Article 2
All activities on the moon, including its exploration and use, shall be carried out in accordance with international law. . .
As with any other regime of international law, the treaty contains provisions dealing with jurisdiction:
Article 12
1. States Parties shall retain jurisdiction and control over their personnel, vehicles, equipment, facilities, stations and installations on the moon. The ownership of space vehicles, equipment, facilities, stations and installations shall not be affected by their presence on the moon.
Obviously neither one of us is an international lawyer, much less an expert on this issue. But from the above it is obvious that the blanket statement "Lawyers cannot practice law in space" is incorrect.
"eventually for stopping high-speed chases or tracking fleeing felons."
So they'll require all cars to have one in case the fleeing felon steals my car? Or would they take it one step further and require all persons to have microchips for tracking that "would be used to find kidnapping victims and fleeing felons, not (wink wink) for developing marketing data for sale to the private sector." I don't trust the govt. *that* much. (Why? You have nothing to hide!) How about the frequency of my attendance at a local strip joint?
How about applications for detecting restraining order violations when I inadvertently travel within 1000 feet of the protected person?
I'd rather put my own tracking device on my car both to make cool maps and in case it was stolen. That seems reasonable enough, it's just the issue about requiring it that bothers me.
The Army has an extensive selection process for new weapons, and they have stayed with the M16 series for 35 years now-- had something that better fits the needs of the troops and logistical requirements come along in the interim, you can bet that DoD would be using it. Developments in the 1980s with lasers and caseless ammunition (e.g. the HK G11 rifle) failed to improve on the performance of the M16 series, and DoD has continued to procure the M16 and more recently the M4 Carbine (a popular shortened version of the M16 issued to officers, tank crews, and troops other than front line riflemen). The current manufacturer of the M16 is FN Herstal in Belgium, and Colt is the manufacturer of the M4 Carbine. Both pieces are high-quality compared to a lot of junk in the private market. There are any number of manufacturers of M16/AR-15-type rifles, but Colt consistently brings the highest prices in private sales-- "if it's not a Colt, it's just a copy," as they say. While it is certainly possible to buy a better-quality AR-15 from a custom manufacturer, the Colt/FN combination offers DoD the best balance of cost, quality, and production capacity. There are developments under way now that may limit the useful life of currently issued weapons, but every rifle the DoD issues is designed to serve for many years in many sets of hands, with parts being replaced as needed. Check out your local Army surplus store and you'll see all manner of accessories, uniforms, and equipment that the DoD issues to its troops-- most of the *officially issued* stuff is high quality, while the aftermarket knockoffs are junk. You might be surprised at what gets issued...the Soldier Systems Center recently added the Vietnam-style Tomahawk to the Army infantryman's basic load.
Notice in Reloaded that the perimeter defenses (outside the gates) are much larger and probably computer-controlled. Also, in the new trailer at 1m54s there appears to be a central tower with heavy weapons. The Mech suits provide a more portable solution.
That is without a doubt one of the worst-looking Apple products I have *ever* seen. It looks like a complete departure from the aesthetically pleasing (despite the plastique) G3/G4 form factor. It's all boxy and metallic and the handles don't look quite right. The last "fugly" Apple product I would compare this to is the disastrous 17" CRT studio display with clear plastic so you could see the mess of internals. Apple, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?
While traditional chording keyboards have never really caught on, this thumb "keyboard" seems to have great potential in this area. Chording keyboards, as we all know, have fewer keys and allow people to type faster if they know the combinations very well. Unfortunately, the combinations are somewhat more difficult to memorize than the locations of keys on a regular keyboard. But if you could have a dual-thumb apparatus, like a set of two joysticks or a pair of sensor-embedded gloves (a la Minority Report), I bet you could make chording feasible.
what with everything you need within a block or two, why would one need a car in Boston?
The same reason you need a car in every city...because women don't like riding back from bars to your place on the subway or in a tiny electric car. Trust me.
ironically, there is a grain of truth in your proposal to assassinate executives. It could even be utilitarian to eliminate malevolent corporate actors, kind of like a Darkman or Robin Hood figure; there's something quite satisfying about an underdog who robs from the rich and gives to the poor, isn't there?
I suspect the anti-globalism crowd (which probably correlates with your view) is a big reason that "Executive Protection" is now a huge industry-- and why not?
We are the Borg.
Lower your shields, and surrender your ship.
We will add your biological and technological
distinctiveness to our own.
Your culture will adapt to service ours.
Resistance is futile.
Freedom is irrelevant;
Self-determination is irrelevant;
You must comply.
Strength is irrelevant.
Death is irrelevant.
Your defensive capabilities
are unable to withstand us.
Resistance is futile.
Your life, as it has been, is over.
From this time forward, you will service us
Just when does this become illegal or a threat to the public
If you have all the parts that you need to make a cruise missile, it is a destructive device under federal law and you're looking at 10 years in prison without the proper licenses. A destructive device is, among other things, "any explosive, incendiary, or poison gas. ..rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces, (D) missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce, (E) mine, or (F) similar device" or any part or combination of parts from which a destructive device can be assembled. 28 U.S.C. 5845(f). To manufacture a destructive device in the U.S. you have to apply to the ATF for a manufacturer's license, which is $3,000 every three years and you have to register each destructive device and its components.
Of course, you can still put the info on the web...
isn't the whole point of a blog to give the world a small peek at what you're doing? If it's anonymous, there's nothing to stop someone from posting absolute fiction. I might as well just write short stories and post them on usenet...
You bring up an interesting point-- maybe they called it "piles" to avoid conflicting with the existing hypercard stacks terminology. As we all know, hypercard was way ahead of its time, like many Apple products; look at how well flash has done with the same concept that grew out of Hypercard and Macromedia Director. In the piles concept the interrelationships between files could be useful in the context of a "view related documents" function in a window when you look at one of your files. Perhaps they will add this command to the preview feature in finder column windows.
Perhaps you are referring to "Benford's Law". I'm not quite sure of the link between his theorem and coin tossing, but it's interesting nonetheless. The strangest thing is the number of triples, quadruples, and even higher strings that can be expected from a 200 flip session. I remember this in the context of the SAT, because apparently they purposely avoid have multiple strings of the same answer precisely so people have one less way of guessing the right answer. If I were to fake a coin toss session, I would put in at least one string of six, two strings of five, several strings of four, a bunch of strings of three, and many strings of two.
"We would see the multitude oppressed from within as a consequence of the very precautions it had taken against what menaced it from without. We would see oppression continually increase, without the oppressed ever being able to know where it would end or what legitimate means would be left for them to stop it. We would see the rights of citizens and national liberties gradually die out, and the protests of the weak treated like seditious murmurs. We would see politics restrict the honor of defending the common cause to a mercenary portion of the people. We would see arising from this the necessity for taxes, the discouraged farmer leaving his field, even during peacetime, and leaving his plow in order to gird himself with a sword. We would see the rise of fatal and bizarre rules in the code of honor. We would see the defenders of the homeland sooner or later become its enemies, constantly holding a dagger over their fellow citizens."
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Discourse on the Origin of Inequality.
auto-aim in some systems-- part of the recent effort of the DoD to install autonomous or semi-autonomous systems to reduce the number of personnel in a given system, in order to minimize error and reduce maintenance costs.
The Patriot missile system, for example, can be set to one of three levels: manual, semi-automatic, or fully automatic. In semi-automatic mode, it detects and assesses inbound targets and tells the operator, who decides what to do. In fully automatic, it detects, assesses, and engages inbound targets without the operator's help. As one might imagine, it is very fast in fully automatic mode.
Another auto-aim system is the Phalanx Close In Weapons System, designed to protect Navy ships from incoming missiles, planes, and high speed boats. It's been mentioned on slashdot many times before. The CIWS has a fully automatic radar system and an attached 20mm gatling gun as a last line of defense so incoming threats can't overwhelm the limited human capacity of the ship, and was deployed in 1977.
So far one of the only auto-aim technologies for ground troops is the TLOS, which detects the enemy's optical devices, like sniper scopes and laser designators, so the foot soldier can engage them faster than if he were searching with the naked eye. But this technology will no doubt be implemented on a wider scale in the next decade when the digital battlefield becomes mainstream. I would look more along the lines of Tactical Mobile Robotics to find auto-aim technologies. See Raptor, basically a sentry that never sleeps. Also, DARPA has a lot of autonomous technology projects in the works.
J-Stars integration
on
Synthetic Vision
·
· Score: 2, Informative
The J-STARS ground surveillance system is designed to use radar to detect and track slow moving or semi-fixed land targets like vehicles and relay the information to ground units. The system consists of aircraft with high energy radar and advanced signal processing combined with ground stations to receive the information.
Combined with a 3-D map of the battlefield, the location and movements of enemy forces beyond visual range would be a powerful asset. Even if it's as simple as a "red area" on the map to show pilots where *not* to go, that's a huge value. Assuming the system could be extended to ground troops, this type of information could make a huge difference in, e.g., urban areas where troops can't see past the buildings around them. I can think of plenty of Special Forces applications.
Imagine having a monocular on your non-dominant eye showing you a wireframe map of a city in both 2-D and 3-D space with estimated locations/movement of enemy units so you can navigate without making contact. The National Imaging and Mapping Agency has quietly been acquiring and processing high-res 3-D maps of most of the Earth, so it looks like we're well on the way to a totally geographic-aware force.
The more separated the military becomes from the populace, the less we seem to care about its freqent use. Haven't we all seen how the fact that service is voluntary is now used as a justification for going to war? Should it be? You're darn right that "they" (politicians in office) don't want a draft-- if they had a draft, that might actually *gasp* discourage our country from using war as the first resort because everyday people, maybe even some sons of politicians, would die without a clear good reason! Those in power now don't want a draft because it causes political problems in the latest and greatest "humanitarian effort." All I know is that I'm voting for the Democratic party in the next election.
The type of person who buys an iMac at the retail Apple Store (as opposed to a custom-built machine from the online Apple Store) doesn't know what "megahertz" means. Maybe they know what a G4 is, maybe not. In their case, lighting that makes the product look as they've seen it before could actually help. The fact remains that Apple's human engineering has always been peerless, and their retail stores are no exception. The stores draw in people who maybe have never seen a Mac in person before, or at most saw one at the crowded, crappy CompUSA.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, principles of international law as embodied in the UN Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies govern activities on the moon:
Article 2
All activities on the moon, including its exploration and use, shall be carried out in accordance with international law. . .
As with any other regime of international law, the treaty contains provisions dealing with jurisdiction:
Article 12
1. States Parties shall retain jurisdiction and control over their personnel, vehicles, equipment, facilities, stations and installations on the moon. The ownership of space vehicles, equipment, facilities, stations and installations shall not be affected by their presence on the moon.
Obviously neither one of us is an international lawyer, much less an expert on this issue. But from the above it is obvious that the blanket statement "Lawyers cannot practice law in space" is incorrect.
"This is the way the [Matrix] world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper."
"eventually for stopping high-speed chases or tracking fleeing felons."
So they'll require all cars to have one in case the fleeing felon steals my car? Or would they take it one step further and require all persons to have microchips for tracking that "would be used to find kidnapping victims and fleeing felons, not (wink wink) for developing marketing data for sale to the private sector." I don't trust the govt. *that* much. (Why? You have nothing to hide!) How about the frequency of my attendance at a local strip joint?
How about applications for detecting restraining order violations when I inadvertently travel within 1000 feet of the protected person?
I'd rather put my own tracking device on my car both to make cool maps and in case it was stolen. That seems reasonable enough, it's just the issue about requiring it that bothers me.
DARPA is working on this now!
The Army has an extensive selection process for new weapons, and they have stayed with the M16 series for 35 years now-- had something that better fits the needs of the troops and logistical requirements come along in the interim, you can bet that DoD would be using it. Developments in the 1980s with lasers and caseless ammunition (e.g. the HK G11 rifle) failed to improve on the performance of the M16 series, and DoD has continued to procure the M16 and more recently the M4 Carbine (a popular shortened version of the M16 issued to officers, tank crews, and troops other than front line riflemen). The current manufacturer of the M16 is FN Herstal in Belgium, and Colt is the manufacturer of the M4 Carbine. Both pieces are high-quality compared to a lot of junk in the private market. There are any number of manufacturers of M16/AR-15-type rifles, but Colt consistently brings the highest prices in private sales-- "if it's not a Colt, it's just a copy," as they say. While it is certainly possible to buy a better-quality AR-15 from a custom manufacturer, the Colt/FN combination offers DoD the best balance of cost, quality, and production capacity. There are developments under way now that may limit the useful life of currently issued weapons, but every rifle the DoD issues is designed to serve for many years in many sets of hands, with parts being replaced as needed. Check out your local Army surplus store and you'll see all manner of accessories, uniforms, and equipment that the DoD issues to its troops-- most of the *officially issued* stuff is high quality, while the aftermarket knockoffs are junk. You might be surprised at what gets issued...the Soldier Systems Center recently added the Vietnam-style Tomahawk to the Army infantryman's basic load.
Notice in Reloaded that the perimeter defenses (outside the gates) are much larger and probably computer-controlled. Also, in the new trailer at 1m54s there appears to be a central tower with heavy weapons. The Mech suits provide a more portable solution.
That is without a doubt one of the worst-looking Apple products I have *ever* seen. It looks like a complete departure from the aesthetically pleasing (despite the plastique) G3/G4 form factor. It's all boxy and metallic and the handles don't look quite right. The last "fugly" Apple product I would compare this to is the disastrous 17" CRT studio display with clear plastic so you could see the mess of internals. Apple, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?
While traditional chording keyboards have never really caught on, this thumb "keyboard" seems to have great potential in this area. Chording keyboards, as we all know, have fewer keys and allow people to type faster if they know the combinations very well. Unfortunately, the combinations are somewhat more difficult to memorize than the locations of keys on a regular keyboard. But if you could have a dual-thumb apparatus, like a set of two joysticks or a pair of sensor-embedded gloves (a la Minority Report), I bet you could make chording feasible.
what with everything you need within a block or two, why would one need a car in Boston?
The same reason you need a car in every city...because women don't like riding back from bars to your place on the subway or in a tiny electric car. Trust me.
ironically, there is a grain of truth in your proposal to assassinate executives. It could even be utilitarian to eliminate malevolent corporate actors, kind of like a Darkman or Robin Hood figure; there's something quite satisfying about an underdog who robs from the rich and gives to the poor, isn't there?
I suspect the anti-globalism crowd (which probably correlates with your view) is a big reason that "Executive Protection" is now a huge industry-- and why not?
"Resistorum Est Futilitatis"
[unknown]
We are the Borg.
Lower your shields, and surrender your ship.
We will add your biological and technological
distinctiveness to our own.
Your culture will adapt to service ours.
Resistance is futile.
Freedom is irrelevant;
Self-determination is irrelevant;
You must comply.
Strength is irrelevant.
Death is irrelevant.
Your defensive capabilities
are unable to withstand us.
Resistance is futile.
Your life, as it has been, is over.
From this time forward, you will service us
Just when does this become illegal or a threat to the public
.rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces, (D) missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce, (E) mine, or (F) similar device" or any part or combination of parts from which a destructive device can be assembled. 28 U.S.C. 5845(f). To manufacture a destructive device in the U.S. you have to apply to the ATF for a manufacturer's license, which is $3,000 every three years and you have to register each destructive device and its components.
If you have all the parts that you need to make a cruise missile, it is a destructive device under federal law and you're looking at 10 years in prison without the proper licenses. A destructive device is, among other things, "any explosive, incendiary, or poison gas. .
Of course, you can still put the info on the web...
isn't the whole point of a blog to give the world a small peek at what you're doing? If it's anonymous, there's nothing to stop someone from posting absolute fiction. I might as well just write short stories and post them on usenet...
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) -- hailed as an even greater spectacle than Fellowship of the Ring.
Toy Story 2 (1999) -- hailed as a leap in computer animation over the original Toy Story.
Forrest Gump (1994) -- hailed as a glorious tale of Americana.
These were all hyped before release and turned out to exceed expectations.
You bring up an interesting point-- maybe they called it "piles" to avoid conflicting with the existing hypercard stacks terminology. As we all know, hypercard was way ahead of its time, like many Apple products; look at how well flash has done with the same concept that grew out of Hypercard and Macromedia Director. In the piles concept the interrelationships between files could be useful in the context of a "view related documents" function in a window when you look at one of your files. Perhaps they will add this command to the preview feature in finder column windows.
Perhaps you are referring to "Benford's Law". I'm not quite sure of the link between his theorem and coin tossing, but it's interesting nonetheless. The strangest thing is the number of triples, quadruples, and even higher strings that can be expected from a 200 flip session. I remember this in the context of the SAT, because apparently they purposely avoid have multiple strings of the same answer precisely so people have one less way of guessing the right answer. If I were to fake a coin toss session, I would put in at least one string of six, two strings of five, several strings of four, a bunch of strings of three, and many strings of two.
These are maps showing magnitude, fault, date, and so on. You can also view "shakemaps" and other cool stuff.
NEIC real-time list
Los Angeles area seismicity map
U.S. seismicity map
World seismicity map
Yeah, hopefully he'll do better than the original movie about an apocalyptic earthquake hitting los angeles. And better than
One time they told me
All your base are belong to __
Since then I've been scared.
"We would see the multitude oppressed from within as a consequence of the very precautions it had taken against what menaced it from without. We would see oppression continually increase, without the oppressed ever being able to know where it would end or what legitimate means would be left for them to stop it. We would see the rights of citizens and national liberties gradually die out, and the protests of the weak treated like seditious murmurs. We would see politics restrict the honor of defending the common cause to a mercenary portion of the people. We would see arising from this the necessity for taxes, the discouraged farmer leaving his field, even during peacetime, and leaving his plow in order to gird himself with a sword. We would see the rise of fatal and bizarre rules in the code of honor. We would see the defenders of the homeland sooner or later become its enemies, constantly holding a dagger over their fellow citizens."
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Discourse on the Origin of Inequality.
Looks like it already happened! (see photo)
auto-aim in some systems-- part of the recent effort of the DoD to install autonomous or semi-autonomous systems to reduce the number of personnel in a given system, in order to minimize error and reduce maintenance costs.
The Patriot missile system, for example, can be set to one of three levels: manual, semi-automatic, or fully automatic. In semi-automatic mode, it detects and assesses inbound targets and tells the operator, who decides what to do. In fully automatic, it detects, assesses, and engages inbound targets without the operator's help. As one might imagine, it is very fast in fully automatic mode.
Another auto-aim system is the Phalanx Close In Weapons System, designed to protect Navy ships from incoming missiles, planes, and high speed boats. It's been mentioned on slashdot many times before. The CIWS has a fully automatic radar system and an attached 20mm gatling gun as a last line of defense so incoming threats can't overwhelm the limited human capacity of the ship, and was deployed in 1977.
So far one of the only auto-aim technologies for ground troops is the TLOS, which detects the enemy's optical devices, like sniper scopes and laser designators, so the foot soldier can engage them faster than if he were searching with the naked eye. But this technology will no doubt be implemented on a wider scale in the next decade when the digital battlefield becomes mainstream. I would look more along the lines of Tactical Mobile Robotics to find auto-aim technologies. See Raptor, basically a sentry that never sleeps. Also, DARPA has a lot of autonomous technology projects in the works.
The J-STARS ground surveillance system is designed to use radar to detect and track slow moving or semi-fixed land targets like vehicles and relay the information to ground units. The system consists of aircraft with high energy radar and advanced signal processing combined with ground stations to receive the information.
Combined with a 3-D map of the battlefield, the location and movements of enemy forces beyond visual range would be a powerful asset. Even if it's as simple as a "red area" on the map to show pilots where *not* to go, that's a huge value. Assuming the system could be extended to ground troops, this type of information could make a huge difference in, e.g., urban areas where troops can't see past the buildings around them. I can think of plenty of Special Forces applications.
Imagine having a monocular on your non-dominant eye showing you a wireframe map of a city in both 2-D and 3-D space with estimated locations/movement of enemy units so you can navigate without making contact. The National Imaging and Mapping Agency has quietly been acquiring and processing high-res 3-D maps of most of the Earth, so it looks like we're well on the way to a totally geographic-aware force.
The more separated the military becomes from the populace, the less we seem to care about its freqent use. Haven't we all seen how the fact that service is voluntary is now used as a justification for going to war? Should it be? You're darn right that "they" (politicians in office) don't want a draft-- if they had a draft, that might actually *gasp* discourage our country from using war as the first resort because everyday people, maybe even some sons of politicians, would die without a clear good reason! Those in power now don't want a draft because it causes political problems in the latest and greatest "humanitarian effort." All I know is that I'm voting for the Democratic party in the next election.
The type of person who buys an iMac at the retail Apple Store (as opposed to a custom-built machine from the online Apple Store) doesn't know what "megahertz" means. Maybe they know what a G4 is, maybe not. In their case, lighting that makes the product look as they've seen it before could actually help. The fact remains that Apple's human engineering has always been peerless, and their retail stores are no exception. The stores draw in people who maybe have never seen a Mac in person before, or at most saw one at the crowded, crappy CompUSA.