Actually, a well-maintained, well-serviced (and possibly new) AK-47 variant is quite accurate - less than competitors but not by much. Thing is, where competitors jam and need servicing, AK-47 loses accuracy. It can withstand a lot of abuse and still keep firing, but a 40 years old AK that saw two different armed conflicts will never get anywhere near the accuracy of one that just left the production lines of IzMash.
Certainly a new, well maintained AK is perfectly suitable for all these applications. Less so than other guns, but not so much less as to make it anywhere near "unsuitable". OTOH, a backyard sale AK from Romanian armed forces surplus after surviving 10 generations of Romanian recruits is definitely on the "unsuitable" side.
Do you think that if the US told Russia "We don't intend to invade you" they would just believe and cease arming themselves? Did you think the massive military forces in Germany - INVASION FORCES (meant to push the frontline by some 100km in case of attack, and keep it there so that tactical nukes wouldn't fall on allied territory, but technically not much different from forces meant to reach Moscow) made Russian less jumpy?
What NATO intended, what NATO wished Russians to believe, and what Russians believed were three different things. Post-1945 USA didn't have nearly sufficient nuclear weapons production capacity to make them completely sway the balance of power. Back then still a definitely superior rifle could win the war. Sure, 5-10 years later the situation was different. But 1947, AK-47 was very relevant.
AK-46 was significantly different from AK-47, and - bluntly speaking - utter crap. AK-47 was a fine weapon but the machining process was rather expensive, complex and slow, making it unsuitable for mass production and deployment in army. AKM - an AK-47 variant that used stamped sheet metal instead of machined parts, became the instant hit, possessing all the advantages of the original, slightly lower mass, and being very cheap and simple to manufacture in bulk.
They aren't very rust-proof, but not only you can use pig fat or margarine for oiling them just fine, they have so much tolerances - not only in dimensions but also in surplus power of gas piston, return spring, and a whole lot of other mechanisms, that less-than-excessive amount of rust will simply get torn off and the surface smoothed out by the mechanism operation - essentially the weapon is self-cleaning to a degree, operation grinding the rust off. There is a soviet russia joke somewhere in there...
Collect, snoop in, use own resources to decrypt - sure. Damage security of products manufactured by independent, private 3rd party companies, force them to release broken security products and market them as secure - now that's really assinine.
The problem is this requires enormous investment in hardware that will be useless afterwards. I doubt there are many entities willing to invest that much into killing Bitcoin.
Once existence of such cartel is known, the value of bitcoin would plummet right to the bottom.
The cartel would be able to produce disproportionate amounts of worthless currency.
Note wealth in BTC you have is [number of BTC you own] x [price of BTC in USD]. You could cheat the first but as result you'll destroy the second. You'll be stuck with tons of useless hardware that cost millions of real money, and a bunch of useless data signifying you have a lot of worthless currency.
Moreover, the "big players" of the market know this already. Any bets why the manufacturers of BTC ASIC hardware sell it instead of earning BTC on their own farms? The answer is spreading the computing power keeps BTC healthy and exchange rates high. They prefer to get some cash directly, from sale of hardware, than to try to earn that much in BTC, create impression that they dominate the market, and have the prices collapse.
Cheating at this game costs all, but it costs the cheater the most.
Lockheed failed to pay = finalize the contract that would obligate the contractor to destroy these backups. What they consent or not consent to is moot, the guy was in a separate company, the company delivered a product and wasn't paid for it. That means Lockheed doesn't own any IP to that product (which apparently doesn't stop them from manufacturing it).
The guy described this working on spread spectrum below noise level. Not exactly wireless router or outdated phone type radio communication. The camera and rock part is the easy part of the project. Making the rock broadcast the images in a way undetectable to standard radio equipment is the hard part; it's not just you won't decode the transmission, the very presence of the RF transmission is about impossible to detect unless you know what to look for (precise algorithm of extracting the data which is well hidden in the background noise) - and the guy exactly sells documents that tell what to look for!
It would have been IP of Lockheed had Lockheed bought that product. Since Lockheed just took the files and proceeded to using them while stating they are no longer interested in the product they never obtained the IP.
If I'm contracted to write a program and the person who contracted me decides to unilaterally dissolve the contract - stating they are no longer interested in whatever they contracted me for (and won't pay me for any work completed so far) - they definitely do not obtain IP to work completed so far.
Unfortunately Walt Disney wasn't the sweet papa people sometimes picture him. During the witch hunt for the commies lots of his employees got arrested - thanks to him extending the hunt to the inside of the company.
1) We don't have a help desk system. Every employee has our IT staff's cell phone tree.
How much do you pay them to accept work conditions where people bother them on weekends and such? Any professional, self-respecting admin will either refuse that or demand to be paid through the nose.
2) Vagueness is the admin's responsibility to figure out by asking leading questions and getting information out of the person needing their help. If IT's customer already knows the intricate details of their problem, then we don't need an IT staff.
Again, how many admins do you hire, considering this policy quadruples time it takes to resolve any issue?
3) There is no such thing as "abusing rights." Rights are rights, and using them is not abuse.
Spoken like a truly abusive boss.
4) Upgrading is IT's responsibility, not the user's. The IT department wants to "own" PC assets, so fine, they own them. That also means THEY are responsible for making sure they are upgraded. Again, if the user is doing their own IT work, then we do not need an IT staff.
Move the "updates are ready to install" requester to the corner of the window, then switch the PC off through the power button... Or have them visit your desk and disrupt your work "for maintenance".
5) Already explained. The success of the company is more important than the IT person's ego.
Yes, and the manager that needed a set of resources for past monts and spends the last day before the deadline assembling them surely is an asset to the company. Oh, I hope you pay overtime to admins who spend time working late into the night doing what they could have done in their normal work hours if you bothered to tell them? Do you also pay their taxi and food to bring them from home? Oh, and whatever, three other departments are paralyzed by IT infrastructure failure for three days, and waiting for the admin to finish their absolutely urgent task because their deadlines are a week from now, and this one is in three days, and the admin was informed just now, and ordered to ignore everything else?
Real smart.
6) The Admin doesn't have time to waste. It's my time, not theirs, because I am signing the paychecks. If the admin feels their time has been wasted, it is because they didn't do enough of Item 2 to understand the problem, or it is because they are not competent in their job
And then you come one day and notice all of your data has been stolen through a critical security breach which should have been patched a week ago, but unfortunately the admin was busy teaching you how to use the new invoice software, because after all you could not be bothered to read the manual and you pay for his time and doing your orders. No, you weren't wasting their time, they should have worked double shifts, doing the upgrades AND teaching your lazy ass.
7) Code ultimately has to be tested on production systems. That's how test code becomes production code.
Can you give me the name of your company so that I know what to avoid?
8) We support BYOD for portable devices, and it is part of my IT staff's mission to ensure interoperability so employees can be productive.
So, is your son's gaming console is a part of your company's infrastructure?
9) My admins never feel taken for granted. I have good people, and as long as they don't fail at their mission, which is to support my R&D staff to ensure the success of the company, they are rewarded well. Let's just say that I've never had anyone quit an IT position.
Somehow I have a feeling you're either spending far more on keeping them than you could, or you really got the bottom of the chaff too desperate to protest or quit.
1. You bypass the help desk system, 2. You're vague.
Both are acceptable providing you schedule your problem as lowest priority. If you submit a ticket, you expect the admin to start working in the earnest, soon. If you signal a problem: "My machine sucks, probably not enough RAM and generally old" you signal the admin to consider you in the next round of purchases. If you say "Wifi reach is dodgy", they will adjust the layout of access points with the next upgrade. "My ethernet cable is loose" - next time they do something in your room, they will replace the plug. It's preferable to a full-blown ticket.
3. You abuse your rights, 4. You do not upgrade.
You want to run obsolete system as root? Be my guest. I may even serve you some advices for free. Still, if I shrug and say "I don't know, you're on your own" you're on your own. I can always get you an upgraded system with limited privileges if you grow tired of trying to fix it yourself.
5. You make urgent, last-minute requests
Scheduled. Expect answer within three workdays.
6. You waste your admin's time
Scheduled. Expect answer within three workdays.
7. You test code on production systems:
You broke it, you take the flak. I can fix it for you if you ask really nice.
8. You make personal requests:
Reward appropriately. Don't expect the admin to do your private work for free.
9. You take your admin for granted:
More importantly - if everything works, don't find work for "slacking" admins. If you see an admin who is constantly busy, he's a poor admin, fixing everything constantly. A good admin slacks all day while all their work is done automatically.
What would you rather have, a painkiller that is totally safe to your health or a painkiller that actually neutralizes pain?
For me the choice is quite obvious. A drug may be a double-edged sword, but I'd rather have primary symptoms removed and deal with side effects than get some placebo that just doesn't work.
Moreover: Promote new, weaker drug. Still keep selling the old, efficient drug. People buy the new drug. They find it's inefficient. They switch to old drug. Two packages sold instead of one.
Considering the continued cost of maintaining Opportunity (and until not so long ago, Spirit) still running strong many years past expected "expiration date", all new mars rovers have "planned obsolescence" features built in; they are designed to break soon after their planned mission time is past./tinfoilhat
Europe offered Iraq food for oil. USA offers rebuilding their infrastructure which they first bombed for Iraq oil. Of course Hussein wouldn't go for that so Hussein had to be killed.
Brands, groups, interests, fads, trends - be it fashion, mathematics, religion, cars - these all are "unoriginal". And if you exclude *all* except for the ones you created yourself - no, you won't have any topics in common to talk with your friends about, no shared interests, nothing to keep you together.
Pinkie Pie got me into baking. I got quite good at cooking. From the level of "eggs on bacon" level to "beef and mushroom spicy pasties in puff pastry" level. Actual need got me to learn sewing using a sewing machine, although Rarity was a significant contributing factor. I actually managed to hunt down and watch moonrise inspired by Princess Luna. It's harder to observe than you''d think. The show in general got me back to my pasttime hobby of writing, after good 10 years of writer's block. I managed to last third winter in the row without succumbing to hopeless depression. I've made a few new friends. I won a poetry competition.
Slashdot Mirror
Because he was not successful in the uprising.
You must kill enough to overthrow the government, only then it counts.
Actually, a well-maintained, well-serviced (and possibly new) AK-47 variant is quite accurate - less than competitors but not by much. Thing is, where competitors jam and need servicing, AK-47 loses accuracy. It can withstand a lot of abuse and still keep firing, but a 40 years old AK that saw two different armed conflicts will never get anywhere near the accuracy of one that just left the production lines of IzMash.
Certainly a new, well maintained AK is perfectly suitable for all these applications. Less so than other guns, but not so much less as to make it anywhere near "unsuitable". OTOH, a backyard sale AK from Romanian armed forces surplus after surviving 10 generations of Romanian recruits is definitely on the "unsuitable" side.
Do you think that if the US told Russia "We don't intend to invade you" they would just believe and cease arming themselves? Did you think the massive military forces in Germany - INVASION FORCES (meant to push the frontline by some 100km in case of attack, and keep it there so that tactical nukes wouldn't fall on allied territory, but technically not much different from forces meant to reach Moscow) made Russian less jumpy?
What NATO intended, what NATO wished Russians to believe, and what Russians believed were three different things.
Post-1945 USA didn't have nearly sufficient nuclear weapons production capacity to make them completely sway the balance of power. Back then still a definitely superior rifle could win the war.
Sure, 5-10 years later the situation was different. But 1947, AK-47 was very relevant.
AK-46 was significantly different from AK-47, and - bluntly speaking - utter crap.
AK-47 was a fine weapon but the machining process was rather expensive, complex and slow, making it unsuitable for mass production and deployment in army.
AKM - an AK-47 variant that used stamped sheet metal instead of machined parts, became the instant hit, possessing all the advantages of the original, slightly lower mass, and being very cheap and simple to manufacture in bulk.
"Smoothbore rifle" is an oxymoron.
Smoothbore, sure. You won't create the rifling without some quite a bit special tooling though. Nothing close to normal lathe.
Note "nuggets" are fully "manual gearbox". If it jams, it means you didn't work the bolt hard enough!
They aren't very rust-proof, but not only you can use pig fat or margarine for oiling them just fine, they have so much tolerances - not only in dimensions but also in surplus power of gas piston, return spring, and a whole lot of other mechanisms, that less-than-excessive amount of rust will simply get torn off and the surface smoothed out by the mechanism operation - essentially the weapon is self-cleaning to a degree, operation grinding the rust off.
There is a soviet russia joke somewhere in there...
Collect, snoop in, use own resources to decrypt - sure.
Damage security of products manufactured by independent, private 3rd party companies, force them to release broken security products and market them as secure - now that's really assinine.
The problem is this requires enormous investment in hardware that will be useless afterwards. I doubt there are many entities willing to invest that much into killing Bitcoin.
Once existence of such cartel is known, the value of bitcoin would plummet right to the bottom.
The cartel would be able to produce disproportionate amounts of worthless currency.
Note wealth in BTC you have is [number of BTC you own] x [price of BTC in USD]. You could cheat the first but as result you'll destroy the second. You'll be stuck with tons of useless hardware that cost millions of real money, and a bunch of useless data signifying you have a lot of worthless currency.
Moreover, the "big players" of the market know this already. Any bets why the manufacturers of BTC ASIC hardware sell it instead of earning BTC on their own farms? The answer is spreading the computing power keeps BTC healthy and exchange rates high. They prefer to get some cash directly, from sale of hardware, than to try to earn that much in BTC, create impression that they dominate the market, and have the prices collapse.
Cheating at this game costs all, but it costs the cheater the most.
Lockheed failed to pay = finalize the contract that would obligate the contractor to destroy these backups. What they consent or not consent to is moot, the guy was in a separate company, the company delivered a product and wasn't paid for it. That means Lockheed doesn't own any IP to that product (which apparently doesn't stop them from manufacturing it).
The guy described this working on spread spectrum below noise level. Not exactly wireless router or outdated phone type radio communication.
The camera and rock part is the easy part of the project. Making the rock broadcast the images in a way undetectable to standard radio equipment is the hard part; it's not just you won't decode the transmission, the very presence of the RF transmission is about impossible to detect unless you know what to look for (precise algorithm of extracting the data which is well hidden in the background noise) - and the guy exactly sells documents that tell what to look for!
It would have been IP of Lockheed had Lockheed bought that product. Since Lockheed just took the files and proceeded to using them while stating they are no longer interested in the product they never obtained the IP.
If I'm contracted to write a program and the person who contracted me decides to unilaterally dissolve the contract - stating they are no longer interested in whatever they contracted me for (and won't pay me for any work completed so far) - they definitely do not obtain IP to work completed so far.
Unfortunately Walt Disney wasn't the sweet papa people sometimes picture him. During the witch hunt for the commies lots of his employees got arrested - thanks to him extending the hunt to the inside of the company.
1) We don't have a help desk system. Every employee has our IT staff's cell phone tree.
How much do you pay them to accept work conditions where people bother them on weekends and such? Any professional, self-respecting admin will either refuse that or demand to be paid through the nose.
2) Vagueness is the admin's responsibility to figure out by asking leading questions and getting information out of the person needing their help. If IT's customer already knows the intricate details of their problem, then we don't need an IT staff.
Again, how many admins do you hire, considering this policy quadruples time it takes to resolve any issue?
3) There is no such thing as "abusing rights." Rights are rights, and using them is not abuse.
Spoken like a truly abusive boss.
4) Upgrading is IT's responsibility, not the user's. The IT department wants to "own" PC assets, so fine, they own them. That also means THEY are responsible for making sure they are upgraded. Again, if the user is doing their own IT work, then we do not need an IT staff.
Move the "updates are ready to install" requester to the corner of the window, then switch the PC off through the power button... Or have them visit your desk and disrupt your work "for maintenance".
5) Already explained. The success of the company is more important than the IT person's ego.
Yes, and the manager that needed a set of resources for past monts and spends the last day before the deadline assembling them surely is an asset to the company. Oh, I hope you pay overtime to admins who spend time working late into the night doing what they could have done in their normal work hours if you bothered to tell them? Do you also pay their taxi and food to bring them from home? Oh, and whatever, three other departments are paralyzed by IT infrastructure failure for three days, and waiting for the admin to finish their absolutely urgent task because their deadlines are a week from now, and this one is in three days, and the admin was informed just now, and ordered to ignore everything else?
Real smart.
6) The Admin doesn't have time to waste. It's my time, not theirs, because I am signing the paychecks. If the admin feels their time has been wasted, it is because they didn't do enough of Item 2 to understand the problem, or it is because they are not competent in their job
And then you come one day and notice all of your data has been stolen through a critical security breach which should have been patched a week ago, but unfortunately the admin was busy teaching you how to use the new invoice software, because after all you could not be bothered to read the manual and you pay for his time and doing your orders. No, you weren't wasting their time, they should have worked double shifts, doing the upgrades AND teaching your lazy ass.
7) Code ultimately has to be tested on production systems. That's how test code becomes production code.
Can you give me the name of your company so that I know what to avoid?
8) We support BYOD for portable devices, and it is part of my IT staff's mission to ensure interoperability so employees can be productive.
So, is your son's gaming console is a part of your company's infrastructure?
9) My admins never feel taken for granted. I have good people, and as long as they don't fail at their mission, which is to support my R&D staff to ensure the success of the company, they are rewarded well. Let's just say that I've never had anyone quit an IT position.
Somehow I have a feeling you're either spending far more on keeping them than you could, or you really got the bottom of the chaff too desperate to protest or quit.
1. You bypass the help desk system, 2. You're vague.
Both are acceptable providing you schedule your problem as lowest priority. If you submit a ticket, you expect the admin to start working in the earnest, soon. If you signal a problem: "My machine sucks, probably not enough RAM and generally old" you signal the admin to consider you in the next round of purchases. If you say "Wifi reach is dodgy", they will adjust the layout of access points with the next upgrade. "My ethernet cable is loose" - next time they do something in your room, they will replace the plug. It's preferable to a full-blown ticket.
3. You abuse your rights, 4. You do not upgrade.
You want to run obsolete system as root? Be my guest. I may even serve you some advices for free. Still, if I shrug and say "I don't know, you're on your own" you're on your own. I can always get you an upgraded system with limited privileges if you grow tired of trying to fix it yourself.
5. You make urgent, last-minute requests
Scheduled. Expect answer within three workdays.
6. You waste your admin's time
Scheduled. Expect answer within three workdays.
7. You test code on production systems:
You broke it, you take the flak. I can fix it for you if you ask really nice.
8. You make personal requests:
Reward appropriately. Don't expect the admin to do your private work for free.
9. You take your admin for granted:
More importantly - if everything works, don't find work for "slacking" admins. If you see an admin who is constantly busy, he's a poor admin, fixing everything constantly. A good admin slacks all day while all their work is done automatically.
What would you rather have, a painkiller that is totally safe to your health or a painkiller that actually neutralizes pain?
For me the choice is quite obvious. A drug may be a double-edged sword, but I'd rather have primary symptoms removed and deal with side effects than get some placebo that just doesn't work.
Moreover: Promote new, weaker drug. Still keep selling the old, efficient drug.
People buy the new drug. They find it's inefficient. They switch to old drug.
Two packages sold instead of one.
...in 3...2...1...
I can imagine them dragging wide ribbons with guerrilla art across the public space.
Don't worry, it's all according to the plan.
Considering the continued cost of maintaining Opportunity (and until not so long ago, Spirit) still running strong many years past expected "expiration date", all new mars rovers have "planned obsolescence" features built in; they are designed to break soon after their planned mission time is past. /tinfoilhat
Apparently everyone knows maroberts is Avunit already.
That lists countries, not politicians.
Europe offered Iraq food for oil.
USA offers rebuilding their infrastructure which they first bombed for Iraq oil. Of course Hussein wouldn't go for that so Hussein had to be killed.
Brands, groups, interests, fads, trends - be it fashion, mathematics, religion, cars - these all are "unoriginal". And if you exclude *all* except for the ones you created yourself - no, you won't have any topics in common to talk with your friends about, no shared interests, nothing to keep you together.
Pinkie Pie got me into baking. I got quite good at cooking. From the level of "eggs on bacon" level to "beef and mushroom spicy pasties in puff pastry" level.
Actual need got me to learn sewing using a sewing machine, although Rarity was a significant contributing factor.
I actually managed to hunt down and watch moonrise inspired by Princess Luna. It's harder to observe than you''d think.
The show in general got me back to my pasttime hobby of writing, after good 10 years of writer's block.
I managed to last third winter in the row without succumbing to hopeless depression.
I've made a few new friends.
I won a poetry competition.
All thanks to ponies.