This is all about 9/11. Back then, the US declared a war on irony. If the US ask scientists to self-censor so as not to assist terrorists and the scientists ignore them and publish dangerous details, then a terrorist group take up their invention and the scientists are killed in the attack, then the US will finally win that war...
Besides, I've read many published research articles that I'd really *not* want to see in terrorist hands... Most of them published by the US military. So maybe the US already won the war on irony.
Under loss of oxygen supply, a pilot has 12 seconds left before he will lose all ability to do anything. Unfortunately, about six seconds are needed to fully comprehend the situation they are in and that leaves six seconds.
Even worse, their heart rate will double and they will likely consume the oxygen remaining in their blood stream in half the time. Assuming they are still not quite in a position of panic.
So once a pilot realises what they have to do, they have just three seconds to do it, without panicking. At best, that is five seconds if they remain absolutely calm in the face of an "Oh Shit" situation.
This is from USAF research into tests that went wrong in which people suffered sudden loss of pressure in test situations.
I've noticed this is not mentioned anyway despite being widely known.
eg,
e. While other significant effects of hypoxia usually do not occur in a healthy pilot in an un-pressurized aircraft below 12,000 feet, there is no assurance that this will always be the case. The onset of hypoxic symptoms may seriously affect the safety of flight and may well occur even in short periods of exposure to altitudes from 12,000 to 15,000 feet. The ability to take corrective measures may be totally lost in 5 minutes at 22,000 feet. However, that time would be reduced to only 7 to 10 seconds at 40,000 feet and the crewmember may suffer total loss of consciousness soon thereafter. A description of the four major hypoxia groups and the recommended methods to combat each follows.
This probably explains why the pilot couldn't get the emergency oxygen going... You try doing something really basic like holding your breath, running 10m, jump into a car and in less than three seconds, do the following... Close the door, put your seatbelt on and then lock the door.
Can you do it? Sure. Try it. But if you knew that if you took longer than 3 seconds knowing you'd be dead? Bet you'd screw it up...
“Evil’s when you push your agenda over someone elses. When you assert your beliefs over somebody’s contrary beliefs. That’s evil,” Jonathan Carlson, Turing Evolved.
Yes, since it's "Active" illumination, you just detect from which direction the flash of light is coming from - though you need a very wideband detector since it could be anywhere on the spectrum and will almost certainly be infrared above 1000nm...
Then once you see the person aiming their "LIDAR" at you, you swivel the tank's gun and send some high-velocity non-photonic matter their way... Probably the most effective countermeasure.
Most of this technology uses very long wavelength ( around 1500nm ) light so that it's not going to be obvious what you're doing. It also tends to work over very long distances, eg, 10Km away...:) It's more used for detection and identification of enemy equipment at long range under conditions of darkness.
Even then I don't think it's all that common. Thermal is more practical for detection now and I imagine Lidar is special use only ( eg, when very high resolution images are required, when topological information is important or for underwater use ) -
Well I could just say "With your eyes" but I figure the question is "How do you see a single photon?"
You amplify it by converting it to a photoelectron with a very sensitive photocathode, then you add more electrons through either linear acceleration and multiple electron/photon stages or with a MicroChannel Plate ( MCP ) which causes secondary electrons to multiply the number of electrons, then you accelerate it over a short distance to around 5,000 to 10,000 eV and then smack it into a aluminized phosphor screen, which converts the electrons back to photons, but a HEAP of them so they are visible.
They can also focus and steer the electrons inside the tube. That's why it's called a "streak tube"...:)
I have seen photons many times. Kind of cool seeing a picture made from just a few photons, but it has to be REALLY dark to do this and you have to get your own eyes accustomed to the dark as well. The pictures sometimes just look like static until you collect a whole heap of them in a timed exposure.
When you amplify light about 100,000 times and then take a 15 second exposure and it *still* looks dark, you know the original image was exceptionally dark.
Nope, they can actually visualise a single photon if the gain is sufficient, eg, Super Inverter Image Intensifier ( also known as Gen3+1 ) - Typical photonic gain levels of around 300,000x -
Neat huh?
Of course, that's assuming the photon is converted into a photoelectron by the photocathode, which depends on the QE ( Quantum Efficiency ) of the photocathode material.. And assuming the photon isn't lost in any AlO films inside the device... Then yes, they can actually see individual photons.
They can count photons too with photomultipliers, but image intensifiers will let you put them into an image...:)
This isn't new technology. It's called "Gated Image Intensifier Photography" and is used for everything from Lidar to special night vision devices that can see underwater. It is one of the few technologies that allows detection of stealth submarines by taking images of the submarine without the backscatter caused by water in front of it. It's one of the only technologies that can track supercavitating weapons underwater. It can also help see through many obscurants.
It's like a flashlight, except you only look at light reflected at a particular time after the flash ( usually a laser ) goes off. As a result, you can choose to see light that is only reflected from, say, 100m away to 101m away. Everything else looks dark and because of this, it's a good technology for seeing through trees and the likes.
If you want to understand gating of image tubes and streak tubes in particular ( what they use - an electronically steerable image intensifier that can track very high speed objects such as bullets being fired from a gun ) just look up Image Tubes by Illes P Csorba. A great book.
What they are doing here is just gating the image a little faster and repeating it often to capture very short duration repetative events in high detail. Not a new technology, just a variation on existing tech.
And you'll find many modern Gen3 NV devices are autogated, meaning they do this automatically, though it's more a way to pulse-width modulate the light coming in so that they can work under brighter conditions, such as when soldiers burst into a room and the enemy turns on the lights inside...
I have three digital cameras, all less than 10 years old, sitting on a drawer for this very reason. Now I will not buy a camera that does not take AA batteries.
However, in the context of keyboards, I do not keep a keyboard more than 10 years. I think the longest I ever had one was 9 years and the keys eventually broke. Great keyboard ( PS2 original ) but they have their limits.
Just pointing out how these dodgy ideas that are clearly flawed get implemented in the first place... Usually someone very high up with a good understanding of business, but next to no real security understanding makes the decision.
And as often as not, they will go for price and SMS-only gateways such as this are 1/2 the price of even soft-token systems. I've spoken to a few corporate managers about this subject, they often conclude that the risk of their data/funds/whatever being targetted are low... Very much a "Why would anyone want to hack a here in Australia?" type of mentality.
What do they have to gain? They get the cheaper price and if they get audited, they can show the glossy brochures that show using SMS to send tokens is really secure... And often they use the excuse "If it wasn't secure, the banks wouldn't use it" even when presented with evidence of MNP.:(
As for hybrid systems? Yes, both RSA and VIP offer hybrid solutions that will allow phone-SMS of tokens as necessary, though it's still the same security hole. Just a slightly smaller hole. Like comparing a Cliff-side-drop to an exposed mineshaft. You're less likely to fall into a mineshaft but both will kill you -:(
Engineers implement the systems, but engineers do what they are told.:)
Don't take this as an Anti-CEO/CTO rant. Most of those guys are pretty good. It's more a reflection on how their motivation for reducing cost while only having to get ticks in the appropriate boxes usually drives the choice of technology. Sometimes even when a particular technology is well known to be flawed.
Not True. The product is AFAIK, A Telstra product under which they use SMS to provide a "token" as an additional factor.
Given that there have been many confirmed examples of MNP ( Malicious Number Porting ) in Australia, this is known weak security. Under the circumstances, its entirely reasonable to assume that the Bank knew this was likely.
However I can't see them rushing out to address the issue in the near future. In fact, with some banks, it's impossible to turn off the ability to transfer out large sums of money. You can turn it off easy enough, but anyone who accesses the system can turn it back on by default by clicking a screen saying you agree to the risk.:(
All the major banks in Australia have this form of security. On the other hand, all the credit unions ( everyone except the "Big 4" Banks ) use VIP ( Verisign Identity Protection IIRC ) which can be downloaded to most smartphones and works as a soft-token.
Security in Australia, as with much of the world, is severely compromised by CEOs and CTOs who really don't understand it and as long as they can blame someone else, then due diligence is done.
Actually, being online helped my child *with Autism*...
The computer provides a safe and effective way for him to interact with other people and stimulate his mind. Having access to a computer at all times since he was about 3 has been a huge help to him and is one of the reason he is now diagnosed as "no longer needing assistance". It has taught him to spell well and helped him with communication skills which was an area in which he was seriously affected.
The people behind this research seem to have an agenda to push and the article does not examine any links between autism and technology at all - it just says technology causes it...
I'm surprised the magazine behind the OP printed these views at all. I guess even PC magazines have reached "Tabloid" status in the UK.:(
. No serious writer is arrogant enough to think their predictions are actually going to come true. They're literary devices, not prognostications.
This is not true. I actually did my best to predict the future in Turing Evolved. To do that, I took a good long look at current technology, everything from plasma rifles to nuclear fusion technology. I still get emails from people telling me my plasma rifle isn't realistic and wouldn't work.
A year after I wrote it, I discovered that they had actually built plasma rifles in the same way I wrote about, except the US government researchers recently declassified research that showed they did it in 1996... They can't build power plants small enough to make them practical, but they did succeed in making a rifle with the kick of a M16 hit with the impact of a 50-caliber by converting the gas from the propellant to plasma during the firing process to increase muzzle velocity.
The story itself is also now used as a context document to explain military simulation technology by at least one military manufacturer.
Am I arrogant? Maybe, but regardless, I am a researcher. I don't expect everything I wrote about to come to fruition ( the story is primarily about human/AI relations ) but I spent time learning of the limitations of technology. Everything in the story has a basis in current technology.
The story might be set nearly 200 years from now, but most of the stranger technology I used is from today. Sure, I took a few liberties because it is fiction, but in the end, it's all based on real technology and most of the readers are giving it positive reviews.
Many writers spend their time doing research about technology. Many probably read Slashdot to get ideas.
After all, prediction is really just about reading what is happening today and extrapolating it forward. It's not that difficult.
I think this view is somewhat shortsighted. As an author who enjoys writing stories with a solid twist in them, there is some validity to what you say, but then again, it depends on what you're trying to get out of the book.
I find 98% of my readers don't spot the twist in my story until it's actually put to them and even then I spell it out for about 90% of them. The other 2% see it but only when it's getting really close, despite it being obvious from chapter 1.
The purpose of the twist is to provide enjoyment - to set the reader up so they almost see it coming but can't quite work it out. To give them a chance to keep on guessing and to see how close they got. To achieve this, I use the bias of the reader against them so that they keep second guessing themselves until the final twist is revealed. To make sure all the clues are in plain sight is essential, but I still avoid showing the obvious thread between them.
This also serves the purpose of giving the story re-readability. So that someone can read it a second time while knowing what the twist is and see all the subtle things they missed or misunderstood the first time. Nuances in conversation, tweaks in attitude. In this way the second reading is sometimes more important than the first.
And I think that the missing piece of the research here is to consider whether the reader is reading the story once or twice. If knowing the twist, even one like the sixth-sense twist, helps you enjoy those nuances and you're only going to read the story once or watch the movie a single time, then sometimes knowing can enhance the enjoyment.
I had never considered such before, but having thought about it, it actually makes sense. But I won't be posting any spoilers... Feel free to ask though.:)
I don't think they are missing the point. I was building Z-80 based systems and computers when I was 15 and by the time I was 17, I was creating embedded systems with complete multitasking OS'es from scratch. I thought I was pretty clever until I made friends with a Romanian kid my age who built an his own CPU out of TTL logic because he couldn't get hold of a microprocessor CPU. We became good friends at the time.
Over time, I met many others who had completed similar achievements. It's not as uncommon as you'd imagine. If I recall correctly, not a single one of our group ever made it through university, except the Romanian kid. I tried once and got kicked out of the electronics class for arguing with the lecturer ( what kind of an idiot makes a lab experiment that drives TTL outputs directly into other TTL outputs and leaves the inputs floating? Yes, he really was the inexperienced...) but got picked up by an R&D lab a month later.
The main difference perhaps is that we were working on such projects because there was no other alternative. So nice things like keyboards? Forget it. We had to find whatever keyboards we could, desolder the original electronics,hand-wire a matrix to the keys and build the IO controls to read the keyboard. That was pretty normal. IO chips were sometimes difficult to get, but nothing shift registers couldn't fix with a little clever controlling logic. Make it on a separate board and it was suddenly a "module" that could be stacked. Buses were replaced by ribbon cables ( a luxury! ) and I still remember our excitement at presensitised PCBs and CAD software so we could hand-make circuit boards and no longer had to manually solder together protoboards for prototypes.
Though in a world in which there's no need to do such things anymore, I still respect the kid's drive and motivation. Doing things the old way is hard. While I appreciate his desire to learn, I question whether he will achieve anything out of this other than satisfaction, though sometimes that is enough.:)
University/College is only an educational institute. It teaches you nothing that you can't learn yourself in your chosen field through self-study and research.
But if you do choose to attend later, after you gain some real-world experience, you have a much better capacity to understand and learn what it is you are being taught.
I don't think the current spate of leaks, both government and corporate, are co-incidental. It seems to reflect a wider growing community attitude that there are no secrets anymore.
The recent manifestation of hacker-sub-culture into the mainstream seems to promote ideas such as "information wants to be free" and provided recognition and kudos for having been the leak.
Based on this, I think that business and government alike will have to find new ways to work in an environment in which their own employees are their biggest threat. Keeping the IP pool secure is going to be far more difficult in future when not only are those swimming in it poking holes in the side, they are getting positive public recognition for their efforts in many cases.
its not fair for companies to have to defend themselves against millions of criminals.
If a company has to defend itself against *millions* of criminals, then common logic holds that whatever these millions of people are doing it is not, or should not be, a crime.
The ISPs won't pay for this. The costs will be passed on to their users as always. And since it's a level playing field, one ISP won't gain an advantage over others.
What is likely to happen however is that important people will find that their kids activities lead to getting such letters and then maybe the older generation, which really doesn't understand the situation, will start to feel the copyright noose they placed around their own necks tighten.
I wonder if she even realizes her own hypocrisy? He video will most likely get slashdotted and she'll just see the numbers as support for her position.
As a long-time supporter for reduction of IP constraints, I get hurt more than most. Soon, my options to publish DRM free material may even be curtailed by such limited political attitudes and understanding.
Slashdot Mirror
This is all about 9/11. Back then, the US declared a war on irony. If the US ask scientists to self-censor so as not to assist terrorists and the scientists ignore them and publish dangerous details, then a terrorist group take up their invention and the scientists are killed in the attack, then the US will finally win that war...
Besides, I've read many published research articles that I'd really *not* want to see in terrorist hands... Most of them published by the US military.
So maybe the US already won the war on irony.
GrpA
Under loss of oxygen supply, a pilot has 12 seconds left before he will lose all ability to do anything. Unfortunately, about six seconds are needed to fully comprehend the situation they are in and that leaves six seconds.
Even worse, their heart rate will double and they will likely consume the oxygen remaining in their blood stream in half the time. Assuming they are still not quite in a position of panic.
So once a pilot realises what they have to do, they have just three seconds to do it, without panicking. At best, that is five seconds if they remain absolutely calm in the face of an "Oh Shit" situation.
This is from USAF research into tests that went wrong in which people suffered sudden loss of pressure in test situations.
I've noticed this is not mentioned anyway despite being widely known.
eg,
e. While other significant effects of hypoxia usually do not occur in a healthy pilot in an un-pressurized aircraft below 12,000 feet, there is no assurance that this will always be the case. The onset of hypoxic symptoms may seriously affect the safety of flight and may well occur even in short periods of exposure to altitudes from 12,000 to 15,000 feet. The ability to take corrective measures may be totally lost in 5 minutes at 22,000 feet. However, that time would be reduced to only 7 to 10 seconds at 40,000 feet and the crewmember may suffer total loss of consciousness soon thereafter. A description of the four major hypoxia groups and the recommended methods to combat each follows.
Printed from Summit Aviation's Computerized Aviation Reference Library, 7/15/2005 .75
Page 1
AC 61-107A - OPERATIONS OF AIRCRAFT AT ALTITUDES ABOVE 25,000 FEET MSL AND/OR MACH NUMBERS (MMO) GREATER THAN
This probably explains why the pilot couldn't get the emergency oxygen going... You try doing something really basic like holding your breath, running 10m, jump into a car and in less than three seconds, do the following... Close the door, put your seatbelt on and then lock the door.
Can you do it? Sure. Try it. But if you knew that if you took longer than 3 seconds knowing you'd be dead? Bet you'd screw it up...
GrpA
“Evil’s when you push your agenda over someone elses. When you assert your beliefs over somebody’s contrary beliefs. That’s evil,”
Jonathan Carlson, Turing Evolved.
Yes, since it's "Active" illumination, you just detect from which direction the flash of light is coming from - though you need a very wideband detector since it could be anywhere on the spectrum and will almost certainly be infrared above 1000nm...
Then once you see the person aiming their "LIDAR" at you, you swivel the tank's gun and send some high-velocity non-photonic matter their way... Probably the most effective countermeasure.
Most of this technology uses very long wavelength ( around 1500nm ) light so that it's not going to be obvious what you're doing. It also tends to work over very long distances, eg, 10Km away... :) It's more used for detection and identification of enemy equipment at long range under conditions of darkness.
Even then I don't think it's all that common. Thermal is more practical for detection now and I imagine Lidar is special use only ( eg, when very high resolution images are required, when topological information is important or for underwater use ) -
GrpA
Well I could just say "With your eyes" but I figure the question is "How do you see a single photon?"
You amplify it by converting it to a photoelectron with a very sensitive photocathode, then you add more electrons through either linear acceleration and multiple electron/photon stages or with a MicroChannel Plate ( MCP ) which causes secondary electrons to multiply the number of electrons, then you accelerate it over a short distance to around 5,000 to 10,000 eV and then smack it into a aluminized phosphor screen, which converts the electrons back to photons, but a HEAP of them so they are visible.
They can also focus and steer the electrons inside the tube. That's why it's called a "streak tube"... :)
I have seen photons many times. Kind of cool seeing a picture made from just a few photons, but it has to be REALLY dark to do this and you have to get your own eyes accustomed to the dark as well. The pictures sometimes just look like static until you collect a whole heap of them in a timed exposure.
When you amplify light about 100,000 times and then take a 15 second exposure and it *still* looks dark, you know the original image was exceptionally dark.
GrpA
They are talking about shutter rates, not image capture rates... Big difference.
It probably has quite a slow frame rate.
GrpA
Nope, they can actually visualise a single photon if the gain is sufficient, eg, Super Inverter Image Intensifier ( also known as Gen3+1 ) - Typical photonic gain levels of around 300,000x -
Neat huh?
Of course, that's assuming the photon is converted into a photoelectron by the photocathode, which depends on the QE ( Quantum Efficiency ) of the photocathode material.. And assuming the photon isn't lost in any AlO films inside the device... Then yes, they can actually see individual photons.
They can count photons too with photomultipliers, but image intensifiers will let you put them into an image... :)
GrpA
No... The OP is correct.
This isn't new technology. It's called "Gated Image Intensifier Photography" and is used for everything from Lidar to special night vision devices that can see underwater. It is one of the few technologies that allows detection of stealth submarines by taking images of the submarine without the backscatter caused by water in front of it. It's one of the only technologies that can track supercavitating weapons underwater. It can also help see through many obscurants.
It's like a flashlight, except you only look at light reflected at a particular time after the flash ( usually a laser ) goes off. As a result, you can choose to see light that is only reflected from, say, 100m away to 101m away. Everything else looks dark and because of this, it's a good technology for seeing through trees and the likes.
If you want to understand gating of image tubes and streak tubes in particular ( what they use - an electronically steerable image intensifier that can track very high speed objects such as bullets being fired from a gun ) just look up Image Tubes by Illes P Csorba. A great book.
What they are doing here is just gating the image a little faster and repeating it often to capture very short duration repetative events in high detail. Not a new technology, just a variation on existing tech.
And you'll find many modern Gen3 NV devices are autogated, meaning they do this automatically, though it's more a way to pulse-width modulate the light coming in so that they can work under brighter conditions, such as when soldiers burst into a room and the enemy turns on the lights inside...
GrpA
This is an important point.
I have three digital cameras, all less than 10 years old, sitting on a drawer for this very reason. Now I will not buy a camera that does not take AA batteries.
However, in the context of keyboards, I do not keep a keyboard more than 10 years. I think the longest I ever had one was 9 years and the keys eventually broke. Great keyboard ( PS2 original ) but they have their limits.
GrpA
Just pointing out how these dodgy ideas that are clearly flawed get implemented in the first place... Usually someone very high up with a good understanding of business, but next to no real security understanding makes the decision.
And as often as not, they will go for price and SMS-only gateways such as this are 1/2 the price of even soft-token systems. I've spoken to a few corporate managers about this subject, they often conclude that the risk of their data/funds/whatever being targetted are low... Very much a "Why would anyone want to hack a here in Australia?" type of mentality.
What do they have to gain? They get the cheaper price and if they get audited, they can show the glossy brochures that show using SMS to send tokens is really secure... And often they use the excuse "If it wasn't secure, the banks wouldn't use it" even when presented with evidence of MNP. :(
As for hybrid systems? Yes, both RSA and VIP offer hybrid solutions that will allow phone-SMS of tokens as necessary, though it's still the same security hole. Just a slightly smaller hole. Like comparing a Cliff-side-drop to an exposed mineshaft. You're less likely to fall into a mineshaft but both will kill you - :(
Engineers implement the systems, but engineers do what they are told. :)
Don't take this as an Anti-CEO/CTO rant. Most of those guys are pretty good. It's more a reflection on how their motivation for reducing cost while only having to get ticks in the appropriate boxes usually drives the choice of technology. Sometimes even when a particular technology is well known to be flawed.
GrpA
Not True. The product is AFAIK, A Telstra product under which they use SMS to provide a "token" as an additional factor.
Given that there have been many confirmed examples of MNP ( Malicious Number Porting ) in Australia, this is known weak security. Under the circumstances, its entirely reasonable to assume that the Bank knew this was likely.
However I can't see them rushing out to address the issue in the near future. In fact, with some banks, it's impossible to turn off the ability to transfer out large sums of money. You can turn it off easy enough, but anyone who accesses the system can turn it back on by default by clicking a screen saying you agree to the risk. :(
All the major banks in Australia have this form of security. On the other hand, all the credit unions ( everyone except the "Big 4" Banks ) use VIP ( Verisign Identity Protection IIRC ) which can be downloaded to most smartphones and works as a soft-token.
Security in Australia, as with much of the world, is severely compromised by CEOs and CTOs who really don't understand it and as long as they can blame someone else, then due diligence is done.
GrpA
Exactly what I was thinking... Strange how such a flawed concept can gain ground so easily without anyone mentioning the 500lb gorilla... :(
GrpA
Actually, being online helped my child *with Autism*...
The computer provides a safe and effective way for him to interact with other people and stimulate his mind. Having access to a computer at all times since he was about 3 has been a huge help to him and is one of the reason he is now diagnosed as "no longer needing assistance". It has taught him to spell well and helped him with communication skills which was an area in which he was seriously affected.
The people behind this research seem to have an agenda to push and the article does not examine any links between autism and technology at all - it just says technology causes it...
I'm surprised the magazine behind the OP printed these views at all. I guess even PC magazines have reached "Tabloid" status in the UK. :(
GrpA
Any medical treatment given the universe would most certainly not be good for sub-microscopic lifeforms living on planets...
GrpA
. No serious writer is arrogant enough to think their predictions are actually going to come true. They're literary devices, not prognostications.
This is not true. I actually did my best to predict the future in Turing Evolved. To do that, I took a good long look at current technology, everything from plasma rifles to nuclear fusion technology. I still get emails from people telling me my plasma rifle isn't realistic and wouldn't work.
A year after I wrote it, I discovered that they had actually built plasma rifles in the same way I wrote about, except the US government researchers recently declassified research that showed they did it in 1996... They can't build power plants small enough to make them practical, but they did succeed in making a rifle with the kick of a M16 hit with the impact of a 50-caliber by converting the gas from the propellant to plasma during the firing process to increase muzzle velocity.
The story itself is also now used as a context document to explain military simulation technology by at least one military manufacturer.
Am I arrogant? Maybe, but regardless, I am a researcher. I don't expect everything I wrote about to come to fruition ( the story is primarily about human/AI relations ) but I spent time learning of the limitations of technology. Everything in the story has a basis in current technology.
The story might be set nearly 200 years from now, but most of the stranger technology I used is from today. Sure, I took a few liberties because it is fiction, but in the end, it's all based on real technology and most of the readers are giving it positive reviews.
Many writers spend their time doing research about technology. Many probably read Slashdot to get ideas.
After all, prediction is really just about reading what is happening today and extrapolating it forward. It's not that difficult.
GrpA
I think this view is somewhat shortsighted. As an author who enjoys writing stories with a solid twist in them, there is some validity to what you say, but then again, it depends on what you're trying to get out of the book.
I find 98% of my readers don't spot the twist in my story until it's actually put to them and even then I spell it out for about 90% of them. The other 2% see it but only when it's getting really close, despite it being obvious from chapter 1.
The purpose of the twist is to provide enjoyment - to set the reader up so they almost see it coming but can't quite work it out. To give them a chance to keep on guessing and to see how close they got. To achieve this, I use the bias of the reader against them so that they keep second guessing themselves until the final twist is revealed. To make sure all the clues are in plain sight is essential, but I still avoid showing the obvious thread between them.
This also serves the purpose of giving the story re-readability. So that someone can read it a second time while knowing what the twist is and see all the subtle things they missed or misunderstood the first time. Nuances in conversation, tweaks in attitude. In this way the second reading is sometimes more important than the first.
And I think that the missing piece of the research here is to consider whether the reader is reading the story once or twice. If knowing the twist, even one like the sixth-sense twist, helps you enjoy those nuances and you're only going to read the story once or watch the movie a single time, then sometimes knowing can enhance the enjoyment.
I had never considered such before, but having thought about it, it actually makes sense. But I won't be posting any spoilers... Feel free to ask though. :)
GrpA.
Just use a masked image intensifier ( ie, don't look directly at the moon ) and watch the sky through an image intensifier.
Apart from a 40 degree FOV, you'll also see about a hundred times as many stars and meteors, even on a moonlit night.
A decent Gen2 or Gen3 image intensifier will suffice. PVS-14's aren't just for the military you know...
Though a Micro housing with a c-mount objective lens can also be modified later to fit into the eyepiece for improving your telescope too!
GrpA
Congratulations, you're doing science.
Awesome... Can I have some cake now please?
I don't think they are missing the point. I was building Z-80 based systems and computers when I was 15 and by the time I was 17, I was creating embedded systems with complete multitasking OS'es from scratch. I thought I was pretty clever until I made friends with a Romanian kid my age who built an his own CPU out of TTL logic because he couldn't get hold of a microprocessor CPU. We became good friends at the time.
Over time, I met many others who had completed similar achievements. It's not as uncommon as you'd imagine. If I recall correctly, not a single one of our group ever made it through university, except the Romanian kid. I tried once and got kicked out of the electronics class for arguing with the lecturer ( what kind of an idiot makes a lab experiment that drives TTL outputs directly into other TTL outputs and leaves the inputs floating? Yes, he really was the inexperienced...) but got picked up by an R&D lab a month later.
The main difference perhaps is that we were working on such projects because there was no other alternative. So nice things like keyboards? Forget it. We had to find whatever keyboards we could, desolder the original electronics,hand-wire a matrix to the keys and build the IO controls to read the keyboard. That was pretty normal. IO chips were sometimes difficult to get, but nothing shift registers couldn't fix with a little clever controlling logic. Make it on a separate board and it was suddenly a "module" that could be stacked. Buses were replaced by ribbon cables ( a luxury! ) and I still remember our excitement at presensitised PCBs and CAD software so we could hand-make circuit boards and no longer had to manually solder together protoboards for prototypes.
Though in a world in which there's no need to do such things anymore, I still respect the kid's drive and motivation. Doing things the old way is hard. While I appreciate his desire to learn, I question whether he will achieve anything out of this other than satisfaction, though sometimes that is enough. :)
GrpA
University/College is only an educational institute. It teaches you nothing that you can't learn yourself in your chosen field through self-study and research.
But if you do choose to attend later, after you gain some real-world experience, you have a much better capacity to understand and learn what it is you are being taught.
That has some real value.
GrpA
I don't think the current spate of leaks, both government and corporate, are co-incidental. It seems to reflect a wider growing community attitude that there are no secrets anymore.
The recent manifestation of hacker-sub-culture into the mainstream seems to promote ideas such as "information wants to be free" and provided recognition and kudos for having been the leak.
Based on this, I think that business and government alike will have to find new ways to work in an environment in which their own employees are their biggest threat. Keeping the IP pool secure is going to be far more difficult in future when not only are those swimming in it poking holes in the side, they are getting positive public recognition for their efforts in many cases.
GrpA
its not fair for companies to have to defend themselves against millions of criminals.
If a company has to defend itself against *millions* of criminals, then common logic holds that whatever these millions of people are doing it is not, or should not be, a crime.
GrpA
The ISPs won't pay for this. The costs will be passed on to their users as always. And since it's a level playing field, one ISP won't gain an advantage over others.
What is likely to happen however is that important people will find that their kids activities lead to getting such letters and then maybe the older generation, which really doesn't understand the situation, will start to feel the copyright noose they placed around their own necks tighten.
That is likely to lead to change, but not before.
GrpA.
I wonder if she even realizes her own hypocrisy? He video will most likely get slashdotted and she'll just see the numbers as support for her position.
As a long-time supporter for reduction of IP constraints, I get hurt more than most. Soon, my options to publish DRM free material may even be curtailed by such limited political attitudes and understanding.
GrpA
No... They can sit at their desks and play WoW during work hours... I mean, chase cybermoneylaunderers...
Next week, they'll extend it to chasing Cyber-Jaywalkers and issue on-the-spot fines of 3-gold per incident.
GrpA