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User: MichaelSmith

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  1. Re:This is why we're still in the Space Stone Age on NASA Contractors Censoring Saturn V Info · · Score: 5, Interesting

    By today's standards, Apollo was a dinky little deathtrap,

    The more I read the ALSJ the more respect I have for the hardware. The Apollo CM would have survived both shuttle disasters. The Apollo 13 incident resulted in a more mature spacecraft with more redundancy. A similar incident on a shuttle would probably have killed the crew immediately. Building the system out of small modules meant that the architecture could accommodate expanded modules. Apollo serviced the lunar program, skylab and apollo-soyuz.

    I just wish NASA had looked into an economical launcher to support it after the supply of Saturn Vs ran out.

    the men who rode it were no-foolin' heroes.

    No argument from me on that front.

  2. Re:This is why we're still in the Space Stone Age on NASA Contractors Censoring Saturn V Info · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Talk about duplication of efforts.

    But the Saturn V was an expensive dead end. Ground support costs alone make it impossible to turn it into a commercial prospect. All US manufactured launch vehicles are presumably controlled by ITAR in any event. I am sure Richard Branson is going to have a fine time exporting the tier 2 system to the other countries he wants to launch from.

  3. Re:If it works on Encrypted USB Key With TOR, Firefox · · Score: 1

    If it works, spies will love it.

    Actually most of the spies I know take a low tech approach to the job. Far better just to email the stuff to your own hotmail account, than to have it on you in a potentially crackable form.

    "flash-trash" technology notwithstanding

  4. Re:Demo page. on Encrypted USB Key With TOR, Firefox · · Score: 1

    It is meant to be running a presentation of some sort. Audio and video. I didn't hang around for the full story so I can't relay it to you.

  5. 10 tries? on Encrypted USB Key With TOR, Firefox · · Score: 5, Funny

    after ten consecutive failed password attempts, the IronKey self-destructs

    For better security, type the wrong password nine times before you take it on the plane.

  6. Re:not really surprising on NZ MPs Outlaw Satire of Parliament · · Score: 5, Funny

    New Zealand is not apart of Australia

    With the addition of a 0x20 character you could have been exactly right.

  7. Re:not really surprising on NZ MPs Outlaw Satire of Parliament · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Australian government takes itself far too serious

    I won't disagree with you on that, but what does this have to do with Australia?

  8. Re:Its a cracking tool on KisMAC Developer Discontinues Project · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I can kill people with a hammer, or I can use it to build things. I choose the latter. Should we outlaw hammers because some people illegaly misuse them?

    Brings to mind the riots in Sydney about a year ago. A sporting goods shop almost sold out of baseball bats in a couple of hours. The manager called the police to ask for a suggested course of action. The cops suggested the store stop selling baseball bats for the time being.

  9. Re:It's a security tool, dummy on KisMAC Developer Discontinues Project · · Score: 1

    To take an extreme position, I do not believe it would be a good idea for the wireless network configuration dialog in gnome to have a text field for the key and right beside it, a button to use network traffic to obtain the key.

  10. Its a cracking tool on KisMAC Developer Discontinues Project · · Score: 0, Troll
    • MacOS 10.3
    • reveals cloaked SSIDs
    • reveals logged in Clients (incl. MAC Addresses)
    • mapping and GPS support
    • visualization of network
    • PCAP im- and export
    • support for 802.11b & g
    • different attacks against encrypted networks
    • deauthentication attacks
    • Apple Script compatible (in newest SVN version)

    Free speech is fine but I don't agree with having this tool available to non-professionals in a nice easily installed package.

  11. Re:Oh dear... on Brian May, Rock Legend, Soon-To-Be Astrophysicist · · Score: 1

    Now, maybe if they have my data on backup tapes and there's a spare Vax 11/750 going...

    On nine track tape? Your old data is going to become a nasty head cleaning job. Have lots of isopropyl alcohol handy.

  12. Re:I want a math coprocessor on The Future of Putting Chips Inside Our Brains · · Score: 1

    I'd love to be able to do 4096-bit RSA encryption in my head

    Hmmm interesting. Because we don't have a specification for the storage structures in the brain, and rely on non-encrypted IO to reverse engineer such structures, encrypting your IO is effectively the same as encrypting your brain.

    Well done. If you are Greg Egan I suggest you write a book about your idea. If you are not then I suggest you send it to Greg.

  13. Feedback and Learning on The Future of Putting Chips Inside Our Brains · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Lets hope that if people try this on a real brain with Epilepsy they read The Terminal Man first.

    As for me, I will continue rely on home brewed behaviour modification to treat my seizure disorder. Though I am pleased to see more treatment options for people with very serious conditions.

  14. Is this why Tanenbaum was unhappy? on Homeland Security Funds LED Light That Blinds, Disorients · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    From TFA:

    This is a free minix-like kernel for i386(+) based AT-machines

    Either it was minix-like at the time, or Linus didn't understand the meaning of minix-like. I can imagine that saying that and being wrong would get Tanenbaum off side.

  15. Re:Epilepsy warning? on Homeland Security Funds LED Light That Blinds, Disorients · · Score: 1

    How long until this triggers an epileptic seizure in some poor unfortunate - and worse still, would whoever's wielding it be able to tell the difference between the potentially life-threatening seizure and the normal reaction?

    Many LED bicycle lights also flash at 9-12 Hz. As technology improves and light output increases this is likely to become a problem.

  16. Backlight on Change Google's Background Color To Save Energy? · · Score: 1

    I don't get it. The backlight on my LCD is always full on, even if the screen is black. So how does having a black screen save energy?

  17. Re:Battery life and other points... on $150 Linux Laptop for the Masses · · Score: 1

    What I'd find exciting is a Linux system built out of PDA components but in a subnotebook form factor.

    Like this?

  18. Re:Buttons!? on Steve Jobs Hates Buttons · · Score: 1

    Great. So those of us who are able to drive and talk safely should suffer with the rest of you? Yes
  19. To take manual control before landing on Top Ten Discoveries of the Mars Rovers · · Score: 1

    Then: 66 PRO

    Now:

    1. Use track ball to designate flight control system UI
    2. Pull down Control Mode menu
    3. Select Manual Mode option
    4. Wait for confirmation dialog
    5. Click Yes (and uncheck Don't ask me this again)
    6. Check distance to landing site

    Its a joke, I know, but I have never met a pilot who likes the Airbus UI. It needs a Dumb mode. All the Apollo spacecraft were dumb.

  20. Re:No Generators? on Multiple Sites Down In SF Power Outage · · Score: 1

    Yeah here in Australia it is 240V 50Hz, but often closer to 260 in Western Australia for historical reasons. Most people design for 250 which is what a volt meter will read in most places.

  21. Re:No Generators? on Multiple Sites Down In SF Power Outage · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Stuff happens

    No kidding. years ago in my former job on traffic systems we had a great UPS with a generator on site and the ability keep it fueled up indefinitely. A security contractor came in on the weekend to install something and tried to wire up a new circuit hot. He slipped with a screwdriver and shorted the white phase to the chasis of the breaker panel. I don't think the tip of the driver actually touched ground, but the burn mark is still there to show how close he got.

    The resuting current spike blew the 100A fuses (heavy metal strips) both going in to and out of the UPS. With the UPS effectively broken the generator set failed to start and the system gracefully shut down 40 minutes after the incident. Thats not bad. The batteries were only specified to work long enough for the genny to settle at 50Hz.

    In the process of blowing the fuses a spike got back into the power supply of one of our DEC Alphas and took out the power supply. The system was redundant at the software level so I didn't notice immediately.

    The UPS guy came out and didn't have enough fuses to replace the blown one, but we found that with a bit of brute force and filing attacks some others could be made to fit.

    Please type the word in this image: problems

  22. Re:Very fishy and intriguing... on Virtual Containerization · · Score: 1

    True virtualisation will cause the opposite effect - people will buy less hardware.

    But every desktop user is going to have a CPU in their machine and the number of CPU's in the big server farms isn't going to change much because they pile on capacity to suit the application. Odd sites like the one I work at will use vmware where they have a requirement for a calendar server running linux 2.2 (I am not making this up) and don't want to waste a box on it. Fair enough but that not a big market to lose.

  23. Re:Funny... on Wikipedia Corrects Encyclopedia Britannica · · Score: 1

    host an arts and music website that was 'farked'. They actually drove the poor disk right into the ground, took me two days working with my hosting provider to recover the server and restore the site.

    Hard to imagine why. The fattest network interface you can plug into a server has a tiny proportion of the bandwidth of the CPU, disks, etc. Perhaps somebody confused deleting your files with "load balancing"

  24. Re:$40 billion? on Inside FAA's GPS-Based Air Traffic Control · · Score: 4, Interesting

    People think that this is SOOO easy to do...

    Its not easy, but I can't see the infrastructure component of the system being more than a billion USD. That leaves you 39 GUSD to equip you entire aircraft fleet with mode S transponders. It sounds like an excessive price to me.

    The big challenge for the ATC system becomes scalability. Current methods of detecting aircraft are:

    • Primary radars
    • Mode C secondary radars
    • Mode S secondary radars
    • ADS-C (satellite linked)

    The primary radars might have a maximum range of 100 NM. The secondary radars about 250 NM. ADS-C works anywhere you have satellite communication but in practice only airliners in remote airspace will be using it.

    ADS-B gives you almost 100% coverage in your airspace. Many more aircraft are detected.

    Putting an ADSB transponder in every aircraft in the sky (ultimately) means that the ATC system has to start dealing with many times more aircraft. At the very least you need better filtering to enable the controller to see the aircraft he has to control and not be distracted by uncontrolled aircraft nearby.

    IMHO the torrent of new information will eventually lead to ATC systems delegating their tactical control to automated systems. Any other approach ignores the potential of this technology.

  25. Full circle? on Linux Kernel To Have Stable Userspace Drive · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Perhaps in ten years time Linux will be a microkernel