That is good to know. I heard the commercial saying it was two episodes, and wondered how much they could do in two hours minus commercials. It sounds like you mean four hours minus commercials, or three hours.
I started watching Farscape recently. My wife has been watching it ever since we got married, and being a bored housewife, started channel surfing while I was at work. She has seen most of the episodes and is a fan (but not one of those scary fans that goes to conventions dressed up with Spock ears). Of course I started watching it as something [else] to do while sitting on the couch with her, and was intrigued. For being a relatively low budget production with actors I had never heard of before, it was very well done. I was sucked in, watching it whenever it was on and I was home, but I watched them all out of order. This made it difficult to follow.
I know the episodes are out on DVD, and I am very interested in buying them. Maybe someone can help me. I see that Farscape is letterboxed, which leads me to believe it is filmed in 16:9 high definition. I know CSI is filmed that way, so it is not unreasonable to think Farscape is too. I have a 16:9 HDTV and Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS sound system, will the Farscape DVDs take advantage of my home theater? Are they filmed in high definition? According to Best Buy there are a few DVDs. It looks like each season has six volumes, but then there are other DVDs labeled "Farscape 1" or "Farscape 2." What does this mean? As a Farscape newbie, could someone please explain this to me? Which ones do I need to buy?
On the one hand, that makes sense, but on the other hand it seems really unfair for Rackspace to lose their business over this. They're just as much the victim here as their clients are.
Rackspace has a history of ignoring us little people (e.g. spam complaints) while going overboard when the FBI even thinks about shutting down one of their sites. I have had a couple run-ins with their sysadmins because I had a known, verified source of fradulant spam and web sites on their network, but they refused to acknowledge me. Then when the FBI comes along, they gladly yank hard drives and everything, tripping over their own feet to please the feds.
Disclaimer: I do not work for this company, but I have to recommend them for enterprise-class web hosting: pair Networks. They are a FreeBSD based web host with excellent prices, support, uptime, etc. I have yet to be let down by them. Even their shared servers perform well because they do not overload them like Rackspace and others do.
Just out of curiousity, what's your plan to develop your more theoretical interests? Grad school? Independent study?
I plan on pursuing a PhD in computer science, then doing university research and independent study. However, I still need to be employed. If the population of "useful" programmers/software engineers is dwindling, that will eventually kill the research arm of the career field because it lowers demand for research products.
But there's a difference between programming and software engineering...
Very true. Programming is just one part of the software development process. Programming focuses on product, software engineering focuses on process. Programming is the "what", software engineering is the "how". This leaves out one part of the equation, one part I will probably be flamed for bringing up: computer science.
I consider myself a computer scientist as opposed to a programmer or software engineer. I have a solid CS background and am working on buttressing that with mathematics education. I like CS theory, statistics, discrete mathematics, etc. I do not like being a code monkey, nor do I like being a software engineer, although I do value both and do take on both those roles at my job. I much prefer being a computer scientist. How does this fit into the scenario presented by the article?
While I think most theory and math discoveries are already made, I still think progress is possible. I want to do research, but it looks like the shrinking computer fields might have repercussions even in academia. I may have to emmigrate to the next computer nexus to keep on the bleeding edge. I hate to bring politics into this, but I think that for all the educational focus our national leadership has, I think they all need to realize that bright, intelligent workers mean nothing if India can still do the work cheaper. Then we have a shrinking working class paying taxes to support new, bright workers who spend years being educated only to collect unemployment benefits. How about a "No Worker Left Behind" law?
Trouble is there are 50 states that they can do this in at circuit level (and at federal level?) and they can afford it.
There are nine circuit/appellate courts at the federal level in the U.S. Each state has its own set of courts to include a supreme court, but this is not relevant with a federal lawsuit like this one.
One good thing about HDTV is that it is digital. While component video is not digital, it is very high quality analog, and the signal tends to be very good. HDTV broadcasts are very crisp and have excellent colors. A few weeks ago my wife was watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on TV because she was too lazy to put the DVD in. I eventually put it in for her, and the difference is amazing. Besides going to a much higher resolution, the colors were amazing. Regular TV tends to be very washed out and has poor contrast and color. HDTV, both digital broadcasts and DVD video, is just the opposite. Discovery HD Theater is my favorite channel now because of the breathtaking detail and color. They do an excellent job with most of their HDTV programs.
Another benefit of digital HDTV broadcasts is that 99% of the time they broadcast in Dolby Digital 5.1. Even if they just mix two chanels up to 5.1 on the cable company's end, it still broadcasts that way on every HD channel I have seen. In fact my HDTV digital cable box has Dolby Digital built-in with optical and coaxial digital audio outputs.
Even though my HDTV and other home theater equipment is not the best, it is still light years ahead of the 1940s technology that low definition TV is built off of. I think that fairly soon, HDTV is going to take off. When I look around Best Buy, I see more than half the TVs are HDTV. The low definition ones are stuck in the corner out of the way, while the HDTVs are hooked up to 5.1 systems, have carefully set up lighting, and generally made to look more desirable. The price tags have fewer digits than they used to, even for high end models (excluding plasma). Of course, Wal-Mart has very few HDTV models and they all suck. When Wally World starts carrying more HDTVs than low definition sets we know the age of HDTV is here:-)
Being a manual, you would not have had to crank the engine again. Simply by leaving it in gear would keep turning the engine over much faster than the starter ever could.
Yeah, but there is a clutch switch on the starter. Keeping it in gear will turn the engine, but I have to disengage the engine from the transmission for the ignition to start. Spinning or not, if the ignition system turns off, the engine will stop firing. This will work when popping the clutch to start if the starter motor dies, but that is a different issue entirely.
ABS is essentially brake-by-wire. If the black box decides it doesn't want pressure at the slave cylinders, the driver is just along for the ride.
I do not know about other ABS systems, but in my vehicles if the ABS fails the power brakes still work. I had my ABS malfunction in one vehicle and the brakes worked like normal. In my experience, ABS modules are very fail-safe and I have never heard of one taking the driver along for the ride. Maybe you have, I am not saying you are wrong, just that I have not heard of that before.
Interesting. In my car, to get it into reverse, you have to put it in 5th first. Then you have to pull up on a collar on the shifter stalk while pulling the stalk down into reverse.
This is not all that uncommon in older vehicles. It actually makes sense as a safety feature if you understand how the inside of a manual transmission works.
I have seen several vehicles like that. Since the clutch has to be in anyway, what does the gear matter? I am just happy I do not have one of those stupid shift lights. I have driven two Jeeps and both of them had those stupid things.
Every automatic I have ever driven started in neutral. Yes, I try these things out, usually because I am used to driving a manual transmission so I do weird things with automatics. Since buying the car (automatic) I am not as bad, like when I almost hit a tree moving my mom's car. I figured I should rev the engine a little in case the gas pedal was stuck, then give it a little gas and pull up on the clutch. The steering wheel was off-center, so I wound up almost hitting the tree in her front yard. Lesson learned... think before I do something stupid:-)
Because of that incident, I always make sure the wheels face directly forward now. Sometimes my wife will be an ass and leave it with the wheels off-center but the steering wheel centered (i.e. one full turn to one side) just to fuck with me. Grrrr.... anal-retentive obsessive-compulsive husband, careless and sloppy wife...
Your not going to be able to shift from 5th to reverse while moving, because reverse doesnt have synchros...perhaps you could double-clutch it into reverse, but that's just silly:p
I have a reverse synchro. First, I regularly shift between 1st and reverse when parking and the truck is moving (maybe 2-3 mph). Even at such slow speeds, without a synchro, it would either not engage or crunch a bit if it did. On my truck, the gear shift slides right in. The other reason I know is because I asked Ford and they said so. My 3rd gear synchro is starting not to synchronize so well, and the Ford mechanic gave me a crash course on Ranger transmissions.
Also, to the GP who said never to turn off the ignition in a moving car...you can surivive without power steering, in fact *GASP* some cars don't have it to begin with.
Yes, steering works, but can be difficult. For example, I had a faulty alternator that made the engine stall every once in a while. One time I almost hit a concrete sign going 40 mph. Steering was tough enough that I could not make the turn. Luckily I have strong enough legs that I could make up for the lack of power brakes and stop in time. Being a manual my hands were kind of busy and in the split second I did not have time to crank the engine again. Quick thinking and strong feet saved me from face planting into the airbag.
Actually, manual transmissions can't let you shift into reverse while you're moving forward. It has less to do with it being a safety feature and more a side-effect of the design of the transmission.
Actually, mine will not shift into reverse from 5th. If I sit in my driveway with the engine off and try to shift it into reverse from 5th, it will not do it. I can go from any other gear into reverse, just not 5th. I assume this is so someone does not bump the shift lever down and destroy the transmission. This has nothing to do with the synchronizer gears meshing. The gears will not even get close. There is a safety feature in the transmission that prevents this.
It may make a lot of gear-grinding noise, but the teeth physically can't mesh. This means your engine is safe (even if it's a bit rough on the transmission gears) Nice, huh?
I think the damage would be worse than you say, but I am not about to test it on my own truck. I just wrote a check to pay off the lien, I am not about to try insurance fraud next;-)
I've got a 97 Landrover Discovery, so not exactly a new car, but it does what you talk about. If you shift down to 1st while going at high speeds, it won't shift until you've decelerated enough to avoid damaging the engine. If you keep your foot on the gas, it won't ever shift down.
I have a 1999 Ford Ranger. The only restriction it has on shifting is I cannot go straight from 5th to reverse. This is good, because the two times my wife tried driving it, she got confused and tried to do just that. I think I can put it into 1st at highway speeds, but I have not tried it. Once or twice I got curious and inched it almost into gear to see if it would lock like reverse does, and it did not. Even with the clutch in I do not have the balls to risk wrecking my transmission.
Of course, that is the crux of the issue with regards to the story -- I will never have the problem of a throttle stuck open. The worst that will happen is I will put the clutch in, coast or brake to a stop, then worry about fixing the problem. Even in my car with an automatic transaxle I can shift to neutral while driving. Yes, it will put extra wear and tear on the gears, but it sure beats putting extra wear and tear on my skull and the windshield as I slam into something at 120 mph.
Google makes a great search engine, I do appreciate their Usenet archives, but they do not have the Midas touch. If they made a GIM I am sure they would have a hardcore following, probably the same people using orkut and GMail, but I doubt they could market it to enough people.
Jabber is much more than a simple IM protocol, but that is where it needs to take root. I doubt even Google can see beyond IM here, but someone needs to (hence the IBM reference). A wise man (the Linux nerd who converted me) once told me (while drunk) that "Perl is the glue that holds Unix together." Jabber could be the glue that holds networks together at the application level (I am not drunk but I wish I was). Cross-platform, standards based (XML), extensible, versatile...
Good, now hopefully someone with some market clout will pick this up and market an IM program using these protocols to the masses. Jabber may be cool, but it is no MSN or AIM. Both of those have immense market penetration. I have high hopes for this protocol, hopefully someone like IBM will make this happen.
If you were to "meet" the trash you threw out in orbit, it might be moving at significant velocity, but then, so are you, right? I mean, if something moving at 17,000 miles per hour hits something moving in the same direction at 17,002 miles per hour, it's not the end of the world, is it?
Correct, the difference between those two speeds is small enough that it would not be an issue. The problem is that just throwing items out the window is not as simple as it sounds. Giving an item a different trajectory elongates the orbit, making it an ellipse. Elliptical orbits have variable speed: maybe it travels slow at the outskirts, but it speeds up when it gets closer to the Earth. If you give it an eccentric enough orbit the object might be travelling fast enough, maybe 17,100 miles per hour, to damage something. Maybe the ISS will not blow up, but if it is really sharp it might poke a hole in the wall and deflate your station. Or if you are monkey-flinging your poo out of orbit, you will wish you had the windshield wiper upgrade on your space station when it comes back on the other side of the orbit.
afaik, there is still some amount of gravity force acting upon the ISS, which is why they have to periodically thrust it back to its orbital position.. stuff thrown out of the ISS should eventually drop down to earth.
I hope there is "gravity force" affecting the ISS. After all, we know Earth's gravity is powerful enough to keep the Moon in orbit;-)
Anyway, most satellites in low orbit, around 250 miles, still have some bits and pieces of atmosphere to contend with. Granted the particles are so few and far between that it is essentially a vacuum and temperatures plunge to well below freezing, but there are still atmospheric particles. Over time, these drag on the ISS and other satellites in similar orbits, decaying their orbits. The space shuttle is up for such a short amount of time and has its own thrusters anyway so it is not an issue, but the ISS needs a boost every year or so. Technically it can go a lot longer than a year, but to be safe, NASA usually boosts it more often. After all it has gone two years without a lift (Columbia may have been the last shuttle flight but it was a launch or two before that when a shuttle lifted the ISS).
Satellites in higher orbits, such as geosynchronis, are so high up that there is no atmosphere at all. Even some of the higher low Earth orbits have much less drag, unfortunately, NASA and the ESA decided on a lower orbit. Oh well. At least it is still in one piece...
How about next we ban companies from asking for your phone number every single chance they get?
The DNC list definitely makes it possible to opt-in by giving your phone number out and signing a contract (read the fine print). So what I do is give out real numbers that do not belong to me. For example, the police department in Lakewood, Ohio, 44107, is 216-521-1234. Stores all over the east coast have that number in their databases. I list it publically in my Yahoo profile and I think on my web site. I had an old high school friend IM me asking why a policeman picked up the phone when he called me. I am evil:-)
Anyway, as long as companies try to take away my freedom not to be interrupted with spam email, spam paper mail, and spam phone calls, I will exercise my freedom to fuck with their databases.
Wouldn't it also mean that you can't see the "illusion" at all? I'd be interested to know if the images still appear to wobble and roll and such when you look at them.
You could always test that out by closing one of your eyes;)
... and Windows Update takes longer to identify what's needed than the Firefox patch took to identify and download! Just wish I could figure how to move my 500+ Opera bookmarks and shift the sidepanel to the bottom of the window:)
Windows Update has a lot more software to check. Unless Microsoft changed how it works, it has to troll through the registry looking for keys identifying which patches are installed, figure out if patches supercede others, etc. This Firefox update basically checks the version stamp and upgrades if need be. Since it runs inside of Firefox, all it has to do is check a variable that is already in memory. Of course that will be extremely fast.
Of course, Microsoft could make an option within IE to scan for IE-only updates, which would make updating IE much faster, but they don't.
What is the point? Since IE is integrated into the operating system, updates require reboots even under Windows XP which is a lot better with regards to rebooting than previous versions. Anyway, even if the actual update is faster, you would still have to wait for the reboot.
I just updated Firefox in less than ten seconds, and I did not have to restart the browser, certainly not the entire operating system (Windows XP in this case).
No there is a judgment that must be made as to whether something is fair use or not. For example, if I show the new Star Wars trilogy on a projector and charge admission, then I am violating the copyright, am I not?
Exactly -- although movie theaters are licensed to show movies. This theater is not, probably because they do parodies. Anyway, changing the sound is creating a derivative work, live or not. They are still showing the video and are doing so without permission. They really should have asked beforehand, giving a detailed explanation of their intentions.
Now if they wanted to act it out on stage as a parody, not using any original sound or video, there is nothing Lucas can do. He can threaten them with lawyers, but clearly has no case. I have heard of a few other instances of this happening, and each time it was justified parody.
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That is good to know. I heard the commercial saying it was two episodes, and wondered how much they could do in two hours minus commercials. It sounds like you mean four hours minus commercials, or three hours.
I started watching Farscape recently. My wife has been watching it ever since we got married, and being a bored housewife, started channel surfing while I was at work. She has seen most of the episodes and is a fan (but not one of those scary fans that goes to conventions dressed up with Spock ears). Of course I started watching it as something [else] to do while sitting on the couch with her, and was intrigued. For being a relatively low budget production with actors I had never heard of before, it was very well done. I was sucked in, watching it whenever it was on and I was home, but I watched them all out of order. This made it difficult to follow.
I know the episodes are out on DVD, and I am very interested in buying them. Maybe someone can help me. I see that Farscape is letterboxed, which leads me to believe it is filmed in 16:9 high definition. I know CSI is filmed that way, so it is not unreasonable to think Farscape is too. I have a 16:9 HDTV and Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS sound system, will the Farscape DVDs take advantage of my home theater? Are they filmed in high definition? According to Best Buy there are a few DVDs. It looks like each season has six volumes, but then there are other DVDs labeled "Farscape 1" or "Farscape 2." What does this mean? As a Farscape newbie, could someone please explain this to me? Which ones do I need to buy?
On the one hand, that makes sense, but on the other hand it seems really unfair for Rackspace to lose their business over this. They're just as much the victim here as their clients are.
Rackspace has a history of ignoring us little people (e.g. spam complaints) while going overboard when the FBI even thinks about shutting down one of their sites. I have had a couple run-ins with their sysadmins because I had a known, verified source of fradulant spam and web sites on their network, but they refused to acknowledge me. Then when the FBI comes along, they gladly yank hard drives and everything, tripping over their own feet to please the feds.
Disclaimer: I do not work for this company, but I have to recommend them for enterprise-class web hosting: pair Networks. They are a FreeBSD based web host with excellent prices, support, uptime, etc. I have yet to be let down by them. Even their shared servers perform well because they do not overload them like Rackspace and others do.
Just out of curiousity, what's your plan to develop your more theoretical interests? Grad school? Independent study?
I plan on pursuing a PhD in computer science, then doing university research and independent study. However, I still need to be employed. If the population of "useful" programmers/software engineers is dwindling, that will eventually kill the research arm of the career field because it lowers demand for research products.
But there's a difference between programming and software engineering...
Very true. Programming is just one part of the software development process. Programming focuses on product, software engineering focuses on process. Programming is the "what", software engineering is the "how". This leaves out one part of the equation, one part I will probably be flamed for bringing up: computer science.
I consider myself a computer scientist as opposed to a programmer or software engineer. I have a solid CS background and am working on buttressing that with mathematics education. I like CS theory, statistics, discrete mathematics, etc. I do not like being a code monkey, nor do I like being a software engineer, although I do value both and do take on both those roles at my job. I much prefer being a computer scientist. How does this fit into the scenario presented by the article?
While I think most theory and math discoveries are already made, I still think progress is possible. I want to do research, but it looks like the shrinking computer fields might have repercussions even in academia. I may have to emmigrate to the next computer nexus to keep on the bleeding edge. I hate to bring politics into this, but I think that for all the educational focus our national leadership has, I think they all need to realize that bright, intelligent workers mean nothing if India can still do the work cheaper. Then we have a shrinking working class paying taxes to support new, bright workers who spend years being educated only to collect unemployment benefits. How about a "No Worker Left Behind" law?
Trouble is there are 50 states that they can do this in at circuit level (and at federal level?) and they can afford it.
There are nine circuit/appellate courts at the federal level in the U.S. Each state has its own set of courts to include a supreme court, but this is not relevant with a federal lawsuit like this one.
One good thing about HDTV is that it is digital. While component video is not digital, it is very high quality analog, and the signal tends to be very good. HDTV broadcasts are very crisp and have excellent colors. A few weeks ago my wife was watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on TV because she was too lazy to put the DVD in. I eventually put it in for her, and the difference is amazing. Besides going to a much higher resolution, the colors were amazing. Regular TV tends to be very washed out and has poor contrast and color. HDTV, both digital broadcasts and DVD video, is just the opposite. Discovery HD Theater is my favorite channel now because of the breathtaking detail and color. They do an excellent job with most of their HDTV programs.
Another benefit of digital HDTV broadcasts is that 99% of the time they broadcast in Dolby Digital 5.1. Even if they just mix two chanels up to 5.1 on the cable company's end, it still broadcasts that way on every HD channel I have seen. In fact my HDTV digital cable box has Dolby Digital built-in with optical and coaxial digital audio outputs.
Even though my HDTV and other home theater equipment is not the best, it is still light years ahead of the 1940s technology that low definition TV is built off of. I think that fairly soon, HDTV is going to take off. When I look around Best Buy, I see more than half the TVs are HDTV. The low definition ones are stuck in the corner out of the way, while the HDTVs are hooked up to 5.1 systems, have carefully set up lighting, and generally made to look more desirable. The price tags have fewer digits than they used to, even for high end models (excluding plasma). Of course, Wal-Mart has very few HDTV models and they all suck. When Wally World starts carrying more HDTVs than low definition sets we know the age of HDTV is here :-)
Being a manual, you would not have had to crank the engine again. Simply by leaving it in gear would keep turning the engine over much faster than the starter ever could.
Yeah, but there is a clutch switch on the starter. Keeping it in gear will turn the engine, but I have to disengage the engine from the transmission for the ignition to start. Spinning or not, if the ignition system turns off, the engine will stop firing. This will work when popping the clutch to start if the starter motor dies, but that is a different issue entirely.
ABS is essentially brake-by-wire. If the black box decides it doesn't want pressure at the slave cylinders, the driver is just along for the ride.
I do not know about other ABS systems, but in my vehicles if the ABS fails the power brakes still work. I had my ABS malfunction in one vehicle and the brakes worked like normal. In my experience, ABS modules are very fail-safe and I have never heard of one taking the driver along for the ride. Maybe you have, I am not saying you are wrong, just that I have not heard of that before.
Interesting. In my car, to get it into reverse, you have to put it in 5th first. Then you have to pull up on a collar on the shifter stalk while pulling the stalk down into reverse.
This is not all that uncommon in older vehicles. It actually makes sense as a safety feature if you understand how the inside of a manual transmission works.
I have seen several vehicles like that. Since the clutch has to be in anyway, what does the gear matter? I am just happy I do not have one of those stupid shift lights. I have driven two Jeeps and both of them had those stupid things.
Every automatic I have ever driven started in neutral. Yes, I try these things out, usually because I am used to driving a manual transmission so I do weird things with automatics. Since buying the car (automatic) I am not as bad, like when I almost hit a tree moving my mom's car. I figured I should rev the engine a little in case the gas pedal was stuck, then give it a little gas and pull up on the clutch. The steering wheel was off-center, so I wound up almost hitting the tree in her front yard. Lesson learned... think before I do something stupid :-)
Because of that incident, I always make sure the wheels face directly forward now. Sometimes my wife will be an ass and leave it with the wheels off-center but the steering wheel centered (i.e. one full turn to one side) just to fuck with me. Grrrr.... anal-retentive obsessive-compulsive husband, careless and sloppy wife...
Your not going to be able to shift from 5th to reverse while moving, because reverse doesnt have synchros ...perhaps you could double-clutch it into reverse, but that's just silly :p
I have a reverse synchro. First, I regularly shift between 1st and reverse when parking and the truck is moving (maybe 2-3 mph). Even at such slow speeds, without a synchro, it would either not engage or crunch a bit if it did. On my truck, the gear shift slides right in. The other reason I know is because I asked Ford and they said so. My 3rd gear synchro is starting not to synchronize so well, and the Ford mechanic gave me a crash course on Ranger transmissions.
Also, to the GP who said never to turn off the ignition in a moving car...you can surivive without power steering, in fact *GASP* some cars don't have it to begin with.
Yes, steering works, but can be difficult. For example, I had a faulty alternator that made the engine stall every once in a while. One time I almost hit a concrete sign going 40 mph. Steering was tough enough that I could not make the turn. Luckily I have strong enough legs that I could make up for the lack of power brakes and stop in time. Being a manual my hands were kind of busy and in the split second I did not have time to crank the engine again. Quick thinking and strong feet saved me from face planting into the airbag.
The engine will not restart in neutral or with an automatic transmission.
I have two vehicles, one manual, one automatic. Both start in neutral, even if the vehicle is moving. Maybe some cars do not, but mine do.
Actually, manual transmissions can't let you shift into reverse while you're moving forward. It has less to do with it being a safety feature and more a side-effect of the design of the transmission.
Actually, mine will not shift into reverse from 5th. If I sit in my driveway with the engine off and try to shift it into reverse from 5th, it will not do it. I can go from any other gear into reverse, just not 5th. I assume this is so someone does not bump the shift lever down and destroy the transmission. This has nothing to do with the synchronizer gears meshing. The gears will not even get close. There is a safety feature in the transmission that prevents this.
It may make a lot of gear-grinding noise, but the teeth physically can't mesh. This means your engine is safe (even if it's a bit rough on the transmission gears) Nice, huh?
I think the damage would be worse than you say, but I am not about to test it on my own truck. I just wrote a check to pay off the lien, I am not about to try insurance fraud next ;-)
I've got a 97 Landrover Discovery, so not exactly a new car, but it does what you talk about. If you shift down to 1st while going at high speeds, it won't shift until you've decelerated enough to avoid damaging the engine. If you keep your foot on the gas, it won't ever shift down.
I have a 1999 Ford Ranger. The only restriction it has on shifting is I cannot go straight from 5th to reverse. This is good, because the two times my wife tried driving it, she got confused and tried to do just that. I think I can put it into 1st at highway speeds, but I have not tried it. Once or twice I got curious and inched it almost into gear to see if it would lock like reverse does, and it did not. Even with the clutch in I do not have the balls to risk wrecking my transmission.
Of course, that is the crux of the issue with regards to the story -- I will never have the problem of a throttle stuck open. The worst that will happen is I will put the clutch in, coast or brake to a stop, then worry about fixing the problem. Even in my car with an automatic transaxle I can shift to neutral while driving. Yes, it will put extra wear and tear on the gears, but it sure beats putting extra wear and tear on my skull and the windshield as I slam into something at 120 mph.
Google makes a great search engine, I do appreciate their Usenet archives, but they do not have the Midas touch. If they made a GIM I am sure they would have a hardcore following, probably the same people using orkut and GMail, but I doubt they could market it to enough people.
Jabber is much more than a simple IM protocol, but that is where it needs to take root. I doubt even Google can see beyond IM here, but someone needs to (hence the IBM reference). A wise man (the Linux nerd who converted me) once told me (while drunk) that "Perl is the glue that holds Unix together." Jabber could be the glue that holds networks together at the application level (I am not drunk but I wish I was). Cross-platform, standards based (XML), extensible, versatile...
Good, now hopefully someone with some market clout will pick this up and market an IM program using these protocols to the masses. Jabber may be cool, but it is no MSN or AIM. Both of those have immense market penetration. I have high hopes for this protocol, hopefully someone like IBM will make this happen.
If you were to "meet" the trash you threw out in orbit, it might be moving at significant velocity, but then, so are you, right? I mean, if something moving at 17,000 miles per hour hits something moving in the same direction at 17,002 miles per hour, it's not the end of the world, is it?
Correct, the difference between those two speeds is small enough that it would not be an issue. The problem is that just throwing items out the window is not as simple as it sounds. Giving an item a different trajectory elongates the orbit, making it an ellipse. Elliptical orbits have variable speed: maybe it travels slow at the outskirts, but it speeds up when it gets closer to the Earth. If you give it an eccentric enough orbit the object might be travelling fast enough, maybe 17,100 miles per hour, to damage something. Maybe the ISS will not blow up, but if it is really sharp it might poke a hole in the wall and deflate your station. Or if you are monkey-flinging your poo out of orbit, you will wish you had the windshield wiper upgrade on your space station when it comes back on the other side of the orbit.
afaik, there is still some amount of gravity force acting upon the ISS, which is why they have to periodically thrust it back to its orbital position.. stuff thrown out of the ISS should eventually drop down to earth.
I hope there is "gravity force" affecting the ISS. After all, we know Earth's gravity is powerful enough to keep the Moon in orbit ;-)
Anyway, most satellites in low orbit, around 250 miles, still have some bits and pieces of atmosphere to contend with. Granted the particles are so few and far between that it is essentially a vacuum and temperatures plunge to well below freezing, but there are still atmospheric particles. Over time, these drag on the ISS and other satellites in similar orbits, decaying their orbits. The space shuttle is up for such a short amount of time and has its own thrusters anyway so it is not an issue, but the ISS needs a boost every year or so. Technically it can go a lot longer than a year, but to be safe, NASA usually boosts it more often. After all it has gone two years without a lift (Columbia may have been the last shuttle flight but it was a launch or two before that when a shuttle lifted the ISS).
Satellites in higher orbits, such as geosynchronis, are so high up that there is no atmosphere at all. Even some of the higher low Earth orbits have much less drag, unfortunately, NASA and the ESA decided on a lower orbit. Oh well. At least it is still in one piece...
How about next we ban companies from asking for your phone number every single chance they get?
The DNC list definitely makes it possible to opt-in by giving your phone number out and signing a contract (read the fine print). So what I do is give out real numbers that do not belong to me. For example, the police department in Lakewood, Ohio, 44107, is 216-521-1234. Stores all over the east coast have that number in their databases. I list it publically in my Yahoo profile and I think on my web site. I had an old high school friend IM me asking why a policeman picked up the phone when he called me. I am evil :-)
Anyway, as long as companies try to take away my freedom not to be interrupted with spam email, spam paper mail, and spam phone calls, I will exercise my freedom to fuck with their databases.
Wouldn't it also mean that you can't see the "illusion" at all? I'd be interested to know if the images still appear to wobble and roll and such when you look at them.
You could always test that out by closing one of your eyes ;)
Windows Update has a lot more software to check. Unless Microsoft changed how it works, it has to troll through the registry looking for keys identifying which patches are installed, figure out if patches supercede others, etc. This Firefox update basically checks the version stamp and upgrades if need be. Since it runs inside of Firefox, all it has to do is check a variable that is already in memory. Of course that will be extremely fast.
Of course, Microsoft could make an option within IE to scan for IE-only updates, which would make updating IE much faster, but they don't.
What is the point? Since IE is integrated into the operating system, updates require reboots even under Windows XP which is a lot better with regards to rebooting than previous versions. Anyway, even if the actual update is faster, you would still have to wait for the reboot.
I just updated Firefox in less than ten seconds, and I did not have to restart the browser, certainly not the entire operating system (Windows XP in this case).
If radio antennas are considered weapons of mass destruction, I think we are all in trouble.
No there is a judgment that must be made as to whether something is fair use or not. For example, if I show the new Star Wars trilogy on a projector and charge admission, then I am violating the copyright, am I not?
Exactly -- although movie theaters are licensed to show movies. This theater is not, probably because they do parodies. Anyway, changing the sound is creating a derivative work, live or not. They are still showing the video and are doing so without permission. They really should have asked beforehand, giving a detailed explanation of their intentions.
Now if they wanted to act it out on stage as a parody, not using any original sound or video, there is nothing Lucas can do. He can threaten them with lawyers, but clearly has no case. I have heard of a few other instances of this happening, and each time it was justified parody.