1) It is very difficult, even during the daytime, to work out whether an aircraft is above or below you by looking out of the window. At night, there is often no visual horizon at all, so you are seeing a big expanse of sky with stars/planets/aeroplanes/ships in it with no references to judge their relative positioning.
2) Pilots are not superhuman. We have the same evolved circadian rhythms as everyone else and suffer from fatigue in the same way. We are diurnal mammals and staying up through the night means your performance suffers in a similar way to what it would if you missed a night's sleep at home.
3) In-flight napping is legal and encouraged under the regulations I work with, with certain provisos. Long-gone are the notions of the steely-eyed pilot constantly scanning the sky for danger at 3am on the body clock: we just aren't capable of that, which is why we have a plethora of automatic systems to take care of most of the trivia.
4) If you think this incident was bad, have a look at the proposed new European "safety" legislation, where you could end up on-duty for 21-22hrs in certain circumstances. Oh, and they've ignored just about every piece of peer-reviewed scientific research from the last 50 years in drafting the new rules...
This brings up the possibility of a car botnet (carnet?) of infected vehicles which do drive-by p0wning when in wireless range of other susceptible models.
I'm sure there'll be lots of security surrounding remote access but given that an automotive black-hat could have complete access to a car's hardware and software for as long as it takes, I'm not optimistic about the outcome (from the man-in-the-street's POV).
I've got a reasonably modern German car and have just had the engine tweaked for better performance & economy by a laptop-wielding specialist. We went for a drive afterwards and he was able to access pretty much every system on board from the computer on his knees. He said the protection/encryption is getting better all the time but so are the crackers... With some of the later cars he has to take the ECU out and plug it into PCs set up in the back of his van before getting the car equivalent of root access.
+1 from me. Only just found them (I think they've just gone into reprint).
The nearest books I can compare with are the Malazan series by Steven Erikson - you can see where he got the inspiration now.
I wouldn't like to pigeon-hole Glen Cook's novels but they have elements of fantasy, SF, military etc. brought together in a (then) unique fashion, with much more emphasis on the characters and their development than whizz-bang effects (which he has as well).
I'm an airline pilot and we get the same sort of advice. Personally, it doesn't work for me and I feel much better after an extended sleep on-board, rather than a 20min kip. Mind you, I've done the job (long-haul) for long enough now that any sort of natural body rhythms have been burnt out, along with being in a particular time zone... I can stay up until breakfast or go to bed - doesn't seem to matter anymore:(
They're probably being optimistic about the date it starts running but seriously pessimistic about the speed the lift unit will travel at.
Considering most of the journey will be in a vacuum and you could beam/conduct as much power as you could want to the car from the ground, I'd have thought it would rip up there at kilometres per second. Back-of-the-envelope, a constant 1g (2g perceived at the Earth's surface) acceleration and a similar 1g deceleration (0g perceived) would give a journey time to 36,000Km up in just over an hour reaching a maximum of just under 20Km/sec.
Just enough time for a decent breakfast, having done six things already...
Same with me - I tend to read whole blocks of text at once then get a meaning from them and I parsed the title exactly as you describe. Maybe I was expecting something like that to happen sometime and my brain just thought "yeah, that seems right."
Oh come on, we know the answer to this. Hellish beings from another Universe will come charging through the gap causing explosions, terror and Micheal Bay movies.
That's why the location of the 200PW laser facility is not mentioned... I have it on good authority that it's on Mars.
And who knows what Anonymous has is the armoury, if pushed? One evening a load of Predators might go on an independent mission into Mexico. Sounds far-fetched but the US armed forces have admitted to trojans/viruses getting as far as the control stations for these kind of weapons...
I don't think the authorities are suggesting that a "pilot" flashes an ID then wheels a trolley full of firearms and explosives past the x-ray machine; more that they are on a different level of trust so may not get the more intensive going over *once their identity has been proven to a level of accuracy that makes everyone happy*.
The underlying issue is this: what are the most likely immediate causes of injury, death and destruction on an aeroplane? Terrorism? Way down the list, almost off the bottom. The big ones are CFIT (Controlled Flight Into Terrain == unexpected meeting with the Earth's surface), performance issues (wrong engine power, wrong runway, wrong weather data, keyboard trouble, etc.), mis-setting or non-use of vital controls, i.e. flaps, reversers & brakes, mishandled emergencies (fires, failures, etc.). There are overruns caused by landing on ice/snow, also from touching down too far along the runway and/or too fast plus we are overdue for a mid-air at a major US airport, going on the amount of very near misses over the last few years. These are just a few of the clear and present dangers which should be uppermost in any commercial pilot's mind when they go aviating...
If you think that the whole "security circus" experience is bad enough as a passenger going on holiday, just try doing it several times a day, 200+ days a year when you're at work... The last thing (I assume) that airline customers want is for the pilots of their aeroplane to be pissed off and only able to think of their latest run-in with the mindless security goons over toothpaste, shoes or plastic bag sizes. These days, with very tight rostering, expensive fuel and high-utilisation schedules, there is *very* little time available in excess of that required to safely prepare an aeroplane for flight and execute that ambition. Waiting for blood pressure to fall before aviating is what should happen but sadly, a lot of the time it doesn't and you only need a few small unchecked errors to cause a major incident/accident.
A jet can be brought down (or never make it up there) by *one* mistaken (and uncorrected) keypress - forget bombs, guns, extremists, etc., something as trivial as inputting the weight starting with "1" instead of "2" and not noticing (they're next to each other on the keypad) can lead to a ball of fire at the end of the runway. If 1% of the money spent on pointless "security" was diverted into pilot training, better software/hardware, improved alerting sytems, etc. the aviation world would almost immediately become a much safer place.
While I applaud the advances in medical science that allow more and more horrendous wartime injuries to be healed, I do wonder if soldiers will be placed straight back in the front line after having their limbs, etc. blown off then regenerated. We're not far away from "health packs" a la Doom. Mana we might have to wait a bit longer for...
I think there's a fair amount of truth in the argument that advertising is becoming more and more irresistible. Go back half a century and an advert would mostly consist of plain product information, maybe with an exhortation to buy: "Use Footso for the foot!" or "Try ACME Wonder Biscuits - they're really rather good!"
Now we have advertising that is so subliminal ("Cillit Bang" excepted) that you are often hard pressed to identify the product and/or manufacturer. Many of us believe that when we purchase something, we clear our minds of commercial interference and choose a product based on only our personal and private needs and wants. But is that actually true? Have our innermost desires been subtly influenced by exposure to very low-level persuasion, sneaking in under the radar to become part of us? How would we know?
I also think that modern, mature consumers have developed the psychic equivalent of immune systems against the constant wash of promotion - which is why advertising directed at children should be strictly controlled as they haven't developed/inherited much in the way of defences yet. I feel we're some distance along the road to almost irresistible advertising: one exposure and you're pretty well hooked, like crack cocaine...
...And this just in! First runs of the Total Earth Simulator predict a massive increase in funding for the project! (The mice will be pissed about having to cough some more cash...)
Yes, terrorists must have great difficulty identifying planes - it's not like they've got ten-foot high letters down the side and a picture on the tail that's lit up at night...
I'd give good odds that Iran has nuclear weapons and has had them for some time. They border on a fair few parts of the old Soviet Union and when that was breaking up, there were (allegedly) tactical nukes on the market. At the very least, I don't think anyone can account for all of them. Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan: all stable nations at peace with the world and no need for cash. Iran's other neighbours include Afghanistan and Pakistan...
The British Prime Minister, newly elected, was recorded two weeks ago as saying "...like the fact that Iran has got a nuclear weapon...". He was later said to have "misspoken", and had made a "basic mistake". More likely he'd recently received a huge security briefing as a new world leader and forgot that bit wasn't public knowledge.
Slashdot Mirror
Not a problem: http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/05/02/1744223/finally-a-shark-with-a-laser-attached-to-its-head.
Welcome to SharkNet! (TM)
Several points:
1) It is very difficult, even during the daytime, to work out whether an aircraft is above or below you by looking out of the window. At night, there is often no visual horizon at all, so you are seeing a big expanse of sky with stars/planets/aeroplanes/ships in it with no references to judge their relative positioning.
2) Pilots are not superhuman. We have the same evolved circadian rhythms as everyone else and suffer from fatigue in the same way. We are diurnal mammals and staying up through the night means your performance suffers in a similar way to what it would if you missed a night's sleep at home.
3) In-flight napping is legal and encouraged under the regulations I work with, with certain provisos. Long-gone are the notions of the steely-eyed pilot constantly scanning the sky for danger at 3am on the body clock: we just aren't capable of that, which is why we have a plethora of automatic systems to take care of most of the trivia.
4) If you think this incident was bad, have a look at the proposed new European "safety" legislation, where you could end up on-duty for 21-22hrs in certain circumstances. Oh, and they've ignored just about every piece of peer-reviewed scientific research from the last 50 years in drafting the new rules...
Estimated cost of entire fusion project to generating stage: $80bn.
Apple Inc. cash reserves: $97bn.
Fusion powered iDevices... Priceless?
(Or ???... Profit!)
This brings up the possibility of a car botnet (carnet?) of infected vehicles which do drive-by p0wning when in wireless range of other susceptible models.
I'm sure there'll be lots of security surrounding remote access but given that an automotive black-hat could have complete access to a car's hardware and software for as long as it takes, I'm not optimistic about the outcome (from the man-in-the-street's POV).
I've got a reasonably modern German car and have just had the engine tweaked for better performance & economy by a laptop-wielding specialist. We went for a drive afterwards and he was able to access pretty much every system on board from the computer on his knees. He said the protection/encryption is getting better all the time but so are the crackers... With some of the later cars he has to take the ECU out and plug it into PCs set up in the back of his van before getting the car equivalent of root access.
"What happens when a nobel gas atom is brought near other atoms?"
It gets a prize...?
NOT UNTIL I SAY SO
+1 from me. Only just found them (I think they've just gone into reprint).
The nearest books I can compare with are the Malazan series by Steven Erikson - you can see where he got the inspiration now.
I wouldn't like to pigeon-hole Glen Cook's novels but they have elements of fantasy, SF, military etc. brought together in a (then) unique fashion, with much more emphasis on the characters and their development than whizz-bang effects (which he has as well).
Best stuff I've read in ages.
I'm an airline pilot and we get the same sort of advice. Personally, it doesn't work for me and I feel much better after an extended sleep on-board, rather than a 20min kip. Mind you, I've done the job (long-haul) for long enough now that any sort of natural body rhythms have been burnt out, along with being in a particular time zone... I can stay up until breakfast or go to bed - doesn't seem to matter anymore :(
They're probably being optimistic about the date it starts running but seriously pessimistic about the speed the lift unit will travel at.
Considering most of the journey will be in a vacuum and you could beam/conduct as much power as you could want to the car from the ground, I'd have thought it would rip up there at kilometres per second. Back-of-the-envelope, a constant 1g (2g perceived at the Earth's surface) acceleration and a similar 1g deceleration (0g perceived) would give a journey time to 36,000Km up in just over an hour reaching a maximum of just under 20Km/sec.
Just enough time for a decent breakfast, having done six things already...
Same with me - I tend to read whole blocks of text at once then get a meaning from them and I parsed the title exactly as you describe. Maybe I was expecting something like that to happen sometime and my brain just thought "yeah, that seems right."
That's why the location of the 200PW laser facility is not mentioned... I have it on good authority that it's on Mars.
And who knows what Anonymous has is the armoury, if pushed? One evening a load of Predators might go on an independent mission into Mexico. Sounds far-fetched but the US armed forces have admitted to trojans/viruses getting as far as the control stations for these kind of weapons...
It's amazing how wrong you can be... The neutrinos actually came up through the floor from the other side of the planet ;)
Do not look into supernova with remaining eye!
(Sorry, I'm in Japan today and was reminded of that saying by the bad English on the kettle...)
How about:
3) Our observations/deductions about gravity and/or matter in the rest of the universe are wrong.
That must be another possibility?
I don't think the authorities are suggesting that a "pilot" flashes an ID then wheels a trolley full of firearms and explosives past the x-ray machine; more that they are on a different level of trust so may not get the more intensive going over *once their identity has been proven to a level of accuracy that makes everyone happy*.
The underlying issue is this: what are the most likely immediate causes of injury, death and destruction on an aeroplane? Terrorism? Way down the list, almost off the bottom. The big ones are CFIT (Controlled Flight Into Terrain == unexpected meeting with the Earth's surface), performance issues (wrong engine power, wrong runway, wrong weather data, keyboard trouble, etc.), mis-setting or non-use of vital controls, i.e. flaps, reversers & brakes, mishandled emergencies (fires, failures, etc.). There are overruns caused by landing on ice/snow, also from touching down too far along the runway and/or too fast plus we are overdue for a mid-air at a major US airport, going on the amount of very near misses over the last few years. These are just a few of the clear and present dangers which should be uppermost in any commercial pilot's mind when they go aviating...
If you think that the whole "security circus" experience is bad enough as a passenger going on holiday, just try doing it several times a day, 200+ days a year when you're at work... The last thing (I assume) that airline customers want is for the pilots of their aeroplane to be pissed off and only able to think of their latest run-in with the mindless security goons over toothpaste, shoes or plastic bag sizes. These days, with very tight rostering, expensive fuel and high-utilisation schedules, there is *very* little time available in excess of that required to safely prepare an aeroplane for flight and execute that ambition. Waiting for blood pressure to fall before aviating is what should happen but sadly, a lot of the time it doesn't and you only need a few small unchecked errors to cause a major incident/accident.
A jet can be brought down (or never make it up there) by *one* mistaken (and uncorrected) keypress - forget bombs, guns, extremists, etc., something as trivial as inputting the weight starting with "1" instead of "2" and not noticing (they're next to each other on the keypad) can lead to a ball of fire at the end of the runway. If 1% of the money spent on pointless "security" was diverted into pilot training, better software/hardware, improved alerting sytems, etc. the aviation world would almost immediately become a much safer place.
I tried pi and it returned a pretty much blank screen. 42 was much better.
While I applaud the advances in medical science that allow more and more horrendous wartime injuries to be healed, I do wonder if soldiers will be placed straight back in the front line after having their limbs, etc. blown off then regenerated. We're not far away from "health packs" a la Doom. Mana we might have to wait a bit longer for...
I think there's a fair amount of truth in the argument that advertising is becoming more and more irresistible. Go back half a century and an advert would mostly consist of plain product information, maybe with an exhortation to buy: "Use Footso for the foot!" or "Try ACME Wonder Biscuits - they're really rather good!"
Now we have advertising that is so subliminal ("Cillit Bang" excepted) that you are often hard pressed to identify the product and/or manufacturer. Many of us believe that when we purchase something, we clear our minds of commercial interference and choose a product based on only our personal and private needs and wants. But is that actually true? Have our innermost desires been subtly influenced by exposure to very low-level persuasion, sneaking in under the radar to become part of us? How would we know?
I also think that modern, mature consumers have developed the psychic equivalent of immune systems against the constant wash of promotion - which is why advertising directed at children should be strictly controlled as they haven't developed/inherited much in the way of defences yet. I feel we're some distance along the road to almost irresistible advertising: one exposure and you're pretty well hooked, like crack cocaine...
Are you *sure* you've used Windows before?
...And this just in! First runs of the Total Earth Simulator predict a massive increase in funding for the project! (The mice will be pissed about having to cough some more cash...)
"The *Fully Operational* iDataCenter", even though it appears half-built. I'm sure I heard someone use a phrase like that before, can't think where...
Yes, terrorists must have great difficulty identifying planes - it's not like they've got ten-foot high letters down the side and a picture on the tail that's lit up at night...
I'd give good odds that Iran has nuclear weapons and has had them for some time. They border on a fair few parts of the old Soviet Union and when that was breaking up, there were (allegedly) tactical nukes on the market. At the very least, I don't think anyone can account for all of them. Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan: all stable nations at peace with the world and no need for cash. Iran's other neighbours include Afghanistan and Pakistan...
The British Prime Minister, newly elected, was recorded two weeks ago as saying "...like the fact that Iran has got a nuclear weapon...". He was later said to have "misspoken", and had made a "basic mistake". More likely he'd recently received a huge security briefing as a new world leader and forgot that bit wasn't public knowledge.
"Vegetarian chili-con-carne", my favourite. I suppose it's more of an oxymoron than a typo but still...