One of my favorites is http://www.thewebsiteisdown.com/ featuring "The Sales Guy vs. The Web Dude" as web dude tries desperately to get his important work (gaming) done while assaulted on all sides by rampant incompetence. And the email from the boss, "whatever happens, DON'T REBOOT THE SERVER!" (of course that emailed was conveniently "not found").
There is this book called Testing Testing or something like that (in 1990s I heard of the book from someone who trains others to administer professional engineering license tests), it is not about taking tests but about society's pervasiveness of tests. There are tests for people before they are born, many tests in school years, driver's licenses, job related tests, and tests after people die.
An elementary school teacher calls "timed tests" (i.e. 10 minutes for students to complete a arithmetic exam) "drill and kill" tests.
That company would be LightSquared, there's several govt agencies that are hopping mad and there's all kinds of management types in Washington DC engaged in meetings on how to mitigate this situation. How this was approved by FCC, apparently someone didn't do their homework.
I sometimes wonder if this country is losing it, as in the big rage to go all 700MHz digital trunking for public safety 2-ways. For rural areas, well lots of luck with that.
Even the hamsters have groups getting into the same kinds of mischief such as repeater coordination organizations getting into the spectrum management role and claiming they have FCC and ARRL approval (which they do not). And one such group stated all amateur repeaters and users of them have to go narrowband (hey A******, do your homework and you'll see it applies only to Part 90 users!!!!!!!!!)
I listened to some of today's briefing, recorded it to watch later. They mentioned about unintended accelerations caused by floor mats. Of course drivers should pay attention to such details, many do not. Proper design for floor mat is one that does not have such a failure mode. I can see more driver induced accidents in near future. For example, some new cars have terrible visibility such as new Acuras. I drove one a couple months ago, man was it scary when doing lane changes, so many blind spots with narrow side windows and a rear view mirror feels like tunnel vision. Unlike a 1996 Acura 3.2TL has great visibility, where did the engineers go wrong? I can see more accidents happening and all caused by the driver. But if vehicle designed for good visibility, driver wouldn't have crashed in the first place!
>Its called Toyota went for fly by wire. There was non of this when the throttle body was an actual link to the accelerator.
>If you do not do proper control system design you do not get an F-16,
At least with a F-16, you have an ejection seat in case your fly-by-wire system gets a BSOD. Cars don't have ejection seats, except for government issued Austin Martins but only for passenger seat.
I remember at work (1980s) of a kneehigh DEC machine with a plexiglass pyramid on top, as if this machine had mystical powers. Most likely pyramid was to prevent people from stacking paperwork on top which could eventually smother the DEC causing it to overheat.
Ironic to see this article after another, "Sony Lawyers Expand Dragnet, Targeting Anybody Posting PS3 Hack." Illustrates back in 20th century made their fortunes building more powerful machines in order to make good money. Now it seems they want to make their fortunes sueing the hell out of the masses.
> Most "retro spam cans" landings were on the ground
Yes, I forgot Soyuz. But then for large downmass, blunt bodies and parachutes are a challenge. Another thing to consider are the landings are not as rough so it enables wider range of people can fly to space. Yes, but then all human spaceflights are political! Another thing the Shuttle has that other retro spam cans do not have are 1) toilets and 2) airlocks.
I can understand the physics of it all for going bluntbody spacecraft design but I can't seem to go with this ocean splashdown (for non-Russians) with frogmen jumping in and attaching floatation collars. If it's gotta be retro spam cans, then I like what Russians have with all kinds of people to meet them on the ground. In the 1960s of photos released by the Soviets, you can see farmers, children along with lots of space agency people roaming around the spacecraft after it landed.
30 years ago I remember getting up really early (very am) to watch STS-1 on April 10, but flight was delayed because onboard computers would not sync with ground-based computers at T-20 min. Launch team recycled the countdown and tried numerous times but no go (and couldn't understand how this happened in spite of numerous launch simulations). So there we were of about 30 of us in a math class at Cal Poly trying our best to stay awake because we all got up early to watch the Shuttle.
STS-1 was rescheduled for April 12 (20 years to the day of the first human spaceflight!) and wow it just leaped right off the pad unlike the slow climber of Saturn V while it cleared the tower. When in space, STS-1 commander John Young said "wow, these are some windows!" in reference to how big they are compared to his previous flights on Apollo and Gemini. And his rightseat partner, Bob Crippen, "whoever said space was black was really right."
When Columbia was coming in for a landing we all gathered in a dorm room (too much ghosting on TV sets in other rooms), someone said, "I bet those Russians are biting their nails!" There was that same math class and the instructor knew nobody would attend because they all wanted to watch the landing. To force us to attend class, he covered material not in the book but would be on the final exam. Arrg! But class would be over 20 minutes before scheduled touchdown. I setup my bicycle aimed directly toward the dorm, one click away on the lock, a basket for me to throw the lock and chain into, and zoom off at warp speed.
Later that day (NBC had continuous coverage for hours!) there were festivities include both Young and Crippen at the podium with their wives, crowds cheering, governor Jerry Brown presented both astronauts with The Order of California medals. John Young said, "Shuttle is important for defense and science. We are on our way to the stars and we are proud to be part of these first steps" (or something to that effect) but I remember at the time NASA wanted to not talk much about the science aspect as they wanted to further its business purpose of Shuttle being the only launch vehicle for everything from people to communications satellites.
I still have a major newspaper with only one big photo of the launch and headline, "Hail Columbia!" So what you all slashdotters doing this April 12?
If I can wave the magic wand, I would have NASA build a new Space Shuttle by learning to do it better the second time around. Of course there's arguments winged vehicles are limited and retro spam cans are safer (though water landings are dangerous, almost lost Grissom), however, there are limits to parachute size.
OK so the Shuttle has its flaws but so did the Tri-Motor. But that didn't stop engineers from building a better airplane, they nailed a useful design with the DC-3 and some of them are still in service! In the late 70s and in 80s, it was said if NASA spent more on development, the operational costs would have been lower (and perhaps could have eliminated some inherent dangers of non-stoppable boosters, foam shedding, and other scary stuff).
No joke, I've noticed a trend where more and more sites have these javascript or some other such crap to display the image. They begin with a insy tinsy image, when you click it shows enlargement but resolution is not great (and of course the right button and various commands are disabled). It is not that I will pirate images but it pains me to no end when I find a fantastic photo of i.e. Gina Lollobrigida (in one her beautiful dresses from "Beautiful But Dangerous" or "Fast and Sexy") and I want to save it because most likely that website has a limited lifespan! So far screen grabs (i.e. PrtScn or cmd-shift-3) still work.... but I wonder how much longer. Will it come a time when having to use a camera like what they did for "screen grabs" in the 20th century?
Regarding non-viewable images, if concerned of someone stealing an image, don't have images. Believe it our not, there are people with this kind of mentality. Like someone who takes a lot of photos at a convention or a fair but doesn't release the images out of fear someone will "steal" their photos. They argue that some of these photos may become pulitzer prize photos or incredible money shots. But hey, if they expect to get high monetary value photos at usual public events of various ordinary people, they are in the wrong place. Need to be with paparazzi types following Madonna or Britney Spears.
I believe those without PE licenses can "practice engineering" and provide "engineering drawings." If it is to be submitted as part of formals plans for design, construction, bids, etc. then it would need to be stamped (approved) by a licensed PE. I skimmed through the article, it seems they did a detailed study to better present their case for a traffic signal. State engineers can use this report to supplement their own studies. Maybe what's happening is there has been years of planning and designing... and then some guy comes in suggesting another ECO! Geez, I can imagine those guvmint guys are really thinking to stop David Cox so they can get started on construction!
Reminds me the picture showing Clint Eastwood with a magnum and with quote added, "Go ahead, make one more change."
I remember those early days... using Mosaic and seeing that S shaped icon do it's thing when downloading a webpage. A couple years ago I found the university (can't recall the name right now) site and they still had Mosaic available for download. I ran it on my Mac G3 using OS9 with dialup. It loaded yahoo.com really fast, I guess it ignored all the javascript. I gotta try it again just to see what happens.
I also remember finding a webpage that showed a "live" still shot of a coffee maker of a MIT student had in his dorm and also showed temperature of the coffee. Updates are done by refreshing the window (I think Mosaic called it something else). Though no big deal these days but back then that was something to impress your friends.
I heard some story of a coke machine that was put on the internet so it can be checked for number of soda cans, apparently it suffered one of the first "slashdotted" events when all kinds of people would surf to this coke machine.
This was back when it was called The Information Super Highway. And this one guy was "surfing the web" and "he traveled to and got stuck in a toaster in Iowa."
I remember in late 1970s of looking through a NASA STAR reports abstracts, there were a series of reports on asteroid retrieval. I think it discussed these in terms of mining for various metals and I think of of these suggested placing an asteroid in earth orbit. One of these days I'll find that book (along with other archival stuff like my CB radio license). I did a quick search but didn't find these (yes I know I gotta make it specific but then if I can do that then I already have the reports!). I did see some listings mentioning space elevators and "Asteroid Retrieval by Rotary Rocket." Gotta get back to work anyway.
How about a tower flyby when a top general of the Chinese Air Force visiting the control tower and while sipping really hot tea, and wham! He cusses all kinds of expletives, but with it in Mandarin FCC cannot understand and out it goes on USA networks...
Consider it the other way around, we don't care if space aliens broadcasted dumbass TV shows. Simply having credible evidence there is life outside our solar system would be exciting news! Now if they were to decode such TV shows, think of the possibilities. For one, who would own the copyright if any?
... to be considered intelligent. A criteria SETI has for extraterrestrial intelligence is that they have to build a radio transmitter. Seth Shostak has fun with this as he says to evaluate if person next to you is intelligent. Ask them, "Do you know how to build a radio transmitter?"
A recent program on PBS (I think) that discussed the The State of Tennessee v. Scopes in 1925 where a teacher was prosecuted for teaching evolution. It was said after the trial (teacher was found guilty and fined $100), schools across the country continued to teach biblical creation. After the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957, evolution was brought into school curriculum because, "we are behind the Soviets in teaching science."
As science is taking a backseat to sales, marketing, and religious dogma, I can see how evolution will be removed from school curriculum. But then those godless commie's in other countries will churn out more engineers and scientists while we bitch and moan.
When doing a search on some particular device, I get tons of results that point toward dealers selling crap or worse, links to ebay listings. I remember years ago when I search for something, i..e JVC 5000U, I get various articles (useful ones, not promotional junk) or webpages by individuals describing how they use or hack such items.
The icons just don't look right, i.e. Borg Bill (for Microsoft) looks too cartoonish. Another problem is I cannot easily see what comments people make to my comments. My general complaint is this pervasiveness of javascript, motify look, etc. it's all lots of snappy presentation which usually precedes downward spiral in content (i.e. news media in general).
Slashdot Mirror
We have clearance, Clarence.
Roger, Roger. What's our vector, Victor?
----------------------
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue!
You do realize everyone under 30 ain't got a clue of what you are talking about.
One of my favorites is http://www.thewebsiteisdown.com/ featuring "The Sales Guy vs. The Web Dude" as web dude tries desperately to get his important work (gaming) done while assaulted on all sides by rampant incompetence. And the email from the boss, "whatever happens, DON'T REBOOT THE SERVER!" (of course that emailed was conveniently "not found").
There is this book called Testing Testing or something like that (in 1990s I heard of the book from someone who trains others to administer professional engineering license tests), it is not about taking tests but about society's pervasiveness of tests. There are tests for people before they are born, many tests in school years, driver's licenses, job related tests, and tests after people die.
An elementary school teacher calls "timed tests" (i.e. 10 minutes for students to complete a arithmetic exam) "drill and kill" tests.
That company would be LightSquared, there's several govt agencies that are hopping mad and there's all kinds of management types in Washington DC engaged in meetings on how to mitigate this situation. How this was approved by FCC, apparently someone didn't do their homework.
Data Shows Disastrous GPS Jamming from FCC-Approved Broadcaster
http://www.gpsworld.com/gnss-system/news/data-shows-disastrous-gps-jamming-fcc-approved-broadcaster-11029?utm_source=GPS&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Navigate_01_31_2011&utm_content=data-shows-disastrous-gps-jamming-fcc-approved-broadcaster-11029
I sometimes wonder if this country is losing it, as in the big rage to go all 700MHz digital trunking for public safety 2-ways. For rural areas, well lots of luck with that.
Even the hamsters have groups getting into the same kinds of mischief such as repeater coordination organizations getting into the spectrum management role and claiming they have FCC and ARRL approval (which they do not). And one such group stated all amateur repeaters and users of them have to go narrowband (hey A******, do your homework and you'll see it applies only to Part 90 users!!!!!!!!!)
Alrighty folks, that's my Gripe Of The Month.
>Most likely what would happen would be that the talent would flow to independent companies
and this would be in local economies so local people will see benefit.
>OTOH California would be a pit, but then again, they pretty much are already
not really, much of Hollywood production is outsourced, like everybody else.
too late, took a swig of coffee, clicked the and whammo, all over the keyboard!
I listened to some of today's briefing, recorded it to watch later. They mentioned about unintended accelerations caused by floor mats. Of course drivers should pay attention to such details, many do not. Proper design for floor mat is one that does not have such a failure mode. I can see more driver induced accidents in near future. For example, some new cars have terrible visibility such as new Acuras. I drove one a couple months ago, man was it scary when doing lane changes, so many blind spots with narrow side windows and a rear view mirror feels like tunnel vision. Unlike a 1996 Acura 3.2TL has great visibility, where did the engineers go wrong? I can see more accidents happening and all caused by the driver. But if vehicle designed for good visibility, driver wouldn't have crashed in the first place!
>Its called Toyota went for fly by wire. There was non of this when the throttle body was an actual link to the accelerator.
>If you do not do proper control system design you do not get an F-16,
At least with a F-16, you have an ejection seat in case your fly-by-wire system gets a BSOD. Cars don't have ejection seats, except for government issued Austin Martins but only for passenger seat.
I remember at work (1980s) of a kneehigh DEC machine with a plexiglass pyramid on top, as if this machine had mystical powers. Most likely pyramid was to prevent people from stacking paperwork on top which could eventually smother the DEC causing it to overheat.
Ironic to see this article after another, "Sony Lawyers Expand Dragnet, Targeting Anybody Posting PS3 Hack." Illustrates back in 20th century made their fortunes building more powerful machines in order to make good money. Now it seems they want to make their fortunes sueing the hell out of the masses.
> Most "retro spam cans" landings were on the ground
Yes, I forgot Soyuz. But then for large downmass, blunt bodies and parachutes are a challenge. Another thing to consider are the landings are not as rough so it enables wider range of people can fly to space. Yes, but then all human spaceflights are political! Another thing the Shuttle has that other retro spam cans do not have are 1) toilets and 2) airlocks.
I can understand the physics of it all for going bluntbody spacecraft design but I can't seem to go with this ocean splashdown (for non-Russians) with frogmen jumping in and attaching floatation collars. If it's gotta be retro spam cans, then I like what Russians have with all kinds of people to meet them on the ground. In the 1960s of photos released by the Soviets, you can see farmers, children along with lots of space agency people roaming around the spacecraft after it landed.
30 years ago I remember getting up really early (very am) to watch STS-1 on April 10, but flight was delayed because onboard computers would not sync with ground-based computers at T-20 min. Launch team recycled the countdown and tried numerous times but no go (and couldn't understand how this happened in spite of numerous launch simulations). So there we were of about 30 of us in a math class at Cal Poly trying our best to stay awake because we all got up early to watch the Shuttle.
STS-1 was rescheduled for April 12 (20 years to the day of the first human spaceflight!) and wow it just leaped right off the pad unlike the slow climber of Saturn V while it cleared the tower. When in space, STS-1 commander John Young said "wow, these are some windows!" in reference to how big they are compared to his previous flights on Apollo and Gemini. And his rightseat partner, Bob Crippen, "whoever said space was black was really right."
When Columbia was coming in for a landing we all gathered in a dorm room (too much ghosting on TV sets in other rooms), someone said, "I bet those Russians are biting their nails!" There was that same math class and the instructor knew nobody would attend because they all wanted to watch the landing. To force us to attend class, he covered material not in the book but would be on the final exam. Arrg! But class would be over 20 minutes before scheduled touchdown. I setup my bicycle aimed directly toward the dorm, one click away on the lock, a basket for me to throw the lock and chain into, and zoom off at warp speed.
Later that day (NBC had continuous coverage for hours!) there were festivities include both Young and Crippen at the podium with their wives, crowds cheering, governor Jerry Brown presented both astronauts with The Order of California medals. John Young said, "Shuttle is important for defense and science. We are on our way to the stars and we are proud to be part of these first steps" (or something to that effect) but I remember at the time NASA wanted to not talk much about the science aspect as they wanted to further its business purpose of Shuttle being the only launch vehicle for everything from people to communications satellites.
I still have a major newspaper with only one big photo of the launch and headline, "Hail Columbia!" So what you all slashdotters doing this April 12?
If I can wave the magic wand, I would have NASA build a new Space Shuttle by learning to do it better the second time around. Of course there's arguments winged vehicles are limited and retro spam cans are safer (though water landings are dangerous, almost lost Grissom), however, there are limits to parachute size.
OK so the Shuttle has its flaws but so did the Tri-Motor. But that didn't stop engineers from building a better airplane, they nailed a useful design with the DC-3 and some of them are still in service! In the late 70s and in 80s, it was said if NASA spent more on development, the operational costs would have been lower (and perhaps could have eliminated some inherent dangers of non-stoppable boosters, foam shedding, and other scary stuff).
No joke, I've noticed a trend where more and more sites have these javascript or some other such crap to display the image. They begin with a insy tinsy image, when you click it shows enlargement but resolution is not great (and of course the right button and various commands are disabled). It is not that I will pirate images but it pains me to no end when I find a fantastic photo of i.e. Gina Lollobrigida (in one her beautiful dresses from "Beautiful But Dangerous" or "Fast and Sexy") and I want to save it because most likely that website has a limited lifespan! So far screen grabs (i.e. PrtScn or cmd-shift-3) still work.... but I wonder how much longer. Will it come a time when having to use a camera like what they did for "screen grabs" in the 20th century?
Regarding non-viewable images, if concerned of someone stealing an image, don't have images. Believe it our not, there are people with this kind of mentality. Like someone who takes a lot of photos at a convention or a fair but doesn't release the images out of fear someone will "steal" their photos. They argue that some of these photos may become pulitzer prize photos or incredible money shots. But hey, if they expect to get high monetary value photos at usual public events of various ordinary people, they are in the wrong place. Need to be with paparazzi types following Madonna or Britney Spears.
I believe those without PE licenses can "practice engineering" and provide "engineering drawings." If it is to be submitted as part of formals plans for design, construction, bids, etc. then it would need to be stamped (approved) by a licensed PE. I skimmed through the article, it seems they did a detailed study to better present their case for a traffic signal. State engineers can use this report to supplement their own studies. Maybe what's happening is there has been years of planning and designing... and then some guy comes in suggesting another ECO! Geez, I can imagine those guvmint guys are really thinking to stop David Cox so they can get started on construction!
Reminds me the picture showing Clint Eastwood with a magnum and with quote added, "Go ahead, make one more change."
try inserting URL from hidemyass.com but from what the comments say, you are not missing much.
I remember those early days... using Mosaic and seeing that S shaped icon do it's thing when downloading a webpage. A couple years ago I found the university (can't recall the name right now) site and they still had Mosaic available for download. I ran it on my Mac G3 using OS9 with dialup. It loaded yahoo.com really fast, I guess it ignored all the javascript. I gotta try it again just to see what happens.
I also remember finding a webpage that showed a "live" still shot of a coffee maker of a MIT student had in his dorm and also showed temperature of the coffee. Updates are done by refreshing the window (I think Mosaic called it something else). Though no big deal these days but back then that was something to impress your friends.
I heard some story of a coke machine that was put on the internet so it can be checked for number of soda cans, apparently it suffered one of the first "slashdotted" events when all kinds of people would surf to this coke machine.
This was back when it was called The Information Super Highway. And this one guy was "surfing the web" and "he traveled to and got stuck in a toaster in Iowa."
like when if you wanted to watch TV you had to wait for the right time for a show to start
but you could watch movies on late night that featured Gina Lollobrigida and Jayne Mansfield.
or you couldn't carry your phone around with you every you went
but you could carry a walkie-talkie and everyone would think you're a govt agent or a narc.
I remember in late 1970s of looking through a NASA STAR reports abstracts, there were a series of reports on asteroid retrieval. I think it discussed these in terms of mining for various metals and I think of of these suggested placing an asteroid in earth orbit. One of these days I'll find that book (along with other archival stuff like my CB radio license). I did a quick search but didn't find these (yes I know I gotta make it specific but then if I can do that then I already have the reports!). I did see some listings mentioning space elevators and "Asteroid Retrieval by Rotary Rocket." Gotta get back to work anyway.
How about a tower flyby when a top general of the Chinese Air Force visiting the control tower and while sipping really hot tea, and wham! He cusses all kinds of expletives, but with it in Mandarin FCC cannot understand and out it goes on USA networks...
Consider it the other way around, we don't care if space aliens broadcasted dumbass TV shows. Simply having credible evidence there is life outside our solar system would be exciting news! Now if they were to decode such TV shows, think of the possibilities. For one, who would own the copyright if any?
... to be considered intelligent. A criteria SETI has for extraterrestrial intelligence is that they have to build a radio transmitter. Seth Shostak has fun with this as he says to evaluate if person next to you is intelligent. Ask them, "Do you know how to build a radio transmitter?"
A recent program on PBS (I think) that discussed the The State of Tennessee v. Scopes in 1925 where a teacher was prosecuted for teaching evolution. It was said after the trial (teacher was found guilty and fined $100), schools across the country continued to teach biblical creation. After the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957, evolution was brought into school curriculum because, "we are behind the Soviets in teaching science."
As science is taking a backseat to sales, marketing, and religious dogma, I can see how evolution will be removed from school curriculum. But then those godless commie's in other countries will churn out more engineers and scientists while we bitch and moan.
When doing a search on some particular device, I get tons of results that point toward dealers selling crap or worse, links to ebay listings. I remember years ago when I search for something, i..e JVC 5000U, I get various articles (useful ones, not promotional junk) or webpages by individuals describing how they use or hack such items.
The icons just don't look right, i.e. Borg Bill (for Microsoft) looks too cartoonish. Another problem is I cannot easily see what comments people make to my comments. My general complaint is this pervasiveness of javascript, motify look, etc. it's all lots of snappy presentation which usually precedes downward spiral in content (i.e. news media in general).
uhmmm, whatever the intelligence level is for The Population, half will be below average. That's simply statistics.