January 2004 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

Re: [Utah-astronomy] OT: HP
by Josephine Grahn 28 Jan '04

28 Jan '04

Chuck, Over the last 15 years, I have had great work, at reasonable prices, from ValCom. I have owned 3 HP's for our business, plus a few other machines, and when I have not been able to fix them, Valcom has. They are located at 3520 South, 300 West in SLC. I have always called first, described the problem, and been given an idea of whether they can fix it, and whether it is worth fixing, before I even go down there. I have not had to use them in a few years, so you may want to give them a call, to make sure they still do repair work. Their number is 262-9277. Good luck Jo >--- Chuck Hards <chuckhards(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >> Sorry about this off-topic post...does anyone have >> info on an authorized HP service center in the SL >> area? >> >> I called the HP phone number, the fellow on the >> other >> end gave me another number, which was a recording >> stating that their service database was "not >> currently >> available". >> >> If I can't find a service center in the SL area, >> then >> Kim and Patrick will have something besides bowling >> balls to drop. >> >> Thanks >> >> C.

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Congress hearings on NASA TV now
by Patrick Wiggins 28 Jan '04

28 Jan '04

NASA TV is airing a congressional hearing featuring the NASA administrator and the president's recent proposal. Patrick

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OT: HP
by Chuck Hards 28 Jan '04

28 Jan '04

Sorry about this off-topic post...does anyone have info on an authorized HP service center in the SL area? I called the HP phone number, the fellow on the other end gave me another number, which was a recording stating that their service database was "not currently available". If I can't find a service center in the SL area, then Kim and Patrick will have something besides bowling balls to drop. Thanks C. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/

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Right-on Joe Bauman
by Chuck Hards 27 Jan '04

27 Jan '04

Joe, Ive had a chance to get caught-up on some of the science speculation about the Opportunity landing site, and man, your speculations on the 'flagstone' bedrock were dead-on track. Science writer's intuition? C. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/

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[Utah-astronomy] Off topic: Science lecture tomorrow (Wed.) and a new virus alert
by Richard Tenney 27 Jan '04

27 Jan '04

For anyone interested, Wed, 28 January 2004 at 7:30pm in the Aline Wilmot Skaggs Biology Auditorium (West of the U of U Bookstore) Dr. Bruce Ames, Professor of Molecular Biology at UC Berkeley, will present a lecture on "The Metabolic Tune up: Delaying Aging and Optimizing Health", as part of the U's "Frontiers of Science" lecture series (free and open to the public). The lectures in this series so far have been terrific. Also, be aware of a new virus/worm going around in the form of an e-mail attachment (document.zip or data.zip). I've been sent it twice today already, so I suspect it's pretty widespread by now. Like any other email virus, don't open the attachment, just delete the message. Rich __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/

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SLAS tonight
by Patrick Wiggins 27 Jan '04

27 Jan '04

For those here who do not receive News (News subscribers received this in today's issue): SLAS Meeting Tonight SLAS will be holding it's monthly meeting tonight at the 10th East Senior Center, 237 S. 10th E. in SLC, starting at 7:30 p.m. Being that it's the January meeting much of the time will probably be spent approving the 2004 budget and activities schedule. However there are also plans to show some stills and videos covering recent events at Mars and Roger Ockey, who works for a company that built parts of the Mars landers may display some lander parts. Everyone is welcome, you need not be a SLAS member to attend the meeting. Patrick

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RE: [Utah-astronomy] Yesterday News Conference
by Dale Hooper 27 Jan '04

27 Jan '04

I believe that in the Nova documentary about the MERs Steve Squyres (sp?) the principal investigator said that due to schedule constraints they had to launch before the rover software was even finished. They had ~7 months of flight time to finish it. When the EE's here at SDL heard that Spirit was having problems they all said it sounded like a software problem. Of course, they always think that its a software problem. <g> > -----Original Message----- > From: David Dunn [mailto:david.dunn@albertsons.com] > Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2004 8:44 AM > To: 'Utah Astronomy' > Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Yesterday News Conference > > > Software developers rarely like to worry about resources like > file system > tables. They normally take care of themselves and they are > usually part of > the operating system. In this case, they were developing the operating > system as part of the product. With the limited resources available on > Spirit, I am sure that they did look at some of the storage > limits. I am > sure that it has been added to JPL's list of things to design > in future > systems. Jennifer also recommended that the Opportunity team > delete some > files before the 18th day. They do have procedures to clean > up the data, but > they had been leaving it there because they had plenty of > room in the Flash > memory. They still have data left from the long cruise to Mars. > > Dave > > -----Original Message----- > From: Joe Bauman [mailto:bau@desnews.com] > Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2004 7:19 AM > To: Utah Astronomy > Subject: [Maybe Spam] Re: [Utah-astronomy] Yesterday News Conference > > > Hi Dave, I watched the news conference too and I thought her analysis > seemed reasonable, not that I know much about computers. A colleague > had a computer crash because it had too much stuff in it, so I think > that makes sense. But the question that immediately comes up is, Why > didn't someone think of this? Suerely the federal government has > plenty of computer scientists who know exactly what happens when too > many files stack up -- so why didn't they give poor Spirit a protocol > to dump files before they got too numerous? Best wishes, Joe

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Yesterday News Conference
by David Dunn 27 Jan '04

27 Jan '04

Software developers rarely like to worry about resources like file system tables. They normally take care of themselves and they are usually part of the operating system. In this case, they were developing the operating system as part of the product. With the limited resources available on Spirit, I am sure that they did look at some of the storage limits. I am sure that it has been added to JPL's list of things to design in future systems. Jennifer also recommended that the Opportunity team delete some files before the 18th day. They do have procedures to clean up the data, but they had been leaving it there because they had plenty of room in the Flash memory. They still have data left from the long cruise to Mars. Dave -----Original Message----- From: Joe Bauman [mailto:bau@desnews.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2004 7:19 AM To: Utah Astronomy Subject: [Maybe Spam] Re: [Utah-astronomy] Yesterday News Conference Hi Dave, I watched the news conference too and I thought her analysis seemed reasonable, not that I know much about computers. A colleague had a computer crash because it had too much stuff in it, so I think that makes sense. But the question that immediately comes up is, Why didn't someone think of this? Suerely the federal government has plenty of computer scientists who know exactly what happens when too many files stack up -- so why didn't they give poor Spirit a protocol to dump files before they got too numerous? Best wishes, Joe _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy(a)mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.utahastronomy.com

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Yesterday News Conference
by David Dunn 27 Jan '04

27 Jan '04

I found the discussion about Spirit's troubles very interesting. I can't remember the ladies name, but she gave a pretty detailed account of what happened and when. She also described how they approached the trouble shooting. This included something that I have seen many times. The Sr developer had an intuitive guess that it had something to do with the flash memory. There current theory on what is wrong is that they got too many files in the flash memory and it overflowed the file system portion of RAM. They are now going to delete a bunch of files that they don't need and that should resolve the problem. Being a software developer, it sure sounds like a good theory. Dave

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] Hubble humor
by Josephine Grahn 27 Jan '04

27 Jan '04

Hey Brent, One persons humor, is another man's veiled insult. You have made several "humorous" comments that I found pretty offensive, but I didn't leap down your throat... Glass Houses and all. I'm pretty sure I have offended people with what I thought was humorous in the past. I'm probably going to inadvertently do it again. I'll try to avoid taking to much offense at your comments, and enjoy those aspects of your personality that I like, and with a little luck, you'll extend the same courtesy to me. I doubt there is a person on this news group that is a saint, and has never found humor in something that others might be offended at. Lets try to redevelop that thick skin that we all need to get along in this world, and only start flame wars when it is a truly amazing, over the top, the guy should probably be shot, drawn and quartered, and then fed to the dogs.. type offense. I thought it was humorous, by the way. Jo Grahn At 03:23 PM 1/26/2004 -0800, you wrote: >Really? I saw no humor, nor do I think any was >intended. It appeared to me as nothing more than an >"almost" clever way to ding your boss. I respect >constructive comments much more than comments made in >a derogatory light. > >--- "B. Bettilyon" <aaah(a)sisna.com> wrote: >> Oh for crying out loud, guys. It was a joke *A >> JOKE*. >> >> Lighten up. >> >> Barney

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