I believe that this company's technology is a hoax. The description from the RFId Journal page is nonsense. The CrossID homepage is very vague and lacks any useful information (just read the last FAQ item at the bottom of the page.)
The description that the RFId Journal gives reads like pseudoscience. Here's an example:
The system uses "nanometric" materials--tiny particles of chemicals with varying degrees of magnetism--that resonate when bombarded with electromagnetic waves from a reader.
Some elements and molecules will resonate (emit electromagnatic energy [EM]) when exposed to EM radiation of a particular frequency, but only in the presence of a magnetic field! The process the article describes (without mention of the magnetic field) is that used by MRI machines. Why didn't the article or homepage mention the superconducting electromagnets necessary for the RFId tags to operate?
Even if the tag materials are magnetic (in which case its composition must be a ferrous metal, ceramic, or a magnetic plastic), then the very weak magnetic field is still not strong enough to cause the atoms/molecules to resonate in an EM field. Another sentence from article shows more inaccuracies:
CrossID is testing readers that operate at three to 10 GHz, which is higher than the frequencies commonly used by wireless LANs and handheld computers, although the company has not made a final determination on what frequency the readers will use.
They claim that 70 tag compounds are used which all have different resonate frequencies. Fine, the reader would use a wide-band receiver. I read the above as the tag reader using one transmit frequency. The trouble is that it is unlikely that those 70 compounds will all resonate when exposed to the same frequency EM waves. Anyway, it states that a "final determination" hasn't been made for what frequency to use! If the RFId tag ink exists then it MUST already be known what frequency must be used. This tech is bogus.
This article is just like the "Ubiquitous LED" article a few days ago. (if you want the reasons just reply) This article should not have been posted. It is not even wrong;)
The range isn't that great. In my Digikey catalog the tags made by TI-RFid have ranges listed as ranging from 60 to 200cm. For most of the tags the range was at most 100cm.
What's the percentage of sites actually offering me PNG files? Now, how many offer up JPG's?
Personally and in my web app at work I use PNG's. The format is a good alternative to GIF's. I would swear that IE supports the the format now...
Keep using Mozilla, no one's busting your chops to change. Why are a lot of/. readers busting everyone elses to change?
My web app uses CSS and there are parts of the standard that IE just doesn't support. display:table for instance - I've got to use some javascript for a shrink-to-fit hack in IE. So, everyone in the office that uses my app has Mozilla installed on their desktop. IE is just falling behind standards wise. Why can't MS keep their browser up to date?
You don't need a detector, other than your eyes. The tags are not that small because they need area for the antenna. I will grant that the tags can be made unobtrusive. My Digikey catalog lists one which measures 85x1.3x54 mm; it is just a thin PVC sheet.
What I would want is a device to destroy the tag. A device that emits, say, 50W of microwave radiation would do it. Just sweep some microwaves across the product and any tags would be disabled.
Re:Best examples of heresy I can think of
on
What You Can't Say
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· Score: 2, Informative
One of the issues with the push to decriminalize pot here (canada) is that there's no roadside test for stoned drivers, the way there is for drunks. Not sure about the 'harder' drugs...
If you think about it the lack of a pot test isn't an issue. All you need is a test for impairment. If a person can't "walk a line" or pass a coordination test it doesn't matter if they are intoxicated or just sleepy. Anyway, a blood test can be done later to discover the specifics of the persons driving troubles.
Sure some people will try to make the lack of a test an issue, but it is really a strawman. Look at what New Jersey is doing toward sleepy/tired drivers. There is no chemical or mechanized test for tiredness, but they have started using physical tests to be able to charge people with driving while sleep deprived. For pot it is no different or more complicated.
The moon is riddled with impact craters due to its lack of an atmosphere, and what would stop one of these impacts from destroying part/all of the power station. Some sort of lunar-based maintenance team, robots, some star-trek esq shields?
You don't have to worry too much now about large crater causing impacts on the moon. Most of the craters are more than hundreds of millions of years old. Micro-meteorites would be a much bigger problem.
The reason that I still use apache 1.3.x is because of mod_perl. mod_perl for apache 2.0 is still under development, though it is fairly stable right now.
I continue using apache 1.3/mod_perl 1.0 because it just works and I guess that inertia plays a role as well:)
>At the same time, see the Declaration of >Independence - "all men are created equal, that >they are endowed by their Creator with certain >inalienable Rights".
In the US the Declaration of Independence is not a document with any legal "teeth" behind it. Sure it says some nice things, but it is not a legal document like the Constitution is.
About SSN's: really some people don't get one. I live in southwestern Virginia and work with an Upward Bound program (UB works with underprivileged highschool aged kids to get them into college.) Some kids who come into our program don't have SSN's. When pressed for one on the paperwork what we likely get is the SSN of one of the parents. The reason this happens, for the most part, is that the child was born at home.
Also, search the web, there is the story of at least one person who had thier SSN recended and chose to live without the number. He succeeded, but it was a PITA.
This letter shows a way to make it slightly harder for DMCA bots to find real enfringement: don't put the contents of the file in the filename. Put the file's contents in a README file or something. That would atleast avoid the simple bot that found this non-enfringing file.
For a PVR applications checkout the VIA epia 800 mini-itx motherboards. They use an x86 clone that runs at 800MHz, not Athlon XP1800 performance but that may not matter too much.
Also, Casetronics makes some really nice cases for mini-itx motherboards. Thought I would mention mini-itx as the small size would seem to be perfect for a PVR box.
Yep, I saw this and thought that deprecating gets() is one thing the LSB shouldn't change. While there are valid points in the article, this is one I would contest. gets() is such an easily misused function that it needs to be deprecated. I think the current behavior of the linker issuing a warning when this function is used is a great thing.
SurgeonGeneral, thanks for providing a source for your info. Too often on an on-line discussion "facts" are branded about and sources can't or won't be provided.
Stephen Baxter is one of my favorite hard sci-fi authors. I highly recommend his book Ring. But, any of his books are well written.
Baxter reminds me alot of AC Clarke, they even authored a book together (forgot which one.) Any way Ring is one of the best hard sci-fi books that I've read in a while. Check it out!
If a T1 is "severely halted", what are normal speeds like?
Pretty darn good! Virginia Tech is pretty much the technology mecca in western Virginia. Great school and Blacksburg is a wonderful town to live in. Are my alumni colors showing?
(It has been a long time, but afaik, a simple fork() is not forking off a complete new process, but a childprocess which runs as a thread inside the mother process, or am I mistaken? (if not: why then the threadsafetly crap NOW, because a fork() will result in the same issues)
A fork() call does create a completely new process. The parent and child process only share a common code segment. While the child has a copy of the parents data, it is just that, a copy in a seperate address space.
The above poster beat me to submitting the same book recommendation. So, I'll just follow-up and concur that Pauling's text is great. To be specific as to the book we're talking about its ISBN is 0486656225 and for 20 bucks you can't get a better chemistry text book.
BTW, I have two editions of this book. Several years before taking high school chem. an aunt bought a used copy of this text. This older edition is copyrighted 1955 and titled "College Chemistry." Because of this book I was a huge jump ahead once I took chemistry. My favorite thing about this second edition are the pen and ink figures, which sadly are re-drawn in the Dover edition.
Well, I highly recommend this book. Start with the first chapter and continue through the book. You won't be disappointed.
I must concur. You do want a HP48 or HP49. I own a HP48G and it was essential in all of my engineering classes.
You can program it; RPN rocks and it is easy to do symbolic computations (even more easy on the HP49.)
I even wrote a tar like program in RPN that uses the BZ compression program. Once your familiar with RPN, it becomes very easy and quick to preform calculations.
I can not stress enough that the HP48/49 are serious engineering tools.
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I believe that this company's technology is a hoax. The description from the RFId Journal page is nonsense. The CrossID homepage is very vague and lacks any useful information (just read the last FAQ item at the bottom of the page.)
The description that the RFId Journal gives reads like pseudoscience. Here's an example:
The system uses "nanometric" materials--tiny particles of chemicals with varying degrees of magnetism--that resonate when bombarded with electromagnetic waves from a reader.
Some elements and molecules will resonate (emit electromagnatic energy [EM]) when exposed to EM radiation of a particular frequency, but only in the presence of a magnetic field! The process the article describes (without mention of the magnetic field) is that used by MRI machines. Why didn't the article or homepage mention the superconducting electromagnets necessary for the RFId tags to operate?
Even if the tag materials are magnetic (in which case its composition must be a ferrous metal, ceramic, or a magnetic plastic), then the very weak magnetic field is still not strong enough to cause the atoms/molecules to resonate in an EM field. Another sentence from article shows more inaccuracies:
CrossID is testing readers that operate at three to 10 GHz, which is higher than the frequencies commonly used by wireless LANs and handheld computers, although the company has not made a final determination on what frequency the readers will use.
They claim that 70 tag compounds are used which all have different resonate frequencies. Fine, the reader would use a wide-band receiver. I read the above as the tag reader using one transmit frequency. The trouble is that it is unlikely that those 70 compounds will all resonate when exposed to the same frequency EM waves. Anyway, it states that a "final determination" hasn't been made for what frequency to use! If the RFId tag ink exists then it MUST already be known what frequency must be used. This tech is bogus.
This article is just like the "Ubiquitous LED" article a few days ago. (if you want the reasons just reply) This article should not have been posted. It is not even wrong ;)
Personally and in my web app at work I use PNG's. The format is a good alternative to GIF's. I would swear that IE supports the the format now...
Keep using Mozilla, no one's busting your chops to change. Why are a lot of /. readers busting everyone elses to change?
My web app uses CSS and there are parts of the standard that IE just doesn't support. display:table for instance - I've got to use some javascript for a shrink-to-fit hack in IE. So, everyone in the office that uses my app has Mozilla installed on their desktop. IE is just falling behind standards wise. Why can't MS keep their browser up to date?
What I would want is a device to destroy the tag. A device that emits, say, 50W of microwave radiation would do it. Just sweep some microwaves across the product and any tags would be disabled.
If you think about it the lack of a pot test isn't an issue. All you need is a test for impairment. If a person can't "walk a line" or pass a coordination test it doesn't matter if they are intoxicated or just sleepy. Anyway, a blood test can be done later to discover the specifics of the persons driving troubles.
Sure some people will try to make the lack of a test an issue, but it is really a strawman. Look at what New Jersey is doing toward sleepy/tired drivers. There is no chemical or mechanized test for tiredness, but they have started using physical tests to be able to charge people with driving while sleep deprived. For pot it is no different or more complicated.
You don't have to worry too much now about large crater causing impacts on the moon. Most of the craters are more than hundreds of millions of years old. Micro-meteorites would be a much bigger problem.
Ha Ha!! "The Ring" has to be one of the best hard SF books I have read. I'm glad to see it mentioned.
The reason that I still use apache 1.3.x is because of mod_perl. mod_perl for apache 2.0 is still under development, though it is fairly stable right now.
:)
I continue using apache 1.3/mod_perl 1.0 because it just works and I guess that inertia plays a role as well
>At the same time, see the Declaration of >Independence - "all men are created equal, that >they are endowed by their Creator with certain >inalienable Rights".
In the US the Declaration of Independence is not a document with any legal "teeth" behind it. Sure it says some nice things, but it is not a legal document like the Constitution is.
About SSN's: really some people don't get one. I live in southwestern Virginia and work with an Upward Bound program (UB works with underprivileged highschool aged kids to get them into college.) Some kids who come into our program don't have SSN's. When pressed for one on the paperwork what we likely get is the SSN of one of the parents. The reason this happens, for the most part, is that the child was born at home.
Also, search the web, there is the story of at least one person who had thier SSN recended and chose to live without the number. He succeeded, but it was a PITA.
I needed a new copy of gcl last week. Guess what? Their gone from ftp.gnu.org and the mirrors you listed :(
Sadly, I've still not found the most recent gcl... I hope this gets fixed soon.
This letter shows a way to make it slightly harder for DMCA bots to find real enfringement: don't put the contents of the file in the filename. Put the file's contents in a README file or something. That would atleast avoid the simple bot that found this non-enfringing file.
Also, Casetronics makes some really nice cases for mini-itx motherboards. Thought I would mention mini-itx as the small size would seem to be perfect for a PVR box.
Ha Ha! Yeah, pretty close: slurm was the name I think.
Yep, I saw this and thought that deprecating gets() is one thing the LSB shouldn't change. While there are valid points in the article, this is one I would contest. gets() is such an easily misused function that it needs to be deprecated. I think the current behavior of the linker issuing a warning when this function is used is a great thing.
Well, libSDL is what throws the decoded PNG onto the screen. You do need both; one decodes, the other displays the decoded result.
Check out Postgresql. I think it will meet your first three bullet items. Well, I don't know about COM support, but there is a jdbc driver.
I think it is an easy DBMS to use, no gui is needed.
SurgeonGeneral, thanks for providing a source for your info. Too often on an on-line discussion "facts" are branded about and sources can't or won't be provided.
Baxter reminds me alot of AC Clarke, they even authored a book together (forgot which one.) Any way Ring is one of the best hard sci-fi books that I've read in a while. Check it out!
Thanks for the link.
I agree with you but, a tie is a most useless piece of cloth. Unlike a shirt or jacket which can keep you warm. A tie has no use.
It would bother me greatly to be forced to wear one, though for money I would do many things :)
Pretty darn good! Virginia Tech is pretty much the technology mecca in western Virginia. Great school and Blacksburg is a wonderful town to live in. Are my alumni colors showing?
A fork() call does create a completely new process. The parent and child process only share a common code segment. While the child has a copy of the parents data, it is just that, a copy in a seperate address space.
BTW, I have two editions of this book. Several years before taking high school chem. an aunt bought a used copy of this text. This older edition is copyrighted 1955 and titled "College Chemistry." Because of this book I was a huge jump ahead once I took chemistry. My favorite thing about this second edition are the pen and ink figures, which sadly are re-drawn in the Dover edition.
Well, I highly recommend this book. Start with the first chapter and continue through the book. You won't be disappointed.
You can program it; RPN rocks and it is easy to do symbolic computations (even more easy on the HP49.) I even wrote a tar like program in RPN that uses the BZ compression program. Once your familiar with RPN, it becomes very easy and quick to preform calculations.
I can not stress enough that the HP48/49 are serious engineering tools.