I think that Slashdot needs to aggregate submissions. E.g., if there are 10 submissions regarding the FX60 processor, each with a different link, then make a single story linking to all of the sites, mention all of the people who submitted it (or the first one) and flesh it out a bit.
Make it look like you at least read the links.
The problem is that Slashdot calls the story approval folks 'editors', and we expect them to behave like editors. They've used that misleading title for years.
If Slashdot told the truth and, called 'em "story approval bots" the expectations about their behavor would come to match reality.
Damned if I do, damned if I don't, right? I'm seriously looking for feedback here. What should I do with a good submission from a reader with a reputation?
Wait for another submission. But wait - Taco attempts to dodge that...
Update a dozen or so users have made the same point: Simply wait for the same story to come from another user. If that was possible, I would do so. I'm really talking here about stories that are submitted just by one person. Part of why these users are successful is that they submit enough stories that they get a handful that only THEY submitted. I can't simply wait for someone else. That will never come!
Horseshit. I've submitted no fewer than ten stories that got rejected - only to see the same story posted linking to R.P.'s blog within hours +/- of mine.
The simple fact is that the moderators have gotten lazy - they see a submission from a spammer like R.P. and go ahead and approve it. Even though it's spam, it's well written and topical and gets *something* up on the page. The moderators keep playing into the hands of spammers by defaulting to their submissions. That is what pisses off the Slashdot readerbase, not R.P. or any of the other spammers - the crap and cruft that the moderators pick, when good stuff goes wanting.
Another example being if the sealing were to catastrophically fail, you'd have 8 gallons of cooking oil that wanted out, and if you weren't at home could very well destroy the board.
Given the damage that 8 gallons of cooking oil can do all by it's lonesome - destroying the board is your last worry.
I'm sure in hindsight it's a dumb thing to try, but sometimes you can get unexpected results.
Deionized water loves to leach ions from anything it comes into contact with - there was utterly nothing possibly unexpected that could have happened.
I think there was probbably enough garbage on the motherboard to provide enough ions to establish a current. I wonder what would have happened if they had rinsed the motherboard first.
Precisely what did happen. There's plenty of chemically active materials ready and waiting to donate ions.
Look around and note the up and coming providers for suborbital flight - there isn't but one serious contender outside of the US
How about the Chinese and Indian governments?
What about them? Niether has expressed any interest in supporting tourist operations.
There's also big issues with technology transfer and export regulation, and non-profliferation... It's virtually a certainty that any sub orbital provider will develop in the US or the rest of the West.
The export regulation virtually ensures that it has to be developed overseas - look at how the same idiocy applied to encryption software meant that it was devloped outside of the USA by US companies to get around the export regulations.
That sounds nice in theory - but the reality is that all the heavy development *is* taking place inside the US. Other than the Canadian Arrow (a horse so dark it's practically a black hole) and some Russian power points (ditto) - there isn't development outside of the US worth taking seriously.
As for the current space technology - a lot of it was developed worldwide by NASA giving grants to people working on interesting projects in all kinds of places. For example, scramjets were mainly developed in Australia with most of the funding coming from NASA.
Scramjets aren't a current space technology - they are a barely understood solution in search of a problem. (Even fully developed they'd be essentially meaningless in the context of CATS. Beyond being a point solution for suborbital flights, air launch is simply too restrictive on the size of the vehicle being launched.)
It's almost impossible for a US based company (or any company based in the West) to go to some third world nation for a launch.
You mean like the launch site in Guyana used for European sattellite launches?
That launch site is *owned* by the ESA, not by a third world nation. And I find it extremely unlikely that the EU, which is just as restrictive as the US in it's own ways, would not put in place regulations just as onerous. You don't see any airframe manufacturers or airlines flying there unregulated do you?
In my opinion the expensive "Star Wars" debarcle under Reagan and pork barrel politics deciding where the build parts of the shuttle was the start of a slow demise for US involvement in space launch vehicles.
Your opinion is at odds with reality. The fact is that virtually every launcher in use today was developed *after* the events you cite. (Whose order you get backwards and seem unaware they were seperated by over a decade.) What killed the US launcher industry was the reliance on Shuttle - it took a long time to get going after Challenger, and the ESA moved right smartly into the gap, as did the Chinese.
Jealous government departments will move to hurt private companies trying to organise a launch (as in the guidelines the article is about) and they will go elsewhere.
Except - the regulations in question (other than the no-fly part) was asked for by the naescent suborbital/commercial orbital industry itself! The FAA had to be ordered by the President to take charge - they didn't want to get involved in the first place.
However, my opinion is based entirely on the bleeding obvious from various news sources
That's painfully obvious.
others may have seen subtle details and loopholes which turn it all around
There's a lot of details that don't show up in the mass media - which should suprise no one.
Look around and note the up and coming providers for suborbital flight - there isn't but one serious contender outside of the US. The heavyweights are all in the US.
Look around and note where all current, operating, here-and-now space tourism is taking place - there isn't one serious contender outside of Russia. The heavyweights are all in Russia. Hmm.
The Russian 'tourist' operations seem to be heavyweights because there is nobody to compare them to. In reality, they are barely bantamweights. An average of less than one flight a year (with someone else paying most of the cost of the flight) isn't impressive at all.
As for suborbital flight - well, look at the article. See if you can spot the sole contender who's well-enough known to be mentioned in the Slashdot summary. "Sir Richard Branson".
Being well enough known to be mentioned in a Slashdot summary means damm little. Slashdot isn't exactly a hotbed of knowledge about commercial space operations - it barely gets above absolute zero.
So, tell me. Do you seriously think that Richard Branson, a British citizen, would have any emotional attachment to launching from U.S. soil, when the European Space Agency would no doubt be overjoyed to allow him the use of their facilities?
The ESA doesn't own any airfields. Nor has the ESA/EU or their member states shown any particular friendlieness to the idea of commercial space travel. And do you really think that the ESA/EU would not impose regulations as well? Regulations just as onerous (save the no-fly list) as the FAA's?
Look around and note the up and coming providers for suborbital flight - there isn't but one serious contender outside of the US. The heavyweights are all in the US. The biggest single market is in the US.
Sure. But the fact that they do their developement in the US doesn't mean they have to launch from US soil, does it? US-based companies doing business in china aren't prosecuted in the US for what they do in china.
Building and developing a launcher/spacecraft in the US means it's going to be launched in the US. Various export controls and non-proliferation treaties see to that. US companies are routinely prosecuted for violating those things.
There's also big issues with technology transfer and export regulation, and non-profliferation... It's virtually a certainty that any sub orbital provider will develop in the US or the rest of the West. It's almost impossible for a US based company (or any company based in the West) to go to some third world nation for a launch.
But they could launch from a European site maybe? The orbital boost will suck from those latitudes but still. Or south africa or australia or something.
I really doubt the Europeans would not introduce regulations [about spaceflight] if launches ocurred from there, ditto Australia. The world outside the US really isn't the wild west, unregulated place many seem to think it is. (And yes, the export controls and non proliferation treaties do make it difficult to send the launchers from the US to even friendly places.) South Africa is really interested in playing nice with the rest of the developed world, so yes, launches there are probably out as well.
Anyone else sick of hearing the excuse 'its beacuse of the terrorists' to regulate yet another ascpect of our life..
Here's a free clue for you: These regulations came about because the nascent launch/suborbital tourism industry asked the Feds to create regulations (which the FAA was mandated to do about a decade ago anyhow) in order to create a defined/level playing field. Terrorism had exactly nothing to do with this regulation coming into existence.
Richard Branson and his Virgin brand are English, why should he listen to US rules when they are only binding in USA ?
Branson intends to fly in the only place he can get his spacecraft - The US. (Which also happens to be where 90% of the market is.)
and since the US is now so broke that it has to depend on the Russians for the ISS
It's true the US has to depend on the Russians - but it's not because the US is broke. (And in reality, the Russians are also one failure away from a grounding - and their spacecraft historically perform slightly worse than the US's. They've been lucky with Progress, and the current variant of Soyuz has had significant problems on over half it's flights.)
how relevent are these rules when the future of space travel is probably with the Chinese or Russians or even Australia.
Russia? They've made no moves beyond press releases in the suborbital market. China? They haven't even made press releases. Australia? Ditto.
Sometimes this can be very blatant - Howard Cosell saying "Would you look at that monkey run?" when describing a black football player.
This is what happens when you rely on just a quote. You mistake the man who 'went to the mats' for Cassius Clay and multiple other 'athletes of color' (or whatever the current PC term is) for a racist. Which couldn't be further from the truth - as Cosell worked his whole career to see black atheletes treated as just that athletes.
Everyone was "NASA needs to get out of the way, private corps will do it for them." Yeah, if the Feds don't regulate it so much that it's more expensive than NASA.
Ah, yes - the Slashdot hivemind belief that if it's evil regulation it's the gubmint or some big corporation behind it. Sadly, in this instance that isn't so.
These rules are the result of years of work between the FAA and nascent suborbital tourism industry to provide a level and defined playing field right out of the gate. None of them want to wait for public reaction from the first crash - which would kill the industry even before it gets going. This is a very minimal set of guidelines that protects the innocent bystander, provides some minimal protection for the passengers, and helps define the liability and responsibilities of all concerned in the flight.
I fail to see the relevance of the US drawing up rules for this. It's not like the passengers care where they launch *from*,
There is more to space tourism than passengers - there's also the space craft operators, the airframe manufacturers, the insurers, etc... etc... And a bunch of them are in the US and want a cleanly defined playing field rather than a chaotic mess of rules arising from varied state regulations and court cases.
These rules from the FAA provide exactly that.
Thus any space tourism entrepreneur who dont like the US rules can just launch from another country.
Look around and note the up and coming providers for suborbital flight - there isn't but one serious contender outside of the US. The heavyweights are all in the US. The biggest single market is in the US.
There's also big issues with technology transfer and export regulation, and non-profliferation... It's virtually a certainty that any sub orbital provider will develop in the US or the rest of the West. It's almost impossible for a US based company (or any company based in the West) to go to some third world nation for a launch.
It's dead, predictably. Once again some morons in authority have demonstrated their complete lack of understanding of internet culture.
Ah, since they don't understand 'internet culture', it's OK to DDoS them? That my friend is called bigotry.
Anyone with an ounce of knowledge of the way people like us think would have dealt with this as quietly as possible so as not to incur the wrath of the entire world.
'People like us' are a vast minority, and have little right to impose 'our' culture and values on others, or to expose them to our 'wrath'. That my friend is called racism.
Instead, they thought they'd be smart and "show what they do about this kind of joke", or whatever it was they said.
They shall pay the price for their lack of vision...
And that my friend is called Jihad in some parts of the world. In others it's known as 'stickin it to da man bro'. And it's wrong in both instances.
It's interesting that he should pick DDR as signaling the death of arcades, when, in fact, DDR was the beginning of a (albeit temporary) revival of arcades. The death of arcades started many years before DDR's release in the States, beginning with the rise of home gaming.
The rise of home gaming was only one factor - the second was the gradual loss of diversity in arcade games. By the mid 90's, all that could frequently be found in arcades were Mortal Kombat clones and Time Pilot (top scrolling shoot-em-ups) ripoffs, along with a scattering of 'kiddie' games here and there.
[MODE=geezer] The best time to hang around arcades was the early to mid 1980's. A new and innovative video game seemingly every week (modulo the endless stream of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong sequels), and some really ramped up pinball games as the manufacturers tried to stem their descent into darkness.
The UK has seen an explosion in the numbers of people driving around in ridiculously proportioned vehicles. America has lived with them for decades so your cities are built around them. The UK is not. Parking spaces are a lot smaller.
Um - No. SUV's and super sized pickup trucks are pretty much a late 90's phenomenon - and they routinely cause problems in the parking lots of America too.
I'm one of the few anti-copyright "advocates" on slashdot
Hardly. One of the cornerstones of the philosophy of the Slashdot Hivemind is that Copyright Is Evil.
In 2006, I am starting a record label with my brother and a few friends (we already have studio space, equipment and some cash for distribution) that focuses solely on copyright-free music. Bands will get a larger percentage of touring cash, but the music will be considered public domain from the start.
Fascinating - the music won't actually *be* public domain, it will be *considered* public domain.
The great part of removing myself from copyright protections is that I can now sell to my customers what I am capable of doing: face-to-face productions of my works. As a newsletter writer, I made more money on speaking engagements than on actually selling the newsletter. With copyright, I would need to use the force of government to force my readers to control their thoughts regarding my writings.
This has to be one of the fuzziest bits of illogic I've ever read.
why, after millions of years of evolution, are we so bad at finding [happiness]?
Why should we have evolved towards being better at finding happiness? That's a much deeper question, as the concept that we have some 'right' to happiness is a modern conceit.
And heck, if you're going to define our atmosphere and our ocean as a fluid medium, then you're saying that ALL animals are the same - name a single animal that travels through a completely SOLID medium.
Umm.. No.
If you ask a physicist, both air and water *are* fluid. They both follow nearly the same laws of behavior.
I wish I was Swedish! In the US a few years ago, I tried to convince some local Libertarians to run strictly on the "right to copy" platform. It seems most of those guys wanted to run on the "Smoke Pot" platform, which will generally get you nowhere except with stoners.
And the "right to copy" platform won't get you anywhere either - except with a small minority who favor anarchy and who believe that they are not required to respect anyone elses rights.
The big news here, to me, is that Sweden seems to allow minority opinions into their parliament (similar to Costa Rica and other countries). In the US it is near impossible to get a minority opinion into even a state legislature -- democracy and gerrymandering prevent the minority opinion from ever seeing the light of day.
The system makes is niether impossible, nor improbable. Typically the minority party is based around a single issue or topic and relies primarily on extremist rhetoric - one could hardly imagine a more difficult way of attracting the mainstream voter. What keeps minority opinions out of US legislative bodies (above the local) is the ongoing inability for said minorities to organize a complete platform - and then follow up with a properly organized party. They then make it even worse by insisting that change has to happen NOW... Or they'll hold their breath till they turn blue.
If the Libertarians (for example) would create a coherent political platform, seek credible candidates, and then run in every damm election from dogcatcher on up and show they can produce results.... There would be a Libertarian President within 50 years. If your principles are important - 50 years is an eyeblink.
Ask the abolitionists or the Women's liberation movement.
I've donated the last few fund drives - but I'll not be donating in this one or in the forseeable future.
Why?
I've grown tired of subscribing to the Wikipedia I've simply gotten tired of forking over cash every quarter.
Wikipedia has gotten to be too much like PBS It seems every time I log on there's a 'beg bar' on the page asking for money.
Those are the two minor reasons - the big one?
The Siegenthaler affair.
As I read the responses from the Wikimedia Foundation and the community to this issue, a cold chill spread through me. The attempts by the Foundation to dodge responsobility made me nauseated. The numerous 'blame the victim' posts, (why didn't *he* edit it?), were even worse.
Here was a signal rocket brighter than a Space Shuttle launch that something was wrong - that the wiki principles were failing (I.E. 'errors are invariably caught and fixed within minutes, hours at most', among others), and the powers that be at Wikipedia seemed more interested in spinning the issue away rather than learning, fixing, and moving forward.
I, and others, have posted numerous times in numerous places about the problems and shortcomings with the 'pedia - but the Sigenthaler affair showed that Thales et al were more interested in their ivory tower principles than in the practical applications thereof. Desite their proud rhetoric, the denizens of and powers that be at the 'pedia turned out to be more interested in anarchy than accuracy.
Leave it to the government to put their tentacles into something that was only able to grow out of nothing because of the lack of government regulations in the first place.
'Grow out of nothing'? The space tourism industry currently is nothing beyond a few stunt flights.
New regulations on space tourism and privately built spacecraft will likely mean no spacecraft can be built...
[long pointless rant snipped about what regulations will require or prevent]
Um, no. Have you actually read the draft? Have you been following the process? (I would guess not.)
The FAA has been working with people within the nascent space tourism industry for several years now to craft a set of rules that a) allow for growth and b) protect the public, both passengers and innocent bystanders. This draft set of rules accomplishes both - while remaining about as simple as humanly possible. The intent, which is pretty well met by the draft, is to be as non-restrictive as possible. Restrictions will be increased as experience shows them to be required.
Yes indeed, thank goodness for government. At least those pioneers and inventors have been able to get this far because the eye of Sauron was elsewhere. Thank goodness the Wright Brothers didn't have this government on their asses or there wouldn't even be airplanes now. Geez.
*yawn* Out here in the real world, we have things like insurance, and liability - only in the rant world can these things be ignored. These draft rules will allow the opening of the space tourism market in a way that was previously impossible - because now all the players (spaceframe builders, operators, investors, insurers, etc...) know the rules that everyone has to play by.
Without these rules (from the FAA), the industry will be controlled by a patchwork of state regulations and the results of sensational jury trials - leading to chaos and a dead industry.
I thought the basic problem with graffiti that people were complaining about was that it is usually done to other people's property. If the property owner is consenting to this, where's the problem?
There are two other aspects you have to consider; first - there is the general distaste among the public for astroturfing. Secondly, in many cities signage and public advertising are regulated - no matter if you have the owners permission, without the proper permit it isn't legal.
Why not parachutes? I'm guessing, but I'd guess control.
You'd guess wrong.
A VTOL rocket in the Delta Clipper mold can park itself inside a one-and-a-half diameter chalk circle. A 'chute can probably be guaranteed to hit the right county.
Virtually every Apollo mission landed within a mile of the recovery vehicle.
Slashdot Mirror
If Slashdot told the truth and, called 'em "story approval bots" the expectations about their behavor would come to match reality.
The simple fact is that the moderators have gotten lazy - they see a submission from a spammer like R.P. and go ahead and approve it. Even though it's spam, it's well written and topical and gets *something* up on the page. The moderators keep playing into the hands of spammers by defaulting to their submissions. That is what pisses off the Slashdot readerbase, not R.P. or any of the other spammers - the crap and cruft that the moderators pick, when good stuff goes wanting.
These rules are the result of years of work between the FAA and nascent suborbital tourism industry to provide a level and defined playing field right out of the gate. None of them want to wait for public reaction from the first crash - which would kill the industry even before it gets going. This is a very minimal set of guidelines that protects the innocent bystander, provides some minimal protection for the passengers, and helps define the liability and responsibilities of all concerned in the flight.
Sometimes regulation is a good thing.
These rules from the FAA provide exactly that.
Look around and note the up and coming providers for suborbital flight - there isn't but one serious contender outside of the US. The heavyweights are all in the US. The biggest single market is in the US.There's also big issues with technology transfer and export regulation, and non-profliferation... It's virtually a certainty that any sub orbital provider will develop in the US or the rest of the West. It's almost impossible for a US based company (or any company based in the West) to go to some third world nation for a launch.
*yawn*
Just how many times will this story be posted to Slashdot? This has to be about the tenth time since April 15, 2004.
Nothing to see here folks, move along.
[MODE=geezer]
The best time to hang around arcades was the early to mid 1980's. A new and innovative video game seemingly every week (modulo the endless stream of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong sequels), and some really ramped up pinball games as the manufacturers tried to stem their descent into darkness.
You. Were. Merely. Amusing. Space Cadet.
[/MODE]
If you ask a physicist, both air and water *are* fluid. They both follow nearly the same laws of behavior.
If the Libertarians (for example) would create a coherent political platform, seek credible candidates, and then run in every damm election from dogcatcher on up and show they can produce results.... There would be a Libertarian President within 50 years. If your principles are important - 50 years is an eyeblink.
Ask the abolitionists or the Women's liberation movement.
Why?
Those are the two minor reasons - the big one?
As I read the responses from the Wikimedia Foundation and the community to this issue, a cold chill spread through me. The attempts by the Foundation to dodge responsobility made me nauseated. The numerous 'blame the victim' posts, (why didn't *he* edit it?), were even worse.
Here was a signal rocket brighter than a Space Shuttle launch that something was wrong - that the wiki principles were failing (I.E. 'errors are invariably caught and fixed within minutes, hours at most', among others), and the powers that be at Wikipedia seemed more interested in spinning the issue away rather than learning, fixing, and moving forward.
I, and others, have posted numerous times in numerous places about the problems and shortcomings with the 'pedia - but the Sigenthaler affair showed that Thales et al were more interested in their ivory tower principles than in the practical applications thereof. Desite their proud rhetoric, the denizens of and powers that be at the 'pedia turned out to be more interested in anarchy than accuracy.
The FAA has been working with people within the nascent space tourism industry for several years now to craft a set of rules that a) allow for growth and b) protect the public, both passengers and innocent bystanders. This draft set of rules accomplishes both - while remaining about as simple as humanly possible. The intent, which is pretty well met by the draft, is to be as non-restrictive as possible. Restrictions will be increased as experience shows them to be required.
*yawn* Out here in the real world, we have things like insurance, and liability - only in the rant world can these things be ignored. These draft rules will allow the opening of the space tourism market in a way that was previously impossible - because now all the players (spaceframe builders, operators, investors, insurers, etc...) know the rules that everyone has to play by.Without these rules (from the FAA), the industry will be controlled by a patchwork of state regulations and the results of sensational jury trials - leading to chaos and a dead industry.
This is made clear if you RTFA.