Month: December 2014

Fast, quiet, or cheap—turns out you can pick any two.
via Ars Technica
From The Wirecutter: The best external Blu-ray drive

Okay, it’s no secret that the MPAA hates Google. It doesn’t take a psychology expert to figure that out. But in the last few days, some of the leaks from the Sony Pictures hack have revealed the depths of that hatred, raising serious questions about how the MPAA abuses the legal process in corrupt and dangerous ways. The most serious charge — unfortunately completely buried by this report at The Verge — is that it appears the MPAA and the major Hollywood studios directly funded various state Attorneys General in their efforts to attack and shame Google. Think about that for a second.

There’s a lot of background here that’s important (beyond just the MPAA really hates Google). First, as you know, the MPAA has certainly not given up on its SOPA desire to get certain websites completely blocked. The leaked emails reveal a lot more about that (which we’ll get to). Second, a year ago, the MPAA hired a pitbull of an anti-piracy lawyer in naming Steve Fabrizio its General Counsel. Fabrizio has spent the last decade and a half or so deeply involved in litigating a bunch of anti-piracy battles at both the RIAA and the MPAA/RIAA’s favorite big law firm, Jenner & Block. This is not a guy you hire if you’re looking to innovate. This is a guy you hire if you want to get into knock-down, dirty legal fights.

Third, there is the role of state Attorneys General. A recent NY Times article detailed how lobbyists have figured out ways to effectively "lobby" state Attorneys General to do their bidding. Frequently, this is around getting the state AGs to drop investigations (and potential lawsuits) against companies. The article is somewhat eye-opening, as it’s hard to distinguish much of what’s discussed from straight up bribery. There is talk of lavish events, travel and dinners all paid for by corporate lobbyists for state AGs, often followed soon after with dropped, or reduced investigations. In one case, an AG told staff not to start an investigation into a public company without first getting his approval. Campaign funding is a big part of it as well, as these lobbyists dump lots of money into AG campaigns. And it’s no secret that the state Attorney General position is often seen as a stepping stone to a Governorship or US Senate job.

We’ve discussed in the past that state Attorneys General are often the biggest grandstanders, as their main goal in certain investigations seems to be about generating headlines for themselves, rather than any real legal basis. More than four years ago, we wrote about Topix CEO Chris Tolles’ experience being hounded by state Attorneys’ General so they could get a bunch of headlines out of something in which everyone admitted Topix wasn’t actually doing anything illegal. Along those lines, we’ve noted that popular tech companies have increasingly been a target for state AGs — because they’re almost sure to generate headlines. We’ve also noted that state AGs have been pushing for changes to federal laws, like Section 230 of the CDA, to allow them to further go after big tech companies for things like actions of their users.

Not surprisingly, Google has been a popular target for some state AGs. In the past, we’ve written about state Attorneys General from Nebraska and Oklahoma blaming Google for videos made by users, and about Texas’ Attorney General going after Google for supposed antitrust violations (based on the same claims that the FTC later dropped entirely). But the state Attorney General with the biggest chip on his shoulder for Google has absolutely been Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, who seemed to think that it was Google’s fault that he could find counterfeit goods via search. A few months later, he was back blaming Google for infringement online as well.

This was no accident. What’s come out of the Sony Pictures Leak is not just that the MPAA was buddying up to state Attorneys General, but that the MPAA was funding some of this activity and actively supporting the investigation. The leaked emails reveal that rather than seeing that NY Times article about corporate/AG corruption as a warning sign, the MPAA viewed it as a playbook. But not for preventing investigations but for encouraging and funding them. This appears to go way beyond that NY Times article. This isn’t campaign donations or inviting AGs to speak at lavish events and paying for the travel. This is flat out paying AGs to investigate Google (even on issues unrelated to copyright infringement) and then promising to get extra press attention to those articles.

Here’s the Verge’s summary of a key email (which the Verge doesn’t even seem to realize why it’s so damning):

May 8, 2014: Fabrizio to group. "We’ve had success to date in motivating the AGs; however as they approach the CID phase, the AGs will need greater levels of legal support." He outlines two options, ranging from $585,000 to $1.175 million, which includes legal support for AGs (through Jenner) and optional investigation and analysis of ("ammunition / evidence against") Goliath. Both options include at least $85,000 for communication (e.g. "Respond to / rebut Goliath’s public advocacy, amplify negative Goliath news, [and] seed media stories based on investigation and AG actions.").

"Goliath" is the MPAA’s rather transparent "codename" for Google. CID stands for a "civil investigative demand" — which is a form of an administrative subpoena, demanding information from a company, related to an investigation.

What seems to come out from these emails is that the MPAA, in coordination with the major Hollywood studios, agreed to willfully pay tons of money indirectly to state AGs (and Hood in particular) to get them to investigate Google (using the time and labor of the MPAA’s favorite law firm — and the one that Fabrizio just left). That goes way beyond anything discussed in that NY Times articles, and certainly smacks of serious illegality. It’s difficult to see how this isn’t bribing a public official to attack a company they dislike.

Not only that, but it shows that the MPAA and the studios were aware of Hood’s plans well before they happened, suggesting that he or his office has been coordinating with Hollywood on their plans and that the specific CIDs are actually written by the MPAA’s lawyers themselves:

A report from the previous February suggests that the Goliath group drafted civil investigative demands (similar to a subpoena) to be issued by the attorneys general. "Some subset of AGs (3-5, but Hood alone if necessary) should move toward issuing CIDs before mid-May," the email says.

And, more recent emails (from just in October) show that they know that another CID is apparently coming and that the MPAA intends to use that CID for negotiating leverage against Google. This follows a claim that Google was pissed off at the MPAA for mocking its recent search algorithm changes to further push down sites that may link to infringing materials (it’s not like we didn’t warn everyone that the MPAA wouldn’t be satisfied with Google’s changes). Either way, the MPAA’s Fabrizio brushes off concerns that Google has, telling the studios not to worry, that Google should be more willing to talk after Hood sends out his next CID:

After a dispute over Google’s most recent anti-piracy measures in October, Fabrizio suggested further action may be yet to come. "We believe Google is overreacting — and dramatically so. Their reaction seems tactical (or childish)," the email reads. "Following the issuance of the CID [civil investigative demand] by [Mississippi attorney general Jim] Hood (which may create yet another uproar by Google), we may be in a position for more serious discussions with Google."

While the Verge report is focused on the "sexy" topic of the MPAA having an "anti-Google’ (er… "Goliath") working group, the real story here is that it appears that this infatuation with taking down Google has extended to funding state politicians in their investigations and attacks on Google, even when it’s on totally unrelated issues (the initial CID was about counterfeit drugs — which is an issue that the MPAA likes to mock Google over by totally misrepresenting some actual, but historical, bad behavior).

And beyond that, the MPAA is showing that part of its plan is to fund "media stories based on" the Attorneys General investigations. Remember, so much AG activity these days is driven by what’s going to get them into the headlines. Setting aside nearly $100,000 from the MPAA to get a state AG some headlines for an investigation paid for by the MPAA, using administrative subpoenas written by the MPAA… all designed to attack a company they don’t like (which actually has done pretty much exactly what they’d been asking for in downranking sites that lead to infringing works), is really stunning.

I get that it’s natural to dislike a company or organization that has undermined your business model. It happens. But there are different ways to respond to it. One is to innovate and compete. Another is to use the legal process to throw hurdles in their path. This is the distinction between "market entrepreneurs" and "political entrepreneurs" that Andy Kessler has described. What the MPAA appears to have done in the last few months, however, certainly suggests that the organization, with the help of the major studios, went beyond just lobbying and political pressure, to actually funding elected officials to try to attack a company they didn’t like. And, at the very least, this also has to raise serious questions about Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood and who he takes orders from. Is he really "protecting" the people of Mississippi? Or is he focused on gobbling up Hollywood’s money and promotion?

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via Techdirt.
Leaked Emails Reveal MPAA Plans To Pay Elected Officials To Attack Google

Installing Apache2 With PHP5 And MySQL Support On Fedora 21 (LAMP)
LAMP is short for Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP. This tutorial shows how you can install an Apache2 webserver on a Fedora 21 server with PHP5 support (mod_php) and MySQL support.
via Planet MySQL
Installing Apache 2 With PHP5 And MySQL Support On Fedora 21 (LAMP)

The SR-71 Blackbird is, without a doubt, the most advanced airplane ever built in relation to the technology available at the time. It broke all aviation records, it flew incredible missions, and it became the stuff of legend. Lockheed Martin published its history in this collection of high resolution scans of old photos.

Above:

The SR-71 was a technological marvel. Practically every area of design required new approaches or breakthroughs in technology. To withstand high temperatures generated by friction in the upper atmosphere during sustained Mach 3 flight, the Blackbird required an array of specially developed materials including high temperature fuel, sealants, lubricants, wiring and other components. Ninety-three percent of the Blackbird’s airframe consisted of titanium alloy that allowed the aircraft to operate in a regime where temperatures range from 450 degrees Fahrenheit at its aft midsection to 950 degrees Fahrenheit near the engine exhaust. The cockpit canopy, made of special heat resistant glass, had to withstand surface temperatures as high as 640 degrees Fahrenheit.

Photos and captions courtesy of Lockheed Martin.

The history of the SR-71 in photos

Two of the leading figures in the U-2 program, the CIA’s Richard Bissell and Lockheed designer Kelly Johnson, had as early as 1955 decided to explore a follow-on reconnaissance aircraft that would seek to remedy the U-2’s unexpected flaw—its easy tracking by Soviet radar.

On 24 July 1964, US President Lyndon B. Johnson publicly announced the existence of the classified Lockheed SR-71 program. The first flight of the SR-71 would come on 22 December 1964. Operational aircraft deliveries began in 1966. Throughout its career, the SR-71, unofficially, universally known as Blackbird, remained the world’s fastest and highest-flying operational aircraft.

The A-12 was a radical aircraft, with two large Pratt & Whitney J58 engines mid-mounted on the modified delta wing. Distinctive all-moving vertical tail surfaces were placed above the engine nacelles and canted inward. It was to be able to fly at Mach 3.2 at altitudes approaching 100,000 feet over a range of 3,800 miles. The most unusual element of the design was the elongated nose with its speedboat-like chines that gave it the appearance of a hooded cobra.

A-12, YF-12, and the initial SR-71 aircraft were built by Lockheed in Burbank, California, and then transported overland to Area 51 for flight testing.

The official first flight for CIA and USAF representatives took place on 30 April 1962, and went off smoothly. Eight days later, Lockheed test pilot Lou Schalk took the A-12 supersonic for the first time.

The A-12, which was operated by the CIA, was produced from 1962 to 1964. I performed operational missions from 1963 until 1968. The aircraft was the precursor to the twin-seat YF-12 prototype interceptor and the SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft. The A-12’s final mission was flown in May 1968. The program and aircraft retired that June.

The initial SR-71s were built in Burbank, California. The first prototype (Serial Number 61-7950) was delivered to Air Force Plant 42 at Palmdale, California, on 29 October 1964.

Ben Rich, who would later be in charge of the design team for the F-117 Nighthawk, led a small six-man engineering team through the endless iterations to arrive at the final configuration of the A-12. They worked on a door stretched between two desks, laying out the information that was derived from the intensive wind-tunnel tests. From the data, the shape of the A-12 was derived.

The YF-12A was a proposed interceptor version of the A-12, which was first flown 7 August 1963. It was similar in most respects to the A-12.

The YF-12 was developed as a high-altitude Mach 3 interceptor for defense against supersonic bombers. The YF-12A was the forerunner of the highly sophisticated SR-71 high-altitude strategic reconnaissance aircraft.

The ramjet-powered D-21 drone was developed as a high-speed, unmanned strategic reconnaissance platform. Originally designed to be air-launched from atop specially equipped A-12s, designated M-21, they were later modified for underwing carriage and rocket-assisted launch by B-52 bombers.

On 24 July 1964, US President Lyndon B. Johnson publicly announced the existence of the classified Lockheed SR-71 program. First flight of the SR-71 would come on 22 December 1964. Operational aircraft deliveries began in 1966.

The first operational SR-71 was a trainer version known as the SR-71B, which was delivered to Beale AFB, California, on 7 January 1966. The SR-71B had an elevated second cockpit for an instructor pilot.

SR-71B (Serial Number 17956) celebrated 1,000 missions at Beale AFB, California, in January 1982. The aircraft served under the USAF until the program was initially cancelled in 1990. It was then operated by NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB, CA from 1991 to 1997 and was used jointly by NASA and Detachment 2 at Edwards AFB when the USAF program was reactivated in 1995. This SR-71 had more flight hours than any other SR-71, 3,967.5 hrs. The last flight of this aircraft was on 19 October 1997 at an airshow at Edwards AFB.

Because they were powered by a uniquely formulated jet fuel, SR-71 Blackbirds were refueled exclusively by KC-135Q tankers.

The J58 engine, developed in the 1950s by Pratt & Whitney, was designed to operate for extended speeds of Mach 3+ and at altitudes of more than 80,000 feet. The J58 was the first engine designed to operate for extended periods using its afterburner, and it was the first engine to be flight-qualified at Mach 3 for the Air Force. The SR-71 as well as the YF-12A and most of the A-12s are powered by two J58s.

SR-71s logged a combined total of 53,490 hours of flight time, of which 11,675 had been spent at Mach 3 plus. They flew 3,551 operational sorties for a total of 17,294 hours, during which more than a thousand surface-to-air missiles had been fired at them. All missed.

The first of three reactivated SR-71s returned to the Air Force after extensive refurbishment on 28 June 1995 as Detachment 2 at Edwards AFB, California. The aircraft were being modified with datalinks when the Air Force program was defunded in October 1997.

Rare photos

On 24 July 1964, US President Lyndon B. Johnson publicly announced the existence of the classified Lockheed SR-71 program. First flight of the SR-71 would come on 22 December 1964. Operational aircraft deliveries began in 1966. Throughout its career, the SR-71, unofficially, universally known as Blackbird, remained the world’s fastest and highest-flying operational aircraft. The US Air Force terminated the program in January 1990, closing out a twenty-four year operational career. The Blackbird program was briefly revived in 1997 and a small number of training flights were made, but funding was zeroed out. The program officially ended in 1999.

Unusual shot of SR-71 Blackbird (Air Force serial number 61-7974) with one engine in afterburner and the other either shut down or in mil power at Beale AFB, California, circa 1983. Nicknamed Ichi-Ban, this aircraft was destroyed in an April 1989 accident near the Philippines. Both crewmembers ejected and were rescued unharmed. It was the last Blackbird accident before the aircraft was retired.

Three generations of aircraft developed by the Skunk Works, the Lockheed and Lockheed Martin Advanced Development Projects group in Palmdale, California, are shown in this photo from July 2000. At the top, one of the five full-scale development F-117 Nighthawks (Air Force serial number 79-0782), which was still being flown at at the time, is being towed back to the Air Force test squadron, also located at this site. At the bottom, an SR-71 is towed back to the hangar. This aircraft (Air Force serial number 61-7962) was one of the Blackbirds kept in storage at Palmdale after the fleet was retired. In the middle is the X-35A Joint Strike Fighter demonstrator, which at this point was still about four months away from its first flight.

The Advanced Tanker-Cargo Aircraft, or ATCA, was first proposed by officials from the US Air Force’s Strategic Air Command in 1967. The competition, originally intended to replace the KC-135 tanker, got underway in the mid 1970s, with a pair of wide-body commercial airliners, the 747 and DC-10, competing for the contract. The 747 prototype was fitted with an aerial refueling boom and a series of dry hook-ups were made with a number of different Air Force aircraft. Here, a crew in an SR-71 (Air Force serial number 61-7955) connects with the 747 while an F-111 crew flies safety chase. The Air Force selected the DC-10 as the ATCA winner and sixty KC-10 Extenders were eventually built.

A high definition panorama shot of the cockpit.

Lockheed was given the official go-ahead on the A-12 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft on 29 August 1959. The A-12’s design was dominated by the aircraft’s propulsion system, which would give it the power needed to set the world speed and absolute records for its class. The single-seat A-12 was the forerunner of the SR-71. This photo shows the YF-12A, a two-seat interceptor variant for the US Air Force, being built in a cordoned-off section of the facility in Burbank, California.

Business goes on as usual at the front of the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena (California) Airport while a crowd gathers on the roof to watch as a US Air Force SR-71 ‘Blackbird’ crew performs a high speed pass in this photo from December 1990. The Burbank Airport was the home of Lockheed Aircraft Company from 1928 until the early 1990s. The Blackbird family (A-12, YF-12, SR-71) was designed at the Burbank facility in the late 1950s/early 1960s and the aircraft were built there, so this flyby was a bit of a homecoming. Final assembly of the SR-71s took place at the Lockheed facility in Palmdale, California. The Blackbirds were operationally assigned to the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing at Beale AFB, California.

Thirty-five years ago, three US Air Force aircrews, flying the Mach 3+ SR-71 high altitude reconnaissance aircraft, set three absolute world aviation records—the maximum performance by any type of aircraft—in two days. Capt. Al Joersz (pilot, right) and Maj. George Morgan (Reconnaissance Systems Operator, left) set the Absolute Speed record over Edwards AFB, California, on 28 July 1976. The officially recorded average speed of the two legs was 2,193.16 mph. The record still stands in 2011. Blackbird 958 is now on display at the Museum of Aviation at Warner Robins, Georgia.

Thirty-five years ago, three US Air Force aircrews, flying the Mach 3+ SR-71 high altitude reconnaissance aircraft, set three absolute world aviation records—the maximum performance by any type of aircraft—in two days. This image, taken from the high-speed cameras at Edwards AFB, California, shows Capt. Al Joersz (pilot) and Maj. George Morgan (RSO) setting the Absolute Speed record on 28 July 1976.

This image shows Blackbird 958 on landing after setting one of its two absolute aviation records on 27 and 28 July 1976. To set the Absolute Speed record, Capt. Al Joersz (pilot) and Maj. George Morgan (RSO) had to cross the electronic timing gate, travel the twenty-five meter course, cross a second timing gate, turn around, and repeat the course from the opposite end to negate the effect of winds. The officially recorded average speed of the two legs was 2,193.16 mph.

This image shows Blackbird 958 on landing after setting one of its two absolute aviation records on 27 and 28 July 1976. Maj. Pat Bledsoe (pilot) and Maj. John Fuller (RSO) set the Speed Over a Closed Course record on a 1,000 km (621 mile) circuit. Bledsoe completed the course at a speed of 2,092.29 mph breaking a record set by a Soviet pilot in 1967.

1988 photo shows SR-71 with TR-1 in the background. The TR-1, a larger and considerably upgraded version of the original U-2, was later redisignated as U-2R.

SR-71 in flight over California.

Blackbird and X-35B parked together in a hangar at Lockheed Martin Skunk Works in Palmdale, California. The X-35B now resides at the National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Washington Dulles International Airport.

After a forty-one year career, Lockheed Martin photographer Denny Lombard will retire on 30 January 2011. Since moving behind the camera in 1982, he created some of the most enduring images in aviation history. The Spotlight photo this week is Denny’s seven all-time favorite images. Here’s number four. This image from 23 May 1995 captures the pure power of an SR-71 ‘Blackbird’ high altitude reconnaissance aircraft on takeoff.

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via Gizmodo
Rare photos of the SR-71 Blackbird show its amazing history

Why is watching a marble snake its way around a twisty maze so mesmerizing? Maybe it’s an allegory on the human condition as we all try to make our way through the world? What’s for certain is that they make for great desk toys, and as long as your office gets a bit of sun during the day, this one could—at least in theory—keep running until our local star eventually burns out.

The $35 kit is all-assembly-required too, letting you finally put all of your Ikea skills to good use as you wire up the electric motor and solar cell, sync the gears, and basically procrastinate on that Excel sheet you should have really finished hours ago. Just don’t go gifting it to some kid and claiming it’s a legit science project because they’ll be heartbroken when they eventually learn they didn’t solve perpetual motion. [ThinkGeek]

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via Gizmodo
This Ball Machine Fakes Perpetual Motion As Long As the Sun Is Shining

It’s easy to load multiple rows of data from a file into a MySQL table with a single LOAD DATA INFILE command, but if the file is over a certain size you may want to load it in multiple chunks. When I have a file with millions of lines I typically use pt-fifo-split to separate the file into multiple chunks in order to limit the size of each transaction. Unlike most tools in Percona Toolkit, pt-fifo-split doesn’t actually interact with your database, but this is one MySQL use case where it’s very helpful.
Here’s a quick example in bash that illustrates how I can take a large tab-delimited file, break it into multiple 100,000 line chunks, and load the chunks into a table:
“`
FLAT_FILE="/tmp/big_file.txt"
FIFO_PATH="${FLAT_FILE}.fifo"
LOAD_FILE="${FLAT_FILE}.load"
CHUNK_SIZE=100000
Split the file
pt-fifo-split –force –lines ${CHUNK_SIZE} ${FLAT_FILE} –fifo ${FIFO_PATH} &
Sleep 10 seconds to assure ${FIFO_PATH} exists before entering loop
sleep 10
while [ -e ${FIFO_PATH} ]
do
# Write chunk to disk
cat ${FIFO_PATH} > ${LOAD_FILE}
# Load chunk into table
mysql –database=test \
–show-warnings \
-vve "load data infile ‘${LOAD_FILE}’ into table my_table;"
done
“`
YMMV, so you should do some testing to determine the optimal chunk size based on your schema, storage engine, replication setup, complexity of LOAD DATA INFILE statement, etc.
via Planet MySQL
Loading large flat files into MySQL with LOAD DATA INFILE and pt-fifo-split

via Dilbert
Dilbert 2014-12-12