Are you kidding me? Those are halfway reasonable. (Though not at that pay scale.) Some of the best postings were the ones that demanded:
20 Years of Java Experience
10 Years of Web Design in HTML 4.0 or XHTML
7 Years of C# Experience
8 Years of D (or some other obscure/unknown language or technology)
15 Years of J2EE and XML
For even more fun, require all of the above in the same job posting! It's no wonder that applicants get creative with their resumes. Human Resource Managers don't want to hear "But the language hasn't existed that long!"
Thanks to that, I think many companies don't take my resume seriously. (I don't lie. I try not to stretch the truth either.) They immediately take whatever is said, assume that it's exaggerated, then knock it back several notches. The only time you can get anywhere is when they have those "proficiency tests" (so bloody easy to pass) at which point they start taking you seriously.
Don't even get me started on interviewers who ask you to quote the documentation. ("What method do you call to set the text of a label?" WTF kind of question is that? Go read the documentation if you don't know! That's what it's for!)
What's to stop Google from keeping the message in their archives? Just because the POP3 session says it's deleted, doesn't mean it actually is. That's just a false sense of security. By allowing your email to pass through Google's servers, you are effectively trusting Google. If you don't trust them, you shouldn't be using their servicess, not using POP3.
Perhaps. There are only a couple of problems, though:
1. The Silbervogel bomber concept was designed by Eugen Sänger, not Von Braun. 2. It wouldn't have been very precise, given the Ballistic Trajectories. Useful for a nuclear bomber, perhaps, but not really a conventional bomber. 3. Sänger escaped to the United States and used his work to father the X-20 Dynasoar project. (The pre-cursor of the Space Shuttle.) The X-20 would have been a reconnaissance platform first, and a long range bomber second. In fact, ICBMs made it rather redundant, dangerous, and inaccurate to operate as a nuclear bomber.
Why do you assume that video games are "family entertainment"?
Why do you assume that "family entertainment" == "kids"? Many board games are "family entertainment".
Q: Who are board games intended to entertain? A: Adults and children alike.
Shared experience is what "family entertainment" is all about. Part of growing your child is doing more complex games/tasks with them. This allows them to learn more about being an adult, and allows you to teach and share experiences with them. Not to mention that it can be a LOT of fun for both the adults and children. Whoever came up with this idea that there must be a dichotomy between the two needs to smacked upside the head. No wonder parents never know what their kids are doing! They never participate in any activities with their kids!
(I feel a long sermon about the "Virtual Babysitter" coming on. Must... resist... temptation...)
are you saying that the fact that Game cater to a growing audience (including the first generation of gamers who are now in the second half of their life) is a bad thing, or that it has somehow corrupted video games?
I guess I'm asking a question: Why does an aging generation of gamers automatically presume that gmaers must play adult themed games?
When the Odyssey and other Pong machines were released, it wasn't kids that were buying them. It was adults with money. These machines were home entertainment devices targetted at pretty much anyone who wanted to use them. It took your television, and added the first inkling of interactivity. (Very "space-age" at the time.) No one demanded that your little PONG paddle violently blow up when you lost, or that your little tennis sprite keel over in a puddle of blood. This was all added by game producers at a later date. Not because the market demanded it (it really didn't), but because it sold.
By appealing to the baser sex and violence instincts, game producers were able to move their titles off the shelves. Now it's automatically assumed that a game must have these elements to compete. Kind of sad, really. As Geometry Wars and Nintendo have shown, there's no need for these elements in games. But they're there because we can put them there.
I'm not saying I begrudge people who REALLY want their sex and violence. (Though I can't say I really understand them that much.) But I do feel sadness at the fact that the market is now dominated by these aspects at the expense of more traditional, focused games.
I actually question this, missles fired from a supersonic jet, which are often super/hypersonic is itself a precision guided weapon
Things do get a little different when we're talking about missiles vs. bombs. However, I don't know if missiles are ever fired at super-sonic velocities. (Regardless of how fast the missile travels once lit.) The velocity might cause ignition problems, and the sudden change in mass and aerodynamic shape might unbalance the aircraft. (I sure as hell know that you don't want to be firing missiles at hypersonic velocities. Aerodynamic control is iffy as is, you don't want to turn your plane into so much twisted metal by inviting unexcepted shearing forces to the party.)
I assume there is a limit to how fast you can hang objects out in the slipstream, before you tear the mounts off or cause too much drag for the jet,
For anything going near hypersonic velocities, I'd imagine that you *can't* hang anything out. Everything needs to be as smooth as possible to direct airflow in the most efficient manner. Thus the hypersonic UAVs would most likely have internal bays like the F-22. Opening those bays could prove to be dangerous at super-high velocities.
but the weapons themselves probably don't have a problem being started at supersonic speeds.
That really depends on the engine. There are just so many ways you can get a flameout that it's not even funny. The engines *must* start reliably, so I wouldn't take this granted. A HARM missile is designed for start at high velocities and up to Mach 4 operation, so you may find that this doesn't hold true across all missiles.
Though I take your point. It is possible that a high velocity air to surface missile could be developed to take the place of a bomb.
Any munitions engineers have an opinion?
I'd also love to hear such an opinion. Sadly, I have a feeling that anyone who actually knows would be divulging classified information if they were to tell us. Precise weapons capabilities tend to be kept secret by the U.S. Government.
The local Gamestop has made a habit of selling anything to anyone.
Reason #3,265 why Gamestop is evil. Does anyone else get that disgusting, oily feeling when you walk into their stores?
I was just speaking with a fellow the other day who informed me that Gamestop is considering no longer carrying PS1 titles. (Used or otherwise.) Considering that PS1 titles are still popular on a modern PS2, you can only shake your head at their corporate soulessness.
Just to clarify the parent, lower is better. The percentage signifies the number of underage "mystery shoppers" who were able to obtain goods that they shouldn't have been able to. Movie theaters are leading the pack by only allowing 39% of underage shoppers through. DVDs are doing horrible by allowing 81% of mystery shoppers through. None of them are really doing all that great.
Funny part is, it seems like more often than not the adult buying the game for them is their parent.
It constantly amazes me how many parents don't seem to "get" that a game is not harmless just because it's a computer game. Somehow they all seem to be stuck in this 1980s view of all games being targetted at kids, and the graphics being incapable of showing anything that isn't cartoony. (I'd get into the whole, "It must be fine because it's a cartoon" argument, but then I'd REALLY get sidetracked.) Would it kill these people to flip over a box and look?
I have to wonder what Ralph Baer thinks of all this. When he invented the Odyssey back in the late 50's, he was only trying to make televisions more interactive. Would he have done so if he could have seen how video games would eventually be corrupted from home entertainment for the whole family into nothing more than "adult games"? There's some sort of innocence lost in the transition that I find very, very sad.
I own a copy of Atari's "Dungeons & Dragnons: The Temple of Elemental Evil". When I went to re-install, there was a new patch to put in, so I installed it when I loaded the game again. The problem is, they added new protection in the latest patch, and said protection told me that my original game CD was not valid.
If you think that's bad, you should have seen Homeworld: Cataclysm. It came with a "Copy Protection" scheme that did the following: If there's a CD-Writer installed on the system, don't run the game. Do not print a useful error message.
I had to call up support (I *hate* calling support) to find out what the problem was. The only way to play the game is to replace your CDRW drive with a CDROM (!) or download an unofficial crack to "fix" the issue.
I don't know what Sierra/Barking Dog Studios was thinking, but it couldn't have been a very complex thought. Nearly every system released on the market has a CD Burner installed! The return rates on the game must have been incredible!
I use a ChatBot with GTalk to run a recorded chatroom that allows the programmers I work with from around the world to collaborate in developing new software that will take Linux (and Desktops in general) into the future. Software Development, I might add, of which my wife is very supportive of.
So what in the world are you doing on GTalk to where "freak the girls out" would have any meaning? On second thought, scratch that. I really don't want to know.:-P
I imagine he's talking about the V-2. Not quite the same as dropping a bomb from an aircraft, though.
No kidding. I considered that he might have been referring to the V-2, but I couldn't believe that anyone with a +2 modifier would be lame enough to confuse a missile with a bomb. Go figure.
Well, if you read the article, it states that the logging is completely optional. You can turn it off at any time, preventing a record from being kept. Of course, there's always the possibility that Google would log your IMs anyway. Since they can already do that, though, this feature doesn't really change anything.
I think this thing is a good idea (not the logging, the chat-inside-mailapp). I wonder if you get marked as "online" whenever you check your Mail on mail.google.com...
I think both features are good. Logging can be incredibly useful when you're using IM for online meetings and collaboration. (Such as in OSS projects.) To date I've been using a ChatBot to collaborate and record the conversations. This would free me to just record all my conversations, then move the interesting parts to the wiki as necessary.
I had a feeling you'd say that. I haven't really heard anything good about the second revision, other than the detachable controllers. Most players don't seem to think there's any real point to that feature anyway.
I've heard that the controller connections aren't very good, too.
I've heard that the keypads on the controllers are also problematic. It sounds like they tend to be very harsh on your fingers.
That intellicart thing looks ("looked," I guess) pretty cool, though. It'd be hard to replicate the original disc controller on a PC.
The controller pinouts are on this page, so you can always hack yourself up an interface. I'm not quite sure why you'd bother, though. Just use the Intellicart to move the software to your Intellivision. Much easier than trying to develop the perfect emulation environment.:-)
The Intellicart may be currently out of stock, but I'm guessing that it wouldn't be that hard to get one on EBay.
I see very little need for pilots in the future except to fight the UAV that decides to attack us but missiles should get that job done.
I do. A UAV is really nothing more than a smart delivery system. A bit like a missile, except that it doesn't blow itself up when it gets there. (Though that is always an option.) While the idea of hypersonic delivery systems is nice, you can't drop a bomb at hypersonic velocities. You've got to go subsonic and let loose the payload if you want any chance of hitting your target. Which means that someone is going to have to protect these suckers when they're not hypersonic. (Even supersonic leaves the possibility of missile attack.) Who's going to protect them? The guys who have brains enough to engage in a dogfight, that's who.
Even assuming that the UAVs are a perfect delivery system, no protection needed, you still need someone to protect the carriers and bases that the UAVs launch from. Which means human beings getting up there and showing off U.S. air superiority. Until they can invent a UAV that can actually survive a dogfight (not that easy), there will still be a place for pilots.
Now they're always the possibility that you could fly UAVs directly from the ground (you still need pilots), but the problem with this is that you're sending a signal. If you're broadcasting, the signal can be jammed or intercepted. If you're on a tight beam transmission (e.g. laser linkage), you could lose signal lock. Not to mention the transmission lag. All of which makes remote controlled UAVs less potent than a real fighter jet with a pilot strapped into the controls.
It's extremely interesting how the Apollo 15 astronauts went skiing on the moon. It might suggest a better mode of transport than the buggy they used. Instead of bothering with four wheels, perhaps they really need a Snowmobile? (Or would that be a lunarmobile? Perhaps a dustmobile?) Skiing along like that might allow them to expend less battery power on locomotion, and move from place to place much faster. Having retractable treads so that they can glide might not be such a bad idea either.
I'll have to patent this now and then charge megabucks for the idea when Moonbase Alpha goes in. At least I'll be able to collect up until the moon gets blown out of orbit.:-P
*chuckle* Oh well, I'll have to keep an eye out and see if I bump into something similar. I'm starting to womder, though. Maybe someone repackaged it in the Odyssey^2 box? I could easily see it happening that someone got a new Odyssey^2, didn't have the box for the old one, so packed it in the new box to sell it. The Odyssey^2 box looks like this, while the original Odyssey box looked like this.
Cripes. Are you still spreading this nonsense? Look, go read some history, will you? A quick rundown:
The famous Mathematica report *was* rosy on the savings from a reusable craft, but that was hardly the extent of NASA's reports. NASA's cost figures changed as the design changed. The goal that Nixon wanted was all the needs of NASA and the Military for $8 billion a year or less.
While NASA did a study into 20 tonnes of payload or more just before Nixon took office, it actually pushed heavily for 6 tonnes of payload, and low cross range ability.
Fletcher rammed through the military's demands after Nixon appointed him head of NASA. At the same time, Nixon also told NASA to make due with 3.2 billion per year, of which only 1 billion could be spent on the shuttle.
Or to put it simply; you really need to study the history of the space program and the Shuttle. Because you don't have a clue.
NASA was formed to provide a civilian agency to coordinate space research and development, and to get the military out of the drivers seat.
Thank you for repeating what I just said. As I just said, NASA was formed to provide an environment for development that the Military couldn't provide. i.e. A civilian environment that was outside the military structure.
Not noticeably. In fact, the US was ahead by 1960 when the [Missile|Bomber] gap became a campaign issue. There was a perception that we were behind, but we know that perception was false.
Eh? We failed to achieve orbit, our rockets blew up on the pad, and Sputnik was mocking at us from directly above. I'd say we were pretty far behind. At the very least, Congress beleived we were far behind and wanted the President to do something about it. (i.e. The so called, "Sputnik Shock".)
NASA was all about two things; civilian control of space exploration, and penis comparison contests. It had nothing to do with parity, as the military was already evolving down a different technological path.
Then what were we doing designing and launching the Jupiter and Thor IRBMs as NASA was formed? Those IRBMs (which we staged in Britain and other European allied countries) forced Russia to develop a crash ICBM program before we were ready. (Which was why Russia got Sputnik up while we had our pants down.) The US military responded with ICBMs such as the Atlas and Titan which would later go on to be used as commercial and military launch systems. The old IRBMs were redesigned for use in the Saturn and Delta rockets.
Wrong again. NASA's free ride lasted only a couple of years, from 1964 to 1967 when it all came to screeching halt. Nixon
What the heck are you talking about? NASA didn't make it to the moon until 1969. The US remained committed throughout that period, and even afterwards. What did happen was that the Saturn V received full attention in preparation for the mission. The nuclear thermal rocket program was cancelled (after the J-2s proved effective), and the Gemini program was effectively killed to divert money to Vietnam. (It was only supposed to develop technologies that would be used in developing the Apollo program. The military's ideas for extending it to a space station and bomber didn't fly.)
Nope. NASA was asked to provide a plan for what they wanted to do post Apollo - and they returned to what is known as the von Braun Vision (which they had been diverted from by Apollo) - that is, build a Shuttle, use that to build a Station, then use that experience to head off to the Moon (permanently) and Mars. (The Shuttle's development started in earnest about 1967-68, and represented a core plan for NASA from about 1959-60. Well before Nixon.)
So close, yet so far. Von Braun's vision involved the Saturn V as the heavy lifter. The Space Shuttle was going to be a light-weight SSTO for crew and light cargo. Nixon told NASA that they could have one craft flying, and the Saturn V wasn't it. NASA chose the Space Shuttle since the preliminary studies done by the USAF and NASA just prior to Nixon taking office suggested that it was the best compromise. The initial studies had investigated a 20 tonne payload, but NASA's Max Faget pushed hard for a lighter, 6 tonne payload capacity. He also pushed for straightwing design, and a lack of cross-range ability. He was overruled.
Nixon wanted the needs of both NASA and the Military met, and met on less than $8 billion a year. NASA tried to meet these needs by cutting out the Mars mission for the near term, but Nixon still rejected their plan. NASA ended up going forward into the 1970's with a 6 tonne payload, greater weight, lower thrust Space Shuttle, but a design that otherwise had a good chance. "Not good enough," said the military. It had to have 30 tonne payload capacity. NASA gave a little and began to work on a two stage craft. Finally, Nixon nominated Fletcher as the head of NASA, and he began to force all the military's needs back into the craft. One thing led to another, and we ended up with the Space Shuttle as we see it today: Jack of all trades, master of none.
Slashdot Mirror
For even more fun, require all of the above in the same job posting! It's no wonder that applicants get creative with their resumes. Human Resource Managers don't want to hear "But the language hasn't existed that long!"
Thanks to that, I think many companies don't take my resume seriously. (I don't lie. I try not to stretch the truth either.) They immediately take whatever is said, assume that it's exaggerated, then knock it back several notches. The only time you can get anywhere is when they have those "proficiency tests" (so bloody easy to pass) at which point they start taking you seriously.
Don't even get me started on interviewers who ask you to quote the documentation. ("What method do you call to set the text of a label?" WTF kind of question is that? Go read the documentation if you don't know! That's what it's for!)
What's to stop Google from keeping the message in their archives? Just because the POP3 session says it's deleted, doesn't mean it actually is. That's just a false sense of security. By allowing your email to pass through Google's servers, you are effectively trusting Google. If you don't trust them, you shouldn't be using their servicess, not using POP3.
Perhaps. There are only a couple of problems, though:
1. The Silbervogel bomber concept was designed by Eugen Sänger, not Von Braun.
2. It wouldn't have been very precise, given the Ballistic Trajectories. Useful for a nuclear bomber, perhaps, but not really a conventional bomber.
3. Sänger escaped to the United States and used his work to father the X-20 Dynasoar project. (The pre-cursor of the Space Shuttle.) The X-20 would have been a reconnaissance platform first, and a long range bomber second. In fact, ICBMs made it rather redundant, dangerous, and inaccurate to operate as a nuclear bomber.
*shrug* Go figure.
So where does Chuck Norris fit into all of this?
Why do you assume that video games are "family entertainment"?
Why do you assume that "family entertainment" == "kids"? Many board games are "family entertainment".
Q: Who are board games intended to entertain?
A: Adults and children alike.
Shared experience is what "family entertainment" is all about. Part of growing your child is doing more complex games/tasks with them. This allows them to learn more about being an adult, and allows you to teach and share experiences with them. Not to mention that it can be a LOT of fun for both the adults and children. Whoever came up with this idea that there must be a dichotomy between the two needs to smacked upside the head. No wonder parents never know what their kids are doing! They never participate in any activities with their kids!
(I feel a long sermon about the "Virtual Babysitter" coming on. Must... resist... temptation...)
are you saying that the fact that Game cater to a growing audience (including the first generation of gamers who are now in the second half of their life) is a bad thing, or that it has somehow corrupted video games?
I guess I'm asking a question: Why does an aging generation of gamers automatically presume that gmaers must play adult themed games?
When the Odyssey and other Pong machines were released, it wasn't kids that were buying them. It was adults with money. These machines were home entertainment devices targetted at pretty much anyone who wanted to use them. It took your television, and added the first inkling of interactivity. (Very "space-age" at the time.) No one demanded that your little PONG paddle violently blow up when you lost, or that your little tennis sprite keel over in a puddle of blood. This was all added by game producers at a later date. Not because the market demanded it (it really didn't), but because it sold.
By appealing to the baser sex and violence instincts, game producers were able to move their titles off the shelves. Now it's automatically assumed that a game must have these elements to compete. Kind of sad, really. As Geometry Wars and Nintendo have shown, there's no need for these elements in games. But they're there because we can put them there.
I'm not saying I begrudge people who REALLY want their sex and violence. (Though I can't say I really understand them that much.) But I do feel sadness at the fact that the market is now dominated by these aspects at the expense of more traditional, focused games.
I actually question this, missles fired from a supersonic jet, which are often super/hypersonic is itself a precision guided weapon
Things do get a little different when we're talking about missiles vs. bombs. However, I don't know if missiles are ever fired at super-sonic velocities. (Regardless of how fast the missile travels once lit.) The velocity might cause ignition problems, and the sudden change in mass and aerodynamic shape might unbalance the aircraft. (I sure as hell know that you don't want to be firing missiles at hypersonic velocities. Aerodynamic control is iffy as is, you don't want to turn your plane into so much twisted metal by inviting unexcepted shearing forces to the party.)
I assume there is a limit to how fast you can hang objects out in the slipstream, before you tear the mounts off or cause too much drag for the jet,
For anything going near hypersonic velocities, I'd imagine that you *can't* hang anything out. Everything needs to be as smooth as possible to direct airflow in the most efficient manner. Thus the hypersonic UAVs would most likely have internal bays like the F-22. Opening those bays could prove to be dangerous at super-high velocities.
but the weapons themselves probably don't have a problem being started at supersonic speeds.
That really depends on the engine. There are just so many ways you can get a flameout that it's not even funny. The engines *must* start reliably, so I wouldn't take this granted. A HARM missile is designed for start at high velocities and up to Mach 4 operation, so you may find that this doesn't hold true across all missiles.
Though I take your point. It is possible that a high velocity air to surface missile could be developed to take the place of a bomb.
Any munitions engineers have an opinion?
I'd also love to hear such an opinion. Sadly, I have a feeling that anyone who actually knows would be divulging classified information if they were to tell us. Precise weapons capabilities tend to be kept secret by the U.S. Government.
The local Gamestop has made a habit of selling anything to anyone.
Reason #3,265 why Gamestop is evil. Does anyone else get that disgusting, oily feeling when you walk into their stores?
I was just speaking with a fellow the other day who informed me that Gamestop is considering no longer carrying PS1 titles. (Used or otherwise.) Considering that PS1 titles are still popular on a modern PS2, you can only shake your head at their corporate soulessness.
Just to clarify the parent, lower is better. The percentage signifies the number of underage "mystery shoppers" who were able to obtain goods that they shouldn't have been able to. Movie theaters are leading the pack by only allowing 39% of underage shoppers through. DVDs are doing horrible by allowing 81% of mystery shoppers through. None of them are really doing all that great.
Funny part is, it seems like more often than not the adult buying the game for them is their parent.
It constantly amazes me how many parents don't seem to "get" that a game is not harmless just because it's a computer game. Somehow they all seem to be stuck in this 1980s view of all games being targetted at kids, and the graphics being incapable of showing anything that isn't cartoony. (I'd get into the whole, "It must be fine because it's a cartoon" argument, but then I'd REALLY get sidetracked.) Would it kill these people to flip over a box and look?
I have to wonder what Ralph Baer thinks of all this. When he invented the Odyssey back in the late 50's, he was only trying to make televisions more interactive. Would he have done so if he could have seen how video games would eventually be corrupted from home entertainment for the whole family into nothing more than "adult games"? There's some sort of innocence lost in the transition that I find very, very sad.
I own a copy of Atari's "Dungeons & Dragnons: The Temple of Elemental Evil". When I went to re-install, there was a new patch to put in, so I installed it when I loaded the game again. The problem is, they added new protection in the latest patch, and said protection told me that my original game CD was not valid.
If you think that's bad, you should have seen Homeworld: Cataclysm. It came with a "Copy Protection" scheme that did the following: If there's a CD-Writer installed on the system, don't run the game. Do not print a useful error message.
I had to call up support (I *hate* calling support) to find out what the problem was. The only way to play the game is to replace your CDRW drive with a CDROM (!) or download an unofficial crack to "fix" the issue.
I don't know what Sierra/Barking Dog Studios was thinking, but it couldn't have been a very complex thought. Nearly every system released on the market has a CD Burner installed! The return rates on the game must have been incredible!
Corporate stupidity. Bah, humbug.
I use a ChatBot with GTalk to run a recorded chatroom that allows the programmers I work with from around the world to collaborate in developing new software that will take Linux (and Desktops in general) into the future. Software Development, I might add, of which my wife is very supportive of.
:-P
So what in the world are you doing on GTalk to where "freak the girls out" would have any meaning? On second thought, scratch that. I really don't want to know.
I just fear that google, without you knowing, would log what you chat about!
What's to stop them from doing this now?
Logging on *my* computer is fine and useful. Logging on *their* server is not.
1. It's optional. Turn it on as you see fit.
2. You keep all your GMail on their servers. How does this differ?
I imagine he's talking about the V-2. Not quite the same as dropping a bomb from an aircraft, though.
No kidding. I considered that he might have been referring to the V-2, but I couldn't believe that anyone with a +2 modifier would be lame enough to confuse a missile with a bomb. Go figure.
Well, if you read the article, it states that the logging is completely optional. You can turn it off at any time, preventing a record from being kept. Of course, there's always the possibility that Google would log your IMs anyway. Since they can already do that, though, this feature doesn't really change anything.
Von Baun proved that you could, more than 60 years ago.
What in the world are you talking about?
I think this thing is a good idea (not the logging, the chat-inside-mailapp). I wonder if you get marked as "online" whenever you check your Mail on mail.google.com...
I think both features are good. Logging can be incredibly useful when you're using IM for online meetings and collaboration. (Such as in OSS projects.) To date I've been using a ChatBot to collaborate and record the conversations. This would free me to just record all my conversations, then move the interesting parts to the wiki as necessary.
Way to go Google!
I'm partial to the original, personally.
:-)
I had a feeling you'd say that. I haven't really heard anything good about the second revision, other than the detachable controllers. Most players don't seem to think there's any real point to that feature anyway.
I've heard that the controller connections aren't very good, too.
I've heard that the keypads on the controllers are also problematic. It sounds like they tend to be very harsh on your fingers.
That intellicart thing looks ("looked," I guess) pretty cool, though. It'd be hard to replicate the original disc controller on a PC.
The controller pinouts are on this page, so you can always hack yourself up an interface. I'm not quite sure why you'd bother, though. Just use the Intellicart to move the software to your Intellivision. Much easier than trying to develop the perfect emulation environment.
The Intellicart may be currently out of stock, but I'm guessing that it wouldn't be that hard to get one on EBay.
I see very little need for pilots in the future except to fight the UAV that decides to attack us but missiles should get that job done.
I do. A UAV is really nothing more than a smart delivery system. A bit like a missile, except that it doesn't blow itself up when it gets there. (Though that is always an option.) While the idea of hypersonic delivery systems is nice, you can't drop a bomb at hypersonic velocities. You've got to go subsonic and let loose the payload if you want any chance of hitting your target. Which means that someone is going to have to protect these suckers when they're not hypersonic. (Even supersonic leaves the possibility of missile attack.) Who's going to protect them? The guys who have brains enough to engage in a dogfight, that's who.
Even assuming that the UAVs are a perfect delivery system, no protection needed, you still need someone to protect the carriers and bases that the UAVs launch from. Which means human beings getting up there and showing off U.S. air superiority. Until they can invent a UAV that can actually survive a dogfight (not that easy), there will still be a place for pilots.
Now they're always the possibility that you could fly UAVs directly from the ground (you still need pilots), but the problem with this is that you're sending a signal. If you're broadcasting, the signal can be jammed or intercepted. If you're on a tight beam transmission (e.g. laser linkage), you could lose signal lock. Not to mention the transmission lag. All of which makes remote controlled UAVs less potent than a real fighter jet with a pilot strapped into the controls.
It's extremely interesting how the Apollo 15 astronauts went skiing on the moon. It might suggest a better mode of transport than the buggy they used. Instead of bothering with four wheels, perhaps they really need a Snowmobile? (Or would that be a lunarmobile? Perhaps a dustmobile?) Skiing along like that might allow them to expend less battery power on locomotion, and move from place to place much faster. Having retractable treads so that they can glide might not be such a bad idea either.
:-P
I'll have to patent this now and then charge megabucks for the idea when Moonbase Alpha goes in. At least I'll be able to collect up until the moon gets blown out of orbit.
*chuckle* Oh well, I'll have to keep an eye out and see if I bump into something similar. I'm starting to womder, though. Maybe someone repackaged it in the Odyssey^2 box? I could easily see it happening that someone got a new Odyssey^2, didn't have the box for the old one, so packed it in the new box to sell it. The Odyssey^2 box looks like this, while the original Odyssey box looked like this.
:-)
Anyway, thanks for the discussion.
Or to put it simply; you really need to study the history of the space program and the Shuttle. Because you don't have a clue.
Look who's talking.
Bah, I don't know why I even bother.
NASA was formed to provide a civilian agency to coordinate space research and development, and to get the military out of the drivers seat.
Thank you for repeating what I just said. As I just said, NASA was formed to provide an environment for development that the Military couldn't provide. i.e. A civilian environment that was outside the military structure.
Not noticeably. In fact, the US was ahead by 1960 when the [Missile|Bomber] gap became a campaign issue. There was a perception that we were behind, but we know that perception was false.
Eh? We failed to achieve orbit, our rockets blew up on the pad, and Sputnik was mocking at us from directly above. I'd say we were pretty far behind. At the very least, Congress beleived we were far behind and wanted the President to do something about it. (i.e. The so called, "Sputnik Shock".)
NASA was all about two things; civilian control of space exploration, and penis comparison contests. It had nothing to do with parity, as the military was already evolving down a different technological path.
Then what were we doing designing and launching the Jupiter and Thor IRBMs as NASA was formed? Those IRBMs (which we staged in Britain and other European allied countries) forced Russia to develop a crash ICBM program before we were ready. (Which was why Russia got Sputnik up while we had our pants down.) The US military responded with ICBMs such as the Atlas and Titan which would later go on to be used as commercial and military launch systems. The old IRBMs were redesigned for use in the Saturn and Delta rockets.
Wrong again. NASA's free ride lasted only a couple of years, from 1964 to 1967 when it all came to screeching halt. Nixon
What the heck are you talking about? NASA didn't make it to the moon until 1969. The US remained committed throughout that period, and even afterwards. What did happen was that the Saturn V received full attention in preparation for the mission. The nuclear thermal rocket program was cancelled (after the J-2s proved effective), and the Gemini program was effectively killed to divert money to Vietnam. (It was only supposed to develop technologies that would be used in developing the Apollo program. The military's ideas for extending it to a space station and bomber didn't fly.)
Nope. NASA was asked to provide a plan for what they wanted to do post Apollo - and they returned to what is known as the von Braun Vision (which they had been diverted from by Apollo) - that is, build a Shuttle, use that to build a Station, then use that experience to head off to the Moon (permanently) and Mars. (The Shuttle's development started in earnest about 1967-68, and represented a core plan for NASA from about 1959-60. Well before Nixon.)
So close, yet so far. Von Braun's vision involved the Saturn V as the heavy lifter. The Space Shuttle was going to be a light-weight SSTO for crew and light cargo. Nixon told NASA that they could have one craft flying, and the Saturn V wasn't it. NASA chose the Space Shuttle since the preliminary studies done by the USAF and NASA just prior to Nixon taking office suggested that it was the best compromise. The initial studies had investigated a 20 tonne payload, but NASA's Max Faget pushed hard for a lighter, 6 tonne payload capacity. He also pushed for straightwing design, and a lack of cross-range ability. He was overruled.
Nixon wanted the needs of both NASA and the Military met, and met on less than $8 billion a year. NASA tried to meet these needs by cutting out the Mars mission for the near term, but Nixon still rejected their plan. NASA ended up going forward into the 1970's with a 6 tonne payload, greater weight, lower thrust Space Shuttle, but a design that otherwise had a good chance. "Not good enough," said the military. It had to have 30 tonne payload capacity. NASA gave a little and began to work on a two stage craft. Finally, Nixon nominated Fletcher as the head of NASA, and he began to force all the military's needs back into the craft. One thing led to another, and we ended up with the Space Shuttle as we see it today: Jack of all trades, master of none.
Maybe we'll wait for a clean fusion system but really, I think we'll end up using an Orion before we get a beanstalk up.
Word.