Actually, it's more due to the fact that in its orbit around the earth and around the sun, the moon is NEVER falling AWAY from the Sun. It always falls towards it.
It seems to me that might be a useful definition to consider... and it would make more sense for the Moon to also be classified as a planet, than for Charon (for example) to be classified as a planet while the moon (many times larger) isn't.
Frankly, though, I think the whole thing is a mess. Pluto, Charon, Quoar, Xena, and all the rest, are Kuiper Belt Objects, just like Ceres is an asteroid. In particular, Pluto, Charon, Quoar, Xena, and the others KBOs are all in highly elliptical orbits, outside the plane of the ecliptic. Why can't the definition of a planet include the plane of the ecliptic? We'd have 8 planets, and then a mess of KBOs.
For whatever it's worth, when I was taught in school in the 80's, it was "Everything west of the Urals is Europe", which basically meant that part of the Soviet Union was in Europe, and the bulk was in Asia. All the "eastern European" nations were certainly in Europe.
I loved the new Dell Wide-screen 24" display. It rocked.
And then I discovered ClearType. Why ClearType isn't on in Windows XP by default (or even installed by default) I don't know. I had to go to a microsoft website to turn it on and download a control panel applet to let me tweak and configure it. But it made a great display even better... to much so that it was like getting glasses! I even use it on my CRT display at work, and it's better there too. It just seems odd to me that it's not the norm...
Yeah, yeah, I got the attempted humor. I was just pointing out the joke misfired because the voting machines are no different then the ATMs in that "PIN" aspect.:-)
The electronic voting machine I use requires a PIN too. When you show your voter id, they give you a PIN number, which must be entered into the machine before you can vote.
But the ATM can produce a complete audit of all activity. Most of the voting machines can't.
You'd think in this day and age we'd have some idea of how to create a secure voting system.
Of course we do. But you presume that security was a design goal for these machines. I put it to you that this was certainly NOT a design goal of these machines.
There's a reason that Diebold's banking and ATM machines are massively secure and auditable, and their voting machines, well, aren't either of those things.
Huh. Most people I know who saw V for Vendetta loved it, including myself. I can't wait until the DVD is released Tuesday. It's certainly one of the better movies I've seen in the past few years.
Amen brother. I just had another one of those today. It took hours for me to track down the problem, when it could have and should have not only told me what column (or even row) it was having problems with, and what constrataint it was having problems with. The error message reached a great new level of vagueness (paraphrasing here, but something like "a row or rows has a column that violates a uniqueness or not-null constrant or foreign key constraint"... I mean COME ON, you can't tell me which exactly constraint is complaining, let alone even what KIND of constraint, let alone the actual row or column or anything? UGH!)
Trust me, strongly typed datasets sound exactly like what you want. It's mostly auto-generated stuff, so you don't have to write all that stuff yourself. Still, they're not perfect. My company wrote this great layer over top strongly typed datasets, and when I want to save or load an object, I basically don't have to write any additional code. Simple templates exist for creating new types... just point at the database table, push a button, and boom, all the properties are generated and written for me. Reading an object into memory is as simple as using array-indexer syntax in C#, passing in the primary key(s). Saving an object is as simple as calling Commit() on it.
Anyway, read up on Strongly Typed Datasets, and how you use them via the VS2005 IDE, and I think you'll be a lot happier than you are, even though you won't be perfectly happy.
Did you use the subsequent build? It's much, much better than the official 'beta 2' release. Why they didn't just wait a month and release this subsequent build (Build 5456) as 'beta 2' is beyond me.
Say a typical hollywood blockbuster costs $100 million... the launch cost at least five times that much. I think I remember reading that each shuttle launch was half a billion on average. These last two probably cost way more, due to all the additional work, testing, engineering, these new cameras, and the fact that fixed costs can't be ammortized over several launches a year.
The lense must have gotten coated with something (ice?) right after separation... the shots of the earth as it falls back aren't nearly as clear as the ones from the looking-up cam.
Douglas Trumbal has been pushing this for years, with his "Show scan" technology...
Movies are shown at 24fps, and that's just WAY too slow. Double speed, or 48fps would be a vast improvement, but 3x or 72fps would be awesome and all that is necessary. The problem is that it requires 3 times the film traveling at three times the speed through the projector.
But as things are going towards digital, I see less and less reason to not make this sort of leap. High def resolution is still way below film (especially 70mm film), so they can still improve there, but digiitally, with huge hard disks, there's no reason not to go for 72fps and get amazing images.
I've had my laptop suspend right in the middle of playing a game (Rise of Nations, or Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, or Warcraft III) due to low power -- I didn't notice the power had come unplugged, and the game drained the batteries to the point it went into auto-hybernation -- and all I had to do was start it back up, and the game continued playing from right where it left off. No problem.
And it didn't really take all that much longer than a normal 'wake from hybernation' either.
Hell, they have the Warcraft III engine right there. They could just port StarCraft and its expansion pack over to the WarCraft III engine and it'd sell just fine. That'd give them all the artwork and a base income from which to launch production of StarCraft 2!
I've never understood why they've let this game lie fallow the way it has.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, it's more due to the fact that in its orbit around the earth and around the sun, the moon is NEVER falling AWAY from the Sun. It always falls towards it.
It seems to me that might be a useful definition to consider... and it would make more sense for the Moon to also be classified as a planet, than for Charon (for example) to be classified as a planet while the moon (many times larger) isn't.
Frankly, though, I think the whole thing is a mess. Pluto, Charon, Quoar, Xena, and all the rest, are Kuiper Belt Objects, just like Ceres is an asteroid. In particular, Pluto, Charon, Quoar, Xena, and the others KBOs are all in highly elliptical orbits, outside the plane of the ecliptic. Why can't the definition of a planet include the plane of the ecliptic? We'd have 8 planets, and then a mess of KBOs.
For whatever it's worth, when I was taught in school in the 80's, it was "Everything west of the Urals is Europe", which basically meant that part of the Soviet Union was in Europe, and the bulk was in Asia. All the "eastern European" nations were certainly in Europe.
I loved the new Dell Wide-screen 24" display. It rocked.
And then I discovered ClearType. Why ClearType isn't on in Windows XP by default (or even installed by default) I don't know. I had to go to a microsoft website to turn it on and download a control panel applet to let me tweak and configure it. But it made a great display even better... to much so that it was like getting glasses! I even use it on my CRT display at work, and it's better there too. It just seems odd to me that it's not the norm...
Yeah, yeah, I got the attempted humor. I was just pointing out the joke misfired because the voting machines are no different then the ATMs in that "PIN" aspect. :-)
Yes, I have. But thanks for pointing that out and linking to it.
No, conservatives tell you what they THINK is 'right', what they BELIEVE is 'right', reality be damned.
The electronic voting machine I use requires a PIN too. When you show your voter id, they give you a PIN number, which must be entered into the machine before you can vote.
But the ATM can produce a complete audit of all activity. Most of the voting machines can't.
Amen to that. And it's probably even arguable that it would cost less than most major campaigns and Get Out The Vote campaigns. :-)
You might want to read this: Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They'll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them)
You'd think in this day and age we'd have some idea of how to create a secure voting system.
Of course we do. But you presume that security was a design goal for these machines. I put it to you that this was certainly NOT a design goal of these machines.
There's a reason that Diebold's banking and ATM machines are massively secure and auditable, and their voting machines, well, aren't either of those things.
Huh. Most people I know who saw V for Vendetta loved it, including myself. I can't wait until the DVD is released Tuesday. It's certainly one of the better movies I've seen in the past few years.
It's the government that should be transparent and open to surveillance - not the populace.
Amen. Mod parent up.
Amen brother. I just had another one of those today. It took hours for me to track down the problem, when it could have and should have not only told me what column (or even row) it was having problems with, and what constrataint it was having problems with. The error message reached a great new level of vagueness (paraphrasing here, but something like "a row or rows has a column that violates a uniqueness or not-null constrant or foreign key constraint"... I mean COME ON, you can't tell me which exactly constraint is complaining, let alone even what KIND of constraint, let alone the actual row or column or anything? UGH!)
Trust me, strongly typed datasets sound exactly like what you want. It's mostly auto-generated stuff, so you don't have to write all that stuff yourself. Still, they're not perfect. My company wrote this great layer over top strongly typed datasets, and when I want to save or load an object, I basically don't have to write any additional code. Simple templates exist for creating new types... just point at the database table, push a button, and boom, all the properties are generated and written for me. Reading an object into memory is as simple as using array-indexer syntax in C#, passing in the primary key(s). Saving an object is as simple as calling Commit() on it.
Anyway, read up on Strongly Typed Datasets, and how you use them via the VS2005 IDE, and I think you'll be a lot happier than you are, even though you won't be perfectly happy.
No, I just really appreciate truth.
I wish I could mod you up a dozen times.
Well, they've now received a subsequent build.
Basically, instead of Beta 2's official build, you want build 5456 or build 5472 (the most recent). Both are allegedly dramatically improved.
I can't help you with a link though, sorry, but you could check the same beta site you got the original from.
Did you use the subsequent build? It's much, much better than the official 'beta 2' release. Why they didn't just wait a month and release this subsequent build (Build 5456) as 'beta 2' is beyond me.
Say a typical hollywood blockbuster costs $100 million ... the launch cost at least five times that much. I think I remember reading that each shuttle launch was half a billion on average. These last two probably cost way more, due to all the additional work, testing, engineering, these new cameras, and the fact that fixed costs can't be ammortized over several launches a year.
Mod. Parent. Up.
The lense must have gotten coated with something (ice?) right after separation... the shots of the earth as it falls back aren't nearly as clear as the ones from the looking-up cam.
Douglas Trumbal has been pushing this for years, with his "Show scan" technology...
Movies are shown at 24fps, and that's just WAY too slow. Double speed, or 48fps would be a vast improvement, but 3x or 72fps would be awesome and all that is necessary. The problem is that it requires 3 times the film traveling at three times the speed through the projector.
But as things are going towards digital, I see less and less reason to not make this sort of leap. High def resolution is still way below film (especially 70mm film), so they can still improve there, but digiitally, with huge hard disks, there's no reason not to go for 72fps and get amazing images.
I've had my laptop suspend right in the middle of playing a game (Rise of Nations, or Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, or Warcraft III) due to low power -- I didn't notice the power had come unplugged, and the game drained the batteries to the point it went into auto-hybernation -- and all I had to do was start it back up, and the game continued playing from right where it left off. No problem.
And it didn't really take all that much longer than a normal 'wake from hybernation' either.
"StarCraft: Universe"
Hell, they have the Warcraft III engine right there. They could just port StarCraft and its expansion pack over to the WarCraft III engine and it'd sell just fine. That'd give them all the artwork and a base income from which to launch production of StarCraft 2!
I've never understood why they've let this game lie fallow the way it has.