Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Domains

Domain: saao.ac.za

Stories and comments across the archive that link to saao.ac.za.

Comments · 8

  1. Re:While... by Hosiah · · Score: 1 · on How Microsoft Takes a Name
    using Windows as part of his product name, which has been ruled several times to be Microsoft's trademark

    By that logic, since MIT created the X-Windows system in 1984: http://www.saao.ac.za/unix/node66.html
    Gates cannot hold claim to the word at all, and in fact is violating MIT's rights.

  2. 404 errors, Here is a better link: by qualico · · Score: 4, Interesting · on SALT Telescope First Light

    Getting 404 errors on the main page when trying to view the images?
    Alternatively, they can be viewed here:

    http://www.saao.ac.za/news/salt_light.html

    Using, my Celestron 9.25" last night here in the north, sure gives you an appreciation of these images and what bigger light buckets nets you.

    Showed my wife M57, (Ring Nebula), for the first time.
    Albiet, it was washed and faint, its a worthy experience to see things with your "God's Eye".

    Can anyone here, who has toured a large telescope, comment on how the captured images compare to the live views?

  3. a nice description of the telescopes by twitter · · Score: 3, Informative · on Origin of Cosmic Rays Revealed

    here. They even have a picture.

  4. Re:1882 and 1915 by iggymanz · · Score: 4, Informative · on The Speed Of Gravity Revealed

    Actually, most (537 arc seconds per century) of the precession is explainable by Newtonian mechanics as perturbations caused by the other planets, Einstein did in fact use propogation velocity of gravity as 300,000,000 m/s to predict an extra precession of about 45 arc seconds per century. The "classical" component is the limit of gravitic influence propogating at infinite velocity.

    Some mention of Newcomb's observations and observed/expected precession here

  5. Re:Must have been by Black+Aardvark+House · · Score: 1 · on Aurora Australis Not Borealis

    Yes, you can see them in South Africa.

  6. Re:Statistics lie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on LindowsOS.com Email Lists Collected For MS Suit

    1. Windows 2000 was actually released to OEM's in 1999. It didn't "barely make it."

    2. Subjectively true. I'm sure that some people found it useful. Your assertion here, even if it was remotely relevant, wouldn't really hold up in court.

    3. MIT started the 'Athena Project' that would later become known as the X Windowing System in 1984. Check here.

    4. Again, only subjectively true. Courts deal with facts, not opinions.

    Put it all together: You make 1 100% false claim, you exaggerate another, and you make two subjective assertions that are nothing more than opinion. Now... Of your four 'facts', only one is even remotely relevant to the question of a pre-existing product name with the designation 'Windows', that being #3. Unfortunately, you basically just made some stuff up for that and you're now being called on it.

    You dislike MS? You think their business practices suck? You want free software to succeed? I think most people will agre that you can best serve these goals by shutting your LYING, OPINIONATED, JUVENILE PIE-HOLE. With your stupidity, you incite hatred from technologists and you weaken OUR (very real) claims with your yip-yip-yipping.

    Thank you. Thank you for helping make slashdot look like a bunch of stupid, foaming-at-the-mouth assholes.

  7. What this is actually testing... by hawicz · · Score: 1 · on Syscall Speed On Linux And Windows
    I tried the test program on an Athlon/850 with PC100 ram, running NetBSD. The measurment with the gettimeofday() calls was around 6 usec/call. Replacing the gettimeofday() call with a getpid() call resulted in a time of &lt 0.35 usec/call. The main reason for this is because the gettimeofday call (under *BSD at least) needs to copy the resulting time out to the user buffer. I get a similar drop in call time if I replace the arguments to gettimeofday with NULL (causing the syscall to do almost nothing).
    Of course, since the purpose of the time-timers.cpp program is to time the timing routine, we want to time the actual overhead, including the user/kernel space copy (and the overhead of the function call),

    I'm not sure why Linux is so much faster on the gettimeofday() call. I'm guessing it perhaps can retrieve the time directly into the final buffer? Or perhaps it has a more efficient way to copyout the data?
    Then again, maybe NetBSD uses a different way to get the time. When gettimeofday is called, NetBSD does a few I/O accesses to the timer chip (Intel 8253) and returns the result of that. What does Linux do? (I don't have a copy of the linux source handy)

    eric

  8. why not in space? by Frederic54 · · Score: 1 · on Ask Chris McKinstry About Giant Telescopes, Etc.

    i think even if you spend 1 billion $ for a 100m aperture telescope on earth, that a e.g. 20m telescope in orbit will be better. Also i think that there's too much "competition" in the huge telescope market, we've got the GTC, the LBT, the SALT, the VISTA, the LAMOST, the DMT, the CELT, the XLT, the OWL, the LSST, the GSMT, the MAXAT, the ELT. Why? why not make only one bigger/better on earth, or even in space? the 2.4m HST proved the bettest scope is in space.
    --
    BeDevId 15453 - Download BeOS R5 Lite free!