Doesn't a rail gun accelerate a uranium 'slug' or something to extremely high velocities using some sort of magentic coil or some mumbo jumbo.
Think the light beam was added to Quake 2 help give away campers although doesn't really make any sense why its there. But neither does most the game I guess so there we go.
"In theory, that means a liter of everyday Army diesel fuel costing as little as $1 will generate enough rapid-fire laser pulses to destroy a standard airborne missile. The job now falls to Patriot missiles costing $3 million apiece."
This comparison is a tad unfair because the supposed $3 million price tag includes several decades worth of research and development costs spread over current and predicted usage of the technology, along with maintanence and logistics costs (whether this sort of equipment pricing is in itself misleading is another matter), but to say that an equivilant laser based defence would only cost $1 per use based entirely on the fuel consumption is very misleading.
Escpecially as towards the beginning of the article it is stated "After sinking 40 years and billions of dollars into beam weapons, defense scientists are on the cusp of what could be a military revolution", which surely using the same pricing system would raise the price tag up to atleast (if not far more than) $3 million per predicted anti-airborne missle use.
If one is counting purely the cost of the production of the disposable part of the patriot missile defence system than by my estimates the cost would be around the $25,000 mark (still a lot more than $1 I admit).
Those hordes of Nuclear Weapons the US inspectors now admit they don't actually have?
Also, I was under the impression the last war Iraq was involved in (apart from the 2 US invasions) was against kuwait 12 years ago, not exactly 'very recently'.
Peaceful in respect to the fact that they haven't had a war in the previous 10 years....I'd like to see America go an entire decade without a war although since independence in 1776 thats something the USA hasn't actually yet achieved!
But the only way this scenario could lead to china being a threat is if America sticks its head in affairs which it doesn't belong in....Then again we are talking aobut a country who has just finished a completly unprovoked invasion of a peaceful country.
I can't believe this line:
"acknowledged that the US wants to keep space peaceful"
unlike in various films, the US are the only ones who are activly TRYING to develop space weapons. The ESA, Russia and China are all trying to draw up a treaty to prevent the use of space for active military purposes other than surviellance and communications, this won't succseed ofcourse because George Bush has already said he won't sign it!
I hate it when American's try to pretend their trying to keep the peace when everyone knows their the most aggresive country in the world!
I think you have misthought the motives of modern western news organisations. In these days of free markets and extreme commericialisation, the intent of media/news organisations is not (with china being the exception) to spread federal properganda but to get lots and lots of people to keep on reading their website/newspaper or to watch their news program.
In my opinion this is even worse than the properganda spreading intent of these companies during the 50's/60's.
It accounts for why you only ever hear negative stories about government and the world, this is because it has been scientifically proven that people return to read negative news far more than positive stories.
This means that as you mentioned, the only way to make a good story out of this event is to turn it around from an amazing and positive achievement by a country into a negative story of possible far-fetched military applications by an "aggressive" country (this coming from one which has just been the invader in 2 unprovoked wars commenting on a country which has been at relative peace for the last few decades).
Its all good this being reported to a website where everyone knows of such open-source software and its benefits. But, as in my company (and I suspect the vast majority of others) the people in charge of that sort of thing have never heard of Samba and such benefits.
It is these people in these companies who need to know about it or else they will keep on forking out the millions for the slower and error prone but point-and-click-happy windows software largely because many of them are unaware of suitable alternatives!
Is it just me or does the website this story links to (http://www.gnomedesktop.org/) not work?
After clicking on the link I just get a couple of php script errors coming up on a blank page
I just hope with this being the chinese, the American government will restart its space program (which atm is pretty much dead) now that it has another 'evil' communist country (well sort of) to compete against.
I can't wait for President Bush to announce the 'first country to put a man on mars race'.
possibly, your average computer however would say "wtf is apt-get?! and why am I having to run programs with wierd names from an 80's style command line when all my window's software automatically installs itself graphically?"
Linux is never going to get anywhere unless your average computer user can install stuff without having to read a manual or use an ugly command line, its the 21st century, not the 1980's.
The whole process (from install to uninstall) has to be completely graphical with simple buttons to press! Stupid names like apt-get don't help either
I agree, space exploration has never been the same since the USSR's space program fell through. Back then there was lots of talk of space stations, moon bases, nuclear powered rockets and the rest.
Back in the 70's and 80's for example several spacestations were put up there (skylab, mir, almaz etc.)
Nowadays, they can't even build a space station, its obvious why, with no evil empire to compete against governments seem to prefer to spend money on stupid things, like blowing up 3rd world countries that lack armies.
Intereasting though that this move will coincidently force people who want the latest version (which will prob be nessicary in future for compatability with many websites etc.) of what is one of most widely used piece of software in the world to fork out big bucks for the latest windows OS.
Over the years the many conspiracy shows etc. have pointed to things like flags blowing in a 'breeze' on the moon, shadows not appearing to originate from the sun among many similar anomalies.
Although I don't think this means they were hoaxed, it would be good to hear NASA come up with a response other than "Thats ridiculous" and actually supply some source of definitive proof that man has been to the moon.
I am also curious as to which series is currently on normal UK TV (channel 4, not sky), I think which ever series it is is coming to an end as they seem to be doing one of those stretch-story-over-4-weeks finalle things.
From the screenshots on that page, KDE has certainly seemed to undergone a much needed default theme upgrade, to bring it in to par with the look of the other 2 modern OS's (windows XP and Mac OS X).
The only thing is though that everytime a new KDE comes out I remeber having liked the great new look in screenshots I saw only to find that the look was due to some hard to find (and even harder to install) theme and the theme put on by default was the same out-dated grey, Windows 95 style one.
I just hope that THIS time a new stylish theme like the ones in the screenshots is put on by default.
What puzzles me is why a project which is at the forefront of human achievement is only given a declining $30 billion when the US military is getting $343 billion just so it can act all big, tuff and important when the only country it picks on are all impoverished 3rd world countries like Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Vietnam etc.
Countries like Britain, France on the other hand are able to maintain equally un-used militaries on about $40 billion, leaving an extra $300 billion, which would obviously mean ISS actually could get seom science done aswell as sending probes to jupiter etc.
If the reason for Nasa's decline in funding is the end of the Cold war, then why is the US Military still given such staggering amounts?
Lets just hope StarOffice 6 can get the publicity it deserves to be implimented as an alternative Office Suite to that of MS Office.
From a technical point of view it is alreay better than MS Office, it just needs more coverage in Magazines and on websites so that (unlike BeOS) people and companies actually know about it enough to consider using it.
Speaking as a European, it really amazes me to think that in the USA there are still people and even entire state institutions which do not accept the theory of Evolution.
I just hope these religous nutters are very few and far bettween?
Websites are some of the main culprits of Linux over-complication imho. A recent example to me of this was the other day when I downloaded the new Nvidia Linux drivers (which are great btw).
I went to the Driver download page and proceeded to download the 2 needed.rpms (1 for gtk, 1 for kernal). I then glanced at the installation instructions and saw about a page of instructions all command line based.
Having command line instructions in such a case is good (i.e. if vid driver don't work so can't use graphical rpm tools), but the fact that the the 20 or so advanced command line operations were listed as the only way to install the drivers annoyed me.
I then therefor went and double clicked on the 2 rpms and everything appears to of installed correctly.
Slashdot Mirror
Doesn't a rail gun accelerate a uranium 'slug' or something to extremely high velocities using some sort of magentic coil or some mumbo jumbo. Think the light beam was added to Quake 2 help give away campers although doesn't really make any sense why its there. But neither does most the game I guess so there we go.
A little from the end the article states:
"In theory, that means a liter of everyday Army diesel fuel costing as little as $1 will generate enough rapid-fire laser pulses to destroy a standard airborne missile. The job now falls to Patriot missiles costing $3 million apiece."
This comparison is a tad unfair because the supposed $3 million price tag includes several decades worth of research and development costs spread over current and predicted usage of the technology, along with maintanence and logistics costs (whether this sort of equipment pricing is in itself misleading is another matter), but to say that an equivilant laser based defence would only cost $1 per use based entirely on the fuel consumption is very misleading.
Escpecially as towards the beginning of the article it is stated "After sinking 40 years and billions of dollars into beam weapons, defense scientists are on the cusp of what could be a military revolution", which surely using the same pricing system would raise the price tag up to atleast (if not far more than) $3 million per predicted anti-airborne missle use.
If one is counting purely the cost of the production of the disposable part of the patriot missile defence system than by my estimates the cost would be around the $25,000 mark (still a lot more than $1 I admit).
Is good article other than that though.
Last-resort against what exactly?
Those hordes of Nuclear Weapons the US inspectors now admit they don't actually have?
Also, I was under the impression the last war Iraq was involved in (apart from the 2 US invasions) was against kuwait 12 years ago, not exactly 'very recently'.
Peaceful in respect to the fact that they haven't had a war in the previous 10 years. ...I'd like to see America go an entire decade without a war although since independence in 1776 thats something the USA hasn't actually yet achieved!
But the only way this scenario could lead to china being a threat is if America sticks its head in affairs which it doesn't belong in. ...Then again we are talking aobut a country who has just finished a completly unprovoked invasion of a peaceful country.
I can't believe this line: "acknowledged that the US wants to keep space peaceful" unlike in various films, the US are the only ones who are activly TRYING to develop space weapons. The ESA, Russia and China are all trying to draw up a treaty to prevent the use of space for active military purposes other than surviellance and communications, this won't succseed ofcourse because George Bush has already said he won't sign it! I hate it when American's try to pretend their trying to keep the peace when everyone knows their the most aggresive country in the world!
I think you have misthought the motives of modern western news organisations. In these days of free markets and extreme commericialisation, the intent of media/news organisations is not (with china being the exception) to spread federal properganda but to get lots and lots of people to keep on reading their website/newspaper or to watch their news program. In my opinion this is even worse than the properganda spreading intent of these companies during the 50's/60's. It accounts for why you only ever hear negative stories about government and the world, this is because it has been scientifically proven that people return to read negative news far more than positive stories. This means that as you mentioned, the only way to make a good story out of this event is to turn it around from an amazing and positive achievement by a country into a negative story of possible far-fetched military applications by an "aggressive" country (this coming from one which has just been the invader in 2 unprovoked wars commenting on a country which has been at relative peace for the last few decades).
Its all good this being reported to a website where everyone knows of such open-source software and its benefits. But, as in my company (and I suspect the vast majority of others) the people in charge of that sort of thing have never heard of Samba and such benefits. It is these people in these companies who need to know about it or else they will keep on forking out the millions for the slower and error prone but point-and-click-happy windows software largely because many of them are unaware of suitable alternatives!
Nice to see someone giving Microsoft a taste of their own medicine!
Is it just me or does the website this story links to (http://www.gnomedesktop.org/) not work? After clicking on the link I just get a couple of php script errors coming up on a blank page
I just hope with this being the chinese, the American government will restart its space program (which atm is pretty much dead) now that it has another 'evil' communist country (well sort of) to compete against. I can't wait for President Bush to announce the 'first country to put a man on mars race'.
"OK, now when can I apt-get install this thing?"
possibly, your average computer however would say "wtf is apt-get?! and why am I having to run programs with wierd names from an 80's style command line when all my window's software automatically installs itself graphically?"
Linux is never going to get anywhere unless your average computer user can install stuff without having to read a manual or use an ugly command line, its the 21st century, not the 1980's.
The whole process (from install to uninstall) has to be completely graphical with simple buttons to press! Stupid names like apt-get don't help either
I agree, space exploration has never been the same since the USSR's space program fell through. Back then there was lots of talk of space stations, moon bases, nuclear powered rockets and the rest. Back in the 70's and 80's for example several spacestations were put up there (skylab, mir, almaz etc.) Nowadays, they can't even build a space station, its obvious why, with no evil empire to compete against governments seem to prefer to spend money on stupid things, like blowing up 3rd world countries that lack armies.
Intereasting though that this move will coincidently force people who want the latest version (which will prob be nessicary in future for compatability with many websites etc.) of what is one of most widely used piece of software in the world to fork out big bucks for the latest windows OS.
Over the years the many conspiracy shows etc. have pointed to things like flags blowing in a 'breeze' on the moon, shadows not appearing to originate from the sun among many similar anomalies. Although I don't think this means they were hoaxed, it would be good to hear NASA come up with a response other than "Thats ridiculous" and actually supply some source of definitive proof that man has been to the moon.
I am also curious as to which series is currently on normal UK TV (channel 4, not sky), I think which ever series it is is coming to an end as they seem to be doing one of those stretch-story-over-4-weeks finalle things.
From the screenshots on that page, KDE has certainly seemed to undergone a much needed default theme upgrade, to bring it in to par with the look of the other 2 modern OS's (windows XP and Mac OS X). The only thing is though that everytime a new KDE comes out I remeber having liked the great new look in screenshots I saw only to find that the look was due to some hard to find (and even harder to install) theme and the theme put on by default was the same out-dated grey, Windows 95 style one. I just hope that THIS time a new stylish theme like the ones in the screenshots is put on by default.
I think the whole of the US actually has a problem realising that US draconian laws only apply to the US (thank god).
What puzzles me is why a project which is at the forefront of human achievement is only given a declining $30 billion when the US military is getting $343 billion just so it can act all big, tuff and important when the only country it picks on are all impoverished 3rd world countries like Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Vietnam etc. Countries like Britain, France on the other hand are able to maintain equally un-used militaries on about $40 billion, leaving an extra $300 billion, which would obviously mean ISS actually could get seom science done aswell as sending probes to jupiter etc. If the reason for Nasa's decline in funding is the end of the Cold war, then why is the US Military still given such staggering amounts?
Lets just hope StarOffice 6 can get the publicity it deserves to be implimented as an alternative Office Suite to that of MS Office. From a technical point of view it is alreay better than MS Office, it just needs more coverage in Magazines and on websites so that (unlike BeOS) people and companies actually know about it enough to consider using it.
Speaking as a European, it really amazes me to think that in the USA there are still people and even entire state institutions which do not accept the theory of Evolution. I just hope these religous nutters are very few and far bettween?
Websites are some of the main culprits of Linux over-complication imho. A recent example to me of this was the other day when I downloaded the new Nvidia Linux drivers (which are great btw).
.rpms (1 for gtk, 1 for kernal). I then glanced at the installation instructions and saw about a page of instructions all command line based.
I went to the Driver download page and proceeded to download the 2 needed
Having command line instructions in such a case is good (i.e. if vid driver don't work so can't use graphical rpm tools), but the fact that the the 20 or so advanced command line operations were listed as the only way to install the drivers annoyed me.
I then therefor went and double clicked on the 2 rpms and everything appears to of installed correctly.