The SMTP side is specifically what I was addressing. To drop an inbound SMTP connection once you start to receiving the data payload is at best undocumented, and at worst problematic. There's not formal mechanism in the protocol to stop the payload and tell the sender there was a problem and not to retry. This will likely cause the sender to re-initiate the failed connection again and again for the next N hours. In the end you've created a situation where instead of simply receiving the message once and delivering it to the client for possible filtering, you may recieve part of the messsage (perhaps all of it depending on the TCP window size), several dozen times. Personally I don't like the idea of an SMTP server doing filtering based on subject lines, it comes awfully close to censorship. SMTP servers requiring that the sender domain exists, and that the sending node have proper forward and reverse DNS entries is one thing, but subject filtering gives me the willies.
It's interesting, but still doesn't eliminate the bandwidth usage issues with spam. For the subject to be sent, the message body must be sent. SMTP doesn't (at this point) have a SUBJ command where you can send the subject as a discreet entity. So the spammer sends the message, the mail server recieves the entire thing, then decides that the message should be dropped.
Personally I think it's a shame is that people need a "missing manual". Apple's software is very easy to understand if you have any understanding of the task you are attempting to perform. If you play with the software you should be able to use it well within a day, just from tinkering. As for Apple not including a manual or PDF with documentation... perhaps people should learn what that "Help" menu is all about. Oh, that's right, there's no manual to explain how to use the help menu.
Frankly I find all the "hosts" annoying to some degree
Leo is by far the worst, ignorant, loud and he continually interrupts people smarter than he is.
Patrick needs to stop saying "well, ya know what...." before or in the middle of every sentence
Kevin needs to either learn more than on hand gesture, or stop doing it every 15 seconds
Sarah needs to go away, or at least not be on screen. She's not very knowledgable and she's not very good eye candy, unlike Morgan, Jessica and Erica (or formerly Sumi and Sumi) who are both and then some.
Yoshi should have his own segment at least a few times a week. The guy has some really neat ideas, but hearing them has always been impossible because he's always on screen with Leo the interruptor. But somebody does need to explain to Yoshi the difference between "mod" and "built from scratch".
YES!!!! Seriously, the guy NEVER let the person he was interviewing finish a thought. Leo always interrupts and gives, usually wrong, commentary on the subject.
Like this:
Leo: So John... how did you come up with the idea?
John: Well, I was going to school at
Leo: You went to University of hogwash right? What was that like in those days?
John: I started at UoH for a semester, but graduated from Noplace Technical. Shortly after that I was working for a startup
Leo: a startup, wow.... you must have been making the big bucks then, what were they doing?
And it would just go on and on like that.
It's SOOOOO nice when Patrick gets to do the interviews when Leo is away, the guest actually gets to speak.
Loud mouth Leo is one of the most inaccurate people on the show... he spouts more wrong answers than all the others combined. Frankly I look forward to the days he's not there so I can get some real information.
Perhaps I am mistaken and things have changed, but you can't leave a Gateway store with a new computer, they don't stock them on-site. The Gateway store is a demo, training, repair and sales outlet, but not a delivery outlet. Anything you purchase at GateWay's phyosical stores is shipped from the factory/warehouse just as if you purchased it online.
Chances are not. If the system was not running the ATM code then it may well not have been recording from the camera. It's likely that with such an over-kill OS, that the computer is using a USB camera and saving stills to disk on a regular (every two seconds) basis, and not recording video to a tape.
...but it's important to understand that extradition is not a black-and-white issue with simple answers. It should be. Either nations are soverign or they are not, either they get to make their own laws or not. If you are not in a given country, then you are not subject to its laws (treaties aside)....Often it's a highly political process And it shouldn't be. Politics should have no place in the justice system in America.
The Internet is a borderless medium, a nation's laws should only apply to issues where all of the events and parties are within that nation's borders.
If this guy is extradited to the US from Australia, then I expect we'll start seeing China start trying to extradite operators of web sites around the world for violating China's decency and media control laws. It's the same issue. The outrage the US government would project over such a move would be overwhelming, yet they expect people to accept this case.
Above all else though, extradition or not, I do think this one thing MUST be held to, and it has not in the past: anyone being investigated, detained, accused, arrested or tried by the US government under US law, MUST be given full protection and all rights under those same laws. (equal protection, attorney provided, trial by jury, innocent until proven guilty, reasonable bail, warrants for search/seizure, etc).
So a nation that is built on laws thinks it should be above the law. That, anonymous coward, is in direct opposition to the fundamental principals of the United States... everyone has equal protection under the law, and all laws must be administered equally and fairly to all.
If someone sends a piece of physical media to a US citizen that is not illegal in the originating country but is in the US, should the sender be prosecuted/extradited by the US? I think not.
How many columbian drug growers have the US prosecuted in US courts? none, because even though the content shows up here and is illegal here, the person did not commit any crime within the juristiction of the US.
If I lived in, lets just say, Egypt, and I called your house and threatened to kill you, outlining every detail of how I will do it and when, should I be charged, extradited and tried by the US? I did commit a crime under US law by threatening you, but I was not in your country at the time.
Here's a more complex one: An American citizen and a Spanish citizen are both in Portugal. The Spaniard kills the American and flees back to Spain. Should the US courts have juristiction, should Spain extradite the killer?
The Internet is indeed real, but it is above geogaphical and political boundries, much like the telephone system and, to a lesser degree, the postal system. The probelm is that people want to say that the Internet is a special case and should be treated differently under criminal law than the other similar technologies and circumstances.
Of course, the US has a camp full of people in custody who commited no crimes on US territory, and the US invaded and occupied two entire countries in response to crimes not commited by the residents of those countries, so apparently the US law enforcement has a slightly different view on the matter.
Are you saying that if I sit off-shore and beam "illega"l materials over US airwaves, that I should be arrested and tried, even though I'm not a US citizen and I was in international waters when I did the braodcasting?
Funny, 'cause the US does that all the time... we put ships and aircraft near "evil" countries and beam in locally illegal content in an attempt to incite the population to rebel.
Because unlike any of the other technologies, these things are thin and flexible(in form and function). I don't think you'd find it very easy to wrap a HPS lamp around a barricade divider at an off-ramp, or along the rear bumper of a construction vehicle. You can print an oled in the shapes you want instead of having to put a light behind a mask.
Many of your are stating that he's rediculous for trying to get $300K dollars from the sherrif, and that should amount to extortion. Pat is in fact (according to his web site) not attempting to recoup any of that money. To quote from his site that you didn't bother to read:...For two years Pat spent $300,000 of his own money to host and maintain the site, never asking for nor receiving a profit.
The Site Goes Down
Pat did not ask for payment of any of that investment, but simply explained to the county he could no longer afford to host and maintain the site for free....
Isn't that clear enough? He just wanted compensation for the hosting costs that he was incurring. Nowhere in that page does he claim to want back pay, or IP rights to the content.
Perhaps I missed something in the article, but he wasn't demanding $300,000 from the sheriff. He was asking to be reimbursed for the costs associated with the traffic coming in to the site.
No, it's nto an IP issue at all. This webmaster is not claiming to own the content at all. The issue is over fees and costs for hosting the content. The guy is saying that unless he is compensated for the costs incurred in hosting the site, he will cease to host it. And in fact he did just that and now the domain name is squatted.
As a book publisher if I'm loosing money by marketing your book and after a time decide to stop marketing it and remove all the copies from my warehouse, I'm not claiming to own your IP. I'm just no longer offering your IP to the public at my cost. If you decide to pay me (more), I"ll continue to publish your book, all I'm asking is to at least break even.
Once you get the recording (I had lots of hash errors) the call is quite hilarious in some parts. For better or worse, here's my transcription of the exchange mentioned in the partent article, as well as the first question and answer from the next analyst just because I thought the reaction was funny.
I want to note that the questions were a breze to transcribe, as were the replies from who I think is Robert Bench, the CFO (only Darl and Robert are identified as participants at the start of the call). The replies from Darl are a nightmare. The man speaks like he has no grasp of what to say or how to say it.
This transcription was created by me from the publically available audio recording. I've done my best (without straining anything) to capture things correctly. There's only one section I know I didn't understand and it's noted. Any other stupidity, double-speak orun-intelligent use of language is soley the responsibility of the speaker.
Timecode: 55:29 in the recording:
Paula Rooney (with CRN): Yes, Darl, um, I'm trying just to narrow down the, the case against AutoZone.
Darl: right.
Paula: okay, so the copyright claim has nothing to do with the Linux kernel per-se... correct?
Darl: Um, no, this, this does have to do with the Linux kernel.
Paula: But you said that the case is not specified to SCO shared libraries... that it's a very general to anyone using the operating system.
Darl: but, waahahat I'm saying anybody using Linux. Uh, eh, Yea, I guess what I'm trying to say here is, uh, a lot of people, eh, we're trying to say, because, uh, there's, uh, there is, uh, uh, a fact that Autozone has been a SCO Unix, uh, user in the past, uh, Open Server user until a couple years ago and that in their migration to Linux there, there could have been some problems with the SCO shared libraries uh, that would have been unique to, a, a customer using SCO moving in to Linux. The case that was filed today was much broader than that, and basically, uh, impacts anywhere the Linux kernel would be showing up, uh, in, uh an end user environment.
Paula: But you said it has to do with structural components that I took pieces inside Linux.
Darl: Eh, ah, a and those would be kernel related.
Paula: But the components are... are those developed by Autozone's customers.
Darl: No, this is... a... again... I guess the simple way to think of it, Paula, is to if you took the case we filed against Autozone yesterday and... and did a search and replace on, uh, name of an end user we had never had a relationship with, that is running Linux, um that, that suit would, um, pretty much hold up. Um, I mean it's gonna be a little bit different obviously, but the general claims we are making there are pervasive throughout the end use Linux community.
Paula: Your saying it's not the shared libraries, so what is the code in question here?
Darl: Yea... it, it's all spelled out in the complaint... and... uh... you know, it's all pretty detailed to go through right now, but there are a lot of... a number of structural components, uh, you know, the, uh, as you read through the complaint you'll be able to see where those are.
Bench: And, and , let me just interject for one moment, I mean this is the precise type of information that was, uh, specifically requested by the, the court to not go in to, so it's really just something that I just want to caution Darl on; that we just really don't want to be getting in to that kind of detail.
Paula: If it's the heart of the case, I think it's fair to ask the question on what the code is.
Darl: Well... it... again, it, it's in the filing.
Paula: And you mentioned that specific... there were specific programmers that , who, who acknowledged violations, um, who are these programmers?
(5 seconds of silence)
Bench: Again, we're, we're not getting in to the witnesses in the case; the, the underlying information in the case; ya know, it's not where we're going.
That is arguable. Federal laws such as destruction of money and desecration of the flag butt up against the Constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech. If you destroy money or part of money as a form of protected speech you would probably get away with it.
The bank will take it back or the "government" will. The Fed has an entire department that's dedicated to identifiying, counting and replacing damaged currency. If you can provide 50.1% of a bill in any state (burned, eaten and digested, water logged, painted, dissolved in acid, etc) they will issue you a new bill of the same denomination. The service is free (paid for by your tax dollars). Ironically the person who "nuked" their bills may have to do more damage before they qualify for that program.
But the MythBusters would screw this test up just like they screw up so many others. The two are, I'm sure, wonderful special effects tinkerers, but they lack the depth of thought truely test these myths. I watched a few episodes and frequently just laugh at their attempts at the scientific method.
Since I'll get asked what I mean, here's an example: The ice bullet test: they didn't even attempt to check different freeze rates. The less time water takes to solidify (turn to ice), the shorter the ice crystals are and the weaker the ice. When the show hosts made their ice by dunking the mold in liquid nitrogen, they made just about the weakest ice they could, not much stronger than packed snow. They should have frozen the water at just below freezing point so it took hours to complete the process, then dunked the solid ice bullets in to the nitrogen so they would survive the gun blast. The resulting ice bullet would have been quite strong and probably performed admirably in their firing test.
Re:yeah, but a kernel panic would be a bitch....
on
DIY HVAC
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· Score: 1
I didn't get too far in to the site, but for systems like this there are usually failsafe modes that open all the dampers and allow full control to a "master" thermostat that runs like a normal system if the computer/controller loses power or crashes.
And dialing 911 is going to stop the situation at hand how?
Are you going to hand the phone over to the police at the other end of the line and have the police ask the nice home invaders to please stop their rapeing and pillaging, put down their weapons, go to the nearest police station and surrender themselves, then provice a full confession on video tape?
Get serious... 911 does not stop crimes in progress. Even if you did get through it'd be 5-10 minutes before a patrol officer would arrive. Your wife, mother and children would all be raped and killed before the police even started heading your way.
Slashdot Mirror
The SMTP side is specifically what I was addressing. To drop an inbound SMTP connection once you start to receiving the data payload is at best undocumented, and at worst problematic. There's not formal mechanism in the protocol to stop the payload and tell the sender there was a problem and not to retry.
This will likely cause the sender to re-initiate the failed connection again and again for the next N hours. In the end you've created a situation where instead of simply receiving the message once and delivering it to the client for possible filtering, you may recieve part of the messsage (perhaps all of it depending on the TCP window size), several dozen times.
Personally I don't like the idea of an SMTP server doing filtering based on subject lines, it comes awfully close to censorship. SMTP servers requiring that the sender domain exists, and that the sending node have proper forward and reverse DNS entries is one thing, but subject filtering gives me the willies.
It's interesting, but still doesn't eliminate the bandwidth usage issues with spam. For the subject to be sent, the message body must be sent. SMTP doesn't (at this point) have a SUBJ command where you can send the subject as a discreet entity.
So the spammer sends the message, the mail server recieves the entire thing, then decides that the message should be dropped.
Personally I think it's a shame is that people need a "missing manual". Apple's software is very easy to understand if you have any understanding of the task you are attempting to perform. If you play with the software you should be able to use it well within a day, just from tinkering.
As for Apple not including a manual or PDF with documentation... perhaps people should learn what that "Help" menu is all about. Oh, that's right, there's no manual to explain how to use the help menu.
Frankly I find all the "hosts" annoying to some degree
Leo is by far the worst, ignorant, loud and he continually interrupts people smarter than he is.
Patrick needs to stop saying "well, ya know what...." before or in the middle of every sentence
Kevin needs to either learn more than on hand gesture, or stop doing it every 15 seconds
Sarah needs to go away, or at least not be on screen. She's not very knowledgable and she's not very good eye candy, unlike Morgan, Jessica and Erica (or formerly Sumi and Sumi) who are both and then some.
Yoshi should have his own segment at least a few times a week. The guy has some really neat ideas, but hearing them has always been impossible because he's always on screen with Leo the interruptor. But somebody does need to explain to Yoshi the difference between "mod" and "built from scratch".
YES!!!! Seriously, the guy NEVER let the person he was interviewing finish a thought. Leo always interrupts and gives, usually wrong, commentary on the subject.
Like this:
Leo: So John... how did you come up with the idea?
John: Well, I was going to school at
Leo: You went to University of hogwash right? What was that like in those days?
John: I started at UoH for a semester, but graduated from Noplace Technical. Shortly after that I was working for a startup
Leo: a startup, wow.... you must have been making the big bucks then, what were they doing?
And it would just go on and on like that.
It's SOOOOO nice when Patrick gets to do the interviews when Leo is away, the guest actually gets to speak.
Loud mouth Leo is one of the most inaccurate people on the show... he spouts more wrong answers than all the others combined.
Frankly I look forward to the days he's not there so I can get some real information.
Perhaps I am mistaken and things have changed, but you can't leave a Gateway store with a new computer, they don't stock them on-site.
The Gateway store is a demo, training, repair and sales outlet, but not a delivery outlet. Anything you purchase at GateWay's phyosical stores is shipped from the factory/warehouse just as if you purchased it online.
Chances are not. If the system was not running the ATM code then it may well not have been recording from the camera. It's likely that with such an over-kill OS, that the computer is using a USB camera and saving stills to disk on a regular (every two seconds) basis, and not recording video to a tape.
...but it's important to understand that extradition is not a black-and-white issue with simple answers. ...Often it's a highly political process
It should be. Either nations are soverign or they are not, either they get to make their own laws or not.
If you are not in a given country, then you are not subject to its laws (treaties aside).
And it shouldn't be. Politics should have no place in the justice system in America.
The Internet is a borderless medium, a nation's laws should only apply to issues where all of the events and parties are within that nation's borders.
If this guy is extradited to the US from Australia, then I expect we'll start seeing China start trying to extradite operators of web sites around the world for violating China's decency and media control laws. It's the same issue. The outrage the US government would project over such a move would be overwhelming, yet they expect people to accept this case.
Above all else though, extradition or not, I do think this one thing MUST be held to, and it has not in the past: anyone being investigated, detained, accused, arrested or tried by the US government under US law, MUST be given full protection and all rights under those same laws. (equal protection, attorney provided, trial by jury, innocent until proven guilty, reasonable bail, warrants for search/seizure, etc).
So a nation that is built on laws thinks it should be above the law. That, anonymous coward, is in direct opposition to the fundamental principals of the United States... everyone has equal protection under the law, and all laws must be administered equally and fairly to all.
If someone sends a piece of physical media to a US citizen that is not illegal in the originating country but is in the US, should the sender be prosecuted/extradited by the US? I think not.
How many columbian drug growers have the US prosecuted in US courts? none, because even though the content shows up here and is illegal here, the person did not commit any crime within the juristiction of the US.
If I lived in, lets just say, Egypt, and I called your house and threatened to kill you, outlining every detail of how I will do it and when, should I be charged, extradited and tried by the US? I did commit a crime under US law by threatening you, but I was not in your country at the time.
Here's a more complex one: An American citizen and a Spanish citizen are both in Portugal. The Spaniard kills the American and flees back to Spain. Should the US courts have juristiction, should Spain extradite the killer?
The Internet is indeed real, but it is above geogaphical and political boundries, much like the telephone system and, to a lesser degree, the postal system. The probelm is that people want to say that the Internet is a special case and should be treated differently under criminal law than the other similar technologies and circumstances.
Absoulutely not, not under any circumstances.
Of course, the US has a camp full of people in custody who commited no crimes on US territory, and the US invaded and occupied two entire countries in response to crimes not commited by the residents of those countries, so apparently the US law enforcement has a slightly different view on the matter.
This person has not set foot in the US.
Are you saying that if I sit off-shore and beam "illega"l materials over US airwaves, that I should be arrested and tried, even though I'm not a US citizen and I was in international waters when I did the braodcasting?
Funny, 'cause the US does that all the time... we put ships and aircraft near "evil" countries and beam in locally illegal content in an attempt to incite the population to rebel.
Because unlike any of the other technologies, these things are thin and flexible(in form and function). I don't think you'd find it very easy to wrap a HPS lamp around a barricade divider at an off-ramp, or along the rear bumper of a construction vehicle. You can print an oled in the shapes you want instead of having to put a light behind a mask.
A 100 watt incanscent light bulb puts out about 1600 lumens. or ~16 Lumen/watt
OLED 1200l/80w = 15 Lumen/watt
A compact florescent is ~1750l/29w = 60 Lumen/watt
cold cathode tubes are at about 65l/w
So these OLEDs have a long way to go effieciency wise before we get them in our portable computers.
...DishNetwork did not want my money...
Huh... your own story says that Dish was perfectly willing to take your money, you just didn't want to pay the amount they asked for.
Many of your are stating that he's rediculous for trying to get $300K dollars from the sherrif, and that should amount to extortion. ...For two years Pat spent $300,000 of his own money to host and maintain the site, never asking for nor receiving a profit.
Pat is in fact (according to his web site) not attempting to recoup any of that money. To quote from his site that you didn't bother to read:
The Site Goes Down
Pat did not ask for payment of any of that investment, but simply explained to the county he could no longer afford to host and maintain the site for free....
Isn't that clear enough? He just wanted compensation for the hosting costs that he was incurring. Nowhere in that page does he claim to want back pay, or IP rights to the content.
Perhaps I missed something in the article, but he wasn't demanding $300,000 from the sheriff. He was asking to be reimbursed for the costs associated with the traffic coming in to the site.
No, it's nto an IP issue at all. This webmaster is not claiming to own the content at all. The issue is over fees and costs for hosting the content. The guy is saying that unless he is compensated for the costs incurred in hosting the site, he will cease to host it. And in fact he did just that and now the domain name is squatted.
As a book publisher if I'm loosing money by marketing your book and after a time decide to stop marketing it and remove all the copies from my warehouse, I'm not claiming to own your IP. I'm just no longer offering your IP to the public at my cost. If you decide to pay me (more), I"ll continue to publish your book, all I'm asking is to at least break even.
Once you get the recording (I had lots of hash errors) the call is quite hilarious in some parts. For better or worse, here's my transcription of the exchange mentioned in the partent article, as well as the first question and answer from the next analyst just because I thought the reaction was funny.
I want to note that the questions were a breze to transcribe, as were the replies from who I think is Robert Bench, the CFO (only Darl and Robert are identified as participants at the start of the call). The replies from Darl are a nightmare. The man speaks like he has no grasp of what to say or how to say it.
This transcription was created by me from the publically available audio recording. I've done my best (without straining anything) to capture things correctly. There's only one section I know I didn't understand and it's noted. Any other stupidity, double-speak orun-intelligent use of language is soley the responsibility of the speaker.
Timecode: 55:29 in the recording:
Paula Rooney (with CRN): Yes, Darl, um, I'm trying just to narrow down the, the case against AutoZone.
Darl: right.
Paula: okay, so the copyright claim has nothing to do with the Linux kernel per-se... correct?
Darl: Um, no, this, this does have to do with the Linux kernel.
Paula: But you said that the case is not specified to SCO shared libraries... that it's a very general to anyone using the operating system.
Darl: but, waahahat I'm saying anybody using Linux. Uh, eh, Yea, I guess what I'm trying to say here is, uh, a lot of people, eh, we're trying to say, because, uh, there's, uh, there is, uh, uh, a fact that Autozone has been a SCO Unix, uh, user in the past, uh, Open Server user until a couple years ago and that in their migration to Linux there, there could have been some problems with the SCO shared libraries uh, that would have been unique to, a, a customer using SCO moving in to Linux. The case that was filed today was much broader than that, and basically, uh, impacts anywhere the Linux kernel would be showing up, uh, in, uh an end user environment.
Paula: But you said it has to do with structural components that I took pieces inside Linux.
Darl: Eh, ah, a and those would be kernel related.
Paula: But the components are... are those developed by Autozone's customers.
Darl: No, this is... a... again... I guess the simple way to think of it, Paula, is to if you took the case we filed against Autozone yesterday and... and did a search and replace on, uh, name of an end user we had never had a relationship with, that is running Linux, um that, that suit would, um, pretty much hold up. Um, I mean it's gonna be a little bit different obviously, but the general claims we are making there are pervasive throughout the end use Linux community.
Paula: Your saying it's not the shared libraries, so what is the code in question here?
Darl: Yea... it, it's all spelled out in the complaint... and... uh... you know, it's all pretty detailed to go through right now, but there are a lot of... a number of structural components, uh, you know, the, uh, as you read through the complaint you'll be able to see where those are.
Bench: And, and , let me just interject for one moment, I mean this is the precise type of information that was, uh, specifically requested by the, the court to not go in to, so it's really just something that I just want to caution Darl on; that we just really don't want to be getting in to that kind of detail.
Paula: If it's the heart of the case, I think it's fair to ask the question on what the code is.
Darl: Well... it... again, it, it's in the filing.
Paula: And you mentioned that specific... there were specific programmers that , who, who acknowledged violations, um, who are these programmers?
(5 seconds of silence)
Bench: Again, we're, we're not getting in to the witnesses in the case; the, the underlying information in the case; ya know, it's not where we're going.
That is arguable. Federal laws such as destruction of money and desecration of the flag butt up against the Constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech.
If you destroy money or part of money as a form of protected speech you would probably get away with it.
The bank will take it back or the "government" will. The Fed has an entire department that's dedicated to identifiying, counting and replacing damaged currency. If you can provide 50.1% of a bill in any state (burned, eaten and digested, water logged, painted, dissolved in acid, etc) they will issue you a new bill of the same denomination.
The service is free (paid for by your tax dollars).
Ironically the person who "nuked" their bills may have to do more damage before they qualify for that program.
But the MythBusters would screw this test up just like they screw up so many others. The two are, I'm sure, wonderful special effects tinkerers, but they lack the depth of thought truely test these myths.
I watched a few episodes and frequently just laugh at their attempts at the scientific method.
Since I'll get asked what I mean, here's an example:
The ice bullet test: they didn't even attempt to check different freeze rates. The less time water takes to solidify (turn to ice), the shorter the ice crystals are and the weaker the ice. When the show hosts made their ice by dunking the mold in liquid nitrogen, they made just about the weakest ice they could, not much stronger than packed snow.
They should have frozen the water at just below freezing point so it took hours to complete the process, then dunked the solid ice bullets in to the nitrogen so they would survive the gun blast. The resulting ice bullet would have been quite strong and probably performed admirably in their firing test.
I didn't get too far in to the site, but for systems like this there are usually failsafe modes that open all the dampers and allow full control to a "master" thermostat that runs like a normal system if the computer/controller loses power or crashes.
And dialing 911 is going to stop the situation at hand how?
Are you going to hand the phone over to the police at the other end of the line and have the police ask the nice home invaders to please stop their rapeing and pillaging, put down their weapons, go to the nearest police station and surrender themselves, then provice a full confession on video tape?
Get serious... 911 does not stop crimes in progress. Even if you did get through it'd be 5-10 minutes before a patrol officer would arrive. Your wife, mother and children would all be raped and killed before the police even started heading your way.