Somewhat Useful Facts Thread

[eclipse74569]

Today is the 40th Anniversary of Sesame Street.

A place for six foot pigeons and junky elephants!

They even have a pimp!

[Senator]

Today, in the UK, was also Guy Fawkes Night.

Remember, Remember, the 5th of November!

So... the military is using windows? :wtf

Did you not realise??
They have now introduced something called "DII" or defence information infrastructure.
In other words it's an oversized underpowered network that is basically a normal LAN but spread over a massive area that piggybacks on the back of internet traffic. The MOD uses windows XP for it and IE6. Some places are still on 2000.

And yes, the whole DII is absolutely shite. Dog slow and utterly useless.

Great. So the UK military is using an operating system with (potentially) build in NSA backdoors.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/437967.stm

Regardless if it is real or not, what is real is that Microsoft clearly has deep access to the system though windows update (unless they have turned them off), if they can patch something, they can rewrite the entire thing. (they'd just have to target a specially prepared update to a few specific IPs).

You would have thought that for all these billions, they could have paid a few guys to write a linux where they'd know exactly what each line says and does.

[JimmyB76]

slugs have 4 noses...

[captain_obvious]

Today, in the UK, was also Guy Fawkes Night.

Remember, Remember, the 5th of November!

So... the military is using windows? :wtf

Did you not realise??
They have now introduced something called "DII" or defence information infrastructure.
In other words it's an oversized underpowered network that is basically a normal LAN but spread over a massive area that piggybacks on the back of internet traffic. The MOD uses windows XP for it and IE6. Some places are still on 2000.

And yes, the whole DII is absolutely shite. Dog slow and utterly useless.

Great. So the UK military is using an operating system with (potentially) build in NSA backdoors.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/437967.stm

Regardless if it is real or not, what is real is that Microsoft clearly has deep access to the system though windows update (unless they have turned them off), if they can patch something, they can rewrite the entire thing. (they'd just have to target a specially prepared update to a few specific IPs).

You would have thought that for all these billions, they could have paid a few guys to write a linux where they'd know exactly what each line says and does.

The only ones that are networked are the ones running XP apparently. All the ones with 2000 are standalone terminals built into our radar vehicles (Known as COBRA aka "BFUST big f*cking useless thing*" and MAMBA "aka NSBFUST Not so f*cking big useless thing") and laptops for our technicians who use them as diagnostic machines/part number libraries/tutorials eg. "how to change a phase shifter" etc. etc..

Those radar vehicles also have UNIX terminals that deal with networking stuff (they can be networked together or with CRAM phalanx guns or with bowman terminals loaded with the COMBAT software package or any combination of these) the terminals using 2000 are simply diagnostic computers and backups.

And btw, don't ask me what a phase shifter does. I just order them for the techs and give the damn things to them!!
Maybe it shifts the phase?

[JimmyB76]

ooook moving on

contrary to popular belief, lightning travels from the ground upwards not from the sky downwards...

[Senator]

The Patriot System & Hawk SAM replacement (MEADS), is one of the few programs funded almost exactly 50/50 by the US and EU nations.
It is managed by a NATO agency known as NAMEADSMA (aren't those letter names very new world order-ish?) and developed by an ad-hocly put together company called MEADS International, which in reality is owned exactly 50% by Lockheed Martin and 50% by EuroMEADS.

[JimmyB76]

a blue whale's heart is the size of a Volkswagen Beetle...

[captain_obvious]

The Patriot System & Hawk SAM replacement (MEADS), is one of the few programs funded almost exactly 50/50 by the US and EU nations.
It is managed by a NATO agency known as NAMEADSMA (aren't those letter names very new world order-ish?) and developed by an ad-hocly put together company called MEADS International, which in reality is owned exactly 50% by Lockheed Martin and 50% by EuroMEADS.

Our radars have spares provided to them by a NATO organization called NAMSA strangely enough.

And massively inefficient too.

[limey BSc.]

PHP is a recursive acronym for "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor".
As you can probably guess, a recursive acronym is an acronym that contains the original word within it.

Other examples are:
Wine - Wine Is Not an Emulator
LAME - LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder
Saab - Saab Automobile Aktiebolaget
VISA - Visa International Service Association

[Senator]

One material that has great potential is M5 fiber. This is a synthetic fiber that is lighter than Kevlar or Spectra. According to Pearson, Levin, Oldson, and Wykes in their article The Lunar Space Elevator, an M5 ribbon 30mm wide and .023 mm thick, would be able to support 2000 kg on the lunar surface (2005). It would also be able to hold 100 cargo vehicles, each with a mass of 580 kg, evenly spaced along the length of the elevator. Other materials that could be used are T1000G carbon fiber, Spectra 200, or Zylon. All of these materials have breaking lengths of several hundred kilometers under 1g

^ Regarding a lunar space elevator.

[limey BSc.]

The AT4 unguided Anti-Tank Weapon was named as phonetic word-play on it's caliber, 84mm.

[JimmyB76]

1 in 500 humans has one blue eye and one brown eye...
freaks...   lol j/k

[Armondikov]

1 in 500 humans has one blue eye and one brown eye...
freaks...   lol j/k

Or heterochromia, as it's sometimes called. Heterochromia iridis specifically in eyes.

Many people think that this is the case with David Bowie, but it's not. Due to getting punched in the face at the age of 15 (by someone who went on to do some of his album artwork, no less) one of his eyes is permanently dilated, producing the effect that makes it look like they're different colours.

[Senator]

Fact: Net Neutrality FTW.

[Senator]

SanDisk is developing 128Gb microSD cards for 2011.

In case you haven't seen those things before, they are about this big:

[Lionus]

what's the point of those? I already have trouble keeping my cell phones memory cards in sight because they're pretty damn small too.  :wtf smaller isn't necessarily better.

[Nebula]

micro SD cards are extremely useful XD

I have a few and use em for my phone and camera.

[Vladko1]

M2 cards are faster than microSD. I have experience. I am with SE K800i but my father have SE K850. K850 is supporting MicroSD and M2 cards and for one amount of data, MicroSD card load it slower that the M2. About 2 times slower.

[1DeadlySAMURAI]

Vladko1: There are several classes that have different transfer speed.

# Class 2: 2 MByte/s - 13x
# Class 4: 4 MByte/s - 26x
# Class 6: 6 MByte/s - 40x

[captain_obvious]

M2 cards are faster than microSD. I have experience. I am with SE K800i but my father have SE K850. K850 is supporting MicroSD and M2 cards and for one amount of data, MicroSD card load it slower that the M2. About 2 times slower.

At last! someone else who is still using an SE K800i!

The k800i was released in 2006. I bought mine then and it's still going strong. It has simply shrugged off any knocks, falls and other damage effortlessly.
I once dropped it while standing on top of the cab of a British army Bedford TM 6x6 14tonne truck.  It landed in gravel. And guess what? it still works  2 years on. I've taken it to Iraq with me, guess what? it still works!

Awesome all round phone IMO.