March 27, I posted on/. a brief description of my dream of a camera vehicle.
"2002-2004: I began taking cross-country trips covering hundreds of miles, in an effort to explore as much of my area (Texas) as possible. Although I have a 10 Gig MindStor, a digital camera and a miniDV video camera, I could imagine ways to turn my vehicle into a data collection vessel worthy of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Among its equipment would be the 360 degree video/still cameras on the roof, a WiFi network adapter and a file server. I might hope that I could access any of my photographs and other data from a PDA connected to my vehicle network via the WiFi connection. It would also be nice if I could simply point at something outside the vehicle while I am driving, and the cameras would automatically follow, zoom and photograph. When I return to my home, my vehicle could wirelessly connect to my home server and download all the data I had collected in my travels."
OK, someone beat me to this. Fine. That saves me a lot of work (BTW, where can I get a used one of these vans?). I have more ideas.
Just yesterday, I was taking a nap. I dreamed that I was in a small room, which had a wooden floor and white painted walls, like a nursery in a home might have. On the floor was a large decal, about a yard (meter) wide and a yard (meter) tall. It was similar to the advertisement decals that some stores put on their floors. This one was a decal of a fish in an underwater scene, like a scene from "Finding Nemo." I could see the clear plastic around the edges of the decal. There was a large rectangle in one corner of the decal. When I pressed on the rectangle, it changed to a yellow color, and the image of the fish and underwater scene changed to an image of Disney's Cinderella Palace. The graphic was crisp and the color was dense, like that of a professional printing. I only saw solid colors, not a bunch of colored spots or halftones. Pressing on the yellow rectangle changed the scene back to the original scene. My Mom walked across the floor and across the decal, which did no visible damage to the decal.
How long do you think it will be before we have the technology to make a decal like I saw in my dream?
if you've got one cop car hanging out, other cops will generally leave you alone
A few weeks ago, I walked to the Post Office to return a DVD to Netflix. After I dropped off my mail, I decided to take some photos of the building. Then, I took a 360 degree panarama from a neighboring empty field, and I took some close-up shots of some flowers growing in the field. Then, I walked back home.
I reached the school zone that runs in front of my apartment when a police car pulled over to the curb with its lights flashing. The officer asked me if I had some identification, so I provided him my driver's license (fortunately, I grabbed my wallet for my walk). The officer said that someone had complained that I was taking pictures of the bank. He asked me, "Were you taking pictures of the bank?" I realized there was a bank building on the corner, on the other side of the vacant field where I had been standing. I remembered one guy in a pickup truck had stopped and watched me in the drive-through after he had finished his banking business. I told the officer that I had taken the panarama, which would, of course, include at least one shot of the bank. I pointed out that I took more pictures of the Post Office than I did of the bank, but the officer said that no one had complained about my taking pictures of the Post Office.
The officer said he was just checking if I was a felon. He said that if the check came back clear, I would be free to go, because there is no law against taking photographs. He asked me if I lived around there, and I pointed to my apartment complex behind me. We stood there and waited several minutes, while the driver's in the school zone slowly drove past us.
A second police car pulled up behind the first police car, also with lights flashing. I turned to look at it. The officer next to me asked me if there were someone with me. I told him I was alone. The officer again said I would be free to go after they checked to see if I was wanted in any state. We waited...
Finally, word came back that my record was clean. The officer returned my driver's license and walked over to the second police car. I turned around and stepped into a small hole in the ground.
But if you photograph people, or copyrighted things, don't you need permissions for some uses of your photographs?
No permission is needed to take pictures of a group of people, if their faces are not recognizable or the photography is for private use. The photographs may be sold if the faces are not recognizable. If the faces are recognizable, and the photographs are for commercial and public distribution, then it would be wise to get a signed release form from the subject. Celebrities do not fall under this rule, because they are public figures; they can be photographed pretty much anywhere in public, without permission, for commercial purposes.
In some ways, it is like displaying nudity in commercial broadcasts. If it is obscure or only seen briefly, it is more likely to be allowed.
"Satellite photos of Mount Aratat, Turkey taken by commercial imaging satellite company Digital Globe released today are said to contain proof of the existence of the biblical Noah's Ark.
"The images, revealed at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. (see right), are said to reveal a man-made structure at the site where the Bible states the vessel came to rest.
"The claim was made by Daniel P. McGivern, president of Shamrock -- The Trinity Corporation, who according to a press release has been searching for the Ark for several years."
Every US soldier has a kevlar vest, none of their opponents has.
Good. Our goal is to kill our opponents. That's why we sent the military and not the Girl Scouts.
BTW, the Iraqi soldier is not our opponent. Our opponents are the Iraqi terrorists, who have butchered hundreds of their own people in recent weeks in the effort to keep Iraq from being free. If al-Sadr had any decency, he would be calling for his people to build Iraq, not destroy it, but al-Sadr is a criminal wanted for murder by the Iraqi government.
I am increasingly embarassed to be one, what with the numbers of SUV-driving, Bush-loving idiots out there.
Candidate Kerry's family owns an SUV, according to him.
"Kerry thought for a second when asked whether his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, had a Suburban at their Ketchum, Idaho, home. Kerry said he owns and drives a Dodge 600 and recently bought a Chrysler 300M. He said his wife owns the Chevrolet SUV.
IIRC, pure hydrogen peroxide is "impossible." The strongest concentration generally offered is 70% (which is considered high-concentration), though there is also a specialty grade for the semiconductor industry that is even more concentrated.
More Details on Successful Flight
on
NASA Tests X-43A
·
· Score: 4, Informative
"EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, California: An experimental X-43 pilotless plane has broken the world speed record for an atmospheric engine, briefly flying at 7,700 kilometers (4,780 miles) per hour -- seven times the speed of sound, NASA said.
"The hypersonic aircraft, a cross between a jet and a rocket, was dropped from the wing of a modified B-52 bomber, boosted by an auxiliary rocket to an altitude of nearly 100,000 feet (30,000 meters) and flew on its own power for 10 seconds, said the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
"After the 10-second test firing, the X-43A glided through the atmosphere conducting a series of aerodynamic maneuvers for about six minutes before plunging into the Pacific Ocean, as planned."
"A minute before 2 p.m., the craft was dropped from 40,000 feet. A few seconds later, the rocket flared, boosting the jet skyward on a streak of flame and light. At about 100,000 feet, the rocket was dropped away.
"The scramjet then took over, using up about two pounds of gaseous hydrogen fuel before it glided and then plunged into the Pacific Ocean about 400 miles off the California coast."
No, Cruithne is projected to be in our neighborhood for thousands of years.
"Earth has a second moon, of sorts, and could have many others, according to three astronomers who did calculations to describe orbital motions at gravitational balance points in space that temporarily pull asteroids into bizarre orbits near our planet.
"The 3-mile-wide (5-km) satellite, which takes 770 years to complete a horseshoe-shaped orbit around Earth, is called Cruithne and will remain in a suspended state around Earth for at least 5,000 years."
It's subversive because it denies the expectation that the internet is the only network worth connecting to, which apparently is a notion that's too subversive for slashdot culture.
Several years ago, I registered some domain names that were intended to serve as a community information network. Although it would use the Internet for connectivity, it would be geared for geographically-local people.
Along the way, I began to think about networks that might run parallel to the Internet. Virtual Private Networks came out, a somewhat similar idea.
There are alternatives to the Internet that would be interesting, at least as experiments. Maybe a children-only network?
Although I have for years envisioned my own data network, autonomous of the Internet (but not completely isolated from it), my most recent vision is to turn my motor vehicle into its own wireless LAN. Here is the evolution of the idea:
1997-99: I was employed as a newspaper Circulation Assistant, which required me to drive about 100 miles every day over the distribution area of the newspaper. In my travels, I noticed that people don't drive very well. The idea occured to me that if I could video and photograph my surroundings as I drove, I would have some amazing shots, perhaps even worthy of a television show. As I had a lot of time to plan, I sketched out in my head how I might rig such a camera setup on the roof of my vehicle.
2002-2004: I began taking cross-country trips covering hundreds of miles, in an effort to explore as much of my area (Texas) as possible. Although I have a 10 Gig MindStor, a digital camera and a miniDV video camera, I could imagine ways to turn my vehicle into a data collection vessel worthy of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Among its equipment would be the 360 degree video/still cameras on the roof, a WiFi network adapter and a file server. I might hope that I could access any of my photographs and other data from a PDA connected to my vehicle network via the WiFi connection. It would also be nice if I could simply point at something outside the vehicle while I am driving, and the cameras would automatically follow, zoom and photograph. When I return to my home, my vehicle could wirelessly connect to my home server and download all the data I had collected in my travels.
I am still in the planning phase, but over the next 4 years, if my income holds out, I fully intend to put these pieces into place. And, if I could implant a camera into my forehead, I would.
Actually, I worked on the original prototype for this as my PhD thesis under Professor Kazerooni.
That's interesting. I've been fascinated by these machines since I saw them in Popular Mechanics, back in the '70s (about 1974 or so). They were powered by a lawnmower engine back then, too. A more recent design spin-off doesn't use any power plant; it's more of a spring walker, more like stilts. There is video on the Web, though I don't have any links right now.
Yes, I remember that show very well, except for any names used in it. Sorry, nouns just aren't my thing. I've kept an eye out for the show for the last few years, but I've never run across it. I think about scenes from the show fairly regularly, and have done so for about the last 25 years.
I did not get to watch the first several minutes of the show. I began at the point where the crippled teacher discovers that a small metal weight is pulled across a table, apparently attracted by the beam of a laser. The teacher asks an administrator what the composition of the mysterious, dense metal is. The administrator said no one knew; the kids who made it were just goofing around and made it by accident. The teacher experiments, and makes a mesh that fits over his legs. He hoists himself into a sling, and is able to walk towards a pair of flashing laser lights. He builds an entire suit out of the material, then uses the suit to fight crime.
The teacher drives a van, which has the suit in the back of the van. The suit is hermetically sealed, and the teacher puts it on himself by lying on his back in a full-body sealing chamber, which has a start button on the outside (he activates the start button with his left hand, quickly pulling his hand inside as the top descends down on him). The van also houses the control lasers that allow him to walk. The suit has switches on the arms (3 or 4 switches on his left arm, as best I can recall). I don't remember what all the switches do, but one switch opens his face visor. The material of the suit is extremely strong and dense, so it is nearly impervious to physical attack. At one point, some men in a jeep attempt to run him over, but are ejected from their jeep when they strike him; he is completely unmoved by the force of the collision.
I probably saw that show sometime around 1976, absolutely no later than 1981, and no earlier than 1974.
You cannot likely orbit something 10 miles above the lunar surface. Tidal stress on the orbiting body would likely render it apart, unless it was made of some really tough material.
It's too bad that you didn't warn us about that *before* we tried orbiting some small space vehicle a few miles about the lunar surface!
Actually, tidal forces would only prevent dust particles from forming a large solid body. The forces are not enough to tear a small metal ship apart (otherwise, neither MIR nor the ISS would be able to survive, as they are both within Earth's Roche Limit, and tidal forces from Earth are stronger than those from Moon).
"The Roche Limit is the orbital distance at which a satellite with no tensile strength (a liquid satellite) will begin to be tidally torn apart by the body it is orbiting."
Glenn is more interested in the long terms need of mankind.
I wish I could believe that. However, his actions over the last few decades are those of a cynical manipulator of the political system. He is just a politician, seeking the advancement of his party and himself. In this case, that means opposing President Bush's space inititive because it came from a political opponent.
There is nothing in the news stories that would indicate that I am incorrect in my assessment of Mr. Glen, or offer a significant reason for Mr. Glenn to oppose President Bush on this matter.
I have been an advocate of space exploration a long time before I heard of John Glenn or George Bush. In all that time--ALL OF IT!--our Moon was considered an important resource, much lamented for our failure to spend more time on it. Now, President Bush suggests doing what so many scientists have been screaming for these last few decades, and suddenly the Moon is undesirable. That tells me this opposition is cynical manipulation, not an honest, sincere assessment of our best interests.
What happened to all those decades of proposals to put observatories on Moon? In 1984, the University of New Mexico's Physics and Astronomy Department even displayed a model of a radio observatory seriously proposed by several scientists. There has been such a push to return to Moon that more than one space agency has launched probes to Moon recently. Even China has announced hopes of establishing a manned base on Moon. All of this is welcomed, until President Bush becomes an advocate. This, too, suggests cynical manipulation is the driving force of the opposition.
It will be much easier to launch heavy ships from Moon's gravity than from Earth's gravity. There is inherent value in having a Moon base. There is also a lesson to be learned in the Gemini program, in which short distance test runs taught us a lot about getting to our final destination.
I believe John Glenn's opposition is simply a political move aimed at undermining a Republican president.
Both of your comments come from experiences where the bad part wasn't found within the first guess or two.
That's what I am saying, yes. I could even say the bad part (if such existed) was not found within the first 3 or 4 guesses.
An experienced technician can figure out which part needs to be replaced with the first educated guess 95% of the time.
The technicians at one of my employers each serviced a half-dozen calls a day. We had a few hundred technicians. I personally worked dozens of orders every week. At a 95% accuracy rate, that leaves a lot of bad calls every week!
If you want to troubleshoot by rule-of-thumb, you could just restrict yourself to adjusting cables. More than half the time, home and small business user problems can be resolved simply by making sure that all electrical connections are securely seated (especially cables!). I can say from experience that loose cable connections are the main reason that certain fast food venders have down register systems.
He won't order a replacement part until he confirms that it's bad with a spare working part.
There is another problem. The technician has to service a wide variety of customers over an area of hundreds of square miles. We have a dozen types of printers, alone! How many spare parts do you think the technician can get in his vehicle?
The people that take a wild, idiotic guess as to what needs to be replaced and then proceed to file an RMA are not the people I'd like to refer to as talented computer technicians.
I can't argue with that, except to say that "talented computer technician" is a kluge, as long as the tech has to swap out parts to find a combination that works. Is it the tech's fault? Not always. But, we need a better way of finding and solving problems than brute force. We should have a more elegant solution.
I could point out that I have worked in the logistics department of a PC troubleshooting company. It really annoyed me when the same technician on the same service call created a dozen orders, eventually re-building the entire device being "repaired."
I know of at least one computer OEM that charges extra if the user makes multiple parts orders under warranty without going through the OEM's technical support help desk. Want to guess why they do that?
How did he get modded up to a 2 and I am stuck at a 1.
He wasn't modded. Some of us on Slashdot post at Karma: 2. I am one of those. I don't remember exactly how, but it had to do with the default settings ("Post at") level in my profile.
I installed Windows XP Home on my first Serial ATA hard drive last month. In order to do that, I had to copy the SATA drivers onto the root of a floppy. The Windows installation (from the bootable Windows CD, BTW) did not give me the option of chosing the drive or directory from which to load the drivers. I had to have the SATA drivers in the root of a floppy disk.
BTW, I also installed SuSE Linux 9 to the same SATA hard drive (again, from a bootable Linux CD). Linux 9 found the SATA drive without the need for externally-supplied drivers. V Communication's Partition Commander also did not need external drivers to find the SATA drive.
I have been in the PC service and repair field for over 15 years. I've worked with PC technicians for several companies in several states, in a wide variety of industries (some of the companies provide PC technical support to customers, but others were in-house).
It is a shame that most PC technicians don't actually diagnose problems. Instead, they guess and swap, until the system happens to work, again. They don't really know what was wrong (though they probably will claim otherwise), and they certainly don't know if they fixed the problem.
I've met several technicians who claim that modern microchips are less-sensitive to electrostatic discharge than obsolete microchips were, but the microchip industry says exactly the opposite. Most PC technicians take very little, if any, precaution against electrostatic discharge. They assume that if the component works, it isn't damaged, and they lack the skills and tools to find any real damage. Instead, they simply swap out parts if something stops working.
I can't entirely fault the PC troubleshooting industry, though. Electronics are too cheap, most of the time, for technicians to spend very much time troubleshooting them. Speed is the most important asset in the PC industry. It is better to be fast than correct, whether troubleshooting systems or writing software code or technical manuals.
That might be reasonable for PC technicians, but one could find the same attitude in other troubleshooting industries. I just took my car in for repairs, because I often had to push-start it. This after a week of repairs for various problems. In that week, the mechanics never found anything wrong with my car starting, and this last trip dedicated to that problem was no different... until the mechanics got ready to return my vehicle to me. When they tried to drive back to the parking lot, my vehicle would not start. A new starter appears to have taken care of that problem.
Doctors are the same way. It costs far too much to find the real problem, I suppose, so doctors rely on rules-of-thumb and shotgun approaches. Many diagnosis are through the process of elimination; one treatment didn't work, so they try another. Doctors probably never know exactly what is wrong with the patient, but they often get close enough for the body to heal itself, to some degree.
Google News featured an "Information Week" article, "Internet Voting Inherently Flawed, Researchers Say." That word, "inherently," caught my attention. As in, "cannot be fixed," "an essential part of the nature of the Internet." IOW, *anything* that uses the Internet for polling is inherently unsecure in a similiar situation.
What does this imply for business applications over the Internet? Perhaps simple commercial transfers do not require the same level of security and reliability as voting does, but would a company be wise to use the Internet to transfer mission-critical information? Of course, critical business transfers have the advantage of not needing anonymity, but there are other weaknesses in the Internet that allow subversion of critical communication.
that is where we get all these interesting new particles from.
That sounds fine, except that I recall a discussion I once had with my Physics mentor when I was in high school (he was a professor at the local state University). I asked him how we could be so certain that we are discovering particles that actually exist in our Universe, instead of simply creating new particles, based on the energy we add in particle accelerators? How do we know that an atom, for example, contains certain sub-atomic particles, instead of our recombining sub-atomic parts into new particles that were never part of the atom? In particular, how do we know that what we are discovering are more fundamental building blocks of matter? The answer he gave me is that we are not creating particles that did not previously exist. When we break apart a proton (or whatever), we are seeing particles that actually compose the proton. At least, that's the way I understood and remember what he said.
Thank you for pointing that out. He had me confused when he made his statement that "all the matter" is made of quarks, because I was certain that there is a lot of matter that isn't made of quarks. In fact, I would not be surprised if there are a lot more particles in our Universe that are non-quark than quark, including some that we may never be able to detect because they don't interact with anything available to us.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's a perfectly good article--NO REGISTRATION REQUIRED--from International Herald Tribune:
IHT: In Japan, a look beyond HDTV
"2002-2004: I began taking cross-country trips covering hundreds of miles, in an effort to explore as much of my area (Texas) as possible. Although I have a 10 Gig MindStor, a digital camera and a miniDV video camera, I could imagine ways to turn my vehicle into a data collection vessel worthy of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Among its equipment would be the 360 degree video/still cameras on the roof, a WiFi network adapter and a file server. I might hope that I could access any of my photographs and other data from a PDA connected to my vehicle network via the WiFi connection. It would also be nice if I could simply point at something outside the vehicle while I am driving, and the cameras would automatically follow, zoom and photograph. When I return to my home, my vehicle could wirelessly connect to my home server and download all the data I had collected in my travels."
I've been waiting for a device like this
OK, someone beat me to this. Fine. That saves me a lot of work (BTW, where can I get a used one of these vans?). I have more ideas.
Just yesterday, I was taking a nap. I dreamed that I was in a small room, which had a wooden floor and white painted walls, like a nursery in a home might have. On the floor was a large decal, about a yard (meter) wide and a yard (meter) tall. It was similar to the advertisement decals that some stores put on their floors. This one was a decal of a fish in an underwater scene, like a scene from "Finding Nemo." I could see the clear plastic around the edges of the decal. There was a large rectangle in one corner of the decal. When I pressed on the rectangle, it changed to a yellow color, and the image of the fish and underwater scene changed to an image of Disney's Cinderella Palace. The graphic was crisp and the color was dense, like that of a professional printing. I only saw solid colors, not a bunch of colored spots or halftones. Pressing on the yellow rectangle changed the scene back to the original scene. My Mom walked across the floor and across the decal, which did no visible damage to the decal.
How long do you think it will be before we have the technology to make a decal like I saw in my dream?
A few weeks ago, I walked to the Post Office to return a DVD to Netflix. After I dropped off my mail, I decided to take some photos of the building. Then, I took a 360 degree panarama from a neighboring empty field, and I took some close-up shots of some flowers growing in the field. Then, I walked back home.
I reached the school zone that runs in front of my apartment when a police car pulled over to the curb with its lights flashing. The officer asked me if I had some identification, so I provided him my driver's license (fortunately, I grabbed my wallet for my walk). The officer said that someone had complained that I was taking pictures of the bank. He asked me, "Were you taking pictures of the bank?" I realized there was a bank building on the corner, on the other side of the vacant field where I had been standing. I remembered one guy in a pickup truck had stopped and watched me in the drive-through after he had finished his banking business. I told the officer that I had taken the panarama, which would, of course, include at least one shot of the bank. I pointed out that I took more pictures of the Post Office than I did of the bank, but the officer said that no one had complained about my taking pictures of the Post Office.
The officer said he was just checking if I was a felon. He said that if the check came back clear, I would be free to go, because there is no law against taking photographs. He asked me if I lived around there, and I pointed to my apartment complex behind me. We stood there and waited several minutes, while the driver's in the school zone slowly drove past us.
A second police car pulled up behind the first police car, also with lights flashing. I turned to look at it. The officer next to me asked me if there were someone with me. I told him I was alone. The officer again said I would be free to go after they checked to see if I was wanted in any state. We waited...
Finally, word came back that my record was clean. The officer returned my driver's license and walked over to the second police car. I turned around and stepped into a small hole in the ground.
No permission is needed to take pictures of a group of people, if their faces are not recognizable or the photography is for private use. The photographs may be sold if the faces are not recognizable. If the faces are recognizable, and the photographs are for commercial and public distribution, then it would be wise to get a signed release form from the subject. Celebrities do not fall under this rule, because they are public figures; they can be photographed pretty much anywhere in public, without permission, for commercial purposes.
In some ways, it is like displaying nudity in commercial broadcasts. If it is obscure or only seen briefly, it is more likely to be allowed.
April 26
"Satellite photos of Mount Aratat, Turkey taken by commercial imaging satellite company Digital Globe released today are said to contain proof of the existence of the biblical Noah's Ark.
"The images, revealed at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. (see right), are said to reveal a man-made structure at the site where the Bible states the vessel came to rest.
"The claim was made by Daniel P. McGivern, president of Shamrock -- The Trinity Corporation, who according to a press release has been searching for the Ark for several years."
Space.com: Noah's Ark Found? Company Claims Commercial Satellite Has Picture Proof
Good. Our goal is to kill our opponents. That's why we sent the military and not the Girl Scouts.
BTW, the Iraqi soldier is not our opponent. Our opponents are the Iraqi terrorists, who have butchered hundreds of their own people in recent weeks in the effort to keep Iraq from being free. If al-Sadr had any decency, he would be calling for his people to build Iraq, not destroy it, but al-Sadr is a criminal wanted for murder by the Iraqi government.
Candidate Kerry's family owns an SUV, according to him.
"Kerry thought for a second when asked whether his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, had a Suburban at their Ketchum, Idaho, home. Kerry said he owns and drives a Dodge 600 and recently bought a Chrysler 300M. He said his wife owns the Chevrolet SUV.
"'The family has it. I don't have it,' he said."
Kerry Says His 'Family' Owns SUV, Not He
I suppose the same could be said of the Gulfstream private jet he uses.
Wikipedia has an interesting article on hydrogen peroxide.
"The hypersonic aircraft, a cross between a jet and a rocket, was dropped from the wing of a modified B-52 bomber, boosted by an auxiliary rocket to an altitude of nearly 100,000 feet (30,000 meters) and flew on its own power for 10 seconds, said the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
"After the 10-second test firing, the X-43A glided through the atmosphere conducting a series of aerodynamic maneuvers for about six minutes before plunging into the Pacific Ocean, as planned."
Channel News Asia: Experimental hypersonic aircraft breaks world speed record, flies at Mach 7
"A minute before 2 p.m., the craft was dropped from 40,000 feet. A few seconds later, the rocket flared, boosting the jet skyward on a streak of flame and light. At about 100,000 feet, the rocket was dropped away.
"The scramjet then took over, using up about two pounds of gaseous hydrogen fuel before it glided and then plunged into the Pacific Ocean about 400 miles off the California coast."
Mercury News: Preliminary data shows NASA jet streaked 5,000 mph in test flight
No, Cruithne is projected to be in our neighborhood for thousands of years.
"Earth has a second moon, of sorts, and could have many others, according to three astronomers who did calculations to describe orbital motions at gravitational balance points in space that temporarily pull asteroids into bizarre orbits near our planet.
"The 3-mile-wide (5-km) satellite, which takes 770 years to complete a horseshoe-shaped orbit around Earth, is called Cruithne and will remain in a suspended state around Earth for at least 5,000 years."
Space.com: More Moons Around Earth? It's Not So Loony
Several years ago, I registered some domain names that were intended to serve as a community information network. Although it would use the Internet for connectivity, it would be geared for geographically-local people.
Along the way, I began to think about networks that might run parallel to the Internet. Virtual Private Networks came out, a somewhat similar idea.
There are alternatives to the Internet that would be interesting, at least as experiments. Maybe a children-only network?
Paw-tate-oh, Paw-tot-oh.
1997-99: I was employed as a newspaper Circulation Assistant, which required me to drive about 100 miles every day over the distribution area of the newspaper. In my travels, I noticed that people don't drive very well. The idea occured to me that if I could video and photograph my surroundings as I drove, I would have some amazing shots, perhaps even worthy of a television show. As I had a lot of time to plan, I sketched out in my head how I might rig such a camera setup on the roof of my vehicle.
2002-2004: I began taking cross-country trips covering hundreds of miles, in an effort to explore as much of my area (Texas) as possible. Although I have a 10 Gig MindStor, a digital camera and a miniDV video camera, I could imagine ways to turn my vehicle into a data collection vessel worthy of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Among its equipment would be the 360 degree video/still cameras on the roof, a WiFi network adapter and a file server. I might hope that I could access any of my photographs and other data from a PDA connected to my vehicle network via the WiFi connection. It would also be nice if I could simply point at something outside the vehicle while I am driving, and the cameras would automatically follow, zoom and photograph. When I return to my home, my vehicle could wirelessly connect to my home server and download all the data I had collected in my travels.
I am still in the planning phase, but over the next 4 years, if my income holds out, I fully intend to put these pieces into place. And, if I could implant a camera into my forehead, I would.
That's interesting. I've been fascinated by these machines since I saw them in Popular Mechanics, back in the '70s (about 1974 or so). They were powered by a lawnmower engine back then, too. A more recent design spin-off doesn't use any power plant; it's more of a spring walker, more like stilts. There is video on the Web, though I don't have any links right now.
I did not get to watch the first several minutes of the show. I began at the point where the crippled teacher discovers that a small metal weight is pulled across a table, apparently attracted by the beam of a laser. The teacher asks an administrator what the composition of the mysterious, dense metal is. The administrator said no one knew; the kids who made it were just goofing around and made it by accident. The teacher experiments, and makes a mesh that fits over his legs. He hoists himself into a sling, and is able to walk towards a pair of flashing laser lights. He builds an entire suit out of the material, then uses the suit to fight crime.
The teacher drives a van, which has the suit in the back of the van. The suit is hermetically sealed, and the teacher puts it on himself by lying on his back in a full-body sealing chamber, which has a start button on the outside (he activates the start button with his left hand, quickly pulling his hand inside as the top descends down on him). The van also houses the control lasers that allow him to walk. The suit has switches on the arms (3 or 4 switches on his left arm, as best I can recall). I don't remember what all the switches do, but one switch opens his face visor. The material of the suit is extremely strong and dense, so it is nearly impervious to physical attack. At one point, some men in a jeep attempt to run him over, but are ejected from their jeep when they strike him; he is completely unmoved by the force of the collision.
I probably saw that show sometime around 1976, absolutely no later than 1981, and no earlier than 1974.
It's too bad that you didn't warn us about that *before* we tried orbiting some small space vehicle a few miles about the lunar surface!
Actually, tidal forces would only prevent dust particles from forming a large solid body. The forces are not enough to tear a small metal ship apart (otherwise, neither MIR nor the ISS would be able to survive, as they are both within Earth's Roche Limit, and tidal forces from Earth are stronger than those from Moon).
"The Roche Limit is the orbital distance at which a satellite with no tensile strength (a liquid satellite) will begin to be tidally torn apart by the body it is orbiting."
http://lhs.lexingtonma.org/Teachers/Trainor/emsys/ emsys.htm
I wish I could believe that. However, his actions over the last few decades are those of a cynical manipulator of the political system. He is just a politician, seeking the advancement of his party and himself. In this case, that means opposing President Bush's space inititive because it came from a political opponent.
There is nothing in the news stories that would indicate that I am incorrect in my assessment of Mr. Glen, or offer a significant reason for Mr. Glenn to oppose President Bush on this matter.
I have been an advocate of space exploration a long time before I heard of John Glenn or George Bush. In all that time--ALL OF IT!--our Moon was considered an important resource, much lamented for our failure to spend more time on it. Now, President Bush suggests doing what so many scientists have been screaming for these last few decades, and suddenly the Moon is undesirable. That tells me this opposition is cynical manipulation, not an honest, sincere assessment of our best interests.
What happened to all those decades of proposals to put observatories on Moon? In 1984, the University of New Mexico's Physics and Astronomy Department even displayed a model of a radio observatory seriously proposed by several scientists. There has been such a push to return to Moon that more than one space agency has launched probes to Moon recently. Even China has announced hopes of establishing a manned base on Moon. All of this is welcomed, until President Bush becomes an advocate. This, too, suggests cynical manipulation is the driving force of the opposition.
It will be much easier to launch heavy ships from Moon's gravity than from Earth's gravity. There is inherent value in having a Moon base. There is also a lesson to be learned in the Gemini program, in which short distance test runs taught us a lot about getting to our final destination.
I believe John Glenn's opposition is simply a political move aimed at undermining a Republican president.
That's what I am saying, yes. I could even say the bad part (if such existed) was not found within the first 3 or 4 guesses.
An experienced technician can figure out which part needs to be replaced with the first educated guess 95% of the time.
The technicians at one of my employers each serviced a half-dozen calls a day. We had a few hundred technicians. I personally worked dozens of orders every week. At a 95% accuracy rate, that leaves a lot of bad calls every week!
If you want to troubleshoot by rule-of-thumb, you could just restrict yourself to adjusting cables. More than half the time, home and small business user problems can be resolved simply by making sure that all electrical connections are securely seated (especially cables!). I can say from experience that loose cable connections are the main reason that certain fast food venders have down register systems.
He won't order a replacement part until he confirms that it's bad with a spare working part.
There is another problem. The technician has to service a wide variety of customers over an area of hundreds of square miles. We have a dozen types of printers, alone! How many spare parts do you think the technician can get in his vehicle?
The people that take a wild, idiotic guess as to what needs to be replaced and then proceed to file an RMA are not the people I'd like to refer to as talented computer technicians.
I can't argue with that, except to say that "talented computer technician" is a kluge, as long as the tech has to swap out parts to find a combination that works. Is it the tech's fault? Not always. But, we need a better way of finding and solving problems than brute force. We should have a more elegant solution.
I know of at least one computer OEM that charges extra if the user makes multiple parts orders under warranty without going through the OEM's technical support help desk. Want to guess why they do that?
He wasn't modded. Some of us on Slashdot post at Karma: 2. I am one of those. I don't remember exactly how, but it had to do with the default settings ("Post at") level in my profile.
BTW, I also installed SuSE Linux 9 to the same SATA hard drive (again, from a bootable Linux CD). Linux 9 found the SATA drive without the need for externally-supplied drivers. V Communication's Partition Commander also did not need external drivers to find the SATA drive.
It is a shame that most PC technicians don't actually diagnose problems. Instead, they guess and swap, until the system happens to work, again. They don't really know what was wrong (though they probably will claim otherwise), and they certainly don't know if they fixed the problem.
I've met several technicians who claim that modern microchips are less-sensitive to electrostatic discharge than obsolete microchips were, but the microchip industry says exactly the opposite. Most PC technicians take very little, if any, precaution against electrostatic discharge. They assume that if the component works, it isn't damaged, and they lack the skills and tools to find any real damage. Instead, they simply swap out parts if something stops working.
I can't entirely fault the PC troubleshooting industry, though. Electronics are too cheap, most of the time, for technicians to spend very much time troubleshooting them. Speed is the most important asset in the PC industry. It is better to be fast than correct, whether troubleshooting systems or writing software code or technical manuals.
That might be reasonable for PC technicians, but one could find the same attitude in other troubleshooting industries. I just took my car in for repairs, because I often had to push-start it. This after a week of repairs for various problems. In that week, the mechanics never found anything wrong with my car starting, and this last trip dedicated to that problem was no different... until the mechanics got ready to return my vehicle to me. When they tried to drive back to the parking lot, my vehicle would not start. A new starter appears to have taken care of that problem.
Doctors are the same way. It costs far too much to find the real problem, I suppose, so doctors rely on rules-of-thumb and shotgun approaches. Many diagnosis are through the process of elimination; one treatment didn't work, so they try another. Doctors probably never know exactly what is wrong with the patient, but they often get close enough for the body to heal itself, to some degree.
What does this imply for business applications over the Internet? Perhaps simple commercial transfers do not require the same level of security and reliability as voting does, but would a company be wise to use the Internet to transfer mission-critical information? Of course, critical business transfers have the advantage of not needing anonymity, but there are other weaknesses in the Internet that allow subversion of critical communication.
That sounds fine, except that I recall a discussion I once had with my Physics mentor when I was in high school (he was a professor at the local state University). I asked him how we could be so certain that we are discovering particles that actually exist in our Universe, instead of simply creating new particles, based on the energy we add in particle accelerators? How do we know that an atom, for example, contains certain sub-atomic particles, instead of our recombining sub-atomic parts into new particles that were never part of the atom? In particular, how do we know that what we are discovering are more fundamental building blocks of matter? The answer he gave me is that we are not creating particles that did not previously exist. When we break apart a proton (or whatever), we are seeing particles that actually compose the proton. At least, that's the way I understood and remember what he said.
Thank you for pointing that out. He had me confused when he made his statement that "all the matter" is made of quarks, because I was certain that there is a lot of matter that isn't made of quarks. In fact, I would not be surprised if there are a lot more particles in our Universe that are non-quark than quark, including some that we may never be able to detect because they don't interact with anything available to us.