I actually agree that most of these programs are pork these days... The US needs a more flexible, easily deployable army (air transports, attack helictopters, drones, etc). There's still enough strategic weaponry to take out the rest of the world multiple times...
But, I do want to play devil's advocate here: at least these programs do provide the US with strategic superiority (i.e. world power) and Americans themselves with a feeling of safety. What does the manned space program provide?
If the only answer available (which is what every pundit is basically saying) is adventure and a sense of higher purpose, then I don't buy it. The Salon article parallelizes the space program with the Cook expeditions --meaning that the space program should provide us with scientific results (it doesn't, at least not the manned part) and mapping out new territories (which the Hubble does better than the STS ever could, and the Hubble could've ridden a rocket to space). It doesn't add up. Not for $15 Billion (I don't know what percentage of that is the Shuttle, but I bet it's large).
This is not about safety; Columbia was a tragedy, but the crew knew the risks, as much as the Special Ops guys who sign up to be dropped behind enemy lines know the risks. The question is why are we paying for a program that provides no real gain, either monetarily or scientifically?
Now, having said all that, lemme add a small detail: I am actually an (ex) rocket scientist. I am all for space travel, in the same sense that I would have been all for Columbus to cross the Atlantic: do it because it will be fun, but also do it because something should come out of it. Encourage private operators to fly into space. Give them NASA technology and backing if need be. If there's anything to be gained, they'll find it, otherwise they'll drop out. Sending a 30-year old space truck up for hundreds of millions of dollars a pop isn't exploration or innovation. It's pork.
... sources tell me that bootleg DVDs go for ~USD 2.50 a pop in the streets (and malls) of Hongkong. For the price of a happy meal for brand new, just-in-theaters movies (Chicago, The Recruit, etc) I'd take my chances.
This of course bodes well for that company that's bringing the self-desctructable DVDs to market... if you would risk $3/disk for a bootleg that may not contain a viewable version of the movie, why not pay say $4 for a one-time use disk of the real thing?
I don't really think this is true....pyc files for example are not some Python bytecode, they are just parsed Python code, so the only thing that's being saved when you execute.pyc or.pyo files is syntax-checking and start-up time, not interpretation per se. AFAIK, the same is true for Perl. And as far as I can tell from recent articles, Parrot is (unfortunately) all but dead.
I think the only viable solution is for OSS languages to develop interpreters for the main VMs... Python has the excellent Jython interpreter that lives completely in the JVM and is fully compatible with the CPython interpreter. Active State has Perl.NET which does the same thing for Perl on the CLI. It's a very good start (now, if only Python.NET was actually completed, I'd be happy...)
Maybe in your problem domain that's true. I work with retailer data mines and we've hit the 2GB file limit, oh, 4-5 yrs ago? We've been forced to partition databases causing maintainance issues, scalability issues, and the like, just because of the size of a B-tree index.
True, it looks like the optimal solution is lower-level partitioning, rather than expanding the index to 64bits (tests showed that the latter is slower), but that still means that the practical limit of 1.5-1.7 GB per file (because you have to have some safety margin) is far too constraining. I know installations who could have 200GB files tomorrow if the tech was there (which it isn't, even with large file support).
I am also guessing that numerical simulations and bioinformatics apps can probably produce output files (which would then need to be crunched down to something more meaningful to mere humans) in the TB range.
Computing power will never be enough: there will always be problems that will be just feasible with today's tech that will only improve with better, faster technology.
I don't think the issue here is free as in load, speech or beer. I think this is about the free market. The free market is not a Libertarian idea, but it is an essential co-driver of democracy. And infinitely extendible copyrights are antithetical to a free market. How so?
Assuming that Intellectual Property should be treated and respected as material property (which I believe and I think the poster above does too), you will have to agree that Intellectual Property should be free to enter the market, to be "sold" and "bought". Disney argues that this should be true literally, i.e. that they should be able to sell Mickey products in perpetuity.
However, this is not what happens with real property. Real property gets inherited, distributed, re-sold, confiscated, consolidated, abandoned. Real property moves around in a free market and eventually, hopefully, ends up to whoever is most capable of exploiting it.
Infinitely copyrighted IP does not. It stays within the grasp of the infinitely viable corporation forever. How is that a free market? If a select number of consortia can develop, market and promote IP in perpetuity, where will the entry threshold move for newcomers? How can a new cartoonist compete with the likes of Disney without its resources? Will he not have to compromise and deal with Disney or Universal or Dreamworks? And how is that making sure that the most capable person or people end up controlling the intellectual property?
People should be compensated for their work and they should be able to provide for their children with the fruits of that work. However, for their great-great-great-grandchildren to be able to form an aristocracy of sorts based on their work of their long-forgotten ancestors, that is the basis of oligarchy.
"Since the owner of a system has no responsibility for the actions of a worm [...]"
I disagree right there. The owner of the system does have responsibility for the instance of that worm: it uses his/her computing facilities, connectivity, etc, and it instantiated due to his/her negligence. Therefore another operator doesnot have the right, unpriviliged, to terminate that instance. Sad and inconvenient, but that's ethics:-)...
Produce is indeed a problem, but there are solutions already: packaged produce or stores-within-a-store for produce (just like delis already are).
RFID failure rate and shoplifting (RFID hacking is shoplifting by another label) will just be different forms of shrinkage. Retailers already can figure out shrinkage (by doing intermittent store counts and compare actual inventory to receipts-sales) and then add the cost of shrinkage to their cost basis. I.e. we all end up paying for the shoplifters anyway.
If the retailer's cost basis moves downward enough by lower personnel costs, higher shrinkage may still add up to lower costs overall. In due time, it will.
I consult for very large retailers... for all the privacy rants on/., when RFIDs become widespread, I bet you you will hear practically no complaints? Why? instant checkout.
That's what has grocers drooling over this (well, the super-automation of the supply chain and a tighter control on shrinkage too, but this is the killer app). Walk up to the register with your shopping cart, hand over your credit card and get back you receipt and a bunch of shopping bags. Wheel shopping cart to your car and pack your groceries there.
No loading-reloading at the cashier's, almost no lines, fewer employees at the store. Even a small error rate for the RFIDs will be acceptable just due to the payroll savings involved. And for the tinfoil-hat wearing crowd: for most goods sold at retail (not currency, or expensive stuff like high-end clothes, watches, etc) RFIDs are practically not different from bar-codes. So what's the problem there?
I agree, that's why I said "non-exclusive". What if Slashdot was a member of 5 networks instead of 1? It could, if the different networks offered/. a different deal for being a member, which would be better for/. and potentially better for the networks (getting more/. readers).
Another commenter put it better I think: we should think of these networks as analogous to cable networks which have to attract good channels in "bundles" that are attractive to subscribers. And yes, the cable network business tends to oligopolies but I believe that's due to the massive economies of scale wrt infrastructure in the cable business.
Clay Shirky has written this excellent articleagainst micropayments. His case is that users prefer Aggregation, Subscription or Subsidy as alternatives to continuously making decisions about content.
Assuming that small sites will not have enough worthy content to go the subscription route and that subsidy (i.e. advertising) is increasingly running dry, the only realistic option is Aggregation. I think that non-exclusive, subscription-based networks of affiliated sites are a much more realistic answer. If, e.g. my OSDN subscription would get me access to premium/., Freshmeat, SF, etc. content I would be much more likely to buy it. What if though an indy site could buy itself (with a % of user usage) into the OSDN network? Presto! profit for OSDN, convenience for its subscribers and potential revenue for small-fry websites.
Well, Mr Cringely thinks the Opteron will be a huge win for AMD and makes quite a nice argument about it (based on hearsay though): link
(top sci/tech link from memigo currently; yes it's the holidays but a few things are happening/.ers...)
Re:And here's the crux of the matter...
on
The Humane Environment
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Someone used to have a sig around here: "The only intuitive interface is the nipple, everything else is learned". That still holds true: interfaces are compromises; they require both parties interfacing to meet part of the way and lose some of their comfort and convenience. The advantage of human-machine interfaces is that we control the one party completely (yes, I am talking about the machine).
If a new interface comes along that moves that compromise closer to the human sid, so that the operator gains convenience and/or comfort, the human will gladly learn the new interface as there is a gain to be made, past experience be damned. That's simple economics.
Sure; due to assymetric flow around any non-uniform shape (where uniform here is an axis of symmetry, not a plane of symmetry) such as corners, wings, etc, the speed of the air around a plane is not uniform --thank God, otherwise it wouldn't fly: So, for example, you should expect the flow at the top of the wing to be much faster than the speed of the cabin relative to the ground; which is why there is a pressure differential between the two (upper-lower) wing surfaces and the plane goes up.
The very interesting thing for fluid dynamicists (I used to be one...) is that the moment the flow of a fluid supersedes the speed of information in the fluid itself (i.e. the speed of sound), the laws of fluid dynamics pretty much reverse themselves. This, coupled with the non-constant speed of air around an aircraft make for a very unpredictable flow just around Mach 1.
The traditional solution to that is to put more power to the engines to compensate and make sure you can get out of that region. But if you can do that, why not go a bit further and go supersonic? The drag actually decreases past the transonic region, so it makes sense.
However, Boeing cannot do that, as supersonic travel means way more complex avionics, higher costs and lots of regulation (cannot fly supersonic over land). So they chose the sonic compromise, which makes sense one way (regulations, cost) but doesn't in another (cost/performance, which is the killer).
The Sonic Cruiser was vaporware. It was announced just around the time that Airbus announced a bunch of pre-orders for the A-3XX (now A-380) while no airline was interested in the re-heated burrito that was the 747 X (? or was it the 900?).
...it's been rumored for at least a couple of months. As an aero engineer, I have to say that the project was suspicious from the very beginning. The Sonic Cruiser would have been only fractionally faster from a super-jumbo (say the upcoming A-380):.87 vs.97 Mach (roughly 60-80mph difference) for about a third to a half the number of passengers.
More importantly, going near.9 Mach means that the aircraft is smack in the middle of the "transonic" region, where parts of the aircraft would unavoidably be going sonic/super-sonic. The fluid dynamics in that speed region are not that well understood or easy to simulate. In other words, the Sonic Cruiser would have been a lot more expensive to develop for a very small benefits.
Try memigo. It's run by code; no human editors to mess things up. Also, memigo will attach the first (and *only* the first) Slashdot discussion to each link. Most of the time, memigo scoops/. anyway (but the/. discussion will appear there when it gets posted here).
Try memigo. It's run by code; no human editors to mess things up. Also, memigo will attach the first (and *only* the first) Slashdot discussion to each link. Most of the time, memigo scoops/. anyway (but the/. discussion will appear there when it gets posted here).
I am a non-practicing aero engineer; I used to do computer simulations on big, big iron. What you're proposing is very, very hard, and quite useless. Instead of trying to re-invent the wheel, look to buy some pre-made blueprints or a plane kit (a diagram of a WWII fighter may be quite fun to build). A vintage prop-plane might even be a better idea --you will certainly learn a lot just figuring it out.
Now, if you really want to come up with a new plane design of your own (which I will be surprised if it hasn't been thought off already), then do what people did pre-CFD: Get a good design book (the Airplane Design series by Roskam is excellent) to understand how airplane design works and rely for your aerodynamics on some well-tested airfoil sections (the NACA series will be more than adequate for anything you can afford to build on your own, even if it has a small jet engine).
... or a format for that matter. I Googled extensively for it and it's just seems to be a TM for DirecTV's program guide. Where's the format information, if it exists?
I am very iterested in doing this too (for Greece), with any PVR (Replay would be welcome as well). What's the friendliest PVR unit for a country hack?
Memigo spots memes and interesting news ahead of weblogs, including Slashdot, instead of relying on trailing metrics like blogs. How? it monitors how users rate individual articles and creates personalised recommendations for each user (yep, kinda like Amazon).
The sites and articles are also inserted into a web of trust, so when a new article/meme shows up, it inherits the trusts of its author and recommenders. The point is to be a leading indicator of interest and sniff out interesting news first...
To be fair, memigo parses a few blogs too (that tend to make news, rather than follow them, such as/.); but really it can use anything as a trust metric.
Try it, you will be pleasantly suprised --yes, you need a login for the personal recommendations, but there is no requirement for any personal info, including any sort of e-mail address...
Your info is not completely true: serial numbers *do* have military value. If you collect enough information on movement of aircraft using their serial numbers, then statistical analysis can get you pretty close to an estimate of their readiness ratings --which is *very* important militarily.
Also, these plain spotters were being tailed by Greek intelligence, IIRC, as their leader was hosted by a Turkish AF commander when they went through Turkey. Greece pays attention to little things like that --and that was never adequately explained by the plane spotters.
Are there any PVRs out there that can be pointed to a custom TV-schedule? I live in Greece, and I could probably get a UK PVR to work over there (same voltage, both PAL, just change the plug), but the issue is TV schedules... Can any of the non-TiVO PVRs be customized in this way?
Slashdot Mirror
Java is becoming more like Python!
At least *I* think it's reason to rejoice...
I actually agree that most of these programs are pork these days... The US needs a more flexible, easily deployable army (air transports, attack helictopters, drones, etc). There's still enough strategic weaponry to take out the rest of the world multiple times...
But, I do want to play devil's advocate here: at least these programs do provide the US with strategic superiority (i.e. world power) and Americans themselves with a feeling of safety. What does the manned space program provide?
If the only answer available (which is what every pundit is basically saying) is adventure and a sense of higher purpose, then I don't buy it. The Salon article parallelizes the space program with the Cook expeditions --meaning that the space program should provide us with scientific results (it doesn't, at least not the manned part) and mapping out new territories (which the Hubble does better than the STS ever could, and the Hubble could've ridden a rocket to space). It doesn't add up. Not for $15 Billion (I don't know what percentage of that is the Shuttle, but I bet it's large).
This is not about safety; Columbia was a tragedy, but the crew knew the risks, as much as the Special Ops guys who sign up to be dropped behind enemy lines know the risks. The question is why are we paying for a program that provides no real gain, either monetarily or scientifically?
Now, having said all that, lemme add a small detail: I am actually an (ex) rocket scientist. I am all for space travel, in the same sense that I would have been all for Columbus to cross the Atlantic: do it because it will be fun, but also do it because something should come out of it. Encourage private operators to fly into space. Give them NASA technology and backing if need be. If there's anything to be gained, they'll find it, otherwise they'll drop out. Sending a 30-year old space truck up for hundreds of millions of dollars a pop isn't exploration or innovation. It's pork.
... sources tell me that bootleg DVDs go for ~USD 2.50 a pop in the streets (and malls) of Hongkong. For the price of a happy meal for brand new, just-in-theaters movies (Chicago, The Recruit, etc) I'd take my chances.
This of course bodes well for that company that's bringing the self-desctructable DVDs to market... if you would risk $3/disk for a bootleg that may not contain a viewable version of the movie, why not pay say $4 for a one-time use disk of the real thing?
I don't really think this is true... .pyc files for example are not some Python bytecode, they are just parsed Python code, so the only thing that's being saved when you execute .pyc or .pyo files is syntax-checking and start-up time, not interpretation per se. AFAIK, the same is true for Perl. And as far as I can tell from recent articles, Parrot is (unfortunately) all but dead.
I think the only viable solution is for OSS languages to develop interpreters for the main VMs... Python has the excellent Jython interpreter that lives completely in the JVM and is fully compatible with the CPython interpreter. Active State has Perl.NET which does the same thing for Perl on the CLI. It's a very good start (now, if only Python.NET was actually completed, I'd be happy...)
Maybe in your problem domain that's true. I work with retailer data mines and we've hit the 2GB file limit, oh, 4-5 yrs ago? We've been forced to partition databases causing maintainance issues, scalability issues, and the like, just because of the size of a B-tree index.
True, it looks like the optimal solution is lower-level partitioning, rather than expanding the index to 64bits (tests showed that the latter is slower), but that still means that the practical limit of 1.5-1.7 GB per file (because you have to have some safety margin) is far too constraining. I know installations who could have 200GB files tomorrow if the tech was there (which it isn't, even with large file support).
I am also guessing that numerical simulations and bioinformatics apps can probably produce output files (which would then need to be crunched down to something more meaningful to mere humans) in the TB range.
Computing power will never be enough: there will always be problems that will be just feasible with today's tech that will only improve with better, faster technology.
I don't think the issue here is free as in load, speech or beer. I think this is about the free market. The free market is not a Libertarian idea, but it is an essential co-driver of democracy. And infinitely extendible copyrights are antithetical to a free market. How so?
Assuming that Intellectual Property should be treated and respected as material property (which I believe and I think the poster above does too), you will have to agree that Intellectual Property should be free to enter the market, to be "sold" and "bought". Disney argues that this should be true literally, i.e. that they should be able to sell Mickey products in perpetuity.
However, this is not what happens with real property. Real property gets inherited, distributed, re-sold, confiscated, consolidated, abandoned. Real property moves around in a free market and eventually, hopefully, ends up to whoever is most capable of exploiting it.
Infinitely copyrighted IP does not. It stays within the grasp of the infinitely viable corporation forever. How is that a free market? If a select number of consortia can develop, market and promote IP in perpetuity, where will the entry threshold move for newcomers? How can a new cartoonist compete with the likes of Disney without its resources? Will he not have to compromise and deal with Disney or Universal or Dreamworks? And how is that making sure that the most capable person or people end up controlling the intellectual property?
People should be compensated for their work and they should be able to provide for their children with the fruits of that work. However, for their great-great-great-grandchildren to be able to form an aristocracy of sorts based on their work of their long-forgotten ancestors, that is the basis of oligarchy.
I disagree right there. The owner of the system does have responsibility for the instance of that worm: it uses his/her computing facilities, connectivity, etc, and it instantiated due to his/her negligence. Therefore another operator doesnot have the right, unpriviliged, to terminate that instance. Sad and inconvenient, but that's ethics
Produce is indeed a problem, but there are solutions already: packaged produce or stores-within-a-store for produce (just like delis already are).
RFID failure rate and shoplifting (RFID hacking is shoplifting by another label) will just be different forms of shrinkage. Retailers already can figure out shrinkage (by doing intermittent store counts and compare actual inventory to receipts-sales) and then add the cost of shrinkage to their cost basis. I.e. we all end up paying for the shoplifters anyway.
If the retailer's cost basis moves downward enough by lower personnel costs, higher shrinkage may still add up to lower costs overall. In due time, it will.
I consult for very large retailers... for all the privacy rants on /., when RFIDs become widespread, I bet you you will hear practically no complaints? Why? instant checkout.
That's what has grocers drooling over this (well, the super-automation of the supply chain and a tighter control on shrinkage too, but this is the killer app). Walk up to the register with your shopping cart, hand over your credit card and get back you receipt and a bunch of shopping bags. Wheel shopping cart to your car and pack your groceries there.
No loading-reloading at the cashier's, almost no lines, fewer employees at the store. Even a small error rate for the RFIDs will be acceptable just due to the payroll savings involved. And for the tinfoil-hat wearing crowd: for most goods sold at retail (not currency, or expensive stuff like high-end clothes, watches, etc) RFIDs are practically not different from bar-codes. So what's the problem there?
I agree, that's why I said "non-exclusive". What if Slashdot was a member of 5 networks instead of 1? It could, if the different networks offered /. a different deal for being a member, which would be better for /. and potentially better for the networks (getting more /. readers).
Another commenter put it better I think: we should think of these networks as analogous to cable networks which have to attract good channels in "bundles" that are attractive to subscribers. And yes, the cable network business tends to oligopolies but I believe that's due to the massive economies of scale wrt infrastructure in the cable business.
Clay Shirky has written this excellent article against micropayments. His case is that users prefer Aggregation, Subscription or Subsidy as alternatives to continuously making decisions about content.
Assuming that small sites will not have enough worthy content to go the subscription route and that subsidy (i.e. advertising) is increasingly running dry, the only realistic option is Aggregation. I think that non-exclusive, subscription-based networks of affiliated sites are a much more realistic answer. If, e.g. my OSDN subscription would get me access to premium /., Freshmeat, SF, etc. content I would be much more likely to buy it. What if though an indy site could buy itself (with a % of user usage) into the OSDN network? Presto! profit for OSDN, convenience for its subscribers and potential revenue for small-fry websites.
Please, steal this idea now.Well, Mr Cringely thinks the Opteron will be a huge win for AMD and makes quite a nice argument about it (based on hearsay though): link
/.ers...)
(top sci/tech link from memigo currently; yes it's the holidays but a few things are happening
Someone used to have a sig around here: "The only intuitive interface is the nipple, everything else is learned". That still holds true: interfaces are compromises; they require both parties interfacing to meet part of the way and lose some of their comfort and convenience. The advantage of human-machine interfaces is that we control the one party completely (yes, I am talking about the machine).
If a new interface comes along that moves that compromise closer to the human sid, so that the operator gains convenience and/or comfort, the human will gladly learn the new interface as there is a gain to be made, past experience be damned. That's simple economics.
Sure; due to assymetric flow around any non-uniform shape (where uniform here is an axis of symmetry, not a plane of symmetry) such as corners, wings, etc, the speed of the air around a plane is not uniform --thank God, otherwise it wouldn't fly: So, for example, you should expect the flow at the top of the wing to be much faster than the speed of the cabin relative to the ground; which is why there is a pressure differential between the two (upper-lower) wing surfaces and the plane goes up.
The very interesting thing for fluid dynamicists (I used to be one...) is that the moment the flow of a fluid supersedes the speed of information in the fluid itself (i.e. the speed of sound), the laws of fluid dynamics pretty much reverse themselves. This, coupled with the non-constant speed of air around an aircraft make for a very unpredictable flow just around Mach 1.
The traditional solution to that is to put more power to the engines to compensate and make sure you can get out of that region. But if you can do that, why not go a bit further and go supersonic? The drag actually decreases past the transonic region, so it makes sense.
However, Boeing cannot do that, as supersonic travel means way more complex avionics, higher costs and lots of regulation (cannot fly supersonic over land). So they chose the sonic compromise, which makes sense one way (regulations, cost) but doesn't in another (cost/performance, which is the killer).
The Sonic Cruiser was vaporware. It was announced just around the time that Airbus announced a bunch of pre-orders for the A-3XX (now A-380) while no airline was interested in the re-heated burrito that was the 747 X (? or was it the 900?).
...it's been rumored for at least a couple of months. As an aero engineer, I have to say that the project was suspicious from the very beginning. The Sonic Cruiser would have been only fractionally faster from a super-jumbo (say the upcoming A-380): .87 vs .97 Mach (roughly 60-80mph difference) for about a third to a half the number of passengers.
.9 Mach means that the aircraft is smack in the middle of the "transonic" region, where parts of the aircraft would unavoidably be going sonic/super-sonic. The fluid dynamics in that speed region are not that well understood or easy to simulate. In other words, the Sonic Cruiser would have been a lot more expensive to develop for a very small benefits.
More importantly, going near
Not quite; its subnet is down... will be back soon...
Try memigo. It's run by code; no human editors to mess things up. Also, memigo will attach the first (and *only* the first) Slashdot discussion to each link. Most of the time, memigo scoops /. anyway (but the /. discussion will appear there when it gets posted here).
Try memigo. It's run by code; no human editors to mess things up. Also, memigo will attach the first (and *only* the first) Slashdot discussion to each link. Most of the time, memigo scoops /. anyway (but the /. discussion will appear there when it gets posted here).
I am a non-practicing aero engineer; I used to do computer simulations on big, big iron. What you're proposing is very, very hard, and quite useless. Instead of trying to re-invent the wheel, look to buy some pre-made blueprints or a plane kit (a diagram of a WWII fighter may be quite fun to build). A vintage prop-plane might even be a better idea --you will certainly learn a lot just figuring it out.
Now, if you really want to come up with a new plane design of your own (which I will be surprised if it hasn't been thought off already), then do what people did pre-CFD: Get a good design book (the Airplane Design series by Roskam is excellent) to understand how airplane design works and rely for your aerodynamics on some well-tested airfoil sections (the NACA series will be more than adequate for anything you can afford to build on your own, even if it has a small jet engine).
... or a format for that matter. I Googled extensively for it and it's just seems to be a TM for DirecTV's program guide. Where's the format information, if it exists?
I am very iterested in doing this too (for Greece), with any PVR (Replay would be welcome as well). What's the friendliest PVR unit for a country hack?
[This is a plug]
/.); but really it can use anything as a trust metric.
Memigo spots memes and interesting news ahead of weblogs, including Slashdot, instead of relying on trailing metrics like blogs. How? it monitors how users rate individual articles and creates personalised recommendations for each user (yep, kinda like Amazon).
The sites and articles are also inserted into a web of trust, so when a new article/meme shows up, it inherits the trusts of its author and recommenders. The point is to be a leading indicator of interest and sniff out interesting news first...
To be fair, memigo parses a few blogs too (that tend to make news, rather than follow them, such as
Try it, you will be pleasantly suprised --yes, you need a login for the personal recommendations, but there is no requirement for any personal info, including any sort of e-mail address...
Your info is not completely true: serial numbers *do* have military value. If you collect enough information on movement of aircraft using their serial numbers, then statistical analysis can get you pretty close to an estimate of their readiness ratings --which is *very* important militarily.
Also, these plain spotters were being tailed by Greek intelligence, IIRC, as their leader was hosted by a Turkish AF commander when they went through Turkey. Greece pays attention to little things like that --and that was never adequately explained by the plane spotters.
(Disclaimer: I am Greek)
You could submit the story to a bot; memigo is run by code and it regularly beats /. to science/tech stories.
Are there any PVRs out there that can be pointed to a custom TV-schedule? I live in Greece, and I could probably get a UK PVR to work over there (same voltage, both PAL, just change the plug), but the issue is TV schedules... Can any of the non-TiVO PVRs be customized in this way?
The site I run (here) tries to do exactly this for meta-browsing. Give it a shot.