...you're talking to your wife/girlfriend/lawyer/stock broker
about
getting a divorce/sleeping with your best friend/sleeping with your lawyer/sleeping with your wife/buying your stock at the wrong price/missing a purchase opportunity/spilling OJ on your leather couch.
I wouldn't worry about your phone causing you headaches. Otherwise the simple solution is to stop using your cell phone.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
The text from the press release (save you the effort of a click):
Bob Jacobs/Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington, DC July 3, 2000 (Phone: 202/358-1600)
Ed Campion/Eileen Hawley Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX (Phone: 281/483-5111)
RELEASE: 00-102
COMPUTER HACKER NEVER ENDANGERED SHUTTLE ASTRONAUTS
News reports that a computer hacker endangered the lives of Space Shuttle astronauts during a 1997 mission are wrong. A report from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) said a hacker compromised NASA computers, endangering the lives of American astronauts.
NASA's Inspector General's office found that during the STS-86 mission in September of 1997, the transmission of routine medical information was slightly delayed due to a computer hacker. However, the transmission was successfully completed.
At no time was communication between NASA and the astronauts compromised. The communication interruption occurred between internal ground-based computer systems.
There has never been an interruption of communication service with the Shuttle due to computer hacker attacks. The command and control communications links between Mission Control and a Space Shuttle in orbit are extremely well insulated.
The 1997 incident is currently under investigation by NASA Inspector General's office.
-end-
It's just a sensationalist story that I was unwilling to believe (I'm in the industry). It seems the doubters are correct this time.
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
He starts out as a bumbling, outsider nobody who can't get anything right. By the end of Episode I, he's proven himself to be an okay guy. In the next couple movies he'll continue to mature and advance, will become a major general or other figure, until finally by the end of the third movie...
Did I miss something? Is JJ supposed to be the Don Knotts of Star Wars?
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Re:Ah, I *like* this idea...
on
Macs In Space!
·
· Score: 1
For these small satellites, the launch "wear-and-tear" shouldn't be as large of a cost as quoted in the article.
What I don't understand is, if this company is going to make a satellite constellation by building the spacecraft on ISS, how are they going to put them in different orbits? By definition, the satellites will all be at the same inclination and assuming no propulsion system the same altitude. Talk about dangers to astronauts. Also makes for a very limited satellite communications constellation.
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Temperatures are always a problem. Computer chips have been flying on satellites for years. Every satellite is designed to provide an appropriate temperature environment for all the components.
The temperature extremes are extreme, but that covers everything on the satellite. The exterior has the greatest extremes (depending on the design). The interior is usually controlled to within -30degC to 45degC and averages room temperature. This is by design and while not necessarily trivial, can be done.
The temperature control is most often controlled by designing the appropriate amount of radiation (IR). You want to radiate away just enough of the aborbed heat (earth IR, albedo, and solar) and the internal heat dissipation to maintain the desired temperatures.
Welcome to my world; this is what I do for a living!
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
That's why it sounds attractive to me. I'm trying to stick with Linux. I just nuked NT off of my drive. But I guess it wouldn't help if I could import stuff from my work NT workstation....
I've never used a PDA so I'm hoping someone has positive experience with Helio.
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
It's an earthquake! The world will now fall to ruin!! No, wait, it's actually a new Outlook virus on the loose. Well, what else did you expect from the Judge? M$ will still plead innocence. ~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Ignoring the fact that such a process is impractical, censorship = censorship.
I don't have control over the information I view. How do I know what is being filtered out? Whether it's a computer or a person, certain information is being withheld which is not what public libraries are for. In my opinion, everything is valid, except what I don't want to see, which is my own definition, which I control. That's the only way it works.
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Uh, in public places I am careful what I do. Who knows when somebody will walk in. I would only be upset if there were a camera in a private location. I don't know of any cameras in private places. If I found a camera in the bathroom, I would be upset.
But at a public bar, if you enjoy doing Kung-Fu moves with your pool cue, so what? Everybody else in the bar can see you. So what if one extra person sees you?
If you assume you're alone that's your problem. A public place is a public place, whether it's just a camera or a room full of people. If you don't want anybody to see what you're doing, I suggest going some place private.
Now if you were Martha Stewart doing doing a Kung-Fu move or picking her nose and the guard kept the recording and sold the footage to CBS for a prime time broadcast, I'm sure she wouldn't appreciate it. Her audience was the bar, not the world.
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Suddenly, all the human ugliness of sexism, racism, and agism comes into play, and entire swaths of society will be deemed worthwhile to forcibly teach not to trigger the dumb(by human standards) sensor arrays. Suddenly, the limits of the technology drive the law, first unwritten, then made official.
Wow, we're extrapolating pretty far. Perhaps this might be a concern in the future, trying to enforce anti-racism, or sexism through these types of intelligent security systems. My impression was that this work is intended to find more obvious criminal activities. I understand the concern of privacy issues and using this technology for extreme measures, but I would expect that as this technology evolves, these products would be evaluated on it's intentions and uses, much like this discussion.
How about a slashdot vote on suspicious activities? I don't know exactly what these intelligent systems would be triggered by, but these are my guesses.
I have done the following suspicious activities:
I walked slowly to my car looking around the garage and checking for passengers in the car.
I broke into a car by breaking a window, using a hanger, or stooped over a lock to pick it.
I stood still with my hands in the air.
I bumped into someone and started running away.
I sat down at an airport, checked my bag, and got up calmly and walked away without it.
I walk around with a paper, briefcase, or other object hiding my face.
I stood at the edge of the tracks and watched 5 trains go by.
I stood on or climbed onto the railings of a bridge, skyscraper, or other tall structure.
What other suggestions?
I have never done any of the above. But I would suspect that if you were fishing to unlock your car door with a hanger because you locked your keys in the car, you could easily prove this by showing the keys in the car or your car registration. If you have your hands up, I think it would be obvious to nearby security or police that no one is near you pointing a knife or gun at you. What other simple explanations can you give for the other examples?
I am not expecting these intelligent systems to be programmed to warn of every possible criminal action. But I would expect some simple activities like the above to be programmed to help with security guard's workload and not often give false warnings.
What other thoughts are there?
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
I think it would be useful for such a system to warn a security guard reading/. that someone is walking around my car, perhaps ducking behind it to not be seen. This way the security guard pays attention to the security camera showing the perpetrator breaking into my car and starting to drive away. This way, since the guard is paying attention, he can call the police who can stop the car on the way out of the garage. The thief is arrested, my car is recovered, I'm happy.
This is better than walking up to my parking space seeing my car gone, and finding out the guard wasn't paying attention because he was reading/..
Now, I don't seriously expect someone to come up to me arresting me for stealing my own car (or a borrowed friend's car which wouldn't have my name on the registration?) when I simply walk up to the car and happen to bend down to examine a tire that might have low pressure or examining a dent in the car from those large SUVs.
After all, the security guards are supposed to be watching the cameras despite any intelligent security system. It's always been the judgement of the security guard what suspicious activities are. I don't think that is changing here. Only the fact that monitoring 10 security cameras becomes a little easier when suspicious activity is brought to the guard's attention.
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
I never heard that story. I recall the McDonald's coffee. When I heard that story, I figured the lady never had a childhood where most people learn what HOT! means. I'm curious to know what someone hasn't learned in a bathroom.
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
I'm curious, with many people claiming credit should be due to the hard working employees, where do the support staff fit? I imagine there are PR people, human resources folks, janitors, and maybe an IT staff that all helped to make that product successful. Are their names in the products?
I know the products at my company are credited to the entire company. Of course, NASA, banning any type of advertising on the products, helps this policy.
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Uh, space investments pay my salary. If money isn't invested in space, I go on welfare. I'll warn you, I'll be spending more time on slashdot if I were on welfare.
At least with my current work, you'll get a better understanding of weather patterns and environmental research to help prevent any harmful effects of global warming that humans might be causing. My work might also help with other detector technologies (from MRI to the CCD in your camcorder). My work will also provide opportunities to research physics that can better improve your life through safety, better medicine, cheaper products, and possibly more environmentaly safe products.
Now, what is better, spending welfare money reading/., or producing productive technology to help research and science that affect you?
My personal part might be small, but I find it rewarding.
Maybe your idea of spending money is to go to the movies. Now really, how good of an investment is that in the long term? You paid somebody to occupy your attention for 2.5 hours and wasted countless time discussing it afterwards. I say get rid of some of the entertainment industry before you pick on the space industry.
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
I seem to recall, say about a year ago, the answer to everything regarding the benefits of open source was essentially: just fork it!
You have the source code, you have your bright ideas (so you think), and you want make some software better. So open source, being open source, would promote better software by allowing anyone to fork the code to increase the quality of the software. I think even Netscape was used as an example. If you don't like the browser, build your own from the pieces of Netscape that do work (can you do this with the Netscape license?).
But lately, with folks talking about forking the actual Linux kernel, forking seems to be the bad answer.
I think instead of arguing over forking, the argument should be over freedom of choice. Whether you fork or not, it's GPL. If someone likes your forked code better, isn't that success? If someone doesn't likes your code and stays with the original, isn't that success?
Who gives a hoot to forking? I have the Linux that I have. I have all the source code I need. If I ever learned programming, I could do more about it. Since I don't, I can hire somebody to do make changes for me. If there is a better feature, I'll just add it. But, I figure, if it's really that cool of a feature, someone else will add it to the current Linux kernel or other open source software as well.
The short answer or question is: Who's going to take the software (or OS) away?
Still, I'd like to count how many times forking was discussed as a benefit to open source before it seemed to become a dirty word lately.
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
I've never looked at either of the two web sites, but seeing on of the logos on TV (ESPN or ABC I think), I always associated the two. I never noticed the distinction between GoTO.com and go.com. Now, I'll have to investigate what goto.com is all about. Free advertising. Then again, I guess the lawyers aren't all that free.
~afniv "Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Slashdot Mirror
...you're talking to your wife/girlfriend/lawyer/stock broker
about
getting a divorce/sleeping with your best friend/sleeping with your lawyer/sleeping with your wife/buying your stock at the wrong price/missing a purchase opportunity/spilling OJ on your leather couch.
I wouldn't worry about your phone causing you headaches. Otherwise the simple solution is to stop using your cell phone.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
His credits can be found at:
http://hobbes.resnet.tamu.edu/credits.p html
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Maybe he did this after being slashdotted (the page is not dated:
Credits
Layout
Many thanks to linux.com's cool layout!
If you have any expertise which you feel can contribute to Hobbes and want your work to be noticed by the masses, please write to me about it!
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Be realistic. That student wouldn't get a job. Being last in the graduating class hurts a great deal.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Linux, takes a licking, keeps on ticking!
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Here's a picture of where space exploration (funding) is headed:
Shuttle Ads
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
German Yahoo! Article
The text from the press release (save you the effort of a click):
It's just a sensationalist story that I was unwilling to believe (I'm in the industry). It seems the doubters are correct this time.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
I just got an e-mail from NASA that sort of retracts the news from BBC. I believe this more than BBC. The press release can be found at:
NASA Today/A>
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
He starts out as a bumbling, outsider nobody who can't get anything right. By the end of Episode I, he's proven himself to be an okay guy. In the next couple movies he'll continue to mature and advance, will become a major general or other figure, until finally by the end of the third movie...
Did I miss something? Is JJ supposed to be the Don Knotts of Star Wars?
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
For these small satellites, the launch "wear-and-tear" shouldn't be as large of a cost as quoted in the article.
What I don't understand is, if this company is going to make a satellite constellation by building the spacecraft on ISS, how are they going to put them in different orbits? By definition, the satellites will all be at the same inclination and assuming no propulsion system the same altitude. Talk about dangers to astronauts. Also makes for a very limited satellite communications constellation.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Temperatures are always a problem. Computer chips have been flying on satellites for years. Every satellite is designed to provide an appropriate temperature environment for all the components.
The temperature extremes are extreme, but that covers everything on the satellite. The exterior has the greatest extremes (depending on the design). The interior is usually controlled to within -30degC to 45degC and averages room temperature. This is by design and while not necessarily trivial, can be done.
The temperature control is most often controlled by designing the appropriate amount of radiation (IR). You want to radiate away just enough of the aborbed heat (earth IR, albedo, and solar) and the internal heat dissipation to maintain the desired temperatures.
Welcome to my world; this is what I do for a living!
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
That's why it sounds attractive to me. I'm trying to stick with Linux. I just nuked NT off of my drive. But I guess it wouldn't help if I could import stuff from my work NT workstation....
I've never used a PDA so I'm hoping someone has positive experience with Helio.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
I don't have a PDA yet and haven't looked for a while. This Helio sounds most promising since it runs on a form of Linux.
ZDNet Family PC Review Says it's okay
Cnet says it sucks (cool colors but little support)
It's still pricy for me, and who cares about lack of Outlook support (which I'm sure has been fixed by now anyways).
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
It's an earthquake! The world will now fall to ruin!! No, wait, it's actually a new Outlook virus on the loose. Well, what else did you expect from the Judge? M$ will still plead innocence.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Ignoring the fact that such a process is impractical, censorship = censorship.
I don't have control over the information I view. How do I know what is being filtered out? Whether it's a computer or a person, certain information is being withheld which is not what public libraries are for. In my opinion, everything is valid, except what I don't want to see, which is my own definition, which I control. That's the only way it works.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
The Denver Post article that CNN and others refer to can be found here:
http://www.denverpost.com/news/news010 6m.htm
There is a tad more information included.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Uh, in public places I am careful what I do. Who knows when somebody will walk in. I would only be upset if there were a camera in a private location. I don't know of any cameras in private places. If I found a camera in the bathroom, I would be upset.
But at a public bar, if you enjoy doing Kung-Fu moves with your pool cue, so what? Everybody else in the bar can see you. So what if one extra person sees you?
If you assume you're alone that's your problem. A public place is a public place, whether it's just a camera or a room full of people. If you don't want anybody to see what you're doing, I suggest going some place private.
Now if you were Martha Stewart doing doing a Kung-Fu move or picking her nose and the guard kept the recording and sold the footage to CBS for a prime time broadcast, I'm sure she wouldn't appreciate it. Her audience was the bar, not the world.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Wow, we're extrapolating pretty far. Perhaps this might be a concern in the future, trying to enforce anti-racism, or sexism through these types of intelligent security systems. My impression was that this work is intended to find more obvious criminal activities. I understand the concern of privacy issues and using this technology for extreme measures, but I would expect that as this technology evolves, these products would be evaluated on it's intentions and uses, much like this discussion.
How about a slashdot vote on suspicious activities? I don't know exactly what these intelligent systems would be triggered by, but these are my guesses.
I have done the following suspicious activities:
I have never done any of the above. But I would suspect that if you were fishing to unlock your car door with a hanger because you locked your keys in the car, you could easily prove this by showing the keys in the car or your car registration. If you have your hands up, I think it would be obvious to nearby security or police that no one is near you pointing a knife or gun at you. What other simple explanations can you give for the other examples?
I am not expecting these intelligent systems to be programmed to warn of every possible criminal action. But I would expect some simple activities like the above to be programmed to help with security guard's workload and not often give false warnings.
What other thoughts are there?
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
I think it would be useful for such a system to warn a security guard reading /. that someone is walking around my car, perhaps ducking behind it to not be seen. This way the security guard pays attention to the security camera showing the perpetrator breaking into my car and starting to drive away. This way, since the guard is paying attention, he can call the police who can stop the car on the way out of the garage. The thief is arrested, my car is recovered, I'm happy.
/..
This is better than walking up to my parking space seeing my car gone, and finding out the guard wasn't paying attention because he was reading
Now, I don't seriously expect someone to come up to me arresting me for stealing my own car (or a borrowed friend's car which wouldn't have my name on the registration?) when I simply walk up to the car and happen to bend down to examine a tire that might have low pressure or examining a dent in the car from those large SUVs.
After all, the security guards are supposed to be watching the cameras despite any intelligent security system. It's always been the judgement of the security guard what suspicious activities are. I don't think that is changing here. Only the fact that monitoring 10 security cameras becomes a little easier when suspicious activity is brought to the guard's attention.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
I never heard that story. I recall the McDonald's coffee. When I heard that story, I figured the lady never had a childhood where most people learn what HOT! means. I'm curious to know what someone hasn't learned in a bathroom.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
I'm curious, with many people claiming credit should be due to the hard working employees, where do the support staff fit? I imagine there are PR people, human resources folks, janitors, and maybe an IT staff that all helped to make that product successful. Are their names in the products?
I know the products at my company are credited to the entire company. Of course, NASA, banning any type of advertising on the products, helps this policy.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Uh, space investments pay my salary. If money isn't invested in space, I go on welfare. I'll warn you, I'll be spending more time on slashdot if I were on welfare.
/., or producing productive technology to help research and science that affect you?
At least with my current work, you'll get a better understanding of weather patterns and environmental research to help prevent any harmful effects of global warming that humans might be causing. My work might also help with other detector technologies (from MRI to the CCD in your camcorder). My work will also provide opportunities to research physics that can better improve your life through safety, better medicine, cheaper products, and possibly more environmentaly safe products.
Now, what is better, spending welfare money reading
My personal part might be small, but I find it rewarding.
Maybe your idea of spending money is to go to the movies. Now really, how good of an investment is that in the long term? You paid somebody to occupy your attention for 2.5 hours and wasted countless time discussing it afterwards. I say get rid of some of the entertainment industry before you pick on the space industry.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
I seem to recall, say about a year ago, the answer to everything regarding the benefits of open source was essentially: just fork it!
You have the source code, you have your bright ideas (so you think), and you want make some software better. So open source, being open source, would promote better software by allowing anyone to fork the code to increase the quality of the software. I think even Netscape was used as an example. If you don't like the browser, build your own from the pieces of Netscape that do work (can you do this with the Netscape license?).
But lately, with folks talking about forking the actual Linux kernel, forking seems to be the bad answer.
I think instead of arguing over forking, the argument should be over freedom of choice. Whether you fork or not, it's GPL. If someone likes your forked code better, isn't that success? If someone doesn't likes your code and stays with the original, isn't that success?
Who gives a hoot to forking? I have the Linux that I have. I have all the source code I need. If I ever learned programming, I could do more about it. Since I don't, I can hire somebody to do make changes for me. If there is a better feature, I'll just add it. But, I figure, if it's really that cool of a feature, someone else will add it to the current Linux kernel or other open source software as well.
The short answer or question is: Who's going to take the software (or OS) away?
Still, I'd like to count how many times forking was discussed as a benefit to open source before it seemed to become a dirty word lately.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
I've never looked at either of the two web sites, but seeing on of the logos on TV (ESPN or ABC I think), I always associated the two. I never noticed the distinction between GoTO.com and go.com. Now, I'll have to investigate what goto.com is all about. Free advertising. Then again, I guess the lawyers aren't all that free.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Back up in the URL, and try these links:
khtml web page
Front page to screenshots
Another screen shot
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"