I quite agree. I had a 10Mb hard drive from an AS400 that I used for a number of years as a doorstop. It performed the task perfectly and was virtually indestructible.:)
Fortunately this is not true. With a good symmetrical encryption system 128 bits is secure enough to be virtually unbreakable, or if not completely unbreakable certainly not worth the time and effort to do so. For more information about the type of cryptosystem on this phone read the following:
http://www.ssh.fi/tech/crypto/algorithms.html
The section secret key cryptosystems lists the most commonly used systems (DES probably being the best known) that could be used on this phone.
There is already a Japanese consortium who are planning an orbital hotel for up to 200 people! I reckon the yen will have to pick up a bit before they can afford that.
Don't worry about the Russians not being able to afford their vodka, good stuff costs about $5, and if they can't buy it they'll make their own! My mother in law makes a mean vodka, very smooth and 50% alcohol.
The Russians lost 130 people in one disaster alone in the 1950's. You could probably say the number of known fatalities is around 200 people and one dog (Laika). The film of the accident at Baikonur was on the TV last week, and made grim viewing. Rest assured when these babies go bang they go bang big time.
But also remember this rocket research and the accident happened a few years after a war where the Russians lost 20 Million dead! So whats a couple of hundred?
My experience with the Russians now, is that they are not lax with safety, rather a little more relaxed than us in the west...
I currently work at ESA, and I have worked both with NASA and the the Russians (RKA). The contrast between the two is pretty extreme. I thought ESA was pretty bureaucratic until we dealt with NASA. It is unbelievable how much paperwork needs to be done for the smallest things.
We had to deliver some equipment (2 SUN workstations) to JPL and had to do much paperwork and negotiations over this. When we arrived we were besieged by guys with clipboards, who were not sure if we could deliver this equipment, whether we could install it in the computer room. Eventually my German colleague got pissed off a took the machines himself out of the car and into the computer room. There followed much frantic ass-covering paperwork, phone-calls and hand-wringing, before everything was settled. Sometimes I wonder with the level of bureaucracy how they got a man on the moon.
The Russians, on the other hand, are a very different kettle of fish. The Russians launched 4 ESA satellites last year and we had to install some stuff in Baikonur for the launch. They are very laid back, and quite excited to see new equipment. A lot of the quipment they have is very out of date, but the fact remains that the Soyuz launcher has done over 1000 launches without problems. It was quite amusing during the first launch, that at T-minus 10 minutes, 3 guys could be seen walking and smoking about 100m from the launcher! Our boss got a bit excited and wanted to know what they were doing there. 'Having a smoke and a walk' was the reply. He was speechless (a rare thing) and at T minus 5 one of the guys casually looked at his watch and they then got under cover. Both launches went without a hitch. The Russians are very confident with the Soyuz launcher having used it for about 40 years and they are not so safety and arse-covering paranoid as NASA and ESA.
Germany isn't too big on the whole scientology thing.
That's right. Here in Germany scientology is not classed as a religion rather as a 'Jugendsekte' that seeks to make money from its members. In Germany if you state you are Catholic, Protestant or whatever you pay 'church tax' which goes to your declared church. There are also lots of tax benefits for being being an officially registered church.
I'm not sure of the history of this, but it seems that the German government has a real downer on the Scientologists and in my state, scientologists are not considered suitable for work in government offices!
So if Keith Henson want's to escape he could take a vacation in Germany and have a pop at the Scientologists from here.:)
I moved to Germany from the UK and I find the Germans on the whole very tolerant. Mind you I do live near Frankfurt, where 30% of the population are foreigners. The Germans like to grumble about immigration, to which I like to point out that without the immigrant workers their pension system will not be able to maintain it's current generous level of payments. That normally shuts them up for a while!:)
Unfortunately because of the past, the neo-Nazis always make the news here, although there aren't many of them. Most of the problems are in the former East Germany, where unemployment is high. When the Nazis do march, as -Brazil- pointed out, they are out numbered by the police.
The Germans are definitely looking for tech skills with Frankfurt and Munich being the best bet for a tech job. Many of the multinational companies have English as the working language, and you can get away with speaking only English.
The Germans most definitely have adopted English terminology albeit germanised. The resulting 'Denglish' is amusing. For example:
upgrade, upgraded = upgraden, upgegraded
download, downloaded = downloaden,downgeloaded
customize, customized = customizen, gecustomized.
The pattern is pretty clear, basically I germanise a word and see if they understand what I mean, so far I have had no problems.
Having read many of the posts here and from personal experience I can safely say that unions are a bit of a lottery. Sometimes they work well for the employees and sometimes not. In England in the 1970s, the unions were very strong and caused havoc with strikes, power cuts and so on. In the end they brought the government down. When Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister the miners tried again to remove the goverment. However she was ready and after a year on strike they gave in. She then introduced some very strong anti-union measures. I didn't agree with some of these measures, but the unions only had themselves to blame.
This was a prime example of bad union management. The leaders of these unions wanted only to promote their political agenda and not that of their members. Those same leaders did not suffer after a year on strike, many of the members, however were broke, jobless and without prospects.
Now I live and work in Germany, which is more unionized than England, but I find the unions here are less confrontational and try to develop a more constructive relationship with the management. This is also helped by employee friendly goverment legislation. IMHO this is a better way to go.
The bottom line? Unions can a force for good, or they can cause lots of problems. It really depends on how they are run. Personally at the moment I don't feel the need for a union. My company recently changed my working conditions, I didn't like it, they said tough, I found a better job within two weeks.
The A-team vs Asteroid would have provided more entertainment than Bruce and the boys. With Murdoch as pilot, Hannibal smoking his cigar in close proximity to a few thousand tons of LOX, Mr T 'I ain't flyin' in no rocket' and finally Face chatting up the attractive female scientist.
However, for the A-team scenario to work, they would need to land on the asteroid, get into a gunfight with drug dealers who live there. In the ensuing firefight they expend 5000 rounds of ammunition with no casualties, and then get captured.
The fate of the world would then rest on the fact that they villains conveniently lock up our heroes in a fully equipped workshop come asteroid-destroying-nuclear-bomb-factory. The team escape (another 500 rounds ammo: no casualties), blow up the asteroid (villains tied up in the back of the spaceship so no casualties there).
The story ends with Hannibal saying: 'I like it when a plan comes together' followed by the predictable 'Shut up fool ' from Mr T. No wait a minute I forgot, they'll also have to knock Mr T out for the return journey, I pity the fool who has to do that.
The Germans also used hydrogen peroxide(H202) as part of the propulsion for the Me163 rocket plane. The fuel was H202 and Hydrazine, pretty toxic all round, but the performance was very good. Unfortunately one of the side affects of the H202 was that when it leaked into the cockpit it dissolved the pilot! Probably handling 90% h202 is as risky as the flight itself.
Not strictly true, the legal working week in Germany is 39 hours with normally 30 days holiday (there are also 12 additional public holidays), there used to be tons of hookers in Frankfurt a.M, especially around the main train station, but the police cleaned the area up and there are not too many too be seen. However most of the larger brothels have a website...
What is good is if you are sick, there is a doctor in our town, that if you visit him and say, 'I don't feel very well' he signs you off for minimum 1 week. When you are signed off sick it is illegal to go to work.
I've been waiting for someone to do a good VR shooter for a while and I think it will be good but I can imagine it could have strong effects on some people.
Any of us who have played an intense deathmatch know how psyched up you can become and how twitchy you are for a while afterwards. With a VR game this will be more extreme.
Perhaps when these games are finally marketed, it would be a good idea to sell 'post VR Quake sedatives' or offer therapy for those who have become unhinged after a playing too much.
Seriously though, with a lawsuite against 'violent' video games being started by some of the columbine massacre victim's families and the political reactions to these games, you have to think it will be a matter of time until the first post VR Quake shooting occurs. Sooner or later the line between game and reality will become sufficiently blurred that someone will think reality is one big deathmatch.
Personally I can't wait to give it a go, but I will make sure that all firearms are locked away and secure afterwards!:)
I don't remember seeing any exact numbers in the bible, and what really disturbs me about this type of response is the blind assumption that everything in the bible is 'true' and accurate.
I know religion is a matter of faith, and I understand the belief that Jesus and the other prophets existed. But can we really believe that the philosophy they proposed has made its way through over 2000 years without being 'modified' by the church?
The early Christian church was pretty fundamentalist (look at today's fundamentalist islamic states for examples) and it is pretty likely that the contents of the bible were modified for political reasons and to keep the people under control. So blindly believe what is written at your own peril.
As to hubble, well it is still producing great photos, and if they really are illusions they are some of the most impressively beautiful ones I've seen!:)
Slashdot Mirror
I quite agree. I had a 10Mb hard drive from an AS400 that I used for a number of years as a doorstop. It performed the task perfectly and was virtually indestructible. :)
http://www.ssh.fi/tech/crypto/algorithms.html
The section secret key cryptosystems lists the most commonly used systems (DES probably being the best known) that could be used on this phone.
Don't worry about the Russians not being able to afford their vodka, good stuff costs about $5, and if they can't buy it they'll make their own! My mother in law makes a mean vodka, very smooth and 50% alcohol.
na sdarovia!
But also remember this rocket research and the accident happened a few years after a war where the Russians lost 20 Million dead! So whats a couple of hundred?
My experience with the Russians now, is that they are not lax with safety, rather a little more relaxed than us in the west...
We had to deliver some equipment (2 SUN workstations) to JPL and had to do much paperwork and negotiations over this. When we arrived we were besieged by guys with clipboards, who were not sure if we could deliver this equipment, whether we could install it in the computer room. Eventually my German colleague got pissed off a took the machines himself out of the car and into the computer room. There followed much frantic ass-covering paperwork, phone-calls and hand-wringing, before everything was settled. Sometimes I wonder with the level of bureaucracy how they got a man on the moon.
The Russians, on the other hand, are a very different kettle of fish. The Russians launched 4 ESA satellites last year and we had to install some stuff in Baikonur for the launch. They are very laid back, and quite excited to see new equipment. A lot of the quipment they have is very out of date, but the fact remains that the Soyuz launcher has done over 1000 launches without problems. It was quite amusing during the first launch, that at T-minus 10 minutes, 3 guys could be seen walking and smoking about 100m from the launcher! Our boss got a bit excited and wanted to know what they were doing there. 'Having a smoke and a walk' was the reply. He was speechless (a rare thing) and at T minus 5 one of the guys casually looked at his watch and they then got under cover. Both launches went without a hitch. The Russians are very confident with the Soyuz launcher having used it for about 40 years and they are not so safety and arse-covering paranoid as NASA and ESA.
That's right. Here in Germany scientology is not classed as a religion rather as a 'Jugendsekte' that seeks to make money from its members. In Germany if you state you are Catholic, Protestant or whatever you pay 'church tax' which goes to your declared church. There are also lots of tax benefits for being being an officially registered church.
I'm not sure of the history of this, but it seems that the German government has a real downer on the Scientologists and in my state, scientologists are not considered suitable for work in government offices!
So if Keith Henson want's to escape he could take a vacation in Germany and have a pop at the Scientologists from here. :)
Unfortunately because of the past, the neo-Nazis always make the news here, although there aren't many of them. Most of the problems are in the former East Germany, where unemployment is high. When the Nazis do march, as -Brazil- pointed out, they are out numbered by the police.
The Germans most definitely have adopted English terminology albeit germanised. The resulting 'Denglish' is amusing. For example:
upgrade, upgraded = upgraden, upgegraded
download, downloaded = downloaden,downgeloaded
customize, customized = customizen, gecustomized.
The pattern is pretty clear, basically I germanise a word and see if they understand what I mean, so far I have had no problems.
This was a prime example of bad union management. The leaders of these unions wanted only to promote their political agenda and not that of their members. Those same leaders did not suffer after a year on strike, many of the members, however were broke, jobless and without prospects.
Now I live and work in Germany, which is more unionized than England, but I find the unions here are less confrontational and try to develop a more constructive relationship with the management. This is also helped by employee friendly goverment legislation. IMHO this is a better way to go.
The bottom line? Unions can a force for good, or they can cause lots of problems. It really depends on how they are run. Personally at the moment I don't feel the need for a union. My company recently changed my working conditions, I didn't like it, they said tough, I found a better job within two weeks.
However, for the A-team scenario to work, they would need to land on the asteroid, get into a gunfight with drug dealers who live there. In the ensuing firefight they expend 5000 rounds of ammunition with no casualties, and then get captured.
The fate of the world would then rest on the fact that they villains conveniently lock up our heroes in a fully equipped workshop come asteroid-destroying-nuclear-bomb-factory. The team escape (another 500 rounds ammo: no casualties), blow up the asteroid (villains tied up in the back of the spaceship so no casualties there).
The story ends with Hannibal saying: 'I like it when a plan comes together' followed by the predictable 'Shut up fool ' from Mr T. No wait a minute I forgot, they'll also have to knock Mr T out for the return journey, I pity the fool who has to do that.
The Germans also used hydrogen peroxide(H202) as part of the propulsion for the Me163 rocket plane. The fuel was H202 and Hydrazine, pretty toxic all round, but the performance was very good. Unfortunately one of the side affects of the H202 was that when it leaked into the cockpit it dissolved the pilot! Probably handling 90% h202 is as risky as the flight itself.
Personally, I hope the guy succeeds.
Not strictly true, the legal working week in Germany is 39 hours with normally 30 days holiday (there are also 12 additional public holidays), there used to be tons of hookers in Frankfurt a.M, especially around the main train station, but the police cleaned the area up and there are not too many too be seen. However most of the larger brothels have a website... What is good is if you are sick, there is a doctor in our town, that if you visit him and say, 'I don't feel very well' he signs you off for minimum 1 week. When you are signed off sick it is illegal to go to work.
Perhaps when these games are finally marketed, it would be a good idea to sell 'post VR Quake sedatives' or offer therapy for those who have become unhinged after a playing too much.
Seriously though, with a lawsuite against 'violent' video games being started by some of the columbine massacre victim's families and the political reactions to these games, you have to think it will be a matter of time until the first post VR Quake shooting occurs. Sooner or later the line between game and reality will become sufficiently blurred that someone will think reality is one big deathmatch.
Personally I can't wait to give it a go, but I will make sure that all firearms are locked away and secure afterwards! :)
I don't remember seeing any exact numbers in the bible, and what really disturbs me about this type of response is the blind assumption that everything in the bible is 'true' and accurate.
:)
I know religion is a matter of faith, and I understand the belief that Jesus and the other prophets existed. But can we really believe that the philosophy they proposed has made its way through over 2000 years without being 'modified' by the church?
The early Christian church was pretty fundamentalist (look at today's fundamentalist islamic states for examples) and it is pretty likely that the contents of the bible were modified for political reasons and to keep the people under control. So blindly believe what is written at your own peril.
As to hubble, well it is still producing great photos, and if they really are illusions they are some of the most impressively beautiful ones I've seen!