I gave up reading after what would have been the first 5 pages of magazine print. I didn't even get to the subject material. What do they want to do, make a registry web site for refugees world wide?
We already have plenty of infrastructure for such things. Friends and family know our email addresses, social media presences (facebook, myspace, etc). The problem here is, we're talking about people who likely didn't have Internet access before. For those in refugee camps, getting online to check their email is pretty low on the priority list, where food, clothing, shelter, and security are far more essential. I doubt too many people are screaming "I want to check my email." rather than "I need food."
I had thought about setting up something similar in the past. After Katrina, DirecTV had a channel set up for broadcasting names, locations, and simple messages to friends and family. For those who were in the evacuee camps, they were worried about the essentials, and weren't watching DirecTV. Modern conveniences are less likely to be useful, when you have two individuals who were separated, and probably living in one of the worst places they'd ever been.
I worked in a hurricane shelter once. It was pretty early in the Internet days. There were a few thousand people there. They were running on generators, but they had one computer set up. Since I could type fast (>100wpm), I was entering all the evacuee information into the stand-alone computer for the Red Cross. The building had internet access, but since there was no power (other than our generators) and the phones and network were down, it wasn't going anywhere any time quick. The information may have later been integrated into another database, but I have no idea. I don't work for the Red Cross, I was just a random volunteer helping out. I didn't just sit on the computer, I helped people remain calm, served drinks when they came in, and helped unload and distribute mattresses that the local jail had sent over. Most of the people there were tired, scared, and didn't know what to do, other than keep their family and friends close. That's about all you can do at that point. Try to remain calm, and keep those you care about safe and close to you.
The more important part may be, why does the person drive a SUV? Do they have 6+ passengers on a regular basis? Do they have to carry large/heavy cargo? Do they need to tow trailers? While I'll agree there are people with SUV's that don't need them, there are plenty of people who do buy the appropriate vehicle for their purpose.
But hey, soccer mom with two kids who gets her husband to buy groceries because they're "too heavy" or she "may break a nail", doesn't need a F650 XUV, to drive 30 miles for daily her manicure, and shuttling the kids between places that she can drop them so she doesn't actually have to deal with them.
I've been considering buying a SUV, only because I do have large cargo to move on occasion. Those would be the occasions I'd drive it. Otherwise, I'd drive my car.
Hey, welcome to the planet. Have you been here long? You don't happen to have a working exit, do you? I've been stuck here for a long time. They commemorated my arrival with two coin coins (12), which was very nice of them. I never did get around to finding out what they said. I didn't actually land until I was on the next large landmass, that they now call "America". Well, land may not have been the correct term. Swimming for an Earth day to reach land, because my landing pod is at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean is more accurate. I was very lucky some locals some locals saw it, and came out with their small wooden boats to help me. They were an interesting bunch. Too bad relations didn't go so well with another indigenous group a bit later on.
I'd ask where you're from, but in my travels I've learned it's impossible to know or have visited even a fraction of what's out there. The humans are starting to understand though. They've come a long way in the last 100 years. In the next 1,000 years, they should really start understanding their place in the universe.
Even though I've been here a while, I'm still learning how to behave like one. The ones close to me are quick to identify that I'm not one of them, regardless of how well it seems I emulate their behavior. Thanks for the tip on spelling. I always thought their errors were due to their limited utilization of their available mental capacity, or due to their strange concept of different linguistic patterns by area. I wasn't aware that it was a cultural behavior to show their humanity.
How is this? "The refraction of light through your atmosphere has rendered a very nice colour this evening."
For those who wonder, I'd like to remind you that my online presence is completely for disinformation purposes. Anything that may appear to be truthful probably isn't, and items that seem impossible could be true.
I'm not paranoid, but I know those who would like to find me. I prefer them looking in places that I'm not. If I'm in the US, you can likely eliminate one of the 18,500 cities.
Your quote "I killed someone" can be taken many ways. If you are a murder suspect, and posted it just after the murder, that's bad. It could relate to a video game. I slaughtered an entire base full of people. Not that I really harmed a single real living creature, nor do I intend to. If it were stated outside of a human context ("I killed the bastard"), it could have been a fly, or a mouse, or some inside reference to something else, such as you made a "bastard burger", consisting of 10 pounds of hamburger, and other assorted goodness. "killing" the "bastard" would mean that you are the whole thing, and you are now being rushed off to the hospital.:)... and back to my statement, there are some folks trying to find me. Not cops, thugs, or hitmen. Just casual annoyances. It's easier for them to not know where I am, than to publicize anything factual. Online acquaintances don't really need to know where I am, unless they'd like to come visit. If they're invited to see me, they'd already know where I really am.
You definitely got the point. I could have been lying. Since I was talking about how I lie online, it could safely be assumed that I was lying, which would then mean that either I don't lie online, or the post was complete fiction, but the fiction would mean that I told the truth.:) I'll assure you, I'm not a depressed writer living in a shack on a beautiful Cuban beach. I'm probably not at the CIA or NSA headquarters, nor Area 51. Then again, maybe I am.:)
I think it would be hilarious if I was asked about my online personas in court, and the questioning followed what I claim online.
It's more like, anything you post online is as private anything you write, photocopy, and send to a few hundred people.
I posted on my Facebook wall a little while back, that anything I write online is disinformation. I know the information is datamined. It will, at some point, be shared with someone you don't want it exposed to. There is a chance something I post is factual. It's true, right down to where my location is.
My fictional online persona has had me drifting around various government facilities and and other remote locations (Rachel, NV; McLean, VA; Fort Meade, Maryland; Wild Goose Chase, Woombah, New South Wales, Australia; etc). Then sometimes I give my real location. Most are virtually impossible to confirm. If I were were at the NSA headquarters, is there any expectation that a random person trying to find me could ask the guard "Is Mr. JW Smythe here?" The response would range from prolonged laughing, to detainment and questioning.
It's not just what I say about myself either. Bouncing through various proxies around the world, if Facebook were subpoenaed for something as simple as the list of IP's that I accessed from, it would be a nonsensical pattern of locations. In a day, I may log in from Moscow, Beijing, London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, or Brasilia.
If I already admitted that most of what I post online is a lie, and any of it was brought up in court to prove anything about me, the judge would would get tired of any line of questioning that related to my online statements, simply because I do, and frequently repeat, that many are complete works of fiction, dressed loosely as fact.
So ya, when I go off on a government or alien conspiracy rant, it isn't because I necessarily believe it. Maybe I do. Maybe I don't. Maybe I've considered writing fictional books, and haven't had a real inspiration to sit down and write hundreds of pages of my best bullshit^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H fiction, to submit to publishing houses and receive the string of rejections, possibly followed by one acceptance, and then have my had word become a $9.95 paperback that I'll find in the $0.50 clearance bin in just a few years. Dejected because the publisher made so much money from me, and for all the hoops I jumped through, I only made a few thousand dollars. Sad and dejected, I sit in my beachfront shack in Cuba. I admire the waves rolling in, and beautiful women on the beach, hoping an approval letter finally comes in, while I churn out more pages of mediocre fiction, knowing that the cycle will repeat endlessly until I die in a few years, with my family not caring where I went, comfortable in the idea that I went with a smile on my face and a local prostitute riding me to my final moments...
Or maybe, just maybe, a good bit of what I write is pure fiction. Data mine that!
That's not terribly surprising. When I was out there, data and voice had frequent drops. Mountains, buildings, and network congestion are the normal reasons. The only people I knew who didn't have problems were the same people who would have dropped calls while talking to someone on a land line. They'd always blame the other persons phone.
There's a nice stretch of road on the 210 between San Fernando and Pasadena, where you were guaranteed not to have phone service. I don't know if that's been fixed up, but I always appreciated that my phone wouldn't ring the whole way through.:)
Down by One Wilshire, calls would drop just because they could. I could be standing in place, not moving the phone around at all, and I'd go from 5 bars to a dropped call and 0 bars, just to have it come back up a minute or so later.
Well, you're right. A treaty is only effective as long as everyone follows it. As soon as a party decides that the treaty blocks something advantageous to them, it will be quickly ignored.
The only reason this will remain effective is that the technology does not exist to defend any space vehicle from attack. Armor plating isn't exactly practical on any of the existing launch systems. Even a single bullet hole into the cabin of any spacecraft will lead to catastrophic life support failures (i.e., all the atmosphere leaking into space. Then there's the fuel that they carry. Consider what a gauss gun or rail gun fired at a shuttle would do if it hit the external fuel tank, either SRB, or the orbiter itself. We've seen what a chunk of foam hitting the shuttle, or a breach of the side of a SRB can do. Any little breach can be catastrophic.
The waitress was in Georgia. They were stopped on Alligator Alley, the stretch of I-75, where it goes East to West across the Southern end of Florida.
This didn't involve any gov't agency leading "terrorist" suspects through acts, nor facilitating wanna-be terrorists to actions beyond their abilities. It was just the government fueled paranoia that made so many American civilians see terrorists behind every bush.
Hell, even I was seen as a terrorist at some point. It wouldn't have been long after that, where I moved across the country. We packed up a 26' U-Haul truck with everything we owned, and drove across the country. We unloaded all of our household stuff at the new apartment, and left my toolbox (the big rolling cabinet type) and a NOS tank in the truck. We then drove it to a coworkers house to store it.
On the final leg of the drive, the NOS tank came loose and went flying to the front of the truck, when yet another idiot driver cut me off (how do you not see a 26' moving truck?). The popoff valve started leaking.
When we got there, I saw the tank spraying NOS. The tank was completely covered in frost (releasing a gas under pressure results in cooling the container). I tossed the tank out of the truck into the grass right beside where it was parked, and opened the valve so it would release all the pressure, and got a bit of frostbite on my hands. I then went back to the garage to talk with my coworker. Mental note, NOS being released in a confined area can be make you light headed.:)
A neighbor saw the tank in the grass, and immediately thought "terrorist!" She called the police. When it was done releasing the gas, I walked over to get it, so I could put it in the garage. She came over and asked if it was mine. Since I'm a clean cut white man, obviously I wasn't what the government hyped as a "terrorist". I explained what it was, with a technical description of an oxidizer, that it was perfectly safe as long there wasn't spraying into a fire, etc. She told me what she had done, apologized, and suggested I should probably hurry to leave, as the police would be there soon. She promised to tell the police what I said when they arrive. I left, and the police didn't catch me, but it could have been a lot worse.
There's a pesky thing that the US and a few other countries (those with space programs, and those who wanted to play nice with the US, Russia, and China) have ratified named the "Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies", or simply "Space Treaty". One of the major points of it is the agreement that no one will militarize space.
If anyone did militarize space, it would be nasty. It would either curtail all space exploration, or cause some pretty nasty wars. All the countries with space programs are very limited to what they can do right now. We can worry about nukes raining down from space, but for as much effort is involved, it could easily be eliminated at the cost of billions of dollars and a few lives. Consider if the shuttle were completely packed with any weapons. That would be a total capacity of approximately 8,400 pounds. Sure, it saves the required fuel capacity, but it's only the equivalent of a single Trident II warhead. It would still require fuel for it's deorbit burn. It's a lot cheaper and easier to have ground, sea, and air based deployment systems in place.
If any country were to militarize space, they wouldn't have a distinct advantage, because there are too many traditional deployment systems in place that meet or exceed the capability.
If, for example, the US did militarize space with the space shuttle, it wouldn't be long before future missions would be under threat of being shot down. Since too many countries depend on each other to make space missions work, it's not advantageous for any of them to create such a situation.
But hey, if it'd get humanity back into serious space missions, maybe it's not a bad idea. Being that it's been decades since a human was any farther than just orbiting the Earth, it may not be all that bad. Well, until some country sets up a space based weapons platform. We have enough problems with the existing weapons systems, do we need to even consider having any more?
I'd make fun of you, but I've seen it happen plenty of times.
I'm not much of a hypochondriac, so I avoid going to the doctor until it's very obvious I have a problem that I went to the doctor once, because I was really sick. 104 fever, and I woke up feeling like I was drowning (serious fluid buildup in my lungs). My ex-wife (wife at the time) drove me to the doctor, because I didn't feel coordinated enough to drive the 2 miles to the doctors office.
I'm sure you've been through the exercise, where the doctor listens to your lungs from the front and back. It's normally a good thorough exam, listening to quite a few places. He listened to two spots at the bottom of my chest, and then one at the top, and immediately started writing out prescriptions. Yup, I was barely moving any air.
Then my wife said "I'm sick too.". He checked across her back and said "well, I don't hear anything wrong, but I'll give you antibiotics just in case." She was really upset that he didn't prescribe her the hydrocodone cough syrup. I spent most of the next 3 days sitting outside on the porch with a trash can beside me, coughing up so much phlegm, it looked like I was puking.
It can be annoying, where it's a competition for some people to be sick too. I have chronic back problems. 3 herniated disks, and hydromyelia/syringomyelia. When people ask me about it, I hear a lot of people say "mine hurts sometimes too." Sure, they hurt, but they've never have been in so much pain where they end up laying on the floor, unable to stand up, or even crawl to somewhere more comfortable to lay down. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, I wish it wasn't me.
That's why it's always fun to go to the hospital and say "I don't feel good. I've felt like this for the last couple months. I was looking online and I'm pretty sure I have Ebola"
Just kidding, I've never done that. Well, never been serious when I did.:)
I wonder how many people have watched Discovery channel, House, or whatever show with some obscure ailment, and then rush off to the hospital sure that their lingering ailment is what they just showed.
What the world (or at least the USA) really needs is a virus that spreads quickly, but only kills lawyers, and harmlessly making everyone else a carrier.
Everyone knows that lawyers aren't human. They are a strange and unusual species, that very little is known about. Vertebrates without a spine. Sentient life without a soul. You get the picture. I doubt we could engineer a virus to kill them anytime soon. There's only one way to solve it. We'll build 3 arks...
12 Monkeys had a superior method to the other two. Accidental release would rarely have the intended effect. Nearly simultaneous release at major airports in Philadelphia, San Francisco, New Orleans, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, Kinshasa, Karachi, Bangkock, Beijing. With say a 3 day incubation period, those infected and contagious would continue to spread the virus to all other international and regional airports, and from there, it would be spread to virtually every community in the world.
In the other movies, the Krippen Virus had an incubation period of minutes to hours (if I recall correctly). The Rage Virus had an incubation period of seconds. With such such short incubation periods, it's doubtful infection would continue over any significant distance. They make for good zombie apocalypse movies though.:)
A virus that requires minimal exposure to cause infection, and a prolonged infection to symptom period would be ideal. It would also take forever to cause a profound impact. If the infected died 10 to 20 years after infection, it may be too long.
The way it usually works is this. The undercover officer isn't inciting the action, they are simply playing the part of someone friendly to such actions. Anything they do is by their own free will, and he was monitoring, and doing what it took to maintain his cover. If the organizers ordered him, for example, to acquire explosives, to maintain his cover he would need to acquire the requested materials. If he was unaware of the purpose for the materials, it would be impossible to introduce decoy materials. For example, if they were to use a portion to test or practice with, the decoy would be exposed prior to the commission of the major crime. In that, the operative would be considered useless and would likely be removed from the group.
That's not to say I agree with it. A government operative who facilitates a group to do something they would otherwise be unable to do is simply exposing a non-threat, and prosecuting people for something that they would have not managed to do on their own.
There have been recent cases here in the US, where "potential terrorists" were identified, and organized by undercover FBI agent(s). On their own, they would have just been a bunch of idiots talking shit and unable to form a viable plan on their own. With the organization and supplies provided by the FBI (or other government agencies), they created the viable threat, and then were able to prosecute that threat.
I'm surprised how dumb potential threats are. They are unable to figure out how to make explosives, or carry on a tactical threat. It's good that those who want to commit such crimes are too dumb to do it on their own.
Recurring payments are a bitch for customers, and are better than gold for businesses.
A while back, I worked for an Internet based company, who had recurring memberships. As the company evolved, the offered products changed. In a review of the old products, it was determined that there were no more users, so we ended that product line. About 6 months to a year later, I was reviewing some other information, including a passing glance at the expired account line. Oh look, there were still hundreds (probably thousands) of paying members, being billed at $19.99 to $29.99 per month. During that period, we didn't receive a single complaint. The emails had been forwarded to an active product line's support account, and the phones were still being actively managed for current product lines.
At least we recognized the error. We put their accounts to a $40/mo product line, but they continued to be billed at their previous price. Still, no complaints. Pretty much, those users never used their accounts, so they simply didn't care. If they did ever come back, they got more than they paid for.
A year or two later, there were still about 75% of the accounts active. The rest had canceled on their own, or their credit cards were declined (probably expired, or canceled).
Actually, to get 75% you need at least 4 people.:)
According to their Q3 2010 SEC filing, they made $244.8 million from subscriptions for the quarter. That would average to $81.6 million per month. At 75% being screwed, that is $61.2 million in revenue just for those At $50/mo (noted by others in the Slashdot comments), makes for 122,400 paying users per month, or 0.04% of the US population. Hmm, that's a lot lower than I had expected, but I'm very happy to know it.
I have known people who do still have the full service, just so they can keep their AOL address. I try to encourage them over to non-isp locked solutions (gmail, hotmail, whatever). They ususally feel locked into paying AOL, regardless of the available options.
I'd have to think, for stability a laser emitter and binoculars or low range telescope on a rifle stock would be better. photographers using telescopic lenses have been doing this for a long time, especially for nature shooting, where a tripod isn't practical.
For most folks who just picked up a cheap laser emitter, it doesn't exactly seem like they'd want to spend the money for binoculars nor a rifle stock. Unless of course they already have a binocular or telescope, and a BB rifle.
I wonder how many of these incidents aren't malicious. There are plenty of laser devices for stage and outdoor performances too. In 2008, the FAA statistics say there were about 31.8 million flights. I assume the number of flights for 2010 is similar or greater than the 2008 number. If so, this involved 0.009% of the flights.
Have you ever been to a shooting range, where someone was using a laser sight? It can be very scary. Most people can't point a gun steady enough to keep the point on the paper. That's only at a range of a few feet. Years back, I had a laser pointer, and lived in a 2nd floor apartment. At night when there was no traffic, I'd point it at street signs and tail lights of parked cars (they both reflect very well). Ok, I was young, and bored. I have steady hands, and can shoot firearms more accurately than most people. I could put the point on them very accurately at say 100 feet. At any significant distance (say 200'+), the beam divergence was pretty significant, so it had to hit something reflective to see it at all. As the range increased beyond that, the divergence would become greater (obviously), and even with a point the size of a truck, it was hard to put on target.
At my local airport (a fairly busy international airport), the traffic pattern is at 1,500 feet (about 1,000 feet higher than any local structures). The FAA recommendation for the traffic pattern is 1,000 feet AGL, unless local conditions warrant otherwise (mountains, buildings, or noise abatement rules). So if it's hard to put a laser pointer dot accurately on something as big as a parked truck at around 200 feet or so, it would be damned near impossible to stay on a target at 1000+ feet traveling at 160mph.
The other option would be that it's common to spot commercial entertainment lasers, from say outdoor concerts, theme parks, etc. They are not permitted to point any laser towards the eyes of the audience. Their only choice is to point them up. With that being true, a 0.009% chance of a pilot seeing a laser likely coincides with the chance of an aircraft intersecting the beam while in the pattern or on approach. Any higher than that, I'd say a pilot probably wouldn't even notice the dim light, or at best it would look like any other lights on the ground.
I've only ever heard of two instances where someone was caught shining lasers at aircraft. One was a guy who had purchased a high power laser, and was caught when he was pointing it at a police helicopter (stable target, low altitude, ability to follow it to the offender). The other was the incident cited in the article, which would not be included in the FAA's statistics. With such little evidence of who the offenders are, it leaves plenty of opportunity for the evidence of pilots seeing lasers to be circumstantial at best in saying that the offenders were actually intentionally committing the acts.
Sadly enough, that has been suggested by some more cooperative managers over the years. Basically, they'd tell me "I can't tell you to do it, nor can I approve of it, but if it mysteriously happens I won't know how it did."
Unfortunately, I've had to apply this over the years. "I can't say to do it. I don't know anything about it. It would be nice if it happened, and I won't look into how it happened." That is usually followed by "hypothetical" discussion on how it could be done, before I walk away. In reality, folks that work for me know they need approval from me, officially or otherwise, so "mysterious fixes" are never done with potential hazards to the infrastructure.
I don't know about you, but after a flight, I never have time to charge my phone. I'm off the plane, down to get my luggage, and out.
During the flight, I'm rarely concerned with charging anything. My battery only lasts about 1.5 hours, so if I take it out I'm doing 1.5 hours worth of work, not charging my phone. Getting my laptop out is usually a trick though on most flights, unless I get a first class upgrade. It's usually just a good time to relax, drink a few overpriced drinks, and watch the crappy in-flight movie.
That's why I put a smiley face after that. Elevators are metal boxes in steel reinforced concrete chambers. Obviously, monitoring towers won't show it.:)
Actually, I worked in an odd office building for a while. We were on the 9th of 13 stories. (12 + elevator room). It's in a very flat area (most of Florida), with no surrounding buildings. From the windows, we had line of sight to the local towers. There were also antennas on the roof. On the roof, cell phones worked fine. At ground level, they also worked fine. Standing by a window, service was horrible. Standing more towards the middle of the floor, phones worked. After a bit of experimenting, we found that standing by a wall worked, but by the windows didn't work.
The construction was fairly modern. It was a center column and frame construction (elevators and bathrooms in the middle, nothing supporting between there and the outside walls). As it turned out, there was something metallic in the window tint. We trimmed a hole in the tint for another reason, so I tried my theory. My phone worked perfectly when it was by the hole, and I lost service by moving it a few inches over so it was behind the tint.
So, our guesses on why things are, aren't always right. But hey, it's just phone service, right?:)
You're a little off on this. Just a little though.
I had an app on my Blackberry, that would log every time it connected to a tower. I was using it to track service issues in some rural areas. I accidentally left it on during a trip. According to the log, it did successfully reach towers. Judging by the spread, it wasn't enough to actually maintain a conversation, but it was enough for the tower's ID to be logged. Along the US East coast, it saw approximately 10 towers from Florida to New Jersey. That range was selected, because it excludes all towers received during ascent and descent. As could be expected, there were significantly more towers reached on approach, as this part of the flight involves a longer time at lower altitudes.
When plotting the information, the graphs are horribly polluted by pre and post flight periods, where I was driving around the airports, and in the cities. Driving, I'd see towers very frequently, spaced not more than a few miles apart in rural areas. If the towers were spread more than a few miles apart, there would be a lack of service. For my purposes, it showed where the local poor service areas are, so I'd know where not to attempt to maintain a conversation. The maps still haven't explained why service drops in the elevator at work.:)
Back to your assertion, I've read a number of FAA reports on electronics in-flight. They are the exception, not the rule. The most significant interruptions were due to an odd-ball piece of equipment disturbing the autopilot. For example, a single Nintendo Gameboy would cause the autopilot to enter a slow bank, 5 degrees if I remember correctly. The pilot did work with the flight crew and passengers to identify the unit. They bought the Gameboy from the passenger for further testing. Subsequent tests with numerous Gameboy units identical to the unit in question did not cause the same problem. So, it was an irregularity in a single unit.
The best reason for leaving your cell phone off during flight is your own battery life. When service is weak or nonexistant, your phone increases it's transmit power to try to reach towers. This will run the battery down fairly quickly. You can lose a significant portion of your battery life during a 4 hour flight. If you expect to use your phone when you land, it's a pretty good idea to turn it off before takeoff. Really, why would you leave it on? If you try to use it for anything, the flight crew will get pissy with you, even if you're just playing games with the transmitter off. You're not going to be able to make calls, or send/receive texts, except for maybe a few seconds at a time during flight. So leaving it on, you're just trying to be rebellious. Most of us gave up on such silly things when we were teenagers. "No mom, I won't turn off my phone, and there's nothing you can do about it. I left it on in my pocket. nah-nah. I beat you." See, it's very silly.
Slashdot Mirror
I gave up reading after what would have been the first 5 pages of magazine print. I didn't even get to the subject material. What do they want to do, make a registry web site for refugees world wide?
We already have plenty of infrastructure for such things. Friends and family know our email addresses, social media presences (facebook, myspace, etc). The problem here is, we're talking about people who likely didn't have Internet access before. For those in refugee camps, getting online to check their email is pretty low on the priority list, where food, clothing, shelter, and security are far more essential. I doubt too many people are screaming "I want to check my email." rather than "I need food."
I had thought about setting up something similar in the past. After Katrina, DirecTV had a channel set up for broadcasting names, locations, and simple messages to friends and family. For those who were in the evacuee camps, they were worried about the essentials, and weren't watching DirecTV. Modern conveniences are less likely to be useful, when you have two individuals who were separated, and probably living in one of the worst places they'd ever been.
I worked in a hurricane shelter once. It was pretty early in the Internet days. There were a few thousand people there. They were running on generators, but they had one computer set up. Since I could type fast (>100wpm), I was entering all the evacuee information into the stand-alone computer for the Red Cross. The building had internet access, but since there was no power (other than our generators) and the phones and network were down, it wasn't going anywhere any time quick. The information may have later been integrated into another database, but I have no idea. I don't work for the Red Cross, I was just a random volunteer helping out. I didn't just sit on the computer, I helped people remain calm, served drinks when they came in, and helped unload and distribute mattresses that the local jail had sent over. Most of the people there were tired, scared, and didn't know what to do, other than keep their family and friends close. That's about all you can do at that point. Try to remain calm, and keep those you care about safe and close to you.
The more important part may be, why does the person drive a SUV? Do they have 6+ passengers on a regular basis? Do they have to carry large/heavy cargo? Do they need to tow trailers? While I'll agree there are people with SUV's that don't need them, there are plenty of people who do buy the appropriate vehicle for their purpose.
But hey, soccer mom with two kids who gets her husband to buy groceries because they're "too heavy" or she "may break a nail", doesn't need a F650 XUV, to drive 30 miles for daily her manicure, and shuttling the kids between places that she can drop them so she doesn't actually have to deal with them.
I've been considering buying a SUV, only because I do have large cargo to move on occasion. Those would be the occasions I'd drive it. Otherwise, I'd drive my car.
Hey, welcome to the planet. Have you been here long? You don't happen to have a working exit, do you? I've been stuck here for a long time. They commemorated my arrival with two coin coins (1 2), which was very nice of them. I never did get around to finding out what they said. I didn't actually land until I was on the next large landmass, that they now call "America". Well, land may not have been the correct term. Swimming for an Earth day to reach land, because my landing pod is at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean is more accurate. I was very lucky some locals some locals saw it, and came out with their small wooden boats to help me. They were an interesting bunch. Too bad relations didn't go so well with another indigenous group a bit later on.
I'd ask where you're from, but in my travels I've learned it's impossible to know or have visited even a fraction of what's out there. The humans are starting to understand though. They've come a long way in the last 100 years. In the next 1,000 years, they should really start understanding their place in the universe.
Even though I've been here a while, I'm still learning how to behave like one. The ones close to me are quick to identify that I'm not one of them, regardless of how well it seems I emulate their behavior. Thanks for the tip on spelling. I always thought their errors were due to their limited utilization of their available mental capacity, or due to their strange concept of different linguistic patterns by area. I wasn't aware that it was a cultural behavior to show their humanity.
How is this? "The refraction of light through your atmosphere has rendered a very nice colour this evening."
I posted this:
Your quote "I killed someone" can be taken many ways. If you are a murder suspect, and posted it just after the murder, that's bad. It could relate to a video game. I slaughtered an entire base full of people. Not that I really harmed a single real living creature, nor do I intend to. If it were stated outside of a human context ("I killed the bastard"), it could have been a fly, or a mouse, or some inside reference to something else, such as you made a "bastard burger", consisting of 10 pounds of hamburger, and other assorted goodness. "killing" the "bastard" would mean that you are the whole thing, and you are now being rushed off to the hospital. :) ... and back to my statement, there are some folks trying to find me. Not cops, thugs, or hitmen. Just casual annoyances. It's easier for them to not know where I am, than to publicize anything factual. Online acquaintances don't really need to know where I am, unless they'd like to come visit. If they're invited to see me, they'd already know where I really am.
You definitely got the point. I could have been lying. Since I was talking about how I lie online, it could safely be assumed that I was lying, which would then mean that either I don't lie online, or the post was complete fiction, but the fiction would mean that I told the truth. :) I'll assure you, I'm not a depressed writer living in a shack on a beautiful Cuban beach. I'm probably not at the CIA or NSA headquarters, nor Area 51. Then again, maybe I am. :)
I think it would be hilarious if I was asked about my online personas in court, and the questioning followed what I claim online.
It's more like, anything you post online is as private anything you write, photocopy, and send to a few hundred people.
I posted on my Facebook wall a little while back, that anything I write online is disinformation. I know the information is datamined. It will, at some point, be shared with someone you don't want it exposed to. There is a chance something I post is factual. It's true, right down to where my location is.
My fictional online persona has had me drifting around various government facilities and and other remote locations (Rachel, NV; McLean, VA; Fort Meade, Maryland; Wild Goose Chase, Woombah, New South Wales, Australia; etc). Then sometimes I give my real location. Most are virtually impossible to confirm. If I were were at the NSA headquarters, is there any expectation that a random person trying to find me could ask the guard "Is Mr. JW Smythe here?" The response would range from prolonged laughing, to detainment and questioning.
It's not just what I say about myself either. Bouncing through various proxies around the world, if Facebook were subpoenaed for something as simple as the list of IP's that I accessed from, it would be a nonsensical pattern of locations. In a day, I may log in from Moscow, Beijing, London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, or Brasilia.
If I already admitted that most of what I post online is a lie, and any of it was brought up in court to prove anything about me, the judge would would get tired of any line of questioning that related to my online statements, simply because I do, and frequently repeat, that many are complete works of fiction, dressed loosely as fact.
So ya, when I go off on a government or alien conspiracy rant, it isn't because I necessarily believe it. Maybe I do. Maybe I don't. Maybe I've considered writing fictional books, and haven't had a real inspiration to sit down and write hundreds of pages of my best bullshit^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H fiction, to submit to publishing houses and receive the string of rejections, possibly followed by one acceptance, and then have my had word become a $9.95 paperback that I'll find in the $0.50 clearance bin in just a few years. Dejected because the publisher made so much money from me, and for all the hoops I jumped through, I only made a few thousand dollars. Sad and dejected, I sit in my beachfront shack in Cuba. I admire the waves rolling in, and beautiful women on the beach, hoping an approval letter finally comes in, while I churn out more pages of mediocre fiction, knowing that the cycle will repeat endlessly until I die in a few years, with my family not caring where I went, comfortable in the idea that I went with a smile on my face and a local prostitute riding me to my final moments...
Or maybe, just maybe, a good bit of what I write is pure fiction. Data mine that!
That's not terribly surprising. When I was out there, data and voice had frequent drops. Mountains, buildings, and network congestion are the normal reasons. The only people I knew who didn't have problems were the same people who would have dropped calls while talking to someone on a land line. They'd always blame the other persons phone.
There's a nice stretch of road on the 210 between San Fernando and Pasadena, where you were guaranteed not to have phone service. I don't know if that's been fixed up, but I always appreciated that my phone wouldn't ring the whole way through. :)
Down by One Wilshire, calls would drop just because they could. I could be standing in place, not moving the phone around at all, and I'd go from 5 bars to a dropped call and 0 bars, just to have it come back up a minute or so later.
Well, you're right. A treaty is only effective as long as everyone follows it. As soon as a party decides that the treaty blocks something advantageous to them, it will be quickly ignored.
The only reason this will remain effective is that the technology does not exist to defend any space vehicle from attack. Armor plating isn't exactly practical on any of the existing launch systems. Even a single bullet hole into the cabin of any spacecraft will lead to catastrophic life support failures (i.e., all the atmosphere leaking into space. Then there's the fuel that they carry. Consider what a gauss gun or rail gun fired at a shuttle would do if it hit the external fuel tank, either SRB, or the orbiter itself. We've seen what a chunk of foam hitting the shuttle, or a breach of the side of a SRB can do. Any little breach can be catastrophic.
I believe I was still living in Tampa during that period (I was moving around for work at the time), and don't remember anything about it.
Thanks for the info though, it gave me enough to find a little something on it. I found this blurb, and this more complete story.
The waitress was in Georgia. They were stopped on Alligator Alley, the stretch of I-75, where it goes East to West across the Southern end of Florida.
This didn't involve any gov't agency leading "terrorist" suspects through acts, nor facilitating wanna-be terrorists to actions beyond their abilities. It was just the government fueled paranoia that made so many American civilians see terrorists behind every bush.
Hell, even I was seen as a terrorist at some point. It wouldn't have been long after that, where I moved across the country. We packed up a 26' U-Haul truck with everything we owned, and drove across the country. We unloaded all of our household stuff at the new apartment, and left my toolbox (the big rolling cabinet type) and a NOS tank in the truck. We then drove it to a coworkers house to store it.
On the final leg of the drive, the NOS tank came loose and went flying to the front of the truck, when yet another idiot driver cut me off (how do you not see a 26' moving truck?). The popoff valve started leaking.
When we got there, I saw the tank spraying NOS. The tank was completely covered in frost (releasing a gas under pressure results in cooling the container). I tossed the tank out of the truck into the grass right beside where it was parked, and opened the valve so it would release all the pressure, and got a bit of frostbite on my hands. I then went back to the garage to talk with my coworker. Mental note, NOS being released in a confined area can be make you light headed. :)
A neighbor saw the tank in the grass, and immediately thought "terrorist!" She called the police. When it was done releasing the gas, I walked over to get it, so I could put it in the garage. She came over and asked if it was mine. Since I'm a clean cut white man, obviously I wasn't what the government hyped as a "terrorist". I explained what it was, with a technical description of an oxidizer, that it was perfectly safe as long there wasn't spraying into a fire, etc. She told me what she had done, apologized, and suggested I should probably hurry to leave, as the police would be there soon. She promised to tell the police what I said when they arrive. I left, and the police didn't catch me, but it could have been a lot worse.
There's a pesky thing that the US and a few other countries (those with space programs, and those who wanted to play nice with the US, Russia, and China) have ratified named the "Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies", or simply "Space Treaty". One of the major points of it is the agreement that no one will militarize space.
If anyone did militarize space, it would be nasty. It would either curtail all space exploration, or cause some pretty nasty wars. All the countries with space programs are very limited to what they can do right now. We can worry about nukes raining down from space, but for as much effort is involved, it could easily be eliminated at the cost of billions of dollars and a few lives. Consider if the shuttle were completely packed with any weapons. That would be a total capacity of approximately 8,400 pounds. Sure, it saves the required fuel capacity, but it's only the equivalent of a single Trident II warhead. It would still require fuel for it's deorbit burn. It's a lot cheaper and easier to have ground, sea, and air based deployment systems in place.
If any country were to militarize space, they wouldn't have a distinct advantage, because there are too many traditional deployment systems in place that meet or exceed the capability.
If, for example, the US did militarize space with the space shuttle, it wouldn't be long before future missions would be under threat of being shot down. Since too many countries depend on each other to make space missions work, it's not advantageous for any of them to create such a situation.
But hey, if it'd get humanity back into serious space missions, maybe it's not a bad idea. Being that it's been decades since a human was any farther than just orbiting the Earth, it may not be all that bad. Well, until some country sets up a space based weapons platform. We have enough problems with the existing weapons systems, do we need to even consider having any more?
Can you find a link for that? I can't seem to find anything about it, and I don't recall that incident.
I'd make fun of you, but I've seen it happen plenty of times.
I'm not much of a hypochondriac, so I avoid going to the doctor until it's very obvious I have a problem that I went to the doctor once, because I was really sick. 104 fever, and I woke up feeling like I was drowning (serious fluid buildup in my lungs). My ex-wife (wife at the time) drove me to the doctor, because I didn't feel coordinated enough to drive the 2 miles to the doctors office.
I'm sure you've been through the exercise, where the doctor listens to your lungs from the front and back. It's normally a good thorough exam, listening to quite a few places. He listened to two spots at the bottom of my chest, and then one at the top, and immediately started writing out prescriptions. Yup, I was barely moving any air.
Then my wife said "I'm sick too.". He checked across her back and said "well, I don't hear anything wrong, but I'll give you antibiotics just in case." She was really upset that he didn't prescribe her the hydrocodone cough syrup. I spent most of the next 3 days sitting outside on the porch with a trash can beside me, coughing up so much phlegm, it looked like I was puking.
It can be annoying, where it's a competition for some people to be sick too. I have chronic back problems. 3 herniated disks, and hydromyelia/syringomyelia. When people ask me about it, I hear a lot of people say "mine hurts sometimes too." Sure, they hurt, but they've never have been in so much pain where they end up laying on the floor, unable to stand up, or even crawl to somewhere more comfortable to lay down. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, I wish it wasn't me.
That's why it's always fun to go to the hospital and say "I don't feel good. I've felt like this for the last couple months. I was looking online and I'm pretty sure I have Ebola"
Just kidding, I've never done that. Well, never been serious when I did. :)
I wonder how many people have watched Discovery channel, House, or whatever show with some obscure ailment, and then rush off to the hospital sure that their lingering ailment is what they just showed.
Everyone knows that lawyers aren't human. They are a strange and unusual species, that very little is known about. Vertebrates without a spine. Sentient life without a soul. You get the picture. I doubt we could engineer a virus to kill them anytime soon. There's only one way to solve it. We'll build 3 arks...
12 Monkeys had a superior method to the other two. Accidental release would rarely have the intended effect. Nearly simultaneous release at major airports in Philadelphia, San Francisco, New Orleans, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, Kinshasa, Karachi, Bangkock, Beijing. With say a 3 day incubation period, those infected and contagious would continue to spread the virus to all other international and regional airports, and from there, it would be spread to virtually every community in the world.
In the other movies, the Krippen Virus had an incubation period of minutes to hours (if I recall correctly). The Rage Virus had an incubation period of seconds. With such such short incubation periods, it's doubtful infection would continue over any significant distance. They make for good zombie apocalypse movies though. :)
A virus that requires minimal exposure to cause infection, and a prolonged infection to symptom period would be ideal. It would also take forever to cause a profound impact. If the infected died 10 to 20 years after infection, it may be too long.
The way it usually works is this. The undercover officer isn't inciting the action, they are simply playing the part of someone friendly to such actions. Anything they do is by their own free will, and he was monitoring, and doing what it took to maintain his cover. If the organizers ordered him, for example, to acquire explosives, to maintain his cover he would need to acquire the requested materials. If he was unaware of the purpose for the materials, it would be impossible to introduce decoy materials. For example, if they were to use a portion to test or practice with, the decoy would be exposed prior to the commission of the major crime. In that, the operative would be considered useless and would likely be removed from the group.
That's not to say I agree with it. A government operative who facilitates a group to do something they would otherwise be unable to do is simply exposing a non-threat, and prosecuting people for something that they would have not managed to do on their own.
There have been recent cases here in the US, where "potential terrorists" were identified, and organized by undercover FBI agent(s). On their own, they would have just been a bunch of idiots talking shit and unable to form a viable plan on their own. With the organization and supplies provided by the FBI (or other government agencies), they created the viable threat, and then were able to prosecute that threat.
I'm surprised how dumb potential threats are. They are unable to figure out how to make explosives, or carry on a tactical threat. It's good that those who want to commit such crimes are too dumb to do it on their own.
Don't hold your breath. ... well, it may be a good idea to hold your breath. If you pass out, you may not be awake for the worst parts.
Recurring payments are a bitch for customers, and are better than gold for businesses.
A while back, I worked for an Internet based company, who had recurring memberships. As the company evolved, the offered products changed. In a review of the old products, it was determined that there were no more users, so we ended that product line. About 6 months to a year later, I was reviewing some other information, including a passing glance at the expired account line. Oh look, there were still hundreds (probably thousands) of paying members, being billed at $19.99 to $29.99 per month. During that period, we didn't receive a single complaint. The emails had been forwarded to an active product line's support account, and the phones were still being actively managed for current product lines.
At least we recognized the error. We put their accounts to a $40/mo product line, but they continued to be billed at their previous price. Still, no complaints. Pretty much, those users never used their accounts, so they simply didn't care. If they did ever come back, they got more than they paid for.
A year or two later, there were still about 75% of the accounts active. The rest had canceled on their own, or their credit cards were declined (probably expired, or canceled).
Actually, to get 75% you need at least 4 people. :)
According to their Q3 2010 SEC filing, they made $244.8 million from subscriptions for the quarter. That would average to $81.6 million per month. At 75% being screwed, that is $61.2 million in revenue just for those At $50/mo (noted by others in the Slashdot comments), makes for 122,400 paying users per month, or 0.04% of the US population. Hmm, that's a lot lower than I had expected, but I'm very happy to know it.
I have known people who do still have the full service, just so they can keep their AOL address. I try to encourage them over to non-isp locked solutions (gmail, hotmail, whatever). They ususally feel locked into paying AOL, regardless of the available options.
Damn, I knew I shouldn't have Google'd Autistici to see what the hell they were about. Click one link, get a terrorist charge in Italy.
I'd have to think, for stability a laser emitter and binoculars or low range telescope on a rifle stock would be better. photographers using telescopic lenses have been doing this for a long time, especially for nature shooting, where a tripod isn't practical.
For most folks who just picked up a cheap laser emitter, it doesn't exactly seem like they'd want to spend the money for binoculars nor a rifle stock. Unless of course they already have a binocular or telescope, and a BB rifle.
I wonder how many of these incidents aren't malicious. There are plenty of laser devices for stage and outdoor performances too. In 2008, the FAA statistics say there were about 31.8 million flights. I assume the number of flights for 2010 is similar or greater than the 2008 number. If so, this involved 0.009% of the flights.
Have you ever been to a shooting range, where someone was using a laser sight? It can be very scary. Most people can't point a gun steady enough to keep the point on the paper. That's only at a range of a few feet. Years back, I had a laser pointer, and lived in a 2nd floor apartment. At night when there was no traffic, I'd point it at street signs and tail lights of parked cars (they both reflect very well). Ok, I was young, and bored. I have steady hands, and can shoot firearms more accurately than most people. I could put the point on them very accurately at say 100 feet. At any significant distance (say 200'+), the beam divergence was pretty significant, so it had to hit something reflective to see it at all. As the range increased beyond that, the divergence would become greater (obviously), and even with a point the size of a truck, it was hard to put on target.
At my local airport (a fairly busy international airport), the traffic pattern is at 1,500 feet (about 1,000 feet higher than any local structures). The FAA recommendation for the traffic pattern is 1,000 feet AGL, unless local conditions warrant otherwise (mountains, buildings, or noise abatement rules). So if it's hard to put a laser pointer dot accurately on something as big as a parked truck at around 200 feet or so, it would be damned near impossible to stay on a target at 1000+ feet traveling at 160mph.
The other option would be that it's common to spot commercial entertainment lasers, from say outdoor concerts, theme parks, etc. They are not permitted to point any laser towards the eyes of the audience. Their only choice is to point them up. With that being true, a 0.009% chance of a pilot seeing a laser likely coincides with the chance of an aircraft intersecting the beam while in the pattern or on approach. Any higher than that, I'd say a pilot probably wouldn't even notice the dim light, or at best it would look like any other lights on the ground.
I've only ever heard of two instances where someone was caught shining lasers at aircraft. One was a guy who had purchased a high power laser, and was caught when he was pointing it at a police helicopter (stable target, low altitude, ability to follow it to the offender). The other was the incident cited in the article, which would not be included in the FAA's statistics. With such little evidence of who the offenders are, it leaves plenty of opportunity for the evidence of pilots seeing lasers to be circumstantial at best in saying that the offenders were actually intentionally committing the acts.
Sorry for rambling on there. :)
Sadly enough, that has been suggested by some more cooperative managers over the years. Basically, they'd tell me "I can't tell you to do it, nor can I approve of it, but if it mysteriously happens I won't know how it did."
Unfortunately, I've had to apply this over the years. "I can't say to do it. I don't know anything about it. It would be nice if it happened, and I won't look into how it happened." That is usually followed by "hypothetical" discussion on how it could be done, before I walk away. In reality, folks that work for me know they need approval from me, officially or otherwise, so "mysterious fixes" are never done with potential hazards to the infrastructure.
I don't know about you, but after a flight, I never have time to charge my phone. I'm off the plane, down to get my luggage, and out.
During the flight, I'm rarely concerned with charging anything. My battery only lasts about 1.5 hours, so if I take it out I'm doing 1.5 hours worth of work, not charging my phone. Getting my laptop out is usually a trick though on most flights, unless I get a first class upgrade. It's usually just a good time to relax, drink a few overpriced drinks, and watch the crappy in-flight movie.
That's why I put a smiley face after that. Elevators are metal boxes in steel reinforced concrete chambers. Obviously, monitoring towers won't show it. :)
Actually, I worked in an odd office building for a while. We were on the 9th of 13 stories. (12 + elevator room). It's in a very flat area (most of Florida), with no surrounding buildings. From the windows, we had line of sight to the local towers. There were also antennas on the roof. On the roof, cell phones worked fine. At ground level, they also worked fine. Standing by a window, service was horrible. Standing more towards the middle of the floor, phones worked. After a bit of experimenting, we found that standing by a wall worked, but by the windows didn't work.
The construction was fairly modern. It was a center column and frame construction (elevators and bathrooms in the middle, nothing supporting between there and the outside walls). As it turned out, there was something metallic in the window tint. We trimmed a hole in the tint for another reason, so I tried my theory. My phone worked perfectly when it was by the hole, and I lost service by moving it a few inches over so it was behind the tint.
So, our guesses on why things are, aren't always right. But hey, it's just phone service, right? :)
You're a little off on this. Just a little though.
I had an app on my Blackberry, that would log every time it connected to a tower. I was using it to track service issues in some rural areas. I accidentally left it on during a trip. According to the log, it did successfully reach towers. Judging by the spread, it wasn't enough to actually maintain a conversation, but it was enough for the tower's ID to be logged. Along the US East coast, it saw approximately 10 towers from Florida to New Jersey. That range was selected, because it excludes all towers received during ascent and descent. As could be expected, there were significantly more towers reached on approach, as this part of the flight involves a longer time at lower altitudes.
When plotting the information, the graphs are horribly polluted by pre and post flight periods, where I was driving around the airports, and in the cities. Driving, I'd see towers very frequently, spaced not more than a few miles apart in rural areas. If the towers were spread more than a few miles apart, there would be a lack of service. For my purposes, it showed where the local poor service areas are, so I'd know where not to attempt to maintain a conversation. The maps still haven't explained why service drops in the elevator at work. :)
Back to your assertion, I've read a number of FAA reports on electronics in-flight. They are the exception, not the rule. The most significant interruptions were due to an odd-ball piece of equipment disturbing the autopilot. For example, a single Nintendo Gameboy would cause the autopilot to enter a slow bank, 5 degrees if I remember correctly. The pilot did work with the flight crew and passengers to identify the unit. They bought the Gameboy from the passenger for further testing. Subsequent tests with numerous Gameboy units identical to the unit in question did not cause the same problem. So, it was an irregularity in a single unit.
The best reason for leaving your cell phone off during flight is your own battery life. When service is weak or nonexistant, your phone increases it's transmit power to try to reach towers. This will run the battery down fairly quickly. You can lose a significant portion of your battery life during a 4 hour flight. If you expect to use your phone when you land, it's a pretty good idea to turn it off before takeoff. Really, why would you leave it on? If you try to use it for anything, the flight crew will get pissy with you, even if you're just playing games with the transmitter off. You're not going to be able to make calls, or send/receive texts, except for maybe a few seconds at a time during flight. So leaving it on, you're just trying to be rebellious. Most of us gave up on such silly things when we were teenagers. "No mom, I won't turn off my phone, and there's nothing you can do about it. I left it on in my pocket. nah-nah. I beat you." See, it's very silly.