I can't beleive there is even a debate about water on Mars, there is a HUGE ice cap which we know is water. No drilling needed, just scoop it up.
Who knows how much there is in a water table or underground lakes.
Marc
I'm a regular Ebook purchaser, mainly PeanutPress which is now owned by Palm, but also a few for MS's book reader. I read them on my PC and on my PocketPC. It's quite a good Ebook reader platform, nice bright screen and fast paging.
Marc
Re:Hubble Service Missions
on
Saving Hubble
·
· Score: 1
There is not enough room in the shuttle bay for the return booster and all the instruments. I suspect the return booster could be boosted to close to Hubble though and the repair mission done, then fetch the booster and attach it. Not sure how having a big booster attached would affect the life of the gyros though, as the extra mass would definately affect it. Also not sure of the shelf life of a booster like that once it's in space.
Marc
The Orb is just a new incarnation of the old "Stock Market Skirt" which you can see at http://www.vacuumwoman.com/MediaWorks/Stock/stock. html and some background at http://www.judymalloy.net/newmedia/nancy.html
This has been around since at least 1995.
Marc
Hubble Service Missions
on
Saving Hubble
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Hubble is going to run out of gyros (you know, the Greek rolled up sandwich) in about 3-4 years. They are looking at ways to conserve them, shut some down for long term storage and such, but other consumables such as batteries have limited life and eventually it will just die.
I doubt that a service mission could be done without the shuttle. There are way too many issues with the servicing missions (not to mention the size of the boxes that they want to install in it) that the Russians wouldn't be able to do it for us. It's quite an extensive undertaking.
I do object to the cancelation though, I think they should do one more mission and include a pre-orbited return booster so that the final kit of instruments can be used, keep it going till the Webb 'scope comes online, and then splash it.
The risk of having astronauts doing the service without the station as a long term refuge appears to be too high for NASA.
Marc
Not all lasers are visible. There are X-Ray lasers and IR lasers, any frequency light could potentially be lased, it's just a matter of aligning all the rays in the same direction. Collumated light.
I used a homebrew T1 router (33 mhz 486 with a SDLCOMM T1 card and 10mhz ethernet card) running BSDI and gated for a number of years. Reason? Cost. Even with the BSDI license and hardware it was way cheaper than the router my ISP wanted to sell me (this was circa 1995) and I could maintain it myself (ie, add routes, etc). I sold the hardware a few years back for nearly what I paid for it. If he is up to the challenges in building and maintaining the Linux router I highly recommend it as a character building exercise.
I believe PCI runs at 66 or 133 mhz depending on the board and slot, but that it is a 32 bit transfer (4 bytes) so you have plenty of bandwidth on a 66mhz bus.
Marc
I believe NCD Xterminals have had a similar compression technology for many years. I remember using them on 19200 baud modems. Latency was the big problem but throughput was good.
I can't imagine anyone still using a 9600 baud modem, especially someone serious enough to want to use X remotely. 128kb is plenty to use raw X and any broadband connection is going to be faster than that, but if you are remote and on a modem this might be a good option.
Marc
I would have to agree with this for a college. Minimal maintenance and you can scale a Sun environment to a huge level with the Enterprise Ex800 and E1x000 machines.
I worked at a college for several years and they were nearly 100% Sun (with some SGI and DEC), and we had very few problems. Sun support for colleges is excellent also.
Marc
Yes, but is Neo a program, or is he actually still in a pod. Only the meta-matrix idea explains the powers he has at the end, before going into coma (process suspended by the supervisor program?), and the Architect's comments about him being a statistical anomoly in his perfect creation.
Remember, the machines are supposed to have taken over the entire world, and the Matrix may just be a toy, maybe even a museum artifact representing humanity before the fall. If this is correct restarting the Matrix after each REVOLUTION is no big deal to them, there is no 'real world' impact.
If Neo actually escapes into the real world he might be in a world of trouble, as the world is likely nothing like he would expect. Remember the Architect says the Matrix is FAR older than he thinks, and I get the impression he's not talking hundreds of years. Maybe millions.
I went to see it a second time the other night and came away with some interesting insights in the exposition scenes:
1. Morpheus says "We MUST survive". Wishful thinking.
2. Agent Smith says "You set me free. Purpose is the meaning of life, you do what you are created to do (he's a program). His double says "It's happening just like the other times" but the first says "Not exactly".
3. The Oracle says "Everything is predestined, you only have to figure out why you made the decisions you do", which is a fatalistic approach to life, you can't do anything to change anything.
4. The Marovingian says "You can write a program to do anything you want, just watch", but then says that he is on the track of killing off the Oracle. He says power is everything, you can't get enough of it, but the Oracle (predestination) is getting in his way and he's out to get her. 5. The architect says "You are error, just a derivative of the Matrix", implying that Neo really doesn't exist at all in 'The Real World' whereever that is, but instead is actually a construct. Neo counters with "I see what this is really about, choice", which is really what this is about, he's the only ONE with free choice (as are we all, we can only influence ourselves), but he then appears to not only make the same choice that prior Neo's have made (Old, dead copies of Zion in the tunnels must be prior instances), (Wishfull thinking, humanity's downfall, the architect answers) but Neo then rescues Trinity (which contradicts his dream) and then stops the sentinels.
Love seems to be a prevailing theme, which is something the machines don't understand, but can grasp. Seeing Neo develop this love seems to be a key. Remember the Marovingian's girlfriend Penelope, who insists that Neo give her what she wants, which is a sample of the love he gives Trinity, and is shocked when she sees how real it is. The machines are 'sampling' human emotions, just like the Marvingian says he sampled languages.
The 1 minute preview of Revolutions shows him awake again so we know he comes back, or is maybe in a meta-matrix fighting Smith, but if he actually subverts the entire matrix system will humanity be in a position to survive? A handfull of people to repopulate the earth, the Architect said he was willing to tolerate certain levels of survival, so even all the copertops going offline won't actually kill the entire system, just criple it, so in the next version of the world they will re-emerge to take over again.
So you have this great conflict of will (Morpheus) vs purpose (Smith) and predestination (Oracle) vs free will (Architect), nicely tied up in a package. Obviously no reasonable answer can come, all of these affect our daily lives. Religions and philosophies have fought over this for centuries. A movie can't answer it in 6 hours (total for the 3 installments). I suspect Revolutions may be disappointing after Reloaded.
My take is that at the end of the third picture Neo will wake up with his head on the keyboard in his original apartment, going "Whew, what a bad dream."
Yeah, but Neo isn't actually a human, is he? He's a construct just like the Oracle, the Architect, the Frenchie, dead twins and the Smiths, right? So if he is a program but he actually has free will then he could stop the sentinals in the 2nd level Matrix (reality?) and may actually be escaped into the next level of reality while he is in the coma. Or, since he overrode his programming by stopping the sentinals the system may have deactivated his account, putting him into the coma.
Just my $0.02.
I really don't think this is so much about MS being successful, as we know it is, or about the quality of the product they produce, which we know is crap (got your latest IE security patch loaded?), but the fact that MS does it's absolute best to keep any competition from emerging. The IE/Netscape, Realaudio/Windoze Media Player, and Linux debacles all point to a monopoly that will do literally anything to avoid competing directly with other vendors. If they think you have something good, they buy your company out. If you won't sell (aka Netscape, Real Audio, and Eudora), they crush you by writing a compatable but 'extended' product and giving it out free.
A company with this kind of control is unstoppable. They are now extending their reach into media (MSNBC, MSN, etc), hardware, and anything else they see as profitable. With billions to play with there aren't many industries that can survive an onslaught by MS.
The government really missed the boat when they didn't break them up this time. After numerous other anti-trust infringements MS now has pretty much free reign to do as they wish.
I've been using Solaris X86 since 2.4, and in my business since 2.5.1 (about '97), and it's great! Total source compatability, very few problems over 7+ years using it. Performance is acceptatble. Price is right, and support is excellent.
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I can't beleive there is even a debate about water on Mars, there is a HUGE ice cap which we know is water. No drilling needed, just scoop it up. Who knows how much there is in a water table or underground lakes. Marc
I'm a regular Ebook purchaser, mainly PeanutPress which is now owned by Palm, but also a few for MS's book reader. I read them on my PC and on my PocketPC. It's quite a good Ebook reader platform, nice bright screen and fast paging. Marc
There is not enough room in the shuttle bay for the return booster and all the instruments. I suspect the return booster could be boosted to close to Hubble though and the repair mission done, then fetch the booster and attach it. Not sure how having a big booster attached would affect the life of the gyros though, as the extra mass would definately affect it. Also not sure of the shelf life of a booster like that once it's in space. Marc
The Orb is just a new incarnation of the old "Stock Market Skirt" which you can see at http://www.vacuumwoman.com/MediaWorks/Stock/stock. html and some background at http://www.judymalloy.net/newmedia/nancy.html
This has been around since at least 1995.
Marc
Hubble is going to run out of gyros (you know, the Greek rolled up sandwich) in about 3-4 years. They are looking at ways to conserve them, shut some down for long term storage and such, but other consumables such as batteries have limited life and eventually it will just die. I doubt that a service mission could be done without the shuttle. There are way too many issues with the servicing missions (not to mention the size of the boxes that they want to install in it) that the Russians wouldn't be able to do it for us. It's quite an extensive undertaking. I do object to the cancelation though, I think they should do one more mission and include a pre-orbited return booster so that the final kit of instruments can be used, keep it going till the Webb 'scope comes online, and then splash it. The risk of having astronauts doing the service without the station as a long term refuge appears to be too high for NASA. Marc
NASA really doesn't need any bad news right now. Hopefully they will be able to work around this problem. Marc
How about this: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.09/vision.ht ml
I don't think it's as fast as this: http://www.wurts.net/electrifiedmotorsports/
Not all lasers are visible. There are X-Ray lasers and IR lasers, any frequency light could potentially be lased, it's just a matter of aligning all the rays in the same direction. Collumated light.
I used a homebrew T1 router (33 mhz 486 with a SDLCOMM T1 card and 10mhz ethernet card) running BSDI and gated for a number of years. Reason? Cost. Even with the BSDI license and hardware it was way cheaper than the router my ISP wanted to sell me (this was circa 1995) and I could maintain it myself (ie, add routes, etc). I sold the hardware a few years back for nearly what I paid for it. If he is up to the challenges in building and maintaining the Linux router I highly recommend it as a character building exercise.
Marc
I believe PCI runs at 66 or 133 mhz depending on the board and slot, but that it is a 32 bit transfer (4 bytes) so you have plenty of bandwidth on a 66mhz bus. Marc
I believe NCD Xterminals have had a similar compression technology for many years. I remember using them on 19200 baud modems. Latency was the big problem but throughput was good. I can't imagine anyone still using a 9600 baud modem, especially someone serious enough to want to use X remotely. 128kb is plenty to use raw X and any broadband connection is going to be faster than that, but if you are remote and on a modem this might be a good option. Marc
I would have to agree with this for a college. Minimal maintenance and you can scale a Sun environment to a huge level with the Enterprise Ex800 and E1x000 machines. I worked at a college for several years and they were nearly 100% Sun (with some SGI and DEC), and we had very few problems. Sun support for colleges is excellent also. Marc
Yes, but is Neo a program, or is he actually still in a pod. Only the meta-matrix idea explains the powers he has at the end, before going into coma (process suspended by the supervisor program?), and the Architect's comments about him being a statistical anomoly in his perfect creation.
Remember, the machines are supposed to have taken over the entire world, and the Matrix may just be a toy, maybe even a museum artifact representing humanity before the fall. If this is correct restarting the Matrix after each REVOLUTION is no big deal to them, there is no 'real world' impact.
If Neo actually escapes into the real world he might be in a world of trouble, as the world is likely nothing like he would expect. Remember the Architect says the Matrix is FAR older than he thinks, and I get the impression he's not talking hundreds of years. Maybe millions.
I went to see it a second time the other night and came away with some interesting insights in the exposition scenes:
1. Morpheus says "We MUST survive". Wishful thinking.
2. Agent Smith says "You set me free. Purpose is the meaning of life, you do what you are created to do (he's a program). His double says "It's happening just like the other times" but the first says "Not exactly".
3. The Oracle says "Everything is predestined, you only have to figure out why you made the decisions you do", which is a fatalistic approach to life, you can't do anything to change anything.
4. The Marovingian says "You can write a program to do anything you want, just watch", but then says that he is on the track of killing off the Oracle. He says power is everything, you can't get enough of it, but the Oracle (predestination) is getting in his way and he's out to get her.
5. The architect says "You are error, just a derivative of the Matrix", implying that Neo really doesn't exist at all in 'The Real World' whereever that is, but instead is actually a construct. Neo counters with "I see what this is really about, choice", which is really what this is about, he's the only ONE with free choice (as are we all, we can only influence ourselves), but he then appears to not only make the same choice that prior Neo's have made (Old, dead copies of Zion in the tunnels must be prior instances), (Wishfull thinking, humanity's downfall, the architect answers) but Neo then rescues Trinity (which contradicts his dream) and then stops the sentinels.
Love seems to be a prevailing theme, which is something the machines don't understand, but can grasp. Seeing Neo develop this love seems to be a key. Remember the Marovingian's girlfriend Penelope, who insists that Neo give her what she wants, which is a sample of the love he gives Trinity, and is shocked when she sees how real it is. The machines are 'sampling' human emotions, just like the Marvingian says he sampled languages.
The 1 minute preview of Revolutions shows him awake again so we know he comes back, or is maybe in a meta-matrix fighting Smith, but if he actually subverts the entire matrix system will humanity be in a position to survive? A handfull of people to repopulate the earth, the Architect said he was willing to tolerate certain levels of survival, so even all the copertops going offline won't actually kill the entire system, just criple it, so in the next version of the world they will re-emerge to take over again.
So you have this great conflict of will (Morpheus) vs purpose (Smith) and predestination (Oracle) vs free will (Architect), nicely tied up in a package. Obviously no reasonable answer can come, all of these affect our daily lives. Religions and philosophies have fought over this for centuries. A movie can't answer it in 6 hours (total for the 3 installments). I suspect Revolutions may be disappointing after Reloaded.
My take is that at the end of the third picture Neo will wake up with his head on the keyboard in his original apartment, going "Whew, what a bad dream."
Marc
Yeah, but Neo isn't actually a human, is he? He's a construct just like the Oracle, the Architect, the Frenchie, dead twins and the Smiths, right? So if he is a program but he actually has free will then he could stop the sentinals in the 2nd level Matrix (reality?) and may actually be escaped into the next level of reality while he is in the coma. Or, since he overrode his programming by stopping the sentinals the system may have deactivated his account, putting him into the coma. Just my $0.02.
I really don't think this is so much about MS being successful, as we know it is, or about the quality of the product they produce, which we know is crap (got your latest IE security patch loaded?), but the fact that MS does it's absolute best to keep any competition from emerging. The IE/Netscape, Realaudio/Windoze Media Player, and Linux debacles all point to a monopoly that will do literally anything to avoid competing directly with other vendors. If they think you have something good, they buy your company out. If you won't sell (aka Netscape, Real Audio, and Eudora), they crush you by writing a compatable but 'extended' product and giving it out free. A company with this kind of control is unstoppable. They are now extending their reach into media (MSNBC, MSN, etc), hardware, and anything else they see as profitable. With billions to play with there aren't many industries that can survive an onslaught by MS. The government really missed the boat when they didn't break them up this time. After numerous other anti-trust infringements MS now has pretty much free reign to do as they wish.
You mean amazing like SBC's Project Pronto, which wasted $1 billion on DSL that nobody wanted?
I've been using Solaris X86 since 2.4, and in my business since 2.5.1 (about '97), and it's great! Total source compatability, very few problems over 7+ years using it. Performance is acceptatble. Price is right, and support is excellent.