I don't recall memorizing the position of the planets as being a requirement in any of my classes; and even if it were, why would I still remember them?
Really nice looking. Heavy cloud cover this afternoon just seemed to melt away at exactly the right time. Totality is showing a completely whack looking moon, fairly bright along the northern edge and nearly invisible along the southern edge. Delta Scorpii continues bizarrely bright and the whole head of the scorpion looks even more "wrong" than ever with that muddy red, off-center moon lined up between it and Libra. Out over the gloom of the Atlantic Ocean, a distant thunderstorm is flickering and flashing with an occasionally brilliant lightning display. Balmy breezes from the south merely coming in as icing on the cake. Helluva good show!
Will we have to activate the box before we open it this time around?
You will submit the proper documentations and proofs of identity (yourself, your family, your friends, your neighbors, your coworkers, and others to be determined by Microsoft as befits each individual activation of your New Microsoft Product)to activate your New Microsoft Product at least one year BEFORE you purchase it. Any Fraud, Attempted Fraud, Suspected Fraud or Contacts Leading To Suspicion Of Fraud discovered during Microsoft's routine vetting proceedures shall be forwarded to the Cognizant Authorities (Local, State, Federal, Trilateral Commission, Other) who shall exercise such measures as are deemed necessary to properly reeducate you and see to it that you activate your New Microsoft Product properly the next time.
I see a real opportunity for a system when you have one gig of solid-state storage for your structured data
It will be OS-on-a-chip (and a good OS at that), it will go for about twenty bucks a pop down at WalMart or CompUSA and Bill Gates will die of an apoplectic fit when it hits the streets. Hackers will figure out ways to diddle it, but corporations and average users will upgrade by merely dropping another sawbuck on the counter and plugging the damned thing in when they get back to their machine(s). Computers will come with these things preinstalled, so there'll be no bitching about not having an OS with any given machine. High-end weirdness will, as ever, continue to drive a niche market, but everybody else will regard it about the same as they regard their pair of pliers; just another tool. Ho hum.
For gods sake, a stupid little Qbasic program i wrote years ago could ALSO generate a lot of different shapes like those using modified circle equations. I called it a "2d renderer" and didnt think it was anything significant
It wasn't.
I [snip] wonder why the hell there are so many crappy trivialities being passed off as important research breakthroughs
From the article: "It's a new way of describing nature," and The Superformula might provide a single, simple framework for analysing and comparing the shapes of life, believes Niklas. "This is an exciting development." and Using one formula to produce shapes will make graphics programs much more efficient, he says. It might also be useful in pattern recognition.
But I guess you're right. Why in hell are there so many crappy trivialities being passed off as important research breakthroughs?
Couple that with the heavy-handedness of companies attempting to secure patents on seeds that would potentially allow them to in effect control the food supply in perpetuity.
Ok. Here's the deal, and it's a deal that for the life of me I can't figure out why more slashdotters aren't INSTANTLY glomming on to.
Genetic Hacking.
Go back. Read that again.
Before this has played out, the chances of Monsanto (or whoever) realistically preventing Joe Hacker from pirating the genetic software and setting it free into the biosphere are about the same as Microsux odds of realistically preventing a gazillion dingdongs from running pirated copies of XP. When this particular shit hits the fan, be sure and tell everyone you heard it here first. From me. Which brings up Problem Number Two and I quote:
the outrage stems from the rush to implement GM solutions without adequately informing citizens and then asking them if they are willing to accept the risks
What's REALLY gonna happen is that the genetic version of script kiddies are GOING TO release Bob Knows What into the biosphere with no checks, balances, rhyme, nor reason. When all the shit has fallen out, you're going to see that the genscript kiddies have loosed a thousand more worries and cares upon an undefended world than all the loony dictators and axe grinders combined. Again, tell 'em you heard it here first.
What's got me worried, is the fact that this seems to be more and more a problem stemming from the damnable budget cutting processes where personnel and resources were simply NOT AVAILABLE to perform in-depth engineering and QC work.
The Shuttle program has been plagued with this since its inception, with congress demanding $5.00 worth of labor and material for $1.50 and then sending people into the most hostile environment we know of, assuming that somehow everything will work out.
When looking for culprits here, please don't forget your elected representatives in Washington DC. There's folks in DC who, to my way of thinking anyway, are guilty of cold-blooded murder.
Once people are tied into palladium, they're stuck.
Disagree. Tying into Malarkium(tm) is EXACTLY what will be required to, for once and for all, get people to drop MS like the bad habit it is. Once they feel the tendrils entwining every last fiber of their computers, it won't be long at all before the hatchets come out and the serious hewing begins.
MS is fixing to just HAND IT OVER to Linux on a Silver Platter, and they have no idea what they're doing. Serves 'em right, too.
So now I've got to figure out how to get to Mars and glom on to some of that water. I'm guessing that with all the C02 around, it's pretty fizzy. I'm further guessing that there's more than one monied nitwit out there who would come across with BIG BUCKS to drink "Bottled eau de Ares" and enjoy the wonderful properties of Martian natural spring water to enhance his manly virility and attract the babes. Bring on the snobs, I smell MONEY!
That is very well said! Here's to a cell-free life.
Indeed. Gave my last tv away in '98. No radio, no vcr, no nuthin. This PC has a dialup connection and that's MORE than enough of this crap for me. Peace, freedom, self-sufficiency, and tranquility. Any problems with that? The hive mentality is NOT for me. If you like it, then fine. Drink as deep as you wish. Just don't go pushing any of that snake oil my way, 'cause I ain't buying.
Some day, somebody is going to grapple a surprisingly large freely-orbiting body of mostly nickel-iron, with perhaps some very valuable other transition metals in there too.
It'll get nudged this way and land in the back yard of the lucky (corporation, government, fill in the blank) via these EXACT orbital pathways.
When it does, you can tell the grandchildren, "Bah, that's OLD news. We were talking about it on slashdot before your PARENTS were even born."
With a little bit of patience, you let the people you support do their own thinking and you let them make their own mistakes, and then eventually they'll learn
Amen brother!
Always draw it out of them. NEVER beat it in to them.
Voice tone is EVERYTHING.
If they still can't do it when you're done, then it's YOUR fault. You're a LOUSY teacher. Go find something else to do.
Graininess being assumed (which I do, along with a belief in Many Worlds and other semipsychotic things) then somewhere off in the far distance, the final digit in 1/3 is flickering back and forth between 3 and 4 (and once in a while other digits, too). So yes, it DOES have a last digit, but you have to be extraordinarily careful about when and where you ask what it is, lest your answer differ from what Nature is handing out at that time and place. The neverending series of 3's is just mathemetician's sloppy way of evading the issue in the name of "precision" even when no such thing actually exists in the FINAL analysis.
A reentry profile that cannot be changed? Why not?
X amount of energy needs to be dissipated between deorbit burn and wheel stop on the runway at KSC. The energy exists on orbit and does not exist sitting still on the ground. It MUST be dissipated during reentry.
It'd be a hard decision to make, to fly a profile that would certainly damage the vehicle beyond repair
No such "profile" exists. See above.
e.g. bank one way more often than the other
Won't help. Both wings (and everything else too) take it equally, thermally speaking, even during banks.
An effort to conserve supplies and launch a rescue shuttle is not out of the question, either
Yes it is. There is no way that a second vehicle could reach orbit prior to the loss of all consumables on your hypothetical stricken vehicle. These things don't just gas up like airplanes on the runway and then fly off. Groomimg a shuttle for flight is AMAZINGLY complicated, difficult, and time consuming. Additionally, Columbia was possessed of neither airlock nor access excepting the crew entry/egress door on the side of the crew compartment. Opening that door depressurizes the crew compartment. Even if someone was outside the door with seven spare spacesuits, it wouldn't help. There's simply not enough time.
Well, the foam hit was something they knew about and perhaps could have at least tried to take some sort of action on.
Nope. There wasn't a damn thing that they could have done for that vehicle once it achieved orbit (and more likely, once it went "negative return" [no RTLS abort capability]). Nobody knew anything was the matter until well after they were on orbit. Any structural degradation at that point becomes a simple pass/fail test that's graded by the rigors of a reentry profile that CANNOT be changed.
It's not too hard to see why NASA would perfer it to be something like the second case.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm, yeah. I guess so. I also wonder if a couple of thousand hard drives wiped in error would fall under the heading of security threat?
And besides, they've MOVED since then!
Ye gods! Where do they find these people?
Against YOU!
And may I ask what, pray tell, has been going on in the other hemisphere for the last forty years?
Really nice looking. Heavy cloud cover this afternoon just seemed to melt away at exactly the right time. Totality is showing a completely whack looking moon, fairly bright along the northern edge and nearly invisible along the southern edge. Delta Scorpii continues bizarrely bright and the whole head of the scorpion looks even more "wrong" than ever with that muddy red, off-center moon lined up between it and Libra. Out over the gloom of the Atlantic Ocean, a distant thunderstorm is flickering and flashing with an occasionally brilliant lightning display. Balmy breezes from the south merely coming in as icing on the cake. Helluva good show!
You will submit the proper documentations and proofs of identity (yourself, your family, your friends, your neighbors, your coworkers, and others to be determined by Microsoft as befits each individual activation of your New Microsoft Product)to activate your New Microsoft Product at least one year BEFORE you purchase it. Any Fraud, Attempted Fraud, Suspected Fraud or Contacts Leading To Suspicion Of Fraud discovered during Microsoft's routine vetting proceedures shall be forwarded to the Cognizant Authorities (Local, State, Federal, Trilateral Commission, Other) who shall exercise such measures as are deemed necessary to properly reeducate you and see to it that you activate your New Microsoft Product properly the next time.
It will be OS-on-a-chip (and a good OS at that), it will go for about twenty bucks a pop down at WalMart or CompUSA and Bill Gates will die of an apoplectic fit when it hits the streets. Hackers will figure out ways to diddle it, but corporations and average users will upgrade by merely dropping another sawbuck on the counter and plugging the damned thing in when they get back to their machine(s). Computers will come with these things preinstalled, so there'll be no bitching about not having an OS with any given machine. High-end weirdness will, as ever, continue to drive a niche market, but everybody else will regard it about the same as they regard their pair of pliers; just another tool. Ho hum.
No wonder people can't control their blubber. The dumbfucks think Blubber Control is Rocket Science.
Screw that shit. Just KNOCK OFF WITH THE FOOD INTAKE.
It wasn't.
I [snip] wonder why the hell there are so many crappy trivialities being passed off as important research breakthroughs
From the article: "It's a new way of describing nature," and The Superformula might provide a single, simple framework for analysing and comparing the shapes of life, believes Niklas. "This is an exciting development." and Using one formula to produce shapes will make graphics programs much more efficient, he says. It might also be useful in pattern recognition.
But I guess you're right. Why in hell are there so many crappy trivialities being passed off as important research breakthroughs?
Ok. Here's the deal, and it's a deal that for the life of me I can't figure out why more slashdotters aren't INSTANTLY glomming on to.
Genetic Hacking.
Go back. Read that again.
Before this has played out, the chances of Monsanto (or whoever) realistically preventing Joe Hacker from pirating the genetic software and setting it free into the biosphere are about the same as Microsux odds of realistically preventing a gazillion dingdongs from running pirated copies of XP. When this particular shit hits the fan, be sure and tell everyone you heard it here first. From me. Which brings up Problem Number Two and I quote:
the outrage stems from the rush to implement GM solutions without adequately informing citizens and then asking them if they are willing to accept the risks
What's REALLY gonna happen is that the genetic version of script kiddies are GOING TO release Bob Knows What into the biosphere with no checks, balances, rhyme, nor reason. When all the shit has fallen out, you're going to see that the genscript kiddies have loosed a thousand more worries and cares upon an undefended world than all the loony dictators and axe grinders combined. Again, tell 'em you heard it here first.
If anybody is still alive to be told, of course.
Wanna bet?
The Shuttle program has been plagued with this since its inception, with congress demanding $5.00 worth of labor and material for $1.50 and then sending people into the most hostile environment we know of, assuming that somehow everything will work out.
When looking for culprits here, please don't forget your elected representatives in Washington DC. There's folks in DC who, to my way of thinking anyway, are guilty of cold-blooded murder.
Yeah, nice safe herbivores. Kinda makes you wonder what a bunch of these guys could do if a notion was to strike them.
Disagree. Tying into Malarkium(tm) is EXACTLY what will be required to, for once and for all, get people to drop MS like the bad habit it is. Once they feel the tendrils entwining every last fiber of their computers, it won't be long at all before the hatchets come out and the serious hewing begins.
MS is fixing to just HAND IT OVER to Linux on a Silver Platter, and they have no idea what they're doing. Serves 'em right, too.
Big mistake. You're now going to lose THREE of them (including two that you don't even own) in the next month.
So now I've got to figure out how to get to Mars and glom on to some of that water. I'm guessing that with all the C02 around, it's pretty fizzy. I'm further guessing that there's more than one monied nitwit out there who would come across with BIG BUCKS to drink "Bottled eau de Ares" and enjoy the wonderful properties of Martian natural spring water to enhance his manly virility and attract the babes. Bring on the snobs, I smell MONEY!
This just about says it all
Indeed. Gave my last tv away in '98. No radio, no vcr, no nuthin. This PC has a dialup connection and that's MORE than enough of this crap for me. Peace, freedom, self-sufficiency, and tranquility. Any problems with that? The hive mentality is NOT for me. If you like it, then fine. Drink as deep as you wish. Just don't go pushing any of that snake oil my way, 'cause I ain't buying.
Edward Abbey was right.
It'll get nudged this way and land in the back yard of the lucky (corporation, government, fill in the blank) via these EXACT orbital pathways.
When it does, you can tell the grandchildren, "Bah, that's OLD news. We were talking about it on slashdot before your PARENTS were even born."
Amen brother!
Always draw it out of them. NEVER beat it in to them.
Voice tone is EVERYTHING.
If they still can't do it when you're done, then it's YOUR fault. You're a LOUSY teacher. Go find something else to do.
Graininess being assumed (which I do, along with a belief in Many Worlds and other semipsychotic things) then somewhere off in the far distance, the final digit in 1/3 is flickering back and forth between 3 and 4 (and once in a while other digits, too). So yes, it DOES have a last digit, but you have to be extraordinarily careful about when and where you ask what it is, lest your answer differ from what Nature is handing out at that time and place. The neverending series of 3's is just mathemetician's sloppy way of evading the issue in the name of "precision" even when no such thing actually exists in the FINAL analysis.
Well I thought the article did mention it a BBC news report.
Back to you Chet.
Yes.
X amount of energy needs to be dissipated between deorbit burn and wheel stop on the runway at KSC. The energy exists on orbit and does not exist sitting still on the ground. It MUST be dissipated during reentry.
It'd be a hard decision to make, to fly a profile that would certainly damage the vehicle beyond repair
No such "profile" exists. See above.
e.g. bank one way more often than the other
Won't help. Both wings (and everything else too) take it equally, thermally speaking, even during banks.
An effort to conserve supplies and launch a rescue shuttle is not out of the question, either
Yes it is. There is no way that a second vehicle could reach orbit prior to the loss of all consumables on your hypothetical stricken vehicle. These things don't just gas up like airplanes on the runway and then fly off. Groomimg a shuttle for flight is AMAZINGLY complicated, difficult, and time consuming. Additionally, Columbia was possessed of neither airlock nor access excepting the crew entry/egress door on the side of the crew compartment. Opening that door depressurizes the crew compartment. Even if someone was outside the door with seven spare spacesuits, it wouldn't help. There's simply not enough time.
Nope. There wasn't a damn thing that they could have done for that vehicle once it achieved orbit (and more likely, once it went "negative return" [no RTLS abort capability]). Nobody knew anything was the matter until well after they were on orbit. Any structural degradation at that point becomes a simple pass/fail test that's graded by the rigors of a reentry profile that CANNOT be changed.
It's not too hard to see why NASA would perfer it to be something like the second case.
Does not apply. See my above.