Robots can run basically forever, until something breaks or they run out of juice. Somehow running out of this consumable is better than a human running out of their consumables (food and air)? If you want to be accurate, there are mechanisms for both to regenerate these consumables -- solar cells and plants.
One unique thing about people (besides their intelligence) is their self-healing characteristics... if a robot gets a little hole in a hydraulic tube, it'll leak until it's empty. A human would clot that blood and carry on. If a human breaks a leg, you can bet they'd figure out a way to complete the mission with just one leg... I wouldn't give a robot those odds, even if they lost only one of six legs.
But, I agree.. unmanned missions are great, just for totally different reasons: low cost and hence, the ability to many missions to many different areas, each with new instruments designed to test theorys proposed by the results of previous missions. A human mission would blow the whole budget with just one trip.
Actually, a highschool friend of mine named Linus (no, not that Linus) originally owned lindows, and sold it to its new owners a couple of years ago. He said he registered it just because it was a play on his name and thought it would be cool to have.. he wasn't serious about developing it commercially (of course, that's probably because of the trademark issue).
Check out EE Times article on the drive. Of course, you could always get a 60GB drive for less ($47 shipped) from pricewatch, but if Iomega can ramp this up quicker, it'll get price-competitive again.
I worked on satellites and the design mantra there was "solder is never a mechanical fastener". Any component with any mass had be to bolted, epoxied, or tied down. The exception was dip packages, but they have a high pin-to-mass ratio.
Apple has a Xserve mincluster that has done some things right - small size, acousticly shielded, and on wheels. I must stress the acoustic part if you'e going to work next to this machine - My dual athlon with raid's drone got irritating very quickly.
That version had just a passive lens viewfinder; this new version has an electronic microdisplay that lets you see previously recorded videos or pictures. That ought to rise the price quite a bit.
If you use red lights to stop speeders, you using other vehicles to enforce the law. If I get the green light, I'd have to make sure I was being sent into harm's way. A fairer alternative is to install a road baricade that raises very quickly when the light turns red - drive through at your own risk then. Of course, you'd have to distribute this picture of what happens if you ignore it.
Because of the geometry, I doubt it. The lead is only on one side of the chip, and its concentrated in little balls, so it'll only block maybe 1/10th the incoming rays (assuming a flat chip, 50% of the rays come from the wrong side so they aren't blocked, and I'll guessing that the balls cover 20% of the area of the side they are on). This only applies to higher-energy gamma particles - the alpha and beta particles will already be stopped by the component and computer cases, respectively.
On the other hand, these little radiation emitters are right next to the chip, and emit in all directions, so probably 40% of the rays they emit go through the chip (half go towards the chip, half away).
I think a big reason behind intel's elimination of solder is that lead in the packaging is responsible for a large number of the alpha rays that cause soft errors. Intel's processors are on the cutting edge of technology and they'll be suspectible to these errors long before, say, the real-time-clock. Here's Mitsubishi's low-alpha solders, and here's a quote from this article:
The charged particles causing soft errors can come from three different sources.
-There are particles originating from radioactive impurities in the semiconductor material itself and from surrounding packaging and contact materials such as lead (Pb). Minute levels of such impurities suffice to create problems. These impurities emit alpha particles.
-There are low-energy neutron particles coming from space that are interacting with a certain type of boron (B10) present in the semiconductor material like BPSG. They also create energetic alpha particles through a nuclear reaction. Although they clearly originate from the outside, they only create problems if B10 is present.
-Finally, there are high-energy neutrons coming from space. These effects are very pronounced at higher altitudes and have been known for years to cause problems in space applications but even in commercial jetliners although less of course.
Either way you still have to deal with the BXA. The main advantage of other countries is to get closer to the equator so it'll take less energy to get into geosynchronous orbit.
That, and ocean and Siberian launches let you get really far away from people for safety.
Oh, there are women who look smokin' in teenager-clothes -- but it's a totally immature look*. My definition of feminism (which is such a touchy subject that other feminists will disagree with me) is that I seek to eliminate gender stereotypes and roles as a limitation to people's behavior. Women are pressured too much to tie their worth to their young looks, and this causes issues for a *lot* of women -- and some of those women will wear the inappropriate clothes. Those are the women I worry about - the ones that are limited by gender stereotypes. There are others that aren't limited and I'm happy for them.
I've had some friends really hurt by this...
(* It's hard to come up with a male parallel since men's fashions don't change that significantly with age. Our belly buttons are pretty much covered all the time.)
Yep, that is disturbing, but marketers apply the term "juniors" very broadly. It's not really an age range or a size range (these thongs range from 2-12, which is an adult-sized 160 lbs). Instead it's a term for a style of fashion that is supposed to represent teenagers - and a thong fits that "ideal". Of course, there are 40-year old womem that think they look good in the stuff, and there are sizes to fit them. Marketing of women's fashion is a pretty ugly business.
Ok, I'm a dork.. Guess that's a danger of watching late night TV. It probably was the Nov '65 blackout, but I thought at the time it was last years; I wonder what I really saw. Thanks!
I wasn't in the area during the blackouts, but I did see a history channel special on it a month or two ago. It claimed, for a fact, "nine months later, there was a surge in births recorded at area hospitals". I guess they were trying to aim for syndication from the get-go, but come on - please don't make up facts; either wait until May, or just report that doctors reported a surge in mothers-to-be.
correct - had a DAT that recorded DC.
on
Giant Sub-Woofer
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Yep, that's correct. I worked with a professional DAT player that went all the way down to DC. Of course not all DAT players will do this, and many people would consider it a flaw (since, for music, a DC offset doesn't produce any sound, but will make the A/D clip at a much lower volume).
We used it to record serial data, either as analog from the satellite, or digital after we'd sampled it, and both worked. Of course, to record RS232, we needed to keep the level in check, but the output looked square on an oscilliscope.
Don't forget these edited video excerpts hosted at tamu -- good stuff. 9 or 31 MB, 19 minutes. Annoying beep tone at the beginning, but it doesn't last too long (just longer than you'd want)
Cited by many aficionados as the all-time best Twilight Zone episode, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" benefits immeasurably from a bravura performance by star William Shatner. While travelling through rough weather on a passenger plane, former mental patient Bob Wilson (Shatner) peers out of his window -- and sees a hideous gremlin balanced on the plane's wing. Doubting his own sanity, Bob tries to convince himself that he is merely hallucinating. ..and then the gremlin begins to tear the wing apart. Adapted by Richard Matheson from his own short story, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" was originally telecast October 11, 1963. The basic story was later incorporated into the omnibus theatrical feature Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) and has since been mercilessly lampooned in TV comedy series ranging from The Simpsons to 3rd Rock from the Sun.
I guess Matt Groeing did it with two of his series!
that's twelve free songs a year per credit card! I only have two cards, but I can imagine someone getting 6 songs/month, especially if you use freinds' and/or family's cards.
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I think you got it -- in that context, the post makes much more sense to me. Thanks.
I hate to argue with your logic, but here goes:
... if a robot gets a little hole in a hydraulic tube, it'll leak until it's empty. A human would clot that blood and carry on. If a human breaks a leg, you can bet they'd figure out a way to complete the mission with just one leg... I wouldn't give a robot those odds, even if they lost only one of six legs.
Robots can run basically forever, until something breaks or they run out of juice.
Somehow running out of this consumable is better than a human running out of their consumables (food and air)? If you want to be accurate, there are mechanisms for both to regenerate these consumables -- solar cells and plants.
One unique thing about people (besides their intelligence) is their self-healing characteristics
But, I agree.. unmanned missions are great, just for totally different reasons: low cost and hence, the ability to many missions to many different areas, each with new instruments designed to test theorys proposed by the results of previous missions. A human mission would blow the whole budget with just one trip.
This was posted on JPL's rover site on Thursday. It's got a lot more info.
Actually, a highschool friend of mine named Linus (no, not that Linus) originally owned lindows, and sold it to its new owners a couple of years ago. He said he registered it just because it was a play on his name and thought it would be cool to have.. he wasn't serious about developing it commercially (of course, that's probably because of the trademark issue).
Check out EE Times article on the drive. Of course, you could always get a 60GB drive for less ($47 shipped) from pricewatch, but if Iomega can ramp this up quicker, it'll get price-competitive again.
You can view individual photons with a Spinthariscope - that web page has a good description, and it's $25.
Although, I don't have a thing someone would want to hack.
Hackers wouldn't know that fact until after they've hacked into your system.
I am horrible at converting number distances to something I can conceptualize, so here's an example for others like me:
Each piece is about 0.5mm x 0.5mm square, the same size as the diameter of the lead in my mechanical pencil.
I worked on satellites and the design mantra there was "solder is never a mechanical fastener". Any component with any mass had be to bolted, epoxied, or tied down. The exception was dip packages, but they have a high pin-to-mass ratio.
Apple has a Xserve mincluster that has done some things right - small size, acousticly shielded, and on wheels. I must stress the acoustic part if you'e going to work next to this machine - My dual athlon with raid's drone got irritating very quickly.
That version had just a passive lens viewfinder; this new version has an electronic microdisplay that lets you see previously recorded videos or pictures. That ought to rise the price quite a bit.
If you use red lights to stop speeders, you using other vehicles to enforce the law. If I get the green light, I'd have to make sure I was being sent into harm's way. A fairer alternative is to install a road baricade that raises very quickly when the light turns red - drive through at your own risk then. Of course, you'd have to distribute this picture of what happens if you ignore it.
Interesting thing about drunk driving - it's only a felony if it causes injury, and murder is only in the 2nd degree if it's done during the commission of a felony. Sortof a catch-22.
Because of the geometry, I doubt it. The lead is only on one side of the chip, and its concentrated in little balls, so it'll only block maybe 1/10th the incoming rays (assuming a flat chip, 50% of the rays come from the wrong side so they aren't blocked, and I'll guessing that the balls cover 20% of the area of the side they are on). This only applies to higher-energy gamma particles - the alpha and beta particles will already be stopped by the component and computer cases, respectively.
On the other hand, these little radiation emitters are right next to the chip, and emit in all directions, so probably 40% of the rays they emit go through the chip (half go towards the chip, half away).
Either way you still have to deal with the BXA. The main advantage of other countries is to get closer to the equator so it'll take less energy to get into geosynchronous orbit.
That, and ocean and Siberian launches let you get really far away from people for safety.
Oh, there are women who look smokin' in teenager-clothes -- but it's a totally immature look*. My definition of feminism (which is such a touchy subject that other feminists will disagree with me) is that I seek to eliminate gender stereotypes and roles as a limitation to people's behavior. Women are pressured too much to tie their worth to their young looks, and this causes issues for a *lot* of women -- and some of those women will wear the inappropriate clothes. Those are the women I worry about - the ones that are limited by gender stereotypes. There are others that aren't limited and I'm happy for them.
I've had some friends really hurt by this...
(* It's hard to come up with a male parallel since men's fashions don't change that significantly with age. Our belly buttons are pretty much covered all the time.)
Yep, that is disturbing, but marketers apply the term "juniors" very broadly. It's not really an age range or a size range (these thongs range from 2-12, which is an adult-sized 160 lbs). Instead it's a term for a style of fashion that is supposed to represent teenagers - and a thong fits that "ideal". Of course, there are 40-year old womem that think they look good in the stuff, and there are sizes to fit them. Marketing of women's fashion is a pretty ugly business.
IANFBIAAF (I am not female but I am a feminst)
I've got to give them credit for creative funding!
Ok, I'm a dork.. Guess that's a danger of watching late night TV. It probably was the Nov '65 blackout, but I thought at the time it was last years; I wonder what I really saw. Thanks!
I wasn't in the area during the blackouts, but I did see a history channel special on it a month or two ago. It claimed, for a fact, "nine months later, there was a surge in births recorded at area hospitals". I guess they were trying to aim for syndication from the get-go, but come on - please don't make up facts; either wait until May, or just report that doctors reported a surge in mothers-to-be.
Yep, that's correct. I worked with a professional DAT player that went all the way down to DC. Of course not all DAT players will do this, and many people would consider it a flaw (since, for music, a DC offset doesn't produce any sound, but will make the A/D clip at a much lower volume).
We used it to record serial data, either as analog from the satellite, or digital after we'd sampled it, and both worked. Of course, to record RS232, we needed to keep the level in check, but the output looked square on an oscilliscope.
Don't forget that the BBC made a special deal with real for a "expiry-free, spyware-free and nuicance-free" version. download here - thanks, BBC!
Don't forget these edited video excerpts hosted at tamu -- good stuff. 9 or 31 MB, 19 minutes. Annoying beep tone at the beginning, but it doesn't last too long (just longer than you'd want)
from this site:
.and then the gremlin begins to tear the wing apart. Adapted by Richard Matheson from his own short story, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" was originally telecast October 11, 1963. The basic story was later incorporated into the omnibus theatrical feature Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) and has since been mercilessly lampooned in TV comedy series ranging from The Simpsons to 3rd Rock from the Sun.
The Twilight Zone: Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
Cited by many aficionados as the all-time best Twilight Zone episode, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" benefits immeasurably from a bravura performance by star William Shatner. While travelling through rough weather on a passenger plane, former mental patient Bob Wilson (Shatner) peers out of his window -- and sees a hideous gremlin balanced on the plane's wing. Doubting his own sanity, Bob tries to convince himself that he is merely hallucinating. .
I guess Matt Groeing did it with two of his series!
that's twelve free songs a year per credit card! I only have two cards, but I can imagine someone getting 6 songs/month, especially if you use freinds' and/or family's cards.