There is always the chance than one of the flaming chunks is large enough for you to ride in on the way down! But seriously, all astronauts take a huge risk in going up. All of these flights (at least NASA) have major telemetry...to both monitor things in both directions. And morbidly, to learn something if things go wrong. The idea being that they can fix things the next time around. If things come back in "big pieces", there is a chance that some of the telemetry is still available.
Heck, a high-school buddy and I did photos at least as good as these in the early 80's with much less equipment. Similar concept though. We used a inexpensive SLR, slave flash and a pellet gun. Position everything, turn off the lights, oprn the shutter, shoot the gun (bang! ) close the shutter. Repeat until out of film and/or food. The trick for the whole thing was the trigger mechanism. Great success was had with a thin/tough steel plate hanging in front of a nail. The idea was to swing the plate backwards a very small distance to touch the nail and close a circuit to fire the flash. In photos taken 90 degrees to the plane of the plate, the plate pretty much disappears. The concept is that the pellet striking the target moved the food just enough to touch the plate and then fire the flash. We managed to get some shots actually capturing the deformed lead pellet in mid-air. Huge fun and amazement for all. I do applaud the STAMP implementation...the fun factor of blasting food has clearly not been lost!
No mush. I've seen waterjets cut a fresh doughnut into 5 concentric rings. Perfect, clean cut.
The water jet itself is very,very fine. Extremely high-pressure waterjets can cut through steel as well as cheese.
Cool as this might be, it's the wrong tool for the job. Waterjets are waaaaay better for things like this. Faster and no smell.
Have a look at:
http://www.flowcorp.com/
Seems to me that laser-powered craft are doomed. Sure, if you HAVE to have something up there 24/7 it may be viable, but it's probably a lot cheaper to have a series of craft running in rotation. So, what is up their sleeve? Weapon research. Way back when, "they" were experimenting with ground-based lasers to knock missles out of the sky, or at lower power, "blind" satellites. One of the major problems beaming laser light is the miles of air it has to bore through to hit the target. Not only are there losses, the turbulence created also makes it tough to keep the light in "a straight line". So, if "they" can solve all the problems of beaming power accurately to a wee plane, you can bet they can use the knowledge to cook other targets. Cute little planes are more palatable than Star Wars weaponry.
When you make a cell call, the various hardware at the BSM will generate call record data. Things like your phone number, ESN, who you called, duration, on and on. These are collected and then sliced-n-diced by mediation software and then that is sent to billing systems, which then send you a bill. In short, the software to do this magic is tightly bound to the output spec of the hardware. So, are these guys co-operating with the various telco software vendors? They will have to play ball if they want to have their cells connect with the "outside world". And as posted elsewhere...this sort of hardware (esp Nortel gear) is built like a tank. Very high quality and it has the snot tested out of it. I doubt your average Dell box will last any length of time. In the biz,we call it "carrier grade"...and it does not come cheap.
Nice troll. "Who cares what your partner did as long as it works?" Nice. Remind me not to hire you. All of these points are poor practices in general, not just in XP.
Yeah, I feel your pain. But that's a short-term benefit, not long-term strategy. There will always be one or two "strong" people that are a blast to work with, with (seemingly) less capable people as well. I guess it depends on the size of the team...but you should switch to give the rest of the team the advantage of your talent and experience.
Engineer. So what. Honestly, no offense, but I hear that all the time. "I'm an engineer, ergo, I know what I'm doing". Well, not always. Park your ego at the door. In the real world, where I've been working for a great while, the "customer" does not always know what they want up front. Sure, they have a vague idea, but the story tends to grow in the telling. That's why XP is helpful...build what the customer wants now, and be able to toss things out that don't fit anymore. XP demands requirements, just not everything all-at-once. XP is NOT hack,hack,hack. It's the opposite...you build clearly define solutions to clearly defined problems...I there is no random hacking involved.
As you know, software is a bit more "vague" than say, building a bridge. The Tacoma Narrows bridge was built using "sound engineering" principles, and heck, so are the Space Shuttles. A process that fails to adapt to new situations..agility...is doomed to fail. XP, while not perfect (and it ain't) is at least agile enough to adapt to change. If something messes up, you generally don't have too far to fall. I do agree with you though on having brilliant people...any process will work and you can say the process was the key to success. XP is light and agile enough to be a process that will not cover up (or build up) the true nature of the team.
Oh yeah, I'm a software engineer as well. I got good by listening to people who know more than I do. Do the stuff that works and keep an open mind. Don't ever stop learning...
I've been though a lot of XP. I feel pairing is one of the more crucial aspects of XP. In other words, if you don't pair, you're not doing XP. Make no mistake, pairing is not for everyone. Do you have a cranky,maverick,social misfit who writes brilliant code? Let 'em...don't try to force 'em to pair. Pairing works when a) the people want to pair, b) the people are socially compatible. Pairing forces you to code...no surfing or other dicking around. One coder grabs the keyboard/mouse and does some work, say throwdown a new class or method. Or, more likely, code the test class first. Keep going until you feel "empty" or tired, then pass the torch. The other coder watches and contemplates the code, and offers advise. They are an instantiation of YOUR coding conscience. Coding alone, you may say to yourself "fsck it..i'll clean it up later", but while pairing, the other coder's duty is to say "why are you doing it that way? How about this?" and so on. It has to be COLLABORITIVE, not COMBATIVE..although that happens. If you pair, make sure pairs are always rotating...don't let the same folks always pair. Keep the pairing times short...half day is plenty. Pairing helps to eliminate "hot spots" in the skill set...i.e. experts in one area. It will not eliminate it...people will naturally gravitate to the things they like. Pairing will tire you out, as you tend to "go hard" (==productive) for the day. I think some of the best code I've written was while pairing...if I factor in time spent/unit coded. I've written some brilliant stuff alone, but it took longer. REMEMBER: the other half of the pair who does not have the keyboard must stay involved...question the codier, try to find flaws. They are not just sitting there watching the other half. If you see a pair talking to each other and looking at the screen and pointing, and passing the keyboard back and forth, and just cranking...you've got a good pair.
Pairing works, if the pairs work.
read this too:
http://www.objectmentor.com/resources/articles/xpe pisode.htm
Hmmm... good point. I'd say 11 seconds is a bit long, too. However, the McLaren has a monster (IIRC 625HP) non-turbo motor. No lag at all. The 959, however, needs the turbos to spool up. Apparently, (on the original) when the boost came up, it was nothing short of orgasmic.
Airplanes are not Faraday Cages. A true cage has no holes or gaps. In reality, one builds an "elemental" cage, which is still non-trivial. An airplane is riddled with irregular holes (electromagnetic ones, that is) like the windows. You'd have to shield the windows (metal film) and bond (connect) them to the fuselage. You'd also have to ensure any gaps (doors, landing gear bays, etc) have their edges bond to the fuselage. Put another way, you'd have to build a TEMPEST aircraft. Ask Google what TEMPEST is.
Well, maybe. I've tried, but not for 120V mind you. The white LEDs you need run at about 3.2VDC. Your house is 120VAC. You need to rectify (AC to DC) and drop the voltage to 3.2 V (white LEDs are picky on voltage. To do this, you need what amounts to a recified power supply, which, while one IC (chip) and a few other parts, will be about 15 bucks. Even if you did that, 3 LEDs are hardly bright enough. You'd need a few dozen of them at least, probably close to 100. And they are about 2 bucks a pop.
LEDs in use are about as efficient (per lumen) as incandescent (edison-style, filament) bulbs. Fluorescents are the most efficient. LEDs really shine (sorry!) because the have no filament (very durable, impervious to vibration) and can produce light in many colours without a filter. As well, when you dim an LED (drop the voltage slightly) the colour does not change...you just get less light. Dim a Edision-bulb and you produce less light AND it changes colour. This is called colour temperature (look it up) and is important in rendering colour accurately. Look up CRI.
I agree, but you missed my point. The point is that Sony spent time and money researching their design. They built a good thing, a better thing, that works as advertised. I freely bought into it. No one forced me. It works well, and if it fails, well, I'll just warrenty it. Quite possibly, other companies may make a shitty copy and thus ruin a good idea. Any company who spends $$$ doing the R&D on something BETTER than "standard" should have the right to sell it. You don't like it? Don't buy it. Of course Sony will legally pursue anyone who rips them off. If YOU made something that was better, YOU would hate people ripping you off, wouldn't you? Now, I'm all for open-source, and I like the GPL idea (I've been writing software for over 10 years), but there is nothing wrong with protecting your own designs. Like all things in life, there exists duality: If the public at large finds Sony's practices of "preventing others from making replacement parts" repulsive, then they can freely stop buying them. If you want freedom of choice, it has to work both ways. Keep in mind that hundreds of things you have or do every day of your life are possible due to the fact that companies chose to protect their IP for a reasonable amount of time. It is naive to believe that Sony makes massive profits on either replacement parts or media. I agree with you on the Lexmark printer carts (I have a Canon)...I won't buy a Lexmark printer! And if Lexmark doesn't change their act, no one else will either. It's about free-market choice.
I've got a Sony F717, which is the current top-end Sony camera. I agree, Sony does do some silly things at times...Memory Stick being one of them. But honestly, it has not been a big deal for me. I've got 2 128Mb 'sticks and it's all I need. I download from the cam to my laptop or bigbox when they get full. And price? Well, it's not like I'm shingling the house with them. And batteries. If you have ever used an InfoLithium powered device, you'd NEVER go back to AAA or AA batteries again. They InfoLithiums charge VERY fast and because they have a "chip" in them, the camera can determine (in minutes!) how much juice you have left. (200+ minutes on the '717) It is surprisingly accurate. They also work great in the cold. I was shooting some stuff last winter (-25C)...and watched other photographers busily warming their AA's to extract some more life from them. I'll take the InfoLithiums ANY DAY. It really bugs me when people whine about "standards". Things are only "standard" when a lot of people use them, not because of any supposed level of suitability or quality. Vacuum tube TV's and coal-fired furnaces were "standard" at one time too..I'll bet you wouldn't switch back. I applaud vendors who try to be "a bit different", and introduce features that can do the job better than the "standard" item. This is called evolution. You don't like "non-standard" stuff? Don't buy it.
Halon? No way! Your data, and to a lesser extent, all the config files (because time is valuable) is where all the value is. Are you concerned about a) the server room catching fire and burning the house down, or b) the house burning down and killing your server room? Simply make sure your server "room" is built with as little combustible material as possible. Concrete block walls, concrete floor, steel shelving. Don't stack your hardware. Run all the wires in steel conduit. Install sprinklers. Done. Make sure you can login to your servers (telnet, Timbuktu, Exceed, etc) from a secondary place, via both wireline LAN and 802.11. Keep backups off-site. I mirror my stuff remotely at a friend's place, and vice-versa. You only have 10 boxes, really not all that much. If you are REALLY concerned about losing stuff, rent a rack of machines at your local ISP. They'll provide all the security you need, with zero risk of fire.
Slashdot Mirror
There is always the chance than one of the flaming chunks is large enough for you to ride in on the way down! But seriously, all astronauts take a huge risk in going up. All of these flights (at least NASA) have major telemetry...to both monitor things in both directions. And morbidly, to learn something if things go wrong. The idea being that they can fix things the next time around. If things come back in "big pieces", there is a chance that some of the telemetry is still available.
Getting into space is relatively easy. Getting back in one piece as opposed to flaming chunks or worse, glowing vapor is much more difficult.
Heck, a high-school buddy and I did photos at least as good as these in the early 80's with much less equipment. Similar concept though. We used a inexpensive SLR, slave flash and a pellet gun. Position everything, turn off the lights, oprn the shutter, shoot the gun (bang! ) close the shutter. Repeat until out of film and/or food. The trick for the whole thing was the trigger mechanism. Great success was had with a thin/tough steel plate hanging in front of a nail. The idea was to swing the plate backwards a very small distance to touch the nail and close a circuit to fire the flash. In photos taken 90 degrees to the plane of the plate, the plate pretty much disappears. The concept is that the pellet striking the target moved the food just enough to touch the plate and then fire the flash. We managed to get some shots actually capturing the deformed lead pellet in mid-air. Huge fun and amazement for all. I do applaud the STAMP implementation...the fun factor of blasting food has clearly not been lost!
Oh yeah. I can't recall the exact cutting speed, but you are left with the impression of serious speed.
No mush. I've seen waterjets cut a fresh doughnut into 5 concentric rings. Perfect, clean cut. The water jet itself is very,very fine. Extremely high-pressure waterjets can cut through steel as well as cheese.
Cool as this might be, it's the wrong tool for the job. Waterjets are waaaaay better for things like this. Faster and no smell. Have a look at: http://www.flowcorp.com/
Seems to me that laser-powered craft are doomed. Sure, if you HAVE to have something up there 24/7 it may be viable, but it's probably a lot cheaper to have a series of craft running in rotation. So, what is up their sleeve? Weapon research. Way back when, "they" were experimenting with ground-based lasers to knock missles out of the sky, or at lower power, "blind" satellites. One of the major problems beaming laser light is the miles of air it has to bore through to hit the target. Not only are there losses, the turbulence created also makes it tough to keep the light in "a straight line". So, if "they" can solve all the problems of beaming power accurately to a wee plane, you can bet they can use the knowledge to cook other targets. Cute little planes are more palatable than Star Wars weaponry.
When you make a cell call, the various hardware at the BSM will generate call record data. Things like your phone number, ESN, who you called, duration, on and on. These are collected and then sliced-n-diced by mediation software and then that is sent to billing systems, which then send you a bill. In short, the software to do this magic is tightly bound to the output spec of the hardware. So, are these guys co-operating with the various telco software vendors? They will have to play ball if they want to have their cells connect with the "outside world". And as posted elsewhere...this sort of hardware (esp Nortel gear) is built like a tank. Very high quality and it has the snot tested out of it. I doubt your average Dell box will last any length of time. In the biz,we call it "carrier grade"...and it does not come cheap.
Nice troll. "Who cares what your partner did as long as it works?" Nice. Remind me not to hire you. All of these points are poor practices in general, not just in XP.
Yeah, I feel your pain. But that's a short-term benefit, not long-term strategy. There will always be one or two "strong" people that are a blast to work with, with (seemingly) less capable people as well. I guess it depends on the size of the team...but you should switch to give the rest of the team the advantage of your talent and experience.
Engineer. So what. Honestly, no offense, but I hear that all the time. "I'm an engineer, ergo, I know what I'm doing". Well, not always. Park your ego at the door. In the real world, where I've been working for a great while, the "customer" does not always know what they want up front. Sure, they have a vague idea, but the story tends to grow in the telling. That's why XP is helpful...build what the customer wants now, and be able to toss things out that don't fit anymore. XP demands requirements, just not everything all-at-once. XP is NOT hack,hack,hack. It's the opposite...you build clearly define solutions to clearly defined problems...I there is no random hacking involved. As you know, software is a bit more "vague" than say, building a bridge. The Tacoma Narrows bridge was built using "sound engineering" principles, and heck, so are the Space Shuttles. A process that fails to adapt to new situations..agility...is doomed to fail. XP, while not perfect (and it ain't) is at least agile enough to adapt to change. If something messes up, you generally don't have too far to fall. I do agree with you though on having brilliant people...any process will work and you can say the process was the key to success. XP is light and agile enough to be a process that will not cover up (or build up) the true nature of the team. Oh yeah, I'm a software engineer as well. I got good by listening to people who know more than I do. Do the stuff that works and keep an open mind. Don't ever stop learning...
I've been though a lot of XP. I feel pairing is one of the more crucial aspects of XP. In other words, if you don't pair, you're not doing XP. Make no mistake, pairing is not for everyone. Do you have a cranky,maverick,social misfit who writes brilliant code? Let 'em...don't try to force 'em to pair. Pairing works when a) the people want to pair, b) the people are socially compatible. Pairing forces you to code...no surfing or other dicking around. One coder grabs the keyboard/mouse and does some work, say throwdown a new class or method. Or, more likely, code the test class first. Keep going until you feel "empty" or tired, then pass the torch. The other coder watches and contemplates the code, and offers advise. They are an instantiation of YOUR coding conscience. Coding alone, you may say to yourself "fsck it..i'll clean it up later", but while pairing, the other coder's duty is to say "why are you doing it that way? How about this?" and so on. It has to be COLLABORITIVE, not COMBATIVE..although that happens. If you pair, make sure pairs are always rotating...don't let the same folks always pair. Keep the pairing times short...half day is plenty. Pairing helps to eliminate "hot spots" in the skill set...i.e. experts in one area. It will not eliminate it...people will naturally gravitate to the things they like. Pairing will tire you out, as you tend to "go hard" (==productive) for the day. I think some of the best code I've written was while pairing...if I factor in time spent/unit coded. I've written some brilliant stuff alone, but it took longer. REMEMBER: the other half of the pair who does not have the keyboard must stay involved...question the codier, try to find flaws. They are not just sitting there watching the other half. If you see a pair talking to each other and looking at the screen and pointing, and passing the keyboard back and forth, and just cranking...you've got a good pair. Pairing works, if the pairs work. read this too: http://www.objectmentor.com/resources/articles/xpe pisode.htm
Hmmm... good point. I'd say 11 seconds is a bit long, too. However, the McLaren has a monster (IIRC 625HP) non-turbo motor. No lag at all. The 959, however, needs the turbos to spool up. Apparently, (on the original) when the boost came up, it was nothing short of orgasmic.
Airplanes are not Faraday Cages. A true cage has no holes or gaps. In reality, one builds an "elemental" cage, which is still non-trivial. An airplane is riddled with irregular holes (electromagnetic ones, that is) like the windows. You'd have to shield the windows (metal film) and bond (connect) them to the fuselage. You'd also have to ensure any gaps (doors, landing gear bays, etc) have their edges bond to the fuselage. Put another way, you'd have to build a TEMPEST aircraft. Ask Google what TEMPEST is.
Well, maybe. I've tried, but not for 120V mind you. The white LEDs you need run at about 3.2VDC. Your house is 120VAC. You need to rectify (AC to DC) and drop the voltage to 3.2 V (white LEDs are picky on voltage. To do this, you need what amounts to a recified power supply, which, while one IC (chip) and a few other parts, will be about 15 bucks. Even if you did that, 3 LEDs are hardly bright enough. You'd need a few dozen of them at least, probably close to 100. And they are about 2 bucks a pop. LEDs in use are about as efficient (per lumen) as incandescent (edison-style, filament) bulbs. Fluorescents are the most efficient. LEDs really shine (sorry!) because the have no filament (very durable, impervious to vibration) and can produce light in many colours without a filter. As well, when you dim an LED (drop the voltage slightly) the colour does not change...you just get less light. Dim a Edision-bulb and you produce less light AND it changes colour. This is called colour temperature (look it up) and is important in rendering colour accurately. Look up CRI.
I agree, but you missed my point. The point is that Sony spent time and money researching their design. They built a good thing, a better thing, that works as advertised. I freely bought into it. No one forced me. It works well, and if it fails, well, I'll just warrenty it. Quite possibly, other companies may make a shitty copy and thus ruin a good idea. Any company who spends $$$ doing the R&D on something BETTER than "standard" should have the right to sell it. You don't like it? Don't buy it. Of course Sony will legally pursue anyone who rips them off. If YOU made something that was better, YOU would hate people ripping you off, wouldn't you? Now, I'm all for open-source, and I like the GPL idea (I've been writing software for over 10 years), but there is nothing wrong with protecting your own designs. Like all things in life, there exists duality: If the public at large finds Sony's practices of "preventing others from making replacement parts" repulsive, then they can freely stop buying them. If you want freedom of choice, it has to work both ways. Keep in mind that hundreds of things you have or do every day of your life are possible due to the fact that companies chose to protect their IP for a reasonable amount of time. It is naive to believe that Sony makes massive profits on either replacement parts or media. I agree with you on the Lexmark printer carts (I have a Canon)...I won't buy a Lexmark printer! And if Lexmark doesn't change their act, no one else will either. It's about free-market choice.
I've got a Sony F717, which is the current top-end Sony camera. I agree, Sony does do some silly things at times...Memory Stick being one of them. But honestly, it has not been a big deal for me. I've got 2 128Mb 'sticks and it's all I need. I download from the cam to my laptop or bigbox when they get full. And price? Well, it's not like I'm shingling the house with them. And batteries. If you have ever used an InfoLithium powered device, you'd NEVER go back to AAA or AA batteries again. They InfoLithiums charge VERY fast and because they have a "chip" in them, the camera can determine (in minutes!) how much juice you have left. (200+ minutes on the '717) It is surprisingly accurate. They also work great in the cold. I was shooting some stuff last winter (-25C)...and watched other photographers busily warming their AA's to extract some more life from them. I'll take the InfoLithiums ANY DAY. It really bugs me when people whine about "standards". Things are only "standard" when a lot of people use them, not because of any supposed level of suitability or quality. Vacuum tube TV's and coal-fired furnaces were "standard" at one time too..I'll bet you wouldn't switch back. I applaud vendors who try to be "a bit different", and introduce features that can do the job better than the "standard" item. This is called evolution. You don't like "non-standard" stuff? Don't buy it.
Halon? No way! Your data, and to a lesser extent, all the config files (because time is valuable) is where all the value is. Are you concerned about a) the server room catching fire and burning the house down, or b) the house burning down and killing your server room? Simply make sure your server "room" is built with as little combustible material as possible. Concrete block walls, concrete floor, steel shelving. Don't stack your hardware. Run all the wires in steel conduit. Install sprinklers. Done. Make sure you can login to your servers (telnet, Timbuktu, Exceed, etc) from a secondary place, via both wireline LAN and 802.11. Keep backups off-site. I mirror my stuff remotely at a friend's place, and vice-versa. You only have 10 boxes, really not all that much. If you are REALLY concerned about losing stuff, rent a rack of machines at your local ISP. They'll provide all the security you need, with zero risk of fire.