Our Military Bans USB ThumbDrives, etc.

If you remember "Don't Copy That Floppy!", then you've been through this before. The Viruses, Trojans, and other crud collectively called Malware will get onto computers via any path available. USB Thumbdrives are now very cheap and easy to use as part of a sneaker-net. Unfortunately, they're just as convenient for personal use and this is how malware usually finds it's way into corporate / work / military systems. Scan a computer used by a young adult, and you'll likely find a variety of malware waiting for a chance to spread itself around. In theory, we should all scan our systems before writing files to an external device, but in practice most of us don't even scan our systems on a regular schedule.

In the near future I expect the technology to scan and secure thumb drives will be miniaturized and built into the devices themselves. A few years later, the prices will have come down to the level that we mere mortals consider reasonable, and the hackers will have to find another delivery mechanism. History shows that they will succeed.

Practice Safe Computing!

Under Worm
Assault, Military Bans Disks, USB Drives Danger Room from Wired.com:
"The Defense Department's geeks are spooked by a rapidly spreading worm crawling across their networks. So they've suspended the use of so-called thumb drives, CDs, flash media cards, and all other removable data storage devices from their nets, to try to keep the worm from multiplying any further.

It applies to both the secret SIPR and unclassified NIPR nets. The suspension, which includes everything from external hard drives to "floppy disks," is supposed to take effect "immediately." Similar notices went out to the other military services.

In some organizations, the ban would be only a minor inconvenience. But the military relies heavily on such drives to store information. Bandwidth is often scarce out in the field. Networks are often considered unreliable. Takeaway storage is used constantly as a substitute."

New honeycomb tire is 'bulletproof'

The Humvee was never designed to carry the weight of any armor to protect troops. Fortunately, industry has been working on improvements to make them tougher. Simply replacing all the Hummers is cost prohibitive, and they're very useful vehicles when not under attack.
I wonder how well these tires resist chemicals and fire, but the military needs an SUV in this role, not a tank.

New honeycomb tire is 'bulletproof' Military Tech - CNET News:
"The University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Wausau, Wis., company have come up with a 37-inch, bullet and bomb-proof Humvee tire based on a polymeric web so cool looking there's no need for hub caps.

Resilient Technologies and Wisconsin-Madison's Polymer Engineering Center are creating a 'non-pneumatic tire' (no air required) that will support the weight of add-on armor, survive an IED attack, and still make a 50 mph getaway. It's basically a round honeycomb wrapped with a thick, black tread.

The military wants an alternative to the current Humvee 'run flat' tires, which despite the name, still need a minimal amount of air pressure to roll and can leave troops stranded after being shot or blown out."

Note the comments after the article - several readers were concerned with spaces in the honeycomb loading up with mud and throwing the tire off-balance. I'm sure this was planned for, or revealed in testing, and that the production tires will be skinned with a sidewall making them look like ordinary tires.

The US Leads the World Despite Our Internal Critics

Weekly, sometimes daily, I hear how awful we are in the US in our treatment of people unlike ourselves. Having lived and worked a little in other countries, I'm quite certain that the US is the best place in the world to live. Even in Britain, an ally and the homeland for many Americans, society affords some people fewer opportunities than they would have as immigrants in the US.

Perhaps instead of always trying to push social frontiers further in the US, we should consider working to bring other countries up to our standards. It would give some people a rest, and enable many people to see how unique and valuable our country is.

BBC NEWS | Could Britain have a black PM?:
"When Barack Obama claimed that his story could only have happened in America, he might have been looking across the Atlantic for evidence.

The odds of a black or Asian person taking the keys to 10 Downing Street any time soon are slim.

Tony Blair acknowledged as much in 2001, when he suggested the US was ahead of the UK in having people from ethnic minorities occupying some of the top political posts.

Mr Blair was mindful of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice at the heart of the White House, but probably hadn't even heard of Obama.

. . . the UK can learn from the way Americans responded to their racist history.

"Since the civil rights movement of the Sixties they have had to put in laws and rules in place because racism was more overt. It's more subtle in this country but there is a sense there's a glass ceiling across most industries.

"In America it's more acknowledged and they've put in positive discrimination. There was much resistance at the beginning but they have the fruits of that, which is people being forced into certain positions."

Consequently the US has a large and powerful black middle class, he says. While the UK is arguably more integrated, he says, a black prime minister will only be closer when there are more black business leaders and commissioning editors, operating the levers of power and educating society about black and Asian experiences.

. . . "In the US they dare to dream the American dream, talking about hope. Using that kind of language is something Americans do naturally. Here, we are I think culturally much more understated. We tend to be more cynical generally.

"And while I don't think we are anti-aspirational, the aspiration of what we are and who we are comes without the language of America. Americans are proud that they have brought about change no-one thought possible in the time they have.

"The language of Barack Obama and Martin Luther King is very singular to America but we're not able to use that kind of language. So we need to find a way to get out of that cynicism." "

Hot Air Ballooning on Titan?

Petrochemicals from Titan may be vital to sustaining a large population on Mars. Research is important, but eventually we also need "boots on the ground" of Luna, Mars, Titan, the asteroid Belt, and many other sites in our solar system. There is enormous wealth out there if we're willing to go get it.

Plan to Send Hot Air Balloon to Saturn's Moon Titan - Yahoo! News:
"A hot air balloon drifts gently in the breeze, gliding over mountain ranges and vast lakes. Thick clouds extend over the entire horizon, threatening rain. The meager light that filters through illuminates one side of the balloon, making it look like a giant question mark in the sky.

This is a vision that floats in the minds of scientists who study Titan, Saturn's largest moon. The Cassini spacecraft currently traveling around the Saturn system has provided us with our best glimpse yet of Titan, but there is still much to be explored.

Athena Coustenis, an astrophysicist and planetologist with the Paris Observatory, is helping draft a plan to send a hot air balloon to Titan, as well as an orbiting spacecraft and a surface probe. Called TSSM – the Titan and Saturn System Mission – this three-tiered approach to exploration could shed more light on the still-mysterious moon.
. . .
The moon's resemblance to Earth was eerily brought to mind when the Huygens probe descended to the surface of Titan in 2005. The photos showed a mountain with river channels carving their way down to a lake shoreline; a geography reminiscent of Earth today, except that on Titan the mountains are made of ice, and the rivers are liquid methane.

The Huygens probe eventually landed in a sandy river bed dotted with pebbles. This soft terrain would prove hazardous for a wheeled rover – the Mars Rover Opportunity got stuck for weeks in a sand dune and was nearly stranded forever. "The ground on Titan may be gooey, and you don't want to get stuck somewhere," says Coustenis.

She says that to move around, the TSSM probe could be outfitted with a helicopter rotor that would allow it to fly from place to place. The probe design also may include floaters that would prevent it from sinking if it landed on one of Titan's hydrocarbon lakes.
. . .
Our knowledge of Titan's geography has improved thanks to Huygens and Cassini. Long before the probe landed, scientists thought Titan was completely covered by a hydrocarbon ocean. This ocean was thought to be the source of methane in Titan's atmosphere. The Huygens probe proved the theory of a global ocean was incorrect, and from what the Cassini spacecraft has seen so far, the lakes of liquid hydrocarbon on Titan are mostly confined to the moon's north polar region. Still, it's hard to speak of Titan's geography with much certainty. While Cassini's radar has allowed it to peer through Titan's thick atmospheric haze, in the end Cassini won't be able to map even half of the moon's surface. The third part of TSSM – an orbiting spacecraft – will give scientists a more complete view of the enigmatic moon.

"We need a Titan-dedicated orbiter because after four years of Cassini, we still haven't mapped more than 25 percent of Titan's surface," says Coustenis. "When you see the diversity the moon has, you realize it needs full-coverage mapping. And we can have a polar orbiter, whereas Cassini only passes by Titan on the ecliptic."

The orbiter also could be used to study Enceledus, a tiny moon that previously had not garnered much attention. Cassini discovered that Enceladus has geysers of liquid water at its south pole, and this spray generates one of the rings around Saturn. Scientists are puzzled how this icy snowball could generate enough heat to keep water liquid. Because liquid water is believed to be a prerequisite for life, some scientists now think Enceladus could be a potential location for alien organisms in our solar system."

Fear of Democrats Drives Gun Sales

Gun laws affect the law-abiding almost exclusively - criminals, by definition, don't obey laws, and many of them get their weapons by stealing them.

This has happened before - the gun industry will do well financially for several months, but will eventually go through hard times when the demand has been sated.

Gun owners need to remember that legislators have a history of making ammunition, magazines, reloading components, and even some accessories more expensive or even banned, when liberals are in power. A gun with no ammunition is merely an elaborate club.

Everywhere that concealed carry becomes legal, crimes decreases - criminals prefer unarmed victims.

Fears of a Dem crackdown lead to boom in gun sales - Yahoo! News:
". . .
Last month, as an Obama win looked increasingly inevitable, there were 62,000 more background checks for gun purchases than in October 2007, a 25 percent increase. And they were up about 8 percent for the year as of Oct. 26, according to the FBI.

No data was available for gun purchases this week, but gun shops from suburban Virginia to the Rockies report record sales since Tuesday's election.

'They're scared to death of losing their rights,' said David Hancock, manager of Bob Moates, where sales have nearly doubled in the past week and are up 15 percent for the year. On Election Day, salespeople were called in on their day off because of the crowd.

Obama has said he respects Americans' Second Amendment right to bear arms, but that he favors 'common sense' gun laws. Gun rights advocates interpret that as meaning he'll at least enact curbs on ownership of assault and concealed weapons.

As a U.S. Senator, Obama voted to leave gun-makers and dealers open to lawsuits; and as an Illinois state legislator, he supported a ban on semiautomatic weapons and tighter restrictions on all firearms."