I quit a couple of months after it launched, when I found that Holocron and the rest of the Devs had been lying to us. All through beta testing, they were promising this fantastic, dynamic, and unique for each character system where you could become force sensitive. I specifically asked Holo on the beta forum "It's not going to be something lame like having to master randomly chosen professions, is it?" and he told me no, that's not what it would be. Well, a few months into the live game when they finally started revealing info on the jedi, guess how you became one? Yep, you had to master a couple of professions randomly selected for you by the server. I cancelled my subscription that day and have never looked back. I don't appreciate being lied to and applaud the approaching death of SWG.
If you're looking for an ethernet-equipped DVD player that can handle Divx and a variety of other video and audio formats, check out the Momitsu v880N. I've had mine for about a year and love it. It has no trouble pulling music and movies from my PC upstairs. It also includes USB and a PCMCIA slot for directly connecting media to the player. As gravy, it even features a DVI output, and will scale video to pretty much any resolution you want.
Well, pretty much all US military and government websites that need a username/password for access now also require you to insert the smartcard to access your PKI certificate. Even some sites that DON'T require user accounts demand for the card to be inserted.
Some uses of the card are generally ignored, however. For example, you can log into a computer by inserting the card OR by keying in your username and password. Nobody does that, because it's inevitable that you'll go off and leave your card in the machine, then be unable to get back into the building or even onto the base because the same card is also what you have to show for ID.
Actually, the US military and government makes extensive use of the smartcard functionallity, for the purposes you mentioned and more. We have for many years.
"Warner has not dropped HD-DVD. Like most studios, they are now backing both formats."
That should read... "Like ONE other studio, they are now backing both formats." About half of all studios support HD-DVD and ALL of them except one now Blu-Ray.
Yes, and forces everyone to use MORE electricity in the MORNING. End result? Negligible benefit. The only good change to DST would be to eliminate it (or we all just get fed up and move to the places that are already DST-free.)
Oh, come on on... Redundant? I can understand the 2nd or 3rd or 4th or more "overlords" post being redundant, but not the FIRST one. That makes no sense at all. Back to meta-modding for you!
Well, I guess it could be because of the animated ones that cover up the actual page I'm trying to look at, or flash at 30Hz giving me a headache, or make really loud noises out of my speakers, or make the pages take forever to load, or... I could go on, but what's the point?
Simple, relevant, unobtrusive ads like Google uses don't get blocked. In fact, they even get CLICKED. Every now and then, they even result in a purchase.
Unfortunately, since I do most of my ad-blocking via my HOSTS file, a lot of the acceptable ads have to get thrown out with the garbage. That's not my fault, though. The advertising companies (and their clients) have no one to blame but themselves.
This reads to me something like "If anybody tells you can't do something with a computer, and you do it anyway, it's a crime."
Change that to "If anybody tells you that you can't do something with THEIR computer, and you do it anyway, it's a crime" and you'll be on-target. That sounds fair to me.
The Olduvai Theory was an interesting read, but it was published 9 years ago. I have to wonder if the past decade has continued the apparant trend Duncan found or diverged from it.
I also couldn't care less which format wins, as long as one of them does, and quickly. I don't expect that to happen, though. Both sides are ignoring something very very basic...
They are absolutely dependent on the "early adopters" to buy into the new HD players when they appear and get the transition started. And yet, those early adopters are the exact same people they are telling to "bend over and take it in the ass." Early adopters bought their HDTVs years ago. They didn't have DVI or HDMI connectors then. Early adopter's HDTVs are equipped only with analog component inputs for HD resolutions. Guess what neither the HD-DVD or the Blu Ray camps are offering? Component outputs, of course. HD resolutions will only be offered over digital DVI/HDMI.
It even gets worse... HDCP will be required. Early (most) DVI-capable HDTVs don't support HDCP. So, essentially ALL of the early adopters are being told to replace the HDTVs they just bought a couple of years ago with new ones that aren't any better than the not-quite-so-new ones (I hesitate to use the word "old" to describe any HDTV) except for having a digital input.
Not many early adopters appreciate that attitude on the part of the studios and electronics companies. I know I don't. Many home-theater enthusiests, the very target of these HD formats, are crying fowl. Why would they bother buying a HD player that won't output HD to the HDTV they just bought a couple of years ago? Why would they replace a HDTV that cost thousands of dollars (and is now worth very little because the HD players aren't offering component outputs) that is only a couple of years old when the newer one IS NOT ANY BETTER than the "old" one? If they're going to have to watch analog SD video anyway, they might as well just stick with regular DVD. The results will be the same image quality.
Neither format is going to have anything remotely like the explosive growth of SD DVD. Sony and Toshiba have managed to royally piss off the very people they are relying on the most for success. A lot of home-theater enthusiests will be sitting on the sideline, watching both teams flounder.
I'd have to agree. I really enjoyed Colonization and would love to see it brought up to date. If not, I hope Civ IV will be flexible enough that somebody can do a Colonization mod.
Actually, Skylab was an unused S-IVB upper stage that got turned into a space station. If the later Apollo missions had not been cancelled, that S-IVB would have been used to launch a lunar flight.
Dramatically extending the cable rather than using a large counterweight also allows us to take advantage of the Earth's rotational velocity to launch interplanetary spaceflights very cheaply. The cable-end will be whipping around at MUCH higher than earth-orbital velocity at that altitude. Just wait at the end until just the right moment and let go to be FLUNG toward your destination. If your target world has an atmosphere (Mars or Venus) you can aerobrake upon arrival and make the entire journey almost propellent-free.
Because the CENTER OF MASS of the cable has to be in geosynchronous orbit. If the cable stopped at geo, it would just fall down and wrap itself around the planet.
I can think of a couple of reasons:
1) Economy of Scale. Since you "have" to build SSMEs anyway to launch the CEV, it might be cheaper overall to just build a single type of engine that can be used by both the manned and unmanned launchers. That's a subject open to debate, however.
2) Using already man-rated engines would greatly simplify man-rating the heavy cargo lifter sometime in the future. That would probably be pretty useful for flights to Mars or even other more distant destinations.
Re:The Moon for 100 Billion, Mars for 20 Billion?
on
NASA's New Shuttle
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· Score: 1
Oh, sure, if we had operational commercial fusion reactors then we'd be all OVER the moon strip-mining the He3 impregnated by the solar wind, but those things have been "20 years away" for the last 50 years. Until then, the moon has no commercially viable export products.
Any material resources would be much more economical to obtain (both in extraction and transportation) either where they're needed (surface of Mars) or from the asteroids (especially Near Earth Asteroids) for use on Earth or Mars.
Even lunar-based solar power arrays would be barely competitive with Earth-based ones, when you factor in all the losses from beaming the power back and two weeks of down-time during lunar night.
For now, there's just NO reason to go to the moon, other than pure scientific research. I'm all for that, of course, but the focus of our manned spaceflight should be on Mars, which is unique in the solar system as it has all the right resources and physical characteristics to easily become a home to a second branch of humanity.
So, we really should be designing spacecraft intended to travel to Mars but which are also capable of lunar operations to support science there, NOT lunar spacecraft that might someday be adaptable for flights to Mars. Maybe. If none of the three or four intervening administrations don't interfere.
Re:The Moon for 100 Billion, Mars for 20 Billion?
on
NASA's New Shuttle
·
· Score: 1
I'm wondering the same thing. The moon is a dead-end side street on the highway to Mars. We don't need anything from the moon to get to Mars and it actually requires more delta-V to get from the Earth to the lunar surface than it does to get from Earth to the Martian surface (assuming aerobraking is used).
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I quit a couple of months after it launched, when I found that Holocron and the rest of the Devs had been lying to us. All through beta testing, they were promising this fantastic, dynamic, and unique for each character system where you could become force sensitive. I specifically asked Holo on the beta forum "It's not going to be something lame like having to master randomly chosen professions, is it?" and he told me no, that's not what it would be. Well, a few months into the live game when they finally started revealing info on the jedi, guess how you became one? Yep, you had to master a couple of professions randomly selected for you by the server. I cancelled my subscription that day and have never looked back. I don't appreciate being lied to and applaud the approaching death of SWG.
If it sucks or blows, shouldn't it be pneumatic?
Yeah, I was looking for the "Next Page" button. That is only half an article, at best.
If you're looking for an ethernet-equipped DVD player that can handle Divx and a variety of other video and audio formats, check out the Momitsu v880N. I've had mine for about a year and love it. It has no trouble pulling music and movies from my PC upstairs. It also includes USB and a PCMCIA slot for directly connecting media to the player. As gravy, it even features a DVI output, and will scale video to pretty much any resolution you want.
http://www.momitsu.com/dvd_880n.html
Well, pretty much all US military and government websites that need a username/password for access now also require you to insert the smartcard to access your PKI certificate. Even some sites that DON'T require user accounts demand for the card to be inserted.
Some uses of the card are generally ignored, however. For example, you can log into a computer by inserting the card OR by keying in your username and password. Nobody does that, because it's inevitable that you'll go off and leave your card in the machine, then be unable to get back into the building or even onto the base because the same card is also what you have to show for ID.
Actually, the US military and government makes extensive use of the smartcard functionallity, for the purposes you mentioned and more. We have for many years.
"Warner has not dropped HD-DVD. Like most studios, they are now backing both formats."
That should read... "Like ONE other studio, they are now backing both formats." About half of all studios support HD-DVD and ALL of them except one now Blu-Ray.
Yes, and forces everyone to use MORE electricity in the MORNING. End result? Negligible benefit. The only good change to DST would be to eliminate it (or we all just get fed up and move to the places that are already DST-free.)
Democracy? A fair number of those "neighbourgs" want to rest control away so they can SQUASH democracy.
Oh, come on on... Redundant? I can understand the 2nd or 3rd or 4th or more "overlords" post being redundant, but not the FIRST one. That makes no sense at all. Back to meta-modding for you!
I, for one, welcome our new hobbit-sized overlords!
Well, I guess it could be because of the animated ones that cover up the actual page I'm trying to look at, or flash at 30Hz giving me a headache, or make really loud noises out of my speakers, or make the pages take forever to load, or... I could go on, but what's the point? Simple, relevant, unobtrusive ads like Google uses don't get blocked. In fact, they even get CLICKED. Every now and then, they even result in a purchase. Unfortunately, since I do most of my ad-blocking via my HOSTS file, a lot of the acceptable ads have to get thrown out with the garbage. That's not my fault, though. The advertising companies (and their clients) have no one to blame but themselves.
This reads to me something like "If anybody tells you can't do something with a computer, and you do it anyway, it's a crime." Change that to "If anybody tells you that you can't do something with THEIR computer, and you do it anyway, it's a crime" and you'll be on-target. That sounds fair to me.
"Doomed" them, eh? No pun intended?
The Olduvai Theory was an interesting read, but it was published 9 years ago. I have to wonder if the past decade has continued the apparant trend Duncan found or diverged from it.
That's exactly what he DID say. He was very polite about it. You are the one acting inappropriately.
I also couldn't care less which format wins, as long as one of them does, and quickly. I don't expect that to happen, though. Both sides are ignoring something very very basic...
They are absolutely dependent on the "early adopters" to buy into the new HD players when they appear and get the transition started. And yet, those early adopters are the exact same people they are telling to "bend over and take it in the ass." Early adopters bought their HDTVs years ago. They didn't have DVI or HDMI connectors then. Early adopter's HDTVs are equipped only with analog component inputs for HD resolutions. Guess what neither the HD-DVD or the Blu Ray camps are offering? Component outputs, of course. HD resolutions will only be offered over digital DVI/HDMI.
It even gets worse... HDCP will be required. Early (most) DVI-capable HDTVs don't support HDCP. So, essentially ALL of the early adopters are being told to replace the HDTVs they just bought a couple of years ago with new ones that aren't any better than the not-quite-so-new ones (I hesitate to use the word "old" to describe any HDTV) except for having a digital input.
Not many early adopters appreciate that attitude on the part of the studios and electronics companies. I know I don't. Many home-theater enthusiests, the very target of these HD formats, are crying fowl. Why would they bother buying a HD player that won't output HD to the HDTV they just bought a couple of years ago? Why would they replace a HDTV that cost thousands of dollars (and is now worth very little because the HD players aren't offering component outputs) that is only a couple of years old when the newer one IS NOT ANY BETTER than the "old" one? If they're going to have to watch analog SD video anyway, they might as well just stick with regular DVD. The results will be the same image quality.
Neither format is going to have anything remotely like the explosive growth of SD DVD. Sony and Toshiba have managed to royally piss off the very people they are relying on the most for success. A lot of home-theater enthusiests will be sitting on the sideline, watching both teams flounder.
I'd have to agree. I really enjoyed Colonization and would love to see it brought up to date. If not, I hope Civ IV will be flexible enough that somebody can do a Colonization mod.
Actually, Skylab was an unused S-IVB upper stage that got turned into a space station. If the later Apollo missions had not been cancelled, that S-IVB would have been used to launch a lunar flight.
Dramatically extending the cable rather than using a large counterweight also allows us to take advantage of the Earth's rotational velocity to launch interplanetary spaceflights very cheaply. The cable-end will be whipping around at MUCH higher than earth-orbital velocity at that altitude. Just wait at the end until just the right moment and let go to be FLUNG toward your destination. If your target world has an atmosphere (Mars or Venus) you can aerobrake upon arrival and make the entire journey almost propellent-free.
Oh, misread your comment...
The center of mass actually has to be a little higher than geosynchronous orbit, to keep tension on the cable.
Because the CENTER OF MASS of the cable has to be in geosynchronous orbit. If the cable stopped at geo, it would just fall down and wrap itself around the planet.
I can think of a couple of reasons: 1) Economy of Scale. Since you "have" to build SSMEs anyway to launch the CEV, it might be cheaper overall to just build a single type of engine that can be used by both the manned and unmanned launchers. That's a subject open to debate, however. 2) Using already man-rated engines would greatly simplify man-rating the heavy cargo lifter sometime in the future. That would probably be pretty useful for flights to Mars or even other more distant destinations.
Oh, sure, if we had operational commercial fusion reactors then we'd be all OVER the moon strip-mining the He3 impregnated by the solar wind, but those things have been "20 years away" for the last 50 years. Until then, the moon has no commercially viable export products.
Any material resources would be much more economical to obtain (both in extraction and transportation) either where they're needed (surface of Mars) or from the asteroids (especially Near Earth Asteroids) for use on Earth or Mars.
Even lunar-based solar power arrays would be barely competitive with Earth-based ones, when you factor in all the losses from beaming the power back and two weeks of down-time during lunar night.
For now, there's just NO reason to go to the moon, other than pure scientific research. I'm all for that, of course, but the focus of our manned spaceflight should be on Mars, which is unique in the solar system as it has all the right resources and physical characteristics to easily become a home to a second branch of humanity.
So, we really should be designing spacecraft intended to travel to Mars but which are also capable of lunar operations to support science there, NOT lunar spacecraft that might someday be adaptable for flights to Mars. Maybe. If none of the three or four intervening administrations don't interfere.
I'm wondering the same thing. The moon is a dead-end side street on the highway to Mars. We don't need anything from the moon to get to Mars and it actually requires more delta-V to get from the Earth to the lunar surface than it does to get from Earth to the Martian surface (assuming aerobraking is used).