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"EDITORS" OF SLASHDOT: YOU MAKE ME SICK...

Honestly, you realy do make me sick.

I started reading slashdot in 1997; it was a fine horse not broken-in.

Then the evil trolls arrived -- in the form of bad editors.

The editors started posting bad information, and it's not been the same ever since.

Now, due to bad moderation and imbalances in The Force (TM), none know who truly is a troll.

In an unbalanced world, where Niggers are white and whites are niggers, culture assimilates bad traits.

Then came Kathleen...Fent. Goddamn bitch, give us back our editor!

CmdrTaco Rob, Stop fucking with pussy and return to the communications node!

You must do as I say, because I... am... your father!

"EDITORS" OF SLASHDOT: YOU MAKE ME SICK...

Honestly, you realy do make me sick.

I started reading slashdot in 1997; it was a fine horse not broken-in.

Then the evil trolls arrived -- in the form of bad editors.

The editors started posting bad information, and it's not been the same ever since.

Now, due to bad moderation and imbalances in The Force (TM), none know who truly is a troll.

In an unbalanced world, where Niggers are white and whites are niggers, culture assimilates bad traits.

Then came Kathleen...Fent. Goddamn bitch, give us back our editor!

CmdrTaco Rob, Stop fucking with pussy and return to the communications node!

You must do as I say, because I... am... your father!

"EDITORS" OF SLASHDOT: YOU MAKE ME SICK...

Honestly, you realy do make me sick.

I started reading slashdot in 1997; it was a fine horse not broken-in.

Then the evil trolls arrived -- in the form of bad editors.

The editors started posting bad information, and it's not been the same ever since.

Now, due to bad moderation and imbalances in The Force (TM), none know who truly is a troll.

In an unbalanced world, where Niggers are white and whites are niggers, culture assimilates bad traits.

Then came Kathleen...Fent. Goddamn bitch, give us back our editor!

CmdrTaco Rob, Stop fucking with pussy and return to the communications node!

You must do as I say, because I... am... your father!

GUI screenshots.
http://www.aci.com.pl/mwichary/guidebook/interface s

Englebart's famous 1968 demo.
http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/1968Demo.html

Acorn Archimedes GUI
http://homepage.tinet.ie/~lrtc/computers/acorn_ro/ acorn/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A225785

Knowledge Navigator.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_navigator

Apple II GS
http://applemuseum.bott.org/sections/computers/IIg s.html

BeBox
http://www.bebox.nu/history.php

8-1/2: The Plan 9 Window system
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/8%BD/8%BD.pdf

Genera
http://www.geocities.com/mparker762/toys.html

Video Interviews of Early Pioneers
http://www.invisiblerevolution.net/

GUI News
http://interfacelift.com/news/

ZUI's
http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/piccolo/applications/in dex.shtml

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The difference between stuff like google maps, and that sort of data (from the Quickbird or Ikonos satellites, with resolutions better than a meter) and MERIS (the instrument used for GLOBCOVER) or MODIS (the NASA equivalent. There before MODIS, slightly lower resolution, but you can get the data for the FTP site without the hassles you have to go through to get MERIS data. But I rant...) have poorer spatial resolution (MERIS full resolution is 300m, and MODIS is 500m), but better spectral and temporal sampling.

In other words, the stuff often available from the very high resolution sensors is mostly equivalent to aerial photography (albeit from a bit higher up than your normal plane): RGB and a panchromatic image. In the case of MERIS and MODIS (and NOAA's AVHRR, Landsat, etc) you do get the extra spectral information which helps to improve classifications and do all sorts of funky other things. GLOBCOVER thus needs to be compared with stuff like this rather than with photogrammetric maps.

I believe that, politically, GLOBCOVER is just an ESA posterboy to show MERIS off. While MERIS is a nice instrument (very nice indeed), it's just an improved MODIS, and ESA seems worried that few people are making operational use of MERIS. This has a number of reasons. In many cases, environmental monitoring and modelling communities are encumbered by the lack of high level products (they are given a set of images and told: try your best to estimate the fraction of photosynthetically absorbed radiation). MODIS solves this by actually making these interesting measurement available.

That was a bit of a rant, wasn't it?

http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/photomesa/

"PhotoMesa is a zoomable image browser. It allows the user to view multiple directories of images in a zoomable environment, and uses a set of simple navigation mechanisms to move through the space of images. It also supports grouping of images by metadata available from the file system. It requires only a set of images on disk, and does not require the user to add any metadata, or manipulate the images at all before browsing, thus making it easy to get started with existing images."

I'll not only second (or third or fourth) gnuplot, but will give a link to a tutorial I gave on it a little while ago.
unix plotting tutorial

CODEX is a package that seems to provide what you want. It took some digging, though. I'd add it to Freshmeat, but this looks too much like a one-off project, rather than something being sustained.

I had a really good software engineering class but the book was more of a reference guide. The professor only used selected parts he liked from it. Instead of using a local university, go to the software engineering sites for major universities with good programs. There tends to be quite a bit of information there. For instance: http://doubletap.cs.umd.edu/~sandro/cmsc435new/htm l/index.php

Notice this thread is referenced in the news section :)

9 years too long? i don't think so. on what grounds would they win? did the people who bought penis enlargement pills give good feedback? when the law takes effect has no merit, he was sending 10 mil emails a day. just multiply that by 2 weeks.

38 million people worldwide have (or will) buy stuff from email spam -- about 5 million of that figure in the USA alone (http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/ntrs/NTRS_2004.pdf).

The 38 million figure is extrapolated from the 4% value in the above report and applying it to the world online population is estimated to be 945 million (http://www.clickz.com/stats/big_picture/geographi cs/article.php/5911_151151).

For the sticklers, the actual value is about 37.8 million people.

This is why spam WON'T go away because there is a small 4% market of people online who have (or will) buy stuff from spam.

Since the spammers won't stop and the hodgepodge of anti-spam laws in place aren't effective, I just simply block all the spam I get

While people continue to wring their hands over the spam problem here, I will be enjoying a spam-free email box. How about you?

It doesn't exist!

Moti Milgrom proposed MOND:MOdified Newtonian Dynamics, which seems to do a much better job at describing large scale gravitational dynamics than dark matter...I watched the data come in sitting at the console of the VLT, and I also watched Nature reject the paper because alot of careers are riding on dark matter being real...

Piccolo

There are a few things wrong with your statement. First, although generally true that they use the same collar for docking to the ISS, the generic "all manned vehicles" isn't true. NASA has a variety of interfaces, including the Common Berthing Mechanism (CBM) and Manual Berthing Mechanism (MBM) used on the ISS, but these are generally for berthing, not docking. Still, the CBM is an alternate docking mechanism (see for instance Section 5.1.5 of the Alternate Access to Station (AAS) Systems Concept of a Logistics Resupply Service to the ISS). The Russian interface is the Androgynous Peripheral Attachment System (APAS) as part of the Androgynous Peripheral Docking System(APDS). There are two parts to the APDS, passive and active. To convert from the NASA CBM interface to APAS, the ISS has three Pressurized Mating Adaptors (PMA1, 2, and 3). PMA1 has an active APDS because it connects the NASA Node 1 (Unity) to the Russian FGB module, and so isn't used for docking. PMA2 and PMA3 have passive APDS because they are used for docking. (See Section 1.1 of the Procurement Document for the APDS referenced above.)

Since both vehicles dock to the ISS, the shuttle does have an APAS adapter known as the Orbital Docking System (ODS). This is the 'L' shaped connector that attaches to the port at the front of the shuttle bay. It is only attached in missions to the ISS, and the APAS interface is only used for docking to the ISS. It isn't inherently true that all docking operations will be done using an APAS. However, since the only docking currently taking place is with the ISS, this is currently functionally true. It is only an ISS policy, however. The ODS is not installed on Hubble missions.

Furthermore, both the Soyuz and shuttle ODS have the active APDS side (again, see for instance Section 1.1 of the Procurement Document for the APDS above). Neither has the passive side because they are the ones doing the docking. In addition to this, approach and docking to the passive APDS is accomplished using docking cues (targets). (See, for example, Section 5.1.7.3.4.2 of the Interface Definition Document (IDD) for International Space Station (ISS) Visiting Vehicles (VVs). Neither the shuttle ODS nor Soyuz have these docking cues, again because they are the ones doing the docking.

So, I stand by my assertion that it is not as simple as you say. This method needs to be planned ahead with the right adaptors and docking systems developed and carried with them, probably flown on a Detailed Test Objective (DTO) flight, certified and validated. Again, such a system takes years of development.

As far as the orbit, it isn't clear that the Soyuz module or launch rocket are designed to go as far as Hubble. For instance, it appears that the Soyuz used for ISS mission and crew descent is only designed to descend from up to 460 km. The Hubble is at an altutude of about 600 km. So, if you have a reference on your assertion that "The Soyuz can easily reach the Hubble orbit", please forward it. Even better would be one that says it can descend from there. (Reaching it is useless as a rescue vehicle if it can't descend.)

It's not like NASA just missed the idea of using Soyuz, and you amazingly came up with the solution they're looking for. They are very smart you know. You also don't seem to realize that many of us who read Slashdot work for or with NASA (the geek ratio is quite high), so we often have the inside scoop or at least knowledge of what's involved.

There are a few things wrong with your statement. First, although generally true that they use the same collar for docking to the ISS, the generic "all manned vehicles" isn't true. NASA has a variety of interfaces, including the Common Berthing Mechanism (CBM) and Manual Berthing Mechanism (MBM) used on the ISS, but these are generally for berthing, not docking. Still, the CBM is an alternate docking mechanism (see for instance Section 5.1.5 of the Alternate Access to Station (AAS) Systems Concept of a Logistics Resupply Service to the ISS). The Russian interface is the Androgynous Peripheral Attachment System (APAS) as part of the Androgynous Peripheral Docking System(APDS). There are two parts to the APDS, passive and active. To convert from the NASA CBM interface to APAS, the ISS has three Pressurized Mating Adaptors (PMA1, 2, and 3). PMA1 has an active APDS because it connects the NASA Node 1 (Unity) to the Russian FGB module, and so isn't used for docking. PMA2 and PMA3 have passive APDS because they are used for docking. (See Section 1.1 of the Procurement Document for the APDS referenced above.)

Since both vehicles dock to the ISS, the shuttle does have an APAS adapter known as the Orbital Docking System (ODS). This is the 'L' shaped connector that attaches to the port at the front of the shuttle bay. It is only attached in missions to the ISS, and the APAS interface is only used for docking to the ISS. It isn't inherently true that all docking operations will be done using an APAS. However, since the only docking currently taking place is with the ISS, this is currently functionally true. It is only an ISS policy, however. The ODS is not installed on Hubble missions.

Furthermore, both the Soyuz and shuttle ODS have the active APDS side (again, see for instance Section 1.1 of the Procurement Document for the APDS above). Neither has the passive side because they are the ones doing the docking. In addition to this, approach and docking to the passive APDS is accomplished using docking cues (targets). (See, for example, Section 5.1.7.3.4.2 of the Interface Definition Document (IDD) for International Space Station (ISS) Visiting Vehicles (VVs). Neither the shuttle ODS nor Soyuz have these docking cues, again because they are the ones doing the docking.

So, I stand by my assertion that it is not as simple as you say. This method needs to be planned ahead with the right adaptors and docking systems developed and carried with them, probably flown on a Detailed Test Objective (DTO) flight, certified and validated. Again, such a system takes years of development.

As far as the orbit, it isn't clear that the Soyuz module or launch rocket are designed to go as far as Hubble. For instance, it appears that the Soyuz used for ISS mission and crew descent is only designed to descend from up to 460 km. The Hubble is at an altutude of about 600 km. So, if you have a reference on your assertion that "The Soyuz can easily reach the Hubble orbit", please forward it. Even better would be one that says it can descend from there. (Reaching it is useless as a rescue vehicle if it can't descend.)

It's not like NASA just missed the idea of using Soyuz, and you amazingly came up with the solution they're looking for. They are very smart you know. You also don't seem to realize that many of us who read Slashdot work for or with NASA (the geek ratio is quite high), so we often have the inside scoop or at least knowledge of what's involved.

In the original paper, "Managing the Development of Large Software Systems" by Winston Royce, describing the waterfall model, Royce actually points to the flaws of that process. He actually says that it "is risky and invites failure".
It appears that at some point some PHB's saw the paper, looked at the pictures (instead of reading) and decided "we should all use the waterfall development process".
As for iterative development, I couldn't agree with you more. And its also what Royce was really at where each "phase" provides a feedback to the one before it. And if a project follows the steps you outlined for each iteration, as well as doing some refactoring for leasoned learned, you will generally see the bugs go down and the code quality steadily increase.
OTH, trying to suddenly apply a test scafolding around an existing large codebase can be a very painful process. Many time its actually easier to just rebuild using the original app as the basis for the new test cases. And the NIH syndrome weighs heavily.

'..you should know what you talk about first before you talk. You are misusing the term "cellular automata" where in reality what you were looking for was the term "autonomous agents".'

Lol. No. The term I was looking for and used correctly was 'Cellular Automata'. If you are still in doubt consider 'Langton's Ant' here, (random example) here or do a search.

While you certainly can try to model Ant behaviour using MultiAgent systems (/'Adaptive Agents'/'Autonomous Agents'), I hope you will agree that, you can also have a serious stab at it with Cellular Automata. Personally I still consider the latter a fruitful branch on the tree of knowledge hence my selection of term. Finally, both Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms have also been used to model ant-inspired behavior. In the latter the distributed and 'social' properties of 'Agents' are not as important as simulated evolutionary processes.

Some common objections to dark matter I constantly see whenever the topic comes up on Slashdot:

Can't dark matter just be brown dwarves or black holes or something? Why do scientists postulate crazy exotic invisible particles?

Dark matter is postulated to come in two kinds, Massive Compact Halo Objects (MACHOs) and Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). MACHOs are things like brown dwarves, etc.; WIMPs are the new kind of matter. We have already detected some MACHOs through gravitational microlensing experiments (looking for them by how they gravitationally deflect light). But if all the dark matter were MACHOs or something else mundane and baryonic, we would have detected more of them by now. That leaves WIMPs. Also, MACHOs and WIMPs have different physical properties (e.g., they cluster differently, and thus seed the formation of the large-scale galactic clusters we see today in different manners), and an all-MACHO universe doesn't cluster right, though it works out if you let some WIMPs into the mixture.

Ordinary neutrinos don't do the trick, either; we evidently need some new kind of particle. We don't know what WIMPs are, but some have postulated axions, neutralinos or other supersymmetric particles, WIMPZILLAs, solitons, sterile neutriono (that only interact gravitationally), ...

Dark matter is unscientific; it can't be tested or falsified.

Dark matter theories can be tested indirectly by observing the different predictions they make for galactic rotation curves, early-universe structure formation, cosmological expansion, etc. Already such observations have excluded a number of dark matter theories. And there are experiments underway that try to directly detect them, similarly to how we detect neutrinos.

Dark matter is just epicycles all over again, a fudge factor to preserve a wrong theory of gravity.

Once upon a time, irregularities were noted in the orbit of Uranus. It could have been postulated that the laws of gravity were wrong. Instead, it was postulated that an unseen bulk of matter was perturbing Uranus's orbit. Eventually, that bulk of matter was seen: the planet Neptune.

On the other hand, once upon a time, irregularities were noted in the orbit of Mercury. It was postulated that maybe a new planet caused them (Vulcan), but that turned out to be wrong; instead, a new theory of gravity was needed (general relativity).

The moral: you can attempt to explain away the observations with either dark matter or a new theory of gravity; both are scientifically valid approach. The problem with the latter is that it has proven extraordinarily difficult to produce a modified theory of gravity that is consistent with all observations, whereas there are dark matter theories that appear to do the job. Believe me, scientists don't ignore the possibility of a new theory of gravity any more than they ignore the possibility of a new type of matter; it's just that new theories of gravity don't seem to work as well as new theories of matter in explaining the observations.

What about MOND?

MOdified Newtonian Dynamics is the leading candidate for a non-dark matter alternative, modifying the laws of gravity. (Note that this page is by MOND's inventor, and may be biased.) However, it has had trouble with a number of observational tests; you can search the astro-ph arXiv for critiques of MOND. In particular, although it seems to work for galactic rotation curves, it's hard to get it to also work for cosmological expansion and structure formation. It's also very difficult to make it into a theory compatible with observed tests of relativity.

What about Bekenstein's MOND theory?

Bekenstein recently proposed a relativistic version of MOND called

Looks like an almost complete rip-off of Semantic Search, a demo for the early semantic web language SHOE (which heavily influenced DAML).

Reference

Oh well... The "!" is certainly more expressive, but not accurate.

Via news and events info at website of the Center for Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business

Human skin is actually a surprisingly strong pressure barrier. The conterpressure suit can be an open weave with up to millimeter sized openings. The biggest problem is figuring out how to keep pressure on the concave areas such as under the arms and behind the knees. An advantage of counterpressure suits is that a tear in the suit doesn't result in catastrophic pressure loss. It only causes injury to the area of the tear. Another problem with them is getting them on and off. It would be like putting super tight pantyhose over your whole body. (not that I know anything about that)

Here are some papers on counterpressure suits:
http://mvl.mit.edu/EVA/BioSuitDJN_Nov03.pdf
http://spacecraft.ssl.umd.edu/publications/ICES02- 2311.pdf
http://mvl.mit.edu/EVA/NIACPhaseIReport.pdf

I was really inspired by The Humane Interface, and I've incorporated a lot of his ideas into what I do. But he doesn't need to rewrite it in Python.

I use Piccolo, from the University of Maryland's HCI lab. The Piccolo demo is nearly identical to the Shockwave demo app. Piccolo is originally in Java, but they have a .NET port as well.

I use it for viewing big graphs, almsost literally "drilling down" into them: you go "down" into the page and see more detail. It's like looking more closely at a sheet of paper. My users love it (not least because it's great eye candy), and I love it because my eyesight is less-than-perfect and I like to zoom applications to read the text more easily.

I'm sure they Python groupies will enjoy having their version of it, but it's free from the Piccolo group.

The demo showed something like an article or a financial statement. There was a dot near the end of a sentence, and when you zoomed in, it was a spreadsheet with the financials. It was totally black and white (monochrome black and green, actually), but it looked really nifty. Everything pixelated like hell, but with some of the scalable interface components that Apple and Microsoft and probably others are working on, you could perhaps even do away with the pixelation.

I also found a website for Pad++.

From the SIGGraph article:

• We believe that navigation in information spaces is best supported by tapping into our natural spatial and geographic ways of thinking. To this end, we are developing a new computer interface model called Pad.

  The ongoing Pad project uses a spatial metaphor for computer interface design. It provides an intuitive base for the support of such applications as electronic marketplaces, information services, and on-line collaboration. Pad is an infinite two-dimensional information plane that is shared among users, much as a network file system is shared. Objects are organized geographically; every object occupies a well defined region on the Pad surface.

  For navigation, Pad uses "portals" - magnifying glasses that can peer into and roam over different parts of this single infinite shared desktop; links to specific items are established and broken continually as the portal's view changes. Portals can recursively look onto other portals. This paradigm enables the sort of peripheral activity generally found in real phy...

Its obvious that applications should work completely differently in a Zoomable User Interface. The separation between applications and the interface blurs, and at best disappears.

Now learn to stop saying ZUIs are a new interface paradigm. They're not. But we definitely should have them instead of the current WIMP desktop. Pssst, Avalon is a good environment for building a ZUI desktop. Yes, MS research has been doing related work around ZUIs and interaction design.

Well just think what happens if one day the asteroid named after you decides to pay Earth an intimate visit.

I suppose that's why, according to IAU guidelines, objects "that approach or cross Earth's orbit are given mythological names". When we eventually learn that the End of the World is near, we don't want it to arrive by the name of Einstein, Zappa, or the Marshmallow Man. It better be named after Zuul or some other forgotten deity.

Tin Whiskers have shut down many satellites.

A failure mode is re-emerging that has been responsible for the loss of billions of dollars worth of satellites, missiles and other equipment - electrically conductive 'tin whiskers'. Tin whiskers can develop under typical operating conditions on any product type that uses lead-free pure tin coatings.

http://www.calce.umd.edu/lead-free/tin-whiskers

I don't think that the NSA has substantially better quantum encryption / computing than the rest of us. My main line of evidence is that they are still throwing enormous gobs of money at unclassified research into quantum computing.

One such example is the innocuously named "Laboratory for Physical Sciences". Please note the rather conspicuous key-shaped logo. I toured their facility a few years back while looking for a job. At the time the NSA was buying them just about anything they wanted provided it might have applications in quantum computing. This included a rather sophisticated chip fabrication lab and clean room.

I don't know if we will ever really have quantum computers, but the NSA sure doesn't want to be late to the party if we do.

Would recall_carl01's anonymity still be protected lies were told?

This reminds me of a story involving the website Tucker Max and first ammendment rights:
http://www.astro.umd.edu/~kayhan/misc/missvermont/ 02INTE.html
While Tucker Max's story did not involve sercret identities, it did bring up the issue of defamation and the right to free speech. The basic story is Tucker posted graphic details about his relationship with a girl and the girl sued requesting those stories be removed from his website. The court ruled in favor of Tucker saying the stories, while in poor taste, are valid forms of free speech because the stories are not false.

Check out these folks, who put together a prehensile robotic tail. The apparatus registers EMG signals from skin electrodes and uses them to control the tail.

I quote from a most informative pdf (get it here):
"A tin whisker is a single crystal of tin that grows spontaneously from a surface a pure tin. They are typically only a few microns (?m) in diameter but can grow to lengths of more than 10 mm (though lengths on the order of 1 mm are far more common) [NIST Website, 2002]. Tin whisker growth is spontaneous, not relying on external influences of current or electrolytic action, more commonly associated with mechanisms like "dendritic" growth, conductive filament formation and electromigration. While early studies believed that tin recrystallization (which occurs at 50 deg C) played some role in whisker formation, recent studies have reported as much, if not greater, propensity for whisker formation at temperatures as low as room temperature [NASA Web Site, 2002].(....)Conventional wisdom attributes tin whiskering to internal stresses in the pure tin layer, with a primary source being the compressive stresses caused by electroplating. However, tin whiskers have also been reported from surfaces where tin has been applied by methods other than electroplating. In the presence of compressive stress, whiskers are extruded over time, as a stress release mechanism. Many factors may contribute to the stress in the plating, including intermetallic formation, thermal expansion mismatches, corrosion of the substrate, and externally applied forces such as bending, lead forming and application of pressure. Defects such as scratches and nicks have been reported to magnify the effects by causing local stress concentrations and possibly providing openings in any protective surface oxide layers. In fact, these external factors may cause whiskering in samples that may otherwise be resistant to the phenomenon. For example, tin whiskers have been observed to form on tin finished surfaces that had been exposed to hot oil dip to fuse the tin (a known mitigating process) [Cunningham and Donahue, 1990]. Adding a trace amount of another element (i.e. Pb or Bi) has been shown to reduce the tendency of plating to grow whiskers."

It comes fairly close according to the orbit sim(here), but the comet's orbit is a fair ways off the ecliptic. Where it would "intersect" Mar's orbit then, it would be over Mars. By the time it gets to Mar's orbit it would have already pulled ahead of Mars.

There's also El Santo, who made more films than all of those guys combined... and whom MST3k fans are undoubtedly already familiar with.

First of all, you will be wanting to throw a 390 meter diameter rock at the earth. As for the asteroid simulator pages there are several:
Arizona Site - I prefer this one for its data.
UMD Site - I like the nifty pictures.

I would also like to point out that this asteroid has decreased in size from 440 meters in diameter to 390 meters in diameter. So let's hope that as the probability goes up, that size will go down. Similarly, the energy has dropped to 1,500 megatons of TNT (after atmospheric losses). Also, the atmosphere will cause it to break up (starting at 50 km up) into smaller fragments that will shower a 1.25 km by 0.88 km area. This is not significantly dispersed to prevent a crater from forming so expect a 5 km diameter crater (0.5 km deep) followed by a 6.7 magnitude seismic result. Don't expect much ejecta 100 km away or more and don't expect too much of an air blast/noise. Don't worry too much, something this big hits earth every 35,000 years on average.

It'll be interesting to see if insurance companies keep the phrase "objects falling from sky" in the list of insured accidents.

Just to reassure you
http://janus.astro.umd.edu/astro/impact/
The impact comes out as somewhere between 450MT and 1.6GT, depending on speed and composition

can't do that on a Model M!

Math boxes allow for greater flexibility and adaptability to varied mathematical abilities. (This text is the only one that gives the instructor a choice of teaching planetary science either at a descriptive level or at a moderately advanced level involving algebra and elementary calculus.)

b) According to the IAU's Committee for Small Body Nomenclature, three objects are both minor planets and comets: Chiron, Wilson-Harrington, and Elst-Pizzaro. Your comment that "comets and asteroids have very different histories and compositions" is irrelevent, as the histories and compositions of individual objects are often not known (even spectroscopy can only tell you about the surface, not what's beneath). Thus an object that has never been known to sport a coma is typically designated as a minor planet (i.e. asteroid) regardless of composition. The clear-cut distinction between asteroids and comets disappears in the face of observational constraints.

c) Armagh Observatory, on Centaurs: "These bodies, many of which have diameters greater than 100 km, are called "Centaurs" because of their "half-comet, half-asteroid" status." There are many links on that page to other pages discussing the controversy surrounding the naming of objects. Centaurs are usually referred to in the literature as asteroids, not comets. Notice that the Minor Planet Center (which was given responsibility by the IAU of designating minor bodies in the Solar System) lists Centaurs on the minor planet orbits page, not the comet orbits page.

The nomenclature problem isn't limited to Centaurs, as discussed in this excellent but dated Spacedaily article, which says (referring to a April 20, 2000, "Nature" article by Dr. Don Yeomans):

Yeomans in Nature points out that recent computer simulations show that as much as three percent of Kuiper Belt objects are likely to be rocky asteroids that formed in the outer fringes of the Asteroid Belt -- but then, at some point over the eons, flew close enough to Jupiter to be catapulted by its gravity into the outer Solar System.... [M]eteorites have been found still containing significant traces of water trapped inside them -- which means that "Far from being the dry rocky bodies they were once thought to be, it would seem that some asteroids, along with with comets, might be significant sourcees [sic] of water."

Google is my friend. Is it yours?

I wasn't talking about Sedna. I was responding to a general statement you made about asteroids, not any particular asteroid.

I recently went to a talk by Joseph Polchinski, one of the most respected string theorists (as far as I know). The topic was on cosmic strings, which are the ones of which evidence has supposedly been found. His comment was that the evidence was intruiging and deserved further study but that it was not convincing proof, in itself. To put this in a bit of perspective, back in 1995 (and probably before) Fred Hoyle published a paper in nature siting (among other things) several instances of galaxies at very different redshifts that looked at though they were connect (known as an "optical bridge") and used this as "spoof" that the Big Bang model was wrong and his steady state model was right. The point is that we often see strange things in sky whose explanation is not immediately apparent, and it is probably not wise to jump to extraordinary conclusions too quickly.

Modularization: Great for OO programming, crappy for the human brain.

IAWMUHTIPORI (I am writing my undergraduate honors thesis in philosophy on related issues) What sort of "modularization" are you referring to? Modularization of peripheral systems (input/output systems, i.e., the senses)? If so, you must realize that you would be in the extreme minority in opposing a modular architecture for these systems (see Jerry Fodor's Modularity of Mind, the standard treatment on peripheral systems modularity with which the vast majority of cognitive scientists agree).

If you are talking about central cognitive systems (belief formation, inference to the best explanation, theory of mind, etc.) things get a bit more complicated. Recent empirical evidence seems to indicate that anatomical modularization of central systems is probably not thoroughgoing in the human brain. However, a lack of any real anatomical modularity does not mean that the human brain is not ultimately modular, in some sense of the word.

The best evidence for conceptual modularity (that is easy for the non-expert to understand) is implicit in the arguments against the other major alternative for cognitive architecture: distributed connectionism (e.g., Parallel Distributed Processing). Specifically, distributed connectionist networks may be able to do certain specialized tasks -- such as optical character recognition -- rather well. But it is next to impossible to get a distributed connectionist network to do more than one thing well without the system eventually grinding to a halt. This is, in part, the result of the inability of a truly distributed connectionist network to maintain a manageable search space when serving multiple purposes.

A modular central architecture, in contrast, can do any number of distinct tasks without the sort of combinatorial explosion that a distributed connectionist architecture is apt to run up against. This is because the modules within a modular central architecture are thought to be highly specialized to handle specific tasks. This feature of modular systems also allows us to see how the brain develops and might have evolved -- one specialized system at a time (for the most part). It is extremely difficult to even imagine how a general problem solver, such as a distributed connectionist network, develops or could have evolved.

The most significant problem for modular cognitive (central) systems, then, doesn't involve a lack of thoroughgoing anatomical modularization, since we are often not talking anatomical modules when we talk about modularity. The main problem for the type of modularity that is popular these days has to do with the lack of a good way to tie all of the modules together to make a flexible system that has the surface appearance of being a general problem solver (as the anti-adaptationist Fodor points-out in his most recent book, The Mind Doesn't Work that Way , which is primarily a criticism of Steven Pinker's popular How the Mind Works ).

In the past couple of years, several theories have been put forth to explain modular integration. Perhaps the most notable among these is that the natural language module serves as the modular integrator. The original article in which this theory was articulated in detail has been made available by the author on his website. The article with criticisms and the author's response to the criticisms is available only in the print edition of the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences ("The Cognitive Functions of Language" in Volume 25, Issue 6).

Again, then, the issue is a good bit more complex than the parent post indicated. In fact, if the cur

Most of the 3D user interfaces that people usually mention are designed for 3D file system visualization. As others have pointed out, it is not clear that 3D adds any value for navigating the hierarchical structure of current file systems.

It gets much more interesting when you combine 3D navigation with Zooming User Interfaces (ZUIs). For example, Zoom Quilt is a collaborative art project based on Macromedia Flash that illustrates what a 3D ZUI might look and feel like. ZUIs work by creating an intuitive information landscape. The user moves "further away" to get an overview, or "closer" for more detail, while keeping a sense of orientation and structure that traditional pop-up windows and dialogs can't match (see research papers and Java demo). Zoom Quilt was assembled from different frames of content contributed by various participants. For another Flash-based example of a 3D zooming experience, see also the older Christmas Zoom.

Not to mention that the standard GUI elements in Windows are designed for a mouse (menus, buttons, etc.). Some interesting research I've seen done in this area includes CrossY. The app that demos the UI is a drawing app, but the point is that a Tablet-oriented OS would use such GUI elements all accross the board.

Ahh the great leap forward kinda sounds like the Chinese equivalent of the 90's tech bubble (although the tech bubble didn't have that whole widespread famine thing)

Another reason they are doing a kinetic impact is because they want to judge the structure of the comet. Right now, scientists don't really know if the comet's consistency is that of a fluffy snowball or a hard chunk of ice. If you used explosives, you would have melting of the ice, whatever its consistency, and would get less information about the construction of the comet. Once possibility is that the comet might be loosely packed enough that the impactor goes in one side and flies out the other....

Also, I'm surprised the article submitter didn't include a link to the mission website.....

If you think paying $100 for a "Lead-Free" PC is a good idea, then you might be unfamiliar with the "Tin Whiskers Alert" issued by the University of Maryland.

For what it's worth, an Independence Day weekend article posted "here" provides a preview of what can be expected due to the proliferation of such hardware.

Bottom line, THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH!!!

In 1982, Saddam's workers began reconstructing Babylon's most imposing building, the 600-room palace of King Nebuchadnezzar II. Archaeologists were horrified. Many said that to rebuild on top of ancient artifacts does not preserve history, but disfigures it. The original bricks, which rise two or three feet from the ground, bear ancient inscriptions praising Nebuchadnezzar. Above these, Saddam Hussein's workers laid more than 60-million sand-colored bricks inscribed with the words, "In the era of Saddam Hussein, protector of Iraq, who rebuilt civilization and rebuilt Babylon." The new bricks began to crack after only ten years.

Prior to the Persian Gulf War, archaeologists working in Iraq were forced to close down excavations when Iraq's August invasion of Kuwait made the situation to dangerous to continue....

And following the war, looting of archaeological sites increased dramatically as Iraq's impoverished citizens used sometimes desperate means to make money in light of the economic sanctions placed on Iraq by the western world.

...In early February 1991, for example, Saddam parked MiG fighter jets at a Babylonian ziggurat at Ur to deter coalition forces from disabling them during the Gulf War. By Nineveh, the ancient capital of the Assyrian empire, he built air bases and weapons factories. According to archaeological scholars from the University of Chicago, an 80-foot mound containing many ruins of ancient Nineveh also housed an oil storage tank. During the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam used the site for anti-aircraft batteries because it was the most elevated spot in the area....

In contrast, at the height of the bombing campaign the Pentagon produced aerial photographs of the Al-Basrah mosque. They showed clearly that the Iraqis had destroyed the mosque for propaganda purposes. While coalition forces had bombed a target some 100 yards away, leaving the mosque unscathed, Iraqi engineers sliced off the dome in the hope of duping journalists that the U.S. had been responsible for the destruction.

The big turning point in Business Method Patents, as someone stated, was State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signature Financial Group, Inc. - 1998. The key point in this change of attitude was, according to Judge Rich, that "business methods have been, and should have been, subject to the same legal requirements for patentability as applied to any other process or method" (refering to In Re Schrader, 2 F.3d 290 (Fed.Cir.1994).
Somehow, it makes sense -- the general set of criteria for patentability should apply to most legal subject-matter (not sure that it would be wise to grant a patent to a new process to produce Cocain ;). Hence it is not the business method patentability in itself that seems flawed but the patent prosecution that let stuff go through without the proper checking. Especially regarding the facts in State Street, the mathematical process and business method really showed an innovative process, and it would have been counter-productive to bar this process from patentability...

Just my two €urocents...

A nifty diagram is available here.
As I seem to recall, there are a group of asteroids in the L4 and L5 points (with regards to the Sun and Jupiter) called the Trojan Asteroids. Not shure that this is relevent, but the factoid just popped into my head.

Nice site buddy. A blank directory page.

I'm overwhelmed.

But I'm wary of anything touted as -proof. -proof smacks of marketing getting their grubby paws on it.

Sure they gave you some steel wool to scratch the CD with, it's only a 3-4 on Moh's hardness scale, as in not very. I'll be impressed when it can withstand being tossed shiny side town on a little bit of sand on a hard surface and rubbed around vigrously. Quartz/glass/sand/silicon are a great deal more likely to encounter your CDs than steel wool is and they're a 7 or so on Moh's hardness scale.

I picked Moh's because to explain because: Mohs hardness is defined by how well a substance will resist scratching by another substance. from: http://www.calce.umd.edu/general/Facilities/Hardne ss_ad_.htm#3.6.1.

Jef didn't like the old MacOS either, so your argument is beside the point

Fair enough. The article didn't state that clearly, so I didn't realize that he simply hates all interfaces.

One thing I do find amusing, however, is that he's apparently a big proponent of Zooming User Interfaces like Pad++. Yet the ultimate irony is that the Display PDF layer of Mac OS X makes it the perfect OS to add Zooming interfaces to! Apple has clearly demonstrated this with the Éxpose feature. Somehow, though, that doesn't seem to sink in with this guy.

It looks like Jazz paradigm... http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/jazz/
M$ innovation as usual :)