Algol 60 is a great improvement on all its successors
I had a look at it and was left wondering what we have been doing with programming languages for the last 50 years. Since then we seem to have invented automatic garbage collection, standardised API's and protocols and OO.
Its a shame. Is the idea of a "language" the problem? Perhaps its time we moved on to something totally new. Don't ask me for examples, though.
Quite surprisingly at some speed - which of course I can't remember - a steady spot appeared and travelled around, very much like what we see in Jupiter today.
I wonder what happens when you have more than one spot?
Sorry for the diversion, your description of the experiment reminded me of Sagan's machine.
The article doesn't say much about what is causing these huge weather patterns to be so stable on Jupiter, and the reason is that we actually know very little about what goes on underneath the outer layers of cloud.
Our one and only atmosphere probe was a surprising success, but it was not built to last. A different probe, supported by a balloon rather than a parachute, was flown on venus and it worked well.
I think it is time to have another go at a jupiter atmosphere probe. This time try for a hot hydrogen balloon, heated by an RTG. If we don't do the basic research we will never understand the biggest planet in our solar system.
no, not when its at the bottom of a huge gravity well, the energy cost to raise it is too fearsome.
There is that, but it also applies to a large extent to the original joke about extracting oil off Earth.
What there IS out there is more solar energy than a thousand worlds could ever use.
40% of which we get at each point on the Earth, anyway. Anything you can do in space (by way of solar power, etc) I can do in central Australia for vastly less cost.
Of course if I had the chance to do the work in space I wouldn't be pointing that out before hand...
How will it be possible to deploy some sort of a mining construction in such an environment
Scoop mining. You shoot a spacecraft through the outer atmosphere of the gas giant planet. It compresses and liquifies the gas then returns to earth. See "Imperial Earth" by Arthur C Clarke, which proposed using the technique in the much easier environment of Titan.
Of course the vehicle has to be made of, and powered by, unobtanium.
People assume that things will fare better if profit-driven private enterprise runs the space exploring show.
I don't think anybody believes it will be safer, just easier to justify in the long run.
While not all of this is lost, and I believe it is possible to repeat the feat, I can't see much profit in that particular endeavour. Colour me doubtful with respect with space tourism. It will be a while before this is safe enough for companies to ship people for small leaps above the atmosphere without getting sued out of existence at the first accident.
Space adventures are said to be building a base in the UAE. Liability may be less of an issue. Some people will pay big money to take a risk, but the supply of these people may run out quickly. OTH it may last long enough to bootstrap services at a lower price, and perhaps make them sustainable in the long run.
I know that there are a lot of maybees in that paragraph. But a shot at a private space program is better than relying on NASA. I don't think NASA has any reason to be in space, other than retaining a long term capability for the USA to do manned space flight if it becomes an important requirement.
Really all that NASA and others require is a sound plan, a clear worthy goal that has some chance of succeeding. What many people seem to be missing here is that in spite of searching and thinking hard that plan was never found. The rest followed.
Apollo was a cold war thing. Shuttle was apollo era technology. The cold war has finished. The ISS is an extension of '50s SF ideas, combined with the idea of doing skylab2. There is no reason to be in space at the moment, and NASA's approach to Shuttle and ISS shows it.
Realistically why would the USA want to go to the moon or back to mars? I can't imagine my Government wanting to do those things, as much as I would want them to try.
A steel door with steel frame will typically survive a good hearty kick
I bought my current house from a dogy character. He had a deadlock in the front door about one foot off the ground. I supose the principle is that if somebody tries to kick their way through the door it is going to be a lot harder if they are kicking between two good locks.
The crew vehicle is named after the god of war. I always suspected that, deep down, the only interest of the current administration in space is as a way of increasing US military dominance.
Its called sucking up. It pays the bills.
The cold war paid for apollo, and national space programs will need to have some nationalistic basis. Until Branson gets his act together.
the noise we tracked was caused by cavitation of the screws and at least a minor difference in one screw blade.
For the collins class submarine project here in Australia the navy specified a quietness standard for the screws which everybody agreed was unachievable. If they had not built slack into the contract I doubt anybody would have agreed to tender. As it is they are having to go back to the drawing board on the screws because they are too noisy. Guys like you could still pick them up.
Apart from using really big screws I don't see what you can do about cavitation. Making the screw too big will increase the mechanical overhead and the risk of introducing new sources of noise.
Turing could have accomplished a hell of a lot in the following years. Who knows? We might have seen genuine early advances in AI, since he was showing an interest in it.
Anyway, I feel that now a pirate DVD is more valueable than a real DVD since pirate DVDs remove all skip codes and DRM and makes for more pleasant viewing.
We are damn lucky not to have to do this with CD's.
One of the most important things you can teach your kids is not to be just a consumer but a producer, too.
Agreed, but my observation is that children above the age of 18 months or so are natural producers. When you think about it it makes sense. In the wild our young could never afford to sit around watching other people do stuff. They would starve that way.
My son (almost four years old) likes the freehand notebook on my palm. Its great for me because of its almost infinite capacity for his drawings which are stored with the date of creation.
He has an aptitude for solving mazes. I am (slowly) setting up a pc for him and I plan to write a maze generation program for him.
The biggest problem as a parent these days is finding a way to occupy your child so that you can Get Stuff Done. Yes I know its not that good to stuff them in front of a dvd but sometimes there is no alternative. My son has some games which he runs on my wife's laptop. Thats marginally better than the dvd.
Why should he? He is talking about the server, not the client. The whole problem with the microsoft approach is their practice of developing server and client together.
Slashdot Mirror
I had a look at it and was left wondering what we have been doing with programming languages for the last 50 years. Since then we seem to have invented automatic garbage collection, standardised API's and protocols and OO.
Its a shame. Is the idea of a "language" the problem? Perhaps its time we moved on to something totally new. Don't ask me for examples, though.
Must be why they compare it with the Nobel.
I wonder what happens when you have more than one spot?
Sorry for the diversion, your description of the experiment reminded me of Sagan's machine.
The article doesn't say much about what is causing these huge weather patterns to be so stable on Jupiter, and the reason is that we actually know very little about what goes on underneath the outer layers of cloud.
Our one and only atmosphere probe was a surprising success, but it was not built to last. A different probe, supported by a balloon rather than a parachute, was flown on venus and it worked well.
I think it is time to have another go at a jupiter atmosphere probe. This time try for a hot hydrogen balloon, heated by an RTG. If we don't do the basic research we will never understand the biggest planet in our solar system.
Four years to go. The Chinese haven't really started on their space station yet...
no, not when its at the bottom of a huge gravity well, the energy cost to raise it is too fearsome.
There is that, but it also applies to a large extent to the original joke about extracting oil off Earth.
What there IS out there is more solar energy than a thousand worlds could ever use.
40% of which we get at each point on the Earth, anyway. Anything you can do in space (by way of solar power, etc) I can do in central Australia for vastly less cost.
Of course if I had the chance to do the work in space I wouldn't be pointing that out before hand...
Scoop mining. You shoot a spacecraft through the outer atmosphere of the gas giant planet. It compresses and liquifies the gas then returns to earth. See "Imperial Earth" by Arthur C Clarke, which proposed using the technique in the much easier environment of Titan.
Of course the vehicle has to be made of, and powered by, unobtanium.
I don't think anybody believes it will be safer, just easier to justify in the long run.
While not all of this is lost, and I believe it is possible to repeat the feat, I can't see much profit in that particular endeavour. Colour me doubtful with respect with space tourism. It will be a while before this is safe enough for companies to ship people for small leaps above the atmosphere without getting sued out of existence at the first accident.Space adventures are said to be building a base in the UAE. Liability may be less of an issue. Some people will pay big money to take a risk, but the supply of these people may run out quickly. OTH it may last long enough to bootstrap services at a lower price, and perhaps make them sustainable in the long run.
I know that there are a lot of maybees in that paragraph. But a shot at a private space program is better than relying on NASA. I don't think NASA has any reason to be in space, other than retaining a long term capability for the USA to do manned space flight if it becomes an important requirement.
Really all that NASA and others require is a sound plan, a clear worthy goal that has some chance of succeeding. What many people seem to be missing here is that in spite of searching and thinking hard that plan was never found. The rest followed.Apollo was a cold war thing. Shuttle was apollo era technology. The cold war has finished. The ISS is an extension of '50s SF ideas, combined with the idea of doing skylab2. There is no reason to be in space at the moment, and NASA's approach to Shuttle and ISS shows it.
Realistically why would the USA want to go to the moon or back to mars? I can't imagine my Government wanting to do those things, as much as I would want them to try.
Because Jupiter and Saturn have heaps of methane (many times the mass of the Earth) and Neptune and Uranus are practically made of the stuff.
I bought my current house from a dogy character. He had a deadlock in the front door about one foot off the ground. I supose the principle is that if somebody tries to kick their way through the door it is going to be a lot harder if they are kicking between two good locks.
Carries an implied doubt that it will in fact Play For Sure. If you knew the answer with confidence you would just say it Plays.
Its a bit like if I write a dogy patch for somebody which I think will work and I say "sure, it'l work" on my way out the door.
The title bar of my web browser says:
NASA Names New Spacecraft - Mozilla Firefox
Its called sucking up. It pays the bills.
The cold war paid for apollo, and national space programs will need to have some nationalistic basis. Until Branson gets his act together.
For the collins class submarine project here in Australia the navy specified a quietness standard for the screws which everybody agreed was unachievable. If they had not built slack into the contract I doubt anybody would have agreed to tender. As it is they are having to go back to the drawing board on the screws because they are too noisy. Guys like you could still pick them up.
Apart from using really big screws I don't see what you can do about cavitation. Making the screw too big will increase the mechanical overhead and the risk of introducing new sources of noise.
I have a copy of Caldera linux from ~1997 which I used to install on 486 boxes. For a long time it was the only way to put very old machines to use.
Now I install NetBSD on old machines. At least that way I can install something up to date.
Turing could have accomplished a hell of a lot in the following years. Who knows? We might have seen genuine early advances in AI, since he was showing an interest in it.
You'd think they could just ask the Germans for the cleartext.
I thought it said Daft Rules
Thanks for reminding me.
How about banning more than a couple of watts of infrared? It is more energetic than microwaves so it must be more harmful.
It is your patriotic duty to support your poor suffering film industry.
We are damn lucky not to have to do this with CD's.
Agreed, but my observation is that children above the age of 18 months or so are natural producers. When you think about it it makes sense. In the wild our young could never afford to sit around watching other people do stuff. They would starve that way.
My son (almost four years old) likes the freehand notebook on my palm. Its great for me because of its almost infinite capacity for his drawings which are stored with the date of creation.
He has an aptitude for solving mazes. I am (slowly) setting up a pc for him and I plan to write a maze generation program for him.
The biggest problem as a parent these days is finding a way to occupy your child so that you can Get Stuff Done. Yes I know its not that good to stuff them in front of a dvd but sometimes there is no alternative. My son has some games which he runs on my wife's laptop. Thats marginally better than the dvd.
Why should he? He is talking about the server, not the client. The whole problem with the microsoft approach is their practice of developing server and client together.
With girls, anyway.
OTH Maybe Heinlein will be proved right in the end.