Military Intelligence is/is not a contradiction in terms ?
Not. There's plenty of stupidity in every large endeavor, but overall I'd say the people I've encountered in military work have been above average in intelligence.
The unemployed former computer engineer is accused of causing the U.S. government $1 billion of damage by breaking into its most secure computers at the Pentagon and NASA.
I seriously doubt this. I've worked on and designed highly-classified military systems. The military is ultra paranoid that its really sensitive systems are never connected to the outside world. You have to be physically in a shielded room to get access. If he was able to get into a system, it didn't have stuff the military thought was worth much. Either that or some idiot really screwed the pooch in setting up a system. Admittedly always a possiblity, but not likely to have happened in large numbers.
Seriously, that's pretty much what they were, just piles of TTL logic chips and strung-on-wire graphite beads for memory, all on pizza-box-size boards that slipped into a big chassis. You needed at least three boards, one for the CPU, one for memory, and one for I/O. The first minicomputer I worked with was a Data General Nova 1200. 1200 as in 1200 nanoseconds PER INSTRUCTION. That's a whopping 833 KHz. And a stunning 8 kilobytes of memory. It was amazing what we got that thing to do, though.
You can tell you're getting old when people start reproducing the obsolete crap you're happy as hell to have left behind.
Just as there's probably a link to cigarette smuggling, drugs, human trafficking, etc. Any criminal enterprise that's a potential source of operating funds has a possibility of involvement with terrorists. 'TERRORISM!' is law enforcement's equivalent to "RACISM!": a scary pejorative that's supposed to shut down all debate.
I've been researching displays for a project, and the phone-sized ones are 96x96 pixels. I can't imagine trying to watch video on something that low-rez.
Companies have to defend their trademarks lest they slip into general use. That's what happened to Moxie, Cellophane, Aspirin, etc. Hormel isn't doing this just to be jerks; they have to be shown to be making an active defense or risk losing their rights to "spam." Defense of trademark is also why commercials say things like "Scotch brand" tape. I'll leave the argument as to whether the rights to "spam" are worth fighting for to others.
I have been thinking lately about crime and punishment. We have two reasons for sending people to prison in the first place:
(1) To punish them.
(2) To reform them.
As far as I'm concerned, prison is primarily to keep societal scum from harming more people. If they get rehabbed and/or punished on top of that, that's secondary.
I'd rather we spent our prison budget on working to enhance the education and reformation of the prisoners rather than keeping track of where they are at all times, something that we don't have a problem with right now.
Until such time as we manage to reform them, I'd prefer to know where they are at all times. Wouldn't you?
1. It encodes the data digitally? My current driver's license has a mag stripe on the back that does that.
2. The data is readable at a distance? If you're really concerned about that possibility, wrap your license in foil.
3. There's a master database being built? I've got news: private companies have already done that. They've purchased the state databases, digitized them (including biometric data from your picture), and make them available for a fee. Las Vegas casinos love it for determining the identities of who's gambling in their places. Big Brother government, when it wants to know all about you, can, and does, buy that same info.
Real ID doesn't worry me. I'd be more concerned with the US becoming like the UK, a country burying itself in surveillance cameras (and soon, audio devices). That's the real Big Brother scenario to me, when it becomes possible to track and records one's every movement and every public utterance.
Therefore, interestingly enough, conservation demands that we hunt more deer.
Actually, it just demands that more animals die by whatever means. In the case of California, it would never do to allow the citizens to hunt deer themselves. People might have a good time doing that, and besides, it wouldn't cost the state anything. No, if more deer have to die, California will take the opportunity to put deer euthanizers (and deer euthanizer supervisors, deer trappers, deer cremators, deer euthanizer auditors, etc.) on the payroll. More government employees, more unionized workers, bigger budgets, and best of all, no crazed, Bambi-murdering private citizens to enjoy themselves and to eat what they bring down.
So, it's a good thing in the US, but "other cultures" might have a different take, so let's not rile them up? That strikes me as a gutless stand. If this were 1938, would Microsoft be against killing jews, but only say so in the US?
The "culture" in Numb3rs is for mathematicians to scrawl their calculations and equations on immense chalkboards which sometimes completely cover the walls of the room. Can't they work on paper and computers like we engineers, or are they all extremely nearsighted?
The magnetic field produced by a small DC fan might not be enough to faze the platter.
I seem to recall an episode of Mythbusters where they tried to find out just how much of a magnetic field it took to do damage to things like floppy disks. To actually affect data, I think they had to resort to neodymium magnets that would about crush your fingers if you got them in between a pair of the magnets. And I think they had to rub them directly on the disks. That's my recollection anyway; I wasn't paying close attention to the TV at the time.
Bolesta was contacted by the store, and was threated with police action
I'm not sure what "police action" would be (maybe being sent to Vietnam?), but I know that this would be a civil, not a criminal matter. The cops would tell the business to sue for their money and stop wasting law enforcement's time.
It's simple... Refuse to read PDFs that require the technology.
Just like I can shop elsewhere if I don't like being captured on a store's video surveillance camera. Except that they ALL have cameras. If there's no true alternative, you're screwed. Am I going to forego opening that online manual that I desperately need to troubleshoot a problem? I don't think so. A better solution is for some enterprising hackers to find a way to break this technology.
Given the abuse that consumers suffer with these rebates (some of which I can attest to personally), I'm surprised the Attorneys General from the various states haven't targeted the companies offering them. At a minimum, I'd expect them to go after unclaimed rebates using the government's power of escheat. There must be a ton of money left that goes unclaimed, and states are hungry for revenue all the time. Or, they could levy fines against companies who falsely claim all the rules weren't followed (I've had 3 of those myself, and I have absolute proof that I fulfilled every niggling requirement. They still denied them, claiming there was no UPC in my submission. Lying bastards. I have a photocopy of what I turned in, and the original UPC is right there taped to their stinking form.)
who will administer these building networks, IT or facilities managers?
The boss' secretary. You know, the one who's always cold. She'll be setting the thermostat for every room in the entire facility from her desktop. Better stock up on Bermuda shorts.
This discussion supposedly is about abuses of the Patriot Act. Whatever you think of it, Gitmo is a detention facility created and maintained by the U.S. military, not the PA. And there are plenty of Gitmo prisoners who have been released to talk to, particularly the ones who got picked up a second time for attacking U.S. troops.
Thats why campaign contributions should only be able to be made by those legally able to vote.
If we're going to do that, how about also limiting donations so that said individuals can only donate to politicians for whom they can vote? I.e., no money from Massachusetts going to NY Senator Schumer. And/or, how about putting all donations in one big pot for a given race and apportioning it equally to all candidates in that race? It really isn't fair that the tinfoil hat wearing loon who harrasses the pigeons is at such a disadvantage in his bid for Congress.
Yeah, I built a crystal radio as a kid. Handbuilt amateur radio equipment. Wirewrapped my first CP/M computer on an S-100 board blank. I may have learned a lot, but by contrast to today, those days sucked the big one. I'd much rather be solving problems at the higher levels than spending a week's evenings wirewrapping a computer. Right now I'm combining a laser range finder with a computer and a GPS receiver to calculate the coordinates of what's being lased. Thank God I can just buy a microcontroller, a GPS receiver module (Trimble's Lassen SQ - postage stamp size. Very cool) and the laser range finder, and not have to build each of those items, even assuming I was capable of it. Integration of higher level components is where it's at, IMO. And Field Programmable Gate Arrays! Don't get me started on the blessings conferred by programmable hardware!
whats really frightening is that a religous extremist nutjob is in control over an agressive country which owns tons of nuclear weapons (the only country who ever used a nuclear bomb against another country).
Yeah, everyone knows the USA will nuke anyone at the drop of a hat. After 60 years of us having such weapons, WE'RE ON THE EDGE, MAN! Don't piss us off!
This sounds like one of those arguments where you take a position, THEN figure out why. Reminds me of the arguments over Reverse Polish Notation at the dawn of the calculator age. ("Fewer keystrokes!" "Ahh you're full of crap; look at this carefully-concocted example that requires MORE keystrokes in RPN." "Yeah, but in the general case you need X% fewer keystrokes. And you need calculator real estate for those stupid paren keys." "Who the hell's anal enough to give a crap about how many times they hit a calculator key anyway?" Repeat until the end of time...)
Figure out how many mouse buttons you like, buy a mouse with that many, and shut the hell up about it.
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My PC's two fans are bad enough. The racket from that many must be unbelievable.
Not. There's plenty of stupidity in every large endeavor, but overall I'd say the people I've encountered in military work have been above average in intelligence.
I seriously doubt this. I've worked on and designed highly-classified military systems. The military is ultra paranoid that its really sensitive systems are never connected to the outside world. You have to be physically in a shielded room to get access. If he was able to get into a system, it didn't have stuff the military thought was worth much. Either that or some idiot really screwed the pooch in setting up a system. Admittedly always a possiblity, but not likely to have happened in large numbers.
Seriously, that's pretty much what they were, just piles of TTL logic chips and strung-on-wire graphite beads for memory, all on pizza-box-size boards that slipped into a big chassis. You needed at least three boards, one for the CPU, one for memory, and one for I/O. The first minicomputer I worked with was a Data General Nova 1200. 1200 as in 1200 nanoseconds PER INSTRUCTION. That's a whopping 833 KHz. And a stunning 8 kilobytes of memory. It was amazing what we got that thing to do, though.
You can tell you're getting old when people start reproducing the obsolete crap you're happy as hell to have left behind.
Just as there's probably a link to cigarette smuggling, drugs, human trafficking, etc. Any criminal enterprise that's a potential source of operating funds has a possibility of involvement with terrorists. 'TERRORISM!' is law enforcement's equivalent to "RACISM!": a scary pejorative that's supposed to shut down all debate.
I've been researching displays for a project, and the phone-sized ones are 96x96 pixels. I can't imagine trying to watch video on something that low-rez.
Companies have to defend their trademarks lest they slip into general use. That's what happened to Moxie, Cellophane, Aspirin, etc. Hormel isn't doing this just to be jerks; they have to be shown to be making an active defense or risk losing their rights to "spam." Defense of trademark is also why commercials say things like "Scotch brand" tape. I'll leave the argument as to whether the rights to "spam" are worth fighting for to others.
(1) To punish them.
(2) To reform them.
As far as I'm concerned, prison is primarily to keep societal scum from harming more people. If they get rehabbed and/or punished on top of that, that's secondary.
I'd rather we spent our prison budget on working to enhance the education and reformation of the prisoners rather than keeping track of where they are at all times, something that we don't have a problem with right now.
Until such time as we manage to reform them, I'd prefer to know where they are at all times. Wouldn't you?
1. It encodes the data digitally? My current driver's license has a mag stripe on the back that does that.
2. The data is readable at a distance? If you're really concerned about that possibility, wrap your license in foil.
3. There's a master database being built? I've got news: private companies have already done that. They've purchased the state databases, digitized them (including biometric data from your picture), and make them available for a fee. Las Vegas casinos love it for determining the identities of who's gambling in their places. Big Brother government, when it wants to know all about you, can, and does, buy that same info.
Real ID doesn't worry me. I'd be more concerned with the US becoming like the UK, a country burying itself in surveillance cameras (and soon, audio devices). That's the real Big Brother scenario to me, when it becomes possible to track and records one's every movement and every public utterance.
Therefore, interestingly enough, conservation demands that we hunt more deer.
Actually, it just demands that more animals die by whatever means. In the case of California, it would never do to allow the citizens to hunt deer themselves. People might have a good time doing that, and besides, it wouldn't cost the state anything. No, if more deer have to die, California will take the opportunity to put deer euthanizers (and deer euthanizer supervisors, deer trappers, deer cremators, deer euthanizer auditors, etc.) on the payroll. More government employees, more unionized workers, bigger budgets, and best of all, no crazed, Bambi-murdering private citizens to enjoy themselves and to eat what they bring down.
Well, would YOU complain if the microphones were listening?
So, it's a good thing in the US, but "other cultures" might have a different take, so let's not rile them up? That strikes me as a gutless stand. If this were 1938, would Microsoft be against killing jews, but only say so in the US?
Is it a "fix" when you deliberately broke it in the first place?
The "culture" in Numb3rs is for mathematicians to scrawl their calculations and equations on immense chalkboards which sometimes completely cover the walls of the room. Can't they work on paper and computers like we engineers, or are they all extremely nearsighted?
I seem to recall an episode of Mythbusters where they tried to find out just how much of a magnetic field it took to do damage to things like floppy disks. To actually affect data, I think they had to resort to neodymium magnets that would about crush your fingers if you got them in between a pair of the magnets. And I think they had to rub them directly on the disks. That's my recollection anyway; I wasn't paying close attention to the TV at the time.
I'm not sure what "police action" would be (maybe being sent to Vietnam?), but I know that this would be a civil, not a criminal matter. The cops would tell the business to sue for their money and stop wasting law enforcement's time.
Just like I can shop elsewhere if I don't like being captured on a store's video surveillance camera. Except that they ALL have cameras. If there's no true alternative, you're screwed. Am I going to forego opening that online manual that I desperately need to troubleshoot a problem? I don't think so. A better solution is for some enterprising hackers to find a way to break this technology.
Given the abuse that consumers suffer with these rebates (some of which I can attest to personally), I'm surprised the Attorneys General from the various states haven't targeted the companies offering them. At a minimum, I'd expect them to go after unclaimed rebates using the government's power of escheat. There must be a ton of money left that goes unclaimed, and states are hungry for revenue all the time. Or, they could levy fines against companies who falsely claim all the rules weren't followed (I've had 3 of those myself, and I have absolute proof that I fulfilled every niggling requirement. They still denied them, claiming there was no UPC in my submission. Lying bastards. I have a photocopy of what I turned in, and the original UPC is right there taped to their stinking form.)
This would explain why I have a sudden urge to make unsolicited telephone sales calls.
who will administer these building networks, IT or facilities managers?
The boss' secretary. You know, the one who's always cold. She'll be setting the thermostat for every room in the entire facility from her desktop. Better stock up on Bermuda shorts.
This discussion supposedly is about abuses of the Patriot Act. Whatever you think of it, Gitmo is a detention facility created and maintained by the U.S. military, not the PA. And there are plenty of Gitmo prisoners who have been released to talk to, particularly the ones who got picked up a second time for attacking U.S. troops.
If we're going to do that, how about also limiting donations so that said individuals can only donate to politicians for whom they can vote? I.e., no money from Massachusetts going to NY Senator Schumer. And/or, how about putting all donations in one big pot for a given race and apportioning it equally to all candidates in that race? It really isn't fair that the tinfoil hat wearing loon who harrasses the pigeons is at such a disadvantage in his bid for Congress.
Yeah, I built a crystal radio as a kid. Handbuilt amateur radio equipment. Wirewrapped my first CP/M computer on an S-100 board blank. I may have learned a lot, but by contrast to today, those days sucked the big one. I'd much rather be solving problems at the higher levels than spending a week's evenings wirewrapping a computer. Right now I'm combining a laser range finder with a computer and a GPS receiver to calculate the coordinates of what's being lased. Thank God I can just buy a microcontroller, a GPS receiver module (Trimble's Lassen SQ - postage stamp size. Very cool) and the laser range finder, and not have to build each of those items, even assuming I was capable of it. Integration of higher level components is where it's at, IMO. And Field Programmable Gate Arrays! Don't get me started on the blessings conferred by programmable hardware!
Yeah, everyone knows the USA will nuke anyone at the drop of a hat. After 60 years of us having such weapons, WE'RE ON THE EDGE, MAN! Don't piss us off!
Figure out how many mouse buttons you like, buy a mouse with that many, and shut the hell up about it.