"Fascinatingly, the microbial profile on the ISS is fairly representative of what we see in other human-built environments on Earth, including gyms and hospitals."
Not exactly surprising given the amount of time the astronauts have to spend in gyms and medical facilities before they are cleared to fly. As they say down here on Earth, "No S**t Sherlock"
The chances of a drone getting into a jet engine are extremely low, but they will make a serious mess if it happens.
When a small bird like a pigeon strikes a modern turbofan engine the main fan converts it to coarse pate and hurls most of it through the bypass channel. Any small amounts that do pass through the core of the engine are unlikely to damage the turbine wheels. Ingesting a larger bird like a goose usually causes main rotor failure which will destroy the engine immediately.
The important difference with a drone is the motors. They are dense and extremely hard (compared to a pigeon), so when they impact the main fan they will cause significant damage. This could range from a vibration shutdown to a 'blade out' failure. In addition any metal fragments which enter the core are likely to cause a turbine wheel failure in which case the engine is usually scrap.
Training does cover the possibility of engine out during takeoff because bird strikes happen at the worst possible time (low speed, low altitude). But it's not something you want to do unnecessarily, and writing off multi-million dollar engines ( $25M for an A380 engine) is not good for business..
So I can understand the paranoia, but not the massive over reaction.
OK, migration is a completely off topic, but let's try and add some information to the debate.
There are strong parallels between the migrants trying to enter Europe from North Africa and those trying to enter the US from Central America. In both cases the migrants are trying escape from untenable conditions in their own countries, but they are also economic migrants trying to find a better life in richer countries.
In both cases the richer countries have obligations to accept asylum seekers. But those obligations were written in days where the numbers of asylum seekers were insignificant. Not tens of thousands of people a year. So the rich countries are trying to wiggle out of those obligations as much as possible by either closing the border (USA) or denying access to ships bringing refugees (Italy).
OK, so we get the occasional nutcase from North Africa intent on suicide for religious reasons, but they kill less people a year than a single home grown, god fearing, gun toting nutcase in America.
There's so much interesting history behind this issue.
The thing which bugs me most is that when student loans were introduced they were index linked, which meant that in real terms the value of the loan remained constant. This made student loans significantly cheaper than most other forms of finance. Gradually the interest rates have crept up to the point where they are approaching the price of regular bank offerings. But the other terms imposed by the government can make them much more onerous than a similar commercial loan. Indeed, I would suggest that in many cases they are more like a 'graduate tax' than a loan because they will never be repaid and can't be escaped short of leaving the country. Just an unending deduction on the payroll slip.
Whether a degree represents good value for money is another matter entirely, and to some extent depends on the quality of the degree. A first in Engineering from a good university will usually represent a very good investment, while a third in Sociology and Irish History is less likely to be good value. But, for the average student, maybe a degree is no longer a passport to a good job, but an attempt to avoid a really bad one.
Updated translation: Leniency in EU tax investigation offered in exchange for 'deep cooperation' between developers and French security services. Only stumbling block is obtaining French agreement not to disturb hacks already put in place for US intelligence community.
I would prefer any censorship to be open, public, and controlled by the judiciary rather than elected officials. Judges are less prone to knee jerk reactions when faced with tabloid journalists baying for blood.
It's only a matter of time before complaining about Windows 10 problems will be outlawed by the Microsoft terms of service. These will be enforced globally by satellite strikes from low orbit, all authorised by a presidential decree.
I understand that the next generation rail-gun will use flux compression. It will be called the Trump gun and will discharge from the stern of the ship.
Rogue waves are more interesting than the original article.
In deep water rogue waves fall into two categories. There are areas in the ocean where two currents meet, for example along the east coast of Southern Africa. This can result in increased incidence of rogue waves in those areas. These are quite well known to mariners. But the others are what are sometimes called "Schrodinger waves".
Historically, mathematicians have treated ocean as classical waves with a normal distribution of wave heights because that was a very good match to what was observed. But when you apply the Schrodinger wave equation it predicts a low probability of extremely large waves which appear from nowhere and vanish equally quickly. The probability of these events is extremely small, but there are a large number of ships spending very long times on the open ocean. Consequently, there will be a small number of ships which encounter waves many times larger than the average wave height and sink without warning.
The final class of rogue wave is a 'soliton' wave. These have been generated by ships travelling at a high speed in moderate depths (30-40m) of water. The wave picks up energy from the wake but is almost invisible in deep water. Because it is a soliton the wave packet continues to propagate with little loss of energy instead of dissipating quickly like a normal wake. If the wave hits a beach, a rogue wave appears and sweep sunbathers into the sea.
Much more mathematically interesting than you might think.
China has a much bigger stick than not buying US bonds.. they could sell some.
The Bank of China has something like 3 trillion US dollars in reserves. Imagine what would happen if they announced that they were going to sell ten billion dollars of US government treasury bills every month until the tariffs were rescinded.
Looking around Europe, there is still one country which is a federation of independent regions - Switzerland.
The national government controls things like foreign policy, currency, value added taxes, etc. which need to be decided on a national level and seldom interferes with the cantons. While each of the cantons has a large degree of autonomy and can make their own laws covering almost everything affecting their local area. Maybe some of the other European countries could learn something from the Swiss in terms of devolving powers to their regions.
The downside is that it means additional layers of administration, and some strange quirks which make moving from one canton to another a little confusing.
1) If you're fixing used kit, start with a grounded extract line with a brush nozzle. It's way better than blowing dust all around the lab every time. Make sure the extract has a decent ground connection and test it regularly. Extract systems are very prone to static build-up.
2) A built in 500W power supply with resettable fuses in the DC lines. Under-spec power supply faults are b***ards to debug without a known clean PSU.
3) Separate area with big (16+ port) KVM for machines on soak test. That way they don't fill up half my bench and turn the lab into a sauna.
4) Lockable tool board above bench with spring clips for screwdrivers etc. That way I can lock my tools up when I go home.
5) Communal whiteboard
6) Anti-static matting on all benches. Anti-static flooring and ankle straps so we don't need wrist straps.
7) Large anti-static plastic boxes underneath bench for parts & cables. Small boxes on wall above bench for bolts, standoffs, fuses, etc.
8) As lots of people have already said - a turntable big enough to take a large PC.
9) Laptop with FDD, CD burner and Internet connection, locked to the bench so people don't keep strolling off with them.
10) Cupboard containing solvent cleaner, screen wipes, paper towel roll and foam cleaner.
11) Lockable cupboard for 'known good' parts. If you don't lock them up, they wander almost as fast as tools.
No third party should have full access to all files - there's too much scope for disgruntled employees to wreak havoc. Force them to specify which files/directories they need access to then create a user or group that has rights to those areas. If they can't document the areas they need access to, find a supplier who can.
Keep a change log of their requests for access to files and ensure that no management types are allowed to screw the process up. If the specify areas like rc.x, hit them with a baseball bat until they're a lot more specific.
The ability to manipulate processes is more difficult. I would prefer to have them call in to a sys. admin. when they need access to processes outside their own group. There's scope to fsck the entire system up otherwise.
IF they really need remote access there are two possiblities - VPN or dial-up.
The best dial-up system I've seen allows incoming calls to a router/server which then calls back only to the third parties registered number. Changing the dial-back number requires a written request which goes into the change log. All connections through the dial-back server are 100% logged.
VPN software is getting pretty sophisticated these days so it's worth reviewing the commercial alternatives. We're using the Cisco offering at the moment. Again all connections through the VPN are logged.
With todays CPU dies having something like 700 pins it's getting pretty darn difficult to connect them up using a 4 layer board. The ability to route them over 20 layers would mean we could design much smaller PCBs.
There is still a long way to go though, both in taking this technology from the laboratory to production, and in developing high density packaging for dies which can still dissipate enough heat to keep working.
I can see a couple of limitations which aren't discussed in the article.
Firstly, thin layers of silver particles mean very limited power supplies. The thin layers of insulation will also limit the working voltage. This can be overcome so some extent by printing multiple layers, but that may cause problems in the drying/curing process.
Secondly, the thin layer of insulation will result in significantly higher capacitance between layers. This will probably limit high frequency applications and result in every other layer being a ground plane to limit coupling in other applications.
2) PC checks for changes to video image, and if changes exceed predetermined threshold, plays sound of bolt action hunting rifle being loaded.
3) PC switches on laser and uses servo to guide red dot onto largest area of change in video image....
4) PC waits a few seconds and if changes persist, plays loud sound of heavy caliber rifle firing and triggers flashgun, followed by muttering about damn laser sight...
5) Police follow trail of brown (and rather smelly)footprints to determine where perp came from.
Every small business suffers from the risk of an FBI raid. Not as a result of their business model, but as a consequence of the unauthorised activities by staff or outside hackers. If one or more systems in your organisation are compromised,either by your staff or outsiders, your business could be hosting just about any kind of material and could get you raided by the FBI.
So, the Feds arrive one morning at 6am and take away all your servers for investigation/evidence. This includes all your accounts information and employment records. Unless you have a secure extra-national backup your business is dead.
If you have a secure backup you may be able to purchase off the shelf hardware and recover quickly enough to prevent terminal damage to the business cash-flow. Without it you're toast.
Re:Big point scrabble words...
on
Word Up
·
· Score: 1
My favourites are the two letter words with high scoring letters, e.g. QI,ZO,AX,EX,XI,OX and JO. They are especially useful in parallel plays and are a big incentive to avoid placing vowels next to the triple letter squares.
As several posters have already stated you should complain to the abuse address for their ISP. Ideally, you should include logs of the attempt.
You should also be aware that that the machines which are attempting to connect to your network are probably zombies. There are a number of trojans and security holes which can be exploited to allow a remote user to take over a poorly secured system. The owners probably don't even realise that their machines have been compromised.
I'm not sure there's much an ISP can do other than try to find out which customer had been assigned that IP address at the time and write to them. Banning someone for having poor security on their machine is probably a bit harsh, even in these post-9/11 times.
Slashdot Mirror
From TFA:
"Fascinatingly, the microbial profile on the ISS is fairly representative of what we see in other human-built environments on Earth, including gyms and hospitals."
Not exactly surprising given the amount of time the astronauts have to spend in gyms and medical facilities before they are cleared to fly. As they say down here on Earth, "No S**t Sherlock"
It could be worse - you could be flying through Canada and get detained because the US president wants a pi55ing contest with China.
The chances of a drone getting into a jet engine are extremely low, but they will make a serious mess if it happens.
When a small bird like a pigeon strikes a modern turbofan engine the main fan converts it to coarse pate and hurls most of it through the bypass channel. Any small amounts that do pass through the core of the engine are unlikely to damage the turbine wheels. Ingesting a larger bird like a goose usually causes main rotor failure which will destroy the engine immediately.
The important difference with a drone is the motors. They are dense and extremely hard (compared to a pigeon), so when they impact the main fan they will cause significant damage. This could range from a vibration shutdown to a 'blade out' failure. In addition any metal fragments which enter the core are likely to cause a turbine wheel failure in which case the engine is usually scrap.
Training does cover the possibility of engine out during takeoff because bird strikes happen at the worst possible time (low speed, low altitude). But it's not something you want to do unnecessarily, and writing off multi-million dollar engines ( $25M for an A380 engine) is not good for business..
So I can understand the paranoia, but not the massive over reaction.
Haven't you heard about Trump's new foreign policy, "Make America grate again".
So he's throwing out treaties left right and center, and trashing America's reputation abroad. It sure is grating with America's allies.
OK, migration is a completely off topic, but let's try and add some information to the debate.
There are strong parallels between the migrants trying to enter Europe from North Africa and those trying to enter the US from Central America. In both cases the migrants are trying escape from untenable conditions in their own countries, but they are also economic migrants trying to find a better life in richer countries.
In both cases the richer countries have obligations to accept asylum seekers. But those obligations were written in days where the numbers of asylum seekers were insignificant. Not tens of thousands of people a year. So the rich countries are trying to wiggle out of those obligations as much as possible by either closing the border (USA) or denying access to ships bringing refugees (Italy).
OK, so we get the occasional nutcase from North Africa intent on suicide for religious reasons, but they kill less people a year than a single home grown, god fearing, gun toting nutcase in America.
There's so much interesting history behind this issue.
The thing which bugs me most is that when student loans were introduced they were index linked, which meant that in real terms the value of the loan remained constant. This made student loans significantly cheaper than most other forms of finance. Gradually the interest rates have crept up to the point where they are approaching the price of regular bank offerings. But the other terms imposed by the government can make them much more onerous than a similar commercial loan. Indeed, I would suggest that in many cases they are more like a 'graduate tax' than a loan because they will never be repaid and can't be escaped short of leaving the country. Just an unending deduction on the payroll slip.
Whether a degree represents good value for money is another matter entirely, and to some extent depends on the quality of the degree. A first in Engineering from a good university will usually represent a very good investment, while a third in Sociology and Irish History is less likely to be good value. But, for the average student, maybe a degree is no longer a passport to a good job, but an attempt to avoid a really bad one.
Updated translation: Leniency in EU tax investigation offered in exchange for 'deep cooperation' between developers and French security services. Only stumbling block is obtaining French agreement not to disturb hacks already put in place for US intelligence community.
I would prefer any censorship to be open, public, and controlled by the judiciary rather than elected officials. Judges are less prone to knee jerk reactions when faced with tabloid journalists baying for blood.
It's only a matter of time before complaining about Windows 10 problems will be outlawed by the Microsoft terms of service. These will be enforced globally by satellite strikes from low orbit, all authorised by a presidential decree.
I understand that the next generation rail-gun will use flux compression. It will be called the Trump gun and will discharge from the stern of the ship.
Rogue waves are more interesting than the original article.
In deep water rogue waves fall into two categories. There are areas in the ocean where two currents meet, for example along the east coast of Southern Africa. This can result in increased incidence of rogue waves in those areas. These are quite well known to mariners. But the others are what are sometimes called "Schrodinger waves".
Historically, mathematicians have treated ocean as classical waves with a normal distribution of wave heights because that was a very good match to what was observed. But when you apply the Schrodinger wave equation it predicts a low probability of extremely large waves which appear from nowhere and vanish equally quickly. The probability of these events is extremely small, but there are a large number of ships spending very long times on the open ocean. Consequently, there will be a small number of ships which encounter waves many times larger than the average wave height and sink without warning.
The final class of rogue wave is a 'soliton' wave. These have been generated by ships travelling at a high speed in moderate depths (30-40m) of water. The wave picks up energy from the wake but is almost invisible in deep water. Because it is a soliton the wave packet continues to propagate with little loss of energy instead of dissipating quickly like a normal wake. If the wave hits a beach, a rogue wave appears and sweep sunbathers into the sea.
Much more mathematically interesting than you might think.
I'm more worried about this:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/art...
China has a much bigger stick than not buying US bonds.. they could sell some.
The Bank of China has something like 3 trillion US dollars in reserves. Imagine what would happen if they announced that they were going to sell ten billion dollars of US government treasury bills every month until the tariffs were rescinded.
Looking around Europe, there is still one country which is a federation of independent regions - Switzerland.
The national government controls things like foreign policy, currency, value added taxes, etc. which need to be decided on a national level and seldom interferes with the cantons. While each of the cantons has a large degree of autonomy and can make their own laws covering almost everything affecting their local area. Maybe some of the other European countries could learn something from the Swiss in terms of devolving powers to their regions.
The downside is that it means additional layers of administration, and some strange quirks which make moving from one canton to another a little confusing.
1) If you're fixing used kit, start with a grounded extract line with a brush nozzle. It's way better than blowing dust all around the lab every time. Make sure the extract has a decent ground connection and test it regularly. Extract systems are very prone to static build-up.
2) A built in 500W power supply with resettable fuses in the DC lines. Under-spec power supply faults are b***ards to debug without a known clean PSU.
3) Separate area with big (16+ port) KVM for machines on soak test. That way they don't fill up half my bench and turn the lab into a sauna.
4) Lockable tool board above bench with spring clips for screwdrivers etc. That way I can lock my tools up when I go home.
5) Communal whiteboard
6) Anti-static matting on all benches. Anti-static flooring and ankle straps so we don't need wrist straps.
7) Large anti-static plastic boxes underneath bench for parts & cables. Small boxes on wall above bench for bolts, standoffs, fuses, etc.
8) As lots of people have already said - a turntable big enough to take a large PC.
9) Laptop with FDD, CD burner and Internet connection, locked to the bench so people don't keep strolling off with them.
10) Cupboard containing solvent cleaner, screen wipes, paper towel roll and foam cleaner.
11) Lockable cupboard for 'known good' parts. If you don't lock them up, they wander almost as fast as tools.
Just my thoughts,
Keith.
There are two reasons for root access:
1) Full access to all files
2) Process control
No third party should have full access to all files - there's too much scope for disgruntled employees to wreak havoc. Force them to specify which files/directories they need access to then create a user or group that has rights to those areas. If they can't document the areas they need access to, find a supplier who can.
Keep a change log of their requests for access to files and ensure that no management types are allowed to screw the process up. If the specify areas like rc.x, hit them with a baseball bat until they're a lot more specific.
The ability to manipulate processes is more difficult. I would prefer to have them call in to a sys. admin. when they need access to processes outside their own group. There's scope to fsck the entire system up otherwise.
IF they really need remote access there are two possiblities - VPN or dial-up.
The best dial-up system I've seen allows incoming calls to a router/server which then calls back only to the third parties registered number. Changing the dial-back number requires a written request which goes into the change log. All connections through the dial-back server are 100% logged.
VPN software is getting pretty sophisticated these days so it's worth reviewing the commercial alternatives. We're using the Cisco offering at the moment. Again all connections through the VPN are logged.
It makes PCs smaller (eventually).
With todays CPU dies having something like 700 pins it's getting pretty darn difficult to connect them up using a 4 layer board. The ability to route them over 20 layers would mean we could design much smaller PCBs.
There is still a long way to go though, both in taking this technology from the laboratory to production, and in developing high density packaging for dies which can still dissipate enough heat to keep working.
Just my afternoon thoughts,
Keith.
I can see a couple of limitations which aren't discussed in the article.
Firstly, thin layers of silver particles mean very limited power supplies. The thin layers of insulation will also limit the working voltage. This can be overcome so some extent by printing multiple layers, but that may cause problems in the drying/curing process.
Secondly, the thin layer of insulation will result in significantly higher capacitance between layers. This will probably limit high frequency applications and result in every other layer being a ground plane to limit coupling in other applications.
Still, it's a step in the right direction.
Keith.
Now for the really geeky solution...
1) Motion sensor switches on PC and video cam.
2) PC checks for changes to video image, and if changes exceed predetermined threshold, plays sound of bolt action hunting rifle being loaded.
3) PC switches on laser and uses servo to guide red dot onto largest area of change in video image....
4) PC waits a few seconds and if changes persist, plays loud sound of heavy caliber rifle firing and triggers flashgun, followed by muttering about damn laser sight...
5) Police follow trail of brown (and rather smelly)footprints to determine where perp came from.
Every small business suffers from the risk of an FBI raid. Not as a result of their business model, but as a consequence of the unauthorised activities by staff or outside hackers. If one or more systems in your organisation are compromised,either by your staff or outsiders, your business could be hosting just about any kind of material and could get you raided by the FBI.
So, the Feds arrive one morning at 6am and take away all your servers for investigation/evidence. This includes all your accounts information and employment records. Unless you have a secure extra-national backup your business is dead.
If you have a secure backup you may be able to purchase off the shelf hardware and recover quickly enough to prevent terminal damage to the business cash-flow. Without it you're toast.
My favourites are the two letter words with high scoring letters, e.g. QI,ZO,AX,EX,XI,OX and JO. They are especially useful in parallel plays and are a big incentive to avoid placing vowels next to the triple letter squares.
Hi,
As several posters have already stated you should complain to the abuse address for their ISP. Ideally, you should include logs of the attempt.
You should also be aware that that the machines which are attempting to connect to your network are probably zombies. There are a number of trojans and security holes which can be exploited to allow a remote user to take over a poorly secured system. The owners probably don't even realise that their machines have been compromised.
I'm not sure there's much an ISP can do other than try to find out which customer had been assigned that IP address at the time and write to them. Banning someone for having poor security on their machine is probably a bit harsh, even in these post-9/11 times.
Keith.
I notice the usual specious newspaper calculations. They assume that the whole ticket price goes to Activision/Id to try and make it newsworthy.
Adds a whole new meaning to Hardcore!!