To be more precise:
An equatorial orbit is an orbit at any height that is over (or nearly) over the equator -- hence anyone near the equator can see it on a daily basis if it's big/close enough.
A geostationary (or geosynchronous) orbit is one in which the object's logititude doesn't change due to its orbit (about 24,000 miles) -- at this height and speed, it moves around the earth at the same rate the earth spins. Running to stand still, if you will. If that orbit is over the equator, then it will be a stationary spot. If it's anywhere else, it WILL change latitude but not longititude. Not much use for this since spy satellites have to be closer and anything else wants to maintain an area of coverage, but it can and has been done.
The ISS is in an inclined orbit somewhere between 200 and 300 miles up, IIRC. So it will 'fly over' a variety of areas both above and below the hemisphere, covering a path centered on the equator (Man, a picture WOULD be worth all these words...). When it happens to be over your neck of the woods, if you're close enough to the equator (apparently, it's a relatively high inclination if people in New Zealand will be able to see it), is merely a question of time:)
Someone said it will eventually be "second [in brightness] only to Venus" when finished -- that should be second to THE MOON -- it'll be brighter than Venus when completed.
The report I saw referenced a monitoring location in Norway. They registered a small explosion, followed by a much larger one -- two minutes later. This suggests one of two things, in my mind:
1) Collision with a mine -- this causes minor damage, or perhaps a fire, which sets off the torpedoes/missles on board, which wrecks the sub enough to send it to the bottom. Alternatively, the mine could have caused enough damage that the sub sank rapidly, and the impact with the sea floor caused the 2nd, large explosion in the torpedo compartment.
2) Some internal problem caused the first explosion, which led to one of the above two causes of the second explosion. I tend to doubt the 'early arm' theory -- why would they be using live warheads in an exercise? But some kind of malfunction or crew error could cause a fire or minor explosion.
Regardless, we'll probably hear one story which is NOT the true story -- noone in this event is motivated to tell the truth as I see it -- the Russians awnt to cover up any negligence or ineptitude, and the US will want to recover the sub or at least some of the contents, so we won't be doing anything but supporting the Russian story -- then they can't claim we are up to no good without revealing their own problems.
Does anyone actually use one of the 'default' Red Hat installations? I always use Custom, and I certainly don't need Pirhana for a lone gateway.
However, if you want MS SQL server on an NT box, you'll be using MS SQL server (self-evident, but it's part of the idea...). And as they pointed out, this is part of the default install procedure before the 2000 version.
I'm suprised more firewalls don't block the SQL server port by default...that only makes sense. Do people forget to firewall their syslog ports too?
Not a flame, just the constructive answer, I hope:)
One question for the legal team, that I didn't see asked anywhere else...
Can you continue the court process financially? IE, is adequate funding available for Appeals Court/Surpreme Court hearings that could last another year or two, or even more? I suspect Napster will face this problem if their court processes drag out...
I'm not sure our (that is, non astro-physics gurus) concept of 'the whole universe' is complete, so what we see as the whole universe is not the whole story, and therefore not a closed system.
It seems to be all-but-accepted that there are one or more other dimensions beyond at least a layperson's understanding, and black holes being the freeky things they are, I imagine other dimensions might have something to do with them:)
I kinda hope entropy doesn't prevail though -- if it's the universe's destiny to eventually be just a chaotic mess of nothing useful, well -- that would suck. And that's all I have to say about that.
No -- The 2nd Law DOES hold, for a closed system, as he said. A closed system, in case you're missing the idea, is one in which there are no inputs or outputs -- no energy/mass/anything in or out.
It's hard to come up with a practical example -- I'm not sure there is one ("Consider a frictionless surface..."). But many systems can be considered 'practically' emtpy, just as some surfaces are sufficiently low-friction to show that the friction is not a significant factor in an equation. For example, you could consider the entire solar system. Now, I KNOW that there are lots of external inputs and outputs for the solar system, mostly of the radiation and gravitational sort. But as far as the ecology of our little greenhouse called Earth goes, most of the relevant forces and energy sources are within the context of the solar system. Hopefully, you can see how entropy prevails in the solar system...the sun will eventually run outta juice (and nova, I hope -- may as well go out with a bang! Or boom, as it were), we're diminishing our available and forseeable sources of practical energy, etc...
It's true that higher level languages abstract machine code and that therefore, superficially at least, one spoken language over another shouldn't matter.
But, as my subject said, there's more to it than that. English is peculiar and different from other langauages, in it's capacity (or lack thereof) to describe certain relationships and connections.
I'll admit I know only a teeny bit of Spanish and not much else aside from English, so I can't speak as an expert on language comparisons. But I do see how, at least in theory, the langauge a group of programmers interact in could influence the code they produce. From a design standpoint, high-level abstract objects in an OO project are defined with various relationships, built on top of metaphors like publish/subscribe, client/server, is-a, has-a, and so on. I'm not sure how universal these concepts are among other languages, or if there are basic relationships in other langauages that don't exist in English, that might produce a different high-level design. If there are, though, the subtly-different design scheme would of course reflect in all the underlying code.
It's a tough question. As someone pointed out, the spead of programming know-how has been very English-driven. While there are a large number of Indian programmers, they're required to learn English, they generally take all their college-level tests in English, and are essentially learning the same OO-design principles the rest of us are. So differences in their Native language may not get a chance to influence design schemas, at least not yet.
If differences in language can lead to differences in code, eventually they almost certainly will, _if_ what's different is also as good or better, and has a chance to get wide exposure. Considering how popular the idea of tapping Indian and Eastern talent for development work is getting, I think we'll see the model change very soon, if it's going to at all.
There's no such thing as stable. It's like claiming that the human body's temperature remains constant. Sure, average, it stays pretty close. But your extremities (sp?) are usually cooler than your torso region, and there's always localized variation, as your body carries out exothermic and endothermic reactions all over the place, all the time, for your entire life.
The same is true for software, especially the various OS's application software runs on. There will always be bugs to fix -- you can't write 14 million lines of code without a bug (Windows 9X is about 14 million LOC I believe) -- the odds against it are just too remote to consider. And fixing some bugs will invariably cause a few more. Factor in new software with new features, new hardware components with their own problems, the device drivers for that hardware, and you begin to see the problem.
A system can't remain stable for long unless it lives in a vacuum. Computers, Operating Systems, Application Software -- none of these exist in a vacuum. Change is inevitable, and "the Problem" of keeping these things in relative harmony will thus always be with us.
So, if you can accept that any OS will always have to change, improve, adapt, etc., the question remains as to "which is better." Right now, Linux/Unix/***BSD/Whatever open source will remain a better technical solution -- more people looking at the problem means a higher chance of solving it. Closed souce solutions like WinBlows can't hope to keep up in an incremental fashion. They've done ok so far by enjoying and taking advantage of better hardware/driver support and a better application suite (in most respects), and of course better marketing and a lower learning curve. But, if they lose that advantage, they'll be through. If Office 2000 was available on Linux, there's no reason half the desktops in the US couldn't run Linux instead, almost immediately. The receptionist and the HR staff don't care what OS Word runs on, as long as it's reasonably predicatable and stable and fast.
Note that the 3dfx video card is 4 of the 5 atoms, and 2 of the 4 are atomic fans. Otherwise, the whole thing would split from the heat. You thought melting was bad -- imagine your computer going critical and wiping out the city! Dang overclockers....
"Clever" would have to be VERY clever, I think.
You might try identifying what ports you DO expect incoming traffic on, and allowing those, block traffic by default, and allow traffic on existing connections. There's an option in IPChains that can block based on the state of the SYN bit, which is set in a connection attempt (ie, traffic on an established connection won't have the SYN bit set, but it will be set when someone first tries to connect, e.g. when someone makes an upload request). If you accept traffic to your host ports (for FTP or SSH or what have you), then only accept remaining traffic if the SYN bit is not set (it's ! -p in ipchains, IIRC), you might just pull it off. Note that the rule order matters here.
man ipchains for the details, or elaborate on your system if you're using something different to firewall.
Well, I would hope so. I'll keep my slant on a Computer Science track since that's what I know.
I just got my BS in Computer Science. I don't count myself as a 'post-grad' in the sense I used it earlier. However, with just a BS, I'm well on my way to being deep-pocket-ed:)
There are plenty of Master's and Ph.D holders with hefty incomes (salary, options, patent rights...the list goes on). With just a BS, a comp sci major at least has a shot at 2 or 3 of those wallet-padding sources.
If I had a dissertation and a Master's, and I saw material I knew to be both mine and not freely-available except through me, I'd gladly throw a chunk of change at protecting my copyright through legal action. Not out of spite, not because I "can", but because I don't believe anyone else should be making money off of my hard work. If someone wants to read/critique/quote/research from my material, GREAT! I'll send it to you in email, discuss it with you live, review/encourage what you're doing, because that's part of why people DO post-graduate work. But I won't charge you for my material, and I certainly wouldn't expect you to pay someone else for it. If you have to drop 20 bucks at Kinko's to print it out, that's one thing. But the fees on Contentville look a bit pricey to be merely media-distribution costs.
Bottom line, Content-ville is seeking to make a profit without fairly compensating the author's they're brokering. And that's wrong.
Semi-related Napster Rant:
Obviously, I have problems with similar efforts, including Napster. I think the Record Labels are Very Bad Things (tm), but Napster's goal of making a profit off of their service is little better, IMHO.
Just block traffic with a destination IP and port of whichever port your Napster client is configured to use -- 6346 by default? Maybe that's Gnutella...
At any rate, that should block any requests to upload your shared files.
By me "saying it first," I was saying that the inevitable (and inaccurate) comparisons should go ahead and get out of the way.
While Napster is free to use, it remains similar in that Contentville, like Napster, seems to be attempting to make a profit off of the work of others.
Contentville's main page says a little about their source:
Excerpts from the UMI® Dissertation Abstracts database are being used by Contentville, which, in turn, collects orders for full-text dissertations. Dissertation orders are fulfilled by UMI® Dissertations Publishing, whose mission is to expand scholarly communication and improve access to academic research. All Dissertation Publishing Agreements with authors remain in effect. Dissertation authors retain all rights to their dissertations. All sales will be tracked for royalty payments. All contracted royalties will be paid, per the agreement. The UMI program continues to expand access to research and maintain a permanent archive of scholarly works. Wider distribution of dissertation research is intended to support the international scholarly community.
I did some random checks on professors at my (very recent) alma mater, NCSU. Several of the CSC professors had dissertations on Contentville, mostly their doctoral thesis (the dates were roughly equivalent to their Ph.D schools and dates). Their newer material was NOT listed. Odd...
It's going to be said, so I may as well say it first... *insert gratuitous Napster comparison here*
Seriously, though, I'd be surprised if this site stays up long -- all it takes is one high-profile, deep-pocket post-grad seeing his material on this site.
Can anyone post details on these Database protection bills? I want to lay the smack down but I need the details first...
FIN is just short for "Final" in TCP -- if it's set to 1 it signifies that this is the 'final' packet as far as the sender is concerned.
I _believe_ that it's on the last regular data packet, and that the recipient should respond with an ack/fin packet as well, but I'm not sure, and it may very depending on what stack you're talking about -- expert clarification welcome:)
Personally, I am hoping Jar Jar's return goes something like this:
*Star Wars Title and Intro text scroll up screen*
Jar Jar pops on screen. "Meesah Jar Jar B..." *ZZZzzzzttt* Head lopped off by a clone Darth Maul That'd get the crowd's approval, at least;)
Just remember...every Jedi except Yoda and Obi-Wan die, at least some directly courtesy of Anakin turned Vader. Obviously, Jedi don't go down without a fight -- hopefully Lucas will show some good fights, including some BIG ones. And, since it is _Star_ Wars, a return to some big, complicated space battles...
Ahh, but regardless if how powerful your computer is -- it's pretty much stuck on the desk or in the rack. I don't think we'll see a machine given both full mobility and sensory capabilities AND such an advanced 'brain' until the implications have been better studied/argued/legalized.
On a more optimistic note, there's no reason to _assume_ that a mechanized sentient would be any less cognizent of both it's rights and our own than any human sentient...it, as we, learns ethics by experience.
Of course, some humans don't learn as well as others...
If any intelligence, mechanical or biological, can grow to understand consequences and the need in a society to coexist, it would likely be quite happy living aside us 'ugly bags of mostly water', not with its foot to our collective throat.
Slashdot Mirror
Ooh, post a link. OMF was cool.
To be more precise: An equatorial orbit is an orbit at any height that is over (or nearly) over the equator -- hence anyone near the equator can see it on a daily basis if it's big/close enough.
:)
A geostationary (or geosynchronous) orbit is one in which the object's logititude doesn't change due to its orbit (about 24,000 miles) -- at this height and speed, it moves around the earth at the same rate the earth spins. Running to stand still, if you will. If that orbit is over the equator, then it will be a stationary spot. If it's anywhere else, it WILL change latitude but not longititude. Not much use for this since spy satellites have to be closer and anything else wants to maintain an area of coverage, but it can and has been done.
The ISS is in an inclined orbit somewhere between 200 and 300 miles up, IIRC. So it will 'fly over' a variety of areas both above and below the hemisphere, covering a path centered on the equator (Man, a picture WOULD be worth all these words...). When it happens to be over your neck of the woods, if you're close enough to the equator (apparently, it's a relatively high inclination if people in New Zealand will be able to see it), is merely a question of time
Someone said it will eventually be "second [in brightness] only to Venus" when finished -- that should be second to THE MOON -- it'll be brighter than Venus when completed.
Xentax
The report I saw referenced a monitoring location in Norway. They registered a small explosion, followed by a much larger one -- two minutes later . This suggests one of two things, in my mind:
1) Collision with a mine -- this causes minor damage, or perhaps a fire, which sets off the torpedoes/missles on board, which wrecks the sub enough to send it to the bottom. Alternatively, the mine could have caused enough damage that the sub sank rapidly, and the impact with the sea floor caused the 2nd, large explosion in the torpedo compartment.
2) Some internal problem caused the first explosion, which led to one of the above two causes of the second explosion. I tend to doubt the 'early arm' theory -- why would they be using live warheads in an exercise? But some kind of malfunction or crew error could cause a fire or minor explosion.
Regardless, we'll probably hear one story which is NOT the true story -- noone in this event is motivated to tell the truth as I see it -- the Russians awnt to cover up any negligence or ineptitude, and the US will want to recover the sub or at least some of the contents, so we won't be doing anything but supporting the Russian story -- then they can't claim we are up to no good without revealing their own problems.
Xentax
Does anyone actually use one of the 'default' Red Hat installations? I always use Custom, and I certainly don't need Pirhana for a lone gateway.
:)
However, if you want MS SQL server on an NT box, you'll be using MS SQL server (self-evident, but it's part of the idea...). And as they pointed out, this is part of the default install procedure before the 2000 version.
I'm suprised more firewalls don't block the SQL server port by default...that only makes sense. Do people forget to firewall their syslog ports too?
Not a flame, just the constructive answer, I hope
Xentax
One question for the legal team, that I didn't see asked anywhere else...
Can you continue the court process financially? IE, is adequate funding available for Appeals Court/Surpreme Court hearings that could last another year or two, or even more? I suspect Napster will face this problem if their court processes drag out...
Xentax
I'm not sure our (that is, non astro-physics gurus) concept of 'the whole universe' is complete, so what we see as the whole universe is not the whole story, and therefore not a closed system.
:)
It seems to be all-but-accepted that there are one or more other dimensions beyond at least a layperson's understanding, and black holes being the freeky things they are, I imagine other dimensions might have something to do with them
I kinda hope entropy doesn't prevail though -- if it's the universe's destiny to eventually be just a chaotic mess of nothing useful, well -- that would suck. And that's all I have to say about that.
Xentax
No -- The 2nd Law DOES hold, for a closed system, as he said. A closed system, in case you're missing the idea, is one in which there are no inputs or outputs -- no energy/mass/anything in or out.
It's hard to come up with a practical example -- I'm not sure there is one ("Consider a frictionless surface..."). But many systems can be considered 'practically' emtpy, just as some surfaces are sufficiently low-friction to show that the friction is not a significant factor in an equation. For example, you could consider the entire solar system. Now, I KNOW that there are lots of external inputs and outputs for the solar system, mostly of the radiation and gravitational sort. But as far as the ecology of our little greenhouse called Earth goes, most of the relevant forces and energy sources are within the context of the solar system. Hopefully, you can see how entropy prevails in the solar system...the sun will eventually run outta juice (and nova, I hope -- may as well go out with a bang! Or boom, as it were), we're diminishing our available and forseeable sources of practical energy, etc...
Xentax
It's true that higher level languages abstract machine code and that therefore, superficially at least, one spoken language over another shouldn't matter.
But, as my subject said, there's more to it than that. English is peculiar and different from other langauages, in it's capacity (or lack thereof) to describe certain relationships and connections.
I'll admit I know only a teeny bit of Spanish and not much else aside from English, so I can't speak as an expert on language comparisons. But I do see how, at least in theory, the langauge a group of programmers interact in could influence the code they produce. From a design standpoint, high-level abstract objects in an OO project are defined with various relationships, built on top of metaphors like publish/subscribe, client/server, is-a, has-a, and so on. I'm not sure how universal these concepts are among other languages, or if there are basic relationships in other langauages that don't exist in English, that might produce a different high-level design. If there are, though, the subtly-different design scheme would of course reflect in all the underlying code.
It's a tough question. As someone pointed out, the spead of programming know-how has been very English-driven. While there are a large number of Indian programmers, they're required to learn English, they generally take all their college-level tests in English, and are essentially learning the same OO-design principles the rest of us are. So differences in their Native language may not get a chance to influence design schemas, at least not yet.
If differences in language can lead to differences in code, eventually they almost certainly will, _if_ what's different is also as good or better, and has a chance to get wide exposure. Considering how popular the idea of tapping Indian and Eastern talent for development work is getting, I think we'll see the model change very soon, if it's going to at all.
Xentax
There's no such thing as stable. It's like claiming that the human body's temperature remains constant. Sure, average, it stays pretty close. But your extremities (sp?) are usually cooler than your torso region, and there's always localized variation, as your body carries out exothermic and endothermic reactions all over the place, all the time, for your entire life.
The same is true for software, especially the various OS's application software runs on. There will always be bugs to fix -- you can't write 14 million lines of code without a bug (Windows 9X is about 14 million LOC I believe) -- the odds against it are just too remote to consider. And fixing some bugs will invariably cause a few more. Factor in new software with new features, new hardware components with their own problems, the device drivers for that hardware, and you begin to see the problem.
A system can't remain stable for long unless it lives in a vacuum. Computers, Operating Systems, Application Software -- none of these exist in a vacuum. Change is inevitable, and "the Problem" of keeping these things in relative harmony will thus always be with us.
So, if you can accept that any OS will always have to change, improve, adapt, etc., the question remains as to "which is better." Right now, Linux/Unix/***BSD/Whatever open source will remain a better technical solution -- more people looking at the problem means a higher chance of solving it. Closed souce solutions like WinBlows can't hope to keep up in an incremental fashion. They've done ok so far by enjoying and taking advantage of better hardware/driver support and a better application suite (in most respects), and of course better marketing and a lower learning curve. But, if they lose that advantage, they'll be through. If Office 2000 was available on Linux, there's no reason half the desktops in the US couldn't run Linux instead, almost immediately. The receptionist and the HR staff don't care what OS Word runs on, as long as it's reasonably predicatable and stable and fast.
I'd keep ranting, but lunch beckons...
Xentax
Note that the 3dfx video card is 4 of the 5 atoms, and 2 of the 4 are atomic fans. Otherwise, the whole thing would split from the heat. You thought melting was bad -- imagine your computer going critical and wiping out the city! Dang overclockers....
Xentax
"Clever" would have to be VERY clever, I think.
You might try identifying what ports you DO expect incoming traffic on, and allowing those, block traffic by default, and allow traffic on existing connections.
There's an option in IPChains that can block based on the state of the SYN bit, which is set in a connection attempt (ie, traffic on an established connection won't have the SYN bit set, but it will be set when someone first tries to connect, e.g. when someone makes an upload request). If you accept traffic to your host ports (for FTP or SSH or what have you), then only accept remaining traffic if the SYN bit is not set (it's ! -p in ipchains, IIRC), you might just pull it off. Note that the rule order matters here.
man ipchains for the details, or elaborate on your system if you're using something different to firewall.
Good luck,
Xentax
Well, I would hope so. I'll keep my slant on a Computer Science track since that's what I know.
:)
I just got my BS in Computer Science. I don't count myself as a 'post-grad' in the sense I used it earlier. However, with just a BS, I'm well on my way to being deep-pocket-ed
There are plenty of Master's and Ph.D holders with hefty incomes (salary, options, patent rights...the list goes on). With just a BS, a comp sci major at least has a shot at 2 or 3 of those wallet-padding sources.
If I had a dissertation and a Master's, and I saw material I knew to be both mine and not freely-available except through me, I'd gladly throw a chunk of change at protecting my copyright through legal action. Not out of spite, not because I "can", but because I don't believe anyone else should be making money off of my hard work. If someone wants to read/critique/quote/research from my material, GREAT! I'll send it to you in email, discuss it with you live, review/encourage what you're doing, because that's part of why people DO post-graduate work. But I won't charge you for my material, and I certainly wouldn't expect you to pay someone else for it. If you have to drop 20 bucks at Kinko's to print it out, that's one thing. But the fees on Contentville look a bit pricey to be merely media-distribution costs.
Bottom line, Content-ville is seeking to make a profit without fairly compensating the author's they're brokering. And that's wrong.
Semi-related Napster Rant:
Obviously, I have problems with similar efforts, including Napster. I think the Record Labels are Very Bad Things (tm), but Napster's goal of making a profit off of their service is little better, IMHO.
*Gets off his soapbox*
Xentax
Just block traffic with a destination IP and port of whichever port your Napster client is configured to use -- 6346 by default? Maybe that's Gnutella...
At any rate, that should block any requests to upload your shared files.
By me "saying it first," I was saying that the inevitable (and inaccurate) comparisons should go ahead and get out of the way.
While Napster is free to use, it remains similar in that Contentville, like Napster, seems to be attempting to make a profit off of the work of others.
Contentville's main page says a little about their source:
I did some random checks on professors at my (very recent) alma mater, NCSU. Several of the CSC professors had dissertations on Contentville, mostly their doctoral thesis (the dates were roughly equivalent to their Ph.D schools and dates). Their newer material was NOT listed. Odd...
Xentax
It's going to be said, so I may as well say it first ... *insert gratuitous Napster comparison here*
Seriously, though, I'd be surprised if this site stays up long -- all it takes is one high-profile, deep-pocket post-grad seeing his material on this site.
Can anyone post details on these Database protection bills? I want to lay the smack down but I need the details first...
Xentax
FIN is just short for "Final" in TCP -- if it's set to 1 it signifies that this is the 'final' packet as far as the sender is concerned.
:)
I _believe_ that it's on the last regular data packet, and that the recipient should respond with an ack/fin packet as well, but I'm not sure, and it may very depending on what stack you're talking about -- expert clarification welcome
Xentax
cgrathje@eos.ncsu.edu
Personally, I am hoping Jar Jar's return goes something like this:
;)
*Star Wars Title and Intro text scroll up screen*
Jar Jar pops on screen.
"Meesah Jar Jar B..."
*ZZZzzzzttt*
Head lopped off by a clone Darth Maul
That'd get the crowd's approval, at least
Just remember...every Jedi except Yoda and Obi-Wan die, at least some directly courtesy of Anakin turned Vader. Obviously, Jedi don't go down without a fight -- hopefully Lucas will show some good fights, including some BIG ones. And, since it is _Star_ Wars, a return to some big, complicated space battles...
Xentax
Ahh, but regardless if how powerful your computer is -- it's pretty much stuck on the desk or in the rack. I don't think we'll see a machine given both full mobility and sensory capabilities AND such an advanced 'brain' until the implications have been better studied/argued/legalized.
On a more optimistic note, there's no reason to _assume_ that a mechanized sentient would be any less cognizent of both it's rights and our own than any human sentient...it, as we, learns ethics by experience.
Of course, some humans don't learn as well as others...
If any intelligence, mechanical or biological, can grow to understand consequences and the need in a society to coexist, it would likely be quite happy living aside us 'ugly bags of mostly water', not with its foot to our collective throat.
Xentax