I wouldn't want to oversimplify whatever situation is going on up there. Somehow, I doubt that they are running Windows on their main computers, but stranger things have happened. A quick skim through the crew logs shows that they have had problems with the network before. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if some of the computers are among the cheapest bits on the station.
At least there is a separation for life support and some of the other more critical systems (though you'd think that satellite tracking and rudimentary communication would be separate as well..)
This reminds me of a couple of things. I recall that one time, the space shuttle didn't launch because a bunch of computers (8 or 9) detected some sort of fault, and called the launch a `no-go.' There was another computer made by a different company that was looking at the same data, but it put up a `go' status. It turned out that the other computers were wrong -- the situation had indeed been a `go.' The parallel here is that the station has three command and control computers that are basically identical, and apparently running the same software. The software is probably a single point of failure..
I wonder if the problem is because they are running some sort of monolithic application that can pretty much do everything. It's probably better to have a number of individual processes -- that way, if one thing crashes or goes completely nuts, the operating system can prevent them from knocking out other processes.
I also heard from one report or another that the issue was with connecting to the database -- another potential single point of failure.
Hmm.. Maybe we can still blame this on Microsoft;-) I think a lot of people have succumbed to the idea that software failure is normal, and that there isn't anything you can do about it.. That's definitely an attitude that should change..
Of course, if you have mostly-good software interacting with mostly-good hardware, some really bad things can occasionally happen, as we've seen with the hard disk corruption problems that have been cropping up with Linux 2.4 and VIA motherboard chipsets.. --
I think this falls very close to the line of terminals and thin clients that we've seen as office components up to this point. To tell the truth, I think that terminal-like devices are the best way to go when in a large organization. It's far easier when you're basically dealing with installing software on a few servers, rather than tens or hundreds of desktops. Also, when user data is stored on a server rather than a desktop system, it's much easier to keep it all safely backed up.
The problem with the terminal/thin-client idea is that it can put a very heavy load on the server, though there are ways around these problems. Thin clients were created in order to lessen the burden of processing power and disk usage on the server. (Actually, most thin clients I've seen mostly only reduce the processing requirements on the server, not disk requirements). Advanced network filesystems that heavily cache data (probably by writing it to a local disk) also help, but I haven't seen them implemented in many places.
Of course, Windows is not a good operating system for this sort of environment.. Multi-user features have been tacked on, from what I've seen. --
Well, considering that I find my Internet connection more useful than my phone line, as well as the fact that I demand (damn near) 100% reliability from my phone, I think ISPs will eventually realize that they cannot survive if they only provide 80% (or 95% or whatever) connectivity.
Of course, there's that whole other problem of ISPs restricting certain types of traffic (upstream, certain *cough*Napster*cough* ports, etc). I really don't like intentionally degraded service... --
I just read about this a week or so ago.. Back before the ARPANet was built, someone did the math and discovered that you only need three or four connections to each node to provide reliability very close to what you'd have if all of the nodes were directly connected to all of the other nodes. In practice, I don't think that even the ARPANet got to that level of connectivity. Certainly, Internet Service Providers of today generally don't have anywhere near that level of connectivity.
There are a number of obvious reasons why high levels of connectivity don't exist. One is cost -- who wants to pay for multiple connections if you usually only need one? That's also a somewhat psychological problem. Obviously, there are advantages to having multiple connections -- lower ping times and throughput to what would otherwise be `distant' networks, for instance.
Another reason is the fact that routing tables would be extremely complex if that many connections existed. There may be algorithms that can reduce the complexity, but it's definitely not something I really want to think about..
Otherwise, I suppose a lot of people just haven't thought about it. --
Well, at least $385 is a lot cheaper than the prices you have to pay to get an HDTV from Best Buy. Of course, very few people have 1920x1080 displays on their computers, but even a 1024x768 display is much better than an analog TV set..
So much fun stuff to spend money on, yet I worry about the quality of a lot of the products I want to get. Do I really want to buy the first HDTV card out there? Do I want to get the newest chipset when some companies (*cough*via*cough*) can't even get their old chips to work right?
Sure, the chicken-and-egg problem exists, but a lot of the problem here in the US is that the knowledgeable buyers are skittish about the possibility that the broadcast format might change (8VSB->DVB), or that current sets could be obsoleted because corporate interests want to introduce copy protection, etc. Not to mention the fact that lots of people don't want projection TV sets (which seems to be what 95% of the HDTVs being produced are). At least many of the sets use an add-on card for receiving HDTV, which could be replaced if the formats change (though that would still be a significant cost). --
If the report I saw on TV a few years ago is correct, Yuri Gagarin was not the first human to orbit the planet -- he wast just the first to do it without significant injury. I think at least one cosmonaut died, and others were so greatly injured (broken legs or something) that the USSR didn't want to put them on display..
I can't remember what show it was, though I think it was Nova or Frontline or something else on PBS.. --
Well, some software that worked on Win9x/Me probably doesn't work properly with XP, considering the mixed heritage with NT/2000. Things just work differently between the two branches, so 9x software might run into trouble. --
I noticed a few weeks ago that RealPlayer Basic already restricts encodings to 96kbps. Of course, you can currently use a different encoder or buy the full version.
It's not bad to encourage people to move away from MP3s -- it's definitely not the best encoding technology out there. Of course, forcing people to use RealAudio or Windows Media Audio is not quite kosher..
[Insert OGG Vorbis plug..]
There is a question of legality, considering that Microsoft is again bundling a popular technology with their OS, rather than letting the market forces play out. --
Well, I'm concerned for a few reasons. First, did you know that 2/3 of the electricity generated at power plants in the U.S. doesn't even make it to the customer? It gets lost when running through power lines, transformers, and so forth. Secondly, the energy consumed by transportation vehicles in this country vastly outpaces the energy consumed by eletrical devices. What would happen if we all had electric cars? We would probably be burning even more fuel to get the same output.
Of course, a lot of the slack would be taken up by the fact that most electric cars have much lower horsepower than their gas-powered counterparts.
I think there are better ways to make our environment cleaner than using fully electric cars. First off, most people probably don't need as much horsepower as they have. What would happen if people dropped down a notch from V-8s to V-6s or V-6s to 4-cylinder engines? Many people felt the need to go up in horsepower when automatic transmissions were less efficient. Today's transmissions are or at least can be as efficient or better than manual transmissions.
Another possibility is to use hybrid gas/electric vehicles. It's cleaner and more efficient to run an engine at a single tuned speed rather than to have it revving up and slowing down all of the time (however, the act of converting motion into electricity and back might not be very efficient). Of course, an electric car can shut off whenever it isn't moving.
In the same vein, it may also be possible to use continuously variable transmissions to accelerate, rather than changing the speed of the engine. Again, I don't know how efficient those are, and they seem to be very complicated. --
People have tried to increase alcohol usage in the US, though I'm not sure how well it has worked. The father of one of my public school classmates put a lot of effort into starting up a production facility. I live(d) on the northern edge of the corn belt, so a source for the alcohol was readily available. However, I'm not sure if he ever got to be profitable..
Anyway, gasoline often carries 15% alcohol around here. I think there may be some additives in it to make it a little less hard on car engines.. --
Wow, that pretty much describes the class that I'm taking now at the University of Minnesota. How would you differentiate your class from an ordinary history of computing class? I guess you mentioned the `culture' of computing, which might make it different from what I'm taking. Also, my class is dealing a lot with how the government of USA (and occasionally others) funded quite a few important programs..
Anyway, I'm taking a class with Arthur Norberg, and we're using 4 books:
Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon
Computer: A History of the Information Machine by Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray
The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder
Transforming Computer Technology: Information Processing for the Pentagon, 1962-1986 by Arthur L. Norberg and Judy E. O'Neill --
*shrug* NASA TV was running some battlebots-ish stuff a few weeks ago during the day. Students had robots that had to pick up some big beach balls and carry them around on a field. A non-violent variant (though the things did trip over a few times..)
They might not run this, though, since the Shuttle is up right now.. --
I wonder, is this technology based on some sort of differential encoding scheme, where you encode the difference between the standard and high-defitinion signals? To me, that seems to be the only way to cram that much information into the leftover space in analog signals (but what do I know?)
If that is true, it would certainly result in much lower-quality output.
Anyway, I can't really see any TV stations bothering to add yet another broadcasting mechanism (though I suppose it might be interesting/fun to play with). --
I'm really excited about tonight's Lone Gunmen premiere. Like Taco, I hope it won't suck, but I've been disappointed before.
Voyager was a pretty disappointing series for me, at least until about halfway through (this last season has actually been very good, IMHO, but it's unfortunate the series took this long to really get going).
I thought Deep Space Nine was quite good, though I haven't seen it for a while (nobody plays DSN reruns around here). I never got to see as much of it as I wanted, since it was on at the same time as Friends. Sorry guys, but some days I really need to laugh;-)
I wouldn't say this is an especially good deal. You can pick up much better x86 boxes for the same price. However, one thing that is missing from x86 boxes is 64-bit processors. These are fairly competitive with Alpha systems... --
I have to ask what people who use Netscape for mail have been doing now that Mozilla is shaping up. I've used Netscape for my mail client for many years now (only for the facts that it is firstly a decent GUI client, as far as Unix clients go, and that it can display HTML mail), but Mozilla just doesn't cut it for me.
The widgets for lists and trees are terrible in Mozilla (at least on Unix), and it really makes me wish that the Moz folks had decided to stay with Gtk+ for the toolkit, rather than rolling their own for the sake of portability.. I'm not sure they knew what they were getting into with a new toolkit, especially since they'll probably have to deal with the same things that the Pango folks are..
Anyway, back to my initial query -- what are people using instead? There have been a number of clients based on toolkits like Tk (blech) and even straight Athena widgets (triple blech). The nicer-looking clients (IMHO) seem to be all glam and no substance.. What's up with that?
If someone can find me a 3-pane Gtk+ or Gnome GUI client that is stable and that can handle PGP/GPG, I'd be forever grateful. --
The rumor is that OMS still doesn't have any method for properly synchronizing video and audio. Why would someone put a 1.0 stamp on something that doesn't handle this basic problem? --
In the long run, yes, but the thrusters get fired often enough that it doesn't matter.
The more interesting experiment would be to power up the DVD player while it's floating in the middle of a compartment, and watching it spin (probably slowly at first..)
Doing the experiment with a portable CD or DVD player would probably work a lot better. --
IIRC, Congress can't make laws preventing stuff like this from being made or published in the first place (that First Amendment thing). However, there are things that can be done once it has been published. I'm not exactly sure which one they're trying to go for here.. --
I found section 1.3 interesting (``Allow the user to retrieve Web resources even if the browser cannot render them''). In my experience, it's often not the fault of the browser maker, but the site designer. How many times have you tried to view a video or audio clip, only to be diverted away because the javascript on the web pages can't tell if your browser has a plugin for the media type (as if you really need a plugin in the first place...) --
Um. I hate to say it, but this vlc program appears to be a piece of junk. However, it's the only program that I've tried so far that decodes anything. I tried xine, and it has messages flying by about some demux error. OMS, well, I can't even figure out if I'm getting oms to run, nonetheless play this thing.
I'm an utter moron when it comes to a lot of this video stuff. I can run./configure, etc, but there's no way in hell I would be able to debug it. --
AFAICT, it's an MPEG2 video stream. It should play with any DVD player software on Windows or Mac. Linux, OTOH...I'm not sure if this vlc program works or not. I can get audio, but I don't seem to get any video. I'll try a few things, but I suspect this thing will just sit around on my HD for a while.
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I think they've actually been having trouble for a few days. The test of the arm had already been pushed back due to software troubles..
--
I wouldn't want to oversimplify whatever situation is going on up there. Somehow, I doubt that they are running Windows on their main computers, but stranger things have happened. A quick skim through the crew logs shows that they have had problems with the network before. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if some of the computers are among the cheapest bits on the station.
;-) I think a lot of people have succumbed to the idea that software failure is normal, and that there isn't anything you can do about it.. That's definitely an attitude that should change..
At least there is a separation for life support and some of the other more critical systems (though you'd think that satellite tracking and rudimentary communication would be separate as well..)
This reminds me of a couple of things. I recall that one time, the space shuttle didn't launch because a bunch of computers (8 or 9) detected some sort of fault, and called the launch a `no-go.' There was another computer made by a different company that was looking at the same data, but it put up a `go' status. It turned out that the other computers were wrong -- the situation had indeed been a `go.' The parallel here is that the station has three command and control computers that are basically identical, and apparently running the same software. The software is probably a single point of failure..
I wonder if the problem is because they are running some sort of monolithic application that can pretty much do everything. It's probably better to have a number of individual processes -- that way, if one thing crashes or goes completely nuts, the operating system can prevent them from knocking out other processes.
I also heard from one report or another that the issue was with connecting to the database -- another potential single point of failure.
Hmm.. Maybe we can still blame this on Microsoft
Of course, if you have mostly-good software interacting with mostly-good hardware, some really bad things can occasionally happen, as we've seen with the hard disk corruption problems that have been cropping up with Linux 2.4 and VIA motherboard chipsets..
--
I think this falls very close to the line of terminals and thin clients that we've seen as office components up to this point. To tell the truth, I think that terminal-like devices are the best way to go when in a large organization. It's far easier when you're basically dealing with installing software on a few servers, rather than tens or hundreds of desktops. Also, when user data is stored on a server rather than a desktop system, it's much easier to keep it all safely backed up.
The problem with the terminal/thin-client idea is that it can put a very heavy load on the server, though there are ways around these problems. Thin clients were created in order to lessen the burden of processing power and disk usage on the server. (Actually, most thin clients I've seen mostly only reduce the processing requirements on the server, not disk requirements). Advanced network filesystems that heavily cache data (probably by writing it to a local disk) also help, but I haven't seen them implemented in many places.
Of course, Windows is not a good operating system for this sort of environment.. Multi-user features have been tacked on, from what I've seen.
--
Well, considering that I find my Internet connection more useful than my phone line, as well as the fact that I demand (damn near) 100% reliability from my phone, I think ISPs will eventually realize that they cannot survive if they only provide 80% (or 95% or whatever) connectivity.
Of course, there's that whole other problem of ISPs restricting certain types of traffic (upstream, certain *cough*Napster*cough* ports, etc). I really don't like intentionally degraded service...
--
I just read about this a week or so ago.. Back before the ARPANet was built, someone did the math and discovered that you only need three or four connections to each node to provide reliability very close to what you'd have if all of the nodes were directly connected to all of the other nodes. In practice, I don't think that even the ARPANet got to that level of connectivity. Certainly, Internet Service Providers of today generally don't have anywhere near that level of connectivity.
There are a number of obvious reasons why high levels of connectivity don't exist. One is cost -- who wants to pay for multiple connections if you usually only need one? That's also a somewhat psychological problem. Obviously, there are advantages to having multiple connections -- lower ping times and throughput to what would otherwise be `distant' networks, for instance.
Another reason is the fact that routing tables would be extremely complex if that many connections existed. There may be algorithms that can reduce the complexity, but it's definitely not something I really want to think about..
Otherwise, I suppose a lot of people just haven't thought about it.
--
Well, at least $385 is a lot cheaper than the prices you have to pay to get an HDTV from Best Buy. Of course, very few people have 1920x1080 displays on their computers, but even a 1024x768 display is much better than an analog TV set..
So much fun stuff to spend money on, yet I worry about the quality of a lot of the products I want to get. Do I really want to buy the first HDTV card out there? Do I want to get the newest chipset when some companies (*cough*via*cough*) can't even get their old chips to work right?
Sure, the chicken-and-egg problem exists, but a lot of the problem here in the US is that the knowledgeable buyers are skittish about the possibility that the broadcast format might change (8VSB->DVB), or that current sets could be obsoleted because corporate interests want to introduce copy protection, etc. Not to mention the fact that lots of people don't want projection TV sets (which seems to be what 95% of the HDTVs being produced are). At least many of the sets use an add-on card for receiving HDTV, which could be replaced if the formats change (though that would still be a significant cost).
--
If the report I saw on TV a few years ago is correct, Yuri Gagarin was not the first human to orbit the planet -- he wast just the first to do it without significant injury. I think at least one cosmonaut died, and others were so greatly injured (broken legs or something) that the USSR didn't want to put them on display..
I can't remember what show it was, though I think it was Nova or Frontline or something else on PBS..
--
Well, some software that worked on Win9x/Me probably doesn't work properly with XP, considering the mixed heritage with NT/2000. Things just work differently between the two branches, so 9x software might run into trouble.
--
I noticed a few weeks ago that RealPlayer Basic already restricts encodings to 96kbps. Of course, you can currently use a different encoder or buy the full version.
It's not bad to encourage people to move away from MP3s -- it's definitely not the best encoding technology out there. Of course, forcing people to use RealAudio or Windows Media Audio is not quite kosher..
[Insert OGG Vorbis plug..]
There is a question of legality, considering that Microsoft is again bundling a popular technology with their OS, rather than letting the market forces play out.
--
Well, I'm concerned for a few reasons. First, did you know that 2/3 of the electricity generated at power plants in the U.S. doesn't even make it to the customer? It gets lost when running through power lines, transformers, and so forth. Secondly, the energy consumed by transportation vehicles in this country vastly outpaces the energy consumed by eletrical devices. What would happen if we all had electric cars? We would probably be burning even more fuel to get the same output.
Of course, a lot of the slack would be taken up by the fact that most electric cars have much lower horsepower than their gas-powered counterparts.
I think there are better ways to make our environment cleaner than using fully electric cars. First off, most people probably don't need as much horsepower as they have. What would happen if people dropped down a notch from V-8s to V-6s or V-6s to 4-cylinder engines? Many people felt the need to go up in horsepower when automatic transmissions were less efficient. Today's transmissions are or at least can be as efficient or better than manual transmissions.
Another possibility is to use hybrid gas/electric vehicles. It's cleaner and more efficient to run an engine at a single tuned speed rather than to have it revving up and slowing down all of the time (however, the act of converting motion into electricity and back might not be very efficient). Of course, an electric car can shut off whenever it isn't moving.
In the same vein, it may also be possible to use continuously variable transmissions to accelerate, rather than changing the speed of the engine. Again, I don't know how efficient those are, and they seem to be very complicated.
--
People have tried to increase alcohol usage in the US, though I'm not sure how well it has worked. The father of one of my public school classmates put a lot of effort into starting up a production facility. I live(d) on the northern edge of the corn belt, so a source for the alcohol was readily available. However, I'm not sure if he ever got to be profitable..
Anyway, gasoline often carries 15% alcohol around here. I think there may be some additives in it to make it a little less hard on car engines..
--
Wow, that pretty much describes the class that I'm taking now at the University of Minnesota. How would you differentiate your class from an ordinary history of computing class? I guess you mentioned the `culture' of computing, which might make it different from what I'm taking. Also, my class is dealing a lot with how the government of USA (and occasionally others) funded quite a few important programs..
Anyway, I'm taking a class with Arthur Norberg, and we're using 4 books:
Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon
Computer: A History of the Information Machine by Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray
The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder
Transforming Computer Technology: Information Processing for the Pentagon, 1962-1986 by Arthur L. Norberg and Judy E. O'Neill
--
*shrug* NASA TV was running some battlebots-ish stuff a few weeks ago during the day. Students had robots that had to pick up some big beach balls and carry them around on a field. A non-violent variant (though the things did trip over a few times..)
They might not run this, though, since the Shuttle is up right now..
--
I wonder, is this technology based on some sort of differential encoding scheme, where you encode the difference between the standard and high-defitinion signals? To me, that seems to be the only way to cram that much information into the leftover space in analog signals (but what do I know?)
If that is true, it would certainly result in much lower-quality output.
Anyway, I can't really see any TV stations bothering to add yet another broadcasting mechanism (though I suppose it might be interesting/fun to play with).
--
I'm really excited about tonight's Lone Gunmen premiere. Like Taco, I hope it won't suck, but I've been disappointed before.
;-)
Voyager was a pretty disappointing series for me, at least until about halfway through (this last season has actually been very good, IMHO, but it's unfortunate the series took this long to really get going).
I thought Deep Space Nine was quite good, though I haven't seen it for a while (nobody plays DSN reruns around here). I never got to see as much of it as I wanted, since it was on at the same time as Friends. Sorry guys, but some days I really need to laugh
Anyway, hopefully TLG will be good.
--
Those words are computer jargon, but I wouldn't call them buzzwords.
--
I wouldn't say this is an especially good deal. You can pick up much better x86 boxes for the same price. However, one thing that is missing from x86 boxes is 64-bit processors. These are fairly competitive with Alpha systems...
--
I have to ask what people who use Netscape for mail have been doing now that Mozilla is shaping up. I've used Netscape for my mail client for many years now (only for the facts that it is firstly a decent GUI client, as far as Unix clients go, and that it can display HTML mail), but Mozilla just doesn't cut it for me.
The widgets for lists and trees are terrible in Mozilla (at least on Unix), and it really makes me wish that the Moz folks had decided to stay with Gtk+ for the toolkit, rather than rolling their own for the sake of portability.. I'm not sure they knew what they were getting into with a new toolkit, especially since they'll probably have to deal with the same things that the Pango folks are..
Anyway, back to my initial query -- what are people using instead? There have been a number of clients based on toolkits like Tk (blech) and even straight Athena widgets (triple blech). The nicer-looking clients (IMHO) seem to be all glam and no substance.. What's up with that?
If someone can find me a 3-pane Gtk+ or Gnome GUI client that is stable and that can handle PGP/GPG, I'd be forever grateful.
--
The rumor is that OMS still doesn't have any method for properly synchronizing video and audio. Why would someone put a 1.0 stamp on something that doesn't handle this basic problem?
--
In the long run, yes, but the thrusters get fired often enough that it doesn't matter.
The more interesting experiment would be to power up the DVD player while it's floating in the middle of a compartment, and watching it spin (probably slowly at first..)
Doing the experiment with a portable CD or DVD player would probably work a lot better.
--
IIRC, Congress can't make laws preventing stuff like this from being made or published in the first place (that First Amendment thing). However, there are things that can be done once it has been published. I'm not exactly sure which one they're trying to go for here..
--
I found section 1.3 interesting (``Allow the user to retrieve Web resources even if the browser cannot render them''). In my experience, it's often not the fault of the browser maker, but the site designer. How many times have you tried to view a video or audio clip, only to be diverted away because the javascript on the web pages can't tell if your browser has a plugin for the media type (as if you really need a plugin in the first place...)
--
Thanks! I actually have an updated package (gcc-2.96-69), but I guess that wasn't enough.
Unfortunately, the video is out of sync, and it crashes with a segfault shortly after Stallman actually starts talking...
the terminal window shows all sorts of errors like this:
vpar error: premature end of picture
vpar error: Invalid motion_vector code
vpar error: Invalid motion_vector code
vpar error: Invalid motion_vector code
vpar error: premature end of picture
vpar error: DCT coeff (intra) is out of bounds
--
Um. I hate to say it, but this vlc program appears to be a piece of junk. However, it's the only program that I've tried so far that decodes anything. I tried xine, and it has messages flying by about some demux error. OMS, well, I can't even figure out if I'm getting oms to run, nonetheless play this thing.
./configure, etc, but there's no way in hell I would be able to debug it.
I'm an utter moron when it comes to a lot of this video stuff. I can run
--
AFAICT, it's an MPEG2 video stream. It should play with any DVD player software on Windows or Mac. Linux, OTOH...I'm not sure if this vlc program works or not. I can get audio, but I don't seem to get any video. I'll try a few things, but I suspect this thing will just sit around on my HD for a while.
--