This constant harping on how great streaming is bugs me. While that may be true in urban cores, in the technological hinterlands we are lucky to *have any* Internet connections. When home, I have problems getting short YouTube videos to play at all (if they do play, I get long hangs every few seconds). Last time I looked my choices were AT&T DSL (I to not think they can provide Uverse to my home), Comcrap or Clear (which is what I have). I used to have AT&T for home phone, DSL and GoPhone cell service - I will *NEVER* willingly be an AT&T customer again if I can at all avoid it. And there is a reason I listed the 2nd choice as "Comcrap".
I have never had Netflix but if I were to sign up it would be only for their DVD service.
As is Ihave a large collection of DVDs in hand (TV shows, movies - lots of anime). So I do not find them "clunky" at all.
You don't own it, you only rent it and the "owners" can get make you pay again and again. I'm sure they (RIAA/MPAA/etc) would like if everything was pay-per-view and we could not even own our own thoughts.
I dread the day when IP lawyers realize our brains hold memories of the songs we've heard, the movies we've seen and the books we've read and demand we be made to forget it all or pay, pay, pay.
I deal in all 3 operating systems (Mac/Windows/Linux). Actually 4 as I have a number of Solaris systems to maintain (project underway to migrate to Linux). I have not used WIndows 7 very much; I used to use XP as my main desktop but the system got wiped after a minor infection (caught and fixed by the AV but that was not good enough) so I have been using my Mac laptop heavily. When I use Linux I am mostly in a terminal window running command line mode. One thing I like about the Mac is that I have a robust GUI but I'm just a terminal window away from Linux command line - something just not easy to do under WIndows.
I am currently using Snow Leopard but need to move to a new Mac Book Pro and Lion but where is the time... I must admit I am disturbed by the IOSifcation of the Mac and the slow death of Mac shareware and freeware (aided and abetted by the Mac App Store).
I too feel like Linux will be more important in my future as a desktop OS.
It seems appropriate that information just out has cast more than doubt on _Seduction of the Innocents_, the book and its author behind the censorship and restrictions on comic books in the 50s. Once again all the research keeps showing little if any connection between games/movies/TV and the propensity to violence but the "true believers" know otherwise. It'll again be "damn the evidence, full speed ahead -> censorship, criminal penalities, etc".
My solution was to leave AT&T for Clear. This was primarily due to my DSL speed dropping way, way below the 1.5 MBits (which I NEVER got near) I was paying for. I was also concerned by the, at the time, looming usage limits.
The wayward satellite is in (or near) geosychronous orbit (23+K miles up). The shuttle cannot reach that orbit, being limited to a couple of hundred miles altitude. Similarly, the anti-satellite weapons are only designed for low orbit satellites (spy satellites and other military targets).
Now, if we had ever gone ahead and build the interorbit taxi/transport as an adjunct to the space station (either robotic or manned), we would have a solution to the problem. Right now we are stuck.
Will never happen given the lobbying by the corporations and the wealthy PLUS probably more han 1/2 those in Congress who write and vote on this bill are already using tax havens.
I don't listen to music much and certainly don't download it so I object strongly to a "tax" on my ISP charges (already high as it) to pay for something I don't use and don't want.
As I rememeber, this has already been tested by drifting positrons down the length of the SLAC accelerator tube and measuring the beam deflection due to gravity (at least 20+ years ago).
I have an XP system that likes to zap the MBR/partition table on one of my external USB drives on a semi-regular basis. I fix it by booting a Linux LiveCD and using fdisk to reset the partition table since I know the drive has/had a single NTFS partition, I just create a new single partition of type 7 (NTFS) and voila, the disk re-mounts in XP and all is well again (actually this hasn't happened for awhile now but I have done it a number of times in the past).
I am also waiting for the Intellecual Property lawyers to figure out tht people can remember movies and songs. This is a clear copyright violation and so we should all be required to have our memories erased.
Here we go again! People, people, people... if this was going to happen it already would have happened. The univese has been bombarding the Earth with much higher energy particles since the beginning (cosmic rays) and the Earth is still here and a bunch of debris in an acretion ring about a black hole.
I went straight into graduate school, spent 8 1/4 years and finally got the PhD in physics. That got me my job at Fermilab where I basically went into computers while designing the Acnet control system. The computer work has continued to this day (currently on the Computer Security Team). I am an Applied Scientist at the laboratory but have not found the time/energy to do much (any) research work. I keep talking about joining an experiment but there is that ToDo list and the fact that I like to sleep on occasion...
Still, I think of myself as a physicist currently working on computer support and other computing aspects.
If I had to do it again... I still think I would do it but try to get out in less than 8 years. I'd also get back into research part-time after a few years away (I was a bit burned out after the thesis was done).
Works in a desert envornment where night skies are clear and humidity is low (little water vapor in the atmosphere to absord heat radiation).
Dig hole and put water in bottom During day cover and insulate (cover with a board and heap sand over) to reduce heat infiltration At night remove the cover to expose to the sky and radiate heat into space
I'm not sure of the time scales involved but you can make ice this way in the desert.
I have 34 at work (2x4100s and 1 4200 plus a 2000 which has been upgraded to 240GB) plus I have bought 3 for my home (2x2000s with 240GB each plus an 1100 with a 120GB disk). They are great. Robust, reliable and easy to use from either Windows, Linux or Macintosh (either OS9 or OS X).
Here is some of the informal "rules" I've adopted over many, many years of writing code:
* Declare _important_ variables on single lines with a comment describing the purpose of the comment (started with Fortran code continued into C and Perl)
* Preceed "blocks" of code by longer comment blocks (set off by blank comment lines) providing a description of what the code block or loop, or whatever is going to do. Particularly expand the explanation if the code is particularly tricky or clever.
* Document subroutines and functions by comment blocks at the head of the procedure. This might come before the procedure declaration or immediately thereafter. It details that the procedure is to do and may also describe the arguments. If the arguments to the procedure are declared (i.e. C), then declare each on a single line with a descriptive comment.
* Files/modules usually have a comment block at the top which tells what the file contains, why it exists, contains the copyright declaration and often has a section to record modification history (each one line with version #, date, initials and description of changes which might make the "line" into multiple lines).
* Comments in the code are indented along with the code.
Oh come on. As it is I can't stand those #%^&* pop-under ads. Versiontracker.com has gotten real bad lately with those to the extent that Netscape 4.79 under Windows goes berserk and consumes 100% CPU to no purpose. I really hate sites that are slow to load because the ads are all put up first and take forever to appear.
And now they want to hijack the last remaining part of my eyeballs and brain...
This suggestion has no appeal at all to me and has the wiff of the sleaziest software vendors I have had the misfortune to deal with in the past (commercial software, not shareware). While I understand coding and end time in shareware UNTIL THE PACKAGE IS REGISTERED, I will not buy time-limited software for myself or for my employer. I'm afraid I would apply the same rules to Open Source Software even if free.
One reason is that such end times have the distinctly Murphy-like ability to occur at precisely the worst possible time.
OK, to start with the radiation is used to sterilize the flys as others have pointed out. The flys are NOT genetically-engineered! The whole plan works on releasing massive numbers of sterilized flys into the environment such that they out-compete the non-sterile flys for mates and thus reduce the number of offspring which reduces the fly population, etc. etc.
This is not the first time that this has been done. The first such project I remember was the screwworm in the Southern US about 40 or so years ago where the exact same plan was used (release hordes of radiation-sterilized screwworms) with great success.
I got my replacement drive from IBM, a Deskstar 60GXP model number IC35L060AVER07-0. The package lists the capacity as 61.5GB and a manufacturing date of August 2001. I have ordered another ACARD IDE-to-SCSI adapter and will install it and the drive in my last external box as soon as it comes...
I am current awaiting the return of a drive from IBM. A Deskstar 75GXP model DTLA-307045 (46GB,
7200rpm) originally bought from Makami Systems
(since gone defunct) in an external box with an IDSC21E IDE-to-SCSI adapter for use on my Macintosh. After less than a year, the disk drive died and was replaced by Makami. After about another yearish, the new drive has died and I RMAed it to IBM (I really like IBM's Web site for doing this and keying off the S/N, makes it very easy to return items). I have replaced the
drive with a Maxtor 60GB drive and an ACARD IDE-to-SCSI card (since the original would not handle disk sizes over 32GB properly). When the IBM drive comes back, I plan to get another ACARD and install the drive in another external box I have already.
So I'll shortly be on my 3rd repetition of the IBM Deskstar 75GXP.
Hydrogen burns very hot but (1) it requires mixing with considerable air to produce an explosion and (2) being very light it tends
to burn "up", i.e. to rise. The plane would be
fueled with liquid hydrogen at 20 degrees K
(only Helium liquifies at a lower temperature) and would evaporate quickly into a gas. Unlike the current JPx fuels, the hydrogen disipates rapidly and would stick to stuff and burn. The hydrogen would burn and disipate rapidly and
leave behind only those pre-existing materials which have been ignited.
One problem is that even liquid hydrogen is very light (very low density) and so requires very large tankage. The Shuttle's external fuel tank is mostly a hydrogen tank (something like 80% of the volume?) with a surprisingly small liquid
oxygen tank at the top. I have seen a liquid hydrogen bubble chamber being filled and marveled at the droplets of liquid hydrogen entering the chamber and just floating down (drifting really, not falling like water droplets do).
Slashdot Mirror
This constant harping on how great streaming is bugs me. While that may be true in urban cores,
in the technological hinterlands we are lucky to *have any* Internet connections. When home,
I have problems getting short YouTube videos to play at all (if they do play, I get long hangs
every few seconds). Last time I looked my choices were AT&T DSL (I to not think they can provide
Uverse to my home), Comcrap or Clear (which is what I have). I used to have AT&T for home phone,
DSL and GoPhone cell service - I will *NEVER* willingly be an AT&T customer again if I can at all avoid
it. And there is a reason I listed the 2nd choice as "Comcrap".
I have never had Netflix but if I were to sign up it would be only for their DVD service.
As is Ihave a large collection of DVDs in hand (TV shows, movies - lots of anime). So I do not
find them "clunky" at all.
Rant On.
You don't own it, you only rent it and the "owners" can get make you pay again and again.
I'm sure they (RIAA/MPAA/etc) would like if everything was pay-per-view and we could
not even own our own thoughts.
I dread the day when IP lawyers realize our brains hold memories of the songs we've
heard, the movies we've seen and the books we've read and demand we be made to
forget it all or pay, pay, pay.
Rant Off.
I deal in all 3 operating systems (Mac/Windows/Linux). Actually 4 as I have a number of Solaris systems
to maintain (project underway to migrate to Linux). I have not used WIndows 7 very much; I used to use
XP as my main desktop but the system got wiped after a minor infection (caught and fixed by the AV but
that was not good enough) so I have been using my Mac laptop heavily. When I use Linux I am mostly
in a terminal window running command line mode. One thing I like about the Mac is that I have a robust
GUI but I'm just a terminal window away from Linux command line - something just not easy to do under
WIndows.
I am currently using Snow Leopard but need to move to a new Mac Book Pro and Lion but where is the
time... I must admit I am disturbed by the IOSifcation of the Mac and the slow death of Mac shareware
and freeware (aided and abetted by the Mac App Store).
I too feel like Linux will be more important in my future as a desktop OS.
Here we go again...
It seems appropriate that information just out has cast more than doubt on _Seduction of the Innocents_, the book and its
author behind the censorship and restrictions on comic books in the 50s. Once again all the research keeps showing little
if any connection between games/movies/TV and the propensity to violence but the "true believers" know otherwise. It'll
again be "damn the evidence, full speed ahead -> censorship, criminal penalities, etc".
My solution was to leave AT&T for Clear.
This was primarily due to my DSL speed dropping way, way below the
1.5 MBits (which I NEVER got near) I was paying for.
I was also concerned by the, at the time, looming usage limits.
Where is Judge Green when we need him?
Some of us are stuck with "braodband" in the 1.5Mbps and movie streaming is
just not an option. May the telcom industry go stuff itself!
The wayward satellite is in (or near) geosychronous orbit (23+K miles up). The shuttle cannot
reach that orbit, being limited to a couple of hundred miles altitude. Similarly, the anti-satellite
weapons are only designed for low orbit satellites (spy satellites and other military targets).
Now, if we had ever gone ahead and build the interorbit taxi/transport as an adjunct to
the space station (either robotic or manned), we would have a solution to the problem.
Right now we are stuck.
Will never happen given the lobbying by the corporations and the wealthy PLUS probably more han 1/2 those in Congress who write and vote on this bill are already using tax havens.
I don't listen to music much and certainly don't download it so I object strongly to a "tax" on my ISP charges (already high as it) to pay for something I don't use and don't want.
As I rememeber, this has already been tested by drifting positrons down the length of the SLAC accelerator tube and measuring the beam deflection due to gravity (at least 20+ years ago).
Yes, anti-matter does fall down just like matter.
I have an XP system that likes to zap the MBR/partition table on one of my external USB drives on a semi-regular basis. I fix it by booting a Linux LiveCD and using fdisk to reset the partition table since I know the drive has/had a single NTFS partition, I just create a new single partition of type 7 (NTFS) and voila, the disk re-mounts in XP and all is well again (actually this hasn't happened for awhile now but I have done it a number of times in the past).
I am also waiting for the Intellecual Property lawyers to figure out tht people can remember movies and songs. This is a clear copyright violation and so we should all be required to have our memories erased.
Here we go again! People, people, people... if this was going to happen it already would have happened. The univese has been bombarding the Earth with much higher energy particles since the beginning (cosmic rays) and the Earth is still here and a bunch of debris in an acretion ring about a black hole.
I went straight into graduate school, spent 8 1/4 years and finally got the PhD in physics. That got me my job at Fermilab where I basically went into computers while designing the Acnet control system. The computer work has continued to this day (currently on the Computer Security Team). I am an Applied Scientist at the laboratory but have not found the time/energy to do much (any) research work. I keep talking about joining an experiment but there is that ToDo list and the fact that I like to sleep on occasion...
Still, I think of myself as a physicist currently working on computer support and other computing aspects.
If I had to do it again... I still think I would do it but try to get out in less than 8 years.
I'd also get back into research part-time after a few years away (I was a bit burned out after
the thesis was done).
Works in a desert envornment where night skies are clear and humidity is low (little water vapor in the atmosphere to absord heat radiation).
Dig hole and put water in bottom
During day cover and insulate (cover with a board and heap sand over) to reduce heat infiltration
At night remove the cover to expose to the sky and radiate heat into space
I'm not sure of the time scales involved but you
can make ice this way in the desert.
1. Pop-up ads should just die, die, die
2. Web pages that are so full of ads that finding
the content is nearly impossible (think RealPlayer).
3. Web pages slow to load because the ads are servered off slow/overloaded machines.
Pretty much otherwise I don't mind the ads and sometimes find them useful.
DoubleClick is more a pain than anything else.
I have 34 at work (2x4100s and 1 4200 plus a 2000 which has been upgraded to 240GB) plus I have bought 3 for my home (2x2000s with 240GB each plus an 1100 with a 120GB disk). They are great. Robust, reliable and easy to use from either Windows, Linux or Macintosh (either OS9 or OS X).
I wonder if any mention of evolution is automatically elminated? :-)
Here is some of the informal "rules" I've
adopted over many, many years of writing code:
* Declare _important_ variables on single lines
with a comment describing the purpose of the
comment (started with Fortran code continued into
C and Perl)
* Preceed "blocks" of code by longer comment blocks (set off by blank comment lines) providing a description of what the code block or loop,
or whatever is going to do. Particularly expand the explanation if the code is particularly tricky or clever.
* Document subroutines and functions by comment
blocks at the head of the procedure. This might
come before the procedure declaration or
immediately thereafter. It details that the procedure is to do and may also describe the
arguments. If the arguments to the procedure
are declared (i.e. C), then declare each on a
single line with a descriptive comment.
* Files/modules usually have a comment block at
the top which tells what the file contains,
why it exists, contains the copyright declaration and often has a section to record modification
history (each one line with version #, date,
initials and description of changes which might
make the "line" into multiple lines).
* Comments in the code are indented along with
the code.
Oh come on. As it is I can't stand those #%^&* pop-under ads. Versiontracker.com has gotten real bad lately with those to the extent that Netscape 4.79 under Windows goes berserk and consumes 100% CPU to no purpose. I really hate sites that are slow to load because the ads are all put up first and take forever to appear.
And now they want to hijack the last remaining part of my eyeballs and brain...
No, no, no...
This suggestion has no appeal at all to me and has the wiff of the sleaziest software vendors I have had the misfortune to deal with in the past (commercial software, not shareware). While I understand coding and end time in shareware UNTIL THE PACKAGE IS REGISTERED, I will not buy time-limited software for myself or for my employer. I'm afraid I would apply the same rules to Open Source Software even if free.
One reason is that such end times have the distinctly Murphy-like ability to occur at precisely the worst possible time.
Yeesh.
OK, to start with the radiation is used to sterilize the flys as others have pointed out. The flys are NOT genetically-engineered! The whole plan works on releasing massive numbers of sterilized flys into the environment such that they out-compete the non-sterile flys for mates and thus reduce the number of offspring which reduces the fly population, etc. etc.
This is not the first time that this has been done. The first such project I remember was the screwworm in the Southern US about 40 or so years ago where the exact same plan was used (release hordes of radiation-sterilized screwworms) with
great success.
I got my replacement drive from IBM, a Deskstar 60GXP model number IC35L060AVER07-0. The package lists the capacity as 61.5GB and a manufacturing date of August 2001. I have ordered another ACARD IDE-to-SCSI adapter and will install it and the drive in my last external box as soon as it comes...
I am current awaiting the return of a drive from IBM. A Deskstar 75GXP model DTLA-307045 (46GB,
7200rpm) originally bought from Makami Systems
(since gone defunct) in an external box with an IDSC21E IDE-to-SCSI adapter for use on my Macintosh. After less than a year, the disk drive died and was replaced by Makami. After about another yearish, the new drive has died and I RMAed it to IBM (I really like IBM's Web site for doing this and keying off the S/N, makes it very easy to return items). I have replaced the
drive with a Maxtor 60GB drive and an ACARD IDE-to-SCSI card (since the original would not handle disk sizes over 32GB properly). When the IBM drive comes back, I plan to get another ACARD and install the drive in another external box I have already.
So I'll shortly be on my 3rd repetition of the IBM Deskstar 75GXP.
Hydrogen burns very hot but (1) it requires mixing with considerable air to produce an explosion and (2) being very light it tends
to burn "up", i.e. to rise. The plane would be
fueled with liquid hydrogen at 20 degrees K
(only Helium liquifies at a lower temperature) and would evaporate quickly into a gas. Unlike the current JPx fuels, the hydrogen disipates rapidly and would stick to stuff and burn. The hydrogen would burn and disipate rapidly and
leave behind only those pre-existing materials which have been ignited.
One problem is that even liquid hydrogen is very light (very low density) and so requires very large tankage. The Shuttle's external fuel tank is mostly a hydrogen tank (something like 80% of the volume?) with a surprisingly small liquid
oxygen tank at the top. I have seen a liquid hydrogen bubble chamber being filled and marveled at the droplets of liquid hydrogen entering the chamber and just floating down (drifting really, not falling like water droplets do).