Glad to help. It bugged me for years too, lunar buggy, the Russian lunar rover, Sojourner (Pathfinder), all used wheels and I wanted to know why.
For traction and multi terrain ability you can't beat treads, especially if you have the horse power to back them up, but for weight, simplicity and reliability you can't beat wheels.
It was a trade off, weight/reliability won.
I wonder how they would manage a rover for Europa, wheels would be more likely to sink into the snow/ice. Pity I'm not still in contact with anyone at JPL.
I was software. But I did ask someone about that when I was at JPL a few months before they arrived on another job.
In short; to use treads you already have to have wheels. Wheels are more reliable, less total moving parts and are lighter. If a rock or enough sand were to get between the drive wheel and tread it disables the tread. On Earth a tank has the horse power and a crew to deal with it. Ever notice how even modern tanks always carry extra tread links with them?
Tread probably would have prevented Spirit from getting stuck in the sand trap it's in now, but they would have also ended the mission at a much earlier date. Don't forget that Spirit had been dragging one of its wheels even before it became stuck in the sand.
The guy hated doing IT related stuff, he just wanted to be run the CNC mills. I doubt he has even bothered to change the root password on the servers much less update the backup scripts. Unless both of the disks (RAID 1) on the main server crash I doubt they will even know if the backups are valid.
My preference is Earl Grey, and for the same reason. But I share a place with a coffee drinker, with limited counter space its not practical to have both a kettle and coffee pot out at the same time. Had enough trouble getting room to keep my stand mixer out, so I drink a lot of coffee.
It did cross my mind, but its not my nature. It would have cost other people, who had nothing to do with the violations, their jobs if the BSA came in and effectively shut the place down by seizing the servers . I wouldn't mind if the boss get vivisected but I couldn't do anything that would hurt everyone else.
The boss is not always right, but they are always the Boss.
And I did what I was told, most of the time.
I dug my heals in at times, refused to delete backups containing financial information rather than buy extra backup media, which would have been a felony under some of the laws that got passed after Enron, or refused to put the company at risk by trying to download apps on torrents, lest it attract the BSA's attention. I may be willing to follow orders but I was not going to risk jail time or the lively hood of my co-workers.
I think the biggest thing that got me was I did my job too well. When I started the network needed daily babysitting, some printer wasn't working, or a VOIP phone was buggy. Always something, so I was running around dealing with brush fires all the time, they saw that and thought "Oh, hes doing something". After I had cleaned up the network configs, updated phone firmware, etc., I spent most of my time in my office improving the automation, security and reliability of the IT operations. To an outsider it looked like I wasn't doing anything, and they didn't understand when I explained it to them. Hence I was considered unneeded.
However, I am not averse to answering any questions the BSA may ask as long as it doesn't compromise my NDA and security ethics, so nothing about the network config or engineering projects the company worked on while I there. The software isn't covered in that.
I was involved with this project when the rovers where still being built. When you build or are otherwise involved in something you really believe in like this you can't help anthropomorphizing them.
To most its just a machine, a worthless hunk of metal, but to those who put there hearts and souls into this program those rovers are almost as precious as children. Its part of human nature to imbue objects with an identity, a soul, just look at how people treat cars, plans, boats, etc..
Sprite and Opportunity carried more than just a bunch of electronics to Mars, they carried the dreams and hopes of all those who choose join it in its journey.
To those, like myself, who consider the rovers to be more than the sum of their parts it will be a very sad day when Sprite is officially listed as dead. And to those who would laugh at us because they can't care for anything beyond themselves or limit their love to only humans, I pity you.
Which highlights the point that whoever is downloading the torrent at Intel must be doing so with authorization.
As to your question of "what kind of IT department..." I can answer that one. Last place I worked as IT manager, but not by my choice, I wanted to lock the firewall down and block everything but web, email and a VPN port. I was overridden by the Boss, seems one of the guy in the machine shop (who also did the IT support before me, Goddess! what a mess!) had been downloading torrents of MS Office, Solidworks, MasterCam, Win XP and just about every software app they had in the office. Every time I tried to bring up the issue and try to get auth to start getting licenses I was told it would be too expensive. This was during the same time that the boss/owner took $400,000 out of the company accounts to buy a new house, he was also laying people off because their wasn't enough work for them.
When the employee count got down to 25 I was laid off too on the premise that they didn't think they needed a full time IT department, the guy from the machine shop was going to babysit the network again. Thing that pisses me off if as long as he doesn't fuck with it will run smoothly until a hardware failure. I had set everything up to be just about idiot proof. Makes me think I did my job too well but its the only way I know how to do things.
Anyone else remember how Adobe got the FBI to arrest and charged Sklyarov?
It doesn't matter what some mediadroid says. All it would take is one phone call from the right person at AT&T to the right person in the DOJ.
AT&T could deny any and all prior knowledge when the Feds arrest the presenter for breaking some law or another. Hell, AT&T could even call for his release afterward knowing that history would repeat itself.
Considering how big AT&T is again there really isn't anything anyone can do even if they did move openly. Boycott? HA!, how many of us can afford to give up our cell phones, home phones and Internet connections in protest? AT&T knows they have most of us by the tender bits.
Family is really big in most parts of the world, most people won't risk loosing the ability to have lots of children to take care of them when they get old.
I liked lethal force. Either it got used, or it didn't. Generally it didn't.
That is a really good point.
Before all this "non-lethal" crap was deployed the police had two alternative, defuse a situation peacefully without the use of force or use force to hurt/kill people and fuck with their public approval rating. By selling all these gizmos (Tazer, ADS, sonic canon, etc.) as "non-lethal" the police have less reason to NOT escalate a situation and use these devices against unarmed groups. When someone gets maimed or killed the police can say that it was an "unfortunate accident" because they didn't intend to hurt anyone and that they only used $NONLETHAL_DEVICE to ensure the safety of the officers involved and the general public.
Yeah, now pull the other one.
Problem is the harder they push the more likely people will start pushing back, and since the public doesn't have all these "non lethal" devices they will have to go straight to lethal force.
I give it two, maybe three, years tops before some metropolitan police force gets one of these or a "domestic variant", and about 6 months or less before they use it on some crowd.
Probably sooner.
After all the money the company spent developing these they are going to want to get something out of it.
And the Geneva Conventions don't apply to country's using weapons like these on their own citizens.
I wonder what would happen if you covered your exposed skin with powdered aluminum?
Harmless nutjobs like Phelps are not worth getting riled over, they are just harmlessly exercising their First Amendment Rights and providing entertainment to people who are more open minded.
The ones you have to watch, and the ones to whom your solution will likely be applied one day, are those who listen to nutjobs and use them to push through laws that take away rights of those who don't agree with the original nutjobs for their own short term benefit.
Those are the real threats, the ones with political/financial power and short sighted, selfish agendas that have no problem fucking over 99% of the population of the Earth if it makes them some money or increases their influence with others who also have power.
A few months ago I installed Debian/KDE 3.5 on a clients computer because she HATED Windows 7, said it was such a pain to use compared to XP.
I showed her my laptop with KDE running and she liked it so she had me put it on her desktop system. After a hour or so showing her around and loading the software she wanted, Firefox, Thunderbird, Open Office and GIMP (she was thrilled that she didn't have to shell out for Photoshop to edit her photos) she started poking around.
3 months on she loves it, say's its much better than Windows 7 was and she is quite happy with it.
Oh, and she is 84, not a geek/nerd/techy, she is in fact a writer/amateur photographer who's computer skill level could be said to be about average.
Anyone can USE Linux/KDE/GNOME, its getting the it installed, configured and getting any new hardware installed that takes a tech, after that its as easy/hard for the average user as Windows is.
Descent 3 could do quite well without one and it had 6 axis freedom (+- XYZ and rotation on them as well) which is much closer to real space combat than ships that handle like planes. I want to be able to strafe sideways and up while keeping my guns on target.
But I' in agreement that, at least for me, a joystick was what really made the game playable. I had +- pitch and +- yaw on the joystick and all other motion vector controls mapped to my Nostromo N52, talk about freedom of movement!! But there are some gamers out there who would hand me my tail on a platter with nothing but a keyboard and mouse, I guess its just whatever your used to.
Slashdot Mirror
An Earth bound telescope finally beat a space telescope built 20 years ago.
All Kidding aside, High fives to everyone involved. This is some cool tech.
My mother takes her car to the dealer for oil changes, but even she has a set of jumper cables in her car.
I'm for that, though I'm probably not going to live long enough to visit it, much less afford the round trip fare.
Glad to help. It bugged me for years too, lunar buggy, the Russian lunar rover, Sojourner (Pathfinder), all used wheels and I wanted to know why.
For traction and multi terrain ability you can't beat treads, especially if you have the horse power to back them up, but for weight, simplicity and reliability you can't beat wheels.
It was a trade off, weight/reliability won.
I wonder how they would manage a rover for Europa, wheels would be more likely to sink into the snow/ice. Pity I'm not still in contact with anyone at JPL.
I was software. But I did ask someone about that when I was at JPL a few months before they arrived on another job.
In short; to use treads you already have to have wheels. Wheels are more reliable, less total moving parts and are lighter. If a rock or enough sand were to get between the drive wheel and tread it disables the tread. On Earth a tank has the horse power and a crew to deal with it. Ever notice how even modern tanks always carry extra tread links with them?
Tread probably would have prevented Spirit from getting stuck in the sand trap it's in now, but they would have also ended the mission at a much earlier date. Don't forget that Spirit had been dragging one of its wheels even before it became stuck in the sand.
The guy hated doing IT related stuff, he just wanted to be run the CNC mills. I doubt he has even bothered to change the root password on the servers much less update the backup scripts. Unless both of the disks (RAID 1) on the main server crash I doubt they will even know if the backups are valid.
My preference is Earl Grey, and for the same reason. But I share a place with a coffee drinker, with limited counter space its not practical to have both a kettle and coffee pot out at the same time. Had enough trouble getting room to keep my stand mixer out, so I drink a lot of coffee.
It did cross my mind, but its not my nature. It would have cost other people, who had nothing to do with the violations, their jobs if the BSA came in and effectively shut the place down by seizing the servers . I wouldn't mind if the boss get vivisected but I couldn't do anything that would hurt everyone else.
The boss is not always right, but they are always the Boss.
And I did what I was told, most of the time.
I dug my heals in at times, refused to delete backups containing financial information rather than buy extra backup media, which would have been a felony under some of the laws that got passed after Enron, or refused to put the company at risk by trying to download apps on torrents, lest it attract the BSA's attention. I may be willing to follow orders but I was not going to risk jail time or the lively hood of my co-workers.
I think the biggest thing that got me was I did my job too well. When I started the network needed daily babysitting, some printer wasn't working, or a VOIP phone was buggy. Always something, so I was running around dealing with brush fires all the time, they saw that and thought "Oh, hes doing something". After I had cleaned up the network configs, updated phone firmware, etc., I spent most of my time in my office improving the automation, security and reliability of the IT operations. To an outsider it looked like I wasn't doing anything, and they didn't understand when I explained it to them. Hence I was considered unneeded.
I thought about it but its not my style.
However, I am not averse to answering any questions the BSA may ask as long as it doesn't compromise my NDA and security ethics, so nothing about the network config or engineering projects the company worked on while I there. The software isn't covered in that.
Whoops! My bad.
I am going to get (deservedly) ripped for this aren't I?
I plead diminished capacity, I was only on my first cup of coffee.
I was involved with this project when the rovers where still being built. When you build or are otherwise involved in something you really believe in like this you can't help anthropomorphizing them.
To most its just a machine, a worthless hunk of metal, but to those who put there hearts and souls into this program those rovers are almost as precious as children. Its part of human nature to imbue objects with an identity, a soul, just look at how people treat cars, plans, boats, etc..
Sprite and Opportunity carried more than just a bunch of electronics to Mars, they carried the dreams and hopes of all those who choose join it in its journey.
To those, like myself, who consider the rovers to be more than the sum of their parts it will be a very sad day when Sprite is officially listed as dead. And to those who would laugh at us because they can't care for anything beyond themselves or limit their love to only humans, I pity you.
Which highlights the point that whoever is downloading the torrent at Intel must be doing so with authorization.
..." I can answer that one. Last place I worked as IT manager, but not by my choice, I wanted to lock the firewall down and block everything but web, email and a VPN port. I was overridden by the Boss, seems one of the guy in the machine shop (who also did the IT support before me, Goddess! what a mess!) had been downloading torrents of MS Office, Solidworks, MasterCam, Win XP and just about every software app they had in the office. Every time I tried to bring up the issue and try to get auth to start getting licenses I was told it would be too expensive. This was during the same time that the boss/owner took $400,000 out of the company accounts to buy a new house, he was also laying people off because their wasn't enough work for them.
As to your question of "what kind of IT department
When the employee count got down to 25 I was laid off too on the premise that they didn't think they needed a full time IT department, the guy from the machine shop was going to babysit the network again. Thing that pisses me off if as long as he doesn't fuck with it will run smoothly until a hardware failure. I had set everything up to be just about idiot proof. Makes me think I did my job too well but its the only way I know how to do things.
It would probably turn out to be a Tax dodger.
Maybe an big import tariff?
Even if the odds were 100% that it would hit it would be 171.5 years before any bureaucrat does anything.
Anyone else remember how Adobe got the FBI to arrest and charged Sklyarov?
It doesn't matter what some mediadroid says. All it would take is one phone call from the right person at AT&T to the right person in the DOJ.
AT&T could deny any and all prior knowledge when the Feds arrest the presenter for breaking some law or another. Hell, AT&T could even call for his release afterward knowing that history would repeat itself.
Considering how big AT&T is again there really isn't anything anyone can do even if they did move openly. Boycott? HA!, how many of us can afford to give up our cell phones, home phones and Internet connections in protest? AT&T knows they have most of us by the tender bits.
By choosing not to defend his statements in a debate Williams has shown that even he doesn't think they are worth talking about.
I remember hearing that, it was long before they found out about how even low level microwaves could cause cataracts. I hear they don't do it anymore.
Or sterilize the males/females.
Family is really big in most parts of the world, most people won't risk loosing the ability to have lots of children to take care of them when they get old.
I liked lethal force. Either it got used, or it didn't. Generally it didn't.
That is a really good point.
Before all this "non-lethal" crap was deployed the police had two alternative, defuse a situation peacefully without the use of force or use force to hurt/kill people and fuck with their public approval rating. By selling all these gizmos (Tazer, ADS, sonic canon, etc.) as "non-lethal" the police have less reason to NOT escalate a situation and use these devices against unarmed groups. When someone gets maimed or killed the police can say that it was an "unfortunate accident" because they didn't intend to hurt anyone and that they only used $NONLETHAL_DEVICE to ensure the safety of the officers involved and the general public.
Yeah, now pull the other one.
Problem is the harder they push the more likely people will start pushing back, and since the public doesn't have all these "non lethal" devices they will have to go straight to lethal force.
The sales rep probably told them it would cause any in women range to get hot for them.
I give it two, maybe three, years tops before some metropolitan police force gets one of these or a "domestic variant", and about 6 months or less before they use it on some crowd.
Probably sooner.
After all the money the company spent developing these they are going to want to get something out of it.
And the Geneva Conventions don't apply to country's using weapons like these on their own citizens.
I wonder what would happen if you covered your exposed skin with powdered aluminum?
Harmless nutjobs like Phelps are not worth getting riled over, they are just harmlessly exercising their First Amendment Rights and providing entertainment to people who are more open minded.
The ones you have to watch, and the ones to whom your solution will likely be applied one day, are those who listen to nutjobs and use them to push through laws that take away rights of those who don't agree with the original nutjobs for their own short term benefit.
Those are the real threats, the ones with political/financial power and short sighted, selfish agendas that have no problem fucking over 99% of the population of the Earth if it makes them some money or increases their influence with others who also have power.
A few months ago I installed Debian/KDE 3.5 on a clients computer because she HATED Windows 7, said it was such a pain to use compared to XP.
I showed her my laptop with KDE running and she liked it so she had me put it on her desktop system. After a hour or so showing her around and loading the software she wanted, Firefox, Thunderbird, Open Office and GIMP (she was thrilled that she didn't have to shell out for Photoshop to edit her photos) she started poking around.
3 months on she loves it, say's its much better than Windows 7 was and she is quite happy with it.
Oh, and she is 84, not a geek/nerd/techy, she is in fact a writer/amateur photographer who's computer skill level could be said to be about average.
Anyone can USE Linux/KDE/GNOME, its getting the it installed, configured and getting any new hardware installed that takes a tech, after that its as easy/hard for the average user as Windows is.
Descent 3 could do quite well without one and it had 6 axis freedom (+- XYZ and rotation on them as well) which is much closer to real space combat than ships that handle like planes. I want to be able to strafe sideways and up while keeping my guns on target.
But I' in agreement that, at least for me, a joystick was what really made the game playable. I had +- pitch and +- yaw on the joystick and all other motion vector controls mapped to my Nostromo N52, talk about freedom of movement!! But there are some gamers out there who would hand me my tail on a platter with nothing but a keyboard and mouse, I guess its just whatever your used to.