... for story moderation, this day was it. What a load of crap, all freaking day. Just mod April 1 2001 down to about -6*10^6 and let's move on to tommorow. gah!
What's needed is some way to separate the cable plant from the Internet service.
For example, in my area SBC owns the local loop. To run DSL on that loop, they need to go to the expense of adding splitters/DSLAMs/other assorted equipment to that loop. That is not a trivial exercise and it is very costly.
Right now, if a competive DSL ISP wants to service a customer on SBC's loop, SBC has to provide that loop to the ISP for LESS than what it costs SBC to do all that work.
What there needs to be is a way to separate the loop from the ISP.
Here's the way it should be:
Division "X" of SBC is responsible for the loop/cable plant/asociated equipment. They have a well defined cost/fee structure for providing the loop. The cost should be realistic, and allow them a way to at least break even, if not profit (this is a capitalist business after all) The cost should be well known and published to all interested ISPs.
Any ISP can hook up to the end user on that loop and provide internet service to that customer, for whatever price/services mix they feel appropriate. The ISP would have to pay the fee to use the cable plant. The ISP would have to make sure they set the price for end user appropriately, accounting for their costs of doing business (just like any other business)
One of the ISPs could very well be Division "Y" of SBC. It could just as equally be Bubba. The point is, Bubba and Baby Bell have to pay the exact same cost to provide internet service on that line.
When and if Division "X" is able to make efficiency improvements that make thir costs go down, they have to pass on at least some of that to the ISP's. Bubba and Baby Bell always pay the same price as each other.
Now we would be competing not based on who has monopoly access to the local loop, but who provides the best internet service for the best price/value.
/. has posted a lot stupid things people do to computers, but this has got to be the DUMBEST one yet. It completely boggles the mind. I can't begin to imagine WHY someone would want to do this.
It's so stupid you actually have to admire the guy, for being twisted enough to think it up in the first place, having the balls to do it, and even more balls to admit it, take pictures, and allow someone to post it on the web.
There are no "mutant microbes" up there. The only stuff that was up there is what we humans sent up there. Everything up there came from earth, so there will be no great plague caused by it coming back to earth.
As for "pushing it out into the sun or empty space", you obviously have no understanding of orbital mechanics or gravity. To get an object of that size and mass out of earth's orbit would require MASSIVE amounts of thrust.
To get it to the Sun would have probably required the equivalent of about a dozen Saturn V rockets strapped to it.
The PGSC laptops have only been flying since the early/mid 90's - so one can hardly say they've been aboard "nearly every flight". Although they have been on all recent flights and will continue to play a more and more vital role in on-orbit operations. They will continue to do so onboard ISS.
The OS has usually been Win95 or DOS. The laptops are "old" IBM Thinkpads, model 755 and 760 I believe. I say "old" by conventional standards on the earth-based computing industry, they're really only a couple years old. They were 486's for the longest time and only recently upgraded to the early Pentium I CPUs. I don't think they'll be running NT on that level of hardware.
NASA has extensive testing and radiation hardening procedures to qualify computers for space, so that's why space computers seem to be "old". The computers on the Hubble Telescope were upgraded to 486-class machines over Christmas of 1999. Before that they had 286's.
That's true, but it doesn't matter. The masses won't have (non-SDMI) MP3 players, (non-scms) CD players, or casette decks. We're not talking about now, but 5-10 years down the line.
I expect to see players for the secure formats in Best Buy for half the price of the current non-secure stuff. The prices will be subsidized by the RIAA and MPAA. If it's cheap and flashy, the masses will buy it. This is how they will crush the "non-secure" stuff.
Granted, that's what was tried for DivX at Circuit City, but it was only one retailer. If the BMG's and Disney's of the world are behind the subsidies, it will be universal at all retailers, and there will be no way around it.
If you don't think companies would take the loss on something like that, look at how cell phones are sold. The concept of loss leaders is well established. Lose a little money selling the razor, make a ton of money selling the razor blades.
(Rebroadcast or retransmission of this telecast without the express written consent of Major League Baseball is strictly prohibited)
Unfourtunately, I don't see any way we can. The sheep will buy whatever format has the latest Backdoor Boys or Britney Speers or whatever. When the RIAA releases their 2006 albums only in whatever the new "secure" format is, that's when the old formats become obselete. Go into Best Buy sometime and watch the sheep in action.
OFF-TOPIC RANT
Last time I was in Best Buy, my experience at the cash register left me in disgust of the education system. The person in front of me was buying 2 items, a $30 pair of headphones and some audio component that was normally a couple hundred bucks but was open box selling for $95. They asked the cashier to ring up the items "so they could get a total" to see if they could afford to buy them. They couldn't do simple addition - 95 + 30 = 125 + a little but of sales tax - call it $135-$140. What's even scarier is the cashier couldn't just eyeball it either, she had to ring it up, although perhaps store rules prevented just giving a verbal estimate.
I hate to sound like I have a stick up my ass, but how is the above funny? I'm not arguing with it being modded up, but it's more like "frightening" than "funny" if you ask me...
I'm kinda surprised NASA has not changed that radio call to something else for exactly that reason.
BTW, did you watch the launch for the last mission, STS-97? There was no "Go at throttle-up" call, and I admit that made me mildly anxious.
There was a problem with the PTT (Mic switch) on the commander's control stick. They diagnosed it during the countdown, but they launched anyway. There's a backup switch on the instrument panel he would have used in an emergency.
The plans/specs/engineering data are all safely stored in the NASA and contractor archives.
As the poster above mentioned, it's the tooling and even more than that, the parts and sub-components of the Saturn V that are no longer made. That's why we couldn't just one day decide to build More Saturn V's - the production line no longer exists, and even if it did, we don't have anything to make them out of.
That's not to say one couldn't decide to take the plans a rebuild the line and re-produce the components. You could do that, but it would be silly.
The Saturn V was a marvel of its time, but it's 40 year old technology.
To tell the truth, a Saturn V is STILL a marvel even today. Go see one sometime at one the NASA centers - I recommend KSC in Florida. The visitor center there is superb. Don't miss the Firing Room show and the Lunar theatre if you want to feel awed and humbled.
It's a real trip to stand under such a monster sized machine and realize people got up on top of one of those things and rode it to the moon!
<rant> And another thing - it's a shame that there are still any Saturn V's still left on Earth for us to marvel at in the museums - they should have all been used up on Apollo's 18-20, but those missions were canceled due to lack of vision by politicians. NASA had already bought and paid for the hardware. A lot of the mock ups and museum pieces of Apollo spacecraft that you see are actually REAL spacecraft (genuine flight articles) from the canceled missions. What collosal short-sightedness!</rant>
If you were going to build a Moon Rocket today, you would want to start with a clean slate and utilize all the advancements of the intervening years in materials, machining techniques, and electronics miniturization.
If you were going to do that, you would start at the top of the stack, the Apollo Spacecraft. The Saturn V's purpose in life was to Boost the Apollo Spacecraft into a parking orbit, then to the Moon. EVERYTHING in Apollo was the way it was because of the spacecraft's weight.
The weight of the CM dictated the weight of the SM, becuase the SM had to carry enough propellant to boost the CM and SM out of Lunar gravity to get home to Earth. The combined weight of the CM, SM, and LM dictated the weight of the S-IV B, becuase it had to boost the Apollo Spacecraft out of Earth's gravity to get to the Moon. Since the S-IV B was the third stage of the Saturn V, the other two stages of the Saturn V also had their design dicated by the stage above.
If you were going to go back to the Moon, you would design a new set of spacecraft, using all the advancements in materials and design of the last 40 years, (a good many of said advancements a by-product of the space program itself - plow the lessons of space back into the exploration of space.)
Once you had the spacecraft, presumably they would not be as heavy as the Apollo craft were(lighter heatshield, lighter computers and instruments, and all that) Becuase your spacecraft are now lighter, you don't need as big of a rocket.
You can download an 8 meg TIFF of the logo. Why anybody would need that amount of resolution for a half inch logo sticker on the front of a PC I'll never know. Must be for the billboard makers...
I knew getting it posted here would bring all the mirrors and alternate versions out of the woodwork.
I _obviously_ don't believe a word of any of it, either the condensed Darwin award/chain email/urban legend version or the expanded way over-elaborated I linked to.
I just thought the elaborated version was quite entertaining and funny, and the/.ers would enjoy reading it. I know this whole thing is old hat for a lot but I hadn't seen the elaborate version around much so I thought I'd share.
The best place to put that energy IMO would be a flywheel. I want a flywheel car! (and think just how hard it would be to roll over!:-)
Nah, cause a flywheel works on a little known force called momentum. And lord knows, you have to go by the philosophy of "slow and steady wins the race" when you're dealing with momentum.
You can't just race up to the guy in front of you on the expressway and slam on the brakes like you normally do on the usual USA Interstate Highway System as it exists today.
Ignore the fact that I nearly got my ass in 3 separate accidents yesterday due to the above phenomena.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, yes you can:
http://www.openuniverse.org/
Even better, put it on IN PLACE OF the Lone Gunmen. What a shitty show that is...
... for story moderation, this day was it. What a load of crap, all freaking day. Just mod April 1 2001 down to about -6*10^6 and let's move on to tommorow. gah!
You hit it on the head - this is the problem.
What's needed is some way to separate the cable plant from the Internet service.
For example, in my area SBC owns the local loop. To run DSL on that loop, they need to go to the expense of adding splitters/DSLAMs/other assorted equipment to that loop. That is not a trivial exercise and it is very costly.
Right now, if a competive DSL ISP wants to service a customer on SBC's loop, SBC has to provide that loop to the ISP for LESS than what it costs SBC to do all that work.
What there needs to be is a way to separate the loop from the ISP.
Here's the way it should be:
Division "X" of SBC is responsible for the loop/cable plant/asociated equipment. They have a well defined cost/fee structure for providing the loop. The cost should be realistic, and allow them a way to at least break even, if not profit (this is a capitalist business after all) The cost should be well known and published to all interested ISPs.
Any ISP can hook up to the end user on that loop and provide internet service to that customer, for whatever price/services mix they feel appropriate. The ISP would have to pay the fee to use the cable plant. The ISP would have to make sure they set the price for end user appropriately, accounting for their costs of doing business (just like any other business)
One of the ISPs could very well be Division "Y" of SBC. It could just as equally be Bubba. The point is, Bubba and Baby Bell have to pay the exact same cost to provide internet service on that line.
When and if Division "X" is able to make efficiency improvements that make thir costs go down, they have to pass on at least some of that to the ISP's. Bubba and Baby Bell always pay the same price as each other.
Now we would be competing not based on who has monopoly access to the local loop, but who provides the best internet service for the best price/value.
Not a troll, just imagination deficient...
/. has posted a lot stupid things people do to computers, but this has got to be the DUMBEST one yet. It completely boggles the mind. I can't begin to imagine WHY someone would want to do this.
It's so stupid you actually have to admire the guy, for being twisted enough to think it up in the first place, having the balls to do it, and even more balls to admit it, take pictures, and allow someone to post it on the web.
Bullshit Bullshit Bullshit!
There are no "mutant microbes" up there. The only stuff that was up there is what we humans sent up there. Everything up there came from earth, so there will be no great plague caused by it coming back to earth.
As for "pushing it out into the sun or empty space", you obviously have no understanding of orbital mechanics or gravity. To get an object of that size and mass out of earth's orbit would require MASSIVE amounts of thrust.
To get it to the Sun would have probably required the equivalent of about a dozen Saturn V rockets strapped to it.
The PGSC laptops have only been flying since the early/mid 90's - so one can hardly say they've been aboard "nearly every flight". Although they have been on all recent flights and will continue to play a more and more vital role in on-orbit operations. They will continue to do so onboard ISS.
The OS has usually been Win95 or DOS. The laptops are "old" IBM Thinkpads, model 755 and 760 I believe. I say "old" by conventional standards on the earth-based computing industry, they're really only a couple years old. They were 486's for the longest time and only recently upgraded to the early Pentium I CPUs. I don't think they'll be running NT on that level of hardware.
NASA has extensive testing and radiation hardening procedures to qualify computers for space, so that's why space computers seem to be "old". The computers on the Hubble Telescope were upgraded to 486-class machines over Christmas of 1999. Before that they had 286's.
Hmm. I thought they made the machines cheaper. maybe it was the discs that were cheaper? Anyhow, it's still a good thing it died...
Memory loss isn't caused by PDAs. Just have to lay off smoking all the crack...
That's true, but it doesn't matter. The masses won't have (non-SDMI) MP3 players, (non-scms) CD players, or casette decks. We're not talking about now, but 5-10 years down the line.
I expect to see players for the secure formats in Best Buy for half the price of the current non-secure stuff. The prices will be subsidized by the RIAA and MPAA. If it's cheap and flashy, the masses will buy it. This is how they will crush the "non-secure" stuff.
Granted, that's what was tried for DivX at Circuit City, but it was only one retailer. If the BMG's and Disney's of the world are behind the subsidies, it will be universal at all retailers, and there will be no way around it.
If you don't think companies would take the loss on something like that, look at how cell phones are sold. The concept of loss leaders is well established. Lose a little money selling the razor, make a ton of money selling the razor blades.
(Rebroadcast or retransmission of this telecast without the express written consent of Major League Baseball is strictly prohibited)
Unfourtunately, I don't see any way we can. The sheep will buy whatever format has the latest Backdoor Boys or Britney Speers or whatever. When the RIAA releases their 2006 albums only in whatever the new "secure" format is, that's when the old formats become obselete. Go into Best Buy sometime and watch the sheep in action.
OFF-TOPIC RANT
Last time I was in Best Buy, my experience at the cash register left me in disgust of the education system. The person in front of me was buying 2 items, a $30 pair of headphones and some audio component that was normally a couple hundred bucks but was open box selling for $95. They asked the cashier to ring up the items "so they could get a total" to see if they could afford to buy them. They couldn't do simple addition - 95 + 30 = 125 + a little but of sales tax - call it $135-$140. What's even scarier is the cashier couldn't just eyeball it either, she had to ring it up, although perhaps store rules prevented just giving a verbal estimate.
Bye Bye to your rights (Score:3, Funny)
I hate to sound like I have a stick up my ass, but how is the above funny? I'm not arguing with it being modded up, but it's more like "frightening" than "funny" if you ask me...
Umm, they did. And lost. Which makes it surprising to me why they still pursue "look and feel" litigation. Morons...
Ditto on chills at throttle-up.
I'm kinda surprised NASA has not changed that radio call to something else for exactly that reason.
BTW, did you watch the launch for the last mission, STS-97? There was no "Go at throttle-up" call, and I admit that made me mildly anxious.
There was a problem with the PTT (Mic switch) on the commander's control stick. They diagnosed it during the countdown, but they launched anyway. There's a backup switch on the instrument panel he would have used in an emergency.
"Two turntables and a microphooooone..."
We'll call it the "Alan Parsons Project".
CNN is showing 224 votes difference. My apartment building (perhaps my floor!) contains more than enough votes to decide it. Unbelievable...
Wasn't there a story yesterday about how there would be no meltdowns this election night?
/re port.asp?Date=001107
http://enight.dos.state.fl.us
HTTP/1.1 Server Too Busy
I wonder what the httpd is?
Only 13 comments and thier webserver is already a smoking heap on the side of the road...
The plans/specs/engineering data are all safely stored in the NASA and contractor archives.
As the poster above mentioned, it's the tooling and even more than that, the parts and sub-components of the Saturn V that are no longer made. That's why we couldn't just one day decide to build More Saturn V's - the production line no longer exists, and even if it did, we don't have anything to make them out of.
That's not to say one couldn't decide to take the plans a rebuild the line and re-produce the components. You could do that, but it would be silly.
The Saturn V was a marvel of its time, but it's 40 year old technology.
To tell the truth, a Saturn V is STILL a marvel even today. Go see one sometime at one the NASA centers - I recommend KSC in Florida. The visitor center there is superb. Don't miss the Firing Room show and the Lunar theatre if you want to feel awed and humbled.
It's a real trip to stand under such a monster sized machine and realize people got up on top of one of those things and rode it to the moon!
<rant> And another thing - it's a shame that there are still any Saturn V's still left on Earth for us to marvel at in the museums - they should have all been used up on Apollo's 18-20, but those missions were canceled due to lack of vision by politicians. NASA had already bought and paid for the hardware. A lot of the mock ups and museum pieces of Apollo spacecraft that you see are actually REAL spacecraft (genuine flight articles) from the canceled missions. What collosal short-sightedness!</rant>
If you were going to build a Moon Rocket today, you would want to start with a clean slate and utilize all the advancements of the intervening years in materials, machining techniques, and electronics miniturization.
If you were going to do that, you would start at the top of the stack, the Apollo Spacecraft. The Saturn V's purpose in life was to Boost the Apollo Spacecraft into a parking orbit, then to the Moon. EVERYTHING in Apollo was the way it was because of the spacecraft's weight.
The weight of the CM dictated the weight of the SM, becuase the SM had to carry enough propellant to boost the CM and SM out of Lunar gravity to get home to Earth. The combined weight of the CM, SM, and LM dictated the weight of the S-IV B, becuase it had to boost the Apollo Spacecraft out of Earth's gravity to get to the Moon. Since the S-IV B was the third stage of the Saturn V, the other two stages of the Saturn V also had their design dicated by the stage above.
If you were going to go back to the Moon, you would design a new set of spacecraft, using all the advancements in materials and design of the last 40 years, (a good many of said advancements a by-product of the space program itself - plow the lessons of space back into the exploration of space.)
Once you had the spacecraft, presumably they would not be as heavy as the Apollo craft were(lighter heatshield, lighter computers and instruments, and all that) Becuase your spacecraft are now lighter, you don't need as big of a rocket.
You can download an 8 meg TIFF of the logo. Why anybody would need that amount of resolution for a half inch logo sticker on the front of a PC I'll never know. Must be for the billboard makers...
I knew getting it posted here would bring all the mirrors and alternate versions out of the woodwork.
/.ers would enjoy reading it. I know this whole thing is old hat for a lot but I hadn't seen the elaborate version around much so I thought I'd share.
I _obviously_ don't believe a word of any of it, either the condensed Darwin award/chain email/urban legend version or the expanded way over-elaborated I linked to.
I just thought the elaborated version was quite entertaining and funny, and the
right. as usual, I hadn't thought of that... :>
The best place to put that energy IMO would be a flywheel. I want a flywheel car! (and think just how hard it would be to roll over! :-)
h tml
Nah, cause a flywheel works on a little known force called momentum. And lord knows, you have to go by the philosophy of "slow and steady wins the race" when you're dealing with momentum.
You can't just race up to the guy in front of you on the expressway and slam on the brakes like you normally do on the usual USA Interstate Highway System as it exists today.
Ignore the fact that I nearly got my ass in 3 separate accidents yesterday due to the above phenomena.
See the below for more info:
http://www.amasci.com/amateur/traffic/traffic1.