The main reason is not that it presents a danger for navigation equipment, but that it could play havoc with the cell towers, (when you are low enough, around t/o and landing). Imagine the towers around an airport with dozens of planes, each with potentially hundreds of cellphones, zipping past, demanding handshake, then nearly-instantaneously demanding hardover to next tower...
Yeah, it also kills your battery as the phone keeps trying to find a tower during your transoceanic trip.
Personally, I like the ban, since the idea of having people inches away from me, on each side, and behind and in front, all shouting away on a cell would drive me nuts. It's bad enough as it is now...
Now here come the 'buts' from the cynical old guys. (I've had more or less happy experiences around the world, in both private and public sector). There's already been a few good posts along these lines.
1. Dump the old crap that people 'generously' donated to you. It'll be big and expensive to ship, and not robust even if it gets there without being broken or stolen. 2. What's the need / use case(s) your devices should satisfy? This should condition your hw & sw selection more than availability (donated old crap) & open source bias, (and this coming from an old BSD wanker). Don't forget support, and available infrastructure, (wireless? electric power?) 3. Who will be the keeper of the stuff? No use giving desirable kit to people who will sell it, lose it or have it taken from them the next day...
I encourage you to whip up some more cash, so you can fly back out there with a suitcase full of new, cheap laptops with whatever distro, language and applications you think appropriate. (Think about how you're going to pass through customs, though...best best may be to make an 'adventure' out of it, and get a bunch of geeks to travel with you, and carry a coupla PCs each) Get your local community involved, setup a page with a link to donate via paypal on. Post it here, and hopefully a few of us (me included) will spare a few bucks to get you started.
Answer to your questions, (some are on my wish list too), "fuck no, little man, we're not interested in providing additional utility, we're too busy chasing the latest c00l marketing paradigm!"
A killer for me was when Win8 flat-out refused to run some of my apps that ran very well under Win7.
You will probably get modded into a smoking hole in the ground, but you are right. Reducing our dependence on fossil fuels is of course a good thing, and if we don't start developing alternative technologies now, then we'll be in trouble when it does run out. Although that date does seem to keep slipping, as discovery and extraction keeps improving.
However, mindlessly subsidising things which are patently never going to be competitive makes no sense, except to the politicians and 'green' shills who do not seem to count, or reason, the same as most logical and well-educated folk.
Hurd? Seriously? What did he do to turn around HP's operations before he got fired? What makes these private equity guys think they can invest a ton of (borrowed) money in Dell and then somehow turn it around so dramatically that they will be able to make a profitable exit in the near future?
I can understand MS propping up Dell with a soft loan from their cash pile, to safeguard one of their biggest conduits to market. Maybe also as a potential OEM for MS hardware, (less likely). But Blackstone? Hell, it's not like Dell has a load of assets to sweat and strip either, they are pretty legendary for running a lean operation. Biggest assets must be Dell's name and a customer base that has loyalty based on price...
If someone can come up with a disparaging name to call a female that is not sexist, please suggest one
There are plenty...'idiot' works for me. If you want extra strength, 'nasty, hypocritical attention-seeking idiot' would seem to apply in this case. Why do you feel the need for something gender-specific?
Note that you can just as well call a female a 'bastard' if you like, it's just slang for 'illegitimate'.
Strangely enough, just about the stongest word you can use against a man in the English language is of course 'cunt'; go figure.
Overall, though, swear word tends to detract from the overall message. I once worked for a boss that I never, ever heard use a swer word. But when he (rarely) felt he had to, he could take verbally take people to pieces like I've never seen.
Rubbish. Our ancestors invented those things you cited without prior knowledge, and in about 100 years, (from 1750 onwards). Lookup the industrial revolution.
You seriously think we could not start "from nothing" (apart from our accumulated knowledge) and not have a lathe going in a few decades?
Of course, if you mean "starting again from plankton", well, that took a lot more time than 1000 years.
That's the problem right there. All power corrupts, absolute power etc. Pick your example; MSFT, Google, Politicians, Catholic Church, in the end they all end up acting, overtly, covertly or usually both, to protect their positions.
History shows that you can't depend upon others, especially large organisations with power, to defend your interests. (Although as pointed out above, the EFF has a good record; but they're hardly Google). You have to do it yourself. Vote for politicians who support open standards, insist that your suppliers send you documents in open formats, educate your peers and customers about open alternatives.
33 mil in eight hands? Wow...more than 4 mil per hand?
I must assume that at least some of the people around the table will have faster and more extreme ways to recover their cash and/or pride than regular law enforcement. Plus the dude was dumb enough to check in with his family?
Hope they live long enough to enjoy their ill-gotten gains. Mind you, one could argue that taking 33 mil from people who are clearly prepared to gamble it away is less immoral than mugging a tramp...
I think, and hope, that history has taught our military leaders plenty. BTW, they are forced to study a lot of history on their way up the greasy pole.
Hence, they certainly know that whilst limited war, if there is such a thing, can indeed lead to vast profits, unlimited war surely leads to ruin.
Of course, we are both gloriously off-topic...what is about is simply one nation-state recognising real and/or potential threats, and organising to counter them. I'm fine with that.
I applaud your altruism; but I've done the same kind of thing in the past, and regretted it.
Not to be too paranoid, but please make sure you've got all your paperwork in order, (you have to right to pass on the PCs etc.), and explicitly state 'no warranty' etc. What if one of the PCs catches fire, and burns down the old folks home you donated it to? Yeah, I know I sound nuts, be we live in a crazy world.
Oh yes, and regarding support. They'll drive you nuts. Really.
Junk the things and just give some cash to a worthy cause.
Great post. I would add one thing, both iOS and Android are very similar; you do get considerable added value if you create an account, and use it to sync etc. As an example, the other day my wife needed something, and I was able to install an ap on her Android phone, remotely via web using playstore. Transparent process for her - just a few minutes later she had another icon on the desktop.
For the careful, nothing stop you from usng a 'dummy' account. Like many here, I suspect, I've got a ton of google accounts, for different uses. Same with Apple.
If you want, you can of course use 'independant' sync options like Sugarsync and Evernote, although they are naturally also open to security vulnerabilities.
As always, it's the facility/utility vs. security trade-off.
I've been here for more than 20 years, and have really enjoyed being financially fucked in the ass by the France Telecom monopoly, swiftly followed by the FT/SFR duopoly, and then Bouygues came along and, tada!, we had the same old...overpriced, underserviced.
Fortunately, after years off battling the well-captured 'regulators', Free has finally got things moving somewhat in the right direction.
My point? Skype buys its out calling service from these fine, regulated companies. It is not a telco in the traditional sense, so leave it alone.
Btw, not a Skype/MS shill, although I freely admit i have found it incredibly useful over the years, and it has saved me and my family a ton of money. Right now moving to Jitsi...it's getting there. (Waiting for Android and iOs clients, please)
I don't have the time, money or inclination to act as unpaid web consultant to all my friends and acquaintences. So I just point them to this and other resources. Google analytics, for example, is far from enterprise-strength, but good enough for hobbyist sites.
Non-experts, by definition, don't know the 'obvious' stuff.
Do you help people out? From your really informative post, I would guess not.
Nice ramble through his life and experiences, (rather fades out the the end), but can't see answers to the questions, (some rather good), that people spent time posting. Pity.
Yeah, most people are beating the shit out of this, prior art, IR, bluetooth, QR codes, whatever...Thay have a point. Transmitting data via audio is new? Nope. But glanced at the patent app, it's actually a *little* more clever than that; the sound would just send a link to download content from a remote server, (presumably owned by Amazon), so you would not go mad while your kid's phone whistled and crackled it's way through transferring a lolcats jpeg. Superficially quite smart, since as they point out, not all phones have bluetooth or whatever ability.
But to implement it, you'd presumably need a smartish phone, and they all have ways of doing this kind of data-transfer already. So I'll give this a fail.
Could be fun, though, imagine "could you just humm that URL for me again, please?"
Slashdot Mirror
The main reason is not that it presents a danger for navigation equipment, but that it could play havoc with the cell towers, (when you are low enough, around t/o and landing). Imagine the towers around an airport with dozens of planes, each with potentially hundreds of cellphones, zipping past, demanding handshake, then nearly-instantaneously demanding hardover to next tower...
Yeah, it also kills your battery as the phone keeps trying to find a tower during your transoceanic trip.
Personally, I like the ban, since the idea of having people inches away from me, on each side, and behind and in front, all shouting away on a cell would drive me nuts. It's bad enough as it is now...
Now here come the 'buts' from the cynical old guys. (I've had more or less happy experiences around the world, in both private and public sector).
There's already been a few good posts along these lines.
1. Dump the old crap that people 'generously' donated to you. It'll be big and expensive to ship, and not robust even if it gets there without being broken or stolen.
2. What's the need / use case(s) your devices should satisfy? This should condition your hw & sw selection more than availability (donated old crap) & open source bias, (and this coming from an old BSD wanker). Don't forget support, and available infrastructure, (wireless? electric power?)
3. Who will be the keeper of the stuff? No use giving desirable kit to people who will sell it, lose it or have it taken from them the next day...
I encourage you to whip up some more cash, so you can fly back out there with a suitcase full of new, cheap laptops with whatever distro, language and applications you think appropriate. (Think about how you're going to pass through customs, though...best best may be to make an 'adventure' out of it, and get a bunch of geeks to travel with you, and carry a coupla PCs each)
Get your local community involved, setup a page with a link to donate via paypal on.
Post it here, and hopefully a few of us (me included) will spare a few bucks to get you started.
Answer to your questions, (some are on my wish list too), "fuck no, little man, we're not interested in providing additional utility, we're too busy chasing the latest c00l marketing paradigm!"
A killer for me was when Win8 flat-out refused to run some of my apps that ran very well under Win7.
You will probably get modded into a smoking hole in the ground, but you are right.
Reducing our dependence on fossil fuels is of course a good thing, and if we don't start developing alternative technologies now, then we'll be in trouble when it does run out. Although that date does seem to keep slipping, as discovery and extraction keeps improving.
However, mindlessly subsidising things which are patently never going to be competitive makes no sense, except to the politicians and 'green' shills who do not seem to count, or reason, the same as most logical and well-educated folk.
Hurd? Seriously? What did he do to turn around HP's operations before he got fired?
What makes these private equity guys think they can invest a ton of (borrowed) money in Dell and then somehow turn it around so dramatically that they will be able to make a profitable exit in the near future?
I can understand MS propping up Dell with a soft loan from their cash pile, to safeguard one of their biggest conduits to market. Maybe also as a potential OEM for MS hardware, (less likely). But Blackstone? Hell, it's not like Dell has a load of assets to sweat and strip either, they are pretty legendary for running a lean operation. Biggest assets must be Dell's name and a customer base that has loyalty based on price...
If someone can come up with a disparaging name to call a female that is not sexist, please suggest one
There are plenty...'idiot' works for me. If you want extra strength, 'nasty, hypocritical attention-seeking idiot' would seem to apply in this case.
Why do you feel the need for something gender-specific?
Note that you can just as well call a female a 'bastard' if you like, it's just slang for 'illegitimate'.
Strangely enough, just about the stongest word you can use against a man in the English language is of course 'cunt'; go figure.
Overall, though, swear word tends to detract from the overall message. I once worked for a boss that I never, ever heard use a swer word.
But when he (rarely) felt he had to, he could take verbally take people to pieces like I've never seen.
Now get off my fucking lawn.
Rubbish. Our ancestors invented those things you cited without prior knowledge, and in about 100 years, (from 1750 onwards).
Lookup the industrial revolution.
You seriously think we could not start "from nothing" (apart from our accumulated knowledge) and not have a lathe going in a few decades?
Of course, if you mean "starting again from plankton", well, that took a lot more time than 1000 years.
Have they tried:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfonamide_(medicine)
If not, Phage therapy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_resistance
Good luck to your friend.
That's the problem right there. All power corrupts, absolute power etc.
Pick your example; MSFT, Google, Politicians, Catholic Church, in the end they all end up acting, overtly, covertly or usually both, to protect their positions.
History shows that you can't depend upon others, especially large organisations with power, to defend your interests.
(Although as pointed out above, the EFF has a good record; but they're hardly Google).
You have to do it yourself. Vote for politicians who support open standards, insist that your suppliers send you documents in open formats, educate your peers and customers about open alternatives.
Stop whining and get off your ass, basically.
Nice to see an alternative point of view.
Clearly YMMV, but I find Evernote works very well for me on BB, iOS, Win...
This could spice up the golfing action...
Once the guys get pissed with the noise, and start packing shotguns in their golf bags.
Whole new meaning of "getting a birdie".
Actually, I might pay to see that..
Sorry for you. In Europe, it's pretty good...
'Die Hard' reference, boys & girls...
33 mil in eight hands? Wow...more than 4 mil per hand?
I must assume that at least some of the people around the table will have faster and more extreme ways to recover their cash and/or pride than regular law enforcement. Plus the dude was dumb enough to check in with his family?
Hope they live long enough to enjoy their ill-gotten gains. Mind you, one could argue that taking 33 mil from people who are clearly prepared to gamble it away is less immoral than mugging a tramp...
So, just like the alternatives from Ms, Google, Sugarsync etc then...
I think, and hope, that history has taught our military leaders plenty.
BTW, they are forced to study a lot of history on their way up the greasy pole.
Hence, they certainly know that whilst limited war, if there is such a thing, can indeed lead to vast profits, unlimited war surely leads to ruin.
Of course, we are both gloriously off-topic...what is about is simply one nation-state recognising real and/or potential threats, and organising to counter them. I'm fine with that.
I applaud your altruism; but I've done the same kind of thing in the past, and regretted it.
Not to be too paranoid, but please make sure you've got all your paperwork in order, (you have to right to pass on the PCs etc.), and explicitly state 'no warranty' etc. What if one of the PCs catches fire, and burns down the old folks home you donated it to? Yeah, I know I sound nuts, be we live in a crazy world.
Oh yes, and regarding support. They'll drive you nuts. Really.
Junk the things and just give some cash to a worthy cause.
Well, I did just that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire
Seems like plenty of nasty stuff escapted, but no plutonium...
Great post. I would add one thing, both iOS and Android are very similar; you do get considerable added value if you create an account, and use it to sync etc.
As an example, the other day my wife needed something, and I was able to install an ap on her Android phone, remotely via web using playstore. Transparent process for her - just a few minutes later she had another icon on the desktop.
For the careful, nothing stop you from usng a 'dummy' account. Like many here, I suspect, I've got a ton of google accounts, for different uses. Same with Apple.
If you want, you can of course use 'independant' sync options like Sugarsync and Evernote, although they are naturally also open to security vulnerabilities.
As always, it's the facility/utility vs. security trade-off.
http://docs.kali.org/armel-armhf/install-kali-samsung-chromebook
Alternatives here...
http://www.concise-courses.com/security/top-ten-distros/
OK, they brought us the Minitel. Er, thanks...
I've been here for more than 20 years, and have really enjoyed being financially fucked in the ass by the France Telecom monopoly, swiftly followed by the FT/SFR duopoly, and then Bouygues came along and, tada!, we had the same old...overpriced, underserviced.
Fortunately, after years off battling the well-captured 'regulators', Free has finally got things moving somewhat in the right direction.
My point? Skype buys its out calling service from these fine, regulated companies. It is not a telco in the traditional sense, so leave it alone.
Btw, not a Skype/MS shill, although I freely admit i have found it incredibly useful over the years, and it has saved me and my family a ton of money. Right now moving to Jitsi...it's getting there. (Waiting for Android and iOs clients, please)
Hey, calm down. I said 'basic'.
I don't have the time, money or inclination to act as unpaid web consultant to all my friends and acquaintences.
So I just point them to this and other resources. Google analytics, for example, is far from enterprise-strength, but good enough for hobbyist sites.
Non-experts, by definition, don't know the 'obvious' stuff.
Do you help people out? From your really informative post, I would guess not.
Nice ramble through his life and experiences, (rather fades out the the end), but can't see answers to the questions, (some rather good), that people spent time posting. Pity.
How is that any different than sending a URL via a modem?
Urm, the cable?
Yeah, most people are beating the shit out of this, prior art, IR, bluetooth, QR codes, whatever...Thay have a point. Transmitting data via audio is new? Nope.
But glanced at the patent app, it's actually a *little* more clever than that; the sound would just send a link to download content from a remote server, (presumably owned by Amazon), so you would not go mad while your kid's phone whistled and crackled it's way through transferring a lolcats jpeg.
Superficially quite smart, since as they point out, not all phones have bluetooth or whatever ability.
But to implement it, you'd presumably need a smartish phone, and they all have ways of doing this kind of data-transfer already. So I'll give this a fail.
Could be fun, though, imagine "could you just humm that URL for me again, please?"