Many modern airliners routinely land without any pilot input at all. The Airbus series is probably most famous for this. They can be landed entirely automatically, even in the worst weather.
I'd have to agree. Over the past few days I've been watching episodes from the old series, and one thin that struck me is that Enterprise seems to capture much of the excitement of TOS. There's more of an emphasis on adventure and the personalities of the characters. I got the same feeling watching Enterprise as I did watching TOS.
You've never been in the military I take it? Let me fill you in. It don't mean squat what you know when you go in. Yes you could get lucky and they make use of your computer skills, but I've seen plenty of people with technical skills get plopped right in the infantry. I've even seen people sign up for technical training, receive it, and THEN get sent to infantry school. When you sign the contract, all they gaurantee you is training in a particular MOS (miltary occupational specialty). It does NOT mean that's how you will be assigned. If combat arms needs bodies, that's where you go. Three years to train a soldier? Where'd you get that from? You go from raw recruit to front line soldier in 12 weeks. And this is in the peacetime military, where the need for combat soldiers is not so great. In a draft situation, you're pretty much gauranteed nice comfy accomodations in a foxhole.
They two-way providers that have been mentioned unfortunately only work with fixed stations at the moment. The mobile automatic dish-pointing equipment is currently not up to the precision needed to point at the satellite. There are systems which work for satellite TV, however it is much easier to point a dish to receive than it is to transmit (to receive, you don't have to be that accurate, when sending from a dish however, you have to be pointed pretty much *exactly* at the satellite).
Tomcat and Jakarta are wonderful, however does anyone know of any enterprise class open source applications or application servers that provide functionality out of the box for things like billing, subscriptions, content management, CRM, product pricing, cross selling, settlements, personalization, call center support, etc.? I'm not talking about simple storefront type stuff that mom & pop companies use, but robust applications that support complex product pricing and bundling? Or an application that provides robust CRM? I'm thinking open source versions of products like Blue Martini, Broadvision, Siebel, Portal, etc.
If not, why not? Why aren't there more OS projects that target these kinds of mission critical applications that the enterprise needs? It strikes me that if you want these kinds of capabilities from OS software, you are basically left to building them from scratch on top of something like JBoss/Tomcat, Enhydra, etc. Unless I'm missing something, there just doesn't seem to be any OS applications targeted at these important enterprise capabilities.
From what I've been reading, the first guy is able to walk around and in general feels better than he did before the transplant. Doctors say they expect he will eventually be able to lead a pretty normal life, inlcuding walking a couple of miles, or even going to work.
It doesn't matter if people are lazy or not. Your brain and keyboard don't mean squat when you want to order a book from Amazon and it says "Passport required." When all commercial sites require this, you are left with no choice but to sign up and have your data managed by M$. Either that, or forgo purchasing online and start buying all your stuff from brick & mortar shops with cash.
Not any more. Civilian flying schools have taken over supplying the pipeline for commercial pilots. The military has fewer pilots, and much less attrition than they had in the past. Within the next couple of years, if not sooner, the majority of airline pilots will be civilian trained (FYI for you job seekers out there - there is a growing need for pilots, and inthe next couple of years the shortage will be critical. If you're looking to change careers, now might be a good time to do it).
This is crap. I just got a frog and threw him into a big pot of boiling water, and he just stayed there. Didn't jump out or nothing. After a minute or so he was floating at the top. Go ahead, try it yourself. You'll see.
Gee, if all those boxes of XP are just sitting in a warehouse, who will be finding all of the bugs??? I mean, doesn't this directly impact MS's SOP of releasing beta code on the unsuspecting masses so they can figure out what's wrong with their product??
Completely comfortable. In fact, it gives me a special sort of joy I find in few other places. My pleasure is increased even more knowing that I'm responding to a gutless, nameless, creationist whacko AC. I'm positively bursting with happiness right now.
Great. Just what we need. Now the creationist whackos are going to hold this up as 'evidence' for a young universe. If the laws of physics can change over time, then this could be used to dubiously explain away the age of the universe inferred from the time it takes light to travel from distant objects. Maybe the speed of light was much faster before, and therefore the light got here sooner, meaning we can see objects 12 billion light years away, but in reality maybe it took a shorter time for the light to reach us.
Of course there are numerous holes in such an argument, but that never stood in the way of religious righteousness before.
Yeah, office drones routinely install their own OS. Uh huh.
Of course, having installed all flavors of Windows more times than I can count, I can state unequivocally that many Linux distros are much easier to install than Windows. Have you ever tried to get NT running? It's not exactly easy.
"Many in the United States expressed outrage at the primitive brutality of the punishment. Even President Clinton expressed his dismay and criticized the punishment as cruel and close to barbarism and torture"
Hah! This from a country that still routinely murders its own citizens. So where does execution fall on the "barbarism" scale? Is is more or less barbaric than caning? I know that I, for one, would rather be caned than executed.
I *love* Baen!! Almost all of the fiction I read nowadays is from Baen, read on my PocketPC. If publishers started getting works out there, and removed all the stupid copy protection, I would probably never buy another paper book. I'll gladly plonk down my cash for eBooks. My perfect world consists of being able to go to Amazon, or wherever, select a few books, download them and start reading instantly. No more having to go to the bookstore, no more waiting for my books to be shipped. I could carry a whole library around in my pocket. I'd especially love to see more reference books in this format.
The gaping hole in this whole theory that 15 year-olds have all this technical knowledge and exert control over the information economy is that it's patently false. Of all the software people use on a daily basis, how much is written by 15 year-olds? Certainly none of Microsoft's people fall into that age bracket, and they write most of the software used today. Open source is the same way. Linux, Apache, PHP, BIND, MySQL, etc. were not written by kids. The major contributors to open source projects are typically in their 20s and 30s. The fact is, teenagers are consumers of technology, not creators. Even the feared "script-kiddie" usually does nothing more than use tools that were likely created by some disaffected adult. Sure, there are a lot of kids ON the internet, but very few of them are actually driving the development of it, or contributing any valuable content. They like to think they have power and the inside scoop, but the reality is, as it has always been, adults are in charge and teenagers simply do what they can to rebel and shake things up.
I have a hard time believing *this* aircraft could ever achieve suborbital flight. It's a fiberglass homebuilt, and has no provision for things like pressurization. There's also no way it could carry enough fuel to get it that high. This is merely a testbed to see if they could build a rocket and attach it to a plane.
The daylight bombing campaigns carried out against Germany were done at high altitudes; 30,000+ ft. The P-51 was developed precisely because a high-altitude, long range escort was needed to shepherd these missions over Europe. It became quickly apparent that the B-17 and B-24 were horrendously vulnerable to flak at low and medium altitudes, and at high altitudes the bombing formations were jumped by hordes of German fighters as soon as the Spitfires had to break off because of low fuel. The P-51 was able to stay with the bomber formations much longer, and the Norden bombsight enabled very accurate delivery of weapons from high altitude.
Up until recently I've had a Compaq Armada 4160T (designed for the corporate market). It was the worst piece of shit laptop I've ever owned. Broke down constantly, and it had the curious habit of going to a black screen that was only recoverable by removing the battery. I've since gotten a Toshiba Tecra 8100, and it is sweet. 850 Mhz, 3D acceleration and as a Linux machine it rocks.
That being said, I love my iPaq and have had no problems with it at all.
I agree that the 'net is a great place to find detailed information on certain subjects, and far outstrips the mass media's ability to deliver that kind of "nuts and bolts" type of info. But in that case we are dealing in the realm of hard facts. It is relatively easy to determine the "truth" of such information, because it deals with empirical data.
My concern, and what I think the article was getting at, was the more nebulous "news" type of information, where it is difficult to get facts, and you must rely on the information provided by the "actors" themselves. "Me media" simply doesn't have the capability to investigate and filter this kind of information, because Bob down the block does not have the ability to call up Joe Congressman and ask about his recent activities at the Bada-Bing! club. News organizations developed precisely in order to discover and disseminate this kind of information. I don't really see any way that "me media" can ever make serious inroads into this network, because it is simply impossible for the sources of information (congresspersons, business executives, police, etc.) to maintain a relationship with every wanna-be alternative journalist out there. It is for this reason that "me media" sites will continue to offer regurgitated mainstream news information, and the public at large will still be afforded the opportunity to hear mainstream information, and thereby be cemented by the "social glue" of collective experience.
There will remain an important role for the non-traditional journalist however, in that he will be reponsible for paying close attention to the performance of the mainstream outlets in order to make sure that coverage does not become biased. The non-traditional journalist can "raise the red flag" as it were, when MSNBC appears to bias their coverage in favor of the their corporate owners, or CNN starts leaning too much in favor of George W. As aggregation points for mainstream news, such sites can serve as the checks and balances against the various sources of coverage, allowing the consumer to compare the various mainstream stories to try and identify what's really going on.
"I doubt that CNN often provides as detailed coverage as, say, _The Economist_ or other *good* magazines, many of which have online sites (be they pay or otherwise)."
That's my point. "The Economist" is a mainstream news outlet and you get better information from such sites than you will from a "me media" site.
It all comes down to simple logistics and resources. No alternative site as of yet can offer the same level of detail and depth that a dedicated, mainstream news outlet can. Such organizations have the money, resources, and contacts to investigate stories. They can assign a guy full time to travel around the world and follow up on things. "Me media" sites do little more than restate or aggregate this information. I know of no site where I can get better information than what I get from the conventional outlets. Most of the alternative sites do nothing more than link back to the main sites anyway. The only thing they offer is unfiltered, unqualified opinion.
Slashdot Mirror
Many modern airliners routinely land without any pilot input at all. The Airbus series is probably most famous for this. They can be landed entirely automatically, even in the worst weather.
-Jeff
I'd have to agree. Over the past few days I've been watching episodes from the old series, and one thin that struck me is that Enterprise seems to capture much of the excitement of TOS. There's more of an emphasis on adventure and the personalities of the characters. I got the same feeling watching Enterprise as I did watching TOS.
-Jeff
You've never been in the military I take it? Let me fill you in. It don't mean squat what you know when you go in. Yes you could get lucky and they make use of your computer skills, but I've seen plenty of people with technical skills get plopped right in the infantry. I've even seen people sign up for technical training, receive it, and THEN get sent to infantry school. When you sign the contract, all they gaurantee you is training in a particular MOS (miltary occupational specialty). It does NOT mean that's how you will be assigned. If combat arms needs bodies, that's where you go. Three years to train a soldier? Where'd you get that from? You go from raw recruit to front line soldier in 12 weeks. And this is in the peacetime military, where the need for combat soldiers is not so great. In a draft situation, you're pretty much gauranteed nice comfy accomodations in a foxhole.
-Jeff
-Jeff
If not, why not? Why aren't there more OS projects that target these kinds of mission critical applications that the enterprise needs? It strikes me that if you want these kinds of capabilities from OS software, you are basically left to building them from scratch on top of something like JBoss/Tomcat, Enhydra, etc. Unless I'm missing something, there just doesn't seem to be any OS applications targeted at these important enterprise capabilities.
From what I've been reading, the first guy is able to walk around and in general feels better than he did before the transplant. Doctors say they expect he will eventually be able to lead a pretty normal life, inlcuding walking a couple of miles, or even going to work.
-Jeff
It doesn't matter if people are lazy or not. Your brain and keyboard don't mean squat when you want to order a book from Amazon and it says "Passport required." When all commercial sites require this, you are left with no choice but to sign up and have your data managed by M$. Either that, or forgo purchasing online and start buying all your stuff from brick & mortar shops with cash.
-Jeff
Not any more. Civilian flying schools have taken over supplying the pipeline for commercial pilots. The military has fewer pilots, and much less attrition than they had in the past. Within the next couple of years, if not sooner, the majority of airline pilots will be civilian trained (FYI for you job seekers out there - there is a growing need for pilots, and inthe next couple of years the shortage will be critical. If you're looking to change careers, now might be a good time to do it).
-Jeff
This is crap. I just got a frog and threw him into a big pot of boiling water, and he just stayed there. Didn't jump out or nothing. After a minute or so he was floating at the top. Go ahead, try it yourself. You'll see.
-Jeff
:)
Gee, if all those boxes of XP are just sitting in a warehouse, who will be finding all of the bugs??? I mean, doesn't this directly impact MS's SOP of releasing beta code on the unsuspecting masses so they can figure out what's wrong with their product??
Of course there are numerous holes in such an argument, but that never stood in the way of religious righteousness before.
Of course, having installed all flavors of Windows more times than I can count, I can state unequivocally that many Linux distros are much easier to install than Windows. Have you ever tried to get NT running? It's not exactly easy.
Hah! This from a country that still routinely murders its own citizens. So where does execution fall on the "barbarism" scale? Is is more or less barbaric than caning? I know that I, for one, would rather be caned than executed.
And I almost forgot. Reflex had Aeron chairs too.
-Vercingetorix
Eric Idle also plays the owner of the magazine on the series "Suddenly Susan." -Jeff
-Vercingetorix
The daylight bombing campaigns carried out against Germany were done at high altitudes; 30,000+ ft. The P-51 was developed precisely because a high-altitude, long range escort was needed to shepherd these missions over Europe. It became quickly apparent that the B-17 and B-24 were horrendously vulnerable to flak at low and medium altitudes, and at high altitudes the bombing formations were jumped by hordes of German fighters as soon as the Spitfires had to break off because of low fuel. The P-51 was able to stay with the bomber formations much longer, and the Norden bombsight enabled very accurate delivery of weapons from high altitude.
-Vercingetorix
That being said, I love my iPaq and have had no problems with it at all.
-Vercingetorix
I get ~700kps both up and down from Darwin Networks in Seattle. The bad news is they charge double for a static IP.
-Vercingetorix
My concern, and what I think the article was getting at, was the more nebulous "news" type of information, where it is difficult to get facts, and you must rely on the information provided by the "actors" themselves. "Me media" simply doesn't have the capability to investigate and filter this kind of information, because Bob down the block does not have the ability to call up Joe Congressman and ask about his recent activities at the Bada-Bing! club. News organizations developed precisely in order to discover and disseminate this kind of information. I don't really see any way that "me media" can ever make serious inroads into this network, because it is simply impossible for the sources of information (congresspersons, business executives, police, etc.) to maintain a relationship with every wanna-be alternative journalist out there. It is for this reason that "me media" sites will continue to offer regurgitated mainstream news information, and the public at large will still be afforded the opportunity to hear mainstream information, and thereby be cemented by the "social glue" of collective experience.
There will remain an important role for the non-traditional journalist however, in that he will be reponsible for paying close attention to the performance of the mainstream outlets in order to make sure that coverage does not become biased. The non-traditional journalist can "raise the red flag" as it were, when MSNBC appears to bias their coverage in favor of the their corporate owners, or CNN starts leaning too much in favor of George W. As aggregation points for mainstream news, such sites can serve as the checks and balances against the various sources of coverage, allowing the consumer to compare the various mainstream stories to try and identify what's really going on.
-Vercingetorix
That's my point. "The Economist" is a mainstream news outlet and you get better information from such sites than you will from a "me media" site.
It all comes down to simple logistics and resources. No alternative site as of yet can offer the same level of detail and depth that a dedicated, mainstream news outlet can. Such organizations have the money, resources, and contacts to investigate stories. They can assign a guy full time to travel around the world and follow up on things. "Me media" sites do little more than restate or aggregate this information. I know of no site where I can get better information than what I get from the conventional outlets. Most of the alternative sites do nothing more than link back to the main sites anyway. The only thing they offer is unfiltered, unqualified opinion.
-Vercingetorix