The Tank Museum
Published on 27 Jan 2017The thirtieth in a series of short films about some of the vehicles in our collection presented by The Tank Museum’s historian David Fletcher MBE.
Tanks of this type were first used in Western Desert in 1942. The M3’s were mechanically reliable, but soon superseded by Sherman.
May 24, 2018
Tank Chats #30 M3 Grant | The Tank Museum
Comments Off on Tank Chats #30 M3 Grant | The Tank Museum
May 23, 2018
Why The Netherlands Isn’t Under Water
Real Engineering
Published on 31 Oct 2017
Comments Off on Why The Netherlands Isn’t Under Water
May 21, 2018
Work in high tech? You’ll instantly recognize this office
Alistair Dabbs on the utterly interchangeable (except for the bogs) modern high tech office suite:
As an itinerant freelancer, my work takes me to a variety of tech-savvy business premises. And while small companies each have their own style of office layout, every larger organisation from mid-size to corporate looks almost exactly the same as another.
Except for the toilets. You can learn a lot about a business by its bogs.
So as I turn up for an on-site booking and sit for a short while in a reception space that has been arranged identically to those depicted in every business furniture catalogue ever printed, later to stride through yet another open-plan office of the same old rows of grey desks and the same old blue carpet tiles, I am overwhelmed by the tedium of déjà vu.
So on arriving at the designated meeting room – always featuring a frosted glass wall, a boardroom-style table with a faux teak effect surface and luxury adjustable chairs that refuse to be adjusted unless you violently bounce up and down on them like an over-excited child on a Space Hopper – I drop my things in the corner furthest from the door and enquire about using the washroom facilities.
As I am given verbal directions for the nearest toilet, I make a cursory check under the table which has been designed for up to 20 persons and confirm, yes, there are just TWO power sockets, as per usual, and no extension cable of any description. A quick glance behind the massively undersized TV at the end of the room reveals another six wall sockets that are, as I confidently expected, all occupied by plugs already – one for the TV and the other five for various components of the impossibly complicated video conferencing system that no one knows how to use, least of all the IT department that had lobbied strongly against its purchase in the first place.
So far, so identical. Now let’s find out what this place is really like.
[…]
Unlike this particular unfortunate, I return from the grunting rooms this day refreshed and with a spring in my step. My face smarts invigoratingly with aftershave and creamy odours waft from my gesticulating soft palms – vanilla from the left, coconut from the right.
Back in the meeting room, I am soon brought back to Earth and my surroundings merge into the amorphous generic semblance of every other office building in the western world.
A large cupboard that does not match the rest of the furniture has been installed in the most awkward place to squeeze past; it is locked but almost certainly contains nothing but a layer of dust, a torn corner from a Post-It note and a single paperclip. The aircon has just two settings: Arctic or Sahara. Everyone is forced to use a Guest Wi-Fi login whose permissions have been devised by a recent graduate of a free Cyber Security MOOC to prevent access to personal emails, cloud drives and the internet in general. A ceiling light flickers every two minutes. Halfway into the meeting, the room begins to vibrate to the intense scream of a workman’s drill on the other side of a wall, and continues for the next six hours.
I could be anywhere.
Comments Off on Work in high tech? You’ll instantly recognize this office
May 16, 2018
“Congrats, you have trained me to ignore Emergency Alerts”
The national emergency alert system for mobile phones just went online, and it’s already training people to ignore them:
When the siren-like sounds from an Amber Alert rang out on cellular phones across Ontario on Monday, it sparked a bit of a backlash against Canada’s new mobile emergency alert system.
The Ontario Provincial Police had issued the alert for a missing eight-year-old boy in the Thunder Bay region. (The boy has since been found safe.)
But gripes about the system soon began to pour in. Kingston police said they received “several complaints” regarding the Amber Alert notice. On social media, people startled by the alerts complained about the number of alerts they received and that they had received separate alerts in English and French.
“Sooo, is that emergency alert going to happen at like 4 a.m. with sleep mode enabled? Just asking for my heart health,” tweeted James G.
Meanwhile, others who were located far from the incident felt that receiving the alert was pointless.
“I’ve received two Amber Alerts today for Thunder Bay, which is 15 hours away from Toronto by car,” tweeted Molly Sauter. “Congrats, you have trained me to ignore Emergency Alerts.”
Mark Blevis, an Ottawa-based digital public affairs analyst, said he understands the importance of Amber Alerts, but system managers risk alienating cellphone users at some point if these types of alarms go off regularly.
“If they’re going to send out multiple alerts on the same thing, you need to find a way to streamline it so they don’t breed that apathy that causes the whole system to break down,” Blevis said.
At the very least, they should be able to figure out how to avoid the duplication of English and French alerts, he said.
Comments Off on “Congrats, you have trained me to ignore Emergency Alerts”
Crusader Tank | Animated History
The Armchair Historian
Published on 25 Jun 2016
Comments Off on Crusader Tank | Animated History
May 12, 2018
Cryptocurrency scammers
A high proportion of initial coin offerings are nothing but scammers doing what scammers do best, says Nouriel Roubini:
Initial coin offerings have become the most common way to finance cryptocurrency ventures, of which there are now nearly 1,600 and rising. In exchange for your dollars, pounds, euros, or other currency, an ICO issues digital “tokens,” or “coins,” that may or may not be used to purchase some specified good or service in the future.
Thus it is little wonder that, according to the ICO advisory firm Satis Group, 81% of ICOs are scams created by con artists, charlatans, and swindlers looking to take your money and run. It is also little wonder that only 8% of cryptocurrencies end up being traded on an exchange, meaning that 92% of them fail. It would appear that ICOs serve little purpose other than to skirt securities laws that exist to protect investors from being cheated.
If you invest in a conventional (non-crypto) business, you are afforded a variety of legal rights – to dividends if you are a shareholder, to interest if you are a lender, and to a share of the enterprise’s assets should it default or become insolvent. Such rights are enforceable because securities and their issuers must be registered with the state.
Moreover, in legitimate investment transactions, issuers are required to disclose accurate financial information, business plans, and potential risks. There are restrictions limiting the sale of certain kinds of high-risk securities to qualified investors only. And there are anti-money-laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) regulations to prevent tax evasion, concealment of ill-gotten gains, and other criminal activities such as the financing of terrorism.
In the Wild West of ICOs, most cryptocurrencies are issued in breach of these laws and regulations, under the pretense that they are not securities at all. Hence, most ICOs deny investors any legal rights whatsoever. They are generally accompanied by vaporous “white papers” instead of concrete business plans. Their issuers are often anonymous and untraceable. And they skirt all AML and KYC regulations, leaving the door open to any criminal investor.
Of course, for a significant number of people, not having the state involved in their investment is an attraction rather than a drawback. And not just criminals, but people who live in jurisdictions with uncertain reliance on the rule of law (not to mention Russia by name), where property rights are not so much “rights” as “privileges to the right sort of people”.
Comments Off on Cryptocurrency scammers
The Disaster That Changed Engineering: The Hyatt Regency Collapse
Tom Scott
Published on 13 Mar 2017Today’s guest video is from Grady at Practical Engineering! Go subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/user/gradyhillhouse
The Hyatt Regency Hotel collapse was a disaster that changed engineering: it’s taught in colleges and universities as a way to make it clear: you check and double-check everything. Something that seems like a subtle change can cause a catastrophic failure if it’s not thoroughly checked first!
Comments Off on The Disaster That Changed Engineering: The Hyatt Regency Collapse
May 10, 2018
Manufacturing plywood boards: then and now
Victoria and Albert Museum
Published on 24 Jul 2017Plywood is a simple material made by glueing together thin sheets of wood, known as veneers or plies. These basic elements have remained broadly the same throughout its history. The most significant breakthrough in its production came in the early 1800s with the development of steam-powered machines that could cut veneers cheaply. The most influential of these was the rotary veneer cutter.
The cutter rotates a log against a wide, horizontal blade, causing it to ‘peel’ into a continuous sheet of wood. This enables the creation of longer, wider sheets of veneer than previously possible and with little waste. Using these machines meant that plywood could be manufactured quickly and inexpensively on a large scale.
This film shows the stages in manufacturing plywood boards in the mid-20th century and today. The process remains essentially unchanged, although today many of the machines are much faster and computer controlled.
Produced as part of the V&A exhibition Plywood: Material of the Modern World (15 July – 12 November 2017) https://www.vam.ac.uk/plywood
Sponsored by MADE.COM. Supported by the American Friends of the V&A
Find out more about plywood with our fascinating exhibition book, Plywood: A Material Story
https://www.vam.ac.uk/shop/plywood-a-material-story-148486.html
Comments Off on Manufacturing plywood boards: then and now
May 9, 2018
Royal Navy buys the Terminator … of mines
At The Register Gareth Corfield updates us on the latest step towards Skynet, uh, Seanet:
The Navy’s latest robot minesweeper. It’ll blow things up but leave your pint alone, thankfully
The Royal Navy has acquired a search-and-destroy robot boat intended for destroying mines.
A first for Britain’s naval service, the roboat, built by German firm Atlas Elektronik’s UK subsidiary, drives itself around the high seas towing three auxiliary boats fitted with electro-acoustic transmitters. The transmitters generate pings that trigger modern digital mines at a safe distance from either the roboat flotilla or actual human-carrying shipping.
So far the MoD’s £13m contract with Atlas has netted it one complete boat-with-gear system on an R&D basis, with options available to buy more. The trials boat has just been handed over to the RN following proving of the design’s detect-and-avoid algorithms in what appears to be a live training data-versus-AI comparison exercise.
In maritime terms, the roboats comply with the International Regulations for the Prevention of Collisions at Sea (known as the Colregs – they’re the seagoing version of the Highway Code), though The Register would be most intrigued to see how they cope with scenarios that end up invoking rule 2(b).*
“This autonomous minesweeper takes us a step closer to taking our crews out of danger and allowing us to safely clear sea lanes of explosives, whether that’s supporting trade in global waters and around the British coastline, or protecting our ships and shores,” said defence procurement minister Guto Bebb in the usual canned quote.
* Rule 2, as published (PDF) by the Department for Transport, states: “Construing and complying with these Rules due regard shall be had to all dangers of navigation and collision and to any special circumstances, including the limitations of the vessels involved, which may make a departure from these Rules necessary to avoid immediate danger.”
Update, 14 May: UK Armed Forced Commentary has more information on the unmannned minesweeper system.
12 October 2005 was an historic day for the Royal Navy, because the Hunt class minesweepers HMS Middleton and HMS Ledbury conducted the last evolution at sea involving sweep gear, both the Oropesa mechanical wire system and the combined influence sweep equipment. The Royal Navy at that point had already operated unmanned, remotely controlled sweep systems in 2003 during waterway clearance work in Iraq, notably the opening of Umm Qasr. Under a UOR, a number of Combat Support Boats with remote controls were used to tow the Mini Dyad System (MDS) produced by Australian Defence Industries (ADI) and Pipe Noise Makers. Called Shallow Water Influence Minesweeping System (SWIMS), they were sent ahead of the RN minehunters as precursor sweeps against ground influence mines. The future of MCM was taking the path of stand-off action through unmanned systems and it was felt that the more than 100 years of manned ships sweeping were at an end.
The replacement for the sweep equipment was to come through the Flexible Agile Sweeping Technology, or FAST. The idea was to put two unmanned surface vehicles on the Hunt class vessels by modifying their open, capacious stern area. FAST, however, proved anything but fast, and even though a contract was signed in 2007 by the MOD with the Atlas-QED consortium, comprising Atlas Elektronik UK, QinetiQ and EDO Corporation, the resulting Technology Readiness Demonstrator never made it on the Hunt class. FAST became a test platform that spent the following years doing all sort of trials and demonstrations. Initially intended only for towing sweep kit, it ended up testing remote deployment and recovery of Sea Fox unmanned underwater vehicles, demonstrating that stand off clearance of minefields was possible.
Atlas Elektronik UK continued to work with the MOD and on its own, and eventually developed in-house the ARCIMS (ATLAS Remote Combined Influence Minesweeping System) system, which has enjoyed a first export success in an unnamed Middle East navy and has gone on to become the much delayed replacement for the Hunt’s sweeping capability within the Royal Navy.
An ARCIMS seaframe, but manned, was delivered to the Royal Navy in 2014 for trials and development purposes, and remains in service with the Maritime Autonomous System Trials Team (MASTT) of the Royal Navy as RNMB Hazard.
On 6 march 2015, Atlas received a 12.6 million pounds order from the MOD for a first ARCIMS-derived system, in the unmanned configuration, configured to tow sweeping equipment. The system has now been accepted, and according to MASTT, which has already trialed it extensively, the new boat is called RNMB Hussar.
Comments Off on Royal Navy buys the Terminator … of mines
May 6, 2018
Tank Chats #29 Daimler Dingo Scout Car | The Tank Museum
The Tank Museum
Published on 21 Dec 2016The wheeled armoured scout car was the British Army’s principal reconnaissance vehicle from the beginning of World War II until the 1980s.
Scout cars were small and much quieter than a tracked vehicle; units equipped with scout cars relied on stealth to obtain information, rather than fighting for it. The Daimler Dingo entered service with the British Army in 1939 and served until the middle 1960s as a reconnaissance and liaison vehicle used by armoured and infantry divisions.
It was so versatile that a multitude of uses were found for it: medical officers used them to search for casualties in the battle field while one unit even issued a Dingo to its chaplain!
Comments Off on Tank Chats #29 Daimler Dingo Scout Car | The Tank Museum
May 5, 2018
Canada is #1 in the world! In the ripping-off-the-wireless-user sweepstakes!
This is the sort of thing that isn’t really surprising — if you’re a Canadian wireless data user — but puts it into a sad, sad perspective:
The sad state of Canadian wireless pricing is old news for consumers and the government, but a new report graphically demonstrates how Canadians face some of the least competitive pricing in the developed world. The Rewheel study measured pricing in EU and OECD markets by examining how many gigabytes of 4G wireless data consumers get for the equivalent of 30 euros. This chart from Rewheel says it all:
Canada is at the far left of the chart with consumers getting less for their money than anyone else. While many countries offer unlimited mobile data at that price, the report says Canadian carriers offer a measly 2 GB. The smartphone data plans aren’t much better, with nearly all countries offering better deals and many shifting to unlimited data at that price.
[…]
In addition to outrageously expensive wireless data plans, Canadians also face huge overage charges (more than a billion dollars per year generated in the wireless overage cash grab) and steadily increasing roaming charges. Yet when it came to introducing greater resale competition, the CRTC rejected new measures that it admitted could result in some improvement to affordability.
Comments Off on Canada is #1 in the world! In the ripping-off-the-wireless-user sweepstakes!
Passwords, again
At The Register, a meditation on passwords by Kieren McCarthy:
“It’s World #PasswordDay! A reminder to change your pins/passwords frequently,” it advised anyone following the hashtag “PasswordDay”. But this, as lots of people quickly pointed out, is terrible advice.
But hang on a second: isn’t that the correct advice? Weren’t all sysadmins basically forced to change their systems to make people reset passwords every few months because it was better for security?
Yes, but that was way back in 2014. Starting late 2015, there was a big push from government departments across the world – ranging from UK spy agency GCHQ to US standard-setting National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and consumer agency the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) – to not do that.
That said, the past few years has been virtually defined by the loss of billions of usernames and passwords from corporations, ranging from your email provider, to your credit agency, home improvement store, retail store and, yes, even government departments.
In that case, does it not in fact make sense to get people to periodically change their passwords? Well, yes. And no.
Yes, because the information would age and so become irrelevant faster. No, because constant resets eat up resources, tend to nudge people toward using simpler passwords, and don’t really make it harder for some miscreant using a brute force attack to guess the password.
[…]
Random or pronounceable?
Everyone agrees that using the word “password” for a password is pretty much the dumbest thing you can do. But so many people still do it that designers have been forced to hardcode a ban on the word into most password systems.
But from there – where do you go? How much better is “password1”? Is it sufficiently better? What about switching letters to other things, like “p@ssw0rd”? Yes, objectively, that is better. But the point is that there are much better ways. And that comes down to basically two choices: random or pronounceable.
The best random password is one that really is random i.e. not a weird spelling that you quickly forget but a combination of letters, numbers and symbols like “4&bqJv8dZrXgp” that you would simply never be able to remember.
But here’s the thing – the reason that particular password is better is largely because in order to use and generate such passwords, you would likely use a password manager. And password managers are great things that we’ll deal with later.
But here’s the thing: if someone is trying to crack your password randomly they are likely to be using automated software that simply fires thousands of possible passwords at a system until it hits the right one.
In that scenario, it is not the gibberish that is important but the length of the password that matters. Computers don’t care if a password is made up of English words – or words of any language. But the longer it is, the more guesses will be needed to get it right.
As our dear truthsayer XKCD points out: “Through 20 years of effort we’ve successfully trained everyone to use passwords that are hard for humans to remember, but easy for computers to guess.”
Comments Off on Passwords, again
May 4, 2018
Tesla’s tipping point?
Robert Tracinski on the amazingly long run Elon Musk and crew have had in the electric car business without (yet) turning a profit:
Elon Musk may finally be running out of other people’s money. That’s the upshot of a report on how Tesla is burning so much cash it may run out by the end of the year. This is a company that has raised more than $5 billion from its investors so far, and it is still going to need many billions more — if it can get them. What is more interesting is how Tesla got to the point where it is still bleeding cash, just when it was finally supposed to be making good on its extravagant promises.
The company has always been a triumph of PR hype and political messaging over reality. Why invest in Tesla? Why buy a Tesla? Because you’re not just buying a car — you’re participating in a social and technological revolution. You are the leading edge of the new era of electric cars and the obsolescence of the gasoline engine — which will literally save the planet, or so the story goes.
But it’s not just about global warming. You’re also helping Elon Musk revolutionize the entire manufacturing process by building super-automated, hyper-roboticized factories. He’s on the leading edge of the self-driving car revolution, already introducing a feature he calls “Autopilot.” If we don’t manage to save this planet, don’t worry. By boosting Musk, you’re helping him find us another planet to colonize.
In actuality, what has Tesla produced? A very nice car — for $100,000. There are a lot of very nice cars you can buy for $100,000, if you’re the sort of person who thinks this is a reasonable amount of money to spend on a car, as opposed to a house. More to the point, there are a lot of very nice cars you can buy for $50,000. But Tesla has been able to charge an irrationally high premium for sleek design, technological glamour, and what a Tesla-owning friend of mine describes as “happy tree-hugger feelings.”
Comments Off on Tesla’s tipping point?
May 1, 2018
Shooting a Suppressed Sten Gun
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 19 Mar 2018Sold for $7,475 (transferrable).
During World War Two, the British spent several years developing a silenced version of the Sten gun for special operations commandos and for dropping to mainland European resistance units. This is a recreation of one of the experimental types, based on a MkII Sten with the receiver lengthened into an integral suppressor. So – how does it shoot?
Comments Off on Shooting a Suppressed Sten Gun
