by davidu (18) writes: on Saturday May 29, @11:32AM (#32389146)
I'm the founder of OpenDNS (and long-time slashdot reader).
Oh yeah, how long-time? I've been reading/. for 928499 seconds where as you've apparently just clicked here 18 seconds ago. What a newbie! They should have somekind of filter for first time posters...
No there aren't! There is no such thing as 'meeting MIL-STD-810 standard'!
MIL-STD-810, "Department of Defense Test Method Standard for Environmental Engineering Considerations and Laboratory Tests" suggests how certain environmental conditions, such as vehicle vibration and ballistic shock, could be simulated in the laboratory. For some of these test methods it also suggests parameters and limits for different applications. A large part of the standard is devoted to explaining how the tests should be chosen and tailored for the particular application in order to produce relevant data for the engineering process. There is no certifying authority to give you a badge of approval if you pass some test, as there are no standard test facilities for these tests either!
Compare this to for example the IP Code which has specific descriptions and limits on what a device has to withstand in order to be specified in the IP class. Further more there are independent test companies with the standardized test facilities to give you a certificate that the device can indeed withstand environmental conditions equivalent to a specific IP class.
Further more no actual product could 'comply' with all the test methods in the 810 standard. With anything with more functionality than a metal brick one would have to limit the test methods and parameters for it to survive them. Consequently a manufacturer would have to specify which methods and what parameters and test configurations were used in order for anyone to deduce if the product might survive some environmental condition.
The truth is, most products that have MIL-STD-810 slapped on them have never been tested - merely 'designed to meet' some arbitrary interpretation of the standard... The funny thing is, Panasonic Toughbooks have indeed been tested extensively - there are cool videos of the tests on their website - but those tests are IP Class tests which they have to perform.
This is why I prefer to build my new server rooms with individually cooled racks - each rack having its own AC-circulation - as well as using centralized water cooling for its efficiency and reliability. Circulating all your cooling air around the server room is simply a bad idea. When you have 1 kilometer of rack space on a single building floor, one source of contaminant, be it chemical or metal particles, will get into all the enclosures in the hall and cost you everything. And BTW UPS maintenance is something that modern IT management, especially outsourced services, have forgotten. Any veteran admin knows you need to estimate the end-of-life for their electronics AND replace them BEFORE they fail - just like AC-filters - If allow those to fail, they will have already done some damage! There's no "RAID" for burning electronics or blocked cooling air!
Japanesepod101.com and other language learning websites run by Innovative Language Learning also practice similarly deceptive marketing.
They offer a 'free trial', access for a month to their language learning website and then persuade you to give them your credit card details so that they can send you a 'free gift' (you only pay for the postage). However if you do this, you have just signed up to their subscription which will begin automatically charging your credit card and renewing your subscription every month ones the free trial is over. To opt-out you need to follow the websites instructions which tell you where to stop the renewal. However this only works after you have singed up again to one of their paid accounts, giving you access to the actual menu under which the opt-out is... or you can just send their sales department an email and get the automatic subcription terminated.
I've been reading them to years... never noticed that. I mean in order to display that alt text I would have had to stay absolutely still for one second! Impossible!
You see I never let go of my mouse - and as its a one of those precision ones it'll pick up the pulse from my hand and remain in constant motion. And the cursor! I don't bring the cursor around where I'm looking at the page; I keep it where it belongs, at the tab bar there, and only move it away to click on things...
So I would have to be some sort of zombie with no pulse and a fearful member of the flat-screen society to having any chances of ever coming close to revealing the comments on those alt tags. And what are the chances for that, Randall !
-
Sin-celery, Yellow-fruit-ordering-of-parts.
PS: Now I have to go read all of them again! (head esplodes!)
With the investigation ongoing, the available information points to an electronic control problem as the most likely cause of the sudden engine power loss."
What I've read is that the pilots observed a relatively gradual loss of power symmetrically on both engines. This tells me that I can rule out engine problems with FADEC and fuel. It all points to the auto-throttle. Autopilot tells where it wants the plane to go and autothrottle calculates how much throttle is needed. It then commands both engines FADECs via the bus system which is doubly redundant. What I'm thinking is that auto-throttle is supposed to be backed up, bypassed by a manual direct control to the engine FADECs from the cockpit throttle control?
Any B777 avionics mechanics around - I only know military jets...
Thanks! Finally a voice of sanity in the wilderness.
You're exactly right that it sure sounds like a loose connection somewhere. I've had problems like this before and they've mostly turned out to be bad or loose cables. But this time its a persistant one - and very annoying cause it only occurs very occationally - but always and only after an OPC? call which is strange cause a lot of other commands like that would get screwed if it was intermittantly breaking some signal lines. It was hard enough trying to get NI SPY record the instance where the error occurs a couple of times.
The application is on one of Fluke's METCAL routines for their calibrator and there's quite a few standards on the same bus being switched around a long the way. Going back and forth the program doesn't reveal any one place where the error originates - one time it might execute OPC? just fine - and when I jump back a bit and do it again I might get the error again.
The single controller is in charge - again a lot of other things wouldn't work if it was plain address conflict which usually gives the EADR.
Today I ordered NI's GPIB+ analyser card to get to the bottom of this. There's a gazillion GPIB boxes at our lab and I've been meaning to get that long time now. Sadly NI stopped making the PCMCIA version and the drivers and programs for the used ones around are for windows 98. Yuk!
The error appeared after we had updated the main computer running METCAL at our standards faraday cage from old w2k box to a new xp machine. The cards are the old ones but the drivers for them went from 2.2 to 2.5 - so actually installing the latest software/firmware might be the cause of the problem.
Thanks for the encouragement - and the knowledge that there are of still GPIB-people around these days. The youngsters have never heard of the thing and are useless at it...
Techsupport has gone down the hill recently. All you get today is a call center in bombay with scripted answers - or worse, a free for all support 'forum' filled with millions of garbage queries.
The usual formula that they expect from you doesn't suite me since by the time I contact tech support on something I've done at least two days of troubleshooting and I'm not interested in rebooting my machine - again.
Incidentally if anyone has an idea of how to further troubleshoot a GPIB-bus problem where a *OPC? query occationally results in an immediate EADR error I'd be more than happy to hear any ideas...
Not true. Macs only stand out in Amazon statistics cause Apple has only two models of laptops, the Macbook and Pro, where as there are dozens of PC manufacturers with sometimes hundreds of different models, all listed separately on Amazon. So sales figures for Apple's ones inevitably end up looking better than for any single PC laptop.
Norway's oil production peaked in 2001 at 3.4 million b/d. When they get these robots down there in 2015 there isn't not much left. On the bright side, oil will be at least a 1000 dollars a barrel.
I'm also a ham radio operator involved in emergency comms.
Here in Europe the adoption of cell phones has by now caused POTS to be being reduced in some areas. People are cancelling their POTS subscriptions because every family member has a cell phone.
People don't realize how vulnerable the cell phone network is. Towers here have very small UPS's, usually enough for a few minute outages, and the connectors for external generators are there just for the image. Nobody seriesly thinks that we could hook up generators to the towers and keep refueling them when a disaster takes out a large area.
The problem is series around cities where there's a lot of people with cell phones. Those towers will be completely jammed immediately since there is very little extra capacity. The whole cell network is designed expecting only a fraction of users to use it at any given time. When there is a large gathering of people like a sports event, cell companies routinely upgrade their towers to cope or even bring in extra mobile towers.
The few emergencies we've has around here, the cell network has always jammed. And to make matters worse, emergency personnel have gotten used to using their cell phones for co-ordination. The fire department has stubornly kept their old VHF-radios since they learned of the situation the hard way. And VHF actually works more reliably inside buildings then any of the digital modulations schemes developed so far.
This piece of propaganda that you are spouting is indeed 'Interesting' and 'Insightful' in how clever it is.
You are right that TC only provides a signature which cannot be forged. But if you the user cannot forge the signature of the result of the cpu cycles that the computer runs - then anyone can write up software that does X and Y and Z only, ONLY, when you provide signed data to them - and wont work if you don't...
And thats the point! That is exactly what everyone will immediately do - the banks, the commercial websites, government websites, software provides, music and movie industry - they will start making products and services that ONLY work if they are certain that they work the way they want them to - ie. crippled in a way to provide maximum profit, force you to provide details of yourself and what you are doing etc. Basically what ever they want - you might technically have a choise of 'controlling' your computer - but in practice you won't.
Trusted Computing might 'only' do one innocent thing - but it ENABLES the corporations/government/contentproviders to eventually and effectively take over your computer.
So by definition - and indeed it is probably mathematically provable even - that if the user cannot effectively 'forge' data coming out of his CPU, then all forms of Trusted Computing, however 'Open' they are - are unTrustworthy - and people who promote the idea, are Treasonable!
The tablet screen that gets 200dpi and is readable in direct sunlight
Aargh! Where does this craze for higher and higher pixel density come from! Whats the point of more pixels on the screen if the screen is still the same physical size.
And the problems 200ppi causes. It fucks up your eyes trying to see and read graphical text and fixed elements which most of the internet still uses. Already I have to frequently use the 'increase font size' on my browser to get the text to a reable size - and my display is SXGA/19"= 86ppi ! And the problem is getting worse as the ignorance of webdevelopers increases. We started the internet at 72ppi and now we are maybe a 100ppi on average...
A 200dpi display given to billions of children around the world surfing the web with it! I'd look for an increase in spectacle sales!
independent discovery of the atom bomb, first orbital probe, first pictures of the far side of the moon, etc. Although the Soviet Union had many important scientific discoveries, the independent discovery of the atom bomb wasn't among them. The soviets made their first atom bomb by stealing US designs through espionage. The earliest soviet bombs closely resembled early US bombs.
And the US imported german scientists, many with nazi backgrounds, to do the work on the bomb and other things like rocketry etc.
It is easy to mock the adversary's nest when your own is soiled rotten..
Christian dogmas have slowed down science throughtout history beginning from Heliocentrism and Galileo to Darwin. During modern days christian religion plagues issues like contraception and family planning to help the population problem. Its ideas oppose concepts like environmental destruction and climate change for man should be the master on earth. From this we can draw a rough timeline of opposition to first the astronomical and geological facts of science, then biological and now today the facts of ecology and sustainability. This series of scientific discoveries has diminished man to an oridinary creature bound by laws of physics, not laws of god. It is christian dogma, which is keeping humanity from moving on from industrial civilization to a sustainable scientific way of life.
Indeed as Revelations sais: "..Those who love the world are strangers to the eyes of my father.."
Who cares about blurring license plates when most of the world is still blurred by poor or no coverage other than the basic landsat boilerplate. People in these places would benefit the most by the basic GIS tool that Google Earth/Map is at its best, whereas big cities in the west being covered at these high resolutions is a luxury we dont really need. One would think obtaining basic sat pics of third world countries and remote regions would be a lot cheaper then covering license plates of metropolitan areas. I myself am frustrated with the poor coverage of the islands in the Western Pasific region where we have projects - there exists very few maps, no aerial photos - and Google isnt helping...
And how many IE users have consciously chosen to be IE users? I wouldn't brag about a market share which is based on people's ignorance, laziness and waning market monopolies. Firefox has a superior product and every one of those 25% are users for life. IE on the other hand can only wish to slow down the eventual avalanche of switchers.
Isn't the market already full of these 'pre-install'-infested computers with crippled votim-ware by an abusive monopoly. I mean, now that even Dell offers linux as an alternative OS with their machines, who could possibly find any positive aspects in a pre-installed Microsoft Works, free or otherwise, not even considering the fact that this 'free' version is full of ads?
And why should I allow software whose functionality has nothing to do with the internet to access it for ads, registrations, autoupates, feedback, whatever?
Darn submit button! noticed that myself afterwards. I'm aware that on the older Macbooks (pre 2007) it works fine. But Apple has changed the chipset recently to Atheros and all kinds of problems have crept up, airport dropping connection and so on. It's understandable that KisMAC doesn't support it because its completely different chipset and they haven't updated KisMAC's hardware support after 2006.
Slashdot Mirror
by davidu (18) writes: on Saturday May 29, @11:32AM (#32389146)
I'm the founder of OpenDNS (and long-time slashdot reader).
Oh yeah, how long-time? I've been reading /. for 928499 seconds where as you've apparently just clicked here 18 seconds ago. What a newbie! They should have somekind of filter for first time posters...
) = hides under hat
There are models that meet MIL-STD-810.
No there aren't! There is no such thing as 'meeting MIL-STD-810 standard'!
MIL-STD-810, "Department of Defense Test Method Standard for Environmental Engineering Considerations and Laboratory Tests" suggests how certain environmental conditions, such as vehicle vibration and ballistic shock, could be simulated in the laboratory. For some of these test methods it also suggests parameters and limits for different applications. A large part of the standard is devoted to explaining how the tests should be chosen and tailored for the particular application in order to produce relevant data for the engineering process. There is no certifying authority to give you a badge of approval if you pass some test, as there are no standard test facilities for these tests either!
Compare this to for example the IP Code which has specific descriptions and limits on what a device has to withstand in order to be specified in the IP class. Further more there are independent test companies with the standardized test facilities to give you a certificate that the device can indeed withstand environmental conditions equivalent to a specific IP class.
Further more no actual product could 'comply' with all the test methods in the 810 standard. With anything with more functionality than a metal brick one would have to limit the test methods and parameters for it to survive them. Consequently a manufacturer would have to specify which methods and what parameters and test configurations were used in order for anyone to deduce if the product might survive some environmental condition.
The truth is, most products that have MIL-STD-810 slapped on them have never been tested - merely 'designed to meet' some arbitrary interpretation of the standard ... The funny thing is, Panasonic Toughbooks have indeed been tested extensively - there are cool videos of the tests on their website - but those tests are IP Class tests which they have to perform.
This is why I prefer to build my new server rooms with individually cooled racks - each rack having its own AC-circulation - as well as using centralized water cooling for its efficiency and reliability. Circulating all your cooling air around the server room is simply a bad idea. When you have 1 kilometer of rack space on a single building floor, one source of contaminant, be it chemical or metal particles, will get into all the enclosures in the hall and cost you everything. And BTW UPS maintenance is something that modern IT management, especially outsourced services, have forgotten. Any veteran admin knows you need to estimate the end-of-life for their electronics AND replace them BEFORE they fail - just like AC-filters - If allow those to fail, they will have already done some damage! There's no "RAID" for burning electronics or blocked cooling air!
Japanesepod101.com and other language learning websites run by Innovative Language Learning also practice similarly deceptive marketing.
They offer a 'free trial', access for a month to their language learning website and then persuade you to give them your credit card details so that they can send you a 'free gift' (you only pay for the postage). However if you do this, you have just signed up to their subscription which will begin automatically charging your credit card and renewing your subscription every month ones the free trial is over. To opt-out you need to follow the websites instructions which tell you where to stop the renewal. However this only works after you have singed up again to one of their paid accounts, giving you access to the actual menu under which the opt-out is ... or you can just send their sales department an email and get the automatic subcription terminated.
So if I look at the pictures in the book long enough will the alt text pop up?
There's an image alt text on the comics?!?
I've been reading them to years... never noticed that. I mean in order to display that alt text I would have had to stay absolutely still for one second! Impossible!
You see I never let go of my mouse - and as its a one of those precision ones it'll pick up the pulse from my hand and remain in constant motion. And the cursor! I don't bring the cursor around where I'm looking at the page; I keep it where it belongs, at the tab bar there, and only move it away to click on things...
So I would have to be some sort of zombie with no pulse and a fearful member of the flat-screen society to having any chances of ever coming close to revealing the comments on those alt tags. And what are the chances for that, Randall !
-
Sin-celery, Yellow-fruit-ordering-of-parts.
PS: Now I have to go read all of them again! (head esplodes!)
1. Find out there's a new emerging standard
2. Get involved using overwhelming marketshare
3. Introduce proprietary fucked-up implementation
4. Profit
same old story...
What I've read is that the pilots observed a relatively gradual loss of power symmetrically on both engines. This tells me that I can rule out engine problems with FADEC and fuel. It all points to the auto-throttle. Autopilot tells where it wants the plane to go and autothrottle calculates how much throttle is needed. It then commands both engines FADECs via the bus system which is doubly redundant. What I'm thinking is that auto-throttle is supposed to be backed up, bypassed by a manual direct control to the engine FADECs from the cockpit throttle control?
Any B777 avionics mechanics around - I only know military jets...
Thanks! Finally a voice of sanity in the wilderness.
You're exactly right that it sure sounds like a loose connection somewhere. I've had problems like this before and they've mostly turned out to be bad or loose cables. But this time its a persistant one - and very annoying cause it only occurs very occationally - but always and only after an OPC? call which is strange cause a lot of other commands like that would get screwed if it was intermittantly breaking some signal lines. It was hard enough trying to get NI SPY record the instance where the error occurs a couple of times.
The application is on one of Fluke's METCAL routines for their calibrator and there's quite a few standards on the same bus being switched around a long the way. Going back and forth the program doesn't reveal any one place where the error originates - one time it might execute OPC? just fine - and when I jump back a bit and do it again I might get the error again.
The single controller is in charge - again a lot of other things wouldn't work if it was plain address conflict which usually gives the EADR.
Today I ordered NI's GPIB+ analyser card to get to the bottom of this. There's a gazillion GPIB boxes at our lab and I've been meaning to get that long time now. Sadly NI stopped making the PCMCIA version and the drivers and programs for the used ones around are for windows 98. Yuk!
The error appeared after we had updated the main computer running METCAL at our standards faraday cage from old w2k box to a new xp machine. The cards are the old ones but the drivers for them went from 2.2 to 2.5 - so actually installing the latest software/firmware might be the cause of the problem.
Thanks for the encouragement - and the knowledge that there are of still GPIB-people around these days. The youngsters have never heard of the thing and are useless at it...
Techsupport has gone down the hill recently. All you get today is a call center in bombay with scripted answers - or worse, a free for all support 'forum' filled with millions of garbage queries.
The usual formula that they expect from you doesn't suite me since by the time I contact tech support on something I've done at least two days of troubleshooting and I'm not interested in rebooting my machine - again.
Incidentally if anyone has an idea of how to further troubleshoot a GPIB-bus problem where a *OPC? query occationally results in an immediate EADR error I'd be more than happy to hear any ideas...
Fluke and NI have no ideas.
Not true. Macs only stand out in Amazon statistics cause Apple has only two models of laptops, the Macbook and Pro, where as there are dozens of PC manufacturers with sometimes hundreds of different models, all listed separately on Amazon. So sales figures for Apple's ones inevitably end up looking better than for any single PC laptop.
... and I'm writing this on a Macbook, so there!
Norway's oil production peaked in 2001 at 3.4 million b/d. When they get these robots down there in 2015 there isn't not much left. On the bright side, oil will be at least a 1000 dollars a barrel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil
I'm also a ham radio operator involved in emergency comms.
Here in Europe the adoption of cell phones has by now caused POTS to be being reduced in some areas. People are cancelling their POTS subscriptions because every family member has a cell phone.
People don't realize how vulnerable the cell phone network is. Towers here have very small UPS's, usually enough for a few minute outages, and the connectors for external generators are there just for the image. Nobody seriesly thinks that we could hook up generators to the towers and keep refueling them when a disaster takes out a large area.
The problem is series around cities where there's a lot of people with cell phones. Those towers will be completely jammed immediately since there is very little extra capacity. The whole cell network is designed expecting only a fraction of users to use it at any given time. When there is a large gathering of people like a sports event, cell companies routinely upgrade their towers to cope or even bring in extra mobile towers.
The few emergencies we've has around here, the cell network has always jammed. And to make matters worse, emergency personnel have gotten used to using their cell phones for co-ordination. The fire department has stubornly kept their old VHF-radios since they learned of the situation the hard way. And VHF actually works more reliably inside buildings then any of the digital modulations schemes developed so far.
This piece of propaganda that you are spouting is indeed 'Interesting' and 'Insightful' in how clever it is.
You are right that TC only provides a signature which cannot be forged. But if you the user cannot forge the signature of the result of the cpu cycles that the computer runs - then anyone can write up software that does X and Y and Z only, ONLY, when you provide signed data to them - and wont work if you don't ...
And thats the point! That is exactly what everyone will immediately do - the banks, the commercial websites, government websites, software provides, music and movie industry - they will start making products and services that ONLY work if they are certain that they work the way they want them to - ie. crippled in a way to provide maximum profit, force you to provide details of yourself and what you are doing etc. Basically what ever they want - you might technically have a choise of 'controlling' your computer - but in practice you won't.
Trusted Computing might 'only' do one innocent thing - but it ENABLES the corporations/government/contentproviders to eventually and effectively take over your computer.
So by definition - and indeed it is probably mathematically provable even - that if the user cannot effectively 'forge' data coming out of his CPU, then all forms of Trusted Computing, however 'Open' they are - are unTrustworthy - and people who promote the idea, are Treasonable!
Aargh! Where does this craze for higher and higher pixel density come from! Whats the point of more pixels on the screen if the screen is still the same physical size.
And the problems 200ppi causes. It fucks up your eyes trying to see and read graphical text and fixed elements which most of the internet still uses. Already I have to frequently use the 'increase font size' on my browser to get the text to a reable size - and my display is SXGA/19"= 86ppi ! And the problem is getting worse as the ignorance of webdevelopers increases. We started the internet at 72ppi and now we are maybe a 100ppi on average...
A 200dpi display given to billions of children around the world surfing the web with it! I'd look for an increase in spectacle sales!
But Wikiality seems to differ in opinion since their article still claims that high-end cables are better than normal ones...
And the US imported german scientists, many with nazi backgrounds, to do the work on the bomb and other things like rocketry etc.
It is easy to mock the adversary's nest when your own is soiled rotten..
Christian dogmas have slowed down science throughtout history beginning from Heliocentrism and Galileo to Darwin. During modern days christian religion plagues issues like contraception and family planning to help the population problem. Its ideas oppose concepts like environmental destruction and climate change for man should be the master on earth. From this we can draw a rough timeline of opposition to first the astronomical and geological facts of science, then biological and now today the facts of ecology and sustainability. This series of scientific discoveries has diminished man to an oridinary creature bound by laws of physics, not laws of god. It is christian dogma, which is keeping humanity from moving on from industrial civilization to a sustainable scientific way of life.
Indeed as Revelations sais: "..Those who love the world are strangers to the eyes of my father.."
The solution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plausable_deniability
Implementation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_crypt Have a nice day..
Who cares about blurring license plates when most of the world is still blurred by poor or no coverage other than the basic landsat boilerplate. People in these places would benefit the most by the basic GIS tool that Google Earth/Map is at its best, whereas big cities in the west being covered at these high resolutions is a luxury we dont really need. One would think obtaining basic sat pics of third world countries and remote regions would be a lot cheaper then covering license plates of metropolitan areas. I myself am frustrated with the poor coverage of the islands in the Western Pasific region where we have projects - there exists very few maps, no aerial photos - and Google isnt helping...
Finally! Now I can pour my collection of Hentai into one and enjoy the interesting story lines and character development...
But I wonder does the english language contain enough exclamations though: Uh!, Ah! ?
And how many IE users have consciously chosen to be IE users? I wouldn't brag about a market share which is based on people's ignorance, laziness and waning market monopolies. Firefox has a superior product and every one of those 25% are users for life. IE on the other hand can only wish to slow down the eventual avalanche of switchers.
Isn't the market already full of these 'pre-install'-infested computers with crippled votim-ware by an abusive monopoly. I mean, now that even Dell offers linux as an alternative OS with their machines, who could possibly find any positive aspects in a pre-installed Microsoft Works, free or otherwise, not even considering the fact that this 'free' version is full of ads?
And why should I allow software whose functionality has nothing to do with the internet to access it for ads, registrations, autoupates, feedback, whatever?
must.. resist.. urge.. to kill..
Darn submit button! noticed that myself afterwards. I'm aware that on the older Macbooks (pre 2007) it works fine. But Apple has changed the chipset recently to Atheros and all kinds of problems have crept up, airport dropping connection and so on. It's understandable that KisMAC doesn't support it because its completely different chipset and they haven't updated KisMAC's hardware support after 2006.
But I have no friends, yet I'm still fat ?