I'm very taken by Tablet PCs as I'd like to have the flexibility to draw/sketch or type. The Acer is the only one I could afford (the alternatives with keyboards being far more expensive) but unfortunately the keys are far too small for my fingers. It was a real shame that I couldn't type on it otherwise I'd have bought one by now.
However, I agree with one of the earlier posts - the flip over mechanism does look like it might break after extended use and you'd have to be careful with it.
The sooner PCs get silent (like the blessed iMacs) the better...
Odd, the noisiest machine in our office by far is the G3 iMac (everything else is Dell PCs.) It's quiet when it's just sitting there, but as soon as it uses the hard drive it's very noisy indeed. The Dells have good all-around quietness which isn't quite silence, but is only a very slight hum, even during heavy disk thrashing.
We use Dells where I work and while the Dimensions most of us use are damned quiet, they're not quite silent. We've noticed they are getting slightly louder over time (18 months) which is presumably just wear and tear on the case fan, and even now they're still very quiet for PCs.
When we first had them one of the fans had a bad bearing and Dell sent an engineer out to replace the fans on all the PCs we'd just bought, which took them back to being near-silent. You can't hear them over the traffic outside and general office noises unless you put your ear on the case. So yes, for most situations these machines are going to be more than quiet enough for most people, though the cases don't look as pretty as some of the Mini-ITX based ones.
Non-conscious animals
on
Got Sleep?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
While the article mentions research on humans who exist on little sleep and manage to function normally, they are also looking at the animal kingdom. I think this can only go so far, as the animals they are looking at are missing something humans have: consciousness. Your mind, your consciousness is a very delicate thing and messing around with something as basic as sleeping is a very dangerous thing.
Psychologists and neurologists still aren't sure what happens during sleep, but sleep deprivation is generally very bad for people - which is why it's used as a torture. I've been trying to find the name of the man who set the record for going without sleep - he was a radio DJ who decided to set the record as a sponsored charity event. After about five days without sleep he ended up with a personality disorder.
About two hours of delta wave 'deep sleep' and some more REM dream sleep seems to be necessary for people to stay sane and able to concentrate while they're awake. If you deprive rats of dream sleep for a couple of days (letting them have delta sleep as normal) then let them have uninterrupted sleep, they tend to 'catch up' with far more REM sleep than normal, which would generally indicate REM sleep is doing more than just playing pretty movies to our minds while we wait for it to get light outside.
Whether you can knock a few hours off a 7-8 hour sleep schedule and take naps during the day and lead a normal life is one thing, stopping sleep for days or weeks at a time is quite another. Only very long term studies will be able to show whether people get side effects from whatever drug they come up with, so even if they come up with something for military use, it'll probably be best to avoid it if it becomes commercially available. It's all very well to think it's great because you can code all night, but really, do you want to take years off your life or damage your personality for a bit of short-term gain now?
I wonder how expensive it would be to change that in lieu of building another vehicle or perhaps build an ISS module that could act as a hangar?
Hmm, probably still extremely expensive to change the shuttle - it would all have to be re-tested, which is where most of the delays and money comes in. Within the design there is probably just not enough space for shielding wiring and components more than they are, without slapping an entire extra shell around the thing, which makes your idea of a hanger very interesting.
First you'd need something big enough to put the shuttle in (which could be a problem in and of itself, as you have to get the segments of it up there.) Then you have to have enough shielding in the hanger to make it worthwhile. I wonder if it would be better to have something like water in bladders around the hanger, rather than thick metal. Still very heavy to boost to orbit, but easier to fit the maximum amount of it in to the shuttle bay - no strange sizes to fiddle in, just a tank. And you could use the tank for something else once you had it up there.
Hmmm, probably easier to build on another airlock for an extra Soyuz, although then you have the problem of replacing two every 6 months, as someone else has pointed out. Perhaps some extra protection / a hanger for the Soyuz would mean they could last longer up there?
Apparently not, at least the New Scientist article has quite a bit about the project that will supply the escape craft, as well as the future shuttle replacement.
It's a bit of a loop really: more science can't be done because there's too few people on board, a larger escape craft isn't required because there's so few people up there. I'm sure the lack of space in the Soyuz was used as one of the excuses for cutting funding for putting more people up there to do some decent science.
I thought about this as well. I'm not sure they have enough radiation shielding to stay up there long-term, the cumulative damage has too high a chance of damaging something they need on re-entry.
I'm sure I've seen a stat. on the number of days a shuttle is rated for staying in space, but I can't find a reference for it.
I think the other docking port they have is for the visiting shuttle / supply craft.
I would think they would be able to find people to crew the station even if there was not enough places in the escape craft. I don't know if it's a health and safety argument stopping them doing this, or just worries about bad publicity if there was an accident and crew died. There was talk about a non-returning mission to Mars using older astronauts & scientists, which seemed like a marvellous cost-cutting measure (not working out how to get back.) But the thought of watching people die was seen as too traumatic for the public to see, even though there were several well-qualified volunteers.
There seem to be lots of comments here about the Russians being disregarded because they can't afford to pay for their part of the project. Now, while I'm sure there are contracts about payment and stuff, I thought the main reason Russia was involved in ISS was for the expertise and experience they got from running Mir for such a long time and the use of some of their very reliable 'ships. The Soyuz craft have been extremely useful, but their replacements were supposed to be here by now, certainly the liftboat ones. Lets face it, it was pretty obvious Russia wasn't going to be able to pay for the ISS by the time it was being built, so there's no point being surprised about it now.
It would be a great shame to lose the manned presence in space, even if the amount of research they have been able to do is heavily restricted by having a very small crew up there at any one time. The crew is limited by the size of the escape module - currently a Soyuz. It looks like it'll be 2012 by the time the planned NASA replacement escape craft is ready, so they're going to have to come up with something different in the meantime, or the ISS isn't going to fulfil anywhere near it's potential for research.
Personally, it's my experience with cellphones that makes me more annoyed with PocketPC devices. My phone lasts a week before it needs a recharge, and my aging Palm V lasts almost that long. All the PPC widgets friends have had still don't last that long with similar usage, so they have to remember to charge them.
However, as people get in the habit of putting their PDA in the dock of their computer, especially at work, they don't notice the charging much, it's just something that's done automatically while they're syncing / looking for somewhere to put the PDA. It's actual use out on the road where battery life tends to make a difference.
I would guess most PDA users at the moment just take them home from the office for the evening / weekend of occasional detail checking or note taking, so the battery life isn't going to affect them too much and they are more interested in compatibility with applications at work, and the odd fancy feature that let them show off a little.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm very taken by Tablet PCs as I'd like to have the flexibility to draw/sketch or type. The Acer is the only one I could afford (the alternatives with keyboards being far more expensive) but unfortunately the keys are far too small for my fingers. It was a real shame that I couldn't type on it otherwise I'd have bought one by now.
However, I agree with one of the earlier posts - the flip over mechanism does look like it might break after extended use and you'd have to be careful with it.
Odd, the noisiest machine in our office by far is the G3 iMac (everything else is Dell PCs.) It's quiet when it's just sitting there, but as soon as it uses the hard drive it's very noisy indeed. The Dells have good all-around quietness which isn't quite silence, but is only a very slight hum, even during heavy disk thrashing.
We use Dells where I work and while the Dimensions most of us use are damned quiet, they're not quite silent. We've noticed they are getting slightly louder over time (18 months) which is presumably just wear and tear on the case fan, and even now they're still very quiet for PCs.
When we first had them one of the fans had a bad bearing and Dell sent an engineer out to replace the fans on all the PCs we'd just bought, which took them back to being near-silent. You can't hear them over the traffic outside and general office noises unless you put your ear on the case. So yes, for most situations these machines are going to be more than quiet enough for most people, though the cases don't look as pretty as some of the Mini-ITX based ones.
While the article mentions research on humans who exist on little sleep and manage to function normally, they are also looking at the animal kingdom. I think this can only go so far, as the animals they are looking at are missing something humans have: consciousness. Your mind, your consciousness is a very delicate thing and messing around with something as basic as sleeping is a very dangerous thing.
Psychologists and neurologists still aren't sure what happens during sleep, but sleep deprivation is generally very bad for people - which is why it's used as a torture. I've been trying to find the name of the man who set the record for going without sleep - he was a radio DJ who decided to set the record as a sponsored charity event. After about five days without sleep he ended up with a personality disorder.
About two hours of delta wave 'deep sleep' and some more REM dream sleep seems to be necessary for people to stay sane and able to concentrate while they're awake. If you deprive rats of dream sleep for a couple of days (letting them have delta sleep as normal) then let them have uninterrupted sleep, they tend to 'catch up' with far more REM sleep than normal, which would generally indicate REM sleep is doing more than just playing pretty movies to our minds while we wait for it to get light outside.
Whether you can knock a few hours off a 7-8 hour sleep schedule and take naps during the day and lead a normal life is one thing, stopping sleep for days or weeks at a time is quite another. Only very long term studies will be able to show whether people get side effects from whatever drug they come up with, so even if they come up with something for military use, it'll probably be best to avoid it if it becomes commercially available. It's all very well to think it's great because you can code all night, but really, do you want to take years off your life or damage your personality for a bit of short-term gain now?
Paul
Hmm, probably still extremely expensive to change the shuttle - it would all have to be re-tested, which is where most of the delays and money comes in. Within the design there is probably just not enough space for shielding wiring and components more than they are, without slapping an entire extra shell around the thing, which makes your idea of a hanger very interesting.
First you'd need something big enough to put the shuttle in (which could be a problem in and of itself, as you have to get the segments of it up there.) Then you have to have enough shielding in the hanger to make it worthwhile. I wonder if it would be better to have something like water in bladders around the hanger, rather than thick metal. Still very heavy to boost to orbit, but easier to fit the maximum amount of it in to the shuttle bay - no strange sizes to fiddle in, just a tank. And you could use the tank for something else once you had it up there.
Hmmm, probably easier to build on another airlock for an extra Soyuz, although then you have the problem of replacing two every 6 months, as someone else has pointed out. Perhaps some extra protection / a hanger for the Soyuz would mean they could last longer up there?
Apparently not, at least the New Scientist article has quite a bit about the project that will supply the escape craft, as well as the future shuttle replacement.
It's a bit of a loop really: more science can't be done because there's too few people on board, a larger escape craft isn't required because there's so few people up there. I'm sure the lack of space in the Soyuz was used as one of the excuses for cutting funding for putting more people up there to do some decent science.
I thought about this as well. I'm not sure they have enough radiation shielding to stay up there long-term, the cumulative damage has too high a chance of damaging something they need on re-entry.
I'm sure I've seen a stat. on the number of days a shuttle is rated for staying in space, but I can't find a reference for it.
I think the other docking port they have is for the visiting shuttle / supply craft.
I would think they would be able to find people to crew the station even if there was not enough places in the escape craft. I don't know if it's a health and safety argument stopping them doing this, or just worries about bad publicity if there was an accident and crew died. There was talk about a non-returning mission to Mars using older astronauts & scientists, which seemed like a marvellous cost-cutting measure (not working out how to get back.) But the thought of watching people die was seen as too traumatic for the public to see, even though there were several well-qualified volunteers.
There seem to be lots of comments here about the Russians being disregarded because they can't afford to pay for their part of the project. Now, while I'm sure there are contracts about payment and stuff, I thought the main reason Russia was involved in ISS was for the expertise and experience they got from running Mir for such a long time and the use of some of their very reliable 'ships. The Soyuz craft have been extremely useful, but their replacements were supposed to be here by now, certainly the liftboat ones. Lets face it, it was pretty obvious Russia wasn't going to be able to pay for the ISS by the time it was being built, so there's no point being surprised about it now.
It would be a great shame to lose the manned presence in space, even if the amount of research they have been able to do is heavily restricted by having a very small crew up there at any one time. The crew is limited by the size of the escape module - currently a Soyuz. It looks like it'll be 2012 by the time the planned NASA replacement escape craft is ready, so they're going to have to come up with something different in the meantime, or the ISS isn't going to fulfil anywhere near it's potential for research.
Paul.
Personally, it's my experience with cellphones that makes me more annoyed with PocketPC devices. My phone lasts a week before it needs a recharge, and my aging Palm V lasts almost that long. All the PPC widgets friends have had still don't last that long with similar usage, so they have to remember to charge them.
However, as people get in the habit of putting their PDA in the dock of their computer, especially at work, they don't notice the charging much, it's just something that's done automatically while they're syncing / looking for somewhere to put the PDA. It's actual use out on the road where battery life tends to make a difference.
I would guess most PDA users at the moment just take them home from the office for the evening / weekend of occasional detail checking or note taking, so the battery life isn't going to affect them too much and they are more interested in compatibility with applications at work, and the odd fancy feature that let them show off a little.
Paul