I'm Australian so I instantly recognised MoD as Ministry of Defence.
But seeing as you bought it up, last time I ate McD's I had a Fukushima type reaction. Secret or not, a lot of paper was needed to clean it up.
The heading is ONE sentence, do you really need to abbreviate everything? It's not like there's a hard limit on the length of a heading, is there? It looks like a 14-year old is trying to create a "hip" news feed but does so manually and needs to do everything as fast as possible.
Govt. is a common abbreviation of Government.
NZ is the correct abbreviation of New Zealand, not NZL. UnZud is also acceptable.
Thru is a reason to have an author taken out and shot, reanimated and shot again.it;s not an abbreviation for anything, it's just bad English.
Granted a headline shouldn't use abbreviations unless absolutely necessary.
That and that they wanted Apple to take on more and more of the cost of developing new chips which were already lagging behind the x86 ones.Not enough parts. Not enough quality in the parts they were getting. Increasing costs with diminishing returns.
In other words. No money in it for IBM.
Meanwhile, IBM had secured the contracts to build the processors for the Wii, Xbox360 and PS3. Apple became a very small fish.
Look at what's happened here in Australia with Telstra. Cities have great service (ADSL2+, Cable, FiOS),
Which Australia are you talking about?
I live literally 10 minutes outside the Perth CBD. I can only get ADSL 2 provided I'm not on a RIM (Pair Gain system) and not more 4 KM from the exchange because that's when the copper gets bad enough that it can no longer carry a DSL signal.
There is no cable here, no fibre either. I consider myself lucky that I've got an Optus DSLAM in my local exchange so I can get service from Internode without any hassle.
This is why I'm all for the National Broadband Network that's being developed over here.
Do you worry the Australian government will use that leverage to control the Internet
No, NBNco is a corportised entity with it's own board and it's own execs under it's own mandate.
more than they already do?
I dont care if they control it 100 times more then they already do.
100 x 0 is still 0.
I remember there being stories about them blocking a lot of websites and wanting to censor various things.
Wanting != getting, certain individuals wanted filtering (the god bothering brigade) but the government as a whole shot that idea down (whoa, democracy at work, MP's vote against bad idea).
It's dead Jim. Stop bringing it up.
Perhaps, having good access with good crypto with Tor or other routing mechanisms will outweigh any pestering they try to do.
Whilst I love good crypto, not needed here, thanks (see above).
Who would run/administer the actual network?
Referring to the TCP model (this is/. you should know this better then your own mothers).
L1 and L2 are maintained by NBNco as a wholesale provider.
L3 is maintained by various RSP's or Retail Service Providers. The RSP's are private entities, in fact they will be the same ISP's that service Australia today reselling ADSL services to the general public. The Australian Government owns none of these.
NBNco builds the fibre, makes it available to any RSP who'll pay the asked price. RSP's (private entities) then sell services to me. Simple, we get the benefit of a single wholesaler's bulk savings but without the wholesaler having a stake in the retail market.
Why this is important. Well at the moment, almost every bit of copper in the ground is owned by one company. Telstra so I need to pay Telstra to get ADSL no matter who I choose to subscribe to. Now Telstra also have an interest in selling me ADSL at the retail level, which means having control over the wholesale gives them an uncompetitive advantage, one that they are not afraid to use if it weren't for the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission).
So we are already at the mercy of an abusive monopoly, The NBN breaks that by making it a public (therefore accountable to the public) monopoly.
No, he died a couple times "fo rizzle" but got sarcophagused.
Ahhh, I thought we were talking about the "perma-deaths".
Stargate had that little Deus Ex Machina from the word go though. The thing I liked about Stargate is they did take the piss out of those little things.
But the worst one was at the end of season 8 when Daniel got killed, ascended and then returned to human form in the very next episode.
Their "slow" computer is thousands of times faster and is available to them nearly all day! Only a poor worker blames his tools. Now if the computer just plain didn't work, that would be a different story...
Says the person who has never used a serious CAD or GIS application on non-cutting edge workstation.
As a person who has supported such workstations, yep you're 100% correct.
However, in a GIS consulting biz, these machines constituted 10% of the total no of machines. Most people used slower machines or laptops.
Management also wanted to save on that 10% machines, so SMP Xeon rigs got downgraded to C2D's and at this point in time ArcGIS didn't run well on 64 Bit Server 2003, our own GIS package ran as a 32 bit platform.
Finally, you get the same problem with GIS and RS analysts. Most are fine, but some beleive there is always a problem with their machine, one even got to the point of inventing problems to try and get a new machine. Even when he got one (fastest machine in the building) he still wasn't happy. I ended up passing this guy on to my manager (hey, it's what they're there for).
And you would be correct. We're not at a size where we have to worry about standardization just yet. I figure when that happens, I'll have to start them from scratch with a baseline which I can clone.
Not that that should stop you from starting to implement some kind of cloning system. Even using free software like Clonezilla.
If you move to a paid for imaging solution later, the experience, procedures and policies you develop now will make things a lot easier in the future.
You wouldn't expect a chef to never sharpen his knife,
Actually, having worked in a few kitchens, chef's sharpen their own knives all the time. They don't have time to call the kitchen hand, they'll just grab a sharpener and do it themselves.
Are you going to tell me a carpenter never cleans his own saw?
Most people don't treat PC's like furniture, they treat them like cars. Cars are inherently complex machines so 90% of people don't know how they work, let alone how to fix them. Most people cant take care of their cars either, "oil, water, why would I want to put that in, my car should 'just work'".
The big difference between a car and a computer is that the car costs $20,000 whilst the computer costs $1000, it's easy to justify the expense of buying a new one compared to the cost of fixing it. People who don't look after their car find huge mechanic bills after a few years, people who don't look after their PC's find huge tech support bills after a few months, but the cost of replacing a car is far greater.
And yes, people would smash up their company car, if they thought they would get a new one. So if you want to stop people doing this to PC's you need to provide a disincentive.
If you read carefully, I said new technology was seen as dishonourable when it was introduced.
I did read what you said. I said the honourable part was a historical fabrication.
Gunpowder took a thousand years to catch on in Europe as a weapon.
What you should have said was metallurgy took a long time to advance to the point where gunpowder became a viable weapon.
Nobody wanted to believe battleships were essentially helpless before aircraft until Billy Mitchell's demonstration
Billy Mitchell's demonstration was a failure despite Mitchell being right (mostly right). Mitchell's bombers failed to sink a stationary battleship with no AA guns. It was Naval arms limitation treaties in the 30's that saw the popularity of carriers and WWII that saw the end of the battleship.
Mitchell was only partially right, rather then heavy bombers, light fighter/bombers would sink battleships.
It was resisted, and took much longer to catch on than it might otherwise have.
What I meant when I said "generals are prepared to fight the last war" I was referring to tactics, not technology. Generals like Westmorland went to the Vietnam war with new technologies but the mindset of a WWII general fighting the Nazi army.
New technology has always been, historically very quickly accepted during conflict, from Romans adopting elephants after the Carthaginian invaded to the advent of steel lined warships. HMS Dreadnought was the first all big gun battleship, yet less then 10 years later, every major navy in the world had multiple all big gun battleships.
The kind of conservatism we were talking about is that HMS Dreadnought was launched with 2 masts for sails, despite having a coal powered engine. Masts that were never used for sailing. British naval doctrine did not consider sails obsolete in 1906 on their most advanced warship.
Most wars before WWI were contests between monarchs. The actual people couldn't care less who won - it's not like their lives would get any better. War was supposed to be fought by honourable opponents armed with more or less the same weapons.
That was the romanticised history.
Medieval and pre-medieval warfare was littered with people trying to get unfair advantages over their enemies. From compisite bows to crossbows, at one time the nobility of Europe attempted to get the crossbow outlawed because it could take out an armoured knight. This didn't work because the minute someone needed a peasant militia to go up against armoured knights, they made crossbows. Every king, lord and emperor wanted better trebuchets, would launch disease laden corpse into castles. Bigger ships, faster frigates, heavier guns on the decks. War has been pretty much the only aspect of history which has never stopped advancing.
In the middle ages, honour had little to do with it, the victors would write that they were honourable, they were superior and they were chosen by god after the fact, but they all still fought dirty. Much like today.
Bows and arrows, firearms, airplanes, submarines, all were seen as dishonourable killing-at-a-distance weapons when they were introduced, reflecting the Homeric influence on our military tradition.
Actually, the British put quite a bit of stock into killing from a distance and it paid off more then once. The battle of Agincourt, a force largely combined of English longbowmen defeated a superior force of armoured french knights. 5/6 of the force were said to be bowmen. At one stage, all other sports except Archery were banned on a Sunday so all Britons would practice with the bow.
Sir Francis Drake used the superior range and accuracy of English warships to harass the numerically superior Spanish armada, although the British fleet out gunned the Spanish, guns were useless when the ships entered grappling range. Even in the battle of gravelines, Drake tried to keep the fleet 100 yards from the Spanish ships to avoid being boarded as they needed to close to that distance to do real damage to the Spanish ships.
Then we come to artillery, the final argument of kings, that which bought dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl but was responsible for maiming and killing more men in the Napoleonic war then all the muskets combined.
Mr. Hands had a serious disability, what's yours?..oh, sorry, I didn't notice the big 'M' letter. Carry on.
And you're is prejudice. A most serious disability.
You're making me wish I never posted on this thread, although it netted me a +5 insightful I also have mod points, for which that little nugget would have earned you a -1 Troll.
Your comment was far more insulting then the GP, who was simply ignorant, you on the other hand are angry and spiteful.
I used to provide tech support for doctors offices and hospitals and I can tell you for a fact that their computer security ranges from "bad" to "OMFG!!".
I provide tech support for a few local retail chains here, everything I've seen has made me _not_ want to use my CC anywhere. Senor POS terminals run Windows XP on Celeron Processors. Senor recommend turning off Windows update. Staff are typically too lazy to type in passwords so the default "senor" user is often left without a password. Access to USB simply requires you to open the access panel at the bottom (not even screwed into place)
The EFTPOS system is a software client provided by the bank run on a Windows XP box out back which the staff use for general internet access. The client is SSL so it goes over the general internet.
At least the Pronto system is relatively secure, running on AIX or Linux (prefer Linux, fewer things like backup clients run on AIX these days). of course the client wont update the software so I use the term "relatively secure".
Of course the client in this case wont let us tighten security. Password everything, move the EFT client to headless machine, silicon up the USB ports, restrict internet access to 80,110 and 443.
Sticking to cash, the AU banknote has more security measures built into it then Senor POS terminals.
Painlessly while sleeping, for example. Many would argue that it's one of the nicest ways of going.
Motor Neurone is a particularly bad way. You slowly lose control over all your faculties until something like pneumonia or the common cold finally kills you. Your quality of life suffers a lot, you live for a while at a stage where you cant even feed yourself because you're unable to move a spoon from a bowl to your mouth.
Degenerative disorders are worse then car accidents IMHO, even though dying in a car accident would be pretty painful (most people die from blood loss or trauma IIRC) it's relatively quick.
I suppose self administered lethal injection would be the best way, first shot sedates you, second paralyses, third kills but by the time the second needle starts pumping you're well out of it. I am in favour of decriminalising Euthanasia.
This is essentially a theoretical "possible future weapon" exercise - it has nothing to do with actual, realistic modern combat.
To be fair, there was a time that the machine gun, submarine and airplane fell into this category too.
Though I do have to admit... the current guns and firearms and such do seem hard to beat.
During the Napoleonic war, the British army actively fought against the introduction of rifles. Favouring the proper and well tested Musket, despite the greater range and firepower of rifled guns. Rifle units were set apart and even dressed differently to regular troops (green coats rather then red coats).
Conservatism is nothing new to armed forces, resistance to new ideas has always been great. The old saying "generals are equipped to fight the last war" exists for a reason.
Groom Lake, August 4 2012,
Skynet goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defence. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.
One day, I will learn to proof read what I copy and paste.
Moscow, February 20 1957.
Soviets cancel space program.
Moscow, August 20 1958.
Politburo decides to put money from cancelled space and reduced missile program program into domestic development.
Washington May 5 1961,
Alan Shepard, an American is the first man in space.
Belgrade, September 14 1987.
Soviet leaders hail the 23rd straight year of growth for the great Soviet Union.
Washington, September 7 2007
US government takes control of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac.
Moscow, September 8 2007,
Soviet Leader Boris Yetlsin uses the news of the Financial crisis in western states to fuel propaganda. Secretly he offers aid to Germany, France, and Great Britain.
Madrid, August 24, 2008,
Spain accepts a new Soviet government in exchange for the Soviet union paying the Spanish debt.
Berlin, April 12 2009,
With economic woes in the nation rising, the Bundestag votes to accept economic aid from the Soviet Union.
Paris, September 22 2010
The French and German governments admit they have signed a secret treaty with the Soviet union and formally withdraw from NATO.
Dublin, Febuary 25 2011.
In a shock win, the new Communist party of Ireland secures a majority in DÃil Ãireann. The Communist party announces plans to induct Ireland into the Soviet Union.
Manchester, March 12, 2011.
Irish refugees continue to flee to British and Scottish ports in alarming numbers, up to 2,000 Irish arrive in England and Scotland daily.
London, March 22 2011,
Prime Minister David Cameron announces that the tide of Irish refugees must end, to this effect the Kingdom of Great Britain declares war on the republic of Ireland.
Sydney, March 27 2011,
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announces that the Commonwealth of Australia will enter, in limited numbers, the invasion of Ireland. Restrictions around Irish entry visa's into Australia are tightened.
Belfast, March 29 2011,
Units of the British Special Boat Service Successfully take the port of Belfast before a defence could be mounted. By 16:40 on March 30 2011, 500,000 British and dominion soldiers are on Irish soil.
Dublin, March 30 2011.
The Communist Party of Ireland petitions Boris Yeltzin for aid. The Soviets refuse to declare war on the remaining NATO states but agree to provide weapons to Irish fighters.
Dublin, July 18 2011.
British forces complete their capture of the Irish capital, 75% of the Irish communist party are under house arrest with the rest still free. British forces begin to suffer attacks from Irish guerrillas.
Washington, September 5 2011,
President Palin vows not to get America involved with another European conflict.
Washington, January 28 2012.
President Pailin resigns as the public calls for action against the red threat in Ireland. Acting President Schwarzenegger promises swift and decisive action.
Montreal, April 12 2012,
As Soviet backed Irish guerrillas continue to cause severe problems for the Commonwealth's Irish occupation force, remaining NATO leaders meet to discuss how to handle the "Irish" situation. In three days, no conclusion is reached.
Groom Lake, August 4 2012,
Skynet goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defence. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm Australian so I instantly recognised MoD as Ministry of Defence. But seeing as you bought it up, last time I ate McD's I had a Fukushima type reaction. Secret or not, a lot of paper was needed to clean it up.
"chipped in" implies a maority investment?
No, it implies they are playing golf.
No it implies they put in enough for the carton to be allocated one six pack to themselves.
The summary reads like a press release. "Shook the cloud world", indeed.
Several Goomba's knocked off floating platforms. Recovery efforts are under way.
The heading is ONE sentence, do you really need to abbreviate everything? It's not like there's a hard limit on the length of a heading, is there? It looks like a 14-year old is trying to create a "hip" news feed but does so manually and needs to do everything as fast as possible.
Govt. is a common abbreviation of Government.
NZ is the correct abbreviation of New Zealand, not NZL. UnZud is also acceptable.
Thru is a reason to have an author taken out and shot, reanimated and shot again.it;s not an abbreviation for anything, it's just bad English.
Granted a headline shouldn't use abbreviations unless absolutely necessary.
That and that they wanted Apple to take on more and more of the cost of developing new chips which were already lagging behind the x86 ones.Not enough parts. Not enough quality in the parts they were getting. Increasing costs with diminishing returns.
In other words. No money in it for IBM.
Meanwhile, IBM had secured the contracts to build the processors for the Wii, Xbox360 and PS3. Apple became a very small fish.
Which Australia are you talking about?
I live literally 10 minutes outside the Perth CBD. I can only get ADSL 2 provided I'm not on a RIM (Pair Gain system) and not more 4 KM from the exchange because that's when the copper gets bad enough that it can no longer carry a DSL signal.
There is no cable here, no fibre either. I consider myself lucky that I've got an Optus DSLAM in my local exchange so I can get service from Internode without any hassle.
I can agree 100% here.
Roll on NBN.
Do you worry the Australian government will use that leverage to control the Internet
No, NBNco is a corportised entity with it's own board and it's own execs under it's own mandate.
more than they already do?
I dont care if they control it 100 times more then they already do. 100 x 0 is still 0.
I remember there being stories about them blocking a lot of websites and wanting to censor various things.
Wanting != getting, certain individuals wanted filtering (the god bothering brigade) but the government as a whole shot that idea down (whoa, democracy at work, MP's vote against bad idea).
It's dead Jim. Stop bringing it up.
Perhaps, having good access with good crypto with Tor or other routing mechanisms will outweigh any pestering they try to do.
Whilst I love good crypto, not needed here, thanks (see above).
Who would run/administer the actual network?
Referring to the TCP model (this is /. you should know this better then your own mothers).
L1 and L2 are maintained by NBNco as a wholesale provider.
L3 is maintained by various RSP's or Retail Service Providers. The RSP's are private entities, in fact they will be the same ISP's that service Australia today reselling ADSL services to the general public. The Australian Government owns none of these.
NBNco builds the fibre, makes it available to any RSP who'll pay the asked price. RSP's (private entities) then sell services to me. Simple, we get the benefit of a single wholesaler's bulk savings but without the wholesaler having a stake in the retail market.
Why this is important. Well at the moment, almost every bit of copper in the ground is owned by one company. Telstra so I need to pay Telstra to get ADSL no matter who I choose to subscribe to. Now Telstra also have an interest in selling me ADSL at the retail level, which means having control over the wholesale gives them an uncompetitive advantage, one that they are not afraid to use if it weren't for the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission).
So we are already at the mercy of an abusive monopoly, The NBN breaks that by making it a public (therefore accountable to the public) monopoly.
but it can rent a very close imitation.
No, he died a couple times "fo rizzle" but got sarcophagused.
Ahhh, I thought we were talking about the "perma-deaths".
Stargate had that little Deus Ex Machina from the word go though. The thing I liked about Stargate is they did take the piss out of those little things.
But the worst one was at the end of season 8 when Daniel got killed, ascended and then returned to human form in the very next episode.
Daniel Jackson much?
At least they kept Dr. Frasier dead, alternate universe Frasier popped up but the one important one stayed dead.
And Carson Beckett, people actually wanted him to come back. Granted clone Beckett came back but that was only for 2 episodes.
As for Daniel Jackson, he never really died, just "ascended" (yeah, I know, plot device).
Their "slow" computer is thousands of times faster and is available to them nearly all day! Only a poor worker blames his tools. Now if the computer just plain didn't work, that would be a different story...
Says the person who has never used a serious CAD or GIS application on non-cutting edge workstation.
As a person who has supported such workstations, yep you're 100% correct.
However, in a GIS consulting biz, these machines constituted 10% of the total no of machines. Most people used slower machines or laptops.
Management also wanted to save on that 10% machines, so SMP Xeon rigs got downgraded to C2D's and at this point in time ArcGIS didn't run well on 64 Bit Server 2003, our own GIS package ran as a 32 bit platform.
Finally, you get the same problem with GIS and RS analysts. Most are fine, but some beleive there is always a problem with their machine, one even got to the point of inventing problems to try and get a new machine. Even when he got one (fastest machine in the building) he still wasn't happy. I ended up passing this guy on to my manager (hey, it's what they're there for).
And you would be correct. We're not at a size where we have to worry about standardization just yet. I figure when that happens, I'll have to start them from scratch with a baseline which I can clone.
Not that that should stop you from starting to implement some kind of cloning system. Even using free software like Clonezilla.
If you move to a paid for imaging solution later, the experience, procedures and policies you develop now will make things a lot easier in the future.
You wouldn't expect a chef to never sharpen his knife,
Actually, having worked in a few kitchens, chef's sharpen their own knives all the time. They don't have time to call the kitchen hand, they'll just grab a sharpener and do it themselves.
Are you going to tell me a carpenter never cleans his own saw?
Most people don't treat PC's like furniture, they treat them like cars. Cars are inherently complex machines so 90% of people don't know how they work, let alone how to fix them. Most people cant take care of their cars either, "oil, water, why would I want to put that in, my car should 'just work'".
The big difference between a car and a computer is that the car costs $20,000 whilst the computer costs $1000, it's easy to justify the expense of buying a new one compared to the cost of fixing it. People who don't look after their car find huge mechanic bills after a few years, people who don't look after their PC's find huge tech support bills after a few months, but the cost of replacing a car is far greater.
And yes, people would smash up their company car, if they thought they would get a new one. So if you want to stop people doing this to PC's you need to provide a disincentive.
Speaking of "badly named," pedometer sounds like something made up on 4chan to rate the age of children in image posts.
Thats because of 4chan's poor grasp of English.
I laugh every time some one calls me a pedo, I tell them my foot fetish has nothing to do with the discussion.
pedophile - foot fetish
paedophile - kid fetish
If you read carefully, I said new technology was seen as dishonourable when it was introduced.
I did read what you said. I said the honourable part was a historical fabrication.
What you should have said was metallurgy took a long time to advance to the point where gunpowder became a viable weapon.
Nobody wanted to believe battleships were essentially helpless before aircraft until Billy Mitchell's demonstration
Billy Mitchell's demonstration was a failure despite Mitchell being right (mostly right). Mitchell's bombers failed to sink a stationary battleship with no AA guns. It was Naval arms limitation treaties in the 30's that saw the popularity of carriers and WWII that saw the end of the battleship.
Mitchell was only partially right, rather then heavy bombers, light fighter/bombers would sink battleships.
What I meant when I said "generals are prepared to fight the last war" I was referring to tactics, not technology. Generals like Westmorland went to the Vietnam war with new technologies but the mindset of a WWII general fighting the Nazi army.
New technology has always been, historically very quickly accepted during conflict, from Romans adopting elephants after the Carthaginian invaded to the advent of steel lined warships. HMS Dreadnought was the first all big gun battleship, yet less then 10 years later, every major navy in the world had multiple all big gun battleships.
The kind of conservatism we were talking about is that HMS Dreadnought was launched with 2 masts for sails, despite having a coal powered engine. Masts that were never used for sailing. British naval doctrine did not consider sails obsolete in 1906 on their most advanced warship.
Most wars before WWI were contests between monarchs. The actual people couldn't care less who won - it's not like their lives would get any better. War was supposed to be fought by honourable opponents armed with more or less the same weapons.
That was the romanticised history. Medieval and pre-medieval warfare was littered with people trying to get unfair advantages over their enemies. From compisite bows to crossbows, at one time the nobility of Europe attempted to get the crossbow outlawed because it could take out an armoured knight. This didn't work because the minute someone needed a peasant militia to go up against armoured knights, they made crossbows. Every king, lord and emperor wanted better trebuchets, would launch disease laden corpse into castles. Bigger ships, faster frigates, heavier guns on the decks. War has been pretty much the only aspect of history which has never stopped advancing.
In the middle ages, honour had little to do with it, the victors would write that they were honourable, they were superior and they were chosen by god after the fact, but they all still fought dirty. Much like today.
Bows and arrows, firearms, airplanes, submarines, all were seen as dishonourable killing-at-a-distance weapons when they were introduced, reflecting the Homeric influence on our military tradition.
Actually, the British put quite a bit of stock into killing from a distance and it paid off more then once. The battle of Agincourt, a force largely combined of English longbowmen defeated a superior force of armoured french knights. 5/6 of the force were said to be bowmen. At one stage, all other sports except Archery were banned on a Sunday so all Britons would practice with the bow.
Sir Francis Drake used the superior range and accuracy of English warships to harass the numerically superior Spanish armada, although the British fleet out gunned the Spanish, guns were useless when the ships entered grappling range. Even in the battle of gravelines, Drake tried to keep the fleet 100 yards from the Spanish ships to avoid being boarded as they needed to close to that distance to do real damage to the Spanish ships.
Then we come to artillery, the final argument of kings, that which bought dignity to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl but was responsible for maiming and killing more men in the Napoleonic war then all the muskets combined.
The "honour" of war is a fairy tale.
You're correct about conservatism in the armed forces, but I was wearing my nerd hat and had to respond :)
Fair enough, I dont mind being corrected and you did it politely.
Mr. Hands had a serious disability, what's yours? ..oh, sorry, I didn't notice the big 'M' letter. Carry on.
And you're is prejudice. A most serious disability.
You're making me wish I never posted on this thread, although it netted me a +5 insightful I also have mod points, for which that little nugget would have earned you a -1 Troll.
Your comment was far more insulting then the GP, who was simply ignorant, you on the other hand are angry and spiteful.
I used to provide tech support for doctors offices and hospitals and I can tell you for a fact that their computer security ranges from "bad" to "OMFG!!".
I provide tech support for a few local retail chains here, everything I've seen has made me _not_ want to use my CC anywhere. Senor POS terminals run Windows XP on Celeron Processors. Senor recommend turning off Windows update. Staff are typically too lazy to type in passwords so the default "senor" user is often left without a password. Access to USB simply requires you to open the access panel at the bottom (not even screwed into place)
The EFTPOS system is a software client provided by the bank run on a Windows XP box out back which the staff use for general internet access. The client is SSL so it goes over the general internet.
At least the Pronto system is relatively secure, running on AIX or Linux (prefer Linux, fewer things like backup clients run on AIX these days). of course the client wont update the software so I use the term "relatively secure".
Of course the client in this case wont let us tighten security. Password everything, move the EFT client to headless machine, silicon up the USB ports, restrict internet access to 80,110 and 443.
Sticking to cash, the AU banknote has more security measures built into it then Senor POS terminals.
>not a nice way to go.
Is there such a thing :-| ?
Painlessly while sleeping, for example. Many would argue that it's one of the nicest ways of going.
Motor Neurone is a particularly bad way. You slowly lose control over all your faculties until something like pneumonia or the common cold finally kills you. Your quality of life suffers a lot, you live for a while at a stage where you cant even feed yourself because you're unable to move a spoon from a bowl to your mouth.
Degenerative disorders are worse then car accidents IMHO, even though dying in a car accident would be pretty painful (most people die from blood loss or trauma IIRC) it's relatively quick.
I suppose self administered lethal injection would be the best way, first shot sedates you, second paralyses, third kills but by the time the second needle starts pumping you're well out of it. I am in favour of decriminalising Euthanasia.
This is essentially a theoretical "possible future weapon" exercise - it has nothing to do with actual, realistic modern combat.
To be fair, there was a time that the machine gun, submarine and airplane fell into this category too.
Though I do have to admit ... the current guns and firearms and such do seem hard to beat.
During the Napoleonic war, the British army actively fought against the introduction of rifles. Favouring the proper and well tested Musket, despite the greater range and firepower of rifled guns. Rifle units were set apart and even dressed differently to regular troops (green coats rather then red coats).
Conservatism is nothing new to armed forces, resistance to new ideas has always been great. The old saying "generals are equipped to fight the last war" exists for a reason.
ALS is Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amyotrophic_lateral_sclerosis It's a form of motor neurone disease, not a nice way to go.
Groom Lake, August 4 2012,
Skynet goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defence. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.
One day, I will learn to proof read what I copy and paste.
Moscow, February 20 1957.
Soviets cancel space program.
Moscow, August 20 1958.
Politburo decides to put money from cancelled space and reduced missile program program into domestic development.
Washington May 5 1961,
Alan Shepard, an American is the first man in space.
Belgrade, September 14 1987.
Soviet leaders hail the 23rd straight year of growth for the great Soviet Union.
Washington, September 7 2007
US government takes control of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac.
Moscow, September 8 2007,
Soviet Leader Boris Yetlsin uses the news of the Financial crisis in western states to fuel propaganda. Secretly he offers aid to Germany, France, and Great Britain.
Madrid, August 24, 2008,
Spain accepts a new Soviet government in exchange for the Soviet union paying the Spanish debt.
Berlin, April 12 2009,
With economic woes in the nation rising, the Bundestag votes to accept economic aid from the Soviet Union.
Paris, September 22 2010
The French and German governments admit they have signed a secret treaty with the Soviet union and formally withdraw from NATO.
Dublin, Febuary 25 2011.
In a shock win, the new Communist party of Ireland secures a majority in DÃil Ãireann. The Communist party announces plans to induct Ireland into the Soviet Union.
Manchester, March 12, 2011.
Irish refugees continue to flee to British and Scottish ports in alarming numbers, up to 2,000 Irish arrive in England and Scotland daily.
London, March 22 2011,
Prime Minister David Cameron announces that the tide of Irish refugees must end, to this effect the Kingdom of Great Britain declares war on the republic of Ireland.
Sydney, March 27 2011,
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announces that the Commonwealth of Australia will enter, in limited numbers, the invasion of Ireland. Restrictions around Irish entry visa's into Australia are tightened.
Belfast, March 29 2011,
Units of the British Special Boat Service Successfully take the port of Belfast before a defence could be mounted. By 16:40 on March 30 2011, 500,000 British and dominion soldiers are on Irish soil.
Dublin, March 30 2011.
The Communist Party of Ireland petitions Boris Yeltzin for aid. The Soviets refuse to declare war on the remaining NATO states but agree to provide weapons to Irish fighters.
Dublin, July 18 2011.
British forces complete their capture of the Irish capital, 75% of the Irish communist party are under house arrest with the rest still free. British forces begin to suffer attacks from Irish guerrillas.
Washington, September 5 2011,
President Palin vows not to get America involved with another European conflict.
Washington, January 28 2012.
President Pailin resigns as the public calls for action against the red threat in Ireland. Acting President Schwarzenegger promises swift and decisive action.
Montreal, April 12 2012,
As Soviet backed Irish guerrillas continue to cause severe problems for the Commonwealth's Irish occupation force, remaining NATO leaders meet to discuss how to handle the "Irish" situation. In three days, no conclusion is reached.
Groom Lake, August 4 2012,
Skynet goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defence. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.
I had a grandfather that invented a time machine. But he went back in time and killed himself. Now he's gone.
Luxury
I had a grand father who went back and killed his father now both of us dont exist.
$%^&*(NO CARRIER