Now that I think more about it... I distinctly remember at some point hearing an interview with Lucas in which he states that Obi-Wan's death was improvised during the filming. Don't remember quite where I heard it but it may have been on the bonus disc for the laser discs (Note to readers- laser disc != dvd)
Yes...the re-release of "Star Wars" (Episode 4) came out after Empire. I saw Star Wars when it first came out - then Empire - then remember my grandparents taking me to the re-release - then RotJ... etc...
Why else would he have started with Episode IV? Usually, you start at the beginning.
First, he didn't start with Episode IV. He started with a movie called "Star Wars". Empire was the first movie to carry an episode number, and the original Star Wars did not get its "Episode IV" subtitle until its re-release. Second, it should be very clear to anyone who watched the series evolve in real-time that George Lucas was making up as he went. He may have had the very vague concept of something larger in his head but I refuse to believe that he:
Had any idea of the plots for sequels
Didn't improvise the death of Kenobi
Luke and Leah would end up sisters (come on... would that kiss be in Empire? Note that the original theatrical trailers highlighted aspects of the movie as a love story)
Knew Vader would be Luke's father (come on "from a certain point of view"?!.
As discussed yesterday - the chaos in Maryland had nothing to do with electronic voting or the specific Diebold machines. The problem was one of logistics that just as well could have happened with any voting system. A necessary component (the smart cards) needed to activate the machines were not delivered to the polling stations. I suppose you could argue that since the system is more complex, it is easier to forget something like smart cards which are not required for mechanical voting... but I would counter that even with other systems, it is certainly plausible that critical items could be forgotten (I am sure at some point a "traditional" polling station somewhere has ran out of ballots or pencils or something similiar...)
There has never been a case of success when attempting to control terrorism by developing new methods to fight it. England has failed, Spain has failed, France has failed, Portugal has failed and so on... society is just has too many vulnerabilities for ANY protection plan to work flawlessly. Even if you control every airport, bridge and nuclear weapon, a terrorist will still easily access you water supply (you can control water quality easily on depots... try the same on the piping), use a needle to insert poison randomly into supermarket goods, get an Ebola infection and then walk around a crowded stadium...
Being an American, I can say that you have pretty much highlighted exactly the "defeatist philosophy" that many Americans have of Europe. I know this is just a stereotype and I'll probably be modded as a troll; you're right that no amount of engineering or processes can make America 100% safe. I guess the difference is that Americans place some value on at least trying to achieve a partial solution - even when faced with certain failure. I like to think that is the same endearing quality that got us to the moon.
You seem to have a common misperception about the US government - that the President is the "man at the top". In American politics the president is simply the head of the executive branch of the government and has no more power than the legislative branch.
You're right...it shouldn't have been mod'ed as troll... it should have been modded as "overrated" but only because slashdot doesn't have a "-1 inaccruate" or "-1 ignorant".
What exactly does this quote from the summary mean? What does one mean when one says that a election polling site "was a pehnomenal success"? I think that this an excellent site and visiting it many times each day during the 2004 election. In the end, the final prediction turned out wrong (no fault of the site, as it is an aggregate of all the polls which themselves were wrong). But this does raise the following question... what is the point of tracking polls and why do we political junkies savor them so? I'd be curious to see a survey on the the historical accuracy of polling, as it seems to me that Republicans consistently outperform (or alternately Dems underperform) their polled-predicted performance. The reasons for this could range anywhere from Republicans "stealing the vote" or emocrats just not being as motivated as they say there are, or even a biased polling system.
Heck, I'd even suggest that this obsession with tracking polls hurts the country, in the sense that it conditions the population toward and expected outcome, and when that outcome does not come (e.g. 2004) the losing side's rage is amplified and it forments conspiracy theories where there may be none. None of this helps us as a society. So I ask again - what does "success" mean in terms of polling?
There is only one poll that matters - and it occurs at the ballot box.
Alan Turing's colleague Jack Good, however, said on the same television programme that if the security authorities had known about Alan Turing's homosexuality from the beginning, 'we might have lost the war.'
How did this get rated +5 informative? The difference in gravity loss between sea level and the top of the highest mountains is negligible. More correctly - escape velocity is the distance between the object and the center of the earth. The Earth's radius is about 6370km, the tallest mountains are about 6-7km high. So you are really comparing escape velocity from 6370km and from 6377km The difference in velocities is in the ten-thousanths of a percent.
It just seems to me that you should somehow be able to modulate a signal in such a way that a fingerprint would not be possible to extract.
In principle, yes this is possible, but not in practice. The error modulations color the smallest unit of modulation - the pulse. To "hide" the fingerprint, we would need to have a modulation capability at least one (and probably more) order of magnitude faster than what is being used to generate the pulse. While there likely are are DSP chips fast enough to do this - the one on your wireless card can't. From practical terms, why would your card be engineered to have greater modulation capability than the technology requires for communication? That wouldn't be very efficient. And oh-by-the-way, and faster modulation capability used to inject "noise" while approximating the pulse would also be composed of pulses (albeit smaller ones). These pulses would themselves be subject to exactly the same type of fingerprinting due to the same random fabrication errors.
Not really - the fingerprinting is an artifact of the fabrication process. Manufacturing irregularities cause small and unique modulation errors on each pulse. It is these errors that allow the "fingerprinting". You can't correct for this in software - and good luck hacking your wireless board at the nano-component level.
Why is it that anytime anyone ever suggests a security measure... be it profiling, baggage screening, copy-protection, DRM, electronic surveillance, whatever... invariably some idiot jumps up and says "but look that can be defeated too!" as if that argument makes the whole venture worthless? Of course people can change appearances, DRM can be cracked, RFID passports can be manipulated, fingerprints machines spoofed and wireless communications can be made more secure. Nothing can be made perfectly secure. The whole point is that *someone* is at least *trying* to make it marginally more secure. It's like swiss cheese,... add enough layers and hopefully the wholes will not line up. Every "counter-measure" requires an action. That complicates the perpertator's plan. For each of these counter-measures, there is an increased probability of detection. Dye your skin... it takes time... and you have to go outside eventually. How many of the people you come in contact with on a semi-regular basis will notice? Altering a passport for instance might involve contacts with shady characters - they could be busted for a non-related case and rat you out. The list goes on and on.
That's CEV block 2. Block 1 is aimed at the ISS; according to the whitepaper that the parent post cites, NASA's approach of developing the two as being based on the same vehicle is leading to a false sense of urgency and poor design decisions.
Actually that is part of the misconception. Block 1 is a developmental step toward the lunar mission. Before we intend to go to the moon there have to be a certain number of LEO flights to shake-down the system. It would be irresponsible to not include ISS capability during this phase. The ISS capability is a back-up to the higher-risk COTS. Your point makes sense.
However, if that's what NASA actually wanted, they wouldn't be developing a parallel infrastructure (CEV block 1 + CLV) to do the same. The message they are sending to the potential LEO service providers is not that NASA will be a customer. At best, a non-customer who has its own product; at worst, a competitor, and a subsidized competitor, at that.
See above. NASA intends to purchase the "best value" for crew and cargo transportation services. If COTS comes through and is competitve then CEV flights will not be used for ISS resupply (at least not substantially). It's only a mixed message because few really believe that NASA is serious about the lunar mission - they are stuck in the shuttle/SOMD paradigm.
That's CEV block 2. Block 1 is aimed at the ISS; according to the whitepaper that the parent post cites, NASA's approach of developing the two as being based on the same vehicle is leading to a false sense of urgency and poor design decisions.
Actually that is part of the misconception. Block 1 is a developmental step toward the lunar mission. Before we intend to go to the moon there have to be a certain number of LEO flights to shake-down the system. It would be irresponsible to not include ISS capability during this phase. The ISS capability is a back-up to the higher-risk COTS.
Your point makes sense. However, if that's what NASA actually wanted, they wouldn't be developing a parallel infrastructure (CEV block 1 + CLV) to do the same. The message they are sending to the potential LEO service providers is not that NASA will be a customer. At best, a non-customer who has its own product; at worst, a competitor, and a subsidized competitor, at that.
See above. NASA intends to purchase the "best value" for crew and cargo transportation services. If COTS comes through and is competitve then CEV flights will not be used for ISS resupply (at least not substantially). It's only a mixed message because few really believe that NASA is serious about the lunar mission - they are stuck in the shuttle/SOMD paradigm.
That said, I really wish that NASA would spend this money on the Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems program instead, accomplishing the same objectives in a more cost-effective manner. With COTS, companies only get paid if they succeed. NASA will instead be spending $3.9 billion (assuming there aren't cost overruns) just to get a capsule, while giving a total of $500 million (split between 2 companies) to COTS in order to get both rockets and capsules. To top it off, the COTS vehicles are scheduled to be completed years before the Lockheed Martin capsule is ready.
You are articulating many of the misconceptions about COTS that have been brought up recently in the space news. First off, it is completely unfair to compare COTS with CEV. CEV is being designed to support lunar and Mars missions. The delta-V, life support, habitable volume and TPS requirements are not even comparable to those for the COTS missions. Also, the $500M is only for a demonstration of cargo transportation capability - the crew transportation demonstration will not commence until one of the particpants has demonstrated pressurized cargo deliver and return and will be funded seperately
Second, COTS was underfunded on purpose. NASA wants out of the space transportation buisness and instead wants to be able to allocate its resources toward exploration while paying commercial providers for cheap, safe, reliable access to LEO. The problem is that there is no provider for such services. The goals of COTS is to facilitate the creation of a market for commercial space transportation and to then call upon these services to meet our ISS crew and cargo requirements. Completely funding one of these ventures would be "buisness as usual" - just with a different upstart partner. By only partially funding them, NASA is effectively forcing them to have a strong financing plan. Investors and venture capitalists will only put their dollars into companies with strong buisness plans - presumably ones that:
have potential for growth (read: aren't reliant on NASA)
turn a profit
If NASA can jump-start such a space transporation market with this COTS seed money, then they will be but one of many customers in a growing market (of both customers and providers). Bigger market - more missions - more payloads and research on orbit - cheaper cost/kg. Science wins, industry wins, NASA wins, the taxpayers win.
In the early part of the last century, the postal service played a similiar role in creating the aviation infrastructure necessary to eventually support a commercial air transportation service market.
Don't take up golf just to get in the mix if you're not an athelete.
I guess the slashdot crowd has a pretty liberal definition of "athelete". Golf? - it's just walking around in the woods looking for your ball... I get more exercise cooking.
Slashdot Mirror
Now that I think more about it... I distinctly remember at some point hearing an interview with Lucas in which he states that Obi-Wan's death was improvised during the filming. Don't remember quite where I heard it but it may have been on the bonus disc for the laser discs (Note to readers- laser disc != dvd)
Yes...the re-release of "Star Wars" (Episode 4) came out after Empire. I saw Star Wars when it first came out - then Empire - then remember my grandparents taking me to the re-release - then RotJ... etc...
First, he didn't start with Episode IV. He started with a movie called "Star Wars". Empire was the first movie to carry an episode number, and the original Star Wars did not get its "Episode IV" subtitle until its re-release. Second, it should be very clear to anyone who watched the series evolve in real-time that George Lucas was making up as he went. He may have had the very vague concept of something larger in his head but I refuse to believe that he:
As discussed yesterday - the chaos in Maryland had nothing to do with electronic voting or the specific Diebold machines. The problem was one of logistics that just as well could have happened with any voting system. A necessary component (the smart cards) needed to activate the machines were not delivered to the polling stations. I suppose you could argue that since the system is more complex, it is easier to forget something like smart cards which are not required for mechanical voting... but I would counter that even with other systems, it is certainly plausible that critical items could be forgotten (I am sure at some point a "traditional" polling station somewhere has ran out of ballots or pencils or something similiar...)
I think that El Al Airlines comes pretty close if not contradicting this statement outright.
Being an American, I can say that you have pretty much highlighted exactly the "defeatist philosophy" that many Americans have of Europe. I know this is just a stereotype and I'll probably be modded as a troll; you're right that no amount of engineering or processes can make America 100% safe. I guess the difference is that Americans place some value on at least trying to achieve a partial solution - even when faced with certain failure. I like to think that is the same endearing quality that got us to the moon.
Oh please,...how is that going to hurt? Get back to me after you've fallen on a 4-sided die.
Right..it was those evil conservative supreme court judges...all seven of them.
You seem to have a common misperception about the US government - that the President is the "man at the top". In American politics the president is simply the head of the executive branch of the government and has no more power than the legislative branch.
You're right...it shouldn't have been mod'ed as troll... it should have been modded as "overrated" but only because slashdot doesn't have a "-1 inaccruate" or "-1 ignorant".
What exactly does this quote from the summary mean? What does one mean when one says that a election polling site "was a pehnomenal success"? I think that this an excellent site and visiting it many times each day during the 2004 election. In the end, the final prediction turned out wrong (no fault of the site, as it is an aggregate of all the polls which themselves were wrong). But this does raise the following question... what is the point of tracking polls and why do we political junkies savor them so? I'd be curious to see a survey on the the historical accuracy of polling, as it seems to me that Republicans consistently outperform (or alternately Dems underperform) their polled-predicted performance. The reasons for this could range anywhere from Republicans "stealing the vote" or emocrats just not being as motivated as they say there are, or even a biased polling system.
Heck, I'd even suggest that this obsession with tracking polls hurts the country, in the sense that it conditions the population toward and expected outcome, and when that outcome does not come (e.g. 2004) the losing side's rage is amplified and it forments conspiracy theories where there may be none. None of this helps us as a society. So I ask again - what does "success" mean in terms of polling?
There is only one poll that matters - and it occurs at the ballot box.
All true statements... but I thought we were talking about a space elevator?
How did this get rated +5 informative? The difference in gravity loss between sea level and the top of the highest mountains is negligible. More correctly - escape velocity is the distance between the object and the center of the earth. The Earth's radius is about 6370km, the tallest mountains are about 6-7km high. So you are really comparing escape velocity from 6370km and from 6377km The difference in velocities is in the ten-thousanths of a percent.
Let me introduce you to a little friend I like to call a time constant.
In principle, yes this is possible, but not in practice. The error modulations color the smallest unit of modulation - the pulse. To "hide" the fingerprint, we would need to have a modulation capability at least one (and probably more) order of magnitude faster than what is being used to generate the pulse. While there likely are are DSP chips fast enough to do this - the one on your wireless card can't. From practical terms, why would your card be engineered to have greater modulation capability than the technology requires for communication? That wouldn't be very efficient. And oh-by-the-way, and faster modulation capability used to inject "noise" while approximating the pulse would also be composed of pulses (albeit smaller ones). These pulses would themselves be subject to exactly the same type of fingerprinting due to the same random fabrication errors.
Not really - the fingerprinting is an artifact of the fabrication process. Manufacturing irregularities cause small and unique modulation errors on each pulse. It is these errors that allow the "fingerprinting". You can't correct for this in software - and good luck hacking your wireless board at the nano-component level.
On behalf of the DoD, I would like to welcome IT geeks to antiquated military technology!
Which right is that again? Please consult your copy of the Constitution and get back to me.
Why is it that anytime anyone ever suggests a security measure... be it profiling, baggage screening, copy-protection, DRM, electronic surveillance, whatever... invariably some idiot jumps up and says "but look that can be defeated too!" as if that argument makes the whole venture worthless? Of course people can change appearances, DRM can be cracked, RFID passports can be manipulated, fingerprints machines spoofed and wireless communications can be made more secure. Nothing can be made perfectly secure. The whole point is that *someone* is at least *trying* to make it marginally more secure. It's like swiss cheese,... add enough layers and hopefully the wholes will not line up. Every "counter-measure" requires an action. That complicates the perpertator's plan. For each of these counter-measures, there is an increased probability of detection. Dye your skin... it takes time... and you have to go outside eventually. How many of the people you come in contact with on a semi-regular basis will notice? Altering a passport for instance might involve contacts with shady characters - they could be busted for a non-related case and rat you out. The list goes on and on.
That's CEV block 2. Block 1 is aimed at the ISS; according to the whitepaper that the parent post cites, NASA's approach of developing the two as being based on the same vehicle is leading to a false sense of urgency and poor design decisions.
Actually that is part of the misconception. Block 1 is a developmental step toward the lunar mission. Before we intend to go to the moon there have to be a certain number of LEO flights to shake-down the system. It would be irresponsible to not include ISS capability during this phase. The ISS capability is a back-up to the higher-risk COTS. Your point makes sense.
However, if that's what NASA actually wanted, they wouldn't be developing a parallel infrastructure (CEV block 1 + CLV) to do the same. The message they are sending to the potential LEO service providers is not that NASA will be a customer. At best, a non-customer who has its own product; at worst, a competitor, and a subsidized competitor, at that.
See above. NASA intends to purchase the "best value" for crew and cargo transportation services. If COTS comes through and is competitve then CEV flights will not be used for ISS resupply (at least not substantially). It's only a mixed message because few really believe that NASA is serious about the lunar mission - they are stuck in the shuttle/SOMD paradigm.
Actually that is part of the misconception. Block 1 is a developmental step toward the lunar mission. Before we intend to go to the moon there have to be a certain number of LEO flights to shake-down the system. It would be irresponsible to not include ISS capability during this phase. The ISS capability is a back-up to the higher-risk COTS. Your point makes sense. However, if that's what NASA actually wanted, they wouldn't be developing a parallel infrastructure (CEV block 1 + CLV) to do the same. The message they are sending to the potential LEO service providers is not that NASA will be a customer. At best, a non-customer who has its own product; at worst, a competitor, and a subsidized competitor, at that.
See above. NASA intends to purchase the "best value" for crew and cargo transportation services. If COTS comes through and is competitve then CEV flights will not be used for ISS resupply (at least not substantially). It's only a mixed message because few really believe that NASA is serious about the lunar mission - they are stuck in the shuttle/SOMD paradigm.
You are articulating many of the misconceptions about COTS that have been brought up recently in the space news. First off, it is completely unfair to compare COTS with CEV. CEV is being designed to support lunar and Mars missions. The delta-V, life support, habitable volume and TPS requirements are not even comparable to those for the COTS missions. Also, the $500M is only for a demonstration of cargo transportation capability - the crew transportation demonstration will not commence until one of the particpants has demonstrated pressurized cargo deliver and return and will be funded seperately
Second, COTS was underfunded on purpose. NASA wants out of the space transportation buisness and instead wants to be able to allocate its resources toward exploration while paying commercial providers for cheap, safe, reliable access to LEO. The problem is that there is no provider for such services. The goals of COTS is to facilitate the creation of a market for commercial space transportation and to then call upon these services to meet our ISS crew and cargo requirements. Completely funding one of these ventures would be "buisness as usual" - just with a different upstart partner. By only partially funding them, NASA is effectively forcing them to have a strong financing plan. Investors and venture capitalists will only put their dollars into companies with strong buisness plans - presumably ones that:
- have potential for growth (read: aren't reliant on NASA)
- turn a profit
If NASA can jump-start such a space transporation market with this COTS seed money, then they will be but one of many customers in a growing market (of both customers and providers). Bigger market - more missions - more payloads and research on orbit - cheaper cost/kg. Science wins, industry wins, NASA wins, the taxpayers win.In the early part of the last century, the postal service played a similiar role in creating the aviation infrastructure necessary to eventually support a commercial air transportation service market.
I'm short and keep all the ingredients on the top shelves... try it!
I guess the slashdot crowd has a pretty liberal definition of "athelete". Golf? - it's just walking around in the woods looking for your ball... I get more exercise cooking.