If you absolutely need a floppy, external USB floppies are cheap and plentiful. And I say this as someone who bought one three years ago and has used it twice - both times for writing a set of DOS 6.22 floppies (disk images are fun).
You used the usb floppy drive to write boot floppies. Did you possibly use those floppies in a floppy drive to boot a PC? Was it the external USB floppy drive?
while true do wget http://www.riaa.com -nc -r -l 0 -k -nH -o/dev/null -O/ dev/null & done
I'd recommend removing the "&" from the wget line.. you'll run way too damn many procs if you detach each one. It's more sensible to let one finish before starting the next. Oh, and the "-k" is a waste, no need to convert links, wasting your valuable processor time, if you're not saving the output. If you don't think that's aggressive enough, add a "sleep 1" after the line ending with the "&" and you'll spawn a new one every second, whether or not the previous one finished yet. It could still cause you to overflow with procs, but it's a little nicer, and it'll take a hell of a lot longer to do so.
Anyway, just my 2 cents, I'd write something in Lisp to do it with more grace. Oh, and check out Lisp.;)
You could be right. Perhaps not. I honestly can't say - however, the article merely mentions the quantity as a "7-kilogram parcel of Plutonium" and "7 kilograms of Plutonium 238," which doesn't specify the degree of purity attained.
Based upon who it is that has the plutonium, I imagine the goal would actually be to lure in potential terrorists by offering it for sale. It's entrapment, sure, but that isn't a concern, I'd bet.
Of course, if planting evidence was the goal, a national security agency would be able to get their hands on the chemical composition of PU-238 and dope their sample appropriately. Then again, since the quantity is also supposedly about half of the US reserves (barring anything in warheads), it would be tough to pinpoint it to one lab.
I gues it really comes down to my not haing been particularly serious in the first place;)
Some cameras used for research work (especially in the field of explosives) can go up to (possibly past) 10,000 FPS.
This is film, mind you, not digital, but the image correlation we're discussing isn't realtime anyway - might as well add the step of doing a bulk scan on the film to the equation for the extra FPS.
If there isn't an agent controlling an interaction (be it by law or force), someone else will step up to it. It happens, we need both fewer and stronger laws. It's harder to see and fight asymettry in the legal system when it's as large and complex as ours. Balance is the only thing that effectively shields us from this type of aggression.
Tracing the source of a radioactive element is not so simple as you may believe it to be.
It's like tracing purified water in a bottle... once it's out of the bottle, assuming it didn't pick up any contaminants from the bottle, and it was pure before - water's water. The bottle was the only identifier.
Admittedly, varying levels of different contaminants could be used to ID the chemical's source - if it's not refined beyond the tolerance of the detectors - and the quantum properties of the individual particles could be used (in theory) to ID them, if those properties were known in advance of the theft.
Not for you and I. They're reserved for wealthy political prisoners.
Though I realize Perens is potentially turning himself into a prisoner for politics, the "club fed" style prisons are primarily for the international variety of political prisoners. And then, they're generally a form of house arrest, not a site with dozens of political prisoners bunking together.
...but for Christ's sake, don't get caught taking a leak behind a tree off to the side of a road. Having your genitals exposed in public is enough to qualify you for Sex Offender status in many states.
Imagine having to go door to door and explain that you're a registered sex offender and how you really just took a leak behind a tree and it's no big deal... how many people would believe that coming from a known sex offender?
Of course, public breast-feeding is an upheld right for mothers in many areas... it's a "natural bodily function".
On the subject of demonstrations and civil disobedience...
I've always found it funny that you have to get a permit to hold a protest in the US. Purportedly, this is to avoid undue inconvenience to those who are not taking-part in the protest - like rerouting traffic around the designated protest area - but isn't a protestsupposed to be an inconvenience?
What's the point to giving-in to protesters if the protesters aren't affecting you adversely?
It basically does the same thing for "financial institutions" - eveything from your bank to your insurance company. At some stretch, Safeway could even count.
If these computers ship with Wine (or winex, if possible) installed, they could run a great deal of the Windows software. A great deal of the games, too.
Admittedly, it's not a 100% solution (yet), but it's damn good for the price.
I've been tempted by their excellent prices far too many times. Their computer hardware is nearly all refurbished (or just relabelled), and many of the items on the shelves have been returned and resold 3 or more times - count the number of restock stickers.
Not only does their hardware suck, but they're a tremendous pain in the ass about refunds. they are almost only willing to accept exchanges, you will have to argue at length for anything else (with few exceptions).
Re:Suicide Lottery for "Casualties"
on
Robot Wars
·
· Score: 2
I sure hope we can institute one of these, I've been waiting long enough to get to be a war hero.
Seriously though, when all wars are automated, what then is the point of warfare? Won't this just compell the technologically weaker side to strike at "civilians" by becoming "terrorists", since forcing one's will by loss of human life has always been the method of war?
If nobody's physically involved in the fighting, who is a civilian and who is a warrior? It strikes me that the difference is that a warrior has voluntarily put his life at risk to fight, whereas a civilian has not. In this future scenario, all people are civilians, but they're also all being put at risk, all the time. Is this where the future truly leads?
(this is just a repost of the parent with my bonus enabled (yes, I posted the parent, metamods))
Suicide Lottery for "Casualties"
on
Robot Wars
·
· Score: 1
I sure hope we can institute one of these, I've been waiting long enough to get to be a war hero.
Seriously though, when all wars are automated, what then is the point of warfare? Won't this just compell the technologically weaker side to strike at "civilians" by becoming "terrorists", since forcing one's will by loss of human life has always been the method of war?
If nobody's physically involved in the fighting, who is a civilian and who is a warrior? It strikes me that the difference is that a warrior has voluntarily put his life at risk to fight, whereas a civilian has not. In this future scenario, all people are civilians, but they're also all being put at risk, all the time. Is this where the future truly leads?
Any advertising costs money. If we are going to approve of the military using our tax money to do recruitment advertising, this is as good a way as any - in fact, it's probably much better and cheaper than television spots.
I'd like to see a breakdown of their advetising budget... perhaps it's time to pull-out the FOIA form letter and make a request. Has anyone out there done so recently?
Come to think of it, as an added bonus, it actually does impart some good teamworking skills on players, which is more than I can say for a TV ad.
Slashdot Mirror
If you absolutely need a floppy, external USB floppies are cheap and plentiful. And I say this as someone who bought one three years ago and has used it twice - both times for writing a set of DOS 6.22 floppies (disk images are fun).
You used the usb floppy drive to write boot floppies. Did you possibly use those floppies in a floppy drive to boot a PC? Was it the external USB floppy drive?
Quick criticism of this code:
#!/bin/sh
while true
do
wget http://www.riaa.com -nc -r -l 0 -k -nH -o/dev/null -O/ dev/null &
done
I'd recommend removing the "&" from the wget line.. you'll run way too damn many procs if you detach each one. It's more sensible to let one finish before starting the next. Oh, and the "-k" is a waste, no need to convert links, wasting your valuable processor time, if you're not saving the output. If you don't think that's aggressive enough, add a "sleep 1" after the line ending with the "&" and you'll spawn a new one every second, whether or not the previous one finished yet. It could still cause you to overflow with procs, but it's a little nicer, and it'll take a hell of a lot longer to do so.
Anyway, just my 2 cents, I'd write something in Lisp to do it with more grace. Oh, and check out Lisp. ;)
Let me know when you want some help.
You could be right. Perhaps not. I honestly can't say - however, the article merely mentions the quantity as a "7-kilogram parcel of Plutonium" and "7 kilograms of Plutonium 238," which doesn't specify the degree of purity attained.
Based upon who it is that has the plutonium, I imagine the goal would actually be to lure in potential terrorists by offering it for sale. It's entrapment, sure, but that isn't a concern, I'd bet.
Of course, if planting evidence was the goal, a national security agency would be able to get their hands on the chemical composition of PU-238 and dope their sample appropriately. Then again, since the quantity is also supposedly about half of the US reserves (barring anything in warheads), it would be tough to pinpoint it to one lab.
I gues it really comes down to my not haing been particularly serious in the first place ;)
Whoever modded this guy troll has no sense of humor.
Some cameras used for research work (especially in the field of explosives) can go up to (possibly past) 10,000 FPS.
This is film, mind you, not digital, but the image correlation we're discussing isn't realtime anyway - might as well add the step of doing a bulk scan on the film to the equation for the extra FPS.
That would be reasonable, but the chemical in the article is supposedly straight PU-238 - not in combination with anything.
Two words: "power vacuum".
If there isn't an agent controlling an interaction (be it by law or force), someone else will step up to it. It happens, we need both fewer and stronger laws. It's harder to see and fight asymettry in the legal system when it's as large and complex as ours. Balance is the only thing that effectively shields us from this type of aggression.
Tracing the source of a radioactive element is not so simple as you may believe it to be.
It's like tracing purified water in a bottle... once it's out of the bottle, assuming it didn't pick up any contaminants from the bottle, and it was pure before - water's water. The bottle was the only identifier.
Admittedly, varying levels of different contaminants could be used to ID the chemical's source - if it's not refined beyond the tolerance of the detectors - and the quantum properties of the individual particles could be used (in theory) to ID them, if those properties were known in advance of the theft.
Do you know of another method I'm unaware of?
They took it so they could plant it on suspects (or plant the radiation on their gear, at least) to prove that they got the "real" terrorists.
There's going to be a "dirty bomb" conspiracy that gets busted soon, maybe a few.
Not for you and I. They're reserved for wealthy political prisoners.
Though I realize Perens is potentially turning himself into a prisoner for politics, the "club fed" style prisons are primarily for the international variety of political prisoners. And then, they're generally a form of house arrest, not a site with dozens of political prisoners bunking together.
Imagine having to go door to door and explain that you're a registered sex offender and how you really just took a leak behind a tree and it's no big deal... how many people would believe that coming from a known sex offender?
Of course, public breast-feeding is an upheld right for mothers in many areas... it's a "natural bodily function".
On the subject of demonstrations and civil disobedience...
I've always found it funny that you have to get a permit to hold a protest in the US. Purportedly, this is to avoid undue inconvenience to those who are not taking-part in the protest - like rerouting traffic around the designated protest area - but isn't a protest supposed to be an inconvenience?
What's the point to giving-in to protesters if the protesters aren't affecting you adversely?
Stick a webcam on it aimed back at us (to avoid destruction from head-on collisions) and send it on its merry way.
After that's done, everyone can be an astronaut, the same way everyone's sexually gratified and everyone's seen the world nowadays.
Hooray for webcammery!
I wonder how many people have seen a wookie-cookie.
It basically does the same thing for "financial institutions" - eveything from your bank to your insurance company. At some stretch, Safeway could even count.
Here's a bit of background to start your research with.
I wish this kind of thing was more publically known.
Think Truman Show style in-show ads, and you'll get the idea.
Action pauses, item is consumed or discussed in detail by the characters, then action resumes.
Goddamn that's obnoxious - one more reason not to waste time on TV ;)
If these computers ship with Wine (or winex, if possible) installed, they could run a great deal of the Windows software. A great deal of the games, too.
Admittedly, it's not a 100% solution (yet), but it's damn good for the price.
- ambles back to Warcraft 3 under winex -
I've been tempted by their excellent prices far too many times. Their computer hardware is nearly all refurbished (or just relabelled), and many of the items on the shelves have been returned and resold 3 or more times - count the number of restock stickers.
Not only does their hardware suck, but they're a tremendous pain in the ass about refunds. they are almost only willing to accept exchanges, you will have to argue at length for anything else (with few exceptions).
I sure hope we can institute one of these, I've been waiting long enough to get to be a war hero.
Seriously though, when all wars are automated, what then is the point of warfare? Won't this just compell the technologically weaker side to strike at "civilians" by becoming "terrorists", since forcing one's will by loss of human life has always been the method of war?
If nobody's physically involved in the fighting, who is a civilian and who is a warrior? It strikes me that the difference is that a warrior has voluntarily put his life at risk to fight, whereas a civilian has not. In this future scenario, all people are civilians, but they're also all being put at risk, all the time. Is this where the future truly leads?
(this is just a repost of the parent with my bonus enabled (yes, I posted the parent, metamods))
I sure hope we can institute one of these, I've been waiting long enough to get to be a war hero.
Seriously though, when all wars are automated, what then is the point of warfare? Won't this just compell the technologically weaker side to strike at "civilians" by becoming "terrorists", since forcing one's will by loss of human life has always been the method of war?
If nobody's physically involved in the fighting, who is a civilian and who is a warrior? It strikes me that the difference is that a warrior has voluntarily put his life at risk to fight, whereas a civilian has not. In this future scenario, all people are civilians, but they're also all being put at risk, all the time. Is this where the future truly leads?
Any advertising costs money. If we are going to approve of the military using our tax money to do recruitment advertising, this is as good a way as any - in fact, it's probably much better and cheaper than television spots.
I'd like to see a breakdown of their advetising budget... perhaps it's time to pull-out the FOIA form letter and make a request. Has anyone out there done so recently?
Come to think of it, as an added bonus, it actually does impart some good teamworking skills on players, which is more than I can say for a TV ad.
I don't know about you guys, but I can't wait to round-up my hoodlum friends and yank the whole kit off some unlucky PR monkey.
Oh, wait.. you mean that Aussie bastard, don't you?