I can imagine a young Bill Gates sitting in his appartment in New Mexico wtih a light bulb going off over his head thinking "...Marketing...Undervalued Product..."
Imagine what the world would be like if this guy could look into a crystal ball and had written a letter that went something like:
"Dear Bill,
We do appreciate the hard work on behalf of the hobby and hope that you keep it up.
Your work does have value and we will encourage our members to pay for the software that they are using.
However, we do hope that you recognize that this is a hobby and you will price your software reasonably and continue to work with your fellow hobbyists to provide solutions that they want."
Unfortunately, I can't imagine BG ever taking this letter to heart.
It's not surprising at all that they were working on APL - it was a very popular language/programming environment at the time. For example, the IBM 5200s (often cited as the first personal computers) could be configured with APL or BASIC.
In terms of "scientific tools", I don't remember seeing any serious Fortran compilers until the IBM PC became available and ditto for Pascal. I don't think C was considered to be implementable on small 8 bit systems. A lot of "scientific" programming at the time was actually done with Visicalc (I seem to remember an add by Apple or Visicalc where an optical designer was using an Apple ][ and Visicalc to design lens systems).
You're missing the point of the article and I should have been more specific in my original post.
The issue at hand isn't just writing software for Windows, it is the ability to create new hardware interfaces to the PC. By charging for and protecting for documentation, Microsoft is eliminating the ability of hobbyists, students and small businesses from being able to develop new hardware that interfaces with the PC hardware and Windows Operating System software.
Microsoft's Visual Studio Express/SQL Server tools are good introductions to PC programming, but not pertinent to this discussion because they cannot be used to develop Windows Device Models (WDMs) which are required to add new devices to the PC base. If you wanted to try out something new with these tools, you are limited to just being able to access the serial port or USB (by emulating a serial port using the CDC specification).
This really isn't news - Microsoft has been actively trying to limit hobbyists and small businesses entry into creating new applications for the PC for ten years or more. This is just one more way to squeeze them (us) out.
Personally, I don't understand this behavior because it is so damaging in the long term - students (who can also be thought of as "hobbyists") will not be able to easily work on Microsoft products and will naturally gravitate towards more open solutions...
I've never understood why Microsoft wasn't more supportive of the student, hobbyist and small business marketplace. I can understand that they do not want products propagating that use obsolute interfaces/methodologies but there should be some halfway point, not freezing out those of us that want to experiment with PC applications and don't have deep pocket sponsors.
I always felt that Einstein's (like Newton's) brilliance was due to his work's insight and ability to portray the world reasonably precisely where it hadn't been done before. Einstein, like Newton came up with a way of explaining how the universe worked based on scientific observations that hadn't been explained up to that point in time. In both cases (and probably others where a breakthrough has been made in some branch of science) other scientists have carried on this work, enhanced it and created products based on it.
It is my firm belief that there will be more great scientists, probably eclipsing previous scientists by further improving man's understanding of the universe by a quantum leap (to coin a phrase) just as Einstein and Newton have done.
My wife continually gets a number of different virus and other malware on her computer - despite the fact she doesn't surf the web other than news/weather sites. When I complained to my ISP about it, the operator said/claimed that the worst sites for catching something are the news sites which will accept advertising from just about anybody and link stories from other sites. Going by my wife as a sample, this is definitely true. I admit the sample size is small, but there does seem to be
So, I would think that it is absolutely critical for a newspaper site to ensure that nothing can be downloaded into the users computer. Nothing will loose readers forever than if they have to reformat their hard files.
The article indicates that there is an issue of the asteroid/comet being broken apart by the shock of the thrust, but I have a hard time believing that this is the case if the amount of thrust is on the order of 1 lb. I would have to believe that a small thruster with a large plate to spread out the force of the thrust could be placed on the object.
Of course, dragging the object by gravity would avoid the issue of having to despin the object or coming up with a thruster or multiple thrusters placed on the spin equator and firing at specific intervals.
Regardless, I would have thought that the most important work item would be to come up with a method to find and plot the orbits of all objects which could be a threat to the earth.
This will require the proverbial Beowolf cluster of insert computer here to sorth through millions of pictures looking for moving points relative to stable points and then plotting their orbits and trajectories.
With this information, it should be possible to determine what is the best way to change the objects tractory in the most cost (which translates to energy).
Looking over the parent and other comments, the biggest objection that people seem to have is the suggestion that this will allow closed source drivers. I don't understand why there couldn't be a stable device driver interface in the Linux kernel (other than Linus's objection to it).
I've been bitten by this issue many times with respect to providing Linux images for testing Itanium systems. I've essentially lost the battle with my management explaining that I have to requalify drivers each time a new release comes out.
Having a stable devices drivers interface for standard devices such as WD SCSI controllers, ATI Rage II and Fairchild Super IO would make my life a lot easier.
1. They are getting a lot of good geek press/word of mouth. Fighting for Reasonable IP could be good business for them.
2. They may want to make sure anybody else that tries a frivolous lawsuit to see what happens - not only will you loose, but you will be bled dry in the process.
3. It may be a message to Gates to fight his own battles and not through proxies.
4. Somebody is really pissed at Darl and want to see that the only job he is able to get after this is hired hand on a dirt farm.
I've already seen a comment stating that if you follow the Ikea model, you get an allen key and crappy instructions and this is just part of an experience in which walking out costs more than you expect, the product is of questionable quality and often hard to find exactly what you are looking for.
None of which are attributes you want in a database product.
I think the comment is noting that Ikea is a profitable enterprise and one that is admired by the business community, but for the most part the customer experience is lacking and not one I would think that would attract most people to.
Of course, YMMV, does replicating the Ikea experience make MySQL more attractive to anyone?
The National Aerospace Plane ("NASP"), Lots of money, no hardware.
The X-33; several billion with no tangible return except for a few fuel tanks which were larger than the foreseeable technology could reliably build.
I never understood why the X-38 (small spaceplane/ISS Lifeboat) was not persued even though its funding was cut due to ISS overruns. It looked like an excellent concept.
There are also a ton of other programs going back even further (Dyna-Soar, MOL, etc.) in which substantial money was spent that were either impossible to build or didn't have the political will to work through. I daresay that a totalling of these projects would match the $250 Billion spent on the Shuttle and ISS.
The Shuttle and ISS were not the best possible implementations of a reusable spacecraft and orbital outpost, but at least they have flown and are helping advance the sciences of going to and from space as well as living there.
A couple of years ago, we had to buy a PC with Windows/95 on it because a speech therapist had a program for my daughter that only ran on Win/95.
We were able to find a PC that had just turned in to a local "Cash Converters" and the OS had not yet been wiped/updated and got it for $50. We did try the PC before leaving the store but did not hook up a set of speakers.
When we got home, we discovered that the previous owner of the PC was an affectionado of Jamacian S&M. The first time I turned it on, the PC started up with somebody screaming "Hurt me Mon!" and every mouse click produced a woman's scream.
I was able to reset the default sounds on the PC and delete the thousands of jpegs of bondage pictures, but my daughter (who was 8 at the time) was pretty much traumatized and refused to work on the PC until I could demonstrate it wouldn't make the "scary screams" any more.
We were able to run the speech therapy program, but my daughter never did trust that PC and made me sell it when the therapy was finished.
When I think of a new product from Apple, I tend to think of it as a balls to the walls attempt to take over hearts and minds of people to direct them toward the entire Apple product set.
The iPod line is a great example of this and I am looking forward to buying a nano when my current MP3 player dies. All the iPods have great physical looks, innovative interfaces and extra features, that while are "nice to have" push the edge of the envelope. I'm disappointed they don't have FM tuners (which they can record from) as well as voice tuners (the ability to take verbal notes on the go is a nice feature), what is left is enough to interest me in the product.
This is why the ROKR is such a surprise/disappointment. I would have thought that Jobs would see integrating Apple products into a phone as being a gateway into bringing more people into the Apple fold. I would love to see a mobile phone that integrated iPod and Mac Tiger functionality (along with map based GPS) with wireless communications for a totally integrated solution.
This would give Apple into an entry point into the hand held marketplace (abandoned with Newton) and allow them to compete on another level with Microsoft as well as take on Palm and RIM.
But, most importantly integrating the iPod and Mac functionality into a package like a phone would give people that would never consider a Mac an opportunity to work with it, hopefully like it and convert their desktop machines.
It sounds like there aren't a lot of/.ers that have worked in big iron shops. The replies to this article seems to have more inaccuracies than most.
The 4100 seems to be part of the evolution for "big iron" laser printers starting with the 3800. These printers started out being centralized printers to reduce cost per page for large organizations AND for billing organizations.
After the 1980s, I don't think a lot were sold to IT ("IS" at the time) organizations because having a single printer and distributing its output to different locations throughout a building is slow, expensive and time consuming - all the things using them was supposed to eliminate.
Where the printers really made their niche was generating bills for various organizations. The advantage of a laser printer over traditional printers was that traditional printers used pre-printed forms which were more expensive and had to be precisely lined up for the billing information to show up in the appropriate locations. The advantage of a laser printer in this application is that it can print all the background information, logos, terms and conditions, etc. just as quickly as a traditional printer just put in the differing information but at a much lower cost.
The 3800 and subsequent printers were/are the industry standard for these applications - very little of their output actually comes into the office except in the form of invoices from other companies.
When IBM spun off its printer division (known as "LexMark"), they did not sell of the big iron printers. They make a ton of money for IBM and also drive other purchases for IBM hardware.
It's probably more difficult now to see these monsters in action, but if you get the chance you should take a look - they are amazing. The old 3800s could print an entire 10" high box of 8.5 by 11 fanfold paper in just a few minutes and while cutting the paper appropriately. The "high end" models mentioned probably have letter stuffing hardware so the final output is a nice neat stack of bills all ready for shipment to the post office.
according to Feynman the shuttle pilot does only 2 things: 1. pushes the button for which base to land at 2. lowers the landing gear and they only do number 2 because they don't like to feel completely like passengers.
Neither point is accurate and somewhat condescending. Rather than going by somebody who claims to be an expert on everything, why don't you look at the source?
Start with NASA MISSION EVENTS SUMMARY and scroll down to "Deorbit" and "Entry" to see what the shuttle astronauts really do when the shuttle leaves orbit (a lot more than just press a button).
As to the landing gear control, this is a safety of flight issue and is discussed in SHUTTLE AVIONICS Design Constraints and Considerations in the "GNC" section. The decision to make the gear down command a manual operation has nothing to do with making the astronauts not "feel completely like passengers".
What they were exceedingly good at is signing a contract with IBM that said all PCs would have their operating system on it. As the PC marketplace grew, it gave them a pretty much locked in revenue stream.
I would take issue with this statement; when the PC first came out there were three operating systems available for it (PC/MS-DOS, CPM-86 and UCSD). IBM wanted the marketplace to decide which was the best one. Microsoft did not have any kind of leg up with the other two competitors initially, all three were established software vendors.
Microsoft very quickly established itself as the most popular OS for the PC (I will refrain from saying "best") and went on from there.
Hmmm... I've seen several lists in which Dave Barry's Blog has been recognized as one of the best (it's worth it just for the "24" synopsis) and he's not mentioned in any of the three lists.
Looking through the names, I see a number I'd never consider and I can come up with a few more I would have liked to see. Like any "best of" list, this one is just somebody's personal opinion.
I've got a 2004 Prius (second one) and I've found the way to getting best fuel economy in the Prius is to accelerate quickly off the line and up to the speed limit and then holding it there. This minimizes the time the gas engine is driving the wheels and maximizes the time the electric motor is active.
I find that I can improve my fuel economy from 6.0L/100km to 5.3L/100km (according to the car's display) in city driving using this driving style over a more traditional slow accelleration.
Highway (100km/hr) gets best economy with the cruise control on and is 5.0L/100km.
Jet engines, the last time I checked, were fairly inefficient in terms of miles per gallon....
According to the A380 Specifications page, the A380 has a maximum range of 8,000 miles and a fuel capacity of 81,890 US Gallons. This means it flys with an average 0.098 mpg.
A 2005 Honda Civic Sedan with an automatic, according to Honda's Specifications, has an EPA rating of 29/38 mpg - three orders of magnitude better than the A380.
But, remember that the A380 is moving 555 people so it's not quite an apples to apples comparison.
Assuming the average number of people in the Honda is two, the mpg per person on the highway (which is probably the more accurage comparison) is 76 mpg.
Now, comparing this to the A380 with an average passenger load of 525, the mpg per person is 51 mpg. So by going on a purely mpg comparison, the A380 is about two thirds as efficient as the Civic.
BUT this doesn't take into account the fact that the A380 will probably only have 4 pilots (or less than 0.8% of the people on board) to go 8,000 miles (but fully 50% of the people in the Civic are responsible for driving 8,000 miles) and the A380 will take 15 hours or so to go 8,000 miles and each Civic will take 123 hours (assuming no stops) to go 8,000 miles at 65 miles per hour.
I volunteer at a local high school helping a teacher explain introductory programming and interfacing using a Microchip PIC MCU. Last year, we had a kid that told us that he should just be given the credit because he was so good with computers.
The kid was, of course, an idiot. He could never get an assignment done because, in his words, it was too easy and beneath him. A sample assignment that he couldn't do would be to flash an LED once per second by writing an application in C - my version of the program was about 8 lines long.
After a sit down trying to level set him and tell him he wasn't as smart as he thought he was, he berated me and the teacher and told us that he was going to show us how good he was and trash our systems. I told him go for it, as I had a router firewall as well as a software firewall on my PC at home.
He asked for my IP and wrote "127.0.0.1" carefully on his hand.
The school didn't see him for a week and when he came in, he accused me that to stop him from hacking my computer, I hacked his. His parents were pretty agitated because the home computer was trashed and they wanted to bring a lawsuit against me.
We explained to the parents that 127.0.0.1 was the local PC's IP address and any attacks directed against this IP would actually be on the launching computer. We told them to go to a computer store and confirm what we were saying. We never heard back from the parents and the kid never returned to the class.
I've told a few people that if they want to show off how good they are, let's see them hack my computer at 127.0.0.1 over the years (it's in "123 Robot Experiments for the Evil Genius") and 60% of the time they've gotten the joke immediately. For the remainder, except for this one time, everybody else has figured it out before damage was done.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm thinking about how the material becomes rigid - how do you get guys to put on a condom that then has to be hit with a hammer?
Well, I guess some men would like it (shudder).
myke
I can imagine a young Bill Gates sitting in his appartment in New Mexico wtih a light bulb going off over his head thinking "...Marketing...Undervalued Product..."
Imagine what the world would be like if this guy could look into a crystal ball and had written a letter that went something like:
"Dear Bill,
We do appreciate the hard work on behalf of the hobby and hope that you keep it up.
Your work does have value and we will encourage our members to pay for the software that they are using.
However, we do hope that you recognize that this is a hobby and you will price your software reasonably and continue to work with your fellow hobbyists to provide solutions that they want."
Unfortunately, I can't imagine BG ever taking this letter to heart.
myke
It's not surprising at all that they were working on APL - it was a very popular language/programming environment at the time. For example, the IBM 5200s (often cited as the first personal computers) could be configured with APL or BASIC.
In terms of "scientific tools", I don't remember seeing any serious Fortran compilers until the IBM PC became available and ditto for Pascal. I don't think C was considered to be implementable on small 8 bit systems. A lot of "scientific" programming at the time was actually done with Visicalc (I seem to remember an add by Apple or Visicalc where an optical designer was using an Apple ][ and Visicalc to design lens systems).
myke
You're missing the point of the article and I should have been more specific in my original post.
The issue at hand isn't just writing software for Windows, it is the ability to create new hardware interfaces to the PC. By charging for and protecting for documentation, Microsoft is eliminating the ability of hobbyists, students and small businesses from being able to develop new hardware that interfaces with the PC hardware and Windows Operating System software.
Microsoft's Visual Studio Express/SQL Server tools are good introductions to PC programming, but not pertinent to this discussion because they cannot be used to develop Windows Device Models (WDMs) which are required to add new devices to the PC base. If you wanted to try out something new with these tools, you are limited to just being able to access the serial port or USB (by emulating a serial port using the CDC specification).
Regards,
myke
This really isn't news - Microsoft has been actively trying to limit hobbyists and small businesses entry into creating new applications for the PC for ten years or more. This is just one more way to squeeze them (us) out.
Personally, I don't understand this behavior because it is so damaging in the long term - students (who can also be thought of as "hobbyists") will not be able to easily work on Microsoft products and will naturally gravitate towards more open solutions...
I've never understood why Microsoft wasn't more supportive of the student, hobbyist and small business marketplace. I can understand that they do not want products propagating that use obsolute interfaces/methodologies but there should be some halfway point, not freezing out those of us that want to experiment with PC applications and don't have deep pocket sponsors.
myke
that keeps getting told to get the "F outta here".
myke
I always felt that Einstein's (like Newton's) brilliance was due to his work's insight and ability to portray the world reasonably precisely where it hadn't been done before. Einstein, like Newton came up with a way of explaining how the universe worked based on scientific observations that hadn't been explained up to that point in time. In both cases (and probably others where a breakthrough has been made in some branch of science) other scientists have carried on this work, enhanced it and created products based on it.
It is my firm belief that there will be more great scientists, probably eclipsing previous scientists by further improving man's understanding of the universe by a quantum leap (to coin a phrase) just as Einstein and Newton have done.
myke
My wife continually gets a number of different virus and other malware on her computer - despite the fact she doesn't surf the web other than news/weather sites. When I complained to my ISP about it, the operator said/claimed that the worst sites for catching something are the news sites which will accept advertising from just about anybody and link stories from other sites. Going by my wife as a sample, this is definitely true. I admit the sample size is small, but there does seem to be
So, I would think that it is absolutely critical for a newspaper site to ensure that nothing can be downloaded into the users computer. Nothing will loose readers forever than if they have to reformat their hard files.
myke
Stevyn wrote: they move along, you take a blood, hair, or semen sample.
If I'm in a hurry, can I just leave my underwear?
myke
The article indicates that there is an issue of the asteroid/comet being broken apart by the shock of the thrust, but I have a hard time believing that this is the case if the amount of thrust is on the order of 1 lb. I would have to believe that a small thruster with a large plate to spread out the force of the thrust could be placed on the object.
Of course, dragging the object by gravity would avoid the issue of having to despin the object or coming up with a thruster or multiple thrusters placed on the spin equator and firing at specific intervals.
Regardless, I would have thought that the most important work item would be to come up with a method to find and plot the orbits of all objects which could be a threat to the earth.
This will require the proverbial Beowolf cluster of insert computer here to sorth through millions of pictures looking for moving points relative to stable points and then plotting their orbits and trajectories.
With this information, it should be possible to determine what is the best way to change the objects tractory in the most cost (which translates to energy).
myke
Looking over the parent and other comments, the biggest objection that people seem to have is the suggestion that this will allow closed source drivers. I don't understand why there couldn't be a stable device driver interface in the Linux kernel (other than Linus's objection to it).
I've been bitten by this issue many times with respect to providing Linux images for testing Itanium systems. I've essentially lost the battle with my management explaining that I have to requalify drivers each time a new release comes out.
Having a stable devices drivers interface for standard devices such as WD SCSI controllers, ATI Rage II and Fairchild Super IO would make my life a lot easier.
myke
I used to wonder about that as well - but:
1. They are getting a lot of good geek press/word of mouth. Fighting for Reasonable IP could be good business for them.
2. They may want to make sure anybody else that tries a frivolous lawsuit to see what happens - not only will you loose, but you will be bled dry in the process.
3. It may be a message to Gates to fight his own battles and not through proxies.
4. Somebody is really pissed at Darl and want to see that the only job he is able to get after this is hired hand on a dirt farm.
myke
I've already seen a comment stating that if you follow the Ikea model, you get an allen key and crappy instructions and this is just part of an experience in which walking out costs more than you expect, the product is of questionable quality and often hard to find exactly what you are looking for.
None of which are attributes you want in a database product.
I think the comment is noting that Ikea is a profitable enterprise and one that is admired by the business community, but for the most part the customer experience is lacking and not one I would think that would attract most people to.
Of course, YMMV, does replicating the Ikea experience make MySQL more attractive to anyone?
myke
Not wanting to be a troll but what about:
The National Aerospace Plane ("NASP"), Lots of money, no hardware.
The X-33; several billion with no tangible return except for a few fuel tanks which were larger than the foreseeable technology could reliably build.
I never understood why the X-38 (small spaceplane/ISS Lifeboat) was not persued even though its funding was cut due to ISS overruns. It looked like an excellent concept.
There are also a ton of other programs going back even further (Dyna-Soar, MOL, etc.) in which substantial money was spent that were either impossible to build or didn't have the political will to work through. I daresay that a totalling of these projects would match the $250 Billion spent on the Shuttle and ISS.
The Shuttle and ISS were not the best possible implementations of a reusable spacecraft and orbital outpost, but at least they have flown and are helping advance the sciences of going to and from space as well as living there.
myke
If $100 Million dollars won't make you want to switch to Vista, what will?
Actually, $100 Million would be enough to convince me to switch to Vista.
Unfortunately, I presume that the whole $100 Million won't be available to just me.
myke
A couple of years ago, we had to buy a PC with Windows/95 on it because a speech therapist had a program for my daughter that only ran on Win/95.
We were able to find a PC that had just turned in to a local "Cash Converters" and the OS had not yet been wiped/updated and got it for $50. We did try the PC before leaving the store but did not hook up a set of speakers.
When we got home, we discovered that the previous owner of the PC was an affectionado of Jamacian S&M. The first time I turned it on, the PC started up with somebody screaming "Hurt me Mon!" and every mouse click produced a woman's scream.
I was able to reset the default sounds on the PC and delete the thousands of jpegs of bondage pictures, but my daughter (who was 8 at the time) was pretty much traumatized and refused to work on the PC until I could demonstrate it wouldn't make the "scary screams" any more.
We were able to run the speech therapy program, but my daughter never did trust that PC and made me sell it when the therapy was finished.
myke
When I think of a new product from Apple, I tend to think of it as a balls to the walls attempt to take over hearts and minds of people to direct them toward the entire Apple product set.
The iPod line is a great example of this and I am looking forward to buying a nano when my current MP3 player dies. All the iPods have great physical looks, innovative interfaces and extra features, that while are "nice to have" push the edge of the envelope. I'm disappointed they don't have FM tuners (which they can record from) as well as voice tuners (the ability to take verbal notes on the go is a nice feature), what is left is enough to interest me in the product.
This is why the ROKR is such a surprise/disappointment. I would have thought that Jobs would see integrating Apple products into a phone as being a gateway into bringing more people into the Apple fold. I would love to see a mobile phone that integrated iPod and Mac Tiger functionality (along with map based GPS) with wireless communications for a totally integrated solution.
This would give Apple into an entry point into the hand held marketplace (abandoned with Newton) and allow them to compete on another level with Microsoft as well as take on Palm and RIM.
But, most importantly integrating the iPod and Mac functionality into a package like a phone would give people that would never consider a Mac an opportunity to work with it, hopefully like it and convert their desktop machines.
myke
It sounds like there aren't a lot of /.ers that have worked in big iron shops. The replies to this article seems to have more inaccuracies than most.
The 4100 seems to be part of the evolution for "big iron" laser printers starting with the 3800. These printers started out being centralized printers to reduce cost per page for large organizations AND for billing organizations.
After the 1980s, I don't think a lot were sold to IT ("IS" at the time) organizations because having a single printer and distributing its output to different locations throughout a building is slow, expensive and time consuming - all the things using them was supposed to eliminate.
Where the printers really made their niche was generating bills for various organizations. The advantage of a laser printer over traditional printers was that traditional printers used pre-printed forms which were more expensive and had to be precisely lined up for the billing information to show up in the appropriate locations. The advantage of a laser printer in this application is that it can print all the background information, logos, terms and conditions, etc. just as quickly as a traditional printer just put in the differing information but at a much lower cost.
The 3800 and subsequent printers were/are the industry standard for these applications - very little of their output actually comes into the office except in the form of invoices from other companies.
When IBM spun off its printer division (known as "LexMark"), they did not sell of the big iron printers. They make a ton of money for IBM and also drive other purchases for IBM hardware.
It's probably more difficult now to see these monsters in action, but if you get the chance you should take a look - they are amazing. The old 3800s could print an entire 10" high box of 8.5 by 11 fanfold paper in just a few minutes and while cutting the paper appropriately. The "high end" models mentioned probably have letter stuffing hardware so the final output is a nice neat stack of bills all ready for shipment to the post office.
myke
This makes me feel like running through a crowd yelling like a maniac.
myke
according to Feynman the shuttle pilot does only 2 things:
1. pushes the button for which base to land at
2. lowers the landing gear
and they only do number 2 because they don't like to feel completely like passengers.
Neither point is accurate and somewhat condescending. Rather than going by somebody who claims to be an expert on everything, why don't you look at the source?
Start with NASA MISSION EVENTS SUMMARY and scroll down to "Deorbit" and "Entry" to see what the shuttle astronauts really do when the shuttle leaves orbit (a lot more than just press a button).
As to the landing gear control, this is a safety of flight issue and is discussed in SHUTTLE AVIONICS Design Constraints and Considerations in the "GNC" section. The decision to make the gear down command a manual operation has nothing to do with making the astronauts not "feel completely like passengers".
myke
What they were exceedingly good at is signing a contract with IBM that said all PCs would have their operating system on it. As the PC marketplace grew, it gave them a pretty much locked in revenue stream.
I would take issue with this statement; when the PC first came out there were three operating systems available for it (PC/MS-DOS, CPM-86 and UCSD). IBM wanted the marketplace to decide which was the best one. Microsoft did not have any kind of leg up with the other two competitors initially, all three were established software vendors.
Microsoft very quickly established itself as the most popular OS for the PC (I will refrain from saying "best") and went on from there.
myke
Hmmm... I've seen several lists in which Dave Barry's Blog has been recognized as one of the best (it's worth it just for the "24" synopsis) and he's not mentioned in any of the three lists.
Looking through the names, I see a number I'd never consider and I can come up with a few more I would have liked to see. Like any "best of" list, this one is just somebody's personal opinion.
myke
I've got a 2004 Prius (second one) and I've found the way to getting best fuel economy in the Prius is to accelerate quickly off the line and up to the speed limit and then holding it there. This minimizes the time the gas engine is driving the wheels and maximizes the time the electric motor is active.
I find that I can improve my fuel economy from 6.0L/100km to 5.3L/100km (according to the car's display) in city driving using this driving style over a more traditional slow accelleration.
Highway (100km/hr) gets best economy with the cruise control on and is 5.0L/100km.
Of course, YMMV,
myke
Jet engines, the last time I checked, were fairly inefficient in terms of miles per gallon....
According to the A380 Specifications page, the A380 has a maximum range of 8,000 miles and a fuel capacity of 81,890 US Gallons. This means it flys with an average 0.098 mpg.
A 2005 Honda Civic Sedan with an automatic, according to Honda's Specifications, has an EPA rating of 29/38 mpg - three orders of magnitude better than the A380.
But, remember that the A380 is moving 555 people so it's not quite an apples to apples comparison.
Assuming the average number of people in the Honda is two, the mpg per person on the highway (which is probably the more accurage comparison) is 76 mpg.
Now, comparing this to the A380 with an average passenger load of 525, the mpg per person is 51 mpg. So by going on a purely mpg comparison, the A380 is about two thirds as efficient as the Civic.
BUT this doesn't take into account the fact that the A380 will probably only have 4 pilots (or less than 0.8% of the people on board) to go 8,000 miles (but fully 50% of the people in the Civic are responsible for driving 8,000 miles) and the A380 will take 15 hours or so to go 8,000 miles and each Civic will take 123 hours (assuming no stops) to go 8,000 miles at 65 miles per hour.
myke
I volunteer at a local high school helping a teacher explain introductory programming and interfacing using a Microchip PIC MCU. Last year, we had a kid that told us that he should just be given the credit because he was so good with computers.
The kid was, of course, an idiot. He could never get an assignment done because, in his words, it was too easy and beneath him. A sample assignment that he couldn't do would be to flash an LED once per second by writing an application in C - my version of the program was about 8 lines long.
After a sit down trying to level set him and tell him he wasn't as smart as he thought he was, he berated me and the teacher and told us that he was going to show us how good he was and trash our systems. I told him go for it, as I had a router firewall as well as a software firewall on my PC at home.
He asked for my IP and wrote "127.0.0.1" carefully on his hand.
The school didn't see him for a week and when he came in, he accused me that to stop him from hacking my computer, I hacked his. His parents were pretty agitated because the home computer was trashed and they wanted to bring a lawsuit against me.
We explained to the parents that 127.0.0.1 was the local PC's IP address and any attacks directed against this IP would actually be on the launching computer. We told them to go to a computer store and confirm what we were saying. We never heard back from the parents and the kid never returned to the class.
I've told a few people that if they want to show off how good they are, let's see them hack my computer at 127.0.0.1 over the years (it's in "123 Robot Experiments for the Evil Genius") and 60% of the time they've gotten the joke immediately. For the remainder, except for this one time, everybody else has figured it out before damage was done.
myke