We built crude, but effective parabolic reflectors using heavy duty Renoyld's aluminum foil. If the rebels have access to that, or just light sheet aluminum, they could build this.
Who are the HR people and Lawyers that think these things up? This is a state agency right? Shouldn't we be able to, as taxpayers, demand the identity of whoever thinks up these foolish decisions that cost the state in litigation costs? I'd like to know so I can either vote them out of office, or not vote for then if they decide to run for office.
I use Facebook to determine the intelligence level of the person I'm dealing with.
If you have a Facebook account, you've already failed my job interview. You can't be trusted to make intelligent decisions with data, so you don't need to work at this organization.
So I ask for a Facebook login, but I never look, the only correct answer is 'i don't have one'
Anyone thought of using this to control special effects for a LARP? Imagine being able to actually see the magical effects you were using on someone...
Unfortunately the only way out of that sort of tangled mess is Nature's Solution: Pain. Just because you refuse to believe that walking off a cliff will cause you pain does not mean that the laws of physics agree.
This is honestly a freaking *great* idea. Do you know how most messages pass around in a deployed environment now? They send someone- a "runner" from one end of the post to another. It is the most ludicrous thing I've ever seen. We spent all this money developing the encryption infrastructure that civilians use at the drop of a dime(literally!) and we can't take advantage of that for passing messages around a post? Especially time-sensitive information? It's past time that we put some of the star-trek technology we've developed to use.
I was there in 2008 during the midst of this. At that time, there were significant problems with security on the network terminals that we all used to access the internet. In most places, we were limited to two or three ways to access the internet (not NIPERNET.) Either computer labs operated by Spawar (government contractors),computers operated by Cyberzone (A commercial entity) or, if your FOB was large enough, in-room/tent access provided by the MWR (Morale Welfare and Recreation.)
Now all the computers that were in use there used satellite up-links to access the internet. Too many users would max the link, and access to the web would slow to a crawl, or worse. Think 5 - 10 minutes to load a web page. Now after a long day (or two, or three, or more!) out on mission, people would roll back in the gate, tromp off to the internet and eat, often in just that order and go to bed. Most of the time people were sending and receiving email and pictures from friends and family, baby pictures, movie clips and the like. Most of the time, these would be put on flash drives so people could see them later in their tents and so on.
The computers that were operated by the Cyberzone and Spawar rarely if ever had their anti-virus up to date. Worse, the anti-virus updates would take so long to download (hours!) that people would give up on doing them. The MWR and Post Exchange were often great about getting laptops out to troops in remote locations. However there was often no way to get software updates to these PC's. The situation was ripe for trouble.
Many people did both their office work and home use on the same computers, as the situation demanded.
While I was there in 2008, we began seeing signs of the SillyFDC worm and agent.btz in increasing numbers. We were able to track it back to the Spawar and Cyberzone computers, but we had no way to convince the people there to update their anti-virus. The PC's that were on NIPERNET at the time had restrictions on the use of flash drives, but those were not fully enforced. No-one is sure who “Crossed the Streams” but both worms started showing up in more and more NIPERNET computers. The largest problem in stopping it was that we were not in charge of policy of our own computers. We knew that the worms spread through the use of autorun, but we could not get people to bring in their flash drives to have them scanned. Worse, we could not disable autorun on the NIPERNET PC's. We had no access to the local policy on the machines (or anti-virus updates!) We were able to finally contain things by disabling autorun on personal computers, sacrificing one of our personal laptops to doing nothing but scanning possible infected drives, and quarantining known infected PC's from use.
We were never able to get updates for the anti-virus for the NIPERNET PC's, but we eventually discovered and distributed ClamWin for personal computers, though.
We received word about the no-flash-drives rule about 3 months later. That generally made things more difficult, as there were quite a few places that had no network access; a flash drive was the only way to move documents about. More people ended up doing work on their personal computers and ignoring the government ones after that.
Things that would help defend against this in the future:
Spawar, Cyberzone, and MWR should be required to keep on their networks a basic SAN that has updated anti-virus, security patches and run a script to update that when network traffic is low. That way, individuals can get their updates from local storage rather than trying to pull hundreds of megabytes over a slow network link.
If you have a computer while downrange, you should be required to make sure that it's security is up to date, and download patches (from the SAN) at least monthly. Anti-virus should be done as frequently as possible.
NIPERNET needs to have some method of having local administrators modify their systems. Many times, the local S-6 (Communication and Networking Support)
You know, I've often wondered why we don't join some of our existing technologies together and get on with things. I know it may not be as simple as it sounds, but we have this tech already:
We have peanut butter, jelly and bread. Why can't we get this all together to make a sandwich? Or is this currently in the works? Or am I missing something subtle, that someone who actually knows about this research can enlighten us about?
I have been a soldier, and have had more than my share of fun in Iraq. A cell phone like this would really have been invaluable while I was there, providing a good way for squad leaders to relay encrypted messages to their troops, if nothing else. The other functions you describe are well within the realm of possibility with current technology. I hope they field some system like this soon, as it's sorely needed.
I'd *love* to see the ass of the more unethical employers and companies kicked like this as much as possible. These companies make life more difficult (sometimes impossible!) for companies that follow the rules. I've seen numerous local small buisnesses run out of buisness by dirty tactics. It always suprieses me when the largest offenders complain when the same sort of ruthless tactics are pulled on them.
Agreed. This being a site for geeks and nerds, we can handle much more technical data that what some of the science articles have been providing. Of course linking to something like a general news CNN article can be useful for a quick overview, but we should go for the tecnical info provided by the original paper as well, if it's at all possible.
You could try "Optitrack" by naturalpoint software. Seems really useful, actually and for $249, it's worth taking a chance on too. Here's their link: http://www.naturalpoint.com/optitrack/
I am an employer. I hire creative and skilled people to develop software for me (games, accounting packages, robotics, etc). I don't care that in their off hours, they post nude pictures of themselves in latex and/or body paint. In fact for me, those kind of erratic, purely creative behaviors set them apart from the crowd, and let me know what kinds of ingenuity they can apply to problems. I want to see how they solve problems in real life, as well as a work environment. It tells me more about their character than a plain white-paper resume will ever reveal. If other employers pas these people up, so much the better for me. I'll hire them, build a great team, and my competition will never see know what hit them..
That said, I do draw the line at doing drugs and other illegal behavior. That stuff ruins lives, and inevitably bleeds over into work.
Bring me the creative, motivated, and the weird any day!
If shareholders and investors want to invest their money in various unethical and nefarious schemes, they deserve to lose every last penny of their investment. We all need to start paying more attention to the people brokering our money.
Say you have Joe, an investor with a 401k. He works at a factory that makes watches. He gets his prospectus this year, and notices the message fom his broker of an anticipated increse in profits due to a rise in share price in some of their sector companies. Next month, Joe gets word that his plant is closing down, and the jobs are being outsorced to China/India/Bulgaria. The company Joe works for is the company that led the rise in share prices that drove up his 401k. The savings due to outsorcing was what made it all possible. But now, being out of work, in an area with a *lot* of other people doing the same thing he once did, he may need to dip into those very savings, or find himself and his family out on the street.
The brokers of the various investing companies are the one selling us this "eat our own tail" lunch, and we need to start paying attention to what the constant high rate of return on our investments are actually costing us.
I hope they send up a decent microscope this time. The one on the mars rovers are only something like 30x power; the microscopes you can buy at toys are us can go up to at least 900x, and I've even seen a 1200x one there. You'd think that with that many millions spent on the project we could get something out there that could actually *see* a microbe if there was one.
Slashdot Mirror
We built crude, but effective parabolic reflectors using heavy duty Renoyld's aluminum foil. If the rebels have access to that, or just light sheet aluminum, they could build this.
Tech or $$$$, let me know what I can do to help!
Who are the HR people and Lawyers that think these things up? This is a state agency right? Shouldn't we be able to, as taxpayers, demand the identity of whoever thinks up these foolish decisions that cost the state in litigation costs? I'd like to know so I can either vote them out of office, or not vote for then if they decide to run for office.
I use Facebook to determine the intelligence level of the person I'm dealing with.
If you have a Facebook account, you've already failed my job interview. You can't be trusted to make intelligent decisions with data, so you don't need to work at this organization.
So I ask for a Facebook login, but I never look, the only correct answer is 'i don't have one'
I take it you hire no Jonathan Smiths....
Anyone thought of using this to control special effects for a LARP? Imagine being able to actually see the magical effects you were using on someone...
"Just because you haven't found it yet doesn't mean it doesn't exist!"
QED
Ah, yes I remember this: What the Tortoise Said to Achilles. Or, more generally, the descent into logical madness...
Unfortunately the only way out of that sort of tangled mess is Nature's Solution: Pain. Just because you refuse to believe that walking off a cliff will cause you pain does not mean that the laws of physics agree.
Dude, I've seen a Soldier outsmarted by an aluminum door. Worst thing was that he even *admitted* his defeat to the door to our 1SG...
Link
Now just buy a bunch of those link cables and code a few apps on those and you're good to go.
Hey, mine survived me being blown up three times. I can attest to the durability and usefulness of the Nintendo DS, especially as an Alarm Clock...
This is honestly a freaking *great* idea. Do you know how most messages pass around in a deployed environment now? They send someone- a "runner" from one end of the post to another. It is the most ludicrous thing I've ever seen. We spent all this money developing the encryption infrastructure that civilians use at the drop of a dime(literally!) and we can't take advantage of that for passing messages around a post? Especially time-sensitive information? It's past time that we put some of the star-trek technology we've developed to use.
You know, I used to think about quadratic equations and linear programming between lanes at the firing range... I guess I'm just weird.
NIPRNET, not like my mangled spelling.
It's the DOD network for unclassified but sensitive data.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIPRNet
http://everything2.com/title/NIPRNET
I was there in 2008 during the midst of this. At that time, there were significant problems with security on the network terminals that we all used to access the internet. In most places, we were limited to two or three ways to access the internet (not NIPERNET.) Either computer labs operated by Spawar (government contractors) ,computers operated by Cyberzone (A commercial entity) or, if your FOB was large enough, in-room/tent access provided by the MWR (Morale Welfare and Recreation.)
Now all the computers that were in use there used satellite up-links to access the internet. Too many users would max the link, and access to the web would slow to a crawl, or worse. Think 5 - 10 minutes to load a web page. Now after a long day (or two, or three, or more!) out on mission, people would roll back in the gate, tromp off to the internet and eat, often in just that order and go to bed. Most of the time people were sending and receiving email and pictures from friends and family, baby pictures, movie clips and the like. Most of the time, these would be put on flash drives so people could see them later in their tents and so on.
The computers that were operated by the Cyberzone and Spawar rarely if ever had their anti-virus up to date. Worse, the anti-virus updates would take so long to download (hours!) that people would give up on doing them. The MWR and Post Exchange were often great about getting laptops out to troops in remote locations. However there was often no way to get software updates to these PC's. The situation was ripe for trouble.
Many people did both their office work and home use on the same computers, as the situation demanded.
While I was there in 2008, we began seeing signs of the SillyFDC worm and agent.btz in increasing numbers. We were able to track it back to the Spawar and Cyberzone computers, but we had no way to convince the people there to update their anti-virus. The PC's that were on NIPERNET at the time had restrictions on the use of flash drives, but those were not fully enforced. No-one is sure who “Crossed the Streams” but both worms started showing up in more and more NIPERNET computers. The largest problem in stopping it was that we were not in charge of policy of our own computers. We knew that the worms spread through the use of autorun, but we could not get people to bring in their flash drives to have them scanned. Worse, we could not disable autorun on the NIPERNET PC's. We had no access to the local policy on the machines (or anti-virus updates!) We were able to finally contain things by disabling autorun on personal computers, sacrificing one of our personal laptops to doing nothing but scanning possible infected drives, and quarantining known infected PC's from use.
We were never able to get updates for the anti-virus for the NIPERNET PC's, but we eventually discovered and distributed ClamWin for personal computers, though.
We received word about the no-flash-drives rule about 3 months later. That generally made things more difficult, as there were quite a few places that had no network access; a flash drive was the only way to move documents about. More people ended up doing work on their personal computers and ignoring the government ones after that.
Things that would help defend against this in the future:
Spawar, Cyberzone, and MWR should be required to keep on their networks a basic SAN that has updated anti-virus, security patches and run a script to update that when network traffic is low. That way, individuals can get their updates from local storage rather than trying to pull hundreds of megabytes over a slow network link.
If you have a computer while downrange, you should be required to make sure that it's security is up to date, and download patches (from the SAN) at least monthly. Anti-virus should be done as frequently as possible.
NIPERNET needs to have some method of having local administrators modify their systems. Many times, the local S-6 (Communication and Networking Support)
It all comes down to us as a society gaining the courage to accept that *everyone* has done something foolish in their past. Doubly so for children.
You know, I've often wondered why we don't join some of our existing technologies together and get on with things. I know it may not be as simple as it sounds, but we have this tech already:
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/54170/title/Let_there_be_light
(Allows for manipulation of neurons with light)
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl051811%2B
http://nanotechweb.org/cws/article/tech/41146
(Nanoscale OLED displays)
http://www.egmrs.org/EJS/PDF/vo281/1.pdf
http://www.azonano.com/news.asp?newsID=6802
(Nanoscale light detectors)
http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.2108/zsj.22.535?journalCode=jzoo
http://www.jove.com/index/details.stp?ID=2081
(And we can stain cells with dyes that fluoresce when the cells experience activity now)
We have peanut butter, jelly and bread. Why can't we get this all together to make a sandwich? Or is this currently in the works?
Or am I missing something subtle, that someone who actually knows about this research can enlighten us about?
Two words: Data Encryption...
I have been a soldier, and have had more than my share of fun in Iraq. A cell phone like this would really have been invaluable while I was there, providing a good way for squad leaders to relay encrypted messages to their troops, if nothing else. The other functions you describe are well within the realm of possibility with current technology. I hope they field some system like this soon, as it's sorely needed.
I'd *love* to see the ass of the more unethical employers and companies kicked like this as much as possible. These companies make life more difficult (sometimes impossible!) for companies that follow the rules. I've seen numerous local small buisnesses run out of buisness by dirty tactics. It always suprieses me when the largest offenders complain when the same sort of ruthless tactics are pulled on them.
Agreed. This being a site for geeks and nerds, we can handle much more technical data that what some of the science articles have been providing. Of course linking to something like a general news CNN article can be useful for a quick overview, but we should go for the tecnical info provided by the original paper as well, if it's at all possible.
Twenty what?
You could try "Optitrack" by naturalpoint software. Seems really useful, actually and for $249, it's worth taking a chance on too.
= catalog&trackerid=1661406456&category=a&vid=208024 5373&pid=924839477&oldvid=2143420604
Here's their link:
http://www.naturalpoint.com/optitrack/
If you have Poser(and free time), you can also try the Rotoscoper plugin by PhilC as well.
Huge link follows:
http://istore.mikrotec.com/philc/index1.html?page
I can hear them, and I'm 34.... :)
I guess I'm just young at heart!
I am an employer. I hire creative and skilled people to develop software for me (games, accounting packages, robotics, etc). I don't care that in their off hours, they post nude pictures of themselves in latex and/or body paint. In fact for me, those kind of erratic, purely creative behaviors set them apart from the crowd, and let me know what kinds of ingenuity they can apply to problems. I want to see how they solve problems in real life, as well as a work environment. It tells me more about their character than a plain white-paper resume will ever reveal. If other employers pas these people up, so much the better for me. I'll hire them, build a great team, and my competition will never see know what hit them..
That said, I do draw the line at doing drugs and other illegal behavior. That stuff ruins lives, and inevitably bleeds over into work.
Bring me the creative, motivated, and the weird any day!
Why can't we send up some ASIMO like robots? We already have that technology working, or at least workable...
If shareholders and investors want to invest their money in various unethical and nefarious schemes, they deserve to lose every last penny of their investment. We all need to start paying more attention to the people brokering our money.
Say you have Joe, an investor with a 401k. He works at a factory that makes watches. He gets his prospectus this year, and notices the message fom his broker of an anticipated increse in profits due to a rise in share price in some of their sector companies. Next month, Joe gets word that his plant is closing down, and the jobs are being outsorced to China/India/Bulgaria. The company Joe works for is the company that led the rise in share prices that drove up his 401k. The savings due to outsorcing was what made it all possible. But now, being out of work, in an area with a *lot* of other people doing the same thing he once did, he may need to dip into those very savings, or find himself and his family out on the street.
The brokers of the various investing companies are the one selling us this "eat our own tail" lunch, and we need to start paying attention to what the constant high rate of return on our investments are actually costing us.
I hope they send up a decent microscope this time. The one on the mars rovers are only something like 30x power; the microscopes you can buy at toys are us can go up to at least 900x, and I've even seen a 1200x one there. You'd think that with that many millions spent on the project we could get something out there that could actually *see* a microbe if there was one.