dosman33

Light grey: Tupolev Tu-95 (bomber - Russia)

Red: Sukhoi Su-57 (fighter aircraft - Russia)

Dark grey: Bayraktar TB2 (Drone - Turkey)

Blue: Avangard (hypersonic glide vehicle - Russia)

Yep. I had a chance to talk to an American several years ago who was living in Switzerland when I first learned about this situation. He had a house there before the US had fully forced the Swiss banks to give up their banking records. He had to refi or something and basically the local Swiss banks would not offer him a new loan purely because he was an American and because the US had been so heavy handed with them. Eventually I was able to find a lender to work with but it was not easy. The situation was so acrimonious that all major Swiss banks were refusing to do any new business with Americans. Afterwords I looked into it and linked up what had been happening in the news with his story (not his specific problem, but in general terms what had been going on with banking).

Sounds like perhaps like most of your experiences were with pre-AIX version 4? No system is perfect for sure. By the time I started using AIX it was with version 4 and was moving to 5 and I can't say any of the problems you've described were things I had encountered with it. Certainly I had lots of problems though.

Not suggesting you didn't experience these things though of course.

Heh, yea I was sorely disappointed when I switched from primarily admining AIX to Linux for work. While I had played with Linux long before I got started with AIX, I had only ever used it on desktop workstations and such. Lots of things like ethernet channel bonding that worked fine out of the box on AIX took endless hours of fiddling to get it to sort of work under Linux.

Tape your notes to the lid of the laptop and it's out of sight from even the most complete "scan" of a room. If people can cheat during an in person exam it's not possible to enforce cheating restrictions off-site, it's a completely useless loss of privacy to enforce an unenforceable idea.

I'm not pro-cheating, but this is just another example of tech trying to show that it can solve any social problem through even more technology and we already know this doesn't work. You must face the social issues head on, you can't just throw money at them in the form of more technology.

Why you are not afraid: you make enough money to hire experts to shield you from making any business and tax mistakes.

An emerging hobby business makes enough money to warrant hiring some VERY limited services, but not enough money to hire a book keeper, a CPA, and any other services that a "real business" needs.

I converted a side-hustle into a "real business" that paid taxes for several years. It's not super hard to start a business as a beginner but you've got some hurdles to clear, more-so if you are selling durable goods as opposed to "apps". I made one single mistake while conducting out-of-state commerce that cost me thousands of dollars in one fell swoop: that was more than all the cash the business had on-hand. I had registered to do business in the other state and was trying to dot my i's and cross my t's and be above board, but the mistake was till mine though. I could have spent those same thousands of dollars to hire experts over the same course of time preventing all the wasted money, lost time, and headaches but my business would have made so little profit it would have nullified the reason to be in business as a real tax-paying business.

Along the way I began to see various things as "cost of doing business" which was useful. I was glad to have the experience, I reinvested heavily into the business to save myself time and effort. But I never made enough money to hire others to do anything that I could do myself. The "cost of doing business" part only works if you have regular positive cash flow too.

So again, you are trying to serve hobby businesses who are not profitable enough to warrant them hiring experts to dot their i's and cross their t's for them. They are correct to be afraid of lightly stepping into this world and you won't change that.

(Pulls spectacles down to tip of nose) Ha, I remember this site. Back in my day we had to make our animated gif's by hand. I remember having a lot of fun photoshopping each frame and using some shareware to stitch it all together into an animation. However, after all that work I was not going to ditch my hand crafted animated gifs. Thankfully Unisys probably realized there was not much money in going after millions of freely created Geocities sites. About the equivalent of the fed trying to chase down every autist posting on 4chan today.

Lol, I never knew this song but I knew a similar song by Sean Kennedy called Wear Body Armour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUq6YotwOIo

I added a late response to the last thread on this issue that outlined a detailed process to recovery. No one is going to throw money at a ship that's actively sinking. They need to have a plan that communicates how they will turn the ship around before any angel donors will step up. I hope they are working on this behind the scenes.

Fundraising is all about personal connections and networking. Makerspaces usually consist of a majority of introverts to varying degrees. Simply posting to mailing lists and chat channels that you need to raise money is not enough, you have to directly communicate with people on the phone or in person.

Step 1: Assemble a squad of folks with energy to push the project forward. How this works depends on what the mood of the board is, and you'll need to work with them on this of course. If they are burned out or don't have the time, you still need to get them on board with the plan and also provide a support plan to get them unburdened. If you are serious about saving your space, start by beating down the door of all current and former members who were better connected in the Makerspace community. Connect with them to build a list of other members who care about your space and get them engaged. Use the phone, email and IM is easy to ignore. You need folks who have the energy to lead the space out of the current rut, so some fresh blood is also important. Connect with anyone involved in non-profit work in general as well. If it's just a matter of the current board being lost on how to fund-raise, then connecting them with people who know how to network within your local non-profit arena is important. Networking with other non-profits in your area is important but it's a little late to start that now. Hopefully your space already has connections, even old ones that have been lost to time that could be revived (by reconnecting with members who maintained those connections in the past). But, if you can't get a team of three or more people energized to save the space then you are very unlikely to move to step 2.

Step 2: Once you have a squad, create a plan for financial success for the current year. Assemble a plan of what needs to change with your finances to pull out of this dead-end. You'll have to work with the current treasurer and crunch some numbers to know your monthly expense total. Once you know your monthly shortfall you can attack it (plus the amount to create a cushion of savings). Create a multi-pronged approach to close the gap. Raise dues, create a list of simple workshops than can launch immediately (soldering, anything, and you need instructors ready to run them), and use any other method you've used in the past to cover overhead. Does your state allow non-profits to run raffles? Raffles can be a great way to raise money, but they can take time to setup if your space doesn't already have "raffle infrastructure" in place (in our state it takes ~100 days to process the paperwork to allow non-profits to run a raffle, plus it requires a separate bank account to hold the proceeds). Again, use ANYTHING that has worked before and run it in parallel with new stuff. It's going to be a lot of work.

Step 3: The big ask: a member fundraiser in parallel with the above. Identify a funding number that gets your space out of immediate danger, probably three months of overhead expenses. From your squad formed in step 1, identify your most sociable and well connected member('s) and work with them to do a fund drive from members and former members. Go WAY back and find former members who might still be fond of your space even after moving away. Beat the pavement and call these folks on the phone, preferably by people who knew them when they were still active in your community. Call current members who still pay monthly but don't show up. Mainly think of folks who are more well off, be careful to not put off members who their dues represents more of a burden than others. If you can locate a whale who is willing to make a relatively large donation, make it "if we raise $xxx so-and-so will match the donation!!". Usually these folks are happy to donate even if a matching contribution is not met, but it helps drive urgency.

Step 4: Follow through. This is the hardest part, if you pull things out of the ditch this month you can't stop. You didn't put all this energy into the space this month only to let it die the next month. Maby a periodic fundraiser for the public. Writing grants takes experience, connecting with folks who have experience is good, but it can be learned. Networking with other non-profits pays a lot of dividends though. Co-hosting workshops with other non-profits is a great way to integrate (or re-integrate) into your community. This can spark interest from other people with experience who may want to help your space with leadership and fundraising experience.

Addendum: The way you communicate is important. Once you have a recovery plan that works on paper announce it to the members via your usual communication channels, then start reaching out via the phone. Be positive with a path forward out of closure, marketing is important. You don't want to make people feel shame, but you do need to communicate the seriousness of the situation (which is already communicated at this point). Shame in a volunteer-oriented community just drives people away. It seems strange to say these things but one never knows what the level of communication experience one is walking into when making suggestions like these.

Good luck!

Sorry to hear that. The distributed nature of small community groups and a lack of central management can lead to situations like this.

As a member, when you stop in to spend an hour working on a project in your space during non-public hours it can be hard to accommodate unexpected interruptions. There would be times I'd drop in for a 5 minute project and end up there for 2 hours helping other members use the space, etc. I'm happy to help folks, but it takes a toll after a while to the point when you avoid using a space because it uses you more than you use it.

During public hours there may not necessarily be a single person who's job it is to greet non-members for tours. If a member of the public drops in and there's a lull in members present or a particularly anti-social member is all that's left to greet new people then it doesn't put the best foot forwards to the community. Hopefully it's just a momentary lapse in outreach as bad introductions like this are what get communicated much more than good introductions. I can certainly understand not wanting to return with things working out like this for you.

We call our event Makevention.

I'd largely agree with your sentiments.

FWIW though, I think it's unfair to compare community-organized makerspaces to TechShop. While they have similar look and feel, no community-run makerspaces open their doors with $1M in equipment on the floor, it's a different business model. TechShop was propping up numerous unprofitable locations with a very small number of profitable locations. Those money sink locations sunk the entire enterprise in time.

My understanding is that the Makerfaire brand was also propping up TechShop. Early on we went with our own branding rather than use the Makerfaire name for one simple reason: at that time it cost ~$700 to use the name for our event and we got nothing in return other than getting to use the name. Our own maker fair event has been extremely successful, and the cost to use the name has only gone up. The Make brand certainly was a boost to the Makerspace/Hackerspace movement, but it also had drawbacks of its own.

As a co-founder of a hackerspace this makes me sad to see. I wholeheartedly agree that these spaces provide a value to their communities disproportionate to their cost to operate. However usually these situations come from a lack of time for the board/high-energy-members to participate in the needed fundraising activities. Our space is organized by 100% volunteer effort, I'm guessing there is a similar situation for Hacker Lab (or else this is a fundraising tactic itself, it's been done before by other spaces). In the beginning we had the energy to get a lot of stuff done, but that energy gets consumed by inertia and overhead of keeping a space running once it becomes "successful". Until a space becomes large enough to have a paid board of directors in some form it seems the energy of the board glides downwards over time. However without the overhead of a paid board a space can glide for years on thin margins. I'd say it's almost a catch-22.

I don't agree the government should just hand out indefinite free money for these spaces to operate though because it would also kill them in due time. If a space doesn't have people with the drive to keep it running it would likely consume tax payer funds and provide less and less value over time from mis-management. I'm not suggesting grants are not a good thing though, grants have specific goals in mind and start and stop windows of operation.

Hopefully they get some angel donors out of this posting to HN ;-).

Heh, before the internet rumor mill existed, I had friends who worked at fast food joints with ball pits. They ALWAYS complained about kids pissing in the ball pits. That scared me off from ever messing with them as a young adult (and they didn't have them around my area when I was the right age/size to play in one).

Certainly, but imagine the reams of red tape you'll be making your agent team wade through. The FBI has a lot of resources but I suspect they are not setup to counterfeit US currency. Sooo many meetings and approvals, Judicial oversight, just to get a special run of bills from the Treasury Department. Would they be required to destroy the original evidence since they are duplicating US currency? The years of the missed soccer games and birthdays of their loved ones just to take a peek at some pepe memes that have no meaning.

Don't forget to put some sealed US currency envelopes in your suitcases while flying kiddos, the TSA needs to have fun too.

Destroying evidence you say?

Ha, nice. I was a silent participant of that contest that year. My buddies team was able to acquire a second tamper kit to practice on, I learned a lot about seals that weekend and I still apply that knowledge to this day.

Any seal that uses an adhesive is often easily removed with acetone. Seals that use multiple materials like plastic and metal, well you can dissolve the metal component and replace it if you have multiple blanks of the seal. If the plastic part is the part that is serialized then bobs your uncle.

I moved on to using security paper to make high security envelopes. There are a ton of different features you can combine to make a unique security paper. Then mechanically sealing it with security wire and a lead seal. If an evil maid needs inside they would need to duplicate the security paper's features.

This place sells a sampler pack of high security papers for cheap: http://www.secureguardpapers.com/assortment-w.html

If you want to go off the rails and raise legal questions for the government though, do this. Go to the treasury and buy sheets of uncut US currency to make your envelopes out of - remember all bills are uniquely serialized. If you are a true high roller buy uncut $100 bills, they probably have extra security features. Assuming your theoretical evil maid is a US government employee, it raises an interesting question: are NSA/US government employees allowed to forge/duplicate US currency in the pursuit of protecting national security?

If you want to see other interesting application of anti-tampering features, go check out your passport and all your visa stamps in it. The low hanging fruit is UV, but don't forget that there are two common bands of UV, shortwave is where it's at. Lots of fluorescing going on. But don't forget IR transparent inks there (or IRT). Also don't forget that fluorescence can happen in wavelengths outside the human visible spectrum. If you shine an IR laser pointer at stuff there are inks that can fluoresce from IR back into the visible spectrum. There's a ton of other things too, but your passport has a cornucopia of interesting tamper evident features.

And don't get me started on microwires. If conspiracy folks had any idea about these their heads would explode. https://security-paper.tagit-eas.ch

At first blush this looks like the government smiting a flea with a sledge hammer. But it sounds more like there's more to this story. The forest service took the time to track him down on their own which says a lot right there - they literally have bigger fires to deal with, but spent the time to track this guy down to deal with him. Sounds like he was being an active nuisance.

A lot of name brand electronic locks can be bypassed with a tool like the Spike Master that lets you manually drive the solenoid, so even from brands that should know better there are issues.

Sadly this is an issue of market demand rather than poor engineering. Good security costs more and this is priced into the safe/lock ecosystem - if you want real security buy a commercial safe with a Group 1 lock. Sadly though this leaves consumers at risk who don't understand this. They buy a safe from a brand they recognize and they think they are in good shape. Meanwhile I get shunned on forums by actual safe techs by encouraging muggles to do their own research and buy higher quality commercial safes 2nd hand for less money.

One fun thing I enjoyed about IBM Global Services were some of the in-house developed tools we had access to.

One tool they had which became invaluable was the screw starter for flat-head screws. This was nothing like other screw starters commercially available, this worked beautifully and was elegantly simple. It was a thin brass rod about 8" long with a pair of thin steel lips out each end which started out in-contact with each other. When you shoved the lips into the slot on the screw it shoved the lips back into the brass rod and caused them to spread open and grab onto the slot from the inside. It had enough strength to survive dropping the tool on the ground and not release the screw. The tool was strong enough that you could actually fully tighten smaller screws without switching to a screwdriver. There were two sizes of the screw starter and we all kept them stashed everywhere. Once you got used to using this tool then it became clear slotted screws were superior and sooo much easier to work with than Phillips/et. al. There were never problems with a screw dangling off of a magnetic tip when held sideways, or non-ferrous screws not sticking.

Another in-house tool was the very simple "thumb saver" for screwing in PC peripheral connectors like VGA and DB9 cables. It was an 6" plastic tube with 1/2" slotted interior ends which fit over the thumb screws on the thumb screws. There was a different diameter hole on each end and it tapered to a smaller diameter as the hole went deeper. It made it cake to reach in and remove a single set of thumb screws when the back of a system was jammed up with lots of other cables in the way or if you had giant man hands. You could also easily over-torque the screws when re-attaching so guys had to be careful using them.

The SSA screw driver was another one, this was a custom screw driver for IBM's SSA storage system. My recollection was that IBM had proposed SSA to be the SCSI III spec and was rejected, so they ran with it anyway for use with RS/6000 (pSeries/System P/whatever). It was a serial implementation of SCSI and had these narrow blue/black cables and could transfer up to 40MB/s. The cables were a PITA to deal with as they were small and required the use of the screw driver because there was very little space to work around each connector so no thumb-screws. There was nothing terribly unique about the screw driver, it was slotted but had a sleeve tube shrouding the tip to keep the screw driver from slipping off. They required a bit of torque to fully tighten, but not too much. Occasionally some guy got the brilliant idea to cut the handle off one and jam it in a power driver. However no screw drivers we easily had access to had a low enough torque setting for this and these geniuses would usually end up breaking lots of connector ports on SSA arrays.

With how much the military has been practicing for situations where GNSS will be jammed in the past few years it seems... overly optimistic to coerce the entire industry to ditch the magnetic compass at this point.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/17987/usaf-is-jamming-...

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/15194/russia-jammed-ph...

FAA issued NOTAMs (Notices To Airmen) reveal a lot of deliberate GNSS jamming across the US around military bases, it's not just limited to the Nelis area: https://notaminfo.com/explain?id=1630592

Also Russia enjoys just messing with GPS to annoy NATO exercises, so you never know when you might fly through an area of active GNSS denial: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/spectrum/information/gps-jamming-ex...

For a second I was thinking of Aleph One of this site from way back when: https://web.archive.org/web/19980214102549/http://undergroun...

Interesting read regardless.

Microwave ovens, the other source of 2.4GHz. There's probably a reason they used 2450MHz as the test frequency, a magnetron from an oven is cheaper and easier to obtain.

https://hypertextbook.com/facts/1998/HowardCheung.shtml

I did a bunch of work with TTS about 15 years ago for a project and had landed on Festival and the Nitech voices as the best free option at that time. It's interesting that this seems to still be the best free non-cloud option available.

What a lot of people don't realize is that Festival is intended for creating new TTS voices based on your own voice. The fact that it generates TTS is an artifact of it's main function. I've never messed with that functionality myself but I always wonder if someone could train a synthetic voice to sound better with a larger sample set. The Nitech voices are definitely better so it's certainly possible to encourage Festival do a better job.

This train of thought is entirely too charitable. The US has the NSA, CIA, NRO, etc. for a reason and it's not to combat domestic terrorism. We don't have to be sponsoring their work to find out what they were doing. But I can understand the need to rationalize this somehow.

Yet another knock-off of Lustre. Lustre is not perfect, and I'm not suggesting it has a place in the mainline kernel, but it sounds like neither does BTRFS.

When you get to large scale (multi-petabyte) filesystems there are not many options, it's GPFS, Lustre, or roll your own. Lustre development has been indirectly sponsored by the DoE for a long time now. And if Lustre didn't exist IBM would charge even more for GPFS. But at least Lustre is free. But it's not a walk in the park to use.

"You don't need a clipper chip to trace nuisance calls. You need an authenticated network that records the origin of calls,"

So where is this magical solution you speak of? We're all products that the phone company sells to telemarketers, there is no incentive for them to give us these tools now.

Again, the clipper chip would have made it difficult for anyone to pretend to be someone they are not, cryptographic signature is part of the deal to ensure you are talking to who you think you are talking to.

The key word here being "should", and they are clearly not filtering at the network level. I can tell, I still get spoofed robocalls... The clipper chip provided end users the ability to cryptographically prove callers were who they claimed to be independent of the network operator, which is a key need of a crypto system.

Robocalling with spoofed ANI has been a problem long enough that I think we can safely say the network operator is 100% complicit with this activity now. The phone company could track down kids war-dialing blocks of numbers in the 1980's in order to make sure they were not telemarketers not paying higher telemarketing fees. Do people really think the phone company is not getting a cut of these robospoofers?

The sad thing is if the clipper chip was ubiquitous today that could have killed the ability for spammers to spoof numbers. Some days I can get a dozen robo calls, each with a different spoofed number. People that want non-backdoored crypto could still do so.

I'm still blown away at how hard it is to get people to use any encryption, even people who work in infosec/etc. If nothing else, 2020 was a great year for the uptick in using crypto to communicate with non-technical fam and friends.