Besides, it's a pretty small world. When your former manager becomes a VP at your new employer, you really don't want to be remembered as "that Ebola guy".
Wouldn't it be more useful for them to spend that money designing a spacecraft that doesn't blow up half the time? If I had NASAs track record, I wouldn't be talking about rewarding smart people, because they've proven pretty well that they're not.
You're confusing the people who compose the organization with the organization itself. NASA clearly has a number of management problems which, sadly, have contributed to the loss of missions and lives. However that does not prove or disprove the intelligence of the individual people who work for NASA.
All jamming cell phone signals does is annoy customers, and cause potentially dangerous situations in case of an emergency. That is exactly why it is illegal.
In the U.S, it's _always_ illegal to interfere with a licensed radio service. This has been true since _long_ before cell-phones. Neither the fact that it annoys those around you nor the fact that it might create a hazard have anything to do with it.
I look after one right now, one that has to work under all conditions including temperatures from 50c in the shade to -5c. it gets muddy here when it rains, and it's also likely the most dusty hole in the world. our gear also has to withstand the constant shaking of a D10 cat dozer.
Operation from -5C to 50C isn't all that rugged. Typical automotive components located in the passenger compartment are specified to operate from -40C to 85C. Military components are going to be specified for an additional 10C to 20C beyond that range. Military components also typically need to be sealed to prevent water intrusion. They also need to be able to withstand mechanical shock above and beyond nearly anything in the commercial/automotive world (air drops, weapons on the vehicle firing, nearby explosions, etc.).
Now $80,000 seems absurd to me too, but also keep in mind that whatever tooling and design went into ruggedizing the COTS component must be paid over over a fairly short production run. Automotive equipment often has a production run of hundreds of thousands to millions of units per year. Most military products (especially the $80,000 ones) will have productions runs in the thousands or tens of thousands.
I live in an apartment complex, and let's say I wanted to cancel Charter and order service from the small local cable company. How, exactly, would they be able to get their signal to me? I seriously doubt the complex's manger is going to let them dig the trench needed to run their cable to my building's utility closet.
They've probably learned from Microsoft's mistakes here. Bugs in the save-game code of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softmod#Xbox softmods>several x-box games allowed users to install linux onto their x-boxen.
>>Sure, for a 24 hour window pirates would have a free-for-all in getting perfectly valid WGA results.
Actually, pirates would probably very quickly figure out how to set the WGA server failure condition in Windows to get the automatic pass without ever actually contacting the real WGA servers, which would render WGA completely worthless. Well... more so.
A reasonable grace period would take care of that. Block the WGA server, and you're good for a few weeks. Beyond that, the WGA client starts to complain and _gradually_ reduces functionality.
An more reliable (both for MS and the customer) solution might be to have a simple, fail-safe, fall-back system where the fall-back WGA server responds with time-stamped and cryptographically signed response which basically say "We're experiencing technical difficulties. Consider the OS genuine and try again in 24 hours.".
All of this assumes that it is acceptable for MS to cripple their user's software, which I'm not so sure about.
Explain to me how this is an "attack" on passport readers?
It might be possible for an attacker to exploit the buffer overflow in order to cause the reader to execute software chosen by the attacker. For example, the attacker might insert code that recognizes his forged passport as valid, or that recognizes somebody else's passport (who may have flew in on the same flight) as invalid.
Add LabView to that list (although it's probably a bit more application specific).
Any two chunks of code which do not depend on each other in some way can, and most likely will, execute in parallel. Most non-trivial programs I've seen tend to be designed so that multiple loops, each handling different aspects of the program, operate in parallel. For example, a program controlling a durability test stand might have a motion control loop which is designed to execute as quickly as possible, a data acquisition loop which reads data from a buffer every 100ms, and a user interface loop which is waiting for the user to hit a button, select a menu, etc. all running in parallel.
The problem in the US is, we don't actually use it outside of school (science classes mostly)
That's not quite true either. Metric units are used in most science and engineering contexts. I would have to look really hard at work to find anything other than a ruler which measured in imperial units (excepting items like digital calipers and micrometers which usually have an inch/mm button).
are certain cars more likely to get lower mileage than the EPA estimate?
I think this has a lot more to do with how you drive than the specific model you drive. If the auto-makers have a choice to optimize fuel economy for the EPA tests and optimize fuel economy for typical driving, they will optimize for the EPA tests every time. So if you drive like the EPA tests, you're going to get something close to the sticker milage. If you drive differently, you're probably going to get lower milage. If this change brings the EPA test method closer to actual driving patters, more drivers will see their actuall milage come close to what is on the sticker.
Interestingly enough, I find that my milage on trips to a ski area two hours away from my home comes reasonably close (within 2mpg) of the sticker number. This trip consists (each way) of about 1hr freeway driving (75mph) with no stops, 45 minutes of highway driving (60mph) with one or two stops, and about 30 minutes of "city" driving (25mph-55mph) with occasional stops.
I pay enough taxes already. I own a decently efficient car, I ride a train to work (well, I drive 10 miles to the train station each day), and I don't drive much on weekends. If you're going to make a "carbon tax", make it for those assholes that commute 50 miles a day in a Ford Expedition. I have enough taxes already.
Ideally, revenue from the carbon tax could replace some of your existing tax burden (rather than simply add to it). In that case, you would come out ahead, as you produce less CO2 than the average tax payer.
how do you know how much CO2 is being dispensed by various companies?
AFAIK, most of the CO2 released into the atmosphere comes from burning hydrocarbons. In that case, carbon-out is equal to carbon-in. Take propane for example. One molecule of propane contains three carbon atoms and 8 hydrogen atoms. When burned, each of those three carbon atoms will (ideally) combine with two oxygen to form one CO2 molecule. Rather than measuring and taxing CO2 emissions, simply tax the fuel burned to produce CO2. If a company does something useful with their CO2 rather than release it into the atmosphere, then give them a tax credit for that CO2.
And what exactly would the tax revenue go towards?
Does it matter? No matter where the taxes come from, everybody pays for it in the end. It doesn't matter whether it is in the form if income taxes, sales taxes, or increased retail prices. I'd worry more about whether or not the tax is implemented fairly, and how to ensure that imported goods are appropriately taxed (so CO2 emitters don't simply move their operations to area without a CO2 tax).
A computer doing word processing doesnt ship with a 500watt PSU
Keep in mind that "500W" refers to the maximum rate at which the power supply can convert energy from one form to another. It does not have any relationship to the the amount of power "consumed" by the computer. Replacing a 500W power suppy with a 250W power supply will not magically cut the power consumption of the computer in half.
What you want is a more _efficient_ power supply, or even better, a more efficient computer. Sadly, as long as CPUs are marketed primarily on clock speed and number of cores, that's unlikely.
Can anyone explain to me what run by the University of California means in relation to a law enforcement agency?
In the U.S. police services are fairly decentralized. For example, my state has its own police force, my county has its own police force, and my city has its own police force. The city's police department doesn't report to the county's police department which doesn't report to the state's police department. Simply replace "city" with "university". In this case, UCLA (actually, probably the entire University of California system) has chosen to provide their own police protection rather than pay each city/county/other local jurisdiction for police services.
To me, "Run by the University of California" isn't much different then "Run by the City of XYZ", especially considering the size of many state-run universities.
The problem is that the transmitters have "excessive" power, and thereby leak into nearby receivers. Why NPR is involved is that most of the satellite to FM transmitters are, by default, tuned to the low-end of the radio spectrum, which by chance is where most NPR stations are located.
That may be a problem, but its not the problem the article describes. XM, IIRC, uses geosynchronous satellites to broadcast their signal. As a result, their signal is easily blocked by large buildings to the south of the receiver. In order to ensure that their signal can be received reliably in urban areas, XM supplements their satellites with ground stations placed on buildings and towers. It's some of these ground stations which are either unlicensed or operating in excess of their authorized power limits.
It's as if I had a letter to mail to 1000 of my customers, and I took one original down to my friendly print shop and asked them to make 1000 copies, and I or the print shop used an automated machine to fold the 1000 copies and stuff them in envelopes and mail them, and only after they were mailed out and opened by my customers did we start discovering that for some strange reason 1% of them had "FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE" overprinted on page 2. And then found out that the "strange reason" was that one of the copy machines at the print shop, among the several that the print shop divided my job among, was "infected" by a "virus".
Sorry, but in the end, you just can't delegate responsibility. No matter who was at fault, it's still your company logo that appears above the "Fuck you, Asshole" bit.
Here's how things should happen to prevent the scenario you describe. The same, mostly, applies to Apple:
The print shop should have a process which controls/verifies the integrety of their printing software.
The first copy(s), last copy(s), and periodic random copies off of each machine should have been verified prior to being stuffed in envelopes.
The first stuffed envelope(s), last stuffed envelopes(s), and periodic random samples of the stuffed envelopes should have been verified before mailing (not just for printing errors, but to ensure each envelope has the proper contents).
You, the print shop's customer, should have verified that the print shop is doing the above before giving them the business.
You, the print shop's customer, should have verified that the above was actually done on your order, perhaps by insisting that the print shop provide you with the samples and/or picking several random samples to check yourself.
Now, that might be overkill for a 1000-piece run of some product, but that ought to be the bare minimum for a device like the iPod which is produced in huge numbers and which is such a key product to Apple's image.
my 2 MP camera has a hard enough time taking a clear picture when I'm holding it as still as I can and it's got like a 1/60 second shutter or something ridiculously fast like that. If you record an image one pixel at a time, it can't possibly be faster. Even those seemingly magic DLP mirrors couldn't possibly be faster.
I think the trick here will be to use an accelerometer, or some other means to sense changes in the pixel's position and orientation, and then take this into account as the software forms a complete image from the individual pixels.
In this case, that is probably a mistake. Since there need only be one pixel, that pixel can be significantly larger than a pixel on a standard CCD which translates to much greater sensitivity.
If your government is run by tyrants, why don't your precious militia's do something about it?
...all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.
I'm also confused as to why a land-based power supply is needed at all - isn't the plant producing more energy than it's taking? Why does it need any other power source?
Probably to provide power then the reactors are off-line for maintenance, testing, or when their isn't enough demand for electricity to justify producing power.
A couple of years ago I bought an item at Robinson's May on the second floor, walked downstairs, walked out the door, had the alarms go off -- and no one reacted. OK, I had a store bag, but if I'd been a shoplifter, I could have walked right off and no one would have noticed, despite the blaring alarm.
I've had that happen to me a few times. I just keep walking. The way I see it, there is no reason for me to stop since I'm not stealing anything. Of course, a thief isn't going to stop either. It makes me wonder if those alarms are at all effective.
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Why don't you just lie?
Because it's unethical.
Besides, it's a pretty small world. When your former manager becomes a VP at your new employer, you really don't want to be remembered as "that Ebola guy".
Wouldn't it be more useful for them to spend that money designing a spacecraft that doesn't blow up half the time? If I had NASAs track record, I wouldn't be talking about rewarding smart people, because they've proven pretty well that they're not.
You're confusing the people who compose the organization with the organization itself. NASA clearly has a number of management problems which, sadly, have contributed to the loss of missions and lives. However that does not prove or disprove the intelligence of the individual people who work for NASA.
All jamming cell phone signals does is annoy customers, and cause potentially dangerous situations in case of an emergency. That is exactly why it is illegal.
In the U.S, it's _always_ illegal to interfere with a licensed radio service. This has been true since _long_ before cell-phones. Neither the fact that it annoys those around you nor the fact that it might create a hazard have anything to do with it.
I look after one right now, one that has to work under all conditions including temperatures from 50c in the shade to -5c. it gets muddy here when it rains, and it's also likely the most dusty hole in the world. our gear also has to withstand the constant shaking of a D10 cat dozer.
Operation from -5C to 50C isn't all that rugged. Typical automotive components located in the passenger compartment are specified to operate from -40C to 85C. Military components are going to be specified for an additional 10C to 20C beyond that range. Military components also typically need to be sealed to prevent water intrusion. They also need to be able to withstand mechanical shock above and beyond nearly anything in the commercial/automotive world (air drops, weapons on the vehicle firing, nearby explosions, etc.).
Now $80,000 seems absurd to me too, but also keep in mind that whatever tooling and design went into ruggedizing the COTS component must be paid over over a fairly short production run. Automotive equipment often has a production run of hundreds of thousands to millions of units per year. Most military products (especially the $80,000 ones) will have productions runs in the thousands or tens of thousands.
RIAA Radar is a start.
I live in an apartment complex, and let's say I wanted to cancel Charter and order service from the small local cable company. How, exactly, would they be able to get their signal to me? I seriously doubt the complex's manger is going to let them dig the trench needed to run their cable to my building's utility closet.
Why are they encrypting savegame files?
They've probably learned from Microsoft's mistakes here. Bugs in the save-game code of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softmod#Xbox softmods>several x-box games allowed users to install linux onto their x-boxen.
>>Sure, for a 24 hour window pirates would have a free-for-all in getting perfectly valid WGA results.
Actually, pirates would probably very quickly figure out how to set the WGA server failure condition in Windows to get the automatic pass without ever actually contacting the real WGA servers, which would render WGA completely worthless. Well... more so.
A reasonable grace period would take care of that. Block the WGA server, and you're good for a few weeks. Beyond that, the WGA client starts to complain and _gradually_ reduces functionality.
An more reliable (both for MS and the customer) solution might be to have a simple, fail-safe, fall-back system where the fall-back WGA server responds with time-stamped and cryptographically signed response which basically say "We're experiencing technical difficulties. Consider the OS genuine and try again in 24 hours.".
All of this assumes that it is acceptable for MS to cripple their user's software, which I'm not so sure about.
Explain to me how this is an "attack" on passport readers?
It might be possible for an attacker to exploit the buffer overflow in order to cause the reader to execute software chosen by the attacker. For example, the attacker might insert code that recognizes his forged passport as valid, or that recognizes somebody else's passport (who may have flew in on the same flight) as invalid.
Add LabView to that list (although it's probably a bit more application specific).
Any two chunks of code which do not depend on each other in some way can, and most likely will, execute in parallel. Most non-trivial programs I've seen tend to be designed so that multiple loops, each handling different aspects of the program, operate in parallel. For example, a program controlling a durability test stand might have a motion control loop which is designed to execute as quickly as possible, a data acquisition loop which reads data from a buffer every 100ms, and a user interface loop which is waiting for the user to hit a button, select a menu, etc. all running in parallel.
For fun, I tried "Prostitutes". The #1 match:
International Aid, a local Christian charity.
.. no wonder they don't sell in Europe.
Pssst....They don't sell in the U.S. either.
The problem in the US is, we don't actually use it outside of school (science classes mostly)
That's not quite true either. Metric units are used in most science and engineering contexts. I would have to look really hard at work to find anything other than a ruler which measured in imperial units (excepting items like digital calipers and micrometers which usually have an inch/mm button).
are certain cars more likely to get lower mileage than the EPA estimate?
I think this has a lot more to do with how you drive than the specific model you drive. If the auto-makers have a choice to optimize fuel economy for the EPA tests and optimize fuel economy for typical driving, they will optimize for the EPA tests every time. So if you drive like the EPA tests, you're going to get something close to the sticker milage. If you drive differently, you're probably going to get lower milage. If this change brings the EPA test method closer to actual driving patters, more drivers will see their actuall milage come close to what is on the sticker.
Interestingly enough, I find that my milage on trips to a ski area two hours away from my home comes reasonably close (within 2mpg) of the sticker number. This trip consists (each way) of about 1hr freeway driving (75mph) with no stops, 45 minutes of highway driving (60mph) with one or two stops, and about 30 minutes of "city" driving (25mph-55mph) with occasional stops.
I pay enough taxes already. I own a decently efficient car, I ride a train to work (well, I drive 10 miles to the train station each day), and I don't drive much on weekends. If you're going to make a "carbon tax", make it for those assholes that commute 50 miles a day in a Ford Expedition. I have enough taxes already.
Ideally, revenue from the carbon tax could replace some of your existing tax burden (rather than simply add to it). In that case, you would come out ahead, as you produce less CO2 than the average tax payer.
how do you know how much CO2 is being dispensed by various companies?
AFAIK, most of the CO2 released into the atmosphere comes from burning hydrocarbons. In that case, carbon-out is equal to carbon-in. Take propane for example. One molecule of propane contains three carbon atoms and 8 hydrogen atoms. When burned, each of those three carbon atoms will (ideally) combine with two oxygen to form one CO2 molecule. Rather than measuring and taxing CO2 emissions, simply tax the fuel burned to produce CO2. If a company does something useful with their CO2 rather than release it into the atmosphere, then give them a tax credit for that CO2.
And what exactly would the tax revenue go towards?
Does it matter? No matter where the taxes come from, everybody pays for it in the end. It doesn't matter whether it is in the form if income taxes, sales taxes, or increased retail prices. I'd worry more about whether or not the tax is implemented fairly, and how to ensure that imported goods are appropriately taxed (so CO2 emitters don't simply move their operations to area without a CO2 tax).
A computer doing word processing doesnt ship with a 500watt PSU
Keep in mind that "500W" refers to the maximum rate at which the power supply can convert energy from one form to another. It does not have any relationship to the the amount of power "consumed" by the computer. Replacing a 500W power suppy with a 250W power supply will not magically cut the power consumption of the computer in half.
What you want is a more _efficient_ power supply, or even better, a more efficient computer. Sadly, as long as CPUs are marketed primarily on clock speed and number of cores, that's unlikely.
Can anyone explain to me what run by the University of California means in relation to a law enforcement agency?
In the U.S. police services are fairly decentralized. For example, my state has its own police force, my county has its own police force, and my city has its own police force. The city's police department doesn't report to the county's police department which doesn't report to the state's police department. Simply replace "city" with "university". In this case, UCLA (actually, probably the entire University of California system) has chosen to provide their own police protection rather than pay each city/county/other local jurisdiction for police services.
To me, "Run by the University of California" isn't much different then "Run by the City of XYZ", especially considering the size of many state-run universities.
The problem is that the transmitters have "excessive" power, and thereby leak into nearby receivers. Why NPR is involved is that most of the satellite to FM transmitters are, by default, tuned to the low-end of the radio spectrum, which by chance is where most NPR stations are located.
That may be a problem, but its not the problem the article describes. XM, IIRC, uses geosynchronous satellites to broadcast their signal. As a result, their signal is easily blocked by large buildings to the south of the receiver. In order to ensure that their signal can be received reliably in urban areas, XM supplements their satellites with ground stations placed on buildings and towers. It's some of these ground stations which are either unlicensed or operating in excess of their authorized power limits.
Sorry, but in the end, you just can't delegate responsibility. No matter who was at fault, it's still your company logo that appears above the "Fuck you, Asshole" bit.
Here's how things should happen to prevent the scenario you describe. The same, mostly, applies to Apple:
- The print shop should have a process which controls/verifies the integrety of their printing software.
- The first copy(s), last copy(s), and periodic random copies off of each machine should have been verified prior to being stuffed in envelopes.
- The first stuffed envelope(s), last stuffed envelopes(s), and periodic random samples of the stuffed envelopes should have been verified before mailing (not just for printing errors, but to ensure each envelope has the proper contents).
- You, the print shop's customer, should have verified that the print shop is doing the above before giving them the business.
- You, the print shop's customer, should have verified that the above was actually done on your order, perhaps by insisting that the print shop provide you with the samples and/or picking several random samples to check yourself.
Now, that might be overkill for a 1000-piece run of some product, but that ought to be the bare minimum for a device like the iPod which is produced in huge numbers and which is such a key product to Apple's image.my 2 MP camera has a hard enough time taking a clear picture when I'm holding it as still as I can and it's got like a 1/60 second shutter or something ridiculously fast like that. If you record an image one pixel at a time, it can't possibly be faster. Even those seemingly magic DLP mirrors couldn't possibly be faster.
I think the trick here will be to use an accelerometer, or some other means to sense changes in the pixel's position and orientation, and then take this into account as the software forms a complete image from the individual pixels.
Ignoring the sensitivity of the detector...
In this case, that is probably a mistake. Since there need only be one pixel, that pixel can be significantly larger than a pixel on a standard CCD which translates to much greater sensitivity.
If your government is run by tyrants, why don't your precious militia's do something about it?
...all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.
(from the U.S. Declaration of Independence)
I'm also confused as to why a land-based power supply is needed at all - isn't the plant producing more energy than it's taking? Why does it need any other power source?
Probably to provide power then the reactors are off-line for maintenance, testing, or when their isn't enough demand for electricity to justify producing power.
A couple of years ago I bought an item at Robinson's May on the second floor, walked downstairs, walked out the door, had the alarms go off -- and no one reacted. OK, I had a store bag, but if I'd been a shoplifter, I could have walked right off and no one would have noticed, despite the blaring alarm.
I've had that happen to me a few times. I just keep walking. The way I see it, there is no reason for me to stop since I'm not stealing anything. Of course, a thief isn't going to stop either. It makes me wonder if those alarms are at all effective.