The Polynesians traveled from island to island in canoes carved out of trees. The Egyptians made boats from reeds and possibly crossed the Atlantic to trade with the Incans. Viking longboats were a hell of a lot smaller than the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, they sailed around much of Europe and debatably to the US.
I'm sure they were all told to stay home, wait till someone invents trains and planes. But bold men do bold things, and if Christopher Columbus could only get to America by jumping on a plank with a sheet for a sail, he might have done it.
And that essentially comes to the crux of the matter. We were bold once and walked on the moon, but penny pinchers at home outnumbered the explorers and now we are no longer so bold anymore.
What did we get out of going to the moon? What valuable bauble did we bring back? No gold, no jewels, no perpetual motion devices to power our machines. Just the knowledge that we could do it, that we were there. Every time we go up there, we learn a little more, things get a little cheaper and we get a little bolder.
Might not mean much to you, but to some of us such things are why life exists.
The military's weapons development system is why we have 2 billion dollar stealth bombers, the companies you mentioned just happen to take advantage of it. And the military gets something like 10 times as much money as NASA for equipment we 'hopefully' will never use. Furthermore, NASA funding actually gets cut every year, while the military's funding keeps growing. I'm really not sure which situation is sadder.
Do NASA and the Military work on projects together? Sure. Do pet projects and pork barrel instances occur in NASA? Sure, happens in any government organisation. Should we cut NASA's funding? Hell no.
Unlike the military, NASA puts our money to useful purposes like exploration and scientific innovation, not better ways to kill each other. I find that a more noble use of what is really a minor amount of public funds. Hell, the Govt. spends more money keeping their Microsoft licenses current.
Dennis Tito and the lame ass from NSync aren't doing shit for NASA, they're paying the Russians for the trip up. Due to various treaties NASA has to deal with it regardless of the amount of crap uninformed jackasses give them about it because it's an International Space Station, not the US Space Station.
NASA research goes back into the greater pool of learning for everyone, even self absorbed dicks who refuse to admit it.
Here, check out how friggin small their budget is compared to the rest of the government. NASA Budget
NASA is a major contributor to our understanding of the universe and I would rather my taxes go to them then some Congressmans pork barrel weapons program.
Gee, I'm glad they didn't decide to wait till planes were developed before exploring the world by ship. I mean, ships are slow and cumbersome and the multi-month ventures fraught with danger.
Grow up. You can't drop research into something and wait out the slow times between discoveries. The research and exploration we do now is what will help prepare us for when we actually do discover warp/hyperspace/slipstream/TARDIS technologies.
In the meantime we have real problems now that can be helped by serious input into the space program. Things such as solar power satellites could completely end our need for fossil/fisile fuels and the satellite imaging that helps Monsanto figure out the exact time their arm sized yams are ripe for picking.
The greatest hindrance in using a modern CPU is that none of them are rated for use in space. Exposure to various amounts of cosmic radiation can play havoc with the super-compact transisters.
I believe the last chip to achieve a spaceworthy rating was the 486. The Hubble Telescope is currently carrying a 386.:)
The differences are mainly in the 'behind the curtains' stuff. Mandrake has a lot of stuff running to make your system more Windows/Apple user safe, whereas RedHat doesn't care so much about it.
Personally, I've turned to SuSE exclusively (still open to trying others though), it seems to 'feel' more 'right' than the others.
Actually, that's an interesting thought. Considering nVidia's deal with MS for the XBox, I bet that Bill threw in a few clauses detailing in what manner they could distribute thier drivers.
If the XBox (miraculously) starts selling better, or the XBoxII is released with an nVidia chipset, I wonder how much pressure they'll be under to quit supporting Linux entirely.
The only reason nVidia had drivers available is because thier cards have always been binary compatible, once they created a driver they were set for any future releases.
ATI is just starting to develop thier drivers with the binary compatible philosophy, give them time. Not to mention that they've been improving the Radeon drivers at a fast and regular pace, even releasing beta drivers regularly, something that they've never done for their previous cards.
I've used Lycoris before myself. It's pretty solidly built and should be familiar to anyone coming from a MS Windows background, in fact it seems geered for the consumate Linux newbie.
Considering that, however, I found it disappointing that they only included a more or less stock kernel that didn't support a SCSI card that SuSE has included support for since 6.0. Considering their target market is newbiest of newbies, these people aren't likely to patch and compile their own kernels.
Seems to me that there are perfectly good solutions to illegal downloading that the RIAA is completely oblivious to.
Oblivious to? No, more like hoping they'll wither away and quit competing with the half-assed and over-priced download sites that the RIAA directly controls and profits from before Congress realizes which direction the political breeze is going and forces them to license their music libraries to anyone for a reasonable (i.e. not set by the RIAA but 'YIKES!' Congress) fee.
Isn't it interesting that an industry that makes its money screwing talented people over, raping their artistry for every shred of marketable value and willfully manipulates our culture to further those ends (What, you think the Back Street Boys got where they are on talent?) sees nothing wrong with bitching about another industry making money at their expense?
The entire reason that alloys exist is because they create materials stronger than their constituent elements, otherwise it would be pointless to use them.
Re:Different nerds on Slashdot than FARK ?
on
Resident Evil
·
· Score: 1
The problem with Hollywood isn't that there are no new ideas, it's that most studio execs no longer have the balls to put money into them.
When a studio risks $100 million plus developing a movie, people wonder why we keep getting the same retreaded stories and plot devices? They're proven to work, so untill the studios have to change, they'll stay with the safe bet.
Increasingly, however, as movie production gets cheaper in some areas such as CGI and DV cams, more low budget movies of increasing quality will come out onto the market. Just look at Session 9, Razorblade Smile, Ginger Snaps or Jeepers Creepers. They created well crafted movies with the equivalent of Titanics catering budget.
Indeed, in my opinion, in the last few decades, it's been the low budget independant film producers that have been the main focus of innovation in the industry. But then they can call a $500,000 or $1 Million dollar profit a huge success, whereas in Hollywood you're expected to make back your total cost of production on the opening weekend.
The prophecy of Anakin being the "one that will bring balance to the force" is a little deeper than just killing off the Jedi so that they equal the numbers of the Sith.
According to Yoda in the Phantom Menace, there are only 2 Sith, ever. So obviously numerical superiority has nothing to do with balancing the force.
Rather, look at the Jedi and how they behave. Living in towers, above the concerns of non-Jedi. Not accepting gifted students unless they were born into the order, or brought in at infancy (the better to instill their 'wisdoms' upon them before they can form opinions to the contrary).
The Jedi of this period are at the epitome of Jedi training and knowledge. The only way to restore any balance is to wipe them all out. Others will come who have the Force, but they will have to restart the knowledge pool at the beginning again and it will be a significant time before they have the numbers, resources and training to again need 'balancing'.
Hopefully we would have developed some form of hibernation before we tried to set out on such an endevor. Trying to keep a boat load of colonists occupied and safe on a multi-generational voyage would be trying at best.
Not to mention the problem of what to do if your intendid destination proves unsuitable for habitation. Like they're going to go back to a planet they've never been on and a culture they've never been exposed to?
The best system would involve cryogenically frozen embryos and artifical wombs with a small crew in hibernation. Due to the absolute zero temperatures of deep space, little energy would have to be expended on keeping the embryos frozen for the trip as well.
Robotic probes would detect if an approaching system could sustain life or decide to move on to it's next potential target. If it was on the iffy side, the crew could be woken to make the judgement call.
In the end however, until we can develope some form of FTL propulsion, most people are not going to be satisfied with the 'casting seeds' approach to extra-solar colonization because of the dubious chances of return on investment and the enormously long travel times. Everyone on Earth involved with such a project would be long dead before any kind of information could come back from these expeditions.
In the days of instant messaging, cell phone calls to anyone on the planet and relatively fast air travel to any destination, we are fundamentally incapable of grasping and backing the idea of a multigenerational investment of this scope with our current cultural outlook.
Just because it's open doesn't mean that it is unedited.
Consider another open publishing project: Nupedia, the open encyclopedia. All the submissions are reviewed by the author's peers. The biggest advantage however, is that subsequent authors are free to quote from and add too the material without fear of a cadre of copyright attorneys descending upon their home.
Open sourcing scientific journals will greatly increase the dispersion of scientific information into the greater pool of human knowledge.
Culture is being re-defined right before our eyes. For centuries, art and technology have been considered separate parts of culture. Now, because we live in an information society, they may be be coming together...
Art and technology have always co-existed. Leonardo DeVinci was a master of art and science. Before photography was invented (another use of technology for artistic ends) most scientists hand schetched their own diagrams.
How blind can you be to not see the technological achievments in the graceful artistry of a cathedral? Or the astrologial precision found in the pyramids of Egypt and South America?
Art and technology have always been integral to each other and always will be.
What definition of counter-productive are you using?
There are millions of happily productive people employed by the movie, video, electronics and caffeine industries, all of which are able to buy products from the productive car, washer/dryer, compressed wood fibre furniture industries all because of nerds. I call that pretty damn productive and usefull.
The greatest benefit of open source code is that when a bug enevitably does show up, it can quickly be fixed without waiting for some uber corporation to:
admit there's a bug in the first place
see if they can wait and force you to upgrade the whole product to get this bug fixed
decide if you rank as a large enough financial interest, or if this bug will effect a significant number of users, to actually put an engineer on this bug for a few hours to create a patch
Slashdot Mirror
The Polynesians traveled from island to island in canoes carved out of trees. The Egyptians made boats from reeds and possibly crossed the Atlantic to trade with the Incans. Viking longboats were a hell of a lot smaller than the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, they sailed around much of Europe and debatably to the US.
I'm sure they were all told to stay home, wait till someone invents trains and planes. But bold men do bold things, and if Christopher Columbus could only get to America by jumping on a plank with a sheet for a sail, he might have done it.
And that essentially comes to the crux of the matter. We were bold once and walked on the moon, but penny pinchers at home outnumbered the explorers and now we are no longer so bold anymore.
What did we get out of going to the moon? What valuable bauble did we bring back? No gold, no jewels, no perpetual motion devices to power our machines. Just the knowledge that we could do it, that we were there. Every time we go up there, we learn a little more, things get a little cheaper and we get a little bolder.
Might not mean much to you, but to some of us such things are why life exists.
The military's weapons development system is why we have 2 billion dollar stealth bombers, the companies you mentioned just happen to take advantage of it. And the military gets something like 10 times as much money as NASA for equipment we 'hopefully' will never use. Furthermore, NASA funding actually gets cut every year, while the military's funding keeps growing. I'm really not sure which situation is sadder.
Do NASA and the Military work on projects together? Sure. Do pet projects and pork barrel instances occur in NASA? Sure, happens in any government organisation. Should we cut NASA's funding? Hell no.
Unlike the military, NASA puts our money to useful purposes like exploration and scientific innovation, not better ways to kill each other. I find that a more noble use of what is really a minor amount of public funds. Hell, the Govt. spends more money keeping their Microsoft licenses current.
NASA research goes back into the greater pool of learning for everyone, even self absorbed dicks who refuse to admit it.
Here, check out how friggin small their budget is compared to the rest of the government. NASA Budget
NASA is a major contributor to our understanding of the universe and I would rather my taxes go to them then some Congressmans pork barrel weapons program.
The space shuttle isn't trying to get 100+ FPS out of Quake3 or trying to run Active Directory and IIS.
Re: Why 486 Upgrade?
Re: Why 486 Upgrade?
Re: Why Intel 486?
Gee, I'm glad they didn't decide to wait till planes were developed before exploring the world by ship. I mean, ships are slow and cumbersome and the multi-month ventures fraught with danger.
Grow up. You can't drop research into something and wait out the slow times between discoveries. The research and exploration we do now is what will help prepare us for when we actually do discover warp/hyperspace/slipstream/TARDIS technologies.
In the meantime we have real problems now that can be helped by serious input into the space program. Things such as solar power satellites could completely end our need for fossil/fisile fuels and the satellite imaging that helps Monsanto figure out the exact time their arm sized yams are ripe for picking.
I believe the last chip to achieve a spaceworthy rating was the 486. The Hubble Telescope is currently carrying a 386. :)
http://www.klabs.org/DEI/Processor/386_486/Radiati on/intel.htm
The differences are mainly in the 'behind the curtains' stuff. Mandrake has a lot of stuff running to make your system more Windows/Apple user safe, whereas RedHat doesn't care so much about it.
Personally, I've turned to SuSE exclusively (still open to trying others though), it seems to 'feel' more 'right' than the others.
Wish that were entirely true. Just recently I had KDE3.0 working great on SuSE 7.3, then decided that I wanted Pan, the Gnome newsreader.
Installed the Gnome update from SuSE (heheh, the Ximian update wanted to uninstall KDE before installing Gnome)and now sound output is broken in KDE.
Actually, that's an interesting thought. Considering nVidia's deal with MS for the XBox, I bet that Bill threw in a few clauses detailing in what manner they could distribute thier drivers.
If the XBox (miraculously) starts selling better, or the XBoxII is released with an nVidia chipset, I wonder how much pressure they'll be under to quit supporting Linux entirely.
The only reason nVidia had drivers available is because thier cards have always been binary compatible, once they created a driver they were set for any future releases.
ATI is just starting to develop thier drivers with the binary compatible philosophy, give them time. Not to mention that they've been improving the Radeon drivers at a fast and regular pace, even releasing beta drivers regularly, something that they've never done for their previous cards.
Odd thing that. I'm quite happy with my Radeon 8500 and two 19inch monitors.
As far as 3d support, most of the games released don't work on Linux to begin with, so big deal.
I've used Lycoris before myself. It's pretty solidly built and should be familiar to anyone coming from a MS Windows background, in fact it seems geered for the consumate Linux newbie.
Considering that, however, I found it disappointing that they only included a more or less stock kernel that didn't support a SCSI card that SuSE has included support for since 6.0. Considering their target market is newbiest of newbies, these people aren't likely to patch and compile their own kernels.
Pay me enough money and I'll tell you that Microsoft invented Open Source and that N-Sync are legitimate artists without even giggling.
Oblivious to? No, more like hoping they'll wither away and quit competing with the half-assed and over-priced download sites that the RIAA directly controls and profits from before Congress realizes which direction the political breeze is going and forces them to license their music libraries to anyone for a reasonable (i.e. not set by the RIAA but 'YIKES!' Congress) fee.
Isn't it interesting that an industry that makes its money screwing talented people over, raping their artistry for every shred of marketable value and willfully manipulates our culture to further those ends (What, you think the Back Street Boys got where they are on talent?) sees nothing wrong with bitching about another industry making money at their expense?
Yep it's all the recordable media industry's fault that people can copy and share media that we should by god be paying for over and over again.
Say, why doesn't Sony sue itself for selling cd burners and tape recorders so that people can record the music that the Sony label produces?
The entire reason that alloys exist is because they create materials stronger than their constituent elements, otherwise it would be pointless to use them.
The problem with Hollywood isn't that there are no new ideas, it's that most studio execs no longer have the balls to put money into them.
When a studio risks $100 million plus developing a movie, people wonder why we keep getting the same retreaded stories and plot devices? They're proven to work, so untill the studios have to change, they'll stay with the safe bet.
Increasingly, however, as movie production gets cheaper in some areas such as CGI and DV cams, more low budget movies of increasing quality will come out onto the market. Just look at Session 9, Razorblade Smile, Ginger Snaps or Jeepers Creepers. They created well crafted movies with the equivalent of Titanics catering budget.
Indeed, in my opinion, in the last few decades, it's been the low budget independant film producers that have been the main focus of innovation in the industry. But then they can call a $500,000 or $1 Million dollar profit a huge success, whereas in Hollywood you're expected to make back your total cost of production on the opening weekend.
The prophecy of Anakin being the "one that will bring balance to the force" is a little deeper than just killing off the Jedi so that they equal the numbers of the Sith.
According to Yoda in the Phantom Menace, there are only 2 Sith, ever. So obviously numerical superiority has nothing to do with balancing the force.
Rather, look at the Jedi and how they behave. Living in towers, above the concerns of non-Jedi. Not accepting gifted students unless they were born into the order, or brought in at infancy (the better to instill their 'wisdoms' upon them before they can form opinions to the contrary).
The Jedi of this period are at the epitome of Jedi training and knowledge. The only way to restore any balance is to wipe them all out. Others will come who have the Force, but they will have to restart the knowledge pool at the beginning again and it will be a significant time before they have the numbers, resources and training to again need 'balancing'.
Hopefully we would have developed some form of hibernation before we tried to set out on such an endevor. Trying to keep a boat load of colonists occupied and safe on a multi-generational voyage would be trying at best.
Not to mention the problem of what to do if your intendid destination proves unsuitable for habitation. Like they're going to go back to a planet they've never been on and a culture they've never been exposed to?
The best system would involve cryogenically frozen embryos and artifical wombs with a small crew in hibernation. Due to the absolute zero temperatures of deep space, little energy would have to be expended on keeping the embryos frozen for the trip as well.
Robotic probes would detect if an approaching system could sustain life or decide to move on to it's next potential target. If it was on the iffy side, the crew could be woken to make the judgement call.
In the end however, until we can develope some form of FTL propulsion, most people are not going to be satisfied with the 'casting seeds' approach to extra-solar colonization because of the dubious chances of return on investment and the enormously long travel times. Everyone on Earth involved with such a project would be long dead before any kind of information could come back from these expeditions.
In the days of instant messaging, cell phone calls to anyone on the planet and relatively fast air travel to any destination, we are fundamentally incapable of grasping and backing the idea of a multigenerational investment of this scope with our current cultural outlook.
Just because it's open doesn't mean that it is unedited.
Consider another open publishing project: Nupedia, the open encyclopedia. All the submissions are reviewed by the author's peers. The biggest advantage however, is that subsequent authors are free to quote from and add too the material without fear of a cadre of copyright attorneys descending upon their home.
Open sourcing scientific journals will greatly increase the dispersion of scientific information into the greater pool of human knowledge.
Art and technology have always co-existed. Leonardo DeVinci was a master of art and science. Before photography was invented (another use of technology for artistic ends) most scientists hand schetched their own diagrams.
How blind can you be to not see the technological achievments in the graceful artistry of a cathedral? Or the astrologial precision found in the pyramids of Egypt and South America?
Art and technology have always been integral to each other and always will be.
What definition of counter-productive are you using?
There are millions of happily productive people employed by the movie, video, electronics and caffeine industries, all of which are able to buy products from the productive car, washer/dryer, compressed wood fibre furniture industries all because of nerds. I call that pretty damn productive and usefull.