To quote _The Astronomy Cafe_, by Sten Odenwald, page 111, question 186:
186 Would a nebula look colorful if you traveled into it?
Interstellar space is filled with a thin gas, and in some places this gas forms clouds. When stars form in these gas clouds, they light up the cloud, forming spectacular nebulosities of colored light as the gases in the cloud are stimulated by the light from the individual stars. Although nebulas like the ones in Plates 2 and 7 [in the book] are lovely and colorful, you would see nothing at all if you were inside one because the gases are so spread out in space and there is no blank sky against which to see the contrast. At a density of only a few hundred atoms per cubic centimeter, most nebulas are better than the best vacuums we can make on Earth, and as such, it would be impossible to see anything of their color if you were inside one of them. I am always amused by movies that portray a starship inside or very near a very colorful nebula or with background skies swirling with color. In reality, nature is far less colorful, and even the Great Nebula in Orion, with all of its color, would be almost invisible from inside.
Exactly. I don't understand some people's perspectives - if people want an experience in this movie that is just like the book... shouldn't they just read the book and skip the movie? Why bother making the same thing twice?
Re:Yet Another Bug? Story Submission History Gone!
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Slashdot Code Update
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· Score: 1
I never noticed them on my user info page, but then again, all of my submissions got rejected. It should still be visible on the submit story page.
The RIAA has no choice but to speak out against P2P software. It has no choice but to enact litigation against the makers of that software. They see all of this file sharing as costing them money (though some would debate this point, it's an understandable position.)
What do you expect? That they should just say "Sure, ok, we'll let you undermine our business"?
No! Enacting litigation against makers of this software is a perfect catalyst for their whole pro-intellectual property campaign. The litigation gives them a justifiable reason to make speeches denouncing the use of this P2P software. Not only does the RIAA force their opponents to spend massive capital defending their software, but the RIAA gets a free soap box to preach their values.
We criticize them for being so harsh, but its just a well thought out business plan.
Have you ever played Homeworld? It's one of my favorite games, and seems to have taken a great deal of inspiration from the Eros simulator from Ender's Game. Granted, you only get to be a commander (you never get to control specific ships), and you must harvest resources, build ships, etc. But, as a commander, you control the ships in far different methods. In many games, (Starcraft, for example), when you command a unit, you essentially commandeer it for a moment. You 'order' it to move somewhere, but it does so fanatically. There is no initiative.
In Homeworld, you can only *order* units. You tell them to move somewhere, they do so within their squadron (which you design), according to their formation, and depending on which tactics you have selected for those ships, will follow the orders more or less closely. They will attack enemy ships and ignore orders when set to more aggressive tactics. Get a demo of it. Here is one location of the demo. The single player from the demo is sorta boring, so I'd try out the skirmish, too.
If GNOME is the first step, what is going to come next?
Do we plan on replacing DOS with bash?
Re:Failing Grades in Government Computer Security!
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DoD and Net Attacks
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· Score: 1
Sorry, I typed the URL in wrong.
The real URL is here.
I left the h in http:// out, so the page will not load...
Failing Grades in Government Computer Security!
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DoD and Net Attacks
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· Score: 1
You think that the Department of Defense has bad security?
A while back (September 11,) the government GRADED itself on each agency's security against computer hacks. They found that the grades were failing.
The Social Security Administration got the highest grade, a B.
The National Science Foundation got a B-.
The Department of Education and the Department of State got the grade of C.
HUD, the Department of Commerce, and the Agency for International Development got the grade of C-.
The Defense Department got a D+.
The Department of Veterans' Affairs and the Treasury Department got a grade of D.
The EPA, the Global Services Administration, and NASA got a grade of D-!
The Office of Personal Management, the Health and Human Services Department, the Department of Agriculture, the Small Business Administration, the Department of Justice, the Labor Department, and the Department of the Interior got a grade of F!!
The Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Department of Transportation, and FEMA never even had a completed test!
Marketing usually tries to appeal to a customer base, right?
As I recall, one of Iridium's earlier ads talked about how a man stuck in the middle of the Sahara could make a phone call.
Is this supposed to appeal to all of those people stranded in the Sahara with no food or water but just happen to have a working Iridium phone with them?
Slashdot Mirror
To quote _The Astronomy Cafe_, by Sten Odenwald, page 111, question 186:
186 Would a nebula look colorful if you traveled into it?
Interstellar space is filled with a thin gas, and in some places this gas forms clouds. When stars form in these gas clouds, they light up the cloud, forming spectacular nebulosities of colored light as the gases in the cloud are stimulated by the light from the individual stars. Although nebulas like the ones in Plates 2 and 7 [in the book] are lovely and colorful, you would see nothing at all if you were inside one because the gases are so spread out in space and there is no blank sky against which to see the contrast. At a density of only a few hundred atoms per cubic centimeter, most nebulas are better than the best vacuums we can make on Earth, and as such, it would be impossible to see anything of their color if you were inside one of them. I am always amused by movies that portray a starship inside or very near a very colorful nebula or with background skies swirling with color. In reality, nature is far less colorful, and even the Great Nebula in Orion, with all of its color, would be almost invisible from inside.
Exactly. I don't understand some people's perspectives - if people want an experience in this movie that is just like the book... shouldn't they just read the book and skip the movie? Why bother making the same thing twice?
I never noticed them on my user info page, but then again, all of my submissions got rejected. It should still be visible on the submit story page.
The RIAA has no choice but to speak out against P2P software. It has no choice but to enact litigation against the makers of that software. They see all of this file sharing as costing them money (though some would debate this point, it's an understandable position.)
What do you expect? That they should just say "Sure, ok, we'll let you undermine our business"?
No! Enacting litigation against makers of this software is a perfect catalyst for their whole pro-intellectual property campaign. The litigation gives them a justifiable reason to make speeches denouncing the use of this P2P software. Not only does the RIAA force their opponents to spend massive capital defending their software, but the RIAA gets a free soap box to preach their values.
We criticize them for being so harsh, but its just a well thought out business plan.
Have you ever played Homeworld? It's one of my favorite games, and seems to have taken a great deal of inspiration from the Eros simulator from Ender's Game. Granted, you only get to be a commander (you never get to control specific ships), and you must harvest resources, build ships, etc. But, as a commander, you control the ships in far different methods. In many games, (Starcraft, for example), when you command a unit, you essentially commandeer it for a moment. You 'order' it to move somewhere, but it does so fanatically. There is no initiative.
In Homeworld, you can only *order* units. You tell them to move somewhere, they do so within their squadron (which you design), according to their formation, and depending on which tactics you have selected for those ships, will follow the orders more or less closely. They will attack enemy ships and ignore orders when set to more aggressive tactics. Get a demo of it. Here is one location of the demo. The single player from the demo is sorta boring, so I'd try out the skirmish, too.
If GNOME is the first step, what is going to come next?
Do we plan on replacing DOS with bash?
Sorry, I typed the URL in wrong.
The real URL is here.
I left the h in http:// out, so the page will not load...
See here for a copy of the "report card."
The Social Security Administration got the highest grade, a B.
The National Science Foundation got a B-.
The Department of Education and the Department of State got the grade of C.
HUD, the Department of Commerce, and the Agency for International Development got the grade of C-.
The Defense Department got a D+.
The Department of Veterans' Affairs and the Treasury Department got a grade of D.
The EPA, the Global Services Administration, and NASA got a grade of D-!
The Office of Personal Management, the Health and Human Services Department, the Department of Agriculture, the Small Business Administration, the Department of Justice, the Labor Department, and the Department of the Interior got a grade of F!!
The Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Department of Transportation, and FEMA never even had a completed test!
The overall grade for the government was a D-!
Marketing usually tries to appeal to a customer base, right? As I recall, one of Iridium's earlier ads talked about how a man stuck in the middle of the Sahara could make a phone call. Is this supposed to appeal to all of those people stranded in the Sahara with no food or water but just happen to have a working Iridium phone with them?
So that would explain the "Java Nuclear Clause" and other such strange comments that the AVault article listed, right?