I 'converted' to a Macbook in May. I love it to pieces. It drives me to despair just as seriously as my old Dell did - but a lot less often.

However - the Mac Mini seems like a lot of money for not a lot of PC. 1 gig of ram simply isn't enough any more - and an 80 gig hard drive is hardly a revelation. This Macbook shares many of the same components as the currently available Mac Minis - but I've dropped 2 gig of ram in it, and a 250 gig HDD.

They're great little machines - but you've got to really want a Mac to justify spending the £500 for one - another £200 and you can have a Macbook from the refurb store It depends if you think OSX is worth it...and I don't think I could justify it personally - even as a mac user.

My desktop machine at home remains a PC (just ordered a swathe of upgrade goodies)

Doug

It worked for our little network here at work - if I did it any other way, we wouldn't get gbit networking throughout.

Doug

There are hints of a discolouration on all four of the corners of the SD from very early on, on both vehicles. What causes it - don't know - perhaps something to do with the rover build process.

As for different colours of dust - one need only consider the strength of the wind we've seen in the past year because of the dust storm, the different colours of soil we've seen by digging around a bit and the variety of colour as close as El Dorado.

The dark patches are all around the complex wiring - compare to http://pancam.astro.cornell.edu/pancam_ins...ent/adeck3.html

We've all tried to guesstimate at various deposition, erosion, and to be honest, it's all been a bunch of utter nonsense almost without exception - but it's clear that where there are wires there are dark patches (or dark patches that have been streaked).


Doug

Sensor 3 has just failed. Game over for today.

Doug

Yup - there's raised wiring in those places, so dust will accumulate.

Doug

Most of the time.

That spun/despun interface caused something like 20 safe modes - 6 in the second half of 1993 alone- and having not occured for nearly 5 years, it occured three times inside of 20 hours in July '98 and three times in 10 hours in August '99.

It was a million miles from perfect.

Doug

There are some feint tracks visible - but given the fairly dynamic summer the atmosphere has had, I don't expect them to be particularly obvious.

Doug

You're right - the slope is ESE - so to be honest, not a lot of delta to the power. A bit of a gain in the morning - a bit of a drop in the evening.

Oppy's not so much in love, it's more a case of arthritis.

Doug

Opportunity is near equatorial ( compared to Spirit's southern latitudes ) - and very clean - currently plenty of Whr's and I don't think it'll be getting a great deal worse.

Doug

- That's GENIUS.

Doug

That's the bit of the MER design that keeps Squyres most worried I think.

Doug

Beg/Borrow/Steal a copy of 'The Titans of Saturn' . It's a management / leadership book - but it talks about the story of the Cassini scan platform at length and is quite insightful. Essentially - given a choice of Cassini without a scan platform, or no Cassini at all - which would you pick?

One detail - having a platform doesn't mean zero prop useage - the very process of turning a scan platform would, I would imagine, impart a moment on the vehicle to which it is attached. Not big - but not zero.

Doug

Well - you're asking to traverse across a 25 deg slope - with 5 wheel drive. I don't think that's particularly wise. The chance for slippage OFF the slope would be significant. Even dropping from 25 to 15 degrees might be that slight extra challenge on the shortest days that Spirit might not survive.

I've got not problems at all with a significant and extensive MI survey within the IDD work volume (it'd be fantatsic) - if they can park up in an appropriate place at the start of winter where the slope is at its very best - and that site includes the sort of interesting rock that we saw on the north rim of home plate back in the mid 700's.

We've got a very thin piece of winter haven here - and to tread along it any more than is needed would be an unnecessary risk.


Doug

The sound would travel through the metal of the chamber as well - it's not a totally honest test. I'm sure some was done for the Mars Mic sent with MPL though.

Doug

Yeah - you're one of those evil developers with overseas tech support

Doug

They've said that they can manage 8 degrees with the FRW stuck. If they drive off, and can't get up from the bottom (which is almost certainly true) - then they've got to drive all the way around to the east side to get back on top. Driving off the top to try and drive up a 25 degree slope from the bottom would be virtual suicide.

Doug

Nor did I - I had to google it

Doug

If you go to 'Update' and then 'Advanced Update Images' - you can specify a sol range and source.

What I do is get Navcam from sol 1-9999 from Exploratorium
Then get Dan's Pancam imagery from 1-9999 from lyle.org
Then an all images update from the last 50 or so sols from JPL

Doug

(PS - beaten by Alan As a guide, my copy of all of the above stuff is about 7.5 gig )

Ahh - are those noticelull...err...noticeu....nocilleut.....nocieoccinocoe......ett

noctilucent ?

Doug

It works Now I'm making a whole LOAD of mosaics

Doug

Over the edge would get picked up by tilt limits. The dive into Tartarus must have been under the limits

Doug

And fog - lots and lots of fog - over the Wye in Gloucestershire, as seen from Symonds Yat. A really bad pan - PTGui wont find any keypoints - and to be honest, I can't find too many either

Funky clouds time

These were seen in November '05 near Salobrena in Southern Spain - late afternoon, something to do with the Mediterranean, the Sierra Nevada, and wind.

Doug

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040112.html
"A leading hypothesis holds that the hole-punch cloud is caused by falling ice-crystals. The ice-crystals could originate in a higher cloud or be facilitated by a passing airplane exhaust. If the air has just the right temperature and moisture content, the falling crystals will absorb water from the air and grow. For this to happen, the water must be so cold that all it needs is a surface to freeze on. The moisture lost from the air increases the evaporation rate from the cloud water droplets so they dissipate to form the hole. The now heavier ice crystals continue to fall and form the more tenuous wispy cloud-like virga seen inside and just below the hole. Water and ice from the virga evaporates before they reach the ground."


Doug