Thanks for the insightful responses to my somewhat knee-jerk reactive comment. I'd been up hours past my bedtime with a contact lens stuck somewhere way up under my eyelid, unable to sleep:)
I guess what came to mind was something like dissimilar metals reacting and exuding a smegma jelly which, when globbing off and hitting Martian soil, became a growing chemical blob...oh, never mind...
Sleep deprivation is hell at my age. Again, thanks, because this is what I read slashdot for.
Meticulous precautions are taken so the visiting probes do not bring along unintended stowaways -- microorganisms that could conceivably survive the trip and live on Mars.
That sounds all well and good - but what about non-organic contamination? What if a silicone boot on the lander's leg has an adverse reaction with/to Martian soil? How about the lander's alloy components? Emissions, anyone?
Not to sluff off the importance of this mission, but it's not hard to concede that the only definitive evaluation of "life on Mars" (past/present/future) would be a method to observe and detect phenomena non-obtrusively!
Sure, if some pilot actually relied on a webcam to be his/her eyes, then having this site/.ed would pose a problem. So would covering the windshield, etc. and using a CCTV to do visual navigation with. Go figger. The alarmist posts here are typical geek FUD.
But check this out from the article: Flying into bad weather is the leading cause of fatal accidents among Alaska's commuter airlines and air taxis. Alaska averages an aviation accident a day and a fatal crash every 10 days.
I can't be the only one who has a problem with this statistic; whatever happened to "seat of the pants" decisions - where the pilot (or driver or captain, depending on the craft they have control of) has to make the call to turn back and return to safety instead of flying (or driving or sailing) into bad weather?
IMHO, this is a good use of now-common technology to provide extra knowledge, but not meant to be a navigational aid.
I, too, only watched about 20 minutes of the first Survivor series - and actually the 10 minutes of commercials were the winner in my entertainment book.
Putting a fresh, unique idea (Sims) together with a weekly soap-opera-cum-SI-survival-attire special (Survivor) is a travesty of insults to our collective intelligence.
About 20 years ago, I had a little setup with a 600xl (tape drive, 300 baud modem, Compuserve, and a stack of Compute! books) and using self taught Atari Basic skills, I goofed around with a firewood calculator which had animated Atari ASCII...even had smoke coming out of the woodstove's chimney.
At random times, a log or two would fall off the stack. I'd dig it out, but the cassette loading process...arghhh!
...was all I had to do after dusting off the source for about a dozen FoxBase and FoxPro vertical apps I had written and sold to motels, video rental, and trucking companies in the 80s and 90s. Cosmetically, I had to add two digits to format screens and reports.
With all the recent hoopla about SQL rivalries, I still have a warm place in my heart for Fox Software - especially pre-M$ incarnations.
Working (when the ball came down) for a service company, there were quite a few machines that came across the bench, in which we'd install a BIOS override card from DFI. No biggie.
Y2K was a hoot for the owners of the company. We sold many copies of QuickBooks, etc.:)
Bust me Karma for this, but even Bob Vila doesn't seem to get: There's a huge difference between "silicon" and "silicone"! The former is a semiconducting product of silica sand, and the latter is used for caulk and for breast implants (yuck).
I won't go research the chemical makeup of silicone. Though, I have read, that dielectric properties for silicone are good...? Here's a link:
Whilst reading this article I did a google search for "Eliminate Popups" - from which I found this free Visual Basic-based download for IE which, on the first visit, planted a damned pop-under on me. Subsequent visits didn't reproduce the thing; it only re-appeared when I removed the cookie it had planted - a "rankyou.com" parasitical thing.
The offending browser instance was for commercial software of similar nature, but had the added annoyance of requiring a dialogue to be closed.
My usual solution: unplug the Cat5 cable from the Surfboard modem, swear a little, close the windows, and resume work:o).
Whenever my old Nokia would get bumped around in my messy car, there was a 50/50 chance of it redialing the last number - that was an annoyance.
Although I understand the importance of reaching the dispatcher(s) quickly, I wonder how much that prominent button (which probably completes the call with one touch) will clog up the 911 services, especially in major metro areas?
Oh yeah, never mind - this is just a scam anyway!;o))
I agree with those posting about PC Mag and the other rags having turned to shit over the last decade and even earlier. My uncle was an editor with Cycle Magazine back in the late 40s/early 50s; I'm sure he'd be rolling in his grave if he knew how the quality has soured.
Still, I get eWeek, and when I do get time to read it, I've found that it's a whole lot less M$-Centric than the others. I wonder if it's profitable enough as one of 3 "closed circulation" mags to stay in the mix of the "new" ZD?
I can just imagine the noise from one or three of those made big enough to push this thing along;-))
And no, I wouldn't ride on one either...my baby bottle was warmed on the cooling fins of a Stinson Flying Station Wagon. My first hours as a co-pilot were in a Cessna 180. I like to see what's up there.
Is that they were reduced to playing Vegas, and not even in a big venue. And here lately we've had hits from non-talent bands being P2P'd all over - I wonder what percentage of P2P traffic involved Who music?
Nevertheless, I still consider him to be at the top of my list of Great Bassists. Rest In Peace, brother musician. We shall all miss you greatly.
But probably a whole lot healthier. I had the same (or better) augmentations freely available as early as 1974...it was called "WindowPane", and there were two stuck together...oops.
The cable companies are plowing ahead. Cox is pilot-testing a tiered pricing plan in Las Vegas. AT&T Broadband, which has yet to settle on a new pricing system, plans to have a new policy in place by summer's end. Spokeswoman Sarah Eder says it's considering charging customers based on the number of bits and bytes they send over the network.
GEEZ! As if it's not bad enough to have to pay through the nose for say, listening to Radio Paradise - now they want to charge for BOTH Bits AND Bytes!!!
Thanks for the insight - I wish I'd seen your comment to moderate up just now, but I've run out of points.
That connection works closer to home for me, here in West Michigan. My 20 yr old son is a skater still (at heart), but now he maintains a very large ISP's network. His skating consists of teaching the company president's kids what he knows, which is enough to make my knees ache just to watch;-)
As far as Katz's correlation, there isn't much substance to it, which is why so many/.ers are bashing him. Once again, he deserves it. Do you want his job? You should have it, because you have more qualifications, obviously!
Wow. I did not know of Admiral Boorda, but from your reference, I am now discovering what I can about that. I'm sure my firstborn will be interested in the details. He's to be here in two weeks - on leave - and to be recruiting near here for the (3 years?) period following that this fall.
It's good that this S to A program exists - Chris entered the Navy on a whim, mostly, and did not have the option to choose a school. Mostly he has gotten where he is from doing things right...not a bad thing, but it is the long way, if I'm not mistaken.
This picture shows my two sons at ages 5 and 3, with the Atari 800xl computers I bought for them back in the early 80s.
The boy on the left is in the Seaman-to-Admiral program (at 23) in the U.S. Navy, and the one on the right (at 20) is MIS at a large (30k user) ISP here. Each are making as much or more $$$ than the old man.
I truly believe that exposure to technology has encouraged and accelerated their advancement; moreover, it has broadened their ability to see *outside the box*.
Moral: Give 'em Tech Toys. Watch them grow. If the teaching staff is threatened, hire more qualified staff.
Close to the same thing here: I recall 2.5 Mb/s down and 256 K up. A friend only 2 miles away was getting over 4 Mb/s down before Excite@home pulled the plug. Now it hovers around 1.5 Mb/s:-((
Still, I can't risk the chance of being disconnected.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess what came to mind was something like dissimilar metals reacting and exuding a smegma jelly which, when globbing off and hitting Martian soil, became a growing chemical blob...oh, never mind...
Sleep deprivation is hell at my age. Again, thanks, because this is what I read slashdot for.
That sounds all well and good - but what about non-organic contamination? What if a silicone boot on the lander's leg has an adverse reaction with/to Martian soil? How about the lander's alloy components? Emissions, anyone?
Not to sluff off the importance of this mission, but it's not hard to concede that the only definitive evaluation of "life on Mars" (past/present/future) would be a method to observe and detect phenomena non-obtrusively!
But check this out from the article: Flying into bad weather is the leading cause of fatal accidents among Alaska's commuter airlines and air taxis. Alaska averages an aviation accident a day and a fatal crash every 10 days.
I can't be the only one who has a problem with this statistic; whatever happened to "seat of the pants" decisions - where the pilot (or driver or captain, depending on the craft they have control of) has to make the call to turn back and return to safety instead of flying (or driving or sailing) into bad weather?
IMHO, this is a good use of now-common technology to provide extra knowledge, but not meant to be a navigational aid.
Putting a fresh, unique idea (Sims) together with a weekly soap-opera-cum-SI-survival-attire special (Survivor) is a travesty of insults to our collective intelligence.
There - I said it...and I feel better.
After all, the computer in that (see it if you haven't) movie could be termed as having some AI leanings...
About 20 years ago, I had a little setup with a 600xl (tape drive, 300 baud modem, Compuserve, and a stack of Compute! books) and using self taught Atari Basic skills, I goofed around with a firewood calculator which had animated Atari ASCII...even had smoke coming out of the woodstove's chimney.
At random times, a log or two would fall off the stack. I'd dig it out, but the cassette loading process...arghhh!
With all the recent hoopla about SQL rivalries, I still have a warm place in my heart for Fox Software - especially pre-M$ incarnations.
Working (when the ball came down) for a service company, there were quite a few machines that came across the bench, in which we'd install a BIOS override card from DFI. No biggie.
Y2K was a hoot for the owners of the company. We sold many copies of QuickBooks, etc. :)
I won't go research the chemical makeup of silicone. Though, I have read, that dielectric properties for silicone are good...? Here's a link:
The offending browser instance was for commercial software of similar nature, but had the added annoyance of requiring a dialogue to be closed.
My usual solution: unplug the Cat5 cable from the Surfboard modem, swear a little, close the windows, and resume work :o).
Tell ya what: gimme an account on yer FTP server and I'll upload them to you - you can do the work :)
ps: How many gigs ya got free?
Although I understand the importance of reaching the dispatcher(s) quickly, I wonder how much that prominent button (which probably completes the call with one touch) will clog up the 911 services, especially in major metro areas?
Oh yeah, never mind - this is just a scam anyway! ;o))
Still, I get eWeek, and when I do get time to read it, I've found that it's a whole lot less M$-Centric than the others. I wonder if it's profitable enough as one of 3 "closed circulation" mags to stay in the mix of the "new" ZD?
I can just imagine the noise from one or three of those made big enough to push this thing along ;-))
And no, I wouldn't ride on one either...my baby bottle was warmed on the cooling fins of a Stinson Flying Station Wagon. My first hours as a co-pilot were in a Cessna 180. I like to see what's up there.
Nevertheless, I still consider him to be at the top of my list of Great Bassists. Rest In Peace, brother musician. We shall all miss you greatly.
Who reads the stupid bannners?
New toys - hey, isn't there a /. category for that?
But probably a whole lot healthier. I had the same (or better) augmentations freely available as early as 1974...it was called "WindowPane", and there were two stuck together...oops.
GEEZ! As if it's not bad enough to have to pay through the nose for say, listening to Radio Paradise - now they want to charge for BOTH Bits AND Bytes!!!
The last time I was Real Loaded, I paid dearly the next day...:)
Exactly. There are numerous times when I have had similar things happen. Pissed me off. Owell
Believe it if you want to.
That connection works closer to home for me, here in West Michigan. My 20 yr old son is a skater still (at heart), but now he maintains a very large ISP's network. His skating consists of teaching the company president's kids what he knows, which is enough to make my knees ache just to watch ;-)
As far as Katz's correlation, there isn't much substance to it, which is why so many /.ers are bashing him. Once again, he deserves it. Do you want his job? You should have it, because you have more qualifications, obviously!
It's good that this S to A program exists - Chris entered the Navy on a whim, mostly, and did not have the option to choose a school. Mostly he has gotten where he is from doing things right...not a bad thing, but it is the long way, if I'm not mistaken.
Thanks for your thoughts.
The boy on the left is in the Seaman-to-Admiral program (at 23) in the U.S. Navy, and the one on the right (at 20) is MIS at a large (30k user) ISP here. Each are making as much or more $$$ than the old man.
I truly believe that exposure to technology has encouraged and accelerated their advancement; moreover, it has broadened their ability to see *outside the box*.
Moral: Give 'em Tech Toys. Watch them grow. If the teaching staff is threatened, hire more qualified staff.
Still, I can't risk the chance of being disconnected.