Yea mini-itx boxen are great, I've got my fair share of them. My only wonder/complaint is when the hell is the nano-itx coming out? I've seen photos of it for a year now and I keep getting promised the damn thing is coming. If anyone knows when they are going to be officially released, please reply with that info. With a form factor as small as the nano has claimed to be, I've already got plans to buy about 5 of them for various functionality throughout my house or automobile or work. I hope that the nano-itx isn't just vaporware. Regards, Steve
In case you haven't noticed, the golden rule (Those who have the gold, make the rules) is utterly uneffective if those who have the gold don't have the power to make their gold worth anything. The only reason any economy survives is because people agree to give similar things worth. Do you really think that a 20 dollar bill costs less to print than a 50 dollar bill? Do you really think that your money is backed by gold? There isn't enough trees to print all the currency, its all just a number in some databases somewhere. The only reason your money is worth anything is because everyone agrees to make it worth something and those people are backed by a strong military.
There are quite a few smaller southern towns that use their own currency, and it works simply because they all agree it works. The USSR didn't lose their power because they lost their financial status, they lost their financial status because they lost their power. As long as the U.S. has the capabilities to disorient any other nation, it will be worth something. A good military is all that gives any nation its worth, everything else follows. (Granted, times are a little different now with some neutral countries, however they are only in the position they are in because they know there are bigger beasts out there that will fight for them if they are ever invaded). The world is really just survival of the fittest, its not different then a small animal living in a jungle. Those who can fight the best and defend themselves will be the ones who stick around. If you are on the verge of death, your going to use whatever you can to survive. Don't act like this is a problem with the U.S. Its a problem with human nature. Desperate times always call for desperate measures and I can think of a lot of countries that would be worse having this technology than the U.S. The U.S. gets alot of attention, but there are plenty of worse countries out there, they just dont have the same status. Regards, Steve
I know its cool and hip to rag on the editors but in all seriousness the editors have shown that they are incapable of accurately searching for dupes. This has been known for literally years. It is assumed that dupes will make it through. As a result, I feel it no longer, nor has it been for some time, the responsibility of the editor to filter dupes. It is the responsibility of the article submitter to find dupes. Afterall, if you don't read slashdot so frequently that you regularly miss front page stories, you shouldn't be submitting articles. Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that even though dupe finding is easy, this only shows that the submitters are just as lazy as the editors. We are all geeks, we are lazy by nature, get over it or submit an autodupe finder to slashcode (hell, write a greasemonkey script for all I care). Sometimes when the administration (editors) fails to act, the underlings must step up to the plate. So here is my message to all future article submitters:
Well considering that Red Hat, Fedora, Novell, and Debian together hold about 3.5 million servers according to netcraft (as of last march), those are the only players that really matter. Red Hat has about 1.8 million, Fedora: 400,000 , Novell: 400,000 and Debian around 800,000. I haven't read the report in a while but at the time Fedora was expanding at 120% every few months, where as the next fastest distro (I think it was gentoo with 60,000) was growing at 40% over the same time, and all the other distros were much lower than that. I would assume that as a result of Fedora's fast growth rate that Fedora's share is closer to Debian's now. Regardless, after those 4 distros, the next largest was Mandrake (iirc) with around 70,000 active servers. As you can see, those 4 distros(Red Hat, Fedora, Novell, & Debian) are all that really matter and if they all agree on the standard, then it is the standard. Regards, Steve
The servers were not affiliated with Mozilla, they were just public servers providing a korean version of Mozilla. Why the hell would you download something from an unknown source... espeecially when there is an official one you can use.
Regards, Steve
The site distributing this build of Mozilla was not owned or ran or controlled or in any way affiliated with Mozilla. It was just a public server serving korean versions of Mozilla, I guess it was somewhat popular so this made news. The only problem here is the owner of that server, he either ran an insecure server or gave too many people write access (but I repeat myself). Regards, Steve
No, the problem is that Symantec only counted vulnerabilities that were Vendor ackowledged. That is, Symantec only counted vulnerabilities that were fixed and the report completely disregarded currently unpatched vulnerabilities (of which 19 exist for IE). How stupid is that? They just conclude that who ever fixed the least problems is more secure. If firefox just stops ackowleding security bugs, Symantec would (in theory) conclud that Firefox is perfectly secure. This whole report is baselss and designed to scare people into buying their products again. Regards, Steve
Is it just me or did they show longhorn twice in the demo, both times using 3d windows similar to Sun's Looking Glass? Is this some hidden feature that Microsoft has yet to disclose? Maybe Microsoft is holding off on some goodies until they release Longhorn, so there is a lot of press and people aren't underwhelmed. From my name you can obviously tell I am a a fan of Linux, in fact its all I run, but thats pretty cool if Longhorn is taking the desktop to the next dimension. Regards, Steve
Use Fedora Directory Server or Red Hat Directory server. It is derived from the acclaimed Netscape Directory Server. It is easy to set up, scalable and *just works*. For groupware just use phpGroupware or something. If all you need is mail access, I recommend Roundcube for the web access, it uses Ajax to give a nice user experience akin to Yahoo or Gmail. Keep an eye on the Hula Project too, it looks like when a release it made it will be real nice. Regards, Steve
Red Hat? You mean that company that provides you with glib? That company that maintains GCC? Or wait do you mean that money grabbing corporation that has devoted hordes of developers to everything from Apache and Gnome to integrating SELinux into the kernel. That price tag on cygwin is way too high for me. And Fedora or CentOS (which red hat engineers have helped work on), they are both above my budget. I hope Red Hat stops giving away their directory server or GFS too because noone would ever need those.
The truth is, Red Hat open sources everything they do, if you want the source to their enterprise line, go and download it or go to CentOS which already did the work for you. Red Hat is at the core of OSS and without them, we'd all be much further back then where we are now. The only thing Red Hat charges for is enterprise support so please don't go around spreading FUD. They are the biggest single contributor to the kernel and pay for some of the best kernel hackers alive. We may all have this dream of everything OSS and being free... the truth is that at scales this large it'd all fall to hell without serious money behind it. This is why we need big companies with billions of dollars like Red Hat, IBM and Sun to aid in OSS. Out of those companies though, Red Hat is the most critical because even though they aren't the largest, they have the most motivation to make linux successful. If linux fails, Sun and IBM shift to other markets, no big deal, but Red Hat's whole business is linux so they have every reason to ensure its success. Regards, Steve
If your schools didn't require trig, then you went to all crappy schools. I'm not sure what else to say about it, but I know kids from at least 10 highschools and the principal of another prominent highschool and every highschool had to take algebra, geometry, trig, and pre-calc (usually in that order). If you didn't take those classes then what the hell did you take for your math each year? Some kids like me took AP courses and so we moved at different paces, but most took the aformentioned roster. Maybe from all the hopping around you did, you missed the school's offereing of trig or something. Regards, Steve
Trig is used all the time in tons of fields. Just off the top of my head you've got 3D Enginess, Architects, Carepenters, Physicists, Cartography, Space engineering, Military (projectiles, etc...), tracking devices like the new Nintendo Revolution Controller, sound engineering, optics, quantum mechanics, astronomers, and economics. Now remind me again how people will never use this in the real world? Lots of people are employed with the above careers. Don't project what applies to yourself onto the world, simply because your job requires less intellect (no insult intended), that doesn't mean the rest of the world is so. As a programmer for a defense contractor, I can tell you that I use everything that I've learned in trig, calc, and linear algebra at least weekly. Regards, Steve
Why on earth would I ask for an X-Box? There is absolutley nothing appealing about it, its specs aren't impressive, there are multiple versions of it, and its big. The PS3 is a possibility, but the one console I will make sure I own is the Revolution, and I'm not a fan boy. The last thing I own from nintendo is N64, and before that it was NES. Nintendo is the only player in the game market that is still focused on gaming and making fun games. Everyone else is focused on making a media center, not on gaming. Sony and MS could care less about innovation. They are no longer fun to play, every game is a rehash with a different story. Nintendo is a year or two will be the only place for people to have fun gaming to turn to. Regards, Steve
I suspect its because the Europeans have just as much of a bias in the opposing direction. Most Europeans I know just love to eat up whatever the media decides to feed them that day. Global warming is not happening, the Earth has been severely hotter than this and if you know anything about its history then you'd know we are still coming out of an ice age and dramatic weather changes are going to happen. The earth is unusually cold, so much so that both poles have ice which is rare. Stop insisting that global warming is happening until you stop arguing it based on the fact that the earth is getting warmer. And before anyone mentions the ozone hole... it has nothing to do with global warming, even if it did, it has already stopped growing larger. Stop being so damn pessimistic, we aren't changing the climate. Regards, Steve
No it doesn't. There is no reason why Madden can't be released, hell it can even be imporved. Want to pass to a player? Point and click. Personally I'm more psyched to see how the baseball games use it, baseball games may actually come back in style with this. You can use the controller as a sword, you can use it as a bat, and you since it is tracked in 3 dimensions, you can even technically throw the ball if you swing your arm while holding the controller. Nintendo is doing everything right this time and I think you'll shortly see one of the two other players gone despite stockloads of cash. They are both no longer focusing on gamers, they are becoming media centers, and Microsoft already screwed themselves by making multiple versions of the same console, going against the whole point of the damn console in the first place. Regards, Steve
Ignorance such as yours needs to be ended. Read this to see the benefits of the space program. The article text follows. Regards, Steve
Some of the most frequently asked questions about the U.S. space program are "Why go into space when we have so many problems here on Earth?" and "What does the space program do for me?" These are legitimate questions and unfortunately not enough people have been made aware of the vast benefits the space program provides that increase the quality of our daily lives. Applications on Earth of technology needed for space flight have produced thousands of "spinoffs" that contribute to improving national security, the economy, productivity and lifestyle. It is almost impossible to find an area of everyday life that has not been improved by these spinoffs. Collectively, these secondary applications represent a substantial return on the national investment in aerospace research. We should be spending more.
Out of a $2.4 trillion budget, less than 0.8% is spent on the entire space program! That's less than 1 penny for every dollar spent. The average American spends more of their budget on their cable bill, eating out or entertainment than this yet the benefits of space flight are remarkable. It has been conservatively estimated by U.S. space experts that for every dollar the U.S. spends on R and D in the space program, it receives $7 back in the form of corporate and personal income taxes from increased jobs and economic growth. Besides the obvious jobs created in the aerospace industry, thousands more are created by many other companies applying NASA technology in nonspace related areas that affect us daily. One cannot even begin to place a dollar value on the lives saved and improved lifestyles of the less fortunate. Space technology benefits everyone and a rising technological tide does raise all boats.
One small example is the Hubble Space Telescope. Much maligned at first because of its flawed optics, it still produced better photographs than anything here on Earth. Once fixed, it has produced even more startling scientific data which we have only begun to understand and apply. One of the many spinoffs from the Hubble telescope is the use of its Charge Coupled Device (CCD) chips for digital imaging breast biopsies. The resulting device images breast tissue more clearly and efficiently than other existing technologies. The CCD chips are so advanced that they can detect the minute differences between a malignant or benign tumor without the need for a surgical biopsy. This saves the patient weeks of recovery time and the cost for this procedure is hundreds of dollars vs. thousands for a surgical biopsy. With over 500,000 women needing biopsies a year the economic benefit, per year, is tremendous and it greatly reduces the pain, scarring, radiation exposure, time, and money associated with surgical biopsies.
Below is a "small" sampling of the many other ways that space technology has improved our lives and benefited mankind. It is truly a remarkable list and not nearly complete but I believe you will begin to appreciate the answers to "Why do we go in space" and "What does the space program do for me?" So the next time you hear these questions being asked, you will be able to explain it.
Computer Technology - NASA Spinoffs
GROUND PROCESSING SCHEDULING SYSTEM - Computer-based scheduling system that uses artificial intelligence to manage thousands of overlapping activities involved in launch preparations of NASA's Space Shuttles. The NASA technology was licensed to a new company which developed commercial applications that provide real-time planning and optimization of manufacturing operations, integrated supply chains, and customer orders.uu
SEMICONDUCTOR CUBING - NASA initiative led to the Memory Short Stack, a three-dimensional semiconductor package in which dozens of integrated circuits are stacked one atop another to form
At any major development place, *everything* is unit tested. Code coverage (how many lines of code are actually covered by the tests) is huge and should usually be above 70%. Unit tests aren't to make sure that your code is working correctly right now, unit tests are so that in 5 years when you change one class out of 6000 interdependant classes you can just run "ant test" and it goes back, runs all your tests and makes sure they still pass as they did when you first wrote it 5 years prior. Without unit testing, modifying any major, complex piece of software would be hopeless. You can unit test anything, including apps that require databases. You simply "mock out" the database using JMock and it stands in place for it like a fake database almost. The development I do is heavily dependant on Oracle and Java and JUnit/JMock are critical to the project's success. It is a common practice in open source now too as was seen by the recent release of Gallery 2.0 which is largely unit tested. Regards, Steve
What the hell are you smoking? It started as a professional product, and the community bought the rights to it. It was used in some parts of Spiderman 2, if you don't believe that then go to your local book store, pick up the book about the making of Spiderman 2, find the storyline screenshots and you'll see Blender. It produces 3d graphics just as good as any other product (see for yourself). It also has one of the fastest known general renderers (not specialized for one kind of scene or another) in existence. It isn't just a 3d modeling suite, you can do all of your post production with it as well. Its featureset is rarely matched (hell it even has a game engine). Its interface has a high learning curve (as all 3D programs do), but it is designed as well as say Vi or Emacs are for text editors. Blender is truly one of the hallmarks of open source and it is finely catching the eyes of many professionals, these are just a few. Regards, Steve
Those versions actually make sense though, not "optimized for gamers". Fedora Core is free, RedHat WS is for workstations in situations where you have 1000 desktops that need to be administered by 1 admin. And the Server versions make sense depending on what kind of load you're looking at and hardware you're running on. None lock out functionality that exists in the software just to add value to other versions. They are designed around how much support you need and what kind of hardware you're running. Regards, Steve
Those little space planes that reach low orbit are not that big of an advancement. They can't lift much and carry minimal passengers, they also don't go anywhere near where the shuttle has to go. Not to mention, a large part of their structure came from looking at the successes and failures of the Shuttle, real useless it was, eh? Regards, Steve
Slashdot Mirror
Size. Shuttle is small, this thing is smaller.
Yea mini-itx boxen are great, I've got my fair share of them. My only wonder/complaint is when the hell is the nano-itx coming out? I've seen photos of it for a year now and I keep getting promised the damn thing is coming. If anyone knows when they are going to be officially released, please reply with that info. With a form factor as small as the nano has claimed to be, I've already got plans to buy about 5 of them for various functionality throughout my house or automobile or work. I hope that the nano-itx isn't just vaporware.
Regards,
Steve
In case you haven't noticed, the golden rule (Those who have the gold, make the rules) is utterly uneffective if those who have the gold don't have the power to make their gold worth anything. The only reason any economy survives is because people agree to give similar things worth. Do you really think that a 20 dollar bill costs less to print than a 50 dollar bill? Do you really think that your money is backed by gold? There isn't enough trees to print all the currency, its all just a number in some databases somewhere. The only reason your money is worth anything is because everyone agrees to make it worth something and those people are backed by a strong military.
There are quite a few smaller southern towns that use their own currency, and it works simply because they all agree it works. The USSR didn't lose their power because they lost their financial status, they lost their financial status because they lost their power. As long as the U.S. has the capabilities to disorient any other nation, it will be worth something. A good military is all that gives any nation its worth, everything else follows. (Granted, times are a little different now with some neutral countries, however they are only in the position they are in because they know there are bigger beasts out there that will fight for them if they are ever invaded). The world is really just survival of the fittest, its not different then a small animal living in a jungle. Those who can fight the best and defend themselves will be the ones who stick around. If you are on the verge of death, your going to use whatever you can to survive. Don't act like this is a problem with the U.S. Its a problem with human nature. Desperate times always call for desperate measures and I can think of a lot of countries that would be worse having this technology than the U.S. The U.S. gets alot of attention, but there are plenty of worse countries out there, they just dont have the same status.
Regards,
Steve
I know its cool and hip to rag on the editors but in all seriousness the editors have shown that they are incapable of accurately searching for dupes. This has been known for literally years. It is assumed that dupes will make it through. As a result, I feel it no longer, nor has it been for some time, the responsibility of the editor to filter dupes. It is the responsibility of the article submitter to find dupes. Afterall, if you don't read slashdot so frequently that you regularly miss front page stories, you shouldn't be submitting articles. Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that even though dupe finding is easy, this only shows that the submitters are just as lazy as the editors. We are all geeks, we are lazy by nature, get over it or submit an autodupe finder to slashcode (hell, write a greasemonkey script for all I care). Sometimes when the administration (editors) fails to act, the underlings must step up to the plate. So here is my message to all future article submitters:
"Don't submit and dupe."
Regards,
Steve
Well considering that Red Hat, Fedora, Novell, and Debian together hold about 3.5 million servers according to netcraft (as of last march), those are the only players that really matter. Red Hat has about 1.8 million, Fedora: 400,000 , Novell: 400,000 and Debian around 800,000. I haven't read the report in a while but at the time Fedora was expanding at 120% every few months, where as the next fastest distro (I think it was gentoo with 60,000) was growing at 40% over the same time, and all the other distros were much lower than that. I would assume that as a result of Fedora's fast growth rate that Fedora's share is closer to Debian's now. Regardless, after those 4 distros, the next largest was Mandrake (iirc) with around 70,000 active servers. As you can see, those 4 distros(Red Hat, Fedora, Novell, & Debian) are all that really matter and if they all agree on the standard, then it is the standard.
Regards,
Steve
The servers were not affiliated with Mozilla, they were just public servers providing a korean version of Mozilla. Why the hell would you download something from an unknown source... espeecially when there is an official one you can use.
Regards,
Steve
The server was not owned or affiliated with Mozilla, it simply was a public server providing a korean version of Mozilla for download.
Regards,
Steve
The site distributing this build of Mozilla was not owned or ran or controlled or in any way affiliated with Mozilla. It was just a public server serving korean versions of Mozilla, I guess it was somewhat popular so this made news. The only problem here is the owner of that server, he either ran an insecure server or gave too many people write access (but I repeat myself).
Regards,
Steve
No, the problem is that Symantec only counted vulnerabilities that were Vendor ackowledged. That is, Symantec only counted vulnerabilities that were fixed and the report completely disregarded currently unpatched vulnerabilities (of which 19 exist for IE). How stupid is that? They just conclude that who ever fixed the least problems is more secure. If firefox just stops ackowleding security bugs, Symantec would (in theory) conclud that Firefox is perfectly secure. This whole report is baselss and designed to scare people into buying their products again.
Regards,
Steve
Is it just me or did they show longhorn twice in the demo, both times using 3d windows similar to Sun's Looking Glass? Is this some hidden feature that Microsoft has yet to disclose? Maybe Microsoft is holding off on some goodies until they release Longhorn, so there is a lot of press and people aren't underwhelmed. From my name you can obviously tell I am a a fan of Linux, in fact its all I run, but thats pretty cool if Longhorn is taking the desktop to the next dimension.
Regards,
Steve
Use Fedora Directory Server or Red Hat Directory server. It is derived from the acclaimed Netscape Directory Server. It is easy to set up, scalable and *just works*. For groupware just use phpGroupware or something. If all you need is mail access, I recommend Roundcube for the web access, it uses Ajax to give a nice user experience akin to Yahoo or Gmail. Keep an eye on the Hula Project too, it looks like when a release it made it will be real nice.
Regards,
Steve
Aye me matey! Pillage the mods that have modded this to the depths of the sea and make 'em walk the planck.
Pirate Steve
Screw Genesis! They were ahead of their time, they didn't have diamond nano tubes and they didn't have Babelfish ;)
Regards,
Steve
Red Hat? You mean that company that provides you with glib? That company that maintains GCC? Or wait do you mean that money grabbing corporation that has devoted hordes of developers to everything from Apache and Gnome to integrating SELinux into the kernel. That price tag on cygwin is way too high for me. And Fedora or CentOS (which red hat engineers have helped work on), they are both above my budget. I hope Red Hat stops giving away their directory server or GFS too because noone would ever need those.
The truth is, Red Hat open sources everything they do, if you want the source to their enterprise line, go and download it or go to CentOS which already did the work for you. Red Hat is at the core of OSS and without them, we'd all be much further back then where we are now. The only thing Red Hat charges for is enterprise support so please don't go around spreading FUD. They are the biggest single contributor to the kernel and pay for some of the best kernel hackers alive. We may all have this dream of everything OSS and being free... the truth is that at scales this large it'd all fall to hell without serious money behind it. This is why we need big companies with billions of dollars like Red Hat, IBM and Sun to aid in OSS. Out of those companies though, Red Hat is the most critical because even though they aren't the largest, they have the most motivation to make linux successful. If linux fails, Sun and IBM shift to other markets, no big deal, but Red Hat's whole business is linux so they have every reason to ensure its success.
Regards,
Steve
If your schools didn't require trig, then you went to all crappy schools. I'm not sure what else to say about it, but I know kids from at least 10 highschools and the principal of another prominent highschool and every highschool had to take algebra, geometry, trig, and pre-calc (usually in that order). If you didn't take those classes then what the hell did you take for your math each year? Some kids like me took AP courses and so we moved at different paces, but most took the aformentioned roster. Maybe from all the hopping around you did, you missed the school's offereing of trig or something.
Regards,
Steve
Trig is used all the time in tons of fields. Just off the top of my head you've got 3D Enginess, Architects, Carepenters, Physicists, Cartography, Space engineering, Military (projectiles, etc...), tracking devices like the new Nintendo Revolution Controller, sound engineering, optics, quantum mechanics, astronomers, and economics. Now remind me again how people will never use this in the real world? Lots of people are employed with the above careers. Don't project what applies to yourself onto the world, simply because your job requires less intellect (no insult intended), that doesn't mean the rest of the world is so. As a programmer for a defense contractor, I can tell you that I use everything that I've learned in trig, calc, and linear algebra at least weekly.
Regards,
Steve
Why on earth would I ask for an X-Box? There is absolutley nothing appealing about it, its specs aren't impressive, there are multiple versions of it, and its big. The PS3 is a possibility, but the one console I will make sure I own is the Revolution, and I'm not a fan boy. The last thing I own from nintendo is N64, and before that it was NES. Nintendo is the only player in the game market that is still focused on gaming and making fun games. Everyone else is focused on making a media center, not on gaming. Sony and MS could care less about innovation. They are no longer fun to play, every game is a rehash with a different story. Nintendo is a year or two will be the only place for people to have fun gaming to turn to.
Regards,
Steve
I suspect its because the Europeans have just as much of a bias in the opposing direction. Most Europeans I know just love to eat up whatever the media decides to feed them that day. Global warming is not happening, the Earth has been severely hotter than this and if you know anything about its history then you'd know we are still coming out of an ice age and dramatic weather changes are going to happen. The earth is unusually cold, so much so that both poles have ice which is rare. Stop insisting that global warming is happening until you stop arguing it based on the fact that the earth is getting warmer. And before anyone mentions the ozone hole... it has nothing to do with global warming, even if it did, it has already stopped growing larger. Stop being so damn pessimistic, we aren't changing the climate.
Regards,
Steve
No it doesn't. There is no reason why Madden can't be released, hell it can even be imporved. Want to pass to a player? Point and click. Personally I'm more psyched to see how the baseball games use it, baseball games may actually come back in style with this. You can use the controller as a sword, you can use it as a bat, and you since it is tracked in 3 dimensions, you can even technically throw the ball if you swing your arm while holding the controller. Nintendo is doing everything right this time and I think you'll shortly see one of the two other players gone despite stockloads of cash. They are both no longer focusing on gamers, they are becoming media centers, and Microsoft already screwed themselves by making multiple versions of the same console, going against the whole point of the damn console in the first place.
Regards,
Steve
Regards,
Steve
Some of the most frequently asked questions about the U.S. space program are "Why go into space when we have so many problems here on Earth?" and "What does the space program do for me?" These are legitimate questions and unfortunately not enough people have been made aware of the vast benefits the space program provides that increase the quality of our daily lives. Applications on Earth of technology needed for space flight have produced thousands of "spinoffs" that contribute to improving national security, the economy, productivity and lifestyle. It is almost impossible to find an area of everyday life that has not been improved by these spinoffs. Collectively, these secondary applications represent a substantial return on the national investment in aerospace research. We should be spending more.
Out of a $2.4 trillion budget, less than 0.8% is spent on the entire space program! That's less than 1 penny for every dollar spent. The average American spends more of their budget on their cable bill, eating out or entertainment than this yet the benefits of space flight are remarkable. It has been conservatively estimated by U.S. space experts that for every dollar the U.S. spends on R and D in the space program, it receives $7 back in the form of corporate and personal income taxes from increased jobs and economic growth. Besides the obvious jobs created in the aerospace industry, thousands more are created by many other companies applying NASA technology in nonspace related areas that affect us daily. One cannot even begin to place a dollar value on the lives saved and improved lifestyles of the less fortunate. Space technology benefits everyone and a rising technological tide does raise all boats.
One small example is the Hubble Space Telescope. Much maligned at first because of its flawed optics, it still produced better photographs than anything here on Earth. Once fixed, it has produced even more startling scientific data which we have only begun to understand and apply. One of the many spinoffs from the Hubble telescope is the use of its Charge Coupled Device (CCD) chips for digital imaging breast biopsies. The resulting device images breast tissue more clearly and efficiently than other existing technologies. The CCD chips are so advanced that they can detect the minute differences between a malignant or benign tumor without the need for a surgical biopsy. This saves the patient weeks of recovery time and the cost for this procedure is hundreds of dollars vs. thousands for a surgical biopsy. With over 500,000 women needing biopsies a year the economic benefit, per year, is tremendous and it greatly reduces the pain, scarring, radiation exposure, time, and money associated with surgical biopsies.
Below is a "small" sampling of the many other ways that space technology has improved our lives and benefited mankind. It is truly a remarkable list and not nearly complete but I believe you will begin to appreciate the answers to "Why do we go in space" and "What does the space program do for me?" So the next time you hear these questions being asked, you will be able to explain it.
Computer Technology - NASA Spinoffs
GROUND PROCESSING SCHEDULING SYSTEM - Computer-based scheduling system that uses artificial intelligence to manage thousands of overlapping activities involved in launch preparations of NASA's Space Shuttles. The NASA technology was licensed to a new company which developed commercial applications that provide real-time planning and optimization of manufacturing operations, integrated supply chains, and customer orders.uu
SEMICONDUCTOR CUBING - NASA initiative led to the Memory Short Stack, a three-dimensional semiconductor package in which dozens of integrated circuits are stacked one atop another to form
I think the first poster recommended this, and I can also vouch for it: Roundcube
Regards,
Steve
Why can't you mock out the database?
Regards,
Steve
At any major development place, *everything* is unit tested. Code coverage (how many lines of code are actually covered by the tests) is huge and should usually be above 70%. Unit tests aren't to make sure that your code is working correctly right now, unit tests are so that in 5 years when you change one class out of 6000 interdependant classes you can just run "ant test" and it goes back, runs all your tests and makes sure they still pass as they did when you first wrote it 5 years prior. Without unit testing, modifying any major, complex piece of software would be hopeless. You can unit test anything, including apps that require databases. You simply "mock out" the database using JMock and it stands in place for it like a fake database almost. The development I do is heavily dependant on Oracle and Java and JUnit/JMock are critical to the project's success. It is a common practice in open source now too as was seen by the recent release of Gallery 2.0 which is largely unit tested.
Regards,
Steve
What the hell are you smoking? It started as a professional product, and the community bought the rights to it. It was used in some parts of Spiderman 2, if you don't believe that then go to your local book store, pick up the book about the making of Spiderman 2, find the storyline screenshots and you'll see Blender. It produces 3d graphics just as good as any other product (see for yourself). It also has one of the fastest known general renderers (not specialized for one kind of scene or another) in existence. It isn't just a 3d modeling suite, you can do all of your post production with it as well. Its featureset is rarely matched (hell it even has a game engine). Its interface has a high learning curve (as all 3D programs do), but it is designed as well as say Vi or Emacs are for text editors. Blender is truly one of the hallmarks of open source and it is finely catching the eyes of many professionals, these are just a few.
Regards,
Steve
Those versions actually make sense though, not "optimized for gamers". Fedora Core is free, RedHat WS is for workstations in situations where you have 1000 desktops that need to be administered by 1 admin. And the Server versions make sense depending on what kind of load you're looking at and hardware you're running on. None lock out functionality that exists in the software just to add value to other versions. They are designed around how much support you need and what kind of hardware you're running.
Regards,
Steve
Those little space planes that reach low orbit are not that big of an advancement. They can't lift much and carry minimal passengers, they also don't go anywhere near where the shuttle has to go. Not to mention, a large part of their structure came from looking at the successes and failures of the Shuttle, real useless it was, eh?
Regards,
Steve