The Navel Introspection and Tile Space Exploration Agency.
I know this is very important, but can we PLEASE quit with the "Discovery Crew Sneezed: Was a Tile Knocked Out of Place?" threads!? We got damage on EVERY SINGLE ORBITER FLIGHT. Only Columbia's was signficant and severe and should have been looked into when engineers suspected it, but bureaucrats stopped them as they quashed Thiokol's warnings not to fly Challenger in January 1986.
But this, this is navel lint study at its finest. These people have gone through the wringer--again--and they do know the stakes. Getting to LEO back and forth with the Orbiter should never have been this complicated, but hey, thank the US Congress for cutting funds that forced NASA into a "pay now, or pay later" approach to vehicle design.
The result of not spending more cash back in Shuttle development to create a fully reusable design with fewer safety flaws or compromises has resulted in a system that astronauts now pay for on behalf of the Congress with their lives, and by people like us with extra tax dollars, our disinterest and distrust as NASA is forced to ponder their virtual belly button for damage.
I know they're falling back to the Apollo-style basics here, but this is still, in some ways, compromising efficiency and performance in light of crew safety, which is important. However:
"A ship in a harbor is safe. But this is not what ships are built for."
I would be fine with the new design concepts if we use a Crew Return Vehicle design. One, it can carry more people and a small amount of cargo. Two, it can also be placed atop like an Apollo-style capsule. Three, it is more reusable. Think of it as a mini-Orbiter.
Reusing and readapting the ET/SRB devices is a frugal idea as well. We just need something to routine get up and back to the ISS. Perhaps we should also look into making an in-orbit shuttle that stays in space and can move between LEO, the ISS, and the moon.
The hottest parts of the Orbiter on reentry are the leadng edges and the nose, with the underside cooler as you work aft.
That's why Columbia was doomed when the Reinforced Carbon-Carbon leading edge was damaged and the hottest gases that could enter the Orbiter melted the wing supports.
Columbia and every single Orbiter after her has lost tiles or had mild to signficant damage on every single flight. This is not inherently serious. Losing a lot of tiles in hotter areas or significant damage in one crucial area is cause for worry.
Nowandays Orbiters don't use much in the way of tiles at the top of the vehicle, preferring to use thermal blankets. Only a serious breech of the nose or wing edge RCC is dangerous in the extreme. Tile damage elsewhere is nothing to sneeze at, but generally the underside tile loss is not as bad because the heating and the air movement is less direct.
There was a Voltron feature movie where the Lion Voltron and the Auto-Voltron teams combined to fight both mutual enemies. Before the fight, the two leaders were at a target range, neither of them missing a perfect shot each time against each other. The crews were watching the spectacle, bored.
I prefer the Lion, although the Auto-Voltron had more versatility to create other specialized fighters.
All ETs are just short of orbital velocity. To avoid pelting more brown people in the world with explosive objects (other than by design, such as in Iraq and Afghanistan) NASA ensures that its trajectories in the flight plan take the ETs to reenter and drop their remains in the Indian Ocean. Likewise, the SRBs drop in the Atlantic not far from the Cape for recovery and reuse.
It IS possible to place an ET in orbit (such as to be remade into some kind of Skylab-esque primitive space station, but otherwise we'd get more space junk up there, causing a hazard.
The UK version is being released from Best Buy stores as an early exclusive.. The differences between it and the US version are generally the music and a changed title on one episode.
This is yet one other sign that we need to shoot lobbyists that approach D.C. as if they were a direct Al Queda attack. This is a crackpot idea that not only screws with all the time-sensitive software (right down to our operating systems and their time zone support) but also fucks with the world agreement on such use of DST.
I'm in Indiana, where we have just approved the use of DST for the majority of the state that never observed it (Arizona and Hawaii are similar holdouts). And NOW some politico-corporate lackey wants to change things just for business...never mind that you aren't saving a damn bit of daylight in November, unless their laws affect the Earth's tilt and orbital position to give us more sun than we're to have at that time.
There's no reason for this...and the cost for changing everything will make the costs of Y2K seem like a pittance. Problem is, I don't know who would profit from it. Once I do find out, I hope they're shot. A lot.
Even a complex system of launching a space vehicle at NASA eventually reaches a "too many cooks" threshold. You're right that others outside of NASA need to observe to ensure they're following through with the important stuff. But little good comes from politicians, lawyers, and laymen who don't know what the hell they're looking at and attempt to micromanage. Hopefully all the outside groups have a specific item to review to ensure all is compliant.
Having several more eyes doesn't eliminate the chance that the thing just blows up on the pad. It just reduces the odds that somebody's missed something.
NASA has always had a debris inspection and launch anomaly review team that reviews taped views of the launches. It was this team that saw the fatal foam hunk strike Columbia's wing as well as note the O-ring failures on Challenger.
It will be good to have more cameras, but in a sense this violates a NASA truism that indicates not to worry about an issue of which you have absolutely no control over. Given the political climate the cameras are a must, but there will be more non-NASA people looking and fretting and writing their congressman over things that are routine in truth, and even those congressmen will be eyeing things that they have little experience to interpret properly and waste taxpayer dollars debating why ice must form on the outside of the ET ("Because it just does, damn it! Can we go back to flying now?")
Many games today have too much flash or pow, though the art or message or depth of the games have improved in some places.
For example: The Marathon trilogy, made by a few guys whose company went on to make another pretty popular game. This game was the "thinking man's" Doom, complete with aliens, serious weapons (many of which have returned in one form or another in Halo), and a deep storyline that enriched play. Marathon was also one of the first (if not THE first) multiplayer FPS game, introducing the concept of the mouse-as-head game control to make for rapid movement.
The coolness of this game is that it's now freeware (not open-source, however). The game originally appeared as an original Mac OS game. That game is available and (currently) playable only a Mac that can run Mac OS 9 or Classic (in Mac OS X). However, Bungie also released the second game, Marathon 2, as a Windows game. So Mac and Windows users can download a special Mac OS X-native or Windows-native application (thanks to enterprising programmers who loved the game and wanted to play on) to play the original code, complete with a few modern graphic pick-me-ups.
Bungie still puts in a few Marathon in-jokes in their games. The first one you'll see is the insignia on Captain Keyes' uniform in Halo, and later, look closely at the Monitor's eyeball. Familar?
I'm still fond of old-school Zelda games on NES, SNES, and Game Boy, too.
The paradox is that, to be a big fan usually leaves you in a minority position where most people don't agree, but a few do. When everybody loves something or there's too much of it, I seem to lose a little of what made me like it in the first place, like Star Trek. The creators of the Matrix don't explain JACK SHIT, leaving us fans to have fun talking it up. Thanks, guys.
Sure, the Matrix ain't Shakespeare. But it beats the hell out of "Battlefield Earth." (Well, OK, "Winnie the Pooh" beats the snot out of "B:E", but you get the drift.)
You say tomato, I say thermonuclear. And don't get too prissy about the term. I have likely been reading SF since you were a sperm cell.
SF = science fiction = Sci-Fi. I just hate the "sci-fi" term. Doesn't make it any less a word. It still grates me to hear the "Sci-Fi" in the "Sci-Fi Channel." Demeaning. But then, so's the USA Network.
There is bad SF, fake SF, and great SF. There's also fantasy, which LotR is, but not being SF doesn't make it any less fiction. Fantasy's just highly improbable, while SF is more probable.
No need to be snobby, except for what you like (which we all are). The Matrix is average in SF quotient (doesn't explain the tech), like Star Wars. High in action. I agree that 2001 is a good example of high quality SF. Still, based on your thoughts, there's not a lot of good true SF films...probably because it's boring to hear someone explain how they transport or why their gun works in a film. The best SF will likely be the written kind since it can say so much more. I'm fond of "Snow Crash" as a good example of SF (cyberpunk) stuff. For my fondness of the Matrix stuff, I can't see it as a book (though some comics that are out are doable).
What we need is something like a Crew Entry Vehicle, but really more like the Shuttle EXCEPT it cannot carry much in the way of cargo. Of course, the Russians are already working on a similar replacement for their aging, though practical, Soyuz ferry, so maybe this is an opportunity for Russia and the US (nay, more international partners) to chip in together on a common crew ferry.
There are plenty of light and medium-lift boosters. The ESA has it down with their Ariane rockets, though they haven't much to do with them. Again, why reinvent the wheel? Borrow the design (or buy them off the ESA or invite them here as an alternative launch site), slap a ferry to it for manned flights, or a cargo pod for others.
I would prefer reusability rather than pitching more metal in the oceans and debris in space. I would love, personally, to see the Space Ship One concept molded into low-Earth orbit use (it's that flaky bit of accelerating the vehicle to gravity escape velocity, meaning it would be much larger, carry more fuel, and need much better computer controls and thermal protection.
But, hasn't NASA done all that homework already, too, in the form of the early Shuttle concepts? The only thing that's needed is to NOT combine cargo AND crew areas, nor simply make a dumb booster with a crew pod.
Keep the humans in the loop with a flyable, steerable, versatile vehicle that can also be used on a larger booster for use as a true spacecraft that can also ferry crews to and from the Moon.
We thought that Apple would be able to obtain PowerPC chips for years to come that did what we wanted. Steve didn't assume and ran all OS X versions on prototype Intel-equipped Macs as early as 2000 just in case things did not pan out as IBM promised. We know now how foresight like that can help.
In 1997, to aid in Apple's revival, Microsoft initially agreed to make new versions of Office for Mac in exchange for non-voting stock options, a token deposit of $150 M in Apple's account, and under-the-table dismissal of lawsuits that Apple filed. That agreement has since expired. Although Office for Mac is healthy and profitable to both MS and Apple (since an Office version presents justification for businesses to buy Macs), Steve looks ahead, just in case, and ensures that there are Apple products that also fit the bill.
An advantage is no advantage if you are losing power to make a computer efficient in computing.
True, PowerPC chips were competitive against a similar x86 processor--oh, about 3 years ago.
Now, because IBM can't or won't improve the specs, PowerPC chips are outstripped. And Jobs saw that happening--FIVE YEARS AGO. That's foresight. He wants to keep a Mac at a comparable speed and performance to that of his competitors.
PowerPC chips WOULD still advantagous IF IBM would have a 3.2GHz chip for Apple's desktop ONE YEAR AGO and IF IBM had a 2.5GHz mobile G5 ONE YEAR AGO. Apple had a choice of being left behind or shopping around. Intel, for all its faults, is a strong chip maker that doesn't have their hand in many other projects to distract them. They power some of the faster computers in the world, and are happy to work with Apple for two reasons.
One, AMD is a serious competitor. And two, they hate the rep they have that all of their chips are piss poor, when the blame needs to go to the Windows operating systems that drive the majority of them AND the old IBM clone architecture still used on PCs today that limits their chips. We know that Linux works fine on x86, so we can expect that standard at the least with an Mactel system. But I expect more because that is Apple's wont.
Imagine a PC mobo without the BIOS and legacy limits, high bus speed, and running an OS that doesn't inhibit the processor's performance or require ancient hacks to work with new hardware. That very computer might be a Mac in two years. We'll see.
Time and again it has been said: putting an x86 chip doesn't mean a Mac's architecture will change dramatically. It might change for the better since Intel will aid Apple in making a mobo spec that really, really uses the processor to its fullest. It's what we expect from Apple, but we'll have to wait for the goods to be sure. In the meanwhile, my PowerBook is fine, my G4 is fine, and I look forward to a future that looks a hell of a lot brighter than it did when a 3.4GHz Mac of any kind did not exist.
We've heard many of the other comments from disgruntled Windows users before, but one that bears repeating is that Windows does tend to try to be all things to all people. Sure, there's a Home version of Windows XP (it's missing, among other things, domain networking ability), but it still contains far too many propellerhead parts that gunk up the works.
I can't really say that alternatives such as Mac OS X and Linux aren't as full of similar unnecessary parts as Windows. By, IMHO, when using OS X, the extras seem less likely to be in your way. A lot of this involves the interface; a good desktop manager in Linux should keep things similarly simple.
Someone said it when they were using Word for Windows, flummoxed by the myriad of controls: "Good lord, I don't need to launch a Space Shuttle--I just want to write a letter!" No wonder some new computer users have the movie "WarGames" running through their head each time they touch their PC--it's complexity seems to guarantee that something new will happen each time you use it...and not a "good" kind of "new."
In the business world, directory services are dominantly Microsoft's Active Directory, which is essentially a variant of LDAP, which is common in other operating systems. If this thing can't link up or mate to existing directory services, they're screwed. Very, very few companies will want to have to redo their entire directory service just for the fun of it. AD uses Kerberos to handle things, so it's not like there's not a possibility of linking Linux or other boxes to an AD tree in some capacity--if an AD plug in or process is available.
Not to mention that MS makes it worthwhile to move by allowing SSO functionality not only with their products but through support of third parties. This thing is bush-league in terms of what it can really do for folks now. Not that I wish them ill, but the winds of change are tornadic when you deal with the MS juggernaut. Metaphorically, you can't just offer a better butter like these guys, but you have to offer a better bread, how to bake it, steps on making your own butter, and new flavors. You have to offer a complete solution as well as a complete, hassle-free, and justiable means to move to your product. I know it's Open Source, but simply being "free" isn't enough incentive.
Hell, even Apple offers support for Active Directory in their OS.
This scenario isn't different from computer company tales of the past.
Microsoft is a shark, at the top of its food chain. It cannot be eaten and cannot be stopped unless it stops itself. It is predictably hungry and efficient. It can take its time and wait.
But it now swims in a sea filled with other fish that are just as ravenous. They can't and won't attack the shark; they don't have to. They'll just eat the same thing the shark eats.
And that food--the market--is in short supply.
Apple, the largest desktop competitor to the "WinTel" market, is no Microsoft, but it doesn't have to be. Microsoft cannot directly attack Apple without causing legal waves as it is already a convicted monopoly. Apple hasn't the capital or mindset in the enterprise to fully cause an IT schism where businesses move in droves to Mac OS workstations and servers. But it can erode the reputation of the larger opponent by being flexible enough to try new technologies by taking advantage of the fact that people turn to places like Apple for interesting gadgets and DON'T see Microsoft as the place to buy "cool" gadgets (the Xbox notwithstanding, but do you think people really associate the Xbox with the same company that makes Windows?)
A shark moves too slowly to eat smaller fish, especially schools. And even if the shark grabs a few (buys out), they are still plenty of new fish to take their place. Time will tell if the school of fish is more flexible and malliable than the overweight, overfed and relatively uncreative and inefficient fish that Microsoft has become.
Or, you can use the Rottweiler vs. a Rottweiler's Weight in Chahuahuas analogy. Either way, Microsoft needs some weight loss. A Federally-mandated breakup might have actually been a good thing for MS a few years back to keep it stronger in the game and not this laggard monolith.
ITMS works because it (1) allows you to purchase music as you want it (2) satisfies most music companies' worries on casual electronic copying, and (3) leaves ownership of the music with the user once they decide not to use ITMS anymore. The cost of songs match the approximate value per song you'd get when buying the album at retail--in some cases, it's a better price.
Subscriptions revoke your ability to play your music. What kind of deal is that to be locked in to both a service and a format for play AND a compatible player that you hope may still be around in 3 years. A lot of us, in their effort in trying to find ITMS alternatives, are buying the music player equivalents of a 1980's TI-99 computer...eventually a standard will come to the music player and store format where two or three stores exist, all working under a dominant format.
Apple's competitors don't need to make something different, they need to make an identical service that is also iPod AND non-iPod compatible. It's obvious that Apple's scheme works. Why do anything else if that process works? Why DO these competitors not copy what ITMS does?
I didn't find many complaints about this article. Unlike his usual rants, the writer was even-handed mostly in giving praise where praise was due.
However, the writer proves he's still too enamored with the Microsoft software release philosophy in comparison to what Linux and Mac users enjoy.
Consider: When a new Mac OS update is imminent, users are practically enthusiastic on installing on their computer and seeing what new tricks have come from Apple. Generally speaking, these users expect goodness in each update. That's less of the case now in the OS X days than the old OS 9 days, but Mac users don't generally fear their computer or the company that makes it. We like evolution and strive to keep our computers one-up with the others. While a lot more propellerhead and not as intuitive, the power users of the Linux camp also enjoy the fun flavors they get from the latest bug fix of SAMBA or whatever. Using Linux and Mac OS X, to take two common examples of the UNIX families, are fun to tinker with.
A Microsoft Windows user is besieged. And I mean not just with spyware and worms, but also with Windows Updates. They're doing the same thing as Apple's updates (make no mistake--both companies are giving you bug fixes), but there are so many updates for this mysterious vulnerability or that compromise that a typical home user is overwhelmed by not only by the OS prompting them to the point of annoyance that you have new Windows Updates as well as the number of patches and attacks. And Windows can be so finicky and problematic that most users don't WANT to rock the boat by applying some update. This situation has improved a bit with Windows XP, but there's still too much information.
Microsoft's marketing expects you to find a revolution in every box they sell. I don't know about you, but revolutions as a whole are a bitch to endure, no matter what form they take. Evolution, on the other hand, gives you change without making you feel swept up by it.
You'll know what I mean when the Windows Longhorn project is finished. It may be new and powerful, but most of us just want to write a letter, not launch and land a Space Shuttle. Simple is good.
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Let's rename NASA to stand for
NITSEA
The Navel Introspection and Tile Space Exploration Agency.
I know this is very important, but can we PLEASE quit with the "Discovery Crew Sneezed: Was a Tile Knocked Out of Place?" threads!? We got damage on EVERY SINGLE ORBITER FLIGHT. Only Columbia's was signficant and severe and should have been looked into when engineers suspected it, but bureaucrats stopped them as they quashed Thiokol's warnings not to fly Challenger in January 1986.
But this, this is navel lint study at its finest. These people have gone through the wringer--again--and they do know the stakes. Getting to LEO back and forth with the Orbiter should never have been this complicated, but hey, thank the US Congress for cutting funds that forced NASA into a "pay now, or pay later" approach to vehicle design.
The result of not spending more cash back in Shuttle development to create a fully reusable design with fewer safety flaws or compromises has resulted in a system that astronauts now pay for on behalf of the Congress with their lives, and by people like us with extra tax dollars, our disinterest and distrust as NASA is forced to ponder their virtual belly button for damage.
Point taken. You could add everything...but keeping it simple is best, and most controllable in terms of cost, safety, and speed.
I know they're falling back to the Apollo-style basics here, but this is still, in some ways, compromising efficiency and performance in light of crew safety, which is important. However:
"A ship in a harbor is safe. But this is not what ships are built for."
I would be fine with the new design concepts if we use a Crew Return Vehicle design. One, it can carry more people and a small amount of cargo. Two, it can also be placed atop like an Apollo-style capsule. Three, it is more reusable. Think of it as a mini-Orbiter.
Reusing and readapting the ET/SRB devices is a frugal idea as well. We just need something to routine get up and back to the ISS. Perhaps we should also look into making an in-orbit shuttle that stays in space and can move between LEO, the ISS, and the moon.
The hottest parts of the Orbiter on reentry are the leadng edges and the nose, with the underside cooler as you work aft.
That's why Columbia was doomed when the Reinforced Carbon-Carbon leading edge was damaged and the hottest gases that could enter the Orbiter melted the wing supports.
Columbia and every single Orbiter after her has lost tiles or had mild to signficant damage on every single flight. This is not inherently serious. Losing a lot of tiles in hotter areas or significant damage in one crucial area is cause for worry.
Nowandays Orbiters don't use much in the way of tiles at the top of the vehicle, preferring to use thermal blankets. Only a serious breech of the nose or wing edge RCC is dangerous in the extreme. Tile damage elsewhere is nothing to sneeze at, but generally the underside tile loss is not as bad because the heating and the air movement is less direct.
There was a Voltron feature movie where the Lion Voltron and the Auto-Voltron teams combined to fight both mutual enemies. Before the fight, the two leaders were at a target range, neither of them missing a perfect shot each time against each other. The crews were watching the spectacle, bored.
I prefer the Lion, although the Auto-Voltron had more versatility to create other specialized fighters.
That's incorrect.
All ETs are just short of orbital velocity. To avoid pelting more brown people in the world with explosive objects (other than by design, such as in Iraq and Afghanistan) NASA ensures that its trajectories in the flight plan take the ETs to reenter and drop their remains in the Indian Ocean. Likewise, the SRBs drop in the Atlantic not far from the Cape for recovery and reuse.
It IS possible to place an ET in orbit (such as to be remade into some kind of Skylab-esque primitive space station, but otherwise we'd get more space junk up there, causing a hazard.
The UK version is being released from Best Buy stores as an early exclusive.. The differences between it and the US version are generally the music and a changed title on one episode.
...other than mine, without permission?!
This is yet one other sign that we need to shoot lobbyists that approach D.C. as if they were a direct Al Queda attack. This is a crackpot idea that not only screws with all the time-sensitive software (right down to our operating systems and their time zone support) but also fucks with the world agreement on such use of DST.
I'm in Indiana, where we have just approved the use of DST for the majority of the state that never observed it (Arizona and Hawaii are similar holdouts). And NOW some politico-corporate lackey wants to change things just for business...never mind that you aren't saving a damn bit of daylight in November, unless their laws affect the Earth's tilt and orbital position to give us more sun than we're to have at that time.
There's no reason for this...and the cost for changing everything will make the costs of Y2K seem like a pittance. Problem is, I don't know who would profit from it. Once I do find out, I hope they're shot. A lot.
Even a complex system of launching a space vehicle at NASA eventually reaches a "too many cooks" threshold. You're right that others outside of NASA need to observe to ensure they're following through with the important stuff. But little good comes from politicians, lawyers, and laymen who don't know what the hell they're looking at and attempt to micromanage. Hopefully all the outside groups have a specific item to review to ensure all is compliant.
Having several more eyes doesn't eliminate the chance that the thing just blows up on the pad. It just reduces the odds that somebody's missed something.
NASA has always had a debris inspection and launch anomaly review team that reviews taped views of the launches. It was this team that saw the fatal foam hunk strike Columbia's wing as well as note the O-ring failures on Challenger.
It will be good to have more cameras, but in a sense this violates a NASA truism that indicates not to worry about an issue of which you have absolutely no control over. Given the political climate the cameras are a must, but there will be more non-NASA people looking and fretting and writing their congressman over things that are routine in truth, and even those congressmen will be eyeing things that they have little experience to interpret properly and waste taxpayer dollars debating why ice must form on the outside of the ET ("Because it just does, damn it! Can we go back to flying now?")
Many games today have too much flash or pow, though the art or message or depth of the games have improved in some places.
For example: The Marathon trilogy, made by a few guys whose company went on to make another pretty popular game. This game was the "thinking man's" Doom, complete with aliens, serious weapons (many of which have returned in one form or another in Halo), and a deep storyline that enriched play. Marathon was also one of the first (if not THE first) multiplayer FPS game, introducing the concept of the mouse-as-head game control to make for rapid movement.
The coolness of this game is that it's now freeware (not open-source, however). The game originally appeared as an original Mac OS game. That game is available and (currently) playable only a Mac that can run Mac OS 9 or Classic (in Mac OS X). However, Bungie also released the second game, Marathon 2, as a Windows game. So Mac and Windows users can download a special Mac OS X-native or Windows-native application (thanks to enterprising programmers who loved the game and wanted to play on) to play the original code, complete with a few modern graphic pick-me-ups.
Bungie still puts in a few Marathon in-jokes in their games. The first one you'll see is the insignia on Captain Keyes' uniform in Halo, and later, look closely at the Monitor's eyeball. Familar?
I'm still fond of old-school Zelda games on NES, SNES, and Game Boy, too.
Frog blast the vent core!
You are my hero. And you're absolutely right.
The paradox is that, to be a big fan usually leaves you in a minority position where most people don't agree, but a few do. When everybody loves something or there's too much of it, I seem to lose a little of what made me like it in the first place, like Star Trek. The creators of the Matrix don't explain JACK SHIT, leaving us fans to have fun talking it up. Thanks, guys.
And it's those I'm happy to talk to at a Matrix panel I'm holding at a local con in Indy on July 4 weekend.
Sure, the Matrix ain't Shakespeare. But it beats the hell out of "Battlefield Earth." (Well, OK, "Winnie the Pooh" beats the snot out of "B:E", but you get the drift.)
You say tomato, I say thermonuclear. And don't get too prissy about the term. I have likely been reading SF since you were a sperm cell.
SF = science fiction = Sci-Fi. I just hate the "sci-fi" term. Doesn't make it any less a word. It still grates me to hear the "Sci-Fi" in the "Sci-Fi Channel." Demeaning. But then, so's the USA Network.
There is bad SF, fake SF, and great SF. There's also fantasy, which LotR is, but not being SF doesn't make it any less fiction. Fantasy's just highly improbable, while SF is more probable.
No need to be snobby, except for what you like (which we all are). The Matrix is average in SF quotient (doesn't explain the tech), like Star Wars. High in action. I agree that 2001 is a good example of high quality SF. Still, based on your thoughts, there's not a lot of good true SF films...probably because it's boring to hear someone explain how they transport or why their gun works in a film. The best SF will likely be the written kind since it can say so much more. I'm fond of "Snow Crash" as a good example of SF (cyberpunk) stuff. For my fondness of the Matrix stuff, I can't see it as a book (though some comics that are out are doable).
Yes.
Yes, there is. Guilty as charged.
There are other great books on Matrix philosophy that you can inbibe, too. Start with
"Like a Splinter in Your Mind"
available from Amazon. There is a successor book to the first link you note, which I also highly recommend.
The cool part is that my girlfriend (yep! I do have one!) bears a really uncanny resemblance to Carrie-Anne Moss.
:)
I have time to read SF, I have loads of computers to play with, a cool mom, AND a hot fangirl girlfriend. I am living a fucking dream, man.
What we need is something like a Crew Entry Vehicle, but really more like the Shuttle EXCEPT it cannot carry much in the way of cargo. Of course, the Russians are already working on a similar replacement for their aging, though practical, Soyuz ferry, so maybe this is an opportunity for Russia and the US (nay, more international partners) to chip in together on a common crew ferry.
There are plenty of light and medium-lift boosters. The ESA has it down with their Ariane rockets, though they haven't much to do with them. Again, why reinvent the wheel? Borrow the design (or buy them off the ESA or invite them here as an alternative launch site), slap a ferry to it for manned flights, or a cargo pod for others.
I would prefer reusability rather than pitching more metal in the oceans and debris in space. I would love, personally, to see the Space Ship One concept molded into low-Earth orbit use (it's that flaky bit of accelerating the vehicle to gravity escape velocity, meaning it would be much larger, carry more fuel, and need much better computer controls and thermal protection.
But, hasn't NASA done all that homework already, too, in the form of the early Shuttle concepts? The only thing that's needed is to NOT combine cargo AND crew areas, nor simply make a dumb booster with a crew pod.
Keep the humans in the loop with a flyable, steerable, versatile vehicle that can also be used on a larger booster for use as a true spacecraft that can also ferry crews to and from the Moon.
After all these years, is this really that hard?
We thought that Apple would be able to obtain PowerPC chips for years to come that did what we wanted. Steve didn't assume and ran all OS X versions on prototype Intel-equipped Macs as early as 2000 just in case things did not pan out as IBM promised. We know now how foresight like that can help.
In 1997, to aid in Apple's revival, Microsoft initially agreed to make new versions of Office for Mac in exchange for non-voting stock options, a token deposit of $150 M in Apple's account, and under-the-table dismissal of lawsuits that Apple filed. That agreement has since expired. Although Office for Mac is healthy and profitable to both MS and Apple (since an Office version presents justification for businesses to buy Macs), Steve looks ahead, just in case, and ensures that there are Apple products that also fit the bill.
An advantage is no advantage if you are losing power to make a computer efficient in computing.
True, PowerPC chips were competitive against a similar x86 processor--oh, about 3 years ago.
Now, because IBM can't or won't improve the specs, PowerPC chips are outstripped. And Jobs saw that happening--FIVE YEARS AGO. That's foresight. He wants to keep a Mac at a comparable speed and performance to that of his competitors.
PowerPC chips WOULD still advantagous IF IBM would have a 3.2GHz chip for Apple's desktop ONE YEAR AGO and IF IBM had a 2.5GHz mobile G5 ONE YEAR AGO. Apple had a choice of being left behind or shopping around. Intel, for all its faults, is a strong chip maker that doesn't have their hand in many other projects to distract them. They power some of the faster computers in the world, and are happy to work with Apple for two reasons.
One, AMD is a serious competitor. And two, they hate the rep they have that all of their chips are piss poor, when the blame needs to go to the Windows operating systems that drive the majority of them AND the old IBM clone architecture still used on PCs today that limits their chips. We know that Linux works fine on x86, so we can expect that standard at the least with an Mactel system. But I expect more because that is Apple's wont.
Imagine a PC mobo without the BIOS and legacy limits, high bus speed, and running an OS that doesn't inhibit the processor's performance or require ancient hacks to work with new hardware. That very computer might be a Mac in two years. We'll see.
Time and again it has been said: putting an x86 chip doesn't mean a Mac's architecture will change dramatically. It might change for the better since Intel will aid Apple in making a mobo spec that really, really uses the processor to its fullest. It's what we expect from Apple, but we'll have to wait for the goods to be sure. In the meanwhile, my PowerBook is fine, my G4 is fine, and I look forward to a future that looks a hell of a lot brighter than it did when a 3.4GHz Mac of any kind did not exist.
It seems that Windows users receive free copies of stuff like this each time they connect to the Internet and get their mail.
That, and news on free "sword sharpeners", if ya get my meaning.
I remember the old game of "Life" that simulated growth with very simple rules. Sounds like the game has grown up.
We've heard many of the other comments from disgruntled Windows users before, but one that bears repeating is that Windows does tend to try to be all things to all people. Sure, there's a Home version of Windows XP (it's missing, among other things, domain networking ability), but it still contains far too many propellerhead parts that gunk up the works.
I can't really say that alternatives such as Mac OS X and Linux aren't as full of similar unnecessary parts as Windows. By, IMHO, when using OS X, the extras seem less likely to be in your way. A lot of this involves the interface; a good desktop manager in Linux should keep things similarly simple.
Someone said it when they were using Word for Windows, flummoxed by the myriad of controls: "Good lord, I don't need to launch a Space Shuttle--I just want to write a letter!" No wonder some new computer users have the movie "WarGames" running through their head each time they touch their PC--it's complexity seems to guarantee that something new will happen each time you use it...and not a "good" kind of "new."
In the business world, directory services are dominantly Microsoft's Active Directory, which is essentially a variant of LDAP, which is common in other operating systems. If this thing can't link up or mate to existing directory services, they're screwed. Very, very few companies will want to have to redo their entire directory service just for the fun of it. AD uses Kerberos to handle things, so it's not like there's not a possibility of linking Linux or other boxes to an AD tree in some capacity--if an AD plug in or process is available.
Not to mention that MS makes it worthwhile to move by allowing SSO functionality not only with their products but through support of third parties. This thing is bush-league in terms of what it can really do for folks now. Not that I wish them ill, but the winds of change are tornadic when you deal with the MS juggernaut. Metaphorically, you can't just offer a better butter like these guys, but you have to offer a better bread, how to bake it, steps on making your own butter, and new flavors. You have to offer a complete solution as well as a complete, hassle-free, and justiable means to move to your product. I know it's Open Source, but simply being "free" isn't enough incentive.
Hell, even Apple offers support for Active Directory in their OS.
This scenario isn't different from computer company tales of the past.
Microsoft is a shark, at the top of its food chain. It cannot be eaten and cannot be stopped unless it stops itself. It is predictably hungry and efficient. It can take its time and wait.
But it now swims in a sea filled with other fish that are just as ravenous. They can't and won't attack the shark; they don't have to. They'll just eat the same thing the shark eats.
And that food--the market--is in short supply.
Apple, the largest desktop competitor to the "WinTel" market, is no Microsoft, but it doesn't have to be. Microsoft cannot directly attack Apple without causing legal waves as it is already a convicted monopoly. Apple hasn't the capital or mindset in the enterprise to fully cause an IT schism where businesses move in droves to Mac OS workstations and servers. But it can erode the reputation of the larger opponent by being flexible enough to try new technologies by taking advantage of the fact that people turn to places like Apple for interesting gadgets and DON'T see Microsoft as the place to buy "cool" gadgets (the Xbox notwithstanding, but do you think people really associate the Xbox with the same company that makes Windows?)
A shark moves too slowly to eat smaller fish, especially schools. And even if the shark grabs a few (buys out), they are still plenty of new fish to take their place. Time will tell if the school of fish is more flexible and malliable than the overweight, overfed and relatively uncreative and inefficient fish that Microsoft has become.
Or, you can use the Rottweiler vs. a Rottweiler's Weight in Chahuahuas analogy. Either way, Microsoft needs some weight loss. A Federally-mandated breakup might have actually been a good thing for MS a few years back to keep it stronger in the game and not this laggard monolith.
ITMS works because it (1) allows you to purchase music as you want it (2) satisfies most music companies' worries on casual electronic copying, and (3) leaves ownership of the music with the user once they decide not to use ITMS anymore. The cost of songs match the approximate value per song you'd get when buying the album at retail--in some cases, it's a better price.
Subscriptions revoke your ability to play your music. What kind of deal is that to be locked in to both a service and a format for play AND a compatible player that you hope may still be around in 3 years. A lot of us, in their effort in trying to find ITMS alternatives, are buying the music player equivalents of a 1980's TI-99 computer...eventually a standard will come to the music player and store format where two or three stores exist, all working under a dominant format.
Apple's competitors don't need to make something different, they need to make an identical service that is also iPod AND non-iPod compatible. It's obvious that Apple's scheme works. Why do anything else if that process works? Why DO these competitors not copy what ITMS does?
I didn't find many complaints about this article. Unlike his usual rants, the writer was even-handed mostly in giving praise where praise was due.
However, the writer proves he's still too enamored with the Microsoft software release philosophy in comparison to what Linux and Mac users enjoy.
Consider: When a new Mac OS update is imminent, users are practically enthusiastic on installing on their computer and seeing what new tricks have come from Apple. Generally speaking, these users expect goodness in each update. That's less of the case now in the OS X days than the old OS 9 days, but Mac users don't generally fear their computer or the company that makes it. We like evolution and strive to keep our computers one-up with the others. While a lot more propellerhead and not as intuitive, the power users of the Linux camp also enjoy the fun flavors they get from the latest bug fix of SAMBA or whatever. Using Linux and Mac OS X, to take two common examples of the UNIX families, are fun to tinker with.
A Microsoft Windows user is besieged. And I mean not just with spyware and worms, but also with Windows Updates. They're doing the same thing as Apple's updates (make no mistake--both companies are giving you bug fixes), but there are so many updates for this mysterious vulnerability or that compromise that a typical home user is overwhelmed by not only by the OS prompting them to the point of annoyance that you have new Windows Updates as well as the number of patches and attacks. And Windows can be so finicky and problematic that most users don't WANT to rock the boat by applying some update. This situation has improved a bit with Windows XP, but there's still too much information.
Microsoft's marketing expects you to find a revolution in every box they sell. I don't know about you, but revolutions as a whole are a bitch to endure, no matter what form they take. Evolution, on the other hand, gives you change without making you feel swept up by it.
You'll know what I mean when the Windows Longhorn project is finished. It may be new and powerful, but most of us just want to write a letter, not launch and land a Space Shuttle. Simple is good.