With the sudden shift in TV and monitor designs to using LCD panels rather than CRTs, old glass TVs and monitors are being junked by the tonne. There's rare earths in them thar CRTs! The cathode coatings and the phosphors themselves are full of 'em.
OK, so only a small amount per CRT, but it all adds up when you've got millions being dumped. In the EU this is probably made easier because the rules concerning disposal of electronic goods are fairly well defined, in some countries you might have to start digging up landfills.
I thought the definition of a Dwarf Planet was that it was big enough to be rounded by its own gravity, but not big enough to have swept its orbit clear of other debris?
If it is indeed cigar shape, it would appear to fail the first of these criteria.
The American arm of IBM was probably prohibited from "trading with the enemy" from the point that the USA entered the war.
As for BP - they had a big punched-card data centre (The Freebornery) in hut 7, equipped with the sorters, collators, duplicating punches and tabulators typical of any big 1930's office automation effort. Much of this would have been IBM equipment, the rest was from ICT in Letchworth, the same company that built the Bombes.
BP's "Freebornery" played a vital role in running Banburismus against German naval traffic from 1941 to 1943.
IBM and ICT equipment were crucial to BP. When, after the war was over, it was discovered that the nazis had IBM equipment too, I doubt anyone batted an eyelid. Were US soldiers outraged to find "IBM PC"s (with Intel or AMD processors inside) in Saddam Hussein's offices? I doubt it.
Essex university's MUD (circa 1977) would show that at least all the concepts of playing multi-player games on computer networks goes back quite a long way further than merely 1989. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-User_Dungeon for starters.
Because, for those of living north of the 50th parallel (many Canadians, many Europeans, almost all Brits) the changing day-length through the year is a PITA. Daylight Saving makes it slightly less inconvenient.
However, it's true that for anyone living below - oh about the 40th parallel the DST irritation isn't really worth it. The sensible thing is for northern and southern lands to use DST, and for the mid-latitude countries/states etc to ignore it.
"The right tool for the right job" - DST included.
I'll avoid the tired old metric vs. american measurement arguments because (for once) this article referred to the telescope's distance from earth in metric from the start. But hey! Please can slashdot post articles with sensible SI prefixes in future?
The telescope's going to be appx. 1.5Gm from earth. Much easier to keep track of distances in the solar system using Gm and Tm. (The moon is appx 0.4Gm from earth, earth is appx. 150Gm from the sun, etc etc).
"Million Kilometres" is silly. No-one talks of "million kilobyte" hard-drives do they?
Evidently you've not seen Gerry Anderson's "UFO". Take a look at "Conflict" (Episode #5, series 1). Evil space aliens hide weapon in orbit using space junk as cover.
> England _exploited_ Polish work and took all the fame and glory for it:(. Turing merely implemented Rejewski algorythms.
OI! Unfair to Turing!
Also, unfair to the British involvement. The Poles (all credit to them) *gave* their knowledge (and at least one clone of the military enigma machine) freely to Britain when it became obvious that Poland was going to be invaded. The best of Poland's cryptographic team bunked off to continue the fight, first to France, later to Britain. Not all of them made it.
Post 1940, Britain was on its own, cryptographically speaking, until the involvement of the Americans starting at least a year later. Of course, it was massively helpful to Britain to be already in a position of breaking Enigma messages with their updated Polish methods in May 1940 as the procedures changed.
The first Turing/Welchman bombes came into service in the latter part of 1940, after the change.
Also, Britain was the first to break into German Navy Enigma - see the entry for "Banburismus" on wikipedia. Banburismus was based on an idea of Turing's, though the procedures used in the end were the product of many people's contributions.
Following up my own post: I've found better timing information on the BBC's web site.
Apparently Bomb #1 went off at 09:17 at Edgeware Rd. Bomb #2 went off at 08:51 outside Liverpool St, and bomb #3 at 08:56 just past Russell Sq.
Bomb #4 at 09:47 was the one on the bus.
This all rather spoils my suggested "bomber's plan" above, as there's an unexplained 50 minutes between getting out of Russell Sq. and getting on that bus. Additionally, it looks like it's taken too long for the train to get to Edgeware Rd from Moorgate after step #2.
So maybe the metline bombs weren't planted at Moorgate and Liverpool St.
Anyone got an actual timetable? Reverse engineering the most likely attack route might be 1) interesting and 2) help catch the b****rd who did this.
( Assuming the b****rd who did it isn't in the wreckage of the #30 bus of course. )
I've not lived in London for 25 years, but I used to know the tube network like the back of my hand. I'm sure it's possible to do all this single-handed. Something like this:
1) Start by heading west on the Met line. 2) Leave bomb #1 on that train, get out at Moorgate. 3) Get back on the Met going the other way and leave bomb #2. 4) Get out at Liverpool St, change to Central. 5) Get off at Holborn, change to Piccadilly northbound. 6) Leave bomb #3 on that train, get out at Russell Square. All the bombs were timed for 09:45, and bomb #3 goes off whilst the bomber is still leaving Russell Square. (So do all the others, but she'll not notice.)
The westbound met line train has reached Edgeware Rd, the east bound has turned around at Aldgate East (ISTR that they do that?) and blows up nearly back at Liverpool St.
Question: Do you have time to do steps #4 and #5 in this interval? How long does it take to get to Edgeware Rd from Moorgate these days? It was about 15-20min last time I did it IIRC.
Meanwhile, our bomber's had a narrow escape at Russell Sq:
7) At street level, bomber walks north towards Kings Cross, and gets on the #30 bus. 8) What happens next isn't clear. Some reports are of a suicide attacker. So maybe the lone attacker's bomb #4 goes off whilst she's still on the bus - is that deliberate, or an accident?
As the original author of OMU, I can add a slight clarification. OMU09 (the 6809 version) was indeed single-tasking, but merely because the target system only had 64k of RAM, and it seemed pointless trying to multitask in such a small environment. It implemented an 'exec' call in much the style that MSDOS did, though I didn't know of MSDOS at the time.
OMU68K was a port of OMU09 to the 68000 done mostly by Terry Barnaby. He ripped out the exec call and implemented fork() instead, so OMU68K did do multitasking.
Of course, with no MMU on the 68000, it relied on well-behaved processes.
This link is interesting, but not quite relevant. The stolen machine is a rather unique variant of the class of German rotor machines known loosely as "Enigma". The link points at a simulator for the Wehrmacht (Army) machine. This uses 3 rotors (from a set of 5). It also has a plugboard which increases the complexity considerably.
The stolen machine is an Abwehr (Secret Service?) variant with effectively 4 rotors in use, 3 of which are selectable (from a set of 5). It does not have a plugboard.
The machines are thus very different from each other!
Slashdot Mirror
With the sudden shift in TV and monitor designs to using LCD panels rather than CRTs, old glass TVs and monitors are being junked by the tonne. There's rare earths in them thar CRTs! The cathode coatings and the phosphors themselves are full of 'em.
OK, so only a small amount per CRT, but it all adds up when you've got millions being dumped. In the EU this is probably made easier because the rules concerning disposal of electronic goods are fairly well defined, in some countries you might have to start digging up landfills.
I thought the definition of a Dwarf Planet was that it was big enough to be rounded by its own gravity, but not big enough to have swept its orbit clear of other debris?
If it is indeed cigar shape, it would appear to fail the first of these criteria.
The American arm of IBM was probably prohibited from "trading with the enemy" from the point that the USA entered the war.
As for BP - they had a big punched-card data centre (The Freebornery) in hut 7, equipped with the sorters, collators, duplicating punches and tabulators typical of any big 1930's office automation effort. Much of this would have been IBM equipment, the rest was from ICT in Letchworth, the same company that built the Bombes.
BP's "Freebornery" played a vital role in running Banburismus against German naval traffic from 1941 to 1943.
IBM and ICT equipment were crucial to BP. When, after the war was over, it was discovered that the nazis had IBM equipment too, I doubt anyone batted an eyelid. Were US soldiers outraged to find "IBM PC"s (with Intel or AMD processors inside) in Saddam Hussein's offices? I doubt it.
Essex university's MUD (circa 1977) would show that at least all the concepts of playing multi-player games on computer networks goes back quite a long way further than merely 1989. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-User_Dungeon for starters.
Because, for those of living north of the 50th parallel (many Canadians, many Europeans, almost all Brits) the changing day-length through the year is a PITA. Daylight Saving makes it slightly less inconvenient.
However, it's true that for anyone living below - oh about the 40th parallel the DST irritation isn't really worth it. The sensible thing is for northern and southern lands to use DST, and for the mid-latitude countries/states etc to ignore it.
"The right tool for the right job" - DST included.
I'll avoid the tired old metric vs. american measurement arguments because (for once) this article referred to the telescope's distance from earth in metric from the start. But hey! Please can slashdot post articles with sensible SI prefixes in future?
The telescope's going to be appx. 1.5Gm from earth. Much easier to keep track of distances in the solar system using Gm and Tm. (The moon is appx 0.4Gm from earth, earth is appx. 150Gm from the sun, etc etc).
"Million Kilometres" is silly. No-one talks of "million kilobyte" hard-drives do they?
Evidently you've not seen Gerry Anderson's "UFO". Take a look at "Conflict" (Episode #5, series 1). Evil space aliens hide weapon in orbit using space junk as cover.
e ries#Episodes
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_Anderson_UFO_s
> England _exploited_ Polish work and took all the fame and glory for it :(. Turing merely implemented Rejewski algorythms.
OI! Unfair to Turing!
Also, unfair to the British involvement. The Poles (all credit to them) *gave* their knowledge (and at least one clone of the military enigma machine) freely to Britain when it became obvious that Poland was going to be invaded. The best of Poland's cryptographic team bunked off to continue the fight, first to France, later to Britain. Not all of them made it.
Post 1940, Britain was on its own, cryptographically speaking, until the involvement of the Americans starting at least a year later. Of course, it was massively helpful to Britain to be already in a position of breaking Enigma messages with their updated Polish methods in May 1940 as the procedures changed.
The first Turing/Welchman bombes came into service in the latter part of 1940, after the change.
Also, Britain was the first to break into German Navy Enigma - see the entry for "Banburismus" on wikipedia. Banburismus was based on an idea of Turing's, though the procedures used in the end were the product of many people's contributions.
Following up my own post: I've found better timing information on the BBC's web site.
Apparently Bomb #1 went off at 09:17 at Edgeware Rd. Bomb #2 went off at 08:51 outside Liverpool St, and bomb #3 at 08:56 just past Russell Sq.
Bomb #4 at 09:47 was the one on the bus.
This all rather spoils my suggested "bomber's plan" above, as there's an unexplained 50 minutes between getting out of Russell Sq. and getting on that bus. Additionally, it looks like it's taken too long for the train to get to Edgeware Rd from Moorgate after step #2.
So maybe the metline bombs weren't planted at Moorgate and Liverpool St.
Anyone got an actual timetable? Reverse engineering the most likely attack route might be 1) interesting and 2) help catch the b****rd who did this.
( Assuming the b****rd who did it isn't in the wreckage of the #30 bus of course. )
Steve.
I've not lived in London for 25 years, but I used to know the tube network like the back of my hand. I'm sure it's possible to do all this single-handed. Something like this:
1) Start by heading west on the Met line.
2) Leave bomb #1 on that train, get out at Moorgate.
3) Get back on the Met going the other way and leave bomb #2.
4) Get out at Liverpool St, change to Central.
5) Get off at Holborn, change to Piccadilly northbound.
6) Leave bomb #3 on that train, get out at Russell Square. All the bombs were timed for 09:45, and bomb #3 goes off whilst the bomber is still leaving Russell Square. (So do all the others, but she'll not notice.)
The westbound met line train has reached Edgeware Rd, the east bound has turned around at Aldgate East (ISTR that they do that?) and blows up nearly back at Liverpool St.
Question: Do you have time to do steps #4 and #5 in this interval? How long does it take to get to Edgeware Rd from Moorgate these days? It was about 15-20min last time I did it IIRC.
Meanwhile, our bomber's had a narrow escape at Russell Sq:
7) At street level, bomber walks north towards Kings Cross, and gets on the #30 bus.
8) What happens next isn't clear. Some reports are of a suicide attacker. So maybe the lone attacker's bomb #4 goes off whilst she's still on the bus - is that deliberate, or an accident?
Steve
As the original author of OMU, I can add a slight clarification. OMU09 (the 6809 version) was indeed single-tasking, but merely because the target system only had 64k of RAM, and it seemed pointless trying to multitask in such a small environment. It implemented an 'exec' call in much the style that MSDOS did, though I didn't know of MSDOS at the time.
OMU68K was a port of OMU09 to the 68000 done mostly by Terry Barnaby. He ripped out the exec call and implemented fork() instead, so OMU68K did do multitasking.
Of course, with no MMU on the 68000, it relied on well-behaved processes.
The stolen machine is an Abwehr (Secret Service?) variant with effectively 4 rotors in use, 3 of which are selectable (from a set of 5). It does not have a plugboard.
The machines are thus very different from each other!