Another Air Force space program, nicknamed Rods From God, aims to hurl cylinders of tungsten, titanium or uranium from the edge of space to destroy targets on the ground, striking at speeds of about 7,200 miles an hour with the force of a small nuclear weapon.
This was described years ago by either Pournelle or Niven, I forget which, as part of a non-fiction essay in a collection of short stories. Part of the War series?
Also, the elephant aliens used them against us in "Footfall," which was either by Pournelle or Niven or both.
Anyway, the writer described this as "crowbars in space." I thought it was a horrible, terrible idea. It's bad for the human race, for several reasons.
First, these things would be activated by radio somehow, unless you have a crew up there montitoring them continuously. If it can be fired remotely, then someone will try to hack the system. Once that happens, then the mighty US would no longer be in command of these weapons, and everyone would be in trouble.
Second, once one of these systems gets deployed, then who is to say that the US system would be the only one. We don't need another arms race.
Nuclear weapons are bad enough, but these would be much worse. They essentially cause artificial asteroid strikes. Doesn't everyone agree that these are bad?
I honestly hoped that everyone would forget this idea.
I don't think you understand what those are. A global hotkey is where you can control the media player even if it is not in focus . This means that I can be working and listening to music on the headphones, and if someone comes in to ask a question, I can quickly press Ctrl+Alt+Home to pause the current track, rip off the headphones, and talk to whoever it is. When they leave me alone, I press Ctrl+Alt+Home again, and the music is back on.
I cannot find a similar feature in iTunes. I still use it to rip CDs, but when I want to listen to them, it's back to WinAmp.
The other posters are right, though. The library management in iTunes sucks, but so does everyone else's. I ended up finding a little program on SourceForge that makes playlists, and I used them with WinAmp's Open dialog.
Jargon Alert: somewhere in there is a quote about people not being able to find what they just saved. Saving a file in whatever folder appears in the dialog is called a "Mommy Save."
"You can imagine videos on top of videos and even translucency," said Jim Allchin, head of Microsoft's Windows unit.
I can imagine it, but I can't imagine a reason to do it. Why is this important? Who wants this feature? This sounds like something where the first time you see it, you say, "Cool!", but then turn off almost immediately because it's pointless.
"iPod shipments to Apple's nearby store in Bellingham."
But another part mentions the Bell Square mall:
"the gal at the Bellevue Square Apple Store"
If you know your Washington geography, you know that the Bell Square mall is in Bellvue, right next to Redmond. However, Bellingham is 2 hours to the north, near the Canadian border.
At first I could not figure out why all the Softies were driving all the way up to Bellingham to get their iPods, but this looks like a mistake in the article itself. This does not mean that the whole article is wrong, but just this part.
This story bugs me. Its the kind of thing that sounds like something important, but there is no real meat to it. It's a non-story. The only hook is the political angle, which turns out to have almost nothing to do with the real issue.
First, any large collection of people with laptops will have the same problem. It could happen at a comic book convention. There is no mention of security problems like this at the GOP convention, though that is more likely because it is not coming up so soon. The point is: large numbers of laptops + WiFi = trouble. Why? Because of the wide target selection.
Second, if the laptops were secure themselves, there would be no problem. Why are they worried about insecure laptops? Because they are probably all running some version of Windows. The subtext is that Windows is so insecure that you really need to pay attention to it when you are in a crowd. I wish the writer was more direct about this point.
Anyway, no real story except to say that large numbers of insecure mobile computers are, gasp!, not secure when they are all in the same convention hall.
The news has all kinds of stories like this, designed to make you afraid for a couple of minutes, until the next scary "story" comes along, and you can forget all about this one.
On the local news here (Portland, OR) the other night, there were a couple of drownings in the river. A tragedy, I know. But one of the followups was about the dangers of water. Frankly, the biggest danger is trying to breathe it in, but the news never gets to the nub of the issue like that.
The news sucks. I hate TV news more than print news, but this one makes me start to hate the print news as well.
There is an Explorer work-alike for Linux. Try XFE, X File explorer. If you use Debian, the package name is xfe.
This works a lot like Windows Explorer, with the directory tree to the left, and files to the right. The program loads fast and is handy for seeing directory structures. You can even open separate file panes, but I have never found that handy.
... I have spent 15 years looking for a CD of Camel's album, the Snow Goose.
Wow, so there's another Camel fan in the world. I thought I was the only one.
Here's a Camel joke:
Q: What's the difference between a Camel concert and a Pink Floyd concert?
A: At a Pink Floyd concert, everyone in the audience knows the name of everyone on stage. At a Camel concert, everyone on stage knows the name of everyone in the audience!
Seriously, I suffered for years because I no longer had a record player, so I could no longer play my Camel albums. Then I found the CDs on Amazon and went on a little spending spree trying to get them all. Later, I noticed there were "new, enhanced" versions of all the old albums on CD that included live tracks and other extra stuff. Now I have to collect them all over again.
Sadly, my wife does not understand my enjoyment of this band. I end up listening to Camel at work with the headphones.
I feel sort of the same way about the first two records Ambrosia put out.
Slashdot Mirror
I taught myself with books on programming, and a lot of time. Since I was interested in it, I kept going and learning. Now I'm a full time programmer.
Clearly, they are defending their eggs from a super predator. What kind of predator eats the eggs of other species?
Weasels.
Giant Space Weasels.
The story almost writes itself.
This was described years ago by either Pournelle or Niven, I forget which, as part of a non-fiction essay in a collection of short stories. Part of the War series?
Also, the elephant aliens used them against us in "Footfall," which was either by Pournelle or Niven or both.
Anyway, the writer described this as "crowbars in space." I thought it was a horrible, terrible idea. It's bad for the human race, for several reasons.
First, these things would be activated by radio somehow, unless you have a crew up there montitoring them continuously. If it can be fired remotely, then someone will try to hack the system. Once that happens, then the mighty US would no longer be in command of these weapons, and everyone would be in trouble.
Second, once one of these systems gets deployed, then who is to say that the US system would be the only one. We don't need another arms race.
Nuclear weapons are bad enough, but these would be much worse. They essentially cause artificial asteroid strikes. Doesn't everyone agree that these are bad? I honestly hoped that everyone would forget this idea.
I don't think you understand what those are. A global hotkey is where you can control the media player even if it is not in focus . This means that I can be working and listening to music on the headphones, and if someone comes in to ask a question, I can quickly press Ctrl+Alt+Home to pause the current track, rip off the headphones, and talk to whoever it is. When they leave me alone, I press Ctrl+Alt+Home again, and the music is back on.
I cannot find a similar feature in iTunes. I still use it to rip CDs, but when I want to listen to them, it's back to WinAmp.
The other posters are right, though. The library management in iTunes sucks, but so does everyone else's. I ended up finding a little program on SourceForge that makes playlists, and I used them with WinAmp's Open dialog.
Jargon Alert: somewhere in there is a quote about people not being able to find what they just saved. Saving a file in whatever folder appears in the dialog is called a "Mommy Save."
I can imagine it, but I can't imagine a reason to do it. Why is this important? Who wants this feature? This sounds like something where the first time you see it, you say, "Cool!", but then turn off almost immediately because it's pointless.
One part of the article mentions Bellingham, WA:
"iPod shipments to Apple's nearby store in Bellingham."
But another part mentions the Bell Square mall:
"the gal at the Bellevue Square Apple Store"
If you know your Washington geography, you know that the Bell Square mall is in Bellvue, right next to Redmond. However, Bellingham is 2 hours to the north, near the Canadian border.
At first I could not figure out why all the Softies were driving all the way up to Bellingham to get their iPods, but this looks like a mistake in the article itself. This does not mean that the whole article is wrong, but just this part.
This story bugs me. Its the kind of thing that sounds like something important, but there is no real meat to it. It's a non-story. The only hook is the political angle, which turns out to have almost nothing to do with the real issue.
First, any large collection of people with laptops will have the same problem. It could happen at a comic book convention. There is no mention of security problems like this at the GOP convention, though that is more likely because it is not coming up so soon. The point is: large numbers of laptops + WiFi = trouble. Why? Because of the wide target selection.
Second, if the laptops were secure themselves, there would be no problem. Why are they worried about insecure laptops? Because they are probably all running some version of Windows. The subtext is that Windows is so insecure that you really need to pay attention to it when you are in a crowd. I wish the writer was more direct about this point.
Anyway, no real story except to say that large numbers of insecure mobile computers are, gasp!, not secure when they are all in the same convention hall.
The news has all kinds of stories like this, designed to make you afraid for a couple of minutes, until the next scary "story" comes along, and you can forget all about this one.
On the local news here (Portland, OR) the other night, there were a couple of drownings in the river. A tragedy, I know. But one of the followups was about the dangers of water. Frankly, the biggest danger is trying to breathe it in, but the news never gets to the nub of the issue like that.
The news sucks. I hate TV news more than print news, but this one makes me start to hate the print news as well.
You *go*, *girl*!
There is an Explorer work-alike for Linux. Try XFE, X File explorer. If you use Debian, the package name is xfe.
This works a lot like Windows Explorer, with the directory tree to the left, and files to the right. The program loads fast and is handy for seeing directory structures. You can even open separate file panes, but I have never found that handy.
... I have spent 15 years looking for a CD of Camel's album, the Snow Goose.
Wow, so there's another Camel fan in the world. I thought I was the only one.
Here's a Camel joke:
Q: What's the difference between a Camel concert and a Pink Floyd concert?
A: At a Pink Floyd concert, everyone in the audience knows the name of everyone on stage. At a Camel concert, everyone on stage knows the name of everyone in the audience!
Seriously, I suffered for years because I no longer had a record player, so I could no longer play my Camel albums. Then I found the CDs on Amazon and went on a little spending spree trying to get them all. Later, I noticed there were "new, enhanced" versions of all the old albums on CD that included live tracks and other extra stuff. Now I have to collect them all over again.
Sadly, my wife does not understand my enjoyment of this band. I end up listening to Camel at work with the headphones.
I feel sort of the same way about the first two records Ambrosia put out.
The ninth amendment in the Bill of Rights suggests otherwise:
I read this as, "Even though we did not list every single right a person has, there are still other rights that are not listed."
This amendment is not talked about very much, unfortunately.