...as to the viability of the plasma-yield weapons described in Dale Brown's novel 'Battle Born' {official site; Amazon.com entry). Basically, these weapons consume everything within a hard radius of ground zero with pretty much no blast/overpressure effects, and negligible residual radiation.
Even better, in 'Wings of Fire' (Amazon.com entry) the same effect is harnessed to pump a ten-million-wall airborne laser...
..what I would like to see, is when the little punks that write these sorts of things get caught, the companies like your wifes that lost time because of the exploit sue the writer of said exploit/worm/whatever, and his mommy and daddy, if applicable, and turn them into refrigerator box residents.
Okay fine. You get to tell the parents of said individual (if applicable) that although they have committed no crime, you're going to in effect take everything they own and cast them out onto the street. That's not justice in any sense of the word, no.
Isn't the point that cell phones could interfere with the sensitive medical equipment?
Has this actually been proven in a proper scientific study? I seem to recall a submission to/. not too long ago about a recent study about the potential for consumer electronics to interfere with systems on an airliner...
...we should cease and desist use of the term 'piracy' in this context. Last I checked piracy entailed a range of activities more unsavory than, say, copying a CD. But then, I suppose this is another example of spin... you know, pirates are bad, and if copying music=piracy, then copiers of music are bad.
Feed the term 'infamous pirates' to your favorite search engine and see what - who - comes up.
BTW, Cell phones should not be used at gas stations either. Some analyses suggest that an actively transmitting cell phone could create a coronal discharge from the metal on a car that could ignite gasoline fumes. Its not very likely to happen, but the consequences are none too pleasant.
Has there been a properly document scientific study of this allegation published? If so, would someone be so kind as to point it out for our collective education...
We want to put something out there that makes sense, that's balanced, that accomplishes the same goals, without it being this headlong rush to prove that we're doing something for our constituents because we were asleep at the switch when there was this digital Pearl Harbor.'
Most of this Putnam quote is quite sensible - shame that sentiment does not seem more common in the corridors of power. But, as far as I know, there hasn't been a 'digital Pearl Harbor'... when/where was it?
I certainly had my.02cr to say on this example of... shall we say, less-than-illuminated thinking. Here's what I sent to the editor of the Florida Times-Union:
Dear Sir/Madam,
'Astonishment' and 'disappointment' are two words which came readily to my mind upon hearing that the honorable gentleman from Utah has actually voiced his endorsement of such blatantly illegal activity as a means of 'defending copyrights'. It is my understanding, based on articles going back at least one year, that this is exactly what the RIAA (and perhaps the MPAA) want: the power of judge, jury, and executioner, untrammeled by federal law and due process. Who will hold the *AAs' constituent companies accountable when - not 'if', 'when' - their 'justice' is miscarried? The vast majority of potential plaintiffs simply do not have the fiscal means to sustain the court action they would be rightly entitled to.
And then there are the international implications... evidently the honorable gentleman has forgotten that the computers which comprise the Internet are not all in the United States. Many other nations with which we share the world are already uneasy about the arrogance they perceive in our government - I doubt the idea of that government giving companies free rein to flout their own laws would go over too well.
Perhaps more serious... in a time of heightened security consciousness, do we really want to create such a 'backdoor' past computer security measures? What, after all, is to prevent some notional 'black hats' from subervting it for their own means?
Definitely.... Gamers almost never use the phone while playing. Compare this to people driving cars...
Who are just accidents waiting to happen... what, by all which does not hug face, are you doing using the phone while driving?!
...watching movies in the theater...
Using your phone in the theater? Now this lot is just asking to be beat down.
What I don't understand, though, is what relevance the point about the 54 million gamers who use PVRs to skip advertising has to do with the topic of debate. Back on track, though... I put it to you that multiplayer gaming is a social phenomenon, not that much different in principle from a baseball game.
...and leave us not forget its value as a means by which understanding of its creators might be gleaned.
Three words for y'all:
Grand. Admiral. Thrawn.
Does this mean that Obelisks of Light aren't that far off? I already have preliminary sketches of the Hand of Nod (pretty unique shape for a house, eh?)...
I mean, if someone comes into my home and starts swearing and acting like a jerk in front of my kids, I'll tell him to stop, or boot his ass out. MediaCorp should get the same treatment.
Well said. I think most folks will agree with you on the first sentence... now I have to wonder why they haven't mead the mental leap to the second. And correct me if I am wrong, but isn't there such a thing as parental responsibility?
As I recall from the 'Death Star Technical Companion' published by the now-defunct West End Games as a supplement for their Star Wars RPG, the 'original' Death Star (seen in A New Hope) possessed an equatorial diameter of 120km; the 'Death Star Mk. II' in Return of the Jedi got to 160km across.
The only legal requirement is that the President considers them a national security risk, but again, he can keep detainees a secret, and there is no judicial review of the process. In fact, he doesn't even have to accuse them of any crimes or place them legally under arrest, just "disappear" them.
My question then becomes, at what point does the President decide that it's simply easier to arrange for the 'accidental' deaths (after, as needed, interrogation using methods which would be widely hailed as illegal) of 'national security risks' than go through the bother of detaining them?
To use a Hollywood example (Mercury Rising): some NSA official decided that the fact of a supercode happening to be crackable by a nine-year-old autistic has implications sufficient to justify murdering the boy and his parents, none of whom have committed any crime that would merit the death penalty. I suppose that official's actions would be 'legal', right?
Peace through power, my friend; peace through power.
And as long as we're talking cool Brotherhood of Nod technology, I wouldn't mind adding a stealth generator to the plans... you know, perfect for when you don't want to be found by people not quite annoying enough to merit, ah, 'enlightenment'. Sure it'd draw power like mad when running, but there're solutions to that, yes?
In the name of Kane!
Hmmm... a program that reaches into your system without your permission and pops up a window, regardless of firewall/antivirus configurations? Sounds like criminal trespass to me... and aren't there laws against that on the books of late?
Better yet, someone should find this little tool and test it on him; see how he likes it.
(for the non-militaty-lingo-conversant, that's 'Special Operations Command Table of Organization and Equipment') ...we might find reference to a small unit known as Fox-Hound. Further digging might even give us some details on a thin man with a propensity for leather and a WW1-style gas mask.
-insert obligatory [i]Minority Report[/i] reference here-
Seriously, though, both superpowers were conducting psi research during the Cold War. Nothing came of those programs... at least, that is the official line. And most people agree that the official line is not necessarily the same thing as the truth.
Let's also mention internal national security issues such as leaky agents, child pornography rings...
Let's not forget leaky politicians, as long as we're here. Sometimes I really wonder if the people doing the leaking understand the implications their actions can have. I wonder if Ritter's solution to the Intelligence Committee leaking in 'Clear and Present Danger' would help... naah, maybe not; politicians in the Clancy universe tend to be more principled than their realspace counterparts...
Child pornography rings? Noisome, to be true, but hardly a national security issue.
But you've a point: how come we don't see all this hue and cry about the rapists and the drug dealers and others whose actions hurt or kill people every day? Whatever happened to 'by, of, and for the people?'
And speaking of revolutions... I wonder how long before something like the events in Vince Flynn's novel 'Term Limits' becomes an actuality...
In other news,authorities in Iraq are baffled as to how a giant,crackiling lightning bolt could come out of the clear blue sky and wipe out Saddam's HQ's in one crushing blow
Hmm, I wonder... if that's so, will reports of tanks appearing from nowhere amid a ninbus of bluish energy be too far behind?
Empowering software or some other product to surreptitiously bypass end-user security protocols is never a good idea. Imagine what could happen, for instance, if some enterprising cracker(s) managed to subvert the mechanism for their own purposes. Quite aside from that, what possible need can a legitimate commercial entity have for this sort of intrusive behavior?
Conversely, this could become a selling point for the next generation of security systems: the ability to detect, and then neutralize, this manner of 'phone home' effect.
Flying disks are probably the most unbalanced units in Yuri's Revenge, contested only by Boomers, which can also probably deal with Prisms on a water map...
The best way to deal with the floating discs is do deny Yuri the time/resources to build them. A good way to do this is to attack his economy - harass his miners with one of the following...
1-2 sniper- or SEAL-IFVs;
pack of robot tanks backed up by rocketeers;
Desolators backed up by terror drones (Iraq only - deploy one so that he is out of range of the miner's (miners') guns yet covers the resources or exit ramp(s) with the radiation field... if you have to, use flak tracks - 2 TDs and a Desolator each - to rush them past the guns and into position)
infiltrate them (make Yuri's economy work for you)
As for boomers... or floating discs, should these take to the air... Groups of deployed GGIs or (against discs)GGI-IFVs do wonders for defense; the robot tank/rocketeer combo mentioned above also helps nicely in pounding them once they're spotted. If you have no destroyers or dolphins, and a sub is pumping torpedoes into your naval yard, just force-fire on the point of origin until the offender comes up.
If you can take advantage of terrain then a Magnetron at the top of a cliff can grab a Prism tank before it gets in range...
Interesting note about magnetrons: missile-firing units (empty IFVs, GGI-IFVs, battle fortresses with one or more GGIs inside) can still fire while being suspended. And if the battle fortress has Yuri clones or psi-commandos inside, they can still take control of units.
Ooooh... scale 'em down a bit and you'd be getting pretty close to the Fuchikomas of Ghost in the Shell fame. Very cool. From the military standpoint, it'd be great for mountainous/broken terrain operations. Intimidation factor a plus.
...would be the portable versions, with their attendant tributes to Moonraker. Which the nice folks at Westwood Studios did tribute in the penultimate Soviet mission in Yuri's Revenge. Humor aside, though, I think this makes the grade with respect to Pretty Cool Tech. Of course, it means that the real cutting edge is a bit beyond this already. Whatever is publicly touted as state-of-the-art is at least a half-decade behind the really cutting-edge stuff. Makes you wonder how far off people like Dale Brown are in their speculations...
Slashdot Mirror
...as to the viability of the plasma-yield weapons described in Dale Brown's novel 'Battle Born' {official site; Amazon.com entry). Basically, these weapons consume everything within a hard radius of ground zero with pretty much no blast/overpressure effects, and negligible residual radiation.
Even better, in 'Wings of Fire' (Amazon.com entry) the same effect is harnessed to pump a ten-million-wall airborne laser...
So? If it's company policy, (s)he likely signed off on it, and should be aware of the consequences of violating it.
...we should cease and desist use of the term 'piracy' in this context. Last I checked piracy entailed a range of activities more unsavory than, say, copying a CD. But then, I suppose this is another example of spin... you know, pirates are bad, and if copying music=piracy, then copiers of music are bad.
Feed the term 'infamous pirates' to your favorite search engine and see what - who - comes up.
Just so long as it's a good piece of music, as distinct from the typical 'elevator/on-hold' variety.
This wouldn't be part of an insulated, armored suit, now would it...?
What I don't understand, though, is what relevance the point about the 54 million gamers who use PVRs to skip advertising has to do with the topic of debate. Back on track, though... I put it to you that multiplayer gaming is a social phenomenon, not that much different in principle from a baseball game.
...and leave us not forget its value as a means by which understanding of its creators might be gleaned.
Three words for y'all:
Grand. Admiral. Thrawn.
Does this mean that Obelisks of Light aren't that far off? I already have preliminary sketches of the Hand of Nod (pretty unique shape for a house, eh?)...
As I recall from the 'Death Star Technical Companion' published by the now-defunct West End Games as a supplement for their Star Wars RPG, the 'original' Death Star (seen in A New Hope) possessed an equatorial diameter of 120km; the 'Death Star Mk. II' in Return of the Jedi got to 160km across.
To use a Hollywood example (Mercury Rising): some NSA official decided that the fact of a supercode happening to be crackable by a nine-year-old autistic has implications sufficient to justify murdering the boy and his parents, none of whom have committed any crime that would merit the death penalty. I suppose that official's actions would be 'legal', right?
Peace through power, my friend; peace through power.
And as long as we're talking cool Brotherhood of Nod technology, I wouldn't mind adding a stealth generator to the plans... you know, perfect for when you don't want to be found by people not quite annoying enough to merit, ah, 'enlightenment'. Sure it'd draw power like mad when running, but there're solutions to that, yes?
In the name of Kane!
Hmmm... a program that reaches into your system without your permission and pops up a window, regardless of firewall/antivirus configurations? Sounds like criminal trespass to me... and aren't there laws against that on the books of late?
Better yet, someone should find this little tool and test it on him; see how he likes it.
(for the non-militaty-lingo-conversant, that's 'Special Operations Command Table of Organization and Equipment')
...we might find reference to a small unit known as Fox-Hound. Further digging might even give us some details on a thin man with a propensity for leather and a WW1-style gas mask.
-insert obligatory [i]Minority Report[/i] reference here-
Seriously, though, both superpowers were conducting psi research during the Cold War. Nothing came of those programs... at least, that is the official line. And most people agree that the official line is not necessarily the same thing as the truth.
Empowering software or some other product to surreptitiously bypass end-user security protocols is never a good idea. Imagine what could happen, for instance, if some enterprising cracker(s) managed to subvert the mechanism for their own purposes. Quite aside from that, what possible need can a legitimate commercial entity have for this sort of intrusive behavior?
Conversely, this could become a selling point for the next generation of security systems: the ability to detect, and then neutralize, this manner of 'phone home' effect.
Interesting note about magnetrons: missile-firing units (empty IFVs, GGI-IFVs, battle fortresses with one or more GGIs inside) can still fire while being suspended. And if the battle fortress has Yuri clones or psi-commandos inside, they can still take control of units.
Ooooh... scale 'em down a bit and you'd be getting pretty close to the Fuchikomas of Ghost in the Shell fame. Very cool. From the military standpoint, it'd be great for mountainous/broken terrain operations. Intimidation factor a plus.
...would be the portable versions, with their attendant tributes to Moonraker. Which the nice folks at Westwood Studios did tribute in the penultimate Soviet mission in Yuri's Revenge.
Humor aside, though, I think this makes the grade with respect to Pretty Cool Tech. Of course, it means that the real cutting edge is a bit beyond this already.
Whatever is publicly touted as state-of-the-art is at least a half-decade behind the really cutting-edge stuff. Makes you wonder how far off people like Dale Brown are in their speculations...