That reminds me of an interesting talk I attended by an X-ray astro-physicist back in college. He had been involved in several launches. Not surprisingly, they are very personally invested in the payloads, since they spend quite a few years fighting for budgeting and designing and building, and plan to spend several more years analyzing data. He said there was one launch where the rocket went off course and the Range Safety Officer gave the order to blow it, but the lead scientist jumped on the guy in charge of the button in a rather desperate attempt to save his project (which was doomed anyways). Since then, the customers have been kept in a seperate room from the RSO's.
Smells of a tall tale, but probably based on fact.
Since the satellite was a student project, most of its value comes from the education and experience they get designing and building the satellite and its experiments. Not actually getting data of a phenomenon that has no doubt been investigated in some depth before is a small loss.
Paypal has its ups and downs. I for one haven't had any problems with them, but I don't use them very much. It's also the first major service of its kind, and given the number of customers it has, a very small percentage of problems translates into a lot of total complaints...I think they're still behind Microsoft in that department though.
The on pad static fire was just a chance to confirm that all the systems worked together. It was not a proving for the engines or the flight software (which has to be exposed to a myriad of conditions you can't replicate during a static hold-down fire). In fact, firing the tanks dry with the rocket still on the ground receiving back blast probably wouldn't be a good idea. Over the past two years, however, SpaceX has tested the engines thoroughly on stands in the desert, logging several times what it takes to reach orbit on single engines. As Elon has said, they are pretty confident in the capability and reliability of the engines. I think faulting the schedule, especially when they've already been willing to delay a couple times for relatively small issues, is premature and a little unfair.
They have also thoroughly simulated the flight software, I believe with the hardware hooked up under simulated loads, as well. Of course, it's impossible to truly predict every contingency that the software will have to deal with, and given that the rocket began to exhibit uncontrolled roll rather than loss of power or anything like that, I suspect the problem does ultimately lie in the software rather than the power plant. We will have to wait for them to discuss their analysis to find out. I understand they have a relatively small code base, so hopefully they will be able to track it down quickly.
One other possibility I think fairly likely is vulnerability of their communications inside the rocket. Supposedly this is the first rocket to rely principly on ethernet, which reduces cost significantly over propriety methods. This is untested in flight, and interference or vibration may have caused problems.
I'm pretty bummed out by this, but their progress in the last couple of years is still impressive, and I'm looking forward to their eventual announcement of a second launch date. I wonder if it was a non-issue the recovery ship was out of position...or a good thing they moved it.
Since the payload was a student project, it has no doubt already accomplished it's primary mission: to give engineering and science students experience in a large-scale, real world project designing and building a satellite and it's experiments. It's sad that they won't get to see the final fruits of their labors and the product of their effort was destroyed, but this doesn't really affect their overall education. The science loss is pretty small, as I'm pretty certain other satellites have studied similar phenomena in the past.
I think the Air Force giving SpaceX a launch contract was partially throwing them a bone to help get another launch provider off the ground (no pun intended), and partially saving money. No doubt had SpaceX not happened to be up-and-coming as they are, this would have gone up on a Pegasus or piggybacked with another satellite on a bigger rocket, like I believe the first Falcon-Sat was.
NASA's first failed attempts at orbit also had payloads on board.
Ok, since we're talking software pirates here, not real pirates (otherwise the outcome would be obvious) who wins in an average matchup?
Software pirate - Probably very pale and skinny due to skipping meals and time outside in order hack or organize pirated playlists. Resulting low vitamin intake can affect durability. Small target. Hyped up on caffeine. +5 to defense, +7 to speed, -10 to HP, -4 to strength. Levels up 20% faster due to time spent playing Fight Night on modded Xbox.
Software designer - Tends to be larger due to snacking on the job. Caffeine adds no bonus (addicted). Large mass can offer several advantages. -4 to defense, -10 to speed, +10 to HP, +6 to strength. Can invoke Putrid Socks of Nonwashing.
The problem with you uneducated foreign yokels is that when you think American beer, you think of Budweiser and Coors. Obviously, however, while these are shockingly popular drinks in the US, they are not beers (in fact, Budweiser is more of a form of week rice wine than a malt beverage). For real American beers, try the micro and specialty brews from a plethora of smaller brewing companies spread accross the US, especially the Pacific NW.
The real problem is too many people think they can safely fly hypersonic aircraft after downing a few pints, leading to unusual crater formations in Queensland.
Actually, as a test engineer I can tell you, the one necessary element of any decent experiment is a big red button. Explosions and chaos are optional.
Well...were there any problems as a result of it? No? Then I guess it wasn't too close after all. Maybe...just maybe they have some clue what they're doing, considering they've fired this engine dozens of times before.
Probably not...the rocket can only blow up as fast as the oxygen can mix with the kerosene following a structural failure of the tanks (something the people who are deathly afraid of LNG tankers don't understand). Yes, it could potentially be a big boom, but most likely it will be a big fireball. Besides, if the rocket explodes, people aren't going to cry as much over a few thousand dollar fuel tank as they are over their 6.7 million dollar rocket. Not to mention their island isn't very big. Probably no other place to put it.
They say they're looking for good people to hire, but the fact that they don't have any specific positions listed on their website leads they don't really plan on hiring anybody new unless you've got an absolutely killer resume, in which case they'll find something for you to work on.
I would send in my resume just in case, but I loathe the thought of living in southern california. I don't know what is wrong with aerospace companies that they have to set up shop in places that are clicking hot like LA, New Mexico, or Texas, or where the local culture is weird like LA or Seattle, or where life is just plain ridiculously expensive and crowded like LA.
I think we all remember going through that one door in the fourth dungeon for the first time and finding out just what a bunch of level 7 ninja's, samurai, and priests could accomplish.
An encounter...the monsters surprised you!
A Lvl 7 ninja attacks Gimli...Gimli is decapitated!
A Lvl 7 samurai attacks Aragorn and hits 3 times for 47 damage
A Lvl 7 priest cast a Lahalito
Gandalf takes 27 damage
Aragorn take 15 damage. Aragorn is killed!
Faramir takes 9 damage
Bilbo takes 36 damage
Legolas takes 31 damage. Legolas is killed!
Somebody should've spent more time killing creeping coins, wandering through the pits in the 3rd dungeon, or duking it out with Murphy's ghosts. Actually, I didn't discover the game until probably 2000 (weak proof perhaps that old games can appeal to the younger generation) and I played the PC version (the identify item 9 cheat was removed). I did eventually beat Werdna, but I couldn't get my characters to import into Wizardry 2 for some reason, and it just got to be a pain in the butt to level up the characters.
Anybody watch it last night? The lady who won was previously on once a long time ago, before they even had Alex. The first time around she got $60 and a board game. This time she won about $20,000. Most of the contestants are equally as lame as your average Joe, but every now and then somebody has an interesting story during the introductions.
I understood the phrase "continuous partial" to imply that attention was never fully taken away (continuous), but it wasn't at 100%, either (partial). I admit, I only minored in math, but I'm pretty sure it's possible for a variable to...umm...vary, without a discontinuity. Sorry, I'm being unnecessarily sarcastic, but you get the point. Attention isn't really a binary concept. In fact, completely ignoring something is pretty tough to do. I know I'm frequenty guilty of CPA, like when the annoying guy who never shuts up drops by, I'm really only paying attention to keywords that guide when and how I respond.
"blah blah blah American Idol blah blah blah blah so what did you think?"
"Didn't watch it."
Ironcially, one of those guys dropped by my desk while I was typing this post, but he was much more on task than usual...whereas I'm wasting time on Slashdot.
I was skeptical that they'd find anything interesting to do with Stardust when they first announced they were looking for proposals, but I'm pleasantly surprised.
Additionally, the original sample return may also have been captured some extra-solar particles in the aerogel collector on Stardust. Scientists expect to be able to identify these based on how deeply embedded they are (ie, velocity with which they struck the collector). Some of you may recall the Genesis project was supposed to collect particles from our sun's wind. Unfortunately, due to an engineering error, it crashed landed, breaking it's seal and tainting the samples. Extrasolar particles would likely have some similarity to what our own sun kicks out. All this together makes Stardust a fascinating mission.
Interesting bit from the article:
That Earth flyby will put it on course to reach Tempel 1 on 14 February 2011, when the crater produced by Deep Impact will be oriented towards the spacecraft.
I'm wondering how confident they are which way the comet will be oriented. Isn't it possible that evaporation/ejection of material from its surface can affect the rotation significantly enough to mess up long term orientation predictions?
Voyager still is sending interesting data back, which is why there was a recent fuss about the proposal end the mission (end the operational funding, stop allocating deep space network time to receiving it's data). I never did hear how that ended, or if a decision has been made.
It was the opposite at my school: paid to teach and asked to do research on the side, which definitely had benefits from the student point of view. Regardless, if he can't teach, he doesn't deserve any dough for failing at it. More to the point, obviously the professor in question is trying to be effective at teaching, whether or not it is her primary purpose at her school.
Not quite. It is the professors job to teach in such a way that I can learn. If he can't or won't, he isn't doing his job and therefore isn't earning his salary, and I should "fire" him (take another prof if possible, find another school if this is a recurring problem). If he "d@mn well pleases to impart that information" through morse code beeping or interpretive dance, few of us stand any chance of taking anything useful away from the lecture. I agree, however, that the student should bring enough skills to the table so that the professor's position is not hopeless.
If it worked for you that's fine, but I know it doesn't work for me, especially not in math classes. I will not remember every detail from the lecture, and regardless of how good the text book or the lecture notes is, I need to put some things in my own words to be able to make decent sense of them later on. As for teachers providing pre-written lecture notes, I've found that to be much less useful than my own notes, and I usually scribble all over the margins with extra details anyways. Prepared lecture notes are generally a copy of the lecture or at least its outline, and generally offer nothing more than the textbook.
Granted, some teachers had a bad habit of lecturing faster than I could write, but that was a failure of the professor to pay attention to the students rather than an inherent flaw in taking notes. We'd yell at them and they'd slow down to a reasonable pace...for the day. We learned early on if we didn't yell at them, they'd finish their material for the day well before class ended and ask for questions. If we were totally lost, we wouldn't even know what questions to ask, so they'd push into the next day's material. Not a situation you want to be in.
I've got mod points, but since the system won't let me give either you or your parent poster a +6, I'll just settle for giving you verbal props.
Frankly, the "neo-conservative movement" took me by surprise. It seemed like overnight the Republicans switched from being focused on the bill of rights and small government to championing the Patriot Act. I can hardly even apply the term conservative to the same people that the media and all the people who let the media do their thinking for them do, because the so-called neo-conservatives really aren't interested at all in a conservative approach to government. They push forward without appearing to think much about it.
I was wondering that myself. Perhaps they have plans for some sorting features that would benefit from entries with information stored in seperate fields.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes! Thanks for the video. Mods, give this guy some points.
"...before range safety got to it?"
That reminds me of an interesting talk I attended by an X-ray astro-physicist back in college. He had been involved in several launches. Not surprisingly, they are very personally invested in the payloads, since they spend quite a few years fighting for budgeting and designing and building, and plan to spend several more years analyzing data. He said there was one launch where the rocket went off course and the Range Safety Officer gave the order to blow it, but the lead scientist jumped on the guy in charge of the button in a rather desperate attempt to save his project (which was doomed anyways). Since then, the customers have been kept in a seperate room from the RSO's.
Smells of a tall tale, but probably based on fact.
Since the satellite was a student project, most of its value comes from the education and experience they get designing and building the satellite and its experiments. Not actually getting data of a phenomenon that has no doubt been investigated in some depth before is a small loss.
Paypal has its ups and downs. I for one haven't had any problems with them, but I don't use them very much. It's also the first major service of its kind, and given the number of customers it has, a very small percentage of problems translates into a lot of total complaints...I think they're still behind Microsoft in that department though.
The on pad static fire was just a chance to confirm that all the systems worked together. It was not a proving for the engines or the flight software (which has to be exposed to a myriad of conditions you can't replicate during a static hold-down fire). In fact, firing the tanks dry with the rocket still on the ground receiving back blast probably wouldn't be a good idea. Over the past two years, however, SpaceX has tested the engines thoroughly on stands in the desert, logging several times what it takes to reach orbit on single engines. As Elon has said, they are pretty confident in the capability and reliability of the engines. I think faulting the schedule, especially when they've already been willing to delay a couple times for relatively small issues, is premature and a little unfair.
They have also thoroughly simulated the flight software, I believe with the hardware hooked up under simulated loads, as well. Of course, it's impossible to truly predict every contingency that the software will have to deal with, and given that the rocket began to exhibit uncontrolled roll rather than loss of power or anything like that, I suspect the problem does ultimately lie in the software rather than the power plant. We will have to wait for them to discuss their analysis to find out. I understand they have a relatively small code base, so hopefully they will be able to track it down quickly.
One other possibility I think fairly likely is vulnerability of their communications inside the rocket. Supposedly this is the first rocket to rely principly on ethernet, which reduces cost significantly over propriety methods. This is untested in flight, and interference or vibration may have caused problems.
I'm pretty bummed out by this, but their progress in the last couple of years is still impressive, and I'm looking forward to their eventual announcement of a second launch date. I wonder if it was a non-issue the recovery ship was out of position...or a good thing they moved it.
Since the payload was a student project, it has no doubt already accomplished it's primary mission: to give engineering and science students experience in a large-scale, real world project designing and building a satellite and it's experiments. It's sad that they won't get to see the final fruits of their labors and the product of their effort was destroyed, but this doesn't really affect their overall education. The science loss is pretty small, as I'm pretty certain other satellites have studied similar phenomena in the past.
I think the Air Force giving SpaceX a launch contract was partially throwing them a bone to help get another launch provider off the ground (no pun intended), and partially saving money. No doubt had SpaceX not happened to be up-and-coming as they are, this would have gone up on a Pegasus or piggybacked with another satellite on a bigger rocket, like I believe the first Falcon-Sat was.
NASA's first failed attempts at orbit also had payloads on board.
Ok, since we're talking software pirates here, not real pirates (otherwise the outcome would be obvious) who wins in an average matchup?
Software pirate - Probably very pale and skinny due to skipping meals and time outside in order hack or organize pirated playlists. Resulting low vitamin intake can affect durability. Small target. Hyped up on caffeine. +5 to defense, +7 to speed, -10 to HP, -4 to strength. Levels up 20% faster due to time spent playing Fight Night on modded Xbox.
Software designer - Tends to be larger due to snacking on the job. Caffeine adds no bonus (addicted). Large mass can offer several advantages. -4 to defense, -10 to speed, +10 to HP, +6 to strength. Can invoke Putrid Socks of Nonwashing.
The problem with you uneducated foreign yokels is that when you think American beer, you think of Budweiser and Coors. Obviously, however, while these are shockingly popular drinks in the US, they are not beers (in fact, Budweiser is more of a form of week rice wine than a malt beverage). For real American beers, try the micro and specialty brews from a plethora of smaller brewing companies spread accross the US, especially the Pacific NW.
The real problem is too many people think they can safely fly hypersonic aircraft after downing a few pints, leading to unusual crater formations in Queensland.
Actually, as a test engineer I can tell you, the one necessary element of any decent experiment is a big red button. Explosions and chaos are optional.
Well...were there any problems as a result of it? No? Then I guess it wasn't too close after all. Maybe...just maybe they have some clue what they're doing, considering they've fired this engine dozens of times before.
Probably not...the rocket can only blow up as fast as the oxygen can mix with the kerosene following a structural failure of the tanks (something the people who are deathly afraid of LNG tankers don't understand). Yes, it could potentially be a big boom, but most likely it will be a big fireball. Besides, if the rocket explodes, people aren't going to cry as much over a few thousand dollar fuel tank as they are over their 6.7 million dollar rocket. Not to mention their island isn't very big. Probably no other place to put it.
They say they're looking for good people to hire, but the fact that they don't have any specific positions listed on their website leads they don't really plan on hiring anybody new unless you've got an absolutely killer resume, in which case they'll find something for you to work on.
I would send in my resume just in case, but I loathe the thought of living in southern california. I don't know what is wrong with aerospace companies that they have to set up shop in places that are clicking hot like LA, New Mexico, or Texas, or where the local culture is weird like LA or Seattle, or where life is just plain ridiculously expensive and crowded like LA.
I think we all remember going through that one door in the fourth dungeon for the first time and finding out just what a bunch of level 7 ninja's, samurai, and priests could accomplish.
An encounter...the monsters surprised you!
A Lvl 7 ninja attacks Gimli...Gimli is decapitated!
A Lvl 7 samurai attacks Aragorn and hits 3 times for 47 damage
A Lvl 7 priest cast a Lahalito
Gandalf takes 27 damage
Aragorn take 15 damage. Aragorn is killed!
Faramir takes 9 damage
Bilbo takes 36 damage
Legolas takes 31 damage. Legolas is killed!
Somebody should've spent more time killing creeping coins, wandering through the pits in the 3rd dungeon, or duking it out with Murphy's ghosts. Actually, I didn't discover the game until probably 2000 (weak proof perhaps that old games can appeal to the younger generation) and I played the PC version (the identify item 9 cheat was removed). I did eventually beat Werdna, but I couldn't get my characters to import into Wizardry 2 for some reason, and it just got to be a pain in the butt to level up the characters.
PS - Trebor Sucks!
Anybody watch it last night? The lady who won was previously on once a long time ago, before they even had Alex. The first time around she got $60 and a board game. This time she won about $20,000. Most of the contestants are equally as lame as your average Joe, but every now and then somebody has an interesting story during the introductions.
Darn it, don't let the slashdotters know! How am I going to make it on the show with all that competition?!?
It would be really funny though if the tryout site gets "slashdotted."
My first clue was the submitter's user name.
For more information on Continuous Partial Attention, see yesterday's 1200 comment long discussion on laptops in the classroom.
We've definitely talked about this many times before. I guess this is more special though because she came up with a clever name for it.
I understood the phrase "continuous partial" to imply that attention was never fully taken away (continuous), but it wasn't at 100%, either (partial). I admit, I only minored in math, but I'm pretty sure it's possible for a variable to...umm...vary, without a discontinuity. Sorry, I'm being unnecessarily sarcastic, but you get the point. Attention isn't really a binary concept. In fact, completely ignoring something is pretty tough to do. I know I'm frequenty guilty of CPA, like when the annoying guy who never shuts up drops by, I'm really only paying attention to keywords that guide when and how I respond.
"blah blah blah American Idol blah blah blah blah so what did you think?"
"Didn't watch it."
Ironcially, one of those guys dropped by my desk while I was typing this post, but he was much more on task than usual...whereas I'm wasting time on Slashdot.
Ok, I know you're insulting me, but I find it hilarious. Can some please mod this AC up!
I was skeptical that they'd find anything interesting to do with Stardust when they first announced they were looking for proposals, but I'm pleasantly surprised.
Additionally, the original sample return may also have been captured some extra-solar particles in the aerogel collector on Stardust. Scientists expect to be able to identify these based on how deeply embedded they are (ie, velocity with which they struck the collector). Some of you may recall the Genesis project was supposed to collect particles from our sun's wind. Unfortunately, due to an engineering error, it crashed landed, breaking it's seal and tainting the samples. Extrasolar particles would likely have some similarity to what our own sun kicks out. All this together makes Stardust a fascinating mission.
Interesting bit from the article:
I'm wondering how confident they are which way the comet will be oriented. Isn't it possible that evaporation/ejection of material from its surface can affect the rotation significantly enough to mess up long term orientation predictions?
Voyager still is sending interesting data back, which is why there was a recent fuss about the proposal end the mission (end the operational funding, stop allocating deep space network time to receiving it's data). I never did hear how that ended, or if a decision has been made.
It was the opposite at my school: paid to teach and asked to do research on the side, which definitely had benefits from the student point of view. Regardless, if he can't teach, he doesn't deserve any dough for failing at it. More to the point, obviously the professor in question is trying to be effective at teaching, whether or not it is her primary purpose at her school.
Not quite. It is the professors job to teach in such a way that I can learn. If he can't or won't, he isn't doing his job and therefore isn't earning his salary, and I should "fire" him (take another prof if possible, find another school if this is a recurring problem). If he "d@mn well pleases to impart that information" through morse code beeping or interpretive dance, few of us stand any chance of taking anything useful away from the lecture. I agree, however, that the student should bring enough skills to the table so that the professor's position is not hopeless.
If it worked for you that's fine, but I know it doesn't work for me, especially not in math classes. I will not remember every detail from the lecture, and regardless of how good the text book or the lecture notes is, I need to put some things in my own words to be able to make decent sense of them later on. As for teachers providing pre-written lecture notes, I've found that to be much less useful than my own notes, and I usually scribble all over the margins with extra details anyways. Prepared lecture notes are generally a copy of the lecture or at least its outline, and generally offer nothing more than the textbook.
Granted, some teachers had a bad habit of lecturing faster than I could write, but that was a failure of the professor to pay attention to the students rather than an inherent flaw in taking notes. We'd yell at them and they'd slow down to a reasonable pace...for the day. We learned early on if we didn't yell at them, they'd finish their material for the day well before class ended and ask for questions. If we were totally lost, we wouldn't even know what questions to ask, so they'd push into the next day's material. Not a situation you want to be in.
I've got mod points, but since the system won't let me give either you or your parent poster a +6, I'll just settle for giving you verbal props.
Frankly, the "neo-conservative movement" took me by surprise. It seemed like overnight the Republicans switched from being focused on the bill of rights and small government to championing the Patriot Act. I can hardly even apply the term conservative to the same people that the media and all the people who let the media do their thinking for them do, because the so-called neo-conservatives really aren't interested at all in a conservative approach to government. They push forward without appearing to think much about it.
I was wondering that myself. Perhaps they have plans for some sorting features that would benefit from entries with information stored in seperate fields.