Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe PG&E is required by law to pay them for the electricity they're providing to the grid. If they're producing enough, they may be able to cash in!
I skimmed the article and didn't catch anything about the re-launch within the given time period. Are they going to try and reuse the vehicle anytime soon? This, IMHO, is one of the most interesting requirements of winning the X-Prize.
Anyone who's ever been on the tours at Kennedy Space Center knows that the space shuttle launches don't begin with the countdown. Rather, they begin when the space shuttle touches down and the crews start preparing the shuttle for re-launch. Given that it takes (took?) NASA a helluva long time to get the shuttles prepped for re-launch, I'm wondering how these teams in pursuit of the X-Prize are doing with their plans to quickly refuel and relaunch the craft(s) within the alloted time period.
A few years back, one of the members of my Quake clan was a programmer who preferred BeOS as his platform of choice for development and other everyday tasks. He eventually went to work for Be and we didn't hear from him much after that. Nevertheless, we always gave him hell about his BeOS preference. Here are a few choice quotes from our IRC logs:
This first one is particularly applicable as it pertains to the "uncorruptable" BeOS filesystem.
<dEad{Ni}> but you have more problems with win95 than i have ever imagined anyone having <Tolen{Ni}> nah...you should see some of the people on my dorm floor... <Tolen{Ni}> one guy had to fdisk like 5 times last semester <Magaera{Ni}> hehe <Magaera{Ni}> You CAN'T corrupt the BeOS file system <Magaera{Ni}> Even by kicking out the power cord <Gunfighter{Ni}> you can't play Q2 on it either:P
<Magaera{Ni}> potty stop - brb <Gunfighter{Ni}> overkill.. yellow card <Magaera{Ni}> what, you'd rather say i was going to "the little programmer's room" or something?? <Deathwish{Ni}> I got take a BeOS
<Magaera{Ni}> "BeOS combines the best features of all the major operating systems: the ease-of-use of the Macintosh, the power and flexibility of Linux, and Minesweeper from Windows."
This looks like something the military would whip out of a classified lab. You just need a few enhancements to complete the device:
Long life energy source with the ability to recharge in the field or from a variety of sources (fuel cell?)
360 degree view from the cockpit
Real-time medical monitoring of the occupant
Powered movement for traveling long distances, lifting heavy objects, and close quarters combat. Perhaps even a small, tracked (as in tank, not tracked as in RFID) "docking station" type device for travelling long distances
Night vision
Make the armor bullet-proof
Targeting system with LASER range finder
Weapons... lots of 'em
Enhanced communications for live battlefield updates
Rapid deployment system (perhaps a vehicle designed to carry a squad of them into the fringes of a battle, whether it be by land or air)
Ability to weatherproof and modify the system to suit different environments (desert, jungle, urban, cold weather, etc.)
Multimedia display and recording with the ability to relay pictures/sound/video to HQ
Remote kill switch to power down and/or disable rogue or compromised unit(s)
One thing I keep my eye out for is innovative use of both new and old packages and techniques. For example, does the distro come with the same old flavor of Foo v1.0, or does it have Foo 1.4 with the Bar 1.2 addon? More packages can often lead to more complexity and bloat, but the choice to include the new bells and whistles should at least be available if the software was designed to take advantage of addon libraries and such.
This is why I use Gentoo. I specifically started using it on the server side of things (at the recommendation of the lead developer) because of it's extraordinary ability to compile PHP with the libraries I need for our web apps.
Re:Gentoo isn't for businesses right now...
on
Gentoo Linux Musings
·
· Score: 1
Unfortunately RedHat couldn't meet our requirements "out of the box". We require some customized software in order to run our applications. With RedHat, this meant downloading the source RPM, modifying the build spec, recompiling with our own internal revision numbers, and then installing. In some cases, it meant manually downloading the tarball and installing from the source. Dependencies eventually became a nightmare and we determined that we had several choices:
Rewrite our applications to conform to the out-of-the-box RedHat packages (no other dependencies)
Rewrite everything in Java (would have taken to much time and money)
Switch to Gentoo
Keeping everything manually updated became a pretty big hassle after a while, so we made our decision and switched to Gentoo.
I think this Gentoo poster about sums up our situation when it says the following:
"... He discovered lots of up-to-date packages that could be auto-built using the optimization settings and build-time functionality that he wanted,
rather than what some distro creator thought would be best for him..."
For us, flexibility is the key deciding factor. One good example of this is a recent situation where we took on a new customer who had been hosting on Win2K. We wanted to migrate their existing site from MSSQL/ASP to PostgreSQL/PHP. Our migration script was written in PHP, but our PHP installation didn't have the MSSQL driver installed. All I had to do was add "freetds" to the USE flags and run "emerge php". Done!
Re:Gentoo isn't for businesses right now...
on
Gentoo Linux Musings
·
· Score: 1
Re:Gentoo isn't for businesses right now...
on
Gentoo Linux Musings
·
· Score: 1
Enterprise Linux means a 24/7 support contract, a guarantee that every problem (including those weird problems you see on the forum without any replies) should be fixed ASAP because the company depends on the box.
Exactly!! That "support contract" would be me:) (even though we're not really an 'enterprise'). Why in the hell would I let that revenue go back to a software distributor like RedHat when I can do the same job (if not better) for less?
I provide 24/7 support and I guarantee that every problem will be fixed ASAP because over 6000 companies depend on the box, not just my customer (ASP/ISP). I was doing the same thing with the RedHat boxes, but it got to the point where the maintenance on them was more of a hassle than it was worth. We switched everything to Gentoo and all of a sudden the phone stopped ringing. Now I kick back the same support revenue without having to provide support all the damn time. I'm free to work on other projects.
Re:Gentoo isn't for businesses right now...
on
Gentoo Linux Musings
·
· Score: 5, Informative
We've been using Gentoo exclusively on both servers and workstations for well over a year now. The reason we chose Gentoo?
-- Stability -- Scalability -- Flexibility -- Customizability -- Support
We had a mixed RedHat/Mandrake shop before that. From our point of view, we hope other businesses share your opinion. It gives us the competitive advantage.
On a more serious note, imagine if KDE/GNOME/Mozilla all joined forces and worked under common leadership towards a common goal. That's an environment I would like to see someday! Throw in the WINE project and we're talking some major software muscle.
Funny you should mention that scene. I've been to the Smithsonian's storage facilities in Silver Hill, MD on numerous occasions. The final scene of the Ark rolling down an aisle with unknown treasures stacked floor to ceiling on either side isn't too far from the truth. The individual football field-sized containers are called "pods". They're highly guarded and environmentally controlled.
My favorite resident of the pods was the stuffed black rhino that the Smithsonian didn't want to put on display because the animal is extinct and they didn't want any controversy over it.
The scary thing is that if you took the time to look at every individual item on display in the Smithsonian for a few seconds, it would take you several years. If they actually had their entire collection displayed (they have crap tucked everywhere, not just in the Silver Hill storage facility), it would probably take you several lifetimes. There's no telling what they have stashed away.
The Smithsonian's "Secret Repairs" are handled by the Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Evaluation (http://www.si.edu/scmre/index.asp). SCMRE is, conveniently enough, primarily located at the Silver Hill storage facility.
I think I saw a few of those suckers streaking across the sky a night or two ago. It was the first time I'd seen more than one "shooting star" in a night. I guess I was wrong. It's not an extraterrestrial planetary attack plan in progress.
IRC? Well... I went in the military first and got a late start w/ my undergrad work. I started in 1996, right about the time a certain little First Person Shooter called "Quake" was hitting the shelves. IRC definitely didn't help much either, but I must say that Quake stole the show (and the study time, and the class time, and the homework time, etc.).
Fellow Americans, help abolish the IRS under the guidelines of H.R. 25 (currently making its way through the House). This will repeal the 16th ammendment and implement the Fair Tax. The bill has made it through the House before, but died in the Senate. Be sure to call your senators and tell them to make sure the bill gets passed once it hits the senate floor.
The new government tax entity can start from scratch with their information systems, and all of the IRS records can go to the archives. There's no reason why American tax dollars should be wasted on trying to save the dying IRS dinosaur when it can be replaced with a more sensible solution for a mere fraction of the cost.
Call/write your elected representatives up on the hill and tell them you're tired of this craphole of an economy AND tired of the ridiculous way taxes are collected. Tell them to support H.R. 25 or they can kiss your vote goodbye.
Imagine it... no more individual (or joint if you're married) tax forms to fill out... no more audits... economy would probably shoot through the roof... more jobs... more U.S. exports... the benefits are seemingly endless unless you're one of those tax-avoiding million/billionaires who manage to fly under the IRS radar.
For more info on the Fair Tax, visit http://www.fairtax.org/ or check out the brochure at http://www.fairtaxvolunteer.org/pdf/BROCHURE.pdf.
I have a friend who works on this project for NASA and I asked the same question. His answer was quite simple: it's not supposed to aid space flight efforts. Keep in mind the first 'A' in NASA: Aeronautics.
I'm sure we'll eventually be able to deploy scramjet technology to boost space-bound vessels into the upper atmosphere and release them from there to continue under their own power. Given that the scramjet itself currently needs a boost, I think it will be a while before we see such a feat.
It's simple... just switch out loyalty cards with someone you know (the farther away they live the better) every three to six months or so. This should render all of the personalized collected data pretty useless: "He moved twelve times in the past two year and went from a vegan diet and vitamins to red meat and beer"
That would be great if people were to actually read and understand the intermediate page. However, most of the people browsing the World Wide Web won't take the time to read the explanation. They're just going to click the 'click here' link.
Perhaps slap one of those 'text in image' verifications and have the text read 'I love spam'?
Perhaps I should clarify. The 128Kb is for remote access should you decide to colo the box @ your phone company's CO. You shouldn't really need it if you're using the software for an onsite PBX system. Having the remote access gives you the ability to do things like...
- Download your voicemail as MP3 - administer the box via SSH/Web/etc. - Have alerts sent to your mobile device(s) via SMS - Email alerts to your inbox - Email voicemail messages to your inbox - FAX to email gateway - SNMP Monitoring - Connect via a VoIP client - [Insert cool idea here]
Slashdot Mirror
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe PG&E is required by law to pay them for the electricity they're providing to the grid. If they're producing enough, they may be able to cash in!
You're right... D.C. is too much. Instead, we should use SCO HQ in Utah. There's not quite as much, it's just a lot deeper.
Why not a European swallow? For that matter, why not a swallow carrying a coconut (perhaps grabbed by the husk?).
I skimmed the article and didn't catch anything about the re-launch within the given time period. Are they going to try and reuse the vehicle anytime soon? This, IMHO, is one of the most interesting requirements of winning the X-Prize.
Anyone who's ever been on the tours at Kennedy Space Center knows that the space shuttle launches don't begin with the countdown. Rather, they begin when the space shuttle touches down and the crews start preparing the shuttle for re-launch. Given that it takes (took?) NASA a helluva long time to get the shuttles prepped for re-launch, I'm wondering how these teams in pursuit of the X-Prize are doing with their plans to quickly refuel and relaunch the craft(s) within the alloted time period.
A few years back, one of the members of my Quake clan was a programmer who preferred BeOS as his platform of choice for development and other everyday tasks. He eventually went to work for Be and we didn't hear from him much after that. Nevertheless, we always gave him hell about his BeOS preference. Here are a few choice quotes from our IRC logs:
:P
This first one is particularly applicable as it pertains to the "uncorruptable" BeOS filesystem.
<dEad{Ni}> but you have more problems with win95 than i have ever imagined anyone having
<Tolen{Ni}> nah...you should see some of the people on my dorm floor...
<Tolen{Ni}> one guy had to fdisk like 5 times last semester
<Magaera{Ni}> hehe
<Magaera{Ni}> You CAN'T corrupt the BeOS file system
<Magaera{Ni}> Even by kicking out the power cord
<Gunfighter{Ni}> you can't play Q2 on it either
<Magaera{Ni}> potty stop - brb
<Gunfighter{Ni}> overkill.. yellow card
<Magaera{Ni}> what, you'd rather say i was going to "the little programmer's room" or something??
<Deathwish{Ni}> I got take a BeOS
<Magaera{Ni}> "BeOS combines the best features of all the major operating systems: the ease-of-use of the Macintosh, the power and flexibility of Linux, and Minesweeper from Windows."
One thing I keep my eye out for is innovative use of both new and old packages and techniques. For example, does the distro come with the same old flavor of Foo v1.0, or does it have Foo 1.4 with the Bar 1.2 addon? More packages can often lead to more complexity and bloat, but the choice to include the new bells and whistles should at least be available if the software was designed to take advantage of addon libraries and such.
This is why I use Gentoo. I specifically started using it on the server side of things (at the recommendation of the lead developer) because of it's extraordinary ability to compile PHP with the libraries I need for our web apps.
Unfortunately RedHat couldn't meet our requirements "out of the box". We require some customized software in order to run our applications. With RedHat, this meant downloading the source RPM, modifying the build spec, recompiling with our own internal revision numbers, and then installing. In some cases, it meant manually downloading the tarball and installing from the source. Dependencies eventually became a nightmare and we determined that we had several choices:
- Rewrite our applications to conform to the out-of-the-box RedHat packages (no other dependencies)
- Rewrite everything in Java (would have taken to much time and money)
- Switch to Gentoo
Keeping everything manually updated became a pretty big hassle after a while, so we made our decision and switched to Gentoo.I think this Gentoo poster about sums up our situation when it says the following:
For us, flexibility is the key deciding factor. One good example of this is a recent situation where we took on a new customer who had been hosting on Win2K. We wanted to migrate their existing site from MSSQL/ASP to PostgreSQL/PHP. Our migration script was written in PHP, but our PHP installation didn't have the MSSQL driver installed. All I had to do was add "freetds" to the USE flags and run "emerge php". Done!I am the support (as explained here).
Enterprise Linux means a 24/7 support contract, a guarantee that every problem (including those weird problems you see on the forum without any replies) should be fixed ASAP because the company depends on the box.
Exactly!! That "support contract" would be me :) (even though we're not really an 'enterprise'). Why in the hell would I let that revenue go back to a software distributor like RedHat when I can do the same job (if not better) for less?
I provide 24/7 support and I guarantee that every problem will be fixed ASAP because over 6000 companies depend on the box, not just my customer (ASP/ISP). I was doing the same thing with the RedHat boxes, but it got to the point where the maintenance on them was more of a hassle than it was worth. We switched everything to Gentoo and all of a sudden the phone stopped ringing. Now I kick back the same support revenue without having to provide support all the damn time. I'm free to work on other projects.
We've been using Gentoo exclusively on both servers and workstations for well over a year now. The reason we chose Gentoo?
-- Stability
-- Scalability
-- Flexibility
-- Customizability
-- Support
We had a mixed RedHat/Mandrake shop before that. From our point of view, we hope other businesses share your opinion. It gives us the competitive advantage.
... then we would have KNOMzilla.
On a more serious note, imagine if KDE/GNOME/Mozilla all joined forces and worked under common leadership towards a common goal. That's an environment I would like to see someday! Throw in the WINE project and we're talking some major software muscle.
Funny you should mention that scene. I've been to the Smithsonian's storage facilities in Silver Hill, MD on numerous occasions. The final scene of the Ark rolling down an aisle with unknown treasures stacked floor to ceiling on either side isn't too far from the truth. The individual football field-sized containers are called "pods". They're highly guarded and environmentally controlled.
My favorite resident of the pods was the stuffed black rhino that the Smithsonian didn't want to put on display because the animal is extinct and they didn't want any controversy over it.
The scary thing is that if you took the time to look at every individual item on display in the Smithsonian for a few seconds, it would take you several years. If they actually had their entire collection displayed (they have crap tucked everywhere, not just in the Silver Hill storage facility), it would probably take you several lifetimes. There's no telling what they have stashed away.
The Smithsonian's "Secret Repairs" are handled by the Smithsonian Center for Materials Research and Evaluation (http://www.si.edu/scmre/index.asp). SCMRE is, conveniently enough, primarily located at the Silver Hill storage facility.
Dangit... I just took the trash out. Now I have to sculpt a new tinfoil hat from scratch.
I think I saw a few of those suckers streaking across the sky a night or two ago. It was the first time I'd seen more than one "shooting star" in a night. I guess I was wrong. It's not an extraterrestrial planetary attack plan in progress.
/me removes tinfoil hat
IRC? Well... I went in the military first and got a late start w/ my undergrad work. I started in 1996, right about the time a certain little First Person Shooter called "Quake" was hitting the shelves. IRC definitely didn't help much either, but I must say that Quake stole the show (and the study time, and the class time, and the homework time, etc.).
This will actually save the middle class, not destroy it. You can read my comments here:
8 79 9903
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=103268&cid=
Be sure to check out the brochure link. It explains everything and shows how this will benefit everyone, not just the rich.
Fellow Americans, help abolish the IRS under the guidelines of H.R. 25 (currently making its way through the House). This will repeal the 16th ammendment and implement the Fair Tax. The bill has made it through the House before, but died in the Senate. Be sure to call your senators and tell them to make sure the bill gets passed once it hits the senate floor.
The new government tax entity can start from scratch with their information systems, and all of the IRS records can go to the archives. There's no reason why American tax dollars should be wasted on trying to save the dying IRS dinosaur when it can be replaced with a more sensible solution for a mere fraction of the cost.
Call/write your elected representatives up on the hill and tell them you're tired of this craphole of an economy AND tired of the ridiculous way taxes are collected. Tell them to support H.R. 25 or they can kiss your vote goodbye.
Imagine it... no more individual (or joint if you're married) tax forms to fill out... no more audits... economy would probably shoot through the roof... more jobs... more U.S. exports... the benefits are seemingly endless unless you're one of those tax-avoiding million/billionaires who manage to fly under the IRS radar.
For more info on the Fair Tax, visit http://www.fairtax.org/ or check out the brochure at http://www.fairtaxvolunteer.org/pdf/BROCHURE.pdf.
I have a friend who works on this project for NASA and I asked the same question. His answer was quite simple: it's not supposed to aid space flight efforts. Keep in mind the first 'A' in NASA: Aeronautics.
I'm sure we'll eventually be able to deploy scramjet technology to boost space-bound vessels into the upper atmosphere and release them from there to continue under their own power. Given that the scramjet itself currently needs a boost, I think it will be a while before we see such a feat.
It's simple... just switch out loyalty cards with someone you know (the farther away they live the better) every three to six months or so. This should render all of the personalized collected data pretty useless: "He moved twelve times in the past two year and went from a vegan diet and vitamins to red meat and beer"
That would be great if people were to actually read and understand the intermediate page. However, most of the people browsing the World Wide Web won't take the time to read the explanation. They're just going to click the 'click here' link.
Perhaps slap one of those 'text in image' verifications and have the text read 'I love spam'?
Seems like this was...
8 57 2821
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=100545&cid=
I always liked it when the Star Trek crew just brushed the emblem on their uniform and started talking.
Perhaps I should clarify. The 128Kb is for remote access should you decide to colo the box @ your phone company's CO. You shouldn't really need it if you're using the software for an onsite PBX system. Having the remote access gives you the ability to do things like...
- Download your voicemail as MP3
- administer the box via SSH/Web/etc.
- Have alerts sent to your mobile device(s) via SMS
- Email alerts to your inbox
- Email voicemail messages to your inbox
- FAX to email gateway
- SNMP Monitoring
- Connect via a VoIP client
- [Insert cool idea here]
Whoops... I meant application layer. Thanks for the AMTP reference. I'll look into it.
;)
For the record, just because I don't RTFRFC doesn't make me a tard it just makes me lazy