The Shuttle heat shield system is impossibly complex and completely unnecessary. Burt Rattan has proved that!
By Burt Rattan, he actually means Burt Rutan, a designer of a spaceship. However this spaceship did not enter orbit, it merely got lifted into the air by another plane, then rose to a mere 100km. As he didn't get into orbit, his craft did not require the heat shielding required of real spaceships.
The hardest parts of flying a spaceship are getting into orbit, and re-entering the atmosphere. Rutan's ship didn't have to do either of these, as it didn't enter orbit. This means he has not solved any of the problems of spacetravel.
People should stop bringing this up in every shuttle discussion, it's no more relevant than be throwing a brick in the air and claiming it's a spaceship.
Being a child of the space race...
Now that really is the most stupid thing I've ever read, thinking you're some sort of special expert because your dad worked at NASA or something.
I know what these IDIOTS who get too much pay and who are to arrogant act like.
Yeah it works, other than the fact it costs billions just to sit on the ground, and billions to put it up. Also don't mention the extremely long turnover time, its unsuitability as an unmanned vehicle, its low capacity as a manned vehicle, the way it needs giant loud rockets to take off, the way the heat-proof tiles fall to pieces if they get breathed on, the fact that the shuttle is disintegrated by mere rain, and not to mention the ten million other problems. It's within budget because the budget is $17 billion a year.
What makes you think a 1981 design can't be improved upon in 24 years?
The only way a space elevator will work is if it's in geo-centric orbit. This means that satellites and spacecraft below it would get sliced in half.
Anything launched by it would be at a minimum of geocentric orbit, so if you wanted to launch anything in a lower orbit, it would need its own power supply to get itself to orbital speed.
If the cable broke, the top half would fly off, trashing everything in its path and possibly hitting the moon.
Also it doesn't exist. You may as well suggest using flying saucers or teleporters.
There you go, the best thing you can mention was in the sixties. Do you realise how long ago that was? Over THIRTY-FIVE YEARS. How much money has been put into NASA since then for zero progress? Space launch technology has gone literally nowhere since the shuttle in 1981.
I have an idea: Give NASA ten years to put men both on the Moon and Mars, provide a much better reusable launch vehicle, aka a space place, which is cheap and reliable, and if in ten years they haven't done, close them down. That should provoke them out of their complacency.
They don't have anything. They have no vehicle which can get into space. I haven't heard anything about them even having a prototype, let alone any testing. By space, I mean at least in orbit. Anything less is just a glorified ICBM with passengers.
How difficult would it be to remove the switch and have the landing gear come down automatically? Not at all. The astronauts wanted the switch it because they knew that they weren't really as necessary as they wanted to be.
No, he means that if the military was run like NASA, it would cost ten times as much, and jet fighters would explode on takeoff. Or explode on landing. And each bombing trip would cost $200 million. And carriers would be 10m accross.
Private companies won't be involved in space travel. Not in America at least, not until you sort out that litigation culture. If a company started putting people into space, it'd only take one passenger to get so much as a nosebleed for the company to be sued into bankrupcy. Let alone an explosion or crash killing everyone on board.
The next stage of the space race will be a one horse race: China. They're the only government who don't give a damn about their own people, so they can take risks.
Of course, as you've admitted you're stealing it, and you know it's illegal, you won't complain when you're arrested? Or will you whine and cry, posting to Slashdot complaining that you thought it was authorised...
If you really, legitimately think it's OK, and are not just trolling, why not ask for permission?
The wireless access point might send the digital equivalent of 'OK you can join', but that's not explicit permission from the owner, that's just the computer's automatic configuration. Without explicit permission, you're going to have a hard case in court proving that you weren't stealing it. A wireless access point being in its default configuration is not permission, no matter what technical arguments you come up with.
Maybe you should just be a man and ask your neighbour for permission?
He KNEW he was doing it without permission. Read that sentence. And again. It might sink into your slow brain. He was doing it in his car for THREE MONTHS. Under the law, it's illegal if he knows he's doing it without authorisation.
For Christ's sake, he snapped his laptop shut anytime someone walked by, and you're saying he thought he was doing it legitimately...
If there was any remote chance of him not being guilty, you'd think he'd have gone to the house, knocked on the door and asked for permission. But of course, he knew what he was doing was wrong. But even the Slashbots won't accept that anything done via a computer can be in any way wrong or illegal.
Thankfully the law system lives in the real world, not the Slashdot reality distortion field.
Except Internet is rarely flat rate. And if you walked into someone's house every day for three months and drank from their tap, you can bet you'd be done for that as well.
I think you hackers should just learn some respect for the law and other people's property. You're not 12 years old anymore, and just because you do something with a computer, that doesn't make it automatically acceptable. Things you type can have real life consequences, as the poor fool in this article found out.
The general population, I presume including blacks and women... And I bet the only reason they were up for 'selection' was because they were rich and powerful. That's not exactly a democratic way of running a country.
And no-one's yet explained why the opinions of a few people hundreds of years ago should be more powerful than the opinions of people today. If the founding fathers wrote in the constitution something which is abhorrent and immoral, would you agree with it?
I'm not an American, so can someone please explain to me how a few people hundreds of years ago can dictate policy to current-day citizens of your country? What exactly gives them the authority to do that? Dead people from centuries ago haven't been voted for by the current population, so how can their opinions override that of the democratically elected government?
Were these 'Founding Fathers' democratically elected, or were they a few powerful, rich white men who were allowed to dictate to everyone else.
More importantly, 14% of households with income over $75,000 have HDTVs (same source), which is also the same market segment that includes bleeding-edge early adopters (the people who'll be lining up to buy a 360 at launch).
Target market... how many people earn over 75k? Multiply that by 14% and you have the target market. Not exactly large. And I don't think people on that sort of income play computer games anyway, they probably do things like go to the Opera.
Microsoft don't want a few early adopters, they don't want a few consoles trickling off the shelf to rich people, they want a massive launch, millions of consoles sold, they want to sell them to as many people as possible. 'Bleeding edge' releases are for graphics card manufacturers who make most of their money selling middle of the range cards anyway.
I've never even heard of HDTV outside of Slashdot, I think it's mainly an American thing. What's the betting that Sony and Nintendo will be aiming largely at the rich American market to the exclusion of everyone else? The odds are very long.
Re:Still ugly fonts - this works too!
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Well, Linux is ready for the desktop.
Do you have any instructions for those of us who don't know what the hell any of htat means? I mean seriously, how would anyone who wasn't an X developer ever work out to do that?
I don't know why you can't just click on a menu somewhere.
Who'd take a laptop to a bar? It'd just get robbed when you went for a piss. And who goes to a bar just to sit on the computer rather than talking to other people? You may as well stay at home and save money.
Other than the fact that your numbers are all made up, and that after fourteen months most small cafes would be bankrupted by the initial costs, and that putting up the prices would probably lower sales, and that everytime there was a technical problem which knocked off the wireless half your customers would go somewhere else, you're spot on.
You're joking, right? Google's search engine and webmail are worse than the alternatives. Windows is better than Linux and OSX. IE was better than netscape. MS Office is better than open office.
Except...they're not doing leading-edge research, they're just taking existing technology and putting adverts on it. They soak up all the best workers so no-one else can compete with them. It's like Microsoft: embrace and extend.
What there is a shortage of is American developers willing to work for the same wages as receptionists.
What arrogance. Firstly, computer programming is not engineering. Secondly, why would a programmer have a right to work for more than a receptionist. Receptionists have a much worse job, it's only fair and democratic that those with more stimulating jobs get them in exchange for a lower wage.
There are millions of people who can push buttons on a computer, and millions more Indians who can do it for even less money, it's not the 90s anymore, you're not going to get VCs shoving money up your arse just because you can install Linux.
Google engineering? What do Google actually engineer, I didn't think they designed and built their own computers. I thought they were mainly about programming and things like that. What actual engineering work do they do?
And what 'great level' are they performing at, because Google has been stagnant for years, Yahoo has a better search engine these days.
Of course, the FBI only exist to prevent terrorism, and nothing else. Ever. In fact, before 11/9, the FBI spent their entire history just sat down playing cards. Also the police should never do anything else other investigate murders, they should never stoop to unimportant things such as catching muggers.
That is of course, assuming that you decided on your opinion objectively, rather than just picking whichever stance is more friendly to copyright infringement. If this was another issue, no-one here would bat an eye-lid, but as soon as someone steps on the 'rights' of copyright infringers, or even hackers, Slashdot goes into a rabid frenzy, criticising anyone in the world other than the criminals in question.
Because everyone else has a PS2 or Xbox. If you have a console no-one else has, who do you lend/borrow games with? And who can you take your controller/games to for multiplayer? There's more to a console than just the technical aspects, console players don't really care about crap like that.
Not to mention, people who download it and don't use it because they don't like it. I for one downloaded the new version of gnumeric and deleted it because it was faulty. Yet they'll think it's great that someone downloaded it.
It's not an exchange. The idea is you're given a monopoly in reward for inventing it, anything being published is a side-effect. You're allowed to keep trade secrets. Yet again the Slashdot sense-of-entitlement rears its spotty head.
Slashdot Mirror
Mod parent down, he's blatantly lying.
The Shuttle heat shield system is impossibly complex and completely unnecessary. Burt Rattan has proved that!
By Burt Rattan, he actually means Burt Rutan, a designer of a spaceship. However this spaceship did not enter orbit, it merely got lifted into the air by another plane, then rose to a mere 100km. As he didn't get into orbit, his craft did not require the heat shielding required of real spaceships.
The hardest parts of flying a spaceship are getting into orbit, and re-entering the atmosphere. Rutan's ship didn't have to do either of these, as it didn't enter orbit. This means he has not solved any of the problems of spacetravel.
People should stop bringing this up in every shuttle discussion, it's no more relevant than be throwing a brick in the air and claiming it's a spaceship.
Being a child of the space race...
Now that really is the most stupid thing I've ever read, thinking you're some sort of special expert because your dad worked at NASA or something.
I know what these IDIOTS who get too much pay and who are to arrogant act like.
Can someone translate?
Yeah it works, other than the fact it costs billions just to sit on the ground, and billions to put it up. Also don't mention the extremely long turnover time, its unsuitability as an unmanned vehicle, its low capacity as a manned vehicle, the way it needs giant loud rockets to take off, the way the heat-proof tiles fall to pieces if they get breathed on, the fact that the shuttle is disintegrated by mere rain, and not to mention the ten million other problems. It's within budget because the budget is $17 billion a year.
What makes you think a 1981 design can't be improved upon in 24 years?
The only way a space elevator will work is if it's in geo-centric orbit. This means that satellites and spacecraft below it would get sliced in half.
Anything launched by it would be at a minimum of geocentric orbit, so if you wanted to launch anything in a lower orbit, it would need its own power supply to get itself to orbital speed.
If the cable broke, the top half would fly off, trashing everything in its path and possibly hitting the moon.
Also it doesn't exist. You may as well suggest using flying saucers or teleporters.
There you go, the best thing you can mention was in the sixties. Do you realise how long ago that was? Over THIRTY-FIVE YEARS. How much money has been put into NASA since then for zero progress? Space launch technology has gone literally nowhere since the shuttle in 1981.
I have an idea: Give NASA ten years to put men both on the Moon and Mars, provide a much better reusable launch vehicle, aka a space place, which is cheap and reliable, and if in ten years they haven't done, close them down. That should provoke them out of their complacency.
They don't have anything. They have no vehicle which can get into space. I haven't heard anything about them even having a prototype, let alone any testing. By space, I mean at least in orbit. Anything less is just a glorified ICBM with passengers.
How difficult would it be to remove the switch and have the landing gear come down automatically? Not at all. The astronauts wanted the switch it because they knew that they weren't really as necessary as they wanted to be.
No, he means that if the military was run like NASA, it would cost ten times as much, and jet fighters would explode on takeoff. Or explode on landing. And each bombing trip would cost $200 million. And carriers would be 10m accross.
Private companies won't be involved in space travel. Not in America at least, not until you sort out that litigation culture. If a company started putting people into space, it'd only take one passenger to get so much as a nosebleed for the company to be sued into bankrupcy. Let alone an explosion or crash killing everyone on board.
The next stage of the space race will be a one horse race: China. They're the only government who don't give a damn about their own people, so they can take risks.
Of course, as you've admitted you're stealing it, and you know it's illegal, you won't complain when you're arrested? Or will you whine and cry, posting to Slashdot complaining that you thought it was authorised...
If you really, legitimately think it's OK, and are not just trolling, why not ask for permission?
The wireless access point might send the digital equivalent of 'OK you can join', but that's not explicit permission from the owner, that's just the computer's automatic configuration. Without explicit permission, you're going to have a hard case in court proving that you weren't stealing it. A wireless access point being in its default configuration is not permission, no matter what technical arguments you come up with.
Maybe you should just be a man and ask your neighbour for permission?
He KNEW he was doing it without permission. Read that sentence. And again. It might sink into your slow brain. He was doing it in his car for THREE MONTHS. Under the law, it's illegal if he knows he's doing it without authorisation.
For Christ's sake, he snapped his laptop shut anytime someone walked by, and you're saying he thought he was doing it legitimately...
If there was any remote chance of him not being guilty, you'd think he'd have gone to the house, knocked on the door and asked for permission. But of course, he knew what he was doing was wrong. But even the Slashbots won't accept that anything done via a computer can be in any way wrong or illegal.
Thankfully the law system lives in the real world, not the Slashdot reality distortion field.
Except Internet is rarely flat rate. And if you walked into someone's house every day for three months and drank from their tap, you can bet you'd be done for that as well.
I think you hackers should just learn some respect for the law and other people's property. You're not 12 years old anymore, and just because you do something with a computer, that doesn't make it automatically acceptable. Things you type can have real life consequences, as the poor fool in this article found out.
The general population, I presume including blacks and women... And I bet the only reason they were up for 'selection' was because they were rich and powerful. That's not exactly a democratic way of running a country.
And no-one's yet explained why the opinions of a few people hundreds of years ago should be more powerful than the opinions of people today. If the founding fathers wrote in the constitution something which is abhorrent and immoral, would you agree with it?
I'm not an American, so can someone please explain to me how a few people hundreds of years ago can dictate policy to current-day citizens of your country? What exactly gives them the authority to do that? Dead people from centuries ago haven't been voted for by the current population, so how can their opinions override that of the democratically elected government?
Were these 'Founding Fathers' democratically elected, or were they a few powerful, rich white men who were allowed to dictate to everyone else.
More importantly, 14% of households with income over $75,000 have HDTVs (same source), which is also the same market segment that includes bleeding-edge early adopters (the people who'll be lining up to buy a 360 at launch).
Target market... how many people earn over 75k? Multiply that by 14% and you have the target market. Not exactly large. And I don't think people on that sort of income play computer games anyway, they probably do things like go to the Opera.
Microsoft don't want a few early adopters, they don't want a few consoles trickling off the shelf to rich people, they want a massive launch, millions of consoles sold, they want to sell them to as many people as possible. 'Bleeding edge' releases are for graphics card manufacturers who make most of their money selling middle of the range cards anyway.
I've never even heard of HDTV outside of Slashdot, I think it's mainly an American thing. What's the betting that Sony and Nintendo will be aiming largely at the rich American market to the exclusion of everyone else? The odds are very long.
Well, Linux is ready for the desktop.
Do you have any instructions for those of us who don't know what the hell any of htat means? I mean seriously, how would anyone who wasn't an X developer ever work out to do that?
I don't know why you can't just click on a menu somewhere.
Who'd take a laptop to a bar? It'd just get robbed when you went for a piss. And who goes to a bar just to sit on the computer rather than talking to other people? You may as well stay at home and save money.
Other than the fact that your numbers are all made up, and that after fourteen months most small cafes would be bankrupted by the initial costs, and that putting up the prices would probably lower sales, and that everytime there was a technical problem which knocked off the wireless half your customers would go somewhere else, you're spot on.
You're joking, right? Google's search engine and webmail are worse than the alternatives. Windows is better than Linux and OSX. IE was better than netscape. MS Office is better than open office.
Except...they're not doing leading-edge research, they're just taking existing technology and putting adverts on it. They soak up all the best workers so no-one else can compete with them. It's like Microsoft: embrace and extend.
What there is a shortage of is American developers willing to work for the same wages as receptionists.
What arrogance. Firstly, computer programming is not engineering. Secondly, why would a programmer have a right to work for more than a receptionist. Receptionists have a much worse job, it's only fair and democratic that those with more stimulating jobs get them in exchange for a lower wage.
There are millions of people who can push buttons on a computer, and millions more Indians who can do it for even less money, it's not the 90s anymore, you're not going to get VCs shoving money up your arse just because you can install Linux.
Google engineering? What do Google actually engineer, I didn't think they designed and built their own computers. I thought they were mainly about programming and things like that. What actual engineering work do they do?
And what 'great level' are they performing at, because Google has been stagnant for years, Yahoo has a better search engine these days.
Of course, the FBI only exist to prevent terrorism, and nothing else. Ever. In fact, before 11/9, the FBI spent their entire history just sat down playing cards. Also the police should never do anything else other investigate murders, they should never stoop to unimportant things such as catching muggers.
That is of course, assuming that you decided on your opinion objectively, rather than just picking whichever stance is more friendly to copyright infringement. If this was another issue, no-one here would bat an eye-lid, but as soon as someone steps on the 'rights' of copyright infringers, or even hackers, Slashdot goes into a rabid frenzy, criticising anyone in the world other than the criminals in question.
Because everyone else has a PS2 or Xbox. If you have a console no-one else has, who do you lend/borrow games with? And who can you take your controller/games to for multiplayer? There's more to a console than just the technical aspects, console players don't really care about crap like that.
Not to mention, people who download it and don't use it because they don't like it. I for one downloaded the new version of gnumeric and deleted it because it was faulty. Yet they'll think it's great that someone downloaded it.
It's not an exchange. The idea is you're given a monopoly in reward for inventing it, anything being published is a side-effect. You're allowed to keep trade secrets. Yet again the Slashdot sense-of-entitlement rears its spotty head.