oh, this is all fine and dandy news on a technical front, but what will this file format come to be known as? How will real people in the real world deal with such a cumbersome name?
will they be.vog files?.vo files? will we say V.O.G. or vog or V.O. or voh?.orb?.vorb? maybe we can all wait for the 5th rev, and call them vo5 files! (refers to a brand of shampoo here in the US)
The word 'emmpeethree' has a certain flow, a rythym that satisfies. I think it is an important element to the continued success of the mp3 format. The histroy of the mp3 format shows the success is due to being in the right place at the right time, but now that we have an easy, universally understood 'name' to use in mp3, Vog Orbis has its work cut out for it. There'll have to be a catchy abbreviation or truncation before this will move forward.
looks like a case of right brain vs. left brain.;)
Anyway, I would like to mention that the Shuttle was just as much a political tool as a scientific tool. I think you've all heard of the 'cold war'? well, the shuttle represents a significant leap beyond Russian capabilities at the time (pssh! even now more than ever!). The Soviets must've had a lot of concern over such a beast. There are many capabilities the shuttle could have, but (probably?) never demonstrated. for instance, simply stopping by and picking up soviet spy satellites. perhaps they've already done that? They could then return home and study the Soviet's 'state of the art' first hand, at leisure. How else could a spy satelite be retrieved and survive re-entry? Then there's the fear of a very maneuverable manned survellience craft buzzing around in orbit, well out of the range of even the best Soviet missiles. Cripes, it even flies upside down, with its bomb bay doors agape! And, holy cowski! it can stay up for 1-2 weeks, maybe a month at a time? Surely the shuttle is much more flexible than a satellite from the political/DOD POV.
These are the tactics that were used to break the Soviets on every technological and economical level. And orbital superiority is the biggest, most expensive playing field around.
Speaking of which, I thought of this all when you (gomer) said "...glenn...heroism...irrelevent". The political sphere is ENTIRELY relevent to expensive scientific advances.
You strike me as a scientist Gomer, at least a pure science enthusiast, so you must realize by now that some rohdiculous majority of scientific attention is devoted to the task of obtaining grant dollars/funding. Where does the cash come from? the schools acquire it from A)foundations (sadly, mostly just willing to throw money away) and b)corp sponsorship (PR and R&D needs) and c)ov't (ultimately the voters). So, by my reckoning, and as much as you may hate it, the Heroism is perhaps the most usefull thing NASA can be striving for. Makes perfect sense to me, in that context...
Now nearly every nation can partake/contribute in some serious orbital science. Thanks in no small part to the shuttle and its role in breaking the deadlock of the cold war.
Or do we have enough datum already? What was that you were saying Gomer? One Glenn-based experiment is not sufficent, but the older (read crude measurements)results from mir and skylab are sufficient? Do we have enough datum or don't we?!? Is the problem of microgravity's effect on the human form solved yet?
I seem to recall that Starcraft allowed you to perform all construction via hot keys. it is very simple to match this 'scripted reflex augmentation' if you know your way around the keyboard.
This was just the edge I needed to be an unstopable monster. But if they'd tried to spot for it, I would've been banned...
(1) Hello, it's blind. How the heck is it going to see where it's going? Navy ships' passive sonar capability is seriously reduced at speed because of the noise being produced by the ship going through the water (and the increased noise of the ship's machinery). Active sonar? Well, that *might* help a little, but echo from active sonar has to be heard too (see above).
obviously, you'd put the eyes in orbit.
(2) Most of the marine life (including seaweed, etc) stays relatively close to the surface. Great, you say -- make the thing travel deeper to avoid skewering whales, etc. Well, that'd be nice, but it's a *lot* harder to cavitate at depth due to the increased pressure (and reduced temperature) -- and the relationship is not a proportional one. Besides being harder to cavitate in the first place, it'd be harder to maintain the bubble around the vehicle (because sea pressure would be trying to collapse it).
a compromise depth of around 40m should do the trick.
(3) Even if you could see where you were going, how would you turn? Control surfaces on the vessel wouldn't do anything because they're in a bubble. Change the direction of the rocket? Kill the bubble.
I imagine there will be traditional, subsonic propulsion systems for the harbor, otherwise, it is a straight shot across an ocean.
(4) Rockets aren't exactly green machines either. Pump our oceans full of chemicals? I don't think so.
The rockets work on powdered aluminum. so there will be an increase of aluminum oxide in the oceans, which isn't going to be much consiedring the VOLUME of the ocean. Besides, there's the potential of magnetic, nuclear and even engines external to the cava-bubble(tm)
(5) The speed required to maintain a cava-bubble (tm) around a large commercial vessel would be MUCH greater than that required to create/maintain a bubble around a small object like a bullet or a torpedo.
and so the engines would have to unleash more force? I don't see the problem here..
(6) Revisiting the "can't see" issue a bit -- assuming they *could* get active sonar to work from within a noisy bubble, what kind of range/warning is it going to give at those speeds? Ever drive really fast at night? Headlights don't give you a whole lot of reaction time, do they? This situation would be much worse.
Revisiting the "eyes in orbit" solution, You'd also have marked lanes under water, and numerous turn-off/breaking lanes to divert the vehicle from collisions. Or, you might have a few accidents per decade, as there isn't much activity at >30m beneath the surface.
(7) This is currently being used for non-manned things that we don't care about. They either run into something or blow up or whatever. Great. Ever wonder what the stopping experience is going to be like for humans? Think about it -- the speed creates the "bubble" which eliminates the drag. Okay, we reach our destination, start to slow down -- bubble collapses -- but guess what, we're still going pretty fast -- now we have a ton of drag slammed onto us. And people whine about a airliner slowing down after a landing.:o)
retractible drag surface fins and maybe 'artificial cavitation' obtained by millions of small bubbles released out of the skin through tens of thousands of small pores designed to reduce drag during transition between speeds.
(8) Cost? Well, I dare say it'd be a heck of a lot more costly than the Concorde.
cost is defined by demand. also, the concorde is too noisy in the air, while this would be more or less quiet.
(9) If people are interested in travelling on submarines, why don't we have commercial submarines now?
There is NO current, practical use for a traditional submarine in commercial travel applications. however, 1 hour to Calais from New York is a monumental increase in travel speeds. I know what I'd choose. have you ever spent 12+hours trying to get to London from the US? I have. The choice is obvious, and that makes it all the much more desirable.
It sure is easy to tear stuff down, isn't it? Next time, maybe you could use that awesome imagination to try and *solve* some problems, instead of just pointing them out.
This pessimism doesn't exactly make you wise, just clever...
I am sorry, but it looks to me like IRC enthusiasts are acting stodgy here. I went and checked out the enow site, and I gotta say, it's pretty slick. It provides a nice window into the IRC world. This new service offers the potential to really bring IRC to the world, to develop richer content and participation, to mature the technology, in that it serves to increase the flow of knowledge rather than stifle it.
I will endeavor to respond to the reams of complaints in these threads, in a positive and helpful way. Enow.com has neglected to ask IRC server administrators permission to operate their service.
I gotta ask, why not make channel abstract output an integral part of the IRC servers? That would allow irc admins to take control, to set certain channels off limits, to make certain no abuse is taking place, etc. This would also alleviate the constant join/part messages, bulking up the nick list, etc. easy solution, no whining required. People are concerned with their 'privacy' being violated.
get real. it's IRC. anyone can see anything you do, unless you flip the -p, in which case the enow bots wouldn't be bugging you anyway. People are concerned that the FBI and NSA will abuse a service like this.
ahem, I think the NSA and FBI have much more robust means of tracking IRC usage. think about it. IF they want you, they've got you. They can track every telephone conversation in the world for keywords like 'bomb' and 'president'. Tracking IRC usage is utterly trivial and insignificant compared to that.
I gave up using IRC in '96-'97 or so, mostly because of the noise level, also because of the snobbery and opinionation of 'gangs' of op folk. I suppose IRC is also valuable for obtaining certain illicit or illegal files, but most of us have other means at our disposal if we find the need for such things.
I am truly sorry that the IRC crowd is so short sighted and in the grip fervant hatred of anything new or radical. It kinda reminds me of the evil, bitter, pinched little faces of the stern and humorless grandmothers that burn books, ban concerts and fear change of any type. Tooo sad.
Y'all realize I am seeing the overwhelming urge to kill off the first major modernization of the protocol in years, predominating in almost every post here. I guess everyone is willing to allow their precious IRC to stagnate, as long as they get to maintain that special sense of ownership over it. Meanwhile, the rest of the world marches on.
IMHO.
:)Fudboy
Re:anyone know what's up with X.com???
on
Fake PayPal Site
·
· Score: 1
doh! so I can be an idiot sometimes... so sue me.
:)Fudboy
anyone know what's up with X.com???
on
Fake PayPal Site
·
· Score: 1
I got some spam this morning directing me to www.paypal.x.com. is this a scam too?
I don't remember this x.com from my previous dealings with paypal.com...
anyone know about this already? before I start digging in and whoising/tracerouting all afternoon?
I'd like to point out in Clinton's defense, as much as it galls me, ICANN was created(chosen) per a presidential order. While a lot of people try to trash ICANN around here, they are a _much_ better choice than N/A or some megalithic DMV in washington...
which leads me a little off topic: I heard today that part of Gore's platform is that he'll hire 10,000 new prosecutors to disperse amongst the states, if he's elected. We all know what bored prosecutors do, they bully corporations and peasants (the only two types of American) and they are in full swing acendancy these days, with tobacco, handguns and Microsoft. While some of you may applaud the latter, how long before they set their sights on someone/something you care about?
sorry for the delayed response, not sure if you'll get this, but I think we are 'agreeing at each other' in a roundabout manner.
sure off the shelf dram probably won't cut the mustard for HDTV resolutions, but that only means some other technique will be used (example: say 16gb of rambus style @ 66Ghz)
Completely outrageous now, sure, but a gig of ram was unthinkable when I got my TI/99 4a with 16kb ram and cassette tape based storage device:)
"Now, I don't know the specifics of the programming methods used, but almost all programs these days could be done more efficently...and thus made smaller..."
Well now, the bulk of any modern video game is artwork and music, already compressed to the maximum capable levels (with todays proven techniques, experimental==flaky). Programming hardly figures into it. If you want a visually/aurally satisfying title, it is going to require gobs of unique textures, sprites, mp3's and/or.wav's. Since this is the only sort of title that sells these days, what's a poor developer to do?
In short, please go easy on the gamemakers. They are not bloating the titles for the hell of it, excepting of course that one example of 'Baldur's Gate' on 5 CD's, which made that circa '96 quality title seem impressive to many 'casual' gamers.
Anyways, to get back on topic, while it may seem that the only thing worth keeping on that much space is movies, games and warez archives, as faster and larger storage devices become the norm, new uses will be discovered.
Off the top of my head, I forsee a burst of new layers on top of the regular internet. We are witnessing the birth of these systems even now in things like napster and setiathome. a next step might entail the adaptation of RAID redundancy across the network, with micropayments for the amount of storage/bandwidth you contribute. This might mean a geek could lay down a partition and listen to/watch the commercial web for free, which is certainly going to be an issue soon.
Another benefit in ultra cheap storage is that thin clients will have no excuse for existing. I am certainly never going to store copies of my check book or some pr0n or a copy of the "anarchist cookbook 2005" or rants about public figures (in private documents, even) on Sun's private network. Just look at DoubleClick or Toysmart succumb to the temptation of selling out the basic demographic data of their userbase! It is my opinion that one would needs be a complete idiot to trust Sun with that stuff.
I disagree that the industry is near slowing down, and I'll tell you why: we are about to see a big jump in display qualities. HDTV's run at twice the resolution most of us are currently set to. 2048x1280 if I recall, which is quite a boost if you ask me.
This latest crop of cards only barely support those resolutions, and certainly not at 85+fps with however many millions of triangles/sec. Lots of room for development there. Even if standard consumer machines are running 133mhz fsb and 1.5ghz cpus, the cards will still have to do most of the work. Thus further gpu upgrades and more and faster ram can be piled on to these cards for years to come yet.
Concerned that HDTV is vaporware? HDTV's are for sale at every home audio/video store in the western world, as far as I can tell, at least all over the US west cost. You can get a 27" sony hdtv for $4k US here in California (sure, my 21" monitor cost only a 1/3rd as much but the prices are dropping fast)
As HDTV picks up some steam (lord knows it's been long enough) Those people who adopt will realize that their TV sets are much higher resolution than their monitors.
There will be a demand for HDTV monitors then, and manufacturers have doubtlessly already realized this. Soon, I expect to see smaller 21" HDTVs for this purpose (around desk sized, that is to say). Maybe CRT, maybe LCD, maybe both, doesn't matter cause today's video card and entire systems from cpu to ram to mb chipset will be choking at those resolutions. The entire hardware industry will enjoy dozens of generations matching the HDTV resolutions, in the smallest possible increments.
Beyond that, someday there will be some sort of viable 3d display that takes enormous amounts of bandwidth, displaying HDTV like resolutions in a cubic area instead of on plane. A whole 'nother round of upgrades await!
I should point out that this question is being asked by an IT guy for the Wisconsin state court systems. Let's consider the needs of a courthouse network before suggesting things like user-installs, openGL cards to buy, crap like that.
Basically, they could get away with vt100's and any OS running at the server...
But as to which distro, hmmm. You will just be running file sharing and word perfect? since every lawyer I've ever met swears by wordperfect 5, I would think you will want some compatability there. that clears that up, unless they do things different in Wisconsin (I'm in California, IIRC there are more atty's here than the rest of the country combined, including Washington DC!!!)
Also, you will probably be providing access to some very old DB's, which will just want for a terminal emulator, which are abundant and mature in every distro...
Are any of the users going to need www access? Judges, maybe? Still doesn't narrow it down to a specific distro...
In short, I can't see a single reason to sweat this question. There is no appreciable difference in distros considering the way they are going to lock down these machines. Unless there are details in server configuration or applications not mentioned, or user latitude is broad, just go with the best support plan.
Since the 'at large' membership database is being slashdotted, I thought I'd point out that many of you are (or aren't) being presented an important opportunity here. That being said, let's consider the types of Slashdot reader that are signing up today:
Lurker: won't be contributing much to the message board debates.
Zealot: the support for.gnu has been found!
Troll: disruption, misinformation and FUD are the M.O.
IT Pro: Will harp on the technical failings of any proposed plan. (instead of making it work)
Karma Whore: The likeliest 'self-nominated board member', think of the karma there! Will the first/. reader to hold a seat get to post directly on to the front page?
1337 h4x0r: No such thing really, right?
Windows User: commonly confused with troll. Anyone who is a windows user and stuck on slashdot is probably looking for something more fulfilling, and this may be it...
I am an 'at large' member, I've had my membership for a little over a month now, and I was a little concerned at first that the slashdot demons had been unleashed. But really, if some of todays new members forget all about this in a week, that makes my vote all that much stronger. there is a limited number of memberships, after all. Which leads me to suspect that maybe the upper limit of memberships was reached toaday after the first few 10's of 1000's of slashdot readers showed up to hop on the bandwagon. All in all, I guess it's better to share the wealth, as it were, than to keep this a secret for infrastructure geeks only.
okay okay, so I was a little sloppy, it's very late here in California- 4:20am as a matter of fact...
By "cart emulation like mame" I actually meant to refer to ROMs, not mame. sorry 'bout that. In an overall sense, I mean the whole emulation scene including mame, NESticle, etc.
and no, it would not be a superset, Dreamcast marketshare will be the greater for having been out for 2+ years. but moreover, when discussing consoles, market share is to be considered the number of HW units that have been sold. I am talking about the number of hardware units that can play Dreamcast games, and the X-box would be a portion of the total. a subset. Even if the X-box ships more units than the dreamcast, it is still only a portion of the total Dreamcast compatable consoles in living rooms across the U.S.
I will save further replies for tomorrow. thanks and goodnight
I am a full-time "professional" videogame developer in the process of building my first software studio. I have worked on projects from Corporate Flagship Title all the way down to shareware puzzle game, but almost always on PC (the occasional Mac title being the exception) I have been watching the console market for quite a while, looking for my chance to jump in, and I must say this is an extremely interesting point.
Most of the posts so far have been concerned with either Playstation emulation or older cart game emulation like mame. I have a much different take on the situation, namely that the Dreamcast is the most obvious target for emulation on the X-Box, as it is WinCE/COM based code already. Right? Not only that, but with the hardware being sold as a loss leader for software recouping, and Sega's position as an underdog in the market, this would be a dream come true for Sega. Not to mention [Sega's] recent and heartening madcap maneuvering with ideas like free Dreamcasts with Internet service, broadband support, etc. I think they would embrace this wholeheartedly. It even makes me think there is room for a Sega buyout by Microsoft. Not totally out of the question, if you ask me.
This makes a huge impact on my strategizing, as I have been deliberating with my partners about whether to pursue psx2, psx1, Dreamcast or PC. We aren't even thinking about Dolphin or N64 for what are to me obvious reasons. We have been leaning in the direction of a PC title, because of the promise of quick porting to the X-Box. Also, we don't necessarily want to spend the $250,000 to $1,000,000 that the console mfctrs. are asking for development rights. X-Box doesn't look to be heading in this direction, which is the surest sign that it will succeed (If I am wrong here, I would love to know, I have been looking for any hints as to what licensing model is actually being planned). Another point in favor of X-box development (for developers) is that MS probably won't be nearly as anal as Sony approving a game. Sony (and to a much worse extent, Nintendo) is notorious for their strong-arming over final approval.
Now, with the notion of easy console-to-console emulation being planned/thrown about, it makes the Dreamcast extremely appealing, because we could finish two or three titles before the X-Box hits the shelves. We could possibly have our first title ported by that time, but with emulation as a built in feature, we wouldn't even need to worry about it. X-box market share could be viewed as a subset of Dreamcast market share for as long as the first year X-box is out! This would definately make courting investors much much easier.
This organ also remindeds me of that experiment in high school physical science, where you take a screen and a glass tube, attach the screen 1/3 of the way through the pipe, and heat over a burner to produce an eerie howling sound. Presumably, tubes of different dimensions and material will produce different tones and timbres. I very much wanted to make an organ of this type, using the heating elements from toasters or coffee pots, and with ceramic stoppers, but this was around the time when I got my first computer, and I quickly forgot all about it- 'till now!
I always figured the contraption would look something like UNIVAC must've, and it would probably take the same size cooling system as an office building...
:)Fudboy
I guess I'm just a Fudboy, looking for that real Transmeta...
Hmmm, you are correct, an oversight on my part, but it has been years since I read it...
However, there is also "Act II part III. Classic Walpurgis Night" with Homunculos and Erichto, Sphinxes and Nymphs, Ants (of the colossal kind), Chiron, Seismos and Manto, Pygmies, Pygmy-Elders and the Cranes of Ibycus. Surely this is a demonic guest list?
:)Fudboy
I guess I'm just a Fudboy, looking for that real Transmeta...
I don't know about you guys, but I am instantly reminded of Faust (Goethe) and the Walpurgisnacht Festival, towards the climax in the second book. This is truly one demonic instrument! For those of you with more contemporary (geeky) literary leanings, this is the same festival as takes place towards the end of the Illuminatus trilogy, dressed up as a sort of Euro-Woodstock.
:)Fudboy
I guess I'm just a Fudboy, looking for that real Transmeta...
I don't know if this has been touched on yet, but it seems to me that the archive would make an ideal 'memory' for an AI to grow in to.
During the AI's maturation cycle, one could simply provide the data raw and let the pattern matching and cross indexing fly.
The archive is mixed with every aspect of the human mind, the art and music, the filth and evil, the self-righteous religious fury, the meek and mild post-hippy sentiment, the peircing precision of scienctific method and the wacky good fun of psuedo-science madness. The full spectrum of humanity is presented here, from autistic to genius, idiotic to brilliant. There are plenty of wholesome sites, children friendly basic learning resources, museums and FAQ's, on and on.
I propose that the archive be used as the base for intuition in a full scale AI project, with the actual info rarely making its way up the stack to conciousness, instead providing the hints and connections necessary for a model of human memory. Explicit data filtering will be required for the prototype and experimental versions, but a truly 'human' AI would need to understand humanity on some pretty deep levels if we were to expect it to relate to us, and have sympathy/empathy for us regardless of our shortcomings.
Maybe this process is already happening under the guise of the internet search engines!!! There is an awful lot of pressure and incentive to provide relavant responses... what better way to accomplish this, than to have some entity think about the list of matches and understand human requests like a human?
:)Fudboy
I guess I'm just a Fudboy, looking for that real Transmeta...
It occures to me that the deposits of H3 must be spread uniformly across the surface of the moon if it is catching rays from the Sun. This means the entire surface is evenly loaded and a target for a strip mine. This begs the question: Will the moon eventually be paved flat?
After several passes with truly massive mining equiptment the entire surface of the moon will have been run through grinders, slurry heaters, leech processes, and redeposit. The redeposit process will have to lay down the remainders without stirring up any "dust" so controls will be tight and mistakes intolerated. There will be a strict condition imposed by the UN that a mining compnay or national venture may only extract usefull elements like h3 and aluminum and carefully place all the rest of the materials back on the surface. The risk of flying into a 'dust cloud' of micrometeorites in a lunar transport will be high enough without sloppy mining messing things up. The remainders might be left in large mounds, but this is only necessary if processing stations are immobile. In the reduced gravity of the moon, the entire processing plant could be mobile, even including the spaceport where the ferries load. This seems most practical and elegant. Now the factories are moving around like cows in a pasture. leaving their remainders in a smooth ribbon behind them.
The claims will be debated and marked in the UN. some nations might go rougue, political tensions will rise, perhaps skirmishes here and above, but things will settle down pretty quick as companies move in and tax proceeds are made available.
Back on Earth, there will be much debate over the effect the redistribution of mass on the moon is having over the tide and weather patterns. Coastlines will change, species will die, but at the same time, the power to do something about it will be ours. With that much pure fuel for fusion at our disposal we could take back the climate, by simply running massive underwater heaters in strategic locations. Advances in other technologies will allow us to construct ecological sanctuaries with stable populations of every species, including many 'extinct' ones. I guess the real question is, can we get to the paradise before hell catches up with us?
Meanwhile, the moon has been churned hundreds of times in a crop rotation pattern that's running out of time and facing ever growing demand. Enterprising organisations will move to set up very large sail-like collectors facing the Sun and surrounding the earth and the moon to collect H3 as the moon runs dry. They will also double as conventional solar collectors as refined to that date. This will probably be deemed more important than astronomy, but at no time will anyone be permitted to obscure direct sunlight to the earth or interrupt communications. Off the top of my head, the likely metephor is that of the Earth blooming into flower petals. Kick ass. The sails will be strung together with clearly marked conduits running to beam generators pointing at stations on the surface, brimming with so much power that they are visible for thousands of miles, and drastically changing the look of sunset and sunrise as the stations must always remain positioned along the terminator...
I could live with this future, smooth moon and all.
:)Fudboy
I guess I'm just a Fudboy, looking for that real Transmeta...
Slashdot Mirror
rock on. that's exactly perfect.
:)Fudboy
thanks for the link. now that I bother to look at the faq i recall that I read it several weeks/a few months ago.
you down with OGG? yeah you know me!
:)Fudboy
oh, this is all fine and dandy news on a technical front, but what will this file format come to be known as? How will real people in the real world deal with such a cumbersome name?
.vog files? .vo files? will we say V.O.G. or vog or V.O. or voh? .orb? .vorb? maybe we can all wait for the 5th rev, and call them vo5 files! (refers to a brand of shampoo here in the US)
will they be
The word 'emmpeethree' has a certain flow, a rythym that satisfies. I think it is an important element to the continued success of the mp3 format. The histroy of the mp3 format shows the success is due to being in the right place at the right time, but now that we have an easy, universally understood 'name' to use in mp3, Vog Orbis has its work cut out for it. There'll have to be a catchy abbreviation or truncation before this will move forward.
:)Fudboy
hmmm.
There are literally dozens to hundreds of games released each year that "*don't* fit into genres", seems you just never heard of them.
I wonder what the connection is?
:)Fudboy
looks like a case of right brain vs. left brain. ;)
...heroism ...irrelevent". The political sphere is ENTIRELY relevent to expensive scientific advances.
Anyway, I would like to mention that the Shuttle was just as much a political tool as a scientific tool. I think you've all heard of the 'cold war'? well, the shuttle represents a significant leap beyond Russian capabilities at the time (pssh! even now more than ever!). The Soviets must've had a lot of concern over such a beast. There are many capabilities the shuttle could have, but (probably?) never demonstrated. for instance, simply stopping by and picking up soviet spy satellites. perhaps they've already done that? They could then return home and study the Soviet's 'state of the art' first hand, at leisure. How else could a spy satelite be retrieved and survive re-entry? Then there's the fear of a very maneuverable manned survellience craft buzzing around in orbit, well out of the range of even the best Soviet missiles. Cripes, it even flies upside down, with its bomb bay doors agape! And, holy cowski! it can stay up for 1-2 weeks, maybe a month at a time? Surely the shuttle is much more flexible than a satellite from the political/DOD POV.
These are the tactics that were used to break the Soviets on every technological and economical level. And orbital superiority is the biggest, most expensive playing field around.
Speaking of which, I thought of this all when you (gomer) said "...glenn
You strike me as a scientist Gomer, at least a pure science enthusiast, so you must realize by now that some rohdiculous majority of scientific attention is devoted to the task of obtaining grant dollars/funding. Where does the cash come from? the schools acquire it from A)foundations (sadly, mostly just willing to throw money away) and b)corp sponsorship (PR and R&D needs) and c)ov't (ultimately the voters). So, by my reckoning, and as much as you may hate it, the Heroism is perhaps the most usefull thing NASA can be striving for. Makes perfect sense to me, in that context...
Now nearly every nation can partake/contribute in some serious orbital science. Thanks in no small part to the shuttle and its role in breaking the deadlock of the cold war.
Or do we have enough datum already? What was that you were saying Gomer? One Glenn-based experiment is not sufficent, but the older (read crude measurements)results from mir and skylab are sufficient? Do we have enough datum or don't we?!? Is the problem of microgravity's effect on the human form solved yet?
:)Fudboy
I seem to recall that Starcraft allowed you to perform all construction via hot keys. it is very simple to match this 'scripted reflex augmentation' if you know your way around the keyboard.
This was just the edge I needed to be an unstopable monster. But if they'd tried to spot for it, I would've been banned...
:)Fudboy
(1) Hello, it's blind. How the heck is it going to see where it's going? Navy ships' passive sonar capability is seriously reduced at speed because of the noise being produced by the ship going through the water (and the increased noise of the ship's machinery). Active sonar? Well, that *might* help a little, but echo from active sonar has to be heard too (see above).
:o)
obviously, you'd put the eyes in orbit.
(2) Most of the marine life (including seaweed, etc) stays relatively close to the surface. Great, you say -- make the thing travel deeper to avoid skewering whales, etc. Well, that'd be nice, but it's a *lot* harder to cavitate at depth due to the increased pressure (and reduced temperature) -- and the relationship is not a proportional one. Besides being harder to cavitate in the first place, it'd be harder to maintain the bubble around the vehicle (because sea pressure would be trying to collapse it).
a compromise depth of around 40m should do the trick.
(3) Even if you could see where you were going, how would you turn? Control surfaces on the vessel wouldn't do anything because they're in a bubble. Change the direction of the rocket? Kill the bubble.
I imagine there will be traditional, subsonic propulsion systems for the harbor, otherwise, it is a straight shot across an ocean.
(4) Rockets aren't exactly green machines either. Pump our oceans full of chemicals? I don't think so.
The rockets work on powdered aluminum. so there will be an increase of aluminum oxide in the oceans, which isn't going to be much consiedring the VOLUME of the ocean. Besides, there's the potential of magnetic, nuclear and even engines external to the cava-bubble(tm)
(5) The speed required to maintain a cava-bubble (tm) around a large commercial vessel would be MUCH greater than that required to create/maintain a bubble around a small object like a bullet or a torpedo.
and so the engines would have to unleash more force? I don't see the problem here..
(6) Revisiting the "can't see" issue a bit -- assuming they *could* get active sonar to work from within a noisy bubble, what kind of range/warning is it going to give at those speeds? Ever drive really fast at night? Headlights don't give you a whole lot of reaction time, do they? This situation would be much worse.
Revisiting the "eyes in orbit" solution, You'd also have marked lanes under water, and numerous turn-off/breaking lanes to divert the vehicle from collisions. Or, you might have a few accidents per decade, as there isn't much activity at >30m beneath the surface.
(7) This is currently being used for non-manned things that we don't care about. They either run into something or blow up or whatever. Great. Ever wonder what the stopping experience is going to be like for humans? Think about it -- the speed creates the "bubble" which eliminates the drag. Okay, we reach our destination, start to slow down -- bubble collapses -- but guess what, we're still going pretty fast -- now we have a ton of drag slammed onto us. And people whine about a airliner slowing down after a landing.
retractible drag surface fins and maybe 'artificial cavitation' obtained by millions of small bubbles released out of the skin through tens of thousands of small pores designed to reduce drag during transition between speeds.
(8) Cost? Well, I dare say it'd be a heck of a lot more costly than the Concorde.
cost is defined by demand. also, the concorde is too noisy in the air, while this would be more or less quiet.
(9) If people are interested in travelling on submarines, why don't we have commercial submarines now?
There is NO current, practical use for a traditional submarine in commercial travel applications. however, 1 hour to Calais from New York is a monumental increase in travel speeds. I know what I'd choose. have you ever spent 12+hours trying to get to London from the US? I have. The choice is obvious, and that makes it all the much more desirable.
It sure is easy to tear stuff down, isn't it? Next time, maybe you could use that awesome imagination to try and *solve* some problems, instead of just pointing them out.
This pessimism doesn't exactly make you wise, just clever...
:)Fudboy
I am sorry, but it looks to me like IRC enthusiasts are acting stodgy here. I went and checked out the enow site, and I gotta say, it's pretty slick. It provides a nice window into the IRC world. This new service offers the potential to really bring IRC to the world, to develop richer content and participation, to mature the technology, in that it serves to increase the flow of knowledge rather than stifle it.
I will endeavor to respond to the reams of complaints in these threads, in a positive and helpful way.
Enow.com has neglected to ask IRC server administrators permission to operate their service.
I gotta ask, why not make channel abstract output an integral part of the IRC servers? That would allow irc admins to take control, to set certain channels off limits, to make certain no abuse is taking place, etc. This would also alleviate the constant join/part messages, bulking up the nick list, etc. easy solution, no whining required.
People are concerned with their 'privacy' being violated.
get real. it's IRC. anyone can see anything you do, unless you flip the -p, in which case the enow bots wouldn't be bugging you anyway.
People are concerned that the FBI and NSA will abuse a service like this.
ahem, I think the NSA and FBI have much more robust means of tracking IRC usage. think about it. IF they want you, they've got you. They can track every telephone conversation in the world for keywords like 'bomb' and 'president'. Tracking IRC usage is utterly trivial and insignificant compared to that.
I gave up using IRC in '96-'97 or so, mostly because of the noise level, also because of the snobbery and opinionation of 'gangs' of op folk. I suppose IRC is also valuable for obtaining certain illicit or illegal files, but most of us have other means at our disposal if we find the need for such things.
I am truly sorry that the IRC crowd is so short sighted and in the grip fervant hatred of anything new or radical. It kinda reminds me of the evil, bitter, pinched little faces of the stern and humorless grandmothers that burn books, ban concerts and fear change of any type. Tooo sad.
Y'all realize I am seeing the overwhelming urge to kill off the first major modernization of the protocol in years, predominating in almost every post here. I guess everyone is willing to allow their precious IRC to stagnate, as long as they get to maintain that special sense of ownership over it. Meanwhile, the rest of the world marches on.
IMHO.
:)Fudboy
doh! so I can be an idiot sometimes... so sue me.
:)Fudboy
I got some spam this morning directing me to www.paypal.x.com. is this a scam too?
I don't remember this x.com from my previous dealings with paypal.com...
anyone know about this already? before I start digging in and whoising/tracerouting all afternoon?
thanks,
:)Fudboy
I'd like to point out in Clinton's defense, as much as it galls me, ICANN was created(chosen) per a presidential order. While a lot of people try to trash ICANN around here, they are a _much_ better choice than N/A or some megalithic DMV in washington...
which leads me a little off topic: I heard today that part of Gore's platform is that he'll hire 10,000 new prosecutors to disperse amongst the states, if he's elected. We all know what bored prosecutors do, they bully corporations and peasants (the only two types of American) and they are in full swing acendancy these days, with tobacco, handguns and Microsoft. While some of you may applaud the latter, how long before they set their sights on someone/something you care about?
:)Fudboy
sorry for the delayed response, not sure if you'll get this, but I think we are 'agreeing at each other' in a roundabout manner.
:)
sure off the shelf dram probably won't cut the mustard for HDTV resolutions, but that only means some other technique will be used (example: say 16gb of rambus style @ 66Ghz)
Completely outrageous now, sure, but a gig of ram was unthinkable when I got my TI/99 4a with 16kb ram and cassette tape based storage device
:)Fudboy
"Now, I don't know the specifics of the programming methods used, but almost all programs these days could be done more efficently...and thus made smaller..."
Well now, the bulk of any modern video game is artwork and music, already compressed to the maximum capable levels (with todays proven techniques, experimental==flaky). Programming hardly figures into it. If you want a visually/aurally satisfying title, it is going to require gobs of unique textures, sprites, mp3's and/or
In short, please go easy on the gamemakers. They are not bloating the titles for the hell of it, excepting of course that one example of 'Baldur's Gate' on 5 CD's, which made that circa '96 quality title seem impressive to many 'casual' gamers.
Anyways, to get back on topic, while it may seem that the only thing worth keeping on that much space is movies, games and warez archives, as faster and larger storage devices become the norm, new uses will be discovered.
Off the top of my head, I forsee a burst of new layers on top of the regular internet. We are witnessing the birth of these systems even now in things like napster and setiathome. a next step might entail the adaptation of RAID redundancy across the network, with micropayments for the amount of storage/bandwidth you contribute. This might mean a geek could lay down a partition and listen to/watch the commercial web for free, which is certainly going to be an issue soon.
Another benefit in ultra cheap storage is that thin clients will have no excuse for existing. I am certainly never going to store copies of my check book or some pr0n or a copy of the "anarchist cookbook 2005" or rants about public figures (in private documents, even) on Sun's private network. Just look at DoubleClick or Toysmart succumb to the temptation of selling out the basic demographic data of their userbase! It is my opinion that one would needs be a complete idiot to trust Sun with that stuff.
:)Fudboy
I disagree that the industry is near slowing down, and I'll tell you why: we are about to see a big jump in display qualities. HDTV's run at twice the resolution most of us are currently set to. 2048x1280 if I recall, which is quite a boost if you ask me.
This latest crop of cards only barely support those resolutions, and certainly not at 85+fps with however many millions of triangles/sec. Lots of room for development there. Even if standard consumer machines are running 133mhz fsb and 1.5ghz cpus, the cards will still have to do most of the work. Thus further gpu upgrades and more and faster ram can be piled on to these cards for years to come yet.
Concerned that HDTV is vaporware? HDTV's are for sale at every home audio/video store in the western world, as far as I can tell, at least all over the US west cost. You can get a 27" sony hdtv for $4k US here in California (sure, my 21" monitor cost only a 1/3rd as much but the prices are dropping fast)
As HDTV picks up some steam (lord knows it's been long enough) Those people who adopt will realize that their TV sets are much higher resolution than their monitors.
There will be a demand for HDTV monitors then, and manufacturers have doubtlessly already realized this. Soon, I expect to see smaller 21" HDTVs for this purpose (around desk sized, that is to say). Maybe CRT, maybe LCD, maybe both, doesn't matter cause today's video card and entire systems from cpu to ram to mb chipset will be choking at those resolutions. The entire hardware industry will enjoy dozens of generations matching the HDTV resolutions, in the smallest possible increments.
Beyond that, someday there will be some sort of viable 3d display that takes enormous amounts of bandwidth, displaying HDTV like resolutions in a cubic area instead of on plane. A whole 'nother round of upgrades await!
:)Fudboy
I should point out that this question is being asked by an IT guy for the Wisconsin state court systems. Let's consider the needs of a courthouse network before suggesting things like user-installs, openGL cards to buy, crap like that.
Basically, they could get away with vt100's and any OS running at the server...
But as to which distro, hmmm. You will just be running file sharing and word perfect? since every lawyer I've ever met swears by wordperfect 5, I would think you will want some compatability there. that clears that up, unless they do things different in Wisconsin (I'm in California, IIRC there are more atty's here than the rest of the country combined, including Washington DC!!!)
Also, you will probably be providing access to some very old DB's, which will just want for a terminal emulator, which are abundant and mature in every distro...
Are any of the users going to need www access? Judges, maybe? Still doesn't narrow it down to a specific distro...
In short, I can't see a single reason to sweat this question. There is no appreciable difference in distros considering the way they are going to lock down these machines. Unless there are details in server configuration or applications not mentioned, or user latitude is broad, just go with the best support plan.
:)Fudboy
Since the 'at large' membership database is being slashdotted, I thought I'd point out that many of you are (or aren't) being presented an important opportunity here. That being said, let's consider the types of Slashdot reader that are signing up today:
.gnu has been found!
/. reader to hold a seat get to post directly on to the front page?
Lurker: won't be contributing much to the message board debates.
Zealot: the support for
Troll: disruption, misinformation and FUD are the M.O.
IT Pro: Will harp on the technical failings of any proposed plan. (instead of making it work)
Karma Whore: The likeliest 'self-nominated board member', think of the karma there! Will the first
1337 h4x0r: No such thing really, right?
Windows User: commonly confused with troll. Anyone who is a windows user and stuck on slashdot is probably looking for something more fulfilling, and this may be it...
I am an 'at large' member, I've had my membership for a little over a month now, and I was a little concerned at first that the slashdot demons had been unleashed. But really, if some of todays new members forget all about this in a week, that makes my vote all that much stronger. there is a limited number of memberships, after all. Which leads me to suspect that maybe the upper limit of memberships was reached toaday after the first few 10's of 1000's of slashdot readers showed up to hop on the bandwagon. All in all, I guess it's better to share the wealth, as it were, than to keep this a secret for infrastructure geeks only.
:)Fudboy
okay okay, so I was a little sloppy, it's very late here in California- 4:20am as a matter of fact...
By "cart emulation like mame" I actually meant to refer to ROMs, not mame. sorry 'bout that. In an overall sense, I mean the whole emulation scene including mame, NESticle, etc.
and no, it would not be a superset, Dreamcast marketshare will be the greater for having been out for 2+ years. but moreover, when discussing consoles, market share is to be considered the number of HW units that have been sold. I am talking about the number of hardware units that can play Dreamcast games, and the X-box would be a portion of the total. a subset. Even if the X-box ships more units than the dreamcast, it is still only a portion of the total Dreamcast compatable consoles in living rooms across the U.S.
I will save further replies for tomorrow. thanks and goodnight
:)Fudboy
I am a full-time "professional" videogame developer in the process of building my first software studio. I have worked on projects from Corporate Flagship Title all the way down to shareware puzzle game, but almost always on PC (the occasional Mac title being the exception) I have been watching the console market for quite a while, looking for my chance to jump in, and I must say this is an extremely interesting point.
Most of the posts so far have been concerned with either Playstation emulation or older cart game emulation like mame. I have a much different take on the situation, namely that the Dreamcast is the most obvious target for emulation on the X-Box, as it is WinCE/COM based code already. Right? Not only that, but with the hardware being sold as a loss leader for software recouping, and Sega's position as an underdog in the market, this would be a dream come true for Sega. Not to mention [Sega's] recent and heartening madcap maneuvering with ideas like free Dreamcasts with Internet service, broadband support, etc. I think they would embrace this wholeheartedly. It even makes me think there is room for a Sega buyout by Microsoft. Not totally out of the question, if you ask me.
This makes a huge impact on my strategizing, as I have been deliberating with my partners about whether to pursue psx2, psx1, Dreamcast or PC. We aren't even thinking about Dolphin or N64 for what are to me obvious reasons. We have been leaning in the direction of a PC title, because of the promise of quick porting to the X-Box. Also, we don't necessarily want to spend the $250,000 to $1,000,000 that the console mfctrs. are asking for development rights. X-Box doesn't look to be heading in this direction, which is the surest sign that it will succeed (If I am wrong here, I would love to know, I have been looking for any hints as to what licensing model is actually being planned). Another point in favor of X-box development (for developers) is that MS probably won't be nearly as anal as Sony approving a game. Sony (and to a much worse extent, Nintendo) is notorious for their strong-arming over final approval.
Now, with the notion of easy console-to-console emulation being planned/thrown about, it makes the Dreamcast extremely appealing, because we could finish two or three titles before the X-Box hits the shelves. We could possibly have our first title ported by that time, but with emulation as a built in feature, we wouldn't even need to worry about it. X-box market share could be viewed as a subset of Dreamcast market share for as long as the first year X-box is out! This would definately make courting investors much much easier.
:)Fudboy
FUD Patrol...no where to go... ;)
:)Fudboy
I guess I'm just a Fudboy, looking for that real Transmeta...
This organ also remindeds me of that experiment in high school physical science, where you take a screen and a glass tube, attach the screen 1/3 of the way through the pipe, and heat over a burner to produce an eerie howling sound. Presumably, tubes of different dimensions and material will produce different tones and timbres. I very much wanted to make an organ of this type, using the heating elements from toasters or coffee pots, and with ceramic stoppers, but this was around the time when I got my first computer, and I quickly forgot all about it- 'till now!
I always figured the contraption would look something like UNIVAC must've, and it would probably take the same size cooling system as an office building...
:)Fudboy
I guess I'm just a Fudboy, looking for that real Transmeta...
Hmmm, you are correct, an oversight on my part, but it has been years since I read it...
However, there is also "Act II part III. Classic Walpurgis Night" with Homunculos and Erichto, Sphinxes and Nymphs, Ants (of the colossal kind), Chiron, Seismos and Manto, Pygmies, Pygmy-Elders and the Cranes of Ibycus. Surely this is a demonic guest list?
:)Fudboy
I guess I'm just a Fudboy, looking for that real Transmeta...
I don't know about you guys, but I am instantly reminded of Faust (Goethe) and the Walpurgisnacht Festival, towards the climax in the second book. This is truly one demonic instrument! For those of you with more contemporary (geeky) literary leanings, this is the same festival as takes place towards the end of the Illuminatus trilogy, dressed up as a sort of Euro-Woodstock.
:)Fudboy
I guess I'm just a Fudboy, looking for that real Transmeta...
I don't know if this has been touched on yet, but it seems to me that the archive would make an ideal 'memory' for an AI to grow in to.
During the AI's maturation cycle, one could simply provide the data raw and let the pattern matching and cross indexing fly.
The archive is mixed with every aspect of the human mind, the art and music, the filth and evil, the self-righteous religious fury, the meek and mild post-hippy sentiment, the peircing precision of scienctific method and the wacky good fun of psuedo-science madness. The full spectrum of humanity is presented here, from autistic to genius, idiotic to brilliant. There are plenty of wholesome sites, children friendly basic learning resources, museums and FAQ's, on and on.
I propose that the archive be used as the base for intuition in a full scale AI project, with the actual info rarely making its way up the stack to conciousness, instead providing the hints and connections necessary for a model of human memory. Explicit data filtering will be required for the prototype and experimental versions, but a truly 'human' AI would need to understand humanity on some pretty deep levels if we were to expect it to relate to us, and have sympathy/empathy for us regardless of our shortcomings.
Maybe this process is already happening under the guise of the internet search engines!!! There is an awful lot of pressure and incentive to provide relavant responses... what better way to accomplish this, than to have some entity think about the list of matches and understand human requests like a human?
:)Fudboy
I guess I'm just a Fudboy, looking for that real Transmeta...
:)Fudboy
I guess I'm just a Fudboy, looking for that real Transmeta...
It occures to me that the deposits of H3 must be spread uniformly across the surface of the moon if it is catching rays from the Sun. This means the entire surface is evenly loaded and a target for a strip mine. This begs the question: Will the moon eventually be paved flat?
After several passes with truly massive mining equiptment the entire surface of the moon will have been run through grinders, slurry heaters, leech processes, and redeposit. The redeposit process will have to lay down the remainders without stirring up any "dust" so controls will be tight and mistakes intolerated.
There will be a strict condition imposed by the UN that a mining compnay or national venture may only extract usefull elements like h3 and aluminum and carefully place all the rest of the materials back on the surface. The risk of flying into a 'dust cloud' of micrometeorites in a lunar transport will be high enough without sloppy mining messing things up. The remainders might be left in large mounds, but this is only necessary if processing stations are immobile. In the reduced gravity of the moon, the entire processing plant could be mobile, even including the spaceport where the ferries load. This seems most practical and elegant. Now the factories are moving around like cows in a pasture. leaving their remainders in a smooth ribbon behind them.
The claims will be debated and marked in the UN. some nations might go rougue, political tensions will rise, perhaps skirmishes here and above, but things will settle down pretty quick as companies move in and tax proceeds are made available.
Back on Earth, there will be much debate over the effect the redistribution of mass on the moon is having over the tide and weather patterns. Coastlines will change, species will die, but at the same time, the power to do something about it will be ours. With that much pure fuel for fusion at our disposal we could take back the climate, by simply running massive underwater heaters in strategic locations. Advances in other technologies will allow us to construct ecological sanctuaries with stable populations of every species, including many 'extinct' ones. I guess the real question is, can we get to the paradise before hell catches up with us?
Meanwhile, the moon has been churned hundreds of times in a crop rotation pattern that's running out of time and facing ever growing demand. Enterprising organisations will move to set up very large sail-like collectors facing the Sun and surrounding the earth and the moon to collect H3 as the moon runs dry. They will also double as conventional solar collectors as refined to that date. This will probably be deemed more important than astronomy, but at no time will anyone be permitted to obscure direct sunlight to the earth or interrupt communications. Off the top of my head, the likely metephor is that of the Earth blooming into flower petals. Kick ass. The sails will be strung together with clearly marked conduits running to beam generators pointing at stations on the surface, brimming with so much power that they are visible for thousands of miles, and drastically changing the look of sunset and sunrise as the stations must always remain positioned along the terminator...
I could live with this future, smooth moon and all.
:)Fudboy
I guess I'm just a Fudboy, looking for that real Transmeta...