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Slashback: Aircraft, Dreams, Returns 120

Posted by timothy from the why-when-I-was-a-boy dept.
Some things to think about for ... international domain name purchasers; airline pilots with heavy 401K investments in Motorola, those whose religions forbid the purchase of Sony video game consoles; cracked-website fetishists / voyeurs. And of course, anyone else who wants to read them. More below. [timothy whips himself:] As rjh points out, it's not the FBI that raided Steve Jackson, but rather the Secret Service.

OK, now all we need is Tom Clancy, Steven Segal and a bad script ... code_rage writes "Wondering why Iridium has not been deorbited yet? Still care?

There are still some parties attempting to purchase the Iridium assets for pennies on the dollar. One party is pursuing the 'aircraft black box in the sky' concept advanced by several people in various forums, including Slashdot. The Iridium case docket sheet is located [here] Items # 761 & 762 are interesting.

These rather large PDF documents are scanned images of briefs filed on behalf of a party who has been interested in buying Iridium since last year, for the purposes of creating a continuously telemetered aircraft "black box" capability, to enhance civil aircraft safety. These briefs read like a John Grisham novel (particularly 762)... "

That's one way of putting it. On the other hand, the docket reads like a catalogue of everything that could (and did) go wrong with a high-tech, high-budget business venture.

Does "Sega" mean anything anyhow? Lucianno Edwards passed on this tidbit about Sega. "As a followup to the post on your website about sega going multiplatform: Sega doesn't plan to develop games for rival consoles, but to license their hardware to rival consoles, in a bleem-like fashion, which will allow DC games to run on anything which has the DC chip in it. Technically Sony could release an add-on for PS2 and Nintendo for Gamecube.

Sega wouldnt be paying license fees yet they'd still be selling games on rival consoles. It makes a lot of sense from a bussiness prospective.

It's all official. No more rumors." One more Sega bit, same pingin' source: Fervent writes "It's going to be on a GD-ROM, and it will run ten classic Genesis games. More details are on this article at Daily Radar."

Anyong Haseyo, chin-gu. An unnamed correspondent writes: "The Guild of System Administrators has released documentation and resources related to the new multilingual domain names."

So if you want to snatch up all the cool Chinese translations of "Coca Cola," you can consult their list of Registry Services, Registries, Commercial Technical "Solutions Providers, Standards Organizations, etc. Besides which, GSA looks like a cool site to check out anyhow.

A fairly convoluted way to get some free books from O'Reilly scjody writes "You may remember Dilinger, who had his computers seized a few weeks ago. According to his webpage, it has been returned."

Perhaps the FBI has decided that waiting for years to return equipment (as they did for Steve Jackson) wasn't good for their public image. Sure sounds like a better outcome than I was expecting -- congratulations, Dilinger.

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Slashback: Aircraft, Multivariance, Ballots More

Slashback: Aircraft, Multivariance, Ballots

Comments Filter:
  • Is in #760 [uscourts.gov] for those interested.

    -- fencepost
  • Are you insane? Your low UID and posting history lead me to believe you're not a troll. I recoiling in horror. Surely no one can actually think like that?

    He wasn't going about his business, he was sticking his nose where it didn't belong.
    Oh my god! He pinged a server and did some DNS lookups! What was he thinking? I know I'd never ping a server or look up DNS information. And if I were so bold, I'd realize the FBI has every right to seize my computer paraphernalia.

    They determined that he was just incredibly stupid, not a criminal and returned his things.
    Alright, the FBI decides to seize some kids computer equipment based on logs that show no criminal behavior on his part, and he's the 'stupid' one? If their were any kind of justice in this country, the agents who decided to seize dilinger's equipment would be serving ten year prison sentences right now. What we need is accountability on the part of federal agents

    He owes them an apology for wasting their time.
    I will not even respond to that idiotic statement.

  • Ok Beowulf's 'old english' is NOT ENGLISH. It isn't even close. The friking character set is different. Even the 'middle english' of Chauccer is barely english, "Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote," really people...
  • #4 (English actors as good guys): Right, because we all know how much of an evil, scheming, all-around bad guy-type that James Bond was.


    --
  • English is a bastardization of Welsh, German, and Latin.

  • OK, I give up. Let's all sing "God Save the Queen". Let's sing it like the Sex Pistols did.

  • Some of us don't want to be looked after.
  • <YELL>This is the second copy of this i've seen today!

    Who the hell mods this up?!?< \YELL>

  • He wasn't talking about the power emitted by the satellites, but rather, by the Iridium phones themselves. Those _do_ have to be much more powerful than ordinary cellphones in order to reach satellites dozens of miles in space (anyone know the altitude of Iridium satellites?). And the Iridium phone's antenna is just centimeters from the user's skull. So that doctor's radiation concern does seem somewhat plausible.

  • 9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

    I'd just like to add a few exceptions - the Viper, Prowler, PT Cruiser (particularly if you ripped out the engine and put something decent in), and Corvette. The Corvette should be preserved not only for its inherit merit but because the motor is used in the HSV GTS [hsv.com.au] - a full-sized sedan that does the standing quarter in well under 14 seconds with handling and brakes to match for a fraction of the cost of a BMW or Mercedes sports sedan.

  • Idiot.

    My 'local' UHF transmitter is 250 miles away.

    My Iridium phone is 2.5 inches away.

    Calculate that.

  • It's funny that they returned his stuff unarmed.

    I can just picture the two agents in their office:


    A1: Damn... This slashdot crowd is really getting on our case now. We've had a million hit in just a few hours.
    A2: Fear not. I'll just image this drive, and we'll give him back the laptop. That'll give the bureau some good free PR.
    ...Imaging and a week later, Dillinger gets his laptop back.

    A1: Lookie here... A gigabyte of MP3's. Pass me that CD list of the CD we seized... A2: Right. He doesnt own any Hootie and the Blowfish CD's, but he has a collection of them.

    A1: What about this porn right here ? (clickety click, porn gets emailed to innocent hotmail account belonging to A1.)
    A2: Ok. Now we got the Slashdot crowd off our back. Let's just figure out a way to bust this poor guy big time. Did you make sure you stuck that kiddie porn on his laptop when you gave it back ?
    A1: Yeah. Threw a couple of conspiratory documents on there too.
    A2: Let's flip for who calls the judge. We need that warrant. Got the number of that judge we caught with kiddie porn last month ?

    A1 and A2 start laughing like Dr. Evil... EOF.

  • I do agree that in moderation, _most_ things are acceptable, I was, however, referring to the people that use these things in excess.

    Point taken, that mobile phone use doesn't measurably improve one's physical health (unless one is calling an ambulance/doctor/etc).
  • 9. Lucas electrical systems. While we're on the subject, the only reason you tossers in England like warm beer is because Lucas makes all your refrigerators.
  • >>(Because everyone in England are just like Londoners right? And even then, everyone in London is just the same person too?)

    A Loyds underwriter named Brian.

  • FBI search comments. (Score:3)

    by Restil ( 31903 ) on Wednesday November 15, 2000 @04:59PM (#621176) Homepage
    I commented on this issue the first time it was posted. I will do so again. I think what he did was completely legal, yet I can still see how what he did was somewhat suspicious.

    The very fact that he got his equipment back in short order shows that not only is he not a suspect, the FBI realizes he has no involement and no evidence that will be of any use to them. This lends to me the belief that they might actually have a clue about what they're doing. The immediate sieze of "evidence" is unfortunately necessary at times because data can be eliminated in the blink of an eye.

    I will say again, a violated website is a crime scene. You're perfectly welcome to gawk at a crime scene along with all the other rubberneckers hoping to get a glimpse at whatever the cause of the commotion is. However, if you cross over the yellow tape and start peeking around in things, law enforcement might be forced to make some premature assumptions about your motives. Viewing a cracked website wouldn't bring you any undue suspicion, but when you start digging into the details, well, you never know who might be casually watching you.

    You can blame the script kiddies. If it weren't for the numerous cracked websites with such dubious causes displayed... if it weren't for the massive DDOS's against such popular, yet fundamentally useless websites... if it weren't for the constant barrage of random portscans, we wouldn't have to worry about the FBI busting in on someone who was expressing some innocent curiosity.

    These attacks will continue until at least a significant number of brainless dorks are caught and given a substantial punishment. Of course, this is easier said than done. The great majority of attacks are not direct, but done through innocent third parties who are the unfortunate owners of unsecured servers. To track these people down, the FBI has to track through the log files of each of the servers in between. I dare say, if the FBI were to casually call me up and ask if I minded if they came over and searched through all my computers I would kindly hang up on them. Obtaining a warrant and seizing the equipment is really their only option in cases such as these. It might suck if you had no direct involvement or were just looking around, but just accept the fact that its gonna happen. Keep your systems secure so you don't get cracked, and keep your nose out of a crime scene unless you are authorized to be there.

    And no, I'm not trampling on anyone's rights. I agree that making a script that demonstrates a security hole needs to remain legal, and is the best way to assure that these holes get fixed. However, you have to realize that people WILL abuse these scripts. There will be people that don't and won't patch their software even if they DO know about security holes. What can we do about this? I have no idea. Since having their systems violated doesn't seem to concern some people, how about an increasing number of law enforcement intrusions? Maybe if everytime someone sets up a new box, a week later they get raided by the FBI and get all their eqiupment confiscated, they'll take security more seriously.

    Law enforcemnt is very much an "after the fact" operation. They don't concern themselves at all with how to protect yourself beforehand, they only care about catching the criminals afterwards. And any legislation they propose will not be to protect the innocent but to make the act of catching the criminals easier. From their standpoint, I don't doubt that their motives are sincere, even if the end result is that we end up with less rights than we do before.

    So please be careful. If you're not among the criminally inclined, attempt to avoid presenting yourself as such.

    -Restil
  • No, about the same. Max hand-held phone power is about 0.7 watts, for analog at least.
    --
  • where's the fetus gonna gestate(sp?)? You gonna keep it in a box?

    I'll have to what LOB again, it's been a bit. . .

  • British English has moved with the times, whereas American English is lagging in the past

    What the bloody fuck are your talking about? I'd rather sound like a redneck or valley girl than a snooty, inbred, ignorant, conceited, good-for-nothing english fuck. How does adding the letter u to commonly used words count as "moving with the times." If you want to add letters that don't have any real purpose, go talk to the french, phouckheaedde.
    --
  • http://www.míçrõsõ£±.çöm

    script kiddies strike again.
    --
  • There aren't many travelers who need continuous global coverage...

    I bet there are more than a lot of people think. In my business, we routinely go to and/or make calls to/from places like Nepal, Pakistan and Tibet. If we had a better communications infrastructure (wireless or not), my job (and everyone else's) would be a LOT easier.

    Anyone out there know of a good internet phone that works well with low bandwidth requirements and could cut our overseas phone bill?

    Interrobang
  • I would guess that claiming English bastardizes Latin would, in a round-about sort of way include bastardizing any romantic language (french, for instance). Regardless, this bastardization results in all sorts of fun for those with decent vocabulary:

    If I've had too much to drink, I'm quite likely to describe it with the germanic "drunk".

    If you've had too much to drink, I'm quite likely to accuse you of being the romantic "inebriated".

  • So you Brits admit that you can't make cars worth a damn? If you force us all to drive Minis, you're going to keep a LOT of auto mechanics happy.

    Mind you, it's gonna be fun with that transition we're going to have to face driving on the left side of the road.

    9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.
  • English is a bastardization of Welsh, German and Latin.

    On what planet? Welsh isn't even linguistically close to English--it's closer to French, and closest to Manx and Cornish, which are Celtic languages. German hasn't had much of an effect on modern English, but they both come from largely the same sources. English is also not REALLY a Romantic (Latinate) language. However, all these languages are Indo-European languages.

    Modern English is largely derived from Old Norse, Saxon, and Middle French, with "import" words scattered all through it. Modern Flemish is the closest extant language to modern English.
  • The FBI now runs a popular off-line search engine. Go to their site, type in a keyword such as haxor or kiddieporn, and then they will start raiding houses and searching the disks they find there until they get a hit. When they're done, they return the drives to their owners.
  • so where is the news about sony?
  • They are not directional antennas. An Iridium antenna is more or less just a huge cell phone antenna. Just because half of the antenna is farther away, doesn't mean that the first half isn't right next to your skull, putting out a lot more power than normal!
  • You loonies are gonna be with us now all throughout [the] administration, aren't you?

    You'll be the cranks out there with the picket signs

    Within several years you'll be less that irrelevant.

    Sound familiar? I think Clinton supporters have said it for 8 years...and the "loonies" never seem to go away...

  • Nope. It sounds more like a Porsche.

    Want to power slide a corner or two? Here. Have a turbo charged boxer in a lightweight AWD chassis.

    Can't wait for the WRX to be finally unleased on the US, even if it does look fugly.
  • At least Scotland has the right idea to get their growth and prosperity out of the United Kingdom before London finds a way to colapse their industry.
    The English still have our bloody *OIL* though.
    *AND* they pipe *WATER* from the south of Scotland to Yorkshire (in the north of England, quite near Scotland, for all you geographically-unaware Americans) every summer when their own water runs out.
    Honestly, it's like Tank Girl or something (film rather than comic).

    Saor Alba, agus cum Gaidhlig beo.
  • I think people should have the right to use a mobile phone, nomatter how dangerous the phone is. But only if they are aware of the risks, and are capable of taking the decision. Children should not be allowed mobiles, IMO. Indeed, here in Britain the government is taking steps to reduce mobile usage in children under 16. Whether it will be compulsory I don't know, but I don't see how we can be inconsistant in this matter, so hopefully it will be compulsory.

    This demonstrates one of the few benefits of a welfare state, I suppose - the government can make sure that the people are properly looked after.

    KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.

  • 6. Australians will and always will be able to drink Americans, English (and anyone else on the planet) under the table. Ahem! Irish!
  • gee, maybe if they had sold the cell phones and service for pennies on the dollar, they would have been able to keep the business.

    Another great idea, destroyed by greed.
  • ...and Patrick Steward and Marina Sirtis!
  • Funniest thing I've read all day (being a Canadian that is!) Please mod to -1 for off topic +5 for funny and +1 for interesting total is..............
  • Actually, I didn't mind the expensive cell phone, so I bought one© What I minded was $7/minute, which is why I bought Globalstar, which is more like a buck and a half/min© They didn't overengineer their network like Iridium did© Bent pipe transponders, even with CDMA, are comparatively uncomplicated and comparatively cheap©

  • Speaking of multilingual cybersquatting.... Check out Yahoo! Japan's auction site [yahoo.co.jp] for domain names. You too can have kitty-chan.com (in kana/eucjp: ¥¥Æ¥£¼Áãó.com) for a mere 10 million yen!
    *sigh*

    -Chris
  • Thank you, you have said everything I wanted to and much more eloquently.
  • What are the effects on MY body of someone using a cell phone near me? Sure they have the right to choose to use a (potentially) cancer-causing devices, but at what point does THEIR decision affect MY health?


  • Negative karma, here I come :-)


    1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium". Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up "vocabulary". Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up "interspersed".
    1. Nobody in the U.S. really cares about how aluminum is pronouced in England.
    2. We try to keep the vocabulary minimized and encourage the overuse of various interjections such as "Like" and "You Know" so that alcoholic Europeans can follow our conversations. You know?


    2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf.
    When England creates a company half as important as Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, or PlaySkool, we might consider their input (before we arbitrarily discard it).


    3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard.
    It's not so much that we can't tell as that we can't bring ourselves to give a rat's ass.


    4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys.
    1. We're still bent over that whole 1812 thing.
    2. You should be kissing our asses in Times Square (that's in New York) for graciously keeping your actors off of the dole.


    5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.
    Why are you English so concerned with God saving Elton John?


    6. You should stop playing American "football". There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby sevens side by 2005.
    1. The most difficult part of "European" football is staying awake through a game.
    2. There is the NFL-Europe, you know (where we send the players not yet good enough to compete in the real NFL).
    3. Who the hell came up with the rule requiring the announcer to yell the word "scooooooooore!" for as long as it took for the point to actually be scored (average time - 2 hours or something like that)?
    4. The reason that "American" football players wear large amounts of protective gear is that they're, on average, larger than any three Englishmen combined.
    5. I'll grant you that Rugby is a cool sport, but it's one best left to the Australians.


    7. You should declare war on Quebec and France, using nuclear weapons if they give you any merde. The 98.85% of you who were not aware that there is a world outside your borders should count yourselves lucky. The Russians have never been the bad guys. "Merde" is French for "shit".
    1. The only reason that the Russians have never been the bad guys is that we were much badder.
    2. Nobody in the U.S. cares about Quebec. As for the French, as long as they keep shipping the wine, we'll ignore the fact that they treat us like crap when we cross the pond to visit. Besides, an economy like France's would make anyone cranky. Plus they gave us the Statue of Liberty.


    8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 8th will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called "Indecisive Day".
    Yeah, right. Come over hear and make us. Last time I checked the scoreboard it read US 2, UK 0.


    9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.
    1. Who do you think buys most of the really cool German cars, Germans?
    2. As a driver of one of the aforementioned really cool German cars, I will concede that most cars made by American car companies really do suck. But that's ok because we're too busy building cars for Honda, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, etc. over here now.


    10. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.
    Everyone knows it was a conspiricy between the Military-Industrial Complex, the Bavarian Illuminati, Richard Nixon, and a few hippies in Baltimore. You should check around before you ask these questions, you know.


    Thank you for your cooperation.
    No problem.

  • It's cause nobody (I mean nobody) uses Iridium phones.

    Tell me what makes you so afraid
    Of all those people you say you hate

  • Some of us don't want to be looked after.
    He sez as he chomps down on an e-coli infested hamburger as he personally defends his property from the Red Chinese...
    --
    You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
  • In 1970, Sega was bought by Gulf & Western.

    Star Trek The Coin-Op Game was made by SEGA
    SEGA is 0wned by G&W
    Paramount makes Star Trek
    Paramount is also 0wned by G&W

    Wow... It's all too clear now...
    ---
    Inanimate Carbon Rod thanks you for your support. See you in 2004!

  • Re:Notice to Americans (Score:3)

    by wolvie_ ( 135527 ) on Wednesday November 15, 2000 @07:11PM (#621204)
    A quote from a late-night Australian comedy show on during the Olympics seems relevant to ErikTheRed's post:

    "...look, look, Australians, New Zealanders and Americans are friends under the one umbrella of ANZAS. The ANZAS pact. We've been in the trenches together over the years, we're very very good friends. The best friends we have in the world are the New Zealanders and the Americans. But I always say, HG, that friendship comes at a cost. And that cost is honesty. You've got to be honest to be a true friend. And while individually Americans are very enjoyable people, modest people, quite lovely people, individually they're very fine. It's just en masse... one can be slightly, I think, critical. They are loud, ignorant, self-obsessed, to the point or narcacissm. They are inward looking, baron, uninteresting, and incapable of seeing any of these qualities that puts the world against them wherever they go. They wonder why they are so disliked, they just can't see it, and that is their major stupidity, that the fatal flaw of Americans. Individually they are wonderful people, wonderful. It's just in toto, I mean get any more than 2, and I'm sorry."

    And now to watch my karma drop.

  • I agree that some sort of organized military defense is necessary. However, that does not include snooping on my e-mail or telephones, putting up video cameras, or drafting people.

    No restaurant will stay in business by systematically poisoning its own customers. Were someone to try, I would trust the press to discover such situations far more than I would trust the government to do so.
  • So paint us a picture of someone using a radiating device close to their head that is intentionally or measurably improving their physical health.
    Paint in your mind someone in danger using their cell phone to call 911. (Or whatever the "oh shit I need help now" number is where you live.)
  • No, it really is MP - Mishandled Protest (from a Yank who was misfortunate enough to be in the British Isles during the fuel tax protest)
  • Considering that Sega is a subsidiary of Matsushita; their developers are primarily Japanese; and their games and tech are released first in Japan, I fail to understand your claim that Sega is a non-Japanese company, or started elsewhere.
  • So.. which came first.
    the Systems Administrators Guild, or the Guild of Systems Administrators? (Sage or GSA?)

    I'm a card-carrying sage member.... any others?
  • FIAT = Fix It Again, Tony

    t_t_b
    --
    I think not; therefore I ain't®

  • very funny, entirely offtopic, and 2.15% + 98.85% > 100%
  • I was being sarcastic, fool.

  • 6. Australians will and always will be able to drink Americans, English (and anyone else on the planet) under the table. Having an ex-Spetnaz Russian friend, I'd kind of like to see a drinking contest between Aussies and Russians if he's representative. Gawd, my liver hurts. :o) 7. Foster's beer is crap Foster's isn't my favorite either, but thank you for Sheaf Stout -- it's glorious stuff. I wish I could send you guys some Sam Adams or Allegheny Brewery Penn Pilsner or Penn Dark. Bet you'd like it.
  • Hmmm... let's see... when iridium is used in the real world, meaning the metal, it is because it is a nice, rare, INERT metal. Ah-ha! Inert - sits there and does NOTHING...

    Well, then. How appropriate, eh?

  • The FBI wasn't involved with Steve Jackson. (Score:3)

    by rjh ( 40933 ) <rjh@sixdemonbag.org> on Wednesday November 15, 2000 @03:10PM (#621215)
    While it did take SJ quite some time to get their equipment back, it wasn't the FBI who held their equipment in legal limbo. That infamy belongs to the United States Secret Service.

    While I'm as suspicious of the FBI as I am the USSS, let's make sure to hand out criticism fairly, okay? :)
  • When England creates a company half as important as Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, or PlaySkool, we might consider their input (before we arbitrarily discard it).

    Cable and Wireless

    and looking further back at a REAL monopoly the British East India Company

  • Sega means... (Score:4)

    by Kupek ( 75469 ) on Wednesday November 15, 2000 @03:11PM (#621217)
    Service and games, if I recall correctly.
  • 3. Who the hell came up with the rule requiring the announcer to yell the word "scooooooooore!" for as long as it took for the point to actually be scored (average time - 2 hours or something like that)?

    Incredible use of hyperbole. By comparing the time the announcer takes to a time much longer than is actual, you really make your point. And, in a completely original way. I don't think I've ever seen that before. Hey, can we even improve upon it? Let's use the make-believe word "gazillion" instead. Then we can have a "gazillion hours" and really drive that point home! Ok, sarcasm off. Just wanted to say something.

  • Re:The Meaning of Iridium (Score:3)

    by WWWWolf ( 2428 ) <wwwwolf@iki.fi> on Thursday November 16, 2000 @04:16AM (#621219) Homepage

    Originally Iridium was named Iridium because it was supposed to have 77 satellites (just like Iridium atom has 77 electrons).

    Of course, when Iridium went bankrupt it had only 66 satellites in the sky. Element 66, then, is Dysprosium, whose name means something like "hard to access".

    Obvious, huh?

    (Joke from E2 [everything2.com]...)

  • Than what did. I mean, they spend billions on orbiting cell towers, and lose it all because nobody wants expensive cell phones. There aren't many travelers who need continuous global coverage because most business trips are to areas with sufficient phone access, and people who travel for pleasure are trying to get away from the working life, not take it with them.

    Tell me what makes you so afraid
    Of all those people you say you hate

  • Re:Notice to Americans (Score:3)

    by AT ( 21754 ) on Wednesday November 15, 2000 @08:31PM (#621221)
    Umm, the US didn't win the war of 1812, unless winning the war means having your capitol burnt down, suffering 50% more casualties, then negoitiating a truce. The American goal of occupying Upper Canada was not accomplished.

    Of course, in the US, the popular image of the war of 1812, if there is one at all, is the battle of New Orleans.
  • I pronounce Aluminum correctly you bloody pisscock.
  • No "And." it was literally: Service Games. Funny how many people think Sega was started in Japan.

    And am I the only one who didn't understand what the Daily Radar piece had to do with the earlier Slashdot article? The first article had to do with a rumor Sega was creating a PC add-on that would play DC games, this article was about a new bundle containing a DC and a disk with a bunch of Genesis games on it...
  • I always thought that we were going to see the pennies-on-the-dollar effect for Iridium. Iridium goes bankrupt, they sell the satelites for some reduced rate to another company who thinks that they'll be able to pull it off, New Iridium tries to make it work, wash, rinse, repeat until pow(New,n) Iridium makes a killing on satelite phones.

    Which is really too bad. I mean, they spent all of that money to get those satelites up there.

    But then again, they designed those things for analog cell phones, so they are useless for anything but standard cell phone transmissions..

    The mistake, of course, is that they didn't develop the right set of hardware and the right set of features that would do more than just a phone you could use in the middle of the Sahara Desert.

    Oh yeah, and to flame, the multilingual domain names are odd and probably not too useful. I mean, your average non-Japanese/Chinese person probably couldn't even write the characters for the domain name, so you'd hope that you don't have anything important that someone from any of the other countries that can't parse ideographs would want to get at. And what about putting accent marks on something. e-cafe.com could have an accent mark on it, which will just open up more domain name squatting..
  • Sorry, but isn't Tony Blair PM, not MP? Just a thought from an American...
  • This was funny the first ten times I saw it posted on Slashdot today, but can we stop at this point?
  • In a recent test, groups of various nationalities on holiday were covertly monitored and asked to perform various tasks.

    When it came to partying, the English consumption of alcohol was more than twice their nearest competitor (the Japanese IIRC! ).
  • guns? chk. Ammo? chk. Come and get it, Biznatch!
  • Shakespeare (as with any centuries old author) spelt words differently every time he used them

    Right guys, keep it quiet, but there's a lot of them centuries old authors posting here. It's even possible that CmdrTaco is one. Are we in the middle of some literary-zombie uprising here?

  • We had a democracy? When did that happen?!
  • The electronics on brit cars always sucked anyway ;)
  • >He estimated that the chance of cancer was up to fifteen times more likely.

    I'll bet at about (what was) $2.50 US a minute to call next-door you'll find people use these phones a few hundred times less than their land-based cousins (the phones, that is).

    It's probably safer to use an Iridium phone than a real cell phone due to the amount of time any person (even rich) would dare spend with it on.
  • Uh, so you're saying this is a tissue issue?

    Bless you.

  • 4. Hollywood is a representation of how we feel about you bastards. And James Bond isn't a bad guy =P

    He's a fucking psychopath!

  • (meaning of "Sega" below)

    Founded in 1951 by American David Rosen, who moved permanently to Japan after WWII, Sega (originally dubbed Rosen Enterprises) started out as an art export company. By the late 1950's Rosen had moved on to importing instant photo booths and coin-op games from the United States.

    Rosen Enterprises continued to expand. In 1965 the company purchased a jukebox manufacturing company, which was then merged into Rosen Enterprises. Upon completion of the merger, the company was renamed to Sega, which was a contraction of "Service Games." Sega soon began producing their own coin-op games and competed directly against American imports. In 1970, Sega was bought by Gulf & Western.
  • Well, it's not exactly a secret that politicians in the US are corrupt beyond all boundaries. There is even legal corruption and bribery, ala the form of campaign donations.

  • #9 reveals the fictional nature of the post, hehe....

    Why would anyone want to buy European HandyMan Keepers (ala Porsche, Mercedes, special emphasis on BMW...). These 3 brands suck the financial life out of each new financial power in this country. First it was stock brokers, now its techies. I'm suprised Maserati hasn't made a comeback in this age of senseless disposals of hard earned income...

    Any of the much cheaper, still usually straight line quicker American alternatives (Mustang, Camaro, Vette), can easily stand with these Eurocrapcars in reliability, more than likely exceed them. Cornering you say? I can make you wet your pants in ditch cleaning terror on any of these three, with utmost confidence of not actually putting the machine in the ditch, and even in my normal agressive driving modes, I don't get close to this level. So there.

    The people I've met that claim they can actually find the cornering limits of a American car, are usually the ones that will just as quickly put a European machine in a ditch or into a coupla trees - no driving ability whatsoever, and no room to comment.

    If Eurocrapcar buyers can't admit this, they are welcome to continue chunking their hard earned money out the window of their cheap Eurocrapcars, but they need to at least admit they purchased for prestige, not performance.

  • oh.. i thought we were the Popular Front.

    eudas
  • Did he then proceed to suggest a bloodletting to offset the imbalance it creates with the other three humors (phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile)? Sounds like a quack, or at least the paranoid type to me.

    I haven't seen any conclusive proof, so I'll remain a skeptic. Let's be realistic, too -- Iridium is/was cost prohibitive enough that one couldn't justify having fairly lengthy or frequent contact with it anyway, and when you DO need it, brain cancer is probably the least of your concerns...
  • The thing is, Iridium antennas are much taller than regular cell phone antennas (they reach over the users head), plus they point upward, so most of the radiation is directed away from your head.

  • C'mon, credit your sources! (Score:5)

    by Raetsel ( 34442 ) on Wednesday November 15, 2000 @05:26PM (#621241)
    That came from The Register [theregister.co.uk].

    Specifically, in " Where's the IT angle? We never were any good at geometry... [theregister.co.uk]"posted there 15 November 2000 at 10:42am. (Go there if you want to see the whole thing -- this is just over half!)


    On the other hand, it's good to see that other slashdotters read The Register...

  • iridium (Score:5)

    by AyeFly ( 242460 ) on Wednesday November 15, 2000 @04:33PM (#621242)
    For radio astronomers' sake, let Iridium BURN!! its fairly impossible to listen for signals in the OH molecules 18 cm wavelength, if there are transmitters in orbit (iridium) broadcasting using that same wavelength.
  • Australian Addendum to notice
    1. The English can't play rugby either, it's up to us Aussies to show you how it's done
    2. it's pronounced Mel-Ben not Mel-Born
    3. Australians didn't need a revolution, we just keep humiliating the Poms (British) at sport instead - it has a more ongoing quality
    4. SPELL YOUR WORDS WITH "S" NOT BLOODY "Z"!!! It's realise not realize etc.
    5. That girly game you call football? Try Aussie Rules, Rugby Union, Rugby Leauge or any other sport where you don't wear your own personal rollbar - for crying out loud - don't you see that that's really girly
    6. Australians will and always will be able to drink Americans, English (and anyone else on the planet) under the table.
    7. Foster's beer is crap
    8. Kangaroos do not bounce down the city streets in metropolitan centres of Australia

    consider youself addendummed (or something), but always remember - spell with the S!

  • Oh dear. You need to grow a sense of humour and fast. Otherwise you may find yourself in court facing an apprehended violence order, simply because you didn't understand that somebody was gently taking the piss. Re: Aluminum vs Aluminium - check the periodic table of the elements.
  • Where's the Popular Judean People's Front? [points] He's sitting over there. Splitter!
  • I'm half-Irish. And I suppose that helps, along with the sheer body mass...

    But I am *really* not kidding. I was (and still am) blown away by how much alcohol your typical Kiwi bonehead can handle. I find it both admirable and scary that an entire nation has such a high tolerence for getting pissed. No wonder they kick ass at rugby... not only do they consume massive amounts of calories, they just can't feel The Pain!
  • And any legislation they propose will not be to protect the innocent but to make the act of catching the criminals easier.

    And if they arrest and convict a few of the innocent along the way... ah, it's only collateral damage, "don't worry about my rights, officer".

    What an indictment on governments and the sheep who support them.
  • I've since given it up for marijuana, and I challenge anyone from Oz to a weekend of smoking. You can bring your inferior strains if you like, but they won't be needed....

    Here in South Australia, possession of ( n=3 ) plants (used to be 10 :) is decriminalised -- i.e. police give you an on-the-spot fine and take the plants. Unsurprisingly, this has led to some fine developments of the form through hydroponic experimentation...
  • In Italian, instead, 'sega' literally means 'an act of (male) masturbation' as in 'go and do yourself a sega'

    I don't think I have to mention all the various jokes that have been going around about this :)
  • Why the british empire was built upon...

    No wait, that was Rock N' Roll.

  • I was speaking to a doctor chappie in Harley St, London the other day and he had a damning & startling assesment of the Iridium network. He said that the wavelength that the Iridium phones use resonates with the average head almost perfectly, and that because the phones have to be *extremely* powerful to communicate with orbiting satellites, the degree of heating in the Brain is much more pronounced compared to normal mobiles. He estimated that the chance of cancer was up to fifteen times more likely.

    My question is, why has there been such a devastating silence on this issue? Considering the risks, it's remarkable that so few people have heard of this.

    KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.

  • Not even a "We're Sorry!" (Score:4)

    by LauraLolly ( 229637 ) on Wednesday November 15, 2000 @03:15PM (#621257)
    I write this from my laptop, which was returned 2 hours ago (along with all the other stuff the FBI confiscated). I have not checked the condition of my other computers, but judging by my laptop, they should be fine (data AND hardware). Needless to say, I'm quite happy about this turn of events, as I had been preparing myself to never see my data again. :)

    Apologies, please. Explanations, please! Elucidations, please! Goldarnit, a student was just going about his business, and he's robbed of his work. I did not notice any information about detailed receipts for his stuff - I thought that was illegal.

    If anything of yours is seized by means of search warrant, request a detailed receipt!

  • Super NES emu available for Dreamcast NOW. (Score:3)

    by woggo ( 11781 ) on Wednesday November 15, 2000 @03:15PM (#621258) Journal
    That's great news about the Genesis emu. However, you can get a free-beer SNES emulator for the dreamcast now, from this site [mc.pp.se]. It isn't super fast, but I've been playing Donkey Kong Country on my DC quite a bit lately....


    ~wog
  • this is correct!

    having been raised in arcade (quite literally, my parents owned them) i can tell you YOU ARE CORRECT, SIR!


  • Obligatory Monty Python reference follows: (Score:3)

    by sammy baby ( 14909 ) on Wednesday November 15, 2000 @03:16PM (#621261) Journal

    Q: Are you the Judean People's Front?

    A: Fuck off! Judean People's Front... we're the People's Front of Judea!

  • I know a little bit of chinese, and often find myself composing e-mails in it. Now, the Chinese IME (input method editor or some such) is very, very good, and makes entering chinese text both feasible and not particularly a hassle. However, I cannot imagine having a domain name in chinese. If the radical (part of the character) is different between two characters, and no pronunciation is changed, entering a character is much more difficult. Furthermore, typo squatting would literally become trivial. I just can't imagine a company deciding that this is a good way to reach it's target market, except for the thousand or so first-comers that get the easy-to-recognize three character names. As a general, widespread, and universal idea, it just seems destined to failure.
  • Look up the inverse-square law, fool. Unless you're hugging them, you have nothing to worry about. The phone is a centimetre from their brain, and a metre from yours. That means you're getting one ten-thousandth of the radiation they're getting.
  • I was speaking to a doctor chappie in Harley St, London the other day and he had a damning & startling assesment of the Iridium network.
    What you really meant had to be clueless and hilarious assessment, because anyone who can do an inverse-square calculation already knows that the most power you could ever receive from an Iridium is far less than what nearby people get from UHF TV transmitters, and there are literally hundreds of those which have been operating for decades.

    If I were you, I wouldn't go to that doctor again. I'd report him to the National Health Service, because he's obviously incompetent to the point of endangering his patients to the point where they will run away from imaginary dangers while ignoring real ones.
    --

  • He wasn't talking about the power emitted by the satellites, but rather, by the Iridium phones themselves.
    If that's the case, then there would almost certainly be no detectable effect, because the number of Iridium users will always be small. The only way the scenario works is if people on the ground are endangered by the radiation of the satellites themselves, and that is ridiculous (thus I have ridiculed it).

    The Iridium satellite antennas are considerably more directional than cell-tower arrays (the DSPs required to manage the phased arrays are a huge power drain) and I doubt that the power of an Iridium phone is any higher than a run-of-the-mill 144 MHz ham handheld. Hell, I know it; this page [phonetraders.com] specifies 0.64 watts for an Iridium phone, and several other pages found by Google repeat the 0.64[5] watt figure. Ham handhelds are often 5 watts or more, and people use them up against their heads just the same.

    In other words, the doctor is this || far from being a quack.
    --

  • 1776- American revolution US 1, UK 0
    1812- see War of; US 2, UK 0

    And what about lend-lease?

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