Posts by John Smith 19 16330 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009
But I suspect that it has taken this long for someone to work the unknowns to get a viable system out of it.
Thumbs up for that.
But remember the state of the art for spacecraft computers is about a 200Mhz POWER or SPARC processor., which is rather below what an Apple laptop can manage.
Nuclear EMP is caused by the large burst of charged particles at the right altitude. Moving charged particles --> broadband EM wave source
The Starfish test in (IIRC) 1962 managed to shut down the power grid for Hawaii. It also screwed up long range radio reception for months.
While most of the time these wil result in nothing but "pretty lights" in the sky the potential results for the industrialized world are pretty serious.
"I'm surprised no government has taken the step of banning ALL encryption outside of state use. And then only vetting the ones for state use such that they're always with a random overseer."
That would be the US "Clipper" chip proposal.
If one were of a paranoid PoV the MS "Trusted Computing"* BS is another incarnation of this nonsense.
*As in your PC is "trusted" to not play any content we don't like.
I've been lazy.
I've taken the path of least resistance
And MS have benefited.
This is too much. I don't need this much s**t in my life. When I saw Linux updates all applications on a machine I was interested. Now avoiding this rubbish definitely puts the last nail in their coffin.
Time to send this chicken dancer to the chicken pie factory.
"http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html"
Indeed. This is not security for users it's DRM for Big Media, and given what is known of THE PATRIOT Act a helping hand to the NSA.
There's just one little problem.
Unlike Google (where you don't pay and you're not the customer, you're the product) with PC's you're paying for the privilege.
I wonder how customers will react to that information?
"Packets: 7
At an RT of 300ms (Hardly unusual), that's more than half a second extra delay. Now multiply that by all the domains holding different scripts, static image servers, ads and such on a typical webpage..."
Exactly
That's what I was afraid of.
Too bad, it seemed like a plausible quick fix.
Oh well....
The other issue is throughput
Presumably most DNS servers handle a huge number of requests and multiplying the size and number of standard requests is going to have a substantial impact on that.
<sigh>
But maybe that's the price you have to pay for a more robust internet that cannot be partly broken by some skiddie with a grievance against their boss/bank/mommy/The Trilateral Commission etc.
"The EFF is claiming credit but The Clapper and Gen. Alexander are intimating that the document was released as part of Obama's demand for greater transparency of domestic surveillance anti-terrorism programs. Somehow I doubt the veracity of the Governments claims that they've suddenly discovered the Constitution and are now upholding it just as I doubt they gave in to the EFF."
As a non-American I seem to recall that part of Tricky Dickie's list of stuff that finally got him the door was using the CIA to conduct domestic surveillance on (by modern yardsticks) a trivial number of victims.
So on that basis I think shrub should be facing charges and Obama impeachment for letting it continue.
"Since the US no-fly list still contains the names of journalists who were investigating Nixon - I think it's more a matter of anyone who doesn't support us is an enemy for life"
So to be really spiteful and vindictive you need to be a Federal bureaucrat in the US govt.
Surprise surprise.
"Yeah, but he's not just a "friend" of the journo (I think you're teeheeing around the fact that - omg - he's a gay man with a bf), his boyfriend is the journo behind releasing of Five-Eyes classified material, and he is in transit from a meeting with Snowden's assistant, on his way to meet with his boyfriend, the whole trip being paid for by the newspaper that is publishing this material. He could very well have been travelling with material that is classified in the UK."
Not at all. I meant he has no legal connection to the journalist in the case IE they have been through a civil ceremony. He's just some random stranger who only detailed surveillance indicates is connected to the journalist in question. Do I seem like I'm from the Bible Belt to you?
Carrying documents you are not authorized to may be many things but it is not "Terrrorism."
Still lesson learned. No more transits through "thief row".
They also had a rather novel bipolar gate circuit IIRC. It seemed to use deliberate latchup as a memory process.
Note that would have made it the second Bipolar microprocessor that Ferranti fabricated.
Too bad I don't think anything that good came along until the AMULET clockless ARM version.
Interesting to know.
But man, does Cameron across as ignorant of about the last 3 decades of the modern world?
Still what can you expect of someone who hires Clare Perry to advising him on keeping kiddies safe on the interwebs?
Definitely a candidate for a tap with the clue stick.
"A bit like a cross between a taxi and a bus. Hit the button on your phone's ap, vehicle picks you up at the door, drops you off at your destination. All carefully plotted to minimize distance and travel time of its load of passengers."
Indeed, the big cost of a taxi fleet are the drivers.
Given maybe 80% of journeys are home-work-home a vehicle that gave you your personal bubble, all the features you wanted and was crash safe could be quite feasible. And let's be real here. All that tech is going to have a substantial impact on price.
But a 100 million of them in 25 years? I don't think so.
And boy do IBM know a few things about unfair bidding processes.
As others have said there's the public prices for COTS stuff and there's the special prices for government "totally unique" requirements, bespoke tweaks, contractor staff on site (security cleared naturally) and all those other things which, very regrettably, will push up their profits costs.
Should have done what NSA did with ERA, essentially privatizing their in house IT team as a computer mfg.
TG might not be the most reliable motoring programme on TV but their point that cars "lose" BHP over time is real. Engine pushes the parts out of spec and I guess to keep them in spec it should be stripped down and the relevant bits replaced or re bored every few years. Not something that seems to happen IRL.
So the question is how easy is it to change that battery pack?
But these safety tests, how does it compare with something like a Mercedes S class? That should get top marks too. It's built like a tank.
Just about the most unreliable non fossil "fuels" imaginable.
Biogas, geothermal and micro hydro can run 24/7/365.
Bottom line. Energy is always a regulated market as its a strategic resource.
Germany needs to consider what set of rules it uses and what outcomes it wants.
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