asciilifeform: the one way for this to work is for ten thousand wankers (reading news!) to try, and a few get very close, and lucky.

asciilifeform: http://www.iridian.ca/english/irdProducts.asp?x=915&a=p&pcid=29&pid=101

asciilifeform: and here we go with the elephant repellent vendors:

asciilifeform: KRS-One: this is because you are vragnaroda, and make use of hatefacts.

asciilifeform: moiety: http://www.pidjin.net/2010/10/04/shark-the-jump ?

asciilifeform: with approx. distance & wattage.

asciilifeform: pics plz.

asciilifeform: jurov: lit up your car successfully ?

asciilifeform: moiety: clearly made a poor choice of profession, then

asciilifeform: moiety: if one can get pensioned for the 'trauma' of driving a train over some idiot, perhaps we should all become train drivers.

asciilifeform: if not, next media crapfest: 'scandal! poor pilots forced to fly with zapped eye! news at 11'

asciilifeform: betcha if the poor fellow just got death-rayed, he gets some paid leave.

asciilifeform: anyway, these particular angels are already in your parts drawer, and so is the requisite pin head. camera, keychain, go.

asciilifeform: perhaps it lets them get out of a scheduled 'piss test' as well.

asciilifeform: pilots are human, when idiot employers/officials offer paid sick leave for an imaginary injury, they're happy to run with it.

asciilifeform: dollar store laser keychain ain't it.

asciilifeform: like any good official crock of shit, this one is based on fact (one can indeed construct a vaguely-useful military 'blinding machine')

asciilifeform: jurov: blind the camera & come back

asciilifeform: oh noez i got illuminated.

asciilifeform: jurov: paid sick leave!

asciilifeform: actual snipers ignore lasers, because gravity drop / wind.

asciilifeform: they make IR (ocular compatible) laser sights now, because u.s. polizei can't hit a victim from across the street otherwise.

asciilifeform: that'd be me.

asciilifeform: yes. perhaps physics has been cancelled by imperial decree, and we're all fools.

asciilifeform: esp. on my street...

asciilifeform: this too.

asciilifeform: place the camera in a car, to reproduce the magical collimatory power of the aircraft window.

asciilifeform: bonus crap points for ignoring the fact that ~532nm (green) laser rayleigh scatters, further losing power.

asciilifeform: srsly, we aren't debating the theory of nuke yields here. experimental materials required: 1 laser keychain. 1km long street. 1 phriend.

asciilifeform: (the actual case in consumer laser toy)

asciilifeform: jurov: notice that the fbi crap carefully specified an uncollimated beam.

asciilifeform: the 'control shot' administered.

asciilifeform: sentence of 'death by arithmetic' has been executed.

asciilifeform: ~moonlight.

asciilifeform: watts per square cm.

asciilifeform: ;;calc 0.005 / 105208.70751

asciilifeform: ;;calc 3.14159 * (183 ^ 2)

asciilifeform: '“At 500 feet,” Childs said, “that two-centimeter dot you see on your wall can be six feet wide.”'

asciilifeform: the 'laser pointer arrest' video is priceless.

asciilifeform: jurov: floods exist.

asciilifeform: jurov: in this case fbi is doing its actual job well, for a change. (read: padding the pockets of contractors. here, the ones who'll be making mandatory 'fly by camera' widgets.)

asciilifeform: moiety: and i sometimes have occasion to work with modestly large lasers. hence some clue.

asciilifeform: moiety: i like incandescent bulbs, too, sure.

asciilifeform: more lulz: http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2011/september/laser_092611

asciilifeform: (and target, back to you...)

asciilifeform: green laser, rayleigh scattering, you can 'walk' the beam to the target.

asciilifeform: likewise, slightly-intelligent bureaucrats perhaps wake up at night from the fact that you can untraceably torch just about anything with a fiddybuck IR laser.

asciilifeform: u.s. mouthpieces have been peddling this crap for some years.

asciilifeform: 'no pilots were harmed' 'in the making of this movie.'

asciilifeform: everyone is missing the point. the entire 'problem' is fictional. the fiction, created for a purpose.

asciilifeform: the 'terrible problem' will remain unsolved, passenger liners will get $100K cameras and painted-over windshields.

asciilifeform: (cui bono? the folks who will be selling the soon-to-be-mandatory fly-by-camera gear, when it gets retrofitted into passenger jets.)

asciilifeform: http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2014/february/protecting-aircraft-from-lasers/protecting-aircraft-from-lasers

asciilifeform: nude terrorism, public laundering, nude money.

asciilifeform: 'owns laser pointer. off to jail'

asciilifeform: one obvious question: how does one convict the offender?

asciilifeform: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/02/fbi-new-10000-reward-if-you-report-people-who-fire-lasers-at-airplanes/

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: http://phk.freebsd.dk/_downloads/FOSDEM_2014.pdf

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: i'm not the only fellow who likes playing games:

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: you didn't miss much. i'm playing my favourite 'pretend GRU still exists' game.

asciilifeform: kept around for just this purpose.

asciilifeform: i conjecture that bitcoind contains a reliable 'warehouse' of otherwise-harmless bugs like the recent one.

asciilifeform: (perhaps he'll patch the damn thing with his own hands. but others, less able, will not. and will go where the phoundation pushes them.)

asciilifeform: the ddos crap is a pill against folks like MP, who have declared that they'll stick with ancient versions of bitcoind.

asciilifeform: a persuasive story

asciilifeform: they're not unconstrained actors. they still need a story to explain why the 'official' src is to change.

asciilifeform: a warm hug to the inquisitor reading this.

asciilifeform: that certain players in the field favour.

asciilifeform: there is also the very persuasive 'paid in your family staying alive' business model

asciilifeform: there's a difference between 'amply paid' and $MAXINT

asciilifeform: http://underhanded.xcott.com

asciilifeform: say, a veteran of UCC.

asciilifeform: jurov: perhaps they have new help.

asciilifeform: also to zap the die-hards still using old versions.

asciilifeform: but to set precedent for introducing 'features' and fixes to non-existent problems

asciilifeform: (probably beyond their feeble muscles)

asciilifeform: not necessarily with the goal of slipping in some strange

asciilifeform: the buggers want an excuse to fiddle with previously-untouched code in satoshi's client.

asciilifeform: nope

asciilifeform: the diddled-tx DDOS is perpetrated by: 'btc foundation' devs.

asciilifeform: crackpot theory follows. 'you read it here first' (TM)

asciilifeform: but it remains to be seen whether such a thing is possible.

asciilifeform: if the rewrite were compact enough to be auditable with reasonable effort, it would be worth considering regardless of the authorship

asciilifeform: 'life ain't fair,' goats cannot be unfucked.

asciilifeform: rather than the other, 'new' bob.

asciilifeform: now if only the author were still 'bob the bridge-builder'

asciilifeform: assuming it works.

asciilifeform: jurov: never seen before. neat.

asciilifeform: looks like it's using libbitcoin, more cpp crud.

asciilifeform: ?

asciilifeform: minus the crud (i.e. straight C, with nothing extraneous or ill-fitting)

asciilifeform: often wonder when/if we'll see a sane reimplementation of bitcoind.

asciilifeform: 'make' is for lusers?

asciilifeform: 15k of what?

asciilifeform: seismograph? pfft.

asciilifeform: and like the earthquake, most folks only 'believe' the dead lights, backed up toilets, disappeared heat

asciilifeform: methinks 'the holiday' is as good a name as any for that event.

asciilifeform: dreamed a while ago that looking out the window, no traffic. asked some bum, 'why', he answers 'dontcha know, it's The Holiday, finally happened' ☟︎

asciilifeform: witness all the 'me toaster is bugged!!1!' saps on schneier's blog

asciilifeform: works great