I actually think he's doing something different. I've heard vegetarians say that people should only eat animals that they kill themselves -- it's a way to make people fully aware of the fact that eating meat involves the death of a living animal (rather than the normal way of having the animal killed out of sight and we just stop by the grocery store and purchase some meat nicely wrapped in plastic, or already cooked in a restaurant). The goal is to make people stop eating meat.
The goal is flawed. The goal should be to make them aware and *appreciate* the fact eating meat involves the death of a living animal, not to turn them off meat altogether (though exposés of modern industrial methods of butchering and preparing meat may do that all on their own).
Though I've not personally killed an animal myself aside from cooking a live lobster, I was with my grandmother when she choose a live chicken in the markets of Hong Kong, which was then slaughtered and de-feathered in front of us. I remember being slightly queasy at the sight, having grown up in a big Canadian city, but only slightly. Far from turning me off meat, it made me appreciate dinner more that night, and I make a point never, ever to waste meat at a meal.
Reading back it still isn't obvious you were sarcastic. Actually it read too much like an ignorant fanboyish post. It looks like we're really on the same page though so my regrets for flipping out a bit on you.
So, a custom 6-mini drawer, and/or deal with six power cables going into the 6-mini "rack", six ethernet cables, and 7200RPM SATA (instead of 10K or even 15K RPM SAS) hard drives that aren't hot-swappable in case one fails. And each comes only with a single Core2 Duo processor and a maximum 8 GB RAM supported.
Sorry, but no. A standalone mini server or two may be okay in an SMB office environment where a bit of occasional downtime might be okay, but I wouldn't fool around with a Mac mini rack setup in an enterprise/datacentre rack.
And why say he needs an XServe, did you completely miss the news about XServes being discontinued entirely?
Bottom line, Apple isn't committed to enterprise/datacentre hardware requirements like HP, IBM and Dell (shudder) are, so don't look to them for solutions in that space.
I am not forgetting desktops at all--but if you're seriously trying to make a semi-universal port, you have to design it for laptops (and maybe netbooks), which have sold more than desktops for some years now. And laptops *don't* come with 300 W power supplies.
You said 2x30" monitors originally, not 22", so say a single 30" monitor uses 25W, your dual setup is now sucking down 50W out of a 90W adapter (looking at a Lenovo 15" laptop here; and its default adapter is actually 65W). And what if you're on battery power?
So yes, it is too much to ask for an additional 40W-80W of power through a port that's supported on laptops--and if you want it to hook up things to a desktop, seriously is an extra power cable or three going to matter? 80W available is over 3 Amps of current, given your suggested 24V DC rail. It's worse with current desktop PSUs: almost 7A on a 12V rail or 16A on a 5V rail (laptops have no user-accessible voltage rails so it's moot). According to the Wiki article on power supply rails, the 5V is rated for 20A, so even there you're borderline for running a single 22" monitor, let alone a 30" one.
And I really wouldn't want to run that much current over the tiny electrical leads of a modern external port connector. USB doesn't have this problem because its max current draw is 0.1A without device negotiation, and 0.5A max regardless.
It's just that I always associate the "+" symbol with "add"... which is fair, considering everyone in gradeschool knows that when you have a "+", it means "add".
Don't worry, the Texas board of education is working to fix that.
And if you'd posted similar thoughts before and got replies, they would have said that all of your suggestions are impossible, impractical, and/or insanely expensive.
Test platform for new engines: far easier assemble and test engines on earth. And if you did need a space environment to finally test it (say a hypothetical engine with radioactive exhaust), far easier to launch it into space around a dedicated test vehicle rather than limit yourself to a shuttle frame. Also the logistics of mating a new system to the shuttle while in zero-G would be an insane nightmare requiring dozens of astronauts and space walks. And of course once you fire the engine you have to re-do all your orbital calculations to meet up with it again. Completely impractical.
Escape pod for ISS: huge mass that increases drag on the ISS (yes, even that high there's enough atmospheric drag that they need to re-boost the orbit now and then). Shuttle also has limited power and doesn't use any solar power; the APUs run out in about a month, even with strict conservation--this was part of the "could Columbia have survived long enough for a rescue shuttle to reach it" scenario that was drawn up after that disaster. Maintenance on such a huge craft is also much more complex compared to a simple Soyuz or similar capsule-sized escape pod.
I could go on. Even leaving it up in low-earth orbit as a space artifact and maybe eventual (i.e. decades from now) museum isn't a good idea, once its power dies it is an out-of-control piece of space junk that will eventually de-orbit, with enough chunks surviving re-entry to damage/kill anything it lands on (a large piece of Columbia narrowly missed a gas station).
Real space isn't anywhere as easy as Hollywood makes it out to be.
Hubble launched with a defective mirror, and would have ultimately been an expensive failure if the shuttle hadn't been available to take astronauts up and add corrective parts.
In the 70s when the shuttle program got off the ground there was no political will to continue going to the moon, never mind land someone on Mars. Like any government organization NASA had to justify its existence somehow, and the shuttle was the result. Certainly the result of much compromise and cost-cutting, but it did keep two generations interested in space travel (when's the last time people lined up by the thousands to see an unmanned rocket launch?), and that's just as important as any "real" science and progress achieved by the shuttle program.
I assume you're joking about powering huge monitors, electric blankets and other heavy-load equipment from a single port. Thunderbolt can supply 10W of power according to a quick google.
You could never drive all of those through the small power adapters that laptops normally have, and even if you could, why would you risk a massive power surge passing within centimetres of all your computer's sensitive electronic components?
We also downloaded it because the American version (in season 1 anyway) had really shitty title music, courtesy of meddling by the head of Sci-Fi Channel at the time.
Thankfully Sci-Fi Channel wised up, because season 2 onwards it used the UK version.
I love the irony in your title--NASA of course really would prefer this launch be "not an accident":-)
There may be a little bit of grandstanding involved, but NASA has been severely raked over the coals twice for not following safety procedures. One was for a relatively high-profile mission (Challenger, teacher in space), where there was a lot of pressure to launch and managers overrode or ignored engineers' warnings. Columbia, managers ignored warnings of possible damage, even overriding a request to have pictures of the wing taken by military assets in space. With the whole world watching these last missions (and this one in particular, thanks to the commander's wife being the congresswoman recovering from a point-blank shot to the head), they don't need another incident and accusations that they rushed things due to outside pressure.
Can't be central--the launch path would be directly over populated areas. Occasional tornados.
Can't be further north along the east coast--winters are longer and colder, and though earlier rockets may have fared okay the shuttle transport system is demonstrably dangerous when launching in cold weather.
Though there were certainly political reasons for choosing Florida as the main US launch site back in the 50s and 60s, it was one of the best locations regardless.
You are arguing different points in time. You originally replied to someone else, saying it was ONLY good tech that made the iPod (the *original* iPod) take off. I'm saying the cool factor played a big part in early adoption, when it *wasn't* ubiquitous and certainly wasn't cheap ($400, which was over $500 CAD back then). THAT is where my point about the touch of exclusivity came from. Today, of course, this isn't true anymore.
Do you even remember what early iPod's competitors were like? Gen 1 was a brick, sure, but it was a small and sleek brick compared to the others. And you even used the word "slick" to describe the interface. Slick is something you can show off to your friends, and show up the bad interfaces everything else had. The slick is "cool." Good, well designed tech can be cool and fashionable!
And don't "hint" me--I belong to this "majority," though you're in no position to say it's "overwhelming." I certainly don't care what others thought or think of me carrying around an iPod or iPhone, nor do I bash those who choose to buy other products. But I'm human enough to show it off a little bit because it is cool (though not as much as it used to be), and I'm not so blind as to think fashion/cool/image (no, these aren't dirty words) aren't a significant influence in a large number of Apple purchases.
iPods don't carry the $140 month fee that a phone does.
Seriously, whichever carrier you're with... switch. Even on contract (so the initial prices of an iPhone vs iPod are similar), retentions gave two friends $45/mo plans with 200 daytime minutes, some long distance, unlimited text, free evenings/weekends, 6 GB data, and other extras.
Half tech, half fashion or more precisely the "hip/cool/image" factor. Saying it's exclusively one or the other is denial, and this is from someone who still has his 1st-gen iPod (not using now, of course, but it still works though battery life is measured in minutes), which cost over half a grand when I got it.
You don't get how "fashion/hip/cool/image" works. I'm not big on it myself but I get the idea at least. For those who care about their image, it's not that *you* care what colour it or the headphones are, it's the image you project to *others* that matters. And no it's not just vapid teenagers--women in particular carry the "image" factor well into adulthood, and men typically do it but in different ways: those who buy and drive a Hummer around? Image. That overpowered stereo shaking the street with its bass? Image. Harley motorcycles? Image. Buying overpriced Nike shirts and shorts? Image.
iPod and its successors were and continue to be successful because of the fusion between easy-to-use tech and "fashion", with a touch of exclusivity, especially at the beginning--it was after all Mac-only at first, and a product that can only be managed by less than 5% of computer users (at the time) does NOT get traction on tech alone.
No ATM fees if I go to my bank's own machines, which thankfully are available almost everywhere in major urban areas.
I would of course get dinged if I used another bank's machine, and I avoid generic ATMs at clubs, fairs, etc, because I don't trust them (or rather, I don't trust they haven't been tampered with).
Those are banks that don't keep up with the times (like ones which still require, *require* Internet Explorer).
TD Canada Trust has most branches open 8am to 6pm weekdays, til 3 on Saturday, and now some are even open Sunday. Their online access was compatible with non-IE browsers since I started using them, mid-2000s at the latest if not earlier.
I can sometimes get faster service at the teller than at the ATM in the branch, if there's 2 or 3 in line at the ATM and one or none at the teller.
Does the bank actually destroy those older records (by law?), or simply move them to archives? My own bank allows me to access certain records going back 18 months, but I'd assumed it was just a limitation they imposed on online access, i.e. if you want older records you'd have to pay a small fee to access them.
How is this any different from getting "paper free" electronic bills and statements and other documents? If you did in fact need to present them as evidence, surely you or your lawyer would ask the original company for a copy of the original statement.
It's the right who insist on giving police a "tough on crime" mandate, allowing them to arm themselves better in response to high-powered weaponry possessed by criminals, bought from the proceeds of the utter failure known as the "war on drugs."
Even if the suspect is armed only with a lowly handgun, you don't always know this in advance, so you bring your best guns along because you don't want to be caught holding the lesser weapon, and your mandate to use higher levels of force is increased even against cases unlikely to have extra-lethal weapons on hand.
The end result of this one-upmanship, assuming less regulation and where anyone with the means can obtain a gun but aren't mentally responsible enough to handle this freedom can be seen in many war-torn regions like Afghanistan, Somalia; and Mexico seems like it's not far behind.
The reality is, far too many Americans love gun freedom, but refuse to accept the responsibility that goes with it (guns being pulled during road rage incidents? Seriously, WTF?).
You forget though, in Australia the 10% GST is included in the price, whereas in Canada provincial taxes are different so they (plus federal tax) are not reflected in the "sticker price."
This means the Aussie prices would be about $780 and $908. Still a fair bit higher, I'll admit, but not $200 higher.
I think Splab was speaking specifically of an *American* rebellion, rising up against the US federal government. The "we in fact don't have tyrants around" and other phrasing backs this up.
Where does the $70 million replacement cost for an F-22 come from? Per Wikipedia, the per-aircraft costs are either $300+ M (total program cost including R&D), $150M (excluding R&D and support), or $138 (marginal cost).
I ask because cost of F-35s are a big deal in Canada right now, it's indirectly one reason why we're in an election right now (though it's not a major issue with voters).
In trying to replace our aging F-18 aircraft, the minority Conservative government claimed that the sole-sourced purchase price for F-35s would be about $70M per aircraft. Every expert and even US analysts said this was an unrealistically low price, and the very low-end would be closer to $130M per. The Conservatives then refused to provide parliamentary committee with details of how they came up with those numbers. Along with other incidents of obstructing (or outright lying to) Parliament, the opposition parties finally voted to find the Conservatives in contempt of parliament (read: lie to the public all you want, but disrespect the old boy's club and you're history), thus toppling the government and triggering the election.
I'm all for replacing our obsolete F-18s, but the F-35 is not an ideal candidate. Aside from the unrealistically lowballed cost, we've always favoured 2-engine fighters, in case one fails while covering the largely empty expanse that is our country.
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I actually think he's doing something different. I've heard vegetarians say that people should only eat animals that they kill themselves -- it's a way to make people fully aware of the fact that eating meat involves the death of a living animal (rather than the normal way of having the animal killed out of sight and we just stop by the grocery store and purchase some meat nicely wrapped in plastic, or already cooked in a restaurant). The goal is to make people stop eating meat.
The goal is flawed. The goal should be to make them aware and *appreciate* the fact eating meat involves the death of a living animal, not to turn them off meat altogether (though exposés of modern industrial methods of butchering and preparing meat may do that all on their own).
Though I've not personally killed an animal myself aside from cooking a live lobster, I was with my grandmother when she choose a live chicken in the markets of Hong Kong, which was then slaughtered and de-feathered in front of us. I remember being slightly queasy at the sight, having grown up in a big Canadian city, but only slightly. Far from turning me off meat, it made me appreciate dinner more that night, and I make a point never, ever to waste meat at a meal.
The way you write it, that's not much different than American football, and look how huge that is in the US.
Reading back it still isn't obvious you were sarcastic. Actually it read too much like an ignorant fanboyish post. It looks like we're really on the same page though so my regrets for flipping out a bit on you.
So, a custom 6-mini drawer, and/or deal with six power cables going into the 6-mini "rack", six ethernet cables, and 7200RPM SATA (instead of 10K or even 15K RPM SAS) hard drives that aren't hot-swappable in case one fails. And each comes only with a single Core2 Duo processor and a maximum 8 GB RAM supported.
Sorry, but no. A standalone mini server or two may be okay in an SMB office environment where a bit of occasional downtime might be okay, but I wouldn't fool around with a Mac mini rack setup in an enterprise/datacentre rack.
And why say he needs an XServe, did you completely miss the news about XServes being discontinued entirely?
Bottom line, Apple isn't committed to enterprise/datacentre hardware requirements like HP, IBM and Dell (shudder) are, so don't look to them for solutions in that space.
I am not forgetting desktops at all--but if you're seriously trying to make a semi-universal port, you have to design it for laptops (and maybe netbooks), which have sold more than desktops for some years now. And laptops *don't* come with 300 W power supplies.
You said 2x30" monitors originally, not 22", so say a single 30" monitor uses 25W, your dual setup is now sucking down 50W out of a 90W adapter (looking at a Lenovo 15" laptop here; and its default adapter is actually 65W). And what if you're on battery power?
So yes, it is too much to ask for an additional 40W-80W of power through a port that's supported on laptops--and if you want it to hook up things to a desktop, seriously is an extra power cable or three going to matter? 80W available is over 3 Amps of current, given your suggested 24V DC rail. It's worse with current desktop PSUs: almost 7A on a 12V rail or 16A on a 5V rail (laptops have no user-accessible voltage rails so it's moot). According to the Wiki article on power supply rails, the 5V is rated for 20A, so even there you're borderline for running a single 22" monitor, let alone a 30" one.
And I really wouldn't want to run that much current over the tiny electrical leads of a modern external port connector. USB doesn't have this problem because its max current draw is 0.1A without device negotiation, and 0.5A max regardless.
It's just that I always associate the "+" symbol with "add"... which is fair, considering everyone in gradeschool knows that when you have a "+", it means "add".
Don't worry, the Texas board of education is working to fix that.
And if you'd posted similar thoughts before and got replies, they would have said that all of your suggestions are impossible, impractical, and/or insanely expensive.
Test platform for new engines: far easier assemble and test engines on earth. And if you did need a space environment to finally test it (say a hypothetical engine with radioactive exhaust), far easier to launch it into space around a dedicated test vehicle rather than limit yourself to a shuttle frame. Also the logistics of mating a new system to the shuttle while in zero-G would be an insane nightmare requiring dozens of astronauts and space walks. And of course once you fire the engine you have to re-do all your orbital calculations to meet up with it again. Completely impractical.
Escape pod for ISS: huge mass that increases drag on the ISS (yes, even that high there's enough atmospheric drag that they need to re-boost the orbit now and then). Shuttle also has limited power and doesn't use any solar power; the APUs run out in about a month, even with strict conservation--this was part of the "could Columbia have survived long enough for a rescue shuttle to reach it" scenario that was drawn up after that disaster. Maintenance on such a huge craft is also much more complex compared to a simple Soyuz or similar capsule-sized escape pod.
I could go on. Even leaving it up in low-earth orbit as a space artifact and maybe eventual (i.e. decades from now) museum isn't a good idea, once its power dies it is an out-of-control piece of space junk that will eventually de-orbit, with enough chunks surviving re-entry to damage/kill anything it lands on (a large piece of Columbia narrowly missed a gas station).
Real space isn't anywhere as easy as Hollywood makes it out to be.
Hubble launched with a defective mirror, and would have ultimately been an expensive failure if the shuttle hadn't been available to take astronauts up and add corrective parts.
In the 70s when the shuttle program got off the ground there was no political will to continue going to the moon, never mind land someone on Mars. Like any government organization NASA had to justify its existence somehow, and the shuttle was the result. Certainly the result of much compromise and cost-cutting, but it did keep two generations interested in space travel (when's the last time people lined up by the thousands to see an unmanned rocket launch?), and that's just as important as any "real" science and progress achieved by the shuttle program.
I assume you're joking about powering huge monitors, electric blankets and other heavy-load equipment from a single port. Thunderbolt can supply 10W of power according to a quick google.
You could never drive all of those through the small power adapters that laptops normally have, and even if you could, why would you risk a massive power surge passing within centimetres of all your computer's sensitive electronic components?
We also downloaded it because the American version (in season 1 anyway) had really shitty title music, courtesy of meddling by the head of Sci-Fi Channel at the time.
Thankfully Sci-Fi Channel wised up, because season 2 onwards it used the UK version.
I love the irony in your title--NASA of course really would prefer this launch be "not an accident" :-)
There may be a little bit of grandstanding involved, but NASA has been severely raked over the coals twice for not following safety procedures. One was for a relatively high-profile mission (Challenger, teacher in space), where there was a lot of pressure to launch and managers overrode or ignored engineers' warnings. Columbia, managers ignored warnings of possible damage, even overriding a request to have pictures of the wing taken by military assets in space. With the whole world watching these last missions (and this one in particular, thanks to the commander's wife being the congresswoman recovering from a point-blank shot to the head), they don't need another incident and accusations that they rushed things due to outside pressure.
Where else, within the continental US?
Can't be central--the launch path would be directly over populated areas. Occasional tornados.
Can't be further north along the east coast--winters are longer and colder, and though earlier rockets may have fared okay the shuttle transport system is demonstrably dangerous when launching in cold weather.
Though there were certainly political reasons for choosing Florida as the main US launch site back in the 50s and 60s, it was one of the best locations regardless.
You are arguing different points in time. You originally replied to someone else, saying it was ONLY good tech that made the iPod (the *original* iPod) take off. I'm saying the cool factor played a big part in early adoption, when it *wasn't* ubiquitous and certainly wasn't cheap ($400, which was over $500 CAD back then). THAT is where my point about the touch of exclusivity came from. Today, of course, this isn't true anymore.
Do you even remember what early iPod's competitors were like? Gen 1 was a brick, sure, but it was a small and sleek brick compared to the others. And you even used the word "slick" to describe the interface. Slick is something you can show off to your friends, and show up the bad interfaces everything else had. The slick is "cool." Good, well designed tech can be cool and fashionable!
And don't "hint" me--I belong to this "majority," though you're in no position to say it's "overwhelming." I certainly don't care what others thought or think of me carrying around an iPod or iPhone, nor do I bash those who choose to buy other products. But I'm human enough to show it off a little bit because it is cool (though not as much as it used to be), and I'm not so blind as to think fashion/cool/image (no, these aren't dirty words) aren't a significant influence in a large number of Apple purchases.
iPods don't carry the $140 month fee that a phone does.
Seriously, whichever carrier you're with... switch. Even on contract (so the initial prices of an iPhone vs iPod are similar), retentions gave two friends $45/mo plans with 200 daytime minutes, some long distance, unlimited text, free evenings/weekends, 6 GB data, and other extras.
Half tech, half fashion or more precisely the "hip/cool/image" factor. Saying it's exclusively one or the other is denial, and this is from someone who still has his 1st-gen iPod (not using now, of course, but it still works though battery life is measured in minutes), which cost over half a grand when I got it.
You don't get how "fashion/hip/cool/image" works. I'm not big on it myself but I get the idea at least. For those who care about their image, it's not that *you* care what colour it or the headphones are, it's the image you project to *others* that matters. And no it's not just vapid teenagers--women in particular carry the "image" factor well into adulthood, and men typically do it but in different ways: those who buy and drive a Hummer around? Image. That overpowered stereo shaking the street with its bass? Image. Harley motorcycles? Image. Buying overpriced Nike shirts and shorts? Image.
iPod and its successors were and continue to be successful because of the fusion between easy-to-use tech and "fashion", with a touch of exclusivity, especially at the beginning--it was after all Mac-only at first, and a product that can only be managed by less than 5% of computer users (at the time) does NOT get traction on tech alone.
No ATM fees if I go to my bank's own machines, which thankfully are available almost everywhere in major urban areas.
I would of course get dinged if I used another bank's machine, and I avoid generic ATMs at clubs, fairs, etc, because I don't trust them (or rather, I don't trust they haven't been tampered with).
Those are banks that don't keep up with the times (like ones which still require, *require* Internet Explorer).
TD Canada Trust has most branches open 8am to 6pm weekdays, til 3 on Saturday, and now some are even open Sunday. Their online access was compatible with non-IE browsers since I started using them, mid-2000s at the latest if not earlier.
I can sometimes get faster service at the teller than at the ATM in the branch, if there's 2 or 3 in line at the ATM and one or none at the teller.
Does the bank actually destroy those older records (by law?), or simply move them to archives? My own bank allows me to access certain records going back 18 months, but I'd assumed it was just a limitation they imposed on online access, i.e. if you want older records you'd have to pay a small fee to access them.
How is this any different from getting "paper free" electronic bills and statements and other documents? If you did in fact need to present them as evidence, surely you or your lawyer would ask the original company for a copy of the original statement.
The right is just as complicit, if not more so.
It's the right who insist on giving police a "tough on crime" mandate, allowing them to arm themselves better in response to high-powered weaponry possessed by criminals, bought from the proceeds of the utter failure known as the "war on drugs."
Even if the suspect is armed only with a lowly handgun, you don't always know this in advance, so you bring your best guns along because you don't want to be caught holding the lesser weapon, and your mandate to use higher levels of force is increased even against cases unlikely to have extra-lethal weapons on hand.
The end result of this one-upmanship, assuming less regulation and where anyone with the means can obtain a gun but aren't mentally responsible enough to handle this freedom can be seen in many war-torn regions like Afghanistan, Somalia; and Mexico seems like it's not far behind.
The reality is, far too many Americans love gun freedom, but refuse to accept the responsibility that goes with it (guns being pulled during road rage incidents? Seriously, WTF?).
You forget though, in Australia the 10% GST is included in the price, whereas in Canada provincial taxes are different so they (plus federal tax) are not reflected in the "sticker price."
This means the Aussie prices would be about $780 and $908. Still a fair bit higher, I'll admit, but not $200 higher.
After all this, you're still just "starting to get a little annoyed." Even if you hadn't mentioned the NHL, I would've guessed you were Canadian ;-)
I think Splab was speaking specifically of an *American* rebellion, rising up against the US federal government. The "we in fact don't have tyrants around" and other phrasing backs this up.
Where does the $70 million replacement cost for an F-22 come from? Per Wikipedia, the per-aircraft costs are either $300+ M (total program cost including R&D), $150M (excluding R&D and support), or $138 (marginal cost).
I ask because cost of F-35s are a big deal in Canada right now, it's indirectly one reason why we're in an election right now (though it's not a major issue with voters).
In trying to replace our aging F-18 aircraft, the minority Conservative government claimed that the sole-sourced purchase price for F-35s would be about $70M per aircraft. Every expert and even US analysts said this was an unrealistically low price, and the very low-end would be closer to $130M per. The Conservatives then refused to provide parliamentary committee with details of how they came up with those numbers. Along with other incidents of obstructing (or outright lying to) Parliament, the opposition parties finally voted to find the Conservatives in contempt of parliament (read: lie to the public all you want, but disrespect the old boy's club and you're history), thus toppling the government and triggering the election.
I'm all for replacing our obsolete F-18s, but the F-35 is not an ideal candidate. Aside from the unrealistically lowballed cost, we've always favoured 2-engine fighters, in case one fails while covering the largely empty expanse that is our country.
Finally, something to do with all those junk AOL CDs!