And the space shuttle was designed to carry out military missions as well as civilian which is one reason why it was so large. Some missions could have been done with a smaller vessel and to a lower cost.
The beauty of the shuttle was that it could land as an ordinary aircraft and it therefore allowed for some alternative options while when you have a capsule you will just be a passenger and no control over if you drop down on a cow or a dolphin when you come down.
For the first point - if you use the nuclear power for mining etc. then you will have less power left for production, and there is a break-even level today when the amount of energy provided is lower than the energy used to mine and enrich.
For the second point - it's all interesting, but it also depends on making that technology feasible on a production scale rather than lab scale. Laser excitation - that requires one mother of a laser for production scale. I'm not saying it can't be done, just that there may be unforeseen problems.
For the third point - a lot of talk is going on about Thorium but so far I haven't heard of anyone that has built one such reactor, and I'm not holding my breath waiting for one.
And even nuclear power is a problem there - mining and enrichment are very expensive phases and they produce carbon dioxide.
It's a question of calculating the total emissions for each type of energy source, and it's not an easy process.
Add to that the environmental impact that each type of energy has, both under normal conditions and under extreme conditions. Just look at Chernobyl - that disaster made quite an impact over a large area for a long time. Fukushima wasn't as bad, and partially thanks to a large amount of the spill being diluted into the pacific.
Hydroelectric power isn't free from making an environmental impact, but it's also of a more local type and if a disaster strikes the area suffering will be usable relatively soon. Wind power has it's own problems, one is that it's not very efficient so it requires a lot of space, and the wind doesn't always blow.
Coal and oil - they are finite known resources. We better prepare ourselves for the day when they run out by looking for alternative energy solutions.
Geothermal energy is quite interesting. It's available in many locations, but requires some investment to be usable.
If they want to improve performance of the OS they should look at improving disk accesses - the boot from a classic hard disk can take ages. CPU performance is not much of an issue these days - and only computers I have experienced slow graphics on are computers ripe for retirement anyway.
In a way - nobody really invented the internet, it just appeared as a result of organic growth that was made possible by the use of scalable protocols.
Storing data on some devices may be more reliable than others. E.g. on EPROMS may work, just provide information about how the data is stored.
And if you look back - 25 years isn't that bad. But it's bad enough to see that we did change physical storage media formats and interface types a few times. Mid 80's saw 8" hard disks, 5.25" floppies, ST506/ST412 hard disk interfaces and CD-ROM:s. Those were replaced by 5.25" hard disks with IDE interfaces and 3.5" floppies. Then the USB bus appeared and we could see all kinds of memory modules - like USB sticks, SD cards etc with a lot more capacity than the floppies and early hard disks. And the IDE interface is now replaced by the SATA interface.
But even though media has increased in size the last few years I suspect that the rate of change when it comes to hardware interfaces is going to slow down a bit - people will get irritated when old media can't be read. (That's why I still have an old 386sx with a 5.25" floppy drive just in case.) This means that storing data on a memory stick supporting USB3.0 may be possible to recover after 25 years. But don't count on data stored on hard drives since the interface and protocol may change again to improve performance. The SD cards have changed over time a bit, but a micro-SD card may still be readable. However I don't know how well flash memories actually can retain data in the long term.
Considering the number of devices today that uses the old MS-DOS filesystem (ok, not exactly, but FAT-32 at least) it may be possible that it will still be around by then. Other filesystem formats are less likely to survive that well, but NTFS may survive, and the Linux ext2-4 filesystem formats as well as the ISO 9660 (used by CD-ROM:s)
During the next 25 years it is possible that the Linux kernel may fork, but I suspect that it will still be around - it has spread to an amazing number of devices even though it isn't on the desktop for a number of reasons. (Except for the more dedicated users)
But it still doesn't protect from accidentally manipulating the phone when it's in the pocket - which sometimes happens when it was awakened by an alarm and then the display is lit all the time saying "slide to unlock" just because it's bouncing around in the pocket and eating up the battery.
As long as the phone fits into the breast pocket of my shirt I'm good. But what I miss on modern phones is the lid that my m505 had to protect the display.
This is an example of a movie that did have an impact for the general public. So there's no wonder that there are people that takes interest in the history of the sets.
The white makes sense since it reflects heat, and it will over time be worn down and get colored by the sand. The building itself doesn't look out of place in the desert but is actually of a design that you would expect there.
Add to this that this will be a bonus tourist trap for Tunisia.
And I don't think that George Lucas will make much fuzz about that restoration since it will end up creating a lot of badwill.
Pick a few large languages; Spanish, English, Russian, Chinese (Simplified), combine with symbols.
If a future civilization is unable to decipher that and not being able to be careful considering the findings of remains from our time then one may ask if that civilization is worth protecting.
Otherwise a future civilization may actually find this useful, it may be a Rosetta stone for them.
It's time to realize that the cable/satellite feeds that we get mostly contains junk and that we pay for it too. Not much is worth watching these days. I did cancel my cable and the only thing I miss from time to time is Discovery Channel.
At least where I live there are a few free channels, even on satellite. Astra 28E is a good one.
I agree - grammar changes, new words appears and old words are slowly being forgotten. That's the evolution of language. The English we hear and speak today isn't the same as the English used in the 19th century - even though we would be able to communicate with a person from that era.
And with the language while other kinds of evolution of the language starts in closed groups that suddenly become mainstream some evolution comes by experimenting. (Intentionally messed up with Talk like Yoda.)
Using void pointers is the same thing as posting as an Anonymous Coward at/. .
It is of course a great way to hide the inner workings of the functionality but at the same time it will also make it a lot harder to debug your code and it will also hide stuff from the compiler so that problems that might have been discovered at compile time won't be seen.
At least this really pushes the issue that web sites shall use the defined standards for HTML and CSS to be as portable as possible. It will also force Microsoft to take care to really follow standards on their browser.
You still need some kind of development platform for the mobile devices, so the PC will still be around. And a lot of work done in reality still requires a PC.
Of course - you may argue that you will use the cloud, but the cloud isn't always accessible.
Slashdot Mirror
And the space shuttle was designed to carry out military missions as well as civilian which is one reason why it was so large. Some missions could have been done with a smaller vessel and to a lower cost.
The beauty of the shuttle was that it could land as an ordinary aircraft and it therefore allowed for some alternative options while when you have a capsule you will just be a passenger and no control over if you drop down on a cow or a dolphin when you come down.
The daily download of the full Linux kernel sources?
Generate enough junk traffic and the data to sift through will be useless and misleading.
Just fall back to IRC when Twitter dies.
You forgot the process of building the power plant and refining plant too. And it takes some extra concrete to build a reactor housing.
For the first point - if you use the nuclear power for mining etc. then you will have less power left for production, and there is a break-even level today when the amount of energy provided is lower than the energy used to mine and enrich.
For the second point - it's all interesting, but it also depends on making that technology feasible on a production scale rather than lab scale. Laser excitation - that requires one mother of a laser for production scale. I'm not saying it can't be done, just that there may be unforeseen problems.
For the third point - a lot of talk is going on about Thorium but so far I haven't heard of anyone that has built one such reactor, and I'm not holding my breath waiting for one.
And even nuclear power is a problem there - mining and enrichment are very expensive phases and they produce carbon dioxide.
It's a question of calculating the total emissions for each type of energy source, and it's not an easy process.
Add to that the environmental impact that each type of energy has, both under normal conditions and under extreme conditions. Just look at Chernobyl - that disaster made quite an impact over a large area for a long time. Fukushima wasn't as bad, and partially thanks to a large amount of the spill being diluted into the pacific.
Hydroelectric power isn't free from making an environmental impact, but it's also of a more local type and if a disaster strikes the area suffering will be usable relatively soon. Wind power has it's own problems, one is that it's not very efficient so it requires a lot of space, and the wind doesn't always blow.
Coal and oil - they are finite known resources. We better prepare ourselves for the day when they run out by looking for alternative energy solutions.
Geothermal energy is quite interesting. It's available in many locations, but requires some investment to be usable.
If they want to improve performance of the OS they should look at improving disk accesses - the boot from a classic hard disk can take ages. CPU performance is not much of an issue these days - and only computers I have experienced slow graphics on are computers ripe for retirement anyway.
In a way - nobody really invented the internet, it just appeared as a result of organic growth that was made possible by the use of scalable protocols.
I agree - getting the up and down backwards doesn't really add to the credibility of the article.
You can probably get that version too on custom order.
More and more businesses moves over to IP phone solutions for their telephony. Skype has already had that feature for a long time now.
So I don't think that it will have much impact for most businesses.
Storing data on some devices may be more reliable than others. E.g. on EPROMS may work, just provide information about how the data is stored.
And if you look back - 25 years isn't that bad. But it's bad enough to see that we did change physical storage media formats and interface types a few times. Mid 80's saw 8" hard disks, 5.25" floppies, ST506/ST412 hard disk interfaces and CD-ROM:s. Those were replaced by 5.25" hard disks with IDE interfaces and 3.5" floppies. Then the USB bus appeared and we could see all kinds of memory modules - like USB sticks, SD cards etc with a lot more capacity than the floppies and early hard disks. And the IDE interface is now replaced by the SATA interface.
But even though media has increased in size the last few years I suspect that the rate of change when it comes to hardware interfaces is going to slow down a bit - people will get irritated when old media can't be read. (That's why I still have an old 386sx with a 5.25" floppy drive just in case.) This means that storing data on a memory stick supporting USB3.0 may be possible to recover after 25 years. But don't count on data stored on hard drives since the interface and protocol may change again to improve performance. The SD cards have changed over time a bit, but a micro-SD card may still be readable. However I don't know how well flash memories actually can retain data in the long term.
Considering the number of devices today that uses the old MS-DOS filesystem (ok, not exactly, but FAT-32 at least) it may be possible that it will still be around by then. Other filesystem formats are less likely to survive that well, but NTFS may survive, and the Linux ext2-4 filesystem formats as well as the ISO 9660 (used by CD-ROM:s)
During the next 25 years it is possible that the Linux kernel may fork, but I suspect that it will still be around - it has spread to an amazing number of devices even though it isn't on the desktop for a number of reasons. (Except for the more dedicated users)
But it still doesn't protect from accidentally manipulating the phone when it's in the pocket - which sometimes happens when it was awakened by an alarm and then the display is lit all the time saying "slide to unlock" just because it's bouncing around in the pocket and eating up the battery.
As long as the phone fits into the breast pocket of my shirt I'm good. But what I miss on modern phones is the lid that my m505 had to protect the display.
And why not use the birth and tax records to decide if someone may vote or not?
This issue of registration seems to be a way to make it complicated to vote.
This is an example of a movie that did have an impact for the general public. So there's no wonder that there are people that takes interest in the history of the sets.
The white makes sense since it reflects heat, and it will over time be worn down and get colored by the sand. The building itself doesn't look out of place in the desert but is actually of a design that you would expect there.
Add to this that this will be a bonus tourist trap for Tunisia.
And I don't think that George Lucas will make much fuzz about that restoration since it will end up creating a lot of badwill.
So you support all actions taken by MPAA and RIAA?
Unless you also state that a copyright holder must be a physical person.
It may be interesting to check how much he has been paid by lobbyists to drive this.
Maybe it's time to study Lamar Smith in detail for any kind of inappropriate behavior. Everyone is guilty of something.
Pick a few large languages; Spanish, English, Russian, Chinese (Simplified), combine with symbols.
If a future civilization is unable to decipher that and not being able to be careful considering the findings of remains from our time then one may ask if that civilization is worth protecting.
Otherwise a future civilization may actually find this useful, it may be a Rosetta stone for them.
It's time to realize that the cable/satellite feeds that we get mostly contains junk and that we pay for it too. Not much is worth watching these days. I did cancel my cable and the only thing I miss from time to time is Discovery Channel.
At least where I live there are a few free channels, even on satellite. Astra 28E is a good one.
Or better - all requests to lemonparty.org.
I agree - grammar changes, new words appears and old words are slowly being forgotten. That's the evolution of language. The English we hear and speak today isn't the same as the English used in the 19th century - even though we would be able to communicate with a person from that era.
And with the language while other kinds of evolution of the language starts in closed groups that suddenly become mainstream some evolution comes by experimenting. (Intentionally messed up with Talk like Yoda.)
Using void pointers is the same thing as posting as an Anonymous Coward at /. .
It is of course a great way to hide the inner workings of the functionality but at the same time it will also make it a lot harder to debug your code and it will also hide stuff from the compiler so that problems that might have been discovered at compile time won't be seen.
At least this really pushes the issue that web sites shall use the defined standards for HTML and CSS to be as portable as possible. It will also force Microsoft to take care to really follow standards on their browser.
You still need some kind of development platform for the mobile devices, so the PC will still be around. And a lot of work done in reality still requires a PC.
Of course - you may argue that you will use the cloud, but the cloud isn't always accessible.