Considering the Density of the martian atmosphere, those things are going to have to be very big, and very light.
If I recall correctly, the atmosphere of mars is one percent of that of earth. Which basically means that for the wind to have as much effect on you as a one mile an hour breeze, it has to be going one hundred miles an hour.
An example of this is the effect on dust in the atmosphere. The normal winds are simply not adequate to raise dust in any way. So the question then is, where do the famous martian dust storms come from? The answer seems to be meteor impacts, which would throw up enough junk into the atmosphere that it could take a while to clear out and settle down.
And so the red surface of the face of Mars makes more sense, when you imagine the impact of iron dust from the core thrown up and attracting all the free O2 in the atmosphere.
- - - Radio Free Nation is a general news site based on Slash Code "If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box" - - -
kansascity.com tried that last year and I don't think it took off too well. I don't know anybody who has a @kansascity.com address
I'll pass on the obvious jokes.
In this situation of free email, the obvious point is that the folks who will be getting the email are folks with less education. This would be true if you imagine that personal income is generally proportional to education.
I can imagine the poor tech support flogs who have to help these folks out, Unless they make them go through a long and extended glass first. or have it at a city facility or a hall for a long time until the folks get certified that they are expert enough to have it set up at home.
It appears that the computer market has reached saturation in the US with maybe 60% of US homes having a computer. The other 40% may not be able to afford one, or the learning curve is a bit too steep.
I can see this. It can get really ugly.
- - - Radio Free Nation is a general news site based on Slash Code "If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box" - - -
I can see that, some years in the future, that the technical jargon will be as dated for Star Trek as much as the technical data is in a show like the old Max Headroom (from the late 80s).
Max Headroom was brilliant, and totally did not see the advent of the Internet. They envisioned a world where TV was mandatory, and everything was run by TV conglomerates.
They missed the internet entirely. But aside from that, they were not all that bad.
- - - Radio Free Nation is a news site based on Slash Code "If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box" - - -
have a dotcom business plan. Original incestors get in, get rich, sell out.
Adopt the typical bean counter attitude of "Anything that is not a profit is an expense" Start cutting expenses. (I am reminded of an old cartoon where picture used to illustrate reducing everything to core elements was an apple with all of the meat of the apple eaten away, leaving just the core)
Have some competitors who are willing and able to help push you over the edge by being slow on service to your valued accounts
have a business plan that accumulates profits too far in the future.
etc.
You get the idea
(yes I see the typo. I was going to fix it, then thought better of it)
- - - Radio Free Nation is a general news site based on Slash Code "If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box" - - -
What you have is the confusion created by imagined losses in the minds of accounting types.
Take for example, a company that has 100 million dollars in sales in one year, with 20% of that as profit.
What the accounting types do is say that because sales could have been 200 million in a year, but were not because the speculative losses due to possible piracy, there is a loss of 100 million dollars.
Mind you this is purely speculative, undocumented, and paranoid.
But what this does is encourage various companies and organizations to persue legal remedies in a vain attempt to recover imagined losses. It provides a convenient scape goat for having a shit product in the first place.
That is why you have legal processes like this, and treaties that surrender the self rule of the member countries
- - - Radio Free Nation is a general news site based on Slash Code "If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box" - - -
You also have a click-through license agreement that's over 4,100 words long. A bit excessive, don't you think?
I agree
It is a bit much. But then, I am not in charge of the site.
What can I say, the guy paying the bills is slightly eccentric. Which gives him a say, I suppose. He doesn't trust big media, not that I can blame him.
Although the idea of a click through license agreement for a website is interesting.
This is confirmed indirectly in the article, although the business model also has some potential problems.
Covad charges its customers less than the actual cost of setting up a new connection and makes that money back over time. McMinn says the company takes a bigger hit to set up business customers, but gets paid back more quickly than through its consumer business. So the company must strike a balancing act between its need to acquire customers, the cash it has to work with, and the time it takes to recoup its investment in new customers.
The times for telecom upstarts have become leaner as many companies across the industry
have trouble building their networks
You could even have free installation for all of this, but then I wonder how long it would take make back the money. Throw in the large companies messing with the small companies, and there is a big problem.
- - - Radio Free Nation is a general news site based on Slash Code "If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box" - - -
I liked the Mandrake 8.0 distro and install setup, although there were a few things that needed to be worked on.
I don't thing that the comparison to XP is going to win many friends in the unix/linux community. Although I can see it as a Marketing Ploy for truly new users.
I think that it would be better to stay true to the origin of the system. Maybe even say that it is "better"
Tough call
- - - Radio Free Nation is a news site based on Slash Code "If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box" - - -
The main hassle fro the first star trek movei was that it didn't appeal to everyone. Which is hard to do in the first place.
Specifically, it didn't appeal to the shot'em up types, and the "gimmick" used for the plot was a little too pat for my taste.
So in some ways, it was typical Star Trek. I wonder how much the new graphics, and special effect enhancements can make up for the weakness of the original story.
To tell the truth, it would have been better to have a revisit from Harry Mudd, or something.
The common consensus was that the movie with Kahn was a much better story all around.
Still, should be interesting
- - - Radio Free Nation is a general news site based on Slash Code "If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box" - - -
People are used to getting lots of games, etc prepackaged with their computers for free.
I think that alot of consumer bad will is going to be generated with such an obvious grab for profits. [I know that I am going to spend some time heckling sales people on the Xbox over the holidays.]
It isn't like Microsoft doesn't have an image problem in this area to start with.
[heheheh]
- - - Radio Free Nation A news site based on Slash Code "If You have a story, We have a soapbox" - - - Check out the Vinny the Vampire Comic Strip
Internet New forums like SlashDot are becoming more the place for people to get behind the scenes news. The mass medium is marginalizing itself, and the news is moving to the Internet.
To plug a few friends of mine:
They have set up a site based on Slash Code, but devoted to politics. It has just started up and so it needs participants, news story submissions, etc.
They are planning for a lot more than just the news, but the news section with the SlashCode is up and running Now. They are currently running slashcode 2.0. Once the new edition of Slashcode gets debugged here, they will then upgrade to the Latest Version (tm)
The basic motto if the site is:
"If you have a Story, We have a Soapbox"
I think that news sites like this have great potential to counter-act the control of the Mass Media by the various vested interests
I didn't like the journals in Slash 2.0 from an admin viewpoint, mostly because of abuse (goatsex, etc) (Journals are not moderatable, of course, and this makes sense in that context), and the fact of the added drive space this can use up on a smaller system (such as provided by slashhosting.com)
I would like to see more toggle on/off configuration for the plugins.
In general, sound support in the early days was a royal pain. This was where a lot of folks first learned to configure PCs. The problems is tech support were legendary.
Here is a quick sound timeline:
1987 AD-LIB soundcard released. Not widely supported until a software company, aito, released several games fully supporting AD-LIB - the word then spread how much the special sound effects and music enhanced the games. Adlib, a Canadian Company, had a virtual monopoly until 1989 when the SoundBlaster card was released.
1989 Release of Sound Blaster Card, by Creative Labs, its success was ensured by maintaining compatibility with the widely supported AD-LIB soundcard of 1987.
1989 World Wide Web invented by Tim Berners-Lee
1990 MPC (Multimedia PC) Level 1 specification published by a council of companies including Microsoft and Creative Labs. This specified the minimum standards for a Multimedia IBM PC. The MPC level 1 specification originally required a 80286/12 MHz PC, but this was later increased to a 80386SX/16 MHz computer as an 80286 was realised to be inadequate. It also required a CD-ROM drive capable of 150 KB/sec (single speed) and also of Audio CD output. Companies can, after paying a fee, use the MPC logo on their products.
1991 Linux is born
1992 Introduction of Windows 3.1
1992 Wolfenstein 3D released by Id Software Inc.
1992 Sound Blaster 16 ASP Introduced.
1993 MPC Level 2 specification introduced
This was designed to allow playback of a 15 fps video in a window 320x240 pixels. The key difference is the requirement of a CD-ROM drive capable of 300KB/sec (double speed). Also with Level 2 is the requirement for products to be tested by the MPC council, making MPC Level 2 compatibility a stamp of certification.
1994 Doom II released - Command & Conquer released - Netscape 1.0 released - Linux Kernel. version 1.0 released
On a separate, but slightly related angle, there was a paper released a couple months back (see CNN Story) that came to the conclusion that something very weird happened in the Solar system about 65 million years ago. Studies of ocean sediment patterns reveal that the earth has been going through a 400,000 year climate cycle that is directly related to planetary distance. The problem is that these patterns change at about 65 million years ago. This is obviously related to the asteriod thast knocked of the dinosaurs.
Fringe groups have been looking at this and speculated that this is when the asteroids were formed, and when mars got its weird pattern of craters that cover only half the planet. You can download a nicely done 60 page document of this sort of thing (PDF - HTML). Unfortunately, the authors like to occasionally bring in things that are not relevant, so it sort of ruins the flavor, but it is not bad, and interesting reading, even if you do not take it seriously.
Which of course goes brings up all kinds of interesting speculations on just how common are planetary collisions in the first place.
I can remember helping a a friend move out from a college fraternity house many years ago.
We came across this old dartboard that had to date from the vietnam war. It had a picure of the old president Lyndon Baines Johnson on it. You could hardly recognise him for all of the holes in the newspaper on that board from all those darts thrown over the years.
I wish I had kept it. It would be a genuine collectable.
you could have matching Gates and Ballmer Dart Boards, or whatever.
They could even be sold on Think Geek, depending on the taste.
- - -
Do you have your White House Selected Vegetables Coffee Mug?
Still, I'm not sure how a rocky planet could form with those two monsters nearby; it's the "far away from the star" in the WP article that confused me.
Consider that it has an year that is 3 years long. This would put it where we have the asteroid belt now, roughly. I suspect that Jupiter could be in closer without causing too much of a problem for us.
On a separate, but slightly related angle, there was a paper released a couple months back (see CNN Story) that came to the conclusion that something very weird happened in the Solar system about 65 million years ago. Studies of ocean sediment patterns reveal that the earth has been going through a 400,000 year climate cycle that is directly related to planetary distance. The problem is that these patterns change at about 65 million years ago. This is obviously related to the asteriod thast knocked of the dinosaurs.
Fringe groups have been looking at this and speculated that this is when the asteroids were formed, and when mars got its weird pattern of craters that cover only half the planet. You can download a nicely done 60 page document of this sort of thing (PDF - HTML). Unfortunately, the authors like to occasionally bring in things that are not relevant, so it sort of ruins the flavor, but it is not bad, and interesting reading, even if you do not take it seriously.
Which of course goes to the question in orbital mechanics of how close can you have a gas giant before it messes things up.
You can see a quick summary of the star here They estimate that the inner planet will remain in the habitable zone for 1.2 gigayears. Right now it is on the outside edge, in the cold zone, with a 3 year orbit. but the expect the star to start to get warmer, and that may heat things up nicely for a while.
Nowadays AI is never mentioned in popular media. It has been replaced by the new emphasis in public-facing science: cloning and
gene therapy.
This is true for now.
Then there will be some hit hollywood movie where the evil AI Robot Scientist and his/her/its borgified army of bio-engineered clones tries to take over the world via a mutant form of gene therapy that manipulates the brain and renders people into zombies, pliable to any suggestion.
of course, the best way to take over the world is to do it via marketing, and legal agreements. You leave things like wars and armies to silly politicians. You can control the banks and the infrastructure.
Slashdot Mirror
If I recall correctly, the atmosphere of mars is one percent of that of earth. Which basically means that for the wind to have as much effect on you as a one mile an hour breeze, it has to be going one hundred miles an hour.
An example of this is the effect on dust in the atmosphere. The normal winds are simply not adequate to raise dust in any way. So the question then is, where do the famous martian dust storms come from? The answer seems to be meteor impacts, which would throw up enough junk into the atmosphere that it could take a while to clear out and settle down.
And so the red surface of the face of Mars makes more sense, when you imagine the impact of iron dust from the core thrown up and attracting all the free O2 in the atmosphere.
- - -
Radio Free Nation
is a general news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -
I'll pass on the obvious jokes.
In this situation of free email, the obvious point is that the folks who will be getting the email are folks with less education. This would be true if you imagine that personal income is generally proportional to education.
I can imagine the poor tech support flogs who have to help these folks out, Unless they make them go through a long and extended glass first. or have it at a city facility or a hall for a long time until the folks get certified that they are expert enough to have it set up at home.
It appears that the computer market has reached saturation in the US with maybe 60% of US homes having a computer. The other 40% may not be able to afford one, or the learning curve is a bit too steep.
I can see this. It can get really ugly.
- - -
Radio Free Nation
is a general news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -
But then, MS keeps messing with things.
maybe that's what they are doing. Not so much fixing bugs, but practicing security by randoming shifting the bugs around.
Sorta like Whack-a Mole
;-)
- - -
Radio Free Nation
is a news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -
Max Headroom was brilliant, and totally did not see the advent of the Internet. They envisioned a world where TV was mandatory, and everything was run by TV conglomerates.
They missed the internet entirely. But aside from that, they were not all that bad.
- - -
Radio Free Nation
is a news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -
- have a dotcom business plan. Original incestors get in, get rich, sell out.
- Adopt the typical bean counter attitude of "Anything that is not a profit is an expense" Start cutting expenses. (I am reminded of an old cartoon where picture used to illustrate reducing everything to core elements was an apple with all of the meat of the apple eaten away, leaving just the core)
- Have some competitors who are willing and able to help push you over the edge by being slow on service to your valued accounts
- have a business plan that accumulates profits too far in the future.
- etc.
You get the idea(yes I see the typo. I was going to fix it, then thought better of it)
- - -
Radio Free Nation
is a general news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -
Take for example, a company that has 100 million dollars in sales in one year, with 20% of that as profit.
What the accounting types do is say that because sales could have been 200 million in a year, but were not because the speculative losses due to possible piracy, there is a loss of 100 million dollars.
Mind you this is purely speculative, undocumented, and paranoid.
But what this does is encourage various companies and organizations to persue legal remedies in a vain attempt to recover imagined losses. It provides a convenient scape goat for having a shit product in the first place.
That is why you have legal processes like this, and treaties that surrender the self rule of the member countries
- - -
Radio Free Nation
is a general news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -
I agree
It is a bit much. But then, I am not in charge of the site.
What can I say, the guy paying the bills is slightly eccentric. Which gives him a say, I suppose. He doesn't trust big media, not that I can blame him.
Although the idea of a click through license agreement for a website is interesting.
- - -
Radio Free Nation
is a general news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -
These days with digital actors, it might not be so much a problem.
- - -
Radio Free Nation
is a news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -
I don't thing that the comparison to XP is going to win many friends in the unix/linux community. Although I can see it as a Marketing Ploy for truly new users.
I think that it would be better to stay true to the origin of the system. Maybe even say that it is "better"
Tough call
- - -
Radio Free Nation
is a news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -
Specifically, it didn't appeal to the shot'em up types, and the "gimmick" used for the plot was a little too pat for my taste.
So in some ways, it was typical Star Trek. I wonder how much the new graphics, and special effect enhancements can make up for the weakness of the original story.
To tell the truth, it would have been better to have a revisit from Harry Mudd, or something.
The common consensus was that the movie with Kahn was a much better story all around.
Still, should be interesting
- - -
Radio Free Nation
is a general news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -
I wonder how much disk space the 2 million plus messages take up.
Even at 1k per message, that 2 gig of data. I wonder if the broke down and got an IBM 100gig for the future.
I am glad to see the hall of fame, etc integrated to include everything since the dawn of time.
- - -
Radio Free Nation
is a news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -
Check out the Vinny the Vampire Comic Strip
Seems like there is a bunch of infighting going on
- - -
Radio Free Nation
is a general news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a story, We have a soapbox"
- - -
Check out the Vinny the Vampire Comic Strip
I think that alot of consumer bad will is going to be generated with such an obvious grab for profits. [I know that I am going to spend some time heckling sales people on the Xbox over the holidays.]
It isn't like Microsoft doesn't have an image problem in this area to start with.
[heheheh]
- - -
Radio Free Nation
A news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a story, We have a soapbox"
- - -
Check out the Vinny the Vampire Comic Strip
I need to have a cup of coffee in the morning before I post things
[smile]
To plug a few friends of mine:
They have set up a site based on Slash Code, but devoted to politics. It has just started up and so it needs participants, news story submissions, etc.
The Site is Radio Free Nation.
They are planning for a lot more than just the news, but the news section with the SlashCode is up and running Now. They are currently running slashcode 2.0. Once the new edition of Slashcode gets debugged here, they will then upgrade to the Latest Version (tm)
The basic motto if the site is:
"If you have a Story, We have a Soapbox"
I think that news sites like this have great potential to counter-act the control of the Mass Media by the various vested interests
I would like to see more toggle on/off configuration for the plugins.
Here is a quick sound timeline:
1987 AD-LIB soundcard released. Not widely supported until a software company, aito, released several games fully supporting AD-LIB - the word then spread how much the special sound effects and music enhanced the games. Adlib, a Canadian Company, had a virtual monopoly until 1989 when the SoundBlaster card was released.
1989 Release of Sound Blaster Card, by Creative Labs, its success was ensured by maintaining compatibility with the widely supported AD-LIB soundcard of 1987.
1989 World Wide Web invented by Tim Berners-Lee
1990 MPC (Multimedia PC) Level 1 specification published by a council of companies including Microsoft and Creative Labs. This specified the minimum standards for a Multimedia IBM PC. The MPC level 1 specification originally required a 80286/12 MHz PC, but this was later increased to a 80386SX/16 MHz computer as an 80286 was realised to be inadequate. It also required a CD-ROM drive capable of 150 KB/sec (single speed) and also of Audio CD output. Companies can, after paying a fee, use the MPC logo on their products.
1991 Linux is born
1992 Introduction of Windows 3.1
1992 Wolfenstein 3D released by Id Software Inc.
1992 Sound Blaster 16 ASP Introduced.
1993 MPC Level 2 specification introduced This was designed to allow playback of a 15 fps video in a window 320x240 pixels. The key difference is the requirement of a CD-ROM drive capable of 300KB/sec (double speed). Also with Level 2 is the requirement for products to be tested by the MPC council, making MPC Level 2 compatibility a stamp of certification.
1994 Doom II released - Command & Conquer released - Netscape 1.0 released - Linux Kernel. version 1.0 released
- - -
White House Selected Vegetables Coffee Mug
White House Selected Vegetables Coffee Mug
at: http://radiofreenation.com
duh
On a separate, but slightly related angle, there was a paper released a couple months back (see CNN Story) that came to the conclusion that something very weird happened in the Solar system about 65 million years ago. Studies of ocean sediment patterns reveal that the earth has been going through a 400,000 year climate cycle that is directly related to planetary distance. The problem is that these patterns change at about 65 million years ago. This is obviously related to the asteriod thast knocked of the dinosaurs.
Fringe groups have been looking at this and speculated that this is when the asteroids were formed, and when mars got its weird pattern of craters that cover only half the planet. You can download a nicely done 60 page document of this sort of thing (PDF - HTML). Unfortunately, the authors like to occasionally bring in things that are not relevant, so it sort of ruins the flavor, but it is not bad, and interesting reading, even if you do not take it seriously.
Which of course goes brings up all kinds of interesting speculations on just how common are planetary collisions in the first place.
- - -
White House Selected Vegetables Coffee Mug
We came across this old dartboard that had to date from the vietnam war. It had a picure of the old president Lyndon Baines Johnson on it. You could hardly recognise him for all of the holes in the newspaper on that board from all those darts thrown over the years.
I wish I had kept it. It would be a genuine collectable.
you could have matching Gates and Ballmer Dart Boards, or whatever.
They could even be sold on Think Geek, depending on the taste.
- - -
Do you have your White House Selected Vegetables Coffee Mug?
Consider that it has an year that is 3 years long. This would put it where we have the asteroid belt now, roughly. I suspect that Jupiter could be in closer without causing too much of a problem for us.
On a separate, but slightly related angle, there was a paper released a couple months back (see CNN Story) that came to the conclusion that something very weird happened in the Solar system about 65 million years ago. Studies of ocean sediment patterns reveal that the earth has been going through a 400,000 year climate cycle that is directly related to planetary distance. The problem is that these patterns change at about 65 million years ago. This is obviously related to the asteriod thast knocked of the dinosaurs.
Fringe groups have been looking at this and speculated that this is when the asteroids were formed, and when mars got its weird pattern of craters that cover only half the planet. You can download a nicely done 60 page document of this sort of thing (PDF - HTML). Unfortunately, the authors like to occasionally bring in things that are not relevant, so it sort of ruins the flavor, but it is not bad, and interesting reading, even if you do not take it seriously.
Which of course goes to the question in orbital mechanics of how close can you have a gas giant before it messes things up.
You can see a quick summary of the star here They estimate that the inner planet will remain in the habitable zone for 1.2 gigayears. Right now it is on the outside edge, in the cold zone, with a 3 year orbit. but the expect the star to start to get warmer, and that may heat things up nicely for a while.
The ArchAngels and ArchDemons in charge of implementing the Universe having arguments over the specs, the editors, the compilers.
Even the constants to use, which get updated from time to time.
[There are plenty of articles out there with this paradigm of God as programmer]
This is true for now.
Then there will be some hit hollywood movie where the evil AI Robot Scientist and his/her/its borgified army of bio-engineered clones tries to take over the world via a mutant form of gene therapy that manipulates the brain and renders people into zombies, pliable to any suggestion.
of course, the best way to take over the world is to do it via marketing, and legal agreements. You leave things like wars and armies to silly politicians. You can control the banks and the infrastructure.