This 'information' was 'officially' released November, 2006. All technical and stuff, bristling with pride about Spirit's 'new' abilities thanks to software 'D'. I'm left wondering how they got onto Mars with such rudimentary navigation in the first place, but NASA explained that due to the 20 minute lag, both rovers weren't allowed to map out more than a meter or two, and this somehow led to a 1.5 hour stutter-shuffle or something that meant they were simply not equipped to handle large objects. Was there a part of the design spec. that said there was not to be a requirement for either of the rovers to need the ability to navigate around 'large objects'...? If so, who the hell came up with that joke...?
Ok, so I figured I'd do a bit more digging to see what, if anything, I could learn about rover navigation pre-2006.
As found on the NASA website, today:
February 9, 2004
NASA's Spirit rover has begun making some of its own driving decisions while its twin, Opportunity, is presenting scientists with decisions to make about studying small spheres embedded in bedrock, like berries in a muffin.
Both rovers are on the move. Late Sunday, Spirit drove about 6.4 meters (21 feet), passing right over the rock called "Adirondack," where it had finished examining the rock's interior revealed by successfully grinding away the surface. The drive tested the rover's autonomous navigation ability for the first time on Mars.
"We've entered a new phase of the mission," said Dr. Mark Maimone, rover mobility software engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. When the rover is navigating itself, it gets a command telling it where to end up, and it evaluates the terrain with stereo imaging to choose the best way to get there. It must avoid any obstacles it identifies. This capability is expected to enable longer daily drives than depending on step-by-step navigation commands from Earth. Tonight, Spirit will be commanded to drive farther on a northeastward course toward a crater nicknamed "Bonneville."
"The drive tested the rover's autonomous navigation ability for the first time on Mars."
What? Back in 2004, NASA clearly stated that 'stereo imaging' was the technology driving 'the rover's autonomous navigation ability'. That was Spirit they talked about having stereo imaging then, and now today, they say Spirit lacks anything allowing it to go ahead on its own....
So what is up with this lame story back in November where they say both poor little rovers can't tell a wall from a boulder from a breadbasket. Load of crap, my meter says....either way, NASA is pulling legs. Was someone full of shit in 2004, or in 2006? How about both times...then, then and now.
Look - don't you people see what's happening?/. is getting to be...respectable...? And with so many new 7 digit IDs - ouch. If this place is going mainstream it can only mean one thing. Up for sale. Sorry, two things...on the block AND time to find a new swamp.
I've harbored strict disdain for MS's penchant for rewriting history for many years. That's my opinion & I'm sticking to it blah, blah, blah... Who but MS would be behind pushing to take 'dirty tricks' offline? Why is it they retain their stripes and heavy-handedness in today's flash-react internet where a corporations' past is never more than a few clicks away? When will MS learn to stop pulling stunts and take the high road? Rhetorical questions, all, and one of the main reasons behind my brief and opinionated comment.
So I was brief - big deal. Sorry if brevity of opinion ticks off the MS crowd (not), but I see nothing in the rules that says brevity is cause for being modded down - fp or no. Do I feel pain for the slackjaws that need everything spelled o u t? Ummm..not today, sorry.
Mod how you like, but slapping 'offtopic' on something that isn't, is weak...really weak. So go right ahead. Waste your mod points, I'll wear 'em like a badge:)
./ used to be 90% noise. Claiming that 'more and more people grab fp by such and such a manner' is pretty funny considering that most fp's were nothing but noise for so long. Really. The way things work now are much better, IMHO...but so much better that the past is forgotten? Wow... Wonder where those archives are.
Just remember, noise about noise is just noise... Trying to play list-mother by posting about it says you long to be a police-person and carry a badge & gun so you too can push others around and get paid for it. Sit on your hands and let the mods take care of it, or you just add to the....noise.
An AC, p'ist because he/she didn't get fp, whined: "you should be discussing the issues brought up by the post to which you reply. Everyone else can be modded to hell."
To which I have to agree. Thus, the AC's (who is showing off their newbie-training wheels, since fp's used to be nothing but tripe) whine qualifies and down it goes...
Funny...someone actually thinking that/. should be kept all clean and spanky. Not that I miss those days:)
...and not only that, available only to canucs? Seems to limit who can claim to be honoring a promise to support non-DRM'ed content. Yep, this is really going to make a splash in the music world.
What's the point, other than some site smaller than Balmer's nuts trying to gain more exposure...?
"...would love to sell all of their content without DRM"
Their content? They wrote it? They sang it? They played backup in the studio?
Pepsi Lite, Budweiser Beer, Ford Focus, Motorola A1200...all products sold by the corporate entities that made them. 'Love, Love Me Do!' Licensed content. Not 'their' content'...and, yes, I've known my share as well. None of them cast a shadow taller than a rat.
'But they all live in the real world.'
Bullshit. Not one media exec has EVER lived in the real world.
"The Foundation has looked forward to this day with steadfast solidarity. It is a war that the Opposition cannot win. Glory to the Good! May the fields of battle run red with the blood of our suppressors. Aqa'k Barr Ma'lik!"
I believe we've all seen this recent memo from HR, to all IT department staff: 'Floggings will continue until morale improves!'
But seriously, you could swap IT for any discipline and come up with the same bullet-point: "Study Shows Link Between Grounds Keeping Sabotage, Work Behavior" - so what's the point? Just because I hold your entire work history in my shaky, sweaty hands doesn't mean I will automatically go postal and cause trouble for you and your unborn grandchildren. A cafeteria worker can spit in the soup. A parking security wanker can key your new Astro. A disgruntled department head can arbitrarily black mark a borderline performance appraisal.
Screw this generalized dust-kickup of a 'study' and go talk to anyone you think just needs someone to listen. If they tell you they "can't talk...busy...voices said time to clean my guns", then you might want to restrict their security access for a while. Otherwise, treat them like humans and stop watching for signs the sky is getting ready to fall.
"With the number of delays that we've seen in Vista's release, there's no excuse for security vendors not to have got their products right by now..."
Security vendors. They're all alike. They say they come to help...to save us from all things dark, but in their black hearts, they all want the same thing. They all want to RULE the earth!
That USD$2mil might seem small compared to the penalty for the Sacramento, CA radio station that held a water drinking competition which ended up with one contestant dead.
The prize was a new Nintendo Wii - the DJ's laughed and prodded the contestants to hold their water, ignoring how it is possible to die from water toxicity. The woman was a mother, trying to win a Wii for her kids....she begged off from the contest, finally unable to down any additional water, went home and died on the bathroom floor.
"...however, I have yet to meet or see a single solitary person that I would call boring"
Ignoring the face in the mirror, again, are we...?
"meet or see a single solitary person"
If you're gonna meet 'em, Dickey, you're most likely gonna have to see em. And unless you're wearing Guinness goggles, single means solitary, now, don't it?...my god...
I did me best, ey' did, to ignore such petulant grammar first time through, however incessant redundancy, twice of course, is a free ticket to being dragged out into the street and subsequently run over, not once mind you, but of course twice, by a fast-moving DHL wagon, chock full o' two-headed collectible bobble-heads from a recent forced overstock sale at crap-heads.com. Puh-leeze refrain from EVER doing such callous disregard to any known language, again, thanks.
You mean those few thousands of corporate email accounts I just waded into this morning, allowing me to send mail from anyone's account, indicate a downturn...?
What's a guy gotta do to get some dust in the air nowadays, anyhow...sheesh!
All of these companies are still in business and doing quite well (better than Dell even)
Today, sure - but that doesn't mean there wasn't blood on the saddle 5 or 6 years ago. Today's Foxconn/Lite-On isn't yesterday's, by no means. Been there...seen, tasted, smelled and worked that.
And for every tier 1, hardened survivor, there are dozens of tier 2 & 3 corpses (the true little guys that can't be seen in FoxConn or Samsung's shadow). It's just not as simple as it appears in a rear-view mirror:) Now, Dell gets to change...or die.
"...before it gets to this point the supplier will simply demand more money and Dell will either have to take it or leave it."
Oh if it were only that simple of a game:)
Here is how it actually goes... The supplier's people start yammering to themselves about cutting bad customers loose, and it's up to the sales guys to run point and try to force the buyer to put up or walk. The buyer, however, eats sales staff for snack - a quick smile and "Look, do it our way all this year, and next year, if you pull all tens on the appraisals, you can name your price for a change. We will even put it in writing." So, the sales guys cave and spend the next year biting their nails and drinking themselves into a pain-free state. They move on...time moves on. New sales guys come into the fray and when supplier appraisals come out, just prior to refreshing contracts, the numbers don't quite make it & the process repeats and so does the gutting by Dell. Note that this does not go unnoticed by the higher-ups on the supplier side, however. Someone mentions they should cut Dell loose and let them cut down a competitor for a while, but...an SVP comments "...there is perhaps some value in sales being chewed on as long as the competition can't claim Dell as a customer - try your best to keep the blood-letting to a minimum and do what needs to be done to secure a contract renewal". The sales devision takes another beating while R & D gets to enjoy...oh look! Money! Dell investment on the side!
Point is, business does not have to be so brutal. Both sides can come out ahead on all counts without cocking the pistols and clubbing each other as a routine.
"By the way, Samsung is doing great."
Duh - what I gave was a simple enough scenario to serve point-making...hardly detailed reality. Anyone dumb enough to not see that _should_ be anonymous:)
And again, it's not that simple. Samsung has many divisions, from Finance to SDI, etc. Samsung Electronics covers monitors and TVs, while the memory guys get all the attention. Samsung as a whole IS doing great and will continue for years, but there will always be one division trailing another. That's why the TV division, after being on it's own for 15 years and stagnant, was folded into Monitors a few years back. Funny thing that, since Monitors were split off from the TV division back in the '80s, when Samsung first made those little monochrome displays for something called a Macintosh, that wasn't a TV at all, and no one was sure it was even worth a look:)
Back in the day, Apple had the lead by being able to shorten the time between when a product was made and when it hit the buyer to as little as 8 days in the pipe. This amazed Compaq and HP, who found it hard to get below 15~17 days.
Dell copied Apple, and when things changed and the typical increment that most enjoyed went back up to around 12 days in the pipe, Dell, due to the pressure put on suppliers, managed as little as 5 days. Now, everyone is selling commodity and short pipes have a different weight than just a few years ago.
And now we have Dell, stuck in the old ways, no longer willing or able or too proud to follow others, perhaps due to the hollowing out model being their core method, and wham....face down on the mat. That makes them a one trick pony in my book. Bye, bye Dell!
Slashdot Mirror
2004 press release
/. , no less - sigh).
2006 press release - Sol 1014 - (four months prior to being front-burner'd by the ever vigilant staff here @
This 'information' was 'officially' released November, 2006. All technical and stuff, bristling with pride about Spirit's 'new' abilities thanks to software 'D'. I'm left wondering how they got onto Mars with such rudimentary navigation in the first place, but NASA explained that due to the 20 minute lag, both rovers weren't allowed to map out more than a meter or two, and this somehow led to a 1.5 hour stutter-shuffle or something that meant they were simply not equipped to handle large objects. Was there a part of the design spec. that said there was not to be a requirement for either of the rovers to need the ability to navigate around 'large objects'...? If so, who the hell came up with that joke...?
Ok, so I figured I'd do a bit more digging to see what, if anything, I could learn about rover navigation pre-2006.
As found on the NASA website, today:
February 9, 2004
NASA's Spirit rover has begun making some of its own driving decisions while its twin, Opportunity, is presenting scientists with decisions to make about studying small spheres embedded in bedrock, like berries in a muffin.
Both rovers are on the move. Late Sunday, Spirit drove about 6.4 meters (21 feet), passing right over the rock called "Adirondack," where it had finished examining the rock's interior revealed by successfully grinding away the surface. The drive tested the rover's autonomous navigation ability for the first time on Mars.
"We've entered a new phase of the mission," said Dr. Mark Maimone, rover mobility software engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. When the rover is navigating itself, it gets a command telling it where to end up, and it evaluates the terrain with stereo imaging to choose the best way to get there. It must avoid any obstacles it identifies. This capability is expected to enable longer daily drives than depending on step-by-step navigation commands from Earth. Tonight, Spirit will be commanded to drive farther on a northeastward course toward a crater nicknamed "Bonneville."
"The drive tested the rover's autonomous navigation ability for the first time on Mars."
What? Back in 2004, NASA clearly stated that 'stereo imaging' was the technology driving 'the rover's autonomous navigation ability'. That was Spirit they talked about having stereo imaging then, and now today, they say Spirit lacks anything allowing it to go ahead on its own....
So what is up with this lame story back in November where they say both poor little rovers can't tell a wall from a boulder from a breadbasket. Load of crap, my meter says....either way, NASA is pulling legs. Was someone full of shit in 2004, or in 2006? How about both times...then, then and now.
Bingo. FINALLY we have someone that knows how to play this stupid little game. So much better...
Amen, Brother, and many thanks for helping show the light.
Look - don't you people see what's happening? /. is getting to be...respectable...? And with so many new 7 digit IDs - ouch. If this place is going mainstream it can only mean one thing. Up for sale. Sorry, two things...on the block AND time to find a new swamp.
/. user ID?
Anyone want to buy a sub-7 digit
I've harbored strict disdain for MS's penchant for rewriting history for many years. That's my opinion & I'm sticking to it blah, blah, blah... Who but MS would be behind pushing to take 'dirty tricks' offline? Why is it they retain their stripes and heavy-handedness in today's flash-react internet where a corporations' past is never more than a few clicks away? When will MS learn to stop pulling stunts and take the high road? Rhetorical questions, all, and one of the main reasons behind my brief and opinionated comment.
:)
So I was brief - big deal. Sorry if brevity of opinion ticks off the MS crowd (not), but I see nothing in the rules that says brevity is cause for being modded down - fp or no. Do I feel pain for the slackjaws that need everything spelled o u t? Ummm..not today, sorry.
Mod how you like, but slapping 'offtopic' on something that isn't, is weak...really weak. So go right ahead. Waste your mod points, I'll wear 'em like a badge
Wait...hold on, let me go check - Yep, ahhhhhhhh STILL got it :) ~~ "Karma: Excellent"
./ used to be 90% noise. Claiming that 'more and more people grab fp by such and such a manner' is pretty funny considering that most fp's were nothing but noise for so long. Really. The way things work now are much better, IMHO...but so much better that the past is forgotten? Wow... Wonder where those archives are.
Just remember, noise about noise is just noise... Trying to play list-mother by posting about it says you long to be a police-person and carry a badge & gun so you too can push others around and get paid for it. Sit on your hands and let the mods take care of it, or you just add to the....noise.
An AC, p'ist because he/she didn't get fp, whined: "you should be discussing the issues brought up by the post to which you reply. Everyone else can be modded to hell."
/. should be kept all clean and spanky. Not that I miss those days :)
To which I have to agree. Thus, the AC's (who is showing off their newbie-training wheels, since fp's used to be nothing but tripe) whine qualifies and down it goes...
Funny...someone actually thinking that
...and not only that, available only to canucs? Seems to limit who can claim to be honoring a promise to support non-DRM'ed content. Yep, this is really going to make a splash in the music world.
What's the point, other than some site smaller than Balmer's nuts trying to gain more exposure...?
Who but MS could find themselves in such a position, where all the dirt that's fit to spit just won't wash away yesterday's tears.
...what did 'DRM' stand for, exactly...?
"...would love to sell all of their content without DRM"
Their content? They wrote it? They sang it? They played backup in the studio?
Pepsi Lite, Budweiser Beer, Ford Focus, Motorola A1200...all products sold by the corporate entities that made them. 'Love, Love Me Do!' Licensed content. Not 'their' content'...and, yes, I've known my share as well. None of them cast a shadow taller than a rat.
'But they all live in the real world.'
Bullshit. Not one media exec has EVER lived in the real world.
"The Foundation has looked forward to this day with steadfast solidarity. It is a war that the Opposition cannot win. Glory to the Good! May the fields of battle run red with the blood of our suppressors. Aqa'k Barr Ma'lik!"
This is a great way to do it, you have to admit. I wonder if they list all of us expats as well...
"...have to be crazy to think that NASA doesn't do a psychological screening..."
Strange, that's exactly what Lisa said when she was arrested...that, and something about not being able to convert yards to meters.
(does it smell like someone needs to have their di-di's changed...REAL soon?_
I believe we've all seen this recent memo from HR, to all IT department staff: 'Floggings will continue until morale improves!'
But seriously, you could swap IT for any discipline and come up with the same bullet-point: "Study Shows Link Between Grounds Keeping Sabotage, Work Behavior" - so what's the point? Just because I hold your entire work history in my shaky, sweaty hands doesn't mean I will automatically go postal and cause trouble for you and your unborn grandchildren. A cafeteria worker can spit in the soup. A parking security wanker can key your new Astro. A disgruntled department head can arbitrarily black mark a borderline performance appraisal.
Screw this generalized dust-kickup of a 'study' and go talk to anyone you think just needs someone to listen. If they tell you they "can't talk...busy...voices said time to clean my guns", then you might want to restrict their security access for a while. Otherwise, treat them like humans and stop watching for signs the sky is getting ready to fall.
"With the number of delays that we've seen in Vista's release, there's no excuse for security vendors not to have got their products right by now..."
Security vendors. They're all alike. They say they come to help...to save us from all things dark, but in their black hearts, they all want the same thing. They all want to RULE the earth!
That USD$2mil might seem small compared to the penalty for the Sacramento, CA radio station that held a water drinking competition which ended up with one contestant dead.
The prize was a new Nintendo Wii - the DJ's laughed and prodded the contestants to hold their water, ignoring how it is possible to die from water toxicity. The woman was a mother, trying to win a Wii for her kids....she begged off from the contest, finally unable to down any additional water, went home and died on the bathroom floor.
"...however, I have yet to meet or see a single solitary person that I would call boring"
...my god...
Ignoring the face in the mirror, again, are we...?
"meet or see a single solitary person"
If you're gonna meet 'em, Dickey, you're most likely gonna have to see em. And unless you're wearing Guinness goggles, single means solitary, now, don't it?
I did me best, ey' did, to ignore such petulant grammar first time through, however incessant redundancy, twice of course, is a free ticket to being dragged out into the street and subsequently run over, not once mind you, but of course twice, by a fast-moving DHL wagon, chock full o' two-headed collectible bobble-heads from a recent forced overstock sale at crap-heads.com. Puh-leeze refrain from EVER doing such callous disregard to any known language, again, thanks.
I just bought a new waterbed
and it's made for me and you!
Why don't, we get drunk, and screw...
You mean those few thousands of corporate email accounts I just waded into this morning, allowing me to send mail from anyone's account, indicate a downturn...?
What's a guy gotta do to get some dust in the air nowadays, anyhow...sheesh!
"Except Samsung makes the monitors and Dell only buys them and resells."
:)
You really think Dell or Samsung or Wal Mart sells anything just to turn a profit...? 'make/buy/sell' is the least of what's happening.
I'm guessing that outside of pedaling sticky Polaroids of your sister back in high school, you've never actually been in business, right?
All of these companies are still in business and doing quite well (better than Dell even)
:) Now, Dell gets to change...or die.
Today, sure - but that doesn't mean there wasn't blood on the saddle 5 or 6 years ago. Today's Foxconn/Lite-On isn't yesterday's, by no means. Been there...seen, tasted, smelled and worked that.
And for every tier 1, hardened survivor, there are dozens of tier 2 & 3 corpses (the true little guys that can't be seen in FoxConn or Samsung's shadow). It's just not as simple as it appears in a rear-view mirror
"...before it gets to this point the supplier will simply demand more money and Dell will either have to take it or leave it."
:)
:)
:)
Oh if it were only that simple of a game
Here is how it actually goes... The supplier's people start yammering to themselves about cutting bad customers loose, and it's up to the sales guys to run point and try to force the buyer to put up or walk. The buyer, however, eats sales staff for snack - a quick smile and "Look, do it our way all this year, and next year, if you pull all tens on the appraisals, you can name your price for a change. We will even put it in writing." So, the sales guys cave and spend the next year biting their nails and drinking themselves into a pain-free state. They move on...time moves on. New sales guys come into the fray and when supplier appraisals come out, just prior to refreshing contracts, the numbers don't quite make it & the process repeats and so does the gutting by Dell. Note that this does not go unnoticed by the higher-ups on the supplier side, however. Someone mentions they should cut Dell loose and let them cut down a competitor for a while, but...an SVP comments "...there is perhaps some value in sales being chewed on as long as the competition can't claim Dell as a customer - try your best to keep the blood-letting to a minimum and do what needs to be done to secure a contract renewal". The sales devision takes another beating while R & D gets to enjoy...oh look! Money! Dell investment on the side!
Point is, business does not have to be so brutal. Both sides can come out ahead on all counts without cocking the pistols and clubbing each other as a routine.
"By the way, Samsung is doing great."
Duh - what I gave was a simple enough scenario to serve point-making...hardly detailed reality. Anyone dumb enough to not see that _should_ be anonymous
And again, it's not that simple. Samsung has many divisions, from Finance to SDI, etc. Samsung Electronics covers monitors and TVs, while the memory guys get all the attention. Samsung as a whole IS doing great and will continue for years, but there will always be one division trailing another. That's why the TV division, after being on it's own for 15 years and stagnant, was folded into Monitors a few years back. Funny thing that, since Monitors were split off from the TV division back in the '80s, when Samsung first made those little monochrome displays for something called a Macintosh, that wasn't a TV at all, and no one was sure it was even worth a look
"...others copying their business model. (apple?)
Back in the day, Apple had the lead by being able to shorten the time between when a product was made and when it hit the buyer to as little as 8 days in the pipe. This amazed Compaq and HP, who found it hard to get below 15~17 days.
Dell copied Apple, and when things changed and the typical increment that most enjoyed went back up to around 12 days in the pipe, Dell, due to the pressure put on suppliers, managed as little as 5 days. Now, everyone is selling commodity and short pipes have a different weight than just a few years ago.
And now we have Dell, stuck in the old ways, no longer willing or able or too proud to follow others, perhaps due to the hollowing out model being their core method, and wham....face down on the mat. That makes them a one trick pony in my book. Bye, bye Dell!