Cellphone companies are using equipment that's from the 90s at the earliest. A regular phone company could have switches from the 50s. Most of ours date to the mid to late 70s. They cost millions back then, but city governments usually funded their purchase with low or no interest loans. They don't make anything like that anymore. You install mux's and run the traffic via fiber to wherever your headquarters is and add it onto a software switch. But those have licensing, you need bigger bandwidth, it's not a cheap processes at all. But once it's done you end up saving money. Telcos are doing REALLY badly right now. They are still regulated to the hilt (for no apparent reason) while the cable companies and googles of the world have free reign to offer ultra cheap IP phone service right in the telcos territory. What's ironic is most cable companies still only set their price slightly bellow the local telcos even though they really could offer it for free... or very close to free. That shoe could drop any day and we'd really be screwed. So there's no way in hell any telcos going to do these sorts of conversions on their own.
Also... Canada. Last time I checked you only had 1 phone company. No competition makes a big difference.
What are it's capabilities for XMBC? I'm currently using a Full PC with 8gigs of ram and a pretty nice Video card. Does it really decode x264 in 1080p without a problem? Will my wireless keyboard work with it? Or do I have to use that horrible remote?
Yes, but that would be in a patent dispute. Where 2 parties were arguing over who owned a patent. If one party were arguing that there was NO patent because they had prior art... I'm not sure how that would go. Patent lawyers? I know you're out there... what say you?
Well, I hate the NSA... but you're wrong there. I work for a telco and am involved in Billing software. There's plenty of reason to keep data around for a while. Disputes, bankruptcies, etc... not everyone pays their bill every month you know. But keep in mind, the only records we keep on call data are calls that cost the customer or the company money. So collect calls... long distance... etc... Keep data on local calls? Yea right... that's not even possible given that most switches are leftover from the 70s and quite literally have proprietary 20 megabyte drives (not kidding at all) If we had them log all calls, all day, they'd fill up in minutes.
We get around the limits by having scrips log in and dump the data daily to a database. To collect everything would be insane... we'd be scraping the switch every 5min and they are NOT fast. To do what they are proposing we'd have to convert every small town switch to a newer "soft-switch" and that would be a very expensive, very complicated project that would involve hundreds of people. We'd need government grants I'd imagine as it would likely bankrupt most small Telcos. I think that even AT&T would balk at this. I doubt they capture any more data that we do. If this does go through and the feds fund the expansion, it'd improve the countries phone network considerably but it would also increase the NSA's data collection capability several orders of magnitude. They'd have EVERYTHING... not just those calls that generate revenue.
Actually, it collects more data for them. Currently they only have data collection at most of the major Telcos. There are hundreds of smaller telcos in the country they likely have very little info on. This would require ALL data be collected and available via API to them. This will get them more data, quicker, at less cost and reduce and, more importantly make it totally legal. Win Win for the NSA.
There is. Fire everyone involved. Close the facilities. Make them into museums for people to visit and see the follies of our past. That how this will eventually end anyway, it's just a matter of how bad we're going to let it get before we do it.
Traffic shaping. There's plenty of free software out there... you give yourself priority over all other traffic. They can use it for free but as soon as you hop on you get first dibs. Liability for what strangers do with your open wifi is another thing. Sure, you may eventually win in court but when the police haul you out of work on child porn charges how victorious will you feel when you finally get cleared 3 years later after spending your last dime on lawyers?
You don't understand how torrents work then. Quite a few years ago a group of college students got the RIAA to send take down notices to a campus printer, router and several other pieces of electronics. IP addresses mean absolutely nothing unless you control the entire network from end to end.
The US invaded Afghanistan in a legitimate act of self defense after a series of attacks on diplomatic posts and military units culminating in the 9/11 attacks.
Wait, I'm confused. Which Afgan war are you talking about? In the one we were the country with the secret spys providing stinger missiles to shoot down aircraft to a gorilla group that did not represent the legitimate government of that country and later became the Taliban... In the other the Taliban were generally assholes but no more than any other theocracy in the world and being poor and impovrished had little choice when the US said "Hand over Osama" and when the US did invade we didn't capture him anyway. But at least we installed our own "just" government and they're free of the Taliban now right? So twice we've armed groups that did not represent the people in a war that mattered little to the people and even justified the second war by saying we needed to throw out the ones we install during the first?
As to Iraq, maybe you could explain to me why you think ordinary Iraqis would want to continue being subjected to Saddam's government?
It's none of our God damned buisness why Iraqies put up with Saddam. Maybe if it were Canada we'd have more of a say... but Iraq? That's so far outside our moral jurisdiction I can't even bother to reply. If the ENTIRE middle east, the whole of Islam thought it wasn't their place to interfere, how on earth could we claim that it was our own? Oh, that's right, we were invovled in the coup that put him in power. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
For Christs sake. We cannot trust our government. They should not be involved in this crap. We should stay the hell out of it. We do harm... that's it. Saddam was a horrible person but our invasion killed more Iraqis than Saddam ever did and the country is falling right back into the same morass it was before he left. Now Al Qaeda is flying flags over Fallugha! http://www.breitbart.com/Big-P...
The only way to win the game is never to play in the first place.
Where? That doesn't describe Iraq. That doesn't describe Afghanistan. Your statement is false.
It doesn't? I think your view and my view on those 2 invasions may differ slightly. We were the benevolent helper country that "Freed the people" right? lol
Is my son now going to have to suffer the life of a soldier like my father because of some assholes half way around the planet can't just fucking leave well enough alone with his rich life of being a political prick?
The only Political pricks that can send your son to war are right here in the good old USA. Careful who you vote for, and keep the camper full of gas... you just might be moving to Canada in the middle of the night.
Where on earth did Russia get the idea they could stir up political descent with spys, attack a countries network infrastructure then invade after there was a coup and have the people hold questionable votes for a new government that violate that sovereign nations constitution all while at gunpoint? Oh wait... that's right, we did. Shit.
But if they find a pallet full of burst lithium batteries and bodies that died from smoke inhalation as well as no control from the cockpit for whatever length of time they do have on the flight recorder I think we'd have a pretty good idea.
I basically rooting, at this point, for the pilot to be cleared. Because the unwarranted animosity the press showed towards him based on just about 0 evidence deserves to be punished. Lastly, someone has to shut down CNN at this point. I mean, I dislike Fox and MSNBC as much as anyone but for Christs sake at least they have some shred of integrity left. CNN is to news what the Discovery channel is to science.
In the Unverified Digital World, Are Journalists and Bloggers Equal?
Well, I think we have a document on that subject around here somewhere... oh yea, here it is:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
The people noticed. Explained what happened and weren't believed. The authorities thought they'd dropped a cigar or something. Now they realize these people may have been telling the truth. I've done some metal working with Titanium alloy in the past. It throws VERY hot sparks. Aluminum hardly sparks at all, and when it does they aren't very hot and do not last long at all.
Also, most brush fires start UNDER the grass. There's a dry bed of grass beneeth the green gras above. The fire spreads under the grass and you very well may not notice it. It will kreep along until it hits a big fuel source. I could see someone hitting a ball out of the rough... then walking up to the cart or whatever and notice smoke back where you just walked away from and thinking "WTF?"
What? Inflation has nothing to do with capitalism. Inflation requires currency to exist and capitalism does not. Capitalism would work if we were trading goats or something. If the price of goats sky rocketed I could decide to keep my goats and trade chickens instead (which I think is likely what the poor did during the tulip situation.) Most modern inflation is the result of governments trying to manipulate currency with socialism based mechanics. Look to Venezuela right now. They are doing what Jimmy Carter did and they are getting the exact same result. Capitalism works in a very predictable manner and the fact that we don't learn the clear lessons of history and continue to think we've found some end-run on how financial markets work (Allen Greenspan lol) is a joke and will be the ruin of us all.
The 4th Amendment's warrant requirement only applies when there is an expectation of privacy. There is no expectation of privacy when you are out in public, nor in anything that can be investigated with plain human senses (plain view, plain smell, etc).
When operating a motor vehicle on a public roadway, there is no expectation of privacy attached to your license plate number, or your location. A police officer can follow you around all day without a warrant, and run as many checks on your plate number as he desires, and make a note of everywhere you go.
An officer does not need a warrant to listen to a conversation you have with someone at a park, nor does he need a warrant to take a sniff of whatever it is you're smoking outside your office.
You guys need to get over yourselves.
This has nothing to do with privacy. It is unconstitutional for law enforcement to target you without probable cause. The fact that new technology allows them to target everyone, all the time, does not make it any less unconstitutional. If private citizens were doing this it would be different and would likely get settled in civil court. But the police are a government organization and the constitution was created specifically to limit governments power.
Um, you have no idea how the government works do you? This agency has absolutely no reason to change. So they wont. This has been, and always will be the problem with government run institutions. The money still comes in weather you do it right or not. In fact, if you do it wrong, they might hire more people and promote you to manager.
The "legal" method that's fairly standard is the other way around. The temp agency places you, and you work for them. The company hiring the temp agency agrees not to hire you for a term... 6 months to 2 years depending, because the temp agency needs to recoup the cost of scouting you. Often there's a clause where the hiring company can buy their way out of it if they really want you bad or they're afraid you could just go to a 3rd party. All of this is pretty standard and legal because everyone knows what they're getting into. But, if unknown to you, every other party has made a secret agreement with the original company not to hire you, you're screwed. There's no-where to go and you're no longer dealing with a free market. You're being forced to abide by a contract that you never signed and don't even know exists.
The test for weather something is good for capitalism or not is "Does it increase or reduce transparency in the marketplace" If it increases it, then it's good. If it decreases it, then it's bad. Clearly these agreements reduced transparency and closed off parts of the market to both the workers and even the firms involved. The firms were then able to use this secret blacklist against their employees to reduce the rate at which they increased their compensation. The worker would apply and quickly learn that most places wouldn't hire them. This is exactly what anti-trust laws are supposed to prevent. Secret agreements between 2 parties that affect public agreements of a 3rd unwitting party are the bane of capitalism. And, in fact, if you were to argue against capitalism, the inevitability of such agreements would be one of your strongest arguments.
Doing that while simultaneously devising some entirely new sort of object would be a truly impressive feat indeed. I presume it's the sort of thing you do routinely, though. Got links? I'd love to see genius of higher order than represented by this tape measure at work.
I do and have. I've had a few of my tools/jigs featured in magazines (like 3) You'll have to take my word for it though. I don't care to link my slashdot account to my real name:-)
Oh, and if software counts, I've got a bunch of that all over the place.
Not that this is even remotely related to what you're talking about. I don't if I'd even describe what you're suggesting as "rapidly approaching" We barely understand the very rudimentary aspects of the brain, much less how "Thought" gets made. But I do concede that should we survive long enough as as a society then yes, something like this will come along and someone bad will use it for bad things. So what do you propose we do? Make it illegal? That wont stop North Korea from doing anything. Ban research? That might delay it but again, the bad people always find a way. Best we learn as much about it and use it for good so that when it gets used for bad we can recognize and understand whats happening quicker and possible had a fix developed already.
Slashdot Mirror
Cellphone companies are using equipment that's from the 90s at the earliest. A regular phone company could have switches from the 50s. Most of ours date to the mid to late 70s. They cost millions back then, but city governments usually funded their purchase with low or no interest loans. They don't make anything like that anymore. You install mux's and run the traffic via fiber to wherever your headquarters is and add it onto a software switch. But those have licensing, you need bigger bandwidth, it's not a cheap processes at all. But once it's done you end up saving money. Telcos are doing REALLY badly right now. They are still regulated to the hilt (for no apparent reason) while the cable companies and googles of the world have free reign to offer ultra cheap IP phone service right in the telcos territory. What's ironic is most cable companies still only set their price slightly bellow the local telcos even though they really could offer it for free... or very close to free. That shoe could drop any day and we'd really be screwed. So there's no way in hell any telcos going to do these sorts of conversions on their own.
Also... Canada. Last time I checked you only had 1 phone company. No competition makes a big difference.
At leas the NSA didn't buy it... wait... maybe the did. Fuck.
What are it's capabilities for XMBC? I'm currently using a Full PC with 8gigs of ram and a pretty nice Video card. Does it really decode x264 in 1080p without a problem? Will my wireless keyboard work with it? Or do I have to use that horrible remote?
Yes, but that would be in a patent dispute. Where 2 parties were arguing over who owned a patent. If one party were arguing that there was NO patent because they had prior art... I'm not sure how that would go. Patent lawyers? I know you're out there... what say you?
Well, I hate the NSA... but you're wrong there. I work for a telco and am involved in Billing software. There's plenty of reason to keep data around for a while. Disputes, bankruptcies, etc... not everyone pays their bill every month you know. But keep in mind, the only records we keep on call data are calls that cost the customer or the company money. So collect calls... long distance... etc... Keep data on local calls? Yea right... that's not even possible given that most switches are leftover from the 70s and quite literally have proprietary 20 megabyte drives (not kidding at all) If we had them log all calls, all day, they'd fill up in minutes.
We get around the limits by having scrips log in and dump the data daily to a database. To collect everything would be insane... we'd be scraping the switch every 5min and they are NOT fast. To do what they are proposing we'd have to convert every small town switch to a newer "soft-switch" and that would be a very expensive, very complicated project that would involve hundreds of people. We'd need government grants I'd imagine as it would likely bankrupt most small Telcos. I think that even AT&T would balk at this. I doubt they capture any more data that we do. If this does go through and the feds fund the expansion, it'd improve the countries phone network considerably but it would also increase the NSA's data collection capability several orders of magnitude. They'd have EVERYTHING... not just those calls that generate revenue.
Actually, it collects more data for them. Currently they only have data collection at most of the major Telcos. There are hundreds of smaller telcos in the country they likely have very little info on. This would require ALL data be collected and available via API to them. This will get them more data, quicker, at less cost and reduce and, more importantly make it totally legal. Win Win for the NSA.
There is. Fire everyone involved. Close the facilities. Make them into museums for people to visit and see the follies of our past. That how this will eventually end anyway, it's just a matter of how bad we're going to let it get before we do it.
Traffic shaping. There's plenty of free software out there... you give yourself priority over all other traffic. They can use it for free but as soon as you hop on you get first dibs. Liability for what strangers do with your open wifi is another thing. Sure, you may eventually win in court but when the police haul you out of work on child porn charges how victorious will you feel when you finally get cleared 3 years later after spending your last dime on lawyers?
You don't understand how torrents work then. Quite a few years ago a group of college students got the RIAA to send take down notices to a campus printer, router and several other pieces of electronics. IP addresses mean absolutely nothing unless you control the entire network from end to end.
It will sell copy, and they can make a movie out of it. So yes, it will matter a great deal.
The US invaded Afghanistan in a legitimate act of self defense after a series of attacks on diplomatic posts and military units culminating in the 9/11 attacks.
Wait, I'm confused. Which Afgan war are you talking about? In the one we were the country with the secret spys providing stinger missiles to shoot down aircraft to a gorilla group that did not represent the legitimate government of that country and later became the Taliban... In the other the Taliban were generally assholes but no more than any other theocracy in the world and being poor and impovrished had little choice when the US said "Hand over Osama" and when the US did invade we didn't capture him anyway. But at least we installed our own "just" government and they're free of the Taliban now right? So twice we've armed groups that did not represent the people in a war that mattered little to the people and even justified the second war by saying we needed to throw out the ones we install during the first?
As to Iraq, maybe you could explain to me why you think ordinary Iraqis would want to continue being subjected to Saddam's government?
It's none of our God damned buisness why Iraqies put up with Saddam. Maybe if it were Canada we'd have more of a say... but Iraq? That's so far outside our moral jurisdiction I can't even bother to reply. If the ENTIRE middle east, the whole of Islam thought it wasn't their place to interfere, how on earth could we claim that it was our own? Oh, that's right, we were invovled in the coup that put him in power. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
For Christs sake. We cannot trust our government. They should not be involved in this crap. We should stay the hell out of it. We do harm... that's it. Saddam was a horrible person but our invasion killed more Iraqis than Saddam ever did and the country is falling right back into the same morass it was before he left. Now Al Qaeda is flying flags over Fallugha! http://www.breitbart.com/Big-P...
The only way to win the game is never to play in the first place.
Where? That doesn't describe Iraq. That doesn't describe Afghanistan. Your statement is false.
It doesn't? I think your view and my view on those 2 invasions may differ slightly. We were the benevolent helper country that "Freed the people" right? lol
I've found it Ironic that he's mirror nearly every US conflict since the Vietnam war and we're getting pissed about it.
Is my son now going to have to suffer the life of a soldier like my father because of some assholes half way around the planet can't just fucking leave well enough alone with his rich life of being a political prick?
The only Political pricks that can send your son to war are right here in the good old USA. Careful who you vote for, and keep the camper full of gas... you just might be moving to Canada in the middle of the night.
Where on earth did Russia get the idea they could stir up political descent with spys, attack a countries network infrastructure then invade after there was a coup and have the people hold questionable votes for a new government that violate that sovereign nations constitution all while at gunpoint? Oh wait... that's right, we did. Shit.
But if they find a pallet full of burst lithium batteries and bodies that died from smoke inhalation as well as no control from the cockpit for whatever length of time they do have on the flight recorder I think we'd have a pretty good idea.
I basically rooting, at this point, for the pilot to be cleared. Because the unwarranted animosity the press showed towards him based on just about 0 evidence deserves to be punished. Lastly, someone has to shut down CNN at this point. I mean, I dislike Fox and MSNBC as much as anyone but for Christs sake at least they have some shred of integrity left. CNN is to news what the Discovery channel is to science.
In the Unverified Digital World, Are Journalists and Bloggers Equal?
Well, I think we have a document on that subject around here somewhere... oh yea, here it is:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Enough said.
The people noticed. Explained what happened and weren't believed. The authorities thought they'd dropped a cigar or something. Now they realize these people may have been telling the truth. I've done some metal working with Titanium alloy in the past. It throws VERY hot sparks. Aluminum hardly sparks at all, and when it does they aren't very hot and do not last long at all.
Also, most brush fires start UNDER the grass. There's a dry bed of grass beneeth the green gras above. The fire spreads under the grass and you very well may not notice it. It will kreep along until it hits a big fuel source. I could see someone hitting a ball out of the rough... then walking up to the cart or whatever and notice smoke back where you just walked away from and thinking "WTF?"
What? Inflation has nothing to do with capitalism. Inflation requires currency to exist and capitalism does not. Capitalism would work if we were trading goats or something. If the price of goats sky rocketed I could decide to keep my goats and trade chickens instead (which I think is likely what the poor did during the tulip situation.) Most modern inflation is the result of governments trying to manipulate currency with socialism based mechanics. Look to Venezuela right now. They are doing what Jimmy Carter did and they are getting the exact same result. Capitalism works in a very predictable manner and the fact that we don't learn the clear lessons of history and continue to think we've found some end-run on how financial markets work (Allen Greenspan lol) is a joke and will be the ruin of us all.
The 4th Amendment's warrant requirement only applies when there is an expectation of privacy. There is no expectation of privacy when you are out in public, nor in anything that can be investigated with plain human senses (plain view, plain smell, etc).
When operating a motor vehicle on a public roadway, there is no expectation of privacy attached to your license plate number, or your location. A police officer can follow you around all day without a warrant, and run as many checks on your plate number as he desires, and make a note of everywhere you go.
An officer does not need a warrant to listen to a conversation you have with someone at a park, nor does he need a warrant to take a sniff of whatever it is you're smoking outside your office.
You guys need to get over yourselves.
This has nothing to do with privacy. It is unconstitutional for law enforcement to target you without probable cause. The fact that new technology allows them to target everyone, all the time, does not make it any less unconstitutional. If private citizens were doing this it would be different and would likely get settled in civil court. But the police are a government organization and the constitution was created specifically to limit governments power.
Um, you have no idea how the government works do you? This agency has absolutely no reason to change. So they wont. This has been, and always will be the problem with government run institutions. The money still comes in weather you do it right or not. In fact, if you do it wrong, they might hire more people and promote you to manager.
The "legal" method that's fairly standard is the other way around. The temp agency places you, and you work for them. The company hiring the temp agency agrees not to hire you for a term... 6 months to 2 years depending, because the temp agency needs to recoup the cost of scouting you. Often there's a clause where the hiring company can buy their way out of it if they really want you bad or they're afraid you could just go to a 3rd party. All of this is pretty standard and legal because everyone knows what they're getting into. But, if unknown to you, every other party has made a secret agreement with the original company not to hire you, you're screwed. There's no-where to go and you're no longer dealing with a free market. You're being forced to abide by a contract that you never signed and don't even know exists.
The test for weather something is good for capitalism or not is "Does it increase or reduce transparency in the marketplace" If it increases it, then it's good. If it decreases it, then it's bad. Clearly these agreements reduced transparency and closed off parts of the market to both the workers and even the firms involved. The firms were then able to use this secret blacklist against their employees to reduce the rate at which they increased their compensation. The worker would apply and quickly learn that most places wouldn't hire them. This is exactly what anti-trust laws are supposed to prevent. Secret agreements between 2 parties that affect public agreements of a 3rd unwitting party are the bane of capitalism. And, in fact, if you were to argue against capitalism, the inevitability of such agreements would be one of your strongest arguments.
Doing that while simultaneously devising some entirely new sort of object would be a truly impressive feat indeed. I presume it's the sort of thing you do routinely, though. Got links? I'd love to see genius of higher order than represented by this tape measure at work.
I do and have. I've had a few of my tools/jigs featured in magazines (like 3) You'll have to take my word for it though. I don't care to link my slashdot account to my real name :-)
Oh, and if software counts, I've got a bunch of that all over the place.
Not that this is even remotely related to what you're talking about. I don't if I'd even describe what you're suggesting as "rapidly approaching" We barely understand the very rudimentary aspects of the brain, much less how "Thought" gets made. But I do concede that should we survive long enough as as a society then yes, something like this will come along and someone bad will use it for bad things. So what do you propose we do? Make it illegal? That wont stop North Korea from doing anything. Ban research? That might delay it but again, the bad people always find a way. Best we learn as much about it and use it for good so that when it gets used for bad we can recognize and understand whats happening quicker and possible had a fix developed already.