Berkeley CSUA MOTD:Entry 39034
Berkeley CSUA MOTD
 
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2025/05/24 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
5/24    

2005/8/7-11 [Science/Space, Computer/HW/Memory] UID:39034 Activity:nil
8/7     The Space Shuttle still uses floppy disks. Would somebody please
        tell them how unreliable floppies are. Buy them USB flash drives!
        http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/124685main_s114e7139_hires.jpg
        \- high density electronics and media may be more suspectible
           to instability due to thermal noise or radiation. lbl has/had
           one of the faciltiies for "space certifications" for electronics.
        \_ Another question is: why is anything on removable media when
           everything happens within the shuttle and there is nowhere else to
           go?
           \_ networks can go down, they have multiple points of failure
              - what do you do then?
              \_ I see.
        \_ NASA is intentionally slow to adopt new technology for use on
           the orbiters.  In addition to testing the living hell out of
           particular systems themselves, they also want the general
           technology to have seen widespread use enough to have flushed
           out any problems.  Note that other thread in the motd at the
           moment about motherboards with bad capacitors, and consider that
           it's probably a good thing that the orbiters' avionics are ugraded
           less frequently than the average sodan's computer.  Remember that
           the shuttle program started in the seventies, and that floppies
           actually represent an *upgrade*.  For the poster who asked why
           anything is on removable media, what else would you suggest?
           Hard drives don't perform well under a lot of acceleration, and
           can be damaged easily by vibration (such as during launch and
           reentry).  Many nonvolatile memory technologies have come and gone
           over the life of the shuttle program without being adopted.  When
           they started, the computers available simply didn't have enough
           memory and they had to load things in from tapes over the course
           of a mission.  In a system as complex as the shuttle, there's
           a tremendous ripple effect to changing the flight computers, both
           to the physical systems and the procedures and training for all
           personnel involved.  Given the risks, there's a lot to be said for
           not fixing it if that aspect of the shuttle isn't broken.
2025/05/24 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
5/24    

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        :-)
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2012/9/18-11/7 [Science/Space] UID:54478 Activity:nil
9/18    The Space Shuttle Endeavour is doing a fly over of Nasa Ames on Friday:
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2012/3/9-26 [Science/Space] UID:54337 Activity:nil
3/9     "First amateur video of Challenger shuttle explosion revealed"
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        \_ Wake up, sheeple!
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2011/3/6-4/20 [Science/Space, Science/Physics] UID:54055 Activity:nil
3/5     "NASA scientist finds evidence of alien life"
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2009/9/15-24 [Consumer/Camera, Science/Space] UID:53370 Activity:kinda low
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2009/7/17-24 [Science/Space] UID:53151 Activity:nil
7/17    NASA lost original video footage of the first manned moon landing!
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2012/12/18-2013/1/24 [Computer/SW/Languages/Perl] UID:54561 Activity:nil
12/18   Happy 25th birthday Perl, and FUCK YOU Larry Wall for fucking up
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2012/2/5-3/26 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers] UID:54300 Activity:nil
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2011/6/5-8/27 [Computer/HW/Memory] UID:54127 Activity:nil
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2011/3/26-4/20 [Computer/HW/Memory] UID:54062 Activity:nil
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2010/7/25-8/25 [Computer/SW/Graphics] UID:53897 Activity:nil
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2010/5/26-6/30 [Computer/SW/Unix/WindowManager, Computer/SW/OS/OsX] UID:53844 Activity:nil
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2010/6/4-30 [Computer/SW/Languages/C_Cplusplus] UID:53849 Activity:nil
6/4     Is this valid C++ code?
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2009/12/7-2010/1/3 [Computer/HW/Memory, Computer/HW] UID:53574 Activity:nil
12/7    How many TCP retransmits are too many? Here is what I get:
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2009/10/27-11/3 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:53474 Activity:nil
10/27   I just read an article that Facebook had moved their database
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2009/7/21-24 [Computer/SW/Languages/Java] UID:53168 Activity:moderate
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	...