Terminal ballistics is why God invented shotguns. :p Falling shot pellets are quite low-risk. If the drone is too high to take with birdshot, it's high enough that you're unlikely to take it with anything short of anti-aircraft artillery.
Posts by laird cummings
588 publicly visible posts • joined 22 Aug 2007
FAA powers up an invisible hand, groping the skies for rule-busting biz drones
British Airways slaps 'at risk' sticker on nearly half its app delivery dept
Monday 13th June 2016 15:59 GMT 
Free Trade
Everyone wants free (or at least cheap) service and product. When the great masses lemming on over to the newest low-cost option, what do you think all the other players in the market are going to do?
So folks rabbit on about "saving the domestic wage-slave," but still keep flocking like sheep to the cheapest thing they see... and they're surprised at the results?
If you want to save the domestic wage-slave, folks either will need to work at outsource rates, or open their wallets.
Monday 13th June 2016 15:45 GMT
Re: TCS: Not all bad
TCS has been handling complex document management and regulatory compliance for my company over the last two-plus years, and they've done a capable job of it. Rather rough to start, but they mastered the learning curve, and are doing reliable work now.
Yes, I know - not the same as app dev wotk, but still a complex and arcane task, handled competently.
China's Dalek-like robots fear only one terrifying nemesis: Stairs
Auto erotic: Self-driving cars will let occupants bonk on the go
Must listen: We've found the real Bastard Operator From Hell
You can always rely on the Ancient Ones to cock things up
Friday 6th May 2016 16:58 GMT 
They know when you're watching, they know when you're awake...
Long ago, and far away... A 400hz Motor-Generator set had a nasty habit of tripping off. We'd go down into the hole and pull the case, only to find no fault. So we'd dutifully close it up, report the lack of defect, and go about our day. Until it tripped again. After several cycles (heh) of this, the Chief finally tapped a picture of himself to the inside of the case. Never again did that particular unit trip offline. Because clearly, the machines know when you are watching them.
(No joke. True story.)
Canadian dirtbag jailed for SWAT'ing, doxing women gamers
Friday 24th July 2015 18:53 GMT
Re: the guy needs proper pschiatric help
If you're going to warehouse him, I would suggest it be somepleace with a fairly structured routine including major efforts at socialization. Not a greybar dungeon, but a work camp where he can get a lot of outside time, and learn some interpersonal skills. Operant conditioning *does* work on humans - and if he gets the kind of conditioning you'll find in a standard prison, you'll get a potential monster back on the far side, instead of a (best case) slightly-less-dysfunctional human being.
How much info did hackers steal on US spies? Try all of it
Friday 24th July 2015 17:53 GMT
Re: One-stop shopping for ID thieves; but necessary
What you *do* is not place it in an internet-accessible archive. Also; you apply solid security standards to the archive. And you segregate the archive into 'current' and 'historical.' There's generally not much call for SF86s from twenty years ago, though some MAY be called forth to corroberate a current case - But every instance where the form isn't being used for current clearances should be pushed right back into the 'History' bin, which should be kept 'near-line' as opposed to 'on-line.'
Friday 19th June 2015 16:10 GMT
Re: Snowden
"The US's own OPM gets hacked, over a period of years, and nobody notices till some software outfit does a demo of an intrusion detection package..."
Entirely plausible, if you're familliar with the Gordian Knot that is the US Civil Service and Government agency rules - including procurement rules.
Friday 19th June 2015 16:03 GMT
Re: Probably explains why..
"Either they're going to check or they're fishing."
They ARE going to check, but without help from you it costs too much. And if you're not going to be cooperative, you've already demonstrated a bad attitude, as far as security goes. Why should they waste extra $$ on an attitude case? Especially as you're no special snowflake, and there are thousands of people without attitude problems who also want jobs.
Friday 19th June 2015 15:57 GMT
Re: That's what they want you to think?
"As for the really spooky peeps in the US, would they necessarily have any details on this database still?"
Oh, yes. Absolutely - those 'really spooky' people didn't spring forth, fully-formed, from the CIA's head. They were once lowly applicants. The SF-86 is the gateway to the very first clearance, which is necessary to gain entre to the kinds of programs wherein one becomes 'really spooky.'
The comforting factor is that those 'really spooky' people are burried as needles in an enormous needle-stack, and the SF-86 doesn't link forwards, only backwards. Mister X's *pre-spook* history revealed, but no one knows which of those millions *became* Mister X.
Government data is forever (until deleted in a mis-timed backup or datacenter fire).
Friday 19th June 2015 15:37 GMT
One-stop shopping for ID thieves; but necessary
The article makes it sound all so pointless and sinisiter and intrusive... Well, they're right on intrusive, but then, you don't have to ask for a security-clearance job, either.
The primary point of the SF-86 is to give the suits doing your background check a leg up, so they don't have to spend so much money checking you out. If they had to do it from scratch, it would take years, and cost millions - per clearance.
It's not JUST the leg up, either; those references that they could 'just look up' themselves? Who you pick as your references tells something specific about *you* - your judgement, that is. Did you pick morally-upstanding citizens? Or did you cite your drug-smoking trouble-making friends? (I have literally seen just exactly that on an SF-86!) If you lack the judgement to cudgel your brain for a few 'good citizen' refferences (or don't have any!), then the guys in suits can bin your application for 'demonstrated poor judgement' and save the taxpayers a lot of cash.
The more complete your SF-86, the less it costs for the government to make an informed decision about your judgement, trustworthiness, and lack of hostile influences - All of which are necessary. It generally works out pretty well - Despite some very public breaches of late, the VAST, overwhelming majority of security-cleared persons go abuot their jobs in a trustworthy manner, day in, day out, for their entire careers.
Which of course makes the breach of trust on the part of the government that much worse. I'll guarantee you that my name is in that pile of data. And my wife's. And my father's. My children. My siblings. And pretty much all of my friends. Every last one of us, betrayed by the government to whom I (and my wife, and my father) rendered faithful service.
NIST in suspected 'meth lab' blast: US Congress is demanding answers
Friday 24th July 2015 16:35 GMT
Re: "NIST Police and Fire Departments"
That NIST site is literally around the corner from where I work; it's huge. It's also barricaded to a fare-thee-well; I've been on military bases with less security. The place is so large it has its own resident herd of deer... Really, if they had to wait for local agencies to thread the bottleneck at the gate, you could burn acres of buildings to the ground.
Site police are probably Federal Police - Which agency handles site policing for a wide range of facilities - though it *is* possible they have their own internal security. After all, there are something like 73 or so Federal agencies with armed agents.
How British spies really spy: Information that didn't come from Snowden
NSPCC: Two nonces nailed by cops every day
Friday 24th July 2015 16:56 GMT
Re: "the only risk to children is fathers and other males"
Some numbers*:
"...adjusting for the different statistical populations and applying our stated assumptions, men are 12 times as likely as women to perpetrate abuse against children, or put another way, they are 1100% more dangerous to children than are women. "
Whilst not specifically limited to rape, nor discussing severity, nor discussing outcomes, it does provide a bit of perspective.
*From here:
http://www.thelizlibrary.org/site-index/site-index-frame.html#soulhttp://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/statistics.html
Vicious vandals violate voluminous Versailles vagina
Friday 19th June 2015 16:29 GMT
Re: Offensive "art" deserves an offensive response.
"It's high time the Yarty-Farties learned confrontational pieces making a political statement are not art."
I'd argue that they ARE art, but part of the art would be the responses - If you get confrontational, you had best expect reaction. Otherwise, you aren't, in fact, being confrontational - you're just being a wanker.
EXTREME FEEDING: BLUE whales' gluttonous gobbling of fishy fluids
BOFH: Getting to the brown, nutty heart of the water cooler matter
British armed forces get first new pistol since World War II
Friday 11th January 2013 19:05 GMT
Re: ...someone swaggering...
Even the other shooters think the guy with IMI's chrome paperweight is an idiot.
Personally, have never bothered to even pick one up.
I have, however, had my shooting position peppered with cases from a DE in .50AE with a bad extractor. THAT was sufficiently annoying that I cut my range time short that day, and have never since agreed to share a shooting line with anyone carrying one of those chrome bricks.
Just what the world needs: Android in the rice cooker
First rigid airship since the Hindenburg enters trials
Monday 7th January 2013 19:40 GMT
"As a cargo carrier it certainly doesn't look that useful."
I like it better for delivering large amounts of cargo to remote, unimproved sites where there is no likely prospect of a landing field, and where helos are range-probibited.
Probably be damned useful in logging, too - no need to cut roads in or out - deliver the loggers vertically, remove cut trees the same way.
Wilderness firefighting? Possibly as a high-endurance on-scene incident controller? Has possibilies.
Fisheries surveilance, enforcement, support, and survey? Yup.
Poor-man's satelite? Why not?
So - I see uses. Whether they're *economic* uses remains to be seen.
Monday 7th January 2013 19:34 GMT
@ AC @ 2013GMT
" ...stuff like big bike chains round the warhead, or a cylinder or cone of metal around the charge... "
The concept you're looking for is "(expanding) continuous-rod warhead." Take a bunch of fairly ductile metal rods. Arrange them in a cylinder. Weld alternate adjacent end bits together, so the stack of rods becomes a continuous circuit, closely collapsed. Stick an explosive charge in the middle. Hang a rocket off one end and a proximity fuse off the other, and Voila! A modern AA missile!
The warhead detonation tends to turn the rods into a very large ring, violently expanding flying high-velocity ring. They do horrifying things to conventional aircraft - I suspect they'd do rather worse to lightly-hulled dirigibles. Hydrogen or no hydrogen.
Sky watchers prep for early 2013 asteroid fly-bys
BOFH: Cannot terminate PFY instance... ACCESS DENIED
Tuesday 11th December 2012 17:18 GMT
Re: There is another fun assumption floating around..
I work as a publisher in Pharma - Document control *and* ensuring re-usability of content are big issues in my day-to-day life. Most major deliverables are presented in final form via PDF. Digital signatures are creeping in, but the validation process to demonstrate source integrity to various regulatory agencies is a copper-plated bitch, so those are usually reserved for high-urgency, high-consequences documents.
The upshot is that subordinate ('Minor') PDF document versions are fairly open, but approved ('Major') PDF versions are locked up tighter than the sultan's seraglio. Those documents for which digital signatures are part of the validated process are locked up tighter than the sultan's vigin daughter.
Author of '80s classic The Hobbit didn't know game was a hit
BOFH: Can't you just ... NO, I JUST CAN'T
Better luck next time Blofeld! Five Bond plot myths busted
Friday 26th October 2012 19:54 GMT 
Nuclear pedantry
"...you would need to somehow ram the whole reactor core down into a subcritical mass in a tiny fraction of a second, the way a warhead does."
That would be a *super*critical mass. Subcritical masses just sit there and do nothing terribly interesting. It's all about critical goemetry - And a core designed to generate use power levels is *very* hard to get to go 'bang.' Excepting in the mundane 'steam expolosion' manner. Which would hardly suit a Bond villian.
Mine's the canary-yellow one with lead lining. Cheers!
Bone-bothering boffins pull TINY fanged dinosaur from drawers
Skydiver sets date for 'supersonic' edge-of-space PLUNGE
Wednesday 26th September 2012 19:57 GMT
Doesn't matter
"Note the SR71 M3 is *horizontal* speed. while an ejection in level flight you will be moving *forward* at M3 but falling at the standard g. So likely to accelerate until drag matches g under Stoke law. Likely to be about 120mph as per usual freefall."
Doesn't matter - He was in free-fall the instant he departed the aircraft, no matter what might have been his vector with respect to the surface of the earth. Certainly his vertical component was less than his horizontal component, but he was still free-fallling much as a bullet free-falls once it leaves the muzzle.
Kiwi cops forgot Kim Dotcom's visa
Reg hack uncovers perfect antidote to internet
Dredd movie review
DARPA builds faster-than-Usain-Bolt Cheetah robot
Friday 7th September 2012 17:16 GMT
Enteretined by (mostly elsewhere, like on Aunty's pages) the knee-jerk "Oh noes! A Killing Machine! 'Dem Ebil 'Mericans is gun' slaughter us!" reactions I'm seeing to this.
Seriously now, folks. We only slaughter folks as what piss us off, and those as stands next to thems as what pisses us off. Most y'all are just fine and safe. (lock your doors)
Global strategic maple syrup reserves hit in Canadian mega-heist
Tuesday 4th September 2012 17:41 GMT
Re: No worries here
Perhaps the Canuks will remember the reuslts of *every* invasion launched southwards from Canada? Y'all got some catching up to do.
Besides - We don't need to cross the border - we've got our own maple syrup region. Indeed, it's located in exactly the region where every south-bound invasion has foundered. Coincidence?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
