"The ground based telescopes is where great research is coming from now, ask an astronomer. They put far less import on saving hubble than the general populace, and they're the ones who actually use it."
Don't know what you're smoking, but I don't think a single colleague of mine has said a single thing in support of not servicing HST. Just like the ground-based telescopes, much of the research done with HST does not produce sexy pictures. HST has (and has had) instrumentation that goes way beyond just a fancy high-res optical camera or a atmospheric-free light bucket.
In it's slightly disabled state (dead spectrometer), yes, it's gathering less great science data that it used to. But if things had kept on track it would have some shiny new parts--that are finished and sitting on the ground right now--and still be taking data that would go into the great science discoveries of the next decade or so.
Instrumentation in astronomy in the modern era is complementary. Maybe you can make the front-page new splash with a huge ground-based instrument more than you used to (well, after we started observing from space), but the fact is, if you're really interested in the science as a whole, you're not going to get the complete picture from the ground alone.
And now onto the practical. Funding for astronomy research (some hardware, but mostly people-time) by and large comes from two places, NASA and NSF. For the most part, NASA gives money to you, the astronomer, to build something (rocket experiment, new instrument for a space mission, etc.) or to reduced and publish results for data already taken. You can probably do the math, but if there's fewer things to take data with, there's much less money to do science with. NASA has not historically (esp. under O'Keefe) provided other avenues for non-hardware related science except through that data taking. Your proposal was accepted for a project to use STIS before it broke? Tough cookies. No money for you.
NSF's budget has not been increased substantially, and with it being pretty flat over the last few years (decade?), it's hard to see how it can soak up all the astronomy funding if HST ends it's life early. Already, the money for UV astronomers from NASA has dried up from lots of angles (COS delayed/canceled, STIS dead, FUSE downtime and now limited operation). The next five years do not look good.
So, there might be more possibilities to tap the private sector. For pure science though? That's what we're talking about. Sure it's possible to get money to build things (especially when you can attach a name to it!), but who's going to pay the astronomers? That kind of money is much harder to obtain. You out there with a vote and a pen/e-mail to your reps have to decide. Do you want us substantially privately funded?
BTW, all this comes from an astronomer who's bread and butter comes from a NSF-funded, small, but modern ground-based instrument. I haven't used a dollar of NASA money in probably about 6-7 years.
IANAL(ibrarian), but IIRC, many libraries changed the length of time they hold on to record information now as a result of this. It's much shorter than it used to be so that they can "follow" the law, but still wouldn't be giving in (as much) on a pretty firmly held principle among the profession (from what I remember...).
... this is the New World Market. There can only be one winner and everyone else is a loser. Didn't you know that? Don't you read the mainstream press and pundits?
M$, Dell, Walmart, McDonald's... all your primary needs are covered. Now we just wait for the "iPod killer" so we can get on with our digital music life. And certainly Netflix is going down since Blockbuster is "on-line". Thank god I won't have to think about these things anymore...
It seems we just can't trust most of the mainstream media today.
No, I'm sorry you still have to think. And yes, it helps to be a critical thinker. Not only are the sources of information occasionally biased and sometimes fictional, they sometimes are even unintentionally wrong.
It seems that schools that teach journalism skip teaching about integrity, ethics, and the responsibility for reporters to be objective.
Right, because we know that every student utilizes what they learn in school. Revoke their charters to issue degrees!
I know, let's blame the "pressure" of the market to bring "quality" stories to the table. It's the publishers' faults. Boycott!
Hey, how about we actually call it what it is: a reporter who made shit up for ego, money, to have more time to play WoW, or whatever. Is it so hard for us to take responsibility these days that we can't even blame an individual for doing something fundamentally wrong?
I don't think the bloated comment exclusively refers to the size and/or resulting performance. In my limited usage of Office, it's the scope of the features and the translation into the UI.
PowerPoint is probably the most focused of the three and perhaps why it has garnered such a wide usage with the fewest complaints (all relative, of course). Word is bloated from lots of angles. The UI in particular is cluttered and filled with options that are visible at high-levels, but only rarely useful. Some single preference dialog boxes have more options than many of the apps I use. It needs a lobotomy.
6. Bundle it up and sell it for lots and lots of money and take credit for it all.
Apple goes out of their way publicly and even explicitly in their marketing to give credit where their base came from. They've contributed back to projects and have released many of their own. Go visit their pages and read. Go visit their open source dev site. Open source projects, specifically those that they've used and like to mention benefit from all this free PR/marketing from a major company. Sometimes they benefit from code sharing too.
Apple started with base of open software that uses open standards. They are still by and large leveraging and promoting open standards (probably the most important thing) and open software even 4 major releases later. Not that we need to be sycophantic or anything, but isn't this something to encourage in a corporate industry of closed everything so one can work toward patenting novel ways to scratch your butt?
The problem of course, is that I have a hard time throwing out the nice boxes. If they looked like crap and had styrofoam shedding over everything, I'd just chuck them. But the small collection of (probably never-used again) Apple boxes in my basement is getting out of hand...
...it's no worse than any other platform. Because aside from OS X, there isn't a modern OS whose apps are encouraged to have UI consistancy.
And don't fool yourself that M$ Office for OS X is one of those apps. It might look pretty Aquafied, but It still suffers from the inability or unwillingness to use OS X functionality like it was intended. When average-joe free/shareware developer seems to have no trouble utilizing the great dev features included for free.
Anyway... it's a pretty lame reason not to try OS X out or to try OO out--one way or another. And now we have Pages & Keynote as a third alternative.
Other poster has the "Aqua"-fied version being worked on to give a more native feel, but you can run OOo in X11 already. It's no different than running it on most other Unix boxen then.
1) With my Mac, I can devote all my gaming time to WoW. There are fewer choices to tempt me.
2) I get to ignore the EBGames on my walk to work every morning since I just bought (the other) Blizzard game they sell that is dual-platform in the box. This saves me lots of RL time. More for gaming.
3) I don't have to scan for viruses, defrag, clean my registry, kill ad/spyware, reinstall my OS on a regular basis, or reboot--*EVER* (except for timely security releases).
I'm not anonymous. And I not only prefer reading posts that make an attempt at being readable (not just phonetically), but I also tend to give them a lot more weight than their score alone...
Perhaps they could try getting a life instead of staring off into space all the time? If I was a scientist, I might welcome a 5 year break.
Sweet! Can I put this in my next proposal? That you personally would like your tax dollars going to me taking 5 years off on your dime and doing nothing? That rocks. Anyone else I can put down for this? I could use some trips to the Caribbean in there somewhere...
If you want to use the currently built next-gen instruments that were supposed to go on the next servicing mission, you'd need to couple either a good mirror with something that introduced the aberration or you'd have to make an identically bad mirror again. Or, send the instruments back to the drawing board to fix their optical paths. They both currently have optical fixes in their packages to account for the aberration that's in the Hubble right now.
I just wish it did one more minor thing: remove previous OS X apps that are no longer shipped with the new OS. IIRC, it doesn't remove this "cruft" for you to decide if you still need it. Otherwise, it is really a nice install method!
While it might be good for a concerned store clerk to ask a parent if they know what they are buying for their kids, most minimum wage workers aren't concerned enough to risk upsetting a customer by asking personal questions about their parenting.
Agreed. The only solution that will never be implemented is to make the buyer watch or play the game for 5-10 minutes before walking out the store.
Heck, sell the idea to the industry coupled with a signed release form (not useless EULA) stating that the buyer is familiar with the content and therefore has no legal toothpick to stand on and blame the industry when their kid who was already in need of help (and not the violent-release kind) decides to merge fantasy and reality for brief, but deadly moments.
Why are we so hung up on crucifying the games industry instead of enforcing policies that they already have in place?
I don't know for sure, but my guess is that enforcing the ratings would essentially be "crucifying the games industry", from the financial standpoint. I bet that's the only thing they really care about and probably have behind the scenes lobbied incredibly hard to not have implemented.
All this "negative" PR even with the ratings in place is not exactly bad for business, you know. Like it or not, an "M" rating is more likely to increase sales just based on that fact alone. Kids are still driving the sales, not their parents.
I don't disagree with you, I just think the reason for the lack of "enforcement" is probably the same reason movie theaters cycle through lax periods as well. I love video games and used to actually have time to play them. But a good fraction of them (and their descendants) are not ones I plan to let my 8-16 year-old kids play. Frankly, I think making the parent go in and buy those titles is only a start. Making them actually play select portions of them before they walk out the store would be even better. No one in the industry (and few likely in the public) would go for it, but forcing all of us to look at the screen and what you do in the game for 10 minutes before saying, "Yeah, I'm OK with my kid playing this." would probably do wonders.
How far do you want to take this? Personally, at this point, with such crazy replies, I'd walk with those letters/e-mails/etc. in hand to the IT department and start tracking down where the information is coming from. Try to sit down with someone and have a face to face conversation. At that point you will get a better understanding of whether it is lack of understanding or fear that is driving their irrationality.
At some point, maybe your CS department or similar can get involved. Because clamping down on resources blindly restricts the academic freedom that you are partly paying for. That freedom does not support illegal activities, but there's a fine line that the university should be towing to defend the usage of general utility while pursuing proven illegal abuse from within. It sound like whoever is dropping this rule is lazy or doesn't belong at a university/college setting.
What we need to do is stop glorifying the crackers and deluging the media (and forums) with the idea that DRM is incredibly insecure because of these hacks.
It's insecure because it's impossible to secure, perhaps especially because it's digital. But the perception of security is sometimes the most important thing companies want, whether for their partners, customers, or shareholders.
You want DRM hacks to get more and more fringe? Keep up the shouting. They have money and can certainly make things less palitable for the market/consumer. Hughes proved this with flourish, IMHO.
Bring back the subtle underground with those that had a will--and many times a good reason--usually had a way.
Nearly all PR images released by professional astronomers (and many by amateurs)--especially NASA--are not "true color". Nearly every multi-color image you see is from multiple actual observations that are combined in an image processing program. How "pretty" you want to make them is partly dependent on how much time, experience, and (frankly) money you have to spend on them. Keep in mind that "prettifying" pictures does not necessarily make them better for the science.
And all pretty cosmic phenomena Spitzer can see are also observable by the Hubble telescope.
Absolutely false.
Interstellar dust attenuates light, especially in the plane of the Milky Way. The survey project I linked to above penetrates much further than any visible light instrument can. And they only use 2 second integrations. Deeper, focused observations can detect distant gas and stars even better.
Although an official response of some sort, do you think it reflects the company as a whole? Do you think the answer is honest given that they are in a tight business relationship with the industry now (for better or worse)?
It's unfortunately a moot question now. It was extremely unlikely that anyone was ever going to bring anything to (legitimate) market without some kind of DRM or the demise of the current music industry first. And even with the restrictions imposed by FairPlay, having Apple grow in short-term market share hasn't been all bad news for consumers. We've already seen in reports last month that Apple's majority in the market may be a useful buffer against the greed and ignorance of major labels.
Finally, it's still up to you to use the iTMS. There are plenty of music sources that range from your own CD's to free downloads elsewhere that will fill up your iPod or similar imitation device.;)
Slashdot Mirror
"What, by using MS Office to open their own files. What a win that is!"
No, Keynote,
you insensitive clod!
"The ground based telescopes is where great research is coming from now, ask an astronomer. They put far less import on saving hubble than the general populace, and they're the ones who actually use it."
Don't know what you're smoking, but I don't think a single colleague of mine has said a single thing in support of not servicing HST. Just like the ground-based telescopes, much of the research done with HST does not produce sexy pictures. HST has (and has had) instrumentation that goes way beyond just a fancy high-res optical camera or a atmospheric-free light bucket.
In it's slightly disabled state (dead spectrometer), yes, it's gathering less great science data that it used to. But if things had kept on track it would have some shiny new parts--that are finished and sitting on the ground right now--and still be taking data that would go into the great science discoveries of the next decade or so.
Instrumentation in astronomy in the modern era is complementary. Maybe you can make the front-page new splash with a huge ground-based instrument more than you used to (well, after we started observing from space), but the fact is, if you're really interested in the science as a whole, you're not going to get the complete picture from the ground alone.
And now onto the practical. Funding for astronomy research (some hardware, but mostly people-time) by and large comes from two places, NASA and NSF. For the most part, NASA gives money to you, the astronomer, to build something (rocket experiment, new instrument for a space mission, etc.) or to reduced and publish results for data already taken. You can probably do the math, but if there's fewer things to take data with, there's much less money to do science with. NASA has not historically (esp. under O'Keefe) provided other avenues for non-hardware related science except through that data taking. Your proposal was accepted for a project to use STIS before it broke? Tough cookies. No money for you.
NSF's budget has not been increased substantially, and with it being pretty flat over the last few years (decade?), it's hard to see how it can soak up all the astronomy funding if HST ends it's life early. Already, the money for UV astronomers from NASA has dried up from lots of angles (COS delayed/canceled, STIS dead, FUSE downtime and now limited operation). The next five years do not look good.
So, there might be more possibilities to tap the private sector. For pure science though? That's what we're talking about. Sure it's possible to get money to build things (especially when you can attach a name to it!), but who's going to pay the astronomers? That kind of money is much harder to obtain. You out there with a vote and a pen/e-mail to your reps have to decide. Do you want us substantially privately funded?
BTW, all this comes from an astronomer who's bread and butter comes from a NSF-funded, small, but modern ground-based instrument. I haven't used a dollar of NASA money in probably about 6-7 years.
But like you said. Go ask an astronomer.
IANAL(ibrarian), but IIRC, many libraries changed the length of time they hold on to record information now as a result of this. It's much shorter than it used to be so that they can "follow" the law, but still wouldn't be giving in (as much) on a pretty firmly held principle among the profession (from what I remember...).
... this is the New World Market. There can only be one winner and everyone else is a loser. Didn't you know that? Don't you read the mainstream press and pundits?
M$, Dell, Walmart, McDonald's... all your primary needs are covered. Now we just wait for the "iPod killer" so we can get on with our digital music life. And certainly Netflix is going down since Blockbuster is "on-line". Thank god I won't have to think about these things anymore...
It's so simple. Sheesh.
No, I'm sorry you still have to think. And yes, it helps to be a critical thinker. Not only are the sources of information occasionally biased and sometimes fictional, they sometimes are even unintentionally wrong.
Right, because we know that every student utilizes what they learn in school. Revoke their charters to issue degrees!
I know, let's blame the "pressure" of the market to bring "quality" stories to the table. It's the publishers' faults. Boycott!
Hey, how about we actually call it what it is: a reporter who made shit up for ego, money, to have more time to play WoW, or whatever. Is it so hard for us to take responsibility these days that we can't even blame an individual for doing something fundamentally wrong?
I don't think the bloated comment exclusively refers to the size and/or resulting performance. In my limited usage of Office, it's the scope of the features and the translation into the UI.
PowerPoint is probably the most focused of the three and perhaps why it has garnered such a wide usage with the fewest complaints (all relative, of course). Word is bloated from lots of angles. The UI in particular is cluttered and filled with options that are visible at high-levels, but only rarely useful. Some single preference dialog boxes have more options than many of the apps I use. It needs a lobotomy.
"...larger and more varied flora of applications than the former two..."
That's not necessarily a bonus when 90% of them stink to high heaven...
6. Bundle it up and sell it for lots and lots of money and take credit for it all.
Apple goes out of their way publicly and even explicitly in their marketing to give credit where their base came from. They've contributed back to projects and have released many of their own. Go visit their pages and read. Go visit their open source dev site. Open source projects, specifically those that they've used and like to mention benefit from all this free PR/marketing from a major company. Sometimes they benefit from code sharing too.
Apple started with base of open software that uses open standards. They are still by and large leveraging and promoting open standards (probably the most important thing) and open software even 4 major releases later. Not that we need to be sycophantic or anything, but isn't this something to encourage in a corporate industry of closed everything so one can work toward patenting novel ways to scratch your butt?
Sheesh.
The problem of course, is that I have a hard time throwing out the nice boxes. If they looked like crap and had styrofoam shedding over everything, I'd just chuck them. But the small collection of (probably never-used again) Apple boxes in my basement is getting out of hand...
...it's no worse than any other platform. Because aside from OS X, there isn't a modern OS whose apps are encouraged to have UI consistancy.
And don't fool yourself that M$ Office for OS X is one of those apps. It might look pretty Aquafied, but It still suffers from the inability or unwillingness to use OS X functionality like it was intended. When average-joe free/shareware developer seems to have no trouble utilizing the great dev features included for free.
Anyway... it's a pretty lame reason not to try OS X out or to try OO out--one way or another. And now we have Pages & Keynote as a third alternative.
Other poster has the "Aqua"-fied version being worked on to give a more native feel, but you can run OOo in X11 already. It's no different than running it on most other Unix boxen then.
1) With my Mac, I can devote all my gaming time to WoW. There are fewer choices to tempt me.
2) I get to ignore the EBGames on my walk to work every morning since I just bought (the other) Blizzard game they sell that is dual-platform in the box. This saves me lots of RL time. More for gaming.
3) I don't have to scan for viruses, defrag, clean my registry, kill ad/spyware, reinstall my OS on a regular basis, or reboot--*EVER* (except for timely security releases).
4) PROFIT! Well, in-game at least...
Internets, you mean. Multi-core and all...
Just like if you put "One-" before "click" and apply it to "purchasing".
Oh, and throw "computer" and/or "on-line" in there and you're set.
I'm not anonymous. And I not only prefer reading posts that make an attempt at being readable (not just phonetically), but I also tend to give them a lot more weight than their score alone...
But, YMMV.
Perhaps they could try getting a life instead of staring off into space all the time? If I was a scientist, I might welcome a 5 year break.
Sweet! Can I put this in my next proposal? That you personally would like your tax dollars going to me taking 5 years off on your dime and doing nothing? That rocks. Anyone else I can put down for this? I could use some trips to the Caribbean in there somewhere...
If you want to use the currently built next-gen instruments that were supposed to go on the next servicing mission, you'd need to couple either a good mirror with something that introduced the aberration or you'd have to make an identically bad mirror again. Or, send the instruments back to the drawing board to fix their optical paths. They both currently have optical fixes in their packages to account for the aberration that's in the Hubble right now.
Fun, no?
I just wish it did one more minor thing: remove previous OS X apps that are no longer shipped with the new OS. IIRC, it doesn't remove this "cruft" for you to decide if you still need it. Otherwise, it is really a nice install method!
While it might be good for a concerned store clerk to ask a parent if they know what they are buying for their kids, most minimum wage workers aren't concerned enough to risk upsetting a customer by asking personal questions about their parenting.
Agreed. The only solution that will never be implemented is to make the buyer watch or play the game for 5-10 minutes before walking out the store.
Heck, sell the idea to the industry coupled with a signed release form (not useless EULA) stating that the buyer is familiar with the content and therefore has no legal toothpick to stand on and blame the industry when their kid who was already in need of help (and not the violent-release kind) decides to merge fantasy and reality for brief, but deadly moments.
Why are we so hung up on crucifying the games industry instead of enforcing policies that they already have in place?
I don't know for sure, but my guess is that enforcing the ratings would essentially be "crucifying the games industry", from the financial standpoint. I bet that's the only thing they really care about and probably have behind the scenes lobbied incredibly hard to not have implemented.
All this "negative" PR even with the ratings in place is not exactly bad for business, you know. Like it or not, an "M" rating is more likely to increase sales just based on that fact alone. Kids are still driving the sales, not their parents.
I don't disagree with you, I just think the reason for the lack of "enforcement" is probably the same reason movie theaters cycle through lax periods as well. I love video games and used to actually have time to play them. But a good fraction of them (and their descendants) are not ones I plan to let my 8-16 year-old kids play. Frankly, I think making the parent go in and buy those titles is only a start. Making them actually play select portions of them before they walk out the store would be even better. No one in the industry (and few likely in the public) would go for it, but forcing all of us to look at the screen and what you do in the game for 10 minutes before saying, "Yeah, I'm OK with my kid playing this." would probably do wonders.
The ISS is right on target delivering pork rolls wrapped in shiny foil to the right congressional districts.
How far do you want to take this? Personally, at this point, with such crazy replies, I'd walk with those letters/e-mails/etc. in hand to the IT department and start tracking down where the information is coming from. Try to sit down with someone and have a face to face conversation. At that point you will get a better understanding of whether it is lack of understanding or fear that is driving their irrationality.
At some point, maybe your CS department or similar can get involved. Because clamping down on resources blindly restricts the academic freedom that you are partly paying for. That freedom does not support illegal activities, but there's a fine line that the university should be towing to defend the usage of general utility while pursuing proven illegal abuse from within. It sound like whoever is dropping this rule is lazy or doesn't belong at a university/college setting.
Agree.
What we need to do is stop glorifying the crackers and deluging the media (and forums) with the idea that DRM is incredibly insecure because of these hacks.
It's insecure because it's impossible to secure, perhaps especially because it's digital. But the perception of security is sometimes the most important thing companies want, whether for their partners, customers, or shareholders.
You want DRM hacks to get more and more fringe? Keep up the shouting. They have money and can certainly make things less palitable for the market/consumer. Hughes proved this with flourish, IMHO.
Bring back the subtle underground with those that had a will--and many times a good reason--usually had a way.
Infrared pictures are just not as pretty as those made in visible light.
I beg to differ. And I'm an optical astrnomer.
Nearly all PR images released by professional astronomers (and many by amateurs)--especially NASA--are not "true color". Nearly every multi-color image you see is from multiple actual observations that are combined in an image processing program. How "pretty" you want to make them is partly dependent on how much time, experience, and (frankly) money you have to spend on them. Keep in mind that "prettifying" pictures does not necessarily make them better for the science.
And all pretty cosmic phenomena Spitzer can see are also observable by the Hubble telescope.
Absolutely false.
Interstellar dust attenuates light, especially in the plane of the Milky Way. The survey project I linked to above penetrates much further than any visible light instrument can. And they only use 2 second integrations. Deeper, focused observations can detect distant gas and stars even better.
From TFLA:
;)
"I asked the head lawyer..."
Although an official response of some sort, do you think it reflects the company as a whole? Do you think the answer is honest given that they are in a tight business relationship with the industry now (for better or worse)?
It's unfortunately a moot question now. It was extremely unlikely that anyone was ever going to bring anything to (legitimate) market without some kind of DRM or the demise of the current music industry first. And even with the restrictions imposed by FairPlay, having Apple grow in short-term market share hasn't been all bad news for consumers. We've already seen in reports last month that Apple's majority in the market may be a useful buffer against the greed and ignorance of major labels.
Finally, it's still up to you to use the iTMS. There are plenty of music sources that range from your own CD's to free downloads elsewhere that will fill up your iPod or similar imitation device.