Prematurely?!?!? Galileo had long outlived its scheduled lifespan and completed its mission at that point. The spacecraft was *dying*. So, rather than lose all control of it in orbit and possibly contaminate a moon, they decided to end it with a bang and get a little more data at the same time. There was no gain for leaving it in orbit.
I've been working in an all-Java shop for close to 5 years now. One of the big headaches with Sun is the unenthusiastic response to some of the more obscure problems/bugs in the core API (especially around socket handling from what I've seen). Sun gives them low priority because they only affect sophisticated applications (touching rarely used parts of the API) where workarounds might be available. Man, there's a pointless stack trace dump in the HTML parser that's been annoyimg me for at LEAST 3 years. Some of these bugs have literally been out there for years. That would never fly in the open source community.
Of course, I can see their point of view also. Java is Sun's creation and giving it away does lose them a shiny badge of honor, since they wouldn't be able to market Java success as their own. And, open source APIs tend to advance so quickly that not-so-old APIs become obsoleted and incompatible. Open sourcers tend to be up to date with versioning, but this can become a big problem in corporate settings where a customer demands Java version X.1 for their environment, but your product ships with Java version X.2 (or vice versa). Java has essentially been backwards compatible since it's inception, disregarding the new classes.
Committing to going to Mars first is a BAD idea. When we go to Mars, it won't be for just a few days, it'll be for a few months. And, we haven't developed the technologies for those types of habitats (isolated, ground-based, long-term). The moon is the idea test bed for these technologies. It's cheaper to get there and if mistakes occur it will be possible to make fixes or send up repair parts.
We need to spend a good amount of time refining these technologies on the Moon so that we can have a very high degree of confidence that a Mars shot won't fail. Hell, we can't even land unmanned probes on Mars with good reliability.
Everyone seems to be simultaneously jumping on this as some sort of attempt by Big Brother to usurp more of our rights. What rights are you losing besides the right to make crappy copies of currency? Is anyone reporting problems using products beyond copying currency?
Of all the ways citizens' rights are being raped by this administration, this effort to block the real problem of small-time counterfeiters ain't one of them.
Why are there so many damned articles here on the evils of the music industry's stand against downloading music? Obviously, music is a product and if people can get it for free, the,industry loses money. I hate the indentured servitude that most musicians are bound by, but this is a no brainer. If you download music and don't pay for it, your favorite bands lose money. Yeah, maybe if I hear a good freebie Dolly Parton tune, I'll buy an album. But if there's no restrictions on what I can access for free, to hell with buying CDs ever again!
If you oppose the practices of the music industry, find another soap box because this one is ridiculous.
"Hydrogen combustion creates a key component of battery acid!"--Enron Executive
"Hydrogen is a dangerous combustible responsible for destruction of the Hindenberg!"--Exxon CEO
"It's a scientifically proven fact that a hydrogen-powered fusion reactor will eventually cause the destruction of our entire planet!"--Dick Cheney
"Hydrogen is just too dangerous. Mixing it with the air we breathe is enough to cause catastrophic explosions, death, carnage!"--Standard Oil press release
"Hydrogen is much more deadly than milk!"--Bob Dole
How can I be considered a bandwidth hog? I'm *paying* for a pipe and heaven forbid I have the gall to actually *use* it. Note that they cleverly omit the bandwidth caps. No complaints from customers and it'll be low. Lots of complaints, it'll be high. Customers need to make some noise.
What ticks me off is law enforcement is investing in such drastic measures to get common citizens doing petty things like speeding. Just so they can stick you with some ridiculous fine. I'd like to see this much zeal when they're chasing burgulars.
Two of my friends recently had their cars stolen. The thieves ran the cars out of gas both times and left lots of incriminating evidence (mail) in the cars. The cops haven't bothered to do a thing. They don't even search the cars. In fact, had the cars not been abandonded, they probably never would have been found.
Cops spend 95% of their time serving as a revenue source for city hall.
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Prematurely?!?!? Galileo had long outlived its scheduled lifespan and completed its mission at that point. The spacecraft was *dying*. So, rather than lose all control of it in orbit and possibly contaminate a moon, they decided to end it with a bang and get a little more data at the same time. There was no gain for leaving it in orbit.
Mod this parent DOWN.
I've been working in an all-Java shop for close to 5 years now. One of the big headaches with Sun is the unenthusiastic response to some of the more obscure problems/bugs in the core API (especially around socket handling from what I've seen). Sun gives them low priority because they only affect sophisticated applications (touching rarely used parts of the API) where workarounds might be available. Man, there's a pointless stack trace dump in the HTML parser that's been annoyimg me for at LEAST 3 years. Some of these bugs have literally been out there for years. That would never fly in the open source community.
Of course, I can see their point of view also. Java is Sun's creation and giving it away does lose them a shiny badge of honor, since they wouldn't be able to market Java success as their own. And, open source APIs tend to advance so quickly that not-so-old APIs become obsoleted and incompatible. Open sourcers tend to be up to date with versioning, but this can become a big problem in corporate settings where a customer demands Java version X.1 for their environment, but your product ships with Java version X.2 (or vice versa). Java has essentially been backwards compatible since it's inception, disregarding the new classes.
Committing to going to Mars first is a BAD idea. When we go to Mars, it won't be for just a few days, it'll be for a few months. And, we haven't developed the technologies for those types of habitats (isolated, ground-based, long-term). The moon is the idea test bed for these technologies. It's cheaper to get there and if mistakes occur it will be possible to make fixes or send up repair parts.
We need to spend a good amount of time refining these technologies on the Moon so that we can have a very high degree of confidence that a Mars shot won't fail. Hell, we can't even land unmanned probes on Mars with good reliability.
Mars first is a huge gamble.
Everyone seems to be simultaneously jumping on this as some sort of attempt by Big Brother to usurp more of our rights. What rights are you losing besides the right to make crappy copies of currency? Is anyone reporting problems using products beyond copying currency?
Of all the ways citizens' rights are being raped by this administration, this effort to block the real problem of small-time counterfeiters ain't one of them.
Why are there so many damned articles here on the evils of the music industry's stand against downloading music? Obviously, music is a product and if people can get it for free, the,industry loses money. I hate the indentured servitude that most musicians are bound by, but this is a no brainer. If you download music and don't pay for it, your favorite bands lose money. Yeah, maybe if I hear a good freebie Dolly Parton tune, I'll buy an album. But if there's no restrictions on what I can access for free, to hell with buying CDs ever again!
If you oppose the practices of the music industry, find another soap box because this one is ridiculous.
"Hydrogen combustion creates a key component of battery acid!"--Enron Executive
"Hydrogen is a dangerous combustible responsible for destruction of the Hindenberg!"--Exxon CEO
"It's a scientifically proven fact that a hydrogen-powered fusion reactor will eventually cause the destruction of our entire planet!"--Dick Cheney
"Hydrogen is just too dangerous. Mixing it with the air we breathe is enough to cause catastrophic explosions, death, carnage!"--Standard Oil press release
"Hydrogen is much more deadly than milk!"--Bob Dole
How can I be considered a bandwidth hog? I'm *paying* for a pipe and heaven forbid I have the gall to actually *use* it. Note that they cleverly omit the bandwidth caps. No complaints from customers and it'll be low. Lots of complaints, it'll be high. Customers need to make some noise.
In "Gulliver's Travels", yahoos were wild, hairy humans. I say his descendants sue the pants of both parties.
What ticks me off is law enforcement is investing in such drastic measures to get common citizens doing petty things like speeding. Just so they can stick you with some ridiculous fine. I'd like to see this much zeal when they're chasing burgulars. Two of my friends recently had their cars stolen. The thieves ran the cars out of gas both times and left lots of incriminating evidence (mail) in the cars. The cops haven't bothered to do a thing. They don't even search the cars. In fact, had the cars not been abandonded, they probably never would have been found. Cops spend 95% of their time serving as a revenue source for city hall.