I hear you. I took my pilot's license in the early 80's, in the days before cell phones, but even back then my instructor used to warn me about using any kind of portable electronic device (Walkmans mostly in those days of yore), and looking back now I think it must have been because of uncertainty about how poorly-shielded nav and comm equipment in the training birds (Cessna 152's) would react to any kind of interference, even negligible. I've written a long, rambling post about my experiences working at Miami International in those days, and I could write an equally long one one about my experiences as a wet-behind-the-ears student pilot (every pilot has a wealth of flying stories), but I'll spare you, and tell you one related to this incident.
The Qantas incident brings to mind something that happened to my instructor Al, after he got a job with a cargo airline flying between Florida, the Caribbean, and South America. He was a co-pilot on a DC-6 (an old 4-engined propeller aircraft, for those who don't know), and one night happened to be in Puerto Rico doing a drop-off and pick-up. He was standing on the ramp with the captain, watching the handlers loading crates aboard the aircraft while the captain checked them off on the manifest, when he noticed the captain turn as pale as a sheet and started to goggle at one of the pages. Turns out that the handlers had just loaded into the belly hold, right beneath the electronics bay, a number of crates containing......6,000 lbs of magnets. After both of them gazed at each other in astonishment, the captain ordered the crates removed from the aircraft, and had to be physically restrained from attacking the shipper's rep when the latter refused. The guy was exasperated that no air cargo op would take his perfectly legitimate load of magnets and wondered why the pilots were being so "silly" as to refuse good money. The eventually ditched the magnets, but everybody was pissed at the end of the wrangling over it.
Al was still shaking his head in wonderment when he told me the story a couple weeks later in Miami: "Three tons of magnets under the nav equipment. Over water. At night. I should have let him kill the fucker."
Purely by coincidence I saw an image of the Twitter FailWhale for the first time just last night while perusing this collection of Awesome Error Pages on Buzzfeed. My vote for the coolest goes to the 404 page for the Spore website. Imaginative, appropriate, and downright awesome!
It's like the introduction of CD's all over again. What? I have to buy one of those expensive players? And replace all my trusty vinyl albums with those discs? For how much? Forget it; it'll never fly.
Anyone else here remember when a new CD cost $17, and the early CD players were $750? In 1982 dollars? *raises hand* I thought there was no way in hell I'd ever own one, but the prices fell precipitously within a couple years. Consumers will switch to Blu-ray when price drops bring the players, HDTV's and the discs within their budget. The electronics prices will come down, (and remember that PS3 owners already have a Blu-ray player), so the big barrier to entry will be the cost of the media. Even if they're still a bit more expensive than DVD's, Blu-ray will win. My brother the technophile bought one a couple weeks ago, and after watching a couple of movies on it, I have to say that I'm as impressed as hell. The differences in picture quality are breathtaking, and after you've watched it for a while regular DVD's look blurry by comparison. I used to say so what, why should the textures of the brick wall in the background, or of the fabric of peoples' clothing make any difference to the viewing experience? Guess what? They make a incredible difference. Go down to your local retailer and check out the demos.
It says something about how insecure Microsoft feels about their own brand, that they're reduced to playing defense.
So, given that, what does it say about Apple that they feel the need to compare themselves to Windows?
That's because Apple were the ones playing defense for the better part of 20 years, against a much larger, far more powerful rival. Where were you for the drama? Only since the introduction of the iPod have Apple managed to impinge on the consciousness of the public at large, and their confidence has recovered to the point of cockiness. It's really strange that Microsoft has voluntarily assumed the role of the underdog, especially since they remain a much larger company than Apple, and have far greater revenue. By overtly reacting to Apple's ads, much less acknowledging that they even exist, Microsoft is publicly admitting that they sting; they are admitting that a much smaller competitor is hurting them. For a rapacious, all-conquering monolith of Microsoft's reputation, this is tantamount to an admission of fear. Microsoft desperately need to rehabilitate their image, but this ad campaign is precisely the wrong way to go about it. By reacting to the Apple ads they're allowing Jobs & Co. to dictate the shape of the conflict. They should be steadfastly ignoring them and forging their own message; instead they're signaling that they have nothing to offer but feeble attempts at spin.
There was a time when Microsoft was one of the most feared corporations on the planet, but recently the aura of invincibility has worn thin. People used to talk about them in tones of hushed awe, but now they're like the doddering old grandparent who smells faintly of urine.
I thought it was *devastating* to Apple. Primarily because it's true. The vast majority of people -- and yes, creative people -- use PCs.
You're kidding, right? I find it unbelievable that Microsoft were so stupid as to feel compelled to acknowledge the existence of a series of ads by a rival. The Apple ads have proven to be very popular, and Microsoft has only called attention to them again, and worst of all, in a "Me Too!" fashion, merely reinforcing the popular perception that Redmond doesn't have an original idea all their own. It says something about how insecure Microsoft feels about their own brand, that they're reduced to playing defense. And make no mistake, when a company their size starts playing defense, it's sending the message to the public that they believe that they're being hurt by their rival.
The Mac ads have always been arrogant and condescending, and this is a major "up yours" to Apple.
This is something that's always baffled me: in what way are the Apple ads "arrogant and condescending"? I've even heard Justin Long's "Mac" characterized as such, yet in all the commercials, he's nothing but friendly and considerate. This has always sounded like sour-grapes to me; everyone I've spoken with about the ads (almost all of them XP users) find them amusing, and have said that they like both characters. When asked specifically about the tone of the ads, no one has mentioned any negative message; when asked in particular if they found the ads or the Mac character arrogant or condescending in any way, or if there was any undertone of meanness, they all said no. In fact, many of them told me that the ads portrayed their experiences with Windows PC's fairly accurately.
And the tagline is absolutely perfect: "Life Without Walls". That's a direct hit on the most obnoxious characteristic of the Apple world -- the lock-in.
As opposed to the sweetness and light of Microsoft? Now you're sounded like an angry Windows fanboy.
Nope; they're armed with hollow needles and CO2 bottles, and with toxic dart guns.
Rumors have persisted since the mid-seventies that the U.S. Navy used dolphins to kill enemy divers during the Vietnam war. Allegedly, when an approaching diver was detected by a patrolling dolphin, it would swim back to an equipment barge where it would arm itself with a large hollow needle and compressed CO2 bottle, both integrated into a cup which fitted snugly over the dolphin's beak. Then it would simply impale the unfortunate bastard in the torso and watch him float to the surface with his stomach hanging out of his mouth. Apparently, someone got the idea from the CO2 harpoons divers used to protect themselves from sharks.
Supposedly the project was shelved because the age-old military problem of IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) was insurmountable. Simply put, the dolphins were unable to distinguish between friendly and enemy divers and killed a number of U.S. Navy personnel.
The modern spin on this is the allegation that these dolphins are now controlled with "electrodes planted under the skin" and are armed with anaesthetic dartguns, the idea being to capture the enemy alive for interrogation. It was even reported that the Navy lost some of these dolphins from a training facility near Lake Pontchartrain during Hurricane Katrina.
...you're going to catch the amateurs, not the ones that you really care about.
Absolutely correct, and depending on the sophistication of the operation, they'll throw some sacrificial amateurs to the authorities as a distraction while the professionals go on about their business. If they feed the sacrificial lambs disinformation about the true objective (but just enough info to be credible), it will tie up investigative resources.
The reason the file is buried deep inside CoreLocation is because it's a blacklist for preventing specifically listed applications from accessing CoreLocation, not for disabling them. This is for obvious privacy reasons. Here's Gruber's explanation from a few days ago.
Jesus. Christ. This is the second mis-modded humorous post. Some idiot in this thread has no idea what the "Funny" tag is for. Looks like Edgar Mitchell's aliens have Slashdot accounts.
No offense to WK2; your post was clever and I actually laughed out loud, but "Insightful" instead of "Funny"?. I'm shocked SHOCKED that there are moderators here who have no clue what they're doing.
I am genuinely flabbergasted by this idiotic tactic. If Apple were out to sink the free software movement, their PR machine could do it without breaking a sweat. Stunts like this would be like handing them the gun with which to shoot the fish in a barrel. Imagine if the FSF had tried some shit like this with Microsoft; Ballmer would be jizzing in his pants. I sincerely hope that the more mature supporters of free software will disavow this bullshit. If the FSF has any *any* hope of appealing to the public at large, they are going about it in the worst possible way, namely by coming across as childish and immature.
I think you're right about MIcrosoft attempting to emulate Google. Ballmer is obsessed with Google for a very good reason: Google is eating their lunch in the search market. According to the Industry Standard, Google accounted for 69.17% of all U.S. searches for June 2008, up from 63.92% in June of last year. In the same period Yahoo's search share fell from 23.31% to 19.62%, and Microsoft's fell from 9.85% to 5.46%.
Search equates to eyeballs and Microsoft is shitting their pants at the inexorable erosion of their Web presence, especially as their other businesses mature and earnings plateau. In light of the falling search shares of both Yahoo and Microsoft, one has to wonder what possible synergy Microsoft sees in a pairing of their search businesses.
Never thought I'd be a grammar Nazi in Latin. Professor Paush's lecture was truly heartwarming and inspiring. My thoughts are with his family and friends, and I hope they'll keep his memory alive for his young children. It's sad to think that they'll never truly know him.
You're absolutely correct. There's no end to the number of environmental "solutions" that led to far greater problems down the road. And the sad thing is that they were not unforeseen problems. The people who thought up the solutions figured it was easier to let subsequent generations deal with the mess; they were more interested in a quick fix for political expediency.
Anyone else of a certain age remember the animated bit from The Electric Company (then-unknown Morgan Freeman was one of the cast members) wherein the wife is freaking out about a mouse in the house? To cut a long story short, as the problems cascade, the husband gets a cat, then a dog, then a tiger, then finally an elephant to scare away the tiger. When the wife complains about the elephant, the husband says "Everyone knows elephants are afraid of mice" reintroducing the original problem and losing an entire wall of the house in the process as the panicked elephant stampedes through it. The punch line is the battered husband lying on the ground saying to himself, "You know...maybe I should have just gotten a trap...". I think that little cartoon is one of the great cautionary tales of environmental engineering.
I love the idea of OpenMoko, but the thing is unusable, which is a shame, because people won't take it seriously once they get a load of the laughably bad interface. Qtopia looks a bit better, but it's not much of an improvement. The project needs some real interface expertise if it has any hope of success; all Android has to do to trump it is to be marginally less unusable. And does anyone know the purpose of that hole in the FreeRunner?
Generals and admirals are a peculiar breed, but USAF generals in particular seem to be afflicted with a sense of entitlement. It mostly appears to affect those officers typically derided as "careerists", whose personalities and actions are focused on their own advancement above all else, and once they reach general rank, they grab with both hands at the privileges denied more junior officers. That's when some of them begin to display genuinely eccentric behavior, as well as cultivating the attitude that no mere civilian can tell them what to do.
I highly recommend that everyone here read "Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War", Robert Coram's superbly-written and excellent biography of Col. John Boyd, the maverick officer whose theories reshaped the U.S. military's warfighting strategy. Boyd was one of the great original thinkers of the 20th Century. His Energy-Maneuverability Theory of aerial combat is the foundation on which all modern fighter jets were designed, and he has been called the father of the F-15, the F-16, and the F/A-18. He was also the creator of the OODA Loop, a decision-making tool with great utility to any organization, and is largely credited with devising the strategy that liberated Kuwait during the first Gulf War.
The most interesting parts of the book to me, were those that dealt with Boyd's stints at the Pentagon, and the eye-opening look at the inner workings of the military bureaucracy. The comparisons of a general's staff to the "court of a pasha" are quite humorous, as well as the details of some of the eccentricities and personal foibles of some of the Air Force's (unnamed) senior officers of the time.
- There was the general who decided that he didn't like the fact that all the stop signs at his command seemed "incomplete", so he ordered that the backs of all of them be painted brown;
- For some reason, another couldn't abide facial hair, so none of his subordinates were allowed to grow a mustache (he couldn't legally enforce this requirement, but his authority was never challenged);
- Then there's the one who would wear different uniform headgear throughout the day, and required his staff to follow suit for the sake of uniformity. His staff were never notified beforehand when he was going to change his hat, so they were all forced to bring to work all their headgear so they could change them at a moment's notice.
- This is the one that killed me, and in my opinion this man had mental problems. This general was so determined to control who saw him that whenever he left his office, he'd press a button that flashed a red light in the outer office. This was the signal for the entire staff, including those walking the corridors around his command suite, to vacate the area and find themselves behind closed doors immediately. That way, when the great man emerged, he was met with absolutely empty offices and corridors and no plebes around to sully his presence with their eyes.
I served in the Army, and even the greenest recruit could immediately spot the difference between the careerist officers, and those who put their responsibilities above all else. These were the men, including generals I've met, who bunked with their troops in the woods during wargames, stood in the chow lines and used the communal showers, along with everyone else. The careerists were those who segregated themselves from the enlisted men and more junior officers, and seemed more concerned with enjoying the perks that their positions allowed them. Three guesses which ones the troops would follow to hell. If the mindset and culture pervading the upper echelons of the Air Force is that of the careerist, it should come as no surprise that something as minor as "comfort capsules" was authorized in direct defiance of civilian oversight.
Much more frightening than any of the drug dealers was the cargo operation across the street from our office, which was a front for an arms dealer. He owned a bunch of Boeing 707 cargo jets (and a 727 with a tricked-out interior for his private use), all parked at a beautiful state-of-the-art hangar which had his office on the top floor. By sheer, blind coincidence one of his bodyguards was actually a childhood acquaintance from my hometown, and he used to come by my house occasionally for a beer, and we'd trade stories of the bizarre goings-on on MIA north side. His boss was one of the largest weapons dealers on the planet and actually had long lists of people who wanted him dead, so consequently always traveled in an armored Benz with an entourage of bodyguards. Such was his legitimate fear of assassination that he had in the hangar an elevator into which his chauffeur would drive his car, and which would take the car directly up into his office. He didn't dare take the chance that someone could gain access to his car in the parking lot and install a bomb.
This gentleman was Syrian or Lebanese if I remember correctly, had extensive contacts in the Middle East, and played both sides of the fence with equal facility (one of his jets had to be escorted to safety in the Gulf by Israeli F-4's after being threatened by Iranian fighters). From what I understand, much of his business was in South and Central America, hence his Miami HQ. He was in a vastly more lucrative business than any mere cartel leader could imagine, and dealt legitimately with governments on a scale that would make a coke dealer green with envy. What's more, he did a LOT of work for Uncle Sam when plausible deniability was called for, so he was in absolutely no danger of being shut down by the feds. I later heard that he had been the factotum in the Iran-Contra Scandal, the party who had actually procured and shipped the Stinger missiles to Iran. Just this direct glimpse into the dirty side of global politics made a huge impression on me. Before that, it really had been an abstract concept, things you only read about, but to hear first-hand some of the things that governments are capable of was horrifying and abhorrent. Gangsters are saints compared to some of our elected officials.
the ending credits are absolutely beautiful and genius (how many different art styles can you spot?)
I absolutely agree; this film is a masterpiece, and what I find amazing is how Pixar turned the end credits into such a subtle and beautiful coda to the story. The art styles, and the scenes they depict, reflect the progressive rebirth of the newly-recolonized Earth, moving through hieroglyphics to a scene reminiscent of a Van Gogh painting, with Wall-E and EVE gazing up at the large tree, which one realizes is the same plant they struggled to protect, growing from the boot deep in the soil. I can't say enough about this wonderful film, and I continue to be stunned that Pixar keep outdoing themselves with each release.
...so read this long, rambling post only if you have an interest in aircraft and aviation. You have been warned.
Your comment reminded me of an incident that occurred at Miami International when I worked there in 1980-82. Some background: I worked on the north side of the airport for an FBO (handler of private and corporate aircraft) and I didn't know it at the time, but MIA had quite a reputation among aviation buffs for the large number of classic aircraft parked all over the north side, including any number of DC-3's, and incredibly, a Lockheed Constellation parked at "Corrosion Corner", the northwest corner near the fire station. When a private collector (rumored to be John Travolta) bought it and flew it out, there were hundreds of people lined up with cameras to see the stately old beauty take to the air after years sitting on the ramp. Disappointingly, I only knew it was leaving when I saw it climbing gracefully away, and so didn't get a picture of this magnificent aircraft; I never imagined that I'd ever see one flying.
The north side, the entire length of which bordered NW 36th Street, was home to dozens of -quite literally- fly-by-night operations; charter companies ranging in size from small operations with one or two light twins, up through outfits with old DC-3's still in perfect operating condition, to larger cargo operations with jets, mostly DC-8's. The smaller, one and two plane outfits operated mostly between South Florida and the Bahamas, almost exclusively at night. More on that in a bit.
Next door to where I worked, one of these charter companies had a single, beautifully-maintained DC-3, and one morning while I was inspecting the ramp, I glanced at the bird and noticed that there were enormous holes in the belly of the aircraft. Turns out that the night before, they had been flying a cargo of old car batteries when they encountered severe turbulence, and the batteries started leaking all over the cabin. They didn't notice the damage until they had actually landed and parked the aircraft, at which time they saw the ground through the huge, corroded holes, and found that the control lines had been almost completely eaten through. If they had kept flying for another ten minutes or so, they would have crashed.
At the time I worked there, the "Cocaine Cowboys" (the Medellin and Cali cartels) were just coming up to speed. "Miami Vice" had just come on the air, but some of the stuff I saw at the airport would have been laughed off as unbelievable if it had been in the script of the TV series. Miami in general, and Miami International in particular, was swimming in cocaine. MIA is the major gateway for Latin American carriers into the U.S., and in those days before the widespread crack epidemic, a day didn't go by without some major drama, and there was a wild, almost frontier feel to the north side, with all the goings-on at these little (and big) operations. The difference between charter and cargo ops, and the much more genteel terminal, with the bars and bookstores and the palm trees in the parking lots, was as stark as night and day, and most commercial passengers had absolutely zero clue that such a seedy underbelly existed.
- Ever seen 6,000 pounds of cocaine in one place? [raises hand] Air Panama DC-8, gift-wrapped in streamers of yellow crime scene tape, parked next door to our office. The three tons of coke were stuffed into freezers in the cargo hold. Feds crawled all over everybody for weeks. I used to work the midnight shift, and so got quite familiar with many of the charter pilots who were in and out in the wee hours of the morning, on their "cargo" flights to the Bahamas. Imagine my shock when one of them handed me a kilo of cocaine one night, just because I was always polite and courteous to him (hell, I was polite and courteous to everybody; some scary folks frequented north side). He was
...loss of confidence in their ability to deliver. Microsoft are indeed doing well financially, and Vista could be selling like hotcakes for all I know or care, but investor confidence has been shaken by the negative press the OS has received. In light of the development costs, dropped features, and years-long delay, Microsoft needed to hit a grand slam home run with Vista, and failed to do so. It's academic whether Vista is as bad as many make it out to be; it was not as good as was hoped/hyped. Microsoft and their marketing are to blame for the company's woes here: they over-promised and under-delivered, and that's the major reason people are calling for Ballmer's head. The juggernaut that crushed all before it has been revealed as a stumbling, bumbling, fumbling clown, pissing away billions on a supposedly world-changing product, only to have it met with a resounding *meh*.
Remember that a company's stock price is not driven by institutional investors, but by day-traders and speculators, and they're not concerned by little things like logic or common sense. Day-traders are like spooked cattle; once they get wind of trouble, real or perceived, they'll stampede for the exits. Loss of confidence in a company, regardless of revenues, is murder on the stock price.
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I hear you. I took my pilot's license in the early 80's, in the days before cell phones, but even back then my instructor used to warn me about using any kind of portable electronic device (Walkmans mostly in those days of yore), and looking back now I think it must have been because of uncertainty about how poorly-shielded nav and comm equipment in the training birds (Cessna 152's) would react to any kind of interference, even negligible. I've written a long, rambling post about my experiences working at Miami International in those days, and I could write an equally long one one about my experiences as a wet-behind-the-ears student pilot (every pilot has a wealth of flying stories), but I'll spare you, and tell you one related to this incident.
The Qantas incident brings to mind something that happened to my instructor Al, after he got a job with a cargo airline flying between Florida, the Caribbean, and South America. He was a co-pilot on a DC-6 (an old 4-engined propeller aircraft, for those who don't know), and one night happened to be in Puerto Rico doing a drop-off and pick-up. He was standing on the ramp with the captain, watching the handlers loading crates aboard the aircraft while the captain checked them off on the manifest, when he noticed the captain turn as pale as a sheet and started to goggle at one of the pages. Turns out that the handlers had just loaded into the belly hold, right beneath the electronics bay, a number of crates containing......6,000 lbs of magnets. After both of them gazed at each other in astonishment, the captain ordered the crates removed from the aircraft, and had to be physically restrained from attacking the shipper's rep when the latter refused. The guy was exasperated that no air cargo op would take his perfectly legitimate load of magnets and wondered why the pilots were being so "silly" as to refuse good money. The eventually ditched the magnets, but everybody was pissed at the end of the wrangling over it.
Al was still shaking his head in wonderment when he told me the story a couple weeks later in Miami: "Three tons of magnets under the nav equipment. Over water. At night. I should have let him kill the fucker."
Purely by coincidence I saw an image of the Twitter FailWhale for the first time just last night while perusing this collection of Awesome Error Pages on Buzzfeed. My vote for the coolest goes to the 404 page for the Spore website. Imaginative, appropriate, and downright awesome!
It's like the introduction of CD's all over again. What? I have to buy one of those expensive players? And replace all my trusty vinyl albums with those discs? For how much? Forget it; it'll never fly.
Anyone else here remember when a new CD cost $17, and the early CD players were $750? In 1982 dollars? *raises hand* I thought there was no way in hell I'd ever own one, but the prices fell precipitously within a couple years. Consumers will switch to Blu-ray when price drops bring the players, HDTV's and the discs within their budget. The electronics prices will come down, (and remember that PS3 owners already have a Blu-ray player), so the big barrier to entry will be the cost of the media. Even if they're still a bit more expensive than DVD's, Blu-ray will win. My brother the technophile bought one a couple weeks ago, and after watching a couple of movies on it, I have to say that I'm as impressed as hell. The differences in picture quality are breathtaking, and after you've watched it for a while regular DVD's look blurry by comparison. I used to say so what, why should the textures of the brick wall in the background, or of the fabric of peoples' clothing make any difference to the viewing experience? Guess what? They make a incredible difference. Go down to your local retailer and check out the demos.
That's because Apple were the ones playing defense for the better part of 20 years, against a much larger, far more powerful rival. Where were you for the drama? Only since the introduction of the iPod have Apple managed to impinge on the consciousness of the public at large, and their confidence has recovered to the point of cockiness. It's really strange that Microsoft has voluntarily assumed the role of the underdog, especially since they remain a much larger company than Apple, and have far greater revenue. By overtly reacting to Apple's ads, much less acknowledging that they even exist, Microsoft is publicly admitting that they sting; they are admitting that a much smaller competitor is hurting them. For a rapacious, all-conquering monolith of Microsoft's reputation, this is tantamount to an admission of fear. Microsoft desperately need to rehabilitate their image, but this ad campaign is precisely the wrong way to go about it. By reacting to the Apple ads they're allowing Jobs & Co. to dictate the shape of the conflict. They should be steadfastly ignoring them and forging their own message; instead they're signaling that they have nothing to offer but feeble attempts at spin.
There was a time when Microsoft was one of the most feared corporations on the planet, but recently the aura of invincibility has worn thin. People used to talk about them in tones of hushed awe, but now they're like the doddering old grandparent who smells faintly of urine.
You're kidding, right? I find it unbelievable that Microsoft were so stupid as to feel compelled to acknowledge the existence of a series of ads by a rival. The Apple ads have proven to be very popular, and Microsoft has only called attention to them again, and worst of all, in a "Me Too!" fashion, merely reinforcing the popular perception that Redmond doesn't have an original idea all their own. It says something about how insecure Microsoft feels about their own brand, that they're reduced to playing defense. And make no mistake, when a company their size starts playing defense, it's sending the message to the public that they believe that they're being hurt by their rival.
This is something that's always baffled me: in what way are the Apple ads "arrogant and condescending"? I've even heard Justin Long's "Mac" characterized as such, yet in all the commercials, he's nothing but friendly and considerate. This has always sounded like sour-grapes to me; everyone I've spoken with about the ads (almost all of them XP users) find them amusing, and have said that they like both characters. When asked specifically about the tone of the ads, no one has mentioned any negative message; when asked in particular if they found the ads or the Mac character arrogant or condescending in any way, or if there was any undertone of meanness, they all said no. In fact, many of them told me that the ads portrayed their experiences with Windows PC's fairly accurately.
As opposed to the sweetness and light of Microsoft? Now you're sounded like an angry Windows fanboy.
Nope; they're armed with hollow needles and CO2 bottles, and with toxic dart guns.
Rumors have persisted since the mid-seventies that the U.S. Navy used dolphins to kill enemy divers during the Vietnam war. Allegedly, when an approaching diver was detected by a patrolling dolphin, it would swim back to an equipment barge where it would arm itself with a large hollow needle and compressed CO2 bottle, both integrated into a cup which fitted snugly over the dolphin's beak. Then it would simply impale the unfortunate bastard in the torso and watch him float to the surface with his stomach hanging out of his mouth. Apparently, someone got the idea from the CO2 harpoons divers used to protect themselves from sharks.
Supposedly the project was shelved because the age-old military problem of IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) was insurmountable. Simply put, the dolphins were unable to distinguish between friendly and enemy divers and killed a number of U.S. Navy personnel.
The modern spin on this is the allegation that these dolphins are now controlled with "electrodes planted under the skin" and are armed with anaesthetic dartguns, the idea being to capture the enemy alive for interrogation. It was even reported that the Navy lost some of these dolphins from a training facility near Lake Pontchartrain during Hurricane Katrina.
Absolutely correct, and depending on the sophistication of the operation, they'll throw some sacrificial amateurs to the authorities as a distraction while the professionals go on about their business. If they feed the sacrificial lambs disinformation about the true objective (but just enough info to be credible), it will tie up investigative resources.
The reason the file is buried deep inside CoreLocation is because it's a blacklist for preventing specifically listed applications from accessing CoreLocation, not for disabling them. This is for obvious privacy reasons. Here's Gruber's explanation from a few days ago.
"...except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." -- Winston Churchill, November 11, 1947
Jesus. Christ. This is the second mis-modded humorous post. Some idiot in this thread has no idea what the "Funny" tag is for. Looks like Edgar Mitchell's aliens have Slashdot accounts.
No offense to WK2; your post was clever and I actually laughed out loud, but "Insightful" instead of "Funny"?. I'm shocked SHOCKED that there are moderators here who have no clue what they're doing.
I am genuinely flabbergasted by this idiotic tactic. If Apple were out to sink the free software movement, their PR machine could do it without breaking a sweat. Stunts like this would be like handing them the gun with which to shoot the fish in a barrel. Imagine if the FSF had tried some shit like this with Microsoft; Ballmer would be jizzing in his pants. I sincerely hope that the more mature supporters of free software will disavow this bullshit. If the FSF has any *any* hope of appealing to the public at large, they are going about it in the worst possible way, namely by coming across as childish and immature.
I think you're right about MIcrosoft attempting to emulate Google. Ballmer is obsessed with Google for a very good reason: Google is eating their lunch in the search market. According to the Industry Standard, Google accounted for 69.17% of all U.S. searches for June 2008, up from 63.92% in June of last year. In the same period Yahoo's search share fell from 23.31% to 19.62%, and Microsoft's fell from 9.85% to 5.46%.
Search equates to eyeballs and Microsoft is shitting their pants at the inexorable erosion of their Web presence, especially as their other businesses mature and earnings plateau. In light of the falling search shares of both Yahoo and Microsoft, one has to wonder what possible synergy Microsoft sees in a pairing of their search businesses.
Sadly, they are.
No, but you can haz cheezburger.
Never thought I'd be a grammar Nazi in Latin. Professor Paush's lecture was truly heartwarming and inspiring. My thoughts are with his family and friends, and I hope they'll keep his memory alive for his young children. It's sad to think that they'll never truly know him.
You're absolutely correct. There's no end to the number of environmental "solutions" that led to far greater problems down the road. And the sad thing is that they were not unforeseen problems. The people who thought up the solutions figured it was easier to let subsequent generations deal with the mess; they were more interested in a quick fix for political expediency.
Anyone else of a certain age remember the animated bit from The Electric Company (then-unknown Morgan Freeman was one of the cast members) wherein the wife is freaking out about a mouse in the house? To cut a long story short, as the problems cascade, the husband gets a cat, then a dog, then a tiger, then finally an elephant to scare away the tiger. When the wife complains about the elephant, the husband says "Everyone knows elephants are afraid of mice" reintroducing the original problem and losing an entire wall of the house in the process as the panicked elephant stampedes through it. The punch line is the battered husband lying on the ground saying to himself, "You know...maybe I should have just gotten a trap...". I think that little cartoon is one of the great cautionary tales of environmental engineering.
I love the idea of OpenMoko, but the thing is unusable, which is a shame, because people won't take it seriously once they get a load of the laughably bad interface. Qtopia looks a bit better, but it's not much of an improvement. The project needs some real interface expertise if it has any hope of success; all Android has to do to trump it is to be marginally less unusable. And does anyone know the purpose of that hole in the FreeRunner?
Generals and admirals are a peculiar breed, but USAF generals in particular seem to be afflicted with a sense of entitlement. It mostly appears to affect those officers typically derided as "careerists", whose personalities and actions are focused on their own advancement above all else, and once they reach general rank, they grab with both hands at the privileges denied more junior officers. That's when some of them begin to display genuinely eccentric behavior, as well as cultivating the attitude that no mere civilian can tell them what to do.
I highly recommend that everyone here read "Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War", Robert Coram's superbly-written and excellent biography of Col. John Boyd, the maverick officer whose theories reshaped the U.S. military's warfighting strategy. Boyd was one of the great original thinkers of the 20th Century. His Energy-Maneuverability Theory of aerial combat is the foundation on which all modern fighter jets were designed, and he has been called the father of the F-15, the F-16, and the F/A-18. He was also the creator of the OODA Loop, a decision-making tool with great utility to any organization, and is largely credited with devising the strategy that liberated Kuwait during the first Gulf War.
The most interesting parts of the book to me, were those that dealt with Boyd's stints at the Pentagon, and the eye-opening look at the inner workings of the military bureaucracy. The comparisons of a general's staff to the "court of a pasha" are quite humorous, as well as the details of some of the eccentricities and personal foibles of some of the Air Force's (unnamed) senior officers of the time.
- There was the general who decided that he didn't like the fact that all the stop signs at his command seemed "incomplete", so he ordered that the backs of all of them be painted brown;
- For some reason, another couldn't abide facial hair, so none of his subordinates were allowed to grow a mustache (he couldn't legally enforce this requirement, but his authority was never challenged);
- Then there's the one who would wear different uniform headgear throughout the day, and required his staff to follow suit for the sake of uniformity. His staff were never notified beforehand when he was going to change his hat, so they were all forced to bring to work all their headgear so they could change them at a moment's notice.
- This is the one that killed me, and in my opinion this man had mental problems. This general was so determined to control who saw him that whenever he left his office, he'd press a button that flashed a red light in the outer office. This was the signal for the entire staff, including those walking the corridors around his command suite, to vacate the area and find themselves behind closed doors immediately. That way, when the great man emerged, he was met with absolutely empty offices and corridors and no plebes around to sully his presence with their eyes.
I served in the Army, and even the greenest recruit could immediately spot the difference between the careerist officers, and those who put their responsibilities above all else. These were the men, including generals I've met, who bunked with their troops in the woods during wargames, stood in the chow lines and used the communal showers, along with everyone else. The careerists were those who segregated themselves from the enlisted men and more junior officers, and seemed more concerned with enjoying the perks that their positions allowed them. Three guesses which ones the troops would follow to hell. If the mindset and culture pervading the upper echelons of the Air Force is that of the careerist, it should come as no surprise that something as minor as "comfort capsules" was authorized in direct defiance of civilian oversight.
The flesh-eating mutants will warn them.
Sounds like a deal to me. I just need to know if the utility belt has a pouch for my AARP card.
Much more frightening than any of the drug dealers was the cargo operation across the street from our office, which was a front for an arms dealer. He owned a bunch of Boeing 707 cargo jets (and a 727 with a tricked-out interior for his private use), all parked at a beautiful state-of-the-art hangar which had his office on the top floor. By sheer, blind coincidence one of his bodyguards was actually a childhood acquaintance from my hometown, and he used to come by my house occasionally for a beer, and we'd trade stories of the bizarre goings-on on MIA north side. His boss was one of the largest weapons dealers on the planet and actually had long lists of people who wanted him dead, so consequently always traveled in an armored Benz with an entourage of bodyguards. Such was his legitimate fear of assassination that he had in the hangar an elevator into which his chauffeur would drive his car, and which would take the car directly up into his office. He didn't dare take the chance that someone could gain access to his car in the parking lot and install a bomb.
This gentleman was Syrian or Lebanese if I remember correctly, had extensive contacts in the Middle East, and played both sides of the fence with equal facility (one of his jets had to be escorted to safety in the Gulf by Israeli F-4's after being threatened by Iranian fighters). From what I understand, much of his business was in South and Central America, hence his Miami HQ. He was in a vastly more lucrative business than any mere cartel leader could imagine, and dealt legitimately with governments on a scale that would make a coke dealer green with envy. What's more, he did a LOT of work for Uncle Sam when plausible deniability was called for, so he was in absolutely no danger of being shut down by the feds. I later heard that he had been the factotum in the Iran-Contra Scandal, the party who had actually procured and shipped the Stinger missiles to Iran. Just this direct glimpse into the dirty side of global politics made a huge impression on me. Before that, it really had been an abstract concept, things you only read about, but to hear first-hand some of the things that governments are capable of was horrifying and abhorrent. Gangsters are saints compared to some of our elected officials.
I absolutely agree; this film is a masterpiece, and what I find amazing is how Pixar turned the end credits into such a subtle and beautiful coda to the story. The art styles, and the scenes they depict, reflect the progressive rebirth of the newly-recolonized Earth, moving through hieroglyphics to a scene reminiscent of a Van Gogh painting, with Wall-E and EVE gazing up at the large tree, which one realizes is the same plant they struggled to protect, growing from the boot deep in the soil. I can't say enough about this wonderful film, and I continue to be stunned that Pixar keep outdoing themselves with each release.
...so read this long, rambling post only if you have an interest in aircraft and aviation. You have been warned.
Your comment reminded me of an incident that occurred at Miami International when I worked there in 1980-82. Some background: I worked on the north side of the airport for an FBO (handler of private and corporate aircraft) and I didn't know it at the time, but MIA had quite a reputation among aviation buffs for the large number of classic aircraft parked all over the north side, including any number of DC-3's, and incredibly, a Lockheed Constellation parked at "Corrosion Corner", the northwest corner near the fire station. When a private collector (rumored to be John Travolta) bought it and flew it out, there were hundreds of people lined up with cameras to see the stately old beauty take to the air after years sitting on the ramp. Disappointingly, I only knew it was leaving when I saw it climbing gracefully away, and so didn't get a picture of this magnificent aircraft; I never imagined that I'd ever see one flying.
The north side, the entire length of which bordered NW 36th Street, was home to dozens of -quite literally- fly-by-night operations; charter companies ranging in size from small operations with one or two light twins, up through outfits with old DC-3's still in perfect operating condition, to larger cargo operations with jets, mostly DC-8's. The smaller, one and two plane outfits operated mostly between South Florida and the Bahamas, almost exclusively at night. More on that in a bit.
Next door to where I worked, one of these charter companies had a single, beautifully-maintained DC-3, and one morning while I was inspecting the ramp, I glanced at the bird and noticed that there were enormous holes in the belly of the aircraft. Turns out that the night before, they had been flying a cargo of old car batteries when they encountered severe turbulence, and the batteries started leaking all over the cabin. They didn't notice the damage until they had actually landed and parked the aircraft, at which time they saw the ground through the huge, corroded holes, and found that the control lines had been almost completely eaten through. If they had kept flying for another ten minutes or so, they would have crashed.
At the time I worked there, the "Cocaine Cowboys" (the Medellin and Cali cartels) were just coming up to speed. "Miami Vice" had just come on the air, but some of the stuff I saw at the airport would have been laughed off as unbelievable if it had been in the script of the TV series. Miami in general, and Miami International in particular, was swimming in cocaine. MIA is the major gateway for Latin American carriers into the U.S., and in those days before the widespread crack epidemic, a day didn't go by without some major drama, and there was a wild, almost frontier feel to the north side, with all the goings-on at these little (and big) operations. The difference between charter and cargo ops, and the much more genteel terminal, with the bars and bookstores and the palm trees in the parking lots, was as stark as night and day, and most commercial passengers had absolutely zero clue that such a seedy underbelly existed.
- Ever seen 6,000 pounds of cocaine in one place? [raises hand] Air Panama DC-8, gift-wrapped in streamers of yellow crime scene tape, parked next door to our office. The three tons of coke were stuffed into freezers in the cargo hold. Feds crawled all over everybody for weeks. I used to work the midnight shift, and so got quite familiar with many of the charter pilots who were in and out in the wee hours of the morning, on their "cargo" flights to the Bahamas. Imagine my shock when one of them handed me a kilo of cocaine one night, just because I was always polite and courteous to him (hell, I was polite and courteous to everybody; some scary folks frequented north side). He was
...loss of confidence in their ability to deliver. Microsoft are indeed doing well financially, and Vista could be selling like hotcakes for all I know or care, but investor confidence has been shaken by the negative press the OS has received. In light of the development costs, dropped features, and years-long delay, Microsoft needed to hit a grand slam home run with Vista, and failed to do so. It's academic whether Vista is as bad as many make it out to be; it was not as good as was hoped/hyped. Microsoft and their marketing are to blame for the company's woes here: they over-promised and under-delivered, and that's the major reason people are calling for Ballmer's head. The juggernaut that crushed all before it has been revealed as a stumbling, bumbling, fumbling clown, pissing away billions on a supposedly world-changing product, only to have it met with a resounding *meh*.
Remember that a company's stock price is not driven by institutional investors, but by day-traders and speculators, and they're not concerned by little things like logic or common sense. Day-traders are like spooked cattle; once they get wind of trouble, real or perceived, they'll stampede for the exits. Loss of confidence in a company, regardless of revenues, is murder on the stock price.