Hate to argue, but I think your NASA figures are way off the charts. The AP reported that the shuttle costs upwards of 1 billion/mission including development costs. NASA quoted the number at 490 million/launch in 1999. The simple math is that the human flight budget plus mission support is budgeted for a bit over 8 billion FY2001 and they are planning 8 missions. This doesn't included NASA's non-shuttle costs, nor amorization of costs already spent.
There are literally dozens of various instruments that Mandrake could employ to sell equity. The reasons they don't are as follows in ranking order:
1. Honest Greed. The current owners believe their equity is worth more than the probable market perception. If this is correct, the sale of equity could result in a higher than tolerable cost-of-capital. In such a case, the company may have better alternatives to raising capital, such as through various debt instruments which may provide a lower cost-of-capital or even aquistion.
2. Tax. Publically traded companies must register as C-Corps. Mandrake may not already be a C-Corp, and probably is an S-Corp. S-Corps allow for pass-through-accounting, so the corporation doesn't pay any taxes (the owners pay the taxes or in this case write off the loses). I could be the FUD master here (I'm not an accountant), but this is a possible reason.
3. Legal Mumbojumbo. Publicly traded companies must follow strict rules and regulations regardling disclosure and accounting. These restriction can severely impare smaller organizations which are still attempting to establish themselves.
I'm glad they did too. However, putting a man on the moon stirs up the spirit a bit more than that orbiting vegitable garden they have now (Internation Space Station). By the way, that zero-G brocolli experement takes up 6% of the annual US Budget. (Far more than the roughly 3% tax cut about to be passed).
some more perspective. While it will rank as one of the greatest achievements of mankind. During the first ten years of the Apollo moon program (up to the actual first man on the moon), cost 5% of the US gross national product for the period. For 10 years, 5% of the gross production of the US went to the moon program. Think about it. Kennedy had some serious balls.
For the same reason they hated Tito. NASA doesn't want anybody to build a space station for 500 million dollars, because it shows how rediculous their budget is. It was the same deal with Tito. Tito payed roughly 12 million to go into space (despite NASA's attempts to claim the number was really 20 million). The Russian crew was three including Tito. Assuming, that the 12 million was enough to cover the costs of a single crew member (why else would they do it), that suggests that it only cost the Russians at most about 36 million (I'm sure it was less). It costs NASA 600 million for each space shuttle launch ( = Space shuttle annual budget / number of launches). Now, if you are a NASA administrator, and some guys says he's going to spend 500 million on a space station, and you can't launch the shuttle for that, what are you going to say!
Yes, earth crud has made it to mars at some point. Whether life made it there is more speculative but certainly not beyond reason. However, life would have not likely been transfered once Mars lost its atmosphere 2 billion years ago. The atmosphere slows down the debris making it possible for passengers to survive impact. During Mar's wet phase when it looked much like Earth, it is very possible that our biospheres were interconnected in this way. Here's the http://www.spaceref.com/redirect.ref?url=www.scien ce-frontiers.com/sf099/sf099g10.htm&id=2926 the full story.
Captialism is going to kick my ass if I dont get some more work done today, but what the heck.
#1. Ted Turner and CNN aren't the best source for information on this matter given his ties to the UN. Anyway, if land mines, AIDS drugs and the death penalty are criteria for getting booted off, do you find it strange that a sanctioned slave trade (sudan), 20 year manditory inprisonment for cooperating with any foreign press agency (Cuba), and forced abortions (china) are are criteria for being on the commission?
#2 Are you suggesting that we model our economy after the economies of these civillizations many of whom are fuedal and hereditary.
#3. Ah Ok. I agree with you. Accumulation of wealth is not nessessarily important. The creation of wealth is paramount. Wealth is civilization. I can program because wealth makes it possible for me not to have to hunt. Wealth is specialization. The creation of wealth is not a zero-sum game.
When will you guys give up? The commies will outlive the sun, I swear it. Ok Nader Boy, #1 the US was booted off the human rights commission because of the countries that are on it like Sudan (thriving slave trade), Cuba (totalitarian dictatorship), and China (have more that one kid you either pay a fine or get an abortion). These guys are sick of the UN passing human rights resolutions that interfere with their closed market regiems. #2 Nader Boy, please enlighten us with your examples of "damn fine" civilizations that were based on systems other than capitalism and democracy. Would that be Imperial Rome (1/3rd population slaves), or ancient egypt (not bad if you are pharoe), or maybe medivial India (you are born into your caste and 1/5th of the population are untouchable). #3 Nader Boy, Wealth is the moving of an asset from a lower value to a higher one. You are confusing the accumulation of wealth with weath itself. I suggest you read some economics 101 before you run off to your Green gatherings.
I dispute the claim that we live in a world dictated by a "handful of extremely powerful faceless corporations." We live in a world dictated by many factors, and probably mostly by sex and fear. Fortunetly, in the better parts of the world, like in America, the free market has a great deal of influence on resource allocation, policy, and individual choice. I dispute the implied claim that the free market is dictated by a "handfull of extremely powerful faceless corporations." Corporations are subjects of their share holders and therefore subject to the free markets. Now, the system is not perfect, however, in practice it works extremely well and time over time again has proven to be more effective than the alternatives. A free market (making it free is the trick I grant you) is dictated by the consumer. The consumer thrives on productivity never waste (you don't buy a crappy sandwich when their is a better one at the same price). As long as the markets are free, productivity and the creation of wealth by moving assets from lower values to higher values will thrive. Markets are driven however by perception (you bought the other sandwich because you perceived it to be better, it might not have been). This is their inefficeincy (hence the erratic behavioir of the price of corn or the NASDAQ). However, it is not an inefficiency of the market, but of humans. We openly admit this when we try and limit frivolous political adds because they might influence the simple minded (majority). Therefore, we must regulate the market as best as we can to limit the failings of human perception. However, we must avoid cramping down too much otherwise the market will no longer be free, and we'll be subject to one person or groups perception. So in some ways, I agree that "corporate power" or as I would say, "the free market" must be checked.
Ah, but Katz is a hypocrit because as it turns out people don't HAVE to work for corporations in a free market. They can work for whomever they choose. They in fact are a part of the free market, and make demands on the market and the market makes demands in turn on them.
The giant media conglomerations. Hmmm, sort of like the media empires we've had since there was a media. Strange, what empire is/. a part of that I missed? Is/. deciding everything for me?
Giant biotechnology, chemical and agribusiness. Wow those do sound scary. Strange, would you rather have chemicals from a small company? What does the size of the company have to do with it? Biotechnology making decisions for us? Hmm, as opposed to farmers making decisions for us? What is the difference?
Giant Pharmaceutical companys that hold patents on genomes. Sure there is some abuse here, but do they really control whether millions of people live or die or does the market? If you ditched patent rights on genetic research, how many pharamcutical companies will do it? Guess. How about zero. Do you think an asshole like Edison would have worked for free? I don't work for free either.
This sounds like classic accademic, liberal banter lacking in any viable alternative or suggestion and unleashed from the ivory tower of contempt known as the University.
The problem comes down to having to stop and the propellant used in combination with Relativity.
Bummer #1: You have to stop, so half of your fuel and propelant must be saved in order to stop the craft.
Bummer #2: You still need to carry propellant (what you are going to push away from) in addition to your fuel. The more propellant you carry the more energy it takes to accelerate the craft. Ultimately, you reach a point at which carrying more propellant will just slow you down more.
Bummer #3: At.5c relativity predicts your inertial mass will have increased to %150 your mass at rest. So you'll have to %50 more work to accelerate.
Add these up into a nasty equation, and you get to roughly.5c. If you throw in a passanger, a craft, engines, parts, etc and make the equation slightly more realistic, you get to around.1c.
1. Katz is an employee of Slashdot (for some unknown reason), a division of Andovernet.
2. Andovernet is a subsidiary of VA Linux.
3. VA Linux is a publically trading corporation, incorporated as a Class C Corporation.
Slashdot would not fucking exist if not for the Captial Markets of the United States and our influence in expanding those markets to the rest of the world.
Those markets work. Thankfully, they work so well, that VA Linux is about to tank, as the consumer has decided not to divert world resources to VA Linux's products which include Slashdot. Soon, VA Linux will be forced to perform even more cutbacks, and we can all hope that in light of his idiotic comments, Katz will be the first one to be sacked.
"...excessive corporate power that grips the United States." - is just a childish excuse for why this idiot is about to be fired.
I agree with your points and McNealy's. I would add that the big missing ingredient is a legal right to privacy and the binding nature of a privacy contract. If you agree to a spesific privacy agreement with a company (whether on the web or not), they should be bound to that agreement and it should be considered a legal contract.
They should get the author of that article and make him an editor here at/. His blood level of Trollocondrians ranks him as a FUDi-Master more powerful than even our master Katzoda.
Microsoft is good about getting security patches out, and generally all you need to do is install the patch. Rarely is some special configuration required. I agree that an experienced admin can secure a win2k box as well as a *nix box.
I believe that NT/Win2k's security problems come down to 3 issues:
1. Less Experienced Admins. Let's face it, *nix admins tend to have been around the block a little more (at least in my experience). Probably, this is due to the fact that unix is a little harder to use and understand. I'm amazed how lazy NT admins are. So many sites are cracked because they fail to update their software patches. This is probably due to a culture of "it works don't fuck with it" that most Windows users suffer from.
2. Feature Friendly. Microsoft loves features. Features are security risks. The security of your product will always be disproportionate to the size of the featureset. Microsoft embrases friendly, seemingly useful new technologies faster than the cinical *nix crowd. Look at VBScript. I can see years ago, somebody saying, "Hey lets make Pine and Emacs ReadMail parse Perl script in email messages!" Imagine the shock around that room! Services of course are always the security nightmare on any platform, and *nix can suffer from too many features too, but *nix services tend to be bare-boned, while Microsoft services tend to be rich banquets for the cracker.
3. Closed Development. Ok, here's the flame, but I think there is something to be said about this issue. Open Source development has just bugs and security hole issues. The difference is the education of the admins (so in a way this is like point #1.) *nix admins tend to know how a service works because the development community openly discusses the design principles involved. The community is not only aware of the featureset but the internals. With NT/win2k nobody knows shit (except a few losers at Dell and HP) until it is too late. In otherwords, with Microsoft you just have to take it on faith that their experienced engineers have worked out the issues. With *nix, I find it easier to have faith in the cadres of hackers working on Linux and BSD (not that they are better, there are just more of them).
According to our current base of knowledge of physics, antimatter is the end all of power generation. As far as propulsion goes, the biggest, baddest anti-matter drive that we can build can would only theoretically be able to travel us just shy of 1/2 the speed of light. This assumes the fuel to generate the acceleration is carried by the drive. Obviously, we'll need to cheat relativity somewhere to get around this little problem or devise methods of acceleration which don't carry fuel.
What you said is interesting but I strongly disagree about your analysis of Java with regards to web apps. Java GUI perhaps is clunky. However, Java rules the networking middle tier as perhaps the most scalable, well structured and speedy platform. Simple servlets (no EJB) are very fast, very easy to learn, and very powerful. All C# will bring to this equation is native interfaces to the OS platform. Java lacks this (file permissions, etc) because Java tries to be too pure in its platform independence..NET's biggest challenge, is that vetran C++ network coders who played with MTS and COM+ had bad experiences. The shit didn't work and didn't scale. While Microsoft may get it right with.NET, that taste is lingering, and those guys have moved on to Java Servlets.
Slashdot Mirror
Hate to argue, but I think your NASA figures are way off the charts. The AP reported that the shuttle costs upwards of 1 billion/mission including development costs. NASA quoted the number at 490 million/launch in 1999. The simple math is that the human flight budget plus mission support is budgeted for a bit over 8 billion FY2001 and they are planning 8 missions. This doesn't included NASA's non-shuttle costs, nor amorization of costs already spent.
There are literally dozens of various instruments that Mandrake could employ to sell equity. The reasons they don't are as follows in ranking order:
1. Honest Greed. The current owners believe their equity is worth more than the probable market perception. If this is correct, the sale of equity could result in a higher than tolerable cost-of-capital. In such a case, the company may have better alternatives to raising capital, such as through various debt instruments which may provide a lower cost-of-capital or even aquistion.
2. Tax. Publically traded companies must register as C-Corps. Mandrake may not already be a C-Corp, and probably is an S-Corp. S-Corps allow for pass-through-accounting, so the corporation doesn't pay any taxes (the owners pay the taxes or in this case write off the loses). I could be the FUD master here (I'm not an accountant), but this is a possible reason.
3. Legal Mumbojumbo. Publicly traded companies must follow strict rules and regulations regardling disclosure and accounting. These restriction can severely impare smaller organizations which are still attempting to establish themselves.
I'm glad they did too. However, putting a man on the moon stirs up the spirit a bit more than that orbiting vegitable garden they have now (Internation Space Station). By the way, that zero-G brocolli experement takes up 6% of the annual US Budget. (Far more than the roughly 3% tax cut about to be passed).
some more perspective. While it will rank as one of the greatest achievements of mankind. During the first ten years of the Apollo moon program (up to the actual first man on the moon), cost 5% of the US gross national product for the period. For 10 years, 5% of the gross production of the US went to the moon program. Think about it. Kennedy had some serious balls.
For the same reason they hated Tito. NASA doesn't want anybody to build a space station for 500 million dollars, because it shows how rediculous their budget is. It was the same deal with Tito. Tito payed roughly 12 million to go into space (despite NASA's attempts to claim the number was really 20 million). The Russian crew was three including Tito. Assuming, that the 12 million was enough to cover the costs of a single crew member (why else would they do it), that suggests that it only cost the Russians at most about 36 million (I'm sure it was less). It costs NASA 600 million for each space shuttle launch ( = Space shuttle annual budget / number of launches). Now, if you are a NASA administrator, and some guys says he's going to spend 500 million on a space station, and you can't launch the shuttle for that, what are you going to say!
I just about fell out my seat. This is the funniest thing I've seen on /. in weeks!
Are you guys affiliated with http://www.gnu.org/software/shotyourfavoriteoriell yanimal/safaree.html
Yes, earth crud has made it to mars at some point. Whether life made it there is more speculative but certainly not beyond reason. However, life would have not likely been transfered once Mars lost its atmosphere 2 billion years ago. The atmosphere slows down the debris making it possible for passengers to survive impact. During Mar's wet phase when it looked much like Earth, it is very possible that our biospheres were interconnected in this way. Here's the http://www.spaceref.com/redirect.ref?url=www.scien ce-frontiers.com/sf099/sf099g10.htm&id=2926 the full story.
We are desperately in need of developers to write replacement code for lpf over here at http://sourceforge.net/projects/babymunchingmachin e/home.html
hmm 64 DSL circuts on fiber? These are the same SPs that put 64 DSLs on a T3.
Yes and Modular Form (I'm guessing I'm not a mathematician)
Captialism is going to kick my ass if I dont get some more work done today, but what the heck.
#1. Ted Turner and CNN aren't the best source for information on this matter given his ties to the UN. Anyway, if land mines, AIDS drugs and the death penalty are criteria for getting booted off, do you find it strange that a sanctioned slave trade (sudan), 20 year manditory inprisonment for cooperating with any foreign press agency (Cuba), and forced abortions (china) are are criteria for being on the commission?
#2 Are you suggesting that we model our economy after the economies of these civillizations many of whom are fuedal and hereditary.
#3. Ah Ok. I agree with you. Accumulation of wealth is not nessessarily important. The creation of wealth is paramount. Wealth is civilization. I can program because wealth makes it possible for me not to have to hunt. Wealth is specialization. The creation of wealth is not a zero-sum game.
Don't even bother with this idiot; his personal page quotes Che Guevero and Ralph Nader for God's sake.
When will you guys give up? The commies will outlive the sun, I swear it. Ok Nader Boy, #1 the US was booted off the human rights commission because of the countries that are on it like Sudan (thriving slave trade), Cuba (totalitarian dictatorship), and China (have more that one kid you either pay a fine or get an abortion). These guys are sick of the UN passing human rights resolutions that interfere with their closed market regiems. #2 Nader Boy, please enlighten us with your examples of "damn fine" civilizations that were based on systems other than capitalism and democracy. Would that be Imperial Rome (1/3rd population slaves), or ancient egypt (not bad if you are pharoe), or maybe medivial India (you are born into your caste and 1/5th of the population are untouchable). #3 Nader Boy, Wealth is the moving of an asset from a lower value to a higher one. You are confusing the accumulation of wealth with weath itself. I suggest you read some economics 101 before you run off to your Green gatherings.
very funny. So the cache is on the die, but what about the topography (architecture) of the cache. is L1 copied in L2, etc...
I dispute the claim that we live in a world dictated by a "handful of extremely powerful faceless corporations." We live in a world dictated by many factors, and probably mostly by sex and fear. Fortunetly, in the better parts of the world, like in America, the free market has a great deal of influence on resource allocation, policy, and individual choice. I dispute the implied claim that the free market is dictated by a "handfull of extremely powerful faceless corporations." Corporations are subjects of their share holders and therefore subject to the free markets. Now, the system is not perfect, however, in practice it works extremely well and time over time again has proven to be more effective than the alternatives. A free market (making it free is the trick I grant you) is dictated by the consumer. The consumer thrives on productivity never waste (you don't buy a crappy sandwich when their is a better one at the same price). As long as the markets are free, productivity and the creation of wealth by moving assets from lower values to higher values will thrive. Markets are driven however by perception (you bought the other sandwich because you perceived it to be better, it might not have been). This is their inefficeincy (hence the erratic behavioir of the price of corn or the NASDAQ). However, it is not an inefficiency of the market, but of humans. We openly admit this when we try and limit frivolous political adds because they might influence the simple minded (majority). Therefore, we must regulate the market as best as we can to limit the failings of human perception. However, we must avoid cramping down too much otherwise the market will no longer be free, and we'll be subject to one person or groups perception. So in some ways, I agree that "corporate power" or as I would say, "the free market" must be checked. Ah, but Katz is a hypocrit because as it turns out people don't HAVE to work for corporations in a free market. They can work for whomever they choose. They in fact are a part of the free market, and make demands on the market and the market makes demands in turn on them. The giant media conglomerations. Hmmm, sort of like the media empires we've had since there was a media. Strange, what empire is /. a part of that I missed? Is /. deciding everything for me?
Giant biotechnology, chemical and agribusiness. Wow those do sound scary. Strange, would you rather have chemicals from a small company? What does the size of the company have to do with it? Biotechnology making decisions for us? Hmm, as opposed to farmers making decisions for us? What is the difference?
Giant Pharmaceutical companys that hold patents on genomes. Sure there is some abuse here, but do they really control whether millions of people live or die or does the market? If you ditched patent rights on genetic research, how many pharamcutical companies will do it? Guess. How about zero. Do you think an asshole like Edison would have worked for free? I don't work for free either.
This sounds like classic accademic, liberal banter lacking in any viable alternative or suggestion and unleashed from the ivory tower of contempt known as the University.
The problem comes down to having to stop and the propellant used in combination with Relativity.
.5c relativity predicts your inertial mass will have increased to %150 your mass at rest. So you'll have to %50 more work to accelerate.
.5c. If you throw in a passanger, a craft, engines, parts, etc and make the equation slightly more realistic, you get to around .1c.
Bummer #1: You have to stop, so half of your fuel and propelant must be saved in order to stop the craft.
Bummer #2: You still need to carry propellant (what you are going to push away from) in addition to your fuel. The more propellant you carry the more energy it takes to accelerate the craft. Ultimately, you reach a point at which carrying more propellant will just slow you down more.
Bummer #3: At
Add these up into a nasty equation, and you get to roughly
Is the L3 Cache onboard the die or off? What are L1 and L2 Cache sizes and what is the cache topogrpahy?
Hypocrite is understatement in this case.
1. Katz is an employee of Slashdot (for some unknown reason), a division of Andovernet.
2. Andovernet is a subsidiary of VA Linux.
3. VA Linux is a publically trading corporation, incorporated as a Class C Corporation.
Slashdot would not fucking exist if not for the Captial Markets of the United States and our influence in expanding those markets to the rest of the world.
Those markets work. Thankfully, they work so well, that VA Linux is about to tank, as the consumer has decided not to divert world resources to VA Linux's products which include Slashdot. Soon, VA Linux will be forced to perform even more cutbacks, and we can all hope that in light of his idiotic comments, Katz will be the first one to be sacked.
"...excessive corporate power that grips the United States." - is just a childish excuse for why this idiot is about to be fired.
I agree with your points and McNealy's. I would add that the big missing ingredient is a legal right to privacy and the binding nature of a privacy contract. If you agree to a spesific privacy agreement with a company (whether on the web or not), they should be bound to that agreement and it should be considered a legal contract.
They should get the author of that article and make him an editor here at /. His blood level of Trollocondrians ranks him as a FUDi-Master more powerful than even our master Katzoda.
I believe that NT/Win2k's security problems come down to 3 issues:
According to our current base of knowledge of physics, antimatter is the end all of power generation. As far as propulsion goes, the biggest, baddest anti-matter drive that we can build can would only theoretically be able to travel us just shy of 1/2 the speed of light. This assumes the fuel to generate the acceleration is carried by the drive. Obviously, we'll need to cheat relativity somewhere to get around this little problem or devise methods of acceleration which don't carry fuel.
Today's NYTimes is reporting high-temp superconductors being used in Detroit (high temp is a relative term). http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/29/science/29SUPE.h tml
What you said is interesting but I strongly disagree about your analysis of Java with regards to web apps. Java GUI perhaps is clunky. However, Java rules the networking middle tier as perhaps the most scalable, well structured and speedy platform. Simple servlets (no EJB) are very fast, very easy to learn, and very powerful. All C# will bring to this equation is native interfaces to the OS platform. Java lacks this (file permissions, etc) because Java tries to be too pure in its platform independence. .NET's biggest challenge, is that vetran C++ network coders who played with MTS and COM+ had bad experiences. The shit didn't work and didn't scale. While Microsoft may get it right with .NET, that taste is lingering, and those guys have moved on to Java Servlets.