"Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, died Saturday, weeks after heart surgery and days after his 82nd birthday on Aug. 5. Armstrong commanded the Apollo 11 spacecraft that landed on the moon on July 20, 1969, and he radioed back to Earth the historic news of 'one giant leap for mankind'. He spent nearly three hours walking on the moon with fellow astronaut Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin." Our thoughts are with his family and friends. Such a great man. The world lost a true legendary hero today. This man will be an inspiration for generations to come.
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Member since:2005-07-06
Apollo 9 and 10 missions were just as far... (and, earlier to that, turtles on Zond 5 ;p )
And no, I can't do that - for one, I was born at the wrong time, in a wrong place (just one man from my country was ever in space, and that was mostly just Intercosmos political PR).
Also, I was essentially outright blocked from such feats: for one, I have one generally hardly significant medical condition (caused by other people, by one medical frak up when I was 1 year old), but which disqualifies me from ever being a pilot of even a glider - meanwhile, I more than passed the educational requirements needed to get to a school that educates fighter pilots in my country; also, I was first in the final of "physics olympics" ...it didn't matter, and I suppose you'd just told me to "STFU"
Generally, people overestimate the individual contribution to the "end effect", and how our life ends up - it's one of the cognitive biases. Now, I'm not seeing the chosen twelve were poorly qualified, they weren't - but you could easily find at least hundreds which were just as well. Plus, curiously how all of the twelve were white males, most of them with angular jawbones...
Or ponder that: out of the twelve, only one was a professional geologist, during the very last Apollo moon mission - and only because he was bumped up at the last moment, after pleads from the scientific community, from a mission which never flew.
Kerosene, liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen are not very strictly speaking explosives, BTW ...unless you're also marvelled at the fact that I use explosives in my kitchen, SEVERAL TIMES PER DAY?
(and either way, disasters on launchpads alone killed many more scientists/technicians than astronauts... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_accidents_... )
Edited 2012-09-02 00:18 UTC
At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!
The day has finally come! Jolla has finally announced the launch device for its Sailfish operating system - and by god this is a looker. It's decidedly different from other phones out there, but it has good specifications and carries a relatively reasonably price tag - EUR 399, and it's up for pre-order today, shipping in the fourth quarter of this year.
Why does Google get so much credit in the technology industry? Why, despite the company's many obvious failings, do many geeks and enthusiasts still hold a somewhat positive view on the all-knowing technology giant? A specific talk at Google I/O this week provides the answer.
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.
Member since:
2005-08-11
The man sat on a tube filled with explosives and traveled farther than any other man had ever traveled before that, in one of the most hostile environments known.
How is that not special? Can you do it? Have you done it? No? Then STFU.
Edited 2012-08-27 17:47 UTC