Jupiter is, IIRC, 10 times smaller than the smallest classifiable star. Pluto is just barely on the borderline of planet and planetoid (it is almost HALF the size of the moon and over HALF the size of Mercury). Jupiter is much farther from being a star than Pluto from being a planet. If Pluto is not considered a planet, there is NO WAY Jupiter will be considered a "failed star."
Pluto also doesn't orbit like a normal planet. Most planets have near circular orbits; besides Pluto, the greatest eccentricity of the planets in our Solar system is 0.20563 (Mercury) and the rest are on the order of 0.04. Pluto has an eccentricity of 0.2444. That isn't much of an argument, but if you look at the fact that the inclination of its orbit is 17 degrees while the rest are around 1 or 2 degrees (Mercury is 7 degrees) it doesn't orbit like a planet but more like a captured object.
In the past I have defended Pluto being a planet; but, after looking at what else is out there of around the size of Pluto and comparing them to other planets, I'm not so sure. In my opinion, though, it is almost a moot point. We know it is there, what it is made of and a lot more about it; I personally don't care how it is classified (that is only a point for astronomers and exogeologists to quibble over).
To get back to Jupiter, though, I think it was also formed much differently than a star. I don't know if formation is part of the classification of astronomical objects, but if it is then Jupiter still wouldn't be a star even if it were larger. The planets we've found orbiting other stars have all been of around Jupiter's size, but some were over twice as large and they are still planets.
Well, seeing as there are only a few Concordes
in the WORLD and they don't fly all that often compared to other commercial jets, one crash is actually a lot. I don't have the exact numbers, but if there are 20 times more 747's flying and they make 4 times more flights per day (both are definitely reasonable numbers) and both have been in service for around the same amount of time, the 747 would have to have 80 times more than the Concorde.
I know this is very fuzzy math, but when the Concorde has crashed one time in 4000 flights while a normal jet crashes one time in 12000 flights, the safety isn't really all it sounds like.
Don't tell me my math and/or data are wrong, because they probably are; but the result is correct.
By the way, insulting the 747 by calling it an Airbus is pretty funny since it was designed 30 years ago and is still the most recognizable and maybe the most widely used widebody jet on the market. Airbus makes a good plane (check out the Super Guppy when you get a chance, I love it), but until their planes last as long and as well as the 747 you can't really disparage it.
I have seen a boatload of KungFu movies and such where "flying" is commonplace. My friends have, too, and we all giggles during these flying sequences. Not because they were unfamiliar or new or impossible, we were laughing because it is such a commonplace scene in the genre (though the scenes in THIS movie were VERY well done) and it was funny to see it in such a good movie and in a theatre instead of on my TV.
Also, the only people giggling in the packed theatre we saw it in were the three of us. I don't think the people were lauging because they were newbies or oldies like us, but because they found humor in flying people.
Well, the Apex does most of this. The PAL and NTSC thing is easy; the regionfree requires "secret code." I have no idea what a scart connector is. It is less than $100 unless you want the old regiun free one.
Of course, the NEW Apex's aren't; you have to get one from last year before the MPAA brought down the thunder on them.
As for the DVD's that don't work on Region free machines, you have to make sure the DVD player can be switched to use a region. The Apex can be switched to play ANY region specifically or just bypass them. If you find a DVD that doesn't work on a region free machine, just switch it to region 1 or whatever. Some "region free" players out there are just hard coded without the region stuff. That means you can't switch to Region 1 when you need to. The Apex and others are software hacks making switching possible.
On the other hand, Apex doesn't play seamless layer switching discs well (Abyss SE, X Men, et. al.) and sometimes loses sound sync.
I have been working and slaving to instal
Mandrake 7.2 all weekend (over FTP because
I didn't have access to a CD burner). These
are the errors and problems I had (and why
I switched by my previous distro). I'm a
little bit of a newbie to Linux (though I've
installed and used it a lot, I don't know
very much about it), but I have a ton of
experience with installing/maintaining
systems.
The first few installations failed with some
error like "hdlist not found" after clicking
"cancel" when I wanted to make a change to
the Networking item I chose or doing other
things like that.
The second complaint of mine was that the base
installation was HUGE. I only have a 1.3 Gb
hard drive and I had to spend 45 minutes selecting
individual packages to install so that I could get
a useful install. Even then the smallest install
I could manage was 800 Mb when I can easily get a
400 Mb install on other distros.
It found my USB mouse with wheel quite nicely, but
although it found my sound card it couldn't get it
to run (it kept giving the error that it didn't know
what to do with some specific component [I have a
standard SB32, nothing fancy or non-standard]). Other
distros find and run my card easily using sndconfig.
I needed to install old libg++ and libstd++ 2.7.2 (not
2.7.8) and tried with a few "compatibility" packages
listed in the install. None of those worked and I was
never able to find it using Mandrake Update. I also
was never able to fully use and understand Mandrake Update.
ControlCenter crashed on me and told me to email the
developer to inform him of the bug. I was just changing
the mouse to have "focus follow mouse."
The system NEVER was able to leave X properly. If I tried
to shut down X and go to a "failsafe" session, it would flash
a full screen of red and white characters on my screen until
I shutdown the computer. Whenever the machine would shutdown,
it did the same thing. Pretty much, I could never run in any
other runlevel than the one for X (5?). That was a BIG bug
in my opinion.
All in all, I really did not like the distro even though it
did flawlessly install KDE 2.0, USB, and X4.0 (though I chose
to install 4.0, I don't know if it did or just put on X3.x).
I already have patent #132,961: "Drag and Drop" shopping at any non-virtual content supplier store. The method used would be to DRAG your arm across the shelf causing items to DROP into the shopping cart that you are pushing next to the shelf.
I already have affiliates in the major food chains (Randalls, Marsh, Kroger, Aldi, White Hen, etc.) who have active employees ready to license the technology to interested shoppers. They also check that only licensed users are implementing my patented shopping strategy.
The concept of building a Beowulf cluster out of Slashdot Cruisers shall be covered by both this claim and claim #4.
Shouldn't this be covered "under this claim and claim #9?" Claim #4 is about Natalie Portman, #9 is about senseless Beowulf clusters.
Since this post is bitching about a typo, but it isn't about CmdrTaco, am I still free from you patent infringement? Or will I have to offer up my services to edit any of your proceeding posts?
P.S.
This is a funny post in response to a funny post on a story intended for funny posts; please don't mod me down.
What you're seeing in the movies is a seperate issue than the region thing (sort of). The studios release small movies in Large markets (markets where there is actually enough culture and open-minded people to try new things without being told to do so) to see how well they do. If they do well, they release in more markets (or they open in a new city with openning day festivities for each new city like they did for the movie "Groove"). It is sort of an insurance policy against an expensive major release of a crappy movie.
The reason why they release DVD's in certain markets at different times is purely a profit issue. I still have yet to think of how they can get more profits by releasing it a month or two later in Europe, but I'm positive that is why they do it. The other reason is that there are different versions for each region: PAL vs. NTSC, Japanese audio tracks instead of French. I also have the European version of "Eyes Wide Shut" which is the uncensored version that they can't/won't sell here in the US.
If (by the greatest of all possible spaces) you are using the min distance Mars-Sun as the diameter of a sphere of space, you can use 4/3*pi*r^3 to get a V of 4.62*10^24 km^3. Sol's V is 1.412*10^18. You can only fit 3.3 million suns in there.
If you just take the linear distance, you can only fit 308 suns in there.
Either way, that is a shit-load of suns in a relatively small space (compared to the normal distance between suns).
I have read some of this person's columns in
a local newspaper and I think in other major
publications. I know the column has a massive
reader base.
The article didn't go into much depth in any
of the issues, but it did highlight some of
the most absurd details of a lot of the current
cases that are concerning technology today. I
hope people will see these cases in a new light and start caring more about it now.
I have tried to explain to MANY people why I am
wearing a t-shirt that says down with DVD-CCA
and why I am boycotting various companies, but
most people don't see the big problems or understand the importance of the outcomes of these cases. Hopefully, more people will start paying more attention to what is going on currently that will affect them in the future.
In short, we need more major columnists like this to write more colums like this. Maybe we can persuade Dave Barry...
My guess for why they take this business
strategy is that they make more money on the
faster chips. I can think of three possible reasonings behind their strategy (all of which anyone here can refute, and probably will:)
If you spend less money on the slower chips and make them faster, in theory AMD is losing money.
It also allows you to stay on the trailing edge of technology by buying last year's chip and keeping it for as long as you would a new chip.
The final reason may just be a preemptive strike against returns/et.al. An o/c'd chip is more likely to show manufacturing defects, too.
I don't know if any of these reasons lose them money because they are creating brand loyalty by selling o'clockable chips and you will also buy a new one when the old one burns out.
I never read their pdf so I don't know what comments they made, but I'm guessing it was something about freedom of music and we're all happy piraters not hurting the industry?
What it said probably doesn't matter. If it was written by suits, it was probably OKed by them (or was written before the suits came along). It might have even been written by suits to perpetuate the image of the company.
I don't know much about the company, but what the public thinks of the people in the company is how it was in the beginning and is a carefully protected image constructed by the suits.
The Napster guys aren't just kids. They are a bunch of suits and venture cap guys. The man who invented Napster is still a 19 year old, but he sold 70% to his uncle to start the business and then they sold most of their stake to get venture cap to get the company moving. The original kid only has 6% of the company and isn't even in any kind of administrative or executive position. They use him as their posterboy.
These guys are in it as a business and are trying to get money. I'm sure the original kid wanted something different, but too bad he gave ALL control over to the suits.
I don't have the exact facts as to what position the inventor has in the company (you can check a/. article from last week if you want it), but I know he has pretty much no control.
You are completely incorrect in your thinking. If the law actually applied as you believe, nobody would be doing research in academia if there was any chance for profit.
AFAIK, the govt funds the university, the univ funds the department, the dept funds the research. Partial proceeds go to univ, partial to the dept where they were working, and the rest to their company. There are THOUSANDS of govt funded people who have patents. Getting a patent just means that your name is on the patent. If you are funded by someone, usually there is a standard contract or formal agreement of profit sharing or something. Especially at an amazing institution like MIT.
I don't know the exact details, but believe me, they can and have received patents and started their own company for it. A lot of graduate students at MIT own/run companies while still going to school there.
Well, the only time I used Napster was to download tracks from a CD that I payed for legally, but was destroyed. I burnt a new CD from these and then I uninstalled Napster. The only other MP3's I have on any computer are freely distributed by mp3.com (mostly techno tracks) or from mix tapes that were given to me by the artist.
Not everyone steals from the music industry. Although I think what the industry does to the musicians is wrong (and shutting down Napster is wrong, they should get the pirates instead), I still don't steal from them. I will boycott, however.
In this case, you stole from AutoCAD and Microsoft. In the case of mp3s, you stole from the artists and copyright owners. That IS stealing, legally and ethically. Microsoft wrote the code and did not give it to you nor sell it to you, yet you have their crap (crap is an intentional word). The artist created the song and the copyright owners distributed it, neither gave or sold it to you, yet you have it. That is stealing.
One of the most widely used arguments for hacking and cracking is that they want to find the flaws and security holes in a system. That's great and fine IF that is what they are actually doing.
Kiro5hin was a decent site that was totally free for anyone and what does someone do? They break it. I KNOW they weren't doing this "to point out the holes in the system." Everyone already knows this hole exists. They just wanted to do some damage because they have a juvenile, teen-angst urge to destroy anything that is vulnerable whether they have a reason to or not.
I hope they find the person(s) who did this. I'm sure they are only 14 or 15 years old so they can't send them to real jail, but maybe they can have their parents spank them and ground 'em for a month. If they are older than that, they should be shot for polluting the gene pool with their stupidity. IMHO
I went, payed, and started to download, but stopped it for some reason or another (I was at work so maybe my boss stopped by or something?). Anyway, I went back, payed again, and downloaded it in full. I don't know if the first dload showed up as a dload on his stats or not (because I only dloaded for about 5 seconds; does he count a start of dload or the completion of a dload?), so I payed twice for reading it once. Oh, well.
I didn't really enjoy the first chapter, though, so I don't think I'll read the next one just to boost his income.
But fuel/money IS one of the big issues. The new International Space Station will be around 360 feet long and costs billions of dollars. Imagine something that had to have a DIAMETER of 360 ft. It would cost 10x as much (I'm guessing).
You also aren't considering the incredibly large effects of spin on the system. All the systems have to be more complex, not to mention the thermal gradients and all the other wacky things that happen to a space vehicle (I'm an engineer working on the ISS's guidance and control so I know some of the odd things that happen). We're currently spin stabilizing the ISS (we have to stop for thermal reasons once the Z1 truss gets there and for obvious reasons once humans inhabit it in January) and it takes fuel for spins and reboosts and other station keeping maneuvers.
"spining a space station up to 1G wouldn't be particularly expensive or difficult."
To spin something up to 1G to simulate gravity to a decent degree of normality would be require a sizable system. I won't do the math because nobody really cares, but I have seen the numbers and they ain't small. A large system costs more to put in space than a small one (gotta love our gravity hole) so cost is the major issue. If it were reasonable, trust me, they probably would've tried it.
I was never into comic books and the person with whom I went to see the movie last night had never even heard of the X-men (I knew some of the basic characters, but that's it). We are both movie fanatics in our own right, so this review is from some people who see 4 or more movies a week.
He absolutely loved the movie. It was new, exciting, interesting and just plain fun. He is eagerly awaiting a sequel and is definitely planning on seeing it again. He is completely new to the series and liked the characters and story, et. al. He said the acting was good and that he knew he really liked the movie within the first 5 minutes of the movie. He also had never really seen any previews or reviews of the movie before going to see it, so he had a completely open mind about it.
I, on the other hand, had seen a lot of the previews, had read some reviews, knew about the story, and wasn't really expecting much (I thought the previews made it look very cheesy and like it was just going to show some interesting costumes, while being a completely dispicable movie in the lines of "Batman and Robin" [or whichever the one was with Schwartzeneger and Uma Thurman]). This movie was one of those that could be really bad or really good depending on who made the movie. After about 5 minutes into the movie, I could tell this was going to be a good (action) movie. The movie looked good; the actors reacted well to each other; the story and plot were thick enough to hold the moviegoers attention and not make you think about every little detail, while not bombarding you with a ton of info, either. The other nice thing was that it didn't try to be the "good" movie with emotional plots, well developed characters, tearjerking scenes and such. It was an action movie, plain and simple. The worst downfall of such terrible movies as Armageddon and MI:2 was that they tried to be "good" movies instead of action movies. They just end up boring you during the parts where you want action and making the BIG hollywood actors look stupid because they are just eye-candy and not real actors. It also wasn't heavy on some of the worst parts of a typical action movie, either: one-liners. They are typically just for the people who can't process a seriously funny line and for a part of the movie where there isn't room for one, but the action is slowing down and needs to keep the audience's attention. There are still a few in there, but most are genuinely funny and they are sparsed out.
In all, this was a fun movie. I will probably see it again as it has good replay value: because you always knew how it was going to end and pretty much what was going to happen, it won't lose much. There ARE some criticisms of the movie apart from the rabid fans, but they aren't too critical to the enjoyment of the movie. They left a lot open for sequels and for imagination (like why certain things did certain things and what exactly was Sabre Tooths superpower besides being strong).
For an action movie I give it 8.5/10. Just as a movie, I give it 7/10.
The original post didn't say a parody site couldn't make money; it said that a non-profit organization (PETA) should get a.org TLD. If the parody site is making money (which I think it is), it should be a.com That is what he is saying.
The picture doesn't say all of those machines on the rack were for ACME. The picture also doesn't say that all of those boxes were up and running and not just sitting there empty.
This may not be flying on the 2003 mission as was reported.
Well, according to SPACE NEWS vol.11 no.21 May 29, 2000 pg2 "An experiment to extract oxygen from the Martian atmosphere is among three payloads left in limbo following NASA's directive to halt work on a Mars lander originally slated to fly in 2001... ...NASA issued a stop work order on the lander May 12 in a move that coincided with an announcement of two new mission concepts as the front runner for the 2003 mission
Performance hit on non-Intel
on
AtheOS
·
· Score: 2
IANA computer engineer, so I was wondering how much of a performance hit this system will take on something like an ATHLON. I know the Athlon supports everything Intel does and all that, but since this was written from the ground up as an Intel architecture OS I wasn't sure what the effect will be since an AMD is an exact copy of the Intel. Just wondering.
Slashdot Mirror
Pluto also doesn't orbit like a normal planet. Most planets have near circular orbits; besides Pluto, the greatest eccentricity of the planets in our Solar system is 0.20563 (Mercury) and the rest are on the order of 0.04. Pluto has an eccentricity of 0.2444. That isn't much of an argument, but if you look at the fact that the inclination of its orbit is 17 degrees while the rest are around 1 or 2 degrees (Mercury is 7 degrees) it doesn't orbit like a planet but more like a captured object.
In the past I have defended Pluto being a planet; but, after looking at what else is out there of around the size of Pluto and comparing them to other planets, I'm not so sure. In my opinion, though, it is almost a moot point. We know it is there, what it is made of and a lot more about it; I personally don't care how it is classified (that is only a point for astronomers and exogeologists to quibble over).
To get back to Jupiter, though, I think it was also formed much differently than a star. I don't know if formation is part of the classification of astronomical objects, but if it is then Jupiter still wouldn't be a star even if it were larger. The planets we've found orbiting other stars have all been of around Jupiter's size, but some were over twice as large and they are still planets.
I know this is very fuzzy math, but when the Concorde has crashed one time in 4000 flights while a normal jet crashes one time in 12000 flights, the safety isn't really all it sounds like.
Don't tell me my math and/or data are wrong, because they probably are; but the result is correct.
By the way, insulting the 747 by calling it an Airbus is pretty funny since it was designed 30 years ago and is still the most recognizable and maybe the most widely used widebody jet on the market. Airbus makes a good plane (check out the Super Guppy when you get a chance, I love it), but until their planes last as long and as well as the 747 you can't really disparage it.
Also, the only people giggling in the packed theatre we saw it in were the three of us. I don't think the people were lauging because they were newbies or oldies like us, but because they found humor in flying people.
Of course, the NEW Apex's aren't; you have to get one from last year before the MPAA brought down the thunder on them.
As for the DVD's that don't work on Region free machines, you have to make sure the DVD player can be switched to use a region. The Apex can be switched to play ANY region specifically or just bypass them. If you find a DVD that doesn't work on a region free machine, just switch it to region 1 or whatever. Some "region free" players out there are just hard coded without the region stuff. That means you can't switch to Region 1 when you need to. The Apex and others are software hacks making switching possible.
On the other hand, Apex doesn't play seamless layer switching discs well (Abyss SE, X Men, et. al.) and sometimes loses sound sync.
The first few installations failed with some error like "hdlist not found" after clicking "cancel" when I wanted to make a change to the Networking item I chose or doing other things like that.
The second complaint of mine was that the base installation was HUGE. I only have a 1.3 Gb hard drive and I had to spend 45 minutes selecting individual packages to install so that I could get a useful install. Even then the smallest install I could manage was 800 Mb when I can easily get a 400 Mb install on other distros.
It found my USB mouse with wheel quite nicely, but although it found my sound card it couldn't get it to run (it kept giving the error that it didn't know what to do with some specific component [I have a standard SB32, nothing fancy or non-standard]). Other distros find and run my card easily using sndconfig.
I needed to install old libg++ and libstd++ 2.7.2 (not 2.7.8) and tried with a few "compatibility" packages listed in the install. None of those worked and I was never able to find it using Mandrake Update. I also was never able to fully use and understand Mandrake Update.
ControlCenter crashed on me and told me to email the developer to inform him of the bug. I was just changing the mouse to have "focus follow mouse."
The system NEVER was able to leave X properly. If I tried to shut down X and go to a "failsafe" session, it would flash a full screen of red and white characters on my screen until I shutdown the computer. Whenever the machine would shutdown, it did the same thing. Pretty much, I could never run in any other runlevel than the one for X (5?). That was a BIG bug in my opinion.
All in all, I really did not like the distro even though it did flawlessly install KDE 2.0, USB, and X4.0 (though I chose to install 4.0, I don't know if it did or just put on X3.x).
I already have affiliates in the major food chains (Randalls, Marsh, Kroger, Aldi, White Hen, etc.) who have active employees ready to license the technology to interested shoppers. They also check that only licensed users are implementing my patented shopping strategy.
The concept of building a Beowulf cluster out of Slashdot Cruisers shall be covered by both this claim and claim #4.
Shouldn't this be covered "under this claim and claim #9?" Claim #4 is about Natalie Portman, #9 is about senseless Beowulf clusters.
Since this post is bitching about a typo, but it isn't about CmdrTaco, am I still free from you patent infringement? Or will I have to offer up my services to edit any of your proceeding posts?
P.S.
This is a funny post in response to a funny post on a story intended for funny posts; please don't mod me down.
The reason why they release DVD's in certain markets at different times is purely a profit issue. I still have yet to think of how they can get more profits by releasing it a month or two later in Europe, but I'm positive that is why they do it. The other reason is that there are different versions for each region: PAL vs. NTSC, Japanese audio tracks instead of French. I also have the European version of "Eyes Wide Shut" which is the uncensored version that they can't/won't sell here in the US.
If (by the greatest of all possible spaces) you are using the min distance Mars-Sun as the diameter of a sphere of space, you can use 4/3*pi*r^3 to get a V of 4.62*10^24 km^3. Sol's V is 1.412*10^18. You can only fit 3.3 million suns in there.
If you just take the linear distance, you can only fit 308 suns in there.
Either way, that is a shit-load of suns in a relatively small space (compared to the normal distance between suns).
The article didn't go into much depth in any of the issues, but it did highlight some of the most absurd details of a lot of the current cases that are concerning technology today. I hope people will see these cases in a new light and start caring more about it now.
I have tried to explain to MANY people why I am wearing a t-shirt that says down with DVD-CCA and why I am boycotting various companies, but most people don't see the big problems or understand the importance of the outcomes of these cases. Hopefully, more people will start paying more attention to what is going on currently that will affect them in the future.
In short, we need more major columnists like this to write more colums like this. Maybe we can persuade Dave Barry...
As this post points out, they are also making it more difficult for shady vendors to sell o/c'd chips as though they were actually the faster ones.
If you spend less money on the slower chips and make them faster, in theory AMD is losing money.
It also allows you to stay on the trailing edge of technology by buying last year's chip and keeping it for as long as you would a new chip.
The final reason may just be a preemptive strike against returns/et.al. An o/c'd chip is more likely to show manufacturing defects, too.
I don't know if any of these reasons lose them money because they are creating brand loyalty by selling o'clockable chips and you will also buy a new one when the old one burns out.
What it said probably doesn't matter. If it was written by suits, it was probably OKed by them (or was written before the suits came along). It might have even been written by suits to perpetuate the image of the company.
I don't know much about the company, but what the public thinks of the people in the company is how it was in the beginning and is a carefully protected image constructed by the suits.
These guys are in it as a business and are trying to get money. I'm sure the original kid wanted something different, but too bad he gave ALL control over to the suits.
I don't have the exact facts as to what position the inventor has in the company (you can check a /. article from last week if you want it), but I know he has pretty much no control.
AFAIK, the govt funds the university, the univ funds the department, the dept funds the research. Partial proceeds go to univ, partial to the dept where they were working, and the rest to their company. There are THOUSANDS of govt funded people who have patents. Getting a patent just means that your name is on the patent. If you are funded by someone, usually there is a standard contract or formal agreement of profit sharing or something. Especially at an amazing institution like MIT.
I don't know the exact details, but believe me, they can and have received patents and started their own company for it. A lot of graduate students at MIT own/run companies while still going to school there.
Not everyone steals from the music industry. Although I think what the industry does to the musicians is wrong (and shutting down Napster is wrong, they should get the pirates instead), I still don't steal from them. I will boycott, however.
In this case, you stole from AutoCAD and Microsoft. In the case of mp3s, you stole from the artists and copyright owners. That IS stealing, legally and ethically. Microsoft wrote the code and did not give it to you nor sell it to you, yet you have their crap (crap is an intentional word). The artist created the song and the copyright owners distributed it, neither gave or sold it to you, yet you have it. That is stealing.
Kiro5hin was a decent site that was totally free for anyone and what does someone do? They break it. I KNOW they weren't doing this "to point out the holes in the system." Everyone already knows this hole exists. They just wanted to do some damage because they have a juvenile, teen-angst urge to destroy anything that is vulnerable whether they have a reason to or not.
I hope they find the person(s) who did this. I'm sure they are only 14 or 15 years old so they can't send them to real jail, but maybe they can have their parents spank them and ground 'em for a month. If they are older than that, they should be shot for polluting the gene pool with their stupidity. IMHO
I didn't really enjoy the first chapter, though, so I don't think I'll read the next one just to boost his income.
You also aren't considering the incredibly large effects of spin on the system. All the systems have to be more complex, not to mention the thermal gradients and all the other wacky things that happen to a space vehicle (I'm an engineer working on the ISS's guidance and control so I know some of the odd things that happen). We're currently spin stabilizing the ISS (we have to stop for thermal reasons once the Z1 truss gets there and for obvious reasons once humans inhabit it in January) and it takes fuel for spins and reboosts and other station keeping maneuvers.
"spining a space station up to 1G wouldn't be particularly expensive or difficult."
To spin something up to 1G to simulate gravity to a decent degree of normality would be require a sizable system. I won't do the math because nobody really cares, but I have seen the numbers and they ain't small. A large system costs more to put in space than a small one (gotta love our gravity hole) so cost is the major issue. If it were reasonable, trust me, they probably would've tried it.
He absolutely loved the movie. It was new, exciting, interesting and just plain fun. He is eagerly awaiting a sequel and is definitely planning on seeing it again. He is completely new to the series and liked the characters and story, et. al. He said the acting was good and that he knew he really liked the movie within the first 5 minutes of the movie. He also had never really seen any previews or reviews of the movie before going to see it, so he had a completely open mind about it.
I, on the other hand, had seen a lot of the previews, had read some reviews, knew about the story, and wasn't really expecting much (I thought the previews made it look very cheesy and like it was just going to show some interesting costumes, while being a completely dispicable movie in the lines of "Batman and Robin" [or whichever the one was with Schwartzeneger and Uma Thurman]). This movie was one of those that could be really bad or really good depending on who made the movie. After about 5 minutes into the movie, I could tell this was going to be a good (action) movie. The movie looked good; the actors reacted well to each other; the story and plot were thick enough to hold the moviegoers attention and not make you think about every little detail, while not bombarding you with a ton of info, either. The other nice thing was that it didn't try to be the "good" movie with emotional plots, well developed characters, tearjerking scenes and such. It was an action movie, plain and simple. The worst downfall of such terrible movies as Armageddon and MI:2 was that they tried to be "good" movies instead of action movies. They just end up boring you during the parts where you want action and making the BIG hollywood actors look stupid because they are just eye-candy and not real actors. It also wasn't heavy on some of the worst parts of a typical action movie, either: one-liners. They are typically just for the people who can't process a seriously funny line and for a part of the movie where there isn't room for one, but the action is slowing down and needs to keep the audience's attention. There are still a few in there, but most are genuinely funny and they are sparsed out.
In all, this was a fun movie. I will probably see it again as it has good replay value: because you always knew how it was going to end and pretty much what was going to happen, it won't lose much. There ARE some criticisms of the movie apart from the rabid fans, but they aren't too critical to the enjoyment of the movie. They left a lot open for sequels and for imagination (like why certain things did certain things and what exactly was Sabre Tooths superpower besides being strong).
For an action movie I give it 8.5/10. Just as a movie, I give it 7/10.
The original post didn't say a parody site couldn't make money; it said that a non-profit organization (PETA) should get a .org TLD. If the parody site is making money (which I think it is), it should be a .com That is what he is saying.
The picture doesn't say all of those machines on the rack were for ACME. The picture also doesn't say that all of those boxes were up and running and not just sitting there empty.
Well, according to SPACE NEWS vol.11 no.21 May 29, 2000 pg2
...NASA issued a stop work order on the lander May 12 in a move that coincided with an announcement of two new mission concepts as the front runner for the 2003 mission
"An experiment to extract oxygen from the Martian atmosphere is among three payloads left in limbo following NASA's directive to halt work on a Mars lander originally slated to fly in 2001...
IANA computer engineer, so I was wondering how much of a performance hit this system will take on something like an ATHLON. I know the Athlon supports everything Intel does and all that, but since this was written from the ground up as an Intel architecture OS I wasn't sure what the effect will be since an AMD is an exact copy of the Intel. Just wondering.