There are some things you can learn in an isolated environment, and some you cannot.
The temptation for universities is to put everything on line, so they can capture as many students as possible, without any regard for the suitability of the subject.
The idea also ignores, as several have suggested, the social interaction part of higher education, which is invaluable. Not just the parties and outwardly social gathering, but the one-on-one intellectual exchange.
There are even schools which offer a complete degree on line - one or two at the doctoral level. Of course, we don't hear much about how well these people fare in the job market. My guess is that anyone with a legitimate degree won't hire them.
It's another example of how education is being watered down at every level.
Each new software announcement seems to top the previous for insanity. Every time I upgrade Ubuntu, something quits working or isn't supported that I was using. It usually takes about a month to get things working again. Monthly updates would mean the system was never quite fully functional. Isn't that what we had with IBM in the 1960s?
I no longer update except for the key, supported updates, every two years. Instead of going to monthly updates, it needs to cut the updates back to once a year, or once every two years.
Does anyone (besides me, obviously) remember the Benton Harbor Lunch Box? That's an example of good, efficient design! Not too many parts, and it was adequate to the task.
"It shows the naysayers you can write a full OS kernel without C"
That is one of the silliest statements I have seen lately. Of course you can write a kernel without C. You can write it in a lot of languages, the most obvious of which are assembly language or machine language. The latter is what C must eventually be translated into.
The issue may be what language is easier for the programmer to use, and which is more transportable from instruction set to instruction set.
There were a lot of kernels written long before anyone ever thought of C. Where has this person been?
Remote areas in the UK? Surely you jest. The whole island isn't big enough to have any really remote areas. It shouldn't take more than one cell tower to cover the whole thing.:)
If you want remote areas, look at some place like Australia or Alaska. That's remote!
There was one built in Greenville, Texas around 1950. I think the name of the company was Southern Aero Services. The reason I'm familiar with it is that one of my workmates worked on it, and the company I retired from later took over the facility.
Those are the two that come to mind immediately, but I know there have been others. If you want the names of some of those as well, email me privately, and I'll dig around over the next week or so.
"Flying cars" or "roadable aircraft" have been designed and built many times in the past. There's always a lot of enthusiasm during the design phase, when public demonstrations are made, and colorful brochures are handed out. When it comes to actually buying one, though, the public, both flying and non-flying, always stay away in droves. I'd be very surprised if this one is any different.
As others have pointed out, there are a lot of problems, both regulatory and practical, that make this a costly and difficult ventures. Save your money; buy something really practical, like a flying saucer that works only in ground effect.
..at least, not under U.S. rules. The bottom speed is slow enough, but the quoted top speed is much too high.
Those who point out it probably can't fly as high as quoted are dead on target. Helicopters quote two values: hovering in ground effect (HIGE), and hovering out of ground effect (HOGE). The reason they're quoted is that there is a real problem in getting altitude performance from a rotary wing aircraft.
Like all too many new aircraft announcements, the numbers we are quoted appear to be paper calculations, likely by someone not all that well qualified to do the calculations. One of two things is likely to happen: the thing will slide quietly into oblivion, or we'll hear of this spectacular crash. Let's hope it's the former, not the latter.
Isn't this just an admission of what they are already doing? It's been evident since day one that the news released by the Japanese government was heavily censored.
Of course the movie industry tries to claim this is innovation. Lots of other industries do the same sort of thing. That doesn't make it right, just reality.
The real question is, are they pushing something consumers like and want, or are they just pushing another wet noodle, like Blue Ray? Let people make their own choice, which will help decide if 3d movies are around to stay this time, or if they die out as they did in the 1950s, when the technology just wasn't quite there.
I liked 3D in the 1950s, and I like it even better now, with some of the bugs worked out. I hope it stays, but if it does or doesn't, the world won't end. At least, not from the presence or absence of 3D.
The phone company has developed a lot of predictive math, such as queueing theory. I have a hard time believing that they didn't predict exactly what would happen with things like the iPhone. This sounds like a plan to create greater demand that in turn justifies more frequency space.
The spectrum belongs to all of us, not just to AT&T. Services that can't operate in the bandwidth allotted need to be eliminated.
High bandwidth internet and internet applications need to be kept on the landlines.
Not only that, but I have a limited number of authentic crew uniforms and unit patches available, while they last. I'm going to put them up on eBay, just as soon as I post this. Sorry the uniforms will only fit someone about 3 feet tall.
I well remember the first time I heard of Mr. Rutan. It was around 1972: one of the aviation magazines published a story about the Vari-Viggen. He was testing a model strapped to the top of his car, in lieu of the wind tunnel. That was typical Rutan thinking: if you don't have something, find a simple substitute.
I still have a copy of a magazine from 1976 (Air Progress, I think) with the Varieze on the cover, and announcing a new approach to home built aircraft. That aircraft changed the way a lot of us looked at building. I even got a copy of the plans, which I still have. The joke at the time was that you not only could build the plane in the quoted number of hours, you had to, because the building time was based on epoxy curing times.
Aircraft won't be the same: he was one of the few people I knew of who seemed to understand both aerodynamics and structure.
The idea sounds great. We'll save energy, have less noise, and we'll all be happy. It's sort of a "we'll have our cake, and eat it too!"
The problem is, it takes a lot of energy to power an aircraft. While a car engine runs at only a very small percentage of its rated power most of time, aircraft engines run at 60% or 70% of full power all the time. We need to store a lot more energy per unit time than we do for a car, and more energy per unit energy source weight. So far, petroleum products store more energy per unit energy source weight than anything else, except perhaps nuclear power. So this isn't going to be very practical.
As an experimental thing, to see what can be done, it sounds interesting, and like a lot of fun. But a practical idea, it isn't.
Slashdot Mirror
It's amazing how much depth people gain when I put my glasses on!
Simulate an alien being with many eyes!
Dear Amazon: if you push this, and a national sales tax is introduced, I've made my last purchase from you.
The idea also ignores, as several have suggested, the social interaction part of higher education, which is invaluable. Not just the parties and outwardly social gathering, but the one-on-one intellectual exchange.
There are even schools which offer a complete degree on line - one or two at the doctoral level. Of course, we don't hear much about how well these people fare in the job market. My guess is that anyone with a legitimate degree won't hire them.
It's another example of how education is being watered down at every level.
No, it isn't causing a drought in Texas. There were droughts in Texas at least this bad, long before the argument started.
I no longer update except for the key, supported updates, every two years. Instead of going to monthly updates, it needs to cut the updates back to once a year, or once every two years.
Does anyone (besides me, obviously) remember the Benton Harbor Lunch Box? That's an example of good, efficient design! Not too many parts, and it was adequate to the task.
That is one of the silliest statements I have seen lately. Of course you can write a kernel without C. You can write it in a lot of languages, the most obvious of which are assembly language or machine language. The latter is what C must eventually be translated into.
The issue may be what language is easier for the programmer to use, and which is more transportable from instruction set to instruction set.
There were a lot of kernels written long before anyone ever thought of C. Where has this person been?
I was attempting to be humorous. Evidently, I was a bit too cryptic.
If you want remote areas, look at some place like Australia or Alaska. That's remote!
http://www.airventuremuseum.org/collection/aircraft/Taylor%20Aerocar.asp
There was one built in Greenville, Texas around 1950. I think the name of the company was Southern Aero Services. The reason I'm familiar with it is that one of my workmates worked on it, and the company I retired from later took over the facility.
Those are the two that come to mind immediately, but I know there have been others. If you want the names of some of those as well, email me privately, and I'll dig around over the next week or so.
As others have pointed out, there are a lot of problems, both regulatory and practical, that make this a costly and difficult ventures. Save your money; buy something really practical, like a flying saucer that works only in ground effect.
..at least, not under U.S. rules. The bottom speed is slow enough, but the quoted top speed is much too high. Those who point out it probably can't fly as high as quoted are dead on target. Helicopters quote two values: hovering in ground effect (HIGE), and hovering out of ground effect (HOGE). The reason they're quoted is that there is a real problem in getting altitude performance from a rotary wing aircraft. Like all too many new aircraft announcements, the numbers we are quoted appear to be paper calculations, likely by someone not all that well qualified to do the calculations. One of two things is likely to happen: the thing will slide quietly into oblivion, or we'll hear of this spectacular crash. Let's hope it's the former, not the latter.
And how did they determine this? Does this mean they are monitoring all usage of Windows continually?
Isn't this just an admission of what they are already doing? It's been evident since day one that the news released by the Japanese government was heavily censored.
The real question is, are they pushing something consumers like and want, or are they just pushing another wet noodle, like Blue Ray? Let people make their own choice, which will help decide if 3d movies are around to stay this time, or if they die out as they did in the 1950s, when the technology just wasn't quite there.
I liked 3D in the 1950s, and I like it even better now, with some of the bugs worked out. I hope it stays, but if it does or doesn't, the world won't end. At least, not from the presence or absence of 3D.
The spectrum belongs to all of us, not just to AT&T. Services that can't operate in the bandwidth allotted need to be eliminated.
High bandwidth internet and internet applications need to be kept on the landlines.
Why not just brand everybody with a unique id, and stamp "666" or their foreheads?
Thank you. At ease, we'll be on the planet all day...
Not only that, but I have a limited number of authentic crew uniforms and unit patches available, while they last. I'm going to put them up on eBay, just as soon as I post this. Sorry the uniforms will only fit someone about 3 feet tall.
Has anybody figured out why this was a part of discover's bad astronomy blog?
I still have a copy of a magazine from 1976 (Air Progress, I think) with the Varieze on the cover, and announcing a new approach to home built aircraft. That aircraft changed the way a lot of us looked at building. I even got a copy of the plans, which I still have. The joke at the time was that you not only could build the plane in the quoted number of hours, you had to, because the building time was based on epoxy curing times.
Aircraft won't be the same: he was one of the few people I knew of who seemed to understand both aerodynamics and structure.
The problem is, it takes a lot of energy to power an aircraft. While a car engine runs at only a very small percentage of its rated power most of time, aircraft engines run at 60% or 70% of full power all the time. We need to store a lot more energy per unit time than we do for a car, and more energy per unit energy source weight. So far, petroleum products store more energy per unit energy source weight than anything else, except perhaps nuclear power. So this isn't going to be very practical.
As an experimental thing, to see what can be done, it sounds interesting, and like a lot of fun. But a practical idea, it isn't.
Vote for the Sony sponsored candidate in 2012!
What did you expect he'd get for attacking the government? A good conduct ribbon? Toss him in Gitmo, and throw the key away!