Photos of entire subdivisions with each house sporting what appears to be a bank vault that serves as a safe room demonstrate what can happen when people actually care about what might happen.
So the people so poor that they're living paycheck to paycheck, unable to build a "bank vault" to protect themselves in, or even have the common decency to own a car and be able to fill it with expensive gas didn't care enough to live?
Those bank vault storm shelters were completely paid for by the goverment, their either subsidized or paid for in full by the residents of the suburbs, am I right?
New Orleans itself is in the same situation, living "paycheck to paycheck". They've been begging for federal funds for years before this happened to upgrade the levees. Those funds got redirected to Iraq for the past two years.
(Rant considerably more nasty before editing, consider yourself lucky...:)
Except that was my high school dream, joining the Cruise team of one interplanetary probe or another at JPL. So orbiter was exciting when I finally found it.
C'mon Orbiter fans, you were thinking the exact same thing when you read this article... Planning a trip to Mars? Just hit Shift-J and start plotting your Hohmann transfer orbit insertion burn.
For those who are lost:
ORBITER is a free flight simulator that goes beyond the confines of Earth's atmosphere. Launch the Space Shuttle from Kennedy Space Center to deploy a satellite, rendezvous with the International Space Station or take the futuristic Delta-glider for a tour through the solar system - the choice is yours. But make no mistake - ORBITER is not a space shooter. The emphasis is firmly on realism, and the learning curve can be steep. Be prepared to invest some time and effort to brush up on your orbital mechanics background. A good starting point is JPL's Space Flight Learners' Workbook.
also...
TransX is [Duncan Sharpe's] eXtended Transfer MFD. It's designed for planning trips across the solar system, or even just to the moon. It's full-featured, with support for complex flight plans, including slingshot trajectories. And naturally, there's a manual that comes with it.
"America," he said, "will lose the war. And Italy will win it."
"America is the strongest and most prosperous nation on earth," Nately informed him with lofty fervor and dignity. "And the American fighting man is second to none."
"Exactly," agreed the old man pleasantly, with a hint of taunting amusement. "Italy, on the other hand, is one of the least prosperous nations on earth. And the Italian fighting man is probably second to all. And that's exactly why my country is doing so well in this war while your country is doing so poorly."
Nately guffawed with surprise, then blushed apologetically for his impoliteness. "I'm sorry I laughed at you," he said sincerely, and he continued in a tone of respectful condescension. "'But Italy was occupied by the Germans and is now being occupied by us. You don't call that doing very well, do you?"
"But of course I do," exclaimed the old man cheerfully. "The Germans are being driven out, and we are still here. In a few years you will be gone, too, and we will still be here. You see, Italy is really a very poor and weak country, and that's what makes us so strong. Italian soldiers are not dying anymore. But American and German soldiers are. I call that doing extremely well. Yes, I am quite certain that Italy will survive this war and still be in existence long after your own country has been destroyed."
Nately could scarcely believe his ears. He had never heard such shocking blasphemies before, and he wondered with instinctive logic why G-men did not appear to lock the traitorous old man up. "America is not going to be destroyed!" he shouted passionately.
"Never?" prodded the old man softly.
"Well..."Nately faltered.
The old man laughed indulgently, holding in check a deeper, more explosive delight. His goading remained gentle. "Rome was destroyed, Greece was destroyed, Persia was destroyed, Spain was destroyed. All great countries are destroyed. Why not yours? How much longer do you really think your own country will last? Forever? Keep in mind that the earth itself is destined to be destroyed by the sun in twenty-five million years or so."
Nately squirmed uncomfortably. "Well, forever is a long time, I guess."
"A million years?" persisted the jeering old man with keen, sadistic zest. "A half million? The frog is almost five hundred million years old. Could you really say with much certainty that America, with all its strength and prosperity, with its fighting man that is second to none, and with its standard of living that is the highest in the world, will last as long as...the frog?"
I dunno man, if the world were a game of Civ 3 starting this year, and I got to pick which Civ to play with, I'd go with China. Sit quiet while everyone else is scared shitless to attack you, build up your infrastructure, watch the money pour in, and then dump it in to tech.
My oldest kid has finally reached the cusp where this is no longer an issue (She's 7 now, and takes very good care of the DVDs. Just make sure you have some nice simple system for storing the DVDs afterward, either a book or a spindle by the TV where these can be dropped.
On the other hand, some of our VHS tapes have started dying. I pulled out Aladdin a few years back to find the tape unreadable by our player.
And wading through the other jerk's comments in this thread, DVD Shrink might be a decent alternative. DVD-R's are down to $0.40CDN here in Canada, the same price as a CD-R
(I made a post similar to this one a few years back about using ISOs for kids games instead of original disks, I got similar jerk-like responses)
This hit me a bit when I read it. I've known about the Ashkenazi Jews, but not from their culture, but their biology.
Amongst other diseases they seem to accumulate is Crohn's Disease, an autoimmune disorder of the GI tract. Ashkenazi's are frequently listed on all Crohn's literature.
I've had Crohn's since I was 20. As far as I know I don't have any Ashkenazi's in my ancestry in the past 200 years, and likely much more (I've studied my genealogy, my ancestry is English, Irish, with a bit of Pennsylvania Dutch thrown in the side.. hmm, maybe from there)
My IQ is nothing to sneeze at (140 plusish, who cares exactly), but I'd never considered that the two might be related.
Or I might just have both independantly and happened to come across an article that made a connection. It still gives me something to think about today...
Work just got me a new fancy Dell (3Ghz) which came with two 19 inch LCD monitors. It seemed a decent replacement for my old triple head system (a 21 inch CRT flanked by 2 17" CRTs)
However, these Dell LCDs have an option to rotate 90 degrees on their base, and I've turned each of them on their side, giving me a resolution more like 2048x1280.
Maybe this isn't the best setup for gameplaying, but since I'm not playing games at work I've found the setup to be fantastic. There's no serious neck turning to look from one end to the other. Web pages feel more natural to read when they're actually page shaped. The very best part is compiling a kernel with the tall tall windows. It looks fantastic.
Agreed, but Viking was almost 30 years ago. I'm not sure if it's fair to compare.
Also, considering the small size of some of these recent landers compared to the automobile size of the old Vikings, I wonder if that's a factor.
I didn't include the old Soviet Mars landers as well.
I know it's a bit too easy to say (A) Mars is tricky to land on (B) We have a technique that appears to have worked fantasticly all 3 times we've tried it, so (C) We should always use the same system. Still, 3 for 3 are amazing stats considering the number of attempts.
I wonder how well the same technique would work on Earth, particularly for sensitive missions like sample returns (perhaps, say, Genisis). At subsonic, could you devise an airbag that would land somewhat safely (in a nice flat place like Utah) even if the parachute failed? Would it even require a parachute at all -- Could the volume of the airbag slow things down nicely? (Consider that the mass of a reentry would likely be rather light compared to launch weight)
True, but I'm talking of history within the last 8-10 years. How well Nasa did almost 30 years ago is no indication of how well they're going to do today.
Let this lander have a "tone" system for determining status during Entry Descent and Landing (EDL). These tones are simple radio signals (256 of them in total, if I recall) that sent out simple program and error states (2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, 4G, Chute Deploy, Impact, etc), and also have the effect of sending back nice doppler data giving us an idea of where these landers are. They work nicely because it's an extremely basic analog signal that can be sent out even if you're wrapped up in airbags, falling at 5G with your heat shield on fire, or if you're tumbling end to end in a firey death.
I'm almost at the point of saying that retro-rocket fired landers are less reliable than their airbag repelling cousins. The airbag method has worked 3 for 3 in the past 8 years. Retrorockets have failed on the single attempt. But I don't think this is a landing technology problem. Landing on the surface of another planet is risky in the best of circumstances (Just before MER-A/B EDL'd I personally gave each of them a 50/50 chance of landing), but if your software isn't perfect, you're screwed.
Regardless, these tone style systems are critical for learning from our mistakes. They make for great TV as well... Beats waiting around for 20 minutes biting your nails.;)
Slashdot Mirror
Photos of entire subdivisions with each house sporting what appears to be a bank vault that serves as a safe room demonstrate what can happen when people actually care about what might happen.
:)
So the people so poor that they're living paycheck to paycheck, unable to build a "bank vault" to protect themselves in, or even have the common decency to own a car and be able to fill it with expensive gas didn't care enough to live?
Those bank vault storm shelters were completely paid for by the goverment, their either subsidized or paid for in full by the residents of the suburbs, am I right?
New Orleans itself is in the same situation, living "paycheck to paycheck". They've been begging for federal funds for years before this happened to upgrade the levees. Those funds got redirected to Iraq for the past two years.
(Rant considerably more nasty before editing, consider yourself lucky...
Why bother with getting the laser up 15km then?
Just fire it from the surface.
Sure there'd be some problems with the atmosphere, but a ground based laser could be hundreds of times more powerful *and* accurate.
Yes, and as we know from yesterday's article, being smart is Un-American.
'Conroe', 'Merom', and 'Woodcrest'. Hmmfph!
Enough with the name game, where's my Moore's Law mandated doubling of CPU speed every 18 months!
And flying cars, dammit they're due too. I want my flying car running on my 12Ghz "Zoomy" processor.
It's my belief that if vegitarians want the omni and carnivores to stop eating meat, they should form a company that produces a product called:
"I can't believe it's not cow!".
That would go further to preventing cruelty towards animals than any poster campaign would.
Except that was my high school dream, joining the Cruise team of one interplanetary probe or another at JPL. So orbiter was exciting when I finally found it.
Duncan Sharpe's TransX
C'mon Orbiter fans, you were thinking the exact same thing when you read this article... Planning a trip to Mars? Just hit Shift-J and start plotting your Hohmann transfer orbit insertion burn.
For those who are lost:
ORBITER is a free flight simulator that goes beyond the confines of Earth's atmosphere. Launch the Space Shuttle from Kennedy Space Center to deploy a satellite, rendezvous with the International Space Station or take the futuristic Delta-glider for a tour through the solar system - the choice is yours.
But make no mistake - ORBITER is not a space shooter. The emphasis is firmly on realism, and the learning curve can be steep. Be prepared to invest some time and effort to brush up on your orbital mechanics background. A good starting point is JPL's Space Flight Learners' Workbook.
also...
TransX is [Duncan Sharpe's] eXtended Transfer MFD. It's designed for planning trips across the solar system, or even just to the moon. It's full-featured, with support for complex flight plans, including slingshot trajectories. And naturally, there's a manual that comes with it.
List 'em here:
Star Control 2
umm... umm...
Thirds.. Ha! Quarters! Hmmph!
Here in Metric Canada we divide everything into halves and fifths!
You can keep your imperial thirds to your own country, thank you very much!
Yea, I can go to the furnature store and they give me stuff for FREE! (No money down, that's the same thing, right?)
Tracking the location of every single potential customer at any time you wish :
;)
priceless
You misspelled "citizen"...
"America," he said, "will lose the war. And Italy will win it."
"America is the strongest and most prosperous nation on earth," Nately informed him with lofty fervor and dignity. "And the American fighting man is second to none."
"Exactly," agreed the old man pleasantly, with a hint of taunting amusement. "Italy, on the other hand, is one of the least prosperous nations on earth. And the Italian fighting man is probably second to all. And that's exactly why my country is doing so well in this war while your country is doing so poorly."
Nately guffawed with surprise, then blushed apologetically for his impoliteness. "I'm sorry I laughed at you," he said sincerely, and he continued in a tone of respectful condescension. "'But Italy was occupied by the Germans and is now being occupied by us. You don't call that doing very well, do you?"
"But of course I do," exclaimed the old man cheerfully. "The Germans are being driven out, and we are still here. In a few years you will be gone, too, and we will still be here. You see, Italy is really a very poor and weak country, and that's what makes us so strong. Italian soldiers are not dying anymore. But American and German soldiers are. I call that doing extremely well. Yes, I am quite certain that Italy will survive this war and still be in existence long after your own country has been destroyed."
Nately could scarcely believe his ears. He had never heard such shocking blasphemies before, and he wondered with instinctive logic why G-men did not appear to lock the traitorous old man up. "America is not going to be destroyed!" he shouted passionately.
"Never?" prodded the old man softly.
"Well..."Nately faltered.
The old man laughed indulgently, holding in check a deeper, more explosive delight. His goading remained gentle. "Rome was destroyed, Greece was destroyed, Persia was destroyed, Spain was destroyed. All great countries are destroyed. Why not yours? How much longer do you really think your own country will last? Forever? Keep in mind that the earth itself is destined to be destroyed by the sun in twenty-five million years or so."
Nately squirmed uncomfortably. "Well, forever is a long time, I guess."
"A million years?" persisted the jeering old man with keen, sadistic zest. "A half million? The frog is almost five hundred million years old. Could you really say with much certainty that America, with all its strength and prosperity, with its fighting man that is second to none, and with its standard of living that is the highest in the world, will last as long as...the frog?"
-- Joseph Heller, Catch-22
I dunno man, if the world were a game of Civ 3 starting this year, and I got to pick which Civ to play with, I'd go with China. Sit quiet while everyone else is scared shitless to attack you, build up your infrastructure, watch the money pour in, and then dump it in to tech.
Pity about the world ending in 2040 though.
Thanks for the link. The original site got DashDotted. ;)
The Angry Alien Productions.
Including the classic:
The Exorcist (in 30 seconds, and re-enacted by bunnies)
Titanic (in 30 seconds, and re-enacted by bunnies)
(you get the idea)
Maybe we could go with his home down boys and get the world class Simon Fraser University Pipe Band to play for him.
When bagpipes are played *well*, they actually sound good. Then again, I'm biased, this is my university.
(samples here)
I should ebay mine then. It's one of the wimpier ones, but it does run Solaris 2.5. I think I picked it up for $50 years back when the bubble burst.
My oldest kid has finally reached the cusp where this is no longer an issue (She's 7 now, and takes very good care of the DVDs. Just make sure you have some nice simple system for storing the DVDs afterward, either a book or a spindle by the TV where these can be dropped.
On the other hand, some of our VHS tapes have started dying. I pulled out Aladdin a few years back to find the tape unreadable by our player.
And wading through the other jerk's comments in this thread, DVD Shrink might be a decent alternative. DVD-R's are down to $0.40CDN here in Canada, the same price as a CD-R
(I made a post similar to this one a few years back about using ISOs for kids games instead of original disks, I got similar jerk-like responses)
Jesus, I'm glad the last CPU I bought was AMD.. ;)
This hit me a bit when I read it. I've known about the Ashkenazi Jews, but not from their culture, but their biology.
Amongst other diseases they seem to accumulate is Crohn's Disease, an autoimmune disorder of the GI tract. Ashkenazi's are frequently listed on all Crohn's literature.
I've had Crohn's since I was 20. As far as I know I don't have any Ashkenazi's in my ancestry in the past 200 years, and likely much more (I've studied my genealogy, my ancestry is English, Irish, with a bit of Pennsylvania Dutch thrown in the side.. hmm, maybe from there)
My IQ is nothing to sneeze at (140 plusish, who cares exactly), but I'd never considered that the two might be related.
Or I might just have both independantly and happened to come across an article that made a connection. It still gives me something to think about today...
Work just got me a new fancy Dell (3Ghz) which came with two 19 inch LCD monitors. It seemed a decent replacement for my old triple head system (a 21 inch CRT flanked by 2 17" CRTs)
However, these Dell LCDs have an option to rotate 90 degrees on their base, and I've turned each of them on their side, giving me a resolution more like 2048x1280.
Maybe this isn't the best setup for gameplaying, but since I'm not playing games at work I've found the setup to be fantastic. There's no serious neck turning to look from one end to the other. Web pages feel more natural to read when they're actually page shaped. The very best part is compiling a kernel with the tall tall windows. It looks fantastic.
Ooo, Digital Maas! Thanks muchly!
Agreed, but Viking was almost 30 years ago. I'm not sure if it's fair to compare.
Also, considering the small size of some of these recent landers compared to the automobile size of the old Vikings, I wonder if that's a factor.
I didn't include the old Soviet Mars landers as well.
I know it's a bit too easy to say (A) Mars is tricky to land on (B) We have a technique that appears to have worked fantasticly all 3 times we've tried it, so (C) We should always use the same system. Still, 3 for 3 are amazing stats considering the number of attempts.
I wonder how well the same technique would work on Earth, particularly for sensitive missions like sample returns (perhaps, say, Genisis). At subsonic, could you devise an airbag that would land somewhat safely (in a nice flat place like Utah) even if the parachute failed? Would it even require a parachute at all -- Could the volume of the airbag slow things down nicely? (Consider that the mass of a reentry would likely be rather light compared to launch weight)
True, but I'm talking of history within the last 8-10 years. How well Nasa did almost 30 years ago is no indication of how well they're going to do today.
Let this lander have a "tone" system for determining status during Entry Descent and Landing (EDL). These tones are simple radio signals (256 of them in total, if I recall) that sent out simple program and error states (2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, 4G, Chute Deploy, Impact, etc), and also have the effect of sending back nice doppler data giving us an idea of where these landers are. They work nicely because it's an extremely basic analog signal that can be sent out even if you're wrapped up in airbags, falling at 5G with your heat shield on fire, or if you're tumbling end to end in a firey death.
;)
I'm almost at the point of saying that retro-rocket fired landers are less reliable than their airbag repelling cousins. The airbag method has worked 3 for 3 in the past 8 years. Retrorockets have failed on the single attempt. But I don't think this is a landing technology problem. Landing on the surface of another planet is risky in the best of circumstances (Just before MER-A/B EDL'd I personally gave each of them a 50/50 chance of landing), but if your software isn't perfect, you're screwed.
Regardless, these tone style systems are critical for learning from our mistakes. They make for great TV as well... Beats waiting around for 20 minutes biting your nails.