What standards do you hold NASA to? Perfection?? I'm not saying the organization as a whole doesn't need some work, but we certainly aren't spending 'billions on disaster after disaster.' Would you have said the same thing after the various astronaut plane crashes in the 60s and the Apollo 1 fire?
I wonder if NASA should sweat over EVERY problem that a journalist points out. "Yes I heard one of the astronauts farted, is that going to cause any problems with the mission?" The journalist did jack nothing. He surely heard it from an engineer or other source and repeated it.
'When so much needs to be taken care of at home.'
Ok this is a little too much. Have you looked at our 'defense' spending lately? How many times greater is that than NASA's budget?
I don't see the point of your statement. There have been hundreds of deaths in test flights. There have been even more deaths in military and civilan non-test flights. Flying costs lives just like driving does. Just like crossing the street and swimming for that matter.
On top of that this *was* a test flight. Maybe one day we'll be testing this technology with humans piloting the plane. And I'll be 'glad' when we do.
Can you engineer a system with a 100% success rate??
Yes. Ice is oxygen and hydrogen, but it's at the lowest energy possible. You can't get any useful energy out of ice, or water for that matter. If water were a viable energy source, we'd have a lot less problems with energy here on earth.
If they set up some huge processing plant to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen with electricity from solar panels, it would still take a long time to get enough fuel to come back. A fairly long time.
And as far as permanent settlements go, I don't think we'll be ready to have a permanent settlement the first time we go there. We just don't know enough about the conditions there to plan for that. Granted a 3 day mission is too short, I'm sure it'll be somewhere in between.
There's no question that thousands of people pirate music, and have tons of it stored illegally on their computer. We know the whole thing is just a scare tactic by the RIAA. They could never prosecute 10% of who pirate music. It's like speeding. They'll catch whoever they can to deter everyone else.
The only thing is you have much better chance at getting caught going 90 in 60 than you do with 40 GB of mp3s on your hard drive. So they've got 9 people so far. 9 lucky winnners of the RIAA lawsuit lottery! I'm pretty sure this will stop just about no from 'buying their tickets.' (i.e. pirating)
One of the main points they brought up, is that right now the system is only in place in 13 of the 31 ballparks, and that is definitely causing problems. If you are a pitcher with QuesTec in your park, you have it more than half your games, where other pitchers have it in far fewer. One of the points of the system was to standardize the strike zone, and they aren't doing that by not having it in all ballparks.
Also they have inexperienced people operating the system. The people who run the system should be trained well. Some people even suggested they use former umps or umps in training.
As for the umpires getting all excited, wouldn't you be upset if your livelihood and usefulness was being threatened by a machine? I'm sure there are countless TV movies with workers getting kicked out factories by robots that'll sum up that emotion. I know it's a little different, since they still need umps, but it is literally question the ump ability.
Personally, I don't think it's a bad idea, but aren't executing it in the best possible way. Get it in all the ballparks, train the operators, make friends with the umps - not enemies.
Astronauts perform *many* tasks on the station. It didn't exactly put itself together like a transformer. Computers are great and all, but they aren't 'smart.' Like humans are. They don't solve problems, they don't fix things. And if you actually want to send people to Mars, then you better know whether they'll survive the trip. Nothing like radiation fried, microgravity weakened astronauts collapsing on their first TV appearance from Mars. To say that astronauts on the station are a PR stunt, is extremely stupid, not insightful.
As for NASA 'actually' exploring space again, maybe they would if they weren't absolutely neglected by the public. Not enough people care about space exploration, that's the problem. They've been operating on a shoestring budget since the beginning of the 90s. I know it isn't the most efficient organization out there, but it's not any worse than any other government organization of similar size.
You are totally right about it getting out. I'm sure it'll be floating around, but it won't have near the proliferation of St. Anger itself. In fact, it's such a large amount of stuff, that I'd say only the die hards are going to get it. And those people are probably buying the album anyway.
So where does that leave the rest of us? Where we started originally, with the option to pirate more if we try hard. Where does that leave the die hard fans? More content for about the same price.
So why is this a bad thing or even a thing to be looked down upon?
First you say that it doesn't matter since anyone can download it. Then you say that everyone should be able to get it for free, and that it's silly to *expect* people to buy it. Nobody is forcing you to do anything. Just because you want to try it for free, doesn't mean they (Metallica) should let you. That's up to them not you. Of course they can't stop you, since it's so easy to copy.
Is it unreasonable to think that people should have to pay the artist to listen to their music? I guess this idea has fallen completely by the wayside.
It seems that all artists will eventually be living on the 'charity' of their listeners instead of actually selling anything. You can get the music for free, how you pay is up to you. (When it comes to prerecorded music)
I have serious doubts as to whether that was Metallica planned, or just some kiddies having fun with the pirating public. Not that I was looking...but I if I had, I would have seen plenty of posts in various places claming to be real copies. As the parent post's link says these were either incomplete clips or just totally unrelated stuff. The release was very highly anticipated, which would have made it all the more fun for the kiddies.
Despite all the people who hate Metallica for various reasons ('selling out' on their musical style, becoming mainstream, fighting Napster), aren't they taking steps in the right direction?
Isn't this what all the discussion has been about? They are actually changing their business model to deal with the times. Anyone who wants to pirate the album can go and find it, but they'll miss out on the value added stuff. Granted this isn't an earthshaking change, but I think it's a positive step.
The cynics and haters will gripe no matter what they do anyway.
I think you haven't really considered all the uses the researcher was discussing. Obviously if something catastropic happens, you are going to be able to get the general picture by standing outside. (fire, earthquake, etc.) But if there is a fire in a building, where is the fire? How long has it been burning? Is it safe to go in? After the fire, is the structure still sound? Were the materials degraded by heat? Embedded sensors can answer these types of questions, and if integrated correctly with the existing emergency systems, can easily save lives and in the long run probably save money. By getting a better picture of what condition a structure is in you can make better decisions on what need to be done to that structure (without having to make rough estimates afterwards).
Granted embedding sensors is not a new concept, putting them in bricks is a new idea, and if it can be done cost effectively and reliably, it could be useful someday. Nobody said all ideas work, but don't write it off until it's actually been looked at in detail. That's why it's university research and not the product of a company. If it is a good idea we'll see it in 5, 10 or 15 years. If it's crap, it won't succeed.
Calling it a 'useless waste of money marketing FUD' without looking at the big picture is the norm for slashdot comments.
I don't understand how Bittorrent's weakness with a central tracker affects whether people continue sharing or not.
There's a reason people cutoff uploads. Maybe it is they have other things to do with their upstream, maybe they just like leeching. Whatever the reason is, why would *all* Konspire users keep sharing and *all* Bittorent users kill their client after a download?? I've continued sharing a file for days after I've downloaded it on bittorrent. Doesn't the existence of multiple seeds on a torrent indicate that people are leaving it open after the download? Are you ignoring that? The way he has that tree drawn there is only *one* seeder for the file the entire time. Now that's some BS. Go to any running tracker and count the number of active torrents with more than one seed compared to those with just one seed.
I understand bitorrent has many weaknesses, but the page misrepresents its behavior completely.
I agree, this comparison is completely biased. He makes assumptions that clearly will give Konspire the advantage.
How can he *assume* that every bittorrent user closes their torrent immediately after download? Even worse than that, he assumes that every Konspire user leaves their client open indefinitely! I think I'd like to see the analysis redone with equal effects of leeching considered. My money is on swarming.
P2P leeching will always always be a problem. Even with Bittorrent you can bandwidth limit yourself down to 5 k/s upstream, which will slow your download, but you will get your file with much less uploaded. Konspire can't do anything about that.
Slashdot Mirror
What standards do you hold NASA to? Perfection?? I'm not saying the organization as a whole doesn't need some work, but we certainly aren't spending 'billions on disaster after disaster.' Would you have said the same thing after the various astronaut plane crashes in the 60s and the Apollo 1 fire?
I wonder if NASA should sweat over EVERY problem that a journalist points out. "Yes I heard one of the astronauts farted, is that going to cause any problems with the mission?" The journalist did jack nothing. He surely heard it from an engineer or other source and repeated it.
'When so much needs to be taken care of at home.' Ok this is a little too much. Have you looked at our 'defense' spending lately? How many times greater is that than NASA's budget?
I don't see the point of your statement. There have been hundreds of deaths in test flights. There have been even more deaths in military and civilan non-test flights. Flying costs lives just like driving does. Just like crossing the street and swimming for that matter.
On top of that this *was* a test flight. Maybe one day we'll be testing this technology with humans piloting the plane. And I'll be 'glad' when we do.
Can you engineer a system with a 100% success rate??
Yes. Ice is oxygen and hydrogen, but it's at the lowest energy possible. You can't get any useful energy out of ice, or water for that matter. If water were a viable energy source, we'd have a lot less problems with energy here on earth.
If they set up some huge processing plant to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen with electricity from solar panels, it would still take a long time to get enough fuel to come back. A fairly long time.
And as far as permanent settlements go, I don't think we'll be ready to have a permanent settlement the first time we go there. We just don't know enough about the conditions there to plan for that. Granted a 3 day mission is too short, I'm sure it'll be somewhere in between.
There's no question that thousands of people pirate music, and have tons of it stored illegally on their computer. We know the whole thing is just a scare tactic by the RIAA. They could never prosecute 10% of who pirate music. It's like speeding. They'll catch whoever they can to deter everyone else.
The only thing is you have much better chance at getting caught going 90 in 60 than you do with 40 GB of mp3s on your hard drive. So they've got 9 people so far. 9 lucky winnners of the RIAA lawsuit lottery! I'm pretty sure this will stop just about no from 'buying their tickets.' (i.e. pirating)
If you have caught any of the myriad of Sportscenters in the past few weeks, the QuesTec system got fair discussion by baseball 'experts.'
One of the main points they brought up, is that right now the system is only in place in 13 of the 31 ballparks, and that is definitely causing problems. If you are a pitcher with QuesTec in your park, you have it more than half your games, where other pitchers have it in far fewer. One of the points of the system was to standardize the strike zone, and they aren't doing that by not having it in all ballparks.
Also they have inexperienced people operating the system. The people who run the system should be trained well. Some people even suggested they use former umps or umps in training.
As for the umpires getting all excited, wouldn't you be upset if your livelihood and usefulness was being threatened by a machine? I'm sure there are countless TV movies with workers getting kicked out factories by robots that'll sum up that emotion. I know it's a little different, since they still need umps, but it is literally question the ump ability.
Personally, I don't think it's a bad idea, but aren't executing it in the best possible way. Get it in all the ballparks, train the operators, make friends with the umps - not enemies.
For people who want more info:
Here's a short FAQ from ESPN
Some of Rob Neyer's cool-as-usual statistical analysis
How is this insightful??
Astronauts perform *many* tasks on the station. It didn't exactly put itself together like a transformer. Computers are great and all, but they aren't 'smart.' Like humans are. They don't solve problems, they don't fix things. And if you actually want to send people to Mars, then you better know whether they'll survive the trip. Nothing like radiation fried, microgravity weakened astronauts collapsing on their first TV appearance from Mars. To say that astronauts on the station are a PR stunt, is extremely stupid, not insightful.
As for NASA 'actually' exploring space again, maybe they would if they weren't absolutely neglected by the public. Not enough people care about space exploration, that's the problem. They've been operating on a shoestring budget since the beginning of the 90s. I know it isn't the most efficient organization out there, but it's not any worse than any other government organization of similar size.
You are totally right about it getting out. I'm sure it'll be floating around, but it won't have near the proliferation of St. Anger itself. In fact, it's such a large amount of stuff, that I'd say only the die hards are going to get it. And those people are probably buying the album anyway.
So where does that leave the rest of us? Where we started originally, with the option to pirate more if we try hard. Where does that leave the die hard fans? More content for about the same price.
So why is this a bad thing or even a thing to be looked down upon?
First you say that it doesn't matter since anyone can download it. Then you say that everyone should be able to get it for free, and that it's silly to *expect* people to buy it. Nobody is forcing you to do anything. Just because you want to try it for free, doesn't mean they (Metallica) should let you. That's up to them not you. Of course they can't stop you, since it's so easy to copy.
Is it unreasonable to think that people should have to pay the artist to listen to their music? I guess this idea has fallen completely by the wayside.
It seems that all artists will eventually be living on the 'charity' of their listeners instead of actually selling anything. You can get the music for free, how you pay is up to you. (When it comes to prerecorded music)
I have serious doubts as to whether that was Metallica planned, or just some kiddies having fun with the pirating public. Not that I was looking...but I if I had, I would have seen plenty of posts in various places claming to be real copies. As the parent post's link says these were either incomplete clips or just totally unrelated stuff.
The release was very highly anticipated, which would have made it all the more fun for the kiddies.
Despite all the people who hate Metallica for various reasons ('selling out' on their musical style, becoming mainstream, fighting Napster), aren't they taking steps in the right direction?
Isn't this what all the discussion has been about? They are actually changing their business model to deal with the times. Anyone who wants to pirate the album can go and find it, but they'll miss out on the value added stuff. Granted this isn't an earthshaking change, but I think it's a positive step.
The cynics and haters will gripe no matter what they do anyway.
I think you haven't really considered all the uses the researcher was discussing. Obviously if something catastropic happens, you are going to be able to get the general picture by standing outside. (fire, earthquake, etc.) But if there is a fire in a building, where is the fire? How long has it been burning? Is it safe to go in? After the fire, is the structure still sound? Were the materials degraded by heat? Embedded sensors can answer these types of questions, and if integrated correctly with the existing emergency systems, can easily save lives and in the long run probably save money. By getting a better picture of what condition a structure is in you can make better decisions on what need to be done to that structure (without having to make rough estimates afterwards).
Granted embedding sensors is not a new concept, putting them in bricks is a new idea, and if it can be done cost effectively and reliably, it could be useful someday. Nobody said all ideas work, but don't write it off until it's actually been looked at in detail. That's why it's university research and not the product of a company. If it is a good idea we'll see it in 5, 10 or 15 years. If it's crap, it won't succeed.
Calling it a 'useless waste of money marketing FUD' without looking at the big picture is the norm for slashdot comments.
I don't understand how Bittorrent's weakness with a central tracker affects whether people continue sharing or not.
There's a reason people cutoff uploads. Maybe it is they have other things to do with their upstream, maybe they just like leeching. Whatever the reason is, why would *all* Konspire users keep sharing and *all* Bittorent users kill their client after a download?? I've continued sharing a file for days after I've downloaded it on bittorrent. Doesn't the existence of multiple seeds on a torrent indicate that people are leaving it open after the download? Are you ignoring that? The way he has that tree drawn there is only *one* seeder for the file the entire time. Now that's some BS. Go to any running tracker and count the number of active torrents with more than one seed compared to those with just one seed.
I understand bitorrent has many weaknesses, but the page misrepresents its behavior completely.
I agree, this comparison is completely biased. He makes assumptions that clearly will give Konspire the advantage. How can he *assume* that every bittorrent user closes their torrent immediately after download? Even worse than that, he assumes that every Konspire user leaves their client open indefinitely! I think I'd like to see the analysis redone with equal effects of leeching considered. My money is on swarming. P2P leeching will always always be a problem. Even with Bittorrent you can bandwidth limit yourself down to 5 k/s upstream, which will slow your download, but you will get your file with much less uploaded. Konspire can't do anything about that.