Selling and installing C-Band dishes to average consumers for several years in the mid '80s makes me appreciate this story! There is such a difference working in your normal environment than in some family's home.
No matter how prepared you are... "you can't get there from here" Everything goes wrong, from not enough electrical outlets to the 2 year old dropping the remote control into the the fishtank.
We won't talk about the dog digging up the newly buried cable cause he thinks you buried a bone:-)
Ahhhh... the memories
T4 carries major C-Band backhaul video as well as numerous telephone intercontinental transponders. Usually when a "bird" only sends telemetry but has lost ability to function, it is due to loss of orbital stability. Reminds me of the loss of Anik E1 a number of years ago. Actually, Please see here which documents T4 today "Shut down after a short circuit of its primary power bus"
Best
Jeff
E-week today posted that a different IE vulnerability (2 years old and fixed in IE6) is also circulating. They call it Swen or Gibe. Low impact (so far) but given the history of Windows users to patch... worth watching
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1273194,00.as p?kc=EWRSS02129TX1K0000531
This is not the original post I saw about this but I can't find the first one.
Best
Jeff
Libraries have been quite concerned with Patriot and I have been working with that community for quite a while to modify the databases to only keep track of overdues at the expense of being to track of useful demographics such as what books to purchase (youth, adult fiction, non-fiction etc.)
They are very protective of privacy of the patrons even to the point of losing a valuable insight to the needs of the people that need them the most.
I am not a guru but it seems to me that hacking into websites is more of a compromised password issue than a host OS issue. Cracking and not hacking. Am I seeing here that the root is being compromised and hundreds of sites are compromised due to an OS vulnerability or is this a case of sloppy admin by hosts / website admins
Please don't flame me... I don't understand the intracies of all this.
This reminds me of the old C-Band Videocipher days. Hackers made tons of money selling hundreds of $ of TV for a fraction of the cost programers wanted. It finally evolved to smart cards for DirecTV and Dish which a new generation of hackers found as a new opportunity and challenge. The ECM (electronic counter measures) attacks issued by the providers mounted and only increased hacker profits as people got hooked on "free programming". It is downright stupid to purchase a device to program smart cards from companies with public web sites catering to this illegal activity. On another note... anyone noticed that RIAA and SCO and DirecTV and MPAA are suddenly using litigation against consumers for flaws that they themselved caused ?
I think this fits cause a store is a privately owned place with public access. I recently installed a system with 4 panning cameras in an antique store that was having very bad shoplifting problems. There is a monitor in plain view of people entering as well as tape recording and streaming via a web server. The shoplifting instantly stopped. Motion detectors autodial the 2 owners via wireless cell at night in case of a break in and they can instantly view activity inside the store via the Web. A UPS powers the system (including illumination) in case of electrical failure. Not entertaining but very useful. And a way cool project:-)
This article struck a true chord for me. What comes to mind are beautiful voices like Annie Haslam (from Renaissance)... Sarah McLachlan (from Lilith Fair) and odd things like Hawkwind whose lure was to be habitually off key(from the 60's and early 70s)as well as Jon (from Yes) and David Gilmour (from Pink Floyd). It seems to me that all of these artists use their outstanding vocal ability to "stretch the envelope" and artists such as Madonna tend to use tools such as this to "be perfect". Music does not have to be perfect to be perfect for that artist.
Best Jeff
I can totally relate to this.. I recently renovated a building that was built in the '40s for a new purpose. The electrical was as you mentioned, cloth on wires that scared the hell out of me ! I am an electronic engineer but I had to get a building permit and it required a licensed electrician. It required everything from new breaker boxes to tearing out sections of walls... not pretty at all but I was able to save some $ by getting a starving contractor to do the grunt work and then getting the licensed electrician.. it cost a bundle to get up to code but my insurance and local codes required it.
Having developed a number of Windows based applications, primarily related to the 3D environment Active Worlds using both Visual Basic and C++ , it became painfully apparent that for every 1,000 lines of code... 200 lines of error trapping code was needed. What was to be a weekend project sometimes turned into months of development. That having been said, MS Windows must be certainly millions of lines of code... perhaps billions. Nobody knows but it is hundreds of megabytes to install it. Given the scope of this project, it must be divided into teams and at best there will be gaps. Given what little I know of the coprorate culture at MS, Mr. Balmer and Mr. Gates leave little room for individual programmers outside to play. I think they are tasked to death frankly. I would suspect that there are a fair number of people who knew of this vulnernability and either put on other projects or flat out told to not expose it because we are behind schedule. This, in my estimation is what takes open source to a new level of legitimacy.
Spam fighting, it seems to me has 2 fronts. What to do when you get on the lists and how did you get there to begin with. Having made numeous web sites thru the years it has become clear to me that these spammers are largely harvesting addys thru mail-to links on web pages. A number of techniques can be utilized to prevent such activity. 2 of my favs are the use of ASCII characters in the actual addy and the use of Javascript to mask the addy. Once you are "in their hooks" there seems little you can do so it seems best to me to not get there in the first place. Best Jeff
Having been an EE and a developer since 1976... I have some background. I however have a different slant than the author. It seems to me that everyone takes a career path. While MBA's and EE's seem to be different, they can be very zealous to their careers to the point of excluding all other issues in their lives.
Regardless of the disciplne, one must step back and put life in perspective.
Best
Jeff
An interesting thread as I was a technical consultant for a State library system for several years when computers were being introduced into libraries and there was little experience with technology by library staff members. I ran into several hundred "trouble calls" and I set up a "triage mechanism" where my intuition told me that after a few mins on the phone let me several things 1)the severity of the issue 2)the tech ability of the caller 3)any techies nearby at all if the issue was clearly beyond the scope of the caller.
It was encumbant upon me to assess their situation and make an appropriate decision as to best help them.. clearly they are in distress and sometimes a phone call can clear an issue but sometimes, an on site visit is the only remedy.
Many times the solution is easy for me but impossible for them to implement.
It is important for us to remember that for many, technology is a tool and they need help if it fails them.
Best
Jeff
I respect the poster's technical ability to analyze waveforms. Headroom was something that Rush never seemed to have because they never seemed to me to have good engineers. Geddy and Neil and Alex do have experts on stage but that never translated into good recordings. It seems to have started in the LP days. "2112" was a nightmare as were later ones such as "Roll The Bones". Some of these were re-mixed for CD but the originals are so badly mixed that there is no hope. I frankly think that this higher volume level is a bogus thought. It is my thought that the original was badly mixed as have been all of their previous ones.
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Selling and installing C-Band dishes to average consumers for several years in the mid '80s makes me appreciate this story! There is such a difference working in your normal environment than in some family's home. No matter how prepared you are ... "you can't get there from here" Everything goes wrong, from not enough electrical outlets to the 2 year old dropping the remote control into the the fishtank.
We won't talk about the dog digging up the newly buried cable cause he thinks you buried a bone :-)
Ahhhh ... the memories
T4 carries major C-Band backhaul video as well as numerous telephone intercontinental transponders. Usually when a "bird" only sends telemetry but has lost ability to function, it is due to loss of orbital stability. Reminds me of the loss of Anik E1 a number of years ago. Actually, Please see here which documents T4 today "Shut down after a short circuit of its primary power bus" Best Jeff
E-week today posted that a different IE vulnerability (2 years old and fixed in IE6) is also circulating. They call it Swen or Gibe. Low impact (so far) but given the history of Windows users to patch ... worth watching
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1273194,00.as p?kc=EWRSS02129TX1K0000531
This is not the original post I saw about this but I can't find the first one.
Best
Jeff
Libraries have been quite concerned with Patriot and I have been working with that community for quite a while to modify the databases to only keep track of overdues at the expense of being to track of useful demographics such as what books to purchase (youth, adult fiction, non-fiction etc.) They are very protective of privacy of the patrons even to the point of losing a valuable insight to the needs of the people that need them the most.
I am not a guru but it seems to me that hacking into websites is more of a compromised password issue than a host OS issue. Cracking and not hacking. Am I seeing here that the root is being compromised and hundreds of sites are compromised due to an OS vulnerability or is this a case of sloppy admin by hosts / website admins Please don't flame me ... I don't understand the intracies of all this.
Rather than /. any individual site, a Google search on the "Taos Hum" heard around Taos, New Mexico is strangely similar to this.
This reminds me of the old C-Band Videocipher days. Hackers made tons of money selling hundreds of $ of TV for a fraction of the cost programers wanted. It finally evolved to smart cards for DirecTV and Dish which a new generation of hackers found as a new opportunity and challenge. The ECM (electronic counter measures) attacks issued by the providers mounted and only increased hacker profits as people got hooked on "free programming". It is downright stupid to purchase a device to program smart cards from companies with public web sites catering to this illegal activity. On another note ... anyone noticed that RIAA and SCO and DirecTV and MPAA are suddenly using litigation against consumers for flaws that they themselved caused ?
I think this fits cause a store is a privately owned place with public access. I recently installed a system with 4 panning cameras in an antique store that was having very bad shoplifting problems. There is a monitor in plain view of people entering as well as tape recording and streaming via a web server. The shoplifting instantly stopped. Motion detectors autodial the 2 owners via wireless cell at night in case of a break in and they can instantly view activity inside the store via the Web. A UPS powers the system (including illumination) in case of electrical failure. Not entertaining but very useful. And a way cool project :-)
This article struck a true chord for me. What comes to mind are beautiful voices like Annie Haslam (from Renaissance) ... Sarah McLachlan (from Lilith Fair) and odd things like Hawkwind whose lure was to be habitually off key(from the 60's and early 70s)as well as Jon (from Yes) and David Gilmour (from Pink Floyd). It seems to me that all of these artists use their outstanding vocal ability to "stretch the envelope" and artists such as Madonna tend to use tools such as this to "be perfect". Music does not have to be perfect to be perfect for that artist.
Best Jeff
I can totally relate to this .. I recently renovated a building that was built in the '40s for a new purpose. The electrical was as you mentioned, cloth on wires that scared the hell out of me ! I am an electronic engineer but I had to get a building permit and it required a licensed electrician. It required everything from new breaker boxes to tearing out sections of walls ... not pretty at all but I was able to save some $ by getting a starving contractor to do the grunt work and then getting the licensed electrician .. it cost a bundle to get up to code but my insurance and local codes required it.
Having developed a number of Windows based applications, primarily related to the 3D environment Active Worlds using both Visual Basic and C++ , it became painfully apparent that for every 1,000 lines of code ... 200 lines of error trapping code was needed. What was to be a weekend project sometimes turned into months of development. That having been said, MS Windows must be certainly millions of lines of code ... perhaps billions. Nobody knows but it is hundreds of megabytes to install it. Given the scope of this project, it must be divided into teams and at best there will be gaps. Given what little I know of the coprorate culture at MS, Mr. Balmer and Mr. Gates leave little room for individual programmers outside to play. I think they are tasked to death frankly. I would suspect that there are a fair number of people who knew of this vulnernability and either put on other projects or flat out told to not expose it because we are behind schedule. This, in my estimation is what takes open source to a new level of legitimacy.
Spam fighting, it seems to me has 2 fronts. What to do when you get on the lists and how did you get there to begin with. Having made numeous web sites thru the years it has become clear to me that these spammers are largely harvesting addys thru mail-to links on web pages. A number of techniques can be utilized to prevent such activity. 2 of my favs are the use of ASCII characters in the actual addy and the use of Javascript to mask the addy. Once you are "in their hooks" there seems little you can do so it seems best to me to not get there in the first place. Best Jeff
Having been an EE and a developer since 1976 ... I have some background. I however have a different slant than the author. It seems to me that everyone takes a career path. While MBA's and EE's seem to be different, they can be very zealous to their careers to the point of excluding all other issues in their lives.
Regardless of the disciplne, one must step back and put life in perspective.
Best
Jeff
An interesting thread as I was a technical consultant for a State library system for several years when computers were being introduced into libraries and there was little experience with technology by library staff members. I ran into several hundred "trouble calls" and I set up a "triage mechanism" where my intuition told me that after a few mins on the phone let me several things 1)the severity of the issue 2)the tech ability of the caller 3)any techies nearby at all if the issue was clearly beyond the scope of the caller. It was encumbant upon me to assess their situation and make an appropriate decision as to best help them .. clearly they are in distress and sometimes a phone call can clear an issue but sometimes, an on site visit is the only remedy.
Many times the solution is easy for me but impossible for them to implement.
It is important for us to remember that for many, technology is a tool and they need help if it fails them.
Best
Jeff
I respect the poster's technical ability to analyze waveforms. Headroom was something that Rush never seemed to have because they never seemed to me to have good engineers. Geddy and Neil and Alex do have experts on stage but that never translated into good recordings. It seems to have started in the LP days. "2112" was a nightmare as were later ones such as "Roll The Bones". Some of these were re-mixed for CD but the originals are so badly mixed that there is no hope. I frankly think that this higher volume level is a bogus thought. It is my thought that the original was badly mixed as have been all of their previous ones.
TG