The only really effective attack on ATMs that I've heard of is lifting it out of the ground with construction equipment and carting it away. Then the bad guys can go to work on it with a cutting torch in their warehouse. Many, maybe most, banks are trying to situate their ATMs so there's no way to maneuver heavy equipment close to them. Pretty amusing robbery, really, as such things go - creative, effective, and nobody gets hurt.
That's only true when labor is interchangeable. When one employee can do a significantly better job than another, there is likely to be an employer somewhere who recognizes that and rewards the employee. Thus, talented workers in a field that provides differentiation between the good the bad and the indifferent can benefit from leaving an employer who doesn't recognize and reward their abilities. I believe that IT is such a field, and the fact that some companies don't acknowledge that just means that those are the companies that will tend to attract and retain the slackers over time.
Yeah, train travel takes forever, partly because freight trains always have right of way (as you noticed). Too bad really, since if it were faster it could be enjoyable.
The price premium for a Diesel is well worth it - it might not be cost-effective initially, but if you're using your truck like a real truck, it will pay off in the long run.
And there's the problem. Almost nobody in the US uses their truck like a real truck, therefore a diesel does not make sense.
I'm speaking from a position of ignorance here about the amount of backstory/lore behind Warcraft, so you could very well be right. But are you speaking from a position of knowledge or ignorance about Middle Earth? Are you familiar with the thousands of years of backstory in the Silmarillion? I haven't read it all, but there's a lot there.
I've thought for some years that Starcraft could make a really good movie, and not just for fans of the game either. I'm hoping that the Warcraft movie is successful, because if it isn't they probably won't go on to make the Starcraft movie I want to see (I'm more a SC fan than WC).
It's probably the same feeling that the last steam train engineers felt as diesel engines took over - or perhaps the feeling modern diesel engineers feel at the trucks and planes that have largely replaced them.
The rails in the US carry trillions of ton-miles of cargo every year, and it's going up. Maybe you're talking about passenger rail, in which case I would guess most current diesel engineers don't remember the golden age of passenger rail.
It depends on the conditions. A couple of magazines, one car and one moto (forget which ones) set a Viper GTS against an R1, with editors from the respective mags at the controls. The Viper won, largely because the track wasn't totally clean (kind of like real roads) so the rider couldn't go all out for fear of low-siding on the gravel or whatever it was. Some other day, maybe the R1 would have won, but it isn't so clear cut as "motorcyles pwn cars."
I don't think the swapping batteries theory works. It's OK for propane tanks because the tank works just as well after 10 years and 1000 uses as it does when it's brand new, it just doesn't look as good. Batteries so far are not that way. I would not want to take my brand-new electric car with its brand-new $5000 battery pack (or even $200) and let the gas station attendant swap it out for whatever crap they just finished charging. I might end up paying thousands of dollars to refuel. And if you were running the gas station, would you take that brand new pack, charge it up and give it to the next customer, or would you sell it? Gas stations would be pretty much guaranteed to only have old, less valuable batteries. And if you're on a road trip and you find that this battery pack only got you 250 miles instead of the 400 you were expecting, what are you going to do? Go back to the gas station and get your money back? Until batteries work as well as new for thousands of charges, I just don't think it's workable. And by the time we get to that point, we'll probably be using ultracapacitors or something anyway.
I believe the RX-8 has the highest specific output (horsepower/liter) of any production car, ever, topping the Bugatti EB110. As the other poster pointed out it's apples and oranges, but they're still interesting numbers.:-) More interesting would perhaps be horsepower per mile per gallon (where economy is measured while producing peak horsepower). I suspect the RX-8 would not be a superstar in that measure. Not bad probably, but not at the head of the pack.
Did anybody else read about BMW's steam engine? They're working on a steam engine that would use the waste heat from the main engine to generate electricity. They can then use the power to run electrical systems and/or power electic motors turning the wheels, driveshaft, whatever. They say this improves fuel mileage in all conditions, particularly steady-state cruising where gas-electric hybrids fare the worst. And it adds less weight than a battery pack. Refreshingly, they are up front about the fact that it will be at least ten years before it's commercially viable. TFA talks about radical advances in battery technology being "just around the corner." If they had said 10-15 years or maybe even 5-10 I'd believe it, but the hype is hard to swallow.
You were complaining that with a parliamentary system (is that the right name for it?) you could vote and vote and vote and your guy might never win. This struck me as a strange complaint, since any electoral system would leave the possibility that the guy or party or platform or position you vote for would never win. So I was wondering why you were objecting to it.
in modern U.S. politics the Christian-right supports a lot of things forbidden in Christianity (war and military service, death penalty, etc.)
Hope I don't start a flamewar, but... are you sure those are forbidden by Christianity (if we can even say there is a single such thing as Christianity)?
3 points. First, biometrics would not replace credit cards, I'm not sure where you got that idea. At most, they would replace the signature "required" to use the card. I can't see how that would do anything but make the card more secure, since currently checkers generally don't give the signature a glance, let alone carefully compare it to the one on the card. So if your credit card information got hijacked and it was protected by biometrics, either the theif would not be able to use it, or you would just get a new card.
Your point about identity theft using biometrics sounds like a good one. The thing is, from what I know about identity theft (not a whole lot) it seems that people are often screwed for life anyway. The fraudster just keeps on writing fraudulent checks and so on, and the victim is never able to get any credit because of it. Anybody have more reliable information on this?
I would only be in favor of widespread biometrics if it's highly reliable and very difficult to spoof. For example, I don't want to get iris-scanned at the gas pump and fall victim to the scam that tried to get you. If a picture of my or access to the validation data is sufficient to steal my identity, I'm not in favor of it.
Are you talking about president/prime minister/whatever? I think the discussion is about legislature, where obviously there will be many more than one viable candidate. The nationwide votes are tallied up, and the percent of representation in the legislature matches the percent of the vote that party got, presumably with a minimum threshhold. So if some party gets 5% of the votes (in the US this would be a non-viable candidate), that party gets 5% of the seats.
In the US, I don't agree that either party has a good chance to win, unless it's an open seat. If there's an incumbent, he or she wins (over 90% of the time).
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The only really effective attack on ATMs that I've heard of is lifting it out of the ground with construction equipment and carting it away. Then the bad guys can go to work on it with a cutting torch in their warehouse. Many, maybe most, banks are trying to situate their ATMs so there's no way to maneuver heavy equipment close to them. Pretty amusing robbery, really, as such things go - creative, effective, and nobody gets hurt.
Because that's the government colluding with corporations to manipulate prices.
That's only true when labor is interchangeable. When one employee can do a significantly better job than another, there is likely to be an employer somewhere who recognizes that and rewards the employee. Thus, talented workers in a field that provides differentiation between the good the bad and the indifferent can benefit from leaving an employer who doesn't recognize and reward their abilities. I believe that IT is such a field, and the fact that some companies don't acknowledge that just means that those are the companies that will tend to attract and retain the slackers over time.
Could you elaborate?
Yeah, train travel takes forever, partly because freight trains always have right of way (as you noticed). Too bad really, since if it were faster it could be enjoyable.
I'm speaking from a position of ignorance here about the amount of backstory/lore behind Warcraft, so you could very well be right. But are you speaking from a position of knowledge or ignorance about Middle Earth? Are you familiar with the thousands of years of backstory in the Silmarillion? I haven't read it all, but there's a lot there.
I've thought for some years that Starcraft could make a really good movie, and not just for fans of the game either. I'm hoping that the Warcraft movie is successful, because if it isn't they probably won't go on to make the Starcraft movie I want to see (I'm more a SC fan than WC).
I said it was interesting, I didn't say you should buy one.
One of those steps, not sure if it's 3 or 5, is "replace clutch!"
It depends on the conditions. A couple of magazines, one car and one moto (forget which ones) set a Viper GTS against an R1, with editors from the respective mags at the controls. The Viper won, largely because the track wasn't totally clean (kind of like real roads) so the rider couldn't go all out for fear of low-siding on the gravel or whatever it was. Some other day, maybe the R1 would have won, but it isn't so clear cut as "motorcyles pwn cars."
I don't think the swapping batteries theory works. It's OK for propane tanks because the tank works just as well after 10 years and 1000 uses as it does when it's brand new, it just doesn't look as good. Batteries so far are not that way. I would not want to take my brand-new electric car with its brand-new $5000 battery pack (or even $200) and let the gas station attendant swap it out for whatever crap they just finished charging. I might end up paying thousands of dollars to refuel. And if you were running the gas station, would you take that brand new pack, charge it up and give it to the next customer, or would you sell it? Gas stations would be pretty much guaranteed to only have old, less valuable batteries. And if you're on a road trip and you find that this battery pack only got you 250 miles instead of the 400 you were expecting, what are you going to do? Go back to the gas station and get your money back? Until batteries work as well as new for thousands of charges, I just don't think it's workable. And by the time we get to that point, we'll probably be using ultracapacitors or something anyway.
Did anybody else read about BMW's steam engine? They're working on a steam engine that would use the waste heat from the main engine to generate electricity. They can then use the power to run electrical systems and/or power electic motors turning the wheels, driveshaft, whatever. They say this improves fuel mileage in all conditions, particularly steady-state cruising where gas-electric hybrids fare the worst. And it adds less weight than a battery pack. Refreshingly, they are up front about the fact that it will be at least ten years before it's commercially viable. TFA talks about radical advances in battery technology being "just around the corner." If they had said 10-15 years or maybe even 5-10 I'd believe it, but the hype is hard to swallow.
No, but apparently I need to explain that IT WAS A JOKE.
You were complaining that with a parliamentary system (is that the right name for it?) you could vote and vote and vote and your guy might never win. This struck me as a strange complaint, since any electoral system would leave the possibility that the guy or party or platform or position you vote for would never win. So I was wondering why you were objecting to it.
So you're saying an active tag would allow encryption, while a passive one would not? I'm not sure that's true, but certainly makes sense if so.
How do you write a Java app that won't run on another JVM? Use com.sun packages?
Credit card information would (I hope) be "yelled out" in the same way it is yelled out when you use it on the internet - after being encrypted.
Your point about identity theft using biometrics sounds like a good one. The thing is, from what I know about identity theft (not a whole lot) it seems that people are often screwed for life anyway. The fraudster just keeps on writing fraudulent checks and so on, and the victim is never able to get any credit because of it. Anybody have more reliable information on this?
I would only be in favor of widespread biometrics if it's highly reliable and very difficult to spoof. For example, I don't want to get iris-scanned at the gas pump and fall victim to the scam that tried to get you. If a picture of my or access to the validation data is sufficient to steal my identity, I'm not in favor of it.
How would an active tag help security?
Weren't those guys zealously attacking the country's authority?
In the US, I don't agree that either party has a good chance to win, unless it's an open seat. If there's an incumbent, he or she wins (over 90% of the time).