I thought that in preparation for an attack, the hijackers take the flight they intend to use several times, in order to observe the crew and map out the operation. It's tough to distinguish that kind of flight activity from a business consultant who makes the same sort of regular trips.
Damn straight it's ineffective. The 9/11 terrorists were already in the country legally. What the hell good would this do? They were already flying planes. Would knowing their dates of birth and their addresses have helped? Nope.
I may be off base here, but weren't a few of them wanted for various warrents? Such a system could conceivably allow authorities to make an arrest before they get on the plane. It would seem at least that checking passenger ID's against police and FBI wanted lists would make sense...
Exactly - and in much of Central and South America, kidnapping for ransom is a large and growingproblem. I sometimes travel internationally on business, and there's no way I'd head down there these days. Fortunately for me, I usually head to Scandanavia. I'll let the Swedish Bikini Team take me hostage anytime...
I would have to disagree with the world's richest man and say that compact disk media is here to stay for a while because there is just no substitute for a media that cost cents.
In 10 years, a lot can change. New forms of storage that today might not be cost-effective may become so, and the data requirements of consumers may well bypass the capabilities of CD/DVD's. Don't you remember when 1.44 Mb seemed like a massive amount of storage?
Presumably, this is more of a test run to work through operational issues (providing Linux support, drivers, etc.). Look for a more serious effort in a year or so. And don't forget Sun, aren't they pushing a Linux desktop now, too?
I understand what you're saying in terms of societal standards, but by the same token, the level of violence and gore that is tolerated, by comparison, is worrysome. Shows like CSI seem dedicated to topping themselves week by week with gruesome and violent murders reviewed in painstaking detail...
When has such language ever been allowed on broadcast TV? I think Dreyfuss is just grandstanding more than anything else, trying to prop up what is sure to be a flop by making it a "cause."
More to the point, it's all about nipples, not breasts. My wife was watching a show called "Dr. 90210" about plastic surgeons, and this one lady was trying to get a boob job corrected (the first guy she went to fouled it up). They showed picture after picture (topless, full view) of her boobs as they talked about the procedure, but where the nipple should have been, they fuzzed it out.
Maybe in your experience that's the case, but by and large, the middle 10 digits contain the main information that a retailer would use. Digits 2-6 denote the manufacturer of the item, and 7-11 are the item's ID. Throughout the supply chain on the way to a retail store, unique logic can often be applied based on the manufacturer ID. They might read digits 2-6, for example, and that would determine a specific label that needs to be generated, which would use digits 7-11 to pull the item info. Now they'd need to adjust that logic to account for the extra digit.
Like someone else mentioned, it's not a difficult problem to solve, but the testing will just take a good deal of effort.
Which, for us IS folks, hopefully means... Profit!
Seriously, it is a lot like Y2K, particularly in the fact that this has been expected for a looooooong time, but everybody had to wait for the standards bodies to wave their magic wands before anybody would move.
I doubt that hardware is going to be the problem, but rather the software that accepts the data. There may be a few applications where the logic is burnt in, but by and large, the barcode reader is just another input device, and it's the software that needs to change.
An excellent point. I was part of a vendor selection process for a WMS (Warehouse Management System) a couple years ago, and the largest vendor we met with obviously just expected the business - they did very little preparation for our scripted demo, and showed us all the myriad ways their software could work, instead of demonstrating how we wanted it to work.
By comparison, a smaller player (at the time) did a great job. Their demo showed us how our desired processes would flow, with our data used in the presentations. Any questions we had were researched and demonstrated thoroughly before we left. They, of course, got the bid and did a great job all the way through implementation.
There will always be a market for the small- to medium-sized player in business software, but there's no question that a good number of companies are going to continue to get bought up over the next year or so.
Slashdot Mirror
That's why I said "police and FBI". Just in general, it would seem to make sense to check passenger ID's against those lists.
I thought that in preparation for an attack, the hijackers take the flight they intend to use several times, in order to observe the crew and map out the operation. It's tough to distinguish that kind of flight activity from a business consultant who makes the same sort of regular trips.
Damn straight it's ineffective. The 9/11 terrorists were already in the country legally. What the hell good would this do? They were already flying planes. Would knowing their dates of birth and their addresses have helped? Nope.
I may be off base here, but weren't a few of them wanted for various warrents? Such a system could conceivably allow authorities to make an arrest before they get on the plane. It would seem at least that checking passenger ID's against police and FBI wanted lists would make sense...
Don't worry - I think they're just preparing Duke Nukem Forever to run on Longhorn.
Exactly - and in much of Central and South America, kidnapping for ransom is a large and growing problem. I sometimes travel internationally on business, and there's no way I'd head down there these days. Fortunately for me, I usually head to Scandanavia. I'll let the Swedish Bikini Team take me hostage anytime...
I would have to disagree with the world's richest man and say that compact disk media is here to stay for a while because there is just no substitute for a media that cost cents.
In 10 years, a lot can change. New forms of storage that today might not be cost-effective may become so, and the data requirements of consumers may well bypass the capabilities of CD/DVD's. Don't you remember when 1.44 Mb seemed like a massive amount of storage?
Oh poo, you ruined all the fun...
Love your sig, but some of us have devolved even further, into RPG territory. I feel so unclean...
Presumably, this is more of a test run to work through operational issues (providing Linux support, drivers, etc.). Look for a more serious effort in a year or so. And don't forget Sun, aren't they pushing a Linux desktop now, too?
You really should use https, just to be sure...
Non-techies that use Mozilla assume it's 'safe' because a geek once told them that this is the case.
For such users, they need to be taught that there is no such thing as truly "safe" browsing. The only "safe" choice is abstinence.
*then watch as they slip a condom over their mouse and hope for the best*
I understand what you're saying in terms of societal standards, but by the same token, the level of violence and gore that is tolerated, by comparison, is worrysome. Shows like CSI seem dedicated to topping themselves week by week with gruesome and violent murders reviewed in painstaking detail...
the rules have gotten so harsh now
When has such language ever been allowed on broadcast TV? I think Dreyfuss is just grandstanding more than anything else, trying to prop up what is sure to be a flop by making it a "cause."
More to the point, it's all about nipples, not breasts. My wife was watching a show called "Dr. 90210" about plastic surgeons, and this one lady was trying to get a boob job corrected (the first guy she went to fouled it up). They showed picture after picture (topless, full view) of her boobs as they talked about the procedure, but where the nipple should have been, they fuzzed it out.
Beyond stupid...
Um, someone is forgetting about the single largest shipper of UNIX* systems in the world: Apple, which eclipses all other vendors.
Huh? Surely you must be talking about strictly the desktop. Don't forget them servers...
Maybe in your experience that's the case, but by and large, the middle 10 digits contain the main information that a retailer would use. Digits 2-6 denote the manufacturer of the item, and 7-11 are the item's ID. Throughout the supply chain on the way to a retail store, unique logic can often be applied based on the manufacturer ID. They might read digits 2-6, for example, and that would determine a specific label that needs to be generated, which would use digits 7-11 to pull the item info. Now they'd need to adjust that logic to account for the extra digit.
Like someone else mentioned, it's not a difficult problem to solve, but the testing will just take a good deal of effort.
Which, for us IS folks, hopefully means ... Profit!
Seriously, it is a lot like Y2K, particularly in the fact that this has been expected for a looooooong time, but everybody had to wait for the standards bodies to wave their magic wands before anybody would move.
I doubt that hardware is going to be the problem, but rather the software that accepts the data. There may be a few applications where the logic is burnt in, but by and large, the barcode reader is just another input device, and it's the software that needs to change.
An excellent point. I was part of a vendor selection process for a WMS (Warehouse Management System) a couple years ago, and the largest vendor we met with obviously just expected the business - they did very little preparation for our scripted demo, and showed us all the myriad ways their software could work, instead of demonstrating how we wanted it to work.
By comparison, a smaller player (at the time) did a great job. Their demo showed us how our desired processes would flow, with our data used in the presentations. Any questions we had were researched and demonstrated thoroughly before we left. They, of course, got the bid and did a great job all the way through implementation.
There will always be a market for the small- to medium-sized player in business software, but there's no question that a good number of companies are going to continue to get bought up over the next year or so.
Maybe the Romulans wore big helmets so the Feds couldn't see their faces...
Are 6 steps enough? Some would say Jobs is ready for 12 steps...
But isn't there an extra lag involved with WiFi? Throughput is one thing, lag another...
Well how else are supposed to make the Fantastic Four, then?
Popcorn will just get burnt. Get the hot dogs on sticks for real flame-war snacking!