The pictures are overrated, and don't contain nearly as much pr0n as you'd think. Once, over the space of a week, I downloaded all pictures sent to alt.binaries.pictures.eroica.
Robotic considerations in addition to instrument integration include platform configuration, planetary-relevant localization, complex obstacle negotiation, over-the-horizon navigation, and power-cognizant activity planning.
We're looking for a manager at the moment with a lot of those skills.
But seriously, folks. This is quite cool. Its capabilities at the moment seem to surpass by far those of the mars bots that are currently wending their way through space. Am I missing something, though, or have most of those experiments nothing to do with astrobiology? Not a cavil, just wondering.
Just a note to the producers: if they use the godawful theme music from the fourth series, violence will ensue, if I have to hunt down Paul Darrow myself.
No. The supercomputer will run a GNU-designed, Linux-kernel-based operating system. Counter to popular belief, Linus did not design more than the kernel of the OS.
Normally, I'm not a gnu-head, but if others are going to be pedantic, why shouldn't I?
But the story could have used a bit more drama. And maybe even its own Aerosmith song.
Drama? I've been following this story for ages courtesy of NASA's email bulletins. Now that SOHO's online again, I can start worrying about Mars Express.
As for the song:
Spacecraft floatin' with the comets in space And your lens pointin' up in the air Singin' hey what the hell Things ain't goin' too well The antenna's actions causin' a scare So we tried somethin' strange with the bot at Lagrange And we tried pointin' back at our sphere We were all celebratin' 'cause its orientation Was aligned more or less down to here When we told it to Point this way, Point this way
As someone who scanned that part of the sky for seti@athome (so to speak), I got a mail from our berkelean chums, suggesting that a lot of media interest might be forthcoming. I mentally scoffed at the possibility, but here I am talking about it on a *cough* reputable site like slashdot!
seti - acting under the auspices of the planetary society - were kind enough to ask whether I'd like my fifteen minutes now, and make my name available for interview to those legions of reporters who'd be after a human interest angle.
Of course, 'human interest' is exactly not the reason I signed up for seti@home, but there you go. Nonetheless, I volunteered, just in case they want a European perspective. However, I really, really doubt that anything will come of it. Just like a seti user should.
Me: "Hey, I would like it if you could take a look at this book and see if you think it makes a good case for using open source applications in-house."
PHP : Sure, beam me a copy and I'll read it later.
Boss whips out his pda, gets a copy.
There are many, many reasons for liking dead-tree books. There are even a few reasons for preferring 'em. But like every other argument over virtual-vs.-actual, it ignores the fact that there's nothing wrong with both coexisting. Don't have a Tungsten? Buy the paper version! Couldn't be arsed carting around a ludicrously large tome wherever you go? Download it!
This was probably mentioned in the original story, but I'll repeat it here...
When I ordered Spirited Away, I got an email from cdjapan telling me that some people reported a red tint. However, they assured me that the transfer was approved by Studio Ghibli, and it looked as intended.
I forgot about it until I watched the movie, and reread the mail. Then I checked the movie again, and saw no sign of any red tint. Maybe it was there, but to me the movie looked as I supposed was intended.
If, like me, you live in Region 2 (Europe and Japan; handy, that), you don't care. But then, you haven't cared for a long time, cos they're all available at cdjapan.co.jp. Two-disk sets of Totoro, Mononoke, Kiki's Delivery Service, Laputa, Spirited Away, Whispers and probably others are currently residing on the DVD case.
Note: even though they're region 2, they're also NTSC, so you'll need compatible equipment. That's not a problem for Americans with multi-region players, though.
The films are in Japanese with optional english sub and dub, and the second disk is all in Japanese. In case you're interested, I'm a big fan of cdjapan, especially now that the exchange rates are going my way. They're extremely efficient at getting the stuff out, and my first stop for those hard-to-find films that aren't generally available elsewhere.
Think of it as a good sign. It's hard to write extensively on holes that don't exist. Or at least, ones that haven't been found yet. cronned apt jobbies and up2date, etc, mean that even the task up updating for newly-discovered vulnerabilities is easier, so it looks as if for the coming year, the biggest problem will be the users. Plus ca change...
Under normal circumstances, I'd suggest a Death Star. In these heady days when we're considering technologies that might, in our lifetimes, get us to other star systems, it's important to have something that'll enable us to blow the shit out of anything that looks at us funny.
Of course, there would be problems. Remember the arguments about the status of Pluto? That'd be nothing compared to something like the death star.
You're being a little harsh, methinks. For a start, he didn't say he was logging in to fix anything; he may just have been keeping an eye on the system. Irrespective of the number of minions one has, this can only be a good thing. Having said that, logging in from a cyber cafe? Speaking as a former sysadmin of one of those self-same cafes, this made me shudder. Even if he's using something secure, I've often found keystroke loggers on machines (amongst other stuff), and he's risking some serious compromising.
"strong experienced based opinions" is crap That's your strong, experience-based opinion, is it?
Bush's pernicious zealotry is mainifesting itself in far more that revisionism; last July, he cut funding to the UN Population Fund (normally at http://ww.unfpa.org , but I can't seem to get in ATM). An enthusiastic bunch of our right-wing friends in the Population Research Institute claimed - without evidence and despite UN law to the contrary - that the UNFPA supported coerced abortions in China. Everyone from Colin Powell down who knew anything on the subject derided the PRI's claimes - check out the PDF from the House of Representatives - but despite all the evidence to the contraray, Bush went ahead and cut funding.
Interestingly, I googled to check the facts before posting (going against/. tradition, I know. Forgive me.), and came across a plethora of news stories on the topic, most of which run along the lines of "Bush cuts funds to UN body that supports coerced abortion", usually with a denial from some Chinese official. Here's the Telegraph version.
The PRI are here; couldn't find a link to the story.
Only 3 km wide? At what point does it go from being a relatively small chunk of rock floating around a planet to being a moon? The point where you can't see it from Earth, I suppose. Course, that means that as adaptive optics get better, the criterion gets more all-encompassing.
Would it be possible haul enough of a mountain into space orbit to be technically classified as a moon? Most asteroids are mostly metal (unless you're an astronomer, in which case they're all metal), so the ISS could qualify. If it doesn't, you're out of luck; no-one in their right mind would spend the billions of dollars necessary to get into orbit something can't even support a crew capable of doing anything more than just keeping the damn thing from falling.
I've found three reasons thus far for sticking with google:
News. Google's may be experimental, but it's great. I've dropped most of the science news portals I visit in favour of google.
Puerile searches. I've just done a search for "pubic health" on both google and AV. The latter returned nothing.
Uptodatedness; google hit my site less than three hours ago. No record of AV at all at all.
Of course, all this is based on a (really) quick evaluation of AV, and as such is probably unfair, hasty and uninformed. In the best slashdot tradition.
I liked the movie, but the series is the only one I watch at the moment, with the exception of the surprisingly excellent Odyssey 5. Both of the above, IMO, are up there with the greats (B5, Farscape, Misfits of Science, early McGyver, etc).
And what does 'extrapolates too far' mean, anyway? It's a science fiction series. If they didn't extrapolate as much as they did, it'd be a shit series. Everyone'd spend every week staring at the iris, wondering what those occasional 'thuds' were.
I'd suggest the Web Between the Worlds. It's about space elevators, and came out around the same time as Clarke's Fountains of Paradise (same topic). So close in time did they come out, in fact, that my copy has an afterword by Clarke commiserating with Sheffield on the unfortunate timing, and assuring us readers that no ripoffery took place.
A caveat, though: don't read his co-written books. They're terrible. So's the collection Erasmus Magister. Rather than bitching about these, I prefer to congratulate him. He's a hard science writer, and the fantasy/horror he wrote may have been bad, but he at least made the attempt at broadening his horizons. He could've just kept to the hard science and no-one would complain, but in going for books like the Judas Cross (terrible, terrible book) he showed us that he was willing to experiment.
Remember: Microsoft has plenty of experience being reprimanded, so they know exactly what to demand.
Expect a statement from our hapless PR bunnie, stating that the decision to reprimand her was flawed, but that she'll do her best to follow her punishment to the letter. Next week, she'll write a story about how linux gives you the clap.
I feel I've got to come to the defence of the BBC, here. If you're bored on a Thursday night (or, strictly, Friday morning), watch the Learning Zone. Great stuff. Proper science, and proper maths. The learning zone is great any might, but Thursday is science night. Don't remember what the other days specialise in.
Slashdot Mirror
The pictures are overrated, and don't contain nearly as much pr0n as you'd think. Once, over the space of a week, I downloaded all pictures sent to alt.binaries.pictures.eroica .
I got nothing but pictures of bloody Beethoven.
windows 98/windows 98se is vulnerable but Microsoft has not released a patch because they no longer support the product.#
So upgrade to Windows XP, or the 73rr0r1575 \/\/1ll win.
Robotic considerations in addition to instrument integration include platform configuration, planetary-relevant localization, complex obstacle negotiation, over-the-horizon navigation, and power-cognizant activity planning.
We're looking for a manager at the moment with a lot of those skills.
But seriously, folks. This is quite cool. Its capabilities at the moment seem to surpass by far those of the mars bots that are currently wending their way through space. Am I missing something, though, or have most of those experiments nothing to do with astrobiology? Not a cavil, just wondering.
B5 came out several years after B7.
Just a note to the producers: if they use the godawful theme music from the fourth series, violence will ensue, if I have to hunt down Paul Darrow myself.
No. The supercomputer will run a GNU-designed, Linux-kernel-based operating system. Counter to popular belief, Linus did not design more than the kernel of the OS.
Normally, I'm not a gnu-head, but if others are going to be pedantic, why shouldn't I?
Maybe. Are you going to bring your own music?
But the story could have used a bit more drama. And maybe even its own Aerosmith song.
Drama? I've been following this story for ages courtesy of NASA's email bulletins. Now that SOHO's online again, I can start worrying about Mars Express.
As for the song:
Spacecraft floatin' with the comets in space
And your lens pointin' up in the air
Singin' hey what the hell
Things ain't goin' too well
The antenna's actions causin' a scare
So we tried somethin' strange with the bot at Lagrange
And we tried pointin' back at our sphere
We were all celebratin' 'cause its orientation
Was aligned more or less down to here
When we told it to
Point this way,
Point this way
... so I'm not qualified to comment. I'll just say that this news makes me happy.
As someone who scanned that part of the sky for seti@athome (so to speak), I got a mail from our berkelean chums, suggesting that a lot of media interest might be forthcoming. I mentally scoffed at the possibility, but here I am talking about it on a *cough* reputable site like slashdot!
seti - acting under the auspices of the planetary society - were kind enough to ask whether I'd like my fifteen minutes now, and make my name available for interview to those legions of reporters who'd be after a human interest angle.
Of course, 'human interest' is exactly not the reason I signed up for seti@home, but there you go. Nonetheless, I volunteered, just in case they want a European perspective. However, I really, really doubt that anything will come of it. Just like a seti user should.
However, it's being renamed Lupin to accommodate the foolish americans who haven't seen Lupins I or II
Or, as I do these days with more and more people:
Me: "Hey, I would like it if you could take a look at this book and see if you think it makes a good case for using open source applications in-house."
PHP : Sure, beam me a copy and I'll read it later.
Boss whips out his pda, gets a copy.
There are many, many reasons for liking dead-tree books. There are even a few reasons for preferring 'em. But like every other argument over virtual-vs.-actual, it ignores the fact that there's nothing wrong with both coexisting. Don't have a Tungsten? Buy the paper version! Couldn't be arsed carting around a ludicrously large tome wherever you go? Download it!
This was probably mentioned in the original story, but I'll repeat it here...
When I ordered Spirited Away, I got an email from cdjapan telling me that some people reported a red tint. However, they assured me that the transfer was approved by Studio Ghibli, and it looked as intended.
I forgot about it until I watched the movie, and reread the mail. Then I checked the movie again, and saw no sign of any red tint. Maybe it was there, but to me the movie looked as I supposed was intended.
If, like me, you live in Region 2 (Europe and Japan; handy, that), you don't care. But then, you haven't cared for a long time, cos they're all available at cdjapan.co.jp. Two-disk sets of Totoro, Mononoke, Kiki's Delivery Service, Laputa, Spirited Away, Whispers and probably others are currently residing on the DVD case.
Note: even though they're region 2, they're also NTSC, so you'll need compatible equipment. That's not a problem for Americans with multi-region players, though.
The films are in Japanese with optional english sub and dub, and the second disk is all in Japanese.
In case you're interested, I'm a big fan of cdjapan, especially now that the exchange rates are going my way. They're extremely efficient at getting the stuff out, and my first stop for those hard-to-find films that aren't generally available elsewhere.
I'm a script kiddie, and 1v3 b33n ha>0r1ng you. 1 l1v3 at 1600 P3nnsylvan1a Avenue. Come and get m3.
Think of it as a good sign. It's hard to write extensively on holes that don't exist. Or at least, ones that haven't been found yet. cronned apt jobbies and up2date, etc, mean that even the task up updating for newly-discovered vulnerabilities is easier, so it looks as if for the coming year, the biggest problem will be the users. Plus ca change...
Under normal circumstances, I'd suggest a Death Star. In these heady days when we're considering technologies that might, in our lifetimes, get us to other star systems, it's important to have something that'll enable us to blow the shit out of anything that looks at us funny.
Of course, there would be problems. Remember the arguments about the status of Pluto? That'd be nothing compared to something like the death star.
"That's no moon."
"Yes it bloody is"
etc
You're being a little harsh, methinks. For a start, he didn't say he was logging in to fix anything; he may just have been keeping an eye on the system. Irrespective of the number of minions one has, this can only be a good thing.
Having said that, logging in from a cyber cafe? Speaking as a former sysadmin of one of those self-same cafes, this made me shudder. Even if he's using something secure, I've often found keystroke loggers on machines (amongst other stuff), and he's risking some serious compromising.
"strong experienced based opinions" is crap
That's your strong, experience-based opinion, is it?
Bush's pernicious zealotry is mainifesting itself in far more that revisionism; last July, he cut funding to the UN Population Fund (normally at http://ww.unfpa.org , but I can't seem to get in ATM).
/. tradition, I know. Forgive me.), and came across a plethora of news stories on the topic, most of which run along the lines of "Bush cuts funds to UN body that supports coerced abortion", usually with a denial from some Chinese official. Here's the Telegraph version.
An enthusiastic bunch of our right-wing friends in the Population Research Institute claimed - without evidence and despite UN law to the contrary - that the UNFPA supported coerced abortions in China. Everyone from Colin Powell down who knew anything on the subject derided the PRI's claimes - check out the PDF from the House of Representatives - but despite all the evidence to the contraray, Bush went ahead and cut funding.
Interestingly, I googled to check the facts before posting (going against
The PRI are here; couldn't find a link to the story.
Only 3 km wide? At what point does it go from being a relatively small chunk of rock floating around a planet to being a moon?
The point where you can't see it from Earth, I suppose. Course, that means that as adaptive optics get better, the criterion gets more all-encompassing.
Would it be possible haul enough of a mountain into space orbit to be technically classified as a moon?
Most asteroids are mostly metal (unless you're an astronomer, in which case they're all metal), so the ISS could qualify. If it doesn't, you're out of luck; no-one in their right mind would spend the billions of dollars necessary to get into orbit something can't even support a crew capable of doing anything more than just keeping the damn thing from falling.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the first time a desktop PC is worthy of its own cartoon series. And will probably get it?
News. Google's may be experimental, but it's great. I've dropped most of the science news portals I visit in favour of google.
Puerile searches. I've just done a search for "pubic health" on both google and AV. The latter returned nothing.
Uptodatedness; google hit my site less than three hours ago. No record of AV at all at all.
Of course, all this is based on a (really) quick evaluation of AV, and as such is probably unfair, hasty and uninformed. In the best slashdot tradition.
I liked the movie, but the series is the only one I watch at the moment, with the exception of the surprisingly excellent Odyssey 5. Both of the above, IMO, are up there with the greats (B5, Farscape, Misfits of Science, early McGyver, etc).
And what does 'extrapolates too far' mean, anyway? It's a science fiction series. If they didn't extrapolate as much as they did, it'd be a shit series. Everyone'd spend every week staring at the iris, wondering what those occasional 'thuds' were.
I'd suggest the Web Between the Worlds. It's about space elevators, and came out around the same time as Clarke's Fountains of Paradise (same topic). So close in time did they come out, in fact, that my copy has an afterword by Clarke commiserating with Sheffield on the unfortunate timing, and assuring us readers that no ripoffery took place.
A caveat, though: don't read his co-written books. They're terrible. So's the collection Erasmus Magister. Rather than bitching about these, I prefer to congratulate him. He's a hard science writer, and the fantasy/horror he wrote may have been bad, but he at least made the attempt at broadening his horizons. He could've just kept to the hard science and no-one would complain, but in going for books like the Judas Cross (terrible, terrible book) he showed us that he was willing to experiment.
Remember: Microsoft has plenty of experience being reprimanded, so they know exactly what to demand.
Expect a statement from our hapless PR bunnie, stating that the decision to reprimand her was flawed, but that she'll do her best to follow her punishment to the letter.
Next week, she'll write a story about how linux gives you the clap.
I feel I've got to come to the defence of the BBC, here. If you're bored on a Thursday night (or, strictly, Friday morning), watch the Learning Zone. Great stuff. Proper science, and proper maths. The learning zone is great any might, but Thursday is science night. Don't remember what the other days specialise in.