>>Second, this *isn't* "unalterably" modified. Not by any means. All you have to do is plug it into a wall outlet and its how it was advertised.
OK, I'll buy it. Oh wait, planes don't have outlets...
I don't know about you, but if I buy a laptop it's so I can use it places where you can't have a desktop. In a car, in a plane, out on the campus quad, constantly walking around, etc. So let me admend my statement: It will run at full speed, but only when connected to an uninterruptable power supply that is the computer's sole source of power. That is roughly analogous to my use of a plugged-in laptop.
I'd also like to say that your HDD manufacturer analogy is false. There is a well-known and accepted standard for what kilo-, mega-, giga-, etc. means. Only in computers will you find that kilo- isn't 1000 and giga- isn't 1 billion. Here, in my mind, it's the places where kilo- is used as 1024 that's wrong (in a factual, not a moral, sense).
On the other hand, if I say "here's a computer with a 2.2 GHz processor", there should be no reason to believe it runs otherwise unless it is *explicitly* stated. Dell's site does have the info, but it's not even on the main ordering page; you have to click "Learn more", then on the "Details" tab, then read a footnote before there's any mention that it runs slower. That doesn't classify as reasonable notice in my book. There's no mention on the main page that the chip will act any differently than normal.
It's as if you're buying a car that will only exceed 25 mph every other day (so you're less likely to be hurt in a crash), but this information isn't even hinted at unless you explicitly request detailed information on the engine. Now, there are some people who would request specific information on the engine, and if this was my first car buy, I would too. But let's say you've bought very similar cars from the same company (or even similar cars from different companies, but those cars are made form the same parts) on multiple occasions. Eventually you stop looking at the detailed specs, especially because they are not much more informative than what you can get from the main page. (The detailed view regularily only provides three useful pieces of information no present on the main page: the BUS speed, the L2 cache, and if it has SIMD extensions.) Your prior experience is that the detailed specs are almost worthless. I would argue that the dealer was negligant in informing you of an aspect of the car that would otherwise be completely unexpected.
I'm sure you can figure it out. (And I'm surpried you didn't comment on the "aa" typo...) But in case you can, here, I'll go over it again in language you may be able to understand:
"So would not care if I sold you a computer that I said came with a 2.2 GHz chip but that was set to run at only 2 MHz? You also cannot change that setting to make it run faster. After all, I didn't lie to you; it has a 2.2 GHz processor in it. I mean, I kind of doubt you ask "yes, it has a 2.2 GHz processor, but does it RUN at 2.2 GHz?" when you're buying a computer."
There. I removed most of the big words for you. You may want to look up "probably" though.
Ah, but there's a difference. Laws that punish misbehavior rarely restrict freedom. For instance, few people (at least outside of/.) would argue that pure copyright laws are unjust. They serve a very valid and necessary purpose: protecting someone else from stealing your work and thereby depriving you of what you should be earning. So legislators limited our "freedoms" (if you want to call distributing someone else's work a freedom) by making it illegal to distribute someone else's work. it addressed the problem without overstepping it.
Now look at the DMCA. This was again intended to curb distribution of pirated material, but it does so by making it illegal to carry out activities that often lead to illegal distribution. This again would be fine if the only reason to do what it makes illegal was to pirate things, but that's not the case. The DMCA was an *overreaction* to the problem of piracy, restricting rights that are not related to any wrong activity. For instance, I cannot use a clip from a DVD in a presentation I am doing--something that SHOULD be protected under fair use laws--without breaking the DVD's encryption, and thus violating the DMCA.
Overreacting to the problem in this example was just as bad as the problem they were trying to stop. This is even more true in the case of the DMCA as it would have only taken one small clause to limit its coverage to further stopping piracy. Just add a "This act is by no means meant to limit fair use rights; such use should not result in the penalties set forth in this act." That should suffice.
Why is sarcasm so hard to spot when it's in print? I've taken many printed things seriously that weren't meant to be, but I at least saw that that was just a joke...
Regardless of this being flamebait, he's right, at least if this site is to be believed: only 18 of the 93 people on the list (assuming I counted right; in any case it's a very small portion) are democrats. Furthermore, only two of the 25 worst offenders are democrats. The rest are republicans.
So by your logic you wouldn't mind if I sold you aa computer that was advertised at 2.2 gHz but that was permanently and unalterably (at least w/o doing warranty-voiding and probably difficult alterations) underclocked to 2 mHz? After all, I didn't lie to you; it has a 2.2 gHz processor in it. I mean, I kind of doubt you ask "yes, it has a 2.2 gHz processor, but does it RUN at 2.2 gHz?" when you're ordering.
That wasn't the point of the original post; that point was that DVD burner sales would never "take off"; meaning be accepted by a large portion of the country. If average Joe can't even figure out what kind of media to buy, DVD writers won't suceed. At least with VCRs you go out and know what you buy: a big black boxey thing that says "VHS" on it; then you can put it into the VCR and press record. And, you can take that VHS tape and play it anywhere. What happens when people start using whatever format is least compatable (I believe DVD+RW, but I'm not wholly sure) and can't play it on their friends (or their own) player? They'll start bad-mouthing DVD burners and won't discriminate between "Oh, well you can but a DVD-R, but don't get a DVD+RW."
That occurred to me after I submitted my last post. I recall playing the Oregon Trail in elementary school on CD stored in one of those permanent cases. I remember thinking it was a good idea, and it was too bad few devices had it.
(Though still, they're a bit bulky when you get a lot; I have three CD wallets with ~200 CDs in them I can comfortably carry around with me; I imagine 200 CD jewel cases would be decidedly less convienent. And you couldn't have CD changers with more than maybe 6 CDs.)
>>Well, this drive negates the multiple format problem.
It lessens the problem, but doesn't negate it. You second sentence says it all: "Write whatever format you need at the moment." Well? How do you you decide which format you want/need? More to the point, how does average Joe decide which format to use?
>>I think DVD's suck. They can get scratched. Nuff said.
What would you propose? VHS tapes and other analog devices wear out (and if you scratch a record you distort the sound; at least with CDs/DVDs small scratches won't do anything) and hard drives are too bulky (and fail anyway). A memory-based device (a smart card-type thing) would be obscenely expensive. Holographic storage is still a ways away. Do you have any better suggestions? (I guess what I'm trying to say is that DVDs are the best we have for now.)
>>I rather expect that you have seeing that, unlike SIGTERM, a BSOD is NOT an application crash. A BSOD is the equivalent of a "kernel panic".
I am aware of that; that's why I added "(and other application crashes)" in there. In retrospect, I perhaps should not have put BSODs in there.
>>No responsible Linux advocate claims that Linux applications don't crash... but when they DO crash, proper memory protection will prevent the application from crashing the system unless something is SERIOUSLY misconfigured or there is an incipient hardware failure.
Actually, I have had no OS freezes with either Mandrake or XP; I'm very impressed with both. I have had more application crashes under Linux though. (To be fair, I'm not sure if Mandrake is acting better than Red Hat or not; I'm pretty sure it is.) XP has been extremely stable for me.
>>But you need several books just to use Linux. And a $35 dollar book is just not enough.
My book as well as the man pages and more than a few internet sites has kept me doing most things I need to.
>>Besides that material is always old.
My book came with RH 7.3, at the time the latest release. (I'm now on Mandrake BTW)
>>Red Hat 8.0 sells in the store for $150
Typical users have no need to pay nearly that much.
>>Besides, my mom can use Windows without reading a book. How many of your mothers and fathers use Linux?
As I said in response to the other poster, I was merely correcting the statement that you need an expensive broadband connection to obtain Linux. I was not disputing the point that Windows is quite a bit easier to use. (And to tell you the truth, I've had more unexpected SIGTERMs under KDE than I have had BSODs (and other application crashes)under XP.)
I was merely addressing the statement that Linux needs expensive bandwidth to get, not the ease of use issue. If it weren't for the free, legal copy of WinXP I use (dual boot with Mandrake 9 and XP), Windows would have been a lot more expensive than Linux.
I get annoyed at "open source elitism" and mostly unjustified MS bashing too, but I feel I do need to respond to this:
"it's primarily available and supported with an expensive connection to the Internet"
How do you get Windows? Go out and spend >$100 bucks for it? ($100 for the upgrade to Home edition; add a hundred more for each of the professional and full version.) I got an 1100-page book with Linux for $35, no broadband required. Simple visit to Amazon or B&N or probably several other places. (You'll pay more at a real store.)
I did run acroess that title, but for some reason I did not read it. It's very possible that no local libraries had a copy (in fact, a run of Penn State's library search engine yields no results, so this was almost certianly the case). As it was not a huge paper in general (just for a high school class, albeit a *major* paper for high school), I didn't feel compelled to go looking for tons of secondary sources when Penn State had the Commission's Report. As this report is the basis for most of the information out there on the Challenger, it was by far and away my biggest source.
One book that may be of particular interest to/.ers is Richard Feynman's "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" Feynman was one of the members of the commission that investigated the accident, and he gives his story in the second half of the book. Feynman is a fun guy and the book is a very good and easy read.
In general, there are certain sacrifices that you have to make in terms of safety. Having to cart a one-piece booster just wouldn't have worked, period. This is especially true at that time because NASA was running another launch pad in Califiornia at an Air Force base (I forget which, and also forget if it was ever used) in addition to the one at Cape Canaveral. I suspect a barge in that case would have necessitated a trip all the way through the Panama canal to get between the launch sites. My point is that you can't always take the safest option. However, that doesn't mean you ignore blantant safety issues. NASA was negligant in its inaction concerning a joint redesign. (And this is true legally as well as IMHO; the families of the astronauts I believe got a fairly substantial amount of money in a wrongful death suit, though I forget if it was settled out of court.) The decision to launch in cold weather was, in my mind, far secondary to the lack of any progress regarding the design of the joint.
If anyone is curious, my report is online as a PDF and HTML. The PDF version has a couple more pages that I didn't splice into the HTML file, including a VERY interesting and revealing memo starting on page 40. Try to ignore the numerous technical errors (I have a couple dozen typos and horrible tense consistancy). I wish that I had had the time to proofread it, but it was too long for the time I had avaliable. But I don't think ym teacher bothered to read it anyway, because he made no comments on it.
It's easy to be critical; hindsight is 20/20. I think NASA goofed badly with the Challenger, both in not requiring a redesign of the joint and by launching in the cold weather. I did a report on this for which I read through the Presidential report on the disaster, and NASA goofed on both these counts and should have seen the incredible danger in both these decisions. In both, people within NASA and Thiokol were continually raising red flags over the decisions, but nothing was done.
On the other hand, the Apollo 13 incident was almost unforceable. In retrospect, it should have been prevented, since it was agin caused by a design change that wasn't throughly implemented. (It was caused by a change in voltage, causing a thermister made for the older, lower voltage to fuse shut. This then didn't turn off the heating elements, which led to the insulation on the wires inside the O2 tank to melt off. It then sparked during a cryostir.) However, the Apollo system was so complex that it's easy to see how the change was overlooked for the tanks, and it's possible to forgive NASA for it. The rest of the chain in the problem was pretty much unpreventable and unpredictable.
Apollo 1 was somewhere in between. While the problems related to the fire (the inward opening hatch, the pure O2 environment) were forgivable, the whole capsule had problems which people had been complaining about. Gus Grissom had once hung a lemon from the top of the craft to show what he felt about it. So in general, NASA should have been more through with their safety concerns.
>>I always believed it was reckless cost cutting by a faceless multi-national
Yes, but more than that, is was a lack of communication between sections. I forget exactly what caused this incident, but it was four or five different problems that all went wrong at once. Had any of them not had problems, thye porbably would have been closer to a Three-Mile Island scare rather than any actual damage occuring. But two of their safety systems were off-line for maintainance, and a third and fourth were poorly designed. Something like that.
It's not as simple as you make it out to be. NASA's Marshall Center applied a significant amount of pressure to Morton Thiokol (the contractors who designed and manufactured the solid rocket boosters) to give them the go-ahead. See, the contractors have absolute veto authority; if they want NASA to not launch, NASA can't do anything about it. However, NASA was under a TON of schedule pressure to launch. (There's even a conspiracy theory that Reagan ordered NASA to launch so he could call McAuliffe in orbit during the State of the Union Address scheduled for that evening, but there's absolutely NO evidence that this is true.) NASA passed off that pressure onto the management Morton Thiokol, who unfortunatly buckled under it.
Using a pure O2 environment simplifies things tremendously. The bigest thing is that when the craft is in space, it leaks. Period. You can't stop it. So they need to replace the air as the mission progresses. Running in a pure O2 environment allowed them to operate at a lower pressure, which means that they needed to take up less air with them, which meant a lighter capsule, which is very good.
After the Apollo 1 fire, they switched to a mixed atmosphere envrionment on the ground, but only replace the leaking O2 in space. So after a while in orbit, they are actually back to a pure O2 environment. This saves the craft from having to carry replacement O2 and N2, while not really risking safety. (Fire doesn't spread well in space due to lack of convection.)
>>then how is this really much different than writing on a graphics tablet?
Because you then have the digital copy as well as the original. I'd find myself printing most of the stuff I'd use a tablet for anyway, which would be far less quality. (I've mentioned in the past my hatred for having to read from computer screens for more than short periods of time.)
YOu still haven't solved the problem. Try drawing in paint|photoshop|gimp|etc. as you would with a pen/pencil. As in, make a stroke in the upper left of the page, lift the mouse, and make a stroke in the lower-right corner. Not quite what you want, huh? You'll just get the end of the first stroke being the same point as the start as the second; the second won't appear in the bottom right corner.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually that depends on whether the poster intended the post to be a criticism of MS; I suspect this is the case, which would make it sarcasm.
>>Second, this *isn't* "unalterably" modified. Not by any means. All you have to do is plug it into a wall outlet and its how it was advertised.
OK, I'll buy it. Oh wait, planes don't have outlets...
I don't know about you, but if I buy a laptop it's so I can use it places where you can't have a desktop. In a car, in a plane, out on the campus quad, constantly walking around, etc. So let me admend my statement: It will run at full speed, but only when connected to an uninterruptable power supply that is the computer's sole source of power. That is roughly analogous to my use of a plugged-in laptop.
I'd also like to say that your HDD manufacturer analogy is false. There is a well-known and accepted standard for what kilo-, mega-, giga-, etc. means. Only in computers will you find that kilo- isn't 1000 and giga- isn't 1 billion. Here, in my mind, it's the places where kilo- is used as 1024 that's wrong (in a factual, not a moral, sense).
On the other hand, if I say "here's a computer with a 2.2 GHz processor", there should be no reason to believe it runs otherwise unless it is *explicitly* stated. Dell's site does have the info, but it's not even on the main ordering page; you have to click "Learn more", then on the "Details" tab, then read a footnote before there's any mention that it runs slower. That doesn't classify as reasonable notice in my book. There's no mention on the main page that the chip will act any differently than normal.
It's as if you're buying a car that will only exceed 25 mph every other day (so you're less likely to be hurt in a crash), but this information isn't even hinted at unless you explicitly request detailed information on the engine. Now, there are some people who would request specific information on the engine, and if this was my first car buy, I would too. But let's say you've bought very similar cars from the same company (or even similar cars from different companies, but those cars are made form the same parts) on multiple occasions. Eventually you stop looking at the detailed specs, especially because they are not much more informative than what you can get from the main page. (The detailed view regularily only provides three useful pieces of information no present on the main page: the BUS speed, the L2 cache, and if it has SIMD extensions.) Your prior experience is that the detailed specs are almost worthless. I would argue that the dealer was negligant in informing you of an aspect of the car that would otherwise be completely unexpected.
I'm sure you can figure it out. (And I'm surpried you didn't comment on the "aa" typo...) But in case you can, here, I'll go over it again in language you may be able to understand:
"So would not care if I sold you a computer that I said came with a 2.2 GHz chip but that was set to run at only 2 MHz? You also cannot change that setting to make it run faster. After all, I didn't lie to you; it has a 2.2 GHz processor in it. I mean, I kind of doubt you ask "yes, it has a 2.2 GHz processor, but does it RUN at 2.2 GHz?" when you're buying a computer."
There. I removed most of the big words for you. You may want to look up "probably" though.
Ah, but there's a difference. Laws that punish misbehavior rarely restrict freedom. For instance, few people (at least outside of /.) would argue that pure copyright laws are unjust. They serve a very valid and necessary purpose: protecting someone else from stealing your work and thereby depriving you of what you should be earning. So legislators limited our "freedoms" (if you want to call distributing someone else's work a freedom) by making it illegal to distribute someone else's work. it addressed the problem without overstepping it.
Now look at the DMCA. This was again intended to curb distribution of pirated material, but it does so by making it illegal to carry out activities that often lead to illegal distribution. This again would be fine if the only reason to do what it makes illegal was to pirate things, but that's not the case. The DMCA was an *overreaction* to the problem of piracy, restricting rights that are not related to any wrong activity. For instance, I cannot use a clip from a DVD in a presentation I am doing--something that SHOULD be protected under fair use laws--without breaking the DVD's encryption, and thus violating the DMCA.
Overreacting to the problem in this example was just as bad as the problem they were trying to stop. This is even more true in the case of the DMCA as it would have only taken one small clause to limit its coverage to further stopping piracy. Just add a "This act is by no means meant to limit fair use rights; such use should not result in the penalties set forth in this act." That should suffice.
Why is sarcasm so hard to spot when it's in print? I've taken many printed things seriously that weren't meant to be, but I at least saw that that was just a joke...
Regardless of this being flamebait, he's right, at least if this site is to be believed: only 18 of the 93 people on the list (assuming I counted right; in any case it's a very small portion) are democrats. Furthermore, only two of the 25 worst offenders are democrats. The rest are republicans.
So by your logic you wouldn't mind if I sold you aa computer that was advertised at 2.2 gHz but that was permanently and unalterably (at least w/o doing warranty-voiding and probably difficult alterations) underclocked to 2 mHz? After all, I didn't lie to you; it has a 2.2 gHz processor in it. I mean, I kind of doubt you ask "yes, it has a 2.2 gHz processor, but does it RUN at 2.2 gHz?" when you're ordering.
That wasn't the point of the original post; that point was that DVD burner sales would never "take off"; meaning be accepted by a large portion of the country. If average Joe can't even figure out what kind of media to buy, DVD writers won't suceed. At least with VCRs you go out and know what you buy: a big black boxey thing that says "VHS" on it; then you can put it into the VCR and press record. And, you can take that VHS tape and play it anywhere. What happens when people start using whatever format is least compatable (I believe DVD+RW, but I'm not wholly sure) and can't play it on their friends (or their own) player? They'll start bad-mouthing DVD burners and won't discriminate between "Oh, well you can but a DVD-R, but don't get a DVD+RW."
That occurred to me after I submitted my last post. I recall playing the Oregon Trail in elementary school on CD stored in one of those permanent cases. I remember thinking it was a good idea, and it was too bad few devices had it.
(Though still, they're a bit bulky when you get a lot; I have three CD wallets with ~200 CDs in them I can comfortably carry around with me; I imagine 200 CD jewel cases would be decidedly less convienent. And you couldn't have CD changers with more than maybe 6 CDs.)
>>Well, this drive negates the multiple format problem.
It lessens the problem, but doesn't negate it. You second sentence says it all: "Write whatever format you need at the moment." Well? How do you you decide which format you want/need? More to the point, how does average Joe decide which format to use?
>>I think DVD's suck. They can get scratched. Nuff said.
What would you propose? VHS tapes and other analog devices wear out (and if you scratch a record you distort the sound; at least with CDs/DVDs small scratches won't do anything) and hard drives are too bulky (and fail anyway). A memory-based device (a smart card-type thing) would be obscenely expensive. Holographic storage is still a ways away. Do you have any better suggestions? (I guess what I'm trying to say is that DVDs are the best we have for now.)
You're kidding me... How did you figure that out?
On a serious note, Scott Adams writes in one of his books as a note below that strip that it's one of his most popular.
>>I rather expect that you have seeing that, unlike SIGTERM, a BSOD is NOT an application crash. A BSOD is the equivalent of a "kernel panic".
... but when they DO crash, proper memory protection will prevent the application from crashing the system unless something is SERIOUSLY misconfigured or there is an incipient hardware failure.
I am aware of that; that's why I added "(and other application crashes)" in there. In retrospect, I perhaps should not have put BSODs in there.
>>No responsible Linux advocate claims that Linux applications don't crash
Actually, I have had no OS freezes with either Mandrake or XP; I'm very impressed with both. I have had more application crashes under Linux though. (To be fair, I'm not sure if Mandrake is acting better than Red Hat or not; I'm pretty sure it is.) XP has been extremely stable for me.
>>But you need several books just to use Linux. And a $35 dollar book is just not enough.
My book as well as the man pages and more than a few internet sites has kept me doing most things I need to.
>>Besides that material is always old.
My book came with RH 7.3, at the time the latest release. (I'm now on Mandrake BTW)
>>Red Hat 8.0 sells in the store for $150
Typical users have no need to pay nearly that much.
>>Besides, my mom can use Windows without reading a book. How many of your mothers and fathers use Linux?
As I said in response to the other poster, I was merely correcting the statement that you need an expensive broadband connection to obtain Linux. I was not disputing the point that Windows is quite a bit easier to use. (And to tell you the truth, I've had more unexpected SIGTERMs under KDE than I have had BSODs (and other application crashes)under XP.)
I was merely addressing the statement that Linux needs expensive bandwidth to get, not the ease of use issue. If it weren't for the free, legal copy of WinXP I use (dual boot with Mandrake 9 and XP), Windows would have been a lot more expensive than Linux.
I get annoyed at "open source elitism" and mostly unjustified MS bashing too, but I feel I do need to respond to this:
"it's primarily available and supported with an expensive connection to the Internet"
How do you get Windows? Go out and spend >$100 bucks for it? ($100 for the upgrade to Home edition; add a hundred more for each of the professional and full version.) I got an 1100-page book with Linux for $35, no broadband required. Simple visit to Amazon or B&N or probably several other places. (You'll pay more at a real store.)
I did run acroess that title, but for some reason I did not read it. It's very possible that no local libraries had a copy (in fact, a run of Penn State's library search engine yields no results, so this was almost certianly the case). As it was not a huge paper in general (just for a high school class, albeit a *major* paper for high school), I didn't feel compelled to go looking for tons of secondary sources when Penn State had the Commission's Report. As this report is the basis for most of the information out there on the Challenger, it was by far and away my biggest source.
/.ers is Richard Feynman's "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" Feynman was one of the members of the commission that investigated the accident, and he gives his story in the second half of the book. Feynman is a fun guy and the book is a very good and easy read.
One book that may be of particular interest to
In general, there are certain sacrifices that you have to make in terms of safety. Having to cart a one-piece booster just wouldn't have worked, period. This is especially true at that time because NASA was running another launch pad in Califiornia at an Air Force base (I forget which, and also forget if it was ever used) in addition to the one at Cape Canaveral. I suspect a barge in that case would have necessitated a trip all the way through the Panama canal to get between the launch sites. My point is that you can't always take the safest option. However, that doesn't mean you ignore blantant safety issues. NASA was negligant in its inaction concerning a joint redesign. (And this is true legally as well as IMHO; the families of the astronauts I believe got a fairly substantial amount of money in a wrongful death suit, though I forget if it was settled out of court.) The decision to launch in cold weather was, in my mind, far secondary to the lack of any progress regarding the design of the joint.
If anyone is curious, my report is online as a PDF and HTML. The PDF version has a couple more pages that I didn't splice into the HTML file, including a VERY interesting and revealing memo starting on page 40. Try to ignore the numerous technical errors (I have a couple dozen typos and horrible tense consistancy). I wish that I had had the time to proofread it, but it was too long for the time I had avaliable. But I don't think ym teacher bothered to read it anyway, because he made no comments on it.
>>looking back I realized I was too critical
It's easy to be critical; hindsight is 20/20. I think NASA goofed badly with the Challenger, both in not requiring a redesign of the joint and by launching in the cold weather. I did a report on this for which I read through the Presidential report on the disaster, and NASA goofed on both these counts and should have seen the incredible danger in both these decisions. In both, people within NASA and Thiokol were continually raising red flags over the decisions, but nothing was done.
On the other hand, the Apollo 13 incident was almost unforceable. In retrospect, it should have been prevented, since it was agin caused by a design change that wasn't throughly implemented. (It was caused by a change in voltage, causing a thermister made for the older, lower voltage to fuse shut. This then didn't turn off the heating elements, which led to the insulation on the wires inside the O2 tank to melt off. It then sparked during a cryostir.) However, the Apollo system was so complex that it's easy to see how the change was overlooked for the tanks, and it's possible to forgive NASA for it. The rest of the chain in the problem was pretty much unpreventable and unpredictable.
Apollo 1 was somewhere in between. While the problems related to the fire (the inward opening hatch, the pure O2 environment) were forgivable, the whole capsule had problems which people had been complaining about. Gus Grissom had once hung a lemon from the top of the craft to show what he felt about it. So in general, NASA should have been more through with their safety concerns.
>>I always believed it was reckless cost cutting by a faceless multi-national
Yes, but more than that, is was a lack of communication between sections. I forget exactly what caused this incident, but it was four or five different problems that all went wrong at once. Had any of them not had problems, thye porbably would have been closer to a Three-Mile Island scare rather than any actual damage occuring. But two of their safety systems were off-line for maintainance, and a third and fourth were poorly designed. Something like that.
It's not as simple as you make it out to be. NASA's Marshall Center applied a significant amount of pressure to Morton Thiokol (the contractors who designed and manufactured the solid rocket boosters) to give them the go-ahead. See, the contractors have absolute veto authority; if they want NASA to not launch, NASA can't do anything about it. However, NASA was under a TON of schedule pressure to launch. (There's even a conspiracy theory that Reagan ordered NASA to launch so he could call McAuliffe in orbit during the State of the Union Address scheduled for that evening, but there's absolutely NO evidence that this is true.) NASA passed off that pressure onto the management Morton Thiokol, who unfortunatly buckled under it.
Using a pure O2 environment simplifies things tremendously. The bigest thing is that when the craft is in space, it leaks. Period. You can't stop it. So they need to replace the air as the mission progresses. Running in a pure O2 environment allowed them to operate at a lower pressure, which means that they needed to take up less air with them, which meant a lighter capsule, which is very good.
After the Apollo 1 fire, they switched to a mixed atmosphere envrionment on the ground, but only replace the leaking O2 in space. So after a while in orbit, they are actually back to a pure O2 environment. This saves the craft from having to carry replacement O2 and N2, while not really risking safety. (Fire doesn't spread well in space due to lack of convection.)
>>This is exactly why Apple computers do not ship with floppies.
You missed that most of the pics were from the era when they did.
>>then how is this really much different than writing on a graphics tablet?
Because you then have the digital copy as well as the original. I'd find myself printing most of the stuff I'd use a tablet for anyway, which would be far less quality. (I've mentioned in the past my hatred for having to read from computer screens for more than short periods of time.)
YOu still haven't solved the problem. Try drawing in paint|photoshop|gimp|etc. as you would with a pen/pencil. As in, make a stroke in the upper left of the page, lift the mouse, and make a stroke in the lower-right corner. Not quite what you want, huh? You'll just get the end of the first stroke being the same point as the start as the second; the second won't appear in the bottom right corner.
The special paper has a series of dots that the pen reads to track its movement. The data is stored in the pen.