"I thought Apple is going to open up the platform for developers."
That's one thing. And I commend Apple for opening it up for 3rd party applications.
The remaining problem (worth fighting Steve Jobs himself) is that people want to use it on networks other than AT&T. I live in Brazil and, if I were to use an iPhone, I would first have to crack it. I don't like the idea. It's a GSM phone after all - people should be able to use it with whatever SIM card they want.
I doubt this will be their downfall. It's more likely that a competitor will emerge, get more fashionable and their users will just switch to the newer, cooler, site. It happened before in other markets.
As for cheap servers and IPv6, Facebook's assets are the relationships between the accounts, not the accounts/people themselves. It's the relationships that drive traffic, not the content.
Of course I have seen pictures of Buran and Polyus. Many earlier designs of the Energia/Buran combined vehicle called for the top mount and, IIRC, it was still an option - but it would require some retooling and some larger equipment (the vehicle is rolled on it's back into the platform and then rotated into its final launch position). The Polyus was launched before the Buran and was, more or less, a collection of repurposed parts and technology. It could have flown on top, but I guess they didn't have the spare parts and the equipment for that.
Side-mounted passive loads are rare for a reason - it's harder to design a vehicle for that kind of use. The Shuttle goes up side-mounted not because it's a clever design, but because it has its own engines that are needed for the lift.
The Energia design also calls for re-usable boosters and main engines (eliminating the need for SSME-like engines on the orbiter itself). I am not sure how they would do that and, in fact, I don't think they were either - they never did it.
"You do know that the soviet union was collapsing at the time, right?"
While it is true the USSR was collapsing, it is not clear how much the Buran would be hit if it could deliver on its initial promises.
But I agree with you they were doomed by the economic collapse - both the Buran and Energia programs had very little to do. Buran, even being better than the Shuttle, was still a bad idea (why send a return vehicle when, most of the time, there is nothing to return?) and Energia was mostly useful for lifting really big stuff (like the Buran), a need that never really materialized. The Energia could have been used to haul lots of parts for the ISS but since it was downsized to its current configuration, there is really not much of a need for a big booster. If even the Soyuz and Mir programs were badly hit (and there was some demand for them in the form of a NASA partnership, IIRC), it's no surprise the USSR chose to cut the big ones.
It's sad because going back to the Moon will require almost exactly the big boosters we already had decades ago. Instead or redesigning stuff, we could just be using and upgrading the ones we had.
BTW, the side-mounted boosters on the Buran were liquid-fuel ones. How would they compare to the idea of using solid fuels for the first stage of the Ares I? While simpler (a SRB is the image of simplicity), are they really cheaper?
Although capable of being mounted on the top, the Buran was never in this configuration.
IIRC, the Energia-Buran combined vehicle arrived on its side and had to be rotated into position and rotating a bigger rocket would require bigger structures that would have to be built before the vehicle proved its worth.
To say it was never used in a given configuration is not really much, mainly because it flew only once. We can't know how it would be mounted if it ever entered active service (as much of a bad idea as it was).
It's not revisionist to think they probably ran out of money _because_ the Buran solved no real problem that had not already been solved with other technologies. Had the Buran a real task to do, it would probably get some funding.
Since the intention behind it (and other projects as well) was to give technical parity between the two superpowers and the Buran gave nothing new (the USSR could launch people and cargo to space better without it), it got scrapped. They could not afford to let the US develop something significantly better, so they had to do something on the same lines, just to be safe. The main difference is they took less time to figure out it was a really bad idea. And keep in mind theirs was a better one.
The problem is not "build a reusable spacecraft" but rather "get this thing to orbit, for less money than we already pay". If you focus on the wrong problem, it's inevitable you arrive at the wrong solution.
As it happened, Buran was a great solution to get something down in one piece. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen often enough to justify the money spent on it.
In fact, the Buran design was superior - it had no lift engines of its own and could ride on top of the real rocket. This simplifies the loads on the main rocket, allow for more cargo and makes the vehicle immune to insulation damage.
Of course the Soviets noticed this was a bad idea (it would be smarter to send the cargo on top of the Energia rocket and not carry Buran's dead weight) and aborted the project after the first flight.
They could have aborted it before, but then there was that national pride thing...
"For corporations that issue portable computing devices to their employees no IT department in their right mind is going to make a wholesale switch from Windows Mobile based smart phones and PDAs that run on the corporate voice/data network of choice to iPhones"
That's why Windows wins. Inertia trumps competence. Nobody who already made an investment on Windows Mobile software will be able to run its business on anything else, iPhone, Palm or Linux, and will either have to pay to port the software or enjoy life as a Windows Mobile vict^H^H^H^Huser for a very long time.
I see, however, many IT managers having to explain people higher on the org-chart why the hell they can't have the trendy and hip phones their children are using that make their Windows things look even more clunky than they already are.
And remember - iPhones won't be locked everywhere.
It's true the shuttle does things that are really necessary and quite cool - getting people to space and back, getting big things to space and getting other big things back, but the fact that those abilities are seldom needed at once is a killer.
There must be a way to ferry big stuff into orbit frequently - even if it is just a truckload of provisions for the ISS or a whole vehicle capable of taking a crew to the Moon and back. There must be a way to send people to the ISS and back. There must be a way to allow those people already in space to repair expensive stuff like the Hubble. Finally, there should probably be a way to return things the size of the Hubble back to Earth in one piece.
Sending large things to orbit is very frequent, ferrying people is less frequent and bringing back stuff is even less frequent if needed at all.
Having something that does all three at the same time seems like a bad idea.
"It's silly to design the lifter until we have a design for - or even a means of constructing - the tether itself."
I fully agree. This is a huge waste of time, talent and money. Until there can be a tether - and there is none in sight - it's a bit premature to develop the climber.
It would be a whole lot more clever to invest in simpler, dumber, cheaper rockets that don't need LH2 for fuel (as the 1st stage of the Saturn V didn't) for now, to invest in nuclear-thermal rockets for the next-generation and maybe invest in some kind of automated facilities that could manufacture stuff on the Moon, where the launch costs could be minimal compared to our gravity well (assuming we could get the raw materials required, which is not a trivial question). Even if Moon-based manufacturing could only deliver the simplest components (structural tubing, simple metal sheets, cables) anything you don't have to launch from Earth is great news.
For #1 I suggest getting back to basics. People already did a Saturn V running on kerosene. It cannot be too hard to do it again. For #2 there has been a lot of development and I like the nuclear light bulb approach and for #3 someone could start by sending a dozen rovers (not trivial because they must do a powered descent that most landers didn't have to do for the past decades) and let them be dumb and remote controlled from Earth (the Moon is about a light-second away) but with some interesting soil sample analysis equipment.
It seems NASA is frequently caught in a situation where they appear to be enjoying developing the most complicated solution to a given problem. I can't blame them, as I also get caught enjoying work too much every so often, but, come on... Sometimes it gets ridiculous.
And this is why a patent on patent-trolling would be so valuable.;-)
Re:Interesting protest, but
on
eBay The Vote
·
· Score: 1
The people involved in those protests are neither poor nor uneducated. They seem to be clever and articulated upper middle-class.
The apathy I heard ("It doesn't matter who is elected" or "It's all the same") shocked me. It's their country after all. The very same people took it back from a military dictatorship that was far more violent than the Brazilian one and just a bit less than the Chilean one. I saw the bullet marks on the walls (I don't remember the name of that building a block away from the Casa Rosada). There seems to be a war hero riding a horse in every monument. Can they no longer inspire their own people?
I am sorry for the rant - it's not my country and it's none of my business - but I just can't understand it. Such a waste.
Can it be the inevitable fate of so many countries in Latin America to end up under the Castros, Chávezes, Moraleses and Peróns?
"The desire to protect yourself and your loved ones trumps it all, when it comes down to it. That's just human nature."
Yes, but only because I find my genes are extremely important and beneficial for all mankind. I think it's vital for future generations they are preserved and disseminated.;-)
In Soviet Russia cockroach overlords irradiate you.
Couldn't resist either.
Interesting protest, but
on
eBay The Vote
·
· Score: 1
It's an interesting protest. I was in Buenos Aires until a couple days ago and I saw some people "selling" their votes on the street. While this is interesting, I am not sure how constructive it is.
Most attempts to "fix politics" "from the outside" result in bloodshed and in even more broken political systems. Politics can only be fixed from the inside.
Maybe the doctor could try to run on the next elections.
"They cannot compete effectively with open source so they are going to buy as many open source companies as they can and Shut Them Down"
The beauty is in imagining how much of the money they pay for such companies will get funneled back into FOSS projects. It could represent an impressive boost mainly because projects and companies cooperate between them, something MS is unable to do.
Their best shot is to try to own as much intellectual property as possible and that will only take them as far as US-like software patents do exist. These movements are mainly intended to reduce the momentum behind FOSS thus complementing their FUD strategies.
They will kick, they will scream, but they sure look doomed to me. It's only a matter of time now.
Luckily, what will happen if MS buys RH and starts forcing people to pay for their patents is that they will discover US patent law extends very little beyond its borders.
As I said before, it's sad the US tech industry will suffer, but IT companies can always move to other countries. A lot of them would be very happy to harbor the next Google if the US ends up being a hostile environment for new developments.
I realize I failed on my analogy because XP is a 6 year-old operating system. The real question is, can you run a 2 year-old Microsoft OS on a 10 year-old PC? Because you _can_ run a 2 year-old MacOS acceptably on a 10 year-old Macintosh that had only its hard disk and memory upgraded.
BTW, I am sure you can run a 2 year-old Linux or BSD on a 10 year-old PC. I bet you can even run a current Linux or BSD on a 10 year old PC without any upgrade beyond filling it up with memory.
"they have phased out legacy equipment and software every so many years."
I can still use a fully patched 10.4 on a beige G3. It requires some hacking to install and some patience (because, of course, the G3 is not the fastest box around), but it kind of works.
I can't imagine running XP on a PC built 10 years ago.
"Windows 2000 (or XP) to Windows Vista would be the best analogy to NeXT -> OS X"
I am not sure any Windows analogies would apply. 2K was never as elegant as OPENSTEP and OSX doesn't suck nearly as much as Vista. Some may say OSX doesn't suck at all while I can identify some suckiness here and there.
1) The II would not be able to manage many different devices because it had less memory than my watch. Apple, with the original Mac, toyed with a self-contained computer. It was a one-size-fits-all approach that worked quite well for most non-geeks. Today, most non-geeks buy their computers and never open up the case. Apple just catered to those people years before anyone else.
And BSODs are not a problem or excessive hardware diversity - they are a problem of bad complexity management.
2) Unixes are more "open" than, say, Windows, because you can move your software between them rather easily as opposed to and from Windows and anything else. It was harder to port from 3.1 to NT than it is to port from UnixWare on 386 to Solaris on Sparc. There is also more than onde vendor of Unix and only one of Windows-compatible OSs. While with Unix-like OSs you can chose between any combination of different architectures, from lowly x86s to vast Itanium number crunchers, the software can be pretty much, the same. Because of that, I can pick the server that better matches my workload, be it a MIPS box or a Sparc T2.
As for the BSD-ishness of OSX, the BSD crowd never demanded people to give anything back. While Microsoft took the TCP/IP stack for NT, NeXT, at least, took the Unixness along.
3) Actually, I prefer the zero-button Mighty Mouse. It has quite a clever design and feels very comfortable. On my Linux box I use a Microsoft mouse (their software is crappy, but their mice and keyboards are superb)
4) I too am considering putting a CF drive into one of my Apple IIs - those floppies won't work forever and I need to put that data on more permanent media. I got a couple pointers on them and I can dig them up if you want.
Slashdot Mirror
"I thought Apple is going to open up the platform for developers."
That's one thing. And I commend Apple for opening it up for 3rd party applications.
The remaining problem (worth fighting Steve Jobs himself) is that people want to use it on networks other than AT&T. I live in Brazil and, if I were to use an iPhone, I would first have to crack it. I don't like the idea. It's a GSM phone after all - people should be able to use it with whatever SIM card they want.
"Cheap web serving appliances and IPv6"
I doubt this will be their downfall. It's more likely that a competitor will emerge, get more fashionable and their users will just switch to the newer, cooler, site. It happened before in other markets.
As for cheap servers and IPv6, Facebook's assets are the relationships between the accounts, not the accounts/people themselves. It's the relationships that drive traffic, not the content.
Of course I have seen pictures of Buran and Polyus. Many earlier designs of the Energia/Buran combined vehicle called for the top mount and, IIRC, it was still an option - but it would require some retooling and some larger equipment (the vehicle is rolled on it's back into the platform and then rotated into its final launch position). The Polyus was launched before the Buran and was, more or less, a collection of repurposed parts and technology. It could have flown on top, but I guess they didn't have the spare parts and the equipment for that.
Side-mounted passive loads are rare for a reason - it's harder to design a vehicle for that kind of use. The Shuttle goes up side-mounted not because it's a clever design, but because it has its own engines that are needed for the lift.
The Energia design also calls for re-usable boosters and main engines (eliminating the need for SSME-like engines on the orbiter itself). I am not sure how they would do that and, in fact, I don't think they were either - they never did it.
"You do know that the soviet union was collapsing at the time, right?"
While it is true the USSR was collapsing, it is not clear how much the Buran would be hit if it could deliver on its initial promises.
But I agree with you they were doomed by the economic collapse - both the Buran and Energia programs had very little to do. Buran, even being better than the Shuttle, was still a bad idea (why send a return vehicle when, most of the time, there is nothing to return?) and Energia was mostly useful for lifting really big stuff (like the Buran), a need that never really materialized. The Energia could have been used to haul lots of parts for the ISS but since it was downsized to its current configuration, there is really not much of a need for a big booster. If even the Soyuz and Mir programs were badly hit (and there was some demand for them in the form of a NASA partnership, IIRC), it's no surprise the USSR chose to cut the big ones.
It's sad because going back to the Moon will require almost exactly the big boosters we already had decades ago. Instead or redesigning stuff, we could just be using and upgrading the ones we had.
BTW, the side-mounted boosters on the Buran were liquid-fuel ones. How would they compare to the idea of using solid fuels for the first stage of the Ares I? While simpler (a SRB is the image of simplicity), are they really cheaper?
Although capable of being mounted on the top, the Buran was never in this configuration.
IIRC, the Energia-Buran combined vehicle arrived on its side and had to be rotated into position and rotating a bigger rocket would require bigger structures that would have to be built before the vehicle proved its worth.
To say it was never used in a given configuration is not really much, mainly because it flew only once. We can't know how it would be mounted if it ever entered active service (as much of a bad idea as it was).
It's not revisionist to think they probably ran out of money _because_ the Buran solved no real problem that had not already been solved with other technologies. Had the Buran a real task to do, it would probably get some funding.
Since the intention behind it (and other projects as well) was to give technical parity between the two superpowers and the Buran gave nothing new (the USSR could launch people and cargo to space better without it), it got scrapped. They could not afford to let the US develop something significantly better, so they had to do something on the same lines, just to be safe. The main difference is they took less time to figure out it was a really bad idea. And keep in mind theirs was a better one.
The problem is not "build a reusable spacecraft" but rather "get this thing to orbit, for less money than we already pay". If you focus on the wrong problem, it's inevitable you arrive at the wrong solution.
As it happened, Buran was a great solution to get something down in one piece. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen often enough to justify the money spent on it.
In fact, the Buran design was superior - it had no lift engines of its own and could ride on top of the real rocket. This simplifies the loads on the main rocket, allow for more cargo and makes the vehicle immune to insulation damage.
Of course the Soviets noticed this was a bad idea (it would be smarter to send the cargo on top of the Energia rocket and not carry Buran's dead weight) and aborted the project after the first flight.
They could have aborted it before, but then there was that national pride thing...
"For corporations that issue portable computing devices to their employees no IT department in their right mind is going to make a wholesale switch from Windows Mobile based smart phones and PDAs that run on the corporate voice/data network of choice to iPhones"
That's why Windows wins. Inertia trumps competence. Nobody who already made an investment on Windows Mobile software will be able to run its business on anything else, iPhone, Palm or Linux, and will either have to pay to port the software or enjoy life as a Windows Mobile vict^H^H^H^Huser for a very long time.
I see, however, many IT managers having to explain people higher on the org-chart why the hell they can't have the trendy and hip phones their children are using that make their Windows things look even more clunky than they already are.
And remember - iPhones won't be locked everywhere.
It's true the shuttle does things that are really necessary and quite cool - getting people to space and back, getting big things to space and getting other big things back, but the fact that those abilities are seldom needed at once is a killer.
There must be a way to ferry big stuff into orbit frequently - even if it is just a truckload of provisions for the ISS or a whole vehicle capable of taking a crew to the Moon and back. There must be a way to send people to the ISS and back. There must be a way to allow those people already in space to repair expensive stuff like the Hubble. Finally, there should probably be a way to return things the size of the Hubble back to Earth in one piece.
Sending large things to orbit is very frequent, ferrying people is less frequent and bringing back stuff is even less frequent if needed at all.
Having something that does all three at the same time seems like a bad idea.
"It's silly to design the lifter until we have a design for - or even a means of constructing - the tether itself."
I fully agree. This is a huge waste of time, talent and money. Until there can be a tether - and there is none in sight - it's a bit premature to develop the climber.
It would be a whole lot more clever to invest in simpler, dumber, cheaper rockets that don't need LH2 for fuel (as the 1st stage of the Saturn V didn't) for now, to invest in nuclear-thermal rockets for the next-generation and maybe invest in some kind of automated facilities that could manufacture stuff on the Moon, where the launch costs could be minimal compared to our gravity well (assuming we could get the raw materials required, which is not a trivial question). Even if Moon-based manufacturing could only deliver the simplest components (structural tubing, simple metal sheets, cables) anything you don't have to launch from Earth is great news.
For #1 I suggest getting back to basics. People already did a Saturn V running on kerosene. It cannot be too hard to do it again. For #2 there has been a lot of development and I like the nuclear light bulb approach and for #3 someone could start by sending a dozen rovers (not trivial because they must do a powered descent that most landers didn't have to do for the past decades) and let them be dumb and remote controlled from Earth (the Moon is about a light-second away) but with some interesting soil sample analysis equipment.
It seems NASA is frequently caught in a situation where they appear to be enjoying developing the most complicated solution to a given problem. I can't blame them, as I also get caught enjoying work too much every so often, but, come on... Sometimes it gets ridiculous.
"there has to be a simpler answer then freaking laser beams."
;-)
Maybe a rocket?
And this is why a patent on patent-trolling would be so valuable. ;-)
The people involved in those protests are neither poor nor uneducated. They seem to be clever and articulated upper middle-class.
The apathy I heard ("It doesn't matter who is elected" or "It's all the same") shocked me. It's their country after all. The very same people took it back from a military dictatorship that was far more violent than the Brazilian one and just a bit less than the Chilean one. I saw the bullet marks on the walls (I don't remember the name of that building a block away from the Casa Rosada). There seems to be a war hero riding a horse in every monument. Can they no longer inspire their own people?
I am sorry for the rant - it's not my country and it's none of my business - but I just can't understand it. Such a waste.
Can it be the inevitable fate of so many countries in Latin America to end up under the Castros, Chávezes, Moraleses and Peróns?
GP said "most" of the roaches.
It implies general population will take a hit when man is no longer around, not that they can't care for themselves.
"The desire to protect yourself and your loved ones trumps it all, when it comes down to it. That's just human nature."
;-)
Yes, but only because I find my genes are extremely important and beneficial for all mankind. I think it's vital for future generations they are preserved and disseminated.
In Soviet Russia cockroach overlords irradiate you.
Couldn't resist either.
It's an interesting protest. I was in Buenos Aires until a couple days ago and I saw some people "selling" their votes on the street. While this is interesting, I am not sure how constructive it is.
Most attempts to "fix politics" "from the outside" result in bloodshed and in even more broken political systems. Politics can only be fixed from the inside.
Maybe the doctor could try to run on the next elections.
How hard it is in Argentina?
"They cannot compete effectively with open source so they are going to buy as many open source companies as they can and Shut Them Down"
The beauty is in imagining how much of the money they pay for such companies will get funneled back into FOSS projects. It could represent an impressive boost mainly because projects and companies cooperate between them, something MS is unable to do.
Their best shot is to try to own as much intellectual property as possible and that will only take them as far as US-like software patents do exist. These movements are mainly intended to reduce the momentum behind FOSS thus complementing their FUD strategies.
They will kick, they will scream, but they sure look doomed to me. It's only a matter of time now.
It's only watchable because of the references to hacker culture, Angelina Jolie and a very good soundtrack. ;-)
Careful. That's what software patents are for.
Luckily, what will happen if MS buys RH and starts forcing people to pay for their patents is that they will discover US patent law extends very little beyond its borders.
As I said before, it's sad the US tech industry will suffer, but IT companies can always move to other countries. A lot of them would be very happy to harbor the next Google if the US ends up being a hostile environment for new developments.
I realize I failed on my analogy because XP is a 6 year-old operating system. The real question is, can you run a 2 year-old Microsoft OS on a 10 year-old PC? Because you _can_ run a 2 year-old MacOS acceptably on a 10 year-old Macintosh that had only its hard disk and memory upgraded.
BTW, I am sure you can run a 2 year-old Linux or BSD on a 10 year-old PC. I bet you can even run a current Linux or BSD on a 10 year old PC without any upgrade beyond filling it up with memory.
I have an Apple II. Can you move something half a pixel to the left?
"they have phased out legacy equipment and software every so many years."
I can still use a fully patched 10.4 on a beige G3. It requires some hacking to install and some patience (because, of course, the G3 is not the fastest box around), but it kind of works.
I can't imagine running XP on a PC built 10 years ago.
"Windows 2000 (or XP) to Windows Vista would be the best analogy to NeXT -> OS X"
I am not sure any Windows analogies would apply. 2K was never as elegant as OPENSTEP and OSX doesn't suck nearly as much as Vista. Some may say OSX doesn't suck at all while I can identify some suckiness here and there.
1) The II would not be able to manage many different devices because it had less memory than my watch. Apple, with the original Mac, toyed with a self-contained computer. It was a one-size-fits-all approach that worked quite well for most non-geeks. Today, most non-geeks buy their computers and never open up the case. Apple just catered to those people years before anyone else.
And BSODs are not a problem or excessive hardware diversity - they are a problem of bad complexity management.
2) Unixes are more "open" than, say, Windows, because you can move your software between them rather easily as opposed to and from Windows and anything else. It was harder to port from 3.1 to NT than it is to port from UnixWare on 386 to Solaris on Sparc. There is also more than onde vendor of Unix and only one of Windows-compatible OSs. While with Unix-like OSs you can chose between any combination of different architectures, from lowly x86s to vast Itanium number crunchers, the software can be pretty much, the same. Because of that, I can pick the server that better matches my workload, be it a MIPS box or a Sparc T2.
As for the BSD-ishness of OSX, the BSD crowd never demanded people to give anything back. While Microsoft took the TCP/IP stack for NT, NeXT, at least, took the Unixness along.
3) Actually, I prefer the zero-button Mighty Mouse. It has quite a clever design and feels very comfortable. On my Linux box I use a Microsoft mouse (their software is crappy, but their mice and keyboards are superb)
4) I too am considering putting a CF drive into one of my Apple IIs - those floppies won't work forever and I need to put that data on more permanent media. I got a couple pointers on them and I can dig them up if you want.