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On The State of Wireless
There's a short piece on Mindjack about the state of wireless. Actually, the piece is a minireview of a piece that Nicholas Carroll produced at Hastings Research. Yes, it's a PDF, and yes, it costs money. Having read through it, it's also totally worth it, especially if you are an organization that does basically anything with wireless.
The real problem with wireless at the moment is security. WEP notwithstanding, it is still far to easy to take an 802.11b equipped laptop outside a large corporation, and to gain acess to its network with little more effort than clicking a mouse.
The way the CIA and FBI act on encryption now could see wireless thrive, or kill it off completely. Nobody would want an insecure wireless service, but if the CIA and FBI get their way, that's all that will be on offer.
So, encryption (and governmental attitudes toward it) is the key to all this.
Perfect timing for this article considering Cisco just announced their new Mobile IP stuff.
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
It's either:
a) A devious plot to increase revenue by getting a kickback on each pay-to-view
b) A way to show how many people comment on Slashdot without bothering to read the linked material...
If you're thinking wireless, and you're considering college, virginia tech. We just bought 4 OC-12's, and we're putting up wireless thru the entire campus this winter, or spring, i don't know which (i suspect spring). Its already available in some parts of campus.
sig?
Just imagined it. Eyes hurt. Head hurts. From trying to focus on small screen.
Best Slashdot Co
What the hell is this? Slashdot linking to PDFs for sale. Anybody check to see whether or not the poster worked for the company selling the PDF?
Kind of hard for us to discuss the actual story here when we'd be required to pay for the content. So instead, I'm betting most posts are going to be similar to mine. Might as well just mark everything as offtopic.
I admit it, I just go here for the pictures.
www.clarke.ca
- posts the text here in
/.
- places the pdf in Freenet and every other distributed file-sharing tool
- links to mirrors of the pdf which are promptly
/.ed and then mirrored some more by the /.ers
Then we just wait for the legal letters to take down copyrighted material and we see what theNever underestimate the dark side of the Source
Click Here to order my response. Cost is only $16.99, all major credit cards accepted.
Sheesh.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
One of the major reasons networks like Sprint, AT&T and MCI can't bring programs like ION(rest in piece, you were a great idea, and deserved better. My friends who have the service will fight tooth and nail to keep it even though Sprint is canceling it) to residential businesses is because the "Baby Bells" own the local loops. I know that both Sprint and AT&T are watching wireless very closely. Both have been burned trying first generation fixed wireless and have had to stop offering the service because 1G wireless is just to unreliable. I'm not sure about MCI, but I would be suprised if they're not on top of it as well.
With the next generation of wireless, we just may see some viable offerings from these companies for broadband. If, and this is a big if, it can be done before the Bells roll out DSL on a wide scale. The race is on, and the last mile is at stake.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
He'd point to people and say, "Yeech! That guy's energy is severely messed up." And I'd run across the street and ask how often s/he used a cell phone.
9 for 9. Each individual canvassed reported using a cell phone for, on average, two hours every day.
Altered energy patterns were described as the following. . .
A separate, small bubble of energy now integrated into the side of the person's larger bubble at the side of the head where the cell phone 'plugs' in; weird effects on the rest of the energy pattern, especially when the phone is in use. ('Bubble', being the loose term meaning a 3D version of a pattern which somewhat resembles that seen when iron filings are sprinkled around a magnet).
My friend notes that the alteration of people's energy patterns appears to be a cumulative effect, and that people with energy patterns altered in this way seem much more prone to 'fliers' and similar.
This is a relatively new twist on my old mis-trust of wireless technology which up until recently was based purely on the disturbing and much pooh-poohed reports of weird effects to the nervous system resulting from EM radiation in the bandwidths common to Cell and PCS phones.
Of course, the above is rather far to the left of where most Slashdotters are. Nonetheless, I'd like to point out the following;
The human brain and nervous system are electrochemical in nature; this is why things like stun guns and EEG machines work. We emit EM radiation. Everybody knows this. Conversely, it is foolish to think that EM radiation when pumped through us will have absolutely no effect whatsoever. --And the straight mechanical heating of cells doesn't seem to be the issue in any of the lab reports I've read; the true issue appears to be that the functions of brain and nerve cells are in part mitigated by various electrical wave forms, and like AC and magnets, this is a two way street. That which emits EM can be affected by EM. Simple as that.
Of course, those who stand to make billions of dollars from the entrenching of wireless technology will tell you a very different story; one which sounds a great deal like the "There's no proof," thing that the cigarette companies piped at us for decades.
Okay. Enough. Do some of your own research before knee-jerking based on what you've been tricked into believing is true by Corporate media, bought & sold Governments, and school books provided by said interests.
Have fun!
-Fantastic Lad
The only thing Slashdot provides in that vein are mental pictures of CowboyNeal wearing only a ten-gallon hat...
Let's face the facts: wireless is another tool to have in the toolbox but it is not the second coming of Berners-Lee. It has its place and its reasons for use. There are applications and situations that will demand it and others will not. It will not, contrary to popular belief, revolutionize business. It will greatly improve some aspects of business but it is not going to change the way we live.
Now I'm not saying it's unimportant. On the contrary, it will be exceptionally important. This however is similar to rails--without demand for trains and things to be carried somewhere, it's useless. It may be a better way to do things but it is nothing more.
Of course we torture people, we need the information --Gen. Pinochet
Whoa... this is some smoking tech - and why pay the telco for leased lines or leased fibre - or buy your own then trench it... from a ROI standpoint, wireless is absolutely the way to go.
Check out Wi-Lan's stuff, they had a press release yesterday "Operating at an unprecedented throughput of up to 192 megabits per second per six-sector cell, Wi-LAN's BWS Series includes access points and customer premises equipment (CPE), and can be used in broadband access applications alone or in combination with wired alternatives. The BWS Series also offers an eave-height integrated antenna and outdoor unit (ODU) that allows for quick and economical installation of point-to-point and point-to-multipoint applications. Wi-LAN's broadband wireless access systems are powered by the company's patented W-OFDM technology, allowing for increased capacity, non line-of-site capability, and superior resistance to multipath, resulting in higher effective data transmission rates and a typical range of 15 kilometres."
Taco did recently announce that Slashdot was moving towards more advertisement. Maybe this is just a test of what we'll tolerate.
As for Hastings Research : maybe you would like to see a sample of some of their other quality research. When have you ever heard a white paper draw a metaphor between market conditions and a glass being half full? But seriously they do have a six foot magnetic whiteboard to "prototype" their research. (they don't put rookies in center field either.) If you need to know they also provide a list of profitable web sites. (Look to the bottom of the page for their judicious use of "keywords" to help prop up their standing in search engine results.)
This is the worst article ever on slashdot.
It seems to me that optical links can be spatially focussed much more than RF links.
While RF might be great for in-home networking, assuming you can surmount the security worries, optical seems like a much better bet for completing the famous Last Mile.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Oh, man, oh man. I think we've found a winner! This is going to be funnnnn!
...I've learned two things from my studies
I've studied this stuff for years, in all liklihood, in far greater depth than you have
You've almost certainly studied fakers more than I have... it's apparently an area of expertise for you. Fair enough.
You also seem to have studied some pretty shifty ways of making a point, and as such you begin to wander into MY area of expertise; rhetoric (in the Roman sense) and legitimate constructive debate.
Here's where the problem begins:
Only two things about people? Probably not, but these are the two things you base the rest of your post on, and therefore in your context, the only things that apply. People will either believe everything they hear, or rationalize away everything they don't like.
From this, you go through Clearly, you'll not believe me..., on to tested and bullied by people like you . Now, I'm not only possessing of a blind faith in science and a desire to rationalize away everything not already in my worldview, I'm also a bully who persecutes your poor friend because he's a visionary and I'm threatened by that.
Then you perform a neat little sleight-of-argument: Try to imagine if you were the only person whose eyes were sensitive to light...
What you're really saying is: try to accept my premise out of hand and place yourself in a similar (but more acceptable to your limited worldview) situation. Then you associate me with those folks who refuse to believe even good evidence! That's twice over a neat trick, because it assumes that good evidence exists, and then condemns me by association for not believing it, while all the while purporting to be a plea for understanding. Masterful!
Next, we have a standard disconnection regarding faith. Luckily, your friend isn't of the 'believe or else' persuasion. He sounds more like the 'I cannot abide the faithless, sigh, poor benighted fools, I cannot help you if you cannot help yourself' kind of guy. Kinda sickening, but at least be won't be blowing up any buildings...
(hey, see what I did there? I made a cynical joke, and also lumped your friend in with wacko terrorists and Pentacostal religious crackpots! woo woo! not bad, eh? You're rubbing off on me)
Finally, we get to the actual EM argument! The thing is, hard drives are designed to retain their altered state until altered again. The body is permanently damaged, in a clearly detectable way, through heroin use. There is nothing I know of to suggest that EM fields have a permanent or cumulative effect on cells based on your examples. In fact, you basically compare apples to oranges with no discussion of why they might be similar, and also deride me for picking the "nearest least logical argument" while providing no proof that I did so. BTW, I'm not clearly predisposed to anything, certainly not based on your 'arguments'. Nothing at all about me has been illuminated by your series of verbal swipes.
Now, you say: Living systems adapt over time to the repeated exosure of ANY strong enough stimulus but I can think of half a dozen strong stimuli that the body does not adapt do during its lifespan. Physical trauma. Electrical shock. Vertigo. Sunlight is a perfect example. Your skin burns in a cause-effect relationship if you lie naked in the sun all day for a year. Eventually, it bakes to the point that you won't burn so badly, but you haven't "adapted". It's stimulus-response. If you go back indoors for a year, your skin returns to its normal state. For an adaptation to occur (increased melatonin) it takes thousands of generations. So, now we're back to the original question re: EM interference; if EM damage is cumulative, what cellular process does it interrupt or alter to cause the damage, and how long will the effect last? Is it permanet? Do you propose that EM radiation has an effect like sunlight, baking the cells like a turkey? Or does it have an effect like what happens to my monitor when my cell phone rings, i.e. temporary frequency disturbance that fades immediately?
BTW, most drugs ARE stored in the body for a time... LSD, for example, is practically never gone.
Finally, having derided me enough, we descend into: Don't kid yourself. You are nowhere nearly as objective as you would like to believe. --It is far easier for you to believe that I am a fool who thinks that, 'cells store EM interferrence,' than face the horrifying possibility that I might actually know what I'm talking about. If I knew something which you did not, (impossible!), then that could potentially begin the unraveling of your safe little 'reality'.
Having (in your mind) soundly browbeaten me into a state of bewilderment, and exposed me for a faithless idiot in public, you feel safe in taking undisguised pot-shots at me! Unfortunately, you've shown me exactly nothing that suggests you might actually know what you're talking about, and quite a lot to suggest that you would rather attack me or dismiss me (or both) than present an idea.
How very brash of you. Let me set the record straight. People can react in more than two ways to an occurance with no immediate explanation. I, in fact, take the path of most people who've studied the process of reasoned thought: anything that is true can be proven, and anything that can be proven is true. Your friend can see EM fields and auras, fair enough. That's a hypothesis. Design a method of demonstrating it, without moving the goalposts or resorting to any of the other nasty little debate tricks that lots of scientists AND extra-sensory proponents love so much, and I'll believe it! Willingly and without cynicism, because I'm actually objective. I have no motive and no emotional investment. Can you say the same?
It might surprise you to know that my own beliefs run probably very close to your own. I, however, retain honest, real, unbiased objectivity and expect the same level of proof from all possible invloved parties. This includes myself, and being an accomplished aikido student familiar with ki (having been on the receiving end more often than I like...) I think it's perfectly fair of me. Your friend can see auras? Fine, but picking cellphone users out of a pool with a likely 85% positive hit rate isn't proof... in fact, it lends itself to falsehood and by doing so, he casts the mantle of doubt across his own shoulders. Gimme real proof. I'd ask the same thing from a new employee who says he can r00t my firewall. Okay, you 3733t hax0r you, get some! Prove it.
What you've done in your post is nothing short of a rhetorical drive-by. When, BTW, did you lose your own objectivity? My guess is that you never had it. You were a debunker, and then you flipped. Now you're a defender. Neither one is very well equipped to make unbiased observations. I suspect your friend might like both sides equally well... I've found that those who set their goalpost at faith are likely to use the faithless as stronger proof of their belief! The more ridiculous the statement, the more faith required to accept it. The more you argue something's absurdity, the more it proves the power of faith!
Now, would you like to try again, without personal attack as a substitute for reasoned thought? Without guilt by association, comparing apples to oranges, and false (or flawed) logical connections?
Will you try again, under the scrutiny of someone who can actually see through your verbal trickery to the threadbare idea underneath?
You're an expert in charlatans... well, gosh. So am I!
Whatever happened to JonKatz?
In thinking, I realize some of the points I made may not have been completely clear.
In no particular order:
The idea of a "nearest least logical argument" is self-contradicting. I'm surprised I didn't notice it earlier. If it were the least logical argument, it would necessarily be the farthest from any logical supposition it purported to contradict. If it were the nearest argument, it would necessarily be relativaly well grounded in logical thought. I suppose you could have meant that I chose the nearest argument to your own that followed your guideline of being illogical, but wouldn't that be like saying that neither position made much sense? You can't have meant that...
On further consideration, I remembered that damn near EVERY drug stays in the body in one place or another, many for years after you're dead. That's how a medical examiner tells if you've been poisoned. Some chemicals reside in the fat cells, some in the eyes, some in the hair, etc. The effect of a drug has absolutely no resemblance to the proposed effect of EM radiation on the body.
That reminds me, I've gone and accidentally gifted you the point that EM radiation is bad, and you really haven't even demonstrated that yet. Now we have to go back an entire step before we even get to talk about your original assertion, namely that the damage might be cumulative. Luckily, this is the net, and links are acceptable if you don't feel like laying it all out for me. Beware, however, that basing a strong argument on stupid facts will get you nowhere.
By saying that I would ask someone to r00t my Linux firewall just as I would ask your friend to prove he can see EM aura disturbances, what I mean to say is: I don't let unsubstantiated claims stand. Claiming you're an elite super-hacker carries about the same burden of proof, IMHO, as claiming to be able to read EM signatures in people with your bare eyeballs. While both claims may be true, neither one can stand without substantiation. I rate your cellphone experiment at about the same level as our supposed hacker showing me the latest DoS script he downloaded as proof of his sk1llz.
I should have added the 'straw man' tactic to the litany of crap you threw at me, but I missed that one. It was part of the 'ridiculous' HD example you gave.
I missed a question of yours. Yes, I have experimented with my own ability to align and redirect 'energy' from my own body into that of my wife. She has a severe back injury and sometimes, if I can get into a particularly meditative state, it seems that I'm much more effective at fixing the bone misalignments and nerve problems than I am when I'm actually 'thinking' about it. I can't really be sure of what happens, but it's a curious thing. Also, as I mentioned, I practice Aikido and part of that training is the development of ki and its use. I have had both personal and observational proof of the existance of that particular force.
Examples of how people can be fooled are perfectly relevant, especially when it's extremely possible that they are being employed! Apply Occam's Razor as needed.
As for being told the 'right' thing to believe, well, we aren't talking about belief. We're talking about demonstrating proof. I covered this numerous times, but I don't think I made it perfectly clear. Belief and proof are sometimes at odds, and an objective thinker trains himself to distinguish between the two.
Quickly, in defense of the logical burden of proof: any logical conclusion based on a complete set of true facts must be correct. All hypotheses are required to shoulder this burden, and any that meet this standard must be accepted as fact.
By "creative thinker" you really mean "good bullshitter". I hadn't specifically pointed that out, but I think I beat that particular point into the ground in my previous post.
Man, is this starting to read like Usenet or what!
Lastly, I just couldn't pass up the chance to publicly snicker at the heroin/heroine homonym mistake you made... I laughed so much that I had to reread your whole post so I could maintain the thread in my mind. Those heroines sure do have an effect on the body...
LOL!
Whatever happened to JonKatz?
Wow! We get to be civilized and curteous?
Well then! Would you mind moving this over to email? It's easier for me at work to email commentary of this length... send me a quick note and I'll reply there.
And I promise, I'll can the forensic debate in favor of an actual discussion. You are right, many 'debates' do bury themselves quickly in minutia to the detriment of the actual point. Now that we've established that we're both reasonable people, we can actually talk about something!
Thanks! I'll await your note...
Whatever happened to JonKatz?