the knight can take the rook last, but the queen can make the checkmate? like the knight takes the rook and moves out of the way for a queen to make the checkmate. get what im saying?
I remember watching this as well, and I recall it being horrible. Even for a Star Wars fan.
But the Internet Movie Database DOES have it listed here
But what was Harrison Ford thinking? I mean, even back then he'd already done more quality work than the entire cast combined except for Peter Cushing.
Apparently the reviewer completely forgot about Sir Alec Guiness. His body of work is as impressive as Pete Cushing's and Harrison Ford's... perhaps moreso.
Also, I disagree with his opinion of Tim Conway entirely. I happen to think Tim Conway is hilarious. Perhaps he is confusing the talented Tim Conway the with most UNTALENTED Jeff Conaway from Taxi?:-)
Does anyone know if the sort of problems the Hubble is having are "routine" or if this was a problem inherent in the design of the telescope? It seems (and maybe I'm just too influenced by the media) that this project has been beset by problems from the very start.
Too bad too...its images are breathtaking.
It seems to me then if you're that impressed by the amazing imagery, that any of the problems that Hubble had in the past would be rendered irrelevent.
We just better hope it's dealt with quickly, I for one don't trust the shuttle to be in the air in 11 days time. It's just reminds me of the threat of Skylab.
Why? What's going to happen? The Shuttle is in a stable orbit, so it's not like it's going to simply fall out of the sky.
I watched the launch of this thing on NASA TV last night. It was pretty uneventful. One guy kept shouting "check 193! check 193!".. but I'm thinking maybe they were just trying to get their food to go. =)
I watched it as well. A nominal launch, everything went quite uneventfully.
Anyway, it would be really nice if NASA were more active in PR for this kind of stuff - their TV show.. well... stinks. hours of nothing punctuated by the heavy breathing of some guy going "okay.. it's now t-minus 15:43 to launch *heavy breathing* CHECK 193! CHECK 193! *heavy breathing*"
I agree, while I do enjoy watching NASA TV, I found it to be at its best when they treated the last Hubble repair mission like NBC treats a baseball game and had an actual announcer and also had Story Musgrave doing color commentary. And he oughta know, he spent some time up there fixing Hubble himself.
no wonder they can't secure any funding. Get deep throat off the air and put some inspiring music on during launch (I dunno, Hall of the mtn. king would run nicely for the 5 minutes or so until main launch sep).
Well I definitely wouldn't want any music involved. Just give me some guy interpreting what the launch control guys are babbling about. And I definitely think they need better audio production, starting with better gear. I'd be happy to consult for them if and when they decide to upgrade their audio production facilities.:-)
I remember 2 years ago when this story first started heating up (probably on or about the date of the CNN link) and I was driving home from work on my way to the pasta shop to pick up some fresh cheese ravioli, I was listening to NPR and they were discussing this very topic. They were playing segments from a news conference from JPL where one of the JPL people spoke excitedly about his BELIEF that life exists in the water oceans beneath the ice, and if you weren't paying close attention it sounded as if he was actually ANNOUNCING a discovery of life.
Well as you can imagine, many news sources the next day reported about the newly discovered life on Europa, and the JPL people had to do another quick press conference straightening things out.
Even though it wasn't JPL's fault, scientists do need to be careful with what they say and how they say it. While is was clear to me then that he was only talking about his personal belief, he should have realized that some reporter only 1/2 listening was bound to get it wrong, as so many (practically ALL) reporters do when reporting on matters of science and technology.
And much like that scientist from JPL, I have a suspicion that life exists beneath the ice.
I must say that in my 16 years of owning a modem and being online in one form or another, that I do miss the old mid 1980's BBS scene in which I used to participate. It seemed to be a close-knit community that actually engaged in real conversations. We seemed to know one another, or get to know one another on the BBS.
By 1985 I enjoyed it enough to actually start my own BBS, running CP/M on a Kaypro I, running software called CITADEL (thanks CrT for your great freeware BBS software).
My BBS was single user (naturally) and ran at 300/1200 baud on my Hayes Smartmodem 1200 (which cost me over $350 back then, and that I still have).
After a year or two I went to what we locally called a "Hamfest" (before they were computer fests) and bought an XT clone and started running the MSDOS version of Citadel (thanks Hue Jr. for your freeware Citadel for MSDOS which extended CrT's original code) which had more features and networked. That was fun. I eventually hooked up a US Robotics 9600 HST to that system which I bought through the USR "Sysop Deal" (and that I also still have) for $500!
By the early 1990's more and more kids were getting modems for Xmas and my BBS and the whole local scene slowly began to lose it's charm. This was probably due to the sheer numbers of new users that we for the most part never got to know. This was probably more OUR fault as the old users since we probably thought of them as new meat and didn't make them feel as welcomed as we should have. But I must say that they did SEEM like little punk kids!:-)
I think I ended up taking my BBS offline in 1992 or thereabouts. (I still have that XT with the BBS on it sitting next to me exactly as it was the day I took it down. The XT is powered on and seems to be Y2K ready!)
I do miss the old BBS scene and do find the web less charming than my BBSing days, and in some ways less enjoyable. So for the most part I think the BBS community scene is dead vis-a-vis the BBS. But I think that spirit can be resurrected in LUG's and other user groups.
Having said that, I will say that I do enjoy the web for its power and what is allows me to do, and I wouldn't trade it for anything, despite its lack of charm.:-)
Right now I am considering putting up a Multi-User Citadel system running Linux and making it Telnet-able. There is a GREAT version of Citadel for UNIX which compiles nicely under Linux (Thanks Ignatious T. Foobar for your GPL UNIX version of Citadel). All I need is a better net connection.
Who says you can't go back home?:-)
While you probably can not, it will be an interesting experiment since most of the old users are kicking around the internet and will be able to telnet into the system.
As a postscript, if anyone would like to see my Kaypro I with Hayes 3/12 sitting on top as it would have looked many years ago, I submitted the photo to the Obsolete Computer Museum, and perhaps one day Tom will actually put it online!:-)
Don't you just love those enlightened governments in Europe who give lip service to free trade, but are unwilling to let their people make decisions for themselves? Here's a clue guys, let the market decide.
I might agree with that opinion if the people who needed to do the deciding had all of the facts. But they do not, and will not, simply because in any case like this, the spin from the manufacturer (in this case, Intel) is overwhelming, and for some unexplainable reason, people have a bizarre trust in their government that things like this won't get abused.
If people are really in a tizzy about this, they won't buy the chips. If they don't care (like me), they will. See? It works out fine that way, and no government intervention needed.
Also probably not true, since people DO WANT computers, and INTEL INSIDE is practically the only option thay have due to all of the advertising that Intel does, and due to the ovwewhelming market-share that they already enjoy.
You and I both know that the Athlon is as good a chip as the PIII, maybe better, but I saw my first Athlon ad on TV last night. I see Intel ads many times a day, as I have been for many years.
And on a different note, are there any linux kernel hacks that defeat the PIII ID number?
It's not clear to me why the NSA would need to patent such a technology. If some other entity (Lucent or some such tech company) got to the patent first, is this going to stop the NSA from performing this kind of intelligence?
I think not.
If they were ever to be asked they would simply deny that they're doing it, and if some sort of legal pursuit occurred it would be deflected by the veil of NATIONAL SECURITY.
I saw Phil Zimmerman speak in Syracuse NY many years ago when the US Gov't was still pursuing their investigation of him, and he spoke about the potential collision of technology, and privacy rights.
At that time (1993-ish) Phil mentioned that the NSA had just released some of their speech recognition code into the public domain, and it was several generations ahead of what the best civilian code looked like.
What does this say about the code that they're actually using.
The NSA's motto is to be 5 years ahead of EVERYONE else's technology, and I believe they are.
Bottom line:
The NSA HAS BEEN developing and using speech recognition software for more than 10 years, and will continue to do so regardless of what congress attempts to do to curtail their trampling of people's privacy rights, and regardless of who patents what.
52 years old... If they restore it to actual operational status I'll bet they don't run it for very long at a time. Spare tubes and such are gonna be a bear to find.
That depends upon which type of tubes they use. There are a few companies still manufacturing several models.. the models for example that are still required in guitar amplifiers. 12AX7's, 6L6's, 5U4's, EL34's, etc....
I believe it was RCA that sold their manufacturing technology to a soviet company called Sovtek which is becoming a huge supplier (though musician friends are questioning their QC), and there is a company called Groove Tubes as well. There is still a Fender brand of vacuum tubes, but I think someone else manufactures them for Fender.
A little research revealed another company called Teslovak, and another called JJ Electronics.
I suspect these companies could tool up to manufacture any tube that was needed for this application.
Perhaps we could put some pressure on corporations and a few internet millionaires to endow journalistic media; a magazine with an endowment of a few million dollars could charge a modest amount for print copies and publish free online versions without having to accept advertising.
How is this so different that being supported by advertising? The person or corporation providing the funding might create the same problems. The writers of the magazine might be afraid to be critical of something or someone because the people they are writing about might be tied to those who are providing the endowment.
To me this is no different than kissing the advertisers butt by not printing bad things about them or their products.
What do you think the odds are of seeing an anti-nuclear energy PSA (or anti-nuclear ANYTHING) on NBC?
Noam Chomsky writes about this type of "systematic behavior" frequently in his many books and columns for Z Magazine, and demonstrates quite effectively that it is endemic to the economic system itself, and won't go away until the very system it rests upon goes first.
A thought from the article that scares me.
on
Can Computers Pray?
·
· Score: 1
Ms. Skeddle says:
It may even be necessary to evangelize to them, she says, before computers decide to choose their own religion.
That thought scares me a little bit. Why must any intelligent entity (if and when computers do develop AI) be evangelized? Why can't intelligent entities make their own spiritual decisions?
This wouldn't even be an issue if the SETI@Home people didn't decide to turn this distributed computing effort into a CONTEST to see who (or who's group) processed more work units. OF COURSE people want faster clients now.
These people might also be the people who used to yell, "My dad can beat your dad!" when they were kids... I don't know.
What I do know is that I'm running two Seti work-unit as I type this (one each on 2 machines. A Windoze box and a linux box), and am more interested in precision and accuracy within my completed data, not speed.
I've been excited about PG since about 1993 or so when I first learned they had pi to one million places, and the first 100,000 prime numbers available for download from their FTP site. Since then I have been a big supporter.
we keep posting money into projects like this one, but what good are they. they shure dont buy me breakfast:(
What projects that governments waste money on DO buy you breakfast?:-)
But we already know that the space program has provided you with a critical piece of knowlege to enhance your breakfast experience... TANG.:-)
If they figure out how planet earth got created, what good will that do us, i'm just asking, a lot of sience is IMO a waste of money
We already know that the planet earth was created to figure out the question that yielded the answer... 42. Surely you've read The Hitchikers Guide?:-)
I am a huge proponent of basing an economy on R&D. Now that our economy is used less to build bombs and such for the cold war, we should have converted those industries to pure research in ALL area of science. SERENDIPITY proves that research in all areas will reveal answers in others.
Will there be any problems with the telescope while it's in safe mode? I assume it's all closed up to protect itself- can operators still send it commands to control its orbit & possibly protect itself from solar flares? How will the lack of any gyroscopes affect operator's control of it?
The gyroscopes allow the operators to point the Hubble. Which is why a minimum of 3 are required. There is no ability to change the Hubble's orbit. To do that would require dragging it into the cargo bay as they did on the repair mission last time and use the shuttle to boost it into a higher orbit.
As the Hubble sits there only Isaac Newton is controlling its orbit. If a large solar flare occurs, hopefully the earth will be between the hubble and the event, otherwise there's little the operators can do, other than close the doors, possible put the processor into some sort of safe mode, and hope for no bit-flips.
Given the emphasis on redundancy, it's pretty amazing that FOUR gyroscopes ended up failing. Are the four gyroscopes all of the same type? I wonder if they all failed the same way. Does this point out the typical "RISKS" failure where somebody has provided redundancy but using identical equipment with the exact same weaknesses (i.e., redundant in number but not in character)? If so, do they have any plans to try and avoid the same problem?
It was always expected to have to do a minimum of 2 servicing visits to the hubble for these type of things. Originally they were intended to upgrade the hardware (changing a tape storage device to solid state, etc..) but they always suspected that things like gyros would need changing out.
Everyone here seems to be forgetting that space is a particularly harsh environment. Especially considering that in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) a satellite is going to shadow to sunlight (~ -200 degrees to ~ +200 degrees farenheit) many times a day. These environment changes tax even the best engineered hardware, and these problems shouldn't surprise anyone.
Regardless of cost, I think Hubble was a tremendous investment. Knowlege for the sake of knowlege. I like it.
The more "pure-science" that is done in the world the better (science that can not be perverted into a weapon).
Well, I certainly am curious to see the DNA test results (which according to the article should be out by now).
All in all I'd say that the article was well written, and didn't really have that Erik Von Danikken (sp?) "we'll come up with any explanation regardless of how unreallistic to explain our theory", since they are willing to admit it might be a human deformity.
Wasn't there one option missing within their explanation of what the DNA results might return? They said the DNA testing will either reveal that the skull is "entirely human", or "not entirely human". Doesn't the option exist that the DNA might reveal it's not human at all? (however unlikely that may seem?)
Or would the DNA experts pass unidentifiable DNA off as corrupted human DNA that seems to be untestable?
I am a man of science but must admit that these things interest me greatly. And since I do suspect there is other intelligent life in the universe it is only a matter of time before we discover sufficiently compelling evidence to demonstrate this.
"For everything there is a first time."
And although that good fortune was not in the Mets corner in the NLCS, it someday will be in our search for extra-terrestrial life. I only hope that I am alive to witness it.
Interestingly, my browser (Netscape 4.61) crashed on the third page of the report - not once or twice, but four times. Guess it just didn't want to read about the slow demise of its parent company:)
Opera 3.60 seemed to handle it fine. I can't wait for the linux release.
Could any of that processing power have anything to do with Echelon???
I don't think any NSA computers are on that list. I have yet to hear any real specifics regarding what the NSA has at their disposal, except the word CRAY a few times. Suffice it to say that they have the potential to have way cooler machines than any on this list, due to their undisclosed budget.
Nah, that's just a fairly standard German keyboard layout, I think. They use QWERTZ rather than QWERTY.
Yes, and if I recall correctly. The Polish replica Enigma machines simply went A-Z left to right.
They also improved the plugboard by replacing those banana plugs with 1/4 inch phono plugs, thus requiring only one jack instead of 2 for every plugboard letter.
Yes, it was funny when the British from Bletchley talked to them, and the first thing they asked was, what was the plugboard arrangement, and the Polish said: "A, B, C, D, E, F, G..." and the British hit themselves on the forehead. That was another stupid move on the Germans' part.
One of many. But the real truth is that Enigma would have been more enigmatic had the germans exercised better care in key management.
The Allies found Enigma sound enough to have actually used it a little themselves when sending messages to the French resistance.
One rather dismaying point: The Polish mathematicians who did the majority of the early work were kept away from Bletchley for "security reasons" and were not able to contribute to the ongoing efforts.
Amen, and yes.
This has always been a sore point with me (The Poles crypto successes being ignored by history in general) becaus I am Polish and we all know what nationality gets the largest brunt of stupid jokes thrown at them.
From what I read the Polish trio (Rajewski, Zygalski, and the other guy whose name I was reminded of by PBS tonight but once again can not seem to remember) fled to occupied France to continue their work decrypting Enigma, after Germany blitzed Poland. They remained in France until things got too hot there for them, and then went to England where, yes, they were not allowed to actually work at Bletchley, and were reduced to breaking low-level German diplomatic codes.
The gentleman whose name I keep forgetting (it was something like Rosicki) died before the war ended when he was fleeing Poland. I think his boat was torpedoed and sank. I don't remember what happened to Zygalski, but Rajewski was rewarded by the Polish gov't with some monetary compensation for his work, and he did survive long enough (into the 1970's, when Enigma was finally declassified) to receive some small acclaim for his accomplishments. He was interviewed by (if I recall correctly) the TV show 60-Minutes, and a Polish film maker did a film about him and his Polish colleagues.
I must say that I think the PBS special did give the Poles more acclaim than history generally gives them, and was pretty well made with the exception of a few pet peeves.
I might get flamed for this, but according to my research on Enigma (and I read quote a bit in a quest to actually build one) Alan Turing's role in cracking Enigma was much over-hyped, and had less to do with the history of Bletchley Park than history leads us to believe.
My other pet peave (and this popped up frequently in the PBS special tonight) is that CODES and CIPHERS are 2 different things. Enigma was a cipher, not a code, and they kept saying "enigma encoded things", which is technically false. For example, Morse Code isn't a code at all, it's a cipher. (this is also a pet peeve of Peter Calvocoressi, a former Bletchley worker who was coincidentally interviewed on the Nova special, and who has written several good beginners books on codes and ciphers)
The difference being ciphers replace a single letter with a single letter. Codes generally replace entire words with groups of letters and numbers, or other words, and actually require a CODE-TO-PLAINTEXT book to decode a message, and a PLAINTEXT-TO-CODE book to encode a message. A cipher only requires a simple key.
Why is it that history always credits Alan Turing with cracking Enigma, when in fact the Poles were reading Enigma encrypts prior to 1940? As I remember it Turing didn't become a player at Bletchley Park until about 1943, LONG after all of the theoretical work on the Enigma cipher had passed.
The Poles had (primarily) 3 mathematicians that they trained in cryptography as early as 1936, because even then they feared a German invasion and thought that reading German Enigma traffic would be crucial.
The main person who did most of the theoretical work in cracking Enigma was a man named Marjan Rajewski. There were 2 others, but I only remember one other name, Henri Zygalski.
At one point the Poles were able to intercept a German diplocmatic shipment and capture an enigma machine and duplicate them. At that since the poles had captured some plaintext, with the corresponding cipher-text he was able through substitution to calculate the internal wirings of the Enigma rotors (of which the machine came with 5, but only 3 could be used at once. That is unless it was a Naval Enimga machine which used 4 rotors, the 4th did not rotate however.)
As I recall, the Diplomatic Enigma machine might not have come with a STECKER (plugboard) but it was then a simple matter for the Polish engineers to add that to the diplomatic machine to get a fully functional Enigma machine.
The single best reference I have found for Enigma history and information is THIS one. Though it is out of print.
It's a great read if you can find it at your library. Many former Bletchley Park members have confirmed it as being factual as well.
If anyone is interested I have some photos of various Enigma machines that I took at The NSA's Crypto Museum. I'll post a link if anyone would like to see them.
I didn't see any of the names from the GPG team there, which I think is a shame. GPG is really, really important - free access to strong encryption might define privacy for the next decade, or longer.
I see that the nominee page lists a guy named WERNER KOCH. I wonder if they meant WALTER Koch, who did work on GPG.
And I agree. Access to strong crypto is the ONLY way to guarantee privacy. If you've ever read THE PUZZLE PALACE you'd understand why.:-)
I saw Phil Zimmermann speak in Syracuse a few years back (I also got him to sign my PGP users guide), and he made a good point, INFRASTRUCTURES rarely go away. And now that the telecommunications industry has engineered back doors into their digital switches, our privacy is gone. Having them remove those back doors at this point is just as unlikely as us switching from 60Hz AC to 50Hz AC. It just ain't gonna happen.
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Was Evel Knievel piloting this thing? :-)
But seriously, I'm NASA's biggest supporter. We'll get'em next time. And with any luck, some day very soon with humans on board.
Discovered check(mate).
But the Internet Movie Database DOES have it listed here
Apparently the reviewer completely forgot about Sir Alec Guiness. His body of work is as impressive as Pete Cushing's and Harrison Ford's... perhaps moreso.
Also, I disagree with his opinion of Tim Conway entirely. I happen to think Tim Conway is hilarious. Perhaps he is confusing the talented Tim Conway the with most UNTALENTED Jeff Conaway from Taxi? :-)
It seems to me then if you're that impressed by the amazing imagery, that any of the problems that Hubble had in the past would be rendered irrelevent.
Why? What's going to happen? The Shuttle is in a stable orbit, so it's not like it's going to simply fall out of the sky.
I watched it as well. A nominal launch, everything went quite uneventfully.
I agree, while I do enjoy watching NASA TV, I found it to be at its best when they treated the last Hubble repair mission like NBC treats a baseball game and had an actual announcer and also had Story Musgrave doing color commentary. And he oughta know, he spent some time up there fixing Hubble himself.
Well I definitely wouldn't want any music involved. Just give me some guy interpreting what the launch control guys are babbling about. And I definitely think they need better audio production, starting with better gear. I'd be happy to consult for them if and when they decide to upgrade their audio production facilities. :-)
Well as you can imagine, many news sources the next day reported about the newly discovered life on Europa, and the JPL people had to do another quick press conference straightening things out.
Even though it wasn't JPL's fault, scientists do need to be careful with what they say and how they say it. While is was clear to me then that he was only talking about his personal belief, he should have realized that some reporter only 1/2 listening was bound to get it wrong, as so many (practically ALL) reporters do when reporting on matters of science and technology.
And much like that scientist from JPL, I have a suspicion that life exists beneath the ice.
By 1985 I enjoyed it enough to actually start my own BBS, running CP/M on a Kaypro I, running software called CITADEL (thanks CrT for your great freeware BBS software).
My BBS was single user (naturally) and ran at 300/1200 baud on my Hayes Smartmodem 1200 (which cost me over $350 back then, and that I still have).
After a year or two I went to what we locally called a "Hamfest" (before they were computer fests) and bought an XT clone and started running the MSDOS version of Citadel (thanks Hue Jr. for your freeware Citadel for MSDOS which extended CrT's original code) which had more features and networked. That was fun. I eventually hooked up a US Robotics 9600 HST to that system which I bought through the USR "Sysop Deal" (and that I also still have) for $500!
By the early 1990's more and more kids were getting modems for Xmas and my BBS and the whole local scene slowly began to lose it's charm. This was probably due to the sheer numbers of new users that we for the most part never got to know. This was probably more OUR fault as the old users since we probably thought of them as new meat and didn't make them feel as welcomed as we should have. But I must say that they did SEEM like little punk kids! :-)
I think I ended up taking my BBS offline in 1992 or thereabouts. (I still have that XT with the BBS on it sitting next to me exactly as it was the day I took it down. The XT is powered on and seems to be Y2K ready!)
I do miss the old BBS scene and do find the web less charming than my BBSing days, and in some ways less enjoyable. So for the most part I think the BBS community scene is dead vis-a-vis the BBS. But I think that spirit can be resurrected in LUG's and other user groups.
Having said that, I will say that I do enjoy the web for its power and what is allows me to do, and I wouldn't trade it for anything, despite its lack of charm. :-)
Right now I am considering putting up a Multi-User Citadel system running Linux and making it Telnet-able. There is a GREAT version of Citadel for UNIX which compiles nicely under Linux (Thanks Ignatious T. Foobar for your GPL UNIX version of Citadel). All I need is a better net connection.
Who says you can't go back home? :-)
While you probably can not, it will be an interesting experiment since most of the old users are kicking around the internet and will be able to telnet into the system.
As a postscript, if anyone would like to see my Kaypro I with Hayes 3/12 sitting on top as it would have looked many years ago, I submitted the photo to the Obsolete Computer Museum, and perhaps one day Tom will actually put it online! :-)
I might agree with that opinion if the people who needed to do the deciding had all of the facts. But they do not, and will not, simply because in any case like this, the spin from the manufacturer (in this case, Intel) is overwhelming, and for some unexplainable reason, people have a bizarre trust in their government that things like this won't get abused.
Also probably not true, since people DO WANT computers, and INTEL INSIDE is practically the only option thay have due to all of the advertising that Intel does, and due to the ovwewhelming market-share that they already enjoy.
You and I both know that the Athlon is as good a chip as the PIII, maybe better, but I saw my first Athlon ad on TV last night. I see Intel ads many times a day, as I have been for many years.
And on a different note, are there any linux kernel hacks that defeat the PIII ID number?
I think not.
If they were ever to be asked they would simply deny that they're doing it, and if some sort of legal pursuit occurred it would be deflected by the veil of NATIONAL SECURITY.
I saw Phil Zimmerman speak in Syracuse NY many years ago when the US Gov't was still pursuing their investigation of him, and he spoke about the potential collision of technology, and privacy rights.
At that time (1993-ish) Phil mentioned that the NSA had just released some of their speech recognition code into the public domain, and it was several generations ahead of what the best civilian code looked like.
What does this say about the code that they're actually using.
The NSA's motto is to be 5 years ahead of EVERYONE else's technology, and I believe they are.
Bottom line:
The NSA HAS BEEN developing and using speech recognition software for more than 10 years, and will continue to do so regardless of what congress attempts to do to curtail their trampling of people's privacy rights, and regardless of who patents what.
That depends upon which type of tubes they use. There are a few companies still manufacturing several models.. the models for example that are still required in guitar amplifiers. 12AX7's, 6L6's, 5U4's, EL34's, etc....
I believe it was RCA that sold their manufacturing technology to a soviet company called Sovtek which is becoming a huge supplier (though musician friends are questioning their QC), and there is a company called Groove Tubes as well. There is still a Fender brand of vacuum tubes, but I think someone else manufactures them for Fender.
A little research revealed another company called Teslovak, and another called JJ Electronics.
I suspect these companies could tool up to manufacture any tube that was needed for this application.
How is this so different that being supported by advertising? The person or corporation providing the funding might create the same problems. The writers of the magazine might be afraid to be critical of something or someone because the people they are writing about might be tied to those who are providing the endowment.
To me this is no different than kissing the advertisers butt by not printing bad things about them or their products.
What do you think the odds are of seeing an anti-nuclear energy PSA (or anti-nuclear ANYTHING) on NBC?
Noam Chomsky writes about this type of "systematic behavior" frequently in his many books and columns for Z Magazine, and demonstrates quite effectively that it is endemic to the economic system itself, and won't go away until the very system it rests upon goes first.
That thought scares me a little bit. Why must any intelligent entity (if and when computers do develop AI) be evangelized? Why can't intelligent entities make their own spiritual decisions?
These people might also be the people who used to yell, "My dad can beat your dad!" when they were kids... I don't know.
What I do know is that I'm running two Seti work-unit as I type this (one each on 2 machines. A Windoze box and a linux box), and am more interested in precision and accuracy within my completed data, not speed.
What projects that governments waste money on DO buy you breakfast? :-)
But we already know that the space program has provided you with a critical piece of knowlege to enhance your breakfast experience... TANG. :-)
We already know that the planet earth was created to figure out the question that yielded the answer... 42. Surely you've read The Hitchikers Guide?I am a huge proponent of basing an economy on R&D. Now that our economy is used less to build bombs and such for the cold war, we should have converted those industries to pure research in ALL area of science. SERENDIPITY proves that research in all areas will reveal answers in others.
The gyroscopes allow the operators to point the Hubble. Which is why a minimum of 3 are required. There is no ability to change the Hubble's orbit. To do that would require dragging it into the cargo bay as they did on the repair mission last time and use the shuttle to boost it into a higher orbit.
As the Hubble sits there only Isaac Newton is controlling its orbit. If a large solar flare occurs, hopefully the earth will be between the hubble and the event, otherwise there's little the operators can do, other than close the doors, possible put the processor into some sort of safe mode, and hope for no bit-flips.
It was always expected to have to do a minimum of 2 servicing visits to the hubble for these type of things. Originally they were intended to upgrade the hardware (changing a tape storage device to solid state, etc..) but they always suspected that things like gyros would need changing out.Everyone here seems to be forgetting that space is a particularly harsh environment. Especially considering that in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) a satellite is going to shadow to sunlight (~ -200 degrees to ~ +200 degrees farenheit) many times a day. These environment changes tax even the best engineered hardware, and these problems shouldn't surprise anyone.
Regardless of cost, I think Hubble was a tremendous investment. Knowlege for the sake of knowlege. I like it.
The more "pure-science" that is done in the world the better (science that can not be perverted into a weapon).
All in all I'd say that the article was well written, and didn't really have that Erik Von Danikken (sp?) "we'll come up with any explanation regardless of how unreallistic to explain our theory", since they are willing to admit it might be a human deformity.
Wasn't there one option missing within their explanation of what the DNA results might return? They said the DNA testing will either reveal that the skull is "entirely human", or "not entirely human". Doesn't the option exist that the DNA might reveal it's not human at all? (however unlikely that may seem?)
Or would the DNA experts pass unidentifiable DNA off as corrupted human DNA that seems to be untestable?
I am a man of science but must admit that these things interest me greatly. And since I do suspect there is other intelligent life in the universe it is only a matter of time before we discover sufficiently compelling evidence to demonstrate this.
"For everything there is a first time."
And although that good fortune was not in the Mets corner in the NLCS, it someday will be in our search for extra-terrestrial life. I only hope that I am alive to witness it.
Opera 3.60 seemed to handle it fine. I can't wait for the linux release.
I don't think any NSA computers are on that list. I have yet to hear any real specifics regarding what the NSA has at their disposal, except the word CRAY a few times. Suffice it to say that they have the potential to have way cooler machines than any on this list, due to their undisclosed budget.
Yes, and if I recall correctly. The Polish replica Enigma machines simply went A-Z left to right.
They also improved the plugboard by replacing those banana plugs with 1/4 inch phono plugs, thus requiring only one jack instead of 2 for every plugboard letter.
One of many. But the real truth is that Enigma would have been more enigmatic had the germans exercised better care in key management.
The Allies found Enigma sound enough to have actually used it a little themselves when sending messages to the French resistance.
This has always been a sore point with me (The Poles crypto successes being ignored by history in general) becaus I am Polish and we all know what nationality gets the largest brunt of stupid jokes thrown at them.
From what I read the Polish trio (Rajewski, Zygalski, and the other guy whose name I was reminded of by PBS tonight but once again can not seem to remember) fled to occupied France to continue their work decrypting Enigma, after Germany blitzed Poland. They remained in France until things got too hot there for them, and then went to England where, yes, they were not allowed to actually work at Bletchley, and were reduced to breaking low-level German diplomatic codes.
The gentleman whose name I keep forgetting (it was something like Rosicki) died before the war ended when he was fleeing Poland. I think his boat was torpedoed and sank. I don't remember what happened to Zygalski, but Rajewski was rewarded by the Polish gov't with some monetary compensation for his work, and he did survive long enough (into the 1970's, when Enigma was finally declassified) to receive some small acclaim for his accomplishments. He was interviewed by (if I recall correctly) the TV show 60-Minutes, and a Polish film maker did a film about him and his Polish colleagues.
I must say that I think the PBS special did give the Poles more acclaim than history generally gives them, and was pretty well made with the exception of a few pet peeves.
I might get flamed for this, but according to my research on Enigma (and I read quote a bit in a quest to actually build one) Alan Turing's role in cracking Enigma was much over-hyped, and had less to do with the history of Bletchley Park than history leads us to believe.
My other pet peave (and this popped up frequently in the PBS special tonight) is that CODES and CIPHERS are 2 different things. Enigma was a cipher, not a code, and they kept saying "enigma encoded things", which is technically false. For example, Morse Code isn't a code at all, it's a cipher. (this is also a pet peeve of Peter Calvocoressi, a former Bletchley worker who was coincidentally interviewed on the Nova special, and who has written several good beginners books on codes and ciphers)
The difference being ciphers replace a single letter with a single letter. Codes generally replace entire words with groups of letters and numbers, or other words, and actually require a CODE-TO-PLAINTEXT book to decode a message, and a PLAINTEXT-TO-CODE book to encode a message. A cipher only requires a simple key.
The Poles had (primarily) 3 mathematicians that they trained in cryptography as early as 1936, because even then they feared a German invasion and thought that reading German Enigma traffic would be crucial.
The main person who did most of the theoretical work in cracking Enigma was a man named Marjan Rajewski. There were 2 others, but I only remember one other name, Henri Zygalski.
At one point the Poles were able to intercept a German diplocmatic shipment and capture an enigma machine and duplicate them. At that since the poles had captured some plaintext, with the corresponding cipher-text he was able through substitution to calculate the internal wirings of the Enigma rotors (of which the machine came with 5, but only 3 could be used at once. That is unless it was a Naval Enimga machine which used 4 rotors, the 4th did not rotate however.)
As I recall, the Diplomatic Enigma machine might not have come with a STECKER (plugboard) but it was then a simple matter for the Polish engineers to add that to the diplomatic machine to get a fully functional Enigma machine.
The single best reference I have found for Enigma history and information is THIS one. Though it is out of print.
It's a great read if you can find it at your library. Many former Bletchley Park members have confirmed it as being factual as well.
If anyone is interested I have some photos of various Enigma machines that I took at The NSA's Crypto Museum. I'll post a link if anyone would like to see them.
I see that the nominee page lists a guy named WERNER KOCH. I wonder if they meant WALTER Koch, who did work on GPG.
And I agree. Access to strong crypto is the ONLY way to guarantee privacy. If you've ever read THE PUZZLE PALACE you'd understand why. :-)
I saw Phil Zimmermann speak in Syracuse a few years back (I also got him to sign my PGP users guide), and he made a good point, INFRASTRUCTURES rarely go away. And now that the telecommunications industry has engineered back doors into their digital switches, our privacy is gone. Having them remove those back doors at this point is just as unlikely as us switching from 60Hz AC to 50Hz AC. It just ain't gonna happen.