The towers collapsed for a simple reason!
on
More WTC News
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· Score: 2, Informative
They were designed to survive a "once in a century storm", something like Hurricane Andrew. They naturally sway several feet in strong winds.
Buildings are simply not constructed to survive being slammed into by a 400,000 pound jet going 300+ miles per hour. Especially ones that are 20+ years old.
Jet specs are at: http://www.boeing.com/commercial/767-300/product.h tml
If you're interested in that
on
Fling-A-Keg
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· Score: 2
Pick up a copy of The Book of the Crossbow, by Sir Ralph Payne Gallwey.
He lived in pre-WWI England, and was a minor noble with money and spare time. In the book, he recounts building crossbows and small seige engines and testing them on his grounds.
The most interesting passage to me was where he gets his hands on a 400+ year old French crossbow, restrings it, and discovers EXACTLY what it can do... even at long distance.
Back in the early 80s (1984, I beleive) there was a news story on NBC in New York. The report was from in front of the LoC (Library of Congress) in DC, where a group of Soviets had walked in a photocopied all the plans, blueprints and data on the Space Shuttle.
The public outcry was huge for three days, then everyone seemed to forget about it.:-)
Stolen from the article:
"For Microsoft, this was the kind of publicity you just can't buy. Not only did Redmond get to share a dais with the Justice Department --which is rather like Stalin vowing eternal friendship with Roosevelt to counter the Nazi menace -- but they also had their name inextricably linked with the well-being of the Internet itself."
Which is *exactly* what it is, except that in this case there isn't any Nazi menace to stand up to. My bet is that this will be seen as a way to soften the DOJ/Microsoft schism in the public's eye and make all those pesky state lawsuits go away that much quicker.
History is *filled* with bait-n-switches like this, which most people pick up on about as frequently as they do retail prices going up two weeks before a big sale. Study the past. Without it, you'll never see the future.
...and let me tell you, the guy's right on the mark. Microsoft was NOT the contractor for the app.
All of the DOE's software (at least, anything used by anybody with a normal security clearance) is written by a 3rd party -- which usually themselves subcontract. In fact, there are firms in the DC area with mulit-million dollar revenues that do nothing but "bottom feed" on DOE contracts -- that is, do less than 49% of the paid work (or whatever the margin is for that project).
Further, most of these are ENVIRONMENTAL companies, not IT shops, since they wouldn't know enough about, say, ground water remediation to make a front end database app anyway.
So am I surprised? Not really. Especially since we're dealing with a government agency.:-)
The problem remains, though, that D2 is simply behind the times. I played D2 and was, well, bored. The game's graphics and interface is dated, and even the storyline is kind of dull.
There's only so much you can do with a "click mouse until you kill it" game. Yes, it is better in multiplayer mode, and yes there are lots of improvements over D1, but it took so long to come out that it just can't compare to other games, such as Unreal. Heck, even Acheron's Call is close, and it has a much bigger (and more interesting) scope and multiplayer functionality.
Junk mail is a godsend!
Without junk mail, the price of a first class stamp would be over a dollar (see USPS Rate Commission Case, Buc appendix).
My company DID most of the valuations for this back in 1997. What was found:
1st class mail costs too little and
3rd class mail costs too much, given the service provided.
Sure, we all complain when the PS raises rates by a penny once in awhile, but without junkmail, it'd be much, much more.
If you're really interested, hit http://www.prc.gov/fandp/fandp.htm
and look at what the USPS actually does and how the rates are affected.
Given I can drop a letter in a box and have it arrive in Lost City, West Virginia in three days is a miricle. If we had a true private company delivering the mail, we'd be hosed!
BTW, 1st class mail accounts for almost 53% of the load, even with the expansion of e-mail. It also gives the USPS most of it's revenue. But without that 25% operating profit from junk mail, mail would be a LOT more expensive.
Remember, it's not straight math: save a dime here doesn't translate to a dime there -- kind of like how if oil goes up a penny a barrel your gas goes up a nickel.
Back in the 19th century, it was normal that a company had it's own newspaper and general store.
So Time-AOL has content and bandwidth? SO WHAT!
Media of *any* kind is telling you something, it's what you want to believe that makes the news. Pravda was widely disbelieved in the USSR (and other countries) under Communism. My relatives in Communist Prague back in the 70s and 80s *knew* to read the news with a grain of salt.
Have we forgotten that?
Do we assume that the media should always be presented in truth... if so, who's truth?
Historically, the R.C. Church has always aided the poor when it comes to money and technology.
Consider:
Once Gutenburg's printing press was perfected, it was the Church that was the biggest patron. For over 500 years, the most printed book on the planet has been the Bible. This allowed for spreading the word faster and cheaper.
They didn't pay for Voltaire's Candide to be printed, though.:-)
I administer Cyber Patrol for a school system. (I'm a contractor, don't actually work for the schools). Anyway, you can click on http://www.cyberpatrol.com/cybernot/
and find out why a site is blocked and if it can be unblocked. From there, you can also request it be unblocked, and while it takes a few days, I have always gotten an e-mail back on the subject.
Also, what is filtered depends on the Administrator or whomever makes the decisions. In my situation, the Board of Ed decided to block Sex Education, but not Sports or Alcohol.
Likewise, some sites (Babelfish being one) are blocked because you can translate URLs in them, and CyberPatrol only recognises English.
Do I like filtering? Heck, YES! It makes my job a lot easier. I never get calls from librarians anymore complaining that some kid set the wallpaper to a porn background. The teachers are happy because the kids can't hit the rap lyrics sites all day or porn or online gambling instead of doing their work.
Is just one more piece of ammunition for my boss against me running Linux in our company. As it is, I have a hard time just defending using a Red Hat box for Apache.
My odds were low before, give my users love of MS Office and Exchange mail. Now that this virus hit three of them, (via their Yahoo accounts), no chance. Lovely.
Who ever wrote this thing, thanks alot. Nothing like cutting your nose to spite your face.
Solarwinds SNMPSweep:
IP Response Time System Name Machine Type Description
192.168.1.1 20ms Data Center Ancillary Synoptics BayStack 350F HW:RevA FW:V1.01 SW:V1.2.0.10
192.168.1.2 0ms DCServerBDC Windows NT Hardware: x86 Family 6 Model 7 Stepping 3 AT/AT Compatible
192.168.1.3 0ms Threadmeister1 Singer/Nintendo 150 stitch pattern Game Boy
THAT'D raise some eyebrows!
It's the bus speed I care about...
on
Pentium 4 Delayed
·
· Score: 3
The P4 chip isn't that big a deal, but the 400mhz bus will speed things up a heck of a lot above my 133mhz bus. The processor speed is almost superfluous at this point.
As for production work, be young have fun & buy Alpha. Four out of five SQL administrators whom have tried Alpha recommend it to their pat... er, users.:-)
His assumption of power concentration would be true, if the net was the major medium for all, which it is not. That crown, for better or for worse, is still television.
However, that makes by definition the American media & Hollywood the #1 social power on the planet, not those sites. Sites will come and go. It's not the hits that count. There are countries with no web access or very restricted access (Chad, Syria, almost anywhere in the 3rd world), yet these countries get much more "Americanization" via movies & print literature.
So I'd say that he's on the mark with the content idea, and the web itself is a powerful distributor of knowledge and information. But the most concentrated since the Roman Empire? Almost. That's still the press/media.
Um... You *can't* run IIS on Windows 98!
As for B1 Trusted OS: THERE IS NO SUCH THING!
I'm a consultant for a Fortune 10 company. I've seen IIS/NT boxes that have been PUMMELED and were still secure. I've seen high school kids idiot hack an Apache box. And I've seen the reverse.
What annoys me is folks who have this backwards notion that the OS actually makes a difference for web serving. It's the ADMIN more than anything.
A site is only as secure as the Administrator can make it.:-)
... WorldNetDaily? I assume that they're a reason news like this doesn't get into the New York Times, TIME, Newsweek or The Wall Street Journal. I seriously question the source on this one.
Even if it *is* true, give the kids some credit! Would you have been a snitch in high school?
Most teachers are bright people, with at least a Master's and half a life worth's of experience. The concept that teachers and administrators need an (obviously known) organization of spies like this is absurd. They spend at least 180 days with these kids for YEARS. If they don't know them, who does?
At best it's shoddy reporting. At worst it's playing the media for publicity to further a half-baked agenda.
GE, at $522.3 Billion. Now, GE is a conglomerate in just about every industry there is... I wonder if THAT'S a good thing vs. dominance in just one.
Rent a Penske truck? You're paying GE. Aetna Health Insurance? Yep. NBC? Uh huh.
However, I'd also note that Cisco also blew away most of their competition in the early 90s, such as Ascend, Bay et cetera. Sure, most of them are still around, but not in any real quantities to challenge Cicso.
The problem with Burton is that he can't direct action sequences out of a paper bag.
In my opinion, Sleepy Hollow's fight/action sequences were choppy, though better than earlier works such as Batman or Beetlejuice.
Burton is good on visuals, especially those dark, neo-gothic celluloid moments. But I hope he farms out the action sequences, maybe to David Fincher, who did an awesome job with Fight Club.
Fortunately, we all know the government these days knows it's bounds and wouldn't trample the liberties it's sworn to keep & protect.
So, don't think about the raid. Or Project Sundevil. Or Kevin Mitnick (who deserved some jail time, but didn't deserve 5 years and absurd treatment). Heck, even Waco & Ruby Ridge. It's just the government keeping you safe from yourself.
This is the same organization who gave credit to the Wright Brothers for inventing the aeroplace. In reality, a guy named Gustav Whitehead flew in Bridgeport, Connecticut at least two years earlier.
Okay... China's a Communist country. (One of the last in the world, but hey.) OF COURSE they're going to promote "home grown" software over Microsoft!
Theoretically (or is it ideologically in this sense?), Communists don't believe in the acquisition of personal wealth. So why would they want to pay licensing fees? Or for that matter for any software at all? In the ideal utopian society, each member produces to his or her ability and takes only what he or she needs. Linux is therefore the OS of the people!
Needless to say, it won't be easy. It's not like even simplified Chinese is easy to code for/with (just guessing here), at least with the relative preponderence of English/Spanish/French/German compilers. (For example, I've never seen a Polish version of C++, even in Poland. If anyone knows otherwise, lemme know). They'd have to come up with an entire microcomputer industry more or less from scratch...
Slashdot Mirror
They were designed to survive a "once in a century storm", something like Hurricane Andrew. They naturally sway several feet in strong winds.
h tml
Buildings are simply not constructed to survive being slammed into by a 400,000 pound jet going 300+ miles per hour. Especially ones that are 20+ years old.
Jet specs are at: http://www.boeing.com/commercial/767-300/product.
Pick up a copy of The Book of the Crossbow, by Sir Ralph Payne Gallwey.
He lived in pre-WWI England, and was a minor noble with money and spare time. In the book, he recounts building crossbows and small seige engines and testing them on his grounds.
The most interesting passage to me was where he gets his hands on a 400+ year old French crossbow, restrings it, and discovers EXACTLY what it can do... even at long distance.
Great read.
Back in the early 80s (1984, I beleive) there was a news story on NBC in New York. The report was from in front of the LoC (Library of Congress) in DC, where a group of Soviets had walked in a photocopied all the plans, blueprints and data on the Space Shuttle.
:-)
The public outcry was huge for three days, then everyone seemed to forget about it.
...which is probably most Americans...
Stolen from the article:
"For Microsoft, this was the kind of publicity you just can't buy. Not only did Redmond get to share a dais with the Justice Department --which is rather like Stalin vowing eternal friendship with Roosevelt to counter the Nazi menace -- but they also had their name inextricably linked with the well-being of the Internet itself."
Which is *exactly* what it is, except that in this case there isn't any Nazi menace to stand up to. My bet is that this will be seen as a way to soften the DOJ/Microsoft schism in the public's eye and make all those pesky state lawsuits go away that much quicker.
History is *filled* with bait-n-switches like this, which most people pick up on about as frequently as they do retail prices going up two weeks before a big sale. Study the past. Without it, you'll never see the future.
...and let me tell you, the guy's right on the mark. Microsoft was NOT the contractor for the app.
:-)
All of the DOE's software (at least, anything used by anybody with a normal security clearance) is written by a 3rd party -- which usually themselves subcontract. In fact, there are firms in the DC area with mulit-million dollar revenues that do nothing but "bottom feed" on DOE contracts -- that is, do less than 49% of the paid work (or whatever the margin is for that project).
Further, most of these are ENVIRONMENTAL companies, not IT shops, since they wouldn't know enough about, say, ground water remediation to make a front end database app anyway.
So am I surprised? Not really. Especially since we're dealing with a government agency.
The problem remains, though, that D2 is simply behind the times. I played D2 and was, well, bored. The game's graphics and interface is dated, and even the storyline is kind of dull.
There's only so much you can do with a "click mouse until you kill it" game. Yes, it is better in multiplayer mode, and yes there are lots of improvements over D1, but it took so long to come out that it just can't compare to other games, such as Unreal. Heck, even Acheron's Call is close, and it has a much bigger (and more interesting) scope and multiplayer functionality.
Just my $0.02.
Junk mail is a godsend!
Without junk mail, the price of a first class stamp would be over a dollar (see USPS Rate Commission Case, Buc appendix).
My company DID most of the valuations for this back in 1997. What was found:
1st class mail costs too little and
3rd class mail costs too much, given the service provided.
Sure, we all complain when the PS raises rates by a penny once in awhile, but without junkmail, it'd be much, much more.
If you're really interested, hit http://www.prc.gov/fandp/fandp.htm
and look at what the USPS actually does and how the rates are affected.
Given I can drop a letter in a box and have it arrive in Lost City, West Virginia in three days is a miricle. If we had a true private company delivering the mail, we'd be hosed!
BTW, 1st class mail accounts for almost 53% of the load, even with the expansion of e-mail. It also gives the USPS most of it's revenue. But without that 25% operating profit from junk mail, mail would be a LOT more expensive.
Remember, it's not straight math: save a dime here doesn't translate to a dime there -- kind of like how if oil goes up a penny a barrel your gas goes up a nickel.
Back in the 19th century, it was normal that a company had it's own newspaper and general store.
So Time-AOL has content and bandwidth? SO WHAT!
Media of *any* kind is telling you something, it's what you want to believe that makes the news. Pravda was widely disbelieved in the USSR (and other countries) under Communism. My relatives in Communist Prague back in the 70s and 80s *knew* to read the news with a grain of salt.
Have we forgotten that?
Do we assume that the media should always be presented in truth... if so, who's truth?
Historically, the R.C. Church has always aided the poor when it comes to money and technology.
:-)
Consider:
Once Gutenburg's printing press was perfected, it was the Church that was the biggest patron. For over 500 years, the most printed book on the planet has been the Bible. This allowed for spreading the word faster and cheaper.
They didn't pay for Voltaire's Candide to be printed, though.
I administer Cyber Patrol for a school system. (I'm a contractor, don't actually work for the schools). Anyway, you can click on http://www.cyberpatrol.com/cybernot/
and find out why a site is blocked and if it can be unblocked. From there, you can also request it be unblocked, and while it takes a few days, I have always gotten an e-mail back on the subject.
Also, what is filtered depends on the Administrator or whomever makes the decisions. In my situation, the Board of Ed decided to block Sex Education, but not Sports or Alcohol.
Likewise, some sites (Babelfish being one) are blocked because you can translate URLs in them, and CyberPatrol only recognises English.
Do I like filtering? Heck, YES! It makes my job a lot easier. I never get calls from librarians anymore complaining that some kid set the wallpaper to a porn background. The teachers are happy because the kids can't hit the rap lyrics sites all day or porn or online gambling instead of doing their work.
Is just one more piece of ammunition for my boss against me running Linux in our company. As it is, I have a hard time just defending using a Red Hat box for Apache.
My odds were low before, give my users love of MS Office and Exchange mail. Now that this virus hit three of them, (via their Yahoo accounts), no chance. Lovely.
Who ever wrote this thing, thanks alot. Nothing like cutting your nose to spite your face.
Imagine throwing this thing on the network.
Solarwinds SNMPSweep:
IP Response Time System Name Machine Type Description
192.168.1.1 20ms Data Center Ancillary Synoptics BayStack 350F HW:RevA FW:V1.01 SW:V1.2.0.10
192.168.1.2 0ms DCServerBDC Windows NT Hardware: x86 Family 6 Model 7 Stepping 3 AT/AT Compatible
192.168.1.3 0ms Threadmeister1 Singer/Nintendo 150 stitch pattern Game Boy
THAT'D raise some eyebrows!
The P4 chip isn't that big a deal, but the 400mhz bus will speed things up a heck of a lot above my 133mhz bus. The processor speed is almost superfluous at this point.
:-)
As for production work, be young have fun & buy Alpha. Four out of five SQL administrators whom have tried Alpha recommend it to their pat... er, users.
His assumption of power concentration would be true, if the net was the major medium for all, which it is not. That crown, for better or for worse, is still television.
However, that makes by definition the American media & Hollywood the #1 social power on the planet, not those sites. Sites will come and go. It's not the hits that count. There are countries with no web access or very restricted access (Chad, Syria, almost anywhere in the 3rd world), yet these countries get much more "Americanization" via movies & print literature.
So I'd say that he's on the mark with the content idea, and the web itself is a powerful distributor of knowledge and information. But the most concentrated since the Roman Empire? Almost. That's still the press/media.
Um... You *can't* run IIS on Windows 98!
:-)
As for B1 Trusted OS: THERE IS NO SUCH THING!
I'm a consultant for a Fortune 10 company. I've seen IIS/NT boxes that have been PUMMELED and were still secure. I've seen high school kids idiot hack an Apache box. And I've seen the reverse.
What annoys me is folks who have this backwards notion that the OS actually makes a difference for web serving. It's the ADMIN more than anything.
A site is only as secure as the Administrator can make it.
Microsoft and God were going to merge.
Thanks for the link, I wonder why Mr. Katz didn't include it? :-)
So it's a movement trying to get publicity. Wonderful.
... WorldNetDaily? I assume that they're a reason news like this doesn't get into the New York Times, TIME, Newsweek or The Wall Street Journal. I seriously question the source on this one.
Even if it *is* true, give the kids some credit! Would you have been a snitch in high school?
Most teachers are bright people, with at least a Master's and half a life worth's of experience. The concept that teachers and administrators need an (obviously known) organization of spies like this is absurd. They spend at least 180 days with these kids for YEARS. If they don't know them, who does?
At best it's shoddy reporting. At worst it's playing the media for publicity to further a half-baked agenda.
GE, at $522.3 Billion. Now, GE is a conglomerate in just about every industry there is... I wonder if THAT'S a good thing vs. dominance in just one.
Rent a Penske truck? You're paying GE. Aetna Health Insurance? Yep. NBC? Uh huh.
However, I'd also note that Cisco also blew away most of their competition in the early 90s, such as Ascend, Bay et cetera. Sure, most of them are still around, but not in any real quantities to challenge Cicso.
The problem with Burton is that he can't direct action sequences out of a paper bag.
In my opinion, Sleepy Hollow's fight/action sequences were choppy, though better than earlier works such as Batman or Beetlejuice.
Burton is good on visuals, especially those dark, neo-gothic celluloid moments. But I hope he farms out the action sequences, maybe to David Fincher, who did an awesome job with Fight Club.
If the Weavers were completely innocent or not is not the topic I'm debating, it's the fact that a branch of the government acted outside the law.
As for Mitnick, he was those things, but also a scapegoat. Either way, it doesn't make what happened to either the Weavers or Mitnick right.
Fortunately, we all know the government these days knows it's bounds and wouldn't trample the liberties it's sworn to keep & protect.
So, don't think about the raid. Or Project Sundevil. Or Kevin Mitnick (who deserved some jail time, but didn't deserve 5 years and absurd treatment). Heck, even Waco & Ruby Ridge. It's just the government keeping you safe from yourself.
Oh, er, wait a second...
Whelp, I pulled out a 386 chip I had lying around (A80386DX-20) and removed the casing.
:-)
It's 1.6 x 1.6 cm... and that came out in 1985.
I'd imagine that they managed to make theirs smaller over the course of 15 years...
This is the same organization who gave credit to the Wright Brothers for inventing the aeroplace. In reality, a guy named Gustav Whitehead flew in Bridgeport, Connecticut at least two years earlier.
Check out: http://airsports.fai.org/jun98/jun9805.html
Now, if they'd give credit to the Wrights for cash or political reasons, why wouldn't they do the same to raise Edison and sink Tesla into obscurity?
Okay... China's a Communist country. (One of the last in the world, but hey.) OF COURSE they're going to promote "home grown" software over Microsoft!
Theoretically (or is it ideologically in this sense?), Communists don't believe in the acquisition of personal wealth. So why would they want to pay licensing fees? Or for that matter for any software at all? In the ideal utopian society, each member produces to his or her ability and takes only what he or she needs. Linux is therefore the OS of the people!
Needless to say, it won't be easy. It's not like even simplified Chinese is easy to code for/with (just guessing here), at least with the relative preponderence of English/Spanish/French/German compilers. (For example, I've never seen a Polish version of C++, even in Poland. If anyone knows otherwise, lemme know). They'd have to come up with an entire microcomputer industry more or less from scratch...