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Domain: ntis.gov

Stories and comments across the archive that link to ntis.gov.

Comments · 9

  1. Re:My experince with the law by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Hans Reiser Gets Sentence of 15-To-Life

    So, a score of 1 on SlashDot is a good thing?

    :P

  2. The SSA Sells a List of Dead SSNs through NTIS by imus · · Score: 2, Interesting · on Government Mistakenly Declares Deaths of Citizens

    Folks inside and outside the US can buy it in several different formats: http://www.ntis.gov/products/pages/ssa-death-master.asp

  3. Re:Iraqi Government? by pease1 · · Score: 1 · on Open-Government Technique Used on Iraqi Documents
    Not the first time. The US brought home millions of documents from Germany and Japan at the end of WWII. Truman set up the "Publication Board" in 1947 with the aim of making the documents and the technology in them available to US business as a way of transferring that technology to the US economy.

    Today, the PB has become the National Technical Information Service. These days, NTIS collects S&T information from US agencies and makes it available. They charge a fee since they don't get tax payer's monies and are mandated by Congress to be self-supporting.

    It's been a while since I've checked, but I suspect you can still get some of the original collection stuff, either from them or the Library of Congress. This included some medical research data collected in the concentration camps.

  4. Self-powered electronic doorknobs by dtmos · · Score: 1 · on The Intelligent Door Handle
    Many comments to this post have pointed out the importance of a reliable power source for the electronic doorknob. I note that it's possible to use the energy of the motion of the knob itself to power the lock (and whatever other security feature one may reasonably desire). There may be earlier references to to this technique, but the one with which I am familiar is by Gerald F. Ross et al. Their paper, "Batteryless Sensor for Intrusion Detection and Assessment of Threats. - Technical rept. 7 Jul 94-12 Feb 95" is available as Defense Nuclear Agency Technical Report DNA-TR-95-21 from the National Technical Information Service; their design was also patented as US patent 5,317,303, available from the USPTO (although their usually reliable search engine seems to be down as I write this).

    Basically, the technique uses a wireless sensor network to monitor door openings and closings. When someone turns the knob, a generator powers a wireless transmitter, which sends a request to some central authority, which determines whether the door should be opened or not.

    The general term for these types of batteryless techniques is energy scavenging (or energy harvesting); there are many other examples of these techniques available on the web, and a book, "Energy Scavenging for Wireless Sensor Networks : with Special Focus on Vibrations," is also available. There is at least one company, Enocean, dedicated to the production of such systems.

  5. Self-powered electronic doorknobs by dtmos · · Score: 1 · on The Intelligent Door Handle
    Many comments to this post have pointed out the importance of a reliable power source for the electronic doorknob. I note that it's possible to use the energy of the motion of the knob itself to power the lock (and whatever other security feature one may reasonably desire). There may be earlier references to to this technique, but the one with which I am familiar is by Gerald F. Ross et al. Their paper, "Batteryless Sensor for Intrusion Detection and Assessment of Threats. - Technical rept. 7 Jul 94-12 Feb 95" is available as Defense Nuclear Agency Technical Report DNA-TR-95-21 from the National Technical Information Service; their design was also patented as US patent 5,317,303, available from the USPTO (although their usually reliable search engine seems to be down as I write this).

    Basically, the technique uses a wireless sensor network to monitor door openings and closings. When someone turns the knob, a generator powers a wireless transmitter, which sends a request to some central authority, which determines whether the door should be opened or not.

    The general term for these types of batteryless techniques is energy scavenging (or energy harvesting); there are many other examples of these techniques available on the web, and a book, "Energy Scavenging for Wireless Sensor Networks : with Special Focus on Vibrations," is also available. There is at least one company, Enocean, dedicated to the production of such systems.

  6. Re:Stop believing what you read in the press. by Thag · · Score: 2 · on 'Think Tank' Issues Microsoft-Funded Troll
    No SDI plan has ever been proposed that would satisfy my critereon: less than 10 warheads get thru. Any more than a dozen, and there wouldn't be a USA to bother with. We are talking 10+ megaton warheads. No piddling 14 kiloton crap that hit Hiroshima.


    Your argument is, if I can't have a 100% impervious shield, why bother with defense? That makes no sense. It's certainly not the standard applied to any other type of defense. And in the worst case (now unlikely) where 200+ nukes are fired and 10 get through, 10 is still a lot better than the alternative.

    Further, your characterization of the opposition to SDI is what is truely flawed. Lauching more missles is a viable counter to SDI. Missles are the cheap parts, warheads are the expensive part of a Nuclear wepon. Further, lasars and particle beams were definitely the most talked about SDI wepons. Specifically, mini-nuclear explosions creating focused X-ray beams. The kenetic wepons "smart-pebbles" are more plausible but have tons of drawbacks.


    You haven't even done your basic research. I have. Unlike Joe Loser Journalist from Newsweek, I was reading the official public releases from the SDI program that were published on microfiche through NTIS. And no, laser beams and particle beams were NOT part of the first generation SDI project. SDI was strictly using off the shelf technology to build kinetic energy interceptors, the "smart rocks" that were later called "brilliant pebbles." While the official releases talked about the possibility of using directed energy weapons in a future second generation defense system (for the space of maybe one paragraph), they were not a part of the first-generation SDI system in any way. Go find a library with NTIS archives and read the official SDI papers for yourself.

    Lasers and particle beams and nuke-pumped x-ray lasers were/are pie in the sky technology, decades away from being feasible at the time, and they might not have panned out at all. SDI was intended to field a working missile defense system RIGHT AWAY. The only people talking about lasers were idiot journalists who didn't do their research, or did their research by talking to idiot college professors. And Christ, there were a lot of them. I heard so-called "experts" claim that the whole project came out of an idea Reagan had at a dinner party! (Note: DOD has been actively and steadily pursuing anti-ballistic missile technology since the fifties.)

    Then, when SDI announced that "hey, the interceptors we've been working on are doing pretty well," the idiots in the press reported it as "guess they gave up on those lasers." (See the Newsweek cover story "SDI Changes Its Course.")

    Research into directed energy weapons was ongoing at the same time, of course, and had been before SDI in projects like Red River, but directed energy weapons were NOT a part of the first-generation SDI system.

    Don't act so high and mighty when you are clearly just an ignorant of the fact that people of differing view points might be inteligent, informed, and well intentioned, yet still disagree with you.


    If I'm acting high and mighty, it's because I bothered to actually do the basic research and learn the basic facts, and the vast majority of talking heads out there did not. And neither have you. It pisses me off. PS, learn to spell.

    Jon Acheson
  7. Oasis and Foreign Broadcast Information Service by pease1 · · Score: 2 · on Data Mining And The CIA
    Wanna see the results?

    I suspect the most common use of this sort of software is to monitor foreign broadcasts - something the CIA/OSS has been doing for more than 50 years. Traditionally, this has been done through a group (mentioned in the article) called the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS). FBIS monitors newspapers/broadcasts of many, many non-US media sources and makes this information available to US Government agencies.

    For many years, FBIS made available to the public a daily paper copy product via the US Dept of Commerce's National Technical Information Service (NTIS) that was fedex'ed daily to hundreds of subscribers around the country/world. There were several issues, broken down by regions. For many years, it was one of the best public ways to track what was happening in the Soviet space program.

    It's widely known that FBIS/CIA as been developing and using technology to aid the translation process for many years.

    A few years ago, they dropped the paper product and moved to an electronic version.

    The FBIS server to distribute the information to US Government users can be seen at http://199.221.15.211/ and can be found via a simple Google search on "FBIS".

    The public can access this information via NTIS's World News Connection system (http://wnc.fedworld.gov). Yes, there is a charge to use WNC, because NTIS has to pay copyright (gasp!!!!!) to the foriegn sources (just because you steal the data stream doesn't mean you own it!) as well as operate the system. It's pretty well known that foriegn sources who complain loud enough also get paid by the Govt for the US govt use of the data.

  8. Please, SDI by Thag · · Score: 2 · on Mysterious Cold War Spacecraft Designs!

    First of all, it's SDI, not "Star Wars."

    Secondly, your facts are in error. SDI was not cancelled because "the new laser technology failed to materialise." The whole POINT of the SDI effort was to build simple kinetic energy interceptors using off the shelf parts. Lasers were never part of the game plan, except in a "in 20 years, if this becomes available we'll use that too" sort of way. (Unlike Joe Reporter, I actually bothered to read the government releases on the SDI program in NTIS.)

    The kinetic energy interceptors WERE developed, with a fair degree of success. They were called "brilliant pebbles," which is a play on "smart rocks," which is slang for kinetic energy interceptors. They made the news, and I even saw video of one of them flying around. Unfortunately, since the press had never done their research in the first place, they covered the story as "hey, guess those lasers didn't work out," which is insulting given that the only people talking seriously about fielding lasers at that point were Time and Newsweek.

    I recommend checking around at college or city libraries near you to see if you can browse the NTIS reports (Otherwise, you'd have to spend big bucks getting things mailed to you on microfiche). You will get a lot clearer picture of what was going on than was given in the mainstream press.

    Jon

  9. Please, SDI by Thag · · Score: 2 · on Mysterious Cold War Spacecraft Designs!

    First of all, it's SDI, not "Star Wars."

    Secondly, your facts are in error. SDI was not cancelled because "the new laser technology failed to materialise." The whole POINT of the SDI effort was to build simple kinetic energy interceptors using off the shelf parts. Lasers were never part of the game plan, except in a "in 20 years, if this becomes available we'll use that too" sort of way. (Unlike Joe Reporter, I actually bothered to read the government releases on the SDI program in NTIS.)

    The kinetic energy interceptors WERE developed, with a fair degree of success. They were called "brilliant pebbles," which is a play on "smart rocks," which is slang for kinetic energy interceptors. They made the news, and I even saw video of one of them flying around. Unfortunately, since the press had never done their research in the first place, they covered the story as "hey, guess those lasers didn't work out," which is insulting given that the only people talking seriously about fielding lasers at that point were Time and Newsweek.

    I recommend checking around at college or city libraries near you to see if you can browse the NTIS reports (Otherwise, you'd have to spend big bucks getting things mailed to you on microfiche). You will get a lot clearer picture of what was going on than was given in the mainstream press.

    Jon