Thanks! That's a great diagram - it helps to make some sense of what's going on.
I don't understand one point though - the track for the second pass seems to end over the middle east, but there's no event marked there. Does that imply that the rocket, after discharging its payload into various orbits, is going into its own orbit, leaving earth orbit, or doing something else?
They've taken an interesting approach to dealing with the weather. It looks like they can prep the rocket for launch indoors, and then rotate the surrounding structure away prior to the launch.
How far does something like this go toward getting a launch in bad weather?
Maybe it's not so bad as you (and I) are expecting, at least not according to the PR from the folks who built the Kodiak site:
The weather on Kodiak Island is similar to that of the northwest region of the U.S. with an average rainfall comparable to Cape Canaveral in Florida. Because of warm Japanese currents, the climate of Kodiak Island is more moderate than its northern latitude would otherwise dictate. Kodiak has a yearly mean temperature of 40F, and in only three months of the year do the normal temperatures fall below 32F. Visibility and prevailing winds compare favorably with those at Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) in California.
Quote from this link.
"The advantage to this location is its wide-open launch corridor and an unobstructed down-range flight path. The location is ideal for launching expendable launch vehicles with payloads requiring low-Earth polar or sun-synchronous orbits".
So, if I read this properly, the remoteness of the location is a bonus for expendable vehicles which may drop parts.
I'm not sure how important it is, but one of the mission descriptions in the article pointed out that one of the experiments would be able to take advantage of the polar orbit, putting the satellite in the line-of-sight:
Launching Starshine 3 from the Kodiak Launch Complex at a 67-degree inclination will allow students worldwide, including northern latitudes such as Alaska, northern Canada, Scandinavia, and Russia to particpate in the project. Worldwide student participation has not been possible on previous mission launched at lower inclinations from the Space Shuttle.
For what it's worth, I don't quite understand all of that - a satellite in polar orbit shouldn't be any more worlwide-visible than one in a more equatorial orbit - just visible to a differnt set of onlookers.
Nice theory - but the ISP has no social conscience. And neither does the next one, when you switch on the theory that they'll treat you better.
Switching ISPs based on a DMCA-inspired trampling of your rights doesn't interface to the process at all. Not that I'm doing any better, mind you - it just seems misdirected.
The thing is, any ISP has to take the same action, under the DMCA, or risk being held liable in court. Which ISP is going to take that risk? No big one will, that's for sure. And no small one should either, if it wants to actually survive.
The DMCA should be the target of your ire, not the ISP. Their hands are tied, I think...
Take a deep breath. These guys want to make money. If an IT department has users who need real flexibility, they'll give them the "cube" that has a usb port (http://www.clearcube.com/products_cport4.html), and then they'll be able to install from media.
Most users will be able to download stuff from the internet, anyway. All this c-cube does is make hardware support a little easier, and gives sysadmins a little more control. Smart sysadmins won't be draconian.
First off, you *aren't* fighting for embedded systems. The folks who are currently using proprietary operating systems in embedded systems are. They're going to go there whether you're helping or not.
What do you get? You get more people using the GNU tools, pushing for more functionality, and getting that stuff pushed back into the kernel. Most embedded developers don't want to fork the kernel or a compiler - they don't want the support headache. So they'll give features back to the community, just like desktop developers do. Hell, look at Cygnus, and now RedHat. They're paying the bills by supporting embedded developers!
Finally, Linus himself pays the bills by working for Transmeta. Transmeta wants to put their chips into embedded devices, among other things. I'm sure he's happy to see embedded Linuxes take off.
It seems like there are a couple of camps of embedded developers. Folks who are developing low-volume or higher cost products talk about the big 3 operating systems like there is nothing else out there. For them, there isn't.
Likewise, folks working in the high-volume, low cost arena scoff at the big names - the cost associated with a license for VxWorks or WinCE would be prohibitive, and the resource usage would be as well (people frequently ship Nucleus and ThreadX systems measured in KILOBYTES of RAM+ROM). A lot of folks wouldn't even recognize that an operating system is running on these devices - but it's there, even if it's just pared down to a kernel for inter-thread communication (becuase the overhead for PROCESSES is just too high!).
I guess the trick to interpreting statements like "the big 3" is to understand that the "embedded" space is big, and that folks who work in a fixed area of the space tend to have a pretty myopic view of options in operating systems, since they're only focusing on the tools that are appropriate to the job at hand.
I see - I just assumed that if the Soviets were going to disprove U.S. moon landings, they would have had to land on the moon to do it. I wonder what the original poster had in mind, then.
How does the Thumb restriction on the kernel work? On a typical ARM7 or ARM9 based core, there aren't any such restrictions. What does XScale do that is different?
I always kind of dug Shadowrun's magic and technology mix. Then again, I like both Fantasy and hard sci-fi games, so for me, blurring the distinction was a nice excercise in creativity.
Shadowrun's setting gives you the same kind of possibilities that a movie like Highlander did. When the gun-crazed Marine unloads his Uzi into the Kurgan in the middle of an alley, and it has no effect on the guy - that's a vibe that you'd love to recreate in a game.
Hell, the one of the most frequently used quotes in sci-fi, paraphrased, is something like "Technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishasble from magic." (Asimov?) If you're looking for realism in your game, SR may not be the way to go. But blending the two genres makes a whole lot of sense if you're looking for a way to spice up a cyber-game.
I'm in a similar situation. I've got plenty of things to keep me busy, so if I'm going to play a game, it's got to be perfect. Not the game itself, the rules, or anything like that. The trick is to actually find folks that I want to game with. If the chemistry isn't right, you might as well forget about it.
As a kid, games were a focal point for me and other like-minded folks to get together and do stuff that we like. Now that I've aged a little, other things provide that focus. Still, if I could get that same vibe that my old gang had going again, you bet I'd be spending time playing pen-and-paper RPGs.
FASA the gaming company, which is separate from FASA Interactive, was sold to WizKids LLC. FASA Interactive was sold a while ago to Microsoft.
Re:This ship didn't really sink
on
FASA Dies
·
· Score: 1
It's interesting to note, though, that FASA only mentioned two of their product lines by name - Shadowrun and Battletech. To be sure, those are their most profitable products, but there's a lot of smaller market, but still very good, product lines that are being left in limbo...
However you do it, you really want the Holiday list to be just another list that can be changed by the local admin. For instance, a business might want to onlt mark the holidays that the business gives time off for.
Support for Sun's JRE went in on Friday, as far as I know (I read the bugzilla entry but the number escapes me). I think the goal was to get it into PR3, but I don't know if it made it or not.
OK, so Stallman did request that people grant forgiveness to Qt for past transgressions against the GPL. That seems reasonable - the license, which Qt is now going to honor, was violated in the past. There's code out there that is in violation of the GPL. Stallman wants to see the loose end cleaned up to keep the GPL from being weakened if the license were to be challenged legally.
RMS started and ended his article by saying that getting a GPL license for QT would be a good idea.
He recommended, in awfully polite language, that all KDE copyright holders agree to the change. He certainly didn't demand it. I saw nothing about "begging for forgiveness" in his article at all.
I think the point that the anonymous KDE voice misses is that, if they are really switching to the GPL, then all of the authors have a stake in the decision, because the GPL provides for that. If only one of them didn't want the GPL, then there would be a problem.
Mozilla addressed the issue by stating that they would explore the issue of switching the license, and draft a plan to deal with dissenters. Qt left that important step out, and Stallman didn't let the loose end be ignored. What's absurd about that?
Good catch. This came up in the kernel mailing list a while ago. Right now, it'll completely break the bogomips calculation, and there isn't a facility for generating a new calculation on clock speed switch. I don't know if anyone is looking for a solution or not.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks! That's a great diagram - it helps to make some sense of what's going on.
I don't understand one point though - the track for the second pass seems to end over the middle east, but there's no event marked there. Does that imply that the rocket, after discharging its payload into various orbits, is going into its own orbit, leaving earth orbit, or doing something else?
They've taken an interesting approach to dealing with the weather. It looks like they can prep the rocket for launch indoors, and then rotate the surrounding structure away prior to the launch.
How far does something like this go toward getting a launch in bad weather?
Maybe it's not so bad as you (and I) are expecting, at least not according to the PR from the folks who built the Kodiak site:
The weather on Kodiak Island is similar to that of the northwest region of the U.S. with an average rainfall comparable to Cape Canaveral in Florida. Because of warm Japanese currents, the climate of Kodiak Island is more moderate than its northern latitude would otherwise dictate. Kodiak has a yearly mean temperature of 40F, and in only three months of the year do the normal temperatures fall below 32F. Visibility and prevailing winds compare favorably with those at Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) in California.
Quote from this link.
Ahh - here's the answer to my question about polar orbits, and some other interesting info on the launch site, at this link
I had no idea what a polar orbit really was. I guess it really does get full earth coverage.
From the pdf mentioned in the headline:
"The advantage to this location is its wide-open launch corridor and an unobstructed down-range flight path. The location is ideal for launching expendable launch vehicles with payloads requiring low-Earth polar or sun-synchronous orbits".
So, if I read this properly, the remoteness of the location is a bonus for expendable vehicles which may drop parts.
I'm not sure how important it is, but one of the mission descriptions in the article pointed out that one of the experiments would be able to take advantage of the polar orbit, putting the satellite in the line-of-sight:
Launching Starshine 3 from the Kodiak Launch Complex at a 67-degree inclination will allow students worldwide, including northern latitudes such as Alaska, northern Canada, Scandinavia, and Russia to particpate in the project. Worldwide student participation has not been possible on previous mission launched at lower inclinations from the Space Shuttle.
For what it's worth, I don't quite understand all of that - a satellite in polar orbit shouldn't be any more worlwide-visible than one in a more equatorial orbit - just visible to a differnt set of onlookers.
Nice theory - but the ISP has no social conscience. And neither does the next one, when you switch on the theory that they'll treat you better.
Switching ISPs based on a DMCA-inspired trampling of your rights doesn't interface to the process at all. Not that I'm doing any better, mind you - it just seems misdirected.
The thing is, any ISP has to take the same action, under the DMCA, or risk being held liable in court. Which ISP is going to take that risk? No big one will, that's for sure. And no small one should either, if it wants to actually survive.
The DMCA should be the target of your ire, not the ISP. Their hands are tied, I think...
Take a deep breath. These guys want to make money. If an IT department has users who need real flexibility, they'll give them the "cube" that has a usb port (http://www.clearcube.com/products_cport4.html), and then they'll be able to install from media. Most users will be able to download stuff from the internet, anyway. All this c-cube does is make hardware support a little easier, and gives sysadmins a little more control. Smart sysadmins won't be draconian.
First off, you *aren't* fighting for embedded systems. The folks who are currently using proprietary operating systems in embedded systems are. They're going to go there whether you're helping or not.
What do you get? You get more people using the GNU tools, pushing for more functionality, and getting that stuff pushed back into the kernel. Most embedded developers don't want to fork the kernel or a compiler - they don't want the support headache. So they'll give features back to the community, just like desktop developers do. Hell, look at Cygnus, and now RedHat. They're paying the bills by supporting embedded developers!
Finally, Linus himself pays the bills by working for Transmeta. Transmeta wants to put their chips into embedded devices, among other things. I'm sure he's happy to see embedded Linuxes take off.
Seems like it's a win-win situation for everyone.
It seems like there are a couple of camps of embedded developers. Folks who are developing low-volume or higher cost products talk about the big 3 operating systems like there is nothing else out there. For them, there isn't.
Likewise, folks working in the high-volume, low cost arena scoff at the big names - the cost associated with a license for VxWorks or WinCE would be prohibitive, and the resource usage would be as well (people frequently ship Nucleus and ThreadX systems measured in KILOBYTES of RAM+ROM). A lot of folks wouldn't even recognize that an operating system is running on these devices - but it's there, even if it's just pared down to a kernel for inter-thread communication (becuase the overhead for PROCESSES is just too high!).
I guess the trick to interpreting statements like "the big 3" is to understand that the "embedded" space is big, and that folks who work in a fixed area of the space tend to have a pretty myopic view of options in operating systems, since they're only focusing on the tools that are appropriate to the job at hand.
Heh - yeah - google is great.
I skimmed the article. I bookmarkd it for future reading on a slow day!
Hmm. It looks like the Soviets did make it to the moon, although there were no manned landing. Here are a few interesting links:
r us sr.html
m
Records of Soviet lunar landers (Luna 9, 13, 22):
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/luna
Info about the (unsuccessful) Soviet manned lunar program:
http://www.fas.org/spp/eprint/lindroos_moon1.ht
I see - I just assumed that if the Soviets were going to disprove U.S. moon landings, they would have had to land on the moon to do it. I wonder what the original poster had in mind, then.
Unless, of course, they faked their own visits as well!
How does the Thumb restriction on the kernel work? On a typical ARM7 or ARM9 based core, there aren't any such restrictions. What does XScale do that is different?
I always kind of dug Shadowrun's magic and technology mix. Then again, I like both Fantasy and hard sci-fi games, so for me, blurring the distinction was a nice excercise in creativity.
Shadowrun's setting gives you the same kind of possibilities that a movie like Highlander did. When the gun-crazed Marine unloads his Uzi into the Kurgan in the middle of an alley, and it has no effect on the guy - that's a vibe that you'd love to recreate in a game.
Hell, the one of the most frequently used quotes in sci-fi, paraphrased, is something like "Technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishasble from magic." (Asimov?) If you're looking for realism in your game, SR may not be the way to go. But blending the two genres makes a whole lot of sense if you're looking for a way to spice up a cyber-game.
I'm in a similar situation. I've got plenty of things to keep me busy, so if I'm going to play a game, it's got to be perfect. Not the game itself, the rules, or anything like that. The trick is to actually find folks that I want to game with. If the chemistry isn't right, you might as well forget about it.
As a kid, games were a focal point for me and other like-minded folks to get together and do stuff that we like. Now that I've aged a little, other things provide that focus. Still, if I could get that same vibe that my old gang had going again, you bet I'd be spending time playing pen-and-paper RPGs.
FASA the gaming company, which is separate from FASA Interactive, was sold to WizKids LLC. FASA Interactive was sold a while ago to Microsoft.
It's interesting to note, though, that FASA only mentioned two of their product lines by name - Shadowrun and Battletech. To be sure, those are their most profitable products, but there's a lot of smaller market, but still very good, product lines that are being left in limbo...
However you do it, you really want the Holiday list to be just another list that can be changed by the local admin. For instance, a business might want to onlt mark the holidays that the business gives time off for.
Support for Sun's JRE went in on Friday, as far as I know (I read the bugzilla entry but the number escapes me). I think the goal was to get it into PR3, but I don't know if it made it or not.
OK, so Stallman did request that people grant forgiveness to Qt for past transgressions against the GPL. That seems reasonable - the license, which Qt is now going to honor, was violated in the past. There's code out there that is in violation of the GPL. Stallman wants to see the loose end cleaned up to keep the GPL from being weakened if the license were to be challenged legally.
RMS started and ended his article by saying that getting a GPL license for QT would be a good idea. He recommended, in awfully polite language, that all KDE copyright holders agree to the change. He certainly didn't demand it. I saw nothing about "begging for forgiveness" in his article at all. I think the point that the anonymous KDE voice misses is that, if they are really switching to the GPL, then all of the authors have a stake in the decision, because the GPL provides for that. If only one of them didn't want the GPL, then there would be a problem. Mozilla addressed the issue by stating that they would explore the issue of switching the license, and draft a plan to deal with dissenters. Qt left that important step out, and Stallman didn't let the loose end be ignored. What's absurd about that?
The unofficial letter looks to be pretty similar to the Jan. 12 status update on mozilla.org. No big surprise here.
Good catch. This came up in the kernel mailing list a while ago. Right now, it'll completely break the bogomips calculation, and there isn't a facility for generating a new calculation on clock speed switch. I don't know if anyone is looking for a solution or not.