Because it's not unpopular at all. The *lowest* ratings that ST:ENT has ever recieved amounted to 5 million viewers. That may be poor for network TV, but it's great for cable. Even BS:G averages around 3-4 million.
Lies, lies, lies. In the fourth season, ENT averages around 2.9m viewers... (source: USA Today (ooh, pie charts..)) BSG has been consistently matching or beating ENT, particularly in desirable demographics. ENT should be crushing BSG, considering SciFi is a cable network with less market penetration than a broadcast network like You Pee Enn.
The significance of this news is hardly that MIT is setting any standard and only those with MIT-envy would be prone to such a mis-reading. What I see this as signaling is a furtherance of the trend which brought Susan Hockfield, a distinguished neuroscientist, to the helm of the institution, not a physicist, EE or mathematician and only coincidentally, not a man. The trend away from being a hardware hackers haven has long been afoot.
Not to be a killjoy, but back in 1990, when MIT was looking for a president to replace EE professor Paul Gray, they offered the position to bio professor/Nobel laureate in medicine Phil Sharp. Sharp initially accepted the offer, then backed down, and the Institute then chose a mech E prof from UMich, Chuck Vest. The fact that this time around, they chose a life scientist, when they had previously wanted one 15 years ago, is not particularly important.
Yes, this is MIT, and they have a potential to become the leading institution in the field, but respected universites have already established programs. When MIT comes out with something revolutionary from their new program, then I'll be interested.
RTFA, please. MIT is already a leader in what you call "bioengineering," particularly in interdisciplinary fields integrating biology and engineering. In addition, MIT already has a joint program with Harvard medical school (the Health Sciences and Technology program). The new "biological engineering" field is different in that the tradition view of BE/BME is "engineering applications of biology." MIT wants to rethink this view. From TFA: However, each established engineering discipline is naturally limited to addressing a certain range of problems within biology that fall within the scope of tools and approaches of that discipline. The fusion of engineering with modern biology, then, requires development of a new discipline of engineering, "Biological Engineering," which brings to bear on biology the appropriate tools and perspectives from chemical, civil, computer, electrical, materials, mechanical, and nuclear engineering in an integrated way. Biological Engineering is not envisioned as replacing the individual efforts, but rather enhancing them by pushing new frontiers.
Also an article in the New York Times
on
Firefox In Print
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· Score: 3, Informative
The Gray Lady Online has an article on MSIE-alternative browsers; of course Firefox and Mozilla are mentioned, and they even mention browsers like Amaya and Safari.
But the order to activate the receiver, or oscillator, for Channel A was never sent, so the entire mission operated through Channel B, which is less stable, Atkinson said.
I guess it makes it even worse that it was purely a human error.
Who was responsible for the receiver? Was it NASA (running the Cassini project) or ESA (running the Huygens probe)? Does anyone know?
Well your second link doesn't even work. You also neglect to mention that Boeing scaled back its presence starting with the 2002 Farnborough international air show... which is held in Britain. It was more to do with the economics of showing off aircraft and having senior executives travel to Europe than any anti-French/anti-German bias on the part of the Americans.
The fact is deals are signed at air shows. Sure, there is a lot of planning, but there's a lot of planning that goes into going to an air show too. If Boeing tells then they're not going to the show, it sends a messages right there that they're more in the business of wanking off to euro-bashing than making planes, building relationships with people. I mean, if you can't have an understanding about an air show, that is a symbolic FU to the airlines that come there.
Your facts are completely, completely wrong. First off, Boeing didn't boycott the 2002 show. Second, "inking" of deals isn't a matter of sitting down and signing a paper. First, you sign a memorandum of understanding, then a letter of intent. Then you and your lawyers haggle over legal details, and then you and your businessmen haggle over monetary details, and then you and your technical people haggle over specifications and delivery dates. You then have to make deals with the engine manufacturers, and then deal with the interior fittings. If you're adding a new aircraft type, you then have to deal with the unions of the pilots, flight attendants, machinists, ramp workers, etc. etc. Signing at air shows (which Boeing didn't do regularly beforehand or since) has nothing to do with an aircraft manufacturers' presence at the show. And since Boeing was in attendance at Farnborough in 2002, it's a moot point anyway.
Well, that year Boeing didn't go to the Paris air show, where a lot of deals are signed. Airbus wasn't as stupid (they're not American anyway) and they got an order of 45 A380s from Kuwait airlines.
Your facts are so wrong, and your premise is just plain stupid. Airlines don't decide to purchase planes at airshows; they talk to the manufacturer for months or even years trying to hammer out the specifications, the price, delivery slots, engine choices, etc. etc. The fact that Boeing wasn't present at an airshow means little; Airbus is actually quite known for delaying the announcement of a new order until an airshow (they like to make a big media splash, so rather than announcing an order as its finalized, they'd rather wait for an airshow to announce several orders.) The fact that Boeing wasn't there and Airbus was had _nothing_ to do with the A380 order.
In addition, it wasn't Kuwait airlines that order 43 A380's, it was Emirates.
Strange, because normally when people that live next door to airports starts to whine abouth noise, both the airports and american companies spend millions fighting for their "right" to fly 24/7. But when some European company started to plan the Concorde introduction in USA, all of a sudden; total silence, both from airports and all other industry associations. Strange indeed.
Because of the way the Concorde was designed, it had both a higher takeoff and landing speeds. The engines were also frightfully noisy. Combine the two, and the noise of a Concorde on takeoff or approach is far higher than other commercial jetliners. Thus the noise complaints were real and justified, not some political lobby.
Want proof? The city of New York banned Concorde overflights and landings for a year after the US government lifted the ban; Concordes would fly in and out of Washington DC rather than NYC. In addition, the country of Malaysia also banned Concorde overflights because of noise issues.
Of course, it's easier for Europeans to think that this is some anti-US bias rather than real technical issues with the aircraft.
Here's a word you apparently never heard before: Avalanche.
Honestly, if you're going to berate the ignorance of others, you should perhaps try reading up on the topic, even a little bit. Or, like I mentioned, RTFA. An ice shelf is floating miles away from the coastline. The part of the glacier that _might_ be broken off in the event of collision is completely waterbound, miles away from the coastline... ie the barrier between the ice shelf and over-land ice is not threatened. When you're walking over a frozen lake and the ice cracks and you fall through, does the ice "avalanche" all the way to the coastline?
It's funny how many of those frothing-at-the-mouth, "global warming isn't real science" people don't even know that.
Not "ha ha" funny... more like, I need another drink funny.
Propaganda alert! Propaganda alert!
If you read the FREAKIN' article, you'd know that the part of the glacier in question is an ice shelf that extends off of land into water. Even if a huge chunk of the glacier breaks off, it's still sitting in water.
Slighty sarcastic view- maybe if we saved that $3B+/yr, we'd solve two problems at once- the Israelis would get a lot more serious about the peace process, and we'd have money to pump into our own economy instead of theirs.
Wow... what a biased viewpoint.. especially for a +5, informative. Israel is completely serious about the peace process... it's just that the Palestinian leadership (ie Arafat) wasn't serious about it...
And why not mention the $800m/yr in economic aid to Egypt? Or the 3 Billion with a capital B in U.S. backed loan guarantees? Money that we could use on "say, our crumbling roads/railway system, healthcare/retirement, inadequate community emergency services, etc." You would rather we cut off Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.... for what reason?
Now my question would be, since they're owned by Delta, why wouldn't Comair flights be handled within Delta's own reservation/flight tracking system?
There probably isn't any reason to. Comair, as a regional jet carrier, has separate crew contracts and crew rules than Delta, a mainline carrier. Thus they operate completely different types of jets, with different crew staffing requirements. The FAA crew rules might even be different. While it might make sense from a consolidation standpoint to merge the two systems of Comair and Delta, since in reality there would be no interaction and no overlap between the two systems (an RJ pilot isn't suddenly going to jump over to fly a 757) the expense isn't worth it.
p.s. I've traveled through CVG, on Delta, during the holidays. Not anymore... One weather-delayed flight and the whole system falls apart.
Then I hope you also avoid United/United Express/Ted at O'Hare/Denver, Continental at Newark/Houston, Northwest in Detriot, USAirways in Cincinnati, American at O'Hare/Dallas... etc. etc. Every airline, not just Delta, uses hubs, and ground stops at any of these airports will cause significant delays. That's just the reality of air travel these days; if you're really worried, book non-stop travel (and pay up to 10x more).
I have both an iPod and a Neuros. I got an iPod through the freeipods.com thing, and I've had the Neuros for a little over a year now. The iPod was the shiny new toy for about a month, and hasn't been used since. The Neuros is just better. Better menu interface, better sound, better features.
Then give me your iPod, please.
That's blatantly idiotic... the shuttle carries more people, so of course the two shuttle disasters would have killed more people than the Soyuz disasters. WTF does that have anything to do with the merits of the US vs Russian space programmes???
Actually, no; they are not the same and the Soyuz is superior in regard to safety per launch.
Nope. Soyuz has had 92 launches, 2 failed missions with complete loss of life (and 1 unmanned mission which killed 1 person). The space shuttle has had 2 failed missions with complete loss of life out of 113 missions. So, in fact, the Soyuz is inferior in regard to safety per (manned) launch, and it's a toss-up in terms of total launches.
Your retort would be more valid if NASA was actually making similar progress: ie, designing possible STS replacements and giving its own manned programme some sort of direction. As it is, NASA seems to be (if you'll pardon the pun) in a terminally decaying orbit.
What progress has been actually made with Kliper? A full-sized mockup? Woop-de-doo. The US has made several efforts on new space transport systems, going far past the mockup stage, only to be hampered by design and funding problems. X-33/Venturestar, X-34 CRV, Delta Clipper, etc. etc. If the Russians actually get this bird into the skies and carrying passengers/payload, then maybe you have a point. But who knows what will happen, even if funding comes through... there's no guarantee that the program will be successful.
Oh, and let's not point out the fact that the "venerable" Soyuz has a very similar safety record to the space shuttle.
Politically it's also a big win. Nevada has a low population, so it has few Representatives in the House. Plus, it voted for the Dear Leader despite his approval of Yucca Mountain. So if any locals do object, there's no real leverage for them politically.
This is partisan crap. From the Wikipedia page on Yucca Mountain: In 1987, Congress amended the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and directed DOE to study only Yucca Mountain, which is already located within a former nuclear test site.
..just need to clear the Monday hurtle.......I'd love to see them do a flight with 3 people actually on board...
I seriously doubt that this XPrize attempt will go on... there has been what seems like a significant flight anomaly, and you're not going to try again until you know what happened, and you know it won't happen again!
Whether they spied to get the designs or not, it's worth noting that both the Buran and the MiG-29 are considered superior to their american counterparts. In fact, I heard an urban legend that American pilots were instructed to avoid MiG-29's in combat due to the technical superiority of that design.
Well, sure. There are two things to note about this. First, coming later to the game usually means having technological advances. In aviation, for instance, in terms of performance and technology, the B777 > A330-A340 > MD-11, basically in reverse chronological order of introduction of these airframes. Considering the first Buran flight was 7 years after Columbia first took to the heavens, it's not surprising that the Soviets could have figured out how to do things better than NASA.
Second, many of the limitations of the NASA shuttle were due to fiscal constraints. For instance, the superior performance and safety of liquid booster rockets were well known during the shuttle design phase. However, the decision was made to use solid rocket boosters was made to decrease development costs. Other than cost and the soon-to-be obsolete shuttles, there's no reason this technology couldn't be retrofitted to improve the space shuttle.
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Lies, lies, lies. In the fourth season, ENT averages around 2.9m viewers... (source: USA Today (ooh, pie charts..)) BSG has been consistently matching or beating ENT, particularly in desirable demographics. ENT should be crushing BSG, considering SciFi is a cable network with less market penetration than a broadcast network like You Pee Enn.
Not to be a killjoy, but back in 1990, when MIT was looking for a president to replace EE professor Paul Gray, they offered the position to bio professor/Nobel laureate in medicine Phil Sharp. Sharp initially accepted the offer, then backed down, and the Institute then chose a mech E prof from UMich, Chuck Vest. The fact that this time around, they chose a life scientist, when they had previously wanted one 15 years ago, is not particularly important.
RTFA, please. MIT is already a leader in what you call "bioengineering," particularly in interdisciplinary fields integrating biology and engineering. In addition, MIT already has a joint program with Harvard medical school (the Health Sciences and Technology program). The new "biological engineering" field is different in that the tradition view of BE/BME is "engineering applications of biology." MIT wants to rethink this view. From TFA:
However, each established engineering discipline is naturally limited to addressing a certain range of problems within biology that fall within the scope of tools and approaches of that discipline. The fusion of engineering with modern biology, then, requires development of a new discipline of engineering, "Biological Engineering," which brings to bear on biology the appropriate tools and perspectives from chemical, civil, computer, electrical, materials, mechanical, and nuclear engineering in an integrated way. Biological Engineering is not envisioned as replacing the individual efforts, but rather enhancing them by pushing new frontiers.
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I guess it makes it even worse that it was purely a human error.
Who was responsible for the receiver? Was it NASA (running the Cassini project) or ESA (running the Huygens probe)? Does anyone know?
Well your second link doesn't even work. You also neglect to mention that Boeing scaled back its presence starting with the 2002 Farnborough international air show... which is held in Britain. It was more to do with the economics of showing off aircraft and having senior executives travel to Europe than any anti-French/anti-German bias on the part of the Americans.
Your facts are completely, completely wrong. First off, Boeing didn't boycott the 2002 show. Second, "inking" of deals isn't a matter of sitting down and signing a paper. First, you sign a memorandum of understanding, then a letter of intent. Then you and your lawyers haggle over legal details, and then you and your businessmen haggle over monetary details, and then you and your technical people haggle over specifications and delivery dates. You then have to make deals with the engine manufacturers, and then deal with the interior fittings. If you're adding a new aircraft type, you then have to deal with the unions of the pilots, flight attendants, machinists, ramp workers, etc. etc. Signing at air shows (which Boeing didn't do regularly beforehand or since) has nothing to do with an aircraft manufacturers' presence at the show. And since Boeing was in attendance at Farnborough in 2002, it's a moot point anyway.
Your facts are so wrong, and your premise is just plain stupid. Airlines don't decide to purchase planes at airshows; they talk to the manufacturer for months or even years trying to hammer out the specifications, the price, delivery slots, engine choices, etc. etc. The fact that Boeing wasn't present at an airshow means little; Airbus is actually quite known for delaying the announcement of a new order until an airshow (they like to make a big media splash, so rather than announcing an order as its finalized, they'd rather wait for an airshow to announce several orders.) The fact that Boeing wasn't there and Airbus was had _nothing_ to do with the A380 order.
In addition, it wasn't Kuwait airlines that order 43 A380's, it was Emirates.
Because of the way the Concorde was designed, it had both a higher takeoff and landing speeds. The engines were also frightfully noisy. Combine the two, and the noise of a Concorde on takeoff or approach is far higher than other commercial jetliners. Thus the noise complaints were real and justified, not some political lobby.
Want proof? The city of New York banned Concorde overflights and landings for a year after the US government lifted the ban; Concordes would fly in and out of Washington DC rather than NYC. In addition, the country of Malaysia also banned Concorde overflights because of noise issues.
Of course, it's easier for Europeans to think that this is some anti-US bias rather than real technical issues with the aircraft.
Honestly, if you're going to berate the ignorance of others, you should perhaps try reading up on the topic, even a little bit. Or, like I mentioned, RTFA. An ice shelf is floating miles away from the coastline. The part of the glacier that _might_ be broken off in the event of collision is completely waterbound, miles away from the coastline... ie the barrier between the ice shelf and over-land ice is not threatened. When you're walking over a frozen lake and the ice cracks and you fall through, does the ice "avalanche" all the way to the coastline?
Propaganda alert! Propaganda alert!
If you read the FREAKIN' article, you'd know that the part of the glacier in question is an ice shelf that extends off of land into water. Even if a huge chunk of the glacier breaks off, it's still sitting in water.
The United States gives $200m annually to the Palestinian authority.
Wow... what a biased viewpoint.. especially for a +5, informative. Israel is completely serious about the peace process... it's just that the Palestinian leadership (ie Arafat) wasn't serious about it...
And why not mention the $800m/yr in economic aid to Egypt? Or the 3 Billion with a capital B in U.S. backed loan guarantees? Money that we could use on "say, our crumbling roads/railway system, healthcare/retirement, inadequate community emergency services, etc." You would rather we cut off Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.... for what reason?
Why is this modded insightful? The ceramic heat shield tiles did not fail, the leading edge reinforced carbon-carbon panels failed.
In large parts of America, children speak both English and Spanish. It's learned/taught as a matter of necessity, not luxury... the same as in Europe.
There probably isn't any reason to. Comair, as a regional jet carrier, has separate crew contracts and crew rules than Delta, a mainline carrier. Thus they operate completely different types of jets, with different crew staffing requirements. The FAA crew rules might even be different. While it might make sense from a consolidation standpoint to merge the two systems of Comair and Delta, since in reality there would be no interaction and no overlap between the two systems (an RJ pilot isn't suddenly going to jump over to fly a 757) the expense isn't worth it.
p.s. I've traveled through CVG, on Delta, during the holidays. Not anymore... One weather-delayed flight and the whole system falls apart.
Then I hope you also avoid United/United Express/Ted at O'Hare/Denver, Continental at Newark/Houston, Northwest in Detriot, USAirways in Cincinnati, American at O'Hare/Dallas... etc. etc. Every airline, not just Delta, uses hubs, and ground stops at any of these airports will cause significant delays. That's just the reality of air travel these days; if you're really worried, book non-stop travel (and pay up to 10x more).
<History Lesson> The old Netscape codebase (after 4.0) was completely scrapped all the way back in nineteen ninety nine... </History Lesson>
I have both an iPod and a Neuros. I got an iPod through the freeipods.com thing, and I've had the Neuros for a little over a year now. The iPod was the shiny new toy for about a month, and hasn't been used since. The Neuros is just better. Better menu interface, better sound, better features. Then give me your iPod, please.
That's blatantly idiotic... the shuttle carries more people, so of course the two shuttle disasters would have killed more people than the Soyuz disasters. WTF does that have anything to do with the merits of the US vs Russian space programmes???
Nope. Soyuz has had 92 launches, 2 failed missions with complete loss of life (and 1 unmanned mission which killed 1 person). The space shuttle has had 2 failed missions with complete loss of life out of 113 missions. So, in fact, the Soyuz is inferior in regard to safety per (manned) launch, and it's a toss-up in terms of total launches.
What progress has been actually made with Kliper? A full-sized mockup? Woop-de-doo. The US has made several efforts on new space transport systems, going far past the mockup stage, only to be hampered by design and funding problems. X-33/Venturestar, X-34 CRV, Delta Clipper, etc. etc. If the Russians actually get this bird into the skies and carrying passengers/payload, then maybe you have a point. But who knows what will happen, even if funding comes through... there's no guarantee that the program will be successful.
Oh, and let's not point out the fact that the "venerable" Soyuz has a very similar safety record to the space shuttle.
This is partisan crap. From the Wikipedia page on Yucca Mountain:
In 1987, Congress amended the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and directed DOE to study only Yucca Mountain, which is already located within a former nuclear test site.
Eh? Wasn't Beagle 2 and Mars Express both sponsored by the ESA?
I seriously doubt that this XPrize attempt will go on... there has been what seems like a significant flight anomaly, and you're not going to try again until you know what happened, and you know it won't happen again!
Well, sure. There are two things to note about this. First, coming later to the game usually means having technological advances. In aviation, for instance, in terms of performance and technology, the B777 > A330-A340 > MD-11, basically in reverse chronological order of introduction of these airframes. Considering the first Buran flight was 7 years after Columbia first took to the heavens, it's not surprising that the Soviets could have figured out how to do things better than NASA.
Second, many of the limitations of the NASA shuttle were due to fiscal constraints. For instance, the superior performance and safety of liquid booster rockets were well known during the shuttle design phase. However, the decision was made to use solid rocket boosters was made to decrease development costs. Other than cost and the soon-to-be obsolete shuttles, there's no reason this technology couldn't be retrofitted to improve the space shuttle.