It doesn't matter how much spin they put on it, an OS not being able to copy files correctly in 2007/2008 is a JOKE.
By now we should have correct, complete and RESUMABLE file and directory copies regardless of the source and target directories. It can be done. Just check out Robocopy. In fact Robocopy and RobocopyGUI are still the only good ways supported by Microsoft of copying large directories or whole drives within Windows in an environment where a crash is possible. (Don't even get me started on Synctoy crashes).
Why can't an end user just let the OS know they want these directories copied to here? Why do you still have to set up one copy at a time from a GUI? I can batch a copy, but I can't add to it when it's already started, and if I want proper control and logging I have to do it from the command line with a list of switches.
Who cares if they can get security working etc. if they can't even get the basic functionality right!?
Why would they trust that site more than an institution of higher education that is actually mandated by law to protect the privacy of those it deals with?
Experience with the institution, lake of experience with the site.
Let me get this straight. You memorize dozens of phone numbers?
For phone numbers I know my wife's phone numbers, my mother's and my fathers. I also know my own work number and own mobile. That plus emergency services is it.
I don't know my tax file number, medicare number or anything else. (We don't have SSN in Australia). As for my wife's birthday I memorized that when we were first dating because the penalty for forgetting that is much worse than anything your local sysadmin would dish up.
Yes I do know my own address but I don't move very often.
Anything else I look up on my computer or on my mobile. I enter the numbers in each so I don't have to remember them. If I'd lived before computers were popular I would have had a pen and paper address book.
Now how many passwords do you think I use at work? Well I'm counting them right now because I have to let some new starters know. I have around a dozen unique passwords, many of which change each month, and some of which I need to be able to do any support. Non-unique passwords, I'm up to about 30 now, but I'm not finished counting.
So you want me to memorise 12-30 new numbers (after all they shouldn't be unique) every month, when that's as much data as I've had to memorize my whole life? You know where you can stick your sympathy train.
You do realize that this kind of sci fi can't happen. Forget that the staggering amounts of data required make even today's large storage capacities look tiny. Lets suppose you can dedicate a large piece of land to data storage (at least temporary). There's still quantum mechanics to overcome, and you're still limited to conveying the information at no more than the speed of light in a vacuum.
The transporter is actually more of a theatrical device required for storylines in shows like Star-Trek to make space exploration look more like a Western.
What reason does a seller have for charging more than the actual shipping costs, other than making up for the too small selling price? (And therefore showing up more positively in the search results)
$1000 item. $25 shipping. Item arrives broken and is returned. Refund: $1000
$25 item. $1000 shipping. Item arrives broken and is returned. Refund: $25
Exaggerating for effect, but that's the main reason it's done.
I won an auction for a model aircraft a few years ago that was described as "new in package".
When I got it, it was clear that it had been re-shrink-wrapped, was broken with almost all the pieces of the model removed from the sprues, and pieces missing altogether. Basically someone had made a poor attempt at putting it together, repackaged it and re-sold it.
When I discussed this with the buyer calmly he decided to retaliate by threatening to call the police because I had "lied about him and tried to defame him". Had I approached him anything but politely I'd have understood if not condoned such behaviour. However from that day forward I've steered clear of Ebay. I'd made no comments about the guy himself but I had stated that this was clearly a re-shrinkwrapped model. After name calling and threats he then tried to coerce me into using some mediation site where the mediation was binding. When I refused and left negative feedback of course he retaliated there. I ended up sending back the model and asking my credit card company for a chargeback. (I cancelled my Paypal account over the incident because they insisted that to do anything I'd have to internationally fax a letter written by an expert on the object. This item sold for under $20 so that would have cost more than the item)
They caught one of their tech guys trying to show a new tech guy the ropes. Do you have any idea what that means? Copying ideas like that from one person to another without even paying licensing and royalties!!
...on his PR statements, and a bullshit filter on his mouth?
I have better things to do with my PC than protect your artificial and increasingly indefensible "rights". People and organizations buy PCs to conduct business, science and for their entertainment, not to put money in your coffers you greedy fuck!
I'm actually of the opinion that we have so many trolls and rednecks now that we'd be better off getting rid of moderation.
The other dimension to the slashdot illness is rednecks who know a little latin insisting on carrying on and on with a ridiculous point of view, claiming they're superior and you're just out to attack them, while...you guessed it, making all manner of numerous personal attacks themselves. The trouble is if you do prove a point against them they just ignore it, and if they ask you to prove it and you say they can see for themselves they call you a liar. A special flavour of these nutjobs is the religious zealot who believes themself to be more rational than the average bear.
In any case it's the ingrained nature of this board and I don't think any of this nonsense will go away. As it sinks into trolldom its popularity will fade. It's sad. At its height slashdot was glorious.
You measure the dopler shift of the stars on each side of the galaxy. Waves from stars travelling towards you compress, waves travelling away from you so it helps if galaxy is seen more edge on than top or bottom towards us.
(Of course it won't be perfectly edge on so you have to calculate the component that is edge on to work out actual speeds around the galactic center. The less edge on the more accurate you can be because the component that's edge on is larger)....which leads to how do you measure doppler shifts.
One way is to look at the spectral lines of light in a star (ie split the light through a prism or diffraction grating). Chemicals that make up the star's surface absorb at precisely known wavelengths. It's actually really easy to do some calculation once you know what wavelength these lines have shifted to. (I did it when I did my astronomy masters. It's basic algebra andsimple equations). The difficult part is building equipment that can measure spectra so accurately. In the early days they'd be literally measuring the difference between wavelengths on glass plates.
http://aether.lbl.gov/www/science/galrotcurve.html "To make a rotation curve one calculates the rotational velocity of stars along the length of a galaxy by measuring their Doppler shifts, and then plots this quantity versus their respective distance away from the galactic center."
That's a much more thorough regiment than mine. I didn't keep a copy off site because I was too cheap. In New Zealand every place I went wanted to charge $x per 10 minutes for net access. I think the best rate I saw was $10 for a full day.
I figured if I'd had a major accident or was robbed of everything photos mightn't be my first priority....but mostly I was just too cheap.
Once I got home, I put a copy on 3 hard drives, one of which lives at my mother's house. I've since aquired a 4th.
You never EVER keep just one picture of data you can't recreate such as photos.
My wife and I are shutterbugs who believe in shooting lots and worrying about storage and/or culling later. We literally took a total of 20,000 photos on a 20 day fly drive honeymoon in New Zealand. (When I quote this number people ask if we did anything but take photos. We most certainly did) I backed up the photos every night, either to 2 dvds or to an external hard disk. I even had to wipe software off the computer to make them fit but while re-installing things is a pain, it's doable whereas lost photos aren't recoverable.
That would only make sense if the artists were getting a reasonable amount of money from their copyrighted works. In general they don't, and few those that do get too much which is then spent on the cult of celebrity, drugs and hookers.
Even if you still do subscribe to the idea that the artist should profit from their work, the idea that an artist should CONTROL (or sell control of) their work for their lifetime is a separate issue. It would be possible to award civil damages for use of a work without compensation, but still allow others to use it without having to negotiate terms.
I have an Astronomy masters from UWS which I never have and never intended to use in any professional capacity. (I found my niche in IT, and basically making a living doing science was too big a risk).
Let me just say it's fantastic to hear some real Astronomy still being done in Australia. I studied the history of Aussie Astronomy and found it quite depressing that we were once at the forefront especially in Radio astronomy, whereas now, not so much.
Also don't let the criticisms here get to you. If you're a regular here you'll know the quality of the comments on/. has been in steady decline for a couple of years now, and that sometimes the trolls rule the roost. I'd love to see some of these people making comments about environmentalism actually design something better under the political and organizational conditions and challenges you face.
That's not to say that I don't believe the environment should be considered. I just think that any project in Antarctica is going to need to go through some environmental checks and balances before being permitted by several governments in any case. I'm sure there will continue to be improvements as well as teams get more experience working under such requirements.
What you're doing sounds fantastic, and it is to be applauded not criticized. Keep up the good work.
I do have questions: What constraints dictate that you work with such small telescopes? Are they primarily financial or technical in nature?
Getting the scientists there and back uses more jet fuel than this.
Environmentalism is a noble and necessary cause but if you're going to make cost savings try ellminating things like Christmas lights before you decide to object to science like this on environmental grounds. We wouldn't know about environmental impact if we didn't do good science.
Personally, I try to keep my cars under USD8000 and that's only because I do trips of 6 hours or more to visit my wife's family. I don't spend for extra features on a phone because I've found that once the novelty wears off you've still got a shitty little screen and unusably small keypad to do another other than call and text. Heck I had Doom running on my last phone but found it unplayable.
However the general answer to your conundrum is that if someone offered cars for free on a fuel contract the way they offer phones on a connection plan here, I'd jump at the chance, and so would others. They don't. So it comes down to supply and demand. The demand for phones and cars is there, but the supply for cheap phones is abundant.
Also consider that your car is many many times larger than your phone and has many more complex components - some of which must meet stringent safety standards, so it's unsurprising that cars cost so much more. If a car isn't built well it will kill you on the road or leave you stranded. By contrast if your phone isn't built well you'll just miss some calls (rare exploding batteries not withstanding). Granted that might be an important call or your business may rely on it but the truth is most of us could get by without a mobile if we had to.
Another point, you're assuming that all people spend more time on the phone than in their car. Some people make long trips in their car each day and use their phone not a lot. Others are the opposite.
Finally cars and phones fulfil very different functions. You can't replace a car with a phone or vice versa. I'd like to say you're comparing apples to oranges but it's more like sea monkeys to space rockets because they're SO different.
I realy don't find it hard to understand why people are unwilling to toss money at a car but not a phone.
Tired of that pesky work getting in the way of having fun? No problems, with our new email auto-complete, work will never be a problem again. Tired of looking competent. Too few opportunties to end your career over a simple typo? Problem solved with auto-complete. People will blame you the dumb user for making the smallest mistake at any time of the day or night and regardless of your workload. With auto-complete your career is guaranteed to end in the jiffiest of jiffies.
How the hell is this rant considered informative? I swear slashdot is going to the dogs.
MS controls driver signing for Vista and unsigned drivers aren't officially permitted. That means they can very much control what you can and can't watch. New standard making it mandatory to encrypt high def content. No problems. Vista "supports" it, and you no longer can view unencrypted media.
The OS has everything to do with it. It provides the tools in the same way that an arms dealer can provide the tools to those who would want to defend or turn nasty and sell to the highest bidder regardless of their ethics.
There are two things for which I've never understood how they can be viable: Bottled water sold for the same price as soft drink, and DRM music. The thing is I'd buy bottled water if I had to in order to survive since we all need water, but why oh why would you buy DRM music when you can get a CD??? No wonder the record companies have become so fat and greedy!
Slashdot Mirror
It doesn't matter how much spin they put on it, an OS not being able to copy files correctly in 2007/2008 is a JOKE.
By now we should have correct, complete and RESUMABLE file and directory copies regardless of the source and target directories. It can be done. Just check out Robocopy. In fact Robocopy and RobocopyGUI are still the only good ways supported by Microsoft of copying large directories or whole drives within Windows in an environment where a crash is possible. (Don't even get me started on Synctoy crashes).
Why can't an end user just let the OS know they want these directories copied to here? Why do you still have to set up one copy at a time from a GUI? I can batch a copy, but I can't add to it when it's already started, and if I want proper control and logging I have to do it from the command line with a list of switches.
Who cares if they can get security working etc. if they can't even get the basic functionality right!?
Why would they trust that site more than an institution of higher education that is actually mandated by law to protect the privacy of those it deals with?
Experience with the institution, lake of experience with the site.
Let me get this straight. You memorize dozens of phone numbers?
For phone numbers I know my wife's phone numbers, my mother's and my fathers. I also know my own work number and own mobile. That plus emergency services is it.
I don't know my tax file number, medicare number or anything else. (We don't have SSN in Australia). As for my wife's birthday I memorized that when we were first dating because the penalty for forgetting that is much worse than anything your local sysadmin would dish up.
Yes I do know my own address but I don't move very often.
Anything else I look up on my computer or on my mobile. I enter the numbers in each so I don't have to remember them. If I'd lived before computers were popular I would have had a pen and paper address book.
Now how many passwords do you think I use at work? Well I'm counting them right now because I have to let some new starters know. I have around a dozen unique passwords, many of which change each month, and some of which I need to be able to do any support. Non-unique passwords, I'm up to about 30 now, but I'm not finished counting.
So you want me to memorise 12-30 new numbers (after all they shouldn't be unique) every month, when that's as much data as I've had to memorize my whole life? You know where you can stick your sympathy train.
You do realize that this kind of sci fi can't happen. Forget that the staggering amounts of data required make even today's large storage capacities look tiny. Lets suppose you can dedicate a large piece of land to data storage (at least temporary). There's still quantum mechanics to overcome, and you're still limited to conveying the information at no more than the speed of light in a vacuum.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/st/interviews/bormanis/page38.shtml
The transporter is actually more of a theatrical device required for storylines in shows like Star-Trek to make space exploration look more like a Western.
What reason does a seller have for charging more than the actual shipping costs, other than making up for the too small selling price? (And therefore showing up more positively in the search results)
$1000 item. $25 shipping. Item arrives broken and is returned. Refund: $1000
$25 item. $1000 shipping. Item arrives broken and is returned. Refund: $25
Exaggerating for effect, but that's the main reason it's done.
Many of us have horror stories.
I won an auction for a model aircraft a few years ago that was described as "new in package".
When I got it, it was clear that it had been re-shrink-wrapped, was broken with almost all the pieces of the model removed from the sprues, and pieces missing altogether. Basically someone had made a poor attempt at putting it together, repackaged it and re-sold it.
When I discussed this with the buyer calmly he decided to retaliate by threatening to call the police because I had "lied about him and tried to defame him". Had I approached him anything but politely I'd have understood if not condoned such behaviour. However from that day forward I've steered clear of Ebay. I'd made no comments about the guy himself but I had stated that this was clearly a re-shrinkwrapped model. After name calling and threats he then tried to coerce me into using some mediation site where the mediation was binding. When I refused and left negative feedback of course he retaliated there. I ended up sending back the model and asking my credit card company for a chargeback. (I cancelled my Paypal account over the incident because they insisted that to do anything I'd have to internationally fax a letter written by an expert on the object. This item sold for under $20 so that would have cost more than the item)
Bad idea. People will just time leaving feedback to the last possible instant, the way they snipe bidding.
You think that's a bad infringement.
They caught one of their tech guys trying to show a new tech guy the ropes. Do you have any idea what that means? Copying ideas like that from one person to another without even paying licensing and royalties!!
What is the world coming to?
...on his PR statements, and a bullshit filter on his mouth?
I have better things to do with my PC than protect your artificial and increasingly indefensible "rights". People and organizations buy PCs to conduct business, science and for their entertainment, not to put money in your coffers you greedy fuck!
Interesting.
But it sounds like a lot of work...
I'm actually of the opinion that we have so many trolls and rednecks now that we'd be better off getting rid of moderation.
The other dimension to the slashdot illness is rednecks who know a little latin insisting on carrying on and on with a ridiculous point of view, claiming they're superior and you're just out to attack them, while...you guessed it, making all manner of numerous personal attacks themselves. The trouble is if you do prove a point against them they just ignore it, and if they ask you to prove it and you say they can see for themselves they call you a liar. A special flavour of these nutjobs is the religious zealot who believes themself to be more rational than the average bear.
In any case it's the ingrained nature of this board and I don't think any of this nonsense will go away. As it sinks into trolldom its popularity will fade. It's sad. At its height slashdot was glorious.
I'm not the GP but can answer your question.
...which leads to how do you measure doppler shifts.
You measure the dopler shift of the stars on each side of the galaxy. Waves from stars travelling towards you compress, waves travelling away from you so it helps if galaxy is seen more edge on than top or bottom towards us.
(Of course it won't be perfectly edge on so you have to calculate the component that is edge on to work out actual speeds around the galactic center. The less edge on the more accurate you can be because the component that's edge on is larger).
One way is to look at the spectral lines of light in a star (ie split the light through a prism or diffraction grating). Chemicals that make up the star's surface absorb at precisely known wavelengths. It's actually really easy to do some calculation once you know what wavelength these lines have shifted to. (I did it when I did my astronomy masters. It's basic algebra andsimple equations). The difficult part is building equipment that can measure spectra so accurately. In the early days they'd be literally measuring the difference between wavelengths on glass plates.
http://aether.lbl.gov/www/science/galrotcurve.html
"To make a rotation curve one calculates the rotational velocity of stars along the length of a galaxy by measuring their Doppler shifts, and then plots this quantity versus their respective distance away from the galactic center."
That's a much more thorough regiment than mine. I didn't keep a copy off site because I was too cheap. In New Zealand every place I went wanted to charge $x per 10 minutes for net access. I think the best rate I saw was $10 for a full day.
I figured if I'd had a major accident or was robbed of everything photos mightn't be my first priority....but mostly I was just too cheap.
Once I got home, I put a copy on 3 hard drives, one of which lives at my mother's house. I've since aquired a 4th.
NAH NAH NAH NAH I can't hear you NAN NAN NAN NAN
Funny. I read it as "We can year you. You're just unimportant".
int isBusinessPartnerOrCustomer(user) { /* Thin the herd */
if (isBusinessPartner(user))
return TRUE;
if (isCustomer(user) && accountSize(customer) > TenMillion)
return TRUE;
return FALSE;
}
You never EVER keep just one picture of data you can't recreate such as photos.
My wife and I are shutterbugs who believe in shooting lots and worrying about storage and/or culling later. We literally took a total of 20,000 photos on a 20 day fly drive honeymoon in New Zealand. (When I quote this number people ask if we did anything but take photos. We most certainly did) I backed up the photos every night, either to 2 dvds or to an external hard disk. I even had to wipe software off the computer to make them fit but while re-installing things is a pain, it's doable whereas lost photos aren't recoverable.
That would only make sense if the artists were getting a reasonable amount of money from their copyrighted works. In general they don't, and few those that do get too much which is then spent on the cult of celebrity, drugs and hookers.
Even if you still do subscribe to the idea that the artist should profit from their work, the idea that an artist should CONTROL (or sell control of) their work for their lifetime is a separate issue. It would be possible to award civil damages for use of a work without compensation, but still allow others to use it without having to negotiate terms.
I have an Astronomy masters from UWS which I never have and never intended to use in any professional capacity. (I found my niche in IT, and basically making a living doing science was too big a risk).
/. has been in steady decline for a couple of years now, and that sometimes the trolls rule the roost. I'd love to see some of these people making comments about environmentalism actually design something better under the political and organizational conditions and challenges you face.
Let me just say it's fantastic to hear some real Astronomy still being done in Australia. I studied the history of Aussie Astronomy and found it quite depressing that we were once at the forefront especially in Radio astronomy, whereas now, not so much.
Also don't let the criticisms here get to you. If you're a regular here you'll know the quality of the comments on
That's not to say that I don't believe the environment should be considered. I just think that any project in Antarctica is going to need to go through some environmental checks and balances before being permitted by several governments in any case. I'm sure there will continue to be improvements as well as teams get more experience working under such requirements.
What you're doing sounds fantastic, and it is to be applauded not criticized. Keep up the good work.
I do have questions: What constraints dictate that you work with such small telescopes? Are they primarily financial or technical in nature?
Getting the scientists there and back uses more jet fuel than this.
Environmentalism is a noble and necessary cause but if you're going to make cost savings try ellminating things like Christmas lights before you decide to object to science like this on environmental grounds. We wouldn't know about environmental impact if we didn't do good science.
Let he who has never mis-addressed email (or made any other mistake in email) cast the first stone.
A feature that makes it easy for you to accidentally toss away your career is "not a good thing" (tm)
Personally, I try to keep my cars under USD8000 and that's only because I do trips of 6 hours or more to visit my wife's family. I don't spend for extra features on a phone because I've found that once the novelty wears off you've still got a shitty little screen and unusably small keypad to do another other than call and text. Heck I had Doom running on my last phone but found it unplayable.
However the general answer to your conundrum is that if someone offered cars for free on a fuel contract the way they offer phones on a connection plan here, I'd jump at the chance, and so would others. They don't. So it comes down to supply and demand. The demand for phones and cars is there, but the supply for cheap phones is abundant.
Also consider that your car is many many times larger than your phone and has many more complex components - some of which must meet stringent safety standards, so it's unsurprising that cars cost so much more. If a car isn't built well it will kill you on the road or leave you stranded. By contrast if your phone isn't built well you'll just miss some calls (rare exploding batteries not withstanding). Granted that might be an important call or your business may rely on it but the truth is most of us could get by without a mobile if we had to.
Another point, you're assuming that all people spend more time on the phone than in their car. Some people make long trips in their car each day and use their phone not a lot. Others are the opposite.
Finally cars and phones fulfil very different functions. You can't replace a car with a phone or vice versa. I'd like to say you're comparing apples to oranges but it's more like sea monkeys to space rockets because they're SO different.
I realy don't find it hard to understand why people are unwilling to toss money at a car but not a phone.
Tired of that pesky work getting in the way of having fun? No problems, with our new email auto-complete, work will never be a problem again. Tired of looking competent. Too few opportunties to end your career over a simple typo? Problem solved with auto-complete. People will blame you the dumb user for making the smallest mistake at any time of the day or night and regardless of your workload. With auto-complete your career is guaranteed to end in the jiffiest of jiffies.
How the hell is this rant considered informative? I swear slashdot is going to the dogs.
MS controls driver signing for Vista and unsigned drivers aren't officially permitted. That means they can very much control what you can and can't watch. New standard making it mandatory to encrypt high def content. No problems. Vista "supports" it, and you no longer can view unencrypted media.
The OS has everything to do with it. It provides the tools in the same way that an arms dealer can provide the tools to those who would want to defend or turn nasty and sell to the highest bidder regardless of their ethics.
...because they're going about the right way of lowering the loyalty rate of artists and customers alike.
There are two things for which I've never understood how they can be viable: Bottled water sold for the same price as soft drink, and DRM music. The thing is I'd buy bottled water if I had to in order to survive since we all need water, but why oh why would you buy DRM music when you can get a CD??? No wonder the record companies have become so fat and greedy!
Would some Satanic merging of the two programs become known as The Day That Music Died SP1?
No, Plays for sure.