Well, you beat me to the punchline. I wonder how many here are aware of the incredable OVA that is Macross Plus. Speaking of the music, I truly was blown away by the soundtrack. So amazing was Yoko Kanno's work, I didn't realize until quit some time later that some songs were niether in Japanese nor English, but actually French. She's unusual, this Yoko Kanno. For Cowboy Bebop, the opening theme is this wierd jazzy number. For GitS: Standalone complex, the opening theme is a techno song with russian lyrics. However impressive this new digital system may be, I seriously doubt it can handle anything decent that Ms. Yoko Kanno has to offer.
Let us not forget the good folks at Transmeta who are attacking this problem from the software perspective. More efficient code will make any processor run cooler, regardless if it is 64 or 32. However AMD decides to go about it, they probably don't intend these new chips to be used in situations where cooling comes at a premium. In those kinds of circumstances, PDAs for example, better software is a simpler solution.
Reading the article makes you wonder about non-transportation marvels that was predicted ages ago. Off the top of my head, AI (ala Lt. Comm. Data) is the most tantalyzing of these. The year 2001 has come and gone and we have yet to witness anything resembling HAL the homocidal computer. (maybe that is a good thing?) On both the hardware and software front, we are embarassingly behind where we thought we would be many years ago. Will we be reading the same article ages hence lamenting the lack of androids?
P.S. I'm anticipating that Matrix jokes are inevitable. Go ahead - do your worst.
As long as we let Bush and CO run leashless with their energy policies, the likes of Mr. Montgomery Burns (with some help from Homer, of course) will have our cities and towns covered with a nice protective layer of arial pollution that will burn up any meteorid quite nicely.
I've been a astro-geek for as long as I can remember. A few years ago, I was blown away after reading "Hyperspace". At the time, I was truly impressed with Prof. Michio Kaku's elequent and penatrating writing style. As far as books on physics goes, my opinion is that his is a head and shoulder above Stephen Hawkings "A Brief History of Time". Unlike Hawking's tome, "Hyperspace" at times reads like a well written novel with an evolving plotline and compeling characters that put a human dimension on our quest for understanding reality.
That all fell apart a few weeks ago when I came across an archived broadcast on the webpage of the NPR radio show "Science Friday".
Kaku was a guest on a discussion of the safety of Radio-isotope Thermal Generators (RTGs) which coincide with the launch of the much delayed Cassini mission to Saturn. The voice I heard completely floored me with his arrogance and condescension. He spoke about "saving science from the misguided hands of NASA" as a politician who has no appreciation of the hard work NASA engineers have accomplished would. He verbally assulted another science guest on the show as a "fringe" with no qualifications.
This sounded nothing like the voice of knowledge and wisdom I had come to know in the pages of "Hyperspace". Surely Mr. Kaku must be just having a bad day? I set out to scour the web and find out more rational words from the man. I was disapointed. The most promanent source document I have found on the subject is a speech he delivered at Cape Canaveral.
There is no loss of elegance, and the retoric is as insightful as ever. But after you finish reading them, you realize that he is long on criticism and short on solutions. Furthermore, he completely fails to make any mention of rebuttals (extremely sound and very obvious rebuttals, I might add) to the ideas he is advancing. I can go on about exactly how he leaves us short for many more paragraphs. But I'm off topic as it is so I'll let you pursue that at your own discression.
Basically, I got the distinct impression that the man is a megalomaniac. It would have been forgivable if he had been an activist in the spirit of Carl Sagan's conservation activities. But it seems this guy, on this particular subject at least, is purely out for attention and will stop at nothing to get it. I find it sad and disapointing when smart people overstep the boundaries of authority or credibility and abuse the trust and admiration the public has given them. Thankfully, I'm not alone. Attached to a blurb at geek.com, the first two comments raise questions about Mr. Kaku views just as I have.
I am a fan of Dr Kaku (4:26pm EST Fri Jun 27 2003) But, I need to respond with a resounding, HUH? to this blurb. Dr. Kaku has giving me invaluable insights into string theory, and his ideaas for public policy are well reasoned and logical, but what's with the report on needed to turn off artificial monkey brains? Heck, I am as liberal and prohuman as the next guy, but I feel that I could really use some murderous sim simians. - by IA my eye
Quack (5:06pm EST Fri Jun 27 2003) I read Visions and had a high opinion of Dr. Kaku, until I realized he was the central figure organizing and supporting the protests against the launch of the Ullyses Saturn Probe. He did this because he believed that the RTGs on the probe would contaminate the earth if they re-entered the atmosphere. The probability of this happening is beyond remot
To demonstrate the durability of CD-R media, my ex-roommate once licked the active side. I hope neither the dye nor the plastic is toxic. But since I was always suspicious my roomie may have had a few screws loose, that may not matter too much.
I can say that W is a dummy with impunity in the US.
I'm sure many other sensible Americans have done the same thing. So much good that has done. Parent poster does not realize that free speech is in reality kind of toothless in most situations - even in democracies.
All the humor aside, I think fellow slashdotters are being just a bit condescending here. It isn't fair to jab the Nigerians for failing to take care of earthbound problems before tackling space. Look at us - we've been in space for decades but have arguably the lions share of social/economic inequities on earth. What other country hosts both the opulent decadence of Bill Gates and homeless vagrants who spend nights in city parks where you can just as easily get beat up for thrills by street gangs or freeze to death in the winter.
Some have mentioned the harsh Muslim laws which has touched one poor woman's life in a very public way. They seem to have forgotten that we have a pair of ultra right Christian fanatics who initially said Americans suffered 9/11 because abortionists, feminists, homosexuals, the ACLU and others have upset God. And the priest who was convicted of murderings someone for performing abortions - didn't he publicly declare that he believes he will be welcomed in heaven for what he did?
I can not condone the advanced fee fraud Nigeria is famous for, but if you are dumb enough to fall for it, maybe you deserved to learn the lesson the hard way. Perhaps us stock-market-speculating Americans have forgotten that money could be gotten the old fashion way - by earning it with honest work?
Some point out that the endeavor is more British and Russian than Nigerian. But that is missing the point. I mean, what do you expect baby steps to be like anyway? John Glen didn't got to space overnight. He rode the coat tail of German rocket researchers who came to work for uncle sam after WWII, and the Germans had built upon the work of our own Robert Goddard. Can you imagine how few engineers there would be today if in their younger days, there was not the generosity or charity to provide them with that old crystal radio set or that clunky-but-still-functioning computer? It isn't wrong to ask or recieve help. You have to start somewhere right?
Let us not forget that our own space program was priceless in stimulating so many good things. Aside from the obvious utilitarian benifits that the satellite offers by performing it's duties, it also gives the citizens something to look up to. (no pun intended) Maybe there will be a few less scammers as young Nigerians realize there are higher goals worth pursuing. Just to show that I'm not completely without humor, I for one welcome our new space-faring colleagues.
Let's not forget that Tokyo is a prime destination also for extra-terrestrial visitors, living or otherwise. They're safe, though, since Godzilla always shows up to eliminate anything that happens to be threatening. Although the city usually....er, nevermind.
There were two dishes still attached to a couple of burnt out houses near where my sister lives. When I visited her I wondered if her home owner's association would let me have them. Next time I came by, the houses were half torn down with the dishes no where in sight. I wish I'd known when they discarded them. I now regret not haven taken them when I was there.
I signed up for the do-not-call list. It needed email confirmation before being considered valid. I didn't know until the respond period had expired. Why? It sat in my bulk mail folder because YAHOO thought it was a piece of spam.
Weird timing. I'm currently writing code for a class on microcontrollers. Most electrical engineering students would at some time come across an advanced digital course on microprocessors where one learns about different machine architectures and how to write assembly code for them. Are there any/.ers who have systematically studies GPU chips as part of a class, like say on graphic algorithms or DSP?
Even if the event was caused by internal processes, trajectory changes are still possible due to Newton's 3rd law of motion. A last 'sigh' may not generate as much momentum as a collision, but it should still have enough impulse to make determination of the exact nature of the event non-trivial.
Should we be worried about the solar system replenishing its comets? I don't think running out of comets should concern us Earth dwellers that much. In fact, it would be best to have as few of them as possible unless we want to go the way of the dinosours. Our technology gives us an edge over our Cretaceous-dwelling friends, but the resources needed for a comet defense force seem outrageous when you consider all the problems on Earth that need money, political will, and man power. Besides, Bruce Willis & gang are better suited for...well, almost anything else. damn! that movie sucked!
You've hit the nail on the head. I was trying to say there is obviously an attractive option that no one seem to take seriously. Why not? Politics. A skewed sense of priorities mauled the US shuttle program during conception. I'm suggesting that history will repeat itself, but this time on the international stage. Consider the fact the Japanese prototype last year already completed it's first successful test flight. In contrast, American efforts will nearly start from scratch. The only thing I can think of that comes close to serving as a technical foundation or springboard to the current effort is the experimental lift-body designs that were used to test atmospheric dynamics in test which concluded many decades ago. This is great in that it gives US aerospace contractors more work to bid on, but it is hardly benificial to the final goal of having a cheap reliable space transport as soon as possible.
As long as the space transport efforts remain isolated from each other, the process does not benifit from the power of market forces. Guys like Boeing and Lockheed Martin have no incentive to put out if their work is protected from Japanese success. But if the formation of a government lead consortium (not necessarily led by the US) allows outside efforts to cut into their piece of the pie, they would likely be more willing to get serious and cooperate.
But alas, no such thing will come to pass. We will benifit from no such dedication to space travel/science/exploration. Which is why it is sad.
This initiative has been a long time coming. As it has already been pointed out by many posters, a smaller shuttle would have been seriously considered and perhaps even realized during the inception of the current shuttle if it hadn't been for political and bureaucratic wrangling (especially on behalf of the US defense force). I would like to be excited about this announcement, I really would. But I find the most proper reaction to be a simple yawn, as in "here we go again".
The fundamental ideas behind this announcement has been around for a really, really long time, and it was not an isolated development. The Europeans were putting serious effort into a program called "Hermes" with nearly the identical objectives for years before abandoning it 10 years ago. Similarly, Japan - with a space budget of a tenth that of NASA's - continues to pursue their own mini-shuttle dubbed "HOPE-X".
With these events in plain sight, one has to wonder why on earth it is so difficult to do the right thing. The ISS, despite being somewhat of a white elephant, is still a pretty decent lightning rod for stimulating international cooperation. Isn't it reasonable to assert that pooling resourced from all 3 nations who've already dreamed of mini-shuttles (US, Euro, Japan) in addition to anyone else who might want to participate (Russia, China, India) might actually get an astronaut-ferry built with decent price/performance/safty perameters? With the resources of international partners, we can reduce not just develope costs by leveraging the R&D others have already put into it, but also distribute the manufacturing responsibilities and perhaps even operational costs. Additionally, what can be learned from the work already put into the X-prize by various participants. Think of the possibilities if space faring for the forseable future is "standardized" on one vehicle by several nations which helps to build it. Economy of scale means production up, cost down, and in the end, science and exploration wins - everyone happy!
What makes no sense to me is how all the evidence that has been uncovered regarding the Iceman can be interpereted to result from a single incident. Why does everyone assume everything happened just before he died? I can understand if no signs of healing around the arrowhead wound pushes conclusion in one direction, but is it possible that a period of days, weeks, or even months might seperate the deposit of blood on his own cloak and arrows? If I've just shoot two people while my life was still endangered enough that I had to eventually get into a knife fight, retrieving my arrows would be the last thing on my mind.
"For example, the princess we know as Cinderella originally hails from China, where she goes by the name Yeh-Shen and relies for help on a magic fish who gives her golden slippers."
this must be a slap in the face for admirers of the Brothers Grimm. I'd be very interested to see the Chinese version.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, you beat me to the punchline. I wonder how many here are aware of the incredable OVA that is Macross Plus. Speaking of the music, I truly was blown away by the soundtrack. So amazing was Yoko Kanno's work, I didn't realize until quit some time later that some songs were niether in Japanese nor English, but actually French. She's unusual, this Yoko Kanno. For Cowboy Bebop, the opening theme is this wierd jazzy number. For GitS: Standalone complex, the opening theme is a techno song with russian lyrics. However impressive this new digital system may be, I seriously doubt it can handle anything decent that Ms. Yoko Kanno has to offer.
Let us not forget the good folks at Transmeta who are attacking this problem from the software perspective. More efficient code will make any processor run cooler, regardless if it is 64 or 32. However AMD decides to go about it, they probably don't intend these new chips to be used in situations where cooling comes at a premium. In those kinds of circumstances, PDAs for example, better software is a simpler solution.
Reading the article makes you wonder about non-transportation marvels that was predicted ages ago. Off the top of my head, AI (ala Lt. Comm. Data) is the most tantalyzing of these. The year 2001 has come and gone and we have yet to witness anything resembling HAL the homocidal computer. (maybe that is a good thing?) On both the hardware and software front, we are embarassingly behind where we thought we would be many years ago. Will we be reading the same article ages hence lamenting the lack of androids?
P.S. I'm anticipating that Matrix jokes are inevitable. Go ahead - do your worst.
As long as we let Bush and CO run leashless with their energy policies, the likes of Mr. Montgomery Burns (with some help from Homer, of course) will have our cities and towns covered with a nice protective layer of arial pollution that will burn up any meteorid quite nicely.
Real self-respecting scientists don't grind axes.
go away
That all fell apart a few weeks ago when I came across an archived broadcast on the webpage of the NPR radio show "Science Friday".
http://www.sciencefriday.com/pages/1997/Sep/hour2_ 090597.html
Kaku was a guest on a discussion of the safety of Radio-isotope Thermal Generators (RTGs) which coincide with the launch of the much delayed Cassini mission to Saturn. The voice I heard completely floored me with his arrogance and condescension. He spoke about "saving science from the misguided hands of NASA" as a politician who has no appreciation of the hard work NASA engineers have accomplished would. He verbally assulted another science guest on the show as a "fringe" with no qualifications.
This sounded nothing like the voice of knowledge and wisdom I had come to know in the pages of "Hyperspace". Surely Mr. Kaku must be just having a bad day? I set out to scour the web and find out more rational words from the man. I was disapointed. The most promanent source document I have found on the subject is a speech he delivered at Cape Canaveral.
http://www.lovearth.org/mkaku.htm
another more formal and detailed expository:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/mk9708so.h tm
There is no loss of elegance, and the retoric is as insightful as ever. But after you finish reading them, you realize that he is long on criticism and short on solutions. Furthermore, he completely fails to make any mention of rebuttals (extremely sound and very obvious rebuttals, I might add) to the ideas he is advancing. I can go on about exactly how he leaves us short for many more paragraphs. But I'm off topic as it is so I'll let you pursue that at your own discression.
Basically, I got the distinct impression that the man is a megalomaniac. It would have been forgivable if he had been an activist in the spirit of Carl Sagan's conservation activities. But it seems this guy, on this particular subject at least, is purely out for attention and will stop at nothing to get it. I find it sad and disapointing when smart people overstep the boundaries of authority or credibility and abuse the trust and admiration the public has given them. Thankfully, I'm not alone. Attached to a blurb at geek.com, the first two comments raise questions about Mr. Kaku views just as I have.
On second thought, maybe the fungus was responsible for his loonieness....
To demonstrate the durability of CD-R media, my ex-roommate once licked the active side. I hope neither the dye nor the plastic is toxic. But since I was always suspicious my roomie may have had a few screws loose, that may not matter too much.
I can say that W is a dummy with impunity in the US.
I'm sure many other sensible Americans have done the same thing. So much good that has done. Parent poster does not realize that free speech is in reality kind of toothless in most situations - even in democracies.
YES!!!
We should sue them on behalf of NASA for patent infringements!
I'll bet Darl can offer insights!
sir, you are completely without common sense.
...followed by the straight man's retort.
Maybe there will be a few less scammers as young Nigerians realize there are higher goals worth pursuing
that was the joke.
Just to show that I'm not completely without humor, I for one welcome our new space-faring colleagues.
But that is beside the point. Let me ask you instead: how have *you* contributed to the discussion.
All the humor aside, I think fellow slashdotters are being just a bit condescending here. It isn't fair to jab the Nigerians for failing to take care of earthbound problems before tackling space. Look at us - we've been in space for decades but have arguably the lions share of social/economic inequities on earth. What other country hosts both the opulent decadence of Bill Gates and homeless vagrants who spend nights in city parks where you can just as easily get beat up for thrills by street gangs or freeze to death in the winter.
Some have mentioned the harsh Muslim laws which has touched one poor woman's life in a very public way. They seem to have forgotten that we have a pair of ultra right Christian fanatics who initially said Americans suffered 9/11 because abortionists, feminists, homosexuals, the ACLU and others have upset God. And the priest who was convicted of murderings someone for performing abortions - didn't he publicly declare that he believes he will be welcomed in heaven for what he did?
I can not condone the advanced fee fraud Nigeria is famous for, but if you are dumb enough to fall for it, maybe you deserved to learn the lesson the hard way. Perhaps us stock-market-speculating Americans have forgotten that money could be gotten the old fashion way - by earning it with honest work?
Some point out that the endeavor is more British and Russian than Nigerian. But that is missing the point. I mean, what do you expect baby steps to be like anyway? John Glen didn't got to space overnight. He rode the coat tail of German rocket researchers who came to work for uncle sam after WWII, and the Germans had built upon the work of our own Robert Goddard. Can you imagine how few engineers there would be today if in their younger days, there was not the generosity or charity to provide them with that old crystal radio set or that clunky-but-still-functioning computer? It isn't wrong to ask or recieve help. You have to start somewhere right?
Let us not forget that our own space program was priceless in stimulating so many good things. Aside from the obvious utilitarian benifits that the satellite offers by performing it's duties, it also gives the citizens something to look up to. (no pun intended) Maybe there will be a few less scammers as young Nigerians realize there are higher goals worth pursuing. Just to show that I'm not completely without humor, I for one welcome our new space-faring colleagues.
Let's not forget that Tokyo is a prime destination also for extra-terrestrial visitors, living or otherwise. They're safe, though, since Godzilla always shows up to eliminate anything that happens to be threatening. Although the city usually....er, nevermind.
There were two dishes still attached to a couple of burnt out houses near where my sister lives. When I visited her I wondered if her home owner's association would let me have them. Next time I came by, the houses were half torn down with the dishes no where in sight. I wish I'd known when they discarded them. I now regret not haven taken them when I was there.
the site is already slashdoted.
I signed up for the do-not-call list. It needed email confirmation before being considered valid. I didn't know until the respond period had expired. Why? It sat in my bulk mail folder because YAHOO thought it was a piece of spam.
Weird timing. I'm currently writing code for a class on microcontrollers. Most electrical engineering students would at some time come across an advanced digital course on microprocessors where one learns about different machine architectures and how to write assembly code for them. Are there any /.ers who have systematically studies GPU chips as part of a class, like say on graphic algorithms or DSP?
Even if the event was caused by internal processes, trajectory changes are still possible due to Newton's 3rd law of motion. A last 'sigh' may not generate as much momentum as a collision, but it should still have enough impulse to make determination of the exact nature of the event non-trivial.
Should we be worried about the solar system replenishing its comets? I don't think running out of comets should concern us Earth dwellers that much. In fact, it would be best to have as few of them as possible unless we want to go the way of the dinosours. Our technology gives us an edge over our Cretaceous-dwelling friends, but the resources needed for a comet defense force seem outrageous when you consider all the problems on Earth that need money, political will, and man power. Besides, Bruce Willis & gang are better suited for...well, almost anything else. damn! that movie sucked!
You've hit the nail on the head. I was trying to say there is obviously an attractive option that no one seem to take seriously. Why not? Politics. A skewed sense of priorities mauled the US shuttle program during conception. I'm suggesting that history will repeat itself, but this time on the international stage. Consider the fact the Japanese prototype last year already completed it's first successful test flight. In contrast, American efforts will nearly start from scratch. The only thing I can think of that comes close to serving as a technical foundation or springboard to the current effort is the experimental lift-body designs that were used to test atmospheric dynamics in test which concluded many decades ago. This is great in that it gives US aerospace contractors more work to bid on, but it is hardly benificial to the final goal of having a cheap reliable space transport as soon as possible.
As long as the space transport efforts remain isolated from each other, the process does not benifit from the power of market forces. Guys like Boeing and Lockheed Martin have no incentive to put out if their work is protected from Japanese success. But if the formation of a government lead consortium (not necessarily led by the US) allows outside efforts to cut into their piece of the pie, they would likely be more willing to get serious and cooperate.
But alas, no such thing will come to pass. We will benifit from no such dedication to space travel/science/exploration. Which is why it is sad.
This initiative has been a long time coming. As it has already been pointed out by many posters, a smaller shuttle would have been seriously considered and perhaps even realized during the inception of the current shuttle if it hadn't been for political and bureaucratic wrangling (especially on behalf of the US defense force). I would like to be excited about this announcement, I really would. But I find the most proper reaction to be a simple yawn, as in "here we go again".
The fundamental ideas behind this announcement has been around for a really, really long time, and it was not an isolated development. The Europeans were putting serious effort into a program called "Hermes" with nearly the identical objectives for years before abandoning it 10 years ago. Similarly, Japan - with a space budget of a tenth that of NASA's - continues to pursue their own mini-shuttle dubbed "HOPE-X".
With these events in plain sight, one has to wonder why on earth it is so difficult to do the right thing. The ISS, despite being somewhat of a white elephant, is still a pretty decent lightning rod for stimulating international cooperation. Isn't it reasonable to assert that pooling resourced from all 3 nations who've already dreamed of mini-shuttles (US, Euro, Japan) in addition to anyone else who might want to participate (Russia, China, India) might actually get an astronaut-ferry built with decent price/performance/safty perameters? With the resources of international partners, we can reduce not just develope costs by leveraging the R&D others have already put into it, but also distribute the manufacturing responsibilities and perhaps even operational costs. Additionally, what can be learned from the work already put into the X-prize by various participants. Think of the possibilities if space faring for the forseable future is "standardized" on one vehicle by several nations which helps to build it. Economy of scale means production up, cost down, and in the end, science and exploration wins - everyone happy!
How fun that would be?
"Hi! My name is Tux! I *respect* your freedom to choose! Won't you come and compile with me?"
I'm sorry. I just couldn't resist! ^_^
What makes no sense to me is how all the evidence that has been uncovered regarding the Iceman can be interpereted to result from a single incident. Why does everyone assume everything happened just before he died? I can understand if no signs of healing around the arrowhead wound pushes conclusion in one direction, but is it possible that a period of days, weeks, or even months might seperate the deposit of blood on his own cloak and arrows? If I've just shoot two people while my life was still endangered enough that I had to eventually get into a knife fight, retrieving my arrows would be the last thing on my mind.
If the organs or systems of one chromosome set fails for whatever reason, the other one automatically takes over.
*duck*
from the article:
"For example, the princess we know as Cinderella originally hails from China, where she goes by the name Yeh-Shen and relies for help on a magic fish who gives her golden slippers."
this must be a slap in the face for admirers of the Brothers Grimm. I'd be very interested to see the Chinese version.