...but that's just the tip of the iceberg. You've got to worry about the costs of securing antenna time (not cheap), the costs of computing time (also not cheap), and the costs of maintaining the facilities that could be used for other purposes...
But most importantly, you have to worry about the cost of decades of mismanaging a white elephant manned space station project and its associated fleet of hyper-expensive shuttles. It's hard to come up with a couple of million dollars after you've poured 100 Billion down the shit hole.
The problem is that this space junk will collide with other space junk, leading to smaller, faster moving pieces of junk. This small, undetectable junk will smack into good equipment, leading to even more space junk. Before you know it, there's a chain reaction, and near earth orbit becomes an unsuitable wasteland of high velocity particles.
This scenario sounds like a certain late-70's video game. We can effectively solve this problem by installing a hyperspace button on every spacecraft. You just have to assign one of the crew members sit near the button at all times and look out for incoming debris.
The only thing that ISPs will accomplish by attempting to restrict Internet usage by protocol will be to accelerate of Bill Gates' grand.NET plan to move every online operation to port 80. In the end, it's a waste of time.
Re:This is a weapon of massless destruction
on
Lunar Lasers
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
The article talks about a beam that has 20% of the sun's power density, i.e., less than 150 W per square meter.
If this is so, then why bother with this system at all? A direct solar collector on earth could generate nearly as much energy per square meter as the receiver antenna. Even if you needed 5X more solar collector area on earth as microwave receivers due to efficiency, night and clouds, you'd still come out ahead because wouldn't need to pay interest on a trillion dollar lunar infrastructure.
However, the real monopoly-in-training here is Ballard Power (BLDP), who have most of the patents involved in converting that Hydrogen into electricity.
Don't forget that power technology doesn't work on Internet time. By the time fuel cells become pervasive enough for people to worry about a monopoly, most of these patents will probably have expired.
Does anyone know how these early long distance
radios worked? IIRC, vacuum tubes were not invented
until a later date. Was there any kind of amplification
used? Did they use oscillators, or was it still
just a 'spark gap' kind of thing?
I think that you're overstating things a bit.
For example, one of America's most important contributions
to world heritage is the "value meal".
However, we only really added
packaging and marketing to this phenomenon. At its core, it still
is comprised of two European concepts: the
French fry and the Hamburger.
I've always thought that if I built a dream house, it would have a utility core that could access every room. Something like a 18-inch wide gap within the main central walls of the house that you could walk in. That way, I could route wires and install electronic equipment to my heart's content.
Of course, the only proper entryway for something like this would be a button that makes a bookshelf swing open...
Could the biggest problem with Linux usability
be that most of the people teaching newbies to use
Linux are too smart and know too much?
If this is so, then the secret to Microsoft's success
with usable operating systems must be that Microsoft people aren't
very smart or knowledgable. That implies that Apple people
must be totally ignorant morons. A description
of Amiga poeple would be unprintable on this public forum.
The line between effective sarcasm and trolling is pretty fine. Lately, though, I tend to agree with the style pundits who say that emoticons are lame, so I usually leave them off. It's kind of interesting to see how people react.
Once people started writing emulators for all of
the old classic computer systems, there was no
reason for anyone to go out and buy the real thing.
The hackers stole the liveleyhoods of the Z80
designers. I hope they can sleep at night.
You can say this all you want, but until I see
all the data to draw my own conclusion, it's just
words
People keep telling me that the earth is round.
I haven't actually taken a trip around this
supposed "sphere" myself, so I remain skeptical.
Until it is proven to me that the earth is not
in fact an infinite plane, I will exercise my
individual "right" to expend as much of its
potentially infinite resources as possible.
Re:Hard to install and setup?
on
Future Of IDS
·
· Score: 5, Funny
That sounds a little like the South Park underpants gnomes' business model:
Yes, if your force your kid's world view to be a proper subset of your world view, then you will be guaranteed to be compatible. Never mind if your kid turns out to be an intellectual bonsai kitten.
So, SOMEONE must be able to tell me what's so *great* about Ruby that we should start calling Python obsolete.
Ruby's iterators. IMHO, this simple construct provides 80% of the what's truly useful in a functional language without the ivory tower weirdness.
Having said that, Python 2.2 is soon adding it's own iterators and generators. They looks slightly less elegant, but I havent' tried them yet, so I can't be totally sure; they might be better.
Slot machines are a natural fit for MS...
on
Windows XP Embedded
·
· Score: 2, Troll
...as historically, slot machines have often been found to be controlled by criminal organizations. After they were affirmed guilty by the appeals court, MS realized that slot machine control was a natural extension of their business plan.
Linux is not ready for the Enterprise. There is not a single voice-controlled app for any of the mission-critical functions of the Enterprise. Conspicuously absent are warp core control, phaser bank activation, interstellar navigation, transporter operation and the all-important self destruct sequence. Until these and thousands of other important apps are written and deployed, Linux will just be a toy in the Enterprise.
With FTP I could just drag the root folder into the upload window and say "replace only files changed today" without having to go into 12 different folders and sub-folders and check off individual files.
IIRC, you can tell rsync to connect over ssh to do this kind of job.
You can fix most quality problems with audio on your computer by carefully coloring the case of your hard drive with a green marker. Too many people give MP3s a bad rap because they don't know this simple tip.
Is anyone else wondering whether this means that it would soon be mandatory for software that is used in the US to have exploitable security flaws in order to better catch terrorists?
It doesn't need to be as complex as that. They could just require that all computers contain a user account named 'fbi', group 'root', password 'jedGaRHoOVer'. Simple.
Failure to support the account would be considered an act of harboring terrorists. Civilians using this account would be considered impersonating a federal agent: that's illegal, so there won't be a problem with unauthorized access.
Slashdot Mirror
But most importantly, you have to worry about the cost of decades of mismanaging a white elephant manned space station project and its associated fleet of hyper-expensive shuttles. It's hard to come up with a couple of million dollars after you've poured 100 Billion down the shit hole.
This scenario sounds like a certain late-70's video game. We can effectively solve this problem by installing a hyperspace button on every spacecraft. You just have to assign one of the crew members sit near the button at all times and look out for incoming debris.
Kirk What is it, Mr. Chekhov?
Chekhov Captain, three Russian wwessels have just decloaked and are on the main viewscreen. We are surrounded.
Kirk Arm photon torpedoes.
Checkhov I don't think I can do that, sir. Now, don't make a move or I'll vaporise this bridge. Prepare for boarding party.
Or is it just that they didn't know if it was *water* ice or not?
Of course it's water ice. Why would the Martians go to the trouble of building a planet-wide canal system if there was no water to fill them up?
The only thing that ISPs will accomplish by attempting to restrict Internet usage by protocol will be to accelerate of Bill Gates' grand .NET plan to move every online operation to port 80. In the end, it's a waste of time.
If this is so, then why bother with this system at all? A direct solar collector on earth could generate nearly as much energy per square meter as the receiver antenna. Even if you needed 5X more solar collector area on earth as microwave receivers due to efficiency, night and clouds, you'd still come out ahead because wouldn't need to pay interest on a trillion dollar lunar infrastructure.
Don't forget that power technology doesn't work on Internet time. By the time fuel cells become pervasive enough for people to worry about a monopoly, most of these patents will probably have expired.
Does anyone know how these early long distance radios worked? IIRC, vacuum tubes were not invented until a later date. Was there any kind of amplification used? Did they use oscillators, or was it still just a 'spark gap' kind of thing?
I think that you're overstating things a bit. For example, one of America's most important contributions to world heritage is the "value meal". However, we only really added packaging and marketing to this phenomenon. At its core, it still is comprised of two European concepts: the French fry and the Hamburger.
Of course, the only proper entryway for something like this would be a button that makes a bookshelf swing open...
If this is so, then the secret to Microsoft's success with usable operating systems must be that Microsoft people aren't very smart or knowledgable. That implies that Apple people must be totally ignorant morons. A description of Amiga poeple would be unprintable on this public forum.
The line between effective sarcasm and trolling is pretty fine.
Lately, though, I tend to agree with
the style pundits who say that emoticons are lame,
so I usually leave them off. It's kind of interesting
to see how people react.
Once people started writing emulators for all of the old classic computer systems, there was no reason for anyone to go out and buy the real thing. The hackers stole the liveleyhoods of the Z80 designers. I hope they can sleep at night.
People keep telling me that the earth is round. I haven't actually taken a trip around this supposed "sphere" myself, so I remain skeptical.
Until it is proven to me that the earth is not in fact an infinite plane, I will exercise my individual "right" to expend as much of its potentially infinite resources as possible.
Phase 1: apt-get install snort
Phase 2:
Phase 3: Security!
So very true. Homeschooling solves the problem.
Yes, if your force your kid's world view to be a proper subset of your world view, then you will be guaranteed to be compatible. Never mind if your kid turns out to be an intellectual bonsai kitten.
Maybe these iBooks are equipped with keyboards that feature pictures of fast-food items.
Modifier key mappings:
Ctrl -> Value Meal
Meta-> Super Size
I'm only now on chapter two of learning python. gonna have to wait till i can do more than just
print "Hello, World"
before i try to learn something else.
You're in luck. That code is valid for both Python and Ruby. If you stay on this track, you'll master both languages in no time.
So, SOMEONE must be able to tell me what's so *great* about Ruby that we should start calling Python obsolete.
Ruby's iterators. IMHO, this simple construct provides 80% of the what's truly useful in a functional language without the ivory tower weirdness.
Having said that, Python 2.2 is soon adding it's own iterators and generators. They looks slightly less elegant, but I havent' tried them yet, so I can't be totally sure; they might be better.
...as historically, slot machines have often been found to be controlled by criminal organizations. After they were affirmed guilty by the appeals court, MS realized that slot machine control was a natural extension of their business plan.
Linux is not ready for the Enterprise. There is not a single voice-controlled app for any of the mission-critical functions of the Enterprise. Conspicuously absent are warp core control, phaser bank activation, interstellar navigation, transporter operation and the all-important self destruct sequence. Until these and thousands of other important apps are written and deployed, Linux will just be a toy in the Enterprise.
With FTP I could just drag the root folder into the upload window and say "replace only files changed today" without having to go into 12 different folders and sub-folders and check off individual files.
IIRC, you can tell rsync to connect over ssh to do this kind of job.
You can fix most quality problems with audio on
your computer by carefully coloring the case of
your hard drive with a green marker. Too many
people give MP3s a bad rap because they don't
know this simple tip.
This software may not be used to control aircraft, nuclear power plants, or anybody's mind.
It doesn't need to be as complex as that. They could just require that all computers contain a user account named 'fbi', group 'root', password 'jedGaRHoOVer'. Simple.
Failure to support the account would be considered an act of harboring terrorists. Civilians using this account would be considered impersonating a federal agent: that's illegal, so there won't be a problem with unauthorized access.