I haven't seen anything "official," but someone's running a website for Project Constellation as a Shuttle successor.
If we still need the heavy-lift and reboost capacity of the Shuttle, an unmanned version (it's highly automated through ascent, docking and re-entry anyhow) might be a worthwhile alternative if the landing can also be done remotely.
That's what this article (poorly) attempts to talk about.
Different laws (criminal and civil) punish actors differently based on not just the act itself, but also the actor's state of mind.
Generally, commiting the same act intentionally as opposed to recklessly or negligently will bring on a harsher penalty. Intentionally aiming a rifle at someone and shooting is punished more harshly than if the gun goes off accidentally and kills them. The victim is just as dead in both cases, but the first actor will probably be punished more severely than the second.
In this case, the House seems to have lowered the bar to include both intentional and willful conduct (there is probably a subtle difference between the two) but not negligent or reckless conduct. All of these terms are (or will be) defined elsewhere in the Act or in the U.S. Code. Without knowing what the devil Congress means by these qualifiers, it's hard to say what exactly has been passed. Odds are though, it's not good.
My guess is that if one is found to be sharing more than X number of files (or transferring X amount of copyrighted data) the law will provide that the requisite level of intent has been met.
Mod parent DOWN, it's not a link to the article... it's.. bad.
Re:Terraforming or ecosynthesising mars
on
Making Tracks on Mars
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Without a stable magnetic field to deflect the solar wind, any attempt to increase the atmospheric density on Mars is never going to work. It would be like trying to inflate a balloon with a hole in it. Deatils here.
An excellent idea, but too late for these 30 kids who were injured by a "bolt from the blue" at football practice yesterday. And here I thought it was just an interesting figure of speech. In this case at least, literalism really hurts.
I think the point was that wind power will reduce greenhouse gases and other atmospheric pollutants that contribute to global warming (or not, if you ask the White House) that would otherwise be released by obtaining energy from fossil fuels.
Unlike Pioneers 10 and 11, Voyagers 1 and 2 continue to transmit to Earth. In fact, Voyager 1 is further from the sun (93.1 AU) than the furthest Pioneer (86.3 AU).
Has this effect been observed as to the Voyagers?
Excellent illustration (updated daily!) of all these probes and their vitals (trajectories, distance, speed, etc.) at Heavens-Above .
The last signals were recieved from Pioneer 10 in early 2003, but telmetry stopped almost a year before. From the Feb. 25, 2003 press release that "pronounced" Pioneer 10 dead:
RELEASE: 03-082HQ
PIONEER 10 SPACECRAFT SENDS LAST SIGNAL
After more than 30 years, it appears the venerable Pioneer 10 spacecraft has sent its last signal to Earth. Pioneer's last, very weak signal was received on Jan. 22, 2003.
NASA engineers report Pioneer 10's radioisotope power source has decayed, and it may not have enough power to send additional transmissions to Earth. NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) did not detect a signal during the last contact attempt Feb. 7, 2003. The previous three contacts, including the Jan. 22 signal, were very faint with no telemetry received. The last time a Pioneer 10 contact returned telemetry data was April 27, 2002. NASA has no additional contact attempts planned for Pioneer 10.
A launch complex called SLC-6 ("Slick Six") was built at Vandenberg AFB. This article gets into more detail, but the short version is that the USAF's KH-12 "Keyholes" (intended to be lofted exclusively by the Shuttle) need a very high inclination polar orbit which was impossible to achieve with a launch from Kennedy Space Center, but easy from Vandenberg.
It was mothballed without ever being used in the post-Challenger era.
Google's cache of the Aug. 20 Shuttle Status reports (the real page is offline for some reason) say all three are on-site at KSC. I hope someone covered them with tarps.
"In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the... Anyone? Anyone?...the Great Depression, passed the... Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered?...raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression. Today we have a similar debate over this. Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before? The Laffer Curve. Anyone know what this says? It says that at this point on the revenue curve, you will get exactly the same amount of revenue as at this point. This is very controversial. Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics. "Voodoo" economics."
Gamers are tracked. New advertisements are delivered on the fly. It's both a game publisher and ad exec's [wet] dream. Atari and Ubisoft are among the game publishers to sign up.
In the last few weeks, I've noticed some structural changes at TiVo (both as an owner and a consumer) - first, they enabled their Home Media Option for all subscribers, before this, it was $99, and then $79 to activate these features. Personally, I don't use the music or photo sharing (poor interfaces for both) but it's made me consider buying a second TiVo so the two can share recording capacity, especially since they've dropped the prices on Series 2 PVRs to as low as $50 recently. At that price for a 40 hour unit, it's worth it just for the hard drive and to avoid the hassle of upgrading the old one.
They're also planning a broader media blitz, which is something new for them, evidently to roll out just before or in conjunction with the TivoToGo service. If it's part of a bigger strategy to increase market share, it would go hand-in-glove with the almost-giving-away prices on some boxes.
That said, TiVo has to walk a fine line between being user-friendly, functional to consumers, while still paying lip-service to its corporate masters and brodcasters. In the past, these compromises have lead to the software and box being locked up and encrypted up the wazoo.
TiVo must have recognized that if they truly satisfied the geeks, made the box accessable and programming easy to extract, they could be the next MythTV, or worse, the first on the INDUCE Act chopping block.
Although TiVo has a strained relationship with the broadcasters, media giants, etc., it lacks the market penetration to be a real threat to them. So, while the 30-second skip is an irritant, there is probably an overall negligable impact in terms of actual eyes that no longer see the commercials.
If TiVo could gain a reasonable market share (not impossible, but with the arena becoming more crowed, certainly more difficult) and did become more of a media gorilla, then it would be a real battle to see if the PVR's time-shifting (a non-infringing use, at least for the moment) would be enough to bootstrap its other functions (burn-to-DVD, stream to other TV, for example) into the "fair use" category.
TiVoToGo might be the first step in this direction. Big Media may not have any choice but to attempt to stop its deployment, maybe with a temporary injunction, lest the camel's nose get under their tent.
I don't think the analogy quite fits. Even if they are over-engineered, the extra rover lifetime isn't wasted as the hypothetical bridge's load-bearing capacity would be. Their extra life is probably even more valueable when you factor in the realities of how infrequently we have the opportunity (mod me down for the pun, i'll burn the karma) to conduct this sort of research. Unless we run out of rocks to look at and gullies to traverse, let the rovers operate as long as they are able to return useful data.
Slashdot Mirror
The only question in my mind is what form will the other two Horsemen take?
At least I don't have to update my .sig
Some silver lining.
Mod parent as Troll - and dont visit that site if you're at work.
If we still need the heavy-lift and reboost capacity of the Shuttle, an unmanned version (it's highly automated through ascent, docking and re-entry anyhow) might be a worthwhile alternative if the landing can also be done remotely.
Different laws (criminal and civil) punish actors differently based on not just the act itself, but also the actor's state of mind.
Generally, commiting the same act intentionally as opposed to recklessly or negligently will bring on a harsher penalty. Intentionally aiming a rifle at someone and shooting is punished more harshly than if the gun goes off accidentally and kills them. The victim is just as dead in both cases, but the first actor will probably be punished more severely than the second.
In this case, the House seems to have lowered the bar to include both intentional and willful conduct (there is probably a subtle difference between the two) but not negligent or reckless conduct. All of these terms are (or will be) defined elsewhere in the Act or in the U.S. Code. Without knowing what the devil Congress means by these qualifiers, it's hard to say what exactly has been passed. Odds are though, it's not good.
My guess is that if one is found to be sharing more than X number of files (or transferring X amount of copyrighted data) the law will provide that the requisite level of intent has been met.
That's no MOON...
Mod parent DOWN, it's not a link to the article... it's.. bad.
Without a stable magnetic field to deflect the solar wind, any attempt to increase the atmospheric density on Mars is never going to work. It would be like trying to inflate a balloon with a hole in it. Deatils here.
Cylons, too. And this girl I knew once, in band camp...
An excellent idea, but too late for these 30 kids who were injured by a "bolt from the blue" at football practice yesterday. And here I thought it was just an interesting figure of speech. In this case at least, literalism really hurts.
Or you could put it just off the coastline, like these folks .
I think the point was that wind power will reduce greenhouse gases and other atmospheric pollutants that contribute to global warming (or not, if you ask the White House) that would otherwise be released by obtaining energy from fossil fuels.
Has this effect been observed as to the Voyagers?
Excellent illustration (updated daily!) of all these probes and their vitals (trajectories, distance, speed, etc.) at Heavens-Above .
RELEASE: 03-082HQ PIONEER 10 SPACECRAFT SENDS LAST SIGNAL After more than 30 years, it appears the venerable Pioneer 10 spacecraft has sent its last signal to Earth. Pioneer's last, very weak signal was received on Jan. 22, 2003. NASA engineers report Pioneer 10's radioisotope power source has decayed, and it may not have enough power to send additional transmissions to Earth. NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) did not detect a signal during the last contact attempt Feb. 7, 2003. The previous three contacts, including the Jan. 22 signal, were very faint with no telemetry received. The last time a Pioneer 10 contact returned telemetry data was April 27, 2002. NASA has no additional contact attempts planned for Pioneer 10.
It was mothballed without ever being used in the post-Challenger era.
Google's cache of the Aug. 20 Shuttle Status reports (the real page is offline for some reason) say all three are on-site at KSC. I hope someone covered them with tarps.
I thought one was in long-term overhaul at the Palmdale, CA factory (though this work might have been shifted to KSC, I'm not sure).
I tried looking at the Current Shuttle Status page, but that, along with everything at Kennedy Space Center seems to be offline, already...
In a row?
"In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the... Anyone? Anyone? ...the Great Depression, passed the... Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered? ...raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression. Today we have a similar debate over this. Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before? The Laffer Curve. Anyone know what this says? It says that at this point on the revenue curve, you will get exactly the same amount of revenue as at this point. This is very controversial. Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics. "Voodoo" economics."
Thanks, they moved the website without informing me. It should work now.
Gamers are tracked. New advertisements are delivered on the fly. It's both a game publisher and ad exec's [wet] dream. Atari and Ubisoft are among the game publishers to sign up.
NASA has started providing semi-regular updates as to Shuttle Status again.
Mod that shit up, amen brother.
They're also planning a broader media blitz, which is something new for them, evidently to roll out just before or in conjunction with the TivoToGo service. If it's part of a bigger strategy to increase market share, it would go hand-in-glove with the almost-giving-away prices on some boxes.
That said, TiVo has to walk a fine line between being user-friendly, functional to consumers, while still paying lip-service to its corporate masters and brodcasters. In the past, these compromises have lead to the software and box being locked up and encrypted up the wazoo.
TiVo must have recognized that if they truly satisfied the geeks, made the box accessable and programming easy to extract, they could be the next MythTV, or worse, the first on the INDUCE Act chopping block.
Although TiVo has a strained relationship with the broadcasters, media giants, etc., it lacks the market penetration to be a real threat to them. So, while the 30-second skip is an irritant, there is probably an overall negligable impact in terms of actual eyes that no longer see the commercials.
If TiVo could gain a reasonable market share (not impossible, but with the arena becoming more crowed, certainly more difficult) and did become more of a media gorilla, then it would be a real battle to see if the PVR's time-shifting (a non-infringing use, at least for the moment) would be enough to bootstrap its other functions (burn-to-DVD, stream to other TV, for example) into the "fair use" category.
TiVoToGo might be the first step in this direction. Big Media may not have any choice but to attempt to stop its deployment, maybe with a temporary injunction, lest the camel's nose get under their tent.
I'm all for using these folks as our first conscripted astronauts in such a project.
I don't think the analogy quite fits. Even if they are over-engineered, the extra rover lifetime isn't wasted as the hypothetical bridge's load-bearing capacity would be. Their extra life is probably even more valueable when you factor in the realities of how infrequently we have the opportunity (mod me down for the pun, i'll burn the karma) to conduct this sort of research. Unless we run out of rocks to look at and gullies to traverse, let the rovers operate as long as they are able to return useful data.
Exactly, explained here .