One example, a very close friend in college, she was an identical twin, and talked about the typical entanglements with her twin, who was back in her hometown 200 miles away. Her twin came down on her birthday and I was there when they opened their cards, identical (and not with any "twin" theme... just random typical birthday cards). Not a HUGE example of unexplained communication, but at least odd.
Not that odd really - given the (statistically) limited number of birthday card styles out there.
There is nothing fundamental preventing production from being resumed apart from cost.
yes, if you wish to paint it in the most simplified, childish, black-and-white, terms possible. The problem is, the real world is rather messier and decidely not black-and-white.
It's not like Apollo where (allegedly) the original plans are no longer available.
Ah, this explains much. You prefer soundbites and urban legends over facts, reality, and education. You can't be bothered.
This is both true and false... Endeavour could be built because a) there was most of an airframe sitting around in storage as a 'spare' and b) it was close enough to the original construction date that the logistical and manufacturing experience pipeline still worked.
Niether was true after the loss of Columbia.
Actually 'a' is certainly still true: Enterprise (the glide and landing test vehicle) still exists.
Certainly Enterprise still exists - but it's not a spaceworthy airframe.
Originally it was to be refitted for orbital use after Columbia was built, instead Challenger was built from the STA test vehicle. When Challenger was lost again NASA considered refitting Enterprise, but decided it would be cheaper to build Endeavour from spares.
Again, true. But the real cropper is 'b' - there are a lot of Orbiter systems that are no longer in production and no longer available. When Endeavour was assembled, Orbiters were essentially 'still in production', Atlantis having been delivered only two years previously.
Endeavour was cheaper to assemble than Enterprise would have been to modify for two reasons; a) Enterprise would have had to be taken apart while the spares that would eventually constitute Endeavour were already apart, and b) Enterprise's structure and systems would have had to be reworked, while Endeavour's structure was up to then current standards while much of her systems could be taken from the spares pool or were new build to current standards.
And given that Atlantis was due for a major refit in 2008 I doubt your point 'b' is true either. Cost is the only real reason why another shuttle can't be built now.
My (original) point 'b' holds because of the many things that Atlantis has and Enterprise lacks. Among other things Enterprise has no crew cabin, nor plumbing in her aft fuselage. She lacks the structure in her nose to support the inertial guidance systems and star trackers. Her RCS pods are dummies - mere aerodynamic shells. Her payload bay doors and associated systems are also not up to flight standards. etc... etc... None of these things will be replaced during Atlantis's refit - and comparing that refit to the near total rebuild that Enterprise would require is comparing apples to oranges.
Enterprise is much, much further from a flight Orbiter than is commonly thought - which is why she was twice rejected for reconstruction.
Well, after Challenger was destroyed they built the Endeavour to replace it. If they wanted to, they could replace the Columbia as well.
This is both true and false... Endeavour could be built because a) there was most of an airframe sitting around in storage as a 'spare' and b) it was close enough to the original construction date that the logistical and manufacturing experience pipeline still worked.
Surely you don't use a single soruce for information for an important project?
I routinely do. But then the source in question is unimpeachable and has stood the test of time and criticism. In fact, in the real world it's very common to rely on single sources, handbooks, references, etc...
When writing a program, you don't look up the meaning of a command in three sources do you? When wiring a house, you don't check three different copies of the electrical code. When working on your car, all you need is your Chilton's. Examples abound of routine daily use of single sources.
The interesting thing is, that although the protocol is closed, it is not patented and thus it is not against the law to crack it.
I'm sure Skype's lawyers might see this differently.
Skype's lawyers can see it however they want - but in this instance, they have no legal leg to stand on. It's not illegal to replicate something protected as a trade secret. (It *is* illegal to steal or 'borrow' it, or to hire employees from a rival to 'work on your own _x_'.)
Maybe they don't realise that Google's engine is theirs. It belongs to them, they made it. There is no right to be on the list at all. If google wants to, they can put anybody anywhere they want.
Sure - and by this reasoning, the telco's and ISP's *can* charge variable rates for access to *their* networks. It belongs to them, they made it.
[shakes head] Your logic, and that of the posters agreeing with you, is more proof of how the/hivemind want to treat Google different than any other company. If it was Yahoo! or Microsoft or Amazon who was doing - the foaming at the mouth and howling for their blood could be heard all the way to Jupiter.
Why do so many people think Colombus discovered America? He got it into the permanent record, where the vikings, chinese, etc. didn't. Will Neal Armstrong be the Lief Ericson of the 26th century, and some one from the Chinese, Indian or Nigerian space program get all the credit, because they kept thir records?
Neal Armstrong could only become "the Lief Ericson of the 26th century" in some weird fantasy future - in which the thousands of books on the topic become lost, along with every TV recording, dozens of DVDs, about the same number of video releases, at least five different (LP) albums... Neal Armstrong is pretty firmly in the permanent record.
Very easily. They can have all the best recordkeeping procedures in the world, and still lose anything through poor recordkeeping practices despite procedure.
Ayup. And 700 boxes is probably just a fraction of a days intake at the National Archives.
And before y'all attribute it to conspiracy theories, I remind you: Don't attribute to malice that which is sufficiently explained by stupidity.
Sadly, there's a significant portion of the Slashdot hivemind who blame everything on malice, conspiracy and Microsoft.
The video was a little low on content (I guess it was aimed at a more general audience).
The whole website is like that - it's kind of a Parade magazine for the 'hip' crowd. Nothing in depth, little that's controversial - a little science, a little nonsense, a little news, a little opinion. At the end, despite the minsicule effort involved to read it, you feel like you've accomplished something.
An inflatable, on the other hand, has to be flexible in order to allow it to inflate. That seems to imply that something like a paint chip might just well zip right through a wall or two.
And of course the NASA scientists who designed the basic system that Bigelow is using didn't think of that!
Unsurprisingly, on Slashdot we skew the averages somewhat, with Firefox weighing in at 65% of our traffic... but sadly 18% of our Firefox users need to upgrade to the latest version;) Go do that now.
Yes, and when you do so upgrade, you'll find that Firefox has joined the evil collective - it phones home and upgrades without asking for permission or even bothering to tell you till the job is done.
When I was younger I would have fit the neophilia profile. I had to have the latest video game system and all of the games, the latest stereo, latest everything. I've noticed that over the past 10 years or so I've become less interested in technology in general. Mind you I'm still heavily engrossed in technology every day (I'm a programmer), but I'm finding that I just don't care anymore. Maybe its just the stress of it all, I don't know. Has anyone else experienced this?
Yes, I've experienced it - there's even some names for it. Names like maturity and growing up.
So now geeks join the culture of victimhood - "it's not my fault, its my [genes|society|enviroment]!". Congratulations on finally joining the mainstream!
Only in some utopian dreamworld. Here in the real world - articles frequently require fixing, either because they are factually incorrect or badly written. Equally, the Wikipedia is plagued with idiots constantly rewriting articles on topics they have no understanding of and no business touching. Those articles require babysitting. (As do articles written from real academic resources - resources that frequently vary from the lightweight information found on the topic on the web, many idiots assume that "if it's on the web, it must be true".)
Improving the articles on wikipedia is the primary process of wikipedia itself. It's what wiki is all about!
That's a very nice handwaving collection of buzzwords. Sadly it fails to have relation to actually what goes on at the Wikipedia - where a substantial proportion of the 'improvements' only hold that quality in the mind of the person doing the 'improvement'. As above, there is a vast difference between the real world and the Noble and Abstract Principles that the Wikipedia follows, (when they feel like it that is).
Wikipedia is a work-in-progress -- a continually improving entity -- and it's unfortunate that so many people just don't seem to get it, judging it instead by the instantaneous quality of some hand-picked subset of articles.
Personally, I judge the Wikipedia by observing the process and comparing the claims of it's boosters to objective standards. In this instance - the claim that the Wikipedia is self correcting (it isn't) and that errors rarely stand for more than a few hours or days (they routinely do). All the handwaving and cheerleading and blinders tightly worn can't change this basic fact. Without even trying very hard - I can hit 'random page' and find that between 20 and 30 percent of the articles are wrong, or badly written, or incomplete, or in violation of at least one the Wikipedia's policies. That percentage has remained stable for over a year now - the process of 'continually improving', so touted by Wikipedia boosters, is visibly failing to take hold.
But like all zealots - when these problems are pointed out, Wikipedia boosters stick their fingers in their ears and chant their slogans ever louder.
As someone else pointed out - I don't have time to babysit the Internet. I *gave up* on fixing the Wikipedia after spending weeks doing so, and frequently seeing the fixes undone. (Either reverted, or edited into nonsense.) I don't have *time* to keep up with keeping my fixes fixed.
It pretty much comes down to whether you consider the Smithsonian (or me) to be reliable.
The Smithsonian's reliability isn't at issue - it's you, as you are the one making the report. (No offense.) On the other hand, multiple astronauts have categorically denied the presence of such pills.
And who knows? Maybe it's something that was present on earlier flights but not later ones.
Who knows? I know. I've read every astronaut biography - and those that mention the pills at all, categorically deny their existence. Not one NASA document describes their existence. Not one (of many) Smithsonian trip reports I've read over the years mentions the display. On the space history newgroup we've spent years looking for information about those pills - and have consistently come up dry.
That's a powerful lot of negative evidence.
(Idle speculation is one of the things at which the Internet excels.:-)
The other thing with which the internet abounds is individuals that wrongly assume the person randomly replying to them is in fact, like them, idly speculating - and not someone who actually knows something about the topic.
I wonder why any issue surrounding NASA and the space shuttle gets a lot of buzz in the US news media. Why? Similar accomplishments by the Russians do not get as much attention, yet they are equally daunting if not more. Is it an American `thing' or what?
At least currently - there are no similar accomplishments by the Russians to compare to.
*yawn* Yet another Brave Press Release from the Russians. They've been issuing them for about ten years now - but have yet to produce anything other than more press releases.
There are apocryphal anecdotes that the crew of the Apollo missions were issued poison pins laced with cyanide just in case they could not get into a proper reentry slot and skipped off into space for eternity.
The stories aren't apocryphal. I don't know if it's still there, but the Apollo exhibit at the Smithsonian's Air and Space museum used to have what was either one of the pills, or a (presumably inert) lookalike.
You'll have to do better than 'there used to be one laying around'. Primary sources (statements by various astronauts) categorically deny the existence of such pills.
I have in my watchlist over two dozen pages that I know to be incorrect - that have lain untouched for as much as a year.
Correct them then; that's the point.
As someone else pointed out - I don't have time to babysit the Internet. I *gave up* on fixing the Wikipedia after spending weeks doing so, and frequently seeing the fixes undone. (Either reverted, or edited into nonsense.) I don't have *time* to keep up with keeping my fixes fixed.
Man, those engineeers thought of everything didn't they - here's another example that I heard recently: the metal that the external tank is made of isn't strong enough to withstand the stresses of launch with that big heavy shuttle hanging from the side - at least, it isn't strong enough at room temperature or above. But when they fill the tank, they let some of the fuel boil off and that freezes the metal and makes it stronger, allowing it to survive launch.
I mean seriously, how cool is that?
It's cool - but it's partly wrong. The metal of the tanks is in direct contact with cryogenic fluids (LOX and LH2) - no need to let any boil off, the metal will freeze regardless. (The Saturn V used the same trick on the 2nd and 3rd stages.)
In other words, this very set of arguments as to why wikipedia's system "doesn't work" was prompted by an incident of wikipedia's system working. Tycho tried to post false information, and Wikipedia rejected this. And Tycho got pissy and went and complained about Wikipedia on his blog.
Of course you fail to mention what Tycho is man enough to point out - the Wikipedia is filled with 'false information' of the same sort in the form of endless fan articles on virtually every anime, collectible card game, and animated series that ever existed. He believed his material to be acceptable because of the large amounts of such material already there.
This is generally not a matter of errors taking months to get fixed. It is sometimes measured in minutes or seconds. The probability of hitting at a bad moment is small enough we can effectively ignore it, unless we have some kind of ulterior motives and are just trying to make Wikipedia look bad.
Sure. It sometimes takes minutes or seconds. Sometimes. But what about the cases where is doesn't? The reality is, you can't ignore the fact that errors can and have persisted for months. have in my watchlist over two dozen pages that I know to be incorrect - that have lain untouched for as much as a year.
Slashdot Mirror
Not that odd really - given the (statistically) limited number of birthday card styles out there.
I merely calls 'em as I sees 'em.
yes, if you wish to paint it in the most simplified, childish, black-and-white, terms possible. The problem is, the real world is rather messier and decidely not black-and-white.
Ah, this explains much. You prefer soundbites and urban legends over facts, reality, and education. You can't be bothered.
Certainly Enterprise still exists - but it's not a spaceworthy airframe.
Again, true. But the real cropper is 'b' - there are a lot of Orbiter systems that are no longer in production and no longer available. When Endeavour was assembled, Orbiters were essentially 'still in production', Atlantis having been delivered only two years previously.
Endeavour was cheaper to assemble than Enterprise would have been to modify for two reasons; a) Enterprise would have had to be taken apart while the spares that would eventually constitute Endeavour were already apart, and b) Enterprise's structure and systems would have had to be reworked, while Endeavour's structure was up to then current standards while much of her systems could be taken from the spares pool or were new build to current standards.
My (original) point 'b' holds because of the many things that Atlantis has and Enterprise lacks. Among other things Enterprise has no crew cabin, nor plumbing in her aft fuselage. She lacks the structure in her nose to support the inertial guidance systems and star trackers. Her RCS pods are dummies - mere aerodynamic shells. Her payload bay doors and associated systems are also not up to flight standards. etc... etc... None of these things will be replaced during Atlantis's refit - and comparing that refit to the near total rebuild that Enterprise would require is comparing apples to oranges.
Enterprise is much, much further from a flight Orbiter than is commonly thought - which is why she was twice rejected for reconstruction.
This is both true and false... Endeavour could be built because a) there was most of an airframe sitting around in storage as a 'spare' and b) it was close enough to the original construction date that the logistical and manufacturing experience pipeline still worked.
Niether was true after the loss of Columbia.
I routinely do. But then the source in question is unimpeachable and has stood the test of time and criticism. In fact, in the real world it's very common to rely on single sources, handbooks, references, etc...
When writing a program, you don't look up the meaning of a command in three sources do you? When wiring a house, you don't check three different copies of the electrical code. When working on your car, all you need is your Chilton's. Examples abound of routine daily use of single sources.
Completely incorrect - preventing reverse engineering is the whole *point* of the patent system.
Skype's lawyers can see it however they want - but in this instance, they have no legal leg to stand on. It's not illegal to replicate something protected as a trade secret. (It *is* illegal to steal or 'borrow' it, or to hire employees from a rival to 'work on your own _x_'.)
Sure - and by this reasoning, the telco's and ISP's *can* charge variable rates for access to *their* networks. It belongs to them, they made it.
[shakes head] Your logic, and that of the posters agreeing with you, is more proof of how the
Neal Armstrong could only become "the Lief Ericson of the 26th century" in some weird fantasy future - in which the thousands of books on the topic become lost, along with every TV recording, dozens of DVDs, about the same number of video releases, at least five different (LP) albums... Neal Armstrong is pretty firmly in the permanent record.
And you correctly answer the question:
Ayup. And 700 boxes is probably just a fraction of a days intake at the National Archives.
Sadly, there's a significant portion of the Slashdot hivemind who blame everything on malice, conspiracy and Microsoft.
The whole website is like that - it's kind of a Parade magazine for the 'hip' crowd. Nothing in depth, little that's controversial - a little science, a little nonsense, a little news, a little opinion. At the end, despite the minsicule effort involved to read it, you feel like you've accomplished something.
And of course the NASA scientists who designed the basic system that Bigelow is using didn't think of that!
Yes, and when you do so upgrade, you'll find that Firefox has joined the evil collective - it phones home and upgrades without asking for permission or even bothering to tell you till the job is done.
Yes, I've experienced it - there's even some names for it. Names like maturity and growing up.
So now geeks join the culture of victimhood - "it's not my fault, its my [genes|society|enviroment]!". Congratulations on finally joining the mainstream!
Only in some utopian dreamworld. Here in the real world - articles frequently require fixing, either because they are factually incorrect or badly written. Equally, the Wikipedia is plagued with idiots constantly rewriting articles on topics they have no understanding of and no business touching. Those articles require babysitting. (As do articles written from real academic resources - resources that frequently vary from the lightweight information found on the topic on the web, many idiots assume that "if it's on the web, it must be true".)
That's a very nice handwaving collection of buzzwords. Sadly it fails to have relation to actually what goes on at the Wikipedia - where a substantial proportion of the 'improvements' only hold that quality in the mind of the person doing the 'improvement'. As above, there is a vast difference between the real world and the Noble and Abstract Principles that the Wikipedia follows, (when they feel like it that is).
Personally, I judge the Wikipedia by observing the process and comparing the claims of it's boosters to objective standards. In this instance - the claim that the Wikipedia is self correcting (it isn't) and that errors rarely stand for more than a few hours or days (they routinely do). All the handwaving and cheerleading and blinders tightly worn can't change this basic fact. Without even trying very hard - I can hit 'random page' and find that between 20 and 30 percent of the articles are wrong, or badly written, or incomplete, or in violation of at least one the Wikipedia's policies. That percentage has remained stable for over a year now - the process of 'continually improving', so touted by Wikipedia boosters, is visibly failing to take hold.
But like all zealots - when these problems are pointed out, Wikipedia boosters stick their fingers in their ears and chant their slogans ever louder.
As someone else pointed out - I don't have time to babysit the Internet. I *gave up* on fixing the Wikipedia after spending weeks doing so, and frequently seeing the fixes undone. (Either reverted, or edited into nonsense.) I don't have *time* to keep up with keeping my fixes fixed.
Nope. That would spoil the value of the experiment.
The Smithsonian's reliability isn't at issue - it's you, as you are the one making the report. (No offense.) On the other hand, multiple astronauts have categorically denied the presence of such pills.
Who knows? I know. I've read every astronaut biography - and those that mention the pills at all, categorically deny their existence. Not one NASA document describes their existence. Not one (of many) Smithsonian trip reports I've read over the years mentions the display. On the space history newgroup we've spent years looking for information about those pills - and have consistently come up dry.
That's a powerful lot of negative evidence.
The other thing with which the internet abounds is individuals that wrongly assume the person randomly replying to them is in fact, like them, idly speculating - and not someone who actually knows something about the topic.
At least currently - there are no similar accomplishments by the Russians to compare to.
*yawn* Yet another Brave Press Release from the Russians. They've been issuing them for about ten years now - but have yet to produce anything other than more press releases.
You'll have to do better than 'there used to be one laying around'. Primary sources (statements by various astronauts) categorically deny the existence of such pills.
As someone else pointed out - I don't have time to babysit the Internet. I *gave up* on fixing the Wikipedia after spending weeks doing so, and frequently seeing the fixes undone. (Either reverted, or edited into nonsense.) I don't have *time* to keep up with keeping my fixes fixed.
It's cool - but it's partly wrong. The metal of the tanks is in direct contact with cryogenic fluids (LOX and LH2) - no need to let any boil off, the metal will freeze regardless. (The Saturn V used the same trick on the 2nd and 3rd stages.)
Of course you fail to mention what Tycho is man enough to point out - the Wikipedia is filled with 'false information' of the same sort in the form of endless fan articles on virtually every anime, collectible card game, and animated series that ever existed. He believed his material to be acceptable because of the large amounts of such material already there.
Sure. It sometimes takes minutes or seconds. Sometimes. But what about the cases where is doesn't? The reality is, you can't ignore the fact that errors can and have persisted for months. have in my watchlist over two dozen pages that I know to be incorrect - that have lain untouched for as much as a year.