...Even x86 chip manufacturers, which continued for quite a time to produce CISC chips, have based their 5th- and 6th-generation chips on RISC architectures and translate x86 opcodes into RISC operations to make them backwards-compatible...
Maybe this is a sign that it has been too long since I learned about computer architecture, but is it really fair to call a CPU that has a deep pipeline, a crypto-RISC CPU?
When my buddy first told me about this exciting new RISC idea one of the design goals was each instruction was to take a single instruction cycle to execute. Isn't this completely contrary to a deep pipeline? The Pentium 4 has a 20-stage pipeline IIRC.
Was I wrong to laugh when I heard hardware manufacturers claim, "sure, we make a CISC, but it has RISC-like elements.
What I am reminded of is the change in how musicians are classified. When I grew up rock music was just about all that young people listened to. Rap and punk music had never been heard of. And country music was considered incredibly uncool. Now country music's coolness factor has grown considerably. And a strange thing has happened. Lots of artists who were unquestionably considered in the Rock camp back then, like Neil Young, or Credence Clearwater, are now classified as Country music, as if they had never been anything else.
It has been a long time, but I remember learning in my computer architecture course about wide microcode instruction words, and narrow microcode instruction words. Wide microcode instruction words allowed the CPU to do more operations in parallel. Ie. the opposite of a RISC. So, I ask in perfect ignorance -- how wide are the Pentium 4 and Athlon microcode?
If I am not mistaken the Transmeta was a very wide instruction word. And if I am not mistaken, doesn't that make it the opposite of a RISC?
I know tax dollars outside the fuel taxes goto the highways, thats not the point.
The US interstate system was built at public expense. That non-fuel tax dollars subsidize roads is exactly the point. They didn't always exist. The political judgement was made to fund them. (Just as Al Gore created the internet.) And the judgement to build them was done at the expense of rail.
The point it that the majority of the cost are paid by the people that cause the most repair to need done. The majority of the people that would use the heavy rail would be poorer people so the pricing would need to be cut to a level they can afford leaving little room for profit.
I believe your judgement here is short-sighted, poorly thought out and poorly informed.
Your "poorer people" are still workers, or potential workers. The American economy benefits by labor being able to travel to where it is needed.
Have you ever watched any old movies? Have you ever seen how rail travel was portrayed? There were luxury sleeper cars. People of all financial standing travelled by rail. What makes you think only the poor should be able to travel through rail?
Also when tax dollars fund something like the rail road systems, it quickly becomes a money pit absorbing everything you can through at it and then some.
Bzzzt. Thanks for playing. You assert this as if it were an obvious truth. It is actually just an opinion, an unsupported one. I know it is relatively commonly held, in America. But this does not make it true.
Projects that absorb more money than they were budgeted for are poorly managed. Poorly managed projects are not a monopoly of government administration. It happens in private industry as well.
Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and various other right-wing politicians around the world, have been big fans of deregulation and privatization. And, sometimes, the record of their deregulation has been disastrous.
I could cite Ronald Reagan's deregulation of the Savinga and Loan industry. That ended up enriching crooked politicians and their cronies, while costing the US taxpayer a King's ransom.
Often privatization means that a public resource, built at taxpayer expense, is sold at, in a sweet-heart deal, at fire sale prices, to a crony of the politician.
Let me tell you a story of how Margaret Thatcher's privatization fucked up British Rail. I read this story on the RISKS digest. Sorry, I can't find it in the archive. British Rail used to be a monolithic, government owned entity. Thatcher initiated its break-up and sale. Different rail lines were bought by different companies. The rolling stock was bought by different companies. There was a bidding process where companies competed to run the service between various destinations. A company might lease their rolling stock, from one company, and lease the right to run trains over another companies rails. A company might win the contract for a particular service without actually owning any rail capital, or having any expertise in rail management.
One of the consequences of this privatization is that it was easier to win the contracts by leasing the older, less safe, rolling stock, reducing the overall passenger safety of the system.
But that is not what my story is about. I read this really compelling story of a crew of guys sent out to do some manual labour. And near their work area a box containing electronics burst into flame. The correspondent on the RISKS digest described how the crew of labourers put out the fire. They felt conflicted, because the switch was the property of another company within the rail system. They put the fire out anyhow. But they were afraid to use the fire extinguishers they had on hand, because they were afraid of being censured for wasting their companies property. So they put the fire out using their
HiggsBison is referring to a famous quote about Mussolini. During the thirties one commentator made the oft-quoted observation that at least he got the Italian trains to run on time.
I read that he actually didn't get the trains to run on time.
Yes, national stereotypes suck. But, since you brought it up, did you ever hear about how the different "national characteristics" are employed in Heaven and Hell?
In Heaven all the Policemen are friendly, helpful, sympathetic English bobbies,
all the lovers are warm, passionate, spontaneous Italians,
all the bankers are careful, methodical, trustworthy Swiss,
all the cooks are creative, excitable, artistic French,
and brisk German efficiency makes all the railways run on time.
In Hell all the Police are brisk, efficient Germans,
all the lovers are careful, methodical, trustworthy Swiss,
all the bankers are creative, excitable, artistic French,
all the cooks are friendly, helpful Englishmen serving bangers and mash, bubble and squeak, and soggy peas,
and the warm, passionate, spontaneous Italians run the railways.
Yes, national stereotypes suck. And I enjoyed all the food I ate when I last visited Britain -- every bite of it.
It is always nice to hear from someone who knows what they are talking about.
I have a few questions.
First, pph == pints per hour?
Do turboprop engines, like those that power Bombardier intermediate range, intermediate capacity airliners, like the
Dash-8 have the same altitude (in)effeciencies as the engines used in larger airliners?
I have heard about how the 9-11 has proven to be an excellent excuse for the insurance industry to gouge their customers. And I would easily believe they would be happy to gouge airlines that flew tested, proven smaller airliners. Is there a reason you mentioned the extra costs of insuring untested, unproven light jets?
As for where these light jets might fly...
Set the way back machine for the early eighties. My older brother had to go with his high powered boss to help deliver a high-level technical presentation, in Chicago. The presentation was well received. There were questions afterwards. And when it was finally finished the junior executive who had been delegated to serve as the host was very sorry to say that, even though their flight did not leave for some time, it was now rush-hour, and there was no way they could get across the city to O'Hare Airport in time for their flight.
My brother was a typical Canadian, not pushy, willing to take a later flight. But his boss was atypical. And he said to his host, "wait a second, I have played Microsoft Flight Simulator. Isn't the Greater Chicago area sprinkled with small airports capable of flying a Cessna?"
The original version of Microsoft Flight Simulator, capable of running on the old 8088, was set in Chicago, and let the player fly between that assortment of airports. It was a popular program. And my brother's boss had been playing it.
Well, the host nods, and agrees that there is a small, cessna-capable airport, ten minutes away. "Okay", says my brother's boss. "Get on the phone and charter us a flight from there to O'Hare."
This proves possible. There is a cessna available for charter, and it is ready and waiting when they get to the airport. Now my brother is a big guy. 6'4". And his boss is a big guy too. My brother ends up sharing the rear seat with their luggage and whatever technical aids they brought. And his boss sits up front beside the pilot.
Did I say they were big guys? I guess the plane was near, or above, its recommended take-off weight. Because as they proceed down the runway a buzzer goes off. My brother's boss turns to the pilot, to draw it to his attention, and says, "I believe that is your stall indicator."
The pilot ignores him, until he has finished taking off. And then he turns to him, and says, "Never interrupt a pilot like that! You have been playing with that goldarn Flight Simulator program, haven't you? You have no idea how much trouble that program has caused me!"
Lol.
Anyhow, here in Toronto there is a small, little, boutique airport, almost right downtown. It has short runways. But long enough for little intermediate range airliners like the Dash-8.
This little airport is on an Island. To get there from the downtown hotels your shuttle bus or cab has to navigate two miles of congested downtown streets, and then you have to take a ferry. It only has to cross a gap of a few hundred feet. But it still imposes a considerable delay. So, the time to get to the main airport is only 2 or 3 times longer than getting to the boutique airport.
There are developers with plans to expand the Island airport, get rid of the ferry, by building "fixed link", ie. a bridge, or tunnel. They also want to extend the runway, so it can take larger jets. Us locals are generally opposed. And the recently elected mayor said he would kill the expansion.
I did fly out of that small boutique airport once. Again, in the early eighties. I flew on a turboprop that seated 20 passengers. And I
Building rail lines is a lot more affordable, if the cost of the land is cheap, or if you already own the necessary right of ways. Land was once cheap, and I would be amazed if existing rail companies don't already own the necessary right of way to connect those cities by rail.
So, the fact that Southwest hasn't already connected the cities by rail doesn't mean it is not profitable. Maybe it means that it would be profitable -- to those who own the right real estate. Ie, not Southwest.
High speed passenger rail requires special high speed vehicles, and it requires the total replacement of existing tracks. High speed passenger rail service requires more gentle curves, more gentle grades, and actual rails that are built and installed to a higher tolerances.
To be profitable they require a certain population density. Are the cities in Texas densely populated enough for high speed rail to make sense?
I have visited Texas. I found it to be a land that loves cars. On my first visit there I made a weekend trip, via Southwest from Dallas to Houston. And then I planned to fly home. Southwest didn't, at that time, own any gates at DFW (Dallas Fort Worth, the big modern airport all the other airlines use). All 30 something of their gates were back at the original Love Field.
I was amazed how inconvenient it was for passengers who wanted to go from Love Field to DFW. At that time, (okay 1986), not only weren't Love Field and DFW linked by rail, there wasn't even a very good bus service between the two. The bus I finally got did not run very frequently. And it was a little half-sized shuttle bus. I am sure hundreds, maybe thousands, of passengers needed to transfer between one airport to another. And I presume that 95% or more of them took a cab.
which is good for the american economy... everything the us pruduces will be easyier to sell.
I think it might be more correct to say a lower US dollar is good for American manufacturers, because the items they manufacture for foreign sale will be cheaper and more competive overseas -- but it is bad for the average US consumer, and all foreign articles they want to buy are suddenly more expensive. It is like getting a pay-cut.
As for the USA's "jobless recovery"... I watched an episode of Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street a few months ago. One of the panelists said something about US computer sales being up. And another expert set him straight. He described the way the Bush administration was computing the value of those sales to the US economy.
He didn't act outraged, and the other panelists didn't act outraged. But it was actually shockingly, outrageously dishonest. As dishonest as going to War with Iraq based on dishonest, fabricated evidence that Iraq represented an "immediate threat" of attacking with WMD.
IIRC the Bush administration was calculating the value to the US economy of computer sales not based on the actual price they were sold for, but what they would have cost several years ago. Well, we all know how quickly the value of computers erode.
It has made me wonder whether the "jobless recovery" the Bush administration is telling Americans they are in the middle of is all smoke and mirrors.
Oh yeah "Stockholm Syndrome" is the given to a phenomenon first recognized following a hostage incident in Stockholm. It was an incident of extended duration. The hostages came to identify with the hostage takers. IIRC, some of them fell in love with the hostage takers. Most unaccountable to experts was that the identification with the hostage-takers did not lapse when the incident was over.
The explanation experts came up with was that the hostages were so fearful that they would do anything to appease the hostage-takers -- even adopt their political agenda.
And I am suggesting that any American, who is not themselves a manufacturer and exporter, who sees a lower dollar as a good thing for them, and not a pay cut, is going through a similar non-functional identification.
Patty Hearst probably suffered from "Stockholm Syndrome", but they didn't call it that back then.
Other correspondents have suggested taking a used laptop bag with you when you leave the UK. Would there be any advantage to taking a nonfunctional, but new looking laptop with you as well. Can you get UK customs to give you a note saying you have a laptop, when you leave? Then ditch the broken one in the USA. Have fun.
Let me repeat what should have been my main point. I suggest that the moon missions of the 1960s would have been more successful, from a scientific point of view, if they had not been so rushed. I suggest that making it a race for prestige was a mistake.
All seven missions took place within a space of just a couple of years. Was there enough time to learn from the previous missions to guide and tune the goals of the later missions?
Don can we state more clearly, for other readers, something I think you are skating over here. With the exception of Jack Schmitt, weren't all the other astronauts in your list military officers?
Correct me if I am mistaken. When I was younger I read a number of biographies of ww2 military figures. And, my impression was that the education provided by the US Service Academies, was basically an engineering degree, with some courses in "military science" and "political science" added on. That was a long time ago. Maybe things are different now? Mind you, those guys all went to school a long time ago too.
Well, Engineers, god bless them, aren't Scientists. And I like the suggestion from Gerard Weinberg, that "any field of study with science in its name probably is not a science". Ted Nelson said that these disciplines are trying to "wrap themselves in the patina of respectability associated with Science".
If the LEM was still staffed by test pilots, proving the technology, then, let me suggest, it wasn't truly ready for real science.
We have all helped newbies use computers. So long as someone is spending their energy thinking about the technical details of how to perform a intellectual task, rather then performing that task, they are still a newbie. It is only to the extent that the technical details can be forgotten that real work can get done. I believe this is as true for word processing -- or web exploration -- as it is for moon exploration.
Making the moon effort a race for prestige short-changed the science aspect, reducing it to a mere afterthought.
For the record, I am sure that the Apollo astronauts were all brave men, intelligent, and maybe a lot of fun to share a beer with. I don't mean to be criticizing the astronauts when I say they are not scientists.
Maybe this is just the thing we need to start another space race? Competition is good, and I don't think Americans will sit around while the Russians start testing a Mars spacecraft...
Lol. And why isn't this just the thing to base a Mars effort that is an international co-operative effort?
This is one of the things that kills me about slashdot. What, in heaven's name, caused moderators to give this so many mod points? Ewithrow, bless their heart, didn't provide any links to outside references. They just repeated some commonly accepted American dogma.
Moderators -- please -- if you are going to mod something up -- please -- make sure it contains arguments or citations of real lasting value, universal value.
The idea that the Free Market has a supernatural power to produce the "best" solution is not a Universal Truth. It is merely an opinion. Merely repeating this notion, without arguments to back it up does not deserve being rewarded with positive moderation.
In my opinion the superstitious belief in the mysterious power of the Free Market the "best" solution to every problem illustrates a kind of short circuited thinking. In my opinion we should be thinking about the what is best first, we should be trying to reach agreement on what is best first, before we decide on the means to reach that goal.
Those of us who are computer programmers have all met some language enthusiast who won't consider which language to use to approach a program. They will only consider their favourite. Often they don't know any other languages.
Would you respect a programmer who had a belief that a certain programming language should be used in every single instance, if they wouldn't even consider whether other languages were more appropriate?
Well, I don't respect those who promote the Free Market as the solution to every problem.
OK. Rocket Science. Consider the 1960 era moon race. Were the Americans willing to go over-budget, in order to be first? Would the moon effort have been better thought out, have better thought out scientific goals, if it had not been a rush job, whose primary purpose was prestige?
Ninety percent of the first men to walk on the moon were fighter jocks, not scientists. That sucks.
A similar phenomenon has happened with drivers. It used to be much easier to track down drivers for discontinued hardware. Now a web-search will turn up deceptive sites that try to sell you access to drivers.
In this case I think we have to put some of the blame on the search engines. They accept kickbacks from sites to be listed earlier in the list of results.
Perhaps not being able to find freeware is a similar phenonmenon.
What we need is an altruistic, non-commercial search engine -- with powerful features and a wide pipe. We need a search engine that is on our side, not on the side of those who are trying to sell us things.
If our hero really needs a cell, to monitor those servers, why the heck is he using his own phone? Management can buy him a phone, specifically for those work tasks. Then his cell is not an exception to the "no personal cell phones at work" rule, and won't make other employees resentful. It is a work cell phone.
Some 20 odd years ago I heard that a made-for-tv movie had been made of her "The Lathe of Heaven". Two years ago a
higher budget version was remade starring James Caan, Lisa Bonet and Lukas Haas.
They were both diasppointments. Some legal hassle held up distribution of the original. It had a very limited release, on PBS. I waited almost 20 years to see it. And... it wasn't really very good. But, while the newer version had better actors, it had been eviscerated.
... and prints using one ink cartridge with 6 colors...
So does "designed for women" mean "designed for people who won't realize that this printer is even more of a ripoff than usual when it comes to ink refills?"
Worth noting: the volume of an asteroid increases by the cube of the diameter. If they are of similar density then Pluto is about 14 times more massive than Ceres. Mercury is about 135 times more massive than Ceres.
Ancient Astronomers used the term planet to distinguish heavenly bodies that moved from the fixed stars that didn't appear to move. The seven planets the ancients recognized were Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury, Luna and the Sun. If Jupiter had a planet the size of the Earth it would be visible to the naked eye, so it would have fit within the original criteria for being a planet.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe this is a sign that it has been too long since I learned about computer architecture, but is it really fair to call a CPU that has a deep pipeline, a crypto-RISC CPU?
When my buddy first told me about this exciting new RISC idea one of the design goals was each instruction was to take a single instruction cycle to execute. Isn't this completely contrary to a deep pipeline? The Pentium 4 has a 20-stage pipeline IIRC.
Was I wrong to laugh when I heard hardware manufacturers claim, "sure, we make a CISC, but it has RISC-like elements .
What I am reminded of is the change in how musicians are classified. When I grew up rock music was just about all that young people listened to. Rap and punk music had never been heard of. And country music was considered incredibly uncool. Now country music's coolness factor has grown considerably. And a strange thing has happened. Lots of artists who were unquestionably considered in the Rock camp back then, like Neil Young, or Credence Clearwater, are now classified as Country music, as if they had never been anything else.
It has been a long time, but I remember learning in my computer architecture course about wide microcode instruction words, and narrow microcode instruction words. Wide microcode instruction words allowed the CPU to do more operations in parallel. Ie. the opposite of a RISC. So, I ask in perfect ignorance -- how wide are the Pentium 4 and Athlon microcode?
If I am not mistaken the Transmeta was a very wide instruction word. And if I am not mistaken, doesn't that make it the opposite of a RISC?
The US interstate system was built at public expense. That non-fuel tax dollars subsidize roads is exactly the point. They didn't always exist. The political judgement was made to fund them. (Just as Al Gore created the internet.) And the judgement to build them was done at the expense of rail.
I believe your judgement here is short-sighted, poorly thought out and poorly informed.
Your "poorer people" are still workers, or potential workers. The American economy benefits by labor being able to travel to where it is needed.
Have you ever watched any old movies? Have you ever seen how rail travel was portrayed? There were luxury sleeper cars. People of all financial standing travelled by rail. What makes you think only the poor should be able to travel through rail?
Bzzzt. Thanks for playing. You assert this as if it were an obvious truth. It is actually just an opinion, an unsupported one. I know it is relatively commonly held, in America. But this does not make it true.
Projects that absorb more money than they were budgeted for are poorly managed. Poorly managed projects are not a monopoly of government administration. It happens in private industry as well.
Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and various other right-wing politicians around the world, have been big fans of deregulation and privatization. And, sometimes, the record of their deregulation has been disastrous.
I could cite Ronald Reagan's deregulation of the Savinga and Loan industry. That ended up enriching crooked politicians and their cronies, while costing the US taxpayer a King's ransom.
Often privatization means that a public resource, built at taxpayer expense, is sold at, in a sweet-heart deal, at fire sale prices, to a crony of the politician.
Let me tell you a story of how Margaret Thatcher's privatization fucked up British Rail. I read this story on the RISKS digest. Sorry, I can't find it in the archive. British Rail used to be a monolithic, government owned entity. Thatcher initiated its break-up and sale. Different rail lines were bought by different companies. The rolling stock was bought by different companies. There was a bidding process where companies competed to run the service between various destinations. A company might lease their rolling stock, from one company, and lease the right to run trains over another companies rails. A company might win the contract for a particular service without actually owning any rail capital, or having any expertise in rail management.
One of the consequences of this privatization is that it was easier to win the contracts by leasing the older, less safe, rolling stock, reducing the overall passenger safety of the system.
But that is not what my story is about. I read this really compelling story of a crew of guys sent out to do some manual labour. And near their work area a box containing electronics burst into flame. The correspondent on the RISKS digest described how the crew of labourers put out the fire. They felt conflicted, because the switch was the property of another company within the rail system. They put the fire out anyhow. But they were afraid to use the fire extinguishers they had on hand, because they were afraid of being censured for wasting their companies property. So they put the fire out using their
I read that he actually didn't get the trains to run on time.
Yes, national stereotypes suck. But, since you brought it up, did you ever hear about how the different "national characteristics" are employed in Heaven and Hell?
In Heaven all the Policemen are friendly, helpful, sympathetic English bobbies,
all the lovers are warm, passionate, spontaneous Italians,
all the bankers are careful, methodical, trustworthy Swiss,
all the cooks are creative, excitable, artistic French,
and brisk German efficiency makes all the railways run on time.
In Hell all the Police are brisk, efficient Germans,
all the lovers are careful, methodical, trustworthy Swiss,
all the bankers are creative, excitable, artistic French,
all the cooks are friendly, helpful Englishmen serving bangers and mash, bubble and squeak, and soggy peas,
and the warm, passionate, spontaneous Italians run the railways.
Yes, national stereotypes suck. And I enjoyed all the food I ate when I last visited Britain -- every bite of it.
I have a few questions.
First, pph == pints per hour?
Do turboprop engines, like those that power Bombardier intermediate range, intermediate capacity airliners, like the Dash-8 have the same altitude (in)effeciencies as the engines used in larger airliners?
I have heard about how the 9-11 has proven to be an excellent excuse for the insurance industry to gouge their customers. And I would easily believe they would be happy to gouge airlines that flew tested, proven smaller airliners. Is there a reason you mentioned the extra costs of insuring untested, unproven light jets?
As for where these light jets might fly...
Set the way back machine for the early eighties. My older brother had to go with his high powered boss to help deliver a high-level technical presentation, in Chicago. The presentation was well received. There were questions afterwards. And when it was finally finished the junior executive who had been delegated to serve as the host was very sorry to say that, even though their flight did not leave for some time, it was now rush-hour, and there was no way they could get across the city to O'Hare Airport in time for their flight.
My brother was a typical Canadian, not pushy, willing to take a later flight. But his boss was atypical. And he said to his host, "wait a second, I have played Microsoft Flight Simulator. Isn't the Greater Chicago area sprinkled with small airports capable of flying a Cessna?"
The original version of Microsoft Flight Simulator, capable of running on the old 8088, was set in Chicago, and let the player fly between that assortment of airports. It was a popular program. And my brother's boss had been playing it.
Well, the host nods, and agrees that there is a small, cessna-capable airport, ten minutes away. "Okay", says my brother's boss. "Get on the phone and charter us a flight from there to O'Hare."
This proves possible. There is a cessna available for charter, and it is ready and waiting when they get to the airport. Now my brother is a big guy. 6'4". And his boss is a big guy too. My brother ends up sharing the rear seat with their luggage and whatever technical aids they brought. And his boss sits up front beside the pilot.
Did I say they were big guys? I guess the plane was near, or above, its recommended take-off weight. Because as they proceed down the runway a buzzer goes off. My brother's boss turns to the pilot, to draw it to his attention, and says, "I believe that is your stall indicator."
The pilot ignores him, until he has finished taking off. And then he turns to him, and says, "Never interrupt a pilot like that! You have been playing with that goldarn Flight Simulator program, haven't you? You have no idea how much trouble that program has caused me!"
Lol.
Anyhow, here in Toronto there is a small, little, boutique airport, almost right downtown. It has short runways. But long enough for little intermediate range airliners like the Dash-8.
This little airport is on an Island. To get there from the downtown hotels your shuttle bus or cab has to navigate two miles of congested downtown streets, and then you have to take a ferry. It only has to cross a gap of a few hundred feet. But it still imposes a considerable delay. So, the time to get to the main airport is only 2 or 3 times longer than getting to the boutique airport.
There are developers with plans to expand the Island airport, get rid of the ferry, by building "fixed link", ie. a bridge, or tunnel. They also want to extend the runway, so it can take larger jets. Us locals are generally opposed. And the recently elected mayor said he would kill the expansion.
I did fly out of that small boutique airport once. Again, in the early eighties. I flew on a turboprop that seated 20 passengers. And I
So, the fact that Southwest hasn't already connected the cities by rail doesn't mean it is not profitable. Maybe it means that it would be profitable -- to those who own the right real estate. Ie, not Southwest.
High speed passenger rail requires special high speed vehicles, and it requires the total replacement of existing tracks. High speed passenger rail service requires more gentle curves, more gentle grades, and actual rails that are built and installed to a higher tolerances.
To be profitable they require a certain population density. Are the cities in Texas densely populated enough for high speed rail to make sense? I have visited Texas. I found it to be a land that loves cars. On my first visit there I made a weekend trip, via Southwest from Dallas to Houston. And then I planned to fly home. Southwest didn't, at that time, own any gates at DFW (Dallas Fort Worth, the big modern airport all the other airlines use). All 30 something of their gates were back at the original Love Field.
I was amazed how inconvenient it was for passengers who wanted to go from Love Field to DFW. At that time, (okay 1986), not only weren't Love Field and DFW linked by rail, there wasn't even a very good bus service between the two. The bus I finally got did not run very frequently. And it was a little half-sized shuttle bus. I am sure hundreds, maybe thousands, of passengers needed to transfer between one airport to another. And I presume that 95% or more of them took a cab.
And how would this be different than the gubmint funding the interstate highway system?
For those of us not in the know, could you outline how and why jewelry depreciates? All I know about jewelry I learned from the antiques roadshow.
I think it might be more correct to say a lower US dollar is good for American manufacturers, because the items they manufacture for foreign sale will be cheaper and more competive overseas -- but it is bad for the average US consumer, and all foreign articles they want to buy are suddenly more expensive. It is like getting a pay-cut.
As for the USA's " jobless recovery "... I watched an episode of Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street a few months ago. One of the panelists said something about US computer sales being up. And another expert set him straight. He described the way the Bush administration was computing the value of those sales to the US economy.
He didn't act outraged, and the other panelists didn't act outraged. But it was actually shockingly, outrageously dishonest. As dishonest as going to War with Iraq based on dishonest, fabricated evidence that Iraq represented an "immediate threat" of attacking with WMD.
IIRC the Bush administration was calculating the value to the US economy of computer sales not based on the actual price they were sold for, but what they would have cost several years ago. Well, we all know how quickly the value of computers erode.
It has made me wonder whether the "jobless recovery" the Bush administration is telling Americans they are in the middle of is all smoke and mirrors.
Oh yeah "Stockholm Syndrome" is the given to a phenomenon first recognized following a hostage incident in Stockholm. It was an incident of extended duration. The hostages came to identify with the hostage takers. IIRC, some of them fell in love with the hostage takers. Most unaccountable to experts was that the identification with the hostage-takers did not lapse when the incident was over.
The explanation experts came up with was that the hostages were so fearful that they would do anything to appease the hostage-takers -- even adopt their political agenda.
And I am suggesting that any American, who is not themselves a manufacturer and exporter, who sees a lower dollar as a good thing for them, and not a pay cut, is going through a similar non-functional identification.
Patty Hearst probably suffered from "Stockholm Syndrome", but they didn't call it that back then.
Other correspondents have suggested taking a used laptop bag with you when you leave the UK. Would there be any advantage to taking a nonfunctional, but new looking laptop with you as well. Can you get UK customs to give you a note saying you have a laptop, when you leave? Then ditch the broken one in the USA. Have fun.
All seven missions took place within a space of just a couple of years. Was there enough time to learn from the previous missions to guide and tune the goals of the later missions?
Don can we state more clearly, for other readers, something I think you are skating over here. With the exception of Jack Schmitt, weren't all the other astronauts in your list military officers?
Correct me if I am mistaken. When I was younger I read a number of biographies of ww2 military figures. And, my impression was that the education provided by the US Service Academies, was basically an engineering degree, with some courses in "military science" and "political science" added on. That was a long time ago. Maybe things are different now? Mind you, those guys all went to school a long time ago too.
Well, Engineers, god bless them, aren't Scientists. And I like the suggestion from Gerard Weinberg, that "any field of study with science in its name probably is not a science". Ted Nelson said that these disciplines are trying to "wrap themselves in the patina of respectability associated with Science". If the LEM was still staffed by test pilots, proving the technology, then, let me suggest, it wasn't truly ready for real science.
We have all helped newbies use computers. So long as someone is spending their energy thinking about the technical details of how to perform a intellectual task, rather then performing that task, they are still a newbie. It is only to the extent that the technical details can be forgotten that real work can get done. I believe this is as true for word processing -- or web exploration -- as it is for moon exploration.
Making the moon effort a race for prestige short-changed the science aspect, reducing it to a mere afterthought.
For the record, I am sure that the Apollo astronauts were all brave men, intelligent, and maybe a lot of fun to share a beer with. I don't mean to be criticizing the astronauts when I say they are not scientists.
Lol. And why isn't this just the thing to base a Mars effort that is an international co-operative effort?
This is one of the things that kills me about slashdot. What, in heaven's name, caused moderators to give this so many mod points? Ewithrow, bless their heart, didn't provide any links to outside references. They just repeated some commonly accepted American dogma.
Moderators -- please -- if you are going to mod something up -- please -- make sure it contains arguments or citations of real lasting value, universal value.
The idea that the Free Market has a supernatural power to produce the "best" solution is not a Universal Truth. It is merely an opinion . Merely repeating this notion, without arguments to back it up does not deserve being rewarded with positive moderation.
In my opinion the superstitious belief in the mysterious power of the Free Market the "best" solution to every problem illustrates a kind of short circuited thinking. In my opinion we should be thinking about the what is best first, we should be trying to reach agreement on what is best first, before we decide on the means to reach that goal.
Those of us who are computer programmers have all met some language enthusiast who won't consider which language to use to approach a program. They will only consider their favourite. Often they don't know any other languages.
Would you respect a programmer who had a belief that a certain programming language should be used in every single instance, if they wouldn't even consider whether other languages were more appropriate?
Well, I don't respect those who promote the Free Market as the solution to every problem.
OK. Rocket Science. Consider the 1960 era moon race. Were the Americans willing to go over-budget, in order to be first? Would the moon effort have been better thought out, have better thought out scientific goals, if it had not been a rush job, whose primary purpose was prestige?
Ninety percent of the first men to walk on the moon were fighter jocks, not scientists. That sucks.
Hey 2004! Google is on this scheme too!
In this case I think we have to put some of the blame on the search engines. They accept kickbacks from sites to be listed earlier in the list of results.
Perhaps not being able to find freeware is a similar phenonmenon.
What we need is an altruistic, non-commercial search engine -- with powerful features and a wide pipe. We need a search engine that is on our side, not on the side of those who are trying to sell us things.
100 feet makes it significantly smaller than Tunguska, which was theorized to be 50 to 80 meters. So, it is a city killer, not a planet killer.
Why wouldn't this work?
YET!
Any relation to this Richard Matheson?
Maybe he is spinning in his grave. He never had much of a sense of humour.
But I will differ with you over it being horrid. I thought its examination of the excesses of blind patriotism was brilliant.
They were both diasppointments. Some legal hassle held up distribution of the original. It had a very limited release, on PBS. I waited almost 20 years to see it. And... it wasn't really very good. But, while the newer version had better actors, it had been eviscerated.
FWIW.
So does "designed for women" mean "designed for people who won't realize that this printer is even more of a ripoff than usual when it comes to ink refills?"
Isn't the very elliptical orbit the most noteworthy thing about this object?
At least it is something that we can pronounce.
10^10 kilometers, when light travels at 300,000 km / second? About 10 light hours I make it. The Earth is about 8 light minutes from the Sun.
(I am not sure Ceres is quite sperical though.)
Ancient Astronomers used the term planet to distinguish heavenly bodies that moved from the fixed stars that didn't appear to move. The seven planets the ancients recognized were Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury, Luna and the Sun. If Jupiter had a planet the size of the Earth it would be visible to the naked eye, so it would have fit within the original criteria for being a planet.