I just checked Sotheby's web site and the description says that only Rotors I, II, and III are included, IV and V are missing.
Not surprising that, I don't think many intact Enigma machines still exist.
But if you have an iPad and a buck, have I got a deal for you. http://ricks-thoughts.denhaven... on an introductory sale price this week.
I recently went to a show at the Morehead Planetarium at the University of North Carolina.
They recently retired their Zeiss projector. It was still there, until they figure out where it's going and how to get it out of the building, but the show used digital projectors.
The Morehead Planetarium holds a place in the history of the US manned space program, all of the Astronauts from the Mercury program, through Gemini, Apollo, and Skylab were trained on astronavigation at Morehead, albeit the planetarium at that time had an even earlier Zeiss projector, which I was told is now somewhare in Texas after being replaced in the 1970s IIRC.
In the basement there's a display about the astronaut's use of Morehead, and the contrast in technology is striking. For example on display are:
The wooden 'hood' used to simulate the astronaut's view through the small window of the Mercury spacecraft.
The device used to project an orbital track on the planetarium dome, which was made from a food can with a slit holding a light bulb.
A wooden low fidelity mockup of the seats and windows of the Gemini spacecraft. This is available for patrons to sit in.
And my favorite,
A device used to simulate the blinking light on the Agena which was used in the Gemini project for rendevous and docking. This was a light with a rotating shutter, who needs 'fancy' electronics.
When I was home for Christmas, my octogenarian Mom asked me about the converters.
She has two TVs already on cable, but uses an old color OTA set in her kitchen. I helped her apply for a coupon.
But when I looked at the info about the box, it seems that it only had composite video outputs, I didn't even see a coax connection, so I told her it probably wouldn't work with her set which only has a 300 ohm "rabbit ear" antenna connection.
So does this mean that she'd also need an RF modulator as well?
I think that uglyduckling hit a key positive aspect of Ubuntu. It takes the Debian package stream and puts it into nice 6 month time-boxed releases. I hope that the slip of the upcoming dapper release is a one-time thing.
Further, the introduction of the server "version" of Ubuntu with committed long-term time-based support seems to make it a good carrier for the Debian stream for servers, maybe even better than "regular" Debian.
Personally I made the switch from RH/Fedora to Ubuntu, and it feels to me that Ubuntu provided my transition into the Debian world with its advantages. Maybe I'm missing something, but I haven't found any reason to wish that I was running Sarge instead of Breezy.
I thought that the SSL certificate issuing authorities were supposed to provide that centralized (or nearly centralized) infrastructure to verify website ownership identity. But then it seems you can't trust even that.
I think that this needs to be tweaked a bit to make it fit what Verizon is proposing.
I think that a closer analogy would be something like:
I run a fortune cookie company, and on the back of each fortune I put paid advertisements.
I tell restaurants that I'll ship them as many free fortune cookies as they'd like, paying all shipping charges myself.
Lots of restaurants start using my cookies, heck they're free!
Lots of customers find my cookies quite tasty, and a few even read the ads on the back of the fortune.
Lots of advertisers discover how popular my cookies are and I start to get lots of money from them.
A big restaurant chain notices that I'm making lots of money, and demands that I start paying them to deliver my free cookies to their paying customers via the infrastructure in which the chain invested.
Case in point from this very article, ninth paragraph, describing how long a slashdot article must be:
It needs to be not to long, not to short.
While it's mostly clear what you mean, the sentence could take on different meaning. For example, the "It needs to be not to long" could (easily in fact) be interpreted to mean...
Easily? I find it hard to interpret at all, the way it's punctuated.
With a comma:
It needs to be, not to long, not to short.
it might mean "It needs to exist, not to pine, not to ???."
I'm at a bit of a loss to think of a meaning for short as an intransitive verb though. Of course the adverb needed to modify the adjectives here is "too".
At least the Cmdr seems to be consistent in using "to" for "too".
I've been re-reading James Martin's books, "Application Development without Programmers" and "System Design from Provably Correct Constructs", with the goal of selecting a method to program mechanical devices.
Martin's thesis, and remember this was back in the 70's and early 80's, was that the program should be generated from a specification of WHAT the program was to do, rather than trying to translate faulty specifications into code telling the computer HOW to do it. (Trust me, that poor sentence does not come close to describing the clarity of purpose in Martin's books.) Martin proposes that a specification language can be rigid enough to generate provably correct programs by combining a few provably correct structures into provably correct libraries from which to derive provably correct systems.
IBM had a major intiative back in the mid-1980s called AD/Cycle which was tied to SAA (System Application Architecture) which was based on these and similar ideas prevalent back then. This is the old "holy grail" and an attempt to fix the waterfall methods of development, which had actually been since the early 1950s with mixed success in delivering software on-time and in-budget.
AD/Cycle involved not only IBM but a number of "AD/Cycle partner" companies like Bachman, and KnowledgeWare. KnowlegeWare's CEO was the former scrambling NFL quarterback Fran Tarkenton. A google of "fran tarkenton knowledgeware" will turn up references to Jim Martin, as well as some interesting things about how the company ended up.
An incredible amount of development money went down the rat-hole chasing the AD/Cycle dream.
The problem turns out to be the difficulty, if not impossibility, of creating rigorous specifications which produce useful results in the face of problems which aren't very well understood at the outset. The less the requirement is for a "black box" with well-defined inputs and outputs the more this is likely to be the case.
Many problems turn out to be wicked that there is a feedback loop between the implementation and the requirements. A classic book from the era was Wicked Problems, Righteous Solutions(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/013590126X/102-5 477977-4320940?v=glance&n=283155)
Which might be considered one of the old testament texts pointing to today's "agile development" movement.
A non-software example of a wicked problem is city planning in which implementing changes in the road network, housing developments, shopping center location etc. all change the requirements for the same aspects.
Many wicked problems come from "requirements" which often do (or should or must) come from users. Often, the real requirements aren't known until an implementation is given to the users, who then might say, "yup, you implemented exactly what I asked for, but now that I see it, here's what I really want." Or, "Now that we've added this other thing (application, system, business division) why, doesn't this (work more like/interface with/replace/...) that."
Faced with this, a methodology based on "correct" construction from "rigourous" specifications simply moves the problem to debugging the requirements.
Until we do away with the need to change/adapt systems to changing/evolving requirements,
which would likely involve eliminating users, this approach will have limited applicability, and will need to stand beside other more widely used incremental development models.
Even if the gummint gives us all new digital TVs, a fair number of us might still have problems getting our soap operas over the air.
I live 10 miles north of the capitol of North Carolina. I've got an HDTV receiver which receives digital satellite and terrestrial analog and digital signals. The Raleigh area has had digital broadcasts for quite a long time, WRAL-TV, the local CBS affiliate was one of the very early pioneers in digital broadcasting.
The broadcast towers for the local stations in this area which I'd like to receive are at two bearings from my house. The PBS station is in one direction, and the others are pretty much clustered in another. I can usually watch the OTA PBS digital broadcasts, but more often than not my receiver CANNOT lock onto any of the other local digital broadcasts because of multi-path distortion.
The nice thing about digital TV is that you get a nice clear picture if you can lock on to the signal.
The bad thing is that although you don't have to deal with snowy pictures, instead of a snowy picture you get nothing.
I've thought about solving the problem, which would likely involve either a small antenna farm with one or more directional antennas, or a directional antenna with a rotator. Neither of which would be necessary even if I were watching analog tv now rather than relying on DirectTV.
The digital broadcast standards which the FCC picked for us are going to first make the fringe reception areas bigger, and then turn them into black holes.
Re:Credit where credit is due
on
Email Turns 34
·
· Score: 1
I've always suspected that gmail's best anti-spam measure was the gmail users themselves.
If spam gets through whatever filtering they use, gmail users will start tagging it as spam themselves. Since most spam gets mailed in bulk, they can identify the other instances intended for other gmail users.
Although John Nowak's comment is supportive of Wikipedia, as I am myself, his examples from wikipedia, as many others I've seen in discussions on Wikipedia, actually contradict what's actually IN the wikipedia.
"The page on Earth doesn't talk about the "Is it flat?" controversy."
But it does, here's a snapshot of the Earth Article as I type this:
Note the second paragraph in the referenced section. Not only does it talk about the "flat earth" issue, it references an article just on this topic. And there are quite a few references elsewhere to the Flat Earth article:
"No one talks about Pat Robertson's side of the story on Wikipedia."
I'm not exactly sure what Pat Robertson's side is on the flat earth question. I suspect that the theory is a little too "conservative" even for Pat. However, the article about him seems to be referenced quite a bit:
The term, fundamentalist, is difficult to apply unambiguously. Many self-described Fundamentalists would include Jerry Falwell in their company, but would not embrace Pat Robertson as a fundamentalist because of his espousal of charismatic teachings.
From the article on "Religion and sexuality":
Pat Robertson, and Jerry Falwell are noted for their vocal opposition to homosexuality.
It seems to me that the wikipedia and its philosopies stand up pretty well to controversial material. Things might look kind of ugly at certain points of time, but they do seem to even out.
Consider the coverage of the evolution vs. intelligent design.
Slashdot Mirror
I managed to get an Enigma simulator into the AppStore http://ricks-thoughts.denhaven... The bombe is orders of magnitude harder,I'm sure.
I just checked Sotheby's web site and the description says that only Rotors I, II, and III are included, IV and V are missing. Not surprising that, I don't think many intact Enigma machines still exist. But if you have an iPad and a buck, have I got a deal for you. http://ricks-thoughts.denhaven... on an introductory sale price this week.
And my favorite, A device used to simulate the blinking light on the Agena which was used in the Gemini project for rendevous and docking. This was a light with a rotating shutter, who needs 'fancy' electronics.
When I was home for Christmas, my octogenarian Mom asked me about the converters. She has two TVs already on cable, but uses an old color OTA set in her kitchen. I helped her apply for a coupon. But when I looked at the info about the box, it seems that it only had composite video outputs, I didn't even see a coax connection, so I told her it probably wouldn't work with her set which only has a 300 ohm "rabbit ear" antenna connection. So does this mean that she'd also need an RF modulator as well?
I think that uglyduckling hit a key positive aspect of Ubuntu. It takes the Debian package stream and puts it into nice 6 month time-boxed releases. I hope that the slip of the upcoming dapper release is a one-time thing. Further, the introduction of the server "version" of Ubuntu with committed long-term time-based support seems to make it a good carrier for the Debian stream for servers, maybe even better than "regular" Debian. Personally I made the switch from RH/Fedora to Ubuntu, and it feels to me that Ubuntu provided my transition into the Debian world with its advantages. Maybe I'm missing something, but I haven't found any reason to wish that I was running Sarge instead of Breezy.
... to keep from getting themselves electrocuted?
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/13/214 3251
I think that this needs to be tweaked a bit to make it fit what Verizon is proposing.
I think that a closer analogy would be something like:
Seem fair to you?
With a comma: it might mean "It needs to exist, not to pine, not to ???."
I'm at a bit of a loss to think of a meaning for short as an intransitive verb though. Of course the adverb needed to modify the adjectives here is "too".
At least the Cmdr seems to be consistent in using "to" for "too".
IBM had a major intiative back in the mid-1980s called AD/Cycle which was tied to SAA (System Application Architecture) which was based on these and similar ideas prevalent back then. This is the old "holy grail" and an attempt to fix the waterfall methods of development, which had actually been since the early 1950s with mixed success in delivering software on-time and in-budget.
AD/Cycle involved not only IBM but a number of "AD/Cycle partner" companies like Bachman, and KnowledgeWare. KnowlegeWare's CEO was the former scrambling NFL quarterback Fran Tarkenton. A google of "fran tarkenton knowledgeware" will turn up references to Jim Martin, as well as some interesting things about how the company ended up.
An incredible amount of development money went down the rat-hole chasing the AD/Cycle dream.
The problem turns out to be the difficulty, if not impossibility, of creating rigorous specifications which produce useful results in the face of problems which aren't very well understood at the outset. The less the requirement is for a "black box" with well-defined inputs and outputs the more this is likely to be the case.
Many problems turn out to be wicked that there is a feedback loop between the implementation and the requirements. A classic book from the era was Wicked Problems, Righteous Solutions (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/013590126X/102-5 477977-4320940?v=glance&n=283155)
Which might be considered one of the old testament texts pointing to today's "agile development" movement.
A non-software example of a wicked problem is city planning in which implementing changes in the road network, housing developments, shopping center location etc. all change the requirements for the same aspects.
Many wicked problems come from "requirements" which often do (or should or must) come from users. Often, the real requirements aren't known until an implementation is given to the users, who then might say, "yup, you implemented exactly what I asked for, but now that I see it, here's what I really want." Or, "Now that we've added this other thing (application, system, business division) why, doesn't this (work more like/interface with/replace/...) that."
Faced with this, a methodology based on "correct" construction from "rigourous" specifications simply moves the problem to debugging the requirements.
Until we do away with the need to change/adapt systems to changing/evolving requirements, which would likely involve eliminating users, this approach will have limited applicability, and will need to stand beside other more widely used incremental development models.
I live 10 miles north of the capitol of North Carolina. I've got an HDTV receiver which receives digital satellite and terrestrial analog and digital signals. The Raleigh area has had digital broadcasts for quite a long time, WRAL-TV, the local CBS affiliate was one of the very early pioneers in digital broadcasting.
The broadcast towers for the local stations in this area which I'd like to receive are at two bearings from my house. The PBS station is in one direction, and the others are pretty much clustered in another. I can usually watch the OTA PBS digital broadcasts, but more often than not my receiver CANNOT lock onto any of the other local digital broadcasts because of multi-path distortion.
The nice thing about digital TV is that you get a nice clear picture if you can lock on to the signal.
The bad thing is that although you don't have to deal with snowy pictures, instead of a snowy picture you get nothing.
I've thought about solving the problem, which would likely involve either a small antenna farm with one or more directional antennas, or a directional antenna with a rotator. Neither of which would be necessary even if I were watching analog tv now rather than relying on DirectTV.
The digital broadcast standards which the FCC picked for us are going to first make the fringe reception areas bigger, and then turn them into black holes.
I've always suspected that gmail's best anti-spam measure was the gmail users themselves. If spam gets through whatever filtering they use, gmail users will start tagging it as spam themselves. Since most spam gets mailed in bulk, they can identify the other instances intended for other gmail users.
"The page on Earth doesn't talk about the "Is it flat?" controversy."
But it does, here's a snapshot of the Earth Article as I type this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Earth&ol did=24952519#Descriptions_of_Earth
Note the second paragraph in the referenced section. Not only does it talk about the "flat earth" issue, it references an article just on this topic. And there are quite a few references elsewhere to the Flat Earth article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Whatlinkshere /Flat_Earth
"No one talks about Pat Robertson's side of the story on Wikipedia."
I'm not exactly sure what Pat Robertson's side is on the flat earth question. I suspect that the theory is a little too "conservative" even for Pat. However, the article about him seems to be referenced quite a bit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Whatlinkshere /Pat_Robertson
Here are some samples of these references.
From the article on "Fundamentalism":
From the article on "Religion and sexuality":
It seems to me that the wikipedia and its philosopies stand up pretty well to controversial material. Things might look kind of ugly at certain points of time, but they do seem to even out.
Consider the coverage of the evolution vs. intelligent design.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design
Look at the article and then look at the talk page and the archived peer review (yes wikipedia does have a process for that):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Peer_review /Intelligent_design
One of the real strengths of wikipedia is that the review process if openly visible should someone care to look.
And other (perhaps loony) opinions are also covered http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Mons terism
May y'all be touched by his noodly appendage!