Comment Old age is relative (Score 2) 317
My Southwest Tech 6800 box is a museum piece, but my Osborne/1 [serial number 864] boots up nicely for its annual trial
Comment Re:What's the story on "Music" CD-Rs? (Score 1) 827
The 'Music' CD-R's theoretically pay a portion of the purchase price into a pool to 'compensate' artists. I somehow doubt that this actually happens.
Comment The Roads Must Roll? (Score 5, Insightful) 698
unintentionally blank
Comment Re:Being ridiculous (Score 2, Funny) 539
[disclaimer]I work for a cable provider but not Comcast[/disclaimer]
Last year, to support CableCard / mCard / Tru2Way [the technology has been renamed several times] deployment, we tried to get a Panasonic Tru2Way television for our development lab.
The distributor refused, as the local Cable company [that would be us] did not support Tru2Way
Doctor Slams Hospital's "Please" Policy 572
Administrators at England's Worthing Hospital are insisting that doctors say the magic word when writing orders for blood tests on weekends. If a doctor refuses to write "please" on the order, the test will be refused. From the article: "However, a doctor at the hospital said on condition of anonymity that he sees the policy as a money-saving measure that could prove dangerous for patients. 'I was shocked to come in on Sunday and find none of my bloods had been done from the night before because I'd not written "please,"' the doctor said. 'I had no results to guide treatment of patients. Myself and a senior nurse had to take the bloods ourselves, which added hours to our 12-hour shifts. This system puts patients' lives at risk. Doctors are wasting time doing the job of the technicians.'"
Sumo Wrestler Steals Cash Machine From Moscow Shop 43
timothy writes "Anyone skeevy and devious enough can buy online an ATM skimmer from some underhanded maker of same, but why not cut out the middleman, and just take the cash directly? (Also, if you're going to attempt to stop him, can I have your watch when you are dead?)"
Comment Re:Obligatory contrary "me too!" post (Score 1) 440
And how many of you OS9/Classic Mac apps ran on your Vista box?
Comment I was waiting for the movie reference (Score 1) 288
In the movie, Juror number 8 demonstrates that one piece of the People's evidence [a distinctive switchblade knife] was not unique, by purchasing a copy of it while on a break.
The electronic equivalent would probably be finding a picture [Amazon, ebay] and passing it around. This is much less dramatic than jabbing the duplicate into the table.
Comment Re:cablecard is dead (Score 2, Interesting) 222
The old CableCard standard was one way only. The newer 'MCard' and the OCAP / Tru2Way boxes are much more capable, and [speaking from the inside of the cable industry] a bit puzzling to deal with.
We are looking at revamping our entire provisioning infrastructure to permit the new generation boxes to function, but that has run into some comical snags. For example, we can't get a Pannasonic Tru2Way set delivered to our lab, because the distributor will only ship to areas served by a Tru2Way compatible cable provider. We're working on it, but we're not fully compatible.
Comment IDEA is now open source (Score 1) 151
Back in October, JetBrains announced that they were making Idea 'Community Edition' open source, covered by the Apache 2.0 license.
Comment Re:Waxing? (Score 1) 853
It's an odd and archaic usage, except for phases of the moon
waxing==growing
waning==shrinking
waxing==growing
waning==shrinking
Comment Re:Wow this is a day... (Score 1) 224
76116,3650
Used to hang out on Will Zachman's Canopus forum, using an off line CI$ agent called 'Golden Compass'
Comment Erasing the past (Score 1) 189
As I recall, the Saturn V tooling and plans were 'lost' during the Nixon administration.
Apollo 18's Saturn V was used for Skylab, and the last one ended up as a lawn ornament
Comment Re:Anyone remember the divide by 0 fault? (Score 1) 725
Ant then the ship was decommissioned, stricken from the Navy's list of ships and sunk as a missile test target.
So, formatting and a fresh re-install is the only way to deal with problems with 'Windows for Warships'
Comment Pay for results only (Score 1) 255
Jerry Pournelle is not a fan [mild understatement] of the current NASA process. Rather than having the federal government in charge of the process, and be the biggest customer, the government should pay only for success.
The prizes would be graduated, with a goal of creating a sustainable infrastructure [but it is possible that a given prize could entice a 'one shot' effort like Lindbergh's ocean crossing. The prize list [and discussion] was posted at Getting to Space:Prizes
I can solve the space access problem with a few sentences.
Be it enacted by the Congress of the United States:
The Treasurer of the United States is directed to pay to the first American owned company (if corporate at least 60% of the shares must be held by American citizens) the following sums for the following accomplishments. No monies shall be paid until the goals specified are accomplished and certified by suitable experts from the National Science Foundation or the National Academy of Science:
1. The sum of $2 billion to be paid for construction of 3 operational spacecraft which have achieved low earth orbit, returned to earth, and flown to orbit again three times in a period of three weeks.
2. The sum of $5 billion to be paid for construction and maintenance of a space station which has been continuously in orbit with at least 5 Americans aboard for a period of not less than three years and one day. The crew need not be the same persons for the entire time, but at no time shall the station be unoccupied.
3. The sum of $12 billion to be paid for construction and maintenance of a Lunar base in which no fewer than 31 Americans have continuously resided for a period of not less than four years and one day.
4. The sum of $10 billion to be paid for construction and maintenance of a solar power satellite system which delivers at least 800 megaWatts of electric power to a receiving station or stations in the United States for a period of at least two years and one day.
5. The payments made shall be exempt from all US taxes.
That would do it. Not one cent to be paid until the goals are accomplished. Not a bit of risk, and if it can't be done for those sums, well, no harm done to the treasury.
I had Newt Gingrich persuaded to do this before he found he couldn't keep the office of Speaker. I haven't had any audiences with his successors.
Henry Vanderbilt points out that having a prize, say $1 billion, for the second firm to achieve point (1) above will get more into the competition, and produce better results. I agree.
Also relevant is another paper from 1995 called Why Have NASA
