they proceed to walk you through all the steps needed to not only do it but to do it surreptitiously
Based on the stuff he's buying, he doesn't have to even *try* to do it surreptitiously. It's all stuff that's used for many mundane purposes. Until it's all put together, it's as harmless and commonplace as dirt.
Wanna bet that the army does the same thing to their equipment? Id rather have a 10 year old kludge that cant be killed than an new shiny untested watch sized piece of crap.
You wouldn't believe what we do to test military stuff. I recall the time I went to the test hut where they were subjecting an antenna mount with internal electronics to a vibration test. At the end, they opened the access panel, and this cascade of printed circuit fragments not much larger than your thumb poured forth. I won't bother going into the details of the 'hammer test' (think in terms of having the soles of your feet beaten with a sledge, and you'll get the idea).
I've sent in dozens of rebates and have never not gotten one. I keep track of them in a spreadsheet so I'd know if one doesn't show up. I've never had to inquire about one, either. It probably helps that I don't buy rebate items from companies that I've never heard of. Personally, I'd be happy if they'd just drop the prices, but the rest of you schmucks who forget to send the rebates in keep encouraging them.
Why would CE devices outselling desktops constitute a 'Post PC' era? They have different uses. If popularity is the only measure, then I could argue that we're already in a Post PC Era because calculator sales dwarf those of PCs.
A System That is Tactically Superior To All Future Weapon Systems Potential US/NATO Adversaries
Will Ever Consider Developing, Derived Solely From US Research/Technology.
Yes, it's the ULTIMATE WEAPON Mr. Bond! MUAAAAHAHAHA!
Anyone else interested in hobbyist-level services for prototyping and whatnot: pick up a copy of "Nuts And Volts" magazine. They have tons of ads for things like board houses, plastic parts making, etc. You might also take a look at "Robot Builder's Sourcebook" for lists of sources for just about anything electronic or mechanical that you can imagine.
I acknowledge the "just because" aspect. However, once you've milled the board, you still have the hole drilling and through-hole plating (or little wire-stub soldering, if that's your method) to do. Not to mention the solder masking and silkscreening that can be had with the commercial product. More power to those who like to do the entire job themselves, but I'll stick with getting my custom boards done by a board house. I'm far too lazy to do otherwise:-).
I'll bet that there are some people who didn't like seeing this news get out. The bad guys use sat phones too, and it would be pretty handy to have their exact location.
I got a BS in Electrical Engineering and an MS in Computer Science. Most of my work is writing code, but I know *exactly* where to kick the machine when the need arises.
Pretty much, except without the aliens. (Speaking of which, the stated reason for the matrix existing - using humans as power sources - was pretty lame.)
A lot of my political attitudes and general philosophies of life come directly from Robert A. Heinlein. I read every book he wrote before I was out of Junior High (aka Middle School to you present day squirts) and they sort of seeped in.
I always thought the concept of a holodeck was a silly waste of space on a starship. I think the reality will be more along the lines of lying on your bunk in your quarters and hooking your nervous system up to a computer. The computer would simulate any reality you wanted, and you could be joined by your fellow crew members just like participating in a big online game of Quake. For that matter, that's probably what being on duty would be as well, for most crewmembers. All the stuff a holodeck has to do to simulate a larger space, water, fake humans, etc. is a whole lot of trouble you don't need if you can just input it directly to your senses.
Thank you for the rare phenomenon of admitting an error on Slashdot. The usual procedure is to either slink from the thread or to try to compensate with invective. Nice to see some maturity exercised.
The Republican's black hearts are decreasing the earth's albedo, which causes it to absorb more solar radiation and thus increase temperature. Bet you didn't think of that one.
And the Pentagon has to compete on the market with all the news organizations trying to cover the conflict in Iraq
"Hello, CBS? We'd like some of that bandwidth you've reserved. No? Well, OK. Say, out of pure curiosity, what are Dan Rather's coordinates?... We can? Well, thanks!"
I just thought of another reason that degradation is unlikely: the soldiers are using civilian GPS units themselves. In fact, a lot of them do. The military PLGR units are expensive, a pain in the butt to get for those whom the military doesn't deem needful, and have to be safeguarded, so the guys go out and get their own Garmins or whatever. The increasing dependence on civilian units is one of the reasons the military is pushing to get the new DAGR units developed and out in the hands of the troops.
There's no reason for the U.S. to degrade the signal out of fear of the Iraqis using it against allied forces. If there is any opposition, it isn't going to manifest itself in mobile battles where manuever is necessary, it'll be rooting out entrenched defenders of static positions.
Speaking from personal experience, I now have more storage than I need, and the trend is toward that becoming even more the case. While I don't discount the ability of Microsoft to bloat their code, I don't think that will be the case with the actual data. Unless we decide to record the entire electromagnetic spectrum 24/7 along with our HDTV ("wanna see my last house party in infrared?"), the day will have to come when we'll have enough storage for any practical purpose.
Back in the early '70s, I recall reading a proposal for this multimillion-dollar centralized storage server on the Arpanet. Called The Terabyte Memory Project (as I recall), it was going to be this facilty hooked to the Arpanet for use by anyone needing large amounts of storage (not free- they'd have to pay for using it). It was going to use tape as the storage medium, since the hard drives of the time were the size of washing machines, stored just a few tens of megabytes at most, and were enormously expensive. I remember wondering what people were going to use all that storage for. I look forward to seeing what the hell we're going to be throwing on to our multi-petabyte drives a relatively few years from now. The day's fast coming when we'll be able to record every moment of our entire lives in HDTV-quality on a single drive. I wonder how many people will?
Slashdot Mirror
Iraq was just a warm-up exercise. Continue pirating our music and the 5th RIAA Infantry Brigade is gonna be on your ass.
Based on the stuff he's buying, he doesn't have to even *try* to do it surreptitiously. It's all stuff that's used for many mundane purposes. Until it's all put together, it's as harmless and commonplace as dirt.
You wouldn't believe what we do to test military stuff. I recall the time I went to the test hut where they were subjecting an antenna mount with internal electronics to a vibration test. At the end, they opened the access panel, and this cascade of printed circuit fragments not much larger than your thumb poured forth. I won't bother going into the details of the 'hammer test' (think in terms of having the soles of your feet beaten with a sledge, and you'll get the idea).
I've sent in dozens of rebates and have never not gotten one. I keep track of them in a spreadsheet so I'd know if one doesn't show up. I've never had to inquire about one, either. It probably helps that I don't buy rebate items from companies that I've never heard of. Personally, I'd be happy if they'd just drop the prices, but the rest of you schmucks who forget to send the rebates in keep encouraging them.
I'll wager that many of us are glad you're Canadian.
Why would CE devices outselling desktops constitute a 'Post PC' era? They have different uses. If popularity is the only measure, then I could argue that we're already in a Post PC Era because calculator sales dwarf those of PCs.
Yes, it's the ULTIMATE WEAPON Mr. Bond! MUAAAAHAHAHA!
Anyone else interested in hobbyist-level services for prototyping and whatnot: pick up a copy of "Nuts And Volts" magazine. They have tons of ads for things like board houses, plastic parts making, etc. You might also take a look at "Robot Builder's Sourcebook" for lists of sources for just about anything electronic or mechanical that you can imagine.
I acknowledge the "just because" aspect. However, once you've milled the board, you still have the hole drilling and through-hole plating (or little wire-stub soldering, if that's your method) to do. Not to mention the solder masking and silkscreening that can be had with the commercial product. More power to those who like to do the entire job themselves, but I'll stick with getting my custom boards done by a board house. I'm far too lazy to do otherwise :-).
Seems like a lot of trouble to go to when it's pretty cheap to get small-quantity custom boards done.
I'll bet that there are some people who didn't like seeing this news get out. The bad guys use sat phones too, and it would be pretty handy to have their exact location.
I got a BS in Electrical Engineering and an MS in Computer Science. Most of my work is writing code, but I know *exactly* where to kick the machine when the need arises.
Just in case someone wants to do it the hand-soldered way:
SMT assembly techniques
Time to roll out the old Microsoft standby: "It's not a bug, it's a limitation".
Pretty much, except without the aliens. (Speaking of which, the stated reason for the matrix existing - using humans as power sources - was pretty lame.)
A lot of my political attitudes and general philosophies of life come directly from Robert A. Heinlein. I read every book he wrote before I was out of Junior High (aka Middle School to you present day squirts) and they sort of seeped in.
I always thought the concept of a holodeck was a silly waste of space on a starship. I think the reality will be more along the lines of lying on your bunk in your quarters and hooking your nervous system up to a computer. The computer would simulate any reality you wanted, and you could be joined by your fellow crew members just like participating in a big online game of Quake. For that matter, that's probably what being on duty would be as well, for most crewmembers. All the stuff a holodeck has to do to simulate a larger space, water, fake humans, etc. is a whole lot of trouble you don't need if you can just input it directly to your senses.
Thank you for the rare phenomenon of admitting an error on Slashdot. The usual procedure is to either slink from the thread or to try to compensate with invective. Nice to see some maturity exercised.
The Republican's black hearts are decreasing the earth's albedo, which causes it to absorb more solar radiation and thus increase temperature. Bet you didn't think of that one.
And the Pentagon has to compete on the market with all the news organizations trying to cover the conflict in Iraq
... We can? Well, thanks!"
"Hello, CBS? We'd like some of that bandwidth you've reserved. No? Well, OK. Say, out of pure curiosity, what are Dan Rather's coordinates?
Now that's funny.
Incidentally, I personally prefer "Surrender Fries".
I just thought of another reason that degradation is unlikely: the soldiers are using civilian GPS units themselves. In fact, a lot of them do. The military PLGR units are expensive, a pain in the butt to get for those whom the military doesn't deem needful, and have to be safeguarded, so the guys go out and get their own Garmins or whatever. The increasing dependence on civilian units is one of the reasons the military is pushing to get the new DAGR units developed and out in the hands of the troops.
There's no reason for the U.S. to degrade the signal out of fear of the Iraqis using it against allied forces. If there is any opposition, it isn't going to manifest itself in mobile battles where manuever is necessary, it'll be rooting out entrenched defenders of static positions.
Speaking from personal experience, I now have more storage than I need, and the trend is toward that becoming even more the case. While I don't discount the ability of Microsoft to bloat their code, I don't think that will be the case with the actual data. Unless we decide to record the entire electromagnetic spectrum 24/7 along with our HDTV ("wanna see my last house party in infrared?"), the day will have to come when we'll have enough storage for any practical purpose.
Back in the early '70s, I recall reading a proposal for this multimillion-dollar centralized storage server on the Arpanet. Called The Terabyte Memory Project (as I recall), it was going to be this facilty hooked to the Arpanet for use by anyone needing large amounts of storage (not free- they'd have to pay for using it). It was going to use tape as the storage medium, since the hard drives of the time were the size of washing machines, stored just a few tens of megabytes at most, and were enormously expensive. I remember wondering what people were going to use all that storage for. I look forward to seeing what the hell we're going to be throwing on to our multi-petabyte drives a relatively few years from now. The day's fast coming when we'll be able to record every moment of our entire lives in HDTV-quality on a single drive. I wonder how many people will?