"Two orbiters, Challenger and Discovery , were modified at KSC to enable them to carry the Centaur upper stage in the payload bay. These modifications included extra plumbing to load and vent Centaur's cryogenic (L02/LH2) propellants (other IUS/PAM upper stages use solid propellants), and controls on the aft flight deck for loading and monitoring the Centaur stage. No Centaur flight was ever flown and after the loss of Challenger it was decided that the risk was too great to launch a shuttle with a fueled Centaur upper stage in the payload bay."
I think the modifications have since been removed. We now have no shuttle capable of launching a Centaur upper stage -- the other was destroyed. I have often wondered if this really is all that dangerous, considering the fact that the hydrazine maneuvering fuel used on many satellites the Shuttle launches is hypergolic, meaning it will ignite on contact with its oxidizer, no spark needed. Hydrogen and oxygen, on the other hand, require an ignition system.
Frankly, I really won't. I used to use Yahoo's POP3 service on a regular basis for an email account used only for registering with Web sites. Then somehow the account got on a spam list -- and the name isn't anything that would be easily guessed, though it does mean something to me. It's unusable because of the huge amounts of spam that flow into it.
I stopped using the POP3 service months ago and got a new mailbox from a friend who runs his own Web and IRC system. The domain name of the new account means much more to me than Yahoo's, isn't labeled "freemail" for all those sites that won't take those, and best of all... doesn't get spam. And because it's from a friend, it's free and if anything does go wrong, I can personally send complaints to the server administrator.
Plus, he's a really nice guy. Yahoo's just a faceless megacorp.
Re:That picture wasn't an engine
on
Soviet Moon Rocket
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Multi-engine rockets are still used by Russia today. These photos are dated today -- and this particular rocket design is very, very successful.
On the pad (probably the same one that launched Sputnik 1!)
But, as you say, the N-1 just took the concept too far, and the Soviets had invested so much into it by that point that the N-1's failure forced the entire lunar program to be cancelled. The only other booster that could do the job at the time (nothing exists now that could, though the Shuttle could launch a moon ship) was the Saturn V.
Mishin, Sergei Korolev's successor, was not an experienced engineer. This was a major factor in the failure of the N-1 program.
Korolev, on the other hand, was very successful -- a rocket sharing the same basic design as the one that launched Sputnik 1 was rolled to the launch pad in support of a Progress freighter launch to the ISS. When?
Here is the comparison photo I keep on my web site. Buran looks like the US shuttle because it was based on the US shuttle in order to avoid having to carry out all-new research; the Shuttle was already tested and known to work well by that point.
Also: Photos from Sydney of the aerodynamic Buran 002 test article.
As topical now as it was then ...
on
Chained Melodies
·
· Score: 2
Come senators, congressmen Please heed the call Don't stand in the doorway Don't block up the hall For he that gets hurt Will be he who has stalled There's a battle outside And it is ragin'. It'll soon shake your windows And rattle your walls For the times they are a-changin'.
-- Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin' (1963, and still under copyright by Special Rider Music, renewed 1991)
Could this employee not file a dispute with his or her credit card issuer? Or is there a 'statute of limitations' of sorts in typical card-issuer fine print?
Even if it isn't trespass under the law (is it? They've probably weaseled their way out of any such charges with some disclaimer or other in their licensing agreement; I haven't read it, as I don't use their software, and now never will, but it's trespass to me.)
If you want to change my settings, ask me first. If I think it's OK, I'll let you. If not, I won't. There's a reason I don't allow any automatic updating of my software: abuse of automatic configuration utilities by people like these guys. Too bad. It's a neat technology, but it's gotten a bad rap from abusers like StreamCast to the point where even I don't trust even the companies who claim to play fair and have never been proved not to.
Well, I like bouncing icons, but I raided that site for most of the other utilities it had. Transparent windows and real windowshading - aaahhh! And no shadows to bog my RagePro Lombard - aaahhh!
So if there's no incentive to keep developing open-source browsers, why did I just install a fresh build of Mozilla just yesterday on one of the PCs here in the lab I work in?
I can drive my Volkswagen through the hole in that argument.
Re:would it work?
on
iWarez
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Actually, no, you don't need the CD.
I've done clean MacOS installs (which replace the system folder with a fresh one) and then, the next time Office ran, it executed the "first run" routine which placed the proper files back in the System folder -- essentially replicating the process of dragging an Office installation from one machine to another without the installer app. In fact, one of the install methods that the Office CD offers (at least, my Mac Office 2001 Educational Edition, since I work in a university) is to just copy a folder from CD to hard disk.
So yes, it will work when copied from the iPod to another Mac, at least if it's Office 2001 -- I don't know for sure if Office 10 does this as well, though we also have the educational edition of that. (I've never tried.)
I won't buy another CD as long as my money supports an industry that got me thrown off one of my online RPGs.
Yes, that's right, kids. Mentioning Audiogalaxy is against their AUP. "Please log off now." Uh huh. And this is how they treat their STAFF (yes, I'm an unpaid volunteer)? Gee, thanks. I guess this means the two-week paid vacation is out of the question, too?
By the way, for the foreseeable future, that RPG is off my login list, too. I won't support anything, free or not, that bows down and worships the big toe of the RIAA, MPAA, or anyone else who has no sense of right and wrong. I have no qualms about it. Want me back? Get off your marble altar to St. Rosen and St. Valenti.
And for god's sakes, go and read the First Amendment.
I've just finished skimming through this thread, and while I understand why a member of N'Sync is the subject of widespread ridicule, I do want to pause for a moment and say why I think it might be a good idea for Mr. Bass, or anyone well known, to visit the ISS (as long as, of course, they pass the flight certification requirements and have been trained in Houston and in Star City, as all professional astronauts and cosmonauts do, to the extent that their individual mission requires.)
The ISS program has been subject to some very severe criticism on the part of the US government due to cost overruns and repeated delays. The station was originally designed to have a seven-member crew and perform hundreds if not thousands of science experiments over its design life. Due to the loss of the US Habitation Module and the Crew Return Vehicle (not to be confused with the Honda CR-V), that crew has been cut to just three - and it takes two and a half people to just operate the station, leaving only a comparatively tiny amount of time free for science. The station may find its budget cut yet further if NASA can't rein in the cost increases, though the new Administrator is quite experienced at budgeting (which is, actually, why he was chosen).
One way to help the station pay its way is these "pay your way" visits. They are not disrupting the station's already-existing schedule, as the "ferry" flights that are used for these paid tours are already built into the program. Their purpose? To exchange the long-term crew's Soyuz "lifeboat" for another every six months, the Soyuz' certified on-orbit lifetime. Typically, the taxi crews stay on the station for about a week, then depart in the Soyuz already attached to the station, leaving the new one behind.
If you considering the importance of the ISS in long-term space exploration as a way to gain experience in long-duration missions (as Mir allowed us to do) and as a departure point for future missions to the Moon and Mars, you see why these tourist missions are important: help balance the shortfall in what NASA and other governments can't provide and help boost public interest in, and awareness of, the ISS program.
"This is better advertising than he could ever pay for."
Better advertising for the ISS. The more famous the proposed visitor, the more likely the news will be everywhere, regardless of whether or not he or she ever visits the station. And, if those press articles also explain in an unbiased way why the ISS is vital to us and to future generations, then perhaps its future will be assured as more than just a footnote or stumbling point on the way off of Earth.
That's the real reason this is an important piece of news.
When I click on links in mIRC, Eudora, or other apps that load URLs, I always get a new window every time. Even if (like mIRC) I've asked for the existing window to be re-used. Is there a way to change this in prefs.js? I've looked, without success.
Hopefully, the fix will be crossplatform -- I use Moz in Windows, Mac, and Mac OS X.
I'm hoping another reader will know. When I asked a few days ago on another site, someone said 'You could fix that by downloading IE...' Ahem. No.
I've just had to, within the past month, give up my 'freemail' account that I'd used for mailing lists and signing up for web sites because it's now little more than a spam bucket, and I was always careful to never check those "receive offer" boxes. It's now just full of spam from Taiwan and China and the like along with the typical get-rich-quick, debt relief, Viagra, and sex site ads. A friend who runs a server network was kind enough to give me a real POP3 box instead of the simple forwarding most of his other users get.
I keep the address strictly confidential, just like my 'real' address that only gets a very small amount of spam per week. It's for a few mailing lists that I trust and are privately owned and run; I know who to yell at if I get spam on that address.
Whether or not a piece of spam is "trusted" by some other organization is not going to change my opinion of whether or not I want to buy anything. I don't. There are specific entities and individuals that I wish to receive mail from, and then there is the simple fact that I don't want to have ads thrown at me in email, too. Web ads (I block those and am not ashamed of it), TV ads (I watch a lot of PBS; great 'geek' programming and few ads) are enough, thank you.
They don't get the point. Or if they do get the point, they just don't care. I do not want spam. Period. All the sleazy spammers have ruined it completely for the good companies that try to do it responsibly (opt-in, genuine list removals, ADV: subject tagging, etc.) but you know what?
I was not sure, and I was hoping that someone would be able to set me straight; hence the 'anyone know?'. Thank you for the information. Perhaps sometime I'll look for a photo of a Testarossa engine.
I'm vastly amused by the fact that this Italian supercar is humbled by the same annoying automatic seatbelts that I, to this day, cannot stand. It was DOT regulation at the time, so all US-market cars in 1991 had them, but... you just don't think about that when you think about Ferraris.
Incidentally, "testa rossa" is Italian for "redhead" -- I believe it was a reference to the fact that at least some of these had red valve covers (or something like that -- anyone know?) in the engine. Most are red to go with the meaning of the name.
Don't care much for the wheels. I'd think a good set of BBS wheels, like the ones on this car, would be nicer. But if you have that much money to spend on a car, you have the money to drop $1500 on a good set of wheels and tires.
Yes, but what is considered to be a "major life activity"? What you might not see as a major loss would be to me. That inability to type would be as disabling as losing a leg -- it'd rob me of my ability to communicate in the best way I know how (and one of the relatively few options open to me.)
I am hearing impaired, and I consider myself to be disabled. It isn't a disability that you can see, as the cause of it lies with destroyed nerves in my inner ears (my cochleas were damaged due to maternal illness before I was born). I do wear a hearing aid, which provides for some relief, but it's not complete; I still don't have normal hearing in my right ear, and my left is so far gone that an aid can't help. So I have no stereo hearing; I understand the principle of what stereo is, but I've never experienced it. It's sort of like trying to explain color to the blind. And until a few years ago, the sound of a bird chirping was foreign to me -- only recently have computerized hearing aids tailored to an individual profile been good enough to help. (I still can't hear all high-pitch sounds, though.)
Are there things I can't do? Certainly. I can't handle large crowds (face-to-face RPG gaming is a no-no unless the group is four people or less; I found this out the hard way, so I've reverted to MUCKs for most of my roleplaying). I can't talk to people easily while at a swimming pool (hearing aids aren't waterproof). I can't be in the military or hold many different jobs where good hearing is a necessity. I can't understand the lyrics of songs without reading a transcript first. I must have closed captioning on all television shows I watch. I cannot tell where a siren is coming from while I'm driving and have to look around for the flashing lights.
There are upsides (roomsful of screaming kids can be instantly silenced with the press of an 'off' button on a hearing aid, for instance) but the downsides are there, too. Under the ADA, I sometimes made use of a note-taker in high school and college because keeping up with lectures was difficult. (That sort of thing is what the ADA was designed for -- equal access where vital to those of us who otherwise would have to go without.) I think equal access to education is classifiable under "major life activity" -- but I don't go around claiming that the ADA means I have to be given a disabled parking placard or anything.
There are limitations to what I feel I can ask for under the law. I've adjusted my activities to use the senses I do have. Some people might think I don't have a life, for instance, because I chat with people on the Internet rather than going out and going to parties -- no, I say; my life is enriched by that. I'm just as social as the next person might be; I just interact in a way that utilizes what I'm left with.
As for the original topic, it does seem to me that the woman in this case did go a bit far in her efforts to get a "more acceptable" job...
"If there were a "most wired" or "most gadget-happy" nation, I'd have to give it to Singapore or Japan."
True. Apologies. I should probably have said instead that the US is one of the most well-known countries for typical PC networking (in other words, Americans tend to use desktop PCs and notebooks far more than is the case in Japan); I don't know what types of devices are used in Singapore, but I know that a lot of the computing in Japan is on game consoles -- the differences between English language and Japanese is a big barrier to overcome for a typical keyboard user.
(Way off-topic: I was surprised to find that IRC seems to work just fine with accented characters for the most part; the channel I frequent has a German user, and my copy of mIRC receives his umlauts just fine -- I didn't know it could do that. The MUCKs I use -- a type of MUD -- don't. Neat stuff.)
Now understanding what he's saying? Completely different matter entirely; I don't know much German...
I have a sneaking suspicion that when it is implemented, it'll wind up in first class -- which most of us almost never get to use. All of the news articles I've seen so far have been implying that this will be a great revolution that will allow us all to check our AOL e-mail at 50,000 feet -- but something tells me that the only people who will get to do that will also be sipping wine and eating caviar while they do it.
However, I also have to say that I'd never expected the US airlines to back out. We Americans are the most wired country in the world, and certainly one of the most gadget-happy -- and our airlines turn their backs on this just when it's literally ready to fly?
Go figure. I have to wonder how much of a "free ride" Lufthansa is going to get now that those who the system may have been built for no longer care about it.
"Have a wallpaper of some copyrighted picture? Yeah, that's illegal."
Is it? Not really... unless you bought it from, say, a "bundleware" CD of stuff that is supposed to be free (many freeware programs explicitly say in their readmes that this is not allowed) or it's an illegally resold commercial item (stolen goods?)
Fair use is an interesting thing. Browsing the machine that hosts my web site (I'm one of a number of virtual hosts on it) I came across this page once:
Q: I love that drawing of yours, may I use it as the desktop wallpaper on my personal computer at home?
A: Sure you can. You're enjoying it personally, after all. This doesn't mean you can use if for your wallpaper on a webpage though! Private viewing of my work, such as on a PC desktop, is just fine.
In other words, this is fair use. The image may be copyrighted, but since you are not reselling it and are viewing it "in your own home" as those FBI warnings on home movies put it, there's no real harm. The images are provided for that purpose, after all -- what's the difference between dropping it on your desktop and floating windows over it and just leaving it in your browser? This is an example of what is intended by the fair use copyright law. A real shame that more content providers (in this case an artist) don't "get it" like this one does.
Yeah, I have a fair amount of copyrighted images on my computer. No, I don't redistribute them. Most of them are there as results of discussions ("this is what that looks like, so you know what I'm talking about"). That falls under "academic" use, which is largely what the recent arguments of fair use are about (Prof. Felten is a prime example).
I'd be a lot worse off if my own computer denied me permission to do that. The worst part of all this isn't the lost profits for one of these two camps.
It is going to be when academic freedoms, long held almost sacred here in the US, start to die. Compared to that threat, which has huge potential for long-term damage, the short-term worries about movies and music are a joke.
But that's typical of the MPAA/RIAA lately. Make money now and screw over the future. I bet the space station engineers at NASA and Boeing would be nodding their heads right now if they were reading this...
I remember seeing footage and video of the Sea Shadow stealth ship. I'd be intersted in seeing photos of this one; does it look as wedgy as our own stealth ships do? Or does it look similar to "regular" naval vessels with some minor reshaping that ends up having a major effect on the radar cross-section?
The Jetta coupe does exist as a concept only but isn't going to get built for the 4th generation A platform vehicles.
The photo on the "features" page is a modified form of a photograph of that VW concept car . It was painted a lovely blue we don't get here in the US -- Jazz Blue. (A few Jazz Blue Golfs did make it as close as Canada, though. And you can get the color -- renamed -- on the Audi S4.)
I can't seem to find a valid URL for the original photo at the moment, unfortunately.
Jetta coupes existed for the first- and second-generation models only. They might come back for Generation 5, though. Who knows?
Slashdot Mirror
I think the modifications have since been removed. We now have no shuttle capable of launching a Centaur upper stage -- the other was destroyed. I have often wondered if this really is all that dangerous, considering the fact that the hydrazine maneuvering fuel used on many satellites the Shuttle launches is hypergolic, meaning it will ignite on contact with its oxidizer, no spark needed. Hydrogen and oxygen, on the other hand, require an ignition system.
Frankly, I really won't. I used to use Yahoo's POP3 service on a regular basis for an email account used only for registering with Web sites. Then somehow the account got on a spam list -- and the name isn't anything that would be easily guessed, though it does mean something to me. It's unusable because of the huge amounts of spam that flow into it.
... doesn't get spam. And because it's from a friend, it's free and if anything does go wrong, I can personally send complaints to the server administrator.
I stopped using the POP3 service months ago and got a new mailbox from a friend who runs his own Web and IRC system. The domain name of the new account means much more to me than Yahoo's, isn't labeled "freemail" for all those sites that won't take those, and best of all
Plus, he's a really nice guy. Yahoo's just a faceless megacorp.
Multi-engine rockets are still used by Russia today. These photos are dated today -- and this particular rocket design is very, very successful.
Photo of base of the Soyuz rocket (20 main engines and 12 smaller auxiliary engines)
The same rocket rolling to the pad
On the pad (probably the same one that launched Sputnik 1!)
But, as you say, the N-1 just took the concept too far, and the Soviets had invested so much into it by that point that the N-1's failure forced the entire lunar program to be cancelled. The only other booster that could do the job at the time (nothing exists now that could, though the Shuttle could launch a moon ship) was the Saturn V.
Mishin, Sergei Korolev's successor, was not an experienced engineer. This was a major factor in the failure of the N-1 program.
Korolev, on the other hand, was very successful -- a rocket sharing the same basic design as the one that launched Sputnik 1 was rolled to the launch pad in support of a Progress freighter launch to the ISS. When?
This morning.
Here is the comparison photo I keep on my web site. Buran looks like the US shuttle because it was based on the US shuttle in order to avoid having to carry out all-new research; the Shuttle was already tested and known to work well by that point.
Also: Photos from Sydney of the aerodynamic Buran 002 test article.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
-- Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin'
(1963, and still under copyright by Special Rider Music, renewed 1991)
Could this employee not file a dispute with his or her credit card issuer? Or is there a 'statute of limitations' of sorts in typical card-issuer fine print?
Even if it isn't trespass under the law (is it? They've probably weaseled their way out of any such charges with some disclaimer or other in their licensing agreement; I haven't read it, as I don't use their software, and now never will, but it's trespass to me.)
If you want to change my settings, ask me first. If I think it's OK, I'll let you. If not, I won't. There's a reason I don't allow any automatic updating of my software: abuse of automatic configuration utilities by people like these guys. Too bad. It's a neat technology, but it's gotten a bad rap from abusers like StreamCast to the point where even I don't trust even the companies who claim to play fair and have never been proved not to.
... And look into his lifeless eyes, and wave ...
...
Like this
*wave*
Well, I like bouncing icons, but I raided that site for most of the other utilities it had. Transparent windows and real windowshading - aaahhh! And no shadows to bog my RagePro Lombard - aaahhh!
Thanks for the link!
So if there's no incentive to keep developing open-source browsers, why did I just install a fresh build of Mozilla just yesterday on one of the PCs here in the lab I work in?
I can drive my Volkswagen through the hole in that argument.
Actually, no, you don't need the CD.
I've done clean MacOS installs (which replace the system folder with a fresh one) and then, the next time Office ran, it executed the "first run" routine which placed the proper files back in the System folder -- essentially replicating the process of dragging an Office installation from one machine to another without the installer app. In fact, one of the install methods that the Office CD offers (at least, my Mac Office 2001 Educational Edition, since I work in a university) is to just copy a folder from CD to hard disk.
So yes, it will work when copied from the iPod to another Mac, at least if it's Office 2001 -- I don't know for sure if Office 10 does this as well, though we also have the educational edition of that. (I've never tried.)
I won't buy another CD as long as my money supports an industry that got me thrown off one of my online RPGs.
Yes, that's right, kids. Mentioning Audiogalaxy is against their AUP. "Please log off now." Uh huh. And this is how they treat their STAFF (yes, I'm an unpaid volunteer)? Gee, thanks. I guess this means the two-week paid vacation is out of the question, too?
By the way, for the foreseeable future, that RPG is off my login list, too. I won't support anything, free or not, that bows down and worships the big toe of the RIAA, MPAA, or anyone else who has no sense of right and wrong. I have no qualms about it. Want me back? Get off your marble altar to St. Rosen and St. Valenti.
And for god's sakes, go and read the First Amendment.
I've just finished skimming through this thread, and while I understand why a member of N'Sync is the subject of widespread ridicule, I do want to pause for a moment and say why I think it might be a good idea for Mr. Bass, or anyone well known, to visit the ISS (as long as, of course, they pass the flight certification requirements and have been trained in Houston and in Star City, as all professional astronauts and cosmonauts do, to the extent that their individual mission requires.)
The ISS program has been subject to some very severe criticism on the part of the US government due to cost overruns and repeated delays. The station was originally designed to have a seven-member crew and perform hundreds if not thousands of science experiments over its design life. Due to the loss of the US Habitation Module and the Crew Return Vehicle (not to be confused with the Honda CR-V), that crew has been cut to just three - and it takes two and a half people to just operate the station, leaving only a comparatively tiny amount of time free for science. The station may find its budget cut yet further if NASA can't rein in the cost increases, though the new Administrator is quite experienced at budgeting (which is, actually, why he was chosen).
One way to help the station pay its way is these "pay your way" visits. They are not disrupting the station's already-existing schedule, as the "ferry" flights that are used for these paid tours are already built into the program. Their purpose? To exchange the long-term crew's Soyuz "lifeboat" for another every six months, the Soyuz' certified on-orbit lifetime. Typically, the taxi crews stay on the station for about a week, then depart in the Soyuz already attached to the station, leaving the new one behind.
If you considering the importance of the ISS in long-term space exploration as a way to gain experience in long-duration missions (as Mir allowed us to do) and as a departure point for future missions to the Moon and Mars, you see why these tourist missions are important: help balance the shortfall in what NASA and other governments can't provide and help boost public interest in, and awareness of, the ISS program.
"This is better advertising than he could ever pay for."
Better advertising for the ISS. The more famous the proposed visitor, the more likely the news will be everywhere, regardless of whether or not he or she ever visits the station. And, if those press articles also explain in an unbiased way why the ISS is vital to us and to future generations, then perhaps its future will be assured as more than just a footnote or stumbling point on the way off of Earth.
That's the real reason this is an important piece of news.
"This Project Has Not Released Any Files" ...
... Nothing there to be shut down.
When I click on links in mIRC, Eudora, or other apps that load URLs, I always get a new window every time. Even if (like mIRC) I've asked for the existing window to be re-used. Is there a way to change this in prefs.js? I've looked, without success.
Hopefully, the fix will be crossplatform -- I use Moz in Windows, Mac, and Mac OS X.
I'm hoping another reader will know. When I asked a few days ago on another site, someone said 'You could fix that by downloading IE...' Ahem. No.
I've just had to, within the past month, give up my 'freemail' account that I'd used for mailing lists and signing up for web sites because it's now little more than a spam bucket, and I was always careful to never check those "receive offer" boxes. It's now just full of spam from Taiwan and China and the like along with the typical get-rich-quick, debt relief, Viagra, and sex site ads. A friend who runs a server network was kind enough to give me a real POP3 box instead of the simple forwarding most of his other users get.
I keep the address strictly confidential, just like my 'real' address that only gets a very small amount of spam per week. It's for a few mailing lists that I trust and are privately owned and run; I know who to yell at if I get spam on that address.
Whether or not a piece of spam is "trusted" by some other organization is not going to change my opinion of whether or not I want to buy anything. I don't. There are specific entities and individuals that I wish to receive mail from, and then there is the simple fact that I don't want to have ads thrown at me in email, too. Web ads (I block those and am not ashamed of it), TV ads (I watch a lot of PBS; great 'geek' programming and few ads) are enough, thank you.
They don't get the point. Or if they do get the point, they just don't care. I do not want spam. Period. All the sleazy spammers have ruined it completely for the good companies that try to do it responsibly (opt-in, genuine list removals, ADV: subject tagging, etc.) but you know what?
Tough.
I was not sure, and I was hoping that someone would be able to set me straight; hence the 'anyone know?'. Thank you for the information. Perhaps sometime I'll look for a photo of a Testarossa engine.
I'm vastly amused by the fact that this Italian supercar is humbled by the same annoying automatic seatbelts that I, to this day, cannot stand. It was DOT regulation at the time, so all US-market cars in 1991 had them, but ... you just don't think about that when you think about Ferraris.
Incidentally, "testa rossa" is Italian for "redhead" -- I believe it was a reference to the fact that at least some of these had red valve covers (or something like that -- anyone know?) in the engine. Most are red to go with the meaning of the name.
Don't care much for the wheels. I'd think a good set of BBS wheels, like the ones on this car, would be nicer. But if you have that much money to spend on a car, you have the money to drop $1500 on a good set of wheels and tires.
Yes, but what is considered to be a "major life activity"? What you might not see as a major loss would be to me. That inability to type would be as disabling as losing a leg -- it'd rob me of my ability to communicate in the best way I know how (and one of the relatively few options open to me.)
...
I am hearing impaired, and I consider myself to be disabled. It isn't a disability that you can see, as the cause of it lies with destroyed nerves in my inner ears (my cochleas were damaged due to maternal illness before I was born). I do wear a hearing aid, which provides for some relief, but it's not complete; I still don't have normal hearing in my right ear, and my left is so far gone that an aid can't help. So I have no stereo hearing; I understand the principle of what stereo is, but I've never experienced it. It's sort of like trying to explain color to the blind. And until a few years ago, the sound of a bird chirping was foreign to me -- only recently have computerized hearing aids tailored to an individual profile been good enough to help. (I still can't hear all high-pitch sounds, though.)
Are there things I can't do? Certainly. I can't handle large crowds (face-to-face RPG gaming is a no-no unless the group is four people or less; I found this out the hard way, so I've reverted to MUCKs for most of my roleplaying). I can't talk to people easily while at a swimming pool (hearing aids aren't waterproof). I can't be in the military or hold many different jobs where good hearing is a necessity. I can't understand the lyrics of songs without reading a transcript first. I must have closed captioning on all television shows I watch. I cannot tell where a siren is coming from while I'm driving and have to look around for the flashing lights.
There are upsides (roomsful of screaming kids can be instantly silenced with the press of an 'off' button on a hearing aid, for instance) but the downsides are there, too. Under the ADA, I sometimes made use of a note-taker in high school and college because keeping up with lectures was difficult. (That sort of thing is what the ADA was designed for -- equal access where vital to those of us who otherwise would have to go without.) I think equal access to education is classifiable under "major life activity" -- but I don't go around claiming that the ADA means I have to be given a disabled parking placard or anything.
There are limitations to what I feel I can ask for under the law. I've adjusted my activities to use the senses I do have. Some people might think I don't have a life, for instance, because I chat with people on the Internet rather than going out and going to parties -- no, I say; my life is enriched by that. I'm just as social as the next person might be; I just interact in a way that utilizes what I'm left with.
As for the original topic, it does seem to me that the woman in this case did go a bit far in her efforts to get a "more acceptable" job
(Way off-topic: I was surprised to find that IRC seems to work just fine with accented characters for the most part; the channel I frequent has a German user, and my copy of mIRC receives his umlauts just fine -- I didn't know it could do that. The MUCKs I use -- a type of MUD -- don't. Neat stuff.)
Now understanding what he's saying? Completely different matter entirely; I don't know much German ...
I have a sneaking suspicion that when it is implemented, it'll wind up in first class -- which most of us almost never get to use. All of the news articles I've seen so far have been implying that this will be a great revolution that will allow us all to check our AOL e-mail at 50,000 feet -- but something tells me that the only people who will get to do that will also be sipping wine and eating caviar while they do it.
However, I also have to say that I'd never expected the US airlines to back out. We Americans are the most wired country in the world, and certainly one of the most gadget-happy -- and our airlines turn their backs on this just when it's literally ready to fly?
Go figure. I have to wonder how much of a "free ride" Lufthansa is going to get now that those who the system may have been built for no longer care about it.
Is it? Not really... unless you bought it from, say, a "bundleware" CD of stuff that is supposed to be free (many freeware programs explicitly say in their readmes that this is not allowed) or it's an illegally resold commercial item (stolen goods?)
Fair use is an interesting thing. Browsing the machine that hosts my web site (I'm one of a number of virtual hosts on it) I came across this page once:
In other words, this is fair use. The image may be copyrighted, but since you are not reselling it and are viewing it "in your own home" as those FBI warnings on home movies put it, there's no real harm. The images are provided for that purpose, after all -- what's the difference between dropping it on your desktop and floating windows over it and just leaving it in your browser? This is an example of what is intended by the fair use copyright law. A real shame that more content providers (in this case an artist) don't "get it" like this one does.Yeah, I have a fair amount of copyrighted images on my computer. No, I don't redistribute them. Most of them are there as results of discussions ("this is what that looks like, so you know what I'm talking about"). That falls under "academic" use, which is largely what the recent arguments of fair use are about (Prof. Felten is a prime example).
I'd be a lot worse off if my own computer denied me permission to do that. The worst part of all this isn't the lost profits for one of these two camps.
It is going to be when academic freedoms, long held almost sacred here in the US, start to die. Compared to that threat, which has huge potential for long-term damage, the short-term worries about movies and music are a joke.
But that's typical of the MPAA/RIAA lately. Make money now and screw over the future. I bet the space station engineers at NASA and Boeing would be nodding their heads right now if they were reading this ...
I remember seeing footage and video of the Sea Shadow stealth ship. I'd be intersted in seeing photos of this one; does it look as wedgy as our own stealth ships do? Or does it look similar to "regular" naval vessels with some minor reshaping that ends up having a major effect on the radar cross-section?
The Jetta coupe does exist as a concept only but isn't going to get built for the 4th generation A platform vehicles.
The photo on the "features" page is a modified form of a photograph of that VW concept car . It was painted a lovely blue we don't get here in the US -- Jazz Blue. (A few Jazz Blue Golfs did make it as close as Canada, though. And you can get the color -- renamed -- on the Audi S4.)
I can't seem to find a valid URL for the original photo at the moment, unfortunately.
Jetta coupes existed for the first- and second-generation models only. They might come back for Generation 5, though. Who knows?