> ISS should have a giant telescope mounted on it.
Negative.
ISS shakes. It's got humans inside it who won't sit still. If you want to do deep-field astronomy you want to be able to point at an object and sit there collecting light for hours or days.
ISS leaks air and other gasses. It is surrounded by a gas bubble. Any telescope in the area would have these gasses condensing on it's mirror.
ISS is in a nasty orbit. The orbit is highly inclined so that Russian vehicles can reach it (thank goodness, given the recent Shuttle grounding). But the trade off is that it is much more expensive to put stuff on ISS than to put it in a more equitoral orbit (where Hubble is).
ISS passes through the South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly on a regular basis. This is a nasty area which causes problems for sensitive equipment. A more equitorial orbit would largely avoid this area and allow a telescope to capture faiter images before having to safe itself.
ISS is too low. At such low altitudes you've got a lot of atomic oxygen from the upper atmosphere. Atomic oxygen is very reactive and would ruin your mirrors quickly.
> Anyone want an unopened copy of Freelancer?
I'll trade it for my only Christmas gift this year: a large bottle of Scottish whisky (from a grateful client). It's a great present given that I DON'T DRINK.
Actually on second though, let's not trade, the customs in and out of the UK for it would cost more than the presents.
To summarise the article, a group of reporters were pissed that they weren't invited to attend the conference. They disected a security card, and found (shock, horror) that it contained features designed to maintain security at said conference. Since this is the only dirt they managed to find, they spin it up into a sky-is-falling end-of-the-world privacy story.
I'd have a lot more respect for activist reporters if they would report the facts without hype. It's not the second coming, it's possibly a minor infraction of the Swiss information laws.
> This is such a load of crap. Hackers aren't skinny, they're fat and wear free t-shirts from Comdex. This diet is going to do everything for them... losing weight is hard, unlike gaining weight, which is easy.
Weight gain is not easy. I've always been on the skinny side, but for over a year I've been steadilly losing a couple of pounds a month. I've tried eating more, changing my diet, varying my activities, but I just keep getting thinner. Now that I'm in the double-digits I'm starting to get really worried.
At Fermilab where I work, the larger experiments are expecting to generate 1PB/year of data in around 2005, up from somewhere around 300TB/year currently.
The remarkable thing is that after analysis is complete, all that data is reduced to just two bytes: "42"
This story has been on the/. front page for three hours and there isn't a single comment rated at 3 or more. And not just on this story, all of today's stories have very few articles which have been modded up.
You can't buy publicity like this. Here we have a small hotel who have managed to get world-wide publicity for whatever it will cost to settle this suit.
How many of us had heard of this hotel before today? Not only do they have publicity, but they have good publicity -- they're the 'victim'. Doesn't get any better than this.
(I wonder how willing a bank would be to offer a business a short term loan to cover legal expenses in light of the future increase in business.)
If you are visiting London's Science Museum don't forget to visit the Charles Babbage exhibit. You'll never look at a computer in quite the same way again.
> Douglas Adams was, once again, an incredible visionary (even if he didn't intend to be one).
Actually, he wasn't. His ludicrous "telephone sanitizers" weren't made up. It's a normal part of British culture. Don't believe me? Get your telephone sanitizers here, here and here. All.co.uk addresses, natually.
Yes, it did blow my mind when I moved to the UK and discovered that this wasn't Douglas Adams fiction, it was sitting on every desk.
> Wow, taken to the extreme, the exploitation of their systems could have caused a train collision and injury or death to hundreds of Maryland and Virginia commuters.
No. Taken to the extreme, this exploitation could cause the train system to stop. Which is what it did.
Ever since the Victorian era, trains are designed to stop if there's a failure. That's what "fail safe" means, not that it is "safe from failure" but that "when it fails, it is safe".
For a simple example, take a look at the _mechanical_ switching gear on the tracks behind my office. More modern electronic or computerised equipment is exactly the same in terms of how it reacts to failures.
Long distance repairs
on
SOHO Is Back
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
It continually amazes me what ground control can do with damaged hardware. Galileo had an LED (part of the tape drive) which had burned out; but they managed to repair it. Voyager 2 had its entire OS replaced from half way across the solar system. A space telescope with a dead tracking system was revived using software to watch stars using the main camera. Sats with dead gyroscopes have been reactivated using jury-rigged torquer bars which interact with Earth's magnetic field. One communications sat used the Moon as an unscheduled slingshot to get it into the correct orbit after its main booster failed.
So don't laugh when one of these upgrades goes wrong. Like one of the Vikings which was accidentally sent the command "switch off your reciever" while on the surface of Mars (it is still there, patiently waiting for the next order).
Yes it imports Word documents better, yes it exports as PDFs, yes it does many nice new things. But I don't care. The only thing I care about is the fix for menus. When you right-clicked in the 1.0 version, the popup menu popped up on the wrong monitor. A stupid one-line bug. And quickly fixed (according to their Bugzilla). But one that has been driving me up the wall.
Programmers take note. The media (this includes Slashdot) will report the Big Features. But the users will love it for the little features. For a successfull release you need both Big Features (so that word of the release gets out) and little features (so that users will like it).
I was at Toronto International airport last year and saw an Ethiopian woman and young child at the top of an escalator. They were clearly having problems. I took the hand of the child and helped her take "the big step". Presumably her first. She had no problems. Then I realised that I was helping the wrong person. The mother was now stranded at the top wondering what to do.
Teavelators, escalators, revolving doors, they seem natural and intuitive to those who are used to them.
The author fails to look at history. "Pointless" gadgets aren't a new thing. A hundred years ago something called "indoor plumbing" was a pointless gadget. It saved one from going to all the effort of opening a window and yelling "gardez loo". But with the benefit of hindsight, it turns out that indoor plumbing was kind of a cool idea.
Every age has new ideas; some of which will last, and some which won't. The cutting edge ones invariably look pointless at the time.
If you are trying to figure out where the Chinese are headed, all you have to do is look at this picture of a Shenzhou rollout, then compare with this picture of a certain NASA rollout. Creepy, huh?
If enough of us use this term, ESR will be forced to add it to the Jargon File. Which would deflate his ego. Which would invalidate the term. Which means he could remove it. Which of course would be an ego boost for him.
Many observers believe SCO's case is bolstered by the fact that it is represented by high-powered attorney David Boies, who prosecuted the Microsoft antitrust case and represented Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election vote-counting scandal.
Wait a minute. Didn't the Microsoft case collapse? And didn't Al Gore loose his case? So why is SCO's case being "bolstered" by using David Boies. Isn't Mr. Boies just a loser?
(Nothing personal against David, just looking at the quoted record.)
> How are they going to verify that I don't just pick one of pre-posted IDs and us ethat one ?
The ID you enter isn't displayed on the webpage for the public to see. It is simply logged. Just like Slashdot's logs will have your IP address stored somewhere.
I don't know, my "Hello World" program seems to be bug free. Be careful with sweeping generalisations.
Isnt the surest way of knowing how an object will behave in the wind is to run it through a wind tunnel?
After all, consider sending a probe to mars. What if the parachute checked out OK in a computer simulation, but doesn't apply to real physics because of some bug?
Computers can do cute things like simulate the parachute in a Martian atmosphere. Which might be kind of handy given that the air density on Mars is 1% of Earth.
For the simple stuff, there are wind tunnels. For everything else, there's computers.
During one of the more recent solar eclipses in Canada, some teacher went out and bought 30 $1 sunglasses so that her class could watch the eclipse. Half of them ended up in hospital a few hours later.
It only takes a couple of stupid incidents like this to strike fear in parents and teachers everywhere. Now many schools close the blinds and go through what ammounts to a 'duck and cover' bomb drill whenever there's an eclipse.
> I thought the moon people landed in the middle of the atlantic, does the US own that now ?.
Other than the first two suborbital Mercury astronauts (who did splashdown in the Atlantic), all the other Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts from the US returned to Earth in the Pacific.
The Pacific is bigger than the Atlantic, which means it is harder to miss.
Slashdot Mirror
Negative.
> Anyone want an unopened copy of Freelancer? I'll trade it for my only Christmas gift this year: a large bottle of Scottish whisky (from a grateful client). It's a great present given that I DON'T DRINK. Actually on second though, let's not trade, the customs in and out of the UK for it would cost more than the presents.
I'd have a lot more respect for activist reporters if they would report the facts without hype. It's not the second coming, it's possibly a minor infraction of the Swiss information laws.
Weight gain is not easy. I've always been on the skinny side, but for over a year I've been steadilly losing a couple of pounds a month. I've tried eating more, changing my diet, varying my activities, but I just keep getting thinner. Now that I'm in the double-digits I'm starting to get really worried.
The remarkable thing is that after analysis is complete, all that data is reduced to just two bytes: "42"
Is there a shortage of moderators today?
How many of us had heard of this hotel before today? Not only do they have publicity, but they have good publicity -- they're the 'victim'. Doesn't get any better than this.
(I wonder how willing a bank would be to offer a business a short term loan to cover legal expenses in light of the future increase in business.)
If you are visiting London's Science Museum don't forget to visit the Charles Babbage exhibit. You'll never look at a computer in quite the same way again.
Actually, he wasn't. His ludicrous "telephone sanitizers" weren't made up. It's a normal part of British culture. Don't believe me? Get your telephone sanitizers here, here and here. All .co.uk addresses, natually.
Yes, it did blow my mind when I moved to the UK and discovered that this wasn't Douglas Adams fiction, it was sitting on every desk.
- First we ignored SCO.
- Then we laughed at SCO.
- Then we fought SCO.
- ...
Remind me what step four is?No. Taken to the extreme, this exploitation could cause the train system to stop. Which is what it did.
Ever since the Victorian era, trains are designed to stop if there's a failure. That's what "fail safe" means, not that it is "safe from failure" but that "when it fails, it is safe".
For a simple example, take a look at the _mechanical_ switching gear on the tracks behind my office. More modern electronic or computerised equipment is exactly the same in terms of how it reacts to failures.
(sorry)
So don't laugh when one of these upgrades goes wrong. Like one of the Vikings which was accidentally sent the command "switch off your reciever" while on the surface of Mars (it is still there, patiently waiting for the next order).
Programmers take note. The media (this includes Slashdot) will report the Big Features. But the users will love it for the little features. For a successfull release you need both Big Features (so that word of the release gets out) and little features (so that users will like it).
Teavelators, escalators, revolving doors, they seem natural and intuitive to those who are used to them.
Every age has new ideas; some of which will last, and some which won't. The cutting edge ones invariably look pointless at the time.
I wish them the best of luck.
Windows comes with Notepad and IE. Little Coders have access to JavaScript; something that can run circles around the BASIC of old.
If enough of us use this term, ESR will be forced to add it to the Jargon File. Which would deflate his ego. Which would invalidate the term. Which means he could remove it. Which of course would be an ego boost for him.
Rinse. Repeat.
Wait a minute. Didn't the Microsoft case collapse? And didn't Al Gore loose his case? So why is SCO's case being "bolstered" by using David Boies. Isn't Mr. Boies just a loser?
(Nothing personal against David, just looking at the quoted record.)
The ID you enter isn't displayed on the webpage for the public to see. It is simply logged. Just like Slashdot's logs will have your IP address stored somewhere.
I don't know, my "Hello World" program seems to be bug free. Be careful with sweeping generalisations.
Isnt the surest way of knowing how an object will behave in the wind is to run it through a wind tunnel? After all, consider sending a probe to mars. What if the parachute checked out OK in a computer simulation, but doesn't apply to real physics because of some bug?
Computers can do cute things like simulate the parachute in a Martian atmosphere. Which might be kind of handy given that the air density on Mars is 1% of Earth.
For the simple stuff, there are wind tunnels. For everything else, there's computers.
It was launched in 1997
It only takes a couple of stupid incidents like this to strike fear in parents and teachers everywhere. Now many schools close the blinds and go through what ammounts to a 'duck and cover' bomb drill whenever there's an eclipse.
Other than the first two suborbital Mercury astronauts (who did splashdown in the Atlantic), all the other Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts from the US returned to Earth in the Pacific.
The Pacific is bigger than the Atlantic, which means it is harder to miss.