The supercooling is apparently done using lasers, so something that is man-portable is maybe realistic
The DSTL's team was inspired by the Nobel-prize winning discovery that revealed that lasers can trap and cool a cloud of atoms placed in a vacuum to less than a millionth of a degree above absolute zero
Maybe they only wanted to use American made components, and the largest memory they could find was an old stockpile of 128K DIP-style flash made back in the 80's.
I jest, I jest...
I know that flash memory is still being made in the US (by Intel and maybe others), but seriously, it must be getting pretty damn hard to make any military gear that uses US-only components...
Maybe they plan on stealing the Red Dwarf episodes, then using CGI to cover the Red Dwarf ship with the American stars and stripes and to replace the faces of the characters with something more pro-American, like the face of Tom Cruise (for Lister), the face of some Silicon Valley engineer (for Rimmer) and the face of Vin Diesel for "the Rottweiler" (formally "the Cat", but "the Cat" just isn't "American" enough). They could call the show "Red, White and Blue Dwarf", or the "Star Spangled Dwarf", or "Shock and Awe Dwarf" or something. I think it would be funny if their budget ran out before they had a chance to dub the voices over with something more American sounding. In my opinion, Vin Diesel would sound better as a British Rasta than he does now...
That is exactly what I was thinking when I read that title. I expect the next slashdot story to be about a Columbus mom who is hated by computer anti-virus experts because she discovered one simple trick to rid your computer of viruses (with shocking results!!!).
Interesting. I just checked them out (http://www.code42.com/crashplan/) and the home service appears to be free. What's the catch? I noticed that the home plan uses weaker encryption (128-bit vs 448-bit), but is that all?
This is my conspiracy theorist side talking, but I wonder if the heist was actually state sponsored (as opposed to being done by "criminals"). What better way to destroy a currency than to completely erode any public trust in it? And what better way to do that than to orchestrate one or more "epic fails" like this one, that have people talking and questioning the security of bitcoin. Maybe it wasn't so much about stealing the money as it was to undermine the currency itself.
Now please excuse me while I go polish my tinfoil hat...
Spinks says to use these springs as artificial muscles heat is again applied, causing the whole coil to contract. Critically, with the ordinary fibres, the amount of contraction is as much as 50 per cent of the starting length of the coil, he says.
That's a little more "muscle"-like than your average spring, I'd say.
"Shi-fu" are what Kung-fu black-belts are called. Similar to "sensei" for karate, I think. I don't think the use of 'shi-fu' was incorrect or un-intended; it's what they meant to say.
I think I agree with this. If the big picture is having humans become space faring (in a meaningful way; not just doing a handfull of short visits to a nearby lifeless rock), then having the Chinese be successful at their space endeavours should be as important to us as it is to them. In the big picture, we are all human, and if the Chinese are successful of conquering space (in a way that the US, Russia, Europe, etc., haven't been able to do), then we all win. Also, if they fail, then so too do we.
Actually, for most individual peons like you or me, I don't think that's technically correct. For us, the only warning we're likely to get is the flash of light that burns out our retinas moments before the fireball burns us to ash. The time between the "warning" and our actual annihilation probably isn't affected all that much by these faster payload delivery systems.
Personally, I'm going to save my complaints for the day when they announce that they are working on warheads that explode more quickly, as that's something that could affect me personally. The loss of a few ms of reaction time might make the difference between being able to say "Oh shit..." vs only being able to say "Oh sh...". I find that in times of distress, being able to successfully complete a curse can make a big difference in one's well-being and piece of mind...
Finally, I would require all TSA officials involved in any way with the harassment to serve 250 hours community service.
What a great idea. In my dictatorship, as punishment, I'd make each of them spend 250 hours -- nay, 750 hours -- hand-carving identical flutes to the ones they destroyed (off the clock and unpaid, of course). By my count, that's about 6 months of solid work, if they put in 4 hours every single day (probably still a fraction of the time Razgui put into making his own instruments). After they were done, their work (regardless of quality) would be thoroughly destroyed right in front of them. It would be both a punishment and a lesson in appreciating other peoples' passions and work, all rolled into one.
That sounds scary as shit. Sounds like something Magneto would do. I don't know about you guys, but I'm sure glad the NSA is on my side. Keep up the good work, boys!
Yes, I've heard that Musk's hubris is very large (heh, heh, heh), but perhaps he does have a point. According to the article, all the damage was done at the wall connection (not the car connection), and a review of the car logs indicated that charging was proceeding normally at the time the fire started.
I'm going to make an assumption here that the tesla charger was probably safety tested[1] and approved for sale by UL, but what about the installation itself? Maybe California is different than the rest of North America, but most garages aren't natively wired with 240V sockets (quit laughing, you Europeans). So who did the 240V installation? The home owner or a certified electrician? Was it inspected? The article certainly doesn't say. Knowing how previous Tesla fire stories have been pounced on by the media, I'd probably do the same if I were in Elon's shoes and say the problem had nothing to do with the charger, and would change my tune later on if it turned out to be true. It wouldn't be the first time that crappy wiring has caused a house fire, and I don't think it's necessarily wrong for him to point this out.
[1] Not that safety testing means that a unit failure can't happen, but they do check (or should check, if they are doing their jobs right) that the design is robust to various abnormal conditions, and that fail-safes are built into the product to prevent fires or other dangerous conditions in the event of a malfunction. However, all the safety testing on earth won't save you from a shitty installation...
On the whole, I agree with your post, but FYI: encrypted data may very well look like noise when you are looking at it in its digital "baseband" format (the raw cyphertext bits), but once it's encoded and modulated for transmission (FM, QAM, whatever), it no longer looks like random noise so much any more. Anyone with a suitable antenna and a means of displaying the frequency content of the received signal will immediately see a peak (or peaks) that corresponds to your transmission (assuming they can receive it, as your comment about the signal being drowned out by cosmic noise is valid). My point is that because of how signals are transmitted, an alien listener would still be able to tell we are here even if all of our transmissions are encrypted, and even if they are totally unable to demodulate or decrypt them.
Yes, I've seen this type of hammer before. My son has one. It's a big blue inflatable thing that goes "Squeek!" when you hit stuff with it. The FTC must obviously have one much like it. Maybe they got theirs from a country fair as well...
I'm by no way an expert, but I thought supernovas happen because a star runs out of the the lighter elements (Hydrogen, Helium, etc) which are easy to fuse. When this happens, the star collapses upon itself, greatly increasing internal pressure which causes the heavier elements to undergo fusion. It is this second level of fusion that causes the explosion, since it releases a lot more energy. Only really massive stars can go supernova because only they have enough mass to reach some sort of critical pressure that will allow the secondary fusion. Or, so I thought. I'm sure someone with more knowledge on the subject will come around shortly and set all of us straight...
Slashdot Mirror
The supercooling is apparently done using lasers, so something that is man-portable is maybe realistic
The DSTL's team was inspired by the Nobel-prize winning discovery that revealed that lasers can trap and cool a cloud of atoms placed in a vacuum to less than a millionth of a degree above absolute zero
Does that also include the "Super Vagina" from Prometheus? Was he responsible for that? Truly disturbing...
Maybe they only wanted to use American made components, and the largest memory they could find was an old stockpile of 128K DIP-style flash made back in the 80's.
I jest, I jest...
I know that flash memory is still being made in the US (by Intel and maybe others), but seriously, it must be getting pretty damn hard to make any military gear that uses US-only components...
Oblig. Dilbert Reference
Kind of sounds like Red Dwarf.
Maybe they plan on stealing the Red Dwarf episodes, then using CGI to cover the Red Dwarf ship with the American stars and stripes and to replace the faces of the characters with something more pro-American, like the face of Tom Cruise (for Lister), the face of some Silicon Valley engineer (for Rimmer) and the face of Vin Diesel for "the Rottweiler" (formally "the Cat", but "the Cat" just isn't "American" enough). They could call the show "Red, White and Blue Dwarf", or the "Star Spangled Dwarf", or "Shock and Awe Dwarf" or something. I think it would be funny if their budget ran out before they had a chance to dub the voices over with something more American sounding. In my opinion, Vin Diesel would sound better as a British Rasta than he does now...
That is exactly what I was thinking when I read that title. I expect the next slashdot story to be about a Columbus mom who is hated by computer anti-virus experts because she discovered one simple trick to rid your computer of viruses (with shocking results!!!).
Interesting. I just checked them out (http://www.code42.com/crashplan/) and the home service appears to be free. What's the catch? I noticed that the home plan uses weaker encryption (128-bit vs 448-bit), but is that all?
at least it wasn't a failure of the space suit's urine collection system...
This is my conspiracy theorist side talking, but I wonder if the heist was actually state sponsored (as opposed to being done by "criminals"). What better way to destroy a currency than to completely erode any public trust in it? And what better way to do that than to orchestrate one or more "epic fails" like this one, that have people talking and questioning the security of bitcoin. Maybe it wasn't so much about stealing the money as it was to undermine the currency itself.
Now please excuse me while I go polish my tinfoil hat...
I have to admit, I don't get "a**e". Is that supposed to mean "arse" or something? If so, why the self-censorship for such a benign word?
FTFA:
Spinks says to use these springs as artificial muscles heat is again applied, causing the whole coil to contract.
Critically, with the ordinary fibres, the amount of contraction is as much as 50 per cent of the starting length of the coil, he says.
That's a little more "muscle"-like than your average spring, I'd say.
"Shi-fu" are what Kung-fu black-belts are called. Similar to "sensei" for karate, I think. I don't think the use of 'shi-fu' was incorrect or un-intended; it's what they meant to say.
I think I agree with this. If the big picture is having humans become space faring (in a meaningful way; not just doing a handfull of short visits to a nearby lifeless rock), then having the Chinese be successful at their space endeavours should be as important to us as it is to them. In the big picture, we are all human, and if the Chinese are successful of conquering space (in a way that the US, Russia, Europe, etc., haven't been able to do), then we all win. Also, if they fail, then so too do we.
Gook luck, Chinese comrades indeed.
Maybe we should just use "hear here", just to cover all of our bases. That's what I do, anyway.
'Our guess is they messed up again,' he said. 'This doesn't make sense for them, so I assume it was a mistake in their operation.'
Oooooh! That's exactly the kind of excuse/veiled accusation the Chinese government would make. Brilliant! I love it.
...but you'd probably just forget it. So why bother?...
Actually, for most individual peons like you or me, I don't think that's technically correct. For us, the only warning we're likely to get is the flash of light that burns out our retinas moments before the fireball burns us to ash. The time between the "warning" and our actual annihilation probably isn't affected all that much by these faster payload delivery systems.
Personally, I'm going to save my complaints for the day when they announce that they are working on warheads that explode more quickly, as that's something that could affect me personally. The loss of a few ms of reaction time might make the difference between being able to say "Oh shit..." vs only being able to say "Oh sh...". I find that in times of distress, being able to successfully complete a curse can make a big difference in one's well-being and piece of mind...
Finally, I would require all TSA officials involved in any way with the harassment to serve 250 hours community service.
What a great idea. In my dictatorship, as punishment, I'd make each of them spend 250 hours -- nay, 750 hours -- hand-carving identical flutes to the ones they destroyed (off the clock and unpaid, of course). By my count, that's about 6 months of solid work, if they put in 4 hours every single day (probably still a fraction of the time Razgui put into making his own instruments). After they were done, their work (regardless of quality) would be thoroughly destroyed right in front of them. It would be both a punishment and a lesson in appreciating other peoples' passions and work, all rolled into one.
That sounds scary as shit. Sounds like something Magneto would do. I don't know about you guys, but I'm sure glad the NSA is on my side. Keep up the good work, boys!
Yes, I've heard that Musk's hubris is very large (heh, heh, heh), but perhaps he does have a point. According to the article, all the damage was done at the wall connection (not the car connection), and a review of the car logs indicated that charging was proceeding normally at the time the fire started.
I'm going to make an assumption here that the tesla charger was probably safety tested[1] and approved for sale by UL, but what about the installation itself? Maybe California is different than the rest of North America, but most garages aren't natively wired with 240V sockets (quit laughing, you Europeans). So who did the 240V installation? The home owner or a certified electrician? Was it inspected? The article certainly doesn't say. Knowing how previous Tesla fire stories have been pounced on by the media, I'd probably do the same if I were in Elon's shoes and say the problem had nothing to do with the charger, and would change my tune later on if it turned out to be true. It wouldn't be the first time that crappy wiring has caused a house fire, and I don't think it's necessarily wrong for him to point this out.
[1] Not that safety testing means that a unit failure can't happen, but they do check (or should check, if they are doing their jobs right) that the design is robust to various abnormal conditions, and that fail-safes are built into the product to prevent fires or other dangerous conditions in the event of a malfunction. However, all the safety testing on earth won't save you from a shitty installation...
Really? I just did this:
/dev/random | xxd | head -n 10
$ cat
0000000: 414c 4c59 4f55 5242 4153 4541 5245 4245 ALLYOURBASEAREBE
0000010: 4c4f 4e47 544f 5553 5448 414e 4b53 4652 LONGTOUSTHANKSFR
0000020: 4f4d 5448 454e 5341 414c 4c59 4f55 5242 OMTHENSAALLYOURB
0000030: 4153 4541 5245 4245 4c4f 4e47 544f 5553 ASEAREBELONGTOUS
0000040: 5448 414e 4b53 4652 4f4d 5448 454e 5341 THANKSFROMTHENSA
0000050: 414c 4c59 4f55 5242 4153 4541 5245 4245 ALLYOURBASEAREBE
0000060: 4c4f 4e47 544f 5553 5448 414e 4b53 4652 LONGTOUSTHANKSFR
0000070: 4f4d 5448 454e 5341 414c 4c59 4f55 5242 OMTHENSAALLYOURB
0000080: 4153 4541 5245 4245 4c4f 4e47 544f 5553 ASEAREBELONGTOUS
0000090: 5448 414e 4b53 4652 4f4d 5448 454e 5341 THANKSFROMTHENSA
Maybe there's a pattern there; I'm not sure. I guess that's the problem with randomness: you can never be sure.
On the whole, I agree with your post, but FYI: encrypted data may very well look like noise when you are looking at it in its digital "baseband" format (the raw cyphertext bits), but once it's encoded and modulated for transmission (FM, QAM, whatever), it no longer looks like random noise so much any more. Anyone with a suitable antenna and a means of displaying the frequency content of the received signal will immediately see a peak (or peaks) that corresponds to your transmission (assuming they can receive it, as your comment about the signal being drowned out by cosmic noise is valid). My point is that because of how signals are transmitted, an alien listener would still be able to tell we are here even if all of our transmissions are encrypted, and even if they are totally unable to demodulate or decrypt them.
Yes, I've seen this type of hammer before. My son has one. It's a big blue inflatable thing that goes "Squeek!" when you hit stuff with it. The FTC must obviously have one much like it. Maybe they got theirs from a country fair as well...
I'm by no way an expert, but I thought supernovas happen because a star runs out of the the lighter elements (Hydrogen, Helium, etc) which are easy to fuse. When this happens, the star collapses upon itself, greatly increasing internal pressure which causes the heavier elements to undergo fusion. It is this second level of fusion that causes the explosion, since it releases a lot more energy. Only really massive stars can go supernova because only they have enough mass to reach some sort of critical pressure that will allow the secondary fusion. Or, so I thought. I'm sure someone with more knowledge on the subject will come around shortly and set all of us straight...
You aren't by any chance trypophobic, are you?
Say, what do you think of my new sig? I call it "swarming holes"...
-----
ooOoOOOoOOooOOOOoO
oooOOOooOoOOOoOoOo
OOOoOOoOooOoOOOoOo
ooOOoOoOoOooOOOOooO