The time you need to stay on target is actually pretty small. I don't know the specifics for HELLADS, but it would be comparable to the amount of time a fighter system would need to "lock on" to its target with a conventional missile.
Less than 50% of LM's business is related to rockets/planes/missiles/spacecraft/etc anymore. In fact, they even run software support centers for other larger corporations. They do a lot of information technology work and the related hardware.
They are what is called a "system" house. Basically, let's say the US government needs a large complex system, let's say a nuclear powered carrier. A system house like LM will manage the entire project from concept development to nut and bolt production to assembly and service through it's entire life. Yet, they may not actually build a single part for the system themselves. They have subcontractors that actually build the stuff. And those subcontractors may have their own subcontractors for smaller portions of their particular part. And those subs may have other subs... etc etc. LM's job is to ensure the requirements at the top that were conceived during concept development flow down all the way to the actual production and assembly of each individual part.
The systems they manage can be anything from carriers to airplanes to satellites to tanks to communications networks to software support.
However, since LM does have tons upon tons of aerospace and aeronautic experience, they typically do build some items themselves. And in some cases they build the majority of the system themselves (like satellites, solar arrays, etc).
I'm passionate about having a private island in the Caribbean, Mediterranean, or South Pacific, sitting behind my Villa in a shop, tinkering with electronics and mechanics, spending warm-breezy afternoons on the beach with a gorgeous woman and great locally brewed beer (ice cold), and using the private fiber line run to my island to have killer ping times in online games that I play on the big screen in my private theater at night.
Exactly. I was writing up a customized web store in html/php interfacing with mysql for myself (partially for fun... had never done one before). I had the thing set up beautifully, all the process flow made sense, variables made sense, documented nicely, the whole thing was as modular as can be and ran smoothly. About 3/4 of the way through (with slow process since I did this in my spare time), I decided to get serious about running the web store as a business. So I had some Indians do the whole thing. When they got back to me with their almost-finished product, the code was completely unreadable and several functions were broken, and there was practically no documentation. Now I had to run back and forth with them to fix all the problems and get everything to work properly, because once they considered it done... good luck trying to tromp through that trash pit of code to add features or fix other problems.
It's sort of like a problem that you can solve by testing 5 different conditions with "if else" statements, but that you can solve more elegantly just by rethinking your algorithm and reducing it to 2 "if else" statements. The indians just pump out code with "if else" all over the place to account for every little condition, instead of creating a modular and elegant solution.
That's a good point. But what you are experiencing is a by-product of the burial process. People did not have your current experience in mind when they buried someone 150 years ago. And the same is true today. When people are buried today, they are not thinking about people walking through the cemetary 200 years down the road.
Having said that, I do agree with you that it is interesting to walk through a cemetary and look at some of the really old gravestones. Perhaps instead of burying the corpses, we could just put up memorial stones. We could have something on the order of 3' square that states who the person was, their family, and their significant life events. At least this way, we use less space and push the overpopulation problem out further.
I know you joke, but This Week in Tech will be doing a live broadcast sometime in the near future. TWiT is a conglomeration of old ZDNet / TechTV folks that discuss the latest technology news. I personally think that the production is one of the most professionally done by a group of "hobbyists" (I say "hobbyists" because the podcast is not a production of some company, but most of the people in the podcast have professional video/sound production experience). Having said that, the content gets a bit dull sometimes. They will start off with an interesting subject but sometimes end up in back-and-forth banter. Still, most of it is pretty interesting, even if it mirrors the front page of Slashdot on occasion. They are currently up around their 18th podcast (headed by Leo Laporte), and have plans to meet in a SF Bay area pub/tavern/restaurant to do future tapings. As well, they will be doing their live podcast eventually.
I feel exactly the same way. But, I think it is some sort of crutch for other people. Like visiting gravestones and whatnot. It makes absolutely no sense to me - you are just visiting a nicely polished piece of rock sitting on top of a decomposing body. I'd imagine some people's argument would be that it's to remember the person. Well, then why not look at some pictures or something? There's a picture of my (dead) grand dad on the fridge at my mom's house. And that sure presents much fonder memories than the place we buried his lifeless body. The only use I can see to saving dead bodies is for digging them up 15 years later to solve murder mysteries. Otherwise, dead bodies should just be used for fertilizer or something. If we bury everyone that dies, we're going to run out of space eventually. The plot and tombstone are just a colossal waste of money anyhow. Couple grand for a casket, couple grand for the headstone, couple grand for the plot (or more) - you would be better off donating that money as a memorial for the person.
Very true. I wasn't driving, but I have taken 'recommended' 35 mph turns on 45 mph mountain roads at 65 mph in a roadster designed for that purpose. We were pretty safe about the whole thing though. We drove up and down the road several times, scoping out the good/bad areas and everything. And we did the scariest driving on sections that had no intersections and no driveways (ie no vehicles would be exiting or entering the road).
Even still, I was getting pretty close to telling the driver to stop a couple times:\ but I'm glad I didn't because it was the greatest fun ever. Like a roller coaster, except no guide rails...
"I am a Danish computer science student, currently interning for a small telecom/tech startup in South SF, working mostly on Java and frontend stuff."
I read that as Java and Fortran stuff. Geez I've been spending too much time on old IRIX environments trying to resurrect simulation and modeling codes from the cold war era.
1) A second or two before the shuttle starts moving away after ET separation (around 3:25) you see some pieces shoot out to the right, then appear to come back to the left. These pieces are fluttering and spinning as indicated by the cycling of light/dark coming from them. These are most likely debris from the separation mechanism due to the time that they occur and that the "leftward" movement is actually them trailing off into the background.
2) After ET separation right around 3:49 there is a faint light just to the left of the upside-down V. This is most likely a very bright object at some distance out in space (star, Mars, other planet, etc). At LEO, the period of the shuttle's orbit is about 90 minutes. Compare this 1.5 hours to our period of orbit here at ground level (24 hours). The shuttle is whipping around the Earth quite fast, and stars will appear to move in relative space (definitely not inertial space) very quickly, hence the movement of the faint light in the video. The reason why you don't see more stars in the background is because the albedo of Earth is killing off all but the brightest stars (or planets, etc) in the sky.
Believe it or not, I use more different types of OSS here at Microsoft than I've ever used before. Our team uses over 40 different flavors of Linux and BSD, plus several commercial Unix variants. Beyond this, we use an ever-growing number of OSS applications. In my spare time, I'm even learning some stuff about Windows J
What is this "Windows J" he speaks of? Is this the code name for the real next version of Windows (since Longhorn is due out in 2042)?
Text messaging? No way in hell. The last thing you want to be doing when you are on a roof balancing some equipment with your hands is try to punch in some text on a phone keypad. All you want to do is barely get 1 thumb free to press the talk button so you can yell "I need some help up here!".
However, text messaging your buddies to see if they want to go to a bar tonight is fine.
Not sure if you knew it (and meant it) or not, but the methanol would actually work for invisibility. Just drink about 10 mL and everything else in the world will be invisbile (hint: 10 mL of methanol will cause you to go blind).
You obviously have never done contract work in the field. The ability to ping people you are working with real quick without making an official phone call is great.
Having said that, people who use the feature for purposes other than coordinating work (whether that be business work, or personal work) are retarded. You don't ping your buddy at the restaurant to see if he wants to go to the bar tonight. You call him like normal.
The great thing about treaties is that you can break them. Unfortunately I don't think any of these countries will break away from the treaties for ridiculous copyright measures anyhow. Although, the other great thing about treaties is that you don't have to follow every part of them. CAFTA members can soak up all the free trade measures and not even take a glance at the copyright measures if they choose. Then when the BSA/RIAA/MPAA/Devil lobby hard enough, CAFTA will ask member countries to obey the copyright measures, but they won't issue sanctions for something so small.
Nevermind the fact that 70 years after the author's death is fucking ridiculous. And then you have corporations... they never die.
Call me stubborn will you, but I haven't changed my homepage from the local ISP I was using back in the mid-90s (surprisingly they are still around and growing). Dunno why, force of habit I guess.
Re:Whatever happened to single-stage-to-orbit?
on
NASA's Shuttle Plans
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Because single stage to orbit is the dumbest idea anyone ever came up with. Why in the world would you carry a ton of extra weight past a normal staging point? It's pointless. You waste so much energy carrying the dead weight. The performance gains by staging a rocket from 100% to even 50%/50% are immense, despite all the extra structure, components, and management to handle the staging. We're talking about taking the second 1/2 of your energy that you would normally spend on 100% of the weight, and only spending that energy on like 70% of the weight.
The only thing you can possibly gain is simplicity for a reusable vehicle. That way, when it lands, you can just perform a checkout and refill the tanks, and you are ready to go for another launch.
But having a unified launch/CEV is a dumb idea as well for similar reasons to that of having a single stage to orbit launch vehicle.
Now this is all for chemical rockets, some day SSTO with anti-matter propulsion or something might be perfectly fine. But while we're still taking fuel and oxidizer, and combusting them together, staging is the way to go.
I think the problem is that a trip like this is still only desirable by the intellectuals who love thinking about space and would appreciate seeing the Earth rise over the horizon of the Moon. Your average multi-millionaire or billionaire is primarily interested in getting the $20 million yacht, the $40 million villa off the coast of the mediterranean, and having parties catered with $1 million worth of exotic foods and exotic alcohols. Sure, when the price goes down to $1 million a pop, they'll take a ride just to experience it. But until then, they don't care, and they won't blow half their networth to do it.
I would actually prefer to buy an F16 for $20 million and pay someone $1 million to train me to fly it. Then I could take it out and have fun whenever I want.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh snap!
The time you need to stay on target is actually pretty small. I don't know the specifics for HELLADS, but it would be comparable to the amount of time a fighter system would need to "lock on" to its target with a conventional missile.
Less than 50% of LM's business is related to rockets/planes/missiles/spacecraft/etc anymore. In fact, they even run software support centers for other larger corporations. They do a lot of information technology work and the related hardware.
... etc etc. LM's job is to ensure the requirements at the top that were conceived during concept development flow down all the way to the actual production and assembly of each individual part.
They are what is called a "system" house. Basically, let's say the US government needs a large complex system, let's say a nuclear powered carrier. A system house like LM will manage the entire project from concept development to nut and bolt production to assembly and service through it's entire life. Yet, they may not actually build a single part for the system themselves. They have subcontractors that actually build the stuff. And those subcontractors may have their own subcontractors for smaller portions of their particular part. And those subs may have other subs
The systems they manage can be anything from carriers to airplanes to satellites to tanks to communications networks to software support.
However, since LM does have tons upon tons of aerospace and aeronautic experience, they typically do build some items themselves. And in some cases they build the majority of the system themselves (like satellites, solar arrays, etc).
I'm passionate about having a private island in the Caribbean, Mediterranean, or South Pacific, sitting behind my Villa in a shop, tinkering with electronics and mechanics, spending warm-breezy afternoons on the beach with a gorgeous woman and great locally brewed beer (ice cold), and using the private fiber line run to my island to have killer ping times in online games that I play on the big screen in my private theater at night.
Where do I sign up for that job?
Exactly. I was writing up a customized web store in html/php interfacing with mysql for myself (partially for fun ... had never done one before). I had the thing set up beautifully, all the process flow made sense, variables made sense, documented nicely, the whole thing was as modular as can be and ran smoothly. About 3/4 of the way through (with slow process since I did this in my spare time), I decided to get serious about running the web store as a business. So I had some Indians do the whole thing. When they got back to me with their almost-finished product, the code was completely unreadable and several functions were broken, and there was practically no documentation. Now I had to run back and forth with them to fix all the problems and get everything to work properly, because once they considered it done ... good luck trying to tromp through that trash pit of code to add features or fix other problems.
It's sort of like a problem that you can solve by testing 5 different conditions with "if else" statements, but that you can solve more elegantly just by rethinking your algorithm and reducing it to 2 "if else" statements. The indians just pump out code with "if else" all over the place to account for every little condition, instead of creating a modular and elegant solution.
So where is Pentium located? Alaska?
That's a good point. But what you are experiencing is a by-product of the burial process. People did not have your current experience in mind when they buried someone 150 years ago. And the same is true today. When people are buried today, they are not thinking about people walking through the cemetary 200 years down the road.
Having said that, I do agree with you that it is interesting to walk through a cemetary and look at some of the really old gravestones. Perhaps instead of burying the corpses, we could just put up memorial stones. We could have something on the order of 3' square that states who the person was, their family, and their significant life events. At least this way, we use less space and push the overpopulation problem out further.
I know you joke, but This Week in Tech will be doing a live broadcast sometime in the near future. TWiT is a conglomeration of old ZDNet / TechTV folks that discuss the latest technology news. I personally think that the production is one of the most professionally done by a group of "hobbyists" (I say "hobbyists" because the podcast is not a production of some company, but most of the people in the podcast have professional video/sound production experience). Having said that, the content gets a bit dull sometimes. They will start off with an interesting subject but sometimes end up in back-and-forth banter. Still, most of it is pretty interesting, even if it mirrors the front page of Slashdot on occasion. They are currently up around their 18th podcast (headed by Leo Laporte), and have plans to meet in a SF Bay area pub/tavern/restaurant to do future tapings. As well, they will be doing their live podcast eventually.
I feel exactly the same way. But, I think it is some sort of crutch for other people. Like visiting gravestones and whatnot. It makes absolutely no sense to me - you are just visiting a nicely polished piece of rock sitting on top of a decomposing body. I'd imagine some people's argument would be that it's to remember the person. Well, then why not look at some pictures or something? There's a picture of my (dead) grand dad on the fridge at my mom's house. And that sure presents much fonder memories than the place we buried his lifeless body. The only use I can see to saving dead bodies is for digging them up 15 years later to solve murder mysteries. Otherwise, dead bodies should just be used for fertilizer or something. If we bury everyone that dies, we're going to run out of space eventually. The plot and tombstone are just a colossal waste of money anyhow. Couple grand for a casket, couple grand for the headstone, couple grand for the plot (or more) - you would be better off donating that money as a memorial for the person.
Very true. I wasn't driving, but I have taken 'recommended' 35 mph turns on 45 mph mountain roads at 65 mph in a roadster designed for that purpose. We were pretty safe about the whole thing though. We drove up and down the road several times, scoping out the good/bad areas and everything. And we did the scariest driving on sections that had no intersections and no driveways (ie no vehicles would be exiting or entering the road).
:\ but I'm glad I didn't because it was the greatest fun ever. Like a roller coaster, except no guide rails ...
Even still, I was getting pretty close to telling the driver to stop a couple times
Wow, you just gave me a great idea for a business.
"I am a Danish computer science student, currently interning for a small telecom/tech startup in South SF, working mostly on Java and frontend stuff."
I read that as Java and Fortran stuff. Geez I've been spending too much time on old IRIX environments trying to resurrect simulation and modeling codes from the cold war era.
Ok, I think I found it, but I saw 2 things:
1) A second or two before the shuttle starts moving away after ET separation (around 3:25) you see some pieces shoot out to the right, then appear to come back to the left. These pieces are fluttering and spinning as indicated by the cycling of light/dark coming from them. These are most likely debris from the separation mechanism due to the time that they occur and that the "leftward" movement is actually them trailing off into the background.
2) After ET separation right around 3:49 there is a faint light just to the left of the upside-down V. This is most likely a very bright object at some distance out in space (star, Mars, other planet, etc). At LEO, the period of the shuttle's orbit is about 90 minutes. Compare this 1.5 hours to our period of orbit here at ground level (24 hours). The shuttle is whipping around the Earth quite fast, and stars will appear to move in relative space (definitely not inertial space) very quickly, hence the movement of the faint light in the video. The reason why you don't see more stars in the background is because the albedo of Earth is killing off all but the brightest stars (or planets, etc) in the sky.
From Question 5:
Believe it or not, I use more different types of OSS here at Microsoft than I've ever used before. Our team uses over 40 different flavors of Linux and BSD, plus several commercial Unix variants. Beyond this, we use an ever-growing number of OSS applications. In my spare time, I'm even learning some stuff about Windows J
What is this "Windows J" he speaks of? Is this the code name for the real next version of Windows (since Longhorn is due out in 2042)?
Text messaging? No way in hell. The last thing you want to be doing when you are on a roof balancing some equipment with your hands is try to punch in some text on a phone keypad. All you want to do is barely get 1 thumb free to press the talk button so you can yell "I need some help up here!". However, text messaging your buddies to see if they want to go to a bar tonight is fine.
Not sure if you knew it (and meant it) or not, but the methanol would actually work for invisibility. Just drink about 10 mL and everything else in the world will be invisbile (hint: 10 mL of methanol will cause you to go blind).
Instead of what you are now? A poster on slashdot?
Looked for it in the video, could not find what you were talking about.
Wtf? Can anyone else read that sentence to me please?
You obviously have never done contract work in the field. The ability to ping people you are working with real quick without making an official phone call is great.
Having said that, people who use the feature for purposes other than coordinating work (whether that be business work, or personal work) are retarded. You don't ping your buddy at the restaurant to see if he wants to go to the bar tonight. You call him like normal.
You call yourself a Simpsons fan?
The Battle Hymn of the Republic was the hymn sung as the space shuttle reentered the Earth's atmosphere.
Here's an excerpt:
His truth is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
The great thing about treaties is that you can break them. Unfortunately I don't think any of these countries will break away from the treaties for ridiculous copyright measures anyhow. Although, the other great thing about treaties is that you don't have to follow every part of them. CAFTA members can soak up all the free trade measures and not even take a glance at the copyright measures if they choose. Then when the BSA/RIAA/MPAA/Devil lobby hard enough, CAFTA will ask member countries to obey the copyright measures, but they won't issue sanctions for something so small.
... they never die.
Nevermind the fact that 70 years after the author's death is fucking ridiculous. And then you have corporations
Call me stubborn will you, but I haven't changed my homepage from the local ISP I was using back in the mid-90s (surprisingly they are still around and growing). Dunno why, force of habit I guess.
Because single stage to orbit is the dumbest idea anyone ever came up with. Why in the world would you carry a ton of extra weight past a normal staging point? It's pointless. You waste so much energy carrying the dead weight. The performance gains by staging a rocket from 100% to even 50%/50% are immense, despite all the extra structure, components, and management to handle the staging. We're talking about taking the second 1/2 of your energy that you would normally spend on 100% of the weight, and only spending that energy on like 70% of the weight.
The only thing you can possibly gain is simplicity for a reusable vehicle. That way, when it lands, you can just perform a checkout and refill the tanks, and you are ready to go for another launch.
But having a unified launch/CEV is a dumb idea as well for similar reasons to that of having a single stage to orbit launch vehicle.
Now this is all for chemical rockets, some day SSTO with anti-matter propulsion or something might be perfectly fine. But while we're still taking fuel and oxidizer, and combusting them together, staging is the way to go.
I think the problem is that a trip like this is still only desirable by the intellectuals who love thinking about space and would appreciate seeing the Earth rise over the horizon of the Moon. Your average multi-millionaire or billionaire is primarily interested in getting the $20 million yacht, the $40 million villa off the coast of the mediterranean, and having parties catered with $1 million worth of exotic foods and exotic alcohols. Sure, when the price goes down to $1 million a pop, they'll take a ride just to experience it. But until then, they don't care, and they won't blow half their networth to do it.
I would actually prefer to buy an F16 for $20 million and pay someone $1 million to train me to fly it. Then I could take it out and have fun whenever I want.