Don't belong. Dangerous, like you. Can't be controlled. Can't be trusted. Everyone could just go on without me and not have to worry. People could be what they wanted to be. Could be with the people they wanted. Live simple. No secrets.

River ,'Objects In Space'


Natter 58: Let's call Venezuela!  

Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.


Burrell - May 09, 2008 12:06:55 pm PDT #6022 of 10001
Why did Darth Vader cross the road? To get to the Dark Side!

We compost. The wormy ones are a bit of trouble, but the non-wormy (we have both) are a breeze. The only effort is actually getting the compostibles into the compost. (I recommend a kitchen bin.)

The key to a non-smelly compost is, as Steph says, not trying to compost anything that smells bad while it rots. So no meat, fat, beans, or potatoes.


Kathy A - May 09, 2008 12:08:12 pm PDT #6023 of 10001
We're very stretchy. - Connie Neil

I'm hoping that those fluids did the trick, and that the antibiotic will bring down her temp.

Hey, she just ventured out from under the bed to curl up under the computer desk!! This is the first time she's done that since last night--she must be feeling better!!!

This was her first medical emergency, and I'm hoping her last for some time to come. Good thing was that it happened this today, being an extra payday month as well as that government check--$450 at the vet.


CaBil - May 09, 2008 12:09:11 pm PDT #6024 of 10001
Remember, remember/the fifth of November/the Gunpowder Treason and Plot/I see no reason/Why Gunpowder Treason/Should ever be forgot.

So there is an article about how some experiments from Columbia were salvaged, with a computer guy managing to lift data from hard drives that were found after Columbia broke apart.

And yes, that's good and all, but there is something in the article that made me stop and wonder. Part of the reason they could salvage the data was the OS the hard drive was using stored stuff together rather scattered throughout the drive.

The OS was DOS.

And all I can think was why they hell they were still using DOS as the main OS even on an system, even if it was being just used for experiments, on the shuttle in 2003? I had figured everyone had tossed DOS out the window pre-Y2K


shrift - May 09, 2008 12:09:25 pm PDT #6025 of 10001
"You can't put a price on the joy of not giving a shit." -Zenkitty

I need to get my hair cut again. I guess I can kill a few minutes looking for my one true bob.

(I will refrain from making a Bob Bryar joke at this juncture. Almost. THAT One True Bob has long ladyhair!)


tommyrot - May 09, 2008 12:13:25 pm PDT #6026 of 10001
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.

CaBill, are you sure the OS was DOS? Or was it just the file system?

Often, computers taken into space are very obsolete, as they need special chips that are hardened against stray radiation. (This is why laptops aboard the shuttle and space station often crash, as they're just off-the-shelf models.)


amych - May 09, 2008 12:18:24 pm PDT #6027 of 10001
Now let us crush something soft and watch it fountain blood. That is a girlish thing to want to do, yes?

The article I read seemed to imply the filesystem (a DOS-formatted drive, rather than a DOS computer, IOW. Which really should be FAT, but I don't trust the papers to get the fine points in a world where algorithm and logarithm... well, anyway.)


sarameg - May 09, 2008 12:19:52 pm PDT #6028 of 10001

And all I can think was why they hell they were still using DOS as the main OS even on an system, even if it was being just used for experiments, on the shuttle in 2003? I had figured everyone had tossed DOS out the window pre-Y2K

It's probably because the shuttles were designed and built in the 70s and 80s and there is only so far they can upgrade systems with the existing physical and electrical infrastructure. On top of that, everything has to be tested exhaustively before it's allowed operationally. The tech that flies on them now had its design frozen years ago.

Even for experiments, god only knows how long ago the proposal was accepted and the proposers had to outfit the experiment and went into a design freeze.


§ ita § - May 09, 2008 12:22:17 pm PDT #6029 of 10001
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

Can anyone work out what this site does? It looks like a failure of computers interpreting text--like they're having code decide places books refer to, and plotting those points on a map. But the about page is kind of vague. The number of mishits on the front page is discouraging.

So no one looked at the Isabella Rosselllini video? I'm disappointed. It was very informative.


JZ - May 09, 2008 12:30:36 pm PDT #6030 of 10001
See? I gave everybody here an opportunity to tell me what a bad person I am and nobody did, because I fuckin' rule.

I need to get my hair cut again. I guess I can kill a few minutes looking for my one true bob.

Aww, Hec is going to be so sad about being stuck at his internetless temp job. Christina Ricci is rocking a nice bob in Speed Racer.


CaBil - May 09, 2008 12:30:38 pm PDT #6031 of 10001
Remember, remember/the fifth of November/the Gunpowder Treason and Plot/I see no reason/Why Gunpowder Treason/Should ever be forgot.

Yeah, but the shuttle's electronics supposedly underwent a major upgrade/redesign in the late 90s, early oughts. I remember at the time that they said Columbia had been refitted with the new computers and such...

The specific line was...

Edwards attributes that to a lucky twist: The computer was running an ancient operating system, DOS, which does not scatter data all over drives as other approaches do.