Noting that accurate pointing of on-board sensors is vital for most Earth and astronautical observations, I'd be interested to read about the precision and accuracy of the attitude control system. The A-train satellites are each the size of a Ford van and have multiple spinning wheels, torquers, star trackers and gyros to sense the spacecraft attitude and maintain the correct orientation. Using only mag rods, nulling any residual attitude errors will take quite a while and I'm not sure you'd ever have a 'stable' platform.
Well, the poster has one take on this, but perhaps the current release is incompatible because Apple has changed the compiler and some of the dynamic libraries? Perhaps this was not to specifically address pirating, but to fix bugs and to otherwise optimize the system. The OS X 86 project page has a slightly more informed discussion.
AGI (makers of STK) was started by two former General Electric (space division) employees and their software has become industry standard. It is used by most space agencies including ESA & NASA. Note that the price point is high and roughly equal to the engineering time they envison their software replaces. A relatively base model will set you back about $30K USD if you want something with opengl graphics visualization. If you want to plan a mission to Mars you'll need astrogator and probably the visualization so your looking at $50K USD. There are academic discounts of about 20%. For perspective, I'm using STK right now for a Mars mission trade study.
I use the software daily and while I cough at the price and maintenance, it does what it is supposed to do most of the time. Sadly, it does crash a fair bit under windows and they stopped developing for unix a few versions back...
I find chandler to meet my calendering needs. Sure, it's 1000x slower than the DOS program it is supposed replace (agenda) when running on a modern computer, but that python interface is sure sweet!
It appears I was wrong about the particulates... This explains in more detail. I'm not too sure I agree with the doom-and-gloom but perhaps the US has such poor fuel that this is true.
Actually, diesel automobiles (such as the VW TDI, Peugeot 307 and SMART car) are typically amongst the lowest greenhouse polluters according to the Government of Canada and the EPA. Even urban particle count measurements have automibile diesel engines scoring well compared with gasoline engines. You are most likely confusing the modern diesel automobile with older trucks widely used in the transportation industry.
I'd be quite interested in the 'stark facts' you suggest. Perhaps you can post a link?
[I]
Processor-the Sempron 2200+ is slow, for a PC. It would quiver beside the 2.0+ GHz Powermac G5's, but it beats the crap out of the 1.25 (or even 1.4 GHz upgraded) Mac Mini. PC wins again.
[/I]
You quote [I]performance[/I] throughout your arguments... have you ever checked the performance of a spyware laden PC? My father has a high-speed connection at home. He writes e-mails, downloads photos/videos from his digital camera, and composes the occasional word document. What sort of [I]performace[/I] do you think he needs?
This is nothing more than false security for pointy haired induhviduals. A clueful cracker with console access can usually get access to data. If the laptop is stolen, so is the data and no fingerprint widget will prevent it.
But what makes SafeGuard Easy so special is that it works with IBM's own Rescue and Recovery utility. The problem with encrypted data is that when you try to restore an image of an encrypted hard drive, all the data, including the boot records just look like garbage to the restore program. But with SafeGuard Easy, you can keep the entire contents of your drive encrypted, and still be safe in the knowledge that should your hard disk crash, you can restore all your data to a new drive despite the fact that it's encrypted.
Has anyone here used or admined IBM's lotus notes? I feel real good about trusting IBM with my encrypted HD.
They are written in Fortran because that is what they have always been written in. Keep in mind that we are talking of at least tens of thousands of lines and in some cases a few hundred thousand lines of complicated math. This isn't one of those things you port to C or C++ in an afternoon.
Also note that most of these models are written by scientists (physicists/chemists) not computer scientists. Most groups now have programmers on staff to help with problems but scientific programming isn't always about having elegant code; more often then not, we care about the output and Fortran does just fine. Yes, we do mix in C where appropriate.
The models -- actually complicated software written in a computer language called Fortran -- attempt to account for everything happening in the atmosphere on a global basis.
As someone who spends days (and many nights) extending and debugging crufty old radiative transfer models within numerical weather prediction code, FORTRAN is the rule, not the exception. What is this c++ everyone on \. keeps talking about?
support for firing from vehicles, support for drive-bys, and support for planes
Does anyone else find this somewhat worrying? I do understand that some people find this sort of game entertaining but features requests like these really do worry me.
Not quite. Orbital science has been launching small satellites on modified cruise missiles dropped from a plane for quite a few years now. I know for a fact that they do make it to orbit. The weight of the pegasus launch vehicle compared with SpacePlaneOne are not that different so there won't be a huge leap to get them to orbit. Keep in mind that atmospheric density increases exponentially as you approach the ground so flying a rocket to 30K or 50K feet using an efficient aircraft with lots of lift saves you a considerable amount of rocket fuel.
To all those who are replying with, 'duh, unplug the network cable.' How many times have you tried to lead your computer using mom, grandma, sister, brother through this? It just doesn't work in my family. NB: my mom is a physicist.
Microsoft windows is used by the masses, not just tech savvy slashdot users.
I lived in the UK for 4 years and just returned to Canada. I only wish the CBC was as good as the BBC. I do find their style of news to be way to similar to the big, sensational US news outlets but, otherwise, the content is great!
Heck, I'd probably even pay my license fee from Canada!
Slashdot Mirror
Noting that accurate pointing of on-board sensors is vital for most Earth and astronautical observations, I'd be interested to read about the precision and accuracy of the attitude control system. The A-train satellites are each the size of a Ford van and have multiple spinning wheels, torquers, star trackers and gyros to sense the spacecraft attitude and maintain the correct orientation. Using only mag rods, nulling any residual attitude errors will take quite a while and I'm not sure you'd ever have a 'stable' platform.
Perhaps the NSA can help me track down all these fax calls I've been getting on my home phone. It's really annoying.
Well, the poster has one take on this, but perhaps the current release is incompatible because Apple has changed the compiler and some of the dynamic libraries? Perhaps this was not to specifically address pirating, but to fix bugs and to otherwise optimize the system. The OS X 86 project page has a slightly more informed discussion.
And yet, I still cannot listen to a podcast of the Archers!!! And please, no more excuses.
Thank you venture capitalists. Next time, please read the abstract before signing the cheque.
AGI (makers of STK) was started by two former General Electric (space division) employees and their software has become industry standard. It is used by most space agencies including ESA & NASA. Note that the price point is high and roughly equal to the engineering time they envison their software replaces. A relatively base model will set you back about $30K USD if you want something with opengl graphics visualization. If you want to plan a mission to Mars you'll need astrogator and probably the visualization so your looking at $50K USD. There are academic discounts of about 20%. For perspective, I'm using STK right now for a Mars mission trade study.
I use the software daily and while I cough at the price and maintenance, it does what it is supposed to do most of the time. Sadly, it does crash a fair bit under windows and they stopped developing for unix a few versions back...
I find chandler to meet my calendering needs. Sure, it's 1000x slower than the DOS program it is supposed replace (agenda) when running on a modern computer, but that python interface is sure sweet!
It appears I was wrong about the particulates... This explains in more detail. I'm not too sure I agree with the doom-and-gloom but perhaps the US has such poor fuel that this is true.
Actually, diesel automobiles (such as the VW TDI, Peugeot 307 and SMART car) are typically amongst the lowest greenhouse polluters according to the Government of Canada and the EPA. Even urban particle count measurements have automibile diesel engines scoring well compared with gasoline engines. You are most likely confusing the modern diesel automobile with older trucks widely used in the transportation industry. I'd be quite interested in the 'stark facts' you suggest. Perhaps you can post a link?
That should have been IDL.
Almost every NOAA scientist that I know (NB: I know quite a few) is proficient in Fortran and IDL. This is the norm in atmospheric science.
They are written in Fortran because that is what they have always been written in. Keep in mind that we are talking of at least tens of thousands of lines and in some cases a few hundred thousand lines of complicated math. This isn't one of those things you port to C or C++ in an afternoon. Also note that most of these models are written by scientists (physicists/chemists) not computer scientists. Most groups now have programmers on staff to help with problems but scientific programming isn't always about having elegant code; more often then not, we care about the output and Fortran does just fine. Yes, we do mix in C where appropriate.
What about the hack that starts the coffee maker everytime a build fails... it is usually a *long* night when that happens around here.
debug> Why did my web server crash?
reply> slashdotting
Actually, you are thinking of the Xerox/Tektronix thermal wax printers whereas the article lists dry-toner, laser printers.
It seems even the Konfabulator authors are surprised by this. Even as a mac fan, I think it is reprehensible.
Surely a masters or a PhD will make you more employable.
Not quite. Orbital science has been launching small satellites on modified cruise missiles dropped from a plane for quite a few years now. I know for a fact that they do make it to orbit. The weight of the pegasus launch vehicle compared with SpacePlaneOne are not that different so there won't be a huge leap to get them to orbit. Keep in mind that atmospheric density increases exponentially as you approach the ground so flying a rocket to 30K or 50K feet using an efficient aircraft with lots of lift saves you a considerable amount of rocket fuel.
It seems there is a Canadian atmospheric research satellite that will also be making measurements of Venus. They are using a infrared Fourier transform spectrometer and cameras with the hope of improving models for extra-solar transits (think finding ET).
To all those who are replying with, 'duh, unplug the network cable.' How many times have you tried to lead your computer using mom, grandma, sister, brother through this? It just doesn't work in my family. NB: my mom is a physicist. Microsoft windows is used by the masses, not just tech savvy slashdot users.
I lived in the UK for 4 years and just returned to Canada. I only wish the CBC was as good as the BBC. I do find their style of news to be way to similar to the big, sensational US news outlets but, otherwise, the content is great! Heck, I'd probably even pay my license fee from Canada!