To steal from Tolkien "The Web has no king... the Web NEEDS no king." Disclosure: I have spent the last 3 plus years trying to make a living by "webmastering", because my local Internet bubble burst.
All you need to do to "CSI" the demise of the webmaster is to seek a job where the "internet" is the core. The listings on Monster, Dice et al read like spilled alphabet soup. That's fine. We can adapt and learn...
BUT THEN... They ask for not skill sets, but ***Mindsets*** which not only are difficult to get in the same schedule, but also difficult to get into the same brain. Here's a Nutshell of one of them:
The successful candidate will possess the following skills:
3 years of ASP.NET, with 2 years of C# (This was years ago before O'Reilly had a book on C#)
Minimum 2 years of PHP, Perl and Python
2 years Linux, Apache and Administration
3-4 Years of Flash, including Actionscript
3 years of CSS, Javascript, XML, XSL, XHTML, DHTML, DSL, DS9
3 or more years of PostGreSQL, Oracle, MySQL and DB2. SQL Server experience helpful (note the 'and')
5 Years of graphic design (Portfolio required) (Forget that most of the websites I worked on have evaporated)
E-commerce experience helpful
And here's the clincher...
Excellent written and verbal skills, including customer-facing skills. Interface with external vendors required.
Salary will be $30-36K, with excellent benefits package, including free Jolt Turbo
First off... Just getting the DOT NET and the LAMP into the same career requires moonlighting. But then, trying to pack a.NET programmer and a Flash/Graphic designer ***WITH PEEPLE SKILLS?***
Not only are their requirements mutually exclusive, but frankly, I don't think I'd want to meet the UberG33k that could possess or BE possessed by these requirements. He/She/it'd B2 1337 4 me!
PS: I DID find a job;-)
PSS: SlashDot rants do NOT count as "excellent written and verbal skills"
Religious:
This is a religious debate. But, to misquote Cap'n Spock, "Windows mavens proceed from false assumptions" . The MacEvangelist's goal is not "world domination", it's converting only a handful of Windows users to Mac. When that happens, The Angels in One Infinite Loop rejoice. I have managed to convert a few, and they have thanked me for it.
Technical:
I long for the day when what we now call "OS" is merely a "skin" on the operations of the system. But that could really only happen if the machine itself were using a chipset that could run both. For example, if MacOS could run on Intel... umm... err... wait a minute...
Disclosure: I am an unemployed web developer, and I've never actaully READ PKDick. Only half of this rant is serous. I'll let you decide which half
WOW! My house must be haunted by the ghost of Philip K. Dick! I just got a chill when I read TFA! The first thing that came to mind is "Great... my employability at Google is reduced to the same as a FICO Credit Score."
But then I wondered how long until it grew into "the Google Overall Diagnostic Heurism for Employers to Assess and Determine Suitability" (GODHEAD) where employers would request a "GODHEAD Score" on an applicant. "Well, Mr. Starglider... you're resumé is very impressive, you seem to match our culture, and your references beam about you, but... I'm afraid that your GODHEAD score is too low."
It is difficult enough in the IT world to convince an HR person (who doesn't know the difference between Java and Cocoa) that you are a "good fit" without giving us a one-dimensional point over which to jump. In a world where job listings ask for "UNIX Admin with VB.NET experience and Flash/Photoshop" having one more reason to reject you is NOT what this job market needs.
But maybe I'm being paranoid... Maybe this is a good thing... maybe an entire industy will spring up, coaching people on how to "spoof" the test. GOOGLE Surveys for Dummies. ScoreRunners that "retire" people whose GODHEAD scores drop too low. And what about GODHEAD Score (a la identity) theft? And one could ask of the HR people administering the test "Did you ever take that test yourself?"
And finally, it sounds from TFA that this score is not a very mutable score... it's a test of who you are. It won't change much over time. Maybe after a few tests and the transients level off, you could have it tattooed into your right hand or forehead;-)
I'm thinking of a number... between 350 and 850... know what it is?
Actually, anyone who has ever dealt with color on a computer will recognize that as the "16 Million colors" number, with 8-bits per Red, Green & Blue. Though, I didn't see "2^24", I saw #FFFFFF. CdrTaco prolly saw F#@^!
The point about "arbitrary limitations", and WTF there are 24-bit integers are all well taken. Perhaps that's why they call it "Google". Maybe they have indices in the 2^A5570AD range in case they ever want to catalog every atom in the universe.
If there is ANY WAY that this means that I can have:
One Box
One Monitor
One Keyboard/Mouse/Pen
One Button to push to switch between MacOSsomethingSomething and WinSomethingSomething (even if it's a reboot)
THEN BRING IT!!!
I do websites on a Mac, but they have to work in Windows too. I've long yearned for a true "hardware abstraction layer" where I don't care who or what's inside. And if it sucks resources, such as RAM, and runs like a Dell 1.3GHz and an Apple G4 1GHZ, then BRING IT! The G5 can take 8GB and RAM is cheaper than deskspace.
Thanks for/.'ing Spacex.com, just as I was trying to submit my résumé!
Maybe someone should start a service where websites get a 11-minute heads up that they are about to be posted on/. That would give them time to put up a static page or something... or would that be a form of cyber-extortion?
-- "/. -- the Nice DDOS"
When you gave the coordinates, you neglected to give the "altitude". You may want to have a big safety net over and at the bottom of a big pit, for those who don't have their "Heisenberg Compensators" correctly adjusted. After all, this period is rather high in Uncertainty.
Ok, but all Star Trek allusions, temporal fugues and jokes aside... how WOULD you specify altitude to a person in the future? Sea Level is not a constant, and not particularly well documented as it rises and falls. I suppose you could use the GPS, but that prolly won't still be in the sky when time travel already became possible (Future Past Tense).
Also, what about currency? How are you going to set exchange rates even with future humans? PayPal points? Beer?
One more thing... How do you think the Dept. of Homeland Security will feel about an sudden rush of 'temporal aliens'?
-- "Everything is defined in 6 Dimensions: X, Y, Z, Time, Money and Politics"
What was the John Cusack film that he made before Identity? I wanted to know. I was at the video store, pulled out my web-enabled phone, went to my phone webform http://af2k.com/mpt/imdb.asp, which borrows from imdb.com/Find and asked... the answer choked my phone.
I was in a Karaoke bar, gearing up to sing "Wildflower" by Skylark, so I surfed onto google to review the lyrics. Worked great.
Mini-browsers are like swiss army kives. If you have one, you will find legit uses for them... <BLINK>IF</BLINK> the pages are NOT choked with crap.
Now, to illustrate my point, did you not, when you read that lyric, think of the OTHER Songs on that album? Did you recall the album art? Did you think back to when that album came out, and your life at the time? I do. They P2P'ers won't. Again, their loss.
Offtopic note: You realize that Very is to Veddy as Gary is to Geddy, as in Gary Lee...
--
"Just think of what my life might be... in a world like I have seen." Rush 0x840
A friend can hear a song somewhere in the US, can tell me about it on the phone, and I can download it, even if the record store or radio stations here never heard of it.
Looking for something, you always find something else you weren't looking for
I LOVE the various versions of the same song, that you'd never hear or. Plus remixes.
If you get a shard of lyric of a new2U song, you can find the title from google and d/l it to hear the whole thing, including determining who the artist is.
Downside of P2P:
Having grown up in the years of "the Concept Album" P2P dissociates the music from the album and the effect is lost.
As artists mature, their music changes. Imagine a young kid trying to figure out the flow of RUSH's career from album to album just by what they found on P2P.
My friends and I share life experiences through a "Soundtrack of life". Certain albums remind me of certain people, and we share thoughts and express ideas using those themes in those albums. P2P'ers (pronounced 'kidz these daze') will never listen to "the same album". Their loss.
- "All this machinery making modern music can still be open-hearted" (Name that album;-)
Other twistedly great minds appropriated for this topic:
1984 -- George Orwell
He gazed up at the enormous face. 28 years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark mock-neck. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two Apple-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.
2010 -- Arthur C. Clarke
It may be that no such bridge is possible and that two such alien forms of conciousness can never coexist. If this is so, then only one of them can inherit the Solar System.
Which it will be, not even the Gods know -- yet.
2112 -- Neil Peart (with a nod to Ayn Rand)
I can't believe you're saying
These things just can't be true
Our world could use this beauty
Just think what we might do
Listen to my iPod
And hear what it can do
There's something here as strong as iLife
I know that it will reach you
Don't annoy us further!
We have DOT NET to do
Just think about the average
What use have they for you?
Another toy will help destroy
The elder race of man
Forget about your silly whim
It doesn't fit the Plan!
AF2K -- Christopher P. Simmons
"Choose your monopoly wisely... you won't get a second chance!"
I'll bet you that if you take the Big Money job, you'll STILL do programming, though it will be for free, and you will have far less time. If you take the programming job, you may someday regret the stack of money you don't have, but if you don't, you'll regret not following your heart.
If you REALLY wanted to make money, there are ways to make more than you will. So clearly either money isn't your highest priority, or you are doing a piss-poor job. Listen to Pink Floyd's "Time" and then decide. I'm betting that you should follow your heart, take the programming job... and sell Reliv on the side.
-- Thought I'd something more to say...
Disclaimer: I used a Mac in '84, DOS --> Windows till '97, then bought a Mac for my primary machine. It still is, running OS9. Also have XP Pro
I HATE "My Documents"!!!
I'm not "Docu-centric", I'm Project-centric. I do my folders per project. So I have C:\dev\proj... Why? What's the diff between "My Documents\Dev" and "C:\Dev"? Easy! sometimes I use the command line or some old school piece like WS_FTP. If I save a doc to My Docs\dev and go to FTP it up, where is it? C:\Documents and Settings\MyUserName\My Documents\dev. Oh yeah.. I can type THAT! Do I LOOK like a UNIX usr?
Save As... WHERE?
In MacOS, you can choose three general places where you save files, set in the Control Panel, General... App Folder, Last folder used, Docs folder...
In Windows... I DON'T KNOW! I've seen files try to be saved into the temp directory of the Temporary Internet Files with a hash of numbers because I just download something and that's the "current folder". That's useful... If I want to save it in C:\x\y\... i have to navigate my way up the tree. I could just do the dropdown to desktop, but sometimes that takes seconds to fill in. The Mac knows the path to where it is and immediatley loads up the dropdown for easy navigation in the tree.
Click Start... All Programs... WAIT 4 SECONDS FOR A MENU TO FILL IN!!!
This is a 2.6Ghz with 512MB of RAM. Why am I waiting? You know those right arrowheads on teh menus that pop open a submenu? Why do they take 3 seconds to load? It takes 6 seconds to get to a sub of a sub. Macs are super fast for that. THAT is why they feel "organic". I have a shortcut to a folder on my Quick Launch... it takes 4 seconds to open the folder after staring at a blank window frame. Why!?
I just saved it. Where is it?
Picture this. You open a folder with an image, x.jpg, open it, then save as x2.jpg. Now you want to drag drop it to FTP. Where is it? It's in the folder, which is sorted by date descending, It should be at the top. It's not, is it? It's at the bottom, so you have to F5, or double-flip the Date Modified tab to get the sort order correct. Does Microsoft actually USE this stuff? Macs pop the file where it belongs. THAT is "humane".
Things I wish Windows would steal from MacOS:
Spring Loaded Folders that open on touch while dragging, and then close when done.
The Pop-up folders. Drag a folder to the bottom of the screen, and it makes a tab which pops open when you drag to it. I can keep a bunch of Aliases and drag any file and drop it where I want, all with one hand on my 12 oz. can.
Extension Manager: Check boxes that disable Extensions/DLL's that you don't need. I did that to a 7100/66 with 32 MB of RAM... It now runs smoother than my 2.6GHz Dell.
Exposé!!! That feature alone would have saved me hours of digging through stacks of windows and folders, in either OS.
Whatever. I'm just glad he did. I'd rather use a 'Mac' than a 'Mick'. --
Starglider29a, aka MacGlider (not McGlider... that sounds like an airplane made of "pieces parts')
Maybe its the Eggs of Random Number Gereators all spitting out ZEROES! That means that something REALLY BAD will happen in about 4 hours.
-- Sig, Sig, Sig, the number of the beast
Mythbuster: "Delta-V" is a function of amount of propellant burned for a given type of engine. Period. It is not affected by velocity, orbital geometry.
But, I know what you're saying. It's not bullshit. But there are some misnomers and misconceptions. I will try to expound on what I know you are saying.
In general we are talking about a probe escaping Earth. Say, off to Saturn...
After that, we are escaping the sun, as in Pioneer and V'Ger (before the upgrade;-). In those cases, maximum velocity for minimum propellant is the goal.
Orbits whose ellipses are the same major axis have equal period.
High eccentricity orbits reach out farther than circular orbits of same major axis/period
High eccentricity orbits require higher velocity near the planet/sun
Until you hit escape velocity (a parabola or hyperbola) you are in a long ellipse
If you want to get a probe "out there" you want to burn at periapsis (Earth: perigee or Sun:perihelion). That leaves the peri at the same point and raises the other end. Do that enough times and you get escape on the last pass. Delta-V at any other point on the orbit will raise the peri and lower the apogee/aphelion. Propellant wasted.
Often, satellites will burn at perigee, orbit around and repeat. This allows the same amount of propellant to get your there, but without the mass of a larger engine/structure. Smaller motor more often is more efficient, just takes longer. Nothing is free.
In short, you don't get more Delta-V, but you get it where you want it.
--
"Illustrative Myth: Once you are out of earth orbit, you are halfway to anywhere."
Most everything said above this is true-ish, plus or minus, give or take. But let me try an analogy to dispel the "slingshot" misnomer.
Analogy: A rollerblader with a cane is at the top of a large bowl shaped parking lot with a light pole in the middle. A motorcyclist is driving clockwise in circles around the light pole. The sk8r coasts down the hill and hooks the light pole making a sudden right turn. As he heads out he hooks the biker from behind and makes a sharp right turn. Skater careens up the bowl and shoots over the edge with big air to fall down in front of a buddy with a video camera. Jacka55!
Ok, sk8rboi left the bowl faster than he started. How? He got the added speed from the biker. Without the biker 'orbitting' the star, the sk8r would have hit the edge of the bowl with very little velocity left.
Galactic centered Black holes allow stars to orbit them very very fast, even in circles. But a star that falls IN past the black hole and then whips around an already-orbitting star get the total of falling into the center PLUS the speed of the orbitting star.
You don't get a slinghot with only one star, even a black hole. That whole thing with the Bird of Prey and the whales is just wrong.
Starglider29a If time is money, does the Lorenz Equation dilate money as well?
Short answer: Yes, but...
Longer answer: "The catch" is the catching. Imagine 'skitching' on a bullet train...
Get maximum benefit by standing still, but suffer maximum acceleration. You'd need a HUGE shock chord.
Get minimum accerelation by matching the speed, minimize the shock, but it costs you more energy to match the speed at an acceptable velocity difference.
I know yer asking about "the gravity of the asteroid", but most asteroids gravity is so low that you would have to be nearly their speed to even get a boost.
*** IF *** we had a tractor beam that we could feather in the attractive, it would work. But then, we could just aim it at Mars, wait 23 minutes and HANG ON! We could also 'lasso the moon' at moonset and paraglide up into space.
And leave "intergalactic planetary" to the Beastie Boys. At that rate, the outcast star will still take a BILLIONish Years to get to Andromeda.
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
"The laws of orbital mechanics are as unforgiving as the laws of Supply-Side Ecomnomics"
Slashdot Mirror
All you need to do to "CSI" the demise of the webmaster is to seek a job where the "internet" is the core. The listings on Monster, Dice et al read like spilled alphabet soup. That's fine. We can adapt and learn...
BUT THEN... They ask for not skill sets, but ***Mindsets*** which not only are difficult to get in the same schedule, but also difficult to get into the same brain. Here's a Nutshell of one of them:
First off... Just getting the DOT NET and the LAMP into the same career requires moonlighting. But then, trying to pack a
Not only are their requirements mutually exclusive, but frankly, I don't think I'd want to meet the UberG33k that could possess or BE possessed by these requirements. He/She/it'd B2 1337 4 me!
PS: I DID find a job
PSS: SlashDot rants do NOT count as "excellent written and verbal skills"
Religious:
This is a religious debate. But, to misquote Cap'n Spock, "Windows mavens proceed from false assumptions" . The MacEvangelist's goal is not "world domination", it's converting only a handful of Windows users to Mac. When that happens, The Angels in One Infinite Loop rejoice. I have managed to convert a few, and they have thanked me for it.
Technical:
I long for the day when what we now call "OS" is merely a "skin" on the operations of the system. But that could really only happen if the machine itself were using a chipset that could run both. For example, if MacOS could run on Intel... umm... err... wait a minute...
No problem. Then, they can devise an algorithm to decide who to lay off.
Disclosure: I am an unemployed web developer, and I've never actaully READ PKDick. Only half of this rant is serous. I'll let you decide which half
;-)
WOW! My house must be haunted by the ghost of Philip K. Dick! I just got a chill when I read TFA! The first thing that came to mind is "Great... my employability at Google is reduced to the same as a FICO Credit Score."
But then I wondered how long until it grew into "the Google Overall Diagnostic Heurism for Employers to Assess and Determine Suitability" (GODHEAD) where employers would request a "GODHEAD Score" on an applicant. "Well, Mr. Starglider... you're resumé is very impressive, you seem to match our culture, and your references beam about you, but... I'm afraid that your GODHEAD score is too low."
It is difficult enough in the IT world to convince an HR person (who doesn't know the difference between Java and Cocoa) that you are a "good fit" without giving us a one-dimensional point over which to jump. In a world where job listings ask for "UNIX Admin with VB.NET experience and Flash/Photoshop" having one more reason to reject you is NOT what this job market needs.
But maybe I'm being paranoid... Maybe this is a good thing... maybe an entire industy will spring up, coaching people on how to "spoof" the test. GOOGLE Surveys for Dummies. ScoreRunners that "retire" people whose GODHEAD scores drop too low. And what about GODHEAD Score (a la identity) theft? And one could ask of the HR people administering the test "Did you ever take that test yourself?"
And finally, it sounds from TFA that this score is not a very mutable score... it's a test of who you are. It won't change much over time. Maybe after a few tests and the transients level off, you could have it tattooed into your right hand or forehead
I'm thinking of a number... between 350 and 850... know what it is?
Actually, anyone who has ever dealt with color on a computer will recognize that as the "16 Million colors" number, with 8-bits per Red, Green & Blue. Though, I didn't see "2^24", I saw #FFFFFF. CdrTaco prolly saw F#@^!
The point about "arbitrary limitations", and WTF there are 24-bit integers are all well taken. Perhaps that's why they call it "Google". Maybe they have indices in the 2^A5570AD range in case they ever want to catalog every atom in the universe.
-- "Software with limitations is of no value"
"to receive a mark in the right hand.."
;-)
Make sure you only use your left hand
pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes."
--Macbeth (IV, i, 44-45)
"to receive a mark in their right hand"
;-)
So make sure you only use your left hand!
"By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes." --From Macbeth (IV, i, 44-45)
- One Box
- One Monitor
- One Keyboard/Mouse/Pen
- One Button to push to switch between MacOSsomethingSomething and WinSomethingSomething (even if it's a reboot)
THEN BRING IT!!!I do websites on a Mac, but they have to work in Windows too. I've long yearned for a true "hardware abstraction layer" where I don't care who or what's inside. And if it sucks resources, such as RAM, and runs like a Dell 1.3GHz and an Apple G4 1GHZ, then BRING IT! The G5 can take 8GB and RAM is cheaper than deskspace.
Thanks for /.'ing Spacex.com, just as I was trying to submit my résumé!
/. That would give them time to put up a static page or something... or would that be a form of cyber-extortion?
Maybe someone should start a service where websites get a 11-minute heads up that they are about to be posted on
--
"/. -- the Nice DDOS"
When you gave the coordinates, you neglected to give the "altitude". You may want to have a big safety net over and at the bottom of a big pit, for those who don't have their "Heisenberg Compensators" correctly adjusted. After all, this period is rather high in Uncertainty.
Ok, but all Star Trek allusions, temporal fugues and jokes aside... how WOULD you specify altitude to a person in the future? Sea Level is not a constant, and not particularly well documented as it rises and falls. I suppose you could use the GPS, but that prolly won't still be in the sky when time travel already became possible (Future Past Tense).
Also, what about currency? How are you going to set exchange rates even with future humans? PayPal points? Beer?
One more thing... How do you think the Dept. of Homeland Security will feel about an sudden rush of 'temporal aliens'?
--
"Everything is defined in 6 Dimensions: X, Y, Z, Time, Money and Politics"
What was the John Cusack film that he made before Identity? I wanted to know. I was at the video store, pulled out my web-enabled phone, went to my phone webform http://af2k.com/mpt/imdb.asp, which borrows from imdb.com/Find and asked... the answer choked my phone.
I was in a Karaoke bar, gearing up to sing "Wildflower" by Skylark, so I surfed onto google to review the lyrics. Worked great.
Mini-browsers are like swiss army kives. If you have one, you will find legit uses for them... <BLINK>IF</BLINK> the pages are NOT choked with crap.
PS: No, I didn't REALLY try to use blink tags
Veddy guud, Veddy guud.
Now, to illustrate my point, did you not, when you read that lyric, think of the OTHER Songs on that album? Did you recall the album art? Did you think back to when that album came out, and your life at the time? I do. They P2P'ers won't. Again, their loss.
Offtopic note: You realize that Very is to Veddy as Gary is to Geddy, as in Gary Lee...
--
"Just think of what my life might be... in a world like I have seen."
Rush
0x840
- A friend can hear a song somewhere in the US, can tell me about it on the phone, and I can download it, even if the record store or radio stations here never heard of it.
- Looking for something, you always find something else you weren't looking for
- I LOVE the various versions of the same song, that you'd never hear or. Plus remixes.
- If you get a shard of lyric of a new2U song, you can find the title from google and d/l it to hear the whole thing, including determining who the artist is.
Downside of P2P:-
"All this machinery making modern music can still be open-hearted" (Name that album
Other twistedly great minds appropriated for this topic:
He gazed up at the enormous face. 28 years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark mock-neck. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two Apple-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.
It may be that no such bridge is possible and that two such alien forms of conciousness can never coexist. If this is so, then only one of them can inherit the Solar System.
Which it will be, not even the Gods know -- yet.
I can't believe you're saying
These things just can't be true
Our world could use this beauty
Just think what we might do
Listen to my iPod
And hear what it can do
There's something here as strong as iLife
I know that it will reach you
Don't annoy us further!
We have DOT NET to do
Just think about the average
What use have they for you?
Another toy will help destroy
The elder race of man
Forget about your silly whim
It doesn't fit the Plan!
"Choose your monopoly wisely... you won't get a second chance!"
I thought Gore invented DOS!
"What do you really want to do?" Answer that question and you are halfway there.
I'll bet you that if you take the Big Money job, you'll STILL do programming, though it will be for free, and you will have far less time. If you take the programming job, you may someday regret the stack of money you don't have, but if you don't, you'll regret not following your heart.
If you REALLY wanted to make money, there are ways to make more than you will. So clearly either money isn't your highest priority, or you are doing a piss-poor job. Listen to Pink Floyd's "Time" and then decide. I'm betting that you should follow your heart, take the programming job... and sell Reliv on the side.
--
Thought I'd something more to say...
I'm not "Docu-centric", I'm Project-centric. I do my folders per project. So I have C:\dev\proj... Why? What's the diff between "My Documents\Dev" and "C:\Dev"? Easy! sometimes I use the command line or some old school piece like WS_FTP. If I save a doc to My Docs\dev and go to FTP it up, where is it? C:\Documents and Settings\MyUserName\My Documents\dev. Oh yeah.. I can type THAT! Do I LOOK like a UNIX usr?
In MacOS, you can choose three general places where you save files, set in the Control Panel, General... App Folder, Last folder used, Docs folder...
In Windows... I DON'T KNOW! I've seen files try to be saved into the temp directory of the Temporary Internet Files with a hash of numbers because I just download something and that's the "current folder". That's useful... If I want to save it in C:\x\y\... i have to navigate my way up the tree. I could just do the dropdown to desktop, but sometimes that takes seconds to fill in. The Mac knows the path to where it is and immediatley loads up the dropdown for easy navigation in the tree.
This is a 2.6Ghz with 512MB of RAM. Why am I waiting? You know those right arrowheads on teh menus that pop open a submenu? Why do they take 3 seconds to load? It takes 6 seconds to get to a sub of a sub. Macs are super fast for that. THAT is why they feel "organic". I have a shortcut to a folder on my Quick Launch... it takes 4 seconds to open the folder after staring at a blank window frame. Why!?
Picture this. You open a folder with an image, x.jpg, open it, then save as x2.jpg. Now you want to drag drop it to FTP. Where is it? It's in the folder, which is sorted by date descending, It should be at the top. It's not, is it? It's at the bottom, so you have to F5, or double-flip the Date Modified tab to get the sort order correct. Does Microsoft actually USE this stuff? Macs pop the file where it belongs. THAT is "humane".
You need to do this.
http://www.apple.com/switch/tell/us.html
Whatever. I'm just glad he did. I'd rather use a 'Mac' than a 'Mick'.
--
Starglider29a, aka MacGlider (not McGlider... that sounds like an airplane made of "pieces parts')
Maybe its the Eggs of Random Number Gereators all spitting out ZEROES! That means that something REALLY BAD will happen in about 4 hours.
--
Sig, Sig, Sig, the number of the beast
Khabp'LA!
But, I know what you're saying. It's not bullshit. But there are some misnomers and misconceptions. I will try to expound on what I know you are saying.
- In general we are talking about a probe escaping Earth. Say, off to Saturn...
- After that, we are escaping the sun, as in Pioneer and V'Ger (before the upgrade
;-). In those cases, maximum velocity for minimum propellant is the goal.
- Orbits whose ellipses are the same major axis have equal period.
- High eccentricity orbits reach out farther than circular orbits of same major axis/period
- High eccentricity orbits require higher velocity near the planet/sun
- Until you hit escape velocity (a parabola or hyperbola) you are in a long ellipse
If you want to get a probe "out there" you want to burn at periapsis (Earth: perigee or Sun:perihelion). That leaves the peri at the same point and raises the other end. Do that enough times and you get escape on the last pass. Delta-V at any other point on the orbit will raise the peri and lower the apogee/aphelion. Propellant wasted.Often, satellites will burn at perigee, orbit around and repeat. This allows the same amount of propellant to get your there, but without the mass of a larger engine/structure. Smaller motor more often is more efficient, just takes longer. Nothing is free.
In short, you don't get more Delta-V, but you get it where you want it.
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"Illustrative Myth: Once you are out of earth orbit, you are halfway to anywhere."
Ok, sk8rboi left the bowl faster than he started. How? He got the added speed from the biker. Without the biker 'orbitting' the star, the sk8r would have hit the edge of the bowl with very little velocity left.
Galactic centered Black holes allow stars to orbit them very very fast, even in circles. But a star that falls IN past the black hole and then whips around an already-orbitting star get the total of falling into the center PLUS the speed of the orbitting star.
You don't get a slinghot with only one star, even a black hole. That whole thing with the Bird of Prey and the whales is just wrong.
Starglider29a
If time is money, does the Lorenz Equation dilate money as well?
Longer answer: "The catch" is the catching. Imagine 'skitching' on a bullet train...
- Get maximum benefit by standing still, but suffer maximum acceleration. You'd need a HUGE shock chord.
- Get minimum accerelation by matching the speed, minimize the shock, but it costs you more energy to match the speed at an acceptable velocity difference.
I know yer asking about "the gravity of the asteroid", but most asteroids gravity is so low that you would have to be nearly their speed to even get a boost.*** IF *** we had a tractor beam that we could feather in the attractive, it would work. But then, we could just aim it at Mars, wait 23 minutes and HANG ON! We could also 'lasso the moon' at moonset and paraglide up into space.
And leave "intergalactic planetary" to the Beastie Boys. At that rate, the outcast star will still take a BILLIONish Years to get to Andromeda.
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"The laws of orbital mechanics are as unforgiving as the laws of Supply-Side Ecomnomics"
We should do this for the Hubble Rescue Effort instead. Have Anna Nicole Smith as the spokesperson.
Disclaimer: I need the Hubble for a novel plot device.. selfish of me... Anyone have a spare dim-object telescope in orbit I can borrow?