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NASA doing development with X-33 and X-34. The X-33 will be flying this year. It's a test ship, so will not be reaching orbit.

I predict that shortly after Transmeta makes any announcement, the skies will grow dark.

e0102electricbluet.jpg

Object Name: E0102-72
Object Category: Supernova Remnant
Coordinates: (J2000) Right Ascension 01h04m02s Declination -72d01m56s
Constellation: Tucana (Tuc)

Object Description: E0102-72 is a supernova remnant in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. This galaxy is 190,000 light years from Earth. E0102 -72, which is approximately a thousand years old, is believed to have resulted from the explosion of a massive star. Stretching across forty light years of space, the multi-million degree source resembles a flaming cosmic wheel. Astronomer's Notebook: ACIS detector

PHOTO CREDIT: Chandra X-ray Image

Check out the NASA site.

However, life has been discovered in active volcanoes on earth, so who knows.

(RANT)
Not that I don't like beer, or anything, but I submitted a great story this afternoon about how the Galileo spacecraft found very strong evidence for a Liquid water Ocean under the crust of Europa. And this gets posted instead... in the science section?! Maybe in the "Laugh its funny section," but the freaking science section... that and the Yahoo story isn't even that long... sure it point to a cool simulation page, but the news about the liquid ocean on the Jovian Moon story has far more information... being a fscking science story and everything
Arg, Slashdot sure does suck.. glad there is the Post Anonymously button so the silly karma points don't go down.
(/RANT)

FYI, the Nasa Galileo homepage is http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov/

FYI, the Nasa Galileo homepage is http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov/

and Detailed scientific information .

and Detailed scientific information .

and Detailed scientific information.

and Detailed scientific information.

and Detailed scientific information.

and Detailed scientific information.

sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/e clipse.html

and Detailed scientific information.

and Detailed scientific information.

and Detailed scientific information.

and Detailed scientific information.

unfortunately, that seems the be the closest (and soonest) before 2050


but on 23Sept2071 there's one thru baja somewhere

i got this data from http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.g ov/eclipse/SEmap/SENorAm.html

They ranged from Cluster Driver, Gigabits Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, 10Mb Ethernet, Token Ring, CardBus, PCMCIA, PCI, ISA network cards.

This one dream maintainer of multiple Linux software drivers that I haven't seen any equals in a long time.

I marvel and help tested the Intel EtherExpress 100+ Pro. This card is surely to be in the next shootout for maximum small (64b) and large (1500b) packet throughput utilization.

Gotta start testing SMP/EEPRO100+!

They ranged from Cluster Driver, Gigabits Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, 10Mb Ethernet, Token Ring, CardBus, PCMCIA, PCI, ISA network cards.

This one dream maintainer of multiple Linux software drivers that I haven't seen any equals in a long time.

I marvel and help tested the Intel EtherExpress 100+ Pro. This card is surely to be in the next shootout for maximum small (64b) and large (1500b) packet throughput utilization.

Gotta start testing SMP/EEPRO100+!

They ranged from Cluster Driver, Gigabits Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, 10Mb Ethernet, Token Ring, CardBus, PCMCIA, PCI, ISA network cards.

This one dream maintainer of multiple Linux software drivers that I haven't seen any equals in a long time.

I marvel and help tested the Intel EtherExpress 100+ Pro. This card is surely to be in the next shootout for maximum small (64b) and large (1500b) packet throughput utilization.

Gotta start testing SMP/EEPRO100+!

They ranged from Cluster Driver, Gigabits Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, 10Mb Ethernet, Token Ring, CardBus, PCMCIA, PCI, ISA network cards.

This one dream maintainer of multiple Linux software drivers that I haven't seen any equals in a long time.

I marvel and help tested the Intel EtherExpress 100+ Pro. This card is surely to be in the next shootout for maximum small (64b) and large (1500b) packet throughput utilization.

Gotta start testing SMP/EEPRO100+!

They ranged from Cluster Driver, Gigabits Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, 10Mb Ethernet, Token Ring, CardBus, PCMCIA, PCI, ISA network cards.

This one dream maintainer of multiple Linux software drivers that I haven't seen any equals in a long time.

I marvel and help tested the Intel EtherExpress 100+ Pro. This card is surely to be in the next shootout for maximum small (64b) and large (1500b) packet throughput utilization.

Gotta start testing SMP/EEPRO100+!

Not quite. According to http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/ds 2/tech/tech.html, the probes communicate with Mars Global Surveyor in orbit. No communications link with the lander is needed. Also, I believe the big radio telescopes at Stanford are powerful enough to hear radio signals at least from the lander. Anyway, since MGS heard nothing, the conclusion is that all three failed. Since a triple failure is very very remote, it would seem to me that a failure before separation is much more likely. This "there's a big hole there" theory doesn't scan quite right...

There have been many studies of the technical feasibility of this idea. A good place to start is
http://impact.arc.nasa.gov/

Cruise stage separation failure explains what we've seen. The DS2 probes, intended to impact and penetrate the surface, also failed to communicate to Mars Orbiter. What could cause both the Lander and both DS2s to fail?

After the last communication with the craft, it was supposed to rotate for reentry, and the cruise stage (carrying the interplanetary solar array and thrusters) would separate from the Lander. The DS2 probes were on the cruise stage.

If the cruise stage did not separate, the DS2 probes and the Lander were destroyed. Single point of failure, whatever the reason for the failure. It explains why the Lander and the two DS2 probes failed.

1. JPL knew about the risks all along, and never told anyone about them.

2. JPL didn't know about the risks (like they should have), and are now trying to cover their butts by saying, "Hey, it's not our fault! It's impossible to land anything safely on that planet!"

3. JPL never said that they had the landing site pinpointed to an exact spot, and never guaranteed that the site was as flat as a billiard table.

Come on guys, grow up and admit that you screwed up. Don't apologize, just don't do it again.

BTW, this was one of NASA's new "low"-cost missions. According to them, the cost of two spacecraft is capped at $184M. Compare to, what was it, a billion dollars for Viking in the '70s? Given the immaturity of the technology, I think this is prudent.

Disclaimer: Currently, none of my tax dollars are paying for these particular missions. I am chipping in for the space station, however.
--

I'm just glad we have another century of using '00' through '99' for the year...

In this system, spacecraft contact session ids are based on spacegraft id, ground station id, date and time. The date part uses - you guessed it - a two digit year. Makes me wanna cry...

I'm just glad we have another century of using '00' through '99' for the year...

In this system, spacecraft contact session ids are based on spacegraft id, ground station id, date and time. The date part uses - you guessed it - a two digit year. Makes me wanna cry...

It seems I remember something about either address allocation having to be free, or the actual transit over the network...I'm not sure which, and I can't find any information on it right now, but I thought either way, it'd be of particular interest with regards to (and possibly opposition of) your idea of micropayments for bandwidth and such.

I'll try to find out some more info on this; anyone know much else about it?

I do, however, know for a fact that you're quite a bit more than wrong about the lack of services over the IPv6 network. They are plentiful, for the users and developers using the current testbed (aka the 6bone). DHIS is one of many free providers of IPv6 testing address allocation, Freenet6 is another. And there are numerous IPv6 capable sites, including FreeBSD's site, portions of Microsoft's site, NASA...

If you check out the main IPv6 sites, such as the 6bone, IPv6.org, IPv6Forum, and a whole lot of others, you'll find the network is quite extensive. Work is being done quite a bit, and it's more than just talk.

JPL's web pages on DS1 are pretty detailed. Lots of interesting stuff here, especially the Mission Logs (latest one here) written with reasonable detail and considerable humor by Marc Rayman (quoted in the CNN article).

Particularly cool are pictures of the ion propulsion system at work!

--

JPL's web pages on DS1 are pretty detailed. Lots of interesting stuff here, especially the Mission Logs (latest one here) written with reasonable detail and considerable humor by Marc Rayman (quoted in the CNN article).

Particularly cool are pictures of the ion propulsion system at work!

--

JPL's web pages on DS1 are pretty detailed. Lots of interesting stuff here, especially the Mission Logs (latest one here) written with reasonable detail and considerable humor by Marc Rayman (quoted in the CNN article).

Particularly cool are pictures of the ion propulsion system at work!

--

JPL's web pages on DS1 are pretty detailed. Lots of interesting stuff here, especially the Mission Logs (latest one here) written with reasonable detail and considerable humor by Marc Rayman (quoted in the CNN article).

Particularly cool are pictures of the ion propulsion system at work!

--

Tu-144 was not a hastily assembled "Concordski" by any stretch of imagination, and reflected considerable Soviet experties on building experimental high-speed strategic bombers and huge fighter aircraft in the sixties, like the Sukhoi S-100 and Tupolev Tu-128. Accidents can happen in aviation at any time. Tu-144 went on to fly in Aeroflot service in the 1970s.

The fact that Tu-144 was a sound design has been recently verified by NASA's use of the Tu-144 as a testbed for 21st century US supersonic transport aircraft. The link is here. The Tu-144LL is flying today for NASA service, and $350 millions of taxpayer money is used for this project.
--

BluetoothCentral.com
A site for everything Bluetooth. Coming in January 2000.

If I recall correctly the History Channel show I saw on the Tu-144, there is no proof that its failure had any relationship to unstable design. To this day a number of engineers from around the world maintain to this day that its design (though stolen from the Anglo-French group) was improved upon to the point that it was superior to Concorde. The cause of the accident seems to be disputed, but it seems to be a tossup between pilot error (the pilot putting the plane in a position no commercial airliner would ever hold up to [the 144 made it further in than the rest would've]) or the interference of a mirage fighter put in the air by France. Tu-144s are still flown today, admittedly not widely (but neither are Concordes) in Russia, with a flawless safety record.

More info on the Tu-144 "Konkordsky":
The 144LL Initiative
More 144LL
Tu 144 specs
A guide to Russian Airplanes

If I recall correctly the History Channel show I saw on the Tu-144, there is no proof that its failure had any relationship to unstable design. To this day a number of engineers from around the world maintain to this day that its design (though stolen from the Anglo-French group) was improved upon to the point that it was superior to Concorde. The cause of the accident seems to be disputed, but it seems to be a tossup between pilot error (the pilot putting the plane in a position no commercial airliner would ever hold up to [the 144 made it further in than the rest would've]) or the interference of a mirage fighter put in the air by France. Tu-144s are still flown today, admittedly not widely (but neither are Concordes) in Russia, with a flawless safety record.

More info on the Tu-144 "Konkordsky":
The 144LL Initiative
More 144LL
Tu 144 specs
A guide to Russian Airplanes

While I realize that "Top-n"-style lists like this are subjective, I find it amusing that the Earth Science section mentioned the (relatively insignificant) fact that people sweated out tornadoes in concrete rooms, while ignoring the launches of the Landsat 7 and TERRA spacecraft. The Landsat 7 spacecraft's Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus instrument and the TERRA spacecraft's vast array of instruments will be invaluable to Earth scientists studying climate change, urban sprawl, deforestation, drought, famine prediction, and dozens of other scientific disciplines.

I'm not saying that any of the items listed in the review are not noteworthy; I'm just pointing out that the list does not appear to be particularly exhaustive.

While I realize that "Top-n"-style lists like this are subjective, I find it amusing that the Earth Science section mentioned the (relatively insignificant) fact that people sweated out tornadoes in concrete rooms, while ignoring the launches of the Landsat 7 and TERRA spacecraft. The Landsat 7 spacecraft's Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus instrument and the TERRA spacecraft's vast array of instruments will be invaluable to Earth scientists studying climate change, urban sprawl, deforestation, drought, famine prediction, and dozens of other scientific disciplines.

I'm not saying that any of the items listed in the review are not noteworthy; I'm just pointing out that the list does not appear to be particularly exhaustive.

While I realize that "Top-n"-style lists like this are subjective, I find it amusing that the Earth Science section mentioned the (relatively insignificant) fact that people sweated out tornadoes in concrete rooms, while ignoring the launches of the Landsat 7 and TERRA spacecraft. The Landsat 7 spacecraft's Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus instrument and the TERRA spacecraft's vast array of instruments will be invaluable to Earth scientists studying climate change, urban sprawl, deforestation, drought, famine prediction, and dozens of other scientific disciplines.

I'm not saying that any of the items listed in the review are not noteworthy; I'm just pointing out that the list does not appear to be particularly exhaustive.

Yes, this is a double standard. Let's examine why.

First, the Melissa virus is possible due to the dominance of one specific piece of software on the average users desktop. The only open source equivalent to this kind of dominance -- that I know of -- is sendmail. It is not the same for a variety of reasons, but let's continue on for the sake of discussion.

Compare the closest open source equivalent "virus" -- again, that I know of -- that happened with sendmail to the Melissa-Macro Virus. You will notice two interesting things. First, the CERT advisory for Melissa states: "This macro virus is not known to exploit any new vulnerabilities." Second, note the options they give for correction: block the mail, utilize virus scanners, and encourage users to disable Word macros. The free software solution would be to fix the problem at the source -- pun intended. In a free software environment the option to: fix the problem, is available whereas in a closed source solution it is not. You have to wait for company X to fix the problem for you, and in the mean time, get by with blocking, anti-virii programs and the like. Since this problem is not new and any user that buys Microsoft products has to wait for them to deign to fix it, it would seem that there is a powerful argument for some culpability on Microsoft's part.

There are of course the issues that other people have mentioned here: no warranty, free software is not a "product" sold by a business (let us remember companies like Red Hat make money off the service not the CD), etc. However, I think this is the central point. They have different standards because they are not analagous. You are not comparing like things.

Or to put it another way: Sure, a "thief" is responsible for his own actions. However, if I entrust the security of my home to some company, it seems quite reasonable to say that if someone steals something because that company left my door open, the company is also at fault.

For free software, you use it with the understanding that you are not entrusting anything to anyone so the same standard does not apply.

Cheers.

According to the mission website the new computer has advanced radition protection. The radiation in space will eventually destroy the computer. They replaced it with a newer computer that was designed to have a longer life span. Additionally the new computer has six times as much memory and three times as much processor speed. The new processor speed and memory will be used to give them more accuracy in the pointing of the spacecraft.

Let me counter-challenge: can you provide evidence that exposing minors to pornography is beneficial to minors and/or society?

What a bizarre question. I sure can't answer it, because I must admit, I don't have a shred of evidence that might suggest that it is beneficial to minors and/or society.

I also cannot provide any evidence that things like Dilbert or Astronomy Picture of the Day are beneficial to minors or society. Are you suggesting that information should be restricted until after it has been studied (by someone -- who?) and shown to be beneficial to minors and/or society?

That would rule out just about every form of entertainment!

I remember something about a 15-year-old coming up with an encryption system a few months or years ago (hard to keep track of Internet time). Imagine if someone had decided that the girl didn't need information about crypto, since there wasn't any evidence that crypto research could benefit her. If you have reason to believe that something can be harmful, then perhaps it's justifiable to steer around it. But if you simply lack the imagination to see something's value, and fence it off since it is "useless" then that's a travesty.

Sorry, but your counter-challenge is just ridiculous.

Oh.. just one more gripe. Whether something is beneficial or harmful to society, it about one five billionth as important as whether it is beneficial or harmful to the individual. So let's just leave the issue of "beneficial to society" out of it. Society belongs to us and it is our slave, not the other way around. No human being should ever hate themselves and degrade themselves so much, as to deign to worry about what might happen to society.

"Do I dare disturb the universe?" -- J. Alfred Prufrock, loser extraordinaire

For a nice explanation of lunar phases, see here .

Under the link to the crew is a list of what they're having to eat. It seems that Curtis Brown is having Rehydratable Shrimp Cocktails for both lunch and dinner today! Must be nice. :)

After reading these menus, I'm pretty hungry... I think I'll go grab a donut. :^)

the nearest i've seen to a new RLV would be the X-33 project, which is a half-scale, suborbital demo of an as-yet-unbuilt RLV that could be a great thing if it ever flies. AFAICT it's running several months behind schedule - first launch was supposed to be this year, and the thing is still being built.

further out-there ideas seem to be coming mostly out of the Space Transportation Program, which has some wild pipedreams and not enough flying prototypes for my taste. or, in the private sector, there's the X-Prize; i'll let you people look into that one for yourselves, i like their idea too much to advocate it in public...

the nearest i've seen to a new RLV would be the X-33 project, which is a half-scale, suborbital demo of an as-yet-unbuilt RLV that could be a great thing if it ever flies. AFAICT it's running several months behind schedule - first launch was supposed to be this year, and the thing is still being built.

further out-there ideas seem to be coming mostly out of the Space Transportation Program, which has some wild pipedreams and not enough flying prototypes for my taste. or, in the private sector, there's the X-Prize; i'll let you people look into that one for yourselves, i like their idea too much to advocate it in public...

the nearest i've seen to a new RLV would be the X-33 project, which is a half-scale, suborbital demo of an as-yet-unbuilt RLV that could be a great thing if it ever flies. AFAICT it's running several months behind schedule - first launch was supposed to be this year, and the thing is still being built.

further out-there ideas seem to be coming mostly out of the Space Transportation Program, which has some wild pipedreams and not enough flying prototypes for my taste. or, in the private sector, there's the X-Prize; i'll let you people look into that one for yourselves, i like their idea too much to advocate it in public...

Terra did not lauch on the 16th; I was in an auditorium at Goddard (I'm contracting at TRW on EDOS, the EOS Data and Operations System) watching the launch attempt on Thursday. They had to delay to get a glider out of the airspace (!), then the lauch was cancelled at the last minute; I think they failed to get an expected signal from the spacecraft indicting it was powered up. Whole bunch of disappointed people, let me tell you.

They rescheduled to Saturday (the 18th), and apparently it's up.

Terra is the first of the EOS satellites, with several instruments designed to gather information about global climate change (global warming, pollution, cloud cover, and so o.) and large-scale weather patterns. It's the satellite formerly known as AM-1, "AM" because it's in a polar sun-synchronous orbit that crosses the equator in the morning when conditions over land are clearest. Next to lauch will be Aqua (nee PM-1), which crosses in the afternoon for observations over water.