You posted 10 blatenty flamebaitish messages all stating the exact same thing.
The first one got modded down because it was flamebait, and you posted the exact same thing 10 more times. The moderation given to your flamebait posts calling admins and moderators and retards was completely appropriate.
By the way, I gave you your first "flamebait" mod for your initial post calling admins retards. Calling someone a retard is flamebait, plain and simple.
When you posted to complain with your illogical explenation that your blatant flamebait was in fact not flamebait, and that you are one of the few people that knows what flamebait is, I modded that post overrated.
When you posted yet another blatant flamebait post, I modded that one flamebait as well. Then I ran out of modpoints.
Look, there are some inappropriate moderations around here from time to time. I have been a victim of them myself, but that does not make the system fundamentally broken. It's just an environmental factor that you just kind of have to deal with.
I sometimes post things knowing that I will get modded down. I've called moderators retards and been modded down for it.
The trick is to limit your losses by limiting the amount of posts you make that you can reasonably expect to get modded down. Blatant flamebait will get modded down, and your posts are blatant flamebait, redundant, offtopic, and if not for the fact that you may actually be this mentally unstable, trolls.
I don't want to undo my moderation because I (and everyone else) know it was entirely appropriate, but I will sign this message and tell you the main reason I modded you down instead of just moving on and chalking your post up to just another idiot in the shitheap.
I thought there was a good chance you would fly off the handle. I never imagined you would take it this far, but I must admit that I am very glad it happened.
Yes, I am an asshole, and a troll, but your posts were blatant flamebait and were modded appropriately.
I saw Bill Gates speak in person once. He gave a speach and took some questions in a large concert hall in downtown Houston. I skipped highschool that day and had my parents drive to me to go see him.
He gave some interesting insights about the Microsoft strategy, mainly how it was looking to make sofware a service people rented and continued to pay for rather than buying once. I thought to myself that there is no way this would ever happen. The existance of MSDN subscriptions and the fact that I want one really bad (paid for by someone else of course) proves that I was wrong and the richest man on earth was right. I guess if you are going to be proven wrong by anybody...
At the end he took questions, and I destinctly remember someone asking about Linux and Open Source. Basically the jist of his answer was that he didn't see open source as a good business model for Microsoft. He said he didn't feel threatened by Linux because Microsoft would continue to sell alot of software despit its presence. He said it in a way that I found a tad dismissive.
Though it was a fascinating speech I honestly can't remember too much else about what he said, except that it was pretty heavy on the business aspect of technology rather than software architecture or design. This is unsurprising as his talk was part (I guess the keynote) of a larger information technology something or other related to the oil industry. People who stayed for the later speeches got a free copy of his book. His book was definately more related to business than anything else. If I remember correctly the main point of the book and his speech was that bad news should travel up the chain of command as fast as possible. Or something.
In Dallas, most lights allow you to turn left on red, if oncoming traffic has a green light. It is like you were in the left turn lane pulling in to a parkinglot or not stoplighted street. This is really nice, and I miss it whenever it is unavailable. That said, too many people either don't know how to handle a green circle in the left turn lane, or are just assholes and drive right on through anyway endangering lives to save a couple minutes. Hardly anyone even honks at these people, but I sure as hell lean on the horn until they clear the intersection. Alot of people stop in the middle of the intersection so when all the lights turn red, they have nowhere to go but forward, saving them a traffic light cycle but getting in everyone's way. Despite the problems it can cause, the time it saves people when traffic is light makes it worth the annoyance in my opinion.
I agree sopsigns are being totally misused. I have seen streets with stopsigns every 50 feet, mixed in with roundabouts with stop signs. These aren't european roundabouts either, but just a normal neighborhood intersection with a huge circle of grass and rocks in the middle. Suburbans can't even get through without jumping the curb alot of times. To make matters worst, running one of these stop signs with no other traffic to be seen is the same crime as blowing through a busy intersection at full speed. Yeah, I've gotten the "failure to stop" ticket for rolling through an empty stop sign at 5mph before. $210.
I'm not too thrilled about this scheme either, but these third party controllers really do tend to suck big time. I don't own an xbox, but I do own an xbox controller. Years of using friends' cheap, crappy 3rd party controllers convinced me to get a real MS controller. While I'm sure MS doesn't mind the extra income coming in from this plan, another major benefit to them is that less people will have negative experiences with their product at their cheapskate friends' apartments.
You claim that this will "keep prices exhorbidant", but can you identify a better controller at a better price right now? Considering that this doesn't effect the current xbox if your claims are accurate there should definately be such a controller. Keep in mind this is more about quality than features. I don't need a rapid fire button as much as I need the thumbsticks to point where they should.
I agree that not all sequels are bad, and I'll even go so far as to defend the sequel giant EA Games.
They catch alot of crap (probably deserved) for having many sequels to popular games, but it has been my experience that they are doing more than fiddling with the game a little to extract another $40. I only own Command and Conquer Generals and Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield Vietnam. This may not apply the the company's offerings as a whole, but Battlefield 1942 was a fun game. Battlefield vietnam, in which essentially only the guns, tanks, and game engine were changed is even better. I can tell where my $40 went: into an incredible graphics/game engine which made the existing gameplay much more fun. I wish I could see what Battlefield 2 has to offer because I hear it is really good, but I simply can't afford it.
I would just like to remind anyone about to go on a rant about TI outsourcing that TI is in the process of building a $3 billion chip plant, right here in Dallas (Richardson), TX. Shamelessly copied from Dallas Morning news (I would have provided a link if it was reg-free):
When it comes to sheer size, the research facility under construction at the University of Texas at Dallas might have an inferiority complex.
JUAN GARCIA/DMN Electrical engineering professor Bruce Gnade (right) said small companies will be able to hire the center to conduct research. 'We would have millions of dollars' worth of equipment that small companies can't afford,' Dr. Gnade said. Tom Lund manages the UT System's office of facilities, planning and construction.
It's dwarfed by the $3 billion Texas Instruments chip plant being built on a 92-acre site a few blocks away its counterpart in a Richardson mega-project.
But experts say UTD's 192,000-square-foot Natural Science and Engineering Research Building will be an integral part of the area's growth as a high-tech development and employment center. The $85 million facility, which marked completion of its roof with a ceremony Friday, is scheduled to be finished in December 2006.
"UTD is finally coming into its own as a major research university with lots of ties to high-tech industry," said Bernard Weinstein, director of the Center for Economic Development and Research at the University of North Texas. "It's an asset for the entire region."
Waco economist Ray Perryman said the UTD center is a critical component for "leveraging the knowledge base" needed for research.
"The future of Dallas depends on being the leader in this next generation of technology. [UTD's research facility] is building the future," said Mr. Perryman, who predicted in a 2003 report that the two projects would create more than 76,000 Collin County jobs.
Bill Sproull, CEO of the Richardson Chamber of Commerce, believes that most of those jobs will come from the "new technologies, new spin-off companies and new trained scientific engineers" generated by the research center.
"It's not an investment in the building," Mr. Sproull said. "It's an investment in the program."
The UTD and TI projects were the offspring of Project Emmitt, the moniker given to a deal quietly conceived two years ago by state, corporate and academic officials.
Under the agreement, TI would build its chip plant in Texas if Gov. Rick Perry allocated funds from the Texas Enterprise Fund for UTD research.
The UTD building, equipment, salaries, associated costs and upgrading of other science facilities are being paid for with $300 million in public and private funds. The state has contributed $200 million, and the university has to raise $100 million.
Compared with the TI facility, which will be the size of 25 football fields and have 1,000 workers, the engineering building will be modest: Its four stories, plus a basement, will house about 400 employees mostly faculty and graduate students working as research assistants.
The exterior design of the building makes ample use of curves and angles, and anodized stainless steel panels will reflect hues of greens, blues and purples.
"It's one of the finest pieces of architecture in the state," said Tom Lund, the resident construction manager for the UT System. "It's not just a rectangle. It moves, flows, curves and slopes."
Plans for the interior space might seem unusual for a college campus.
"It won't have classrooms," said Dr. Bruce Gnade, an engineering professor who serves as the university's liaison to the building project.
Biology, physics, chemistry, engineering and other scientific disciplines will be housed at the center, where the interior space will be designed to foster cross-pollination of ideas.
Glass will be used abundantly. Modular walls will be movable so that researchers from different scientific areas can easily reconfigure their work space to collaborate on proj
I did buy a season pass to Space Center Houston for like 2 or 3 years in a row a while ago. You may wonder why anyone would want a season pass to Nasa headquarters' visitor center. I can't really put my finger on it, it was kinda like a museum that I liked so much I returned to see the same paintings time after time. The Saturn V laying on its side is particualry awe inspiring. Once during an open house I wandered away from the visitor area and stumbeld into a room housing what I'm sure is the largest vacume chamber I will ever see. That was really cool. At any rate, I did donate money to the only organization in the US persuing manned orbital flight at this level.
You sure seem angry at NASA. More than that, you seem to be trolling. And its the worst kind of trolling, the kind that is not entertaining in any way. Well that part about congress taking its collective dick out of your ass did make me chuckle a little.
Yeah, I'll concede that NASA's progress since 1981 pales in comparison to what they did in the 60s. I think the International Space Station is a great project, though. I think a permanant human presence in space is great, even if only because it keeps our skills sharp.
Though the last few years have been especially tough, the ones immediately preceding it in my opinion were pretty good. It may have cost a fortune for each launch, but until the Columbia disaster, the ISS was really coming together thanks in large part to the Shuttle's capabilites.
You are right that NASA needed to be knocked out of its complacency, but I think that the Columbia tragedy has already done that. The timetable for delivery of a new spacecraft has already gone from "sometime in the not too distant future" to "As Soon As Possible"
The effective grounding of the shuttle fleet combined with the incomplete space station have created a unique opportunity for NASA. The last time NASA was told, "We need a spacecraft suitable for difficult missions, and we need it yesterday" they didn't dissapoint. I think the next few years should be very interesting.
I don't consider our vacation to the moon to have been a waste at all. If NASA got the urge to take a walk on Mars, I know I'll feel a little better about paying my taxes, even if others understandably don't. It's not that I see Jingoistic dickwaving as a good way to spend Billions of dollars. However, if the need to swing America's gargantuan schlong around helps spur spending and support for the NASA and the space program then I'm all for it. Even if it's not immediately obvious how, the Space Program benefits us all, especially through the advances in technology which it helps spur.
I don't see how Space travel and cancer research are mutually exclusive either, or even relevent to the subject at hand. It's not like we are $200 billion away from curing cancer or anything. Though if we are, I think I know where we could find the money *cough wars cough*
At any rate, I look forward to seeing what NASA pulls out of its sleave in the coming years.
Lobby for a space elevator? With current materials a space elevator is simply not possible. As in it defies the laws of physics. We need monumental improvements in materials to even make a space elevator scientifically feasable. What we need is some guy sitting in a lab screwing around with chemistry and physics in ways I can't even begin to comprehend. And we have that. All over America people are doing just that because the rewards of such progress are huge, not just in the realm of space travel. In short, lobbying of space elevators at point is about as useful as lobbying for an antigravity ray. But don't let that stop you or anyone else from teaching these NASA "rocket scientists" what a real space program should look like.
These airmchair rocket scientists never cease to amaze me. To paraphrase that guy in "Gone in 50 Seconds":
You can't park. You can't maintain speed. You can't change lanes. Honey, you can't drive. I can't swim. I know I can't swim, so you know what I do? I stay my black ass out of the water.
The handful of worthwhile posts in this thread are practically drowned out by the torrent of backseat NASA administrators who all know they would have handled it better. And the worst part of all is that you know that if NASA had never built the space shuttle these same clowns would be on slashdot bitching about how spaceships haven't changed in 70 years and saying that we should really have spaceplanes by now.
Wow, that (lumping the Post office, the IRS, and the TSA in with NASA) has to be the biggest logical fallacy I have read on slashdot all week, err all day, err in this story, err in this thread, err hmmm. Actually you seem to be about par for the course with this crowd.
These airmchair rocket scientists never cease to amaze me. To paraphrase that guy in "Gone in 50 Seconds":
You can't park. You can't maintain speed. You can't change lanes. Honey, you can't drive. I can't swim. I know I can't swim, so you know what I do? I stay my black ass out of the water.
The handful of worthwhile posts in this thread are practically drowned out by the torrent of backseat NASA administrators who all know they would have handled it better. And the worst part of all is that you know that if NASA had never built the space shuttle these same clowns would be on slashdot bitching about how spaceships haven't changed in 70 years and saying that we should really have spaceplanes by now.
One thing you neglect to mention in your description of US government groups: The people who brought men to the damn moon and back again in less than a decade. Thats right, it may have been an exercise in national dickwaving, but ours was biggest, and ours was baddest. For all its many faults I for one am damn proud of what our government has accomplished in space. If you want a relatively small investment with a high likelyhood of financial gain send it to private industry. If you want to send men to the moon for no other reason than to leave some footprints and plant a flag you are going to need the US Government.
Many sites have all sorts of BS warning popups, redirects, and restrictions on browsers other than IE (often not placing restrictions on firefox btw) even though they render and work just fine in Opera. The folks at Opera have decided that the user experience is more important than their stats.
Anyone know if Opera is now or ever has been a profitable company? I really hope so, because even with low stats a profitable browser company that competes with both free bundled IE and free firefox makes a powerful statement.
It takes 2 seconds to send a signal from a computer on earth to a satellite internet service and back to earth again. It takes like 20 minutes to get a signal to Mars and back. The limit on the latency is the speed of light * distance traveled, not the amount of data being transmitted, at least at the bandwith needed for voice traffic.
I'm not sure where you get the idea that they "had to sacrafice high-resolution holographic images to get them to transmit with such low latency." They already found a way to make waves travel faster than the speed of light. With that hurdle overcome, I'm sure they have more bandwith than they need.
What I really can't understand though is why I'm actually discussing bandwith use in Star Wars. I never thought I would see the day...
I have two computers, both dualbooting Windows XP and Mandrake Linux. One is unstable in both OSs, with Linux so unstable that I can't even get through five microsoft astroturfer conspiracies on slashdot before the web browser crashes for seemingly no reason. The same computer has stability problems under XP, but is markedly more stable than Linux.
My new computer (payed for by perl/solaris internship at a major telecom company for those who love to question my skills) runs both operationg systems flawlessly. Doesn't crash in Windows (ever), doesn't crash in Linux (ever). I know that by saying this I am opening myself up to astroturfing accusations (the groupthink is strong with this bunch) but you people deserve at least a taste of non-zealotry inspired babble. When you accuse those who hold different opinions than yours of astroturfing you just make yourselves more unappealing. Notice I said yourselves, not your operating systems. Just because you are a bunch of self-important, self-rightous, foaming at the mouth zealots doesn't mean Linux isn't great software:-)
I'm not sure which bridge you are talking about but I remember from seeing a documentary about the big dig that aside from putting in new freeways etc downtown's electric, telecom, and plumbing infrastructure was getting a complete overhaul. I would wager that the bridge was a part of a larger mostly unseen puzzle which must be completed in a certain order. On the other hand I am not familiar with the situation at all so I may be totally wrong.
As for the wisdom of cancelling the project at this stage of the game, that to me seems like a total unmitigated waste of money. If the government is going to drop however many billions into this project, it should at least see it through until it is complete. It's relatively close to being finished right?
I hate to use this as a metric but the entire Big Dig costs far less then even a few months of occupying Iraq. If I was going broke and had a $1700/month apartment and a $400/month car, I would probably move out of the apartment well before I sold my car.
Ive been considering persuing a law degree after I finish CS for some time now. I'll probably choose to work assuming I'm able to find a job but I was wondering how other people with CS degrees enjoyed law school and what opportunities it has opened up.
Im glad but enfuriated to find out that I'm not the only one this happens to.
The worst part isn't even the delay though, Ive got plenty of dvdrs to keep me busy for a long time. It's that they are blatently lying to me. Ive sent 3 movies back at the same time and had them only aknowlage recieving two, delaying the next one almost a week before they aknowledged it was recieved.
Damn You Netflix! I know you got my movies back already! Stop acting like you didn't because I totally know you did!!!
There is a difference between a scientific theory and other theories. A theory can only be scientific if it has not been disproven. As such, evolution remains a scientific theory, but an earth centered universe does not. By the creationists logic, my donut-shaped universe theory is just as valid as Einstein's theory of relativity.
What we have here is a word "theory" which means different things in different contexts. Like with so many other things, psuedoscience creationists have sought to confuse the true in-context meaning of words in a way that "proves" their point.
Ob. Simpsons quote
on
Segway Polo
·
· Score: 3, Funny
"...making it the latest Segway Scooter accident to claim over 1000 lives" - Kent Brockman reporting
What computing JOB can be done in Windows that can't be done as well or better by a Mac or Linux?
asp.NET/c# programmer. It is my current job.
Of course since at work we have XP SP2 on all our computers we also were not affected. "Does not affect people with XP service pack 2" is getting about as common as "Does not affect Mac users." I was also covered by the less common "Does not affect Opera users." See, I don't need a one button mouse to surf the internet securely.
This is my first time voting and I have to say that I am seriously Dissapointed with my choices. I don't just mean Bush v. Kerry. As I was reading a sample ballot and in the voting booth (electronic w/o paper trail, not that my vote matters anyway) I kept remembering the words, "Iraq is not a democracy because you can only vote for Saddam or not vote for Saddam." By those standards Collin County, Texas is not a democracy. On the door to the polling center there was a sign saying that we wouldn't even be voting in the hotly contested Pete Sessions v. Jack Frost race where redistricting put a Democratic incumbent in the same conservative district as a Republican incumbent. I would have cast a proud Democratic vote in that race but I am 200 feet across the county line. sigh... No wonder turnout was so low.
For President:
[ ] Bush(R)
[x] Kerry(D)
[ ] Badnerik(L)
For U.S. Representative:
[ ] Johnson(R)
[ ] Vessels(L)
[ ] Jenkins(I)
WTF?!?! I can't even vote for a Democratic congressman. Fuck this "democracy". My choice for Congressman was between 3 types of conservatives. The rest of the ballot was a choice between checking the box next to a Republican or not checking a box next to a Republican. I chose not to check the box. I "voted" but I didn't vote for more than half the "races" on the ballot. I have a feeling that recent Republican redistricting made my ballot extra lousy but I don't know for sure this being my first vote.
Slashdot Mirror
(alt. account to avoid undoing moderation :-)
hahaha. What did you expect to happen?
You posted 10 blatenty flamebaitish messages all stating the exact same thing.
The first one got modded down because it was flamebait, and you posted the exact same thing 10 more times. The moderation given to your flamebait posts calling admins and moderators and retards was completely appropriate.
By the way, I gave you your first "flamebait" mod for your initial post calling admins retards. Calling someone a retard is flamebait, plain and simple.
When you posted to complain with your illogical explenation that your blatant flamebait was in fact not flamebait, and that you are one of the few people that knows what flamebait is, I modded that post overrated.
When you posted yet another blatant flamebait post, I modded that one flamebait as well. Then I ran out of modpoints.
Look, there are some inappropriate moderations around here from time to time. I have been a victim of them myself, but that does not make the system fundamentally broken. It's just an environmental factor that you just kind of have to deal with.
I sometimes post things knowing that I will get modded down. I've called moderators retards and been modded down for it.
The trick is to limit your losses by limiting the amount of posts you make that you can reasonably expect to get modded down. Blatant flamebait will get modded down, and your posts are blatant flamebait, redundant, offtopic, and if not for the fact that you may actually be this mentally unstable, trolls.
I don't want to undo my moderation because I (and everyone else) know it was entirely appropriate, but I will sign this message and tell you the main reason I modded you down instead of just moving on and chalking your post up to just another idiot in the shitheap.
I thought there was a good chance you would fly off the handle. I never imagined you would take it this far, but I must admit that I am very glad it happened.
Yes, I am an asshole, and a troll, but your posts were blatant flamebait and were modded appropriately.
bit trollent
I saw Bill Gates speak in person once. He gave a speach and took some questions in a large concert hall in downtown Houston. I skipped highschool that day and had my parents drive to me to go see him.
He gave some interesting insights about the Microsoft strategy, mainly how it was looking to make sofware a service people rented and continued to pay for rather than buying once. I thought to myself that there is no way this would ever happen. The existance of MSDN subscriptions and the fact that I want one really bad (paid for by someone else of course) proves that I was wrong and the richest man on earth was right. I guess if you are going to be proven wrong by anybody...
At the end he took questions, and I destinctly remember someone asking about Linux and Open Source. Basically the jist of his answer was that he didn't see open source as a good business model for Microsoft. He said he didn't feel threatened by Linux because Microsoft would continue to sell alot of software despit its presence. He said it in a way that I found a tad dismissive.
Though it was a fascinating speech I honestly can't remember too much else about what he said, except that it was pretty heavy on the business aspect of technology rather than software architecture or design. This is unsurprising as his talk was part (I guess the keynote) of a larger information technology something or other related to the oil industry. People who stayed for the later speeches got a free copy of his book. His book was definately more related to business than anything else. If I remember correctly the main point of the book and his speech was that bad news should travel up the chain of command as fast as possible. Or something.
In Dallas, most lights allow you to turn left on red, if oncoming traffic has a green light. It is like you were in the left turn lane pulling in to a parkinglot or not stoplighted street. This is really nice, and I miss it whenever it is unavailable. That said, too many people either don't know how to handle a green circle in the left turn lane, or are just assholes and drive right on through anyway endangering lives to save a couple minutes. Hardly anyone even honks at these people, but I sure as hell lean on the horn until they clear the intersection. Alot of people stop in the middle of the intersection so when all the lights turn red, they have nowhere to go but forward, saving them a traffic light cycle but getting in everyone's way. Despite the problems it can cause, the time it saves people when traffic is light makes it worth the annoyance in my opinion.
I agree sopsigns are being totally misused. I have seen streets with stopsigns every 50 feet, mixed in with roundabouts with stop signs. These aren't european roundabouts either, but just a normal neighborhood intersection with a huge circle of grass and rocks in the middle. Suburbans can't even get through without jumping the curb alot of times. To make matters worst, running one of these stop signs with no other traffic to be seen is the same crime as blowing through a busy intersection at full speed. Yeah, I've gotten the "failure to stop" ticket for rolling through an empty stop sign at 5mph before. $210.
Police are the worst band of theives in America.
I'm not too thrilled about this scheme either, but these third party controllers really do tend to suck big time. I don't own an xbox, but I do own an xbox controller. Years of using friends' cheap, crappy 3rd party controllers convinced me to get a real MS controller. While I'm sure MS doesn't mind the extra income coming in from this plan, another major benefit to them is that less people will have negative experiences with their product at their cheapskate friends' apartments.
You claim that this will "keep prices exhorbidant", but can you identify a better controller at a better price right now? Considering that this doesn't effect the current xbox if your claims are accurate there should definately be such a controller. Keep in mind this is more about quality than features. I don't need a rapid fire button as much as I need the thumbsticks to point where they should.
I agree that not all sequels are bad, and I'll even go so far as to defend the sequel giant EA Games.
They catch alot of crap (probably deserved) for having many sequels to popular games, but it has been my experience that they are doing more than fiddling with the game a little to extract another $40. I only own Command and Conquer Generals and Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield Vietnam. This may not apply the the company's offerings as a whole, but Battlefield 1942 was a fun game. Battlefield vietnam, in which essentially only the guns, tanks, and game engine were changed is even better. I can tell where my $40 went: into an incredible graphics/game engine which made the existing gameplay much more fun. I wish I could see what Battlefield 2 has to offer because I hear it is really good, but I simply can't afford it.
I would just like to remind anyone about to go on a rant about TI outsourcing that TI is in the process of building a $3 billion chip plant, right here in Dallas (Richardson), TX. Shamelessly copied from Dallas Morning news (I would have provided a link if it was reg-free):
When it comes to sheer size, the research facility under construction at the University of Texas at Dallas might have an inferiority complex.
JUAN GARCIA/DMN
Electrical engineering professor Bruce Gnade (right) said small companies will be able to hire the center to conduct research. 'We would have millions of dollars' worth of equipment that small companies can't afford,' Dr. Gnade said. Tom Lund manages the UT System's office of facilities, planning and construction.
It's dwarfed by the $3 billion Texas Instruments chip plant being built on a 92-acre site a few blocks away its counterpart in a Richardson mega-project.
But experts say UTD's 192,000-square-foot Natural Science and Engineering Research Building will be an integral part of the area's growth as a high-tech development and employment center. The $85 million facility, which marked completion of its roof with a ceremony Friday, is scheduled to be finished in December 2006.
"UTD is finally coming into its own as a major research university with lots of ties to high-tech industry," said Bernard Weinstein, director of the Center for Economic Development and Research at the University of North Texas. "It's an asset for the entire region."
Waco economist Ray Perryman said the UTD center is a critical component for "leveraging the knowledge base" needed for research.
"The future of Dallas depends on being the leader in this next generation of technology. [UTD's research facility] is building the future," said Mr. Perryman, who predicted in a 2003 report that the two projects would create more than 76,000 Collin County jobs.
Bill Sproull, CEO of the Richardson Chamber of Commerce, believes that most of those jobs will come from the "new technologies, new spin-off companies and new trained scientific engineers" generated by the research center.
"It's not an investment in the building," Mr. Sproull said. "It's an investment in the program."
The UTD and TI projects were the offspring of Project Emmitt, the moniker given to a deal quietly conceived two years ago by state, corporate and academic officials.
Under the agreement, TI would build its chip plant in Texas if Gov. Rick Perry allocated funds from the Texas Enterprise Fund for UTD research.
The UTD building, equipment, salaries, associated costs and upgrading of other science facilities are being paid for with $300 million in public and private funds. The state has contributed $200 million, and the university has to raise $100 million.
Compared with the TI facility, which will be the size of 25 football fields and have 1,000 workers, the engineering building will be modest: Its four stories, plus a basement, will house about 400 employees mostly faculty and graduate students working as research assistants.
The exterior design of the building makes ample use of curves and angles, and anodized stainless steel panels will reflect hues of greens, blues and purples.
"It's one of the finest pieces of architecture in the state," said Tom Lund, the resident construction manager for the UT System. "It's not just a rectangle. It moves, flows, curves and slopes."
Plans for the interior space might seem unusual for a college campus.
"It won't have classrooms," said Dr. Bruce Gnade, an engineering professor who serves as the university's liaison to the building project.
Biology, physics, chemistry, engineering and other scientific disciplines will be housed at the center, where the interior space will be designed to foster cross-pollination of ideas.
Glass will be used abundantly. Modular walls will be movable so that researchers from different scientific areas can easily reconfigure their work space to collaborate on proj
I did buy a season pass to Space Center Houston for like 2 or 3 years in a row a while ago. You may wonder why anyone would want a season pass to Nasa headquarters' visitor center. I can't really put my finger on it, it was kinda like a museum that I liked so much I returned to see the same paintings time after time. The Saturn V laying on its side is particualry awe inspiring. Once during an open house I wandered away from the visitor area and stumbeld into a room housing what I'm sure is the largest vacume chamber I will ever see. That was really cool. At any rate, I did donate money to the only organization in the US persuing manned orbital flight at this level.
You sure seem angry at NASA. More than that, you seem to be trolling. And its the worst kind of trolling, the kind that is not entertaining in any way. Well that part about congress taking its collective dick out of your ass did make me chuckle a little.
Yeah, I'll concede that NASA's progress since 1981 pales in comparison to what they did in the 60s. I think the International Space Station is a great project, though. I think a permanant human presence in space is great, even if only because it keeps our skills sharp.
Though the last few years have been especially tough, the ones immediately preceding it in my opinion were pretty good. It may have cost a fortune for each launch, but until the Columbia disaster, the ISS was really coming together thanks in large part to the Shuttle's capabilites.
You are right that NASA needed to be knocked out of its complacency, but I think that the Columbia tragedy has already done that. The timetable for delivery of a new spacecraft has already gone from "sometime in the not too distant future" to "As Soon As Possible"
The effective grounding of the shuttle fleet combined with the incomplete space station have created a unique opportunity for NASA. The last time NASA was told, "We need a spacecraft suitable for difficult missions, and we need it yesterday" they didn't dissapoint. I think the next few years should be very interesting.
I don't consider our vacation to the moon to have been a waste at all. If NASA got the urge to take a walk on Mars, I know I'll feel a little better about paying my taxes, even if others understandably don't. It's not that I see Jingoistic dickwaving as a good way to spend Billions of dollars. However, if the need to swing America's gargantuan schlong around helps spur spending and support for the NASA and the space program then I'm all for it. Even if it's not immediately obvious how, the Space Program benefits us all, especially through the advances in technology which it helps spur.
I don't see how Space travel and cancer research are mutually exclusive either, or even relevent to the subject at hand. It's not like we are $200 billion away from curing cancer or anything. Though if we are, I think I know where we could find the money *cough wars cough*
At any rate, I look forward to seeing what NASA pulls out of its sleave in the coming years.
Lobby for a space elevator? With current materials a space elevator is simply not possible. As in it defies the laws of physics. We need monumental improvements in materials to even make a space elevator scientifically feasable. What we need is some guy sitting in a lab screwing around with chemistry and physics in ways I can't even begin to comprehend. And we have that. All over America people are doing just that because the rewards of such progress are huge, not just in the realm of space travel. In short, lobbying of space elevators at point is about as useful as lobbying for an antigravity ray. But don't let that stop you or anyone else from teaching these NASA "rocket scientists" what a real space program should look like.
These airmchair rocket scientists never cease to amaze me. To paraphrase that guy in "Gone in 50 Seconds":
You can't park. You can't maintain speed. You can't change lanes. Honey, you can't drive. I can't swim. I know I can't swim, so you know what I do? I stay my black ass out of the water.
The handful of worthwhile posts in this thread are practically drowned out by the torrent of backseat NASA administrators who all know they would have handled it better. And the worst part of all is that you know that if NASA had never built the space shuttle these same clowns would be on slashdot bitching about how spaceships haven't changed in 70 years and saying that we should really have spaceplanes by now.
Wow, that (lumping the Post office, the IRS, and the TSA in with NASA) has to be the biggest logical fallacy I have read on slashdot all week, err all day, err in this story, err in this thread, err hmmm. Actually you seem to be about par for the course with this crowd.
These airmchair rocket scientists never cease to amaze me. To paraphrase that guy in "Gone in 50 Seconds":
You can't park. You can't maintain speed. You can't change lanes. Honey, you can't drive. I can't swim. I know I can't swim, so you know what I do? I stay my black ass out of the water.
The handful of worthwhile posts in this thread are practically drowned out by the torrent of backseat NASA administrators who all know they would have handled it better. And the worst part of all is that you know that if NASA had never built the space shuttle these same clowns would be on slashdot bitching about how spaceships haven't changed in 70 years and saying that we should really have spaceplanes by now.
One thing you neglect to mention in your description of US government groups: The people who brought men to the damn moon and back again in less than a decade. Thats right, it may have been an exercise in national dickwaving, but ours was biggest, and ours was baddest. For all its many faults I for one am damn proud of what our government has accomplished in space. If you want a relatively small investment with a high likelyhood of financial gain send it to private industry. If you want to send men to the moon for no other reason than to leave some footprints and plant a flag you are going to need the US Government.
Many sites have all sorts of BS warning popups, redirects, and restrictions on browsers other than IE (often not placing restrictions on firefox btw) even though they render and work just fine in Opera. The folks at Opera have decided that the user experience is more important than their stats.
Anyone know if Opera is now or ever has been a profitable company? I really hope so, because even with low stats a profitable browser company that competes with both free bundled IE and free firefox makes a powerful statement.
It takes 2 seconds to send a signal from a computer on earth to a satellite internet service and back to earth again. It takes like 20 minutes to get a signal to Mars and back. The limit on the latency is the speed of light * distance traveled, not the amount of data being transmitted, at least at the bandwith needed for voice traffic.
I'm not sure where you get the idea that they "had to sacrafice high-resolution holographic images to get them to transmit with such low latency." They already found a way to make waves travel faster than the speed of light. With that hurdle overcome, I'm sure they have more bandwith than they need.
What I really can't understand though is why I'm actually discussing bandwith use in Star Wars. I never thought I would see the day...
I have two computers, both dualbooting Windows XP and Mandrake Linux. One is unstable in both OSs, with Linux so unstable that I can't even get through five microsoft astroturfer conspiracies on slashdot before the web browser crashes for seemingly no reason. The same computer has stability problems under XP, but is markedly more stable than Linux.
My new computer (payed for by perl/solaris internship at a major telecom company for those who love to question my skills) runs both operationg systems flawlessly. Doesn't crash in Windows (ever), doesn't crash in Linux (ever). I know that by saying this I am opening myself up to astroturfing accusations (the groupthink is strong with this bunch) but you people deserve at least a taste of non-zealotry inspired babble. When you accuse those who hold different opinions than yours of astroturfing you just make yourselves more unappealing. Notice I said yourselves, not your operating systems. Just because you are a bunch of self-important, self-rightous, foaming at the mouth zealots doesn't mean Linux isn't great software:-)
I'm not sure which bridge you are talking about but I remember from seeing a documentary about the big dig that aside from putting in new freeways etc downtown's electric, telecom, and plumbing infrastructure was getting a complete overhaul. I would wager that the bridge was a part of a larger mostly unseen puzzle which must be completed in a certain order. On the other hand I am not familiar with the situation at all so I may be totally wrong.
As for the wisdom of cancelling the project at this stage of the game, that to me seems like a total unmitigated waste of money. If the government is going to drop however many billions into this project, it should at least see it through until it is complete. It's relatively close to being finished right?
I hate to use this as a metric but the entire Big Dig costs far less then even a few months of occupying Iraq. If I was going broke and had a $1700/month apartment and a $400/month car, I would probably move out of the apartment well before I sold my car.
Ive been considering persuing a law degree after I finish CS for some time now. I'll probably choose to work assuming I'm able to find a job but I was wondering how other people with CS degrees enjoyed law school and what opportunities it has opened up.
I am listening to Night at the Hip Hopera.
Brilliant. Just Brilliant.
Screwed up clique for life!!
Posts like this make me wish there was a music.slashdot.org
This is so true
Im glad but enfuriated to find out that I'm not the only one this happens to.
The worst part isn't even the delay though, Ive got plenty of dvdrs to keep me busy for a long time. It's that they are blatently lying to me. Ive sent 3 movies back at the same time and had them only aknowlage recieving two, delaying the next one almost a week before they aknowledged it was recieved.
Damn You Netflix! I know you got my movies back already! Stop acting like you didn't because I totally know you did!!!
The popup doesn't work in Opera. w00t.
This type of story is why I still visit slashdot. Are you sure you are a nerd? This matters.
There is a difference between a scientific theory and other theories. A theory can only be scientific if it has not been disproven. As such, evolution remains a scientific theory, but an earth centered universe does not. By the creationists logic, my donut-shaped universe theory is just as valid as Einstein's theory of relativity.
What we have here is a word "theory" which means different things in different contexts. Like with so many other things, psuedoscience creationists have sought to confuse the true in-context meaning of words in a way that "proves" their point.
"...making it the latest Segway Scooter accident to claim over 1000 lives"
- Kent Brockman reporting
What computing JOB can be done in Windows that can't be done as well or better by a Mac or Linux?
asp.NET/c# programmer. It is my current job.
Of course since at work we have XP SP2 on all our computers we also were not affected. "Does not affect people with XP service pack 2" is getting about as common as "Does not affect Mac users." I was also covered by the less common "Does not affect Opera users." See, I don't need a one button mouse to surf the internet securely.
Worst Ballot Ever
This is my first time voting and I have to say that I am seriously Dissapointed with my choices. I don't just mean Bush v. Kerry. As I was reading a sample ballot and in the voting booth (electronic w/o paper trail, not that my vote matters anyway) I kept remembering the words, "Iraq is not a democracy because you can only vote for Saddam or not vote for Saddam." By those standards Collin County, Texas is not a democracy. On the door to the polling center there was a sign saying that we wouldn't even be voting in the hotly contested Pete Sessions v. Jack Frost race where redistricting put a Democratic incumbent in the same conservative district as a Republican incumbent. I would have cast a proud Democratic vote in that race but I am 200 feet across the county line. sigh... No wonder turnout was so low.
For President:
[ ] Bush(R)
[x] Kerry(D)
[ ] Badnerik(L)
For U.S. Representative:
[ ] Johnson(R)
[ ] Vessels(L)
[ ] Jenkins(I)
WTF?!?! I can't even vote for a Democratic congressman. Fuck this "democracy". My choice for Congressman was between 3 types of conservatives. The rest of the ballot was a choice between checking the box next to a Republican or not checking a box next to a Republican. I chose not to check the box. I "voted" but I didn't vote for more than half the "races" on the ballot. I have a feeling that recent Republican redistricting made my ballot extra lousy but I don't know for sure this being my first vote.