While bad things (tm) are generally done during the expansion phase... I welcome the chance to live by my own morality
I think this underlines my point rather than undermining it 'the expansion phase' would last an unimaginable period of time as the rim of known space was expanded indefinitely. I think there is little doubt these companies would claim ownership of the space within there rim and seek to utilize it, indeed maximise its utility. Therefore unless you were a major stakeholder in that company your chance to live by your own morality is near zero.
Face it... Which is what we are moving toward.
Come on the rest is a strawman, my post does not advocate any of it; Indeed I strongly agree that sitting back and abandoning the exploration of space is not a credible option if we wish to survive the remaining universe as a species or meta-species. I strongly support a momentous effort to pursue the exploitation of space. I do not object to commercial utilisation of space or space based resources, providing they are within the rim of our governed space.
I oppose indefinitely the commercial exploration of space for the very specific reason raise in my initial post, because once release, the unchecked consequences are too dangerous. (AIH I also oppose the release of von-nueman machine for much the same reason). However I do not even suggest this ban would last forever, just indefinitely because I also have to believe we can evolve past the problem.
Wouldn't this be a good time to allow the private sector in on this?
I really can't believe that somebody is seriously suggesting the commercialism of Space, you clearly have not considered the consequences of even this first apparently small step. There is good reason that the commercialisation is illegal under international law and treaty. You only have to look at the actions of the old Colonial Charter Companies to see the dangers. They ran riot over large parts of the globe and where only constrained by finite space of the Colonies.
New Space based commercial entities are a genie that once out of the bottle are never likely to be every constrained again, they would grow unchecked by earth bound morality, law, or nation, any unchecked at all by an essentially infinite space. They exhibit exponential growth and would quickly become more powerful than you could ever imagine, driven by one overwhelming factor; the accumulation of resources on an near infinite scale, an accumulation that would redefine the term greed.
The resulting 'Companies' would make the Commerical enties of SCI-FI look like cartoon kittens.
A better idea if everybody send him an invoice for mail server usage and bandwidth, keep it reasonable amount, and when he does not pay register a bad debt against him. This could work best if done out of his juridiction.
Sounds like a legend in his own mind or perhaps his victims. Never forget the Net.Admin.Net-abuse.Email rules: NANE Rules Rule #0: Spam is theft. Rule #1: Spammers lie.
Sharp's Corollary: Spammers attempt to re-define "spamming" as that which they do not do. Rule #2: If a spammer seems to be telling the truth, see Rule #1.
Crissman's Corollary: A spammer, when caught, blames his victims. Rule #3: Spammers are stupid.
Krueger's Corollary: Spammer lies are really stupid.
Pickett's Commentary: Spammer lies are boring.
Russell's Corollary: Never underestimate the stupidity of spammers.
Spinosa's Corollary: Spammers assume everybody is more stupid than themselves.
Now reread the original article, amazing how similar it sounds to the last get rich scheme you encountered. [See #2]
That is because it is in order for their dodge pyramid schemes to work these junk emails must convince both the advertising companies & their own pyramid's lower tiers that it 'works' and the market for spam is increasing. It is not it is just steadily stealing more and more bandwidth the cost of which is shared out by legitimate email users. 96% of the email received at one of my drop accounts is junk email; 3% not, that means we pay 32 times (yes times/not percent) more than we should for email.
Angry ? You should get even not angry, don't rant and rave here: tell *everybody* you know UCE dirty little secret.
Why do people care so much about what lunar denial folk think?
This is should be insightful.
Are Chemists bothered about what Alchemists believed/said ? Are Astronomers bothered about what Astrologers believe/say ? Are Biologists bothered about what Creationists believe/say ?
Writing ad-blocker could be seen as completely illegal thing to do. Far fetched? Think DMCA.
By the same logic cicumventing an Ad-Blocker would also be illegal under the DMCA. It is certainly aganinst the UK Computer Misuse Act (see my post elsewhere on this page). In no part of my HTTP ACCEPTS header does it state I accept popups or ads.
Web-enabled STB's rarely support POPUP's because of the HCI problems with a handheld remote (typically no mouse/cursor constrol) and screen sizes, the same can be said for many other web-enabled devices. Mobile phones, etc.
These people seem intent on cutting off most of the next generation of Internet devices so I cannot see this catching on with any other group than blind linking porn advertisers.
It does suggest a HTTP issue that I've been considering for a while. There seem to me to be an increasing requirement for a USER-AGENT-PROFILE header to HTTP requests to identify a clients capabilities, to many web designers assume a PC and MIE/Mozilla access only.
This is a bad name, a 'Fresco' open source software project already exists. It is an Mozilla derrivative browser for STB's and has been around since the open sourcing of Netscape.
Yep, they don't taste of real potatoes bcause they are made from industrial starch not potatoes. The McNuggets are made using 'bleached beef' (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UT F-8&q=bleached+beef&btnG=Google+Search). .
Fishy indeed:) It does indeed sounds similar to the case of the shady internet trader suing its ex-customers for complaining online that the aquatic plants supplied arriving dead or dying.
Indeed the original is so dramatically exaggerated, I was sceptical after the first line, it reeks of somebody taking a personal affront, at first I considered it troll bait and I'm surprised any/.ers accepted it at face value.
If you wish to convince/.er of the merit of your [friends] 'case' and solicit aid perhaps you should include more hard facts and less superlative.
The chances are you'll obtain little aid here unless you can produce hard evidence. This also coincides with the best way for anybody to rebutt an alleged 'slander, libel' which is hard facts!
As for posting 'private information' this must have either been made available already or be a matter of public record, either way it is not private.
Your suggestion that the only way you can 'prove a crime' is throught the revalation of the persons identity is clearly absurd and make me even more suspicious of your motives. If your evidence cannot stand without knowledge of the identity of the poster it must be pretty weak. Therefore your attempts to obtain the logs appear to be a fishing expedition. I applaud the site's resistance.
Your apparently unwillingness to deal with the sites lawyers, the fact the Police & FBI have declined to act on your complaint further vindicate the view that your claims are disingenuous. Also since slander and libel are civil not criminal issues and the whole scenario suggests miss-handling an aggrieved customer and not of being innocent victim of a groundless 'attack'.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel (an uber-engineer if ever there was one)
Agreed, the first.
AIH the BBC is conducting a documentary series culminating in a poll to find the Greatest Briton. Isambard Kingdom Brunel currently winning with a small lead over Diana. (Don't ask me why, I don't understand what makes her Great either). So few extra geek votes would not go amiss, we may even get another true great into second place, such as Darwin or Newton.
"Pre-Employment Testing of Applicants [nolo.com]", written tests can be dangerous because "A multiple choice aptitude test may discriminate against minority applicants or female applicants because it really reflects test-taking ability rather than actual job skills."
This is a spoof right ?
The point of a selction process *is* to discriminate based on fair objective criteria (test) rather than a unfair subjective criteria (interview).
One of the committee members was very offended that we were giving the interviewees a written test
Offended in what way ? Did the test work against their choice / favoured candidate ? If so then the test worked to highlighted a weakness not discovered in the interview.
...written tests as part of a job interview?...
I've done both, conducted and undertaken written test as part of a selection process.
In the case of contract staff particularly short term, I think everybody should be tested with a direct test of the skills required, you don't want to be paying a contractor to learn. The other factor to consider is that most contractors probably have more experience of being interviewed than you have of interviewing.
IMHO, In the case of permanent staff you should be seeking ability not knowledge. If the candidate is a graduate in a relevant dicipline then a written test is rather point-less. They've already demonstrated an ability to learn advanced topics and pass an appropriate knowledge based test. It may not be your current technology but knowledge can be learnt, ability cannot. In this case the aim of the interview should be to determine the fit to 'soft' requirements. i.e. 'Does their face fit?' Myers-Briggs & Keirsey personality profiling can be a good (none discriminating tool) for this.
So for example: If you need a Architect an 'ENTP'/Prober is a good option. If you need a QA tester, a sheduler would be much better choice than a Prober. A 'Shaper' could probably do both roles competently rather than well.
In the case of unqualified experienced candidates you typically have no external reference point since the experience and job title of different companies/managers varies that widely. So you have no other choice but to insist on a test. Assuming like me your are seeking ability not knowledge; the test should be flexible enough that you are testing only the candidates claimed knowledge and not the knowledges you need. This is an easy trap to fall into.
Always consider that studies have shown that confidence is poor indicator of ability, the 'unconscious incompetent' rule because they typically see fewer options, troubles and problems than the competent or able.
The issue that needs to be constantly reconsidered is a written test primarily measures knowledge not ability.
Um. Yup. A drop in the ocean compared to the cost of a single launch, never mind a whole programme. The US space shuttle costs ~$400 million a launch. The whole programme costs the ~$4Billion per year. The ISS is expect to cost ~$100 billion.
'not gonna be very safe'
for whom ? The passengers or investors?
IMHO this will make the DOT-COM bubble look like loose change.
The German plan was a fine one, and could've worked...
It was fine for the invasion of Norway where strategic and tactical surprise was achieved against numerically inferior military at a low state of readiness.
It was a poor plan against the British Isles. 1) No surprise, not even tactical. 2) British had a superior force on the ground. 3) No prospect of quickly seizing the seat of Government. 4) Little prospect of retaining seizing Airfields, 5) Little prospect of seizing or retaining ports.
German forces could've pushed onto the British Isles
The Germans had limited amphibious capability therefore allowed only limited provision for landing heavy equipment, tanks, artillery, trucks etc; beyond seizing a port as the primary objective. Germany Parachutists would have been extremely vulnerable to land based mechanised counter attack (something not possible in Norway due to terrain). They would have been in a worse position than the Allies at Arnhem during Market Garden, without any prospect of retreat across the channel. They would have been decimated.
In summary German amphibious & parachute forces where adequate to take Norway, they would have been completely inadequate to take the British Isles.
Sealion was never implemented or even seriously consider, it was a plan, not an operation. The German high command even the reckless Hitler realised it was complete folly.
the RAF was seriously attrited.
The RAF had three fighter groups available in the British Isles. Two front line fighter groups and one stategic reserve. It committed only one front line group to the Battle of Briton. The RAF's plan was to rotate the Southern and Northern Groups, if the Southern group broke. It never broke. The Luftwaffe may have started with a numerical advantage but in practice the RAF had many practical advantages, RADAR, it operated over friendly territory, it had lower losses, higher production of new aircraft, much higher levels pilot replacement and aircraft better suited to the task in hand.
Maybe if the German resources weren't split on the Eastern front they could've overwhelmed the defenders.
No. Barbarossa, the German offensive against the Soviet Union started in June 41 nearly a year after the Battle of Briton finished in August 40.
Actually, top military theorists have yet to work out a way in which Germany's 'Sealion' invasion plan could work.
Indeed, Operation Sealion was doomed from the start, the British Isles where never seriously threatened with invasion. Operation Sealion required the defeat of the RAF to establish air superiority over the English Channel, then defeat of the Royal Navy, before a landing could even be considered.
The RAF-Fighter Command held their own against the Luftwaffe, RAF-Bomber Command sunk most of the Rhine Barges to be used for the landings. Costal Command kept the Channel clear of the Germany surface fleet and the Royal Navy chased the German High fleet around the global, either sinking it's ships or forcing them into home waters for the duration of the War.
The Royal Navy defeated the Italian Navy (which was superior in numbers and equivalent in technology to the Germany Fleet. The 'Desert Rat's' (British Army Regulars) defeated first the Italians then the Germans in North Africa, the Italian forces in the Middle East. (It is also perhaps worth mentioning the Italian reputation for cowardice is largely unfounded, faint, thrust, retreat, consolidate was very much the tactics of all sides in North Africa.)
Also what many seem to forget is that prior to WW2, Great Briton (& Empire) was the pre-eminent Military power in the World, in essense it was the Worlds only true super power'. In a pre-WW2 (& nuclear weapons) sense this was measured by the ability to project an effective military force around the world and provide the logistics to maintain a compaign. There was only one nation able to do this before WW2, and that was British Royal Navy. Undeniably the cost of WW2 for Briton was the loss of Empire.
In fact, it was the Poles that saved us (1930s Polish hackers won WWII for the allies).
Setting asside that ESSID discovery software is inherently passive.
All this fuss and mud slinging over WiFi seems to be missing the point. It is build on an invalid premise. That 'this network' belongs to the AP owner. 802.11.b uses public airspace it does not belong to anybody it belongs to everybody just like the Internet backbone, it is designed to be open, and should remain so. If somebody wishes to use privatly for their secure traffic they should treat it as they would a PVC the net at large.
Accept it is open technology standard and secure their machines and traffic as necessary as they would on the Internet at large. The physical network its self cannot and should not be closed.
What are the cable deals like for Slashdot readers outside of the US?
Perhaps the biggest difference is that the dominant pay-tv supplier is satellite, not cable. The satellite system has practically completed the switch to digital, the cable systems are much more recent than the US <10 yo) and pretty much entirely digital. You usually get a free STB, but are committed to a min contract of 1 year and pay for services.
The packages are similar to the older US system as described in the article, but are sorted by content type rather than supplier. i.e. Entertainment, Sport or Movie packages rather than Disney, Vista, etc. These tend to be priced at £10-£20 (15-30 $/) per package per month for ~10 channels. The exception is the premium movie channels with cost about £8-£16 (12-20 $/) each pcm, expensive but good. They do seem to take most new-release movies within a few weeks of DVD release.
Aside from the Premium Movie Channels, the best content is available from the free-to-air BBC which is mainly distributed though both analog and digital terrestrial (UHF) transmission. They are usually also bundled with the other transmission mediums. This medium also support some national and regional advert funded, free-to-air channels of good quality.
The new kid on the block is broadband IP-DTV, this is delivered via broadband xDSL line to a STB. It differs from cable because the network topology is star and not a ring. It supports a real return channel, dedicated bandwidth to each installation. And therfore allows true content on demand (VOD), server side PVR, and real interactive content. I guess you can call it programme level al-a-carte. Each movie is about £1.50-2.50 UKP (2-3.50 $/) for 24hours, this is about the same as a movie rental.
I work on this (www.kitv.co.uk) IP-DTV project. There are a couple of others, Yes, and Homechoice.
These things get bundled for a reason.
on
Cable TV A La Carte?
·
· Score: 3, Funny
These things get bundled for a reason.
As a welfare programme for arts graduates ?
Missing the point of Patterns
on
Design Patterns
·
· Score: 2
they deal with gluing objects and GUI's together which, granted, is an important task for many apps, but not for solving basic computational problems.
Whilst about a third of the patterns are structural that leaves two thirds that are not, they are creational and behavioural patterns. The GUI examples are just that examples, they are not the only application of those patterns. Indeed that assertion alone implied your have missed the point of patterns. A pattern represents a standardised solution for a recuring problem, problems that occur again and again. A good approach is to learn and always consider the pattern in its abstract form.
So for example, consider the composite pattern (GOF:163), the example is based on the relationship between a number of GUI controls. i.e. Point, Line, Polygone etc. However the same pattern can also be used for a B-tree, a directory, a master-detail structure, a relational database, a menu structure, a DOM, an XML document. Indeed it represents a good solution for structuring all these requirements. In its abstract form the composite pattern can be used to implement any example of nested nodes and leafs.
Slashdot Mirror
While bad things (tm) are generally done during the expansion phase... I welcome the chance to live by my own morality
I think this underlines my point rather than undermining it 'the expansion phase' would last an unimaginable period of time as the rim of known space was expanded indefinitely. I think there is little doubt these companies would claim ownership of the space within there rim and seek to utilize it, indeed maximise its utility. Therefore unless you were a major stakeholder in that company your chance to live by your own morality is near zero.
Face it... Which is what we are moving toward.
Come on the rest is a strawman, my post does not advocate any of it; Indeed I strongly agree that sitting back and abandoning the exploration of space is not a credible option if we wish to survive the remaining universe as a species or meta-species. I strongly support a momentous effort to pursue the exploitation of space. I do not object to commercial utilisation of space or space based resources, providing they are within the rim of our governed space.
I oppose indefinitely the commercial exploration of space for the very specific reason raise in my initial post, because once release, the unchecked consequences are too dangerous. (AIH I also oppose the release of von-nueman machine for much the same reason). However I do not even suggest this ban would last forever, just indefinitely because I also have to believe we can evolve past the problem.
Wouldn't this be a good time to allow the private sector in on this?
I really can't believe that somebody is seriously suggesting the commercialism of Space, you clearly have not considered the consequences of even this first apparently small step. There is good reason that the commercialisation is illegal under international law and treaty. You only have to look at the actions of the old Colonial Charter Companies to see the dangers. They ran riot over large parts of the globe and where only constrained by finite space of the Colonies.
New Space based commercial entities are a genie that once out of the bottle are never likely to be every constrained again, they would grow unchecked by earth bound morality, law, or nation, any unchecked at all by an essentially infinite space. They exhibit exponential growth and would quickly become more powerful than you could ever imagine, driven by one overwhelming factor; the accumulation of resources on an near infinite scale, an accumulation that would redefine the term greed.
The resulting 'Companies' would make the Commerical enties of SCI-FI look like cartoon kittens.
Send him a nice hand written note
A better idea if everybody send him an invoice for mail server usage and bandwidth, keep it reasonable amount, and when he does not pay register a bad debt against him. This could work best if done out of his juridiction.
There is software to stop mass mailings.
Which only cures the symptom not the cause, it still travels the backbone and costs you, me, everybody.
With ~96% of email beig UCE/UBE it means you pay over 30 times the real cost of email to subsidise these thieves.
Sounds like a legend in his own mind or perhaps his victims. Never forget the Net.Admin.Net-abuse.Email rules :
NANE Rules
Rule #0: Spam is theft.
Rule #1: Spammers lie.
Sharp's Corollary: Spammers attempt to re-define "spamming" as that which they do not do.
Rule #2: If a spammer seems to be telling the truth, see Rule #1.
Crissman's Corollary: A spammer, when caught, blames his victims.
Rule #3: Spammers are stupid.
Krueger's Corollary: Spammer lies are really stupid.
Pickett's Commentary: Spammer lies are boring.
Russell's Corollary: Never underestimate the stupidity of spammers.
Spinosa's Corollary: Spammers assume everybody is more stupid than themselves.
news.admin.net-abuse.email Rules
Now reread the original article, amazing how similar it sounds to the last get rich scheme you encountered. [See #2]
That is because it is in order for their dodge pyramid schemes to work these junk emails must convince both the advertising companies & their own pyramid's lower tiers that it 'works' and the market for spam is increasing. It is not it is just steadily stealing more and more bandwidth the cost of which is shared out by legitimate email users. 96% of the email received at one of my drop accounts is junk email; 3% not, that means we pay 32 times (yes times/not percent) more than we should for email.
Angry ? You should get even not angry, don't rant and rave here: tell *everybody* you know UCE dirty little secret.
Why do people care so much about what lunar denial folk think?
This is should be insightful.
Are Chemists bothered about what Alchemists believed/said ?
Are Astronomers bothered about what Astrologers believe/say ?
Are Biologists bothered about what Creationists believe/say ?
Writing ad-blocker could be seen as completely illegal thing to do. Far fetched? Think DMCA.
By the same logic cicumventing an Ad-Blocker would also be illegal under the DMCA. It is certainly aganinst the UK Computer Misuse Act (see my post elsewhere on this page). In no part of my HTTP ACCEPTS header does it state I accept popups or ads.
Web-enabled STB's rarely support POPUP's because of the HCI problems with a handheld remote (typically no mouse/cursor constrol) and screen sizes, the same can be said for many other web-enabled devices. Mobile phones, etc.
These people seem intent on cutting off most of the next generation of Internet devices so I cannot see this catching on with any other group than blind linking porn advertisers.
It does suggest a HTTP issue that I've been considering for a while. There seem to me to be an increasing requirement for a USER-AGENT-PROFILE header to HTTP requests to identify a clients capabilities, to many web designers assume a PC and MIE/Mozilla access only.
This is a bad name, a 'Fresco' open source software project already exists. It is an Mozilla derrivative browser for STB's and has been around since the open sourcing of Netscape.
http://www.antlimited.com/products_fresco.html
(Anyone else think McDonalds fries are crap?
T F-8&q=bleached+beef&btnG=Google+Search). .
Yep, they don't taste of real potatoes bcause they are made from industrial starch not potatoes. The McNuggets are made using 'bleached beef' (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=U
Fishy indeed :) It does indeed sounds similar to the case of the shady internet trader suing its ex-customers for complaining online that the aquatic plants supplied arriving dead or dying.
/.ers accepted it at face value.
Indeed the original is so dramatically exaggerated, I was sceptical after the first line, it reeks of somebody taking a personal affront, at first I considered it troll bait and I'm surprised any
If you wish to convince /.er of the merit of your [friends] 'case' and solicit aid perhaps you should include more hard facts and less superlative.
The chances are you'll obtain little aid here unless you can produce hard evidence. This also coincides with the best way for anybody to rebutt an alleged 'slander, libel' which is hard facts!
As for posting 'private information' this must have either been made available already or be a matter of public record, either way it is not private.
Your suggestion that the only way you can 'prove a crime' is throught the revalation of the persons identity is clearly absurd and make me even more suspicious of your motives. If your evidence cannot stand without knowledge of the identity of the poster it must be pretty weak. Therefore your attempts to obtain the logs appear to be a fishing expedition. I applaud the site's resistance.
Your apparently unwillingness to deal with the sites lawyers, the fact the Police & FBI have declined to act on your complaint further vindicate the view that your claims are disingenuous. Also since slander and libel are civil not criminal issues and the whole scenario suggests miss-handling an aggrieved customer and not of being innocent victim of a groundless 'attack'.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel (an uber-engineer if ever there was one)
Agreed, the first.
AIH the BBC is conducting a documentary series culminating in a poll to find the Greatest Briton. Isambard Kingdom Brunel currently winning with a small lead over Diana. (Don't ask me why, I don't understand what makes her Great either). So few extra geek votes would not go amiss, we may even get another true great into second place, such as Darwin or Newton.
"Pre-Employment Testing of Applicants [nolo.com]", written tests can be dangerous because "A multiple choice aptitude test may discriminate against minority applicants or female applicants because it really reflects test-taking ability rather than actual job skills."
This is a spoof right ?
The point of a selction process *is* to discriminate based on fair objective criteria (test) rather than a unfair subjective criteria (interview).
One of the committee members was very offended that we were giving the interviewees a written test
...written tests as part of a job interview? ...
Offended in what way ? Did the test work against their choice / favoured candidate ? If so then the test worked to highlighted a weakness not discovered in the interview.
I've done both, conducted and undertaken written test as part of a selection process.
In the case of contract staff particularly short term, I think everybody should be tested with a direct test of the skills required, you don't want to be paying a contractor to learn. The other factor to consider is that most contractors probably have more experience of being interviewed than you have of interviewing.
IMHO, In the case of permanent staff you should be seeking ability not knowledge. If the candidate is a graduate in a relevant dicipline then a written test is rather point-less. They've already demonstrated an ability to learn advanced topics and pass an appropriate knowledge based test. It may not be your current technology but knowledge can be learnt, ability cannot. In this case the aim of the interview should be to determine the fit to 'soft' requirements. i.e. 'Does their face fit?' Myers-Briggs & Keirsey personality profiling can be a good (none discriminating tool) for this.
So for example: If you need a Architect an 'ENTP'/Prober is a good option. If you need a QA tester, a sheduler would be much better choice than a Prober. A 'Shaper' could probably do both roles competently rather than well.
In the case of unqualified experienced candidates you typically have no external reference point since the experience and job title of different companies/managers varies that widely. So you have no other choice but to insist on a test. Assuming like me your are seeking ability not knowledge; the test should be flexible enough that you are testing only the candidates claimed knowledge and not the knowledges you need. This is an easy trap to fall into.
Always consider that studies have shown that confidence is poor indicator of ability, the 'unconscious incompetent' rule because they typically see fewer options, troubles and problems than the competent or able.
The issue that needs to be constantly reconsidered is a written test primarily measures knowledge not ability.
$5 million
Um. Yup. A drop in the ocean compared to the cost of a single launch, never mind a whole programme. The US space shuttle costs ~$400 million a launch. The whole programme costs the ~$4Billion per year. The ISS is expect to cost ~$100 billion.
'not gonna be very safe'
for whom ? The passengers or investors?
IMHO this will make the DOT-COM bubble look like loose change.
Don't think for a second that Microsoft hasn't put back
Microsoft *have* inserted a backdoor into the CryptoAPI for the NSA.
The German plan was a fine one, and could've worked ...
It was fine for the invasion of Norway where strategic and tactical surprise was achieved against numerically inferior military at a low state of readiness.
It was a poor plan against the British Isles. 1) No surprise, not even tactical. 2) British had a superior force on the ground. 3) No prospect of quickly seizing the seat of Government. 4) Little prospect of retaining seizing Airfields, 5) Little prospect of seizing or retaining ports.
German forces could've pushed onto the British Isles
The Germans had limited amphibious capability therefore allowed only limited provision for landing heavy equipment, tanks, artillery, trucks etc; beyond seizing a port as the primary objective. Germany Parachutists would have been extremely vulnerable to land based mechanised counter attack (something not possible in Norway due to terrain). They would have been in a worse position than the Allies at Arnhem during Market Garden, without any prospect of retreat across the channel. They would have been decimated.
In summary German amphibious & parachute forces where adequate to take Norway, they would have been completely inadequate to take the British Isles.
Sealion was never implemented or even seriously consider, it was a plan, not an operation. The German high command even the reckless Hitler realised it was complete folly.
the RAF was seriously attrited.
The RAF had three fighter groups available in the British Isles. Two front line fighter groups and one stategic reserve. It committed only one front line group to the Battle of Briton. The RAF's plan was to rotate the Southern and Northern Groups, if the Southern group broke. It never broke. The Luftwaffe may have started with a numerical advantage but in practice the RAF had many practical advantages, RADAR, it operated over friendly territory, it had lower losses, higher production of new aircraft, much higher levels pilot replacement and aircraft better suited to the task in hand.
Maybe if the German resources weren't split on the Eastern front they could've overwhelmed the defenders.
No. Barbarossa, the German offensive against the Soviet Union started in June 41 nearly a year after the Battle of Briton finished in August 40.
Actually, top military theorists have yet to work out a way in which Germany's 'Sealion' invasion plan could work.
Indeed, Operation Sealion was doomed from the start, the British Isles where never seriously threatened with invasion. Operation Sealion required the defeat of the RAF to establish air superiority over the English Channel, then defeat of the Royal Navy, before a landing could even be considered.
The RAF-Fighter Command held their own against the Luftwaffe, RAF-Bomber Command sunk most of the Rhine Barges to be used for the landings. Costal Command kept the Channel clear of the Germany surface fleet and the Royal Navy chased the German High fleet around the global, either sinking it's ships or forcing them into home waters for the duration of the War.
The Royal Navy defeated the Italian Navy (which was superior in numbers and equivalent in technology to the Germany Fleet. The 'Desert Rat's' (British Army Regulars) defeated first the Italians then the Germans in North Africa, the Italian forces in the Middle East. (It is also perhaps worth mentioning the Italian reputation for cowardice is largely unfounded, faint, thrust, retreat, consolidate was very much the tactics of all sides in North Africa.)
Also what many seem to forget is that prior to WW2, Great Briton (& Empire) was the pre-eminent Military power in the World, in essense it was the Worlds only true super power'. In a pre-WW2 (& nuclear weapons) sense this was measured by the ability to project an effective military force around the world and provide the logistics to maintain a compaign. There was only one nation able to do this before WW2, and that was British Royal Navy. Undeniably the cost of WW2 for Briton was the loss of Empire.
In fact, it was the Poles that saved us (1930s Polish hackers won WWII for the allies).
And then we (all Western Allies) betrayed them.
The British have been known to carry grudges.
Yep, but only for around 50 years or so; Americans seem to carry them for 200 years.
So let me see if I have this right.
The US Military want to prosecute somebody for doing something they've been doing for years ?
Setting asside that ESSID discovery software is inherently passive.
All this fuss and mud slinging over WiFi seems to be missing the point. It is build on an invalid premise. That 'this network' belongs to the AP owner. 802.11.b uses public airspace it does not belong to anybody it belongs to everybody just like the Internet backbone, it is designed to be open, and should remain so. If somebody wishes to use privatly for their secure traffic they should treat it as they would a PVC the net at large.
Accept it is open technology standard and secure their machines and traffic as necessary as they would on the Internet at large. The physical network its self cannot and should not be closed.
What are the cable deals like for Slashdot readers outside of the US?
Perhaps the biggest difference is that the dominant pay-tv supplier is satellite, not cable. The satellite system has practically completed the switch to digital, the cable systems are much more recent than the US <10 yo) and pretty much entirely digital. You usually get a free STB, but are committed to a min contract of 1 year and pay for services.
The packages are similar to the older US system as described in the article, but are sorted by content type rather than supplier. i.e. Entertainment, Sport or Movie packages rather than Disney, Vista, etc. These tend to be priced at £10-£20 (15-30 $/) per package per month for ~10 channels. The exception is the premium movie channels with cost about £8-£16 (12-20 $/) each pcm, expensive but good. They do seem to take most new-release movies within a few weeks of DVD release.
Aside from the Premium Movie Channels, the best content is available from the free-to-air BBC which is mainly distributed though both analog and digital terrestrial (UHF) transmission. They are usually also bundled with the other transmission mediums. This medium also support some national and regional advert funded, free-to-air channels of good quality.
The new kid on the block is broadband IP-DTV, this is delivered via broadband xDSL line to a STB. It differs from cable because the network topology is star and not a ring. It supports a real return channel, dedicated bandwidth to each installation. And therfore allows true content on demand (VOD), server side PVR, and real interactive content. I guess you can call it programme level al-a-carte. Each movie is about £1.50-2.50 UKP (2-3.50 $/) for 24hours, this is about the same as a movie rental.
I work on this (www.kitv.co.uk) IP-DTV project. There are a couple of others, Yes, and Homechoice.
These things get bundled for a reason.
As a welfare programme for arts graduates ?
they deal with gluing objects and GUI's together which, granted, is an important task for many apps, but not for solving basic computational problems.
Whilst about a third of the patterns are structural that leaves two thirds that are not, they are creational and behavioural patterns. The GUI examples are just that examples, they are not the only application of those patterns. Indeed that assertion alone implied your have missed the point of patterns. A pattern represents a standardised solution for a recuring problem, problems that occur again and again. A good approach is to learn and always consider the pattern in its abstract form.
So for example, consider the composite pattern (GOF:163), the example is based on the relationship between a number of GUI controls. i.e. Point, Line, Polygone etc. However the same pattern can also be used for a B-tree, a directory, a master-detail structure, a relational database, a menu structure, a DOM, an XML document. Indeed it represents a good solution for structuring all these requirements. In its abstract form the composite pattern can be used to implement any example of nested nodes and leafs.