Back in the '80s, I hated IBM...equated them to the MCP and Dillinger in the movie Tron, for their business tactics and lack of morals.
Now, I'm cheering them on. They finally figured out what side was best to be on...not because of morals, but because they seemed to have woke up as to what works the best and what's best for their own bottom dollar.
Go, IBM. Nuke SCO into the ground:-)
Just please, please make sure McBride and Sontag are among the survivors who suffer. Please. Nobody deserves it more.
I agree with what you said, but what makes you think that "professional programmers" aren't OSS programmers? Actually I would say that since "open source guys usually seem to be using more advanced techniques" they are the more professional, no?
Umm...look at who Linus has worked/will be working for...
Whether or not it was a requirement of their grant, it's beautiful - and I can see a lot of researchers including such a clause, if they can. Let's hope to see more. I like these guys already:-)
I seriously doubt any designer of a military software package used in sensitive areas would GPL it. Come on, man. Just because a government says they CAN use GPL doesn't mean THEY HAVE TO. It merely means they're not limiting themselves to proprietary solutions.
The JVG is cool, but not at all similar to what they are attempting to do here with the slingshot tether.
What Hunter is trying to do isn't all that similar either - he's using a long gun tube with multiple gas injectors rather than a bazillion bags of gunpowder. Hunter is onto something, tho...
Actually, I made and learned to use one for Eagle Scouts (a lot) of years ago. They're not too hard to learn - it's just a matter of timing. Took me maybe 3-4 hours to be able to put a marble into a target about 100 ft away, a few more hours to do so consistently.
They can be devastatingly powerful. I put a small round stone about the size of a marble thru a pickup truck door once:-) Ooops. It didn't penetrate the vinyl interior but left a nice hole in the door metal, and we had to take the truck door apart to get the rock out. My friends' folks were understandably pissed.
What works best for cord is something non-stretchable - makes you aim better - and small diameter, to cut air resistance. As I remember I used carpenters string (used for leveling, strong stuff) and a plastic shot pocket from a wristrocket.
"I wonder how many satellites will happen to stray close enough to those cables to get the crap beat out of them."
The chances of that happening are vanishingly small. I'd be more worried about orbital debris damaging the cable - but it seems they've already thought of that (multistranded). If the cable did get damaged, the worst that would happen is the satellite (if already "picked up") would get shot off in an unstable orbit.
A plus with this would be you could use the power generated by a conductive wire thru the cable to power ion thrusters or similar to keep the cable rotating (air friction at the pickup would require some boost occasionally). Less need for solar cells:-)
Like others have mentioned, gravity slingshots are a whole nother beast.
I remember reading about this idea many many years ago - and I consider it something that will happen well before a space elevator will.
Actually what I was experiencing was in Mozilla 1.4rc2 on Linux. The windows client does not appear to suffer the same, and neither does Firebird on either linux nor windows.
Mozilla 1.3b on linux doesn't do this, so I'm pretty certain it's not the mandrake install, but I don't know how to reproduce it...
I wonder if that's what I was experiencing yesterday. The problem I'm running across isn't exactly a crash, and I haven't been able to reproduce it on demand, but I've seen it twice (only on Linux, not windows).
Basically after using Mozilla for some time you can no longer change tabs. You click on the tab and Moz doesn't change windows. You can still close the current tab or close other tabs, but there's no way to change tabs anymore (which means all tabs open to the left of the current one are lost). Takes closing moz and reopening it (including the mail app) to clear it up.
Saw it twice yesterday - nothing special about the pages I loaded that I could tell.
Anyone else seen this? I haven't reported it as a bug because I can't seem to reproduce it at will, and I'm not sure that it isn't something funny with Mandrake 9.1. Doesn't seem to happen with the same build on windows.
I don't blame you for saving pennies - that was why I don't like winrar. Keep it free or easily obtainable, when one can.
As I mentioned in another post a few minutes ago, I have over 5 grand invested in software on a 900 dollar machine. It's ridiculous, and I try to avoid punting those costs on to other people. I'm glad you didn't take it like another reply to my parent post did. I admire you for that. Especially as busy as you must be at the moment.:)
TechTV can really put a hurting on people:-) I watched them "slashdot" other servers before. Heh.
Keep it up man - I like you already, and I don't even know you. You're providing a great service to the community.
If you ever need help...well, I have little time to contribute, life is so so full...but I'll do what I can.
You make good points, which I was already aware of. I was not inviting flamebait, nor trying to troll.
However, winrar is NOT FREE. To those of us who can't afford to buy every little piece of software on the market, it's a significant cost.
Lots of great levels for UT2003 have been created by people who could not afford to spend $30 here, $20 there on software to (for example) just to unzip a file. That was my point. Jebus, I have over $5000 in software on this machine....and the hardware cost me about 900 bucks.
Some of us who suffer from medical problems have to find a way to laugh at it. It's a damn sight better than being depressed about it.
There's such a thing as too much political correctness / sensitivity about some things. When you have problems you deal with every day, laughter is a great medicine.
Re the slashdotted comment, I was wondering if you'd noticed a sudden increase in your bandwidth usage:-) but I've noticed you are not slashdotted, which is a good thing. Those vids are great. Most of it I'm already familiar with, but I've learned some new stuff. Thanks:-)
I commented on winrar mainly because it's not free. It does compress better than standard zip, but a lot of users will only be able to use the demo (as I am) because they are not willing to pay another chunk for another piece of software that they'd use only rarely. It's IMHO, anyway. BUT - there are free zip clients...sigh.
Now that I've downloaded some vids, I do see your point - even with divx compression you're saving some. I retract that part of the comment.
Anyway, thanks for a great site. I wish I had seen this this winter when I was doing level work - it being summer now I'm swamped. I'm going to save these, tho, and when winter comes and work slows down, I'll be back into level work more.
Thanks!!!
SB PS Bandwidth is cheap for me, but I'm lucky where I live:-)
Slashdotted, eh?:-) Or did you just notice/. existed? Or...no...
If this is really you, man, do the rest of the world a favor and use something other than winrar to compress the vids, ok? Better yet, don't compress them.....divx is so compressed you're not saving enough to make it worth it.
"These files MUST be opened with WinRAR 3.0 or higher"
and
"I do not mind you making copies of these VTMs to give to your friends and people you are in contact with, as this helps to spread the word about 3D Buzz. However, you are NOT authorized to post these VTMs anywhere on the Web."
No, the editor doesn't work on Linux. This is because it's an "upgraded" version of the UT editor, which was written in VB. I've already complained to them about this, and they told me that if they could find someone willing to code the editor for linux (for cheap, heh) that it would be done.
The videos - from the website:
"Video Codec: DivX 5.0.2 Audio Codec: MP3"
Yes, watchable.
BTW, I don't get near the framerates for UT2003 in linux that I do in windows. Sigh. But I reboot to windows for serious gaming or game design anyway. Yeah, it sucks. But until linux is as popular (and mature, in terms of GL drivers and Xwindows) as windows/directX is, we simply won't see more.
So email them and tell them what you think. I do, constantly....
About the machine: My 1200mhz Tbird played UT2003 crappy with a Geforce2 card. Make sure you have at least a Geforce4 if you want serious framerates.
Slashdot Mirror
Note to mods:
Parent should be insightful, not interesting.
ok, IMO. But think about it.
SB
Yup, well said.
:-)
Back in the '80s, I hated IBM...equated them to the MCP and Dillinger in the movie Tron, for their business tactics and lack of morals.
Now, I'm cheering them on. They finally figured out what side was best to be on...not because of morals, but because they seemed to have woke up as to what works the best and what's best for their own bottom dollar.
Go, IBM. Nuke SCO into the ground
Just please, please make sure McBride and Sontag are among the survivors who suffer. Please. Nobody deserves it more.
SB
"The second item nowdays is considered redundant"
Actually, it's been like that for roughly 3-4 decades now. I was bitching about similar things in the early '80s....
Sigh.
SB
Personally, I hope the lifeboats have holes in them, and there are SEC^H^H^harks in the water.
Bastards.
SB
He just did publish it. On /.
:-)
Bookmark it here
SB
I agree with what you said, but what makes you think that "professional programmers" aren't OSS programmers? Actually I would say that since "open source guys usually seem to be using more advanced techniques" they are the more professional, no?
Umm...look at who Linus has worked/will be working for...
I know, I know, it's just semantics...
SB
"I think she has a hidden agenda."
SCO/MS influence, by any chance? One does wonder...
SB
Whether or not it was a requirement of their grant, it's beautiful - and I can see a lot of researchers including such a clause, if they can. :-)
Let's hope to see more. I like these guys already
SB
Damn, that is just SO true....of course, they think they same way about men :-)
Could we call that redundancy in confusion?
SB
I seriously doubt any designer of a military software package used in sensitive areas would GPL it. Come on, man. Just because a government says they CAN use GPL doesn't mean THEY HAVE TO. It merely means they're not limiting themselves to proprietary solutions.
Sigh.
SB
Oh, like Microsoft's? I'd rather admin a linux system any day.
SB
PS -1 Flamebait, Karma to burn...
That was beautifully funny. Thank you :-)
SB
The JVG is cool, but not at all similar to what they are attempting to do here with the slingshot tether.
What Hunter is trying to do isn't all that similar either - he's using a long gun tube with multiple gas injectors rather than a bazillion bags of gunpowder. Hunter is onto something, tho...
SB
Actually, I made and learned to use one for Eagle Scouts (a lot) of years ago. They're not too hard to learn - it's just a matter of timing. Took me maybe 3-4 hours to be able to put a marble into a target about 100 ft away, a few more hours to do so consistently.
:-) Ooops. It didn't penetrate the vinyl interior but left a nice hole in the door metal, and we had to take the truck door apart to get the rock out. My friends' folks were understandably pissed.
They can be devastatingly powerful. I put a small round stone about the size of a marble thru a pickup truck door once
What works best for cord is something non-stretchable - makes you aim better - and small diameter, to cut air resistance. As I remember I used carpenters string (used for leveling, strong stuff) and a plastic shot pocket from a wristrocket.
SB
"I wonder how many satellites will happen to stray close enough to those cables to get the crap beat out of them."
:-)
The chances of that happening are vanishingly small. I'd be more worried about orbital debris damaging the cable - but it seems they've already thought of that (multistranded). If the cable did get damaged, the worst that would happen is the satellite (if already "picked up") would get shot off in an unstable orbit.
A plus with this would be you could use the power generated by a conductive wire thru the cable to power ion thrusters or similar to keep the cable rotating (air friction at the pickup would require some boost occasionally). Less need for solar cells
Like others have mentioned, gravity slingshots are a whole nother beast.
I remember reading about this idea many many years ago - and I consider it something that will happen well before a space elevator will.
SB
Actually what I was experiencing was in Mozilla 1.4rc2 on Linux. The windows client does not appear to suffer the same, and neither does Firebird on either linux nor windows.
Mozilla 1.3b on linux doesn't do this, so I'm pretty certain it's not the mandrake install, but I don't know how to reproduce it...
sigh
SB
That was pretty much my thought.
Now maybe they should take some of the blank media tax and send that to these guys....Hmmmm....
SB
I wonder if that's what I was experiencing yesterday. The problem I'm running across isn't exactly a crash, and I haven't been able to reproduce it on demand, but I've seen it twice (only on Linux, not windows).
Basically after using Mozilla for some time you can no longer change tabs. You click on the tab and Moz doesn't change windows. You can still close the current tab or close other tabs, but there's no way to change tabs anymore (which means all tabs open to the left of the current one are lost). Takes closing moz and reopening it (including the mail app) to clear it up.
Saw it twice yesterday - nothing special about the pages I loaded that I could tell.
Anyone else seen this? I haven't reported it as a bug because I can't seem to reproduce it at will, and I'm not sure that it isn't something funny with Mandrake 9.1. Doesn't seem to happen with the same build on windows.
SB
I don't blame you for saving pennies - that was why I don't like winrar.
:)
:-) I watched them "slashdot" other servers before. Heh.
Keep it free or easily obtainable, when one can.
As I mentioned in another post a few minutes ago, I have over 5 grand invested in software on a 900 dollar machine. It's ridiculous, and I try to avoid punting those costs on to other people. I'm glad you didn't take it like another reply to my parent post did. I admire you for that. Especially as busy as you must be at the moment.
TechTV can really put a hurting on people
Keep it up man - I like you already, and I don't even know you. You're providing a great service to the community.
If you ever need help...well, I have little time to contribute, life is so so full...but I'll do what I can.
Cheers
SB
You make good points, which I was already aware of. I was not inviting flamebait, nor trying to troll.
9 819
However, winrar is NOT FREE. To those of us who can't afford to buy every little piece of software on the market, it's a significant cost.
Lots of great levels for UT2003 have been created by people who could not afford to spend $30 here, $20 there on software to (for example) just to unzip a file. That was my point. Jebus, I have over $5000 in software on this machine....and the hardware cost me about 900 bucks.
Think a little before you post. Please.
Also, http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=67930&cid=622
and please remember that not all of us have had the time to read his site and follow it as much as you obviously have.
Sigh.
SB
Some of us who suffer from medical problems have to find a way to laugh at it. It's a damn sight better than being depressed about it.
There's such a thing as too much political correctness / sensitivity about some things. When you have problems you deal with every day, laughter is a great medicine.
SB
Re the slashdotted comment, I was wondering if you'd noticed a sudden increase in your bandwidth usage :-) but I've noticed you are not slashdotted, which is a good thing. Those vids are great. Most of it I'm already familiar with, but I've learned some new stuff. Thanks :-)
:-)
I commented on winrar mainly because it's not free. It does compress better than standard zip, but a lot of users will only be able to use the demo (as I am) because they are not willing to pay another chunk for another piece of software that they'd use only rarely. It's IMHO, anyway.
BUT - there are free zip clients...sigh.
Now that I've downloaded some vids, I do see your point - even with divx compression you're saving some. I retract that part of the comment.
Anyway, thanks for a great site. I wish I had seen this this winter when I was doing level work - it being summer now I'm swamped. I'm going to save these, tho, and when winter comes and work slows down, I'll be back into level work more.
Thanks!!!
SB
PS Bandwidth is cheap for me, but I'm lucky where I live
Slashdotted, eh? :-) Or did you just notice /. existed? Or...no...
If this is really you, man, do the rest of the world a favor and use something other than winrar to compress the vids, ok? Better yet, don't compress them.....divx is so compressed you're not saving enough to make it worth it.
SB
Oh, and:
"These files MUST be opened with WinRAR 3.0 or higher"
and
"I do not mind you making copies of these VTMs to give to your friends and people you are in contact with, as this helps to spread the word about 3D Buzz. However, you are NOT authorized to post these VTMs anywhere on the Web."
and there is a download queue......
SB
No, the editor doesn't work on Linux. This is because it's an "upgraded" version of the UT editor, which was written in VB. I've already complained to them about this, and they told me that if they could find someone willing to code the editor for linux (for cheap, heh) that it would be done.
The videos - from the website:
"Video Codec: DivX 5.0.2
Audio Codec: MP3"
Yes, watchable.
BTW, I don't get near the framerates for UT2003 in linux that I do in windows. Sigh. But I reboot to windows for serious gaming or game design anyway. Yeah, it sucks. But until linux is as popular (and mature, in terms of GL drivers and Xwindows) as windows/directX is, we simply won't see more.
So email them and tell them what you think. I do, constantly....
About the machine: My 1200mhz Tbird played UT2003 crappy with a Geforce2 card. Make sure you have at least a Geforce4 if you want serious framerates.
SB