We are proud to announce that we will be holding a similar event in Lost Springs, WY and that there will be absolutely no restriction on what participants may do. Also, the fees we are going to charge will be ridiculously low compared to what it costs in Vegas.
> I helped TEACH Secret Service and FBI agents how to recognize these sorts of "fake" IDs
Wow ! Did it take long ? I assumed just telling them would be sufficient. Since you had to teach them, how long did it take them to learn those complex topics ?;-))
Back on topic, does a gmail address look more serious ? I found it looked "a little" more serious, especially when gmail was on invitation only. But maybe it is just me...
Dropping tools down the hole is something I have never seen in my 5 years career.
The reason why you need to fish them out is not because of the price of the tool but because of the price of the well !;-))
Most tools are made of hardened steel which isn't found in nature so no drilling rig machinery can drill through them. I heard stories of holes that were abandoned, hence all the invested money on them was lost because they couldn't manage to fish some dropped tools out of it so they couldn't resume drilling. There was even stories about drill strings that could not get pulled out of the hole because it was stuck due to a dropped tool. Same result; abandoned well plus abandoned drill string. (Remember that the drill bit is always bigger than the drill string, hence it can easily get stuck)
Even if you finally manage to fish the tool out, it takes special equipment and the drilling can be postponed for 2 to 3 days before that equipment gets there and sometimes up to 2 weeks before they manage to get it out, which drilling contractors and oil companies do not like;-)
Back to "my tool", it was attached to a wire and dropped into the drill pipes. So even if the wire broke or if got stuck in the pipes, we would not have to fish it out because it wasn't dropped directly into the hole. The tool couldn't go through the drill bit so it was always kept inside the drill string. Pull the drill string out in the worst case scenario;-)
Anyway, dropping tools down the hole could easily get you fired back then;-)
Oh, and other horror stories included dropped drill bits, dropped drill strings, hitting underground rivers and losing your drilling mud and also tight holes where the Earth squeezes your drill string.
I remember working on a tight hole and getting stuck for a few days until Schlumberger got to the well and injected special liquid into it. A guy gave me a Schlumberger hard hat and I kept wearing it afterward while working;-) http://www.slb.com/
Agreed, I was digging holes in the ground between 1979-1984 and the average depth was also 10,000 feet, with the deepest close to 14,000 feet. I think I remember having to add 1 loop of cable going around the block when getting close to 14,000 feet. The rigs were "a-leg" style, triple.
I only dug straight holes (no directional drilling). We would drop a survey tool hold by a wire down the hole (inside the drill pipes) every so many feet to make sure we remained straight;-)
The tool was really basic; inside it, a small weight hung by a string would have a part be pushed by a spring at a time preset by us and punch a mark on a little paper target below. If our pipes were straight, the punch mark would have to be in the middle of the target !;-)
I never talked about the reasons for which it has been targeted. I just said its height contributed to make more damage compared to a similar action against a much lower building.
I also said that in general, extremely high buildings are more vulnerable in almost any catastrophe you can think of, man made or not.
Agreed, I was just raising the question whether an oil well permanent casing, 2 miles or more tall, could qualify as a non-freestanding structure;-)
It sure would be noticeable with some sort of ground scanning device when looking at the planet. I mean, they are all over the place and their height can be an order of magnitude taller than the conventional structures we were talking about !;-)
I though that some analysts expressed concerns about building extremely high buildings after the twin towers incident. I do not see this point mentioned in the comments yet.
Back then, I took for granted that USA would not try to hold that record again for obvious reasons.
I have regularly worked to build more than 1 mile tall structures while working on the oil rigs back then. We inserted permanent steel casing after digging the hole most of the time so the casing would constitute a taller non-freestanding permanent steel structure;-)
While drilling in the Rockies, we were well above sea level so our steel structures would actually be standing higher than the 'Dubai Tower' which I think is is at sea level (or almost).
Replace with "load the whole OS into memory plus the disk content mostly used".
Linux and most OSes already do this for you. Look at the free output below on that 8 Gigs machine. Programs only use 969 Meg (.96 GB) of RAM. Linux has swapped 273 Meg of program memory to disk because it is seldom used (memory leaks ?).
Linux uses 6.9 Gig for buffers/cache which is more than the whole OS loaded into memory. It caches disk content into RAM, so in the end, there is only 45 Meg not used at all.
Crank up the memory on your system and gain speed by 1 or 2 order of magnitude for recurrent tasks, I will never tell people enough about this;-) The future will be here today !;-)
Well they got this right even if it was not to be accomplished with the mentioned technology.
I think that in the medium/long time range this will undoubtedly come true.
I mean, would any/. reader bet on the chances of hard drives to come on par with today memory access speeds in the future, even with zillions of years of technological advancement ?
> The 486 SX was just a 486 that they could not guarantee that the coprocessor would work so it was switched off.
Exactly, I thought mostly every/. reader knew that but reading the comments and replies makes me feel a little old...;-)
In short SX and DX where made at once, then on the testing stage, if the co-processor failed, they sold it as a SX, if it worked well, they sold it as a DX.
Note that this principle is still applied today, I wrote about it previously to explain why overclocking sometimes work and sometimes don't:
Slashdot Mirror
> I get a new Firefox update.
Have you tried disabling updates if that's what you want ?
Preferences -> Advanced -> updates...
We are proud to announce that we will be holding a similar event in Lost Springs, WY and that there will be absolutely no restriction on what participants may do. Also, the fees we are going to charge will be ridiculously low compared to what it costs in Vegas.
Stay tuned for updates.
You can look here for directions :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Springs,_Wyoming
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Lost+Springs&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=32.252269,72.158203&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Lost+Springs,+Converse,+Wyoming&ll=42.863886,-105.314941&spn=0.93208,2.254944&z=9
> Postfix + PHP page to edit virtual users = win.
I just edit the text file: virtusertable, then I type:
makemap hash /etc/mail/virtusertable.db /etc/mail/virtusertable
Actually, I use a little shell script:
hashitup virtusertable
cat ./hashitup /etc/mail/${1}.db /etc/mail/${1}
#!/bin/sh
makemap hash
> I helped TEACH Secret Service and FBI agents how to recognize these sorts of "fake" IDs
Wow ! Did it take long ? I assumed just telling them would be sufficient. Since you had to teach them, how long did it take them to learn those complex topics ? ;-))
Back on topic, does a gmail address look more serious ? I found it looked "a little" more serious, especially when gmail was on invitation only. But maybe it is just me...
Do this imply that geeks need to have the same sexual orientation as he did ? ;-)))
Seriously ?
I think simply implementing the breaking algorithm in your favorite language on your PC would be more convenient and also give results much faster ;-))
But you would need to know that I am using an Enigma machine in the first place, oh wait...
> otherwise your data could be compromised.
With this ? :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bombe-rebuild.jpg
Too complex to maintain in good working order. ;-))
Bah, instead, I am still using an Enigma machine that my grandfather brought me back. He stole it from the ennemy while in combat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine
It's the same in every field of activity (banks, everything), not only in IT.
I admit it might be hard to realize at first but you should get use to it eventually ! ;-)
Dropping tools down the hole is something I have never seen in my 5 years career.
The reason why you need to fish them out is not because of the price of the tool but because of the price of the well ! ;-))
Most tools are made of hardened steel which isn't found in nature so no drilling rig machinery can drill through them. I heard stories of holes that were abandoned, hence all the invested money on them was lost because they couldn't manage to fish some dropped tools out of it so they couldn't resume drilling. There was even stories about drill strings that could not get pulled out of the hole because it was stuck due to a dropped tool. Same result; abandoned well plus abandoned drill string. (Remember that the drill bit is always bigger than the drill string, hence it can easily get stuck)
Even if you finally manage to fish the tool out, it takes special equipment and the drilling can be postponed for 2 to 3 days before that equipment gets there and sometimes up to 2 weeks before they manage to get it out, which drilling contractors and oil companies do not like ;-)
Back to "my tool", it was attached to a wire and dropped into the drill pipes. So even if the wire broke or if got stuck in the pipes, we would not have to fish it out because it wasn't dropped directly into the hole. The tool couldn't go through the drill bit so it was always kept inside the drill string. Pull the drill string out in the worst case scenario ;-)
Anyway, dropping tools down the hole could easily get you fired back then ;-)
Oh, and other horror stories included dropped drill bits, dropped drill strings, hitting underground rivers and losing your drilling mud and also tight holes where the Earth squeezes your drill string.
I remember working on a tight hole and getting stuck for a few days until Schlumberger got to the well and injected special liquid into it. A guy gave me a Schlumberger hard hat and I kept wearing it afterward while working ;-)
http://www.slb.com/
Agreed, I was digging holes in the ground between 1979-1984 and the average depth was also 10,000 feet, with the deepest close to 14,000 feet. I think I remember having to add 1 loop of cable going around the block when getting close to 14,000 feet. The rigs were "a-leg" style, triple.
I only dug straight holes (no directional drilling). We would drop a survey tool hold by a wire down the hole (inside the drill pipes) every so many feet to make sure we remained straight ;-)
The tool was really basic; inside it, a small weight hung by a string would have a part be pushed by a spring at a time preset by us and punch a mark on a little paper target below. If our pipes were straight, the punch mark would have to be in the middle of the target ! ;-)
I never talked about the reasons for which it has been targeted. I just said its height contributed to make more damage compared to a similar action against a much lower building.
I also said that in general, extremely high buildings are more vulnerable in almost any catastrophe you can think of, man made or not.
> was not targeted because of it's significant height
It made more victims than in Washington because of its significant height although...
That was my point and I remember listening to similar concerns. Very high buildings are more vulnerable in almost any event.
Could you imagine a government holding its daily meetings or a military command housed at the 150th floor of a building ?
Agreed, I was just raising the question whether an oil well permanent casing, 2 miles or more tall, could qualify as a non-freestanding structure ;-)
It sure would be noticeable with some sort of ground scanning device when looking at the planet. I mean, they are all over the place and their height can be an order of magnitude taller than the conventional structures we were talking about ! ;-)
I though that some analysts expressed concerns about building extremely high buildings after the twin towers incident. I do not see this point mentioned in the comments yet.
Back then, I took for granted that USA would not try to hold that record again for obvious reasons.
> freestanding or otherwise
I have regularly worked to build more than 1 mile tall structures while working on the oil rigs back then. We inserted permanent steel casing after digging the hole most of the time so the casing would constitute a taller non-freestanding permanent steel structure ;-)
While drilling in the Rockies, we were well above sea level so our steel structures would actually be standing higher than the 'Dubai Tower' which I think is is at sea level (or almost).
The deapeast holes are well above 5 miles !
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/AdamCassino.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_well
> You're going to pirate money itself? Let me know how that turns out.
It sounds to me like the ultimate goal a pirate would have ;-)
Now the question is: Will it be paper money or electronic money ?
> I'm actually thankful that they ran this one as a story.
Yep, not that /. is a security list, but it occurred to me a few times that I first learn about similar issues on /.
> load the whole OS into memory
Replace with "load the whole OS into memory plus the disk content mostly used".
Linux and most OSes already do this for you. Look at the free output below on that 8 Gigs machine. Programs only use 969 Meg (.96 GB) of RAM. Linux has swapped 273 Meg of program memory to disk because it is seldom used (memory leaks ?).
Linux uses 6.9 Gig for buffers/cache which is more than the whole OS loaded into memory. It caches disk content into RAM, so in the end, there is only 45 Meg not used at all.
Crank up the memory on your system and gain speed by 1 or 2 order of magnitude for recurrent tasks, I will never tell people enough about this ;-) The future will be here today ! ;-)
$ free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 7939428 7893512 45916 0 19272 6904604
-/+ buffers/cache: 969636 6969792
Swap: 17326008 273264 17052744
> disk becomes the new tape
Well they got this right even if it was not to be accomplished with the mentioned technology.
I think that in the medium/long time range this will undoubtedly come true.
I mean, would any /. reader bet on the chances of hard drives to come on par with today memory access speeds in the future, even with zillions of years of technological advancement ?
Got you, then twice means it is 2 times harder to find the key since you need to find twice as many bits. Thanks for the tip ! ;-)))
Damn it I forgot about the 186, I thought it was 8088, 8086, 80286, 386, 486...
On this link, they even state that 8086 came before 8088, go figure !
http://www.pcmech.com/article/a-cpu-history/
> The 486 SX was just a 486 that they could not guarantee that the coprocessor would work so it was switched off.
Exactly, I thought mostly every /. reader knew that but reading the comments and replies makes me feel a little old... ;-)
In short SX and DX where made at once, then on the testing stage, if the co-processor failed, they sold it as a SX, if it worked well, they sold it as a DX.
Note that this principle is still applied today, I wrote about it previously to explain why overclocking sometimes work and sometimes don't:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1246015&cid=28105441&art_pos=5
> Is there a 'scary'
scary mod would be ambiguous with regards to ranking, some horror/apocalyptic movie fans might view as + while some others might view it as - ;-)
Maybe, but by careful not to end up like Joe in this Frank Zappa story:
http://www.lyricstime.com/frank-zappa-sy-borg-lyrics.html ;-))