We're not talking about access to the Internet. We're talking about a hosting company. Network Solutions is not the only hosting company. There are, what, thousands to choose from, at least? I'm sure some of them would host this content. I don't think the bandwidth providers, like AT&T, would get involved at this level. That remains to be seen, I'll admit.
I defend a corporations right to control the content it hosts. Like you said: "they don't want to be another target of violent factions of Islam or hordes of politically correct, censorship-minded people / investors." and they have a right to that position, too. Let your wallet speak for you. They don't exactly have a monopoly on web hosting.
Nationalizing the Internet is the LAST thing you want. You have heard what China does with their piece of it on a fairly regular basis, right?
Also, Congress allocated the funds for SM4 as a specific line item (about $380 million, don't quote me on that) and Babs Mikulski wasn't going to let NASA spend it on something different. Since the robotic mission was nixed, the shuttle mission was re-evaluated and the risks accepted.
Ha! you obviously have not had a two year old girl in your house!!
Example: My daughter wants to open a tube of toothpaste with a flip top on it. I let her figure it out. She starts prying at the seam between the cap and tube with her thumbnail. Not a bad choice. However, the cap is designed with an indentation to get leverage with the side of your thumb to push it open, saving your precious thumbnail from getting mangled. I let my daughter bang her head on the problem for about a minute, then I convince her to let me show her a 'better way' by pushing on the indentation. SHe observed and understood the procedure but decided that her way was better and went back to it. Eventually, she got it open and submitted that as proof that her way is just as good. Recently she started employing the method that I showed her. Probably after she felt enough time had passed that I couldn't take credit for showing her.
Sometimes learning can be influenced by personality more than species.
Yeah, but they were actually making them when they said that. It was just the rationale for licensing the technology to other manufacturer. Intel is just being a sourpuss.
Maybe if you all could have kept the French out, you'd have a language pure and logical enough to be worth preserving! Instead you bequeathed us 'colonists' with the Microsoft version of languages... Bloated, ineeficient and full of contradictions and exceptions yet spoken by anyone with money so we have to use it.
Personally, I'd rather be speaking Gaelic but it's pretty hard to learn once you've learned (or is it learnt?) English.
The money goes to the plaintiff because it's a civil case, not a criminal case. Microsoft is the plaintiff, not society as a whole. Sometimes the government will bring civil cases against others, a la the tobacco cases, and then the money goes to the 'tax revenue base'.
Personally, I think it's a scam that the government can use the civil court system to extort money from parties it doesn't have enough evidence against to try on a criminal basis. The standards of evidence are sooo much loser in a civil case.
Re:Preserve Hubble for the future
on
Hope for Hubble
·
· Score: 1
I applaud your sentiment. However, once Hubble's batteries die and the heaters stop heating, it's over. The Hot/Cold cycle of the orbit will destroy the electronics. That's the most obvious problem.
This is why the SM is so important, sure, we need to get some new gyros in there and it'll be dandy to have a new FGS onboard, but without new batteries, it's a moot point. Hubble is working on its original batteries still and even though they've done a great job (have you ever used the same rechargable battery for 15 years?), their time is coming.
Re:Space telescopes are obsolete
on
Hope for Hubble
·
· Score: 2, Funny
I'm sorry, that's just stupid.
An example: 2 of the 3 sources for the first optical evidence of a planet outside our solar system came from SPACE TELESCOPES (Hubble and Spitzer). This was last week I think. Maybe 2 weeks ago. Is that the work of an obsolete system?
Your physics professor needs to stick to dropping balls from ladders and leave the astronomy to astronomers.
Yeah except HST can still talk and doesn't need a feeding tube. I'm sorry, I don't have a sense of humor about this.
People, HST is still functioning as expected. The reason there is concern and extra measures taken to conserve the batteries and develop 2 gyro science is that uncertainty has been introduced about whether the next servicing mission will happen. It's just prudent to conserve your resources and prepare contingency plans in such a situation. It's called getting the most of what you have!
Let's also remember that while unanticipated repairs were made to HST during the last 4 missions, the missions themselves were planned from the beginning of the project. As is the next one, though it was supposed to take place in '02 (I think). So, the thing isn't broken or breaking. It's wearing out, yes, but that was taken into consideration in scheduling the SMs. Let's see you spin around a few hundred billion times like one of those gyros and see if you don't start showing signs of wear. Or try going from near absolute zero to a few hundred degrees a few times a day and see if you don't get a little out of sorts.
I know Voyager I and II are still sending telemetry, but does anyone know what percentage of it's instruments are still functional?
Well, maybe you should talk to the end users, I think they're called astronomers and they might have some insight as to the usefulness of HST to their research. Why would we have gone through the time and expense to develop 2 gyro sciense if no one wanted to use it? There isn't a single terrestrial telescope that can touch HST in capabilities. It's only peers are other space telescopes and that's being charitable. They're all very good at doing only one thing be it X-Ray or Infrared. JWST isn't due out til '11 or '12 and it won't even be as capable as HST. It's primarily an Infrared telescope. HST after SM4 will see Infrared and Ultraviolet as well as Visible. We have no plans to truly replace HST. Why not get the most out of it?
Yeah...there are jobs at stake. Some programs in their early stages have been cannabalized to save the ones that are close to launch. I won't comment on their relative merits. The fact remains that Hubble has been highly successful for the past 15 years and can remain so almost indefinitely. It was designed that way. You all need to stop thinking about this one-time use stuff that's been the prevailing model for the last 50 odd years. Expandable and Upgradable is more cost effective in the long run. When a better video card comes out, do you throw out your whole PC to upgrade? Think of HST as a PC in space. Hell, it has a PC on board and it's the second rev! If we wanted to, and the chasis held up, we could opearate HST for another 15 years. Just about every system is replacable.
Re:Symbolic, Of Course
on
Hope for Hubble
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Because there gyroscopes. The Reaction wheels provide the energy to change HST's orientation and the gyros provide the feedback to sense the movement. Hubble's pointing and control systems are more fascinating to me than the science instruments.
And where did you hear that it would cost less to build another?? Last I heard, only $300,000,000 or so is allocated for the SM. I'd like to see you build a telescope with the same stability and accuracy as HST for that little.
It makes an excellent target. "The most bang for your buck" American capitalism at its best/worst depending on your point of view. Plus it's easy to hit with a plane!
Well, not to put to fine a point on it, but we can only regard this from the point of view of life as we know it. Otherwise we wouldn't know it is life and we wouldn't think that it's life. So, either it is life as we know it, or life as we haven't previously known it and now do, or dirt.
**I don't even know why I'm bothering with this reply. No one will see it anyway**
I concede. Genetically speaking, there is more variety in the sea. I still think that the rate of evolution on land has been much faster than in the sea due to the relative stability of the environments. By the way, when you get down to it, bacteria have all other Kingdoms (and I mean it this time) trumped when it comes to diversity. I had never thought of it before, but every multi-celled organism has forms of bacteria incorporated in their cells (ie. mitochondria).
However, none of this has anything to do with what chemicals I may or may not ingest and I take exception to your characterization of me. If you can't disagree with someone without calling names or assaulting (erroneously) the character of your opponent, then keep out of the discussion.
I can't agree that the ocean is more or even at least as varied as land. Consider with which parts of the ocean sea life interacts. For most, it's just the water. Yes, there are reefs and caves and sand and vents, but it boils down to the fact that it is primarily the water and the amount of light that a fish must deal with.
Perhaps I overstated to say that fish are basically the same. However, I think that you must grant that they are more similar to each other than mammals are to each other. Mammals go from elephants to cats to mice to monkeys to horses, etc etc. The differences among mammals is much greater, mainly due to the differences in their environments.
Please remember that I am speaking in relative terms here. I in no way intend to imply that there is NO variance in the oceans. Just considerably less than on land.
I won't say that I have evidence, but I won't have to look too far to prove that the rate of change in land animals since they left the water has far outpaced sea animals when they started. I mean, horseshoe crabs and sharks are still around! Why? Because they're so advanced? No. Because they're environment has not changed significantly in millions and millions of years. I would have to say that the impact of human activity has got to be the greatest challenge sea life has faced in aeons. Also, take the seasons. What is the change in temperature of water in any one location? Not much. Warm oceans stay warm and cold ones stay cold...relatively. Sea life that experience vast differences in temperature in its life has to migrate vast distances to do so. For the most part these are mammals with the exception of some sharks and fewer fish like salmon. Also, when was the last time a coral reef turned into a deep sea canyon or the other way around. We have evidence that some deserts used to be forests and vice versa. THAT is variance.
Evolution is not unbounded. An organism can only evolve as much as its environment will allow. This is why there is less 'intelligence' in the water. Water is a relatively unvaried environment. A lack of varied environment leads to less variety in the organism. Look at fish. They're all pretty much the same. Basically. Look at Mammals. VERY different within the Kingdom. What Kingdom has been around longer? The fish. Why aren't they more 'advanced' than mammals? Less variance in environment. More variance means more opportunity for evolutionary advancement through mutations. From what I recall, Mars' environment isn't too varied.
The temperature varies, but it seldom, if ever, gets above the freezing point of water. (NASA says the high is 59 with a low of about -184) Let's not forget that the presence of liquid water is VERY important to life as we know it. Not too many organisms can survive in low water conditions. Note though that there is life everywhere on Earth, even in the ice of the arctic and antartic.
Perhaps his point was that Christians tend to concern themselves with alcohol consumption, at least in this country. It's a stereotype, true, but not unearned.
This idea in and of itself is not bad, so long as its optional. I suppose there are a few people out there who don't trust themselves and would rather have a police officer catch them then be responsible for a death. Once this becomes mandated by government, that would be bad.
I, for one, would prefer that the police actually do their job. Increasingly, the police are using automated devices to do their policing. It started with radar/vascar/lasers and now we have red light/speed cameras. They don't even have to be present for you to get slapped with a traffic tax. Shouldn't the issue be more about whether you are operating the vehicle safely as opposed to how much of a chemical you've ingested? MD's legal limit just dropped to.08. How can we be sure that no one can safely operate a vehicle at that level? One of the cornerstones of law enforcement is the discretionary power of an officer. Taking that away will go a long way towards creating a Big Brother society
Slashdot Mirror
We're not talking about access to the Internet. We're talking about a hosting company. Network Solutions is not the only hosting company. There are, what, thousands to choose from, at least? I'm sure some of them would host this content. I don't think the bandwidth providers, like AT&T, would get involved at this level. That remains to be seen, I'll admit.
I defend a corporations right to control the content it hosts. Like you said: "they don't want to be another target of violent factions of Islam or hordes of politically correct, censorship-minded people / investors." and they have a right to that position, too. Let your wallet speak for you. They don't exactly have a monopoly on web hosting.
Nationalizing the Internet is the LAST thing you want. You have heard what China does with their piece of it on a fairly regular basis, right?
Also, Congress allocated the funds for SM4 as a specific line item (about $380 million, don't quote me on that) and Babs Mikulski wasn't going to let NASA spend it on something different. Since the robotic mission was nixed, the shuttle mission was re-evaluated and the risks accepted.
It does have a 486 on board so if you can get the Flight Software guys to add it in, it could.
Any mirrors of these documents? I'm getting empty files on their site.
Ha! you obviously have not had a two year old girl in your house!!
Example: My daughter wants to open a tube of toothpaste with a flip top on it. I let her figure it out. She starts prying at the seam between the cap and tube with her thumbnail. Not a bad choice. However, the cap is designed with an indentation to get leverage with the side of your thumb to push it open, saving your precious thumbnail from getting mangled. I let my daughter bang her head on the problem for about a minute, then I convince her to let me show her a 'better way' by pushing on the indentation. SHe observed and understood the procedure but decided that her way was better and went back to it. Eventually, she got it open and submitted that as proof that her way is just as good. Recently she started employing the method that I showed her. Probably after she felt enough time had passed that I couldn't take credit for showing her.
Sometimes learning can be influenced by personality more than species.
Yeah, but they were actually making them when they said that. It was just the rationale for licensing the technology to other manufacturer. Intel is just being a sourpuss.
Not only that, but his post was modded "Insightful" for an added measure of selfreferential yumminess!
the quote continues:
;]
[ And don't get me wrong - I follow slashdot too, exactly because it's fun
to see people argue. I'm not complaining
He says he's not complaining. Sounds like he's just making a characterization of how discussions go around here...not too far off the mark.
Maybe if you all could have kept the French out, you'd have a language pure and logical enough to be worth preserving! Instead you bequeathed us 'colonists' with the Microsoft version of languages... Bloated, ineeficient and full of contradictions and exceptions yet spoken by anyone with money so we have to use it.
Personally, I'd rather be speaking Gaelic but it's pretty hard to learn once you've learned (or is it learnt?) English.
The money goes to the plaintiff because it's a civil case, not a criminal case. Microsoft is the plaintiff, not society as a whole. Sometimes the government will bring civil cases against others, a la the tobacco cases, and then the money goes to the 'tax revenue base'.
Personally, I think it's a scam that the government can use the civil court system to extort money from parties it doesn't have enough evidence against to try on a criminal basis. The standards of evidence are sooo much loser in a civil case.
I applaud your sentiment. However, once Hubble's batteries die and the heaters stop heating, it's over. The Hot/Cold cycle of the orbit will destroy the electronics. That's the most obvious problem.
This is why the SM is so important, sure, we need to get some new gyros in there and it'll be dandy to have a new FGS onboard, but without new batteries, it's a moot point. Hubble is working on its original batteries still and even though they've done a great job (have you ever used the same rechargable battery for 15 years?), their time is coming.
I'm sorry, that's just stupid.
An example:
2 of the 3 sources for the first optical evidence of a planet outside our solar system came from SPACE TELESCOPES (Hubble and Spitzer). This was last week I think. Maybe 2 weeks ago. Is that the work of an obsolete system?
Your physics professor needs to stick to dropping balls from ladders and leave the astronomy to astronomers.
Friggin' professors. They piss me off.
Yeah except HST can still talk and doesn't need a feeding tube. I'm sorry, I don't have a sense of humor about this.
People, HST is still functioning as expected. The reason there is concern and extra measures taken to conserve the batteries and develop 2 gyro science is that uncertainty has been introduced about whether the next servicing mission will happen. It's just prudent to conserve your resources and prepare contingency plans in such a situation. It's called getting the most of what you have!
Let's also remember that while unanticipated repairs were made to HST during the last 4 missions, the missions themselves were planned from the beginning of the project. As is the next one, though it was supposed to take place in '02 (I think). So, the thing isn't broken or breaking. It's wearing out, yes, but that was taken into consideration in scheduling the SMs. Let's see you spin around a few hundred billion times like one of those gyros and see if you don't start showing signs of wear. Or try going from near absolute zero to a few hundred degrees a few times a day and see if you don't get a little out of sorts.
I know Voyager I and II are still sending telemetry, but does anyone know what percentage of it's instruments are still functional?
Well, maybe you should talk to the end users, I think they're called astronomers and they might have some insight as to the usefulness of HST to their research. Why would we have gone through the time and expense to develop 2 gyro sciense if no one wanted to use it? There isn't a single terrestrial telescope that can touch HST in capabilities. It's only peers are other space telescopes and that's being charitable. They're all very good at doing only one thing be it X-Ray or Infrared. JWST isn't due out til '11 or '12 and it won't even be as capable as HST. It's primarily an Infrared telescope. HST after SM4 will see Infrared and Ultraviolet as well as Visible. We have no plans to truly replace HST. Why not get the most out of it?
Yeah...there are jobs at stake. Some programs in their early stages have been cannabalized to save the ones that are close to launch. I won't comment on their relative merits. The fact remains that Hubble has been highly successful for the past 15 years and can remain so almost indefinitely. It was designed that way. You all need to stop thinking about this one-time use stuff that's been the prevailing model for the last 50 odd years. Expandable and Upgradable is more cost effective in the long run. When a better video card comes out, do you throw out your whole PC to upgrade? Think of HST as a PC in space. Hell, it has a PC on board and it's the second rev! If we wanted to, and the chasis held up, we could opearate HST for another 15 years. Just about every system is replacable.
Because there gyroscopes. The Reaction wheels provide the energy to change HST's orientation and the gyros provide the feedback to sense the movement. Hubble's pointing and control systems are more fascinating to me than the science instruments.
And where did you hear that it would cost less to build another?? Last I heard, only $300,000,000 or so is allocated for the SM. I'd like to see you build a telescope with the same stability and accuracy as HST for that little.
Dude, that wasn't Cmdr Taco complaining.
cut from the article -
Here is a followup submitted by Reyacta from the original author
Sheesh. If you're going to bash, be right.
It makes an excellent target. "The most bang for your buck" American capitalism at its best/worst depending on your point of view. Plus it's easy to hit with a plane!
Well, not to put to fine a point on it, but we can only regard this from the point of view of life as we know it. Otherwise we wouldn't know it is life and we wouldn't think that it's life. So, either it is life as we know it, or life as we haven't previously known it and now do, or dirt.
**I don't even know why I'm bothering with this reply. No one will see it anyway**
I concede. Genetically speaking, there is more variety in the sea. I still think that the rate of evolution on land has been much faster than in the sea due to the relative stability of the environments. By the way, when you get down to it, bacteria have all other Kingdoms (and I mean it this time) trumped when it comes to diversity. I had never thought of it before, but every multi-celled organism has forms of bacteria incorporated in their cells (ie. mitochondria).
However, none of this has anything to do with what chemicals I may or may not ingest and I take exception to your characterization of me. If you can't disagree with someone without calling names or assaulting (erroneously) the character of your opponent, then keep out of the discussion.
3000 brownie points for you! Ok. I used the wrong term...It should be class.
I can't agree that the ocean is more or even at least as varied as land. Consider with which parts of the ocean sea life interacts. For most, it's just the water. Yes, there are reefs and caves and sand and vents, but it boils down to the fact that it is primarily the water and the amount of light that a fish must deal with.
Perhaps I overstated to say that fish are basically the same. However, I think that you must grant that they are more similar to each other than mammals are to each other. Mammals go from elephants to cats to mice to monkeys to horses, etc etc. The differences among mammals is much greater, mainly due to the differences in their environments.
Please remember that I am speaking in relative terms here. I in no way intend to imply that there is NO variance in the oceans. Just considerably less than on land.
I won't say that I have evidence, but I won't have to look too far to prove that the rate of change in land animals since they left the water has far outpaced sea animals when they started. I mean, horseshoe crabs and sharks are still around! Why? Because they're so advanced? No. Because they're environment has not changed significantly in millions and millions of years. I would have to say that the impact of human activity has got to be the greatest challenge sea life has faced in aeons. Also, take the seasons. What is the change in temperature of water in any one location? Not much. Warm oceans stay warm and cold ones stay cold...relatively. Sea life that experience vast differences in temperature in its life has to migrate vast distances to do so. For the most part these are mammals with the exception of some sharks and fewer fish like salmon. Also, when was the last time a coral reef turned into a deep sea canyon or the other way around. We have evidence that some deserts used to be forests and vice versa. THAT is variance.
Evolution is not unbounded. An organism can only evolve as much as its environment will allow. This is why there is less 'intelligence' in the water. Water is a relatively unvaried environment. A lack of varied environment leads to less variety in the organism. Look at fish. They're all pretty much the same. Basically. Look at Mammals. VERY different within the Kingdom. What Kingdom has been around longer? The fish. Why aren't they more 'advanced' than mammals? Less variance in environment. More variance means more opportunity for evolutionary advancement through mutations. From what I recall, Mars' environment isn't too varied.
The temperature varies, but it seldom, if ever, gets above the freezing point of water. (NASA says the high is 59 with a low of about -184) Let's not forget that the presence of liquid water is VERY important to life as we know it. Not too many organisms can survive in low water conditions. Note though that there is life everywhere on Earth, even in the ice of the arctic and antartic.
Perhaps his point was that Christians tend to concern themselves with alcohol consumption, at least in this country. It's a stereotype, true, but not unearned.
This idea in and of itself is not bad, so long as its optional. I suppose there are a few people out there who don't trust themselves and would rather have a police officer catch them then be responsible for a death. Once this becomes mandated by government, that would be bad.
I, for one, would prefer that the police actually do their job. Increasingly, the police are using automated devices to do their policing. It started with radar/vascar/lasers and now we have red light/speed cameras. They don't even have to be present for you to get slapped with a traffic tax. Shouldn't the issue be more about whether you are operating the vehicle safely as opposed to how much of a chemical you've ingested? MD's legal limit just dropped to .08. How can we be sure that no one can safely operate a vehicle at that level? One of the cornerstones of law enforcement is the discretionary power of an officer. Taking that away will go a long way towards creating a Big Brother society