That's exactly why the Soviet Navy gave their ships non-sequential pennant (hull) numbers, and frequently re-assigned them. They would also sometimes paint one number on one side of the bow, and different on the other.
Security is a difficult business.
Intelligence can also be a weird business... I once read an account of how the CIA broke into a warehouse rented by the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City in order to examine (very closeup and very clandestinely) a high fidelity mock-up/prototype of a satellite the Soviets had on tour. The idea was to gather information on any real cable, connectors, or other hardware on the bird - as well as to collect any serial numbers, drawing numbers, etc.. that they could find. (It's not uncommon for such to contain 'real' items that have been discarded from production or operational use.)
You'd be surprised what a trained and knowledgeable analyst can derive from just a few seemingly unconnected bits of information.
While I have no wish to demean their efforts, this approach still seems somewhat brutal to me. I'm no neurologist, but isn't this still a rather macro-level view of things, with the cutting process still causing damage to the fine structures they want to study?
Do you have a better way? Seriously, it's not like they haven't spent the better part of a century working out the sectioning techniques and steadily improving them.
It seems likely to me that future scientists will look back at this in not too long with stifled laugher and perhaps a little shock at the approach.
The same way we react in shock to those who operated without anesthesia. Or laugh at the Greeks who tried to cure tuberculosis with leeches and a poultice of wine must and sea urchin gonads. (I don't know if they did exactly that, but it's typical of the medicine of the era.) They didn't have a better way, neither do we. We do the best we can with what we know.
I first read about that 'obscure consistency' in Starlog back in 1985. (Guess what year Back To The Future was released.) That's not the only example either... (Check out the courthouse clock in the town square.) Though I've forgotten the rest a quarter of a century on.
You're not going to get leaks from non-democracies.
Given the number of things that have come out over the years from the Soviet Union and China and other places...
Nor are you going to get incriminating leaks from democracies that aren't engaging in significant combat (especially with an insurgency that blends in with the general population).
Right. Activities in warzones are the only possible thing that can possibly embarrass a government.
While there's been some speculation that Wikileaks has an anti-US bias, I don't see that.
I can see why you can't, you live in a fantasyland.
Based on the speeds overall speeds, and speeds differences, the risk was almost non existent. It literally would have had a freak incident to even cause a crash.
He got lucky. A little bit of misalignment, or had one of his wheels slipped or locked up - and you could easily have two vehicles jacknifed across a busy road. Then the headline might have read "KIDS KILLED BECAUSE DAD TRIED TO BE A HERO".
Spirit and Opportunity were $400,000,000, and they had no purpose besides observation. A project to begin mining gold on the moon? I'm 100% positive it is not only possible, but extremely plausible that if a substantial amount of accessible gold was located
Oh, it's possible. It's just not feasible - because the cost per oz. mined [on the moon] would be several orders of magnitude higher than terrestrial costs. (A Spirit sized robot with a little modification could mine enough ore to extract roughly.001 grams of gold a day. You do the math.)
No, you did convey your point properly, if inadvertently. You haven't ordered a new car, probably ever, and are absolutely clueless as to the level of customization available. Your second just hammers that home again.
My point is that I am eagerly looking forward to the time I can buy a car online with a build specification similar to the options I am offered when I visit Dell's or some other company's website. How long before we get PnP components for cars like we do with computer components?
Have you actually ever ordered a new car? You might try it, because the auto companies were offering shedloads of options and high customization long before Micheal Dell's parents were a gleam in his grandparent's eyes.
Traffic. I would not be able to move cars out to the rest of the nation and the world as readily as if the plant was located in a less populated region.
Highway traffic is roughly as relevant to this scenario as the price as tomatoes. Big industry doesn't use trucks for long distance movement - it uses trains. And California is very well connected. Less populous regions... aren't.
Where would I put a factory? Michigan and Texas both come to mind. Detroit, Abilene, or San Antonio would be ideal spots. From there, I can get vehicles onto ships, I can get supplies from both coasts easily.
Not on ships you can't supplies from both coasts easily, nor ship outgoing product to both coasts. The Panama Canal is a significant bottleneck.
ROTFLMAO. Did you actually bother to read the link? When you do, you'll note it supports my contention - slow progress, behind the times, small warships.
Get back to me when you graduate elementary school.
And I also know a lot of people with dishes, and most of them have needed it repositioned every year or two, depending on the weather. Your anecdotes don't make mine wrong.
ROTFLMAO. My anecdotes don't have to 'prove' you 'wrong'. You shoot yourself in the foot quite adequately without my help.
None of which addresses the biggest issue, which is the idiot installers. Cut down on the time they require, and have a system that does a better job at the same time.
ROTFLMAO. This system will cost more than the time it replaces *and* doesn't do a better job than a conventional dish. You really are clueless.
In 1996 Robert Zubrin and others proposed a $55 billion programme for a series of Mars missions
A series of programs that only ended up costing $55 billion if you handwaved away most of the massive R&D and support costs and bought into some very optimistic assumptions about how much the balance would cost.
They have started 1-2 (maybe more) new nuclear subs EACH YEAR for the last 5 years.
We (the US) built more than 1-2 a year from the mid 50's to the mid 90's.
They are about to introduce a large aircraft carrier at the end of 2011. It is expected to be assembly line approach. The thinking is that they will do a new one each year until they have reached 20.
They've been 'about to' introduce a carrier for nearly twenty years now. As to the rest, that's fear mongering, not facts based on anything observable. You seem to have a problem telling the difference.
China's military is anything but slow right now. In fact, NEVER in recorded history has any nation ever had the build up that China has now. Not Germany or America pre WWII. Not the Romans. NO NATION.
There is a massive ocean in the way and China has no blue water navy.
Which is exactly why China is working on a blue water navy.
At a pace which makes continental drift look like a NASCAR race by comparison. They're planning to plan a plan for a blue water navy - but they aren't there. They aren't even close. They aren't even showing any activity directed towards that end.
They're a frigate navy, and by all signs will be so for a considerable time to come despite brave pronunciations to someday be something more.
"Currently the space station has three different types of incompatible docking ports"
No, it has two. APAS , which is used by Shuttle, and Probe and Cone used by Soyuz, Progress, and ATV.
The third system (CBM) is used by MPLM and HTV, and cannot be docked to. The difference is important - as the docking mechanism can take the full force of an approaching spacecraft, and berthing mechanisms cannot. To berth, one has to station keep with the station, and then be picked up and attached by the station's CANADARM-2 manipulator arm.
The other important difference is size, APAS and Probe and Cone are limited to essentially man sized tunnels. CBM is a full sized door.
The International Docking Standard actually already exists aboard the station - as APAS.
I know a lot of people with dishes, and they rarely have to reposition them. So this 'advantage' costs considerably more for very little actual advantage.
And since your typical home satellite antenna has no need of moving... this sounds like a solution in search of a problem. Doubly so since current antenna a pretty small. Shrinking them further requires either increasing their transmission frequency, or improving the amplifiers - not shifting to phased arrays.
Not always perfect? Half the time is isn't even there, and of the balance 'science' is just a fig leaf to give them an excuse to blow stuff up or burn it down. Or, in other words, if Mythbusters is a science show - Julia Child is a woodworking show.
But their overall methodology is pretty decent.
On the odd occasions they actually do use some kind of half-ass pseudo scientific methodology, sure it's "pretty decent" - once you lower you standards far enough. The rest of the time, it's utter crap designed to give them an excuse to blow stuff up or burn it down.
Now, blowing stuff up or burning it down gratuitously is cool and all, but it isn't science. It's not even close.
It depends on network effects. Are many of your friends/family using Facebook? If so, it might be polite to them if you were to sign up.
Polite to them?! Umm...i'm close enough (not in the geographic sense) to my friends and family that when we want to talk, hang out, or get together, we use that crazy new invention called the telephone.
Works fine so long as number of people involved is fairly small or at least the number of decision makers is fairly small, and only so long as they're all available by telephone. If the number grows large, or circumstances make synchronous communications difficult - then solutions like email and Facebook make things much easier.
You might not have heard of it, as it's a fairly new thing....
Which is the equivalent of saying "I don't need that newfangled color TV. I have a radio and it works just fine for me". It's fine if you don't want to use Facebook, or email... But implying that those of us who do are somehow flawed because you choose to fall off the trailing edge of technology is ludicrous at best.
Slashdot Mirror
Damm if I know. The account was written by one of guys doing the breaking in, not by one of the analysts.
That's exactly why the Soviet Navy gave their ships non-sequential pennant (hull) numbers, and frequently re-assigned them. They would also sometimes paint one number on one side of the bow, and different on the other.
Security is a difficult business.
Intelligence can also be a weird business... I once read an account of how the CIA broke into a warehouse rented by the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City in order to examine (very closeup and very clandestinely) a high fidelity mock-up/prototype of a satellite the Soviets had on tour. The idea was to gather information on any real cable, connectors, or other hardware on the bird - as well as to collect any serial numbers, drawing numbers, etc.. that they could find. (It's not uncommon for such to contain 'real' items that have been discarded from production or operational use.)
You'd be surprised what a trained and knowledgeable analyst can derive from just a few seemingly unconnected bits of information.
Yes.
Do you have a better way? Seriously, it's not like they haven't spent the better part of a century working out the sectioning techniques and steadily improving them.
The same way we react in shock to those who operated without anesthesia. Or laugh at the Greeks who tried to cure tuberculosis with leeches and a poultice of wine must and sea urchin gonads. (I don't know if they did exactly that, but it's typical of the medicine of the era.) They didn't have a better way, neither do we. We do the best we can with what we know.
I first read about that 'obscure consistency' in Starlog back in 1985. (Guess what year Back To The Future was released.) That's not the only example either... (Check out the courthouse clock in the town square.) Though I've forgotten the rest a quarter of a century on.
Now get off my lawn.
Given the number of things that have come out over the years from the Soviet Union and China and other places...
Right. Activities in warzones are the only possible thing that can possibly embarrass a government.
I can see why you can't, you live in a fantasyland.
He got lucky. A little bit of misalignment, or had one of his wheels slipped or locked up - and you could easily have two vehicles jacknifed across a busy road. Then the headline might have read "KIDS KILLED BECAUSE DAD TRIED TO BE A HERO".
Oh, it's possible. It's just not feasible - because the cost per oz. mined [on the moon] would be several orders of magnitude higher than terrestrial costs. (A Spirit sized robot with a little modification could mine enough ore to extract roughly .001 grams of gold a day. You do the math.)
No, you did convey your point properly, if inadvertently. You haven't ordered a new car, probably ever, and are absolutely clueless as to the level of customization available. Your second just hammers that home again.
In by "little cash" you mean "over the course of a year earning enough for a fast food burger, working out to a salary of about .0001 cents/hour" sure.
Lord, if those are the better done ones... The badly done ones must really be nausea inducing.
Have you actually ever ordered a new car? You might try it, because the auto companies were offering shedloads of options and high customization long before Micheal Dell's parents were a gleam in his grandparent's eyes.
Highway traffic is roughly as relevant to this scenario as the price as tomatoes. Big industry doesn't use trucks for long distance movement - it uses trains. And California is very well connected. Less populous regions... aren't.
Not on ships you can't supplies from both coasts easily, nor ship outgoing product to both coasts. The Panama Canal is a significant bottleneck.
ROTFLMAO. Did you actually bother to read the link? When you do, you'll note it supports my contention - slow progress, behind the times, small warships.
Get back to me when you graduate elementary school.
ROTFLMAO. My anecdotes don't have to 'prove' you 'wrong'. You shoot yourself in the foot quite adequately without my help.
ROTFLMAO. This system will cost more than the time it replaces *and* doesn't do a better job than a conventional dish. You really are clueless.
A series of programs that only ended up costing $55 billion if you handwaved away most of the massive R&D and support costs and bought into some very optimistic assumptions about how much the balance would cost.
Because we can't do it for $10 billion. Worden is talking through his hat.
We (the US) built more than 1-2 a year from the mid 50's to the mid 90's.
They've been 'about to' introduce a carrier for nearly twenty years now. As to the rest, that's fear mongering, not facts based on anything observable. You seem to have a problem telling the difference.
In some fantasy world, not in the real one.
Japan holds more T-bills than China, a lead that has held for the last decade except for a brief period in '08 and '09.
At a pace which makes continental drift look like a NASCAR race by comparison. They're planning to plan a plan for a blue water navy - but they aren't there. They aren't even close. They aren't even showing any activity directed towards that end.
They're a frigate navy, and by all signs will be so for a considerable time to come despite brave pronunciations to someday be something more.
"Currently the space station has three different types of incompatible docking ports"
No, it has two. APAS , which is used by Shuttle, and Probe and Cone used by Soyuz, Progress, and ATV.
The third system (CBM) is used by MPLM and HTV, and cannot be docked to. The difference is important - as the docking mechanism can take the full force of an approaching spacecraft, and berthing mechanisms cannot. To berth, one has to station keep with the station, and then be picked up and attached by the station's CANADARM-2 manipulator arm.
The other important difference is size, APAS and Probe and Cone are limited to essentially man sized tunnels. CBM is a full sized door.
The International Docking Standard actually already exists aboard the station - as APAS.
I know a lot of people with dishes, and they rarely have to reposition them. So this 'advantage' costs considerably more for very little actual advantage.
And since your typical home satellite antenna has no need of moving... this sounds like a solution in search of a problem. Doubly so since current antenna a pretty small. Shrinking them further requires either increasing their transmission frequency, or improving the amplifiers - not shifting to phased arrays.
Not always perfect? Half the time is isn't even there, and of the balance 'science' is just a fig leaf to give them an excuse to blow stuff up or burn it down. Or, in other words, if Mythbusters is a science show - Julia Child is a woodworking show.
On the odd occasions they actually do use some kind of half-ass pseudo scientific methodology, sure it's "pretty decent" - once you lower you standards far enough. The rest of the time, it's utter crap designed to give them an excuse to blow stuff up or burn it down.
Now, blowing stuff up or burning it down gratuitously is cool and all, but it isn't science. It's not even close.
Works fine so long as number of people involved is fairly small or at least the number of decision makers is fairly small, and only so long as they're all available by telephone. If the number grows large, or circumstances make synchronous communications difficult - then solutions like email and Facebook make things much easier.
Which is the equivalent of saying "I don't need that newfangled color TV. I have a radio and it works just fine for me". It's fine if you don't want to use Facebook, or email... But implying that those of us who do are somehow flawed because you choose to fall off the trailing edge of technology is ludicrous at best.