The E.U. spends money on poorer areas of Europe, whereas the local governments are only putting money where the votes are. State governments are much more afraid of upsetting vested interests.
The new E.U. member-states will be laughing when they join. We've certainly done well in Ireland from E.U. funding.
Yet it's kinda cool this "what's going to appear today" thing. I hope Spirit gets up and running again - but hopefully Opportunity will land successfully and continue the stream of cool rock pics!
Someone should start a new TV station, Mars TV, with all the latest news from Mars at the top of the hour:o)
Even better, have NASA start one and ESA another and they can have a ratings war. (Our rocks are bigger, this dust is more bizarre, our pictures are now in 4D!!!)
Can ESA put up a Mars Express type probe in orbit of Earth? This is pretty cool data! Maybe they can search for traces of Kryptonite on Earth or something!
Seriously though - here's looking forward to the Venus Express probe being launched next year!
The home of democracy - with a whole TWO parties...
I doubt our Irish politicians would have the know-how to do such spying. (They come only equipped for the brown envelope side of things).
Of course, they have had enough cunning to introduce e-voting for the next E.U. elections and the presidential election in July. Guess what - no paper trail. At least the counting under PR-STV will be instant instead of a week or more for general elections (including recounts)!
I've often thought it would be cool to have a word processor that can use input on the numeric keypad the way a mobile phone does - i.e. 9/10 keys with predictive text.
Anyone know of such a piece of software.
Yeah I know - it probably would serve no logical purpose.
I believe the theory is that the ones they've built have just been too small.
Anyways is there not a plan to build a full scale one in France or Japan. Except that not surprisingly the 6 parties involved (E.U., U.S., Japan, Russia, ?, ?) are split down the middle.
Ah sure, they should just build two of them. Two for the price of one it sure would not be of course! But the E.U. and U.S. won't be good at sharing one. It's like kids - the only way to keep them happy is make sure they all get the same.
Any particular reason why USB is a bus? It means a lot of annoying things. E.g. A USB2 bus will run at USB1 speed if you have a bog-stardard USB1 device connected. E.g. One faulty or incompatible device screws up the whole party.
It's like when Windows used to crash just because one program crashed. (A not so distant memory for those using Win98 still for games/old programs).
Gnarg.
Why'd there even have to be a USB 1? The original USB runs like a dead slug - you'd think that sitting down to come up with a new interface standard (one that's supposed take over and be 'universal') people would realise "Hey, perhaps people will use this for things other than keyboards and mice - like file transfer, scanners and printers".
Anyone who has attempted the latter 3 activities without USB2 will see that USB1 has not been designed with such usage in mind.
USB1 is perhaps not the correct term - I mean the original USB standard (1.1 or something is it?), please excuse me if the terminology is screwed up.
My most amusing keyboard incident was while on co-op work placement. (I guess Americans maybe call this Internship). I was working in a division of a large multinational computer corporation. I was asked to go over to one of the innumerable middle-managers offices to help him out.
Turns out he'd spilt coffee on his keyboard. His laptop keyboard. I lifted up the laptop. The coffee drained out the bottom. Not a good sign - it turned out the ENTIRE full cup of coffee was poured into it. (I dunno, maybe he wanted a new laptop:o). Amazingly the disk after being dried out had retrievable data.
Deary me.
It really was so funny when I lifted the laptop and it all poured out of the bottom. Pretty conclusive cursory examination.
Old keyboards. Nice for the user - not for others. May as well be typewriters for all the noise they make.
Nevertheless, I'm exceedingly happy with my not so old M$ keyboard, which of course, as it is a good keyboard, makes lots of clunking.
Has anyone used a good keyboard that isn't clunky?
Re: Old IBM PS2 keyboard, there's an entire original IBM PS2 (matching monitor, kb, mouse) sitting in a pile of junk (a rather permanent pile of junk) outside my office. I feel like it should be put somewhere safe (perhaps it's quite safe where it is!). Maybe it doesn't go any more.
My PC at work has 6 USB ports on-board - 8 including the 2 front panel ones. I wondered who on earth would use them. Evidently I was being rather silly. Besides, I'm even starting to collect USB things at home, with 3 and counting. (Up from ZERO three months ago).
I wholeheartedly agree, I'm using an M$ keyboard here and optical mouse. Both very nice to use. I prefer the older non-UniHand (you know what I mean) mouse design though. As regards new mice, I prefer the shape of my Dell optical mouse in work.
The keyboard has 2 USB ports, handy enough - I use one for my memory card reader. It has hotkeys, none of which I use bar the Email and Web browser startup buttons. I'd love if my Hauppauge WinTV remote fired them up for me though!
Keyboards with a Power Off button for the PC worry me. Whoops, butter fingers me just powered off the machine again in the middle of
First up: Working in Dell on shift work for 2 weeks. My job was to watch empty boxes on a conveyor. I was placed there solely to avoid a 5 minute delay getting things moving again if there was a blockage. An alarm did the job but only alarmed after the whole thing had blocked up. Yeah, pretty ridiculous.
The other bad job - also done in an inter-semester break from Uni. Counting cars. I kid you not. 12 hours long, through the 3 coldest days of winter, we had to stand by the roadside. There was freezing fog which didn't lift for two days. (Midday was only slightly brighter than dawn/dusk).
Admittedly both paid well and fitted conveniently into the gap.
OK, there's microscope, spectrometers, cameras on the rover.
Do they have a brush or scraper? Or is the rock grinder the only physical tool?
It's our turn to be cultural imperialists
on
News from Mars
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Hey, it's Europe's turn to try out cultural imperialism (again), don't knock it. In no time we'll have you Americans eating French fries and pizzas, using European languages (e.g. English, words from French like derriere, cafe), trying to learn the Metric system, setting your time system based on a location in England, madly trying to trace your roots back to Ireland, coming over here to see our old castles and achievements predating the founding of the US, yearning for Mercedes Benz and BMWs...
Remember, Europe is the best. The whole world should accept our values, try to imitate us, buy all that we have to sell, use our currency... Eire go deo, Vive la France, God save the Queen, etc., etc. 15-25 times.
Kind of sickening isn't it. I guess being proud is not something to be proud of.
I did already submit this news yesterday, and the story was posted... What gives?
The image is indeed a composite of two processed images. The background is the top down view. The foreground is an extrapolated "aeroplane" view, using the information provided by the stereoscopic camera image.
I imagine the background too is "fake" if you wish to call it that. The stereoscopic image, again, has probably been processed and this is the top-down view of the 3D model.
I heartily agree. I used to be a big fan of Star Trek starting in the TNG days (it was about Season 3 then). I enjoyed DS9 for the most part - it started slow, and like TNG there was the fair smattering of... well, crap episodes. Also I hated the episodes that were too kind of "soap opera in space"-ish.
Voyager never cut the mustard with me I have to say. I've only seen bits and pieces of Enterprise, but it looks like pure tripe. But not any worse than it's peers. TV has gone down the tube.:o)
The only good recent U.S. imports as far as I see are Simpsons (which despite lagging sometimes, is still capable of brilliant moments) and to a lesser degree, Futurama. I used to enjoy Friends, but it's long past its sell-by date! (as are the cast... they look TERRIBLE in the latest episodes)
Apart from the above, the only telly I watch is the occasional film and some BBC productions.
Don't forget VENUS Express and Rosetta
on
Next Goals For The ESA
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
As has been done in the past with Soviet missions, both Mars and Venus will get probes, using some spares and the design from the first launch for the second probe.
In this case, the second probe will be launched as Venus Express. This will be launched in Nov 2005, also by Soyuz from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazachstan.
Soyuz is working out so well, that ESA is building Soyuz launch facilities in French Guiana - which is of course MUCH nearer the equator and is E.U. territory. (It's a problem for Russia that Baikonur is no longer in their territory).
Then there's Rosetta, this flagship mission will be launched in a month or so. It's a mission to chase a comet, taking TEN years to catch it! It will also flyby at least one asteroid.
To be perfectly honest - I don't beleive in free speech. Not entirely free at any rate. Allow anyone and everyone to say whatever they like, and anarchy is the result. All types of communication can be very powerful. Controls are necessary. Those of us who live in mostly democratic countries should allow our elected officials to act in everyone's best interest - that is after all the point of having a government - to GOVERN.
It's a problem as to where to draw the lines. Allowing criticism of governments and policies, versus allowing incitement to revolt and install.
Then there's what is acceptable in terms of moral (or indeed religious) code. Would we have those who practice appalling acts attempt to spread their ways? Do we allow incitement to hatred?
In the case of this article, it's a question of should we really let young people be exposed to that which is socially destructive?
I say no. I'm delighted to see private companies acting without being pushed.
Well, I checked out their tools section following this article. I now have google on my old phone with WAP. Should come in handy for those times when I'm in the depths of rural Ireland. I mean, I might need to, hmmm... search for something anyways - I'm sure it's of SOME use...
Slashdot Mirror
Shhhhhh...
I once tried watching the news on Fox News but it made my head implode.
The E.U. spends money on poorer areas of Europe, whereas the local governments are only putting money where the votes are. State governments are much more afraid of upsetting vested interests.
The new E.U. member-states will be laughing when they join. We've certainly done well in Ireland from E.U. funding.
I agree.
:o)
Yet it's kinda cool this "what's going to appear today" thing. I hope Spirit gets up and running again - but hopefully Opportunity will land successfully and continue the stream of cool rock pics!
Someone should start a new TV station, Mars TV, with all the latest news from Mars at the top of the hour
Even better, have NASA start one and ESA another and they can have a ratings war. (Our rocks are bigger, this dust is more bizarre, our pictures are now in 4D!!!)
Can ESA put up a Mars Express type probe in orbit of Earth? This is pretty cool data! Maybe they can search for traces of Kryptonite on Earth or something!
Seriously though - here's looking forward to the Venus Express probe being launched next year!
> nature didn't provide us with some kind of fluid that automatically circulates throughout our body to distribute warmth and nutrients.
Indeed.
Apparently the best way to keep your phalanges and other extremities warm is to ensure the main part of your body is kept well-heated.
The home of democracy - with a whole TWO parties...
I doubt our Irish politicians would have the know-how to do such spying. (They come only equipped for the brown envelope side of things).
Of course, they have had enough cunning to introduce e-voting for the next E.U. elections and the presidential election in July. Guess what - no paper trail. At least the counting under PR-STV will be instant instead of a week or more for general elections (including recounts)!
I've often thought it would be cool to have a word processor that can use input on the numeric keypad the way a mobile phone does - i.e. 9/10 keys with predictive text.
Anyone know of such a piece of software.
Yeah I know - it probably would serve no logical purpose.
I believe the theory is that the ones they've built have just been too small.
Anyways is there not a plan to build a full scale one in France or Japan. Except that not surprisingly the 6 parties involved (E.U., U.S., Japan, Russia, ?, ?) are split down the middle.
Ah sure, they should just build two of them. Two for the price of one it sure would not be of course! But the E.U. and U.S. won't be good at sharing one. It's like kids - the only way to keep them happy is make sure they all get the same.
Ah right.
:o).
My own is symmetrical (or UniHand as I call it) - I prefer the asymmetric ones (well, the right handed ones anyways
I've had the nasty experience of powering up a monitor that's been rotting in a damp shed for months.
/. complained about too many junk chars. Dagnammit.
B A N G
Except much much louder. And more of a crack.
I had a lovely ASCII-Art bang done and
OH, and don't try it at home kids.
"Devices like mice are very cost-sensitive"
Makes me wonder why I shelled out 40 for mine!
Running Windows Me - that IS hard work!
Any particular reason why USB is a bus? It means a lot of annoying things.
E.g. A USB2 bus will run at USB1 speed if you have a bog-stardard USB1 device connected.
E.g. One faulty or incompatible device screws up the whole party.
It's like when Windows used to crash just because one program crashed. (A not so distant memory for those using Win98 still for games/old programs).
Gnarg.
Why'd there even have to be a USB 1? The original USB runs like a dead slug - you'd think that sitting down to come up with a new interface standard (one that's supposed take over and be 'universal') people would realise "Hey, perhaps people will use this for things other than keyboards and mice - like file transfer, scanners and printers".
Anyone who has attempted the latter 3 activities without USB2 will see that USB1 has not been designed with such usage in mind.
USB1 is perhaps not the correct term - I mean the original USB standard (1.1 or something is it?), please excuse me if the terminology is screwed up.
My most amusing keyboard incident was while on co-op work placement. (I guess Americans maybe call this Internship). I was working in a division of a large multinational computer corporation. I was asked to go over to one of the innumerable middle-managers offices to help him out.
:o). Amazingly the disk after being dried out had retrievable data.
Turns out he'd spilt coffee on his keyboard. His laptop keyboard. I lifted up the laptop. The coffee drained out the bottom. Not a good sign - it turned out the ENTIRE full cup of coffee was poured into it. (I dunno, maybe he wanted a new laptop
Deary me.
It really was so funny when I lifted the laptop and it all poured out of the bottom. Pretty conclusive cursory examination.
Old keyboards. Nice for the user - not for others. May as well be typewriters for all the noise they make.
Nevertheless, I'm exceedingly happy with my not so old M$ keyboard, which of course, as it is a good keyboard, makes lots of clunking.
Has anyone used a good keyboard that isn't clunky?
Re: Old IBM PS2 keyboard, there's an entire original IBM PS2 (matching monitor, kb, mouse) sitting in a pile of junk (a rather permanent pile of junk) outside my office. I feel like it should be put somewhere safe (perhaps it's quite safe where it is!). Maybe it doesn't go any more.
My PC at work has 6 USB ports on-board - 8 including the 2 front panel ones. I wondered who on earth would use them. Evidently I was being rather silly. Besides, I'm even starting to collect USB things at home, with 3 and counting. (Up from ZERO three months ago).
I wholeheartedly agree, I'm using an M$ keyboard here and optical mouse. Both very nice to use. I prefer the older non-UniHand (you know what I mean) mouse design though. As regards new mice, I prefer the shape of my Dell optical mouse in work.
The keyboard has 2 USB ports, handy enough - I use one for my memory card reader. It has hotkeys, none of which I use bar the Email and Web browser startup buttons. I'd love if my Hauppauge WinTV remote fired them up for me though!
Keyboards with a Power Off button for the PC worry me. Whoops, butter fingers me just powered off the machine again in the middle of
First up: Working in Dell on shift work for 2 weeks. My job was to watch empty boxes on a conveyor. I was placed there solely to avoid a 5 minute delay getting things moving again if there was a blockage. An alarm did the job but only alarmed after the whole thing had blocked up.
Yeah, pretty ridiculous.
The other bad job - also done in an inter-semester break from Uni. Counting cars. I kid you not. 12 hours long, through the 3 coldest days of winter, we had to stand by the roadside. There was freezing fog which didn't lift for two days. (Midday was only slightly brighter than dawn/dusk).
Admittedly both paid well and fitted conveniently into the gap.
OK, there's microscope, spectrometers, cameras on the rover.
Do they have a brush or scraper? Or is the rock grinder the only physical tool?
Hey, it's Europe's turn to try out cultural imperialism (again), don't knock it. In no time we'll have you Americans eating French fries and pizzas, using European languages (e.g. English, words from French like derriere, cafe), trying to learn the Metric system, setting your time system based on a location in England, madly trying to trace your roots back to Ireland, coming over here to see our old castles and achievements predating the founding of the US, yearning for Mercedes Benz and BMWs...
Remember, Europe is the best. The whole world should accept our values, try to imitate us, buy all that we have to sell, use our currency... Eire go deo, Vive la France, God save the Queen, etc., etc. 15-25 times.
Kind of sickening isn't it. I guess being proud is not something to be proud of.
I did already submit this news yesterday, and the story was posted... What gives?
The image is indeed a composite of two processed images. The background is the top down view. The foreground is an extrapolated "aeroplane" view, using the information provided by the stereoscopic camera image.
I imagine the background too is "fake" if you wish to call it that. The stereoscopic image, again, has probably been processed and this is the top-down view of the 3D model.
I heartily agree. I used to be a big fan of Star Trek starting in the TNG days (it was about Season 3 then). I enjoyed DS9 for the most part - it started slow, and like TNG there was the fair smattering of... well, crap episodes. Also I hated the episodes that were too kind of "soap opera in space"-ish.
:o)
Voyager never cut the mustard with me I have to say. I've only seen bits and pieces of Enterprise, but it looks like pure tripe. But not any worse than it's peers. TV has gone down the tube.
The only good recent U.S. imports as far as I see are Simpsons (which despite lagging sometimes, is still capable of brilliant moments) and to a lesser degree, Futurama. I used to enjoy Friends, but it's long past its sell-by date! (as are the cast... they look TERRIBLE in the latest episodes)
Apart from the above, the only telly I watch is the occasional film and some BBC productions.
As has been done in the past with Soviet missions, both Mars and Venus will get probes, using some spares and the design from the first launch for the second probe.
In this case, the second probe will be launched as Venus Express. This will be launched in Nov 2005, also by Soyuz from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazachstan.
Soyuz is working out so well, that ESA is building Soyuz launch facilities in French Guiana - which is of course MUCH nearer the equator and is E.U. territory. (It's a problem for Russia that Baikonur is no longer in their territory).
Then there's Rosetta, this flagship mission will be launched in a month or so. It's a mission to chase a comet, taking TEN years to catch it! It will also flyby at least one asteroid.
To be perfectly honest - I don't beleive in free speech. Not entirely free at any rate. Allow anyone and everyone to say whatever they like, and anarchy is the result. All types of communication can be very powerful. Controls are necessary. Those of us who live in mostly democratic countries should allow our elected officials to act in everyone's best interest - that is after all the point of having a government - to GOVERN.
.
It's a problem as to where to draw the lines. Allowing criticism of governments and policies, versus allowing incitement to revolt and install
Then there's what is acceptable in terms of moral (or indeed religious) code. Would we have those who practice appalling acts attempt to spread their ways? Do we allow incitement to hatred?
In the case of this article, it's a question of should we really let young people be exposed to that which is socially destructive?
I say no. I'm delighted to see private companies acting without being pushed.
Well, I checked out their tools section following this article. I now have google on my old phone with WAP. Should come in handy for those times when I'm in the depths of rural Ireland. I mean, I might need to, hmmm... search for something anyways - I'm sure it's of SOME use...