It's also important to note that just having that equipment on hand isn't enough in itself. You have to know how to use it, and know how to operate in an emergency. It's all about training. ARES is a good resource for this, though in some areas the politics involved can be a real turn-off.
There's just no substitute for training and practice. The strength of ham radio in emergencies comes not from fancy equipment, but from the ability of operators to improvise and adapt.
"Because our law enforcement is acting on the behalf of private companies (who should be filing civil suits against these people) instead of going after the rapists/murders/terrorists of the World."
So next time someone rips off some code from your favorite GPL'd project, you're OK with not getting any law enforcement support if they're all busy going after rapists/murderers/terrorists, right?
They were built better, too. I went through a number of modern plastic aircraft with my son, but the only one that survived - and that he really enjoyed playing with - was an ancient (Tonka?) Turboprop plane I'd had at his age. It was a bit faded and had lost some prop blades, but for a > 20 year old toy it held up pretty well. His new AH-64 Apache with lights and sounds, on the other hand, broke in half within a week.
I went looking for a similarly well-built toy plane, but never found a modern equivalent. I finally hit eBay and found an identical plane, still in its 1978 packaging. He's still got it, and it's still in good shape. Hasn't even lost a prop blade yet.
The rest of his toy aircraft, however, are now so many brittle plastic shards at the bottom of his toybox.
And don't get me started on the metal toys we used to have. I once saw an original Voltron fall from a 7-foot wall and land on concrete with hardly a scratch...
And would you require humans to pass the same test to be granted legal rights? Go hang out on IRC sometime and consider how many of these people wouldn't be able to convince a judge.
When I was in high school, we spent hours downloading.GIFs from local adult BBSes at 2400 baud, eventually filling a whopping 40 megabytes.
Assuming that trend has continued, and I don't see why it wouldn't, that means your average adolescent male today should have roughly 6 terabytes of porn. Perhaps you can interest them in the future of high-density data storage and high-resolution displays...
Central California. And I actually have seriously considered doing this, but the main constraint is the cost of helium. I've got maybe 200 cu ft on hand, enough to lift about 10 pounds. And that cost me about $60.
Some day, maybe. Every time I drive by the helium tankers at work I can't help thinking about it. The Mojave desert is only a few hours away, and would make a nice launch site - assuming you coordinated with Edwards AFB first.
"...I'd argue that just being a competent firefighter or cop isn't enough to be considered a hero, and that the word is overused in reference to dangerous professions."
I have to agree. I'm an EMT and member of my county's Search and Rescue team. We go out all the time looking for folks that are either already dead, or who may not be lost at all. Once in awhile we'll rescue someone who's actually lost, needs help, and WANTS to be found. We use the same skills, follow the same procedures, and expose ourselves to the same level of risks on all of those calls. Guess which ones the media slaps the 'heroic' label on?
The bottom line is that heroes make good press. No one wants to hear that everyone participating in a rescue was simply doing their job, following their traning, and not taking unnecessary risks.
Want some REAL heroes? Look here for a few examples.
Not to mention the fact that you need extra circuitry to provide -5 volts, -12 volts, and +5 volts to run everything.
The article suggests using capacitors even. Sure, supercaps work fine for keeping static RAM going - dynamic RAM needs to be constantly refreshed. And going into a hibernate mode means running the hard drive long enough to save everything.
Yeah, this'll be the 'good' version of Windows, just like the Air Force's implementation of Exchange for the Defense Messaging System is a 'good' one.
The best single description I've seen of DMS was a single-panel cartoon in Federal Computer Week - a covered wagon labeled 'AUTODIN' disgorging passengers who are boarding a modern-looking but completely defunct bus labeled 'DMS'.
Fortunately I don't deal with DMS on a regular basis. But I feel the pain of those who do have to maintain a poorly-documented, semi-custom product. We brought in an experienced Exchange admin from our commercial operations, and it took him probably half a dozen tries to build a functioning DMS site, following the provided instructions.
I'm convinced you need to either go off-the-shelf 100%, or build and maintain your own software from scratch. Every Air Force project I've seen that tries to customize or extend COTS products is a horrendous mess.
They've done something like this in the past, even if they didn't advertise it. I was working in a small computer shop several years ago, and one of our regular customers, a local dentist with a small office network, came in to get Windows 95 installed on his 5 machines.
Being an honest guy, he'd actually purchased 5 copies at the local computer show. Unfortunately, they were counterfeit copies - a fact that probably wasn't obvious to someone who didn't see the real thing every day.
Anyway, we called Microsoft's anti-piracy hotline and provided all the information we had about the vendor. I know they sent the guy at least one legitimate copy for his trouble.
I sympathize with people like that, who thought they were getting a legitimate deal. Not so much so for the guy who came in with some CDs he'd picked up in Hong Kong, each with some $50,000 in assorted titles, and wanted help installing the programs.
"the Russians pulled out some impressive engenieering feats, specially in the field of aeronautics"
Alas, photographic technology doesn't seem to have been a priority. Half the pictures I've seen of the Russian space program look like they could be shots of the Loch Ness Monster.
What I find interesting is the marking on the side that says 'MIR-2'. I guess it would have been launched just after the original Mir station. Seems a little ironic to name a battle station 'Peace', though I guess it can be translated as 'Earth' too.
The picture of the launch vehicle being erected is classic. Looks like either the world's largest surface-to-air missile or a 1950's idea of a rocket ship.
Multiple satellites can be launched on the same vehicle, and tracking resources are limited. Look up the Mars-96 failure reports - when the shit hit the fan, NO ONE knew where all the parts were and where they were headed, and we still don't know where the radioactive material on the spacecraft landed.
If you've got a satellite that failed on launch and didn't get to its intended orbit, you might be waiting awhile for radar to locate it. Maybe not so much with something this big, but you could always claim that it's an expended booster or maybe a failed research satellite if you didn't want anyone paying attention to it. There's lots of junk up there.
$5 to tell me where I saw a Childrens' story where a white object falls from the sky onto a house & everyone dies.
Could this be the children's story you're looking for? I believe all of the characters in the first story are killed when the table of contents falls on them.
Ok, I hear the paranoid types talk all the time about being tracked by a satellite. Aside from movies, though, I've never seen anything to indicate that anyone's using real-time video from spy satellites. Does such a system exist? I've only seen high-resolution stills.
In any case, you'd at least expect the point of view to be moving fairly rapidly - a satellite in low orbit would only be overhead for a few minutes at a time.
I know some weather satellites don't even have 2-dimensional imaging elements - they rely on the rotation of the satellite itself for scanning. What are the chances that military systems work that way too?
Slashdot Mirror
It's also important to note that just having that equipment on hand isn't enough in itself. You have to know how to use it, and know how to operate in an emergency. It's all about training. ARES is a good resource for this, though in some areas the politics involved can be a real turn-off.
There's just no substitute for training and practice. The strength of ham radio in emergencies comes not from fancy equipment, but from the ability of operators to improvise and adapt.
-N1VG
And without law enforcement support, what's that get you? They could just ignore the courts all day long.
"Because our law enforcement is acting on the behalf of private companies (who should be filing civil suits against these people) instead of going after the rapists/murders/terrorists of the World."
So next time someone rips off some code from your favorite GPL'd project, you're OK with not getting any law enforcement support if they're all busy going after rapists/murderers/terrorists, right?
They were built better, too. I went through a number of modern plastic aircraft with my son, but the only one that survived - and that he really enjoyed playing with - was an ancient (Tonka?) Turboprop plane I'd had at his age. It was a bit faded and had lost some prop blades, but for a > 20 year old toy it held up pretty well. His new AH-64 Apache with lights and sounds, on the other hand, broke in half within a week.
I went looking for a similarly well-built toy plane, but never found a modern equivalent. I finally hit eBay and found an identical plane, still in its 1978 packaging. He's still got it, and it's still in good shape. Hasn't even lost a prop blade yet.
The rest of his toy aircraft, however, are now so many brittle plastic shards at the bottom of his toybox.
And don't get me started on the metal toys we used to have. I once saw an original Voltron fall from a 7-foot wall and land on concrete with hardly a scratch...
My family members are welcome to keep all the emails I've sent them. But my personal mail? That'd incriminate way too many people still living...
And would you require humans to pass the same test to be granted legal rights? Go hang out on IRC sometime and consider how many of these people wouldn't be able to convince a judge.
Porn. That's my guess.
.GIFs from local adult BBSes at 2400 baud, eventually filling a whopping 40 megabytes.
When I was in high school, we spent hours downloading
Assuming that trend has continued, and I don't see why it wouldn't, that means your average adolescent male today should have roughly 6 terabytes of porn. Perhaps you can interest them in the future of high-density data storage and high-resolution displays...
Strained Peas to Perpetuate Bland but Nutritious Baby Food.
(sorry, got nothin'....)
Come on, get with the program. DVDs are optical media.
It's done with a special felt-tipped marker.
Central California. And I actually have seriously considered doing this, but the main constraint is the cost of helium. I've got maybe 200 cu ft on hand, enough to lift about 10 pounds. And that cost me about $60.
Some day, maybe. Every time I drive by the helium tankers at work I can't help thinking about it. The Mojave desert is only a few hours away, and would make a nice launch site - assuming you coordinated with Edwards AFB first.
Let's see, in my bedroom and garage, I've got on hand:
* Paraglider harness
* Reserve parachute
* Helium
* Balloons
* Duct tape
* Oxygen cylinders and masks
* Warm clothes
* Flight helmet
* GPS
* Handheld radio
* BB gun
And here I was wondering what to do with my weekend.
It's going to suck not having any Internet access at the CIA...
That's remarkably like the theme to Tetris on the Gameboy...
Doot do da doot do da doot doot doot do da doot do da doot doot doot doot doot.
Now THAT's one that'll get stuck in your head.
Wonder if they've got a script for the movie yet.
I have to agree. I'm an EMT and member of my county's Search and Rescue team. We go out all the time looking for folks that are either already dead, or who may not be lost at all. Once in awhile we'll rescue someone who's actually lost, needs help, and WANTS to be found. We use the same skills, follow the same procedures, and expose ourselves to the same level of risks on all of those calls. Guess which ones the media slaps the 'heroic' label on?
The bottom line is that heroes make good press. No one wants to hear that everyone participating in a rescue was simply doing their job, following their traning, and not taking unnecessary risks.
Want some REAL heroes? Look here for a few examples.
I have absolutely no idea why I remember that...
Not to mention the fact that you need extra circuitry to provide -5 volts, -12 volts, and +5 volts to run everything.
The article suggests using capacitors even. Sure, supercaps work fine for keeping static RAM going - dynamic RAM needs to be constantly refreshed. And going into a hibernate mode means running the hard drive long enough to save everything.
This is exactly why we have UPS systems...
Yeah, this'll be the 'good' version of Windows, just like the Air Force's implementation of Exchange for the Defense Messaging System is a 'good' one.
The best single description I've seen of DMS was a single-panel cartoon in Federal Computer Week - a covered wagon labeled 'AUTODIN' disgorging passengers who are boarding a modern-looking but completely defunct bus labeled 'DMS'.
Fortunately I don't deal with DMS on a regular basis. But I feel the pain of those who do have to maintain a poorly-documented, semi-custom product. We brought in an experienced Exchange admin from our commercial operations, and it took him probably half a dozen tries to build a functioning DMS site, following the provided instructions.
I'm convinced you need to either go off-the-shelf 100%, or build and maintain your own software from scratch. Every Air Force project I've seen that tries to customize or extend COTS products is a horrendous mess.
They've done something like this in the past, even if they didn't advertise it. I was working in a small computer shop several years ago, and one of our regular customers, a local dentist with a small office network, came in to get Windows 95 installed on his 5 machines.
Being an honest guy, he'd actually purchased 5 copies at the local computer show. Unfortunately, they were counterfeit copies - a fact that probably wasn't obvious to someone who didn't see the real thing every day.
Anyway, we called Microsoft's anti-piracy hotline and provided all the information we had about the vendor. I know they sent the guy at least one legitimate copy for his trouble.
I sympathize with people like that, who thought they were getting a legitimate deal. Not so much so for the guy who came in with some CDs he'd picked up in Hong Kong, each with some $50,000 in assorted titles, and wanted help installing the programs.
I, for one, welcome our new itchy sweater-wearing overlords.
"the Russians pulled out some impressive engenieering feats, specially in the field of aeronautics"
Alas, photographic technology doesn't seem to have been a priority. Half the pictures I've seen of the Russian space program look like they could be shots of the Loch Ness Monster.
What I find interesting is the marking on the side that says 'MIR-2'. I guess it would have been launched just after the original Mir station. Seems a little ironic to name a battle station 'Peace', though I guess it can be translated as 'Earth' too.
The picture of the launch vehicle being erected is classic. Looks like either the world's largest surface-to-air missile or a 1950's idea of a rocket ship.
Multiple satellites can be launched on the same vehicle, and tracking resources are limited. Look up the Mars-96 failure reports - when the shit hit the fan, NO ONE knew where all the parts were and where they were headed, and we still don't know where the radioactive material on the spacecraft landed.
If you've got a satellite that failed on launch and didn't get to its intended orbit, you might be waiting awhile for radar to locate it. Maybe not so much with something this big, but you could always claim that it's an expended booster or maybe a failed research satellite if you didn't want anyone paying attention to it. There's lots of junk up there.
Besides, there's already some rather old prior art.
Could this be the children's story you're looking for? I believe all of the characters in the first story are killed when the table of contents falls on them.
Ok, I hear the paranoid types talk all the time about being tracked by a satellite. Aside from movies, though, I've never seen anything to indicate that anyone's using real-time video from spy satellites. Does such a system exist? I've only seen high-resolution stills.
In any case, you'd at least expect the point of view to be moving fairly rapidly - a satellite in low orbit would only be overhead for a few minutes at a time.
I know some weather satellites don't even have 2-dimensional imaging elements - they rely on the rotation of the satellite itself for scanning. What are the chances that military systems work that way too?