Nowadays, half of the cost of developing new aircraft is the software. You'd think the super-advanced F-22 would have required billions of dollars at materials development and design, but no, over half the cost was software alone. So with how much the US has spent on the software, you can see why giving it away for free would bug them.
From Redcross.org
"Who founded the American Red Cross?
Clara Barton (1821-1912) dominates the early history of the American Red Cross, which was modeled after the International Red Cross. She did not originate the Red Cross idea, but she was the first person to establish a lasting Red Cross Society in America. She successfully organized the American Association of the Red Cross in Washington, D.C., on May 21, 1881. Created to serve America in peace and in war, during times of disaster and national calamity, Barton's organization took its service beyond that of the International Red Cross Movement by adding disaster relief to battlefield assistance. She served as the organization's volunteer president until 1904."
That's right, the red cross was created in the US of A.
"The Red Cross on white background was the original protection symbol declared at the 1864 Geneva Convention."
Yes, that's 1864 in Geneva. The British have no claim on the trademark IMHO.
The THEL was not developed with anti-nuclear capabilities in mind. It's designed to protect cities, troop movements, bases, etc from cruise missiles, artillery shells, and the like.
Now, the Airborne Laser was developed as SDI, but it only covers an area of a 100 mile circle around which it's deployed. That's not going to generally help against a large country...but instead was designed for actions against megalomanical 3rd world dictatorships, like say, North Korea.
Anything you play over speakers can be recorded. If you really need to share those files go ahead and rerecord them. Time consuming? Yes. But infinitely better than a lawsuit.
Of course, just about everyone reading this comment already knows that.
Entire companies whose anti-spam products are sold at substantial profit to businesses would go out of business forcing them to lay off their employees.
The resources devoted to making anti-spam products can go elsewhere, to more worthwhile efforts. So yes, if spam could be stopped tomorrow, I would do it.
They may be a private corporation but they have used the FCC and other ways of influencing gov't to make sure that they get to control certain aspects of the airwaves. They may not be John Ashcroft but they are certainly interested in controlling the market and what you hear. =P
Clear Channel are not the ones trying to regulate the airwaves, the FCC is, and ohmigosh, it's their job to do that. The FCC operates under the rules that Congress creates. If people like Howard Stern really thought that their rights of free speech were being violated, then have them sue. Thing is, they'll lose.
This is about business, plain and simple, not free speech. The FCC threatened Clear Channel with a fine of $495,000 if they didn't pull Stern. While $495,000 might seem like a small matter, they were in danger of losing quite a bit more, things like station licenses. Seeing as how those licenses are what allows Clear Channel to exist in the first place, I'd say they were quite spooked.
Congress has a right to regulate commerce. AM/FM Radio is under the commerce clause because it is in the 'public domain'. XM is not, it's a subscription service, so while they can be regulated, they can't be regulated as much. The best example would be comparing it to Network vs. Cable television. Will you see unedited "Sex and the City" on NBC any time soon? No. If "shock jocks" want to make indecent comments, let them move to satellite radio.
From all my poking around and googling I can really find little/no actual information on it. Their FAQs are empty (except for "future releases") and I can't even tell what it is. Is it a console game/system? computer game?
In all appearances this looks more like a Phantom Then an actual "gaming news story".
It's a white dwarf, the diamond would be sorrounded by plasma and gas.
Re:New EPROMs are silly
on
Hack Your Car
·
· Score: 1
Yes I did, I'm a brand new Opera
user, so I even had to remember my NY Times password and username.
People in general are stupid. They're going to read this and think, wow, I could get a performance boost with just a chip? They're not going to do cost/benefit analysis.
I didn't say they did "nothing", I said that for the same price, you could get mechanical upgrades that boost even more than a chip.
New EPROMs are silly
on
Hack Your Car
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
For the price of a generic EPROM, you could easily get mechanical upgrades that enhances your car even more than the EPROM. If you're going for extreme performance, after all the mechanical upgrades, get a special chip made specifically for you.
*Sigh* now the NYT is going to cause a bunch of people to waste money. People that don't know enough about cars are going to get preyed on by companies like "powerchip". Just like people in electronics stores that don't know enough about computers.
Really, I never saw the X-Prize being a real big deal technology wise. The same goes for future prizes. Sure, the technology is great and all, but couldn't NASA do something similar on its own? Absolutely (though it would probably take more time and money). The point is the same as the aviation prizes a few decades back, while there might be a couple good "breakthroughs", they won't be revolutionary. The point is to get the "common man" excited about space travel. Remember the Simpson's when Homer goes up on the Shuttle? Same concept, different angle. People feel disconnected from the space program in the same way they feel disconnected from the military. That needs to be fixed. The Bush administration has made a wonderful decision to use the tools of the past (the prizes) to increase interest in space. Once the public is interested, NASA will have to get its act together better, and start making results, otherwise the public is going to demand the heads of the administrators. Also, we'll see more corporations entering the fray to profit off of this increased interest. And the end result is better and cheaper space travel and more R & D. Looks like everybody wins.
The computer science department at Berkeley has already broken the Yahoo-like Captcha. They use an algorithm to break it. They recommend "Gimpy" as a replacement, which their software has yet to crack. The blog is full of crap, the captcha is generated every session, so you can't make a link to the image like they would like because the session would end.
This BSD crap is going too far. We might know what causes it (these protein fragments labeled 'prions'), but then again, we're not really sure. Prions could be a symptom, not a cause (though they are more than likely the culprit thus far). The only way to find out if someone has this is either wait for them to start exibiting symptoms and make an educated guess, but the only true way to know is to kill them and analyze the brain and spinal tissue. We also know that the incubation period is probably somewhere between 5 years and a few decades. Fact remains that I can't donate blood because I lived on Zaragoza AFB, in Spain, for 3 and a half years because of the BSD scare. (And yes, I ate at British Burger Kings a couple of times when I was in England) That was over a decade ago, I'm not exibiting any symptoms, we don't even know if it can be transmitted by blood alone, so why the restrictions? Because the media has blown everything out of proportion and scared everybody.
So, in my opinion, the violation of privacy is not qualified because the threat is not proven. (Then again, the grocery store isn't going through a 3rd party or handing the info over to the government, but you asked not to be contacted at all, you shouldn't be contacted at all...what if you already ate the hamburger? Then you're just being scared out of your wits 'cause you wouldn't know better) Now, if it was something else, something with a better foundation in science, by all means, save me from certain death...but BSD is not one of those things.
The US military did not have a vested interest in the Venturestar project. Had it made it to production, it would have, but until then, the military was an "interested observer". A LOT had gone wrong. You really need to read the history. For example, the Clipper Graham test vehicle was destroyed on July 31, 1996 when it slammed into the ground. It's composite outer-shell failed in a crash-landing. The fuel tanks then blew. The only recoverable items were the RL-10 engines and the auxiliary propulsion system. Also, the military did not make the announcement, Arthur Stephenson, director of Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama did. The money was an issue. 1.25 billion is not enough for a Single-Stage to Orbit Program. Heck, the development program cost over 2.5 billion dollars, and ONE Space Shuttle cost over 2 billion dollars a piece (and we built 6 of them)
Bush DID NOT CANCEL IT. It was an administrative decision through Goldin and the other NASA heads. (now mostly replaced). Moreover, Lockheed even decided that a SSTO program was too difficult right now, and that we need at least 2 stages to launch a manned shuttle-type craft into space. We learned a lot. Expect the next shuttle (Bush said that there will be a next one) to reflect the lessons of the X-33/Venturestar project.
NASA and the Military, two peas in a pod
on
The Future of NASA
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Is the re-allocation of funds within NASA really for getting to the Moon and Mars?
YES! FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, YES! Manned space exploration was a top priority for NASA since its inception and creation. The point was "putting a man on the moon". That is why NASA was founded! Then we had run-ins with Carter and Clinton, where that vision was fogged by poor administration and judgement. It took a great president, Ronald Reagan, to see the Space Shuttle project to completion and to put NASA on track for the future (SS Freedom, 2nd gen shuttle, Space Launch Initiative, Moon Bases, Man on Mars) He knew we didn't have the time nor the technology to go to Mars yet, but that was still the unltimate goal, a "when we're ready" kind of thing. Then George H.W. Bush happened. He rolled back the programs, but he did not completely destroy them, he cut things down to a bear minimum. Clinton destroyed them. I remember hearing that Dan Goldin thought exploration through robots was just as good as human exploration. Growing up in Langley AFB (the NASA facility is intgrated with the base), I got to hear directly what the NASA engineers thought of Clinton back in '94-95, and it wasn't pretty. Clinton killed the programs created during the 80's. He didn't do it directly, he (through his direct control and the appointment of Goldin) just cut their funding to below minumum levels, so he could write it off as "NASA's fault, not the administration's". We need another Reagan to get us back on track. We've found him- He's George W. Bush. NASA's mission is once again manned exploration.
Or is it just a cover for shifting toward military space applications?
NO! NASA and the military (primarily the US Air Force) work together because they research the same things. The applications of that research differ, one is a civilian organization, and the other is a military one. The AF had an interest in the Venturestar program, a single-stage to orbit (SSTO) craft would be wonderful. It would be mobile, easily, safely, and cheaply launched. They could build a good number of them, give them different jobs (like mounting a laser on one). NASA is actively engaged in the Airborne LASER project. The AF loans aircraft to NASA all the time. Heck, the only reason I got to see an SR-71 and F-117 regularly in flight in the early 90s was because of the NASA research facility attached to the Air Force Base. NASA explores aerodynamics and aerospace. The Airforce is an aerodynamics and aerospace power, see the connection? When NASA develops an aircraft (e.g. the forward-swept wing, X-29), the AF would like to know the results of it for use militarily. Any way you look at it, NASA and the military both have the same research goals.
If true, how badly will NASA's scientific mission be effected if it becomes a conduit for giving research and development money to defense contractors?
It's not true, and NASA's money goes directly to NASA. If the military and NASA work together, it is good for NASA becase NASA gets the boost of military funds, not the other way around. Every joint development project is funded by NASA AND the military until NASA can't use it as research anymore, at which point a NEW military project based on the results of the NASA/military one would be created. (NASA is a civilian agency, and is more or less transparent in where its money goes, unlike the military)
NASA is not an agency of 'progress for the sake of progress'. It is an agency dedicated to improving mankind. The safe voyage to the moon and back was more important than exploring the moon. A Moonbase could produce fuel. The ultimate result is not "the moon is composed of this % of that and this % of this" It's, "we can use this to make that which helps us in the end." The important thing is not the science itself, it's how it's used. President Bush sees that. Clinton did not.
I forgot-The system is at Edwards AFB
on
The Future of NASA
·
· Score: 2, Informative
The 90% completed X-33 is at Edward's AFB, in a hanger, by a launchpad. The hanger, the launchpad, and the prototype are jointly owned by Lockheed Martin and NASA, President Bush could not take it without buying Lockheed Martin out ($356 million), and transferring NASA's share to the Air Force. Thing is, everyone that follows space exploration closely would know about it, no matter how much they tried to cover it up. (It would have to go through Congress). It's useless anyway, it can't haul cargo or anything remotely like that. The X-33 was cancelled in March, BEFORE that idiot Dan Goldin was replaced by the much better O'Keefe. Just something I forgot to mention.
When the Columbia went down, I made it my goal to find out what went wrong. Ultimately I decided that the Space Shuttle was a dated piece of equipment that needed to be replaced. Endeavor should have never been built, instead a new 2nd-gen shuttle should have. (The program existed, but was later canceled) The lack of funding by the Clinton administration is what led to its ultimate demise. The Venturestar Program was the 3rd generation space shuttle (called the Space Launch Initiative), and the X-33 was the prototype. Actually, it wasn't even that, it was a "technology validator". So it makes sense to test the components that had been built already (like the linear aerospike engine, which is revolutionary due to its efficiency and the composite fuel tanks would be a boon to any launching system, shuttle or otherwise) The program was cancelled because too many things had gone wrong and NASA under Clinton appointee Daniel Goldin had shifted focus to small, unmanned probes (faster, better, cheaper) so they were unwilling to tough it out. You can find out all about the X-33 at ALLSTAR or NASA itself.
I like the sound of fans in my computer, it's reasurring. I know that everything is working properly. Now, when it gets a high workload, the fans speed up. If I'm not doing anything to it at the time, I'll look to what's causing it. Or, for example, if I turn it on, and the fans spin up, but nothing else does. Noise has become a diagnostic tool of sorts. Now, I've heard my share of windtunnel cases (not my computers, other peoples), but I've never owned a computer considerably louder than my P-166. I use my Dell as white noise when I sleep too. (the second quietest computer I own is my Dell XPS, that model has 5 fans in it, though you wouldn't know by listening to it)(don't flame me over that either, I build my own computers in most cases, but in this case it was $400 cheaper than building my own (seriously!), gotta love gotapex and Dell e-mail coupons, but I'm getting off track)
It's not worth the cost in my opinion. Especially not that $1400 monetary cost, but the loss of my fans as diagnostic tools is too much.
Slashdot Mirror
Nowadays, half of the cost of developing new aircraft is the software. You'd think the super-advanced F-22 would have required billions of dollars at materials development and design, but no, over half the cost was software alone. So with how much the US has spent on the software, you can see why giving it away for free would bug them.
American public education must be stopped.
Yeah, dang education. Who needs it anyway?
And I wasn't aware you could use new laser printers to surf for porn. Oh the wonders of modern technology.
From Redcross.org "Who founded the American Red Cross? Clara Barton (1821-1912) dominates the early history of the American Red Cross, which was modeled after the International Red Cross. She did not originate the Red Cross idea, but she was the first person to establish a lasting Red Cross Society in America. She successfully organized the American Association of the Red Cross in Washington, D.C., on May 21, 1881. Created to serve America in peace and in war, during times of disaster and national calamity, Barton's organization took its service beyond that of the International Red Cross Movement by adding disaster relief to battlefield assistance. She served as the organization's volunteer president until 1904." That's right, the red cross was created in the US of A. "The Red Cross on white background was the original protection symbol declared at the 1864 Geneva Convention." Yes, that's 1864 in Geneva. The British have no claim on the trademark IMHO.
It only does this if you choose to install the new driver for download on Microsoft's site. This is no something inherent in SP2.
The THEL was not developed with anti-nuclear capabilities in mind. It's designed to protect cities, troop movements, bases, etc from cruise missiles, artillery shells, and the like.
Now, the Airborne Laser was developed as SDI, but it only covers an area of a 100 mile circle around which it's deployed. That's not going to generally help against a large country...but instead was designed for actions against megalomanical 3rd world dictatorships, like say, North Korea.
They seem to have this backwards. The entire G4 staff should have been fired and TechTV staff kept.
You're forgetting about a little project called "Apollo".
Anything you play over speakers can be recorded. If you really need to share those files go ahead and rerecord them. Time consuming? Yes. But infinitely better than a lawsuit.
Of course, just about everyone reading this comment already knows that.
The resources devoted to making anti-spam products can go elsewhere, to more worthwhile efforts. So yes, if spam could be stopped tomorrow, I would do it.
They may be a private corporation but they have used the FCC and other ways of influencing gov't to make sure that they get to control certain aspects of the airwaves. They may not be John Ashcroft but they are certainly interested in controlling the market and what you hear. =P
Clear Channel are not the ones trying to regulate the airwaves, the FCC is, and ohmigosh, it's their job to do that. The FCC operates under the rules that Congress creates. If people like Howard Stern really thought that their rights of free speech were being violated, then have them sue. Thing is, they'll lose.
This is about business, plain and simple, not free speech. The FCC threatened Clear Channel with a fine of $495,000 if they didn't pull Stern. While $495,000 might seem like a small matter, they were in danger of losing quite a bit more, things like station licenses. Seeing as how those licenses are what allows Clear Channel to exist in the first place, I'd say they were quite spooked.
Congress has a right to regulate commerce. AM/FM Radio is under the commerce clause because it is in the 'public domain'. XM is not, it's a subscription service, so while they can be regulated, they can't be regulated as much. The best example would be comparing it to Network vs. Cable television. Will you see unedited "Sex and the City" on NBC any time soon? No. If "shock jocks" want to make indecent comments, let them move to satellite radio.
So they can create fusion...big deal. It's been done before. Call me when they can retrieve more energy than they put in.
From all my poking around and googling I can really find little/no actual information on it. Their FAQs are empty (except for "future releases") and I can't even tell what it is. Is it a console game/system? computer game?
In all appearances this looks more like a Phantom Then an actual "gaming news story".
Hydrogen and Helium still do not magically become rock when it cools.
It's a white dwarf, the diamond would be sorrounded by plasma and gas.
Yes I did, I'm a brand new Opera user, so I even had to remember my NY Times password and username.
People in general are stupid. They're going to read this and think, wow, I could get a performance boost with just a chip? They're not going to do cost/benefit analysis.
I didn't say they did "nothing", I said that for the same price, you could get mechanical upgrades that boost even more than a chip.
For the price of a generic EPROM, you could easily get mechanical upgrades that enhances your car even more than the EPROM. If you're going for extreme performance, after all the mechanical upgrades, get a special chip made specifically for you.
Dan from DansData has written on it in a much better fashion than I ever could though...
His main "hotchip" article
Scroll down to the EPROM stuff, he addresses his experiences with "Powerchip"
*Sigh* now the NYT is going to cause a bunch of people to waste money. People that don't know enough about cars are going to get preyed on by companies like "powerchip". Just like people in electronics stores that don't know enough about computers.
Really, I never saw the X-Prize being a real big deal technology wise. The same goes for future prizes. Sure, the technology is great and all, but couldn't NASA do something similar on its own? Absolutely (though it would probably take more time and money). The point is the same as the aviation prizes a few decades back, while there might be a couple good "breakthroughs", they won't be revolutionary. The point is to get the "common man" excited about space travel. Remember the Simpson's when Homer goes up on the Shuttle? Same concept, different angle. People feel disconnected from the space program in the same way they feel disconnected from the military. That needs to be fixed. The Bush administration has made a wonderful decision to use the tools of the past (the prizes) to increase interest in space. Once the public is interested, NASA will have to get its act together better, and start making results, otherwise the public is going to demand the heads of the administrators. Also, we'll see more corporations entering the fray to profit off of this increased interest. And the end result is better and cheaper space travel and more R & D. Looks like everybody wins.
Problem is, they have random file names like this one... sJbUl.dZFemXCqu1f8qeOpy.ugB1Ey31UpybWhHN.6lMOdVy1q P0CA-- Hard to program for methinks.
The computer science department at Berkeley has already broken the Yahoo-like Captcha. They use an algorithm to break it. They recommend "Gimpy" as a replacement, which their software has yet to crack. The blog is full of crap, the captcha is generated every session, so you can't make a link to the image like they would like because the session would end.
This BSD crap is going too far. We might know what causes it (these protein fragments labeled 'prions'), but then again, we're not really sure. Prions could be a symptom, not a cause (though they are more than likely the culprit thus far). The only way to find out if someone has this is either wait for them to start exibiting symptoms and make an educated guess, but the only true way to know is to kill them and analyze the brain and spinal tissue. We also know that the incubation period is probably somewhere between 5 years and a few decades. Fact remains that I can't donate blood because I lived on Zaragoza AFB, in Spain, for 3 and a half years because of the BSD scare. (And yes, I ate at British Burger Kings a couple of times when I was in England) That was over a decade ago, I'm not exibiting any symptoms, we don't even know if it can be transmitted by blood alone, so why the restrictions? Because the media has blown everything out of proportion and scared everybody.
So, in my opinion, the violation of privacy is not qualified because the threat is not proven. (Then again, the grocery store isn't going through a 3rd party or handing the info over to the government, but you asked not to be contacted at all, you shouldn't be contacted at all...what if you already ate the hamburger? Then you're just being scared out of your wits 'cause you wouldn't know better) Now, if it was something else, something with a better foundation in science, by all means, save me from certain death...but BSD is not one of those things.
The US military did not have a vested interest in the Venturestar project. Had it made it to production, it would have, but until then, the military was an "interested observer". A LOT had gone wrong. You really need to read the history. For example, the Clipper Graham test vehicle was destroyed on July 31, 1996 when it slammed into the ground. It's composite outer-shell failed in a crash-landing. The fuel tanks then blew. The only recoverable items were the RL-10 engines and the auxiliary propulsion system. Also, the military did not make the announcement, Arthur Stephenson, director of Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama did. The money was an issue. 1.25 billion is not enough for a Single-Stage to Orbit Program. Heck, the development program cost over 2.5 billion dollars, and ONE Space Shuttle cost over 2 billion dollars a piece (and we built 6 of them)
Bush DID NOT CANCEL IT. It was an administrative decision through Goldin and the other NASA heads. (now mostly replaced). Moreover, Lockheed even decided that a SSTO program was too difficult right now, and that we need at least 2 stages to launch a manned shuttle-type craft into space. We learned a lot. Expect the next shuttle (Bush said that there will be a next one) to reflect the lessons of the X-33/Venturestar project.
Is the re-allocation of funds within NASA really for getting to the Moon and Mars?
YES! FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, YES! Manned space exploration was a top priority for NASA since its inception and creation. The point was "putting a man on the moon". That is why NASA was founded! Then we had run-ins with Carter and Clinton, where that vision was fogged by poor administration and judgement. It took a great president, Ronald Reagan, to see the Space Shuttle project to completion and to put NASA on track for the future (SS Freedom, 2nd gen shuttle, Space Launch Initiative, Moon Bases, Man on Mars) He knew we didn't have the time nor the technology to go to Mars yet, but that was still the unltimate goal, a "when we're ready" kind of thing. Then George H.W. Bush happened. He rolled back the programs, but he did not completely destroy them, he cut things down to a bear minimum. Clinton destroyed them. I remember hearing that Dan Goldin thought exploration through robots was just as good as human exploration. Growing up in Langley AFB (the NASA facility is intgrated with the base), I got to hear directly what the NASA engineers thought of Clinton back in '94-95, and it wasn't pretty. Clinton killed the programs created during the 80's. He didn't do it directly, he (through his direct control and the appointment of Goldin) just cut their funding to below minumum levels, so he could write it off as "NASA's fault, not the administration's". We need another Reagan to get us back on track. We've found him- He's George W. Bush. NASA's mission is once again manned exploration.
Or is it just a cover for shifting toward military space applications?
NO! NASA and the military (primarily the US Air Force) work together because they research the same things. The applications of that research differ, one is a civilian organization, and the other is a military one. The AF had an interest in the Venturestar program, a single-stage to orbit (SSTO) craft would be wonderful. It would be mobile, easily, safely, and cheaply launched. They could build a good number of them, give them different jobs (like mounting a laser on one). NASA is actively engaged in the Airborne LASER project. The AF loans aircraft to NASA all the time. Heck, the only reason I got to see an SR-71 and F-117 regularly in flight in the early 90s was because of the NASA research facility attached to the Air Force Base. NASA explores aerodynamics and aerospace. The Airforce is an aerodynamics and aerospace power, see the connection? When NASA develops an aircraft (e.g. the forward-swept wing, X-29), the AF would like to know the results of it for use militarily. Any way you look at it, NASA and the military both have the same research goals.
If true, how badly will NASA's scientific mission be effected if it becomes a conduit for giving research and development money to defense contractors?
It's not true, and NASA's money goes directly to NASA. If the military and NASA work together, it is good for NASA becase NASA gets the boost of military funds, not the other way around. Every joint development project is funded by NASA AND the military until NASA can't use it as research anymore, at which point a NEW military project based on the results of the NASA/military one would be created. (NASA is a civilian agency, and is more or less transparent in where its money goes, unlike the military)
NASA is not an agency of 'progress for the sake of progress'. It is an agency dedicated to improving mankind. The safe voyage to the moon and back was more important than exploring the moon. A Moonbase could produce fuel. The ultimate result is not "the moon is composed of this % of that and this % of this" It's, "we can use this to make that which helps us in the end." The important thing is not the science itself, it's how it's used. President Bush sees that. Clinton did not.
The 90% completed X-33 is at Edward's AFB, in a hanger, by a launchpad. The hanger, the launchpad, and the prototype are jointly owned by Lockheed Martin and NASA, President Bush could not take it without buying Lockheed Martin out ($356 million), and transferring NASA's share to the Air Force. Thing is, everyone that follows space exploration closely would know about it, no matter how much they tried to cover it up. (It would have to go through Congress). It's useless anyway, it can't haul cargo or anything remotely like that. The X-33 was cancelled in March, BEFORE that idiot Dan Goldin was replaced by the much better O'Keefe. Just something I forgot to mention.
When the Columbia went down, I made it my goal to find out what went wrong. Ultimately I decided that the Space Shuttle was a dated piece of equipment that needed to be replaced. Endeavor should have never been built, instead a new 2nd-gen shuttle should have. (The program existed, but was later canceled) The lack of funding by the Clinton administration is what led to its ultimate demise. The Venturestar Program was the 3rd generation space shuttle (called the Space Launch Initiative), and the X-33 was the prototype. Actually, it wasn't even that, it was a "technology validator". So it makes sense to test the components that had been built already (like the linear aerospike engine, which is revolutionary due to its efficiency and the composite fuel tanks would be a boon to any launching system, shuttle or otherwise) The program was cancelled because too many things had gone wrong and NASA under Clinton appointee Daniel Goldin had shifted focus to small, unmanned probes (faster, better, cheaper) so they were unwilling to tough it out. You can find out all about the X-33 at ALLSTAR or NASA itself.
I like the sound of fans in my computer, it's reasurring. I know that everything is working properly. Now, when it gets a high workload, the fans speed up. If I'm not doing anything to it at the time, I'll look to what's causing it. Or, for example, if I turn it on, and the fans spin up, but nothing else does. Noise has become a diagnostic tool of sorts. Now, I've heard my share of windtunnel cases (not my computers, other peoples), but I've never owned a computer considerably louder than my P-166. I use my Dell as white noise when I sleep too. (the second quietest computer I own is my Dell XPS, that model has 5 fans in it, though you wouldn't know by listening to it)(don't flame me over that either, I build my own computers in most cases, but in this case it was $400 cheaper than building my own (seriously!), gotta love gotapex and Dell e-mail coupons, but I'm getting off track)
It's not worth the cost in my opinion. Especially not that $1400 monetary cost, but the loss of my fans as diagnostic tools is too much.