I must say, good job to whoever made this decision. I love the show, and the last half season definitely helped make up for the Baltar vacationing with the Cylons crap. But.. shows have to end, and its much better to end it on the writers terms than having to quickly wrap it up when the show gets canned.
Take ST:TNG as an example, it ended at the height of its popularity, and the last season is the most amazing one in my opinion. So rather beat it into the ground (which they did with new series instead) they took it out in grand fashion, with the crazy two-parter with Q and a possible future, and bringing back Yar and all that.
So heres hoping they do it right and its not a show where you can't help but think 'What the hell happened?' years later.
Sounds kind of like a classified job. As far as I know those aren't considered career killers... although you usually are in the classified world after that too.
I'm an engineering student, and have always kind of thought that, and of course made fun of business math with all the others. But, I've been doing a help session for business math for a couple of years now, and let me tell you, some of that stuff is important and fairly difficult beyond your basic four functions.
For instance, lately most of the questions have been over car and house payments, interest, and trying to basically handle finances. This is not simple four function math, and it's very relavant for what normal people need to know. Another topic that is covered heavily is probability. While the average person may not need to make statistical studies on a regular basis, they do need to know what a bell curve is, how standard deviations work, and have a basic understanding of risk management based on probabilities of risk.
Sure, most people don't need calculus, differential equations, or even trig. Hell, most of the time engineers aren't going to be using calculus all the time (but of course we need to have it as background.) However, there is some complex and difficult math that is important for succeeding in business and keeping personal affairs in order.
Actually the Italians have what seems to be a productive (if low budget) space agency. While they don't run many of their own high profile missions, they have payloads attached to both the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Casini-Huygens mission.
Not to mention that the top orbital mechanics professor in my department is an Italian, and the Italian grad students I've gotten to work with have been wonderful. Plus of course Galileo himself was Italian as well, even if his government and church weren't the most supportive.
Reminds me of my freshman year in the dorms. We never did anything this impressive or visible, but we did spend most of one weekend making a movie, and designed a 'shack' for a Habitat for Humanity fundraiser that was two stories with running water (kind of). Now I'm a senior with more practical projects, drinking, and living in an apartment getting in the way... I suppose I did learn video editing along the way though.
Is it bad that I'm not even graduated and already reminiscing?
I'd point out that this is the science side of NASA (Jet Propulsion Labs [JPL] in particular.) Working with both JPL and JSC (more involved in the high budget manned missions) for space mission design classes, JPL has always been much better about staying on budget, and doing more with less. Also they're less egotistical and seem to actually enjoy and appreciate working with students.
Obviously some of that is that manned missions are by necessity much more expensive, however, it's been my experience that there are also cultural issues. JSC sees itself as the crown jewels of NASA and behaves as such, spending more than necessary and generally looking down their noses at other facilities (I've heard stories of middle managers at JSC telling administrators of other facilities, who are brilliant PhDs that it might be too complicated for someone not at JSC.)
That said I do applaud the guys at JPL for this wonderful use, and do hope they get some of their money back after they got robbed to pay for Return to Flight and Constellation.
Exactly right. There are very few laws in Oklahoma (my home state) that I'm particularly proud of (e.g. arcane liquor laws and a 75% vote to ban gay marriage,) but I learned this weekend that in Oklahoma you cannot be given a traffic citation except by the police officer at the scene who witnessed the infraction. This even blocks those nasty two-cop speed traps.
I understand the desire to enforce traffic laws better, because many people are really just bad drivers, and its not that traffic laws are too draconian (most of the time.) However, the idea that I could get a ticket from a camera because, say it went off too early at a red light, or my PikePass didn't scan properly is absurd, and I'm not a huge fan of big-brother-ish cameras either.
(Sorry I can't find a source for the Oklahoma law, and I'm not feeling like looking, but I have no reason to doubt it.)
I'm sorry, I wasn't intending to sound like I was bragging, that was just the most succinct way I could think of to describe what I was doing (and thus give context to my comment.) Hell, I only learned what PSO was last week and have been relying heavily on luck and a grad student who is doing her thesis on the topic (optimization of satellite constellations) to get any results at all.
As another example I've just recently been learning about optimization algorithms (I'm using a Particle Swarm Optimization routine to determine a randomly optimized satellite constellation for imaging,) and even though I wrote the code myself and know exactly what it's doing, I still want to anthropomorphize it and believe its doing it intelligently instead of just randomly selecting points and discarding those that don't give good results.
Basically, it's very easy to attribute intelligence to a natural process, simple algorithm, etc., even if you know exactly what's going on.
The only public launch vehicle in the US is the Shuttle at this point. The difference here is whether its a traditional big-aerospace company or a small startup that hasn't become dependent on government contracts (i.e. they get paid for results, not attempts.)
However, even there, Griffin's managed to push some stuff through. Commercial Obrital Transport System (COTS) is a program to supply the ISS cheaply, and currently SpaceX (with the larger Falcon 9) is one of the two finalists, along with Rocketplane-Kistler. We should see some results before 2010, and if the launch today is successful that should go a long way to getting it there.
(BTW, if it does blow up again, all major rockets have had about half of the first few launches blow up.)
That's absurd, I'm a staunch Christian and look forward to the discovery of extra-terrestrial life. If they have a religous background that's incompatible with my religion, we'll see how it works out. However, with my current lack of evidence, I tend to believe that the ideas of Clarke's Rama series (that God exists and that is constantly trying to create a universe that is devoted to Him and somehow compatible with my beliefs) is true.
Whether the Pat Robertson's of the world agree with it's compatibility, it doesn't matter. The religous conservatives dont define the world. It's the crazy religious liberals that do including Jesus himself, Peter, Paul, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Wesley (my background is most influenced by the Methodists), and, in my opinion, John Paul II. I've learned over my religious experience (which is acknowledgedly limited doing to my age (only 21) and devotion to more concrete science and engineering) that it's ridiculous to listen to any supposed authority without judging it for yourself, including even a literal interpretation of the Bible (I had a girlfriend once who claimed that Revelations was likely largely figurative, but somehow didn't stretch that out to make Genesis the same.)
By the way, I don't feel thats hypocritical because I still believe in the Bible, and the idea that the new law of the New Testament is absolute (love your neighbor, etc.) I just don't follow the idea that everything in the translations should be taken literally (e.g. 'Witches' is best interpreted as potion-makers in the Old Testament, homosexuality is usually referred to in regard to rampant sex without regard, which was particularly dangerous in the age before real medicine, trying to implement Democracy in Iraq isn't mentioned at all, and I don't see a damn thing about using the word fuck, shit, or ass in anything that I've read.) The only thing that I see as applicable is to not to shake someone else's faith by doing particular things, and I like to think I do my best to not do that, while influencing people such as my younger brother and friends to not be taken in by the most ridiculous parts of our religion.
I can't think of what any of the non-civivilians did off the top of my head, though I recognize Shannon Lucid's name. And I am also a card-carrying space enthusiast. I'm on the national board of SEDS (Students for the Exploration and Development of Space) and am a senior in Aerospace Engineering and will be doing grad work in the area eventually going into space systems development.
And Anousheh only stands out because I worked in a booth with her at the X-Prize Cup last year, and Shuttleworth mostly because I'm an Ubuntu user. I also know of Mike Folsum because he's from Texas A&M and he's been flaunted this year pretty well, Mike Melville (pilot for spaceshipone) because I met him when they were flying to Osh Kosh and the Smithsonian through my hometown (Tulsa, OK) by befriending the air-boss at the facility they were using, and a few others that I've met but don't remember their name. Obviously this doesnt include the pioneers.
Very few astronauts/cosmonauts stand out as being memorable, which is part of the problem. I'm not sure if I'm arguing with you or agreeing with you. I think we're on the same side so I'll go with I'm agreeing with you.
As a disclaimer I'm not prone to hero-worship and don't think of myself as having any role models, and never really have, so maybe I'm not the best example. But just my experience.
To be fair, I do some work with kids for educational outreach for space exploration, and one thing that I've always find amazing is that whenever I get in to the question and answer part (usually preparing for something else fun) there's always a couple of kids who have some amazingly fun and insightful questions like 'What planet would you visit if you could?' or 'When do you think we'll have a Mars base?' To be fair, it's a minority of the kids who seem really interested in space exploration or anything beyond a 'whoa, that was really cool!' type of thing (I do mostly rocketry stuff for that reason,) but I feel that a minority are all you need.
I had a discussion with another student a week or so ago about the politics of space exploration, and who of the upcoming nominees would be the best choice with regards to NASA funding and private exploration legislation (I currently think its Bill Richardson, despite my partisanship,) and one of the main things that stuck out at me in our discussion was that it doesn't matter if the public is really excited about it, it just matters that a small minority are willing to put their effort into it, and the majority are willing to tolerate a very minor part of the budget on it ($15 billion is not that much as far as the national budget is concerned.) Not that I wouldn't be ecstatic if everyone started cheering as loudly for a discovery of a life-developing extra-solar planet, or even the discovery of vast liquid seas on Titan, but what we currently have is better than nothing. A couple more billion to allow for more robots along with 'Moon, Mars and Beyond' would be amazing though.
Anyway, I don't have a problem with the Europeans making this discovery, and I'm as patriotic as anyone, because this kind of thing is a human endeavor, and I'm just happy that my country can make a significant impact.
To sum this little rant up, I'd be very happy if our celebrity obsessed culture got over the obsession, but it really doesn't worry me much. My one real concern for the long term future of the US (long-term meaning hopefully not Iraq, Afghanistan, or even immigration) is our educational system so we can remain competitive (but not necessarily dominant) in the technology and discoveries of the future.
It's still a spacecraft, just not a manned spacecraft. And I don't know much about the technology, but if its anything like acceleration from ion drives, it may take a while to get going but it could still be fastest method in the long term for a long trip (longer than one to Mars I would guess.)
The idea of using interferometry is really interesting. The idea of an earth sized telescope is great. In fact, in Texas there is an attempt to build a Texas-sized interferometer with amplitude interferometer based on the Hanbury-Brown-Twiss effect. Basically the goal is to have universities or other entities across the state erect their own telescopes (we're using 16-inchers) which they will own and operate on their own, and then have a network set up where anyone can take over and run them. Hopefully we'll get the first two up soon.
For those that don't know, the method we're using, amplitude interferometry has a number of advantages. Compared to amplitude interferometer, it is easy to set up on long distances, since it doesn't require micrometer precise spacing and direct optical links. It also has better signal-to-noise qualities than a heterodyne interferometer, because those are dominated by Heisenburg effects. Finally, one of the really nice things (although we're not taking advantage of it) is that it doesn't require optical quality telescopes and good CCDs, all it requires is light collectors and good quality photodetectors., a data connection, and some voodoo math. This makes it relatively cheap, even if you have to go into space to do the observing. A 15-meter telescope in orbit is an impossibility right now, but a 15-m light collector, deployed as an inflatable foil structure has a lot of promise.
It's not a matter of being correct or incorrect, it's a matter of tolerances, precision, and risk management.
Any time you build a satellite, you're just hedging your bets. It could get blown up on launch (there's a finite chance of that, say ~5%, but thats just a guess, but i know its somewhere in that order of magnitude,) it could get hit by micrometeors, something could have gone wrong in manufacturing that got missed in inspection. Hell, if everything goes great then you have to shut it down arbitrarily at its predefined end of life, because you cant keep it on station.
Basically, what it comes down to is that any engineering requires assumptions and taking some risks. Most of the time you can assume that you'll have a chance to correct things, except of course in space-borne applications. But really my main point is that there is no perfectly engineered solution, but by requirement satellites are as close as you can get within budget. This technology simply allows you to do it for cheaper, because it means that failures can be more common because you have an option to fix it.
I'm also a student at a large state university, and they actually advertised the program to us as freshman, and I got my $5 windows, $15 office, and $25 visual studio over the summer before I even started school here. I think another response said that you had to delete it when you stopped being a student, but I think that the deal is you can keep it as long as you graduate.
Anyway, right now we can't actually get Vista or office 2007 from the school at discounted rates, or even know what version we'd get. They say the earliest it will happen is April. I mostly stick with linux and OOo/LaTeX, but it would be nice to be able to pick those up for cheap before I graduate.
As a linux user that sounds fine to me. I actually think MSOffice is a well-made suite, for what it is (I'm also a LaTeX person,) but if my professors and peers send me a.odp instead of a.ppt to work on, it makes my life that much easier. Preparing final presentations for classes, I've had to spend a lot of time on Windows so that I'd be able to collaborate on Powerpoint Presentations. The import features on OO.o work fine for a final product (except some minor things with equations and font sizes being off), but are unusable for trading documents back and forth modifying them each time.
The idea of open standards is compatibility and being able to make choices, not market-share and trying to force your software ideology on someone else, unless of course you're trying to hold on to a monopoly sustained by a closed standard.
There are some small variations, correct, but they're on the order of 10^-6 g, thus the preferred technical term for free-fall/orbit of 'microgravity.'
The US government was able to pull off Apollo in 8 years, and that was having to develop a lot of new technology instead of simply reimplementing them. I think that serious of a threat would allow even a single government to be able to devote the funds to be able to complete such a project in time.
Maybe the grandparent can afford a home computer, but that doesn't necessarily mean everyone can. The point of a library is to educate and assist the public, even/especially those who wouldn't be able to afford similar services. Internet access is not a luxury anymore, and even those who can't afford it may need it to search/apply for a job, get information, or send that quick message to their brother across the country.
Given that I'd still say this bill is absolutely ridiculous. A better solution would be implementing blocks on a few clearly labeled computers, or allow librarians to use their judgment to give serious users preference over frivolous users if necessary. For some reason I doubt it will pass anyway.
You know what I hate most about these articles? My own bias is plainly obvious to me.
When I read something that says global warming is wrong, I want to say yes! Brilliant! When something confirms it, I can't help but think 'alarmist fear-mongering can't-think-for-themeselves idiots.' But at the same time I know those thoughts are ridiculous, and that I don't really have the understanding of all the parameters to make an intelligent decision.
I guess that's what happens when you politicize a scientific topic. Or maybe I'm just an optimist.
They're less likely to send a second mission to Hubble because of safety. From whats publicly available, it was hard to convince the safety guys to agree to one mission without the possibility of the ISS as a lifeboat. Also I think all planned launches except the Hubble repair are ISS construction launches.
I do wonder about that Hubble repair launch. Their not big on changing mission profiles significantly, and I'm certainly no expert on what they're doing to it, but it seems that some of the repairs may not be worthwhile if that camera is down, or if they might decided that not doing as much (i.e. letting it die sooner) but replacing the camera might be worth it. But like I said, I don't know much about how the Hubble works and what the current repair plans are.
I'd argue that in the long run it would lead to a longer term unity, though certainly not an immediate utopia. The reason is that we are very territorial, but if we have aliens to worry about, we can 'forget our differences' and focus all our territorial energies on other species instead of other nationalities. As long as we have someone to posture against.
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I must say, good job to whoever made this decision. I love the show, and the last half season definitely helped make up for the Baltar vacationing with the Cylons crap. But.. shows have to end, and its much better to end it on the writers terms than having to quickly wrap it up when the show gets canned.
Take ST:TNG as an example, it ended at the height of its popularity, and the last season is the most amazing one in my opinion. So rather beat it into the ground (which they did with new series instead) they took it out in grand fashion, with the crazy two-parter with Q and a possible future, and bringing back Yar and all that.
So heres hoping they do it right and its not a show where you can't help but think 'What the hell happened?' years later.
Sounds kind of like a classified job. As far as I know those aren't considered career killers... although you usually are in the classified world after that too.
I'm an engineering student, and have always kind of thought that, and of course made fun of business math with all the others. But, I've been doing a help session for business math for a couple of years now, and let me tell you, some of that stuff is important and fairly difficult beyond your basic four functions.
For instance, lately most of the questions have been over car and house payments, interest, and trying to basically handle finances. This is not simple four function math, and it's very relavant for what normal people need to know. Another topic that is covered heavily is probability. While the average person may not need to make statistical studies on a regular basis, they do need to know what a bell curve is, how standard deviations work, and have a basic understanding of risk management based on probabilities of risk.
Sure, most people don't need calculus, differential equations, or even trig. Hell, most of the time engineers aren't going to be using calculus all the time (but of course we need to have it as background.) However, there is some complex and difficult math that is important for succeeding in business and keeping personal affairs in order.
Actually the Italians have what seems to be a productive (if low budget) space agency. While they don't run many of their own high profile missions, they have payloads attached to both the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Casini-Huygens mission.
Not to mention that the top orbital mechanics professor in my department is an Italian, and the Italian grad students I've gotten to work with have been wonderful. Plus of course Galileo himself was Italian as well, even if his government and church weren't the most supportive.
Reminds me of my freshman year in the dorms. We never did anything this impressive or visible, but we did spend most of one weekend making a movie, and designed a 'shack' for a Habitat for Humanity fundraiser that was two stories with running water (kind of). Now I'm a senior with more practical projects, drinking, and living in an apartment getting in the way... I suppose I did learn video editing along the way though.
Is it bad that I'm not even graduated and already reminiscing?
I'd point out that this is the science side of NASA (Jet Propulsion Labs [JPL] in particular.) Working with both JPL and JSC (more involved in the high budget manned missions) for space mission design classes, JPL has always been much better about staying on budget, and doing more with less. Also they're less egotistical and seem to actually enjoy and appreciate working with students.
Obviously some of that is that manned missions are by necessity much more expensive, however, it's been my experience that there are also cultural issues. JSC sees itself as the crown jewels of NASA and behaves as such, spending more than necessary and generally looking down their noses at other facilities (I've heard stories of middle managers at JSC telling administrators of other facilities, who are brilliant PhDs that it might be too complicated for someone not at JSC.)
That said I do applaud the guys at JPL for this wonderful use, and do hope they get some of their money back after they got robbed to pay for Return to Flight and Constellation.
Exactly right. There are very few laws in Oklahoma (my home state) that I'm particularly proud of (e.g. arcane liquor laws and a 75% vote to ban gay marriage,) but I learned this weekend that in Oklahoma you cannot be given a traffic citation except by the police officer at the scene who witnessed the infraction. This even blocks those nasty two-cop speed traps.
I understand the desire to enforce traffic laws better, because many people are really just bad drivers, and its not that traffic laws are too draconian (most of the time.) However, the idea that I could get a ticket from a camera because, say it went off too early at a red light, or my PikePass didn't scan properly is absurd, and I'm not a huge fan of big-brother-ish cameras either.
(Sorry I can't find a source for the Oklahoma law, and I'm not feeling like looking, but I have no reason to doubt it.)
I'm sorry, I wasn't intending to sound like I was bragging, that was just the most succinct way I could think of to describe what I was doing (and thus give context to my comment.) Hell, I only learned what PSO was last week and have been relying heavily on luck and a grad student who is doing her thesis on the topic (optimization of satellite constellations) to get any results at all.
Again, sorry if I sounded like I was bragging.
As another example I've just recently been learning about optimization algorithms (I'm using a Particle Swarm Optimization routine to determine a randomly optimized satellite constellation for imaging,) and even though I wrote the code myself and know exactly what it's doing, I still want to anthropomorphize it and believe its doing it intelligently instead of just randomly selecting points and discarding those that don't give good results.
Basically, it's very easy to attribute intelligence to a natural process, simple algorithm, etc., even if you know exactly what's going on.
The only public launch vehicle in the US is the Shuttle at this point. The difference here is whether its a traditional big-aerospace company or a small startup that hasn't become dependent on government contracts (i.e. they get paid for results, not attempts.)
However, even there, Griffin's managed to push some stuff through. Commercial Obrital Transport System (COTS) is a program to supply the ISS cheaply, and currently SpaceX (with the larger Falcon 9) is one of the two finalists, along with Rocketplane-Kistler. We should see some results before 2010, and if the launch today is successful that should go a long way to getting it there.
(BTW, if it does blow up again, all major rockets have had about half of the first few launches blow up.)
That's absurd, I'm a staunch Christian and look forward to the discovery of extra-terrestrial life. If they have a religous background that's incompatible with my religion, we'll see how it works out. However, with my current lack of evidence, I tend to believe that the ideas of Clarke's Rama series (that God exists and that is constantly trying to create a universe that is devoted to Him and somehow compatible with my beliefs) is true.
Whether the Pat Robertson's of the world agree with it's compatibility, it doesn't matter. The religous conservatives dont define the world. It's the crazy religious liberals that do including Jesus himself, Peter, Paul, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Wesley (my background is most influenced by the Methodists), and, in my opinion, John Paul II. I've learned over my religious experience (which is acknowledgedly limited doing to my age (only 21) and devotion to more concrete science and engineering) that it's ridiculous to listen to any supposed authority without judging it for yourself, including even a literal interpretation of the Bible (I had a girlfriend once who claimed that Revelations was likely largely figurative, but somehow didn't stretch that out to make Genesis the same.)
By the way, I don't feel thats hypocritical because I still believe in the Bible, and the idea that the new law of the New Testament is absolute (love your neighbor, etc.) I just don't follow the idea that everything in the translations should be taken literally (e.g. 'Witches' is best interpreted as potion-makers in the Old Testament, homosexuality is usually referred to in regard to rampant sex without regard, which was particularly dangerous in the age before real medicine, trying to implement Democracy in Iraq isn't mentioned at all, and I don't see a damn thing about using the word fuck, shit, or ass in anything that I've read.) The only thing that I see as applicable is to not to shake someone else's faith by doing particular things, and I like to think I do my best to not do that, while influencing people such as my younger brother and friends to not be taken in by the most ridiculous parts of our religion.
I can't think of what any of the non-civivilians did off the top of my head, though I recognize Shannon Lucid's name. And I am also a card-carrying space enthusiast. I'm on the national board of SEDS (Students for the Exploration and Development of Space) and am a senior in Aerospace Engineering and will be doing grad work in the area eventually going into space systems development.
And Anousheh only stands out because I worked in a booth with her at the X-Prize Cup last year, and Shuttleworth mostly because I'm an Ubuntu user. I also know of Mike Folsum because he's from Texas A&M and he's been flaunted this year pretty well, Mike Melville (pilot for spaceshipone) because I met him when they were flying to Osh Kosh and the Smithsonian through my hometown (Tulsa, OK) by befriending the air-boss at the facility they were using, and a few others that I've met but don't remember their name. Obviously this doesnt include the pioneers.
Very few astronauts/cosmonauts stand out as being memorable, which is part of the problem. I'm not sure if I'm arguing with you or agreeing with you. I think we're on the same side so I'll go with I'm agreeing with you.
As a disclaimer I'm not prone to hero-worship and don't think of myself as having any role models, and never really have, so maybe I'm not the best example. But just my experience.
To be fair, I do some work with kids for educational outreach for space exploration, and one thing that I've always find amazing is that whenever I get in to the question and answer part (usually preparing for something else fun) there's always a couple of kids who have some amazingly fun and insightful questions like 'What planet would you visit if you could?' or 'When do you think we'll have a Mars base?' To be fair, it's a minority of the kids who seem really interested in space exploration or anything beyond a 'whoa, that was really cool!' type of thing (I do mostly rocketry stuff for that reason,) but I feel that a minority are all you need.
I had a discussion with another student a week or so ago about the politics of space exploration, and who of the upcoming nominees would be the best choice with regards to NASA funding and private exploration legislation (I currently think its Bill Richardson, despite my partisanship,) and one of the main things that stuck out at me in our discussion was that it doesn't matter if the public is really excited about it, it just matters that a small minority are willing to put their effort into it, and the majority are willing to tolerate a very minor part of the budget on it ($15 billion is not that much as far as the national budget is concerned.) Not that I wouldn't be ecstatic if everyone started cheering as loudly for a discovery of a life-developing extra-solar planet, or even the discovery of vast liquid seas on Titan, but what we currently have is better than nothing. A couple more billion to allow for more robots along with 'Moon, Mars and Beyond' would be amazing though.
Anyway, I don't have a problem with the Europeans making this discovery, and I'm as patriotic as anyone, because this kind of thing is a human endeavor, and I'm just happy that my country can make a significant impact.
To sum this little rant up, I'd be very happy if our celebrity obsessed culture got over the obsession, but it really doesn't worry me much. My one real concern for the long term future of the US (long-term meaning hopefully not Iraq, Afghanistan, or even immigration) is our educational system so we can remain competitive (but not necessarily dominant) in the technology and discoveries of the future.
It's still a spacecraft, just not a manned spacecraft. And I don't know much about the technology, but if its anything like acceleration from ion drives, it may take a while to get going but it could still be fastest method in the long term for a long trip (longer than one to Mars I would guess.)
The idea of using interferometry is really interesting. The idea of an earth sized telescope is great. In fact, in Texas there is an attempt to build a Texas-sized interferometer with amplitude interferometer based on the Hanbury-Brown-Twiss effect. Basically the goal is to have universities or other entities across the state erect their own telescopes (we're using 16-inchers) which they will own and operate on their own, and then have a network set up where anyone can take over and run them. Hopefully we'll get the first two up soon.
For those that don't know, the method we're using, amplitude interferometry has a number of advantages. Compared to amplitude interferometer, it is easy to set up on long distances, since it doesn't require micrometer precise spacing and direct optical links. It also has better signal-to-noise qualities than a heterodyne interferometer, because those are dominated by Heisenburg effects. Finally, one of the really nice things (although we're not taking advantage of it) is that it doesn't require optical quality telescopes and good CCDs, all it requires is light collectors and good quality photodetectors., a data connection, and some voodoo math. This makes it relatively cheap, even if you have to go into space to do the observing. A 15-meter telescope in orbit is an impossibility right now, but a 15-m light collector, deployed as an inflatable foil structure has a lot of promise.
It's not a matter of being correct or incorrect, it's a matter of tolerances, precision, and risk management.
Any time you build a satellite, you're just hedging your bets. It could get blown up on launch (there's a finite chance of that, say ~5%, but thats just a guess, but i know its somewhere in that order of magnitude,) it could get hit by micrometeors, something could have gone wrong in manufacturing that got missed in inspection. Hell, if everything goes great then you have to shut it down arbitrarily at its predefined end of life, because you cant keep it on station.
Basically, what it comes down to is that any engineering requires assumptions and taking some risks. Most of the time you can assume that you'll have a chance to correct things, except of course in space-borne applications. But really my main point is that there is no perfectly engineered solution, but by requirement satellites are as close as you can get within budget. This technology simply allows you to do it for cheaper, because it means that failures can be more common because you have an option to fix it.
I'm also a student at a large state university, and they actually advertised the program to us as freshman, and I got my $5 windows, $15 office, and $25 visual studio over the summer before I even started school here. I think another response said that you had to delete it when you stopped being a student, but I think that the deal is you can keep it as long as you graduate.
Anyway, right now we can't actually get Vista or office 2007 from the school at discounted rates, or even know what version we'd get. They say the earliest it will happen is April. I mostly stick with linux and OOo/LaTeX, but it would be nice to be able to pick those up for cheap before I graduate.
As a linux user that sounds fine to me. I actually think MSOffice is a well-made suite, for what it is (I'm also a LaTeX person,) but if my professors and peers send me a .odp instead of a .ppt to work on, it makes my life that much easier. Preparing final presentations for classes, I've had to spend a lot of time on Windows so that I'd be able to collaborate on Powerpoint Presentations. The import features on OO.o work fine for a final product (except some minor things with equations and font sizes being off), but are unusable for trading documents back and forth modifying them each time.
The idea of open standards is compatibility and being able to make choices, not market-share and trying to force your software ideology on someone else, unless of course you're trying to hold on to a monopoly sustained by a closed standard.
There are some small variations, correct, but they're on the order of 10^-6 g, thus the preferred technical term for free-fall/orbit of 'microgravity.'
Glue on a GPS reciever and a spectrum analyzer. May be a few more pounds though...
The US government was able to pull off Apollo in 8 years, and that was having to develop a lot of new technology instead of simply reimplementing them. I think that serious of a threat would allow even a single government to be able to devote the funds to be able to complete such a project in time.
Maybe the grandparent can afford a home computer, but that doesn't necessarily mean everyone can. The point of a library is to educate and assist the public, even/especially those who wouldn't be able to afford similar services. Internet access is not a luxury anymore, and even those who can't afford it may need it to search/apply for a job, get information, or send that quick message to their brother across the country.
Given that I'd still say this bill is absolutely ridiculous. A better solution would be implementing blocks on a few clearly labeled computers, or allow librarians to use their judgment to give serious users preference over frivolous users if necessary. For some reason I doubt it will pass anyway.
You know what I hate most about these articles? My own bias is plainly obvious to me.
When I read something that says global warming is wrong, I want to say yes! Brilliant! When something confirms it, I can't help but think 'alarmist fear-mongering can't-think-for-themeselves idiots.' But at the same time I know those thoughts are ridiculous, and that I don't really have the understanding of all the parameters to make an intelligent decision.
I guess that's what happens when you politicize a scientific topic. Or maybe I'm just an optimist.
They're less likely to send a second mission to Hubble because of safety. From whats publicly available, it was hard to convince the safety guys to agree to one mission without the possibility of the ISS as a lifeboat. Also I think all planned launches except the Hubble repair are ISS construction launches.
I do wonder about that Hubble repair launch. Their not big on changing mission profiles significantly, and I'm certainly no expert on what they're doing to it, but it seems that some of the repairs may not be worthwhile if that camera is down, or if they might decided that not doing as much (i.e. letting it die sooner) but replacing the camera might be worth it. But like I said, I don't know much about how the Hubble works and what the current repair plans are.
I'd argue that in the long run it would lead to a longer term unity, though certainly not an immediate utopia. The reason is that we are very territorial, but if we have aliens to worry about, we can 'forget our differences' and focus all our territorial energies on other species instead of other nationalities. As long as we have someone to posture against.