Not only are they all heavily populated spots, but they're almost all also large, steel-and-concrete structures, which doesn't make for good signal under any circumstances.
Ironically, I've had AT&T service for close to 5 years now, and my impression is that coverage has gotten A LOT better around Chicago, especially out here in the NW burbs. Things are still a tad spotty away from the tollways, especially in Elgin, but I've had decent service in Ravenswood/Lincoln Square and Lakeview. One major factor is the phone itself; my old Nokia 8260 had lousy service across the board, my newer model is MUCH better.
Re:Small scale, and then larger
on
Clockless Computing
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· Score: 2, Informative
It's also tough to test and verify. I do ASIC timing analysis for a living, and most test methodologies (including IEEE JTAG boundary scan) rely on some sort of test clocks to pre-load test patterns into the chip before throwing on the system clock. I'm sure you could do this with global async. control signals, but it would be harder.
I also haven't seen or heard of any large-scale software tools for doing this sort of analysis (as opposed to classic synchronous design, where one can pick from at least half a dozen static timing analyzers on the market today). This is probably at least a big a gate as anything else.
A wireless network will not, in all likelihood, work in da UP. Here's why:
Trees.
Millions and millions of trees.
A huge part of the UP is national or state forest, and is *densely* forested, mostly with pines.
Not to mention the geography. The western end of the UP in particular is very mountanious (OK, maybe hilly is a bit more accurate), and the mineral content of the rock is sky-high (lots of copper, iron, etc.), which wreaks absolute havoc with any kind of wireless signal (ever radio stinks up there, and don't get me started on cell-phone coverage). Since many of the towns are in valleys, wireless networks will have a lot of holes, even if you put a transmitter on every hilltop.
DSL is probably the best bet, but the phone network up there isn't exactly stellar once you get outside the major towns (Marquette, Houghton/Hancock, the Soo). Not to mention that a lot of the smaller towns aren't even served by SBC/Ameritech (there are a bunch of small rural phone companies up there).
Nope....PI day is a myth...
on
Happy Pi Day!
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· Score: 1
...if you use proper ISO-8601 dates (YYYY-MM-DD). In fact, PI day will never occur at all. The closest you can get is PI year (3142 - rounding!).
Re:The Great Telephone Number Explosion...
on
CNN On IPv6
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· Score: 1
Off topic, but I can't resist:-)
Here in Illinois, it's the state Commerce Commission that's mandating changes, not the telcos. The current proposal is that the state will no longer hand out blocks of 10000 numbers to telcos (ie. 555-XXXX is a block of 10K numbers, and is a huge waste when only 50 numbers are needed); telcos will get only as many numbers as they can prove they need. I'm not sure if this is certain yet, but according to what I've read in the papers, this should forestall the next upcoming area code split (we have 5 already in Chicago) from 6 months to 6 years or so.
At least my business cards will be good for a while yet...
I have to agree with Bruce's (and quite a few/. readers') take on this. If the NSA really did put a back door into Windows, they'd make damn sure no one could find it. Ever. That's why they're called "spooks".
Besides, with Echelon, they don't even need the back door......
Reading through all this, I have come to the conclusion that the only truly private machines left are those that
Are not connected to a network
Are under the complete physical control of the user, and no one else
(Corrolary to above) Never leave the user's sight
The only device I own that (almost) qualifies is my PDA (a Palm III). It never leaves me, and is completely under my control. However, it does occasionally connect to other machines (modem, hotsync). But realistically, this is the only device on which I can comfortably put private data.
What we need is an open-source crypto program for PDA's that can be used to
Protect private data even better
Be used to beam messages via IR to other users (it's kinda hard to eavesdrop when you're Can you imagine [insert favorite evil entity here] trying to eavesdrop on IR connections? OK, so it's a bit impractical, but it's still a cool idea. Now, if I just had the Palm SDK......
Slashdot Mirror
Not only are they all heavily populated spots, but they're almost all also large, steel-and-concrete structures, which doesn't make for good signal under any circumstances.
Ironically, I've had AT&T service for close to 5 years now, and my impression is that coverage has gotten A LOT better around Chicago, especially out here in the NW burbs. Things are still a tad spotty away from the tollways, especially in Elgin, but I've had decent service in Ravenswood/Lincoln Square and Lakeview. One major factor is the phone itself; my old Nokia 8260 had lousy service across the board, my newer model is MUCH better.
I also haven't seen or heard of any large-scale software tools for doing this sort of analysis (as opposed to classic synchronous design, where one can pick from at least half a dozen static timing analyzers on the market today). This is probably at least a big a gate as anything else.
A wireless network will not, in all likelihood, work in da UP. Here's why:
Trees.
Millions and millions of trees.
A huge part of the UP is national or state forest, and is *densely* forested, mostly with pines.
Not to mention the geography. The western end of the UP in particular is very mountanious (OK, maybe hilly is a bit more accurate), and the mineral content of the rock is sky-high (lots of copper, iron, etc.), which wreaks absolute havoc with any kind of wireless signal (ever radio stinks up there, and don't get me started on cell-phone coverage). Since many of the towns are in valleys, wireless networks will have a lot of holes, even if you put a transmitter on every hilltop.
DSL is probably the best bet, but the phone network up there isn't exactly stellar once you get outside the major towns (Marquette, Houghton/Hancock, the Soo). Not to mention that a lot of the smaller towns aren't even served by SBC/Ameritech (there are a bunch of small rural phone companies up there).
...if you use proper ISO-8601 dates (YYYY-MM-DD). In fact, PI day will never occur at all. The closest you can get is PI year (3142 - rounding!).
Off topic, but I can't resist :-)
Here in Illinois, it's the state Commerce Commission that's mandating changes, not the telcos. The current proposal is that the state will no longer hand out blocks of 10000 numbers to telcos (ie. 555-XXXX is a block of 10K numbers, and is a huge waste when only 50 numbers are needed); telcos will get only as many numbers as they can prove they need. I'm not sure if this is certain yet, but according to what I've read in the papers, this should forestall the next upcoming area code split (we have 5 already in Chicago) from 6 months to 6 years or so.
At least my business cards will be good for a while yet...
I have to agree with Bruce's (and quite a few /. readers') take on this. If the NSA really did put a back door into Windows, they'd make damn sure no one could find it. Ever. That's why they're called "spooks".
Besides, with Echelon, they don't even need the back door......
Reading through all this, I have come to the conclusion that the only truly private machines left are those that
- Are not connected to a network
- Are under the complete physical control of the user, and no one else
- (Corrolary to above) Never leave the user's sight
The only device I own that (almost) qualifies is my PDA (a Palm III). It never leaves me, and is completely under my control. However, it does occasionally connect to other machines (modem, hotsync). But realistically, this is the only device on which I can comfortably put private data.What we need is an open-source crypto program for PDA's that can be used to