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Well if you read the article and not the summary, the authors are discussing that there doesn't seem to be any fundamental changes coming anytime soon. Sure newer codecs are coming out but they are all the same approach. It's like if we discussing public key cryptography and the algorithms used. Imagine if RSA was the only real technique and the only new changes coming out were merely larger keys and that other techniques like elliptic curves didn't exist.

I think your analogy is somewhat flawed. Public key cryptography was in somewhat of the same "rut" as video codec. Video codecs have been stuck on hybrid block techniques and Public key cryptography has been stuck using modulo arithmetic (RSA, and Elliptical curves both use modulo arithmetic although they depend on the difficulty of inverting different mathematical operations in modulo arithmetic).

There are of course other hard math problem that can be used in public key cryptography (lattices, knapsack, error-correcting codes, hash based) and they languished for years until the threat of quantum computing cracking the incumbent technology...

Similarly, I predict hybrid block techniques will likely dominate video encoding until a disruption (or in mathematical catastrophe theory parlance a bifurcation) shows the potential for being 10x better (because 1.2x or 20% better doesn't even pay for your lunch). It doesn't have to be 10x better out of the gate, but if it can't eventually be 10x better, why spend time optimizing it as much as hybrid block encoding. Nobody wants to be developing something that doesn't have legs for a decade or more. The point isn't to find something different for the sake of difference, it's to find something that has legs (even if it isn't better today).

The problem with finding something with "legs" in video encoding, is that we do not fully understand video. People don't really have much of a theoretical framework to measure one lossy video compression scheme against another (except for "golden-eyes" which depend on what side of the bed you wake up on). Crappy measures like PSNR and SSIM to estimate the loss-ratio vs entropy are still being used because we don't have anything better. One of the reasons people stick to hybrid block coding is that the artifacts are somewhat known even if they can't be measured so it is somewhat easier to make sure you are making forward progress. If the artifacts are totally different (as they would likely be for a different lossy coding scheme), it is much more difficult to compare if you can't objectively measure it to optimize it (the conjoint analysis problem).

So until we have better theories about what makes a better video codec, people are using "art" to simulate science in this area, and as with most art, it's mostly subjective and it will be difficult to convince anyone of a 10x potential if it is only 80% today. If people *really* want to find something better, we need to start researching more on the measurement problem and less about the artistic aspects. It's not that people haven't tried (e.g., VQEG, but simply very little has come from the efforts to date and there has been little pressure to keep the ball moving forward.

In contrast, the math of hard problems for public key cryptography is a very productive area of research and the post-quantum-encryption goal has been driving people pretty hard.

Generally speaking, if you measure it, it can be improved and it's easier to measure incremental progress than big changes on a different dimension.

Most microwaves oven are supposed to work right at 2450 MHz, so if you want to avoid microwave ovens (which you should if there's one in the area and it's used often), you want to use the highest or the lowest numbered WiFi channel -- you don't need a spectrum analyzer to tell you that.

But if you want to see the results of one on many microwave ovens ... here you go. It looks like the exact bandwidth used by their signals vary quite a bit, though my advice above still stands in the majority of cases.

Of course, there are other 2.4 GHz band users as well, and a scanner could be useful for pinpointing those.

is it immoral for them to tell you how you can use it?

Immoral, well I'll leave that to the theologians, it is however wrong (in a legal sense) for them to tell me what I can and cannot do with hardware that I own. Lease is quite different but Apple aren't "leasing" the hardware to me, they are just trying to act in that fashion.

My understanding is that they are only controlling the software, specifically the Operating System. Since there is an encryption and methods to prevent installing custom OSs, to circumvent them violates the DMCA. It sucks, but right now they're legally allowed to prevent it.

Except that it is a general purpose computer, or PC as they are commonly known. Please see here and here for definitions.

At least link to the PC article. I would also argue that the definition 'has an ALU, logic controller, I/O, and memory' is far too broad, as it doesn't define 'general purpose'. Is you car a general purpose computer? It has multiple ALUs, logic controllers, I/Os, and memory. No, because it performs only a limited number of tasks (accepting driver inputs, controling the wheels and electronics, car stuff). Similarly with an alarm clock: it has I/O to set and display the time, memory to store the time, an ALU and a logic contoller to function. What it misses is general-purpose.

My definition? The ability to run general user software. That would put the iPad somewhere on the broad end of purpose-built computer, and the narrow end of general-purpose.

I know that you and Apple want so very desperately to escape the PC comparison because when you look at the Ipad compared to a notebook, with the Ipad's limitations and restrictions it is such a terrible comparison. Unfortunately you cant escape the definition and more so, are trying to occupy the same space in the market.

Let's get this out of the way first: I don't want the iPad to succeed, nor do I want one personally. I agree that the lock-in to the App Store makes it less desirable, it's one of the big reasons I own an Android phone and not an iPhone. I do, however, understand that there is a market segment the device fills: basically the I-want-a-big-iPod-touch market. The only thing I disagree with is people treating it like it were something else, and railing on it for that reason. There's plenty of things to be disappointed with without assaulting it for doing things it was never intended to do. That just makes it a less useful product or disappointing, not 'evil' or 'wrong' or 'unacceptable'.

I don't think it's necessarily wrong to compare it with PCs, only to expect it to do everything that a PC does. It's equally wrong to expect a netbook (or worse, a desktop) to be capable of everything the iPad does. Sure, the iPad doesn't allow user programs without Apple's approval or have multi-tasking, but a netbook doesn't have multi-touch or as long of a battery life. There's overlap in the markets, but pretending it should do everything a netbook or laptop does is fallacious. If what a laptop does is what's important to you, get one, obviously others (including Leo Laporte) have decided that the iPad performs some tasks better than a full PC and use it for them. Who are you to say they can't have a use for it?

Again, I'm fine with fair criticism, but not with bashing for the sake of bashing. I find it funny that when it was convenient to do so, Apple haters derided the iPad for being 'just a big iPod touch'. Now, since that's too usefull, it's bashed for being 'a terrible PC'. Well of course it is, it's just a big iPod Touch!

Let's stick with criticising the things that are actually wrong with it (like the price!), instea

is it immoral for them to tell you how you can use it?

Immoral, well I'll leave that to the theologians, it is however wrong (in a legal sense) for them to tell me what I can and cannot do with hardware that I own. Lease is quite different but Apple aren't "leasing" the hardware to me, they are just trying to act in that fashion.

Just because you think it is, or want it to be a PC, that doesn't make it wrong for Apple not to make it one.

Except that it is a general purpose computer, or PC as they are commonly known. Please see here and here for definitions.

general purpose computer: A computer designed to perform, or that is capable of performing, in a reasonably efficient manner, the functions required by both scientific and business applications. Note: A general purpose computer is often understood to be a large system, capable of supporting remote terminal operations, but it may also be a smaller computer, e.g., a desktop workstation.

A general purpose computer has four main components: the arithmetic logic unit (ALU), the control unit, the memory, and the input and output devices (collectively termed I/O).

I know that you and Apple want so very desperately to escape the PC comparison because when you look at the Ipad compared to a notebook, with the Ipad's limitations and restrictions it is such a terrible comparison. Unfortunately you cant escape the definition and more so, are trying to occupy the same space in the market.

Of course, that's if they win the auction.

the internet is a series of tubes, and tubes can't run through thin air, that's preposterous

Not really..

http://www.its.bldrdoc.gov/fs-1037/dir-003/_0401.h tm
http://www.dxinfocentre.com/tropo.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-skip

Perhaps you should read what a TCB is.

In the TCB concept, all security mechanisms (including hardware) should be trusted and easily auditable. TCB != Trusted OS AND != TC.

I just came upon an interesting series of government studies that look into characterizing the succeptability of DTV receivers to interference from UWB. Interestingly enough, UWB signals are different enough from most modulated-carrier type signals that interference is not merely a function of power and frequency, but also specific temporal characteristics. The study also notes that it is heavily dependent on the level of forward error correction used by the DTV, along with the overall bandwidth of the DTV receiver.

I, for one, do not welcome our new DTV-wrecking overlords!

The TPS-43E is an Air Force 3-D, stacked-beam, surveillance radar and is air and ground transportable. The range of the TPS-43E is 481 kilometers (260 nmi), transmitting 4 MW using a linear beam twystron. The transmitter control can select any one of 16 frequencies in the range from 2900 to 3100 MHz. It can operate on six different PRR's; the average PRR is 250 Hz using a 6.5 uS pulse.

Most programs use Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) to work out their dates. Simply, UTC is the number of seconds elapsed since Jan 1 1970.

ROFL. That's so utterly incorrect.

Here are some links to the definition of UTC, although I guess the damage has already been done.

http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/Coordina ted+Universal+Time

http://www.its.bldrdoc.gov/fs-1037/dir-009/_1277.h tm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Universal _Time

I guess it depends on the application, but I don't see solar working further out than Jupiter, and really you should be much closer (say Mars or Earth). Incidentally, I've run across multiple definitions of "deep space" from 2,000,000 km to an region "outside" the solar system. Very far from the Sun seems a good definition as any. :-)

Here's a good link for people who don't know what links are.

I knew it was by design, too, but had a devil of a time find it (Googling for "auditory + feedback + telephone" returns pages for stuttering therapies). ChrisMaple, below, named the feature: sidetone. Here's a googled a definition of sidetone.

LEC, by the way, stands for Line Exchange Carrier or "service provider"

is inaccurate.

LEC actually stands for Local Exchange Carrier (according to Federal Standard 1037C which is the government's canonical glossary of telecommunications terms.

Local Exchange Carriers (LECs) are the "baby-bells", your local phone company (Verizon, SBC, Ameritech (do they still exist?) etc.). The other half of the coin is IXCs, which stands for Inter eXchange Carriers, i.e. long-distance telcos like AT&T. Of course, with deregulation, it is all confused now as to who does what. Typically, when you get a phone line, you get it from a LEC, and when you place an interstate call it is carried by an IXC (even if you pay someone else for the long distance service).

LEC, by the way, stands for Line Exchange Carrier or "service provider"

is inaccurate.

LEC actually stands for Local Exchange Carrier (according to Federal Standard 1037C which is the government's canonical glossary of telecommunications terms.

Local Exchange Carriers (LECs) are the "baby-bells", your local phone company (Verizon, SBC, Ameritech (do they still exist?) etc.). The other half of the coin is IXCs, which stands for Inter eXchange Carriers, i.e. long-distance telcos like AT&T. Of course, with deregulation, it is all confused now as to who does what. Typically, when you get a phone line, you get it from a LEC, and when you place an interstate call it is carried by an IXC (even if you pay someone else for the long distance service).

Lower frequencies will require more complicated modulaction schemes to get the same data rates, but it is still possible.

What about shannon's law? At least with phone lines we can theoretically cut down the noise by creating a better medium. I don't think we'll be replacing the air with a lower-noise version any time soon.

Also, we should be careful when using the word "bandwidth" when talking wireless Internet. In the quote above, I think that it is supposed to mean datarates. However, bandwidth from an RF perspective can also mean frequency range.

And the two are directly related by Shannon's law.

Increasing RF bandwidth used is another way to get around the lower frequency issues with datarates.

That's true, though. And with point-to-point you don't have to worry as much about interference. Still, wired is the way to go for almost any non-mobile application. Unless you're so far away you need to use satellite. Or maybe if you're going over really treacherous terrain. Otherwise just the tranmission costs are going to be too high in the long run.

And, of course, the real problem in that scenario is the government-granted monopoly. However, I have difficulty in seeing where your right to free speech compels me to transmit your message.

A telecom company holding a government-granted geographical monopoly is likely to become subject to regulation as a common carrier.

There are also dial-up connections available which, while slower, are certainly servicable.

Dial-up is 2.5 KB/s up, on a good day. If "slower" means slower than the speech is generated, speech can no longer move freely over the connection.

The amount of bandwidth basically depends on you much noise there is around- you can pack much more data into a narrow channel if the channel has hardly any noise, whereas if the channel is very noise you'll need a wide channel to send the same data.

Also in practice you need a gap between neighbouring channels- the receivers need to filter out the other channels and they don't do this perfectly (although the better the receivers are, the closer you can pack them in.)

However Shannons law only deals with broadcast communications where everyone can 'hear' everyone else equally, if you use directional antennas then it doesn't necessarily apply- two communications could use the very same channels.

In Phoenix, we have two different Cablemodem providers, with some fairly significant overlapping coverage, but all of the independent DSL line providers for residential closed except for Qwest, and Qwest still uses Pair Gain, which kills DSL.

Covad is still open (they recovered from Chapter 11), and does service Phoenix. SpeakEasy uses Covad exclusively, and as far as I know Earthlink uses Covad in Phoenix. Of course, Covad's ADSL normally uses line sharing on top of Qwest's line, so if Qwest's line won't qualify for DSL, you're probably still out of luck. See if SDSL is an option (SDSL normally runs on a dry pair).

Pair gain does kill DSL, but don't assume you can't get DSL through Qwest until you talk to Qwest and they tell you you can't. They may switch your phone line to a new pair.

No, it can't.

For a given signal-to-noise ratio, double the bitrate still requires double the bandwidth. Improvement in modulation techniques can only serve to more closely approximate the theoretical.

Interesting.. I thought I knew what those words meant until I started thinking about it... but that won't stop me from giving it a stab:

unauthorized: Exposure of information / access to systems to / by individuals not authorized to receive it / access the system.

access: 1. The ability and means necessary to store data in, to retrieve data from, to communicate with, or to make use of any resource of a system. 2. To obtain the use of a resource. 3. [The] capability and opportunity to gain detailed knowledge of or to alter information or material. 4. [The] ability and means to communicate with (i.e. , input to or receive output from), or otherwise make use of any information, resource, or component in an AIS. Note [for 3 and 4]: An individual does not have "access" if the proper authority or a physical, technical, or procedural measure prevents him/her from obtaining knowledge or having an opportunity to alter information, material, resources, or components. 5. An assigned portion of system resources for one data stream of user communications or signaling.

Thanks to google and Federal Standard 1037C.

If an ISP isn't a common carrier, then what the hell are they?

I know cable broadband companies try to say they aren't, but they want to restrict what their users do--it's not an arguement based on fact.

What I still dont understand is that unlike digital setups, frequencies are all analog. Instead of seeing noticable spikes in a "graphical signal", why not just encode data on much smaller deviations of the sine wave? In essence, more sensitive tramsnitter/receiver?

I've been working on the software for these types of instruments since 1991. Making something that resolves atoms at room temperature is quite a daunting task. In electronics, just the basic Johnson Noise of resistors becomes significant when trying to resolve such tiny measurements. On top of that, the thermal drift of the metal in your instrument which moves your measuring device relative to what your measuring is enough to prevent you from seeing atoms. Then you also have to worry about digital noise generated by your processors radiating into the sensor electronics over ground and power leads.

To make a commerically viable AFM, you need a lot of smart people from several different fields. But even then, these people have to have a few years of building this sort of instrumentation under their belt. It is not easy at all. And the machining costs alone will always dictate a high price for these instruments.

-todd-

PS - Although atoms get a lot of press, I think the most interesting uses of AFM are in biology and hard drive research. These certainly produce the more spectacular looking images.

Also note that the abstract of the patent claim isn't the important part. The claims are. Refer to claim #35, "35. A receiving system as recited in claim 25, wherein the transceiver means receives the information via any one of telephone, ISDN, broadband ISDN, satellite, common carrier, computer channels, cable television systems, MAN, and microwave."

The only one of those that seemed a bit dodgy is to me was "Common Carrier", which is defined here for your convenience, courtesy of the U.S. Federal Govt, Federal Standard 1037C. Interpreting that definition in its broadest terms, there are a hell of a lot of transmission media that could fall under the claims of this patent.

Also note that the abstract of the patent claim isn't the important part. The claims are. Refer to claim #35, "35. A receiving system as recited in claim 25, wherein the transceiver means receives the information via any one of telephone, ISDN, broadband ISDN, satellite, common carrier, computer channels, cable television systems, MAN, and microwave."

The only one of those that seemed a bit dodgy is to me was "Common Carrier", which is defined here for your convenience, courtesy of the U.S. Federal Govt, Federal Standard 1037C. Interpreting that definition in its broadest terms, there are a hell of a lot of transmission media that could fall under the claims of this patent.

Linksys outputs 50mw. If you were to go to the FCC regulation maximum of 100mw (1 watt), you would do better.

If you use Cisco's Wireless Calculator Excel spreadsheet, you will see that a 21 dbi parabolic dish (as seen here could grant you 76.1 kilometers.

Now you have problems with this distance. Line of sight, for one.

The common calculation calls for a cone shaped space from each antenna meeting at the middle. This is called the Fresnel Zone The calculator says that this zone, for 76km is 28.2 meters (92 feet). So, you have to have 92 feet of clearance. No trees. No buildings. Nothing.

At this distance (44.5 miles) The earth curvature is 90 feet, somehow your signal must peak over that!

So, you are going to need antenna heights of over 150 meters to set up a 802.11b wireless like of this long.

Most engineers say this is simply not feasable. Other issues, such as antenna alighment, water (nasty multipath bounce), WiFi hotspot interferance, and the actual time it takes for a signal to travel that far are issues as well.

So just remember line of sight. If you have clean line of sight to the other endpoint, and clarity through the Fresenel Zone, you might just have a chance for point-point 802.11b wireless.

Cheers!

...in case it gets /.ed.

I suggest all of you read this before continuing with your traditional physics based explanation. This article is by David P. Reed, famous for Reeds Law. More importantly this paper was presented to the FCC.

The output is fed through a low-power Schottkey diode to clamp the waveform and lock onto the desired frequency. I'm sure you can tell what I'm getting at: in order to receive frequency RF, one must generate frequency IF via local oscillations (LO), and IF directly corresponds to RF. Stephen Wolfram points out the relationship V[IF] = V[RF] + V[LO] for increasing and V[IF] = V[RF] - V[LO] for decreasing. Armed with this formula and decent knowledge of the radio's tank circuit, it is trivial to pick up the LO and IF frequencies your car radio transmits, albiet inadvertedly, and customize the billboard contents accordingly. Quite simple really.

Here is a mirror.

I think it would take less force/momentum/energy/whatever to give it a kick in the opposite direction and let it burn up in the earth's atmosphere.

Mir, Spacelab, and thousands, or tens of thousands, of other satellites we put in low Earth orbit have burned up as their orbits degraded.

There is a big difference between LEO and GEO. There is no cutoff between where the Earth's atmosphere ends and the vacuum of space begins. Friction with the tenuous remaints of the atmosphere do cause the orbits of satellites at 100 km to degrade within years or decades. Friction at 36,000 will be a lot less. But even if it was as great, that disposal burnup would still be tens of millenium away.

If a geostationary satellite had enough fuel to change its orbit so it skims the atmosphere, so it burns up, it could use that fuel to remain in orbit for ages longer. When it is short of fuel, using the remaining fuel to kick it up just a touch would be plenty to keep it from being a danger to satellites that still had fuel.

Digital reproductions of an analog signal are just as accurate as analog reproductions for the purposes of music playback. The only limiting factor is the playback device (as in, a set of speakers instead of a piano)
The proof for this is based on Nyquist's Theorem, which states that if you sample an analog signal at a rate twice as high as the highest frequency in the signal. Since humans can't hear signals higher than about 20Khz, a sample rate of 44.1Khz (sound familiar?) will produce a digital signal that no human will be able to distingush from it's analog contemporary.
Now, using lossy compression like MP3 WILL cause you to lose singnal, but anyone who says they can tell the difference between analog and digital over the same equipment (amp, speakers, etc...) is full of crap.
As to listing to music over game-boy speakers, you could just as easily shove a screwdriver in your eye, but this begs the question...WHY?!?!?

Yeah, but closed source operates in "stealth mode." Their planes are harder to see because you don't get to see the source. Open source, on the other hand, is like a plane the size of a blimp.

Closed Source is less "stealth" and more "electronic warfare" in nature. More specifically, Close Source resembles barrage jamming. The target is certainly visible, but exactly what it is has been obscured. That's not to say such a target can't be attacked. And history has shown Closed Source software taking plenty of hits.

It is worth stressing that these analogies fail rather miserably. Physical security issues deal with enirely different environments than information security - even electronic warfare which, like other physical secuirty, operates within the realms of physics. Limitations and methods of attack and countermeasure are entirely different.

It appears that there is a mistake in this article. The mile (mi) nautical mile (nmi) seem to be treated as the same distance. However, one mile is 5280 feet, and one nautical mile is 6076.1 feet by this definition, or 6080.27 feet in the definition given in GDict. This means that the estimated altitude of the rocket will be approximately 71.35 standard miles (mi) or 71.40 standard miles (mi) (respectively).

It also appears according to this NASA page that 50 miles is the altitude one has to achieve to be called an astronaut in the USA. However, the atmosphere's friction boundary is 75.76 miles, according to the same page. So the rocket will be approximately 4.41 to 4.36 miles short of the friction boundary, but any lifeforms (bacteria, etc.) that survive the journey will be astronauts in the USA.

I have found a mirror.

Well, I dunno if the short changelog format is wonderfully readable, but
at least it's small enough that I don't feel bad about mailbombing the
kernel list with it.

USB and architecture updates, IDE driver updates etc. The one that kept me
personally somewhat busy was the interesting Intel SMP-P4 TLB corruption
bug, which ends up being due to some very funky asynchronous speculative
TLB fill logic, which made the page table invalidation "exciting".

The TLB invalidate rewrite will likely have broken all other architectures
(at least performance-wise, if not in any other way), so architecture
maintainers look out!

Linus

Summary of changes from v2.5.15 to v2.5.16

o USB-UHCI-HCD

Anton Altaparmakov
o NTFS 2.0.7: minor cleanup, remove NULL struct initializers
o NTFS 2.0.7 release: pure cleanups.

Jens Axboe
o fix scsi oops on failed sg table allocation

o Include linux/slab.h not linux/malloc.h in pc300 wan driver.

Martin Dalecki
o 2.5.15 IDE 60
o 2.5.15 IDE 61
o 2.5.15 IDE 62a
o 2.5.15 IDE 63
o 2.5.15 IDE 64

o Sparc64 fixes:
o Sparc64: Delete AOFF_task_fpregs define.
o tcp_ipv4.c: Do not increment TcpAttemptFails twice.
o Sparc64: Make pcibios_init return an int.
o Ingress packet scheduler: Fix compiler error when CONFIG_NET_CLS_POLICE is disabled.
o Sparc64: Bitops take unsigned long pointer.
o Sparc64: Fix typos in bitops changes.
o Sparc64: Missing parts of previous math-emu fixes.

o -- ehci misc FIXMEs
o -- hub/tt error recovery

o Update orinoco driver to 0.11b

o 1127/1: static PCI memory mapping for ARM Integrator reduced
o 1126/1: Kernel decompression in head.S does not work for ARM 9xx architectures
o 1130/1: Remove support for prefetchable PCI memory on ARM Integrator

o zlib_inflate return code fix. Again.

o 64-bit jiffies, a better solution

o USB storage
o USB storage
o USB storage drivers
o USB storage
o usb_submit_urb fix for broken usb devices
o USB device reference counting api cleanup changes
o USB sddr55 minor to enable a MDSM-B reader
o Change to the USB core to retry failed devices on startup.
o USB Config.in and Makefile fixups
o USB - fix a compiler warning in the core code
o USB - Host controller Config.in changes

Christoph Hellwig
o IPv4 Syncookies: Remove pointless CONFIG_SYN_COOKIES ifdef.

o Change maintainer info of PC300 WAN driver.

o Fixed the handling of file name containing 0x05 on vfat

o Add full duplex support to 3c509 net driver.

Jeff Garzik
o Add new pci id to tulip net driver.
o Merge 2.4.x changes for old OSS ac97_codec driver:
o via-rhine net driver minor fixes and cleanups:
o Update MII generic phy driver to properly report link status.
o Fix phy id masking in 8139too net driver.

o uhci.c FSBR timeout
o USB device reference counting fix for uhci.c and usb core
o 2.4.19-pre8 uhci.c incorrect bit operations
o 2.4.19-pre8 uhci.c incorrect bit operations
o uhci-hcd for 2.5.15

o Fix four similar off-by-one errors in wireless net drvr core.
o IrDA update 1/3:
o IrDA update 2/3, set_bit updates:
o IrDA update 3/3:

o ISDN: maintain outstanding CAPI messages in the drivers
o Use standard AS rule.
o ISDN: AVM CAPI drivers: Common revision parsing
o ISDN: Usage count for CAPI controllers
o ISDN: Init ISA AVM CAPI drivers at module load time
o ISDN: Release AVM CAPI controllers at module unload time

o Fix oops-able situation in 3c509 net driver

Manfred Spraul
o usb-storage locking fixes

Neil Brown
o - kNFSd in 2.5.15 - Require export operations for exporting a filesystem
o - kNFSd in 2.5.15 - export_operations support for isofs
o Micro Memory battery backed RAM card driver

o [ARM 1110/1: fixes to the ARM checksum code

o cs89x0 net driver minor fixes, SH4 support, and cmd line media support

o PPC32: This changeset updates several of the powermac-specific

o tulip net driver 2114x phy init fix

o misc.c:
o Fixed race when devfs lookup()/readdir() triggers partition rescanning.
o Minor cleanup of fs/devfs/base.c:scan_dir_for_removable().

o Cosmetic cleanups, remove unused struct members from via-rhine net driver

Russell King
o [ARM] Localise old param_struct to arch/arm/kernel/compat.c.
o [ARM] Fix signedness of address comparisons, causing boots on some
o Pass a physical address from the boot loader for the location of the
o Always allow CONFIG_CMDLINE to be set or edited by the user.
o Clean up do_undefinstr - it only needs to take the pt_regs pointer
o A pile of missed kernel stack accessing functions were still using
o [ARM] Don't write to read-only registers.
o [ARM] SA1100 cleanups:
o [ARM] Couple of small fixes:
o [ARM] ADFS updates/fixes.
o 2.5.14 updates - for the new memory management pfn() macros. Also,

o clean up maximum priorities

o Hotplug CPU prep

o Prevent deadlock in JFS when flushing data during commit

o Add to list of supported 8139 net boards.

o Sparc64: Export batten_down_hatches
o Sparc: Use proper sys_{read,write} prototypes in SunOS
o drivers/video/aty/mach64_gx.c: Include sched.h

Linus Torvalds
o Fix 'export-objs' usage in Makefiles.
o Make arm default to little-endian jiffies.
o This improves on the page table TLB shootdown. Almost there.
o Fix up some more TLB shootdown issues.
o Update kernel version
o Cleanup munmap a lot. Fix Intel P4 TLB corruptions on SMP.
o Make setresuid/setresgid be more consistent wrt fsuid handling
o First cut at proper TLB shootdown for page directory entries.

o request_region janitor cleanup for rtc char driver

Here you go

Just like when I XOR two streams of data together they take no more space than one stream? Kind of tough to pick that apart again. /dev/null doesn't get any bigger when I throw a stream of data in it either.

Assuming the waves are assembled constructively, receiving them in the same bandwidth requires double the signal/noise ratio that receiving one wave would require, because your equipment needs to be just as sensitive but handle twice the signal amplitude. See Shannon's Law.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration defines the term UNICOM as the radio handle of the managing authority of an airport, usually the airport's Fixed Base Operator (FBO), the airport's local "service station." That use goes back to the earliest days of aviaton radio in the 1920s.

At O'Hare airport UNICOM is on the 122.95 frequency.

Fighting over the first use of the term UNICOM is like fighting over who owns "home page."

Here's a FAQ from the Ultra Wideband Working Group.

It's not clear that it will be allowed to be deployed widely, since it may in fact interfere with the spectrum allocated for other uses. As the U.S. Governmetn's Ultrawideband (UWB) Signal Characterization Project says:

Many claims have been made that UWB communication transmitters can effectively share spectrum with existing users. Some of these claims have not been independently verified.

We'll have to wait and see...

UWB systems produce RF emissions across a vast bandwidth, exceeding 1 GHz in some cases. Many devices don't have a conventional carrier frequency, but are characterized by a "maximum in the power spectrum envelope." Within any given conventional frequency band, the receivable power from a single UWB device is so low that it is far below the noise threshold of the conventional devices that operate in that band. The emissions are not receivable even by sensitive measurement equipment unless the UWB device is within few meters. For these types of wideband emissions, the potential for interference is determined entirely by the nuances of the "victim" receiver implementation. Conventional spectrum management techniques rely on the existence of an interference threshold -- a power level which may be measured independently of a particular receiver implementation. This threshold does not exist in the same sense for UWB devices; a separate value and measurement technique would have to be defined for every receiver implementation in the entire emission rage of the UWB device itself. The UWB industry claims (and has some evidence to support) that such an exhaustive list of values is not necessary given the low power level of the devices.

The important questions is how potential victim receivers will cope with an aggregate of many UWB emitters operating at the same time. If this technology is widely adopted, will there be an aggregate noise effect that is significant? Much work has already been done to cope with the noise properties of microwave ovens, which are centered at 2.45 GHz. See this report , p. 48 of the pdf. The large hump near 2.45 GHz is due to emissions from microwave ovens, and is measurable anywhere there is a sizable population (town > 20,000 people) in the U.S. Microwave ovens are very different than UWB devices -- they emit several orders of magnitude more power, and are bandwidth limited, but there are many technologies that operate within this band despite their emissions (802.11b is one of them). These technologies were designed specifically to operate in the noise environment generated by microwave ovens, and the band itself is designated to be a kind of "free for all" frequency range known as an ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical) band. Existing receivers in the bands where UWB devices produce emissions were not designed in such a manner.

Nevertheless, the potential increase in communication capacity offered by UWB devices demands that it be scrutinized for interoperability with these existing receivers, and given a chance to fulfill its promise.

if [ -e bombdropping ];
then
mkdir /jail ; chroot /jail deran9ed
echo "it could happen to you too"
else
for i in `find /somewhere/over/the/rainbow -name deran9ed
do
wget -U spooks www.google.com/query?deran9ed
mv $i /jail
done
fi

German Federal Armed Forces banish Microsoft programs from fear of US secret services the Foreign Office and the German Federal Armed Forces safety gaps want to conclude. Instead of American software on the national computers in the future German programs will operate.

In computers, which are used in sensitive areas, no software from Microsoft is to be used anymore. After realizations of German security authorities the American espionage service NSA has encoded data all relevant source codes of the US firm and can read in such a way. In order to protect secrets, the Ministry of Defense sets Siemens and Telekom therefore on encoding techniques of the domestic companies.

The Foreign Office reset meanwhile its plan to introduce video conferences with its representations abroad. Undersecretary of state Gunter Pleuger experienced with a Telekom presentation in Berlin at the beginning of March that all satellite transmission ways for technical reasons run over the American city Denver in the Federal State Colorado.

Pleuger was too uncertain the detour via the USA. " then we can hold our conferences directly in Langley ", spoettelte a Pleuger coworker. In Langley (Virginia) the American secret service CIA resides.

This whole topic is some combination of genuinely good technology, hype, exaggerations by imperfect journalists, and fraud. From where I'm sitting, I don't know which of the above causes is the true explanation. But I doubt Shannon's law has been repealed. Alas...

Capture Effect

it maybe too way out, and depends on your definition of 'exists', but as for objective reality you will find things changing but you can't find a thing or process you can label 'time'. So lets differentiate between 'rates of change' and some subjective metaphysical framework of measuring that change and comparing it with other changes. Part of this confusion, which seems to be rampant here, is the use of 'distance' in physical space as an ANALOGY of change, which we call time, which includes Einsteins use of the "4th dimension", which has some very good uses, but also creates some problems, notably the perennial problem of 'time travel' - which is clearly confusing traveling thru space with something that, uh, doesn't exist! That also relates to the physics problem of the 'direction' of the arrow of time. I can move back and forth in space, but 'time' just inexorably chugs on like an unstoppable juggernaught. Why CAN'T I 'travel' in time? This is also such a fundamental conception (space as an analogy of rates of change) that I suspect it is wired into the brain to happen automatically w/o consciously thinking, maybe related to motor function as an animal moving or running must look ahead and plan for 'future' movements, as in a few movements I'll be over there and must act accordingly, perhaps to escape a predator. Those that couldn't see the near 'future' were eaten. Anyway, those of a more religious or metaphysical persuasion will understand (probably why it isn't flying here, heh) - there's been books with names like The Eternal Now etc. (it doesn't exist in print either :)

In sum, memories exist, the past doesn't; everything is changing, but tomorrow never comes.
Time exists in natural reality as much as centimeters, yen, or yardsticks do. If 'time' existed as an objective reality independant of the human (or animal for that matter) brain why would the bureau of standards have to erect expensive radio stations linked to extremely stable regularly changing events like cesium atoms to tell us what it is? Why would there be so many different calendars pegged to largely arbitrary events, like some dude's birthday or the founding of Rome or whatever.

BTW, be sure to get NIST's Internet Time Synchronizer and bug them to make a Linux version. I use it all the, ahem, time to keep these lousy PC clocks somewhere in the vicinty (isn't that a spacial term meaning close?) of a standard. And another thing: why do we keep having to add leap years and leap seconds to keep us earthlings synchronized with astronomical events like the transit of a particular star on a slowly slowing earth if the time we're so familiar with actually is an absolute?

Chuck