So, what you're saying is... that if you wrote software that you intended to charge money for via licensing, you'd be okay with people going ahead and making all the copies they want? (and pass them to their friends, who do the same.) That wouldn't piss you off? What if more people copied it for free than paid you for it?
If you wrote a book, which you intended to earn money from the time and thought you put into it, by selling copies of the book, and people just started photocopying it instead of buying it, you're okay with that?
If you write a thesis paper in college, after countless hours of research and thinking, and someone else takes it, copies it, and turns it in, benefiting from your work, you're fine with that?
If not, then what if you wrote some word processing software (which you wanted to earn your retirement from), which people then copied without paying you for your time and effort? What if they took that software, used it, and earned money using it, benefiting from your work? Is that okay, too?
I wouldn't be okay with any of these, if I was the one trying to make a few bucks writing software, books, or research papers.
I go to a poor college, which is now facing another 6 million dollar budget cut. I am also in the student government. (yeah, no laughing, I'm a sucker.)
Anyway, the school doesn't allow external machines on the network, and I don't have a portable printer, so I am stuck with having to transfer files from my laptop to one of the P200MMXs we have in the office, so I can use the student gov't printer to print student gov't work that I do on my own machine.
Now, this was fine with my old laptop, but my new Vaio didn't come with a floppy drive. But hey, it's got a memory stick reader and USB! Well, none of the machines I have access to have USB, so I can't get a memory stick reader, and I can't use other USB devices.
Well, the Vaio has a CD-RW/DVD combo drive... burn CDs, right? Wrong. The machines in the office don't have optical drives, either. I told you we are a poor college with massive budget cuts.
It's floppy or nothing.
It also goes to show that yes, people would use processors from 15 years ago... well, at least 5 years ago.
Whose bright idea was that? No-one the shuttles are so expensive to run. All the tiles apart from the ones around the edges should be identical, and the other ones should be smaller than the regular ones so one can be cut to fit.
I'm not a materials expert, and I didn't check with NASA on this, but I think it probably has to do with the heat absorption/radiation rate of the tile materials in regards to the mass of individual tiles. I imagine that they have to be a certain specific mass, density, and thickness... the shuttle's dimensions are probably not related to the tile dimensions. This would mean that they all would be unique, with practically infinite combinations of tiles possible depending on where you decided the "cornerstone" tile would be placed.
Of course, they also all have to fit together absolutely perfectly. If you look at close ups of the shuttle, you can see a lot of different tile shapes, and they all seem to have similar surface area, which supports my above theory.
I remember seeing a demonstration of the tile when I was a kid... they heated the tile up really hot, to where it was glowing sufficiently... they waited for the edges to cool, and this guy picks up the tile by the corners, with his bare hands, while the center was glowing with heat!
1) Laying the groundwork for American colonization and exploitation of space
Yeah, so what?
Western society has fucked up Africa and Asia through colonization
That was mostly Britain and Spain, but we'll let that one go, since we did reap some of the benefit.
Furthermore, who gives anyone the right to plant an American flag on the moon, as if the US has conquered something.
We can because we did. Then we signed a treaty saying we wouldn't claim any part of the moon as territory. But, we can certainly claim to have landed there, and we left the proof, and our identity, by leaving our flag there. We conquered a barrier by landing on the moon, and we have every right to claim it and lay the proof.
I didn't realize you could put dibs on parts of the universe. Do we really need nationalism in space too?
Nobody put "dibs" anywhere. And, remember that nationalism got us to space. Kennedy and Johnson were drumming up nationalism to support the space program back during the Apollo missions.
Not all national pride is bad, you know.
Military Exploits - Reagan didn't get Star Wars in the 80's, now his bastard sons (the Bush family) are going to take another stab at it. Space, the final frontier: now being used as missile bases to kill innocent civilians in countries that happen to be anti-US. Can't wait!
Prove that we're putting missile bases in space. Come on, prove it. We're all still waiting, you know.
Scientific Knowledge - Oh, and it's of no coincidence that this was listed last. Think about it, the US government is throwing millions of dollars at a program for common good of the world? Think again.
Science is *always* beneficial to mankind.
If you want space to be as shitty and capitalistic as the US-dominated world is now, then I guess you'll love NASA. Essentially 7 colonizers died today, one of which was an Israeli colonel -- I'm so distressed -- not.
You are so out of touch with reality that I'm not sure why I am bothering to respond. You're a sick piece of shit for even saying that last sentence.
Funny that when 7 people die on US land the whole world sends their condolences, but when US weapons kill thousands every day no one winks an eye.
Maybe you can point out exactly what you are talking about? Or, are you just dreaming up numbers by swallowing the made-up cumshot statistics of left-wing radicals?
7 people dead in a space shuttle don't really mean much when your president is planning to kill 300,000 people in only one fucking DAY in Iraq.
Again, how are you getting your numbers, and how are you know exactly what the president is planning? Can I assume he told you personally?
Get your heads out of your ass and realize the world does not revolve around you, stupid Americans.
My head is out of my ass, you lying bigot. Let's remind ourselves of some of the more "stupid" things Americans have done:
We'll start with bailing Europe out of two World Wars. Then, we can point out that we give over six million metric tons of food to foreign countries every year, under multiple programs.
Let's also think about how we have conducted recent war effors. When it has been tactically sound, we have dropped leaflets in places with assets to be bombed, so that civilians can leave. I was in the military, and I understand *exactly* how hard it is to avoid collateral damage. Even at the best accuracy, I could only expect the artillery I was calling fire from to be within 100 meters of the center of the target, and no more accurate.
We go out of our way for precision targeting... don't whine about collateral civilian damage to non-military targets until you've tried to perform the job of having to hit military targets that people like Saddam Hussein put right in the middle of neighborhoods and right next to schools. The simple fact is, we are far better than some other countries are.
Why aren't you bitching about what the Russians do in Chechnya?
BTW, I'm American.
Liar. Go fuck yourself. And, if you are an American, you're a fucking apologist for the 9/11 terrorists, and a pile of shit on the landscape of humanity. May you rot in hell with Hitler, Hussein, Lenin, and the 9/11 terrorists.
Has anybody explained why they couldn't have done a spacewalk to inspect the damage from the insulation strike?
Yes, they have. It was not possible to inspect the bottom of the shuttle during this flight because (1) the cargo bay was being occupied by the science package and had no remote manipulator, (2) there are no handles or tethers on the bottom of the shuttle, and (3), shuttles are simply not equipped nor is it recommended for spacewalks to occur without tethering or the robotic arm. Thus, no spacewalks to the bottom of the shuttle.
All I've heard is that it wouldn't have made any difference if they had done one, since they weren't equipped to repair it.
I think also that the Columbia is too heavy to make the higher orbit of the ISS, and OMS and RCS thrusters would not have been enough to boost it to that level. The Columbia is heavier because it was overbuilt... the later shuttles are much lighter. This is why the Columbia has *never* gone to the ISS.
Even if they did find the damage, they also have no way to fix it. All of the tens of thousands of tiles on the surface of the shuttle are unique. Each one has different dimensions, and fits in only one place. Obviously, it would be impossible to carry a replacement for every one.
Lastly, if they discovered the problem during reentry maneuvers, it was still too late. The best NASA could have done was say "It was nice knowing you. God be with you." Once the reentry sequence has started, there is no way to abort. Either they make it, or they don't.
I designed a pneumatic gun with interchangeable barrels that was designed to fire anything from a shooter marble all the way up to a roll of toilet paper.
Dual pressure guages, expandable air chamber, positive-pressure locking system, and one-way airflow between the firing pressure chamber and the main air chamber.
Paint sprayer parts make the bulk of the guts.
Ahhh.... I really should finish putting it together. It'd be great to actually fire it. I wanted muzzle velocity to exceed the speed of sound.
I'm personally annoyed by this integration of digital devices. I want discrete components.
I don't want a cell phone at all.
I do want a digital camera, but I want interchangeable lenses, etc. I bet this PDA doesn't have that.
I want an MP3 player. I don't want a cell phone with it. When I'm listening to music, I don't want the bloody phone to ring.
I want a digital camera. I don't want to take my PDA on vacation. What good is a PDA in the middle of nowhere when you're camping?
I do NOT want a built-in camera on every single digital thingie I own.
I'd rather have all these things separate, and better, rather than integrated into one-size-fits-all piece of shit that is more "cool" than it is "useful."
The suit asks a judge to force the cyber-auctioneer to filter words like "fraud, liar, cheater, scam artist, con man" from the site...
That's amusing. A lawyer demanding that Ebay filter all words that most people use when describing lawyers.
Those are exactly the words my father used when his attorney charged him $600 for a three-minute phone call that blew the $25,000 deal my father was negotiating.
Next time you have can of beer or whatever, try holding it up just above your noodle, where your bladder would be inside. I mean, that much volume of liquid has to be inside you... and it's gotta come out!
Close... but you also forget sweat and breathing, which also expel moisture. I would say that you guess higher than average.
My guess would be one to three beers => one piss, depending on several factors, including: Bladder size, current hydration of the body, the rate of water expelled via lungs or skin, and the fact that some of that liquid travels all the way down the... main path, so to speak.
Let's look at Britain's record: (I'll use years when I know them)
"Colonial" efforts in: Africa, China, Australia, North America, India, New Zealand, and nearly every other region they thought was weaker than Britain.
Siezure of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland against the inhabitant's wishes.
Exploitation of slave labor in/from Africa, India, China, and the Americas.
Outright piracy on the high seas during the 18th and 19th centuries, including forced/conscripted labor of American hostages taken.
Exile of political prisoners taken from Scotland.
Monopolistic trade of slaves from Africa.
Trafficking of opium.
The brutal suppression of the Matabele Revolt.
I don't want to enumerate the wars Britain started or provoked based on the trade of tea, slaves, gold, diamonds, and other products.
Destruction and dissection of the Ottoman Empire which led to many of the problems in the middle east, today.
A good list of wars and battles that Britain participated in, started, and/or provoked can be found here:
One more question: could you please explain to me why you need to have an expert training in handling guns, combat skills and killing people to do all of the above ?
I never denied that killing people is one of the jobs of the military. As a soldier, if I have to kill people, I want the best training, the best weapons, and the best skills, so that I may better kill the enemy before they kill me. Simple enough. That's what the expert training is for.
The people in the military deserve nothing less than the best of all those things, because usually their ass is on the line in combat due to what politicians want. The politicians, and the people they work for (you) owe it to every member of the military to give them the best equipment and the best training you can afford for as long as you think it's a good idea to have a military.
If you think it's not a good idea to have a military, start coming up with damn good reasons not to have them. And make sure you include among those reasons "no other country would attack us, not now, not ever, no matter what our national policies are." Until you can say that, you need the military.
On the original thread, and response to the above quoted: The reason the military is used for relief, rescue, disaster clean-up, food delivery, and all of the aforementioned things is, that those jobs require people with strength, resolve, discipline, and intestinal fortitude. There is a large supply of those attributes in the military.
That's 10-50 billion spent between now and 2010, at least it makes a lot more sense than spendig $360 billion of the taxpayers money per year on people and technology whose sole purpose it is to kill other human beings.
Ahh yes, because we all know that that's all the military does, and we've never gone as a presence for peaceful observation, we never delivered food to Haiti and other countries, and we never cleaned up after Hurricane Andrew, Ice Storm 98, and other natural disasters. The National Guard never helped out with the relief efforts for any earthquake in California, and we all know that only civilians cleaned up the rubble and looked for survivors in the World Trade Center wreckage.
Maybe while I was doing some of the above, I was really in some Army experimental brain-stimulation gear where they fed me a computer generated world, in which I did all those things. Maybe I should think about it. I might have met Keanu Reeves there.
I spent 8 years in the Army, both active duty and reserve, and I saved more lives than I took. As a matter of fact, I didn't have to kill a single person that entire time.
I would have, but that's not the "sole purpose" of the military, and I'm really fed up with people like you who don't bother to point out that the military has plenty of other jobs besides killing people.
You are one of the same kinds of people like the lady who had the nerve to insult me and the U.S. Army less than a month after we cleaned up their entire town after a huge storm went through and killed a bunch of people, wiped out most of the electrical infrastructure, and put thousands of people out of their homes.
We provided shelter, cut down and disposed of trees, provided food, brough out a ton of 60Kw generators so that farmers and hospitals would have electricity, and saved a few lives.
The day that woman insulted me and my friends as we stood in line to buy some food by saying "Well, gee, you can tell it's Army payday today" in that patronizing tone of voice with the sour expression on her face, as soon as she walked in the door, told me everything I needed to know about the people I'd been giving up sleep and doing hard work for.
This would have been a fun project to work on, even if it is just someone's research idea that will never come to pass. It would have been damn fun to be the test driver or T.C. for this thing.
Is anyone else a little skeptical of the "read all e-mails sent near the truck" capability? Have they not heard of encryption?
Maybe they are using van Eck (Tempest) phreaking. (Google it if you don't know what it is.)
If one could capture what was on someone else's monitor, a computer could OCR it easy enough. A computer could probably locate the signal, as well. This would provide for the possibility of an automatic capture system.
Also, since you generally don't type e-mail in encrypted form, it's irrelevent.
3. Some items do not fit into the hierarchical structure. Should my porn directory be organized into movies, stills and texts or perhaps perverted, spicy and nice? Whichever atrribute I choose I will have trouble searching on the other.
Well, in a good file system, you can make a set of directories like this: (since we're using porn as an example)/porn/movies (contains movies) /porn/stills (contains stills) /porn/text (contains text) /porn/perverted (contains symbolic links to files in the above) /porn/spicy (ditto) /porn/nice (ditto)
Some platforms are much better suited to doing this (unix), while others (Win) are not.
Now, having the ability to automatically generate the symbolic links would be nice.
This is probably the largest reason I don't use IDE in production outside of workstations. SCSI drives normally have 128-256 heads (unless something has drastically changed, in which case I'll no doubt be corrected), where IDE in any flavor has 16. For a home system, it's fine, but for server environments, that's just not gonna fly. Especially where you're constantly accessing numerous files (db, email, 10k virtual site webserver) more heads improve the access rate and help on the ol' wear and tear as well.
Eh?
The last time I checked a modern drive, heads = platters * 2.
I've never taken apart a drive and seen more than one head per platter side.
Care to point me to a drive that does? I'd love to disassemble it.
Your figure of up to 256 heads per drive on a SCSI drive is very interesting. What size drive has 256 heads? Is it 8 platters with 16 heads per side?
Lucky bastard! Even more so if it was full auto. If so, hope your friend has Class III paperwork on it. How many rounds in that drum mag?
Yeah, it was full auto, and he's got all his Class III paperwork on it. The drum mag holds 50 rounds, and it takes about 10 seconds to empty it.
Drill sergeants don't like to make many distinctions, now do they?:) I've often wondered if there's a section called "How to Torture Unsuspecting Privates" in Drill Sergeant School. I swear, one of my drill sergeants could say it in one word - DROPSONBEATCHAFACE!
Did you do the drill first day of BT where you had to line up all of your bags? They make you line 'em up, march away from them, and then do an about face... if it looks bad, you do pushups.
Well, about 6 weeks into basic, we see a new battery come in, and watch them line up the bags... turns out, as they were marching away, the drill sergeants were kicking their gear around making it look bad... did that to them a couple of times.
So, at the end of basic we asked our drill sergeant about it... well, it turns out that they always make the new guys do it three times, and that sometimes on the third try, they have to go and line up their gear for them!
Amazing what they do.
I'm not on active duty. [sigh] I was but a Weekend Warrior, a No-Go, one of the Nasty Guard.
Nothing wrong with the guard.
My MOS was 95B (Of the Troops, and For the Troops . . . riiiight! Truth is, MPs now are basically One-One Boogaloo, what with the government giving so many former military jobs to civilians. Don't get me started.)
I won't... I understand completely. We had some MPs and some Federal Police at Ft. Drum.
You seem to have gotten out after eight years, how come?
It's a long story that I've been itching to tell to someone who knows how the system works...
Well, I spent 4 years on active duty... got out and went to IRR. Meanwhile, the VA approved 20% service-connected disability. So I stayed on IRR instead of choosing a reserve unit. September 11th happens, and I get a letter telling me to report to MEPS a couple days after the president says he's going to activate 35,000 IRR soldiers.
I go to MEPS and they can't process me due to some paperwork problems. Meanwhile, it's getting on a year to my reserve ETS, and my physical exam is out of date. So they schedule me for a physical, and my career manager is getting on me to reenlist, and also tells me that I can go to PLDC whenever I choose, and am guaranteed promotion to E-5.
So I say, fine... they schedule my physical, and my paperwork gets sent in... well, since I have a VA disability rating, my paperwork goes to the friggin' U.S. Surgeon General's office for his staff (or himself) to look at. Meanwhile, my ETS date comes up.
My career manager asks if I intend to reenlist. I say "yes." He says he'll need me to extend so that my papers can be processed. I get my extension paperwork ON my ETS date, then I have to locate an officer to administer the oath.
It takes about a week to do that, and on the same day I get the papers signed, I get in the mail my certificate of honorable discharge and discharge orders. I call up my career manager, and he's out sick. Left voice mail and haven't heard back.
So, I think the Army made up their mind on what to do with me.
And refresh my memory as to what 13F is - Bradley crewman? TOW gunner?
Field Artillery Fire Support Specialist... also known as a Forward Observer.
The eyes of the artillery, though mostly I did target processing for FA radar.
Since this topic was about handguns, I was thinking of a handgun slam-fire scenario. I honestly can't think of one right off hand. You? You seem more knowledgeable about these things than I. However, I did read about a Glock slam-firing once, but I chalked that up to "one of those things you read on the Internet." Given the design, I really cannot see how that could happen.
You're right, it was about handguns... and I can't think of any situation where a handgun has slam-fired, given the usual design of a handgun, it seems unlikely.
10th Mountain Div., huh?
Indeed! I was assigned to 10th Target Acquisition Detachment for three years. Fscking cold up there!
It was fun, though. Every now and then I even miss it.
If not a field grade Article 15, he got off light.
I'm positive it was field grade.
Among other training incidents... I saw someone fire a tracer into the ground about 10 feet in front of them... the bullet ricochets, and spins up, tracer still lit, and the bottom-spin motion carries it back to the firing line, where it drops down about 10 feet from me.
I started calling a cease fire, and one of the sergeants yanks this guy out of the foxhole.
At least it didn't hit anyone... would have caused a nasty flesh wound.
Slashdot Mirror
*looks at honorable discharge on the wall*
Been there, done that.
Did anyone else read "European Life in Doubt"?
Yes, I read it that way, as well. It made sense, too. It confirmed what I'd suspected for a long time.
So, what you're saying is... that if you wrote software that you intended to charge money for via licensing, you'd be okay with people going ahead and making all the copies they want? (and pass them to their friends, who do the same.) That wouldn't piss you off? What if more people copied it for free than paid you for it?
If you wrote a book, which you intended to earn money from the time and thought you put into it, by selling copies of the book, and people just started photocopying it instead of buying it, you're okay with that?
If you write a thesis paper in college, after countless hours of research and thinking, and someone else takes it, copies it, and turns it in, benefiting from your work, you're fine with that?
If not, then what if you wrote some word processing software (which you wanted to earn your retirement from), which people then copied without paying you for your time and effort? What if they took that software, used it, and earned money using it, benefiting from your work? Is that okay, too?
I wouldn't be okay with any of these, if I was the one trying to make a few bucks writing software, books, or research papers.
I go to a poor college, which is now facing another 6 million dollar budget cut. I am also in the student government. (yeah, no laughing, I'm a sucker.)
Anyway, the school doesn't allow external machines on the network, and I don't have a portable printer, so I am stuck with having to transfer files from my laptop to one of the P200MMXs we have in the office, so I can use the student gov't printer to print student gov't work that I do on my own machine.
Now, this was fine with my old laptop, but my new Vaio didn't come with a floppy drive. But hey, it's got a memory stick reader and USB! Well, none of the machines I have access to have USB, so I can't get a memory stick reader, and I can't use other USB devices.
Well, the Vaio has a CD-RW/DVD combo drive... burn CDs, right? Wrong. The machines in the office don't have optical drives, either. I told you we are a poor college with massive budget cuts.
It's floppy or nothing.
It also goes to show that yes, people would use processors from 15 years ago... well, at least 5 years ago.
Whose bright idea was that? No-one the shuttles are so expensive to run. All the tiles apart from the ones around the edges should be identical, and the other ones should be smaller than the regular ones so one can be cut to fit.
I'm not a materials expert, and I didn't check with NASA on this, but I think it probably has to do with the heat absorption/radiation rate of the tile materials in regards to the mass of individual tiles. I imagine that they have to be a certain specific mass, density, and thickness... the shuttle's dimensions are probably not related to the tile dimensions. This would mean that they all would be unique, with practically infinite combinations of tiles possible depending on where you decided the "cornerstone" tile would be placed.
Of course, they also all have to fit together absolutely perfectly. If you look at close ups of the shuttle, you can see a lot of different tile shapes, and they all seem to have similar surface area, which supports my above theory.
I remember seeing a demonstration of the tile when I was a kid... they heated the tile up really hot, to where it was glowing sufficiently... they waited for the edges to cool, and this guy picks up the tile by the corners, with his bare hands, while the center was glowing with heat!
1) Laying the groundwork for American colonization and exploitation of space
Yeah, so what?
Western society has fucked up Africa and Asia through colonization
That was mostly Britain and Spain, but we'll let that one go, since we did reap some of the benefit.
Furthermore, who gives anyone the right to plant an American flag on the moon, as if the US has conquered something.
We can because we did. Then we signed a treaty saying we wouldn't claim any part of the moon as territory. But, we can certainly claim to have landed there, and we left the proof, and our identity, by leaving our flag there. We conquered a barrier by landing on the moon, and we have every right to claim it and lay the proof.
I didn't realize you could put dibs on parts of the universe. Do we really need nationalism in space too?
Nobody put "dibs" anywhere. And, remember that nationalism got us to space. Kennedy and Johnson were drumming up nationalism to support the space program back during the Apollo missions.
Not all national pride is bad, you know.
Military Exploits - Reagan didn't get Star Wars in the 80's, now his bastard sons (the Bush family) are going to take another stab at it. Space, the final frontier: now being used as missile bases to kill innocent civilians in countries that happen to be anti-US. Can't wait!
Prove that we're putting missile bases in space. Come on, prove it. We're all still waiting, you know.
Scientific Knowledge - Oh, and it's of no coincidence that this was listed last. Think about it, the US government is throwing millions of dollars at a program for common good of the world? Think again.
Science is *always* beneficial to mankind.
If you want space to be as shitty and capitalistic as the US-dominated world is now, then I guess you'll love NASA. Essentially 7 colonizers died today, one of which was an Israeli colonel -- I'm so distressed -- not.
You are so out of touch with reality that I'm not sure why I am bothering to respond. You're a sick piece of shit for even saying that last sentence.
Funny that when 7 people die on US land the whole world sends their condolences, but when US weapons kill thousands every day no one winks an eye.
Maybe you can point out exactly what you are talking about? Or, are you just dreaming up numbers by swallowing the made-up cumshot statistics of left-wing radicals?
7 people dead in a space shuttle don't really mean much when your president is planning to kill 300,000 people in only one fucking DAY in Iraq.
Again, how are you getting your numbers, and how are you know exactly what the president is planning? Can I assume he told you personally?
Get your heads out of your ass and realize the world does not revolve around you, stupid Americans.
My head is out of my ass, you lying bigot. Let's remind ourselves of some of the more "stupid" things Americans have done:
We'll start with bailing Europe out of two World Wars. Then, we can point out that we give over six million metric tons of food to foreign countries every year, under multiple programs.
Let's also think about how we have conducted recent war effors. When it has been tactically sound, we have dropped leaflets in places with assets to be bombed, so that civilians can leave. I was in the military, and I understand *exactly* how hard it is to avoid collateral damage. Even at the best accuracy, I could only expect the artillery I was calling fire from to be within 100 meters of the center of the target, and no more accurate.
We go out of our way for precision targeting... don't whine about collateral civilian damage to non-military targets until you've tried to perform the job of having to hit military targets that people like Saddam Hussein put right in the middle of neighborhoods and right next to schools. The simple fact is, we are far better than some other countries are.
Why aren't you bitching about what the Russians do in Chechnya?
BTW, I'm American.
Liar. Go fuck yourself. And, if you are an American, you're a fucking apologist for the 9/11 terrorists, and a pile of shit on the landscape of humanity. May you rot in hell with Hitler, Hussein, Lenin, and the 9/11 terrorists.
You deserve it.
Has anybody explained why they couldn't have done a spacewalk to inspect the damage from the insulation strike?
Yes, they have. It was not possible to inspect the bottom of the shuttle during this flight because (1) the cargo bay was being occupied by the science package and had no remote manipulator, (2) there are no handles or tethers on the bottom of the shuttle, and (3), shuttles are simply not equipped nor is it recommended for spacewalks to occur without tethering or the robotic arm. Thus, no spacewalks to the bottom of the shuttle.
All I've heard is that it wouldn't have made any difference if they had done one, since they weren't equipped to repair it.
I think also that the Columbia is too heavy to make the higher orbit of the ISS, and OMS and RCS thrusters would not have been enough to boost it to that level. The Columbia is heavier because it was overbuilt... the later shuttles are much lighter. This is why the Columbia has *never* gone to the ISS.
Even if they did find the damage, they also have no way to fix it. All of the tens of thousands of tiles on the surface of the shuttle are unique. Each one has different dimensions, and fits in only one place. Obviously, it would be impossible to carry a replacement for every one.
Lastly, if they discovered the problem during reentry maneuvers, it was still too late. The best NASA could have done was say "It was nice knowing you. God be with you." Once the reentry sequence has started, there is no way to abort. Either they make it, or they don't.
Now, that's a much better solution.
Yeah, bluetooth on my digital cam would be cool... save me having to pop out the MM card and drop it into the PC.
I can definitely see uses for wireless interoperability, and BT surpasses IR for most applications.
Potato's as weapons. You could supply an army and feed them at the same time. Kill two birds with one stone.
Yeah, except you also feed the enemy when you shoot potatos at them and miss.
Ahhh the days of design tech.
I designed a pneumatic gun with interchangeable barrels that was designed to fire anything from a shooter marble all the way up to a roll of toilet paper.
Dual pressure guages, expandable air chamber, positive-pressure locking system, and one-way airflow between the firing pressure chamber and the main air chamber.
Paint sprayer parts make the bulk of the guts.
Ahhh.... I really should finish putting it together. It'd be great to actually fire it. I wanted muzzle velocity to exceed the speed of sound.
I'm personally annoyed by this integration of digital devices. I want discrete components.
I don't want a cell phone at all.
I do want a digital camera, but I want interchangeable lenses, etc. I bet this PDA doesn't have that.
I want an MP3 player. I don't want a cell phone with it. When I'm listening to music, I don't want the bloody phone to ring.
I want a digital camera. I don't want to take my PDA on vacation. What good is a PDA in the middle of nowhere when you're camping?
I do NOT want a built-in camera on every single digital thingie I own.
I'd rather have all these things separate, and better, rather than integrated into one-size-fits-all piece of shit that is more "cool" than it is "useful."
The suit asks a judge to force the cyber-auctioneer to filter words like "fraud, liar, cheater, scam artist, con man" from the site...
That's amusing. A lawyer demanding that Ebay filter all words that most people use when describing lawyers.
Those are exactly the words my father used when his attorney charged him $600 for a three-minute phone call that blew the $25,000 deal my father was negotiating.
Next time you have can of beer or whatever, try holding it up just above your noodle, where your bladder would be inside. I mean, that much volume of liquid has to be inside you... and it's gotta come out!
... main path, so to speak.
Close... but you also forget sweat and breathing, which also expel moisture. I would say that you guess higher than average.
My guess would be one to three beers => one piss, depending on several factors, including: Bladder size, current hydration of the body, the rate of water expelled via lungs or skin, and the fact that some of that liquid travels all the way down the
a floor cleaner... and a desert topping!
You put Pine Sol on top of your Mojaves and Saharas?
Freak.
Uh huh. All other countries are perfect.
Let's look at Britain's record: (I'll use years when I know them)
"Colonial" efforts in: Africa, China, Australia, North America, India, New Zealand, and nearly every other region they thought was weaker than Britain.
Siezure of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland against the inhabitant's wishes.
Exploitation of slave labor in/from Africa, India, China, and the Americas.
Outright piracy on the high seas during the 18th and 19th centuries, including forced/conscripted labor of American hostages taken.
Exile of political prisoners taken from Scotland.
Monopolistic trade of slaves from Africa.
Trafficking of opium.
The brutal suppression of the Matabele Revolt.
I don't want to enumerate the wars Britain started or provoked based on the trade of tea, slaves, gold, diamonds, and other products.
Destruction and dissection of the Ottoman Empire which led to many of the problems in the middle east, today.
A good list of wars and battles that Britain participated in, started, and/or provoked can be found here:
http://www.regiments.org/milhist/wars/wars.htm
One more question: could you please explain to me why you need to have an expert training in handling guns, combat skills and killing people to do all of the above ?
I never denied that killing people is one of the jobs of the military. As a soldier, if I have to kill people, I want the best training, the best weapons, and the best skills, so that I may better kill the enemy before they kill me. Simple enough. That's what the expert training is for.
The people in the military deserve nothing less than the best of all those things, because usually their ass is on the line in combat due to what politicians want. The politicians, and the people they work for (you) owe it to every member of the military to give them the best equipment and the best training you can afford for as long as you think it's a good idea to have a military.
If you think it's not a good idea to have a military, start coming up with damn good reasons not to have them. And make sure you include among those reasons "no other country would attack us, not now, not ever, no matter what our national policies are." Until you can say that, you need the military.
On the original thread, and response to the above quoted: The reason the military is used for relief, rescue, disaster clean-up, food delivery, and all of the aforementioned things is, that those jobs require people with strength, resolve, discipline, and intestinal fortitude. There is a large supply of those attributes in the military.
That's 10-50 billion spent between now and 2010, at least it makes a lot more sense than spendig $360 billion of the taxpayers money per year on people and technology whose sole purpose it is to kill other human beings.
Ahh yes, because we all know that that's all the military does, and we've never gone as a presence for peaceful observation, we never delivered food to Haiti and other countries, and we never cleaned up after Hurricane Andrew, Ice Storm 98, and other natural disasters. The National Guard never helped out with the relief efforts for any earthquake in California, and we all know that only civilians cleaned up the rubble and looked for survivors in the World Trade Center wreckage.
Maybe while I was doing some of the above, I was really in some Army experimental brain-stimulation gear where they fed me a computer generated world, in which I did all those things. Maybe I should think about it. I might have met Keanu Reeves there.
I spent 8 years in the Army, both active duty and reserve, and I saved more lives than I took. As a matter of fact, I didn't have to kill a single person that entire time.
I would have, but that's not the "sole purpose" of the military, and I'm really fed up with people like you who don't bother to point out that the military has plenty of other jobs besides killing people.
You are one of the same kinds of people like the lady who had the nerve to insult me and the U.S. Army less than a month after we cleaned up their entire town after a huge storm went through and killed a bunch of people, wiped out most of the electrical infrastructure, and put thousands of people out of their homes.
We provided shelter, cut down and disposed of trees, provided food, brough out a ton of 60Kw generators so that farmers and hospitals would have electricity, and saved a few lives.
The day that woman insulted me and my friends as we stood in line to buy some food by saying "Well, gee, you can tell it's Army payday today" in that patronizing tone of voice with the sour expression on her face, as soon as she walked in the door, told me everything I needed to know about the people I'd been giving up sleep and doing hard work for.
You're welcome.
What if the fellow programmer walks in and catches you talking to a rubber duck? :)
Better than if he walks in and catches you talking (or worse) to a rubber chick...
I just got my Honorable discharge a month ago.
This would have been a fun project to work on, even if it is just someone's research idea that will never come to pass. It would have been damn fun to be the test driver or T.C. for this thing.
Is anyone else a little skeptical of the "read all e-mails sent near the truck" capability? Have they not heard of encryption?
Maybe they are using van Eck (Tempest) phreaking. (Google it if you don't know what it is.)
If one could capture what was on someone else's monitor, a computer could OCR it easy enough. A computer could probably locate the signal, as well. This would provide for the possibility of an automatic capture system.
Also, since you generally don't type e-mail in encrypted form, it's irrelevent.
This is just speculation, mind you.
lib/vsprintf.c: * Wirzenius wrote this portably, Torvalds fucked it up :-)
That's my favorite line in the entire kernel!
3. Some items do not fit into the hierarchical structure. Should my porn directory be organized into movies, stills and texts or perhaps perverted, spicy and nice? Whichever atrribute I choose I will have trouble searching on the other.
/porn/movies (contains movies)
/porn/stills (contains stills)
/porn/text (contains text)
/porn/perverted (contains symbolic links to files in the above)
/porn/spicy (ditto)
/porn/nice (ditto)
Well, in a good file system, you can make a set of directories like this: (since we're using porn as an example)
Some platforms are much better suited to doing this (unix), while others (Win) are not.
Now, having the ability to automatically generate the symbolic links would be nice.
This is probably the largest reason I don't use IDE in production outside of workstations. SCSI drives normally have 128-256 heads (unless something has drastically changed, in which case I'll no doubt be corrected), where IDE in any flavor has 16. For a home system, it's fine, but for server environments, that's just not gonna fly. Especially where you're constantly accessing numerous files (db, email, 10k virtual site webserver) more heads improve the access rate and help on the ol' wear and tear as well.
Eh?
The last time I checked a modern drive, heads = platters * 2.
I've never taken apart a drive and seen more than one head per platter side.
Care to point me to a drive that does? I'd love to disassemble it.
Your figure of up to 256 heads per drive on a SCSI drive is very interesting. What size drive has 256 heads? Is it 8 platters with 16 heads per side?
Lucky bastard! Even more so if it was full auto. If so, hope your friend has Class III paperwork on it. How many rounds in that drum mag?
:) I've often wondered if there's a section called "How to Torture Unsuspecting Privates" in Drill Sergeant School. I swear, one of my drill sergeants could say it in one word - DROPSONBEATCHAFACE!
Yeah, it was full auto, and he's got all his Class III paperwork on it. The drum mag holds 50 rounds, and it takes about 10 seconds to empty it.
Drill sergeants don't like to make many distinctions, now do they?
Did you do the drill first day of BT where you had to line up all of your bags? They make you line 'em up, march away from them, and then do an about face... if it looks bad, you do pushups.
Well, about 6 weeks into basic, we see a new battery come in, and watch them line up the bags... turns out, as they were marching away, the drill sergeants were kicking their gear around making it look bad... did that to them a couple of times.
So, at the end of basic we asked our drill sergeant about it... well, it turns out that they always make the new guys do it three times, and that sometimes on the third try, they have to go and line up their gear for them!
Amazing what they do.
I'm not on active duty. [sigh] I was but a Weekend Warrior, a No-Go, one of the Nasty Guard.
Nothing wrong with the guard.
My MOS was 95B (Of the Troops, and For the Troops . . . riiiight! Truth is, MPs now are basically One-One Boogaloo, what with the government giving so many former military jobs to civilians. Don't get me started.)
I won't... I understand completely. We had some MPs and some Federal Police at Ft. Drum.
You seem to have gotten out after eight years, how come?
It's a long story that I've been itching to tell to someone who knows how the system works...
Well, I spent 4 years on active duty... got out and went to IRR. Meanwhile, the VA approved 20% service-connected disability. So I stayed on IRR instead of choosing a reserve unit. September 11th happens, and I get a letter telling me to report to MEPS a couple days after the president says he's going to activate 35,000 IRR soldiers.
I go to MEPS and they can't process me due to some paperwork problems. Meanwhile, it's getting on a year to my reserve ETS, and my physical exam is out of date. So they schedule me for a physical, and my career manager is getting on me to reenlist, and also tells me that I can go to PLDC whenever I choose, and am guaranteed promotion to E-5.
So I say, fine... they schedule my physical, and my paperwork gets sent in... well, since I have a VA disability rating, my paperwork goes to the friggin' U.S. Surgeon General's office for his staff (or himself) to look at. Meanwhile, my ETS date comes up.
My career manager asks if I intend to reenlist. I say "yes." He says he'll need me to extend so that my papers can be processed. I get my extension paperwork ON my ETS date, then I have to locate an officer to administer the oath.
It takes about a week to do that, and on the same day I get the papers signed, I get in the mail my certificate of honorable discharge and discharge orders. I call up my career manager, and he's out sick. Left voice mail and haven't heard back.
So, I think the Army made up their mind on what to do with me.
And refresh my memory as to what 13F is - Bradley crewman? TOW gunner?
Field Artillery Fire Support Specialist... also known as a Forward Observer.
The eyes of the artillery, though mostly I did target processing for FA radar.
Since this topic was about handguns, I was thinking of a handgun slam-fire scenario. I honestly can't think of one right off hand. You? You seem more knowledgeable about these things than I. However, I did read about a Glock slam-firing once, but I chalked that up to "one of those things you read on the Internet." Given the design, I really cannot see how that could happen.
You're right, it was about handguns... and I can't think of any situation where a handgun has slam-fired, given the usual design of a handgun, it seems unlikely.
10th Mountain Div., huh?
Indeed! I was assigned to 10th Target Acquisition Detachment for three years. Fscking cold up there!
It was fun, though. Every now and then I even miss it.
If not a field grade Article 15, he got off light.
I'm positive it was field grade.
Among other training incidents... I saw someone fire a tracer into the ground about 10 feet in front of them... the bullet ricochets, and spins up, tracer still lit, and the bottom-spin motion carries it back to the firing line, where it drops down about 10 feet from me.
I started calling a cease fire, and one of the sergeants yanks this guy out of the foxhole.
At least it didn't hit anyone... would have caused a nasty flesh wound.