> He used hate speech to turn the country from a democracy to a dictatorship.
No he didn't. He rallied a population of haters. A similar man would have been successful in the U.S. or England, but luckily, a similar man didn't exist (in spite of numerous pretenders). What happened in Germany was due to the confluence of historical winds that have blown away, at least in the Western world. After all, if hate speech was so powerful, why hasn't the November 9th Society gained power in England?
Look, the group of people these laws have been applied against are simply not a threat. The rednecks been spouting the same BS for decades now, and what has there effect been? Nothing whatsoever. So why do we need a law to protect us from them? Seriously, I'm more worried about people biking on the sidewalk than I am of these isolated weirdos.
Hey, if conditions change and hate speech because a _real_ problem, then by all means, pass a law. But by any objective measure, we don't need one. Hell, if anything, we need a law protecting us from "love speech". When I look back over the last 25 years all the rednecks have managed to do is make themselves detested by a wider segment of society. Meanwhile the hippies have been throwing Molotov's and rioting - there's dead bodies out there. So why no rush to protect us from their ideology?
Maybe it's because its a bankrupt one that only a tiny minority cares about, and can only drum up support from bored rich 20-somethings who have nothing else to do? Or maybe its because if we look at the problem at that level, you realize that this really is just one group of haters who have more power than the other and get to pass laws? Hate is bad, whether it's against "the jews" or "the multinationals".
So when you're ready to deal with hate in ALL it's forms and STILL want to pass a law banning those people from being allowed to talk, you call me. Remember, you're almost certainly in one of those groups.
> freedom of speech is not absolute in any country
It's a spectrum. And those countries that fall to the one end of the spectrum invariably trample on all human rights. Let's err on the side of caution and support free speech. Then we can deal with the problems that cause if and when it actually becomes one. In the meantime, I believe in the true north strong and FREE.
I believe the author of the IEEE article would do well to read up on a little more evolution theory. It's not the gene, it's the percentage of the population that expresses the gene that defines whether or not "it exists".
1000 years ago there were people in the world who had all the food they needed, and often grew obese (Henry VIII being the canonical example). Yet the majority of the population was one bad harvest away from starving, and were constantly beset by problems due to malnutrition.
Today, the vast majority of the world has much more food than they need. Obesity is a larger problem than malnutrition, even in places like Africa and India where the opposite was true only a generation ago.
If you compare the caloric intake of the small percentage of rich people 1000 years ago to the caloric intake of rich people today, one would conclude there has been no progress in diet. But if you consider the "expression of the effect", that a sustenance level diet applies to only a tiny percentage of the world, then one is led to a totally different conclusion - there has been massive changes in food production and intake.
Let's expand that. They had cars 100 years ago, and we have cars today. So if you just look at introduction dates, that's one invention that hasn't been beaten. But if you consider the population adjustment, you again end up with a factor of perhaps 0.001% to something like 8.5%, an enormous change in the technological landscape.
It is the _expression_ of technology that defines the technological landscape. And if anyone believes the expression of technologies doesn't continue to accelerate, I think they're not really looking at the issue.
I meant the historical record of low-cost launchers actually turning out to be low-cost launchers. 100% failure rate. (OTRAG, anyone?)
> now they do regular cargo launches
Uhhh, they've had exactly one payload launch. The next flight is booked for one year from now. You call that "regular"?!
And that's the Falcon 1, which can't even reach GEO (in its current form). As I stated before, Falcon 9 has not flown. Musk can claim all he wants, but the proof is in the pudding. In the meantime, I'm remaining skeptical, which anyone who's watched the space industry is wise to do.
> Falcon 1 are currently $7,000 per pound
To LEO! I quoted an _average_ of $12,000 a pound to GEO, which is pretty much in-line with the Falcon 1e, which hasn't flown either.
> The idea is a big mobile catcher's mitt made of Aerogel
And when someone demonstrates this works, and actually cleans up GEO (where we can't even see the debris), you call me right away!
In the meantime I stand by my claim, the expected lifetime of a large-scale structure in GEO will be very low. And we have to get it there, which is becoming increasingly expensive because of the LEO debris. One or two more collisions in LEO and you can push all of this back a generation or two.
> further affecting your numbers...
No no no. Here, let me demonstrate the problem one more time:
1) calculate the amount of power generated by [pick your panel technology] over its lifetime if you plant that panel in the Nevada desert 2) calculate the amount of power generated by the same panel in space 3) calculate the cost to launch that panel into space
(2) is about four times larger than (1). However, (3) is about 10 times larger than (2). Not (1), (2). So even with a 10 times reduction in launch costs, you're still way better off just setting up in Nevada. And then there's the added consideration that the downlink station is going to cost a significant fraction of the cost of a panel of the same size.
> Elon Musk testified before congress that they have plans to get costs down to $500 per pound.
Yeah, so did a lot of people. Remember Orbital Sciences? IIRC they were saying $100/lb. Roton was what, $150/lb? Some of these guys said the same thing to Congress too. The Shuttle was going to $25. Hell, Rockwell was trying to get Congress to let him buy a Shuttle for tourist flights.
Falcon 9 hasn't flown. It has not demonstrated safety, load capacity, turnaround times, manufacturing capability, payload handling, or basically anything. So yeah, it will be great if he can do it. But odds are that he can't, going by the historical record.
Even if he does, then another factor comes into play, the cost of the cells themselves. I haven't seen any published numbers on the ZTJ's, but I'm guessing they're in the range of $500 or more a pop. That's another couple of billion there (I should add this to the article). Costs can fall with better production, sure, but given that no one seems to have actually ordered any from emcore or Spectralab (no press releases seems like a good sign), it seems unlikely that's happening any time soon.
And who cares anyway? There's no way this thing can be built as fast as its going to be smashed to bits. Little tiny comsats are getting hit in GEO, a PSAT has no chance. And don't talk to me about laser brooms!
> NO evidence of the battery, or the glass itself, being a fault has been shown in any of these cases.
Indeed, even the posters of the images did not make that claim, at least not with the images.
The idea that the battery had anything to do with it was created in the BBG story, by a writer that clearly didn't understand the issue and simply conflated to different stories into one.
> and in my opinion, if a manufacturer can not design a cell phone to withstand normal use by normal people, they should not be the business of manufacturing cell phones.
I have dropped my iPhone from shirt-pocket height onto concrete sidewalks on multiple occasions (yes, the pocket IS a bad place to carry it) without anything more than a scratch. The Motorola it replaced suffered considerably less damage, but was rendered almost inoperable.
So we see to agree - Apple should be in the cell phone business, and Motorola out of it.
There is absolutely no evidence of "an explosion". One user has claimed this, and another has presented a picture of a broken screen that it otherwise clearly intact (ie, not exploded).
There is also no evidence, nor even the claim, that this has anything to do with batteries. Looking back over the story, that conflation appears to have been invented by the press.
> In every modern air war since 1980 that the US has been involved in, combat doctrine > has required all pilots to -visually- identify a target before anyone fired anything at it..
> The problem with that is you'd have to be retarded to put yourself in that position in the real world as an F-4 pilot.
Yes, but the pilots don't pick the plans. If, as the U.S. was very much worried about in the 1980s, the USSR built up a huge fleet of attack helicopters, which it appeared they were doing, then your F-4's would be ordered down into the weeds to kill them. Or you ignore them (as you should) and just let the Army get chewed up. Loose the battle, win the war, eh?
There was some interest in the U.S. in a semi-dedicated anti-helicopter aircraft for a short period in the 80's. There were several proposals, but the only thing that was actually built was the Scaled Composites ARES. The guys running the program retired and that was that.
There was also the British SABA effort, but that was a A-10-ish aircraft, as opposed to an anti-helicopter design.
> As someone who worked in the Harrier Flight Test at Hawkers in the 1970's at Dunsfold > (where Top Gear is Filmed) I do have some first hand experience in how the Harrier worked and was operated.
Then I'm sure you're aware that VIFFing was never used in combat, for all the reasons outlined here.
The lift generated by the engine is so very much smaller than the lift generated by the wings, that maintaining forward speed, and thus the lift generated by the wings, is always far more important than the *tiny* delta-V the engines can produce. It might confuse your enemy for a second or two, but that's the best you might hope for.
> Discounting dogfighting ability means you're shit out of luck if some guy lays his > trusty mark 1 eyeballs on you.
Which he won't do if you stay more than 15 miles away. Which you do, because you have an AWACS sending you a picture of every object within 200 miles even with your radar turned off, a RWR that catches things they miss, and supercruise and altitude advantages that let you fly away and above from anything you don't like.
In the past your missile's seeker might have an gimbal limit of 10 degrees, so you'd have to slew your aircraft's nose around to get the sensor on the target. No longer, now it's fed everything it needs to know from the fighter's sensors prior to launch, without the seeker even pointing in the same direction. That means that G limits are no longer a factor, because you're not maneuvering. In fact, you want to maneuver as little as possible, that will keep your speed up and your radar-wetted surface down.
Engagements with 5th-gen fighters will go something like this... get information on a potential target from an offboard sensor, or if you absolutely must, your own radar. Now pick a course that takes you toward the target - not an intercept course, just so that you'll be within your missile's range, perhaps on a parallel track. Now wait for clearance and fire, then maneuver a tiny bit to take you away from them, so they can't shoot back if they see you. If you are within parameters, his chance of escaping is zero.
So then it comes down to sensor capability, because it's all about who sees who first. My money's on the US radar, which has been true for the last 50 years, and is unlikely to change.
Of course one might think this is an extremely unsporting method of air combat. Perhaps that's true. But don't worry, it will all be robots in 10 years anyway.
Hmmm, let's see how it all stacks up on the stealth-o-meter. We'll compare against the F-117 which is still the yardstick, the new F-22, and the FGFA:
1) remove all right angles
Right angles better control surfaces are natural corner cubes that reflect radar back to the broadcaster. They need to be removed at all costs.
F-117: every surface is facetted, with no right angles anywhere at all F-22: no major right angles, the vertical stabs are tilted to remove them FGFA: two major right angles, plus radar trap between them
2) cover the engine faces
When they're turned on and spinning, the first stage compressor fan makes a superb radar reflector. It is vital to ensure it is not visible from the front.
F-117: engine intakes covered with radar barriers F-22: s-curves in the intakes hide the engines FGFA: straight-through intakes expose the engine faces
3) radar has to be LPI
Your radar receives some tiny amount of the broadcast energy when it reflects off the enemy, dropping with r^4. The enemy, on the other hand, gets much more energy from your signal, dropping with r^2. It is vital to ensure that your radar system is not detectable on on RWR.
F-117: no radar F-22: AESA LPI radar, doesn't even repeat the same frequency _during_ a pulse FGFA: Current systems use a PESA radar, new radar is unknown
4) internal weapons bay
Weapons generally have the same problems as the airframe, but are smaller. However, they are often loaded in packs that aggregate their return. For stealth, it is vital that the weapons be stored internally, out of view.
F-117: all weapons carried internally F-22: all weapons normally carried internally, "overload" capacity on the wings but generally not used FGFA: unknown
Another issue the privacy commissioner is dealing with will likely bring a smile to the/.'s here: the absolute pants security of RFID systems in travel documents.
The problem came to a head because the DHS in the states demanded that border-crossing documents have RFID devices with biometrics in them. We used to be able to use our driver's licenses, but now we need a passport. They wanted that flexibility back, because it's so much less hassle to get a license than a passport, so the Ontario DOT agreed to add the RFID to the new driver's licenses. It's going to be phased in, but unless you want the rubber-glove treatment, you'll want one sooner rather than later.
Everyone's been complaining about the security of these systems, but it fell on deaf ears. Until the Ontario commissioner got involved, that is. After brick-walling against the DHS she then got the Ontario DOT to issue RFID-proof wrappers with the cards. She admits they're less than ideal, thought.
The longer term solution that she wants to implement is a portion of the card that acts as a capacitive switch, only turning on the RFID when you hold it. They'll put one on the corner of the card, with a little graphic saying "hold here while reading". When it's in your pocket the RFID will be dead, so surreptitious scanning is difficult, or impossible. I thought this was a particularly elegant solution.
> Wake me up when someone creates Mac malware able to propagate through security flaws in Mail > (a la Outlook Express) or via remote root execution (Nimda/Slammer type). > Until that is possible, pwning Macs isn't really worth the trouble.
Exactly. Which is why everything so far is a PoC. There's no money in it.
> Untrue! Anyone in the admin group (including the default user) can overwrite > anything in the global/Applications directory with no authentication required. > That's how "drag to install" works in the first place!
I'm in the admin group. I am asked to authorize 100% of the time.
> So you're saying that I should spend a day working... reinstall and reconfiguration of my Apple... plus another hour or two
Another advantage to the Mac is that it will do all of this for you, automatically. It will require you to press one button and then go get a coffee.
My original drive was filling up when 10.5 came out, so I bought a new HD to go with it (and the 500 GB one I got is filling up too...). I popped in the new drive, which on the Mac is literally "popping it in", ran the 10.5 installer off the disk (the slow way) and told it to install to the new drive.
When the basic install was complete, it then asked me if I wanted to migrate from the old drive. I said yes. About 40 minutes later I had a fresh new machine with every single file, application, setting, password and cookie. I had the exact same machine, upgraded to 10.5, on the new drive. It was completely invisible; the same machine, just faster.
Toronto spent an enormous amount of money replacing all the parking meters with new versions that claimed they could tell if a car was there. If you pulled out, it would reset the timer so it could bill the next guy. After a few months it became obvious the system didn't work as advertised, and every time someone ran into one it cost some ungodly amount to replace them. After a year they pulled them all out and replaced them with the same system being decried here.
Actually I think it's a great system. I don't know what the author has against walking a whole 1/2 a block, but I don't see that as a problem. On the upside, the system allows you to pay by credit card, which is an enormous benefit. It also takes up much less space on the sidewalk, means the size of the parking spots doesn't have to be defined by meter spacing, broken machines wire in their status and are rapidly repaired, you can get the slip from the next machine if that one is broken, they have much larger coin boxes so they don't need to be serviced as often, there's only one per block which further reduced time-to-service, and to top it all off, they're solar powered.
The same basic system was found in London and Edinburgh on my recent trip. Everyone is moving to this system.
> but it was rare to have a mechanism in place to submit changes anywhere or pass updates to > all the users (remember - no internet, few modems, source mostly passed on 7 or 9 track tape reels).
Actually both existed. Spacewar! was distributed primarily in paper-tape form, patches were contributed with paper, scissors and tape.
"open source" was the norm for almost all programs in the 1960s. Spacewar was certainly as open as ATP, or more so by most definitions (no commercial claims at all), and was released in 1962. Source code for earlier games, like Nim and Wumpus, were widely available as well.
This author appears to be committing the sin of omission, conflating his IBM-centric experience with the wider world.
Apple's only concern is soaking up customer's disposable income with disposable gadgets.
*rolls eyes* Really, this is your claim?
Motorola and Ericsson had a good business "soaking up customer's disposable income" with products that were crap. The features you paid for were inaccessible (syncing photos and addresses) or completely and utterly useless (browsers). They'd over-promise and under-deliver, and then never fix the problems. Instead, they'd come out with a new model that promised to fix all the problems, but wouldn't release fixes for the existing models. So you had to buy the new one and hoped it might work. It didn't either.
That is how you soak up customer's disposable income.
Apple, on the other hand, delivered a phone that did everything it claimed it could do (including browsing), synced everything (including photos), and was completely accessible by anyone. Then they released a series of upgrades to improve the product, and released free updaters for their older models, even ones they stopped selling over a year ago. The original iPhone has all of the same software features as the latest GS, and remains a seriously competitive handset, one that will go toe to toe with any other product out there.
If Apple's only interest were soaking their customers, they wouldn't release free upgrades. Duh. Clearly Apple is very interested in delivering a product that makes the brand look good, perhaps above all else, and certainly above their desire to "soak" us.
And they did deliver. It's the only reason there's 500 messages in this thread. Messages from people telling us why the product actually sucks and that the millions of ecstatic customers out there are just stupid sheeple. Constantly telling us that saviour-handset-1 or iphone-killer-2 is going to wipe out Apple because some ridiculous point. Telling us that they're only interested in filthy lucre, and nothing else. And all the while, iPhones continue to fly off the shelves at a rate greater than all of the competing products put together, and with good reason.
87.7 CDMA subscribers. 0 GSM ones. So now add in millions of dollars of development to put out a new handset, branding, confusion and god knows what they have to give AT&T for breaking their agreement.
So that you can install one app out of 50k? Dream on.
Skype is CAD$3 a month. Works great on iPhone. So it's clearly not about voice going over IP, it would seem there is more to this story.
Sorry, too much money is being made for all developers to abandon the device. There are over 100,000 developers,
You're assuming that every developer is making money.
No he's not. If every developer stayed on the platform that would be assuming that every developer is making money. But if "not all" abandon it, that's assuming at least some are making money.
Your post continues to claim that some developers are making money. Way to support the point.
Slashdot Mirror
> He used hate speech to turn the country from a democracy to a dictatorship.
No he didn't. He rallied a population of haters. A similar man would have been successful in the U.S. or England, but luckily, a similar man didn't exist (in spite of numerous pretenders). What happened in Germany was due to the confluence of historical winds that have blown away, at least in the Western world. After all, if hate speech was so powerful, why hasn't the November 9th Society gained power in England?
Look, the group of people these laws have been applied against are simply not a threat. The rednecks been spouting the same BS for decades now, and what has there effect been? Nothing whatsoever. So why do we need a law to protect us from them? Seriously, I'm more worried about people biking on the sidewalk than I am of these isolated weirdos.
Hey, if conditions change and hate speech because a _real_ problem, then by all means, pass a law. But by any objective measure, we don't need one. Hell, if anything, we need a law protecting us from "love speech". When I look back over the last 25 years all the rednecks have managed to do is make themselves detested by a wider segment of society. Meanwhile the hippies have been throwing Molotov's and rioting - there's dead bodies out there. So why no rush to protect us from their ideology?
Maybe it's because its a bankrupt one that only a tiny minority cares about, and can only drum up support from bored rich 20-somethings who have nothing else to do? Or maybe its because if we look at the problem at that level, you realize that this really is just one group of haters who have more power than the other and get to pass laws? Hate is bad, whether it's against "the jews" or "the multinationals".
So when you're ready to deal with hate in ALL it's forms and STILL want to pass a law banning those people from being allowed to talk, you call me. Remember, you're almost certainly in one of those groups.
> freedom of speech is not absolute in any country
It's a spectrum. And those countries that fall to the one end of the spectrum invariably trample on all human rights. Let's err on the side of caution and support free speech. Then we can deal with the problems that cause if and when it actually becomes one. In the meantime, I believe in the true north strong and FREE.
Maury
Thank god this is done with at last.
Hate speech requires a hate listener. Let's work on that problem, because that one doesn't violate anyone's rights.
I believe the author of the IEEE article would do well to read up on a little more evolution theory. It's not the gene, it's the percentage of the population that expresses the gene that defines whether or not "it exists".
1000 years ago there were people in the world who had all the food they needed, and often grew obese (Henry VIII being the canonical example). Yet the majority of the population was one bad harvest away from starving, and were constantly beset by problems due to malnutrition.
Today, the vast majority of the world has much more food than they need. Obesity is a larger problem than malnutrition, even in places like Africa and India where the opposite was true only a generation ago.
If you compare the caloric intake of the small percentage of rich people 1000 years ago to the caloric intake of rich people today, one would conclude there has been no progress in diet. But if you consider the "expression of the effect", that a sustenance level diet applies to only a tiny percentage of the world, then one is led to a totally different conclusion - there has been massive changes in food production and intake.
Let's expand that. They had cars 100 years ago, and we have cars today. So if you just look at introduction dates, that's one invention that hasn't been beaten. But if you consider the population adjustment, you again end up with a factor of perhaps 0.001% to something like 8.5%, an enormous change in the technological landscape.
It is the _expression_ of technology that defines the technological landscape. And if anyone believes the expression of technologies doesn't continue to accelerate, I think they're not really looking at the issue.
Maury
> The Historical record of two aborted launches
I meant the historical record of low-cost launchers actually turning out to be low-cost launchers. 100% failure rate. (OTRAG, anyone?)
> now they do regular cargo launches
Uhhh, they've had exactly one payload launch. The next flight is booked for one year from now. You call that "regular"?!
And that's the Falcon 1, which can't even reach GEO (in its current form). As I stated before, Falcon 9 has not flown. Musk can claim all he wants, but the proof is in the pudding. In the meantime, I'm remaining skeptical, which anyone who's watched the space industry is wise to do.
> Falcon 1 are currently $7,000 per pound
To LEO! I quoted an _average_ of $12,000 a pound to GEO, which is pretty much in-line with the Falcon 1e, which hasn't flown either.
> The idea is a big mobile catcher's mitt made of Aerogel
And when someone demonstrates this works, and actually cleans up GEO (where we can't even see the debris), you call me right away!
In the meantime I stand by my claim, the expected lifetime of a large-scale structure in GEO will be very low. And we have to get it there, which is becoming increasingly expensive because of the LEO debris. One or two more collisions in LEO and you can push all of this back a generation or two.
> further affecting your numbers...
No no no. Here, let me demonstrate the problem one more time:
1) calculate the amount of power generated by [pick your panel technology] over its lifetime if you plant that panel in the Nevada desert
2) calculate the amount of power generated by the same panel in space
3) calculate the cost to launch that panel into space
(2) is about four times larger than (1). However, (3) is about 10 times larger than (2). Not (1), (2). So even with a 10 times reduction in launch costs, you're still way better off just setting up in Nevada. And then there's the added consideration that the downlink station is going to cost a significant fraction of the cost of a panel of the same size.
Maury
> Elon Musk testified before congress that they have plans to get costs down to $500 per pound.
Yeah, so did a lot of people. Remember Orbital Sciences? IIRC they were saying $100/lb. Roton was what, $150/lb? Some of these guys said the same thing to Congress too. The Shuttle was going to $25. Hell, Rockwell was trying to get Congress to let him buy a Shuttle for tourist flights.
Falcon 9 hasn't flown. It has not demonstrated safety, load capacity, turnaround times, manufacturing capability, payload handling, or basically anything. So yeah, it will be great if he can do it. But odds are that he can't, going by the historical record.
Even if he does, then another factor comes into play, the cost of the cells themselves. I haven't seen any published numbers on the ZTJ's, but I'm guessing they're in the range of $500 or more a pop. That's another couple of billion there (I should add this to the article). Costs can fall with better production, sure, but given that no one seems to have actually ordered any from emcore or Spectralab (no press releases seems like a good sign), it seems unlikely that's happening any time soon.
And who cares anyway? There's no way this thing can be built as fast as its going to be smashed to bits. Little tiny comsats are getting hit in GEO, a PSAT has no chance. And don't talk to me about laser brooms!
Maury
To avoid repeating myself...
http://matter2energy.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/space-power/
> NO evidence of the battery, or the glass itself, being a fault has been shown in any of these cases.
Indeed, even the posters of the images did not make that claim, at least not with the images.
The idea that the battery had anything to do with it was created in the BBG story, by a writer that clearly didn't understand the issue and simply conflated to different stories into one.
> and in my opinion, if a manufacturer can not design a cell phone to withstand normal use by normal people, they should not be the business of manufacturing cell phones.
I have dropped my iPhone from shirt-pocket height onto concrete sidewalks on multiple occasions (yes, the pocket IS a bad place to carry it) without anything more than a scratch. The Motorola it replaced suffered considerably less damage, but was rendered almost inoperable.
So we see to agree - Apple should be in the cell phone business, and Motorola out of it.
There is absolutely no evidence of "an explosion". One user has claimed this, and another has presented a picture of a broken screen that it otherwise clearly intact (ie, not exploded).
There is also no evidence, nor even the claim, that this has anything to do with batteries. Looking back over the story, that conflation appears to have been invented by the press.
> In every modern air war since 1980 that the US has been involved in, combat doctrine
> has required all pilots to -visually- identify a target before anyone fired anything at it..
Not even remotely true:
http://www.saunalahti.fi/fta/score.htm
Maury
> The problem with that is you'd have to be retarded to put yourself in that position in the real world as an F-4 pilot.
Yes, but the pilots don't pick the plans. If, as the U.S. was very much worried about in the 1980s, the USSR built up a huge fleet of attack helicopters, which it appeared they were doing, then your F-4's would be ordered down into the weeds to kill them. Or you ignore them (as you should) and just let the Army get chewed up. Loose the battle, win the war, eh?
There was some interest in the U.S. in a semi-dedicated anti-helicopter aircraft for a short period in the 80's. There were several proposals, but the only thing that was actually built was the Scaled Composites ARES. The guys running the program retired and that was that.
There was also the British SABA effort, but that was a A-10-ish aircraft, as opposed to an anti-helicopter design.
Maury
> As someone who worked in the Harrier Flight Test at Hawkers in the 1970's at Dunsfold
> (where Top Gear is Filmed) I do have some first hand experience in how the Harrier worked and was operated.
Then I'm sure you're aware that VIFFing was never used in combat, for all the reasons outlined here.
The lift generated by the engine is so very much smaller than the lift generated by the wings, that maintaining forward speed, and thus the lift generated by the wings, is always far more important than the *tiny* delta-V the engines can produce. It might confuse your enemy for a second or two, but that's the best you might hope for.
Maury
> Discounting dogfighting ability means you're shit out of luck if some guy lays his
> trusty mark 1 eyeballs on you.
Which he won't do if you stay more than 15 miles away. Which you do, because you have an AWACS sending you a picture of every object within 200 miles even with your radar turned off, a RWR that catches things they miss, and supercruise and altitude advantages that let you fly away and above from anything you don't like.
In the past your missile's seeker might have an gimbal limit of 10 degrees, so you'd have to slew your aircraft's nose around to get the sensor on the target. No longer, now it's fed everything it needs to know from the fighter's sensors prior to launch, without the seeker even pointing in the same direction. That means that G limits are no longer a factor, because you're not maneuvering. In fact, you want to maneuver as little as possible, that will keep your speed up and your radar-wetted surface down.
Engagements with 5th-gen fighters will go something like this... get information on a potential target from an offboard sensor, or if you absolutely must, your own radar. Now pick a course that takes you toward the target - not an intercept course, just so that you'll be within your missile's range, perhaps on a parallel track. Now wait for clearance and fire, then maneuver a tiny bit to take you away from them, so they can't shoot back if they see you. If you are within parameters, his chance of escaping is zero.
So then it comes down to sensor capability, because it's all about who sees who first. My money's on the US radar, which has been true for the last 50 years, and is unlikely to change.
Of course one might think this is an extremely unsporting method of air combat. Perhaps that's true. But don't worry, it will all be robots in 10 years anyway.
Maury
Hmmm, let's see how it all stacks up on the stealth-o-meter. We'll compare against the F-117 which is still the yardstick, the new F-22, and the FGFA:
1) remove all right angles
Right angles better control surfaces are natural corner cubes that reflect radar back to the broadcaster. They need to be removed at all costs.
F-117: every surface is facetted, with no right angles anywhere at all
F-22: no major right angles, the vertical stabs are tilted to remove them
FGFA: two major right angles, plus radar trap between them
2) cover the engine faces
When they're turned on and spinning, the first stage compressor fan makes a superb radar reflector. It is vital to ensure it is not visible from the front.
F-117: engine intakes covered with radar barriers
F-22: s-curves in the intakes hide the engines
FGFA: straight-through intakes expose the engine faces
3) radar has to be LPI
Your radar receives some tiny amount of the broadcast energy when it reflects off the enemy, dropping with r^4. The enemy, on the other hand, gets much more energy from your signal, dropping with r^2. It is vital to ensure that your radar system is not detectable on on RWR.
F-117: no radar
F-22: AESA LPI radar, doesn't even repeat the same frequency _during_ a pulse
FGFA: Current systems use a PESA radar, new radar is unknown
4) internal weapons bay
Weapons generally have the same problems as the airframe, but are smaller. However, they are often loaded in packs that aggregate their return. For stealth, it is vital that the weapons be stored internally, out of view.
F-117: all weapons carried internally
F-22: all weapons normally carried internally, "overload" capacity on the wings but generally not used
FGFA: unknown
Stealthy? Hmmm, we'll see.
Maury
Another issue the privacy commissioner is dealing with will likely bring a smile to the /.'s here: the absolute pants security of RFID systems in travel documents.
The problem came to a head because the DHS in the states demanded that border-crossing documents have RFID devices with biometrics in them. We used to be able to use our driver's licenses, but now we need a passport. They wanted that flexibility back, because it's so much less hassle to get a license than a passport, so the Ontario DOT agreed to add the RFID to the new driver's licenses. It's going to be phased in, but unless you want the rubber-glove treatment, you'll want one sooner rather than later.
Everyone's been complaining about the security of these systems, but it fell on deaf ears. Until the Ontario commissioner got involved, that is. After brick-walling against the DHS she then got the Ontario DOT to issue RFID-proof wrappers with the cards. She admits they're less than ideal, thought.
The longer term solution that she wants to implement is a portion of the card that acts as a capacitive switch, only turning on the RFID when you hold it. They'll put one on the corner of the card, with a little graphic saying "hold here while reading". When it's in your pocket the RFID will be dead, so surreptitious scanning is difficult, or impossible. I thought this was a particularly elegant solution.
> Wake me up when someone creates Mac malware able to propagate through security flaws in Mail
> (a la Outlook Express) or via remote root execution (Nimda/Slammer type).
> Until that is possible, pwning Macs isn't really worth the trouble.
Exactly. Which is why everything so far is a PoC. There's no money in it.
Maury
> Untrue! Anyone in the admin group (including the default user) can overwrite /Applications directory with no authentication required.
> anything in the global
> That's how "drag to install" works in the first place!
I'm in the admin group. I am asked to authorize 100% of the time.
Maury
> So you're saying that I should spend a day working ... reinstall and reconfiguration of my Apple ... plus another hour or two
Another advantage to the Mac is that it will do all of this for you, automatically. It will require you to press one button and then go get a coffee.
My original drive was filling up when 10.5 came out, so I bought a new HD to go with it (and the 500 GB one I got is filling up too...). I popped in the new drive, which on the Mac is literally "popping it in", ran the 10.5 installer off the disk (the slow way) and told it to install to the new drive.
When the basic install was complete, it then asked me if I wanted to migrate from the old drive. I said yes. About 40 minutes later I had a fresh new machine with every single file, application, setting, password and cookie. I had the exact same machine, upgraded to 10.5, on the new drive. It was completely invisible; the same machine, just faster.
Maury
Toronto spent an enormous amount of money replacing all the parking meters with new versions that claimed they could tell if a car was there. If you pulled out, it would reset the timer so it could bill the next guy. After a few months it became obvious the system didn't work as advertised, and every time someone ran into one it cost some ungodly amount to replace them. After a year they pulled them all out and replaced them with the same system being decried here.
Actually I think it's a great system. I don't know what the author has against walking a whole 1/2 a block, but I don't see that as a problem. On the upside, the system allows you to pay by credit card, which is an enormous benefit. It also takes up much less space on the sidewalk, means the size of the parking spots doesn't have to be defined by meter spacing, broken machines wire in their status and are rapidly repaired, you can get the slip from the next machine if that one is broken, they have much larger coin boxes so they don't need to be serviced as often, there's only one per block which further reduced time-to-service, and to top it all off, they're solar powered.
The same basic system was found in London and Edinburgh on my recent trip. Everyone is moving to this system.
Maury
> but it was rare to have a mechanism in place to submit changes anywhere or pass updates to
> all the users (remember - no internet, few modems, source mostly passed on 7 or 9 track tape reels).
Actually both existed. Spacewar! was distributed primarily in paper-tape form, patches were contributed with paper, scissors and tape.
No, really.
Maury
"open source" was the norm for almost all programs in the 1960s. Spacewar was certainly as open as ATP, or more so by most definitions (no commercial claims at all), and was released in 1962. Source code for earlier games, like Nim and Wumpus, were widely available as well.
This author appears to be committing the sin of omission, conflating his IBM-centric experience with the wider world.
Maury
hate to have developed software for a platform, only to find it removed from the platform a few months later.
Indeed, someone should tell Google to stop doing that: http://www.falsedichotomies.org/node/73
*rolls eyes again*
Maury
Apple's only concern is soaking up customer's disposable income with disposable gadgets.
*rolls eyes* Really, this is your claim?
Motorola and Ericsson had a good business "soaking up customer's disposable income" with products that were crap. The features you paid for were inaccessible (syncing photos and addresses) or completely and utterly useless (browsers). They'd over-promise and under-deliver, and then never fix the problems. Instead, they'd come out with a new model that promised to fix all the problems, but wouldn't release fixes for the existing models. So you had to buy the new one and hoped it might work. It didn't either.
That is how you soak up customer's disposable income.
Apple, on the other hand, delivered a phone that did everything it claimed it could do (including browsing), synced everything (including photos), and was completely accessible by anyone. Then they released a series of upgrades to improve the product, and released free updaters for their older models, even ones they stopped selling over a year ago. The original iPhone has all of the same software features as the latest GS, and remains a seriously competitive handset, one that will go toe to toe with any other product out there.
If Apple's only interest were soaking their customers, they wouldn't release free upgrades. Duh. Clearly Apple is very interested in delivering a product that makes the brand look good, perhaps above all else, and certainly above their desire to "soak" us.
And they did deliver. It's the only reason there's 500 messages in this thread. Messages from people telling us why the product actually sucks and that the millions of ecstatic customers out there are just stupid sheeple. Constantly telling us that saviour-handset-1 or iphone-killer-2 is going to wipe out Apple because some ridiculous point. Telling us that they're only interested in filthy lucre, and nothing else. And all the while, iPhones continue to fly off the shelves at a rate greater than all of the competing products put together, and with good reason.
Maury
87.7 CDMA subscribers. 0 GSM ones. So now add in millions of dollars of development to put out a new handset, branding, confusion and god knows what they have to give AT&T for breaking their agreement.
So that you can install one app out of 50k? Dream on.
Skype is CAD$3 a month. Works great on iPhone. So it's clearly not about voice going over IP, it would seem there is more to this story.
Maury
You're assuming that every developer is making money.
No he's not. If every developer stayed on the platform that would be assuming that every developer is making money. But if "not all" abandon it, that's assuming at least some are making money.
Your post continues to claim that some developers are making money. Way to support the point.
Maury