Acronyms are strange creatures. Witness PCMCIA which, since people can't memorize computer industry acronyms, was renamed PCCard. However, my favourite acronym (apart from Special High-Intensity Training) would be TWAIN. This whole thing is clearly Slashpoll material:
No, "Slashdotting" is the DDOS attack initiated by posting a "story" (an euphemism for "target request"). This should more appropriately be called "Slashdoting".;-)
Re:Make 2.6.3 usable, never install a dot-oh versi
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Linux Kernel 3.0?
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· Score: 2
the old adage to never deploy a.0 operating system.
So, maybe we should just go from 2.5 to 3.1 directly?:-)
I remember Commodore caught a bit of flak for their versioning system (it was the same as the Linux kernel's and people couldn't handle double digits in the minors without feeling woozy and have a bit of a lay down) from time to time, but Microsoft's just plain silly. Has anyone seen Exchange 1.0? 2.0? 3.0, even? Or the "Exchange client" in Windows 95 Mk II that didn't have support for the Exchange server?
It's a good thing I'm currently on Windows NT 5.1, an OS named Windows Vomit (:-XP ) would be too much to bear for my poor Athlon...
Well, you could get VMWare and install Gentoo in that while working with the rest of the multiboot computer. I do this all the time for building firewalls with Gentoo.
Or, if you have access to a box at work that's not used for anything critical, you could stick a hard drive in that and install Gentoo to it and then just lug it back home.
For installing over the phone line, it's not just patience (even if it would quite literally take days) but cost. I don't know where you are and what kind of rates you would get dialing up to an ISP, but I can easily imagine a hundred hours for a typical desktop install.
Do you have space in the router to add more disk? If so, use it as a server. I have triple systems both at home and at work, a P100-class box as a routing firewall, a P3 550/700 system as server and an Athlon workstation - same setup in both places. Everything I have is duplicated on the servers (or will be, I'm currently in the process of migrating the main server from RH 7.1 to Gentoo) and nothing is stored on the workstations except some temp files like captured video and so on. I have also tried to keep the servers almost identical (same mobos for starters) to facilitate management and recovery. If I b0rk up a workstation with an overenthusiastic upgrade or install, it doesn't matter. All my files are on the servers anyway.
that very same public will be outraged when everything doesn't work as advertised
Oh, like Windows XP works as advertised? I have been using it for months now and I still haven't been able to fly, not to mention that I had very high hopes that the enlargement of my skull resulting from using Office XP would draw attention away from my fat ass, but my hopes have been shattered. If anything, my head has shrunk! I am outraged!
You can, if you have access to a fast link elsewhere, get stuff using emerge -f (as in fetchonly) to get all the files you need to build the system at a later date, with no Internet access.
Or do what I do when I build firewalls - I stick a small (1-2GB) IDE disk in a removable cradle, boot the Gentoo CD in VMWare and do the full install in a window on my Athlon workstation instead of trying to do it on the P100 target system.
but NTFS is readonly in Linux.
Kinda, sorta. There is write support, but the warnings on that option are scary.:-)
And I don't think NT3/4 is very picky on hardware, the main problem I can see is IDE drivers (he can go VGA mode for the graphics), but IDE should work in fall-back mode (or whatever it's called, all IDE chips I've seen has worked out-of-the-box with no special drivers but if you want to start setting DMA and stuff, you need the 'real' stuff).
I've considered putting mine in coveralls with velcro everywhere and then put velcro on the walls so whenever they become a little too lively, I can just stick them to the wall and go play Counter-Strike for an hour or two.
Actually, my.plan is to buy IBM just so I can accelerate the research on transporter technology, launch a receiver station into orbit and then invite Bill Gates for a speech at the first public test. "Yes, Mr. Gates, please step up here..." *Zzzzap*
In the event of a colloquy, it picks the most vociferous participants.
It looks like someone has been smoking too much Merriam-Webster again. I believe there should be health warnings on dictionaries: "Excessive quoting from dictionaries may lead to people hitting you over the head".
Bah, humbug! The desktop and laptop computers are both just thin Terminal Services Clients (check out Mira) and the mouse is hooked up to the billg@Home.net server in the broom closet.
NT can't exist on the same physical drive as 2000.
Yes, it can. You can't have their system directories on the same partition, though. Same thing with 2k and XP or NT and XP. Or NT, 2k and XP.
That said, I miss DOS 6.22 and Gentoo from his list, not to mention the Apple internal OS X for i386, MS Longhorn, SunOS 4.1.3 (Sunview rocks!), Solaris, NeXTStep and the Amiga Digital Environment, although the QNX Neutrino kernel probably is a good start there. Hm. Were there ever a VMS/OpenVMS version for the i386?
My workstations typically multiboot at least three OSes, sometimes more if I'm currently migrating; DOS (6.22/98SE), Linux (Gentoo) and Win32 (NT/2k/XP).
Not necessarily, you don't have to miniaturize so much and can use several low-tech, low-cost instruments developed by many participating countries and agencies. Also, it's easier to lay out the interior of the craft if you're not cramped for space (har, har), saving time and money.
Of course, if the microbes aren't fairly high up in the atmosphere, then my idea doesn't work.
Well, the article said ~one atm and since Venus has roughly the same gravity as Earth, that would mean a lot of gas between that layer and space (unless the microbes are present more or less all the way out, which seems unlikely). Or, if the distance between one atm pressure and space for some reason is much less on Venus than on Earth.
But I hope we'll see what the real rocket scientists come up with.:-)
Re:Journalism has never been a hard science.
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Servers with a Smile
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· Score: 2
Returning anything you captured low-velocity would take too much velocity capability.
I agree, but the premise was to return a sample of the atmosphere (to earth, presumably - or, to the ISS where one could argue for better containment - IT CAME FROM VENUS - THE MOVIE!). I didn't argue against that, just thought of a way to do it (or rather, one way of doing it). I also agree with the idea to survey first, but I'm not sure if this should be done with the same craft as collecting the samples since there are considerable differences in the mission and orbit profiles.
That's why I suggested an orbiting surveyor, relay and return vehicle (this can be almost arbitrarily large if assembled in earth orbit), one (at least) descent probe (heat shield, mass spectrometer, a Gentoo CD to prove our intelligence, whatever) and the return canister for the gas going back up to the orbiter. If nothing else, you can get much more instrumentation onboard the orbiter than anything we can hope to keep alive in the atmosphere.
I think maybe I was influenced by the Apollo missions - one command module staying in orbit, one lunar lander assembly going down and one craft to get back up from the moon. It made sense back then and it seems to me it still does.
Sounds like a typical over-engineered NASA fiasco with too many steps.
Does that mean I could pass myself off as a rocket scientist?:-)
Why not just build a small lifting-body system
Because that might actually work.:-) You'd still need some heat-shielding, though. I didn't think of launch weight (earth) as a factor since this whole shebang can be assembled in earth orbit (ISS, anyone?) and the re-exit canister wouldn't need any shielding, but having one single vehicle going in and back out would. The shuttle is basically a really obese lifting body in drag and it needs lots of heat shielding - but a lighter, aerodynamicaler (yes, I just made that word up, so there!) body would probably need less. Then again, the much denser atmosphere might create a problem with that assumption...
Think how big a rocket we need to get into orbit from Earth's surface.
That's if we want to get into orbit personally. A few ccs of gas is another matter entirely. The re-exit container won't need a heat shield for re-entry, no system for a landing or even maneuvering (the orbiter could do that) and much of the other stuff we need to get out of our gravity well (and back again) might not be needed.
The skimming idea is dependant on if the interesting layers are accessible that way. It's currently believed to be a layer at 50kms altitude at one atm pressure - so unless we can find the same stuff a lot higher up (with correspondingly lower pressures) I don't see that happening. As a fact-finding mission before going in and grabbing the little guys, sure.
Slashdot Mirror
Favorite acronym:
Al Gore's karma: Good (mostly affected by popular vote):
-1, Political Exaggeration
+2, Crucial Contribution
This senator is currently rated +1, Insightful but Boring.
No, "Slashdotting" is the DDOS attack initiated by posting a "story" (an euphemism for "target request"). This should more appropriately be called "Slashdoting". ;-)
So, maybe we should just go from 2.5 to 3.1 directly? :-)
I remember Commodore caught a bit of flak for their versioning system (it was the same as the Linux kernel's and people couldn't handle double digits in the minors without feeling woozy and have a bit of a lay down) from time to time, but Microsoft's just plain silly. Has anyone seen Exchange 1.0? 2.0? 3.0, even? Or the "Exchange client" in Windows 95 Mk II that didn't have support for the Exchange server?
It's a good thing I'm currently on Windows NT 5.1, an OS named Windows Vomit ( :-XP ) would be too much to bear for my poor Athlon...
When a policeman gives you a dime.
Sooo, basically the WWII Nazi wolfpack subs helped stop the greenhouse effect?
You have a T1 at work but not a single CD-burner?
Well, you could get VMWare and install Gentoo in that while working with the rest of the multiboot computer. I do this all the time for building firewalls with Gentoo.
Or, if you have access to a box at work that's not used for anything critical, you could stick a hard drive in that and install Gentoo to it and then just lug it back home.
For installing over the phone line, it's not just patience (even if it would quite literally take days) but cost. I don't know where you are and what kind of rates you would get dialing up to an ISP, but I can easily imagine a hundred hours for a typical desktop install.
Do you have space in the router to add more disk? If so, use it as a server. I have triple systems both at home and at work, a P100-class box as a routing firewall, a P3 550/700 system as server and an Athlon workstation - same setup in both places. Everything I have is duplicated on the servers (or will be, I'm currently in the process of migrating the main server from RH 7.1 to Gentoo) and nothing is stored on the workstations except some temp files like captured video and so on. I have also tried to keep the servers almost identical (same mobos for starters) to facilitate management and recovery. If I b0rk up a workstation with an overenthusiastic upgrade or install, it doesn't matter. All my files are on the servers anyway.
+1 Overrated
I predict we need more machines that talk back to authors when they find mahor spelling mistakes.
Personally I prefer a 250 kg, 1100 cc bike. It doesn't burn CDs, but it's known to have left a few black marks on the road. :-)
Ohh, I'm getting dizzy...
Well, you now have bushes for Presidents. Not because they are easy, but because they are hard. No wait, that was Clinton...
Oh, like Windows XP works as advertised? I have been using it for months now and I still haven't been able to fly, not to mention that I had very high hopes that the enlargement of my skull resulting from using Office XP would draw attention away from my fat ass, but my hopes have been shattered. If anything, my head has shrunk! I am outraged!
You can, if you have access to a fast link elsewhere, get stuff using emerge -f (as in fetchonly) to get all the files you need to build the system at a later date, with no Internet access.
Or do what I do when I build firewalls - I stick a small (1-2GB) IDE disk in a removable cradle, boot the Gentoo CD in VMWare and do the full install in a window on my Athlon workstation instead of trying to do it on the P100 target system.
but NTFS is readonly in Linux.
Kinda, sorta. There is write support, but the warnings on that option are scary. :-)
And I don't think NT3/4 is very picky on hardware, the main problem I can see is IDE drivers (he can go VGA mode for the graphics), but IDE should work in fall-back mode (or whatever it's called, all IDE chips I've seen has worked out-of-the-box with no special drivers but if you want to start setting DMA and stuff, you need the 'real' stuff).
I've considered putting mine in coveralls with velcro everywhere and then put velcro on the walls so whenever they become a little too lively, I can just stick them to the wall and go play Counter-Strike for an hour or two.
Actually, my .plan is to buy IBM just so I can accelerate the research on transporter technology, launch a receiver station into orbit and then invite Bill Gates for a speech at the first public test. "Yes, Mr. Gates, please step up here..." *Zzzzap*
It looks like someone has been smoking too much Merriam-Webster again. I believe there should be health warnings on dictionaries: "Excessive quoting from dictionaries may lead to people hitting you over the head".
Bah, humbug! The desktop and laptop computers are both just thin Terminal Services Clients (check out Mira) and the mouse is hooked up to the billg@Home.net server in the broom closet.
Yes, it can. You can't have their system directories on the same partition, though. Same thing with 2k and XP or NT and XP. Or NT, 2k and XP.
That said, I miss DOS 6.22 and Gentoo from his list, not to mention the Apple internal OS X for i386, MS Longhorn, SunOS 4.1.3 (Sunview rocks!), Solaris, NeXTStep and the Amiga Digital Environment, although the QNX Neutrino kernel probably is a good start there. Hm. Were there ever a VMS/OpenVMS version for the i386?
My workstations typically multiboot at least three OSes, sometimes more if I'm currently migrating; DOS (6.22/98SE), Linux (Gentoo) and Win32 (NT/2k/XP).
Not necessarily, you don't have to miniaturize so much and can use several low-tech, low-cost instruments developed by many participating countries and agencies. Also, it's easier to lay out the interior of the craft if you're not cramped for space (har, har), saving time and money.
Of course, if the microbes aren't fairly high up in the atmosphere, then my idea doesn't work.
Well, the article said ~one atm and since Venus has roughly the same gravity as Earth, that would mean a lot of gas between that layer and space (unless the microbes are present more or less all the way out, which seems unlikely). Or, if the distance between one atm pressure and space for some reason is much less on Venus than on Earth.
But I hope we'll see what the real rocket scientists come up with. :-)
Good one, thanks for the link.
I agree, but the premise was to return a sample of the atmosphere (to earth, presumably - or, to the ISS where one could argue for better containment - IT CAME FROM VENUS - THE MOVIE!). I didn't argue against that, just thought of a way to do it (or rather, one way of doing it). I also agree with the idea to survey first, but I'm not sure if this should be done with the same craft as collecting the samples since there are considerable differences in the mission and orbit profiles.
That's why I suggested an orbiting surveyor, relay and return vehicle (this can be almost arbitrarily large if assembled in earth orbit), one (at least) descent probe (heat shield, mass spectrometer, a Gentoo CD to prove our intelligence, whatever) and the return canister for the gas going back up to the orbiter. If nothing else, you can get much more instrumentation onboard the orbiter than anything we can hope to keep alive in the atmosphere.
I think maybe I was influenced by the Apollo missions - one command module staying in orbit, one lunar lander assembly going down and one craft to get back up from the moon. It made sense back then and it seems to me it still does.
Does that mean I could pass myself off as a rocket scientist? :-)
Why not just build a small lifting-body system
Because that might actually work. :-) You'd still need some heat-shielding, though. I didn't think of launch weight (earth) as a factor since this whole shebang can be assembled in earth orbit (ISS, anyone?) and the re-exit canister wouldn't need any shielding, but having one single vehicle going in and back out would. The shuttle is basically a really obese lifting body in drag and it needs lots of heat shielding - but a lighter, aerodynamicaler (yes, I just made that word up, so there!) body would probably need less. Then again, the much denser atmosphere might create a problem with that assumption...
That's if we want to get into orbit personally. A few ccs of gas is another matter entirely. The re-exit container won't need a heat shield for re-entry, no system for a landing or even maneuvering (the orbiter could do that) and much of the other stuff we need to get out of our gravity well (and back again) might not be needed.
The skimming idea is dependant on if the interesting layers are accessible that way. It's currently believed to be a layer at 50kms altitude at one atm pressure - so unless we can find the same stuff a lot higher up (with correspondingly lower pressures) I don't see that happening. As a fact-finding mission before going in and grabbing the little guys, sure.