Hard to believe so much effort is wasted on crop circles. The thing that is less known are the "obvious fakes". The elaborate designs that include things like coats of arms and such that are just as elaborate as the abstract designs but don't get the press because they are in fact obvious fakes. These types of shapes are traceable for thousands years in the British Isles. It's hardly surprising that it's the hot bed of such activities. Things like the chalk cuttings have been a part of Britian since before the Romans found it. One that shocked everyone was the computer chip and face shape. Startling until you see a wider shot and find they are a hundred yards from a radio telescope. Space aliens or bored astronomers? The biggest slow down in recent years was during a ban on movement in the farmlands due to Mad Cow Disease. A farmer was called and asked by an unknown caller if the ban had been lifted. The farmer informed the caller it had. A crop circle miraculously appeared the next day in his field. Aren't there enough amazing things in the world without having to invent more?
Has anyone else caught the fact it sounds like a really big Zip drive. Does anyone else remember the joys of zip drive ownership? Your data is about as safe as a fresh baked pie on a windowsill at a fat farm.
The sad thing is if they had been released without fan fare it's doubtful if any cities would have banned them unless they caused problems. I keep reading outrageous claims of speed. They may have changed the specs but the public version was suppose to have an 8mph limiter added and the industrial was going to have either a 12 or 15 mph limit. People keep talking about them going out of control on hills but they were designed for inclines that exceed those in SF. It's a knee jerk reaction to correct a non existent problem. California has a history of leading the country in laws based on panic and the press rather than reality. There should have been a proper study of the situation before any laws were passed.
The ones being sold to the public have an 8 mph limiting key. The industrial ones had a top speed of 15 mph but aren't meant for streets. The skate boarders and bicycles go faster than that on sidewalks. The are a potential hazard but so are many legal devices.
An earlier writer said the space shuttle is a near perfect space vehicle. This is far from the truth. The shuttle's primary function is satilite maintainence. The military pushed for the shuttle. For pure science the space shuttle is expensive and impractical. The problems became glaring when they had to bring the Russians in on the space station because NASA no longer had the heavy lift rockets required to lift the components into space. A large percentage of shuttle missions are blacked out because of the military involvement. Recovering and refitting the shuttle parts is extremely expensive. Several people have mentioned NASA's "X" program. The original X program in the 60s was highly successful and nearly achieved a aircraft capible of making orbit without booster rockets. Sadly the program was dropped. NASA's budget has been cut severely in recent years. They are forced to attempt missions for a tiny fraction of what they did in the 60s and 70s. If the military was forced to defend this country with a tenth of their current budget I wonder what their success rate would be. Given that standard NASA is still a massive success over all. Let's give NASA a tenth what the military gets and see what they accomplish.
Most seem to take this as corporations against everyone else just because it is Disney. The point is why should an artist ever loose the rights to his/her own work? Why should some talentless business type be able to exploit an artist work just because the copyright ran out. This could actually work against Disney and benefit a friend of mine on a deal that is in the works now. The real issue why should artists be forced to give up their rights in order to have any hope of a career. The music industry has always forced artists to give up their rights if they want to have their work published. It should be a basic human right that an artist retains the rights to their work and those copyright should pass to at least the next generation so their children can benefit from their work.
Ultimaly doesn't this cause more stress for the soldier? It's one more thing to worry about. If the computer says that your stress level is 10 percent above the norm for a battlefield soldier do you miss a promotion? The information would definately be factored into evaluations. The benefit is questionable but the potential is there for abuse.
I went to a system like this a while ago and it works fine. Hard drive costs have plummeted while backup device have slowly gotten bigger and cheaper. I recently pulled some zip drive from three years of storage and none of the data was useable. I currently backup on hard drives then with my important files I burn them to DVD. I do graphics work and have started a system where I back up nightly on a DVD-RW then after a weeks use archive that disk. Once a week I also burn DVD-R so I have two back ups and a hard drive one for every file. Shots are also burned to DVD-R immediately after they are rendered.
I love pull out drives and have even gone to them for my primary hard drives. As to tape, does anyone remember what happened to the IRS? Tape is a lousy long term storage medium. DVDs are probably the best we have for now.
The writers don't seem to have taken science in high school. In the original openning they didn't seem to understand the difference between a galaxy and a solar system. The dialogue is moronic and the characters aren't interesting. Worst of all it's boring. Surprised it lasted this long. Hollywood needs to try something daring and hire real writers.
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Hard to believe so much effort is wasted on crop circles. The thing that is less known are the "obvious fakes". The elaborate designs that include things like coats of arms and such that are just as elaborate as the abstract designs but don't get the press because they are in fact obvious fakes. These types of shapes are traceable for thousands years in the British Isles. It's hardly surprising that it's the hot bed of such activities. Things like the chalk cuttings have been a part of Britian since before the Romans found it. One that shocked everyone was the computer chip and face shape. Startling until you see a wider shot and find they are a hundred yards from a radio telescope. Space aliens or bored astronomers? The biggest slow down in recent years was during a ban on movement in the farmlands due to Mad Cow Disease. A farmer was called and asked by an unknown caller if the ban had been lifted. The farmer informed the caller it had. A crop circle miraculously appeared the next day in his field. Aren't there enough amazing things in the world without having to invent more?
Has anyone else caught the fact it sounds like a really big Zip drive. Does anyone else remember the joys of zip drive ownership? Your data is about as safe as a fresh baked pie on a windowsill at a fat farm.
The sad thing is if they had been released without fan fare it's doubtful if any cities would have banned them unless they caused problems. I keep reading outrageous claims of speed. They may have changed the specs but the public version was suppose to have an 8mph limiter added and the industrial was going to have either a 12 or 15 mph limit. People keep talking about them going out of control on hills but they were designed for inclines that exceed those in SF. It's a knee jerk reaction to correct a non existent problem. California has a history of leading the country in laws based on panic and the press rather than reality. There should have been a proper study of the situation before any laws were passed.
The ones being sold to the public have an 8 mph limiting key. The industrial ones had a top speed of 15 mph but aren't meant for streets. The skate boarders and bicycles go faster than that on sidewalks. The are a potential hazard but so are many legal devices.
An earlier writer said the space shuttle is a near perfect space vehicle. This is far from the truth. The shuttle's primary function is satilite maintainence. The military pushed for the shuttle. For pure science the space shuttle is expensive and impractical. The problems became glaring when they had to bring the Russians in on the space station because NASA no longer had the heavy lift rockets required to lift the components into space. A large percentage of shuttle missions are blacked out because of the military involvement. Recovering and refitting the shuttle parts is extremely expensive. Several people have mentioned NASA's "X" program. The original X program in the 60s was highly successful and nearly achieved a aircraft capible of making orbit without booster rockets. Sadly the program was dropped. NASA's budget has been cut severely in recent years. They are forced to attempt missions for a tiny fraction of what they did in the 60s and 70s. If the military was forced to defend this country with a tenth of their current budget I wonder what their success rate would be. Given that standard NASA is still a massive success over all. Let's give NASA a tenth what the military gets and see what they accomplish.
Most seem to take this as corporations against everyone else just because it is Disney. The point is why should an artist ever loose the rights to his/her own work? Why should some talentless business type be able to exploit an artist work just because the copyright ran out. This could actually work against Disney and benefit a friend of mine on a deal that is in the works now. The real issue why should artists be forced to give up their rights in order to have any hope of a career. The music industry has always forced artists to give up their rights if they want to have their work published. It should be a basic human right that an artist retains the rights to their work and those copyright should pass to at least the next generation so their children can benefit from their work.
Ultimaly doesn't this cause more stress for the soldier? It's one more thing to worry about. If the computer says that your stress level is 10 percent above the norm for a battlefield soldier do you miss a promotion? The information would definately be factored into evaluations. The benefit is questionable but the potential is there for abuse.
I went to a system like this a while ago and it works fine. Hard drive costs have plummeted while backup device have slowly gotten bigger and cheaper. I recently pulled some zip drive from three years of storage and none of the data was useable. I currently backup on hard drives then with my important files I burn them to DVD. I do graphics work and have started a system where I back up nightly on a DVD-RW then after a weeks use archive that disk. Once a week I also burn DVD-R so I have two back ups and a hard drive one for every file. Shots are also burned to DVD-R immediately after they are rendered. I love pull out drives and have even gone to them for my primary hard drives. As to tape, does anyone remember what happened to the IRS? Tape is a lousy long term storage medium. DVDs are probably the best we have for now.
The writers don't seem to have taken science in high school. In the original openning they didn't seem to understand the difference between a galaxy and a solar system. The dialogue is moronic and the characters aren't interesting. Worst of all it's boring. Surprised it lasted this long. Hollywood needs to try something daring and hire real writers.