> When the components NASA needs are available off-the-shelf, that will be an excellent approach.
The actual spacecraft is about half the cost of any NASA program. The other half is all the test equipment, the prototype models, etc.
Having worked on the Kepler program, I can assure you that there are many off the shelf components that can be used -- not necessarily on the spacecraft, but definitely in the test equipment area. Another effort that the contractors are scurrying to implement are reusable test components that can be carried over from program to program. The difficulty is that most NASA contracts state that all the equipment created over the course of the program belongs to NASA. Figuring out the legal bits of the contract to make equipment reuse more viable is another change that needs to happen at NASA/JPL, too.
Blessings,
TwP
Telco: Have we got a deal for!
WebSite: Let's hear it.
Telco: If you pay us $X per month, we won't limit our customers access to your website.
WebSite: <sarcasm>Wow! That sounds like a great deal</sarcasm>
Now, imagine this with the mafia and a Small Business Owner (SBO)
Mafia: Have we got a deal for you!
SBO: Let's here it.
Mafia: If you pay us $X per month, we won't break your customer's knees with a baseball bat.
SBO: <sarcasm>Wow! That sounds like a great deal</sarcasm>
Whoosh. SMACK! (knees crack) AAAaaauughhh!
Anywho, that's just my simplified version of reality, but it does make sense. Telcos and the cable companies dipped their toes into blocking ports (TCP-25 anyone?) in the name of preventing spam. They're already performing traffic shaping so they can make more money on "business" accounts (more bandwithd for more money). I guess they feel they can now work this same scenario from the other end since they have met so little resistance in the two previous cases.
Have we dug our own grave with this one by not pipping up earlier? Is silence in the previous cases the same as conset. The telcos and cable companies seem to think so.
It used to be that the external fuel tank was painted white. When they realized that the paint weighs around 400 pounds, they stopped doing that. Maybe it's time to start painting the external tank again to help contain the insulating foam and to prevent it from falling off??
Tell you what. Give me a call on your 3G cellphone and whine to me in person while sending me 2 Mpixel photos of your crappy Google interface. Or you can write me an e-mail while your zipping along at 180Kph in your bullet train with wireless capabilities. Or you can drive your fuel efficient smart car over the Atlantic... never mind.
Not all technologies make it across the pond. Sorry. That's the way it is. I'm sure if you want to give a few million dollars to Google to get these services in Europe they would be willing to listen.
In fact, I'm sure they have even scoped out the business case and revenue model for brining these services to Europe. In the meantime enjoy your government health care, your month of holiday, and your labor party government;) When the Google commandos hit the beaches to save the UK and Europe from the evils of "we-don't-have-nice-maps" we'll let you know.
why isn't this being presented as a Google Reviews service, reviewing anything and everything? Now THAT would become a cultural phenomenon.
I'll review anything for you. Let's start with that new 42" plasma TV from Dell. Just ship it to my house and the review will be written within a week of receipt.
But I do like your idea . . . set up a specific google search (like froogle) to index all the review sites on the web. Stuff like "Tom's Hardware", Kevein Kelly's "Cool Tools" site, etc. The only trouble is identifying a review site, or worse yet, identifying a single page on a site or a single blog entry where something was reviewed. New HTML meta tag called "review"??
1) Identify the ten largest investors in the company.
2) Send them a polite, anonymous e-mail about the state of the company.
3) Cite recent cutbacks in the IT department as evidence of shaky financials.
4) Chip in for the "Going Away" cake for the CIO.
And what exactly do you have against Windows 3.11 for Workgroups? I mean it had a TCP/IP stack built right into the operating system. No need to download the trumpet version or anything -- well, only if you wanted the bug-free version.
You're not anti-Apple, but you are forgetting one fact -- availability of G5 processors. IBM has been plauged with troubles ramping up production on the 90nm G5 chips.
Apple has also had quite a bit of demand for G5 Xserves for the new supercomputer for the military. Most likely Apple has the design hammered out for the G5 iMac, but they simply lack the G5 chips in the supply pipeline.
The geneticist (obviously a fan of genetic engineering) said "What's better? Transferring hundreds or thousands of genes unintentionally to get the one gene you want enabled or simply enabling it directly?"
That's my approach to programming -- instead of using the API, I just directly call the underlying functions that I want. I'm way more productive and <sarcasm>my code is way more stable.</sarcasm>
Come'on folks, the API for DNA is there for a reason. Don't go mucking with the underlying stuff until you fully understand what you're doing.
My $0.02
Re:Great. Now how will we fight the Robots...
on
Amorphous Steel
·
· Score: 1
Sorry, I'm too busy calculating the last digit of pi to post a relevant response.
Hey, if Silicon Valley happens to get toasted, y'all are invited to the Boulder/Denver area.
SHHHH!! BE QUIET!!
We don't want the housing prices to keep rising, and the ski slopes are crowded enough!
Re:Why, a quake goes off, of course.
on
Is This The Big One?
·
· Score: 3, Informative
NONE of you have ever wondered why the moon only shows us one face? What're the odds?
The moon is gravitationally locked to the Earth's rotation. Tidal forces from Earth's gravitational field have induced a bulge in the moon; this buldge always points along the line from the center of the Earth to the center of the moon. At one time the moon was rotating faster then it is now, but the moon had to bend and flex as this bulge shifted around. Energy was lost to friction (rocks grinding against one another), and the moon's rotation slowed until it was gravitationally locked to the Earth.
But don't take my word for it, I'm just a rocket scientist.
So they'll also have to bring with them a $1 water mister if they're going to use household Super Glue
And on the sunny side of the Space Shuttle the water will boil away before it hits the glue. And on the dark side of the Space Shuttle the water will freeze before it hits the glue.
The compound is probably akin to a two part epoxy -- epoxy (the glue) and resin (the hardener). Another option would be a UV curing glue. (1) Apply on the dark side of the Shuttle, (2) rotate Shuttle into sunlight, (3) watch glue cure, (4) profit!!!
Purchase your books at the beginning of the semester, and scan the chapters in one by one as you need them. It's a lot of work, so you might want to get together with several other Technorati in your class and spread the work and share the benefits.
The best way to store the information would be to save each page as a gif, tiff, jepg (whatever floats your boat) and then collect the pages for each chapter into a PDF document. At the end of the semester you will have the entire book in digital format. You can sell the original back to the bookstore and keep the digital copy for future reference. Make backups!
Slashdot Mirror
I cannot take credit for this one, but a cheap cable tray is a plastic rain gutter you can purchase in 10 foot lengths at any hardware store => http://lifehacker.com/5299994/rain-gutters-as-cable-management-tools
> When the components NASA needs are available off-the-shelf, that will be an excellent approach. The actual spacecraft is about half the cost of any NASA program. The other half is all the test equipment, the prototype models, etc. Having worked on the Kepler program, I can assure you that there are many off the shelf components that can be used -- not necessarily on the spacecraft, but definitely in the test equipment area. Another effort that the contractors are scurrying to implement are reusable test components that can be carried over from program to program. The difficulty is that most NASA contracts state that all the equipment created over the course of the program belongs to NASA. Figuring out the legal bits of the contract to make equipment reuse more viable is another change that needs to happen at NASA/JPL, too. Blessings, TwP
How is this not racketeering?
Telco: Have we got a deal for!
WebSite: Let's hear it.
Telco: If you pay us $X per month, we won't limit our customers access to your website.
WebSite: <sarcasm>Wow! That sounds like a great deal</sarcasm>
Now, imagine this with the mafia and a Small Business Owner (SBO)
Mafia: Have we got a deal for you!
SBO: Let's here it.
Mafia: If you pay us $X per month, we won't break your customer's knees with a baseball bat.
SBO: <sarcasm>Wow! That sounds like a great deal</sarcasm>
Whoosh. SMACK! (knees crack) AAAaaauughhh!
Anywho, that's just my simplified version of reality, but it does make sense. Telcos and the cable companies dipped their toes into blocking ports (TCP-25 anyone?) in the name of preventing spam. They're already performing traffic shaping so they can make more money on "business" accounts (more bandwithd for more money). I guess they feel they can now work this same scenario from the other end since they have met so little resistance in the two previous cases.
Have we dug our own grave with this one by not pipping up earlier? Is silence in the previous cases the same as conset. The telcos and cable companies seem to think so.
It used to be that the external fuel tank was painted white. When they realized that the paint weighs around 400 pounds, they stopped doing that. Maybe it's time to start painting the external tank again to help contain the insulating foam and to prevent it from falling off??
You could try the Cable Turtle.
For longer distance things you could use spiral wraps.
And another cool product would be the cord caddy.
Have fun organizing!
Tell you what. Give me a call on your 3G cellphone and whine to me in person while sending me 2 Mpixel photos of your crappy Google interface. Or you can write me an e-mail while your zipping along at 180Kph in your bullet train with wireless capabilities. Or you can drive your fuel efficient smart car over the Atlantic ... never mind.
Not all technologies make it across the pond. Sorry. That's the way it is. I'm sure if you want to give a few million dollars to Google to get these services in Europe they would be willing to listen.
In fact, I'm sure they have even scoped out the business case and revenue model for brining these services to Europe. In the meantime enjoy your government health care, your month of holiday, and your labor party government ;) When the Google commandos hit the beaches to save the UK and Europe from the evils of "we-don't-have-nice-maps" we'll let you know.
why isn't this being presented as a Google Reviews service, reviewing anything and everything? Now THAT would become a cultural phenomenon.
I'll review anything for you. Let's start with that new 42" plasma TV from Dell. Just ship it to my house and the review will be written within a week of receipt.
But I do like your idea . . . set up a specific google search (like froogle) to index all the review sites on the web. Stuff like "Tom's Hardware", Kevein Kelly's "Cool Tools" site, etc. The only trouble is identifying a review site, or worse yet, identifying a single page on a site or a single blog entry where something was reviewed. New HTML meta tag called "review"??
Slashdot contains actual useful information.
An unchecked buffer overflow is going to cause a coredump!
rimshot
Sorry. Too many requirements documents <sigh>
A lot of fun's been taken out of /. lately... :(
Welcome to Slashdot!
We're putting the "fun" back into dysfunctional!
1) Identify the ten largest investors in the company.
2) Send them a polite, anonymous e-mail about the state of the company.
3) Cite recent cutbacks in the IT department as evidence of shaky financials.
4) Chip in for the "Going Away" cake for the CIO.
not to mention windows pre '95
And what exactly do you have against Windows 3.11 for Workgroups? I mean it had a TCP/IP stack built right into the operating system. No need to download the trumpet version or anything -- well, only if you wanted the bug-free version.
You're not anti-Apple, but you are forgetting one fact -- availability of G5 processors. IBM has been plauged with troubles ramping up production on the 90nm G5 chips.
Apple has also had quite a bit of demand for G5 Xserves for the new supercomputer for the military. Most likely Apple has the design hammered out for the G5 iMac, but they simply lack the G5 chips in the supply pipeline.
The geneticist (obviously a fan of genetic engineering) said "What's better? Transferring hundreds or thousands of genes unintentionally to get the one gene you want enabled or simply enabling it directly?"
That's my approach to programming -- instead of using the API, I just directly call the underlying functions that I want. I'm way more productive and <sarcasm>my code is way more stable.</sarcasm>
Come'on folks, the API for DNA is there for a reason. Don't go mucking with the underlying stuff until you fully understand what you're doing.
My $0.02
Sorry, I'm too busy calculating the last digit of pi to post a relevant response.
No no no, I own a home ... near a (small not well known) ski area
Would that be in Nederland up near Eldora?
Hey, if Silicon Valley happens to get toasted, y'all are invited to the Boulder/Denver area.
SHHHH!! BE QUIET!!
We don't want the housing prices to keep rising, and the ski slopes are crowded enough!
NONE of you have ever wondered why the moon only shows us one face? What're the odds?
The moon is gravitationally locked to the Earth's rotation. Tidal forces from Earth's gravitational field have induced a bulge in the moon; this buldge always points along the line from the center of the Earth to the center of the moon. At one time the moon was rotating faster then it is now, but the moon had to bend and flex as this bulge shifted around. Energy was lost to friction (rocks grinding against one another), and the moon's rotation slowed until it was gravitationally locked to the Earth.
But don't take my word for it, I'm just a rocket scientist.
Do you have any case law references to backup this statement?
You're new here . . .
Pass me a Guinness.
So they'll also have to bring with them a $1 water mister if they're going to use household Super Glue
And on the sunny side of the Space Shuttle the water will boil away before it hits the glue. And on the dark side of the Space Shuttle the water will freeze before it hits the glue.
The compound is probably akin to a two part epoxy -- epoxy (the glue) and resin (the hardener). Another option would be a UV curing glue. (1) Apply on the dark side of the Shuttle, (2) rotate Shuttle into sunlight, (3) watch glue cure, (4) profit!!!
Purchase your books at the beginning of the semester, and scan the chapters in one by one as you need them. It's a lot of work, so you might want to get together with several other Technorati in your class and spread the work and share the benefits.
The best way to store the information would be to save each page as a gif, tiff, jepg (whatever floats your boat) and then collect the pages for each chapter into a PDF document. At the end of the semester you will have the entire book in digital format. You can sell the original back to the bookstore and keep the digital copy for future reference. Make backups!
It's easy for children:
Damn! That sounds like a few of the people I work with <grin>.
In the sixties we had great movies like . . .
And in the seventies we had incredible flicks like the Star Wars Christmas Special. Ah, the great ones live on forever.
They're waiting for eveyone else to jump off a bridge first.