If you follow any of the HST threads (many of which draw comments from astronomers like myself & Dirty J), you would find out that the JWST was never meant to replace the capabilities of the Hubble. It will be an amazing telescope in its own right, but it simply will NOT be able to perform many of the types of observations that Hubble can do now.
i thought black holes were not proven to exist, or am i living in the past?
There are a number of experiments that show that an object exists at a particular location with an enormous mass and an incredibly small radius. No other object than a black hole fits the data, so we take this indirect evidence as proof of the existence of black holes.
From my point of view, the best evidence is the orbit of stars around the black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Check out a movie here.
Ummm... HubbleSite released HST images of Mars when it was at opposition on 8/27/2003 almost in real time. They're *used* to the/. effect when stuff like this gets posted.
But what most people don't appreciate is that the JWST (the next generation space telescope they announced) will not have many of the capabilities of Hubble.
Yup -- when I was in grad school (studying astrophysics) they interviewed my thesis advisor about his work. He claimed that their reporter was the most thorough he had ever worked with on a story. The final article was very good.
On another side note, the RADAR engineers who didn't have as much to do after WWII went on to invent radio astronomy.
Unfortunately, the ever growing use of the radio spectrum (cell phones, WiFi, etc.) continues to impinge on radio astronomy bands, making it harder and harder to "see" extraterrestrial radio sources free from interference. I'm afraid that widespread adoption of this technology would make this problem much worse. Of course, this only affects the tiny fraction of the world who cares about radio astronomy, but I happen to be one of those.
but I have had problems with loss of signal during severe thunderstorms and when snow covers the dish.
This is what I don't understand -- isn't this a problem? I had DirecTV briefly in VA, and rain fade drove me nuts.
When you pay extra for content (like ESPN's college football plan) and then you miss half the game as the signal fades in and out, what do you do? I called to complain and they said too bad -- rain fade happens. Well, it happened during the middle of a game I paid $99 to see!
When I moved to PA, I got cable and have not had 1 second of signal loss.
Like every issue that crops up on/. this one is another that has pros and cons and it depends on what pros you value and cons you can't ignore. Rain fade irritated me to no end, and I will never sign up for satellite again.
Holy FUD, Batman! iPod tunes play on... CDs! Isn't that a pretty universal format?
Please tell me that this kind of comment will eventually die. Doesn't anyone on/. know how to read?
Let's go over this one more time, slowly this time. I'll try to use small words, too.
iTunes Music Store tunes = AAC format. You can burn them to CD and then rip them into whatever frikkin' format that you would like. If you want, you can even rip them into *shudder* WMA format.
Ummmm... You can also charge your iPod by plugging it into the AC adapter and plugging that into the wall.
You don't need a computer at all. Just a wall outlet.
This sounds like HP/Compaq to me. Save the company from the evil executive -- rally around the last family member. The furor died down after the HP/Compaq merger went through, and geeks like us gave up paying attention. I'm glad to see Pixar leaving Disney, but personally I'm having a hard time getting worked up to feel anything other than ambivalent about Eisner.
I've got post-thesis grammar cop syndrome, too:
The scientists... have released an excellent 50 page guide on care and handling of CDs and DVDs for long term storage.
For those slashdotters who are not familiar with the physical make up...
Actually, the only thing that I saw that was unprofessional were the typos. We all harp on those in/. comments, but in business letters of this sort, they are extremely unprofessional.
(e.g., "...more than willing discuss...", "...licensing needs to indeed exist...").
Hubble has been the best publicity generator for astronomy for *years* now. My bet is that this was announced when and how it was precisely because they are hoping to generate enough public outrage to get this decision reversed.
Personally, I know it was a blow to many of my colleagues. Trying to get HST time has been difficult and frustrating, but you can't deny its impact. The number of high quality science results that have been generated by the telescope dwarfs just about all of its competition when you use most object measurement criteria.
We'll see what happens, I guess, but my guess is that the astronomical community is going to at least try to put whatever weight they can muster behind getting the HST servicing mission made a priority again.
The thing is, if you haven't had a problem with your backlight, you probably haven't posted to this thread. How many people with iBooks haven't had this problem? I have a dual USB 12" iBook, and although the hinge was one of the sticky ones, I've never had a backlight problem in the 2+ years I've had it. I admit to being spooked a bit by seeing a lot of "me too" posts, but it would be nice to have some measure of how many iBook users haven't had the backlight problem. Is it 1%, 10%?
I have had two problems with my Powerbook 17", but it's still under warranty, so I have had it fixed by them free of charge with a turnaround time of 2 days. If it continues to have problems, I'll start posting my complaints, but for now I'm still happy with both Apple laptops.
Now.Mac, that's another story altogether. Hate it. I'll complain all you want about that service.
Re:Why are people still using IE? Firebird rocks.
on
Mozilla 1.6 Released
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· Score: 1
I use Firebird on my Solaris box at work, and I used to use Mozilla on my iBook, pre-Safari. Has anyone else noticed that there hasn't been a single post about Safari in this discussion? I think that Safari has made Moz/Firebird irrelevant to the beleaguered Mac crowd.
I also disagree vehemently with making any comparison between the iLife announcement and.Mac.
I just renewed my subscription to.Mac just for the email account. I never had a problem requiring support during my first year, but I immediately had a problem after renewal. That's when I found out that the.Mac tech support is horrendous. Awful. Horrible. I posted multiple times to the.Mac discussion forums (the only way to get support!) and after getting no help, my last comment was censored because I complained in it about how hard it was to get any help.
Unless things drastically improve in 2004, I will not renew.Mac. It is not worth the price to me.
Ummm... here in State College, PA (home of Penn State University) Adelphia cable modem service is $40/month if you provide the modem.
I could be off a bit, because I have a package deal with my digital cable TV service, and haven't had just cable modem service on its own for more than a year.
Slashdot Mirror
If you follow any of the HST threads (many of which draw comments from astronomers like myself & Dirty J), you would find out that the JWST was never meant to replace the capabilities of the Hubble. It will be an amazing telescope in its own right, but it simply will NOT be able to perform many of the types of observations that Hubble can do now.
There are a number of experiments that show that an object exists at a particular location with an enormous mass and an incredibly small radius. No other object than a black hole fits the data, so we take this indirect evidence as proof of the existence of black holes. From my point of view, the best evidence is the orbit of stars around the black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Check out a movie here.
We have to be even more careful when we talk about "hot black body radiation".
Ummm... HubbleSite released HST images of Mars when it was at opposition on 8/27/2003 almost in real time. They're *used* to the /. effect when stuff like this gets posted.
But what most people don't appreciate is that the JWST (the next generation space telescope they announced) will not have many of the capabilities of Hubble.
Yup -- when I was in grad school (studying astrophysics) they interviewed my thesis advisor about his work. He claimed that their reporter was the most thorough he had ever worked with on a story. The final article was very good.
Unfortunately, the ever growing use of the radio spectrum (cell phones, WiFi, etc.) continues to impinge on radio astronomy bands, making it harder and harder to "see" extraterrestrial radio sources free from interference. I'm afraid that widespread adoption of this technology would make this problem much worse. Of course, this only affects the tiny fraction of the world who cares about radio astronomy, but I happen to be one of those.
If we apply that standard to /., wouldn't 99.9% of the stories go away? How many of them start with "NYTimes is reporting... According to CNN.com..."
This is what I don't understand -- isn't this a problem? I had DirecTV briefly in VA, and rain fade drove me nuts.
When you pay extra for content (like ESPN's college football plan) and then you miss half the game as the signal fades in and out, what do you do? I called to complain and they said too bad -- rain fade happens. Well, it happened during the middle of a game I paid $99 to see!
When I moved to PA, I got cable and have not had 1 second of signal loss.
Like every issue that crops up on /. this one is another that has pros and cons and it depends on what pros you value and cons you can't ignore. Rain fade irritated me to no end, and I will never sign up for satellite again.
Apparently, the VA location beat out Mexico to land the factory. No joke.
Please tell me that this kind of comment will eventually die. Doesn't anyone on /. know how to read?
Let's go over this one more time, slowly this time. I'll try to use small words, too.
iTunes Music Store tunes = AAC format. You can burn them to CD and then rip them into whatever frikkin' format that you would like. If you want, you can even rip them into *shudder* WMA format.
Ummmm... You can also charge your iPod by plugging it into the AC adapter and plugging that into the wall. You don't need a computer at all. Just a wall outlet.
This sounds like HP/Compaq to me. Save the company from the evil executive -- rally around the last family member. The furor died down after the HP/Compaq merger went through, and geeks like us gave up paying attention. I'm glad to see Pixar leaving Disney, but personally I'm having a hard time getting worked up to feel anything other than ambivalent about Eisner.
I keep waiting for the MikeHuntSoft.com jokes...
I've got post-thesis grammar cop syndrome, too: The scientists... have released an excellent 50 page guide on care and handling of CDs and DVDs for long term storage. For those slashdotters who are not familiar with the physical make up...
Actually, the only thing that I saw that was unprofessional were the typos. We all harp on those in /. comments, but in business letters of this sort, they are extremely unprofessional.
(e.g., "...more than willing discuss...", "...licensing needs to indeed exist...").
I didn't see that anywhere.
The wheels have started to turn. Check this out.
Hubble has been the best publicity generator for astronomy for *years* now. My bet is that this was announced when and how it was precisely because they are hoping to generate enough public outrage to get this decision reversed. Personally, I know it was a blow to many of my colleagues. Trying to get HST time has been difficult and frustrating, but you can't deny its impact. The number of high quality science results that have been generated by the telescope dwarfs just about all of its competition when you use most object measurement criteria. We'll see what happens, I guess, but my guess is that the astronomical community is going to at least try to put whatever weight they can muster behind getting the HST servicing mission made a priority again.
The thing is, if you haven't had a problem with your backlight, you probably haven't posted to this thread. How many people with iBooks haven't had this problem? I have a dual USB 12" iBook, and although the hinge was one of the sticky ones, I've never had a backlight problem in the 2+ years I've had it. I admit to being spooked a bit by seeing a lot of "me too" posts, but it would be nice to have some measure of how many iBook users haven't had the backlight problem. Is it 1%, 10%? I have had two problems with my Powerbook 17", but it's still under warranty, so I have had it fixed by them free of charge with a turnaround time of 2 days. If it continues to have problems, I'll start posting my complaints, but for now I'm still happy with both Apple laptops. Now .Mac, that's another story altogether. Hate it. I'll complain all you want about that service.
I use Firebird on my Solaris box at work, and I used to use Mozilla on my iBook, pre-Safari. Has anyone else noticed that there hasn't been a single post about Safari in this discussion? I think that Safari has made Moz/Firebird irrelevant to the beleaguered Mac crowd.
I also disagree vehemently with making any comparison between the iLife announcement and .Mac.
I just renewed my subscription to .Mac just for the email account. I never had a problem requiring support during my first year, but I immediately had a problem after renewal. That's when I found out that the .Mac tech support is horrendous. Awful. Horrible. I posted multiple times to the .Mac discussion forums (the only way to get support!) and after getting no help, my last comment was censored because I complained in it about how hard it was to get any help.
Unless things drastically improve in 2004, I will not renew .Mac. It is not worth the price to me.
Or, you can just download Safari Enhancer, which can import bookmarks.
Does this mean that Microsoft is now beleaguered?
Ummm... here in State College, PA (home of Penn State University) Adelphia cable modem service is $40/month if you provide the modem. I could be off a bit, because I have a package deal with my digital cable TV service, and haven't had just cable modem service on its own for more than a year.