Isn't this the perfect opportunity to open all the warchests in FSF, EFF, and others (or even set up a specific pool), and come down on SCO like a ton of bricks while in addition getting a legal verdict on the validity of the GPL?
If we (the F/OSS community) hurry we might even be able to win this before IBM crushes SCO totally (it would be fun if FSF/EFF got awarded all of SCO remaining assets in damage).
"Recently, we had an unrelated copyright discussion on the Linux kernel discussion list (some people still want to have binary only modules and try to argue that the GPL doesn't ever cover them).
Anyway, that's beside the point, though it does show that some people want to take advantage of open source without giving anything back. But after the discussion, I ended up looking up the exact wording of the U.S. copyright law and guess what I found:
"The term 'financial gain' includes receipt, or expectation of receipt, of anything of value, including the receipt of other copyrighted works."
This is from U.S. Code Collection, Title 17 (copyrights), Chapter 1, Section 101: "Definitions." In short, this is from the very first section in copyright law -- the section that defines terms even before those terms are used. This is some pretty fundamental stuff when it comes to copyrights in the U.S.
Pertinent, if you will.
And note how copyright law expressly includes "the expectation of receipt" of anything of value, and expressly mentions "receipt of other copyrighted works" as such a thing of value. And that's the very definition of "financial gain," as far as U.S. copyright law is concerned.
"The most famous example of this danger occurred on Jan. 25, 1995, when Norway launched a weather research rocket to explore the Northern Lights phenomenon. When Russia's radars picked up the missile trajectory, it seemed to have been fired from a U.S. submarine in the Norwegian Sea-long suspected by the Russians as a likely first move in a U.S. surprise attack. Russian nuclear forces scrambled into position and bunker commanders inserted their launch keys, awaiting the order to turn them. Yeltsin, reportedly fuming drunk at the time, opened his nuclear briefcase and consulted with the frenzied General Staff. With their nerves screaming, together they watched the missile trajectory slowly turn away from any conceivable Russian target. When the crisis finally ended, they had less than two minutes to make a decision. (U.S. submarine-launched missiles can reach Moscow in 10 minutes.)
The Norwegian government had warned the Russian embassy in Oslo in advance about the test, but the information never made it to the Russian General Staff. As described by former CIA analyst Peter Vincent Pry in his book War Scare, it was "a clerical error" that brought the world closer to nuclear war than at any time since October 1962."
The rocket was actually fired from the norwegian Andøya rocket range http://www.rocketrange.no/arr/index.html which to my knowledge is the only permanent rocket range we presently have here in Norway, and one which is exclusively used for small (mainly scientific) payloads. Andøya is an island on the NNW North Sea coast of Norway at google maps here http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=69.115611,15.828552 &spn=0.752968,2.730103&hl=en (the island is in the dead centre of the link, zoom out to get your bearings). Totally OT it's a beautiful rugged island where one can also go on whale safaris.
I wanted to post this because the incident has aggregated myths about it the last ten years (helped by a lot of inaccurate reporting and media knee-jerk reactions/cynicism). The situation would be unlikely to escalate into nuclear war no matter which way one twists it. A single launch is a very unlikey surprise attack scenario, especially when not heading in the general direction of Moscow as Moscow is far to the south-east of the launch site and the rocket was heading north (Moscow is probably the only remotely intelligent target for such a far-out single strike scenario). But of course unenlightened media drained the story for all that it was worth and more. The result of the incident was the setting in place of a more robust and direct channel of communications between Norway and Russia as well as other appropriate changes.
A small note on the quote emphasising (as absolutely all media reports did) "When the crisis finally ended, theyless than two minutes to make a decision...". This would only be true if the missile actually headed towards Moscow, as it was it was travelling in the opposite direction which actually gave them more time the longer they waited. From the fact that they did resolve the "crisis" within 8 minutes it is likely that they did track the missile and saw this.
As to you saying:
"But I assume there were'nt any proper ICBMs on board, and they almost certainly wouldn't be armed if they were there..."
I think otherwise; the submarine most likely had ICBMs with warheads (although I doubt the Russian Navy would like to say either way) if the subm
"Model: R-29K. IOC: 1978. Country: Russia. Other Designations: RSM-50. Department of Defence Designation [my edit: and NATO designation]: SS-N-18 Mod 2. ASCC Reporting Name: Stingray. Article Number: 4K75K. Manufacturer's Designation: R-29K. Popular Name: Volna. Launch System: D-9. Complex: 4K75K.
First flight 1977.
Manufacturer: Makayev. Total Mass: 34,388 kg. Core Diameter: 1.80 m. Total Length: 14.40 m. Span: 1.80 m. Standard warhead mass: 820 kg. Maximum range: 7,980 km. Number Standard Warheads: 1. Standard warhead yield: 450 KT. Standard warhead CEP: 1 km. Boost Propulsion: Storable liquid rocket. Cruise Propulsion: Storable liquid rocket. Guidance: Inertial."
"It's an Associated Press story, you dipshit. Are you seriously asking why we want our news from the actual press instead of somebody's blog?"
For your information it is not "somebody's blog" but the Planetary Society's weblog on the Cosmos 1 launch/project. In other words: directly from the source (the people actually at the hub of information: the Planetary Society) rather than possibly misinterpreted, misunderstood, and generally dumbed down reporting be it by AP, or Fox, or Slashdot.
In a situation where one has conflicting data and reports I think most people would like to get their information directly from those who have the most of it.
Why the hell does Slashdot base their "news" on Fox rather than going to the source itself?
Here's the latest (as of this moment) weblog entry from the Planetary Society itself as written by Emily Lakdawalla:
"Jun 22, 2005 | 07:49 PDT | 14:49 UTC The morning after
I showed up here at POP at about 7 am local time. I'm the only one here in the building at the moment. It was a very late night after a very long day yesterday, and we all knew that if anything there would be more people asking questions today; we needed the rest.
Over our night and their day there has been some information coming out of Russia. To recap where we stand: yesterday the launch appeared to happen roughly on time. The Navy reported first stage firing. Then the signal of the spacecraft was detected over the temporary ground station at Petropavlovsk. But it wasn't detected over Majuro, which had us concerned. And then U. S. Strategic Command reported that they did not see our spacecraft in the sky. Later in the afternoon, we heard back from our man in Majuro that he thought actually he may have detected a weak signal. And then we heard the same from Panska Ves via Lou. That all seemed to add up to a consistent story that while there may have been a problem on board, our spacecraft likely was in orbit.
Since then, there has been a new report circulating from Russia:
ITAR-TASS is now quoting officials of the Russian Navy and the Makeyev design bureau as saying that the Volna first stage unexpectedly shut down 83 seconds after lift-off, adding that unlike the standard Volna SLBM the "space version" does not have an automatic destruct system for such an eventuality.
About this, Lou made a statement last night:
Project Director Louis Friedman cautioned that some data point to a launch vehicle misfiring, one that would prevent the spacecraft from achieving orbit. He said, "That the weak signals were recorded at the expected times of spacecraft passes over the ground stations is encouraging, but in no way are they conclusive enough for us to be sure that they came from Cosmos 1 working in orbit." The Russian space agency indicated that the Volna rocket may have had a problem during its first or second stage firing. "This," Friedman noted, "would almost certainly have prevented the spacecraft from reaching the correct orbit."
What this means is that we are still dealing with a very wide range of possibilities for what could have happened yesterday, made even wider by the fact that it kind of sounds like some of the information that we have is contradictory. If the launch vehicle failed, how did we detect signals at Majuro and Panska Ves? On the other side, if the launch vehicle had a problem but still managed to put the spacecraft into some orbit, why didn't Strat Comm see it last night? We don't know what to make of it. We hope to get more information from Lou in an hour or two. Stand by for that."
First: I'm not sure if I should be happy or terrified that I'm partly responsible for someone being at Slashdot;) this place is a virtual madhouse lol:)
Yes I think you're mostly right. I recognize your argument about how some artforms/media limits interpretations and imagination. I've heard it in Norway and here it was used against just about everything except books. I agree that it has some truth to it, but it can also increase imagination and ideas by presenting another person/persons imagination if it includes stuff you hadn't thought about or envisioned yourself. And then in addition a lot of manga (and western style comics), anime, movies, games etc. isn't meant to be especially imaginative or challenging but simply entertaining.
I think it depends an awfully lot on the person too, for example I found the idea of "Cyberbrain Schlerosis" in GitS SAC intriguing and thoughtprovoking in a different way than I myself had thought about possible problems of digital brains and possible consequences. It didn't take anything away from me, it added another possible idea/view/concept which I could think about and twist whichever way I imagined.
But I do agree you bring up an important issue and one that shouldn't be forgotten (and this comes from a guy who actually finds japanese anime/manga "nosebleed-jokes" hilariously funny! *big grin*) but other than trying to encourage it during upbringing by letting children be creative and introducing them to several different types of media and storytelling I'm not sure what else one could do.
According to the official timeline the first high-quality ground station contact will be approximately Jun 22 04:23 UTC (Jun 21 21:23 PDT) - that is 8 h 37 m into the launch, i.e. it hasn't happened yet. I guess someone got a bit overly eager to report news or simply didn't have a clue or something similar in the time-honored Slashdot fashion...
To quote from the official timeline (which I will not link to on Slashdot for obvious reasons): "First high-quality ground station contacts: Tarusa and Bear Lakes
On the spacecraft's fifth orbit around the Earth, its orbital path will finally carry it high across the sky as seen from the Russian ground stations. These contacts should provide good communication from the spacecraft."
As to the passes and communication attempts that have been attempted so far have been attempts during low-quality situations. It sure would have been nice if they went through but it's too early to say either way yet.
The parent: In nature, animals without assholes simply regurgitate waste orally. Hence a world without assholes would be full of people talking shit. Therefore, I can conclude that there are no assholes on Slashdot and the LA Times is incorrect in implying otherwise:-)
Intelligence on Slashdot has been detected! Please mod parent up both as insightful and funny:) (I would if I could)
Monster is definetly something everyone should check out, I love how the story balances on the very edge between plausibly realistic and supernatural.
I would also recommend Ghost in the Shell (first GitS movie), the GitS Stand Alone Complex (GitS SAC) series which is better than the movie imho, the GitS SAC2 series, and Innocence (second GitS movie), although all of these are very different from Monster. In the series the tachikomas (a type of AI tactical robots/vehicles) have kid voices though and sometimes act cute (some people get annoyed by this, I don't: it fits with their "developmental stage" as well as providing some comic relief). Those are the only kid's voices you'll hear frequently though. The themes includes somewhat philosophical topics, a lot about social dynamics and political shadowplay (especially the series) while both play out on a backdrop of a world society after WWIII where technology, robotics and AI are blurring the lines between real/created, human/non-human. Beware of complicated storylines and more information than usual for animes in the series (which is why I prefer them to the movies).
The main GitS SAC storyline character (a hacker) and theme incooperates a quote from J. D. Salingers (of "The Cather in the Rye" fame) "The Laughing Man" - which is why the fansub group is called Laughing Man Fansubs (LMF).
The main GitS SAC2 storyline involves imho a very un-japanese and somewhat critical look at japan told by japanese, not something you'ld normally expect from anime:)
Those are the only "animes for grownups" I can think of (possibly except Armitage), if anyone has other suggestions please speak up.
Oh, and Anime does definetly not equal Geek just like these don't: roleplaying, living in a basement;) computer games, star wars & star trek *double shudder*, or real science fiction/scientific fiction/fictional science for that matter. Let's stop the geek (and nerd) stereotyping.
How many people here really think that someone should be locked up for smoking pot? It's less harmful and addictive than either tobacco or alcohol, yet those are somehow "ok".
I totally agree with you that it should be de-criminalized even though/because I:
- think narcotics are harmful
- am a nicotine addict... but it's my kind of harmful lol:)
- am pro republican! Sorry if this messes with your head it's not intentional;)
It's about two things really; personal freedom includes the freedom to do things to yourself that might not be "smart" or healthy, and even though not everyone agrees on every detail a law has to have a fairly broad base of general support to have any real validity be it drug legislation/smoking, or IP/filesharing, or thousands of small stupid selfdegrading laws which just end up reducing the respect given to the important ones.
Btw if lighter narcotics like pot gets legalised it would/should/could still be illegal to be DUI on them (just as with alcohol) or any other such example, but there are millions of sensible and fairly responsible potsmokers (as much as the next non-user) out there who manage their habit without (even potentially) hurting others.
I disagree and I think you'll find most people (maybe even on Slashdot) think that first and foremost prisons are there for removing criminals from society and giving them some sort of punishment. The political and academic reasonings might be different but they're not the real reasons, just feelgood justifications.
The only prisons I know of who successfully reform inmates are using a combination of strict discipline with education but this is rare since those who think of it as a place for reform usually hate most forms of discipline (60ies syndrome).
Btw your "Penetentiary concept" can only have a chance to work as reform if criminals truly realize they have done something wrong or actually have done something wrong, which is why the whole concept fails in the first place as most criminals either do not take responsibility for their actions or do not agree that what they did was actually criminal.
Back on topic the use of hibernation on criminals would probably only be as possible volunters for testing. Since the biggest problems with prisons and criminals is how to make them pay for themselves and actually contribute something to society rather than continuing to harm it I doubt freezing them will be a solution until the energy and hardware becomes extremely cheap, and at that point we have hopefully figured out, solved or reduced the problem of criminality by other means.
However I don't think it's not so much irony as simple fallacies resulting from too many of said capitalist politicians taking everything the business community says at face value (while the opposite side of the political spectrum inherently hates anything they say). Or said in another way: there aren't that many real thinkers in either camp, they're mostly going on gut feelings, trying to uphold what they perceive to be their image, and representing those that shout loudest at them be they "evil" corporations or "rabid" activists...
I haven't found any information about composition nor if it's solid or granular, what I have found is that it has not been given any taxonomy yet (C/S/M-type etc.) except that it belongs to the Aten group/class (which says nothing about its composition), so where did you find that "It will be mainly silicate rock" or how did you deduce it? (links appreciated).
Regardless it should be a nice target for something like Spacedevs NEAP which should be easy to use as a transponder as well.
Or replace the original article with this post if you're an editor *grumbles* after all if Slashdot is hell bent on old news it might as well be a bit more informative to the editors (who seem to be the lowest common denominator).
On good reasons: "Because we want to" after all that what anything boils down to isn't it? Doing new stuff is usually a reason in itself just because of this and probably plays a big part in why we're not still climbing trees on the african savannah.:)
Benefits of doing new stuff have a tendency to arise from even the worst ideas. Resources, offworld backup etc. are just attempts at convincing those who do not recognize that.
Unless these companies are specifically targeting anybody willing to do the testing themselves & go through any replacement hassle I don't see what they're aiming at... that nobody will notice?
How many end users would be remotely interested in doing this stuff? And they say they're going to increase this practise and that others might do the same?
I would imagine factory testing isn't just to check the chips themselves but also to check up on the manufacturing process itself, how low quality are they aiming at? If they're hell bent on producing worthless trinkets they might as well make glass beads.
Instead of running to the hills or relying on some sort of governmental or international response perhaps this is a golden business opportunity?
As far as I know the latest data is that it has a lenght of 320m and a mass of 4.6E^10kg. These numbers are already assuming it's spherical so we get:
(4/3)pi160^3 = 17157284.679m^3
and
4.6E^10kg/17157284.679m^3 = 2681.077kg/m^3
2681kg/m^3 is below most refined metals: a cubiq metre of solid gold weighs 19320kg, refined aluminum about 2600kg, but it would be likely that there's at least some heavy elements like metal, i.e. money.
One of the links talk about tagging the asteroid with a transponder on its first pass, this sounds like a perfect business opportunity for (the few) companies working towards space mining. Instead of going to the mountain the mountain is coming to them. First company to tag the asteroid claims ownership of mining rights (as well as sharing scientific and security information with the world of course). They also get ample opprtunity to test their technology, lots of free publicity, something to show present and potential shareholders etc.
2029 is the date of the first pass, if the solar sail launch of The Planetary Society proves to have merit this summer they should have ample time to prepare more than just a transponder: if it's possible to attach a solar sail to the asteroid they can gently slow it down both to avoid any danger of collisions as well as manouvering it and eventually stopping it at a suitable "harvesting spot". Even without solar sail technology 14 years is ample time to prepare a small fleet of vessels with ion drives as an alternative: either way a slow and controlled decceleration and orbital changes should be within reach (six years of ion thrusters should have some effect even if they're small - it's probably all that's needed), and then they have all the time the competition allows them to get the mining underway...
This could be big if only the opportunity is realized, who has the guts, the money, and the attitude?
As a former subscriber of SciAm (still read it now and then) I wish this was true, and I don't care if the political slant is left, right, up, or down it still pains me to see (some) scientists playing politics while at the same time complaining about (some) politicians playing science... it renders their arguments moot and hypocritical and weakens any science they're involved in, sometimes even reducing it to uninteresting opinionated squabbles.
I don't think SA is all that bad but sometimes one wonders if perhaps a little less arrogance (both scientifically and otherwise) as well as less ivory tower utopianism would do good. After all they're meant to read and review/edit the articles... sometimes they and/or the article submitters should be slightly embarrased by the replies they print/give to critical letters.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't this the perfect opportunity to open all the warchests in FSF, EFF, and others (or even set up a specific pool), and come down on SCO like a ton of bricks while in addition getting a legal verdict on the validity of the GPL?
If we (the F/OSS community) hurry we might even be able to win this before IBM crushes SCO totally (it would be fun if FSF/EFF got awarded all of SCO remaining assets in damage).
And no, I doubt there's a chance in hell SCO would win http://linux.sys-con.com/read/38151.htm:
"Recently, we had an unrelated copyright discussion on the Linux kernel discussion list (some people still want to have binary only modules and try to argue that the GPL doesn't ever cover them).
Anyway, that's beside the point, though it does show that some people want to take advantage of open source without giving anything back. But after the discussion, I ended up looking up the exact wording of the U.S. copyright law and guess what I found:
"The term 'financial gain' includes receipt, or expectation of receipt, of anything of value, including the receipt of other copyrighted works."
This is from U.S. Code Collection, Title 17 (copyrights), Chapter 1, Section 101: "Definitions." In short, this is from the very first section in copyright law -- the section that defines terms even before those terms are used. This is some pretty fundamental stuff when it comes to copyrights in the U.S.
Pertinent, if you will.
And note how copyright law expressly includes "the expectation of receipt" of anything of value, and expressly mentions "receipt of other copyrighted works" as such a thing of value. And that's the very definition of "financial gain," as far as U.S. copyright law is concerned.
Now guess what the GPL is all about?"
I bet it's going to be GayGal *really big stupid grin*
"... and a Russian computer told Yeltsin that a Norweigan weather balloon was a nuke"
It was actually a rocket. The best (i.e. most correct) short and concise description I've found on google is this one (a segment from the page http://www.freezerbox.com/archive/article.asp?id=2 85 ):
"The most famous example of this danger occurred on Jan. 25, 1995, when Norway launched a weather research rocket to explore the Northern Lights phenomenon. When Russia's radars picked up the missile trajectory, it seemed to have been fired from a U.S. submarine in the Norwegian Sea-long suspected by the Russians as a likely first move in a U.S. surprise attack. Russian nuclear forces scrambled into position and bunker commanders inserted their launch keys, awaiting the order to turn them. Yeltsin, reportedly fuming drunk at the time, opened his nuclear briefcase and consulted with the frenzied General Staff. With their nerves screaming, together they watched the missile trajectory slowly turn away from any conceivable Russian target. When the crisis finally ended, they had less than two minutes to make a decision. (U.S. submarine-launched missiles can reach Moscow in 10 minutes.)
The Norwegian government had warned the Russian embassy in Oslo in advance about the test, but the information never made it to the Russian General Staff. As described by former CIA analyst Peter Vincent Pry in his book War Scare, it was "a clerical error" that brought the world closer to nuclear war than at any time since October 1962."
The rocket was actually fired from the norwegian Andøya rocket range http://www.rocketrange.no/arr/index.html which to my knowledge is the only permanent rocket range we presently have here in Norway, and one which is exclusively used for small (mainly scientific) payloads. Andøya is an island on the NNW North Sea coast of Norway at google maps here http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=69.115611,15.828552 &spn=0.752968,2.730103&hl=en (the island is in the dead centre of the link, zoom out to get your bearings). Totally OT it's a beautiful rugged island where one can also go on whale safaris.
I wanted to post this because the incident has aggregated myths about it the last ten years (helped by a lot of inaccurate reporting and media knee-jerk reactions/cynicism). The situation would be unlikely to escalate into nuclear war no matter which way one twists it. A single launch is a very unlikey surprise attack scenario, especially when not heading in the general direction of Moscow as Moscow is far to the south-east of the launch site and the rocket was heading north (Moscow is probably the only remotely intelligent target for such a far-out single strike scenario). But of course unenlightened media drained the story for all that it was worth and more. The result of the incident was the setting in place of a more robust and direct channel of communications between Norway and Russia as well as other appropriate changes.
A small note on the quote emphasising (as absolutely all media reports did) "When the crisis finally ended, theyless than two minutes to make a decision...". This would only be true if the missile actually headed towards Moscow, as it was it was travelling in the opposite direction which actually gave them more time the longer they waited. From the fact that they did resolve the "crisis" within 8 minutes it is likely that they did track the missile and saw this.
As to you saying:
"But I assume there were'nt any proper ICBMs on board, and they almost certainly wouldn't be armed if they were there..."
I think otherwise; the submarine most likely had ICBMs with warheads (although I doubt the Russian Navy would like to say either way) if the subm
Seems the Volna is a liquid-fueled rocket (I didn't know but wanted to find out).
More detailed information on it from http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/r29.htm
"Model: R-29K. IOC: 1978. Country: Russia. Other Designations: RSM-50. Department of Defence Designation [my edit: and NATO designation]: SS-N-18 Mod 2. ASCC Reporting Name: Stingray. Article Number: 4K75K. Manufacturer's Designation: R-29K. Popular Name: Volna. Launch System: D-9. Complex: 4K75K.
First flight 1977.
Manufacturer: Makayev. Total Mass: 34,388 kg. Core Diameter: 1.80 m. Total Length: 14.40 m. Span: 1.80 m. Standard warhead mass: 820 kg. Maximum range: 7,980 km. Number Standard Warheads: 1. Standard warhead yield: 450 KT. Standard warhead CEP: 1 km. Boost Propulsion: Storable liquid rocket. Cruise Propulsion: Storable liquid rocket. Guidance: Inertial."
ugmoe you are quoting back to me from what I posted originally, perhaps this was a reply to someone else?
"It's an Associated Press story, you dipshit. Are you seriously asking why we want our news from the actual press instead of somebody's blog?"
For your information it is not "somebody's blog" but the Planetary Society's weblog on the Cosmos 1 launch/project. In other words: directly from the source (the people actually at the hub of information: the Planetary Society) rather than possibly misinterpreted, misunderstood, and generally dumbed down reporting be it by AP, or Fox, or Slashdot.In a situation where one has conflicting data and reports I think most people would like to get their information directly from those who have the most of it.
Why the hell does Slashdot base their "news" on Fox rather than going to the source itself?
Here's the latest (as of this moment) weblog entry from the Planetary Society itself as written by Emily Lakdawalla:
"Jun 22, 2005 | 07:49 PDT | 14:49 UTC The morning after
I showed up here at POP at about 7 am local time. I'm the only one here in the building at the moment. It was a very late night after a very long day yesterday, and we all knew that if anything there would be more people asking questions today; we needed the rest.
Over our night and their day there has been some information coming out of Russia. To recap where we stand: yesterday the launch appeared to happen roughly on time. The Navy reported first stage firing. Then the signal of the spacecraft was detected over the temporary ground station at Petropavlovsk. But it wasn't detected over Majuro, which had us concerned. And then U. S. Strategic Command reported that they did not see our spacecraft in the sky. Later in the afternoon, we heard back from our man in Majuro that he thought actually he may have detected a weak signal. And then we heard the same from Panska Ves via Lou. That all seemed to add up to a consistent story that while there may have been a problem on board, our spacecraft likely was in orbit.
Since then, there has been a new report circulating from Russia:
ITAR-TASS is now quoting officials of the Russian Navy and the Makeyev design bureau as saying that the Volna first stage unexpectedly shut down 83 seconds after lift-off, adding that unlike the standard Volna SLBM the "space version" does not have an automatic destruct system for such an eventuality.
About this, Lou made a statement last night:
Project Director Louis Friedman cautioned that some data point to a launch vehicle misfiring, one that would prevent the spacecraft from achieving orbit. He said, "That the weak signals were recorded at the expected times of spacecraft passes over the ground stations is encouraging, but in no way are they conclusive enough for us to be sure that they came from Cosmos 1 working in orbit." The Russian space agency indicated that the Volna rocket may have had a problem during its first or second stage firing. "This," Friedman noted, "would almost certainly have prevented the spacecraft from reaching the correct orbit."
What this means is that we are still dealing with a very wide range of possibilities for what could have happened yesterday, made even wider by the fact that it kind of sounds like some of the information that we have is contradictory. If the launch vehicle failed, how did we detect signals at Majuro and Panska Ves? On the other side, if the launch vehicle had a problem but still managed to put the spacecraft into some orbit, why didn't Strat Comm see it last night? We don't know what to make of it. We hope to get more information from Lou in an hour or two. Stand by for that."
- go
- read
- profit
p.s. it took 5 seconds to findHi :)
;) this place is a virtual madhouse lol :)
First: I'm not sure if I should be happy or terrified that I'm partly responsible for someone being at Slashdot
Yes I think you're mostly right. I recognize your argument about how some artforms/media limits interpretations and imagination. I've heard it in Norway and here it was used against just about everything except books. I agree that it has some truth to it, but it can also increase imagination and ideas by presenting another person/persons imagination if it includes stuff you hadn't thought about or envisioned yourself. And then in addition a lot of manga (and western style comics), anime, movies, games etc. isn't meant to be especially imaginative or challenging but simply entertaining.
I think it depends an awfully lot on the person too, for example I found the idea of "Cyberbrain Schlerosis" in GitS SAC intriguing and thoughtprovoking in a different way than I myself had thought about possible problems of digital brains and possible consequences. It didn't take anything away from me, it added another possible idea/view/concept which I could think about and twist whichever way I imagined.
But I do agree you bring up an important issue and one that shouldn't be forgotten (and this comes from a guy who actually finds japanese anime/manga "nosebleed-jokes" hilariously funny! *big grin*) but other than trying to encourage it during upbringing by letting children be creative and introducing them to several different types of media and storytelling I'm not sure what else one could do.
According to the official timeline the first high-quality ground station contact will be approximately Jun 22 04:23 UTC (Jun 21 21:23 PDT) - that is 8 h 37 m into the launch, i.e. it hasn't happened yet. I guess someone got a bit overly eager to report news or simply didn't have a clue or something similar in the time-honored Slashdot fashion...
To quote from the official timeline (which I will not link to on Slashdot for obvious reasons):
"First high-quality ground station contacts: Tarusa and Bear Lakes On the spacecraft's fifth orbit around the Earth, its orbital path will finally carry it high across the sky as seen from the Russian ground stations. These contacts should provide good communication from the spacecraft."
As to the passes and communication attempts that have been attempted so far have been attempts during low-quality situations. It sure would have been nice if they went through but it's too early to say either way yet.
The parent: :-)
:) (I would if I could)
In nature, animals without assholes simply regurgitate waste orally. Hence a world without assholes would be full of people talking shit. Therefore, I can conclude that there are no assholes on Slashdot and the LA Times is incorrect in implying otherwise
Intelligence on Slashdot has been detected! Please mod parent up both as insightful and funny
Monster is definetly something everyone should check out, I love how the story balances on the very edge between plausibly realistic and supernatural.
I would also recommend Ghost in the Shell (first GitS movie), the GitS Stand Alone Complex (GitS SAC) series which is better than the movie imho, the GitS SAC2 series, and Innocence (second GitS movie), although all of these are very different from Monster. In the series the tachikomas (a type of AI tactical robots/vehicles) have kid voices though and sometimes act cute (some people get annoyed by this, I don't: it fits with their "developmental stage" as well as providing some comic relief). Those are the only kid's voices you'll hear frequently though. The themes includes somewhat philosophical topics, a lot about social dynamics and political shadowplay (especially the series) while both play out on a backdrop of a world society after WWIII where technology, robotics and AI are blurring the lines between real/created, human/non-human. Beware of complicated storylines and more information than usual for animes in the series (which is why I prefer them to the movies).
The main GitS SAC storyline character (a hacker) and theme incooperates a quote from J. D. Salingers (of "The Cather in the Rye" fame) "The Laughing Man" - which is why the fansub group is called Laughing Man Fansubs (LMF).
The main GitS SAC2 storyline involves imho a very un-japanese and somewhat critical look at japan told by japanese, not something you'ld normally expect from anime :)
Wikipedia articles which contain a degree of spoilers so beware!:S .A.C._2nd_GIG t he_Shell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_shell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_Alone_Complex
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell:_
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocence:_Ghost_in_
Those are the only "animes for grownups" I can think of (possibly except Armitage), if anyone has other suggestions please speak up.
Oh, and Anime does definetly not equal Geek just like these don't: roleplaying, living in a basement ;) computer games, star wars & star trek *double shudder*, or real science fiction/scientific fiction/fictional science for that matter. Let's stop the geek (and nerd) stereotyping.
How many people here really think that someone should be locked up for smoking pot? It's less harmful and addictive than either tobacco or alcohol, yet those are somehow "ok".
:) ;)
I totally agree with you that it should be de-criminalized even though/because I:
- think narcotics are harmful
- am a nicotine addict... but it's my kind of harmful lol
- am pro republican! Sorry if this messes with your head it's not intentional
It's about two things really; personal freedom includes the freedom to do things to yourself that might not be "smart" or healthy, and even though not everyone agrees on every detail a law has to have a fairly broad base of general support to have any real validity be it drug legislation/smoking, or IP/filesharing, or thousands of small stupid selfdegrading laws which just end up reducing the respect given to the important ones.
Btw if lighter narcotics like pot gets legalised it would/should/could still be illegal to be DUI on them (just as with alcohol) or any other such example, but there are millions of sensible and fairly responsible potsmokers (as much as the next non-user) out there who manage their habit without (even potentially) hurting others.
I disagree and I think you'll find most people (maybe even on Slashdot) think that first and foremost prisons are there for removing criminals from society and giving them some sort of punishment. The political and academic reasonings might be different but they're not the real reasons, just feelgood justifications.
The only prisons I know of who successfully reform inmates are using a combination of strict discipline with education but this is rare since those who think of it as a place for reform usually hate most forms of discipline (60ies syndrome).
Btw your "Penetentiary concept" can only have a chance to work as reform if criminals truly realize they have done something wrong or actually have done something wrong, which is why the whole concept fails in the first place as most criminals either do not take responsibility for their actions or do not agree that what they did was actually criminal.
Back on topic the use of hibernation on criminals would probably only be as possible volunters for testing. Since the biggest problems with prisons and criminals is how to make them pay for themselves and actually contribute something to society rather than continuing to harm it I doubt freezing them will be a solution until the energy and hardware becomes extremely cheap, and at that point we have hopefully figured out, solved or reduced the problem of criminality by other means.
So this is why Slashdot posted this one: http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/ 21/162247&tid=109&tid=219
News for Nerds. Stuff that matters? Come on...
Hear hear! I wish everyone logged in could mod the articles, maybe it's the missing key to improving Slashdot?
Please mod parent up! It's a great point.
However I don't think it's not so much irony as simple fallacies resulting from too many of said capitalist politicians taking everything the business community says at face value (while the opposite side of the political spectrum inherently hates anything they say). Or said in another way: there aren't that many real thinkers in either camp, they're mostly going on gut feelings, trying to uphold what they perceive to be their image, and representing those that shout loudest at them be they "evil" corporations or "rabid" activists...
I haven't found any information about composition nor if it's solid or granular, what I have found is that it has not been given any taxonomy yet (C/S/M-type etc.) except that it belongs to the Aten group/class (which says nothing about its composition), so where did you find that "It will be mainly silicate rock" or how did you deduce it? (links appreciated).
Regardless it should be a nice target for something like Spacedevs NEAP which should be easy to use as a transponder as well.
http://yagoohoogle.com/search.php?q=lol
Mod parent up!
Or replace the original article with this post if you're an editor *grumbles* after all if Slashdot is hell bent on old news it might as well be a bit more informative to the editors (who seem to be the lowest common denominator).
On good reasons: "Because we want to" after all that what anything boils down to isn't it? Doing new stuff is usually a reason in itself just because of this and probably plays a big part in why we're not still climbing trees on the african savannah. :)
Benefits of doing new stuff have a tendency to arise from even the worst ideas. Resources, offworld backup etc. are just attempts at convincing those who do not recognize that.
Unless these companies are specifically targeting anybody willing to do the testing themselves & go through any replacement hassle I don't see what they're aiming at... that nobody will notice?
How many end users would be remotely interested in doing this stuff? And they say they're going to increase this practise and that others might do the same?
I would imagine factory testing isn't just to check the chips themselves but also to check up on the manufacturing process itself, how low quality are they aiming at? If they're hell bent on producing worthless trinkets they might as well make glass beads.
As far as I know the latest data is that it has a lenght of 320m and a mass of 4.6E^10kg. These numbers are already assuming it's spherical so we get:
and
2681kg/m^3 is below most refined metals: a cubiq metre of solid gold weighs 19320kg, refined aluminum about 2600kg, but it would be likely that there's at least some heavy elements like metal, i.e. money.
One of the links talk about tagging the asteroid with a transponder on its first pass, this sounds like a perfect business opportunity for (the few) companies working towards space mining. Instead of going to the mountain the mountain is coming to them. First company to tag the asteroid claims ownership of mining rights (as well as sharing scientific and security information with the world of course). They also get ample opprtunity to test their technology, lots of free publicity, something to show present and potential shareholders etc.
2029 is the date of the first pass, if the solar sail launch of The Planetary Society proves to have merit this summer they should have ample time to prepare more than just a transponder: if it's possible to attach a solar sail to the asteroid they can gently slow it down both to avoid any danger of collisions as well as manouvering it and eventually stopping it at a suitable "harvesting spot". Even without solar sail technology 14 years is ample time to prepare a small fleet of vessels with ion drives as an alternative: either way a slow and controlled decceleration and orbital changes should be within reach (six years of ion thrusters should have some effect even if they're small - it's probably all that's needed), and then they have all the time the competition allows them to get the mining underway...
This could be big if only the opportunity is realized, who has the guts, the money, and the attitude?
As a former subscriber of SciAm (still read it now and then) I wish this was true, and I don't care if the political slant is left, right, up, or down it still pains me to see (some) scientists playing politics while at the same time complaining about (some) politicians playing science... it renders their arguments moot and hypocritical and weakens any science they're involved in, sometimes even reducing it to uninteresting opinionated squabbles.
I don't think SA is all that bad but sometimes one wonders if perhaps a little less arrogance (both scientifically and otherwise) as well as less ivory tower utopianism would do good. After all they're meant to read and review/edit the articles... sometimes they and/or the article submitters should be slightly embarrased by the replies they print/give to critical letters.