I also need to note that it is completely unremarkable that there has been a failure of a spacecraft. Space is an unforgiving environment, and there have been countless failures of missions, some due to freak happenstance and some due to human error and some due to equipment failure. It's generally dealt with by establishing the cause of the failure, correcting it, and launching a new spacecraft if it's necessary and/or possible.
- Mars Climate Orbiter: We now have other spacecraft at Mars - Mars Polar Lander: Reflying in part as Phoenix lander - Mars Global Surveyor: Coding error. Already a new orbiter is at Mars - Apollo 13: Damaged equipment. Changes made to future Apollo spacecraft - Apollo 1: Design flaws, bad construction. Fixed for future missions. - Challenger: Design flaw, bad procedure. Both fixed. - Columbia: bad assumptions, bad bureaucracy. Supposedly both fixed. - XM 1/2: Design flaw. Fixed, XM 3/4 launched to replace. - Other Earth orbiting satellites: In-orbit fixes and/or replacements. - Some repairable satellites: Repaired by Space Shuttle crews (i.e. Solar Max)
This too will be investigated, fixed by software changes if that is applicable, or a new satellite launched if nothing else can do the job and the flaw can't be repaired from the ground (without communications, this is likely to not be possible).
We lost the ability to repair on-orbit when the Shuttle stopped doing anything other than visiting the ISS. The only reason we are sending a new flight to the HST (9/11/08 is the current target planning date) was public outrage that NASA would let such a vital resource die before it had to be abandoned.
"why bother with a HD TV + CableCard when all you will get is SD cable"
My TiVo Series 3 runs on a pair of CableCards (dual tuners) and gets HD (don't get me started on their abruptly cancelling the CBS HD station here in St. Louis, though) just fine. It also gets all of the digital-only channels like History International. I could also get the "premium" channels if I wanted to, including the HD versions. I can't do pay-per-view but I don't care to; you're right about that limitation because CableCard isn't two-way yet.
But the claim that CableCard can't receive HD is just incorrect.
I don't see anything wrong with ScienceNOW as long as it's only done for some of the episodes. It's a good way to cover new topics that are of interest currently while a more in-depth show is in the works.
Web downloads are a good idea -- except for the disabled like me. They're not captioned. So I'm stuck waiting for the broadcasts on television since they will be captioned there.
I expected better from PBS. They try so hard to adopt new technologies, but they choose to leave the disabled behind when it wasn't necessary.
(They also don't do DVS on a lot of shows either).
"Personally, I hate references to the old woman who spilled coffee on herself as a stupid lawsuit."
Personally, I hate knee-jerk replies that defend the fact that the woman was stupid enough to have a cup containing HOT BEVERAGE in an unstable position while in a MOVING VEHICLE. The woman was stupid enough to not get out of her car and drink the coffee in a safe place, e.g. somewhere steady. She knew that it was stupid to risk a spill, spilled it, and sued anyway.
The references to this as a stupid lawsuit are justified.
"It also occurs to me that some people sit glued to the news 24/7 trying to find another opportunity for a frivolous lawsuit that might net them an easy buck."
I've never gotten anything as part of a class action lawsuit (and I've wound up as a claimant in a few not by any action on my part but just from owning something that was sued over) other than discount coupons on more stuff from the company being sued, and of course there's never a "we screwed up" admission, ever.
Quick buck? Nope, not unless the plaintiffs' eyes are showing dollar signs just from the prospect of, say, a future $5 off coupon.
Thank you for making stupid and unwarranted assumptions about what I have and haven't done. Classic Slashdot. If you can't do something that requires a hack, find another design or find a way to accomplish the task without breaking somebody's browser. If I can do it so can you.
You forgot "slashdot links to an unreadable webpage so we can't read the rant that slashdot is making a big fucking fuss over". The editors apparently can't be bothered to actually check anything. But did they ever? Naw.
If you don't code your site to work in IE you lose your job. It doesn't matter if it's 100% standards complaint.
Wrong. You code your site to work in all of the major browsers. I've successfully done it on a few small sites. It's not that hard. "It's like that because it works in browser X" is not an excuse. Find a way to make it work in all of them, and be standards-compliant. A webmaster who doesn't is incompetent, and needs to be replaced with someone who can get it done.
I work at a major medical school in the U.S., and so the first thing I did when I read the linked article (I know, I know, GASP!) was find out what journal this was published in -- we have online subscriptions to hundreds of journals, so surely I could go to the primary source. PNAS considers this important enough that it has the article tagged as "open access" -- free for all to read.
Worthy, T. H., A. J. Tennyson, M. Archer, A. M. Musser, S. J. Hand, C. Jones, B. J. Douglas, J. A. McNamara and R. M. Beck (2006). Miocene mammal reveals a Mesozoic ghost lineage on insular New Zealand, southwest Pacific. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A.
(no volume or page numbers as this article has not yet been published in print).
(sorry. I skimmed before posting and still missed something: "no internal antenna"? oops. I meant to say that I wanted a phone without an external stub. I see a lot of people carrying nice flip phones that would be great -- except for the fact that the stub is still there...)
Mine was a Sanyo 4900, but I wouldn't be surprised if some idiot decided something similar was a good idea.
The Treo 650 I had for a while was better about it but it was still possible (although a lot less likely) to accidentally dial someone but I still managed to accidentally press buttons more than I liked.
I have a Razr now (it was on sale, plus employer discount, plus all the above reasons in my post apply) and haven't misdialed anyone or had any other problems. I also like the Razr because it doesn't have an internal antenna and the Treo would poke me randomly with the stub antenna. Palm just came out with a Treo that fixes that, the 680, but it can't do the on-screen call alert or SMS thing that the Razr can, and onscreen alerts are a big deal for people like me who can't always hear the ringer. Hearing impairments are annoying but the more visual accomodations you can make for yourself the easier it is to get by.
I do not, however, like Motorola's inability to spell. Or the Cingular power-off branding (but I've bookmarked a page that has instructions on how to get rid of it, and I'll do it in the near future - I already got rid of the "carrier logo" GIF that shows on the outside screen when the phone is open, and replaced it with the logo I use on my blog and website. Much nicer. Same with the default wallpaper.
I haven't understood why it exists (unless your deaf when it seems to make sense)
Well, I'm deaf (hearing-impaired, really; I can talk on the phone but usually don't) but sometimes it's useful for firing off a message to Dad that says "I'm on my way now" before I leave work to go to the weekly family dinner, so he knows to leave HIS work so we get there around the same time. It's easier to send a short text message for something like that than it is to call him. The 160-character limit accomodates things like that quite well. My current and previous phones also have/hadhad a list of pre-written messages to send out that include things like "I'm in a meeting right now" or "I'm driving, I'll call you back" that are easy to fire off without having to concentrate, but let callers know that you're aware that they tried to reach you.
Why not just buy a replacement phone on eBay that's either unlocked or from Cingular, and put the SIM card from your current phone into the replacement? You can find older phones for pretty decent prices there, and sometimes even the new phones, too. Especially the still-locked phones. No need to go through the provider with GSM.
I had a non flip phone and it kept getting buttons pressed even when it was in lock mode and even almost managed to dial 911 -- it would have if the talk button had been hit! WHILE SUPPOSEDLY KEYPAD LOCKED!
THAT is why I now use a flip phone. I can shove it in my pocket and never have to worry, because the closed display keeps it from starting to dial.
The phone I chose also fits very nicely in the change pocket of my jeans which means it won't be bumping up against my car keys and getting damaged by the sharp eges.
It also has predictive typing for SMS sending which is very useful for the hearing-impaired like myself who use SMS to communicate often rather than try to hear and understand a caller. And the Bluetooth is fully functional so I can use BluePhoneElite to send and receive those messages if I want to plus I get incoming call alerts on my screen if someone calls me and I don't hear the ringer. (MP3 ringtones help too because I can make a recording of something I hear well in my frequency range rather than the preloaded junk I might not be able to hear so well).
It looks nice, too, but that's just a bonus. Being easy to carry and not accidentally dialing 911 are good things. (and yes, I do care about the service, but I haven't had a lot of dropped-call issues, not enough to bother me, because I don't talk on the phone THAT much).
To my knowledge there isn't a way to get an unlocked CDMA (Sprint, Verizon) phone.
I don't think there is such a thing as an unlocked or locked CDMA phone. You can call in, read off the requested serial numberes, and try to get any given CDMA phone activated for you, but I would not be surprised if the serial number of a phone can be checked by the rep, and they can simply refuse to activate the phone if it wasn't sold by them. (I don't know if this happens, just pondering).
GSM on the other hand is done by the user -- user puts SIM card in phone, turns phone on, waits a few minutes at most, phone now works on different carrier.
Now I'm on Verizon... I would like them to have more GSM phones however.
Verizon, like Sprint, uses CDMA. They do not have GSM phones because their network can't handle them. Yes, they do have the Razr (and probably other phones known for being good worldwide GSM phones) but that's because the innards are CDMA, and the external case just looks like the GSM version. (although with some small changes; the CDMA Razr is slightly thicker than the GSM version).
I know this because I am hard of hearing and I wanted to use Cingular (more bluetooth-aware phones and more choice in general, for instance, and it's easier to change phones if you have a SIM card which is not how CDMA works) but until I got my new digital hearing aid last year, GSM phones were not compatible at all (loud buzzing so that you could hear nothing from the speaker).
Just switched less than a month ago to Cingular. No problems yet! (although once my unlimited month of text messaging and data use are up I'll switch from 400SMS/1MB data per month to 1000 SMS per month only since I SMS a lot, due to the aforementioned hearing thing, and because a lot of my friends like to use SMS).
I pay $31/mo for 450 minutes plus 10/mo for the above SMS/data plan but it will change to 15/mo for 1000 SMS probably. I get a discount because of where I work; that plan normally costs $41.99 (or something like that) a month. I forget the exact amount without looking at the Cingular website.
Wish you could get unlimited SMS for a fair price, but 1000 seems pretty high to me, so I guess that counts...
I occasionally miss my Treo 650 but if Palm makes a Treo with full Bluetooth in the future that actually works with BluePhoneElite, all I have to do is buy it and drop my SIM card in. No dealing with calling in and getting my service transferred to the new phone like is the case with CDMA systems.
Verizon has always been a pretty good company for me. In Atlanta, the coverage is excellent and their prices and plans are fantastic
They aren't fantastic if you like paying through the nose for everything and anything, don't want a locked-down phone with missing features (like Bluetooth, so that you'll have to pay to transfer photos to a computer, or MP3 ringtones, so that you have to buy from them and pay more for a ringtone than the entire music track!) and the like.
I just switched to Cingular after being on Sprint for years (I was monthly and had been for years!) and so far, so good. No locks on my phone (save the subsidy lock which I will remove sooner or later), and no crippling.
Actually, any educated individual (and lawyers have to have a lot of education) knows that life expectancy is going up, and so is the cost of ever-improving medical care. And yet they still signed the agreements. So bitching about something you knew about already is pointless. You knew about it, and you're bitching about it now because it's no longer convenient for you. Then why'd you sign it?
I think the point being made is that this is an unreasonable behavior. If you pay for something you should be able, the original poster feels, do what you want with it. Hiding contrary "we can do what we want" excuses in a clickthrough that these companies know by now that no one reads is hardly ethical or okay. (unless you are a lawyer).
A store that thinks you need an ID to buy a freaking RPG doesn't deserve your money anyway. Seems like the store is using any excuse it can to gather marketing data.
Me? Cynical? You bet. They don't care about you. They just want to market your brains out. Of course, given the fact that they consider getting your info more important than making a sale, I think somebody at that place had a little too much of the weed that morning or something.
It's not the job of a patrol cop to punish. Their job is to secure and arrest. If the suspect has tried to resist arrest, they're charged with that and tried via due process. Not beaten up -- which results in suits against the police, and damages paid as a result of the unnecesary brutality.
Punching someone in the face is not necessary to restrain them especially when the person being punched is unable to breathe and as a result will die. That's not arrest, that's murder.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure. But both know that there is a lot of risk involved. But it's not unusual, as this article seems to try to hint.
It's like expecting a paper to run an article every time somebody talking on a cell phone rear-ends another driver.
Yes.
I also need to note that it is completely unremarkable that there has been a failure of a spacecraft. Space is an unforgiving environment, and there have been countless failures of missions, some due to freak happenstance and some due to human error and some due to equipment failure. It's generally dealt with by establishing the cause of the failure, correcting it, and launching a new spacecraft if it's necessary and/or possible.
- Mars Climate Orbiter: We now have other spacecraft at Mars
- Mars Polar Lander: Reflying in part as Phoenix lander
- Mars Global Surveyor: Coding error. Already a new orbiter is at Mars
- Apollo 13: Damaged equipment. Changes made to future Apollo spacecraft
- Apollo 1: Design flaws, bad construction. Fixed for future missions.
- Challenger: Design flaw, bad procedure. Both fixed.
- Columbia: bad assumptions, bad bureaucracy. Supposedly both fixed.
- XM 1/2: Design flaw. Fixed, XM 3/4 launched to replace.
- Other Earth orbiting satellites: In-orbit fixes and/or replacements.
- Some repairable satellites: Repaired by Space Shuttle crews (i.e. Solar Max)
This too will be investigated, fixed by software changes if that is applicable, or a new satellite launched if nothing else can do the job and the flaw can't be repaired from the ground (without communications, this is likely to not be possible).
We lost the ability to repair on-orbit when the Shuttle stopped doing anything other than visiting the ISS. The only reason we are sending a new flight to the HST (9/11/08 is the current target planning date) was public outrage that NASA would let such a vital resource die before it had to be abandoned.
"why bother with a HD TV + CableCard when all you will get is SD cable"
My TiVo Series 3 runs on a pair of CableCards (dual tuners) and gets HD (don't get me started on their abruptly cancelling the CBS HD station here in St. Louis, though) just fine. It also gets all of the digital-only channels like History International. I could also get the "premium" channels if I wanted to, including the HD versions. I can't do pay-per-view but I don't care to; you're right about that limitation because CableCard isn't two-way yet.
But the claim that CableCard can't receive HD is just incorrect.
I don't see anything wrong with ScienceNOW as long as it's only done for some of the episodes. It's a good way to cover new topics that are of interest currently while a more in-depth show is in the works.
NOVA is still a great show.
Web downloads are a good idea -- except for the disabled like me. They're not captioned. So I'm stuck waiting for the broadcasts on television since they will be captioned there.
I expected better from PBS. They try so hard to adopt new technologies, but they choose to leave the disabled behind when it wasn't necessary.
(They also don't do DVS on a lot of shows either).
Bzzt, link broken, thank you for playing, please try again.
"Personally, I hate references to the old woman who spilled coffee on herself as a stupid lawsuit."
Personally, I hate knee-jerk replies that defend the fact that the woman was stupid enough to have a cup containing HOT BEVERAGE in an unstable position while in a MOVING VEHICLE. The woman was stupid enough to not get out of her car and drink the coffee in a safe place, e.g. somewhere steady. She knew that it was stupid to risk a spill, spilled it, and sued anyway.
The references to this as a stupid lawsuit are justified.
"It also occurs to me that some people sit glued to the news 24/7 trying to find another opportunity for a frivolous lawsuit that might net them an easy buck."
I've never gotten anything as part of a class action lawsuit (and I've wound up as a claimant in a few not by any action on my part but just from owning something that was sued over) other than discount coupons on more stuff from the company being sued, and of course there's never a "we screwed up" admission, ever.
Quick buck? Nope, not unless the plaintiffs' eyes are showing dollar signs just from the prospect of, say, a future $5 off coupon.
Thank you for making stupid and unwarranted assumptions about what I have and haven't done. Classic Slashdot. If you can't do something that requires a hack, find another design or find a way to accomplish the task without breaking somebody's browser. If I can do it so can you.
So why are you using designs that require hacks? It's quite possible to make attractive sites that don't use them.
You forgot "slashdot links to an unreadable webpage so we can't read the rant that slashdot is making a big fucking fuss over". The editors apparently can't be bothered to actually check anything. But did they ever? Naw.
If you don't code your site to work in IE you lose your job. It doesn't matter if it's 100% standards complaint.
Wrong. You code your site to work in all of the major browsers. I've successfully done it on a few small sites. It's not that hard. "It's like that because it works in browser X" is not an excuse. Find a way to make it work in all of them, and be standards-compliant. A webmaster who doesn't is incompetent, and needs to be replaced with someone who can get it done.
I work at a major medical school in the U.S., and so the first thing I did when I read the linked article (I know, I know, GASP!) was find out what journal this was published in -- we have online subscriptions to hundreds of journals, so surely I could go to the primary source. PNAS considers this important enough that it has the article tagged as "open access" -- free for all to read.
Miocene mammal reveals a Mesozoic ghost lineage on insular New Zealand, southwest Pacific -- Worthy et al., 10.1073/pnas.0605684103 -- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
The abstract is standard HTML, but the full article is in PDF format (link to the full article PDF).
Citation:
Worthy, T. H., A. J. Tennyson, M. Archer, A. M. Musser, S. J. Hand, C. Jones, B. J. Douglas, J. A. McNamara and R. M. Beck (2006). Miocene mammal reveals a Mesozoic ghost lineage on insular New Zealand, southwest Pacific. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A.
(no volume or page numbers as this article has not yet been published in print).
(sorry. I skimmed before posting and still missed something: "no internal antenna"? oops. I meant to say that I wanted a phone without an external stub. I see a lot of people carrying nice flip phones that would be great -- except for the fact that the stub is still there...)
Mine was a Sanyo 4900, but I wouldn't be surprised if some idiot decided something similar was a good idea.
The Treo 650 I had for a while was better about it but it was still possible (although a lot less likely) to accidentally dial someone but I still managed to accidentally press buttons more than I liked.
I have a Razr now (it was on sale, plus employer discount, plus all the above reasons in my post apply) and haven't misdialed anyone or had any other problems. I also like the Razr because it doesn't have an internal antenna and the Treo would poke me randomly with the stub antenna. Palm just came out with a Treo that fixes that, the 680, but it can't do the on-screen call alert or SMS thing that the Razr can, and onscreen alerts are a big deal for people like me who can't always hear the ringer. Hearing impairments are annoying but the more visual accomodations you can make for yourself the easier it is to get by.
I do not, however, like Motorola's inability to spell. Or the Cingular power-off branding (but I've bookmarked a page that has instructions on how to get rid of it, and I'll do it in the near future - I already got rid of the "carrier logo" GIF that shows on the outside screen when the phone is open, and replaced it with the logo I use on my blog and website. Much nicer. Same with the default wallpaper.
I haven't understood why it exists (unless your deaf when it seems to make sense)
Well, I'm deaf (hearing-impaired, really; I can talk on the phone but usually don't) but sometimes it's useful for firing off a message to Dad that says "I'm on my way now" before I leave work to go to the weekly family dinner, so he knows to leave HIS work so we get there around the same time. It's easier to send a short text message for something like that than it is to call him. The 160-character limit accomodates things like that quite well. My current and previous phones also have/hadhad a list of pre-written messages to send out that include things like "I'm in a meeting right now" or "I'm driving, I'll call you back" that are easy to fire off without having to concentrate, but let callers know that you're aware that they tried to reach you.
Why not just buy a replacement phone on eBay that's either unlocked or from Cingular, and put the SIM card from your current phone into the replacement? You can find older phones for pretty decent prices there, and sometimes even the new phones, too. Especially the still-locked phones. No need to go through the provider with GSM.
I had a non flip phone and it kept getting buttons pressed even when it was in lock mode and even almost managed to dial 911 -- it would have if the talk button had been hit! WHILE SUPPOSEDLY KEYPAD LOCKED!
THAT is why I now use a flip phone. I can shove it in my pocket and never have to worry, because the closed display keeps it from starting to dial.
The phone I chose also fits very nicely in the change pocket of my jeans which means it won't be bumping up against my car keys and getting damaged by the sharp eges.
It also has predictive typing for SMS sending which is very useful for the hearing-impaired like myself who use SMS to communicate often rather than try to hear and understand a caller. And the Bluetooth is fully functional so I can use BluePhoneElite to send and receive those messages if I want to plus I get incoming call alerts on my screen if someone calls me and I don't hear the ringer. (MP3 ringtones help too because I can make a recording of something I hear well in my frequency range rather than the preloaded junk I might not be able to hear so well).
It looks nice, too, but that's just a bonus. Being easy to carry and not accidentally dialing 911 are good things. (and yes, I do care about the service, but I haven't had a lot of dropped-call issues, not enough to bother me, because I don't talk on the phone THAT much).
To my knowledge there isn't a way to get an unlocked CDMA (Sprint, Verizon) phone.
I don't think there is such a thing as an unlocked or locked CDMA phone. You can call in, read off the requested serial numberes, and try to get any given CDMA phone activated for you, but I would not be surprised if the serial number of a phone can be checked by the rep, and they can simply refuse to activate the phone if it wasn't sold by them. (I don't know if this happens, just pondering).
GSM on the other hand is done by the user -- user puts SIM card in phone, turns phone on, waits a few minutes at most, phone now works on different carrier.
Now I'm on Verizon ... I would like them to have more GSM phones however.
...
Verizon, like Sprint, uses CDMA. They do not have GSM phones because their network can't handle them. Yes, they do have the Razr (and probably other phones known for being good worldwide GSM phones) but that's because the innards are CDMA, and the external case just looks like the GSM version. (although with some small changes; the CDMA Razr is slightly thicker than the GSM version).
I know this because I am hard of hearing and I wanted to use Cingular (more bluetooth-aware phones and more choice in general, for instance, and it's easier to change phones if you have a SIM card which is not how CDMA works) but until I got my new digital hearing aid last year, GSM phones were not compatible at all (loud buzzing so that you could hear nothing from the speaker).
Just switched less than a month ago to Cingular. No problems yet! (although once my unlimited month of text messaging and data use are up I'll switch from 400SMS/1MB data per month to 1000 SMS per month only since I SMS a lot, due to the aforementioned hearing thing, and because a lot of my friends like to use SMS).
I pay $31/mo for 450 minutes plus 10/mo for the above SMS/data plan but it will change to 15/mo for 1000 SMS probably. I get a discount because of where I work; that plan normally costs $41.99 (or something like that) a month. I forget the exact amount without looking at the Cingular website.
Wish you could get unlimited SMS for a fair price, but 1000 seems pretty high to me, so I guess that counts
I occasionally miss my Treo 650 but if Palm makes a Treo with full Bluetooth in the future that actually works with BluePhoneElite, all I have to do is buy it and drop my SIM card in. No dealing with calling in and getting my service transferred to the new phone like is the case with CDMA systems.
Verizon has always been a pretty good company for me. In Atlanta, the coverage is excellent and their prices and plans are fantastic
They aren't fantastic if you like paying through the nose for everything and anything, don't want a locked-down phone with missing features (like Bluetooth, so that you'll have to pay to transfer photos to a computer, or MP3 ringtones, so that you have to buy from them and pay more for a ringtone than the entire music track!) and the like.
I just switched to Cingular after being on Sprint for years (I was monthly and had been for years!) and so far, so good. No locks on my phone (save the subsidy lock which I will remove sooner or later), and no crippling.
Actually, any educated individual (and lawyers have to have a lot of education) knows that life expectancy is going up, and so is the cost of ever-improving medical care. And yet they still signed the agreements. So bitching about something you knew about already is pointless. You knew about it, and you're bitching about it now because it's no longer convenient for you. Then why'd you sign it?
I think the point being made is that this is an unreasonable behavior. If you pay for something you should be able, the original poster feels, do what you want with it. Hiding contrary "we can do what we want" excuses in a clickthrough that these companies know by now that no one reads is hardly ethical or okay. (unless you are a lawyer).
A store that thinks you need an ID to buy a freaking RPG doesn't deserve your money anyway. Seems like the store is using any excuse it can to gather marketing data.
Me? Cynical? You bet. They don't care about you. They just want to market your brains out. Of course, given the fact that they consider getting your info more important than making a sale, I think somebody at that place had a little too much of the weed that morning or something.
It's not the job of a patrol cop to punish. Their job is to secure and arrest. If the suspect has tried to resist arrest, they're charged with that and tried via due process. Not beaten up -- which results in suits against the police, and damages paid as a result of the unnecesary brutality.
Punching someone in the face is not necessary to restrain them especially when the person being punched is unable to breathe and as a result will die. That's not arrest, that's murder.