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Space

Submission + - Comparing Heat Shields: Mars Science Lab vs. SpaceX Dragon (pinehead.tv)

An anonymous reader writes: On August 5, 2012, the world’s attention was captured by the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) landing. One of the key components in the multifaceted landing of the Curiosity rover safely on Mars was the Thermal Protection System (TPS), or heat shield, on the spacecraft carrying the rover.

Sensors being added to the Mars Science Lab heat shield. Photo by NASA.
The thing people remember most about the heat shield is when it popped off the spacecraft and flung like a frisbee across the Martian landscape, landing with a plume of dust. Measuring nearly 15 ft (4.5 m) in diameter, the MSL heat shield was the largest to ever travel to another planet.

Comment CrashPlan (Score 1) 326

I'm a photographer too (albeit semi-pro) and don't have that much data, about 2TB at last count. I use CrashPlan, they offer both cloud ($6/m unlimited data), local and shared (backing up to a family/friends computer). You can seed you initial backup to the cloud with physical disks sent to CrashPlan.

Comment Re:Cross functional standard that is driven by mgm (Score 1) 429

We use a very similar naming convention, slightly less granular, but effect; State, City, Use, Number ie NYNYFS01 = NY, New York, File Server, 01 (a second file server would be numbered 02) At home or in small business movie/book/game characters can be fun, but once you start to get more than a few systems and employees and that starts to become unwieldy.

Comment Re:Without Napster we'd still be buying all CD's (Score 2) 213

... to buy $15 CD's, just to get the one or two songs you actually want and the 10 other songs that are complete filler...

I always preferred buying the whole album and still do. But if you bought a whole CD for one song, more fool you. There were these things called singles, they've been around since music became commercialized. I don't get why people perpetuate the myth that individual song purchase was bought about by the digital age!

Comment Re:Copy-and-Paste (Score 5, Interesting) 240

Have you used it? iTunes requires a horribly bloated app installed on your computer and clunky syncing of music between said computer and your iOS device. Google music needs none of this (with the exception of a small app to upload your music you already have to the cloud). I have all 12,500 songs in my collection available to me wherever I am, no need to pick and choose what music to take with me. It was Google took us to the post PC world that Jobs kept pontificating about.

Comment Right. (Score 1) 1127

I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day, and pay the owner for permission to come to work, and when I get done, my manager would kill me and dance about on my grave singing Hallelujah.

And you try and tell the young coders today that and they won't believe you!!

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