Since I work for an automotive OEM.... When this is done, there is an Engineering Change Order documenting the change and why it was implemented. We don't change anything without first getting the approval of the customer; and, invariably they will want all the relevant DV and PV testing redone. Huge effort and pain. All of this is well documented and nothing ships until we have final approval from the customer.
The part number may not change; but, the part revision level will. PN 123456 RevA will become PN 123456 RevB. We treat it as the "same" part number but will only ship the latest revision once we have customer approval. As for tracking, I don't know how our customers tracks the change internally; but, I can tell you which batch, serial number, and date code the new revision started shipping.
Because each one is a custom, hand-made part that probably went through an extensive measurement process in a QA lab prior to each assembly step and after it was completed.
IAA physicist and it's partially the ionization of the air being compressed as the mach 7 projectile leaves the bore, and it's partially plasma from the armature that vaporizes as the massive current pulse pushes though it.
I don't know whether to be happy that another science fiction article has become science fact; or, horrified at the future capability it represents. I know someone in a back room is wondering, "How large will this scale and still be viable inside the atmosphere?"
It's this kind of thick headed stupidity, where the Republican party has allowed ultra-right wing nuts to take control of the party, that has caused me to stop voting in the center choosing candidates based on their resume and experience. Now I'm voting an all Democratic ticket simply because I'm tired of all the bull crap. While I don't agree with everything the Democrats do and I think sometimes their spending habits need to be reigned in, they're not trying to kill this country by cutting the bottom out from under it.
scientist: Oh no! there's a 5 km asteroid going to hit us in 150 days."
Politician: How do I know you're right? You've been wrong in the past. Earth has never been hit by an asteroid, not in my lifetime or the lifetime of my father's father's father. I don't believe you."
one week later
Scientist: We've projected the orbit and can confirm with 99.99% certainty the asteroid will strike the Earth on the west coast of Africa in 139 days at exactly 10:43pm EST. It's 4.2 km and when it strikes it will be a civilization ending event, killing a projected 83% of the human population unless you fund the rocket we need to stop it.
Politician: So, you're not 100% certain? And you're saying it might strike Africa. And I thought you said it was only 5 km. Now you're saying it's 4.2km. You all don't even know how big this thing is... How much is the rocket going to cost? Do you have any idea what percentage of the U.S. GDP that is!? That's U.S. taxpayer money you're talking about. I think you might be wrong about the collision. You all were wrong about that asteroid... Apo something, right? Why should we agree to spend American taxpayer's money to stop a rock that may strike Africa. That's on the other side of the Atlantic ocean, half a world away. You scientists just don't know what you're talking about with your heads in the clouds looking at your stars all the time. You need to get down to Earth with the rest of us regular folks and do something useful.
I've had that conversation... other guy: "Why doesn't it work" me: "Because you're code is running at over 100 MIPS and you didn't pause for even 50 milliseconds to wait for the device to set the valve..." "never mind waiting for flow to start. And you really shouldn't assume anything, go back to double check the system state before launching the next step in the process." Application programmer meets the physical world of control systems programming.
Many of the EU bans were put in place before the crops were available and there was data to work from. It was what we call a knee-jerk reaction. Most of the studies have found no issues with GMO foods.
I'm all for the balanced opinion. Not everyone is going to agree... However, you can't have a "balanced opinion" if members of the committee are completely ignorant of what they're making decisions about and rather than put effort into learning and understanding, they spend all their time denigrating and belittling.
What stuns me is that someone that ignorant of the process and so critical of science in the first place, can get themselves put on the Science Space and Technology committee in the first place. You couldn't have picked a worse group of persons to make budgetary decisions about our countries science future. They might as well just go ahead and deny all science spending, kill NASA, DOE, NSF and NIH, and call it a day.
I frankly think everyone will be best served by SpaceX, Orbital and Boeing stepping up and providing commercial access to space. My point with respect to the current administration is that they failed to push an alternative that was viable. SLS is not viable; or, it might be better to state that the hypothetical Falcon X Heavy with the next generation 1.5 M lb thrust engines would be more viable than SLS. The Obama administration isn't pushing anything... Not really. Not SLS. Not Commercial. Nothing. Congress hasn't helped by cutting funding; but, the current fiscal climate forces them to cut something and NASA (and all science) looks like low hanging fruit since the Obama administration won't fight cuts there vigorously.
It might happen, if they can implement it in a way the duplicates the functionality and ease of use of a mirror. The reason it might happen: reduction in drag to improve the manufacturer's chances of meeting the EPA Corporate Average Fuel Economy requirements.
They probably didn't factor in the cost of Google Apps; however, one has to ask, how does that compare to Enterprise licensing for Microsoft Office and the server licenses to support Exchange, Active Directory and file server(s)?
If you RTFA you would have seen that a sizeable fraction of their staff had both a desktop and a laptop, and will only be receiving a chromebook as a replacement. Some workers will be updated to Windows 7 machines where they have applications that are not available in web based or Citrix based environments.
I hope you're referring to Bush Jr. because he's the one who signed the order to kill and dismantle the Shuttle program. The current administration has failed by not producing a viable alternative and pushing the agenda forward. I personally think they're sitting on their hands, on purpose, waiting for commercial manned spaceflight to fill the role.
Proof that sunlight is Evil! Return to your basements and bunkers fellow geeks. Avoid any light not produced by our shining monitors, as it is a lie. Hazard the light from the Sun and you will be burned! What other proof do you need? Only in our computer generated worlds do we find Truth.
You missed the most geeky and relevant of jobs. Calculator (yes, it was a job title). Calculators crunched numbers to create all the tables used to estimate everything from taxes to rocket trajectories. Computers and digital calculators made the human job title "Calculator" obsolete.
I do have devices that can read tape written 20 years ago. 8-track was from the 60's and 70's by the way, making it a bit more than 20 years.
First CDs came out in early 1980's. That's 30 years and the drives are still backwards compatible -- I can still put in my old Pink Floyd CD into my Blue-ray drive and the computer will play it. There is no reason to believe that won't continue for another 10 years or so as music is still being released on CD in commercial quantities. Despite the hype optical disks are far from dead.
Archival quality optical disks have a good chance of continued support because there is a substantial effort being put into them in the background by people like the National Archive, Library of Congress, and others looking for means to maintain long term records storage. It's not guaranteed that they will be around in 100 years. Maintaining any system that long is difficult, even simple paper. It's got as good a shot as any though.
Slashdot Mirror
Since I work for an automotive OEM.... When this is done, there is an Engineering Change Order documenting the change and why it was implemented. We don't change anything without first getting the approval of the customer; and, invariably they will want all the relevant DV and PV testing redone. Huge effort and pain. All of this is well documented and nothing ships until we have final approval from the customer.
The part number may not change; but, the part revision level will. PN 123456 RevA will become PN 123456 RevB. We treat it as the "same" part number but will only ship the latest revision once we have customer approval. As for tracking, I don't know how our customers tracks the change internally; but, I can tell you which batch, serial number, and date code the new revision started shipping.
Because each one is a custom, hand-made part that probably went through an extensive measurement process in a QA lab prior to each assembly step and after it was completed.
IAA physicist and it's partially the ionization of the air being compressed as the mach 7 projectile leaves the bore, and it's partially plasma from the armature that vaporizes as the massive current pulse pushes though it.
I don't know whether to be happy that another science fiction article has become science fact; or, horrified at the future capability it represents. I know someone in a back room is wondering, "How large will this scale and still be viable inside the atmosphere?"
It's this kind of thick headed stupidity, where the Republican party has allowed ultra-right wing nuts to take control of the party, that has caused me to stop voting in the center choosing candidates based on their resume and experience. Now I'm voting an all Democratic ticket simply because I'm tired of all the bull crap. While I don't agree with everything the Democrats do and I think sometimes their spending habits need to be reigned in, they're not trying to kill this country by cutting the bottom out from under it.
It won't go down like that.... It'll be more like
.
scientist: Oh no! there's a 5 km asteroid going to hit us in 150 days."
Politician: How do I know you're right? You've been wrong in the past. Earth has never been hit by an asteroid, not in my lifetime or the lifetime of my father's father's father. I don't believe you."
one week later
Scientist: We've projected the orbit and can confirm with 99.99% certainty the asteroid will strike the Earth on the west coast of Africa in 139 days at exactly 10:43pm EST. It's 4.2 km and when it strikes it will be a civilization ending event, killing a projected 83% of the human population unless you fund the rocket we need to stop it.
Politician: So, you're not 100% certain? And you're saying it might strike Africa. And I thought you said it was only 5 km. Now you're saying it's 4.2km. You all don't even know how big this thing is... How much is the rocket going to cost? Do you have any idea what percentage of the U.S. GDP that is!? That's U.S. taxpayer money you're talking about. I think you might be wrong about the collision. You all were wrong about that asteroid... Apo something, right? Why should we agree to spend American taxpayer's money to stop a rock that may strike Africa. That's on the other side of the Atlantic ocean, half a world away. You scientists just don't know what you're talking about with your heads in the clouds looking at your stars all the time. You need to get down to Earth with the rest of us regular folks and do something useful.
I've had that conversation... other guy: "Why doesn't it work" me: "Because you're code is running at over 100 MIPS and you didn't pause for even 50 milliseconds to wait for the device to set the valve..." "never mind waiting for flow to start. And you really shouldn't assume anything, go back to double check the system state before launching the next step in the process." Application programmer meets the physical world of control systems programming.
Many of the EU bans were put in place before the crops were available and there was data to work from. It was what we call a knee-jerk reaction. Most of the studies have found no issues with GMO foods.
I'm all for the balanced opinion. Not everyone is going to agree... However, you can't have a "balanced opinion" if members of the committee are completely ignorant of what they're making decisions about and rather than put effort into learning and understanding, they spend all their time denigrating and belittling.
What stuns me is that someone that ignorant of the process and so critical of science in the first place, can get themselves put on the Science Space and Technology committee in the first place. You couldn't have picked a worse group of persons to make budgetary decisions about our countries science future. They might as well just go ahead and deny all science spending, kill NASA, DOE, NSF and NIH, and call it a day.
I frankly think everyone will be best served by SpaceX, Orbital and Boeing stepping up and providing commercial access to space. My point with respect to the current administration is that they failed to push an alternative that was viable. SLS is not viable; or, it might be better to state that the hypothetical Falcon X Heavy with the next generation 1.5 M lb thrust engines would be more viable than SLS. The Obama administration isn't pushing anything... Not really. Not SLS. Not Commercial. Nothing. Congress hasn't helped by cutting funding; but, the current fiscal climate forces them to cut something and NASA (and all science) looks like low hanging fruit since the Obama administration won't fight cuts there vigorously.
That's comparable to the dealer price (parts and labor) to replace a color matched side view mirror with remote.
It might happen, if they can implement it in a way the duplicates the functionality and ease of use of a mirror. The reason it might happen: reduction in drag to improve the manufacturer's chances of meeting the EPA Corporate Average Fuel Economy requirements.
They probably didn't factor in the cost of Google Apps; however, one has to ask, how does that compare to Enterprise licensing for Microsoft Office and the server licenses to support Exchange, Active Directory and file server(s)?
If you RTFA you would have seen that a sizeable fraction of their staff had both a desktop and a laptop, and will only be receiving a chromebook as a replacement. Some workers will be updated to Windows 7 machines where they have applications that are not available in web based or Citrix based environments.
I hope you're referring to Bush Jr. because he's the one who signed the order to kill and dismantle the Shuttle program. The current administration has failed by not producing a viable alternative and pushing the agenda forward. I personally think they're sitting on their hands, on purpose, waiting for commercial manned spaceflight to fill the role.
Proof that sunlight is Evil! Return to your basements and bunkers fellow geeks. Avoid any light not produced by our shining monitors, as it is a lie. Hazard the light from the Sun and you will be burned! What other proof do you need? Only in our computer generated worlds do we find Truth.
Sir, do you not remember what happened last time? Please reference historical files entitled Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
But they can do this... Whereas with the iPad they have to take Apple's word for it. This may be the limitation that drove them to Android and Samsung
You missed the most geeky and relevant of jobs. Calculator (yes, it was a job title). Calculators crunched numbers to create all the tables used to estimate everything from taxes to rocket trajectories. Computers and digital calculators made the human job title "Calculator" obsolete.
The work around, in many instances, is to have a wholy owned but independent subsidiary that handles sales and marketing.
Fun fact, Ford initially intended the model T to run on readily available alcohol. It could also run on kerosene apparently.
I do have devices that can read tape written 20 years ago. 8-track was from the 60's and 70's by the way, making it a bit more than 20 years.
First CDs came out in early 1980's. That's 30 years and the drives are still backwards compatible -- I can still put in my old Pink Floyd CD into my Blue-ray drive and the computer will play it. There is no reason to believe that won't continue for another 10 years or so as music is still being released on CD in commercial quantities. Despite the hype optical disks are far from dead.
Archival quality optical disks have a good chance of continued support because there is a substantial effort being put into them in the background by people like the National Archive, Library of Congress, and others looking for means to maintain long term records storage. It's not guaranteed that they will be around in 100 years. Maintaining any system that long is difficult, even simple paper. It's got as good a shot as any though.
archival quality optical media in a robotic silo. 100 year guarantee on your data. Storage space only limited by the size of your silo.
Dude, he said 20 terabytes not 20 gigabytes, you're off by 3 orders of magnitude.