I've had encounters with similar systems to this E-Passport just recently on my honeymoon cruise. My wife and I were each issued a "Sea Pass" card, which didn't have our picture on it, but had our names printed on it, and a magnetic swipe. Whenever we wanted to buy anything on the ship, we would swipe our card and it would identify us and no cash was needed throughout the entire cruise.
For shore excursions, we swiped our cards as we left, and it noted that we no longer were on the boat, keeping track of everyone out on shore excursions and what not. On our return, we swiped our cards, it pulled up for the security guard our information as well as a picture, which he was able to verify our identity with, and let us back on the boat. I'm glad for this, as it stops people from trying to steal those cards, as they are useless if your not the same person, and since the data is stored in a central registry, can't be easily falsified, like a current passport could be.
I like the idea of an E-Passport, as it can guarantee a person's identity a lot more easily then a traditional passport, which can be forged easily enough these days with all the technology out there, as well as making travel safer in foreign countries, as well as for our own country.
I can't wait though for them to implement something such as an RFID tag inside of these, so we can just walk through customs, having it tally up all our items purchased, collecting duties as we walk, and have the whole ordeal be a lot less painless, instead of having to wait in long lines while you get questioned over and over... would be nice to just have the RFID tag identify you as you go through a turnstile, and have that be the end of customs...
Either way, this is going to make travel a lot easier and safer...
It looks like slowly but surely, we are getting to see the future of entertainment in this country... no more being forced to sit through annoying commercials, but just being able to watch what we really want...
It would be worth it to me, to pay a small price each month, to not have to see commercials ever, and just watch the content only...
Not to mention, if we could just click and choose what we wanted to watch, that would be far better, then being stuck with the static content we have now...
Imagine the possibilities... I can not wait:)
I read on here how this star explosion resulted in a black hole, yet am confused by this. If this massive gamma-ray burst resulted in a black hole, then how did the light escape enough to reach us here on earth, 13 billion light years away?
I would love to see some pictures or even video of this event, to see just exactly what a super-massive gamma-ray burst looks like as well... am sure it might be spectacular...
Another question comes to mind, what if Earth and the entire Milky Way Galaxy itself, was actually trapped inside of a giant blackhole???
I know that probably because of the massive energy released by this gamma-ray burst, that it was able to escape, or was the black hole not created as of the time of explosion?
Also, if a black hole was created at explosion, was this even more massive then we can see, yet the black hole swallowed up a majority of the explosion and what we see, is just a small glimpse of it?
How can scientists here on Earth, have a clue about things that are outside this planet, besides what we have witnessed on the moon, and on it's surface only at that...
There are so many elements out there on this planet... who says that other planets do not have whole sets of other elements out there, that we have yet to discover.
We have only explored a very tiny niche of our galaxy, just imagine what all lies in wait outside of the realm of discovered territory?
Glad to see that the "speedY" Hayabusa has finally arrived at the asteroid. I am not sure if it will reach this asteroid, and find similar composition materials as is on other surfaces, such as the moon and Earth, or if there will be new chemical elements previously unknown to man.
Attempts such as this do raise questions, that I am hoping scientists have already researched and are protecting against. We don't want any scientific research to cause issues here on Earth.
As happened in Andromeda Strain, hopefully the contents of this asteroid, that Hayabusa brings back to Earth, will not have any harmful bacteria or organisms present, that could cause great harm to life on Earth. I know this may sound like a conspiracy therory, but we have no clue what other elements exist outside of our small planet. There are so many others out there in the galaxies and universes, and we are such a miniscule part of things.
Hayabusa taking longer then expected is kind of ironic though, considering that a Hayabusa is one of the fastest production sport bikes available for sale today. I guess space travel and land travel are two different categories, but hopefully this ion drive engine will be great technology for future missions to space.
It is nice to see such engineering technologies being created for space travel, which hopefully can be applied to manned missions to other planets, as well as ways for energy efficient travel on Earth potentially being created.
It is too bad, that NASA didn't include a rover on this mission, would have been nice to explore and perform more testing on surface composition and the like... yet as always, budgets are never there for real research, but always there for wasted efforts in other areas...
Lets stand by and see some of these beautiful pictures sure to come from this probe...
I just posted my opinion on the poll... I personally feel that we should retaliate with a greater force, when we are attacked in the future.
If terrorists decide to take out two of our buildings, we should drop a massive bomb in the central part of their city... dealing a massive retaliatory strike on the terrorists homeland, who caused this, making them think twice about future attacks.
I know that I will probably get flamed for this, but this country needs to stop being a coward, and start taking charge of the armed forces we have, and start using them to our advantage. I am sure that we could find and attack the majority of these terrorist sects out there, if we concentrated the resources and manpower we have...
I know that with all the satellites available to us, for intelligence gathering, not to mention all of the armed forces that could be used in sniffing out these terrorists, we could get the majority of issues in this world under control.
I know that many movies have been created on this subject alone. A lot of them had similar plots, where a nuclear attack was suspected, and the president had to make up his mind if he should attack or not attack... and luckily in each movie the president didn't do a thing... but just imagine that if in real life, we had a major bomb hit, and waited too long, and as a result, this country was totally destroyed.
I know that a retaliatory strike is probably not going to be that effective, but if we at least take out others, we are on a more even footing at least, versus just having taking a major hit, having no resources left to protect the rest of our country that is still left to protect.
This country needs to stand up to the plate. Thanks Christine for bringing these points up, and letting us vote on your site. I posted my vote, as well as signed onto the site and checked out the games, nice Bush Bashing games there...
I read this story and it is very impressive how much tonnage that this device can carry... only one question comes to mind... how are they going to protect it?
Based on the size of this warship, not to mention the slowness of it, am sure that it can't just easily outrun a fighter jet sent to destroy it, or be able to perform evasive manuevers...
I can imagine that it will be escorted by a fighter division, not to mention have some high-tech anti-missle weapons and the like, yet I can see an air to air missle easily bypassing those protections and bringing down a TON of hardware with it... major catastrophe...
Anyone have any ideas what sort of protection methods will be used to protect this massive warship, as well as if this will be used for strictly hardware transport, or troop transportation as well?
Lockheed Martin is going to have fun with this one... preserving records for that length of time will be a considerable task... and hopefully they will figure out a way that will succesfully archive records forever...
Just look back at how much technology has changed in the past 10 years. We had 5.25" Floppy drives used back in those times, and 3.5" floppies were used as well, and CD burners were just starting to come available at the speedy rates of 1-2x, not to mention hard drives were so small compared to the 500gb drives we have today... and Windows 95 was just released, wonderful system based on FAT architecture... not NTFS like we have today...
Computer technology is increasing at such a rapid rate these days. I can only imagine how it will be in 10 years, much less 100 years from now. I am sure by then that clock speed will be in hundreds of gigahertz, memory in the terabytes, and storage in the petabyte range... if not even higher... who knows...
I also wonder, if in 2090, will their CD-ROM equivalent even exist to read this storage library? They may have long ago abandoned CD-ROMs for being too slow, and if data is stored in this format, how will it be read? Also, as hard drives get larger and larger, am sure the IDE, SCSI, and SATA drives of today will not be readable by the BIOS of tomorrow... much less have connectors to fit...
This is a huge undertaking... good luck Lockheed Martin...
Yeah, and just trying to figure out what adult wallpapers, have to do with this posting at all... maybe since the article mentions skin, they have to show some skin? I guess that is why... wow what a genius... showing skin when we talk about skin... man those are some nice looking robots, lol...
I mean, at least my website, http://www.nerdsystems.com/ has to do with computers, which is semi-related to this matter... and if I have people clicking on my Google Ads, at least I can make a little money off things, VERY LITTLE of course, but hey, if enough people click on things, those pennies add up greatly over time... so go ahead and click on my ads people all you want, lol
That adult website doesn't even have advertising, nor do they charge for anything... kind of funny if you ask me, why even BOTHER posting that link, if you are not going to make money off it or anything...
Oh well, guess some people just have too much time on their hands, and want to watch all us fellow nerds on here going "OH WOW, FREE PORN!!!"....
Oh well, at least my original posting gets read, thanks to the free porn offer... lol
Distributed computing on a different scale then we are used to seeing... quite interesting concept...
It is nice that these skin cells can detect that they have been damaged, yet I read nothing about if they have been damaged, how they plan to repair the damages caused?
I guess this is just a way for processing of a system to continue, even if a certain chunk of the spacecraft is destroyed, that it can still function seperate from the rest...
Few Question though about this layout:
1. How is the power system? Is this a central powered source, such as from a battery pack with a solar panel to recharge it, or is each cell having it's own power cell and solar panel to recharge things?
2. What is going to be implemented, as far as damage recovery systems? Is there going to be another group of devices onboard, that can be dispatched to repair cells? Is there going to be a collection of extra cells waiting, so that the damaged cells can be discarded, and the new cells brought into place?
3. Communications among cells are discussed, yet what about relaying this information back to NASA? Also, what happens if the primary communications antenna is destroyed... is there provisions to replace this as well, using this technology?
It looks like this is a start to promising self-healing taking place in satellites and other devices, not to mention the implementations of it being used on Earth...
China Telecom is pretty smart to be blocking the Skype service, even though ethically I think it is not right to be blocking a user's internet connection experience like this. User's pay for an internet connection, expecting to be able to use it for many various purposes, and not have certain "features" blocked, but then again, this is not America either.
Here in America, at least we have the FCC and other governing bodies telling big business what they are allowed to do and what they are forbidden to do, and the majority of time the rules are followed at least. I know a while back that some major ISPs tried to block Vonage on their systems but after a major outcry from their subscribers this was changed quickly.
China has always been known to be a government that censor's free speech and tries to limit what it's citizens have access to. I am sure that their email systems are all monitored with anti-government emails being filtered out or those sending/receiving these emails being placed on watch lists, and am sure that each citizen's web surfing habits are monitored as well.
This is just another example of why I am glad to live here in the United States of America. We may complain about things from time to time, but at least we do have more freedom of information and able to know more, then most other countries out there. If my Vonage was blocked by my ISP, I would be contacting Road Runner in a hurry, and getting things straight, something that as an American we can take care of. I'm glad to not be helpless like the majority of private citizens in China are.
I wonder if this is proven to be a successful triumph on China Telecom's part, if it will help spur other ISP's in various countries around the globe to take a part in this as well. Voice over IP has been a wonderful blessing to many around the world, being used by many to reach other's in distant countries, at a far cheaper cost then a normal voice call would cost... hope this doesn't catch on and cause VOIP as a whole to start being shut down outside of America.
Hopefully, Skype can just one-up the Chinese, and change the way their system works, to more easily get around the blockage, as well as having the system be more intelligent in finding connections, bypassing any blocking measures that China Telecom might try to implement.
I'm not a lawyer, and curious about the legal implications of this. I know that with China being a communist nation, that the people probably have no rights, but could Skype turn around and have a lawsuit against China Telecom, for "obstruction of service" or "tampering with service" which is essentially what they are doing?
I've used Bart PE many times in my PC business, http://www.nerdsystems.com/ and it has saved the day so many times. I routinely fix computers for people that have registry errors, video issues, and more, that have me locked out of the system, not even able to get into things using safe mode...
I'm currently running Bart PE off a CD, where I just pop the CD in, boot off it, and a few minutes later I have full access to the machine, and can repair anything that I need to get done...
This USB method will work even better, can just load Bart PE onto my USB drive, load all the applications that I use often, such as Anti-Spyware and more, and go from there....
I wonder if USB drives being so fast, and being read/write, if one day I could just run the entire OS off this USB drive, and pretty much have my complete system working wherever I go....
Bart PE is great... going to try out the USB method right now as we speak...
This hand looks very promising... am sure that it will make many amputees happy as it can more closely resemble the human hand... just curious how much longer till the entire human hand can be duplicated totally... much less other body parts...
I wonder how well someone could type with this hand though, am sure that hunting and pecking would work fine, but since this is controlled by the muscles in the arm, not so sure how efficient typing might be with this hand...
One way to accessorize this hand might be to encase it in a skin toned covering, to more realistically mimic a human hand, and at least to not be so ovbious as this hand is...
Overall this looks like a good step forward in prosthetics... soon people who are unfortunate enough to lose a limb, will be able to lead more normal lives... this is wonderful.
It is pretty obvious, especially with the recent lack of action done by the federal government on the Hurricane Katrina aftermath, that the Private sector needs to start taking a more active role in many areas that were previously handled by the government exclusively, one of which is the future of space travel and exploration. In the old days, government was the only one with access to the technologies needed to be able to get into space, but in the modern era, private sector industries have access to the same technologies, as well as the ability to create the technology as needed for their situation.
NASA has done a great job over the many years of it's existence, from the moon missions to designing the shuttle fleets, and various exploratory missions such as the Mars Rovers and the Hubble Telescope. NASA is starting to show it's age though, as lately, private sector seems to be catching up fast... and the question we all want to know, is can NASA keep up with the many contenders currently active out in the private sector, some of which have massive bankrolls available to them, and investors with very deep pockets backing the projects up...
Private Sector has entered the space age, with recent contests, most notable the Ansari X Prize, giving $10 million dollars to the first private space flight to reach into orbit. This prize was won of course by the SpaceShipOne sponsored by Scaled Composites, and has started them on the way to forming "The Spaceship Company"... one of many private sector industries that are sure to bring us some major developments over the next few years, and could very likely take a huge role in future manned space exploration, not just into orbit, but onto surrounding planets as well. The US government may very well be contacting these groups for assistance in the Mar's mission, instead of relying solely on NASA.
It is too early to tell if the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina will place the final nail in the coffin of the government being a contender in the space program, but we know this will help spur private industry even more, to reach into space and take this role into the hands of our citizens, instead of the government. As time goes on, congress may decide that the costs of the space program are too great, having to spend all this money in research and development, especially throwing countless money into finding the source of the foam problems on the external fuel tank for one, as well as many other issues that will need to be resolved if the shuttles continue to fly. Issues that must be resolved, and if not taken care of, could force the shuttle as we know it into an early demise...
Hurricane Katrina may be a blessing in disguise, taking NASA off it's throne, and placing private sector industries in it's place... let's see how everyone as a whole takes charge, and we can all be excited about all the new developments sure to come in the very near future... the space program has always brought new ideas to use by everyone, and this modern "space race" can only bring more and more to the plate...
Intel buying an anti-virus software could work out well for the company, especially if they share the success that Microsoft had when buying Giant's Anti-Spyware program and taking over it's development. Intel has the ability to take a good product and make it even better, and possibly even implementing hardware-based virus detection into future processors as well.
If an Intel processor could be made to have hardware-based virus detection, integrating with this software-based virus detection, the team could be a very powerful deterrant to any future virus outbreaks. Imagine the hardware and software components working side by side to protect systems, giving future virus writers another hurdle to be cleared, when developing new virus infestations.
Hopefully the virus software can be made more efficient as well, so that running virus software on a system won't bog it down, hogging system resources like crazy, making people want to not run virus software in the first place. This has long been the bane of the majority of software packages, as the slowdown they cause for certain users, especially gamers, has made them desire to not run the software packages on their systems, resulting in these systems being more vulnerable to a virus outbreak.
Another added benefit that I can see from Intel buying this software, is that eventually if they integrate software and hardware aspects into a cohesive package that is well-implemented and able to fight viruses at a better efficiency then other programs, this will cause Intel based processors to stand out as well, as these days, virus protection and spyware protection are very important to the majority of users out there.
If Intel does this right, this can raise the bar for future processing efforts. Soon there will be more to consider when buying a new system then processing speed and cache size, might have to start considering integrated software as well in the not so distant future...
Online Poker was a cool fad when it came out, but they are right, it is beginning to lost it's steam. A big factor that also comes into play is the television coverage that poker tournaments have these days. Who wants to sit on a computer and play games, when you can go and play them for real?
Here in Houston, we have so many bars and lounges that host poker tournaments and the like, some of which have some very nice prizes for the winners, almost making the online world seem nowhere near as fun or productive. I am sure that everyone can explain to you what Texas Hold'em is by this time...
Looks like they need to find another fad to promote to the online community... and pray that TV doesn't steal the show once again...
Microsoft Scared of Open Source?
on
Microsoft Sues EU
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· Score: 5, Interesting
It looks like these days, that Microsoft is getting a little scared of the Open Source movement... especially having to share how their server software's communication protocols work. Information of this nature is easily available in the Linux community, yet Microsoft seems to have a very tight leash on their communication protocols.
I wonder what the real underlying reason to all of this legal wrangling is. Is Microsoft really that concerned by Open Source Software putting them out of business, or are they more concerned about the general public seeing how flawed and inefficient their communication protocols are?
It is all good either way to me, I'll stick with my servers all running Linux, with the communication protocols of them freely able to be examined and understood. I also know that my Linux server can handle way more connections and traffic then a Windows server ever could imagine...
It is only a matter of time, before Linux totally takes over the server market, making such legal battles a thing of the past...
Microsoft, stop being a big bully, and start sharing with the little guys...
[ben@mail.nerdsystems.com]#traceroute www.salt.ac.za
traceroute to www.salt.ac.za (192.96.109.50), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) 0.698 ms 0.887 ms 0.665 ms
2 10.52.128.1 (10.52.128.1) 10.187 ms 9.563 ms 7.850 ms
3 pos5-0.hstntxgra-rtr2.houston.rr.com (24.28.97.213) 9.569 ms 9.916 ms 7.559 ms
4 srp8-0.hstntxtid-rtr2.houston.rr.com (24.28.101.241) 8.333 ms 8.994 ms 8.143 ms
5 pos0-0.hstntxtid-rtr1.texas.rr.com (24.93.34.98) 9.892 ms 8.441 ms 10.023 ms
6 son0-0-3.dllatxl3-rtr1.texas.rr.com (24.93.33.57) 21.196 ms 27.393 ms 32.544 ms
7 te-2-1.car1.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.71.12.17) 19.828 ms 20.283 ms 21.334 ms
8 ae-1-54.bbr2.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.68.122.97) 20.310 ms 20.147 ms 20.256 ms
9 as-1-0.bbr1.Washington1.Level3.net (4.68.128.201) 51.724 ms 144.726 ms 53.050 ms
10 ae-13-51.car3.Washington1.Level3.net (4.68.121.16) 52.553 ms 53.559 ms 4.68.121.144 (4.68.121.144) 53.905 ms
11 telia-level3-ge.Washington1.Level3.net (4.68.127.242) 53.208 ms 52.291 ms 53.896 ms
12 nyk-bb2-pos0-3-0.telia.net (213.248.80.137) 60.166 ms 58.524 ms 58.151 ms
13 nyk-i3-geth2-0.telia.net (213.248.82.150) 57.985 ms 57.630 ms 60.568 ms
14 telekomsa-01531-nyk-i3.c.telia.net (213.248.82.238) 57.721 ms 59.077 ms 60.514 ms
15 wblv-ip-lir-1-pos-6-3.telkom-ipnet.co.za (196.43.9.105) 282.016 ms 283.310 ms 281.114 ms
16 tenet-gen2-int-gw.telkom-ipnet.co.za (196.25.251.150) 285.889 ms 281.912 ms 284.889 ms
17 saao-ct-int-ipnet.uni.net.za (155.232.200.154) 472.798 ms * 638.632 ms
18 * unknown.uni.net.za (155.232.210.5) 682.421 ms 494.832 ms
19 saao-ct-bb-ipnet.uni.net.za (155.232.210.74) 484.095 ms 615.513 ms 698.510 ms
20 * * *
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[ben@mail.nerdsystems.com]#
Wow, pretty high latency... looks like this is going over a satellite connection...
I wonder what their pipe is... obviously nowhere near good enough... as here we are bringing them to a crawl in a hurry... I sure hope this is a Linux box running things, as a Windows box is sure to crater as a result of this...
I've had my site slashdotted before, and it never slowed down to this slow... guess that is what happens when you are going over a satellite link?
Anyone know the speed of this link? Just curious...
I read some of the details about this, and saw that this telescope can pick up light as small as a candlepower on the moon's surface. That is a pretty impressive light-gathering ability if I have ever seen one... not even the night vision goggles that the military uses has that good of light-gathering. That is a pretty impressive ability to gather light that dim, which is very valuable on a telescope, being able to pick out the faintest of galaxies very far away, as well as seeing the effects that black holes and the like, can have on galaxies in the very distant reaches of space.
It is amazing how good optics are becoming these days... which doesn't just apply to astronomy, bu can also be applied in other areas... areas that can affect all of us one day, and not just for space exploration. So many technologies that have been honed in the space program, have found their way to our use as public citizens. This is a wonderful thing for all of mankind.
Imagine the technologies that are honed with this project being released to the mainstream public down the road... such concepts as more efficient fiber-optics, with light beams being no longer needing fibers to travel across large distances, but simply having a transmitter and receiver on each end, using such optics as this telescope uses, and not being bothered by fiber cuts and the like...
Astronomy is a wonderful hobby, but at the same time, so many things can be contrived from designing technology to see the heavens... which can help out mankind in ways that we have yet to dream of...
As a sidenote, this server seems very slow, so for those trying to check things out, and not able to see anything as a result of the slashdot effect that I am sure is cripping these servers, check back at a later time to see some wonderful images that this telescope has presented to scientists. Astronomy has always been a wonderful hobby and very valuable scientific tool to the science community.
I am a little confused here... why the switch to OpenOffice on Windows first, then to Linux second? Is that not an extra step, that could be totally done away with?
Isn't OpenOffice on Windows the same as OpenOffice on Linux? I see in the story at The Register that they have various office templates and scripts that they want to port to OpenOffice, yet why waste time removing Office from each machine, then installing OpenOffice, then getting all the scripts and templates to work, then having to recreate things when done again in the Linux environment? Why not just cut out the middle steps and go directly from Office on Windows, to OpenOffice on Linux?
People, am I missing something here, or would it not just be best to just go to Linux with openOffice functionality directly, and not even bother with this middle step? If you ask me, it sounds like something else here is amiss, as their reasoning seems flawed to me...
I can understand people being concerned about switching from a Microsoft Windows environment, using Office for their word processing, spreadsheet, database, and presentation tasks... yet as far as things go, Linux can do the same things with OpenOffice just as easily...
Also, Linux has a web browser, music player, everything that a company could need to do business with, and these days, with the majority of applications that companies needing built on web-based infrastructures, there really is very little reason to run Windows these days. Of course some companies still have applications that are Windows-only, but with time I can see more applications being able to function on Linux...
Another bonus of running Linux is the amount of spyware that will be cut down drastically, as windows is well known for how easy spyware can infect it and totally ruin a system image. If they would just hurry up and switch to Linux, so many problems would be solved...
Oh well, at least they can build cars right over in Germany...
Thanks for the honesty... this site isn't giving me any business actually, I just built it to have a presence and to play around pretty much...
If your wanting to give some suggestions, feel free to comment on ways to make it better... always glad to listen to suggestions and make it a better site...
All of my work is currently from referrals, so while I may SUCK at websites, at least I do great in customer service:)
I have no problem with religious ads showing... I am a strong Christian and Jesus is in my life, so let them show all they want:)
Actually, she is my fiance... little bit higher then girlfriend...
I'm not showing off her being my fiance... I just was showing off how easy and quick you can build a decent site, from nothing, with Mambo:):)
Hey, what better way to see how much my Linux server can handle?:)
I could just post a single text message on the site... don't really care:)
I just enjoy this "Stress Test" of the server...:)
Slashdot Mirror
I've had encounters with similar systems to this E-Passport just recently on my honeymoon cruise. My wife and I were each issued a "Sea Pass" card, which didn't have our picture on it, but had our names printed on it, and a magnetic swipe. Whenever we wanted to buy anything on the ship, we would swipe our card and it would identify us and no cash was needed throughout the entire cruise. For shore excursions, we swiped our cards as we left, and it noted that we no longer were on the boat, keeping track of everyone out on shore excursions and what not. On our return, we swiped our cards, it pulled up for the security guard our information as well as a picture, which he was able to verify our identity with, and let us back on the boat. I'm glad for this, as it stops people from trying to steal those cards, as they are useless if your not the same person, and since the data is stored in a central registry, can't be easily falsified, like a current passport could be. I like the idea of an E-Passport, as it can guarantee a person's identity a lot more easily then a traditional passport, which can be forged easily enough these days with all the technology out there, as well as making travel safer in foreign countries, as well as for our own country. I can't wait though for them to implement something such as an RFID tag inside of these, so we can just walk through customs, having it tally up all our items purchased, collecting duties as we walk, and have the whole ordeal be a lot less painless, instead of having to wait in long lines while you get questioned over and over... would be nice to just have the RFID tag identify you as you go through a turnstile, and have that be the end of customs... Either way, this is going to make travel a lot easier and safer...
It looks like slowly but surely, we are getting to see the future of entertainment in this country... no more being forced to sit through annoying commercials, but just being able to watch what we really want... It would be worth it to me, to pay a small price each month, to not have to see commercials ever, and just watch the content only... Not to mention, if we could just click and choose what we wanted to watch, that would be far better, then being stuck with the static content we have now... Imagine the possibilities... I can not wait :)
I would love to see some pictures or even video of this event, to see just exactly what a super-massive gamma-ray burst looks like as well... am sure it might be spectacular...
Another question comes to mind, what if Earth and the entire Milky Way Galaxy itself, was actually trapped inside of a giant blackhole???
I know that probably because of the massive energy released by this gamma-ray burst, that it was able to escape, or was the black hole not created as of the time of explosion?
Also, if a black hole was created at explosion, was this even more massive then we can see, yet the black hole swallowed up a majority of the explosion and what we see, is just a small glimpse of it?
Questions we may never find the answer to...
There are so many elements out there on this planet... who says that other planets do not have whole sets of other elements out there, that we have yet to discover.
We have only explored a very tiny niche of our galaxy, just imagine what all lies in wait outside of the realm of discovered territory?
Attempts such as this do raise questions, that I am hoping scientists have already researched and are protecting against. We don't want any scientific research to cause issues here on Earth.
As happened in Andromeda Strain, hopefully the contents of this asteroid, that Hayabusa brings back to Earth, will not have any harmful bacteria or organisms present, that could cause great harm to life on Earth. I know this may sound like a conspiracy therory, but we have no clue what other elements exist outside of our small planet. There are so many others out there in the galaxies and universes, and we are such a miniscule part of things.
Hayabusa taking longer then expected is kind of ironic though, considering that a Hayabusa is one of the fastest production sport bikes available for sale today. I guess space travel and land travel are two different categories, but hopefully this ion drive engine will be great technology for future missions to space.
It is nice to see such engineering technologies being created for space travel, which hopefully can be applied to manned missions to other planets, as well as ways for energy efficient travel on Earth potentially being created.
It is too bad, that NASA didn't include a rover on this mission, would have been nice to explore and perform more testing on surface composition and the like... yet as always, budgets are never there for real research, but always there for wasted efforts in other areas...
Lets stand by and see some of these beautiful pictures sure to come from this probe...
If terrorists decide to take out two of our buildings, we should drop a massive bomb in the central part of their city... dealing a massive retaliatory strike on the terrorists homeland, who caused this, making them think twice about future attacks.
I know that I will probably get flamed for this, but this country needs to stop being a coward, and start taking charge of the armed forces we have, and start using them to our advantage. I am sure that we could find and attack the majority of these terrorist sects out there, if we concentrated the resources and manpower we have...
I know that with all the satellites available to us, for intelligence gathering, not to mention all of the armed forces that could be used in sniffing out these terrorists, we could get the majority of issues in this world under control.
I know that many movies have been created on this subject alone. A lot of them had similar plots, where a nuclear attack was suspected, and the president had to make up his mind if he should attack or not attack... and luckily in each movie the president didn't do a thing... but just imagine that if in real life, we had a major bomb hit, and waited too long, and as a result, this country was totally destroyed.
I know that a retaliatory strike is probably not going to be that effective, but if we at least take out others, we are on a more even footing at least, versus just having taking a major hit, having no resources left to protect the rest of our country that is still left to protect.
This country needs to stand up to the plate. Thanks Christine for bringing these points up, and letting us vote on your site. I posted my vote, as well as signed onto the site and checked out the games, nice Bush Bashing games there...
Based on the size of this warship, not to mention the slowness of it, am sure that it can't just easily outrun a fighter jet sent to destroy it, or be able to perform evasive manuevers...
I can imagine that it will be escorted by a fighter division, not to mention have some high-tech anti-missle weapons and the like, yet I can see an air to air missle easily bypassing those protections and bringing down a TON of hardware with it... major catastrophe...
Anyone have any ideas what sort of protection methods will be used to protect this massive warship, as well as if this will be used for strictly hardware transport, or troop transportation as well?
We shall find out shortly it seems...
Just look back at how much technology has changed in the past 10 years. We had 5.25" Floppy drives used back in those times, and 3.5" floppies were used as well, and CD burners were just starting to come available at the speedy rates of 1-2x, not to mention hard drives were so small compared to the 500gb drives we have today... and Windows 95 was just released, wonderful system based on FAT architecture... not NTFS like we have today...
Computer technology is increasing at such a rapid rate these days. I can only imagine how it will be in 10 years, much less 100 years from now. I am sure by then that clock speed will be in hundreds of gigahertz, memory in the terabytes, and storage in the petabyte range... if not even higher... who knows...
I also wonder, if in 2090, will their CD-ROM equivalent even exist to read this storage library? They may have long ago abandoned CD-ROMs for being too slow, and if data is stored in this format, how will it be read? Also, as hard drives get larger and larger, am sure the IDE, SCSI, and SATA drives of today will not be readable by the BIOS of tomorrow... much less have connectors to fit...
This is a huge undertaking... good luck Lockheed Martin...
I mean, at least my website, http://www.nerdsystems.com/ has to do with computers, which is semi-related to this matter... and if I have people clicking on my Google Ads, at least I can make a little money off things, VERY LITTLE of course, but hey, if enough people click on things, those pennies add up greatly over time... so go ahead and click on my ads people all you want, lol
That adult website doesn't even have advertising, nor do they charge for anything... kind of funny if you ask me, why even BOTHER posting that link, if you are not going to make money off it or anything...
Oh well, guess some people just have too much time on their hands, and want to watch all us fellow nerds on here going "OH WOW, FREE PORN!!!"....
Oh well, at least my original posting gets read, thanks to the free porn offer... lol
http://www.nerdsystems.com/
Gotta be a tool as well, lol :)
It is nice that these skin cells can detect that they have been damaged, yet I read nothing about if they have been damaged, how they plan to repair the damages caused?
I guess this is just a way for processing of a system to continue, even if a certain chunk of the spacecraft is destroyed, that it can still function seperate from the rest...
Few Question though about this layout:
1. How is the power system? Is this a central powered source, such as from a battery pack with a solar panel to recharge it, or is each cell having it's own power cell and solar panel to recharge things?
2. What is going to be implemented, as far as damage recovery systems? Is there going to be another group of devices onboard, that can be dispatched to repair cells? Is there going to be a collection of extra cells waiting, so that the damaged cells can be discarded, and the new cells brought into place?
3. Communications among cells are discussed, yet what about relaying this information back to NASA? Also, what happens if the primary communications antenna is destroyed... is there provisions to replace this as well, using this technology?
It looks like this is a start to promising self-healing taking place in satellites and other devices, not to mention the implementations of it being used on Earth...
Here in America, at least we have the FCC and other governing bodies telling big business what they are allowed to do and what they are forbidden to do, and the majority of time the rules are followed at least. I know a while back that some major ISPs tried to block Vonage on their systems but after a major outcry from their subscribers this was changed quickly.
China has always been known to be a government that censor's free speech and tries to limit what it's citizens have access to. I am sure that their email systems are all monitored with anti-government emails being filtered out or those sending/receiving these emails being placed on watch lists, and am sure that each citizen's web surfing habits are monitored as well.
This is just another example of why I am glad to live here in the United States of America. We may complain about things from time to time, but at least we do have more freedom of information and able to know more, then most other countries out there. If my Vonage was blocked by my ISP, I would be contacting Road Runner in a hurry, and getting things straight, something that as an American we can take care of. I'm glad to not be helpless like the majority of private citizens in China are.
I wonder if this is proven to be a successful triumph on China Telecom's part, if it will help spur other ISP's in various countries around the globe to take a part in this as well. Voice over IP has been a wonderful blessing to many around the world, being used by many to reach other's in distant countries, at a far cheaper cost then a normal voice call would cost... hope this doesn't catch on and cause VOIP as a whole to start being shut down outside of America.
Hopefully, Skype can just one-up the Chinese, and change the way their system works, to more easily get around the blockage, as well as having the system be more intelligent in finding connections, bypassing any blocking measures that China Telecom might try to implement.
I'm not a lawyer, and curious about the legal implications of this. I know that with China being a communist nation, that the people probably have no rights, but could Skype turn around and have a lawsuit against China Telecom, for "obstruction of service" or "tampering with service" which is essentially what they are doing?
I'm currently running Bart PE off a CD, where I just pop the CD in, boot off it, and a few minutes later I have full access to the machine, and can repair anything that I need to get done...
This USB method will work even better, can just load Bart PE onto my USB drive, load all the applications that I use often, such as Anti-Spyware and more, and go from there....
I wonder if USB drives being so fast, and being read/write, if one day I could just run the entire OS off this USB drive, and pretty much have my complete system working wherever I go....
Bart PE is great... going to try out the USB method right now as we speak...
I wonder how well someone could type with this hand though, am sure that hunting and pecking would work fine, but since this is controlled by the muscles in the arm, not so sure how efficient typing might be with this hand...
One way to accessorize this hand might be to encase it in a skin toned covering, to more realistically mimic a human hand, and at least to not be so ovbious as this hand is...
Overall this looks like a good step forward in prosthetics... soon people who are unfortunate enough to lose a limb, will be able to lead more normal lives... this is wonderful.
NASA has done a great job over the many years of it's existence, from the moon missions to designing the shuttle fleets, and various exploratory missions such as the Mars Rovers and the Hubble Telescope. NASA is starting to show it's age though, as lately, private sector seems to be catching up fast... and the question we all want to know, is can NASA keep up with the many contenders currently active out in the private sector, some of which have massive bankrolls available to them, and investors with very deep pockets backing the projects up...
Private Sector has entered the space age, with recent contests, most notable the Ansari X Prize, giving $10 million dollars to the first private space flight to reach into orbit. This prize was won of course by the SpaceShipOne sponsored by Scaled Composites, and has started them on the way to forming "The Spaceship Company"... one of many private sector industries that are sure to bring us some major developments over the next few years, and could very likely take a huge role in future manned space exploration, not just into orbit, but onto surrounding planets as well. The US government may very well be contacting these groups for assistance in the Mar's mission, instead of relying solely on NASA.
It is too early to tell if the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina will place the final nail in the coffin of the government being a contender in the space program, but we know this will help spur private industry even more, to reach into space and take this role into the hands of our citizens, instead of the government. As time goes on, congress may decide that the costs of the space program are too great, having to spend all this money in research and development, especially throwing countless money into finding the source of the foam problems on the external fuel tank for one, as well as many other issues that will need to be resolved if the shuttles continue to fly. Issues that must be resolved, and if not taken care of, could force the shuttle as we know it into an early demise...
Hurricane Katrina may be a blessing in disguise, taking NASA off it's throne, and placing private sector industries in it's place... let's see how everyone as a whole takes charge, and we can all be excited about all the new developments sure to come in the very near future... the space program has always brought new ideas to use by everyone, and this modern "space race" can only bring more and more to the plate...
Only time shall tell...
If an Intel processor could be made to have hardware-based virus detection, integrating with this software-based virus detection, the team could be a very powerful deterrant to any future virus outbreaks. Imagine the hardware and software components working side by side to protect systems, giving future virus writers another hurdle to be cleared, when developing new virus infestations.
Hopefully the virus software can be made more efficient as well, so that running virus software on a system won't bog it down, hogging system resources like crazy, making people want to not run virus software in the first place. This has long been the bane of the majority of software packages, as the slowdown they cause for certain users, especially gamers, has made them desire to not run the software packages on their systems, resulting in these systems being more vulnerable to a virus outbreak.
Another added benefit that I can see from Intel buying this software, is that eventually if they integrate software and hardware aspects into a cohesive package that is well-implemented and able to fight viruses at a better efficiency then other programs, this will cause Intel based processors to stand out as well, as these days, virus protection and spyware protection are very important to the majority of users out there.
If Intel does this right, this can raise the bar for future processing efforts. Soon there will be more to consider when buying a new system then processing speed and cache size, might have to start considering integrated software as well in the not so distant future...
Good luck on this one Intel...
Here in Houston, we have so many bars and lounges that host poker tournaments and the like, some of which have some very nice prizes for the winners, almost making the online world seem nowhere near as fun or productive. I am sure that everyone can explain to you what Texas Hold'em is by this time...
Looks like they need to find another fad to promote to the online community... and pray that TV doesn't steal the show once again...
I wonder what the real underlying reason to all of this legal wrangling is. Is Microsoft really that concerned by Open Source Software putting them out of business, or are they more concerned about the general public seeing how flawed and inefficient their communication protocols are?
It is all good either way to me, I'll stick with my servers all running Linux, with the communication protocols of them freely able to be examined and understood. I also know that my Linux server can handle way more connections and traffic then a Windows server ever could imagine...
It is only a matter of time, before Linux totally takes over the server market, making such legal battles a thing of the past...
Microsoft, stop being a big bully, and start sharing with the little guys...
[ben@mail.nerdsystems.com]#traceroute www.salt.ac.za
traceroute to www.salt.ac.za (192.96.109.50), 30 hops max, 38 byte packets
1 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) 0.698 ms 0.887 ms 0.665 ms
2 10.52.128.1 (10.52.128.1) 10.187 ms 9.563 ms 7.850 ms
3 pos5-0.hstntxgra-rtr2.houston.rr.com (24.28.97.213) 9.569 ms 9.916 ms 7.559 ms
4 srp8-0.hstntxtid-rtr2.houston.rr.com (24.28.101.241) 8.333 ms 8.994 ms 8.143 ms
5 pos0-0.hstntxtid-rtr1.texas.rr.com (24.93.34.98) 9.892 ms 8.441 ms 10.023 ms
6 son0-0-3.dllatxl3-rtr1.texas.rr.com (24.93.33.57) 21.196 ms 27.393 ms 32.544 ms
7 te-2-1.car1.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.71.12.17) 19.828 ms 20.283 ms 21.334 ms
8 ae-1-54.bbr2.Dallas1.Level3.net (4.68.122.97) 20.310 ms 20.147 ms 20.256 ms
9 as-1-0.bbr1.Washington1.Level3.net (4.68.128.201) 51.724 ms 144.726 ms 53.050 ms
10 ae-13-51.car3.Washington1.Level3.net (4.68.121.16) 52.553 ms 53.559 ms 4.68.121.144 (4.68.121.144) 53.905 ms
11 telia-level3-ge.Washington1.Level3.net (4.68.127.242) 53.208 ms 52.291 ms 53.896 ms
12 nyk-bb2-pos0-3-0.telia.net (213.248.80.137) 60.166 ms 58.524 ms 58.151 ms
13 nyk-i3-geth2-0.telia.net (213.248.82.150) 57.985 ms 57.630 ms 60.568 ms
14 telekomsa-01531-nyk-i3.c.telia.net (213.248.82.238) 57.721 ms 59.077 ms 60.514 ms
15 wblv-ip-lir-1-pos-6-3.telkom-ipnet.co.za (196.43.9.105) 282.016 ms 283.310 ms 281.114 ms
16 tenet-gen2-int-gw.telkom-ipnet.co.za (196.25.251.150) 285.889 ms 281.912 ms 284.889 ms
17 saao-ct-int-ipnet.uni.net.za (155.232.200.154) 472.798 ms * 638.632 ms
18 * unknown.uni.net.za (155.232.210.5) 682.421 ms 494.832 ms
19 saao-ct-bb-ipnet.uni.net.za (155.232.210.74) 484.095 ms 615.513 ms 698.510 ms
20 * * *
21 * * *
22 * * *
23 * * *
24 * * *
25 * * *
26 * * *
27 * * *
28 * * *
29 * * *
30 * * *
[ben@mail.nerdsystems.com]#
Wow, pretty high latency... looks like this is going over a satellite connection...
I wonder what their pipe is... obviously nowhere near good enough... as here we are bringing them to a crawl in a hurry... I sure hope this is a Linux box running things, as a Windows box is sure to crater as a result of this...
I've had my site slashdotted before, and it never slowed down to this slow... guess that is what happens when you are going over a satellite link?
Anyone know the speed of this link? Just curious...
It is amazing how good optics are becoming these days... which doesn't just apply to astronomy, bu can also be applied in other areas... areas that can affect all of us one day, and not just for space exploration. So many technologies that have been honed in the space program, have found their way to our use as public citizens. This is a wonderful thing for all of mankind.
Imagine the technologies that are honed with this project being released to the mainstream public down the road... such concepts as more efficient fiber-optics, with light beams being no longer needing fibers to travel across large distances, but simply having a transmitter and receiver on each end, using such optics as this telescope uses, and not being bothered by fiber cuts and the like...
Astronomy is a wonderful hobby, but at the same time, so many things can be contrived from designing technology to see the heavens... which can help out mankind in ways that we have yet to dream of...
As a sidenote, this server seems very slow, so for those trying to check things out, and not able to see anything as a result of the slashdot effect that I am sure is cripping these servers, check back at a later time to see some wonderful images that this telescope has presented to scientists. Astronomy has always been a wonderful hobby and very valuable scientific tool to the science community.
Isn't OpenOffice on Windows the same as OpenOffice on Linux? I see in the story at The Register that they have various office templates and scripts that they want to port to OpenOffice, yet why waste time removing Office from each machine, then installing OpenOffice, then getting all the scripts and templates to work, then having to recreate things when done again in the Linux environment? Why not just cut out the middle steps and go directly from Office on Windows, to OpenOffice on Linux?
People, am I missing something here, or would it not just be best to just go to Linux with openOffice functionality directly, and not even bother with this middle step? If you ask me, it sounds like something else here is amiss, as their reasoning seems flawed to me...
I can understand people being concerned about switching from a Microsoft Windows environment, using Office for their word processing, spreadsheet, database, and presentation tasks... yet as far as things go, Linux can do the same things with OpenOffice just as easily...
Also, Linux has a web browser, music player, everything that a company could need to do business with, and these days, with the majority of applications that companies needing built on web-based infrastructures, there really is very little reason to run Windows these days. Of course some companies still have applications that are Windows-only, but with time I can see more applications being able to function on Linux...
Another bonus of running Linux is the amount of spyware that will be cut down drastically, as windows is well known for how easy spyware can infect it and totally ruin a system image. If they would just hurry up and switch to Linux, so many problems would be solved...
Oh well, at least they can build cars right over in Germany...
I wonder what a comparable salary in say India would be, compared to the same job in America?
Just curious...
Server is ticking away... taking the brunt of this attack... I love it :)
I'm bored, about to go to a birthday party, so figured I would play for a bit before we head out...
Bored Nerds are dangerous, lol
Thanks for the honesty... this site isn't giving me any business actually, I just built it to have a presence and to play around pretty much... :)
:)
If your wanting to give some suggestions, feel free to comment on ways to make it better... always glad to listen to suggestions and make it a better site...
All of my work is currently from referrals, so while I may SUCK at websites, at least I do great in customer service
I have no problem with religious ads showing... I am a strong Christian and Jesus is in my life, so let them show all they want
Actually, she is my fiance... little bit higher then girlfriend... I'm not showing off her being my fiance... I just was showing off how easy and quick you can build a decent site, from nothing, with Mambo :) :)
Hey, what better way to see how much my Linux server can handle? :)
I could just post a single text message on the site... don't really care :)
I just enjoy this "Stress Test" of the server... :)