Ah, but 1) He only posted about available 25,000 of the 300,000 cards.
2) He is still selling them for $1 / card, minimum of 1000. (See entry in his guestbook)
So, the person you are admiring is not the moralistic crusader you think he is, instead he is someone who used a known exploit to read the log file of a website that didn't bother upgrading the software they were using to fix a known security hole.
There is no-one in this incident to admire, that's including posters who are using this to push their own agenda (encryption, server OS software etc).
How many people encrypt their log files ? And how many people just make that subdir non-global readable ?
Instead, there are 300,000 people who are going to get put through a lot of trouble over the next year as these credit cards are doled out by this 'hacker' to his other teenage friends for phonesex lines and other wonderfully mature pursuits.
Actually, the three laws were first written down by John Campbell, who gave then to Isaac Asmiov, after Campbell had read the first (few?) of the storys Asimov had written.
Somthing along the line of 'I think I know what you are working towards here, they should have rules something like this'
John Campbell - A great genius who moulded his authors and sent them off in interesting directions. Just a shame he went and encouraged L.Ron in his Dianetics work.
Interest has been very high in the upcoming rollout of Optus@Home, a join venture between a English-Australia telco and @home in the US.
People have been running around evangelising "$60/month flat rate" "$40/flat rate" in a country where decent (i.e. >3k/s on a 56k modem) speeds cost you $35-$45/month for 150 hours.
This suggests that they know what the competition has planned, and it's not a threat to them. A multi-billion dollar company doesn't change something like this because they feel like it.
If Serbia had some big secret tool to shoot down a stealth fighter, a question ?
Why didn't they get more then one ? Hell, why did they shoot down so few planes at all (And if you say they did, please explain the lack of people wanting to know where their sons have gotten to)
Last I heard, the main factor was that some complete moron had the F-117's going in the same air corridor at the same time attacking similar targets, and one night a EA-6 was orbiting 90 miles off target.
Wow. They shot down a stealth fighter. Iraq ended up getting 30+ aircraft in a 40 day war. Yugoslavia got 2.
Last time I checked, the US had lost 140 aircraft, including a 3 F-117's, a B-2 bomber (Missouri ?) and 3 B-52's
(Of course, considering how the USSR has to be kept informed of B-52's under START, it's amazing we haven't been told this from other circumstances)
Favorites :
An A-10 was hit by something nasty. It lost it's engine cover. Pictures were posted "Look, we shot down an A-10! We destroyed all of it but this cowling, but we'll find some of it tommorow"
A A-10 was reported landing with major damage to (suprise) the back of the plane. "And we badly damaged another one!"
Or the legendary Cajun Fear story. "We shot down B-52 # (number) with the nose art "Cajun Fear". A B-52 pilot in rec.aviation.military said "Strange, I flew that one three days later. Looked fine to me". It took over 3 months to convince Venik and Mladen that this plane did in fact still exist. Never removed it from their claims, though.
Jindalee Over the Horizon Radar. Bounces radar waves off the ionosphere.
Catches :
1) If the Sun's in an active phase, it doesn't work 2) You get *a lot* of noise 3) It has a minimum range in the 100's of km's. Good for knowing what's going to hit you in an hour or two, as long as it's not a fishing boat of Timor or some other ground clutter. 4) It doesn't look cool. It just looks like a fencing project that's gone out of control, and they are waiting for a shipment of gates.
The whole point of Stealth is - The US Built them in the 1970's. Other countries have to scrap their multi-billion $LOCAL_CURRENCY radar sets, and build new ones. Sure, it costs money to build these planes, but they force other countries to spend much more to perform a forced upgrade. They have now begun to roll out these new radars, and it's time to change the playing field to make these out of date.
So, you could say Stealth is the aviation equivilant of Microsoft Office 2000.
Meanwhile, the US has had another 20 years to build cooler stuff. The F-117 Prototype is a mid-70's design. B-2 is late 70's early 80's. We found out about them in 1989. Rumors on existing planes range from hypersonic to powered transports that can do under 10 kph with no engine noise. And we'll find out about them, when they have finished it, and will be designing the 7th generation toys.
The problem is, it was the code-name for the Lockheed Stealth Bomber prototype.
The Hypersonic plane which may, or may not exist, is still in the realms of model kits and "I saw something strange" stories.
There's also the TR-3 or Black Manta, which has much more evidence supporting it (a stealth recon / laser designation platform) including some actual videotape existing somewhere. More information in the rec.aviation.military faq (RAM is my current favorite newsgroup - WWII pilots, Vietnam Pilots, B-52 Pilots, SR-71 Pilots, and a permant floating flamewar RE: Yugoslavia/Russia/America)
Personally, The Aurora is a silly code name for a high-flying plane. Should be called something like Dwarven Cleric. Sure, it's not a very cool-sounding name, but if the codename leaks you'd have your enemy working on upgrading their seismology tech, while you fly over happily at Mach 8+ taking happy snaps
Hmm, I wonder what Diablo II / EQ2 will try for
on
Another Software Spy
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· Score: 1
Think about it : If your marketing department wants to get some information, you don't attach it to a $10 budget title whipped up by four east-european programmers that you picked up for $10,000.
You put it on your #1 selling product for the year - both for maximum statistical analysis, and for the "Oh, it's not so bad" effect and the 'I'll still play the game, no matter what' consumer.
'Starcraft tries for your name, email and physical address out of the registry if the CD-KEY doesn't resolve' - Oh, it's not so bad, it only effects bad typists and people who steal the game.
'id Software uploads video card information so they can use it as leverage onto other companies to get them to help id in the future' _ Oh, it only affects people who get huffy about their hardware setup, it doesn't bother me.
'Game X scans your HD directory for/warez/cracks or.NFO files' - Oh, only affect pirates, I'm fine.
'Game Y looks for a home phone number that matches the state your calling from, and sends you a telemarketing call wanting to know if you buy the add-on game' - Oh, that's polite, and it's convenient to
'Game Z uploads your Windows CD key to a database, and if it matches with someone else, they send a note to Microsoft as a heads up' Oh, a problem, but I got my Windows CD installed at the nice computer store, who said they would keep it on file for me.
All of the above are steps down the slippery slope, and if the game was big enough, you could get away with all three.
So, I think from now on someone should keep a very close eye on the mega-hype games, and in that initial week when the reviews are coming in, put a little 'I waded through fifteen inches of fanfold printouts of the port data, and all I found was this T-Shirt' symbol on it if it passes.
Of course, every time a patch comes out, you'll have to do the same. This client/server games that get patched for 'Bugs' all the time are just asking for this sort of abuse.
Yes, I know that all of these examples are Win XX only, but to be honest, that's all the marketing people are interested in. Carmack himself said that Mac/Linux was under 10% of the market, and why go to the effort for a Niche market, when there's a vast wide open set of machines waiting for you ?
The solution ? That other marketing tactic - rumors, inuendo and outright lies. Create a page that shows a port capture looking for webcam devices, or scaning for x*.jpg. Then wander into IRC and start asking if this website is true. You'll clutter the whole issue, get all the gamers paranoid, and the companies will suddenly find themselves further down the slope then they hoped for, and have to fight to get their reputation back.
The Mall makes 4 to 10 percent off of everything the store sells, so the stores are essentially cheating the Mall-owners by directing buyers to their internet site.
Well, not really - in negotiations, the rental agreement will probably be $X per year + P1% of total sales + P2% of sales > $Y. Then the values of X, Y and P1 and P2 are argued over, depending on the stores business plan, expected expansion, special requirements etc. This figure is to give a store a chance to get started, before the mall starts making real money. This is why malls take time to make cash, and it encourages the mall owners to make an effort to promote the stores.
Each mall has certain key stores, large chains that drag people in. These stores have lower (or even nonexistant) values for X,Y,P1 and P2.
This money goes towards property costs, security, advertising, cleaning, shop outfitting, and other infrastructure for the mall.
When a store makes a sale over the internet, which of the above resources is being used ? The original advertisement in the mall ? It's already been paid for out of the base rent. Asking the shop to hand over P1% for that sale is as silly as if the customer walked into another branch in another town, and made their purchase there.
Shopping malls are neccesary - it reduces overheads for all the shops through consolidation, allows a store to run more efficiently, with less costs. Most of the complaints about malls are actually mis-directed shots at the *management* of said malls, who tend to be interested in maximum return on their original investment, and tend to be overly controlling and interfering. The curse of management everywhere.
Do you really think that a city of 2-10 million people can exist with the long-street-of-shops system ? Consolodation, centralisation and maximum density are the only way you can keep the consumer culture of today ticking over.
One of the guys here at work left and started his company with a microwave transmitter, video camera (pan/updown) mounted underneath and a fuel powered Hirobo helicopter. He could undercut most airborne photography places, and was much quicker to set up and to do repeat passes. He has a great demo tape of flying thorough a house under construction, barrel rolls, etc. Ends up being about 4 1/2 feet long.
It's a unit that doesn't look like anything real, it's just got maximum performance (more powerful engine, larger fuel tank etc.). Most helicopter models are like this - the realistic ones are rarer, and the model builders normally occupy themselves with the fixed-wing models
The catch with helicopters is learning to fly them. You can spend ~$1000-1500 getting started, and then you land at the wrong angle, woops need a replacement set of blades, a tailshaft, new set of skids....
Then once you have the skills, you need to get a bigger, gruntier helicopter, the transmitter & camera setup, more complex radio to handle the extra functions.
So, if you are interested in Helicopters, head down to your local hobby store, get a list of clubs that fly them, head out there and talk to them before letting the clerk talk you into buying one.
This is a great series, and should be widely purchased. Not only are they re-printing two classic novels every month, they are doing something even more important.
They are demonstrating there is a market for non-media tie-in Science Fiction that was written before 1990.
Plus, because they all have the same spine and format, they look a lot nicer on the shelf then the decades old copies you pick up from second hand bookshops, markets etc.
We need space "Exploration", not the charge towards a defined goal and then the total abandonment of the project once the political ends have been achieved.
Frankly, I personally question anyones rationale who vehemently attacks Scientology, since I have gained so much from it
So, you belong to an organisation that has done all these terrible things for the last 25-odd years, but because *you* have benefited, you don't care, and dismiss them without looking at the evidence.
What sort of surgery is required to remove a persons moral centre ? Did it hurt you much ? Is it out-patient or overnight ?
Re:people whose only intent is to harass
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Usenet Gag Order
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2000 a month ? Look up the sporge in alt.religion.scientology.
There were times they were passing that a *day*, all because the Church didn't like the conversation that was going on. And this wasn't a one off, this has been going on for years. (Although it has been strangly quiet for the last month. Quiet being a relative term, of course)
Machine generated forgeries are a recent appearance, mainly hitting ars and the admin groups. No more, do we see the hand-crafted post, it's more and more the random gibberish and chargen output.
Clever trolls and stirrers have a place in Usenet - indeed, that is the main amusement I get from it now. The truely abrasive ones are the ones that end in my score file, and can be sorely missed by everyone when they leave (witness the recent death of Cronan Thompson in rec.arts.sf.* - even the Trek Fans miss him now))
It's the boring ones that we need to do away with. The net.kooks of old are no-more, and there is no-one fitting to take their place. And the internet is much the poorer for it.
Track down the Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact magazine, December 1998 issue where they published an article which demonstrated how you could generate actualy fusion using a very high electrical field (the sort you would need a Neon Sign transformer to generate).
Without tracking my copy down (It's somewhere on the bookcase of Analog's that goes back to 1953), it uses two spherical frames of wire to repeatedly accelerate ions through a series of orbits around the centre of the device, and as the ions fall towards the centre (very fast) a few will collide and fuse, and emit energy.
Warning - this actually does emit enough neutrons to be a health risk. And you are messing with 15,000 volts, which will not make you a happy person if you mess up.
It doesn't have anywhere near the efficiency needed at this time, but it doesn't require high temperatures, instead it uses high electron-volts to do the work.
Same thing happened to the evilbastard domain - our host was using a generic email server that forwarded all of their hosted domains without any identity checking. All my friends (who use evilbastard email addresses just because they look nice) couldn't send mail for 3 or 4 days. Very annoying.
But, all things considered, I'd rather lose email for the period of time it takes domain hosts to learn how to secure their systems and be a good net.neighbour, then to continue as we were about a year ago.
The RBL is both neccesary and bloody annoying. If it wasn't annoying, then it would get ignored. It's the next step towards ending spam.
After this, we just have to stop the Large commercial spammers (Barnes and Noble, last week), and we'll be able to reclaim our email addresses and open our mail in safety.
Very rare - Quite Probably. Worth a large sum ? I doubt it.
I have a copy myself, and I have the following problems with it: -some extreme out of character writing, -a silly main plot with Avon's Sister taking over the galaxy -the introduction of a copy of Orac called Caro, which was built by Avon as an anti-Orac -going to the effort to bring them back just so they can be killed in stupid ways (Tarrant gets killed by quick-evolving white sabertooth tigers on Terminal for example)
The thing that annoyed me most was that Vila is written as a drug & alcohol addict. Not a 'I have nothing better to do, so I'll have a bit of a drink, if they are in trouble they'll call me. Oops one drink too many' who is kept around cause he is too useful to dump. And he's way too chummy with Avon, considering Avon had blatently tried to kill him in the 3rd last episode (Orbit)
The two radio plays they did this year and last year are a much better value for money, even though they have a few plot problems. They get around the fact that the crew are all dead by setting them in the early 4th season.
But honesty, wouldn't you love to see Scully and Mulder in this situation ?
Hmm. Mulder, Scully and the Lone Gunmen are lead into a trap by the original Deep Throat, who has returned from the dead to try and get them to join up with them.
Deep Throat has set up a test for them, which Mulder think he has proven that Deep Throat is infested by Aliens, when actually Deep Throat is testing Mulders Loyalty.
Mulder and DT meet, Mulder orders Deep Throat to stand still, but DT, overcome by emotion staggers forward to embrace him. Mulder fires twice, and DT Looks down to see a really big hole in his chest.
Evil MIB (or whoever the main villans are) rush in, to show that it really was a trap the whole time, and they have been in complete control for the last season. The Lone Gunment and Mulder are quickly killed, and just Scully is left, standing over Mulders corpse, shocked by what has happened. They order her to drop her gun.
She stands still, looking down at Mulder. Then, having reached a decision, she looks at the nearest generic redshirt, slowly raises her gun, points it at his face, smiles and... Freezeframe
Credits roll, with the sound of gunfire replacing the usual music.
Damn, they don't make Christmas episodes like that anymore. That just said "This is the end of the show".
And if you don't know what I'm talking about, you missed a great English TV show in 1978-1981. Pity I just ruined the ending
>More likely he couldn't get the support for it, many of his ideas were never taken up.
Sir Barnes Wallis had some very good ideas, and many of them were taken up, including the "minor" invention of the Wellington Bomber, which used a partially geodesic frame to increase strength while minimizing weight.
He was convinced early on that by exploding a bomb underground, the increased compressibility of the earth would result in a far greater shockwave then detonating them willy-nilly.
The Wellington was partially designed to carry these supersonic earthquake-generating bombs, but he couldn't convince the War Ministry that the required 10-ton bomb could be dropped accuratly enough from high enough.
So, he put the idea on hold, and designed a bomb that could be placed at the exact base of a dam, and use the density of the water to help it along (not as good as earth, but better then air).
It's amazing it worked, even though it took up to 6 to destroy one dam, and in the process quite a few crews from 617 Squadron were shot down and killed. The destuction of the dams in the Ruhr Valley cut into the German steel industry for many months, allthough the final effectiveness is argued.
This led to the approval of the 5-ton Tallboy and 10-ton Grand Slam bombs, and the training of 9 and 617 squadrons as "sniper bombers", who were incredibly accurate from 20,000 feet, almost as accurate as a modern day LGB.
The 10 ton bomb would penetrate up to 150 feet underground, and then detonate, causing craters up to 360 feet wide, and they excelled at dropping these in marshalling yards, tunnels, bridges, and even played a part in the destruction of the Tirpitz (a 12,000 pound ton bomb through the bow tends to hurt ships)
As a sidenote, plans were underfoot to ship Tallboy bombs to the Pacific theatre for use in the invasion of Japan, but before they could do it the world found out that the US had their own genius bomb team...
In theory you should be able to paint your case with any paint, but you'll run into problems with the fact that the natural oils in your skin will soften some paints, mainly Enamel-based and Acrylic based paints. (some lacquers will work fine.)
Options, from the resident paint genius here at work, (proud owner of this years Golden Daemon award for Australia)
Automotive paint - designed for use on metal parts, and very strong (has a built in binder) and will provide the best grip. This is fine for use on both the metal and the plastic, but will only come out as a satin finish - you will need to polish it up to get a good gloss finish.
For flats, you're out of luck - normally only something like Grey, Black, White or Brown are available. These also help level out the surface on the pitted case, but won't fill it in completly.
If you want something weird, the next best thing to do is paint your case the way you like, and then get a Polyurethane-based clear paint, such as used in a cork tile finish, and apply a coat over the top when you are finished. Then, you can handle it without that "Icky" feeling, because the Polyurethane is more chemically resistant. Also, this will provide an extra protection against chipping, but this is only as strong as the original paint's grip, which means it comes in second to Automotive paint.
The clear part of the Flek-stone is more or less the same thing, but in a spray can.
Yup, what I thought. All the "decent" i.e. small, independant ISP's were there. The ISP's you name would collectivly hold less then 5% of the market, and that's being very generous.
Bigpond ? (200k users)
Ozemail ? (200k users)
Optus ? (Aiming for the @home broadband market)
IHUG ? (Actually, they were probably going, but it took 4 days to get there) [1]
If they cared about it, they would have included it in their weekly mailings to users, which I can't seem to unsubscribe myself from. And I can't recall *any* of them doing anything about it. Ditto on their homepages - I checked.
The attitude seemed to be "Oh, it won't pass, we won't worry" which leads me to believe that they think it will benefit them.
I have accounts with Bigpond, Ozemail, Optusnet/Magnadata and quite a few friends on Ihug/Tig. And they all let it slide right past. They didn't even inform their users, or if they did I missed all of it.
Oh, and if that was you up on the bus down at Darling Harbour, we have no idea what you said. We were in the front 1/2 of the crowd, just on the Monorail side of the center, and the sound system was completly crap.
Thinking back, of all of the speeches, only Danny Yee's speech in Hyde Park was audible. I came away from that march shaking my head at the low-tech low-impact effect. I mean, cardboard hand-painted hippie signs ? Only the banner was any good - kudos on that. I'm bloody suprised it made it to the news at all.
Let's not blame the US - It's the lack of activisim here in Australia that has landed us in it. And that apathy exists because little attempt was made to counter it, and that no-one wants to step out and risk being seen as pro-porn in the current political environment.
Why not have a "I am over 18 and will not allow any under-18's to access this computer" as an option ? Why must I be forced to lie to continue using the internet ?
All I can think is that the ISP's wanted this all along.
When I went to the anti-censorship march in Sydney , I was amazed that no-one from the ISP's were there. We were, what, 800 people and the vast majority were, to not put to fine a point on it, Hippies. We even had that stupid painted pro-dope bus down from Nimbin in the march. Us black-trenchcoated short-facial-haired-Quake people had to form up in a small phalanx at the back to avoid being identified as pro-hippie.
Where were the employees of ISP's ? If you cared so much about it, why were the ISP staff not given time off to march on it if they wanted ?
The only answer is that for all the chest thumping, ISP's realise that Porn uses up a lot of Bandwith, and as Australian bandwith charges tend to be on a cents-per-meg basis, and they see this is an opportunity to reduce their costs.
I'm sure it will, and yes, I would consider that a badge of honour. Someone should make a "Banned in Australia" logo quickly, and trademark it.
There are some truely amazing stories about the technological stupidity of the overly-influencial 6:30 "'"News"'" shows. And they'll be champing at the bit over this one, which the ISP's seem to have forgotten about.
My favorite would have to be the story about people using the ccmaster.exe Credit Card generating program, where they had a actor in a *balaclava, black jumper and gloves* typing on a computer, supposedly generating credit card numbers.
If you looked closely, you could see something like C:\1237182638740723469012374691234 Bad Command or file name C:\234892093487209478 Bad Command or file name C:\204982034982034982034 Bad Command or file name
And to top it all off, the 'reporter' ended the story with something like "And your credit card may not be safe", as he posed, holding his card up to the camera, in full view, all 16 numbers and expiry date.
I understand he got hit for about $20,000.
This is the enemy - not the politicians. Here the politicians watch these shows and talkback radio as a gauge of public opinion, not understanding the concept of unbiased sampling.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, but 1) He only posted about available 25,000 of the 300,000 cards.
2) He is still selling them for $1 / card, minimum of 1000. (See entry in his guestbook)
So, the person you are admiring is not the moralistic crusader you think he is, instead he is someone who used a known exploit to read the log file of a website that didn't bother upgrading the software they were using to fix a known security hole.
There is no-one in this incident to admire, that's including posters who are using this to push their own agenda (encryption, server OS software etc).
How many people encrypt their log files ? And how many people just make that subdir non-global readable ?
Instead, there are 300,000 people who are going to get put through a lot of trouble over the next year as these credit cards are doled out by this 'hacker' to his other teenage friends for phonesex lines and other wonderfully mature pursuits.
Actually, the three laws were first written down by John Campbell, who gave then to Isaac Asmiov, after Campbell had read the first (few?) of the storys Asimov had written.
Somthing along the line of 'I think I know what you are working towards here, they should have rules something like this'
John Campbell - A great genius who moulded his authors and sent them off in interesting directions. Just a shame he went and encouraged L.Ron in his Dianetics work.
Interest has been very high in the upcoming rollout of Optus@Home, a join venture between a English-Australia telco and @home in the US.
People have been running around evangelising "$60/month flat rate" "$40/flat rate" in a country where decent (i.e. >3k/s on a 56k modem) speeds cost you $35-$45/month for 150 hours.
This suggests that they know what the competition has planned, and it's not a threat to them. A multi-billion dollar company doesn't change something like this because they feel like it.
If Serbia had some big secret tool to shoot down a stealth fighter, a question ?
Why didn't they get more then one ? Hell, why did they shoot down so few planes at all (And if you say they did, please explain the lack of people wanting to know where their sons have gotten to)
Last I heard, the main factor was that some complete moron had the F-117's going in the same air corridor at the same time attacking similar targets, and one night a EA-6 was orbiting 90 miles off target.
Wow. They shot down a stealth fighter. Iraq ended up getting 30+ aircraft in a 40 day war. Yugoslavia got 2.
I know which country would worry me more.
Yes, this was Venik's webpage
Last time I checked, the US had lost 140 aircraft, including a 3 F-117's, a B-2 bomber (Missouri ?) and 3 B-52's
(Of course, considering how the USSR has to be kept informed of B-52's under START, it's amazing we haven't been told this from other circumstances)
Favorites :
An A-10 was hit by something nasty. It lost it's engine cover. Pictures were posted "Look, we shot down an A-10! We destroyed all of it but this cowling, but we'll find some of it tommorow"
A A-10 was reported landing with major damage to (suprise) the back of the plane.
"And we badly damaged another one!"
Or the legendary Cajun Fear story. "We shot down B-52 # (number) with the nose art "Cajun Fear". A B-52 pilot in rec.aviation.military said "Strange, I flew that one three days later. Looked fine to me". It took over 3 months to convince Venik and Mladen that this plane did in fact still exist. Never removed it from their claims, though.
Dejanews covers the long and nasty story
Jindalee Over the Horizon Radar. Bounces radar waves off the ionosphere.
Catches :
1) If the Sun's in an active phase, it doesn't work
2) You get *a lot* of noise
3) It has a minimum range in the 100's of km's. Good for knowing what's going to hit you in an hour or two, as long as it's not a fishing boat of Timor or some other ground clutter.
4) It doesn't look cool. It just looks like a fencing project that's gone out of control, and they are waiting for a shipment of gates.
The whole point of Stealth is - The US Built them in the 1970's. Other countries have to scrap their multi-billion $LOCAL_CURRENCY radar sets, and build new ones. Sure, it costs money to build these planes, but they force other countries to spend much more to perform a forced upgrade. They have now begun to roll out these new radars, and it's time to change the playing field to make these out of date.
So, you could say Stealth is the aviation equivilant of Microsoft Office 2000.
Meanwhile, the US has had another 20 years to build cooler stuff. The F-117 Prototype is a mid-70's design. B-2 is late 70's early 80's. We found out about them in 1989. Rumors on existing planes range from hypersonic to powered transports that can do under 10 kph with no engine noise. And we'll find out about them, when they have finished it, and will be designing the 7th generation toys.
Aurora did exist.
The problem is, it was the code-name for the Lockheed Stealth Bomber prototype.
The Hypersonic plane which may, or may not exist, is still in the realms of model kits and "I saw something strange" stories.
There's also the TR-3 or Black Manta, which has much more evidence supporting it (a stealth recon / laser designation platform) including some actual videotape existing somewhere. More information in the rec.aviation.military faq (RAM is my current favorite newsgroup - WWII pilots, Vietnam Pilots, B-52 Pilots, SR-71 Pilots, and a permant floating flamewar RE: Yugoslavia/Russia/America)
Personally, The Aurora is a silly code name for a high-flying plane. Should be called something like Dwarven Cleric. Sure, it's not a very cool-sounding name, but if the codename leaks you'd have your enemy working on upgrading their seismology tech, while you fly over happily at Mach 8+ taking happy snaps
Think about it : If your marketing department wants to get some information, you don't attach it to a $10 budget title whipped up by four east-european programmers that you picked up for $10,000.
/warez /cracks or .NFO files' - Oh, only affect pirates, I'm fine.
You put it on your #1 selling product for the year - both for maximum statistical analysis, and for the "Oh, it's not so bad" effect and the 'I'll still play the game, no matter what' consumer.
'Starcraft tries for your name, email and physical address out of the registry if the CD-KEY doesn't resolve' - Oh, it's not so bad, it only effects
bad typists and people who steal the game.
'id Software uploads video card information so they can use it as leverage onto other companies to get them to help id in the future' _ Oh, it only affects people who get huffy about their hardware setup, it doesn't bother me.
'Game X scans your HD directory for
'Game Y looks for a home phone number that matches the state your calling from, and sends you a telemarketing call wanting to know if you buy the add-on game' - Oh, that's polite, and it's convenient to
'Game Z uploads your Windows CD key to a database, and if it matches with someone else, they send a note to Microsoft as a heads up' Oh, a problem, but I got my Windows CD installed at the nice computer store, who said they would keep it on file for me.
All of the above are steps down the slippery slope, and if the game was big enough, you could get away with all three.
So, I think from now on someone should keep a very close eye on the mega-hype games, and in that initial week when the reviews are coming in, put a little 'I waded through fifteen inches of fanfold printouts of the port data, and all I found was this T-Shirt' symbol on it if it passes.
Of course, every time a patch comes out, you'll have to do the same. This client/server games that get patched for 'Bugs' all the time are just asking for this sort of abuse.
Yes, I know that all of these examples are Win XX only, but to be honest, that's all the marketing people are interested in. Carmack himself said that Mac/Linux was under 10% of the market, and why go to the effort for a Niche market, when there's a vast wide open set of machines waiting for you ?
The solution ? That other marketing tactic - rumors, inuendo and outright lies. Create a page that shows a port capture looking for webcam devices, or scaning for x*.jpg. Then wander into IRC and start asking if this website is true. You'll clutter the whole issue, get all the gamers paranoid, and the companies will suddenly find themselves further down the slope then they hoped for, and have to fight to get their reputation back.
The Mall makes 4 to 10 percent off of everything the store sells, so the stores are essentially cheating the Mall-owners by directing buyers to their internet site.
Well, not really - in negotiations, the rental agreement will probably be $X per year + P1% of total sales + P2% of sales > $Y. Then the values of X, Y and P1 and P2 are argued over, depending on the stores business plan, expected expansion, special requirements etc. This figure is to give a store a chance to get started, before the mall starts making real money. This is why malls take time to make cash, and it encourages the mall owners to make an effort to promote the stores.
Each mall has certain key stores, large chains that drag people in. These stores have lower (or even nonexistant) values for X,Y,P1 and P2.
This money goes towards property costs, security, advertising, cleaning, shop outfitting, and other infrastructure for the mall.
When a store makes a sale over the internet, which of the above resources is being used ? The original advertisement in the mall ? It's already been paid for out of the base rent. Asking the shop to hand over P1% for that sale is as silly as if the customer walked into another branch in another town, and made their purchase there.
Shopping malls are neccesary - it reduces overheads for all the shops through consolidation, allows a store to run more efficiently, with less costs. Most of the complaints about malls are actually mis-directed shots at the *management* of said malls, who tend to be interested in maximum return on their original investment, and tend to be overly controlling and interfering. The curse of management everywhere.
Do you really think that a city of 2-10 million people can exist with the long-street-of-shops system ? Consolodation, centralisation and maximum density are the only way you can keep the consumer culture of today ticking over.
'Anytime you tamper with news feeds you become no better than a communist trying to subdue a population. '
I think I can spot the person who didn't get the joke, and did the (much-duplicated) chicken little impression.
Personally, I went 'Oh yeah, it's April 1st' , laughed my ass off at the sideshow, then went back to work.
One of the guys here at work left and started his company with a microwave transmitter, video camera (pan/updown) mounted underneath and a fuel powered Hirobo helicopter. He could undercut most airborne photography places, and was much quicker to set up and to do repeat passes. He has a great demo tape of flying thorough a house under construction, barrel rolls, etc. Ends up being about 4 1/2 feet long.
It's a unit that doesn't look like anything real, it's just got maximum performance (more powerful engine, larger fuel tank etc.). Most helicopter models are like this - the realistic ones are rarer, and the model builders normally occupy themselves with the fixed-wing models
The catch with helicopters is learning to fly them. You can spend ~$1000-1500 getting started, and then you land at the wrong angle, woops need a replacement set of blades, a tailshaft, new set of skids....
Then once you have the skills, you need to get a bigger, gruntier helicopter, the transmitter & camera setup, more complex radio to handle the extra functions.
So, if you are interested in Helicopters, head down to your local hobby store, get a list of clubs that fly them, head out there and talk to them before letting the clerk talk you into buying one.
This is a great series, and should be widely purchased. Not only are they re-printing two classic novels every month, they are doing something even more important.
They are demonstrating there is a market for non-media tie-in Science Fiction that was written before 1990.
Plus, because they all have the same spine and format, they look a lot nicer on the shelf then the decades old copies you pick up from second hand bookshops, markets etc.
Another "Space Race" to Mars is not what we need.
We need space "Exploration", not the charge towards a defined goal and then the total abandonment of the project once the political ends have been achieved.
So, you belong to an organisation that has done all these terrible things for the last 25-odd years, but because *you* have benefited, you don't care, and dismiss them without looking at the evidence.
What sort of surgery is required to remove a persons moral centre ? Did it hurt you much ? Is it out-patient or overnight ?
2000 a month ? Look up the sporge in alt.religion.scientology.
There were times they were passing that a *day*, all because the Church didn't like the conversation that was going on. And this wasn't a one off, this has been going on for years. (Although it has been strangly quiet for the last month. Quiet being a relative term, of course)
Machine generated forgeries are a recent appearance, mainly hitting ars and the admin groups. No more, do we see the hand-crafted post, it's more and more the random gibberish and chargen output.
Clever trolls and stirrers have a place in Usenet - indeed, that is the main amusement I get from it now. The truely abrasive ones are the ones that end in my score file, and can be sorely missed by everyone when they leave (witness the recent death of Cronan Thompson in rec.arts.sf.* - even the Trek Fans miss him now))
It's the boring ones that we need to do away with. The net.kooks of old are no-more, and there is no-one fitting to take their place. And the internet is much the poorer for it.
http://holysmoke.org/forgeries/forged.htm for the ARS stuff
Track down the Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact magazine, December 1998 issue where they published an article which demonstrated how you could generate actualy fusion using a very high electrical field (the sort you would need a Neon Sign transformer to generate).
/philo.htm
Without tracking my copy down (It's somewhere on the bookcase of Analog's that goes back to 1953), it uses two spherical frames of wire to repeatedly accelerate ions through a series of orbits around the centre of the device, and as the ions fall towards the centre (very fast) a few will collide and fuse, and emit energy.
Warning - this actually does emit enough neutrons to be a health risk. And you are messing with 15,000 volts, which will not make you a happy person if you mess up.
It doesn't have anywhere near the efficiency needed at this time, but it doesn't require high temperatures, instead it uses high electron-volts to do the work.
Links to people who know more about it than I :
http://shoelace.digivill.net/~se raphim/theory.html The original Author of the article
http://www.ticnet.com/bertpool/philo
Background on the inventor
Same thing happened to the evilbastard domain - our host was using a generic email server that forwarded all of their hosted domains without any identity checking. All my friends (who use evilbastard email addresses just because they look nice) couldn't send mail for 3 or 4 days. Very annoying.
But, all things considered, I'd rather lose email for the period of time it takes domain hosts to learn how to secure their systems and be a good net.neighbour, then to continue as we were about a year ago.
The RBL is both neccesary and bloody annoying. If it wasn't annoying, then it would get ignored. It's the next step towards ending spam.
After this, we just have to stop the Large commercial spammers (Barnes and Noble, last week), and we'll be able to reclaim our email addresses and open our mail in safety.
Providing they arn't in HTML, of course.
It is urgent that we dispatch a probe to Planet X as soon as possible.
It is, after all, the sole remaining source of the Shaving Cream Atom, Illudium Phosdex.
However, it will take quite a long time to get there. I wouldn't expect it before, oh, the 24 1/2th Century.
I have a copy myself, and I have the following problems with it :
-some extreme out of character writing, -a silly main plot with Avon's Sister taking over the galaxy
-the introduction of a copy of Orac called Caro, which was built by Avon as an anti-Orac
-going to the effort to bring them back just so they can be killed in stupid ways (Tarrant gets killed by quick-evolving white sabertooth tigers on Terminal for example)
The thing that annoyed me most was that Vila is written as a drug & alcohol addict. Not a 'I have nothing better to do, so I'll have a bit of a drink, if they are in trouble they'll call me. Oops one drink too many' who is kept around cause he is too useful to dump. And he's way too chummy with Avon, considering Avon had blatently tried to kill him in the 3rd last episode (Orbit)
The two radio plays they did this year and last year are a much better value for money, even though they have a few plot problems. They get around the fact that the crew are all dead by setting them in the early 4th season.
But honesty, wouldn't you love to see Scully and Mulder in this situation ?
Hmm. Mulder, Scully and the Lone Gunmen are lead into a trap by the original Deep Throat, who has returned from the dead to try and get them to join up with them.
Deep Throat has set up a test for them, which Mulder think he has proven that Deep Throat is infested by Aliens, when actually Deep Throat is testing Mulders Loyalty.
Mulder and DT meet, Mulder orders Deep Throat to stand still, but DT, overcome by emotion staggers forward to embrace him. Mulder fires twice, and DT Looks down to see a really big hole in his chest.
Evil MIB (or whoever the main villans are) rush in, to show that it really was a trap the whole time, and they have been in complete control for the last season. The Lone Gunment and Mulder are quickly killed, and just Scully is left, standing over Mulders corpse, shocked by what has happened. They order her to drop her gun.
She stands still, looking down at Mulder. Then, having reached a decision, she looks at the nearest generic redshirt, slowly raises her gun, points it at his face, smiles and... Freezeframe
Credits roll, with the sound of gunfire replacing the usual music.
Damn, they don't make Christmas episodes like that anymore. That just said "This is the end of the show".
And if you don't know what I'm talking about, you missed a great English TV show in 1978-1981. Pity I just ruined the ending
>More likely he couldn't get the support for it, many of his ideas were never taken up.
Sir Barnes Wallis had some very good ideas, and many of them were taken up, including the "minor" invention of the Wellington Bomber, which used a partially geodesic frame to increase strength while minimizing weight.
He was convinced early on that by exploding a bomb underground, the increased compressibility of the earth would result in a far greater shockwave then detonating them willy-nilly.
The Wellington was partially designed to carry these supersonic earthquake-generating bombs, but he couldn't convince the War Ministry that the required 10-ton bomb could be dropped accuratly enough from high enough.
So, he put the idea on hold, and designed a bomb that could be placed at the exact base of a dam, and use the density of the water to help it along (not as good as earth, but better then air).
It's amazing it worked, even though it took up to 6 to destroy one dam, and in the process quite a few crews from 617 Squadron were shot down and killed. The destuction of the dams in the Ruhr Valley cut into the German steel industry for many months, allthough the final effectiveness is argued.
This led to the approval of the 5-ton Tallboy and 10-ton Grand Slam bombs, and the training of 9 and 617 squadrons as "sniper bombers", who were incredibly accurate from 20,000 feet, almost as accurate as a modern day LGB.
The 10 ton bomb would penetrate up to 150 feet underground, and then detonate, causing craters up to 360 feet wide, and they excelled at dropping these in marshalling yards, tunnels, bridges, and even played a part in the destruction of the Tirpitz (a 12,000 pound ton bomb through the bow tends to hurt ships)
As a sidenote, plans were underfoot to ship Tallboy bombs to the Pacific theatre for use in the invasion of Japan, but before they could do it the world found out that the US had their own genius bomb team...
In theory you should be able to paint your case with any paint, but you'll run into problems with the fact that the natural oils in your skin will soften some paints, mainly Enamel-based and Acrylic based paints. (some lacquers will work fine.)
Options, from the resident paint genius here at work, (proud owner of this years Golden Daemon award for Australia)
Automotive paint - designed for use on metal parts, and very strong (has a built in binder) and will provide the best grip. This is fine for use on both the metal and the plastic, but will only come out as a satin finish - you will need to polish it up to get a good gloss finish.
For flats, you're out of luck - normally only something like Grey, Black, White or Brown are available. These also help level out the surface on the pitted case, but won't fill it in completly.
If you want something weird, the next best thing to do is paint your case the way you like, and then get a Polyurethane-based clear paint, such as used in a cork tile finish, and apply a coat over the top when you are finished. Then, you can handle it without that "Icky" feeling, because the Polyurethane is more chemically resistant. Also, this will provide an extra protection against chipping, but this is only as strong as the original paint's grip, which means it comes in second to Automotive paint.
The clear part of the Flek-stone is more or less the same thing, but in a spray can.
Yup, what I thought. All the "decent" i.e. small, independant ISP's were there. The ISP's you name would collectivly hold less then 5% of the market, and that's being very generous.
Bigpond ? (200k users)
Ozemail ? (200k users)
Optus ? (Aiming for the @home broadband market)
IHUG ? (Actually, they were probably going, but it took 4 days to get there) [1]
If they cared about it, they would have included it in their weekly mailings to users, which I can't seem to unsubscribe myself from. And I can't recall *any* of them doing anything about it. Ditto on their homepages - I checked.
The attitude seemed to be "Oh, it won't pass, we won't worry" which leads me to believe that they think it will benefit them.
I have accounts with Bigpond, Ozemail, Optusnet/Magnadata and quite a few friends on Ihug/Tig. And they all let it slide right past. They didn't even inform their users, or if they did I missed all of it.
Oh, and if that was you up on the bus down at Darling Harbour, we have no idea what you said. We were in the front 1/2 of the crowd, just on the Monorail side of the center, and the sound system was completly crap.
Thinking back, of all of the speeches, only Danny Yee's speech in Hyde Park was audible. I came away from that march shaking my head at the low-tech low-impact effect. I mean, cardboard hand-painted hippie signs ? Only the banner was any good - kudos on that. I'm bloody suprised it made it to the news at all.
Let's not blame the US - It's the lack of activisim here in Australia that has landed us in it. And that apathy exists because little attempt was made to counter it, and that no-one wants to step out and risk being seen as pro-porn in the current political environment.
[1] Bandwith Speed Slam RE: Ihug
And you think this is a victory ?
Why not have a "I am over 18 and will not allow any under-18's to access this computer" as an option ? Why must I be forced to lie to continue using the internet ?
All I can think is that the ISP's wanted this all along.
When I went to the anti-censorship march in Sydney , I was amazed that no-one from the ISP's were there. We were, what, 800 people and the vast majority were, to not put to fine a point on it, Hippies. We even had that stupid painted pro-dope bus down from Nimbin in the march. Us black-trenchcoated short-facial-haired-Quake people had to form up in a small phalanx at the back to avoid being identified as pro-hippie.
Where were the employees of ISP's ? If you cared so much about it, why were the ISP staff not given time off to march on it if they wanted ?
The only answer is that for all the chest thumping, ISP's realise that Porn uses up a lot of Bandwith, and as Australian bandwith charges tend to be on a cents-per-meg basis, and they see this is an opportunity to reduce their costs.
I'm sure it will, and yes, I would consider that a badge of honour. Someone should make a "Banned in Australia" logo quickly, and trademark it.
There are some truely amazing stories about the technological stupidity of the overly-influencial 6:30 "'"News"'" shows. And they'll be champing at the bit over this one, which the ISP's seem to have forgotten about.
My favorite would have to be the story about people using the ccmaster.exe Credit Card generating program, where they had a actor in a *balaclava, black jumper and gloves* typing on a computer, supposedly generating credit card numbers.
If you looked closely, you could see something like
C:\1237182638740723469012374691234
Bad Command or file name
C:\234892093487209478
Bad Command or file name
C:\204982034982034982034
Bad Command or file name
And to top it all off, the 'reporter' ended the story with something like "And your credit card may not be safe", as he posed, holding his card up to the camera, in full view, all 16 numbers and expiry date.
I understand he got hit for about $20,000.
This is the enemy - not the politicians. Here the politicians watch these shows and talkback radio as a gauge of public opinion, not understanding the concept of unbiased sampling.