To ID your State Representative and Senator, click here
The usual advice about being direct, to the point, and not threatening or ranting apply. Snailmail and phone calls get more interest than email, sad to say, but that's reality. Go to it, gang. I am. . .
Well, I guess the CDA, the COPA, the Alien and Sedition Acts, and numerous other laws were never on the books.
Congress, and the various State Legislatures, can, and WILL, pass anything, if they think it's in their political favor. . . I can't WAIT to see what travesties they come up with to solve the recent rash of DoS attacks.
Actually, there have been molecular design CAD/CAM tools out for YEARS: Autodesk even has a commercial one, or had, several years ago. ..when in doubt, one can ALWAYS consult Ralph Merkle's nanotech page, probably the biggest summary of data and state-of-the-art in nanotechnology. . .
Instead, think about using nanotech to drop the cost of making existing fuels, and providing low-cost, high-strength space probes and manned vehicles.
Think solar-powered seawater cracking plants that deliver LOX and LH (two perfectly good fuels with an energetic combustion and a harmless exhaust: water. ..), and include a sufficiently powerful mass-driver or laser-launch facility to loft large quantities of fuels into orbit.
Maybe even Von Neumann devices to mine the asteroids and send back both raw materials AND finished products . . .
I teach a networking class at a small College, of which the students are ALL NSA employees. Although the course is primarily NT/MCSE stuff, (plus the A+ and Network + Certifications) I **WAS** told, and am planning to include Linux in the course, and certain Linux/NT topics like Samba. And this course has been underway since last year. No Such Agency has obviously had SOME interest in Linux for a while now. . ..
Screwball theories taking hold is the scientific equivalent of Dave Rhodes and "Make Money Fast". ..
You must also remember, being a Scientist does NOT give you a corner on every single aspect of reality. Hence, ideas that appear plausible to one scientist on a general basis may be obviously bogus to another with specific and detailed knowledge of that particular field of study: things are WAAAAAAY too broad for any scientist to have much more than an informed laymans' level of knowledge of most of it. . .
. ..but were decried as a "hobby shop". ..and were told to research something useful, instead.
I had attempted to set up a hackish Vulnerability Assessment Team, as a first step to developing a offensive capability, back in 1996-7. I even had people at OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense) who liked the idea. But, alas, I was a peon at one of the many Beltway Bandits, and corporate leadership didn't think that this was a reputable business to go into. Instead, they wanted I.T. to concentrate on embedded MS Access applications for network use.
Mind you, nowadays I teach network engineering to government people, and at least THEY learn to hack their own systems to reduce their own vulnerabilities. It's just irritating that years later, my team was finally vindicated. . .
SV and the Bay tend to attract geeks of certain politico-social mindsets. This, however, does not apply to all geeks. I know geeks on the right, and a lot of geeks who tend Libertarian (or the more common small-l variety. . . ), who transcend the entire left-right spectrum. . ..
The DC area has a telling divide: most of the left-tending geeks tend to congregate in DC and the Maryland suburbs, while the right-tending and libertarian geeks tend to live in the Virginia suburbs. Mind you, that's a general observation, and NOT a hard-and-fast rule. . .
No, there's nothing quite like a Fry's. Combine a large BestBuy, with a large MicroCenter (far more clueful 'puter superstore than CompUSA: I say Linux Distros on sale there 5 years ago. ..), throw in a decent-sized Blockbuster Video, and the parts department of an old-time Radio Shack or Lafayette Radio and you **might** get one Fry's Electronics. ANYTHING electronic, you can generally get at a Frys. ..it's one of the few thinngs that I'm envious of the West Coast for....
But then, I always buy a big carton of it at the local warehouse club, and as last payday we were at the "time to buy another 144-roll carton of T.P." line, I've got T.P. for the millenium.
Will trade rolls of T.P. for ammo, food, or slaves. . .
. . . would need someone that Rob, Hemos, et al, could trust enough to have near-root access. After, all, mid-afternoon in the UK is Start Work time on the East Coast, and most are still asleep on the West Coast. So, for a more European angle, we'd need at least one European editor. . .
Rob, Hemos, Justin et al. .. Who would be a good choice for a European editor for/. ????? How could one be chosen ??? And what sort of say does Andover.net have to say in all of this ?????
"Course, I'm no physicist. But, if you could send matter into a parallel universe, wouldn't that violate the conservation of mass and energy?"
Depends. Is mass-energy conservation a function of each individual dimension / "brane", or a function of the "Manyfold" ??? If the latter, no problem. Assuming that the math checks and peer review passes the theory. . . interesting stuff, tho. ..
Well, Lois McMaster Bujold never CLAIMED to be a techie: she's admitted that most of her science is wave-of-the-hand for plot devices. She seems to have a better background in the life sciences, but still mostly at the informed layman level. Still, I think Miles Vorkosigan would read Slashdot. ..and if he didn't, his clone-brother Mark WOULD. . . .
I've worked with Xybernaut and their unit. So some feedback from someone who's actually used it, here. ..
Cost Agreed, currently too high. I've heard the Xybernaut folks are working with some large hardware outfit, to improve producibility and bring costs down. A smart move. ..
The Look isn't all that bad. If the unit required a whole vest-full of stuff, that'd be one thing, but currently, it's a waist unit, maybe 4" x 6" x 1"-1" thick, a headset with headphones, mike, and viewer, and an optional wrist-mounted KB unit. There's likely more, but that is what **I** have played with to date...
Useability: Well, it runs Win9x. . ..controlled by mouse (part of the waist unit) or via voice. It's basically a Wintel box, at least as currently shipped. . . The real question is, is speech recognition to the point where it would hit 99% + reliability without previous system training for the user, other than perhaps reading one paragraph to initialize. . .
OS Well, it comes with Win9x. Which means it will run Linux, FreeBSD, or Solaris, at least. Drivers may be an issue here, but not insurmountable. . .
Availability You can buy it now from the website. That's for starters. This is still pretty much specialist gear for now. . . I agree with another poster, if you could get the display to look like a pair of RayBans or those Arnold Schwarzenegger Terminator sunglasses (Revo's ???), you'd likely have a hit. . . .
Apologies to Tom Smith, ESPECIALLY if I mis-quoted this:
Just sit right back, and you'll hear a tale, Of a Federation Ship: The StarFleet sent it Voyaging, but it didn't send a script. .. The Mate was a surly Injun man: Ms. Skipper, not Picard And an Afro-American Vulcan, don't think about that to hard. . . Don't think about that to haarrrrrrrrrrd. ..
A Tempero-Spatial Anomaly was broached in a state of Flux, Cut out the Treknobabble, and you'll find it really sucks. .. . . . but should make lots of bucks. . .
You forget a point: Europe has negative population growth, and if immigration is not considered, so does North America. That makes famine, etc, less likely there.
As for resource use, the predictions of achieved first-level nanotechnology will also enable efficient recycling of resources already consigned to dumps and landfills.
Actually, after nanotech spreads, I suspect that very few "scarce" resources will exist anymore: when you can either recycle landfills in toto, or build using analogs or other materials (i.e., using the waste carbon dioxide of 20th Century Industry as feedstock for diamondoid materials. ..), there will likely be few, if ANY shortages. ..other than talent. . . .
The Moderator wastes you with his crossbow. . .
on
D&D Movie on The Way
·
· Score: 1
. ..while Rob and Hemos fight over the +12 HackMaster. . ..
It's been said that amateurs study tactics and strategy, but professionals study logistics. This would be a case in point: a weapon aimed at a primary logistical target.
A "tidal wave bomb", whether conventional or nuclear, could be used to devastate harbors. Why Harbors ??? Naval vessels, cargo vessels, warehouses, and trans-shipment points to road and rail routes. Often, as a bonus, you also get Petroleum refineries and/or Storage areas (known in the military as POL: Petroleum, Oil, and Lubricants) All your big logistical targets, covieniently placed in one large area. Until the advent of nuclear weapons, you couldn't take out an entire harbor area in one blow. Whereas a Tidal Wave COULD devastate an entire harbor area.
Furthermore, if deployed by submarine, it could even be done covertly: after all, who's to say it wasn't a natural tsumami ??? AND, if used against the Japanese in WWII, could have been used for psychological operations as well: i.e. the ALLIES controlling the "Divine Wind". . .
If it STAYS silent, there's a pattern forming that will bring the conspiracy theorists out of the closet.
Still, contact was lost AFTER a engine burn, just as Mars Observer disappeared after a scheduled burn. It's been theorized that Observer blew up, due to a design fault. Let's hope that it just went into that "safe mode", and not that our probe design teams need a major re-working. . .
Well, the concept has seen some discussion and even a bit of desing work. Current rumors are that the Zero Gee Club has been established, and also that NASA has worked overtime to squelch rumors that two members of the doomed CHALLENGER crew were planning to initiate the society.
That being said, what WOULD make for a successful honeymoon suite in a zero-g environment ????
The first addition would be, for lack of better words, an Un-Chastity belt. Picture a belt, coated with fuzzy velcro, to which elastic straps can be attached to as the lovers would see fit.
A second suggestion might be a "love room": a small, spherical room with softly-padded walls, and a plethora of soft handgrips and foot anchors. This, of course, would be for couples and small groups. For larger groups, a long, padded tube might be more suitable, or a large room with loose webbing strung throughout. Brisk, warm airflow through either room is a necessity, if for no other reason than to clear bodily fluids from the atmosphere.
Mind you, this is from L-5/Space Settlement stuff I read in the late 1970's, perhaps there are some more technologically advanced ways to proceed. . .
Slashdot Mirror
For Virginia:
In the House of Delegates, UCITA is House Joint Resolution 277
In the State Senate, UCITA is Senate Joint Resolution 239
The link for Identifying your Delegate and Senator is here
For Maryland: In the House of Delegates, it's House Bill 19
In the State Senate, it's Senate Bill 142
To ID your State Representative and Senator, click here
The usual advice about being direct, to the point, and not threatening or ranting apply. Snailmail and phone calls get more interest than email, sad to say, but that's reality. Go to it, gang. I am. . .
Well, I guess the CDA, the COPA, the Alien and Sedition Acts, and numerous other laws were never on the books.
Congress, and the various State Legislatures, can, and WILL, pass anything, if they think it's in their political favor. . . I can't WAIT to see what travesties they come up with to solve the recent rash of DoS attacks.
Remember the Creed of the Politician:
Something Must Be Done !!!
THIS is something. . .
Let's do this. . .
Actually, there have been molecular design CAD/CAM tools out for YEARS: Autodesk even has a commercial one, or had, several years ago. . .when in doubt, one can ALWAYS consult Ralph Merkle's nanotech page, probably the biggest summary of data and state-of-the-art in nanotechnology. . .
Instead, think about using nanotech to drop the cost of making existing fuels, and providing low-cost, high-strength space probes and manned vehicles.
Think solar-powered seawater cracking plants that deliver LOX and LH (two perfectly good fuels with an energetic combustion and a harmless exhaust: water. . .), and include a sufficiently powerful mass-driver or laser-launch facility to loft large quantities of fuels into orbit.
Maybe even Von Neumann devices to mine the asteroids and send back both raw materials AND finished products . . .
Certainly. I teach No Such Agency people, they're actually pretty good folks. Still, I'll bet NSA is going to one-up GCHQ on this. . .
Just some corroborating evidence. . .
Screwball theories taking hold is the scientific equivalent of Dave Rhodes and "Make Money Fast". . .
You must also remember, being a Scientist does NOT give you a corner on every single aspect of reality. Hence, ideas that appear plausible to one scientist on a general basis may be obviously bogus to another with specific and detailed knowledge of that particular field of study: things are WAAAAAAY too broad for any scientist to have much more than an informed laymans' level of knowledge of most of it. . .
I had attempted to set up a hackish Vulnerability Assessment Team, as a first step to developing a offensive capability, back in 1996-7. I even had people at OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense) who liked the idea. But, alas, I was a peon at one of the many Beltway Bandits, and corporate leadership didn't think that this was a reputable business to go into. Instead, they wanted I.T. to concentrate on embedded MS Access applications for network use.
Mind you, nowadays I teach network engineering to government people, and at least THEY learn to hack their own systems to reduce their own vulnerabilities. It's just irritating that years later, my team was finally vindicated. . .
The DC area has a telling divide: most of the left-tending geeks tend to congregate in DC and the Maryland suburbs, while the right-tending and libertarian geeks tend to live in the Virginia suburbs. Mind you, that's a general observation, and NOT a hard-and-fast rule. . .
No, there's nothing quite like a Fry's. Combine a large BestBuy, with a large MicroCenter (far more clueful 'puter superstore than CompUSA: I say Linux Distros on sale there 5 years ago. . .), throw in a decent-sized Blockbuster Video, and the parts department of an old-time Radio Shack or Lafayette Radio and you **might** get one Fry's Electronics. ANYTHING electronic, you can generally get at a Frys. . .it's one of the few thinngs that I'm envious of the West Coast for....
Some of us DID remember toilet paper.
But then, I always buy a big carton of it at the local warehouse club, and as last payday we were at the "time to buy another 144-roll carton of T.P." line, I've got T.P. for the millenium.
Will trade rolls of T.P. for ammo, food, or slaves. . .
Rob, Hemos, Justin et al. . . /. ????? How could one be chosen ??? And what sort of say does Andover.net have to say in all of this ?????
Who would be a good choice for a European editor for
"Course, I'm no physicist. But, if you could send matter into a parallel universe, wouldn't that violate the conservation of mass and energy?"
Depends. Is mass-energy conservation a function of each individual dimension / "brane", or a function of the "Manyfold" ??? If the latter, no problem. Assuming that the math checks and peer review passes the theory. . . interesting stuff, tho. . .
Well, Lois McMaster Bujold never CLAIMED to be a techie: she's admitted that most of her science is wave-of-the-hand for plot devices. She seems to have a better background in the life sciences, but still mostly at the informed layman level. .and if he didn't, his clone-brother Mark WOULD. . . .
Still, I think Miles Vorkosigan would read Slashdot. .
You tell ME
Apologies to Tom Smith, ESPECIALLY if I mis-quoted this:
Just sit right back, and you'll hear a tale, . .
.
Of a Federation Ship:
The StarFleet sent it Voyaging, but it didn't send a script. .
The Mate was a surly Injun man:
Ms. Skipper, not Picard
And an Afro-American Vulcan, don't think about that to hard. . .
Don't think about that to haarrrrrrrrrrd. .
A Tempero-Spatial Anomaly was broached in a state of Flux,
Cut out the Treknobabble, and you'll find it really sucks. .
. . . but should make lots of bucks. . .
et cetera ad nauseam. . .
As for resource use, the predictions of achieved first-level nanotechnology will also enable efficient recycling of resources already consigned to dumps and landfills.
Actually, after nanotech spreads, I suspect that very few "scarce" resources will exist anymore: when you can either recycle landfills in toto, or build using analogs or other materials (i.e., using the waste carbon dioxide of 20th Century Industry as feedstock for diamondoid materials. . .), there will likely be few, if ANY shortages. . .other than talent. . . .
(diving for cover)
And looking at the Inter@ctive week article, ETIC of **ONE HOUR** ??? To repair fiber ??? Or should I say, to repair that much fiber ???
Think online maintenance manuals.
Think in-the-warehouse pick-and-pull applications
A wearable PC would be highly useful anywhere you need both technical documentation AND both hands free.
BTW, nice touch last nite, christening the Starship Titanic with Leonardo DiCaprio's disembodied head in a jar. . .
A "tidal wave bomb", whether conventional or nuclear, could be used to devastate harbors. Why Harbors ??? Naval vessels, cargo vessels, warehouses, and trans-shipment points to road and rail routes. Often, as a bonus, you also get Petroleum refineries and/or Storage areas (known in the military as POL: Petroleum, Oil, and Lubricants) All your big logistical targets, covieniently placed in one large area. Until the advent of nuclear weapons, you couldn't take out an entire harbor area in one blow. Whereas a Tidal Wave COULD devastate an entire harbor area.
Furthermore, if deployed by submarine, it could even be done covertly: after all, who's to say it wasn't a natural tsumami ??? AND, if used against the Japanese in WWII, could have been used for psychological operations as well: i.e. the ALLIES controlling the "Divine Wind". . .
NASA is back in contact. . .
If it STAYS silent, there's a pattern forming that will bring the conspiracy theorists out of the closet.
Still, contact was lost AFTER a engine burn, just as Mars Observer disappeared after a scheduled burn. It's been theorized that Observer blew up, due to a design fault. Let's hope that it just went into that "safe mode", and not that our probe design teams need a major re-working. . .
That being said, what WOULD make for a successful honeymoon suite in a zero-g environment ????
The first addition would be, for lack of better words, an Un-Chastity belt. Picture a belt, coated with fuzzy velcro, to which elastic straps can be attached to as the lovers would see fit.
A second suggestion might be a "love room": a small, spherical room with softly-padded walls, and a plethora of soft handgrips and foot anchors. This, of course, would be for couples and small groups. For larger groups, a long, padded tube might be more suitable, or a large room with loose webbing strung throughout. Brisk, warm airflow through either room is a necessity, if for no other reason than to clear bodily fluids from the atmosphere.
Mind you, this is from L-5/Space Settlement stuff I read in the late 1970's, perhaps there are some more technologically advanced ways to proceed. . .