Re:Gas Turbine Modular Helium Reactors
on
Fission in a Box
·
· Score: 2
"General Atomics?" It sounds like something out of an old Asimov or Niven story. I gotta have a T-shirt. Didn't see any for sale on the web site... is there a way to get GA swag?
Re:Speaking of small reactors...
on
Fission in a Box
·
· Score: 2
I've always wondered what is stopping us from building a scaled-down version of a nuclear bomb.
As a matter of fact, they have been made pretty darn small. Check this link.
Highlight:
"The W54 warhead used in the Davy Crockett had a minimum mass of about 23 kg, and had yields ranging from 10 tons up to 1 kt in various mods (probably achieved by varying the fissile content). The warhead was basically egg-shaped with the minor axis of 27.3 cm and a major axis of 40 cm. The W-54 probably represents a near minimum diameter for a spherical implosion device (the U.S. has conducted tests of a 25.4 cm implosion system however)."
10 tons of yield is pretty small for a nuke. And I can't find the link now, but I have read other reports that state the theoretical minimum diameter for a "linear compression" nuke is about 4". Those atomic rocket launchers in Starship Troopers? Not so crazy, apparently.
Radioactive elements don't sit around in nature in big chunks giving off massive amounts of radiation
Untrue. They're mostly burned out now, but there are natural nuclear reactors. Truth is stranger than fiction.
Re:Complete with XFree 3.3.6!!! Wow this is NEW...
on
FreeBSD 4.3 Released
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· Score: 3
I never could figure out how the whole "ports" thing worked though... maybe I was a little too impatient to spend the five minutes required to figure it out. *shrugs*
# cd/usr/ports/path/to/port/
(say/usr/ports/irc/bitchx/)
# make && make install
(then you wait: code is donloaded, compiled, installed)
That's it. Dependent packages are installed automatically. There are commands to remove packages, etc. Until 4.3 there wasn't a pkg_update command, but all you had to do was delete the old version (1 command) and re-install.
To use the ports tree in this way you need to devote some disk space (70MB or so?) to the makefiles, so the system knows what to go fetch and compile. Typically you keep the ports tree updated on your system via cvs.
I prefer the FreeBSD method to Debian (which I tinker with) for 2 reasons.
1. There is a while direcory tree of software for me to browse. I don't have to hit the web looking for the magic string to apt-get.
Well, it's simple. If you support the running-dog capitalist lackeys by using a BSD licensed product, you are contributing to the problem of corporatism. BSD users are causing children to be buried in shallow graves. They are allowing the "IP cartels" to control all of our access to information. The BSD license will date your sister, and then it will make calls to 900 numbers with your mom's credit card number.
The BSD license seems to allow "freedom," but that's only if your idea of "freedom" is being free to get STDs from the taxi-load of cheap hookers that your FreeBSD box will have delivered to your home.
You may think that it's OK to use the "right tool for the job," but if you use BSD, you are Bill Gates' tool, and don't you forget it.
(For the sarcasm impaired: this has been a sarcastic post making fun of the license war between BSD and GPL. Thank you.)
Re:Dvorak is wrong, but why defend TiVo?
on
Calling Out TiVo
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· Score: 2
If you already like to watch TV, a Tivo or ReplayTV will be one of your favorite gadgets in no time. You just have to try one. I already can't imagine life without my ReplayTV. (for which there is no $10/month fee, BTW.)
It was nice watching Start Trek on BBC 2 in under 45 uninterrupted minutes! I'd pay a license fee for that...
Get a ReplayTV or a Tivo. Consider the $200-500 you pay a license fee. (I suggest ReplayTV just because I have one, my Tivo friends love thir units though.) Watch *all* your shows delayed, and skip the commercials. Suddenly you are getting 45 minute Star Trek.
People who have PVRs gush about them, and you won't understand why until you try one... but in about 30 seconds you'll be a convert. They really are THAT cool.
Re:Yeah, when will the networks notice?
on
Calling Out TiVo
·
· Score: 2
ReplayTV has a 30 sec skip button. Right now you can only buy the Panasonic branded units, but other manufacturers should be coming on board.
Never heard of ReplayTV? Doesn't surprise me. I don't know that they ever did any advertising. But it's the same thing as a Tivo without a monthly fee, and with a commercial skip button. I have one and I love it.
You had RAM with barely adequate tolerances. OSX is more picky, hence the firmware update locks out out-of-spec memory, which can cause OSX to behave erratically.
The vanishing RAM thing isn't a huge conspiracy. Read all about it here. Most RAM vendors are apparently replacing "missing" RAM with parts that have proper Mac specs.
Also, someone has written a utility to test and repair DIMMs.
Even if that poll result is accurate, it doesn't have to mean that it's an anti-Semetism thing. Lieberman is a very devout man, and there are a lot of people who don't want a "holy roller" of ANY type in office. I wouldn't vote for Lieberman or anyone else with religious convictions as strong as his, no matter what the specific religion was. Moderation in all things...
That's how I boycotted the government of California. I'm living in Seattle now, and I don't feel like an "undesireable," like I did in CA. Washington is great.
As part of their training, DEA agents take courses in Constitutional Law and proper arrest, search, and seizure. They are well-acquainted with what constitutes probable cause or reasonable suspicion.
Federal law enforcement agents are no more immune to corruption, idiocy or greed than any other kind of cop.
I'm generally a big law enforcement supporter, but it's also important to call 'em when they screw up. It's like training a puppy... let it get away with crapping in the house, and it will never stop. Feds screw up a lot... Randy Weaver, Steve Jackson Games, etc. Like some old dead white guy once said, "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance." That happens to be true.
Though I will admit that the DEA has a much better rep than some other agencies. *cough BATF cough*
2. The plane is not spying. It is a marked U.S. military plane monitoring electronic signals over international water. Nothing spying there.
The hell they weren't spying. It was an electronic surveillance job... that plane was doing something like sniffing out Chinese air-search radars, so we could learn to defeat them better. Of listening for encoded military transmissions, so we could crack 'em and learn what the Chinese are up to. It's spying for sure, even if it is called "surveillance." We do the same kind of stuff from satellites. The Rhyolite SIGINT spy bird has some gigantic antenna array, and it can suck up a lot of transmissions from the target area.
That said I agree with the rest of your post. We WERE spying, but it was being done in a legal fashion, and I regard our crew as hostages now too.
The Russians really have had minimal success in their space program. For example, they never made it to the moon like we did. Also, they had numerous disasters aboard the Mir space station, only to have it plummet out of orbit last month!
Give credit where credit is due. The Russians had some impressive "firsts" in space, and they have had a lot more people in space over the years than we have. Mir had a lot of problems, but it also outlived its design by many years. And plummeting out of orbit? That was planned, Buckwheat. It didn't take anyone by surprise except you, apparently.
...perhaps NASA should step aside from the ISS, and allow other space agencies to take over.
Other space agencies like...? Who, the ESA? We should just turn over a few billion worth of hardware to another country? Or maybe you mean one of the dozens of other American space agencies, like... Oh, wait. My memory is failing. Maybe you can name some for me.
I feel like he dodge the answer to #7, hardware-level copy protection. He turned it into a Windows piracy issue, when the question clearly is about our right to have control over all the data on our systems.
There are many constructive tasks that robots could compete at, but instead, producers turn out endless streams of robot battle shows.
Yes, there are many tasks worthy of competition... but fighting is the best. I'd rather watch robots bursting into flames than robots cooperating to put a ball in a goal, or irrigate crops. Ack.
The reboot problem is most likely due to a bad power supply, but a failing CPU, DIMM or mobo-to-case short can do it too. Those are aggravating problems for sure.
The Apple G4 Towers are just very well designed and have this kind of personality that you don't get with PCs--especially home-built ones. heh, I see the rebooting problem as personality. PCs have plenty of that kind of personality.;)
all my images seem to have kept their Picture View 1.1 bindings, and I don't know an easy way of changing the bindings for the several 100 images.
Whoa, that is a good question... how DO you change a file's creator in OSX? That's a pretty critical feature!
Anyway, OSX is interesting and fun enough to dabble in while they work the bugs out. I don't have the serious speed issues you do, but I have it running on a PB with 320MB RAM. That probably helps.
When I first got into PCs the 486DX/66 was the big thing, and I was intoxicated with all the cheap parts. Not surprisingly, I used to have problems with my PCs being all crappy.
Then I finally figured it out -- just because you CAN get a $10 part doesn't mean you SHOULD. Quality costs a little more, and it usually comes with a name brand.
Of course, I am talking about name brands like Abit, Asus, Nvidia. Stay far, far away from crap like Dell, Gateway and Compaq. They produce often quirky systems that are difficult to maintain. They are probably easier for the total novice, but if you are a "hardware guy" at heart they are trouble. IMHO.
The only way to build a decent x86 system is to do your homework. Read all the very extensive reviews that the hardware sites put up. Choose your parts very carefully, and you *will* be rewarded.
(FWIW I am a Mac guy too, and I always have been. I just happen to like computers, and I have a few x86 systems around for games, FreeBSD, etc.)
Slashdot Mirror
"General Atomics?" It sounds like something out of an old Asimov or Niven story. I gotta have a T-shirt. Didn't see any for sale on the web site... is there a way to get GA swag?
I've always wondered what is stopping us from building a scaled-down version of a nuclear bomb.
As a matter of fact, they have been made pretty darn small. Check this link.
Highlight:
"The W54 warhead used in the Davy Crockett had a minimum mass of about 23 kg, and had yields ranging from 10 tons up to 1 kt in various mods (probably achieved by varying the fissile content). The warhead was basically egg-shaped with the minor axis of 27.3 cm and a major axis of 40 cm. The W-54 probably represents a near minimum diameter for a spherical implosion device (the U.S. has conducted tests of a 25.4 cm implosion system however)."
10 tons of yield is pretty small for a nuke. And I can't find the link now, but I have read other reports that state the theoretical minimum diameter for a "linear compression" nuke is about 4". Those atomic rocket launchers in Starship Troopers? Not so crazy, apparently.
Untrue. They're mostly burned out now, but there are natural nuclear reactors. Truth is stranger than fiction.
I never could figure out how the whole "ports" thing worked though... maybe I was a little too impatient to spend the five minutes required to figure it out. *shrugs*
/usr/ports/path/to/port/
/usr/ports/irc/bitchx/)
# cd
(say
# make && make install
(then you wait: code is donloaded, compiled, installed)
That's it. Dependent packages are installed automatically. There are commands to remove packages, etc. Until 4.3 there wasn't a pkg_update command, but all you had to do was delete the old version (1 command) and re-install.
To use the ports tree in this way you need to devote some disk space (70MB or so?) to the makefiles, so the system knows what to go fetch and compile. Typically you keep the ports tree updated on your system via cvs.
I prefer the FreeBSD method to Debian (which I tinker with) for 2 reasons.
1. There is a while direcory tree of software for me to browse. I don't have to hit the web looking for the magic string to apt-get.
2. I learned it first.
Well, it's simple. If you support the running-dog capitalist lackeys by using a BSD licensed product, you are contributing to the problem of corporatism. BSD users are causing children to be buried in shallow graves. They are allowing the "IP cartels" to control all of our access to information. The BSD license will date your sister, and then it will make calls to 900 numbers with your mom's credit card number.
The BSD license seems to allow "freedom," but that's only if your idea of "freedom" is being free to get STDs from the taxi-load of cheap hookers that your FreeBSD box will have delivered to your home.
You may think that it's OK to use the "right tool for the job," but if you use BSD, you are Bill Gates' tool, and don't you forget it.
(For the sarcasm impaired: this has been a sarcastic post making fun of the license war between BSD and GPL. Thank you.)
If you already like to watch TV, a Tivo or ReplayTV will be one of your favorite gadgets in no time. You just have to try one. I already can't imagine life without my ReplayTV. (for which there is no $10/month fee, BTW.)
It was nice watching Start Trek on BBC 2 in under 45 uninterrupted minutes! I'd pay a license fee for that...
Get a ReplayTV or a Tivo. Consider the $200-500 you pay a license fee. (I suggest ReplayTV just because I have one, my Tivo friends love thir units though.) Watch *all* your shows delayed, and skip the commercials. Suddenly you are getting 45 minute Star Trek.
People who have PVRs gush about them, and you won't understand why until you try one... but in about 30 seconds you'll be a convert. They really are THAT cool.
ReplayTV has a 30 sec skip button. Right now you can only buy the Panasonic branded units, but other manufacturers should be coming on board.
Never heard of ReplayTV? Doesn't surprise me. I don't know that they ever did any advertising. But it's the same thing as a Tivo without a monthly fee, and with a commercial skip button. I have one and I love it.
You had RAM with barely adequate tolerances. OSX is more picky, hence the firmware update locks out out-of-spec memory, which can cause OSX to behave erratically.
For more info & links refer to my other post:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=01/04/17/16
But also call your RAM vendor and try to get a replacement.
The vanishing RAM thing isn't a huge conspiracy. Read all about it here. Most RAM vendors are apparently replacing "missing" RAM with parts that have proper Mac specs.
Also, someone has written a utility to test and repair DIMMs.
Even if that poll result is accurate, it doesn't have to mean that it's an anti-Semetism thing. Lieberman is a very devout man, and there are a lot of people who don't want a "holy roller" of ANY type in office. I wouldn't vote for Lieberman or anyone else with religious convictions as strong as his, no matter what the specific religion was. Moderation in all things...
That's how I boycotted the government of California. I'm living in Seattle now, and I don't feel like an "undesireable," like I did in CA. Washington is great.
Yes, this is a gun thing. Settle down.
As part of their training, DEA agents take courses in Constitutional Law and proper arrest, search, and seizure. They are well-acquainted with what constitutes probable cause or reasonable suspicion.
Federal law enforcement agents are no more immune to corruption, idiocy or greed than any other kind of cop.
I'm generally a big law enforcement supporter, but it's also important to call 'em when they screw up. It's like training a puppy... let it get away with crapping in the house, and it will never stop. Feds screw up a lot... Randy Weaver, Steve Jackson Games, etc. Like some old dead white guy once said, "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance." That happens to be true.
Though I will admit that the DEA has a much better rep than some other agencies. *cough BATF cough*
I have heard similar shenanigans on KROQ in Los Angeles. I thought I was losing my mind at first. Doubleplusgood duckspeaking station!
2. The plane is not spying. It is a marked U.S. military plane monitoring electronic signals over international water. Nothing spying there.
The hell they weren't spying. It was an electronic surveillance job... that plane was doing something like sniffing out Chinese air-search radars, so we could learn to defeat them better. Of listening for encoded military transmissions, so we could crack 'em and learn what the Chinese are up to. It's spying for sure, even if it is called "surveillance." We do the same kind of stuff from satellites. The Rhyolite SIGINT spy bird has some gigantic antenna array, and it can suck up a lot of transmissions from the target area.
That said I agree with the rest of your post. We WERE spying, but it was being done in a legal fashion, and I regard our crew as hostages now too.
The Russians really have had minimal success in their space program. For example, they never made it to the moon like we did. Also, they had numerous disasters aboard the Mir space station, only to have it plummet out of orbit last month!
...perhaps NASA should step aside from the ISS, and allow other space agencies to take over.
Give credit where credit is due. The Russians had some impressive "firsts" in space, and they have had a lot more people in space over the years than we have. Mir had a lot of problems, but it also outlived its design by many years. And plummeting out of orbit? That was planned, Buckwheat. It didn't take anyone by surprise except you, apparently.
Other space agencies like...? Who, the ESA? We should just turn over a few billion worth of hardware to another country? Or maybe you mean one of the dozens of other American space agencies, like... Oh, wait. My memory is failing. Maybe you can name some for me.
Acquire and apply some humility.
No kidding. If he could beam me a freaking taco, I'd be impressed.
I feel like he dodge the answer to #7, hardware-level copy protection. He turned it into a Windows piracy issue, when the question clearly is about our right to have control over all the data on our systems.
There are many constructive tasks that robots could compete at, but instead, producers turn out endless streams of robot battle shows.
Yes, there are many tasks worthy of competition... but fighting is the best. I'd rather watch robots bursting into flames than robots cooperating to put a ball in a goal, or irrigate crops. Ack.
Even if I agree that it is futile to fight, I'd rather put off the inevitable.
The reboot problem is most likely due to a bad power supply, but a failing CPU, DIMM or mobo-to-case short can do it too. Those are aggravating problems for sure.
The Apple G4 Towers are just very well designed and have this kind of personality that you don't get with PCs--especially home-built ones.
heh, I see the rebooting problem as personality. PCs have plenty of that kind of personality.
all my images seem to have kept their Picture View 1.1 bindings, and I don't know an easy way of changing the bindings for the several 100 images.
Whoa, that is a good question... how DO you change a file's creator in OSX? That's a pretty critical feature!
Anyway, OSX is interesting and fun enough to dabble in while they work the bugs out. I don't have the serious speed issues you do, but I have it running on a PB with 320MB RAM. That probably helps.
When I first got into PCs the 486DX/66 was the big thing, and I was intoxicated with all the cheap parts. Not surprisingly, I used to have problems with my PCs being all crappy.
Then I finally figured it out -- just because you CAN get a $10 part doesn't mean you SHOULD. Quality costs a little more, and it usually comes with a name brand.
Of course, I am talking about name brands like Abit, Asus, Nvidia. Stay far, far away from crap like Dell, Gateway and Compaq. They produce often quirky systems that are difficult to maintain. They are probably easier for the total novice, but if you are a "hardware guy" at heart they are trouble. IMHO.
The only way to build a decent x86 system is to do your homework. Read all the very extensive reviews that the hardware sites put up. Choose your parts very carefully, and you *will* be rewarded.
(FWIW I am a Mac guy too, and I always have been. I just happen to like computers, and I have a few x86 systems around for games, FreeBSD, etc.)
How much were your legal fees?
The sort of spiteful "I disagree therefore I will moderate you down" attittude is NOT what moderation is for.
;)
Clearly you are one of the aliens the story was about.