Who's altruistic? If we didn't have open source code to spend our free time on, we'd all be surfing your most excellent website instead. Being a sperm donor doesn't pay as much as some people earn working on open source.
How about some quantities here. Saying that we could recycle old plutonium and/or uranium is good, but Orion would require huge amounts of the stuff. Perhaps more than we already have on hand.
The production of materials is expensive and the environmental costs are also expensive. The fallout thing is a non-issue, because Orion operates outside of Earth's ecosphere. But cleaning up a production site is expensive. See Hanford for more information.
Linus owns the trademark to the kernel, but not the copyright, except for the portions he wrote himself. As far as I know, Linux does not require copyright assignment as a condition for code inclusion.
Doesn't even know about dBase III. That thing stopped development not 10 years ago, but 20 years ago. Maybe the guy was working so hard on dBase III that for the last 10 years of the project he didn't notice for a decade that all his fellow programmers weren't coming to work, his paychecks weren't arriving, Ashton-Tate was no longer in business, and a new company had moved into the office space that he was working in.
Something else that needs to be considered is that the feasibility of Orion is theoretical. In the real world I think that production of the nuclear explosives would be tremendously difficult. The number of nuclear explosives required would present a large production problem. We have mass produced nuclear explosives in the past, but not on the scale required. We took decades to produce all that we currently have. And that production was extremely costly particularly to the environment. Orion might be something that only requires technologies available today for the spacecraft, but the fuel production would be really difficult for us right now.
All you need is the first one. Install the most minimal system that you can, connect to the net, and install the rest of the packages from there. The minimal system is just a couple dozen megabytes at the most.
Not flamebait. Some have moderated me as such, but nothing was flamebait here.
Beauty is a terrific justification for something. Topology is beautiful. Usefulness is also a terrific justification for something. Topology isn't very useful.
The relation is not transitive. That means that it is not logical to claim that I think that beautiful things aren't useful.
Also, beauty is a different quality than usefulness, but I think you already know that.
In this day and age there is no reason for someone like you to suffer under a formatting Nazi. Just download a copy of indent or astyle and save yourself a lot of trouble.
See my other response to someone else pointing out the same thing. Rings on Saturn always refer to icy chunks. Radiation is always referred to as a belt.
Or are you arguing that my coffee cup is a ring? And then could I point out that one of the very least useful of all mathematical branches is topology? (at least for now...)
It confuses newbies, that's why. It also confuses non-newbies, because the rings of Saturn always in the past have referred to the icy chunks. Always in the past, radiation toroids have been called belts.
I may as well be a pendant, you say, but I am in the habit of having people understand what I write because conventions of meaning and usage are followed. Otherwise the situation is thy nacturations are to me! As plurdled abbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.
It matters because a lot of people are not knowlegable about astronomy, but have a lot of curiosity. They rely on little articles they read here and there for their information, including headlines they read on Slashdot. Misinformation doesn't do anyone any good.
It also matters because astronomy is to a large extent funded by public money. The people paying the bills for mega telescopes and space missions deserve to know the truth about the discoveries that they pay for.
Sorry to be touting my own 14th post, but I'm only covering it because it's so damn interesting!
Actually, it is a good article, and it should be widely distributed. Obviously computer experts can see the flaws in e-voting, but it's the non-computer experts that we need to reach. Most people out there have no clue at all that something is wrong. An article like this, simplified a bit, could change a lot of uninformed opinions.
You know how sometimes you have an old friend, who was with you in good times, and in bad? You love that old friend, but lately he's been acting very oddly, and you're afraid you might just need to have him committed?
That's starting to be how I feel about Sun and their recent spate of bizzarre announcements and news releases. Breaks my heart.
Slashdot Mirror
I haven't been this disappointed since a MS-DOS compiler told me that it was out of stack space. 64K stack? Not stacked NEARLY enough.
You just killed my erection. Thanks.
Who's altruistic? If we didn't have open source code to spend our free time on, we'd all be surfing your most excellent website instead. Being a sperm donor doesn't pay as much as some people earn working on open source.
Open source is built for fun mostly, not profit.
(sigh) Once again,
Copyright != Patent != Trademark
How about some quantities here. Saying that we could recycle old plutonium and/or uranium is good, but Orion would require huge amounts of the stuff. Perhaps more than we already have on hand.
The production of materials is expensive and the environmental costs are also expensive. The fallout thing is a non-issue, because Orion operates outside of Earth's ecosphere. But cleaning up a production site is expensive. See Hanford for more information.
Linus owns the trademark to the kernel, but not the copyright, except for the portions he wrote himself. As far as I know, Linux does not require copyright assignment as a condition for code inclusion.
Copyright != Patent != Trademark.
They are ignoring the rule "never apply a Star Trek solution to a Babylon 5 problem."
Doesn't even know about dBase III. That thing stopped development not 10 years ago, but 20 years ago. Maybe the guy was working so hard on dBase III that for the last 10 years of the project he didn't notice for a decade that all his fellow programmers weren't coming to work, his paychecks weren't arriving, Ashton-Tate was no longer in business, and a new company had moved into the office space that he was working in.
Something else that needs to be considered is that the feasibility of Orion is theoretical. In the real world I think that production of the nuclear explosives would be tremendously difficult. The number of nuclear explosives required would present a large production problem. We have mass produced nuclear explosives in the past, but not on the scale required. We took decades to produce all that we currently have. And that production was extremely costly particularly to the environment. Orion might be something that only requires technologies available today for the spacecraft, but the fuel production would be really difficult for us right now.
Oh come on, I'm practically a gynecologist and I've never seen a green pussy.
All you need is the first one. Install the most minimal system that you can, connect to the net, and install the rest of the packages from there. The minimal system is just a couple dozen megabytes at the most.
For every opportunity to buy that is lost by a consumer, there is an opportunity to save that is gained by a CITIZEN.
When marketing people refer to me as a consumer, it sounds like they are cussing.
Not flamebait. Some have moderated me as such, but nothing was flamebait here.
Beauty is a terrific justification for something. Topology is beautiful. Usefulness is also a terrific justification for something. Topology isn't very useful.
The relation is not transitive. That means that it is not logical to claim that I think that beautiful things aren't useful.
Also, beauty is a different quality than usefulness, but I think you already know that.
In this day and age there is no reason for someone like you to suffer under a formatting Nazi. Just download a copy of indent or astyle and save yourself a lot of trouble.
Funny how I took the bait? It was a perfect set-up to explain something about astronomy. Quite a useful troll indeed!
See my other response to someone else pointing out the same thing. Rings on Saturn always refer to icy chunks. Radiation is always referred to as a belt.
Or are you arguing that my coffee cup is a ring? And then could I point out that one of the very least useful of all mathematical branches is topology? (at least for now...)
It confuses newbies, that's why. It also confuses non-newbies, because the rings of Saturn always in the past have referred to the icy chunks. Always in the past, radiation toroids have been called belts.
I may as well be a pendant, you say, but I am in the habit of having people understand what I write because conventions of meaning and usage are followed. Otherwise the situation is thy nacturations are to me! As plurdled abbleblotchits
on a lurgid bee.
See?
I hope it's not tacky of me to say that they are really milking Lara Croft for all she's worth.
It matters because a lot of people are not knowlegable about astronomy, but have a lot of curiosity. They rely on little articles they read here and there for their information, including headlines they read on Slashdot. Misinformation doesn't do anyone any good.
It also matters because astronomy is to a large extent funded by public money. The people paying the bills for mega telescopes and space missions deserve to know the truth about the discoveries that they pay for.
The rings are icy chunks of matter. Radiation is not. Technically, it's not a ring.
Sorry to be touting my own 14th post, but I'm only covering it because it's so damn interesting!
Actually, it is a good article, and it should be widely distributed. Obviously computer experts can see the flaws in e-voting, but it's the non-computer experts that we need to reach. Most people out there have no clue at all that something is wrong. An article like this, simplified a bit, could change a lot of uninformed opinions.
The Torque game engine from Garage Games doesn't cost much, and it's fine for a lot of things.
... cost bucket loads' so I am just adding information, not contradicting.
I know you said 'nearly all
You know how sometimes you have an old friend, who was with you in good times, and in bad? You love that old friend, but lately he's been acting very oddly, and you're afraid you might just need to have him committed?
That's starting to be how I feel about Sun and their recent spate of bizzarre announcements and news releases. Breaks my heart.
And I commend you for remaining calm in the face of my partially ad hominem attack.
Thats pretty convienent isn't it? Those who don't take your precious liberal arts courses are too stupid to realize that they need them right?
Right, and you don't realize it because you don't have the knowlege to realize it.
Nice to admit that you think so poorly of math and other such liberal arts subjects. That's what I expect from an anti-intellectual.