Revenue Distribution of Songs - where I learned that even the credit card companies make more on downloaded songs than the artist does (!). That's just sad.
Why is it sad that an organization receives just recompense for providing a service?
Every time I come on Slashdot it is my country that is guilty of the latest casual trampling of civil rights. Can anyone recommend a country that isn't blithely gamboling towards outright fascism?
First you have to name a country that is 'blithely gamboling towards outright fascism'. (Hint #1: "trampling of civil rights" != "fascism". Hint #2: you don't have a 'right' to violate someone else's legal rights in the first place.)
Bringing NASA up to Apollo levels of funding would be a virtually unnoticeable drop in the current federal budget.
Apollo, at it's peak funding (which only lasted about three years anyhow), reached nearly 5% of the budget. As the price of most of the kinds of services an Apollo style project would purchase has increased faster than inflation... You'd have to go higher than 5% to produce the same effective budget.
Due to the desire of the US to use the space shuttle to service the ISS, it was placed in a much lower orbit then would otherwise have been the case. Certainly it was much lower then most interested parties wanted.
FalseThe ISS orbit was lowered because a) the increase in orbital inclination to allow the Russians to participate lowered the effective cargo capacity of the Shuttle and b) the original orbital altitude was too high for Soyuz and Progress to reach anyhow.
As a result of this it is constantly being slowed by friction caused by contact with the outer atmosphere. We are talking very slight friction, but at the speed of the ISS that slight friction is enough to bring it into a lower orbit over time.
Misleading Even at the original planned altitude ISS would have required periodic reboost. You have to go pretty far out before you don't need reboost.
One of the main worries after the challenger disaster was that space shuttle had been used to correct this reduction in orbit periodically by firing its thrusters whilst docked. Instead they had to use Soyuz capsules to try and do the same thing.
False The primary method of reboost is the Progress, not Soyuz. Shuttle provides large reboosts in order to reduce the amount of fuel required by Progress and thus to increase the amount cargo Progress can carry. The main worry after the Columbia accident was that the ATV, which also backed up Progress, was running behind schedule - which meant there wasn't any backup at all.
Its bad either way, but if there is tension and both countries stop going there, the orbit will deteriorate to the point where only a specialised mission to boost it would work. That may not be possible, or indeed successful.
Misleading ATV is now available to backup Progress and Shuttle, so barring another Shuttle accident, this concern is years away. (The bigger concern is that in the unlikely event both countries stop going, the ISS isn't designed to operate autonomously for significant periods.)
No, I am criticizing the analysis (your analysis) for being superficial and incomplete. You brought up the effects of reentry heating on the frozen hydrogen, but failed to take all factors into account.
I'm posting AC and I can't say who for obvious reasons, but I know someone involved in the project and I said to them "sooo hydrazine eh?" and they laughed.
Assuming of course they were at a level of the project where they were actually familiar with the issues and not at level where they essentially knew nothing more than the general public.
I had a TS clearance and a whole slew of accesses when I was a ballistic missile fire control tech in the Navy, and there were still large areas I was not privy to. For example, the targets we aimed at were just coordinates. We didn't know what was at those coordinates. Nor was I privy to the guts of certain circuits in the guidance systems - they were just blocks on the diagrams marked "circuit A". Nor was I privy to the interior of the physics package. etc. etc.
Just having a high clearance and access and working on the project isn't enough. It's a bogus argument from authority.
This is such a non story. The MSM is obviously playing it up because of insufficient olimpic drama but really, does Slashdot have to do the same?
Of course Slashdot has to - the connotations of the Memory Hole and a sniff of eeeevvviiiiillll Corporate Masters is exactly what Slashdot favors. Facts be dammed.
For that matter, heat shields seem to be overrated; some astronauts recently survived reentry while their capsule was upside down.
You misunderstand the reports then - they survived a portion of the reentry (the early, least stressful portion) with the capsule oriented improperly. Long before max heating proper orientation was restored.
There is a chance that the satellite could have reentered in a way where most of the satellite protected the hydrazine tank.
Which is amply supported by historical, empirical, evidence such as the Skylab reentry and various satellite reentries.
The submitter is debunking an article written in IEEE Spectrum, a civilian magazine. To debunk an article written by a non-expert says very little about whether a shoot-down was actually warranted.
Except that James Obergis an expert (or at least damn close to one, read the resumes linked off the second link.) - having been a mission controller for NASA and a professional space engineer, analyst, writer, and journalist for decades. Synchronicity at work - as part of a research project I'm working on, Jim's 1982 book Mission to Mars sits right beside my coffee cup even as I type this...
That being said - the debunking is full of errors as well. The AC provides us with a wonderful handwaving smoke and mirrors show, but fails to acknowledge the role of the structure of the tank itself (which is insulated and has to be accounted for before the Hydrazine starts to vaporize). He also fails to acknowledge the role the structure of the satellite plays, as it too will act as shielding (and a drag brake!) for the tank. (I know Jim is aware of these factors because I've discussed them with him.)
In short, what the AC claims is a debunking is actually closer to being a partial rationale for conducting the shootdown.
I don't know what 'field' the AC works in, but to this knowledgeable non expert he doesn't sound like an expert at all - but rather sounds like someone with an axe to grind. If he is an expert, he has allowed bias to supplant analysis.
How do you make space combat feel like naval engagements rather then sluggish fighters most Star Trek games have so far chosen to emulate?
Which raises the question of how do you know what a naval engagement feels like? What makes you think the completely different (I.E. 3D) starship combat environment should feel like a 2D sea level battle rather than 'sluggish fighters'... which fight in a 3D environment?
attempting to fit working programs into 4, 8, or even a glorious 16 kilobytes of RAM, was an art form that no one has had to practice in more than 30 years.
You know, there are still some of us who routinely develop software for controllers in weather probes, dive computers, GPS chips, and so on... there definitely are times where 16 kilobytes is glorious.
Oh indeed - damm few slashdotters are familiar with anything but PC hardware. Even those 'familiar' with the hardware really aren't except at the 'box marked magic happens here' level.
You can do a hell of a lot without much memory when you aren't handicapped by a consumer grade PC OS. (Which emphatically includes Linux as well as Windows plus whatever Apple is running nowadays.)
CTC management refused to buy the IP rights of the microprocessor for a paltry 50K (about $300K in today's dollars), a ridiculously low sum as far as circuit design is concerned.
It's very nice that the name of Roche was documented in this article for posterity. But what we really want is to have the name of these managers documented and written down in business textbook, along with their pictures, the history of their glorious achievements, and maybe a warning such as "Do not hire, consult, play golf with, or even breathe the same air as those morons".
Why? It's easy to point and laugh sitting here in 2008 with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, but nobody knew in 1971 just how big the PC industry would become over a decade later.
Re:A TTL CPU still made for a "simple" machine.
on
Origins of the Modern PC
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Imagine an object the size of a small desktop PC enclosure, entirely stuffed with mechanical linkages. It's truly astonishing.
I wish I could find a picture online of the interior of a MK8 Range Keeper or MK6 Stable Vertical - two elements of a fire control computer for an Iowa class battlewagon - imagine something larger than the desk that desktop PC sits on stuffed full of mechanical and electromechanical calculating equipment.
When they rebuilt the Iowas in the 1980's they kept the old analog equipment because a digital replacement would have been extremely expensive, and wouldn't have been any more accurate. The main limitation on their accuracy wasn't the computer, but the elevation and traversing drive equipment in the turrets.
It shows wealth and passion for geeky interests, which fundamentally disroves the above claim.
No, it does not - because my statement applies to investing in a company (that is expecting financial return), not purchasing items at retail. I've already explained this to you once.
If you're wanting to revise the claim, then go ahead, but don't get mad at me for demonstrating that what was written is false.
I have no need to revise my claim - because you have yet to even address it, let alone refute it.
Of course, even a revised claim, such as "even weathy geeks aren't willing to invest in high-risk items that require an interest in geeky passions", is likewise easily disprovable
The discussion, and my claim, has never been about buying toys and status symbols. The discussion, and my claim, has been about making investments in companies.
given how readily SpaceX has gotten investments (including $20M right after their last failure) from this same community.
A $20M investment in SpaceX is likeme giving you $5 towards the purchase of your next gaming rig - it is neither significant on a day to day basis to me, nor a significant amount of the total funds required. It's a token, impressive to the easily impressed but not so much to those actually familiar with the situation.
Nor does it invalidate my original statement that the overlap between the two sets is essentially zero.
Buying Tesla's at retail is not investing. If you want to prove that the set has more than essentially zero (note carefully I didn't say zero, here or in my original message), you'll have to do much better than that.
The problem being that the sets 'folks who share that passion' and 'folks who have significant money to invest' have essentially zero overlap.
There's pretty much a whole class of dotcom-wealthy geeks in Silicon Valley who are a living contradiction to that statement. Let me tell you, for the most part, it's not movie stars who are plopping $100k down for Tesla Roadsters.
I'm talking about investing - you are talking about buying the latest toy/status symbol. Two entirely different things.
People don't invest in companies like SpaceX just because of the profit potential, they do it because they desperately and fervently want to see us get our bald monkey asses off this rock. Having a CEO that unabashedly shares this passion is heartening to investors like those.
The problem being that the sets 'folks who share that passion' and 'folks who have significant money to invest' have essentially zero overlap. Serious investors invest to make a profit, not to scratch some philosophical itch. Those that do are extraordinarily rare. That's one of the reasons cheaper spaceflight has had such a problem getting off the ground - the upfront capital costs are huge, the risks are enormous, and the probability getting your capital back (let alone covering the time value of your investment and then making a profit) is extraordinarily low.
And before anyone else brings it up, thinking themselves wise by believing (and karma whoring by repeating) a comforting mantra: No, this isn't a modern attitude. Investments as far out on the bell curve as SpaceX have always had a hard time finding capital.
Which accomplishes what beyond looking kewl and l33t? Seriously, if you are looking at a display showing the status of the power system background images are just noise that add nothing useful.
Slashdot Mirror
Why is it sad that an organization receives just recompense for providing a service?
That's just the thing - piracy isn't a norm of society. Protecting rights is the norm of society, and that's what this law is doing.
First you have to name a country that is 'blithely gamboling towards outright fascism'. (Hint #1: "trampling of civil rights" != "fascism". Hint #2: you don't have a 'right' to violate someone else's legal rights in the first place.)
Apollo, at it's peak funding (which only lasted about three years anyhow), reached nearly 5% of the budget. As the price of most of the kinds of services an Apollo style project would purchase has increased faster than inflation... You'd have to go higher than 5% to produce the same effective budget.
Hardly a 'drop in the bucket'.
False The ISS orbit was lowered because a) the increase in orbital inclination to allow the Russians to participate lowered the effective cargo capacity of the Shuttle and b) the original orbital altitude was too high for Soyuz and Progress to reach anyhow.
Misleading Even at the original planned altitude ISS would have required periodic reboost. You have to go pretty far out before you don't need reboost.
False The primary method of reboost is the Progress, not Soyuz. Shuttle provides large reboosts in order to reduce the amount of fuel required by Progress and thus to increase the amount cargo Progress can carry. The main worry after the Columbia accident was that the ATV, which also backed up Progress, was running behind schedule - which meant there wasn't any backup at all.
Misleading ATV is now available to backup Progress and Shuttle, so barring another Shuttle accident, this concern is years away. (The bigger concern is that in the unlikely event both countries stop going, the ISS isn't designed to operate autonomously for significant periods.)
Yep. Science and engineering proceeds forward - even in the absence of pretty pictures.
In other words, you can't or won't answer my questions.
Which is the responsibility of the casino's security and management and the gaming commission - not the Las Vegas Police.
No, I am criticizing the analysis (your analysis) for being superficial and incomplete. You brought up the effects of reentry heating on the frozen hydrogen, but failed to take all factors into account.
You must be new here. Slashdot routinely posts people's addresses and telephone/fax numbers (both home and work).
Sounds like a typical day at a large corporate network.
Next time google the name and the consider the source (IEEE isn't the Register...).
:)
:)
I know him/know of him because I've worked with him in the past.
Assuming of course they were at a level of the project where they were actually familiar with the issues and not at level where they essentially knew nothing more than the general public.
I had a TS clearance and a whole slew of accesses when I was a ballistic missile fire control tech in the Navy, and there were still large areas I was not privy to. For example, the targets we aimed at were just coordinates. We didn't know what was at those coordinates. Nor was I privy to the guts of certain circuits in the guidance systems - they were just blocks on the diagrams marked "circuit A". Nor was I privy to the interior of the physics package. etc. etc.
Just having a high clearance and access and working on the project isn't enough. It's a bogus argument from authority.
Of course Slashdot has to - the connotations of the Memory Hole and a sniff of eeeevvviiiiillll Corporate Masters is exactly what Slashdot favors. Facts be dammed.
You misunderstand the reports then - they survived a portion of the reentry (the early, least stressful portion) with the capsule oriented improperly. Long before max heating proper orientation was restored.
Which is amply supported by historical, empirical, evidence such as the Skylab reentry and various satellite reentries.
Except that James Oberg is an expert (or at least damn close to one, read the resumes linked off the second link.) - having been a mission controller for NASA and a professional space engineer, analyst, writer, and journalist for decades. Synchronicity at work - as part of a research project I'm working on, Jim's 1982 book Mission to Mars sits right beside my coffee cup even as I type this...
That being said - the debunking is full of errors as well. The AC provides us with a wonderful handwaving smoke and mirrors show, but fails to acknowledge the role of the structure of the tank itself (which is insulated and has to be accounted for before the Hydrazine starts to vaporize). He also fails to acknowledge the role the structure of the satellite plays, as it too will act as shielding (and a drag brake!) for the tank. (I know Jim is aware of these factors because I've discussed them with him.)
In short, what the AC claims is a debunking is actually closer to being a partial rationale for conducting the shootdown.
I don't know what 'field' the AC works in, but to this knowledgeable non expert he doesn't sound like an expert at all - but rather sounds like someone with an axe to grind. If he is an expert, he has allowed bias to supplant analysis.
Which raises the question of how do you know what a naval engagement feels like? What makes you think the completely different (I.E. 3D) starship combat environment should feel like a 2D sea level battle rather than 'sluggish fighters'... which fight in a 3D environment?
Oh indeed - damm few slashdotters are familiar with anything but PC hardware. Even those 'familiar' with the hardware really aren't except at the 'box marked magic happens here' level.
You can do a hell of a lot without much memory when you aren't handicapped by a consumer grade PC OS. (Which emphatically includes Linux as well as Windows plus whatever Apple is running nowadays.)
Why? It's easy to point and laugh sitting here in 2008 with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, but nobody knew in 1971 just how big the PC industry would become over a decade later.
I wish I could find a picture online of the interior of a MK8 Range Keeper or MK6 Stable Vertical - two elements of a fire control computer for an Iowa class battlewagon - imagine something larger than the desk that desktop PC sits on stuffed full of mechanical and electromechanical calculating equipment.
When they rebuilt the Iowas in the 1980's they kept the old analog equipment because a digital replacement would have been extremely expensive, and wouldn't have been any more accurate. The main limitation on their accuracy wasn't the computer, but the elevation and traversing drive equipment in the turrets.
No, it does not - because my statement applies to investing in a company (that is expecting financial return), not purchasing items at retail. I've already explained this to you once.
I have no need to revise my claim - because you have yet to even address it, let alone refute it.
The discussion, and my claim, has never been about buying toys and status symbols. The discussion, and my claim, has been about making investments in companies.
A $20M investment in SpaceX is likeme giving you $5 towards the purchase of your next gaming rig - it is neither significant on a day to day basis to me, nor a significant amount of the total funds required. It's a token, impressive to the easily impressed but not so much to those actually familiar with the situation.
Nor does it invalidate my original statement that the overlap between the two sets is essentially zero.
Buying Tesla's at retail is not investing. If you want to prove that the set has more than essentially zero (note carefully I didn't say zero, here or in my original message), you'll have to do much better than that.
I'm talking about investing - you are talking about buying the latest toy/status symbol. Two entirely different things.
The problem being that the sets 'folks who share that passion' and 'folks who have significant money to invest' have essentially zero overlap. Serious investors invest to make a profit, not to scratch some philosophical itch. Those that do are extraordinarily rare. That's one of the reasons cheaper spaceflight has had such a problem getting off the ground - the upfront capital costs are huge, the risks are enormous, and the probability getting your capital back (let alone covering the time value of your investment and then making a profit) is extraordinarily low.
And before anyone else brings it up, thinking themselves wise by believing (and karma whoring by repeating) a comforting mantra: No, this isn't a modern attitude. Investments as far out on the bell curve as SpaceX have always had a hard time finding capital.
Which accomplishes what beyond looking kewl and l33t? Seriously, if you are looking at a display showing the status of the power system background images are just noise that add nothing useful.