...to set up the lab to do debugging by themselves?
Let's see, instead of writing a cleaner, leaner code that can be debugged relatively at ease, they wrote a bloated suite of codes that cannot be audited easily. They don't seem to be able to run regression tests to spot the majority of software triggered failures with some generic hardwares. So MS says, "we are too incompetent to set up our testing beds. So let's have users' computers do it for us!"
I can't believe anyone trust a company with that attitude.
Why do you think they didn't coalesce into rocky planets? There could certainly be some, but I doubt they would be habitable.
...maybe not yet. The timescale of these dusts and rocks to coalesce is hard to estimate. Someday (in a few hundred million years) some planets -- gas or solid -- may form out of them.
I wouldn't be surprised if some planet searchers go after this star to see if its spectral lines "wobble", i.e., detecting the sign of an orbiting object(s) around the star (or have they done it?).
Yep, that's right. I've been using CCDs at a ground level for long, seeing CRs zapping through a tiny detector in a short integration time (a few seconds). We are also surrounded by mildly radioactive materials (some paint, rocks, etc), which can cause radiation damage as well.
And surely that's part of the reason that I always buy ECC RAMS for mission critical stuffs.
It has something to do with the surface density of registers on chip. When using a high-performance chip, there are many more registers in the same area, leading to irrepairable string of bits.
Just like Cassini, the Hubble also has on-board solid state recorder (installed during one of the servicing missions), which replaced an old tape recorder. This has been really a nice addition as we can store more data into the solid state device while collecting data bits and dump them when the downlink becomes available. It really helps increase the efficiency of the satellite (and that's a big thing for science mission).
[Note that I've simplified the scheme alot here.]
Though several sections of the device have been damaged by radiation, or something, I hear. So even these things aren't too resilent to the harsh space environment, yet. Something you future engineers should think about as a project.
I do not believe a Soviet supply cargo ship (progress, perhaps) was entirely autonomous.
And NASA is saying that they were able to accomplish some of the goals from this experiment. Yeah, I do agree that NASA's talking head could phrase it better..
This partial failure is to show that it is not an easy stuff to launch a satellite and let it autonomously dock itself to another object.
Imagine doing something similiar with the Hubble. Though it'd not be totally autonomous, many things could go wrong in the repair/deorbit mission, which can lead to a disaster. This is why, I think that, at the end the Hubble would be serviced by astronauts to prepare its deorbit.
I've seen a trend in federal employee/contractors moving away from Dell and moving toward Mac OSX quite often; others migrate from Solaris to generic linux boxes (not Dell hardware).
Other than the fact that one unit of Mac OSX costs more than a Windows or a linux box, Mac is certainly a suitable replacement for office computers.
While my computer's network card went crapper on me, I thought about what you said.
Well the current business model may be a failure in a long run because of that. Or not. I don't really know, since I'm not an economist.
I'm a scientist, instead. So I'm gonna tabulate the reasons why you want to keep up with federal R&D funding:
(1) once you lose its technological advantage, it'll cost you more to regain later.
When you cut off federal funding, these funded scientists and engineers don't just stop doing what they did; they move to a greener pasture. Here that means moving out to other countries. Attracting these people back are going to be very hard.
(2) Most of the valuable R&D are hard to utilize by the developping nation.
Imagine something like nano-technology, e.g., nano-scale catalyst converter or turbine. These exist today, thanks to the grants and contracts given to Universities and federal agencies, etc. But can you think of an immediate use of these devices by Chinese or Mexican? Not much. But some U.S. companies may be able to utilize the technology on nano-scale computer or machines. With that said, some high-tech R&Ds are only good to those who have a higher technological advancement. So some R&D are definitely worth supporting by federal funding (and that's what peer reviews to select who to fund are generally for).
Allow me to re-submit my journal here. Just because. Remember, the federal government invests a large amount of sum to do basic research and development. The knowledge trickles down eventually to private sectors, which could not have had done the R&D in the first place because of its prohibitive cost.
****
Exploration and investment are the reasons for a [space] mission like this.
The former -- exploration -- is what NASA and scientists will advertise in front. Why? Because we know so little about comets. Imagine, if the judgement day comes and we have to "shoot down" one of these in order to save the humanity, wouldn't you be rather comfortable to know what and how comets are really made of? We really do not know what happens to a comet when we toss a stick of dynamite into it, as its structural integrity is not well known.
The latter -- investment -- is the second and the foremost important reason. In order for a super-power nation to sustain its technological supremacy in this world, its government must invest its money for the advancement of engineering and science [*]. The investment to a NASA's mission like this may not seem as important as an investment toward curing cancer, etc., but such assessment is near-sighted. For example, building of a scientific instrument requires a miniaturization of electronic component (in order to reduce its size and weight). Each component is also certified to withstand harsh cosmic environment (sudden changes in temperature and severe bombardment by cosmic radiation). The skills learned through these R&D may eventually trickle down to the industry, and hence possibly leading to development of affordable high-tech components (e.g., IC chips in a decade ago). Basically the high cost of R&D may be paid by the government and the industry would benefit from such learned knowledge. It is not too surprising that a medical breakthrough on cancer may come from the spread of affordable technology obtained through space research.
[*] There was no time in history that a single nation had dominated the world without its technological advantage.
But at the bottom line, the choice is up to you and other constituents in the nation. You ask your representatives to choose either to feed the hungry right now or to invest on the future. I'm inclined to choose the latter.
Aaron, kinda misleading to say "Local Galaxy Cluster" when referring just a star cluster in the Galaxy, wouldn't you think?
First I thought you found a nearby dwarf galaxy that is expected to undergo catastrophic star bursts. A bit disappoined to find out that it's just Westerlund 1...
This is a "technology validation" mission, i.e., TEST. NASA doesn't know if it really works or not, though NASA's engineers are confident. Besides, the key element of this test is
(1)to rendezvous and dock with an arbitrary satellite autonomously,
and not about unscrew the screws to take off panels and to remove and replace modular units with little human intervention. To fix the HST that hurdle needs to be cleared.
Anyway, I surely hope DART works. [But I have this nudging feeling that pegasus's gonna miss its intended orbit...]
I don't know about you, but there were times when I could have benefitted from this in Boston. By looking up a PDA, I could find where the nearest cluster of cabs would be (or find out if there are any!). And call at the number tagged at each cab company for pickup.
You're right about the availability issue though. If the signal somehow can indicate if it's in service or not, that'd be really nifty.
Slashdot Mirror
That's kind of what people said about electrons and X-rays...about 150 years ago.
So think about that.
...to set up the lab to do debugging by themselves?
Let's see, instead of writing a cleaner, leaner code that can be debugged relatively at ease, they wrote a bloated suite of codes that cannot be audited easily. They don't seem to be able to run regression tests to spot the majority of software triggered failures with some generic hardwares. So MS says, "we are too incompetent to set up our testing beds. So let's have users' computers do it for us!"
I can't believe anyone trust a company with that attitude.
Why do you think they didn't coalesce into rocky planets? There could certainly be some, but I doubt they would be habitable.
...maybe not yet. The timescale of these dusts and rocks to coalesce is hard to estimate. Someday (in a few hundred million years) some planets -- gas or solid -- may form out of them.
I wouldn't be surprised if some planet searchers go after this star to see if its spectral lines "wobble", i.e., detecting the sign of an orbiting object(s) around the star (or have they done it?).
There was a slashdot article on this a long, long ago...this might be it (not original, however):
They Write The Right Stuff
It's a must read for programmers at mission critical stuff.
I enjoy reading your post. I wish I had mod points right now.
Yep, that's right. I've been using CCDs at a ground level for long, seeing CRs zapping through a tiny detector in a short integration time (a few seconds). We are also surrounded by mildly radioactive materials (some paint, rocks, etc), which can cause radiation damage as well.
And surely that's part of the reason that I always buy ECC RAMS for mission critical stuffs.
That's why we rocket scientists always emphasize the importance of doing calibration as the FIRST thing in experiment...
I'm actually curious to know what this NTP experiment was about.
It has something to do with the surface density of registers on chip. When using a high-performance chip, there are many more registers in the same area, leading to irrepairable string of bits.
Just like Cassini, the Hubble also has on-board solid state recorder (installed during one of the servicing missions), which replaced an old tape recorder. This has been really a nice addition as we can store more data into the solid state device while collecting data bits and dump them when the downlink becomes available. It really helps increase the efficiency of the satellite (and that's a big thing for science mission).
[Note that I've simplified the scheme alot here.]
Though several sections of the device have been damaged by radiation, or something, I hear. So even these things aren't too resilent to the harsh space environment, yet. Something you future engineers should think about as a project.
I do not believe a Soviet supply cargo ship (progress, perhaps) was entirely autonomous.
And NASA is saying that they were able to accomplish some of the goals from this experiment. Yeah, I do agree that NASA's talking head could phrase it better..
This partial failure is to show that it is not an easy stuff to launch a satellite and let it autonomously dock itself to another object.
Imagine doing something similiar with the Hubble. Though it'd not be totally autonomous, many things could go wrong in the repair/deorbit mission, which can lead to a disaster. This is why, I think that, at the end the Hubble would be serviced by astronauts to prepare its deorbit.
Why is it a troll?
I've seen a trend in federal employee/contractors moving away from Dell and moving toward Mac OSX quite often; others migrate from Solaris to generic linux boxes (not Dell hardware).
Other than the fact that one unit of Mac OSX costs more than a Windows or a linux box, Mac is certainly a suitable replacement for office computers.
Rigtht on. Good stuff you two replied in. /the original post was meant to be 5+ funny...
I don't know about you, but I'd get my daily dose of bacteria from my keyboard and keep my immune system up and ready to fight off.
Real reason: Job security for space scientists.
Actually space scientists prefer robotic missions. Most of us do, at least.
And you thought Japanese companies are humorless??
Whoa. It's groovy, dude.
While my computer's network card went crapper on me, I thought about what you said.
Well the current business model may be a failure in a long run because of that. Or not. I don't really know, since I'm not an economist.
I'm a scientist, instead. So I'm gonna tabulate the reasons why you want to keep up with federal R&D funding:
(1) once you lose its technological advantage, it'll cost you more to regain later.
When you cut off federal funding, these funded scientists and engineers don't just stop doing what they did; they move to a greener pasture. Here that means moving out to other countries. Attracting these people back are going to be very hard.
(2) Most of the valuable R&D are hard to utilize by the developping nation.
Imagine something like nano-technology, e.g., nano-scale catalyst converter or turbine. These exist today, thanks to the grants and contracts given to Universities and federal agencies, etc. But can you think of an immediate use of these devices by Chinese or Mexican? Not much. But some U.S. companies may be able to utilize the technology on nano-scale computer or machines. With that said, some high-tech R&Ds are only good to those who have a higher technological advancement. So some R&D are definitely worth supporting by federal funding (and that's what peer reviews to select who to fund are generally for).
I'm sure someone else can think more...
remember back when astronauts had balls?
Yeah, but this commander doesn't have one:
Go Cmdr. Collins!
Allow me to re-submit my journal here. Just because. Remember, the federal government invests a large amount of sum to do basic research and development. The knowledge trickles down eventually to private sectors, which could not have had done the R&D in the first place because of its prohibitive cost.
****
Exploration and investment are the reasons for a [space] mission like this.
The former -- exploration -- is what NASA and scientists will advertise in front. Why? Because we know so little about comets. Imagine, if the judgement day comes and we have to "shoot down" one of these in order to save the humanity, wouldn't you be rather comfortable to know what and how comets are really made of? We really do not know what happens to a comet when we toss a stick of dynamite into it, as its structural integrity is not well known.
The latter -- investment -- is the second and the foremost important reason. In order for a super-power nation to sustain its technological supremacy in this world, its government must invest its money for the advancement of engineering and science [*]. The investment to a NASA's mission like this may not seem as important as an investment toward curing cancer, etc., but such assessment is near-sighted. For example, building of a scientific instrument requires a miniaturization of electronic component (in order to reduce its size and weight). Each component is also certified to withstand harsh cosmic environment (sudden changes in temperature and severe bombardment by cosmic radiation). The skills learned through these R&D may eventually trickle down to the industry, and hence possibly leading to development of affordable high-tech components (e.g., IC chips in a decade ago). Basically the high cost of R&D may be paid by the government and the industry would benefit from such learned knowledge. It is not too surprising that a medical breakthrough on cancer may come from the spread of affordable technology obtained through space research.
[*] There was no time in history that a single nation had dominated the world without its technological advantage.
But at the bottom line, the choice is up to you and other constituents in the nation. You ask your representatives to choose either to feed the hungry right now or to invest on the future. I'm inclined to choose the latter.
Aaron, kinda misleading to say "Local Galaxy Cluster" when referring just a star cluster in the Galaxy, wouldn't you think?
First I thought you found a nearby dwarf galaxy that is expected to undergo catastrophic star bursts. A bit disappoined to find out that it's just Westerlund 1...
It's a neat object, though.
Well it's maybe offtopic, but I find it funny.
Tx for chuckle.
This is a "technology validation" mission, i.e., TEST. NASA doesn't know if it really works or not, though NASA's engineers are confident. Besides, the key element of this test is
(1)to rendezvous and dock with an arbitrary satellite autonomously,
and not about unscrew the screws to take off panels and to remove and replace modular units with little human intervention. To fix the HST that hurdle needs to be cleared.
Anyway, I surely hope DART works. [But I have this nudging feeling that pegasus's gonna miss its intended orbit...]
I don't know about you, but there were times when I could have benefitted from this in Boston. By looking up a PDA, I could find where the nearest cluster of cabs would be (or find out if there are any!). And call at the number tagged at each cab company for pickup.
You're right about the availability issue though. If the signal somehow can indicate if it's in service or not, that'd be really nifty.
I guess this is wicked cool if you have a cool cell phone or PDA. I can definitely see the benefit in signing up for this service by a cab company.