Outed? The prototype was available for public view from NASA 20 years ago. Saw it in public at Moffet NAS back then. Looked more like a pair of scissors than a knife to me.
However, I will assert that any industrial process worth pursuing in Earth orbit in the near future needs to make economic sense without the lunar base, and treat the lunar base as a cost saving measure...
It is conceivable that the combination of lunar materials and orbit-based solar energy could provide materials useful on the earth, and in fairly large amounts. Are iron deposits available from the lunar surface? A sufficiently large mirror in orbit for heat, a lunar EM rail for delivery of materials (Heinlein again) and you might be able to make strong, extremely lightweight and machinable carbon steels by a process that turns the iron, a bit of carbon and captured gas into foam. Tiny bubbles of iron with the surface to volume ratio approaching that of aerosol shaving lather. Wouldn't that just float your boat?
Or how about giant solid-state launching lasers made of pure silicon or ice (would it really melt in use, if a large spun mylar shade kept it from direct sunlight?) Huge fusion purified crystals with dopants applied precisely, without gravity to disturb the distribution across the matrix or cause the end mirror surfaces to fall out of alignment. Then solar-pump the lasers as an energy source to send sailing ships (what would you call them?) out to mine IO for the sulphides or whatever else you need from our planetary hardware store.
The industrious Victorians went as far as to cut down old garments into new ones, or into rag strips to sew and weave into rugs. This prevented more land from being needed to grow more cotton for that fabric...
The same industrious Victorians responsible for the sulferous coal burning that caused the Yellow Fogs that decimated the lungs of Londoners? Look, I don't want you to think I'm not a believer in ecological balance, I am. I also believe in thrift, and responsibility, and a future for my two teenaged daughters and their kids. I hate plastic bags as much as I think you do. But I want a future, and I don't want my descendants to die because we've run out of resources, fuel, and options. If you do want to die out, don't take me with you. I'll find some like-minded heroes and Sky Captain all over your world of tomorrow.
Aye, and resource problems tend to go away when you tack the word "infinite" in front of it. Space is infinite, our little rock isn't. That means any fraction of infinite space we use up leaves an infinite amount in reserve, and you can't run out of it. Do the math. But if you're not among the early leavers, you'll be stuck with the traffic congestion around our home planet for a long time to come. When you stay in the city because you don't like the dust, all your frontiers will recede and you'll end up never seeing a bear outside Disneyland. Which may be okay for you, ymmv.
Now, where did I leave that coon-skin hat and my flintlock.
Disclaimer: I have in my possession an autographed photo of Fess Parker dressed as Davy Crockett. I got it when I was five years old and impressionable.
We must make preparations to leave the Earth now! There's a giant mutant space-goat headed this way right now. I think we have room for you on the third ship, if you hurry.
If we humans destroy this planet, it's what we deserve.
Yep, another one for the omelette.
I destroy life forms daily, both plant and animal, in order to stay alive. My only remaining question is whether your attitude is Emo (life sucks, I want to die) or Goth (life sucks, I want you to die). Are you living on pure sunshine?
Life is pain, Princess. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.
Aye, and chickens that stay in the eggshell end up as omelettes. Amnniosis is only healthy when it's temporary. Only albumen idiot would think the earth is more than a temporary home for us.
Why travel to the Americas? What could possibly be there that would be of any use? It would take weeks to get there, you'd run out of fresh water, and what sailors didn't die of scurvy would mutiny and you'd be murdered in your sleep. Don't go there, leave it to the Spaniards. We've got a war to pay for.
Digital Equipment Corp was known for their well laid out, informative and easy to use VAX/VMS manuals (cue old "three rooms of heaven" jokes). They were highly automated. They used Edit/TPU templates for coding that enforced carefully structured comments in program code, followed by a program that stripped the comments from programs written that way and structured them into a book, with appropriate fonts and styles. What followed was simply editing the output of that program and printing it, a much easier job than writing the entire document from scratch.
In the days before OO programming your quality of work was often measured by the quality of your code comments and intelligent use of white space. Readability was seen as one of the requirements for maintainability. Good data structures and clean algorithms followed from that.
Have you ever noticed that code flows better when you can describe what you're trying to do in English first? It's kind of like learning to communicate well with yourself. We used to start with the program comments, in English, then fill in the blanks with code. It worked.
Not denying USSR's space capability then or the value of the Chinese culture now, and with 35 years in IT I believe I can attest to the value of IBM's contribution contribution to the industry. I only meant to point out that as a culture grows larger and more centralised, the quality of information available to the people at the top deteriorates until it becomes unusable as a decision tool. The worst side effect of central control of a large society or organisation is inflexible and inappropriate application of general rule at the leaf end of the organisational structure, a point evidenced by the failure of the USSR's grand economic planning model and the equally dramatic recovery when economic control was decentralised into its various component states.
Your third point is absurd. I would no sooner trust Microsoft in space than I would trust NASA to design my desktop. Spinoffs, however, are an entirely different matter. What some people do with their private fortunes may indeed beat NASA to mars.
Who said canned goods? I buy all my groceries online, fresh meat, vegetables, cheese etc. And yes, the selection and quality is better than I get from local stores.
Good use of technology too, I say. I particularly like the cordless pinpads for using a debit card to pay for it, just like I do at the store.
Savings accrue by having the distribution centres pack and send the food, rather than having to stock supermarket shelves. There are economies of scale in logistics that you won't see in supermarkets (until they allow personal forklifts and automated picking systems into stores, perhaps) that can recover some of the costs of running the web site.
Come to think of it, it's way cheaper to send the stuff out that way than to use the supermarkets. Retailers often strike a deal with the post office, happy to find business now that letter production has dropped off.
The real volume is still the supermarkets though, especially the ones with convenient parking, short walks to the car, and stealable shopping carts.
Wikipedia is the FURTHEST thing from something like Britannica as you can get! You PAY for a copy of Britannica, and they in turn PAY people who are experts in their field to provide REALIABLE information...
Um... check that link, sir, it may be unreliable or presented by people who aren't experts in their field.
So, where are we going to acquire that band of archangels with the bandwidth available to edit all the world's information in an uncorruptable, authoritative manner? Good luck my friend, and I wish you well in your game reviews.
Good point. Centralisation of power did neither the USSR nor ancient China nor IBM any good, and Microsoft is growing into a monolith large enough to suffer from to similar problems, problems that have their origin in the difficulty of internal communications -- e.g. not the type of mail, but the sheer bulk of it. By the time any catastrophe has made it through all the layers of frightened functionaries, the only message from within your own Empire that survives is refined into "All is well with the Empire, your Majesty".
I think a bit of decentralisation is in order, if Microsoft is to survive the transition you speak of. This was a lesson known to IBM when they set up a separate, independent subsidiary to build an answer to the Apple ][. The PC that resulted from that (irrespective of it's tragically poor initial design) allowed them to create a product that did not have to answer to layer upon layer of Mainframe-oriented processes and their entrenched apologists.
If Microsoft were to break up Office into separate parts with the "glue" between them componentised, then perhaps that "glue" could be adherance to a standard rather than tight coupling of applications. It seems as if they're still trying to develop a "Lotus 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9..." instead of a decent series of independent products (Drag and drop is nice, but sometimes I just want to copy a table, not embed a spreadsheet in a document).
One wonders if the communications between all the components of Office isn't beginning to break the boundaries of efficient operation in much the same way. Messages grow exponentially, irrespective of the medium.
To be honest, Bill is one bright geek. But even if he were the right hand of Heaven on earth he can't resolve detail out of a message once it's suffered from bureaucratic data compression.
I guess that's why they call some people "Exponents" of a particular technology.
...By default Windows lets any program, even if it has never run before, do anything it wants to...
Interesting point. Is the solution here to lock the association between certain file extensions and the category of software that is permitted to read them? I agree the.exe extension is pretty abusable, given it's general nature -- it's an.exe, so page it in to main memory and pass control to it. But how would you go about building this sort of control into software in general? The.exe file has been with us for a long time, much predating Windows.
Personally I don't think it describes the core of the problem -- back in VMS there were certain defaults -- for example, @filename would assume.com, an ascii command procedure, but you could override it by writing a text file full of DCL commands, naming it fred.exe, and executing it as a command procedure by saying @fred.exe. There were plenty of default assumptions about file types (nothing like the hundreds of file type associations you see in your average Windows installation, though) but on the whole, it was still quite secure. This was I think because of familiar-now constructs such as ACL's and RWED file protections, all quite accessible and easy to understand, but probably most of the security came from the KESU (Kernel, Executive, Supervisor, User) model of the VMS operating system. Having a ring-fence between Kernel and Exec (where IO drivers lived) gave us the ability to have a driver glitch not bring down the system, separating Exec from Supervisor (where the DCL script engine lived) meant that you couldn't directly access the drivers via script, and applications (user mode) couldn't get into the address range where the script engine lived. Different KESU modes had unique address ranges and their own subset of the overall instruction set -- privileged instructions such as "STOP" could not be executed in unprivileged mode, as a result.
Windows NT was largely a port of VMS to the Intel architecture when MSFT acquired Dave Cutler from Digital, and the transition was characterised by moving from a secure operating system to one with rather more than a few holes in it. The NT-Intel collaboration meant the Exec mode had to be dropped, which gave us the world of pain called BSOD.
Leads me to a dangerous question here -- (not trying to be a flame artist here, please don't take it that way) -- Is it possible that the problem with Microsoft security wasn't so much Microsoft, but the inherent compromises brought on by a requirement to fit the model into the x86 instruction architecture? Should we really be directing our security-based anger at the limitations of the Intel instruction set rather than Microsoft? I know this is peeling down to the bottom layers of the onion but sometimes drilling down to the fundamentals to find the problem can give us a better aim at the real solution.
(Please note this is a technical argument folks, if I want slag on their business processes there are other articles I can read.)
Slashdot Mirror
I get all my current geographical statistics from the CIA's free-to-public site, http://www.cia.gov/. Remarkable collection, really.
Outed? The prototype was available for public view from NASA 20 years ago. Saw it in public at Moffet NAS back then. Looked more like a pair of scissors than a knife to me.
This little word that you surmise,
That I've made up: "Componentised";
It's true! I am an old proponent
Of words made up from odd components.
What is a malonga gilderchuck?
I think he plays for the St.Kilda Saints, a one-time candidate for the Brownlow.
It is conceivable that the combination of lunar materials and orbit-based solar energy could provide materials useful on the earth, and in fairly large amounts. Are iron deposits available from the lunar surface? A sufficiently large mirror in orbit for heat, a lunar EM rail for delivery of materials (Heinlein again) and you might be able to make strong, extremely lightweight and machinable carbon steels by a process that turns the iron, a bit of carbon and captured gas into foam. Tiny bubbles of iron with the surface to volume ratio approaching that of aerosol shaving lather. Wouldn't that just float your boat?
Or how about giant solid-state launching lasers made of pure silicon or ice (would it really melt in use, if a large spun mylar shade kept it from direct sunlight?) Huge fusion purified crystals with dopants applied precisely, without gravity to disturb the distribution across the matrix or cause the end mirror surfaces to fall out of alignment. Then solar-pump the lasers as an energy source to send sailing ships (what would you call them?) out to mine IO for the sulphides or whatever else you need from our planetary hardware store.
The same industrious Victorians responsible for the sulferous coal burning that caused the Yellow Fogs that decimated the lungs of Londoners? Look, I don't want you to think I'm not a believer in ecological balance, I am. I also believe in thrift, and responsibility, and a future for my two teenaged daughters and their kids. I hate plastic bags as much as I think you do. But I want a future, and I don't want my descendants to die because we've run out of resources, fuel, and options. If you do want to die out, don't take me with you. I'll find some like-minded heroes and Sky Captain all over your world of tomorrow.
Now, where did I leave that coon-skin hat and my flintlock.
Disclaimer: I have in my possession an autographed photo of Fess Parker dressed as Davy Crockett. I got it when I was five years old and impressionable.
We must make preparations to leave the Earth now! There's a giant mutant space-goat headed this way right now. I think we have room for you on the third ship, if you hurry.
Yep, another one for the omelette.
I destroy life forms daily, both plant and animal, in order to stay alive. My only remaining question is whether your attitude is Emo (life sucks, I want to die) or Goth (life sucks, I want you to die). Are you living on pure sunshine?
Life is pain, Princess. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.
Aye, and chickens that stay in the eggshell end up as omelettes. Amnniosis is only healthy when it's temporary. Only albumen idiot would think the earth is more than a temporary home for us.
No problem, you can stay behind, I don't mind. My descendents will live among the stars and yours can have what's left down here.
Why travel to the Americas? What could possibly be there that would be of any use? It would take weeks to get there, you'd run out of fresh water, and what sailors didn't die of scurvy would mutiny and you'd be murdered in your sleep. Don't go there, leave it to the Spaniards. We've got a war to pay for.
Wrong, wrong, so wrong! The Queensland premier has recently made it official.
Who said this is worse than the original affliction of beetles?
Ah yes, the imported Japanese Beetles. I wonder if they adapted to taste bad to the toads.
We're better than that, mate. And before the battle we pray to Saints Coltraine and Kerouac.
I think if we GM'd a smaller drop-bear we wouldn't need to import so many croquet mallets from India.
Yes, the Cane Toads are real. Locusts on the hop.
...which were invented by a Brazilian, iirc. Biro?
In the days before OO programming your quality of work was often measured by the quality of your code comments and intelligent use of white space. Readability was seen as one of the requirements for maintainability. Good data structures and clean algorithms followed from that.
Have you ever noticed that code flows better when you can describe what you're trying to do in English first? It's kind of like learning to communicate well with yourself. We used to start with the program comments, in English, then fill in the blanks with code. It worked.
Your third point is absurd. I would no sooner trust Microsoft in space than I would trust NASA to design my desktop. Spinoffs, however, are an entirely different matter. What some people do with their private fortunes may indeed beat NASA to mars.
How about -- "Geriatric and the Pacemakers"?
Good use of technology too, I say. I particularly like the cordless pinpads for using a debit card to pay for it, just like I do at the store.
Savings accrue by having the distribution centres pack and send the food, rather than having to stock supermarket shelves. There are economies of scale in logistics that you won't see in supermarkets (until they allow personal forklifts and automated picking systems into stores, perhaps) that can recover some of the costs of running the web site.
Come to think of it, it's way cheaper to send the stuff out that way than to use the supermarkets. Retailers often strike a deal with the post office, happy to find business now that letter production has dropped off.
The real volume is still the supermarkets though, especially the ones with convenient parking, short walks to the car, and stealable shopping carts.
(Currently employed by a major retailer)
That is sheer, unadulterated rubric, and you should consider lowering your caffeine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine intake a little.
Um... check that link, sir, it may be unreliable or presented by people who aren't experts in their field.
So, where are we going to acquire that band of archangels with the bandwidth available to edit all the world's information in an uncorruptable, authoritative manner? Good luck my friend, and I wish you well in your game reviews.
I think a bit of decentralisation is in order, if Microsoft is to survive the transition you speak of. This was a lesson known to IBM when they set up a separate, independent subsidiary to build an answer to the Apple ][. The PC that resulted from that (irrespective of it's tragically poor initial design) allowed them to create a product that did not have to answer to layer upon layer of Mainframe-oriented processes and their entrenched apologists.
If Microsoft were to break up Office into separate parts with the "glue" between them componentised, then perhaps that "glue" could be adherance to a standard rather than tight coupling of applications. It seems as if they're still trying to develop a "Lotus 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9..." instead of a decent series of independent products (Drag and drop is nice, but sometimes I just want to copy a table, not embed a spreadsheet in a document).
One wonders if the communications between all the components of Office isn't beginning to break the boundaries of efficient operation in much the same way. Messages grow exponentially, irrespective of the medium.
To be honest, Bill is one bright geek. But even if he were the right hand of Heaven on earth he can't resolve detail out of a message once it's suffered from bureaucratic data compression.
I guess that's why they call some people "Exponents" of a particular technology.
Weapons of mass distillation (hic).
Interesting point. Is the solution here to lock the association between certain file extensions and the category of software that is permitted to read them? I agree the .exe extension is pretty abusable, given it's general nature -- it's an .exe, so page it in to main memory and pass control to it. But how would you go about building this sort of control into software in general? The .exe file has been with us for a long time, much predating Windows.
Personally I don't think it describes the core of the problem -- back in VMS there were certain defaults -- for example, @filename would assume .com, an ascii command procedure, but you could override it by writing a text file full of DCL commands, naming it fred.exe, and executing it as a command procedure by saying @fred.exe. There were plenty of default assumptions about file types (nothing like the hundreds of file type associations you see in your average Windows installation, though) but on the whole, it was still quite secure. This was I think because of familiar-now constructs such as ACL's and RWED file protections, all quite accessible and easy to understand, but probably most of the security came from the KESU (Kernel, Executive, Supervisor, User) model of the VMS operating system. Having a ring-fence between Kernel and Exec (where IO drivers lived) gave us the ability to have a driver glitch not bring down the system, separating Exec from Supervisor (where the DCL script engine lived) meant that you couldn't directly access the drivers via script, and applications (user mode) couldn't get into the address range where the script engine lived. Different KESU modes had unique address ranges and their own subset of the overall instruction set -- privileged instructions such as "STOP" could not be executed in unprivileged mode, as a result.
Windows NT was largely a port of VMS to the Intel architecture when MSFT acquired Dave Cutler from Digital, and the transition was characterised by moving from a secure operating system to one with rather more than a few holes in it. The NT-Intel collaboration meant the Exec mode had to be dropped, which gave us the world of pain called BSOD.
Leads me to a dangerous question here -- (not trying to be a flame artist here, please don't take it that way) -- Is it possible that the problem with Microsoft security wasn't so much Microsoft, but the inherent compromises brought on by a requirement to fit the model into the x86 instruction architecture? Should we really be directing our security-based anger at the limitations of the Intel instruction set rather than Microsoft? I know this is peeling down to the bottom layers of the onion but sometimes drilling down to the fundamentals to find the problem can give us a better aim at the real solution.
(Please note this is a technical argument folks, if I want slag on their business processes there are other articles I can read.)
Duct tape, my friend. Duct tape. Cut it into little tiny bunny shapes and paste it over the indicators. Problem solved.