NASA should stick to what it's so good at doing: sending robots into space.
You do realize that NASA doesn't really do much of that? It's primarily the Applied Physics Laboratory (Johns Hopkins) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Caltech) that do those things. They just hitch a ride on NASA funding and NASA rocketry.
I'm not the type to question the USAF, but the cost effectiveness thing seems odd to me. 19 years is middle-aged for most jet airliners, where it isn't beyond reasonable to find 35 year old airliners still in operation. And I expect that the VC-25s see quite a bit less operational time than your average airliner.
I guess it is true that at the speed the government moves, if they issue an RFP today, it won't go into operation for 5 years anyhow...:)
The difference is I believe that a long pointed knife is a very fast efficient way to kill someone, and young people are killing each other more and more.
Yep. Don't know about you, but I'd take being shot over being stabbed any day.
We're still using 19th-century techniques, stringing utility lines overhead rather than laying them underground where they would be unaffected by most weather.
My father worked for Baltimore Gas and Electric for 36 years. I asked him about this once. His take was unexpected: He pointed out that troubleshooting for underground utilities is volumes worse than that of overhead utilities. For a power outage, they would have to first isolate the fault to a specific segment (fair enough), then go get a backhoe, jackhammers, etc. and rip up a street. That whole process can increase repair time several times over.
Isn't that kind of what email is designed for, so people can send you messages you'll get when you get back to your computer?
I'm going to assume you don't really hang around too many younger people... I have a lot of younger friends, and you'd be surprised how few of them actually use e-mail to any meaningful extent.
These days among the younger crowd, messages are all exchanged via SMS, Facebook, IM, and the like. Heck, I think IM services are even falling out of usage in terms of SMS.
What IM are you using? MSN and Yahoo support offline messages.
AIM, to my knowledge, does not, unless they've changed something very recently.
Frankly, if that were the only issue, I'd just forget about the fact that people can't send me a message offline. It's the culmination of a bunch of little niggling issues like that.
I don't use suspend usually. The main reason being that it kills stateful TCP connections.
ssh is the big one here for me. Things are made a good bit easier by using GNU screen, but I still need to re-establish a bunch of ssh sessions, many of which are dual-factor authenticated.
Another is the inability of people to send me IMs when the system is suspended.
Slashdot Mirror
Wait long enough and you'll see dogs enjoy it too.
1. You pay for every byte that passes THROUGH your pipe, no matter which way it goes.
Sweet. I'll fire up the DDOS botnet.
NASA should stick to what it's so good at doing: sending robots into space.
You do realize that NASA doesn't really do much of that? It's primarily the Applied Physics Laboratory (Johns Hopkins) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Caltech) that do those things. They just hitch a ride on NASA funding and NASA rocketry.
No, Slashdot is *tech* centric, so it's:
2009-02-01
ISO 8601 FTW.
I'm not the type to question the USAF, but the cost effectiveness thing seems odd to me. 19 years is middle-aged for most jet airliners, where it isn't beyond reasonable to find 35 year old airliners still in operation. And I expect that the VC-25s see quite a bit less operational time than your average airliner.
I guess it is true that at the speed the government moves, if they issue an RFP today, it won't go into operation for 5 years anyhow... :)
The difference is I believe that a long pointed knife is a very fast efficient way to kill someone, and young people are killing each other more and more.
Yep. Don't know about you, but I'd take being shot over being stabbed any day.
We're still using 19th-century techniques, stringing utility lines overhead rather than laying them underground where they would be unaffected by most weather.
My father worked for Baltimore Gas and Electric for 36 years. I asked him about this once. His take was unexpected: He pointed out that troubleshooting for underground utilities is volumes worse than that of overhead utilities. For a power outage, they would have to first isolate the fault to a specific segment (fair enough), then go get a backhoe, jackhammers, etc. and rip up a street. That whole process can increase repair time several times over.
Yes that's true. And you have a right to deny your fat neighbor the "charity" of free healthcare.
I agree, as long as you allow him to opt out of paying taxes for that "free" healthcare.
Congratulations, you just re-invented private insurance.
I'm going to assume you don't really hang around too many younger people... I have a lot of younger friends, and you'd be surprised how few of them actually use e-mail to any meaningful extent.
These days among the younger crowd, messages are all exchanged via SMS, Facebook, IM, and the like. Heck, I think IM services are even falling out of usage in terms of SMS.
You're quite welcome.
Because that's the way many of the people I communicate with communicate. Metcalf's Law and all, you know?
I don't use suspend usually. The main reason being that it kills stateful TCP connections.
ssh is the big one here for me. Things are made a good bit easier by using GNU screen, but I still need to re-establish a bunch of ssh sessions, many of which are dual-factor authenticated.
Another is the inability of people to send me IMs when the system is suspended.
Etc.
It's from Wikipedia.
You laugh, but Slackware helped get me my current job, nearly 8 years ago.
At the interview, I mentioned I used Slackware at home, and was thinking of switching to Debian.
I said this to someone who is, unbeknown to me at the time, a Debian developer.
He later told me that the fact that I used Slackware was part of why I was chosen over the alternate.
I'm sure the Debian comment didn't hurt. :)
Whoosh! :)
the asshole who took some BS social studies degree
That would be "some BA social studies degree". :)
How is this surprising? The recording industry is a multi-billion dollar industry in Nashville.
I kind of liked Ender's Shadow, but a while after I read it, I realized that I now looked on Ender more as middle-management. :)
That doesn't work because the low bid always wins.
That's not at all true. Quite often the low bid isn't the winner of a government contract, many of them are best value.
Ummm, WWVB has a "DST" bit. My WWVB-based clocks set DST correctly, even when Congress screws with it.
http://tf.nist.gov/stations/wwvbtimecode.htm
The electric lightbulb. Specifically a 5 watt compact fluorescent. It's amazing how I can pretend it's daytime even when it's 4 a.m. in the morning.
Some of us go outside.
(Mind you, I hate DST, but this is a specious argument.)
Steal from Joe Sixpack
That's Joe the Plumber. Try to keep up. :)
Unless you're standing next to the hole and get stuck to it. In which case you'd seal it nicely, saving the air and getting a nasty bruise.
All hail the inanimate carbon rod!
We use it at work, I don't run it but the guy who does I'm sure would be happy to talk to you. Drop me an e-mail at slashdot at leebert.org