"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
"... all men...", "... unalienable Rights",
Not "... some men..."
The problem seems to come from the belief by some that they have a morale obligation to impose their views or beliefs on everyone else.
Sure they don't have much capacity when compared to CDs or USB keys but lets not forget that there is still alot of hardware out there that does not support Booting from CDs or USB.
I'll chuck my floppy drive when DVDs become obsolete, maybe.
..they can build one that works as well as it looks. ..its affordable. ..the software to program the keys runs on Linux. ..it is well built and will not die when cat hair gets in it. ..the user gets to pick the images on the keys. ..once programed the kb stores its config and doesn't need any drivers loaded to work. .. they have an ergonomic design as well as standard.
If all (OK, most) of these conditions are met I'll definity buy a few when they become available. With the Gamming, programming and A/V editing that I do a keyboard like this would be great.
Even then its not safe. I remember awhile back when AS was showing a bunch of diferent episodes to see how the fans liked them they showed a few episodes of Evangelion. I only caught the second episode but I can tell you that they did an MAJOR hack job on it, since when would Misato wear a bikini top while taking a bath??
Personely if AS shows Eva I will not waste my time watching it, I'll just pull out my subtitled videos and watch it the way it was meant to be watched.
I have it on good authority that every power this administration has given itself, or tried to give itself since 9-11 and the tactics and retoric used to justify it is all straight out of 'Mein Kampf'. History is a great place to learn how to take over a country, just look at the people who managed it in the past, and then examine what they did to get ousted and either don't do the same thing or move to prevent it before you make the step that caused the uprising.
I'm just wondering when the bullets will start flying.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, for in there hearts they dream themselves your master"
There is already a strain of hemp used for textiles that has a max of ~1.5% THC, not enough for recreational use but thats what the other strians are for.
If anyone wants some REAL info about hemp in the US read "The Emperor Wears No Cloths" by Jack Herer. It details the history of Hemp and how it became iligal, and blows all the claims by D.A.R.E out of the water.
Your forgetting the two chemicals (molicules)can be made from the same elements (atoms) and have very different reations to their enviorment.
Also lets not forget that you don't always need to individualy identify a piece of paper, only where it was printed, ie which department/floor/printer/etc. to narrow down who could have generated it.
Think about it. Remember that each of the 70 chemicals can be used as a single bit in a very big number, add some chemicals to the Black ink and you have a id for the printer, how hard would it be backtrack from there?
This may not seem like much and I may sound paranoid but this is something that could end up endangering our freedoms.
Actualy VxWorks does have a way of generating a "core dump" of sorts. It doesn't do it by default like a desktop OS. You have to use Windview (a profiling tool), and it does affect OS overhead, hence it being off by default. It generates an image of what tasks/code where executing when the system crashed. Not quite a true core dump but if its setup right it can tell you where in your code the crash happend, sometimes even down to a specific block of code.
The fire wall is easy to set up, but the cost of the single VxWorks license would put you in hock for a year or so.
The OS itself needs less memory than you would think. For the rover I would guess the OS image is about 500K to 1M, but that doesn't say anything about how much memory its really using for the OS since it can run out of FLASH and leave the 128M of RAM for the stacks used by the tasks (individual RTOS proccess). I would imagine a lot of that RAM is being used for holding the images while they are being sent back to Earth or evaluated for navigation info.
The PowerPC its using is just a radiation hardend version a common CPU, I don't know which, and you can do a lot with a 20Mhz PPC. The training department used 860 PPC/20Mhz in the classes and never had any issues with task execution times, at least not until the system clock was cranked up to absurededly high speeds.
Unfortunatly for hobbiests and hackers everywhere Windriver has never came out with a "Personel" or non-comercial version of their software/license packages, despite one of the instructors pushing for it every chance he got. Managment at Windriver didn't go for the idea, in fact when they started shuting down the training department that instructore was the first to go. So much for Wind River encouraging inovation by the private developer.
Bottom line is that VxWorks is a great OS, versital to the point that someone even ported Doom onto it and ran it on a Kodak digital camera. However, in my opinion, the company is a bit lacking in the area of inspirering creative inovation and development by anyone who is not representing a MAJOR company/organisation like JPL or Boeing.
If you really want to try out a firewall on a real-time OS give QNX a shot, they have (last time I checked) a free development tools package that included a non-comercial "hobbiest" license for x86 CPUs and it supports USB, ethernet, openGL, and just about everything else VxWorks does.
Actualy test have shown that gaseous H2 is safer than liquid gasoline.
To adress your points;
should a rupture of the H2 tank occur the H2 would disapate upwards and be dispersed, lowering the danger of an explosion. In the same scenario with gasoline the fuel vapors would hug the ground and spread out till it was ignited, then the flame would travel back to the liquid and ignite that. What would you rather have if you where traped in a car? a single flame venting AWAY from the car, or a buring pool of gasoline and a fuel tank that would explode? An interesting point that was made about 9-11 is that if the planse had been using H2 instead of J4 fuel the WTC towers would not have colapsed, remember that the towers survived the impacts, it was the fire, the burning jet fuel, that caused the structure to melt and colapse.
As to your concern about "..a high-pressure flame-thrower.." yes there would be a flame jet, but thats all, one localized hot flame, not a spreading pool of burning liquid. Also, in a case where a vehicle powered by H2 where to catch fire the H2 tank would heat up till the relief valve triggered then the H2 would vent and dissapate, a gasoline tank would explode when the fuel hit flash point and then you would really have a mess.
Some years back (pre-net, no link sorry) I watched a safety demonstration of H2 tanks verses gasoline, H2 won hands down, here is why.
Puncture test, they fired bullet though a gasoline tank, BOOM!!!!, flaming gas in a 10 meter radius. Bullet through the H2 tank, small flame jet from the puncture till the tank was empty, no other damage.
Heat test, tank of sealed gasoline tank placed in a fire, result, BOOM!!!, flaming gas everywhere. H2 tank, release valve trips and the H2 vents (yes it ignited) away from tank.
fire supression, gasoline floats on water so you have to use CO2 or foam, plus it splaters when you hit it with a jet of water (think napalm), very bad. H2, a concentrated water mist can put out the flame in some cases and at minnimum it keeps the surounding matierial cool to prevent the fire from spreading.
Say what you want about H2 v. Gasoline, if my life was on the line I would want H2 fueling my vehicle. As soon as it becomes viable I'm getting my car converted.
It may be a lot of effort for a small amount of mass but think of the implications if they found a few amino acids in there, or maybe take a wild leap and imagine finding life. Its not impossible and from the results coming out of verous research into where life can survive its not even that hard to believe. Just think of the effect the discovery of non-terrestrial life could have on scociety.
Then again that effect might be pretty ugly considering how people react to anything that contradicts their safe, warm, comfortable view of how the world is. The goverment would classify it in the interest of "national security" to prevent a civil war or something.
Back in 2000 I trained a group of engineers/science type folks at JPL in Pasadena. One of the members of that class was part of the smaple return program that has the goal of returning samples from Mars, several comets, and a some asteroids as well. Stardust is just one of many projects along these lines. Stardust had been launched before I taught the class but one of my co-workers had taught the Stardust group.
The crumple shield concept wouldn't work at the velocitys involved for most of the targets but odds are they considered it, just look at the airbags used for Pathfinder and Beagle2. It could still work for smaller asteroids though.
As to all the talk about pathogens being returned to Earth by these probes, ala "Andromeda Strain", I did ask. There is an department whose ONLY job is to work out how ANY cross contamination can be prevented, they don't want to put terestrial pathogens onto other worlds either. I still worry about it a little but not as much as I did after that visit.
I take it you don't know about the vaso-dilator contained in cannabis. A hit can stop an asthma attack in its tracks. Tashkin, Dr. Donald, UCLA Pulmonary Studies 1969-1987
The auto industry and several private firms have been working on putting electric motors in the wheels of cars for years. There is a company, sorry can't remember the name, that has put these "pancake engins" on dirt bikes for use by military and police patrols. This is the first I've heard about where they turned it inside out though.
Another great thing about this is that it has a diesel powered generator in it. As another post pointed out a diesel works best at a steady RPM, also they can run on almost any type of fuel oil, including sunflower, canola, even the sap of a type of tree found in Brazil. The realy great thing about this sort of motor/generator configuration is that people would buy the car because the fuel is readly available, then once an economicly viable alterative to the diesel generator becomes available, be it fuel cell, cold fusion, whatever, you can replace the deisel engine without haveing to sink a boat load into a new car. This sort of hybrid concept has also been around for years.
A little off-tobic but on the subject of fuel cells, how about a fuel cell that uses gasoline? Fuel cells are more efficient and cleaner than internal combustion engines and gasoline is easy to get. I know there would still be issues about releasing old carbon into the air but the rate of change for joe sixpack would be low enough not to freak them out.
Voyager 1 and 2 only have about 8 watts of transmitter power.
I remember Carl Sagan once saying something about the total amount of energy reaching the earth as radio waves from radio sources in space, including space probes, being equivilant to the energy of a single snowflake hitting the ground. Why else would radio telescopes be so fracking big?
The atmospheric pressure on Mars is about the same as being 21 miles above the surface of Earth, IIRC. At that pressure you are effectivly in a vacume as far as things like humans are concerned.
Venus on the other hand has an atmospheric pressure of about 90ATM, or aprox. 1305LPS per square inch, thats more pressure than being under 2900 feet of water. Making a probe that can withstand that is not difficult, we do it all the time in marine exploration. The killer is the heat, once the probe is on the surface it starts to heat up to the 400C of the surounding air, the solder melts, resisters change values, basicly the probe gets roasted. The Russian probes that made it to the surface had been cooled to well below 0C before they where dropped. No cooling system yet devised can maintain a 400C tempature differance, all cooling works by "pumping heat" from one place to the next.
As pointed out the upper atmospher of Venus is much cooler, a simple hot air baloon could stay aloft for months if it had a nuclear heater to keep it floating.
The term "Assualt Rifle" is defined in military text books (sorry, no link handy), part of the definition describes that to be classed as an "Assualt Rifle" it must be capable of "full auto", ie, more than one round fired when you pull the trigger. True assualt rifles have been illegal in the USA for civilian use since before WW2, you can get a permit but it costs a bundle and the ATF, FBI, et al, get to check you out with a colonoscope. Same goes for suppressors, aka "silencers".
The term "Assualt Weapons" on the other hand has no set definition, its just something the congress critters and state politico's shout about when ever someone uses a civilian nock off of a true assualt rifle in a crime. The AK-47 that is always touted as an assualt weapon is in fact a true assualt rifle and controled under the laws relating to ownership of automatic firearms, but the "AK-47's" used in the "schoolyard massacres" are in fact a civilian version that can only fire in semi-auto. All of the "Assualt Weapons" that have been banned in various states CAN NOT fire in full auto as purchased. Yes, some "Assualt Weapons" can be modified to fire full auto, most can't, or at least not easily, and yes there are exceptions to this, nothing is ever absoulute.
All the laws to restrict or ban "Assualt Weapons" acomplish is deprive the average citizen of firepower that is close to what they will face if the people ever have to prevent the imposition of a tyrany through the force of arms, and even then the military will be better armed/trained/prepared. Don't think our troops would fire on unarmed civilians, two words, "Kent State", http://www.dispatch.com/news/newsfea00/ma y00/kentst0503.html
The fact of the mater is that a revolver can fire more rounds per second than an Assualt Weapon", the AKS just has more rounds to fire, and I have seen a revolver fire 16 rounds in under 4 seconds, even an M-16 cant beat that.
Are we sure about them being sterle? Think about it, they said that the Cylon that Adama trashed could not be distinguished from a "real" person, from a medical stand point he was human. So asuming they could not breed is not supported by the information presented. If true then the fleet can easily find all the cylon spys, just check who is infertile, sure a few humans get falsly acused but what the hell, this is survival of the species where talking about.
Slashdot Mirror
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
...", "... unalienable Rights",
..."
"... all men
Not "... some men
The problem seems to come from the belief by some that they have a morale obligation to impose their views or beliefs on everyone else.
"... people don't use floppys anymore."
Speak for yourself Dude. I still use floppies.
Sure they don't have much capacity when compared to CDs or USB keys but lets not forget that there is still alot of hardware out there that does not support Booting from CDs or USB.
I'll chuck my floppy drive when DVDs become obsolete, maybe.
..they can build one that works as well as it looks.
..its affordable.
..the software to program the keys runs on Linux.
..it is well built and will not die when cat hair gets in it.
..the user gets to pick the images on the keys.
..once programed the kb stores its config and doesn't need any drivers loaded to work.
.. they have an ergonomic design as well as standard.
If all (OK, most) of these conditions are met I'll definity buy a few when they become available. With the Gamming, programming and A/V editing that I do a keyboard like this would be great.
Even then its not safe. I remember awhile back when AS was showing a bunch of diferent episodes to see how the fans liked them they showed a few episodes of Evangelion. I only caught the second episode but I can tell you that they did an MAJOR hack job on it, since when would Misato wear a bikini top while taking a bath??
Personely if AS shows Eva I will not waste my time watching it, I'll just pull out my subtitled videos and watch it the way it was meant to be watched.
I have it on good authority that every power this administration has given itself, or tried to give itself since 9-11 and the tactics and retoric used to justify it is all straight out of 'Mein Kampf'. History is a great place to learn how to take over a country, just look at the people who managed it in the past, and then examine what they did to get ousted and either don't do the same thing or move to prevent it before you make the step that caused the uprising.
I'm just wondering when the bullets will start flying.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, for in there hearts they dream themselves your master"
There is already a strain of hemp used for textiles that has a max of ~1.5% THC, not enough for recreational use but thats what the other strians are for.
If anyone wants some REAL info about hemp in the US read "The Emperor Wears No Cloths" by Jack Herer. It details the history of Hemp and how it became iligal, and blows all the claims by D.A.R.E out of the water.
Read, search the internet, get the truth.
Your forgetting the two chemicals (molicules)can be made from the same elements (atoms) and have very different reations to their enviorment.
Also lets not forget that you don't always need to individualy identify a piece of paper, only where it was printed, ie which department/floor/printer/etc. to narrow down who could have generated it.
Think about it. Remember that each of the 70 chemicals can be used as a single bit in a very big number, add some chemicals to the Black ink and you have a id for the printer, how hard would it be backtrack from there?
This may not seem like much and I may sound paranoid but this is something that could end up endangering our freedoms.
Actualy VxWorks does have a way of generating a "core dump" of sorts. It doesn't do it by default like a desktop OS. You have to use Windview (a profiling tool), and it does affect OS overhead, hence it being off by default. It generates an image of what tasks/code where executing when the system crashed. Not quite a true core dump but if its setup right it can tell you where in your code the crash happend, sometimes even down to a specific block of code.
I can give you some answers.
The fire wall is easy to set up, but the cost of the single VxWorks license would put you in hock for a year or so.
The OS itself needs less memory than you would think. For the rover I would guess the OS image is about 500K to 1M, but that doesn't say anything about how much memory its really using for the OS since it can run out of FLASH and leave the 128M of RAM for the stacks used by the tasks (individual RTOS proccess). I would imagine a lot of that RAM is being used for holding the images while they are being sent back to Earth or evaluated for navigation info.
The PowerPC its using is just a radiation hardend version a common CPU, I don't know which, and you can do a lot with a 20Mhz PPC. The training department used 860 PPC/20Mhz in the classes and never had any issues with task execution times, at least not until the system clock was cranked up to absurededly high speeds.
Unfortunatly for hobbiests and hackers everywhere Windriver has never came out with a "Personel" or non-comercial version of their software/license packages, despite one of the instructors pushing for it every chance he got. Managment at Windriver didn't go for the idea, in fact when they started shuting down the training department that instructore was the first to go. So much for Wind River encouraging inovation by the private developer.
Bottom line is that VxWorks is a great OS, versital to the point that someone even ported Doom onto it and ran it on a Kodak digital camera. However, in my opinion, the company is a bit lacking in the area of inspirering creative inovation and development by anyone who is not representing a MAJOR company/organisation like JPL or Boeing.
If you really want to try out a firewall on a real-time OS give QNX a shot, they have (last time I checked) a free development tools package that included a non-comercial "hobbiest" license for x86 CPUs and it supports USB, ethernet, openGL, and just about everything else VxWorks does.
Actualy test have shown that gaseous H2 is safer than liquid gasoline.
To adress your points;
should a rupture of the H2 tank occur the H2 would disapate upwards and be dispersed, lowering the danger of an explosion. In the same scenario with gasoline the fuel vapors would hug the ground and spread out till it was ignited, then the flame would travel back to the liquid and ignite that. What would you rather have if you where traped in a car? a single flame venting AWAY from the car, or a buring pool of gasoline and a fuel tank that would explode? An interesting point that was made about 9-11 is that if the planse had been using H2 instead of J4 fuel the WTC towers would not have colapsed, remember that the towers survived the impacts, it was the fire, the burning jet fuel, that caused the structure to melt and colapse.
As to your concern about "..a high-pressure flame-thrower.." yes there would be a flame jet, but thats all, one localized hot flame, not a spreading pool of burning liquid. Also, in a case where a vehicle powered by H2 where to catch fire the H2 tank would heat up till the relief valve triggered then the H2 would vent and dissapate, a gasoline tank would explode when the fuel hit flash point and then you would really have a mess.
Some years back (pre-net, no link sorry) I watched a safety demonstration of H2 tanks verses gasoline, H2 won hands down, here is why.
Puncture test, they fired bullet though a gasoline tank, BOOM!!!!, flaming gas in a 10 meter radius. Bullet through the H2 tank, small flame jet from the puncture till the tank was empty, no other damage.
Heat test, tank of sealed gasoline tank placed in a fire, result, BOOM!!!, flaming gas everywhere. H2 tank, release valve trips and the H2 vents (yes it ignited) away from tank.
fire supression, gasoline floats on water so you have to use CO2 or foam, plus it splaters when you hit it with a jet of water (think napalm), very bad. H2, a concentrated water mist can put out the flame in some cases and at minnimum it keeps the surounding matierial cool to prevent the fire from spreading.
Say what you want about H2 v. Gasoline, if my life was on the line I would want H2 fueling my vehicle. As soon as it becomes viable I'm getting my car converted.
Somebody set off an EMP near him?
Sure you could be charged with destroying private property but could you be charged with assualt as Mann would doubtlessy claim?
Instructions for casino employees;
1. put $500 chip in anti-static bag
2. leave building
3. Profit!!!!!
It may be a lot of effort for a small amount of mass but think of the implications if they found a few amino acids in there, or maybe take a wild leap and imagine finding life. Its not impossible and from the results coming out of verous research into where life can survive its not even that hard to believe. Just think of the effect the discovery of non-terrestrial life could have on scociety.
Then again that effect might be pretty ugly considering how people react to anything that contradicts their safe, warm, comfortable view of how the world is. The goverment would classify it in the interest of "national security" to prevent a civil war or something.
Back in 2000 I trained a group of engineers/science type folks at JPL in Pasadena. One of the members of that class was part of the smaple return program that has the goal of returning samples from Mars, several comets, and a some asteroids as well. Stardust is just one of many projects along these lines. Stardust had been launched before I taught the class but one of my co-workers had taught the Stardust group.
The crumple shield concept wouldn't work at the velocitys involved for most of the targets but odds are they considered it, just look at the airbags used for Pathfinder and Beagle2. It could still work for smaller asteroids though.
As to all the talk about pathogens being returned to Earth by these probes, ala "Andromeda Strain", I did ask. There is an department whose ONLY job is to work out how ANY cross contamination can be prevented, they don't want to put terestrial pathogens onto other worlds either.
I still worry about it a little but not as much as I did after that visit.
I take it you don't know about the vaso-dilator contained in cannabis. A hit can stop an asthma attack in its tracks.
Tashkin, Dr. Donald, UCLA Pulmonary Studies 1969-1987
Maybe the text is the original version of the Necronomicon. We can't read it because its in the language of the Elder Gods.
This engine sounds aa awfull lot like the motor of a floppy disk drive. Fixed coils with a ring of magnets.
The auto industry and several private firms have been working on putting electric motors in the wheels of cars for years. There is a company, sorry can't remember the name, that has put these "pancake engins" on dirt bikes for use by military and police patrols. This is the first I've heard about where they turned it inside out though.
Another great thing about this is that it has a diesel powered generator in it. As another post pointed out a diesel works best at a steady RPM, also they can run on almost any type of fuel oil, including sunflower, canola, even the sap of a type of tree found in Brazil.
The realy great thing about this sort of motor/generator configuration is that people would buy the car because the fuel is readly available, then once an economicly viable alterative to the diesel generator becomes available, be it fuel cell, cold fusion, whatever, you can replace the deisel engine without haveing to sink a boat load into a new car. This sort of hybrid concept has also been around for years.
A little off-tobic but on the subject of fuel cells, how about a fuel cell that uses gasoline? Fuel cells are more efficient and cleaner than internal combustion engines and gasoline is easy to get. I know there would still be issues about releasing old carbon into the air but the rate of change for joe sixpack would be low enough not to freak them out.
The name for the Mark 2 version with a pair of enhanced radio anteneas; Bassalope
Voyager 1 and 2 only have about 8 watts of transmitter power.
I remember Carl Sagan once saying something about the total amount of energy reaching the earth as radio waves from radio sources in space, including space probes, being equivilant to the energy of a single snowflake hitting the ground. Why else would radio telescopes be so fracking big?
The atmospheric pressure on Mars is about the same as being 21 miles above the surface of Earth, IIRC. At that pressure you are effectivly in a vacume as far as things like humans are concerned.
Venus on the other hand has an atmospheric pressure of about 90ATM, or aprox. 1305LPS per square inch, thats more pressure than being under 2900 feet of water. Making a probe that can withstand that is not difficult, we do it all the time in marine exploration. The killer is the heat, once the probe is on the surface it starts to heat up to the 400C of the surounding air, the solder melts, resisters change values, basicly the probe gets roasted. The Russian probes that made it to the surface had been cooled to well below 0C before they where dropped. No cooling system yet devised can maintain a 400C tempature differance, all cooling works by "pumping heat" from one place to the next.
As pointed out the upper atmospher of Venus is much cooler, a simple hot air baloon could stay aloft for months if it had a nuclear heater to keep it floating.
from the article
Mr.Sessions said "I think the Lord uses people to do his work,"
he forgot the devil does as well.
A bit off topic, but;
a y00/kentst0503.html
The term "Assualt Rifle" is defined in military text books (sorry, no link handy), part of the definition describes that to be classed as an "Assualt Rifle" it must be capable of "full auto", ie, more than one round fired when you pull the trigger. True assualt rifles have been illegal in the USA for civilian use since before WW2, you can get a permit but it costs a bundle and the ATF, FBI, et al, get to check you out with a colonoscope. Same goes for suppressors, aka "silencers".
The term "Assualt Weapons" on the other hand has no set definition, its just something the congress critters and state politico's shout about when ever someone uses a civilian nock off of a true assualt rifle in a crime. The AK-47 that is always touted as an assualt weapon is in fact a true assualt rifle and controled under the laws relating to ownership of automatic firearms, but the "AK-47's" used in the "schoolyard massacres" are in fact a civilian version that can only fire in semi-auto. All of the "Assualt Weapons" that have been banned in various states CAN NOT fire in full auto as purchased. Yes, some "Assualt Weapons" can be modified to fire full auto, most can't, or at least not easily, and yes there are exceptions to this, nothing is ever absoulute.
All the laws to restrict or ban "Assualt Weapons" acomplish is deprive the average citizen of firepower that is close to what they will face if the people ever have to prevent the imposition of a tyrany through the force of arms, and even then the military will be better armed/trained/prepared. Don't think our troops would fire on unarmed civilians, two words, "Kent State",
http://www.dispatch.com/news/newsfea00/m
The fact of the mater is that a revolver can fire more rounds per second than an Assualt Weapon", the AKS just has more rounds to fire, and I have seen a revolver fire 16 rounds in under 4 seconds, even an M-16 cant beat that.
Are we sure about them being sterle? Think about it, they said that the Cylon that Adama trashed could not be distinguished from a "real" person, from a medical stand point he was human. So asuming they could not breed is not supported by the information presented. If true then the fleet can easily find all the cylon spys, just check who is infertile, sure a few humans get falsly acused but what the hell, this is survival of the species where talking about.
Iran, 1953, the US put in the Sha. Guatemala, 1954, US put in a dictator. Brazil, 1964, yet another dictator. All had democraticly elected goverments.
n am.htm#order
http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/2010/viet