The cheap plastic frame was itself copied from designer wood designs, like those listed.
Do try to read the whole post.
Plastic frames became an inexpensive choice over expensive wood ones, especially for holding small format family photographs, especially since clear plastic was shatter resistant, where glass covers were not.
This led to an incremental design choice, which was not patented and widely copied where the frame portion of the plastic was directly molded with the clear covering to make it perfectly smooth on top, not unlike the idevice design. Putting a digital image display inside such a factor would look very much like an ipad, because an ipad looks like a plastic picture frame.
Apple is claiming to have invented this form factor, that it is new and novel, and that it warrants patent protection and international enforcement.
The existence of prior art for the design in the form of inexpensive picture frames does not give credibility to that claim.
Also, your rebuttle is a logical fallacy. Just thought you should now.
(Specifically, an "appeal to authority" type one.)
The color of the inactive display (black) is not a design feature. It is a feature of how the technology works.
I have seen plastic picture frames that are flat out strikingly like the iPad in aesthetic design in art stores since the late 80s, when plastic really became popular as a choice. If you are showcasing an image, using a picture frame as an aesthetic inspiration is a no-brainer.
The clear issue that stands out there, is that apple's design is neither new, nor original, and therefor not applicable for patent protection.
As others have pointed out, the combination of "rectangular, thin, with rounded corners and a small bezel border" is not new, and existed in aesthetic designs of personal devices prior to apple's adoption of the aesthetic feature set.
Apple is more claiming that it has taken the old and made it its own, which is now an apple signature appearance-- sure, they can do that, but that falls under trade dress and trade mark, not patent. Similarly to marvel owning red and blue packaging with a spiderweb motif for spiderman products. Making a generic product called "arachnaboy" and packaging it in red and blue blister packs with spiderweb motifs is a trade dress violation. Not a patent violation.
Apple should not have been granted this patent, due to prior art for other personal electronic devices. Claiming "but never a phone or tablet computer!" Does not magically make the aesthetic design novel, nor new.
I hope apple gets their precious little patent used as toilet paper, because in its current form it is completely without value.
While one off prizes for fundemental research is nice and all, it doesn't really help the art.
Here's what I would do instead.
I would organize some private organizations around my parent country as a pilot program, with the goal of making expensive lab equipment and utilities available to the researchers, with the goal of driving down the innate costs to perform the research.
"Grant money" is the cancerous vice that kills academia. It makes professors steal the thunder of brilliant students. It makes people distort reeported findings. It stifles controversial findings being published. It kills the bread and butter of real science, which is the repeated testing of published experiments for veracity.
And without it, no research at all would get done.
As a philanthropist seeking to promote science, I wouldn't contribute to the vice of academia in the form of exclusive prizes. I would make research hardware and lab space available for cheap. 1st year chem students and dedicated researchers alike would profit, and science would be much better for it.
Research is expensive. Subsidize it smartly, and make it cheap. Researchers will research everything, instead of cherry picking for grant money. Science will improve.
I would provide equipment and lab/office space like follows:
It is important that the science being done is quality. That means the people using the equipment and lab space need to be competent. University degrees in the field of research, or concurrent university enrollment with passing grades in the field are a basic requirement for application. It won't stop degree holding crackpots getting labspace, but it should keep out most rifraff that think they can violate thermodynamics with magnets and tinfoil.
Academic dishonesty, getting scooped, and predation on academic works are very real and ever-present risks in academia, fundemental research in particular. For that reason, secure and locked offices can be rented for a small fee, comparable to renting a storage unit. They would be fully furnished with a nice desk, several file cabinets, a personal bookshelf, computer equipment, and a laser printer. Disposables like paper and toner are the researcher's responsibility. Internet access would be provided through an aggressive firewall.
The labs themselves would be tiered.
Tier 1 labs would be equipped for basic physics and chemical research. Access to calorimeters, glassware, reagents, force meters and the like are available. These are meant mostly to assist students with homework and independent research within their skill level.
Tier 2 labs would have access to mass spectroscopy equipment, provisions for experimental small scale fusion devices, nanotechnology devices, like AMFs, electron microscopes, etc.
Tier 3 labs have the really fancy toys in them. A small silicon lithograph is available to producing experimental nanotech structures and devices for fundemental research, large contained fusion devices, etc.
Tier 1 would be the bread and butter. Tier 2 would catch most advanced students. Tier 3 would take awhile to fully provide, due to the extreme costs of the equipment, and would be reserved for published researchers only.
It is not meant to replace university equipment; it is meant to suppliment it, and provide a "professor free" environment for independent research for later publication.
I think doing that on a big scale would do way more for science than cash prizes would.
As another poster pointed out, we have known this for years concerning neurons.
The deal here, is that we need to introduce a benign photopigment gene (like jellyfish fluorescent protein) into the target's neurons, then produce a contact-free BCI that uses small solid-state laser diodes as the signalling pin grid array, coupled with a sensitive CCD that records the flash patterns of the activating neurons underneath.
Using different frequencies of light for signal and reception allows you to isolate signal data.
A fully contact-free BCI could be created this way.
When they hunt livestock, it means one of several potential things:
Human encroachments have upset the food chain, and now prey animals are scarce.
The coyote pack has grown too large for wild food supplies to sustain alone
The coyote pack has grown to a sufficiently large size that they have become less fearful, and stock animals are simply easier prey
Weather/natural conditions have caused a difficult year for prey animals (dead grass, et al) causing stress on top level predators.
In all conditions except the first one, reducing the numbers of the top level predators to more sustainable levels (but not outright extermination. Leave the predators in place. They control prey animal populations very efficiently, which helps ensure your neighbor's corn crop doesnt get eaten by deer, etc.) creates a more healthy core pack, and keeps the predator/prey population in balance.
A large pack (more than 10 coyotes) becomes dangerous, and needs culling. They usually dont start taking stock animals until they become plentiful and fearless. Smaller packs will attempt to take prey when conditions are poor. A better solution is to make the environment more conducive to natural prey populations. (Plant wild corn stands, encourage food sources for rabbits and squirrels-- etc-- in marginal areas that cannot produce crops, but help sustain wild prey populations.)
You thin the pack down to about 3 or 4 members, but no lower if you can avoid it. By the time the pack pups again next year, prey populations will have recovered, and everything will be golden.
Except that I live in BFE, and need way more than just a pair of rabbit ears.
I have an amplified HD rabbit ear antenna, and it is not sufficient to get more than about 6 channels, in spotty quality. To get efficient OtA, I need to set up an actual roof antenna. I don't like TV sufficiently enough to have considered doing that. Streaming is fine.
Often overlooked is that the "internet bill" is a necessity these days. If you can get more out of that bill per month, sufficiently that you can cut a different bill per month, the money you save is through the cutting of that second bill.
Eg, you don't include the cost of internet with the cost of cable, unless you would suffer a rate hike by unbundling. (In which case, you count the rate hike as a negative savings figure for your assessment.)
In my case, the ISP is DSL, and is bundled with the landline. It costs about 70/mo for both combined. I use netflix. That's 8/mo. Typical dish offering for useful channels is around 80/mo. I am paying 1/10th that. Do I get all the same channels? No-- but I also have a media PC in the living room, and many cable channel providers also stream direct on their websites. Just browse, pick, play. No added bill.
Getting legal access to media is not that hard. Cutting the cord is easy.
The people shot with the uzi VS the Derringer are just as dead.
a "Safer" gun, is one that does not explode and kill the operator. However, there is still no such thing as a safe gun. Any gun that fires a projectile is potentially lethal. Even a flaregun can kill you.
That was the point, which both myself and H4rr4r were trying to get across to you. You simply DO NOT POINT OR DISCHARGE YOUR FIREARM, UNLESS YOU INTEND TO FIRE.
The safe operator does not handle the device except to fire it, clean it, inspect it, or transport it. There are proscribed processes for each of those activities, intended to reduce the risk of fatality.
Your statement is a nonsequitor, because it places firearms into the hands of improperly qualified persons. I wouldnt trust such people with a gun loaded with rubber bullets any more than I would trust one with blanks, or with live ammo. they are an unsafe operator. They should not be operating firearms.
I qualified my statement with the assertion that qualified persons are the only effective solution. Handing uzzis VS derringers out to QUALIFIED PERSONS will have similar results: The firearms will be placed into storage, and not handled.
"Driving a car makes it easier to kill people by running them over. Why would you drive a car, if not to run people over? If you just want to get from point A to point B, why not use a bicycle, or a rickshaw?"
Any tool makes any task easier.
Here's a start for you: "Vehicular Homocide". Google it.
Simply because a gun CAN be used to kill people, does not mean that is the way it MUST or SHOULD be used.
Just like a car DOES make a fantastic murder weapon, that does unspeakable harm to an unprotected human body. That does not mean that motor vehicles are primarily intended to be used as weapons.
If you shoot a gun to blow up bottles, that is the purpose you are using it for. You use the gun to blow up the bottles instead of a slingshot BECAUSE it is easier and more reliable. It's also a more practical skill.
Just like you dont use a bicycle to motor to work down a busy highway.
I was merely pointing out that many people would look at the "Oooooh! Scary!" version with its totally unnecessary stock choice, and say "Oh, that gun makes me feel scared! I need to feel safe! It needs to be banned!"
Much like they do when they see a pistol designed for hunting small animals. "Oh, dont shoot me!"
It shouldnt matter what material the lower reciever is made out of. ABS plastic, Wood, fiberglass--- Doesnt change the normal operation of the device, unless it is something radically unsafe.
That was actually why I picked the "Ooooh! Scary plastic stock! oooooh!" pics, instead of the far more common (and prettier) finished wood ones.
But would you suggest using one of those for say, euthanizing injured stock? (Say, your cow bugs the shit out, and disembowels itself on the barbedwire fence. It is dragging itself around in the lot dragging several meters of intestines behind it. Doesnt need to be a cow either. Sheep get themselves fucked up like that too.)
A gun is designed to kill other things, not explicitly people, though people are often the target.
This is something that gets me very unhappy with the gun control crowd. A pistol *IS* an indispensable farm implement.
(Ever tried to shoot a pack of coyotes eating your spring calves using a bolt action rifle? You tend to get only one of the bastards, and then you end up losing another calf the next night. Something more rapid fire and quick to handle is required for effective pest control.)
They are probably relying on the fact that the falloff of the energy is inverse cube, and that total energy in the antenna is very very low.
Communication probably has more to do with antenna coupling than with actual carrier wave data.
However, signal only falls off to approaching zero. It never reaches it. It instead is more appropriately described as signal entropy, where the signal is lost to random fluctuations. However, a cleverly designed listening device inside the nearfield zone could get useful signal through coupling, even at very low power if done correctly.
You would need a powered antenna in the same frequency range as a driven element, and a small reciever antenna with a rectifier. It would work a lot like a driven element AM radio antenna.
(You basically use your own high powered antenna as a reference source, and use the weak interference of the distant NFC device to induce subtle variances through wave reinforcement/cancellation. Your rectified reception antenna cancells the reference signal, leaving only the amplified "noise" signal, which, since it is inside the near field of the target device, will have a high probability of being the secret message.)
The drawback is that a properly designed NFC device could detect this through the resonance it would induce in the comm antenna.
(The near field has both electrical charge oscillations and EM wave oscillations. The far field only has em waves. Your antenna knows the frequency, and makes use of both the charge and wave oscillation nature of the near field to recover the noisy signal. Only the real signal will also have the charge component! However, inducting the charge component will result in current drop in the broadcasting antenna. It can be detected.)
The near field is within the first 1.5 wavelengths of the frequency used. It has certain special properties related to it having a higher (proportionally) density of virtual photons entangled with the source antenna than does the far field.
(A connection on the near field will actively change the resistance and resonance characteristics of the signalling antenna, where a far field connection will not.)
Giving a set distance is moot. Saying it is near field is accurate, and sufficient. The distance in which NFC is possible is inseperable from the chosen comm frequency. A very short wavelength frequency will have a very tiny near field. A long wavelength frequency will have a very large near field.
Cellular devices in the ghz band will have only a few millimeters around the antenna as the NFC reception range.
The deal that I would consider to be the threat, is that you can't have a near field without a far field. The far field will also have broadcasted data encoded into it, and will travel much further. It could well be intercepted.
"Whoever trades freedom for security deserves neither freedom nor security."
Or, fully laid out for your viewing pleasure:
Somebody who trades their freedom to own private munitions, for a sense of security, deserves neither the right to own said munitions, nor the security they traded it for.
It is my personal bias that people who feel threatened by other people having guns, feel such impending dread because they have guilty consciences, and are paranoid people will shoot them. (Or, are just generically paranoid.)
A person with a gun is a person with a gun. If the person didn't have reason to do you violence before, they won't have reason to do you violence after (gaining posession of a gun.)
What frightens you is that people that DO have a reason to do you violence, find it is much easier to do so. The better solution, which doesn't involve wiping your ass with other people's liberties so you can feel safer, is to not give people a reason to do you violence from the beginning.
Civics does leaps and bounds more for resolving violent crime than gun legislation does. Gun legislation is just cheaper and easier.
The problem is that this is intended for one-off purchases, like vending machines.
TPI will make that considerably less convenient, unless the device was issued unique certificates.
In which case, there would be a sudden market for stolen device certificates for credit fraud purposes, which would exploit the broken security flag implementation of the android marketplace. (The ad supported freemium content requires phonehome powers to serve you ads, and the frequently ask for phonebook and local storage as well. An application could yank the device cert store at the same time with those privs.)
The media empires of the world do NOT want you cutting your own MP3 files *at all*.
The filter will work exactly as they intend, byt blocking all mp3 files that are not signed by their PKI private key.
This will force you to buy mp3s of songs you own the discs to, because you only have a license to listen to the contet on the discs, not to copy it. Your home-cut MP3s are "illegal" in their eyes.
Slashdot Mirror
The cheap plastic frame was itself copied from designer wood designs, like those listed.
Do try to read the whole post.
Plastic frames became an inexpensive choice over expensive wood ones, especially for holding small format family photographs, especially since clear plastic was shatter resistant, where glass covers were not.
This led to an incremental design choice, which was not patented and widely copied where the frame portion of the plastic was directly molded with the clear covering to make it perfectly smooth on top, not unlike the idevice design. Putting a digital image display inside such a factor would look very much like an ipad, because an ipad looks like a plastic picture frame.
Apple is claiming to have invented this form factor, that it is new and novel, and that it warrants patent protection and international enforcement.
The existence of prior art for the design in the form of inexpensive picture frames does not give credibility to that claim.
Also, your rebuttle is a logical fallacy. Just thought you should now.
(Specifically, an "appeal to authority" type one.)
I would argue that apple's design patent is invalid.
Here is why, and it has nothing to do with opinion of apple:
A design patent can only be legally issued for "unique, new, and novel" shapes and design motifs.
Apple's idevice designs are none of those. They basically looked at a cheap plastic picture frame, and copied it.
Many consumer products come in this form factor, and have for a very long time. Here are some examples:
Chinese dry erase board, tablet size
Wooden round cornered picture frames
aluminum picture frame, chinese
For reference, here is what the iPad looks like.
complimentary iPad image
The color of the inactive display (black) is not a design feature. It is a feature of how the technology works.
I have seen plastic picture frames that are flat out strikingly like the iPad in aesthetic design in art stores since the late 80s, when plastic really became popular as a choice. If you are showcasing an image, using a picture frame as an aesthetic inspiration is a no-brainer.
Apple should not have been granted this patent.
The clear issue that stands out there, is that apple's design is neither new, nor original, and therefor not applicable for patent protection.
As others have pointed out, the combination of "rectangular, thin, with rounded corners and a small bezel border" is not new, and existed in aesthetic designs of personal devices prior to apple's adoption of the aesthetic feature set.
Apple is more claiming that it has taken the old and made it its own, which is now an apple signature appearance-- sure, they can do that, but that falls under trade dress and trade mark, not patent. Similarly to marvel owning red and blue packaging with a spiderweb motif for spiderman products. Making a generic product called "arachnaboy" and packaging it in red and blue blister packs with spiderweb motifs is a trade dress violation. Not a patent violation.
Apple should not have been granted this patent, due to prior art for other personal electronic devices. Claiming "but never a phone or tablet computer!" Does not magically make the aesthetic design novel, nor new.
I hope apple gets their precious little patent used as toilet paper, because in its current form it is completely without value.
While one off prizes for fundemental research is nice and all, it doesn't really help the art.
Here's what I would do instead.
I would organize some private organizations around my parent country as a pilot program, with the goal of making expensive lab equipment and utilities available to the researchers, with the goal of driving down the innate costs to perform the research.
"Grant money" is the cancerous vice that kills academia. It makes professors steal the thunder of brilliant students. It makes people distort reeported findings. It stifles controversial findings being published. It kills the bread and butter of real science, which is the repeated testing of published experiments for veracity.
And without it, no research at all would get done.
As a philanthropist seeking to promote science, I wouldn't contribute to the vice of academia in the form of exclusive prizes. I would make research hardware and lab space available for cheap. 1st year chem students and dedicated researchers alike would profit, and science would be much better for it.
Research is expensive. Subsidize it smartly, and make it cheap. Researchers will research everything, instead of cherry picking for grant money. Science will improve.
I would provide equipment and lab/office space like follows:
It is important that the science being done is quality. That means the people using the equipment and lab space need to be competent. University degrees in the field of research, or concurrent university enrollment with passing grades in the field are a basic requirement for application. It won't stop degree holding crackpots getting labspace, but it should keep out most rifraff that think they can violate thermodynamics with magnets and tinfoil.
Academic dishonesty, getting scooped, and predation on academic works are very real and ever-present risks in academia, fundemental research in particular. For that reason, secure and locked offices can be rented for a small fee, comparable to renting a storage unit. They would be fully furnished with a nice desk, several file cabinets, a personal bookshelf, computer equipment, and a laser printer. Disposables like paper and toner are the researcher's responsibility. Internet access would be provided through an aggressive firewall.
The labs themselves would be tiered.
Tier 1 labs would be equipped for basic physics and chemical research. Access to calorimeters, glassware, reagents, force meters and the like are available. These are meant mostly to assist students with homework and independent research within their skill level.
Tier 2 labs would have access to mass spectroscopy equipment, provisions for experimental small scale fusion devices, nanotechnology devices, like AMFs, electron microscopes, etc.
Tier 3 labs have the really fancy toys in them. A small silicon lithograph is available to producing experimental nanotech structures and devices for fundemental research, large contained fusion devices, etc.
Tier 1 would be the bread and butter. Tier 2 would catch most advanced students. Tier 3 would take awhile to fully provide, due to the extreme costs of the equipment, and would be reserved for published researchers only.
It is not meant to replace university equipment; it is meant to suppliment it, and provide a "professor free" environment for independent research for later publication.
I think doing that on a big scale would do way more for science than cash prizes would.
As another poster pointed out, we have known this for years concerning neurons.
The deal here, is that we need to introduce a benign photopigment gene (like jellyfish fluorescent protein) into the target's neurons, then produce a contact-free BCI that uses small solid-state laser diodes as the signalling pin grid array, coupled with a sensitive CCD that records the flash patterns of the activating neurons underneath.
Using different frequencies of light for signal and reception allows you to isolate signal data.
A fully contact-free BCI could be created this way.
Wait,... I thought the saying was:
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
They can eat all the rabbits and deer they want.
When they hunt livestock, it means one of several potential things:
Human encroachments have upset the food chain, and now prey animals are scarce.
The coyote pack has grown too large for wild food supplies to sustain alone
The coyote pack has grown to a sufficiently large size that they have become less fearful, and stock animals are simply easier prey
Weather/natural conditions have caused a difficult year for prey animals (dead grass, et al) causing stress on top level predators.
In all conditions except the first one, reducing the numbers of the top level predators to more sustainable levels (but not outright extermination. Leave the predators in place. They control prey animal populations very efficiently, which helps ensure your neighbor's corn crop doesnt get eaten by deer, etc.) creates a more healthy core pack, and keeps the predator/prey population in balance.
A large pack (more than 10 coyotes) becomes dangerous, and needs culling. They usually dont start taking stock animals until they become plentiful and fearless. Smaller packs will attempt to take prey when conditions are poor. A better solution is to make the environment more conducive to natural prey populations. (Plant wild corn stands, encourage food sources for rabbits and squirrels-- etc-- in marginal areas that cannot produce crops, but help sustain wild prey populations.)
You thin the pack down to about 3 or 4 members, but no lower if you can avoid it. By the time the pack pups again next year, prey populations will have recovered, and everything will be golden.
Except that I live in BFE, and need way more than just a pair of rabbit ears.
I have an amplified HD rabbit ear antenna, and it is not sufficient to get more than about 6 channels, in spotty quality. To get efficient OtA, I need to set up an actual roof antenna. I don't like TV sufficiently enough to have considered doing that. Streaming is fine.
Often overlooked is that the "internet bill" is a necessity these days. If you can get more out of that bill per month, sufficiently that you can cut a different bill per month, the money you save is through the cutting of that second bill.
Eg, you don't include the cost of internet with the cost of cable, unless you would suffer a rate hike by unbundling. (In which case, you count the rate hike as a negative savings figure for your assessment.)
In my case, the ISP is DSL, and is bundled with the landline. It costs about 70/mo for both combined. I use netflix. That's 8/mo. Typical dish offering for useful channels is around 80/mo. I am paying 1/10th that. Do I get all the same channels? No-- but I also have a media PC in the living room, and many cable channel providers also stream direct on their websites. Just browse, pick, play. No added bill.
Getting legal access to media is not that hard. Cutting the cord is easy.
My ISP still gives me the "all you can eat" unlimited transfer per month. They are a DSL offering, bundled with landline telephone.
I cut the cord years ago. I work secnd shift, and the only thing on cable that late is porn, informercials, and shit like ancient aliens.
Streaming let's me pick what I want to watch, at the times I want to watch it. For me, the choice is clear.
Happens more frequently than you know...
Doesnt need to be barbed wire either, or even a domesticated animal.
Take for instance, this fence.
You can find gutted deer, antelope, elk-- Depends on your area. They get in the fence, they get entangled or pierced by it-- They suffer.
A handgun is an essential tool, and is merciful.
Non-sequitor.
The people shot with the uzi VS the Derringer are just as dead.
a "Safer" gun, is one that does not explode and kill the operator. However, there is still no such thing as a safe gun. Any gun that fires a projectile is potentially lethal. Even a flaregun can kill you.
That was the point, which both myself and H4rr4r were trying to get across to you. You simply DO NOT POINT OR DISCHARGE YOUR FIREARM, UNLESS YOU INTEND TO FIRE.
The safe operator does not handle the device except to fire it, clean it, inspect it, or transport it. There are proscribed processes for each of those activities, intended to reduce the risk of fatality.
Your statement is a nonsequitor, because it places firearms into the hands of improperly qualified persons. I wouldnt trust such people with a gun loaded with rubber bullets any more than I would trust one with blanks, or with live ammo. they are an unsafe operator. They should not be operating firearms.
I qualified my statement with the assertion that qualified persons are the only effective solution. Handing uzzis VS derringers out to QUALIFIED PERSONS will have similar results: The firearms will be placed into storage, and not handled.
Logic fail.
"Driving a car makes it easier to kill people by running them over. Why would you drive a car, if not to run people over? If you just want to get from point A to point B, why not use a bicycle, or a rickshaw?"
Any tool makes any task easier.
Here's a start for you: "Vehicular Homocide". Google it.
Simply because a gun CAN be used to kill people, does not mean that is the way it MUST or SHOULD be used.
Just like a car DOES make a fantastic murder weapon, that does unspeakable harm to an unprotected human body. That does not mean that motor vehicles are primarily intended to be used as weapons.
If you shoot a gun to blow up bottles, that is the purpose you are using it for. You use the gun to blow up the bottles instead of a slingshot BECAUSE it is easier and more reliable. It's also a more practical skill.
Just like you dont use a bicycle to motor to work down a busy highway.
No contest, I agree entirely.
I was merely pointing out that many people would look at the "Oooooh! Scary!" version with its totally unnecessary stock choice, and say "Oh, that gun makes me feel scared! I need to feel safe! It needs to be banned!"
Much like they do when they see a pistol designed for hunting small animals. "Oh, dont shoot me!"
(rolls eyes)
In the proper hands, Yes.
The question is if the hands it is in are proper or not.
It shouldnt matter what material the lower reciever is made out of. ABS plastic, Wood, fiberglass--- Doesnt change the normal operation of the device, unless it is something radically unsafe.
That was actually why I picked the "Ooooh! Scary plastic stock! oooooh!" pics, instead of the far more common (and prettier) finished wood ones.
Fail #3,
There is no such thing as a safe gun. Only a safe operator.
My brother does it all the time.
Course, He also practices regularly on various targets.
Simply because something is "hard", does not mean it cannot be done, nor that it is not done regularly. Just ask the hacker space.
but those are those scary "assualt rifles"! Don't you know how "assault rifle" is defined here in the states?
Mini-30
SKS rifles
But would you suggest using one of those for say, euthanizing injured stock? (Say, your cow bugs the shit out, and disembowels itself on the barbedwire fence. It is dragging itself around in the lot dragging several meters of intestines behind it. Doesnt need to be a cow either. Sheep get themselves fucked up like that too.)
Not correct.
A gun is designed to kill other things, not explicitly people, though people are often the target.
This is something that gets me very unhappy with the gun control crowd. A pistol *IS* an indispensable farm implement.
(Ever tried to shoot a pack of coyotes eating your spring calves using a bolt action rifle? You tend to get only one of the bastards, and then you end up losing another calf the next night. Something more rapid fire and quick to handle is required for effective pest control.)
They are probably relying on the fact that the falloff of the energy is inverse cube, and that total energy in the antenna is very very low.
Communication probably has more to do with antenna coupling than with actual carrier wave data.
However, signal only falls off to approaching zero. It never reaches it. It instead is more appropriately described as signal entropy, where the signal is lost to random fluctuations. However, a cleverly designed listening device inside the nearfield zone could get useful signal through coupling, even at very low power if done correctly.
You would need a powered antenna in the same frequency range as a driven element, and a small reciever antenna with a rectifier. It would work a lot like a driven element AM radio antenna.
(You basically use your own high powered antenna as a reference source, and use the weak interference of the distant NFC device to induce subtle variances through wave reinforcement/cancellation. Your rectified reception antenna cancells the reference signal, leaving only the amplified "noise" signal, which, since it is inside the near field of the target device, will have a high probability of being the secret message.)
The drawback is that a properly designed NFC device could detect this through the resonance it would induce in the comm antenna.
(The near field has both electrical charge oscillations and EM wave oscillations. The far field only has em waves. Your antenna knows the frequency, and makes use of both the charge and wave oscillation nature of the near field to recover the noisy signal. Only the real signal will also have the charge component! However, inducting the charge component will result in current drop in the broadcasting antenna. It can be detected.)
The near field is within the first 1.5 wavelengths of the frequency used. It has certain special properties related to it having a higher (proportionally) density of virtual photons entangled with the source antenna than does the far field.
(A connection on the near field will actively change the resistance and resonance characteristics of the signalling antenna, where a far field connection will not.)
Giving a set distance is moot. Saying it is near field is accurate, and sufficient. The distance in which NFC is possible is inseperable from the chosen comm frequency. A very short wavelength frequency will have a very tiny near field. A long wavelength frequency will have a very large near field.
Cellular devices in the ghz band will have only a few millimeters around the antenna as the NFC reception range.
The deal that I would consider to be the threat, is that you can't have a near field without a far field. The far field will also have broadcasted data encoded into it, and will travel much further. It could well be intercepted.
"Whoever trades freedom for security deserves neither freedom nor security."
Or, fully laid out for your viewing pleasure:
Somebody who trades their freedom to own private munitions, for a sense of security, deserves neither the right to own said munitions, nor the security they traded it for.
It is my personal bias that people who feel threatened by other people having guns, feel such impending dread because they have guilty consciences, and are paranoid people will shoot them. (Or, are just generically paranoid.)
A person with a gun is a person with a gun. If the person didn't have reason to do you violence before, they won't have reason to do you violence after (gaining posession of a gun.)
What frightens you is that people that DO have a reason to do you violence, find it is much easier to do so. The better solution, which doesn't involve wiping your ass with other people's liberties so you can feel safer, is to not give people a reason to do you violence from the beginning.
Civics does leaps and bounds more for resolving violent crime than gun legislation does. Gun legislation is just cheaper and easier.
The problem is that this is intended for one-off purchases, like vending machines.
TPI will make that considerably less convenient, unless the device was issued unique certificates.
In which case, there would be a sudden market for stolen device certificates for credit fraud purposes, which would exploit the broken security flag implementation of the android marketplace. (The ad supported freemium content requires phonehome powers to serve you ads, and the frequently ask for phonebook and local storage as well. An application could yank the device cert store at the same time with those privs.)
Don't be silly.
The media empires of the world do NOT want you cutting your own MP3 files *at all*.
The filter will work exactly as they intend, byt blocking all mp3 files that are not signed by their PKI private key.
This will force you to buy mp3s of songs you own the discs to, because you only have a license to listen to the contet on the discs, not to copy it. Your home-cut MP3s are "illegal" in their eyes.