Then you've never used one to perform many kilocharacters of data entry by touch typing... The keys' springiness and tactile feed back makes it a superior high-volume input for a speed typist.
And there is also the nostalgia, granted. But there really has been no other keyboard tech that provides the same clear, unmistakeable confirmation that yes, your key was pressed.
That's the best retort to all the "Ha Ha" schadenfreude operating under the persistent identification of the group as a single-minded hierarchy I've seen in the entire thread, and I've already posted so I can't mod you up.
In this respect, I am reminded most of the old "Justice League Unlimited" series: Anonymous may have a central core of Batmen and Supermen running things at the Citadel, but that's by no means any guarantee that some mid-level Green Arrows and The Questions with their own agendas and little cadres of Canaries can't muck things up and eventually deorbit the whole station... or am I getting my Justice League series mixed up? It's been a while.
Anyway, the point is that Anon is not a single-minded entity but a continually-changing group of very strong-minded indivuduals who probably disagree upon as much as they agree upon.
Cram everyone on earth into an area the size of Texas?
Yea, that's practical... It will certainly ensure the survival of the species and give us something other than a biosphere to exploit and pollute. And it won't incite people to violence, nor will anyone ever want to leave in order to stake a claim to new real estate. And it will magically cause regeneration of all the Earth's natural resources that are becoming scarce.
I bow to your superior realistic practicality. And your infinite Wisdom. Not to mention Charisma and Dexterity. Surely you also have the Strength and Constitution to qualify as the Paladin class deity. Only you could have conceived this messiah of a brainchild. You should be President of the Earth, in perpetuity. Or at least Texas.
I want to be optimistic. When I chose engineering as a career, my goal was to aid humanity in colonizing space, because I could see that we've run out of terrestrial expansion room.
But TFA is Michael Cooney's Layer 8 blog. Cooney mines the Federal Business Ops website for RFIs and RFPs and then writes entire articles based on conjecture and conclusions reached by means of Boots of Springing and Striding. I've worked on programs that have received Cooney's attention and was amazed at how wrong he was on so many points, and how he presented his erroneous assumptions as facts. It's hard to take anything I read on Layer 8 credibly.
For instance, Cooney regularly glosses over the transient nature of the RFIs he cites. Keep in mind that an RFI is merely a "Request for Information." It's an unfunded solicitation of ideas and white papers, used to identify whether there's anybody credible out there who has an idea plausible enough and attractive enough to warrant going back to the DARPA Director and, eventually, Congress with a budget request for a real RFP and phase I study program. Many RFIs result in either nothing, or an RFP for an unfunded IDIQ or a shoestring SBIR type contract. They're fishing expeditions. And sometimes they're done for internal projects just to get new ideas for free, or for programs hardwired for an existing contractor just as a sort of threat. (But on the other side of the coin, DARPA is usually not tricksy like that... but there's still no guarantee of any money available.)
Still, I'm very glad that DARPA is soliciting ideas, at least... there's a phrase in the R&D world: "DARPA Hard." DARPA doesn't consider ideas that are just matters of engineering -- making existing tech lighter/faster/cheaper. They want to push the state of the art and hope to sponsor real, fundamental science that opens up new possibilities. Starships are indeed DARPA Hard.
TFA is Michael Cooney's Layer 8 blog. I'll give Cooney the benefit of the doubt and assume he did the 30 seconds of research necessary to find out the correct term and just assume he misplaced a key memory part.
With a UID that low, if he was going to Troll, you'd be left wondering what the hell hominy porridge has to do with ex-vegan stars of melodramatic ballet movies...
And the real irony here is that the keybinds are one of the easiest learning curves in nethack, so for someone to complain about the keybinds marks them instantly as someone who will _never_ grok nethack.
So I've read thru most of the active, non-troll, non-joke threads here, and the union set of all of the discussions seems to be:
DRM is limiting Blu-Ray adoption. DRM makes for a pain in the ass to setup, to watch, and to place-shift. Many (if not most) people are willing to tradeoff DVD quality for ease of use. And more than a few people are driven to bypass DRM in order to get what they want (e.g., control over playback, access to full-res content, etc.).
I'm with the majority on that. I torrent or record all of my HD programs. The rest is DVD movies from Netflix, or in the case of childrens' content, DVDs purchased and stashed with toys. I have one drive capable of playing Blu-Ray content, and I've never been impressed with the few Blu-Ray discs I've borrowed -- not enough to purchase a single one myself, anyway. But then I don't buy DVDs except for those with titles like "Thomas the Tank Engine" and "Justice League Unlimited," for which the extraordinary expense and headache of 1080p playback is entirely unnecessary, and probably would go unappreciated.
Indeed. I've worked on some military programs that track and intercept, umm... things... for various purposes... that use this very same image-based tracking algorithm. But instead of painting a red dot or drawing trails, it steers a, umm... vehicle... that... uh... delivers candy.
Yea. Candy.
Euphemism aside, he's done a very nice job of integrating it with commercial hardware and software. It's still impressive.
I used to work for the manufacturer of the RQ-11 Raven. It’s not just a remote controlled toy. It’s a real airplane with a sophisticated autopilot, a long-range radio link, and a video ground control system. I’m limited by a nondisclosure agreement to what I can say, but I can go over each point in some more detail:
1) It’s a real airplane: UAVs are controlled by the same FAA regulations as airplanes. They require a Certificate of Airworthiness (COA) in order to operate in US airspace, and cannot be operated within 30 miles of a commercial airport. The pilots also require training and licenses. You can’t just pick one up and operate it like it’s an RC plane, though if you were patient and careful, you could probably figure it out without destroying the air vehicle first.
2) Sophisticated Autopilot: RC planes require the operator to actively control the aircraft’s every movement, and to do so, one must remain in visual contact with the craft. UAVs have IMUs and autopilots and are typically controlled at a higher level: give it waypoints, set the target airspeed and altitude, and it finds its own way, reacting automatically to atmospheric conditions. When it reaches its waypoint, it will automatically ‘loiter’ by circling the waypoint until given another waypoint, or a command to proceed to the next waypoint. In typical use, the Raven quickly leaves the line of sight of the operator. (Really, it’s almost as easy as controlling a Protoss Observer.)
3) Long Range Radio Link: The link to the operator is via two way radio, operating on military frequency bands and at powers that require a special FCC license for operation in the US. This unit was very likely an older block A or block B Raven with an analog radio link. If someone got their hands on an operational unit, reverse engineering the protocol would just be a matter of time. The newest Ravens have encrypted, digital links, and would be harder to hack. But this is likely one of the older, analog ones.
4) Video Ground Control Systems: Enemy possession of these, even one of the older analog units, is probably the most threatening aspect to the US military, as it would allow enemies to decode the protocols between air and ground, and enable an attacker to take control of a plane and/or modify its flight operation, and, depending on how it was configured, may reveal details about other military systems. These are not Futaba hand controllers. These are sophisticated proprietary handheld computers with onboard video processing, and possibly loaded with mission planning and navigation software, terrain models, etc. Definitely not toys.
There’s an unanswered question, and that’s “where did this guy get a Raven system?” Tens of thousands of these have been sold, mostly to the US Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps, but also many to foreign governments. Someone failed to honor their agreement with the manufacturer and the US State Department by allowing this to fall into uncontrolled hands. The operators of these systems are obliged to keep them secure, so at the very least, they’re guilty of negligence. If it was US military personnel, then some serious arms trafficking charges are liable to come down on someone’s head, not just this fence's.
There's also the question of industrial espionage, as the Raven OEM is in active competition for the small UAV market with other companies in countries around the world, including Israel, China, Italy, and others.
Slashdot Mirror
If they really knew, then they'd make an input device that resembled a pair of breasteses.
I've never understood the appeal of the Model M.
Then you've never used one to perform many kilocharacters of data entry by touch typing... The keys' springiness and tactile feed back makes it a superior high-volume input for a speed typist.
And there is also the nostalgia, granted. But there really has been no other keyboard tech that provides the same clear, unmistakeable confirmation that yes, your key was pressed.
Actually, my solution to Barbarians was to cultivate them and farm their huts for gold...
So now 5e07 LoC's are 'insignificant...'
Tell that to Conan the Librarian!
ejaculation of violent imagery
Sounds more like the MPAA.
I dunno, but I bet it involves Lawyers.
Connecticut Lawyers.
Or possibly Apocalypse Cow?
That's the best retort to all the "Ha Ha" schadenfreude operating under the persistent identification of the group as a single-minded hierarchy I've seen in the entire thread, and I've already posted so I can't mod you up.
In this respect, I am reminded most of the old "Justice League Unlimited" series: Anonymous may have a central core of Batmen and Supermen running things at the Citadel, but that's by no means any guarantee that some mid-level Green Arrows and The Questions with their own agendas and little cadres of Canaries can't muck things up and eventually deorbit the whole station... or am I getting my Justice League series mixed up? It's been a while.
Anyway, the point is that Anon is not a single-minded entity but a continually-changing group of very strong-minded indivuduals who probably disagree upon as much as they agree upon.
Did you miss the Arab Spring? They're doing revolution for their lives, not lulz.
That's more or less his point. That's more or less why he claims that "the closest thing we have to a revolutionary spirit" is "really sad."
I think he's being overly selective, but at least I understood him.
You're the one being obtuse. I'm being sarcastic.
Clearly you missed my point. The human need for expansion is not to provide living space for people.
If I have to explain it to you, you're already beyond convincing. Plonk.
Cram everyone on earth into an area the size of Texas?
Yea, that's practical... It will certainly ensure the survival of the species and give us something other than a biosphere to exploit and pollute. And it won't incite people to violence, nor will anyone ever want to leave in order to stake a claim to new real estate. And it will magically cause regeneration of all the Earth's natural resources that are becoming scarce.
I bow to your superior realistic practicality. And your infinite Wisdom. Not to mention Charisma and Dexterity. Surely you also have the Strength and Constitution to qualify as the Paladin class deity. Only you could have conceived this messiah of a brainchild. You should be President of the Earth, in perpetuity. Or at least Texas.
I want to be optimistic. When I chose engineering as a career, my goal was to aid humanity in colonizing space, because I could see that we've run out of terrestrial expansion room.
But TFA is Michael Cooney's Layer 8 blog. Cooney mines the Federal Business Ops website for RFIs and RFPs and then writes entire articles based on conjecture and conclusions reached by means of Boots of Springing and Striding. I've worked on programs that have received Cooney's attention and was amazed at how wrong he was on so many points, and how he presented his erroneous assumptions as facts. It's hard to take anything I read on Layer 8 credibly.
For instance, Cooney regularly glosses over the transient nature of the RFIs he cites. Keep in mind that an RFI is merely a "Request for Information." It's an unfunded solicitation of ideas and white papers, used to identify whether there's anybody credible out there who has an idea plausible enough and attractive enough to warrant going back to the DARPA Director and, eventually, Congress with a budget request for a real RFP and phase I study program. Many RFIs result in either nothing, or an RFP for an unfunded IDIQ or a shoestring SBIR type contract. They're fishing expeditions. And sometimes they're done for internal projects just to get new ideas for free, or for programs hardwired for an existing contractor just as a sort of threat. (But on the other side of the coin, DARPA is usually not tricksy like that... but there's still no guarantee of any money available.)
Still, I'm very glad that DARPA is soliciting ideas, at least... there's a phrase in the R&D world: "DARPA Hard." DARPA doesn't consider ideas that are just matters of engineering -- making existing tech lighter/faster/cheaper. They want to push the state of the art and hope to sponsor real, fundamental science that opens up new possibilities. Starships are indeed DARPA Hard.
Either that or pirated Disney movies.
Is that a technical term?
TFA is Michael Cooney's Layer 8 blog. I'll give Cooney the benefit of the doubt and assume he did the 30 seconds of research necessary to find out the correct term and just assume he misplaced a key memory part.
With a UID that low, if he was going to Troll, you'd be left wondering what the hell hominy porridge has to do with ex-vegan stars of melodramatic ballet movies...
The question you pose is valid only if you believe the entire affair is all about your personal financial gain and how to maximize it.
Of course. Just like a good corporate citizen should.
And the real irony here is that the keybinds are one of the easiest learning curves in nethack, so for someone to complain about the keybinds marks them instantly as someone who will _never_ grok nethack.
Um. Maybe here?
Oh crap, I need a license to time travel?
You mean I've been estimating tachyon loss and temporal margins illegally all this time?
Since it's 1988 and I started in 2011, that means it's been... D'oh!
Oh crap, I need a license to perform Math?
You mean I've been estimating path loss and link margins illegally all this time?
Since it's 2011 and I started in 1988, that means it's been... D'oh!
So I've read thru most of the active, non-troll, non-joke threads here, and the union set of all of the discussions seems to be:
I'm with the majority on that. I torrent or record all of my HD programs. The rest is DVD movies from Netflix, or in the case of childrens' content, DVDs purchased and stashed with toys. I have one drive capable of playing Blu-Ray content, and I've never been impressed with the few Blu-Ray discs I've borrowed -- not enough to purchase a single one myself, anyway. But then I don't buy DVDs except for those with titles like "Thomas the Tank Engine" and "Justice League Unlimited," for which the extraordinary expense and headache of 1080p playback is entirely unnecessary, and probably would go unappreciated.
It depends on what the last guy touched it with...
Indeed. I've worked on some military programs that track and intercept, umm... things... for various purposes... that use this very same image-based tracking algorithm. But instead of painting a red dot or drawing trails, it steers a, umm... vehicle... that... uh... delivers candy.
Yea. Candy.
Euphemism aside, he's done a very nice job of integrating it with commercial hardware and software. It's still impressive.
I used to work for the manufacturer of the RQ-11 Raven. It’s not just a remote controlled toy. It’s a real airplane with a sophisticated autopilot, a long-range radio link, and a video ground control system. I’m limited by a nondisclosure agreement to what I can say, but I can go over each point in some more detail:
1) It’s a real airplane: UAVs are controlled by the same FAA regulations as airplanes. They require a Certificate of Airworthiness (COA) in order to operate in US airspace, and cannot be operated within 30 miles of a commercial airport. The pilots also require training and licenses. You can’t just pick one up and operate it like it’s an RC plane, though if you were patient and careful, you could probably figure it out without destroying the air vehicle first.
2) Sophisticated Autopilot: RC planes require the operator to actively control the aircraft’s every movement, and to do so, one must remain in visual contact with the craft. UAVs have IMUs and autopilots and are typically controlled at a higher level: give it waypoints, set the target airspeed and altitude, and it finds its own way, reacting automatically to atmospheric conditions. When it reaches its waypoint, it will automatically ‘loiter’ by circling the waypoint until given another waypoint, or a command to proceed to the next waypoint. In typical use, the Raven quickly leaves the line of sight of the operator. (Really, it’s almost as easy as controlling a Protoss Observer.)
3) Long Range Radio Link: The link to the operator is via two way radio, operating on military frequency bands and at powers that require a special FCC license for operation in the US. This unit was very likely an older block A or block B Raven with an analog radio link. If someone got their hands on an operational unit, reverse engineering the protocol would just be a matter of time. The newest Ravens have encrypted, digital links, and would be harder to hack. But this is likely one of the older, analog ones.
4) Video Ground Control Systems: Enemy possession of these, even one of the older analog units, is probably the most threatening aspect to the US military, as it would allow enemies to decode the protocols between air and ground, and enable an attacker to take control of a plane and/or modify its flight operation, and, depending on how it was configured, may reveal details about other military systems. These are not Futaba hand controllers. These are sophisticated proprietary handheld computers with onboard video processing, and possibly loaded with mission planning and navigation software, terrain models, etc. Definitely not toys.
There’s an unanswered question, and that’s “where did this guy get a Raven system?” Tens of thousands of these have been sold, mostly to the US Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps, but also many to foreign governments. Someone failed to honor their agreement with the manufacturer and the US State Department by allowing this to fall into uncontrolled hands. The operators of these systems are obliged to keep them secure, so at the very least, they’re guilty of negligence. If it was US military personnel, then some serious arms trafficking charges are liable to come down on someone’s head, not just this fence's.
There's also the question of industrial espionage, as the Raven OEM is in active competition for the small UAV market with other companies in countries around the world, including Israel, China, Italy, and others.
Wasn't babe [re]capturing the entire premise behind Super Mario Brothers?