There was a real system called "Skyhook" developed by the military. Basically it was a one man recovery system intended for use by spies, downed pilots, etc. Someone on the ground let up a balloon with a cable attached and harnessed themself to the end. A plane with a special "Y" shaped "cable catcher" on the front would then fly into the cable and eventually the "recoveree" would be winched on board. Apparently they did get it working http://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/95unclass/Leary.htm l
I think it's actually irrelevant how thick it is, if the material is strong enough to support it's own weight making it thicker just increases it's strength enough to compensate.
I agree that most of the technical objections are not-too-hard-to-overcome engineering challenges, not showstoppers
Yeah but they've got a slight problem - we don't yet have the technology to make a cable strong enough. Until we do it's just so much science fiction.
If you're reading this and think you have a fatal flaw to the whole concept, and haven't spent months on it doing some calculations and reading papers, I'll take the opportunity to laugh at your idea now
Actually the concept, physics and calculations are quite simple (took me about half an hour to work out the tensile strenght required in the cable), the only question is how strong nanotubes can be - and nobody can answer that.
Lots of distros offer a liveDVD version. Knoppix's unique "selling point" was the single CD aspect and I very much hope they won't abandon this and move entirely over to the DVD fork in the future. It would be a great shame.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're not a troll.
Windows comes on one disc true!
But then, to do anything useful you're going to need MS Office (3 disks), a development environment/compiler/toolchain (3 disks). . . So you're already at 8 disks and you're not even close to all the applications you get on most linux distros.
Plus you've just spent >$200 on top of the cost of windows.
Plus - run a trackerless Bittorrent through an anonymous network and there's no weak point the **AA can pick on. If only I could get proxychains working.
I haven't checked with this release but up to now there's been a policy of not releasing iso images to encourage purchasing of the real thing. It's considered bad manners to post an iso of the install cd's online, despite them being freely reproducable and distributable.
Personally I download the floppy disk image and do network installs - why muck around with four cd's when you just need a floppy? I'd be happy to buy the cd's and contibute to such a great OS if I wasn't such a tight bastard.
I'd been using Linux for about the same amount of time when I first used OpenBSD. If you've paid attention installing Linux and tried to understand what happens then you'll have very few problems.
OpenBSD assumes you have a basic understanding of how a computer operates, know what a disk partition is and a few other very elementary things. It also assumes that you can read and understand simple instructions.
OpenBSD is only unfriendly if you're a complete IT goober.
But you don't speak for everybody. I've found no problem with getting help for OpenBSD (I recommend www.bsdforums.org). I think you just need to make some effort to solve the problem yourself first. I can quite understand why people get annoyed with newbs who ask facile questions because they can't be bothered to try the most basic steps themselves. That's hardly unique to OpenBSD users though.
I've been trying to get BitTorrent working with Tor on OpenBSD, but there seems to be a bug with the proxychains.so "_connect" function call. I'm not the only person who's found this it's mentioned in a couple of posts on Neohapsis.
I know you're a pathetic troll but you've accidentally raised a good point. I think it's safe to assume that most children will have exposure to windows outside of the school environment and therefore using linux at school is going to make them more computer literate than those trained only to windows moronity. It's the children who get this extra exposure who will have the competitive advantage.
It was the Campbells and the victims were the MacDonalds. It's known as the Glen Coe Massacre and there's still antipathy between some members of the two clans 500 years later.
I suspect that if the wire is in a magnetic field it will lose it's superconductivity - thus it wouldn't work in an electric motor. If you're looking for a perpetual motion machine I understand Joseph Newman has one for sale.
The lower parts of the cable are supported by the cable above, so it isn't "in orbit" and doesn't have to obey the same rules as free moving bodies. Alternatively you can think of it as the centre of gravity of the system (cable, spooler, other stuff) being the bit that's in orbit. Actually, this is pretty obvious - I'm suprised to have to point it out on slashdot.
name calling is bad, not only for her, but for all of us. It's just childish.
Actually I doubt that calling her Didiot is going to harm the pro-linux set. People will remember "idiot" when they hear her name long after they've forgotten where they heard it (ask any advertising bod).
Personally I've no sympathy for her, if she wants to stay credible she should stop saying stupid things. Complaining about people who point out her imbecility and bias isn't going to help.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, now you mention it I vaguely seem to remember this in a Bond film.
There was a real system called "Skyhook" developed by the military. Basically it was a one man recovery system intended for use by spies, downed pilots, etc. Someone on the ground let up a balloon with a cable attached and harnessed themself to the end. A plane with a special "Y" shaped "cable catcher" on the front would then fly into the cable and eventually the "recoveree" would be winched on board. Apparently they did get it working http://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/95unclass/Leary.htm l
Weight is proportional to cross sectional area.
Tensile strength is proportional to cross sectional area.
Thicker = Stronger
I think it's actually irrelevant how thick it is, if the material is strong enough to support it's own weight making it thicker just increases it's strength enough to compensate.
Yeah but they've got a slight problem - we don't yet have the technology to make a cable strong enough. Until we do it's just so much science fiction.
If you're reading this and think you have a fatal flaw to the whole concept, and haven't spent months on it doing some calculations and reading papers, I'll take the opportunity to laugh at your idea now
Actually the concept, physics and calculations are quite simple (took me about half an hour to work out the tensile strenght required in the cable), the only question is how strong nanotubes can be - and nobody can answer that.
Lots of distros offer a liveDVD version. Knoppix's unique "selling point" was the single CD aspect and I very much hope they won't abandon this and move entirely over to the DVD fork in the future. It would be a great shame.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're not a troll.
Windows comes on one disc true!
But then, to do anything useful you're going to need MS Office (3 disks), a development environment/compiler/toolchain (3 disks). . . So you're already at 8 disks and you're not even close to all the applications you get on most linux distros.
Plus you've just spent >$200 on top of the cost of windows.
Plus - run a trackerless Bittorrent through an anonymous network and there's no weak point the **AA can pick on. If only I could get proxychains working.
Of course if they were using decent software in the first place . . .
But was he forbidden? If what he says is true the University cancelled his reservation of a room - that's all.
Isn't the point of the BSD licence to encourage code sharing?
Where's the iso?
I haven't checked with this release but up to now there's been a policy of not releasing iso images to encourage purchasing of the real thing. It's considered bad manners to post an iso of the install cd's online, despite them being freely reproducable and distributable.
Personally I download the floppy disk image and do network installs - why muck around with four cd's when you just need a floppy? I'd be happy to buy the cd's and contibute to such a great OS if I wasn't such a tight bastard.
OpenBSD assumes you have a basic understanding of how a computer operates, know what a disk partition is and a few other very elementary things. It also assumes that you can read and understand simple instructions.
OpenBSD is only unfriendly if you're a complete IT goober.
I want to to use it mainly as file/web server.
OpenBSD is perfect for this.
I use Mandrake on my laptop and OpenBSD on my server. From your world view, does that make me too l33t, cool, a BSD fanboy, a linux fanboy or a luser?
But you don't speak for everybody. I've found no problem with getting help for OpenBSD (I recommend www.bsdforums.org). I think you just need to make some effort to solve the problem yourself first. I can quite understand why people get annoyed with newbs who ask facile questions because they can't be bothered to try the most basic steps themselves. That's hardly unique to OpenBSD users though.
Much to my shame I recently managed to create an OpenBSD installation with a 500Mb root partition and a 79.5Gb swap partition. Whoops!
Whether that means disklabel is difficult or I'm an idiot I leave to the reader.
I've been trying to get BitTorrent working with Tor on OpenBSD, but there seems to be a bug with the proxychains.so "_connect" function call. I'm not the only person who's found this it's mentioned in a couple of posts on Neohapsis.
Anonymous BitTorrent is the holy grail.
I know you're a pathetic troll but you've accidentally raised a good point. I think it's safe to assume that most children will have exposure to windows outside of the school environment and therefore using linux at school is going to make them more computer literate than those trained only to windows moronity. It's the children who get this extra exposure who will have the competitive advantage.
It was the Campbells and the victims were the MacDonalds. It's known as the Glen Coe Massacre and there's still antipathy between some members of the two clans 500 years later.
I think he's just got small gestalts.
I suspect that if the wire is in a magnetic field it will lose it's superconductivity - thus it wouldn't work in an electric motor. If you're looking for a perpetual motion machine I understand Joseph Newman has one for sale.
The lower parts of the cable are supported by the cable above, so it isn't "in orbit" and doesn't have to obey the same rules as free moving bodies. Alternatively you can think of it as the centre of gravity of the system (cable, spooler, other stuff) being the bit that's in orbit. Actually, this is pretty obvious - I'm suprised to have to point it out on slashdot.
We are in the age of perpetual copyright. Anything written after Mickey Mouse first appeared will be copyrighted forever.
Actually I doubt that calling her Didiot is going to harm the pro-linux set. People will remember "idiot" when they hear her name long after they've forgotten where they heard it (ask any advertising bod).
Personally I've no sympathy for her, if she wants to stay credible she should stop saying stupid things. Complaining about people who point out her imbecility and bias isn't going to help.
Sorry - no banana. Being included in that chapter doesn't make it a definition.