> I don't get that either. They could very well have, >done this as part of their ESA contributions.
All member states of ESA chip into the general pot of money from which infrastructure and missions are funded. But also nations have the option of fund parts of specific missions. Usually they chip in on condition that "their" companies get the work !! (one way of subsidising high-tech companies in a "free" market !?)
So the Italians have chipped in twice for Huygens.
> Kyoto would have essentially no effect on CO2 production, at the cost of essentially destroying the global economy.
1) I agree that a 5.2% drop on CO2 emisions could be described as "essentially no effect", (and AFAIK is not very sound scientically. But it represents a start to I support it.)
2) I am not sure how this reduction would be "at the cost of essentially destroying the global economy" ? How would this happen ?
I have noticed this process in the UK applying to political announcements to the press (eg the press are fed stories that come out as "Tony Blair is expected to announce... tomorrow" or "Lord X's report on... is expected to show that...").
The press *could* wait a day and then report the facts, but they want to get in first.
The politicians / spin doctors can then work on the feedback ready for the real announcement. They can re-write abstracts, press releases, prepare responses...)
Firstly, I wish the Wikinews project all the best: I hope they succeed !
> I don't think that Wiki can rely on user editing to insure "fair and balanced" stories.
But where can we find "fair and balanced" stories ? TV and newspapers ? And IMHO "fair and balanced" does not exists as an *absolute*; you always need to read with one eye on the agenda of the writer/editor/owner/etc.
> As I understood it, the sole advantage of gentoo over the likes of debian (on the assumption that functionally apt-get = emerge etc) was that instead of installing precompiled packages in debain, the gentoo user compiles and optimises everything for their specific hardware...
When I looked to move away from SUSE I looked at Debian and Gentoo. I choose Gentoo (rightly or wrongly) based simply on the much more up to date packages available for Gentoo (in the standard repository).
> Abuse by car insurance companies able to read your car's performance?
Is it "abuse" if you break the terms of contract with your insurers ? And/or if you break the traffic laws ? As a cyclist and safer roads supporter I would count this as a plus point of tags !!
> Shit, Mars is gonna FREAK OUT if he catches Jupiter slam-bamming his babe Venus. I sure hope they made sure that the sun is blocking their 'conjuction'.
Well, if you were familiar with the UK "newspaper" publishing buisness you would know the "The Sun" would be anything but "blocking" the "conjuction". They would print a grainy "exclusive" photo on the front page with some "whacky" title like "Jupiter thanks his lucky stars!!".
> tons of businesses remain firmly convinced that something you pay for is always better than something that's free.
Agreed: but often the cost of an MS Office licence is very small compared with the labour cost of the worker who is using it: even a 1/2 day training session could be cancelled out by the lost revenue. And there is the risk of lower productivity until someone is used to the new tool.
To be honest I have not heard of SDR, so I do not know how old the technology is, but do not forget that Cassini/Huygens was launched in 1997, so was probably spec'ed in the early 90s. And most of the technology chosen would have been reliable, proven stuff, so was probably state-of-the-art nearly 20 years ago !!
>why don't they have an option to route the recovered signal verbatim to the main transmitter and send that to earth
Because the same antenna is used to communicate with Huygens and Earth ! http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.c fm? fobjectid=35026&fbodylongid=1632
I guess the benefits of having a real-time relay capability are outwayed by the extra cost of the additional antenna. Also I am not sure about the transmission rates: I could not find any numbers, but IIRC Huygens sends a burst of data during it's short operational life, and I am not sure if the Earth link would cope with that rate in real-time.
1) I am not in favour of the idea of regressive taxation.
2) Having said that: I suspect it will only affect an incredibly *small* number of people: you do not pay anything extra if you already have a TV licence. It will only affect those people who buy an internet enabled computer before buying a TV. I bet that is a damn small number (but I am also sure that an above average number of Slashdot readers own a computer but not a TV:-)
> I'm sure that 99% of the drivers are completely unaware of this.
I am sure this is true: I am also sure that even if they knew then it would not make any difference: after 25 years of cycling my conclusion is that motorists simply do not care enough to wait a few seconds until it is safe. Ask any motorist how long they would wait to overtake safely (1 second, 10 seconds, 5 minutes ?)
> Everyone wonders why more people don't cycle and I think one of the main reasons is that it is outright dangerous.
Smoking is much more dangerous, but plenty of people still do it:-) I am currently living in Germany: there are loads of cycle paths that *can* make cycling safe: lots of people cycle but lots more people have other excuses/reason not to cycle.
And Saddem was supported by the US in the Iran/Iraq war: as a 40 year old UK citizen I can well remember the days when the news was that Saddem was the good guy against the nasty old Ayatollah Khomeini (and the rest of the world let him dump on the Kurds).
> Do you really think that after all of this, the rest of the world trusts the US with nukes?
I would suggest that a significant number of the non-US world NEVER *trusted* the US, or the USSR... with nukes (at least not in my lifetime (40 and counting!!). But there never was much they could do about: except try to build up their own arsenal to get some leverage/protection (if Iraq had nuclear capability the US would *never* have invaded).
> The US once was percieved as a "beacon of freedom"
Perhaps by some people: but I would suggest not by large sections of the world. Perhaps the theory is good (the constitution..) but in practice ?
Slashdot Mirror
First 2 pictures released:
l
http://planetary.org/news/2005/huygens_blog.htm
> I don't get that either. They could very well have,
>done this as part of their ESA contributions.
All member states of ESA chip into the general pot of money from which infrastructure and missions are funded. But also nations have the option of fund parts of specific missions. Usually they chip in on condition that "their" companies get the work !! (one way of subsidising high-tech companies in a "free" market !?)
So the Italians have chipped in twice for Huygens.
> People just don't care anymore, do they? Capitalization,
Reminds me of a sig I saw on Slashdot the other day:
Capitalization is the difference between "Helping your uncle jack off a horse" and "Helping your uncle Jack off a horse".
(Well it made me laugh)
Firstly I agree with the idea behind the quote: essentially that being in a minority does not necessarilly make you wrong.
Problem is, without the benefit of hindsight, how do we seperate the geniuses ahead of their time from the plain wrong ?
Ditto here: our main customer supplies/requires Office XP format files, so we need Office XP, which needs Windows XP, which means new PCs.
:-(
But there is no money for upgrading our underpowered Sun servers, which is our target platform for SW development
> Kyoto would have essentially no effect on CO2 production, at the cost of essentially destroying the global economy.
1) I agree that a 5.2% drop on CO2 emisions could be described as "essentially no effect", (and AFAIK is not very sound scientically. But it represents a start to I support it.)
2) I am not sure how this reduction would be "at the cost of essentially destroying the global economy" ? How would this happen ?
I have noticed this process in the UK applying to political announcements to the press (eg the press are fed stories that come out as "Tony Blair is expected to announce ... tomorrow" or "Lord X's report on ... is expected to show that ...").
The press *could* wait a day and then report the facts, but they want to get in first.
The politicians / spin doctors can then work on the feedback ready for the real announcement. They can re-write abstracts, press releases, prepare responses...)
Firstly, I wish the Wikinews project all the best: I hope they succeed !
> I don't think that Wiki can rely on user editing to insure "fair and balanced" stories.
But where can we find "fair and balanced" stories ? TV and newspapers ? And IMHO "fair and balanced" does not exists as an *absolute*; you always need to read with one eye on the agenda of the writer/editor/owner/etc.
> As I understood it, the sole advantage of gentoo over the likes of debian (on the assumption that functionally apt-get = emerge etc) was that instead of installing precompiled packages in debain, the gentoo user compiles and optimises everything for their specific hardware...
When I looked to move away from SUSE I looked at Debian and Gentoo. I choose Gentoo (rightly or wrongly) based simply on the much more up to date packages available for Gentoo (in the standard repository).
> But the writer (or at least his editor) just can't dare to actually say the word out loud.
I would suggest it was the *lawyers* that stopped him calling the spade a spade.
So what we are saying is that you have to have rich parents to go to a posh school, to then be in a position to become wealthy yourself ?
;-)
Hey: that does not seem fair
FWIW the UK based ethical Co-op bank online banking works fine in Firefox :-)
http://www.co-operativebank.co.uk/
> Abuse by car insurance companies able to read your car's performance?
Is it "abuse" if you break the terms of contract with your insurers ? And/or if you break the traffic laws ?
As a cyclist and safer roads supporter I would count this as a plus point of tags !!
> What seems to me like a good idea is to modularize the code so that you can just plug things in and out.
A bit like this ?
http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd.html
> and what about all the BSD code in Winders
IIRC this is OK for BSD licenced code.
> I can't wait to see Microsoft's counter PR to Firefox...
7 ,0 0.htm
No need to wait: google on microsoft firefox gives a week old item at the top !!:
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/0,39023165,3916622
Simon
More power :-)
(30 hours a week in Germany)
> Shit, Mars is gonna FREAK OUT if he catches Jupiter slam-bamming his babe Venus. I sure hope they made sure that the sun is blocking their
'conjuction'.
Well, if you were familiar with the UK "newspaper" publishing buisness you would know the "The Sun" would be anything but "blocking" the "conjuction". They would print a grainy "exclusive" photo on the front page with some "whacky" title like "Jupiter thanks his lucky stars!!".
> tons of businesses remain firmly convinced that something you pay for is always better than something that's free.
Agreed: but often the cost of an MS Office licence is very small compared with the labour cost of the worker who is using it: even a 1/2 day training session could be cancelled out by the lost revenue. And there is the risk of lower productivity until someone is used to the new tool.
To be honest I have not heard of SDR, so I do not know how old the technology is, but do not forget that Cassini/Huygens was launched in 1997, so was probably spec'ed in the early 90s. And most of the technology chosen would have been reliable, proven stuff, so was probably state-of-the-art nearly 20 years ago !!
c fm? fobjectid=35026&fbodylongid=1632
>why don't they have an option to route the recovered signal verbatim to the main transmitter and send that to earth
Because the same antenna is used to communicate with Huygens and Earth !
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.
I guess the benefits of having a real-time relay capability are outwayed by the extra cost of the additional antenna. Also I am not sure about the transmission rates: I could not find any numbers, but IIRC Huygens sends a burst of data during it's short operational life, and I am not sure if the Earth link would cope with that rate in real-time.
"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving."
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
1) I am not in favour of the idea of regressive taxation.
:-)
2) Having said that: I suspect it will only affect an incredibly *small* number of people: you do not pay anything extra if you already have a TV licence. It will only affect those people who buy an internet enabled computer before buying a TV. I bet that is a damn small number (but I am also sure that an above average number of Slashdot readers own a computer but not a TV
Simon
> I'm sure that 99% of the drivers are completely unaware of this.
:-)
I am sure this is true: I am also sure that even if they knew then it would not make any difference: after 25 years of cycling my conclusion is that motorists simply do not care enough to wait a few seconds until it is safe. Ask any motorist how long they would wait to overtake safely (1 second, 10 seconds, 5 minutes ?)
> Everyone wonders why more people don't cycle and I think one of the main reasons is that it is outright dangerous.
Smoking is much more dangerous, but plenty of people still do it
I am currently living in Germany: there are loads of cycle paths that *can* make cycling safe: lots of people cycle but lots more people have other excuses/reason not to cycle.
Yes: I remember :-(
And Saddem was supported by the US in the Iran/Iraq war: as a 40 year old UK citizen I can well remember the days when the news was that Saddem was the good guy against the nasty old Ayatollah Khomeini (and the rest of the world let him dump on the Kurds).
> Do you really think that after all of this, the rest of the world trusts the US with nukes?
I would suggest that a significant number of the non-US world NEVER *trusted* the US, or the USSR... with nukes (at least not in my lifetime (40 and counting!!). But there never was much they could do about: except try to build up their own arsenal to get some leverage/protection (if Iraq had nuclear capability the US would *never* have invaded).
> The US once was percieved as a "beacon of freedom"
Perhaps by some people: but I would suggest not by large sections of the world. Perhaps the theory is good (the constitution..) but in practice ?