10**4 W/m2 = 160 dB
10**6 W/m2 = 200 db
If you were a few meters away 200 db could kill you, but back off to 20 meters and you just get a very loud sound that hurts your ears since sound decreases as the square of the distance. Its the compressed air pressure wave from the sound that kills you anyhow,you wouldn't hear a thing. A
The point is that no one is standing that close to a rocket engine anyway.
The safe distance for a launch is due to the estimated debris field if there was an explosion not sound.
Wrong, just plain wrong..Its the frequency that can be harmful not the loudness at the db levels you state.See this web site
http://www.forteantimes.com/articles/153_sonicweap ons.shtml
There is a LOT of misinformation out there. If 140 Db kills in a few hours you there would be a lot of dead airline ramp workers, and race car team members. Sound energy dissapates rapidly.
Below is the conclusion drawn by the above reference site (I know the S-V was not a weapon but the db/frequency info in the paper is what I am referencing)
So sonic weapons, even those employing ultrasound and infrasound, would only work over very short distances and, rather than resulting in the kinds of psychological or physical effects claimed by conspiracy-heads or military nuts, would probably just cause serious and permanent
hearing damage. Altmann had found no evidence that human targets would be rendered incapable of action by being severely spooked or losing physical control: "I have found no hard evidence for vomiting or uncontrolled defecation, even at levels of 170 dB or more."
So sonic weapons, despite the oft-repeated claims, would most likely be large, cumbersome, close-range devices resulting in ruptured eardrums.
There are at least two errors in your post.
1) Safe distance has nothing to do with Sound at all, it's the maximum range of the debris pattern at ground level if it blew up on the pad.
2) The Saturn V launch was close to 200db, while thats VERY VERY loud, its not going to kill you. It's not as loud as say a 155mm howitzer, but its louder than most jets. Think standing at the end of the runway and see a jumbo jet taking off and then add a bit. 200db WILL make you stone deaf but it won't kill you. NASA also had the exhaust of the Saturn V channeled down under the Pad and massive water Jets also sprayed the pad to keep it cool and it also reduced the sound levels. I have observed (and heard) a SSME on a Test Stand from about 300 yards away and that was insanely loud but there was not any noise dampening and I can still hear fine . But the SSMEs are not nearly the thrust of a Saturn V (393,800 pounds per each SSME vs 1.5 Million for a F-1 (of which there are 5 on a Saturn V)).
Calculating acoustics effects is complicated; the level at a given distance depends on many details, such as source power and size, frequency, wavefront form, and humidity (higher humidity dampens sound faster..at the Cape it is VERY humid). Three miles sounds like an exaggeration, and without any reference data it cannot be verified.
Alas, there is NOT any perfect code out there unless it has been proven via formal logic proof, and/or every path has been executed, and every scenario tested. Now who is going to pay for the extra effort to do all this? We can test small systems rigorously, but you get into systems the size of a small application or heaven forbid an O/S like Windows and you are talking about years of testing even using automated tools (someone has to script the tools). The code we send into Space and put into our airplanes only has the most critical sections exposed to the extreme levels of validation, and even then we miss things but we hope they are small enough they don't cause us to lose a mission or a plane. So, Bill is technically correty there is no such thing as "perfect" code.
HOWEVER that does NOT mean developers should cut corners and do sloppy work and just not worry about it. Things like buffer overflows should be found in testing, NOT in deployment. This points to a very poor development process at MS, where the mantra is "we'll fix it later..maybe". The sooner version X+1 hits the shelves the sooner it starts bringing in the $$$ and we all know it's about $$$ at M$. Until that approach goes away you will have the issues we have with Windows today. Gate's comments also were meant to create the mindset with the public that it is OK to have buggy or insecure software but that M$ is really doing thier best so it's just a "human" mistake. Those of us in the business know better. Gates is just cranking the handle on the M$ Marketing Machine to try and hide the issues.
It scares the beejesus out of me that I hear talk of "embedded Windows" in airplanes and medical devices. Just wait till someone hacks into the hospital and changes the setting on a life support system or a drug pump and someone dies. Who is at fault, the hospital, the developer, MicroSoft or no one at all because its OK not the be "perfect"? The point is there is philosophy of doing it very well (and in some cases it MUST be perfect)that I think M$ lacks. Market Leaders often get lazy and think anyone will buy it because it has their name on it. I think that is where Microsoft is at, kinda where GM was at in the 70's before they were blitzed by the Japanese. Is open source the next "invasion"? Perhaps so which is why in one way or another M$ has to crush it.
The USA does not give these weapons to terrorists or leave the back door to the lab unlocked so they can be "stolen". That's a HUGE difference. These other nations can and will. The scary thing is that most of this research will be published in the open literature, and all some bad guy has to do it has a good lab and a willing technician to make the stuff. But hopefully if we learn how to make it we can figure out how to defend against it.
I did RTFA. I'm not worried about his FUTURE plans, that will never happen for a number of reasons. He even realizes it...
When the self-made space traveler began the quest several years ago, the idea was to fly up 50 miles to the border of space. He has since stepped back from bankrolling a full-size rocket design to a more modest missile -- one that shoots to 15,000 feet.....
Walker is not gunning for the X Prize. That's the worldwide competition to hurl passengers to the edge of space and snag a $10 million purse.
What appeals to Walker is building a client base of rocket riders, drawing from the skydiver community. Eventually, in step-by-step fashion, rockets toting skydivers and non-skydivers alike can be designed, built, and flown to ever-higher heights, he said.
Unless he has some VERY deep pockets or some investors with them he isn't going to get 50 miles up. That requires at least two stages, serious rocket engines, real G&C, heat shield for rentry, life support, a support team, launch platform, etc. He is having fun at a high-level amateur level, but he isn't going to be making any sub-orbital flights. He is a crazy guy who is having fun, a harmless kook. He isn't the next Robert Goddard.
That assertion would have to have been entered as evidence in court. Right now SCO can talk out of both sides of their mouth with out being silenced as no actual evidence has been entered as the trial has not begun, only Discovery and lots of legal motions related to it.
I hope you were not serious. 15,000 feet is not that high, we have mountains that high in the USA. ICBMs reenter at 200,000 feet plus and have a screamingly high velocity. Plus anyone watching on radar would see it go UP first. If he is smart enough to build it I'm sure he will notify someone he is launching it. It won't look like an ICBM -- I guarantee. (apologies to Justin Wilson)
I just hope he launches it somewhere (like the middle of the desert) that whatever comes down does not hurt anyone or destroy some property, otherwise it's a cool idea! I hope he makes it!
Interesting posts, I understand most of even though I'm just a BS CS with 20 yrs of software engineering experience. I think it would be an interesting thread to explain to us/.ers how "optical memory" works. D we trap a photon(s)and say that "bit" is on or we somehow register the presence of the photon(s) being there as "on"? I assume we release the photon and the bit is dark for a zero? How in the world do you trap a photon? It has no magnetic charge, and it is almost massless. Or is optical memory somehow optical Inputs/outputs to very fast conventional semiconductor memory?
Perhaps the fact that the thing is so darn expensive that only defense projects can justify the cost? I can put together an array of "mainstream" DSPs for which I already have development tools and equal the performance of the optical chip at a much lower cost. It still needs to get smaller to be used in a lot of applications. I also wonder about how much power it needs and how much heat it dissipates. This thing will also be limited in performance in the real world by the fact that memory is much slower than the CPU.
NASA has some VERY good engineers, just very poor management. There have been some sucesses, the failures were because we gave up too soon. Instead of looking for a solution to a problem often NASA is forced to accept a less than good solution due to budget issues. Of course the Shuttle and Station both eat HUGE chunks of NASA's budget and are not returning much on that money. The Shuttle exists to support the Station and kinda vice versa as well. Station Components and passengers could launch on Titans IVs or Delta's but they won't do it as it's not as "sexy" as the Shuttle (but its safer). Sure it would take a bit of work to stow the components and the payloads would need a autodock mechanism (which exists on the Russian Progress), but not as much as supporting the Shuttle for many more years. We could build a more modern Apollo Capsule or buy a few Soyuzes. Maybe, just maybe then the Space Station could be something instead of a maintenance nightmare where all the astronauts do all day is keep it running, there is not any time left for science! I can bet you (working inside NASA) that the OSP will face the same issues as the Shuttle, to do it right costs too much money, so compromises will be made that are not sound engineering which down the line will come back and bite them causing even more cost overuns and causing another subsystem to be less than adequate. Some system will get shorted due to another system running over and eating all the budget. The ONLY way to build this is to tell industry what you need, tell them it has to be built at a fixed price (they get to bid the price) and it must meet ALL the requirements and be no more than 6 months late or they don't get paid. No waivers, no excuses. NASA provides MINIMUM oversight related only to flight safety, everything else the contractor does and they must test drive the vehicle and prove it works before payment and guarantee the OSP for at least 20 flights. Right now NASA is asking for money for an OSP that they really dont have good specs for and are already compressing the schedule. That's adding lots of risk in my mind, which does NOT have to be there. We have some good interim solutions as I mentioned above, so let's slow down design it right, fund it right and DO it right.
Sure they could, but would you beleive the results? If it looks like what they showed at the conferences you couldn't even see the results of a diff run unless you sign the non-disclosure that says you can't say what you saw. Assuming they HAVE a case, wouldnt SCO want someone to actually SAY that in the press? IBM's lawyers got a good laugh out of this, and I suspect the court will toss it out very quickly as the burden of proof is on SCO not IBM.
Hang on there, the NSA has purchased rights to use the technology. We have no idea what key length they will use or if there will be classified extensions to the technology. It is also the case that certain levels of classified material may be encoded with another even more secure method. I know from working in the "black" world that different classifications get much different handling such as the EC method keys may be encoded with another method (RSA) to prevent brute force attacks. Then the attack only yields the original ciphertext which then has to be attacked again to get plaintext, assuming you can even break the first key. It has been estimated for keys like the NSA is using that even something as powerful as a supercomputer cluster will take many years to decode something by brute force (of course I guess there could be a hole that someone finds, or maybe a worldwide spare CPU cycle approach like SETI). By the time the data is decoded it is stale and most likely useless. So you don't alsways have to have a key that is infintely unbreakable, just something that takes longer than a few days. These guys at the NSA know what they are doing, they are not going to use something that is not at least as good as what they have now.
A large amount of Wal-Mart's goods come from the mainland of China. Just imagine if that buying power was focused here in the US (or at least not in Communist China). I have heard that Wal-Mart suppliers have some of the most horrible working conditions in China. Of course the Government looks the other way ( a few yen goes a LONG way to lowering prices). Sounds to me that Wal-Mart's tactics put Mr. Gates to shame. At least M$ is not using slave labor and sweatshops to develop Windoze software.
M$ has about $50B in the bank in CASH and more every day. They can buy small South American countries with that! Welcome to Gatesville, capital of the nation of Microsoft!
I work with science satellites and we don't want the first warning of a space storm to be when we you can't talk to our mega-million dollar birds. However, to me it looks like the Space Weather Service is redundant with a lot of things NASA and the Air Force are doing already so I agree with the cuts. Several solar observing satellites are already in orbit and I know of at least one more to come. Just transfer the "warning" responsibilty to NASA or the Air Force.
I suspect there will be a few problems with some older birds and some of the newer ones too that are not well shielded. Less shield = less weight = lower cost to launch, but also shorter lifetime due to increased radiation exposure for the electronics. Some birds are just turned off until the solar event is below critical levels. SEUs (Single Event Upsets, or bit flips) due to EM levels are handled by special circuitry to minimize the loss of data. The excess energy charge on the spacecraft due to the radiation is dumped in many different ways. Purely mechanical systems are not affected by this storm. Most folks don't know but many LEO sattelites go thru a place called the South Atlantic Anomoly where the Earths own Radiation Fields are very intense and systems have to be turned off for several minutes each orbit. But it can be worse, when the earth gets hit with huge amounts of ultraviolet radiation from geomagnetic storms, the upper atmosphere heats up. This heated air rises, and the density of lower satellite orbits (about 1,000 kilometers) increases significantly. This causes drag to increase on satellites; they slow down and gravity pulls them in towards earth. Unless these satellites are boosted into higher orbits, they'll fall and eventually burn up in earth's atmosphere. Remember Skylab? It was a victim of premature entry just because of higher than expected solar activity. This effect can last for several weeks as the earths electrical field is still expanded from the flare.
Systems on the ground are also well shielded, since the incident in Quebec in the 1980s where an intense solar storm knocked out the electrical grid! This is NOT to say NOTHING will happen it's just to say it won't be back to the stone ages. Now if we all lived on Mars we'd be hiding in some DEEP hole. Solar flares and how to handle them will be something that needs intense study prior to a Mars mission.
Part of the facts under dispute is IF the seeds were blown onto his land, or if they were gotten illegally. I can see some seeds being blown in but only an inconsequential amount. It would take many generations of the patented plants (assuming they didnt cross with his regular plants) to get enough seed to grow a good sized crop.
Hmm...was the deal between SCO and M$ that M$ pays SCO for some licenses IF SCO turns around and buys an M$ license with part of that money? Why the heck would SCO NEED a Windows code license if they really seriously think they DO own Linux? All that sale does is pump up SCO's stock for the sale of a license which has no value until the legal actions are settled. Then SCO gives back some of M$ "license" money to get something they really don't need. This is very similar to a kickback, IMHO it is a poorly disguised kickback. Kickbacks are illegal. The appearances of collusion between Bill and Daryl keeps on getting stronger.
Because he is making money by selling the crop grown from the "pirated" seeds. Just like if someone pirates one of Intels chip making processes and use it in their chip plant to make chips for Sale. I suspect Monsanto's seeds are patented. Almost all patents requires a license to use that grants you limited rights in what you can do with the patent. A few generations of this kind of theft of property and the property becomes worthless to the company as everyone who wants it can get it for free from someone else.
A lot of these hybrids bred to resist this and that themselves do not produce seeds that have the same characteristics. That is so Joe Farmer has to buy new seed each year. It also prevents the crops from adapting over time to the micro-climate of his fields, thus decreasing the productivty of his crops to that of the average.
Since he is really good at making a detailed, objective analysis of the issues, and arriving at rational conclusions and actions I think we should elect Daryl McBride to Congress.
They just need to hire Scotty to keep the place running. He'd have things humming in no time using only a phase adjusting screwdriver and a package of dilithium crystals.
You mean the Astronauts? The guys who think the station orbits THEM? The REAL astronauts (not the science guys called payload specialists) will take just about any risk, its what gets them going. They are mostly ex-test pilots where thier butt was on the line all the time. Andrenaline junkies.
With the post-CAIB NASA if its not safe, say so and clean out your desk is just done more gently and by a committee so on one is to blame.
I know one guy who was in a meeting with some Astronauts who asked his opinion on some systems problem, and how it might affect the mission. His response was "You are going to die". He was quietly reassigned.
"his boss needs him"?? Obviously this guy did not work in IT, he would have been replaced with another geek who was just yesterday standing on a street corner holding a sign saying "Will Hack Java for Food". S/he is happy to be abused daily for a salary. Or they may just ship his job to India and save the money.
Slashdot Mirror
10**4 W/m2 = 160 dB 10**6 W/m2 = 200 db If you were a few meters away 200 db could kill you, but back off to 20 meters and you just get a very loud sound that hurts your ears since sound decreases as the square of the distance. Its the compressed air pressure wave from the sound that kills you anyhow,you wouldn't hear a thing. A The point is that no one is standing that close to a rocket engine anyway. The safe distance for a launch is due to the estimated debris field if there was an explosion not sound.
Wrong, just plain wrong..Its the frequency that can be harmful not the loudness at the db levels you state.See this web site http://www.forteantimes.com/articles/153_sonicweap ons.shtml
There is a LOT of misinformation out there. If 140 Db kills in a few hours you there would be a lot of dead airline ramp workers, and race car team members. Sound energy dissapates rapidly.
Below is the conclusion drawn by the above reference site (I know the S-V was not a weapon but the db/frequency info in the paper is what I am referencing)
So sonic weapons, even those employing ultrasound and infrasound, would only work over very short distances and, rather than resulting in the kinds of psychological or physical effects claimed by conspiracy-heads or military nuts, would probably just cause serious and permanent
hearing damage. Altmann had found no evidence that human targets would be rendered incapable of action by being severely spooked or losing physical control: "I have found no hard evidence for vomiting or uncontrolled defecation, even at levels of 170 dB or more."
So sonic weapons, despite the oft-repeated claims, would most likely be large, cumbersome, close-range devices resulting in ruptured eardrums.
There are at least two errors in your post. 1) Safe distance has nothing to do with Sound at all, it's the maximum range of the debris pattern at ground level if it blew up on the pad. 2) The Saturn V launch was close to 200db, while thats VERY VERY loud, its not going to kill you. It's not as loud as say a 155mm howitzer, but its louder than most jets. Think standing at the end of the runway and see a jumbo jet taking off and then add a bit. 200db WILL make you stone deaf but it won't kill you. NASA also had the exhaust of the Saturn V channeled down under the Pad and massive water Jets also sprayed the pad to keep it cool and it also reduced the sound levels. I have observed (and heard) a SSME on a Test Stand from about 300 yards away and that was insanely loud but there was not any noise dampening and I can still hear fine . But the SSMEs are not nearly the thrust of a Saturn V (393,800 pounds per each SSME vs 1.5 Million for a F-1 (of which there are 5 on a Saturn V)). Calculating acoustics effects is complicated; the level at a given distance depends on many details, such as source power and size, frequency, wavefront form, and humidity (higher humidity dampens sound faster..at the Cape it is VERY humid). Three miles sounds like an exaggeration, and without any reference data it cannot be verified.
Alas, there is NOT any perfect code out there unless it has been proven via formal logic proof, and/or every path has been executed, and every scenario tested. Now who is going to pay for the extra effort to do all this? We can test small systems rigorously, but you get into systems the size of a small application or heaven forbid an O/S like Windows and you are talking about years of testing even using automated tools (someone has to script the tools). The code we send into Space and put into our airplanes only has the most critical sections exposed to the extreme levels of validation, and even then we miss things but we hope they are small enough they don't cause us to lose a mission or a plane. So, Bill is technically correty there is no such thing as "perfect" code. HOWEVER that does NOT mean developers should cut corners and do sloppy work and just not worry about it. Things like buffer overflows should be found in testing, NOT in deployment. This points to a very poor development process at MS, where the mantra is "we'll fix it later..maybe". The sooner version X+1 hits the shelves the sooner it starts bringing in the $$$ and we all know it's about $$$ at M$. Until that approach goes away you will have the issues we have with Windows today. Gate's comments also were meant to create the mindset with the public that it is OK to have buggy or insecure software but that M$ is really doing thier best so it's just a "human" mistake. Those of us in the business know better. Gates is just cranking the handle on the M$ Marketing Machine to try and hide the issues. It scares the beejesus out of me that I hear talk of "embedded Windows" in airplanes and medical devices. Just wait till someone hacks into the hospital and changes the setting on a life support system or a drug pump and someone dies. Who is at fault, the hospital, the developer, MicroSoft or no one at all because its OK not the be "perfect"? The point is there is philosophy of doing it very well (and in some cases it MUST be perfect)that I think M$ lacks. Market Leaders often get lazy and think anyone will buy it because it has their name on it. I think that is where Microsoft is at, kinda where GM was at in the 70's before they were blitzed by the Japanese. Is open source the next "invasion"? Perhaps so which is why in one way or another M$ has to crush it.
The USA does not give these weapons to terrorists or leave the back door to the lab unlocked so they can be "stolen". That's a HUGE difference. These other nations can and will. The scary thing is that most of this research will be published in the open literature, and all some bad guy has to do it has a good lab and a willing technician to make the stuff. But hopefully if we learn how to make it we can figure out how to defend against it.
This sounds like the perpetual computer, which would be a "derived work" of the perpetual motion machine which has already been patented ;)
I did RTFA. I'm not worried about his FUTURE plans, that will never happen for a number of reasons. He even realizes it... When the self-made space traveler began the quest several years ago, the idea was to fly up 50 miles to the border of space. He has since stepped back from bankrolling a full-size rocket design to a more modest missile -- one that shoots to 15,000 feet. ....
Walker is not gunning for the X Prize. That's the worldwide competition to hurl passengers to the edge of space and snag a $10 million purse.
What appeals to Walker is building a client base of rocket riders, drawing from the skydiver community. Eventually, in step-by-step fashion, rockets toting skydivers and non-skydivers alike can be designed, built, and flown to ever-higher heights, he said.
Unless he has some VERY deep pockets or some investors with them he isn't going to get 50 miles up. That requires at least two stages, serious rocket engines, real G&C, heat shield for rentry, life support, a support team, launch platform, etc. He is having fun at a high-level amateur level, but he isn't going to be making any sub-orbital flights. He is a crazy guy who is having fun, a harmless kook. He isn't the next Robert Goddard.
That assertion would have to have been entered as evidence in court. Right now SCO can talk out of both sides of their mouth with out being silenced as no actual evidence has been entered as the trial has not begun, only Discovery and lots of legal motions related to it.
I hope you were not serious. 15,000 feet is not that high, we have mountains that high in the USA. ICBMs reenter at 200,000 feet plus and have a screamingly high velocity. Plus anyone watching on radar would see it go UP first. If he is smart enough to build it I'm sure he will notify someone he is launching it. It won't look like an ICBM -- I guarantee. (apologies to Justin Wilson) I just hope he launches it somewhere (like the middle of the desert) that whatever comes down does not hurt anyone or destroy some property, otherwise it's a cool idea! I hope he makes it!
Interesting posts, I understand most of even though I'm just a BS CS with 20 yrs of software engineering experience. I think it would be an interesting thread to explain to us /.ers how "optical memory" works. D we trap a photon(s)and say that "bit" is on or we somehow register the presence of the photon(s) being there as "on"? I assume we release the photon and the bit is dark for a zero? How in the world do you trap a photon? It has no magnetic charge, and it is almost massless. Or is optical memory somehow optical Inputs/outputs to very fast conventional semiconductor memory?
Perhaps the fact that the thing is so darn expensive that only defense projects can justify the cost? I can put together an array of "mainstream" DSPs for which I already have development tools and equal the performance of the optical chip at a much lower cost. It still needs to get smaller to be used in a lot of applications. I also wonder about how much power it needs and how much heat it dissipates. This thing will also be limited in performance in the real world by the fact that memory is much slower than the CPU.
NASA has some VERY good engineers, just very poor management. There have been some sucesses, the failures were because we gave up too soon. Instead of looking for a solution to a problem often NASA is forced to accept a less than good solution due to budget issues. Of course the Shuttle and Station both eat HUGE chunks of NASA's budget and are not returning much on that money. The Shuttle exists to support the Station and kinda vice versa as well. Station Components and passengers could launch on Titans IVs or Delta's but they won't do it as it's not as "sexy" as the Shuttle (but its safer). Sure it would take a bit of work to stow the components and the payloads would need a autodock mechanism (which exists on the Russian Progress), but not as much as supporting the Shuttle for many more years. We could build a more modern Apollo Capsule or buy a few Soyuzes. Maybe, just maybe then the Space Station could be something instead of a maintenance nightmare where all the astronauts do all day is keep it running, there is not any time left for science!
I can bet you (working inside NASA) that the OSP will face the same issues as the Shuttle, to do it right costs too much money, so compromises will be made that are not sound engineering which down the line will come back and bite them causing even more cost overuns and causing another subsystem to be less than adequate. Some system will get shorted due to another system running over and eating all the budget. The ONLY way to build this is to tell industry what you need, tell them it has to be built at a fixed price (they get to bid the price) and it must meet ALL the requirements and be no more than 6 months late or they don't get paid. No waivers, no excuses. NASA provides MINIMUM oversight related only to flight safety, everything else the contractor does and they must test drive the vehicle and prove it works before payment and guarantee the OSP for at least 20 flights. Right now NASA is asking for money for an OSP that they really dont have good specs for and are already compressing the schedule. That's adding lots of risk in my mind, which does NOT have to be there. We have some good interim solutions as I mentioned above, so let's slow down design it right, fund it right and DO it right.
Sure they could, but would you beleive the results? If it looks like what they showed at the conferences you couldn't even see the results of a diff run unless you sign the non-disclosure that says you can't say what you saw. Assuming they HAVE a case, wouldnt SCO want someone to actually SAY that in the press? IBM's lawyers got a good laugh out of this, and I suspect the court will toss it out very quickly as the burden of proof is on SCO not IBM.
Hang on there, the NSA has purchased rights to use the technology. We have no idea what key length they will use or if there will be classified extensions to the technology. It is also the case that certain levels of classified material may be encoded with another even more secure method. I know from working in the "black" world that different classifications get much different handling such as the EC method keys may be encoded with another method (RSA) to prevent brute force attacks. Then the attack only yields the original ciphertext which then has to be attacked again to get plaintext, assuming you can even break the first key. It has been estimated for keys like the NSA is using that even something as powerful as a supercomputer cluster will take many years to decode something by brute force (of course I guess there could be a hole that someone finds, or maybe a worldwide spare CPU cycle approach like SETI). By the time the data is decoded it is stale and most likely useless. So you don't alsways have to have a key that is infintely unbreakable, just something that takes longer than a few days. These guys at the NSA know what they are doing, they are not going to use something that is not at least as good as what they have now.
A large amount of Wal-Mart's goods come from the mainland of China. Just imagine if that buying power was focused here in the US (or at least not in Communist China). I have heard that Wal-Mart suppliers have some of the most horrible working conditions in China. Of course the Government looks the other way ( a few yen goes a LONG way to lowering prices). Sounds to me that Wal-Mart's tactics put Mr. Gates to shame. At least M$ is not using slave labor and sweatshops to develop Windoze software. M$ has about $50B in the bank in CASH and more every day. They can buy small South American countries with that! Welcome to Gatesville, capital of the nation of Microsoft!
I work with science satellites and we don't want the first warning of a space storm to be when we you can't talk to our mega-million dollar birds. However, to me it looks like the Space Weather Service is redundant with a lot of things NASA and the Air Force are doing already so I agree with the cuts. Several solar observing satellites are already in orbit and I know of at least one more to come. Just transfer the "warning" responsibilty to NASA or the Air Force.
I suspect there will be a few problems with some older birds and some of the newer ones too that are not well shielded. Less shield = less weight = lower cost to launch, but also shorter lifetime due to increased radiation exposure for the electronics. Some birds are just turned off until the solar event is below critical levels. SEUs (Single Event Upsets, or bit flips) due to EM levels are handled by special circuitry to minimize the loss of data. The excess energy charge on the spacecraft due to the radiation is dumped in many different ways. Purely mechanical systems are not affected by this storm. Most folks don't know but many LEO sattelites go thru a place called the South Atlantic Anomoly where the Earths own Radiation Fields are very intense and systems have to be turned off for several minutes each orbit. But it can be worse, when the earth gets hit with huge amounts of ultraviolet radiation from geomagnetic storms, the upper atmosphere heats up. This heated air rises, and the density of lower satellite orbits (about 1,000 kilometers) increases significantly. This causes drag to increase on satellites; they slow down and gravity pulls them in towards earth. Unless these satellites are boosted into higher orbits, they'll fall and eventually burn up in earth's atmosphere. Remember Skylab? It was a victim of premature entry just because of higher than expected solar activity. This effect can last for several weeks as the earths electrical field is still expanded from the flare. Systems on the ground are also well shielded, since the incident in Quebec in the 1980s where an intense solar storm knocked out the electrical grid! This is NOT to say NOTHING will happen it's just to say it won't be back to the stone ages. Now if we all lived on Mars we'd be hiding in some DEEP hole. Solar flares and how to handle them will be something that needs intense study prior to a Mars mission.
Part of the facts under dispute is IF the seeds were blown onto his land, or if they were gotten illegally. I can see some seeds being blown in but only an inconsequential amount. It would take many generations of the patented plants (assuming they didnt cross with his regular plants) to get enough seed to grow a good sized crop.
Hmm...was the deal between SCO and M$ that M$ pays SCO for some licenses IF SCO turns around and buys an M$ license with part of that money? Why the heck would SCO NEED a Windows code license if they really seriously think they DO own Linux? All that sale does is pump up SCO's stock for the sale of a license which has no value until the legal actions are settled. Then SCO gives back some of M$ "license" money to get something they really don't need. This is very similar to a kickback, IMHO it is a poorly disguised kickback. Kickbacks are illegal. The appearances of collusion between Bill and Daryl keeps on getting stronger.
Because he is making money by selling the crop grown from the "pirated" seeds. Just like if someone pirates one of Intels chip making processes and use it in their chip plant to make chips for Sale. I suspect Monsanto's seeds are patented. Almost all patents requires a license to use that grants you limited rights in what you can do with the patent. A few generations of this kind of theft of property and the property becomes worthless to the company as everyone who wants it can get it for free from someone else.
A lot of these hybrids bred to resist this and that themselves do not produce seeds that have the same characteristics. That is so Joe Farmer has to buy new seed each year. It also prevents the crops from adapting over time to the micro-climate of his fields, thus decreasing the productivty of his crops to that of the average.
Since he is really good at making a detailed, objective analysis of the issues, and arriving at rational conclusions and actions I think we should elect Daryl McBride to Congress.
They just need to hire Scotty to keep the place running. He'd have things humming in no time using only a phase adjusting screwdriver and a package of dilithium crystals.
You mean the Astronauts? The guys who think the station orbits THEM? The REAL astronauts (not the science guys called payload specialists) will take just about any risk, its what gets them going. They are mostly ex-test pilots where thier butt was on the line all the time. Andrenaline junkies. With the post-CAIB NASA if its not safe, say so and clean out your desk is just done more gently and by a committee so on one is to blame. I know one guy who was in a meeting with some Astronauts who asked his opinion on some systems problem, and how it might affect the mission. His response was "You are going to die". He was quietly reassigned.
"his boss needs him"?? Obviously this guy did not work in IT, he would have been replaced with another geek who was just yesterday standing on a street corner holding a sign saying "Will Hack Java for Food". S/he is happy to be abused daily for a salary. Or they may just ship his job to India and save the money.