As someone who has run a non-profit benefiting children's charities since 2004, maybe I can offer some insight here: People that do this full time still have to pay mortgages, car payments, feed their own kids, etc. Now my own org doesn't pull in enough money to make appreciable donations and pay a staff, so ALL of us are fully volunteer -- which is why it's nothing more than a part-time side project (that sometimes requires a full-time effort; fortunately I have an understanding employer). However I can't exactly vilify charitable programs that do pay staff full time, because the amount of effort needed to do this work is staggering, and truly not understood until you've been there. It's not like any other job, and I still think the people that dedicate their time/lives to it are a special breed. Granted there are some out there making a lot of money from a foundation or what have you, but I think the majority that take a salary due to it being their *only* job are paid considerably less than what they would be doing a similar level of work at any for-profit company.
Regarding Angel Flight, since you went there... Consider that AF does not pay the costs of the flights!! The pilots do, often at great expense to themselves. It's certainly easy to understand why their fund raising efforts might be a little heavy on the administrative side, and I wouldn't really consider those funds "lost" as you put it. The majority of their work involves coordinating efforts between people that need help and those that can give it, with nobody receiving financial benefit for it. That doesn't make their work any less important, or the people that are helped any less needful of it.
Some charities spend almost everything on their mission. Others spend what they can on it after paying operating costs (which even all-volunteer orgs like mine incur). Others cover salaries of full time staff in addition to whatever else. There are a wide range of ways to run a non-profit, each with benefits, pitfalls, etc, and unless the staff is not adhering to the mission of the org then none of those are necessarily bad. Also consider that a full time staff might very well allow them to raise more money (kinda the point of doing that), such that while the percentage moved to administrative things is now higher, the actual amount available to support their cause is higher. Percentage distribution does not tell the whole story, and if the staff is doing their jobs then their positions should be quite justified. Sometimes to raise the kind of money you need to, it requires having people devote all of their time to it. Just the way it works.
Now I am not trying to attack you, just clear up some common misconceptions that just because a charity has a certain fund distribution or chooses to pay a staff, they have somehow strayed from the definition of what being a charity is all about. You have to look much deeper at what is actually taking place, and at what difference they are making in the world, before you can make that call. AFW is a great example of one that initially might appear to be less charitable than it seems, but when you dig into it you realize that they do some amazing things for a lot of people, and are supported by a lot of organizations for a reason. There are probably thousands of similar examples, and thousands more that go the other way.
-----"The new steganographic system, dubbed retransmission steganography (RSTEG), relies on the sender and receiver using software that deliberately asks for retransmission even when email data packets are received successfully (PDF). 'The sender then retransmits the packet but with some secret data inserted in it.' Could a careful eavesdropper spot that RSTEG is being used because the first sent packet is different from the one containing the secret message? As long as the system is not over-used, apparently not, because if a packet is corrupted, the original packet and the retransmitted one will differ from each other anyway, masking the use of RSTEG."------
Ok so we're re-tran'ing on packets we claim to be corrupt, but that were received successfully. So by monitoring traffic and keeping careful note of which packet the retransmit is requested on, and seeing what the checksum of that packet was, we will know whether an anomalous request is being sent. Basically the checksum of an uncorrupted packet will be correct, so while not a conclusive test, it's a tip off that something is up (either malicious intent, or a network problem downstream between the monitor and the receiving host causing corruption). Some analysis can also be done at this point to compare the frequency of these with run of the mill retransmits and possibly detect odd behavior. Yes it will be mixed in with noise, but I think with some careful observation a pattern could be recognized.
Some other ways off the top of my head to go about this: - Remote host intentionally sends a corrupt packet in response first, which is actually some creatively XOR'd version of what was expected but intended to look like typical upstream nonsense. The retransmit, which is now keyed off an actual corrupt packet, sends what should be there. The receiver can then combine the two into a meaningful secret message, while not actually sending retransmit req's for properly assembled packets. IMO this is only really detectable by abnormally high levels of retrans, or something which knows the trick and proactively tries to reassemble the information. Encrypt it and likely it will never appear as anything more than line garbage. - Since the only thing that must remain constant is the destination (or does it?), why not distribute this. Set it up using a botnet, and since these are very small messages now being spread out across a hundred hosts (or more), the requirements to monitor and detect traffic and then correlate it go up significantly. Will a single slightly "off" packet from a host trigger an alarm? Probably not. Spread out the signal distribution over a bunch of servers to receive the traffic as well and it will probably never be noticed.
From TFA: "Another geoengineering option he mentioned was the use of so-called artificial trees to suck carbon dioxide â" the chief human-caused greenhouse gas â" out of the air and store it. At first that seemed prohibitively expensive, but a re-examination of the approach shows it might be less costly, he said."
Umm, how about this: Let's just stop cutting down the trees we do have, and let forests grow?
It seems like mother nature has a perfectly workable plan for recycling CO2; in fact it even USES CO2, making oxygen we so love and crave! Rather than trying to re-engineer and deploy fake trees that merely store the stuff for who knows how long, why not just let natural processes work for a change? Is this SO hard to do?
It's really quite simple: Any time you buy something, go plug an ethernet cable into the back of your router and do it from the wire. Now you haven't actually used your home Wifi access to enact in trade, and are therefore not responsible to log a damn thing.
Furthermore if my ISP is logging everything I do for two years regardless, I highly doubt what my home system logs is of any consequence unless they just need more ammo to conduct a search - which is an interesting possibility - getting a subpoena to nab your gear based on "access to logs". My guess is the existence of the logs is really not as useful as the reason to enter your home.
It's all a bunch of Orwellian bullshit anyway. I have no intention of logging anything. Maybe I can rent some colo space in some country that isn't a police state (if it exists) and run an encrypted proxy. Log that, bitches!
Really? I've flown 182's in the Colorado mountains several times. It's really quite alright assuming you know what you're doing. Take a mountain flying course and learn what will bite you (namely poor terrain awareness, weather, and wind being the top 3).
When I did my mountain checkout with a CFI, we even had another guy in the plane hitching a ride. The normally-aspirated 182 has a ceiling of 18,000ft which is plenty high, and it did great. I've since started flying a turbo 182 with a sea-level power ceiling of 20K, and that thing is a mountain flying machine.
You can fly through mountains without having to fly over mountains as well. Lots of planes out here need to find lower passes to get through because they can't comfortably go over them. If you know how to do it safely, you'll get through it fine.
Actually, in my diesel truck Ford endorses one additive, and one only - Stanadyne. The additive itself is intended to help cold starts, smooth out the engine, and (you guessed it) clean injectors, among other things. It's interesting to note that they actually recommend this other additive over their own dealer-sold brand.
I use it with my fillups and do notice an improvement in those things, as well as a slight mileage improvement. It isn't "halve your fuel usage" stuff, but with diesel fuel lubricating the engine less these days, it helps.
This is where I'd normally insert the "I can catch lightning in a bottle, but still don't know what the fuck you just said" picture made so popular from Internet message boards.
But since I can't insert the image...
What the hell did you just say? No, seriously. Reading that post was like watching retards try to screw a doorknob. Lay off the meth and try it again.
First off, CF and composites have been used in aircraft construction for decades now, with quite a bit of success. Military, corporate, private, even homebuilt composite aircraft are all flying the skies as I type this, and aren't dropping like flies from shattering wings.
As several people have mentioned already, a properly designed carbon structure will be incredibly strong, and in the example of a wing, flexible to the point of failure (at which point it'll shatter). It's also been mentioned that the wings can likely touch on such a design, at least in theory, because of the strength of the wings themselves. Having seen demonstrations of CF wing strength, I believe it. But that's irrelevant. Let's consider the factors involved that would result in wings touching: - To touch over the plane, there would have to be so much lift being generated that it pushed the wings that far. This is not likely to happen since the aircraft just won't fly that fast and air doesn't exert enough force given the other factors at play. - To touch under the plane would be the negative-G mother dive of all time, again, not gonna happen. - In either scenario the G-forces involved are astronomical, to be interpreted as "fatal before you even got close to it". - In either scenario, the structures which keep the wings attached to the fuselage would fail long before that much force could be applied. In short the wings would come off quite likely very intact, if it were even possible to generate that kind of force on them (which it likely isn't).
I personally would feel very safe in one of these aircraft. I'm not a mechanical engineer, but I am a pilot. I've spent a lot of time learning what the design limits of the planes I fly are and why they are limited to that point, and knowing the amount of engineering that goes into something like a 787, I'm confident that those limits are not an issue. Does that mean it would be impossible to exceed them? No, any aircraft can be broken if twisted the right way. It just means that even a severely turbulent flight isn't going to take one of these down, unless the pilot is incredibly stupid - and you don't get to fly one of these unless you've demonstrated safe flying and general intelligence on the subject.
I didn't see Dan Rather's story, but I think he's an idiot for reporting it, and the people who assembled the story and did the fact checking likely should find a new job. Engineering an aircraft and flying one are both complex subjects that simply cannot be disseminated in the span of a few minutes on prime time TV. There is a reason that the critical stuff on a 787 was likely designed by people with "MS" and "PhD" after their name, and those designed components will be flown by people with "Sr. Captain" after theirs. I'd be more worried about problems at the assembly plant or a bad run of parts getting installed (which has been an issue plaguing manufacturers of every kind of vehicle known to man) than the engineering which said how those parts were to be built or used.
For higher altitudes, the altimeter usually measures the air pressure. This isn't a problem-free method. You have to set the altimeter before each flight (to compensate for the height above sea level of the airport you're at). It's also not very accurate, as the indicated height varies with the barometric pressure. Incorrectly-set altimeters have been known to cause crashes.
First - altimeters measure air pressure at ALL altitudes, that's their function in life. The altitude they display is just a mechanical relationship between the outside static air pressure and an internal reference, calibrated to account for changes in barometric pressure. The only difference is that above 18,000 feet MSL (above sea level), aircraft all set their altimeters to the same reference (29.92inHg) regardless of location, and ATC handles separation by radar.
Second, the altimeter gets set before flight, this is true. It also gets continually checked and reset in flight as you pass weather reporting stations or when ATC reports a pressure reading to you; when I do a local flight even less than an hour I will probably check and reset mine a half dozen times. This is how aircraft keep themselves accurate in terms of relationship to the ground and each other. Regarding accuracy, before a pilot leaves the ground they cross check the reading on their altimeter to the elevation of the runway they are departing from; you can adjust slightly if necessary, however if a large discrepancy exists then the airplane is legally not airworthy, as all instrumentation must show accurately prior to flight.
Lastly - while a wrongly-set altimeter can induce the pilot into CFIT (Controlled Flight Into Terrain), the altimeter is reading wrong because of complacency (either set wrong, or broken and not noticed); complacent attitude is arguably the #1 killer of pilots and their passengers no matter what got them into that situation. GPS is a great tool in the cockpit, but it isn't the panacea some people seem to think it is. It can provide a wealth of information and help facilitate better decision making, but if the interpreter of that information (i.e. the pilot) treats it wrong or doesn't pay attention, no GPS will save them. I have even read many accounts of the enhanced information letting pilots believe they suddenly could fly into worse conditions than before simply because of the glowing screen in front of their face, and many airplanes (and lives) have been ended as a result.
A pilot's attitude and knowledge (through training and experience) are far greater tools than technology. Technology only complements those assets when they exist already, it does not replace them. A good pilot will recognize the difference. I embrace technology in the cockpit, but over-reliance on it (particularly when it's based on a misunderstanding of the systems already in place) is a fatal mistake.
"I mean, if the NSA was worth half a shit in a tin can they'd have been able to stop people like McVeigh, Kaczynski, or the doofuses* that thought it would be a good idea to hijack a few planes."
And what better way to convince the people who sign your checks (i.e. congress) to give you lots of funding than to get most of 'em, but let a few slip by? I'm not advocating wild conspiracy theories, but come on... this really isn't that much of a stretch. It is hard for people without a certain moral flexibility to fully understand however, which is why it never gets traction.
Pretend for a moment that you're willing to sacrifice a few hundred, or a few thousand, to justify hundreds of millions in funding. People that run these groups are willing to do just that.
What's sad is I'm not that old. But it is Sunday morning and I have not had my coffee yet, which explains a lot actually. (I've banned myself from sending email at work until I've had at least one cup.)
Tornado's, earthquakes, hurricanes, flooding... Mother nature probably poses a very large threat to this thing. As opposed to space debris huddling along at 17000+ mph?
True enough. And I know some proposals were for it to be semi-mobile for just such a reason. Is there some reason it couldn't be retractable? I.e. just pull some of it back in if some piece of debris needs to fly over the top of it.
I'm still waiting for a giant slingshot. Don't the same hazards apply to your slingshot?
No, because the slingshot is only used for short periods of time. It doesn't have to be kept in tension 24x7 for no good reason. Besides the slingshot was an (apparently bad) attempt at humor.
What happen to America's spirit? Are we too busy cowering in fear hoping our gov't protects us? Man up, America.
I hope not, because if that's the case we're all screwed. I think America's spirit is alive and well, personally.
Tornado's, earthquakes, hurricanes, flooding... Mother nature probably poses a very large threat to this thing. And it isn't like you can just let it float or move it around as the need arises, it has to be firmly attached to the planet. Granted a flood doesn't threaten it much, but high winds (hurricane, tornado) could damage the strand. An earthquake could damage the foundation that keeps it there in the first place.
And yes, an aircraft could just aim for it - though I'm sure there would be a lot of restricted airspace within miles of this strand, likely under the watch of the military, so you'd need a fast aircraft to make it there before getting blasted out of the sky. If they use this to launch satellites, you can bet access will be tightly controlled.
I'm still waiting for a giant slingshot. Something the size of an aircraft carrier. Muah!
I have a great tin foil hat that has lasted me several years (except when my wife used part of it to cover some food in the fridge), but this trash can thing is going to be the end of me. I keep wrapping my can with the stuff to keep the nondescript men in suits driving the white can from figuring out how much cereal I eat, but the bastard trash man keeps mistaking the foil for refuse and throws it out with everything else! I've gone through 18 cases of it now. GAH!
Hmmm... if I were to DDOS www.this-site-does-not-exist-but-earthlink-resolve s-it-anway.something would I act criminally? I mean, the site does not exist, and Earthlink just poaches its DNS adress...
Yes you would be acting criminally. You'd have to use Earthlink's DNS servers to even get their page to pull up, and then you'd be launching an attack against their server. Just because a domain name doesn't exist doesn't mean there is not a physical piece of hardware you won't be affecting.
Voice communication (and really anything that is important, but something you just need to hear or read once) can be encrypted - make it a really strong key if you like. Decrypt and listen on your end, and then destroy the key such that it could never be retrieved. Then you have nothing to reveal, because it simply does not exist. They can threaten you, or whatever, but leverage goes both ways - their threats are essentially just blackmail to get something out of you. Unless they're being vindictive assholes or you've broken some law by transmitting encrypted data and killing the key, it likely won't go past that point.
As for suspects being required to turn over keys, fuck that. At least for the time being in my country anyway, I'm innocent until proven guilty - and I sure as hell don't have to contribute anything which might fuel their case (not that I am guilty of anything, but I sure wouldn't help them learn any information that could be twisted).
Lawyer: "Your honor, we have this encrypted data that was sent from that guy to XYZ-Group, clearly he's guilty of something." Judge: "Have you decrypted the data, recovered the key, or do you have any idea what is even there?" Lawyer: "Well, no, not really. But,..." Judge: "Sir, what did you send them?" Defendant: "My grocery list. Cabbage, mung bean sprouts, and some corned beef. That sort of thing." Judge: "Evidence not valid, it doesn't prove shit."
Proof is just that - actual proof. Encryption is as strong as the algorithm and key strength used, as well as protection of the key itself. If you pick some insanely strong algorithm and a key that would take hundreds of years to break, option two is really the weak point. Either protect the key so well nobody will ever get it, or destroy the key since it's likely outlived its usefulness at this point anyway. Keep it on a CD and burn it to ash, or whatever you have to do.
No kidding, seems like Verisign tried something along those lines a while ago - redirecting users who typed in bad domain names to corporate-sponsored pages. Kinda defeats the purpose of running the unbiased systems which arguably control the Internet, eh?
I *WANT* users to see a "oops, you fucked up" page when they mistype a URL. That is what tells them they screwed up. What I don't want to happen is for them to go to some domain-park search display with ads and crap that have nothing to do with my site, because then they won't "get it". They will think they typed it right, and my domain name is now defunct. There is serious potential for damage to companies across the Web, far beyond annoying people.
As much as we need users to browse our company sites for whatever it is that we do, the fact is that many users are just dim. I run one site where we accept event registrations online, and we actually get people that can't spell their own name properly. We've had to resort to registering several variants of our domain name, because of people just screwing it up. Do you *really* think they're gonna get it when they are sent to an actual, but incorrect, web page?
I'm not so sure about bacteria not growing in a landfill. If you look around any dump that has part of it bulldozed over, you will see pipes coming out of the ground - these release the insane amount of methane produced by the rotting waste. Rot means biological consumption, ergo bacteria. There's enough methane in even a small landfill coming out on a routine basis to power a good-sized generator, so some sort of microbial lifeform most definitely thrives in that environment.
The power generation via landfill thing is actually kind of cool though. A while back I designed a system for a company that could allow for realtime monitoring and control of this plant, which used a modified CAT Diesel generator which ran 24x7 solely on the methane produced by this dump, I think in the range of 800kW-1MW depending on output and load. They had a big flare that burned off whatever else they couldn't use in the engine at the time. Stuff like that I think will be a big part of our energy future, simply because as we consume more and more, we create massive amounts of waste. Anything that can be done to either recycle that waste or benefit from its natural cycle of degradation will go far.
If an FBI agent (or anyone else with a proximity card for work, like most people have now) loses a card - even one without multifactor authentication - it can be rendered useless with a phone call. The card doesn't actually store any information, it just grants access to information.
A thumb drive on the other hand, grants access to the information it stores, and this is a whole different ballgame. Suppose your particular thumb drive has a 1/1000 False Acceptance Rate, well someone just has to try and authenticate that many times (theoretically) to have it eventually let them in. A drunk hacker watching TV can accomplish that.
I think to effectively use a thumb drive and guarantee that loss of the drive does not mean compromise of the data, you need two-factor authentication. One way I can think to do this is by using encryption of the data itself. The user now has to pass a biometric authentication scheme just to get access to the encrypted bits, and enter a hopefully difficult passphrase to decrypt the data and use it. Through this mechanism you could ensure Confidentiality and Integrity; Availability comes with the user not losing the damn thing in the first place, and having the training to use it effectively. You could even get really fancy to where the biometric auth is done by the bank manager, and the encryption is done by the assistant manager (or even remotely by an IT tech) - this way, you can't even get into the thing if you have taken the drive's owner hostage.
That method *seems* secure... I dunno guys, what am I missing here?
Most carriers (if not all) still can't get the quality issues completely sorted with ground-based VoIP solutions, and they want to run it to an airplane now?
Obviously a big issue is that packetized information follows a different set of rules than the traditional TDM voice communication non-VoIP uses - so the "Internet" is really a bad place to have time-sensitive information travel without a healthy bandwidth margin and robust network design. However even on some carrier networks doing VoIP that involve internal gateway-to-switch paths (no Internet, though it may traverse the same IP backbone) timing and latency issues still come up.
I fail to see how VoIP will make it to an airplane successfully, given that packet loss and delay are likely to play havoc with most of the known solutions to call quality issues.
If he can make one of those cheap generators run on feline poo, I'm buying one! My cat craps more than any living thing I've ever seen. And judging by the near-nuclear potency of whatever comes out of that cat's ass, I'd say I should be able to power my house for quite a while!
Slashdot Mirror
As someone who has run a non-profit benefiting children's charities since 2004, maybe I can offer some insight here: People that do this full time still have to pay mortgages, car payments, feed their own kids, etc. Now my own org doesn't pull in enough money to make appreciable donations and pay a staff, so ALL of us are fully volunteer -- which is why it's nothing more than a part-time side project (that sometimes requires a full-time effort; fortunately I have an understanding employer). However I can't exactly vilify charitable programs that do pay staff full time, because the amount of effort needed to do this work is staggering, and truly not understood until you've been there. It's not like any other job, and I still think the people that dedicate their time/lives to it are a special breed. Granted there are some out there making a lot of money from a foundation or what have you, but I think the majority that take a salary due to it being their *only* job are paid considerably less than what they would be doing a similar level of work at any for-profit company.
Regarding Angel Flight, since you went there... Consider that AF does not pay the costs of the flights!! The pilots do, often at great expense to themselves. It's certainly easy to understand why their fund raising efforts might be a little heavy on the administrative side, and I wouldn't really consider those funds "lost" as you put it. The majority of their work involves coordinating efforts between people that need help and those that can give it, with nobody receiving financial benefit for it. That doesn't make their work any less important, or the people that are helped any less needful of it.
Some charities spend almost everything on their mission. Others spend what they can on it after paying operating costs (which even all-volunteer orgs like mine incur). Others cover salaries of full time staff in addition to whatever else. There are a wide range of ways to run a non-profit, each with benefits, pitfalls, etc, and unless the staff is not adhering to the mission of the org then none of those are necessarily bad. Also consider that a full time staff might very well allow them to raise more money (kinda the point of doing that), such that while the percentage moved to administrative things is now higher, the actual amount available to support their cause is higher. Percentage distribution does not tell the whole story, and if the staff is doing their jobs then their positions should be quite justified. Sometimes to raise the kind of money you need to, it requires having people devote all of their time to it. Just the way it works.
Now I am not trying to attack you, just clear up some common misconceptions that just because a charity has a certain fund distribution or chooses to pay a staff, they have somehow strayed from the definition of what being a charity is all about. You have to look much deeper at what is actually taking place, and at what difference they are making in the world, before you can make that call. AFW is a great example of one that initially might appear to be less charitable than it seems, but when you dig into it you realize that they do some amazing things for a lot of people, and are supported by a lot of organizations for a reason. There are probably thousands of similar examples, and thousands more that go the other way.
-----"The new steganographic system, dubbed retransmission steganography (RSTEG), relies on the sender and receiver using software that deliberately asks for retransmission even when email data packets are received successfully (PDF). 'The sender then retransmits the packet but with some secret data inserted in it.' Could a careful eavesdropper spot that RSTEG is being used because the first sent packet is different from the one containing the secret message? As long as the system is not over-used, apparently not, because if a packet is corrupted, the original packet and the retransmitted one will differ from each other anyway, masking the use of RSTEG."------
Ok so we're re-tran'ing on packets we claim to be corrupt, but that were received successfully. So by monitoring traffic and keeping careful note of which packet the retransmit is requested on, and seeing what the checksum of that packet was, we will know whether an anomalous request is being sent. Basically the checksum of an uncorrupted packet will be correct, so while not a conclusive test, it's a tip off that something is up (either malicious intent, or a network problem downstream between the monitor and the receiving host causing corruption). Some analysis can also be done at this point to compare the frequency of these with run of the mill retransmits and possibly detect odd behavior. Yes it will be mixed in with noise, but I think with some careful observation a pattern could be recognized.
Some other ways off the top of my head to go about this:
- Remote host intentionally sends a corrupt packet in response first, which is actually some creatively XOR'd version of what was expected but intended to look like typical upstream nonsense. The retransmit, which is now keyed off an actual corrupt packet, sends what should be there. The receiver can then combine the two into a meaningful secret message, while not actually sending retransmit req's for properly assembled packets. IMO this is only really detectable by abnormally high levels of retrans, or something which knows the trick and proactively tries to reassemble the information. Encrypt it and likely it will never appear as anything more than line garbage.
- Since the only thing that must remain constant is the destination (or does it?), why not distribute this. Set it up using a botnet, and since these are very small messages now being spread out across a hundred hosts (or more), the requirements to monitor and detect traffic and then correlate it go up significantly. Will a single slightly "off" packet from a host trigger an alarm? Probably not. Spread out the signal distribution over a bunch of servers to receive the traffic as well and it will probably never be noticed.
From TFA:
"Another geoengineering option he mentioned was the use of so-called artificial trees to suck carbon dioxide â" the chief human-caused greenhouse gas â" out of the air and store it. At first that seemed prohibitively expensive, but a re-examination of the approach shows it might be less costly, he said."
Umm, how about this: Let's just stop cutting down the trees we do have, and let forests grow?
It seems like mother nature has a perfectly workable plan for recycling CO2; in fact it even USES CO2, making oxygen we so love and crave! Rather than trying to re-engineer and deploy fake trees that merely store the stuff for who knows how long, why not just let natural processes work for a change? Is this SO hard to do?
It's really quite simple: Any time you buy something, go plug an ethernet cable into the back of your router and do it from the wire. Now you haven't actually used your home Wifi access to enact in trade, and are therefore not responsible to log a damn thing.
Furthermore if my ISP is logging everything I do for two years regardless, I highly doubt what my home system logs is of any consequence unless they just need more ammo to conduct a search - which is an interesting possibility - getting a subpoena to nab your gear based on "access to logs". My guess is the existence of the logs is really not as useful as the reason to enter your home.
It's all a bunch of Orwellian bullshit anyway. I have no intention of logging anything. Maybe I can rent some colo space in some country that isn't a police state (if it exists) and run an encrypted proxy. Log that, bitches!
I am disappointed in all of you. It took almost to the end of this page before Chuck Norris even got a mention!
Really? I've flown 182's in the Colorado mountains several times. It's really quite alright assuming you know what you're doing. Take a mountain flying course and learn what will bite you (namely poor terrain awareness, weather, and wind being the top 3).
When I did my mountain checkout with a CFI, we even had another guy in the plane hitching a ride. The normally-aspirated 182 has a ceiling of 18,000ft which is plenty high, and it did great. I've since started flying a turbo 182 with a sea-level power ceiling of 20K, and that thing is a mountain flying machine.
You can fly through mountains without having to fly over mountains as well. Lots of planes out here need to find lower passes to get through because they can't comfortably go over them. If you know how to do it safely, you'll get through it fine.
Actually, in my diesel truck Ford endorses one additive, and one only - Stanadyne. The additive itself is intended to help cold starts, smooth out the engine, and (you guessed it) clean injectors, among other things. It's interesting to note that they actually recommend this other additive over their own dealer-sold brand.
I use it with my fillups and do notice an improvement in those things, as well as a slight mileage improvement. It isn't "halve your fuel usage" stuff, but with diesel fuel lubricating the engine less these days, it helps.
This is where I'd normally insert the "I can catch lightning in a bottle, but still don't know what the fuck you just said" picture made so popular from Internet message boards.
But since I can't insert the image...
What the hell did you just say? No, seriously. Reading that post was like watching retards try to screw a doorknob. Lay off the meth and try it again.
I love the arguments being thrown around on here.
First off, CF and composites have been used in aircraft construction for decades now, with quite a bit of success. Military, corporate, private, even homebuilt composite aircraft are all flying the skies as I type this, and aren't dropping like flies from shattering wings.
As several people have mentioned already, a properly designed carbon structure will be incredibly strong, and in the example of a wing, flexible to the point of failure (at which point it'll shatter). It's also been mentioned that the wings can likely touch on such a design, at least in theory, because of the strength of the wings themselves. Having seen demonstrations of CF wing strength, I believe it. But that's irrelevant. Let's consider the factors involved that would result in wings touching:
- To touch over the plane, there would have to be so much lift being generated that it pushed the wings that far. This is not likely to happen since the aircraft just won't fly that fast and air doesn't exert enough force given the other factors at play.
- To touch under the plane would be the negative-G mother dive of all time, again, not gonna happen.
- In either scenario the G-forces involved are astronomical, to be interpreted as "fatal before you even got close to it".
- In either scenario, the structures which keep the wings attached to the fuselage would fail long before that much force could be applied. In short the wings would come off quite likely very intact, if it were even possible to generate that kind of force on them (which it likely isn't).
I personally would feel very safe in one of these aircraft. I'm not a mechanical engineer, but I am a pilot. I've spent a lot of time learning what the design limits of the planes I fly are and why they are limited to that point, and knowing the amount of engineering that goes into something like a 787, I'm confident that those limits are not an issue. Does that mean it would be impossible to exceed them? No, any aircraft can be broken if twisted the right way. It just means that even a severely turbulent flight isn't going to take one of these down, unless the pilot is incredibly stupid - and you don't get to fly one of these unless you've demonstrated safe flying and general intelligence on the subject.
I didn't see Dan Rather's story, but I think he's an idiot for reporting it, and the people who assembled the story and did the fact checking likely should find a new job. Engineering an aircraft and flying one are both complex subjects that simply cannot be disseminated in the span of a few minutes on prime time TV. There is a reason that the critical stuff on a 787 was likely designed by people with "MS" and "PhD" after their name, and those designed components will be flown by people with "Sr. Captain" after theirs. I'd be more worried about problems at the assembly plant or a bad run of parts getting installed (which has been an issue plaguing manufacturers of every kind of vehicle known to man) than the engineering which said how those parts were to be built or used.
First - altimeters measure air pressure at ALL altitudes, that's their function in life. The altitude they display is just a mechanical relationship between the outside static air pressure and an internal reference, calibrated to account for changes in barometric pressure. The only difference is that above 18,000 feet MSL (above sea level), aircraft all set their altimeters to the same reference (29.92inHg) regardless of location, and ATC handles separation by radar.
Second, the altimeter gets set before flight, this is true. It also gets continually checked and reset in flight as you pass weather reporting stations or when ATC reports a pressure reading to you; when I do a local flight even less than an hour I will probably check and reset mine a half dozen times. This is how aircraft keep themselves accurate in terms of relationship to the ground and each other. Regarding accuracy, before a pilot leaves the ground they cross check the reading on their altimeter to the elevation of the runway they are departing from; you can adjust slightly if necessary, however if a large discrepancy exists then the airplane is legally not airworthy, as all instrumentation must show accurately prior to flight.
Lastly - while a wrongly-set altimeter can induce the pilot into CFIT (Controlled Flight Into Terrain), the altimeter is reading wrong because of complacency (either set wrong, or broken and not noticed); complacent attitude is arguably the #1 killer of pilots and their passengers no matter what got them into that situation. GPS is a great tool in the cockpit, but it isn't the panacea some people seem to think it is. It can provide a wealth of information and help facilitate better decision making, but if the interpreter of that information (i.e. the pilot) treats it wrong or doesn't pay attention, no GPS will save them. I have even read many accounts of the enhanced information letting pilots believe they suddenly could fly into worse conditions than before simply because of the glowing screen in front of their face, and many airplanes (and lives) have been ended as a result.
A pilot's attitude and knowledge (through training and experience) are far greater tools than technology. Technology only complements those assets when they exist already, it does not replace them. A good pilot will recognize the difference. I embrace technology in the cockpit, but over-reliance on it (particularly when it's based on a misunderstanding of the systems already in place) is a fatal mistake.
"I mean, if the NSA was worth half a shit in a tin can they'd have been able to stop people like McVeigh, Kaczynski, or the doofuses* that thought it would be a good idea to hijack a few planes."
... this really isn't that much of a stretch. It is hard for people without a certain moral flexibility to fully understand however, which is why it never gets traction.
And what better way to convince the people who sign your checks (i.e. congress) to give you lots of funding than to get most of 'em, but let a few slip by? I'm not advocating wild conspiracy theories, but come on
Pretend for a moment that you're willing to sacrifice a few hundred, or a few thousand, to justify hundreds of millions in funding. People that run these groups are willing to do just that.
What's sad is I'm not that old. But it is Sunday morning and I have not had my coffee yet, which explains a lot actually. (I've banned myself from sending email at work until I've had at least one cup.)
True enough. And I know some proposals were for it to be semi-mobile for just such a reason. Is there some reason it couldn't be retractable? I.e. just pull some of it back in if some piece of debris needs to fly over the top of it.
No, because the slingshot is only used for short periods of time. It doesn't have to be kept in tension 24x7 for no good reason. Besides the slingshot was an (apparently bad) attempt at humor.
I hope not, because if that's the case we're all screwed. I think America's spirit is alive and well, personally.
Um, actually she did spell ridiculous correctly.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=ridiculo
The amount of old-people porn on the Internet will dwindle rapidly if the old codgers are prevented from signing up for broadband!
FREE THE GERIATRICS! Bottles of Ensure and Cable Modems for ALL!
Tornado's, earthquakes, hurricanes, flooding... Mother nature probably poses a very large threat to this thing. And it isn't like you can just let it float or move it around as the need arises, it has to be firmly attached to the planet. Granted a flood doesn't threaten it much, but high winds (hurricane, tornado) could damage the strand. An earthquake could damage the foundation that keeps it there in the first place.
And yes, an aircraft could just aim for it - though I'm sure there would be a lot of restricted airspace within miles of this strand, likely under the watch of the military, so you'd need a fast aircraft to make it there before getting blasted out of the sky. If they use this to launch satellites, you can bet access will be tightly controlled.
I'm still waiting for a giant slingshot. Something the size of an aircraft carrier. Muah!
I have a great tin foil hat that has lasted me several years (except when my wife used part of it to cover some food in the fridge), but this trash can thing is going to be the end of me. I keep wrapping my can with the stuff to keep the nondescript men in suits driving the white can from figuring out how much cereal I eat, but the bastard trash man keeps mistaking the foil for refuse and throws it out with everything else! I've gone through 18 cases of it now. GAH!
Hmmm... if I were to DDOS www.this-site-does-not-exist-but-earthlink-resolve s-it-anway.something would I act criminally? I mean, the site does not exist, and Earthlink just poaches its DNS adress...
Yes you would be acting criminally. You'd have to use Earthlink's DNS servers to even get their page to pull up, and then you'd be launching an attack against their server. Just because a domain name doesn't exist doesn't mean there is not a physical piece of hardware you won't be affecting.
But I see your point.
Voice communication (and really anything that is important, but something you just need to hear or read once) can be encrypted - make it a really strong key if you like. Decrypt and listen on your end, and then destroy the key such that it could never be retrieved. Then you have nothing to reveal, because it simply does not exist. They can threaten you, or whatever, but leverage goes both ways - their threats are essentially just blackmail to get something out of you. Unless they're being vindictive assholes or you've broken some law by transmitting encrypted data and killing the key, it likely won't go past that point.
As for suspects being required to turn over keys, fuck that. At least for the time being in my country anyway, I'm innocent until proven guilty - and I sure as hell don't have to contribute anything which might fuel their case (not that I am guilty of anything, but I sure wouldn't help them learn any information that could be twisted).
Lawyer: "Your honor, we have this encrypted data that was sent from that guy to XYZ-Group, clearly he's guilty of something."
Judge: "Have you decrypted the data, recovered the key, or do you have any idea what is even there?"
Lawyer: "Well, no, not really. But,..."
Judge: "Sir, what did you send them?"
Defendant: "My grocery list. Cabbage, mung bean sprouts, and some corned beef. That sort of thing."
Judge: "Evidence not valid, it doesn't prove shit."
Proof is just that - actual proof. Encryption is as strong as the algorithm and key strength used, as well as protection of the key itself. If you pick some insanely strong algorithm and a key that would take hundreds of years to break, option two is really the weak point. Either protect the key so well nobody will ever get it, or destroy the key since it's likely outlived its usefulness at this point anyway. Keep it on a CD and burn it to ash, or whatever you have to do.
No kidding, seems like Verisign tried something along those lines a while ago - redirecting users who typed in bad domain names to corporate-sponsored pages. Kinda defeats the purpose of running the unbiased systems which arguably control the Internet, eh?
I *WANT* users to see a "oops, you fucked up" page when they mistype a URL. That is what tells them they screwed up. What I don't want to happen is for them to go to some domain-park search display with ads and crap that have nothing to do with my site, because then they won't "get it". They will think they typed it right, and my domain name is now defunct. There is serious potential for damage to companies across the Web, far beyond annoying people.
As much as we need users to browse our company sites for whatever it is that we do, the fact is that many users are just dim. I run one site where we accept event registrations online, and we actually get people that can't spell their own name properly. We've had to resort to registering several variants of our domain name, because of people just screwing it up. Do you *really* think they're gonna get it when they are sent to an actual, but incorrect, web page?
I'm not so sure about bacteria not growing in a landfill. If you look around any dump that has part of it bulldozed over, you will see pipes coming out of the ground - these release the insane amount of methane produced by the rotting waste. Rot means biological consumption, ergo bacteria. There's enough methane in even a small landfill coming out on a routine basis to power a good-sized generator, so some sort of microbial lifeform most definitely thrives in that environment.
The power generation via landfill thing is actually kind of cool though. A while back I designed a system for a company that could allow for realtime monitoring and control of this plant, which used a modified CAT Diesel generator which ran 24x7 solely on the methane produced by this dump, I think in the range of 800kW-1MW depending on output and load. They had a big flare that burned off whatever else they couldn't use in the engine at the time. Stuff like that I think will be a big part of our energy future, simply because as we consume more and more, we create massive amounts of waste. Anything that can be done to either recycle that waste or benefit from its natural cycle of degradation will go far.
Their reps don't know a damn thing about how it works, or how to sell it, so getting signed up for it could be a challenge.
If an FBI agent (or anyone else with a proximity card for work, like most people have now) loses a card - even one without multifactor authentication - it can be rendered useless with a phone call. The card doesn't actually store any information, it just grants access to information.
... I dunno guys, what am I missing here?
A thumb drive on the other hand, grants access to the information it stores, and this is a whole different ballgame. Suppose your particular thumb drive has a 1/1000 False Acceptance Rate, well someone just has to try and authenticate that many times (theoretically) to have it eventually let them in. A drunk hacker watching TV can accomplish that.
I think to effectively use a thumb drive and guarantee that loss of the drive does not mean compromise of the data, you need two-factor authentication. One way I can think to do this is by using encryption of the data itself. The user now has to pass a biometric authentication scheme just to get access to the encrypted bits, and enter a hopefully difficult passphrase to decrypt the data and use it. Through this mechanism you could ensure Confidentiality and Integrity; Availability comes with the user not losing the damn thing in the first place, and having the training to use it effectively. You could even get really fancy to where the biometric auth is done by the bank manager, and the encryption is done by the assistant manager (or even remotely by an IT tech) - this way, you can't even get into the thing if you have taken the drive's owner hostage.
That method *seems* secure
Most carriers (if not all) still can't get the quality issues completely sorted with ground-based VoIP solutions, and they want to run it to an airplane now?
Obviously a big issue is that packetized information follows a different set of rules than the traditional TDM voice communication non-VoIP uses - so the "Internet" is really a bad place to have time-sensitive information travel without a healthy bandwidth margin and robust network design. However even on some carrier networks doing VoIP that involve internal gateway-to-switch paths (no Internet, though it may traverse the same IP backbone) timing and latency issues still come up.
I fail to see how VoIP will make it to an airplane successfully, given that packet loss and delay are likely to play havoc with most of the known solutions to call quality issues.
If he can make one of those cheap generators run on feline poo, I'm buying one! My cat craps more than any living thing I've ever seen. And judging by the near-nuclear potency of whatever comes out of that cat's ass, I'd say I should be able to power my house for quite a while!