You don't like the new Network Prefs? That's a HUGE improvement from 10.3.9. No more chasing around in 4 different places to find the settings you need, they're all in one panel, along with the status. That alone made it worth the cost of the upgrade, as far as I am concerned.
To add a bit to the above - as an example, the SR-71, cruising along at a typical mission speed of mach 2.8, was never successfully engaged by SAMs (or anything else, for that matter). I certainly wouldn't want to count on complete invunerability now*, but it gves some additional information about how hard it is to shoot down something going so fast.
Brett
* from speed alone. I think the recent Israeli attack on the Syrian weapons facility indicates another approach to consequence-free overflights.
The (very substantial) energy has to go somewhere. At some point the yield from the kinetic energy alone exceeds the yield from any explosive. And to get a high terminal velocity, you need to make the projectile as dense as possible - and high explosive is not nearly as dense as tungsten, tantalum, DU, etc. So putting in explosives is actually a loss.
That meteorite that killed the dinosaurs didn't explode in the sense you mean, either, yet it managed to vaporize a fair bit of the ancestral area around the Yucatan peninsula.
The collateral damage advantages should be clear as well. The same energy, and smaller dispersal, provides very high energy density in the target area and far less flying debris.
The only thing missing from the 50's/60's experiments was the accurate guidance, and the fact (still true) that nuclear weapons needed no guidance to speak of, and are extremely cost-effective.
One of the weapons devised for the YF-12/proposed B-12 was the original "kinetic energy" weapon - effectively, just a mass that acted much like a meteorite strike. It got to the point of successful testing but the program was cancelled. I will dig up a reference, but it was probably Ben Rich's book.
Hey, here's a wacky idea that's just crazy enough to work - DON"T USE DYNAMIC MEMORY ALLOCATION! Why in holy hell would someone construct what amount to an embedded real-time system using dynamic memory. Define fixed memory allocations for everything. Run tests. If the memory is insufficient, the program crashes. Then you can see where the program crashes and why. Then you can fix it.
Just because you *can* do something doesn't mean you should.
Uh, yeah. I work in this business. . They cost what they cost, and the margin is already minimal - particularly on the Delta II, whose development cost was paid 30 years ago). Half the price *won't buy the parts and the labor it takes to assemble them*. The economies of scale won't cut the price in half, at most it will knock off 5% or so. Even during the idiotic "little LEO" era, no one thought it was going to be done with existing launchers. And no one involved thought it could be done for what you would require - about $5 million a pop. And you need another 7500 FPS over a little LEO launch.
This is pointless argument - it's completely ludicrous. There's no particular value (scientific or otherwise) to sending 100 autonomous rovers to Mars, and it's going to cost on the order of 10 billion dollars that aren't and won't be available.
>Launch costs go down significantly with increased >launch volume. There are high fixed costs there.
No, they don't. The current crop of boosters are developed, no plausible launch rate will bring it down significantly. For a Mars launch you are probably looking at at the very least $50 million a shot, and that's for a "one at a time" sized launcher. Forget "CATS" nonsense analysis, they can't come close to doing this mission. The *probes* would be cheaper en-masse, but not nearly enough. Any we haven't even discussed operations support costs.
IF it were a high priority, there's no doubt that it could be done as you suggest, but be prepared to raise NASA's budget by a factor of about 10 at least. Right now, NASA's budget is.58% of the entire Federal budget. Raise it enough to do this project and the costs start getting up to level competitive with national defense. Not going to happen.
>the statement about Nyquist's theorem is poppycock. >This a mathematical fact, not some weird subjective >result open to interpretation. Saying that Nyquist's >theorem is wrong is equivalent to stating that the >value of pi is really 6.
You guys are suffering from nerd-centric tunnel vision - and you are "bad TV" amateurs. I was warned about the Star Wars Holiday Special by a colleague who loaned me the tape. All sort of dire warnings about 'can't unwatch it', worst show ever, etc.
Granted, it was horrible. But not only was it not the worst show ever, nor the worst holiday special ever, it wasn't even the worst holiday show in 1978! That high honor goes to Christmas at Disney World (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0283286/), a 1978 Christmas special starring *mimes* Shields and Yarnell, for Christ's sake! If I ever develop a brain tumor I will look back to that fateful day. Wookies named "Itchy" (presumably) droning on about Life Day can't possibly compare to a hour of a mime variety show.
And there are far worse TV shows than mime Christmas shows. You probably haven't heard of a little show called "It's a Dog's Life" - that in many markets was cancelled *at the first commercial break*.
Yeah, Vista is bloat and irritating, and we all hate it on principle. But what's her point? Did it work, or not? She seems to have no specific complaint, just, 'we didn't like it". There's not a lot Ballmer can do about that.
>It's still in its case and has the manual and everything. > After reading this whole thread I might just have to go >home tonight and dust it off.
And take a picture of it an then post it on eBay?
Seriously, of course, unless it's something weird/interesting/rare, even very nice slide rules don't bring all that good a price. Certainly haven't kept up with inflation. I recently bought a brand new, unopened/vacuum-sealed Post Versalog 1460 (one of the best overall "everyday" rules) for under $100. You can get a very nice functional rule for $15.
Of course, if it's something like a K&E 20" rule in good or mint shape, or a Faber-Castell Novo Duplex, the sky could be the limit.
One thing that I was warned about, and proved to be true despite my utter lack of interest in collecting in general, is once you get the first one, you may want more of them. I still don't consider myself a collector but I have to say, I am not likely to run out of slide rules any time before the Sun goes "red giant"
I use a slide rule DAILY. It's an extremely useful and (if you know what you are doing) both accurate and fast. For many engineering problems 3 or 4 sig. figs. is plenty enough. The advantages are well-known - the most important being the elimination of "false precision" that you can get with a mindless calculation with a 10-sig-fig calculator.
They are also just good things to have around. A good slide rule (Aristo, Nestler, Faber-Castell, etc) is just such a fantastically well-made device that you really need to see it to appreciate. The precision is something you don't see these days. Even a lowly Pickett is nicely made.
You hot-shot computer geeks at/. ought to b able create a new story filter - that permits any story with the string of random letters "Roland Piquepaille" to be filtered out. As a public service, of course. Clearly the Ed's aren't up to the task.
I based my answer on the fact that it is probably a private business, therefore not a public accomodation, therefore not subject to the civil rights act.
Slashdot Mirror
It's real cute until 100 of them swarm you! Didn't you see Jurassic Park 2?
Brett
You don't like the new Network Prefs? That's a HUGE improvement from 10.3.9. No more chasing around in 4 different places to find the settings you need, they're all in one panel, along with the status. That alone made it worth the cost of the upgrade, as far as I am concerned.
Brett
To add a bit to the above - as an example, the SR-71, cruising along at a typical mission speed of mach 2.8, was never successfully engaged by SAMs (or anything else, for that matter). I certainly wouldn't want to count on complete invunerability now*, but it gves some additional information about how hard it is to shoot down something going so fast.
Brett
* from speed alone. I think the recent Israeli attack on the Syrian weapons facility indicates another approach to consequence-free overflights.
The (very substantial) energy has to go somewhere. At some point the yield from the kinetic energy alone exceeds the yield from any explosive. And to get a high terminal velocity, you need to make the projectile as dense as possible - and high explosive is not nearly as dense as tungsten, tantalum, DU, etc. So putting in explosives is actually a loss.
That meteorite that killed the dinosaurs didn't explode in the sense you mean, either, yet it managed to vaporize a fair bit of the ancestral area around the Yucatan peninsula.
The collateral damage advantages should be clear as well. The same energy, and smaller dispersal, provides very high energy density in the target area and far less flying debris.
The only thing missing from the 50's/60's experiments was the accurate guidance, and the fact (still true) that nuclear weapons needed no guidance to speak of, and are extremely cost-effective.
Brett
One of the weapons devised for the YF-12/proposed B-12 was the original "kinetic energy" weapon - effectively, just a mass that acted much like a meteorite strike. It got to the point of successful testing but the program was cancelled. I will dig up a reference, but it was probably Ben Rich's book.
Brett
Bombing from a supersonic platform was successfully conducted in the mid-60's, from modified A-12 (later YF-12) aircraft, at mach 3+ speeds
Brett
That's what they said in North Haverbrook.
Brett
He also considers VI to be the greatest advance in productivity since the invention of assembly code and the acoustically-coupled modem.
Brett
You left out "you Capitalist running dogs!"
Brett
Hey, here's a wacky idea that's just crazy enough to work - DON"T USE DYNAMIC MEMORY ALLOCATION! Why in holy hell would someone construct what amount to an embedded real-time system using dynamic memory. Define fixed memory allocations for everything. Run tests. If the memory is insufficient, the program crashes. Then you can see where the program crashes and why. Then you can fix it.
Just because you *can* do something doesn't mean you should.
Brett
Uh, yeah. I work in this business. . They cost what they cost, and the margin is already minimal - particularly on the Delta II, whose development cost was paid 30 years ago). Half the price *won't buy the parts and the labor it takes to assemble them*. The economies of scale won't cut the price in half, at most it will knock off 5% or so. Even during the idiotic "little LEO" era, no one thought it was going to be done with existing launchers. And no one involved thought it could be done for what you would require - about $5 million a pop. And you need another 7500 FPS over a little LEO launch.
This is pointless argument - it's completely ludicrous. There's no particular value (scientific or otherwise) to sending 100 autonomous rovers to Mars, and it's going to cost on the order of 10 billion dollars that aren't and won't be available.
Brett
>Launch costs go down significantly with increased
.58% of the entire Federal budget. Raise it enough to do this project and the costs start getting up to level competitive with national defense. Not going to happen.
>launch volume. There are high fixed costs there.
No, they don't. The current crop of boosters are developed, no plausible launch rate will bring it down significantly. For a Mars launch you are probably looking at at the very least $50 million a shot, and that's for a "one at a time" sized launcher. Forget "CATS" nonsense analysis, they can't come close to doing this mission. The *probes* would be cheaper en-masse, but not nearly enough. Any we haven't even discussed operations support costs.
IF it were a high priority, there's no doubt that it could be done as you suggest, but be prepared to raise NASA's budget by a factor of about 10 at least. Right now, NASA's budget is
Brett
Uh, because 100s of rovers cost at least 10's as much more to acquire and 100s of times more to launch.
The Sojourner is not a valid model for what you want because it was far too small to be autonomous of the lander.
Brett
Probably nothing, since one of the first things they suggest is to back up the file on CD, so you can re-import it any time you want.
Brett
>the statement about Nyquist's theorem is poppycock.
>This a mathematical fact, not some weird subjective
>result open to interpretation. Saying that Nyquist's
>theorem is wrong is equivalent to stating that the
>value of pi is really 6.
Thank you, you beat me to it.
Brett
Wow! I never knew that this existed!
Can I get a pocket protector or a calculator holster with that logo on it?
Brett
You guys are suffering from nerd-centric tunnel vision - and you are "bad TV" amateurs. I was warned about the Star Wars Holiday Special by a colleague who loaned me the tape. All sort of dire warnings about 'can't unwatch it', worst show ever, etc.
Granted, it was horrible. But not only was it not the worst show ever, nor the worst holiday special ever, it wasn't even the worst holiday show in 1978! That high honor goes to Christmas at Disney World (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0283286/), a 1978 Christmas special starring *mimes* Shields and Yarnell, for Christ's sake! If I ever develop a brain tumor I will look back to that fateful day. Wookies named "Itchy" (presumably) droning on about Life Day can't possibly compare to a hour of a mime variety show.
And there are far worse TV shows than mime Christmas shows. You probably haven't heard of a little show called "It's a Dog's Life" - that in many markets was cancelled *at the first commercial break*.
BrettYeah, Vista is bloat and irritating, and we all hate it on principle. But what's her point? Did it work, or not? She seems to have no specific complaint, just, 'we didn't like it". There's not a lot Ballmer can do about that.
Brett
>It's still in its case and has the manual and everything.
> After reading this whole thread I might just have to go
>home tonight and dust it off.
And take a picture of it an then post it on eBay?
Seriously, of course, unless it's something weird/interesting/rare, even very nice slide rules don't bring all that good a price. Certainly haven't kept up with inflation. I recently bought a brand new, unopened/vacuum-sealed Post Versalog 1460 (one of the best overall "everyday" rules) for under $100. You can get a very nice functional rule for $15.
Of course, if it's something like a K&E 20" rule in good or mint shape, or a Faber-Castell Novo Duplex, the sky could be the limit.
One thing that I was warned about, and proved to be true despite my utter lack of interest in collecting in general, is once you get the first one, you may want more of them. I still don't consider myself a collector but I have to say, I am not likely to run out of slide rules any time before the Sun goes "red giant"
Brett
Brett
I use a slide rule DAILY. It's an extremely useful and (if you know what you are doing) both accurate and fast. For many engineering problems 3 or 4 sig. figs. is plenty enough. The advantages are well-known - the most important being the elimination of "false precision" that you can get with a mindless calculation with a 10-sig-fig calculator.
They are also just good things to have around. A good slide rule (Aristo, Nestler, Faber-Castell, etc) is just such a fantastically well-made device that you really need to see it to appreciate. The precision is something you don't see these days. Even a lowly Pickett is nicely made.
Brett
You hot-shot computer geeks at /. ought to b able create a new story filter - that permits any story with the string of random letters "Roland Piquepaille" to be filtered out. As a public service, of course. Clearly the Ed's aren't up to the task.
Brett
Or Xp = Slurm Classic?
Brett
That's highly relevant! To what, I don't know, certainly not to terrorism
How many people have to die at the hands of terrorists before you care?
Brett
Yeah, right, 3000 innocent people get killed and everybody overreacts! Facists!
Brett
I based my answer on the fact that it is probably a private business, therefore not a public accomodation, therefore not subject to the civil rights act.
Brett