Whilst the armor of the cataphract was able to withstand attacks from swords and arrows, they seemed to be useless against blunt weapons. During Aurelian’s battle against the Palmyrenes, he had troops from Palestine armed with clubs and staves that were used specifically “against coats of mail made of iron and brass”.
Source: Cataphracts: Armored Warriors and their Horses of War | Ancient Origins
The FBI thought they were asking for a way to unlock a mobile phone, because the FBI is myopically focussed on past criminal investigations, not the future of the technology industry, and the FBI did not understand that they were actually asking for a way to tracelessly unlock and mess with every ATM and credit card on the planet circa 2030 (if not via Apple, then via the other phone OSs, once the festering security fleapit that is Android wakes up and smells the money).
Source: Follow the money: Apple vs. the FBI – Charlie’s Diary
In Africa there are cultures we only catch glimpses into through their scam emails. In the classic “dearly beloved” example we learn that they are devoutly Christian and that corruption and sudden regime changes are commonplace their. The following example is poignant in its naked appeal to naive aspirational greed, presented in a language that mixes conspiracy theory, religion and military authority:
This is Army Gen. Lieutenant Duncan (A.K.A ) No attack without solution, From Denver Colorado,l am part of the 12-man Ruling Council on the Earth, An International Security Assistance Force,
I will so glad if will join the Great Brotherhood Enlightenment Kingdom, where you found all kinds of happiness blessing joy in life,There is a great opportunity for you to get what you are seeking for in life,so i would need you to become a member of our Church of Great God Secret Garden Temple and get all you are looking for in life
It goes on to promise money, a car, a house, meetings with celebrities, dream vacations and VIP treatment in all the world’s airports for all who join, but cautions:
the group is not a fan club,a pen pal society,or a lonely heart group, it is a group of dynamic individuals who stand forth as the ultimate underground alternative -the Alien Elite.
While the mail promises that you can join via a local contact, it assures the reader that the only central administration office is Washington , D.C. in the U.S.National Capital Religion (NCR)
What I find sad, though, is that there is some merit to the post-colonial developing nation perspective this mail is appealing to, because the world really is being run by a Christian military superpower, so why can’t Uncle Sam be a good Prester John and give an ambitious African brother a hand?
So, you open a terminal, ssh to some server, start a long-running command and suddenly –
there’s a power cut / Moba or whatever program you are using dies / windows restarts
Is it all lost?
Well, yes. But there’s a way to avoid it:
use screen.
screen (aka GNU screen, for easier googling) is basically a session manager for the terminal.
To start it, ssh to your server and type “screen”.
You will notice that the screen clears and you’ve got another shell prompt. This shell is running under the screen session.
You can work in the shell as normal (i.e, starting an interactive command, ssh to another server, etc), or you can send commands to the screen session using the Ctrl-A key combination (^a).
To get a list of screen commands, type Ctrl-A ?
(or better yet, look up a cheatsheet)
To detach from the screen session, type Ctrl-A d
– this will get you out of the session, but leave screen running.
You can re-attach to the running screen from any other terminal session by typing screen -r
If you’ve left the screen session running in another terminal, you can take it over in your current terminal by typing the command screen -rd.
So, to put together what we’ve learned:
Start a screen session:
screen
Start a slow-running command in the shell:
$OUR_ROOT/tools/Foo/some_really_slow_script.pl -in ……
Leave it running, or detach with Ctrl-A d
Go home, reconnect to work (or go for lunch, come back after your machine rebooted by accident or whatever), ssh to the server where you ran screen, and type
screen -rd
to see if your script finished and carry on from where you left.
You leave screen by exiting all the shells you have open under the screen session, or with a keyboard shortcut I can’t be bothered to look up.
Bonus tips (i.e, all the screen commands my fingers know):
Ctrl-A c = open another shell session inside screen
Ctrl-A Ctrl-A = toggle between the two most recent open shell sessions
Ctrl-A ” = see a list of open shell sessions
Ctrl-A A = give a name to the current shell session
Ctrl-A ‘ = switch to a named shell session by typing (the start of ) its name.
Hope you find this useful,
Three solutions to the Fermi Paradox https://heteromeles.wordpress.com/2015/03/27/two-solutions-to-the-fermi-paradox/
That’s the #3 answer to the Fermi Paradox: scientific development marches in tandem with resource extraction, and it’s impossible to become sophisticated enough to
colonize another planet without exhausting the resources of the planet you’re on.
