I figure the only new feature these new craft will have, is, no styrofoam on the shuttle to destroy the wing, right?
Supposedly this will be fixed for the next shuttle launch. The company that makes the external fuel tanks was charged with fixing the flaw that allows foam to break off, supposedly by not using foam anymore.
No, but seriously, you mean, we aren't going to use shuttles anymore? Whats it going to be, a space elevator? Damn the mod who posted this article without more info!
We will use shuttles until we develop something better. Knowing NASA's history, this may take awhile.
Is that there's not going to be another launch vehicle comparable to the Shuttle in terms of capability for the next half century.
The space shuttle certainly has a big cargo capacity. Despite being a huge compromise (hence its limitations), it does succeed at being a heavy transport. But why do we need a space shuttle to do this job?
You have to train astronauts to do a relatively automated task anyway -- launching the shuttle, orbiting, and landing. NASA can fly the whole mission from the ground, relying on the shuttle's computers for times when communication is sparse (like during reentry blackout). Usually the pilot and commander sit in the cockpit watching the computer fly -- the proverbial monkey and pilot, and the pilot's job is to feed the monkey. On top of that, the shuttle obviously is a highly complicated piece of machinery and shit goes wrong. It's been plagued by problems since day one, although thankfully the problem with the fuel lines was fixed a while ago. That was another catastrophic accident waiting to happen.
Compare this to a solid fuel rocket like the military uses, and NASA uses too for a few of its launches (you just don't hear much about them because they aren't as "cool" as shuttle launches). No men on board, so given the launch location (Atlantic seaboard, roughly), the chance of losing life is almost nil (even launchpad explosions typically don't hurt anyone). The launch vehicle is an order of magnitude less complex. No pesky life support to deal with. And so on.
Rockets provide a relatively low-cost and low-risk method of accomplishing the heavy lift task of the shuttle. Yes, rockets had problems back in the day, but we rarely have fuckups with them anymore. Most satellites are launched by rockets anyway, so we don't need the shuttle and its problems. All it really is is a space station ferryboat and an oversized and inefficient platform to study science in space.
I fully support space exploration, but come on, the shuttle was an exercise in futility, doomed to failure from the start. We did learn along the way, so I hope shuttle #2 is better than the current one.
RealPlayer my ass. AdPlayer more like it. You get this huge window full of advertisements and flashy widgets, and maybe 10% of the window is covered by actual video in blocky, shitty quality that jumps and skips constantly. Even Windows Media Player, for all its DRM crap, has the majority of the window covered by the video.
I remember back when I had phone line modem that video would pause every few seconds as RealPlayer loaded up more ads. Of course it wouldn't just pause, it would skip those parts of the movie.
So you enjoy being a parasite living off the backs of productive taxpayers?
So you enjoy the fact that other countries don't invade the U.S. because of our military? Government workers are productive too. Without us as a deterrent, there would be no capitalist economy because we would be occupied.
The study of nuclear reactions, where you take an atom and smash it to pieces. Nuclear chemistry gave us the ability harness nuclear fission and fusion, both for power plants and weapons (although fusion power plants are a bit tricky and only used over short time periods for research, and even then only rarely).
I wish it were not true, but weapons/defense industry research related to anti-terror and advanced defense technology is once again a promising area. One that is VERY unlikely to be offshored.
That is the one thing that might keep me from changing into a different part of the compsci industry. I currently work in a DOD job where because of security requirements, most Americans cannot work here, let alone Indians. I'm unhappy for other reasons, but job security is not one of them. It's the one thing I have going for me in this economy.
I'm thinking about going into the pure sciences, like astrophysics. With this push to go back to the Moon and to Mars, I think the space program will be revived -- whether it be NASA or the private sector. We need young people with advanced degrees in space-related fields. I see computer science being a part of this, but dwarfed by engineering, physics, and chemistry. Nuclear chemistry is another good field, and still plenty geeky.
Thank you for the information. It sounds exactly like something Disney would do: they want a monopoly on entertainment. If that day ever comes, I guess I won't be entertained anymore.
Doom is ten years old and I still play it. With a modern source port engine (Carmack released the source years ago), I get high resolutions and it plays in Linux and Windows. Anyway, the gameplay is still just as solid, there are tons of maps coming out all the time to play, and if you want newer 3D features, some of the ports support those, too (OpenGL, translucency, etc).
Check out the rec.games.computer.doom.* newsgroups, we're still active.
Like I said, if a programmer knows how to write a decent message loop this won't be a problem. MFC is a horrible toolkit, and Visual Basic is a dead horse.
Windows API is tedious but works well. I'd much rather use QT over all of these options. Good thing I am learning Linux programming.
Despite your claim, I have never seen a program window that was just slow to move. If it's frozen it was frozen.
You've never had a case where you click or drag or something and it takes a few seconds to register? I see it all the time, when loading a program that takes a while to load.
This is the fault of the application programmer. If a programmer knows how to write a decent message loop, you won't have this problem. Despite this, even poorly written program windows can be moved, they're just slow.
2. Viruses abound, and they are a bitch for an unexperienced user to remove.
3. Spyware apps abound, and they are a bitch for an unexperienced user to remove.
4. Problems are left unfixed. MSIE exploits are unpatchable even after months of MS being informed of them.
Do what I do -- install Mozilla on Windows. The only non-OSS software on my Windows box is Windows itself. I have zero problems with viruses, worms, etc. Oh, I am behind a firewall too, on a separate box.
This assembly line type of legal attack on a corporation or government will only do bad in the long run because each and every corporation/government entity with an insurance policy will be driven out of business by a continuous parade of frivioulous lawsuits.
A company breaks the law by sending out junk faxes. Its entire business model is designed around violating federal law. Why shouldn't lawyers line up at their door? Slashdotting with lawyers instead of HTTP requests... a fitting end for a company that flagrantly disregards federal law and pisses people off.
I'm surprised they lasted this long. I wonder how they decided on this business model. Hey, I have a brilliant idea! I'll do a random search through the U.S. Code, pick a section, and build a business around disobeying that law!
What is abundantly clear, however, is that Bush's "space initiative" is nothing more than smoke and mirrors designed to boost his approval ratings.
Besides the fact that I don't trust Bush, I still agree with your reasoning and conclusion. I think this plan is garbage.
Let the private entrepreneurs build simple craft to get us barely out of the atmosphere.
Good idea, except the "private entrepreneurs" don't have the funds -- the big megacorps do. I trust them only slightly more than I trust Bush. I think it is best to have the government, i.e. NASA, tackle this one. When the private sector owns the means to get to space, we will find a situation like the AT&T monopoly -- huge prices, bad service, unfair competition, etc. Progress will only happen so far until it all becomes just another way to make money.
Science is about advancing mankind's collective knowledge. Capitalism is a means to an end -- science is better off today because of commercial research and the applications of that research, but after a while it stagnates. Think about the gasoline engine. We could have much better engines, but it is profitable to the auto makers and gasoline companies to make them less fuel efficient and require more maintenance. I don't want to see a plateau like this in space travel.
In the good way, yes. Not in the Soviet (bad) way.
In communism, everyone shares the money -- with free software, everybody shares software. People are expected to contribute back to the community if they take something out of it in both cases. Communism is a good thing in specific circumstances -- but not as a socioeconomic system of a country. Capitalism has its place too. It is great for building a large, productive economy.
I think it is great that businesses, capitalist entities, are embracing free software. And not just because of the cost, but because of the advantages it has because of its community of supporters. By leveraging the best aspects of both systems, I think we geeks might be able to do our part to help the faltering economy.
To each his own, but the only thing I use IE for is to check for windows updates
When I try using Windows Update with Mozilla, it asks me if I want to download IE. Of course, they argue that IE is integrated into the OS, so this makes no sense.
This is really sad, since I think we need a strong (and useful) presence in low earth orbit before we tackle the big goals. For example, telescopes (plural), at least one space station that does useful things like stockpile food, rocket fuel, etc. The reason is that it is easier to build a smaller space vehicle to escape earth's gravity (well, the strong part near the surface) and restock supplies in orbit. Let the damn shuttle with its huge storage capacity ferry supplies to orbit, while moon and mars vehicles are built leaner.
I really think it is important to get a habitable space station, maybe with artifical gravity (a big spinning thing, greenhouses, etc), into orbit. It provides a launchpad to bigger and better goals, and who knows, maybe people will start living in orbit full time like in science fiction. That is a good thing for reasearch if we ever want to send humans farther out.
My wife, a linux geek, was arrested in Newport News when we lived there. If I had known they were looking into Linux, I would have asked her to install Linux on the police computer network:-)
(she was let go, it was a misunderstanding... that's my story and I'm sticking to it!)
It isn't always this simple on console gaming platforms. Depending on the console you don't necessarily have a high level language that translates well between platforms. It isn't as simple as linking to the C++ standard library which is almost identical across platforms, or using qt GUI widgets, etc. Try porting highly optimized assembly code (or another low level language) to a different CPU. It is not trivial.
Why would one want a tax writeoff at the -beginning- of the year? The -end- of the year makes more sense. We pay taxes now on -last- year's activities, not this year's.
You pay taxes all year long. This will count for their CY04 taxes, even in January. Besides, I doubt this move was motivated by financial or tax reasons -- they probably donated it because they have no interest in the project and feel the community's needs are best met by the FSF taking control. This isn't the first time Red Hat did something morally commendable.
I can sum up my feeling on it in just 3 words: "Town, Castle, Space".
I agree. They don't necessarily have to keep it to three themes, but this branded crap has to go. How much can you add to Harry Potter? It isn't too expandable. But a town? There are hundreds of sets they can sell, and it is easy to figure out new things to make from the pieces. Lego wins because they can sell a wide variety of sets, and the customers win because we aren't as constrained when it comes to Legos' traditional strength -- reuse.
Personally, I don't mind themed sets, as long as that isn't the focus. For example, Harry Potter has a place in the castle theme. Bionicle has a place in the space theme. Town == present; castle == past; space == future. That's ingenious. Now all they have to do is leverage their solid ideas from the past with what they have now. No need to get rid of Mindstorms and Harry Potter, just don't sell them to the exclusion of their traditional sets.
One thing that does surprise me is that they have allowed the Air Force guys to look at this at all, it seems much more like an Army or NSA thing.
The Air Force does quite a bit of intelligence work. They share some resources with the NSA, and give intel to the Army. Lately there's been a big push toward the idea of "information warriors," since we've proven that we can blow stuff up -- now we just need nerds that are bright enough to find the bad guys.
Yes, this primarily is the domain of the NSA, but the Air Force can't depend on the NSA for everything. The NSA has a much smaller (black) budget, so can't take on every project. The Air Force may also have its own needs at home, such as securing its own network from leaks as someone else suggested.
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I figure the only new feature these new craft will have, is, no styrofoam on the shuttle to destroy the wing, right?
Supposedly this will be fixed for the next shuttle launch. The company that makes the external fuel tanks was charged with fixing the flaw that allows foam to break off, supposedly by not using foam anymore.
No, but seriously, you mean, we aren't going to use shuttles anymore? Whats it going to be, a space elevator? Damn the mod who posted this article without more info!
We will use shuttles until we develop something better. Knowing NASA's history, this may take awhile.
Is that there's not going to be another launch vehicle comparable to the Shuttle in terms of capability for the next half century.
The space shuttle certainly has a big cargo capacity. Despite being a huge compromise (hence its limitations), it does succeed at being a heavy transport. But why do we need a space shuttle to do this job?
You have to train astronauts to do a relatively automated task anyway -- launching the shuttle, orbiting, and landing. NASA can fly the whole mission from the ground, relying on the shuttle's computers for times when communication is sparse (like during reentry blackout). Usually the pilot and commander sit in the cockpit watching the computer fly -- the proverbial monkey and pilot, and the pilot's job is to feed the monkey. On top of that, the shuttle obviously is a highly complicated piece of machinery and shit goes wrong. It's been plagued by problems since day one, although thankfully the problem with the fuel lines was fixed a while ago. That was another catastrophic accident waiting to happen.
Compare this to a solid fuel rocket like the military uses, and NASA uses too for a few of its launches (you just don't hear much about them because they aren't as "cool" as shuttle launches). No men on board, so given the launch location (Atlantic seaboard, roughly), the chance of losing life is almost nil (even launchpad explosions typically don't hurt anyone). The launch vehicle is an order of magnitude less complex. No pesky life support to deal with. And so on.
Rockets provide a relatively low-cost and low-risk method of accomplishing the heavy lift task of the shuttle. Yes, rockets had problems back in the day, but we rarely have fuckups with them anymore. Most satellites are launched by rockets anyway, so we don't need the shuttle and its problems. All it really is is a space station ferryboat and an oversized and inefficient platform to study science in space.
I fully support space exploration, but come on, the shuttle was an exercise in futility, doomed to failure from the start. We did learn along the way, so I hope shuttle #2 is better than the current one.
I promptly uninstalled the garbage.
You installed it in the first place?
RealPlayer my ass. AdPlayer more like it. You get this huge window full of advertisements and flashy widgets, and maybe 10% of the window is covered by actual video in blocky, shitty quality that jumps and skips constantly. Even Windows Media Player, for all its DRM crap, has the majority of the window covered by the video.
I remember back when I had phone line modem that video would pause every few seconds as RealPlayer loaded up more ads. Of course it wouldn't just pause, it would skip those parts of the movie.
So you enjoy being a parasite living off the backs of productive taxpayers?
So you enjoy the fact that other countries don't invade the U.S. because of our military? Government workers are productive too. Without us as a deterrent, there would be no capitalist economy because we would be occupied.
er, wtf is nuclear chemistry?
The study of nuclear reactions, where you take an atom and smash it to pieces. Nuclear chemistry gave us the ability harness nuclear fission and fusion, both for power plants and weapons (although fusion power plants are a bit tricky and only used over short time periods for research, and even then only rarely).
I wish it were not true, but weapons/defense industry research related to anti-terror and advanced defense technology is once again a promising area. One that is VERY unlikely to be offshored.
That is the one thing that might keep me from changing into a different part of the compsci industry. I currently work in a DOD job where because of security requirements, most Americans cannot work here, let alone Indians. I'm unhappy for other reasons, but job security is not one of them. It's the one thing I have going for me in this economy.
I'm thinking about going into the pure sciences, like astrophysics. With this push to go back to the Moon and to Mars, I think the space program will be revived -- whether it be NASA or the private sector. We need young people with advanced degrees in space-related fields. I see computer science being a part of this, but dwarfed by engineering, physics, and chemistry. Nuclear chemistry is another good field, and still plenty geeky.
Thank you for the information. It sounds exactly like something Disney would do: they want a monopoly on entertainment. If that day ever comes, I guess I won't be entertained anymore.
Some of that depends on the Poah case. That little bear with the tiny brain might be taking 1 billon or more from disney by the time the case is done.
I haven't heard about a Pooh case. What's it about?
How many 5 year old games do you still play?
Doom is ten years old and I still play it. With a modern source port engine (Carmack released the source years ago), I get high resolutions and it plays in Linux and Windows. Anyway, the gameplay is still just as solid, there are tons of maps coming out all the time to play, and if you want newer 3D features, some of the ports support those, too (OpenGL, translucency, etc).
Check out the rec.games.computer.doom.* newsgroups, we're still active.
Like I said, if a programmer knows how to write a decent message loop this won't be a problem. MFC is a horrible toolkit, and Visual Basic is a dead horse.
Windows API is tedious but works well. I'd much rather use QT over all of these options. Good thing I am learning Linux programming.
Despite your claim, I have never seen a program window that was just slow to move. If it's frozen it was frozen.
You've never had a case where you click or drag or something and it takes a few seconds to register? I see it all the time, when loading a program that takes a while to load.
1. A busy window cannot be moved.
This is the fault of the application programmer. If a programmer knows how to write a decent message loop, you won't have this problem. Despite this, even poorly written program windows can be moved, they're just slow.
2. Viruses abound, and they are a bitch for an unexperienced user to remove.
3. Spyware apps abound, and they are a bitch for an unexperienced user to remove.
4. Problems are left unfixed. MSIE exploits are unpatchable even after months of MS being informed of them.
Do what I do -- install Mozilla on Windows. The only non-OSS software on my Windows box is Windows itself. I have zero problems with viruses, worms, etc. Oh, I am behind a firewall too, on a separate box.
This assembly line type of legal attack on a corporation or government will only do bad in the long run because each and every corporation/government entity with an insurance policy will be driven out of business by a continuous parade of frivioulous lawsuits.
A company breaks the law by sending out junk faxes. Its entire business model is designed around violating federal law. Why shouldn't lawyers line up at their door? Slashdotting with lawyers instead of HTTP requests... a fitting end for a company that flagrantly disregards federal law and pisses people off.
I'm surprised they lasted this long. I wonder how they decided on this business model. Hey, I have a brilliant idea! I'll do a random search through the U.S. Code, pick a section, and build a business around disobeying that law!
I'm just waiting for someone to come out of the closet and admitting to liking Daikatana...
What is abundantly clear, however, is that Bush's "space initiative" is nothing more than smoke and mirrors designed to boost his approval ratings.
Besides the fact that I don't trust Bush, I still agree with your reasoning and conclusion. I think this plan is garbage.
Let the private entrepreneurs build simple craft to get us barely out of the atmosphere.
Good idea, except the "private entrepreneurs" don't have the funds -- the big megacorps do. I trust them only slightly more than I trust Bush. I think it is best to have the government, i.e. NASA, tackle this one. When the private sector owns the means to get to space, we will find a situation like the AT&T monopoly -- huge prices, bad service, unfair competition, etc. Progress will only happen so far until it all becomes just another way to make money.
Science is about advancing mankind's collective knowledge. Capitalism is a means to an end -- science is better off today because of commercial research and the applications of that research, but after a while it stagnates. Think about the gasoline engine. We could have much better engines, but it is profitable to the auto makers and gasoline companies to make them less fuel efficient and require more maintenance. I don't want to see a plateau like this in space travel.
Free software is communist?
In the good way, yes. Not in the Soviet (bad) way.
In communism, everyone shares the money -- with free software, everybody shares software. People are expected to contribute back to the community if they take something out of it in both cases. Communism is a good thing in specific circumstances -- but not as a socioeconomic system of a country. Capitalism has its place too. It is great for building a large, productive economy.
I think it is great that businesses, capitalist entities, are embracing free software. And not just because of the cost, but because of the advantages it has because of its community of supporters. By leveraging the best aspects of both systems, I think we geeks might be able to do our part to help the faltering economy.
To each his own, but the only thing I use IE for is to check for windows updates
When I try using Windows Update with Mozilla, it asks me if I want to download IE. Of course, they argue that IE is integrated into the OS, so this makes no sense.
This is really sad, since I think we need a strong (and useful) presence in low earth orbit before we tackle the big goals. For example, telescopes (plural), at least one space station that does useful things like stockpile food, rocket fuel, etc. The reason is that it is easier to build a smaller space vehicle to escape earth's gravity (well, the strong part near the surface) and restock supplies in orbit. Let the damn shuttle with its huge storage capacity ferry supplies to orbit, while moon and mars vehicles are built leaner.
I really think it is important to get a habitable space station, maybe with artifical gravity (a big spinning thing, greenhouses, etc), into orbit. It provides a launchpad to bigger and better goals, and who knows, maybe people will start living in orbit full time like in science fiction. That is a good thing for reasearch if we ever want to send humans farther out.
My wife, a linux geek, was arrested in Newport News when we lived there. If I had known they were looking into Linux, I would have asked her to install Linux on the police computer network :-)
(she was let go, it was a misunderstanding... that's my story and I'm sticking to it!)
It isn't always this simple on console gaming platforms. Depending on the console you don't necessarily have a high level language that translates well between platforms. It isn't as simple as linking to the C++ standard library which is almost identical across platforms, or using qt GUI widgets, etc. Try porting highly optimized assembly code (or another low level language) to a different CPU. It is not trivial.
Why would one want a tax writeoff at the -beginning- of the year? The -end- of the year makes more sense. We pay taxes now on -last- year's activities, not this year's.
You pay taxes all year long. This will count for their CY04 taxes, even in January. Besides, I doubt this move was motivated by financial or tax reasons -- they probably donated it because they have no interest in the project and feel the community's needs are best met by the FSF taking control. This isn't the first time Red Hat did something morally commendable.
I can sum up my feeling on it in just 3 words: "Town, Castle, Space".
I agree. They don't necessarily have to keep it to three themes, but this branded crap has to go. How much can you add to Harry Potter? It isn't too expandable. But a town? There are hundreds of sets they can sell, and it is easy to figure out new things to make from the pieces. Lego wins because they can sell a wide variety of sets, and the customers win because we aren't as constrained when it comes to Legos' traditional strength -- reuse.
Personally, I don't mind themed sets, as long as that isn't the focus. For example, Harry Potter has a place in the castle theme. Bionicle has a place in the space theme. Town == present; castle == past; space == future. That's ingenious. Now all they have to do is leverage their solid ideas from the past with what they have now. No need to get rid of Mindstorms and Harry Potter, just don't sell them to the exclusion of their traditional sets.
One thing that does surprise me is that they have allowed the Air Force guys to look at this at all, it seems much more like an Army or NSA thing.
The Air Force does quite a bit of intelligence work. They share some resources with the NSA, and give intel to the Army. Lately there's been a big push toward the idea of "information warriors," since we've proven that we can blow stuff up -- now we just need nerds that are bright enough to find the bad guys.
Yes, this primarily is the domain of the NSA, but the Air Force can't depend on the NSA for everything. The NSA has a much smaller (black) budget, so can't take on every project. The Air Force may also have its own needs at home, such as securing its own network from leaks as someone else suggested.
There is actually proof that books are extremely dangerous. They should be considered weapons of mass destruction.
The FBI is one step ahead of you: If you possess an almanac, they think you might be a terrorist.