SFO now has millimeter wave scanners, not backscatter x-ray (at least for international flights). In the past with x-rays it was much easier to opt-out, just as you wrote. Recently the procedure seems to be different however - hopefully others can add to that.
Did you fly in-country, or international ? Maybe treatement is not the same.
Of course it is possible that the main difference is in people (TSA?) manning the check at the moment.
When you opt out, first you are told that you will have to wait. How long? Agent does not know. 15minutes? 1 hour? Agent cannot answer you that question.
You then stand aside from the queue, behind a barrier, watching as 10, 20, 50 people give up their dignity (hande hoch! raus!) in the machine. They all look at you as if you were the one giving up dignity, or were "put in a corner" like a bad child who did something wrong.
Just before you were put aside, agent tells you that once you opt-out, you cannot go through the machine if you change your mind. You have to wait, for unspecified amount of time.
While you wait, agent will ask you why you don't want to cooperate for security of all people. Whatever you say (privacy, radiation, health), he will tell you that you should do more research on the subject, because what you say is not true (privacy is assured, radiation is non-existent, there is no health concerns, you are just troublemaker).
Some time later, say 10 minutes, another agent decides to come around and takes you for the manual search. Just before that he fills out a survey why you you opted out. You may notice how few people decided to do it based on how many are in survey before you.
You can now opt for a privacy room, or let them do the pat in screening area behind the machine. Whole proces takes another 15 minutes or longer, as the agent gathers your belongings from the scanner, changes his/her gloves etc.
Search itself is not much different than what you undergo at European airports if you are selected for secondary screening. They just pat you, paying extra attention to waistband and other thicker areas of clothes (hems, collar, sewing lines etc).
I would say that at every step during opt-out you are being persuaded to just give up and go through the machine, and threatened by vague mentions implying you might miss your plane. It probably depends on the agent, but voice used during the procedure reminds of what a police officer who-knows-better would use on an interrogated person.
Easy to see why sheeple just go hands-up into the naked machine.
Travel to/from USofA those days reminds me strongly of travel to Soviet Russia in the past. All in the name of security, of course.
> They make a request, the company yanks that customer's access, then clones that customer's data onto a new drive, then hands them the drive.
Depends on legislation. In some countries only the original drive is considered evidence, therefore it cannot be returned until the whole process is over (think years). Copy cannot be made and returned either, for some other reasons (can't recall exactly).
I largely agree with you. Issue stemst from the fact that many people out there are not businessman, they are just good in what they do. A barber would probably trust "advisors" from banks, insurance and other companies that in a way help him run the business.
The way Groupon operates just highlights such problems. There is just as many problems from people who were ripped by banks and insurance companies.
Big problem is that such stories do not attract sympathy for Groupon, but for businesses. This is why Groupon should put some safeguards in their business, not just profit from someone mistakes. Win-win situation.
All of that is a real-life example of websites getting slashdotted. One big difference is of course being surprised by/. (most of the time), while you actively apply for Groupon.
In Poland one of well-known barbers, Jaroslaw Budny, opened a new barber shop and wanted a bit of promotion. He talked with Groupon, and based on their advice he issued haircut coupons at 29 PLN (instead of usual 70PLN). He only got 10 PLN out of each sale (33%) . Barber was however convinced by Groupon salesperson to not put any limit on number (they earn by number of coupons sold) who said things like "you will be lucky to sell 300 coupons, 100 is more realistic number, no need for limit". Sales were limited to 48 hours though.
Guess what? People bought over 1600 coupons.
Mr Budny is now working 7-22, not making any money, getting angry calls from thousands of "groupon customers". His name is now shattered and smeared all over internet for not keeping promises instead of being promoted. Waiting time to get a haircut done by him is now about a year.
Did he make a bad decision? Yes, he did not limit his offer, but he did so on explicit advice by Groupon. It is scary that Groupon doesn't have any internal audits to make sure they don't do that to businesses - they should have if they have some ethics.
Only after country-wide media ran the story he was contacted by Groupon who offered him some help (hire him a secretary to take calls, run another promotion without taking money, send email to coupon buyers explaining why waiting time is so long, offer money back and "sorry" gifts). Condition was that he no longer talks with any media about Groupon.
*) disclaimer: above information based is based on articles widely available in Polish press.
Looking at example with two figurines and iphone it seems that they have different weights - check out the bases. These seem to be button-batteries of different types and weights. In the video, however, look at 00:52 how one of responses highlights before figurine is put down.
With multiple figurines and ipad also see bases - they seem to have different radius. Detection of direction could be a bit of a hoax, maybe figurine is pressed in a specific way to help the system.
"Coloured paper" example could be explained by different amount of surface pressed against screen. Patterns are just to confuse viewers. This one is probably a trick, while the previous ones are more practical.
Comments from people who know how Apple's touchpads work (what they are able to detect) are more than welcome.
Agree that "clash" is not the best expression - I meant a difference, not fight. You are right correcting that.
Knowledge is the key, absolutely. In programming just like in many others areas it became more and more complicated to know and understand all past details - there is just too many of them. People working longer time (like you) have a certain advantage as soon as development is done on something else than the most current generation of hardware and tools (that take care of some details).
I did not get your columnt as criticism at all, just pointing out very interesting facts that are well worth knowing:-)
Thank you for valuable comment, keep up great work just as you did over all these years!b
This is an excellent article, showing how many things are often taken for granted by modern software developers. Mr Church did a great job not only porting the game, but also taking time to write about all these things.
For anyone who started programming in "ye good ol' times", techniques used by Mr Church are fairly obvious and were in everyday use. Memory manager, optimizing file speed access - all of that has been used in many games written in 80s/90s. Games had "resource files" with their own index tables, games used own memory managers because C/C++ did not provide ones suited to the task, games' memory usage had to be optimized because PCs typically only had 640KB usable for programs (later a bit more thanks to extended/expanded memory access), and graphic cards did not provide any shaders or other hardware acceleration for games at all, just a tiny bit of memory. Operating system (DOS, Windows 3.1) did not help a lot with things like memory management, either.
Judging just by how modern games and applications work, programmers no longer spend time taking care of such optimizations. They just throw the problem at OS or memory (4GB required), making software run as slow on fast CPU, as older optimized software ran on 100x slower CPUs.
Track record is a tricky beast: Saturn V carried people on its third launch (Apollo 8), right after previous flight (Apollo 6) failure;-)
Thanks for your comments - I was not aware that Falcon is actually man-rated, I thought it was just supposed to get man-rated in a later incarnation.
Does the man-rating apply also to launch pad? I am wondering if change from cargo to human-rated Falcon would require also changes in pad construction/approval procedures. Regardless of people who will sign off anything to get in space;-)
It looks a bit as if "manrated" in government version means that a lot of money has to be spent testing and certifying and following specific procedures as a CYA. This inflates costs, I guess...
Price covers not just hardware, but also testing and getting certifications that this product is safe for prolonged use on people. Probably part of the cost is also an "insurance" against future lawsuits due to malfunctions.
Hardware (Cost of Goods Sold) is the least part of the price.
1) Make manual gearboxes obligatory. If car "runaways", just press clutch to disconnect engine from wheels, pust stick in neutral, voila!
2) Make car key really break circuit and cut off ignition. If car "runaways", turn the key to interrupt engine. This method has side effects - steering assistance will turn off. Braking assistance should work just long enough for emergency braking.
This is one point that people often miss in "company has to pay" announcements. When it a company is fined, money ultimately comes out of customers' pockets, so this does not benefit customers who are paying the second time for the same mistake! Now guess who collects the fine? Governement, as a form of a hidden tax.
It is not companies who have conspired, it is actual people working in these companies! These people (probably executive level) should pay that fine, otherwise they would not care - "company" gets all the blame, not them. Good that in that case these people are prosecuted, too.
Slashdot Mirror
I had such experiences exactly at SFO...
SFO now has millimeter wave scanners, not backscatter x-ray (at least for international flights). In the past with x-rays it was much easier to opt-out, just as you wrote. Recently the procedure seems to be different however - hopefully others can add to that.
Did you fly in-country, or international ? Maybe treatement is not the same.
Of course it is possible that the main difference is in people (TSA?) manning the check at the moment.
They made opting out opressive.
When you opt out, first you are told that you will have to wait. How long? Agent does not know. 15minutes? 1 hour? Agent cannot answer you that question.
You then stand aside from the queue, behind a barrier, watching as 10, 20, 50 people give up their dignity (hande hoch! raus!) in the machine. They all look at you as if you were the one giving up dignity, or were "put in a corner" like a bad child who did something wrong.
Just before you were put aside, agent tells you that once you opt-out, you cannot go through the machine if you change your mind. You have to wait, for unspecified amount of time.
While you wait, agent will ask you why you don't want to cooperate for security of all people. Whatever you say (privacy, radiation, health), he will tell you that you should do more research on the subject, because what you say is not true (privacy is assured, radiation is non-existent, there is no health concerns, you are just troublemaker).
Some time later, say 10 minutes, another agent decides to come around and takes you for the manual search. Just before that he fills out a survey why you you opted out. You may notice how few people decided to do it based on how many are in survey before you.
You can now opt for a privacy room, or let them do the pat in screening area behind the machine. Whole proces takes another 15 minutes or longer, as the agent gathers your belongings from the scanner, changes his/her gloves etc.
Search itself is not much different than what you undergo at European airports if you are selected for secondary screening. They just pat you, paying extra attention to waistband and other thicker areas of clothes (hems, collar, sewing lines etc).
I would say that at every step during opt-out you are being persuaded to just give up and go through the machine, and threatened by vague mentions implying you might miss your plane. It probably depends on the agent, but voice used during the procedure reminds of what a police officer who-knows-better would use on an interrogated person.
Easy to see why sheeple just go hands-up into the naked machine.
Travel to/from USofA those days reminds me strongly of travel to Soviet Russia in the past. All in the name of security, of course.
Thank you, it's clear now :-)
What's the "gold sticker on homework"?
Is it a local USA (where Riess lives) expression, like "homerun"?
(no, not troll, trying to understand what's this about)
This "even disconnected" ./ title really got me wondering if there is a WakeOnBluetooth technology.
> They make a request, the company yanks that customer's access, then clones that customer's data onto a new drive, then hands them the drive.
Depends on legislation. In some countries only the original drive is considered evidence, therefore it cannot be returned until the whole process is over (think years). Copy cannot be made and returned either, for some other reasons (can't recall exactly).
I largely agree with you.
Issue stemst from the fact that many people out there are not businessman, they are just good in what they do. A barber would probably trust "advisors" from banks, insurance and other companies that in a way help him run the business.
The way Groupon operates just highlights such problems. There is just as many problems from people who were ripped by banks and insurance companies.
Big problem is that such stories do not attract sympathy for Groupon, but for businesses. This is why Groupon should put some safeguards in their business, not just profit from someone mistakes. Win-win situation.
All of that is a real-life example of websites getting slashdotted. One big difference is of course being surprised by /. (most of the time), while you actively apply for Groupon.
In Poland one of well-known barbers, Jaroslaw Budny, opened a new barber shop and wanted a bit of promotion. He talked with Groupon, and based on their advice he issued haircut coupons at 29 PLN (instead of usual 70PLN). He only got 10 PLN out of each sale (33%) . Barber was however convinced by Groupon salesperson to not put any limit on number (they earn by number of coupons sold) who said things like "you will be lucky to sell 300 coupons, 100 is more realistic number, no need for limit". Sales were limited to 48 hours though.
Guess what? People bought over 1600 coupons.
Mr Budny is now working 7-22, not making any money, getting angry calls from thousands of "groupon customers". His name is now shattered and smeared all over internet for not keeping promises instead of being promoted. Waiting time to get a haircut done by him is now about a year.
Did he make a bad decision? Yes, he did not limit his offer, but he did so on explicit advice by Groupon. It is scary that Groupon doesn't have any internal audits to make sure they don't do that to businesses - they should have if they have some ethics.
Only after country-wide media ran the story he was contacted by Groupon who offered him some help (hire him a secretary to take calls, run another promotion without taking money, send email to coupon buyers explaining why waiting time is so long, offer money back and "sorry" gifts). Condition was that he no longer talks with any media about Groupon.
*) disclaimer: above information based is based on articles widely available in Polish press.
At the same time you can import a real book without such problems.
Now, if only international shipping weren't so expensive and books so heavy...
Apparently it is the same concept as covered two years ago in this article:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/15/175246
I wonder if university had any patent and sold it to this company, or it was a parallel invention.
Could be a trick, of course. Could be not.
Looking at example with two figurines and iphone it seems that they have different weights - check out the bases. These seem to be button-batteries of different types and weights. In the video, however, look at 00:52 how one of responses highlights before figurine is put down.
With multiple figurines and ipad also see bases - they seem to have different radius. Detection of direction could be a bit of a hoax, maybe figurine is pressed in a specific way to help the system.
"Coloured paper" example could be explained by different amount of surface pressed against screen. Patterns are just to confuse viewers. This one is probably a trick, while the previous ones are more practical.
Comments from people who know how Apple's touchpads work (what they are able to detect) are more than welcome.
Apparently submitter did not read the article to the very end:
"Sadly, upon closer inspection, we see that ILM blew this rare opportunity for scientific realism in the Star Wars universe"
...we, 5-digiters, are like that.
Thank you :-)
Pity that editors did not notice the limitation and provide a YT version.
Video of the "unprecedented look" is hosted on Hulu, which allows only US viewers.
Racists! ;-)
Agree that "clash" is not the best expression - I meant a difference, not fight. You are right correcting that.
Knowledge is the key, absolutely. In programming just like in many others areas it became more and more complicated to know and understand all past details - there is just too many of them. People working longer time (like you) have a certain advantage as soon as development is done on something else than the most current generation of hardware and tools (that take care of some details).
I did not get your columnt as criticism at all, just pointing out very interesting facts that are well worth knowing :-)
Thank you for valuable comment, keep up great work just as you did over all these years!b
This is an excellent article, showing how many things are often taken for granted by modern software developers. Mr Church did a great job not only porting the game, but also taking time to write about all these things.
For anyone who started programming in "ye good ol' times", techniques used by Mr Church are fairly obvious and were in everyday use. Memory manager, optimizing file speed access - all of that has been used in many games written in 80s/90s. Games had "resource files" with their own index tables, games used own memory managers because C/C++ did not provide ones suited to the task, games' memory usage had to be optimized because PCs typically only had 640KB usable for programs (later a bit more thanks to extended/expanded memory access), and graphic cards did not provide any shaders or other hardware acceleration for games at all, just a tiny bit of memory.
Operating system (DOS, Windows 3.1) did not help a lot with things like memory management, either.
Judging just by how modern games and applications work, programmers no longer spend time taking care of such optimizations. They just throw the problem at OS or memory (4GB required), making software run as slow on fast CPU, as older optimized software ran on 100x slower CPUs.
Track record is a tricky beast: Saturn V carried people on its third launch (Apollo 8), right after previous flight (Apollo 6) failure ;-)
Thanks for your comments - I was not aware that Falcon is actually man-rated, I thought it was just supposed to get man-rated in a later incarnation.
Does the man-rating apply also to launch pad? ;-)
I am wondering if change from cargo to human-rated Falcon would require also changes in pad construction/approval procedures. Regardless of people who will sign off anything to get in space
It looks a bit as if "manrated" in government version means that a lot of money has to be spent testing and certifying and following specific procedures as a CYA. This inflates costs, I guess...
As simple as that.
While I agree that often cost of private enterprise is much lower than a government one, one needs to compare apples to apples to be fair.
Summary makes it seem as if she died on the spot.
From the article:
"Within three months she required dialysis, within a year one kidney had failed, and within two years she was dead."
Price covers not just hardware, but also testing and getting certifications that this product is safe for prolonged use on people. Probably part of the cost is also an "insurance" against future lawsuits due to malfunctions.
Hardware (Cost of Goods Sold) is the least part of the price.
1) Make manual gearboxes obligatory.
If car "runaways", just press clutch to disconnect engine from wheels, pust stick in neutral, voila!
2) Make car key really break circuit and cut off ignition.
If car "runaways", turn the key to interrupt engine. This method has side effects - steering assistance will turn off. Braking assistance should work just long enough for emergency braking.
Even if you get some information from /. and you buy it, you will need to explain that it's safe to every visitor who notices these antennas.
Exactly.
This is one point that people often miss in "company has to pay" announcements.
When it a company is fined, money ultimately comes out of customers' pockets, so this does not benefit customers who are paying the second time for the same mistake! Now guess who collects the fine? Governement, as a form of a hidden tax.
It is not companies who have conspired, it is actual people working in these companies! These people (probably executive level) should pay that fine, otherwise they would not care - "company" gets all the blame, not them. Good that in that case these people are prosecuted, too.