IIRC, you can't just stop the film. If the film stops, it melts. If the light turns off it still takes some time to cool everything down, and you also have to wait for warmup.
It's not as simple as that. The managers are trained to watch for any signs of unionization or collaberation. They prey specifically on a programmer's desire to work alone and prevent any team building or other chance meetings where you might get to know enough employees to get together and have any clout.
Further, the instant anything starts to happen they simply fire anyone involved or suspected of involvement. Then they block access of the newly fired (who are spending most of their time getting new jobs anyway) to current employees. No chance to unionize.
There are processes in place, believe me, that will blow your mind to prevent 'problem employees' from creating problems.
However, this is a great deal of money to be made in forming a union, and quite frankly I believe the people who get fired and stand outside as employees enter and leave passing out flyers with their rights on them and a name of a lawyer who will work with the newly budding union to represent individuals and ideally form a class action suit, those who start the union stand to gain a lot of recognition and a reasonable sallary as a leader of such a union.
But that person has got to want it intrinsically, because it's a long road and you'll be building bridge after bridge as the company fights you with lawyers, policies, and harrasment.
But if one person stood outside and passed out a 'Your employment rights as a sallaried worker in CA' pamphlet for one day, the fallout would be huge. Paper the cars, stand outside handing out pamphlets for 24 hours since they go home and come to work at all hours of the day...
Personally, I'm not a fan of unions. I live in Michigan and have to deal with them. However, there are instances where only a union will be able to help. This is one perfect example of what a union is for.
AOL probably already operated this way anyway, so what's the big whoop?
The biggest difference is that all the old infighting and contempt is offical, and can be reported on and monitered since it must cross interdepartmental divisions. Previously it was hard to track since it was intradepartemental.
Wars and power struggles are much more open. Further, it provides a new battlefield - all the commanders welcome this change since the wars were getting rather stale and predictable. Hopefully the new revolution will be streamed.
Even when they pay them out, they do so 6-8 weeks later.
1.5 to 2 months.
This is essentially an interest free loan to Best Buy. Why go to the bank when they need a loan? Simply give rebates to the top 1% of their sales items instead of a real sale and suddenly they have million dollar bridge loans, the overhead of which is paid for by those who don't send the rebates in.
All the servers appear to be under attack now, also DNS. I added another large multiprocessor but it doesn't seem to help much. I don't this is going to work. Sorry.
The remainder have older messages on them - not sure how or if they are being automatically synced.
Bummer, but kindof expected. Seems that he's using only one provider...
I am allergic to a wide variety of things (cats, mold, ragweed, etc)
The allergy tests I had years ago (million pricks on the back) did not test for tobacco smoke or sulfites.
The only asthma attacks I get are from cigarette smoke and when I have a bad illness. The smoke incidents are much more critical. My asthma does not appear to be triggered by any of the other things I'm allergic to.
Many allergens are not avoidable, but tobacco does not 'naturally' dry out and burn of its own accord. I contend that man made allergens that are not obviously beneficial to society ought to be more thouroughly scrutinized, and that reasonable restrictions should be tolerated.
The original point of the thread was that second hand smoke does not kill, and I am simply pointing out that it can kill. Just like cancer doesn't kill (it's always "heart failure" or something) second hand smoke doesn't kill - it would simply be labelled "bronchial asthma" or "anaphylactic shock" by the coroner.
In programming parlance, this is a corner case. Not a frequent occurence. Society can either ignore it as something that needs no attention, or take resonable steps to "program" around it.
My point is that the corner case exist and the decision to ignore it or fix the problem should be made. Just don't spread the myth that it doesn't exist.
'Secondary smoke' is no more dangerous than anything else.
I suppose that's why I get a severe asthma attack from second hand smoke. The only other thing that gives me as bad an attack are sulfites - used to be used to preserve fresh foods. No longer generally recommended as safe. (GRAS)
But hey, I guess decades of studies could be wrong. Perhaps you know better.
Or perhaps you are simply in denial. Apply Occam's razor liberally over affected area until delusions subside. If conditions worsen, please see your local FDA representative.
Cool. I like good comedies too. Have you seen the Three Stooges?
We love America, we want you to lead and inspire and show us what democracy and freedom and technology can do. But right now we're feeling scared, confused, and angry about what your President has lead you to do over the past three years.
Well, he polled us pretty hard throughout his presidency on major issues. I was one of those who not only said that I support the war against Iraq but knew that my brother then serving in the reserves would likely be called to active duty. I'm sorry that you disagree with our actions, but the President did not act alone. The President, Congress, and the majority of the Americans agreed to carry out this action, among other actions. The fact that the evidence was innacurate was disappointing, but would not have changed my opinion. The UN ceased to be useful when they passed resolution after resolution against Iraq which were, at best, only partially fulfilled, and at worst flaunted.
Please, give us back the America we admire and believe in. Don't turn yourselves into a religious state.
Very unlikely. Compared to Europe, yes - we're very puritanical. Compared to the USA of decades ago we're far from a religious state. The simple fact is that the majority of US citizens are Christian and vote accordingly. This is declining, though, so we're slowly approaching Europe's version of secularism.
Don't turn your back on the UN and the other peoples of the world
Heh. So which is it, you want us to become unilateral, or multilateral? Neither - what you want is for us to do what you think is in your best interest. Sorry. We do what is in our nations best interest and include an astounding amount of humanitarian work as well. When the UN and other countries cannot enforce their resolutions, then we cannot stand by them when we must enforce them.
- in the end we are people first, American or French or Iraqi or Chinese second. Give us back the America that went to the moon and carried out the Berlin airlift and brought us the IT revolution. Give us back the America of Kennedy's vision and MLK's dream.
Well, we're working on going to mars. Is that not visionary enough? Visionary men are found every where. There are few who actually engage that vision and bring it to fruition. There are even fewer who have visions worth sharing with the whole of the US, nevermind the world.
Care to suggest some candidates with that legendary vision? There were none involved in this election - these are all old politicos who were molded long ago and have yet to stray. Vision can be a scary thing - it takes the right vision, at the right time, with the right person to be succesful.
And please, don't let the world's most successful democracy be reduced to a joke with a repeat of last election's Floridan antics.
We, as voters, have little control over that. Unless we can rein in the parties, unless we can change the voting system or methods on a state by state basis, unless we have a strong desire to go out and work hard, it isn't going to happen.
If, however, this election goes as badly as 2000, then there may be some movement towards a better system. As imperfect as it is, the electoral college is not going to change for a long, long, time. However, individual states can and should implement some other method. I favor instant runoff because it's the simplest to understand - and any voting system must be stupid-simple - even though there are inherent biases and flaws, it is significantly better than the current majority methods. Whether the electoral college votes are apportioned or granted en masse wouldn't matter as much, but hopefully in time this would also change.
If one small state implemented it, it wouldn't be long before it caught on in other states.
Actually it wasn't a federal law that banned polygamy, but state laws.
According to the wikipedia entry on polygamy, "the United States Congress made the practice illegal in U.S. Territories in 1862"
Then they would not grant statehood (under which polygamy could have been made legal) unless the church stopped practising it. The prophet at that time received revelation that they should stop the practise..
I don't have a problem with people who actively choose not to vote. I have a problem with people telling others that they shouldn't vote because they "Don't understand the issues" or "Haven't done enough work to know how to vote."
Voting without knowing anything is worse than not voting at all.
I would like to see the proof that makes this statement true. Logical proofs only, please. Make sure it stands up to the "If X people vote randomly, then their total effect on the election is 0" test.
I don't want people being encouraged to "just vote" without the slightest awareness of who or what they're voting for.
I understand your point. My point is that this is a right, not to be distilled by someone, such as yourself, who believes that this right should be unused if one doesn't have the time or inclination to research the issues as thoroughly as you want them to.
I believe that the more people involved in the voting process, the more informed the voters will be. My understanding is that the knowledge will come from the process.
You advocate gaining knowledge before becoming part of the process. You claim that this makes the elections less useful - whatever you define useful as.
I suppose a bad analogy may be drawn from swimming. I say - jump in the pool and figure it out. You say - don't get near the water until you know what you are doing. Either method will work, but my belief is that people who want to get in the water will learn swimming as well as those who sit out until they have 'learned'.
But then, you probably believe that jurers who know nothing about the law shouldn't be on jury duty, either. Juries should be selected from a 'pool' of professional jurers who have studied to be jurists.
The reality is that no one knows as much about the people and issues as they need to with all the FUD flying around. I contend that it's impossible to know enough to make an informed decision. Most of the voters already vote their heart and conscience, which is no different than your wet t-shirt contest. And yes, it is a big popularity contest. Who has the most popular ideals, record, image, etc? When is the last time you saw a short or female or minority president - especially since the advent of TV?
If you want better leaders, pay attention to your local elections, and ignore the presidential candidates. Your local leaders are tomorrow's presidents.
-Adam
Re:Heres an example why I won't vote for one canid
on
Pre-Election Discussion
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Never in US history has a president tried to limit the rights of people. But in came GW Bush. He tried to limit the rights of gay people to get married. First president ever to try to limit someone's rights.
I call BS.
First, I'd like you to prove that no other president has limited the rights of people. If you need some source material, consider the ban on polygamous marriages. The law was created as a federal law to prevent the Mormons from practising polygamy. Before that they had no limits to this paractice.
Second, I'd like you to prove that the president tried to take away a right that Gay people had. In both cases where Gay marraiges have occured it has been because some local leaders have gone against state law, or judges interpreted law to allow unions, but not marriage. Gay Marriage laws in 50 states
So - How can one take away a right that was never a right?
If you have no clue of the issues, if you're basing your decision solely on superficial reasons, or if you're just voting because someone told you to, please don't vote.
Voting is a right. The effort some put into the election process does not disqualify the opinion of someone who has put forth little or no effort.
As far as I'm concerned, if you've put forth enough effort to register and then go to the poll or fill out the absentee ballot, then it is enough.
If you can't, without completely ceasing your buisness operations, fight what you believe is an unjust claim, it's a useless system.
Yeah. We shouldn't shut down businesses conducting illegal activities until after they've failed their appeals several times.
Howard Stern is completely within his rights to challenge the rules and law - but he can't tell Viacom what to do, and Viacom has to keep revenue up.
What you are proposing is similar to allowing drug dealers to continue selling on the streets after conviction and fines until they've had a few appeals fail.
Once the ruling or conviction is made you can go ahead and contest it, but allowing the activity that caused the rulling to continue is worse.
This is what individual stays of judgement are for. On a case by case basis, a judge can allow continued operation until the appeal is completed.
Apparently Viacom did not see this as a viable option. It doesn't matter what Howard thinks - the fines were against his employer or client, not against him. All he did was record an audio stream - he did not himself broadcast it.
Does it take a load off of them to pursue bigger endeavors, or will NASA slowly decline in relevance?
Sort of like how other delivery companies caused the USPS to decline? (ignore for a moment the monopoly given the USPS...:-)
At most, NASA may more tightly focus its efforts, but at the end of the day NASA and private companies will serve different customers and different missions/purposes.
Not only will private companies be unable to compete with NASA at its own game, they don't want to do what NASA is doing. I can certianly see NASA subcontracting a lot of its current work to other leaner companies in the future (much like USPS/FEDEX).
I doubt, however, that NASA will go unfunded - simply for defense purposes. If it weren't for our reliance on satellite and other technology supported by and invented by NASA it would not be 1/100th the organization it is. Some of this will get farmed out, but the secret nature and size of some of these missions (huge, multi-ton satellite hauling and repair) precludes commercial involvement at the beginning, but this will become less so as companies are able to compete for lucrative government contracts.
So, a slight change in focus, perhaps, but this is not NASA's undoing.
-Adam
Re:the solution is so anticlimactic.
on
Saving Huygens
·
· Score: 1
So I guess they'd have had to run a billion-mile cable first. Line noise would be a bitch, wouldn't it?
Who cares about line noise, I want to see the whiplash at the end of the cable when I tap it on this end. Whip that probe!
I used VNC right up until I found the fatal flaw which should scare anyone away from it.
I VNC'd into my work machine to check a few things, but then needed to check my email on my own desktop. Without thinking (I thought I was at work because, hey, this is my work background!) I VNC'd to my home computer - which is the computer I was using to VNC into work.
Let me tell you what. It wasn't bad enough that VNC crawled to the speed of molasses going uphill on a cold day. No, VNC further decided to lag the mouse movement so everytime I inched closer to the 'X' to close the session, it would jump forward a little, then backward more than I moved and oscillate there a little bit until it settled down and I could try again. It took control of the mouse on my screen!
Someone needs to check into this. Seriously, someone could be injured if they accidently VNC'd recursively. I'm just glad it was only looped on itself once. Imagine if I VNC'd through a dozen computers! The oscillations would never dampen, bringing the universe (at least the internet, and they're pretty much the same thing anyway) to a grinding sine wavy halt.
Is there a VNC that checks for this failure mode? Perhaps a good PID algorithm is all that's needed, but something must be done.
In other news, computer manufacturers report sales of multi processor single core machines are down, while customers are clamoring for multi core single processor machines.
Slashdot Mirror
the film on self-trepanation.
Chances are it'll feature on the Darwin Awards soon enough for everyone.
-Adam
IIRC, you can't just stop the film. If the film stops, it melts. If the light turns off it still takes some time to cool everything down, and you also have to wait for warmup.
Sorry, no pause button on the big film cameras.
-Adam
It's not as simple as that. The managers are trained to watch for any signs of unionization or collaberation. They prey specifically on a programmer's desire to work alone and prevent any team building or other chance meetings where you might get to know enough employees to get together and have any clout.
Further, the instant anything starts to happen they simply fire anyone involved or suspected of involvement. Then they block access of the newly fired (who are spending most of their time getting new jobs anyway) to current employees. No chance to unionize.
There are processes in place, believe me, that will blow your mind to prevent 'problem employees' from creating problems.
However, this is a great deal of money to be made in forming a union, and quite frankly I believe the people who get fired and stand outside as employees enter and leave passing out flyers with their rights on them and a name of a lawyer who will work with the newly budding union to represent individuals and ideally form a class action suit, those who start the union stand to gain a lot of recognition and a reasonable sallary as a leader of such a union.
But that person has got to want it intrinsically, because it's a long road and you'll be building bridge after bridge as the company fights you with lawyers, policies, and harrasment.
But if one person stood outside and passed out a 'Your employment rights as a sallaried worker in CA' pamphlet for one day, the fallout would be huge. Paper the cars, stand outside handing out pamphlets for 24 hours since they go home and come to work at all hours of the day...
Personally, I'm not a fan of unions. I live in Michigan and have to deal with them. However, there are instances where only a union will be able to help. This is one perfect example of what a union is for.
-Adam
AOL probably already operated this way anyway, so what's the big whoop?
The biggest difference is that all the old infighting and contempt is offical, and can be reported on and monitered since it must cross interdepartmental divisions. Previously it was hard to track since it was intradepartemental.
Wars and power struggles are much more open. Further, it provides a new battlefield - all the commanders welcome this change since the wars were getting rather stale and predictable. Hopefully the new revolution will be streamed.
-Adam
Even when they pay them out, they do so 6-8 weeks later.
1.5 to 2 months.
This is essentially an interest free loan to Best Buy. Why go to the bank when they need a loan? Simply give rebates to the top 1% of their sales items instead of a real sale and suddenly they have million dollar bridge loans, the overhead of which is paid for by those who don't send the rebates in.
-Adam
It's also cached at .
-Adam
The one you decapitated last night? Your parents never mentioned that you sleep walk, did they?
-Adam
From the main page of electoralvote2.com:
All the servers appear to be under attack now, also DNS. I added another large multiprocessor but it doesn't seem to help much. I don't this is going to work. Sorry.
The remainder have older messages on them - not sure how or if they are being automatically synced.
Bummer, but kindof expected. Seems that he's using only one provider...
-Adam
I am allergic to a wide variety of things (cats, mold, ragweed, etc)
The allergy tests I had years ago (million pricks on the back) did not test for tobacco smoke or sulfites.
The only asthma attacks I get are from cigarette smoke and when I have a bad illness. The smoke incidents are much more critical. My asthma does not appear to be triggered by any of the other things I'm allergic to.
Many allergens are not avoidable, but tobacco does not 'naturally' dry out and burn of its own accord. I contend that man made allergens that are not obviously beneficial to society ought to be more thouroughly scrutinized, and that reasonable restrictions should be tolerated.
The original point of the thread was that second hand smoke does not kill, and I am simply pointing out that it can kill. Just like cancer doesn't kill (it's always "heart failure" or something) second hand smoke doesn't kill - it would simply be labelled "bronchial asthma" or "anaphylactic shock" by the coroner.
In programming parlance, this is a corner case. Not a frequent occurence. Society can either ignore it as something that needs no attention, or take resonable steps to "program" around it.
My point is that the corner case exist and the decision to ignore it or fix the problem should be made. Just don't spread the myth that it doesn't exist.
-Adam
'Secondary smoke' is no more dangerous than anything else.
I suppose that's why I get a severe asthma attack from second hand smoke. The only other thing that gives me as bad an attack are sulfites - used to be used to preserve fresh foods. No longer generally recommended as safe. (GRAS)
But hey, I guess decades of studies could be wrong. Perhaps you know better.
Or perhaps you are simply in denial. Apply Occam's razor liberally over affected area until delusions subside. If conditions worsen, please see your local FDA representative.
-Adam
All around the world, we're watching you today.
Cool. I like good comedies too. Have you seen the Three Stooges?
We love America, we want you to lead and inspire and show us what democracy and freedom and technology can do. But right now we're feeling scared, confused, and angry about what your President has lead you to do over the past three years.
Well, he polled us pretty hard throughout his presidency on major issues. I was one of those who not only said that I support the war against Iraq but knew that my brother then serving in the reserves would likely be called to active duty. I'm sorry that you disagree with our actions, but the President did not act alone. The President, Congress, and the majority of the Americans agreed to carry out this action, among other actions. The fact that the evidence was innacurate was disappointing, but would not have changed my opinion. The UN ceased to be useful when they passed resolution after resolution against Iraq which were, at best, only partially fulfilled, and at worst flaunted.
Please, give us back the America we admire and believe in. Don't turn yourselves into a religious state.
Very unlikely. Compared to Europe, yes - we're very puritanical. Compared to the USA of decades ago we're far from a religious state. The simple fact is that the majority of US citizens are Christian and vote accordingly. This is declining, though, so we're slowly approaching Europe's version of secularism.
Don't turn your back on the UN and the other peoples of the world
Heh. So which is it, you want us to become unilateral, or multilateral? Neither - what you want is for us to do what you think is in your best interest. Sorry. We do what is in our nations best interest and include an astounding amount of humanitarian work as well. When the UN and other countries cannot enforce their resolutions, then we cannot stand by them when we must enforce them.
- in the end we are people first, American or French or Iraqi or Chinese second. Give us back the America that went to the moon and carried out the Berlin airlift and brought us the IT revolution. Give us back the America of Kennedy's vision and MLK's dream.
Well, we're working on going to mars. Is that not visionary enough? Visionary men are found every where. There are few who actually engage that vision and bring it to fruition. There are even fewer who have visions worth sharing with the whole of the US, nevermind the world.
Care to suggest some candidates with that legendary vision? There were none involved in this election - these are all old politicos who were molded long ago and have yet to stray. Vision can be a scary thing - it takes the right vision, at the right time, with the right person to be succesful.
And please, don't let the world's most successful democracy be reduced to a joke with a repeat of last election's Floridan antics.
We, as voters, have little control over that. Unless we can rein in the parties, unless we can change the voting system or methods on a state by state basis, unless we have a strong desire to go out and work hard, it isn't going to happen.
If, however, this election goes as badly as 2000, then there may be some movement towards a better system. As imperfect as it is, the electoral college is not going to change for a long, long, time. However, individual states can and should implement some other method. I favor instant runoff because it's the simplest to understand - and any voting system must be stupid-simple - even though there are inherent biases and flaws, it is significantly better than the current majority methods. Whether the electoral college votes are apportioned or granted en masse wouldn't matter as much, but hopefully in time this would also change.
If one small state implemented it, it wouldn't be long before it caught on in other states.
-Adam
infants analyse the statistical distributions of sounds that they hear in ambient language, and use this information to form phonemic categories
I told that to my three-year-old and he just laughed and went to play with his older brother saying "catagees! catagees!"
I think he's mocking me...
-Adam
Actually it wasn't a federal law that banned polygamy, but state laws.
According to the wikipedia entry on polygamy, "the United States Congress made the practice illegal in U.S. Territories in 1862"
Then they would not grant statehood (under which polygamy could have been made legal) unless the church stopped practising it. The prophet at that time received revelation that they should stop the practise..
-Adam
I don't have a problem with people who actively choose not to vote. I have a problem with people telling others that they shouldn't vote because they "Don't understand the issues" or "Haven't done enough work to know how to vote."
Voting without knowing anything is worse than not voting at all.
I would like to see the proof that makes this statement true. Logical proofs only, please. Make sure it stands up to the "If X people vote randomly, then their total effect on the election is 0" test.
-Adam
I don't want people being encouraged to "just vote" without the slightest awareness of who or what they're voting for.
I understand your point. My point is that this is a right, not to be distilled by someone, such as yourself, who believes that this right should be unused if one doesn't have the time or inclination to research the issues as thoroughly as you want them to.
I believe that the more people involved in the voting process, the more informed the voters will be. My understanding is that the knowledge will come from the process.
You advocate gaining knowledge before becoming part of the process. You claim that this makes the elections less useful - whatever you define useful as.
I suppose a bad analogy may be drawn from swimming. I say - jump in the pool and figure it out. You say - don't get near the water until you know what you are doing. Either method will work, but my belief is that people who want to get in the water will learn swimming as well as those who sit out until they have 'learned'.
But then, you probably believe that jurers who know nothing about the law shouldn't be on jury duty, either. Juries should be selected from a 'pool' of professional jurers who have studied to be jurists.
The reality is that no one knows as much about the people and issues as they need to with all the FUD flying around. I contend that it's impossible to know enough to make an informed decision. Most of the voters already vote their heart and conscience, which is no different than your wet t-shirt contest. And yes, it is a big popularity contest. Who has the most popular ideals, record, image, etc? When is the last time you saw a short or female or minority president - especially since the advent of TV?
If you want better leaders, pay attention to your local elections, and ignore the presidential candidates. Your local leaders are tomorrow's presidents.
-Adam
Never in US history has a president tried to limit the rights of people. But in came GW Bush. He tried to limit the rights of gay people to get married. First president ever to try to limit someone's rights.
I call BS.
First, I'd like you to prove that no other president has limited the rights of people. If you need some source material, consider the ban on polygamous marriages. The law was created as a federal law to prevent the Mormons from practising polygamy. Before that they had no limits to this paractice.
Second, I'd like you to prove that the president tried to take away a right that Gay people had. In both cases where Gay marraiges have occured it has been because some local leaders have gone against state law, or judges interpreted law to allow unions, but not marriage. Gay Marriage laws in 50 states
So - How can one take away a right that was never a right?
-Adam
If you have no clue of the issues, if you're basing your decision solely on superficial reasons, or if you're just voting because someone told you to, please don't vote.
Voting is a right. The effort some put into the election process does not disqualify the opinion of someone who has put forth little or no effort.
As far as I'm concerned, if you've put forth enough effort to register and then go to the poll or fill out the absentee ballot, then it is enough.
-Adam
Mr. Kerry, please stop playing around on slashdot and go campaign or something.
I'd appreciate it if he did his job and showed up for votes in the senate.
-Adam
If you can't, without completely ceasing your buisness operations, fight what you believe is an unjust claim, it's a useless system.
Yeah. We shouldn't shut down businesses conducting illegal activities until after they've failed their appeals several times.
Howard Stern is completely within his rights to challenge the rules and law - but he can't tell Viacom what to do, and Viacom has to keep revenue up.
What you are proposing is similar to allowing drug dealers to continue selling on the streets after conviction and fines until they've had a few appeals fail.
Once the ruling or conviction is made you can go ahead and contest it, but allowing the activity that caused the rulling to continue is worse.
This is what individual stays of judgement are for. On a case by case basis, a judge can allow continued operation until the appeal is completed.
Apparently Viacom did not see this as a viable option. It doesn't matter what Howard thinks - the fines were against his employer or client, not against him. All he did was record an audio stream - he did not himself broadcast it.
-Adam
Does it take a load off of them to pursue bigger endeavors, or will NASA slowly decline in relevance?
:-)
Sort of like how other delivery companies caused the USPS to decline? (ignore for a moment the monopoly given the USPS...
At most, NASA may more tightly focus its efforts, but at the end of the day NASA and private companies will serve different customers and different missions/purposes.
Not only will private companies be unable to compete with NASA at its own game, they don't want to do what NASA is doing. I can certianly see NASA subcontracting a lot of its current work to other leaner companies in the future (much like USPS/FEDEX).
I doubt, however, that NASA will go unfunded - simply for defense purposes. If it weren't for our reliance on satellite and other technology supported by and invented by NASA it would not be 1/100th the organization it is. Some of this will get farmed out, but the secret nature and size of some of these missions (huge, multi-ton satellite hauling and repair) precludes commercial involvement at the beginning, but this will become less so as companies are able to compete for lucrative government contracts.
So, a slight change in focus, perhaps, but this is not NASA's undoing.
-Adam
So I guess they'd have had to run a billion-mile cable first. Line noise would be a bitch, wouldn't it?
Who cares about line noise, I want to see the whiplash at the end of the cable when I tap it on this end. Whip that probe!
-Adam
I used VNC right up until I found the fatal flaw which should scare anyone away from it.
I VNC'd into my work machine to check a few things, but then needed to check my email on my own desktop. Without thinking (I thought I was at work because, hey, this is my work background!) I VNC'd to my home computer - which is the computer I was using to VNC into work.
Let me tell you what. It wasn't bad enough that VNC crawled to the speed of molasses going uphill on a cold day. No, VNC further decided to lag the mouse movement so everytime I inched closer to the 'X' to close the session, it would jump forward a little, then backward more than I moved and oscillate there a little bit until it settled down and I could try again. It took control of the mouse on my screen!
Someone needs to check into this. Seriously, someone could be injured if they accidently VNC'd recursively. I'm just glad it was only looped on itself once. Imagine if I VNC'd through a dozen computers! The oscillations would never dampen, bringing the universe (at least the internet, and they're pretty much the same thing anyway) to a grinding sine wavy halt.
Is there a VNC that checks for this failure mode? Perhaps a good PID algorithm is all that's needed, but something must be done.
-Adam
In other news, computer manufacturers report sales of multi processor single core machines are down, while customers are clamoring for multi core single processor machines.
MS is expected to revise it's statement tomorrow.
-Adam
NetBSD is one port closer to a NetBSD/toaster port.
Now only if it were useful as a desktop OS...
-Adam
Probably named after Neil Peart, Drummer for Rush.
-Adam