Of course they're running old and outdated hardware. When thing work, particularly in a mission critical situation, you don't touch them! Even if the IT admins knew that computer was old and on the brink of dying, how are they supposed to convince the suits and beancounters of that?
And why shouldn't the bean counters expect the old, outdated hardware to work. Quite a bit of the air traffic control system is hardware that is decades old, though it is slowly being replaced. You have to go to the bean counters and say, yes this equipment is not as old as all that other equipment that has been running for decades. But it is cheap C.. made junk, and cannot be expected to operate reliably for more than a few years.
Well, I do this all the time to stay underwater longer - and if it's just a matter of suppressing the urge to breathe, then I guess it's dangerous, and a bad thing.
Yes, it could be dangerous. Search for "shallow water blackout" (wikipedia has a good article).
Astronauts run the same risk in today's suits. The difference is with traditional suits, a puncture leads to your blood boiling and a quick asphyxiation from lack of atmosphere. Boy-o.
Astronauts get into their spacesuits and decompress for quite awhile to a low pressure; about 3 psi if I remember correctly. A complete loss of pressure will not cause any decompression problems at this point. Even without decompression, your blood still would not boil if exposed to a vacuum. Your body maintains enough mechanical pressure to keep the blood at about 1.5 psi. The blood will only boil if you put it into an open container and expose it to vacuum. Of course, the asphyxiation problem remains...
What I do recall is back in about 1983 (when recently out of college), I was traveling on a train in Sri Lanka. Onto the train came a "performer" who unrolled a blanket on the floor with some flourescent tube pieces in it. He broke off about a hand sized piece (the blanket was to keep glass shards off the floor), stuck the piece in his mouth, chewed it up, and swallowed it with some water. Then he went around and collected money from those who enjoyed his performance.
Ethernet was around for quite a few years before Netscape and Mosaic. It was used mainly by companies, colleges and the government, but few (non-tech) people outside those circles even knew it existed. Though if you are going for most influential products, I would have to say that Mosaic was probably more influential than Netscape. After all, the same core group of people created both browsers, and Mosaic came first.
I'll have to agree with this (I'm in the US). I have been using OpenOffice Calc to handle all the bookkeeping and taxes for me and my small (1 person) business for about 6 years now. Of course, I can no longer blame mistakes on someone else.
And when are the big ISPs going to stop spending increasing amounts of time, effort, and *money* on bandaids? Individual customers cannot do anything about the problem (and CAN SPAM made sure of that, even if they wanted to).
Eventually, the large ISPs need to see that if they keep ignoring the problem, it will only get exponentially worse. They need to band together and start filing lawsuits, spreading the (admittedly high) costs around. IMO, that is the only thing that will put a dent in this problem.
You just have to understand that "page server" is their term for "caching proxy", and that it's been part of the HTTP specification since the mid-to-late 90s.
Err.. the patent was filed in 1996. Not that the date makes it a legitimate patent... It still looks like bull to me.
My watch and my alarm clock both set themselves from the signal broadcast by WWVB... changing the definition of UTC will break all radio-controlled timepieces.
Hmm... will your watch and alarm clock still be in use 500 years from now? Somehow I think that what any current technology uses is completely irrelevant. I suspect that if people are actually still around in 500 years, they will be able to handle this.
I think that generally interstellar space is usually that space beyond the heliopause. Are "MASSIVE" implications for astronomy really required to justify continuing the mission? Very little time and resources are used now, and the will be the only opportunity to make direct measurements for a very long time.
Let see... on one of the early flights, a wing tab broke off because of a design defect. Also, a design defect was discovered in SpaceShip One that caused an unfortunate tendency to trigger roll under certain conditions. Rutan knew this, but allowed it to fly anyway. He decided that there was enough redundancy in the ship to fly it safely.
Sure enough, one of his pilots was tripped up by this and ended up in an "exciting" ride, rolling round and round. No problem, it landed safely anyway.
I think people on Slashdot have no real clue to what goes into engineering one (or two) of a kind missions of this kind of complexity. Why are airplanes safe? Redundancy. Why did Rutan allow SpaceShip One to fly with known design defects? Redundancy. Why have the Mars Rovers performed spectacularly despite the occasional hiccup? Redundancy. That is the sign of a well engineered product.
Perhaps you could site a source for the claim of such high amounnts of radiation? The sources I have seen all say otherwise, including this one on Space.com.
The natural forces are more destructive than most things we can make. Tornadoes, earthquakes, VOLCANOES (1 spew=100 years of 'pollutants), hurricanes/tsunamis..
Everything except volcanoes affects a few square miles, and even a large volcano maybe affects 50 square miles. Climate change on the other hand affects millions of square miles.
VOLCANOES (1 spew=100 years of 'pollutants)
Well, I can gaurantee that you have no facts to back up that ridiculous statement.
The sahara was a wonderful wilderness. Now its sand. And LOTS of it.... Nature CHANGES weather patters naturally.
Yea, nature can change weather patterns, and yea, global warming is probably inevitable. If those changes happen slowly, we will adapt, probably with mild impact. The supporting infrastructure can shift if there are slow but significant population shifts. People can install air conditioners or heaters. Cropland in less productive areas are slowly abandoned while newly productive croplands are put under cultivation, and the infrastructure to support them and get crops to market are built.
With slow changes, all these are quite feasible. But the faster those changes occur, the bigger the disruption. Extremely rapid changes (where extermely rapid is measured in years) could concievably lead to catastrophic disruptions. It is in our interest, even if the changes are inevitable, to make them occur at the slowest rate possible. Unless making a buck now is more important than starving people in the future.
Perhaps a better idea would be to not give terrorists drivers licenses at all
Sir, are you a terrorist?
Yes.
Sorry, sir. Terrorists are ineligible for a drivers license in Virginia. Perhaps try Maryland. I think they still issue drivers licenses to terrorists.
If you have ever spent 14 hours on a plane flying between the US and Asia, I think you will realize a good use for them, assuming the cost can be made reasonable. I considered the flight to be rather excruciating, and one I am not ready to repeat anytime soon.
Assuming that space elevators never work, this might also be the only method available for making space accessible to someone at a cost of under $10M
Don't take it personally, but I am always amazed when I hear someone say something like this. And that is entirely too often. I can only assume that a person who says this is a "city boy", who thinks that food comes from a store, and water comes from a faucet, and gas comes from a gas station, and electricity comes from a power outlet...
I'm not real sure what your definition of "livable" is, but I think you will find that the environment will undergo total collapse long before all that space is filled with people.
I would guess that the claim Microsoft's campaign against spam has netted them $54 million from six judgments is likely false. They may have been awarded $54 million, but collecting is always another matter. I would not be surprised if the total collected is just in the thousands. And that likely is less than the legal costs, meaning their net is probably a negative number.
Of course, that is pure speculation. I have no facts to back it up. But then again, this is/.
That assumes the trade-off is that the people responsible for most spam would be sending mail if they were unable to spam. That is simply completely false. If some magical perfect technological fix for spam were implemented tomorrow, your level of junk snail mail would not change at all.
I'll just point out that Pathfinder and Spirit/Opportunity were largely built by JPL, while the others were largely done by outside (for profit) companies. Not that I'm trying to imply anything...
The spam may be coming from an offshore ISP, but in the vast majority of the cases, the spammer is an American, living in America. And they will largely remain here; most spammers will not want to move to China just so they can continue spamming. So, obviously, the answer to your statement is to go after the spammer, not the spam.
The problem with going after the spammer is linking the spammer to the spam, in a way that will hold up in court. That requires someone with tenacity and deep pockets. As much as I complain about MS, they are in the perfect position to truely do something effective about spam.
Yea, I saw that post yesterday. Very interesting! What are the odds that the Feds are going to try to get him to plea bargain in exchange for Ralsky? We can only hope...
Slashdot Mirror
Of course they're running old and outdated hardware. When thing work, particularly in a mission critical situation, you don't touch them! Even if the IT admins knew that computer was old and on the brink of dying, how are they supposed to convince the suits and beancounters of that?
And why shouldn't the bean counters expect the old, outdated hardware to work. Quite a bit of the air traffic control system is hardware that is decades old, though it is slowly being replaced. You have to go to the bean counters and say, yes this equipment is not as old as all that other equipment that has been running for decades. But it is cheap C.. made junk, and cannot be expected to operate reliably for more than a few years.
Well, I do this all the time to stay underwater longer - and if it's just a matter of suppressing the urge to breathe, then I guess it's dangerous, and a bad thing.
Yes, it could be dangerous. Search for "shallow water blackout" (wikipedia has a good article).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shallow_water_blackoAstronauts run the same risk in today's suits. The difference is with traditional suits, a puncture leads to your blood boiling and a quick asphyxiation from lack of atmosphere. Boy-o.
Astronauts get into their spacesuits and decompress for quite awhile to a low pressure; about 3 psi if I remember correctly. A complete loss of pressure will not cause any decompression problems at this point. Even without decompression, your blood still would not boil if exposed to a vacuum. Your body maintains enough mechanical pressure to keep the blood at about 1.5 psi. The blood will only boil if you put it into an open container and expose it to vacuum. Of course, the asphyxiation problem remains...
What I do recall is back in about 1983 (when recently out of college), I was traveling on a train in Sri Lanka. Onto the train came a "performer" who unrolled a blanket on the floor with some flourescent tube pieces in it. He broke off about a hand sized piece (the blanket was to keep glass shards off the floor), stuck the piece in his mouth, chewed it up, and swallowed it with some water. Then he went around and collected money from those who enjoyed his performance.
Of course, I was foolishly equating the Internet with ethernet. On the other hand, at some level the statement kind of applies to both.
Ethernet was around for quite a few years before Netscape and Mosaic. It was used mainly by companies, colleges and the government, but few (non-tech) people outside those circles even knew it existed. Though if you are going for most influential products, I would have to say that Mosaic was probably more influential than Netscape. After all, the same core group of people created both browsers, and Mosaic came first.
I'll have to agree with this (I'm in the US). I have been using OpenOffice Calc to handle all the bookkeeping and taxes for me and my small (1 person) business for about 6 years now. Of course, I can no longer blame mistakes on someone else.
And when are the big ISPs going to stop spending increasing amounts of time, effort, and *money* on bandaids? Individual customers cannot do anything about the problem (and CAN SPAM made sure of that, even if they wanted to).
Eventually, the large ISPs need to see that if they keep ignoring the problem, it will only get exponentially worse. They need to band together and start filing lawsuits, spreading the (admittedly high) costs around. IMO, that is the only thing that will put a dent in this problem.
You just have to understand that "page server" is their term for "caching proxy", and that it's been part of the HTTP specification since the mid-to-late 90s.
Err.. the patent was filed in 1996. Not that the date makes it a legitimate patent... It still looks like bull to me.
My watch and my alarm clock both set themselves from the signal broadcast by WWVB... changing the definition of UTC will break all radio-controlled timepieces.
Hmm... will your watch and alarm clock still be in use 500 years from now? Somehow I think that what any current technology uses is completely irrelevant. I suspect that if people are actually still around in 500 years, they will be able to handle this.
I think that generally interstellar space is usually that space beyond the heliopause. Are "MASSIVE" implications for astronomy really required to justify continuing the mission? Very little time and resources are used now, and the will be the only opportunity to make direct measurements for a very long time.
Oops, I should have said I think some people on Slashdot have no real clue.... Sorry for the overly broad generalization.
Let see... on one of the early flights, a wing tab broke off because of a design defect. Also, a design defect was discovered in SpaceShip One that caused an unfortunate tendency to trigger roll under certain conditions. Rutan knew this, but allowed it to fly anyway. He decided that there was enough redundancy in the ship to fly it safely.
Sure enough, one of his pilots was tripped up by this and ended up in an "exciting" ride, rolling round and round. No problem, it landed safely anyway.
I think people on Slashdot have no real clue to what goes into engineering one (or two) of a kind missions of this kind of complexity. Why are airplanes safe? Redundancy. Why did Rutan allow SpaceShip One to fly with known design defects? Redundancy. Why have the Mars Rovers performed spectacularly despite the occasional hiccup? Redundancy. That is the sign of a well engineered product.
Perhaps you could site a source for the claim of such high amounnts of radiation? The sources I have seen all say otherwise, including this one on Space.com.
The natural forces are more destructive than most things we can make. Tornadoes, earthquakes, VOLCANOES (1 spew=100 years of 'pollutants), hurricanes/tsunamis..
Everything except volcanoes affects a few square miles, and even a large volcano maybe affects 50 square miles. Climate change on the other hand affects millions of square miles.
VOLCANOES (1 spew=100 years of 'pollutants)
Well, I can gaurantee that you have no facts to back up that ridiculous statement.
The sahara was a wonderful wilderness. Now its sand. And LOTS of it. ... Nature CHANGES weather patters naturally.
Yea, nature can change weather patterns, and yea, global warming is probably inevitable. If those changes happen slowly, we will adapt, probably with mild impact. The supporting infrastructure can shift if there are slow but significant population shifts. People can install air conditioners or heaters. Cropland in less productive areas are slowly abandoned while newly productive croplands are put under cultivation, and the infrastructure to support them and get crops to market are built.
With slow changes, all these are quite feasible. But the faster those changes occur, the bigger the disruption. Extremely rapid changes (where extermely rapid is measured in years) could concievably lead to catastrophic disruptions. It is in our interest, even if the changes are inevitable, to make them occur at the slowest rate possible. Unless making a buck now is more important than starving people in the future.
The human race wont die out, but most will. Darn.
Oh, never mind. You answered my question.
Interesting theory. But I have a hard time correlating it with the explanation provided by NASA.
Perhaps a better idea would be to not give terrorists drivers licenses at all
Sir, are you a terrorist?
Yes.
Sorry, sir. Terrorists are ineligible for a drivers license in Virginia. Perhaps try Maryland. I think they still issue drivers licenses to terrorists.
If you have ever spent 14 hours on a plane flying between the US and Asia, I think you will realize a good use for them, assuming the cost can be made reasonable. I considered the flight to be rather excruciating, and one I am not ready to repeat anytime soon.
Assuming that space elevators never work, this might also be the only method available for making space accessible to someone at a cost of under $10M
Don't take it personally, but I am always amazed when I hear someone say something like this. And that is entirely too often. I can only assume that a person who says this is a "city boy", who thinks that food comes from a store, and water comes from a faucet, and gas comes from a gas station, and electricity comes from a power outlet...
I'm not real sure what your definition of "livable" is, but I think you will find that the environment will undergo total collapse long before all that space is filled with people.
I would guess that the claim Microsoft's campaign against spam has netted them $54 million from six judgments is likely false. They may have been awarded $54 million, but collecting is always another matter. I would not be surprised if the total collected is just in the thousands. And that likely is less than the legal costs, meaning their net is probably a negative number.
Of course, that is pure speculation. I have no facts to back it up. But then again, this is /.
That assumes the trade-off is that the people responsible for most spam would be sending mail if they were unable to spam. That is simply completely false. If some magical perfect technological fix for spam were implemented tomorrow, your level of junk snail mail would not change at all.
I'll just point out that Pathfinder and Spirit/Opportunity were largely built by JPL, while the others were largely done by outside (for profit) companies. Not that I'm trying to imply anything...
The spam may be coming from an offshore ISP, but in the vast majority of the cases, the spammer is an American, living in America. And they will largely remain here; most spammers will not want to move to China just so they can continue spamming. So, obviously, the answer to your statement is to go after the spammer, not the spam.
The problem with going after the spammer is linking the spammer to the spam, in a way that will hold up in court. That requires someone with tenacity and deep pockets. As much as I complain about MS, they are in the perfect position to truely do something effective about spam.
Yea, I saw that post yesterday. Very interesting! What are the odds that the Feds are going to try to get him to plea bargain in exchange for Ralsky? We can only hope...
Yes, but now that it has been posted on /. I expect to get 2kbs instead of the 150kbs that I normally get from the streaming NasaTV.