Because as much as it bothers me as a Canadian, spme wise people in your country know that sooner or later this growing global economic havoc and disparity caused by wild profiteering will come to a head and massive slaughter will insue. They just wish to be ready and end up on top when the smoke clears.
The poster was claming everything should be in ~/etc
That is not the way he described it. Besides, current Linux scenario is close to this with/etc being the system-wide repository and ~/.myapplication being the place where an app will put its per-user config.
What he was praising was a Mac OS X method whereby everything is in "personal preferences" and application directories. That is neither robust or wise muti-user policy, because it exludes centralized administration which is crucial to any corporate deployments of applications.
This is a sign of a Microsoft-like desktop-centric small thinking, which is then followed by a panic flood of kludges and contorted "fixes" to remedy a fundamental design flaw when it comes to scaling up the system.
Re:What do...
on
Real's Reality
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· Score: 2, Interesting
No registry, no/etc.
Sir, I object to your characterisation of the/etc directory. It is there for a reason. What you describe is fine and dandy for games and assorted disposable desktop crapola but not so fine for most (serious) applications. Having a centralized (but easilly maintained and repaired) repository of configuration data, makes it easy to backup this critical part of the system and also allows for better control of access to it.
Making remarks in the vain of "Let every application be a king of its own hill" smacks of the same lack of understanding of reasons behind these design decisions as an equally common cry of "Lets get rid of package managment and let every application have installer ala windows". So noone will ever be able to tell again what installed where and what version is it. Not to mention the fact that your system will be 20 times its current size since each new application will be either statically linked or have its own libraries in its own corner of the filesystem.
Both/etc and the package managment are results of many smart people coming up with a way to solve problems that existed due to exactly this brand of chaos you are proposing. Because having application = directory relationship is what came before the/etc and (much later) package managment.
Re:What do...
on
Real's Reality
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
And just think, all of these security measures are ruined if a single numbnuts downloads spyware...
Not to mention that some of your most trusted colleagues were not who they appeared. That God-fearing guy from Texas, part of a 4th generation of a rancher family, who drank nothing but Whiskey and spoke with such a charming Southern slang was pobably born in Vladivostok.
As I already replied elsewhere on this thread, the international disaster database has no record of it in 1982 (a 3kt explosion would register on seismographs and many satellites of many countries). The only thing resembling a 3kt explosion occured in 1989. So Safire changed dates in order for his fanciful flight of fancy look more plausible and for people not to start associating a pipeline explosion with massive casaulties.
As I was trying to explain (and as someone who actually worked on the pipeline mentioned in just a post below) the stuff was not computer controlled in the sense we have computer control today and it would require on-site coding for the task. Plus due to utterly primitive nature of the tech in those days (256 byte EPROMS etc) It would stick out like a sore thumb because the Soviets, contrary to what mr Safire believes, were not illiterate apes and could read and write code. This is nothing but imbecillic propaganda in the vain of Regan = Rambo and the neocons singlehandedly saving the planet (with the help of God) from the evil communtists.
Yes but they would also pick up an underground nuke test or a geological activity. Their data alone is useless and there are many more such seismic events that occured over the decades.
Considering how forthcoming the Soviets were about Chernobyl
3kt explosions are as rare and easilly spotted as they get. And all those spy satellites operated by all those nations (Japan, China, NATO) would pick up something that big. That is why international disaster databases end up with this data sooner or later. And we are talking a 1982 event in a long gone former empire.
No. The story is not true and the date is wrong. The "story" is a pitiful and reckless attempt to write revisionist history. What I mean is that in order to peddle his bullshit, Safire had to change the dates so the big bang would not correspond to that horrific disaster with all those casaulties. But the 1989 explosion was the "inspiration" for this half-assed Tom Clancy wannabe.
Oh and I forgot, the depth of this "intellectual" vomit from that idiot Safire at NYT can be also ascertained by the fact that back in 1982 Soviets were very fond of pneumatic (air-driven) control systems for their industrial base. Computer control of industrial processes was very rare at that time even in the US. Besides anyone who ever worked in the industry knows that at that scale all the systems are custom made for the plant, with all the control "loops" designed for the specific task.
Also as some former Soviet officials mentioned when questioned about this nonsense back when the original story broke, said that if that story were true, as Safire indicated the software easilly traced back to its source (USA), in 1982 political climate the Soviet leadership would respond to something like that as an act of war and would at the very least destroy US operated oil plants within easy reach of Soviet bombers or even let loose ICBMs if things went out of control.
Not at all. The article has a phony date in order to make the thing look plausible or to deny the casaulty link, the 1989 disaster was the only one with 3kt size visible from space. See the international disaster database here
As many people pointed out in the previous incarnation of this duped story, the whole thing is a total hogwash and "feel-good", "ain't we just the cat's ass" type of drivel for the gung-ho right wing "hawks" in the US public. No factual basis, 100% hot air and a lot of flag waving. The actual explosion (June 1989 near Bashkir) was caused by an operator error and had massive (400+) casaulties since the flame engulfed two trains near the pipeline.
And I really wouldnt like to be in the shoes of the morons who manage to convince people that they planted that software. If by some weird coincidence that thing was within 10 miles of any of the control rooms of that pipeline which exploded. I can just imagine 400 beraved families suing the Uncle Sam under the Patriot act for... ahem... terrorist acts.
Oh and to make things more interesting, as
this medical journal indicates, the US actually sent doctors to treat the poor burned children...
And you could guarantee this would work millions of miles in a hostile low-pressure, low-temperature environment?
Not any less then all the other mechanisms composed of multiple motors, gears and joints that already are installed there.
What, a molting rover?
And why not? You get the film to have a natural tendency to roll itself (like many films do) and you have a simple and quite effective system modelled after mother nature. One layer off = double the lifetime of the panels.
which then goes off and downloads and installs/updates it for you. You just need a right source in your/etc/apt/sources.list. Other distributions have their RPM based packages whith their respective automatic update methods. Some come with mplayer already installed by default.
In this case I don't see how you can claim it is superiour to quicktime.
Unlike QuickTime which plays QuickTime formats well and the rest lousilly or not at all, mplayer plays just about any format known to man. Besides, my objection was to the mindless, condescending "I can click and it magically works" trolling which ignores the fact that just like everyone else he has to install and update QuickTime and it works only for a very specific range of things.
If so, that means a bunch of corrupted dumbasses are running the show and any successes NASA has should be considered miracles. Paying insurance on space programs is like throwing money away by the bucket. It means that in addition to idiotic boondoggles and influence peddling politics there is outright thievery going on to the tune of 40% of the various program's budgets. I am far from being a proponent of privatisation of all government programs but I must admit that this would be a shining example of why NASA should be disbanded or converted to a small advisory organization and space exploration driven by payments on delivery of results. No results = no money.
but i've heard that all missions must have insurance
No can do. The insurance premiums are directly proportional to risks. Interstellar missions are as risky as it gets and the costs are huge so the insurance premiums would have to reflect that. It would be cheaper to send 3 or even 4 rovers then to pay the premiums. If they do pay the insurance its just a scam to feed some government pork to favourite corporate pals and it would nearly double the cost of the program. The insurance companies are in it for profit and so they would make sure that premiums are more then payouts. Insurance only works in your favour if the number of insured people is huge and each person has a relatively low chance of needing a payout. The premiums are then relatively very small and you are protected from a disaster. The NASA missions are the exact opposite of this.
... by how long NASA can afford to keep paying the insurance premiums...
Now you got me shocked! You mean to tell me they actually insured the thing?! This is insane! The insurance premium would be like 80% of the cost of the mission! I mean what nutcase insurance firm would insure them for less! I find it hard to believe.
If this is true, that would mean the NASA managment are orders of magnitude stupider then I previously believed and their only objective is to spread taxpayers money to corporate interests (I always thought they were just monumentally bureaucratic).
They all work flawlessly in QuickTime on OS X.
Get a real platform, bub.
You mean get the platform on which the clips were made? Why would anyone encode anything in.mov format if it were not coming from a Mac? So "real" means "the only one that easilly plays that weirdo format" because thats what the artist happened to use? I have nothing against Macs but this sort of attitude is laughable. What if some of the Linux based artists started encoding everything in ELF based executables? Should I then go around dispatching snide remarks about all those other people not being able to play them easy? The whole point is to use a format that majority can play with no special codecs or other crap. I have to question the Creative Commons' choice of media formats here for it only produces this sort of assholery from platform supermacists.
Fuck, man, I just double click the file and it opens.
No you dont. First you download QuickTime and make sure you got up to date codecs. Then you go clicking on things. The poster above, on the other hand, had all he needed but didnt know how to turn it on. That does not make your environment in any way superior. Just different.
The mplayer is one of the most sophisticated and powerful media players, capable of playing so many formats on so many devices that it makes Windows based playback tools look silly by comparison. But it does require a bit of know-how.
Look, the things are built with a projected 30 day lifespan
No. 90 days supposedly, according to NASA. But at the rate at which the things are going, the available power will dwindle to the point of beinhg near unuseable well before then.
The solar panels are not metallic on their sunward surface.
No they arent but they should be coated with a conductive layer to prevent static charges from making the dust cling. That is what I tried to "simulate" by mentioning shiny metal. You can try glass of course but it would not be accurate either since it would make the dust stick more then a conductive surface would.
Vibrator probably would not be destructive. Think about the vibrations of launch, rentry, and landing on Mars. Do you think a little vibration motor would do any amount of serious damage???
I dont really know, I was thinking that during launch the whole shebang is tightly packed and forms a solid, stiff one-piece item. When the panels are opened in working position, the vibrations would be spread out through the whole structure causing various types of oscillations. But again, I dont know, it might be nothing of consequence so the system might work. Its just another idea to add to the many already proposed and it just underlines the fact that something went wrong again at NASA.
The evidence right now is that the particles would actually act as an abrasive on the surface of the solar panel
You should try it. Take finest grain stuff you can find and put in on a piece of shiny metal (has to be conductive, protection against static charge). And then use a very soft brush on it with minimal pressure. See how much abrasion you get. Noone is talking about a 20lb spring loaded brush with stiff bristles. Think dusters the maids use.
You can also modify this idea by sticking a small compressed gas cannister and pumping compressed gas into the hollow arm and instead of the bristles have gas jets. But thats just makes it more complicated and I dont think it would be needed.
Not to mention all those other ways people brought up, involving peelable films and what have you.
I find all these "Oooh! The martian dust is like super space dust, dude! Magic! Its like nothing anyone has ever seen before!" protestations just ridiculous. Its just dumb dirt in fine grain form in thin athmosphere. Thats it. It even has the same chemical composition as much of the dirt on Earth. The only thing that complicates matters is cold, but one can wait for the noon when temperatures are reasonable to perform any cleaning operations.
You think there isn't already a protective coating on those solar panels..
If it were and was actually working, the dust wouldnt be sticking to it. Tere was quite a bit of discussion about this back before launch when the Sojourner data came in. Its just some weird half-assed NASA management style cost analysis (or politics) that resulted in no protection against dust in the MER rovers. Trust me, next one will have something because a lot of engineering types are raising hell about this. This is the same sort of crap that happens with clockwork regularity at NASA, engineers know about a problem, propose solutions and managers shoot them down not for technical but political or personal reasons. Its the single one thing that has been holding NASA back for 30 years.
Slashdot Mirror
You will only be able to run "trusted" OS (read: MS Windows Longhorn Edition) and "trusted" software (read: RIAA-approved CD-burner).
Because as much as it bothers me as a Canadian, spme wise people in your country know that sooner or later this growing global economic havoc and disparity caused by wild profiteering will come to a head and massive slaughter will insue. They just wish to be ready and end up on top when the smoke clears.
That is not the way he described it. Besides, current Linux scenario is close to this with /etc being the system-wide repository and ~/.myapplication being the place where an app will put its per-user config.
What he was praising was a Mac OS X method whereby everything is in "personal preferences" and application directories. That is neither robust or wise muti-user policy, because it exludes centralized administration which is crucial to any corporate deployments of applications.
This is a sign of a Microsoft-like desktop-centric small thinking, which is then followed by a panic flood of kludges and contorted "fixes" to remedy a fundamental design flaw when it comes to scaling up the system.
Sir, I object to your characterisation of the /etc directory. It is there for a reason. What you describe is fine and dandy for games and assorted disposable desktop crapola but not so fine for most (serious) applications. Having a centralized (but easilly maintained and repaired) repository of configuration data, makes it easy to backup this critical part of the system and also allows for better control of access to it.
Making remarks in the vain of "Let every application be a king of its own hill" smacks of the same lack of understanding of reasons behind these design decisions as an equally common cry of "Lets get rid of package managment and let every application have installer ala windows". So noone will ever be able to tell again what installed where and what version is it. Not to mention the fact that your system will be 20 times its current size since each new application will be either statically linked or have its own libraries in its own corner of the filesystem.
Both /etc and the package managment are results of many smart people coming up with a way to solve problems that existed due to exactly this brand of chaos you are proposing. Because having application = directory relationship is what came before the /etc and (much later) package managment.
Not to mention that some of your most trusted colleagues were not who they appeared. That God-fearing guy from Texas, part of a 4th generation of a rancher family, who drank nothing but Whiskey and spoke with such a charming Southern slang was pobably born in Vladivostok.
As I already replied elsewhere on this thread, the international disaster database has no record of it in 1982 (a 3kt explosion would register on seismographs and many satellites of many countries). The only thing resembling a 3kt explosion occured in 1989. So Safire changed dates in order for his fanciful flight of fancy look more plausible and for people not to start associating a pipeline explosion with massive casaulties.
As I was trying to explain (and as someone who actually worked on the pipeline mentioned in just a post below) the stuff was not computer controlled in the sense we have computer control today and it would require on-site coding for the task. Plus due to utterly primitive nature of the tech in those days (256 byte EPROMS etc) It would stick out like a sore thumb because the Soviets, contrary to what mr Safire believes, were not illiterate apes and could read and write code. This is nothing but imbecillic propaganda in the vain of Regan = Rambo and the neocons singlehandedly saving the planet (with the help of God) from the evil communtists.
Yes but they would also pick up an underground nuke test or a geological activity. Their data alone is useless and there are many more such seismic events that occured over the decades.
Considering how forthcoming the Soviets were about Chernobyl
3kt explosions are as rare and easilly spotted as they get. And all those spy satellites operated by all those nations (Japan, China, NATO) would pick up something that big. That is why international disaster databases end up with this data sooner or later. And we are talking a 1982 event in a long gone former empire.
No. The story is not true and the date is wrong. The "story" is a pitiful and reckless attempt to write revisionist history. What I mean is that in order to peddle his bullshit, Safire had to change the dates so the big bang would not correspond to that horrific disaster with all those casaulties. But the 1989 explosion was the "inspiration" for this half-assed Tom Clancy wannabe.
Also as some former Soviet officials mentioned when questioned about this nonsense back when the original story broke, said that if that story were true, as Safire indicated the software easilly traced back to its source (USA), in 1982 political climate the Soviet leadership would respond to something like that as an act of war and would at the very least destroy US operated oil plants within easy reach of Soviet bombers or even let loose ICBMs if things went out of control.
Not at all. The article has a phony date in order to make the thing look plausible or to deny the casaulty link, the 1989 disaster was the only one with 3kt size visible from space. See the international disaster database here
And I really wouldnt like to be in the shoes of the morons who manage to convince people that they planted that software. If by some weird coincidence that thing was within 10 miles of any of the control rooms of that pipeline which exploded. I can just imagine 400 beraved families suing the Uncle Sam under the Patriot act for ... ahem... terrorist acts.
Oh and to make things more interesting, as this medical journal indicates, the US actually sent doctors to treat the poor burned children...
Not any less then all the other mechanisms composed of multiple motors, gears and joints that already are installed there.
What, a molting rover?
And why not? You get the film to have a natural tendency to roll itself (like many films do) and you have a simple and quite effective system modelled after mother nature. One layer off = double the lifetime of the panels.
In this case I don't see how you can claim it is superiour to quicktime.
Unlike QuickTime which plays QuickTime formats well and the rest lousilly or not at all, mplayer plays just about any format known to man. Besides, my objection was to the mindless, condescending "I can click and it magically works" trolling which ignores the fact that just like everyone else he has to install and update QuickTime and it works only for a very specific range of things.
If so, that means a bunch of corrupted dumbasses are running the show and any successes NASA has should be considered miracles. Paying insurance on space programs is like throwing money away by the bucket. It means that in addition to idiotic boondoggles and influence peddling politics there is outright thievery going on to the tune of 40% of the various program's budgets. I am far from being a proponent of privatisation of all government programs but I must admit that this would be a shining example of why NASA should be disbanded or converted to a small advisory organization and space exploration driven by payments on delivery of results. No results = no money.
No can do. The insurance premiums are directly proportional to risks. Interstellar missions are as risky as it gets and the costs are huge so the insurance premiums would have to reflect that. It would be cheaper to send 3 or even 4 rovers then to pay the premiums. If they do pay the insurance its just a scam to feed some government pork to favourite corporate pals and it would nearly double the cost of the program. The insurance companies are in it for profit and so they would make sure that premiums are more then payouts. Insurance only works in your favour if the number of insured people is huge and each person has a relatively low chance of needing a payout. The premiums are then relatively very small and you are protected from a disaster. The NASA missions are the exact opposite of this.
Now you got me shocked! You mean to tell me they actually insured the thing?! This is insane! The insurance premium would be like 80% of the cost of the mission! I mean what nutcase insurance firm would insure them for less! I find it hard to believe.
If this is true, that would mean the NASA managment are orders of magnitude stupider then I previously believed and their only objective is to spread taxpayers money to corporate interests (I always thought they were just monumentally bureaucratic).
You mean get the platform on which the clips were made? Why would anyone encode anything in .mov format if it were not coming from a Mac? So "real" means "the only one that easilly plays that weirdo format" because thats what the artist happened to use? I have nothing against Macs but this sort of attitude is laughable. What if some of the Linux based artists started encoding everything in ELF based executables? Should I then go around dispatching snide remarks about all those other people not being able to play them easy? The whole point is to use a format that majority can play with no special codecs or other crap. I have to question the Creative Commons' choice of media formats here for it only produces this sort of assholery from platform supermacists.
No you dont. First you download QuickTime and make sure you got up to date codecs. Then you go clicking on things. The poster above, on the other hand, had all he needed but didnt know how to turn it on. That does not make your environment in any way superior. Just different.
The mplayer is one of the most sophisticated and powerful media players, capable of playing so many formats on so many devices that it makes Windows based playback tools look silly by comparison. But it does require a bit of know-how.
No. 90 days supposedly, according to NASA. But at the rate at which the things are going, the available power will dwindle to the point of beinhg near unuseable well before then.
No they arent but they should be coated with a conductive layer to prevent static charges from making the dust cling. That is what I tried to "simulate" by mentioning shiny metal. You can try glass of course but it would not be accurate either since it would make the dust stick more then a conductive surface would.
I dont really know, I was thinking that during launch the whole shebang is tightly packed and forms a solid, stiff one-piece item. When the panels are opened in working position, the vibrations would be spread out through the whole structure causing various types of oscillations. But again, I dont know, it might be nothing of consequence so the system might work. Its just another idea to add to the many already proposed and it just underlines the fact that something went wrong again at NASA.
You should try it. Take finest grain stuff you can find and put in on a piece of shiny metal (has to be conductive, protection against static charge). And then use a very soft brush on it with minimal pressure. See how much abrasion you get. Noone is talking about a 20lb spring loaded brush with stiff bristles. Think dusters the maids use.
You can also modify this idea by sticking a small compressed gas cannister and pumping compressed gas into the hollow arm and instead of the bristles have gas jets. But thats just makes it more complicated and I dont think it would be needed.
Not to mention all those other ways people brought up, involving peelable films and what have you.
I find all these "Oooh! The martian dust is like super space dust, dude! Magic! Its like nothing anyone has ever seen before!" protestations just ridiculous. Its just dumb dirt in fine grain form in thin athmosphere. Thats it. It even has the same chemical composition as much of the dirt on Earth. The only thing that complicates matters is cold, but one can wait for the noon when temperatures are reasonable to perform any cleaning operations.
If it were and was actually working, the dust wouldnt be sticking to it. Tere was quite a bit of discussion about this back before launch when the Sojourner data came in. Its just some weird half-assed NASA management style cost analysis (or politics) that resulted in no protection against dust in the MER rovers. Trust me, next one will have something because a lot of engineering types are raising hell about this. This is the same sort of crap that happens with clockwork regularity at NASA, engineers know about a problem, propose solutions and managers shoot them down not for technical but political or personal reasons. Its the single one thing that has been holding NASA back for 30 years.