If the goal of the human spaceflight program is to go to the Moon and Mars, why should we continue work on ISS at all? The two physiological problems of space exploration (bone demineralization and radiation) are poorly addressed by ISS.
We already know that microgravity is bad for bones. What about 1/6 G (the level of Lunar surface gravity)? If that is also unhealthy then we will definitely need more physiological research, but if 1/6 G is sustainable than it seems that the right answer is to use tethers to spin up that level of gravity.
Radiation is the other big problem. But unless I'm way off base here, the level and character (energy spectrum) of radiation in Low Earth Orbit is very different from that outside the Earth's magnetosphere. If you want to study deep space radiation, go to deep space (initially with petri dishes full of bio-goo, then small animals, etc).
The objection I have is spending another 6 years and $50B to complete ISS, when the only scientific rationales are poorly addressed by ISS. The only rationale that makes "sense" is that we're doing it to avoid angering the international partners on ISS, who have invested big bucks in equipment that is nearly ready for launch.
But this is a poor rationale. I think our partners would be just as pleased to work on the Moon-Mars program as on a technological dead end. So what we really wind up with is that this is nothing more than a jobs program and pork barrel for big aerospace firms.
There was an interesting article in the NY Times Magazine on Sun 4 Jul 2004. Ted Fishman says in "The Chinese Century": "The Chinese government knows that foreign tech companies can be coaxed into sharing technology and training in exchange for easier access to the Chinese marketplace. The World Trade Organization forbids formal bargains that demand international tech transfers, but it does not police winks and nudges."
I think the entire CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) concept has proven to be terribly flawed. It was intended to accomplish some measure of efficiency improvements (vs the bad old days), and it worked for a while: average fuel economy (as estimated by EPA estimates and overall sales) did improve. But now, we're dropping economy again.
Why? Because if one person buys a Prius or other economical car, it does not increase overall economy. It merely offers the manufacturer to sell a big honkin' gas guzzler to someone else. In the case of
Buy a Prius if it makes you feel better, but it does not necessarily make a difference overall.
And for those of you plastering nasty faux parking tickets on SUVs: since the manufacturer makes so much more profit on an SUV than a Prius (which may actually be a money-loser for Toyota), maybe instead you should thank them for subsidizing your Prius.
Besides, for all you know, the Prius driver is actually commuting to work in a 737 (working out of town) -- while the guy driving his SUV may in fact drive very little.
But such subtle distinctions make little difference to the finger-waggers who live in the pure certainty of their moral superiority.
The one problem that I do have with SUVs: they are very dangerous to those of us who drive regular passenger cars, and meanwhile they are no safer for the occupants of the SUV than passenger cars. Your frontier fantasy is irresponsibly putting others at risk. Thanks for listening.
Well, without knowing how significant something has to be before you'd label it a "revolution", it's a bit hard to answer that question.
Fair point... I guess for one thing, Tiger claims to have fully integrated voice input. If it works, cool. I may not want to talk to my computer all the time, but this could eliminate some keyboarding and mousing.
I think that back in the days of yore (Macintosh Programmer's Workshop), Apple had integrated some sort of command-line helper to assist in setting command line options. MPW as I recall was similar to the Unix CLI, but just different enough to trip you up. I didn't use it, so I don't know if it was actually useful.
Automater might impress me when I finally get my hands on it.
Microsoft's attempts to improve the UI (clippy, bob) might be along the lines, if they were much more intelligent... I realize that's a rather silly thing to say...
Here's an interesting parallel: if you have ever used Igor Pro, one of the neat features is that when you do something to a window using the GUI, it can generate the equivalent CLI text for you. That makes it easier to figure out how to script actions for repetition.
You gave me some good pointers, BUT I'm not all the way there yet. At least in my version of Terminal (1.4.3) the split is just a display split. I would like it to exclude terminal output -- just include the history buffer. I bet there's some emacs thing that does that, but emacs just isn't my bag.
The opt-click thing is OK, much the same as previous terminal appls I have used. But the table-cell thing would be nice for some situations where I really do want to treat text as a table (in the shell). Maybe I'll have to make time to do it myself...
I had the same experience as you -- just 2 weeks ago I emailed a rant to some friends about the fact that the WIMP / Desktop metaphor has been only incrementally improved since 20 years ago. (I'm serious -- while there have been lots of increments, where's the revolution?)
I mentioned an idea like Dashboard / Konfabulator, without consciously knowing about Konfabulator. Now that I know about it, I am trying it out and I will pay for it if I continue using it.
What about other innovations? I also use Workstrip, which solves a few weaknesses in the Dock.
I'm still waiting for CDE-like 'workspaces' however -- where windows and desktops can be hidden easily according to function. Expose is a good feature, but I would also like workspaces.
Another thing I wonder about: why hasn't Apple done a better job of integrating the GUI with the CLI? I just found out about open(1), which can send an open message to any Finder application. But it's much easier on other Unix systems to simply type "edit.cshrc", not to mention more intuitive than "open -a TextEdit.cshrc". The man pages are a joke. Xcode 2 promises better developer documentation, but we shall see.
What about shells / terminal apps? Why are we still having to use only the keyboard to navigate the Command Line Interface? The only GUI elements that seem to have made it into the terminal are a scroll bar and a split window. I could imagine at least two improvements: a split window with the history buffer, and better navigation of CLI text (perhaps using table cells).
It's possible that I'm the only guy in the world who wants better GUI/CLI integration, but I suspect not.
How about 35 years after the Wrights flew? Men landed on the Moon in 1969. In 1938, the DC-3 has been in commercial service for 2 years. How about a DC-3 for space? If access to space becomes reasonably affordable and reliable, then there will be all sorts of exploration, economic development, and tourism.
Good question. At this point, I think the advantages of property rights may outweigh any theoretical disadvantages. As long as we take the attitude that you can only own what you can actually occupy and make use of, it's hard for me to imagine what there would be to fight over. And unlike the oceans, there is no prospect of "overfishing".
Yes, I think the Ansari X-Prize is very important. The Aldridge Commission report did mention the X-prize competition as a model that should be expanded upon. They said that about $400M has been invested by the competitors, to go after a $10M prize: a 40:1 investment.
Another important effect of such prizes is the disproportionate amount of excitement that is generated. I don't think anything NASA could do for $10M would generate as much news coverage and public interest.
Also, these sorts of competitions bring in a lot of creative ideas that would probably never be tested at NASA. The X-prize, if successful, will subject NASA to a new sort of competition that will spur more creativity. I'm confident that NASA employees and contractors have a lot of creative ideas, but often there is no chance to try them out because somewhere, the design has already been decided upon.
Section III of the report is all about revitalizing the space industry. If this report does nothing else, it calls attention to some innovative ideas that address what Aviation Week calls "The Crisis In Aerospace." All to the good.
The point is that the market only acted after the fact. Before the collapse, there were enough people participating in the market who believed that gravity had been nullified. And I'm not just talking about "momentum investors" and other short-timers. Every bank that lent them money believed it too.
Until you can explain how Enron is inapplicable to this discussion, I'm not buying any of the market-based approaches as a viable solution. The market only punished Enron and Athur Andersen after the train wreck had already occurred. Joy's whole point is that with some types of technology, you only get one chance. One mistake is one too many. Robert McNamara made a similar point about global nuclear war in Erroll Morris' documentary "Fog of War".
Joy stopped working on his book because he was unable to come up with a workable solution. That does not mean a solution is impossible, and any solution will need to include market considerations to be effective. But history does not give me any confidence that the market will solve this problem even if some regulations try to force it to do so (mandatory insurance for example).
I think that Joy was essentially thinking out loud about some possible approaches. He mentioned guilds, insurance, bankruptcy, etc but the article also said "He wasn't satisfied he had come up with a comprehensive set of solutions" and that he dropped the book project.
I agree with Joy that these approaches would not really solve the problem. For one thing, how are these enforced? The NYSE and Arthur Andersen apparently weren't even able to enforce any control over Enron. One can rebut: Andersen was punished by the market -- it lost all of its accounting clients. Yes, but only AFTER the train wreck occurred.
The idea that the threat of bankruptcy would keep companies from pursuing dangerous technologies without "insurance" seems to fly in the face of experience and reason. The entire idea of a limited liability company is that the downside is limited and the upside is unlimited. If the potential profit is large enough, corporations will take the risk. That the risk is largely borne by the public does not concern the corporation.
In the event that a bankruptcy did take down a corporation, I think the danger would be magnified. Whatever dangerous technologies had already been invented by that Corp and kept as trade secrets, would then be on the market to the highest bidder. The only way to keep some wing-nut from buying that technology would be... government regulation. Which Joy has already found wanting.
Has/. become stale? I hate to sound like one of those people who says "thiss place used to be cool, until it hit 1e6 members", because one could draw that line at 1e5, 1e4, 1e3 just as easily. I'm a great believer in the notion that quality, not quantity, is what matters. The moderation system and the meta-mod system are supposed to deal with that, and perhaps those methods achieve a good result up to a point (1e6?).
But I have to agree, I often find that the tangents that get discussed are often irrelevant, and the quality of discussion has in some threads been lost. Stupid little retorts and one-liners seem to replace discourse.
I guess I could meta-mod more often instead of complaining. But ultimately, I wonder if even that would help.
I've sometimes felt that some of the strengths of/. can also become weaknesses. Sometimes, posters say things that are clearly not based on any understanding of the facts. If they seem uninformed on a topic that I know something about, I try to supply them with correct information. But it can be frustrating. I have to admit that my enthusiasm for/. has waned somewhat because of the mediocrity.
"Why not make space, or at least the space around the earth, the same as the air: the space above a particular country belongs to that country, space above the international oceans is open to all. Thus it would be necessary to have other countries' permissions before orbiting anything over them..."
This is completely impractical for everything except Geosynchronous satellites. Most satellites' orbits are designed to accomplish specific mission objectives, and if they happen to fly directly over (say) Burma, North Korea, or Zimbabwe that's just how it works. If you are interested in general orbit mechanics, you could consult Bate, Mueller and White's Fundamentals of Astrodynamics. More specifics about orbit mission design are in Wertz and Larsen's Space Mission Analysis and Design. Each is a classic.
Political problems: This would give every 2-penny tinpot dictator in the world license to put up a tollbooth in space. Should a scientific satellite that measures worldwide ocean wave heights have to get permission from said dictators to fly over their countries? How about search and rescue satellites? Telecommunications? GPS?
As to the issue of Moon resources... well I'm not too sure what sorts of treaties have been ratified, but I think it's a little early to worry about it. Even if there are tons of He-3 on the Moon we have no way to make use of it. Just about every other material resource on the moon (Al, O, Mg, etc) is in abundance on Earth. These resources will be useful for in-situ manufacturing, but economically not worth the candle here.
I understand your viewpoint, but I don't agree that NASA has really built better capability over time. In the case of Shuttle, the capability to launch a successful mission has decreased, and this was known years before Columbia's fatal mission. There were several studies that bemoaned loss of institutional memory, lousy morale, and a workforce being pressed to continue flying Shuttles with fewer inspections.
In the case of ISS and mission ops, well maybe. But I have my doubts. When the Russian Space Agency was brought into the ISS program, there was a lot of face-saving happytalk about how each side would learn from the other. The conventional wisdom is that NASA is a little too cautious in mission ops while the Russians are too blase about operational risks. (And in engineering, that NASA builds complex, fragile systems while the Russians build "crap" that generally will not kill you... "generally" depends on how you interpret the data).
Has NASA learned to be more cautious in design and more bold in operations? Only to the degree that has been made inevitable by the grounding of the Shuttle (e.g. recent EVA with no crew remaining inside ISS).
Mind you, I don't think they man the ops consoles 24/7 for ISS, which they do for Shuttle. So they have dealt with enduring support with some relaxation of vigilance and with some IT infrastructure.
Here is what they ought to be doing with ISS if they want to use it to build better capabilities for Moon-Mars or even for generic space technology development. They should have internal and external equipment racks with appropriate power, thermal, optical and data interfaces so that equipment vendors could put their sensors, effectors, electronics, thermal controls etc in an actual space environment for years and years, and then be able to see what actually happens to them. Think of it as an LDEF with better facilities. They could see what actually happens to adhesives, lubricants, coatings, solder, and all sorts of interesting components.
They may in fact be doing a little of this. But it's my perception that ISS's utility as a laboratory has been more oriented towards trying to grow crystals, various crops, and trying to measure and reduce the physiological effects of microgravity. As to this last item, all I can say is that we know one really good answer to the problem: create acceleration using a tethered system. NASA's insistence on finding a biomedical preventive agent seems bloody-minded. Yes, tethers are tricky and create some operational challenges, but it really makes sense to pursue both tracks until you find a workable solution. They're not even trying.
I agree with what I think is your general sentiment -- that performance (how fast, how high, how far) is not the only measure. That longevity and reliability are just as important. Buiilding the capability for long-term mission ops is an important component of the capabilities needed for Moon-Mars.
But I haven't seen anything in the plans released so far to indicate that they are planning to build on ISS. Sure, they plan to continue physiology experiments, but they have no backup plan if no solution is found.
Another question: before we commit to a long-term presence on the Moon, shouldn't we make an attempt to characterize how humans react to 1/6 G? ISS is probably the wrong facility for a lot of reasons, so instead of spending billions finishing ISS, how about designing a simpler way to test that level of acceleration for a few months? Could that be done cheaper than completing ISS? I think it could.
The other intended purpose of ISS will be to measure the effects of space radiation on the human body. It's clear that ISS is not a very useful place to do that. The Moon and Mars and trans-Mars space has a lot more radiation than the LEO environment, and also the character of the radiation is different due to the shielding effects of the magnetosphere. So it might be an interesting data point, but it's
And you sir have also cracked the code: that the lack of long-term vision by political leaders is part of the problem.
I find it very interesting that the Google IPO filings have explicitly denounced the focus on quarterly earnings... maybe Congress and NASA need to think about visions that transcend the short term. It's hard to get to the moon and Mars on a series of short sprints. Some things take longer to develop.
Then again, the last time Congress stuck to a long-term space development project we got ISS. And before that Shuttle.
I think one of the false dichotomies that winds up being used is: if you're in favor of space exploration, then you must support NASA and everything it does.
The problem is, I look at NASA's human spaceflight "program" and see failure. They have not built successively better capabilities towards a goal. In fact, it's hard to state with any seriousness that there has been a goal. "Permanent manned presense in space" is not a goal, it's... not even a tactic. What is it? I don't really see a whole lot of "the vision thing" in the current Moon-Mars proposal. Is there a goal? Why will the next 10-20 Congresses continue funding it, if there is not a tangible benefit?
Contrast this with the JPL-led Mars exploration program. Unlike the manned "program", JPL really does have a program worthy of the name. They keep building on past successes. They exploit current assets to increase capability and reduce cost and risk (e.g. they use orbiting probes to relay telemetry from landers, just one example). Each time they go, they don't throw away what they learned last time.
It's really hard for me to see how NASA will succeed in going to the Moon when they can't even find a way to take the risks needed to service Hubble. There has been a loss of technical competence, programmatic vision, and boldness (appropriately tempered by realistic assessment) that makes it hard to see this succeeding.
But blah blah blah... why do I bother writing these things. No one pays any attention anyway.
I am new to PalmOS development (possibly just in time for the finale?). I went to the Palm Developer Conference in February, and here is my perspective on some of your questions.
(1) If you're referring to Usenet mailing lists: I perused the comp.sys.* newgroups that pertained to Palm development a while back (I don't recall the specific newsgroups). I concur, they have become stale. I think this is one of the weaknesses of Usenet as opposed to the way Slashdot keeps things interesting. In Usenet, you troll through so many newbie questions and bitter, irrelevant flamewars and just give up. At least I did.
(2) I think there are some weaknesses in the way Palm 3rd party software is marketed. It seems as though everything is marketed almost like shareware instead of the way it is sold in the PC world. Given the very low prices, that probably makes sense. But I suspect things would be better if there were some consolidation: some big boys should probably just buy out some of the crapware vendors to clear the decks and increase the signal to noise ratio. Just my perception, but I think there are a lot of basically sameware that makes the market worse.
I think that Cobalt may result in some interesting new categories of software coming out. Path graphics, multitasking, better security, schema databases, and better multimedia support are coming. Some basic info is here.
(3) PalmSource reorganized the developer documentation recently. Try it again and see if you think it's better. Here it is.
(4) I get the impression that a lot of developers still like PRC-tools. But there is a new Eclipse-based developer suite now. I haven't used it, because I think it is Windows only (ah, the lack of Mac support... sigh). Here is the link.
(5) I don't know. I was able to get a ROM by registering on the PalmSource site, and after clicking on a few legal agreements (eternal soul, first-born child, etc). Then again, ROMs are under the control of the PalmOS "licensees" (device makers). So it might be more difficult if you want a ROM for some specific device. I don't know.
As a new developer, I saw some reasons to be optimistic but also I have a lot of doubts.
Optimism: 1. The Palm Developer Conference was apparently well attended, according to people who had attended previous ones.
2. There are lots of interesting devices out there. Sony, Tapwave, Garmin and PalmOne have built some slick devices that I think are very impressive. While Slashdotters find it easy to yawn at gadgets, when I compare my HP-11C calculator (ca. 1981) with my Sony Clie TJ37, I'm not sure which is more impressive: the longevity of the HP, or the amazing level of technology integration in the Clie. Take your pick... I may still be using the HP in 20 years, but the Clie will be long gone. (These two devices are about the same size and weight by the way).
3. The new OS. I don't know if it will put them at parity with MS, or ahead, but right now they are behind, so this is absolutely necessary.
Pessimism: 1. I heard some of the same arguments from PalmSource execs that I used to hear from Apple in the mid 1990s: we're better than MS. I trust that these execs understand that they are whistling past the graveyard.
2. Hand-waving about sales stats. PalmSource execs said that handheld sales figures don't tell the whole story -- that they omit smartphones, which are splitting the market. OK, maybe. I haven't seen the sales figures for smart phones.
3. I think the biggest question is the value equation. One post referred to the paucity of storage on PDAs as a problem. I have to agree, though there i
Question for you and the AC who mentioned prior art. I don't really know how the USPTO does prior art research, but if the one I mentioned really is the same, then how could they have missed it?
My understanding is that if Patent Application B makes even fairly minor changes to Awarded Patent A, B is valid. It still has to pass the "novel" and "not obvious" tests. But it's possible that the Prior Art was narrow enough that the new patent is different enough to be valid.
Re:PDA accelerometers for scrolling patented
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I am not a patent lawyer, but I think these issues would apply: 1. If the patent holder applied for international patents then he might have recourse through WIPO (World Intellectual Property Org) and other agreements. India is a member of WIPO, and given that software development and other IP is seen as important to India's economic development, I don't think the Indian govt would permit wholesale flouting of international patents.
2. If the patent holder only has patents in the US, then anyone using the same implementation in products used or distributed in the US would need to license from the patent holder.
That said, it is up to the patent holder to enforce his rights. In the US, this would mean suing the infringer in federal court. In India, again the patent holder would have to sue, as the Indian govt is not going to enforce his rights for him.
In some cases, the monetary value might not be worth the costs. It obviously depends on how solid the patent is and how much the licensees and end users are willing to pay.
PDA accelerometers for scrolling patented
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Whether you think this should be a patentable idea or not, using accelerometers to scroll a PDA display has been patented. I wonder if Simputer will be getting a "cease and desist" letter in the mail. Of course it's possible that they have already licensed it from the patent holder.
For what it's worth -- apology accepted, and all forgiven. My post was meant to be a light-hearted one, not a complete endorsement of everything he said. Thanks
Oh please. You're attributing all sorts of things to me that I never said. The point of the post was merely to point out who the guy is, which was not made clear in the original posting.
And one suggestion for you: don't be so offensive. "Think"? Just piss off.
Dr. Robert Zubrin, from the "robots vs humans" link you mentioned: "You could parachute 100 Spirits and Opportunities into the Rocky Mountains. You would not find a dinosaur fossil. Okay?"
Maybe, maybe not. The important question is: would one team of geologist astronauts find one? The MER program (2 rovers) cost about $800M. Assuming no efficiencies of scale, 100 of them would cost $40B, which is much less than what Sen. McCain says it would cost just to go back to the Moon, much less Mars.
So, how many robots could you buy for the cost of a single manned mission to Mars? Obviously more than 100. Maybe 1000, and they would not all be golf carts.
Slashdot Mirror
If the goal of the human spaceflight program is to go to the Moon and Mars, why should we continue work on ISS at all? The two physiological problems of space exploration (bone demineralization and radiation) are poorly addressed by ISS.
We already know that microgravity is bad for bones. What about 1/6 G (the level of Lunar surface gravity)? If that is also unhealthy then we will definitely need more physiological research, but if 1/6 G is sustainable than it seems that the right answer is to use tethers to spin up that level of gravity.
Radiation is the other big problem. But unless I'm way off base here, the level and character (energy spectrum) of radiation in Low Earth Orbit is very different from that outside the Earth's magnetosphere. If you want to study deep space radiation, go to deep space (initially with petri dishes full of bio-goo, then small animals, etc).
The objection I have is spending another 6 years and $50B to complete ISS, when the only scientific rationales are poorly addressed by ISS. The only rationale that makes "sense" is that we're doing it to avoid angering the international partners on ISS, who have invested big bucks in equipment that is nearly ready for launch.
But this is a poor rationale. I think our partners would be just as pleased to work on the Moon-Mars program as on a technological dead end. So what we really wind up with is that this is nothing more than a jobs program and pork barrel for big aerospace firms.
There was an interesting article in the NY Times Magazine on Sun 4 Jul 2004. Ted Fishman says in "The Chinese Century": "The Chinese government knows that foreign tech companies can be coaxed into sharing technology and training in exchange for easier access to the Chinese marketplace. The World Trade Organization forbids formal bargains that demand international tech transfers, but it does not police winks and nudges."
I think the entire CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) concept has proven to be terribly flawed. It was intended to accomplish some measure of efficiency improvements (vs the bad old days), and it worked for a while: average fuel economy (as estimated by EPA estimates and overall sales) did improve. But now, we're dropping economy again.
Why? Because if one person buys a Prius or other economical car, it does not increase overall economy. It merely offers the manufacturer to sell a big honkin' gas guzzler to someone else. In the case of
Buy a Prius if it makes you feel better, but it does not necessarily make a difference overall.
And for those of you plastering nasty faux parking tickets on SUVs: since the manufacturer makes so much more profit on an SUV than a Prius (which may actually be a money-loser for Toyota), maybe instead you should thank them for subsidizing your Prius.
Besides, for all you know, the Prius driver is actually commuting to work in a 737 (working out of town) -- while the guy driving his SUV may in fact drive very little.
But such subtle distinctions make little difference to the finger-waggers who live in the pure certainty of their moral superiority.
The one problem that I do have with SUVs: they are very dangerous to those of us who drive regular passenger cars, and meanwhile they are no safer for the occupants of the SUV than passenger cars. Your frontier fantasy is irresponsibly putting others at risk. Thanks for listening.
Well, without knowing how significant something has to be before you'd label it a "revolution", it's a bit hard to answer that question.
Fair point... I guess for one thing, Tiger claims to have fully integrated voice input. If it works, cool. I may not want to talk to my computer all the time, but this could eliminate some keyboarding and mousing.
I think that back in the days of yore (Macintosh Programmer's Workshop), Apple had integrated some sort of command-line helper to assist in setting command line options. MPW as I recall was similar to the Unix CLI, but just different enough to trip you up. I didn't use it, so I don't know if it was actually useful.
Automater might impress me when I finally get my hands on it.
Microsoft's attempts to improve the UI (clippy, bob) might be along the lines, if they were much more intelligent... I realize that's a rather silly thing to say...
Here's an interesting parallel: if you have ever used Igor Pro, one of the neat features is that when you do something to a window using the GUI, it can generate the equivalent CLI text for you. That makes it easier to figure out how to script actions for repetition.
I guess I should think about it some more.
You gave me some good pointers, BUT I'm not all the way there yet. At least in my version of Terminal (1.4.3) the split is just a display split. I would like it to exclude terminal output -- just include the history buffer. I bet there's some emacs thing that does that, but emacs just isn't my bag.
The opt-click thing is OK, much the same as previous terminal appls I have used. But the table-cell thing would be nice for some situations where I really do want to treat text as a table (in the shell). Maybe I'll have to make time to do it myself...
I had the same experience as you -- just 2 weeks ago I emailed a rant to some friends about the fact that the WIMP / Desktop metaphor has been only incrementally improved since 20 years ago. (I'm serious -- while there have been lots of increments, where's the revolution?)
.cshrc", not to mention more intuitive than "open -a TextEdit .cshrc". The man pages are a joke. Xcode 2 promises better developer documentation, but we shall see.
I mentioned an idea like Dashboard / Konfabulator, without consciously knowing about Konfabulator. Now that I know about it, I am trying it out and I will pay for it if I continue using it.
What about other innovations? I also use Workstrip, which solves a few weaknesses in the Dock.
I'm still waiting for CDE-like 'workspaces' however -- where windows and desktops can be hidden easily according to function. Expose is a good feature, but I would also like workspaces.
Another thing I wonder about: why hasn't Apple done a better job of integrating the GUI with the CLI? I just found out about open(1), which can send an open message to any Finder application. But it's much easier on other Unix systems to simply type "edit
What about shells / terminal apps? Why are we still having to use only the keyboard to navigate the Command Line Interface? The only GUI elements that seem to have made it into the terminal are a scroll bar and a split window. I could imagine at least two improvements: a split window with the history buffer, and better navigation of CLI text (perhaps using table cells).
It's possible that I'm the only guy in the world who wants better GUI/CLI integration, but I suspect not.
How about 35 years after the Wrights flew? Men landed on the Moon in 1969. In 1938, the DC-3 has been in commercial service for 2 years. How about a DC-3 for space? If access to space becomes reasonably affordable and reliable, then there will be all sorts of exploration, economic development, and tourism.
Good question. At this point, I think the advantages of property rights may outweigh any theoretical disadvantages. As long as we take the attitude that you can only own what you can actually occupy and make use of, it's hard for me to imagine what there would be to fight over. And unlike the oceans, there is no prospect of "overfishing".
Can you think of what the problems might be?
Yes, I think the Ansari X-Prize is very important. The Aldridge Commission report did mention the X-prize competition as a model that should be expanded upon. They said that about $400M has been invested by the competitors, to go after a $10M prize: a 40:1 investment.
Another important effect of such prizes is the disproportionate amount of excitement that is generated. I don't think anything NASA could do for $10M would generate as much news coverage and public interest.
Also, these sorts of competitions bring in a lot of creative ideas that would probably never be tested at NASA. The X-prize, if successful, will subject NASA to a new sort of competition that will spur more creativity. I'm confident that NASA employees and contractors have a lot of creative ideas, but often there is no chance to try them out because somewhere, the design has already been decided upon.
Section III of the report is all about revitalizing the space industry. If this report does nothing else, it calls attention to some innovative ideas that address what Aviation Week calls "The Crisis In Aerospace." All to the good.
The point is that the market only acted after the fact. Before the collapse, there were enough people participating in the market who believed that gravity had been nullified. And I'm not just talking about "momentum investors" and other short-timers. Every bank that lent them money believed it too.
Until you can explain how Enron is inapplicable to this discussion, I'm not buying any of the market-based approaches as a viable solution. The market only punished Enron and Athur Andersen after the train wreck had already occurred. Joy's whole point is that with some types of technology, you only get one chance. One mistake is one too many. Robert McNamara made a similar point about global nuclear war in Erroll Morris' documentary "Fog of War".
Joy stopped working on his book because he was unable to come up with a workable solution. That does not mean a solution is impossible, and any solution will need to include market considerations to be effective. But history does not give me any confidence that the market will solve this problem even if some regulations try to force it to do so (mandatory insurance for example).
I think that Joy was essentially thinking out loud about some possible approaches. He mentioned guilds, insurance, bankruptcy, etc but the article also said "He wasn't satisfied he had come up with a comprehensive set of solutions" and that he dropped the book project.
I agree with Joy that these approaches would not really solve the problem. For one thing, how are these enforced? The NYSE and Arthur Andersen apparently weren't even able to enforce any control over Enron. One can rebut: Andersen was punished by the market -- it lost all of its accounting clients. Yes, but only AFTER the train wreck occurred.
The idea that the threat of bankruptcy would keep companies from pursuing dangerous technologies without "insurance" seems to fly in the face of experience and reason. The entire idea of a limited liability company is that the downside is limited and the upside is unlimited. If the potential profit is large enough, corporations will take the risk. That the risk is largely borne by the public does not concern the corporation.
In the event that a bankruptcy did take down a corporation, I think the danger would be magnified. Whatever dangerous technologies had already been invented by that Corp and kept as trade secrets, would then be on the market to the highest bidder. The only way to keep some wing-nut from buying that technology would be... government regulation. Which Joy has already found wanting.
I'm not sure that there is a solution.
Has /. become stale? I hate to sound like one of those people who says "thiss place used to be cool, until it hit 1e6 members", because one could draw that line at 1e5, 1e4, 1e3 just as easily. I'm a great believer in the notion that quality, not quantity, is what matters. The moderation system and the meta-mod system are supposed to deal with that, and perhaps those methods achieve a good result up to a point (1e6?).
/. can also become weaknesses. Sometimes, posters say things that are clearly not based on any understanding of the facts. If they seem uninformed on a topic that I know something about, I try to supply them with correct information. But it can be frustrating. I have to admit that my enthusiasm for /. has waned somewhat because of the mediocrity.
But I have to agree, I often find that the tangents that get discussed are often irrelevant, and the quality of discussion has in some threads been lost. Stupid little retorts and one-liners seem to replace discourse.
I guess I could meta-mod more often instead of complaining. But ultimately, I wonder if even that would help.
I've sometimes felt that some of the strengths of
"Why not make space, or at least the space around the earth, the same as the air: the space above a particular country belongs to that country, space above the international oceans is open to all. Thus it would be necessary to have other countries' permissions before orbiting anything over them..."
This is completely impractical for everything except Geosynchronous satellites. Most satellites' orbits are designed to accomplish specific mission objectives, and if they happen to fly directly over (say) Burma, North Korea, or Zimbabwe that's just how it works. If you are interested in general orbit mechanics, you could consult Bate, Mueller and White's Fundamentals of Astrodynamics. More specifics about orbit mission design are in Wertz and Larsen's Space Mission Analysis and Design. Each is a classic.
Political problems: This would give every 2-penny tinpot dictator in the world license to put up a tollbooth in space. Should a scientific satellite that measures worldwide ocean wave heights have to get permission from said dictators to fly over their countries? How about search and rescue satellites? Telecommunications? GPS?
As to the issue of Moon resources... well I'm not too sure what sorts of treaties have been ratified, but I think it's a little early to worry about it. Even if there are tons of He-3 on the Moon we have no way to make use of it. Just about every other material resource on the moon (Al, O, Mg, etc) is in abundance on Earth. These resources will be useful for in-situ manufacturing, but economically not worth the candle here.
Just tell me if this becomes a dead horse.
I understand your viewpoint, but I don't agree that NASA has really built better capability over time. In the case of Shuttle, the capability to launch a successful mission has decreased, and this was known years before Columbia's fatal mission. There were several studies that bemoaned loss of institutional memory, lousy morale, and a workforce being pressed to continue flying Shuttles with fewer inspections.
In the case of ISS and mission ops, well maybe. But I have my doubts. When the Russian Space Agency was brought into the ISS program, there was a lot of face-saving happytalk about how each side would learn from the other. The conventional wisdom is that NASA is a little too cautious in mission ops while the Russians are too blase about operational risks. (And in engineering, that NASA builds complex, fragile systems while the Russians build "crap" that generally will not kill you... "generally" depends on how you interpret the data).
Has NASA learned to be more cautious in design and more bold in operations? Only to the degree that has been made inevitable by the grounding of the Shuttle (e.g. recent EVA with no crew remaining inside ISS).
Mind you, I don't think they man the ops consoles 24/7 for ISS, which they do for Shuttle. So they have dealt with enduring support with some relaxation of vigilance and with some IT infrastructure.
Here is what they ought to be doing with ISS if they want to use it to build better capabilities for Moon-Mars or even for generic space technology development. They should have internal and external equipment racks with appropriate power, thermal, optical and data interfaces so that equipment vendors could put their sensors, effectors, electronics, thermal controls etc in an actual space environment for years and years, and then be able to see what actually happens to them. Think of it as an LDEF with better facilities. They could see what actually happens to adhesives, lubricants, coatings, solder, and all sorts of interesting components.
They may in fact be doing a little of this. But it's my perception that ISS's utility as a laboratory has been more oriented towards trying to grow crystals, various crops, and trying to measure and reduce the physiological effects of microgravity. As to this last item, all I can say is that we know one really good answer to the problem: create acceleration using a tethered system. NASA's insistence on finding a biomedical preventive agent seems bloody-minded. Yes, tethers are tricky and create some operational challenges, but it really makes sense to pursue both tracks until you find a workable solution. They're not even trying.
I agree with what I think is your general sentiment -- that performance (how fast, how high, how far) is not the only measure. That longevity and reliability are just as important. Buiilding the capability for long-term mission ops is an important component of the capabilities needed for Moon-Mars.
But I haven't seen anything in the plans released so far to indicate that they are planning to build on ISS. Sure, they plan to continue physiology experiments, but they have no backup plan if no solution is found.
Another question: before we commit to a long-term presence on the Moon, shouldn't we make an attempt to characterize how humans react to 1/6 G? ISS is probably the wrong facility for a lot of reasons, so instead of spending billions finishing ISS, how about designing a simpler way to test that level of acceleration for a few months? Could that be done cheaper than completing ISS? I think it could.
The other intended purpose of ISS will be to measure the effects of space radiation on the human body. It's clear that ISS is not a very useful place to do that. The Moon and Mars and trans-Mars space has a lot more radiation than the LEO environment, and also the character of the radiation is different due to the shielding effects of the magnetosphere. So it might be an interesting data point, but it's
Yup, the JPL Mars program has cracked the code.
And you sir have also cracked the code: that the lack of long-term vision by political leaders is part of the problem.
I find it very interesting that the Google IPO filings have explicitly denounced the focus on quarterly earnings... maybe Congress and NASA need to think about visions that transcend the short term. It's hard to get to the moon and Mars on a series of short sprints. Some things take longer to develop.
Then again, the last time Congress stuck to a long-term space development project we got ISS. And before that Shuttle.
Sigh.
I think one of the false dichotomies that winds up being used is: if you're in favor of space exploration, then you must support NASA and everything it does.
The problem is, I look at NASA's human spaceflight "program" and see failure. They have not built successively better capabilities towards a goal. In fact, it's hard to state with any seriousness that there has been a goal. "Permanent manned presense in space" is not a goal, it's... not even a tactic. What is it? I don't really see a whole lot of "the vision thing" in the current Moon-Mars proposal. Is there a goal? Why will the next 10-20 Congresses continue funding it, if there is not a tangible benefit?
Contrast this with the JPL-led Mars exploration program. Unlike the manned "program", JPL really does have a program worthy of the name. They keep building on past successes. They exploit current assets to increase capability and reduce cost and risk (e.g. they use orbiting probes to relay telemetry from landers, just one example). Each time they go, they don't throw away what they learned last time.
It's really hard for me to see how NASA will succeed in going to the Moon when they can't even find a way to take the risks needed to service Hubble. There has been a loss of technical competence, programmatic vision, and boldness (appropriately tempered by realistic assessment) that makes it hard to see this succeeding.
But blah blah blah... why do I bother writing these things. No one pays any attention anyway.
I am new to PalmOS development (possibly just in time for the finale?). I went to the Palm Developer Conference in February, and here is my perspective on some of your questions.
(1) If you're referring to Usenet mailing lists: I perused the comp.sys.* newgroups that pertained to Palm development a while back (I don't recall the specific newsgroups). I concur, they have become stale. I think this is one of the weaknesses of Usenet as opposed to the way Slashdot keeps things interesting. In Usenet, you troll through so many newbie questions and bitter, irrelevant flamewars and just give up. At least I did.
(2) I think there are some weaknesses in the way Palm 3rd party software is marketed. It seems as though everything is marketed almost like shareware instead of the way it is sold in the PC world. Given the very low prices, that probably makes sense. But I suspect things would be better if there were some consolidation: some big boys should probably just buy out some of the crapware vendors to clear the decks and increase the signal to noise ratio. Just my perception, but I think there are a lot of basically sameware that makes the market worse.
I think that Cobalt may result in some interesting new categories of software coming out. Path graphics, multitasking, better security, schema databases, and better multimedia support are coming. Some basic info is here.
(3) PalmSource reorganized the developer documentation recently. Try it again and see if you think it's better. Here it is.
(4) I get the impression that a lot of developers still like PRC-tools. But there is a new Eclipse-based developer suite now. I haven't used it, because I think it is Windows only (ah, the lack of Mac support... sigh). Here is the link.
(5) I don't know. I was able to get a ROM by registering on the PalmSource site, and after clicking on a few legal agreements (eternal soul, first-born child, etc). Then again, ROMs are under the control of the PalmOS "licensees" (device makers). So it might be more difficult if you want a ROM for some specific device. I don't know.
As a new developer, I saw some reasons to be optimistic but also I have a lot of doubts.
Optimism:
1. The Palm Developer Conference was apparently well attended, according to people who had attended previous ones.
2. There are lots of interesting devices out there. Sony, Tapwave, Garmin and PalmOne have built some slick devices that I think are very impressive. While Slashdotters find it easy to yawn at gadgets, when I compare my HP-11C calculator (ca. 1981) with my Sony Clie TJ37, I'm not sure which is more impressive: the longevity of the HP, or the amazing level of technology integration in the Clie. Take your pick... I may still be using the HP in 20 years, but the Clie will be long gone. (These two devices are about the same size and weight by the way).
3. The new OS. I don't know if it will put them at parity with MS, or ahead, but right now they are behind, so this is absolutely necessary.
Pessimism:
1. I heard some of the same arguments from PalmSource execs that I used to hear from Apple in the mid 1990s: we're better than MS. I trust that these execs understand that they are whistling past the graveyard.
2. Hand-waving about sales stats. PalmSource execs said that handheld sales figures don't tell the whole story -- that they omit smartphones, which are splitting the market. OK, maybe. I haven't seen the sales figures for smart phones.
3. I think the biggest question is the value equation. One post referred to the paucity of storage on PDAs as a problem. I have to agree, though there i
OK thanks for a straight and informative answer!
Question for you and the AC who mentioned prior art. I don't really know how the USPTO does prior art research, but if the one I mentioned really is the same, then how could they have missed it?
My understanding is that if Patent Application B makes even fairly minor changes to Awarded Patent A, B is valid. It still has to pass the "novel" and "not obvious" tests. But it's possible that the Prior Art was narrow enough that the new patent is different enough to be valid.
I am not a patent lawyer, but I think these issues would apply:
1. If the patent holder applied for international patents then he might have recourse through WIPO (World Intellectual Property Org) and other agreements. India is a member of WIPO, and given that software development and other IP is seen as important to India's economic development, I don't think the Indian govt would permit wholesale flouting of international patents.
2. If the patent holder only has patents in the US, then anyone using the same implementation in products used or distributed in the US would need to license from the patent holder.
That said, it is up to the patent holder to enforce his rights. In the US, this would mean suing the infringer in federal court. In India, again the patent holder would have to sue, as the Indian govt is not going to enforce his rights for him.
In some cases, the monetary value might not be worth the costs. It obviously depends on how solid the patent is and how much the licensees and end users are willing to pay.
Here is some basic patent information.
Whether you think this should be a patentable idea or not, using accelerometers to scroll a PDA display has been patented. I wonder if Simputer will be getting a "cease and desist" letter in the mail. Of course it's possible that they have already licensed it from the patent holder.
Patent number 6,466,198:
"View navigation and magnification of a hand-held device with a display"
The patent holder is called Innoventions
For what it's worth -- apology accepted, and all forgiven. My post was meant to be a light-hearted one, not a complete endorsement of everything he said.
Thanks
Oh please. You're attributing all sorts of things to me that I never said. The point of the post was merely to point out who the guy is, which was not made clear in the original posting.
And one suggestion for you: don't be so offensive. "Think"? Just piss off.
Dr. Robert Zubrin, from the "robots vs humans" link you mentioned:
"You could parachute 100 Spirits and Opportunities into the Rocky Mountains. You would not find a dinosaur fossil. Okay?"
Maybe, maybe not. The important question is: would one team of geologist astronauts find one? The MER program (2 rovers) cost about $800M. Assuming no efficiencies of scale, 100 of them would cost $40B, which is much less than what Sen. McCain says it would cost just to go back to the Moon, much less Mars.
So, how many robots could you buy for the cost of a single manned mission to Mars? Obviously more than 100. Maybe 1000, and they would not all be golf carts.