I had envisioned an autonomous satellite that would synchronize its orbit with whatever junk is to be removed then apply a magnetic field so that the object would drop out of orbit. The benefit of this is that you wouldn't have to setup a collision to remove objects - you would just have to get close (wrt proximity and velocity).
Please someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I know maneuvering in space is a lot different than on earth, and I seem to remember that changing orbits to something opposite your current orbit is just near to impossible.
It's not that you can just brake and make a U-turn to get into pursuit of the next piece of spacejunk that runs in the opposite direction.
That said, I remember a sci-fi pocketbook series where the protagonists were scheduled to do some cleaning jobs from their spaceship with their foton-raygun. And as we all know Star Trek is for real, this will just be something we will be able to do in 50 years.
While there is nothing wrong with Linux and Linux users, this has been my experience exactly. I've tried a number of times to go to Linux. At first (mid 90's) it was the difficulty of install, now it's just the inability to run the programs I want and the required move to programs I don't want to use.
As an example: What to use as spreadsheet on Linux? Open Office. So I tried to run Open Office in Windows. While the program does run, it did take me one hour to convert an Excel spreadsheet that I use to track my income and expenses. And after that, the 600kB Excel file was saved as a 4.5MB OO file. I'm very sorry, but that just doesn't do it for me. I'm not always happy with Windows, but it sure beats the frustrations I had trying to use Linux and its associated programs.
This is great for large installations.
- you only introduce a single point of failure if you choose to. Who says that all terminals connect to a single computer and who says that every terminal always has to connect to the same computer? Never heard of Citrix?
- Userrights have to be limited of course. No installing of own software, and proper viruschecking.
- If two software packages don't mix, then install them on different servers.
A lot of users here only ever start Word, Excel, Access, Outlook and a terminal program. And for that you have to support a complete computer?
Work will even get faster. No pumping of large datasets in Access databases over the net, now they reside on a central server and get run on this central server.
Plus the added bonus of less A/C in the summer because all those hot computers are gone.
We will receive new computers at work in a few months. A colleague of mine asked me in a serious way if they would have Vista on it.
I just didn't know how to react. Ridcule him? Ignore him? Or just try to explain to him that having a bad and barely proven OS at home is only an inconvenience, but having it at work is just plain evil and a serious business hazard.
This has been common practice in the Netherlands for over 25 years (with a few years break because of the Euro). At first there was some moaning and whining but it is perfectly accepted now. How much will you pay more each year because of this? I don't know. But if you are really bothered about that you pay amounts that end with 1, 2, 6 and 7 cents in cash and amounts with 3, 4, 8 and 9 cents with debit/credit/bank card.
The reason for abandoning the 1 cent coin in the Netherlands in 1980? The cost of making one was larger than the value. One cent is worth about 0,5 US penny. So inflation has caught up.
Iraq. Afghanistan (US and USSR experiences). Palestine. Vietnam. Connect the dots and see the picture: groups with "pea shooters" can mount a significant resistance against an vastly better armed occupier.
Which makes me ask: when are you going to get rid of those people that are violating your basic constitutional laws?
No, this is not a troll.
Absolutely correct. There is no mention of a laser weapon in the article. Merely a laser that was illuminating an American satellite at a previous occasion.
I remember playing a LPMUD once where the recurring cleanup was switched off. You would come in the next room and you saw: a dead orc a dead orc a dead orc a dead troll a dead orc a dead orc a dead orc 5 gold coins a dead orc a dead troll a dead orc a dead orc a dead orc a dead troll a sword a sword a dead orc a dead orc a dead orc a dead troll a dead orc a dead orc 5 gold coins a dead orc a dead orc a dead orc a dead orc a dead orc a shiny armour a dead orc a dead orc a dead orc a dead orc a dead troll a dead orc a dead orc a dead orc a dead orc a dead orc a dead orc a dead orc a dead orc a dead orc
Isn't that the biggest heap of FUD you've ever come across? Charge someone with child pornography whith a possible 90 years and then offer them a plea bargain of showing a Penthouse?
I am so glad that the justice system in my country doesn't work that way.
Not just about sex. It last struck to me that any possibly offending word is now beeped out in American TV broadcasts.
"Oh my god! The dog just [beeped] on the carpet!"
"When that happens, the [beep] hits the fan."
And what's worse, it's apparently not enough that they do it in America, it seems that if they distribute it, the beeps are already in so we here in depraved and heinous Europe are also stuck with this crap.
Face it, the moral standards of whoever is in charge over there just don't add up.
Well, the address in the whois, Sonnenallee 1 Heimstetten is in fact the address of Sun's office in Germany. So either some unknown entity has also invaded the premises of Sun or this is legit.
As to your spam: maybe Sun is a front for a spambusiness now. Maybe Sun distributes e-mail adresses to 3rd party contractors. Maybe Sun sends all the data to their shipping company which in turn does something fishy. Maybe it's just coincidence. Who will tell.
And why doesn't it have a user-configurable system where you can change the DST parameters yourself? It's something every respectable Unix distribution has since... god knows how long. Just look at the TZ file and your mind boggles at the many different implentations there are and the possibilities you have for DST in your own personal fiefdom.
W2K is just broken by design. No-one can explain to me why you would ever program this in a manner that you need an official vendor patch to change these parameters. Okay, wait, I see the light. It all has to do with customer binding.
You need to let a conversion program worry about converting Word 2006 documents to XML documents. You need to let the maker of Word 2006 worry about making this conversion program. This can be in the form of a "save as XML" option, but also an external program.
You can not say "oh, this is an old feature, let's put it in the spec and let's let the programmer that uses this spec worry about it because we can't be bothered to convert it or don't know how to convert it".
Sorry, but XML should be clear to everyone and if you include an option, you should document the behaviour of this option
But even so, you do not want the specification of a new document format have all the quirks of all the old formats. That is just silly.
That is saying that a car should have a 6V battery system too because old cars have 6V battery systems and you might come across an acessory that uses 6V.
You do not need these features to begin with in a new format that is inherently incompatible with an old format. You don't want to say "now I'm going to do WP style linespacing and my linespacing is 1".
If you want to convert a WP document to an XML document, the conversion program should know that the linespacing in WP is 0.9 times the linspacing in XML document (or what it really may be)and will then use linespacing=0.9 in the XML document. This is not a task of the new wordprocessor or its specification.
By adding this so-called "backward compatibility" to your specification, you make the spec overly difficult and in fact you make the conversion program in the new application when this is absolutely not necessary.
And on top of that, you require that the programmer who uses this spec should have knowledge of all these old versions and is able to program them without error. And as the application will grow because of these unnecessary features, the number of bugs will also rise. So this is not a blueprint for a good application, this is a blueprint for a very buggy implementation of a wordprocessor.
10. T-Mobile Dash
Absolutely agree that this is not innovative. I seem to remeber that the HTC Universal was announced 2 (TWO) years ago. That was something new, but even so, hardly innovative (it's only smaller and has more features than previous devices).
And the T-Mobile Dash does not offer anything new and/or innovative over the HTC Universal.
What obsolete TVs? All TVs whith a standard 75 Ohm antenna connector are capable of being attached to cable. I have no idea if that is standard in the rest of the world, but it is in the Netherlands.
The last TV I've seen that needed something else was B/W and stood in my grandparents house 20 years ago.
And those TVs are now collectibles.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not that you can just brake and make a U-turn to get into pursuit of the next piece of spacejunk that runs in the opposite direction.
That said, I remember a sci-fi pocketbook series where the protagonists were scheduled to do some cleaning jobs from their spaceship with their foton-raygun. And as we all know Star Trek is for real, this will just be something we will be able to do in 50 years.
While there is nothing wrong with Linux and Linux users, this has been my experience exactly. I've tried a number of times to go to Linux. At first (mid 90's) it was the difficulty of install, now it's just the inability to run the programs I want and the required move to programs I don't want to use.
As an example: What to use as spreadsheet on Linux? Open Office. So I tried to run Open Office in Windows. While the program does run, it did take me one hour to convert an Excel spreadsheet that I use to track my income and expenses. And after that, the 600kB Excel file was saved as a 4.5MB OO file.
I'm very sorry, but that just doesn't do it for me. I'm not always happy with Windows, but it sure beats the frustrations I had trying to use Linux and its associated programs.
... is there when producing crops (like sugar cane, rapeseed, maize) for fuel gives a farmer more money than growing these crops for food.
Mind you: this point has already been reached.
This is great for large installations. - you only introduce a single point of failure if you choose to. Who says that all terminals connect to a single computer and who says that every terminal always has to connect to the same computer? Never heard of Citrix? - Userrights have to be limited of course. No installing of own software, and proper viruschecking. - If two software packages don't mix, then install them on different servers. A lot of users here only ever start Word, Excel, Access, Outlook and a terminal program. And for that you have to support a complete computer? Work will even get faster. No pumping of large datasets in Access databases over the net, now they reside on a central server and get run on this central server. Plus the added bonus of less A/C in the summer because all those hot computers are gone.
We will receive new computers at work in a few months. A colleague of mine asked me in a serious way if they would have Vista on it.
I just didn't know how to react. Ridcule him? Ignore him? Or just try to explain to him that having a bad and barely proven OS at home is only an inconvenience, but having it at work is just plain evil and a serious business hazard.
I don't think he understood.
No. For $1.96 you pay $1.95.
This has been common practice in the Netherlands for over 25 years (with a few years break because of the Euro).
At first there was some moaning and whining but it is perfectly accepted now.
How much will you pay more each year because of this? I don't know. But if you are really bothered about that you pay amounts that end with 1, 2, 6 and 7 cents in cash and amounts with 3, 4, 8 and 9 cents with debit/credit/bank card.
The reason for abandoning the 1 cent coin in the Netherlands in 1980? The cost of making one was larger than the value. One cent is worth about 0,5 US penny. So inflation has caught up.
No, this is not a troll.
Absolutely correct. There is no mention of a laser weapon in the article. Merely a laser that was illuminating an American satellite at a previous occasion.
I remember playing a LPMUD once where the recurring cleanup was switched off.
You would come in the next room and you saw:
a dead orc
a dead orc
a dead orc
a dead troll
a dead orc
a dead orc
a dead orc
5 gold coins
a dead orc
a dead troll
a dead orc
a dead orc
a dead orc
a dead troll
a sword
a sword
a dead orc
a dead orc
a dead orc
a dead troll
a dead orc
a dead orc
5 gold coins
a dead orc
a dead orc
a dead orc
a dead orc
a dead orc
a shiny armour
a dead orc
a dead orc
a dead orc
a dead orc
a dead troll
a dead orc
a dead orc
a dead orc
a dead orc
a dead orc
a dead orc
a dead orc
a dead orc
a dead orc
Isn't that the biggest heap of FUD you've ever come across? Charge someone with child pornography whith a possible 90 years and then offer them a plea bargain of showing a Penthouse?
I am so glad that the justice system in my country doesn't work that way.
Not just about sex. It last struck to me that any possibly offending word is now beeped out in American TV broadcasts.
"Oh my god! The dog just [beeped] on the carpet!"
"When that happens, the [beep] hits the fan."
And what's worse, it's apparently not enough that they do it in America, it seems that if they distribute it, the beeps are already in so we here in depraved and heinous Europe are also stuck with this crap.
Face it, the moral standards of whoever is in charge over there just don't add up.
Well, the address in the whois, Sonnenallee 1 Heimstetten is in fact the address of Sun's office in Germany. So either some unknown entity has also invaded the premises of Sun or this is legit.
As to your spam: maybe Sun is a front for a spambusiness now. Maybe Sun distributes e-mail adresses to 3rd party contractors. Maybe Sun sends all the data to their shipping company which in turn does something fishy. Maybe it's just coincidence.
Who will tell.
And why doesn't it have a user-configurable system where you can change the DST parameters yourself?
It's something every respectable Unix distribution has since... god knows how long.
Just look at the TZ file and your mind boggles at the many different implentations there are and the possibilities you have for DST in your own personal fiefdom.
W2K is just broken by design. No-one can explain to me why you would ever program this in a manner that you need an official vendor patch to change these parameters.
Okay, wait, I see the light. It all has to do with customer binding.
I remember a high 1.1 kernel (1.1.81?) which was announced in a same manner.
It turned out to be the worst since 0.1.
I wonder what NASA will do with the wheels for the next Moon buggy.
As you may or may not know, rims are measured in imperial, tyres in metric.
So they did it wrong.
You need to let a conversion program worry about converting Word 2006 documents to XML documents. You need to let the maker of Word 2006 worry about making this conversion program. This can be in the form of a "save as XML" option, but also an external program.
You can not say "oh, this is an old feature, let's put it in the spec and let's let the programmer that uses this spec worry about it because we can't be bothered to convert it or don't know how to convert it".
Sorry, but XML should be clear to everyone and if you include an option, you should document the behaviour of this option
But even so, you do not want the specification of a new document format have all the quirks of all the old formats. That is just silly. That is saying that a car should have a 6V battery system too because old cars have 6V battery systems and you might come across an acessory that uses 6V.
You seem to be missing the point.
You do not need these features to begin with in a new format that is inherently incompatible with an old format. You don't want to say "now I'm going to do WP style linespacing and my linespacing is 1".
If you want to convert a WP document to an XML document, the conversion program should know that the linespacing in WP is 0.9 times the linspacing in XML document (or what it really may be)and will then use linespacing=0.9 in the XML document. This is not a task of the new wordprocessor or its specification.
By adding this so-called "backward compatibility" to your specification, you make the spec overly difficult and in fact you make the conversion program in the new application when this is absolutely not necessary.
And on top of that, you require that the programmer who uses this spec should have knowledge of all these old versions and is able to program them without error. And as the application will grow because of these unnecessary features, the number of bugs will also rise. So this is not a blueprint for a good application, this is a blueprint for a very buggy implementation of a wordprocessor.
10. T-Mobile Dash Absolutely agree that this is not innovative. I seem to remeber that the HTC Universal was announced 2 (TWO) years ago. That was something new, but even so, hardly innovative (it's only smaller and has more features than previous devices). And the T-Mobile Dash does not offer anything new and/or innovative over the HTC Universal.
What obsolete TVs? All TVs whith a standard 75 Ohm antenna connector are capable of being attached to cable. I have no idea if that is standard in the rest of the world, but it is in the Netherlands. The last TV I've seen that needed something else was B/W and stood in my grandparents house 20 years ago. And those TVs are now collectibles.
So... you're going to do a T-shirt version if it too?