Slashdot Mirror

There certainly are a lot of games companies here in Guildford, but there's also a fair bit of tech research and other IT work going on.

The Surrey Research Park, near the Royal Surrey County Hospital and associated with Surrey University has plenty of tech-based companies including Red Hat UK (where I work), Mitsubishi Electric Visual Information Laboratory, the aforementioned Lionhead Studios, BOC, etc etc etc.

Also, the University itself has a rather good reputation in technology and the sciences, and has just opened a big new Biology and Nursing block, so there's plenty going down in this here town...

There certainly are a lot of games companies here in Guildford, but there's also a fair bit of tech research and other IT work going on.

The Surrey Research Park, near the Royal Surrey County Hospital and associated with Surrey University has plenty of tech-based companies including Red Hat UK (where I work), Mitsubishi Electric Visual Information Laboratory, the aforementioned Lionhead Studios, BOC, etc etc etc.

Also, the University itself has a rather good reputation in technology and the sciences, and has just opened a big new Biology and Nursing block, so there's plenty going down in this here town...

It's available at http://www.math.duke.edu/~yu/wreq/.

It's good in that you can see past queries along with answers posted by the support staff(almost like a self generating FAQ).

wrighty

void russian_roulette(void) { char *target; strcpy(target, "bullet"); }

There are NINETY Iridium satellites in orbit, the 66 active, plus spares and others. But no, only 66 satellites are going to burn up. This mantra has been repeated by every clueless journalist out there.

Accounts weren't disabled last Friday; Motorola's still running the constellation.

What Russian investment in the system proper?

'falling into our outer atmosphere like abandoned Cadillacs.' - how many abandoned Cadillacs have done that, exactly?

'in a real-life vacuum, there can be no Strauss soundtracks. In reality, there was only the near-silent radio crackle of Iridium phone calls.' - near-silent radio crackle?

Feed paid for that? /. linked to that? give me a break.

As for the saveiridium people, they're pathetic publicity-seekers. Tried saveiridium.NET ? A different set of same.

Some semi-accurate information on Iridium:

http://www.ee.surrey.ac. uk/Personal/L.Wood/constellations/

I have to agree that the possibility of keeping these satellites up by a non for profit organization is near zero. So I'll offer another way of making money off the Iridium Satellites. Hire a salvage ship to collect them off the ocean floor and then sell chunks of the satellites on eBay. Sure, about half of a satellite will have burned up in the atmosphere, but I would be interested in a toasted chunk of the internals of the satellite. If a piece of the solar array makes it to the ocean floor, I would be interested that too. The price would have to be around $100.

Here is a good site about the Iridium Satellites: Lloyd's satellite constellations Overview Iridium

If you want to see an actual picture of an Iridium Satellite go here

On a slightly different note, yesterday night I got to see MIR passing over head from the top of one of my University's garages. It took me a moment to realize that the fast moving bright star wasn't an plane, since it wasn't flashing. If you go with someone to look at MIR passing over head, not forget to tell them to wave. ;-)

Who said anything about the Army? There are four other branches of the "Armed Services," smart guy. Certainly you learned that one in basic. Anyways, you're still wrong, but I'd just like to point that out.

Here they use them in Bosnia.
Here they are used by the ARMY Corps of Engineers.
Here's the CEO of Iridium saying "We have crystal clear communications. With the freedom to use the Iridium phones in helicopters and Army trucks, and area of total devastation and no electricity.
Here is a story about the DoD reserving Iridium satellite time. Perhaps you would like to chew on the line "The Army, Navy and Air Force are testing ways to integrate the Iridium satellite network into their communications plans" for a while. It's in the first paragraph.
Here's a conspicuously obvious one titled "Army to Use Iridium Pagers."

It seems like with a little research (little meaning like, 20-30 seconds) would've shown you how wrong you really are. I suggest you do just that before posting next time.


--

Here's his ICO page

Here's his ICO page

esr's directory is the prime; jargon.org is a new development.

... biggest lump of crap to come along in a while. Several other posters have hit the nail right on the head, this guy definately does not understand QM, and the fact that he can even get a publisher is just strange.

I'm not sure that "this guy", that wrote the article, is the author of the book. The article is just a press release from the University of Surrey. In any case, can you expand on why "this guy" doesn't understand QM?

Slight errors in PAL colour are compensated for by way of a sort of "checksum" in the colour signal.

"Checksum"? Isn't that the sort of thing those guys with those big room-sized Automatic Data Processing Machines would use? :-)

According to this TV Systems: A Comparison page, one PAL advantage is:

Stable Hues - Due to reversal of sub-carrier phase on alternate lines, any phase error will be corrected by an equal and oposite error on the next line, correcting the original error. In early PAL implementations it was left to the low resolution of the human eye's colour abilities to provide the averaging effect; it is now done with a delay line.

That stuff was done before anything we'd think of as a "checksum" in the digital sense would fit inside a TV, as far as I know - it's all analog....

Here's the WorldWide TV Standards - A Web Guide main page, with information on TV broadcast standards; unfortunately, I didn't see anything there that said what the memoire is avec which the French SECAM system comes; how exactly does it differ from PAL?

Slight errors in PAL colour are compensated for by way of a sort of "checksum" in the colour signal.

"Checksum"? Isn't that the sort of thing those guys with those big room-sized Automatic Data Processing Machines would use? :-)

According to this TV Systems: A Comparison page, one PAL advantage is:

Stable Hues - Due to reversal of sub-carrier phase on alternate lines, any phase error will be corrected by an equal and oposite error on the next line, correcting the original error. In early PAL implementations it was left to the low resolution of the human eye's colour abilities to provide the averaging effect; it is now done with a delay line.

That stuff was done before anything we'd think of as a "checksum" in the digital sense would fit inside a TV, as far as I know - it's all analog....

Here's the WorldWide TV Standards - A Web Guide main page, with information on TV broadcast standards; unfortunately, I didn't see anything there that said what the memoire is avec which the French SECAM system comes; how exactly does it differ from PAL?

The US has a long history of going their own way as far as telecom is concerned. TV signal (analog and digital) is one of them

Are you referring (for the "analog" part) to NTSC vs. PAL? If so, are you saying then that mean that PAL came out first, and the US developed NTSC instead of adopting PAL? If so, the Why Do Different TV Standards Exist? page on the Worldwide TV Standards - A Web Guide site seems to disagree - it says

Beyond the initial divide between 50 and 60Hz based systems, further sub-divisions have appeared within both camps since the inception of Colour broadcasting. The majority of 60Hz based countries use a technique known as NTSC originally developed in the United States by a committee called the National Television Standards Committee. NTSC (often scurrilously refered to as Never Twice the Same Colour) works perfectly in a video or closed ciruit environment but can exhibit problems of varying hue when used in a broadcast environment.

This hue change problem is caused by shifts in the colour sub-carrier phase of the signal. A modified version of NTSC soon appeared which differed mainly in that the sub-carrier phase was reversed on each second line; this is known as PAL, standing for Phase Alternate Lines (it has a wide range of facetious acronyms including Pictures At Last, Pay for Added Luxury (re: cost of delay line), and People Are Lavendar). PAL has been adopted by a few 60Hz countries, most notably Brazil.

Or are you saying that the US "went their own way" because they didn't dump NTSC in favor of PAL?

(That page also says

Amongst the countries based on 50Hz systems, PAL has been the most widely adopted. PAL is not the only colour system in widespread use with 50Hz; the French designed a system of their own - primarily for political reasons to protect their domestic manufacturing companies - which is known as SECAM, standing for SEquential Couleur Avec Memoire. The most common facetious acronym is System Essentially Contrary to American Method, SECAM was widely adopted in Eastern Block countries to encourage incompatibility with Western transmissions - again a political motive.

for those curious about PAL vs. SECAM.)

The US has a long history of going their own way as far as telecom is concerned. TV signal (analog and digital) is one of them

Are you referring (for the "analog" part) to NTSC vs. PAL? If so, are you saying then that mean that PAL came out first, and the US developed NTSC instead of adopting PAL? If so, the Why Do Different TV Standards Exist? page on the Worldwide TV Standards - A Web Guide site seems to disagree - it says

Beyond the initial divide between 50 and 60Hz based systems, further sub-divisions have appeared within both camps since the inception of Colour broadcasting. The majority of 60Hz based countries use a technique known as NTSC originally developed in the United States by a committee called the National Television Standards Committee. NTSC (often scurrilously refered to as Never Twice the Same Colour) works perfectly in a video or closed ciruit environment but can exhibit problems of varying hue when used in a broadcast environment.

This hue change problem is caused by shifts in the colour sub-carrier phase of the signal. A modified version of NTSC soon appeared which differed mainly in that the sub-carrier phase was reversed on each second line; this is known as PAL, standing for Phase Alternate Lines (it has a wide range of facetious acronyms including Pictures At Last, Pay for Added Luxury (re: cost of delay line), and People Are Lavendar). PAL has been adopted by a few 60Hz countries, most notably Brazil.

Or are you saying that the US "went their own way" because they didn't dump NTSC in favor of PAL?

(That page also says

Amongst the countries based on 50Hz systems, PAL has been the most widely adopted. PAL is not the only colour system in widespread use with 50Hz; the French designed a system of their own - primarily for political reasons to protect their domestic manufacturing companies - which is known as SECAM, standing for SEquential Couleur Avec Memoire. The most common facetious acronym is System Essentially Contrary to American Method, SECAM was widely adopted in Eastern Block countries to encourage incompatibility with Western transmissions - again a political motive.

for those curious about PAL vs. SECAM.)

Scan the news services, examine all the Iridium websites, etc.

The atomic number of Iridium is 77. The system was redesigned to 66 active satellites (Dysprosium) even though they have more than 80 satellites in orbit now, including failures and spares.

Iridium doesn't exploit diversity and only one satellite is utilized at a time - but position can be estimated from handoff time statistics and tracked more closely by analyzing doppler on the signal. It's accurate enough to deny service where legally required.

Oh, go do some reading.

Heck, you can't even spell satellite. Lots of luck getting that associate degree.

http://www.ee.surrey.ac. uk/Personal/L.Wood/constellations/

A good source of information on satellite phones.
There's a note about FBI tapping and links to
articles in the Political section of the General page.

there is another banner on a page about bugs: http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Pers onal/L.Wood/IE4/ it has been there for *ages*.