I bet there are a couple probes out there, launched in the early 70's, still in contact with earth. And on the earth side, a huge support infrastructure is built around working through the limitations of the simple software on those probes. Especially when some of the hardware on the probe is malfunctioning. Then the ground crew (probably, I only can deduce this) gets to pore over the code burned into the firmware on the probe and come up with some clever work arounds to continue to get useful work out of it.
One thing; computing equipment on the older probes may barely qualify as general purpose computers (more like single purpose calculators). So does the crude hand-wired "firmware" then count as code?
The center of the universe? Which center of the universe?
If you were on the time machine engineering team, and you were tasked with this part of the problem, I would say your search to find a fixed reference point to make absolute measurements off of is overly hard and possibly not even useful.
How would you _know_ motion for objects sent through time is going to match relative motion from the center of the universe (or anything else)?
Perhaps a better/much easier strategy is to stick with relative measurements; send something back in time 1/1000th of a second. Record relative movement from the starting point. Send something back 1/100th, 1/10th, etc. etc., recording movement.
Continue so you get a nice large sample set, plot the data, generate a model describing the interaction between time jump vs. distance jump. Test the model to see that it behaves as expected, if not, experiment more until it is felt your model is adequately debugged.
You will then have a useful way of predicting what will happen, without ever having needed to base things on any absolute measurement. Seeking the center of the universe for a fixed reference is now a moot point.
You don't need to have absolute measurements to do useful things. +5vdc being used in various places within your computer as your read this? Knowing that relative value is all that is necessary; the fact that the absolute (if there were such a thing) voltage of that same circuit is actually +30,005vdc doesn't keep us from getting the job done.
---snip The government of the U.S. threatens his ISP, who shuts down his website; he starts it up elsewhere and this is repeated. Eventually the FBI arrests him on some Patriot Act basis. He sues the government over First Amendment issues and it goes to the Supreme Court. Or else, if he owes back taxes like that deadbeat in New Zealand, he gets in trouble for that, and can't afford to sue. ---snip
...Or else, if he owes back taxes like that deadbeat in New Zealand, and one day the IRS shows up. FBI, Supreme Court? You wish, buddy. Without exchanging a word, the FBI shakily pees it's pants as it meekly hands the him over to the glaring IRS before scampering away. Of course, he is never heard from again...
---snip Then again maybe there's an option that hasn't been considered or been created yet. (Solar Sails?) ---snip
Yep, putting a giant, opaque object right next to our "best" optical telescope blocking it's view of 50% of the universe at any moment in time would certainly be one way of ending the program:)
Also Chevrolet (and probably other GM divisions) have been doing this over a decade.
Re:Bluetooth devices must include "off" switch
on
Spammed by Bluetooth
·
· Score: 1
Actually, I think you will find that on Slashdot many users are constantly connected. I have half a dozen machines here at my house (I am working from home today) that are always connected. I would consider it rediculous if I needed to turn off my computers on a regular basis to protect myself from the big, bad internet.
But that doesn't match the metaphor I was using for email in any case.
To get on to this gist of what I was trying to point out, you are recommending limiting your ability to use something. It is silly that we have to wade through spam in our email, I for one remember when this was not the case. Nowadays email is so flooded with runaway marketing that it is not nearly as effective of a tool as it once was.
I see the same pattern coming up with Bluetooth; it's a great tool especially when it is always there and "just works". It won't be nearly as useful as it could be if people have to conciously turn it off and on just to use it.
Re:Bluetooth devices must include "off" switch
on
Spammed by Bluetooth
·
· Score: 1
---snip Bluetooth-enabled devices must include an easy hardware switch which allows the convenient shutting off of Bluetooth functionality. An indicator light displaying the current status must also be included on the device. Devices like the Tapwave Zodiac are well designed and include these features. ---snip
Email-enabled devices generally can have email disabled, with one catch; you don't get to use the email anymore.
Don't like spam? I dare you to stop using email:) Same goes for bluetooth; turning it off to avoid spammers isn't much of a solution.
Your kidding, right? Some guy actually has "luser@aol.com"?
Reminds me of one of the companies I worked at, long ago. SMTP addresses went first initial, last name. However they made an exception for a Samuel Hitt.
---snip The providers are probably aware of this Achilles heel and, no doubt, my provider knows what I'm doing and why but the amount of people that can figure this exploit is too small to be worth closing. ---snip
---snip Take all your candidate pens and make a test mark (sign your name or whatever) on several types of paper that you typically use. ---stuff removed Tape these papers to a window or somewhere else where they will get direct sun. The back window of your car will do too. ---snip
Maybe something other than your signature would be a better choice left taped to your car and driven all over town for a month?:)
but all versions of Microsoft Outlook (Outlook 98 was released by Microsoft as freeware, if you want to check it out, but 97 or any other version will work just fine) can do what you want quite easily;
Keep all your messages in one folder, and use _categories_.
One items may only be in the "sales" category. Another item may be in the "sales" category, "marketing" category, "support" category, and "BofH entertainment" categories simultaneously.
Then "group by" category in your favorite view (for you archaelogical filing system types, the timeline view might work if you have enough screen space to represent your mail over a timeline). Or you simple construct a query (advanced find) and search whatever database you have your messages stored in (Exchange server, a local.pst file, Lotus cc:mail, whatever; there are Outlook plug-ins for various open source backends as well) for whatever pattern you are looking for. All messages from "Joe Smith" with an attachment, sent sometime in 2001, in the "development" or "perl" categories.
I'd hazard a guess (someone want to do the math?) that for the kinetic energy needed to deliver adequate paint to cover the asteroid you would have been better off just skipping the payload and using the now excess available power from the rockets (remember, no longer lifting a payload) to push the asteroid either much further out of the way, or the same distance far more economically (in terms of energy used).
Otoh, doing things the obvious, simple, reliable way wouldn't be so fun. I wonder what the least efficient, slowest way would be to deflect an asteroid? Changing it's reflectivity is certainly up there.
---snip Do you write an entire program before compiling it and testing it? ---snip
Wozniak came close...actually, more than just a program, he wrote an entire programming language, all on paper. No assembler (bah, assemblers are for wimps), no copy of the source in electronic format for easy editing, no nothing.
(obligatory "And he was happy!")
After he entering the raw ML into the machine and seeing it work a few times, it was burnt into ROM's on many thousands of machines, which many thousands of users used to write everything imaginable, from "hello world" to tools for working out engineering problems.
There was no internet to deliver bug fixes, not mention since this code was stored on ROM's, any mistakes he made would be on display to the world for awfully long time.
And fwiw, it ran much faster than the Microsoft attempt at the same language (albeit without the native floating point support that the microsoft version had), and had more features to make the programmers life easier (gotta love those automatic line numbers).
Doesn't change the point of your post, incremental development would probably be as good a thing for aerospace as it has been for software development, but believe it or not, plenty of people have had to write entire programs without the rapid compile/test/fix/compile loop that people have come to take for granted.
---snip Look for the net to slowly migrate toward a group of proprietary ISPs all talking to one another through gateways. It's not far off. ---snip
Yes! Looks like my continuing to slave away at my never-finished BBS software I started writing in applesoft in the early 80's will finally be paying off!
But first, I better send in a feature request to the Mozilla people for Ripterm support. Want to give them a headstart on the future of the internet, you know.
---snip Why do you host at a place without dual redundant power generators? We have natural gas generators, however, they only power certain things within this building, not the A/C for the campus. ---snip
Get the campus electrician to move a circuit from one of the generator backed circuits (say, heating, which is not terribly critical to you during the summer, even in Canada) to a circuit where it could do some good to alleviating this little crisis you have (your cooling system).
Depends, of course, on the size of your cooling system. If it is a very small server room we are talking about, then your AC unit may only need a 15a circuit, an extension cord from a powered outlet would work; if it is something bigger (which is probably is), your electrician will have to do a little (only a little) creative thinking.
This also depends on how bureaucratic your university is / how competent your electrician actually is.
---snip The Flatlandian version of Einstein might theorize that this was the case, and draw up a theory of how space-time bends. ---snip
NO No no...The Flatlandian version of Einstein might theorize that this was the case, and become a mystic, to whom Yendred would journey to learn a little of the truth about his "friends".
Great, and considering that fast tcp does not change the actual tcp packets at all, only adding improved detection of when your line has hit capacity, you won't see any difference; your connection is already "pegged" at the limit that tcp allows.
Slashdot Mirror
I mean they had a few pretty good articles but there were just too many ads, you couldn't take their opinions seriously.
Your not supposed to take the comments section seriously.
Oh, you meant some paper magazine, not slashdot...
I bet there are a couple probes out there, launched in the early 70's, still in contact with earth. And on the earth side, a huge support infrastructure is built around working through the limitations of the simple software on those probes. Especially when some of the hardware on the probe is malfunctioning. Then the ground crew (probably, I only can deduce this) gets to pore over the code burned into the firmware on the probe and come up with some clever work arounds to continue to get useful work out of it.
One thing; computing equipment on the older probes may barely qualify as general purpose computers (more like single purpose calculators). So does the crude hand-wired "firmware" then count as code?
The center of the universe? Which center of the universe?
If you were on the time machine engineering team, and you were tasked with this part of the problem, I would say your search to find a fixed reference point to make absolute measurements off of is overly hard and possibly not even useful.
How would you _know_ motion for objects sent through time is going to match relative motion from the center of the universe (or anything else)?
Perhaps a better/much easier strategy is to stick with relative measurements; send something back in time 1/1000th of a second. Record relative movement from the starting point. Send something back 1/100th, 1/10th, etc. etc., recording movement.
Continue so you get a nice large sample set, plot the data, generate a model describing the interaction between time jump vs. distance jump. Test the model to see that it behaves as expected, if not, experiment more until it is felt your model is adequately debugged.
You will then have a useful way of predicting what will happen, without ever having needed to base things on any absolute measurement. Seeking the center of the universe for a fixed reference is now a moot point.
You don't need to have absolute measurements to do useful things. +5vdc being used in various places within your computer as your read this? Knowing that relative value is all that is necessary; the fact that the absolute (if there were such a thing) voltage of that same circuit is actually +30,005vdc doesn't keep us from getting the job done.
The government of the U.S. threatens his ISP, who shuts down his website; he starts it up elsewhere and this is repeated. Eventually the FBI arrests him on some Patriot Act basis. He sues the government over First Amendment issues and it goes to the Supreme Court. Or else, if he owes back taxes like that deadbeat in New Zealand, he gets in trouble for that, and can't afford to sue.
---snip
Only on slashdot would this be marked as insightful...
Fantastic, some crack-smoking genius modded this as being "insightful". I guess S/He/it must have always been wondering...
---snip
:)
Then again maybe there's an option that hasn't been considered or been created yet. (Solar Sails?)
---snip
Yep, putting a giant, opaque object right next to our "best" optical telescope blocking it's view of 50% of the universe at any moment in time would certainly be one way of ending the program
Also Chevrolet (and probably other GM divisions) have been doing this over a decade.
Actually, I think you will find that on Slashdot many users are constantly connected. I have half a dozen machines here at my house (I am working from home today) that are always connected. I would consider it rediculous if I needed to turn off my computers on a regular basis to protect myself from the big, bad internet.
But that doesn't match the metaphor I was using for email in any case.
To get on to this gist of what I was trying to point out, you are recommending limiting your ability to use something. It is silly that we have to wade through spam in our email, I for one remember when this was not the case. Nowadays email is so flooded with runaway marketing that it is not nearly as effective of a tool as it once was.
I see the same pattern coming up with Bluetooth; it's a great tool especially when it is always there and "just works". It won't be nearly as useful as it could be if people have to conciously turn it off and on just to use it.
---snip
:) Same goes for bluetooth; turning it off to avoid spammers isn't much of a solution.
Bluetooth-enabled devices must include an easy hardware switch which allows the convenient shutting off of Bluetooth functionality. An indicator light displaying the current status must also be included on the device. Devices like the Tapwave Zodiac are well designed and include these features.
---snip
Email-enabled devices generally can have email disabled, with one catch; you don't get to use the email anymore.
Don't like spam? I dare you to stop using email
---snip
If they test the aerodynamics of a carrot, are people going to whine about the different viscosity of common garden soil?
---snip
On slashdot, yes.
Your kidding, right? Some guy actually has "luser@aol.com"?
Reminds me of one of the companies I worked at, long ago. SMTP addresses went first initial, last name. However they made an exception for a Samuel Hitt.
---snip
The providers are probably aware of this Achilles heel and, no doubt, my provider knows what I'm doing and why but the amount of people that can figure this exploit is too small to be worth closing.
---snip
Not anymore.
---snip
:)
Take all your candidate pens and make a test mark (sign your name or whatever) on several types of paper that you typically use.
---stuff removed
Tape these papers to a window or somewhere else where they will get direct sun. The back window of your car will do too.
---snip
Maybe something other than your signature would be a better choice left taped to your car and driven all over town for a month?
So how are the audio people going to handle the audio and CD-R over a VNC session?
but all versions of Microsoft Outlook (Outlook 98 was released by Microsoft as freeware, if you want to check it out, but 97 or any other version will work just fine) can do what you want quite easily;
.pst file, Lotus cc:mail, whatever; there are Outlook plug-ins for various open source backends as well) for whatever pattern you are looking for. All messages from "Joe Smith" with an attachment, sent sometime in 2001, in the "development" or "perl" categories.
Keep all your messages in one folder, and use _categories_.
One items may only be in the "sales" category. Another item may be in the "sales" category, "marketing" category, "support" category, and "BofH entertainment" categories simultaneously.
Then "group by" category in your favorite view (for you archaelogical filing system types, the timeline view might work if you have enough screen space to represent your mail over a timeline). Or you simple construct a query (advanced find) and search whatever database you have your messages stored in (Exchange server, a local
Oh yeah, and outlook runs fine under wine.
I'd hazard a guess (someone want to do the math?) that for the kinetic energy needed to deliver adequate paint to cover the asteroid you would have been better off just skipping the payload and using the now excess available power from the rockets (remember, no longer lifting a payload) to push the asteroid either much further out of the way, or the same distance far more economically (in terms of energy used).
Otoh, doing things the obvious, simple, reliable way wouldn't be so fun. I wonder what the least efficient, slowest way would be to deflect an asteroid? Changing it's reflectivity is certainly up there.
...you insensitive clod!
---snip
Do you write an entire program before compiling it and testing it?
---snip
Wozniak came close...actually, more than just a program, he wrote an entire programming language, all on paper. No assembler (bah, assemblers are for wimps), no copy of the source in electronic format for easy editing, no nothing.
(obligatory "And he was happy!")
After he entering the raw ML into the machine and seeing it work a few times, it was burnt into ROM's on many thousands of machines, which many thousands of users used to write everything imaginable, from "hello world" to tools for working out engineering problems.
There was no internet to deliver bug fixes, not mention since this code was stored on ROM's, any mistakes he made would be on display to the world for awfully long time.
And fwiw, it ran much faster than the Microsoft attempt at the same language (albeit without the native floating point support that the microsoft version had), and had more features to make the programmers life easier (gotta love those automatic line numbers).
Doesn't change the point of your post, incremental development would probably be as good a thing for aerospace as it has been for software development, but believe it or not, plenty of people have had to write entire programs without the rapid compile/test/fix/compile loop that people have come to take for granted.
---snip
Look for the net to slowly migrate toward a group of proprietary ISPs all talking to one another through gateways. It's not far off.
---snip
Yes! Looks like my continuing to slave away at my never-finished BBS software I started writing in applesoft in the early 80's will finally be paying off!
But first, I better send in a feature request to the Mozilla people for Ripterm support. Want to give them a headstart on the future of the internet, you know.
Uggg, just showing there may never be a permanent respite from that horrible concept.
---snip
Why do you host at a place without dual redundant power generators?
We have natural gas generators, however, they only power certain things within this building, not the A/C for the campus.
---snip
Get the campus electrician to move a circuit from one of the generator backed circuits (say, heating, which is not terribly critical to you during the summer, even in Canada) to a circuit where it could do some good to alleviating this little crisis you have (your cooling system).
Depends, of course, on the size of your cooling system. If it is a very small server room we are talking about, then your AC unit may only need a 15a circuit, an extension cord from a powered outlet would work; if it is something bigger (which is probably is), your electrician will have to do a little (only a little) creative thinking.
This also depends on how bureaucratic your university is / how competent your electrician actually is.
---snip
The Flatlandian version of Einstein might theorize that this was the case, and draw up a theory of how space-time bends.
---snip
NO No no...The Flatlandian version of Einstein might theorize that this was the case, and become a mystic, to whom Yendred would journey to learn a little of the truth about his "friends".
(sorry, couldn't resist)
Actually, I think Apple already do this. They have 3 models in each range labeled 'Fast', 'Faster' and 'Fastest' (or something).
I would _love_ to see the reaction from their customers if Apple actually had the guts to call their lowest end offering the "slow" option.
Great, and considering that fast tcp does not change the actual tcp packets at all, only adding improved detection of when your line has hit capacity, you won't see any difference; your connection is already "pegged" at the limit that tcp allows.