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Submission + - British nukes were protected by bike locks (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by mattaw
mattaw writes: From an article in the BBC's Newsnight program: Until 1998 the RAF nuclear bomb was protected by a bike lock.

After the Americans implemented coded arming systems their was an attempt to get these fitted to the British systems however this was rejected by the Navy with the following statement:

"It would be invidious to suggest... that Senior Service officers may, in difficult circumstances, act in defiance of their clear orders".

That's alright then.
The Military

Submission + - British nukes protected solely by bicycle locks

Submitted by StationM
StationM writes: Newsnight at BBC2 has revealed that British were secured only by a bicycle lock and 'trust' in the integrity of the officers in charge of the weapons. "Newsnight has discovered that until the early days of the Blair government the RAF's nuclear bombs were armed by turning a bicycle lock key...The Royal Navy argued that officers of the Royal Navy as the Senior Service could be trusted:

"It would be invidious to suggest... that Senior Service officers may, in difficult circumstances, act in defiance of their clear orders".

Neither the Navy nor the RAF installed PAL (Permissive Active Link) protection on their nuclear weapons.

The RAF kept their unsafeguarded bombs at airbases until they were withdrawn in 1998."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/7097101.stm

sure makes me feel safe!
AMD

Submission + - AMD/ATI's opensource efforts revealed

Submitted by mattaw
mattaw writes: Phoronix have revealed in some detail the plan of AMD/ATI to support a community written Radeon opensource driver.

To whit, they are releasing specs and some example code under NDA and an opensource library that connects to the card's BIOS. They already have XOrg developers onboard and have also attracted Jerome Glisse who reverse engineered ATI cards to make the Avivio driver (incidentally probably killing that driver but the new ATI open driver will surely benefit from his excellent work).

While not completely open, this is pretty open for starters, HOWEVER I for one am not certain of things like support for hardware video decoding or extra on board hardware (TV-Out etc.).

Checkout the final comments: "The aim of this open-source driver is not to overtake the fglrx driver but rather is designed for those who just want a working desktop with 3D capabilities and basic video playback. This new driver is ideal for FOSS enthusiasts and those wishing to run the latest development kernels and versions of X.Org."

Still there is no argument that this is a brilliant result.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - How to avoid hiring an American

Submitted by
netbuzz
netbuzz writes: "Keep this video in mind next time someone like Bill Gates complains that they just can't find qualified American workers to fill key tech jobs. "Our goal is clearly not to find a qualified U.S. worker," a marketing executive for a law firm tells his audience. And what's the advice for those employers who fail to achieve that goal and are confronted with a qualified American: "find a legal basis to disqualify them."

http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/1642 1"
Sony

Submission + - Father of Sony PlayStation steps down (cnn.com)

Submitted by
djabbour
djabbour writes: "From the story, "The chief architect of Sony's PlayStation game console stepped down on Tuesday as the Japanese company struggles to defend its dominance in the video game industry and revive its reputation as an electronics pioneer... he departure of Kutaragi, an icon among gamers, marks the end of an era at Sony Corp. that saw the company long dominate the video game industry with its flagship PlayStation consoles.""
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft puppets spamming ANSI to support OOXML

Submitted by
zoobab
zoobab writes: "ANSI, the American National Standards Institute, is publishing on a day to day basis all the comments received on the proposed Microsoft Office OpenXML specification to become an ISO standard. All the recent submissions in support of the Microsoft specification looks very similar to this contribution, and one of the contributor even mentioned that "Even though this is a form letter from Microsoft I thought I would add this personal touch"."
The Internet

W3C Bars Public From Public Conference 169

Posted by CmdrTaco from the tricky-word-speak dept.
xk0der writes "Danny Weitzner, one of the W3C's policy directors and event co-chair, repeatedly claimed in a follow up telephone conversation that, by "public," the W3C actually means "closed to the public." Weitzner was the person who personally barred my colleague from entering the conference." The story is worth a read- it's very strange. Personally I think this guy is just vying to replace Tony Snow at the White House.
Media

Submission + - Sanctuary: An example of internet media's future?

Submitted by mattaw
mattaw writes: Is Sanctuary for All an example of the way the internet is going to challenge existing media? The future perhaps?

This internet experiment, a proper sc-fi/horror/action/fantasy show, is currently distributed and advertised only via the internet and has gone all out to create and enlist a fanbase via a dedicated website to host fan blogs, fora, fan generated (and officially endorsed) media. They have even suggested fans may be able to influence the show. For example they have provided the theme tune as separate instrumental tracks as an extra and encouraged fan remixes. Sound like a typical network?

Is the internet possibly going to fulfill one of its greatest promises? Interactive mainstream media? Is this the start of fully integrated and responsive media?

Typical network interaction with fans is to ignore them and concentrate blindly on ratings which has resulted in the death of shows such as Firefly that failed to capture the general public's interest while generating huge interest in the sc-fi community. As shows become cheaper to produce are we going to see the obsolescence of the traditional media company?

View the first four episodes for free online via this link.

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