There are quite a few groups and individuals...
on
DIY Space Photography
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· Score: 1, Informative
in the U.S. sending payloads into "near space" on a fairly regular basis. It's much more common than most people would suspect. I've seen a rough estimate of ~1500 people in the U.S. who are involved with near space experimentation. It's very cool stuff and one of the few minimally regulated amateur sciences still available to those so inclined in the U.S.
"There are MANY other ways the average Slashdot nerd can prove their 'worthiness' and stay true to the spirit of the hobby without learning CW."
Bingo!
I feel exactly the same way, and less than a year ago, after many years of not being part of a club I decided to put all mt reservations about the ham radio community aside. However what I found was what I expected and worse. I found a broad range of older and more experienced folks who liked to place anyone with less than a few decades of experience, especially us younger folks, into the category of "doesn't know crud and needs to be taught". Heck the local club even had a line in their newsletter "Unless you have an EE degree you are just as green as all of us were when we started". Really? I came into the hobby already having years of electronics and electrical experience as well as some background in RF. I could solder, I could make up PCBs, test components, etc. Frankly I found it insulting.
There truly is a strong disregard for us younger folks in the amateur radio community. The old guard even lumps us tech savvy and experienced folks in the "stupid new guy" category. They seem to not understand that there are new ways of learning and obtaining information, and that there are many of us playing with electronics from an early age and have taught ourselves quite a bit. We don't all need to be held by the hand and taught everything. I know when I need to ask a question that can't be answered and would be bet found in the experience of an elmer. These folks are so tuned out from the rest of the tech scene that they aren't seeing the huge resurgence of DIY electronics, homebrew electronics guys as well as the wifi experimenters. Yet they bitch and moan about how the "kids" are so stupid and uninterested, and how nobody is in to their tech anymore.
"Censorship is a government telling someone what they cannot read, hear, see, or think."
You might want to try that one again chief, the act of censorship isn't only carried out by governments. By your logic media private outlets couldn't censor information.
n. censor 1. A person authorized to examine books, films, or other material and to remove or suppress what is considered morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable.
tr.v. censored, censoring, censors To examine and expurgate.
Yep, clogged tubes, that's where I was going with my post...perhaps Mr. Senator should roll up his sleeves and get down in the mire of the digital sewage with all of us web janitors, then he'd learn a thing or two.
Having studied the details of both the Chernobyl and TMI disasters the root source of the problem was massive human error. The technology behind nuclear reactors is not the issues, never has been, yet it is always disscussed as if the technology was the danger. The real danger is in who operates the powerplant, to me as someone who worked on reactors for years this is a much more solvable problem that an engineering problem. Training people properly and ensuring their values and operating principles are in line with safe operating practices does wonders for ensuring safe reactor operation.
What a perfect example of why most of the public is so afraid of nuclear power....sheer, unadulteraded ignorance.
A nuclear reactor is in no way a nuclear bomb, for starters the enrichment of a commercial nuclear power plant is ~3% while a nuclear weapon requires an enrichment of around ~90%.
A nuclear power plant is in no way a nuclear weapon...not even close. They CANNOT create a nuclear reaction like that of a nuclear weapon that results in a massive explosion.
And as for terrorist stealing the "fuel", there's not a real possibility of that either. Do you think a group of terrorist is going to enter a facility, spend days pulling fuels rods, loading fuel rods that can be 40-100 feet long onto a semi, trucking them back to their home country and then spend months if not years processing them without being noticed or stopped?
Thanks for uderstanding my situation, although I think that quite a few of the "quit" responses are more based on an emotional reaction rather than a cool and collected state of thinking.
Yes I do have a family, no kids, but a soon-to-be wife and a few animals that might as well be my kids.
I think that after looking at and considering all of the posts here I am going to be running Apache off of a box that doesn't see much use and run my version tracking and bug tracking software off of that. At very least it creates a level of accountability for changes made to the codebase.
The issue of respect for my professional opinion has been creeping up on me for awhile...but I am trying to do what I can being in the position that I am as the lone developer to bring about changes that will benefit to company and bringing about those changes in a manner that ensure I am the only one who can and will get credit for it.
Yeah I brought up the subject of unit testing (in the context of Ruby)....the response I got...well let's just say we had a discussion about what unit tests are.
Slashdot Mirror
This reminds me of the Sawfish ROV http://www.tritonlogging.com/what-we-do/harvest-technologies/the-sawfish-underwater-harvester/ used to harvest submerged trees.
in the U.S. sending payloads into "near space" on a fairly regular basis. It's much more common than most people would suspect. I've seen a rough estimate of ~1500 people in the U.S. who are involved with near space experimentation. It's very cool stuff and one of the few minimally regulated amateur sciences still available to those so inclined in the U.S.
An excellent primer is the Near Space Book: http://www.parallax.com/tabid/567/Default.aspx
Here are several links to active near space groups:
Treasure Valley Near Space Program: http://www.tvnsp.org/
Arizona Near Space Research: http://www.ansr.org/node/7
JP Aerospace: http://www.jpaerospace.com/
Most of these groups often need help with tracking and launching and at very least will share what they have learned with those interested.
I love you more and more each day Portland!
"There are MANY other ways the average Slashdot nerd can prove their 'worthiness' and stay true to the spirit of the hobby without learning CW."
Bingo!
I feel exactly the same way, and less than a year ago, after many years of not being part of a club I decided to put all mt reservations about the ham radio community aside. However what I found was what I expected and worse. I found a broad range of older and more experienced folks who liked to place anyone with less than a few decades of experience, especially us younger folks, into the category of "doesn't know crud and needs to be taught". Heck the local club even had a line in their newsletter "Unless you have an EE degree you are just as green as all of us were when we started". Really? I came into the hobby already having years of electronics and electrical experience as well as some background in RF. I could solder, I could make up PCBs, test components, etc. Frankly I found it insulting.
There truly is a strong disregard for us younger folks in the amateur radio community. The old guard even lumps us tech savvy and experienced folks in the "stupid new guy" category. They seem to not understand that there are new ways of learning and obtaining information, and that there are many of us playing with electronics from an early age and have taught ourselves quite a bit. We don't all need to be held by the hand and taught everything. I know when I need to ask a question that can't be answered and would be bet found in the experience of an elmer. These folks are so tuned out from the rest of the tech scene that they aren't seeing the huge resurgence of DIY electronics, homebrew electronics guys as well as the wifi experimenters. Yet they bitch and moan about how the "kids" are so stupid and uninterested, and how nobody is in to their tech anymore.
"Censorship is a government telling someone what they cannot read, hear, see, or think."
You might want to try that one again chief, the act of censorship isn't only carried out by governments. By your logic media private outlets couldn't censor information.
See the following to get a fucking clue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship
n. censor 1. A person authorized to examine books, films, or other material and to remove or suppress what is considered morally, politically, or otherwise objectionable.
tr.v. censored, censoring, censors
To examine and expurgate.
Yep, clogged tubes, that's where I was going with my post...perhaps Mr. Senator should roll up his sleeves and get down in the mire of the digital sewage with all of us web janitors, then he'd learn a thing or two.
"said U.S. officials familiar with the hacking"
When did they hire anyone like that? I call their bluff!
Perhaps they hired some first-rate plumbers - they know how to "hack" into tubes.
"...war against the internet"
Ahh yes American shadow boxing at its finest...
I can see the ads now...Neo recruiting for "Interweb soldiers"..with the rally cry of "iN uR face n00b!!!" instead of "An Army of One".
More than one internet? Looks like George W. would finally have his Internets!
Logical fallacy there chief.
The best lie is 99% true.
You've been missing alot of work lately....
Well I wouldn't say I've been missing it!!!
Having studied the details of both the Chernobyl and TMI disasters the root source of the problem was massive human error. The technology behind nuclear reactors is not the issues, never has been, yet it is always disscussed as if the technology was the danger. The real danger is in who operates the powerplant, to me as someone who worked on reactors for years this is a much more solvable problem that an engineering problem. Training people properly and ensuring their values and operating principles are in line with safe operating practices does wonders for ensuring safe reactor operation.
What a perfect example of why most of the public is so afraid of nuclear power....sheer, unadulteraded ignorance.
A nuclear reactor is in no way a nuclear bomb, for starters the enrichment of a commercial nuclear power plant is ~3% while a nuclear weapon requires an enrichment of around ~90%.
A nuclear power plant is in no way a nuclear weapon...not even close. They CANNOT create a nuclear reaction like that of a nuclear weapon that results in a massive explosion.
And as for terrorist stealing the "fuel", there's not a real possibility of that either. Do you think a group of terrorist is going to enter a facility, spend days pulling fuels rods, loading fuel rods that can be 40-100 feet long onto a semi, trucking them back to their home country and then spend months if not years processing them without being noticed or stopped?
Welcome to reality, I home you enjoy your stay.
Thanks for uderstanding my situation, although I think that quite a few of the "quit" responses are more based on an emotional reaction rather than a cool and collected state of thinking. Yes I do have a family, no kids, but a soon-to-be wife and a few animals that might as well be my kids. I think that after looking at and considering all of the posts here I am going to be running Apache off of a box that doesn't see much use and run my version tracking and bug tracking software off of that. At very least it creates a level of accountability for changes made to the codebase.
The issue of respect for my professional opinion has been creeping up on me for awhile...but I am trying to do what I can being in the position that I am as the lone developer to bring about changes that will benefit to company and bringing about those changes in a manner that ensure I am the only one who can and will get credit for it.
Yeah I brought up the subject of unit testing (in the context of Ruby)....the response I got...well let's just say we had a discussion about what unit tests are.