> sending people to an Earth-crossing asteroid; establishing a lunar base
Why bother sending people to an Earth-crossing asteroid?
And why bother with a lunar base? Is there anything there worth bothering with? If not, just stick to the LaGrange points - much better for boosting out of the Earth-Moon system. Might be good to stick some telescopes on the far side of the Moon (really - there is no 'Dark' side of the Moon), though putting them in orbit nets a better picture, especially if it's orbiting the Moon.
Yes, we need a real plan for space exploration, but let's not do everything we can just because we can. And bring back the DC-X, fuckers!
> these 'foot mice' as I have heard them referred to
I always called them 'bearclaw,' myself, as I didn't have any other name for them.:)
I just got an MX500 (optical scroller) last month, and, while not as comfy in my hand as a bearclaw model, it'll do. Too many buttons, though. While 1 button Mac mice are ridiculous, any more than three is a bit much, methinks. I wouldn't mind trying one of those side-scrollers that MS just put out.
A Logitech WingMan Gaming mouse. Unfortunately, they never upgraded that mouse shape with a scrollwheel or optical ability, so, c'est la vie. I'd kill for a optical scrollwheel version of that mouse. *sigh*
"That board with the nail in it may have defeated us, but the humans won't stop there. They'll make bigger boards and bigger nails. Soon they will make a board with a nail so big it will destroy them all!" - Kang & Kodos
Hey, that gives me an idea for a grant proposal...then again, so does my.sig.
Okay, back in the day(tm), I worked in technical support at Spry, makers of Internet in a Box(tm). One of my duties was to write up bug reports for the internal support system for the tech support reps.
Turns out we had a bug in Spry Mosaic that, when it hit an empty IMG tag (as in, nothing else in the tag but the letters IMG), it would instantly crash. When I wrote up the document, I forgot to escape the less-than and greater-than marks, so it put the actual tag in the tech support document.
The upshot - when the tech support reps searched the database for 'crash in browser', one of the hits that would come up was the document I made - when they loaded it to see the details on 'crash in browser', that's exactly what they got. Ooops.
Going public at that time was not the idea of Drs Pons & Fleischmann - it was that of the University where they worked at the time, eager for some publicity. They were basically forced to go along. Unfortunate for them, as it pretty much destroyed their careers.
I'm _really_ wanting someone to make a miniITX version with TV-out. That'll make for some great HTPC action.
Also a microATX or even ATX desktop mobo would be very nice. I think Intel needs to up their IPC in future processors - they're getting just TOO damned hot. Prescott is expected to pump out 105W! That's insane. Within a couple years, they're going to require water cooling if they don't get the heat dissipation under control.
> For a while after the P4 came out it was widely thought to be a failure because of those trade-offs, but then they ramped it up to faster clock speeds and more software came out taking advantage of SSE2.
> There was once a president called Benjamin Franklin.
Not in the U.S., there wasn't. Franklin was never a President, though that hardly diminishes his contributions.
It's well nigh impossible to determine what the founding fathers would think about a great number of things going on in the U.S. today. I daresay people like Franklin and others would be quite aghast at some of the social ills of our time, and would likely consider those higher priorities than manned missions to Mars or other such things. Then again, if those people were still alive today, we might not be IN the mess we're in today. *shrug* A moo point, as Joey says, it's like a cow speaking - nobody cares.:)
> I agree 100%. But LaGrange will be expensive to get to.
Once you're in orbit, it's not that bad. If you can get to orbit, you can get to a LaGrange point.
The real problem is convincing those with the purse strings that there's a tangible benefit in doing this, and with the U.S. economy like it is, and the 'President' we've currently got, I just don't see that happening anytime soon.
> Let's send lots of people and millions of tones of cargo into LEO to see what they come up with.
Send all that into *LEO*?! No way. Instead, populate the LaGrange points. Anything sent into LEO will come down unless kept there by expending energy.
The LaGrange points are the only places that make sense for permanent near-Earth habitation.
I remember one of the original ideas about the Shuttle was that they could leave the fuel tanks in orbit and use them to build space stations & the like. Whatever happened to that idea? Those things are friggin' huge - since it's up there, ya might as well use them rather than letting them burn up on reentry.
Slashdot Mirror
> partial zero emissions
:)
What the hell is a 'partial zero'?
Plus, if BioDiesel ever takes off in the U.S., you may be able to use it with little to no modification. Yay!
Mmm, good point, and the Moon's gravity being so much less than Earth's, anything that CAN be made on the Moon, _should_ be.
:)
Okay, I'm a believer, now.
FYI - there are several LaGrange points, each useful for different things. Interesting stuff - you should check it out.
> How about resources? The Moon has resources that could be mined for use
:)
Okay, as long as I get me some Moon Cheese, and some yummy Moon Pies, I'm okay with the whole thing.
> sending people to an Earth-crossing asteroid; establishing a lunar base
Why bother sending people to an Earth-crossing asteroid?
And why bother with a lunar base? Is there anything there worth bothering with? If not, just stick to the LaGrange points - much better for boosting out of the Earth-Moon system. Might be good to stick some telescopes on the far side of the Moon (really - there is no 'Dark' side of the Moon), though putting them in orbit nets a better picture, especially if it's orbiting the Moon.
Yes, we need a real plan for space exploration, but let's not do everything we can just because we can. And bring back the DC-X, fuckers!
Is Veirsign or Verising taken yet? :)
Just take a screenshot of how it looks in a good browser, then change the site over to an all imagemap site. // just kidding!
:)
I'm not evil - I'm just compiled that way.
> these 'foot mice' as I have heard them referred to
:)
I always called them 'bearclaw,' myself, as I didn't have any other name for them.
I just got an MX500 (optical scroller) last month, and, while not as comfy in my hand as a bearclaw model, it'll do. Too many buttons, though. While 1 button Mac mice are ridiculous, any more than three is a bit much, methinks. I wouldn't mind trying one of those side-scrollers that MS just put out.
A Logitech WingMan Gaming mouse. Unfortunately, they never upgraded that mouse shape with a scrollwheel or optical ability, so, c'est la vie. I'd kill for a optical scrollwheel version of that mouse. *sigh*
That may be Praetorian code. I wouldn't mess with it.
"That board with the nail in it may have defeated us, but the humans won't stop there. They'll make bigger boards and bigger nails. Soon they will make a board with a nail so big it will destroy them all!"
.sig.
- Kang & Kodos
Hey, that gives me an idea for a grant proposal...then again, so does my
I didn't do it.
Well, it _was_ 1995. Something like that could never happen nowadays. :)
"Express elevator to Hell, goin' _DOWN_!"
Sounds like a fun ride. Screw bungee jumping!
Disco never died - it always smelled that way.
T-shirt in 22nd century: "Disco _still_ sucks." (from an old Omni magazine contest)
Okay, back in the day(tm), I worked in technical support at Spry, makers of Internet in a Box(tm). One of my duties was to write up bug reports for the internal support system for the tech support reps.
:)
Turns out we had a bug in Spry Mosaic that, when it hit an empty IMG tag (as in, nothing else in the tag but the letters IMG), it would instantly crash. When I wrote up the document, I forgot to escape the less-than and greater-than marks, so it put the actual tag in the tech support document.
The upshot - when the tech support reps searched the database for 'crash in browser', one of the hits that would come up was the document I made - when they loaded it to see the details on 'crash in browser', that's exactly what they got. Ooops.
I can laugh about it now.
Actually, I laughed about it then, too.
Travel to far away web sites.
Chat online with exciting, unusual people.
Then DDOS them!
Going public at that time was not the idea of Drs Pons & Fleischmann - it was that of the University where they worked at the time, eager for some publicity. They were basically forced to go along. Unfortunate for them, as it pretty much destroyed their careers.
I'm _really_ wanting someone to make a miniITX version with TV-out. That'll make for some great HTPC action.
Also a microATX or even ATX desktop mobo would be very nice. I think Intel needs to up their IPC in future processors - they're getting just TOO damned hot. Prescott is expected to pump out 105W! That's insane. Within a couple years, they're going to require water cooling if they don't get the heat dissipation under control.
> For a while after the P4 came out it was widely thought to be a failure because of those trade-offs, but then they ramped it up to faster clock speeds and more software came out taking advantage of SSE2.
:)
Well, the Pentium M also has SSE2, FYI.
> There was once a president called Benjamin Franklin.
:)
Not in the U.S., there wasn't. Franklin was never a President, though that hardly diminishes his contributions.
It's well nigh impossible to determine what the founding fathers would think about a great number of things going on in the U.S. today. I daresay people like Franklin and others would be quite aghast at some of the social ills of our time, and would likely consider those higher priorities than manned missions to Mars or other such things. Then again, if those people were still alive today, we might not be IN the mess we're in today. *shrug* A moo point, as Joey says, it's like a cow speaking - nobody cares.
Ask the RIAA, I'm sure they'd be more than willing to help you out.
> I agree 100%. But LaGrange will be expensive to get to.
Once you're in orbit, it's not that bad. If you can get to orbit, you can get to a LaGrange point.
The real problem is convincing those with the purse strings that there's a tangible benefit in doing this, and with the U.S. economy like it is, and the 'President' we've currently got, I just don't see that happening anytime soon.
> Let's send lots of people and millions of tones of cargo into LEO to see what they come up with.
Send all that into *LEO*?! No way. Instead, populate the LaGrange points. Anything sent into LEO will come down unless kept there by expending energy.
The LaGrange points are the only places that make sense for permanent near-Earth habitation.
I remember one of the original ideas about the Shuttle was that they could leave the fuel tanks in orbit and use them to build space stations & the like. Whatever happened to that idea? Those things are friggin' huge - since it's up there, ya might as well use them rather than letting them burn up on reentry.