Re: Sciences on Moon
 

What a surprise...

:rofl:

I wonder what they would do with something like the following:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/...sts/search.tes


-Methem

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

OMG! How timely! I was writing some TECO (ie. the MUNG SEARCH) code today to replace "0" (zeros) in a file with slashed zeros.

EB{file}$EY$<FS0$216\$;>EX$$

Clear as day, right? FYI, the $ are escapes as show TECO.

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

Yes, very clear... ;) Luckily I'm too young to have ever needed to deal with that language. I only know it's pretty cryptic, as can be seen.

The original EMACS editor (on ITS and TOPS-20?) was obviously written in TECO macros; must have been a lot of fun.


-Methem

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

What a great documentary, JT, thank you for the link. I learned a lot this evening..

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

I have EMACS on my Powerbook configured in EDT mode. I know simple commands in VI but it's really annoying to trip in and out of escape mode.

I've used TECO, SUMSLP, SOS, EDLINE and EDT on VMS. EDT is the most powerful editor. EVE/TPU I use when there's certain needs but mostly, I only use TPU if I need to write a text processing module.

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

This video is a hoot....

"Turn that Music down!"

"The Sumarian's great gift to the world, the chartered accountant."

...and at the great Pyramid... "Was it supposed to do that?"

"Adequate supplies of flower arrangements"

"An 'I love India' T-shirt was hardly going to do the job"

"Fibonacci's book was a must read"

Stoning Zero!

mathematician v. Abacus

"I much prefer working with Michael Palin."



OMG, this is a "must see". If you haven't watched this, do so!

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

(Sorry for hijacking your beautiful science thread for this sort of stuff, folks. :))

Vi isn't my cup of tea either. I use Emacs on my Linux box. I don't claim to be any sort of guru with it though -- far from it.

Can't much comment on the merits of each of those, as I don't really know too much about VMS at this point. So far I've been reading about it and mainly using the machines of the Deathrow cluster to experiment with things. Going the Hobbyist route is of course a consideration and has been for quite a long while now.

The first time I've used VMS was a few years ago when I was doing some summer work in steel industry. The place was a cold-rolling mill, and it was a large annealing and pickling line that processed stainless steel strip. There was an oldish Alpha box with, I think, VMS 6.x installed on it. The box provided some mathematical models and calculations for the the general automation system that controlled the production line. Among other things, the box was used to adjust the temperatures in the large annealing furnace that processed the strip. Now, that was a safe place to experiment with the OS. ;)


-Methem

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

Like I said, I can get around in VI... not every unix box is going to have EMACS installed so best to know some rudimentary VI skills.


TECO was available on the PDP OSs but when VMS first hit the streets, it didn't have TECO. When customers asked why their favorite editor was not included, DEC responded, "TECO is not an editor, it's a programming language". I think Andy Goldstein ported TECO from RSM-11(M+) to VMS as he was one of its avid users. It's written in Macro-11(VAX assembly). TECO is still available on VMS today and building it is one of the regression tests used to guage the Macro-11 "compilers" now available on Alpha and the Itanium.


VMS is found in many production scenarios. When and where it absolutley has to run, you're likely to find VMS.

The US Postal service uses VMS to sort and route all mail (letters, packages, flats). The USPS sorts/routes 40K times the volume of all of the other package handling services in the US daily... that's a lot of mail!

...and you wouldn't have the PeeCee either. Intel runs all of its fabs on VMS. They can't afford downtime. Even a few minutes of downtime costs $millions to Intel.

..and until recently, Micro$oft themselves ran all of the accounting for the firm on VMS. Seems even M$ didn't trust their own product when and where it mattered to them most -- the money! Only when a certain application provider HQed in .DE was able to provide a redundancy option in its app -- no longer requiring VMS to protect it -- did M$ get off of VMS. Rumor has it that it's still there for backup.

I guess I needn't mention it is secure. Here's SANS' latest list of security vulnerabilities. Note what is NOT on their list.

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

The factory I was working for also had some older Tandem systems (CLX); the platform nowadays known as NonStop, of course.

However, like many other VMS advocates, you fail to mention one thing: VMS isn't as popular as MS Windows or Unixes. :) If it were real widely used (after all, it once was), it would be inevitable for it to have vulnerabilities found at least once in a while.


-Methem

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

Yup.


The bandwagoneering argument has never been correlated. If a hacker really wanted to make an impact, I'd think somewhere where it made a large impact would be targetted -- not mom's recipe files on her Weendoze PeeCee.

Buffer overruns executing arbitrary code? Impossible on VMS. Code and data have always been segregated. Pages in memory have protections that protect inner (privileged) modes from executing code -- malicious or otherwise. The whole "privilege" paradigm in VMS extends to all objects -- processes/jobs, memory, disk, images, etc. The image activator, once an image has been activated, keeps the code sections in mapped virtual pages that are read only. Any attempt to do/use a data overrun (one of the major mechanisms employed to breach other systems) would yield an Access Violation when it tried to write in a code region. IF it would only over write data in a process's image data space, it could NEVER be executed even if written there.

Now, if somebody wants to download malicious code from a sight, install it with privies and subsequently execute it, that will be a problem. However, it is not a security issue in the OS; that is a security issue with the idiot that installed the malicious code.

VMS development is a process. Code is reviewed by others in the group. Data integrity and security are the chief criteria for the code review. Feature parity is way down on the list. Features are not introduced if they sacrifice the aforementioned.

I could ramble on for hours. There are OS constructs that do not exist in any other OS. They are there for a reason -- data integrity and security. These things were designed into the OS from the get-go; not layered on as an after thought. If the foundation of flawed and weak, no amount of plastered on after thought security is going to prevent a breach.

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

Ok, ok... understood. And I'm not knowledgeable enough to try to argue with you.

As for rambling on for hours, please do: Then I don't need to spend any time or money on obtaining the VMS internals books, as I'll get all the necessary information here. ;)

Do you know how well NSK and z/OS are handling these same issues you've mentioned, by the way?


-Methem

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

If you really want to know the internals, that book is a must have.


I've only had a cursory overview of NSK. The hardware is too prohibitively priced for me to get my hands on for any academic purposes. Most of what I know about NSK deals with the kernel's use of the processor lock-step mode. Outside of that, I know little of the application environment of NSK.

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

Yep.

Ok, thanks for the info anyway.

---

In the interest of politeness, I thought it would be nice to provide a few links that shed a little light on what this thread has been about for the last 10 posts or so. For those who've been wondering what the hell is going on:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_Editor_and_Corrector
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EDT_text_editor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emacs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOPS-20
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSTS/E
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSX-11
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenVMS
http://h20223.www2.hp.com/NonStopCom...0-0-0-121.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z/OS

http://www.openvmshobbyist.com/
http://deathrow.vistech.net/
http://www.twenex.org


-Methem

Ps. I wonder if it would be a good idea to create a whole new section/subforum/whatever in the forums for heavily off-topic threads not related to prog. rock.

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

On other sites generally devoted to one topic/subject there is often a forum just for such "off-topic" threads.

Perhaps, a "Geek-Speak" forum (there's certainly enough of that here) and a "watercooler" forum for other off-topic talk.

Any other suggestions welcome.

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

Methem,...

Speaking of TECO...

Next time you are on a VMS machine do the following:

Alpha:
$ MAKE :== $TECO32_TV MAKE

VAX:
$ MAKE :== $TECO32 MAKE


Then type $ MAKE LOVE

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

I haven't been able to access a VMS system lately, but from what I just googled, this would probably output "Not war?". Should've guessed that. Excellent... :)


-Methem

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

Wow…kewl thread moon units. Now that I have just read it I have to take a look at some of the links. You will be hearing from me soon :)

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

Here's a scary concept: They're actual descendants of Billy's Best Efforts, and they view it, not as a humorous view into the past (akin to, say, today's view of platform shoes and bell bottoms) but instead as a heroic predecessor, like George Washington, Mustafa Ataturk, etc.

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

No, they would probably view it more like the aberration of the human experience that was Adolf Hitler.

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

When will humans become a space fairing species?

The way I see it is, until there is world peace or a common enemy we will rot on this rock. For humans to find a way to overcome all the obstacles of life in space it will require the efforts of the entire species working together towards that goal.

Global mass extinction is inevitable; it has happened before and will most certainly happen again. The question is, can we get our shit together before it is too late for us?

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

You can do
Anything you want...

With Teco and DDT!

Methem: you mention you're on deathrow. I'm rlee there. Drop me a mail sometime.

Roger -Dot- Lee, regretting he missed a good deal of this debate

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

To be a planet or not to be a palnet, that is the question...


This is a copy and paste of a fun little interview with the Pluto. Enjoy the read.


A couple of years ago, we caught up with the planet Pluto for a quick word on the occasion of its passing Neptune to once again become the farthest planet from the sun in the solar system. As Pluto is once again in the news, we are able to reach the celestial body for another chat.

Brunching Shuttlecocks: Hello there, Pluto, nice to see you again.

Pluto: Yeah yeah, hurry up. Time is money.

BS: Well, we're all abuzz here on earth with the discovery of 2001 KX76, do you have any thoughts on this historic occasion?

P: What discovery? You act like it hasn't been sitting here all along. I mean if you guys ever bothered to aim your damn telescopes out my way, you'd discover all kinds of floating junk out here. I've known 2001 KX76 for decades. Cocky bastard, never sends a Christmas card. What's the big deal?

BS: Well the big deal is that 2001 KX76 is being heralded as the largest minor planet in the solar system.

P: Really? From the way you guys treat me, I could have sworn I was a minor planet.

BS: No, no. You're a full-fledged planet. For now. But 2001 KX76 is the largest of the so-called 'Kuiper Belt Objects', which orbit the sun out past your neighborhood.

P: Yeah, there are a bunch of KBOs out there. Not the nicest things in space, let me tell you. Just as soon crash in to you as give you the time of day.

BS: There are some on Earth who think you ought to be classified as a Kuiper Belt Object.

P: Me, a damn KBO? Blow me! Your Mom's a KBO!

BS: Well, you would go from being the smallest planet to the largest KBO. Any joy in the big fish / small pond theory?

P: I'm a planet. Read me lips. Pla-net. You got a problem with that?

BS: I was just making a point.

P: I've got a point to make. Bite me.

BS: So you're content being known as the smallest planet in the solar system?

P: As a planet, I get my props. When was the last time a bunch of 3rd graders stood in a line and recited the names of the 10,000+ KBOs?

BS: So this is about ego, not scientific truth.

P: Who has time for truth? I'm a solid ball of frozen rock that circles the sun every 248 friggin' years. Lot of good it does me. Don't get much use for sun tan lotion out my way, know what I mean?

BS: OK, let's get back to the KBOs.

P: Oh! Sure! By all means! Much more interesting than a real, damn planet, huh? You're probably already planning on sending a probe out there. Meanwhile, my crystalline gardens and abundance of silicon-based ice creatures twiddle their thumbs, waiting for you to pay attention to us.

BS: You have life?

P: Sure. Life. Plants. Strip malls. Whatever. Like you care. Prove me wrong.

BS: Yes, well. Anyway. KBOs are thought to be pristine relics of the formation of the solar system. Any thoughts?

P: They're about as pristine as your uncle's left tit after a good hog slaughtering. Know what they do with all their spare time? Plot against you. They hate Earth, they're planning on taking you down.

BS: They're just rocks.

P: Fine. Don't say I didn't warn you.

BS: Pluto, we have time for one more question before we go. Now that 2001 KX76 has made history, astronomers will likely give it a name similar to other named objects in the Kuiper Belt. The tendency has been to assign mythological names associated with creation, such as Varuna, a large object named for the Vedic god of oceans and water. Any suggestions?

P: Phallus.

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

Does this include construction on the Moon????????? I'm ready to build, Where do I sign up ??????????

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

Actually I was flipping through the TV news channels and saw something about NASA's plans to build a base on the moon. It was on FOX though, so it may well have been complete BS. ;)

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

NASA and reality are strange bedfellows.

They have lots of plans to do alot of things. What they don't have is the money and the management to get them there. Don't get me wrong, NASA has plenty of management... and that is it's biggest detriment.

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

Yeah, not to mention that we have huge debts and deficit spending right now. Even though our fearless leader talked about going to Mars and such, my guess is we'll need to get our house in order before we do anything like that. So, maybe we can revisit this thread in 10 years or so? Oh well, I figured it was too good to be true... :(

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

Another fearless leader talked about sending men to the moon all the while running up huge deficits of money and blood (60K+ souls). We went to the moon despite his, and his successor's, best efforts.

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

NASA does a tremendous amount of science with the relative puny budget of $16-$17 billion a year http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/142458main_FY07_budget_full.pdf. If anything I think that they should receive more money. Sadly enough, Americans have better things to spend their money on like $14.7 billion a year on holiday decorations, $18.8 billion a year on cosmetics & perfume and a staggering $110 billion a year on fast food.

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

Pimp my Mac...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_computer

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2...dy-061207.html
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.f...c9f23336ee22ef

---

Dot, will try to reach you on the Deathrow system whenever I'm online there -- not very often these days.


-Methem

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

Thanks Methem... I haven't read alt.folklore.computers in eons... maybe I should rekindle the subscription.

FYI, DEATHrow is back on-line. A major system drive failure. The SYSUAF file was restored from a backup months prior so you need to use password from then. Here a podcast with more info... http://www.openvms.org/podcast/OWAU-2006-12-7_1.mp3

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

Is there any chance of following this train of thought or has this thread been spun out of the solar system by the massive pull of Jupiter’s gravity?

A little bit about my self.
I am not an engineer, astronomer, particle physicists or chemist. I was pushed through high school, perhaps out of pity or the unwillingness of my teachers to give me a proper education, and did not graduate until I was 20 years old. I did not pursue any further education although with hind site being 20/20 I wish that I had. Most of my education has been gained through reading magazines, books and watching educational television programs. I have subscriptions to Popular Science and Scientific American and I enjoy watching programs on Discovery HD and PBS.

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

Why do they spin?
A star is formed when gas and dust compress due to gravitational forces and collapses under its own weight. What I wonder about is why does the new star start to spin. What force is responsible for this? I have done some research on angular momentum but I am still not clear on what starts the rotation.

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

http://www.pbs.org/deepspace/experts/week1b.html

The guy in the link above says tidal forces between the various objects in the cloud, which is probably correct.

If I had to guess off the top of my head, it might have something to do with the curvature of space around massive objects, but I'm just guessing here, I didn't look it up or do any calculations. If a particle has an initial velocity and enters a gravity well of another object, unless it was initially heading directly at the center of mass, the trajectory would curve toward the center of mass so if it was captured I think it would spiral into the gravity well. Think of a marble being flung into the top of a horn shaped tube but not right down into the hole, a bit off to the side, it spirals around as it goes down to the bottom. I'm guessing that as a bunch of them come together, the angular momentum of the resulting collapsed cloud would be non-zero and the resulting object would be spinning no? The rate of spin would then maybe be proportional to the non-uniformity of the original cloud? I'm not an astrophysicist though, so I might be full of it ;).

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

Thanks for your reply jtmckinley.

All day I was looking for an answer and this is what I came up with.

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question...my/q0247.shtml said
Astronomers estimate that the nebular cloud from which our solar system formed contained about two to three times the mass of the Sun and was about 100 astronomical units (AU) across. An astronomical unit is defined as the average distance between the Sun and Earth, or about 93 million miles (150 million km). This massive loosely-bound cloud of dust, ice particles, and gases (primarily hydrogen and helium) had some small rate of rotation due to the method in which it was formed. Over time, this nebular cloud began to collapse inward. The collapse may have itself been triggered by a supernova that sent shockwaves through the cloud causing it to compress. As the cloud compressed on itself, the gravitational attraction of the matter within increased and pulled the material in even further. The nebula continued to contract under the influence of gravity causing it to spin faster. The more the cloud contracted, the faster it rotated due to the conservation of angular momentum. The rate of contraction was greatest near the center of the cloud where a dense central core began to form. As the rate of rotation of the nebula continued to increase, centrifugal effects caused the spinning cloud to flatten into a disk with a bulge at its center.

http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/qa_star.html said
Conservation of angular momentum says that any spinning of the dust cloud that formed the solar system will remain, and since most of the matter in the solar system is in the Sun, the Sun will be spinning. It will even be spinning faster than the original dust cloud for the same reason that a skater spins faster by bringing in his/her arms. The lower the "moment of inertia", the faster the spin rate.

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives...8532.As.r.html said
The direction of rotation for a star is set by the cloud of gas from which it formed. These clouds of gas are large objects, thousands of times larger than our solar system, but they are just barely rotating when they start to collapse to form a star. Only a small change is necessary during the initial collapse for the cloud to rotate one direction or the other.

And finaly an answer to my question

http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/c...solarsys.shtml said
When any great number of objects (be them molecules or stars) self-gravitate to make a new body in the Universe (be it a protoplanetary disk of a protogalaxy, they have leftover angular momentum. An analogy would be to imagine all the skaters in Rockefeller Center suddenly clasping hands of others around them. (Imagine them starting from a random pattern of skating.) The linked crowd would have some excess angular momentum and the whole mass would find itself in a slow group spin. If they all tugged closer, the spin would increase. (You know this from watching figure skaters bring in their arms.) This is what happens to the central protoplanetary dust disk.

An alternative analogy is a flight of birds suddenly being tied together with strings. They will start spinning as a group. The Sun carries the lion's share of the angular momentum in the SS. The proto-planets, moons, etc. may get some spin kick back from the Sun by the magnetic fields it drags through space. When the planets formed, again chunks of gas from a larger chunk, the parcels spun with the original spin join together to replicate this spin. The outer parts clumped with the inner parts. Although orbiting slower, the outer parts carry more angular momentum and spin the cloudlets in the same group convention so the SSW spin is maintained. This is a somewhat random process, not necessarily strictly followed, and an exception may be Venus.

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

It's time for some tensor calculus! How's your grasp of the curvature tensor? :D


Seriously, I doubt you'd be ready to grasp that. The spinning is easily explained when you understand the conservation of angular momentum. L = r X p where r is the radius from where the particle is in space relative to an origin and p is its linear momentum. Then a particle turns the angular momentum (L)is a pseudovectorial component perpendicular to the plane of the radial component r and the tangential momentum vector (dp/dt). This can easily be demonstrated in a gyroscope. As a mass acrues, it will create a gravitational "well" and a particle flying by will be caused to curve by it. In the beginning this will be a rather random event but as the mass acrues more "participating particles", the sum effects of one group particles will outweigh the others; eventually, there will be a concensus rotation in one direction. Also, since the momentum must be conserved, as the mass grows and pulls in more mass, that mass will spin faster and faster. It's like having a weight on a string you are spinning about your head. To maintain it spinning in a plane above your head at a distance, it will move slower. As you pull the string in making it shorter, the mass will move faster and faster. A pirouetting ice skater is another great example.

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

Did you learn all this in school Vax? I did not know that you are so well versed in physics. I look forward to having more conversation like this with anyone on the Moon that wants to chime in. It is so hard for me to find people to talk with about science.

I am familiar with angular momentum, Planck’s constant, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, wave function, quantum entanglement, entropy and several other theories and laws. What I was wondering is what started the protostar rotating in the first place. The analogy with the skaters in Rockefeller Center is what put it together for me. I have this picture in my mind of all the molecules gathered together and moving independent from each other, then an event causes them to start rotating. From what your saying Vax is that it’s the “gravitational well” that gets the ball rolling. What is it, in the analogy of the skaters, that causes them to “suddenly clasp hands” and start the slow spin?

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

Well, since you asked.

I had an Uncle that taught mathemetics at Lehigh University. He was teaching me how to solve systems of linear equations with determinants/matrices before I got to my Jr. High School.

I took my degrees (BS and MS) in Electronic Engineering. I took my SATs in the 11th grade and scored high enough to get into just about any school I wanted to at the time so, I took the ACTs in the senior year. I scored high enough to get my college language requirement waived and I was placed in the equivalent of an advanced placement group for my math. 5 credit Calculus courses my first 4 semesters (sounds impressive but it wasn't fun getting up at 8am 5 days a week). My text for calc was one being reviewed for publication. I still have them... 2 volumes on 8.5"x11" 2 sided paper and bound in volumes 2" thick each.

The Electronic Engineering discipline covered alot of "modern physics" which a typical Electrical Engineering degree would not.

When I was working on my MSEE, the professor I had for "Tensor Calculus" taught as an adjunct in the evening. I used to work in the school's Physics Lab setting up for the undergrads. I befriended one of the physics profs who helped me with the tensor field theory (math) and its meaning. Also,
as a grad student, I had to teach a semester of a class. I taught a semester of his of Applied Calculus (things like Bessels, lagrange, and sundry other mathematical curios in addition ot calculus) class. In turn, I taught him computer programming.

I actually focused on Communication and Information Theory in my graduate studies. I hated the actual "hands-on" hardware side of EE. There was much more interesting mathematics in the Communication/Information Theory side. I also found the hands-on study of anatomy much more stimulating than the "hands-on" EE. :D

Re: Sciences on Moon
 

I think what VAX wrote echoes what I wrote and is what I was alluding to, at least regarding conservation of angular momentum, though I didn't mention that explicitly. Essentially, I think, feel free to correct me if you think I'm wrong, is that any system of particles has a fundamental angular momentum due to the fact that they're all moving relative to each other, unless they are all heading toward a fixed point of course. Consequently, conservation of angular momentum inevitably results in spinning objects formed from a cloud of individual particles due to the non-uniformity of motion of the particles in the cloud. The point is that if you add gravity into that system, the particles attract one another, and there is an angular momentum of that system that is conserved when they coalesce. Therefore, if angular momentum is conserved (which it is, as far as I know, at least in the case of dust particles and other macroscopic entities) , it is inevitable that condensed clouds of gas or dust will exhibit rotation. VAX rightly points out that the idea of curved space isn't necessary to explain this behaviour, Newtonian mechanics will suffice. I only mentioned curved space because that was easy to make the "marble" model with.