I'm armpit-deep in Oblivion these days, and Niner bought me the SI expansion for my birthday.
When I saw the announcement about the bug, I tested it for myself, and it is very real. Happily, there is a community-produced script patch that disables the problem.
Interestingly, the root cause of the problem isn't so much the broken scripts that consume ObjectIDs, but rather that some intelligence was baked into the ID instead of it being just a raw counter.
The ObjectID is prefixed with "FF" and the remaining bytes are the counter values. When the counter hits FFFFFFFF it rolls over, and the "FF" prefix no longer applies. *That* is the problem - the game code no longer recognizes the ObjectID as valid without the FF prefix.
It seems that the code that generates the next ObjectID is smart enough to skip IDs that have been assigned; hacks that reset the ObjectID counter back to FF000000 appear to do the right thing. If the counter had no prefix, the bug wouldn't affect the game - the counter would roll over, but any objects that had been around since the start of the game (with low ObjectIDs) would be properly skipped and all would be well. Unless you managed to have FFFFFFFF objects extant in the game world, there'd never be a way to run out.
Happily, my counter was at FF4xxxxx so my game save is OK. I feel for the guys who discovered they were at FFFxxxxx.
The strength of PowerPoint is the ability to present graphical, audio, or video media in your presentation.
The strength of the presenter is the ability to communicate information to the audience, and via a feedback loop between audience and presenter, tune the presentation to the level of comprehension of the audience.
So use the slides to present information you cannot easily describe verbally.
I'll give you an example. Put your helmets and ballistic eyewear on; war story time:
As part of my junior staff officer course, we had to do up a set of briefing notes and a presentation as if we were presenting an idea to the Brigade Chief of Staff. I had a persistent problem (real world) where I could not get enough radios of the right type to do the job required of me, so I did my presentation on "why you should give me the radios I'm entitled to".
The Bde COS is usually a light Colonel and a very busy man. These sorts of presentations have to be brief, sussinct, and to the point. It is not unheard of for the COS to walk out of a presentation that he thinks is wasting his time.
First slide is a title slide.
Second slide was a picture of each of the types of radio in circulation, annotated with a model number, a theoretical range, and if it was battery powered or ran off the vehicle power bus. The idea here being to make sure that we were on the same page with nomenclature - so when I say "A+ set" I mean "that thing".
Third slide was a picture of a Recce Squadron ORBAT, showing all the vehicles that make up the squadron, color coded as to which get which model of radio "by the book"
Fourth slide was the same picture, but with the vehicles I typically actually brought to the field, color coded with the radios I actually had. The point of this slide is to acknowledge the fact that *nobody* fields the by-the-book ORBAT and so basing your argument on "this is what the book says I'm supposed to have" is a non-starter in the real world.
The next few slides were screencaptures of maps from my Garmin GPS software showing the tracks I followed during a series of field exercises. My GPS is always on during exercises, and it records electronic breadcrumb trails of everywhere I go. Each map was annotated with the location of the command post, the distances at the points of my minimum and maximum distance from the CP, where I did and did not have communications with the CP, and the square km of the AOR I had actually operated in on that exercise. Here I'm showing *actual data from recent exercises* not just theoretical tactics out of the book. The fact that it was recorded off a device, not just anecdotal, gave this part a lot of punch.
The next slide was a graphical representation of the number of batteries I was consuming on a typical 3-day exercise, along with the cost of these batteries (vice not needing them at all if I had the proper vehicle-bus powered radios)
And the final slide summarized the key points. Aside from the title slide, this was the only "text slide".
Not only did I get an A on the presentation for my course, the PowerPoint slides escaped into the wild, and the real live Bde COS got ahold of them. He came out to visit me on the next exercise (where I was able to demonstrate the problem in person) and shortly thereafter, I got the radios.
The key to the success of this presentation is that the slides SHOW information, not TELL information - the "tell" job is for the presenter, not the slides. Do it this way, and the presentation will be effective.
...but the C=64 outsold the Apple IIe by an enormous margin. They were *everywhere* - the first computer sold through mass-market distribution outlets like Sears and Target. You could literally go to the local department store and buy one off the shelf; no need for specialist stores.
And they were *cheap* (by which I mean "affordable") You didn't need to sacrifice an arm and a leg to get your paws on one.
The C=64 singlehandedly introduced an entire generation to the concept of the "personal computer" as something that everybody could own and use. Without the C=64 leading the way, the PC would have wound up as an expensive bit of office furniture, like an electric typewriter or a photocopier, instead of something found in every home and school.
Sadly, Apple has done a great job rewriting history to cast their middling success with the Apple II in the part actually played by the C= 8-bit machine - strange irony from the company that produced the "1984" ad.
There are three main technologies used for night vision in military equipment:
1) Active IR: This is the old-style IR spotlight. This uses a just-below-visible IR spotlight and an IR-sensitive optical device (usually a driving periscope) Despite being IR-based, it is fairly narrowband and so isn't sensitive to heat - it is more like an "invisible spotlight". Not used much anymore.
2) Image Intensifiers (aka "Starlight"): This is the technology behind "night vision goggles" or NVGs for short. They magnify the available light. They are also slightly sensitive to near-IR, so you can see IR-based LEDs, stobes, glowsticks etc - wearing one, you can see the IR LED flash in a TV remote control. The older Gen 1 goggles used an element for each eye, so you had grainy binocular vision. Newer systems from Gen II to Gen IV give an increasingly sharper and clearer picture, but tend to be monocular, so no depth perception - and I've seen some pretty funny things happen because of it. These don't see heat either.
3) Thermal Imagers (aka TI): These are heat-sensitive, and can see through most smokes. These are much larger units, and are usually used as part of vehicle weapon system sights or dedicated surveillance equipment (NOD-IR) Most modern tanks have them, LAV-25s and Bradleys have them, and there are manpack versions to use in an OP - but you won't be bolting these to your helmet anytime soon.
Up close, these can see through clothing. Don't ask how I know this.;)
...is probably a Dell-specific distro, based on one of the big core distros.
The more I think about this, the more I realize that any big PC manufacturer who decides to get into the "pre-installed Linux" business is going to be forced into managing its own distro. It won't have any choice in the matter. It needs to be able to guarantee that the distro installed on its box works AT LEAST as well as Windows XP for similar functionality.
And in some cases, that's going to require hardware-specific patches, much the same way RedHat has distro-specific patches (even though many (most) of these eventually make their way back into the vanilla kernel or the mainstream versions of various applications.)
3D acceleration is going to have to work. There is going to have to be a functional web browser (which means functional network stack) media player, printing subsytem, and sound. Any extra buttons and widgets on the keyboard will have to work. Wireless and Bluetooth, if present, will have to work. Ditto the USB plug and play subsytem, including printers, cameras, scanners etc etc etc.
Effectively, they'll have to do what Apple did for BSD for the Macs (although one hopes, using GNOME or *spit* KDE rather than a proprietary UI layer)
If that doesn't **SCREAM** "opportunity for Red Hat!!" I don't know what does.
The upside is that if we assume that Dell hires (say) RedHat to produce and manage Dell Linux, then that means more funding for hackers to work on core OS pieces and core applications, which is Sweet Crunchy Goodness all around.
Consider that, unlike humans, robots can be designed to behave in any manner within the technological capability of the society in question.
Warning - this is pretty dark stuff, and NO, I am not a potential customer. Sometimes if you want to play Devil's Advocate, you have to channel the devil (or at least Stephen King)
So then, what if:
1. Someone builds a mechanical robot (metal, latex, fiberglass, etc) that looks like a person well enough to get through the "uncanny valley". Assume that the robot's simulated anatomy fully matches the human, that it is sapient and sentient, that it has emotions and feels pain.
And that it has been programmed to enjoy being raped.
Not fake-raped either, but the full-bore jump-out-of-the-bushes and *violently* assaulted. And at the time of the attack, the robot experiences all the fear, pain, and humiliation that a human rape victim would (assume the... clientèle... for this "product" wants authenticity) but afterwards, the robot has been programmed to crave more. It *likes* it.
Is that ethical? Should this be permitted?
2. Same robot as example 1 - but now you can buy it with the physical characteristics of an actual person. Instead of a generic "Rape Barbie" or "Rape Ken", it can be bought looking like anybody you want. Be it a celebrity, or your ex-wife, or that girl that sits across fom you at work.
Is that ethical? Should this be permitted?
3. Same robot as #3, but now it is made out of flesh and blood; a kind of golem. (Meat is every bit a construction material as is metal and carbon fibre)
Is that ethical? Should this be permitted?
Personally, I sure hope that we don't discover how to create artificial sentience anytime ever, for the very reason that people will open these kinds of cans of worms.
In the trade, the technical term is "flanking" or "flank attack".
Your force is split. The section that makes contact fixes the enemy in place, and the section out of contact manouvres to a flank and attacks.
Patton put it succinctly: "We're gonna hold him by the nose and kick him in the ass"
The primary advantage is moral - the sudden appearance of a large force threatening you from an unexpected (and usually weaker) direction can be a serious blow to morale and discipline. It is not at all unusual to have the enemy break and run once the flankers start their attack. It is very difficult for a defender to successfully reorient his axis to counter a flank attack.
Usually, defenders seek to anchor their flanks on some sort of natural or artificial obstacle. A defender fighting with secure flanks can be very difficult to pry loose - see the battle of Thermopyle, and the 300 Immortals who held off an entire Persian army.
And some of the most successful flanking operations in history have come through supposedly secure flanks. If the defender thinks that "nobody can possibly come from that direction" and then the attacker comes from that direction, panic can ensue.
Flanking can be done tactically, at the level of platoons, or strategically, at the level of armies or corps, and at all levels in between. It is the core concept of warfighting.
Having had direct experience with both the military and civilian flavours of this, I can say that the private sector has the military utterly cold on this.
As bad as a commander on a rampage can be - and don't get me wrong, I've seen some doozies - nothing can top the reality distortion field that accompanies having a great deal of cash and no oversight.
Everybody in the military reports to *someone*, and while it may take a little while, eventually those chickens will come home to roost. Those limits simply don't apply to private enterprise, especially to small-midsize companies where the owner/president is effectively God and can do whatever the hell he wants.
Before I start, keep in mind that I'm Canadian - so I'm immune to American partisan party politics. Democrat, Republican... all the same to me.
And I'm a soldier too.
Nobody would be happier than me if we could just scrap all the military apparatus in the world and spend all that money on things that would really benefit all of humanity - honest, no foolin'.
But the sad state of the world today (although I think things are getting better) is that there exist people willing to exert deadly force on other people for personal gain - or to settle old scores - or just because they like it.
Look at the Balkans, or Israel/Palestine, or the Sudan, or Rwanda, or Afghanistan... the list is extensive.
Don't we, as a people, have a duty to protect the weak from would-be wolves? I say "yes".
We're not very good at it yet. We're transitioning from a period where armies and warfare were legitimate means of conducting "intense diplomacy" between each other to a period where armies and warfare are used as instruments of stabilization and protection for people in states unable to provide either function for their own citizens. This is new stuff, and we're bound to get things wrong from time to time as we adopt to our new roles.
But the end state is a world without genocide, without terrorism, without the impending threat of mass destruction and loss of life. A world where nobody has to worry about having their children hacked to death with machetes or blown to fragments by explosives.
Is that not a worthy goal?
Now I'll grant you that the USA's record on this of late is spottier than it should be. I honestly do not understand why Iraq was invaded; as all the reasons put forward by the current administration were clearly bullshit. And I agree with you that the American Iraqi Adventure has damaged, not improved, global security. (although now that you are there, you have to win!)
But the power to correct that is in YOUR hands (you are an American citizen, right?) You have the ability to get yourself and your friends involved in the political process, to ensure that the people with the ability to deploy armies choose the good missions (like Afghanistan) over the unnecessary adventures (like Iraq).
I recently bought a house. It's an older place, built in the 1950s, with some renovations done since then.
And judging by how quickly it cools down when the furnace shuts off, it is not as well insulated as it could be.
It has the usual pink fiberglass in the attic, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the walls were uninsulated.
So doing a better job of insulating would seem to be a good idea.
What I am having a hard time finding, however, are studies/statistics that relate various insulation levels and locations with heat loss (or heat rejection, in the summer) to delta temperature. So it is hard to equate a certain level of insulation (and the associated investment) to an improvement in heat retention (and the associated cost savings)
Warheads of this nature tend to be fragmentation (as opposed to an anti-armour shaped charge) so the actual effects are a semi-spherical spray of metal fragments, coupled to the blast shockwave from the detonation itself.
If this goes off inside a tailpipe, you get catastrophic engine failure, as the blast is confined in a small space.
If it goes off *near* the aircraft, the blast effects are much less serious (the blast is unconfined, and the aircraft is moving away from it at 600 MPH) and the primary effects are from the flying fragments.
The fragmentation density will be higher near the centre of the blast, steadily reducing as the volume of the blast sphere increases.
The aircraft skin and structure, being lightweight aluminum, offers little to no resistance to these fragments, and it can be expected that they will rip right through the aircraft. They will punch holes in the skin, sever hydraulic lines, cut structural members, etc.
But the *actual effect* on the aircraft itself is highly dependent on the position of the blast relative to the aircraft. It might rip a big hole in it (blast close to the aircraft) or it might puncture the aircraft with thousands of tiny holes (blast far from the aircraft)
A big hole that tears off a large chunk of a flap - or the space between a flap and an aerielon - may have little to no effect. But a little hole that jams a rudder full lock might make the aircraft impossible to fly at all.
But where military aircraft are designed to be as compact as possible (making them systems-dense) commercial jet liners are designed for maximum cargo capacity. There are large spaces in the aircraft that are completely fight-inessential.
A missile that struck the baggage hold quite possibly would have no effect on the aircraft's flight whatsoever - and would at least give Air Canada a decent reason for losing my luggage for once.
By way of example, look at some of the pictures of battle-damaged B17s and Lancasters that remained flying despite (in some cases) thousands of punctures.
Note, however, that we're talking about shoulder-fired missiles. If you can get ahold of a proper SAM, the warhead becomes very much larger and poses a grave danger to any aircraft - but we're talking about flying telephone poles in that case.
I agree that a missile that struck, but did not down, a commercial airliner would have a chilling effect on the airline industry and so might constitute a "successful" attack - but I contend that even that has to spring from a chain of highly unlikely events. I might also contend that a missile shot down by one of these PDS might produce the same chilling effect - and so the system is really for naught.
...the considerably unlikely chain of events that has to properly line up in order to result in a downed aircraft.
1) First you have to get ahold of a missile. Hollywood notwithstanding, shoulder-launched SAMs are relatively rare, even in mainstream standing armies. The scales of issue just aren't all that large. They are expensive and fragile units, much more so than any other weapon, so they don't get handed out to just anyone.
Probably the largest concentration was in North Vietnam during the 60's, but North Vietnam had tons of time to accumulate them, and a direct threat (daily US bombing raids) to counter.
There just aren't a lot of them out there to be had.
2) Then, if you can find one, it has to be operational. Explosives and electronics have shelf-lives, and as mentioned, these things are fragile. If it hasn't been well treated, there's a nontrivial chance that some critical component will fail to function, and it won't fire, guide, or explode.
3) If you've got one and it is operational, then you have to find a trained operator. Even "fire and forget" missiles require some skill to operate, and even if the weapon is American-proof simple to use, the operator still needs to be familiar with the ideal operating envelope - what aspect should the target be engaged with (head-on? tailchaser? deflection?) Does the position of the sun matter? Do you aim at an engine, or centre of mass? Lead or lag?
4) Assuming an operational missile and a trained operator who takes a good shot, the accuracy rate of these devices is not high. I'd imagine a commercial jet would be an easier target (although with cooler running turbofan engines, maybe not) but even so, there is a high statistical percentage of these missiles that will fail to impact even when fired in perfect conditions - they work best in volleys.
5) Assuming a hit, the odds on downing the aircraft are not good. Airliners are big, solid aircraft, and shoulder-fired missiles by design cannot have very large warheads - you have to package propulsion, guidance, and warhead into something light enough to be carried by a single person. Being struck by a missile is certainly unpleasant, but I'd expect any modern airliner to be able to suffer catastrophic failure of a single engine and still be able to fly (long enough to get back down at least). That's not to say that the missile *couldn't* bring down a liner (sever the controls to a control surface and I think you've got a crash) but neither are you looking at a Hollywood style giant fireball.
While it is certainly *possible* that one could experience a terrorist organization bringing together a fresh missile, a trained operator, and a lucky shot, it's not very *likely* - to the point where I think the defensive device is just silly.
1) We've seen (or have records of) climatic variations within recorded history larger than what we're seeing today, in ages when our environmental impact due to human activity was much smaller that it is today. Clearly the climate does not *require* human activity to induce large-scale changes.
2) Proving causality between human activity and *this* particular climate swing is tenuous at best, especially seeing as we cannot explain the "natural" mechanisms for historical climate swings yet.
3) But it is also true that, with our population being the largest it has ever been, and with our high level of industrialization, that we (as a species) are positioned to produce significant influence on climate. We may or may not be influencing climate today; we may or may not have influenced climate in the past, but there are enough of us that we have made localized effects for sure, and perhaps even global effects.
4) Therefore, it seems prudent to take steps to reduce our environmental footprint - and I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who'd take the position that increasing levels of environmental stewardship is a *bad* thing.
5) The key, however, is rate of adoption. I simply see no reason whatsoever to panic. And truth be told, we *are* getting better with time. Modern cars pollute a tiny fraction of what they once did. Recycling programmes have gone from novelty to commonplace. Houses are better insulated, and now there is a major push on to improve the power efficiency of lighting. As long as these and similar initiatives continue, I think things will work out just fine.
My wife bought me a Palm LifeDrive for our tenth wedding av, and it is *very* close to a perfect handheld device.
There are a few quirks (what device doesn't have those?) but it is most of the way down the road.
The screen size and general form factor is about perfect; any bigger and it'd be too clunky, any smaller and it'd be too small to read - this is my biggest complaint with smartphones like the Treo family.
I've mated it to a Garmin GPS 10 BlueTooth GPS Reciever, and it makes a great driving GPS.
Here's what I think makes for a killer handheld device:
1) Same form factor as the LifeDrive; the LD screen is awesome.
2) Lots of storage, like ~80Gb, plus the SD slot;
3) BlueTooth connectivity, especially for headsets/headphones, but the device should act as a BlueTooth hub and be able to talk to anything;
4) Wireless G;
5) A multi-band GSM phone;
6) GPS;
7) A good MP3/Media player (should be able to play all reasonable media formats)
8) Enough processor power so it can play movies without skipping, redraw GPS maps seamlessly, and remain responsive to use input at all time.
The LifeDrive is ever so close, lacking primarily the phone, the storage space, and the processor power. The iPhone *almost* gets it right too.
Eventually, somebody will build one of these, and convergence will be complete.
Slashdot Mirror
NOT EVEN
THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE
KNEW
WHAT THE MAN
WOULD SAY NEXT
DG
(Curse the lameness filter! Curse it! To force me to insert meaningless drivel in order to preserve the proper formatting on quoted bloody text!)
I'm armpit-deep in Oblivion these days, and Niner bought me the SI expansion for my birthday.
When I saw the announcement about the bug, I tested it for myself, and it is very real. Happily, there is a community-produced script patch that disables the problem.
Interestingly, the root cause of the problem isn't so much the broken scripts that consume ObjectIDs, but rather that some intelligence was baked into the ID instead of it being just a raw counter.
The ObjectID is prefixed with "FF" and the remaining bytes are the counter values. When the counter hits FFFFFFFF it rolls over, and the "FF" prefix no longer applies. *That* is the problem - the game code no longer recognizes the ObjectID as valid without the FF prefix.
It seems that the code that generates the next ObjectID is smart enough to skip IDs that have been assigned; hacks that reset the ObjectID counter back to FF000000 appear to do the right thing. If the counter had no prefix, the bug wouldn't affect the game - the counter would roll over, but any objects that had been around since the start of the game (with low ObjectIDs) would be properly skipped and all would be well. Unless you managed to have FFFFFFFF objects extant in the game world, there'd never be a way to run out.
Happily, my counter was at FF4xxxxx so my game save is OK. I feel for the guys who discovered they were at FFFxxxxx.
DG
4-digit UID?
Feh. Newbie.
DG
What's "Digg"?
Is that a new protocol or something?
I tried to find it in Archie and Veronica, but all I found were some old DigDug ROMS.
Is there an RFC I've missed? I admit I'm a little behind on comp.sys.networking these days.
Perhaps one of these newfangled Gopher links?
DG
The strength of PowerPoint is the ability to present graphical, audio, or video media in your presentation.
The strength of the presenter is the ability to communicate information to the audience, and via a feedback loop between audience and presenter, tune the presentation to the level of comprehension of the audience.
So use the slides to present information you cannot easily describe verbally.
I'll give you an example. Put your helmets and ballistic eyewear on; war story time:
As part of my junior staff officer course, we had to do up a set of briefing notes and a presentation as if we were presenting an idea to the Brigade Chief of Staff. I had a persistent problem (real world) where I could not get enough radios of the right type to do the job required of me, so I did my presentation on "why you should give me the radios I'm entitled to".
The Bde COS is usually a light Colonel and a very busy man. These sorts of presentations have to be brief, sussinct, and to the point. It is not unheard of for the COS to walk out of a presentation that he thinks is wasting his time.
First slide is a title slide.
Second slide was a picture of each of the types of radio in circulation, annotated with a model number, a theoretical range, and if it was battery powered or ran off the vehicle power bus. The idea here being to make sure that we were on the same page with nomenclature - so when I say "A+ set" I mean "that thing".
Third slide was a picture of a Recce Squadron ORBAT, showing all the vehicles that make up the squadron, color coded as to which get which model of radio "by the book"
Fourth slide was the same picture, but with the vehicles I typically actually brought to the field, color coded with the radios I actually had. The point of this slide is to acknowledge the fact that *nobody* fields the by-the-book ORBAT and so basing your argument on "this is what the book says I'm supposed to have" is a non-starter in the real world.
The next few slides were screencaptures of maps from my Garmin GPS software showing the tracks I followed during a series of field exercises. My GPS is always on during exercises, and it records electronic breadcrumb trails of everywhere I go. Each map was annotated with the location of the command post, the distances at the points of my minimum and maximum distance from the CP, where I did and did not have communications with the CP, and the square km of the AOR I had actually operated in on that exercise. Here I'm showing *actual data from recent exercises* not just theoretical tactics out of the book. The fact that it was recorded off a device, not just anecdotal, gave this part a lot of punch.
The next slide was a graphical representation of the number of batteries I was consuming on a typical 3-day exercise, along with the cost of these batteries (vice not needing them at all if I had the proper vehicle-bus powered radios)
And the final slide summarized the key points. Aside from the title slide, this was the only "text slide".
Not only did I get an A on the presentation for my course, the PowerPoint slides escaped into the wild, and the real live Bde COS got ahold of them. He came out to visit me on the next exercise (where I was able to demonstrate the problem in person) and shortly thereafter, I got the radios.
The key to the success of this presentation is that the slides SHOW information, not TELL information - the "tell" job is for the presenter, not the slides. Do it this way, and the presentation will be effective.
DG
I quite honestly have no idea what you are talking about.
I have no affiliation with Robot Wars; aside from buying a Roomba for a friend's wedding gift, I've never dealt with robotics.
Methinks you have me confused with somebody else.....
DG
...but the C=64 outsold the Apple IIe by an enormous margin. They were *everywhere* - the first computer sold through mass-market distribution outlets like Sears and Target. You could literally go to the local department store and buy one off the shelf; no need for specialist stores.
And they were *cheap* (by which I mean "affordable") You didn't need to sacrifice an arm and a leg to get your paws on one.
The C=64 singlehandedly introduced an entire generation to the concept of the "personal computer" as something that everybody could own and use. Without the C=64 leading the way, the PC would have wound up as an expensive bit of office furniture, like an electric typewriter or a photocopier, instead of something found in every home and school.
Sadly, Apple has done a great job rewriting history to cast their middling success with the Apple II in the part actually played by the C= 8-bit machine - strange irony from the company that produced the "1984" ad.
DG
Who's Dave?
DG
Huh?
DG
Quiet down there, N00b! ;)
DG
There are three main technologies used for night vision in military equipment:
;)
1) Active IR: This is the old-style IR spotlight. This uses a just-below-visible IR spotlight and an IR-sensitive optical device (usually a driving periscope) Despite being IR-based, it is fairly narrowband and so isn't sensitive to heat - it is more like an "invisible spotlight". Not used much anymore.
2) Image Intensifiers (aka "Starlight"): This is the technology behind "night vision goggles" or NVGs for short. They magnify the available light. They are also slightly sensitive to near-IR, so you can see IR-based LEDs, stobes, glowsticks etc - wearing one, you can see the IR LED flash in a TV remote control. The older Gen 1 goggles used an element for each eye, so you had grainy binocular vision. Newer systems from Gen II to Gen IV give an increasingly sharper and clearer picture, but tend to be monocular, so no depth perception - and I've seen some pretty funny things happen because of it. These don't see heat either.
3) Thermal Imagers (aka TI): These are heat-sensitive, and can see through most smokes. These are much larger units, and are usually used as part of vehicle weapon system sights or dedicated surveillance equipment (NOD-IR) Most modern tanks have them, LAV-25s and Bradleys have them, and there are manpack versions to use in an OP - but you won't be bolting these to your helmet anytime soon.
Up close, these can see through clothing. Don't ask how I know this.
DG
...is probably a Dell-specific distro, based on one of the big core distros.
The more I think about this, the more I realize that any big PC manufacturer who decides to get into the "pre-installed Linux" business is going to be forced into managing its own distro. It won't have any choice in the matter. It needs to be able to guarantee that the distro installed on its box works AT LEAST as well as Windows XP for similar functionality.
And in some cases, that's going to require hardware-specific patches, much the same way RedHat has distro-specific patches (even though many (most) of these eventually make their way back into the vanilla kernel or the mainstream versions of various applications.)
3D acceleration is going to have to work. There is going to have to be a functional web browser (which means functional network stack) media player, printing subsytem, and sound. Any extra buttons and widgets on the keyboard will have to work. Wireless and Bluetooth, if present, will have to work. Ditto the USB plug and play subsytem, including printers, cameras, scanners etc etc etc.
Effectively, they'll have to do what Apple did for BSD for the Macs (although one hopes, using GNOME or *spit* KDE rather than a proprietary UI layer)
If that doesn't **SCREAM** "opportunity for Red Hat!!" I don't know what does.
The upside is that if we assume that Dell hires (say) RedHat to produce and manage Dell Linux, then that means more funding for hackers to work on core OS pieces and core applications, which is Sweet Crunchy Goodness all around.
DG
Because ethical problems are fun:
Consider that, unlike humans, robots can be designed to behave in any manner within the technological capability of the society in question.
Warning - this is pretty dark stuff, and NO, I am not a potential customer. Sometimes if you want to play Devil's Advocate, you have to channel the devil (or at least Stephen King)
So then, what if:
1. Someone builds a mechanical robot (metal, latex, fiberglass, etc) that looks like a person well enough to get through the "uncanny valley". Assume that the robot's simulated anatomy fully matches the human, that it is sapient and sentient, that it has emotions and feels pain.
And that it has been programmed to enjoy being raped.
Not fake-raped either, but the full-bore jump-out-of-the-bushes and *violently* assaulted. And at the time of the attack, the robot experiences all the fear, pain, and humiliation that a human rape victim would (assume the... clientèle... for this "product" wants authenticity) but afterwards, the robot has been programmed to crave more. It *likes* it.
Is that ethical? Should this be permitted?
2. Same robot as example 1 - but now you can buy it with the physical characteristics of an actual person. Instead of a generic "Rape Barbie" or "Rape Ken", it can be bought looking like anybody you want. Be it a celebrity, or your ex-wife, or that girl that sits across fom you at work.
Is that ethical? Should this be permitted?
3. Same robot as #3, but now it is made out of flesh and blood; a kind of golem. (Meat is every bit a construction material as is metal and carbon fibre)
Is that ethical? Should this be permitted?
Personally, I sure hope that we don't discover how to create artificial sentience anytime ever, for the very reason that people will open these kinds of cans of worms.
DG
In the trade, the technical term is "flanking" or "flank attack".
Your force is split. The section that makes contact fixes the enemy in place, and the section out of contact manouvres to a flank and attacks.
Patton put it succinctly: "We're gonna hold him by the nose and kick him in the ass"
The primary advantage is moral - the sudden appearance of a large force threatening you from an unexpected (and usually weaker) direction can be a serious blow to morale and discipline. It is not at all unusual to have the enemy break and run once the flankers start their attack. It is very difficult for a defender to successfully reorient his axis to counter a flank attack.
Usually, defenders seek to anchor their flanks on some sort of natural or artificial obstacle. A defender fighting with secure flanks can be very difficult to pry loose - see the battle of Thermopyle, and the 300 Immortals who held off an entire Persian army.
And some of the most successful flanking operations in history have come through supposedly secure flanks. If the defender thinks that "nobody can possibly come from that direction" and then the attacker comes from that direction, panic can ensue.
Flanking can be done tactically, at the level of platoons, or strategically, at the level of armies or corps, and at all levels in between. It is the core concept of warfighting.
DG
Slashdot Low User ID Operations Order 001
1. SITUATION: the Fermi Paradox compels us to populate the Galaxy or become extinct.
2. MISSION: NASA will design, test, build, staff, and deploy a fleet of interstellar colony ships for the purposes of populating the galaxy.
3. EXECUTION: This mission will take place in 6 phases:
a. Design a colony ship;
b. Test the colony ship;
c. Build a fleet of colony ships;
d. Staff and populate the colony ships with suitable colonists;
e. Deploy the fleet; and
f. Monitor the colonies and provide support as appropriate.
4. SERVICE SUPPORT
a. Funding: no change.
5. COMMAND AND SIGNALS: no change.
There! Let's see if that works.
DG
Having had direct experience with both the military and civilian flavours of this, I can say that the private sector has the military utterly cold on this.
As bad as a commander on a rampage can be - and don't get me wrong, I've seen some doozies - nothing can top the reality distortion field that accompanies having a great deal of cash and no oversight.
Everybody in the military reports to *someone*, and while it may take a little while, eventually those chickens will come home to roost. Those limits simply don't apply to private enterprise, especially to small-midsize companies where the owner/president is effectively God and can do whatever the hell he wants.
DG
Before I start, keep in mind that I'm Canadian - so I'm immune to American partisan party politics. Democrat, Republican... all the same to me.
And I'm a soldier too.
Nobody would be happier than me if we could just scrap all the military apparatus in the world and spend all that money on things that would really benefit all of humanity - honest, no foolin'.
But the sad state of the world today (although I think things are getting better) is that there exist people willing to exert deadly force on other people for personal gain - or to settle old scores - or just because they like it.
Look at the Balkans, or Israel/Palestine, or the Sudan, or Rwanda, or Afghanistan... the list is extensive.
Don't we, as a people, have a duty to protect the weak from would-be wolves? I say "yes".
We're not very good at it yet. We're transitioning from a period where armies and warfare were legitimate means of conducting "intense diplomacy" between each other to a period where armies and warfare are used as instruments of stabilization and protection for people in states unable to provide either function for their own citizens. This is new stuff, and we're bound to get things wrong from time to time as we adopt to our new roles.
But the end state is a world without genocide, without terrorism, without the impending threat of mass destruction and loss of life. A world where nobody has to worry about having their children hacked to death with machetes or blown to fragments by explosives.
Is that not a worthy goal?
Now I'll grant you that the USA's record on this of late is spottier than it should be. I honestly do not understand why Iraq was invaded; as all the reasons put forward by the current administration were clearly bullshit. And I agree with you that the American Iraqi Adventure has damaged, not improved, global security. (although now that you are there, you have to win!)
But the power to correct that is in YOUR hands (you are an American citizen, right?) You have the ability to get yourself and your friends involved in the political process, to ensure that the people with the ability to deploy armies choose the good missions (like Afghanistan) over the unnecessary adventures (like Iraq).
DG
On a related topic:
I recently bought a house. It's an older place, built in the 1950s, with some renovations done since then.
And judging by how quickly it cools down when the furnace shuts off, it is not as well insulated as it could be.
It has the usual pink fiberglass in the attic, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the walls were uninsulated.
So doing a better job of insulating would seem to be a good idea.
What I am having a hard time finding, however, are studies/statistics that relate various insulation levels and locations with heat loss (or heat rejection, in the summer) to delta temperature. So it is hard to equate a certain level of insulation (and the associated investment) to an improvement in heat retention (and the associated cost savings)
Anybody have links to relevent studies?
DG
Warheads of this nature tend to be fragmentation (as opposed to an anti-armour shaped charge) so the actual effects are a semi-spherical spray of metal fragments, coupled to the blast shockwave from the detonation itself.
If this goes off inside a tailpipe, you get catastrophic engine failure, as the blast is confined in a small space.
If it goes off *near* the aircraft, the blast effects are much less serious (the blast is unconfined, and the aircraft is moving away from it at 600 MPH) and the primary effects are from the flying fragments.
The fragmentation density will be higher near the centre of the blast, steadily reducing as the volume of the blast sphere increases.
The aircraft skin and structure, being lightweight aluminum, offers little to no resistance to these fragments, and it can be expected that they will rip right through the aircraft. They will punch holes in the skin, sever hydraulic lines, cut structural members, etc.
But the *actual effect* on the aircraft itself is highly dependent on the position of the blast relative to the aircraft. It might rip a big hole in it (blast close to the aircraft) or it might puncture the aircraft with thousands of tiny holes (blast far from the aircraft)
A big hole that tears off a large chunk of a flap - or the space between a flap and an aerielon - may have little to no effect. But a little hole that jams a rudder full lock might make the aircraft impossible to fly at all.
But where military aircraft are designed to be as compact as possible (making them systems-dense) commercial jet liners are designed for maximum cargo capacity. There are large spaces in the aircraft that are completely fight-inessential.
A missile that struck the baggage hold quite possibly would have no effect on the aircraft's flight whatsoever - and would at least give Air Canada a decent reason for losing my luggage for once.
By way of example, look at some of the pictures of battle-damaged B17s and Lancasters that remained flying despite (in some cases) thousands of punctures.
Note, however, that we're talking about shoulder-fired missiles. If you can get ahold of a proper SAM, the warhead becomes very much larger and poses a grave danger to any aircraft - but we're talking about flying telephone poles in that case.
I agree that a missile that struck, but did not down, a commercial airliner would have a chilling effect on the airline industry and so might constitute a "successful" attack - but I contend that even that has to spring from a chain of highly unlikely events. I might also contend that a missile shot down by one of these PDS might produce the same chilling effect - and so the system is really for naught.
DG
...the considerably unlikely chain of events that has to properly line up in order to result in a downed aircraft.
1) First you have to get ahold of a missile. Hollywood notwithstanding, shoulder-launched SAMs are relatively rare, even in mainstream standing armies. The scales of issue just aren't all that large. They are expensive and fragile units, much more so than any other weapon, so they don't get handed out to just anyone.
Probably the largest concentration was in North Vietnam during the 60's, but North Vietnam had tons of time to accumulate them, and a direct threat (daily US bombing raids) to counter.
There just aren't a lot of them out there to be had.
2) Then, if you can find one, it has to be operational. Explosives and electronics have shelf-lives, and as mentioned, these things are fragile. If it hasn't been well treated, there's a nontrivial chance that some critical component will fail to function, and it won't fire, guide, or explode.
3) If you've got one and it is operational, then you have to find a trained operator. Even "fire and forget" missiles require some skill to operate, and even if the weapon is American-proof simple to use, the operator still needs to be familiar with the ideal operating envelope - what aspect should the target be engaged with (head-on? tailchaser? deflection?) Does the position of the sun matter? Do you aim at an engine, or centre of mass? Lead or lag?
4) Assuming an operational missile and a trained operator who takes a good shot, the accuracy rate of these devices is not high. I'd imagine a commercial jet would be an easier target (although with cooler running turbofan engines, maybe not) but even so, there is a high statistical percentage of these missiles that will fail to impact even when fired in perfect conditions - they work best in volleys.
5) Assuming a hit, the odds on downing the aircraft are not good. Airliners are big, solid aircraft, and shoulder-fired missiles by design cannot have very large warheads - you have to package propulsion, guidance, and warhead into something light enough to be carried by a single person. Being struck by a missile is certainly unpleasant, but I'd expect any modern airliner to be able to suffer catastrophic failure of a single engine and still be able to fly (long enough to get back down at least). That's not to say that the missile *couldn't* bring down a liner (sever the controls to a control surface and I think you've got a crash) but neither are you looking at a Hollywood style giant fireball.
While it is certainly *possible* that one could experience a terrorist organization bringing together a fresh missile, a trained operator, and a lucky shot, it's not very *likely* - to the point where I think the defensive device is just silly.
DG
I'm in a similar boat as you.
1) We've seen (or have records of) climatic variations within recorded history larger than what we're seeing today, in ages when our environmental impact due to human activity was much smaller that it is today. Clearly the climate does not *require* human activity to induce large-scale changes.
2) Proving causality between human activity and *this* particular climate swing is tenuous at best, especially seeing as we cannot explain the "natural" mechanisms for historical climate swings yet.
3) But it is also true that, with our population being the largest it has ever been, and with our high level of industrialization, that we (as a species) are positioned to produce significant influence on climate. We may or may not be influencing climate today; we may or may not have influenced climate in the past, but there are enough of us that we have made localized effects for sure, and perhaps even global effects.
4) Therefore, it seems prudent to take steps to reduce our environmental footprint - and I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who'd take the position that increasing levels of environmental stewardship is a *bad* thing.
5) The key, however, is rate of adoption. I simply see no reason whatsoever to panic. And truth be told, we *are* getting better with time. Modern cars pollute a tiny fraction of what they once did. Recycling programmes have gone from novelty to commonplace. Houses are better insulated, and now there is a major push on to improve the power efficiency of lighting. As long as these and similar initiatives continue, I think things will work out just fine.
DG
Best. WKRP. Reference. Ever.
DG
My wife bought me a Palm LifeDrive for our tenth wedding av, and it is *very* close to a perfect handheld device.
There are a few quirks (what device doesn't have those?) but it is most of the way down the road.
The screen size and general form factor is about perfect; any bigger and it'd be too clunky, any smaller and it'd be too small to read - this is my biggest complaint with smartphones like the Treo family.
I've mated it to a Garmin GPS 10 BlueTooth GPS Reciever, and it makes a great driving GPS.
Here's what I think makes for a killer handheld device:
1) Same form factor as the LifeDrive; the LD screen is awesome.
2) Lots of storage, like ~80Gb, plus the SD slot;
3) BlueTooth connectivity, especially for headsets/headphones, but the device should act as a BlueTooth hub and be able to talk to anything;
4) Wireless G;
5) A multi-band GSM phone;
6) GPS;
7) A good MP3/Media player (should be able to play all reasonable media formats)
8) Enough processor power so it can play movies without skipping, redraw GPS maps seamlessly, and remain responsive to use input at all time.
The LifeDrive is ever so close, lacking primarily the phone, the storage space, and the processor power. The iPhone *almost* gets it right too.
Eventually, somebody will build one of these, and convergence will be complete.
DG
Open Source, php/Apache/mySQL based, not perfect but way better than any of the offerings from the Borg.
DG
Endurance races really exist you know, in the real world. Playing them on the game is a great way to practice.
In the real world, you get 3-4 drivers and take turns. Do you have any friends?
DG