A year ago I discussed the looks of the X-32 with some Boeing employees. They agreed that the intake was indeed "ugly", and they told me there were plans to change it to a more conventional look (i.e. a traditional, backward going intake) IF the aircraft would win the contest.
CNN has it too (here), it is hilarious:
BT tried to persuade the judge to interpret the language broadly for the jury -- to include a computer mouse, for example, as the "keypad" mentioned in the patent.
"It has keys," BT lawyer Robert Perry said hopefully.
Microsoft sees the writing on the wall...Just imagine what could happen if Linux and open source are made a German government standard. France has already endorsed Linux and open source (see here). If these two major European Union countries think like this, the rest of the EU is bound to follow, both on national and European level. I guess this scares the hell out of Microsoft.
I didn't look deeply into the language but if Klingons are going to use design patterns when developing code, it must be these. (Detonator, Commando, Visitor from Hell and the like).
I believe it is impossible to write a completely safe OS or other application: there will always be some way to break into a system. People can only make it harder to do so. Security is only a feeling...
My real question is whether it will not terribly hurt Microsofts reputation when, after declaring their software "safe", somebody manages to break in. Look at Orcale, they declared their 9i suite "unbreakable" but in the meanwhile they have had their share of vulnerability discoveries (like here).
There were *two* C64 LOTR games back then, the first one was sold with volume 1 of the book (Fellowship) and was quite "playable": you gave in text commands and the "graphics" depicted some first person point of view. I managed to play it until the end, spending most of my time to figuring out how to get through the forest to Tom Bombadil.
The second game treated the second volume (The Two Towers) which didn't come with the tape. But there I only managed to open the magic gate into the dwarves' caves and tunnels of the Mines of Moria. And I never had any clue on what to do after that (making light, apparently, because those caves were pretty dark).
So you aren't hallucinating...C64 was tops in those days.
Sorry, but I don't agree with you. It is true that a couple of years ago there was a major shift to the left, with socialist parties winning in the U.K., France etc. But in the meanwhile, we see a new shift, this time to the right. The last two years, elections in Belgium, Austria and Italy were won by by right-of-centre parties resulting in right-of-centre governments, some further of the center than others. And I do expect this trend to continue in future European elections.
I have read all the Dune books. After doing that, my conclusion was that only the first and the last (Chapterhouse: Dune to which Heretics of Dune was a reasonable 'intro') were worth reading. Nothing really happens in the books in between.
I think they should have stopped after making the first Dune movie. I'd rather see film versions of 'The Demon Princes' by Jack Vance. These stories *all* rock.
Your idea is not bad at all, but much depends on the accuracy of the accelerometers used. Planes will only be able to use it if the FAA approves such GSP receivers...
Another problem that could be addressed by this new program is the fact that there aren't enough (!) GPS satellites up there. I don't know the exact figures but I'll explain the principle: to know your position you'll have to receive at least 4 satellites. IFR (instrument flight rules) operations require at least 5, in case one should fail. IFR comes in different classes: the lower you get on minimums (visibility and ceiling), the more redundancy you need. That is, for certain IFR classes you would need up to 7 or 8 visible satellites. But there aren't always that many satellites above the horizon. So the conclusion is we could use some more GPS satellites up there.
Unfortunately the article doesn't mention the number of satellites ESA is going to launch...
I can only run my new M$ FS2002 on Windoze 98 and up. It doesn't support my "old" Win95 (which I maintained on my computer for gaming) so I will have to install some new Win version.
Here in Belgium government is serious about e-government. As from next year, businesses will be able to file tax returns via the web. We already can contact government officials *and* get an answer (most of the time, anyway). A lot of official law-related stuff (including new law publishing) is done via the web. Some government contracting is done via e-commerce.
So I guess it's time the Economist writes an article about e-government in Belgium;-). Still, I think we have a long way to go before we can really say we have an e-government here. But we are on the right way. For those interested: here's the root link for the Belgian Federal Government on-line.
I guess that Slovenia could make this happen thanks to it being such a "young" state. I don't know exactly how long they are independent by now but it should not be much more than ten years.
Older countries (or more generally, organizations), with a tradition of paper, will only be able to move toward e-government very slowly. Primarily because people are reluctant to change in general, but paper also makes a lot of "excuses" possible (see article). Another big issue is that a lot of people require signatures, mostly to be backed up and blame someone else in case something goes wrong. As digital signatures still aren't accepted here (in Europe) normal (paper) signatures are still required.
In my organization, some people even make paper copies of e-mails in order to classify them in an ordner...just because they have done so (classifying "normal" mail) for years!
On the Economist site searches for "Solvenia" or "e-government" give no results. Maybe this article was from the printed version.
file management and syntax checking
on
Java IDEs?
·
· Score: 1
I used a number of IDE's but about a year ago I fell back on ANT for my compilation. I now only use Forte for editing, primarily because it gives me a good overview of my file structure and allows me to open them by clicking on them. Besides that, most basic errors are filtered out immediately (CE 2.0 immeadiately shows if a file compiles or not).
After editing the files I run an ant buildscript which includes compilation, jar/war/ear creation and deployment. Basically, a basic editor (like Wordpad and the like), a file manager and ant do just fine for me.
The only added value that I am looking for is what Together offers: always in-sync code and UML. Unfortunately it costs a lot. Built-in CVS capabilities would be nice as well.
You must find a goal to do something, and then do whatever necessary to achieve that goal.
In my case, I always wanted to become a pilot. But glasses and lack of money just didn't make that possible. So I wanted to become an engineer, to create technology. The engineering study wasn't a goal, it was a way to achieve the goal. Eventually (after my first Telecoms engineering degree), I came in contact with IT and programming. As a CS engineer, I now create new stuff every day. And love it a lot. So I achieved my goal of creating techy stuff. Does it all end here? No! I set myself a new goal: become a pilot - this time by my own means. In the meanwhile I have a license but want to go further in this...and the daily programming is double fun because as a side effect it generates the necessary funds to pay my flying fun.
Second point: many people here advise you to finish your year and get your degree. They are right! No employer is interested in what degree you have, but in you having a degree. After obtaining it you can do whatever you want...if you go for it.
...and in five years, paying for information will be the most normal thing in the world. Looking at today's evolution in the broadband television arena, the business model will be something like this:
On a normal day, you want to look up information on the Concorde. A content provider will charge you a little amount, say 10 cents. Then, a Concorde crashes. That day, and the weeks to follow, you will have to dig up considerably more for that same information (let's say 2 dollar).
In other words, you will have to pay for content and the amount due is on a demand/supply basis (the most basic business model on earth).
I was talking about TV, but what about the Internet? Well, I observe both media (Internet/TV) converging to each other, in a couple of years there will probably be no difference between them anymore. As for free content, only non-profit organizations or individuals will be providing them. But what about the thrustworthiness of their information?
Never mind that, I don't believe everything TV tells me either.
---
Re:What known source in space gives off laser beam
on
Optical SETI
·
· Score: 1
I agree with you.
But then again, I never had the opportunity to participate in the design/construction of one of thoese vessels:-). ---
Re:What known source in space gives off laser beam
on
Optical SETI
·
· Score: 1
Don't you ever look at series like Star Trek and the like? Or even better, Star Wars? It is common knowledge that fighting spacecraft use a variety of weapons, and laser beams are the most common ones.
Maybe such a beam missed its target during a fight and got all the way down here... by accident of course, but it would surely prove the existance of life out there. Because there is no natural source of laser light. Other sources might be interstellar lighthouses.
Serious now: has this SETI project ever obtained any useful result?
Their goal is impressive, but the plane (or what would one call it) isn't really. There seems to be little space left in the vehicle for these tourists (one, maybe two very small seats), and from the size of this bird I wonder if its range will be more than a couple of miles. By the time it gets sub-orbital, all fuel will have been combusted.
But maybe that's the (main) reason they only get sub-orbital.
I fully agree with you. Besides that, what makes them think they will be more successful hunting for light? I mean, Earth is sending out radio waves into space (as a side-effect of radio wave based comms) but I never heard of any project sending laser pulses into space just to let aliens know we are there. So why would ETs do it?
I believe one of the rare occurences of Earth sending laser light into space was to measure the distance to the moon, using reflectors placed on it. So those beams didn't get very far (from an interstellar point of view).
Applets won't run on an XP browser unless the user downloads and installs the plug-in (from Sun or whatever). Java applications won't run on an XP platform (or any platform) unless a VM is installed. So with eitehr the plug-in or the JRE on the desktop, is Java's death imminent? No way.
Java shines on the Server side, where people run whatever OS they want, whatever appserver they want (I recommend JBoss) and whatever Java VM they want. That MS stops "supporting" Java in XP is not going to change that at all. XP won't be used on many servers anyway, I guess.
Applets or Java (client) applications are mostly used in intranet environments. Installing a plug-in or a VM should be a breeze in such an environment. And then there's always a tool that can install the VM with your application (see the Sun site).
Bottomline, this doesn't hurt Java, but probably will eliminate most (future) Applets. But then again, they have been dead since 1998. Installing a JRE by an OEM isn't going to change this. I am just surprised that anno 2001 a lot of people still belive that Java's only use is to run or write Applets. ---
Slashdot Mirror
A year ago I discussed the looks of the X-32 with some Boeing employees. They agreed that the intake was indeed "ugly", and they told me there were plans to change it to a more conventional look (i.e. a traditional, backward going intake) IF the aircraft would win the contest.
Unfortunately for them, they didn't.
CNN has it too (here), it is hilarious:
BT tried to persuade the judge to interpret the language broadly for the jury -- to include a computer mouse, for example, as the "keypad" mentioned in the patent.
"It has keys," BT lawyer Robert Perry said hopefully.
LOL =:-)
Microsoft sees the writing on the wall...Just imagine what could happen if Linux and open source are made a German government standard. France has already endorsed Linux and open source (see here). If these two major European Union countries think like this, the rest of the EU is bound to follow, both on national and European level. I guess this scares the hell out of Microsoft.
I didn't look deeply into the language but if Klingons are going to use design patterns when developing code, it must be these. (Detonator, Commando, Visitor from Hell and the like).
I believe it is impossible to write a completely safe OS or other application: there will always be some way to break into a system. People can only make it harder to do so. Security is only a feeling...
My real question is whether it will not terribly hurt Microsofts reputation when, after declaring their software "safe", somebody manages to break in. Look at Orcale, they declared their 9i suite "unbreakable" but in the meanwhile they have had their share of vulnerability discoveries (like here).
Thanks for the link, I didn't know this existed.
No need for installing emulators on your computer, just load the applet!
There were *two* C64 LOTR games back then, the first one was sold with volume 1 of the book (Fellowship) and was quite "playable": you gave in text commands and the "graphics" depicted some first person point of view. I managed to play it until the end, spending most of my time to figuring out how to get through the forest to Tom Bombadil.
The second game treated the second volume (The Two Towers) which didn't come with the tape. But there I only managed to open the magic gate into the dwarves' caves and tunnels of the Mines of Moria. And I never had any clue on what to do after that (making light, apparently, because those caves were pretty dark).
So you aren't hallucinating...C64 was tops in those days.
Sorry, but I don't agree with you. It is true that a couple of years ago there was a major shift to the left, with socialist parties winning in the U.K., France etc. But in the meanwhile, we see a new shift, this time to the right. The last two years, elections in Belgium, Austria and Italy were won by by right-of-centre parties resulting in right-of-centre governments, some further of the center than others. And I do expect this trend to continue in future European elections.
I have read all the Dune books. After doing that, my conclusion was that only the first and the last (Chapterhouse: Dune to which Heretics of Dune was a reasonable 'intro') were worth reading. Nothing really happens in the books in between.
I think they should have stopped after making the first Dune movie. I'd rather see film versions of 'The Demon Princes' by Jack Vance. These stories *all* rock.
Just a personal opinion.
Your idea is not bad at all, but much depends on the accuracy of the accelerometers used. Planes will only be able to use it if the FAA approves such GSP receivers...
Another problem that could be addressed by this new program is the fact that there aren't enough (!) GPS satellites up there. I don't know the exact figures but I'll explain the principle: to know your position you'll have to receive at least 4 satellites. IFR (instrument flight rules) operations require at least 5, in case one should fail. IFR comes in different classes: the lower you get on minimums (visibility and ceiling), the more redundancy you need. That is, for certain IFR classes you would need up to 7 or 8 visible satellites. But there aren't always that many satellites above the horizon. So the conclusion is we could use some more GPS satellites up there.
Unfortunately the article doesn't mention the number of satellites ESA is going to launch...
I found the story very interesting and on-topic. Thanks for the post, it shoul be modded up.
I can only run my new M$ FS2002 on Windoze 98 and up. It doesn't support my "old" Win95 (which I maintained on my computer for gaming) so I will have to install some new Win version.
No Linux solution here.
Like Dalziel said in an episode of the great police series 'Dalziel and Pascoe' I recently saw:
I'm not here to solve all the injustce in the world, love.
Here in Belgium government is serious about e-government. As from next year, businesses will be able to file tax returns via the web. We already can contact government officials *and* get an answer (most of the time, anyway). A lot of official law-related stuff (including new law publishing) is done via the web. Some government contracting is done via e-commerce.
;-). Still, I think we have a long way to go before we can really say we have an e-government here. But we are on the right way. For those interested: here's the root link for the Belgian Federal Government on-line.
So I guess it's time the Economist writes an article about e-government in Belgium
I guess that Slovenia could make this happen thanks to it being such a "young" state. I don't know exactly how long they are independent by now but it should not be much more than ten years.
Older countries (or more generally, organizations), with a tradition of paper, will only be able to move toward e-government very slowly. Primarily because people are reluctant to change in general, but paper also makes a lot of "excuses" possible (see article). Another big issue is that a lot of people require signatures, mostly to be backed up and blame someone else in case something goes wrong. As digital signatures still aren't accepted here (in Europe) normal (paper) signatures are still required.
In my organization, some people even make paper copies of e-mails in order to classify them in an ordner...just because they have done so (classifying "normal" mail) for years!
Sorry for the typo, I guess I made the same mistake on the search-engine.
On the Economist site searches for "Solvenia" or "e-government" give no results. Maybe this article was from the printed version.
I used a number of IDE's but about a year ago I fell back on ANT for my compilation. I now only use Forte for editing, primarily because it gives me a good overview of my file structure and allows me to open them by clicking on them. Besides that, most basic errors are filtered out immediately (CE 2.0 immeadiately shows if a file compiles or not).
After editing the files I run an ant buildscript which includes compilation, jar/war/ear creation and deployment. Basically, a basic editor (like Wordpad and the like), a file manager and ant do just fine for me.
The only added value that I am looking for is what Together offers: always in-sync code and UML. Unfortunately it costs a lot. Built-in CVS capabilities would be nice as well.
You must find a goal to do something, and then do whatever necessary to achieve that goal.
In my case, I always wanted to become a pilot. But glasses and lack of money just didn't make that possible. So I wanted to become an engineer, to create technology. The engineering study wasn't a goal, it was a way to achieve the goal. Eventually (after my first Telecoms engineering degree), I came in contact with IT and programming. As a CS engineer, I now create new stuff every day. And love it a lot. So I achieved my goal of creating techy stuff. Does it all end here? No! I set myself a new goal: become a pilot - this time by my own means. In the meanwhile I have a license but want to go further in this...and the daily programming is double fun because as a side effect it generates the necessary funds to pay my flying fun.
Second point: many people here advise you to finish your year and get your degree. They are right! No employer is interested in what degree you have, but in you having a degree. After obtaining it you can do whatever you want...if you go for it.
Good luck!
...and in five years, paying for information will be the most normal thing in the world. Looking at today's evolution in the broadband television arena, the business model will be something like this:
On a normal day, you want to look up information on the Concorde. A content provider will charge you a little amount, say 10 cents. Then, a Concorde crashes. That day, and the weeks to follow, you will have to dig up considerably more for that same information (let's say 2 dollar).
In other words, you will have to pay for content and the amount due is on a demand/supply basis (the most basic business model on earth).
I was talking about TV, but what about the Internet? Well, I observe both media (Internet/TV) converging to each other, in a couple of years there will probably be no difference between them anymore. As for free content, only non-profit organizations or individuals will be providing them. But what about the thrustworthiness of their information?
Never mind that, I don't believe everything TV tells me either.
---
I agree with you.
:-).
But then again, I never had the opportunity to participate in the design/construction of one of thoese vessels
---
Don't you ever look at series like Star Trek and the like? Or even better, Star Wars? It is common knowledge that fighting spacecraft use a variety of weapons, and laser beams are the most common ones.
... by accident of course, but it would surely prove the existance of life out there. Because there is no natural source of laser light. Other sources might be interstellar lighthouses.
Serious now: has this SETI project ever obtained any useful result?
Maybe such a beam missed its target during a fight and got all the way down here
---
An impressive and useful engineering project...
Their goal is impressive, but the plane (or what would one call it) isn't really. There seems to be little space left in the vehicle for these tourists (one, maybe two very small seats), and from the size of this bird I wonder if its range will be more than a couple of miles. By the time it gets sub-orbital, all fuel will have been combusted.
But maybe that's the (main) reason they only get sub-orbital.
---
I fully agree with you. Besides that, what makes them think they will be more successful hunting for light? I mean, Earth is sending out radio waves into space (as a side-effect of radio wave based comms) but I never heard of any project sending laser pulses into space just to let aliens know we are there. So why would ETs do it?
I believe one of the rare occurences of Earth sending laser light into space was to measure the distance to the moon, using reflectors placed on it. So those beams didn't get very far (from an interstellar point of view).
---
Applets won't run on an XP browser unless the user downloads and installs the plug-in (from Sun or whatever). Java applications won't run on an XP platform (or any platform) unless a VM is installed. So with eitehr the plug-in or the JRE on the desktop, is Java's death imminent? No way.
Java shines on the Server side, where people run whatever OS they want, whatever appserver they want (I recommend JBoss) and whatever Java VM they want. That MS stops "supporting" Java in XP is not going to change that at all. XP won't be used on many servers anyway, I guess.
Applets or Java (client) applications are mostly used in intranet environments. Installing a plug-in or a VM should be a breeze in such an environment. And then there's always a tool that can install the VM with your application (see the Sun site).
Bottomline, this doesn't hurt Java, but probably will eliminate most (future) Applets. But then again, they have been dead since 1998. Installing a JRE by an OEM isn't going to change this. I am just surprised that anno 2001 a lot of people still belive that Java's only use is to run or write Applets.
---