Pardon me for not following slashdot-consensus, but I just think they should be smarter about the way they do it. There is absolutely no need to put humans in space. They have to have a whole life support system that costs more than the people do. It may make for better TV, but robots are a far better idea.
But do most scientists agree that the correct next step is to send humans into space?? (let alone this nobody)
No way. Like I said all along - robots.
Fast, cheap and out-of-control.
If you want human-kind to travel to space, we should be spending our dollars on fusion research. Until that is solved, it is a waste of our limited resources to send people into space on a what amounts to a jolly.
However, the point is that to consider space travel "for the masses", you are looking at many, many of these flights. I think this an avenue that we should not go down.
I find it incredible that on slashdot everyone is so gung-ho about human space travel. Noone really stops to ask why, or consider what are the costs.
Sure I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid, but the cost of putting humans up there is just not worth it.
What you are not thinking about is the absolutely incredible amount of resources that are totally wasted on this trip. Enormous amounts of wasted fossil fuels, and increase in both atmospheric CO2 and ozone eating rocket fuels.
This guy just doesn't give a shit about the global environment.
My feeling is that there is absolutely no scientific or economic justification for sending human scientists into space - let alone tourists.
MS was never in the business of providing OS's for supercomputers.
This is linux vs commercial unices.
Forget TCO, think $/flop.
99% of seismic applications are "embarassingly parallel" - a natural fit for beowolf-type machines. You dont gain much from fancy architectures, so there's no point paying for it.
Re:Good book, but out ages ago!
on
Longitude
·
· Score: 1
Older than that even.
According to amazon, first published October 1995.
There maybe no website, but there is a DVD.
Despite their bad reputation, I've had generally good experience with Pac bell since February:
I had to wait about a month before they came to install it. Then after a week or so, it stopped working for a couple of days. Long enough for me to realize the pacbell phone tree is not a place I want to spend time.
Since then not a single problem. High-speed. No downtime. Great price - $40 per month for unlimited access and no installation fee.
Setting it up was also not a major problem. ppp over ethernet is harder to configure than ppp or a static ethernet address - I had to patch the kernel, and play around with the chat script, but all the info is out on the web.
This should really test the licensing conflict between the QPL and the GPL.
Whereas the copyright holders of KOffice may not care about license technicalities. The copyright holders of SOffice (Sun) may care enough to cause some problems if KOffice uses some of their code.
All the more reasons for Trolltech to expedite their new license.
He tries a bit too hard. Borrows too much from GEB. Sounds like he's doesn't *really* know what he's talking about either.
Example: The bit that really irritated me so far was when the hacker guy gets an email from "root@somewhere" and reads it because it must be important. WTF? Anyone who uses root as a primary email account is just a dumb school kid with a linux box. Everyone knows that.
Snowcrash was pretty good though. Stick to the future, Neal!
It's ironic that the story above this one on slashdot is about environmental damage due to excessive printing. The potential environmental damage of sending every star trek fan with money to burn into space is horrific - It's bad enough NASA sending tourists like John Glenn up there. Unmanned space flight is the only way to go.
I am a computational scientist (as opposed to a computer scientist), who doesnt know much about kernel type stuff; however, I see the 2GiB (?!?) memory limit is currently a real limit for ia32 linux for large problems.
Intel has a pag e that says describes its Extended Server Memory Architecture (ESMA) that extends the limit to 64GB, and says they are "working with the community" to get this into the linux kernel. I have no idea what this means.
SGI's bigmem patch seems to be a little step in the right direction.
My question to anyone who knows: Is large memory support coming anytime soon??
It really annoys me when odds are quoted like this, since they are essentially meaningless.
The odds they quote (1 in 10^19) effectively mean it is *absolutely* foolproof. This is obviously bullshit in practice, as there is always finite chance of error. Someone has to code the thing up, and there is obviously a *small* chance of a bug somewhere along the line.
Ergo: the original statistic was incorrect and totally meaningless.
You can come up with large numbers to show DNA based tests are foolproof, but you can still get a Mark Furman.
PIN numbers are secure enough for me, and they are only 1 in 10^4. The security is needed elsewhere. If someone is standing behind me at the ATM with a gun, he'll still get my money.
As an aside, my physics professor said the size of the universe was about 10^30 (if I remember correctly). What units are you talking about? we would ask. But obviously it doesnt matter, when numbers are as large as this.
The real question is: does the application handle node failure?
Pvm is just a bunch of functions that allow you to pass messages between threads. It contains functions to handle node failures. However, it is left up to the application programmer to catch them.
I was at the show this morning. Wandering around looking for some new boxes for work. Exhibition only.
My impressions: More free tshirts than siggraph (free as in beer). No free mugs or yoyo's though. The debian/slashdot/gnome corner was where the action was. More nerds per square foot than anywhere else. The gnome booth even had a pool-table and table footy. Noone (compaq varesearch etc) wanted to sell me anything. I got directed to webpages instead. Rob needs to shave. Nice demos of civ3 for linux - looks good.
Microsoft sees open source software coming. (Well at least realizes its monopoly will not last for ever, and has cash to burn) Sees the needs to diversify away from OS + office applications. Moves into content (NBC, zdnet etc etc) Tries to turn itself into a media company.
Disney sees Microsoft as a *major* competitor (Eisner has said this himself). The future of media==computers. Disney realize this too.
How they are going to win is not yet apparent, but right now they are just building the arsenal. Disney is a cash-cow, and has money to burn.
As other people have said, the apple brand fits the Disney brand perfectly and vice versa.
Slashdot Mirror
I am not against space exploration.
Pardon me for not following slashdot-consensus, but I just think they should be smarter about the way they do it. There is absolutely no need to put humans in space. They have to have a whole life support system that costs more than the people do. It may make for better TV, but robots are a far better idea.
I'll agree with you too.
But do most scientists agree that the correct next step is to send humans into space?? (let alone this nobody)
No way. Like I said all along - robots.
Fast, cheap and out-of-control.
You dont get it do you??
The key to space travel is energy.
If you want human-kind to travel to space, we should be spending our dollars on fusion research. Until that is solved, it is a waste of our limited resources to send people into space on a what amounts to a jolly.
> How do you make hydrogen?
> Electrolosys powered by solar arrays.
Nice idea but energy is energy.
I dont know the exact facts but I guess 95% of US energy comes from fossil fuels. What percentage solar arrays??
With attitudes as entrenched as these, no wonder the US will never sign the Kyoto accord
Very roughly speaking you may be right.
However, the point is that to consider space travel "for the masses", you are looking at many, many of these flights. I think this an avenue that we should not go down.
I find it incredible that on slashdot everyone is so gung-ho about human space travel. Noone really stops to ask why, or consider what are the costs.
Sure I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid, but the cost of putting humans up there is just not worth it.
Q. How do you make the hydrogen???
A. From fossil fuels.
Human's don't *have* to make it into space.
You play to much Alpha Centauri.
What you are not thinking about is the absolutely incredible amount of resources that are totally wasted on this trip. Enormous amounts of wasted fossil fuels, and increase in both atmospheric CO2 and ozone eating rocket fuels.
This guy just doesn't give a shit about the global environment.
My feeling is that there is absolutely no scientific or economic justification for sending human scientists into space - let alone tourists.
Leave it to the robots.
This is *not* about linux vs MS.
MS was never in the business of providing OS's for supercomputers.
This is linux vs commercial unices.
Forget TCO, think $/flop.
99% of seismic applications are "embarassingly parallel" - a natural fit for beowolf-type machines. You dont gain much from fancy architectures, so there's no point paying for it.
Older than that even.
2 2/ o/qid=976294602/sr=8-3/ref=aps_sr_b_1_5/002-113863 7-3460021
According to amazon, first published October 1995.
There maybe no website, but there is a DVD.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/08027131
Despite their bad reputation, I've had generally good experience with Pac bell since February:
I had to wait about a month before they came to install it. Then after a week or so, it stopped working for a couple of days. Long enough for me to realize the pacbell phone tree is not a place I want to spend time.
Since then not a single problem. High-speed. No downtime. Great price - $40 per month for unlimited access and no installation fee.
Setting it up was also not a major problem. ppp over ethernet is harder to configure than ppp or a static ethernet address - I had to patch the kernel, and play around with the chat script, but all the info is out on the web.
This should really test the licensing conflict between the QPL and the GPL.
Whereas the copyright holders of KOffice may not care about license technicalities. The copyright holders of SOffice (Sun) may care enough to cause some problems if KOffice uses some of their code.
All the more reasons for Trolltech to expedite their new license.
I'm in the middle of crytonomicon right now.
It's *alright*.
He tries a bit too hard.
Borrows too much from GEB.
Sounds like he's doesn't *really* know what he's
talking about either.
Example:
The bit that really irritated me so far was when
the hacker guy gets an email from "root@somewhere"
and reads it because it must be important.
WTF?
Anyone who uses root as a primary email account is
just a dumb school kid with a linux box.
Everyone knows that.
Snowcrash was pretty good though.
Stick to the future, Neal!
Seems like it may have been just a router problem: see here
Absolutely,
It's ironic that the story above this one on slashdot is about environmental damage due to excessive printing. The potential environmental damage of sending every star trek fan with money to burn into space is horrific - It's bad enough NASA sending tourists like John Glenn up there.
Unmanned space flight is the only way to go.
I am a computational scientist (as opposed to a computer scientist), who doesnt know much about kernel type stuff; however, I see the 2GiB (?!?) memory limit is currently a real limit for ia32 linux for large problems.
Intel has a pag e that says describes its Extended Server Memory Architecture (ESMA) that extends the limit to 64GB, and says they are "working with the community" to get this into the linux kernel.
I have no idea what this means.
SGI's bigmem patch seems to be a little step in the right direction.
My question to anyone who knows: Is large memory support coming anytime soon??
It really annoys me when odds are quoted like this, since they are essentially meaningless.
The odds they quote (1 in 10^19) effectively mean it is *absolutely* foolproof. This is obviously bullshit in practice, as there is always finite chance of error. Someone has to code the thing up, and there is obviously a *small* chance of a bug somewhere along the line.
Ergo: the original statistic was incorrect and totally meaningless.
You can come up with large numbers to show DNA based tests are foolproof, but you can still get a Mark Furman.
PIN numbers are secure enough for me, and they are only 1 in 10^4. The security is needed elsewhere. If someone is standing behind me at the ATM with a gun, he'll still get my money.
As an aside, my physics professor said the size of the universe was about 10^30 (if I remember correctly). What units are you talking about? we would ask. But obviously it doesnt matter, when numbers are as large as this.
The real question is: does the application handle node failure?
Pvm is just a bunch of functions that allow you to pass messages between threads. It contains functions to handle node failures. However, it is left up to the application programmer to catch them.
Linuxcare was giving them out
I was at the show this morning.
Wandering around looking for some new boxes for work. Exhibition only.
My impressions:
More free tshirts than siggraph (free as in beer).
No free mugs or yoyo's though.
The debian/slashdot/gnome corner was where the action was. More nerds per square foot than anywhere else. The gnome booth even had a pool-table and table footy.
Noone (compaq varesearch etc) wanted to sell me anything. I got directed to webpages instead.
Rob needs to shave.
Nice demos of civ3 for linux - looks good.
Microsoft sees open source software coming.
(Well at least realizes its monopoly will not last for ever, and has cash to burn)
Sees the needs to diversify away from OS + office applications.
Moves into content (NBC, zdnet etc etc)
Tries to turn itself into a media company.
Disney sees Microsoft as a *major* competitor (Eisner has said this himself).
The future of media==computers.
Disney realize this too.
How they are going to win is not yet apparent, but right now they are just building the arsenal. Disney is a cash-cow, and has money to burn.
As other people have said, the apple brand fits the Disney brand perfectly and vice versa.