This is partly true. As with all things, there are subtleties. There were others working on powered flight at the same time, and it's conceivable that someone else did it at the same time. But the Wright brothers were really the first to demonstrate convincingly, and for all the world to see, that humans could handle balancing an aircraft in 3 dimensions at once, and that the key to stable flight was not aerodynamic neutrality (perfect CG), but to place the aircraft's center of gravity slightly ahead of its center of lift. Many of the inventors of their era were building gliders that were close to aerodynamically neutral, and they glided, but wouldn't have worked in powered flight. Our modern designs of a nose-heavy aircraft with a down-ward pressing elevator derives directly from the Wright brothers' design, though they first used a forward canard instead of a rearward elevator. Supersonic introduced some new wrinkles of course, but subsonic flight is all about the principles the Wright brothers' discovered and made practical. It's too bad they were more interested in litigation and patents than the wonder of flight. Good thing the World Wars liberated the patents in the US and spurred a mighty industry. But I digress.
If I recall correctly, yes there was a slab-like device before the iPhone. Can't remember it's name though. Hopefully someone can help me here.
But in any case, the iPhone came largely because the technology to do a slab phone came of age. This had nothing to do with Apple; the technology (capacitive touch screens, multi-touch) was developed by various companies, such as Synaptics. The processors required for the iPhone were also first developed outside Apple. Even a couple of years before the iPhone launch it is unlikely the iPhone could have even existed. Really all we had that was affordable were fairly slow processors and resistive touch screens that needed styluses. Remember the Palm?
So no, the other poster who mentioned this is right. The iPhone's real innovation was simply the polish of the device, the smoothness of the software (no lag, drags right with your finger), and the eventual ideal of the app store--which in itself wasn't that novel but simply very well executed, and largely enabled by the state of technology at that day.
As for the UI, have you used Android extensively? The UI looks similar in some respects, kind of like how OS X and Windows look similar in some respects, but the actual behavior of the UI is very different. Icons on the screen can only behave in so many different ways. Android's use of the menu and back buttons is different than iOS, though. After using my Android phone for a long time, I find my iPod Touch to be quite hard to use, or at least annoying. For example, I have to move my fingers to the top of the iOS screen to hit a back icon instead of just hitting the phone's convenient back button (some form of fits law I suppose). Probably just preference, as I know many Windows users find the OS X interface to be frustrating. My only point here is that after using both UIs for a long time, I don't find them to be copies of each other in too many non-obvious aspects.
Lots of people cannot tell one car from another. Does that mean one infringes on the design of another? Certainly not now. Maybe at one point in time a company designed the current pedal system (clutch, break, accelerator), and the standard PRNDL indicator for an automatic transmission. Should that have been protected? I dunno.
Personally I love my Galaxy S. But I don't care that it looks vaguely similar to an iphone (very few people think it's an iphone when I pull it out... the iPhone is very blocky compared to the galaxy S). As long as it was comfortable to hold to my ear (unlike some HTC phones that bite into you), I could care less about the color and exact shape. Despite me thinking that Apple's patent is ridiculous, it does seem like Samsung could get out of this easily if they wanted to and it would still be a great phone.
Just a stupid mockup picture. I mean it is Google Maps and that is an obvious way to do it. As for actual look and feel, the Google Maps app on the samsung does actually look a lot different than the one on the iPhone. And it's not even made by samsung so I don't see why it would apply here anyway.
Well I like my Galaxy S. I don't want an iPhone (I have an iPod Touch that gets used less and less). For what I do, the Galaxy S is a better fit than the iPhone. And as far as copying goes, the iPhone itself borrowed heavily from designs in years past (wish I could remember the name of the phone that looked like the iPhone but predated it). There are only so many ways to design a phone with a big touch screen. As far as software function goes, well Android and iOS both seem to copy each other. My Galaxy S functions quite differently from my iPod Touch. Some things may look similar at first blush but functionality is quite different. After using Android on my Galaxy S for many months, I find the iPod Touch's interface to be quite frustrating and limiting. I find the Galaxy S is in some ways what the iPhone should have been. But that's just me though.
Anyway, this particular lawsuit is about patents, not look and feel.
Very few consumer routers can handle 100 Mbps throughput across the NAT (well, technically PAT) layer. They simply don't have the CPU power, bus speed, and memory required. I would be interested to know what routers are capable of such speeds and are compatible with the likes of OpenWRT.
I don't really see the current research as being applicable to the lucrative crop seed production market very soon. But I'm sure Monsanto and others are watching this research with interest.
One huge problem I see with this gene matermarking idea in commercial crop production is that genes are moving across nature anyways. This fall after spraying some of my Liberty-Link canola with round-up so I could combine it straight (kind of like running just "make install" instead of "make; make install";). After 10 days there were still a few very green spots in the field. I have a strong hunch that those spots had round-up resistant genes then them, probably growing up from volunteer seeds in the soil. Now I've never ever grown round-up ready canola there before. Some was grown a half mile away or so. People have been discovering round-up tolerant canola growing in all kinds of weird places. Due to whatever cause we know for sure that roundup-ready genes are moving without human intervention. Also more and more weeds are round-up tolerant but that might just be because of over-use of round-up.
In any case, watermarking seed isn't viable in the long term. What Monsanto is probably more interested in, is making single-generation crops. If the farmer can't hold back seed, then they've got a guaranteed market. In north america, single-generation wheat has been pretty much shot down by the farming community. But abroad, it's a lot harder to say no to that kind of thing.
You're wrong about the Kindle's format support. It supports non-DRM mobi files just fine. And with Calibre, something I'd use with the Nook too, you can convert any non-DRM format to any other non-DRM format. In any event the Kindle certainly is not locked to the walled garden. I read non-DRM books on my Kindle exclusively.
May we assume by this finding in the Dutch report that the servers were not running any form of Unix or Linux? In any case I do not see how an antivirus program is going to stop an intrusion.
I used to chuckle when our local credit-card processing system would ask me to ensure that my web server had an up to date antivirus package installed. Rather than out right lie, I explained to them that my web server ran Linux and that they don't run antivirus software, but are kept patched and secured with proper firewall rules and proxy servers, and protected by the IDS at the border of the DMZ.
Anyway, not even sure why they mentioned antivirus software at all. The problem was more systemic. Their entire system did not seem to be built with security in mind. Where was the IDS? Why did the public-facing servers have the CA private certificates on them at all?
I think $60 for X-Plane isn't bad, and it comes with Mars maps and special planes for Mars. I'm all about OSS, but X-Plane was one package I bought and am glad I did.
I also neglected to add that I find simulators hard to fly because there are no frames of reference. You basically have tunnel vision and only one eye, so it's really hard to look out a window and orient yourself as you might do on a real airplane in VFR. As well, simulators maybe cause on to focus too much on instruments. I've only gone flying once and that was in a small canadian ultralight (US sport class equivalent) and I found that flying in real life was somewhat easier than on the simulator as I had a better sense of reference, if that makes sense.
As well RC flight simulators are much more difficult to fly than a real RC airplane, at least for basic flight, for the same reasons.
The problem with most simulators, including a lot of the engines in X-Plane, is that they are essentially table-driven simulations. They don't compute forces, aerodynamics, and so forth on the fly. The models only fly as realistically as the aircraft designers tune their tables.
Now this is obviously getting off-topic, but I'm very interested in hearing the specifics of your experience with X-Plane. Austin Meyer claims that the X-Plane flight model can be used to simulate certain aircraft very accurately.
Not sure about the MacBook Air, but at my last job, we bought dozens of MacBook Pros and even more Dell Latitude laptops. They were dead-even in price. Our site license for Windows would even allow us to run Windows on the MacBook Pros if someone desired it. Intel i7, 4 GB RAM, large HD or SSD, decent video card, 3 year warranty or more... dead even between Mac and Dell.
So if Macs don't work for you that's totally fine. But they don't cost "WAY more" than the average business laptop. Not even close.
Having used an android phone for the last few months, I have to say having a menu button and a back button is really nice and I feel quite hobbled when I go back to iOS. My particular phone only has home, menu and back. A pretty good compromise between lots of useless buttons and minimal buttons.
Yes but as newer, shinier applications such as KDE apps bypass X and use Wayland directly for speed, does that mean we'll see the end of network-transparent apps? I hope not (and the other posts indicate that network transparency is being worked on).
What you are describing, however is exactly how OS X supports X11. Using a rootless X server that relegates X11 apps to very much second-class status. This is okay if the new wayland API and system offers everything that X11 did as far as network transparency and features.
My brother got the FlexT9 keyboard app on an Amazon promotion for free. He liked it so much that I gladly payed the full price (well maybe $4) for it, and I'm glad I did. I really like it.
It always bugs me to hear people use "counterfeit" when talking about illegally copied or distributed software. Do people not understand what these words mean? Apparently not, since we're still talking about "piracy" in a non-piracy sense.
If someone in China were to dress up Linux to look like Windows and sell it as if it were MS Windows, that'd be counterfeit. But so-called "pirated" Windows XP installations are not counterfeit, obviously. I guess it's all about manipulating public thought. Is your copy of windows "genuine?" The thought is quite silly if you think about it. Of course it is genuine. It's windows isn't it? Legal copy? That's the real question. Genuine advantage indeed.
Creationism does not always mean a belief in intelligent design or ex niholo creation. Some religious scientists believe that God created the world but didn't specify how. So evolution and creationism aren't mutually exclusive.
This guy may be an ID proponent. But not all religious scientists are. That's all.
Such naysaying must mean that you are a Republican, and probably from Texas.:) Just joking, although it seems like the Republican party, which should be supporting SpaceX and the free market's solution to space travel, are the ones who are the most critical.
This SpaceX launch will be historic for sure, and will be successful. From what I have read the plan is to do a flyby of the station to prove the software and maneuvering systems, and then if that's successful just go ahead and dock, which was something they were going to do on the second demo flight. If the first part is successful, why not just dock? Glad NASA is willing to accelerate the process some. If something goes wrong at any point, they'll abort the mission, so the station should be relatively safe.
I'm excited! It was great to watch the first launch, and then the orbital demonstration flight. I'll definitely watch this one too.
Virtualization can be an immediate, cheap solution. Since you don't need much CPU on each server, just stock one with ram and put all the servers on one box. We cut our server room from 20 or more machines down to just 8, each running 4-6 virtual machines. We backup VMs between hosts in case of hardware failure. In 4 years it has run amazingly well. Combine virtualization with low-power computers (multi-cores) would seem to be a winning combination.
There's lots of talk about replacements for the Shuttle's ISS roles. Several companies in the US are aiming to build rockets capable of sending men and supplies to the station. In fact later this year SpaceX will send its dragon capsule up to do a flyby of the ISS. Next year they will send actual cargo. And it looks like the year after that they will have their manned capsule ready. So it's an exciting time for US space flight. SpaceX is particularly exciting because they've managed to keep things simple, modular, and reliable, with launch prices for cargo and men that are a fraction of what the shuttle cost. So visit SpaceX.com and keep your dream alive!
Outside the US, Japan and the ESA both now have cargo vehicles to help keep the station supplied as well. There's talk of trying to develop man-rated versions of these capsules.
The last few years of the Shuttle have been pretty boring really. Just ferry trips to the ISS. Only the hubble repair mission was really that exciting. In years past the spacelab missions were very cool. Of course the shuttle really was intended all along to build the ISS, so I guess it fulfilled that part of its mission.
Now that the shuttle is finished, with private companies taking over the role of servicing the ISS, NASA should be free to concentrate on other things like deep space missions, going to Mars, etc. Perhaps design a heavy lift booster to lift things needed for a Mars mission into orbit.
I have a friend who works with planetary probes studying places like Titan. She and her collaborators have exciting ideas for future missions, but getting funding is so hard with the shuttle and the ISS eating up most of the money. To put it in perspective, though. One mission to Titan with a lander costs less than one week of military action in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the meantime NASA is going to be hobbled by rapidly changing directives and priorities, brought on by the politicians who are constantly pulling them in different directions, and binding them to use products that aren't always ideal for the situation (like the solid rocket boosters made in Sen Hatch's home state). So ironic when the President called for private companies to provide rides to the ISS and haul cargo, and then to hear the Republicans act all silly about it, satirically congratulating SpaceX for doing something NASA did 40 years ago, but which thing it could not do today, thanks to politicians in general.
Not quite. Apple's 27" offering is a real monitor with real high resolution. The ones your local shop sells are just HDTVs. 1920x1080. Thus I can't see anything more on your average 27" HDTV than I can on a 20". Thunderbolt is 2560x1440. Quite a bit of difference. I used the older large apple screens (the ones that required a dual-link DVI video card), and have to say more pixels is very nice. Wish more companies would sell honest-to-goodness high resolution monitors. I type this on a 22" LCD that isn't any higher resolution than my screen 5 years ago. It's pretty sad.
It's not exactly prepaid, but more of a non-contract, month-to-month. So I'm not sure how well they can accommodate a non-canadian billing address, but worth talking to them about I think. They will ship the SIM to you, but I'm not sure how you'd go about activating it while still in the US.
Slashdot Mirror
This is partly true. As with all things, there are subtleties. There were others working on powered flight at the same time, and it's conceivable that someone else did it at the same time. But the Wright brothers were really the first to demonstrate convincingly, and for all the world to see, that humans could handle balancing an aircraft in 3 dimensions at once, and that the key to stable flight was not aerodynamic neutrality (perfect CG), but to place the aircraft's center of gravity slightly ahead of its center of lift. Many of the inventors of their era were building gliders that were close to aerodynamically neutral, and they glided, but wouldn't have worked in powered flight. Our modern designs of a nose-heavy aircraft with a down-ward pressing elevator derives directly from the Wright brothers' design, though they first used a forward canard instead of a rearward elevator. Supersonic introduced some new wrinkles of course, but subsonic flight is all about the principles the Wright brothers' discovered and made practical. It's too bad they were more interested in litigation and patents than the wonder of flight. Good thing the World Wars liberated the patents in the US and spurred a mighty industry. But I digress.
If I recall correctly, yes there was a slab-like device before the iPhone. Can't remember it's name though. Hopefully someone can help me here.
But in any case, the iPhone came largely because the technology to do a slab phone came of age. This had nothing to do with Apple; the technology (capacitive touch screens, multi-touch) was developed by various companies, such as Synaptics. The processors required for the iPhone were also first developed outside Apple. Even a couple of years before the iPhone launch it is unlikely the iPhone could have even existed. Really all we had that was affordable were fairly slow processors and resistive touch screens that needed styluses. Remember the Palm?
So no, the other poster who mentioned this is right. The iPhone's real innovation was simply the polish of the device, the smoothness of the software (no lag, drags right with your finger), and the eventual ideal of the app store--which in itself wasn't that novel but simply very well executed, and largely enabled by the state of technology at that day.
As for the UI, have you used Android extensively? The UI looks similar in some respects, kind of like how OS X and Windows look similar in some respects, but the actual behavior of the UI is very different. Icons on the screen can only behave in so many different ways. Android's use of the menu and back buttons is different than iOS, though. After using my Android phone for a long time, I find my iPod Touch to be quite hard to use, or at least annoying. For example, I have to move my fingers to the top of the iOS screen to hit a back icon instead of just hitting the phone's convenient back button (some form of fits law I suppose). Probably just preference, as I know many Windows users find the OS X interface to be frustrating. My only point here is that after using both UIs for a long time, I don't find them to be copies of each other in too many non-obvious aspects.
Lots of people cannot tell one car from another. Does that mean one infringes on the design of another? Certainly not now. Maybe at one point in time a company designed the current pedal system (clutch, break, accelerator), and the standard PRNDL indicator for an automatic transmission. Should that have been protected? I dunno.
Personally I love my Galaxy S. But I don't care that it looks vaguely similar to an iphone (very few people think it's an iphone when I pull it out... the iPhone is very blocky compared to the galaxy S). As long as it was comfortable to hold to my ear (unlike some HTC phones that bite into you), I could care less about the color and exact shape. Despite me thinking that Apple's patent is ridiculous, it does seem like Samsung could get out of this easily if they wanted to and it would still be a great phone.
Just a stupid mockup picture. I mean it is Google Maps and that is an obvious way to do it. As for actual look and feel, the Google Maps app on the samsung does actually look a lot different than the one on the iPhone. And it's not even made by samsung so I don't see why it would apply here anyway.
Well I like my Galaxy S. I don't want an iPhone (I have an iPod Touch that gets used less and less). For what I do, the Galaxy S is a better fit than the iPhone. And as far as copying goes, the iPhone itself borrowed heavily from designs in years past (wish I could remember the name of the phone that looked like the iPhone but predated it). There are only so many ways to design a phone with a big touch screen. As far as software function goes, well Android and iOS both seem to copy each other. My Galaxy S functions quite differently from my iPod Touch. Some things may look similar at first blush but functionality is quite different. After using Android on my Galaxy S for many months, I find the iPod Touch's interface to be quite frustrating and limiting. I find the Galaxy S is in some ways what the iPhone should have been. But that's just me though.
Anyway, this particular lawsuit is about patents, not look and feel.
Very few consumer routers can handle 100 Mbps throughput across the NAT (well, technically PAT) layer. They simply don't have the CPU power, bus speed, and memory required. I would be interested to know what routers are capable of such speeds and are compatible with the likes of OpenWRT.
I don't really see the current research as being applicable to the lucrative crop seed production market very soon. But I'm sure Monsanto and others are watching this research with interest.
One huge problem I see with this gene matermarking idea in commercial crop production is that genes are moving across nature anyways. This fall after spraying some of my Liberty-Link canola with round-up so I could combine it straight (kind of like running just "make install" instead of "make; make install" ;). After 10 days there were still a few very green spots in the field. I have a strong hunch that those spots had round-up resistant genes then them, probably growing up from volunteer seeds in the soil. Now I've never ever grown round-up ready canola there before. Some was grown a half mile away or so. People have been discovering round-up tolerant canola growing in all kinds of weird places. Due to whatever cause we know for sure that roundup-ready genes are moving without human intervention. Also more and more weeds are round-up tolerant but that might just be because of over-use of round-up.
In any case, watermarking seed isn't viable in the long term. What Monsanto is probably more interested in, is making single-generation crops. If the farmer can't hold back seed, then they've got a guaranteed market. In north america, single-generation wheat has been pretty much shot down by the farming community. But abroad, it's a lot harder to say no to that kind of thing.
You're wrong about the Kindle's format support. It supports non-DRM mobi files just fine. And with Calibre, something I'd use with the Nook too, you can convert any non-DRM format to any other non-DRM format. In any event the Kindle certainly is not locked to the walled garden. I read non-DRM books on my Kindle exclusively.
May we assume by this finding in the Dutch report that the servers were not running any form of Unix or Linux? In any case I do not see how an antivirus program is going to stop an intrusion.
I used to chuckle when our local credit-card processing system would ask me to ensure that my web server had an up to date antivirus package installed. Rather than out right lie, I explained to them that my web server ran Linux and that they don't run antivirus software, but are kept patched and secured with proper firewall rules and proxy servers, and protected by the IDS at the border of the DMZ.
Anyway, not even sure why they mentioned antivirus software at all. The problem was more systemic. Their entire system did not seem to be built with security in mind. Where was the IDS? Why did the public-facing servers have the CA private certificates on them at all?
I think $60 for X-Plane isn't bad, and it comes with Mars maps and special planes for Mars. I'm all about OSS, but X-Plane was one package I bought and am glad I did.
I also neglected to add that I find simulators hard to fly because there are no frames of reference. You basically have tunnel vision and only one eye, so it's really hard to look out a window and orient yourself as you might do on a real airplane in VFR. As well, simulators maybe cause on to focus too much on instruments. I've only gone flying once and that was in a small canadian ultralight (US sport class equivalent) and I found that flying in real life was somewhat easier than on the simulator as I had a better sense of reference, if that makes sense.
As well RC flight simulators are much more difficult to fly than a real RC airplane, at least for basic flight, for the same reasons.
The problem with most simulators, including a lot of the engines in X-Plane, is that they are essentially table-driven simulations. They don't compute forces, aerodynamics, and so forth on the fly. The models only fly as realistically as the aircraft designers tune their tables.
Now this is obviously getting off-topic, but I'm very interested in hearing the specifics of your experience with X-Plane. Austin Meyer claims that the X-Plane flight model can be used to simulate certain aircraft very accurately.
Then there was this tragedy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_11
Not sure about the MacBook Air, but at my last job, we bought dozens of MacBook Pros and even more Dell Latitude laptops. They were dead-even in price. Our site license for Windows would even allow us to run Windows on the MacBook Pros if someone desired it. Intel i7, 4 GB RAM, large HD or SSD, decent video card, 3 year warranty or more... dead even between Mac and Dell.
So if Macs don't work for you that's totally fine. But they don't cost "WAY more" than the average business laptop. Not even close.
Having used an android phone for the last few months, I have to say having a menu button and a back button is really nice and I feel quite hobbled when I go back to iOS. My particular phone only has home, menu and back. A pretty good compromise between lots of useless buttons and minimal buttons.
Yes but as newer, shinier applications such as KDE apps bypass X and use Wayland directly for speed, does that mean we'll see the end of network-transparent apps? I hope not (and the other posts indicate that network transparency is being worked on).
What you are describing, however is exactly how OS X supports X11. Using a rootless X server that relegates X11 apps to very much second-class status. This is okay if the new wayland API and system offers everything that X11 did as far as network transparency and features.
My brother got the FlexT9 keyboard app on an Amazon promotion for free. He liked it so much that I gladly payed the full price (well maybe $4) for it, and I'm glad I did. I really like it.
It always bugs me to hear people use "counterfeit" when talking about illegally copied or distributed software. Do people not understand what these words mean? Apparently not, since we're still talking about "piracy" in a non-piracy sense.
If someone in China were to dress up Linux to look like Windows and sell it as if it were MS Windows, that'd be counterfeit. But so-called "pirated" Windows XP installations are not counterfeit, obviously. I guess it's all about manipulating public thought. Is your copy of windows "genuine?" The thought is quite silly if you think about it. Of course it is genuine. It's windows isn't it? Legal copy? That's the real question. Genuine advantage indeed.
Creationism does not always mean a belief in intelligent design or ex niholo creation. Some religious scientists believe that God created the world but didn't specify how. So evolution and creationism aren't mutually exclusive.
This guy may be an ID proponent. But not all religious scientists are. That's all.
Such naysaying must mean that you are a Republican, and probably from Texas. :) Just joking, although it seems like the Republican party, which should be supporting SpaceX and the free market's solution to space travel, are the ones who are the most critical.
This SpaceX launch will be historic for sure, and will be successful. From what I have read the plan is to do a flyby of the station to prove the software and maneuvering systems, and then if that's successful just go ahead and dock, which was something they were going to do on the second demo flight. If the first part is successful, why not just dock? Glad NASA is willing to accelerate the process some. If something goes wrong at any point, they'll abort the mission, so the station should be relatively safe.
I'm excited! It was great to watch the first launch, and then the orbital demonstration flight. I'll definitely watch this one too.
Virtualization can be an immediate, cheap solution. Since you don't need much CPU on each server, just stock one with ram and put all the servers on one box. We cut our server room from 20 or more machines down to just 8, each running 4-6 virtual machines. We backup VMs between hosts in case of hardware failure. In 4 years it has run amazingly well. Combine virtualization with low-power computers (multi-cores) would seem to be a winning combination.
Not only is it unstable, but Firefox Mobile also consumes a lot of battery. I went to Dolphin Mini because of this issue.
There's lots of talk about replacements for the Shuttle's ISS roles. Several companies in the US are aiming to build rockets capable of sending men and supplies to the station. In fact later this year SpaceX will send its dragon capsule up to do a flyby of the ISS. Next year they will send actual cargo. And it looks like the year after that they will have their manned capsule ready. So it's an exciting time for US space flight. SpaceX is particularly exciting because they've managed to keep things simple, modular, and reliable, with launch prices for cargo and men that are a fraction of what the shuttle cost. So visit SpaceX.com and keep your dream alive!
Outside the US, Japan and the ESA both now have cargo vehicles to help keep the station supplied as well. There's talk of trying to develop man-rated versions of these capsules.
The last few years of the Shuttle have been pretty boring really. Just ferry trips to the ISS. Only the hubble repair mission was really that exciting. In years past the spacelab missions were very cool. Of course the shuttle really was intended all along to build the ISS, so I guess it fulfilled that part of its mission.
Now that the shuttle is finished, with private companies taking over the role of servicing the ISS, NASA should be free to concentrate on other things like deep space missions, going to Mars, etc. Perhaps design a heavy lift booster to lift things needed for a Mars mission into orbit.
I have a friend who works with planetary probes studying places like Titan. She and her collaborators have exciting ideas for future missions, but getting funding is so hard with the shuttle and the ISS eating up most of the money. To put it in perspective, though. One mission to Titan with a lander costs less than one week of military action in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the meantime NASA is going to be hobbled by rapidly changing directives and priorities, brought on by the politicians who are constantly pulling them in different directions, and binding them to use products that aren't always ideal for the situation (like the solid rocket boosters made in Sen Hatch's home state). So ironic when the President called for private companies to provide rides to the ISS and haul cargo, and then to hear the Republicans act all silly about it, satirically congratulating SpaceX for doing something NASA did 40 years ago, but which thing it could not do today, thanks to politicians in general.
Not quite. Apple's 27" offering is a real monitor with real high resolution. The ones your local shop sells are just HDTVs. 1920x1080. Thus I can't see anything more on your average 27" HDTV than I can on a 20". Thunderbolt is 2560x1440. Quite a bit of difference. I used the older large apple screens (the ones that required a dual-link DVI video card), and have to say more pixels is very nice. Wish more companies would sell honest-to-goodness high resolution monitors. I type this on a 22" LCD that isn't any higher resolution than my screen 5 years ago. It's pretty sad.
I forgot to give a url. Good thing I looked it up because the details are somewhat different than I remembered. Here's the link:
http://www.virginmobile.ca/en/hot-offers/offer-tablet-50.html
It's not exactly prepaid, but more of a non-contract, month-to-month. So I'm not sure how well they can accommodate a non-canadian billing address, but worth talking to them about I think. They will ship the SIM to you, but I'm not sure how you'd go about activating it while still in the US.