We were working on systems for satellite payloads, not people, but 5 out of the 6 teams wrote viable proposals that met the (realistic) criteria of the RFP, largely by cutting a ton of energy expenditure by starting by flying in the same direction the Earth orbits to an altitude where the air is considerably thinner, and firing the big rockets from there.
Did any of the proposals mention the use of a Zeppelin supported airfield, or were all of them for Jet-plane mated technologies? I realize that it's a bit pie-in-the-sky, but Zepplins could be very useful as midair airfields. (Think two giant gas structures supporting a long runway.) Granted, a Zeppelin wouldn't allow you to reach the same airspeeds as a Jet plane, but they could get you to higher altitudes. Higher altitudes mean less air resistance, and less air resistance means more efficient use of fuel.
The amount of fuel burned in the few seconds it takes a rocket to get off the pad is simply mind boggling. Anything to reduce that would be a great improvement.:-)
Yeah, I realized that after I read the article. I was thinking this was the giant blimp hotels that had recently been discussed. If it really is in orbit, things become more difficult. Bigelow will need to contract with a rocket provider who has a powerful enough launch solution, and he'll need to design a space craft to put on that rocket.
In addition, this could seriously impact the number of people he could take up to his station at a time. The Space Shuttle currently has the most powerful space engines in the World, and it could only take about 50-60 people up in a specially designed cargo module.
Bigelow does have one other option, IF he can get Energia Corp. to buy into it. He could ask Energia to start manufacturing the Energia rockets again. If reactivated, the world would again see a rocket with more power than a Saturn V. He might even be able to convince Energia to revive the Energia/Buran mating, thus saving himself a bundle on designing a space craft, and giving him all the lift power of the Space Shuttle. Then again, I'm not holding my hopes up on this one. He'll probably stick to simple rockets and capsules.
Do we? Let's think for a moment. They floated the thing up there. It's got enough lift to carry everyone on board. WAIT! I've got an idea! Why don't we build another blimp to get people up and down?
Honestly, it isn't that hard. As Rutan proved, getting up high enough is the least of your concerns. We can easily build cheap and reusable vehicles to do it. The reason why craft like the Space Shuttle are so powerful and complex is that they have to *orbit*. Orbiting is more or less the process of going so fast that you keep missing the Earth. Since this thing is just floating on the atmosphere, there's little need to achieve orbital velocity.
While I like having a gmail account and use it occassionally, I do prefer to stick with my standard pop account, logging in and out of google can be quite frustrating.
Who logs in? I just leave GMail up all the time. If a new message arrives, the title of the Tab (or browser) will show "GMail (1)". I've also made http://gmail.google.com a toolbar link for those rare occasions that I have to restart my browser.
Do a search for "Atomic Insights". You should find some good stuff there. There's also some info on Wikipedia.
I'll try to answer as much as I can from memory:
Power output (kw)
About 75W to 2.5 pounds of Plutonium-238. SRGs can do 50W to 600 grams of Pu-238.
Mass (kg)
Ouch. I seem to remember that they're about 120 pounds.
Lifetime (years)
Lifetime is determined by the half-life of the power source. e.g. Pu-238 has a half-life of ~60 years. Thus the lifetime is usually expressed in terms of what power output is too low for vehicle operation, and when the power source will degrade to that level. This can be anywhere from 5 to 20 years, depending on the mission.
Overall size
Pretty big. IIRC, they're something like 3x1 feet.
* Levels of radiation they give off (i.e. can they be used around humans? How much shielding is req'd?)
Pu-238 is primarily an Alpha Emitter. Alpha particles can't penetrate a piece of paper or your outer skin layer. Thus an RTG poses minimal risk from radiation. (Actually, it would be a very poor design that would allow the radiation to escape. That radiation is the power source!)
It's worth pointing out that RTGs do come in much smaller varieties. At its core, an RTG is nothing more than a few pounds of Pu-238 and some pelters. Space based RTGs are so large because they must survive an uncontrolled reentry, and because of the difficulties in cooling something in a vacuum.
They'll fail for other reasons anyway. Even cars here on earth don't run ten years without maintenance.
That actually depends on engineering. RTGs can help because they reduce the number of wearable parts. If fewer parts can wear down, then there are fewer parts to fail. The remaining parts can then be engineered for extremely long service lives. It's expensive, yes, but not impractical.
You can neither launch, land, nor propel an infinite amount of mass. If the RTG starts cutting into the cost of your science probes, then the Rover becomes a vehicle to carry around your RTGs, not a science probe.
It's worth pointing out that the Rover engineers DID get an RTG design working. What happened is that the Cassini probe was launched around the time they were developing. The public backlash from that launch caused NASA to back off radioactive power sources. According to the Rover scientists, RTGs are numbero uno on the list of things that the scientists wished was onboard.
If you figure that something is going to happen to the Rover to cause it to fail after 90, or 180, or 720 days
Again, it's all about engineering. The engineers tried to make sure that the panels and batteries were their only concern. Anything else failing might have spelled failure for the mission. These missions are still too new and too expensive to be using consumer level parts.
like lubricant failure on the wheels or antenna
Use expensive ball bearings. No lube required.
or a simple tip over
Not a great way to waste NASA's money. These things were engineered to be as stable as they could possibly be. With most of their weight sprung, a wide wheelbase, and a low center of gravity, it would take a tornado (or an extremely determined operator) to tip these things over.
esp. since using the RTGs required you to not fly N science instruments
That's something of a goofy statement. If the mission requirements specified the weight of an RTG (almost all of which is for protection against reentry), then a proper rocket would be chosen that would meet the mission requirements. We do have rockets bigger than the Delta II, you know.
Estimates of conductivity for a composite fiber are in the range of copper or other good metallic conductors. You'd get a heck of a lot of resistance through 25,000 miles of cable. Gotta beam it down or something.
I've been considering this for awhile, and I think the best solution is to convert the energy to fuel. Specifically, anti-matter. If we can develop an effective way to extract energy from matter/antimatter annihilation, then we could use Solar Energy to power antimatter fuel plants. The antimatter could then be shipped somewhere and used as a power source.
The various antimatter labs have stated that antimatter creation is primarily limited by power. Let's tap the Sun for that power! If we can manage this effectively, we may even be able to build high powered space craft which can reach a high percentage of c.
That was hardly a deception. Intel sold chips with damaged Co-Processors as 486SXs. This allowed them to increase their chip yields, and make money on something that would have otherwise been garbage. That's not to say that some SXs didn't have working coprocessors that had been disabled. In those cases, Intel simply remarked DX chips to meet the demand for the SX line. (How many damaged chips can you manufacture?)
Believe it or not, I do understand the tradeoffs. The reason why I keep pushing for RTGs is that they are a necessary component to *long lasting* probes. The current Mars probes are doing well, but their batteries will eventually start to decay. When that happens, they'll go dead as soon as nighttime hits. With an RTG robot, you can have an explorer as rugged as the Hubble telescope. Scientists could rent time to use the rover as it passes by various points of interest. So what if it takes years for the Rover to move thousands of miles? Slow and steady, it will get there eventually.
RTGs are not the solution to every extraterrestrial power problem. Some, but not all, and apparently this wasn't one of them.
Of course, you're right. We need to start using Nuclear Power Plants. Think of the engines and science packages we could power!;-D
HP will release a new "VAX" that is just a custom emulator running on top of intel's lastest. From a marketing point of view, it's what I'd do.
God, no! Unisys did that with their NX line of mainframes. While it offered some advantages, your mainframe was only as stable as the NT 4.0 image beneath it. Not to mention that the process priorities never worked right on that system. All it did was convince Unisys that they didn't have to update the MCP any longer. You could just use NT for REAL stuff. The MCP is just a "legacy" OS that you're emulating, right?
And then they wonder why IBM eats their lunch every time. Blasted &#$%$#. And if any of you Unisys Execs are listening, WHERE'S MY JVM?!
This has lessened significantly in recent years, but still, when their tech is desirable, it's typically out of the reach of the high end (as in knowledge) individual user. Pisses me off to no end that when they come out with something that could be used, they miss the individual.
Thank God that Sun hardware never becomes truly obsolete, eh? Visit AnySystem to get yourself some amazingly cheap hardware. And keep an eye on their ebay auctions. I've seen more than one E8500 go for ~$3000! That's 8 processors, 9x(8Gig) fibre channel disks, multiple network cards, 6-8 GIGS of RAM, and lots of other goodies! Just slap a "free Solaris 9" copy on there and run with it! I just wish I had a few extra grand for this sucker. Now if Sun would *just* provide a cheaper version of their RayStation Server Software, I'd have my entire apartment complex wired!;-)
High chance, then, that when you finally do turn it off, they won't come back up. I get a lot of clients that say their ancient servers worked great for a decade and then after a power outage *boom* nothing. Make a backup while it's still running.. onto current media.;)
What happens is that the heads collect a lot of gunk that's normally scrapped off when the heads park. If they don't park enough, they can end up "sticking" to the parking spot. Oddly enough, I haven't run into that problem yet. The machine has been turned off a few times over the years (primarily power failures before I got a UPS) and I've never run into this problem. Gotta love quality parts!:-)
Nope, it really wasn't that bad. In 1995, I got a prebuilt P120 with 16 megs of RAM, 1.6 Gig drive, and Windows 95 preinstalled. Set me back $2000 bucks, but it was worth it to have the most powerful machine in the neighborhood. The 16 megs helped a LOT. Most people went for 8 megs, but that really didn't cut it for serious computing. I later upgraded the machine to 48 megs, and still have a 64 meg chipset that I've been lazy about putting in.
I'm all for using these folks as our first conscripted astronauts in such a project.
Screw that. I'm keeping the RTGs to myself. These guys don't realize that ENERGY is what keeps you ALIVE in space. (Technically here on Earth as well. We just happen to have taps on a nice Fusion generator sitting next door.) I'd send them up with a few cell phone batteries and see how long they survive on breathing lithium after they're no longer able to crack water or CO2.
Or conservative estimates. I've had hard drives rated for around 3000 hours that lasted more like 60000.
In my experience, it's all about quality parts. Buy a cheap Quantum drive, and you might not get much more than the promised 3000 hours. Buy a quality Western Digital, and the thing will run forever. I'm *still* using a 300 meg WD drive from an old 486! It's inside my P120 that runs FreeBSD, which uses a 1.6 gig WD drive. That puts the 300 meg one at ~12 years old, and the 1.6 gig one at ~9 years old. Both drives are never turned off.
Ditto on that. I've long complained that they didn't use an RTG or SRG on the craft. It seems that the engineers did such a good job that it was unnecessary.
I *still* think that probes should use RTGs, though, so that we can get the best bang for our buck.:-)
I mean, even with the SunRay, it's like, whoo-hoo, we combined VNC and H.263 and you should jump for friggin' joy.
Actually, Sun Rays are really much more advanced than VNC. A bit more like Citrix ICA. Either way, it's cool technology. Just because Sun has packaged it better than everyone else doesn't invalidate their claim on the market. Personally, I'd love to have a Sun Ray network. I could take my smart card and work anywhere I want. No being tied to a desk with really bad lighting. I'll just take the comet downstairs to the Starbucks and actually get some work done!;-)
I don't think anyone really wants this.
Actually, I think Sun's biggest problem is how expensive it is. I know of many people who would love to buy a used Sun machine and a few Sun Rays just to wire their house. But when their software costs more than the machine, you know you've got a problem. That's the same thing that killed NT Terminal Server. Citrix ICA was doing quite well with WinFrame until Microsoft pulled a fast one on them.
I think a visual protocol is too specific. The work needs to be in creating a widget/RPC API that lets you splat a standardized local GUI onto remote application servers.
Myself and others have spent a lot of time trying to figure out the best way to do this. I did some on renovating AppliWeb up until XWT showed up. So far, XWT seems to be the best option. We'll see what the future holds, though.
I didn't think that Starbucks had any franchises, I thought they were all company-owned (at least in the US and Canada)
Nope. At least as far as I understand, many of the new ones are being opened by private owners. Talking with a few of the employees, it seems that it's really great for the StarBucks owners, because Corp will never shut them down due to low profits. Even if they only make $500 a week they'll leave them open. Apparently, StarBucks corp has decided that leaving small stores open is worth the hassle for the PR it generates.
Somebody give this man some MOD points! I kept waiting for it to appear on Sun's store. It seems I was looking in the wrong place.:-)
The network card and price are kind of a bummer (It's a Thin client, what's the extra thousand for?!), but otherwise it seems like a very exciting concept. Just imagine being able to take it into any coffee shop, office, or other access point and getting back your desktop exactly where you left it! All the power of a big ass Sun machine, in an itsy-bitsy form factor!
Even more than that, thin client and terminal server applications have been around forever.
Indeed. These guys are WAY late to the ballgame. Sun Microsystems already puts out a "log in anywhere" product in the form of the Sun Ray Stations. The network can be configured so that access can be attained over the Internet from any Ray Station, anywhere. All you need is your security "smart-card" that tells the machine where your server is. Sun has even been whispering about a laptop version called "The Comet" that provides people with an "On the go" Ray Station. (I REALLY wish I'd saved that Sun Boardroom Minutes. That was a really neat piece of hardware.)
I can't. The three episodes I actually did watch convinced me that it wasn't worth the electricity to turn the TV set.
You know, it suddenly hit me that you might not realize what I'm referring to when I talk about B&B trying to find ways to "get Hoshi's shirt off". In any *normal* context, we'd be talking about sex and romance. In the case of B&B, things go a little different. You see, the Enterprise crew is locked up in their quarters after the "bad guys" take over the ship. At some point they realize that Hoshi has a way to crawl through the vents. So, she procedes to do so in a T-Shirt instead of her usual uniform. As she exits the vent in the ceiling, she somehow gets her shirt stuck on something. She goes down, her shirt doesn't. Next thing you know, she's breaking Malcom out of his quarters, and asking for some clothing. Oddest thing is, don't they were bras in the future?
Believe it or not, this is what B&B think of as "quality" televison. Blech.
In the midwest local computer stores died along time ago. Its pretty much bigbox (compusa, bestbuy, circuit city) or internet.
Funny you should mention that. My current homes are in Wisconsin and Chicago. Putting Chicago aside, there are small time computer stores that I know of in Reedsburg and Portage. I'm pretty sure that there are more in the Sauk county area, but those are the ones I know off the top of my head.
What I've seen is that these stores haven't disappeared. Instead, they've refocused on becoming computer suppliers for small companies in the area. As a result, their existence may not be immediately apparent.
Slashdot Mirror
And at the lower cost, you can more afford to 'discard' a module if it becomes damaged.
Please don't say that. I'm having bad flashbacks to "The Core".
We were working on systems for satellite payloads, not people, but 5 out of the 6 teams wrote viable proposals that met the (realistic) criteria of the RFP, largely by cutting a ton of energy expenditure by starting by flying in the same direction the Earth orbits to an altitude where the air is considerably thinner, and firing the big rockets from there.
:-)
Did any of the proposals mention the use of a Zeppelin supported airfield, or were all of them for Jet-plane mated technologies? I realize that it's a bit pie-in-the-sky, but Zepplins could be very useful as midair airfields. (Think two giant gas structures supporting a long runway.) Granted, a Zeppelin wouldn't allow you to reach the same airspeeds as a Jet plane, but they could get you to higher altitudes. Higher altitudes mean less air resistance, and less air resistance means more efficient use of fuel.
The amount of fuel burned in the few seconds it takes a rocket to get off the pad is simply mind boggling. Anything to reduce that would be a great improvement.
Yeah, I realized that after I read the article. I was thinking this was the giant blimp hotels that had recently been discussed. If it really is in orbit, things become more difficult. Bigelow will need to contract with a rocket provider who has a powerful enough launch solution, and he'll need to design a space craft to put on that rocket.
In addition, this could seriously impact the number of people he could take up to his station at a time. The Space Shuttle currently has the most powerful space engines in the World, and it could only take about 50-60 people up in a specially designed cargo module.
Bigelow does have one other option, IF he can get Energia Corp. to buy into it. He could ask Energia to start manufacturing the Energia rockets again. If reactivated, the world would again see a rocket with more power than a Saturn V. He might even be able to convince Energia to revive the Energia/Buran mating, thus saving himself a bundle on designing a space craft, and giving him all the lift power of the Space Shuttle. Then again, I'm not holding my hopes up on this one. He'll probably stick to simple rockets and capsules.
We need a new shuttle.
Do we? Let's think for a moment. They floated the thing up there. It's got enough lift to carry everyone on board. WAIT! I've got an idea! Why don't we build another blimp to get people up and down?
Honestly, it isn't that hard. As Rutan proved, getting up high enough is the least of your concerns. We can easily build cheap and reusable vehicles to do it. The reason why craft like the Space Shuttle are so powerful and complex is that they have to *orbit*. Orbiting is more or less the process of going so fast that you keep missing the Earth. Since this thing is just floating on the atmosphere, there's little need to achieve orbital velocity.
While I like having a gmail account and use it occassionally, I do prefer to stick with my standard pop account, logging in and out of google can be quite frustrating.
Who logs in? I just leave GMail up all the time. If a new message arrives, the title of the Tab (or browser) will show "GMail (1)". I've also made http://gmail.google.com a toolbar link for those rare occasions that I have to restart my browser.
Actually, I'm interested to know.
Do a search for "Atomic Insights". You should find some good stuff there. There's also some info on Wikipedia.
I'll try to answer as much as I can from memory:
Power output (kw)
About 75W to 2.5 pounds of Plutonium-238. SRGs can do 50W to 600 grams of Pu-238.
Mass (kg)
Ouch. I seem to remember that they're about 120 pounds.
Lifetime (years)
Lifetime is determined by the half-life of the power source. e.g. Pu-238 has a half-life of ~60 years. Thus the lifetime is usually expressed in terms of what power output is too low for vehicle operation, and when the power source will degrade to that level. This can be anywhere from 5 to 20 years, depending on the mission.
Overall size
Pretty big. IIRC, they're something like 3x1 feet.
* Levels of radiation they give off (i.e. can they be used around humans? How much shielding is req'd?)
Pu-238 is primarily an Alpha Emitter. Alpha particles can't penetrate a piece of paper or your outer skin layer. Thus an RTG poses minimal risk from radiation. (Actually, it would be a very poor design that would allow the radiation to escape. That radiation is the power source!)
It's worth pointing out that RTGs do come in much smaller varieties. At its core, an RTG is nothing more than a few pounds of Pu-238 and some pelters. Space based RTGs are so large because they must survive an uncontrolled reentry, and because of the difficulties in cooling something in a vacuum.
They'll fail for other reasons anyway. Even cars here on earth don't run ten years without maintenance.
That actually depends on engineering. RTGs can help because they reduce the number of wearable parts. If fewer parts can wear down, then there are fewer parts to fail. The remaining parts can then be engineered for extremely long service lives. It's expensive, yes, but not impractical.
You can neither launch, land, nor propel an infinite amount of mass. If the RTG starts cutting into the cost of your science probes, then the Rover becomes a vehicle to carry around your RTGs, not a science probe.
It's worth pointing out that the Rover engineers DID get an RTG design working. What happened is that the Cassini probe was launched around the time they were developing. The public backlash from that launch caused NASA to back off radioactive power sources. According to the Rover scientists, RTGs are numbero uno on the list of things that the scientists wished was onboard.
If you figure that something is going to happen to the Rover to cause it to fail after 90, or 180, or 720 days
Again, it's all about engineering. The engineers tried to make sure that the panels and batteries were their only concern. Anything else failing might have spelled failure for the mission. These missions are still too new and too expensive to be using consumer level parts.
like lubricant failure on the wheels or antenna
Use expensive ball bearings. No lube required.
or a simple tip over
Not a great way to waste NASA's money. These things were engineered to be as stable as they could possibly be. With most of their weight sprung, a wide wheelbase, and a low center of gravity, it would take a tornado (or an extremely determined operator) to tip these things over.
esp. since using the RTGs required you to not fly N science instruments
That's something of a goofy statement. If the mission requirements specified the weight of an RTG (almost all of which is for protection against reentry), then a proper rocket would be chosen that would meet the mission requirements. We do have rockets bigger than the Delta II, you know.
Estimates of conductivity for a composite fiber are in the range of copper or other good metallic conductors. You'd get a heck of a lot of resistance through 25,000 miles of cable. Gotta beam it down or something.
I've been considering this for awhile, and I think the best solution is to convert the energy to fuel. Specifically, anti-matter. If we can develop an effective way to extract energy from matter/antimatter annihilation, then we could use Solar Energy to power antimatter fuel plants. The antimatter could then be shipped somewhere and used as a power source.
The various antimatter labs have stated that antimatter creation is primarily limited by power. Let's tap the Sun for that power! If we can manage this effectively, we may even be able to build high powered space craft which can reach a high percentage of c.
That was hardly a deception. Intel sold chips with damaged Co-Processors as 486SXs. This allowed them to increase their chip yields, and make money on something that would have otherwise been garbage. That's not to say that some SXs didn't have working coprocessors that had been disabled. In those cases, Intel simply remarked DX chips to meet the demand for the SX line. (How many damaged chips can you manufacture?)
Believe it or not, I do understand the tradeoffs. The reason why I keep pushing for RTGs is that they are a necessary component to *long lasting* probes. The current Mars probes are doing well, but their batteries will eventually start to decay. When that happens, they'll go dead as soon as nighttime hits. With an RTG robot, you can have an explorer as rugged as the Hubble telescope. Scientists could rent time to use the rover as it passes by various points of interest. So what if it takes years for the Rover to move thousands of miles? Slow and steady, it will get there eventually.
;-D
RTGs are not the solution to every extraterrestrial power problem. Some, but not all, and apparently this wasn't one of them.
Of course, you're right. We need to start using Nuclear Power Plants. Think of the engines and science packages we could power!
HP will release a new "VAX" that is just a custom emulator running on top of intel's lastest. From a marketing point of view, it's what I'd do.
God, no! Unisys did that with their NX line of mainframes. While it offered some advantages, your mainframe was only as stable as the NT 4.0 image beneath it. Not to mention that the process priorities never worked right on that system. All it did was convince Unisys that they didn't have to update the MCP any longer. You could just use NT for REAL stuff. The MCP is just a "legacy" OS that you're emulating, right?
And then they wonder why IBM eats their lunch every time. Blasted &#$%$#. And if any of you Unisys Execs are listening, WHERE'S MY JVM?!
The distant past called.... ...from a galaxy far, far away...
I didn't see THAT coming!
This has lessened significantly in recent years, but still, when their tech is desirable, it's typically out of the reach of the high end (as in knowledge) individual user. Pisses me off to no end that when they come out with something that could be used, they miss the individual.
;-)
Thank God that Sun hardware never becomes truly obsolete, eh? Visit AnySystem to get yourself some amazingly cheap hardware. And keep an eye on their ebay auctions. I've seen more than one E8500 go for ~$3000! That's 8 processors, 9x(8Gig) fibre channel disks, multiple network cards, 6-8 GIGS of RAM, and lots of other goodies! Just slap a "free Solaris 9" copy on there and run with it! I just wish I had a few extra grand for this sucker. Now if Sun would *just* provide a cheaper version of their RayStation Server Software, I'd have my entire apartment complex wired!
High chance, then, that when you finally do turn it off, they won't come back up. I get a lot of clients that say their ancient servers worked great for a decade and then after a power outage *boom* nothing. Make a backup while it's still running .. onto current media. ;)
:-)
What happens is that the heads collect a lot of gunk that's normally scrapped off when the heads park. If they don't park enough, they can end up "sticking" to the parking spot. Oddly enough, I haven't run into that problem yet. The machine has been turned off a few times over the years (primarily power failures before I got a UPS) and I've never run into this problem. Gotta love quality parts!
Nope, it really wasn't that bad. In 1995, I got a prebuilt P120 with 16 megs of RAM, 1.6 Gig drive, and Windows 95 preinstalled. Set me back $2000 bucks, but it was worth it to have the most powerful machine in the neighborhood. The 16 megs helped a LOT. Most people went for 8 megs, but that really didn't cut it for serious computing. I later upgraded the machine to 48 megs, and still have a 64 meg chipset that I've been lazy about putting in.
I'm all for using these folks as our first conscripted astronauts in such a project.
Screw that. I'm keeping the RTGs to myself. These guys don't realize that ENERGY is what keeps you ALIVE in space. (Technically here on Earth as well. We just happen to have taps on a nice Fusion generator sitting next door.) I'd send them up with a few cell phone batteries and see how long they survive on breathing lithium after they're no longer able to crack water or CO2.
Or conservative estimates. I've had hard drives rated for around 3000 hours that lasted more like 60000.
In my experience, it's all about quality parts. Buy a cheap Quantum drive, and you might not get much more than the promised 3000 hours. Buy a quality Western Digital, and the thing will run forever. I'm *still* using a 300 meg WD drive from an old 486! It's inside my P120 that runs FreeBSD, which uses a 1.6 gig WD drive. That puts the 300 meg one at ~12 years old, and the 1.6 gig one at ~9 years old. Both drives are never turned off.
That is good engineering!
:-)
Kodos to the designers !
Ditto on that. I've long complained that they didn't use an RTG or SRG on the craft. It seems that the engineers did such a good job that it was unnecessary.
I *still* think that probes should use RTGs, though, so that we can get the best bang for our buck.
I mean, even with the SunRay, it's like, whoo-hoo, we combined VNC and H.263 and you should jump for friggin' joy.
;-)
Actually, Sun Rays are really much more advanced than VNC. A bit more like Citrix ICA. Either way, it's cool technology. Just because Sun has packaged it better than everyone else doesn't invalidate their claim on the market. Personally, I'd love to have a Sun Ray network. I could take my smart card and work anywhere I want. No being tied to a desk with really bad lighting. I'll just take the comet downstairs to the Starbucks and actually get some work done!
I don't think anyone really wants this.
Actually, I think Sun's biggest problem is how expensive it is. I know of many people who would love to buy a used Sun machine and a few Sun Rays just to wire their house. But when their software costs more than the machine, you know you've got a problem. That's the same thing that killed NT Terminal Server. Citrix ICA was doing quite well with WinFrame until Microsoft pulled a fast one on them.
I think a visual protocol is too specific. The work needs to be in creating a widget/RPC API that lets you splat a standardized local GUI onto remote application servers.
Myself and others have spent a lot of time trying to figure out the best way to do this. I did some on renovating AppliWeb up until XWT showed up. So far, XWT seems to be the best option. We'll see what the future holds, though.
I didn't think that Starbucks had any franchises, I thought they were all company-owned (at least in the US and Canada)
Nope. At least as far as I understand, many of the new ones are being opened by private owners. Talking with a few of the employees, it seems that it's really great for the StarBucks owners, because Corp will never shut them down due to low profits. Even if they only make $500 a week they'll leave them open. Apparently, StarBucks corp has decided that leaving small stores open is worth the hassle for the PR it generates.
Somebody give this man some MOD points! I kept waiting for it to appear on Sun's store. It seems I was looking in the wrong place. :-)
The network card and price are kind of a bummer (It's a Thin client, what's the extra thousand for?!), but otherwise it seems like a very exciting concept. Just imagine being able to take it into any coffee shop, office, or other access point and getting back your desktop exactly where you left it! All the power of a big ass Sun machine, in an itsy-bitsy form factor!
Even more than that, thin client and terminal server applications have been around forever.
Indeed. These guys are WAY late to the ballgame. Sun Microsystems already puts out a "log in anywhere" product in the form of the Sun Ray Stations. The network can be configured so that access can be attained over the Internet from any Ray Station, anywhere. All you need is your security "smart-card" that tells the machine where your server is. Sun has even been whispering about a laptop version called "The Comet" that provides people with an "On the go" Ray Station. (I REALLY wish I'd saved that Sun Boardroom Minutes. That was a really neat piece of hardware.)
I can't. The three episodes I actually did watch convinced me that it wasn't worth the electricity to turn the TV set.
You know, it suddenly hit me that you might not realize what I'm referring to when I talk about B&B trying to find ways to "get Hoshi's shirt off". In any *normal* context, we'd be talking about sex and romance. In the case of B&B, things go a little different. You see, the Enterprise crew is locked up in their quarters after the "bad guys" take over the ship. At some point they realize that Hoshi has a way to crawl through the vents. So, she procedes to do so in a T-Shirt instead of her usual uniform. As she exits the vent in the ceiling, she somehow gets her shirt stuck on something. She goes down, her shirt doesn't. Next thing you know, she's breaking Malcom out of his quarters, and asking for some clothing. Oddest thing is, don't they were bras in the future?
Believe it or not, this is what B&B think of as "quality" televison. Blech.
In the midwest local computer stores died along time ago. Its pretty much bigbox (compusa, bestbuy, circuit city) or internet.
Funny you should mention that. My current homes are in Wisconsin and Chicago. Putting Chicago aside, there are small time computer stores that I know of in Reedsburg and Portage. I'm pretty sure that there are more in the Sauk county area, but those are the ones I know off the top of my head.
What I've seen is that these stores haven't disappeared. Instead, they've refocused on becoming computer suppliers for small companies in the area. As a result, their existence may not be immediately apparent.