A high-school dropout computer designer who builds retro machines has put a Commodore 64 on a chip. Only in America.
Nostalgia
For sounds going extinct. It’s an interesting article, and a little disconcerting that there are many sounds with which a certain generation (mine) is familiar that kids today may have never heard, except in the movies. It brings to mind this post from last summer, when I heard a sound that was familiar to me only from WW II movies, though my father heard much more of it than he ever imagined wanting to.
Good Stuff At The Space Review
On Friday, I threatened to write a review of the year in space. Jeff Foust has preempted me this morning, over at The Space Review, and it’s unlikely I’ll do any better.
Lots of other good stuff over there as well, with items on Bigelow, and a well-deserved slapdown of Alex “Eeyore” Roland by Dwayne Day.
Fudging The Numbers
The GAO has released a report on Hubble servicing costs:
At our request, NASA prepared an estimate of the funding needed for a shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble. NASA estimates the cost at between $1.7 billion to $2.4 billion. However, documentary support for portions of the estimate is insufficient.
What a surprise.
NASA, an agency that has already internally decided that it isn’t going to use Shuttle to save the Hubble, comes up with an outrageously high cost number to do so in order to help justify its decision, but doesn’t substantiate it.
This number is simply incredible. I’ll bet they’re using a cost per flight of between half a billion and a billion dollars (which is the average cost, but isn’t the appropriate number to use when estimating the mission cost, which should be the marginal cost–between one hundred and two hundred million). I’ll also bet that they’re including the cost of Hubble replacement hardware that has already been built and paid for. I’ll also bet that getting the basis for this “estimate” from NASA will be like pulling teeth from an unanaesthetized elephant on crank.
The only costs that need to be compared are the cost of developing the robotics necessary to do this mission without Shuttle (already estimated to be hundreds of millions, if not over a billion), the cost of any modifications necessary to allow the equipment originally designed to be serviced by astronauts to be instead replaced by the aforesaid “robot” (which is really not a robot, but a teloperator, and which will up costs even more), to the cost of launching another Shuttle mission, training the crew, and using the equipment already designed and built to do so. I would truly be shocked if any honest analysis would indicate that the Shuttle mission isn’t the cheapest way to go.
[Via NASA Watch]
The Fox In Bill’s Henhouse
The New York Times has a story about the explosive growth of Firefox, and how Redmond’s screwed, at least in the short term. There may be only one way out, as Scott Ott amusingly points out.
But another article says that Thunderbird, its email client companion, won’t be able to make as many inroads against Outlook, no matter how insecurity-ridden that program is, because of the energy barrier necessary to change email clients.
Email and Usenet are the biggest things keeping me from switching to Linux for my desktop–I just have too much legacy data in Eudora and Agent, and no obvious way to transition over to things like Thunderbird and Pan. I use Mozilla for browsing, but I’m still using Eudora and Agent, until there’s an open-source solution for this problem.
The Fox In Bill’s Henhouse
The New York Times has a story about the explosive growth of Firefox, and how Redmond’s screwed, at least in the short term. There may be only one way out, as Scott Ott amusingly points out.
But another article says that Thunderbird, its email client companion, won’t be able to make as many inroads against Outlook, no matter how insecurity-ridden that program is, because of the energy barrier necessary to change email clients.
Email and Usenet are the biggest things keeping me from switching to Linux for my desktop–I just have too much legacy data in Eudora and Agent, and no obvious way to transition over to things like Thunderbird and Pan. I use Mozilla for browsing, but I’m still using Eudora and Agent, until there’s an open-source solution for this problem.
The Fox In Bill’s Henhouse
The New York Times has a story about the explosive growth of Firefox, and how Redmond’s screwed, at least in the short term. There may be only one way out, as Scott Ott amusingly points out.
But another article says that Thunderbird, its email client companion, won’t be able to make as many inroads against Outlook, no matter how insecurity-ridden that program is, because of the energy barrier necessary to change email clients.
Email and Usenet are the biggest things keeping me from switching to Linux for my desktop–I just have too much legacy data in Eudora and Agent, and no obvious way to transition over to things like Thunderbird and Pan. I use Mozilla for browsing, but I’m still using Eudora and Agent, until there’s an open-source solution for this problem.
They Haven’t All Forgotten
Americans are still welcome in Bastogne.
“The American veterans who have returned 60 years later to the battle site represent those who gave their lives on our soil so that today we can live free,” Bastogne Mayor Philippe Collard said in French at a memorial honoring U.S. General George S. Patton.
He added in English: “We will never forget. You are home here.”
I fervently hope that, to the degree that they do so now, the French can continue to live free, in the face of the new totalitarian threat in their midst to which they are only now awakening. They, and much of western Europe, are now on one of the front lines of the new war, whether they realize it or not.
They Haven’t All Forgotten
Americans are still welcome in Bastogne.
“The American veterans who have returned 60 years later to the battle site represent those who gave their lives on our soil so that today we can live free,” Bastogne Mayor Philippe Collard said in French at a memorial honoring U.S. General George S. Patton.
He added in English: “We will never forget. You are home here.”
I fervently hope that, to the degree that they do so now, the French can continue to live free, in the face of the new totalitarian threat in their midst to which they are only now awakening. They, and much of western Europe, are now on one of the front lines of the new war, whether they realize it or not.
They Haven’t All Forgotten
Americans are still welcome in Bastogne.
“The American veterans who have returned 60 years later to the battle site represent those who gave their lives on our soil so that today we can live free,” Bastogne Mayor Philippe Collard said in French at a memorial honoring U.S. General George S. Patton.
He added in English: “We will never forget. You are home here.”
I fervently hope that, to the degree that they do so now, the French can continue to live free, in the face of the new totalitarian threat in their midst to which they are only now awakening. They, and much of western Europe, are now on one of the front lines of the new war, whether they realize it or not.