Is this the same HP that 19 months ago told me that not only would they not sell me a notebook PC without Windows, if I uninstalled WinXP I would void my HARDWARE warranty? I bought the notebook anyway, because their policies at the time were the least offensive. I installed Xandros Linux without ever booting WinXP. Anyone want some unused XP OEM CDs with an unused certificate of authenticity?. No problems running Xandros, and even the Radeon chipset works 100% with a minor tweak. Linux is definitely ready for the desktop, and even the notebook.
Next time, I'm leaning toward a nice IBM notebook, mostly because they've been standup guys lately where Linux is concerned, and HP CEO Carly Fiorina has been making a lot of noise about DMCA crap on all HP products. Just how the hell are they going to lock up a Linux notebook with DRM?
I'm glad that HP is shipping a Linux notebook PC, but this isn't some corporate altruism. The only reason for an HP Linux notebook is they see the writing on the wall and don't want to follow the next wave. You know, the big wave, where Linux sweeps over the entire planet?
"A third of them, dating from the Cold War, have already leaked 4 million liters in the environment, contaminating the groundwater and a river.
As a cost saving measure, the new plan is to delay the cleanup. It's simple math. Assume a constant leakage rate of 4 million liters every 50 years. In only another 2325 years, all the radioactive liquid will have leaked into the Columbia River and there will be no need to clean up anything. Nature is self cleaning. And leakage rates usually increase, so we may only need to wait 1500 years or so.
OK, that's probably the sickest attempt at humor I've ever made.
People in general, and Americans in particular, are too short sighted. What were we thinking when we built all those nuclear, chemical and biological weapons during the Cold War? How many times and how many different ways does anyone need to destroy the earth? Just think what we could do with the money we now need to spend to clean up after weapons programs that we knew we could never actually use. What stupid and short sighted stuff is the US government up to now?
My second sickest attempt at humor: Maybe we'll see some of this stuff pop up on eBay, by WMD-R-Us, a new eBay user in Washington DC. Getting rid of stuff you don't need and picking up some much needed cash, taken to governmental extremes.
About ten years ago, a local hospital was faced with paying several thousand dollars to have their Vax 11/780 hauled off as hazardous waste. I cut my computing teeth on a DECsystem 10, and played on several PDP 11s and Vax computers (via Telnet, long, long ago, in a galaxy far away). My nostalgia got the better of me, I borrowed a double axle trailer and hauled the Vax to my house and put it in the living room, along with the line printer, operator console, and a couple of large Winchester drives. It was a hell of a conversation starter. I never powered it up. It would have taken about $6 per day for the electricity to run it. I should have at least seen what kind of data was on the hard drives. As I recall, each washing machine sized drive held a whopping 256 megabytes, so, half a gig total. For a sense of perspective, my MP3 player has a 20 GB drive.
I parted with the Vax a few years later, as my wife's only prenuptual requirement. It found a home in an upstart computer museum.
Knowing a bit about Mike Melvill's attitude, capabilities, skills as a test pilot, and previous flight test responses to unpredicted situations, I think you're barking up the wrong tree with this theory.
...the "external event" in this case was probably a wind shear.
The wind shear induced a 90 degree roll to the left, followed by a 90 degree roll to the right. That doesn't sound at all like a pattern of pilot induced oscillation, characterized by overcontrol with divergent flight characteristics. Rather, it sounds like a very well damped response to an external stimulus. In other words, the test pilot made exactly the right control inputs to perfectly correct the situation.
The pilot demanded a larger input faster than the system was able to provide, so the control surface hit its stop.
The wind shear occurred at the start of the rocket boost phase, when SS1 was in relatively denser atmosphere. The control hard stop occurred near the end of the boost phase, long after the wind shear. There is no way that the pilot was overcorrecting for wind shear and forced the controls to the hard stop. The wind shear happened long before the actuator went to the hard stop. SS1 had fully recovered from the wind shear and had flown a good trajectory throughout the middle portion of the boost phase. Only then did the problem occur with the hard stop.
...the guy's overabundance of parentheticals was very distracting
Programmers THINK parenthetically. If you see parentheses nested three or more layers deep, you can be sure the text was authored by a code jockey. And the parentheses always match, ensuring the article will compile properly.
If you see programmer text that occasionally uses a semicolon to mark the end of a sentence instead of a period, you can make some educated guesses about the programmer's favorite language.
You may occasionally see crayon scribbled text with line numbers, as penned by a larva geek.
Unfortunately, to install any of these versions without wiping out most Windows installations, you'll need to buy a third-party program to partition your hard drive.
I've been using Xandros Linux for 18 months. It allows Windows partions to be dynamically resized when it's installed. Very easy. Very painless. It does a very good job of easily networking with Windows as well, and autodetects and configures a *LOT* of hardware. It's a good Windows refugee distro for those who don't need the latest and greatest, and are more concerned with using their computer. It's not too good for people who want to play with Linux at the fundamental level. If you like Gentoo, you probably won't like Xandros. It's based on Debian.
Xandros 3.0 should be out 4Q04. Then I'll see how good the installer is at obliterating a WinXP partition. I haven't used XP once in the last 18 months. I only kept it to preserve my HP hardware warranty, if you can believe that. Anybody want an OEM XP Home certificate of authenticity sticker and product key?
I've noticed a lot of UK citizens are not bothered by the massive amount of government surveilance. They offer the same reasons that I've heard in the US. "The cameras are in public places where there is no expectation of privacy." "I'm not doing anything wrong, so I'm not worried about it." "We all feel safer with the government watching everyone." "Crime rates decrease."
But nobody seems to realize it's a slippery slope, or at least nobody is talking about it. Governments, by their very nature, become more powerful and subsume the rights of individual citizens. Did it occur to you that your government decided they wanted mandatory national ID cards with biometric data after everyone so easily rolled over on the issue of nearly constant surveilance?
An equilibrium will be established between people's demand for individual rights and people's acquiescence of those rights under the (usually mistaken) belief that they will be more secure. The UK citizens have given up more rights than US citizens, but we're on the same path. The US Supreme Court recently decided that citizens can be required to identify themselves when asked by police officers, which reminds me of old movies with Nazis demanding, "Your papers please." Cameras are an increasing part of everyday life in the US. Not so much at the government level, although many urban intersections have cameras spying on us, nominally under the guise of traffic enforcement. But many businesses large and small are installing cameras that not only record images from the business property, but also in the public and private areas in the vicinity.
I value my privacy, and I resent the invasion of it. I DO have some expectation that I can walk down the street without my every move being recorded. And yes, I'm willing to surrender some degree of security, either real or imagined, for that modicum of privacy. I do NOT believe the government has the right to spy on me, simply because I'm not doing anything wrong. Universal surveilance seems to be based on the presumption of guilt. Why else would the government watch everybody, unless it's to catch the citizens whom it presumes to be guilty?
Crime has many complex social causes. It cannot be cured by restricting people's rights. At every point, the goverment assures the citizens, "If you just give up one more right, we'll make you safe." As soon as the citizens accept the loss of that right, there is the government asking for another. "If everyone would carry national ID cards with biometric data.... If only we had a national DNA database.... If only all citizens took government supplied mind control drugs...."
If fear of a criminal element is the lever used by government to obtain power from the people, why would anyone think the government will ultimately be successful in reducing crime? In the US, crime rates are highest in the areas where rights are restricted the most. Whether crime or the loss of rights came first is a subject of intense debate, but the correlation between crime and the loss of individual rights is not seriously debated by anyone. I think in most cases, a breakdown in the social fabric resulted in crime, then the government used people's fear of crime to restrict citizen's rights. But the loss of rights has certainly not resulted in lower crime rates. In many cases, the loss of some rights have resulted in a documented and obvious INCREASE in crime.
You want less crime? Invest in education and a fair and prosperous economy, then wait a generation. Short term fixes like registering citizens, heavy surveilance, and the general loss of rights are not the answer.
I agree. When I buy a CD, I'm buying music encoded in a standard format. I generaly rip my CDs and listen to them with my MP3 player. I absolutely do not want a lot of enhanced CD features, regardless of whether they're bundling Windows EXEs, music videos, concert photos or anything else. I want a standard audio CD. Period.
I won't knowingly buy an enhanced CD. Despite the/. comments that "it's just some extra stuff, ignore it", I've had a fair amount of trouble ripping and encoding enhanced CDs. I haven't found one yet that I couldn't rip, but it always involved some additional level of grief.
I was left with the impression that enhanced CDs are about half marketing crap, and half low level copy protection.
Yeah. I know free speech includes unpopular speech. :^(
It just really torques me off when someone risks their life in a noble adventure when most of us plod about consuming air every day, and someone else makes a sick joke about them getting killed for their trouble. If it weren't for guys like Burt Rutan and Mike Melvill, humans would still be sitting in dark caves banging rocks together.
But, yeah, I agree that free speech must include the right to say the dumbest and most offensive things, or it doesn't mean anything.
...what's the real benefit for gnoppix / knoppix outside of a kiosk or classroom environment?
If you had watched The Broken, Volume 3 (available online, try BitTorrent), you'd know that you can use a Knoppix CD to circumvent a Windows login, and even use it to grab the hashed password, take it back to the shop and crank on it for 15 minutes to 30 days and crack it.
remove(black_hat)
install(white_hat)
Plus, all that other nice stuff everyone mentioned.
I should go to Staples and spend $13 on the shrink wrapped 100 CD-R fun pack, burn Knoppix on all of them, then substitute them for the heinous stack of AOL CDs in the foyer of Orifice Depot and Staples. It might even be fun to make them look like AOL CDs. Heh heh heh. Wake up, sheeple! Sometimes, people don't know what they want until they actually see it for the first time.
You claimed that SpaceShipOne has no attitude thrusters. Wrong. The ship is equipped with cold gas jet thrusters, RCS or Reaction Control System, for attitude control in space.
Suggestion:
1) Read about something.
2) Understand something.
3) Post about something.
Ditto to the moderators who modded this informationally devoid post as informative.
Do you honestly think the designer and test pilot of the first successful private space launch would expect ailerons and elevators to work in a near vacuum? You do know they used computers and sophisticated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to analyze SS1's aerodynamics throughout the entire range of flight, from freefall after initial separation at 120 knots, through mach 3, and into space, right? This isn't a 7th grade class science project. Maybe you should email to tell them which way gravity pulls, too.
You get my Mr. Obvious Slashdot Award of the week.
What kind of moron would think that's funny? I enjoy almost every form of humor, including some dark and disrespectful humor, but I can't believe anyone would be so inhuman as to post a message like this, nor can I believe someone would moderate it as "Funny".
I ardently support the right to free speech, but callous, stupid comments like yours make me wonder if everyone deserves the right. Maybe we should reserve free speech for humans, or people with a greater than room temperature IQ. You might not even make the cut if we measured in Centigrade.
I wish it were possible for you and your descendants to be barred from the benefits that humanity will gain from Mike Melvill's bravery, which you ridicule with your infantile comment.
Go write a virus or something, you moronic asocial dweeb.
It's about 3g. And yes, a 3g rocket into space will be a very fun ride. There is a serious market for space tourism here. Two people have already paid $20,000,000 for Russian orbital rides. The SS1 can do the suborbital ride for $5,000 to $10,000 once it's operating on a regular basis.
One of the simple but clever aspects of this design (typical of Burt Rutan) is that the White Knight lifts SpaceShipOne to 50,000 feet, up above most of the atmosphere. Then SS1 is dropped and the rocket is ignited. The climb goes to mach 3 before coasting into space, but in the sparse upper atmosphere the dynamic pressure (force on the structure due to punching through air) is less than flying in a Long-EZ, or at least that's what Burt said very early in the project, after the early design was worked out. Mach 3 without the need for a heavy structure to handle high Q loads. Smart.
Note that, despite many wonderful and inspirational accomplishments, NASA is not known for "simple but clever" designs. The privatization of space marks a significant change, and is the start of the true development of space. Despite the naysaying of many self appointed Slashdot "experts", there are many aspects of the Scaled Composites design that CAN be scaled up and used for other profitable missions. And there is no shortage of intelligence or perseverance at Scaled to solve the other challenges that lie ahead in future missions. I hope to see an orbital craft from Scaled Composites some year. Yes, there's a lot more to be done to reach that goal, but they're just the guys to do it.
None of Burt Rutan's designs are kits. They all involve a big book of plans. The builder buys foam, fiberglass and epoxy. Typical build time is 1500-4000 hours. It's a big project, but very rewarding.
The Berkut was an excellent carbon fiber kit plane based on the very successful Long-EZ design. Unfortunately, Berkut kits are no longer offered for sale. There are several versions of the four place Velocity kit planes for sale, and they're something of a Long-EZ derivative too. The Cozy IV is another four place derivative, and plans are still for sale.
I'll venture my guesses for how this will unfold. It should be fun to see how many I guess correctly. These are just guesses. No inside info or anything like that.
Prediction #1
I think Mike Melvill is going to be the first private citizen to pilot a ship into space on Monday morning. He has been with Rutan since the seventies when he was one of the few people to build a VariViggen, the first built-from-plans experimental aircraft design offered by the Rutan Aircraft Factory. He later built a Long-EZ and he still flies it. In fact, a few years ago, he and Burt's brother Dick flew their Long-EZs around the world. Mike is 62, which is rare for a test pilot. "There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots."
Prediction #2
I wouldn't be surprised to see some prominent people actually on board for the two Ansari X-Prize flights, after this full qualifying test flight. I saw Burt speaking at Oshkosh, and when asked if he'd take the suborbital flight in SpaceShipOne, he replied, "You bet your ass I would!" He's not usually given to such colorful speech, at least in that forum.
Prediction #3
The X-Prize will be won before this year's Oshkosh Fly-In (now known as EAA Airventure), which is July 27th - August 2nd. That doesn't leave much time to provide adequate notice to the X-Prize committee, so I expect that'll be announced immediately after Monday's successful flight. Oshkosh has been a frequent target for Burt, although it certainly isn't true that anything was ever rushed or safety compromised to make that event.
I feel like I've been waiting all my life for the privatization of space. Best of luck to the entire Scaled Composites crew for Monday morning. Despite previous Slashdot comments calling the X-Prize a stunt, I strongly believe that This Changes Everything.
Am I the only one who thinks this is like my corner heroine pusher selling maps to direct customers to the methadone clinic?
As always, if you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem. In this case, I'd say Microsoft is MOST of the problem.
The goofy thing is, they're finally trying to lock down some things, and they've now reached the point where a pro-Microsoft friend of mine has an Exchange server at his small business and can no longer open DOC file email attachments without saving them, firing up Word, and manually opening them. Meanwhile, My Linux box runs Mozilla, and the nasty DOCs autolaunch OpenOffice just fine, still with no risk of malware execution. The user friendly shoe is on the other foot now, bucko. So can someone please tell me why Microsoft continues to maintain a monopolistic stranglehold on the PC market? Are sheeple really that stupid?
wouldn't there be internal pressure to make the OS "not as secure" so they can get additional money from their customers?
You mean Microsoft could actually made Windows LESS SECURE? Holy crap!
What would it do? Network with your security system, wait until you're gone, unlock the doors to your house and use the outside speaker to blast an invitation for burglars to get free stuff?
I don't think anyone over the age of six is in danger of being misled into thinking they are actual stars falling from the sky.
Not sure what country you're from, but sadly, in the USA, less than half of the adults realize the earth revolves around the sun once a year. Keep using antiquated and misleading speech and that sad situation will continue.
The IAU definitions you were kind enough to provide are consistent with the definitions I use. Like the definitions I later found and provided, the IAU definitions also include the deprecated and antiquated definition of a meteor as the object, but only after the preferred definition of it as "the light phenomenon". Note the use of "particularly", and "more generally". It's clear the IAU is trying to provide definitions that are consistent with modern scientific knowledge, while still offering the historical but inaccurate definitions needed to understand writings from a less enlightened age. We can forgive the dead guys for using the inaccurate terminology of their day, but we should use the technically correct definitions for modern writing.
More misleading and confusing terminology. A meteor has nothing to do with stars. Just because we were once ignorant, does not mean we should retain ths incorrect terminology. THAT'S why language is malleable. To correct the incorrect assumptions. Please stop calling them falling stars. It only confuses people who aren't very good at science. Clarity of thought is greatly aided by clarity of speech.
Historically, people knew of meteors and knew of meteorites, and the stones were named after the phenomenon once the two were finally connected. So meteors are both the light and the rocks that we eventually realized produced the light upon being vaporized in the atmosphere.
That's just plain retarded. Again, just because we were once confused about the technical issues does not mean that we should remain so. I think that's why the prefered definitions are now:
Meteoroid - Object in space or falling
Meteor - Visual display when entering the atmosphere
Meteorite - Object after terrestrial impact
Those are useful terms for different things. Saying a meteor is both the visible effect and the falling object is vague and confusing. We need different terms to adequately describe different things. Otherwise, why not just call everything "marklar"?
"The marklar looked in wonder at the marklar produced by the marklar as it hurtled through the marklar, and were amazed when the marklar struck a marklar, crushing a marklar that was sitting on top of the marklar."
In astronomy class, I was taught that the term "meteor" refers to the visual display. A meteor is the light emanating from a meteoroid traveling through the atmosphere. It wouldn't be proper to say that a meteor hits anything, except perhaps your retina.
Then I found this definition:
meteor (noun)
1: a streak of light in the sky at night that results when a meteoroid hits the earth's atmosphere and air friction causes the meteoroid to melt or vaporize or explode [syn: shooting star]
2: Any of the small solid extraterrestrial bodies that hits the earth's atmosphere [syn: meteoroid]
So I'm using definition #1, and you're using definition #2. Note that when multiple definitions are listed, they are listed in order of preference. Deprecated or less commonly used terms are farther down the list. But different sources usually don't agree. This is often the case when regional differences in usage occur. Webster's American dictionary probably favors "aluminum" while the Oxford dictionary probably prefers "aluminium".
I think the definition I provided above proves that the terminology is based on antiquated and colloquial usage, as you suggest, and it isn't as well defined as either of us had stated. I don't think it's well enough defined to criticize the media this time. It's discouraging how often they mess up tech stories. I suppose it shouldn't be too surprising. None of my tech friends were communications majors in college. That area of study was more often the last refuge of athletes and those seeking a higher education because mommy and daddy thought it would be a good thing to do. But given the usage of the terminology, I think they got it right this time.
Meteorites don't hit things. Meteors do.
I still think that's not correct. Once it hits something on the planet's surface, it stops being a meteoroid (or meteor, if you must), and becomes a meteorite.
With prosecutors telling juries that there is at most a one in ten billion chance of error, juries are convicting largely on the basis of DNA evidence. Even if the one in ten billion number is accurate for DNA matching, it does not address evidence tampering or human error.
I think there will be a notable case in the next couple of years where someone intentionally plants some subtle but very incriminating DNA evidence to incriminate someone else. Unfortunately, I think the police and the forensic investigators are buying the "infallible DNA" story as much as the juries. I think they would really like to find surprising DNA evidence to convict a judge, captain of industry, member of the clergy, etc.
Disclaimer: I've never watched the CSI television show.
Meteoroid - in space or the atmosphere
Meteor - the ionized gas we see as it streaks through the atmosphere
Meteorite - once it reaches the earth's surface
We can't see a meteoroid, we see the meteor, aka "shooting star".
It doesn't need to strike dirt to be a meteorite. It became a meteorite the instant it hit the roof.
I hate it when the media gets scientific terminology wrong, but I hate it even more when the media gets it right and geeks get it wrong.
I think it's fairly obvious by now that you are not going to accept any evidence that demonstrates the value of the Ansari X-Prize, and the efforts of Scaled Composites. Apparently, the only evidence you will accept is looking back on what has already been done, which is a reliable method of documentation, but not very useful as a predictive tool.
I'll continue to look forward to taking my ride into space in the near future, which is something that was never going to happen if governments continued to control access to space.
Anyone who doesn't drool and who insists on accurate accounting and actual standard is a luddite, a troll, and lacks understanding.
No, anyone who eschews technology is a luddite, anyone who posts messages disparaging significant accomplishments to evoke a reaction is a troll (I took the troll bait and trolled right back atcha), and anyone who can't see OBVIOUS historical parallels in technology lacks understanding.
As for the cost & capability comparison between SS1 and Soyuz - I don't know much about Soviet costs for their space program, but they are apparently making money leaving one of their usual cosmonauts on earth to drag Tito or Shuttleworth up for $20 million each, so that sort of puts some numbers on what it costs for a Russian orbital launch. No doubt they are MUCH more cost effective than NASA's SST which costs about a billion dollars per launch, and that doesn't include the massive development costs. The estimates are that Scaled spent about $30 million developing and flight testing their hardware to win the $10 million Ansari X-Prize, which is typical for a prize like this. That's why prizes are such a great way to spur technology. The distributed research will be extremely efficient, and will still spent 10-100 times the amount of the prize. It's a form of Darwinian evolution applied to technological development, where many ideas are tried and only the best survive. If NASA really cared about space exploration, they'd spend their budget on high profile prizes.
In round numbers, I'd say Scaled has provided the best return on the dollar. Yeah, they're doing what was essentially done in the mid 1960s, but they're doing it for a lot less money, and in an environment that will build on the technology, reduce prices, improve safety, etc.
I don't think a Soviet comparison to SpaceShipOne is a fair comparison. The Soyuz is an end of life technology. It's served the Russians well, but it's at a technological dead end. It's as efficient as it's going to get. To improve, newer technology is needed. That's where SS1 comes in. It's in the early development phase, so naturally it's more expensive than it will be, less proven, and less capable. But it has a lot of potential, as do other entrepreneurial ideas that the X-Prize has fostered. Early steamships were not as fast as sailing ships, and they cost more money to build and operate. But we're not doing a lot of commercial shipping with sailing ships these days. The newer technology eclipsed the older technology.
Clearly SpaceShipOne is optimized for winning the Ansari X-Prize and creating a safe and low cost space tourism market. Burt Rutan has said the SS1 is not appropriate for achieving orbit and orbital reentry. But much of the guidance and propulsion are applicable in many different space vehicles. New technology builds on previous technology, and SS1 contributes a lot to the field of low cost access to space.
There is also a huge perceptual issue at work here. Demonstrating a profitable commercial space venture and getting the FAA to grant the necessary permits (already done for Scaled and XCOR) is a big step. Mindshare is a very real phenomenon in the commercial world. Just knowing something can be done spurs the market toward greater goals.
It's also possible to reconfigure Scaled's X-Prize hardware for a different low cost mission. Replace the SS1 with an unmanned single or two stage rocket, perhaps using the same elastomer and nitrous oxide rocket technology and launch small satellites into orbit. There is a huge market for low earth orbit (LEO) satellites for a number of uses that are well suited to small and low power devices. Entrepreneurs will find these niche markets and fill them.
I still insist you're missing the signifificance of this effort. Governments are not efficient and it makes no sense to have governments control access to space. These first commercial efforts will put us on the path to much more ser
Slashdot Mirror
Next time, I'm leaning toward a nice IBM notebook, mostly because they've been standup guys lately where Linux is concerned, and HP CEO Carly Fiorina has been making a lot of noise about DMCA crap on all HP products. Just how the hell are they going to lock up a Linux notebook with DRM?
I'm glad that HP is shipping a Linux notebook PC, but this isn't some corporate altruism. The only reason for an HP Linux notebook is they see the writing on the wall and don't want to follow the next wave. You know, the big wave, where Linux sweeps over the entire planet?
Earlier Post In This Thread
"A third of them, dating from the Cold War, have already leaked 4 million liters in the environment, contaminating the groundwater and a river.
As a cost saving measure, the new plan is to delay the cleanup. It's simple math. Assume a constant leakage rate of 4 million liters every 50 years. In only another 2325 years, all the radioactive liquid will have leaked into the Columbia River and there will be no need to clean up anything. Nature is self cleaning. And leakage rates usually increase, so we may only need to wait 1500 years or so.
OK, that's probably the sickest attempt at humor I've ever made.
People in general, and Americans in particular, are too short sighted. What were we thinking when we built all those nuclear, chemical and biological weapons during the Cold War? How many times and how many different ways does anyone need to destroy the earth? Just think what we could do with the money we now need to spend to clean up after weapons programs that we knew we could never actually use. What stupid and short sighted stuff is the US government up to now?
My second sickest attempt at humor: Maybe we'll see some of this stuff pop up on eBay, by WMD-R-Us, a new eBay user in Washington DC. Getting rid of stuff you don't need and picking up some much needed cash, taken to governmental extremes.
I parted with the Vax a few years later, as my wife's only prenuptual requirement. It found a home in an upstart computer museum.
The DEC equipment was excellent. I miss it.
Knowing a bit about Mike Melvill's attitude, capabilities, skills as a test pilot, and previous flight test responses to unpredicted situations, I think you're barking up the wrong tree with this theory.
The wind shear induced a 90 degree roll to the left, followed by a 90 degree roll to the right. That doesn't sound at all like a pattern of pilot induced oscillation, characterized by overcontrol with divergent flight characteristics. Rather, it sounds like a very well damped response to an external stimulus. In other words, the test pilot made exactly the right control inputs to perfectly correct the situation.
The wind shear occurred at the start of the rocket boost phase, when SS1 was in relatively denser atmosphere. The control hard stop occurred near the end of the boost phase, long after the wind shear. There is no way that the pilot was overcorrecting for wind shear and forced the controls to the hard stop. The wind shear happened long before the actuator went to the hard stop. SS1 had fully recovered from the wind shear and had flown a good trajectory throughout the middle portion of the boost phase. Only then did the problem occur with the hard stop.
Programmers THINK parenthetically. If you see parentheses nested three or more layers deep, you can be sure the text was authored by a code jockey. And the parentheses always match, ensuring the article will compile properly.
If you see programmer text that occasionally uses a semicolon to mark the end of a sentence instead of a period, you can make some educated guesses about the programmer's favorite language.
You may occasionally see crayon scribbled text with line numbers, as penned by a larva geek.
I've been using Xandros Linux for 18 months. It allows Windows partions to be dynamically resized when it's installed. Very easy. Very painless. It does a very good job of easily networking with Windows as well, and autodetects and configures a *LOT* of hardware. It's a good Windows refugee distro for those who don't need the latest and greatest, and are more concerned with using their computer. It's not too good for people who want to play with Linux at the fundamental level. If you like Gentoo, you probably won't like Xandros. It's based on Debian.
Xandros 3.0 should be out 4Q04. Then I'll see how good the installer is at obliterating a WinXP partition. I haven't used XP once in the last 18 months. I only kept it to preserve my HP hardware warranty, if you can believe that. Anybody want an OEM XP Home certificate of authenticity sticker and product key?
But nobody seems to realize it's a slippery slope, or at least nobody is talking about it. Governments, by their very nature, become more powerful and subsume the rights of individual citizens. Did it occur to you that your government decided they wanted mandatory national ID cards with biometric data after everyone so easily rolled over on the issue of nearly constant surveilance?
An equilibrium will be established between people's demand for individual rights and people's acquiescence of those rights under the (usually mistaken) belief that they will be more secure. The UK citizens have given up more rights than US citizens, but we're on the same path. The US Supreme Court recently decided that citizens can be required to identify themselves when asked by police officers, which reminds me of old movies with Nazis demanding, "Your papers please." Cameras are an increasing part of everyday life in the US. Not so much at the government level, although many urban intersections have cameras spying on us, nominally under the guise of traffic enforcement. But many businesses large and small are installing cameras that not only record images from the business property, but also in the public and private areas in the vicinity.
I value my privacy, and I resent the invasion of it. I DO have some expectation that I can walk down the street without my every move being recorded. And yes, I'm willing to surrender some degree of security, either real or imagined, for that modicum of privacy. I do NOT believe the government has the right to spy on me, simply because I'm not doing anything wrong. Universal surveilance seems to be based on the presumption of guilt. Why else would the government watch everybody, unless it's to catch the citizens whom it presumes to be guilty?
Crime has many complex social causes. It cannot be cured by restricting people's rights. At every point, the goverment assures the citizens, "If you just give up one more right, we'll make you safe." As soon as the citizens accept the loss of that right, there is the government asking for another. "If everyone would carry national ID cards with biometric data.... If only we had a national DNA database.... If only all citizens took government supplied mind control drugs...."
If fear of a criminal element is the lever used by government to obtain power from the people, why would anyone think the government will ultimately be successful in reducing crime? In the US, crime rates are highest in the areas where rights are restricted the most. Whether crime or the loss of rights came first is a subject of intense debate, but the correlation between crime and the loss of individual rights is not seriously debated by anyone. I think in most cases, a breakdown in the social fabric resulted in crime, then the government used people's fear of crime to restrict citizen's rights. But the loss of rights has certainly not resulted in lower crime rates. In many cases, the loss of some rights have resulted in a documented and obvious INCREASE in crime.
You want less crime? Invest in education and a fair and prosperous economy, then wait a generation. Short term fixes like registering citizens, heavy surveilance, and the general loss of rights are not the answer.
I won't knowingly buy an enhanced CD. Despite the /. comments that "it's just some extra stuff, ignore it", I've had a fair amount of trouble ripping and encoding enhanced CDs. I haven't found one yet that I couldn't rip, but it always involved some additional level of grief.
I was left with the impression that enhanced CDs are about half marketing crap, and half low level copy protection.
It just really torques me off when someone risks their life in a noble adventure when most of us plod about consuming air every day, and someone else makes a sick joke about them getting killed for their trouble. If it weren't for guys like Burt Rutan and Mike Melvill, humans would still be sitting in dark caves banging rocks together.
But, yeah, I agree that free speech must include the right to say the dumbest and most offensive things, or it doesn't mean anything.
If you had watched The Broken, Volume 3 (available online, try BitTorrent), you'd know that you can use a Knoppix CD to circumvent a Windows login, and even use it to grab the hashed password, take it back to the shop and crank on it for 15 minutes to 30 days and crack it.
remove(black_hat)
install(white_hat)
Plus, all that other nice stuff everyone mentioned.
I should go to Staples and spend $13 on the shrink wrapped 100 CD-R fun pack, burn Knoppix on all of them, then substitute them for the heinous stack of AOL CDs in the foyer of Orifice Depot and Staples. It might even be fun to make them look like AOL CDs. Heh heh heh. Wake up, sheeple! Sometimes, people don't know what they want until they actually see it for the first time.
Suggestion:
1) Read about something.
2) Understand something.
3) Post about something.
Ditto to the moderators who modded this informationally devoid post as informative.
Do you honestly think the designer and test pilot of the first successful private space launch would expect ailerons and elevators to work in a near vacuum? You do know they used computers and sophisticated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to analyze SS1's aerodynamics throughout the entire range of flight, from freefall after initial separation at 120 knots, through mach 3, and into space, right? This isn't a 7th grade class science project. Maybe you should email to tell them which way gravity pulls, too.
You get my Mr. Obvious Slashdot Award of the week.
If you'd actually like to learn about SS1:
http://www.howstuffworks.com/spaceshipone.htm
http://www.scaled.com/
STFU
What kind of moron would think that's funny? I enjoy almost every form of humor, including some dark and disrespectful humor, but I can't believe anyone would be so inhuman as to post a message like this, nor can I believe someone would moderate it as "Funny".
I ardently support the right to free speech, but callous, stupid comments like yours make me wonder if everyone deserves the right. Maybe we should reserve free speech for humans, or people with a greater than room temperature IQ. You might not even make the cut if we measured in Centigrade.
I wish it were possible for you and your descendants to be barred from the benefits that humanity will gain from Mike Melvill's bravery, which you ridicule with your infantile comment.
Go write a virus or something, you moronic asocial dweeb.
One of the simple but clever aspects of this design (typical of Burt Rutan) is that the White Knight lifts SpaceShipOne to 50,000 feet, up above most of the atmosphere. Then SS1 is dropped and the rocket is ignited. The climb goes to mach 3 before coasting into space, but in the sparse upper atmosphere the dynamic pressure (force on the structure due to punching through air) is less than flying in a Long-EZ, or at least that's what Burt said very early in the project, after the early design was worked out. Mach 3 without the need for a heavy structure to handle high Q loads. Smart.
Note that, despite many wonderful and inspirational accomplishments, NASA is not known for "simple but clever" designs. The privatization of space marks a significant change, and is the start of the true development of space. Despite the naysaying of many self appointed Slashdot "experts", there are many aspects of the Scaled Composites design that CAN be scaled up and used for other profitable missions. And there is no shortage of intelligence or perseverance at Scaled to solve the other challenges that lie ahead in future missions. I hope to see an orbital craft from Scaled Composites some year. Yes, there's a lot more to be done to reach that goal, but they're just the guys to do it.
The Berkut was an excellent carbon fiber kit plane based on the very successful Long-EZ design. Unfortunately, Berkut kits are no longer offered for sale. There are several versions of the four place Velocity kit planes for sale, and they're something of a Long-EZ derivative too. The Cozy IV is another four place derivative, and plans are still for sale.
I'll venture my guesses for how this will unfold. It should be fun to see how many I guess correctly. These are just guesses. No inside info or anything like that.
Prediction #1 I think Mike Melvill is going to be the first private citizen to pilot a ship into space on Monday morning. He has been with Rutan since the seventies when he was one of the few people to build a VariViggen, the first built-from-plans experimental aircraft design offered by the Rutan Aircraft Factory. He later built a Long-EZ and he still flies it. In fact, a few years ago, he and Burt's brother Dick flew their Long-EZs around the world. Mike is 62, which is rare for a test pilot. "There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots."
Prediction #2 I wouldn't be surprised to see some prominent people actually on board for the two Ansari X-Prize flights, after this full qualifying test flight. I saw Burt speaking at Oshkosh, and when asked if he'd take the suborbital flight in SpaceShipOne, he replied, "You bet your ass I would!" He's not usually given to such colorful speech, at least in that forum.
Prediction #3 The X-Prize will be won before this year's Oshkosh Fly-In (now known as EAA Airventure), which is July 27th - August 2nd. That doesn't leave much time to provide adequate notice to the X-Prize committee, so I expect that'll be announced immediately after Monday's successful flight. Oshkosh has been a frequent target for Burt, although it certainly isn't true that anything was ever rushed or safety compromised to make that event.
I feel like I've been waiting all my life for the privatization of space. Best of luck to the entire Scaled Composites crew for Monday morning. Despite previous Slashdot comments calling the X-Prize a stunt, I strongly believe that This Changes Everything.
As always, if you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem. In this case, I'd say Microsoft is MOST of the problem.
The goofy thing is, they're finally trying to lock down some things, and they've now reached the point where a pro-Microsoft friend of mine has an Exchange server at his small business and can no longer open DOC file email attachments without saving them, firing up Word, and manually opening them. Meanwhile, My Linux box runs Mozilla, and the nasty DOCs autolaunch OpenOffice just fine, still with no risk of malware execution. The user friendly shoe is on the other foot now, bucko. So can someone please tell me why Microsoft continues to maintain a monopolistic stranglehold on the PC market? Are sheeple really that stupid?
You mean Microsoft could actually made Windows LESS SECURE? Holy crap!
What would it do? Network with your security system, wait until you're gone, unlock the doors to your house and use the outside speaker to blast an invitation for burglars to get free stuff?
Not sure what country you're from, but sadly, in the USA, less than half of the adults realize the earth revolves around the sun once a year. Keep using antiquated and misleading speech and that sad situation will continue.
The IAU definitions you were kind enough to provide are consistent with the definitions I use. Like the definitions I later found and provided, the IAU definitions also include the deprecated and antiquated definition of a meteor as the object, but only after the preferred definition of it as "the light phenomenon". Note the use of "particularly", and "more generally". It's clear the IAU is trying to provide definitions that are consistent with modern scientific knowledge, while still offering the historical but inaccurate definitions needed to understand writings from a less enlightened age. We can forgive the dead guys for using the inaccurate terminology of their day, but we should use the technically correct definitions for modern writing.
More misleading and confusing terminology. A meteor has nothing to do with stars. Just because we were once ignorant, does not mean we should retain ths incorrect terminology. THAT'S why language is malleable. To correct the incorrect assumptions. Please stop calling them falling stars. It only confuses people who aren't very good at science. Clarity of thought is greatly aided by clarity of speech.
That's just plain retarded. Again, just because we were once confused about the technical issues does not mean that we should remain so. I think that's why the prefered definitions are now:
Meteoroid - Object in space or falling
Meteor - Visual display when entering the atmosphere
Meteorite - Object after terrestrial impact
Those are useful terms for different things. Saying a meteor is both the visible effect and the falling object is vague and confusing. We need different terms to adequately describe different things. Otherwise, why not just call everything "marklar"?
"The marklar looked in wonder at the marklar produced by the marklar as it hurtled through the marklar, and were amazed when the marklar struck a marklar, crushing a marklar that was sitting on top of the marklar."
In astronomy class, I was taught that the term "meteor" refers to the visual display. A meteor is the light emanating from a meteoroid traveling through the atmosphere. It wouldn't be proper to say that a meteor hits anything, except perhaps your retina.
Then I found this definition:
meteor (noun)
1: a streak of light in the sky at night that results when a meteoroid hits the earth's atmosphere and air friction causes the meteoroid to melt or vaporize or explode [syn: shooting star]
2: Any of the small solid extraterrestrial bodies that hits the earth's atmosphere [syn: meteoroid]
So I'm using definition #1, and you're using definition #2. Note that when multiple definitions are listed, they are listed in order of preference. Deprecated or less commonly used terms are farther down the list. But different sources usually don't agree. This is often the case when regional differences in usage occur. Webster's American dictionary probably favors "aluminum" while the Oxford dictionary probably prefers "aluminium".
I think the definition I provided above proves that the terminology is based on antiquated and colloquial usage, as you suggest, and it isn't as well defined as either of us had stated. I don't think it's well enough defined to criticize the media this time. It's discouraging how often they mess up tech stories. I suppose it shouldn't be too surprising. None of my tech friends were communications majors in college. That area of study was more often the last refuge of athletes and those seeking a higher education because mommy and daddy thought it would be a good thing to do. But given the usage of the terminology, I think they got it right this time.
I still think that's not correct. Once it hits something on the planet's surface, it stops being a meteoroid (or meteor, if you must), and becomes a meteorite.
I think there will be a notable case in the next couple of years where someone intentionally plants some subtle but very incriminating DNA evidence to incriminate someone else. Unfortunately, I think the police and the forensic investigators are buying the "infallible DNA" story as much as the juries. I think they would really like to find surprising DNA evidence to convict a judge, captain of industry, member of the clergy, etc.
Disclaimer: I've never watched the CSI television show.
Meteor - the ionized gas we see as it streaks through the atmosphere
Meteorite - once it reaches the earth's surface
We can't see a meteoroid, we see the meteor, aka "shooting star".
It doesn't need to strike dirt to be a meteorite. It became a meteorite the instant it hit the roof.
I hate it when the media gets scientific terminology wrong, but I hate it even more when the media gets it right and geeks get it wrong.
I'll continue to look forward to taking my ride into space in the near future, which is something that was never going to happen if governments continued to control access to space.
Bye bye, troll.
No, anyone who eschews technology is a luddite, anyone who posts messages disparaging significant accomplishments to evoke a reaction is a troll (I took the troll bait and trolled right back atcha), and anyone who can't see OBVIOUS historical parallels in technology lacks understanding.
As for the cost & capability comparison between SS1 and Soyuz - I don't know much about Soviet costs for their space program, but they are apparently making money leaving one of their usual cosmonauts on earth to drag Tito or Shuttleworth up for $20 million each, so that sort of puts some numbers on what it costs for a Russian orbital launch. No doubt they are MUCH more cost effective than NASA's SST which costs about a billion dollars per launch, and that doesn't include the massive development costs. The estimates are that Scaled spent about $30 million developing and flight testing their hardware to win the $10 million Ansari X-Prize, which is typical for a prize like this. That's why prizes are such a great way to spur technology. The distributed research will be extremely efficient, and will still spent 10-100 times the amount of the prize. It's a form of Darwinian evolution applied to technological development, where many ideas are tried and only the best survive. If NASA really cared about space exploration, they'd spend their budget on high profile prizes.
In round numbers, I'd say Scaled has provided the best return on the dollar. Yeah, they're doing what was essentially done in the mid 1960s, but they're doing it for a lot less money, and in an environment that will build on the technology, reduce prices, improve safety, etc.
I don't think a Soviet comparison to SpaceShipOne is a fair comparison. The Soyuz is an end of life technology. It's served the Russians well, but it's at a technological dead end. It's as efficient as it's going to get. To improve, newer technology is needed. That's where SS1 comes in. It's in the early development phase, so naturally it's more expensive than it will be, less proven, and less capable. But it has a lot of potential, as do other entrepreneurial ideas that the X-Prize has fostered. Early steamships were not as fast as sailing ships, and they cost more money to build and operate. But we're not doing a lot of commercial shipping with sailing ships these days. The newer technology eclipsed the older technology.
Clearly SpaceShipOne is optimized for winning the Ansari X-Prize and creating a safe and low cost space tourism market. Burt Rutan has said the SS1 is not appropriate for achieving orbit and orbital reentry. But much of the guidance and propulsion are applicable in many different space vehicles. New technology builds on previous technology, and SS1 contributes a lot to the field of low cost access to space.
There is also a huge perceptual issue at work here. Demonstrating a profitable commercial space venture and getting the FAA to grant the necessary permits (already done for Scaled and XCOR) is a big step. Mindshare is a very real phenomenon in the commercial world. Just knowing something can be done spurs the market toward greater goals.
It's also possible to reconfigure Scaled's X-Prize hardware for a different low cost mission. Replace the SS1 with an unmanned single or two stage rocket, perhaps using the same elastomer and nitrous oxide rocket technology and launch small satellites into orbit. There is a huge market for low earth orbit (LEO) satellites for a number of uses that are well suited to small and low power devices. Entrepreneurs will find these niche markets and fill them.
I still insist you're missing the signifificance of this effort. Governments are not efficient and it makes no sense to have governments control access to space. These first commercial efforts will put us on the path to much more ser