Tuesday, February 3, 2004

Out-of-memory problem caused Mars rover's glitch. Amid all the excitement after the Mars landing on Jan. 3, and with data being beamed back to Earth by the Spirit rover, mission technicians didn't delete old files and directories to clear the rover's memory for reuse. [Computerworld News] It appears the fix was simple, just defrag and reboot, voila. The rover came back online and is working up to spec. That's great it was a simple fix. I'm so happy they got it working again. 10:00:36 PM    comment []

Speeding Flight Check-In at Self-Service Kiosks. Do-it-yourself check-in kiosks have sprouted up in airports, and lots more are coming. By David Jones. [New York Times: Technology] I live in an airline market where these kiosks are at best spotty. Unless you were on the "right" airline you couldn't use a kiosk. And it appears if you got to check luggage, the kiosk isn't going to do you any good, you still have to talk to somebody to turn over your bag. I think the price of $3.26/passenger for regular counter checked-people is probably a valid figure, but I doubt anyone is nearly anywhere near seeing the $0.19/passenger cost of kiosk checked passengers. What about the people with luggage to check? There is no free lunch here, just a perception of one. 6:51:59 PM    comment []