what would happen to this elevator in case of a fire? Naturally, the incredibly strong and light Notinventedyettium with which it will be built will also be highly fire resistant.
That is but one of a large number of failure modes that have the potential to be terribly entertaining to watch on TV (until the part where the flesh boils off your bones as the atmosphere is superheated by billions of tons of nanotubes failing to burn up and merely getting very very hot as it re-enters the atmosphere, anyway.)
You really mean to tell me this batshit crazy idea that requires massive advances in materials science even to become technically feasible might just possibly not be entirely practical?? Say it ain't so.
Hmmm, out of the last 19,801 BBC News stories here in my RSS reader, perhaps half a dozen at most were things that I or someone in my "link emailing social circle" would have come across by ourselves. This just sounds like the sort of Webtopia bullshit the Reg is good at calling out.... sorry, given a choice of having only the BBC for news, and only stuff that gets emailed around... I think I'll be sticking with the BBC and paying my license fee.
I for one can't wait for the exciting (high altitude?) firework displays these various enthusiast types are planning to put on for us. And there's no admission price! The footage will be online before you can say "Uh-oh". I am particularly looking forward to the prospect of the Bearded Wonder finally incinerating himself.
The thing that never seems to occur to anyone here is that the reason these things never arrive has nothing to do with what's technologically possible, and everything to do with what's economically practical. Personal jetpacks and permanent moon bases will always cost a fortune and will never make anything back. Hence it's a waste of time and money even thinking about them.
Now what the "troll" mods send me to oblivion for saying the unsayable.
We need a grass roots funding effort to save the Rovers since it looks like the second one will be cut next year. Here's one we made earlier. Sign up today!:)
If only there were a programme to provide prosthetic nervous systems for the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have and will return from Iraq and Afghanistan physically OK, but mentally scarred for life. There's a gigantic PTSD time-bomb that's going to be blowing up for decades to come in the form of alcholism, drug addiction, ruined families and wrecked lives. In 30 years' time they'll be able to start crunching the numbers on the number of vets who end up dying prematurely. That's the real cost of the war, far more than the 4000-odd who've died on active service.
Tell you what, when you've written a book that gives a tenth of the useful advice, interesting information and insightful analysis of a single issue of CryptoGram, come back and tell us about it. Until then, your words serve only to make you look bad.
And you are here WHY, exactly? To get a +5 Insightful for pointing out that Slashdot doesn't like Microsoft? If you don't like it, fuck off back to live.com or wherever the fast diminishing community of Windows fanbois hang out. We here is HATERS boy.
I imagine that 99% of the folks at Microsoft have their heart in the right place.
With the greatest respect, I imagine that's some good shit you're smoking. What sort of parallel universe is it where Microsoft is interested in non-closed, non-proprietary software in any context other than "competitor to be crushed at all costs"? If these 99% of people have been happy to work with the Great Satan(s) at the top for the last 20 years, well, more fool them if they expect anything other than contempt from most of the Free/libre / OSS communities.
A bad night for Minehead, and Somerset in general. He kept his Somerset accent all his life, and as a west country boy myself it's nice to see someone pushing back the straw-chewing-yokel image a little. B'aint that roight, Maaa?
What really gets me is that every couple of years the University of Oulu Secure Programming Group comes out with another few dozen application vulnerabilities they've found by just fuzzing a new protocol. First they did SNMP, the ASN (part of OpenSSL, to a first approximation), H.323... I don't know who's got tenure over there, but damn! I'm glad they're on our side.
There is only one good thing about small town
There is only one good use for a small town
There is only one good thing about small town
You know that you want to get out
When you're growing up in a small town
You know you'll grow down in a small town
There is only one good use for a small town
You hate it and you'll know you have to leave
Indeed. It is your fate to be a terrible warning to the younger generation of the perils of locking yourself into a single vendor's closed proprietary system. If you make a ginormous effort it might be possible to get it replaced with a libre alternative, but doubtless there will be interop and TCO reasons to stay with everything on that one vendor - cos your web apps would need to be rewritten to support the different backend, and then you won't be able to use whatever gold-plated handcuffs MS have up their sleeve to keep you on the junk at that point. You have my sympathy.
So far as I can tell, the only way to change this (apart from changing the law to force companies trading with countries unfriendly to what we used to call "the values of western liberal democracy", is for people working at those companies to have the guts to protest against it internally, and as a last resort to resign (making clear the reasons why.)
Of course it's very easy to say that; I've got no wife, kids, or mortgage to maintain so I'm a lot free-er to tell people to get stuffed if I don't like my employer's attitudes. Then again, those were all reasons why I semi-consciously avoided acquiring such encumbrances to my personal freedom to act. Now, I'm a lonely middle-aged man living in small rented accomodation... on the other hand, GOD am I going to enjoy laughing my head off at the bourgouise who let their greed & desire for "normality" get in the way of a rational understanding of the state of the world when they're living in DHS Bed & Breakfast accomodation with 25 alcoholic, mentally ill ESN army vets.
(Not that I'm bitter or anything, you understand... why I just *love* the peace and quiet when I go home... I love not being dragged away from papers about Martian geology and information security to sit through the in-laws holiday photos, or to make small talk with a half-wit in order to get laid that night...
As this BoingBoing story points out, whilst the average Chinese citizen may be broadly sympathetic with opposition to government restrictions on free speech, political opposition, and especially corruption and incompetence amongst officialdom, there's a lot of people thinking "those ungrateful minorities, we give them modern conveniences and look how they thank us... ". Hey, a blog linking to a blog linking to a blog...
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks... I've always wanted to know if I could spray dry-roasted peanuts out of my nose the way some people do coffee.
That is but one of a large number of failure modes that have the potential to be terribly entertaining to watch on TV (until the part where the flesh boils off your bones as the atmosphere is superheated by billions of tons of nanotubes failing to burn up and merely getting very very hot as it re-enters the atmosphere, anyway.)
You really mean to tell me this batshit crazy idea that requires massive advances in materials science even to become technically feasible might just possibly not be entirely practical?? Say it ain't so.
Hmmm, out of the last 19,801 BBC News stories here in my RSS reader, perhaps half a dozen at most were things that I or someone in my "link emailing social circle" would have come across by ourselves. This just sounds like the sort of Webtopia bullshit the Reg is good at calling out.... sorry, given a choice of having only the BBC for news, and only stuff that gets emailed around... I think I'll be sticking with the BBC and paying my license fee.
I for one can't wait for the exciting (high altitude?) firework displays these various enthusiast types are planning to put on for us. And there's no admission price! The footage will be online before you can say "Uh-oh". I am particularly looking forward to the prospect of the Bearded Wonder finally incinerating himself.
...and I for one can't wait. Just let me get a couple of six-packs and some late-night surveillance footage shows on cable TV...
This risk is mitigated by: [x] Hoping it won't happen.
It wasn't posted here, but the "mothball MER to save MSL" trail balloon was hauled back down to earth pretty damn quick - the budget letter to JPL was hastily withdrawn the following day.
Now what the "troll" mods send me to oblivion for saying the unsayable.
Uh-oh, you'd better not click this link, you might get upset to discover the next lander touches down in just under two months...
If only there were a programme to provide prosthetic nervous systems for the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have and will return from Iraq and Afghanistan physically OK, but mentally scarred for life. There's a gigantic PTSD time-bomb that's going to be blowing up for decades to come in the form of alcholism, drug addiction, ruined families and wrecked lives. In 30 years' time they'll be able to start crunching the numbers on the number of vets who end up dying prematurely. That's the real cost of the war, far more than the 4000-odd who've died on active service.
Tell you what, when you've written a book that gives a tenth of the useful advice, interesting information and insightful analysis of a single issue of CryptoGram, come back and tell us about it. Until then, your words serve only to make you look bad.
And you are here WHY, exactly? To get a +5 Insightful for pointing out that Slashdot doesn't like Microsoft? If you don't like it, fuck off back to live.com or wherever the fast diminishing community of Windows fanbois hang out. We here is HATERS boy.
With the greatest respect, I imagine that's some good shit you're smoking. What sort of parallel universe is it where Microsoft is interested in non-closed, non-proprietary software in any context other than "competitor to be crushed at all costs"? If these 99% of people have been happy to work with the Great Satan(s) at the top for the last 20 years, well, more fool them if they expect anything other than contempt from most of the Free /libre / OSS communities.
A bad night for Minehead, and Somerset in general. He kept his Somerset accent all his life, and as a west country boy myself it's nice to see someone pushing back the straw-chewing-yokel image a little. B'aint that roight, Maaa?
Older than you think, perhaps.
What really gets me is that every couple of years the University of Oulu Secure Programming Group comes out with another few dozen application vulnerabilities they've found by just fuzzing a new protocol. First they did SNMP, the ASN (part of OpenSSL, to a first approximation), H.323 ... I don't know who's got tenure over there, but damn! I'm glad they're on our side.
There is only one good thing about small town
There is only one good use for a small town
There is only one good thing about small town
You know that you want to get out
When you're growing up in a small town
You know you'll grow down in a small town
There is only one good use for a small town
You hate it and you'll know you have to leave
-Lou Reed
Indeed. It is your fate to be a terrible warning to the younger generation of the perils of locking yourself into a single vendor's closed proprietary system. If you make a ginormous effort it might be possible to get it replaced with a libre alternative, but doubtless there will be interop and TCO reasons to stay with everything on that one vendor - cos your web apps would need to be rewritten to support the different backend, and then you won't be able to use whatever gold-plated handcuffs MS have up their sleeve to keep you on the junk at that point. You have my sympathy.
Of course it's very easy to say that; I've got no wife, kids, or mortgage to maintain so I'm a lot free-er to tell people to get stuffed if I don't like my employer's attitudes. Then again, those were all reasons why I semi-consciously avoided acquiring such encumbrances to my personal freedom to act. Now, I'm a lonely middle-aged man living in small rented accomodation... on the other hand, GOD am I going to enjoy laughing my head off at the bourgouise who let their greed & desire for "normality" get in the way of a rational understanding of the state of the world when they're living in DHS Bed & Breakfast accomodation with 25 alcoholic, mentally ill ESN army vets.
(Not that I'm bitter or anything, you understand... why I just *love* the peace and quiet when I go home... I love not being dragged away from papers about Martian geology and information security to sit through the in-laws holiday photos, or to make small talk with a half-wit in order to get laid that night...
I think that's my cue to puff Liberty, the approximate equivalent of the ACLU, as an excellent organisation to support, donate to, and join.
We're all doomed - DOOMED, I tell you!
As this BoingBoing story points out, whilst the average Chinese citizen may be broadly sympathetic with opposition to government restrictions on free speech, political opposition, and especially corruption and incompetence amongst officialdom, there's a lot of people thinking "those ungrateful minorities, we give them modern conveniences and look how they thank us... ". Hey, a blog linking to a blog linking to a blog...