I guess you'd describe a plane in freefall as having no up and no down either then. The Earth's gravity is only about 10% weaker on the ISS than it is on the surface.
I am not sure what your point is but that is not what microgravity means, IMO. You claimed there is no up or down on the ISS because it is in "zero gravity". My point is that the weightlessness felt by people on the ISS is because it is in constant freefall, not because it doesn't feel the Earth's gravity. If you concede that a plane in freefall still has an up and a down then you must concede that the ISS does too.
except they are not at zero G they are in microgravity.
Very little difference, IMO.
I guess you'd describe a plane in freefall as having no up and no down either then. The Earth's gravity is only about 10% weaker on the ISS than it is on the surface.
Scaled Composites didn't spend a dime. Apologies. I should have said "Paul Allen did not spend $20M+ to win the X Prize in 2004..."
The point is that the prize did not cover the costs of development and the development did not happen because of the prize. That point is just as valid whether Scaled Composites, Rutan personally, or an external backer who funded the development.
And fucking cheap, which I suspect is the real motivation. Does he have any idea how much any potential Chinese or Japanese or European or even US-built technologies cost to do something comparable? Orders of magnitude more than $2 million (which is the prize, not the development cost, so one would assume the expected development cost should be even lower than that). The Apollo Lunar Module cost about $50 million in 1969 dollars, and it was less advanced than what they're aiming for this time. Right. Though keep in mind that no one is developing an actual lunar lander, just the sort of propulsion and control systems that would be necessary. The Apollo LEM had to fulfill requirements (such as life support) that these vehicles don't need to consider.
But they haven't won yet, they have no lander. I'm saying it can't be done for anywhere near 2 mil. They haven't won yet, but they have successfully flown the level one mission outside of competition. So they certainly do have a lander. I don't know if their costs have exceed $2M, but if they have it won't have been by much. Carmack makes the point in this post that their vehicle is probably the first rocket in history to have more spent on consumables than on the vehicle itself:
Pixel had more rocket powered flight time that weekend than Space Ship One had in all of its flights combined. We have also spent more on operational consumables (helium, lox, alcohol, truck rental) than the vehicle itself cost, which is probably a first for any rocket vehicle. That means the costs so far are almost certainly below $2M.
Not quite. ESA was studying Hermes Hermes was a much smaller scale vehicle that Buran. I think it's highly doubtful that the ESA would have been interested in Buran. It would have been too difficult to pick up the project and too expensive to run it. Same goes for Japan. Notice that neither the ESA or Japan have developed any alternate manned launch system (though the ESA has Soyuz now). Surely they would have if the need and the money was there, especially if they felt they could do better than Buran.
note the design that looks a lot more like Buran than the American Space Shuttle) Hardly. Buran and the Space Shuttle are very similar in terms of physical design. The most significant difference being the lack of engines on Buran. Hermes is similar to Buran only in the lack of engines.
precisely because the USSR was collapsing, if the Buran project had some value, they would have sold it in some way, like they did with most of the technologies that had some value (that included planes, helicopters, rockets, nukes, and so on...) Buran wasn't a finished product. There was one mostly completed vehicle that flew once. Trying to transplant that partly complete project into another country would have been a complete nightmare. It's not like buying a plane. And by the time it was actually cancelled in 1993 it would have been very difficult to get another useful together.
Will they let the chinese show up? Or maybe the Japanese? Those are orbiters, not landing modules, so no. Anyway the Lunar Lander Challenge has nothing to do with sending anything to the moon. Rather it requires the ability to fly a particular (VTOL) flight profile and quick turnaround times. It's aimed at getting private developers to develop technology that none of the world's governments seem to be working on (i.e. quick turnaround).
I'm so tired of my tax dollars being wasted on international dick-waving contests like this. I wish NASA et al would just whip out the rulers- it'd be cheaper. Then again, it wouldn't feed the defense contractors, now would it? I'm tired of people making uninformed comments about stories they clearly haven't even read and still getting modded up for it. We don't always get what we want.
The thing I always wondered about these kinds of contests, like the x prize, is doesn't it cost more to build your craft than you win? These sorts of prizes are not intended to be money making schemes for the competitors. They are intended to offset development costs for technology that has value in its own right. For example Scaled Composites did not spend $20M or whatever to win the X Prize in 2004, they were developing a commercial venture that happened to be close to the X Prize requirements. Similarly Armadillo Aerospace are not building rockets just to compete in the LLC, rather the LLC happens to be something they can compete in without radically altering the direction of the development they were already doing. Though if they won both levels they would recoup the majority of their costs.
It's not revisionist to think they probably ran out of money _because_ the Buran solved no real problem that had not already been solved with other technologies. Had the Buran a real task to do, it would probably get some funding. You do know that the soviet union was collapsing at the time, right? The lack of funding for Buran had nothing to do with the program and everything to do with the economic and political state of the union. Buran could have been the greatest space program ever conceived and it still would have been cancelled.
Of course the Soviets noticed this was a bad idea (it would be smarter to send the cargo on top of the Energia rocket and not carry Buran's dead weight) and aborted the project after the first flight.
That's a bit revisionist. The design was not in question. The Soviets ran out of money. If they hadn't they would have continued with the program.
Up until this point, all of our user IDs have been small enough that 32 bits is sufficient to store them all. In the not-so-distant future, we will begin using 64 bit object IDs in some places. So, the numbers will become to big to handle in some situations Seems pretty clear:
1. User IDs are currently 32 bits.
2. They are changing some object IDs to 64 bits.
It does not say they are changing user IDs to 64 bits. It's implied but not stated. It's not actually clear that "user ID" means the ID of an account - it might just mean a user-visible ID (such as comments have on Slashdot).
Card counters in blackjack being a rare exception, where they can eak out an overall 1% return on investment if they get away with it Completely agree with what you said, but this statement needs clarifying. That 1% isn't really the ROI because it's a 1% edge per dollar bet and the total bets in a session will be many times the investment (bankroll). A counter wouldn't start a session with $100 and expect to end with $101 on average. There'd be no point if it were that low a return.
And whoever modded you up (though they probably didn't bother following the links). To be fair having the picture of the Porsche against the Team Polizei story is misleading.
The first story names the accident drivers as Nick Morley and Matthew McConville. The second story names the Team Polizei drivers as (Alex) Roy and (Micahel) Ross. Did you even read the stories you linked to?
Stand up for people who think they are above the laws and better than everyone else. I'll stand up for people who are incorrectly accused of a crime regardless of their other actions, sure. That doesn't mean I condone what they do, it just means I like to condemn people on the facts rather than calling them guilty by association.
If you've ever sped in your life you're just as guilty as them. Legally, perhaps, though usually you are committing a more serious crime if you exceed the limit by a large amount than if you only just exceed the limit. You may be just as guilty, but you are guilty of a lesser offense. Morally, only if you believe that the posted limits are in fact the safest ones and any deviation is criminally dangerous, i.e. that 65 is perfectly safe, but 66 is recklessly dangerous. Most people would believe that there is a difference between someone exceeding the limit by 60mph, compared to someone exceeding the limit by 6, in terms the recklessness.
You've got a reference to back up your claim that the hit and run incident involved Team Polizei? Nothing I've seen indicates that Team Polizei were in any way involved.
This guy's not a geek, he's just rich enough to afford some expensive toys, a fast car, and not enough common sense or respect for others. Is Will Wright enough of a geek for you?
I think you missed the point... What I was talking about was at which point the mail some else sends, their mail, becomes the mail you receive, your mail ie. the sender versus the recipient and whose email is being read. So as the receiver getting email into my private ISP provided account I have agreed to nothing with google nor can the sending by use gmail imply that I have. Google don't insert ads into outgoing emails. I assumed you were talking about receiving email with a Gmail account because those are the only emails Google scan (at least for targeted advertising).
It's hard to argue that you have a reasonable expectation of privacy when the sender sends the correspondence in plain text and with no prior knowledge of what systems it might pass through.
I send letters to my grandparents using unencrypted plaintext, too. Also I have no "prior knowledge of what systems it might pass through". Where would I find this information? Letters are sealed. You have a reasonable expectation that they only be opened by the recipient (and there is plenty of case law to support that expectation). And you do know what system the letter will travel through: USPS. There is a single entity controlling the letter's passage from the point that it left your hand to the point it is delivered in your grandparents' letterbox. With email it could go through any number of servers owned by any number of entities and you have no way of knowing (with 100% accuracy) or controlling that path in advance.
Now here is a interesting point which no one has tackled yet. When I go out to my letter box, and open by letter box and look inside my letter box I see 'my' mail, it is no longer the mail of the people who sent it to me, it is my mail, and any unauthorised person who attempts to open my mail, or intercept my mail or read my mail, has committed a criminal offence. There are several problems with that analogy. You clearly own your letterbox, but do you own your Gmail inbox? It's on their server.
There's a clear argument that you own the account, but the actual contents of the storage dedicated to that account? There's certainly no legal recourse if Google deletes your mail accidentally.
At what point has Google delivered your mail? When it's in your inbox? When it's been downloaded to your computer? What if they are scanning and indexing it before they move it to your inbox?
And unencrypted email is not like a sealed letter, it's like a postcard. This is important because privacy of correspondence laws in the US are derived from the 4th Amendment and are therefore restricted by the requirement for a "reasonable expectation of privacy". It's hard to argue that you have a reasonable expectation of privacy when the sender sends the correspondence in plain text and with no prior knowledge of what systems it might pass through.
So when a gmail user sends me an email, google has invaded my privacy as the email receiver and if they attempt to send me a targeted add based upon the contents of my email, have they committed an offence and opened and read my mail with out my authorisation. It's doubtful that Google have committed any sort of offense, even if they have actual people reading your mail. Certainly Google would have a very strong defense if they can show that they are following the terms you agreed to when you created the account. Further, a ruling against allowing Google to scan email to target advertising would have far reaching consequences: it would effectively ban the use of spam and virus filters by ISPs as well. I suspect a court would be very unlikely to make such a ruling.
So, no, security folks are not "wanking around" as some specific asshole seems to claim, they are using the best tools available to evaluate adequacy of different security solutions. Those that do not get this are not getting what security is about and what the state of the art is. These people should better stay far away from security-relevant decisions and let people that at least understand present technology in that area make the decisions. If you actually read the article instead of just reacting to the sensationalist quote you'd know that this is exactly what Linus is saying. Security people don't agree and he is not qualified to make a decision so modularization needs to stay. In the case of the scheduler he feels he is qualified to make decisions and has done so. However he does bemoan the fact that the arguments presented by the security experts often don't make a lot of sense. This is where the "wanking around" quote comes from.
I really didn't explain myself very well. It's no more difficult if you're trying to figure out what someone in a different timezone is doing right now (or at some specific time). But it's much more difficult if you're traveling. I know that wherever I go there is a good chance shops and businesses operate between the local hours of 9am and 5pm and that lunchtime is probably around midday. If everywhere used UTC then I'd have to rememorize that info everytime I moved a couple of thousand kms east or west. Bad for a trip to another country, absolutely horrible for a tour through several countries. For people who travel it turns changing your watch twice into having to constantly do the calculation.
Slashdot Mirror
Very little difference, IMO.
I guess you'd describe a plane in freefall as having no up and no down either then. The Earth's gravity is only about 10% weaker on the ISS than it is on the surface.The point is that the prize did not cover the costs of development and the development did not happen because of the prize. That point is just as valid whether Scaled Composites, Rutan personally, or an external backer who funded the development.
If you read TFA you'd know that "the Lunar challenge is part of the 2007 WireFly X Prize Cup event at Holloman."
1. User IDs are currently 32 bits.
2. They are changing some object IDs to 64 bits.
It does not say they are changing user IDs to 64 bits. It's implied but not stated. It's not actually clear that "user ID" means the ID of an account - it might just mean a user-visible ID (such as comments have on Slashdot).
And whoever modded you up (though they probably didn't bother following the links). To be fair having the picture of the Porsche against the Team Polizei story is misleading.
The first story names the accident drivers as Nick Morley and Matthew McConville. The second story names the Team Polizei drivers as (Alex) Roy and (Micahel) Ross. Did you even read the stories you linked to?
You've got a reference to back up your claim that the hit and run incident involved Team Polizei? Nothing I've seen indicates that Team Polizei were in any way involved.
I send letters to my grandparents using unencrypted plaintext, too. Also I have no "prior knowledge of what systems it might pass through". Where would I find this information? Letters are sealed. You have a reasonable expectation that they only be opened by the recipient (and there is plenty of case law to support that expectation). And you do know what system the letter will travel through: USPS. There is a single entity controlling the letter's passage from the point that it left your hand to the point it is delivered in your grandparents' letterbox. With email it could go through any number of servers owned by any number of entities and you have no way of knowing (with 100% accuracy) or controlling that path in advance.
At what point has Google delivered your mail? When it's in your inbox? When it's been downloaded to your computer? What if they are scanning and indexing it before they move it to your inbox?
And unencrypted email is not like a sealed letter, it's like a postcard. This is important because privacy of correspondence laws in the US are derived from the 4th Amendment and are therefore restricted by the requirement for a "reasonable expectation of privacy". It's hard to argue that you have a reasonable expectation of privacy when the sender sends the correspondence in plain text and with no prior knowledge of what systems it might pass through.
So when a gmail user sends me an email, google has invaded my privacy as the email receiver and if they attempt to send me a targeted add based upon the contents of my email, have they committed an offence and opened and read my mail with out my authorisation. It's doubtful that Google have committed any sort of offense, even if they have actual people reading your mail. Certainly Google would have a very strong defense if they can show that they are following the terms you agreed to when you created the account. Further, a ruling against allowing Google to scan email to target advertising would have far reaching consequences: it would effectively ban the use of spam and virus filters by ISPs as well. I suspect a court would be very unlikely to make such a ruling.I really didn't explain myself very well. It's no more difficult if you're trying to figure out what someone in a different timezone is doing right now (or at some specific time). But it's much more difficult if you're traveling. I know that wherever I go there is a good chance shops and businesses operate between the local hours of 9am and 5pm and that lunchtime is probably around midday. If everywhere used UTC then I'd have to rememorize that info everytime I moved a couple of thousand kms east or west. Bad for a trip to another country, absolutely horrible for a tour through several countries. For people who travel it turns changing your watch twice into having to constantly do the calculation.