Sorry, but you missed it. It was called the Write-Hander back in the 80's. I forget who made it. I do remember it came in both kit and assembled versions.
Some people also don't think that Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine was the world's first computer.
My general rule is, "If all it does is react passively to the Earth's magnetic field and displace it's weight in water, it's not a computer."
Since the Analytical Engine was never completed, I feel it falls in that category.
However, you don't need a working computer to be a programmer. I've programmed for computers that hadn't been built yet as well as some that never got off the drawing board.
Yeah that sounds good and all that but my experience at work is most of the fax spam we receive comes from outside the country. (Canada, Mexico, Barbados, Bahamas, etc.) At least that's what the caller ID says. We called the FCC when we started getting 20-30 faxes a night of 3 - 15 pages each. The FCC sent us a letter that they were looking into the complaint but they had no enforcement power over foreign countries.
We couldn't change the number of our fax machine (don't ask me why) so we hooked it up to an outlet that is switched with the office lights. When we leave at the end of the day, the lights and the fax are turned off until we return the next day.
Dumb? You bet. Inconvenient? Yup. Necessary? Absolutely.
Next month we move to a new office and for some reason we can NOW get a new fax number. I can't wait.
Ever look at the point where your company swaps information with other utilities?
All the f-ing time, it's part of my job. Serial data is transferred at the most and telemetered quantities are the norm. Are we behind the times? Maybe. Are we more secure? You bet.
If necessary, we put our own SCADA at key interchange points in the other utility's system, just so we don't have to rely on their data. they go down, we're still good to go. We don't even like to share transducers with others, there's too much chance of one bad transducer giving BOTH utilities bad data. Separate data paths provide a check that everything's working properly.
After all, nobody would be foolish enough to bridge the control networks with the outside world... and you don't have any TCP/IP running around between the pretty displays and those SCADA systems, right?
Your right on both counts. Wouldn't happen. They're not designed to interface to each other, are often in separate facilities and wouldn't talk to each other if they were connected. The worst that would happen is both systems would go down, alarms and warning LEDs would go and the nimrod that plugged in the wrong cable would be receiving many phone calls, probably even before he pulled the cable back out. Our control systems are totally isolated and there's _NO_ TCP/IP to the SCADA remotes. Any jackass with a NIC card in their laptop could disrupt the system if we did that. In fact, that's the argument we use to keep ideas like that from being favored by management.
No way that the Win2K and NT4 servers all that stuff runs on could get to a plain old desktop. No way some little virus could make the jump.
Did you even read what I wrote? We don't use Windows in our control systems. PERIOD! Yes, it makes it a hassle to transfer billing data to our accounting system but we feel the security it provides us is well worth it. Currently it requires the writing of data to tapes and physically carrying them over to a network connected machine to be procesed. That's just a cost of having isolated systems. Firewall? What firewall? The two networks never connect. Who needs a firewall?
I mean, no PHB or mid-level manager in a deregulated utility with dreams of being the next guy to win the Montana Power and Light Institutional Ethics award would ever confuse all that fiberoptic cable running control information with, say, providing a little internet backhaul, right?
So you're proposing that non-SCADA related data can some how jump across fibers into our system? Yes, we have a fiber backbone. Yes, it's got plenty of spare capacity. (48 count fiber, of which 8 are currently used.) No, we're not about to mix our data with other people's data on the same fiber. Why bother? Give 'em their own fiber. Hell, we even split our own data up among the fibers for redundancy. Fiber's cheap, so cheap it's tough to sell the capacity you already have. (See: Worldcom)
All I can say is: Imagine a world where an MCSE hefting consultant with little more than some Netbui LAN experience and a puffy resume managed to persuade the folks (who were a tad out of touch with this new fangled internet thing)
We're not out of touch. We're cautious. As a culture, we hesitate to just jump into something without thoroughly checking it out. Many of our people at all levels came up from jobs within the utility where we saw first-hand what happens to people who just "jump into" something without first checking out all the possibilities. If they're lucky they only lose an arm or a leg and get some flash burns. If.
Off topic, but in the old days if they survived we didn't buy them off with workman's comp and disability payments; we gave them another job that allowed for their disabilities. Jobs like delivering mail, answering customer calls, dispatching crews or (what a concept) teaching safety. Let me tell you, when a guy with half his face burned off, three fingers on one hand and a wooden leg tells you a
Hackers controlling the power grid? Utter and total bull.
I work in IT for a major power company. Our control systems have never been hooked to our own network, let alone the Internet, and never will be. How stupid does this guy think we are?
We've been running computerized control systems in nuclear and other types of generation plants for years. We've had computers in substations and control stations monitoring, controlling and reporting status before most industries even knew what to do with them. I saw my first Z-80 processor in a SCADA system shortly after the Z-80 came out. It could talk any of 5 different control protocols and replaced 2 seven-foot racks of hot, high-current RTL and DTL control logic. It was a thing of beauty.
We're not newbs at this. And no way do any of our control systems run Windows. Get real.
Why would we even want to hook up a generating plant or substation to a network just so it can be controlled from anywhere in the world, BY ANYBODY? No way. No how. Nuh-uh. Ain't gonna happen.
We can't even monitor what's happening on the system from the company's own computer network. It's all totally seperate. And for good reason. Who wants a disgruntled employee or just some joker who's bored messing with the system? The only people who can make operational changes to the system are the people actually present at the secured control center or at the generation plants.
We run quarterly modem audits, company-wide, looking for unauthorized lines with modem. We even restrict who gets an analog phone line and whether they can receive calls on that line. Computers attached to the control systems get NO modems. Never ever.
Even our remote monitoring terminals at regional work centers require dedicated connections to the control center and are receive only. The control computers think the remote monitors are printers and only send data, not receive so they can't be hacked from there either.
It's impossible to get to our control system through the Internet. It could probably be done to some degree (perhaps sending a 'breaker open' command to a key substation, if you know which one), but only by hijacking an existing dedicated connection undetected, which is getting harder as we connect stations via fiber optic.
(Often we connect stations by installing the fiber near the high voltage lines on our towers, a security measure in and of itself. Imagine splicing a broken fiber hanging off a helicopter platform while the line 12 feet below you is energized to 350 thousand volts. No, I haven't done it, but I watched it being done and the crew earned every penny.)
If any utility out there has their control systems connected to computers that can be reached via the Internet (or modem for that matter), the persons responsible should be taken out and shot. Then taken to a doctor, stitched back up and shot again. Same for their bosses all the way up to the CEO.
Sorry if I seen a bit testy on this subject, the subject of keeping the control system secure has been drilled into me for more years than I care to remember. Now it's just automatic.
However, on the subject of aging infrastructure, I totally agree. I blame deregulation. Every utility is now trying to cut each other's throat trying to grab customers away from each other. To cut costs (and thus lower their prices to better compete), most if not all utilities have cut their expenses by eliminting maintenance, lengthening replacement schedules and cutting staff, specifically skilled line workers). It's a race to the bottom to see who can provide the cheapest service. And it will probably go on until the whole thing blows up on them. And unfortunately, us as well.
I don't think the trailer manufacturers are doing it to save energy. It's probably because the vibration tends to break the filaments. That and trucks are more likely to be cited for a bad tail light then other vehicles since they're inspected and weighed several times each trip. A $5 LED tail light is cheap compared to a $150 fine.
It was my understanding that most of the world's hydrogen was produced by cracking it out of natural gas, which requires energy. So you end up using fuel to convert one type of fuel into another type of fuel at a net energy loss.
I may have been misinformed but that's how I remember it.
WozNet suppositories for everybody on Capitol Hill!
Wouldn't it be easier to just "dart" them with tranquilizers and attach tracking collars?
Not that I think doing either would do any good, I'm just in favor of "darting" politicians with tranquilizers, attaching tracking collars and releasing them into the wilderness. Preferably Antarctica. Nude.
I spent the better part of today patching systems for (l)users that couldn't patch their systems themselves and the rest of the day I spent fixing machines that hung when they rebooted after the patch.
Actually, my wife was enthusiastic about the idea. We're thinking about adding a few video games next. She wants either Galaga, Centipede or Millipede; Personally I prefer Breakout (with the original rotary controller, not the joystick) but any of the others would be fine, too.
Yeah, I see that in stores all the time. Wouldn't it make more sense to monitor at the cash register and the exit? Then if someone walks out the door with the blades but that ID hasn't been scanned at the register they can sound the shoplifter alarm.
Does anyone else remember the Saturday Night Live parody ad from the late 70's for Mach3 razors? It was right after the Mach2 razors came out. SNL's version explained how they worked with accompanying cartoon graphics. As I remember it want something like this:
"The first blade lifts the whisker up, the second blade lifts it further and the third blade RIPS IT OUT BY THE ROOTS!"
Then they'd show these people with blood running down their faces exclaiming it was the closest shave they ever had.
I think that one joke ad probably prevented Gillette from introducing the Mach3 for many years.
Slashdot Mirror
Dead pig flavored jello?
You do know what Jello is made from, right?
http://home.howstuffworks.com/question557.htm
Professor Farnsworth: This is a chance for Fry to test out my experimental anti-pressure pill.
... GOOD NEWS! It's a suppository!
[He produces a huge pill]
Fry: I can't swallow that!
Prof.: Well then,
Snitch the Weasel.
`nuff said.
Sorry, but you missed it. It was called the Write-Hander back in the 80's. I forget who made it. I do remember it came in both kit and assembled versions.
Hmmm...
So do you suppose that all those "high security" cards the government buys are actually low/no security cards?
I feel safer already.
On the other hand, the encryption is great!
I've yet to find anyone who can decode what I have written.
Sometimes not even me.
"Your papers, please?"
"But, all I have is a pipe!"
The 2 stations in my area already have, Monday night and 3AM this morning.
Thanks Slashdot, for this timely reminder.
NOT!
Some people also don't think that Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine was the world's first computer.
My general rule is, "If all it does is react passively to the Earth's magnetic field and displace it's weight in water, it's not a computer."
Since the Analytical Engine was never completed, I feel it falls in that category.
However, you don't need a working computer to be a programmer. I've programmed for computers that hadn't been built yet as well as some that never got off the drawing board.
Yeah that sounds good and all that but my experience at work is most of the fax spam we receive comes from outside the country. (Canada, Mexico, Barbados, Bahamas, etc.) At least that's what the caller ID says. We called the FCC when we started getting 20-30 faxes a night of 3 - 15 pages each. The FCC sent us a letter that they were looking into the complaint but they had no enforcement power over foreign countries.
We couldn't change the number of our fax machine (don't ask me why) so we hooked it up to an outlet that is switched with the office lights. When we leave at the end of the day, the lights and the fax are turned off until we return the next day.
Dumb? You bet. Inconvenient? Yup. Necessary? Absolutely.
Next month we move to a new office and for some reason we can NOW get a new fax number. I can't wait.
Ever look at the point where your company swaps information with other utilities?
All the f-ing time, it's part of my job. Serial data is transferred at the most and telemetered quantities are the norm. Are we behind the times? Maybe. Are we more secure? You bet.
If necessary, we put our own SCADA at key interchange points in the other utility's system, just so we don't have to rely on their data. they go down, we're still good to go. We don't even like to share transducers with others, there's too much chance of one bad transducer giving BOTH utilities bad data. Separate data paths provide a check that everything's working properly.
After all, nobody would be foolish enough to bridge the control networks with the outside world... and you don't have any TCP/IP running around between the pretty displays and those SCADA systems, right?
Your right on both counts. Wouldn't happen. They're not designed to interface to each other, are often in separate facilities and wouldn't talk to each other if they were connected. The worst that would happen is both systems would go down, alarms and warning LEDs would go and the nimrod that plugged in the wrong cable would be receiving many phone calls, probably even before he pulled the cable back out. Our control systems are totally isolated and there's _NO_ TCP/IP to the SCADA remotes. Any jackass with a NIC card in their laptop could disrupt the system if we did that. In fact, that's the argument we use to keep ideas like that from being favored by management.
No way that the Win2K and NT4 servers all that stuff runs on could get to a plain old desktop. No way some little virus could make the jump.
Did you even read what I wrote? We don't use Windows in our control systems. PERIOD! Yes, it makes it a hassle to transfer billing data to our accounting system but we feel the security it provides us is well worth it. Currently it requires the writing of data to tapes and physically carrying them over to a network connected machine to be procesed. That's just a cost of having isolated systems. Firewall? What firewall? The two networks never connect. Who needs a firewall?
I mean, no PHB or mid-level manager in a deregulated utility with dreams of being the next guy to win the Montana Power and Light Institutional Ethics award would ever confuse all that fiberoptic cable running control information with, say, providing a little internet backhaul, right?
So you're proposing that non-SCADA related data can some how jump across fibers into our system? Yes, we have a fiber backbone. Yes, it's got plenty of spare capacity. (48 count fiber, of which 8 are currently used.) No, we're not about to mix our data with other people's data on the same fiber. Why bother? Give 'em their own fiber. Hell, we even split our own data up among the fibers for redundancy. Fiber's cheap, so cheap it's tough to sell the capacity you already have. (See: Worldcom)
All I can say is: Imagine a world where an MCSE hefting consultant with little more than some Netbui LAN experience and a puffy resume managed to persuade the folks (who were a tad out of touch with this new fangled internet thing)
We're not out of touch. We're cautious. As a culture, we hesitate to just jump into something without thoroughly checking it out. Many of our people at all levels came up from jobs within the utility where we saw first-hand what happens to people who just "jump into" something without first checking out all the possibilities. If they're lucky they only lose an arm or a leg and get some flash burns. If.
Off topic, but in the old days if they survived we didn't buy them off with workman's comp and disability payments; we gave them another job that allowed for their disabilities. Jobs like delivering mail, answering customer calls, dispatching crews or (what a concept) teaching safety. Let me tell you, when a guy with half his face burned off, three fingers on one hand and a wooden leg tells you a
Hackers controlling the power grid? Utter and total bull.
I work in IT for a major power company. Our control systems have never been hooked to our own network, let alone the Internet, and never will be. How stupid does this guy think we are?
We've been running computerized control systems in nuclear and other types of generation plants for years. We've had computers in substations and control stations monitoring, controlling and reporting status before most industries even knew what to do with them. I saw my first Z-80 processor in a SCADA system shortly after the Z-80 came out. It could talk any of 5 different control protocols and replaced 2 seven-foot racks of hot, high-current RTL and DTL control logic. It was a thing of beauty.
We're not newbs at this. And no way do any of our control systems run Windows. Get real.
Why would we even want to hook up a generating plant or substation to a network just so it can be controlled from anywhere in the world, BY ANYBODY? No way. No how. Nuh-uh. Ain't gonna happen.
We can't even monitor what's happening on the system from the company's own computer network. It's all totally seperate. And for good reason. Who wants a disgruntled employee or just some joker who's bored messing with the system? The only people who can make operational changes to the system are the people actually present at the secured control center or at the generation plants.
We run quarterly modem audits, company-wide, looking for unauthorized lines with modem. We even restrict who gets an analog phone line and whether they can receive calls on that line. Computers attached to the control systems get NO modems. Never ever.
Even our remote monitoring terminals at regional work centers require dedicated connections to the control center and are receive only. The control computers think the remote monitors are printers and only send data, not receive so they can't be hacked from there either.
It's impossible to get to our control system through the Internet. It could probably be done to some degree (perhaps sending a 'breaker open' command to a key substation, if you know which one), but only by hijacking an existing dedicated connection undetected, which is getting harder as we connect stations via fiber optic.
(Often we connect stations by installing the fiber near the high voltage lines on our towers, a security measure in and of itself. Imagine splicing a broken fiber hanging off a helicopter platform while the line 12 feet below you is energized to 350 thousand volts. No, I haven't done it, but I watched it being done and the crew earned every penny.)
If any utility out there has their control systems connected to computers that can be reached via the Internet (or modem for that matter), the persons responsible should be taken out and shot. Then taken to a doctor, stitched back up and shot again. Same for their bosses all the way up to the CEO.
Sorry if I seen a bit testy on this subject, the subject of keeping the control system secure has been drilled into me for more years than I care to remember. Now it's just automatic.
However, on the subject of aging infrastructure, I totally agree. I blame deregulation. Every utility is now trying to cut each other's throat trying to grab customers away from each other. To cut costs (and thus lower their prices to better compete), most if not all utilities have cut their expenses by eliminting maintenance, lengthening replacement schedules and cutting staff, specifically skilled line workers). It's a race to the bottom to see who can provide the cheapest service. And it will probably go on until the whole thing blows up on them. And unfortunately, us as well.
I don't think the trailer manufacturers are doing it to save energy. It's probably because the vibration tends to break the filaments. That and trucks are more likely to be cited for a bad tail light then other vehicles since they're inspected and weighed several times each trip. A $5 LED tail light is cheap compared to a $150 fine.
It was my understanding that most of the world's hydrogen was produced by cracking it out of natural gas, which requires energy. So you end up using fuel to convert one type of fuel into another type of fuel at a net energy loss.
I may have been misinformed but that's how I remember it.
WozNet suppositories for everybody on Capitol Hill!
Wouldn't it be easier to just "dart" them with tranquilizers and attach tracking collars?
Not that I think doing either would do any good, I'm just in favor of "darting" politicians with tranquilizers, attaching tracking collars and releasing them into the wilderness. Preferably Antarctica. Nude.
We're gonna get 'wormed' again.
I spent the better part of today patching systems for (l)users that couldn't patch their systems themselves and the rest of the day I spent fixing machines that hung when they rebooted after the patch.
I guess I know what I'll be doing tomorrow.
Actually, my wife was enthusiastic about the idea. We're thinking about adding a few video games next. She wants either Galaga, Centipede or Millipede; Personally I prefer Breakout (with the original rotary controller, not the joystick) but any of the others would be fine, too.
Buy one?
Seriously, buy a used machine, learn to keep it repaired and running (or find someone who can), and enjoy!
I enjoy classic pinball machines and that's what I did. I play them almost every day, worth every penny.
Yeah, I see that in stores all the time. Wouldn't it make more sense to monitor at the cash register and the exit? Then if someone walks out the door with the blades but that ID hasn't been scanned at the register they can sound the shoplifter alarm.
Does anyone else remember the Saturday Night Live parody ad from the late 70's for Mach3 razors? It was right after the Mach2 razors came out. SNL's version explained how they worked with accompanying cartoon graphics. As I remember it want something like this:
"The first blade lifts the whisker up, the second blade lifts it further and the third blade RIPS IT OUT BY THE ROOTS!"
Then they'd show these people with blood running down their faces exclaiming it was the closest shave they ever had.
I think that one joke ad probably prevented Gillette from introducing the Mach3 for many years.
I didn't see anything about it on Fox News.
My Precious... My PRECIOUS!
Nasty Slashdottesss steal my precious!
I always figured there were two kinds of people:
those who got to read the linked article before it was Slashdotted and those who didn't.
From the NIC Hardware FAQ page:
"...there is no market for the machine."
I'm just surprised there aren't more comments about rf-shielded wallets.