This reminds me of a funny trick to play on somebody from back in my mainframe days...
Create a directory with the same name as the home directory inside the user's home directory. Set a login script to place the user into that directory.
So they try to get to their files and there's nothing there. Everything looks normal. Usually, someone with half-a-clue can figure it out pretty quickly, but it does provide that brief moment of terror that gets the blood pumping in the morning.
Just out of curiousity, is there a good reason that this is perched on the International Space Station rather than just being it's own satellite? Does it need maintenance or something like that?
Phasers are essentially inferior to contemporary firearms.
Depends on what you're trying to do with them.
Phasers could be "set" to stun or kill an opponent, something that normal firearms cannot do. Phasers also seemed to be able to shoot far more rounds than contemporary firearms. It was rare that you heard about a phaser being "drained" in a battle--I'm not that knowledgeable about TNG, but in "The Omega Glory," Captain Tracy claims to have killed "thousands" with only four phasers. Furthermore, phaser power-packs could be rigged to explode like a grenade. Phasers could also be used to drill holes, warm rocks, etc.
While arguably less effective than a Tommy Gun at killing, it was certainly a better all-around tool for explorers than a Tommy Gun.
So, 1940s machine gun > 24th century phaser.
Perhaps the Borg had never dealt with a Tommy Gun before. Remember that phasers were effective until the Borg managed to adjust their shielding. I'm sure that a Tommy Gun wouldn't work a second time, just like a phaser tended to be ineffective as the Borg learned to deal with it.
Yeah! And what's this "And the cement used to line the tunnel would build a sidewalk stretching from Windsor to Quebec City" crap? What kind of measurement is that? Empire State Building! Hoover Dam! Highways! That's how you compare concrete use here in America! Not with fucking sidewalks!
Heaven is a place where the lovers are Italian, the cooks are French, the mechanics are German, the police are English, the teenagers are Japanese, the movie makers are American, the musicians are Russian, the women are Swedish, and the bankers are Swiss.
Hell is a place where the lovers are Swiss, the cooks are English, the mechanics are French, the police are German, the teenagers are American, the movie makers are Japanese, the musicians are Swedish, the women are Russian, and the bankers are Italians.
Why the government would kill such an awesome program is beyond me.
Uh, it's expensive and there are cheaper ways to perform the same task?
Don't get me wrong--I'm not dissing the Shuttle. It's an impressive space vehicle. I tend to liken it to an SUV--it can go anywhere (in Low-Earth Orbit) and do anything. However, like an SUV, it's expensive to run. Using the Shuttle to deliver astronauts to ISS is like using an SUV to drop the kid off at school one block from your house. Will it perform the task? Certainly. Would it be less expensive to give the kid a bike and tell him to pedal to school? Absolutely.
Also, most of the stuff that the Shuttle was designed to do has been replaced by other equipment. About the only thing it's useful for at this point is repairing high-value satellites (ie, Hubble) in orbit.
Personally, I'd like to see NASA get out of Low-Earth Orbit. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Let SpaceX handle delivering people and supplies to the ISS for the United States. Let NASA do the research for trips to The Moon, Mars, etc. And, at some point, that research will benefit private companies like SpaceX so that they can take it over.
In 2010, there were 173 Amber Alerts nationwide. 80 alerts--46%--were for "Family Abductions," where the initial suspect was related by blood or marriage whereas 74 alerts--43%--were for "Non-Family Abductions." So they run about even.
That said, 12 of those Amber Alerts were determined to be hoaxes and 10 of those were determined to be "unfounded" (as in the child was never really missing).
Agreed. I'd also point out that, as you increase the supply, the price goes down so it has to be even cheaper than you think.
Imagine running across a solid gold asteroid. You'd be rich! But when you brought it back to Earth and started to sell lots of it in order to pay off the costs of actually getting it, you'd end up making less money because you'd drive the price of gold down. That would be true for anything that's available on Earth.
The real reason for mining astroids, etc. is to provide an infrastructure outside of the Earth. The Earth is a wonderful place, but it's kind of tough to get things off this rock.
Suppose I want to build a "luxury spaceliner" that'll support 2500 people. Well, it would cost me lots of money to build. Because it would be big and heavy, I'd probably have a hard time landing it back on Earth, so I'd also need to build a space port to house it. So I'd assemble it outside of the Earth. But I still have to lift all the materials up from the Earth and that would be expensive. Or I could build it on the Earth and design a really big rocket to get it up there.
But imagine if somebody was already out there mining asteroids and making worthwhile metals out of them. Why, I could buy my supplies from them and not have to deal with the expense of getting things out of the gravity well that is Earth. The person who mines the materials would also make money that I pay him for the materials. If there was enough interest in building "luxury spaceliners," supplying the materials could be good money.
But, again, there's that nagging chicken or the egg thing. Why should I mine asteroids if there's nobody to buy my ore? Why should I create space-based ore processing if there's nobody to buy my metals? Why should I build anything in space when all the materials have to come from Earth anyway?
What about the taxes we already pay to the state for DOT maintenance?
As I understand it, this is something the Federal Government is considering for maintaining the interstate highway system. So it has nothing to do with what you pay the state road system.
Since you mentioned North Carolina, this would apply to Interstate 85, 73, and 40. It would not apply to Route 52 or 311.
I understand the need to ween America off of foreign oil, but is placing heavy taxes on vehicular use really going to do it? Would this policy exempt electronic vehicles? Ethanol/Corn Derivatives? Motorcycles? Scooters?
No. It really has nothing to do with weening America off of foreign oil. It has to do with making up for lost revenue.
Here's how it works now: The Government (state & fed) need money to maintain roads. In order to be "fair," they want to charge the people who make greater use of the roads more money (eg, the person who drives 15,000 miles/yr should pay more than the person who drives 7600 miles/yr). Of course, back when this was contemplated, there were no GPS-type devices. But everybody used gasoline. Thus, by taxing gasoline, you get the same effect--the more you drive, the more you pay.
The problem is that you have a new raft of cars coming out that don't use gasoline. Electric cars, hydrogen cars, etc cause the same wear-and-tear as their gasoline using siblings, yet they pay no taxes to maintain the roads that they use. Furthermore, you have more hybrid and plain ol' higher MPG gasoline cars that are using less gasoline and, therefore, paying less taxes. So the government is expected to continue to maintain the roads but they're getting less money to do it with.
So the idea is to basically turn every road into a toll-road. If you drive one mile, you pay x amount. If you drive twice as far, you pay twice as much. But rather than building a bunch of toll booths, the idea is that the government (in this case, the fed) needs some way to know what highway you're driving on. The idea is when you drive on I-85, the federal government bills you x amount. When you drive on Route 52, the federal government does not bill you (or passes the information onto the state government which can bill you).
Another solution would be to raise the gasoline tax. That would be very unpopular.
Perhaps the ones who work on products for Dell and Logitech don't have to sign the pledge?
After all, they don't have the pressure of building iPads--the magical device. Your Dell doesn't work? So what else is new? On the other hand, you make a mistake building an iPad and some Fanboi will cry all over the Internet. That's a lot of pressure.
On the other hand, building Dells day in and day out might cause me to consider suicide...
Here's how it currently works: Air Force wants a satellite that does...whatever. So they pay money to Northrop/Boeing/whoever to build said satellite. Then the Air Force buys a Titan IV or whatever and Air Force personnel launch the rocket from an Air Force base (eg, Vandenberg).
How it would work: Air Force wants a satellite that does...whatever. So they pay money to Northrop/Boeing/whoever to build said satellite. Then the Air Force buys "a launch" from SpaceX, Orbital Sciences Corporation, or whoever and they launch the rocket.
The idea is that rather than the Air Force spending your tax dollars to maintain a launch site, buy rockets, etc., the Air Force just pays for launches as they need them. SpaceX worries about maintaining the launch site, building the rockets, etc.
While I like the conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, I believe that it also has to do with the licensing issues involved with Blu-Ray players and software. Several years ago, Jobs referred to Blu-Ray licensing as a "bag of hurt." I tend to doubt it's gotten any better.
So Apple's choices are to devote the the time, effort, and engineering to do Blu-Ray on Macs or to ignore the whole thing and try to make up for it by selling people movies through iTunes.
I see a lot of bandwidth caps being hit with resulting overage charges followed by people re-upping for new contracts with higher caps (because you can't change your contract, you have to get a new one).
why not do something that disables the ability to track the individual customer. A stupid sticker doesn't seem that their concern is that great.
Well, the reality is that your phone has to register with various cell sites. Otherwise, how does the system know what tower to use when you receive a call? And, dare I say it, some people actually like the convenience of being able to use a Navigation system and be able to say, "I want to go to this address" and not have to put in their present address.
The problem is that most people don't actually understand this. "The phone knows where I am." It's not the phone, necessarily, it's the whole phone network. You've undoubtedly heard of the various criminals who said, "I was nowhere near the murder scene" when, in fact, cell tower records show them making a call from there. So I think a warning label is reasonable--the nature of the system is such that it can figure out where you are.
If you don't like it, here's a crazy idea: TURN OFF YOUR CELLPHONE. Only turn it on when you need to make a call. When you are done with the call, turn it off.
The question is: could you have spend the same money on something else, and get an even better return on your investment ?
Good question. Now let me throw a question back at you: How would you go about answering your question?
First, you have to define "better." Some space research has helped in treatments for osteoporosis. Lots of people have this affliction--especially as they get older. So, I'm sure they would believe that it was "better" to do this research rather than robotics research.
Second, what are you trying to return? In my above example, we've come up with ways to treat osteoporosis. If that was switched to robotics, you wouldn't have that treatment. But you might have robotic limbs which could take the place of human limbs that have been weakened by the disease.
Third, you'd have to compare the same missions. The only example I can give is that the Apollo missions returned something like 1000x the weight of moon-material as the Soviet missions.
In my opinion, the question is mostly FUD. "We might get a better return if we did something else."
Slashdot Mirror
This reminds me of a funny trick to play on somebody from back in my mainframe days...
Create a directory with the same name as the home directory inside the user's home directory. Set a login script to place the user into that directory.
So they try to get to their files and there's nothing there. Everything looks normal. Usually, someone with half-a-clue can figure it out pretty quickly, but it does provide that brief moment of terror that gets the blood pumping in the morning.
Sometimes a word is worth a thousand pictures. Changing the "+" to "Add Alarm" probably would have solved the problem.
Just out of curiousity, is there a good reason that this is perched on the International Space Station rather than just being it's own satellite? Does it need maintenance or something like that?
Or is this just a cleverly disguised way of giving real emergency preparedness instructions and using social networking?
Give that man a cigar!
Hey, it made you read the article.
Instead of biting you to infect you, someone coughs on you instead, either way you end up dead.
So what you're saying is that I should just shoot people who look sick, in case they end up coughing on me.
Important safety tip. Thanks.
anyone know what we're going to do with all these people we don't need any more.
Soylent Green.
Phasers are essentially inferior to contemporary firearms.
Depends on what you're trying to do with them.
Phasers could be "set" to stun or kill an opponent, something that normal firearms cannot do. Phasers also seemed to be able to shoot far more rounds than contemporary firearms. It was rare that you heard about a phaser being "drained" in a battle--I'm not that knowledgeable about TNG, but in "The Omega Glory," Captain Tracy claims to have killed "thousands" with only four phasers. Furthermore, phaser power-packs could be rigged to explode like a grenade. Phasers could also be used to drill holes, warm rocks, etc.
While arguably less effective than a Tommy Gun at killing, it was certainly a better all-around tool for explorers than a Tommy Gun.
So, 1940s machine gun > 24th century phaser.
Perhaps the Borg had never dealt with a Tommy Gun before. Remember that phasers were effective until the Borg managed to adjust their shielding. I'm sure that a Tommy Gun wouldn't work a second time, just like a phaser tended to be ineffective as the Borg learned to deal with it.
Yeah! And what's this "And the cement used to line the tunnel would build a sidewalk stretching from Windsor to Quebec City" crap? What kind of measurement is that? Empire State Building! Hoover Dam! Highways! That's how you compare concrete use here in America! Not with fucking sidewalks!
What's the old joke? Oh yeah:
Heaven is a place where the lovers are Italian, the cooks are French, the mechanics are German, the police are English, the teenagers are Japanese, the movie makers are American, the musicians are Russian, the women are Swedish, and the bankers are Swiss.
Hell is a place where the lovers are Swiss, the cooks are English, the mechanics are French, the police are German, the teenagers are American, the movie makers are Japanese, the musicians are Swedish, the women are Russian, and the bankers are Italians.
Why the government would kill such an awesome program is beyond me.
Uh, it's expensive and there are cheaper ways to perform the same task?
Don't get me wrong--I'm not dissing the Shuttle. It's an impressive space vehicle. I tend to liken it to an SUV--it can go anywhere (in Low-Earth Orbit) and do anything. However, like an SUV, it's expensive to run. Using the Shuttle to deliver astronauts to ISS is like using an SUV to drop the kid off at school one block from your house. Will it perform the task? Certainly. Would it be less expensive to give the kid a bike and tell him to pedal to school? Absolutely.
Also, most of the stuff that the Shuttle was designed to do has been replaced by other equipment. About the only thing it's useful for at this point is repairing high-value satellites (ie, Hubble) in orbit.
Personally, I'd like to see NASA get out of Low-Earth Orbit. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Let SpaceX handle delivering people and supplies to the ISS for the United States. Let NASA do the research for trips to The Moon, Mars, etc. And, at some point, that research will benefit private companies like SpaceX so that they can take it over.
Interestingly, the statistics don't bear you out.
In 2010, there were 173 Amber Alerts nationwide. 80 alerts--46%--were for "Family Abductions," where the initial suspect was related by blood or marriage whereas 74 alerts--43%--were for "Non-Family Abductions." So they run about even.
That said, 12 of those Amber Alerts were determined to be hoaxes and 10 of those were determined to be "unfounded" (as in the child was never really missing).
Statistics found here: http://www.amberalert.gov/pdfs/10_amber_report.pdf
Mine is the last text you will ever read. Do not be alarmed.
...like my women.
(Sorry. I just couldn't resist.)
Agreed. I'd also point out that, as you increase the supply, the price goes down so it has to be even cheaper than you think.
Imagine running across a solid gold asteroid. You'd be rich! But when you brought it back to Earth and started to sell lots of it in order to pay off the costs of actually getting it, you'd end up making less money because you'd drive the price of gold down. That would be true for anything that's available on Earth.
The real reason for mining astroids, etc. is to provide an infrastructure outside of the Earth. The Earth is a wonderful place, but it's kind of tough to get things off this rock.
Suppose I want to build a "luxury spaceliner" that'll support 2500 people. Well, it would cost me lots of money to build. Because it would be big and heavy, I'd probably have a hard time landing it back on Earth, so I'd also need to build a space port to house it. So I'd assemble it outside of the Earth. But I still have to lift all the materials up from the Earth and that would be expensive. Or I could build it on the Earth and design a really big rocket to get it up there.
But imagine if somebody was already out there mining asteroids and making worthwhile metals out of them. Why, I could buy my supplies from them and not have to deal with the expense of getting things out of the gravity well that is Earth. The person who mines the materials would also make money that I pay him for the materials. If there was enough interest in building "luxury spaceliners," supplying the materials could be good money.
But, again, there's that nagging chicken or the egg thing. Why should I mine asteroids if there's nobody to buy my ore? Why should I create space-based ore processing if there's nobody to buy my metals? Why should I build anything in space when all the materials have to come from Earth anyway?
I am on first name basis with several USPS VPs.
Tell Bob I said "Hey!"
What about the taxes we already pay to the state for DOT maintenance?
As I understand it, this is something the Federal Government is considering for maintaining the interstate highway system. So it has nothing to do with what you pay the state road system.
Since you mentioned North Carolina, this would apply to Interstate 85, 73, and 40. It would not apply to Route 52 or 311.
I understand the need to ween America off of foreign oil, but is placing heavy taxes on vehicular use really going to do it? Would this policy exempt electronic vehicles? Ethanol/Corn Derivatives? Motorcycles? Scooters?
No. It really has nothing to do with weening America off of foreign oil. It has to do with making up for lost revenue.
Here's how it works now: The Government (state & fed) need money to maintain roads. In order to be "fair," they want to charge the people who make greater use of the roads more money (eg, the person who drives 15,000 miles/yr should pay more than the person who drives 7600 miles/yr). Of course, back when this was contemplated, there were no GPS-type devices. But everybody used gasoline. Thus, by taxing gasoline, you get the same effect--the more you drive, the more you pay.
The problem is that you have a new raft of cars coming out that don't use gasoline. Electric cars, hydrogen cars, etc cause the same wear-and-tear as their gasoline using siblings, yet they pay no taxes to maintain the roads that they use. Furthermore, you have more hybrid and plain ol' higher MPG gasoline cars that are using less gasoline and, therefore, paying less taxes. So the government is expected to continue to maintain the roads but they're getting less money to do it with.
So the idea is to basically turn every road into a toll-road. If you drive one mile, you pay x amount. If you drive twice as far, you pay twice as much. But rather than building a bunch of toll booths, the idea is that the government (in this case, the fed) needs some way to know what highway you're driving on. The idea is when you drive on I-85, the federal government bills you x amount. When you drive on Route 52, the federal government does not bill you (or passes the information onto the state government which can bill you).
Another solution would be to raise the gasoline tax. That would be very unpopular.
Perhaps the ones who work on products for Dell and Logitech don't have to sign the pledge?
After all, they don't have the pressure of building iPads--the magical device. Your Dell doesn't work? So what else is new? On the other hand, you make a mistake building an iPad and some Fanboi will cry all over the Internet. That's a lot of pressure.
On the other hand, building Dells day in and day out might cause me to consider suicide...
Here's how it currently works: Air Force wants a satellite that does...whatever. So they pay money to Northrop/Boeing/whoever to build said satellite. Then the Air Force buys a Titan IV or whatever and Air Force personnel launch the rocket from an Air Force base (eg, Vandenberg).
How it would work: Air Force wants a satellite that does...whatever. So they pay money to Northrop/Boeing/whoever to build said satellite. Then the Air Force buys "a launch" from SpaceX, Orbital Sciences Corporation, or whoever and they launch the rocket.
The idea is that rather than the Air Force spending your tax dollars to maintain a launch site, buy rockets, etc., the Air Force just pays for launches as they need them. SpaceX worries about maintaining the launch site, building the rockets, etc.
While I like the conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, I believe that it also has to do with the licensing issues involved with Blu-Ray players and software. Several years ago, Jobs referred to Blu-Ray licensing as a "bag of hurt." I tend to doubt it's gotten any better.
So Apple's choices are to devote the the time, effort, and engineering to do Blu-Ray on Macs or to ignore the whole thing and try to make up for it by selling people movies through iTunes.
Especially since you can count the number of PC models shipping with a Blu-Ray drive on one hand.
Most PC manufacturers have it available as an option.
I am sure the few people who need a Blu-Ray can buy themselves an external drive (e.g. LaCie has one).
Yeah, and this was said back in the days of CD ROM drives, too.
But, hey, it's okay. I'm sure you can count on your Windows-using friends the next time you're on an airplane...
In the case of movies, neither NetFlix nor iTunes are streaming 1080p. And I have yet to see anybody distributing movies on external hard drives.
Wow! That's impressive!
Pray tell, where did all that glorious HD content come from (ie, how did the person who uploaded it get it?)
Hm. Let's see...video chat, metered service...
I see a lot of bandwidth caps being hit with resulting overage charges followed by people re-upping for new contracts with higher caps (because you can't change your contract, you have to get a new one).
Cha-ching!
why not do something that disables the ability to track the individual customer. A stupid sticker doesn't seem that their concern is that great.
Well, the reality is that your phone has to register with various cell sites. Otherwise, how does the system know what tower to use when you receive a call? And, dare I say it, some people actually like the convenience of being able to use a Navigation system and be able to say, "I want to go to this address" and not have to put in their present address.
The problem is that most people don't actually understand this. "The phone knows where I am." It's not the phone, necessarily, it's the whole phone network. You've undoubtedly heard of the various criminals who said, "I was nowhere near the murder scene" when, in fact, cell tower records show them making a call from there. So I think a warning label is reasonable--the nature of the system is such that it can figure out where you are.
If you don't like it, here's a crazy idea: TURN OFF YOUR CELLPHONE. Only turn it on when you need to make a call. When you are done with the call, turn it off.
I know. That's crazy talk.
The question is: could you have spend the same money on something else, and get an even better return on your investment ?
Good question. Now let me throw a question back at you: How would you go about answering your question?
First, you have to define "better." Some space research has helped in treatments for osteoporosis. Lots of people have this affliction--especially as they get older. So, I'm sure they would believe that it was "better" to do this research rather than robotics research.
Second, what are you trying to return? In my above example, we've come up with ways to treat osteoporosis. If that was switched to robotics, you wouldn't have that treatment. But you might have robotic limbs which could take the place of human limbs that have been weakened by the disease.
Third, you'd have to compare the same missions. The only example I can give is that the Apollo missions returned something like 1000x the weight of moon-material as the Soviet missions.
In my opinion, the question is mostly FUD. "We might get a better return if we did something else."