For one thing, it would play fits with certain religious fundamentalist creationist dogma, and therefore the religious dogma itself. Nothing in the holy handbooks about life anywhere else except here.
I'm hoping for dayglow green with large fangs and slimy tentacles, but I'll settle for a little bacteria-looking stuff.
Most anything at all actually, just so long as it takes some of the hot air out of the fundamentalist's (pick your less than fully sane belief system of choice) sails.
Excellent post. Where are my mod points when I really need them?
Excellent mention of Szilard and the role he played. Why don't more people appreciate his pivotal role in this CRUCIAL transitional period in world history?
I miss FidoNet. I miss ascii art. I miss doors. I miss Techtalk, The Bear's Cave, Jim In Motion, and all the rest of the Brevard County BBS's. I miss the Space echo and Bev Freed, the moderator. I miss Silly Little Mail Reader. I miss Ymodem-G. I miss procomm. I miss pests like Dan Laughlin and Cy Huey. I miss my 386sx with a whopping 1meg of memory and a cool hercules video card. I miss being completely stupefied that I could exchange messages with a guy in New Zealand fer chrissakes at no expense whatsoever. I miss access to "special" file areas. Ahh...the fun we had.
How, precisely, are these people any different from some pimply-faced cracker bent over a keyboard, scanning ports, and swilling Mountain Dew? They're doing things on the sly that potentially can wreck your system, negate your privacy, or god only knows what else, and they're definitely not on the up and up with it.
How can ANY of us expect the hax0rs to behave themselves when Pillars of the System are behaving just as badly or worse?
I think the problem increases as programmers are less and less a part of the complete systems development life cycle and are contracted to work on individual components of an overall system.
ANYTHING of sufficient size and complexity is by definition something that no one of us can comprehend in its entirety. This being the case, there's no hope of ever seeing to it that everything from minor annoyances to catastrophic failures will be abolished.
My experience with this sort of thing isn't in software, it's large scale construction projects. Launch pads, to be precise. The basic goal is "build something that the Space Shuttle can successfully fly off of on launch day." In the real world, NOBODY knows exactly what this is going to involve down to the finest detail, and the possibility for malinteractions of that detail.
Fortunately, the launch pad, once built, more or less just stays put and continues doing the same job over and over. With software development, no such stability is feasable. We're still learning more and more about how computers work, both hard and soft ware. In this phantasmogoric landscape, with things morphing from this to that with bewildering speed and little overall pattern, the guys who have to grind out the code (and all their bosses right up to the CEO) have no prayer of ever getting it right. Don't be so hard on yourselves, it's a situation that you can NOT control fully. Just do the best you can and let Charles Darwin sort out the mistakes.
Before this is all over, not only will they be reconstructing "extinct" DNA, and bringing strange things like mammoths back to life, they'll be producing purpose-built DNA for critters nobody can even imagine yet.
It's gonna get weird people. I'm tellin' ya WEIRD.
The good news is that I'll be safely dead and gone before this really takes off, but somebody is gonna have to deal with this stuff eventually, and some of it is going to be most unpleasant.
The gummint will find a way to bollix this excellent concept all to pieces. That, and the innate cunning of spammers, gives me little hope for substantive positive change.
Thats a good idea, hmmm... except I never sign up for anything.
Me neither. But lots of freeware and that sort of thing come with keys, passwords, and what have you. Signing up for various bulletin boards almost ALWAYS involves the use of some damned password or other, sent to an email address. That kind of thing.
I guess I could start doing "online sweepstakes" entries and give them a hotmail address.
Don't do it. Sweepstakes always want mailing addresses along with real names, and if you don't give them your correct name and address, you don't win a damned thing. Sweepstakes are just trawls for living souls.
Is there a way to set up hotmail filters so that everything goes into the trash automatically?
Don't know. Never looked at the damned thing. As far as I can tell, hotmail IS the trash. It's just that every once in a while, you've got to do a little dumpster diving.
I find hotmail is a perfect place to have a "dump" account! An address to enter on web sites that "require" an email address as part of getting an account
Amen brother! Let it fill up with spam till you need it for something, clean it out, gather that key or password from whomever's none too trustworthy, and then let it fill right back up with spam till it overflows and you have a use for it again.
Users complain because we think they're idiots? Then they'd better show that they're not. And complaining about how they can't learn new software is not going to cut it---that's the kind of stuff got them in trouble to begin with.
Users are actually CUSTOMERS. Attitude like your above will eventually be swept from the marketplace, as savvy operators who understand that people (read: CUSTOMERS) were, are, and will be, FIRST on the list.
Have your little rant and enjoy, but the reaper is coming.
And while we're at it here, what's up with IT folks reinventing the wheel every eighteen months anyway? Ninety-nine percent of what customers use computers for in the first place never changes. So whatta ya say we get the IT dimbulbs with the program, and leave the damned interface alone, ok? Otherwise, it's looking as if we're constantly having to redo the damned thing because it was done wrong in the first place, and there's no hope on the horizon of EVER seeing the damned thing get done in ANY place. Give it a rest, already.
Why did the shuttle have to be going at Mach 20 and heading down at what I read in one slashdot post (take your grain of salt) was a 70% angle?
Mach 20+ is what it takes to maintain orbit. The were in the early phase of deceleration and still had most of their speed when the disaster occured. 70 degree angle of descent is absurd. The were approximately 1500 miles from KSC and around 40 miles up. Do the trig for yourself and you'll see that 70 degrees of descent angle is claptrap.
Couldn't the shuttle bleed off speed by going through thin layers of atmosphere for a longer period of time leading to longer exposure to friction-generated heat but less-intense heat?
Not and hit any kind of precise landing point. They do the deorbit burn at what becomes the apogee of the newly-created orbit, which now has a perigee half way around the world (go get your astronomy textbook out and have a look at any elliptical orbit) which is where they're going to land. Anything less, by way of reducing the orbit then skips them off the atmosphere as they pass perigee and sends them half way around the world once again, at a speed that's not nearly as calculable (in the sense of tweaking it for a PRECISE touchdown point (the SLF is a BIG runway, but from space, it's a dustmote of a target) as they need. Additional orbital tweaks using the OMS system aren't feasable owing to fuel usage constraints. Bottom line: They deorbit and land in a single half-orbit. Period. The bleed off of orbital energy in that half orbit is a CONSTANT. Can't be changed. To go from orbital velocity to zero velocity in a vehicle of that weight takes a precise amount of energy, which can't be played around with.
This might not be worth it due to schedule constraints in ordinary circumstances, but might be worth it in extraordinary situations.
Scheduling has nothing to do with it. It's all about Delta-V in one half orbit.
Why can't NASA develop a small tethered inspection robot? It is technically quite viable.
To bring safety equipment to cover all "reasonable" on-orbit contingencies would take the weight of the orbiter to a realm where there was no energy left to loft a payload, or, in more extreme examples, the orbiter itself.
From their opening screen at http://www.ufomag.co.uk/euroseti.htm (no, I WON'T dignify them with a proper link).
WORLD EXCLUSIVE
Warning! Danger Will Robinson! Huckster Alert!
STARTLING UFO IMAGES
Startling, hum? Why, exactly, are every last one of these sorts of slimeballs (check for usage of "startling" and "shocking" on tv, in the tabloids, etc., and see who uses it and for what general purposes) unable to comminucate their message without recourse to one or the other of this odd pair of words? See above re: Huckster Alert!
Actual NASA Satellite image
Use of the word "actual" in front of an otherwise completely mundane, normal, everyday, sort of thing being YET ANOTHER example of the abovereferenced HA's.
A full-page advertisement in the January 2003 issue of UFO Magazine has generated considerable interest
Any time "interest" gets generated by an ADVERTISEMENT, you can be sure that somebody is selling something. Yet another HA.
For the past two years, hundreds of extraordinary UFO-like images have been gleaned by a Spanish-based team using two space-based satellites
As though there's some other sort of satellite?
There's more of this kind of complete bullshit, but I don't feel like copying, pasting, and commenting further. You get the idea, eh?
The fact that these gizoobers are attempting to sell cd's of imagery flaws and whatnot, for a price that would make the RIAA happy, is ALL anybody needs to know about them, or their retarded subject matter.
I'm guessing these images won't even show up on Kazaa. Not even worth the time and trouble to download for NOTHING.
Quoth the article:...expands on a May 2001 initiate in which Microsoft offered to share the Windows code with governments,...
So ok. It appears to me as if we're finally going to be able to get our hands on some of those long sought after nuggets of MS code. Especially if the RUSSIANS are amongst those with authorization to access it, methinks.
All fine and dandy.
But now that we're going to be getting it, what, exactly, the hell are we really going to be doing with it?
Slashdot Mirror
Which ordinarily might goad myself and others to scramble around and get it before the lid gets clamped down good and tight.
Except for one small problem.
When all is said and done, you're receiving television.
Never mind.
Until this statement is reversed in some substantial way, with Microsoft cloning things on the Windows side, the battle is not won.
When that day dawns, we can all know that our work paid off. Till then, we're all just yapping like a pack of small, annoying dogs.
I'm hoping for dayglow green with large fangs and slimy tentacles, but I'll settle for a little bacteria-looking stuff.
Most anything at all actually, just so long as it takes some of the hot air out of the fundamentalist's (pick your less than fully sane belief system of choice) sails.
Excellent post. Where are my mod points when I really need them?
Excellent mention of Szilard and the role he played. Why don't more people appreciate his pivotal role in this CRUCIAL transitional period in world history?
Ok, two more for those of you who don't INSTANTLY see the problem: Thin wire.
Hats off to you, BBS of yore.
How can ANY of us expect the hax0rs to behave themselves when Pillars of the System are behaving just as badly or worse?
Silly me.
Oxygen too!
ANYTHING of sufficient size and complexity is by definition something that no one of us can comprehend in its entirety. This being the case, there's no hope of ever seeing to it that everything from minor annoyances to catastrophic failures will be abolished.
My experience with this sort of thing isn't in software, it's large scale construction projects. Launch pads, to be precise. The basic goal is "build something that the Space Shuttle can successfully fly off of on launch day." In the real world, NOBODY knows exactly what this is going to involve down to the finest detail, and the possibility for malinteractions of that detail.
Fortunately, the launch pad, once built, more or less just stays put and continues doing the same job over and over. With software development, no such stability is feasable. We're still learning more and more about how computers work, both hard and soft ware. In this phantasmogoric landscape, with things morphing from this to that with bewildering speed and little overall pattern, the guys who have to grind out the code (and all their bosses right up to the CEO) have no prayer of ever getting it right. Don't be so hard on yourselves, it's a situation that you can NOT control fully. Just do the best you can and let Charles Darwin sort out the mistakes.
It's gonna get weird people. I'm tellin' ya WEIRD.
The good news is that I'll be safely dead and gone before this really takes off, but somebody is gonna have to deal with this stuff eventually, and some of it is going to be most unpleasant.
Here's hoping I'm completely wrong.
Me neither. But lots of freeware and that sort of thing come with keys, passwords, and what have you. Signing up for various bulletin boards almost ALWAYS involves the use of some damned password or other, sent to an email address. That kind of thing.
I guess I could start doing "online sweepstakes" entries and give them a hotmail address.
Don't do it. Sweepstakes always want mailing addresses along with real names, and if you don't give them your correct name and address, you don't win a damned thing. Sweepstakes are just trawls for living souls.
Is there a way to set up hotmail filters so that everything goes into the trash automatically?
Don't know. Never looked at the damned thing. As far as I can tell, hotmail IS the trash. It's just that every once in a while, you've got to do a little dumpster diving.
Amen brother! Let it fill up with spam till you need it for something, clean it out, gather that key or password from whomever's none too trustworthy, and then let it fill right back up with spam till it overflows and you have a use for it again.
Thank you Microsoft.
Users are actually CUSTOMERS. Attitude like your above will eventually be swept from the marketplace, as savvy operators who understand that people (read: CUSTOMERS) were, are, and will be, FIRST on the list.
Have your little rant and enjoy, but the reaper is coming.
And while we're at it here, what's up with IT folks reinventing the wheel every eighteen months anyway? Ninety-nine percent of what customers use computers for in the first place never changes. So whatta ya say we get the IT dimbulbs with the program, and leave the damned interface alone, ok? Otherwise, it's looking as if we're constantly having to redo the damned thing because it was done wrong in the first place, and there's no hope on the horizon of EVER seeing the damned thing get done in ANY place. Give it a rest, already.
They call the internet the world wide web, but whenever I go outside I never see it. I'd like to know why this is.
At Terabytes per square INCH(!), I'll cheerfully put up with a little sluggishness in the new media, thank you very much.
Why did the shuttle have to be going at Mach 20 and heading down at what I read in one slashdot post (take your grain of salt) was a 70% angle?
Mach 20+ is what it takes to maintain orbit. The were in the early phase of deceleration and still had most of their speed when the disaster occured. 70 degree angle of descent is absurd. The were approximately 1500 miles from KSC and around 40 miles up. Do the trig for yourself and you'll see that 70 degrees of descent angle is claptrap.
Couldn't the shuttle bleed off speed by going through thin layers of atmosphere for a longer period of time leading to longer exposure to friction-generated heat but less-intense heat?
Not and hit any kind of precise landing point. They do the deorbit burn at what becomes the apogee of the newly-created orbit, which now has a perigee half way around the world (go get your astronomy textbook out and have a look at any elliptical orbit) which is where they're going to land. Anything less, by way of reducing the orbit then skips them off the atmosphere as they pass perigee and sends them half way around the world once again, at a speed that's not nearly as calculable (in the sense of tweaking it for a PRECISE touchdown point (the SLF is a BIG runway, but from space, it's a dustmote of a target) as they need. Additional orbital tweaks using the OMS system aren't feasable owing to fuel usage constraints. Bottom line: They deorbit and land in a single half-orbit. Period. The bleed off of orbital energy in that half orbit is a CONSTANT. Can't be changed. To go from orbital velocity to zero velocity in a vehicle of that weight takes a precise amount of energy, which can't be played around with.
This might not be worth it due to schedule constraints in ordinary circumstances, but might be worth it in extraordinary situations.
Scheduling has nothing to do with it. It's all about Delta-V in one half orbit.
Anybody know if it wasn't flying this mission?
The were not flying the arm on this mission. Extra weight. Not required. Of no proper use no matter what the contingency.
Why can't NASA develop a small tethered inspection robot? It is technically quite viable.
To bring safety equipment to cover all "reasonable" on-orbit contingencies would take the weight of the orbiter to a realm where there was no energy left to loft a payload, or, in more extreme examples, the orbiter itself.
couldn't they in special circumstances change their reentry trajectory so it would be more gradual in some way so that the tiles would take less heat?
They could no sooner do that than they could change the laws of physics.
don't they have a MMU that can be used for untethered spacewalks?
They do not.
Those of us that don't want to pay $15-$25 for a crappy CD won't habe $15,000-$25,000 to bribe congress.
I got bad news for ya, pal. You ain't bribing NOBODY in congress with a piddly fifteen to twenty-five grand.
Gonna have to come up with some real money if you expect to get anything done in Washington.
From their opening screen at http://www.ufomag.co.uk/euroseti.htm (no, I WON'T dignify them with a proper link).
WORLD EXCLUSIVE
Warning! Danger Will Robinson! Huckster Alert!
STARTLING UFO IMAGES
Startling, hum? Why, exactly, are every last one of these sorts of slimeballs (check for usage of "startling" and "shocking" on tv, in the tabloids, etc., and see who uses it and for what general purposes) unable to comminucate their message without recourse to one or the other of this odd pair of words? See above re: Huckster Alert!
Actual NASA Satellite image
Use of the word "actual" in front of an otherwise completely mundane, normal, everyday, sort of thing being YET ANOTHER example of the abovereferenced HA's.
A full-page advertisement in the January 2003 issue of UFO Magazine has generated considerable interest
Any time "interest" gets generated by an ADVERTISEMENT, you can be sure that somebody is selling something. Yet another HA.
For the past two years, hundreds of extraordinary UFO-like images have been gleaned by a Spanish-based team using two space-based satellites
As though there's some other sort of satellite?
There's more of this kind of complete bullshit, but I don't feel like copying, pasting, and commenting further. You get the idea, eh?
The fact that these gizoobers are attempting to sell cd's of imagery flaws and whatnot, for a price that would make the RIAA happy, is ALL anybody needs to know about them, or their retarded subject matter.
I'm guessing these images won't even show up on Kazaa. Not even worth the time and trouble to download for NOTHING.
Quoth the article: ...expands on a May 2001 initiate in which Microsoft offered to share the Windows code with governments,...
So ok. It appears to me as if we're finally going to be able to get our hands on some of those long sought after nuggets of MS code. Especially if the RUSSIANS are amongst those with authorization to access it, methinks.
All fine and dandy.
But now that we're going to be getting it, what, exactly, the hell are we really going to be doing with it?