The article says that it got a 16bit/s downlink from the satellite, but then later it says that all the instruments are turned off. What the hell is it transmitting then? Anyone know?
It might be an interesting experiment to turn the instruments back on and check how well they still work to help the engineers building the space station. That data might improve its longevity and help it not turn into what Mir has become.
Perhaps the effect you're talking about with the wing could be done with heat instead of pressure. You have one hot side and one cold side. Particles move at different speeds over each and *viola* you have motion.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but here's how this reads to me.
FBI request : There's this bad mafia guy. We've got reasonable proof that he's doing Bad Things (tm). Instead of a phone tap, we'd like to do a computer tap to collect enough information to get him.
Court order : Yup, he's bad. Go get 'em.
That doesn't seem too crazy. What seems almost silly is that they ask for permission to install software, HARDWARE, and FIRMWARE?!?! Ok, anyone who can't tell well enough that someone has been messsing around with their boxen physically and put in new hardware shouldn't consider themselves very sneaky and need to get out of the Bad Things (tm) business. I mean it's like coming home and having a new random ceiling fan appear in your living room with a silver orb in the middle instead of a light globe(think mall security) and a mic for a pull cord. Duh!
As long as the FBI still have to get court orders that need to show reasonable proof you're doing something bad, I don't see privacy issues getting too bad. It's just when they're allowed to have manufacturers install hardware to transmit everything you do to a data base to try an filter out what illegal activity might be going on (be wary those adopting wireless LANs)that I'll get somewhat worried.
planet (plnt)
n. A nonluminous celestial body larger than an asteroid or a comet, illuminated by light from a star, such as the sun, around which it revolves. In the solar system there are nine known planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.
there is also some definition that goes like this:
A ``planet'' is an object that has a mass between that of Pluto and the Deuterium-burning threshold* and that forms in orbit around an object that can generate energy by nuclear reactions.
* Deuterium Burning Limit: Objects less massive than 12 Jupiter masses never burn Deuterium nor generate significant energy from any nuclear reactions. Coincidentally this Deuterium-burning limit at 12 Mjup resides near the high-end of the observed planet mass distribution.
Corollary #1: Observations may enhance but not authenticate planet status.
Corollary #2: Sharp parameter boundaries for the domain of "planets" can be neither physically nor empirically justified at this time. Objects which have masses and formation histories near the perimeter of the adopted parameter domain constitute part of a natural continuum.
just for those who might be wondering...
asteroid
n, Astronomy; a rocky body, less than 1000 kilometers across, in orbit around the sun
It doesn't make much of a difference how small/fast you make the processor if you can't push the data at it fast enough. So far, there isn't even much theory-ware that can keep up with the speeds of processing this is hinting about.
This sort of thing is kinda cool, but I see several problems with it. Mainly :
1. How to get manufactures to shell out the money to make these?
2. How scratch/tear resistant are these things? They may be flexible, but don't look very sturdy. What about thermal resistance? It just seems like it would be much easier to screw up all the little pits in information layer and therefore screw the cd-floppy.
3. They also look like they'd be a pain to print on since most paints would be thicker than that the CD-floppy. How do you know which one is which?
4. CD's and thin cases are so cheap now, why do we need this?
5. How do you get stupid consumers to use the plastic adapter ring correctly. I see lots of problems with people misusing it and breaking their CD/DVD players.
I think a neat use for it might be a replacement for the magnetic disc in floppy drives. Get a new drive that reads the things and use technology to fit 1 gig or more onto a floppy. Too bad it won't be writable, but it might help with installation of certain programs on laptops & etc.
It says in the article that Iridium LLC went bankrupt and Iridium Satellite LLC bought up the assets for $25M but Boeing is still doing the upkeep on the satellites and Motorola is providing equipment for a subscriber service run off the satellites. Now is it just me, or does this just sound like they filled for Chapt. 11 and sold the company to themselves to try and reorganize and screw people that have IOU's with the company?
Does anyone have any solid information on what is really going on with Iridium? I'd like to see what the current plans are for what they're going to do with it.
All watermarks currently screw with the orginal audio signal, thereby ruining your music. Some say they can't hear it. I ask you, what kind of system are you listening to it on? Try a high quality pair of speaker and a clean amp or maybe just some studio headphones. I guarentee you hear a difference. This is only at the current fidelity standard of 44.1kHz/16bits. What happens when the slow move to 96kHz/24bits takes off? Who the hell is going to want to plunk down 1000's of dollars to own the first DVD-A player and $30 a disc only to hear some hissing, clicking, or other crap that is a result of a watermark? No one in their right minds! The new standard dies and all of us craving a better standard than CD's get screwed.
But what if they did something smart for a change? Take a lession from Pearl Jam, you idiots. Pearl Jam had a big problem with bootlegging. So, instead of whining about it to the record label or the government, they did for themselves and released every single show from the summer tour straight from a soundboard source. Then they priced it to sell at $11 for each 2 CD concert. That way no bootlegger could keep up with the price or quality and the band actually makes a few bucks in the process. Damn, now isn't that clever? There are currently plans to release the complete fall tour after Christmas. Inside talk says that this will be a fixed pratice for all future PJ shows.
Most people that love music know that outright bootlegging will break artists and cause them to stop working. People would take action for themselves and stop dl'ing mp3 illegally if there was a cheap alternative. Instead the industry wants to spend millions on a system that won't work anyway and then upcharge you to pay for it when all they have to do to stop the problem is charge less in the first place.
That in the pictures of the arcade machine being dropped off the building, that they dropped it onto a series of what look to be packing pallettes? Also the cabinet looked like it hit top first. So I would imagine that these two combined factors would act in a similar mannar to collapsable body panels in a car. For those who don't follow : IT'S ABSORBING ALL THE IMPACT ENERGY (SHOCK). If they wanted to prove something, skip the housing and the pallettes. If it still survived, then I'd be impressed. Thoughts? ---
Slashdot Mirror
It seems the link for the "close calls" is forbidden?!? Anyone care to repost what it says somewhere?
It might be an interesting experiment to turn the instruments back on and check how well they still work to help the engineers building the space station. That data might improve its longevity and help it not turn into what Mir has become.
Perhaps the effect you're talking about with the wing could be done with heat instead of pressure. You have one hot side and one cold side. Particles move at different speeds over each and *viola* you have motion.
FBI request : There's this bad mafia guy. We've got reasonable proof that he's doing Bad Things (tm). Instead of a phone tap, we'd like to do a computer tap to collect enough information to get him.
Court order : Yup, he's bad. Go get 'em.
That doesn't seem too crazy. What seems almost silly is that they ask for permission to install software, HARDWARE, and FIRMWARE?!?! Ok, anyone who can't tell well enough that someone has been messsing around with their boxen physically and put in new hardware shouldn't consider themselves very sneaky and need to get out of the Bad Things (tm) business. I mean it's like coming home and having a new random ceiling fan appear in your living room with a silver orb in the middle instead of a light globe(think mall security) and a mic for a pull cord. Duh!
As long as the FBI still have to get court orders that need to show reasonable proof you're doing something bad, I don't see privacy issues getting too bad. It's just when they're allowed to have manufacturers install hardware to transmit everything you do to a data base to try an filter out what illegal activity might be going on (be wary those adopting wireless LANs)that I'll get somewhat worried.
there is also some definition that goes like this :
A ``planet'' is an object that has a mass between that of Pluto and the Deuterium-burning threshold* and that forms in orbit around an object that can generate energy by nuclear reactions.
* Deuterium Burning Limit: Objects less massive than 12 Jupiter masses never burn Deuterium nor generate significant energy from any nuclear reactions. Coincidentally this Deuterium-burning limit at 12 Mjup resides near the high-end of the observed planet mass distribution.
...
Corollary #1: Observations may enhance but not authenticate planet status.
Corollary #2: Sharp parameter boundaries for the domain of "planets" can be neither physically nor empirically justified at this time. Objects which have masses and formation histories near the perimeter of the adopted parameter domain constitute part of a natural continuum.
just for those who might be wondering
asteroid n, Astronomy; a rocky body, less than 1000 kilometers across, in orbit around the sun
It doesn't make much of a difference how small/fast you make the processor if you can't push the data at it fast enough. So far, there isn't even much theory-ware that can keep up with the speeds of processing this is hinting about.
1. How to get manufactures to shell out the money to make these?
2. How scratch/tear resistant are these things? They may be flexible, but don't look very sturdy. What about thermal resistance? It just seems like it would be much easier to screw up all the little pits in information layer and therefore screw the cd-floppy.
3. They also look like they'd be a pain to print on since most paints would be thicker than that the CD-floppy. How do you know which one is which?
4. CD's and thin cases are so cheap now, why do we need this?
5. How do you get stupid consumers to use the plastic adapter ring correctly. I see lots of problems with people misusing it and breaking their CD/DVD players.
I think a neat use for it might be a replacement for the magnetic disc in floppy drives. Get a new drive that reads the things and use technology to fit 1 gig or more onto a floppy. Too bad it won't be writable, but it might help with installation of certain programs on laptops & etc.
It says in the article that Iridium LLC went bankrupt and Iridium Satellite LLC bought up the assets for $25M but Boeing is still doing the upkeep on the satellites and Motorola is providing equipment for a subscriber service run off the satellites. Now is it just me, or does this just sound like they filled for Chapt. 11 and sold the company to themselves to try and reorganize and screw people that have IOU's with the company?
Does anyone have any solid information on what is really going on with Iridium? I'd like to see what the current plans are for what they're going to do with it.
How is it one man can write a code that lasts for over 100 years (admittedly with a few errors) but SDMI can't write one that lasts a couple months?
All watermarks currently screw with the orginal audio signal, thereby ruining your music. Some say they can't hear it. I ask you, what kind of system are you listening to it on? Try a high quality pair of speaker and a clean amp or maybe just some studio headphones. I guarentee you hear a difference. This is only at the current fidelity standard of 44.1kHz/16bits. What happens when the slow move to 96kHz/24bits takes off? Who the hell is going to want to plunk down 1000's of dollars to own the first DVD-A player and $30 a disc only to hear some hissing, clicking, or other crap that is a result of a watermark? No one in their right minds! The new standard dies and all of us craving a better standard than CD's get screwed.
But what if they did something smart for a change? Take a lession from Pearl Jam, you idiots. Pearl Jam had a big problem with bootlegging. So, instead of whining about it to the record label or the government, they did for themselves and released every single show from the summer tour straight from a soundboard source. Then they priced it to sell at $11 for each 2 CD concert. That way no bootlegger could keep up with the price or quality and the band actually makes a few bucks in the process. Damn, now isn't that clever? There are currently plans to release the complete fall tour after Christmas. Inside talk says that this will be a fixed pratice for all future PJ shows.
Most people that love music know that outright bootlegging will break artists and cause them to stop working. People would take action for themselves and stop dl'ing mp3 illegally if there was a cheap alternative. Instead the industry wants to spend millions on a system that won't work anyway and then upcharge you to pay for it when all they have to do to stop the problem is charge less in the first place.
Argh!
It's a little after noon EST and this link appears to be broken. Did the /.ing of this page crash the server? Anyone got a mirror on this?
$10 to the first person that can figure out who JonKatz plagiarized in posting this article.
That in the pictures of the arcade machine being dropped off the building, that they dropped it onto a series of what look to be packing pallettes? Also the cabinet looked like it hit top first. So I would imagine that these two combined factors would act in a similar mannar to collapsable body panels in a car. For those who don't follow : IT'S ABSORBING ALL THE IMPACT ENERGY (SHOCK). If they wanted to prove something, skip the housing and the pallettes. If it still survived, then I'd be impressed. Thoughts?
---