I once met an Air Force lieutenant colonel who had an 'ASAT Eagle' emblem on the wall of his office. When I asked him about it, he told me about the same thing you've just stated, but also added that the testing culminated in the destruction of an old satellite. So yeah, apparently it worked, but it sounds like they just shelved it after that.
I wonder how much the movie affected the decision. Gattaca was above all a cautionary tale... something with a long history in science fiction. And whether it directly influenced the Senate, I'm sure it at least brought the issue into the minds of the people.
I often point to Gattaca as an example of what I consider a good science fiction movie. Unfortunately, for every Gattaca that makes it to the big screen, we've got to endure a dozen Event Horizons and Supernovas.
That's not the way geeks play dirty. What the parents need to worry about is the anonymous calls to the FBI about all the kiddie porn they've got on their home computers.
as a lot of things you'd find at school - lunch, for example.
Come on, people... it's 100 miliwatts of power, max, and you're not going to be sticking an access point up to your head. If they used exposed lumps of Cobalt-60, I could see where it'd be a problem.
Hey, you could adapt this protection philosophy with physical items, too - rather than sticking those little anti-theft tags on everything, just provide a stack of them and put up a sign asking shoplifters to please take one.
Anyone want to speculate on how much the label paid for this 'protection?'
New Zealand apparently did the same thing - no bills less than $5, and handy $2 and $1 coins. The 20 and 50 cent pieces are kind of bulky, though. And I'd always forget to check my pockets for dollars, so I was always using bills, and wound up with like 30 pounds of change by the time I came home...
That's the first I remember seeing it on a chat BBS, anyway. Lambda Switchboard software. At least two of the original systems are still online - I'm sure a few slashdotters know what I'm talking about. LOIS, TREX I, TREX II, and.. LOLA and LANE, I think?
The DOS-based Lambda software was replaced years ago with the Unix-based Mu clone, but it's still got the idle indicator in the 'F'ull who listing.
Seriously, don't get me started on the public's irrational fear of all things 'nuclear'. We really ought to cut out some of these damn eco-brainwashing environmental sciences classes in high school and start teaching kids something about risk management. Comparing, for example, the risk posed by millions of gallons of gasoline being trucked around city streets every day, to the dangers associated with nuclear power. Which do you think is the greater risk, and which do you think gets more public attention?
Of course, no amount of education is ever going to overcome the fact that a large portion of the population is stupid, petty, and superstitious. Always has been. Only now instead of witches and evil spirits, it's nuclear power and cell phone radiation.
And couldn't ever get anyone to say that it'd be legal to do in the states (open and scan someone else's mail) without major legal paperwork. Just receiving their mail to hold and forward (as a commercial mail receiving agent) requires a notarized form. I still think it'd be a killer app. Especially if you can remotely select mail to be destroyed, stored, or bulk-forwarded by UPS.
You see, it's actually a matter of natural selection. Those using the phones who DIDN'T have above-average reaction times, are now dead from auto accidents.
I'm still working on this one. Might be able to do it by intercepting calls to cards.dll. I'm dying to push the patch out to the whole organization via SMS and see how long it takes before people start grumbling about how they NEVER win at solitaire anymore.
Someone's definitely been watching too many movies. What's the maximum yeild possible for that much Plutonium? Ivy King, to my knowledge the largest fission bomb ever detonated, had a core of about 60 kilos of highly enriched uranium and produced an explosive yeild of about half a megaton.
Comet SL9 fragment G hit Jupiter with an estimated force of 6 MILLION megatons.
If it was that easy to cause a fusion reaction in atmospheric hydrogen, we'd all have fusion reactors in our basements by now.
And don't forget that satellite phones are bound to be severely overloaded if they're available. Maybe it's not a problem for inmarsat, but Iridium or any other LEO constellation is only going to have one bird in view at a time in the disaster area, and that's not much bandwidth.
And don't let the test scare you off. Any self respecting geek ought to be able to learn the test material in a couple afternoons.
I got my Novice license at about age 11. I'd stayed with Technician class for years, then they dropped the 20 wpm code requirement for Extra. It took me about 8 hours of studying to prepare for the test and I passed with a 96%.
If you're reading slashdot, and you already use things like FRS radios, there's no excuse for not getting a license and earning the ability to use REAL equipment.
Keep in mind that there's a big difference between operational systems and administrative systems. The requirements for desktop computers aren't the same as those for flight control systems.
Of course, then you've got some genius that discovers he can get a lot more money to spend on his network if he declares it a 'weapons system.' That's right, the network carrying all of the spam and pr0n all over the base is now a weapons system, and has to be treated as such.
The military can't keep people in technical positions because the pay stinks. At least in the Air Force, I think most base networks are now run by contractors. I've been working at the local base for about 7 years now, on what will be five different contracts as of next month. I don't know any military personnel that are still around from two years ago.
From what we see at the base level, it looks like the Air Force has some smart people, at least down to the major command level. They've got lots of great ideas on things like enterprise network consolidation and PKI, but there's a huge disconnect between that level of planning and the implementation level where we're at. We get directives like 'start using Common Access Cards for website authentication', but they can't tell us how to do it. Oh, they sent me a link to someone else's site that describes linking client certificates to domain accounts. No problem, I'll just call up the 1,000 or so users on that website, have them export their certificates, and spend the next month or two entering data!
But back to the original topic. If you're interested in IT in the military, don't bother. Go apply at SAIC or CSC or any of a hundred other contractors.
Bottom line: Military pay stinks. You have no guarantee of any particular job. Hardly anyone stays in one place more than two years, and anyone lucky enough to get training that's worth anything doesn't re-enlist because they can make three times more money on the outside, and still be underpaid.
Of course, this only goes for enlisted folks. Maybe it's different with the officers. I wouldn't count on it, though.
(For what it's worth, I enlisted. It's not a good career move if IT's what you're after, but it's a guaranteed job, and a respectable one. I'm not trying to discourage anyone from joining the service, just don't expect to be doing anything exciting in IT if you do!)
Apparently the >50% claim refers to the vertical multijunction cells they're developing at Rensselaer. Which to me is a far more interesting development than an architectural group's plans to use them in a novel way. Screw fancy windows, just pile 'em on the roof and give me a place to plug in.
I never set up a pre-9i cluster on Windows, but I ran Parallel Server in 7.1 on OpenVMS and it worked great. Of course, OpenVMS has had real clustering for a long time - Windows still isn't anywhere near where OpenVMS was 20 years ago.
Yeah, and the wolves have been a problem before. Apparently the capsules now carry a shotgun to hold them off when you've landed off course and have to wait for pickup.
Slashdot Mirror
I once met an Air Force lieutenant colonel who had an 'ASAT Eagle' emblem on the wall of his office. When I asked him about it, he told me about the same thing you've just stated, but also added that the testing culminated in the destruction of an old satellite. So yeah, apparently it worked, but it sounds like they just shelved it after that.
I wonder how much the movie affected the decision. Gattaca was above all a cautionary tale... something with a long history in science fiction. And whether it directly influenced the Senate, I'm sure it at least brought the issue into the minds of the people.
I often point to Gattaca as an example of what I consider a good science fiction movie. Unfortunately, for every Gattaca that makes it to the big screen, we've got to endure a dozen Event Horizons and Supernovas.
That's not the way geeks play dirty. What the parents need to worry about is the anonymous calls to the FBI about all the kiddie porn they've got on their home computers.
as a lot of things you'd find at school - lunch, for example.
Come on, people... it's 100 miliwatts of power, max, and you're not going to be sticking an access point up to your head. If they used exposed lumps of Cobalt-60, I could see where it'd be a problem.
Hey, you could adapt this protection philosophy with physical items, too - rather than sticking those little anti-theft tags on everything, just provide a stack of them and put up a sign asking shoplifters to please take one.
Anyone want to speculate on how much the label paid for this 'protection?'
New Zealand apparently did the same thing - no bills less than $5, and handy $2 and $1 coins. The 20 and 50 cent pieces are kind of bulky, though. And I'd always forget to check my pockets for dollars, so I was always using bills, and wound up with like 30 pounds of change by the time I came home...
That's the first I remember seeing it on a chat BBS, anyway. Lambda Switchboard software. At least two of the original systems are still online - I'm sure a few slashdotters know what I'm talking about. LOIS, TREX I, TREX II, and.. LOLA and LANE, I think?
The DOS-based Lambda software was replaced years ago with the Unix-based Mu clone, but it's still got the idle indicator in the 'F'ull who listing.
Nucular. It's pronounced NU-CUE-LAR.
Seriously, don't get me started on the public's irrational fear of all things 'nuclear'. We really ought to cut out some of these damn eco-brainwashing environmental sciences classes in high school and start teaching kids something about risk management. Comparing, for example, the risk posed by millions of gallons of gasoline being trucked around city streets every day, to the dangers associated with nuclear power. Which do you think is the greater risk, and which do you think gets more public attention?
Of course, no amount of education is ever going to overcome the fact that a large portion of the population is stupid, petty, and superstitious. Always has been. Only now instead of witches and evil spirits, it's nuclear power and cell phone radiation.
Bah. Now get off my lawn, you damn kids!
My personal strategy for avoiding the bat belt syndrome... just go with the Chewbacca-style bandolier. =]
Great, another smart ass Markov chain generator..
And couldn't ever get anyone to say that it'd be legal to do in the states (open and scan someone else's mail) without major legal paperwork. Just receiving their mail to hold and forward (as a commercial mail receiving agent) requires a notarized form. I still think it'd be a killer app. Especially if you can remotely select mail to be destroyed, stored, or bulk-forwarded by UPS.
You see, it's actually a matter of natural selection. Those using the phones who DIDN'T have above-average reaction times, are now dead from auto accidents.
I'm still working on this one. Might be able to do it by intercepting calls to cards.dll. I'm dying to push the patch out to the whole organization via SMS and see how long it takes before people start grumbling about how they NEVER win at solitaire anymore.
Do you REALLY want to be able to see the hairs growing out of that mole?
Sometimes lack of resolution is a good thing...
Be sure to specify only one hand/claw/mutant tentacle per survivor, though, or you're going to get a miscount.
Someone's definitely been watching too many movies. What's the maximum yeild possible for that much Plutonium? Ivy King, to my knowledge the largest fission bomb ever detonated, had a core of about 60 kilos of highly enriched uranium and produced an explosive yeild of about half a megaton.
Comet SL9 fragment G hit Jupiter with an estimated force of 6 MILLION megatons.
If it was that easy to cause a fusion reaction in atmospheric hydrogen, we'd all have fusion reactors in our basements by now.
Yes, we mustn't forget Eric, the 1/2 a Jedi.
And don't forget that satellite phones are bound to be severely overloaded if they're available. Maybe it's not a problem for inmarsat, but Iridium or any other LEO constellation is only going to have one bird in view at a time in the disaster area, and that's not much bandwidth.
And don't let the test scare you off. Any self respecting geek ought to be able to learn the test material in a couple afternoons.
I got my Novice license at about age 11. I'd stayed with Technician class for years, then they dropped the 20 wpm code requirement for Extra. It took me about 8 hours of studying to prepare for the test and I passed with a 96%.
If you're reading slashdot, and you already use things like FRS radios, there's no excuse for not getting a license and earning the ability to use REAL equipment.
Plus, you can run higher power 802.11b. =]
N1VG
No, it's not cold fusion. It's been around for a long time, and it's been mentioned here before. See the wikipedia entry at:
_ Fu sor
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farnsworth-Hirsch
Keep in mind that there's a big difference between operational systems and administrative systems. The requirements for desktop computers aren't the same as those for flight control systems.
Of course, then you've got some genius that discovers he can get a lot more money to spend on his network if he declares it a 'weapons system.' That's right, the network carrying all of the spam and pr0n all over the base is now a weapons system, and has to be treated as such.
The military can't keep people in technical positions because the pay stinks. At least in the Air Force, I think most base networks are now run by contractors. I've been working at the local base for about 7 years now, on what will be five different contracts as of next month. I don't know any military personnel that are still around from two years ago.
From what we see at the base level, it looks like the Air Force has some smart people, at least down to the major command level. They've got lots of great ideas on things like enterprise network consolidation and PKI, but there's a huge disconnect between that level of planning and the implementation level where we're at. We get directives like 'start using Common Access Cards for website authentication', but they can't tell us how to do it. Oh, they sent me a link to someone else's site that describes linking client certificates to domain accounts. No problem, I'll just call up the 1,000 or so users on that website, have them export their certificates, and spend the next month or two entering data!
But back to the original topic. If you're interested in IT in the military, don't bother. Go apply at SAIC or CSC or any of a hundred other contractors.
Bottom line: Military pay stinks. You have no guarantee of any particular job. Hardly anyone stays in one place more than two years, and anyone lucky enough to get training that's worth anything doesn't re-enlist because they can make three times more money on the outside, and still be underpaid.
Of course, this only goes for enlisted folks. Maybe it's different with the officers. I wouldn't count on it, though.
(For what it's worth, I enlisted. It's not a good career move if IT's what you're after, but it's a guaranteed job, and a respectable one. I'm not trying to discourage anyone from joining the service, just don't expect to be doing anything exciting in IT if you do!)
I never set up a pre-9i cluster on Windows, but I ran Parallel Server in 7.1 on OpenVMS and it worked great. Of course, OpenVMS has had real clustering for a long time - Windows still isn't anywhere near where OpenVMS was 20 years ago.
Yeah, and the wolves have been a problem before. Apparently the capsules now carry a shotgun to hold them off when you've landed off course and have to wait for pickup.