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As reported in Space Access Update #88 14.jun.1999

Space Access Update #84 6/14/99

Copyright 1999 by Space Access Society www.space-access.org;

Space Access Society's sole purpose is to promote radical reductions in the cost of reaching space. You may redistribute this Update in any medium you choose, as long as you do it unedited in its entirety.

Editorial: Right Intentions, Wrong Direction -

NASA's Destructive Approach To Cheap Access

Let us be clear from the start: NASA has screwed up the cheap access initiatives entrusted to it to date, from the mismanagement of DC-XA into a crash (we still haven't seen full public release of the predictable blame-the-contractor report on that mess) to the muddled morphing of X-33 into a half-assed Shuttle II. As far as we are concerned, the current push to do "X-Ops" reusable rocket low-cost operability demos in Future-X is NASA's last chance - if they mess this up too, come 2001 we'll be pushing hard for removal of RLV technology development responsibility from NASA entirely.

We reluctantly came to this conclusion last fall, and started working quietly behind the scenes to advance Future-X X-Ops work. Why are we going public now? Because over the last two months the evidence has become overwhelming that NASA is reverting to malign old habits - they are once again pushing their internal agendas with reckless disregard for the interests of US industry and of the country as a whole, to the point of actively attacking the credibility and investment-worthiness of the reusable-launch startups. They have done so repeatedly, and (under the most charitable interpretation) factually incorrectly.

This must stop, NOW. If NACA in 1930 had been allowed to tell potential investors that Douglas and Boeing couldn't possibly build robust all-metal monoplane airliners without ten additional years of massive NACA research funding, we'd all still be taking trains. Assuming, of course that we survived WW II at all.

If NASA can neither usefully support entrepreneurial low-cost launch ventures, nor at minimum shut up and stay out of their way, then it's time to start looking carefully at the parts of NASA involved, constraining the ones still needed, and defunding the rest.

Why?

NASA is doing this to advance two major agendas that we see. One is to maintain the JSC/KSC manned-space Station/Shuttle bloatocracy into the indefinite future, by preempting all possible alternatives to some sort of massive full-employment Shuttle Upgrade or Shuttle Followon project.

The other is to fund a wish-list of blue sky launch technology projects (including hypersonic airbreathing launch vehicles - NASP II, anyone?) from most of the other NASA centers under the name "Spaceliner 100", by attacking current (rocket) technologies as simply not good enough.

That's our merely best estimate of their motives, mind. It's always possible NASA is attacking the commercial RLV outfits out of sheer random institutional bloodymindedness. But attacking they are - and in general, the main content of their attacks is, uh, incorrect.

In evidence, point #1

- The April 8th speech by Administrator Goldin to the US Space Foundation, in the context of supporting yet another expensive push for hypersonic "RBCC" (Rocket-Based Combined Cycle) airbreathers. (We suspect Dan Goldin has been getting very bad advice lately.) "At NASA, the technology barrier is the rocket." He goes on to state, more or less correctly, that Shuttle launch costs are about $10,000 per pound, and then says "Expendable vehicles are not significantly cheaper" (with the unspoken corollary that reusable rockets can't possibly be much better.)

It depends on your definition of "significantly", we guess - aside from the Titan 4, which involves almost as much bureaucracy as Shuttle, current medium-to-heavy commercial expendables cost from about half (Delta 2, Atlas 2) to about one fifth (ILS Proton) of $10K per pound to LEO. NASA's recent line that even reusable rockets can't make more than a factor of ten reduction over Shuttle launch costs looks pretty foolish when decades-old expendable designs already undercut Shuttle by factors of two to five. And at least two credible current expendable ventures are shooting for that factor of ten reduction.

It is indeed possible that rockets, *as conceived by NASA*, can never get much cheaper than Shuttle. There's considerable evidence to support this in NASA's recent RLV efforts. But, if we can keep NASA from strangling the innovative RLV startups in their cradles, there is no fundamental law of physics preventing clever engineers without NASA's forty years of bureaucratic baggage from undercutting Shuttle costs by factors of ten right from the start, getting down to factors of as much as a hundred once experience refines systems and flight rates rise.

In evidence, point #2:

- May 8th "New Scientist" magazine - from an article on Richard (Virgin Atlantic Airways) Branson's investment negotiations with Rotary Rocket Company, a quote from a top-level NASA official dismissing Roton and other such reusable rocket concepts as "...system gimmicks to overcome the unbelieveable lack of technology they [the startup reusable rocket companies] have."

Hmm. NASA, by implication, has far better technology. Oh, really. Who has full-scale graphite-epoxy LOX tanks? Who has access to the best (Russian) rocket engines in the world? Who can build composite fuel tanks, liquid hydrogen or plain old kerosene, that *don't* leak like sieves? Who knows how to tow-launch high wing-loading vehicles? Who has the biggest concentration of expertise in the world on vertical-landing rockets? On aerial cryo-propellant transfer? On rapid prototyping of high-strength ultra-light composites? On high-performance non-toxic storable propellants?

If you answered "NASA" to any of the above, you are *wrong*, chucko. The answer in every case is "private industry", and in most cases the startups. NASA still has pockets of excellence, but they float in a sea of mediocrity. NASA slamming the startups' technology in order to get more funding for their own endless noodling is, frankly nauseating.

That said, precisely what is wrong with "system gimmicks" if they *work*? Are they somehow impure, unclean, unworthy of the true scientific guardians of higher-tech-at-all-costs? A case in point: Modern military aircraft require a base with a ten thousand-foot concrete runway to operate effectively, right? No possible way to cut that to one-tenth the size and, better yet make it mobile, short of some ultra-advanced technology like anti-gravity? Right?

Uh... What is an aircraft carrier but a collection of "system gimmicks" - massive victorian-tech steam catapults for takeoffs, arrestor wires and tailhooks and mirror-and-light path indicators for landings, angled flight decks to allow both at once, plus the accumulated operational expertise to make it all work, a mobile airbase a tenth the size of fixed landbased versions. If the "system gimmick" RLV startups can make a major dent in launch costs, and it looks as if, given a chance, they can, we do not give two figs how "gimmicky" their technology is. To quote some anonymous Cold War weapons designer, "'better' is the enemy of 'good enough'".

In evidence, point #3:

This week's "Space News" - "Reusable Launch Vehicles A Decade Away, NASA Says." We mentioned in Update #83 that the results of an industry study on what to do about Shuttle (STAS, the Space Transportation Architecture Study) were out, and that while many of the proposals were (predictably) for massively expensive one-size- fits-all Shuttle replacements, at least some of the conclusions were sensible, IE gradually replace Shuttle with an EELV/CTV system that would meet NASA manned-space's basic needs with a relatively small investment while having (a major point to us) negligible impact on the commercial markets.

Now it seems the NASA/Aerospace Corp response to the various STAS reports has been leaked to Space News, and the gist of it is: NASA slams the various RLV proposals as unrealistic regarding schedule and budget (not surprising if they're geared to actually getting a contract to replace Shuttle; spending too much money over too long a time in all the right districts is an unspoken requirement for any would-be Shuttle replacement - still, it seems unfair to slam the proposals for soft-pedalling these unspoken specs) and proposes that NASA essentially micromanage a drawn-out process to eventually replace Shuttle sometime in the 2010's.

Previous intentions to encourage commercial RLV developments have evaporated; NASA Shuttle II will be the only game in town, at least by this tell-the-customer-what-they-want-to-hear custom blueprint.

Mind, we haven't seen this study ourselves yet; we're going on Space News's reading - but this agrees with the other recent evidence. By essentially dismissing the chances any of the current crop of RLV startups could succeed and thus position themselves to meet a significant part of NASA manned space's launch needs, NASA significantly reduces their chances of getting the investment they need to succeed, in a fine example of pernicious self-fulfilling prophecy. Meanwhile, by ignoring the meet-JSC's-needs-and-no-more EELV/CTV approach in favor of some flavor of massive-overcapacity Shuttle II, this study continues NASA's implicit threat of a subsidized grab of the core of the existing commercial launch demand, adversely affecting the investment climate for commercial space launch in general.

This is rapidly approaching the point where we'll be able to make a convincing case that this nation's future in space would be better served by a radically reduced NASA. We'd rather not find that road the only one left to us.

Fixing the problem

For starters, we'd like to see whoever's peddling this line at NASA HQ fired, or at least transferred to counting seabirds at some remote tracking station. Not that the person in question is more than a representative of widespread NASA tendencies, but it will at least serve as an example to the rest.

We'd like to hear an unambiguous repudiation of the totally unacceptable anti-RLV startup investment advice voiced in the May 8th New Scientist article.

We'd like to see a firm NASA commitment to "X-Ops", supporting interested startups in proving out and refining their low-cost launch approaches via low-cost subscale flight demonstrations on NASA's dime, in order to get them to the point where they are unmistakeably ready to raise commercial funds to develop full-scale commercial vehicles on an acceptable commercial timescale.

Under those circumstances, we would find it appropriate to support a minimal-investment approach to guaranteeing Shuttle's NASA-unique missions, and to support a moderate level of investment in getting the various "Spaceliner 100" technologies closer to ready for prime time - we note that the proposed RBCC engine in particular has huge remaining unknowns in terms of weight, cost, and speed range, and much work needs to be done before any Trailblazer-class (~$500m) flight vehicle program is appropriate. In other words, "show us the engine!" - given X-33's develop-a-whole-new-engine problems, this should go without saying, but it apparently doesn't.

We can understand why there might be disillusion with reusable rockets at top levels in NASA, given the reluctance of the post- consolidation aerospace majors to compete with themselves by commiting significant resources, and given the NASA managerial-level cluelessness in efforts to date. But stomping the startups in an effort to fund NASP II is not the answer.

Give the startups a real chance now - tight funding. tight schedule, tight accounting, but minimal engineering elbow-joggling - and in three years, we'll know what's really possible.

Stick with business as usual, and sooner or later the country will realize what damage NASA is doing, and will act appropriately.

Space Access Society's sole purpose is to promote radical reductions in the cost of reaching space. You may redistribute this Update in any medium you choose, as long as you do it unedited in its entirety.

Space Access Society http://www.space-access.org space.access@space-access.org

"Reach low orbit and you're halfway to anywhere in the Solar System" - Robert A.Heinlein

Space Access Society www.space-access.org;

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Part of the PR problem is that alot of folkas are down on technology companies and dot coms. Heck in some quarters, I wouldn't be surprised if the parents of a dot-commer would have preferred their child being a drug pusher.

Actually, all of this iss just part of the the Internet crash. It is possible to continue to grow in this sort of environment, but I suspect that the Internet business is going to keep drying up for a while.

This means you need for in your corner on your payroll who are as skilled as sales geeks as you are at be programmers, etc.

When you looks at this, the employment ratios go something like - one third hard core production types, coders, QA, etc. - one third admin and infra structure folks, including bean counters, floor sweepers, MIS, etc - one third marketing and sales geeks - Marketing is only there to generate leads for sales, etc. so don't shoot yourself in the foot.

Statistics go monthly in most brick and mortar places. For better reaction time, get weekly stats, and then note the trends. This way, if the shit hits the fan in the middle of the month, you see the peak and can handle quicker. Got to watch the single to noise ratio because of the things fluctuate. A running average for the one 4 weeks preceeding the current date might be better.

Note: Marketing geeks should get bonuses based on number of column inches of press/ seconds of air time, with circulation taken into account.

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Can you imagine being dragged away for hate crimes against the Chinese government because of you criticism of them.

This is a really bad idea, because it gives everyone sovereignity over everyone else. The Absurdity of it is mind boggling, and it is ripe for abuse.

1984 never looked so good. We got to start writing snail mail now folks.

While the idea of a world government could be made to work in some way, This is NOT the way to achieve it. It is a stupid as a way to achieve it as is possible. This keeps up, and I'll start praying for an asteroid.

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(In response to a comment modded down as off topic.)

For those who didn't notice, the hardware spec is as printed in ZDNet, the well known pro Microsoft rag. Their headline is: Future perfect: Microsoft's spec for your next PC.

Now I am just passing on what this pro MS rag has said, and hope they have done their research correctly. If they got it wrong, then please dump of ZDNet.

In any case, it is the dream of MS to get people back on the treadmill of buying on the regular upgrade plan.

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Everyone should look at the hardware spec of the machine that Microsft wants for XP, carefully! This is important to the bigger picture

One Thing that is very interesing is that "The system does not allow end-user access to expansion bus cards. This means users will no longer routinely open their PCs to add peripherals."

Essentially, this spec is an attempt to give the person everything that they need, and therefore will never want for anything else. The ultimate all in one solution.

I get the picture that MS wants to somehow do for the hardware market what they have done for the software market, in the sense of for example, the software bloat in Word. "Give them all of the features they could possibly want".

Somehow I do not think that many of the folks around here are going to buy this solution. The XP Box is essentially a non-upgradable consumer box, like a VCR.

I don't know how this is going to play in the bigger market.

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mm, if you ask me, IE won the browser wars despite that Active desktop shit. I don't know anyone that uses it. It's completely irrelevant in any sort of "browser wars" discussion. While Microsoft may have thought they'd 'win' by making the desktop more like a web browser, they actually won be producing a stable, fast product more standards compliant than anything else at the time.

Just to let you know, I did the following.

I went to www.98lite.net, and downloaded their IEradicator program. This removes IE from win 9x, including win 98 and Millenium.

It works great. And guess what. Netscape is 5 times faster, and is 5 times more stable.

Now tell me that MS would never screw over the competition in their code. All this does is to make me more angry an MS.

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One can only hope that the balkanization of the internet contributes to the balkanization of the OS market. This would contribute to the growth of all of the small time players.

Although this has it's downside as well.

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The home page of the European Commission is here

The home page of the Information Society is here

Try to find a link to the actual full legislative text however.

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I don't think China is near foolish enough to try to go nuclear.

Sadly Chinese interests do have control in places like the San Diego shipyards, the Panama Canel, and even in the Bahamas. Given that and covert operations, the potential is there for things to get messy.

Some people speculate that the Chinese military wants a war with the US in a few years, just as a way to grab power and to short circuit certain internal problems due to poor planning of infra structure. Heck the military may want to get nuked just to help handle excess population, crule as that sounds.

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Could it be that they are removing the black box or attempting to temper with it?

Because of security reasons, etc. Military aircraft generally do NOT have black boxes.

Even if the hardware is all busted up and the drives been wiped. There is still alot you can do in data recovery with a government level budget and a lot of time.

Personally, I would have hoped that they were tossing things out the door into the ocean. Salt water is wonderful for electronics

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I can see this.

In a similar story, many many years ago, a USS aircraft carrier (I forget if it was the JFK or the Eisenhower) had a machine shop that was discovered missing. Somehow, during a shipyard period when many renovations were going on, someone had to cut through a wall and found it. It had been built with no doors. Everything was there, still neatly locked away.

For those who cannot imagine this, remember that a ship is built inside the shell one floor at a time. Some compartments typically are only accessible via stairways. So if you do not have the big picture, it is easy to miss a detail if you are a basic welder, or whatever.

Management technology for planning these things has hopefully imporoved to cover problems like this.

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You got to wonder about the priorities here at slash. What is chosen to be posted as news stories is very much part of what builds or destroys this community. Lately it seems to be trending to the very short sighted and shallow.

For example, I know that someone submitted this link from the MIT Tech Review about the REbuilding of the Library of Alexandria (which was one of the biggest and most impressive geek communites of all time). (project link here)The lessons learned from that Library are very very relevant today in our attempts to build a future civilization.

This obviously goes over the heads of the editors, and gets rejected.

But this stuff, isn't even summarized here, or quoted, just everyone go look at it. And feedback suggests that it is basically a high class troll.

This is no way to build a community.

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The US plane was in international airspace on autopilot, the Chinese fighter pilot got cocky and accidentally hit the US plane. The US plane was in distress and landed at the nearest airfield, which was the Chinese base. Seems to me like the Chinese should apologize for the hot dog pilot.

A few extra items that might be relevant.

1) In Chinese culture, an apology inclludes the idea that the version of the story told by the other person is the truth. not yours. this can get sticky, because this is not the viewpoint of apology in the west. In the West, the statement of sorrow is very often separated from the investigation of thetruth of the matter
2)The internal politics of China in this are very important. There has been speculation in the fringe press that this incident was set up by the Chinese Military for their own goals. While this is speculation, if true, this leaves them (the Chines Military) with a win/win situation. If the USA backs down, then they win in the international arena. If the USA does not back down then The Military gets to strengthen their position inside China.

The road out of this mess would be delicate, and maybe requires some technology, etc. as follows:

1) A video/computer simulation of the accident, as believed to have happened, showing and highlighting the obvious manueverability (sp?) of the jet vs the prop plane, and the difficulty of controlling the prop plane when the jet wash hits the props. Demonstrate how the jet can throws the prop plane out of control, and what happens when the jet gets too close.
2)Praise the obvious bravery of the Chinese pilot in the pursuit of patriotism for his homeland. Note that what he probably wanted to do was something that should be reserved for the mosty highly skilled pilots. The Pilot was obviously trying to intimidate the American plane, and throw the American plane out of control.
3) We can say something like "The american pilot was not skilled enough to keep control of his aircraft when it was upset and disrupted by the suprisingly powerful engines of the Chinese Jets nearby, and we will work on improving the skill of our pilots.

ecetera. We build up the strength of the Chinese military in the PR lines.

Of course, if other means are needed, then planning would have to work to take everyone by surprise, instead of giving everyone and their grandmother time to prepare a defense, increasing casualties, etc.

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IE won the browser wars despite that Active desktop shit. I don't know anyone that uses it. It's completely irrelevant in any sort of "browser wars" discussion. While Microsoft may have thought they'd 'win' by making the desktop more like a web browser, they actually won be producing a stable, fast product more standards compliant than anything else at the time.

the Active desktop has been renamed, and is coming back in all sorts of user freindly features in the future. Just watch>

IE on an open fair market is one thing. Fine. Forcing me to use it, and blocking out the competition I suppose is superior marketing, And making it damn hard to remove is another.

The proof in the pudding are products like 98Lite that remove Internet Explorer from windows, and result in faster and more stable systems. Rememeber, MS has testified in court that not only was this impossible, but that doing this would destroy windows.

ha. nice try

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Yeah, the nerve of those people.... They replaced netscape, still one of the dodgiest computer products ever released, with a more stable, more powerful, faster, easier to use alternative.... meanwhile netscape rested on their laurels.... yeah, it must have been dirty tricks... "Oh but they gave it away for free!" - you bastards! Or maybe give away the razor (ie) and make money on the blades (iis)?

The major primary complaint I have had with MS is the pervasion of inferior technology by means of superior marketing. Check Out my blurb on Boiling Frogs.

You comment on giving away the razor and making money on the blades is flawed, because for shear quantity, IE outnumbers iis. So to be precise, If they were giving away the razor and making money on the blades, they should be giving away iis, and selling IE at 5 or 10 bucks a pop. This is not the place to review the wonderful emails and duplicitious testimony of MS at the anti trust trial. "We gotta integrate IE into Windows because we'll never win otherwise"

In other words, they couldn't win on the merits of the program. So they HAD to win by other means. This was well in advance of IE 5. Are you still Enthusiastically using the ActiveX desktop?

I used to like Microsoft, really. but I got ticked off everytime they did something that that tried to lock me into their system. Maybe you like handcuffs.

"No these are not handcuffs, they are golden bracelets, really!"

ha

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He is not one to sugarcoat his criticisms. "Every time I use the Web I am reminded why I hate Microsoft," he wrote in a recent DaveNet posting. "What could have been a lovely competitive space, overseen and supported by a statesman-like Microsoft, turned into a cesspool of lawyers and dirty tricks.

While I wouldn't be so complementary to MS (short on coffee today) this sums it up nicely.

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Script kiddies hacking the air conditioner, the stereo system, etc?

It reeminds of of that Babylon 5 Episode where Molari angered someone he should not have, and wound up having his quarters and his life ruined not by a virus, but by a holodemon program.

The Lurker's Guide has this:

Londo is in his quarters, having considerable difficulty, when Vir enters. Londo explains that a holodemon has possessed his data system. It is eating up files, records, and buying stocks he would never purchase for himself, in addition to playing painful Narn opera continually. Vir suggests that Londo apologize. Londo refuses at first, but when his computer suddenly reports that he is the new owner of 500,000 shares of Fireflies Incorporated, then blacks out the entire room, Londo agrees.

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There is a delicious paranoia that goes with this territory. This paranois infects not only the user, but law enforcement as well.

I am not a psych, and I am sure I would not want to be. But in this case, a few novel ideas might be applicable.

To start from a place that is familiar: We know about paranoia, and we know about hypochondria. and so I made the leap to the idea of something that could be called paranoid hypochondria, which would be a disease where the person is constantly seeing diseases in others. This disease would be very dangerous to have in doctors and shrinks, etc., since whoever checks them?

The next step would be a form of paranoia where a person sees criminality constantly popping up in others, even when inappropriate. This would be dangerous in law enforcement, in legislators, erc.

The implications for human rights are easy enough to work out.

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But if you need something catchy? Microsoft .NET is the Next Chernobyl. Actually I am sure that on thier timeline. someplace down the line 25 to 50 years out, they have something on the chart called the Microsoft Planet, complete with Microsoft govermental services, military services, etc.

it might be unreal, but you got to make plans to cover the possibillities.

:)

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Random thought: how long before Trivial Pursuit comes out with an edition specializing in technology/computer/internet subjects?

Well, there is this User Friendly cartoon sequence on Geek Jeopardy

"I'll tale Obscure Modem Commands for 300, Alex"

(there are several of these in the following week or so of cartoons)

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