Actually, the prohibition from using an SSN as a "universal identifier" is only applicable to Government entities, not private companies. Even that prohibition has been loosened over time by policy changes.
Which, of course, was exactly the point. First they use it for its intended purpose. Then, when people are used to it, they expand the use, salami-slicing more of your rights. This slippery slope was exactly what was predicted by the opposition (which, unfortunately, were overruled).
By the way: The story with private companies was always:
- They can ask, but
- You can refuse.
With increased use (and misuse) by private companies there has actually been some tightening of the regs. Medical providers and medical insurance carriers must now have in place an explicit mechanism for using something other than a SS number for your I.D.
Not so with government, of course. The federal government has, within the past decade or so, MANDATED that states collect and maintain record of SS#s with the drivers' license records. (This is allegedly to catch "deadbeat dads" that skipped out on child support. So why do the women have to provide it, eh?)
I think the ruling is a good one, but something about the previous sentence bothers me: I don't like the idea that the FCC can decide what it does and does not control.
If you don't like it, take 'em to court. The courts CAN tell 'em they're full of hogwash.
But in this case the courts would almost certainly rule that they are right - that congress DID give them that exclusive regulatory authority, and that the supremacy clause extends that authority over the states and their subdivisions.
A: This service has zero info that you shouldn't have. It's all public records, the scary part of this service is that they seem to have most of the nation's public records about individuals assembled in an easy-to-query form.
The fact that info is public record does NOT mean that it's OK to assemble it with OTHER information that is ALSO public record and make the result - or even the original public records - available at electronic speed.
One of the big objections to the creation of the Social Security System was that the SS# would serve as a universal identifier, making it easier to assemble dossiers of individuals from diverse public records. This almost killed the program - which was eventually passed on the promise (among others) that the nubmer would NEVER EVER EVER be used in that way.
Remember that this was before WWII, which means before computers and even xerography. ("copying" was, at best, thermofax, blueprint, or photography.) AND in the midst of the "Great Depression", with its starving masses of people (including the elderly) who had just gone bankrupt and lost their homes, farms, and businesses in a pre "welfare" system environment.
Can you IMAGINE how concerned they were to consider blocking the creation of the SS system JUST to prevent the hand-construction and misuse of manual dossiers composed of public information?
The US classified information rules DO classify the JUXTIPOSITION of certain publicly available unclassified information - whenever this juxtaposition hints at something that IS sensitive. This happens in nuclear physics, radio, and several other fields. Why should individuals be any less protected from combining public information in a way that stips more of their privacy than the individual records standing alone?
= = = =
Databases run in their private time by policemen or retired policemen were, back in the '70s, a dodge to get around new laws banning ilicit governmental record keeping. These laws were passed after the government's investigative agencies at all levels (FBI, Military Intelligence, State/County/City police) went 'WAY out of bounds on domestic surveilance and so-called "dirty tricks" against people suspected of participating in the civil rights and anti(vietnam)war movement. (See COINTELPRO for an example.)
They were SUPPOSED to destroy the ill-gotten info. But instead some of them absconded with it and set up for-profit companies to maintain it and sell access back to the very police departments that weren't supposed to have it. This let the departments continue to use it and CLAIM that they didn't have it.
So this one is run by a former policeman, eh? Any bets on whether it's a modern continuation of one of those ilicit databases?
= = = =
Dylan said you had to pay to keep from going through these things twice. Well we DID pay and we're STILL going through them again! B-(
B: Since this company charges by the query, too many queries from a device will likely cause that device quickly be deauthorized by whomever's paying the bill.
Aren't we talking about the Federal Government's Homeland Security boondoggle department? Somehow I doubt that breaking the US budget is an issue.
Predicted it back in '71? That seems like something a smart person would do, shame the rest of us didn't follow up on it before 30 years later.
I was already predicting it no later than '70. Didn't have the cute three-symbol acronym - I was calling it "The Great Bimillenial Computer Date Disaster."
(I was resuscitating a batch processing system in '70 that wouldn't start - turned out to be a 'sanity check' on the date entry. But if I recall correctly I'd been predicting it even before then.)
Nobody listened to ME, either.
(In fact, in the early '80s, while I was consulting, I tried to convince the customer to let me specify date entry in a way that wouldn't blow up in 2000, and was directly ordered not to spend time doing so - because the design life of the system was only 15 years. B-(
I guess I can feel a bit better if Bemer couldn't get the message across either. (Sigh.)
Apparently it is mostly dark, because no one can pay to use it
Most fiber in a bundle is SUPPOSED to be dark at this point. To lay less than a bunch more than you initially need is incredibly pound-foolish in the long run - and even the short run.
Nearly all the cost of a fiber run is laying the cable - whether digging a trench around a continent or paying it out on the ocean floor. The incremental cost of adding fibers to the bundle, as a percentage of the cost of laying the bundle, is miniscule.
The amount of data that can be carried by a single pair of fibers is enormous. So one pair can probably handle all you can sell in the first few years. And even in that one pair, half of it is proably spare - reserved for routing around breaks by slinging the data the other way around the loop. So if you look at the contacted bandwidth versus the fiber's bandwidth, even your one "lit" fiber looks "half-dark".
But you don't just lay a pair of fibers. You need spares even initially. (Else what do you do if a fiber breaks? Dig/dredge up the run to replace it? Or use the spare fiber.) So now even with one set of spares you've doubled your capacity and not used any of the "extra". 75% "dark" and looking worse.
But what happens a couple years down the road when your capacity is all contracted out and you need more? If you laid down extra fibers you just light 'em up. If you didn't, you need to DIG ANOTHER TRENCH AROUND THE CONTNENT to lay more.
So of COURSE you spent a few percent extra, and laid maybe 20 or 50 or 100 times as many fibers as you initially need. You don't EVER want to dig that trench again.
But do you light 'em up now? Of COURSE not! The incremental cost of LAYING extra fibers is tiny. But the incremental cost of LIGHTING more is nearly the same as lighting the first ones. And every year the equipment gets cheaper and can push more data through the fibers (though not enough more to eliminate the need to light more fibers eventually). The longer you wait to light them, the more bandwidth bang for your buck - so you delay deploying the BOXES as long as possible.
Thus, if your planners had any savvy, nearly ALL your fibers are dark, and will be for decades.
But some clueless "analysts" assume that the cost of laying fiber is in direct proportion to the amount of fiber laid. So they look at how much got laid, and how much is currently lit. And they trumpet the "dark fiber" "problem" to the world, convincing investers that the far-seeing planners who laid it have wasted their investors' money. Oh HORRORS!
In fact, the people (if any) who wasted their investors' money (at least in the fiber laying process) are the ones who spent nearly as much to only lay enough fibers to handle the immediate needs.
The collapse of the long-haul market was due mainly to the fact that EVERYBODY laid fibers, assuming they could each get a big chunk of the market. Too many suppliers led to a price war that took most of 'em down.
But the "dark fiber problem" scare stories provided a bit extra push, sucking needed next-stage investment out of some companies that might have made it otherwise and leading to their demise.
As a result of this scaremongering we'll get more consolidation, and higher prices, than we otherwise would gotten without their panic.
Have food on hand. Good, nutritious meals, not candy and junkfood snacks.
For FREE to the workers. As much as they want. Catered supper for large companies (especially at project crunch time), snack room stocked with frozen and dehydrated meals. Free soda and bottled water (not JUST coffee). And so on.
Don't even THINK of putting in a vending machine with a token payment.
For the price of a dinner you get an extra four hours of work from a significant fraction of the employees who partake.
Having food handy at all hours mean a programmer will work long sessions several times per week, which is much more efficient than stopping after a day's work then trying to figure out where you were the next day. A catered dinner gives team members a non-stressful time to talk over work issues, as well as an incentive to stick around.
HP pioneered this hack, with one of the founders' wives keeping a 'fridge stocked with sandwitches and serving lunch.
I've been at several companies which had the tradition, then had a change of management. One of the first things the new clueless manager did each time was try to cut costs and stop the "raid on the company treasury" by cutting the food. Stopped the dinners, replaced nutritious with junk foods, instituted a subsidized token payment on the formerly free vending machines, etc.
It was like cutting the workforce by 30% without cutting the salary expenses.
Take away the dinners and the employees go out to dinner AND DON'T COME BACK, rather than working until near-midnight. Take away the nutritious food, and they go out for lunch. And so on.
The startup mentality went away. People worked like they were at a "regular company" rather than a garage shop - despite repeated pep-talks from management. Attrition started. Company productivity even in the working hours remaining went 'way down.
Food for the workers LOOKS like a significnat expense. But it's a drop in the bucket compared to staffing up by another 50% with people as expert in your own field as your existing employees. The costs aren't even comparable.
1. Weight. An MG + Ammo weighs a signifigant amount.
That makes sense.
2. Aiming. How do you aim the thing? For the time you'd basically need another person which means more weight.
Fix it aimed straight to the rear. Hit the trigger and wiggle your nose (and thus tial) in a little circle. Fill the air behind you with cones of lead particles. Following you becomes hazardous. B-)
Well, that, and on a Learjet, the engines aren't necessarily designed for sustained inverted flight. You'd run out of lubrication if you tried to do that, sustained.
Maybe THAT's why they stopped. B-)
(I don't claim the story is TRUE. Just that I HEARD it.)
I think that yaw does not count as attitude, because it does not change the relationship between the wings of a plane and the plane of the Earth. This relationship stays the same when the plane spins around its vertical axis.
Yes, that definition excludes yaw - at least when the craft is wings-level and nose-level. But it also excludes pitch when the plane is wingtip-straight-down, and roll when the plane is nose-straight-down or nose-straight-up.
I've always understood attitude to include all three. And I've seen other definitions referenced on/. that include all three. So I'm assuming the definition cited in this thread is defective.
In space, I think they have even more control - even being able to point the nose of the craft AWAY from the direction of travel or straight up (subjectively speaking, of course).
You can do that in the atmosphere, too.
It's just that some attitudes have consequences, and (at flight speeds) sometimes the consequences involve sudden disassembly of the airframe, so you can't maintain certain attitudes for very long. B-)
Of course if your airframe is strong enough, some of these unusual attitudes can be useful. For instance: In WWII it was a real bitch if you got an enemy on your tail. If his craft was roughly as manouverable as yours he could just follow you through all your manouvers and keep shooting at you, while you mostly got to run. (I never DID figure out why they didn't mout a rear-pointing machinegun on fighters.) That's why fighter craft worked in pairs and the pairs worked in groups (so you had a spare "buddy" if yours got shot down.
Nowadays fighter jocks can just nose-up suddenly and fly belly first for a couple seconds. It's like hitting a wall of pillows in the air: Airspeed drops abruptly, and now YOU'RE the guy at the rear of the parade. (But try that in a WWII craft and you're likely to find it only worked for the wings...)
I hear one of the common models of the learjet gets significantly better mileage flying upside down.
Story goes this was discovered by a three-man consulting firm of autopilot-programmers, who bought one that had had a fire wreck the cabin furnishings at scrap prices, had it redone by a van conversion outfit, and used it for recreational cross-country flying. Of course it costs a LOT to do that, and this was limiting their recreation. So they tried different things to reduce fuel consumption.
After discovering they saved about 10% flying upside down, they rehacked their autopilot to fly it that way if desired, and played cards sitting on the ceiling.
Well one day they were flying near a military base and NORAD got a bit concerned: Seems the radar signature of a lear flying upside-down wasn't in the database. Oops: UFO. Did the Soviets come up with something new ala the U2? Up go a couple fighters to check it out.
They look out the window and see a fighter pacing them. Fighter jock points up. ("Are you aware you're flying upside down?") They nod and point up, too. ("Yes, we are. This is intentional.") (Sometimes pilots get disoriented and fly upside down. This can lead to crashes if he doesn't get it figured out in time.)
So fighter pilot flips over so HE's upside-down, too, paces them a moment more, then flys away, still upside-down.
But (unless I misunderstand the term and it's specificially excluded) the dictionary missed yaw: Nose-righty/nose-lefty.
An aircraft's position at any instant has six degrees of freedom: Three of attitude (roll, pitch, and yaw), three of location.
Additionally there are the deriviatives of each of those (i.e. position gives three each of velocity, accelleration, jerk, snap, etc., attitude gives roll/pitch/yaw rates, etc.)
As far as safety at rest stops, I have always packed my hand gun while traveling and always have it on-person at rest areas. Don't screw with me while I am taking a leak!
For those who want to carry legally for self-protection while on the road (and checking out the WiFI access), here's the drill: Get permits from Florida, Nevada, and Utah. They will give permits to any law-abiding US citizen who takes the course, passes the "don't miss and hit a bystander" accuracy test, goes through the background check, and pays the fee. The approved courses are virtually identical and can be taught simultaneously by a single instructor.
Add in the states that accept one of those three permits through reciprocal agreements or full-faith-and-credence, plus Vermont (which doesn't require licensing), and you have much of the contiguous 48 covered.
But don't even THINK of trying to carry under one of 'em in California, Mass, DC, New York City, or any of the several other states/cities/places where you REALLY need protection. B-(
Nowadays you need to take the course in Nevada to get the Nevada permit. And you need a reference from a Utah resident who is well known and of good character (i.e. any businessman you deal with regularly) for their permit.
Florida started giving licenses to out-of-state potential tourists (and removed the distinctive license markings on rental cars) soon after they started handing 'em out to citizens, saw crime drop like a rock, and had a gang take to preying on tourists who had recently rented cars at airports. (Note that, even at the height of the gang's operation, a tourist visiting FL was far less likely to be attacked than one visiting CA.)
This seems to me a waste of money that comes directly from my pocket.
How does it come from YOUR pocket? Are you going to feed coins into the kiosk?
In case you didn't read the article: What is proposed is letting a service provider put in coin-operated internet kiosks at rest areas - and pay off the state by providing free WiFi at the same sites. No out-of-pocket for the TX taxpayers. Instead the coins going from tourists' pockets into the internet "payphone booth" pays for the WiFi and net feed for those with a laptop and adapter.
This has got to be one of the most ridiculous things I have heard in a while. It really sounds like a push from some wifi startup or something to suck government funds.
RTFA.
The state is taking bids from service providers to put in pay-internet-kiosks, on the condition that they also provide free WiFi.
No cost to the state but:
- The bidding process.
- Providing the site (and maybe power) for the kiosks - at places where they already have the land and power.
- The "opportunity cost" of having committed to a vendor (who will probably want an exclusive on the rest stops where he has a presence.)
I doubt people will be too keen on the idea of using a government network to check email, IM, and surf the web.
So use SSH, VPN, or some other encrypted tunnel back to your home or office machine. Read or download email that way, and surf the web through a proxy.
Also, not many people just carry their laptop with them in the car. Most drivers want to get to where they are going as fast as they can.
I do. Even on vacation. And it's a bitch to find a feed on a two week, 5,000 mile road trip. But not as much of a bitch as being out-of-touch for two weeks (with those I'm willing to be IN touch with on a vacation, of course. B-) )
Truckers need to be in touch. So much so that the truckers often pay a significant charge at service plazas (i.e. Flying J) for internet access - either a terminal or WiFi to the cab. (Also: Many truckers live in their trucks for weeks at a time, so their recreational internet use depends on such feeds.)
Salesmen and other "road warriors" need it, too. Only place I know they can reliably find it free is Kinkos. They provide lots of free office-on-the-road service (such as free local phone and handy calling card dispensers) to small businesses and road warriors, to entice such people in. They make it all back with significant profit on printing and other office services they provide for a fee. (Also: Their T1 brings in big print jobs from the local businesses. So letting the customers plug into the hub and use the net is essentially free.)
This means that a laptop powered by a mini IC engine/generator package would be putting out at least four times as much heat as one powered by a fuel cell.
Would take at least four times as much fuel, too. (There goes your time-between-refills.)
GIVE IT SOME GAS Ditch those flaky low-tech batteries: the miniature internal combustion engine is gearing up to power everything from laptops to cellphones
Internal combustion engines are heat engines and limited to carnot cycle efficiency. Fuel cells are not.
This means that a laptop powered by a mini IC engine/generator package would be putting out at least four times as much heat as one powered by a fuel cell.
Actually, medical and biological researchers don't so much compare a fetus to a cancer; a better metaphor is a parasite. One of the active areas of research is attempting to explain why a female mammal's immune system doesn't recognize the fetus as "foreign" and attack it the same way other parasites are attacked. [...] In another decade or so we may have the explanation.
We have part of it now.
A number of foetal antigens and markers have been identified whidh trigger a specific suppression of the mother's immune system. (Some cancers also produce them at an age when normal tissues don't, which is how many were identified.)
A common thread is a short sequence that also appears on a mylen sheath protien - which appears (outside the blood-brain barrier) late enough after birth that the immune system has already decided what's "self" and what isn't. This appears to mark mylen as something that will have been left out of the inventory but nevertheless shouldn't be attacked.
Multiple sclerosis is a failure of this mechanism. The major risk factor appears to be ingestion of cow's milk - which contains a version of a milk protein, similar to the mylen protein, but with the bovine rather than the human form of the protective sequence. Cows have already been gene-engineered to make the human form of the protein, in the hopes of cutting MS incidence. (I don't know if they replaced the whole immune mechanism in the cows, however. If not they might have a lot of MS in the cows. B-( )
It has been noted that, antigenically, the foetus has to be either virtually identical to the mother (so there's nothing different to attack) or significantly different (to trigger the rejection-suppression). Near-identical histocompatibility markers don't produce enough of a reaction to trigger the immune suppression, and this accounts for some couples' infertility. (Interestingly, histocompatibility markers are apparently involved in personal scent, and people who are antigenically different enough to trigger the reaction also "smell better" to each other.)
In the United States, truth is an absolute defense against charges of slander or libel.
Unfortunately, that's not true in Brazil - or a number of other countries (Britain, for example). TRUE, but uncomfortable, criticism, especially of government officials (though often extending to others with enough resources to sue) is a common theme.
In Brazil's case (according to a previous post) the law in question is "The Press Law", which was passed under a dictatorial regime to silence its critics. Thus a felony conviction, with a hefty prison term and future reduction of rights (such as loss of the ability to hold public offices including those that influence government software acquisition policy) as a punishment for uttering a TRUE criticism would fit right in.
Let's have a round of applause for the US in this matter, and then go right back to criticism.:)
Hear hear.
The novel idea that truth is an absolute defense against claims of libel first entered the legal world as a result of a contentious court case early in the history of the US Federal government. Unfortunately, this idea (along with others in the "free speech" category) has not caught on all that well worldwide.
Under certain circumstances the same is true in Britain, by the way.
It's in the US that truth is an absolute defense against claims of libel - the result of a very contentious case early in the Federal Government's history.
According to one of the followups to the "Text of the Complaint" posting, Microsoft is suing under "The Press Law", which was passed under a dictatorial regime to silence its critics. Thus a felony conviction, with a hefty prison term and future reduction of rights (such as loss of the ability to hold public office) as a punishment for uttering a TRUE criticism would fit right in.
I see this every once in a while on/. What is the meaning? In this day and age, who is "PDF challenged"? Particularly on/.
In case you didn't notice: The Adobe reader, though free, is closed, proprietary, and comes with a restrictive ELUA. Some people (software designers in particular) may refuse to download it in order to remain unconstrained by such agreements.
Finding a non-Adobe Acrobat reader that is not itself the result of a violation of an Adobe IP claim, and pulgging it into a browser, is a bit problematic. B-)
1) Getting out of the atmosphere. 2) Getting to low orbit. 3) Getting anywhere else.
4) Getting back.
(I don't mean this as a "funny" post. Doesn't getting back to Earth involve a huge number of problems? Such as: atmosphere; avoidance of crash landings in civilized areas; and a few other things that don't matter if you just intend to land on the moon or Mars.)
Yes indeed.
But again you solved MOST of getting back when you solved 1).
1) gave you your life support, terminal navigation, reentry, etc. (And a seasoned engineering team that has proven it knows what it's doing and can solve the REALLY HARD problems. B-) )
2) only adds (on the reentry side) dumping the extra orbital energy without tearing up the craft, and timing the deorbit manouver.
3) adds nothing to the return problem. Navigating from somewhere out there to LEO is the same problem as navigating from LEO to somewhere out there. (Actually the one difference is that it's easier, because you get closer to your navigational aids as you get closer to the END of the trip, when is when precision is required.)
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I seems to me that if power companies want to use power lines for data transmission they should find some way to shield them.
Then you're back to stringing new copper to every house - the same problem as stringing (or burying, depending on zoning) purpose-built comm cable.
Perhaps this is too expensive.
Bingo!
Actually, the prohibition from using an SSN as a "universal identifier" is only applicable to Government entities, not private companies. Even that prohibition has been loosened over time by policy changes.
Which, of course, was exactly the point. First they use it for its intended purpose. Then, when people are used to it, they expand the use, salami-slicing more of your rights. This slippery slope was exactly what was predicted by the opposition (which, unfortunately, were overruled).
By the way: The story with private companies was always:
- They can ask, but
- You can refuse.
With increased use (and misuse) by private companies there has actually been some tightening of the regs. Medical providers and medical insurance carriers must now have in place an explicit mechanism for using something other than a SS number for your I.D.
Not so with government, of course. The federal government has, within the past decade or so, MANDATED that states collect and maintain record of SS#s with the drivers' license records. (This is allegedly to catch "deadbeat dads" that skipped out on child support. So why do the women have to provide it, eh?)
I think the ruling is a good one, but something about the previous sentence bothers me: I don't like the idea that the FCC can decide what it does and does not control.
If you don't like it, take 'em to court. The courts CAN tell 'em they're full of hogwash.
But in this case the courts would almost certainly rule that they are right - that congress DID give them that exclusive regulatory authority, and that the supremacy clause extends that authority over the states and their subdivisions.
Does this mean colleges can't prevent their students from setting up their own wireless networks?
Yes.
Just as the FCC, some years ago, also banned cities and counties from using zoning laws to ban satellite dishes and other legal radio antennas.
A: This service has zero info that you shouldn't have. It's all public records, the scary part of this service is that they seem to have most of the nation's public records about individuals assembled in an easy-to-query form.
The fact that info is public record does NOT mean that it's OK to assemble it with OTHER information that is ALSO public record and make the result - or even the original public records - available at electronic speed.
One of the big objections to the creation of the Social Security System was that the SS# would serve as a universal identifier, making it easier to assemble dossiers of individuals from diverse public records. This almost killed the program - which was eventually passed on the promise (among others) that the nubmer would NEVER EVER EVER be used in that way.
Remember that this was before WWII, which means before computers and even xerography. ("copying" was, at best, thermofax, blueprint, or photography.) AND in the midst of the "Great Depression", with its starving masses of people (including the elderly) who had just gone bankrupt and lost their homes, farms, and businesses in a pre "welfare" system environment.
Can you IMAGINE how concerned they were to consider blocking the creation of the SS system JUST to prevent the hand-construction and misuse of manual dossiers composed of public information?
The US classified information rules DO classify the JUXTIPOSITION of certain publicly available unclassified information - whenever this juxtaposition hints at something that IS sensitive. This happens in nuclear physics, radio, and several other fields. Why should individuals be any less protected from combining public information in a way that stips more of their privacy than the individual records standing alone?
= = = =
Databases run in their private time by policemen or retired policemen were, back in the '70s, a dodge to get around new laws banning ilicit governmental record keeping. These laws were passed after the government's investigative agencies at all levels (FBI, Military Intelligence, State/County/City police) went 'WAY out of bounds on domestic surveilance and so-called "dirty tricks" against people suspected of participating in the civil rights and anti(vietnam)war movement. (See COINTELPRO for an example.)
They were SUPPOSED to destroy the ill-gotten info. But instead some of them absconded with it and set up for-profit companies to maintain it and sell access back to the very police departments that weren't supposed to have it. This let the departments continue to use it and CLAIM that they didn't have it.
So this one is run by a former policeman, eh? Any bets on whether it's a modern continuation of one of those ilicit databases?
= = = =
Dylan said you had to pay to keep from going through these things twice. Well we DID pay and we're STILL going through them again! B-(
B: Since this company charges by the query, too many queries from a device will likely cause that device quickly be deauthorized by whomever's paying the bill.
Aren't we talking about the Federal Government's Homeland Security boondoggle department? Somehow I doubt that breaking the US budget is an issue.
Predicted it back in '71? That seems like something a smart person would do, shame the rest of us didn't follow up on it before 30 years later.
I was already predicting it no later than '70. Didn't have the cute three-symbol acronym - I was calling it "The Great Bimillenial Computer Date Disaster."
(I was resuscitating a batch processing system in '70 that wouldn't start - turned out to be a 'sanity check' on the date entry. But if I recall correctly I'd been predicting it even before then.)
Nobody listened to ME, either.
(In fact, in the early '80s, while I was consulting, I tried to convince the customer to let me specify date entry in a way that wouldn't blow up in 2000, and was directly ordered not to spend time doing so - because the design life of the system was only 15 years. B-(
I guess I can feel a bit better if Bemer couldn't get the message across either. (Sigh.)
Apparently it is mostly dark, because no one can pay to use it
Most fiber in a bundle is SUPPOSED to be dark at this point. To lay less than a bunch more than you initially need is incredibly pound-foolish in the long run - and even the short run.
Nearly all the cost of a fiber run is laying the cable - whether digging a trench around a continent or paying it out on the ocean floor. The incremental cost of adding fibers to the bundle, as a percentage of the cost of laying the bundle, is miniscule.
The amount of data that can be carried by a single pair of fibers is enormous. So one pair can probably handle all you can sell in the first few years. And even in that one pair, half of it is proably spare - reserved for routing around breaks by slinging the data the other way around the loop. So if you look at the contacted bandwidth versus the fiber's bandwidth, even your one "lit" fiber looks "half-dark".
But you don't just lay a pair of fibers. You need spares even initially. (Else what do you do if a fiber breaks? Dig/dredge up the run to replace it? Or use the spare fiber.) So now even with one set of spares you've doubled your capacity and not used any of the "extra". 75% "dark" and looking worse.
But what happens a couple years down the road when your capacity is all contracted out and you need more? If you laid down extra fibers you just light 'em up. If you didn't, you need to DIG ANOTHER TRENCH AROUND THE CONTNENT to lay more.
So of COURSE you spent a few percent extra, and laid maybe 20 or 50 or 100 times as many fibers as you initially need. You don't EVER want to dig that trench again.
But do you light 'em up now? Of COURSE not! The incremental cost of LAYING extra fibers is tiny. But the incremental cost of LIGHTING more is nearly the same as lighting the first ones. And every year the equipment gets cheaper and can push more data through the fibers (though not enough more to eliminate the need to light more fibers eventually). The longer you wait to light them, the more bandwidth bang for your buck - so you delay deploying the BOXES as long as possible.
Thus, if your planners had any savvy, nearly ALL your fibers are dark, and will be for decades.
But some clueless "analysts" assume that the cost of laying fiber is in direct proportion to the amount of fiber laid. So they look at how much got laid, and how much is currently lit. And they trumpet the "dark fiber" "problem" to the world, convincing investers that the far-seeing planners who laid it have wasted their investors' money. Oh HORRORS!
In fact, the people (if any) who wasted their investors' money (at least in the fiber laying process) are the ones who spent nearly as much to only lay enough fibers to handle the immediate needs.
The collapse of the long-haul market was due mainly to the fact that EVERYBODY laid fibers, assuming they could each get a big chunk of the market. Too many suppliers led to a price war that took most of 'em down.
But the "dark fiber problem" scare stories provided a bit extra push, sucking needed next-stage investment out of some companies that might have made it otherwise and leading to their demise.
As a result of this scaremongering we'll get more consolidation, and higher prices, than we otherwise would gotten without their panic.
VERY IMPORTANT:
Have food on hand. Good, nutritious meals, not candy and junkfood snacks.
For FREE to the workers. As much as they want. Catered supper for large companies (especially at project crunch time), snack room stocked with frozen and dehydrated meals. Free soda and bottled water (not JUST coffee). And so on.
Don't even THINK of putting in a vending machine with a token payment.
For the price of a dinner you get an extra four hours of work from a significant fraction of the employees who partake.
Having food handy at all hours mean a programmer will work long sessions several times per week, which is much more efficient than stopping after a day's work then trying to figure out where you were the next day. A catered dinner gives team members a non-stressful time to talk over work issues, as well as an incentive to stick around.
HP pioneered this hack, with one of the founders' wives keeping a 'fridge stocked with sandwitches and serving lunch.
I've been at several companies which had the tradition, then had a change of management. One of the first things the new clueless manager did each time was try to cut costs and stop the "raid on the company treasury" by cutting the food. Stopped the dinners, replaced nutritious with junk foods, instituted a subsidized token payment on the formerly free vending machines, etc.
It was like cutting the workforce by 30% without cutting the salary expenses.
Take away the dinners and the employees go out to dinner AND DON'T COME BACK, rather than working until near-midnight. Take away the nutritious food, and they go out for lunch. And so on.
The startup mentality went away. People worked like they were at a "regular company" rather than a garage shop - despite repeated pep-talks from management. Attrition started. Company productivity even in the working hours remaining went 'way down.
Food for the workers LOOKS like a significnat expense. But it's a drop in the bucket compared to staffing up by another 50% with people as expert in your own field as your existing employees. The costs aren't even comparable.
1. Weight. An MG + Ammo weighs a signifigant amount.
That makes sense.
2. Aiming. How do you aim the thing? For the time you'd basically need another person which means more weight.
Fix it aimed straight to the rear. Hit the trigger and wiggle your nose (and thus tial) in a little circle. Fill the air behind you with cones of lead particles. Following you becomes hazardous. B-)
Well, that, and on a Learjet, the engines aren't necessarily designed for sustained inverted flight. You'd run out of lubrication if you tried to do that, sustained.
Maybe THAT's why they stopped. B-)
(I don't claim the story is TRUE. Just that I HEARD it.)
I think that yaw does not count as attitude, because it does not change the relationship between the wings of a plane and the plane of the Earth. This relationship stays the same when the plane spins around its vertical axis.
/. that include all three. So I'm assuming the definition cited in this thread is defective.
Yes, that definition excludes yaw - at least when the craft is wings-level and nose-level. But it also excludes pitch when the plane is wingtip-straight-down, and roll when the plane is nose-straight-down or nose-straight-up.
I've always understood attitude to include all three. And I've seen other definitions referenced on
In space, I think they have even more control - even being able to point the nose of the craft AWAY from the direction of travel or straight up (subjectively speaking, of course).
You can do that in the atmosphere, too.
It's just that some attitudes have consequences, and (at flight speeds) sometimes the consequences involve sudden disassembly of the airframe, so you can't maintain certain attitudes for very long. B-)
Of course if your airframe is strong enough, some of these unusual attitudes can be useful. For instance: In WWII it was a real bitch if you got an enemy on your tail. If his craft was roughly as manouverable as yours he could just follow you through all your manouvers and keep shooting at you, while you mostly got to run. (I never DID figure out why they didn't mout a rear-pointing machinegun on fighters.) That's why fighter craft worked in pairs and the pairs worked in groups (so you had a spare "buddy" if yours got shot down.
Nowadays fighter jocks can just nose-up suddenly and fly belly first for a couple seconds. It's like hitting a wall of pillows in the air: Airspeed drops abruptly, and now YOU'RE the guy at the rear of the parade. (But try that in a WWII craft and you're likely to find it only worked for the wings...)
I hear one of the common models of the learjet gets significantly better mileage flying upside down.
Story goes this was discovered by a three-man consulting firm of autopilot-programmers, who bought one that had had a fire wreck the cabin furnishings at scrap prices, had it redone by a van conversion outfit, and used it for recreational cross-country flying. Of course it costs a LOT to do that, and this was limiting their recreation. So they tried different things to reduce fuel consumption.
After discovering they saved about 10% flying upside down, they rehacked their autopilot to fly it that way if desired, and played cards sitting on the ceiling.
Well one day they were flying near a military base and NORAD got a bit concerned: Seems the radar signature of a lear flying upside-down wasn't in the database. Oops: UFO. Did the Soviets come up with something new ala the U2? Up go a couple fighters to check it out.
They look out the window and see a fighter pacing them. Fighter jock points up. ("Are you aware you're flying upside down?") They nod and point up, too. ("Yes, we are. This is intentional.") (Sometimes pilots get disoriented and fly upside down. This can lead to crashes if he doesn't get it figured out in time.)
So fighter pilot flips over so HE's upside-down, too, paces them a moment more, then flys away, still upside-down.
Oh, you mean nose-uppy and nose-downy?
Nose-uppy/nose-downy (ptich), wingtip-uppy/wingtip-downy (roll).
But (unless I misunderstand the term and it's specificially excluded) the dictionary missed yaw: Nose-righty/nose-lefty.
An aircraft's position at any instant has six degrees of freedom: Three of attitude (roll, pitch, and yaw), three of location.
Additionally there are the deriviatives of each of those (i.e. position gives three each of velocity, accelleration, jerk, snap, etc., attitude gives roll/pitch/yaw rates, etc.)
As far as safety at rest stops, I have always packed my hand gun while traveling and always have it on-person at rest areas. Don't screw with me while I am taking a leak!
For those who want to carry legally for self-protection while on the road (and checking out the WiFI access), here's the drill: Get permits from Florida, Nevada, and Utah. They will give permits to any law-abiding US citizen who takes the course, passes the "don't miss and hit a bystander" accuracy test, goes through the background check, and pays the fee. The approved courses are virtually identical and can be taught simultaneously by a single instructor.
Add in the states that accept one of those three permits through reciprocal agreements or full-faith-and-credence, plus Vermont (which doesn't require licensing), and you have much of the contiguous 48 covered.
But don't even THINK of trying to carry under one of 'em in California, Mass, DC, New York City, or any of the several other states/cities/places where you REALLY need protection. B-(
Nowadays you need to take the course in Nevada to get the Nevada permit. And you need a reference from a Utah resident who is well known and of good character (i.e. any businessman you deal with regularly) for their permit.
Florida started giving licenses to out-of-state potential tourists (and removed the distinctive license markings on rental cars) soon after they started handing 'em out to citizens, saw crime drop like a rock, and had a gang take to preying on tourists who had recently rented cars at airports. (Note that, even at the height of the gang's operation, a tourist visiting FL was far less likely to be attacked than one visiting CA.)
This seems to me a waste of money that comes directly from my pocket.
How does it come from YOUR pocket? Are you going to feed coins into the kiosk?
In case you didn't read the article: What is proposed is letting a service provider put in coin-operated internet kiosks at rest areas - and pay off the state by providing free WiFi at the same sites. No out-of-pocket for the TX taxpayers. Instead the coins going from tourists' pockets into the internet "payphone booth" pays for the WiFi and net feed for those with a laptop and adapter.
This has got to be one of the most ridiculous things I have heard in a while. It really sounds like a push from some wifi startup or something to suck government funds.
RTFA.
The state is taking bids from service providers to put in pay-internet-kiosks, on the condition that they also provide free WiFi.
No cost to the state but:
- The bidding process.
- Providing the site (and maybe power) for the kiosks - at places where they already have the land and power.
- The "opportunity cost" of having committed to a vendor (who will probably want an exclusive on the rest stops where he has a presence.)
Let's see if anybody bites.
I doubt people will be too keen on the idea of using a government network to check email, IM, and surf the web.
So use SSH, VPN, or some other encrypted tunnel back to your home or office machine. Read or download email that way, and surf the web through a proxy.
Also, not many people just carry their laptop with them in the car. Most drivers want to get to where they are going as fast as they can.
I do. Even on vacation. And it's a bitch to find a feed on a two week, 5,000 mile road trip. But not as much of a bitch as being out-of-touch for two weeks (with those I'm willing to be IN touch with on a vacation, of course. B-) )
Truckers need to be in touch. So much so that the truckers often pay a significant charge at service plazas (i.e. Flying J) for internet access - either a terminal or WiFi to the cab. (Also: Many truckers live in their trucks for weeks at a time, so their recreational internet use depends on such feeds.)
Salesmen and other "road warriors" need it, too. Only place I know they can reliably find it free is Kinkos. They provide lots of free office-on-the-road service (such as free local phone and handy calling card dispensers) to small businesses and road warriors, to entice such people in. They make it all back with significant profit on printing and other office services they provide for a fee. (Also: Their T1 brings in big print jobs from the local businesses. So letting the customers plug into the hub and use the net is essentially free.)
This means that a laptop powered by a mini IC engine/generator package would be putting out at least four times as much heat as one powered by a fuel cell.
Would take at least four times as much fuel, too. (There goes your time-between-refills.)
GIVE IT SOME GAS Ditch those flaky low-tech batteries: the miniature internal combustion engine is gearing up to power everything from laptops to cellphones
Internal combustion engines are heat engines and limited to carnot cycle efficiency. Fuel cells are not.
This means that a laptop powered by a mini IC engine/generator package would be putting out at least four times as much heat as one powered by a fuel cell.
Actually, medical and biological researchers don't so much compare a fetus to a cancer; a better metaphor is a parasite. One of the active areas of research is attempting to explain why a female mammal's immune system doesn't recognize the fetus as "foreign" and attack it the same way other parasites are attacked. [...] In another decade or so we may have the explanation.
We have part of it now.
A number of foetal antigens and markers have been identified whidh trigger a specific suppression of the mother's immune system. (Some cancers also produce them at an age when normal tissues don't, which is how many were identified.)
A common thread is a short sequence that also appears on a mylen sheath protien - which appears (outside the blood-brain barrier) late enough after birth that the immune system has already decided what's "self" and what isn't. This appears to mark mylen as something that will have been left out of the inventory but nevertheless shouldn't be attacked.
Multiple sclerosis is a failure of this mechanism. The major risk factor appears to be ingestion of cow's milk - which contains a version of a milk protein, similar to the mylen protein, but with the bovine rather than the human form of the protective sequence. Cows have already been gene-engineered to make the human form of the protein, in the hopes of cutting MS incidence. (I don't know if they replaced the whole immune mechanism in the cows, however. If not they might have a lot of MS in the cows. B-( )
It has been noted that, antigenically, the foetus has to be either virtually identical to the mother (so there's nothing different to attack) or significantly different (to trigger the rejection-suppression). Near-identical histocompatibility markers don't produce enough of a reaction to trigger the immune suppression, and this accounts for some couples' infertility. (Interestingly, histocompatibility markers are apparently involved in personal scent, and people who are antigenically different enough to trigger the reaction also "smell better" to each other.)
In the United States, truth is an absolute defense against charges of slander or libel.
:)
Unfortunately, that's not true in Brazil - or a number of other countries (Britain, for example). TRUE, but uncomfortable, criticism, especially of government officials (though often extending to others with enough resources to sue) is a common theme.
In Brazil's case (according to a previous post) the law in question is "The Press Law", which was passed under a dictatorial regime to silence its critics. Thus a felony conviction, with a hefty prison term and future reduction of rights (such as loss of the ability to hold public offices including those that influence government software acquisition policy) as a punishment for uttering a TRUE criticism would fit right in.
Let's have a round of applause for the US in this matter, and then go right back to criticism.
Hear hear.
The novel idea that truth is an absolute defense against claims of libel first entered the legal world as a result of a contentious court case early in the history of the US Federal government. Unfortunately, this idea (along with others in the "free speech" category) has not caught on all that well worldwide.
A felony to say something that is true?
Yep.
Under certain circumstances the same is true in Britain, by the way.
It's in the US that truth is an absolute defense against claims of libel - the result of a very contentious case early in the Federal Government's history.
According to one of the followups to the "Text of the Complaint" posting, Microsoft is suing under "The Press Law", which was passed under a dictatorial regime to silence its critics. Thus a felony conviction, with a hefty prison term and future reduction of rights (such as loss of the ability to hold public office) as a punishment for uttering a TRUE criticism would fit right in.
I see this every once in a while on /. What is the meaning? In this day and age, who is "PDF challenged"? Particularly on /.
In case you didn't notice: The Adobe reader, though free, is closed, proprietary, and comes with a restrictive ELUA. Some people (software designers in particular) may refuse to download it in order to remain unconstrained by such agreements.
Finding a non-Adobe Acrobat reader that is not itself the result of a violation of an Adobe IP claim, and pulgging it into a browser, is a bit problematic. B-)
and saying "Linux is a cancer" is just an objective observation.
A cancer and a developing foetus look much alike.
(Especially to someone who doesn't want the baby born.)
1) Getting out of the atmosphere.
2) Getting to low orbit.
3) Getting anywhere else.
4) Getting back.
(I don't mean this as a "funny" post. Doesn't getting back to Earth involve a huge number of problems? Such as: atmosphere; avoidance of crash landings in civilized areas; and a few other things that don't matter if you just intend to land on the moon or Mars.)
Yes indeed.
But again you solved MOST of getting back when you solved 1).
1) gave you your life support, terminal navigation, reentry, etc. (And a seasoned engineering team that has proven it knows what it's doing and can solve the REALLY HARD problems. B-) )
2) only adds (on the reentry side) dumping the extra orbital energy without tearing up the craft, and timing the deorbit manouver.
3) adds nothing to the return problem. Navigating from somewhere out there to LEO is the same problem as navigating from LEO to somewhere out there. (Actually the one difference is that it's easier, because you get closer to your navigational aids as you get closer to the END of the trip, when is when precision is required.)