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U.S. Billionaire Heads to Space Station

Posted by samzenpus on from the now-that's-an-expensive-hotel dept.

TurnAround writes "According to an International Business Times article, a Russian rocket carrying the American billionaire who helped develop Microsoft Word roared into the night skies over Kazakhstan Saturday, sending Charles Simonyi and two cosmonauts soaring into orbit on a two-day journey to the international space station. Climbing on a column of smoke and fire into the clouds over the bleak steppes, the Soyuz TMA-10 capsule lifted off at 11:31 p.m. local time, casting an orange glow over the Baikonur cosmodrome and dozens of officials and well-wishers watching from about a mile away."

3 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Does it piss anyone else off that.... by lgarner · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not at all. First, "While at the space station, Simonyi will be conducting a number of experiments, including measuring radiation levels and studying biological organisms inside the lab."

    Second, I don't see anything indicating that the US directly paid for the launch. If the Russians want to collect some money to help pay for this thing, then fine. I don't see why the US doesn't do the same- that could have meant $25million fewer of your tax dollars going into the ISS.

  2. Re:pFirst! by donutello · · Score: 4, Informative

    The m_ notation indicates that a variable is a member of the class. Simonyi's version of the Hungarian notation is actually very useful. Indicating the type of a variable is mostly useless because that's something any competent IDE will give you for free. Simonyi's original concept of the Hungarian notation focused more on indicating the meaning of the variable in question, rather than its type.

    --
    Mmmm.. Donuts
  3. Systems Hungarian vs. apps Hungarian by tepples · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yup, Mr. lpcszHungarianNotation himself has blasted off into space. There are two kinds of Hungarian notation: "systems Hungarian", which prefixes variable names with low-level data types such as the common lpsz representing "32-bit pointer to string"; and "apps Hungarian", which prefixes variable names with high-level data types such as rw for "row", str for "string", n for "number of", x for "horizontal coordinate", etc. Mr. Simonyi didn't advocate the "systems Hungarian" approach as much as "apps Hungarian". Wikipedia covers the difference.