A-GPS still uses only GPS signals for positioning, but gets help from a data network (not necessarily mobile). Basically it receives certain orbital info of GPS satellites that are normally transmitted on the GPS signal itself. But regular GPS data is slow, it can take ten minutes or more to get all data complete. Over the network it's a fraction of a second. This often helps getting a fix much faster than with plain GPS, but the location itself is pure GPS based.
Some phones may also use the mobile network for triangulation, independent from GPS, and usually less accurate.
Sooner or later there will be viable space tourism, and further exploration. Having commerce dipping in it will only make development go a lot faster than if you have to wait for NASA et.al. to do it.
I just finished rewatching Firefly. It's a bit further in the future, but when they talked about recycled space ships, for some reason I immediately had to think of Serenity.
The time part is of utmost importance when it comes to GPS signals. After all it's the time difference at which signals arrive which allows the receiver to calculate its location. Getting the correct timing is the trick, and may not be so easy to do.
An organisation like the Iranian government will likely be able to pull it off - I do expect them to have a few atomic clocks around. A random insurgent/terrorist/freedom fighters/guerilla group (name them depending on which side you are) will have more issues getting it done.
I'm keeping this in mind for when my almost a decade old but still functional wifi router stops working. The next one is not going to be a Cisco. No idea what it will be, but not Cisco. Just something else.
GPS signals are weak, and as such can be easily disturbed by simple jamming: broadcasting noise at that frequency range. So that part is very plausible.
Giving it fake GPS signals (i.e. valid but wrong data), not so much. GPS relies on satellites, with high-precision timed signals, and needs to receive multiple signals at a time to get a location. That means the jammers basically need a GPS transmitter, and I don't think they're easy to come by. The only ones that I know to exist are circling around our planet.
The encryption is probably not too hard to overcome: jam the military (encrypted) signals, feed fake civilian (unencrypted) signals. Very likely that civilian signals are fall-back. But creating valid signals, that's the problem.
Blocking/jamming other communication: well that's of course also a no-brainer. You just have to find the correct frequencies to jam.
So all in all your malfunction-theory is very plausible.
What I meant, and that's previous experience, is that companies often have a standard configuration (a set of hardware and a set of software) and the software stack is not upgraded until the hardware is upgraded, and then usually in one go.
Also when a computer is installed, it stays like that until the hardware dies. If it's got XP when bought and first installed, it'll normally not be upgraded to Win7 or so.
Forget about the desktop. Mobile is what's pulling it now.
It's going to be more and more important for businesses to be compatible with tablets, so iOS and Android based devices. Not only do they not run Windows, they don't run standard MS Office and IE. This means you can't make your browser IE-only as your customers or employees on tablets can't use it. You can't just send around.doc files as they may not be able to read them well.
This I see is going to be a push to standards. Not directly Linux on the desktop, but data exchange using standards. The last standards we still have to tackle are documents, in the form of html (web browsers) and word processors (MS Office, OpenOffice, etc). HTML is evolving nicely, for read-only documents we have pdf, the only thing is editable documents that's an issue. And an issue that's going to be solved soon enough when enough businesses start moving their sales people to tablets instead of laptops.
And when we're finally rid of the stranglehold of MS Office and IE, the underlying OS is becoming irrelevant, and other choices are opening up. Linux may be one of them. The important part though is that we're not being bound to Windows and Office anymore. Use them if you like them, but be happy that you can exchange documents with your colleague on the road who's using an Asus Transformer, the one who's using an iPad, and the one who's using a Surface, without having to worry what they're using.
Back in 2001 when XP was released, most businesses were running 2k or 98 on the desktop. It took a few years for that to change - must have been more like 2003/04 that most businesses were on XP. Or even later, depending on their upgrade cycle. OSes are upgraded with the hardware normally.
Indeed it's ridiculous in a way that most businesses still run XP but it's mostly MS's doing. For about a decade they did not provide new version of their OS (not counting the SP1/2/3 upgrades). Hardware has become faster; so fast the slowest of a few years ago is still more than adequate for business use, and with the poor economy there is little incentive to toss out perfectly good working computers just because they're three years old. Five years is normally no problem for a computer to work reliably.
Have MS bring out a proper new version (Win7 may fit the bill), and businesses will switch when the time is there: and with a five-year lifetime of existing computers, it will take until about 2016 for most of them to leave XP behind.
Nothing will happen as they both wait for the other to make the first move. Because that's how they cheat: wait for the human hand to make a move, and react to that.
I have a pet turtle that has laid eggs twice now, most recently last week. It hasn't met another turtle since I bought it as a baby from the pet store, several years ago.
The question is: why do they want to keep the logs much longer? I know all the arguments for keeping them for a short time - not for keeping them for long, as many do.
Well, of course. The shorter the better, privacy-wise.
That said: can anyone tell me the arguments for keeping logs that much longer (other than legal requirements)?
Many ISPs as the summary mentions keep logs for up to three years; there must be a reason for them to do this - as I understand from other commenters there is no legal requirement in the US to keep them this long. Logs can be quite bulky, there is an immense amount of data to log for a largish ISP, so keeping those logs costs money, and quite a bit of it. So, why do they do this? Is there any technical/managemental need or use for that? Another reason?
In interviews she regularly mentions that she is interested in the science they do.
But indeed not a trained scientist; but that accounts for all of them. Though you don't have to be trained, to be able to work according to the scientific method, and that's what they do quite well.
Submitters also really have a problem with the location.
First article: not mentioned.
This article: false location. It is in Guangzhou (also known by its old English name of Canton) all-right, but that's the name of a city, not a province. This city in Guangdong province, which is in the south of China. There is no "Southern Guangzhou Province" in China.
Airport security: purports to be watertight, to keep any and all potential attackers off the planes. It's not to discourage attempts, it's to stop actual attempts. And for that they must be 100% tight to work, there is no room for false negatives. The irony here is that metal detectors may not have been perfect, but were pretty good at detection even small bits of metal like buds in my jeans. Good luck getting a knife through such a detector.
DUI checkpoints: do not try to be watertight, a 90% detection rate is good enough for them to work fine. They're primarily discouraging and secondarily to take drunk drivers off the road. The effect is that many drivers when drunk will not drive for risking to run into a checkpoint, and let a sober friend drive them. For most people the 10% chance of being let through is not worth the stress caused by the 90% risk of being caught.
In this case I think they don't want to use the name "terahertz wave scanner" because it sounds too scary. People may realise they're being exposed to potentially ionising radiation.
The same article mentions that P-32 can be used as radioactive marker, as it can be detected outside the body. So at least part of the beta-particles make it pretty far through tissue.
This phosphorus-32 is a beta-emitter, and being applied directly to the skin the dose is highest at the tumour, and then quickly decreases as the particles disperse, and are stopped by other matter.
It is of course not something to leave on for long time, it will damage you. The principle of course, like with all radiation therapy, is that the damage done is less than the problem solved. Also I would expect that this can be applied to other skin cancers that are sensitive to radiation, making the treatment even more interesting.
Slashdot Mirror
A-GPS still uses only GPS signals for positioning, but gets help from a data network (not necessarily mobile). Basically it receives certain orbital info of GPS satellites that are normally transmitted on the GPS signal itself. But regular GPS data is slow, it can take ten minutes or more to get all data complete. Over the network it's a fraction of a second. This often helps getting a fix much faster than with plain GPS, but the location itself is pure GPS based.
Some phones may also use the mobile network for triangulation, independent from GPS, and usually less accurate.
Sooner or later there will be viable space tourism, and further exploration. Having commerce dipping in it will only make development go a lot faster than if you have to wait for NASA et.al. to do it.
I just finished rewatching Firefly. It's a bit further in the future, but when they talked about recycled space ships, for some reason I immediately had to think of Serenity.
The time part is of utmost importance when it comes to GPS signals. After all it's the time difference at which signals arrive which allows the receiver to calculate its location. Getting the correct timing is the trick, and may not be so easy to do.
An organisation like the Iranian government will likely be able to pull it off - I do expect them to have a few atomic clocks around. A random insurgent/terrorist/freedom fighters/guerilla group (name them depending on which side you are) will have more issues getting it done.
I'm keeping this in mind for when my almost a decade old but still functional wifi router stops working. The next one is not going to be a Cisco. No idea what it will be, but not Cisco. Just something else.
GPS signals are weak, and as such can be easily disturbed by simple jamming: broadcasting noise at that frequency range. So that part is very plausible.
Giving it fake GPS signals (i.e. valid but wrong data), not so much. GPS relies on satellites, with high-precision timed signals, and needs to receive multiple signals at a time to get a location. That means the jammers basically need a GPS transmitter, and I don't think they're easy to come by. The only ones that I know to exist are circling around our planet.
The encryption is probably not too hard to overcome: jam the military (encrypted) signals, feed fake civilian (unencrypted) signals. Very likely that civilian signals are fall-back. But creating valid signals, that's the problem.
Blocking/jamming other communication: well that's of course also a no-brainer. You just have to find the correct frequencies to jam.
So all in all your malfunction-theory is very plausible.
It's easy to assume that because a country is poorer and can't afford fancy hardware, its people are idiots. But that's a bad assumption to make.
Necessity is the mother of all invention, right?
People that don't have much can become really creative with what they do have.
What I meant, and that's previous experience, is that companies often have a standard configuration (a set of hardware and a set of software) and the software stack is not upgraded until the hardware is upgraded, and then usually in one go.
Also when a computer is installed, it stays like that until the hardware dies. If it's got XP when bought and first installed, it'll normally not be upgraded to Win7 or so.
Forget about the desktop. Mobile is what's pulling it now.
It's going to be more and more important for businesses to be compatible with tablets, so iOS and Android based devices. Not only do they not run Windows, they don't run standard MS Office and IE. This means you can't make your browser IE-only as your customers or employees on tablets can't use it. You can't just send around .doc files as they may not be able to read them well.
This I see is going to be a push to standards. Not directly Linux on the desktop, but data exchange using standards. The last standards we still have to tackle are documents, in the form of html (web browsers) and word processors (MS Office, OpenOffice, etc). HTML is evolving nicely, for read-only documents we have pdf, the only thing is editable documents that's an issue. And an issue that's going to be solved soon enough when enough businesses start moving their sales people to tablets instead of laptops.
And when we're finally rid of the stranglehold of MS Office and IE, the underlying OS is becoming irrelevant, and other choices are opening up. Linux may be one of them. The important part though is that we're not being bound to Windows and Office anymore. Use them if you like them, but be happy that you can exchange documents with your colleague on the road who's using an Asus Transformer, the one who's using an iPad, and the one who's using a Surface, without having to worry what they're using.
Back in 2001 when XP was released, most businesses were running 2k or 98 on the desktop. It took a few years for that to change - must have been more like 2003/04 that most businesses were on XP. Or even later, depending on their upgrade cycle. OSes are upgraded with the hardware normally.
Indeed it's ridiculous in a way that most businesses still run XP but it's mostly MS's doing. For about a decade they did not provide new version of their OS (not counting the SP1/2/3 upgrades). Hardware has become faster; so fast the slowest of a few years ago is still more than adequate for business use, and with the poor economy there is little incentive to toss out perfectly good working computers just because they're three years old. Five years is normally no problem for a computer to work reliably.
Have MS bring out a proper new version (Win7 may fit the bill), and businesses will switch when the time is there: and with a five-year lifetime of existing computers, it will take until about 2016 for most of them to leave XP behind.
then you first have to find a handless opponent that can play RPS.
Nothing will happen as they both wait for the other to make the first move. Because that's how they cheat: wait for the human hand to make a move, and react to that.
I have a pet turtle that has laid eggs twice now, most recently last week. It hasn't met another turtle since I bought it as a baby from the pet store, several years ago.
The question is: why do they want to keep the logs much longer? I know all the arguments for keeping them for a short time - not for keeping them for long, as many do.
For a second there I thought you were some sort of dissident in a third world nation or corporate whistleblower.
When it comes to dissidents and whistleblowers the US can be at least as bad as your average third-world country, if not worse.
Well, of course. The shorter the better, privacy-wise.
That said: can anyone tell me the arguments for keeping logs that much longer (other than legal requirements)?
Many ISPs as the summary mentions keep logs for up to three years; there must be a reason for them to do this - as I understand from other commenters there is no legal requirement in the US to keep them this long. Logs can be quite bulky, there is an immense amount of data to log for a largish ISP, so keeping those logs costs money, and quite a bit of it. So, why do they do this? Is there any technical/managemental need or use for that? Another reason?
I was thinking of a fashion ad :-)
Sounds like she's both a scientist, and a woman. That doesn't sound too strange.
And I do suppose that those high heels stay well away from the lab, possibly even from the complete workfloor.
I wonder why scientists (both male and female) always have to be seen as nerdish and unworldly. Sure some are, but far from all.
In interviews she regularly mentions that she is interested in the science they do.
But indeed not a trained scientist; but that accounts for all of them. Though you don't have to be trained, to be able to work according to the scientific method, and that's what they do quite well.
Looking back at older episodes her shirts have become tighter... though I think that's mostly due to the producers.
The originals or the copies?
Submitters also really have a problem with the location.
First article: not mentioned.
This article: false location. It is in Guangzhou (also known by its old English name of Canton) all-right, but that's the name of a city, not a province. This city in Guangdong province, which is in the south of China. There is no "Southern Guangzhou Province" in China.
Very bad analogy.
Airport security: purports to be watertight, to keep any and all potential attackers off the planes. It's not to discourage attempts, it's to stop actual attempts. And for that they must be 100% tight to work, there is no room for false negatives. The irony here is that metal detectors may not have been perfect, but were pretty good at detection even small bits of metal like buds in my jeans. Good luck getting a knife through such a detector.
DUI checkpoints: do not try to be watertight, a 90% detection rate is good enough for them to work fine. They're primarily discouraging and secondarily to take drunk drivers off the road. The effect is that many drivers when drunk will not drive for risking to run into a checkpoint, and let a sober friend drive them. For most people the 10% chance of being let through is not worth the stress caused by the 90% risk of being caught.
In this case I think they don't want to use the name "terahertz wave scanner" because it sounds too scary. People may realise they're being exposed to potentially ionising radiation.
The same article mentions that P-32 can be used as radioactive marker, as it can be detected outside the body. So at least part of the beta-particles make it pretty far through tissue.
This phosphorus-32 is a beta-emitter, and being applied directly to the skin the dose is highest at the tumour, and then quickly decreases as the particles disperse, and are stopped by other matter.
It is of course not something to leave on for long time, it will damage you. The principle of course, like with all radiation therapy, is that the damage done is less than the problem solved. Also I would expect that this can be applied to other skin cancers that are sensitive to radiation, making the treatment even more interesting.