By your logic, we would have to entertain every single crackpot notion from ID to the flying spaghetti monster.
But it's not SCIENCE. A SCIENCE class is about SCIENCE. ID is not SCIENCE and therefore should not be taught in a SCIENCE class. In order for something to be taught in a SCIENCE class, it must follow SCIENTIFIC principals. ID does not follow SCIENTIFIC principals so should not be taught in a SCIENCE class.
You don't teach ID, you preach ID. Save the preaching for the churches and the teaching for the schools.
I have had exactly one blue screen using XP, and that was caused by a bad driver. Other than that, 100% uptime across the board. I've had programs crash but the OS remained up.
On my macbook pro with tiger, I've had 3 crashes, 2 spinning beachballs of death, and one ice screen (frozen plain blue screen) in the past year. Most seemed to have been cause by open source programs (X11 based apps seemed to be particularly flaky), though one instance was caused by a mac update and the other by powerpoint.
So what does this mean? Squat. There is no conclusion that can reasonable be drawn from this. I don't think macs are crash prone pieces of junk. Nor do I think XP is the pinnacle of stability. Unfortunately, there are no standard "stability" tests to speak of.
The number of lockups and crashes (or uptime %) are pretty much irrelevant unless you know the context. If you're a developer, there's a good chance that you'll end up crashing a system from time to time. If all you do is answer email and surf the web, you really shouldn't see any crashes. The same goes for someone running a website that only gets 4 hits a month.
It would be useful to come up with a standardized stability test for some unbiased numbers. But until there is such a thing all reviews should be taken with a good chunk of halite.
If I were a Yahoo exec, I would taken the opportunity to identify who the real "moral pygmies".
"You have the audacity to call us moral pygmies? You who approved individuals like Alberto Gonzales who believed that torture was merely a point of view? You who have pushed through ludicrous legislation ensuring god-like powers to the executive? You who have actively turned a blind eye to the violations of the Constitution and basic human rights?
"You are, at best, hypocrites. You are no less self-serving than we are. The only difference is that you wrap yourselves in the American flag first."
What would they do, arrest them for calling a spade a spade?
We paid for the lines. Our tax dollars paid for the lines. The government gave them grants, subsidies, and tax write-offs to create the network.
What the government has done is given the major telecos the right to effectively block competitors. They now have the right to charge exorbitant fees to third party ISPs who want to use the lines that our tax dollars paid for. This effectively shuts down competition, and eventually will lead to the walled-garden scenario.
Tell me, how many ISPs in th country can afford to run their own lines through the country? How many billions do you think that would cost? How many battles do you think an ISP would need to go through to even get the rights to lay down new copper?
To me, this is no different from any other public infrastructure. Imagine for a moment, what this would be like if instead of copper lines being laid down we were talking about roads and freeways. Imagine being charged a monthly fee for the road use form a private company, ON TOP OF paying taxes.
I don't like getting screwed by the government or private companies. Perhaps you like taking it at both ends, but the vast majority of people don't.
When I interview someone, I don't look at their school or what degree they have.
I grill them. I grill them on what they know, what they think they know, and how they've applied what they know. I ask hard questions. I'm usually just one in a series of people that interview candidates, but I'm known as the griller (sometimes well over an hour or two).
I will end up working with th person at some point and I want to know if they are going to measure up (or if thy can be trained to). I don't care if you've got a Ph. D from Stanford. If you can't answer questions related to the field or the position you aren't going to be recommended. If you can't show how you've applied you're skills, you aren't going to be recommended. If you've got the social skills of a guano festooned rock, you aren't going to be recommended.
First, if all you're going to be photographing are fairly bright objects then you shouldn't have much of a problem doing so. Though, unless you have a rock solid mount and perfect atmospheric onditions you may get more out of using a webcam and stacking the images.
If you're going to do deep space, you're going to need more than just a camera. Doing that with a sub $1000 setup proably isn't going to work out too well.
That being said, probably the best dSLR for astrophotagraphy that I would say is affordable is the Cannon Rebel series, including the XT.
I own a Nikon D70, as was disappointed to find out that the RAW mode really wasn't raw (which is how you should shoot for astro). They use some sort of median filter. The only way to get around the filter is to turn the camera off before the processing stops.
Real astro cams cost a few grand (not the cheap meade/celestron/orion imagers, but SAC systems).
As far as first scopes go, you'll probably want to go schmidt-cassegrain or reflector. These light buckets will allow you to see more deeply than a refractor. A good starter size is 6-8 inches (fairly portable). You can probably get one with a computer mount for sub-1000, but you don't really learn the sky that way.
I have a 10" schmidt-cassegrain and a 6" achromat. Unfortunately, I live within 15 minutes of BWI and several cities.:P
First, I have to see you have some strange perceptions of engineering.
I used to work in the games industry. Unless your working in a (very) rare shop, about all you have time to do is program. You need crack coders willing to work serious hours. Many games release with numerous bugs, but as long as they aren't show stoppers the game is usually let through. One game I worked on for the playstation was using the previous release's source as a base. The previous version released with over 300 known issues.
When your writing software that needs high-reliability, that is a whole different ballgame. The system has to be designed. The system has to scale. The system needs to be able to run/communicate with different hardware, servers, and/or networks. You need a rock solid testing harness. Errors may mean million dollar losses, or wasted weeks of computation. This is where you need engineers.
The game industry requires good programmers. Most other IT shops require good engineers.
This is not to imply that engineers are better programmers. I've worked with some engineers who weren't good programmers. I've also worked with programmers who couldn't engineer.
Engineering requires more skill than pounding out code.
I had finished climbing the mountain just after night fell, and I looked up at sky from the parking lot. Absolutely amazing. I have a few telescopes, but nothing beats seeing all those stars in the sky at the same time. It really does put things in perspective.
We got lucky in 2006. La Nina created enough shear across the atlantic to shred most of the storms, and what did form was blown away from land.
This year, due to higher temperatures and the increased desertification in Africa, we've had more Saharan dust than normal across the Atlantic, which has been acting as an inhibitor.
Right now, the Gulf region and Carribean SST's a significantly warmer than normal. Wind shear and dust have been the only things preventing storms from forming. There is plenty of energy to produce multiple Wilma's and Katrina's.
Will they form? Possibly. It depends on whether or not any of the tropical waves can maintain cohesion long enough through the shear and dust to make to the wester side of the Atlantic. If they do, then it is likely that storms will blow up big and fast.
So far, we have been lucky. Let's see if it holds out.
The damn models are released as OPEN SOURCE on NASA's OWN FREAKIN' SITE!
This really irritates me. I've seen people spew this line a thousand times. Google modelE for starters. You can download the source. You can build it. You can run it.
But it won't do you much good unless:
1. You have significant computing power (the models are usually run on supercomputers). 2. You're an atmospheric scientist that can actually understand the hundreds of parameters the model is outputting.
NASA scientists can't just release stuff when they want to. They have to get approval. And like any other government agency there is a bureaucracy. You wouldn't believe some of the decisions made just about piddly little things.
Slashdot Mirror
By your logic, we would have to entertain every single crackpot notion from ID to the flying spaghetti monster.
But it's not SCIENCE. A SCIENCE class is about SCIENCE. ID is not SCIENCE and therefore should not be taught in a SCIENCE class. In order for something to be taught in a SCIENCE class, it must follow SCIENTIFIC principals. ID does not follow SCIENTIFIC principals so should not be taught in a SCIENCE class.
You don't teach ID, you preach ID. Save the preaching for the churches and the teaching for the schools.
~X~
So that makes terrorist some of the most courageous individuals on the planet, correct?
Let me correct this for you:
When people make sacrifices for what they believe in AND they align with my beliefs, that's real courage.
Damn hypocrite coward.
~X~
Similar experience here.
I have had exactly one blue screen using XP, and that was caused by a bad driver. Other than that, 100% uptime across the board. I've had programs crash but the OS remained up.
On my macbook pro with tiger, I've had 3 crashes, 2 spinning beachballs of death, and one ice screen (frozen plain blue screen) in the past year. Most seemed to have been cause by open source programs (X11 based apps seemed to be particularly flaky), though one instance was caused by a mac update and the other by powerpoint.
So what does this mean? Squat. There is no conclusion that can reasonable be drawn from this. I don't think macs are crash prone pieces of junk. Nor do I think XP is the pinnacle of stability. Unfortunately, there are no standard "stability" tests to speak of.
The number of lockups and crashes (or uptime %) are pretty much irrelevant unless you know the context. If you're a developer, there's a good chance that you'll end up crashing a system from time to time. If all you do is answer email and surf the web, you really shouldn't see any crashes. The same goes for someone running a website that only gets 4 hits a month.
It would be useful to come up with a standardized stability test for some unbiased numbers. But until there is such a thing all reviews should be taken with a good chunk of halite.
~X~
*BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP.....*
Thank you for calling 911 emergency services. If you are calling from a cellphone, please push 1 now.
*BOOP*
A corner will be assigned to you in the order your call was received. Thank you for using 911 emergency services. Goodbye!
I believe it's called feet.
Yabadabadoooo!
~X~
Exactly. Why build one when you can build two for twice the price? ;P
~X~
Indeed.
If I were a Yahoo exec, I would taken the opportunity to identify who the real "moral pygmies".
"You have the audacity to call us moral pygmies? You who approved individuals like Alberto Gonzales who believed that torture was merely a point of view? You who have pushed through ludicrous legislation ensuring god-like powers to the executive? You who have actively turned a blind eye to the violations of the Constitution and basic human rights?
"You are, at best, hypocrites. You are no less self-serving than we are. The only difference is that you wrap yourselves in the American flag first."
What would they do, arrest them for calling a spade a spade?
Of course, in the real world, things suck.
~X~
"Welcome to GetOffMyLawnBook.com!"
A wholly own subsidiary of the WellBackInMyDay corporation.
~X~
I vote for ( |o| ) myself, but it's rather hard to pronounce.
~X~
Fine, cloak it for for private individuals. But any Business should have their information publicly available.
~X~
Simultaneously, I've used whois information to help keep people from getting scammed.
Like any tool, it has good and bad uses.
~X~
This argument is idiotic.
:)
If you have Natalie Portman naked in front of you, are you going to argue over where the exact location of the grits should be?
It's freakin' Natalie Portman naked dammit! Shut up and enjoy it!
~X~
I don't think a vinyl burner will work very well, nor smell very good either.
~X~
Bullshit.
We paid for the lines. Our tax dollars paid for the lines. The government gave them grants, subsidies, and tax write-offs to create the network.
What the government has done is given the major telecos the right to effectively block competitors. They now have the right to charge exorbitant fees to third party ISPs who want to use the lines that our tax dollars paid for. This effectively shuts down competition, and eventually will lead to the walled-garden scenario.
Tell me, how many ISPs in th country can afford to run their own lines through the country? How many billions do you think that would cost? How many battles do you think an ISP would need to go through to even get the rights to lay down new copper?
To me, this is no different from any other public infrastructure. Imagine for a moment, what this would be like if instead of copper lines being laid down we were talking about roads and freeways. Imagine being charged a monthly fee for the road use form a private company, ON TOP OF paying taxes.
I don't like getting screwed by the government or private companies. Perhaps you like taking it at both ends, but the vast majority of people don't.
~X~
When I interview someone, I don't look at their school or what degree they have.
I grill them. I grill them on what they know, what they think they know, and how they've applied what they know. I ask hard questions. I'm usually just one in a series of people that interview candidates, but I'm known as the griller (sometimes well over an hour or two).
I will end up working with th person at some point and I want to know if they are going to measure up (or if thy can be trained to). I don't care if you've got a Ph. D from Stanford. If you can't answer questions related to the field or the position you aren't going to be recommended. If you can't show how you've applied you're skills, you aren't going to be recommended. If you've got the social skills of a guano festooned rock, you aren't going to be recommended.
~X~
iPwned?
~X~
Another coincidence: 3 billion years is about the time it will take for this guy to get laid. :)
~X~
First, if all you're going to be photographing are fairly bright objects then you shouldn't have much of a problem doing so. Though, unless you have a rock solid mount and perfect atmospheric onditions you may get more out of using a webcam and stacking the images.
:P
If you're going to do deep space, you're going to need more than just a camera. Doing that with a sub $1000 setup proably isn't going to work out too well.
That being said, probably the best dSLR for astrophotagraphy that I would say is affordable is the Cannon Rebel series, including the XT.
I own a Nikon D70, as was disappointed to find out that the RAW mode really wasn't raw (which is how you should shoot for astro). They use some sort of median filter. The only way to get around the filter is to turn the camera off before the processing stops.
Real astro cams cost a few grand (not the cheap meade/celestron/orion imagers, but SAC systems).
As far as first scopes go, you'll probably want to go schmidt-cassegrain or reflector. These light buckets will allow you to see more deeply than a refractor. A good starter size is 6-8 inches (fairly portable). You can probably get one with a computer mount for sub-1000, but you don't really learn the sky that way.
I have a 10" schmidt-cassegrain and a 6" achromat. Unfortunately, I live within 15 minutes of BWI and several cities.
~X~
Hallo is also a good program, with several addons people have created.
http://www.hnsky.org/software.htm
~X~
First, I have to see you have some strange perceptions of engineering.
I used to work in the games industry. Unless your working in a (very) rare shop, about all you have time to do is program. You need crack coders willing to work serious hours. Many games release with numerous bugs, but as long as they aren't show stoppers the game is usually let through. One game I worked on for the playstation was using the previous release's source as a base. The previous version released with over 300 known issues.
When your writing software that needs high-reliability, that is a whole different ballgame. The system has to be designed. The system has to scale. The system needs to be able to run/communicate with different hardware, servers, and/or networks. You need a rock solid testing harness. Errors may mean million dollar losses, or wasted weeks of computation. This is where you need engineers.
The game industry requires good programmers. Most other IT shops require good engineers.
This is not to imply that engineers are better programmers. I've worked with some engineers who weren't good programmers. I've also worked with programmers who couldn't engineer.
Engineering requires more skill than pounding out code.
~X~
Northern NH, around Mt. Washington and Lafayette.
I had finished climbing the mountain just after night fell, and I looked up at sky from the parking lot. Absolutely amazing. I have a few telescopes, but nothing beats seeing all those stars in the sky at the same time. It really does put things in perspective.
Most people just don't realize what's out there.
~X~
"The only way this statement could possibly be true is if the terrorists you mention are actually elected U.S. officials." --mcpkaaos
"Terrorism: The use of violence and/or threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes." -- Dictionary.com
Paraphrasing Bush/Cheney: If the democrats do X, the terrorists will kill you.
o_O
Using fear for political gains is not new and takes many forms. Just because there is no violence doesn't mean you're not being manipulated by fear.
Our way of life has changed. Big brother is getting bigger. We're becoming more and more like the thing we're supposed to hate.
~X~
In Soviet Russia...
:(
Oh...
Well look at it this way, soon there won't be anymore "In Soviet Russia..." jokes.
~X~
We got lucky in 2006. La Nina created enough shear across the atlantic to shred most of the storms, and what did form was blown away from land.
This year, due to higher temperatures and the increased desertification in Africa, we've had more Saharan dust than normal across the Atlantic, which has been acting as an inhibitor.
Right now, the Gulf region and Carribean SST's a significantly warmer than normal. Wind shear and dust have been the only things preventing storms from forming. There is plenty of energy to produce multiple Wilma's and Katrina's.
Will they form? Possibly. It depends on whether or not any of the tropical waves can maintain cohesion long enough through the shear and dust to make to the wester side of the Atlantic. If they do, then it is likely that storms will blow up big and fast.
So far, we have been lucky. Let's see if it holds out.
~X~
Closed?
The damn models are released as OPEN SOURCE on NASA's OWN FREAKIN' SITE!
This really irritates me. I've seen people spew this line a thousand times. Google modelE for starters. You can download the source. You can build it. You can run it.
But it won't do you much good unless:
1. You have significant computing power (the models are usually run on supercomputers).
2. You're an atmospheric scientist that can actually understand the hundreds of parameters the model is outputting.
NASA scientists can't just release stuff when they want to. They have to get approval. And like any other government agency there is a bureaucracy. You wouldn't believe some of the decisions made just about piddly little things.
But stop with the misinformation.
~X~