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NASA Releases Classic Software To Public Domain
xpccx writes in with a bit from NewsBytes, "NASA turned 43 this month and marked the occasion by releasing more than 200 of its scientific and engineering applications for public use. The modular Fortran programs can be modified, compiled and run on most Linux platforms." The software can be found at OpenChannelSoftware.com.
At long last I am ready to prepare my own space mission. I wonder if a whiskey barrel is gonna be air tight after I launch it/me into space with a trebuchet. (It's this sort of unconventional thinking that should get me my job at NASA. Or at least get me put to sleep).
I 0wn j00 4zz Sunken Kursk! No hattrick 4 u 2day!..
The worst terrorist attack in recorded history occurred last month, and now we're involved in a WAR and you people have the gall to be discussing NASA software contributions???? My *god*, people, GET SOME PRIORITIES!
The bodies of the thousands of innocent civilians who died (and will die) in these unprecedented events could give a good god damn about contributions of software from NASA, your childish Lego models, your nerf toy guns and whining about the lack of a "fun" workplace, your Everquest/Diablo/D&D fixation, the latest Cowboy Bebop rerun, or any of the other ways you are "getting on with your life" (here's a hint: watching Cowboy Bebop in your jammies and eating a bowl of Shreddies is *not* "getting on with your life"). The souls of the victims are watching in horror as you people squander your finite, precious time on this earth playing video games!
You people disgust me!
I poop on your face!
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
Next they'll be buying NASA.com - my mate is a support geezer and got his manager ringing him saying 'I want to see the mars landings but www.nasa.com has just got breasts all over the place' - oh how we laughed...
To port this to FORTRAN.Net!
I mean, uh. Well. It is pretty nifty: I'm always interested to take a look at old programs and see what dirty tricks old-school programmers used to cram as much code as they could into the tiny amount of space that they had to work with.
Lunar Lander, please?
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
Opera is blinding fast... as you can see...
Are there other examples of NASA released code?
They'll release that 256 bytes that Armstrong had to enter by hand to get the damn craft off the moon??
What's up with flat/threaded/nested comments? These are just different ways of displaying what can be a rather long list of comments. Here's the rundown: Flat mode displays all the comments in one gigantic list, without showing anything in the way of relationships between comments. Threaded shows a hierarchy of responses, with replies as links to new pages. Nested displays the same hierarchy of responses, but displays all of the comments. (This can be a bitch of a page to render on weaker platforms and in longer discussions.) Answered by: CmdrTaco Last Modified: 6/12/00 Why did my comment get deleted? The only time we ever delete comments is if the comment contains malformed HTML that is somehow causing Slashdot to fail to display properly. Comments are not deleted on the basis of content. At this point, however, it shouldn't be a big worry. The comment engine is reasonably bulletproof, and it's pretty tough to post a comment that breaks Netscape. If you posted a comment and you don't see it now, it may have been moderated down below your threshold (see below). If you set your threshold to -1, you should be able to see it again. Answered by: CmdrTaco Last Modified: 6/12/00 Why did it take so long for my comment to appear? If the system told you that your comment got submitted, it'll show up. Because of the way data gets cached in our system, it could take as much as ten or fifteen minutes (although it doesn't usually take that long). Answered by: CmdrTaco Last Modified: 6/12/00 What's up with "First Post" comments? "First Post" comments are one of those odd little memetic hiccups that come out of nowhere and run amok. Basically, people with altogether far too much spare time sit and reload Slashdot, hoping that they will get the "First Post" in a discussion. This is one of those things that the moderation system was designed to clean up, and for the most part, it works. "First Post" comments usually get moderated down as off-topic almost instantly. Answered by: CmdrTaco Last Modified: 6/12/00 It seems like the quality of comment posts is declining. Are you doing anything about it? We have a moderation system. One of the unfortunate side-effects of the increasing popularity of Slashdot is that the number of trolls, flame-warriors and all-around lamers increases as well, and it only takes a relatively small number of them to make a lot of noise. Keeping this noise to a minimum is one of the primary goals of the moderation system (which is explained in detail elsewhere in this FAQ). Since this system is essentially an experiment in trying to solve the problems inherent in mass communication, one would expect its success to be variable, and indeed, this is the case. Some days it works great, and some days it doesn't. Answered by: CmdrTaco Last Modified: 6/12/00 Moderation seems restrictive. Is it really necessary? In short, yes. As you might have noticed, Slashdot gets a lot of comments. Thousands a day. Tens of thousands a month. At any given time, the database holds 50,000+ comments. A single story might have a thousand replies- and let's be realistic: Not all of the comments are that great. In fact, some are down right terrible, but others are truly gems. The moderation system is designed to sort the gems and the crap from the steady stream of information that flows through the pipe. And wherever possible, it tries to make the readers of the site take on the responsibility. The goal is that each reader will be able to read Slashdot at a level that they find appropriate. The impatient can read nothing at all but the original stories. Some will only want to read the highest rated of comments, some will want to eliminate anonymous posts, and others will want to read every last drip of data, from the First Posts! to the spam. The system we've created here will make that happen. Or at least, it sure will try... Goals 1.Promote quality, discourage crap. 2.Make Slashdot as readable as possible for as many people as possible. 3.Do not require a huge amount of time from any single moderator. 4.Do not allow a single moderator a "reign of terror." On the whole, we think the moderation system works really well, but often people disagree. Their disagreement usually stems from different expectations. They see a bunch of moderations countering each other. They see a comment moderated blatantly wrong. A 'Troll' flagged 'Off topic' (or vice versa) and feel that the system is flawed. Of course it is flawed! It's built upon the efforts of diverse human beings volunteering their time to help! Some humans are selfish and destructive. Others work hard and fair. It's my opinion that the sum of all their efforts is pretty damn good. Read Slashdot at a threshold of 3 and behold the quality of the comments you read. Certainly you aren't reading a wild and freewheeling discussion anymore, but you are reading many valid points from many intelligent people. I am actually pretty amazed. Answered by: CmdrTaco Last Modified: 6/26/00 Most of the trolls and useless stuff comes from "Anonymous Coward" posters. Have you thought about eliminating anonymous posting? We've thought about it. We think the ability to post anonymously is important. Sometimes people have important information they want to post, but are afraid to do it if they can be linked to it. Anonymous Coward posting will continue to exist for the foreseeable future. Answered by: CmdrTaco Last Modified: 10/21/00 Doesn't this open posting policy ever get you into trouble? Yes, and we've got a ton of legal correspondence to prove it. We regard this as a risk of doing what we do. Answered by: CmdrTaco Last Modified: 10/21/00 How did the moderation system develop? In order to understand the system, it might help to understand how we got there. It wasn't random, it was trial and error and progression. I'm constantly tweaking and changing, trying to squeeze more out. Trying to make a more efficient, more fair system. Before Moderation In the beginning, Slashdot was small. We got dozens of posts each day, and it was good. The signal was high, the noise was low. Moderation was unnecessary because we were nobody. It was a different world then. Each day we grew, adding more and more users, and increasing the number of comments submitted. As this happened, many users discovered new and annoying ways to abuse the system. The authors had but one option: Delete annoying comments. But as the system grew, we knew that we would never be able to keep up. We were outnumbered. Hand Picked Few So, I picked people to help. Just a few. 25 or so at the end. They were given the simple ability to add or subtract points to comments. The primary function of these brave souls was to weed out spam and First Post and flame bait. Plus, when they found smart stuff, to bring it out. The system worked pretty well, but as Slashdot continued to grow, it was obvious that these 25 people wouldn't be enough to keep up with the thousands of posts we were getting each day. It was obvious that we needed more. 400 Lucky Winners So we picked more the only way we could. Using the actions of the original 25 moderators, we picked 400 more. We picked the 400 people who had posted good comments: comments that had been flagged as the cream of Slashdot. Immediately several dozen of these new moderators had their access revoked for being abusive, but they settled down. At this time I began to experiment with ways of restricting the power of moderators to prevent abuses. 25 people are easy to keep an eye on, but 400 is another matter. I knew that someday I would have even less control since I intended to eventually give access to even more people. While moderators still added and subtracted points, the number of points they were given dropped from hundreds to dozens. As time went on, I began working on the next phase: mass moderation. I learned a lot from having so many moderators. I learned that I needed to limit the power of each person to prevent a single rogue from spoiling it for everyone. And then we took the next step. Today: Most Anyone Today any regular Slashdot reader is probably eligible to become a moderator. A variety of factors weigh into it, but if you are logged in when you browse Slashdot comments, you might occasionally be granted moderator access. Don't worry about it. Just keep reading this document and learn what to do about it! Who It's probably the most difficult part of the process: who is allowed to moderate. On one hand, many people say "Everyone," but I've chosen to avoid that path because the potential for abuse is so great. Instead, I've set up a few simple rules for determining who is eligible to moderate. Logged In User If the system can't keep track, it won't work, so you gotta log in. Sorry if you're paranoid, but this system demands a certain level of accountability. Regular Slashdot Readers The scripts track average accesses from each logged-in user. It then selects eligible users who read an average number of times. The homepage doesn't count either. It then picks users from the middle of the pack- no obsessive compulsive reloaders, and nobody who just happened to read an article this week. Long Time Readers The system throws out the newest few thousand accounts. This prevents people from creating new accounts to simply get moderator access, but more importantly, means that newbies will have to be part of the community for a few weeks before they gain access to the controls to a system they don't understand. Willing to Serve If you don't want to moderate, just visit your user preferences, and set yourself as "Unwilling." Positive Contributors Slashdot tracks your "karma." If you have positive karma, this means you have posted more good comments than bad, and are eligible to moderate. This weeds out spam accounts. The end result is a pool of eligible users that represent (hopefully) average, positive Slashdot contributors. Occasionally (well, every 30 minutes actually), the system checks the number of comments that have been posted, and gives a proportionate number of eligible users "tokens." When any user acquires a certain number of tokens, he or she becomes a moderator. This means that you'll need to be eligible for many of these slices in order to actually gain access. It all works to make sure that everyone takes turns, and nobody can abuse the system, and that only "regular" readers become moderators (as opposed to some random newbie ;)
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 6/12/00
How does moderation work?
When moderators are given access, they are given a number of points of influence to play with. Each comment they moderate deducts a point. When they run out of points, they are done serving until next time it is their turn.
Moderation takes place by selecting an adjective from a drop down list that appears next to comments containing descriptive words like "Flamebait" or "Informative." Bad words will reduce the comment's score by a single point, and good words increase a comment's score by a single point. All comments are scored on an absolute scale from -1 to 5. Logged-in users start at 1 (although this can vary from 0 to 2 based on their karma) and anonymous users start at 0.
Moderators can not participate in the same discussion as both a moderator and a poster. This is to prevent abuses, and while it is one of the more controversial aspects of the system, I'm sticking to it. There are enough lurkers that moderate that, if you want to post, feel free.
Moderation points expire after 3 days if they are left unused. You then go back into the pool and might someday be given access again.
Concentrate more on promoting than on demoting. The real goal here is to find the juicy good stuff and let others read it. Do not promote personal agendas. Do not let your opinions factor in. Try to be impartial about this. Simply disagreeing with a comment is not a valid reason to mark it down. Likewise, agreeing with a comment is not a valid reason to mark it up. The goal here is to share ideas. To sift through the haystack and find needles. And to keep the children who like to spam Slashdot in check.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 6/19/00
What are thresholds?
Your "threshold" is the minimum score that a comment needs to have if it is to be displayed to you. Comments are scored from -1 to 5, and you can set your threshold at any score within that range. So, for example, if you set your threshold at 2, only comments with scores of 2 or above would be displayed. Setting your threshold at -1 will display all comments. 0 is almost all comments. 1 filters out most Anonymous Cowards, and so on. Higher threshold settings reduce the number of comments you see, but (in theory, anyway) the quality of the posts you do see increases.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 6/12/00
What is karma?
Your karma is a score that primarily represents how your comments have been moderated in the past. If a comment you post is moderated up, your karma will rise by 1, and if it is moderated down, you will lose a point.
In addition to moderation, other things factor into karma as well. You can get some karma by submitting a story that we decide to post. Also, metamoderation can cause your karma to change. This encourages good moderators, and ideally removes moderator access from bad ones.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 6/19/00
Is there a limit to how much karma you can accumulate?
Yes. Karma is now capped at 50 points. This was done to keep people from running up insane karma scores, and then being immune from moderation. Despite some theories to the contrary, the karma cap applies to every account.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 10/19/00
It seems unfair that I can't get any more karma than that even if I earn it.
Karma is used to remove risky users from the moderator pool, and to assign a bonus point to users who have contributed positively to Slashdot in the past. It is not your IQ, dick length/cup size, value as a human being, or a score in a video game. It does not determine your worth as a Slashdot reader. It does not cure cancer or grant you a seat on the secret spaceship that will be traveling to Mars when the Krulls return to destroy the planet in 2012. Karma fluctuates dramatically as users post, moderate, and meta-moderate. Don't let it bother you. It's just a number in the database.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 10/19/00
Why didn't I get karma for a Quickie or a Slashback story?
This is a shortcoming in the code that we haven't solved yet. Essentially, the system can easily track a submitter of a story and grant them karma, but Quickies and Slashback each operate differently. A dozen or more people might contribute directly to any one of those stories. The system doesn't really have any internal record to handle sorting out the karma distribution. Besides that, we currently grant 3 karma points for an accepted homepage story. If 10 people each have an entry in the quickies, that's 1/3rd of a point each. Since karma is an integer, that rounds to zero. So just pretend that your karma got rounded out ;)
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 6/19/00
What is karma good for?
Karma is used to determine who moderates and who doesn't. Extremely bad karma usually indicates a user account that is being used to spam the discussion board.
Secondly, users with higher karma are given a bonus point. Logged-in users normally post comments with a score of 1, but the theory is that if a user earns higher karma, they may post with a score of 2. Essentially its a reward for being a good participant on Slashdot, or a punishment for being a bad one. Users with very low karma might lose the +1 associated with being a logged-in user. Extremely bad users might even be penalized to a -1.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 6/12/00
Why is my karma not what I expect?
If you've been moderating or posting, your karma will likely fluctuate a little as you are moderated or metamoderate. Don't worry about it; this is normal. Please remember that this is just a number in a database that helps us determine who gets selected as a moderator. It doesn't determine your IQ or your value as a human being. It's simply not a big deal.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 6/12/00
Is there a minimum amount of karma you can have?
It's very difficult to go below -10 or so. Once you get really low, you start posting at -1, and the moderators are less likely to see your posts, so it's hard to lose any more karma.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 10/12/00
Whenever I use my +1 Bonus, I get moderated down and lose Karma!
As a good poster, you earned a bonus: you are allowed to speak slightly "louder" then other people. In most cases, this is because you've earned it. But with that right comes a responsibility - you have to justify that bonus score. The louder you speak, the more likely you are to be moderated down, unless you're sufficiently interesting to prompt the moderators to let you keep your bonus score. This is how the system is designed to work: you can't just rack up big karma scores, and then post nonsense.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 6/12/00
I just got moderator access. What do I do?
Moderate! Read comments (preferably at a low threshold) and when you see comments that are very insightful, or perhaps just plain off topic, select that option from the drop down list. When you are done, hit the 'Moderate' button. That's it!
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 6/12/00
Why can't I moderate any more?
You either used up your moderator points, or they expired. Moderation is like jury duty. You never know when you're gonna have to do it, and when you get it, you only do it for a little bit. Once those points are gone, you're done.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 6/12/00
Why don't you give moderators unlimited moderator access to 5 stories instead of giving them just 5 points?
It's a good question. Moderators' primary complaint is that they are often crippled by the tiny amount of points they have, and the overwhelming amount of comments that need moderation. If a good moderator could moderate all the comments in a given story, certainly that would be a great improvement.
The problem is that a single bad moderator could wreak havoc across those same 5 stories. By limiting the number of moderation points to 5, any single moderator can only do so much damage. Sure they can only do so much *good* too, but that's the trade-off. I'd rather see a hundred comments unmoderated then see a hundred comments moderated badly by some jerk with an axe to grind.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 6/26/00
I found a comment that was unfairly moderated!
Most of the time we've found that, for every moderator out there pushing an agenda, there are a dozen good moderators making sure that everyone is getting a fair say. However, to the extent that there may be problems with unfair moderation, we have come up with a system of meta-moderation (moderating the moderation) to address this.
Answered by: Loon
Last Modified: 6/12/00
What about separating the rating (+1,-1) from the qualifier (off-topic, informative)? Often a post may be flamebait, but of excellent quality nevertheless.
While this may be true in some cases, its limited applicability doesn't justify complicating the moderators' user interface. Also, there's too much potential for abuse.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 10/26/00
Is this censorship?
I don't think so. Nothing is deleted: if you want to read the raw, uncut Slashdot, simply set your threshold to -1 and go crazy! This system is simply a method for us to try to work together to categorize the thousands of comments that are posted each day in such a way that we can benefit from the wisdom contained in the discussions. It's in there! It just takes some work to find it.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 6/12/00
Has anyone been, or will anyone be banned from Slashdot?
No. Slashdot is committed to the idea of a completely free and open forum. However, we do not necessarily apply this view to sites. Sometimes it will happen that someone runs some sort of scripted vandalism on us (DOS-type things such as continuous reloading, or scripted attempts to get "first posts"), and in these cases we will block the site. (This doesn't happen all that often.)
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 10/30/00
I found a comment Rated -2 or 6!
This is a bug that followed us around for some time, but we're pretty sure it's fixed. If you happen upon a comment that is moderated outside the allowed -1 to 5 range, please let Cliff know (send him the full URL to the comment, including the CID). But we're pretty sure this bug is officially squashed.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 10/19/00
What is a good comment? A bad comment?
A good comment says something interesting or insightful. It has a link to a relevant piece of information that will add something to the discussion. It might not be Shakespeare, but it's not Beavis and Butthead. It's not off topic or flamey. It doesn't call someone names. It doesn't personally attack someone because of a disagreement of opinion.
Some of my favorite "bad" or off-topic comments are things like "Slashdot sucks!" and "This isn't news for nerds!" and "Moderate this XXX!" Any of these may be true, but they're probably off topic!
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 6/12/00
3 days is not enough time to moderate!
I disagree. The 3 day limit exists to help push the system along. If users were allowed to hang on to their points, they could save them for a discussion within which they wanted to push an agenda. It's all right if points go unused- points are free, and there are always hundreds of users with more points who can fill in.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 6/12/00
If I Post in a Discussion I moderated, Why Don't I get My Points Back?
This is intentional. If you could retrieve your points, you could abuse the system very easily. Here is an example:
Naughty Bob moderates 5 comments in a discussion. He uses up his points.
Naughty Bob waits 2 days, and then posts a message to that discussion.
Naughty Bob gets his 5 moderator points back!
GOTO 1
If Naughty Bob was out pushing an agenda, he could keep his 5 points indefinitely, saving them to push discussions around. By taking his points away, he is unable to do that. Now Naughty Bob has to wait until the next time he gets points.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 6/12/00
How can I improve my karma?
What follows was originally a story submission by dkh2. It seemed to me that it would better serve readers here:
10 Tips for Improving Your Karma:
Post Intelligently: Interesting, insightful, thought provoking comments are rated higher on a fairly consistent basis.
Post Calmly: Nobody likes a flame war. In fact, more times than not the flamer gets burned much more than their target."Flame Bait" is hit quickly and consistently with "-1" by moderators. As the bumper sticker says... "Don't be a dick."
If You Can't Be Deep, Be Funny: If you don't have something truly developing to the topic, some humor is welcome. Humor is lacking in our lives and will continue to be promoted. Remember though, what rips your sides out may be completely inane to somebody else.
Post Early: If an article has over a certain number of posts on it already, yours is less likely to be moderated. This is less likely both statistically (there are more to choose from) and due to positioning (as a moderator I have to actually find your post waaay at the end of a long list.)
Post Often: If you only post once a month you can expect your karma to remain low. Also, lively discussion in an open forum is what makes Slashdot really "Rock the Casbah."
Stay On Topic: Off topic posts are slapped quickly and consistently with "-1" by moderators.
Be Original: Avoid being redundant and just repeating what has already been said. Smirk. Yes, being moderated as "redundant" is worth "-1" to your post and your karma. Especially to be avoided are the "what he said" and "me too" posts.
Read It Before You Post: Does it say what you really want it to say? Check your own spelling and grammar. Occasionally, a perfectly beneficial post is passed over by moderators because of this completely irrelevant-to-content feature. This is also a good approach to checking yourself for what you're really saying. Can't tell you the number of times I've stopped myself from saying the opposite of what I meant by checking my own spelling and grammar.
Log In As a Registered User: I know, this sounds obvious but, "Anonymous Coward" does not have a karma rating. You can't reap the perceived benefits of your own accidental brilliance if you post anonymously. Have pride in your work and take credit for it.
Read Slashdot Regularly: You can't possibly contribute to the discussion if you're not in the room. Come to the party and play.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 6/12/00
Lots of early posts that "seem" to be informative/insightful and get mod-ed up when they really shouldn't be. If the author sounds confident, people seem to just give him points. By the time an actual informative post makes it in, it's too late to go back. How could you accommodate this in the moderation system?
Moderators are human beings, and human beings make mistakes. Still, moderators should try to be as thorough as they can. If there's a link in the comment, moderators should check it. If there are facts in the comment that a moderator knows to be wrong, he or she should take that into account. If the moderator doesn't know if the facts in a comment are correct or not, maybe the moderator should skip that comment.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 10/19/00
What sorts of anti-troll filters exist?
A handful of filters have been put into place to try to make sure that people don't abuse the system. The most important is that the same person can't post more than once every 60 seconds. Identical comments are rejected. Also, if a single user is moderated down several times in a short time frame, a 24 hour ban will be imposed on that user... a cooling off period if you will.
The vast majority of you will never encounter any of these troll filters. If you do encounter one unfairly, let us know so we can fix it. This stuff is fairly beta code, so there are bound to be problems.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 6/12/00
Why can't I search or filter archived stories?
This is a feature we want to implement. As it is now, after 14 days, comments are flushed from the database, and archived permanently with the stories. Conceptually this is nice because after a week the discussion usually trickles off to nothing. However, it's a problem because these archived stories ignore user preferences like filters and sorting. Just as bad, it's currently not possible to search for "that comment I read 6 months ago that talked about that thing." I mean, you can use Google or something (and often that works really well) but not Slashdot's internal comment system.
The problem is that since its inception, more then a million comments have been posted, and so all the code was written to function on very minimal hardware. Now that we have substantial hardware and could probably handle the additional burden of searching millions of comments, the changes to the code would be fairly significant.
This is definitely something that we plan to do, but it's just not simple, so please be patient.
Answered by: CmdrTaco
Last Modified: 10/29/00
-cdpb-
In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women!-H.Simpson
I'll get to see the code for that annoying Pop Under Ad; X10 Camera.
Only an evil Gov't conspiracy can be to blame for such a thing!
You know like the way NASA monitors what cable channels you watch with the "cable box"... Oh come'on you _do_ know about that don't you?
This
Newspeak
-oZZ www.act6.org
...a new discovery in the cause of the Apollo 13's malfunction was made when someone noticed hacked code with the comment "3y3 0WnZ j00, N@5@"
FORTRAN, Anthrax... which is worse?
I would rather be ashes than dust!
If CmdrTaco gets put to sleep, can I have his ID?
I didn't think NASA did that type of thing, I thought Vets did that...so that what they're doing to supplement their budget...Yeah!!!
Sean D.
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
... you left something else open. Be more carefull what you leave opened next time..
Taco, you can't afford a whisky barrel. You are going to have to launch yourself in a keg of Natural Lite. Not as if there is big enough rocket to get your cookie dough filled butt of the ground.
Michael Loves Me!
Succumbs to the slashdot effect. I got far enough to find something interesting and it crapped out. I mean, defecated externally. 'Crap' is double ungood. . .
You are not the customer.
The NASA code used on space missions is some of the most throughly debugged anywhere. Can't afford a blue screen of death when lives are actually on the line. Also, you have to be pretty fault tolerant in case cosmic rays or other external phenomena are messing with your data.
Of course the drawback is that most NASA code is too specialized to be of general interest.
Um, this is how we deal with things...
1. We Grieve...
2. We look at what we can do to help
3. We help
4. We start to feel better
5. We watch Cowboy BeBop and play video games..
this sounds like normal life to me.
I'm not giving up my life because someone dies...or millions die (ok maybe millions).
People need these outlets, or else they will become bitter. I like Slashdot...it show the world is still alive and thriving. That's what we should focus on.
Remember and honor the dead...but don't obsess. That helps no one.
Sean D.
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
It will be interesting to see if the "many-eyes" effect of free software turns up bugs in these programs that have been used for years.
As someone who does scientific programming in FORTRAN and even MORTRAN. I will love to pour through old math routines.
Tax payers paid for this and now we get to use it. Gotta like when the system works for you not against you.
By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more. - Albert Camus
So, when are the NSA going to release theyre code :)
Is the NASA code stuff that went throught the CMM level 5 process?
----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong
lp.org
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:CAXm8ndXw6k:w ww.openchannelfoundation.org/cosmic/+open+channel+ software+nasa&hl=en
... to convert all measurements (and I do mean ALL) to metric!! They missed a few of those...
Karma: Professionally Doomed (mostly affected by inability to keep opinions to self)
Hey, if they award you the X-Prize posthumously, be sure to leave at least part of the money to the Free Software Foundation, or some such .org.
if ($it != $onething) {$it = $another;}
Did anyone manage to get a mirror before this was /.
For millions (thousands) of years we have strived to find out why we are here and what the meaning of life is, etc, etc. And we find that we are all written in FORTRAN. God's little prank.
Modding down -- The art of deciding what really pisses people off and what just gets on their nerves.
after I launch it/me into space with a trebuchet
Thanks to memepool's links, you can Buy a nice trebuchet for only $89 !!!
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
but are we to use meters or feet?
apparently, Slashdot is going to have larger ads for non-subscribers. That means we'll have to pay to get rid of those ads. What's funny is that they never said anything about it. This is the same site that tells us "Information wants to be free"
Make sure you check the metric to English unit conversions before you use the sofware for anything important.
I think I'll stop here.
You're thinking of the shuttle flight software - the stuff that rides onboard.
here's an article.
The name FORTRAN scares me. FORmula TRANslator. Good god...that's the coder's equivalent to Beezlebub. Or was that COBOL? Oh well...back to attempting to fit my head into a goldfish bowl. Mars or bust!
Of course we torture people, we need the information --Gen. Pinochet
PRINCETON, NJ(AP) According to the latest Gallup Poll, conducted Monday and Tuesday of this week, nearly three out of four Americans can no longer believe this shit.
In addition to the 73 percent of poll respondents who described this shit as "beyond belief," 9 percent said they could "hardly" believe this shit, with another 5 percent "just barely" believing it. An additional 13 percent said they "couldn't give a flying fuck about the whole goddamn thing."
The poll also found that the National Shit-Credulity Index (NSCI) has hit an all-time low, with only 2 percent of Americans describing themselves as "fully confident of [their] capacity to believe this shit."
"The American people have had to deal with this kind of shit for years," Gallup Organization president Lee Sanderson said, "but now, for the first time, it appears that the vast majority of them just can't fucking believe it anymore."
"In all honesty, who can blame them?" Sanderson added. "Regardless of one's political affiliation, socioeconomic status, religion or just about any other viewpoint, you've got to admit, the shit that's been going on lately is way out of hand."
In the wake of the poll, many activists are calling upon America's leaders to get their shit in gear.
"The American people have had it up to here with this shitheap," said James Schuerholz, president of the D.C.-based Heritage Foundation. "There is a public mandate for our leaders to cut this shit out, and it's high time they finally did."
Despite Americans' incredulity over this shit, historians note that this sort of shit has been going on for years and is unlikely to end anytime soon.
"Contrary to popular belief, this type of shit is hardly anything new," Harvard University American history professor Lawrence Coombs said. "The same shit was going down 50, 100 and 150 years ago. The only difference was, back then, you never read about that shit in the newspapers."
Calling the American people's enormous shit-belief capacity "one of the cornerstones of our democracy," U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) stressed that it is the patriotic duty of all citizens to grant our leaders the benefit of the doubt with regard to their shit.
"If the American people are no longer willing to believe this shit, who will?" Kerry said. "Somebody's got to take this shit at face value. Otherwise, why are we even doing all this shit in the first place? I am truly saddened by the lack of faith that the citizens of this country are willing to put in my shit, as well as that of my esteemed colleagues. We must repair our society's fraying trust in the shit of our elected officials, or you would not believe the kind of hardcore, heavy-duty shit that will come down."
"America," conservative author and social critic Patricia Stouffer said, "is seriously losing its shit. But we've got to somehow hold our shit in place until all this passes. We've got to learn to believe in shit again. After this latest shitstorm, it may take years to accomplish, but we must somehow find the strength to put our trust back into the nation's shit."
Despite such impassioned calls for faith in the U.S. political system and all the shit that comes with it, if the Gallup Poll is any indication, the majority of Americans are no longer willing to put up with the shit.
"Fuck that shit," said Evansville, IN, day-care provider Helen Reiderer. "I'm tired of hearing about it. Do they actually expect us to still believe that load of shit?"
"If you ask me, the shit is about to hit the fan," said Reiderer's husband Frank. "As far as I'm concerned, all that shit is just too much to be believed."
Another disgruntled citizen, Wenatchee, WA, tractor salesman Tom Huard, summed up the sentiments of most Americans when, holding up the front page of the local newspaper to friend Benjamin Pritchard, he said, "Jesus, Ben, can you believe this?"
"Shit, no," Pritchard replied.
I'm all in favor of FagTaco being put to sleep! Anyone else?
site is dead
What the heck is that?
I thought the Senators for MPAA and RIAA outlawed that *years* ago.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I'd love to look at their stuff, but it has been years since I "spoke" Fortran fluently, having moved most of my old stuff to C or C++. Are there any converters out there that are up to snuff for this kind of work?
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
readme.txt
==========
To run this code, you will need the following:
* a Fortran compiler
* a space shuttle
--riney
Those who haven't read it yet should read this link where Ron L. Toms launches people with a trebuchet. (You can also find him jumping the grand canyon if you look around.)
(Score yourself two bonus points if you remember this show.)
Less Talk, More Beer.
Shouldn't the software used by NASA, a public institution, already be in the public domain, by definition?
By chance, does anyone have a mirror of this site? It's completely slammed. I got less than 10 bytes before it timed out.
Well, isn't that just typical illegal monopoly maintenance?
We'll never 'block' anybody, just because of the color of their browser, at ScaredCity?tmp?
Fortran to C
welp, you would have the highest acceleration at the beginning, and if you wanted to get into orbit, that acceleration would need to be so high, that you would become meat-and-bone pulp on the bottom of that barrel... provided that the barrel itself will survive.
Therefore, I encourage you to try, maybe you won't get the job at NASA, but at least you will succeed SPAMming the outer space!
Sigged!
fucktard
This is pretty cool.
I know a lot of these codes are relatively old and not that glamorous (lot of simulation, thermodynamics etc.) but the science behind them hasn't changed dramatically - energy is still conserved in fortran or C++ right?
For those of us that are writing scientific code it's nice to be able to reuse bits here and there and to see how somebody else tackled a similar problem.
Just browsing around I see quite a few codes that I used in classes for homework and projects (provided at the time by the instructor). Mechanical Engineers still like fortran (when it's spelled in lower case).
Goldin sold the space rights to Microsoft
Most of the software developed for NASA projects these days is open -- at least, the scientific operations and data analysis software. For example, check out the solarsoft distribution of solar physics analysis software, including planning tools for most existing solar instruments. CVS and Sourceforge it ain't -- but you can get your hands on the actual software that is being used in the SOHO, TRACE, Yohkoh, and HESSI missions (and soon STEREO and Solar-B too).
Like oh, say, Slashdot.ORG
> I wonder if a whiskey barrel is gonna be air tight
The severity of this problem depends on the method used to drain the whisky barrel.
Hic
<-- You are here.
I used to work for a conttractor for NASA and did quite a bit of maintenance and development for some of the applications in this library. They are written in FORTRAN mostly because the original development took place in the early 70s for most of them. When I got there 20 years later, I was maintaining spaghetti code that had been modified and remodified ad nauseam.
I recieved a couple letters informing me that "my" code had been incorporated into the COSMIC library. At that time, it was mostly research and academic organizations that used COSMIC. Anyway, it wasn't really my code. I was just the person currently modifying it.
Also, much of the code is not real-time. Sustantial time is spent doing simulations to make sure everything is everything. It's an expensive mistake to fix once you've launched. Nonetheless, I had to sit around during launches (always at 3 am) just in case... I saw a post earlier that talked about the rigorous testing, and that was certainly true which led to me doing pretty much nothing during the launch and checkout of the spacecraft. It was kind of neat to watch it all, though...
The revolution will be televised. Blackout restrictions apply.
Is it buggy? Not standards compliant? Can any experts enlighten me?
I scanned over the collection of comments here and I can't find the ones where people are carping and whining that the software wasn't released under the GNU license.
I, personally am relieve at this, because my tax dollar should not be used to prop up somebody's political agenda (public domain means the software is free for us all to use, not held captive to one interest group's vision of how things should work).
Anyhow. I just found it disappointing in a way that the GNU zealots appear to have backed down. They've always been so much fun to watch fume in the past.
A little laugh and it even has to do with space! ;)
The 10 most common statements made by Klingon programmers:
10: "Specifications are for the week and timid!"
09: "Indention?! I will show you how to indent wen I indent your skull!"
08: "What is this talk of 'release'? Klingons do not 'release' software. We uncage our software, letting it leave a bloody trail of designers and quality assurance people in its wake."
07: "Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters'. They have 'arguments'... and they ALWAYS WIN THEM!"
06: "Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak."
05: "I have challenged the entire quality assurance team to a Bat-Leth contest."
04: "A TRUE Klingon programmer does not comment his code!"
03: "By filing this PTR you have challenged the honor of my family. Prepare to die!"
02: "You question the worthiness of my code? I should kill you where you stand!"
01: "Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!"
An optimist believes we live in the best world possible; a pessimist fears this is true.
What a different world it would be if all tax $ funded software were available like this.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
By Musan S
WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A.,
25 Oct 2001, 11:47 AM CST
Kenme, Government Office of Strange Rumors. NASA turned 43 this month and marked the occasion by releasing more than 200 of its scientific and engineering appliances for use on BattleBots, the robot fighting show on Comedy Central. The outer space-ready booster rockets, thermal shielding equipment and gyroscopes can be modified and pitted against each other or most exisitng BattleBots such as Son of Whyachi and BioHazard. The Robert C. Byrd National Technology Transfer Center in Wheeling, W.Va., and BattleBots Inc., a for-profit scrap metal producer, are collecting the "NASA Classics" collection of new BattleBots based on discarded NASA equipment.
The Byrd center has distributed more than 50 NASA technology-based BattleBots created by NASA engineers, said the center's president, Joseph Allen, in a statement. BattleBots now has access to NASA tech and "will help NASA promote the use of Cosmic Ray Shielding, Reagan-era Star Wars laser technology, and Hydrazine-based propellants for the television viewing public's benefit," Allen said.
The classic tech, waiting to be annhilated for over 30 years in showers of sparks and smoke on cable television, served a variety of purposes at NASA. None of which is as interesting as what the twisted minds behind past BattleBots envision. Said Robert Everhart, creator of Atomic Wedgie, "Those NASA engineers are some scary folks. Atomic Wedgie can withstand most onslaughts, such as Diesector's Pick Axe or Minion's Fireman's emergency saw, but a 300 terawatt neodymium laser? Forget about it." Details are sketchy, but one NASA engineer with a giant smirk on his face who spoke on conditions of anonymity identified three NASA tech BattleBots in the works: the "Apollo Lunar Launcher", the "Viking Mission to Hell", and the "Rubble Telescope".
Reported by Bewsnytes.com.
11:47 CST
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This is a great gift from NASA. I can imagine FEA and finite difference packages for thermal, stress and rad flux. Other languages can be used to devolop graphical front ends where that is useful. Sooooo cool.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
"
The modular Fortran programs can be modified,
compiled and run on most Linux platforms.
"
Yeah, right. Tell me, what Distribution
comes with Fortran?
"Friday, October 26, 2001
:-P
We would like to apologize to visitors from Slashdot, along with the rest of our community, for the problems we have experienced with our server this morning. We are in the process of upgrading our server to accommodate the spike in requests. We thank everyone for both their interest, and their patience.
For those interested in downloading code from the NASA Classics Collection, you should be aware that we are currently required to charge a fee for the software. We are working with the people from NASA to try to "open" this software to enable downloads without fees, at least for private, non-commercial use."
Sounds like something associated with the U.S. government eh??
Why do I need to register a bloody account just to download some PUBLIC DOMAIN files?! NASA is either paranoid about terrorists, or worse...
The site has software all right. Just log in and
give your credit card to pay for it. Checked only
one package...$250 a pop.
This is a very far cry from the GPL; they are trying to commercialize the code, unless there are changes coming soon that are not on the website yet. The code is sometimes useful, but it would be much more useful if free. COSMIC always had the problem of being expensive. This is possibly less expensive but you have to REALLY believe the code will help you...
So, why isn't all (non-classified) government software open-source? Haven't we already paid for it? Why is NASA the exception?
It seems to me that state governments in particular could drastically reduce software developement costs by reusing code already built by other states.
I want my lunar landing game! Seriously, though. Some of the apps they made can be repackaged into really spiffy games/simulations. I'd like to see a sim where you're the mission manager at NASA, trying to develop a program to land astronauts on Mars, or handling an emergency situation (a la Apollo 13).
I very much doubt they said that. They probably said "it's useless for our purposes" or something like that. (In my experience, people who use Fortran for modeling fluid flows aren't so foolish as to generalize from their very narrow personal experience to the entire potential usability of a thing.)
Buggy: not terribly, but it had (and probably still has) a few annoying, well-documented bugs that have proven difficult to fix.
Not standards compliant: if the standard is ANSI FORTRAN 77, that isn't the problem.
What your colleagues might be running into is most likely one of two things, or both: g77 doesn't support some widespread extensions to FORTRAN 77, like Cray pointers; and g77 hasn't, at least until recently, provided sufficient info for the debugger to use to allow a programmer to see things like variables in COMMON or EQUIVALENCE.
Less likely, but not improbably, they're frustrated by other annoyances, like poor performance or even inadequate diagnostics in certain cases. As with most any compiler, performance might be quite good for most users, but terrible, compared to a usable alternative, for some. g77 depends pretty much entirely on the GCC back end plus the f2c run-time libraries (libf2c) to achieve performance, though the g77 front end necessarily makes some "choices" among components of these other chunks of software to try to arrange for the best performance for most uses.
Or maybe they've just converted wholesale to Fortran 90 or beyond, in which case g77 will indeed be useless to them -- clearly not a fault of g77 itself!
Note that I'm considered the original author of g77, though I stopped working on it a couple of years ago. I made many mistakes in my original design and implementation of g77; only a few of these were truly problematic in the long run, but they remain as obstacles to many who've thought they could come in and "fix" certain of g77's problems by exerting a substantive combination of effort and imagination.
There is now a GNU Fortran 95 project underway, which, if your colleagues contribute to in some fashion, might better meet their needs. I'm not sure, but I think they started by ignoring pretty much all the g77-specific code in GCC: probably a wise move.
Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful.
you mean we can 1969 a thought about a time of 1963 or else?
oh boy, i know some b00tleggers that never get their product to market at times.
I can almost taste the high seas again, hmm things get interesting on a friday again.
light speed energy transmission systems at disposal.
LSETS Lsets lSETS®©
Cool, I open /. and see NASA software. Click on the link wait for it to load, watching TV while waiting...
After a few seconds I look and the first think I see on the right is, "Crack Growth and Fatigue Analysis"
What does this have to do with uh software, nasa, umm computers?
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
I'm probably violating an NDA/employment contract/national security here so I'm posting anonymously...
I work for an entity that has fulfilled the requirements for the CMMI level 5 process. It isn't as impressive as it sounds. I would trust Microsoft's code before I would trust running any of ours. Good code doesn't get you CMMI certified. Lying to the auditor to make it look like you have a good "software engineering process". get you certified.
We would like to apologize to visitors from Slashdot, along with the rest of our community, for the problems we have experienced with our server this morning. We are in the process of upgrading our server to accommodate the spike in requests. We thank everyone for both their interest, and their patience. For those interested in downloading code from the NASA Classics Collection, you should be aware that we are currently required to charge a fee for the software. We are working with the people from NASA to try to "open" this software to enable downloads without fees, at least for private, non-commercial use.
Just so I don't troll too terribly
Probably the most famous application they are releasing is the NASTRAN (NASa STRuctural ANalysis) System which most of us aerospace types are already using in the industry. They also released some composite and general structural design tools.
They also release numerous 2D and 3D aero flow tools.
The one that caught my eye: SCRAM - An Engineer's Tool for Prediction of Airframe Integrated Scramjet Performance.
The one-I-expected-to-be-there-but-wasn't: Planetary, interplanetary, and/or Mars multiple degree of freedom dynamic simulations. They gotta have a few of those, but apparently none were released.
Religion and science are both 90% crap..but that doesn't negate the other 10%.
OpenChannel Software is SELLING copies of these programs. Don't expect any of them to be free or even cheap.
One projects i was looking at (a compression algorithm comparision program) was about $154 for source.
Sounds like another backroom deal where things get put in the public domain, but one company get control of it.
Blech. And people wonder why no one trusts the government...
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
ha!
Michael Loves Me!
Unix source docs: $250
DEC Alpha AXP executable use: $2000 / year
HP9000 HP-UX executable use: $2000 / year
IBM RS/6000 executable use: $2000 / year
DOS/Win3.1/95 executable use: $1000 / year
Sun Solaris 2.x executable use: $2000 / year
DEC ALPHA OSF/1 source access: $7000 / year
SGI IRIX 5.x source access: $7000 / year
Sun Solaris 2.x source access: $7000 / year
Be nice when this code IS actually open source.
These people are charging hundreds of dollars to get the source code... maybe this fits M$'s definition of shared source, but it certainly isn't open source.
This story made news because a company (Open [sic] Channel Foundation) stands to profit from the distribution of taxpayer funded, Public Domain software.
Why the h*ll can't NASA pony up a little server to distribute this software itself without the COSTS and RESTRICTIONS imposed by "Closed" Channel Foundation???
Hello, Dan Golden, don't retire yet! YOUR STAFF IS ABOUT TO SELL YOU OUT!!
I wonder how many patents NASA violated with this code.
I apologize to all of you who wanted to visit the NASA software but were unable because of the spike in requests. We've upgraded the service and are now handling the load so please come back and see what the NASA COSMIC software announcement is all about .
Larry Mills-Gahl
Open Channel Software
I apologize to those whose requests were not served this morning due to the spike in demand. We've upgraded our service now and we invite you back to check out the NASA software.
Larry Mills-Gahl
Open Channel Software
M0571y H@rml355.
Raytheon TDU-850 Printer Driver for Windows
Sweet, I'd been waiting for that one for a long time...
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Maybe I'd check it out if you weren't charging $400 for inetd.
I hope you get sued for misusing the Open Source trademark.
http://www.openchannelsoftware.com/orders/index.ph p?group_id=112
$7000 for source license ?
WTF ?
Why does most media always associate open source with Linux? There are other open source operating systems (ex. *BSD, AtheOS, and GNU HURD)?
A real life BSD zealot.
If you click on the link and want to download any of those code, they want anywhere from $50 up. If it is FREE, I wouldnt have to enter my credit card to pay for a single program download
BULLSHIT!
Openchannel is charging $200 for at least one of the programs. So is it public domain, or $200?
So I visited the site to look at their AI offerings, and the first interesting package I saw, AUTOCLASS III, costs $900 to download. If that's your idea of public domain, I'll just keep hoping we encounter alien life that uses the GPL.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Under U.S. copyright law, works of the Federal government are not copyrightable; these programs were "public domain" the moment they were created (unless they were created by government contractors who were NOT working on a "work-for-hire" basis).
But it's real nice that they're now publicly accessible...
I went to the site. There isn't a whole lot in the public domain. Open Channel Software charges money for the application and more money for the source code.
I'm not going to pay $100 for the source code to a line of code counter.
i'm the ac who put this here. i saw it posted (unreferenced) elsewhere and wondered where it came from. now i know. i shoulda known it was the onion.
From what I can tell this software is:
a - available if you pay for it only (I'm sure they call this a distribution fee, but why no free download?)
and
b - only available *to* *US* *citizens*
Both of these are fair enough, the US paid for the software (via government funding of NASA) and they cann't be forced to give it away, but this is *not* public domain software, it is simply put in a more public place.
A lot of this software has always been available, so long as you knew who to ask, and would pay the fee for distribution, and were a US citizen, and signed the agreements, etc, etc, so not much has changed I guess.
Of course everyone knows that us in the non-US part of the world are still dragging our knuckles on the ground and trying to work out what to use fire for, but we still seem to find uses for this kind of software, believe it or not. I know, I use Overture from LANL for flow solving, it's MUCH more open source, and more free, and (to be honest) better than anything NASA has yet made available in this area.
Maybe now civilians like the guy on http://www.Rocketman.com can use this software to put himself into orbit after his first launch is successful. Or, anyone else for that matter with some balls and money to push for private trip to the moon even with this tried and trusted software(Bill Gates???).
Hmmm, I wonder if China would find this of any use.
Phooey. I clicked on "Get NASTRAN," and found that JUST THE DOC SET is $250. An IBM PC executable is $1000 PER YEAR. And the source code is $7000 PER YEAR.
I'm not sure what kind of "public domain" this is, but it's certainly not what I expected.
NASTRAN Doc-Full Set NASTRAN Documentation set for the UNIX version of the source code. Includes the four volume set of documentation on CD-ROM: User's Manual, Theoretical Manual, Programmer's Manual and Demonstration Problem Manual. $250.00
NASTRAN Doc-Full Set w/ Code NASTRAN Documentation set for the UNIX version of the source code. Includes the four volume set of documentation on CD-ROM.
Select this option if you are ordering documentation in conjuction with purchasing NASTRAN source code. $0.00
NASTRAN Exec. DEC ALPHA OSF/1 Executable version of NASTRAN for DEC Alpha AXP computers running OSF/1. This is an annual fee. (COS-10067) $2,000.00
NASTRAN Exec. HP9000 Executable version of NASTRAN for HP9000 series 7xx/8xx computers running HP-UX. This is an annual fee. (COS-10054) $2,000.00
NASTRAN Exec. IBM RS/6000 Executable version of NASTRAN for IBM RS/6000 computers running AIX. This is an annual fee. (COS-10061) $2,000.00
NASTRAN Exec. IBM/PC Executable version of NASTRAN for IBM PC compatible computers running MS-DOS, Windows 3.1, or Windows 95. This is an annual fee. (COS-10080) $1,000.00
NASTRAN Exec. Sun Solaris Executable version of NASTRAN for Sun Solaris 2.X. This is an annual fee. (COS-10065) $2,000.00
NASTRAN Source DEC ALPHA OSF/1 Source code for NASTRAN for DEC ALPHA OSF/1. This is an annual fee. (COS-10066) $7,000.00
NASTRAN Source SGI IRIX Source code for NASTRAN for SGI IRIS computers running IRIX 5.x. This is an annual fee. (COS-10057) $7,000.00
NASTRAN Source Sun Solaris Source code for NASTRAN for Sun Solaris 2.X. This is an annual fee. (COS-10064) $7,000.00
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
MWSG, more whining slashdot geeks. Those free for non-commercial use contracts people use are ridiculous because you all know damn well that it is rare that anyone who uses that software in a corporate fashion pays for the stuff. How many of you have "free for educational or non-commercial use" software on your PCs at work? I bet a good number of you do. If you just want the code to play around with you can find a number of CFD Fortran programs all over the internet. The cost of binaries for these toys is about what you'll pay for FLUENT anyhow. Funny how the same people that complain about NASA messing up mission or needing more money are the same ones bitching that they dare charge money for something they worked on.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
www.netlib.org has more useful public domain scientific software than any other site on the planet.
Wroot
What kind of liquid? Must be corrosive if it will go through...
What they use
Since I'm using an A2000!
Regards,
JK
(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"