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* Posts by TheArdvaark

7 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Feb 2014

Apple rakes in 60% of profits in still-surging smartphone market

TheArdvaark

Why shit on Apple all the time?

Why oh why does everybody seem to want to have a pop at Apple? I have a theory - most of the people who are constantly berating Apple either can't, or don't want to, afford their products! There is a very good saying: "you pays your money and you takes your choice". Everybody knows Apple products are expensive but if you don't want to, say, shell out £1500 on an iMac then go buy something cheaper but, for God's sake, stop whining about it! Nobody is twisting your arm, or forcing you, to buy Apple! Of course they're not perfect, nobody is, but you either accept what you're buying, with all its' shortcomings, or just buy something else!

I used to use PC's with Windows until 5 years ago when I switched to an iMac and it was probably the best thing I ever did - for a whole variety of reasons which I won't bore you with. I, for one, love Apple products and why; two reasons: (1) They are beautifully designed and very tactile, more so than most other products and they just work the way I want them to work. (2) I can afford them!

Let's face it, to be blunt about it I'm a lot closer to death than I am to birth so why shouldn't I spend my money the way I want to and if I want to buy Apple stuff then why not? There are no pockets in shrouds!! As it is I now have an iMac, iPod, iPad, MacBook Air and an iPhone and am I happy with them - you bet!!

It's also interesting, is it not, that I don't see any of these detractors giving some stick to Rolls Royce; Bentley; Ferrari; Lamborghini; Rolex; Omega; Louis Vuitton et al - all of whom produce highly expensive top end of the market products and make a very nice profit in the process - just like Apple, so what's the difference??!!

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UK spooks STILL won't release Bletchley Park secrets 70 years on

TheArdvaark

Heard the latest "class act" from BP Management?

Latest barmy idea from Bletchley Park's Management.

This can be seen on Bletchley Park's website:

1940'S BOUTIQUE

15 MAR 2014 FROM 9:30 TO 17:00

Join us for a day of 1940's glamour and learn how to style your own hair and make-up to achieve that iconic 1940's look.

Hairdresser and make-up artist XXXXXXX will show you how to recreate some iconic styles including the famous victory rolls as well as make-up to match. The day will include refreshments and lunch as well as admission to Bletchley Park exhibitions and facilities.

09.30 Arrival with tea, coffee & mini muffins

10.00 Demonstration of 1940's look, hair & make-up

11.30 Practical make-up session, eyes, lips and brows.

13.00 Lunch - tea, coffee & sandwich selection

13.30 Free time to enjoy Bletchley Park exhibitions and facilities

14.30 Victory roll demonstration

15.00 Practical hair session, victory rolls, creating curls, 1940's accessories (snoods, hats etc).

Participants will need to bring:

Free-standing mirror

Hair brush and comb

Their own make-up bag containing

brow pencil

eyeliner

lip liner and lipstick, preferably red

Tickets £65 each available here.

TICKETS £65 EACH!!!!! And this "Boutique" day is scheduled to run for several days throughout the year. Yet another crazy idea for making money from the Bletchley Park Trust/Park Management that has nothing to do with what happened at the Park during WWII. What next?? Workshops in how to stop ladders running in nylons; cookery courses in 1001 things to do with Spam; how to cook potatoes in 57 thoroughly boring wartime ways???

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TheArdvaark
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A slight correction.

May I slightly correct the post writtenn by Rustident Spaceniak.

a) Colossus was designed by Tommy Flowers of the Post Office Research Establishment at Dollis Hill in London. He did this as he had been asked to go to Bletchley Park to see if he could improve another machine that was there called Robinson (or Heath Robinson as it was nicknamed). This machine was designed to find the pin positions (patterns) and wheel start positions of the first 5 Lorenz wheels. After that information was determined the patterns and start positions of the remaining 7 wheels could be calculated manually. The problem was that Robinson was not realiable and Tommy Flowers decided he could not improve it but had a better idea, and the result of that was Colossus.

b) A German operator, on the Athens to Vienna link (some believe on the Athens to Berlin link) of the High Command had a 4000 character message to send; this was on 30th August 1941. He sent the message twice on exactly the same settings of his Lorenz machine - the settings were supposed to be changed for each message.

The second time round, after he had typed in the first 7 characters of the message, he realised he could abbreviate certain words which he did throughout the rest of the message. Our listening station at Denmark Hill in London picked up those two messages and got them up to the Park where Colonel John Tiltman saw them and realised what the operator had done. Using those two dissimilar messages he extracted the entire string of original 4000 plain text characters (called the Keystream) but didn't know how to take it further. It was Bill Tutte, who was brilliant at statistical mathematics, who used those two messages and the Keystream to work out the entire logic of Lorenz - a feat often referred to as: "the greatest intellectual feat of WWII". Colossus was used to work out the patterns and start positions of all 12 Lorenz wheels and that information was then plugged up on another piece of machinery that the Park had (called Tunny - the code name that was given to Lorenz as nobody knew the real name or who made it) and it was Tunny that did the actual decryption.

c) The Zuse 3 used 2000 standard relays, which were electro-mechanical, Colossus used valves which were purely electronic so which really was the first programmable, electronic, digital computer? I'm afraid I'm not clever enough to answer that one so let's just say that either, or both, could claim that title!!!

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TheArdvaark
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Re: Polish

This is not true at all, let me explain. The Poles had been working on breaking the early Enigma machines since the late 1920's and made the first break in 1931-32. The only time that they imparted this information to anyone else was at a meeting at Pyrie in mid 1939 when they gave the information they had to British and French intelligence. This was because the changes made by the Germans to Enigma locked the Poles out from using their normal methods and had to rely instead on the Zygalski sheets, which British Intelligence helped to make up for them as their original sheets couldn't cope with the changes that the Germans had made.

In entirely separate work, Dilly Knox had been working on the family of Enigma machines here in the UK and had already broken the Italian Enigma in 1936. He was almost there in breaking the full German Military Enigma in 1938-39 but was stuck on one point and this point was cleared up at the 1939 meeting with the Poles. As a result of that Knox came back to Bletchley Park and made the first break in the full military Enigma in January 1940.

Alan Turing/Gordon Welchman's design for the British Bombe machine was on an entirely different principle to that of the Polish Bomba and was, in essence, light years ahead.

We do, however, acknowledge the work that was done by the Poles and, as a result, have a permanent memorial to them at Bletchley Park.

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TheArdvaark
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Re: Post war operations

Not quite sure what is meant here. All of the Colossus machines used valves with a small number of relays also being employed. They were not entirely silent as anyone who has seen Colossus can testify to. There was a certain amount of noise from the "bedstead", around which the paper tape spun and there was quite a bit of "clicking" from the relays.

The Bombe machine was electro-mechanical and had a tremendous amount of moving parts, including relays; few, if any, valves were used in this machine and it was quite noisy.

I have not heard of any American machine that was a precursor to Colossus but the US did build their own versions of the Bombe machines that did use valves, as well as relays, and these machines were considerably faster than the British Bombes.

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Bletchley Park spat 'halts work on rare German cipher machine'

TheArdvaark

Latest barmy idea from Bletchley Park's Management.

This can be seen on Bletchley Park's website:

1940'S BOUTIQUE

15 MAR 2014 FROM 9:30 TO 17:00

Join us for a day of 1940's glamour and learn how to style your own hair and make-up to achieve that iconic 1940's look.

Hairdresser and make-up artist XXXXXXX will show you how to recreate some iconic styles including the famous victory rolls as well as make-up to match. The day will include refreshments and lunch as well as admission to Bletchley Park exhibitions and facilities.

09.30 Arrival with tea, coffee & mini muffins

10.00 Demonstration of 1940's look, hair & make-up

11.30 Practical make-up session, eyes, lips and brows.

13.00 Lunch - tea, coffee & sandwich selection

13.30 Free time to enjoy Bletchley Park exhibitions and facilities

14.30 Victory roll demonstration

15.00 Practical hair session, victory rolls, creating curls, 1940's accessories (snoods, hats etc).

Participants will need to bring:

Free-standing mirror

Hair brush and comb

Their own make-up bag containing

brow pencil

eyeliner

lip liner and lipstick, preferably red

Tickets £65 each available here.

TICKETS £65 EACH!!!!! And this "Boutique" day is scheduled to run for several days throughout the year. Yet another crazy idea for making money from the Bletchley Park Trust/Park Management that has nothing to do with what happened at the Park during WWII. What next?? Workshops in how to stop ladders running in nylons; cookery courses in 1001 things to do with Spam; how to cook potatoes in 57 thoroughly boring wartime ways???

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Elderly Bletchley Park volunteer sacked for showing Colossus exhibit to visitors

TheArdvaark
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Re: How and why has the conflict arisen

It is obvious that Mr Virgo does not have the slightest conception of the value of Bletchley Park! He says: "At this point I have some sympathy, albeit not a lot, for those trying to create a sanitised theme park which will protect the young of today from the realities of the past". Why should we do this? The past is of vital importance and there are, probably, millions of people alive right across the world right now thanks to the work that was done at Bletchley Park. Why is this?

Most historians who have studied BP have come to the conclusion that the work that was done there probably shortened the war by around two years. If the war had continued for another two years how many thousands of service men and women would have lost their lives? How many tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of innocent civilians, on both sides, would have lost their lives? Those people would not have gone on to have families of their own and those families would not have had their families who are today's generation!

Considering the fact that on the allies side we had not only British and American but also Australian; New Zealand; Canadian; Indian; Czechs; Poles; French; etc etc etc it doesn't take a genius to work out that there are probably millions of people alive today, right across the world that owe their very existance to the work that was done at BP! This is something that everybody should know about, including today's generation! The Germans have done a very good job of sanitising their history by wiping out as much as possible with regard to the second world war - are we going to do the same? This should never be allowed to happen, we should all know why we did what we did and how we saved the West for Democracy - albeit tenuous in this day and age! The past is the past and we can't change that and the truth is the truth so why should we try to change that as well? Everybody deserves to know what happened and why and what the consequences were. The minute we start to sanitise history is the minute when we cease to admit what happened and what the truth really was.

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