About Robin Edgar

Organisational Structures | Technology and Science | Military, IT and Lifestyle consultancy | Social, Broadcast & Cross Media | Flying aircraft

Soviet Doomsday Machine

Apparently the USSR actually went and built a doomsday machine – something that would launch command missles which would transmit coordinates to other ICBMs in the event that the Soviet Union was destroyed. The system, called ‘Perimiter’ and known as ‘Dead Hand’ basically ran through some checks and then delegated launch authority to whoever it could reach.

The Soviets kept this a secret as their principle use for the system was not deterrence towards the US, but to calm hotheads in the Soviet military and to stop them from throwing up independant first strikes when the going got stressy, as the hotheads knew that if the USSR went down, they’d get their revenge.

Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday Machine.

Dutch government will store fingerprints in central database

Because we all know how safe centralised government databases are, the Dutch are now preparing to store all fingerprints the get. At first this will happen per region and later all the databases will be linked and centralised.

Dutch privacy organisations have protested at the EU, but they have declined the protest as the European courts feel other avenues had not been exhausted.

Europa wijst protest vingerafdrukdatabase af – UPDATE | Webwereld.

Mapping gravitational corridors

Between the planets and moons are gravitational corridors, tubes that intersect at lagrange points, which can be used to travel between celestial bodies using hardly any fuel, only for course correctional purposes. These corridors can be likened to ocean currents. The trade-off is now between speed and fuel consumption: you can use almost zero fuel between a planets’ moons because the distance allows it, but should you want to drift to another planet using just the corridors, this would take years.

Scientists unveil plan designed to cut cost of space travel – Telegraph.

Dutch JSF buy based on unreal figures

The Dutch ministry of defence has apparently known since 2005 that the budget reserved for the JSF buy (to replace the KLu F-16 fleet) was in nowhere near enough for the planned 85 F-35s they needed. The Dutch MOD has answered parliamentary questions about this with the statement that they expected a budget increase and that this is why they’ve never mentioned the budget shortfall.

So basically the Dutch MOD and KLu have been supporting a fighter buy they knew they couldn’t afford and have been throwing sand in the eyes of the parliament and are now scrambling to cover their arse.

Kamervragen betreffende budgettekorten voor vervanging van F-16 | Ministerie van Defensie.

Inhabitat » New Envion Facility Turns Plastic Waste into $10/Barrel Fuel

What if we could turn all the plastic waste we create on a daily basis into fuel to power our cars? A Washington, DC-based company called Envion claims it can do just that with a process that turns plastic into an oil-like fuel for just $10 per barrel. According to Envion, the resulting fuel can be blended with other components and used as either gasoline or diesel.

via Inhabitat » New Envion Facility Turns Plastic Waste into $10/Barrel Fuel.

Right-to-repair bill

Massachusets, USA, is doing something that should have been done a long time ago: Car manufacturers are computerising their cars to a greater and greater degree. This is great – more power, more control, more safety, more fun.

Unfortunately, the software and interfaces for these computers are closed – repairmen are not given access to manuals or other information that allows them to manipulate the computer. Thus they have serious trouble making repairs that they should be able to make easily.

Massachusets is sponsoring a bill that forces the car manufacturers to give over all the information necessary to make repairs on cars to whoever wants them; independent garages, or just you.

COMMENTARY: Right-to-repair bill shifts control from dealer to owner – Quincy, MA – The Patriot Ledger.

XP no longer being patched by MS

Even though they keep supporting Internet Explorer 6, they’re not going to support XP?

Microsoft had stated the reason for continuing support for IE6 was that it came with Windows XP and so they had to keep supporting it. Now it turns out that they’re not supporting XP either. Not exactly their road map, but oh well.

XP is thus fully broken, with a security hole in the TCP/IP implementation.

You’re doing well, MS – it took you long enough to fix the hole for Vista et al as well!

Microsoft: No TCP/IP patches for you, XP.

Apple screws iphone customers… some more

It turns out that the 3.1 patch for the iphone removes tethering for any carrier that isn’t a partner of Apple. This means that if you own an officially unlocked iphone and run it on another network, you can’t use the iphone as a modem for your laptop any more.

Well done, Jobs – keep fucking your customers up the arse! They’re your fanboys, they LOVE it!

Apple – Support – Discussions – no tethering on officially unlocked ….