Engineer 1: Did you hear the latest pitch from marketing?
Engineer 2: What with all the layoffs and early retirements and all, JOB1 is now all about trying to save the company.
Engineer 1: That makes sense. How does that affect us?
Engineer 2: Well, the general idea was that we needed to innovate, go all out, hold nothing back, and add in anything and everything that could possibly give our vehicles an advantage.
Engineer 1: Really? Those were their EXACT WORDS?
Engineer 2: Not quite - more like we needed to throw in the
" Kitch 'n
Synch ".
(* Very Roughly Speaking: Kitsch: "bad art"; Synch: Comic Book Hero that could take on another mutant's powers.)
What if there were a time sync server in the setup whose whole purpose in life is to keep track of the time?
Have no other apps running on it, so that it has negligible system load. All the other systems in the TOR could be set up to sync their time with it every few seconds, i.e. before clock drift becomes detectable. Might check each and every second so as to intentionally cause a collision on the time server and add some randomness. Or, do a time sync every random(1..10) seconds. Or, use multiple NICs going to different ports on the switch/router where one NIC has a short ethernet cable, and the other one is quite long, so as to introduce different delays in the comms with the time server. I'm sure there are other ways.
I'd appreciate it if someone who was more knowledgable in these matters than
I am could comment on the premise: "is a cloned animal actually indistinguishable from its
donor?"
Funny you should ask. There is this group called the FDA; they're pretty knowledgeable and they just commented on this very topic.
Yep. And they approved VIOXX, too. There have been a number of other articles here which call into question the current administration's quest for scientific accuracy. So, given the possibility that the FDA might have favored the food industry's interests over the consumer's, I was looking for an INDEPENDENT resource who could validate the FDA's conclusion. Especially since there is going to be a change in the administration Real Soon Now, it seems to me they just MIGHT be trying to get this out the door while they can.
If food from clones is indistinguishable, FDA doesn't have the authority to require labels, Sundlof said. (emphasis added)
I'd appreciate it if someone who was more knowledgable in these matters that I am could comment on the premise: "is a cloned animal actually indistinguishable from its donor?"
For example: On average, do cloned animals live just as long as non-cloned animals? (i.e. same average lifespan, standard deviation, confidence level, etc.) I ask this because I remember reading that some cells can undergo only a finite number of replications and that there were some concerns about telomere and aging that figured into this.
So, are there ANY genetic differences between donor and cloned animals? That we might not have noticed a difference between the donor and the clone does not necessarily mean that there IS NO difference -- only that we HAVE NOT SEEN any difference... yet.
First off, I understand there is some not insignificant value to this idea. The concept of making it easier for law enforcement to gather already available information on a suspect is quite laudable. It bothers me when I hear of how a suspect in a "major investigation" was actually picked up on an unrelated offense, and let go, because the arresting officers were unaware of the other outstandings on the person. It would be nice if we could stop this from happening. In fact, I'm sure many lives could be saved. If I had a loved one who was murdered, and then found out that law enforcement had actually captured the suspect beforehand, AND LET HIM GO, you can bet I'd be outraged. But is this proposal the right way to go about it? What is the REAL COST to you and to me. Not just in dollars and cents, but also in our freedoms as citizens.
My concern is more with the implications and implementations of this concept, and how easily it can be abused.
Data Quality: People have been known to not give their correct name to the police. Some people have used multiple names (aliases, AKA, etc.) Further, given that even touch-typists will occasionally make typographical errors (and not everyone is a touch-typist, either), I can forsee a not-insignificant amount of "bad" data finding its way into the system.
Someone with a name similar to mine commits an offense, but gets recorded UNDER MY NAME. See:
false-positives (Type I error) and flase-negatives (Type II error) here:
Type I and type II errors.
They may not find this person when they go looking for his info - because it's NOT under his name.
They might find this person's offense(s) should they go looking under my name - say, for a minor traffic offense.
Feed the Database: If it's so benign, I want to see a requirement that they seed the database with information on EVERY SINGLE FEDERAL AND STATE OFFICIAL. President of the USA, every senator, representative, judge, police officer, sheriff, District Attorney, etc. If your wage is paid by our taxes, then your info gets loaded into their system automatically. If there is an uproar about doing this for THEM, then maybe they should not be doing it to US. Got to stamp out any possible corruption, yanno? Besides, if you have done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to hide. Right?
Log EVERY access: CRUD - Create, Read, Update, Delete. Storage is cheap. Log EVERY SINGLE time the data is accessed complete with the date, time, source IP, accessor's name (See the Feed the Database, above, what was requested, etc. If what you are doing with the database is on the up-and-up, then you have nothing to hide. Log it.
Prosecute Abuse of the System: Run analyses every single day to seek out abuse of the system. And Prosecute Them. Publicize The Prosecutions. Enter the prosecutions into the system. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Data Validation and Correction: It's going to happen. Some data is going to be inaccurate. (Consider the problems that exist with the accuracy of people's credit reports. And the difficulties, effort, and cost involved in getting those mistakes rectified.)
How can I:
Get access to the information they have on me?
Contest its accuracy?
Ensure corrections are applied?
Looking ahead: Data storage costs are coming down. Some localities have ever-present video cameras recording all activity in their purview. I can imagine a time when advanced techniques exist to go searching through these archives looking for, extracting, and logging the identities and activities of all within their field of view (face recognition, scene analyses, cell phone GPS, etc.) Combine all these streams and extracts into a central DB and one can easily go trolling for perps.
So, in short, I can see some good intentions behind this. Quite laudable in fact. But, I am NOT convinced this is a good idea, never mind whether or not they can come up with a good implementation.
On the Internet Traffic Report website you can click on Asia and see where the current congestion and outages are. Scroll down to the bottom and you can see these graphs, too:
Why dual boot? It seems so inconvenient to me. Perhaps virtualization would be better?
Sounds great, but... I've downloaded vmware workstation, as well as a release of Ubuntu, but I must be missing something.
Is there a simple HOWTO that gives a step-by-step on how to setup and use a virtual machine on windows? What information I found seemed to be written at an abstract level. I'm leary about butchering up my system with trial and error. (Yes, I have backups, but would rather not have to go through that time-consuming step if I can avoid it.)
I'd like to be able to play around with, say, Ubuntu in a VMWARE virtual machine, yet keep my Windows/XP home SP2 system up and running without putting it at risk.
2) One way to increase logging numbers is by making certain simple helpdesk tasks self-logging. For example, when a client wants their password changed, it's tempting for the helpdesk consultant to just change the password without ever opening a ticket. Why not write the password change utility so that it automatically opens a ticket, provides some minimal level of notes, and then presents this to the consultant?
I'll second that suggestion and add another: make an API that facilitates logging and merge that into your workflow. NOTE: This is all off the top of my head. I expect you'll tailor it to your specific needs. Augment as needed and/or time permits.
I'm thinking along the lines of wrapper functions that implement:
StartTicket implement a small program whose sole task is to log the start of a ticket. Record: Date, Time, Caller, Technician, Severity, Short Description
The date and time can be captured automatically from the system. Ditto for the tech. That leaves gathering who called which could also be captured automatically from the Caller-ID info from your phone system. That leaves the Severity (Urgent! Important. When-you-get-a-chance) and Short Description.
Another comment suggested carrying around a small voice recorder. With the increasing availability of IVR systems, even these could be captured with a small front-end that the person calling the help desk goes through. If techs were only permitted to work on calls that come through such a system, then everything you need is already there. Log the incoming call's audio as a BLOB in an RDBMS, use some Speech Recognition on that to get a text-formatted problem ticket. Sure, it's not going to be 100% accurate translation, but for now it's good (enough) to go. Get the minimum up and running Right Now. You can enhance, later.
LogAnActivity Simply record a text or voice update to the current task. Along with the current date, time, and tech.
StopTicket Again, implement a small wrapper program which captures the information you need. Date, Time, resolution, followup required.
Write a TASK utility that uses these wrappers.
invokes the StartTicket wrapper,
opens a new shell / window,
tech uses shell to perform requested action; all shell output is logged to a log file whose name is based on the tech's name and the current date time in ISO-8601 format. Take a look at Date (Unix) for details. Don't have a unix date command on your system? Take a look at the GNU utilities for Win32.
So, now you can construct an easily sortable date/time stamp;
Permeate your workflow Leverage these wrappers as a framework and as it becomes clear, write other TASK wrappers as needed.
You are pressed for time right now, so this is going to need to start lean and simple. Just capture enough info to show that you are way too busy. Get some wiggle room from management.
Other Approach Rigorously provide what they request in the way of documentation adn logging!!! If you are short-staffed, then LET THAT FACT BE KNOWN! TANSTAAFL. U
And, my first "IBM PC Compatible" was a Heath-kit.
"IBM Compatible" also meant that it might be compatible. An indicator was whether or not it would run Lotus 1-2-3 and Microsoft Flight Simulator. (I seem to recall there was a third program, but it escapes me now.)
BTW, my first IBM PC Compatible had an 80286 that ran at 10MHz with 1 wait state or 12MHz with 2 wait states. 1 MB of RAM. The bus ran at processor speed, so it could be iffy running at full speed. Hard drive (40MB Seagate ST251-1, 5.25" MFM) came in a separate box. Unformatted. Had to set jumpers, cable it in, watch for magic smoke, fdisk to partition it (DOS could only handle 32MB in a partition), then format, and only then could I install PC DOS 3.1 from a floppy! Then, came config.sys and autoexec.bat... Ahhh, the memories!
More info? Maybe you were thinking of sending out a notice, later, but could you please reply with the date/time and which campus it will be held on? I could make it to the Portland campus, depending on when it was scheduled. Or, better yet, set up a web page and give us the link so we can stay up-to-date and continue to contribute.
Suggestions:
IMSAI 8080 "War Games" aside, I actually worked on one back in 1977 or '78. Front-panel toggle switches; separate LEDs for EACH BIT of the ALU (and IIRC the current address, too). Ran CP/M. I think it had an S-100 bus for expansion. Storage was on an 8-inch floppy.
Atari 400/800 running Star Raiders - 8 bit (6502 processor) at maybe 2MHz with maybe 8 KB of memory. Incredible game play and graphics for that day. (Aside: in 1981 while setting up for a concert at my college's student union, I saw a TV projector wheeled in for testing on the 15-foot diagonal screen. Within 15 minutes I had my Atari 800 hooked up to BOTH the audio system (300W: Bass; 150W Horn; 80W Tweeter - on EACH SIDE) and this projector and fired up star raiders. Going into hyperspace sounded as if a 747 jet was taking off!)
Commodore 64 At a fraction of the price of an IBM PC, it had superior graphics, catridges, tape storage, and floppy storage available, too.
But seriously, if you post the location, date, and time here - I expect a few people would be willing to show up with their oldie-but-goodie systems. Mine got junked for my last move, otherwise I'd certainly bring mine in! Good Luck!
Dubai's Kulkarni QS will manage the project, while the task of rotating an 80,000 tonne tower through 360 degrees over a seven day period has been handed to Nick Cooper, managing director of Bennett Associates, the British engineer who designed the drill machine that bored the English Channel Tunnel.
Cooper said state of the art bearing systems at several points in the tower will allow a power plant to rotate the base of the tower at 5mm per second using only 21 electic kettles' worth of solar power.
Since it will take a full week for a complete revolution, that means that a given view indicates both the day of week AND the time of day. Think of enjoying the view at your neighbor's home and getting all confused as to what day/time it is.:O
This will make for an interesting exercise in real estate law. Said apartment, starting at the central elevator shaft on the 50th floor and heading 100 feet due east, no, wait. That's east-north-east. Man, this is going to take FOREVER! But seriously, has anyone seen a property deed for something like this?
(insert witty comment here about tea parties and electic electric kettle selection.:^)
Note to other posters: I have heard of rotating restaurants and/or observation decks - this is not an utterly new concept. So, getting the utilities (water, sewer, electric, etc.) to the residents is a matter of scaling past solutions.
Lastly: I admire their interest in getting something as immense as a WHOLE SKYSCRAPER to rotate, continuously, for years on end. I just hope they'll be able to get their hands on a good supply of lubricant. <grin>
THE PROBLEM: It is currently financially worthwhile for some companies to play loose with personal information. The perceived costs of the consequences of poor protection are not sufficient to warrant a change in their way of doing business.
Many merchants / agencies / whatever don't seem to want to provide us additional protections. All it would take is for a few companies who already take security very seriously to sign up for the best star rating listed below, chalk it up to advertising expense, and put the pressure on the other merchants who do not sign up. "Hey! *WE* take your security seriously, and we put our money where our mouth is. If *WE* mess up, we clean it up and pay *YOU* for your inconvenience. Why would you want to deal with anyone else?"
There is a financial opportunity for an enterprising group to make a fortune here. Existing insurance companies provided graduated coverages and fees depending on certain items. I can select how much liability insurance I want for my car. I can pay the insurance company a larger premium for a greater amount of coverage. Alternatively, if I have certain protective measures in place, then my premiums can be reduced. I choose the level of coverage that works for me.
whenever there is a security breach, make a payment to each CONSUMER! Get the consumer to be your best ally in getting merchants to sign up for the protection. So, if a merchant compromises the security of MY information, then the insurance company sends ME a check. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader on how this could be extended to cover other organizations that have access to personal info such as hospitals or government agencies.)
Also, and VERY important: advertise this feature like crazy - get the consumers to push the merchants to get the coverage along with an easy-to-remember grading scale for consumers to use to assess the degree of protection they are provided by a merchant. It took a few years, but now US car companies are advertising the NHTSA crash test ratings. I expect the same could work for credit protection.
NOTE: All dollar amounts are pulled out of a hat. I'm just trying to put something concrete out there to use as a starting point for discussion. Obviously, the size of the covered merchant would affect the premiums and payouts, and I have NOT worked those into these numbers. Please offer improvements! The examples listed here might be appropriate for a moderate to large merchant.
Have a graduated scale of costs and coverages that depended on what level of security measures were in place at the time of the loss / theft.
PROTECTION LEVEL: ONE STAR: If a merchant takes no security precautions then the insurance company would:
charge high premiums: $10M per year, plus $10 per covered client.
require high deductible: $5M deductible (in escrow).
provide low payment to each consumer: $100.00 to each consumer.
provide limited credit monitoring protection: 6 months of credit reporting agency monitoring.
The consumer gets some benefits, even if the merchant makes no great effort to protect the user.
It's still better than anything that the consumer is now getting.
After a few payouts, word-of-mouth will boost interest by consumers in seeking out at lest this minimal coverage.
CEOs and CIOs will start to take notice.
PROTECTION LEVEL: TWO STAR: If a merchant takes certain, documented, security precautions ( encrypted DBMSs, firewalls) then the insurance company would:
charge moderate premiums: $5M per year, plus $10 per covered client.
require moderate deductible: $1M deductible (in escrow).
provide better payment to each consumer: $500.00 to each consumer.
provide better credit monitoring protection: 1 year of credit reporting age
I want to proactively block any chance of getting caught by this. I just added this to my (Windows/XP HOME SP2) HOSTS file (C:\windows\system32\devices\etc\HOSTS):
127.0.0.1 comscore.com # ComScore, nee MediaMetrix, et al
I recognize this is but a start. I expect this has been investigated by others already. Rather than re-invent the wheel, I'm looking for some input on what else I can do to protect myself from them. (I already use ONLY firefox, and also have AVG, AdAware, Spybot, and WinPatrol)
Questions:
What other entries should I add to my hosts file? (Prevent)
What program(s) have you used to locate and remove this? (Detect and Remove)
Copy the project directory (touch all the files) and do a wget -r on the tree; by looking at the access time, you'll know all internal referenced files. Alternatively, scan the webserver logfiles to know which files are useful.
That's creative, and a neat idea. But, I cannot too highly recommend
xenu .
It only runs on windows, but is FAST, has DETAILED reports, AND it'll construct a site map!
I wouldn't think of testing a website without it! HIGHLY recommended!
- MartyB
Yup -- I've been using gv to read PDFs in linux. It's fast, it's practically everywhere and I hapen to be familiar with the interface from over a decade of noodling with PostScript.
It ain't much to write home about, I'd say (no such thing as 'search for a keyword' etc) but for the usual reading of a normal document it's sure adequate. I like that I can mark particular pages and then print or save only those pages. Handy feature, that.
Thanks for the reply; I'll have to check it out! Its a shame to not have text search, though the page selection capability for saving and printing sounds very useful.
Do you know if an.EXE is available for Windows XP? Ideally, I'd LOVE to see a Firefox Extension which encapsulated ghostview into a tab, too, but could not find such an animal. I don't have time to investigate it now, but maybe it's time for me to "scratch an itch" and write my first extension. Thanks again!
I recall some (privacy?) issues about Acrobat v7. Not certain. It's too late at night for me to remember WHAT that issue was -- but it made a strong impression on me to NOT want ot load v7.
Much Much Faster is GREAT! What about its size? 35MB for v6 on Windows XP Home/SP2. Did they manage to shrink it, to?
Does it launch faster by preloading itself? I'd rather not have it consume umpteen MB of RAM at system boot just so it can launch faster upon request.
Better still does anyone know of a forum where this has already been discussed?
This is a configuration in the Adobe Reader for that.
Just go EDIT, PREFERENCES, INTERNET... and uncheck Display PDF in Browser.
Thanks for that! Just updated settings on my system. BUT, I woul dlove to have a lightweight (i.e. small and quick-to-load) alternative to Adobe Acrobat for viewing (and printing) PDF files. I'e grown accustomed to some of the quirks of the user interface, my main complaint with Acrobat is its slow startup speed. That, and at least on my system, Acrobat 6.0 has a working set of about 35 MB. (As reported by sysinternals.com's amazingly powerful Process Explorer utility.
I did some cursory googling a week or so ago, but couldn't find what I was looking for. It looks like ghostscript might be useful for this? Has anyone tried it?
There are times when, after the fact, I want to find out what communications with the internet took place around a certain time. Like when I get called in to remove malware from a friend's PC. I can tell from the install date/time on the malware's directory, etc. when it came in. I'd like to be able to work from that to find out what was going on around that time to see what got it started.
Is there a program that logs all accesses to the internet FROM MY PC? A web server typically logs all requests that come into it. I'm looking for something that provides a similar log for my PC.
The reason for the DNS Name and IP Address is that I have a slew of entries in my HOSTS file to redirect "Bad" sites to home. See: http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.zip.
This log would allow me to track when attempts to these blocked addresses were attempted. A log with a gazillion 127.0.0.1 entries isn't much help; logging the domain name that got looked up and which resulted in the 127.0.0.1 would be much more help.
I suppose I could launch Ethereal Network Protocol Analyzer but it seems to put quite a load onto my system and I am concerned the overhead may cause it to drop packets. Maybe I'm not configuring it right (any suggestions for a lightweight install?). Or, is there a smaller, less resource-intensive application which can do this for me?
If such a simple thing existed, and were widely implemented, I suspect applications phoning home would be detected much sooner.
I, for one, can't wait until I can use this, as I'm often asked at my job to generate Excel reports of insurance claim data to send off to insurance company employees, and it'll be nice not to have to open up OO.org just to copy and paste the CSV data from the DB just to convert it to XLS, as the recipients of the spreadsheet wouldn't know what to do with comma-separated data. (emphasis added)
Do your perl scripts allow you to look at the data after the conversion? Or would you then have to fire up OO.org in order to verify that the data copied correctly?
Methinks your solution (blind conversion) is inferior to the OO.org solution (conversion with verify). You completely failed to analyze the problem being solved and thus arrived at a totally unnecessary solution. The truth is that pretty much anything that can display XLS files can read CSV files and convert them into XLS. Any idiot can find ten tools to do that.
Your point about verification is well taken. What I was responding to was the GP post's request for an automated way to convert from.CSV to.XLS without having to do:
Launch OO.org
File | Open... | foo.csv
File | Save as... | foo.xls
But your post got me to thinking... it may well be possible for the GP poster to do a Save As... foo.xls right from the DB app itself. Or there may be an add-on which would provide that capability.
BTW. The perl script is NOT mine. I merely googled for what looked like a likely name for a tool that would do what he asked. That is but an instance of a general methodology which I took some effort to explain. Having worked with unix tools for 15 years, I am constantly adding filters like this to my toolkit. It only takes a few minutes to construct a shell script which contains a pipeline using filters such as this. *I* am meticulous about adding checks and tests of the input and intermediary results. That said, your comment, especially in light of the recent article:
Errors in Spreadsheets are Pandemic is a good reminder to keep an eye on things and to test, test, test!
In the future, high-tech wings will make it possible for parachutists to quickly cover a distance of up to 200 kilometres. (Berlin, 15 May 2006)
ESG Elektroniksystem- und Logistik-GmbH and Dräger (both part of the SPELCO
Consortium) have designed a parachute system for the special operations units of the German Bundeswehr. The system has already been in use since 2003 but in the future it will be complemented with a special subsystem that is currently being developed in the form of a modular wing that is connected to the parachute. The wing is designed to enable parachutists to cover a distance of up to 200 kilometres (in the development stage).
As it is now, the system allows operation units to jump from a height of about ten kilo-metres and to cover a distance of up to 40 kilometres carrying up to 100 kilogrammes of equipment. Parachutists can thus penetrate into areas that are difficult to reach without their transport planes having to fly into a danger zone. At the same time, tracing this almost 100% silent parachute system using air or ground-based radar systems is extremely difficult. Night operations or operations under adverse weather conditions are possible.
With the newly developed wing, the radius of operation for the parachute is increased considerably. The parachutists can reach their target at a greater speed and are even less detectable than before. Also, the new wing allows them to operate unaffected, to a large extent, by wind conditions. The wing will be equipped with a guiding and stabilisation system. The integration of small turbo jet drives for UAVs in the second development stage will make it possible to carry persons over long distances without the need to jump from an extreme height.
And here's some info on the next generation (powered version).
Two German companies are developing a propelled wing-suit for skydiving military personnel. The suit would allow the wearer to travel 200 km when dropped from 13,000 feet with the chute opening around 5000 ft. The wing has aileron- and flap-like control surfaces along its trailing edge, and around 2 litres (0.5USgal) of jet fuel housed in flexible containers in its leading edge. The surfaces would be controlled by the parachutist using handles linked to servomechanisms.
The engines are likely to be built into the wing, which also has a cargo compartment. The turbojets are expected to weigh around 7kg (15.4lb) each and could be model aircraft engines, industrial impellers or a new design. The wing system will weigh approximately 30kg with engines but no cargo. A parachutist could jump from up to 33,000ft using the system, with oxygen equipment and thermal clothing.
Carreras has been working for the parachute system's developers, German electronics and technology companies ESG and Dräger, which originally developed an unpowered version for the German army. Flight testing of this 14kg system is expected to finish by year-end, after which the prototype will be used for marketing. With the unpowered system a soldier could glide for 50km from a 33,000ft jump.
The powered version of the suit is expected to enter flight testing near the end of 2007.
I, for one, can't wait until I can use this, as I'm often asked at my job to generate Excel reports of insurance claim data to send off to insurance company employees, and it'll be nice not to have to open up OO.org just to copy and paste the CSV data from the DB just to convert it to XLS, as the recipients of the spreadsheet wouldn't know what to do with comma-separated data. (emphasis added)
Here is a fish: (*) What if there were a tool that would, say, convert CSV to XLS format? Knowing that a huge number of translators are available, I took a guess and googled:
Learn how to fish: In general, "There's got to be a better way" is a flag which tells me:
- Wait a minute!
- There may already be a solution.
- Don't reinvent the wheel.
- Look and see what other people have done in the same (or in a similar) situation.
So, this problem was an instance of the general case of looking for a tool that converts from one extension to another. ps2pdf, pdf2txt,
Even if I don't find an all-inclusive solution to my problem, I often find other supporting tools that make my life easier. Further, I can then often use those tools / techniques to simplify things to the point where I CAN solve the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
Engineer 1: Did you hear the latest pitch from marketing?
Engineer 2: What with all the layoffs and early retirements and all, JOB1 is now all about trying to save the company.
Engineer 1: That makes sense. How does that affect us?
Engineer 2: Well, the general idea was that we needed to innovate, go all out, hold nothing back, and add in anything and everything that could possibly give our vehicles an advantage.
Engineer 1: Really? Those were their EXACT WORDS?
Engineer 2: Not quite - more like we needed to throw in the " Kitch 'n Synch ".
(* Very Roughly Speaking:
Kitsch: "bad art";
Synch: Comic Book Hero that could take on another mutant's powers.)
What if there were a time sync server in the setup whose whole purpose in life is to keep track of the time?
Have no other apps running on it, so that it has negligible system load. All the other systems in the TOR could be set up to sync their time with it every few seconds, i.e. before clock drift becomes detectable. Might check each and every second so as to intentionally cause a collision on the time server and add some randomness. Or, do a time sync every random(1..10) seconds. Or, use multiple NICs going to different ports on the switch/router where one NIC has a short ethernet cable, and the other one is quite long, so as to introduce different delays in the comms with the time server. I'm sure there are other ways.
Yep. And they approved VIOXX, too. There have been a number of other articles here which call into question the current administration's quest for scientific accuracy. So, given the possibility that the FDA might have favored the food industry's interests over the consumer's, I was looking for an INDEPENDENT resource who could validate the FDA's conclusion. Especially since there is going to be a change in the administration Real Soon Now, it seems to me they just MIGHT be trying to get this out the door while they can.
I'd appreciate it if someone who was more knowledgable in these matters that I am could comment on the premise: "is a cloned animal actually indistinguishable from its donor?"
For example: On average, do cloned animals live just as long as non-cloned animals? (i.e. same average lifespan, standard deviation, confidence level, etc.) I ask this because I remember reading that some cells can undergo only a finite number of replications and that there were some concerns about telomere and aging that figured into this.
So, are there ANY genetic differences between donor and cloned animals? That we might not have noticed a difference between the donor and the clone does not necessarily mean that there IS NO difference -- only that we HAVE NOT SEEN any difference... yet.
Sigh. I don't know where to begin.
First off, I understand there is some not insignificant value to this idea. The concept of making it easier for law enforcement to gather already available information on a suspect is quite laudable. It bothers me when I hear of how a suspect in a "major investigation" was actually picked up on an unrelated offense, and let go, because the arresting officers were unaware of the other outstandings on the person. It would be nice if we could stop this from happening. In fact, I'm sure many lives could be saved. If I had a loved one who was murdered, and then found out that law enforcement had actually captured the suspect beforehand, AND LET HIM GO, you can bet I'd be outraged. But is this proposal the right way to go about it? What is the REAL COST to you and to me. Not just in dollars and cents, but also in our freedoms as citizens.
My concern is more with the implications and implementations of this concept, and how easily it can be abused.
Data Quality: People have been known to not give their correct name to the police. Some people have used multiple names (aliases, AKA, etc.) Further, given that even touch-typists will occasionally make typographical errors (and not everyone is a touch-typist, either), I can forsee a not-insignificant amount of "bad" data finding its way into the system. Someone with a name similar to mine commits an offense, but gets recorded UNDER MY NAME. See: false-positives (Type I error) and flase-negatives (Type II error) here: Type I and type II errors.
Feed the Database: If it's so benign, I want to see a requirement that they seed the database with information on EVERY SINGLE FEDERAL AND STATE OFFICIAL. President of the USA, every senator, representative, judge, police officer, sheriff, District Attorney, etc. If your wage is paid by our taxes, then your info gets loaded into their system automatically. If there is an uproar about doing this for THEM, then maybe they should not be doing it to US. Got to stamp out any possible corruption, yanno? Besides, if you have done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to hide. Right?
Log EVERY access: CRUD - Create, Read, Update, Delete. Storage is cheap. Log EVERY SINGLE time the data is accessed complete with the date, time, source IP, accessor's name (See the Feed the Database, above, what was requested, etc. If what you are doing with the database is on the up-and-up, then you have nothing to hide. Log it.
Prosecute Abuse of the System: Run analyses every single day to seek out abuse of the system. And Prosecute Them. Publicize The Prosecutions. Enter the prosecutions into the system. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Data Validation and Correction: It's going to happen. Some data is going to be inaccurate. (Consider the problems that exist with the accuracy of people's credit reports. And the difficulties, effort, and cost involved in getting those mistakes rectified.) How can I:
Looking ahead: Data storage costs are coming down. Some localities have ever-present video cameras recording all activity in their purview. I can imagine a time when advanced techniques exist to go searching through these archives looking for, extracting, and logging the identities and activities of all within their field of view (face recognition, scene analyses, cell phone GPS, etc.) Combine all these streams and extracts into a central DB and one can easily go trolling for perps.
So, in short, I can see some good intentions behind this. Quite laudable in fact. But, I am NOT convinced this is a good idea, never mind whether or not they can come up with a good implementation.
On the Internet Traffic Report website you can click on Asia and see where the current congestion and outages are. Scroll down to the bottom and you can see these graphs, too:
These plots give a 24-hour window on the situation. It it's easy to see when things started getting shaken up (bad pun intended).
Sounds great, but... I've downloaded vmware workstation, as well as a release of Ubuntu, but I must be missing something. Is there a simple HOWTO that gives a step-by-step on how to setup and use a virtual machine on windows? What information I found seemed to be written at an abstract level. I'm leary about butchering up my system with trial and error. (Yes, I have backups, but would rather not have to go through that time-consuming step if I can avoid it.)
I'd like to be able to play around with, say, Ubuntu in a VMWARE virtual machine, yet keep my Windows/XP home SP2 system up and running without putting it at risk.
I'll second that suggestion and add another: make an API that facilitates logging and merge that into your workflow. NOTE: This is all off the top of my head. I expect you'll tailor it to your specific needs. Augment as needed and/or time permits.
I'm thinking along the lines of wrapper functions that implement:
The date and time can be captured automatically from the system. Ditto for the tech. That leaves gathering who called which could also be captured automatically from the Caller-ID info from your phone system. That leaves the Severity (Urgent! Important. When-you-get-a-chance) and Short Description.
Another comment suggested carrying around a small voice recorder. With the increasing availability of IVR systems, even these could be captured with a small front-end that the person calling the help desk goes through. If techs were only permitted to work on calls that come through such a system, then everything you need is already there. Log the incoming call's audio as a BLOB in an RDBMS, use some Speech Recognition on that to get a text-formatted problem ticket. Sure, it's not going to be 100% accurate translation, but for now it's good (enough) to go. Get the minimum up and running Right Now. You can enhance, later.
You are pressed for time right now, so this is going to need to start lean and simple. Just capture enough info to show that you are way too busy. Get some wiggle room from management.
Other Approach Rigorously provide what they request in the way of documentation adn logging!!! If you are short-staffed, then LET THAT FACT BE KNOWN! TANSTAAFL. U
"IBM Compatible" also meant that it might be compatible. An indicator was whether or not it would run Lotus 1-2-3 and Microsoft Flight Simulator. (I seem to recall there was a third program, but it escapes me now.)
BTW, my first IBM PC Compatible had an 80286 that ran at 10MHz with 1 wait state or 12MHz with 2 wait states. 1 MB of RAM. The bus ran at processor speed, so it could be iffy running at full speed. Hard drive (40MB Seagate ST251-1, 5.25" MFM) came in a separate box. Unformatted. Had to set jumpers, cable it in, watch for magic smoke, fdisk to partition it (DOS could only handle 32MB in a partition), then format, and only then could I install PC DOS 3.1 from a floppy! Then, came config.sys and autoexec.bat ... Ahhh, the memories!
Suggestions:
But seriously, if you post the location, date, and time here - I expect a few people would be willing to show up with their oldie-but-goodie systems. Mine got junked for my last move, otherwise I'd certainly bring mine in! Good Luck!
Got it started, but then ran out of G.A.S.? <grin>
Since it will take a full week for a complete revolution, that means that a given view indicates both the day of week AND the time of day. Think of enjoying the view at your neighbor's home and getting all confused as to what day/time it is. :O
This will make for an interesting exercise in real estate law. Said apartment, starting at the central elevator shaft on the 50th floor and heading 100 feet due east, no, wait. That's east-north-east. Man, this is going to take FOREVER! But seriously, has anyone seen a property deed for something like this?
electic
eclectic
electric
(insert witty comment here about tea parties and electic electric kettle selection. :^)
Note to other posters: I have heard of rotating restaurants and/or observation decks - this is not an utterly new concept. So, getting the utilities (water, sewer, electric, etc.) to the residents is a matter of scaling past solutions.
Lastly: I admire their interest in getting something as immense as a WHOLE SKYSCRAPER to rotate, continuously, for years on end. I just hope they'll be able to get their hands on a good supply of lubricant. <grin>
THE PROBLEM: It is currently financially worthwhile for some companies to play loose with personal information. The perceived costs of the consequences of poor protection are not sufficient to warrant a change in their way of doing business.
Many merchants / agencies / whatever don't seem to want to provide us additional protections. All it would take is for a few companies who already take security very seriously to sign up for the best star rating listed below, chalk it up to advertising expense, and put the pressure on the other merchants who do not sign up. "Hey! *WE* take your security seriously, and we put our money where our mouth is. If *WE* mess up, we clean it up and pay *YOU* for your inconvenience. Why would you want to deal with anyone else?"
There is a financial opportunity for an enterprising group to make a fortune here. Existing insurance companies provided graduated coverages and fees depending on certain items. I can select how much liability insurance I want for my car. I can pay the insurance company a larger premium for a greater amount of coverage. Alternatively, if I have certain protective measures in place, then my premiums can be reduced. I choose the level of coverage that works for me.
whenever there is a security breach, make a payment to each CONSUMER! Get the consumer to be your best ally in getting merchants to sign up for the protection. So, if a merchant compromises the security of MY information, then the insurance company sends ME a check. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader on how this could be extended to cover other organizations that have access to personal info such as hospitals or government agencies.)
Also, and VERY important: advertise this feature like crazy - get the consumers to push the merchants to get the coverage along with an easy-to-remember grading scale for consumers to use to assess the degree of protection they are provided by a merchant. It took a few years, but now US car companies are advertising the NHTSA crash test ratings. I expect the same could work for credit protection.
NOTE: All dollar amounts are pulled out of a hat. I'm just trying to put something concrete out there to use as a starting point for discussion. Obviously, the size of the covered merchant would affect the premiums and payouts, and I have NOT worked those into these numbers. Please offer improvements! The examples listed here might be appropriate for a moderate to large merchant.
Have a graduated scale of costs and coverages that depended on what level of security measures were in place at the time of the loss / theft.
If a merchant takes no security precautions then the insurance company would:
The consumer gets some benefits, even if the merchant makes no great effort to protect the user. It's still better than anything that the consumer is now getting. After a few payouts, word-of-mouth will boost interest by consumers in seeking out at lest this minimal coverage. CEOs and CIOs will start to take notice.
If a merchant takes certain, documented, security precautions ( encrypted DBMSs, firewalls) then the insurance company would:
I want to proactively block any chance of getting caught by this. I just added this to my (Windows/XP HOME SP2) HOSTS file (C:\windows\system32\devices\etc\HOSTS):
I recognize this is but a start. I expect this has been investigated by others already. Rather than re-invent the wheel, I'm looking for some input on what else I can do to protect myself from them. (I already use ONLY firefox, and also have AVG, AdAware, Spybot, and WinPatrol)
Questions:
FYI: Wikipedia's ComScore Entry
That works out to 110% of the cost -- let's hope their science is better than the [reporter's] math!
Here are some links for your viewing pleasure:
news at seven home page
Video Demonstration of News at Seven - 10/16/06 (.wmv - 24Mb)
Video Demonstration of News at Seven Celebrity News - 10/16/06 (.wmv - 25Mb)
Video Demonstration of News at Seven Science News - 10/16/06 (.wmv - 12Mb)
News at Seven on the ABC News Tonight podcast.
Video demonstration of News At Seven.
That's creative, and a neat idea. But, I cannot too highly recommend xenu . It only runs on windows, but is FAST, has DETAILED reports, AND it'll construct a site map!
I wouldn't think of testing a website without it! HIGHLY recommended! - MartyB
The BEEB's blurb was interesting, but here is a link to the RoboCup 2006 home page
There are pics, background, schedules, leagues, etc.
Thanks for the reply; I'll have to check it out! Its a shame to not have text search, though the page selection capability for saving and printing sounds very useful. Do you know if an .EXE is available for Windows XP? Ideally, I'd LOVE to see a Firefox Extension which encapsulated ghostview into a tab, too, but could not find such an animal. I don't have time to investigate it now, but maybe it's time for me to "scratch an itch" and write my first extension. Thanks again!
Glad to hear it! BUT...
Better still does anyone know of a forum where this has already been discussed?
Thanks for that! Just updated settings on my system. BUT, I woul dlove to have a lightweight (i.e. small and quick-to-load) alternative to Adobe Acrobat for viewing (and printing) PDF files. I'e grown accustomed to some of the quirks of the user interface, my main complaint with Acrobat is its slow startup speed. That, and at least on my system, Acrobat 6.0 has a working set of about 35 MB. (As reported by sysinternals.com's amazingly powerful Process Explorer utility.
I did some cursory googling a week or so ago, but couldn't find what I was looking for. It looks like ghostscript might be useful for this? Has anyone tried it?
There are times when, after the fact, I want to find out what communications with the internet took place around a certain time. Like when I get called in to remove malware from a friend's PC. I can tell from the install date/time on the malware's directory, etc. when it came in. I'd like to be able to work from that to find out what was going on around that time to see what got it started.
Is there a program that logs all accesses to the internet FROM MY PC? A web server typically logs all requests that come into it. I'm looking for something that provides a similar log for my PC.
The reason for the DNS Name and IP Address is that I have a slew of entries in my HOSTS file to redirect "Bad" sites to home. See: http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.zip. This log would allow me to track when attempts to these blocked addresses were attempted. A log with a gazillion 127.0.0.1 entries isn't much help; logging the domain name that got looked up and which resulted in the 127.0.0.1 would be much more help.
I suppose I could launch Ethereal Network Protocol Analyzer but it seems to put quite a load onto my system and I am concerned the overhead may cause it to drop packets. Maybe I'm not configuring it right (any suggestions for a lightweight install?). Or, is there a smaller, less resource-intensive application which can do this for me?
If such a simple thing existed, and were widely implemented, I suspect applications phoning home would be detected much sooner.
Your point about verification is well taken. What I was responding to was the GP post's request for an automated way to convert from .CSV to .XLS without having to do:
But your post got me to thinking... it may well be possible for the GP poster to do a Save As... foo.xls right from the DB app itself. Or there may be an add-on which would provide that capability.
BTW. The perl script is NOT mine. I merely googled for what looked like a likely name for a tool that would do what he asked. That is but an instance of a general methodology which I took some effort to explain. Having worked with unix tools for 15 years, I am constantly adding filters like this to my toolkit. It only takes a few minutes to construct a shell script which contains a pipeline using filters such as this. *I* am meticulous about adding checks and tests of the input and intermediary results. That said, your comment, especially in light of the recent article: Errors in Spreadsheets are Pandemic is a good reminder to keep an eye on things and to test, test, test!
From: ESG gives you wings - the parachute system for special operations
In the future, high-tech wings will make it possible for parachutists to quickly cover a distance of up to 200 kilometres. (Berlin, 15 May 2006)
ESG Elektroniksystem- und Logistik-GmbH and Dräger (both part of the SPELCO Consortium) have designed a parachute system for the special operations units of the German Bundeswehr. The system has already been in use since 2003 but in the future it will be complemented with a special subsystem that is currently being developed in the form of a modular wing that is connected to the parachute. The wing is designed to enable parachutists to cover a distance of up to 200 kilometres (in the development stage).
As it is now, the system allows operation units to jump from a height of about ten kilo-metres and to cover a distance of up to 40 kilometres carrying up to 100 kilogrammes of equipment. Parachutists can thus penetrate into areas that are difficult to reach without their transport planes having to fly into a danger zone. At the same time, tracing this almost 100% silent parachute system using air or ground-based radar systems is extremely difficult. Night operations or operations under adverse weather conditions are possible.
With the newly developed wing, the radius of operation for the parachute is increased considerably. The parachutists can reach their target at a greater speed and are even less detectable than before. Also, the new wing allows them to operate unaffected, to a large extent, by wind conditions. The wing will be equipped with a guiding and stabilisation system. The integration of small turbo jet drives for UAVs in the second development stage will make it possible to carry persons over long distances without the need to jump from an extreme height.
And here's some info on the next generation (powered version).
From: James Bond-style strap-on jet pack flying wing to extend special forces' reach .
Two German companies are developing a propelled wing-suit for skydiving military personnel. The suit would allow the wearer to travel 200 km when dropped from 13,000 feet with the chute opening around 5000 ft. The wing has aileron- and flap-like control surfaces along its trailing edge, and around 2 litres (0.5USgal) of jet fuel housed in flexible containers in its leading edge. The surfaces would be controlled by the parachutist using handles linked to servomechanisms.
The engines are likely to be built into the wing, which also has a cargo compartment. The turbojets are expected to weigh around 7kg (15.4lb) each and could be model aircraft engines, industrial impellers or a new design. The wing system will weigh approximately 30kg with engines but no cargo. A parachutist could jump from up to 33,000ft using the system, with oxygen equipment and thermal clothing.
Carreras has been working for the parachute system's developers, German electronics and technology companies ESG and Dräger, which originally developed an unpowered version for the German army. Flight testing of this 14kg system is expected to finish by year-end, after which the prototype will be used for marketing. With the unpowered system a soldier could glide for 50km from a 33,000ft jump.
The powered version of the suit is expected to enter flight testing near the end of 2007.
Here is a fish: (*) What if there were a tool that would, say, convert CSV to XLS format? Knowing that a huge number of translators are available, I took a guess and googled:
and first on the list was:Learn how to fish: In general, "There's got to be a better way" is a flag which tells me:
So, this problem was an instance of the general case of looking for a tool that converts from one extension to another. ps2pdf, pdf2txt,
Even if I don't find an all-inclusive solution to my problem, I often find other supporting tools that make my life easier. Further, I can then often use those tools / techniques to simplify things to the point where I CAN solve the problem.
(*) Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. - Chinese Proverb